bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lipid packing drives the segregation of transmembrane helices into disordered lipid domains in model membranes
Authors: Schäfer Lars V. , de Jong Djurre H. , Holt Andrea , Rzepiela Andrzej J. , de Vries Alex H. , Poolman Bert , Killian J. Antoinette , Marrink Siewert J.
Published: January 2011

Cell membranes are comprised of multicomponent lipid and protein mixtures that exhibit a complex partitioning behavior. Regions of structural and compositional heterogeneity play a major role in the sorting and self-assembly of proteins, and their clustering into higher-order oligomers. Here, we use computer simulations and optical microscopy to study the sorting of transmembrane helices into the liquid-disordered domains of phase-separated model membranes, irrespective of peptide–lipid hydrophobic mismatch. Free energy calculations show that the enthalpic contribution due to the packing of the lipids drives the lateral sorting of the helices. Hydrophobic mismatch regulates the clustering into either small dynamic or large static aggregates. These results reveal important molecular driving forces for the lateral organization and self-assembly of transmembrane helices in heterogeneous model membranes, with implications for the formation of functional protein complexes in real cells.
Conformation of peptides bound to the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP)
Authors: Herget Meike , Baldauf Christoph , Schölz Christian , Parcej David , Wiesmüller Karl-Heinz , Tampé Robert , Abele Rupert , Bordignon Enrica
Published: January 2011

The ATP-binding cassette transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) plays a key role in the adaptive immune defense against infected or malignantly transformed cells by translocating proteasomal degradation products into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum for loading onto MHC class I molecules. The broad substrate spectrum of TAP, rendering peptides from 8 to 40 residues, including even branched or modified molecules, suggests an unforeseen structural flexibility of the substrate-binding pocket. Here we used EPR spectroscopy to reveal conformational details of the bound peptides. Side-chain dynamics and environmental polarity were derived from covalently attached 2,2,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidine-1-oxyl spin probes, whereas 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl-4-amino-4-carboxylic acid spin-labeled peptides were used to detect backbone properties. Dependent on the spin probe’s position, striking differences in affinity, dynamics, and polarity were found. The side-chains’ mobility was strongly restricted at the ends of the peptide, whereas the central region was flexible, suggesting a central peptide bulge. In the end, double electron electron resonance allowed the determination of intrapeptide distances in doubly labeled peptides bound to TAP. Simulations based on a rotamer library led to the conclusion that peptides bind to TAP in an extended kinked structure, analogous to those bound to MHC class I proteins.
Natural tri- to hexapeptides self-assemble in water to amyloid β-type fiber aggregates by unexpected α-helical intermediate structures
Authors: Hauser Charlotte A. E. , Deng Rensheng , Mishra Archana , Loo Yihua , Khoe Ulung , Zhuang Furen , Cheong Daniel W. , Accardo Angelo , Sullivan Michael B. , Riekel Christian , Ying Jackie Y. , Hauser Ulrich A.
Published: January 2011

Many fatal neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, the prion-related diseases, and non-neurodegenerative disorders such as type II diabetes are characterized by abnormal amyloid fiber aggregates, suggesting a common mechanism of pathogenesis. We have discovered that a class of systematically designed natural tri- to hexapeptides with a characteristic sequential motif can simulate the process of fiber assembly and further condensation to amyloid fibrils, probably via unexpected dimeric α-helical intermediate structures. The characteristic sequence motif of the novel peptide class consists of an aliphatic amino acid tail of decreasing hydrophobicity capped by a polar head. To our knowledge, the investigated aliphatic tripeptides are the shortest ever reported naturally occurring amino acid sequence that can adopt α-helical structure and promote amyloid formation. We propose the stepwise assembly process to be associated with characteristic conformational changes from random coil to α-helical intermediates terminating in cross-β peptide structures. Circular dichroism and X-ray fiber diffraction analyses confirmed the concentration-dependent conformational changes of the peptides in water. Molecular dynamics simulating peptide behavior in water revealed monomer antiparallel pairing to dimer structures by complementary structural alignment that further aggregated and stably condensed into coiled fibers. The ultrasmall size and the dynamic facile assembly process make this novel peptide class an excellent model system for studying the mechanism of amyloidogenesis, its evolution and pathogenicity. The ability to modify the properties of the assembled structures under defined conditions will shed light on strategies to manipulate the pathogenic amyloid aggregates in order to prevent or control aggregate formation.
14-3-3σ regulates B-cell homeostasis through stabilization of FOXO1
Authors: Su Yu-Wen , Hao Zhenyue , Hirao Atsushi , Yamamoto Kazuo , Lin Wen-Jye , Young Ashley , Duncan Gordon S. , Yoshida Hiroki , Wakeham Andrew , Lang Philipp A. , Murakami Kiichi , Hermeking Heiko , Vogelstein Bert , Ohashi Pamela , Mak Tak W.
Published: January 2011

