The aim of this work is to analyse the concept of semi-sentence from a linguistic, formal and computational point of view. A semi-sentence can be characterised as a sentence which, from a grammatical perspective, is neither absolutely correct nor incorrect . This study focuses on: - a characterisation of the semi-sentences in the setting of the grammar of a language. This study will help to analyse in depth the concept of grammaticality [3]; - the correlate of semi-sentences in formal (...) languages, i.e., semi-strings, which arise from applying productions that deviate from that which is strictly permitted by the rules of grammar [6]; - a Prolog program for handling semi-grammaticality in a computational manner [2]. (shrink)

The notion of linguistic correction with which Augustine of Hippo introduced his Ars pro fratrum mediocritate breuiata seems central to the philosopher's grammatical discussion, not only because of the various examples that Augustine offers about the definitions of barbarism and soloecism at the end of this treatise, but also because the subject of correction and, consequently, of the deviations of language, are also presented in other non-grammatical works: The confessions, De ordine and De doctrina Christiana. In this article, (...) we propose to evaluate the conceptual outlines of the notions of barbarism and solecism in the work of Augustine, considering, on the one hand, the definitions present in the Ars breuiata, and, on the other, the way in which Augustine also presents them in his philosophical work. We propose that the normative orientation contained in the text of ars must be relativised by ethical questions that arise from the comments present in the Confessions, the De ordine and the De doctrina Christiana. (shrink)

In the article, the phenomenon of deviation, which is one of the important subjects of stylistics and rhetoric is discussed. The deviation is divided into three categories in terms of phonetic, word and grammar. The study was limited to morphological deviation defined as a transition from form to another. The morphological deviations and their relation with meaning reveal the importance of changes in word level. The linguistic and contextual elements are considered as two complementary parties in contextual (...) linguistics. From phonetic level to text consitency many linguistic elements play an important role in expression. Apart from the linguistic phenomenons that affect the meaning, non-linguistic elements should also be considered. In the research also word selection, meaning transfer and context are indicated. The deviation has expanded the use of Arabic words as well as the rich word derivation potential. In terms of Qur'ānic verses, it is an important criterion relationship of the word formula in the meaning for the Arabic language. The subtleties of this language phenomenon which is detected in Qur'ānic verses and fascinates the reader are explained by examples. Summary: Semantics, that is one of the most important areas of linguistics, initially focused on identifying the meanings of words; however, today it goes beyond that and tries to clarify the other elements of the language field. Linguists emphasize that the main goal of language studies is theme and the efforts made in this context are aimed at capturing the meaning. Metaphor and the ways of other extension of meaning should be considered in this context. As Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002) stated, language is generally composed of metaphor. This situation points to the necessity of examining the language with a wider perspective than the formal understanding in the field of linguistics research.In the writings of linguists such as Sībawayhi (d.180/796), Ibn Jinnī and al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) and the works that focus on the superiority of wording of Qur'ān, it is seen that there is no distinction between the structure and function of language. Each sentence style is shaped for a purpose. What directs them to such a method is the thinking of first person, interlocutor and context together. It is possible to find this understanding in linguistic and religious sources such as qirā’āt, rhetoric and exegesis. Today, this relationship between grammar and meaning is one of the basic subjects of linguistics.Besides the grammatical structure, word selection is also significant. It is easy to determine a sentence with a grammatical error. While the use of a word is correct in a sentence, it may not be appropriate elsewhere. The degree of accuracy of the sentence is affected by the word selection, which is also a matter of grammatical tasks. This is the expression of the meaning in the appropriate language structure. Depending on the context of the statement, the appropriate word and phrase style should be chosen. The word choice has a great influence on the superiority of the style of the Qur'ān. When the Qur'ānicverses are examined, it is seen how well the chosen words are used.One of the main factors determining the accuracy of the word is context. The same word can be assumed to be true or false due to the context. In addition to linguistic elements, non-linguistic factors such as psychological status, socio-cultural factors and educational background are a measure of value in language.The factor that determines the function of word is the position of word in the phrase. Missing sentence structures gain new meanings as a result of a number of transformations. In Arabic sentence structures it is possible to see how the language structures affect the meaning. The expression tools should be enriched through sorting, increasing, decreasing and changing which are the factors contributing to the understanding of the superficial and deep structure of the language. In this context, the flexibility in the grammatical rules and the issue of deviation, which provides richness to phrases, are important in terms of revealing the place and value of meaning in the language.The deviation phenomenon is called as language deviation in Turkish sources. Due to a semantic and communicative concern deviation is a new way of expressing by leaving the built-in style in the language in order to strengthen the language, draw attention to the text, give a holistic effect, remove the word out of the ordinary and make the indicators more effective in terms of sound and meaning. The deviation is an important part of the stylistics, which goes beyond the path expressions and increases effect of the word. The development of the stylistics, which was accepted as an extension of the rhetoric in the modern period, raised interest rates for deviation. The deviation is divided into three categories in terms of voice, word and grammar.Morphological deviation, which is defined as the transition from one mold to another, is a phenomenon that gives the power of persuasion, influence and subtlety to the word that is appears in the mold and context of phrase. The context is the most important determinant of the deviationthrough which the literary meanings are gained that is the aim of the rhetoric. The effect of morphological deviationon meaning changes is an important subject of language researches. From this point the meanings which were added to the Qur'ānicwords by morphological deviationwas analyzed in detail in this article. Besides this, numerous verses have been handled with the idea that such a method will contribute to understanding of the subtlety meanings of the verses and transferring of their meanings to non-Arabic languages in the best way.Linguists have pointed to the meaning differences between Arabic patterns by taking into consideration the meaning potential of word molds. The language researches, which reveal the role of the word molds in determining the meanings, reflect that there are no two patterns of which meanings are exactly overlapping in Arabic language that is the views of the linguists. It is seen that the patterns such as active and passive participle, resembling participle, hyperbolic participle and gerund are used interchangeably because of their meaning relationship between each other. Similar uses of the verb should be added to this since time change in verbs is one of the linguistic phenomena in which deviationhas occurred. Types of deviationare the significant stylistic features of theQur'ānand have effects on meaning and expression. The fact that the Qur'ānpossesses an unusual style, but such a quality prevents its addressing from becoming ordinary. It is important to determine these kinds of uses, which are called as morphological deviation, to grasp the meaning of the word. When the language structures related to deviationare examined, it is understood that there is a deeply relationship between deviationand meaning. It is important to solve deviationthat enriches the meaning in the word, as well as other linguistic structures to comprehend the gnomic structure of the style of the Qur'ān. (shrink)

