bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
When Zidane is not simply Zidane, and Bill Gates is not just Bill Gates
Authors: Brdar Mario , Brdar-Szabó Rita
Published: August 2014

The present chapter deals with the problem of the construction of meaning of figuratively used personal names in the basic constructional schema Det + Xpersonal name + of Y. After a brief overview of two currently dominant philosophical approaches to problems of reference that are at odds with cognitive linguistic views, we proceed to outline a path along which their meaning is developed in several successive steps. The starting point is the enlistment of our total encyclopedic knowledge about the bearers of proper names organized in complex matrixes of domains. We outline how figurative meanings arise in a step by step fashion, involving tiers of metonymic mappings interspersed with metaphoric mappings. In doing so we also demonstrate that the paragon model can be elaborated in such a way that specific mappings become well motivated.The process of the construction of figurative meaning is shown to be complex, dynamic and flexible. Its output can be revised at every step, further enriched with information, or subsequently depleted of it, depending on the cognitive operations employed.
Individual and population differences in focal colors
Authors: Webster Michael A. , Kay Paul
Published: August 2014

Using the data of the World Color Survey, variation in the selection of focal colors both within languages and across languages was studied. The variation within languages was found to be much greater than the variation across languages. For example, for color terms in different languages that roughly translate as English ‘red’, focus placements were found to cluster to amuch greater extent across languages than within languages, although statistically significant differences in cross-language average focal choices were found. The resulting picture is one of constrained but not identical focus placements across languages and impressively greater variation in focus placements within than across languages.
Russian color names: Mapping into a perceptual color space
Authors: Safuanova Olga V. , Korzh Nina N.
Published: August 2014

The purpose of the present study was to determine foci for the basic and frequently used non-basic, compound, and modified Russian color terms, as well as to assess theirdenotative precision. Such an estimate of denotative meaning indicates the area of the color space onto which the color term is mapped. It also indicates consensus, or the degree of agreement between subjects in their color naming, while enabling one to rank the colorterm conceptions in order of denotative precision. Finally, mapping these terms with a large number of color samples enabled us to ascertain nominal density of the perceptual color space, which we interpret as reflecting a distinctive elaboration of Russian speakers’ conception of color.
Relative basicness of color terms: Modeling and measurement
Authors: Kerttula Seija
Published: August 2014

Color terms have been of great interest for nearly 150 years. After more than a century of cross-linguistic studies with relativistic emphasis, Berlin and Kay’s theory switched the focus to basic color terms and a supposed universal ground. Yet, towards the end of the 20th century, research based strictly on universal basicness seemed to have come to a standstill. Relativist voices were raised, broader approaches were developed, and multidisciplinary efforts began to shed light on the nature of color naming. There was a new need to combine universal and relativist approaches. Research described here shows that a concept I call “relative basicness” is worthwhile. This concept makes it possible to trace historical layers and universal trends. If proven applicable to terms in domains apart from color, the model could be used to clarify general semantic structures and relations.
Color naming in Estonian and cognate languages
Authors: Oja Vilja
Published: August 2014

Modelling the Finnic color term semantics, two aspects have been considered: (1) the semantic category expressed by every color term, and (2) the background motivation of the name-giving process. We may divide the color terms of all Finnic languages into eight synonym groups, referring to the notions of ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘red’, ‘blue’, ‘yellow’, ‘green’, ‘brown’, and ‘grey’. The hyperonyms of the groups stand for the most general color categories. Mixed tones are often designated by several hyperonyms. Most of the Finnic color names have a descriptive background: the adjectives are semantically motivated by colored objects. Many names of specific shades originate in nouns referring to a dye or its origin. Secondary qualities of hues are referred to by the adjectival part of a compound term. Color terms used by Finnic peoples belong to an open system providing for an unlimited number of acceptable terms.
Phraseology effects as a trigger for errors in L2 English: The case of more advanced learners
Authors: Osborne John
Published: August 2014

When language learners produce “simple” errors (e.g. omission of 3rd person -s) on forms where their performance is predominantly target-like, are these errors random instances of backsliding, or is there some pattern to the contexts in which they appear? This chapter looks at four such errors – omission of 3rd person -s, inappropriate adverb placement, pluralized adjectives, and plural use of mass nouns – taken from two corpora of written productions by university level learners of English. The occurrence of these errors, even in careful written production, is facilitated by certain phraseological effects. Three types of effect are described – “blending”, where items used together share or transfer their features, “bonding” when collocational links override the requirements of syntax, and “burying”, where elements which are embedded inside larger units become less salient, and so lose grammatical features that they would normally be expected to carry. It is argued that persistent errors do not surface at random, but are triggered by the context.
Contrasting English-Spanish interpersonal discourse phrases: A corpus study
Authors: Neff JoAnne
Published: August 2014

