bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hand therapy interventions for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy of the hands in patients with pancreatic cancer
Authors: Jameson Gayle S , Cooper Cynthia , Snyder Courtney , Buchanan Sharon M , Strelish Terri , Shearon Tania , Von Hoff Daniel D , Bay Curt , Hull Lynne , Kaatz Lorilyn A , Borazanci Erkut H
Published: October 2024

Background

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a common problem, can impair function and quality of life in patients, potentially limiting chemotherapy and adversely affecting outcomes.

Methods

This trial compared investigational hand therapy intervention (Investigational) compared with a traditional occupational therapy approach (Traditional) to prevent CIPN in patients with pancreatic cancer receiving gemcitabine and albumin-bound paclitaxel containing regimens.

Results

forty-nine patients were enrolled with 40 evaluable for statistical analysis (21 Investigational/19 Traditional). CIPN in the hands was reported in 6 patients (28.6%) in Investigational, and 4 (21.1%) in Traditional P = .721. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a mean time-to-event of 76.0 days (90% CI: 68.5, 83.6), and 75.8 (90% CI: 68.5, 83.2) days respectively, P = .614. Fifteen patients in each group (78.9% Traditional, 71.4% in Investigational) were censored as they did not develop CIPN. No correlation was found between CIPN risk and age, sex, BMI, disease stage, performance status, or chemotherapy dose.

Conclusion

Seventy-four percent of patients receiving gemcitabine, albumin-bound paclitaxel, and cisplatin did not develop CIPN of the hands by day 84. There was no statistical difference in time to onset of CIPN between the two groups. Early adaption of occupational therapy may prevent early onset CIPN in chemotherapy patients.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier

NCT05374876.
Epistemic Communities and IMF Policy
Authors: Abraham John
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the integral role of epistemic communities in shaping International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy, particularly in periods of global economic crisis. It first traces how shifts in Fund policy following the Asian Financial Crisis, facilitated in part by epistemic communities, subsequently shaped how the Fund responded to the Global Financial Crisis. This included an evolution of the IMF’s focus from the fiscal soundness of individual economies to a broader emphasis on the resilience of the global economy. These lessons, again reinforced by epistemic communities, helped shape the Fund’s radical policy proposals during the Global Covid-19 Pandemic. The chapter concludes with an analysis of what role epistemic communities will play as the IMF engages in future global policy challenges.
Transforming IMF-Civil Society Relations
Authors: Daar Nadia
Published: October 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) holds significant influence in the global economy and disproportionate influence over lower income countries vis-à-vis its policy prescriptions, economic surveillance, and financing. Despite an increase in openness over the years, this public institution continues to be characterized by imbalanced decision-making and a lack of accountability. Civil society organizations (CSOs) have long engaged the IMF in an attempt to promote transparency, shape, or challenge programs and policies including risky austerity-based economic policies in particular, and hold the institution accountable. This chapter discusses the history of the relationship between civil society and the IMF, examines the dynamics between them, and provides recommendations for improving engagement and the relationship.
The IMF, Financial Regulation, and Capital Controls
Authors: Breen Michael
Published: October 2024

The debate surrounding the extent to which countries should employ capital controls and financial regulation remains a key concern for governments and international organizations. This chapter examines the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s perspective on this matter. While new developments in economic theory play an important role in shaping the IMF’s views, changes in its policies are gradual. These are often influenced by shifting global economic conditions, political differences among its members, and varying perspectives among its staff. This dynamic is illustrated through an exploration of three IMF instruments: its Institutional View on Capital Flow Liberalization and Management; its stance on macroprudential policy; and the Financial Sector Assessment Program.
From Volcker to Volcker
Authors: Ban Cornel
Published: October 2024