As children gradually master grammatical rules, they often go through a period of producing form‐meaning associations that were not observed in the input. For example, 2‐ to 3‐year‐old English‐learning children use the bare form of verbs in settings that require obligatory past tense meaning while already starting to produce the grammatical –ed inflection. While many studies have focused on overgeneralization errors, fewer studies have attempted to explain the root of this earlier stage of rule acquisition. In this work, (...) we use computational modeling to replicate children's production behavior prior to the generalization of past tense production in English. We illustrate how seemingly erroneous productions emerge in a model, without being licensed in the grammar and despite the model aiming at conforming to grammatical forms. Our results show that bare form productions stem from a tension between two factors: (1) trying to produce a less frequent meaning (the past tense) and (2) being unable to restrict the production of frequent forms (the bare form) as learning progresses. Like children, our model goes through a stage of bare form production and then converges on adult‐like production of the regular past tense, showing that these different stages can be accounted for through a single learning mechanism. (shrink)

Standard language, which follows rules of dictionary and grammar, undergoes various changes when it is the subject of literature, especially poetry. These changes, called linguistic deviation, are due to the poet’s expression of his feelings and thoughts by forcing the possibilities of language. In this direction, language deviations can be defined as the dispositions where the author goes out of the standard language, as in the examples of changes in the pronunciation (ṣavt), form (ṣarf) or spelling (kitābet) of the (...) words, the derivation of new words that are not used in the language (irticāl) and the deterioration of the syntax (naḥv). According to many literary critics such as Ibn Hishām al-Ansārī (d. 761/1360) and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Baghdādī (d. 1093/1682), this language used by Arab poets who were not influenced by foreign languages, namely the Cāhilī, Muḥaḍram and Islāmī poets (ḳudemâ), was acceptable and it is considered as ḍarūrātuş-şiʿriyye (poetry necessities). In this context, deviations that do not comply with the standard language are tried to be explained with dialect differences, different variants of the couplet or various interpretations. However, some scholars such as Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Jurjānī (d. 392/1001-1002) argue that these usages are laḥn (linguistic mistakes). According to these names, it is not correct to explain the poets’ use, which are contrary to the standard language rules, with excessive interpretations (takalluf). Assuming that linguistic deviations are laḥn, they cannot represent a superiority in terms of literary value, but when considered as a necessity, they represent a superiority within the framework of certain criteria. But any specific criteria have been determined before about which linguistic deviations represent the superiority. Therefore, in our study, the theories put forward about the accuracy of linguistic deviations that exceed the standard language rules will be examined and the necessary criteria for them to represent a superiority will be determined. In this direction, the difference in meaning and form that this deviation adds to the expression becomes important. If the language deviation, which is contrary to the standard sentence structure, does not comply with the language rules in any aspect and does not add any superiority to the poem in terms of meaning and form, it does not seem possible for such uses to represent a more fluent and persuasive language (al-Balāgha). However, the language deviation reveals a new meaning or form that is not found in the standard expression, and if this usage complies with the standard language rules, it represents a more eloquently language. The degree of violation of the purity and perfection of language (faṣāḥa) of a statement is related to the violation of qiyās (analogy?) and grammatical incongruity mentioned in the rhetoric books. The contravention of common language rules of these uses, which are not considered faṣīḥ, varies. As a matter of fact, some of these were seen as minor mistakes that could be ignored, while others were considered as major mistakes. For this purpose, a conceptual framework about linguistic deviations is drawn at the introduction of the article, and the literary theories on the subject are examined in the first chapter. In the second part, it is argued that linguistic deviations represent a superiority depending on certain criteria by giving examples from the poems of the period of Jāhilīyah. (shrink)

By confronting variable use, the variationist method can reveal patterns of subjectification of grammatical morphemes. Applying this method to the analysis of salir(se) ‘go out’ variation in Mexican Spanish oral data, we conclude that subjectification is manifested structurally in the tendency for middle-marked salirse to co-occur with first-person singular or referents close to the speaker, positive polarity and the past tense. Further comparative dialectal and diachronic data indicate the origins of the se -marked form in physical spatial deviation. (...) Usage of the form then extends to situations that denote deviation from social norms. We thus propose that the locus of subjectification of this counter-expectation marker is an increasingly speaker-based construal of expectation. This semantic change appears to proceed via absorption of contextual meaning in the frequently occurring + de ‘from’ construction. (shrink)

This article presents the conception of negligent account management, analyses the rules of the criminal act that govern criminal liability for negligent account management, by focussing on the form of guilt and the problem of its content. The plenary session’s conclusion that the two offences – failure to administer bookkeeping and failure to protect the bookkeeping documents – can be committed both intentionally and negligently is disputed in this article. The adoption of the new Criminal Code in 2000, setting the (...) form of guilt and its content in criminal cases for negligent account management, posed no significant problems – the court practice and legal literature followed the attitude that this crime could be committed only negligently. According to Article 16(4) of the Criminal Code 2000, a person is punished for negligent commission of a crime or a misdemeanour only in individual cases stipulated in the Special Part of the Criminal Code. The problem was that no “individual case” was foreseen in Article 223 of the Criminal Code that imposed liability for negligent bookkeeping. This created preconditions for deviating from pre-existing case-law under which this crime could be qualified as negligent. Only in 2009 the Criminal Division of the Lithuanian Supreme Court concluded in its plenary session that Article 223 of the Criminal Code provided liability for criminal record-keeping and accounting only if committed negligently as a form of guilt, and other activities pursuant to this Article might be committed intentionally and recklessly. The plenary session identified a loophole of criminal law and created preconditions for the formation of uniform court practice. Only the legislator can remove the loophole of criminal law identified by the Supreme Court of Lithuania. The author states that all of the acts named in Article 223 of the Criminal Code can be committed negligently and suggests applying the rule contained in Article 16(4) of the Criminal Code to Article 223 of the Criminal Code. All of these findings are based on historical, grammatical and logical interpretation of the “neglect” concept and the analysis of Articles 222 and 223 of the Criminal Code. (shrink)

