bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Narrative strategies for interpreting stories with incongruent endings
Authors: Smorti Andrea
Published: September 2007

This study examined the narrative strategies early adolescents use to interpret social incongruence in peer relationships. I hypothesized that these strategies vary in relation to two types of social incongruence, i.e., progressive and regressive incongruence. The participants were 518 students from two middle schools located in the city of Florence, Italy. Each participant read 6 stories dealing with themes of social interaction between two peers. The stories narrated episodes in which protagonists did something that differed greatly from their habitual behavior towards their partners. Three types of behavior (prosocial, aggressive, and neutral) were depicted, and there were two story types, with three stories ending in negative, violating acts (regressive stories) and three stories ending in positive ones (progressive stories). The students were told to try to imagine what had happened before the culminating act and to write a story describing those events. The students' narrative strategies were analyzed by examining the dependent variables of locus of antecedent attribution (protagonist vs. environment) and verb use indicating actions or mental events. The two types of stories produced different results, which varied according to how the students used the two strategies: Progressive stories were mainly completed with antecedents consisting in cognitions or intentions being attributed to protagonists; regressive stories were more frequently completed with antecedents consisting in the attribution of actions to the environment. Both strategies seemed to have the same effect, that of defending a protagonist's position by mitigating his or her responsibility for aggressive acts and by emphasizing it for prosocial ones. The results are discussed in terms of a cultural hypothesis. (StoryTypes, Incongruence, Interpretation, Antecedents)
Narrative identity and the re-conceptualization of lone motherhood
Authors: May Vanessa
Published: September 2007

Lone motherhood tends to be viewed as something a woman is, an identity that defines the woman. This article takes a different route into lone motherhood by focusing on identity construction in the life stories of four Finnish lone mothers. Faced with dominant narratives that define lone motherhood in negative terms, the narrators construct a counter-normative account of their lone motherhood through a dialogue with different cultural narratives on motherhood, independence and family. Furthermore, the social category of lone motherhood is not one that the lone mothers themselves adopt in their narrative constructions of the self. Instead, they attempt to create space for themselves within the normative narratives on motherhood and womanhood, thus refuting the idea that lone motherhood is constitutive of identity. At the same time, the life stories reveal how powerful the cultural narratives on motherhood and family are – lone mothers can challenge them, but they can never escape these narratives completely. (Lone Motherhood, Narrative Identity, Life Stories, Cultural Narratives)
The narrative formation of identity revisited
Authors: Redman Peter
Published: September 2007

This article revisits one of the more contentious debates in current studies of narrative: the claim that identities are, in some sense,fabricatedby and in narratives, and the counter-claim that individuals have inherent capacities, such as a dynamic unconscious, that precede or are in excess of any identity-building work that narrative might do. The article approaches this debate via competing theories drawn from sociology and cultural studies, contrasting post-structuralist and Foucauldian theories with a Kleinian cultural analysis of narrative. The theoretical discussion is illustrated via a story told by a young man who apparently had strong investments in heterosexual romance.
Actantial analysis
Authors: Wang Yong , Roberts Carl W.
Published: September 2007

This paper introduces a formal procedure for analyzing narratives that was developed by the French/Lithuanian structuralist, A. J. Greimas. The focus is on demonstrating the utility of Greimas's ideas for analyzing one aspect of personal narratives: identity-construction. Reconstructing the basic actantial structure from self-narratives is shown to provide cues to power differentials among actants as perceived by the narrator. Distinguishing narrated events along conflict versus communication axes helps the analyst determine whether an experiential or a discursive domain is of primacy for the narrator. Moreover, investigation of communicative outcomes can be used to validate (or invalidate) findings on power relations. Analyses of narrative plots may afford insights into how people engage objects with cultural valuations within the various social contexts recounted in narrative data. Finally, Greimas's theory of modalities can be used to differentiate among these plots within narrative trajectories. This approach to narrative analysis differs from more traditional “denarrativization” and “renarrativization” approaches in that it affords the researcher a language (or discursive structure) according to which the narrator's, not the analyst's, understandings of character relations and reality conditions become the subject matter of one's research.
Thin and thick narrative analysis
Authors: Shenhav Shaul R.
Published: September 2007

