bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The reaction of 2‐phenoxy‐3,5‐dinitropyridine with substituted anilines in the presence of 1,4‐diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane in dimethyl sulfoxide: Kinetic and equilibrium studies
Authors: Asghar Basim H.
Published: December 2008

The reactions of 2‐phenoxy‐3,5‐dinitropyridine (1) with a series of substituted anilines (4a–d) in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in the presence of 1,4‐diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) yield the 2‐anilino derivatives without the accumulation of intermediates. The kinetics is compatible with a two‐step reaction involving initial nucleophilic attack followed by either base‐catalyzed or uncatalyzed conversion to the product. The base‐catalyzed pathway is likely to involve rate‐limiting proton transfer from the zwitterionic intermediate to base. The results are compared with those for reactions of 1,3,5‐trinitrobenzene (2) and phenyl 2,4,6‐trinitrophenyl ether (3, R = Ph) with anilines. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 41: 198–203, 2009
Identification of in vitro phosphorylation sites in the Arabidopsis thaliana somatic embryogenesis receptor‐like kinases
Authors: Karlova Rumyana , Boeren Sjef , van Dongen Walter , Kwaaitaal Mark , Aker Jose , Vervoort Jacques , de Vries Sacco
Published: December 2008

The Arabidopsis thaliana somatic embryogenesis receptor‐like kinase (SERK) family consists of five leucine‐rich repeat receptor‐like kinases (LRR‐RLKs) with diverse functions such as brassinosteroid insensitive 1 (BRI1)‐mediated brassinosteroid perception, development and innate immunity. The autophosphorylation activity of the kinase domains of the five SERK proteins was compared and the phosphorylated residues were identified by LC‐MS/MS. Differences in autophosphorylation that ranged from high activity of SERK1, intermediate activities for SERK2 and SERK3 to low activity for SERK5 were noted. In the SERK1 kinase the C‐terminally located residue Ser‐562 controls full autophosphorylation activity. Activation loop phosphorylation, including that of residue Thr‐462 previously shown to be required for SERK1 kinase activity, was not affected. In vivo SERK1 phosphorylation was induced by brassinosteroids. Immunoprecipitation of CFP‐tagged SERK1 from plant extracts followed by MS/MS identified Ser‐303, Thr‐337, Thr‐459, Thr‐462, Thr‐463, Thr‐468, and Ser‐612 or Thr‐613 or Tyr‐614 as in vivo phosphorylation sites of SERK1. Transphosphorylation of SERK1 by the kinase domain of the main brassinosteroid receptor BRI1 occurred only on Ser‐299 and Thr‐462. This suggests both intra‐ and intermolecular control of SERK1 kinase activity. Conversely, BRI1 was transphosphorylated by the kinase domain of SERK1 on Ser‐887. BRI1 kinase activity was not required for interaction with the SERK1 receptor in a pull down assay.
Multidimensional Adaptive Testing with Optimal Design Criteria for Item Selection
Authors: Mulder Joris , van der Linden Wim J.
Published: December 2008

Several criteria from the optimal design literature are examined for use with item selection in multidimensional adaptive testing. In particular, it is examined what criteria are appropriate for adaptive testing in which all abilities are intentional, some should be considered as a nuisance, or the interest is in the testing of a composite of the abilities. Both the theoretical analyses and the studies of simulated data in this paper suggest that the criteria of A-optimality and D-optimality lead to the most accurate estimates when all abilities are intentional, with the former slightly outperforming the latter. The criterion of E-optimality showed occasional erratic behavior for this case of adaptive testing, and its use is not recommended. If some of the abilities are nuisances, application of the criterion of As-optimality (or Ds-optimality), which focuses on the subset of intentional abilities is recommended. For the measurement of a linear combination of abilities, the criterion of c-optimality yielded the best results. The preferences of each of these criteria for items with specific patterns of parameter values was also assessed. It was found that the criteria differed mainly in their preferences of items with different patterns of values for their discrimination parameters.
Commentary on Coefficient Alpha: A Cautionary Tale
Authors: Green Samuel B. , Yang Yanyun
Published: December 2008

The general use of coefficient alpha to assess reliability should be discouraged on a number of grounds. The assumptions underlying coefficient alpha are unlikely to hold in practice, and violation of these assumptions can result in nontrivial negative or positive bias. Structural equation modeling was discussed as an informative process both to assess the assumptions underlying coefficient alpha and to estimate reliability
Reliability of Summed Item Scores Using Structural Equation Modeling: An Alternative to Coefficient Alpha
Authors: Green Samuel B. , Yang Yanyun
Published: December 2008

A method is presented for estimating reliability using structural equation modeling (SEM) that allows for nonlinearity between factors and item scores. Assuming the focus is on consistency of summed item scores, this method for estimating reliability is preferred to those based on linear SEM models and to the most commonly reported estimate of reliability, coefficient alpha.
A Latent Class Multidimensional Scaling Model for Two-Way One-Mode Continuous Rating Dissimilarity Data
Authors: Vera J. Fernando , Macías Rodrigo , Heiser Willem J.
Published: December 2008