Against the background of the fact that speakers not seldom intend to convey imports which deviate from the linguistically expressed meanings of linguistic items, the present article addresses some consequences of this phenomenon which appear to still be neglected in textual studies. It is suggested that understanding behaviour is in some respect a primary objective of exegesis and that due attention must be attributed to the high diversity of behaviour-related criteria by which interpretations of linguistic items are to be evaluated. (...) Although we intimate in addition that individual (meaningful) sentences occurring either in oral conversations or in written documents generally exhibit a multiplicity of contents of diverse types and that the circumstance that sometimes only a content equalling the linguistic significance of a pertinent unit matters for purposes of interpretation is caused by a material coincidence of different varieties of content, the tenets advocated in the paper do not essentially depend on that view. On the other hand, the following assumptions are relevant in the present connection: (a) A number of deviances between imports conveyed by linguistic utterances and literal meanings of expressions occur due to maxims of linguistic behaviour that are quite independent of lexical and syntactic features of individual natural languages. (b) It is by no means an exceptional phenomenon that imports not derivable by grammatical rules of a particular language alone possess primary importance for interpretation and textual exegesis. In view of significant affinities between understanding of sentences and of texts it is argued that the consideration of diverse aspects of behaviour possesses relevance for textual exegesis at least in the following respects: (1) By delivering a heuristic device for discerning problems affecting adopted interpretations it encourages searches for alternatives. (2) It provides means for evaluating the degree of acceptability of particular textual exegeses and possibly rejecting them on a more rational basis than mere intuition. (3) It offers possibilities for critically assessing the validity of explicit arguments advanced in favour of or in opposition to some interpretation. (4) It furnishes a background for assessing certain disputes about translation. The dimension of linguistic behaviour also attains importance in connection with questions of exegesis which are not concerned with assessments of (propositional) contents intended to be communicated, such as the ascertainment of the function which some argument possesses in a context. For substantiating the thesis that omission of raising relevant questions concerning behaviour is not an isolated phenomenon two examples will be employed: (1) A discussion concerning the exegesis of a crucial passage of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya and the Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti, (2) a critical appraisal of a recent publication dealing with the interpretation of the second chapter of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā-s. (shrink)

A crucial aspect of the revolution that affected logic at the beginning of the twentieth century concerns the severance of its traditional dependence on the form and structure of natural language. Such a breakdown has had enormous consequences not only for the development of formal logic, but also for the opening of new perspectives in the study of language. This peculiar relationship between mathematical logic and language inquiry is best illustrated by Willard V. O. Quine (1961: 1): Mathematicians expedite their (...) special business by deviating from ordinary language. Each such departure is prompted by specific considerations of utility for the mathematical venture afoot. Such reforms may be expected to reflect light on the ordinary language from which they depart. As a major consequence of its “reforms”, the new mathematical logic has been able to revivify and boost the notion of philosophical and logical grammar, typical of the seventeenth and eighteenth century rationalist tradition. New life has therefore been given to the idea that there exists a common grammatical core shared by every language and determinable a priori, with respect to which diversity and variation are just prima facie features of natural language, hiding its universal logical structure. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Grammar of Attic InscriptionsHenry R. ImmerwahrLeslie Threatte. The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions. Vol. II, Morphology. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996. xxv + 839 pp. Cloth, DM 590.After an interval of sixteen years we now have the second volume of Threattes massive grammar of the Attic inscriptions, which follows in all essentials the practices established in 1980 for the phonology. This means that the traditional terminology and organization of (...) the nineteenth century has been [End Page 455] largely adhered to... because the adoption of a more recent system of terminology... would have made this work inaccessible to many classicists and most epigraphers" (1). Thus the greatest importance of this vast and exceedingly careful collection of grammatical material lies not so much in the grammatical explanations (although they were sought by the author from the beginning; see I ix) as in the extraordinary precision with which attention is given to documentation of all aspects of normal morphology and its deviations. Proof of this care can be found in the numerous instances where the reading furnished in publications has been verified by autopsy (marked L.). Hence these volumes will remain an essential part of the library of all practicing epigraphists (that is, if they can afford the high price of the set).One difference between the first volume and the second is that the lists of examples in the second volume are considerably larger than the lists in the first. This is explained on page 3 as necessitated by the greater difficulty of collecting normal morphological examples as compared with the ease of doing the same for normal phonological spellings. Threatte says that he distinguishes between complete lists and lists of selected examples, but in practice some of the select lists are also very large. For example, paragraph 54.03221 (194–99) deals with the genitive singular of – before 300 B.C., – vs. –. To demonstrate his thesis that – is mainly a case of abbreviatory omission of final sigma, twenty–four examples are discussed in detail. This is followed by one and a half pages of selected examples of the normal spelling – in the period 350–300 B.C. While this certainly proves that the ending in sigma is the norm in the fourth century, one wonders whether the length of the list was necessary to demonstrate it. The usefulness of such lists will vary, but in many cases they can, if needed, be found by searching the PHI disk of inscriptions and papyri in the computer (e.g., lists such as the long tally of proper names beginning with τεισ–, 536–38). Further, many of the examples listed are by necessity of fragmentary inscriptions, which means that in a number of instances the restorations will change over time. Hence it is not surprising that volume II contains a very important appendix of about one hundred pages (675–778) dealing with addenda and corrigenda to volume I, some (but by no means all) regarding improved readings.Not the least important feature of the grammar, and one in which it differs markedly from Meisterhans–Schwyzer, is the great attention paid to what used to be called the instrumentum: inscriptions on objects other than stone, including a thorough survey of vase inscriptions culled from scattered publications. Since these are of particular interest to this reviewer (and since they extend the usefulness of the book to archaeologists) I may venture a few comments. It is somewhat unfortunate that most of the citations of Attic vases do not give the current or last–known location, which is the most certain means of identification. Thus on page 207, the fragment with book roll by the Akestorides Painter (ARV2 1670/4 bis) is now in the Getty Museum, Malibu 86.AE.324. On [End Page 456] page 608, middle, the oinochoe related by Schauenburg to the Triptolemos Painter (not just because of the shape of the vase), cited for the form from AM 90, is Hamburg 1981.173.The vase inscriptions (together with other graffiti and inscriptions on lead such as the defixiones) have always been of particular interest as giving possible insight into the actual pronunciation of the Attic dialect. Here it would have been... (shrink)