This chapter presents the results of a contrastive study of interactional phrases (discourse strategies intended to actively engage the reader in the argumentation process) as used by novice and expert writers of argumentative texts of both English and Spanish. The novice writer texts, those produced by Spanish EFL and American university writers, were compared to expert Anglo writers’ texts, opinion editorial articles. The Spanish editorials were used to trace the transfer of interactional patterns in the Spanish EFL texts. The phrases searched for in the various corpora consisted of the following types of interpersonal expressions: certainty markers, attitudinal markers and those constructions which are used for the presentation of evaluations in argumentation (adverbial phrases, such as clearly, certainly, etc.; it + adjective phrases: it is possible,un/likely + that/to; it is necessary, clear, certain, obvious, true, etc., + to/that; and, the transfer of the se passive impersonal construction from Spanish to the EFL texts). The results show that the interactional phrases used by Spanish EFL students in comparison with those used by the other three groups are influenced by incomplete mastery of the modal system, choice of adjectival lexical phrases and transfer of the reflexive passive impersonal construction from Spanish.
The phraseological patterns of high-frequency verbs in advanced English for general purposes: A corpus-driven approach to EFL textbook analysis
Authors: Gouverneur Céline
Published: August 2014

This chapter sets out to give an account of the treatment of the two high-frequency verbs make and take in three series of English for General Purposes (EGP) textbooks at the intermediate and advanced levels. The focus is on the delexicalised (and hence more phraseological) uses of these verbs, which, recent corpus studies have shown, represent a stumbling block to native-like proficiency. The principles underlying the selection and presentation of the make andtake phraseological patterns are investigated through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a new corpus of textbook material, the TeMa corpus. The methodology used proved particularly effective in shedding light on issues which cannot be tackled in traditional page-by-page textbook research. Two main observations emerged from the comparisons made across levels on the one hand, and across textbooks on the other. First, there were striking discrepancies between the treatment of the phraseological patterns of make and take at the intermediate and advanced levels. Secondly, the three textbook series display great consistency in terms of pedagogical choices. Overall, the results obtained provide conclusive evidence of the need for redefining the principles underlying the selection and presentation of phraseological units in EGP textbooks.
1. Phraseology and linguistic theory: A brief survey
Authors: Gries Stefan Th.
Published: August 2014

This chapter has three objectives. First, it argues in favor of more rigorous definitions of the term ‘phraseologism’ on the basis of six dimensions and exemplifies these dimensions for several different kinds of phraseologism. Second, it reviews the ways in which phraseologisms as defined here have figured in three different linguistic approaches: generative linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and corpus linguistics. Finally, it discusses some shortcomings in the identification of phraseologisms and points to relevant work to overcome these shortcomings.
13. Figurative phraseology and culture
Authors: Piirainen Elisabeth
Published: August 2014

This chapter seeks to outline the main trends in research on cultural aspects of conventional figurative language (phraseology in particular) and to describe the connection between figurative units (such as idioms, proverbs, etc.) and culture as it becomes manifest in phraseological data from several languages. Numerous studies have highlighted the fact that phrasemes are not only units of a sign system, language, but also carriers of cultures, pointing out the necessity for modern phraseological research to turn to cultural phenomena. What exactly constitutes the connection between figurative phrasemes and culture, however, has never been examined systematically. This chapter uses a typology of the cultural phenomena which underlie phrasemes, along with the relevant phraseological types, to explore this connection. In doing so, one has to consider both the literal and the figurative readings of phrasemes, as well as the different levels of describing phrasemes, since there are various ways in which the cultural aspects may become manifest.
23. Combined statistical and grammatical criteria for the retrieval of phraseological units in an electronic corpus
Authors: Bretaña José-Manuel Pazos , Bertrán Antonio Pamies
Published: August 2014

The aim of this study is to refine and optimise the mainly statistical and distributional approach to the automatic extraction of phraseological units (PUs) from text corpora, by introducing minimal linguistic elements (lemmatisation and grammatical tagging). These operations were first tested using the same corpora as in our previous research (Pamies & Pazos 2003 & 2004). This provided us with a new set of results, which we compared with the previous ones.We found that the detection ability had improved substantially, especially when dealing with verb + noun and verb + adjective collocations. This methodology was then applied to a larger corpus. Again, the results were encouraging, with phraseological densities up to 64.5% for the verb + noun category.
3. Creating a climate of safer sex: Making efficacious action plausible
Authors: Pettey Gary R. , Perloff Richard M.
Published: August 2014

It is no secret that the spread of HIV/AIDS is aggravated by war, dislocation, migrations, violence, poverty and suspicion of the West. While each of these often has tragic impact on individuals, they are social/cultural phenomena. Many of the reasons individuals do not do more to protect themselves from the spread of HIV or seek treatment once infection has occurred are due to misinformation, myth, mores, politics, pseudoscience and denial. These are, at best, social psychological in effect. This paper suggests socio-political issues and approaches necessary to allow long-term successes in dealing with the individual-level tragedy of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
7. Cultural differences in the perceptions of fear and efficacy in South Africa
Authors: Jansen Carel , Hoeken Hans , Ehlers Dineke , Slik Frans van der
Published: August 2014

