Reflections on the history of dependency notions in linguistics

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Keith Percival
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Verbal Predicate ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syntactic Dependency

Summary This paper outlines the history of dependency notions from Antiquity to the present century. Although the notion of syntactic dependency was unknown in Antiquity, the idea of semantic dependency was foreshadowed in early definitions of the minor parts of speech, i.e., parts of speech other than the noun and the verb. In part, this happened because logicians had originally posited only the two major parts of speech, and grammarians then formulated their definitions of the minor parts of speech in relation to those of the noun and the verb. The adverb, for instance, was defined as augmenting or diminishing the meaning of the verb. The first writer who used (if not coined) a special term to refer to the notion that some words specify or ‘determine’ the meanings of the subject noun and the verbal predicate was Boethius (ca. 500 A.D.), and in this way the notion of ‘determination’ was launched. As a result of the subsequent popularity of Boethius’s logical works, ‘determination’ was adopted and extensively utilized by Latin grammarians from the 12th century on. In the 13th century, it was complemented by the term ‘dependency’, which was the logical converse of ‘determination’. Grammarians claimed that a dependency relation exists between the members of all constructions. The vogue of ‘dependency’ declined even before the advent of Renaissance humanism, while ‘determination’ survived. In the early modern period, the terminological repertory expanded. Thus, in the 18th century, French grammarians coined the terms ‘modification’ (Buffier) and ‘complement’ (Du Marsais). The 20th century has been marked by a further increase of new terms. Inspired by Tesnière’s posthumous Elèments de syntaxe structurale (1959), some linguists have also proposed formalized dependency theories as alternatives to phrase-structure grammar.

scholarly journals Zur morphembezogenen Überformung der deutschen Orthographie

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaus Ruge
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
General Law ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Explicit Mention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar

Morphematic reorientation of German orthography takes place in conformity with a general law in the history of writing. Alphabetic writing systems, being necessarily phonographic, tend to develop towards the encoding of non-phonetic units. The emergence of morphematic elements in German is preceeded by the evolution of word-separation by regular spaces which had been adopted throughout Europe by the end of the 13th century. Based on a corpus containing 157 High German texts (late 15th to late 18th centuries), this paper will demonstrate that morphematic reorientation of German orthography can be explained neither as an invisible-hand-process nor as the outcome of prescriptive grammar, but as the result of interaction between orthograpic norm and usage. Three cases will be considered in detail: (1) Graphic assimilation of allomorphic plosive variation emerges as early as the 12th century, reflecting regional final devoicing. By the early 17th century, the rule governing orthographic reprensentation of final devoicing in present-day German is fully adopted in usage. Its morphematic reinterpretation does not follow before the end of the 17th century. (2) Morphematic graphic representation of [a]-Umlaut emerges during the 14th century in Upper Germany as a phonetic reflex of open [e]. It is recommended by Middle German grammarians since the 1560s, with explicit mention of morphological factors. Around 1700 the writing rule imposes itself in usage. (3) The use of double consonant letters occuring in final positions of 'graphic' syllables ( according to ) rests inhibited until the 18th century, in particular to prevent tri- or tessaragraphs (, ). It is the influence of Adelung's grammar which leads to the final adaption of the present-day rule.

Latin parsing grammars from the Carolingian age to the later Middle Ages

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 255-277
Author(s):  
Anna Reinikka
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
The Alps

Abstract This article traces the history of Latin parsing grammars from Late Antiquity up to the 14th century, focusing on the group of texts with the incipit Dominus quae pars. These grammars circulating mainly north of the Alps were intended to be studied at the elementary and intermediate levels of education following the study of the Donatus minor. By asking questions about a chosen headword of each part of speech in turn, the parsing manuals offered a technique which allowed the pupil to put into practice what he had already learnt and the teacher to focus on the information he considered as relevant, including different aspects of morphology, semantics, etymology, prosody or accentuation. A number of novelties introduced into the theoretical grammars also filtered down to the lower levels of teaching. Thus, when a section on syntax began to be incorporated into pedagogical grammars in the 12th century, some syntactical concepts also entered into parsing grammars. From the 13th century onwards, elements of Aristotelian logic and physics were also integrated into the theory of the parts of speech and their syntax in the Dominus quae pars texts.

