bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Genes, specificity, and the lexical/functional distinction in language acquisition
Authors: Stromswold Karin 
Published: February 2010

AbstractContrary to Müller's claims, and in support of modular theories, genetic factors play a substantial and significant role in language. The finding that some children with specific language impairment (SLI) have nonlinguistic impairments may reflect improper diagnosis of SLI or impairments that are secondary to linguistic impairments. Thus, such findings do not argue against the modularity thesis. The lexical/functional distinction appears to be innate and specifically linguistic and could be instantiated in either symbolic or connectionist systems.
Transfer in L2 grammars
Authors: Bhatt Rakesh M. , Hancin-Bhatt Barbara 
Published: February 2010

AbstractAlthough theFull-accesshypothesis accounts for a range of empirical generalizations of L2A, it underrepresents the role of language transfer in the construction of the L2 grammar. We suggest the possibility that linguistic principles which constrain the L2 grammar are available both directly from UG and via the L1, a logical hypothesis which Epstein et al. do not consider.
A dim monocular view of Universal-Grammar access
Authors: Bickerton Derek 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis target article's handling of theory and data and the range of evidence surveyed for its main contention fall short of normalBBSstandards. However, the contention itself is reasonable and can be supported if one rejects the “knowledge” metaphor for linguistic competence and accepts that “syntactic principles” are no more than the way the brain does language.
Access to Universal Grammar: The real issues
Authors: Borer Hagit 
Published: February 2010

AbstractIssues concerning UG access for L2 acquisition as formulated by Epstein et al. are misleading as well as poorly discussed. UG accessibility can only be fully evaluated with respect to the steady state gram mar reached by the learner. The steady state for LI learners is self evidently the adult grammar in the speech community. For L2 learners, however, the steady state is not obvious. Yet, without its clear characterization, debates concerning stages of L2 acquisition and direct and indirect UG accessibility cannot be resolved.
Parameter-setting in second language acquisition – explanans and explanandum
Authors: Carroll Susanne E. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractMuch second language acquisition (SLA) research confuses the representational and the developmental problems of language acquisition, assuming that attributes of a property theory will explain the transitions between the stages of a psychogrammar, or that induction will explain the properties of the representational systems which encode language. I argue that Principles and Parameter-setting theory deals only with the representational problem, and that induction must play a role in explaining the developmental problem. The conclusion is that both Epstein et al. and the papers they criticize are right; they are just not right about the same issues.
UG and acquisition in pidginization and creolization
Authors: DeGraff Michel 
Published: February 2010

AbstractI examine the target articles hypothesis in light of pidginization and creolization (P/C) phenomena. L1-to-L2transfer has been argued to be the “central process” in P/C via relexification. This seems incompatible with the view that UC sans Li plays the central role in L2A. I sketch a proposal that reconciles the hypothesis in the target article with, inter alia, the effects of transfer in P/C.
Competence and performance in language acquisition
Authors: Hale Mark 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThe implications of Epstein et al.'s critical evaluation of much of the existing literature on L2-acquisition extends far beyond the domain they discuss. I argue that similar methodological clarification is urgently needed in analyses of the role of UG in L1-acquisition, as well as in discussions in such seemingly “distant” areas as the study of language change.
Why don't L2 learners end up with uniform and perfect linguistic competence?
Authors: Li Ping 
Published: February 2010