How did the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s monetary policy change between the Great Moderation and the transformative processes that followed the Great Recession? This chapter suggests that monetarism inspired some of the Fund’s monetary policy thinking during the Great Moderation. During the 2000s, the intellectual bases of this orthodox monetary policy became eroded, with the Great Recession pushing for revisions in the entire macro-financial framework. The pandemic reinforced this revisionism but the inflationary crisis of 2022 seems to have brought about a return to monetary orthodoxy. Key to all these transformations has been the Fund’s strategy to highlight both continuity and change while reserving the jurisdiction to define the resolution of the policy trade-offs that emerge along the way.
Getting Serious about Mainstreaming Gender at the IMF
Authors: Goyal Rishi , Sahay Ratna
Published: October 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s 2022 “Strategy toward Mainstreaming Gender” calls for an intentional and systematic approach to integrating gender into macroeconomic policies to foster strong, sustainable, and inclusive growth. This chapter argues that the IMF is filling a critical gap by mainstreaming gender into its work because closing gender gaps goes hand-in-hand with higher economic growth, greater financial stability, and lower income inequality. It outlines the IMF’s vision and the four pillars of its strategy and reports on the progress made so far in implementing the strategy and the work ahead. It also provides a conceptual framework for understanding the links between gender gaps and economic outcomes and how gender-responsive policies can narrow gender gaps and improve macroeconomic outcomes.
The IMF’s Work on Labor Markets
Authors: Loungani Prakash , Ahir Hites , Mate Akos
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s approach to labor markets and policy recommendations between the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the contrasting positions of neoliberal and progressive perspectives on labor market efficiency and equity, as well as their attitudes toward globalization. The chapter analyzes the IMF’s advice on labor market flexibility, fiscal policy, and macroeconomic policies. It also discusses the reactions to the IMF’s work from progressive circles. The chapter provides insights into the IMF’s efforts to balance efficiency and equity considerations, particularly in advanced economies and emerging markets. Additionally, it explores the IMF’s work on distributional outcomes and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on labor markets.
Strengthening the IMF for the 21st Century
Authors: Lopez-Claros Augusto
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the context of important structural shifts in the global economy, including the emergence of China as the world’s largest economy and the changing dynamics of international trade. It addresses the challenges posed by fiscal pressures, population aging, rising debt levels, and the need for financing the transition to a global renewable energy economy. The chapter explores governance issues, such as voting powers and lending capacity, and proposes measures to improve the IMF’s effectiveness in crisis prevention and resolution. It also highlights the need to enhance the IMF’s surveillance function to address the systemic risks posed by bigger and richer countries.
IMF Crisis Management
Authors: Pazarbasioglu Ceyla , Meads Neil
Published: October 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established in the aftermath of the Great Depression to strengthen international cooperation and development. This chapter highlights the Fund as a learning institution, willing to adapt its core functions in response to the evolving global economic landscape and the challenges its members face. The chapter analyzes the Fund’s response to the challenges posed by the Global Financial Crisis and the pandemic. In both crises, the Fund served an important role through agile policy and financial support—emergency financing, program augmentations, Special Drawing Rights allocations—to its members. This bought time for the underlying causes of countries’ challenges to be better understood and appropriately addressed. The crises also highlighted the importance of having strong, well resourced, adaptable multilateral institutions to bring countries together to address global goals and challenges. Ensuring that the Fund retains appropriate financial and staffing resources is a key global public good.
Markets and Financiers
Authors: Stone Randall W.
Published: October 2024

International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs have to reassure financial markets in order to succeed and often rely on major banks for supplemental financing. Furthermore, major banks have substantial policy influence in their home countries, and US banks are the primary supporters of the IMF in Congress. The US government exerts substantial informal influence over the IMF and uses that influence to press for policies that US banks prefer. Indeed, this informal influence tends to undermine the credibility of the IMF’s loans-for-reform contracts with countries that are important borrowers from US banks. Countries that open their financial systems under IMF programs use their regulatory discretion to privilege acquisitions by US banks.
Election Emergencies
Authors: Morley Michael T.
Published: October 2024

Natural disasters, pandemics, and other crises that occur shortly before, or during, an election can interfere with the conduct of voting, create unconstitutional burdens on voting rights, and undermine the legitimacy of the results. Usually, modifications to some of the rules governing the electoral process are sufficient to address the problem and allow the election to proceed. In more severe cases, however, a postponement or extension of the election may be necessary. As the Supreme Court has recognized, election postponements are a much more serious remedy than modifications; even in constitutional cases, a federal court may order an election postponement or extension only if there are no modifications that would alleviate the problems. In extremely rare cases, an emergency may be so severe that the election must be cancelled, and a new one held at a later date. States should adopt election emergency laws to ensure that election officials have adequate authority to respond to unexpected crises. States’ existing election emergency laws range from thorough to virtually nonexistent. When crafting such statutes, legislatures must attempt to offer all eligible voters an adequate opportunity to vote safely and without unreasonable burdens, while minimizing the possibility for mistake, confusion, fraud, or other irregularity and preserving public confidence in the electoral process and its results. States should also identify “redlines”—steps election officials may not take, even in the course of an emergency. Election emergency statutes are a critical part of a robust election system.
Political Parties and Primary Elections
Authors: Sellers Joshua S.
Published: October 2024

This chapter introduces political parties’ rights with respect to primary elections. It describes the history of primaries, including the aspirations of Progressive era reformers who introduced direct primaries as a means of democratizing candidate selection processes. It then provides a taxonomy of party primaries, before detailing the ways in which primaries have been central in shaping election law doctrine pertaining to political parties. The chapter includes an overview of both the White Primary Cases and the current caselaw defining the scope of party rights. The final section summarizes some of the scholarly debates over the significance and role of party primaries, and references some proposed alternatives.
Campaign Contributions
Authors: Kuhner Timothy K.
Published: October 2024