14-3-3σ regulates cytokinesis and cell cycle arrest induced by DNA damage but its role in the immune system is unknown. Using gene-targeted 14-3-3σ–deficient (i.e., KO) mice, we studied the role of 14-3-3σ in B-cell functions. Total numbers of B cells were reduced by spontaneous apoptosis of peripheral B cells. Upon B-cell antigen receptor engagement in vitro, KO B cells did not proliferate properly or up-regulate CD86. In response to T cell-independent antigens, KO B cells showed poor secretion of antigen-specific IgM. This deficit led to increased lethality of KO mice after vesicular stomatitis virus infection. KO B cells showed elevated total FOXO transcriptional activity but also increased FOXO1 degradation. Coimmunoprecipitation revealed that endogenous 14-3-3σ protein formed a complex with FOXO1 protein. Our results suggest that 14-3-3σ maintains FOXO1 at a consistent level critical for normal B-cell antigen receptor signaling and B-cell survival.
Subordination and information distribution in oral and written narratives
Authors: Prideaux Gary D.
Published: January 2011

The ways in which given and new information are distributed, and the functions associated with the distribution, are examined here in terms of information content of relative and adverbial clauses in oral and written narratives. The conventional view that subordinate clauses tend to code given rather than new information is shown to be inadequate. Moreover, a comparison of oral and written narratives of the same events reveals both extensive differences in the two modalities, and at the same time striking similarities in terms of the information distribution within relative clauses. Relative clauses are found to be far more frequent in oral narratives than in their written analogues. However, when the differences are examined in terms of the relative frequencies of given and new relative clauses, the oral narratives are shown to have far more given relative clauses than the written versions, whereas the frequencies for the new relative clauses is virtually identical in the two modalities. This result is attributed to memory constraints.
The speech act of presumption
Authors: Walton Douglas N.
Published: January 2011

This paper presents a speech act analysis of presumption, using the framework of a dialogue in which two parties reason together. In the speech act of presumption, as opposed to that of assertion, the burden of proof resides not on the proponent to prove, but on the respondent to rebut. Some connections of this account with nonmonotonic reasoning and informal fallacies in argumentation are explored.
Mental Algorithms
Authors: Fetzer James H.
Published: January 2011

The idea that human thought requires the execution of mental algorithms provides a foundation for research programs in cognitive science, which are largely based upon the computational conception of language and mentality. Consideration is given to recent work by Penrose, Searle, and Cleland, who supply various grounds for disputing computationalism. These grounds in turn qualify as reasons for preferring a non-computational, semiotic approach, which can account for them as predictable manifestations of a more adquate conception. Thinking does not ordinarily require the execution of mental algorithms, which appears to be at best no more than one rather special kind of thinking.
Non-literalness and non-bona-fîde in language
Authors: Raskin Jonathan D. , Attardo Salvatore
Published: January 2011

The paper is devoted to the study of humor as an important pragmatic phenomenon bearing on cognition, and, more specifically, as a cooperative mode of non-bona-fide communication. Several computational models of humor are presented in increasing order of complexity and shown to reveal important cognitive structures in jokes. On the basis of these limited implementations, the concept of a full-fledged computational model for the understanding and generation of humor is introduced and discussed in various aspects. The model draws upon the authors ' General Theory of Verbal Humor, with its six knowledge resources informing a joke, and on SMEARR, a sophisticated semantic-network-based computational lexical environment. The relevance of the approach to the interpretation, generation, and cognitive structure of humor is discussed in the broader context of the nature of the cooperative non-bona-fide modes of communication.
Is psychoanalytic dream interpretation possible?
Authors: Blass Rachel B.
Published: January 2011

In this paper I explore the question of whether the dream can be assumed to have any inherent meaning that can become accessible to the awake analyzer of the dream. For this purpose I adopt the basic assumptions underlying the general process of ascription of meaning in psychoanalytic theory and examine whether these assumptions are applicable to dreams. I conclude that because of the possible discontinuity of the self between the wakeful and dreaming states, these assumptions cannot be straightforwardly applied to that context. I go on to show that these problems do not, however, preclude the possibility of dream interpretation. Attunement and awareness to certain kinds of experience that the individual at times may feel in relation to his or her dream provide evidence that meanings inherent to the dream are, in fact, accessible.
The sentential divide in language and cognition
Authors: Everett Daniel L.
Published: January 2011