The article explores how we can define the concept of political narrative and looks at the implications in terms of analyzing political discourse. The examination of the various strategies used to define narrative, leads to the suggestion that, at least in the context of political narrative analysis, we need structural definitions that stress the barest minimum for terming a message a narrative. Basing on the proposed strategy to define narrative, the article suggests that narrative analysis should operate on two levels: the “thin” level and the “thick” level. The thin level relates to events and situations described in a discourse and their order of appearance in the text. “Thick level” of analysis, relates to everything included in the “narration” and the relation between the components of the thin narrative. The article examines these two levels of analysis in the context of a short statement by Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, at a photo opportunity in the White House. The analysis demonstrates how to apply a combination of thin and thick analysis to political discourse, and how this dual perspective makes a contribution to the study of spatial construction in narratives.
Variations in maternal narrative styles during book reading interactions
Authors: Melzi Gigliana , Caspe Margaret
Published: September 2007

The present study examined the narrative styles of Spanish-speaking Peruvian and English-speaking U.S. American, college-educated mothers as they shared a wordless book with their three-year old children. Results show two distinct book reading narrative styles: Storytellers, who act as the sole narrator of an engaging story with minimal child participation, and storybuilders, who co-construct the story with their young children. The two maternal styles are discussed in relation to possible differences in conceptions of oral narrative and of the roles narrator and audience play in the construction of a story. Results of the present study have implications for literacy intervention programs in culturally diverse populations.
Metarepresentation and human capacities
Authors: Bejarano Teresa
Published: September 2007

Both metarepresentation and cultural learning have an identical origin. The imitation of new and complex motor patterns (also articulatory-phonetic patterns) is a crucial skill not only because it enables cultural transmission but also because its high requisites give rise to the exclusively human mind. The premotor plan at the base of such imitation requires the ability to fictionalize bodily postures, which implies a second line of awareness. Only by means of this second line can the human being deal with situations different from his own real and current situation. This permanent double cognitive architecture explains finger-pointing, laughing, and also all capacities considered metarepresentational. Evocation and metabeliefs (these latter being the starting point of syntax) result in language formation. There are two operating modes of the double line, which starting respectively with motor learning and finger-pointing, give rise to pretence and metabelief, and whose distinct nature can also account for the difference between fictionally triggered emotions and morality.
Choreographic Cognition
Authors: Stevens Catherine , Malloch Stephen , McKechnie Shirley , Steven Nicole
Published: September 2007

The process of inception, development and refinement during the creation of a new dance work is described and explored. The account is based on annotated video of the professional choreographer and dancers as they create and sequence new movement material, as well as weekly journal entries made by one of the dancers. A 24-week chronology is reported. We analyse the choreographic process using the Geneplore model of creative cognition as an organising framework and identify generative and exploratory processes including problem finding and problem solving, metaphorical thinking, non-linear composition, and multi-modal imagery. An analytical tool adapted from the discipline of music analysis is used to explore relationships between recurring themes and visual, visceral, spatial and tactile images. Ideas for experimental work relating to choreographic cognition are discussed.
Metaphors
Authors: Pasztor Ana
Published: September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of metaphors within constructivist-informed research, in the hope that this process will orient cognitive scientists to the usefulness of implementing qualitative research methodologies, especially to using the person of the researcher as the primary research instrument. First, I explore some of the differences between Johnson and Lakoff’s Contemporary Metaphor Theory (CMT) and approaches evolving from it on one hand, and the clinical approach to metaphor based on a constructivist therapy model, on the other. CMT has been one of the most significant forces that helped shift cognitive science toward an embodied approach to cognition. While it has succeeded to place physical experience back where it belongs in reason and meaning, CMT has, however, also fallen into some positivist traps which lead to problems such as a dualism, a split between the knower and the known, and with that, to a distrust of introspective, first-person accounts. In the process of finding conceptual metaphors — generalizations that govern metaphorical expressions — CMT often deletes the idiosyncratic characteristics and presuppositions implicit in linguistic metaphors; it divorces them from people’s sensory experiences, the “here and now” and the intent of their communications. The constructivist approach to metaphor that I present here accepts as a priori assumptions much of what workers of CMT are out to prove. In particular, it takes the correlation of conceptual metaphors and physical experience, as well as the unity of language and thought as pragmatic givens. Emulating the constructivist therapist’s approach to metaphors, I show how it is possible to deconstruct conceptual metaphors into minute sensory distinctions, using one’s own person as the main tool, for the purpose of helping people change their experiences in desired ways, at will. I illustrate this process by numerous examples from a wide field of applications, including mathematics education and psychotherapy.
If it is different then how come it is similar?
Authors: Benari Motti
Published: September 2007

