bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the close relationship between speciation, inbreeding and recessive mutations.
Authors: Joly Etienne
Published: November 2010

Whilst the principle of adaptive evolution is unanimously recognised as being caused by the process of natural selection favouring the survival and/or reproduction of individuals having acquired new advantageous traits, a consensus has proven much harder to find regarding the actual origin of species. Indeed, since speciation corresponds to the establishment of reproductive barriers, it is difficult to see how it could bring a selective advantage because it amounts to a restriction in the opportunities to breed with as many and/or as diverse partners as possible. In this regard, Darwin himself did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, and today most evolutionary biologists still believe that speciation can only occur through a process of separation allowing two populations to diverge sufficiently to become infertile with one another. I do, however, take the view that, if so much speciation has occurred, and still occurs around us, it cannot be a consequence of passive drift but must result from a selection process, whereby it is advantageous for groups of individuals to reproduce preferentially with one another and reduce their breeding with the rest of the population.In this essay, I propose a model whereby new species arise by “budding” from an ancestral stock, via a process of inbreeding among small numbers of individuals, driven by the occurrence of advantageous recessive mutations. Since the phenotypes associated to such mutations can only be retained in the context of inbreeding, it is the pressure of the ancestral stock which will promote additional reproductive barriers, and ultimately result in complete separation of a new species. I thus contend that the phenomenon of speciation would be driven by mutations resulting in the advantageous loss of certain functions, whilst adaptive evolution would correspond to gains of function that would, most of the time be dominant.A very important further advantage of inbreeding is that it reduces the accumulation of recessive mutations in genomes. A consequence of the model proposed is that the existence of species would correspond to a metastable equilibrium between inbreeding and outbreeding, with excessive inbreeding promoting speciation, and excessive outbreeding resulting in irreversible accumulation of recessive mutations that could ultimately only lead to the species extinction.
PPARγ co-activator-1α co-activates steroidogenic factor 1 to stimulate the synthesis of luteinizing hormone and aldosterone
Authors: Zhu Liuluan , Ke Yaojun , Shao Di , Cui Ying , Qiao Aijun , Liu Xiaojun , Fang Fude , Chang Yongsheng
Published: November 2010

The orphan nuclear receptor SF-1 (steroidogenic factor 1) is highly expressed in the pituitary, gonad and adrenal glands and plays key roles at all levels of the hypothalamic–pituitary–steroidogenic tissue axis. In the present study, we show that PGC-1α [PPARγ (peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor γ) co-activator 1α] interacts with and co-activates SF-1 to induce LHβ (luteinizing hormone β) and αGSU (α-glycoprotein subunit) gene expression, subsequently leading to the increased secretion of LH in pituitary gonadotrope-derived αT3-1 cells. PGC-1α co-activation of LHβ expression requires an SF-1-binding element [GSE (gonadotrope-specific element)] mapped to the promoter region of LHβ. Mammalian two-hybrid and co-immunoprecipitation assays, as well as GST (glutathione transferase) pull-down experiments demonstrated that PGC-1α interacts with SF-1 in vivo and in vitro. Additionally, PGC-1α stimulates the expression of Cyp11b2 (aldosterone synthase gene), Cyp11b1 (steroid 11β-hydroxylase gene) and P450scc (cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme), and the synthesis of aldosterone in adrenal-cortex-derived Y-1 cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays confirmed that endogenous PGC-1α co-localizes with SF-1 in the LHβ and Cyp11b2 promoter region. Knockdown of endogenous SF-1 by siRNA (small interfering RNA) abolished the PGC-1α induction of LHβ and Cyp11b2 gene expression in αT3-1 and Y-1 cells respectively. Finally, we demonstrated that PGC-1α induces SF-1 gene expression in both αT3-1 and Y-1 cells. Taken together, our findings reveal the potential role of PGC-1α and suggest that it may play important roles in steroidogenesis, gonad development and sex differentiation through SF-1.
Genetic variation among Stipa grandis P. Smirn populations with different durations of fencing in the Inner Mongolian Steppe
Authors: Wu Jian-bo , Gao Yu-bao , Bao Xiao-ying , Gao Hui , Jia Mei-qing , Li Jie , Zhao Nian-xi
Published: November 2010

The genetic structure of a population should be carefully considered in ecological restoration because it may play a critical role in maintaining the persistence of a restored ecosystem. In the present study, we examined genetic diversity and genetic structure of Stipa grandis P. Smirn populations from fenced and grazed plots using amplified fragment length polymorphism markers. Molecular genetic variation showed that the genetic diversity of the fenced populations was greater compared with the overgrazed population. There was a significant variation among the populations (Fst = 0.3689, P < 0.001) by AMOVA analysis, and the gene flow was 0.4039 among the populations. The results from a comparison of limited morphological characteristics and from an unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean cluster analysis and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling analysis suggested that genetic differentiation had occurred between the fenced populations and the grazed populations. The largest genetic diversity was in the moderately grazed population, which might be related to higher population density and greater sexual reproduction due to less disturbances in the plots. The genetic diversity of the long-term (24 years) fenced population was similar to that of a short-term fenced population (fenced for 11 years). These results suggested that the genetic diversity in the overgrazed population might be increased to some extent through fencing, but this effect did not occur beyond 11 years.
Ecological impacts of buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) invasion in central Australia - does field evidence support a fire-invasion feedback?
Authors: Miller Georgia , Friedel Margaret , Adam Paul , Chewings Vanessa
Published: November 2010

Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) has invaded extensive areas of arid and semi-arid Australia following its introduction as a pasture species and for erosion control. It has been suggested that buffel grass has initiated a positive fire-invasion feedback in central Australia, disrupting existing fire regimes, encouraging further buffel grass invasion, and disadvantaging the native woody flora in particular, but this hypothesis has not been tested quantitatively.
This study investigated recently burnt woodland areas near Alice Springs for evidence of a fire-invasion feedback, including the impact of changing fire behaviour (intensity) on the native woodland overstorey flora. Despite the limitations inherent in a short study of ecological processes in a highly heterogeneous environment, substantial field evidence was found to support the existence of a buffel grass-initiated fire-invasion feedback.
Buffel grass invasion was significantly correlated with increased fuel loads. Increased fuel loads were significantly correlated with increased burn severity, although the direct relationship between the proportion of buffel grass and increased burn severity was marginally non-significant. High field variance resulted in inadequate power to test whether or not the relative abundance of buffel grass had increased in the post-fire community. Burn severity was significantly correlated with the mortality of woodland overstorey species, and with the proportion of fire survivors that were reduced to basal resprouts. Seedling density of canopy species was low. It appears likely that future recruitment of canopy species will be hindered by the dense post-fire reestablishment of buffel grass cover at some sites. The overstorey flora is thus likely to be adversely affected by increased severity of fire associated with buffel grass invasion. As a result, there may be major change in the structure and composition of some woodlands.
Distribution, frequency of occurrence and symbiotic properties of the Australian native legume Trigonella suavissima Lindl. and its associated root-nodule bacteria
Authors: Brockwell J. , Evans Catherine M. , Bowman Alison M. , McInnes Alison
Published: November 2010

Trigonella suavissima Lindl. is an Australian native legume belonging to the tribe Trifolieae. It is an ephemeral species that is widely distributed in the arid interior of the continent where it occurs, following periodic inundation, on clay soils of the watercourse country of the Channel Country (far-western Queensland, north-east South Australia and north-western New South Wales). T. suavissima is the only member of its tribe that is endemic to Australia. Likewise, its root-nodule bacteria (Sinorhizobium sp.) may be the only member of its taxonomic group (S. meliloti, S. medicae) that is an Australian native. The distribution and frequency of occurrence of T. suavissima and the size of soil populations (density) of Sinorhizobium were monitored at 64 locations along inland river systems of the Channel Country. Measurements were made of (i) the nitrogen-fixing effectiveness of the symbioses between T. suavissima and strains of its homologous Sinorhizobium and (ii) the nitrogen-fixing effectiveness of the symbioses between legumes symbiotically related to T. suavissima and diverse strains of Sinorhizobium. It was concluded that the distribution and frequency of occurrence of T. suavissima is soil related. The species is most widespread on fine-textured clay soils with deep, self-mulching surfaces and high moisture-holding capacity. By contrast, the occurrence of T. suavissima is sporadic in the upper reaches of the inland river systems where the soils are poorly structured clays with lower moisture-holding capacity. Sinorhizobium is most abundant where the plant is most common. The nitrogen-fixing symbioses between T. suavissima and strains of Sinorhizobium isolated from soils across the region were consistently effective and often highly effective. Some of these strains fixed a little nitrogen with lucerne (Medicago sativa L.). T. suavissima also had some symbiotic (nitrogen-fixing) affinity with an exotic Trigonella (T. arabica Del.). The economic value of T. suavissima (and its symbiosis with Sinorhizobium) to the beef industry in the Channel Country is discussed.
African Areal Characteristics
Authors: Gilman Charles
Published: November 2010

Two arguments against the influence of African languages as an explanation for the typological similarities among the Afro-European Pidgins and Creoles have been the variety of the African languages and the unlikelihood that a single substrate language would have contributed the same feature to so many different languages, each with its own history. It is demonstrated that many of the features widespread among Afro-European languages are equally widespread among African languages, regardless of their genetic affiliations. They are thus legitimately regarded as at the same time African and Atlantic Creole areal features. They encompass the local varieties and require no single substrate or group of substrates to explain their appearance among Afro-European languages. The large number of examples and their wide geographical extension is evidence for the validity of the areal explanation. It is expected that further research will increase the number of examples, as well as demonstrate their even greater frequency among African languages. Universal and genetic explanations of resemblance should be supplemented by the areal hypothesis, which explains African influence as resulting from very common and widely distributed features, rather than to a single substrate language or group of languages.
Anthony R. Davis
Authors: Davis Anthony R.
Published: November 2010