Recent meta-analyses of HIV/AIDS health communication show that fear appeals have a negative effect on condom use. It has been argued that these negative effects may apply to certain behaviors (condom use) but not to others (e.g., sexual abstinence), and that these negative effects occur for Western cultures but not necessarily for African cultures. To assess whether the effects of fear appeals depend on the types of behavior recommended and on the cultural background of the target audience, information is needed on the existence of cultural differences with respect to the fear evoked by various consequences, as well as to the perceived effectiveness of various countermeasures. In this study, we present the results of a survey among 435 South African adolescents (age 12–19) who differ with respect to their cultural orientation, living circumstances, religion, etc. The results provide evidence for the presence of cultural differences with respect to evoked fear, response efficacy, and self-efficacy. Furthermore, the results provide a possible explanation why fear appeals often are ineffective within the context of communication about HIV/AIDS.
Otomanguean loan words in Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize vocabulary?
Authors: Hill Jane H.
Published: August 2014

A suite of words for the maize plant, its cultivation and cuisine can be reconstructed for Proto-Uto-Aztecan (PUA), suggesting that its speech community included cultivators. Evidence is presented that some of this maize vocabulary may have been borrowed from an early stage of Western Otomanguean, no later than the breakup of Proto-Oto-Chinantecan. If this episode of contact can be supported, PUA was probably located in the northwest quadrant of Mesoamerica, no further north than approximately Queretaro, at 5000–4500 years ago. The possibility that the PUA/Western Otomanguean resemblances are descended from some ancient common source is considered, but contact seems a better explanation.
Can Paleolithic stone artifacts serve as evidence for prehistoric language?
Authors: Bar-Yosef Ofer
Published: August 2014

In this paper a hypothesis is offered concerning the geographic distribution of a Paleolithic language. Two models are commonly used for explaining invention and spread of new techno-typologies: emergence in a core area (invention), and appearance simultaneously and independently in various places (diffusion). The spread of new techniques, tool types, and ideas assumes the existence of verbal communication. The current evidence indicating that a Mousterian industry with Levalloisian techniques was the “mother-culture” from which the Initial Upper Paleolithic emerged, may hint that an unknown but hypothetical language was the source of the Upper Paleolithic languages. This proposal is based on the common knowledge among today’s flintknappers that the learned skill of making stone tools is acquired not only through watching and mimicking the artisan’s gestures, but also through oral explanations that accompany the teaching process.
The age of Mama and Papa
Authors: l'Etang Alain Matthey de , Bancel Pierre J.
Published: August 2014

The global distribution of mama/papa kinship terms has been traditionally explained as the result of linguistic convergence, not of common origin. It is usually alleged that these terms are in no way resistant to linguistic change and that they are subject to constant modification, loss and replacement by other nursery-shaped kinship terms. A serious etymological survey shows that kinship nursery terms are, to the contrary, extraordinarily resistant to phonetic and semantic change, as the most ancient written data clearly prove. The cumulative evidence discards the traditional linguistic explanation for the global distribution of mama/papa words and advocates for their antiquity within the language families where they are found and, further, for their common descent from a language ancestral to all existing languages.
Linguistic, cultural and genetic perspectives on human diversity in west-central Africa
Authors: van der Veen Lolke , Quintana-Murci Lluis , Comas David
Published: August 2014

This chapter presents the major results of a recent multidisciplinary study of the human diversity of west-central Africa. This diversity is examined from linguistic, cultural and population genetic (mtDNA and Y chromosome) perspectives. The study offers new insights into (i) the peopling of the Cameroon-Gabon area (the so-called “Bantu expansion”), (ii) the linguistic, cultural and genetic exchanges between the various groups of Bantu-speaking farmers over the last three millennia, and (iii) the recent and ancient relationships between these populations and Pygmy hunter-gathering groups. Evidence from mtDNA diversity suggests an initial divergence of the ancestors of contemporary Pygmies from an ancestral central African population starting not earlier than ~70,000 years ago. Evidence from both mtDNA and Y-chromosome variation suggests long-standing and asymmetrical gene flow between the two types of populations.
Chomsky’s Atavistic Revolution (with a little help from his enemies)
Authors: Joseph John E.
Published: August 2014

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Modernism as a “movement characterised by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods”. This is borne out by examination of how ‘modern’ linguists have routinely established an ironic distance between their own work and what went before. The exception is Chomsky, whose ‘atavistic’ revolution, harking back to putative early modern roots, broke all the rules in terms of the stance one could take toward intellectual predecessors in the wake of modernism. It showed how “a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods” could be brought about by, not ignoring traditional methods, or taking an ironic distance from them, but reinterpreting them with a greater time depth. The ultimate irony lies in how Chomsky’s opponents forced an ironic distance on him, turning him into a mere garden-variety modernist — and by so doing, helped to guarantee the success of his generativist programme. atavism. Resemblance to grandparents or more remote ancestors rather than to parents. modernism. Movement characterised by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods. revolution. 1. A single act of rotation round a centre. 2. An instance of great change or alteration in affairs or in some particular thing. – Oxford English Dictionary (abridged)
Grammar and language in Syntactic Structures
Authors: Swiggers Pierre
Published: August 2014