In this paper, we propose a cluster-MDS model for two-way one-mode continuous rating dissimilarity data. The model aims at partitioning the objects into classes and simultaneously representing the cluster centers in a low-dimensional space. Under the normal distribution assumption, a latent class model is developed in terms of the set of dissimilarities in a maximum likelihood framework. In each iteration, the probability that a dissimilarity belongs to each of the blocks conforming to a partition of the original dissimilarity matrix, and the rest of parameters, are estimated in a simulated annealing based algorithm. A model selection strategy is used to test the number of latent classes and the dimensionality of the problem. Both simulated and classical dissimilarity data are analyzed to illustrate the model.
‘DIVINE KINGS’: SEX, DEATH AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN INTER-WAR EAST/CENTRAL AFRICA
Authors: VAUGHAN MEGAN
Published: December 2008

The elaborate mortuary rites of the Chitimukulu (the paramount chief of the Bemba people) attracted the attention of both colonial administrators and anthropologists in inter-war Northern Rhodesia. This paper examines the political and symbolic significance of these rites before turning to an analysis of accounts, by the anthropologist Audrey Richards, of the deaths of two ‘commoners’ in the 1930s. The paper argues that chiefly power resided less in the threat of death which was enacted spectacularly in the Chitimukulu's mortuary rituals than in the promise to create and protect life, located in the practices of quotidian life. This promise of the creation and protection of life was being progressively undermined by the conditions of colonial rule.
‘THE CHILD OF DEATH’: PERSONAL NAMES AND PARENTAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS MORTALITY IN BUNYORO, WESTERN UGANDA, 1900–2005
Authors: DOYLE SHANE
Published: December 2008

Traditional sources tell us relatively little about how Africans perceived death in the past. In some societies, however, changing attitudes towards mortality can be identified from the names which were given to babies. In Bunyoro almost a third of the names that were given during the colonial period referred to death. The declining frequency of death-related names from the 1940s offers significant insights into the impact of Christianity, education and population growth on the Nyoro's worldview. That death-related names did not re-emerge in the era of AIDS is a significant indication of how the pandemic has been viewed in western Uganda.
Recent developments in language assessment and the case of four large-scale tests of ESOL ability
Authors: Stoynoff Stephen
Published: December 2008

This review article surveys recent developments and validation activities related to four large-scale tests of L2 English ability: the iBT TOEFL, the IELTS, the FCE, and the TOEIC. In addition to describing recent changes to these tests, the paper reports on validation activities that were conducted on the measures. The results of this research constitute some of the evidence available to support claims that these tests are suitable for their intended purposes. The discussion is organized on the basis of a framework that considers test purpose, selected test method characteristics, and important aspects of test usefulness.
Assessing academic writing in foreign and second languages
Authors: Cumming Alister
Published: December 2008

Academic writing and education in foreign and second languages both have lengthy histories. Their histories have diverged but also intersected. Matsuda (2005), for example, described the convergence in policies that led to a distinctive discipline of ‘L2 writing’ in higher education in the U.S.A. during the latter part of the 20th century. Assessment is a key point of their mutual intersection. Approaches to language testing that involve writing for academic purposes – or conversely, writing assessments that involve second or foreign languages – have appeared at certain times, supported by particular policies, rationales, and modes of inquiry or reasoning. The present timeline focuses on the development and elaboration of these rationales and research about them.
Infant mortality in the Nordic countries, 1780–1930
Authors: EDVINSSON SÖREN , GARÐARSDÓTTIR ÓLÖF , THORVALDSEN GUNNAR
Published: December 2008

This article summarizes aspects of the decline in infant mortality in the five Nordic countries. During the nineteenth century, both the levels of infant mortality and its development differed among the Nordic countries. At an early date, Denmark, Norway and Sweden stood out as the countries with the lowest levels in Europe whereas levels of infant mortality in Iceland and Finland were comparatively high. Within the countries there were large regional differences that often crossed national borders. Artificial feeding characterized most of the areas with the highest infant mortality. Within the different countries the high infant mortality came to be seen as a problem during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The spread of information, midwives as agents of change and high literacy are factors that have been proven important in explaining the subsequent decline.
On Accessibility and Coreference
Authors: Halmari Helena
Published: December 2008

Anaphors and the grammatical roles of their antecedents are examined in Finnish language data in order to establish a correlation between two universal hierarchies: the Keenan & Comrie (1977) NP Accessibility Hierarchy and the hierarchy of accessibility of referential expressions (Accessibility Marking Scale) (Ariel 1985, 1988, 1990). A more or less clear correlation pattern between the type of anaphoric NPs and the grammatical roles of their antecedents arises in Finnish intuition data (Section 2), and this pattern is corroborated by the data from prose text counts (Section 3). Even though a one-to-one mapping between the two hierarchies remains an idealization, it is clear that grammatical relations do bear on the type of anaphoric expression employed.
Distributed Spatial Semantics
Authors: Sinha Chris , Kuteva Tania
Published: December 2008