The History of Christian Missions to Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Etherington
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Christian Missions ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan

Christianity came very early to Africa, as attested by the Gospels. The agencies by which it spread across North Africa and into the Kingdom of Aksum remain largely unknown. Even after the rise of Islam cut communications between sub-Saharan Africa and the churches of Rome and Constantinople, it survived in the eastern Sudan kingdom of Nubia until the 15th century and never died in Ethiopia. The documentary history of organized missions begins with the Roman Catholic monastic orders founded in the 13th century. Their evangelical work in Africa was closely bound up with Portuguese colonialism, which both helped and hindered their operations. Organized European Protestant missions date from the 18th-century evangelical awakening and were much less creatures of states. Africa was a particular object of attention for Evangelicals opposed to slavery and the slave trade. Paradoxically this gave an impetus to colonizing ventures aimed at undercutting the moral and economic foundations of slavery in Africa. Disease proved to be a deadly obstacle to European- and American-born missionaries in tropical Africa, thus spurring projects for enrolling local agents who had acquired childhood immunity. Southern Africa below the Zambezi River attracted missionaries from many parts of Europe and North America because of the absence of the most fearsome diseases. However the turbulent politics of the region complicated their work by restricting their access to organized African kingdoms and chieftaincies. The prevalent mission model until the late 19th century was a station under the direction of a single European family whose religious and educational endeavors were directed at a small number of African residents. Catholic missions acquired new energy following the French Revolution, the old Portuguese system of partnership with the state was displaced by enthusiasm for independent operations under the authority of the Pope in Rome. Several new missionary orders were founded with a particular focus on Africa. Mission publications of the 19th and 20th centuries can convey a misleading impression that the key agents in the spread of African Christianity were foreign-born white males. Not only does this neglect the work of women as wives and teachers, but it diverts attention from the Africans who were everywhere the dominant force in the spread of modern Christianity. By the turn of the 20th century, evangelism had escaped the bounds of mission stations driven by African initiative and the appearance of so-called “faith missions” based on a model of itinerant preaching. African prophets and independent evangelists developed new forms of Christianity. Once dismissed as heretical or syncretic, they gradually came to be recognized as legitimate variants of the sort that have always accompanied the acculturation of religion in new environments. Decolonization caught most foreign mission operations unawares and required major changes, most notably in the recruitment of African clergy to the upper echelons of church hierarchies. By the late 20th century Africans emerged as an independent force in Christian missions, sending agents to other continents.

Climatic changes during the past two millennia along the Ancient Silk Road

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 605-623
Author(s):  
Zhixin Hao ◽  
Jingyun Zheng ◽  
Yingzhuo Yu ◽  
Danyang Xiong ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
North Central ◽  
Social Events ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Silk Road

The Ancient Silk Road has a history of more than 2000 years and gave birth to the diversities of culture between East and West. Climate change may have played a crucial role in this process and in the flourishing and decline of civilizations. In this work, high-resolution temperature reconstructions covering more than 1000 years along the Ancient Silk Road are reviewed, and the main characteristics of temperature and hydroclimatic changes are summarized. Four warm stages occurred that included the 1st–3rd centuries, the late 7th century to the early 11th century, the mid-12th century to the mid-13th century, and since the 20th century, and three cold stages, including the 4th century to the early 7th century, the middle of the 11th century to the early 12th century, and the end of the 13th century to the mid-19th century, occurred. Within these various stages, regional differences existed in amplitudes and starting–ending years of the cold/warm phases. Wetness and dryness variabilities during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) were greater than during the Little Ice Age in Northwestern China. The climate was dry during the MCA in Central Asia, South Scandinavia, and North-central Europe. In addition, the climate backgrounds of several famous kingdoms flowering and social events that flourished during these times, such as the Roman Empire, the Loulan Kingdom, the Tibetan Kingdom, and the three unprecedented Mongol westward conquests, are discussed.

Umrevinsky ostrog: Results of the 2010–2017 archaeological research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Borodovsky ◽  
◽  
S.V. Gorokhov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
History Of Higher Education ◽  
Archaeological Heritage ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Metal Composition ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
History Of ◽  
Archaeological Monument

Th e monograph is the fi rst source to fully introduce into scientifi c discourse the results of the comprehensive studies of the representative item of the Early Modern Period in the Upper Ob region, the Umrevinsky ostrog, that were conducted in 2010–2017 and are still under way. It is discovered that the cultural layer of this archaeological monument contains structures and artifacts dating back by their traditions to the Moscow Tzardom and the Peter I period. Th e research of an extensive necropolis of the Umrevinsky ostrog and analysis of the metal composition of those cross pendants discovered in the territory of the monument allowed attributing the chronology of its appearance and existence. Th e appendix dwells in detail upon the written sources related to the Umrevinsky ostrog and academic missions of the fi rst half of the 18th century, during which the fi rst items of the archaeological heritage in the territory of Novosibirsk region were found. Th e publication is meant for archaeologists, ethnographists, historians, local historians, museum employees, teachers, and students of the departments of history of higher education establishments.