In his review of Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures (1957), R.B. Lees praised the work as a pioneering effort in constructing a truly scientific theory of language. Very soon, Chomsky’s 1957 book was regarded as inaugurating the ‘generative revolution’ in linguistics. The present study focuses on the use made by Chomsky, in his 1957 book, of key concepts such as ‘structure’, ‘level’, ‘grammar’ and ‘language’, while relating his argumentation to theory formation in linguistics in the 1950s. It is shown that, from the point of view of theory construction, Syntactic Structures has an ambivalent status: the work goes beyond distributionalism in showing the acceptability of level mixing, and in extending syntactic analysis to the relationships between utterances, but at the time of addressing the issue as to what it is to ‘understand’ a sentence, the work relapses into American structuralist orthodoxy. Also, in Syntactic Structures, Chomsky reverts to the Bloomfieldian skeptical attitude concerning the use of meaning in linguistic description, and no reference is to be found here to the speaker’s ‘competence’. As a result, the book appears to be rooted in the structuralist tradition, reflecting the structuralist concern with rigorous methodology; its distinctive quality was to deal with linguistic methodology as constituting the core of a general theory of grammar. “Whether the change that actually took place—the advent of and eager reception of the approach called transformation theory—should be described as internal or external, as a revision and rehabilitation of Descriptive Linguistics, or as a displacement of it, is no simple one, for which reason I save it for another day” (Wells 1963: 48).
Migrating propositions and the evolution of Generative Grammar
Authors: Tomalin Marcus
Published: August 2014

This chapter considers the way in which linguistic theories develop (or ‘evolve’). Taking the ‘Research Program’ model of scientific theory development as a starting point, the discussion focuses on the intricate relationship between Generative Grammar and Relational Grammar during the period 1965–1988. In particular, the emergence of both the Unaccusative Hypothesis and the Universal Alignment Hypothesis in the Relational Grammar framework is discussed at length, and the subsequent incorporation of both these hypotheses into mainstream Generative Grammar during the early 1980s is closely scrutinised. This case study raises diffi cult questions about the circumstances in which particular linguistic propositions are able to migrate between distinct Research Programs. Explorations such as this inevitably rely greatly on the careful analysis of specific historical examples of theory construction. Consequently, this chapter argues that historiographical investigations must necessarily form an essential part of any general and theoretical assessments of the mechanisms of linguistic theory development.
The evolution of meaning and grammar
Authors: Christy T. Craig
Published: August 2014

Central to Chomskyan language theory, often seen as a Kuhnian revolution, is the claim that universal grammar (UG) is innate and that it comprises the principles and parameters which constitute and constrain possible human language grammars. In this model, grammar is essentially a programmed fait accompli, and the causes of language change are sought principally in the reanalyses resulting from the language acquisition process. An alternate approach, grammaticalization, would appear to be potentially at odds with this view, depending on the degree of specificity assigned to UG. In studies of grammaticalization, distinct, restricted, and therefore virtually predictable pathways of change (as opposed to random parameter settings) and evolving (as opposed to innate) grammatical categories have been identified as the linguistic/pragmatic outcomes of children’s and adult speakers’ use of language. In the generative perspective, language change is seen as resulting directly from the acquisition process, rather than from language usage. Evidence from grammaticalization studies makes it clear that understanding the nature of language development and change requires that actual usage, performance, be taken into account– not just competence. In assessing whether these approaches can be brought into alignment, a variety of issues are examined: unidirectionality in grammaticalization, the linguistic views of Antoine Meillet and Michel Bréal, the poverty of the stimulus argument and UG, grammaticalization and uniformitarianism, the central role of pragmatics and discourse analysis, the relationship between UG and grammatical categories, evidence from pidgin and creole studies as a challenge to the bioprogram hypothesis, acquisition of ASL as evidence of UG being innate abstract patterning, the loss of expressivity as a factor in grammaticalization, and the emergence of apparently new linguistic categories and their relation to cognition.
Language documentation
Authors: Furbee N. Louanna
Published: August 2014

Linguistic theories direct scientific inquiry. They propose testable inventories of universal categories, properties, relations, and interactions that may constitute a language; for a particular language, they define sub-inventories of these that are legitimate expressions of the general design. To say that the emerging field of language documentation has a “theory” is premature, as evidenced by current definitions that stress the conduct of documentation as much as its contents. Instead of theory-building, practitioners often urge exemplary ethical and best practices. Importantly practice-first approaches improve collaborations between speakers and investigators, encourage community participation, create a genuine indigenous linguistics, and provide paths for constructing a true linguistic documentation theory. This chapter offers examples of work within practice-based orientations and its relevance for theory-building.
Working with language communities in unarchiving
Authors: Macri Martha J.
Published: August 2014