In the current study of metaphor it is commonly assumed that during a meta­phorical reading both an impression of dissimilarity and an impression of similarity are created in the reader’s mind. These separate impressions exist simultaneously and each of them is considered to have linear relations with the metaphor’s aptness without either coming at the expense of the other. Thus far this assumption has never received any satisfactory theoretical justification. In this paper I discuss the problem of the simultaneous existence of similarity and dissimilarity in the reader’s awareness when engaged in metaphor comprehension. I examine the methods for resolving this pro­blem, point out the shortcomings of the suggested solution and present an alternative solution. My solution uses a well-known distinction in the field of visual perception, that of global similarity versus dimensional similarity, and applies it to metaphor comprehension. While doing so I also try to supply a novel perspective on the process of metaphor comprehension
Transcendental deduction of predicative structure in Kant and Brandom
Authors: Rödl Sebastian
Published: September 2007

Fregean predicates applied to Fregean objects are merely defined by a ‘timeless’ deductive order of sentences. They cannot provide sufficient structure in order to explain how names can refer to objects of intuition and how predicates can express properties of substances that change in time. Therefore, the accounts of Wilson and Quine, Prior and Brandom for temporal judgments fail — and a new reconstruction of Kant’s transcendental logic, especially of the analogies of experience, is needed.
Motivating inferentialism
Authors: McDowell John
Published: September 2007

Brandom’s attempt to motivate inferentialism is found wanting on a number of grounds, including a skepticism about how much recommendation for inferentialism can be derived from the evident unsatisfactoriness of the representationalism Brandom contrasts it with, which seems to be a straw man. Brandom’s appeal to authorities (Sellars, Frege, Dummett) falls flat; in particular, his reading of Frege’s early work as inferentialist in Brandom’s sense is a misinterpretation. Given the programmatic character of Brandom’s recommendation for inferentialism, the quality of the motivation he offers for it matters more than he has acknowledged.
Brandom’s solution to the objectivity problem
Authors: Grönert Peter
Published: September 2007

The central challenge to Brandom’s theory of propositional content, as he himself acknowledges, is to meet the following two apparently conflicting conditions of adequacy he lays down for such a theory: It must do justice to the objectivity of conceptual norms and it should embody a phenomenalist approach to normativity, according to which normative statuses must be understood as being instituted by practical normative attitudes. The strategy Brandom employs for reconciling these requirements is intricate and somewhat elusive. This paper aims to make it more accessible by reconstructing its main outline. I hope to show thereby that an objection raised by Rödl against Brandom’s account of objectivity is based on a misconception of that strategy.
Technology and the management imagination
Authors: Phillips Fred
Published: September 2007

This paper explores the evolution of the techno-management imagination (TMI). This is the process by which, in times of crisis, managers think not just out of the box, but out of the very reality in which the box resides. Tacit social consensus, also known as corporate culture, can lead to a shared, implicit, and incorrect view that certain actions are impossible. TMI transcends local culture, accessing technological solutions that are unknown and/or unimagined. Members of the organization tend to call such solutions “magic”. The paper looks at social, perceptual, and managerial aspects of magic from a practical point of view that is grounded in research. It examines the risks of TMI, and concludes with suggested perspectives and research questions for management scientists and cognitive scientists.
Distributed cognition
Authors: Sutton John
Published: September 2007

Synthesizing the domains of investigation highlighted in current research in distributed cognition and related fields, this paper offers an initial taxonomy of the overlapping types of resources which typically contribute to distributed or extended cognitive systems. It then outlines a number of key dimensions on which to analyse both the resulting integrated systems and the components which coalesce into more or less tightly coupled interaction over the course of their formation and renegotiation.
The grounding and sharing of symbols
Authors: Cangelosi Angelo
Published: September 2007

The double function of language, as a social/communicative means, and as an individual/cognitive capability, derives from its fundamental property that allows us to internally re-represent the world we live in. This is possible through the mechanism of symbol grounding, i.e., the ability to associate entities and states in the external and internal world with internal categorical representations. The symbol grounding mechanism, as language, has both an individual and a social component. The individual component, called the “Physical Symbol Grounding”, refers to the ability of each individual to create an intrinsic link between world entities and internal categorical representations. The social component, called “Social Symbol Grounding”, refers to the collective negotiation for the selection of shared symbols (words) and their grounded meanings. The paper discusses these two aspects of symbol grounding in relation to distributed cognition, using examples from cognitive modeling research on grounded agents and robots.
Web search engines and distributed assessment systems
Authors: Heintz Christophe
Published: September 2007