I propose that human experience of matter provides the source domain for the metaphor that motivates the grammatical category of aspect in Russian. This model is a version of the universal TIME IS SPACE metaphor, according to which SITUATIONS ARE MATERIAL ENTITIES, and, more specifically, PERFECTIVE IS A DISCRETE SOLID OBJECT versus IMPERFECTIVE IS A FLUID SUBSTANCE. The contrast of discrete solid objects with fluid substances reveals a rich array of over a dozen properties; the isomorphism observed between those (...) properties and the complex uses of aspect in Russian is compelling. This model presents a more finely articulated account of Russian aspect than feature analysis can achieve. Although some of these properties overlap significantly with the count versus mass distinction often associated with aspect, the properties provide more detail and ground the metaphor to concrete experience. Properties of matter can be divided into three groups: inherent properties such as edges, shape, and integrity (which correspond to inherent situation aspect); interactional properties such as juxtaposition, dynamism, and salience (which correspond to discourse phenomena of aspect); and human interactional properties such as graspability and impact (which correspond to pragmatic phenomena of aspect). The interactional and human interactional properties can be used to motivate subjective construal, whereas the inherent properties serve as default motivators. The model will be demonstrated in detail using Russian data, followed by a survey comparing Russian with the other Slavic languages, which will show that deviations consist of either non-implementation of a given property, or the implementation of an inherent (default) property in place of an interactional or human interactional property. This model will be contrasted with a brief discussion of a selection of non-Slavic languages. The specific metaphor in this model does not apply beyond Slavic, but perhaps it will encourage investigation into the source domain of aspect in other languages. There appears to be a correlation between the relatively heavy morphological investment Slavic languages make in nominal individuation and the individuation of situations presented in this metaphorical model. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, (...) -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

In philosophical circles, but not only there, Chomsky's views on natural language regularly fall a prey to misrepresentation. Very often the confusion involves the creative aspect of language use, an aspect of linguistic performance, which tends to be confounded with the notion recursivity, a property of the grammatical competence system. The present article clears away the most deep-seated confusions and proves that criticism of generative grammar based upon them cannot be upheld. In particular, it shows that the existence of (...) metaphors, and deviations from rules more generally, reinforces rather than refutes Chomsky's theory so long as the crucial distinction between knowledge of language (competence) and language use (performance) is taken heed of. It is argued that theories which deny this distinction and view human language as a set of dispositions or as an ability are misguided. The final section illustrates some properties of Universal Grammar (UG) by means of data from the domain of negative polarity and subject-object asymmetries. Though these phenomena are far from being fully understood, the present level of our insight warrants the conclusion that they lend considerable support to the Chomskyan conception of UG as a highly complex and richly articulated linguistic genotype. (shrink)

Nous essayons d'éclaircir quelques principes fondamentaux de la grammaire transformationelle de Chomsky à partir de Derrida et de Lacan. Nous tâchons d'approfondir deux problèmes : le premier concerne la portée de ceci que la possibilité de la déviation est donnée comme inhérente à l'institution même de la règle grammaticale; le second a trait au statut et au contenu du tiers sujet en tant que fondement de la structure intersubjective du langage. Primo : Selon Chomsky, une grammaire idéale doit être capable (...) de générer toutes les phrases — et rien que les phrases — bien formées à partir d'un nombre fini de règles. Une grammaire idéale et cohérente ne peut traiter les déviations que comme des possibilités purement accidentelles : une déviation n'aurait pas dû y être; elle n'aurait même pas pu y être. Bref, le risque d'un échec n'est pas interrogé comme prédicat essentiel de la grammaire. À en croire Derrida, on devrait regarder les conséquences qui découlent du fait qu'un risque possible est toujours possible. Comme les déviations présupposent une règle, chaque règle présuppose le risque d'un échec. La possibilité d'un échec est la condition nécessaire d'une règle grammaticale. Mais il s'agit d'une condition très spécifique, puisqu'elle rend impossible cela même qu'elle rend possible. Ni la grammaire, ni la déviation ne sont originaires, mais bien la différance entre les deux, ce qui veut dire qu'à l'origine de la production du sens il n'y a pas une grammaire idéale. Nous avons élaboré cette remarque de Derrida à partir d'une analyse de la métaphore, précisément parce que celle-ci ne peut être intégrée dans un système grammatical préalable. Secundo : la présence implicite d'un sujet compétent chez Chomsky doit expliquer pourquoi le sens ne dépend pas de l'arbitraire d'un sujet empirique. Chaque parole présuppose un Tiers, un Autre qui transcende les positions de destinateur et de destinataire. Mais, pour Chomsky, il s'agit d'un sujet idéal capable de déterminer a priori le sens invariable des lexemes auquel doivent se tenir les différents sujets. Le sujet compétent correspond à la nature universelle et rationelle de l'homme. Pour Lacan toutefois, ce Tiers — l'Autre — n'est pas un sujet universel mais bien un sujet marqué par un manque : cet Autre — sujet à manque et dès lors pas absolu — ne peut plus fixer a priori le sens d'un signifiant. Les différents effet de sens d'un signifiant ne peuvent plus être reuni dans une signification commune que l'Autre pourrait déterminer a priori. Nous démontrons comment l'intersubjectivité doit être comprise dans la perspective lacanienne. (shrink)

Pidgin languages are generally languages which are more or less rudimentary languages developing in situations of contacts between two different cultures, one of them dominant in the contact situation, with the use of such languages restricted to certain limited contacts such as trading, plantation work involving the employment of indigenous labour, master-servant relationships, and similar types of contact situations. Much of the vocabulary of a pidgin language consists of elements of the language of the dominant culture in a more or (...) less distorted, and often semantically changed, form with elements from the language of the non-dominant culture playing a less important part in its vocabulary. Its structural features do not as a rule reflect structural characteristics of the language of the dominant culture, unless the languages of both the dominant and the non-dominant culture are closely related and structurally very similar, though even in such situations quite significant deviations from the structural set-up of the language of the dominant culture can be observed in the pidgin language. Some to many of the structural features of a pidgin language may reflect features of the language of the non-dominant culture but, in pidgin languages, a number of unique structural and grammatical features can be observed which appear to reflect some basic simplifications in language use in contact situations between speakers of different languages. In any event, in the usual type of pidgin language, the overall vocabulary is small and limited in its usefulness to the specific types of contact situations in which the language is used and its grammatical complexity is greatly reduced when compared with both the language of the dominant culture and the nondominant culture. Also, as a rule, the sound system of a pidgin language constitutes a considerable simplification when compared with the sound system of both these languages. (shrink)