Bickerton (1984a) is a recent exposition of the language bioprogram hypothesis (henceforth LBH), which seeks to account for similarities in Creole grammars in "the structure of a species-specific program for language" that is relatively unaffected by input from pre-existing languages. The validity of this claim depends on both the circumstances of creole origins and the nature of the putative similarities, and on both counts the LBH has been attacked. My purpose here is to examine these two issues and to suggest briefly some areas in which the LBH might be tested or expanded.
Penny Cuts
Authors: Winer Lise S.
Published: November 2010

From 1904 to 1906 a series of linked vernacular texts — purportedly written by Trinidadians and other West Indians, including Barbadians — appeared in the Trinidadian newspaper Penny Cuts. Trinidadian English Creole (TEC), a fundamentally stable and clearly creole language throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, included several varieties, containing more and less English influence. The texts appear linguistically reliable, and show that by this time, TEC was recognizably different from other creole varieties. This differentiation is held to be closely related to the contemporary social situation, reflecting a nationalist/nativist movement towards self-identification.
Varilingualism
Authors: Youssef Valerie
Published: November 2010

There is a need for a label which will adequately describe the communicative competence acquired by speakers who learn to mix their codes in speech communities like those of Trinidad and Tobago. They mix according to community-based parameters for use of the codes in contact and according to their relative exposure to different admixtures of those codes. In a situation of leaking diglossia, the stylistic and social dimensions of code-mixing are blurred by shifts in the values set by these parameters, but code-mixing continues to be stylistically motivated, and varilingualism is posited as a useful term for the competence underlying it. It is in some ways comparable with the competence of bilinguals and multilinguals who mix their codes regularly in interaction with each other, but there are some differences in the relationship between the contact codes and the socio-linguistic milieux in which they are used, which affect, in particular, the structural constraints on language use. It lies, in effect, between mono-lingualism and bi/multilingualism. Varilingualism is shown to cover three main types of competence and to apply prototypically to situations in which the contact codes share a major part of their lexicons and converge in grammar.
Gender Agreement as a "Decreolizing" Feature of an Afro-Brazilian Dialect
Authors: Baxter Alan N. , Lucchesi Dante , Guimaraes Maximiliano
Published: November 2010

This paper examines variation in the noun phrase gender agreement rule in the Afro-Brazilian Portuguese dialect of Helvétia. The analysis of the variation proceeds within a quantitative framework; it considers structural implications, in generative terms, and sociolinguistic aspects, yielding evidence relevant to the definition of the postcreole nature of the dialect. Structural parallels are found with Portuguese L1 acquisition and with varieties of creole Portuguese, and the relationship of the Helvétia dialect to more standard varieties of Brazilian Portuguese is clarified. An evaluation of structural variables reveals how the gender agreement rule is being incorporated into the grammar of the dialect at different rates along different structural paths and in different pragmatic functions, reflecting intricacies of the grammar associated with the noun. Finally, a scrutiny of the effect of extralinguistic variables on gender agreement clearly reveals the acquisitional nature of the variation.
Predicative Constructions and Functional Categories in Haitian Creole
Authors: Déprez Viviane , Vinet Marie-Thérèse
Published: November 2010

This paper seeks to provide a unified analysis of the particle se in Haitian Creole, traditionally identified as an equality marker, a resumptive pronoun, or a focus marker. This study also serves to illustrate the role and the structural organization of functional projections in this non-inflected language. Under the proposed analysis, se (as well as ye, which has long been recognized as bearing a relation to se) is not a verbal copula; rather, it is a predicate forming aspectual head. A unified analysis based on general principles of UG is offered for se, appearing in predicative sentences, in nominal clefts, and in predicate cleft constructions. It is argued that in all these contexts, se always occurs with DP predicates or predicates headed by a functional head, such as CP predicates, not with any other type of predicates.
Property Items and Predication in Sranan
Authors: Winford Donald
Published: November 2010

This paper revisits the long-standing controversy over whether so-called predicate adjectives like bigi 'big', bradi 'wide', etc. in Sranan (and other creoles) are truly adjectives or a subclass of verb. Using a variety of diagnostics, it concludes that such items are in fact verbal in their predicative function. Moreover, it argues that such items are best referred to as "property items" which display flexible categoriality, behaving like intransitive as well as transitive verbs, and also as adjectives which can either modify nouns or head adjectival phrases of degree. So-called predicate adjective structures in Sranan fall into two categories — those where property items function as intransitive verbs, and those involving predicate phrases in which the copula de precedes either adjectival phrases of degree or true adjectives, including those derived via reduplication from property items and others imported from Dutch. These conclusions apply more specifically to the variety of Sranan spoken as a native language by the majority of the African-descended population of Suriname. Another dialect of Sranan, associated primarily with non-native speakers, appears to treat property items in their predicative function as adjectives rather than verbs.
Pidgin Ngarluma
Authors: Dench Alan
Published: November 2010