I analyse the impact of search engines on our cognitive and epistemic practices. For that purpose, I describe the processes of assessment of documents on the Web as relying on distributed cognition. Search engines together with Web users, are distributed assessment systems whose task is to enable efficient allocation of cognitive resources of those who use search engines. Specifying the cognitive function of search engines within these distributed assessment systems allows interpreting anew the changes that have been caused by search engine technologies. I describe search engines as implementing reputation systems and point out the similarities with other reputation systems. I thus call attention to the continuity in the distributed cognitive processes that determine the allocation of cognitive resources for information gathering from others.
The syntax-pragmatics merger
Authors: Jaszczolt Katarzyna M.
Published: September 2007

This paper is a voice in the ongoing discussion on the source and properties of pragmatic inference that contributes to the representation of discourse meaning. I start off from the contextualist standpoint of truth-conditional pragmatics (TCP, Recanati 2002, 2003, 2004) and develop a proposal of representations of utterance meaning, the so-called merger representations, that incorporate the output of pragmatic inference. The move from TCP to pragmatics-rich semantics of acts of communication is facilitated by rethinking the compositionality of meaning and predicating compositionality of such pragmatics-rich structures. I argue that the advantage of ‘semanticizing’ the output of pragmatic sources of meaning is that we can relax the view on compositionality of meaning and offer an algorithm of the interaction of such sources where the requirement of compositionality is imposed on the output of the interaction rather than on the output of the syntactic processing of the sentence. This proposal is applied to belief reports for which it offers representations of their various readings.
“So respetamos un tradición del uno al otro”
Authors: Aaron Jessi Elana
Published: September 2007

This paper examines the use of two discourse markers, English-origin so and Spanish-origin entonces, in New Mexican bilingual speech. Both forms appear in the mixed speech and in the otherwise monolingual English and monolingual Spanish of bilingual speakers in New Mexico. Through a quantitative examination of the 413 uses of so (n=289) and entonces (n=124) in a 204,000-word corpus, it is found that both perform the same discourse functions with the same relative frequency, thus showing no evidence of specialization. It is also shown that so occurs with code-switches significantly more often than entonces, and therefore may function as a “trigger” for code-switches (cf. Clyne 1997). This switching is not preferred in certain contexts, but rather follows the same patterns as in monolingual discourse. Lastly, it is found that the use of so in monolingual Spanish and monolingual English shows no significant differences: it is used in the same way in both modes.
Las reseñas de libros en español
Authors: Ariza María Ángeles Alcaraz , Salager-Meyer Françoise
Published: September 2007

En este estudio hemos analizado las valoraciones críticas en una muestra de 100 reseñas de libros de medicina, publicadas en revistas médicas españolas, tanto en la última década del siglo XIX como del siglo XX. Hemos registrado todos los comentarios negativos y los hemos dividido en dos categorías de acuerdo con su nivel de compromiso (implicación directa del reseñador) o distanciamiento (matización y traspaso de responsabilidad). También hemos identificado los blancos de las críticas y los hemos clasificado en conceptuales, v.gr. redundancia, omisión de ideas importantes, en textuales v.gr. diseño, estilo y contextuales. Nuestros resultados han puesto de relieve una matización creciente en el comportamiento retórico de las valoraciones críticas a lo largo del tiempo, un tono más impersonal en su formulación lingüística y una mayor variedad de blancos conceptuales y textuales en las reseñas incluidas en el segundo período analizado. Todo ello sugeriría que los reseñadores de libros intentan hoy en día mantener un clima de cordialidad y armonía dentro de la comunidad científica a la cual pertenecen.
Recursos expresivos, condicionamiento pragmático y variación dialectal
Authors: Morales Amparo
Published: September 2007

El hablante tiene la posibilidad de alterar el patrón sintáctico de la oración como uno de sus recursos expresivos. Este tipo de alteración se da en las perífrasis de relativo u oraciones hendidas. Se utilizan cuando se quiere resaltar de un modo especial alguna de las unidades de la oración. Los ejemplos (a), (b) y (c) presentan las tres variantes típicas:

a. Hendida, H: Fue Juan quien besó a María

b. Seudo hendida, SH: El que besó a María fue Juan

c. Seudo hendida inversa, SHI: Juan fue el que besó a María

Los resultados de nuestro análisis muestran que en el español de Puerto Rico estas tres variantes están condicionadas por el contexto y responden a diferentes patrones de presuposición de la secuencia discursiva. Hay condicionamiento igualmente en la selección de la unidad focalizada, por ejemplo, SH focaliza preferentemente una oración, “Lo que sucede es que le gusta jugar”, la SHI ofrece mayoría de eso como unidad focalizada, “Y eso es lo que pretendía hacer” …. Se comprueba, además, que estas construcciones son espacios propicios para la manifestación de otros rasgos dialectales propios, como la no elisión y anteposición del sujeto pronominal.
Función ilocutiva y nivel de cortesía de la expresión ¿por qué no…?
Authors: Vinther Thora
Published: September 2007