This chapter provides an overview of the law of campaign contributions (i.e., political donations) with a focus on inequality, constitutional interpretation, and systemic corruption. From the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present era, the political access and influence obtained through private financial contributions have been a focal point of scandals, legislative reforms, and philosophical debates over the rightful operation of the American form of government. From 1976 to the present day, the Supreme Court has often had the last word on these reforms and debates. During this same period of time, economic inequality and the cost of elections have both risen to the highest levels found in any advanced democracy. Evidence of political inequality on the basis of wealth has also mounted during this period, leading to allegations of “oligarchy” and “plutocracy” by mainstream commentators. These concerns have increased sharply in the Roberts Court era (2005 – the present), as the Court’s new conservative majority has repeatedly struck down campaign finance laws by applying an increasingly militant free-market theory of the Constitution. This chapter analyzes the importance of the law of contributions through the interdisciplinary lens of economic inequality, political inequality, democratic integrity, and judicial ideology. It finds that political inequality on the basis of wealth has been legitimized and entrenched by the highest court in the land, and that constitutional reforms would be required to maintain sensible regulations on contributions.
Election Law and Democratic Governance
Authors: Pildes Richard H.
Published: October 2024

A major challenge facing democracies today is their perceived failure to deliver effectively on the issues their citizens care most urgently about. Yet democratic and legal theory have given too little attention to the value and importance of delivering effective government. Much of democratic theory focuses on values such as political equality, fair representation, deliberation, participation, and individual rights, among other values. But less weight is given to the capacity of government to deliver effectively on the issues members care most urgently about. Yet when democratic governments cannot deliver effectively on issues many of their members care most urgently about, that failure can lead, at a minimum, to distrust, alienation, withdrawal, anger, and resentment. Even worse, it can fuel desires for a strongman figure who promises to cut through the dysfunction and deliver when democratic governments have failed to do so. This chapter aims to bring greater attention to the importance of effective government in assessing current democratic arrangements and potential reforms. The chapter does so by identifying specific trade-offs between effective government and a varied range of democratic values, such as political accountability, equality, participation, transparency, and others.
The Campaign Lawyer
Authors: Alexander Mark C.
Published: October 2024

This chapter addresses the roles that individual lawyers play while serving as counsel to a political campaign. There is no single definition or typology of the campaign-related work that lawyers do. They work on campaigns of all shapes and sizes at the local, state, and federal levels. Lawyers also serve as counsel for political parties, they are sometimes hired exclusively by outside groups like Super PACs, they work in the various governmental agencies that administer the machinery of elections, and they are also sometimes retained to come in on an as-needed basis for specific matters. This chapter introduces the reader to the role of the campaign lawyer in a manner designed to further the reader’s understanding of the wide range of tasks and activities in which a lawyer might engage while working as an election law specialist. This chapter focuses on four major areas where the campaign lawyer’s unique skills are often needed: ballot access, voter protection, campaign finance, and the counting and recounting of ballots. It is these four primary areas where the campaign lawyer leads a campaign and advises a candidate based on the lawyer’s specialized knowledge. This chapter also examines the campaign lawyer’s role with respect to general legal and nonlegal campaign matters. Finally, it addresses some of the ethical concerns that campaign lawyers face.
The Philosophy of Punishment
Authors: Ryberg Jesper
Published: October 2024

We usually regard it as wrong to assault someone physically or to deprive someone of liberty or property. But if this is the case, then why is it morally acceptable (or even required) for the state to impose punishments on citizens who have broken the law? The purpose of this chapter is to give an introduction to the philosophy of punishment as an academic field, to provide an overview of the various topics which are considered in the ensuing chapter of this handbook, and to present a few reasons that have motivated this work.
Measuring Punishment Severity
Authors: Kolber Adam J.
Published: October 2024

If punishment is ever morally appropriate, it will only be so in amounts that fit the circumstances. We cannot possibly punish justly without at least some ability to measure punishment severity. Since punishment is often thought to require an intentional infliction, one might think punishment severity depends on the severity punishers intend. But since real-world punishment practices include both intended and unintended inflictions, the “intent approach” to severity fatally ignores unintended harms. Our punishment practices cannot be justified unless we justify their side-effect harms as well. The “harm approach” to punishment severity, by contrast, focuses not on intentions but on foreseeably caused harms. Because the harm approach measures what needs to be morally justified, it better fits theories that seek to justify punishment practices. It also fits well with our intuitions about severity: those punished care little about what punishers intend and a lot about how much they are harmed. Once harm is properly measured, however, our traditional notions of retributive proportionality look surprisingly unattractive, and two seemingly plausible ways of fixing proportionality fail.
Remorse
Authors: Tudor Steven
Published: October 2024