Three of the eleven essays are about Descartes, two about Moore, and the rest concern, variously, naturalism, the expression theory of art, ordinary language philosophy, and certain attitudes toward time. Bouwsma claims to have "tried to learn" the art of doing philosophy from the later Wittgenstein and it is not surprising that what he says about the work of the latter makes his own essays more understandable. Thus, his essays are investigations of phrases from someone else's work or of phrases (...) which are typical of the language of certain philosophical theories. He is particularly concerned with phrases which, in his eyes, embody some grammatical confusion as the result of some misleading linguistic analogy. In such cases he is concerned with "quickening the sense of the queer," heightening the reader's awareness of the "scarcely perceptible deviation from sense" inherent in the way a certain philosophical question is posed, and with presenting "the meaning of those expressions which are involved in the particular case, and especially those which are relevant to exhibiting not the queerness but the sources, the roots of it". All of these essays are filled with puns, examples, and little stories. Where the latter preponderate the essays read most like traditional philosophy, and are easier to appreciate than the essays in which Bouwsma is content with "teasing the passage [and the reader] with analogies of sense."—T. C. (shrink)

Despite its importance for early analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege's account of existence statements, according to which they classify concepts, has been thought to succumb to a number of well-worn criticisms. This article does two things. First, it argues that, by remaining faithful to the letter of Frege's claim that concepts are functions, the Fregean account can be saved from many of the standard criticisms. Second, it examines the problem that Frege's account fails to generalize to cases which involve definite descriptions (...) and proper names. To deal with this the proffered analysis deviates from the letter of Frege's views, while remaining within its spirit. It proposes, in opposition to Frege, that expressions which grammatically look like singular terms should not always be read as referring to objects, but are sometimes best analysed as indicating functions. (shrink)

Striving to find a simple characterization of the essence of the imagination, philosophers have argued that it consists in the power to call up before the mind mental images, either in recollection and recognition or in fancy. Wittgenstein's interest in the imagination focused upon six interrelated themes. First, the concept of imagination is associated with the concept of a mental image. Second, imagination is connected in various ways with perception. Third, the faculty of imagination is associated with artistic creativity and (...) no less so with intellectual creativity, with originality, insight and deviation from stock solutions to problems. Fourth, 'to imagine' is connected not only with intellectual creativity, but also more generally with thought, conception or supposition. Fifth, 'to imagine' is associated with false belief, mistaken memory and misperception. Finally, the imagination is connected with make‐believe, pretence, play‐acting or idle fancy. The multitude of grammatical similarities between the visual imagination and visual perception is deceptive. (shrink)

English iambic pentameter allows rhythmical deviations that occupy three adjacent metrical positions. These deviations, though metrical, are noticed by the listener or reader. Starting from the first quarter of the 16th century, poets have used rhythmical deviations to emphasize semantically important segments in the line. Such rhythmical deviations have become part of the English poetic traditions. It has turned out that rhythmical deviations used to italicize meaning are filled with recurring rhythmical and grammatical structures and repeated lexicon. M. L. (...) Gasparov used a special term to denote the recurring rhythmicalgrammatical structures: "clichés"; while calling clichés incorporating recurrent lexicon "formulas". I have discovered that formulas are part of the English poetic tradition: the same formulas recur in poetic texts of the 16th–20th cc. They are not plagiarisms, allusions or reminiscences; they are a common basket of goods that belong to all English poets, used by all and owned by none. The recurrent deviations usually occur on metrical positions "weak-strong-weak-strong" and as a rule contain a monosyllabic verbpredicate followed by a monosyllabic grammatical word, an adjectiveattribute and a noun – a direct object to the verb. The recurring lexicon includes verbs of motion, particularly verbs of fast, aggressive motion, an action directed downwards or causing an injury or death, and recurring nouns referring to moving objects or agents. I term such recurring formulas "rhythmical italics". (shrink)

English iambic pentameter allows rhythmical deviations that occupy three (seldom four, more often two) adjacent metrical positions. These deviations, thoughmetrical, are noticed by the listener or reader. Starting from the first quarter of the 16th century, poets (Surrey) have used rhythmical deviations to emphasize (“italicize”) semantically important segments in the line. Such rhythmical deviations have become part of the English poetic traditions. It has turned out that rhythmical deviations used to italicize meaning are filled with recurring rhythmical and grammatical (...) structures and repeated lexicon. M. L. Gasparov used a special term to denote the recurring rhythmical-grammatical structures: “cliches”; while calling cliches incorporating recurrent lexicon “formulas”. I have discovered that formulas are part of the English poetic tradition: the same formulas recur in poetic texts of the 16th–20th cc. They are not plagiarisms, allusionsor reminiscences; they are a common basket of goods that belong to all English poets, used by all and owned by none. The recurrent deviations usually occur on metrical positions “weak-strong-weak-strong” and as a rule contain a monosyllabic (rarely – disyllabic) verb-predicate followed by a monosyllabic grammatical word (e.g. an article), an adjective-attribute and a noun – a direct object to the verb. The recurring lexicon includes verbs of motion, particularly verbs of fast, aggressive motion, an action directed downwards or causing an injury or death, and recurring nouns referring to moving objects or agents (hands, arms, wings; spear, sword). I term such recurring formulas “rhythmical italics”. (shrink)

The importance of this topic is manifested in its highlighting a facet of grammatical opinions in Arabic grammar that some grammarians uniquely held. It also showcases the critical personality that these grammarians possessed, which enabled them to present new views, even if they contradicted the grammatical school to which they belonged. An example of this is Al-Zamakhshari, whose grammatical opinions were recognized by Al-Alawi for their quality and precision, making them worthy of support. This led Al-Alawi to (...) agree with Al-Zamakhshari, even if those opinions contradicted what many grammarians stated. Al-Alawi provided evidence that reinforced these opinions and opposed those who disagreed with them—by weakening or disapproving of them—and justified their incorrectness or deviation from the truth. Therefore, studying this topic in the context of Imam Al-Alawi highlights a part of the Yemeni grammatical heritage and the contribution of Yemeni grammarians to the maturation of Arabic grammar, as the opinions presented by Al-Alawi in agreement with Al-Zamakhshari and his rebuttals to other grammarians represent a rich intellectual resource and a scientific tributary for Arabic grammar. The research on this topic began with an introduction, followed by a prelude, then issues of agreement between Al-Alawi and Al-Zamakhshari, concluding with a conclusion. The introduction included a definition of the topic, its importance, how it is divided, and the methodology used in its study. The prelude addressed the definitions of Imam Al-Alawi and Al-Zamakhshari, as well as the book "Al-Azhar Al-Safiya." Following that were the issues in which Al-Alawi agreed with Al-Zamakhshari, totaling sixteen issues. The methodology used in studying all these issues was a descriptive approach based on tracing the phenomenon in its contexts, gathering, describing, arranging, discussing, and assigning a suitable title to each issue. The conclusion included the most significant findings revealed by the research, among which are: Al-Alawi agreed with Al-Zamakhshari on sixteen points, and he expressed approval for his viewpoint on those points, characterizing it as the most probable, the best, the excellent, the correct, or the most in line with Arabic principles and grammatical parallels. Al-Alawi often justifies the statement he chooses, explaining the reason for choosing it, strengthening it and gathering evidence for it from hearing and analogy, rejecting other statements that oppose it, and explaining their invalidity and the reason for their corruption. (shrink)