This paper discusses evidence of an early pidgin in use amongst Aboriginal people of the north west coast of Western Australia. The crucial evidence comes from an Italian manuscript describing the rescue, by local Aborigines, of two castaways wrecked on North West Cape in 1875. The data reveals that the local Aborigines attempted to communicate with the Italian-speaking survivors using what appears to be an Australian language spoken some 300 kilometers further along the coast, around the emerging center of the new Pilbara pearling industry. I present an analysis of the material, showing that it differs from Australian languages of the area in significant ways and can be considered a reduced variety. I conclude that this variety is an indigenous pidgin — the first to be described for Australia.
A Sociohistoric Examination of Afrogenesis
Authors: Bickerton Derek
Published: November 2010

Afrogenesis is taken here to mean the belief that the English-based Atlantic creole languages originated on the West Coast of Africa. This paper shows that Afrogenesis, originally proposed in work by Hancock and by Smith, and now given a new lease on life by McWhorter, is at best highly dubious. The same is true of any single-source, diffusionist account of the similarities between the English-based creoles.
The Role of Relexification in Creole Genesis
Authors: Lumsden John S.
Published: November 2010

This article describes the research program of Lefebvre, Lumsden, and their associates concerning the hypothesis that relexification plays a central role in creole genesis. The methodology of the program is presented along with a brief illustration of the data that has been used to test the hypothesis. A final section discusses the gratuitous attack on this program published in Singler (1996). On inspection, it turns out that some of Singler's objections are so vague as to be incoherent. Others are shown to derive from his unfortunate propensity to attribute "claims" to Lefebvre and Lumsden's research that are not made by the authors themselves and from his insistence that this research in particular should meet methodological standards that are obviously unreasonable. In fact, there is solid support for the hypothesis that relexification plays a central role in the genesis of creole languages.
Pidgin Origins Reconsidered
Authors: Goodman Morris
Published: November 2010

This article critically reexamines Naro's (1978) account of the origin of Pidgin Portuguese in the 15th century. His claim that the pidgin originated in Portugal and was created by the Portuguese themselves is shown to rest on a number of serious errors, oversights, and misinterpretations with respect both to the historical background and to the Portuguese literary texts of the period which depict the speech of Africans and other foreigners as well as the speech of Portuguese to them. Naro's explanation of the process of pidginization, the so-called "factorization principle," is also reexamined and an attempt is made to look at all factors which might have played a role.
Thematic Participants in a Kriol Story
Authors: Graber Philip L.
Published: November 2010

Working on the assumption that meaningful choices made by a speaker are realized by linguistic devices in a text, this paper proceeds from an interpretation of a Kriol story to a partial explanation of that interpretation. The three parts of the article are divided as follows: part 1 outlines the contents of the story; part 2 examines the introduction of the main characters with the use of the near form of the demonstrative; part 3 looks at how the major participants are staged. The focus is on topicalization and on how the use of this and other devices contributes to the overall structure of the story.
Mauritian Creole Reflexives
Authors: Corne Chris
Published: November 2010

In the process of pidginization and creolization that occurred in the 18th century, Mauritian Creole (Mau) did not retain the atonic clitics of French. In consequence, morphologically marked reflexives were lost, or paraphrased in various ways using especially the lexical item lekor 'body'. Where French uses a tonic pronoun (in the imperative), early Mau retained the structure. Continuing French semantactic influence reintroduced pronouns (derived from French tonic pronouns), at least in the usage of writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in modern times, due to an evolving society, in the usual speech of increasing numbers of speakers. The result, i.e., the use of unmarked object pronouns to handle reflexivity, is typolog-ically a rather unusual pattern.
Nigerian Pidgin and the Languages of Southern Nigeria
Authors: Faraclas Nicholas
Published: November 2010

Although several linguists have noted the similarities between the Atlantic Creoles and West African languages, none has systematically compared the structures of a geographically and genetically balanced sample of West African languages with a creolized language of the Atlantic Basin. This study examines the structural similarities between Nigerian Pidgin and all of the languages of southern Nigeria for which fairly comprehensive descriptions have been written to date. The results show that linguistic work on West African languages has progressed to the point where claims regarding the influence of these languages on Atlantic Creoles can be substantiated with concrete evidence from a truly representative sample of languages.
Morphological Processes in Haitian Creole
Authors: Brousseau Anne-Marie , Filipovich Sandra , Lefebvre Claire
Published: November 2010

In this paper we examine the morphology of Haitian with respect to two issues widely discussed in the literature on creoles: 1) the substratum issue, formulated in our view in terms of the role played by relexification in the formation of Haitian Creole; and 2) the widespread assumption that creole languages are morphologically simpler than their lexifier language. These two issues are not unrelated. The morphological simplicity assumption is based on a comparison of creole with European languages that have contributed the bulk of their respective lexicons.
In order to discuss the two issues, we will compare the productive morphology of Haitian with that of French (the lexifier language), and Fon, a contributive West African language. The major findings of this paper with respect to the issues addressed here are the following: 1) productive affixes of Haitian Creole pattern in a significant way with the model of contributing West African languages more so than with French; and 2) the presumed morphological simplicity of creoles reduces to the selection of the unmarked option with respect to the position of morphological heads.
Where there is a Message there is a Way
Authors: van Putte Florimon C.M. , García Erica C.
Published: November 2010