Offender remorse is usually treated as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Remorse is a complex emotion involving thoughts, feelings, and desires. This chapter focuses on the cognitive dimension of remorse—remorseful thoughts—and explores in particular the problem of remorseful criminal offenders whose insight into their offending is flawed or problematic in some way. Three particular kinds of flaw are examined: shallowness of insight, inauthenticity, and exaggeration. The chapter argues that offender remorse which is flawed in one or more of these ways is ultimately less valuable than offender remorse that is lucid, even if the offender’s remorseful feelings and desires are otherwise exemplary.
Dangerous Offenders
Authors: Dimock Susan
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the question: “How should polities respond to repeat offenders whose demonstrated willingness to use violence makes then dangerous to the public?” It critiques three themes commonly seen in discussions of dangerous offenders and how societies may respond to them, especially using criminal law: (1) that “dangerousness” should be understood as a prediction of future violence, (2) that polities have a positive “duty to protect” their members from criminal violence, a duty they may fulfill by imprisoning dangerous offenders so long as they continue to be dangerous, and (3) that the right to self-defense can justify the indefinite detention of dangerous offenders It is argued that the incarceration of individuals on purely preventive grounds—to prevent future violence—cannot be reconciled with our concept of punishment. Nor can it comply with multiple constraints states must adhere to if their systems of criminal punishment are to be morally acceptable (e.g., proportionality between the harshness of punishments and the seriousness of crimes for which they are imposed, parity, double jeopardy, and fair notice). Finally, the chapter suggests an alternative to extant legal practices and philosophical theories of punishment that may reconcile the incarceration of dangerous offenders with justice: it requires that we (1) reconceptualize dangerousness as a current dispositional property rather than a prediction of future behavior and (2) show that this property can be within the control of an offender. When dangerousness is seen as a controlled disposition we may criminalize “being a persistent violent dangerous offender” as a status crime. Some of the contours of this new crime are then described.
Collateral Damage
Authors: Hoskins Zachary
Published: October 2024

A criminal conviction and punishment can contribute to a range of burdensome consequences that are not inherent to the punishment itself. I refer to these other burdensome consequences as “collateral damage.” This chapter highlights and draw distinctions among various types of burdensome consequences to which conviction and punishment can contribute. It then considers what implications, if any, these various forms of collateral damage have for the criminal law and punishment. The answer to this question, it turns out, will depend on various factors, such as whether a given form of collateral damage actually functions as an additional measure of punishment, and which theory of punishment we endorse.
Disenfranchisement
Authors: Tripkovic Milena
Published: October 2024

The chapter conducts a conceptual and normative evaluation of criminal disenfranchisement, seeking to elucidate its nature, purpose, and justification in contemporary democracies. After a brief introduction which reveals the relevance and scope of the practice in modern times, the chapter develops an original understanding of its nature which portrays it not as a penal sanction, but as a citizenship restriction premised on the lack of desired citizenship qualities. The inferred qualities, as the chapter demonstrates, resurrect an outdated conception of virtuous citizenship that is fundamentally incoherent with values promoted by various types of contemporary democracies. Additionally, such perception of the properties of citizenship signals a more fundamental transformation of criminal law—that is also apparent from other sanctions such as citizenship revocation and prohibition to serve on jury—which does not respond to the perpetrated act but to a lack of desirable moral qualities that can be inferred from the perpetrated act. The chapter concludes by looking at the implications of this finding for the justification of disenfranchisement both within and outside of the framework of criminal law and identifies weaknesses in the normative desirability of the sanction within both contexts.
Punishment and Public Opinion
Authors: Roberts Julian V.
Published: October 2024

This essay explores public opinion regarding an important issue in the ethics of punishment: the views of the public. In particular, I address public opinion regarding the relative importance of the harm caused by the crime and the offender’s culpability for that harm. Harm and culpability are the key determinants of sentence severity under a retributive rationale; sentencing outcomes should be proportionate to levels of harm and culpability. But how do these two concepts relate to one another? Is one component more important, or should they be weighted equally in the sentencing equation? Retributive philosophies offer no clear, consensual response. Sentencing laws are equally unclear. In the absence of a settled position in theory, law or practice, it may be useful to explore community attitudes to the problem. After discussing the relationship between culpability and harm in theory and in practice, I review relevant research which has documented public views. The findings from this literature suggest that although the public places more emphasis on harm than culpability, both elements affect lay sentencing preferences.
How Should We Work as Penal Ethicists?
Authors: Ryberg Jesper
Published: October 2024

Why is it important to conduct research on the ethics of punishment? A plausible answer to which many penal ethicists seem to subscribe is that research is important in order to influence and guide penal practice. But if this answer is taken seriously, then a new question arises: Is the work of penal ethicists carried out in a way that accords with the aim of guiding penal practice? In this chapter it is argued that there are several barriers to impact arising from the way research is disseminated, the nature of research itself, and the lack of interest in being guided among decision-makers. Moreover, it is suggested that these barriers to impact may be surmountable, but that this will require a rethinking of the way we work as penal ethicists.
Communicative Theory
Authors: Duff Antony
Published: October 2024