The “local semantics” approach to the analysis of the meaning of locative particles (e.g. spatial prepositions) is examined, criticized and rejected. An alternative, distributed approach to spatial relational semantics and its linguistic expression is argued for. In the first part of the paper, it is argued that spatial relational semantic information is not exclusively carried in languages such as English by the locative particle, and that “item-specific meanings plus selectional restrictions” cannot save the localist approach. In the second part of the paper, the “covertly” distributed spatial relational semantics of languages such as English is contrasted with the “overtly” distributed spatial relational semantics characterizing many other languages. Some common assumptions relating to the universality of the expression of spatial relational meaning by closed syntactic classes are criticized. A change of perspective from “local” to “distributed” semantics permits the re-analysis of polysemy and item-bound “use-type” in terms of the distributed expression of language-specific spatial relational semantic types.
On the Phonology of Icelandic Prespiration
Authors: Thráisson Höskuldur
Published: December 2008

This paper presents a new phonological analysis of preaspiration in Icelandic. Its purpose is to get as close to the phonetic facts as possible while capturing at the same time the regular phonological character of Icelandic preaspiraton.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 briefly reviews some phonetic descriptions of preaspiration. Section 2 shows why preaspiration must be considered an active phonological rule in Modern Icelandic. Section 3 presents an informal description of what the preaspiration rule has to do. Section 4 gives both an autosegmental and a more conventional generative phonological statement of the rule. Section 5 gives arguments for the autosegmental analysis. Section 6 is a Conclusion, followed by an Appendix on preaspiration in other languages.
French ‘Schwa’ Deletion in Natural Generative Phonology
Authors: Lyche Chantal
Published: December 2008

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of french schea deletion where, in agreemant with some basic principles of natural Generative Phonology, all rules are obligatory and not extrinsically ordered. This analysis is at variance with Dell's (1973) treatmant. It is contended that even if, as suggested by Rudes (1976), marking each phonological rule for applying only within a certain tempo can eliminate from the phonological component true optional rules, a certain amount of optionality must still be allowed within a rule. Furthermore, the nature of French schwa deletion forces us to reject rudes' model where the output of a tempo is the input to the next faster one.
A Bibliography of Swedish Contrastive Linguistics and Error Analysis
Authors: Eliasson Stig
Published: December 2008

Systematic contrastive analysis (CA) and error analysis (EA) of Swedish are just a little more than a decade old, but have rapidly grown into a flourishing field of study. However, the contributions to this area of research are scattered over numerous and often rather diverse publications, and a compilation of the relevant literature should therefore be useful to researchers in the field as well as textbook writers and teachers who seek to apply the results of Swedish CA and EA in instructional materials and class-rooms.
Apparent Naturalness in Faroese Phonology
Authors: Hellberg Staffan
Published: December 2008

During the last decade, generative linguists have tried various ways of building phonetic naturalness into the phonological evaluation measure. The phonological component being a mental reality, it is, however, not reasonable to give reference to physical phonetic properties such a prominent place. A return to more formal principles, such as the economy criterion originally suggested by Chomsky and Halle, might be better. Many morphophonemic alternations are not synchronically natural (in the phonetic sense) at all, but only seem so because they have preserved traits from their historically phonetic origin. This is demonstrated here for two seemingly natural rules in Faroese, Velar Softening and Hiatus Insertion. In all Faroese dialects, morphological simplification has burdened the rules with exceptions, but the rules have nowhere spread to new forms so as to become exceptionless again, as would be expected from a phonetically natural rule. In closing, the role of perceptional ease as a factor in language change is discussed.
On Thematic Rules and Regularities
Authors: Filppula Markku
Published: December 2008

Although linguistic behavior is in general guided by normative rules, it need not all be rule-guided. Also, rules of language differ in their degree of constitutivity, and hence, in their force of obligation. The so-called thematic rules are characteristically of a “weak” constitutivity, and often mere regularities of usage devoid of normativity. Their possible normativity is assessed in terms of contextual-pragmatic correctnees. The thematic organization of sentences illustrates particularly well the special relationship between rule and action, those areas of linguistic behaviour where normativity may shade off into spatiotemporality. From the methodological point of view, all this requires the investigation of thematic systems as mediated through action, and further, the combining of speakers' intuitive knowledge and of observation of actual linguistic behaviour.
Problems with Tagging – and a Solution
Authors: Brodda Benny
Published: December 2008

