Tanulmányok
Abstract
In his paper the author draws comparison between contemporary Cheremis etymological research and the great etymological synthesis of Uralisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch edited by Károly Rédei. He examines the following categories: 1. Proposal of a different from UEW solutions considering certain etymologies 2. Modification of some earlier generally accepted etymological statements on the basis of recent phonetic research 3. Proving of lexical elements earlier considered to be of ancient Ugro-Finnic origin as borrowings from cognate Permian languages 4. Proving of the Chuvash or Tatar etymology of words errroneously considered to be of Uralic origin 5. Involvement of calques in the supply of layers of origin applying to vocabulary - initial steps to be soon continued by relevant discipline.
Keywords: Uralic etymologies, Cheremis etymologies, Cheremis calques
Abstract
The present paper investigates the methodological relation between psycholinguistic experiments and conceptual metaphor theory. By analysing metaphor experiments I argue that narrowing down psycholinguistic experiments to a corroborative, that is, verifying function induces many problems in conceptual metaphor theory. The paper presents the emerging problems through sample analyses and suggests the introduction of methodological principles through the observance of which these problems could be eliminated from research. By applying the suggested principles the paper finally argues for the integrative use of experimental and linguistic devices.
Keywords: conceptual metaphor theory, experimental linguistics, methodology
Abstract
This article examines the description of economic crisis in The New York Times with examples of articles that appeared in the years 2008 and 2009. There are three dimensions the crisis as an event is described; one of them is the description of crisis as a movement or a development of international and global extension (spatial dimension). The second is the metaphorical one actually describing the crisis as a natural force. The third one is the description of the crisis as a more or less globally appearing crisis. Our question is “How is the crisis as medial event described, if there is no concrete reference object to refer to, but just a, semantically expressed, concept denoting a non-material and non-perceptible entity described as crises?” Taking the examples from The New York Times we will demonstrate that such a lack of a concrete object does not alter the language of journalism, except that a (for the news language uncommon) metaphoric production takes part. The activity of the object represented by the noun is the agent of activities, even though the processes are highly abstract. On a meta-level, the language in the news becomes an allegorical network with the metaphorisized object crisis as the agent of movement in an intertextual setting of texts using the expression.
Keywords: Mass Media, Communication, Rhetoric
Abstract
Challenging the assumption that communication patterns are not created each time new and ad hoc, but are defined by a certain framework, we will show that communication patterns depend on the way they are represented in a medium. For this examination we will use the example of political speeches and their representation in the news of the online news journals New York Times and Spiegel Online. One of the most significant current discussions in mass media and communication studies circulates around the question of the representation of news and their presentation within the framework of specific media. This is also the cutting edge for communication studies asking the question of the conditions of discourses in the mass media. Both perspectives are in this study considered as tools for the access to the discursive communicative patterns in mass media. We will examine in examples the text structures of political speeches in the framework of their media and describe the influence and persuasive communicative perspective of the news journals in specific cases.
Keywords: Communication, Mass Media, Contemporary Speech, Rhetoric
Abstract
This article is an overview investigating and comparing the principles of word classification in several major German grammars in parallel. The description of the theoretical backgrounds of the parts of speech classifications is set in a historical context. Through an analysis of the most important grouping criteria in the different grammars it is attempted to give an answer to the question, whether there is a grammar model that has a consistent and adequate parts of speech classification. The grammars observed here have shown that neither of the different approaches, although they are more or less logical and consistent, has all requirements for an „ideal” parts of speech definition. The grammar writers still seem to be confronted with several issues, which however motivates further research. In spite of their different and partly conflicting approaches, these grammars advance research and probably lead to a more complete understanding of the parts of speech.
Keywords: word classification, parts of speech definition
Abstract
Three language games in Arabic involving the addition of the consonant cluster -rb- are analyzed. In a Yemeni Arabic game used in Hadramaut (HG), /aarb/ is systematically added after the onset of the stressed syllable of every word. In a Jordanian Arabic game (JG), /irb/ or /urb/ is added after the onset of the first syllable of each word. The variation in the vowel is a result of assimilation to a following rounded vowel. In a Meccan Arabic game (MG), a /VVrb/ template is added after the onset of the stressed syllable of every word. The quality of the long vowel is determined by the vowel in the stressed syllable. Reference is made to different models used in the discussion of language games. Hayes’s (1989) syllable-infixing approach is used to discuss the HG and JG. McCarthy’s (1982) template-insertion model and Botne and Davis’s (2000) segment-imposition approach are shown to be insufficient for a proper analysis of the MG. Abu-Abbas’s (2009) templatic-imposition approach is used to handle the MG providing evidence for this approach.
Keywords: language games, imposition, Arabic
Abstract
Chrétien de Troyes was one of the most prominent authors of the twelth-century French literature inspired by the Celtic tradition. All marvellous motives in his works come from Irish sagas and Welsh tales. The story of his romances can often be considered as a refined version of Celtic stories: the Knights of the Round Table often meet adventures similar to those of the heroes of the sagas, behind some of his characters we can recognize monstrous gods, seductive fairies and the myth of the seasonal renewal can also be traced in some episodes. The present article focuses on the representation of the Celtic Otherworld in three courtly romances of Chrétien de Troyes. The works selected are Érec et Énide, Le Chevalier de la Charrette et Le Chevalier au Lion.
Keywords: French Middle Ages, courtly romances, Celtic myths, cultural influences, Chrétien de Troyes
Abstract
Premodification in idioms was examined in a large American corpus and two major types have been found: external modifiers have the whole expression in their scope, denoting the domain, location or time of the event, while internal modifiers modify the nominal component of the idiom. The literal meaning of this noun in most cases corresponds to some (more) abstract concept, thus the noun contributes its independent meaning to the expression. Conjunctive modification and Stathi’s (2007) internal type rarely occur.
Keywords: idioms, variation, decomposability, modification
Abstract
The present paper deals with the issue of using scripted conversations as data for discourse analysis. After some theoretical preliminaries the author presents a qualitative study of six randomly selected extracts from the film As Good as it Gets (© 1997 TriStar Pictures). The analytical tools used in the sample analysis are borrowed from Gricean pragmatics, speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, variation analysis, conversation analyis and the ethnography of communication.
Keywords: scripted data, discourse analysis, pragmatics, conversation analysis, discourse markers
Abstract
This paper aims to systematically overview the stages to be necessarily passed in order to gain data for the historical and diachronic analysis of language, and to discuss how the linguistic material is obtained which then produces the data through various procedures and processes. It aims to provide an overview of the notions of „utterance”, „source”, „authenticity”, „reproducibility”, „reliability” and „reconstruction” from the point of view of historical linguistics and diachrony and through a systematic comparison with synchrony. The conclusions are as the following: the limited nature of the evidence status of historical linguistic and diachronic data does not stem from the data themselves. It is the limited knowability of the past that limits the formulation of evidences: to a degree differing greatly in the various languages, varieties and periods the linguistic phenomena are limited in number, irreproducible, fragmented, and are of incidental content, that is, of selected type. As a consequence, they either do not allow the entire linguistic system to become knowable or, if they do, the truth value of statements made about it varies. The statements are to varying degrees feasible but cannot be formulated categorically. The plausibility of a datum does not result in an evidence automatically. Despite its often complex but still differentiated methodologies, diachronic linguistics has to constantly take into account this possibility.
Keywords: historical linguistics, diachronic linguistics, data, plausibility