The purpose of the J. P. Harrington Database Project is to transcribe and code the linguistic and ethnographic notes Harrington made of California Indian languages, particularly those for which his documentation was the primary record. Showing Native people how to contribute to the creation of this valuable resource has taught students at the University of California, Davis lessons about the relationship between what they do as academics and how it relates to living people. Meeting the descendants of the speakers Harrington recorded has given us all a sense of how much these notes are valued by these communities today. The project has resulted in increased respect and appreciation for the contribution of all parties to our common goal of language research and cultural revitalization.
Language documentation and field linguistics
Authors: Grenoble Lenore A.
Published: August 2014

Language documentation has emerged as a response to the pressing need for collecting, describing, and archiving material on the increasing number of endangered languages. This paper draws together issues raised throughout the volume as to the nature of documentation from every angle – from early training to work in the field to the creation and archiving of the documentation corpus. A critical assessment of the state of the field today shows a rise in new models for training to meet the needs of documentary linguists but also calls for continuing development of better methods to ensure that both the process of documentation and the end products meet the evolving needs of speakers and linguists now and in the future.
Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman
Authors: Sutrop Urmas
Published: August 2014

Semioticians like BCT theory, although there is no semiotic theory of BCTs. In Juri Lotman’s modelling framework, one can analyze the BCTs using the formula “language = code + history” and abandon the technical definition of a BCT (a term is basic if it is frequent and passes some hurdles in experimentation). One can paraphrase Lotman’s formula in the following way: “colour language = BCTs and non-BCTs + history of language and culture”. In this formula, the BCTs form the nucleus of the colour code of a language. A semiotic theory of BCTs can be built up using the formula and numerous dichotomies, i.e. language axes, such as static vs. dynamic, syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic, synchronic vs. diachronic, semasiologic vs. onomasiologic, and logical vs. mythological. These axes organize and model the linguistic colour space (or field of colour).
Kashubian colour vocabulary
Authors: Stanulewicz Danuta , Pawłowski Adam
Published: August 2014

The aim of this paper is to present the colour lexicon, including both basic and non-basic terms, found in Kashubian (or Cassubian), a West Slavic language spoken by a relatively small community inhabiting the coast of the Baltic Sea (the Pomorskie Province in Poland). The results of the five-minute elicitation list task show that Kashubian basic colour terms include words for white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, grey and pink. As regards the terms for purple and orange, due to language contact (Kashubian people are bilingual), many informants use the Polish words naming these colours; however, these words may – as the results of the task indicate – be treated as non-basic terms. Besides, it is worth considering whether Kashubian, like Russian and Ukrainian, has evolved a second basic term for blue.
Colour appearance in urban chromatic studies
Authors: Cler Michel
Published: August 2014

Making distinctions between colour and colour appearance is essential in exploring the chromatic qualities applied to and in urban and architectural space. As a chromatic landscape, the atmosphere of any urban space is a process of the ongoing construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of ‘colour appearance/shadow’ which is performed through and upon buildings, volumes, spaces, voids, vegetation, and networks of various systems of activities and events, including those of the city’s inhabitants. Considering the diversity of colour appearances and their ephemeral, semi-permanent and permanent aspects, chromatic studies of any particular context need to be built upon aspects of the geographical environment as well as upon issues related to the cultural context and the social memory. Dealing with various environmental concerns in combination with diverse ways of life and cultures requires both openness and a focused approach. In our contemporary age of globalization, addressing culturally and contextually determined chromatic concerns is especially challenging.
Effects of stimulus range on color categorization
Authors: Wright Oliver
Published: August 2014

This chapter reports three experiments detailing the influences of stimulus range on color categorization. The results show that both categorization and speed of categorization of colorful stimuli can be influenced by stimulus range. Two potential consequences are considered. First, the influences of stimulus range on color categorization can help explain inconsistencies in the color literature relating to the reliability of color categorization. Second, the same influences appear relevant to the interpretation of experiments investigating color categorical perception.
Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic  colour terms
Authors: Lillo Julio , Moreira Humberto , Davies Ian R.L.
Published: August 2014

We describe Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic colour terms and compare this with naming errors predicted by metameric equivalence derived from confusion lines in CIE (International Commission on Illumination) coordinates. After briefly reviewing previous work, the results from two tasks – prototype selection and colour term mapping – are presented. Dichromats’ choice of prototype was surprisingly similar to that of typical observers, especially for primary BCTs. More errors were made in the mapping task by including stimuli that were similar in transformed lightness and that shared a confusion line with stimuli that typical observers included in the range of the given term. Additionally, evidence was obtained that use of BCTs was dependent on residual R–G (red-green) mechanism activity.
Synaesthesia in colour
Authors: Simner Julia
Published: August 2014