Some linguists have argued that sentences should not be studied in isolation. They argue, rather, that the structure of sentences is largely the result of constraints imposed upon them by the discourses they are embedded in. I want to argue that this approach is misguided and that sentence-level syntax and discourse structure constitute distinct domains of study, at least in part because grammar is underdetermined by function. Moreover, I argue that discourse and sentence structures illustrate two types of cognition, dynamic vs. static, and thai these necessarily involve different theoretical constructs for their explanation. That is, they constitute distinct epistemological domains. An important conclu-sion of this study is that principles of sentence grammar cannot be discovered by studies of discourse, but only by careful, theory-guided examination of individual sentences. Because it draws on multiple cognitive domains, discourse itself is inherently resistant to analysis by any single theoretical framework or discipline. Sentence grammar, on the other hand, is amenable to study by a single discipline, i.e., linguistics. These ideas are explored partially here via a review of the book Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility. It is argued that the studies in this collection have little light to shed on syntactic studies, other than the fact that discourse can exploit independently available syntactic structures.
Speech acts and conversational sequencing
Authors: Brassac Christian
Published: January 2011

The question of the use of speech act theory in accounting for conversational sequencing is discussed from the point of view of the explanation of linguistic interaction. On the one hand, this question lies at the heart of the opposition between conversational analysis and discourse analysis. On the other, it dominates the discussion around a text by Searle called "Conversation". After summarizing what is at stake in the debate, I focus on the positions of two authors, Dascal and Van Rees, who favor the idea of a possible (and necessary) combination of illocutionary logic and the analysis of conversational interactions. My own position consists in taking into account the new elements that have recently enriched illocutionary logic (particularly the integration of perlocution through the notion of satisfaction conditions) within the framework of an essentially dialogical position. The proposed approach is in agreement with the theses of these two authors and complements them with elements that satisfy their demands.
The imagist approach to inferential thought patterns
Authors: Ellis Ralph D.
Published: January 2011

Tmagists' hold that inferential thinking is built up from combinations of sensory and sensorimotor images in various patterns and modalities, and that the images are a more basic mental and neurophysiological operation than the logical thinking and conceptualization that are built up front them. 'Computationalists' hold just the opposite view — that images result from previous inferential processing which is more basic than the images. Suppose we define inference as the kind of thought process that we actually undergo when we do logical thinking, and not in the trivial sense in which any natural phenomenon which receives an 'input' from another then 'responds' to this 'input' (as for example when a ball responds to being hit by flying off at a certain angle). And suppose we define an 'image ' as any instance of imagining what it would be like to entertain some conscious state which we are not undergoing at the time — as for example when we imagine what it would be like to see something, to ride a roller coaster or to have a headache. I. e., 'images ' can be kinaesthetic and proprioceptive s well as sensory. Then it can be shown that inferential thinking is built up from patterns of images, including importantly the imaging of rhythm patterns corresponding to logical syntax. Furthermore, the acquisition of these inference rules can also be traced to a process of trying to imagine scenarios which might serve as counterexamples to the rules, and this kind of 'imagining ' can also be explained in terms of both sensory and proprioceptive images. The reason for this is twofold: First, even the apparently 'imageless ' concepts used to imagine such scenarios (e.g., the concept 'president') consist in each case of a feeling of preparedness to entertain a pattern of images which would be appropriate to provide a directly or indirectly ostensive definition of the concept in question, and this feeling of preparedness can be sensed proprioceptively. Secondly, a concept, even if it is not experienced as involving imagery, may nonetheless occur as an element of a larger pattern whose rhythm can be imaged. This paper defends an expanded version of the imagist approach, suggesting an important pragmatic role for the proprioceptive sensing of rhythm patterns in the acquisition and use of inference skills.
Communicating attention
Authors: Velichkovsky Boris M.
Published: January 2011

The results of two experiments, in which participants solved constructive tasks of the puzzle type, are reported. The tasks were solved by two partners who shared the same visual environment hut whose knowledge of the situation and ability to change it to reach a solution were different. One of the partners — the "expert" — knew the solution in detail but had no means of acting on this information. The second partner — the "novice " — could act to achieve the goal, but knew very little about the solution. The partners were free to communicate verbally. In one third of the trials of the first experiment, in addition to verbal communication, the eye fixations of the expert were projected onto the working space of the novice. In another condition the expert could use a mouse to show the novice relevant parts of the task configuration. Both methods of facilitating the 'joint attention' state of the partners improved their performance. The nature of the dialogues as well as the parameters of the eye movements changed. In the second experiment the direction of the gaze-position data transfer was reversed, from the novice to the expert. This also led to a significant increase in the efficiency of the distributed problem solving.
How consciousness shapes language
Authors: Chafe Wallace
Published: January 2011