The present article analyzes the optional occurrence of KU (versus NULL) introducing complement sentences in Papiamentu. It is claimed that the choice between an overt connecting element or NULL is neither syntactically dependent nor arbitrary, but, rather, is independent and communicatively motivated. The difference between the presence versus absence of linguistic material is exploited to suggest the conceptual distance between (or closeness of, respectively) the events introduced in the complementizing and complement clauses. This analysis is supported by quantitative and qualitative data concerning the distribution of KU and NULL in relation to the lexical type of the complementizing verb.
Copula Variability, Accountability, And the Concept of "Polylectal" Grammars
Authors: Winford Donald
Published: November 2010

This paper examines variation in the use of copula forms and copulative structures in the Guyanese Creole (GC) continuum. A previous analysis by Bickerton (1973a, 1973b), who presented a polylectal grammar based on implicational relationships in the introduction and use of copular be, is examined in light of Labov's "principle of accountability." The primary focus of the paper is on so-called "predicate adjective" structures in basilectal GC (dipikni bin sik; dipikni a sik; dipikni go sik, and so forth) and their counterparts in the lower and mid-to-upper mesolects of the continuum {dipikni did sik; dipikni doz (bii) sik; dipikni go (bii) sik, etc.). It is argued that the range of contexts relevant to the analysis of copula variability in these structures is far wider than B's analysis accounted for. Moreover, there are substantial differences between basilectal and mesolectal varieties in phrase structure and in the organization of tense-aspect oppositions — differences overlooked in B's earlier treatment. As a result of these limitations, B's polylectal grammar provides an incomplete picture of the patterns of variation in these structures, and of the grammatical systems underlying them. The paper concludes that the claim that a polylectal grammar represents the workings of a unified system is not borne out by the evidence presented here. While an implicational scale may provide useful insight into patterns of variation and change in créole continua, the information contained in it cannot be translated directly into a synchronic grammar.
Determining Noun Phrases in Tok Pisin
Authors: Sankoff Gillian , Mazzie Claudia
Published: November 2010

It is well known that since neither the inflectional morphemes nor most of the closed-class items of the lexifier language survive in pidgins, grammatical distinctions are not obligatorily marked. We thus find a large number of unmodified nouns and verbs. As pidgins are elaborated, processes of grammaticalization work to regularize the marking of grammatical categories and relations, and to increase redundancy overall. This paper considers the grammaticalization of determiners in Tok Pisin, looking at the extent to which the semantic features of specificity and definiteness are sufficient to explain the distributions we find in texts both from contemporary fluent second-language and creole speakers, and from earlier stages of the language. We suggest that the semantic feature of inalienability, marked in the grammars of many substrate languages, also plays an important role in determining Tok Pisin noun phrases.
On the Argument Structure of Certain Haitian Predicates - Rete, To Remain', Posib 'Possible'
Authors: Lumsden John S.
Published: November 2010

The paper presents a systematic description of rete and posib, including some patterns which have not been discussed before in the literature. The account confirms that these predicates do not provide examples of subject-to-subject raising constructions. A lexical subject with rete or posib is always assigned a theta-role by that predicate. The analysis provides a unified lexical representation of each predicate without resort to double lexical entries to represent different syntactic patterns which are phonolog-ically and semantically identical. The syntactic properties of these predicates are essentially parallel, with the basic exception of the distinction that rete is a Case assigner, but posib is not. Additionally, it is argued that rete requires an overt specification of the location or time of the event which it describes, but posib has no such requirement.
Copula Deletion in Spanish Foreigner Talk
Authors: Thompson Roger M.
Published: November 2010

Questionnaires were used to discover how twenty-eight students from Peru, Colombia, and Guatemala use the Spanish copulas ser and estar in foreigner talk. Ser usually was deleted but not estar when used as a locative or when discussing health. A multiple choice situational questionnaire was found to reflect actual use more accurately than one where respondents write what they think they would say. The pattern of deletion suggests that creolists should look at the role of "canned topics" in the development of the bipartite and tripartite copulas found in Pacific and Afro-Caribbean English Pidgins and Creoles.
Negation in Palenquero
Authors: Schwegler Armin
Published: November 2010

A conspicuous feature of Palenquero (P) morphosyntax is the unusual, though by no means unique, often clause-final or sentence-final placement of the predicate negator nu 'not', e.g., i [NU] kelé bae aya NU 'I don't want to go there'. Previous descriptions, often cited in the literature, present oversimplified (and, therefore, misleading) accounts of the data. This paper attempts to rectify the descriptions found in Bickerton & Escalante [B&E] (1970), Lewis (1970), Friedemann & Patino Rosselli [F&P] (1983), and Megenney (1986).
Based on an extensive corpus of informal spoken data, it is demonstrated that Palenqueros (Ps) systematically use not one but two basic creole negation patterns — preverbal and postverbal nu — and that the selection of construction signals important discourse pragmatic information. The study goes beyond earlier accounts by providing evidence that the syntax of postverbal nu is not, as generally claimed, utterance-final. The frequent placement of this negator at the end of a clause or sentence depends rather on the absence of constructions which occur infrequently. Such facts, together with the argument that a preverbal negation strategy cannot be viewed as a simple case of interference from Spanish (S), show that, contrary to the opinion of previous investigators, P negation exhibits virtually no signs of decreolization.
The Expansion of Melanesian Pidgin
Authors: Keesing Roger M.
Published: November 2010

