https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/137985 2026-07-26T20:39:03Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148051 Title: Maltese first language acquisition of morphosyntax : a focus on nominal inflection and agreement Abstract: This study traces the development of morphosyntax in typically developing, Maltese-dominant bilingual children aged 18–60 months, examining how mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm), parts-of-speech (POS) category distribution, and nominal morphosyntax evolve and interact over time. To this end, a corpus comprising over 30 hours of Maltese child language data was collected. Drawing on longitudinal naturalistic data complemented by targeted elicitation tasks, and supported by statistical modelling, the study provides a detailed account of language acquisition in a bilingual environment. The results show that MLUm increases steadily with age at a rate comparable to previous studies. A higher proportion of nouns in early productions gradually gives way to increased use of verbs and function words, with mixed-effects modelling confirming a significant shift over time and in relation to MLUm. Analyses of nominal inflection reveal that concatenative plural forms are acquired earlier and with greater accuracy than templatic forms. In nominal agreement, accuracy increases with age, although earlier stabilisation of gender relative to number is not statistically confirmed. Integrative analyses indicate that the stabilisation of nominal morphosyntax coincides with the transition to multiword syntax and the attenuation of this early noun dominance. Collectively, these findings depict the development of nominal systems as gradual and interdependent, contributing new empirical evidence to cross-linguistic theories of morphosyntactic learnability and bilingual acquisition. Description: Ph.D.(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/144842 Title: Investigating the post-vocalic /r/ in Maltese English and its potential intra- and inter-speaker variation Abstract: The postvocalic /r/ is a segment that is an object of much interest in several languages and dialects of English. This dissertation uses a set of eight speakers from the Corpus of Spoken Maltese English to find patterns in the realisation of the postvocalic /r/ that could indicate potential trends in the rhoticity of the dialect. While only 10.8% of the postvocalic /r/s measured across all speakers were realised as rhotic phonemes. All speakers had varying distributions of /r/ realisations, suggesting that rhoticity may be a continuum upon which Maltese English speakers may be found in multiple positions, indicating a somewhat large inter-speaker variation. This is reinforced by the fact that all speakers articulate postalveolar approximant /r/s, but only some articulate alveolar taps, which may indicate a broader pattern of /r/ loss across languages when compared to the previously common trill, which was articulated in the same contexts, thereby demonstrating inter-speaker variation. Intra-speaker variation is also present in the form of the frequency of /r/ articulation over time, as the first minute of each recording is decidedly less rhotic than the rest, which may suggest audience design is a factor. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138761 Title: Signing with your hands full Abstract: Weak drop, or the optional deletion of the weak hand in two-handed signs, is a natural phenomenon occurring in a number of signed languages (Paligot, et al., 2016). In everyday conversations, users of a signed language have both their dominant hand and their weak hand at their disposal. However, situations, such as holding a drink, allow the use of only one hand. In these cases, weak drop is not an option but a must. The present study focuses on forced weak drop using elicited narratives, and the adaptations observed when one of the hands is otherwise occupied. Each of the seven participants in this study was filmed narrating a story from a children’s picture book first using both hands and then using one hand whilst the other held a cup of water. The resulting fourteen renditions were analysed and compared to other studies in the lilterature. Results show that many of the adaptations observed in the Maltese Sign Language (LSM) are similar to those found in other studies and that these adaptations are related to the modality rather than the language. It also appears that iconicity may have an effect on the adaptation of two-handed LSM signs into one-handed variants especially when weak drop is otherwise inhibited. Description: M.A.(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138760 Title: Metaphorical minds : an investigation of large language models’ ability to adequately generate and process metaphors Abstract: Creativity in language is a qualitative feature that is claimed to be unique to humans (Chomsky, 2006). Current Large Language Models (LLM), such as ChatGPT, appear to have mastered the skill to use non-literal language, such as metaphors, and have therefore supposedly crossed the threshold between machines and humans (Mei et al., 2024) when it comes to mastering linguistic creativity. However, it is not clear how well LLMs can understand and produce novel non-literal language compared to humans, which is what this dissertation aims to investigate. This dissertation explores the role of creativity in human language, covering classical and cognitive approaches in metaphor research, with a focus on novel metaphors. It reviews key literature in both linguistic theory and natural language processing, and presents a qualitative analysis of human- and machine-produced paraphrases to showcase metaphor interpretation. Broader implications for scientific research are discussed, particularly in comparing human and machine capacities for metaphorical understanding. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z