I begin by distinguishing constant properties of consciousness (a focus and periphery, constant movement, a point of view, and the need for background orientation) from variable properties (the different sources of conscious experience, immediacy vs. displacement, factuality vs. fictionality, degrees of interestingness, and verbality vs. nonverbality). Foci of active consciousness are seen as reflected in language in intonation units. Within them, ideas are expressed differently depending on their activation cost, characterizable in terms of given, accessible, or new information. By hypothesizing that each focus of consciousness is limited to one new idea, it is possible to achieve a clearer understanding of lexicalization and related phenomena. Coherent chunks of semiactive information are reflected in language as discourse topics, within which decisions regarding intermediate levels of coherence lead to sentences. Immediate and displaced consciousness have distinct properties, which are sometimes exploited by fiction writers with the pretense of displaced immediacy, a style of language that highlights a basic distinction between spatiotemporal adverbs and tense. It is concluded that we need to take consciousness seriously if we are to understand more fully a variety of linguistic phenomena, including pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, tense, person, sentences, paragraphs, and prosody.
Jackendoff on consciousness
Authors: Brook Andrew
Published: January 2011

In "How language helps us think", Jackendoff explores some of the relationships between language, consciousness, and thought, with a foray into attention and focus. In this paper, we will concentrate on his treatment of consciousness. We will examine three aspects of it: I. the method he uses to arrive at his views; 2. the extent to which he offers us a theory of consciousness adequate to assess his views; and 3. some of the things that we might need to add to what he offers to achieve an adequate theory.
Linguistic anchors in the sea of thought?
Authors: Clark Andy
Published: January 2011

Language, according to Jackendoff, is more than just an instrument of communication and cultural transmission. It is also a tool which helps us to think. It does so, he suggests, by expanding the range of our conscious contents and hence allowing processes of attention and reflection to focus on items (such as abstract concepts and steps in chains of reasoning) which would not otherwise be available for scrutiny. I applaud Jackendoff s basic vision, but raise some doubts concerning the argument. In particular, I wonder what it is about public language that uniquely fits it to play the functional role which Jackendoff isolates — why couldn't expression in a private inner code induce the same computational benefits? I suggest a weaker position in which the communicative role of public language moulds it into a suitably expressive resource, such that natural language emerges as the logically and technologically contingent filler of a functional role which could, in principle, be filled by other means. I also compare and contrast Jackendoff's position with some related ideas due to Daniel Dennett and others, concluding with a sketch of my own view of language as an external artifact whose computational properties complement those of the basic biological brain.
Overruling rules?
Authors: Yovel Jonathan
Published: January 2011

This paper discusses issues relating to the normativity of prescriptive rules: what does it mean for a rule to be able to direct action, and what are the implications for the desirability of rule-based decision-making? It is argued that: (a) cognitively, one must allow for more than a single answer to the first question (the two interpretations of rules discussed here are based alternately on the concepts of exclusion and presumption); and (b) normatively, these different structures typically serve for different purposes in allocation of power and discretion. The next issue is the connection between rule-based decision-making and semantic theories of language. On a meta-discursive level, the paper makes a twofold claim: that normative discourse is possible only on the basis of a sound cognitive inquiry, while cognitive inquiry alone is not sufficient to explain social action and interaction, lacking tools to deal with the contingent normative demands from decision-making systems, such as adjudication. The discussion of prescriptive rules serves as a case-study for this claim. These and related topics have been dealt with by Frederick Schauer(1991a, 1991b). His model of rules as entrenched generalizations and mediators between "justifications " and action is the starting point of the present discussion, which, on most of the issues mentioned above, results in conclusions quite different from Schauer's.
Restatement and exemplification
Authors: Blakemore Diane
Published: January 2011

According to a number of researchers in linguistics and artificial intelligence, the key to the meanings of expressions such as in other words, that is, and for example/for instance lies in the particular coherence relations they express in discourse. It is argued that these relations are sub-types of the relation of Elaboration and hence are ideational or semantic relations which express some experience of the world about us and within our imagination. In this paper I argue that the notion of Elaboration does not provide an adequate theoretical basis for the analysis of these expressions. I show, first, that their analysis in terms of ideational relations cannot capture the way in which utterances that contain them are understood, and, second, that the phenomena which are said to fall under the relation of Elaboration do not in fact constitute a single class. I show that Sperber and Wilson's (1986) relevance theoretic pragmatics provides a better explanatory framework for the analysis of these expressions, arguing that while their notion of interpretive resemblance plays a central role in the analysis of some utterances, there are other cases which must be analysed in terms of inferential relations between propositions. In all cases, the question of how the utterance is to be understood does not depend on the classification of the coherence relation it exhibits but on how it achieves relevance.
Competition and cooperation
Authors: Attardo Salvatore
Published: January 2011