The concept of “grammatical sense” could explain semantic complexity without positing a “sense” on the illocutionary level of “communicating something.” In order to assess the aptness of the concept of “grammatical sense” for resolving Dummett's problem, the author offers a rudimentary sketch of a solution based on Wittgenstein's very simple language games. This sketch shows what a systematic treatment of the meaning side of a language would look like once one recognizes the facts of projection and gives up (...) the requirement that forms for forming complexes must always have just one meaning and always lead the hearer to correctly grasp the “thought” expressed by the speaker. The author addresses the question of whether the recognition of projection (syntactic metaphor) and of the other frequent cases of “positive misuse” in natural languages means that our understanding of the meaning side of language is overwhelmingly unsystematic. (shrink)

Grammatical metaphor in M. A. K. Halliday’s sense has long been extensively investigated by researchers in terms of theoretical and empirical studies. Regarding the empirical studies, they have predominantly employed observed or normalized frequencies of grammatical metaphor to uncover its distribution in different text types. Few studies, however, were conducted to quantitatively examine the complexity of grammatical metaphor in that no indicator presently is proposed to measure the degree of complexity in grammatical metaphor. This paper targeted (...) at investigating the feasibility of implementing entropy to measure this complexity. The findings demonstrate that the entropy value could be afforded as an indicator of complexity of grammatical metaphor to efficiently uncover the way that disciplines of different registers build knowledge by means of employing such linguistic features as grammatical metaphor. This research is significant in that it sheds light on the quantitative comparison of complexity of grammatical metaphor in text analysis. (shrink)

In this article, we explore whether cross-linguistic differences in grammatical aspect encoding may give rise to differences in memory and cognition. We compared native speakers of two languages that encode aspect differently (English and Swedish) in four tasks that examined verbal descriptions of stimuli, online triads matching, and memory-based triads matching with and without verbal interference. Results showed between-group differences in verbal descriptions and in memory-based triads matching. However, no differences were found in online triads matching and in memory-based (...) triads matching with verbal interference. These findings need to be interpreted in the context of the overall pattern of performance, which indicated that both groups based their similarity judgments on common perceptual characteristics of motion events. These results show for the first time a cross-linguistic difference in memory as a function of differences in grammatical aspect encoding, but they also contribute to the emerging view that language fine tunes rather than shapes perceptual processes that are likely to be universal and unchanging. (shrink)

This paper develops a semantics with control over scope relations using Vermeulen’s stack valued assignments as information states. This makes available a limited form of scope reuse and name switching. The goal is to have a general system that fixes available scoping effects to those that are characteristic of natural language. The resulting system is called Scope Control Theory, since it provides a theory about what scope has to be like in natural language. The theory is shown to replicate a (...) wide range of grammatical dependencies, including options for, and constraints on, ‘donkey’, ‘binding’, ‘movement’, ‘Control’ and ‘scope marking’ dependencies. (shrink)

Grammatical gender agreement has been well addressed in language comprehension but less so in language production. The present article discusses the arguments derived from the most prominent language production models on the representation and processing of the grammatical gender of nouns in language production and then reviews recent empirical studies that provide some answers to these arguments.

Since the 1990s, grammatical complexity has received substantial research attention in applied linguistics. The representation of grammatical complexity has expanded in L2 writing with the application of diverse measures in empirical studies in the recent three decades. In response to this situation, we found it important to revisit grammatical complexity, and an exploratory factor analysis was applied to explore latent dimensions of grammatical complexity in L2 writing. We analyzed Lu’s 14 grammatical complexity measures in the (...) L2 corpus of the British Academic Written English Corpus. We then proposed a four-factor model with “clausal subordination,” “phrasal construction”, “global length unit” and “others.” The four factors generally align with the types of grammatical complexity proposed in Lu, but differences on six measures are also found. Noteworthy points were discussed to interpret the reasons behind the differences. Research implications are provided to show further research directions. (shrink)

The question of whether humans represent grammatical knowledge as a binary condition on membership in a set of well-formed sentences, or as a probabilistic property has been the subject of debate among linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for many decades. Acceptability judgments present a serious problem for both classical binary and probabilistic theories of grammaticality. These judgements are gradient in nature, and so cannot be directly accommodated in a binary formal grammar. However, it is also not possible to simply (...) reduce acceptability to probability. The acceptability of a sentence is not the same as the likelihood of its occurrence, which is, in part, determined by factors like sentence length and lexical frequency. In this paper, we present the results of a set of large-scale experiments using crowd-sourced acceptability judgments that demonstrate gradience to be a pervasive feature in acceptability judgments. We then show how one can predict acceptability judgments on the basis of probability by augmenting probabilistic language models with an acceptability measure. This is a function that normalizes probability values to eliminate the confounding factors of length and lexical frequency. We describe a sequence of modeling experiments with unsupervised language models drawn from state-of-the-art machine learning methods in natural language processing. Several of these models achieve very encouraging levels of accuracy in the acceptability prediction task, as measured by the correlation between the acceptability measure scores and mean human acceptability values. We consider the relevance of these results to the debate on the nature of grammatical competence, and we argue that they support the view that linguistic knowledge can be intrinsically probabilistic. (shrink)