AbstractChildren in a given linguistic environment all uniformly acquire their target language, but adult learners of L2 do not. UG accounts for children's uniform linguistic behavior, but it cannot serve a similar role in accounting for adult learners' linguistic behavior. I argue that Epstein etal.'s study does not answer the question of why L2 learners end up with nonuniform and imperfect linguistic competence in learning a second language.
Some incorrect implications of the fullaccess hypothesis
Authors: Newmeyer Frederick J. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractIf Epstein et al. are right that adult second language learners have full access to UG, then all of the following should be true: adults should be able to consciously transform their I-Language; adults should be able to transform pidgins into Creoles; adults should be as likely as children to restructure their grammars on the basis of “functional” pressure. All the foregoing are false, however, which seriously calls into question the correctness of their hypothesis.
Metalinguistic ability and primary linguistic data
Authors: Smith M. A. Sharwood 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThe role of metalinguistic ability in L2 development is seriously underestimated. It may be seen both (1) as a means of initiating or boosting the flow of primary linguistic data and (2) as a generator of substitute knowledge (derived, but epistemologically distinct from domain-specific knowledge) that may compete with or compensate for perceived gaps in the learners current underlying competence. It cannot serve as a simple means of distinguishing the rival theoretical positions.
“Full access” and the history of linguistics
Authors: Thomas Margaret 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis commentary addresses two pervasive misconceptions which emerge in Epstein et al.'s target article: (1) that study of second language acquisition (SLA) began in the mid-twentieth century; (2) that SLA has only recently become able to contribute to linguistic theory. There is abundant historical counterevidence; I argue that (1) and (2) obscure the legitimacy of Epstein et al.'s “full access” hypothesis.
Towards characterizing what the L2 learner knows
Authors: Torrego Esther 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis target article is mostly a presentation of experimental research devoted to the larger issue of the role of Universal Grammar in second language learning. Deliberately excluding the aspects of human cognition that makes second language (L2) so variant, Epstein et al. focus on what the learners may know and how they come to know it. This is the aspect of Epstein et al.'s work which is more limiting, and potentially more interesting.
And what of human musicality?
Authors: Lynch Michael P. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThe hypothesized brain evolution and preconditions for language may have allowed for the emergence of musicality either simultaneously with or before the emergence of language. Music and language are parallel in their hierarchical, temporally organized structure, and the evolution of hierarchical representation in hominids may have provided the basis for musical representation. Because music could have been produced manually or vocally before the production of spoken language, it remains possible that language emerged from music and that music thus served as a communicative precursor to language.
Précis of Elements of episodic memory
Authors: Tulving Endel 
Published: February 2010

AbstractElements of episodic memory (Tulving 1983b) consists of three parts. Part I argues for the distinction between episodic and semantic memory as functionally separate albeit closely interacting systems. It begins with a review of the 1972 essay on the topic (Tulving 1972) and its shortcomings, presents a somewhat more complete characterization of the two forms of memory than the one that was possible in 1972, and proceeds to discuss empirical and theoretical reasons for a tentative acceptance of the functional distinction between the two systems and its possible extensions. Part II describes a framework for the study of episodic memory, dubbed General Abstract Processing System (GAPS). The basic unit in such study is an act of remembering. It begins with the witnessing of an event and ends with recollective experience of the event, with related memory performance, or both. The framework specifies a number of components (elements) of the act of remembering and their interrelations, classified under two broad categories of encoding and retrieval. Part III discusses experimental research under the label of “synergistic ecphory.” Ecphory is one of the central elements of retrieval; “synergistic” refers to the joint influence that the stored episodic information and the cognitively present retrieval information exert on the construction of the product of ecphory, the so-called ecphoric information. The concept of encoding specificity and the phenomenon of recognition failure of recallable words figure prominently in Part III. The final chapter of the book describes a model, named the synergistic ecphory model of retrieval, that relates qualitative characteristics of recollective experience and quantitative measures of memory performance in recall and recognition to the conjunction of episodic-memory traces and semantic-memory retrieval cues.
Toward a triarchic theory of human intelligence
Authors: Sternberg Robert J. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis article is a synopsis of a triarchic theory of human intelligence. The theory comprises three subtheories: a contextual subtheory, which relates intelligence to the external world of the individual; a componential subtheory, which relates intelligence to the individual's internal world; and a two-facet subtheory, which relates intelligence to both the external and internal worlds. The contextual subtheory defines intelligent behavior in terms of purposive adaptation to, shaping of, and selection of real-world environments relevant to one's life. The normal course of intelligent functioning in the everyday world entails adaptation to the environment; when the environment does not fit one's values, aptitudes, or interests, one may attempt to shape the environment so as to achieve a better person-environment fit; when shaping fails, an attempt may be made to select a new environment that provides a better fit. The two-facet subtheory further constrains this definition by regarding as most relevant to the demonstration of intelligence contextually intelligent behavior that involves either adaptation to novelty, automatization of information processing, or both. Efficacious automatization of processing allows allocation of additional resources to the processing of novelty in the environment; conversely, efficacious adaptation to novelty allows automatization to occur earlier in one's experience with new tasks and situations. The componential subtheory specifies the mental mechanisms responsible for the learning, planning, execution, and evaluation of intelligent behavior. Metacomponents of intelligence control one's information processing and enable one to monitor and later evaluate it; performance components execute the plans constructed by the metacomponents; knowledge-acquisition components selectively encode and combine new information and selectively compare new information to old so as to allow new information to be learned.
The child's trigger experience: Degree-0 learnability
Authors: Lightfoot David 
Published: February 2010