Taggin is the proces of assigning morphological, sytactic and /or semantic information to linguistic units in a text. The most important problems in connection with tagging are, of course, those related to subject matter, but in computerized tagging systems, which this article is about, there are also several technical problems. They automatically announce thermselves, and have to be solved one way or the other. In this paper a fairly extensive description of a computer system (THE TAGGER) is given, which is an attempt to solve some of the problems diswcussed. This article is non-technical in the sense that it presupposes no actual Knowledge of programming, but some general experience of computers and computational linguistics is of course helpful.
NP-Internal Chains in Norwegian
Authors: Fiva Toril
Published: December 2008

In Norwegian, these two types of constructions expressing an NP with a (prenominal) possessor exist:

(i) Pers bil ‘Peter's car’

(ii) Per sin bil Peter his, refl. car ‘Peter's car’

I argue that the s in (i) is not a case affix, but rather a variant of sin. Furthermore, I discuss how [Per] in (ii) assigned Case, and the fact that Per and sin apparently share a theta-role. I suggest that they constitute a chain in (ii), to which Case and a theta-role is assigned.

I shall compare the definition of “chain” in Chomsky 1981 to the modified definition of Kayne 1981. The modified definition, together with other principles suggested by Kayne 1981/1983, not only permits our analysis of (ii), but also provides interesting predictions about this construction, and indirectly about the lack of it in a related language, Icelandic.
The Categories of Tense, Aspect, and Aktionsart in Polish and Swedish
Authors: Kozlowska-Raś Rita
Published: December 2008

As pointed out by numerous researchers, only a limited degree of correspondence exists between Polish and Swedish concerning the use of tense and aspect. The discrepancies lead to several typical interference phenomena in Polish speakers learning Swedish. This article contains a contrastive analysis of forms and functions of tense and aspect in Polish and Swedish, where the main sources of interference phenomena are pointed out.
Automatic Abstracting Content in Text
Authors: Källgren Gunnel
Published: December 2008

The article deals with the possibility of constructing a synopsis of a given text by automatic means from the text itself. It is suggested that this might be done on the basis of a statistical analysis of the vocabulary and collocations in the vocabulary, followed by simple parsing of selected parts of the text, and simple textual analysis, everything based on the results of the vocabulary analysis. The sentences and sentence fragments that are found to be central can then be used for the reconstruction of a substantially abridged version of the original text. After a discussion of the background of the model, a sample analysis is shown.
Using Referent Grammar (RG) in Computer Analysis, Generation and Translation of Sentences
Authors: Sigurd Bengt
Published: December 2008

The paper presents Referent Grammar (RG), a version of generalized phrase structure grammar. RG uses descriptive labels for defective categories (categories tacking a constituent) instead of slash expressions and needs no null (empty, zero) categories. RG uses both functional and categorial representations and the grammar rules, written in the Prolog DCG formalism, relate these two levels. The functional representations of RG include referent variables (numbers) with noun phrases which makes it possible to keep track of the referents within the sentences and in the text. Relative clauses can be defined in a new way using these referents and the referent, enriched with grammatical features, can be used for controlling agreement. Substantial fragments of Swedish and English grammars have been implemented in RG and the print-out of a demo session shows how RG works in computerized analysis, generation and translation of Swedish and English sentences.
Expressions of Distance and Raising
Authors: Gunnarson Kjell-Åke
Published: December 2008

It is shown, on the basis of Swedish and French data, that expressions of distance may be raising predicates. Given a raising analysis, two interesting consequences follow: (a) One of two widely adopted hypotheses must be abandoned (the idea that an S with a filled Comp is never transparent to government, and the idea that French de and Swedish att, when introducing infinitival complements, are complementizers); (b) Raising predicates may be drawn from lexical categories other than V and A.
Foot and Syllable Structure in Modern Icelandic
Authors: Iverson Gregory K. , Kesterson Courtenay A.
Published: December 2008

As is well known, vowel length in Modern Icelandic is in general predictable on the basis of syllable structure such that, in polysyllabic words, stressed vowels in open syllables are long, other vowels are short; in stressed monosyllables, however, vowels are long whether the syllable is open or closed by a single consonant, and short only when the syllable is closed by a consonant cluster. In contrast to the ‘final maximalistic’ strategy of Árnason (1980) and other unlikely syllabification schemes designed to unify these two patterns, we invoke Giegerich's (1985) characterization of foot structure as applied to German and English, according to which stressed monosyllables categorize metrically as disyllabic feet whose rightmost member is null. Thus, CVC structures are metrically /CV.CØ/, with the result that the generalization regarding vowel length in words of all types is simply that stressed vowels in open syllables are long, others short.
Swedish VP-Topicalization and Yiddish Verb-Topicalization
Authors: Källgren Gunnel , Prince Ellen F.
Published: December 2008