Este artículo estudia el uso de la expresión ¿por qué no…? como fórmula de fuerza ilocutiva directiva, más concretamente del acto de habla de proponer o sugerir. Con el objetivo de distinguir los usos de propuesta o sugerencia de los de pedir información, se analizan ejemplos del registro oral del Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual, de la Real Academia Española. El estudio muestra que la fuerza ilocutiva de la propuesta o sugerencia se relaciona exclusivamente con tiempos verbales no pasados, y con raíces verbales que denotan acción voluntaria. Se señala también la relación entre el sentido de propuesta y el sujeto en primera persona del plural con uso inclusivo, y el frecuente uso de marcadores del discurso que indican cambio temático o introducen una nueva idea en el discurso. Finalmente se explica el uso de propuestas y sugerencias con fuerza ilocutiva de órdenes, invitaciones y peticiones, un uso especialmente apropiado para dar carácter cortés al enunciado.
On the syntax of agreement in Tibeto-Burman
Authors: Bickel Balthasar
Published: September 2007

Verb agreement in Tibeto-Burman languages follows a different principle than in other, especially Indo-European languages. Instead of limiting agreement to the unification of features of the agreement trigger with those of the target, Tibeto-Burman languages also allow NP features to combine with the features marked by the agreement morphology in an appositional (‘as NP’), partitional (‘NP of’) or relational (‘NP with regard to’) structure. This possibility is shown to result from an associative principle in the syntax-semantics interface underlying Tibeto-Burman, and more generally Sino-Tibetan grammar, which is distinct from the more integrative design of Indo-European languages. These differences also manifest themselves in grammatical relations structure, role semantics, and discourse tendencies.
A constructional approach to stativity in Japanese
Authors: Tsujimura Natsuko
Published: September 2007

This paper deals with the relationship between the formal properties and a specific meaning associated with a class of
Japanese sentences that have the verbal gerund and iru ‘be’ (i.e., -te iru). These sentences are
characterized by the -te iru verbal morphology on a dynamic verb and a non-volitional subject that does not participate
in the event denoted by the verb. The particular stative interpretation induced by these sentences cannot be attributed to the
meaning of the individual lexical items. The paper argues instead that the source of the stative meaning is better explained by a
constructional view, that the meaning is attributed to the construction itself.
Clause combining in Chechen
Authors: Good Jeff
Published: September 2007

Chechen exhibits three major strategies for the combination of clauses: coordination, chaining, and subordination. The major formal characteristics of these three traditional categories of clause linking are discussed with reference to their basic syntax and semantics as well as to more particular syntactic characteristics, including constituent order and behaviour with respect to negation and wh-questions. In addition, these clause combining strategies of Chechen are classified with respect to Foley and Van Valin’s (1984) typology of clause linkage. A particularly useful result of this classification is that it permits a straightforward characterization of the use of the preverbal conjunctive enclitic ’a as a marker of cosubordination.
A semantic analysis of associative plurals
Authors: Moravcsik Edith A.
Published: September 2007

The paper presents a general framework for the semantic analysis of nominal plural expressions and assigns a place among them to a lesser-known construction: associative plurals. Six parameters are proposed for identifying the meaning differences among nominal plural expressions. Within this framework, associative plurals are characterized as ranked group plurals that form a single paradigm with first and second person plural pronouns and inclusory (=sylleptic) constructions, all of which are shown to be governed by similar preferences regarding the semantic composition of the group.
Topic, focus, and discourse structure
Authors: Matić Dejan
Published: September 2007

It is commonly assumed that word order in free word order languages is determined by a simple topic – focus dichotomy. Analysis of data from Ancient Greek, a language with an extreme word order flexibility, reveals that matters are more complex: the parameters of discourse structure and semantics interact with information packaging and are thus indirectly also responsible for word order variation. Furthermore, Ancient Greek displays a number of synonymous word order patterns, which points to the co-existence of pragmatic determinedness and free variation in this language. The strict one-to-one correspondence between word order and information structure, assumed for the languages labelled discourse configurational, thus turns out to be only one of the possible relationships between form and pragmatic content.
Does linguistic explanation presuppose linguistic description?
Authors: Haspelmath Martin
Published: September 2007

I argue that the following two assumptions are incorrect: (i) The properties of the innate Universal Grammar can be discovered by comparing language systems, and (ii) functional explanation of language structure presupposes a “correct”, i.e. cognitively realistic, description. Thus, there are two ways in which linguistic explanation does not presuppose linguistic description.