A substantial pidgin text recorded in the western Solomons in 1893 is analyzed and placed in historical context. Showing complex syntactic pat-terns, the text is strikingly similar to twentieth century Solomons Pijin. It corresponds closely to an earlier text from the same area and to contem-poraneous texts from New Guinea, lending support to arguments for an early expansion of pidgin and for a monolectal origin for modern Melane-sian Pidgin dialects. The text, including hem i sequences and the "predi-cate marker" i, attests to the early development of an Oceanic pronominal pattern in the Solomons.
The Function of I in Tok Pisin
Authors: Verhaar John W.M.
Published: November 2010

The use of the Tok Pisin particle i, traditionally known as the "predicate marker," is shown to be overwhelmingly subject to two constraints, i.e., that of "nondeictic" use (as controlled by subject arguments), and that of "resumptive" use, with the latter sometimes overriding the former. Here, nondeictic means any nonpronominal or pronominal nonfirst and nonsecond person NP. The hypothesis concerning the first constraint seems weakened by apparent counterevidence in the use of i as triggered by -pela pronouns, by the failure of prima facie nondeictic subjects in equa-tional constructions to trigger the use of i, and by the use of i with follow-up verbs in serial constructions and with downstairs verbs in causative constructions. However, all these apparent exceptions are shown either to serve primarily resumptive rules or to be in fact compatible with the non-deixis rule. A corollary reviews openness of i to reanalysis as a copula.
Ethnographic Evidence of the Social Meaning of Fanakalo in South Africa
Authors: Adendorff Ralph D.
Published: November 2010

The social meaning of Fanakalo (F) and the social motivation for using it in South Africa are the focus of this article. Ethnographic evidence assembled from a range of written sources reveals that largely unfavorable connotations are associated with F. On the strength of this data, the contextual characteristics of the use of F as an unmarked (or preferred) choice are described. It is shown that F is restricted to work (that is, to non-affective domains) and is used in interactions where there is an asymmetrical role and power relationship between the participants (best described as master-servant). Furthermore, F is negatively evaluated by Blacks, who are always the less powerful participants.
Also considered is oral ethnographic data, in the form of spontaneous, naturally-occurring interpersonal exchanges and self-reports on why people use F. Examination of this data shows that in marked settings, F is exploited as a conversational resource between South Africans, whether Black or White. It is shown that in marked settings F is a marker of solidarity, whereas in unmarked settings use of the language connotes power and domination.
Pere Pionnier and Late Nineteenth-Century Bislama
Authors: Crowley Terry
Published: November 2010

Recent years have seen the questioning of a number of widely held views about the early development of Melanesian Pidgin, with some writers debating Mühlhäusler's claim that many of the characteristic features of modern Tok Pisin represent later, twentieth-century, innovations, rather than retentions from what others would argue was a more modern-looking Melanesian Pidgin spoken in the late nineteenth century. This paper argues in support of the contention that many of the lexical and grammatical features that today seem to suggest that Tok Pisin has innovated relatively recently are in fact older retentions, and that these features were recorded in an important grammatical sketch of Bislama published by Père Pionnier in 1913 on the basis of information that he gathered in the 1890s in Vanuatu.
Possession
Authors: Lumsden John S.
Published: November 2010

This paper compares the notion of "possession" as it is expressed in the verbs of Haitian Creole, French, and Fongbe (a West African language of the Kwa family). It is argued that the notion of possession in verbal semantics is best represented as an implicit argument, i.e., an argument that is present in the semantic representation, but not in the syntax. The implicit argument [POSSESSION] is ambiguous, allowing it to be manifested in the syntactic representation in different ways. The properties of the creole verbs are consistently parallel with those of the Fongbe verbs, and they are often in contrast with the properties of the French verbs. Since French and Fongbe are among the historical sources of Haitian Creole (Lefebvre & Lumsden 1989), these patterns have consequence for the evaluation of theories of creole genesis.
A Survey of the Linguistic Preferences of Cameroon Pidgin English Speakers
Authors: Wilt Timothy Lloyd
Published: November 2010

Pidgin English speakers from five major towns in Anglophone Cameroon were asked to indicate their preferences for linguistic variants of variables whose use in written literature had proven problematic. The relationship between the scores and speakers' mother tongue, age, sex, educational background, and geographical location was considered, with particular interest in choices made when one variant was closer to standard Cameroon English than another. Test results indicate, among other things, that students' preference for variants closer to standard English gives way to favorisation of mesolectal forms after their studies; this contributes to the basic stability of Cameroon Pidgin English (PE), in spite of the ever-increasing acquisition of standard English (SE). It is suggested that, in making decisions for written literature, lexical items generally should be chosen at the mesolectal level, but that the orthography should reflect phonological variants closer to SE.
Expressiveness in Contact Situations
Authors: Childs G. Tucker
Published: November 2010