In this paper, we consider Swedish Finite VP-Topicalization and Yiddish Finite-Verb Topicalization, which share certain interesting features that have implications for Germanic syntax and for syntactic theory in general. Although neither construction contains a gap, we argue that both are products of Movement, but with a lexically realized trace, and that this phenomenon is crucially related to Movement of finite verbs. The arguments are based on the distribution of aspectual types, lexical and phonological phenomena, the V/2 Constraint, Subjacency, and discourse phenomena.
Laughter and Dialogue: The Social Significance of Laughter in Institutional Discourse
Authors: Adelswärd Viveka
Published: December 2008

This study is based interaction in institutional settings (job interviews, post-trial interviews with defendants, negotiations between high-school students, telephone conversations between social-walfare officers and parents) and examines the social significance of laughter in dialogue. As an example, two assumptions put forward by Jefferson (1979, 1984) are questioned—namely, that laughter is regularly triggered by something funny and that laughter always has a strong inviting character. The analyses show that, in dialogue, we often laugh alone and not always at things considered particularly funny. Mutual laughter is a sign of rapport and consensus. This is exemplified by the fact that in the job interviews resulting in a job offer there was more mutual laughter than in those involving applicants who were unsuccessful. Unilateral laughter is used to modify verbal expressions or attitudes and can help us in handling ambiguities and tension.
A Grammer without Functional Categories: A Syntactic Study of Early Swedish Child Language
Authors: Platzack Christer
Published: December 2008

In this paper I give empirical evidence for the hypothesis that there are no functional categories in early Swedish child language (up to approximately 3 years of age). claiming that utterances with at least a subject and a verb at this early stage of language development can be described within the limits of VP. Several properties of early Swedish are shown to follow from this hypothesis, including the lack of subordinate clauses in early Swedish and the fact that early Swedish is not a verb second language.
Form and Content Revisited: Comment on Lisbeth Hedelin's Paper
Authors: Snow Catherine E.
Published: December 2008

In her paper “Methodological reflections on studies of preschoolers' awareness of the form/content distinction, in spoken communication”, Lisbeth Hedelin again raises the long discussed and still murky issue of how children come to understand the distinction between what an utterance means and how exactly it is said. The form/content distinction is, of course, a central feature and defining property of natural languages. It is relevant to the basic grammatical demonstration of ambiguity, which is recurrently offered as evidence for a deep structure/surface structure distinction: “Visiting relatives can be tiresome” as one form with two content interpretations. It is also relevant to any notion of language as an effective communication system in which levels of directness can be manipulated in the service of politeness, and in which deniability is the prerogative of the language user: “It sure would be nice to have a beer in this heat” displays potential ambiguity of interpretation between request and comment —of quite a different sort from “visiting relatives”. The multiplicity of form/content distinctions is central to Hedelin's paper, which takes as a starting point the possibility that different tasks might reveal quite different levels of ability to deal with or display control over the basic notion that form and content do not map in a one-to-one way on to each other.
Wh-gap Binding and Ellipsis — a Grammar for an Input System
Authors: Kempson Ruth
Published: December 2008

This paper argues that pragmatic processes and syntactic constraints interact, that we can nevertheless retain the assumption that the natural language faculty is fully encapsulated, and that the problems posed by the phenomenon of gapping (bare argument ellipsis) can be resolved by analysing gapping as an instance of such interaction. A new model of language is sketched out, a model which is a formal reconstruction of assumptions about the language faculty and its relation to central cognitive processes made by Fodor. and Sperber and Wilson. A fragment is defined to cover pronominal anaphoric dependency and quantifier binding, and a new analysis of bare argument ellipsis (gapping) is presented.
Linguistic Meaning: Cognition, Interaction and the Real World
Authors: Harder Peter
Published: December 2008

This article deals with the basic issues of the nature of linguistic meaning and the place of semantics in linguistic theory. First, there is a discussion of the implications for semantics of the research paradigm based on formal simulation, concluding that it involves a risk of misrepresenting the place of semantics in linguistics. Second, there is a discussion of the truth-conditional approach, which, although in one important respect it involves a more adequate conception of the role of semantics in language theory, is seen as misrepresenting linguistic meaning in a way that has been pointed out within the cognitive approach to semantics. Third, however, it is argued that the cognitive approach does not sufficiently account for the external anchoring of meaning. Fourth, it is argued that meaning ‘outside the head’ must be understood as basically interactive. A crucial element in the view argued here is the distinction between linguistic, potential meaning, which functions asinstructionsto the addressee, and actual meaning or ‘message’, which the addressee works out as part of the actual process of interpretation. Within such a picture, the importance of both cognition and truth can be accounted for, and both aspects are seen as dependent on the fundamental embeddedness of language in a shared social universe.
Physiological Constraints in Taiwan Sign Language Handshape-Change
Authors: Ann Jean
Published: December 2008

This paper examines the role of physiology of the hand relevant to particular handshapechange data from Taiwan Sign Language. The physiology of the hand is shown to be completely responsible for one aspect of handshape-change (that fingers must become unspread when closed). In addition, the physiology provides the explanation for two tendencies in handshape-changes (i) that when fingers extend, they tend to spread, and (ii) that when less than all five fingers perform a handshape change, the fingers that do so are the thumb, index, and middle or a subset.
Cognitive Strategies in the Formation of Topic Constructions
Authors: Maslova Elena S.
Published: December 2008