The generative program of building cross-linguistic generalizations into the hypothesized Universal Grammar cannot succeed because the actually observed generalizations are typically one-way implications or implicational scales, and because they typically have exceptions. The cross-linguistic generalizations are much more plausibly due to functional factors.

I distinguish sharply between “phenomenological description” (which makes no claims about mental reality) and “cognitively realistic description”, and I show that for functional explanation, phenomenological description is sufficient.
Object-, animacy- and role-based strategies
Authors: Kittilä Seppo
Published: September 2007

The present paper discusses the marking of objects in ditransitive clauses. On the basis of the factors conditioning the marking, three strategies are distinguished. These are labeled as object-, animacy- and role-based strategies. In the first case, the mere objecthood (i.e. the contrast to the Agent) determines the marking of objects. In the animacy-based strategy, animate Themes and Recipients are encoded in the same way as animate Patients, while the marking of inanimate Themes corresponds to inanimate Patients. In the role-based strategy, Theme and Recipient are marked on the basis of the semantic roles they bear. All the types are examined in light of cross-linguistic data, in addition to which the rationale behind the types is also discussed. It is shown that the three strategies suffice to explain object marking in ditransitives and that the strategies can all be explained on the basis of the nature of three-participant events and the principles of economy and distinctiveness.
An obstacle to the morphologization of postpositions
Authors: Kabak Barış
Published: September 2007

This article investigates the morphologization of postpositions and presents structural properties of Turkish postpositions and their frequency of occurrence. Turkish postpositional phrases provide chunks comprised of a frequently co-occurring case suffix on the complement followed by a postposition. According to the Linear Fusion Hypothesis (Bybee 2002), such chunks provide ideal conditions for phonological fusion. In contrast to this view, this paper shows that there is no fusion between the frequently co-occurring case suffixes and postpositions. Instead, postpositions following an uninflected form of complement have a greater chance of turning into case suffixes or clitics than those following a case-inflected form. Case suffixes serve as constant indicators of a word boundary before postpositions, thereby blocking the bonding between the postposition and the complement. Simple frequency and linearity, therefore, cannot be the sole conditions in the morphologization of postpositions.
Complement-taking predicates
Authors: Boye Kasper , Harder Peter
Published: September 2007

In recent years, there has been considerable discussion about the nature of clausal subordination (cf., for instance, Schilperoord & Verhagen 1998, Verhagen 2001, Verhagen to appear, Diessel & Tomasello 2001, Thompson 2002). One of the foci has been the status of complement clauses of complement-taking predicates like think. Roughly speaking, the two poles of the issue are the ‘traditional’ assumption according to which the ‘main clause’ is central, and a new ‘usage-based’ picture according to which the ‘complement clause’ is central and the ‘main clause’ is more or less an appendix. From the point of view of an approach that sees structure as having a central role in an overall cognitive-functional picture, this potential polarization is at risk of separating issues that should be kept together. The aim of this paper is to show how a picture that is fully committed to maintaining the role of structural (including structural-semantic) subordination can simultaneously remain fully faithful to principles of usage-based linguistics. Ontogeny and phylogeny (acquisition and diachrony) are central elements in the picture.
The ASL lexicon
Authors: Padden Carol A.
Published: September 2007

This paper explores a range of Foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language and demonstrates that there are ways of accounting for them without undermining the fundamental independence of a natural sign language. Arguments are made for a unified lexicon in which Native and Foreign vocabulary are arranged schematically as extending from a core to a periphery with gradations of conformity to phonological constraints on ASL forms. At the conclusion of the paper there is a brief review of issues concerning the presence of Foreign vocabulary in natural sign languages.
Syntactic Correlates of Brow Raise in ASL
Authors: Wilbur Ronnie B. , Patschke Cynthia
Published: September 2007

