News We Can Use: Implementing Research Results in Language Learning

Laura A. Janda

CLEAR (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian)

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

The materials I will present today:

• The Case Book for Russian; The Case Book for Czech

• The Aspect in Russian MediaModule • Cluster Types for Russian Verbs• Exploring Emptiness and the Verb Classifier

Hypothesis • Grammatical Profiles and teaching Russian TAM• Russian Language Technology and Oahpa!

Some running themes...

• Research-based teaching:– All of the pedagogical tools I will show you build upon research

results• Cognitive linguistics:

– A usage-based theory that transfers well to the language classroom

• Minimal terminology:– Linguistic terms kept to a bare minimum (verb, noun, adjective,

etc.)• Authentic language:

– All examples are drawn from native sources and corpora• Gender-approriate models:

– When audio is available, one can choose male vs. female• Public access:

– All web-based materials are publicly available, no restrictions

Cognitive linguistics

Minimal Assumption: language can be accounted for in terms of general cognitive strategies

• no autonomous language faculty• no strict division between grammar and lexicon• no a priori universals

Usage-Based: generalizations emerge from language data• no strict division between langue and parole• no underlying forms

Meaning is Central: holds for all language phenomena• no semantically empty forms• differences in behavior are motivated (but not

specifically predicted) by differences in meaning• metaphor and metonymy play a major role in grammar

The Case Book for RussianThe Case Book for Czech

• Steven J. Clancy, co-author• Published in 2002, 2006 – Slavica Publishers• Books come with CD-ROM with interactive version of text – you can

click on all examples to hear recordings by native speakers, plus interactive exercises

• PDF-version (text only) of Genitive case chapter for Russian, plus entire book for Czech available here:– http://www.seelrc.org/projects/casebooks/

• Interactive exercises available here:– http://languages.uchicago.edu/casebooks/russian/

mainmenu.html– http://languages.uchicago.edu/casebooks/czech/mainmenu.html

• In 2005, The Case Book for Russian won the Book Prize for “Best Contribution to Pedagogy” from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

The Case Book for RussianThe Case Book for Czech

Main ideas:– Based on research on case meaning (Janda 1988,

1993, 1999, 2000)– Each case presented as a coherent whole, a

structured network of related meanings– Prototypical meanings tend to be concrete

(Genitive: a source дочь пришла из школы), further meanings are extended via metaphor and metonymy (Genitive: a source дочь стыдилась бедности)

– Comprehensive explanation of ALL uses, not limited to major ones

The Aspect in Russian MediaModule

Main ideas:– Based on research on the meaning of aspect (Janda

2003, 2004)– Each aspect presented as a coherent whole, a structured

network of related meanings– The aspectual contrast is metaphorically motivated by

embodied physical experience with• discrete solid objects (Perfective) vs. • fluid substances (Imperfective)

– This contrast is relevant at the level of event structure, discourse, and pragmatics

– Give learners opportunity to use real-world knowledge to make sense of Russian aspect

Aspect Meaning

The Aspect in Russian MediaModule

• Аvailable here:– http://ansatte.uit.no/laura.janda/

aspect/ainr/

Cluster Types for Russian Verbs

Main ideas:– Based on research on the aspectual relationships among

verbs (Janda 2007, Janda & Korba 2008)– Four different types of Perfective verbs can be distinguished

on the basis of both meaning (metaphorically motivated) and word-formation

– Natural Perfective, Specialized Perfective, Complex Act Perfective, Single Act Perfective

– An aspectual cluster contains an Imperfective Activity verb plus 0-4 types of Perfective verbs

– An implicational hierarchy predicts the structures of existing clusters

Available at:http://ansatte.uit.no/laura.janda/clusters/clusterfrontpage.html

Exploring Emptiness and the Verb Classifier Hypothesis

Main ideas:– Aspectual pairs such as писать/написать, варить/сварить

consist of an imperfective base verb and a prefixed perfective partner with the same lexical meaning

– The traditional assumption is that the prefixes are empty in these pairs (пустые приставки)

– BUT: these pairs are essential vocabulary, there are about 1400 base verbs, 16 prefixes, and 2000 correct prefix verb combinations

– We can design materials that reduce the burden of memorization for learners

Exploring Emptiness and the Verb Classifier Hypothesis

• Exploring Emptiness database of prefixal pairs (Natural Perfectives):– http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/index.php

• Book: Janda, Laura A, Anna Endresen, Julia Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2013. Why Russian aspectual prefixes aren’t empty: prefixes as verb classifiers. 2013. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, plus link to all data and lists of verbs:– http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/book.htm

• Other related research: Janda 2012, Endresen et al. 2012, Sokolova et al. 2012, Janda & Lyashevkaya 2011, 2013

Grammatical Profiles and teaching Russian TAM

Main ideas:– Based on research on the distribution of verb

forms in the Russian National Corpus (Janda & Lyashevskaya 2011)

– We can identify the verbs that are most likely to be used in certain TAM combinations, such as imperfective imperative or imperfective non-past

– We can design teaching materials to specifically target those verbs and forms

What is a grammatical profile?Verbs have different forms:

eat 749 Meats 121 Meating 514 Meaten 88.8 Mate 258 M

The grammaticalprofile of eat

Grammatical Profiles of Russian Verbs

21.04.23

16

Nonpast Past Infinitive Imperative

Imperfective 1,330,016 915,374 482,860 75,717

Perfective 375,170 1,972,287 688,317 111,509

chi-squared = 947756df = 3p-value < 2.2e-16effect size (Cramer’s V)= 0.399 (medium-large)