scholarly journals Moralna wymowa gestu namaszczenia stóp i głowy Jezusa w Quaestio de Maria Magdalena et Maria sorore Lazari et Marthae Joachima z Fiore

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
Jan Grzeszczak
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Joachim Of Fiore

Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202) – a Middle Age exegete and mystic – is the author of an impressive work on the vision of history, whose most renown ele­ment is the tertius status, i.e. the age of the Holy Spirit which precedes the end of the world and the Final Judgment. As an author, Joachim was also interested in the history of religious life in the Middle Ages and in various exegetical tools which he developed to analyze this subject. In his works, especially the minor ones, he also discusses practical problems related to religious life in the 12th century. The small tractate, Questio de Maria Magdalena et Maria sorore Lazari et Marthae, has been preserved in a single 13th century manuscript and is kept in the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua. In his exegesis on various Gospel passages which deal with the anointing of Jesus’ feet and head in Galilee and Bethany, Joachim of Fiore intends to show that the actions of women who performed this gesture pos­sess a hidden moral significance: the certainty concerning the internal unity that occurs between contemplation and the virtue of humility. An example of this unity is Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair (cf. Jn 12:3) as a person who is humble and – at the same time – given to contem­plation. Still – according to Joachim – as a righteous person, she had the right to reach for the head of the Savior.

Aristotle

Classics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Natali ◽  
Gaia Bagnati
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Main Part ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Basic Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic Ideas ◽  
The Relationship

Aristotle (384–322 bce) was a younger disciple and colleague of Plato. They are the two most famous and important ancient philosophers, and Aristotle is the only Platonic disciple whose works have been transmitted to us. The relationship between the two thinkers is complex: they share some basic ideas but the disciple is a strong critic of some aspects of his master’s thought, a fact not unusual in the relationships between master and disciple. He agrees with Plato on a rejection of materialism in favor of the idea that our world is the result of a formal structure that can be formulated in rational and scientific definitions. On the other hand, he thinks that sensible moving entities contain in themselves their forms and because of that they can be the object of scientific knowledge, i.e., a universal and deductible knowledge and not only of a true unstable opinion as Plato maintained. They also are the real substances. From this basic difference many oppositions between Aristotle and his master derive. In the history of philosophy Aristotle suffered a complex destiny, different from Plato’s continuous success. In some periods he was neglected, for instance in the Hellenistic period and from the 18th century until the main part of 19th century. In other periods he achieved great fame, for instance in later Antiquity, in the Middle Ages from the 13th century, and also in our own time. The authors would like to thank warmly Professor Iain MacPherson for revising their far-from-perfect English.

Gothic Architecture

Art History ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bork ◽  
Marc Schurr
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Stained Glass ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Gothic Architecture ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Leading Position ◽  
History Of ◽  
Church Design