The unfinished, posthumously published second volume of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason consists for the most part of a study of the evolution of the Soviet Union under the reign of Stalin. Essentially, Sartre sees this history as amounting to a lengthy deviation from the goal of socialism, a deviation that he regards as thoroughly intelligible in light of social and historical circumstances. Some ten years after abandoning his work on this book, on the occasion of the (...) Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Sartre concluded that this ‘deviation’ was permanent. At the same time, Sartre believed, as he had stated already in Volume I of the Critique, that the post-Stalinist era must be characterized as ‘One World’, a historical turning away from the plurality that had prevailed in all of past human history. The present essay attempts to capture Sartre's approach to history as ongoing ‘totalization’ – conflict-filled, subject to contingency and chance and the frequent occurrence of ‘holes’, and nevertheless intelligible. Although Stalin died many decades ago, and the Soviet Union itself no longer exists as such, it is argued here that Sartre's approach in this book is very useful as a key to the present time. Future history is indeed unpredictable, but Sartre's techniques of historical analysis remain valid. It is also contended, more controversially, that today the ideal of democracy may be in the process of following the path of socialism in the direction of permanent deviation. (shrink)

In his discussions on literature, Merleau-Ponty often turns to the notion of deviation as a constitutive principle of literary language. Deviation indicates the capacity of a literary work to transgress against its own limits and to offer an experience of otherness, or alterity. This alterity is not given in the work, but is constituted by the recipient through the more visceral and physical aspects of literary language. The recipient of the work thus adopts a second voice: that of (...) the author or creator of the work, which is absent from the text yet is reconstructed by the reader in a post hoc manner. The analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s ideas is complemented using the aesthetic insights of Paul Valéry, from which the philosopher was greatly inspired. The essay further explores the way in which the notion of literature as deviation illuminates other aspects in Merleau-Ponty’s theory of language.Dans son examen de la littérature, Merleau-Ponty se penche souvent sur la notion d’écart considérée en tant que principe constitutif du langage littéraire. L’écart indique la capacité d’une oeuvre littéraire de dépasser ses propres limites et d’offrir une expérience d’autrui, de l’altérité. Cette altérité n’est pas donnée dans l’oeuvre, mais elle est constituée par le destinataire à travers les aspects les plus viscéraux et les plus physiques du langage littéraire. Le destinataire de l’oeuvre adopte ainsi une deuxième voix : celle de l’auteur ou du créateur de l’oeuvre, qui est absente du texte mais est reconstituée après coup par le lecteur. L’analyse de la réflexion de Merleau-Ponty est complétée à partir des intuitions esthétiques de Paul Valery, dont le philosophe a été largement inspiré. Cet article explore ensuite la manière dont la notion de littérature comme écart nous permet de mettre en lumière d’autres aspects de la théorie du langage de Merleau-Ponty. Nelle sue riflessioni sulla letteratura Merleau-Ponty si rivolge spesso alla nozione di scarto quale principio costitutivo del linguaggio letterario. Lo scarto indica la capacità di un’opera letteraria di oltrepassare i propri limiti, offrendo così l’esperienza di un’alterità. Quest’alterità non si dà nell’opera, ma è costituita dal destinatario attraverso gli aspetti più fisici e viscerali del linguaggio letterario. Così il destinatario dell’opera adotta una seconda voce, quella del creatore o dell’autore, che è assente dal testo e tuttavia è ricostruita dal lettore a posteriori. L’analisi delle riflessioni merleau-pontiane è integrata a partire dalle intuizioni estetiche di Paul Valery, da cui il pensiero del filosofo fu ampiamente ispirato. Il saggio esplora inoltre il modo in cui la nozione di letteratura come scarto ci consenta di illuminare altri aspetti della riflessione merleau-pontiana sul linguaggio. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the relationship between correcting the deviations in the measurement of performance and achieving the objectives of control and the performance of the job at the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to collect information. The questionnaire consisted of (20) statements distributed to three categories of employees of the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). (...) A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 responses were retrieved with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter, process, and analyze the data. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between correcting deviations in performance measurement and achieving the control objectives represented by the functional performance in the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, faculty and their assistants, and the administrative board), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs was (74.25%). The study recommended the need to ensure that the actual performance of the planned performance is matched and decisions are taken to correct the serious deviations and take the necessary measures in terms of retraining and change in regulations, wages and bonuses and punishment of the culprit, neglect and negligence by mistake. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes how the semantic and pragmatic functions of closed class categories, or grammatical morphemes (i.e., inflections and function words), organize discourse processing. Grammatical morphemes tend to express a small set of conceptual distinctions that organize a wide range of objects and relations, usually expressed by content or open class words (i.e., nouns and verbs), into situations anchored to a discourse context. Therefore, grammatical morphemes and content words cooperate in guiding the construction of a situation (...) model during discourse comprehension by specifying complementary aspects of described situations. The paper reviews and extends analytical and empirical evidence for this grammatical‐conceptual correspondence, and suggests that the correspondence developed in response to the cognitive demands of discourse processing. Thus the distinction between open and closed linguistic categories is interpreted in terms of a fundamental correspondence between conceptual and linguistic structure that helps organize discourse processing. (shrink)

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants’ demographic characteristics (such as, the raters’ age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures (...) from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. (shrink)

This article probes into grammatical conformity in Mandarin by examining meiyou, a multifunctional negative form, in question-answer sequences. Using a conversation analysis approach, it discovers that, as a conforming answer to polar questions, meiyou acquiesces to all the terms and constraints of the question and maximizes the progressivity of the sequence. As a non-conforming response to polar questions, it mitigates the disagreement by avoiding a pointed syntactic negation. Meiyou can also respond to Q-word questions, problematizing the inference incorporated in (...) the question. This study not only contributes to the cross-linguistic research on negative particles in talk-in-interaction but also reveals that grammatical conformity is a crucial dimension in Mandarin response design, providing further confirmation of the link between grammar, action, and sequence organization. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is responsible for creating the field of research on grammatical theory in its present form, and he has also been material in providing frameworks for syntactic analysis, from early transformational grammar to current implementations of the minimalist program. Against the background of these syntactic frameworks, a huge number of constraints on grammatical dependencies have been proposed over the years. Constraints initially suggested by Chomsky have a more troubled history, in the sense that they have variously been (...) claimed to be empirically falsified, considered conceptually flawed, or simply consigned to oblivion. This chapter aims to argue that some of the constraints arguably belonging to this latter group can, upon closer scrutiny, in fact be shown to be at the heart of current syntactic theory, and qualify as “good”, whereas this does not necessarily hold for constraints in the former group. (shrink)

In this short introductory article the guest editors discuss the reason for this special issue on Grammatical Thomism. Both parts of ‘grammatical thomism’ receive conceptual clarification. Issues arising out of this are addressed, and a case is made for the ongoing relevance of the grammatical thomist tradition.