This chapter defends a communicative theory of punishment, as making plausible sense of the retributivist idea that wrongdoers should not enjoy impunity. In the context of criminal law, the wrongs that matter are public wrongs that concern the whole polity: the criminal law defines those wrongs, and provides for those who commit them to be called to formal public account for them through the criminal process. That calling to account is a communicative process: it culminates in a conviction that censures the offender, and seeks an apologetic response from him. The punishment that typically ensues furthers this communicative exercise: the offender is required to undertake, or undergo, a penal burden that constitutes an apologetic reparation for his crime, and so communicates to him the need for such reparation. Central to this communicative conception is that punishment is a two-way process, which seeks an appropriate response from the offender, who has an active role in the process. The role of prudential deterrence in such an account is discussed: it is a necessary condition of a justifiable system that it has some dissuasive efficacy, and deterrence might be a dimension of that dissuasion—inextricably interwoven with the moral message that is the core of the communication. A purely communicative account that allows no room for deterrence might be implausible as an account of what human punishment ought to be; but one that portrays a two-way moral communication as the primary, distinctive aim of criminal punishment can be defended.
Byron, Pope, and the Mock-Epic
Authors: Gayle Nicholas
Published: October 2024

This chapter analyses mock-epic as Byron and Alexander Pope understood it, examining their different approaches and unpacking the way each poet subverts the host material shelled for its creation. It argues that a distinction between ‘mock-heroic’ and ‘mock-epic’ is critical when considering Byron’s and Pope’s separate achievements, and that by charting the movements of both poets within (and against) the expected heroic, satiric, and social parameters of what mock-heroic and mock-epic were taken to be by contemporary audiences, we arrive at a better appreciation of the distance travelled from the ultimate source of these closely related genres – Homer and the classical ‘type-scene’ set piece as represented by katabasis and aristeia. The energies generated by mock-epic and mock-heroic are thereby seen to differ, the former being fundamentally centrifugal, the latter centripetal, but both are energies against which Pope and Byron employ three distinct bathetic registers: the inflationary, the deflationary, and, more rarely, the phantasmagorical. Don Juan, The Rape of the Lock, and The Dunciad are our guides.
Byron and the Novel
Authors: Graham Peter W.
Published: October 2024

This chapter centres on how Byron valued and responded to the novel, a literary form that in his time was increasingly popular but sometimes deprecated. The focus is mainly on the personal significance of certain novels to Byron, how those novels may have influenced him, and his appraisal of contemporary fiction in letters and elsewhere. It establishes that Byron’s own relationship to fiction the novel was ambivalent and conflicted. There is also some attention paid to how Byron’s own works might be read as novels, to fictive representations of Byron in novels by his contemporaries, and to how his poetry figures in or influences novels written in his own time or shortly thereafter. The chapter concludes with a consideration of why Byron, who possessed so many of the literary gifts of a novelist, never completed a novel.
The Classical Inheritance Byron and the ‘Literary Lower Empire’
Authors: Sachs Jonathan
Published: October 2024

This chapter considers the ways in which Byron’s sense of Roman literary history informs his ideas about the status and future of British poetry, in his letters, published prose, and in Don Juan’s English Cantos. But the chapter also insists that Byron’s obsession with Classical antiquity and literary decline was part of a more widespread cultural trend. Through comparisons with Thomas Love Peacock, Anna Barbauld, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the chapter engages with three related points that extend the implications of Byron’s use of ancient examples. Firstly, comparisons to antiquity are particularly useful for those thinking about the future because the Classical past represents a completed time horizon. Secondly, the future perfect mode is a way of formulating how the present will be received in the future as history. Finally, while antiquity helps to shed light on the present, the present somehow unfolds at a faster pace than the Classical past.
Exile and Sublimity Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III, the Separation Poems, and ‘Darkness’
Authors: Shaw Philip
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines the concept of the sublime in the poetry written by Byron following the collapse of his marriage and subsequent exile from British society. It engages initially with lyric poems written on ‘His Own Domestic Circumstances’ and on the downfall of Napoleon (1814–15) before going on to discuss the links between violence, separation, and the sublime in Canto III of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The chapter concludes with readings of ‘Darkness’ and other shorter poems written in the summer of 1816. Theorists of the sublime discussed in the chapter include Longinus, Edmund Burke, Maurice Blanchot, and Anne Carson.
Byron contra mundum
Authors: Stauffer Andrew M.
Published: October 2024