An attempt is made to incorporate the concept of sentence topic into a general model of sentence formation. The article begins with a morphosyntactic typology of topic constructions attested across languages, followed by an examination of the types of discourse contexts in which these constructions are employed by different languages, which allows a correlation to be established between formal types of topic constructions and their discourse functions. It turns out that both the formal distinctions between major types of topic constructions and their functional distribution obtain a straightforward explanation, if they are taken to be derived by different cognitive strategies. A model based on this idea makes it possible to explain some aspects of interaction between formal properties of languages and their relative “topic-prominence”.
Analysis of Particle Verbs for Automatic Translation
Authors: Sigurd Bengt
Published: December 2008

A number of typical particle verbs in Swedish and English are presented and it is noted that such verbs are often forgotten in dictionaries and not given the proper treatment in grammars. One problem is the identification of these verbs, another is the fact that the verb and the particle may be separated by other words. The particle verbs must therefore be treated as discontinuous lexical items. It is shown that the phrase structure rules used in Swetra Referent Grammar can make room for lexical material at several places in the word string, if this is required by the lexical matrix. English and Swedish examples are presented and also the automatic translation of some simple sentences
The Development of Metropolitan Languages in Post-Colonial Contexts: Language Contact and Language Change and the Case of Portuguese in Maputo
Authors: Stroud Christopher
Published: December 2008

This article explores briefly some phenomena of potential indigenization of the Portuguese spoken in Mozambique. Data for the study has been taken from work that is currently underway in Maputo, Mozambique, that was originally initiated to investigate contact varieties of Portuguese and to probe their educational implications. Speech samples comprise formal interviews and non-formal encounters from a socio-demographically representative sample of informants. The article first provides an inventory of some non-standard European Portuguese variants that are found in this data, and subsequently focusses upon a discussion of what contribution different linguistic processes make to indigenization, specifically the role played by processes of second language acquisition in a context of massive and diffuse language contact and change. Special attention is also paid to the social contexts in which different manifestations of language contact are found, and the importance of linguistic ideology for the form that language contact takes in particular cases is explored. The article concludes with the suggestion that the salient characteristics of types of non-native speech community such as Maputo require a reconceptualization of models and methods of contact linguistics and second language acquisition, and that this in turn carries implications for the terms of reference and analysis to which indigenization need be related.
Improving Ambiguity Resolution Rate with an Accurate Ionospheric Differential Correction
Authors: Abdullah Mardina , Strangeways Hal J. , Walsh David M. A.
Published: December 2008

Ambiguity resolution is essential for precise range determination. As it is difficult to process, a good ionospheric model is essential to get unambiguous results or to reduce time to solve the ambiguities. In this paper, a developed model to determine the differential ionospheric error to sub-centimetre accuracy is described. As a function of elevation angle and TEC, the model is applicable at any location and only requires a single frequency receiver provided the TEC over the reference station is known. It has been evaluated using real GPS measurements at spaced stations in Glasgow (UK) and Stirling (UK), where the results showed good correlation. It was found that the variance ratio and reference variance of the ambiguity resolution rate and the quality of the differential positioning solution are improved. Significant improvements of more than 50% have also been found by correcting the differential ionospheric delay in the measurements for the estimated positions.
Revisiting the Lessons of the Early Steering and Sailing Rules for an e-Navigation Age
Authors: Crosbie John Wilde
Published: December 2008

Armed with the axiom that the best way to avoid collision at sea is for one ship to pass under the stern of the other, this paper revisits the early steering and sailing rules. It conjectures that the port tack rule was an antidote to the sailing ship's imperative to gain ground to windward even at the cost of risk of collision. It draws attention to evidence that with early steamships, free of the port tack rule, one altered course to pass astern of the other and that, in fact, the one to alter was invariably the faster of the two. It traces, to the want of prescribed navigation lights, the introduction of the port helm/right rudder rule for all ships by day and by night. It records how with the introduction of prescribed lights the port tack rule, though in a form proposed by France, was re-introduced for sailing ships together with an analogous crossing rule for streamers. The paper concludes that the port tack rule is redundant in this collision conscious age and that its objective of motivating one ship to alter course can be achieved by making both ships to blame in the event of a collision. It is submitted that these lessons offer the e-navigator a method of avoiding collision at sea applicable in all situations; the only technical requirement for its safe conduct is for each ship to be able to tell instantly and accurately at any moment how the other ship is heading.
Cult in an Island Society: Prehistoric Malta in the Tarxien Period
Authors: Stoddart Simon , Bonanno Anthony , Gouder Tancred , Malone Caroline , Trump David
Published: December 2008

