Working paper
Nominal Morphology of Mehweb Dargwa
The retrieval of low frequency words is usually slower than that of high frequency words. Neuroimaging research on the role of word frequency in linguistic tasks suggests candidate brain areas for the neural substrates of this effect. The only previous fMRI study of word frequency in Russian (Malutina et al., 2012) used an action naming task and obtained data that were highly inconsistent with results for other languages, findings which were mainly obtained using noun-retrieval tasks. In order to verify whether the reasons for such inconsistency were methodological or cross-linguistic, we examined the fMRI correlates of word frequency in Russian using a covert object naming task. We found that the retrieval of low frequency and high frequency nouns activated the same general pattern of brain areas typical for object naming tasks in many languages. Several brain regions were more activated in the low frequency but not the high frequency condition, including the areas and structures usually associated with linguistic processing (the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally, the left thalamus, the left insula), visual perception (the fusiform gyrus, the inferior occipital gyrus, the middle occipital gyrus bilaterally) and cognitive and motor control (the supplementary motor area and the right cingulate gyrus). The right cingulate gyrus was the only area that responded only to the low frequency stimuli but not the high frequency items, when compared to the baseline. At the same time, we found no brain areas that responded more to high versus low word frequency. These results are generally consistent with previous fMRI studies in English, German and Chinese and therefore suggest that the inconsistency between the previous research in Russian and other languages was due to the possible interaction of the part of speech (verb or noun) and word frequency in brain mechanisms for word retrieval, rather than cross-linguistic differences.
The Mehweb language is an isolated one-village language of the Dargwa group (Nakh-Daghestanian). Mehweb speakers moved outside the Dargwa-speaking area and now they are located near the Avar and Lak speakers. Many authors treated Mehweb specific features as archaic. In this paper I argue that some features of the Mehweb consonant system shows many innovations which could be partly explained by contacts with other languages and specific Mehweb internal processes.
Mehweb Dargwa features a particle gwa, a peculiar element which is basically used for emphasizing the assertion. The paper explores some grammatical characteristics of this particle. It is shown that, in both verbal and non-verbal clauses, gwa serves as a predicative marker forming a complete predication and is an equivalent of a copula (even though, unlike the neutral copula in Mehweb, it lacks inflection). Similarly to typical East Caucasian predicative markers, gwa may occur in different positions, though its place is syntactically constrained (e.g., it cannot be embedded within syntactic islands). Still, Mehweb speakers allow gwa not to be adjoined to either the predicate or the focus. This makes the distribution of the particle surprising as compared with similar predicative markers in well-described East Caucasian languages, where they may either occur on the predicate or immediately follow the focused element.
Case study method has been used for a long time to develop intercultural communication competences in non-linguistic universities. However, the cases represented in textbooks have some disadvantages which make the intercultural case study less interesting and effective. To eliminate these problems the article suggests new approach to intercultural case study on the basis of theme intercultural case blocks.
This paper describes the sociolinguistic situation of Mehweb, a lect of the Dargwa branch of East Caucasian, spoken in the Republic of Daghestan. In the course of several field trips to the village of Mehweb (officially, Megeb), sociolinguistic interviews were conducted in Mehweb and four neighbouring Avar- and Lak-speaking villages. The paper describes the demographic situation in Mehweb, the villagers’ official status, their social and economic life in the past and at present. The multilingual repertoire of Mehwebs and their neighbours is described in both qualitative and quantitative terms. I conclude that, while there are no signs of language loss, the traditional patterns of multilingualism in Mehweb are highly endangered.
The paper is focused on the study of reaction of italian literature critics on the publication of the Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Jivago". The analysys of the book ""Doctor Jivago", Pasternak, 1958, Italy" (published in Russian language in "Reka vremen", 2012, in Moscow) is given. The papers of italian writers, critics and historians of literature, who reacted immediately upon the publication of the novel (A. Moravia, I. Calvino, F.Fortini, C. Cassola, C. Salinari ecc.) are studied and analised.
In the article the patterns of the realization of emotional utterances in dialogic and monologic speech are described. The author pays special attention to the characteristic features of the speech of a speaker feeling psychic tension and to the compositional-pragmatic peculiarities of dialogic and monologic text.