Lord Byron was driven by oppositional, rebellious impulses: the often-isolating power of resistance drove his personal relationships, his political opinions, and his literary work. We think of the Byronic Hero as a figure of alienation and outrage at society and the human condition, a persona that draws on some deep wells of disillusionment and trauma in Byron’s own experience. In some moods, he flirts with nihilism. At the same time, Byron frequently sets himself more hopefully against the world, with a reformer’s impulse to dismantle oppressive structures on behalf of underdog causes. Byron’s energetic, angry satire weaves together his own case and the state of Europe and the world (with other strands, particularly myth and history) in trenchant and impassioned critique that may also inspire change. His antagonistic engagements fall into three broad categories: his interpersonal relationships, his political life, and his literary work. His poetry no less than his life reflects a strong commitment to liberty that requires assertive struggle against forces of constraint. It also devolves at times into cruel narcissism and self-destructive bridge-burning. Setting himself, like Athanasius, against the world, Byron drew upon the power of resistance to fuel his writing of some of the greatest poetry of the century.
Vowel Harmony in the Light of Contrastive Feature Theories
Authors: Dresher B. Elan , Mackenzie Sara
Published: October 2024

This chapter addresses the relationship between vowel harmony (VH) and phonological contrast. Although contrast in inventories has long been recognized as a crucial factor governing VH patterns, there has been no agreed-upon definition of contrast in the literature. Through examination of case studies of tongue-root and rounding harmony, this chapter provides evidence for Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, which proposes that contrastive specifications are determined hierarchically by language-particular orderings of features. It is shown that this approach is able to capture aspects of VH patterns that are not consistent with an alternative definition of contrast in terms of features that make a minimal contrast between phonemes. Contrastive Hierarchy Theory provides new insights into these patterns, particularly with respect to harmonic partners and neutral vowels. The authors also argue that VH is consistent with the Contrastivist Hypothesis, which posits that only contrastive features can be active in the phonology.
Revisiting Locality in Vowel Harmony
Authors: Burness Phillip , McMullin Kevin , Nevins Andrew
Published: October 2024

Vowel harmony (VH) challenges traditional notions of locality but is unexceptional when relativized notions of locality are adopted. This chapter analyzes various patterns to show that while interacting segments may not be literally adjacent, they can be rendered local by suppressing irrelevant material in a principled way. The analyses compare and contrast how various behaviors are handled by the Search-and-Copy (S&C) framework and tier-based formal functions, two conceptually similar approaches that embody different levels in Marr’s model for cognitive science. Some behaviors such as segmental transparency are straightforwardly captured by both, some such as target iciness are problematic for S&C, and others such as positional triggering evade both approaches. Explorations like this elucidate which aspects of VH can be explained by relativizing locality, and in what way.
Multi-Linear Approaches to Vowel Harmony
Authors: Jurgec Peter
Published: October 2024

This chapter shows how vowel harmony (VH) is analyzed in Autosegmental Phonology. In this framework, the relationship between a phonological feature and the corresponding root node is expressed by an association line. VH is analyzed as spreading, which is adding additional association lines between the triggering feature and target root nodes. Transparent segments are skipped by the spreading feature, while blockers terminate spreading. The chapter also discusses hierarchical autosegmental approaches, which restrict branching of association lines, thus predicting a special status of the last target. Finally, it illustrates Feature Geometry in which several features can be linked to the same feature node. Feature Geometry can capture consonant transparency, vowel transparency, and consonant–vowel interactions in VH. The chapter examines harmony systems of Kyrgyz, Standard Yoruba, Hungarian, Baiyinna Oroqen, Icelandic, Turkish, and Flathead Salish.
Vowel Harmony in Dependency-Based Models
Authors: van der Hulst Harry , Durand Jacques
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents two approaches to vowel harmony (VH) that critically employ unary ‘features’ (called components or elements) and dependency relations. It first reviews the approach to VH that has emerged from Dependency Phonology (DP), which puts great emphasis on minimal, redundancy-free representations, and the analogy between VH and agreement/concord phenomena in syntax. In this approach, harmonic elements are represented as extrasegmental (i.e., as ‘prosodies’) which ‘associate’ to vowel positions within a certain domain. The chapter then turns to another dependency-based model, Radical cv Phonology (RCVP), which, while sharing with DP the unary approach to phonological features, minimal specification, and the notion of intrasegmental dependency, invokes the notion of licensing of ‘variable elements’ as the mechanism through which harmony emerges, which bears a resemblance to the treatment of VH in Government Phonology (GP), even though GP does not use the notion of ‘variable element.’
Psycholinguistic Approaches to Vowel Harmony
Authors: Pycha Anne , Finley Sara
Published: October 2024