Synaesthesia is an inherited condition that can give rise to a ‘merging of the senses’. People with synaesthesia experience unusual perceptions (e.g. colours, tastes) when engaged in everyday activities like reading, speaking, listening to music, and so on. Synaesthetic perceptions of colour can be triggered by a range of stimuli, including sounds, tastes, smells, touches, and even linguistic stimuli such as letters, numbers and words. In this paper, I describe work on colour synaesthesia from the Synaesthesia and Sensory Integration Lab at Edinburgh University, where we examine the cognitive, linguistic, and developmental basis of this unusual condition. These data contribute to the emerging view that synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes lie on a continuum of cross-sensory association, but one where neuro-developmental differences allow synaesthetes to experience these colour associations at a conscious level.
Look and learn
Authors: Pitchford Nicola , Davis Emma E. , Scerif Gaia
Published: August 2014

As soon as infants start to perceive the world in colour they express clear preferences for some colours over others. We consider what the purpose of these early colour preferences is by reviewing recent studies that have explored the role of colour preference in colour term acquisition. We show that preference for basic colours mirrors the dichotomous developmental order by which young children acquire basic colour terms. In addition, experimental measures of new colour term learning with non-basic colour terms (e.g. ‘vermillion’) or nonsense words (e.g. ‘cotram’) shows this association is mediated largely by differences in saturation, as both young children and adults prefer highly saturated colours to desaturated colours and they learn to associate novel colour terms to the colours they prefer. Together, these studies provide mounting evidence to suggest that colour preference and colour term acquisition are linked, although the mechanism underpinning this association remains to be determined.
Chromatic perceptual learning
Authors: Sowden Paul T. , Davies Ian R.L. , Notman Leslie A. , Alexander Iona , Özgen Emre
Published: August 2014

Perceptual learning has been shown on a wide variety of achromatic visual tasks. However, very little work has explored the possibility of improvements on chromatically based tasks. Here, we used a transfer of learning paradigm to assess the specificity of improvements at discriminating the orientation of a chromatically defined edge presented in luminance noise. Chromatic thresholds were estimated for two different hues and retinal locations, before and after a ten day training period. During training observers discriminated the orientation of a chromatic edge at just one location and hue. Whilst performance improved following training, these improvements failed to transfer across either retinal location or hue. Our findings suggest that improvements in chromatically-mediated discrimination may involve plasticity at early, retinotopically mapped, stages of visual analysis. Further, they suggest that categorical perception of colour might in part arise from chromatic perceptual learning at colour category boundaries.
Chapter 3. The origin of symbolically mediated behaviour
Authors: d'Errico Francesco , Henshilwood Christopher S.
Published: August 2014

The aim of this paper is to summarize what we do know about the origin of symbolic material cultures in Africa and Eurasia, and explore paths that could allow us to move from a situation in which the same evidence is accounted for by antagonistic scenarios to a research strategy that may produce, in the end, a unified theory for the emergence of this innovation. Our review highlights the need to develop an integrated research strategy in which assumptions on cognition based on taxonomic affiliation will play no role. The key tools to address this topic should be archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies and new methods to integrate results from these disciplines. This appears to be one positive way to understand the mechanisms that governed cultural transmission and social learning between 160 and 30 ka.
Pragmatics as a facilitator for child syntax development
Authors: Ervin-Tripp Susan M.
Published: August 2014

Early research on the development of children’s syntax did not include the pragmatic context in describing syntactic changes. Halliday, in a case study, was the first to make the connection of form and function. Studies of larger samples from the standpoint of communicative function, using films, were separate from studies of syntactic development. Both with pronouns and temporal and causal clauses, the pragmatic context of situation and speech acts appear to provoke or facilitate either creative new uses or advancement of skills. It is crucial to do systematic pragmatic sampling at several levels of context in studying syntactic development.
Chapter 2. Proposing a pragmatic distinction for lexical Anglicisms
Authors: Winter-Froemel Esme , Onysko Alexander
Published: August 2014

While certain Anglicisms (e.g. Event and Kids in German) typically appear as marked lexical choices, such effects are absent in other Anglicisms (e.g. Film and PC in German). In order to investigate these different pragmatic interpretations, we consider the criterion of whether an Anglicism exists alongside a semantically-close equivalent in the recipient language or not. Based on this criterion, we introduce a distinction into two types of loans or, more generally, into two types of lexical innovation: catachrestic and non-catachrestic innovation. These are linked to two different types of implicatures as proposed in Levinson’s (2000) theory of presumptive meanings. The distinction between the two types of loans will be exemplified by data drawn from a corpus analysis of Anglicisms in German. The discussion will particularly focus on frequency effects and on the importance of specific discourse traditions, which both underline the dynamic pragmatic nature of Anglicisms.
Chapter 8. Phraseology in flux
Authors: Gottlieb Henrik
Published: August 2014