An argument is presented for augmenting Gricean pragmatics with cognitively significant information about whether the participants in the interaction share the same goals, the same amount of information, and the degree of their awareness of both. The additions handle situations of competitive conversational exchanges, where the cooperative principle has been claimed to be inoperative, and show that cooperation underlies competitive exchanges as well. Some examples of competitive exchanges are examined, including witness cross-examination, sales pitches, propaganda, and lies.
Thick description, fat syntax, and alternative conceptual systems
Authors: Jones Todd
Published: January 2011

Many philosophers have claimed that intentional ascription is not possible if alien peoples are truly radically different from ourselves. At the same time, many anthropologists have claimed that the people they study think very differently from the way that we do. I claim that it is possible for both the anthropologists and the philosophers to be right. Giving intentional descriptions is problematic for people unlike ourselves, but anthropologists can, and do give good descriptions of alien mental states using descriptions not unlike those given in certain formulations of cognitive psychology.
Object reference in a shared domain of conversation
Authors: Beun Robbert-Jan , Cremers Anita H.M.
Published: January 2011

In this paper we report on an investigation into the principles underlying the choice of a particular referential expression to refer to an object located in a domain to which both participants in the dialogue have visual as well as physical access. Our approach is based on the assumption that participants try to use as little effort as possible when referring to objects. This assumption is operational-ized in two factors, namely the focus of attention and a particular choice of features to be included in a referential expression. We claim that both factors help in reducing the effort needed to, on the one hand, refer to an object and, on the other hand, to identify it. As a result of the focus of attention the number of potential target objects (i.e., the object the speaker intends to refer to) is reduced. The choice of a specific type of feature determines the number of objects that have to be identified in order to be able to understand the referential expression. An empirical study was conducted in which pairs of participants cooperatively carried out a simple block-building task, and the results provided empirical evidence that supported the aforementioned claims. Especially the focus of attention turned out to play an important role in reducing the total effort. Additionally, focus acted as a strong coherence-establishing device in the studied domain.
Interactive aspects of reference assignment in conversations
Authors: Smith Sara W. , Jucker Andreas H.
Published: January 2011

We propose a model of reference that contrasts with standard linguistic approaches in that it focuses on the role of interaction in reference, arguing that referring expressions in conversations are not designed for interchangeable audiences but rather exploit the common ground between partners. Our model also differs from psycholinguistic approaches in that it uses conversational data, since critical aspects of natural conversations are absent from laboratory tasks used so far and thus are not captured by current models. Examples from conversations are presented to demonstrate that speakers often try to manage the accessibility of a problematic referent to an addressee by presenting a context for it as well as a referring expression, even at the cost of syntactic orthodoxy. We also present examples demonstrating that partners negotiate as to what representation is good enough for present purposes and whether that has been achieved. While strategies may vary as to explicitness, we believe these negotiations underlie all formulations of referring expressions.
Reference
Authors: Tomasello Michael
Published: January 2011

My approach to reference focuses on naturally occuring processes of communication, and in particular on children's earliest referential activities. I begin by describing three different kinds of child gesture — ritualizations, deictics, and symbolic gestures — and then proceed to examine young children's early word learning. The account focuses on the joint attentional situations in which young children learn their earliest gestures and linguistic symbols and on the social-cognitive and cultural learning processes involved in the different cases.
Linguistic formulae as cognitive tools
Authors: Netz Reviel
Published: January 2011

Ancient Greek mathematics developed the original feature of being deductive mathematics. This article attempts to give a (partial) explanation f or this achievement. The focus is on the use of a fixed system of linguistic formulae (expressions used repetitively) in Greek mathematical texts. It is shown that (a) the structure of this system was especially adapted for the easy computation of operations of substitution on such formulae, that is, of replacing one element in a fixed formula by another, and it is further argued that (b) such operations of substitution were the main logical tool required by Greek mathematical deduction. The conclusion explains why, assuming the validity of the description above, this historical level (as against the universal cognitive level) is the best explanatory level for the phenomenon of Greek mathematical deduction.
Kilivila Color Terms
Authors: Senft Gunter
Published: January 2011

This paper documents the results of a study of color terms produced by Trobriand Islanders. Eleven color stimuli were presented to 60 informants in five different age-groups ranging from approximately 4 to 75 years. These informants, native speakers of Kilivila, live in Tauwema village on Kaileuna Island, one of the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea.
The paper first describes the method and the aims of the study. It then discusses the strategies of language production used by the informants, presents the inventory of the lexical set of color terms in Kilivila, and describes the semantic scope of these terms. Finally it discusses aspects of language change in progress that affect this lexical set of color terms in a rather dramatic way.
Aktionsart, Semantics, and Function in the Japanese "Passive"
Authors: Klaiman M.H.
Published: January 2011