Previous approaches to explaining brow raise behavior in American Sign Language (ASL) have claimed that it performs a semantic or pragmatic function, such as indicating that information is presupposed, given, or otherwise not asserted. However we show that this explanation cannot be extended to all the data. The commonality among all the structures that have ‘br’ marking is that the ‘br’ shows up in A'-positions associated with [-wh] operator features. These operators are semantically restrictive. Furthermore, the domain of ‘br’ spreading is the checking domain of the [-wh] feature, in contrast with c-command domain associated with [+wh] and [+neg] features. The three distinctive ASL brow positions, raised, furrowed, and neutral, are each associated with a different operator situation, [-wh], [+wh], and none, respectively. In sum, ‘br’-marking is clearly associated with syntactic structures that are related only indirectly with specific semantic, pragmatic, or discourse factors.
The notation of signed texts
Authors: Antinoro Pizzuto Elena , Pietrandrea Paola
Published: September 2007

This paper focuses on some of the major methodological and theoretical problems raised by the fact that there are currently no appropriate notation tools for analyzing and describing signed language texts. We propose to approach these problems taking into account the fact that all signed languages are at present languages without a written tradition. We describe and discuss examples of the gloss-based notation that is currently most widely used in the analysis of signed texts. We briefly consider the somewhat paradoxical problem posed by the difficulty of applying the notation developed for individual signs to signs connected in texts, and the more general problem of clearly identifying and characterizing the constituent units of signed texts. We then compare the use of glosses in signed and spoken language research, and we examine the major pitfalls we see in the use of glosses as a primary means to explore and describe the structure of signed languages. On this basis, we try to specify as explicitly as possible what can or cannot be learned about the structure of signed languages using a gloss-based notation, and to provide some indications for future work that may aim to overcome the limitations of this notation.
The database system used in the Finnish Sign Language Dictionary Project
Authors: Savolainen Leena
Published: September 2007

A lexicographic research team started working at the Finnish Association of the Deaf in 1988. Since 1989, one of the researchers from the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has been working in the team as well. The team’s first project (1988–1998) was to produce a new Finnish Sign Language-Finnish dictionary. In this paper I will briefly explain the procedure followed within this project, and then describe the Word Perfect database we used to gather together the material we produced. I will describe the overall structure of the database system, the types of information registered, transcription methods used and the compatibility with other databases. As an illustration of the contents of the database I will provide a sample record of a sign entry as it appears in the book. When the dictionary was finished, the research team started working on new lexicographic projects and moved on to use a new database program, FileMaker Pro. To conclude this paper I will briefly introduce the new projects, discuss the reasons for choosing the FileMaker program, and describe how our research work has benefited from the new databases.
Making historical sign language materials accessible
Authors: Supalla Ted
Published: September 2007

In the last few years we have begun developing a database for studying the history of American Sign Language (ASL), and more generally as a prototype for making historical and contemporary sign language materials accessible to a variety of users. Our prototype began with a set of films, produced by the National Association of the Deaf, of master signers from the period 1910 to 1920. In addition to a digitized frame by frame version of these films, we have added a full transcription and a linguistic coding of each sign and sentence in the films. We are in the process of expanding these materials, adding further types of coding and representation of the items, and developing an interface permitting users to access parts of these materials in accord with their interests and needs. This paper describes our work thus far, and illustrates one possible use of these materials with an example of historical linguistic change.
The expression of motion events in homesign
Authors: Morford Jill P.
Published: September 2007

This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.
Aspects of Türk Isaret Dili (Turkish Sign Language)
Authors: Zeshan Ulrike
Published: September 2007

This article provides a first overview of some striking grammatical structures in Türk İş aret Dili (Turkish Sign Language, TID), the sign language used by the Deaf community in Turkey. The data are described with a typological perspective in mind, focusing on aspects of TID grammar that are typologically unusual across sign languages. After giving an overview of the historical, sociolinguistic and educational background of TID and the language community using this sign language, five domains of TID grammar are investigated in detail. These include a movement derivation signalling completive aspect, three types of nonmanual negation — headshake, backward head tilt, and puffed cheeks — and their distribution, cliticization of the negator NOT to a preceding predicate host sign, an honorific whole-entity classifier used to refer to humans, and a question particle, its history and current status in the language. A final evaluation points out the significance of these data for sign language research and looks at perspectives for a deeper understanding of the language and its history.
Beginning L2 production errors in ASL lexical phonology
Authors: Rosen Russel S.
Published: September 2007