Today, single-word lexical borrowings are merely the tip of the iceberg of English impact. Thus, the notion of Anglicism should encompass all language features either adopted from English, adapted from English, or inspired by English, used in intralingual communication in another language. This article focuses on the subterranean impact of English as expressed through the morpho­syntactic calques found in contemporary Danish, a language influenced until the 20th century mainly by German lexis and phraseology. The linguistic market shares of near-synonymous expressions were measured in Danish text corpora at 5-year intervals between 1990 and 2010. It was found that established Danish expressions tend to lose ground, while expressions based on English models typically gain popularity – a development hitherto lacking empirical documentation.
Chapter 11. Der Elefant im Raum…
Authors: Fiedler Sabine
Published: August 2014

English has become the lingua franca of the modern world. The high degree of exposure to English in popular culture and the media speeds up the pace of lexical borrowing. This article deals with the influence of English on German phraseology. It is based on the corpus of the Institut für deutsche Sprache  (COSMAS II) and a corpus of German newspaper articles, which allows comparative investigations over a period of ten years. The study reveals that English is now making an important contribution in disseminating phraseological units (used in their original form in English and as loan translations). Three criteria have been found relevant to prove their Anglo-American origin: (1) use in an English-speaking context (including translations), (2) explicit metacommunicative signalling of the origin and (3) variability of form.
Managing multiactivity in a travel agency
Authors: Ticca Anna Claudia
Published: August 2014

Participants in travel agency service encounters must manage attention among co-occurring actions and transitions from one activity to another. Intersecting activities that require the mobilisation of the same verbal modality, such as incoming and outgoing phone calls during an encounter with a client, require the initiation, suspension, and termination of one (or more) activity within another. But whereas outgoing calls allow for a gradual construction of the co-participants’ awareness of a (potential) suspension of the current interaction, incoming calls are inherently unexpected and so require a more sudden action to suspend the current activity and initiate the next one. Such multiactivity can lead to disruptions, as manifest in hesitations, syllable lengthening, self-repair, etc. Participants draw on multimodal resources to manage such multiactivity and its temporal constraints.
Kinetic study of the quenching reaction of singlet oxygen by α-, β-, γ-, δ-tocotrienols, and palm oil and soybean extracts in solution
Authors: Mukai Kazuo , Ishikawa Eri , Ouchi Aya , Nagaoka Shin-ichi , Suzuki Tomomi , Izumisawa Katsuhiro , Koike Taisuke
Published: August 2014

Measurements of the singlet oxygen (1O2) quenching rates (kQ (S)) and the relative singlet oxygen absorption capacity (SOAC) values were performed for 11 antioxidants (AOs) (eight vitamin E homologues (α-, β-, γ-, and δ-tocopherols and -tocotrienols (-Tocs and -Toc-3s)), two vitamin E metabolites (α- and γ-carboxyethyl-6-hydroxychroman), and trolox) in ethanol/chloroform/D2O (50:50:1, v/v/v) and ethanol solutions at 35 °C. Similar measurements were performed for five palm oil extracts 1–5 and one soybean extract 6, which included different concentrations of Tocs, Toc-3s, and carotenoids. Furthermore, the concentrations (wt%) of Tocs, Toc-3s, and carotenoids included in extracts 1–6 were determined. From the results, it has been clarified that the 1O2-quenching rates (kQ (S)) (that is, the relative SOAC value) obtained for extracts 1–6 may be explained as the sum of the product {Σ kQAO-i (S) [AO-i]/100} of the rate constant (kQAO-i (S)) and the concentration ([AO-i]/100) of AO-i (Tocs, Toc-3s, and carotenoid) included.
Semiotic diversity in utterance production and the concept of ‘language’
Authors: Kendon Adam
Published: August 2014

Sign language descriptions that use an analytic model borrowed from spoken language structural linguistics have proved to be not fully appropriate. Pictorial and action-like modes of expression are integral to how signed utterances are constructed and to how they work. However, observation shows that speakers likewise use kinesic and vocal expressions that are not accommodated by spoken language structural linguistic models, including pictorial and action-like modes of expression. These, also, are integral to how speaker utterances in face-to-face interaction are constructed and to how they work. Accordingly, the object of linguistic inquiry should be revised, so that it comprises not only an account of the formal abstract systems that utterances make use of, but also an account of how the semiotically diverse resources that all languaging individuals use are organized in relation to one another. Both language as an abstract system andlanguagingshould be the concern of linguistics.
Crystal structure of di-μ-hydroxido-bis{[N,N′-bis(2,6-dimethylphenyl)pentane-2,4-diiminato(1–)]zinc}
Authors: Goodner Joshua A. , Powers Brandon J. , Powell Douglas R. , Yang Lei
Published: August 2014