AbstractAccording to a “selective” (as opposed to “instructive”) model of human language capacity, people come to know more than they experience. The discrepancy between experience and eventual capacity (the “poverty of the stimulus”) is bridged by genetically provided information. Hence any hypothesis about the linguistic genotype (or “Universal Grammar,” UG) has consequences for what experience is needed and what form people's mature capacities (or “grammars”) will take. This BBS target article discusses the “trigger experience,” that is, the experience that actually affects a child's linguistic development. It is argued that this must be a subset of a child's total linguistic experience and hence that much of what a child hears has no consequence for the form of the eventual grammar. UG filters experience and provides an upper bound on what constitutes the triggering experience. This filtering effect can often be seen in the way linguistic capacity can change between generations. Children only need access to robust structures of minimal (“degree-0”) complexity. Everything can be learned from simple, unembedded “domains” (a grammatical concept involved in defining an expression's logical form). Children do not need access to more complex structures.
Numerical competence in animals: Definitional issues, current evidence, and a new research agenda
Authors: Davis Hank , Pérusse Rachelle 
Published: February 2010

AbstractNumerical competence is one of the many aspects of animal cognition that have enjoyed a resurgence of interest during the past decade. Evidence for numerical abilities in animals has followed a tortuous path to respectability, however, from Clever Hans, the counting horse, to modern experimental studies. Recent surveys of the literaturereveal theoretical as well as definitional confusion arising from inconsistent terminology for numerical processes and procedures. The term “counting” has been applied to situations having little to do with its meaning in the human literature. We propose a consistent vocabulary and theoretical framework for evaluating numerical competence. Relative numerousness judgments, subitizing, counting, and estimation may be the essential processes by which animals perform numerical discriminations. Ordinality, cardinality, and transitivity also play an important role in these processes. Our schema is applied to a variety of recent experimental situations. Some evidence of transfer is essential in demonstrating higher-order ability such as counting or “sense of number.” Those instances of numerical competence in which all viable alternatives to counting (e.g., subitizing) have been precluded, but no evidence of transfer has been demonstrated might be described as “protocounting.” To show that animals are capable of “true” counting future research will have to demonstrate generality across situations.
Developmental explanation and the ontogeny of birdsong: Nature/nurture redux
Authors: Johnston Timothy D. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractDespite several decades of criticism, dichotomous thinking about behavioral development (the view that the behavioral phenotype can be partitioned into inherited and acquired components) remains widespread and influential. This is particularly true in study of birdsong development, where it has become increasingly common to diagnose songs, elements of songs, or precursors of songs (song templates) as either innate or learned on the basis of isolation-rearing experiments. The theory of sensory templates has encouraged both the dichotomous approach (by providing a role for genetic blueprints to guide song learning) and an emphasis on structural rather than functional aspects of song development. As a result, potentially important lines of investigation have been overlooked and the interpretation of existing data is often flawed. Evidence for a genetic origin of behavioraldifferencesis frequently interpreted as evidence for the genetic determination of behavioralcharacters. The technique of isolation rearing remains the methodology of choice for many investigators, despite the fact that it offers only a rather crude analysis of the contribution of experience to song development and provides no information at all about genetic contributions to development. The latter could in principle be elucidated by the application of developmental-genetic techniques, but it is unlikely that these can easily be applied to the study of birdsong. Because developmental questions are so often posed in terms of the learned–innate dichotomy, “experience” is taken to be synonymous with “learning” and the possible role of nonobvious contributions to song development has largely been ignored. An alternative approach, based on Daniel Lehrman's interactionist theory of development, permits a more thorough appreciation of the problems that have yet to be addressed, and provides a more secure conceptual foundation for theories of song development.
Computational models and empirical constraints
Authors: Pylyshyn Zenon W. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractIt is argued that the traditional distinction between artificial intelligence and cognitive simulation amounts to little more than a difference in style of research - a different ordering in goal priorities and different methodological allegiances. Both enterprises are constrained by empirical considerations and both are directed at understanding classes of tasks that are defined by essentially psychological criteria. Because of the different ordering of priorities, however, they occasionally take somewhat different stands on such issues as the power/generality trade-off and on the relevance of the sort of data collected in experimental psychology laboratories.Computational systems are more than a tool for checking the consistency and completeness of theoretical ideas. They are ways of empirically exploring the adequacy of methods and of discovering task demands. For psychologists, computational systems should be viewed as functional models quite independent of (and likely not reducible to) neurophysiological systems, and cast at a level of abstraction appropriate for capturing cognitive generalizations. As model objects, however, they do present a serious problem of interpretation and communication since the task of extracting the relevant theoretical principles from a large complex program may be formidable.Methodologies for validating computer programs as cognitive models are briefly described. These may be classified as intermediate state, relative complexity, and component analysis methods. Compared with the constraints imposed by criteria such as sufficiency, breadth, and extendability, these experimentally based methods are relatively weak and may be most useful after some top-down progress is made in the understanding of methods sufficient for relevant tasks - such as may be forthcoming from artificial intelligence research.
Duality and compactness results in high-contrast homogenization of incompressible two-dimensional elasticity problems
Authors: Manceau David 
Published: February 2010