We present a series of three analyses of young children's linguistic input to determine the distributional information it could plausibly offer to the process of grammatical category learning. Each analysis was conducted on four separate corpora from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000) of speech directed to children under 2;5. We showthat, in accord with other findings, a distributional analysis which categorizeswords based on their co‐occurrence patterns with surroundingwords successfully categorizes the majority of nouns and verbs. In Analyses 2 and (...) 3, we attempt to make our analyses more closely relevant to natural language acquisition by adopting more realistic assumptions about howyoung children represent their input. In Analysis 2, we limit the distributional context by imposing phrase structure boundaries, and find that categorization improves even beyond that obtained from less limited contexts. In Analysis 3, we reduce the representation of input elements which young children might not fully process and we find that categorization is not adversely affected: Although noun categorization is worse than in Analyses 1 and 2, it is still good; and verb categorization actually improves. Overall, successful categorization of nouns and verbs is maintained across all analyses. These results provide promising support for theories of grammatical category formation involving distributional analysis, as long as these analyses are combined with appropriate assumptions about the child learner's computational biases and capabilities. (shrink)

This paper argues that grammatical constructions, specifically argument structure constructions that determine the “who did what to whom” part of sentence meaning and how this meaning is expressed syntactically, can be considered a kind of relational category. That is, grammatical constructions are represented as the abstraction of the syntactic and semantic relations of the exemplar utterances that are expressed in that construction, and it enables the generation of novel exemplars. To support this argument, I review evidence that there (...) are parallel behavioral patterns between how children learn relational categories generally and how they learn grammatical constructions specifically. Then, I discuss computational simulations of how grammatical constructions are abstracted from exemplar sentences using a domain-general relational cognitive architecture. Last, I review evidence from adult language processing that shows parallel behavioral patterns with expert behavior from other cognitive domains. After reviewing the evidence, I consider how to integrate this account with other theories of language development. (shrink)

In German, nouns are assigned to one of the three gender classes. For most animal names, however, the assignment is independent of the referent’s biological sex. We examined whether German-speaking children understand this independence of grammar from semantics or whether they assume that grammatical gender is mapped onto biological sex when drawing inferences about sex-specific biological properties of animals. Two cross-linguistic studies comparing German-speaking and Japanese-speaking preschoolers were conducted. The results suggest that German-speaking children utilize grammatical gender as (...) a cue for inferences about sex-specific properties of animals. Further, we found that Japanese- and German-speaking children recruit different resources when drawing inferences about sex-specific properties: Whereas Japanese children paralleled their pattern of inference about properties common to all animals, German children relied on the grammatical gender class of the animal. Implications of these findings for studying the relation between language and thought are discussed. (shrink)

This book has become well established as the leading international reference on sexual deviation. The third edition builds on the outstanding success of its predecessors, and offers readable, and the most up-to-date accounts of findings in the clinical, experimental, and academic aspects of all fields dealing with sexual deviation. Throughout the book there is emphasis on clinical treatments, supported by a summary of the latest experimental findings on the biology of sexual behaviour Distinguished practitioners and academic experts discuss (...) the most recent advances in their fields from a psychiatric, legal, psychotherapeutic, and behaviour therapy point of view, particularly in relation to sex offenders. They also cover significant advances in the psychotherapeutic treatment of gender disorders and homosexuality. There is also a new section on child sexual abuse and the resulting effects on adults. Now available in paperback at a low price, the book will remain required reading for all professionals dealing with sexual deviationpsychiatrists, psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, counsellors, forensic psychiatrists, lawyers, magistrates, probation officers, and criminologists. From reviews of the second edition: "Psychoanalysts will doubtless enthuse over this book" "The psychoanalysts have provided one of the few beacons in the otherwise unlit domain of sexual perversions" New England Journal of Medicine Nov. 1979 "All of the chapters were well written" American Journal of Psychiatry Jan. 1980 "Forensic aspects are well covered with an up-to-date account of the British and American Law and a detailed description of the treatment of sex offenders using dynamic psychotherapy. It is a valuable reference book" |s British Journal of Sexual Medicine Vol.7 Oct. 1980, "It is clear that a book which is so varied, so wide in its coverage and which arouses in parts strong agreement and in other parts strong diagreement, merits serious and prolonged study and attention" |s International Journal of Psychoanalysis 1981. (shrink)

Ideal theorists aim to describe the ideally just society. Problem solvers aim to identify concrete changes to actual societies that would make them more just. The relation between these two sorts of theorizing is highly contested. According to the benchmark view, ideal theory is prior to problem solving because a conception of the ideally just society serves as an indispensable benchmark for evaluating societies in terms of how far they deviate from it. In this paper, I clarify the benchmark view, (...) argue that existing criticisms of it are unsuccessful, and develop a novel redundancy objection to the benchmark view and the claim of priority it allegedly entails. I then consider the extent to which ideal theory might facilitate problem solving without being prior to it and argue that it can only play a modest role in this regard. The upshot is that ideal theory is neither required for nor especially relevant to problem solving—but it is not completely irrelevant either. It facilitates problem solving to some limited degree, but no more, say, than theorizing about dystopia. (shrink)

Research on grammatical gender processing has generally assumed that grammatical gender can be treated as a uniform construct, resulting in a body of literature in which different gender classes are collapsed into single analyses. The present work reviews linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic research on grammatical gender from different methodologies and across different profiles of Spanish speakers. Specifically, we examine distributional asymmetries between masculine and feminine grammatical gender, the resulting biases in gender assignment, and the consequences of (...) these assignment strategies on gender expectancy and processing. We discuss the implications of the findings for the design of future gender processing studies and, more broadly, for our understanding of the potential differences in the processing reflexes of grammatical gender classes within and across languages. (shrink)

The Principle of the Common Cause is usually understood to provide causal explanations for probabilistic correlations obtaining between causally unrelated events. In this study, an extended interpretation of the principle is proposed, according to which common causes should be invoked to explain positive correlations whose values depart from the ones that one would expect to obtain in accordance to her probabilistic expectations. In addition, a probabilistic model for common causes is tailored which satisfies the generalized version of the principle, at (...) the same time including the standard conjunctive-fork model as a special case. (shrink)