The architectural tradition now known as Gothic flourished across most of Europe throughout the later Middle Ages, producing spectacular structures that dominate their home cities even in the 21st century, such as the cathedrals of Chartres, Lincoln, Strasbourg, Milan, and Segovia. All of these buildings incorporate pointed arches, ribbed vaults, traceried windows, spires, pinnacles, and prominent buttresses, including flying buttresses. The development of these stereotypically Gothic features involved the bold extrapolation of motifs seen in the preceding Romanesque style. Although these period labels were not used in the Middle Ages, the Gothic mode was recognized as innovative when it first emerged in the 12th century, and it continued to be identified with the modern in the four centuries that followed. This mode first arose in northern France, and by the middle of the 13th century, French builders had created cathedrals and churches with daringly skeletal structures whose lightness would not be rivaled until the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, the fashion for Gothic forms had begun to spread across Europe so that the interplay between international currents and indigenous influences gave rise to a wide variety of national and regional styles. The Gothic mode achieved its fullest expression in the realm of church design, but even there its application was less than wholly systematic, and many important church buildings thus lack one or more of the features stereotypically associated with the style. Many forms originally developed in the context of church design, conversely, eventually became fashionable in secular construction, despite the different functional requirements of these building types. In the meantime, Gothic builders engaged in fruitful dialogue with makers of manuscripts, goldwork, stained glass, sculpture, and liturgical furniture, fostering the cross-medium exchange of ideas and motifs. The Gothic mode dominated European architectural production until the early 16th century, more than a century after the revival of Antique architectural fashions began in Renaissance Florence. The term “Gothic,” in fact, has its roots in the writings of Italian Renaissance authors who falsely associated this highly sophisticated late medieval tradition with the supposedly barbaric Goths who had sacked Rome a millennium earlier. Although profoundly misleading from a historical perspective, this terminology has endured, in part perhaps because it captures an idea of the Gothic as a foil to the classical tradition. Indeed, while the Gothic mode lost its leading position in the decades after 1500 because of the growing taste for Renaissance classicism, it enjoyed several afterlives in the following centuries, inspiring the designers of structures ranging from scrupulously historicizing neo-Gothic churches and university buildings to soaring skyscrapers. The Gothic tradition thus ranks among the most significant currents in the history of Western architecture. For sake of coherence, the present article considers only the development of the original Gothic tradition in medieval Europe, and for sake of concision it cites only books, with an emphasis on synthetic studies whose own bibliographies can serve as useful pointers to monographic studies and more specialized periodical literature.

De vissersdorpen aan de Hollandse kust

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 237-254
Author(s):  
HANS RENES
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Research ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Fishing Villages ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Labour Division ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Village

The fishing villages on the coast of Holland Very little systematic research has been done in the early history of fishing villages on the Dutch coast. In 2001, the English historical-geographer Harold Fox designed a model for the origin of the fishing villages on the coast of Devon. In this model, he describes an original situation in which farmers in inland villages were also part-time fisherman and owned a boat and a boatshed on the beach. Population growth led to labour division and to the emergence of specialised fishing villages. The two most probable periods in which this development took place were the 12th to early 14th centuries and the 16th century. The available data for the coast of the county of Holland point to the first of those periods. Place-names relate the fishing villages to the inland agrarian villages: Egmond aan Zee (‘Egmond at Sea’) exists beside Egmond-Binnen, Wijk aan Zee beside Beverwijk and Katwijk aan Zee beside Katwijk aan de Rijn etc. It is improbable that these fishing villages existed before the 12th century, but during the middle of the 14th century most seem well-established, so a foundation around the 13th century seems probable. Two fishing villages, Berkheide and Ter Heijde, that were founded late in the 14th century, remained small and Berkheide even disappeared. Although many of the medieval fishing villages have (partly) disappeared by coastal erosion, the village plans show remarkable similarities, with a main road from the beach to the inland markets and some parallel roads that join each other on the east side of the village. Only during the 19th century, these villages developed some agriculture (potato gardens in the dunes) and a new economic basis in tourism.

scholarly journals Apocalyptics of revolution and self-sacrifice in the poem “Lieutenant Schmidt” by B. L. Pasternak

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 202-210
Author(s):  
Oksana A. Maltseva
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features

The paper investigates the structure and significance of a mythopoetic component in the poem “Lieutenant Schmidt” (1926–1927) by B. Pasternak, revealing that mythopoetics contributes to the expression of the author’s Christian views on the events of the Russian revolution of 1905–1907. It depicts the Sevastopol Uprising as a kind of repetition of the tragic history of capture of Kyiv by Mongols-Tatars in the 13th century, as well as the represents bloody realities of the Great French Revolution of the late 18th century, since these events resulted from the fact that society neglected the spiritual and moral foundations of its existence. According to the author the images, arising in the subtext, the images of the Church of the Tithes destroyed in 1240, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) and the October Manifesto (1905), not implemented in time, are the embodiments of such foundations. At the same time, the study emphasizes the significance of a philistine appearance of the “sleeping” fortress-city of Sevastopol. The author draws attention to the fact that the leitmotif of representing the spiritual sleep, lying and violence is the image of the rampant demonic force which eventually engulfed both warring parties. As she argues, there is, however, an antagonistic spiritual origin of this element in the poem — it is exactly in the image of Lieutenant Schmidt who embodies the idea of evangelical self-sacrifice in the era of violence and lack of spirituality. The paper analyzes the nature of internal conflict experienced by the hero, as well as the dynamics of the plot lines connected with him and highlights the role of biblical, historical and literary allusions. The author concludes that the work under study reveals characteristic features of a historical and mythological poem.

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