Antecedent (grammar)

About: Antecedent (grammar) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41824 citations.

Weighing psycholinguistic and social factors for semantic agreement in Dutch pronouns

Abstract: Previous research has shown that Dutch pronominal gender is in a process of resemanticization: Highly individuated nouns are increasingly referred to with masculine and feminine pronouns, and lowly individuated ones with the neuter pronoun het/’t ‘it’, irrespective of the grammatical gender of the noun (Audring 2009). The process is commonly attributed to the loss of adnominal gender agreement, which is increasingly blurring distinctions between masculine and feminine nouns and, therefore, requires speakers to resort to semantic default strategies (De Vogelaer & De Sutter 2011). Several factors have been identified that influence the choice of semantic vis-a-vis lexical agreement, both linguistic and social. This article seeks to weigh the importance of both structural and social factors in pronominal gender agreement in Belgian Dutch, using the Belgian part of the Spoken Dutch Corpus. A multivariate statistical analysis reveals that most effects are structural, including noun semantics and the syntactic function of the antecedent and the pronoun, as well as the pragmatic status of the antecedent. The most important social factor is speech register. We argue that these effects support a psycholinguistic account in which resemanticization is seen as a change from below, caused by hampered lexical access to noun gender.

An Integrated Approach to Theological Contextualization in Africa

Abstract: This article probes manifestations of theological contextualization in Africa from pre-colonial through colonial and post-colonial times to the present time and compares it with its biblical antecedent. The thrust of the article is that while theological contextualization in Africa has assumed different models throughout its historical periodization, its objective ought to be in consonance with the Bible. Accordingly, it must seek to articulate the self-revelation of God in different cultures using contextualizing cues appropriate and natural to the comprehensive worldview of recipients in a manner that maintains unflinching fidelity to the unchanging content of God’s self-revelation found in the Bible.Â

Verb phrase ellipsis resolution method based on depth learning

Abstract: The invention relates to a verb phrase ellipsis resolution method based on depth learning, and belongs to the technical field of computer artificial intelligence. The invention solves the problems oflow accuracy of triggering word judgment and antecedent phrase recognition existing in the existing verb phrase ellipsis resolution method. According to the method, the determined data set 1 and the determined data set 2 are preprocessed; in the process of judging triggering words, the extraction of sentence context features and sentence-level features is added, and the extracted sentence featuresare transformed into vectors to be input into a support vector machine and then the triggering words of input sentences are determined according to output results of the support vector machine; and finally, a correct antecedent phrase is identified from candidate antecedent phrases generated by the triggering words by using a multi-layer perceptron. When extracting sentence features, the invention adds context features and sentence-level features, so that the accuracy rate of triggering word judgment can reach about 90%, and the accuracy rate of antecedent phrase recognition can reach 85% orabove. The invention can be applied to the technical field of computer artificial intelligence.

Inherent directionality of “even if” counterfactual conditionals

Abstract: In this research, we investigate whether semifactual conditionals such as “even if there had been an A, there would have been a B” are understood by thinking initially of the antecedent “A”, as was found with factual conditionals. The “inherent directionality” hypothesis assumes that for the comprehension of most relational statements, a presuppositional element (i.e. the “relatum”) is initially established. For “even if”, both terms could work as “relatum”. This is because on the one hand, people tend to infer “B” from “A” and “not-A” and, on the other hand, “B” could work as a pragmatic presupposition. In the present experiment, semifactual and factual conditionals were tested with a sentence-picture verification task. Results were consistent with the “inherent directionality” hypothesis: only “if then” factual conditionals, but not semifactuals, showed a preference for reasoning from the antecedent, with faster verifications.

The impact of intragroup relationship conflict on intention to re-enroll

Abstract: Scholars have identified several predictors of learner satisfaction, but little research addresses the impact of intragroup conflict in a virtual learning context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potentially deleterious effects of perceived intragroup relationship conflict on virtual learners’ intention to re-enroll.,Data were systematically collected from virtual learners using an online questionnaire and then analyzed by multiple regression models.,The results show that emotional expressiveness is an antecedent to perceived intragroup relationship conflict, and the relationship is moderated by individuals’ perceived enjoyment of computer-mediated communication. Virtual learners with a higher emotional expressiveness (i.e. extraverts) experience higher perceived relationship conflict, which in turn, lowers their intention to re-enroll.,The study confirms the antecedent and consequence of perceived intragroup relationship conflict in a virtual learning context.,Educational institutions and businesses may use three proposed strategies to deal with intragroup relationship conflict.,The study contributes to the limited knowledge on how to effectively manage virtual learning interactions by educational institutions and businesses.