This study examines production errors in ASL lexical phonology by beginning L2 adult learners, more particularly the handshape, location, movement, palm orientation, and nonmanual phonological segments. Studies in L2 adult learning of ASL are scant. For possible analytical models, first and second language acquisition models such as L1 transfer, Universal Grammar, and L1 child development are examined. The models do not capture the essence of phonology production errors in L2 ASL. A Cognitive Phonology Model is proposed to account for the errors. The errors are shaped by perception of sign formulation and poor motor dexterity. Production errors that are influenced by poor motor dexterity by adult L2 learners consist of substitutions, displacements, switches, additions, deletions, and incompletions of features within segments. Production errors that are shaped by perception of sign formulation consist of mirrorization, parallelization, addition, and deletion of features within segments.
Some observations on the use of HamNoSys (Hamburg Notation System for Sign Languages) in the context of the phonetic transcription of children’s signing
Authors: Takkinen Ritva
Published: September 2007

This paper discusses the use of the HamNoSys notation (Hamburg Notation System for Sign Languages) for the transcription of children’s signing. The notation system will be briefly described and some former descriptions of the acquisition of sign language phonology presented. The project in which HamNoSys was used is then described briefly followed by a description of the problems encountered while using the notation. Furthermore some proposals as to how to further develop the notation will be made. In conclusion the instrument can be said to be useful and, especially if revised, will be invaluable in further research.
Transcription of child sign language
Authors: Morgan Gary
Published: September 2007

This paper describes some general difficulties in analysing child sign language data with an emphasis on the process of transcription. The particular issue of capturing how signers encode simultaneity in narrative is discussed.
Pronominal system in Croatian Sign Language
Authors: Alibašić Ciciliani Tamara , Wilbur Ronnie B.
Published: September 2007

In this article we present some fundamental properties of the Croatian Sign Language (Hrvatski Znakovni Jezik, HZJ) pronominal system. The most common functions of pointing in HZJ are pronominal, demonstrative, locative, possessive and reflexive. Examination of the first person pronoun shows that the signer uses nonmanuals to indicate that she has taken the role of another person. Thus, the signer points to herself, but the intended reference is to a character in the story and not to the signer. These findings are used to provide evidence for grammatical first person. Viewed from Berenz’s (2002) perspective, grammatical second and third person pronouns show some degree of consistency within each category and differences across categories. When reference to the second person is intended, the characteristics hand orientation, eyegaze and the head will usually line up. In contrast, when reference to third person is intended, disjunction of some of these features occurs. Thus, the distinction between second and third person pronoun is linguistically marked in HZJ. Therefore we argue against Liddell (1995, 2003), who treats pointing as deictic, gestural, hence nonlinguistic. Furthermore we argue with Berenz against Meier (1990), who claims that at least for ASL there is no distinction between second and third person reference. Our morphological analysis reveals no gender distinction in the pronoun system, but there are distinctions between singular, plural, inclusive and exclusive pronouns. No correlation between spoken Croatian case marking and either HZJ handshape choice or systematic mouthing was found.
Word order in Croatian Sign Language
Authors: Milković Marina , Bradarić-Jončić Sandra , Wilbur Ronnie B.
Published: September 2007

This paper focuses on the basic word order of Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) and factors that permit alternative word orders to occur in sentences and in context. Although they are unrelated languages, the basic word order in HZJ is the same as in spoken Croatian: SVO.

One of the factors allowing alternative word orders in context is information status (old or new), which influences constituent placement, as in other languages. HZJ has a tendency to omit old, previously mentioned information, usually the Subject, and the part that is expressed is the new information (Rheme). When old information is expressed, it appears at the beginning of the sentence, preceding the Rheme.

Like other languages, HZJ word order can be influenced by the nature of the arguments (Subject, Object) as well as the type of Verb. Sentences with ‘reversible’ arguments (i.e. both are animate and could be agents) tend to use the basic word order, whereas those with nonreversible arguments allow more variable word order. Basic word order also occurs more often with plain verbs (those that do not agree with their arguments). Agreeing and spatial verbs use other word orders in addition to SVO, including the tendency to position Verbs at the end of sentences.

Investigation on the interaction of word order and the grammatical usage of facial expressions and head positions (nonmanual marking) indicates that nonmanual markings have pragmatic roles, and could have syntactic functions which await further research.
The Negotiation of Literary Dialogue in Translation
Authors: Assis Rosa Alexandra
Published: September 2007

Focussing on the pragmatic dimension of literary dialogue in narrative fiction, this paper analyses: (a) the negotiation of power carried out by characters and the way it is relayed in the text as signalled by forms of address; and (b) the negotiation performed by the translator in order to reproduce a power relation when dealing with the cultural and social environments of the source- and the target-language texts. By analysing one hundred years of Robinson Crusoe translated into European Portuguese (189– to 1992) the paper will attempt to reveal a possible historical development of translational norms and the way in which the historical, cultural and social environments may have influenced them.