Some of the proofs in the above paper are incomplete.The pressure term in the incompressible elasticity equation needs to be considered and estimated in order to pass to the limit in the homogenization process. This will require Sections 2.2 and 3.2 to be rewritten.A corrected version will be submitted in due course.
Effect of FSH and LH hormones on oocyte maturation of buffalo and gene expression analysis of their receptors and Cx43 in maturing oocytes
Authors: Pandey Alok , Gupta S.C. , Gupta Neelam 
Published: February 2010

SummaryFollicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) are commonly added to maturation media to improve cumulus expansion known to be a predictor of oocyte maturation. Therefore, effects of various concentrations of FSH (1000 ng/ml), LH (1000 ng/ml) and FSH + LH (1000 ng/ml each) in comparison with control (without FSH + LH) cultured oocytes were investigated. FSH and LH (1000 ng/ml each) induced significantly more cumulus expansion and polar body numbers, as compared with control and treatments of 1000 ng/ml FSH and 1000 ng/ml LH alone. Expression of FSH receptor (r), LHr and Cx43 mRNAs was determined by real-time PCR in cumulus–oocyte complexes (COCs) and denuded oocytes at different maturation times. Expression of all three genes was higher in COCs compared with denuded oocytes, confirming the importance of cumulus cells in oocyte maturation. FSHr and connexin 43 (Cx43) mRNA abundance in both COCs and denuded oocytes was highest at 0–6 h of maturation and decreased subsequently. However, LHr mRNA abundance increased from 6 h up to 24 h of maturation. The study concluded that FSH, LH receptors and Cx43 gene expression regulation is an index related to oocyte maturation.
Shifts in microbial community structure along an ecological gradient of hypersaline soils and sediments
Authors: Hollister Emily B , Engledow Amanda S , Hammett Amy Jo M , Provin Tony L , Wilkinson Heather H , Gentry Terry J 
Published: February 2010

AbstractStudies of hypersaline ecosystems often yield novel organisms and contribute to our understanding of extreme environments. Soils and sediments from La Sal del Rey, a previously uncharacterized, hypersaline lake located in southern Texas, USA, were surveyed to characterize the structure and diversity of their microbial communities. Samples were collected along a transect that spanned vegetated uplands, exposed lakebed sediments, and water-logged locations, capturing a wide range of environments and physical and chemical gradients. Community quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used in combination with tag-encoded pyrosequencing, 16S rRNA gene cloning, and Sanger sequencing to characterize the lake's soil and sediment microbial communities. Further, we used multivariate statistics to identify the relationships shared between sequence diversity and heterogeneity in the soil environment. The overall microbial communities were surprisingly diverse, harboring a wide variety of taxa, and sharing significant correlations with site water content, phosphorus and total organic carbon concentrations, and pH. Some individual populations, especially of Archaea, also correlated with sodium concentration and electrical conductivity salinity. Across the transect, Bacteria were numerically dominant relative to Archaea, and among them, three phyla—the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes—accounted for the majority of taxa detected. Although these taxa were detected with similar abundances to those described in other hypersaline ecosystems, the greater depth of sequencing achieved here resulted in the detection of taxa not described previously in hypersaline sediments. The results of this study provide new information regarding a previously uncharacterized ecosystem and show the value of high-throughput sequencing in the study of complex ecosystems.