This paper examines the cult practices of the Tarxien period on Malta (c. 3000–c. 2500 BC) within the wider context of island societies. A model of ritual organization is developed which emphasizes the isolation of Malta during the major phases of temple building. A comparison is made between two pairs of sites each comprising a temple and burial component, Tarxien and Hal Saflieni, Ggantija and the Brochtorff Circle. A more detailed comparison is made between the more recently excavated examples: the Tarxien temple and the Brochtorff Circle mortuary complex. The latter is the subject on an ongoing Anglo-Maltese project directed by the authors. The analysis moves in turn from the constituent units (or modules) of which these sites are composed, to their overall configuration, and finally to their place in the landscape and to the place of Malta in the central Mediterranean.
Chariots of the Gods in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (c. 2000–1600 BC)
Authors: Stone Elizabeth C.
Published: December 2008

The distribution of designs on Mesopotamian terracottas can provide clues to the relationship between symbols and meaning at different localities. Unlike other Mesopotamian terracottas whose iconography reflects pan-Mesopotamian beliefs, the designs on model chariots are site-specific. While Mesopotamian religious symbols should probably be interpreted as representing aspects of divine power rather than individual deities, combinations of symbols serve to identify particular gods. When these are found on model chariots, they can be related to the titular deities of the specific city in which they were found. Examination of the findspots of these objects, especially those from Mashkanshapir, suggests a possible link between model chariots and the centralizing institutions of the city.
The Archaeology of African-American Slave Religion in the Antebellum South
Authors: Orser Charles E.
Published: December 2008

An interest in New World slavery is a recent and exciting development within American archaeology. As archaeologists have rushed to discover the material aspects of what slaves ate, what kinds of dwellings they inhabited, and what sorts of material culture they used, they have also gathered information about slave religion. Although much of this information is incomplete and open to numerous interpretations, it nonetheless exposes an important area of archaeological endeavour. I explore some of what is today known about the slaves' religious observances, both African-inspired and non-African. My focus is on the antebellum period, roughly from 1800 to 1861, of the American South, with some reference to other times and places.
Seeing and Construing: The Making and ‘Meaning’ of a Southern African Rock Art Motif
Authors: Lewis-Williams J. D.
Published: December 2008

The construction of archaeological arguments is a continuing source of concern. In comparatively recent years archaeological data have come to be seen as a text that can in some sense be ‘read’. Rejecting this approach in favour of arguments constructed by the intertwining of disparate strands of evidence, this article explores the possible meanings of a southern African rock art motif. Variations in the art itself, nineteenth- and twentieth-century San ethnography and studies of altered states of consciousness combine to suggest that this motif, though idiosyncratically depicted by different artists, was associated with the ways in which San shamans broke through into the spiritual realm.
The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account
Authors: Knight Chris , Power Camilla , Watts Ian
Published: December 2008

By 50,000 years ago, the effects of a ‘symbolic explosion’ — an efflorescence of human art, song, dance and ritual — were rippling across the globe. Applied to archaeological evidence, standard neo-Darwinian theory offers new understandings of this improbable event. The present article defines ‘symbolism’, models quasi-ritual behaviour in late archaic Homo sapiens, extends the argument to the emergence of anatomically modern humans and concludes with preliminary tests against archaeological, ethnographic and rock art data.
Understanding Levallois: Lithic Technology and Cognitive Archaeology
Authors: Schlanger Nathan
Published: December 2008

The Levallois technique has attracted much ‘cognitive’ attention in the past decades. Many archaeologists argue that both the products and the procedure of this Palaeolithic technique have been clearly predetermined by the prehistoric flintknappers. Attempts have recently been made to challenge this notion of predetermination by reference to raw material and ‘technological’ constraints. The aim of this article is to assess the grounds on which these claims have been advanced, and then work towards a better establishment of the cognitive implications of Levallois manufacture. Latest developments in the technological understanding of Levallois are presented in their context, and then put to work through a detailed case study: the analysis, in quantitative and qualitative terms, of a comprehensively refitted Levallois core from the 250,000 year-old site of Maastricht Belvédère, in the Netherlands. By reconstructing and following the sequence of work on this highly productive core, it can be shown that its knapping did not simply entail the execution of a pre-set program, nor did it respond in an adventitious manner to external constraints. Rather, it is argued that the course of action was a structured and goal-oriented one, a generative interplay between the mental and material activities of the ancient flintknapper.
Word of Minos: the Minoan Contribution to Mycenaean Greek and the Linguistic Geography of the Bronze Age Aegean
Authors: Renfrew Colin
Published: December 2008

The question of the supposedly pre-Greek language or languages of the Aegean, in its wider historical and cultural context, has not been systematically addressed since the decipherment of the Linear B script, other than in the philological studies of DA. Hester. Here it is argued that the time is ripe for a new synthesis between the linguistic and the cultural evidence. The language of the Minoan Linear A script, that is (it is here assumed) the Minoan language of the palaces, is here identified as making the principal contribution to the so-called ‘pre-Greek’ vocabulary of the Greek language, thus constituting not a linguistic substratum of earlier date but an adstratum, which developed during their co-existence in the Aegean during the Bronze Age. This may be seen as the linguistic component in the ‘Versailles effect’ of Minoan palatial influence within the Aegean, which reached its apogee in the Late Bronze 1 period, a view anticipated in some respects in the work of some earlier writers notably G. Glotz.