Typically not the focus of linguistic analysis, the expressive function nonetheless represents a core linguistic behavior. Throughout Africa, ideo-phones robustly manifest that function. When adult speakers learn and begin to use a second language, particularly in contact situations with limited L2 input, they often draw on structures and resources from L1. These facts suggest that when languages with ideophones serve as the substrate for a contact language, ideophones will be found in that new language, as is the case for, e.g., Krioulo (Guinea Bissau), Krio (Sierra Leone), and Liberian English. Yet, not all African contact languages possess ideophones. This paper characterizes the distribution of ideophones in pidgins, Creoles, and other contact varieties.
Relativization and Thematization in Tayo and the Implications for Creole Genesis
Authors: Corne Chris
Published: November 2010

Relative clauses in Tayo, the French-lexicon Creole of St-Louis (New Caledonia) which emerged in the late 19th century, reflect in their construction and their distribution typically Melanesian patterns, including a sub-ordinator derived from a personal pronoun, sa. Thematization similarly reflects Melanesian strategies, but may also be handled by clefting using a subordinator ki (< French qui). While this construction shows how the lexifier may be modifying Tayo, the emergence of a complex system of relativization and thematization, over three generations after the settlement of St-Louis in 1860, shows that French was not the "motor" of creolization, and suggests that creolization is, in effect, a special case of language shift and creation over some 50 or so years.
The Locative Alternation
Authors: Laffut An
Published: November 2010

In this paper, I elaborate a 'lexicogrammatical approach to the locative alternation in Dutch and English, in which the semantics of the constructions is related directly to the semantic features of their verbs. First I take stock of the different verb classes associated with one or both variants in Dutch and English. Whereas both the spray and the load-classes alternate in English, only the spray-verbs do so in Dutch. However, the alternating spray-class is much more extended in Dutch, which I then argue is partly due to the use of the prefix be- in Dutch in one of the variants. Be-, I show, has an applicative meaning, and is used to bring out the correspondence between Patients designating a surface and the locative Process. When they are not prefixed by ht-, these verbs have a primarily dispersive meaning, which tends to collocate with the Patient designating the substance.
Non-agentive Deverbal -er Nominalization in English and Dutch
Authors: Heyvaert Liesbet
Published: November 2010

This paper deals with non-agentive deverbal -er nominals in English and Dutch. It attempts to provide a grammatico-semantic explanation for the extension of agentive to non-agentive -er, and argues that the profile of the -er suffix, irrespective of whether it is agentive or non-agentive, is comparable to that of the subject-Junction of a clausal structure. More particularly, some clausal structures are discussed which show a high number of structural and semantic correspondences with non-agentive -er nominals. Whereas in English, the most important clausal agnate turns out to be the middle construction (e.g. this book reads easily), Dutch non-agentive -er nominals are shown to agnate with various structures, notably middle formation: especially the occurrence of intransitive or 'circumstantial' middles (e.g. asfalt fietst prettiger dan grind 'asphalt cycles better than gravel'), and the frequent use of 'let'-constructions in contexts where English would use a middle (e.g. dat boek laat zich makkelijk lezen [that book lets itself easily read], i.e. that book reads easily) offer evidence of the Dutch potential to construe non-agentive entities as subjects. Throughout the discussion, the clauses and -er nominals under scrutiny are illustrated by extracts from the COBUILD corpus and the Dutch INL corpus.
Transfer of calibration in dynamic touch: What do perceivers learn when they learn about length of a wielded object?
Authors: Wagman Jeffrey B. , Van Norman Ethan R.
Published: November 2010

Successfully performing everyday behaviours requires that perceptions and actions are properly calibrated to environmental properties. In three experiments, the authors tested whether calibration was specific to perception of a particular property of a wielded object from a particular grasp position on that object. The experiments investigate whether transfer of recalibration occurs across changes in grasp position (Experiment 1), object property (Experiment 2), and grasp position and object property (Experiment 3). The results suggest that a complete transfer of recalibration occurred in each case. Such results are consistent with recent research on dynamic touch and suggest that rather than recalibrating participants to one particular property of the wielded objects, feedback about a particular property served to recalibrate participants to the properties of the rod set as a whole.
ERK1/2 MAP kinases promote cell cycle entry by rapid, kinase-independent disruption of retinoblastoma–lamin A complexes
Authors: Rodríguez Javier , Calvo Fernando , González José M. , Casar Berta , Andrés Vicente , Crespo Piero
Published: November 2010