The Japanese "passive" construction with the verb stem formant -(r)are-has dual semantic functions. In some uses it indicates that the action's effects impinge emotively and/or psychologically on the subject, while in other uses the special effective nuance is absent. This distinction of semantic functions is shown to correlate with a distinction in the inherent aspectual character (Aktionsart) of verbally denoted actions, the deed/attribute distinction. A -(r)are- verb denoting a concrete action, or deed, implicates an abrupt change of circumstances having immediate effects on the subject's emotional and/or psychological situation; while processes and other nonconcrete actions, expressed through -(r)are-'s attributive use, implicate less immediate changes of the subject's state. In sum, the manner in which the action proceeds conditions the specific type of affect with which it is associated; both uses of -(r)are- are affective in distinct ways. These findings suggest the need to reconsider prior formal accounts of 'passive' -(r)are- constructions as rule-conditioned alternates of corresponding sentences without -(r)are-.
Categoriality and Clustering
Authors: Myhill John
Published: January 2011

The essential meaning of a clause is typically conveyed by a small subset of the-morphemes in that clause, sometimes by only one or two; the information conveyed by the other morphemes is supplementary or already known. Clauses consist of one or more clusters; a cluster is made up of a nucleus (a single morpheme conveying information of central importance to the clause) and any number of satellites (bound morphemes or independent words conveying more peripheral information). Positing such a pragmatic structure for clauses makes it possible to give a unified explanation for apparently diverse morphological and syntactic phenomena in a number of languages.
Syntactic Structures as Pragmatic Options
Authors: Hendrikse A.P.
Published: January 2011

One of the fundamental assumptions of formal linguistics is that the relations between sentence types can be expressed derivationally. This assumption is called into question with reference to the derived intransitive construction in English and certain subjectivization constructions in Xhosa where no such derivational relation with a base structure is possible. It is then argued that these structures as well as the structures between which more transparent relations are reputed to exist, should be accounted for in terms of nonformal cognitive notions such as those proposed in schema theory.
The Development of Tense Markers from Demonstrative Pronouns in Panare (Cariban)
Authors: Gildea Spike
Published: January 2011

Two synchronic tense-marking auxiliaries in Panare are derived etymologically from demonstrative pronouns. The original pronouns differed in spatial deixis, one marking proximate ('this'), the other distal ('that'). They came to be required between predicate noun and subject in predicate nominal clauses, and thus evolved into copulas. As copulas, the deixis of the pronouns shifted to time, with proximal becoming present or immediate future and distal becoming past (but also sometimes interprétable as distant future). These copulas then evolved further to become tense auxiliaries for a new generation of main clause verbs.
The Temporal System of Noun-Modifying (Attributive) Clauses in Korean from a Typological Perspective
Authors: Lee Hyo Sang
Published: January 2011

The temporal system of noun-modifying clauses in Korean manifests a three-way aspectual opposition among non-prior imperfective, prior imperfective, and morphologically unmarked perfective, a crosslinguistically common pattern manifested in West African languages, creole languages, Persian, and Lakhota, etc. The semantic and mor-phosyntactic distribution of temporal expressions in noun-modifying clauses in Korean cannot be characterized with the temporal dimension of aspectual distinctions such as completion, ongoingness, inception, duritivity, but with the totality dimension of aspectual distinctions of whether the speaker's viewpoint is within or outside the event frame in which the situation described takes place.
The Pu Metalanguage in Linguistic Historiography
Authors: Koerner E.F.K.
Published: January 2011

The historian of linguistic thought, who wants to contribute to the instruction of the practicing linguist of today and not simply cater to a specialist readership outside linguistics proper, may find him/herself in a quandry: On the one hand, s/he is motivated to render seemingly 'dated' theories accessible to the modern linguist; on the other, s/he feels him/herself constrained by his/her professional ethos to present them as objectively as possible, i.e., within their original intellectual context. In describing and analyzing past theories, the historiographer may find him/herself in a dilemma: either depicting them in the light of current research interests (and thus distorting them to the extent of engaging in presentism), or practicing an antiquarian activity which interests no one (because s/he may be engaging in an excessive historicism). Central to the historiographer's task is the careful treatment of the terminology past authors have employed to articulate their theories, i.e., their metalanguage. After presenting three instances where the issue of metalanguage has not been treated adequately — the use of Saussurean terminology in the description of medieval French linguistic usage, the application of our modern understanding of the term to the medieval concept of 'etymologia', and the misleading use of Praguean phonology in the interpretation of a medieval treatise discussing orthographic problems in Icelandic — the paper, while arguing in favour of a measured approach, makes it clear that the historian of linguistics must become more acutely aware of the potential pitfalls of his/her work if the question of metalanguage is not attended to properly.
Boundaries, Topics, and the Structure of Discourse an Investigation of the Ancient Greek Particle Dé
Authors: Bakker Egbert J.
Published: January 2011