Such an approach focuses attention more clearly on the intellectual and ideological contributions of Minoan culture to the emerging Mycenaean civilization, rather than on the piecemeal acquisition of material items, without however assigning a secondary or subordinate role to the mainland communities in their own transition towards state society. One important consequence of the argument is to diminish (or even eliminate) the case for a significant chronologically pre-Greek element in the Greek language. One principal argument against the very early, probably Neolithic arrival of proto-Greek (or proto-Indo-European) speakers into mainland Greece is thereby removed. The resulting simplification in the linguistic picture of the Bronze Age Aegean proposed here carries implications also for that of western Anatolia and for the great antiquity there of the Luwian language. It opens questions also about the affinities of the presumed Anatolianancestor of the Minoan (or proto-Minoan) language.
Bodies of Evidence on Prehistoric Cyprus
Authors: Knapp A. Bernard , Meskell Lynn
Published: December 2008

This study takes as its point of departure recent discussions in sociology, anthropology, queer theory, and masculinist and feminist studies on the contextual constitution of sex and gender, with its surrounding debates. We explore the adoption and implications of the body as a phenomenon in archaeology and its connection to power-centred theories. As a case study, we use a body of data comprised of prehistoric Cypriot figurines (Chalcolithic and Bronze Age), and suggest that an archaeology of individuals may be possible in prehistoric contexts. In conclusion, we suggest that archaeologists move beyond rigid, binary categorizations and attempt to prioritize specific discourses of difference by implementing constructions of self or identity
European Art: the Palaeolithic Legacy?
Authors: Bednarik Robert G.
Published: December 2008

The recent discovery of open-air rock engravings in the Côa valley of northern Portugal has been followed by a vigorous debate over their true age. On grounds of style and of stylistic parallels, many rock art specialists attribute the Côa engravings (and similar carvings at a handful of other sites in Iberia and southern France) to the Upper Palaeolithic, contemporary with the more famous cave art ofLascaux and elsewhere. Attempts so far to date the Côa engravings by scientific techniques have produced relatively recent age estimates for this art. Robert Bednarik has been among the strongest proponents of such a recent date, and in this noe he seeks to explain how the Côa art could be Holocene, or even late Holocene, yet still bear striking stylistic resemblance to carvings or other representations of known Palaeolithic age. In the spirit of the debate, we have invited three rock art experts to comment on Bednarik's theory of artistic continuity, and have appended his own reply to these responses.
On the deceleration of cometary fragments in aerogel
Authors: Coulson S.G.
Published: December 2008

Determining the thermal history of the cometary grains captured by the Stardust mission presents a difficult problem. We consider two simplified models for the deceleration of hypervelocity particles captured in aerogel; both models assume a velocity squared drag force. The first model assumes that the mass of the particle remains constant during capture and the second that mass is lost due to ablation of the particle through interactions with the aerogel. It is found that the constant mass model adequately reproduces the track lengths, found from experiments by Hörz et al. in 2008, that impacted aluminium oxide spheres into aerogel at hypervelocities ~6 km s−1.

Deceleration in aerogel heats volatile particles such as organic ices to high temperatures greater than 1,000 K, for durations of ~1 μs: more than sufficient to completely ablate the particle. Refractory particles also experience significant heating greater than 2500 K, greater than the particle's melting point, over similar timescales. This suggests that the fragments recovered to Earth by the Stardust mission were considerably altered by hypersonic capture by aerogel, and so limits the amount of information that can be obtained regarding the formation of mineral and organic particles within Kuiper Belt comets.
Prudent investors: the asset allocation of public pension plans
Authors: WELLER CHRISTIAN E. , WENGER JEFFREY B.
Published: December 2008

After 2000, the vast majority of defined benefit (DB) pension plans encountered a decrease in their funding ratios, largely due to a drop in asset prices. It is possible that public sector pension plans may have acted imprudently by chasing returns, once they encountered underfunding. We identify four indicators for DB plans' imprudent investment behavior: no portfolio rebalancing, employer conflicts of interest, trustee conflicts of interest, and failure to implement best investment practices. To see if public sector pension plans rebalance their portfolios, we use data from the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds, dating from 1952 to 2007. To test for the remaining three hypotheses, we use data from the Census' State and Local Government Employee Retirement Systems data base, where consistent data for state and local government plans are available from 1993 to 2005. Our results suggest that there is no evidence that public sector plans systematically engaged in imprudent investment behavior and that this did not systematically differ after 2000 from the earlier period.