This chapter surveys a variety of experimental techniques used to probe the mental representation of vowel harmony (VH). Behavioral methods include artificial language-learning studies, where ‘naïve’ participants are trained on a novel VH pattern; ‘wug’ tests, where participants with L1 VH produce or judge novel words; and speech segmentation tasks, where participants differentiate between words and part-words presented in a stream of speech. More direct neurological measures include testing patients with aphasia, and event-related potentials. The results of these studies generally support the hypothesis that learners are biased toward VH patterns that are well-attested crosslinguistically. This chapter explores additional issues related to the psycholinguistic study of VH, including the need for more diverse and representative participant groups, and a relative dearth of studies directly exploring the neurological foundations of VH.
Palatal Harmony
Authors: Kisseberth Charles W. , Kenstowicz Michael J.
Published: October 2024

This chapter focuses on the typology of palatal harmony: phonotactic restrictions and phonological alternations for the feature [back]. The first half reviews the parameters for target, trigger, and directionality, as well as neutral, opaque, and transparent vowels in the better-documented Finnish, Turkish, Hungarian, Tuvan, and Uyghur. The second half summarizes the more restricted palatal harmonies in various dialects of Mari (Cheremis). Local harmony primarily affects reduced non-high central vowels. Non-local harmony arises from strengthening a word-final reduced vowel to a full vowel whose palatality (and roundness) is assimilated from a preceding vowel depending on factors of stress, distance, and the full versus reduced status of the trigger. The chapter concludes with a palatal harmony found in the first two syllables of the word in Lezgian; here pre-verbs harmonize with a following stem vowel, demonstrating that palatal harmony can function bidirectionally like the better-known cases of advanced tongue root harmony.
Articulatory and Perceptual Factors in Vowel Harmony
Authors: Gafos Adamantios
Published: October 2024

This chapter reviews articulatory and perceptual factors claimed to contribute to the forms and functions of vowel harmony across languages. It begins with a review of basic coarticulation facts. This is followed by an examination of proposals addressing why harmony exists, including the proposal tracing the emergence of harmony to misperception of coarticulation, speaker-oriented pressures related to planning and production, and listener-oriented pressures related to enhancement of weak contrasts, the latter with accompanying typological studies wherein asymmetries in harmony patterns are related to notions of perceptual difficulty or weak contrasts. Experimental evidence supporting the idea that vowel sequences in languages with harmony may admit distinct phonological representations when compared to phonemically identical sequences in languages without harmony is also examined.
Vowel Harmony in Nilo-Saharan Languages
Authors: Kutsch Lojenga Constance
Published: October 2024

Almost 70 Nilo-Saharan languages are cited in this chapter, several of which are mentioned because of a particular behavior in their vowel harmony (VH) system, whereas others are treated more elaborately with sets of examples. The great majority of the Nilo-Saharan languages have vowel systems with VH based on the feature [ATR]. Several subtypes are found: (1) languages with nine or 10 contrastive vowels; and (2) languages with seven contrastive vowels and two or three allophones, which results in the same nine or 10 surface vowels. There are languages which synchronically have a seven-vowel system, but the literature on these languages points to a historical nine-vowel system for all of them. The [+ATR] value is normally dominant. The behavior of the [–ATR] vowel /a/ in a [+ATR] environment may differ from language to language. Other features found in relation to [+ATR] vowels and VH are breathiness and expanded pharynx.
Vowel Harmony in Mesoamerican Languages
Authors: Rogers Chris
Published: October 2024

This chapter contributes to the typological classifications of the vowel harmony (VH) systems of Central American languages. The present discussion is restricted to the languages of the Mesoamerican Linguistic and Cultural Areas and shows that harmonic behaviors fall into three types: assimilatory, vowel copy, and static sequential dependencies. Each of these three types of harmonic behavior targets one or more of the phonetic features of vowels within particular morphophonological domains and is unique for each Mesoamerican language. Each type is presented through representative examples from a variety of languages. The classification presented suggests a heuristic for comparing and describing the VH systems in this part of the world.
Vowel Harmony in South American Languages
Authors: Nikulin Andrey
Published: October 2024