In this article, a discussion is offered of the Ancient Greek particle dé in terms of boundary-marking. "Boundary" is treated as the manifestation in discourse of the interaction between topicalization and discourse structure. The marking of boundaries, therefore, subsurnes such functions as topic marking and intersentantial (interparagraph) connection. Dé is described as a boundary-marker and is shown to have a function in various types and at various levels of discourse. While in the oldest Greek (Homeric epic) dé is used to mark the segmentation that results from the online "continuative" production of spoken discourse, in later, written discourse the particle is used for a variety of functions: from local, intrasentential subject topic switch ("switch-reference") to the setting of 'frames' in discourse, and from the marking of boundaries that are "content-oriented" to rhetorically highly marked segmentation.
Functional Stability in Language Change
Authors: Herring Susan C.
Published: January 2011

This article addresses the question of whether tense markers in Modern Tamil were historically aspectual in function, as Zvelebil (1962) has claimed. The methodological approach employed is that developed by Hopper (1979a, 1979b, 1982) for the analysis of foreground and background in narrative discourse. Narrative texts representing three historical periods — Old Tamil (5th c), Middle Tamil (12th c), and Modern Tamil (20th c.) — are analyzed for correlations between foreground-background marking and the distribution of alleged 'tense' forms. On the basis of the grounding analysis, it is discovered that the forms function aspectually in Old Tamil, analogous to the functioning of aspectual auxiliary verbs in the modern language. The overall diachronic picture which emerges is one in which surface forms and categories undergo change, while underlying functional contrasts remain remarkably stable over time.
The Structure of the Lexicon
Authors: Salmons Joseph C.
Published: January 2011

Data from language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and diachronic studies have all shown that the lexicon has a clear internal structure, which includes relationships among lexical items based on phonetic and phonological characteristics, semantic features, morphology, and frequency of use. In the absence, however, of direct evidence from grammar, such lexical structure has even recently been deemed irrelevant to linguistic theory. In this paper, I use evidence from German grammar, specifically gender assignment, to support a model of lexical structure like that proposed particularly within Natural Morphology. German gender assignment has been shown to be largely predictable on the basis of phonological shape (e.g. final and initial segments or clusters), semantic features, and morphological features — all factors considered to be part of the lexicon's internal structure by Bybee and others. In this way gender assignment reflects lexical structure. Moreover, frequently used vocabulary tends to violate such rules, as Bybee's view of lexical structure would predict. By so doing, German grammar exploits almost exactly the structure of the lexicon which has been proposed based on data from areas other than grammar in its narrow sense.
Structural Analogy
Authors: Bauer Laurie
Published: January 2011

In a number of publications, John Anderson and his colleagues have developed the notion of Structural Analogy — the assumption that structural principles generalise across levels of language — as a meta-theoretical principle of linguistics. In this paper some recent works which appear to criticise the notion are considered, and it is concluded that they fail to invalidate it. It is suggested, however, that some work by Anderson and his colleagues in Dependency Phonology appears to misuse the notion to mask differing content for the same structural labels. It is suggested that the notion of Structural Analogy may not be a scientific notion at all, and should not be used to make predictions about linguistic structures.
The Grammaticalization of an Anterior IN Progress
Authors: Schwenter Scott A.
Published: January 2011

This paper investigates the current grammaticalization of the Spanish Present Perfect, an anterior grammaticalizing to perfective, in the dialect of Alicante, Spain. The evidence offered provides insight into this grammaticalization process, and into the development of hodiernal tenses (cf. Dahl 1984). This change results from inferences which extend the functions of the anterior, and also from the gram's absorption of the temporal context with which it normally occurs. Furthermore, the grammaticalization process under study does not involve metaphorical change; it extends the meaning of the anterior form from the speaker's subjective inner state to the external described situation. Such a change thus challenges the views of both Heine et al. (1991a; 1991b), and also Traugott and König (1991).
Commentary Questions in Japanese
Authors: Maynard Senko K.
Published: January 2011

This paper examines the nature of questioning in Japanese by concentrating on questions taking the so-called n(o) da construction, i.e., "commentary questions" or CQs. Going beyond the cognitive and pragmatic features associated with "commentary predicates" explored in my earlier study, I argue that CQs foreground the speaker-listener interpersonal dialogicality. CQs are chosen when modal features of an utterance — including socially as well as emotionally motivated modalities — need to be brought into focus. The high frequency of CQs (approximately once in every three to four questioning opportunities) in the data examined suggests the relative importance of "interactional dialogicality" in Japanese.
'Topic — Comment or Modifier — Modified? Information Structure in Modern Standard Chinese
Authors: Kirkpatrick Andy
Published: January 2011