The title compound, [Zn2(C21H25N2)2(OH)2], is a binuclear zinc complex formed by two bidentate β-diketiminate (nacnac) ligands and two μ-hydroxide O atoms, bridging two mononuclear units into a centrosymmetric dimeric unit. Each Zn2+cation is coordinated by two N-donor atoms from the nacnac ligand and two O-donor atoms of hydroxide anions to give a distorted tetrahedral coordination environment. The Zn—O bond lengths are 1.9643 (13) and 2.0022 (14) Å, and the two Zn—N bond lengths are 1.9696 (14) and 1.9823 (14) Å. The distance between the two Zn2+cations in the dimer is 2.9420 (4) Å. Although hydroxide groups are present in the complex, no classical hydrogen-bonding interations are observed because of the bulky β-diketiminate ligands.
Crystal structure of 2,6-bis[(1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methyl]pyridine
Authors: Son Kyung-sun , Woo Jeong Oh , Kim Daeyoung , Kang Sung Kwon
Published: August 2014

In the title compound, C13H13N5, the planes of the pyrazolyl groups are nearly perpendicular to that of the central pyridine ring, making dihedral angles of 87.77 (8) and 85.73 (7)°. In the crystal, weak C—H...N hydrogen bonds link the molecules into layers extending parallel to (10-1).
Crystal structure of 3-({[(thiophen-2-yl)methylidene]hydrazinyl}carbonyl)pyridinium chloride dihydrate
Authors: Chandrasekaran Thangayyah , Suresh Mani , Josephine Novina John , Syed Ali Padusha Mohamed Khan , Vasuki Gopalsamy , Kasthuri Balasubramani
Published: August 2014

In the title compound, C11H10N3OS+·Cl−·2H2O, the organic cation exhibits a dihedral angle of 21.26 (8)° between the mean planes of the pyridine and thiophene rings, and dihedral angles of 15.11 (9) and 6.49 (9)° between the mean planes of the hydrazide moiety and the pyridine and thiophene rings, respectively. In the crystal, the organic cation, the chloride counter-anion and the two water molecules of crystallization are linked through an intricate hydrogen-bonding network consisting of O—H...O, O—H...N, N—H...Cl, C—H...Cl, C—H...O, N—H...O, O—H...Cl and C—H...S interactions that consolidate a three-dimensional network.
Crystal structure of 2-(4-chlorophenyl)-4-(1H-indol-3-yl)-6-phenylpyridine-3-carbonitrile
Authors: Vishnupriya R. , Suresh J. , Gunasekaran Pethaiah , Perumal Subbu , Lakshman P. L. Nilantha
Published: August 2014

In the title compound, C26H16ClN3, the dihedral angles between the central pyridine ring and the pendant phenyl, chlorobenzene and indole rings are 18.52 (12), 48.97 (11) and 21.20 (10)°, respectively. An intramolecular C—H...Nc(c = cyanide) hydrogen bond occurs. In the crystal, inversion dimers linked by pairs of N—H...Nchydrogen bonds generateR22(16) loops.
Putting Electronic Voting under the Microscope
Authors: BIRCH SARAH , COCKSHOTT PAUL , RENAUD KAREN
Published: August 2014

Electronic voting entered the political arena some years ago, with some countries advocating its use, some countries trialling and then abandoning it and yet others preferring to preserve the status quo of paper‐and‐pencil voting within a voting booth. In this paper we present the pros and cons of electronic voting and propose a set of characteristics we think electronic voting systems should exhibit. We then briefly review some pertinent concerns, issues and worries. We conclude by introducing the Handivote system, an electronic voting system that supports voting by means of SMS messaging, and explain how it measures up in terms of our own specified characteristics.
TR4 and PPARγ activities are differentially modulated by pyriproxyfen
Authors: Choi Hojung , Park Sung‐Soo , Kim Eungseok
Published: August 2014

The TR4 orphan receptor (TR4) has been suggested to mediate the effect of pyriproxyfen (PYR), a juvenile hormone (JH) analog, on lipid metabolism in adipocytes. PYR was shown to stimulate activity of TR4 only at a relatively low concentration. Thus, the effect of PYR on the adipocyte biology at higher dosages remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that high concentration (400 μM) of PYR is still able to promote adipogenesis of 3T3‐L1 cells. Furthermore, peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) transcriptional activity is dramatically enhanced at 400 μM PYR, to which TR4 does not respond. In a gel shift assay, TR4 and PPARγ compete with each other for binding to a common binding site, direct repeat 1 (DR1), resulting in mutual reduction of both TR4 and PPARγ DNA binding. However, there is no interaction between TR4 and PPARγ, suggesting that depending on relative availability of TR4 and PPARγ during adipogenesis of 3T3‐L1 cells, TR4 or PPARγ may independently mediate the PYR effect on adipogenesis at different concentrations. Together, our data show that PYR has a lipogenic role in 3T3‐L1 adipocytes and thus, JH and its related molecules may provide a new preventive and therapeutic approach for diseases linked to lipid metabolism.