As orchestrators of essential cellular processes like proliferation, ERK1/2 mitogen-activated protein kinase signals impact on cell cycle regulation. A-type lamins are major constituents of the nuclear matrix that also control the cell cycle machinery by largely unknown mechanisms. In this paper, we disclose a functional liaison between ERK1/2 and lamin A whereby cell cycle progression is regulated. We demonstrate that lamin A serves as a mutually exclusive dock for ERK1/2 and the retinoblastoma (Rb) protein. Our results reveal that, immediately after their postactivation entrance in the nucleus, ERK1/2 dislodge Rb from its interaction with lamin A, thereby facilitating its rapid phosphorylation and consequently promoting E2F activation and cell cycle entry. Interestingly, these effects are independent of ERK1/2 kinase activity. We also show that cellular transformation and tumor cell proliferation are dependent on the balance between lamin A and nuclear ERK1/2 levels, which determines Rb accessibility for phosphorylation/inactivation.
Mitochondrial membrane potential regulates PINK1 import and proteolytic destabilization by PARL
Authors: Jin Seok Min , Lazarou Michael , Wang Chunxin , Kane Lesley A. , Narendra Derek P. , Youle Richard J.
Published: November 2010

PINK1 is a mitochondrial kinase mutated in some familial cases of Parkinson’s disease. It has been found to work in the same pathway as the E3 ligase Parkin in the maintenance of flight muscles and dopaminergic neurons in Drosophila melanogaster and to recruit cytosolic Parkin to mitochondria to mediate mitophagy in mammalian cells. Although PINK1 has a predicted mitochondrial import sequence, its cellular and submitochondrial localization remains unclear in part because it is rapidly degraded. In this study, we report that the mitochondrial inner membrane rhomboid protease presenilin-associated rhomboid-like protein (PARL) mediates cleavage of PINK1 dependent on mitochondrial membrane potential. In the absence of PARL, the constitutive degradation of PINK1 is inhibited, stabilizing a 60-kD form inside mitochondria. When mitochondrial membrane potential is dissipated, PINK1 accumulates as a 63-kD full-length form on the outer mitochondrial membrane, where it can recruit Parkin to impaired mitochondria. Thus, differential localization to the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes appears to regulate PINK1 stability and function.
Protein kinase A–induced myofilament desensitization to Ca2+ as a result of phosphorylation of cardiac myosin–binding protein C
Authors: Chen Peter P. , Patel Jitandrakumar R. , Rybakova Inna N. , Walker Jeffery W. , Moss Richard L.
Published: November 2010

In skinned myocardium, cyclic AMP–dependent protein kinase A (PKA)-catalyzed phosphorylation of cardiac myosin–binding protein C (cMyBP-C) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) is associated with a reduction in the Ca2+ responsiveness of myofilaments and an acceleration in the kinetics of cross-bridge cycling, although the respective contribution of these two proteins remains controversial. To further examine the relative roles that cTnI and cMyBP-C phosphorylation play in altering myocardial function, we determined the Ca2+ sensitivity of force (pCa50) and the activation dependence of the rate of force redevelopment (ktr) in control and PKA-treated mouse myocardium (isolated in the presence of 2,3-butanedione monoxime) expressing: (a) phosphorylatable cTnI and cMyBP-C (wild type [WT]), (b) phosphorylatable cTnI on a cMyBP-C–null background (cMyBP-C−/−), (c) nonphosphorylatable cTnI with serines23/24/43/45 and threonine144 mutated to alanines (cTnIAla5), and (d) nonphosphorylatable cTnI on a cMyBP-C–null background (cTnIAla5/cMyBP-C−/−). Here, PKA treatment decreased pCa50 in WT, cTnIAla5, and cMyBP-C−/− myocardium by 0.13, 0.08, and 0.09 pCa units, respectively, but had no effect in cTnIAla5/cMyBP-C−/− myocardium. In WT and cTnIAla5 myocardium, PKA treatment also increased ktr at submaximal levels of activation; however, PKA treatment did not have an effect on ktr in cMyBP-C−/− or cTnIAla5/cMyBP-C−/− myocardium. In addition, reconstitution of cTnIAla5/cMyBP-C−/− myocardium with recombinant cMyBP-C restored the effects of PKA treatment on pCa50 and ktr reported in cTnIAla5 myocardium. Collectively, these results indicate that the attenuation in myofilament force response to PKA occurs as a result of both cTnI and cMyBP-C phosphorylation, and that the reduction in pCa50 mediated by cMyBP-C phosphorylation most likely arises from an accelerated cross-bridge cycling kinetics partly as a result of an increased rate constant of cross-bridge detachment.
Large microwave tunability of GaAs-based multiferroic heterostructure for applications in monolithic microwave integrated circuits
Authors: Chen Yajie , Gao Jinsheng , Heiman D , Vittoria C , Harris V G
Published: November 2010

Microwave magnetoelectric coupling in a ferroelectric/ferromagnetic/semiconductor multiferroic (MF) heterostructure, consisting of a Co2MnAl epitaxial film grown on a GaAs substrate bonded to a lead magnesium niobate–lead titanate (PMN-PT) crystal, is reported. Ferromagnetic resonance measurements were carried out at X-band under the application of electric fields. Results indicate a frequency tuning of 125 MHz for electric field strength of 8 kV cm−1 resulting in a magnetoelectric coupling coefficient of 3.4 Oe cm kV−1. This work explores the potential of electronically controlled MF devices for use in future monolithic microwave integrated circuits.