In this paper we first summarise how linguists have treated the notions of topic and comment in the context of Chinese sentence structure. We then review how a number of Chinese scholars have analysed sentence structure in Chinese. We then propose that certain sentences in MSC traditionally analysed as following a topic — comment sequence, particularly those with sentence initial adverbial clauses are, in fact, exhibiting the principle of modifier — modified sequence rather than the topic — comment sequence.
The Distribution of Subject and Object Agreement and Word Order Type
Authors: Siewierska Anna , Bakker Dik
Published: January 2011

The article examines the distribution and formal realization of Subject and Object agreement markers in different word order types on the basis of a sample of 237 languages. Special attention is paid to the genetic and areal stratification of agreement markers and the impact of these two parameters on the relationship between agreement and word order type emerging from this investigation as opposed to those of previous studies, especially that of Hawkins & Gilligan (1988) and Nichols (1992). The relationship between agreement and word order type is considered in the light of the currently entertained functional explanations for the presence of agreement which are put into question by the high incidence of agreement in V3 languages.
The formal realization of the agreement markers (their morphological form and also order relative to each other) in different word order types is investigated relative to the Universal Suffixing Preference, the Head Ordering Principle and the Diachronic Syntax Hypothesis. It is argued that though due to genetic and areal differences in the formal realization of agreement markers, none of the above three hypotheses concerning the relationship between the formal realization of affixal morphemes and word order type provide an adequate account of the cross-linguistic data, the Diachronic Syntax Hypothesis fares better than the other two, particularly in regard to the formal reflexes of object agreement markers.
By comparing the results stemming from our sample with those of other samples we seek to draw attention to how areal biases in samples may affect cross-linguistic generalizations. In doing so we hope to highlight the need for developing a sound sampling methodology.
Modern Greek As
Authors: Nikiforidou Kiki
Published: January 2011

The grammaticalization of as from a lexical imperative of Ancient Greek to a particle of Modern Greek follows some well-identified trends in historical linguistics. An adequate description of the change needs to refer simultaneously to semantic, syntactic and phonological parameters, which makes as a typical case of grammaticalization and a clear example of interaction of all such parameters. As, a highly polysemous category in Modern Greek, follows complex paths of development which for their description require also reference to 1) semantic relations such as metaphor and metonymy and 2) the interaction of existing grammatical patterns of the language with the emergent category.
Object Relations and Dative Case in Dolakha Newari
Authors: Genetti Carol
Published: January 2011

In Dolakha Newari, the dative case marks recipients of ditransitive verbs and some patients of monotransitive verbs. Quantative studies show that animacy and activation cost are both relevant in determining the distribution of dative case. Two theories on the syntactic status of objects in systems of this general type are shown to be inadequate for Dolakha. Instead it is found that there is no morphological or syntactic evidence for differentiating between classes of object in this language. Theories on the motivation of this pattern are considered, and it is concluded that it is best understood in terms of referent importance or topicworthiness.
On the Six-Way Word Order Typology
Authors: Dryer Matthew S.
Published: January 2011

A number of arguments are given against the traditional word order typology based on the six types SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV, and in favour of an alternative typology based on two binary parameters OV vs. VO and SV vs. VS. The arguments given include ones based on various advantages of collapsing VSO and VOS into a single type, the infrequency of clauses containing a noun subject and noun object, the value of isolating the more predictive parameter of OV vs. VO, and the fact that the traditional typology ignores the position of intransitive subjects.
The Pragmatics of the 'Tenses' in Biblical Hebrew
Authors: Baayen R. H.
Published: January 2011

In this paper, I present an analysis of the so-called tense forms of Biblical Hebrew. While there is fairly broad consensus on the interpretation of the yiqtol tense form, the interpretation of the qdtal tense form has led to considerable controversy. I will argue that the qātal form has no intrinsic semantic value and that it serves a pragmatic function only, namely, signaling to the hearer that the event or state expressed by the verb cannot be tightly integrated into the discourse representation of the hearer, given the speaker's estimate of their common ground.
Marking and Hierarchy Types and the Grammaticalization of Case-Markers
Authors: Aristar Anthony Rodrigues
Published: January 2011

Silverstein (1976) showed that the grammatical cases take varying kinds of case-marking according to the hierarchical value of the nominal being marked. This paper demonstrates that such hierarchical marking occurs in non-grammatical cases as well. Moreover, these cases typically take nominals of a specific hierarchical value as arguments. Analysis of the data according to classic marking theory reveals that departures from the typical pattern often take extra morphological marking. Since the new forms appear in atypical contexts, they are prone to being pragmatically reinterpreted. And the combination of marking and reinterpretation will produce new cases in the language.