Distribution of Russian verb forms according to subparadigmPrefixation (dark) vs. suffixation (light):Statistically significant, BUT effect sizes too small (0.076 & 0.037)

Prefixation (dark) vs. suffixation (light):Statistically significant, BUT effect sizes too small (0.076 & 0.037)

04/21/23

18

Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm:Imperfective verbs and their attraction to imperative

Over 200 outliersOver 200 outliers

Imperfective imperative “be doing X!”• Polite: guest knows what to expect: раздевайтесь ‘take off your coat’, садитесь ‘sit down’

• Insistence: hearer is hesitant: ступайте ‘get going’, глядите ‘look’, забирайте ‘take’

• Insistence: hearer has not behaved properly (connection with negation): проваливай ‘get out of here’, кончай ‘stop’, не перебивай ‘don’t interrupt’

• Polite requests: выручайте ‘help’• Kind wishes: выздоравливайте ‘get well’• Idiomatic: давайте посмотрим ‘let’s take a look’• Idiomatic/culturally anchored: прощай(тe) ‘farewell’, соединяйтесь ‘unite’ (slogan), запевай ‘sing’ (army)

Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm:Imperfective verbs and their attraction to non-past

Only 10 outliersCan you guess which verbs they are?

Only 10 outliersCan you guess which verbs they are?

The 10 imperfective verbs most attracted to the non-past

verb raw frequency % frequency of non-past forms

является 39543 92%

оказывается 10869 85%

касается 9719 87%

влечет 1555 85%

выясняется 805 89%

подтверждается 677 83%

обязывается 480 92%

затрудняется 275 86%

исчерпывает 100 89%

предопределяется 34 85%

These verbs express gnomic truths, not ongoing events!

These verbs express gnomic truths, not ongoing events!

Russian Language Technology and Oahpa!

Main ideas:– Based on collaboration with the Saami Language

Technology Center at UiT– Creation of Natural Language Processing tools for

Russian, parallel to those for Saami and Norwegian, can facilitate:

• (real) machine translation• corpus analysis & linguistic research• pedagogical resources

– vocabulary practice– morphological practice (including use in

generated sentences)– text enhancement and exerciseshttp://testing.oahpa.no/rusoahpa/

References -- Case

Janda, Laura A. 1988. “Pragmatic vs. Semantic Uses of Case”, in Chicago Linguistic Society 24-I: Papers from the Twenty-Fourth Regional Meeting, ed. by Diane Brentari et al. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 189-202. Janda, Laura A. 1993. A Geography of Case Semantics: The Czech Dative and the Russian Instrumental (=Cognitive Linguistics Research, v. 4). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Janda, Laura A. 1999. “Peircean semiotics and cognitive linguistics: a case study of the Russian genitive”, in The Peirce Seminar Papers, ed. by Michael Shapiro. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 441-466. Janda, Laura A. 2000. “A cognitive model of the Russian accusative case”, in Trudy meždunarodnoj konferencii Kognitivnoe modelirovanie, No. 4, part I, ed. by R. K. Potapova, V. D. Solov’ev and V. N. Poljakov. Moscow: MISIS, 20-43.

References – Aspect (Metaphorical Model and Clusters, TAM)

Janda, Laura A. 2003. “A user-friendly conceptualization of Aspect”, Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 47, no. 2, 251-281.Janda, Laura A. 2004. “A metaphor in search of a source domain: the categories of Slavic aspect”, Cognitive Linguistics, vol. 15, no. 4, 471-527. Janda, Laura A. 2007. “Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs”, Studies in Language 31:3, 607-648. Janda, Laura A. and John J. Korba. 2008. “Beyond the pair: Aspectual clusters for learners of Russian”, Slavic and East European Journal 52:2 (2008), 254-270. Janda, Laura A. and Olga Lyashevskaya. 2011. “Grammatical profiles and the interaction of the lexicon with aspect, tense and mood in Russian”, co-authored with. Cognitive Linguistics 22:4, 719-763.

References – Exploring Emptiness (partial list)

• Janda, Laura A. 2012. “Russkie pristavki kak sistema glagol’nyx klassifikatorov”. Voprosy jazykoznanija 6, 3-47.

• Janda, Laura A., Anna Endresen, Julia Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2013. Why Russian aspectual prefixes aren’t empty: prefixes as verb classifiers. 2013. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers.

• Janda, Laura A., Olga Lyashevskaya. 2011. “Prefix variation as a challenge to Russian aspectual pairs: Are завязнуть and увязнуть ‘get stuck’ the same or different?”, Russian Linguistics 35 (2011): 147-167.

• Janda, Laura A., Olga Lyashevskaya. 2013. “Semantic Profiles of Five Russian Prefixes: po-, s-, za-, na-, pro-”, Journal of Slavic Linguistics 21:2, 211-258.

• Sokolova, Svetlana, Olga Lyahsevskaya, Laura A. Janda. 2012“The Locative Alternation and the Russian ‘empty’ prefixes: A case study of the verb gruzit’ ‘load’”. In: D. Divjak & St. Th Gries (eds.). Frequency effects in language representation (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. 244.2), 2012, 51-86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Janda, Laura A., Anna Endresen, Julia Kuznetsova, Olga Lyashevskaya, Anastasia Makarova, Tore Nesset, Svetlana Sokolova. 2012. “Russian ‘purely aspectual’ prefixes: Not so ‘empty’ after all?”, Scando-Slavica 58:2 (2012), 231-291.