The chapter provides a brief overview of the vowel harmony patterns found in the indigenous languages of South America, with special attention to the palatal and labial harmony of Wayuunaiki (Arawakan), the labial harmony of Añú (Arawakan), and the tongue-root harmony of Karajá (Macro-Jê), as well as to the nasal harmony processes, famously widespread in the languages of the continent (including Tupian, Tukanoan, Warao, and other languages). In addition, the chapter discusses less robust palatal, labial, and aperture harmony patterns as well as harmony-related phenomena, such as umlaut and translaryngeal and transguttural assimilation, which are found in multiple unrelated languages of South America. It is noted that some of the most robust patterns have in common the trait of operating leftward rather that rightward.
Vowel Harmony in Languages of India
Authors: Mahanta Shakuntala , Arsenault Paul
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents a survey of vowel harmony (VH) in languages of India, focusing on examples from the Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, and Dravidian families, along with the isolate Burushaski. It sketches the typological properties of harmony, while also drawing generalizations about language families. The survey covers well-known case studies like Assamese, Bengali, and Telugu, but also lesser-known examples. It reveals that VH systems are primarily regressive in India. Common types of VH in the region include height, tongue-root, laxing, and palatal harmony. In tongue-root harmony systems, [+ATR] vowels are dominant, [−ATR] vowels are recessive, and [ɑ] is an opaque blocker. Other blocking effects are attributed to intervening coda consonants, nasals, and stress. The domain of harmony is most often the inflected word. In sum, the survey presents an overview of VH in India based on research to date while also highlighting outstanding issues that might guide future investigations.
Vowel Harmony in Sino-Tibetan Languages
Authors: Chirkova Katia
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents an overview of vowel harmony (VH) systems, as reported in some Sino-Tibetan languages—particularly, Qiangic, Na, and Tibetic—and reviews reported systems which are particularly diverse in Qiangic languages (e.g., palatal, height, rounding, advanced tongue root (ATR)/retracted tongue root (RTR), retroflex harmony). Based on a comparison of different systems across common harmonic domains, it argues that patterns traditionally described as ‘vowel harmony’ in Qiangic and possibly Na languages likely represent vestiges of an earlier register-type contrast, which involves sets of correlated phonetic properties associated with vowel, phonatory, and tonal quality (register harmony). By contrast, VH in Tibetic languages represents a more canonical VH system (ATR/RTR). The proposed analysis is tentative given the understudied nature of the groups discussed. The conclusion discusses the place of VH patterns in Qiangic, Na, and Tibetic languages in their genetic and areal context, and highlights areas where future research is needed.
Vowel Harmony in Korean
Authors: Ko Seongyeon
Published: October 2024

Korean is an East Asian language spoken mainly in the Korean peninsula, which is generally classified as a language isolate. Korean vowel harmony (VH) has been a topic of interest and debate that still has many unresolved issues from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This concise chapter focuses on the empirical side and aims to provide a descriptive overview of Korean VH in its historical context. The description falls into two parts: In the first half, it explores the more rigorous and productive patterns of retracted tongue root harmony in Middle Korean. In the second half, it presents the less productive, decayed VH patterns in Contemporary Korean, which is further divided into ideophone harmony and suffixal harmony. At the end, the chapter also briefly touches upon the ongoing changes and variations.
Vowel Harmony in Ainu
Authors: Shiraishi Hidetoshi , Botma Bert
Published: October 2024

This chapter describes the distribution of vowels in Ainu, a linguistic isolate of Northeast Asia. Some vocalic suffixes tend to harmonize with a preceding root vowel, although the patterns are complicated by the existence of disharmonic forms. The data show that the distribution of vowels in base-suffix contexts differs from that in underived contexts, with two interesting exceptions; in both environments there is a marked preference for /o … o/, while /o … u/ and /u … o/ are in general avoided. This appears to be an areal feature of Northeast Asia, since other languages in the region display similar restrictions on the distribution of /o/.
Vowel Harmony in Yukaghir
Authors: Nikolaeva Irina
Published: October 2024

Yukaghir is a small language family comprising two closely related languages, Kolyma Yukaghir and Tundra Yukaghir, previously analyzed as dialects of one language. Both are spoken in the northeastern part of Siberia. Mainstream linguistics maintains that the Yukaghir family is genetically isolate, but there have been various attempts to demonstrate that it is distantly related to other families, most commonly Uralic. This chapter primarily describes vowel harmony (VH) in Kolyma Yukaghir, but also provides a brief comparison with Tundra Yukaghir. It demonstrates that Kolyma Yukaghir has a residual palatal and rounding harmony that operates in native lexical roots. Outside of primary roots, high vowels are harmony-neutral, and there is only one non-high short vowel (ǝ). This vowel is subject to optional assimilation initiated by the vowels in the root. The velar and uvular consonants interact with VH within the prosodic stem.
Vowel Harmony in Romance Languages
Authors: Canalis Stefano , Jiménez Jesús , Lloret Maria-Rosa , Renwick Margaret E. L.
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents the main features of vowel harmony (VH) patterns in Romance. Virtually all Romance harmonies are unidirectional—that is, they are right-to-left or left-to-right processes. Furthermore, in most Romance vowel harmonies the stress-bearing vowel is either the target (most usually assimilating to the final vowel, a process known as ‘metaphony’ in Romance linguistics) or the trigger; even when this is not the case, the boundaries of the process are prosodically defined. In some VH processes, there can be intervening transparent vowels between the target and the trigger. Most harmonies displayed by Romance varieties involve vowel height, though there are some instances of rounding or backness assimilation in Swiss Lombard, Valencian Catalan, and Romanian, as well as cases of centralization (or laxing) in Canadian French, Cantabrian, and central Sicilian, and complete vowel copy in Italo-Romance.