Personal indices in the verbal system of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208
Author(s):  
Ariel Gutman
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Northern Iraq ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Hebrew University ◽  
The 1950S

Abstract The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Zakho is a highly endangered dialect of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic which was spoken by the Jews of Zakho (northern-Iraq) up to the 1950s, when virtually all of them left Iraq for Israel. Thanks to documentation efforts which started in the ’40s at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as the interest of native speakers, we possess a rich textual documentation of this dialect today (Cohen, 2012; Y. Sabar, 2002; Avinery, 1988). These resources, together with recently conducted fieldwork, are used in order to analyze the linguistic status of the verbal personal indices in this dialect, following the concepts presented by Bresnan & Mchombo (1987) as well as Corbett (2003). For each person marker, its status as a pronominal affix or as an agreement marker is established. The synchronic situation is compared with the known historic situation in older strata of Aramaic, such as Classical Syriac. The resulting analysis shows that the same apparent person marker may behave differently in different syntactic environments. Another conclusion is that there is no clear-cut dichotomy between pronominal affixes and agreement markers, as transitional cases exist.

scholarly journals Grades versus comments: Research on student feedback

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-47
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Guskey
Keyword(s):  
Student Learning ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
Effective Feedback ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The 1950S

Opinions about whether comments, grades, or both are the most effective forms of feedback vary widely among teachers, school leaders, and even grading and assessment consultants. Thomas Guskey maintains that the truth is not as clear-cut as some suggest. He reviews the research, going back to the 1950s, to better understand when certain types of feedback are most useful. He concludes that grades and comments are not, in and of themselves, beneficial to student learning. Effective feedback, whether in the form of grades or comments, must give students a sense of where they are and what they need to do to improve.

“What They Had between Their Legs Was a Form of Cash”

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Alessio Ponzio
Keyword(s):  
Young Men ◽  
Italian Society ◽  
Male Youth ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
The Media ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Mass Circulation ◽  
Queer Spaces ◽  
Bear Witness

This article, showing how ubiquitous male youth prostitution was in 1950s Italy, exposes the pederastic and (homo)sexual vivacity of this decade. Moreover, this article also suggests that even if police, the media, and medical institutions were trying to crystallize a rigid chasm between homo- and heterosexuality, there were still forces in Italian society that resisted such strict categorization. The young hustlers described by contemporary observers bear witness to the sexual flexibility of the 1950s in Italy. These youths inhabited queer spaces lacking a clear-cut hetero–homo divide, spaces where “modern” sexological categories and identities had not yet entered. Prior to the mass circulation of rigid sexual labels, it was still possible for many Italian boys, youths, and young men to dwell in liminal queer spaces. The exchange of money purified their acts, guaranteed their maleness, and effaced potential stigmatization.

The Eisenhower Administration and the Desegregation of Washington, D.C.

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Eisenhower Administration ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Black Equality ◽  
Liberal Bias

Liberal historians have traditionally played down or neglected the achievements of the Eisenhower administration in the area of civil rights. At the same time, they have overstated the contributions of liberal Democrats and understated the role congressional Democrats played in obstructing civil rights in the 1950s. The liberal bias of most historians has led to a distorted picture of the political dynamics affecting the struggle for black equality. The fact is that the Democrats, as a party, were not so liberal in the 1950s as they have often been portrayed, and the Republican party was not so conservative. The positions of the parties in fact were not so clear-cut as they became in the next decade. Neither party forcefully and openly advocated full equality for blacks; both reflected the dominant racism of white society. Granting that, however, the Eisenhower administration was not the obstructionist barrier to civil rights that historians have often portrayed.

scholarly journals Graded Acceptance in Corpus-Based English-to-Spanish Machine Translation Evaluation

10.29007/r819 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Crespo Miguel ◽  
Marta Sanchez-Saus Laserna
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spanish Translation ◽  
Machine Translation Evaluation ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Different Levels

Traditionally, texts provided by machine translation have been evaluated with a binary criterion: right or wrong. However, in certain cases it is difficult to provide a clear-cut division between fully acceptable and fully unacceptable texts. In this paper we have selected group of different bilingual, human-translated English-to-Spanish pairs of sentences from parallel corpora (Linguee) and a group of machine translated texts with problematic linguistic phenomena in English-to-Spanish translation: polysemy, semantic equivalents, passive, anaphora, etc. We presented the translations to a group of native speakers that evaluated them in different levels of acceptability. Results show the degree of applicability of this approach.

scholarly journals MODALITES ENONCIATIVES EN KABIYE, LANGUE DU GURUNSI ORIENTAL DU TOGO / ENUNCIATIVE MODALITIES IN KABIYE, A LANGUAGE OF THE EASTERN GURUNSI OF TOGO

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pali Tchaa ◽  
Amizou Maléki Espoir
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Basic Element ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Structural Types ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Communication Context ◽  
Communication Needs

La problématique de l’énonciation, déjà abordée dans les travaux de Kassan (1996) en regard du système verbal trouve, dans la présente étude, un regain d’intérêt. Il s’est agi de focaliser l’analyse sur les types structurels d’énoncés pour en dégager les propriétés. L’ancrage théorique se situe entre Culioli (1978) qui conçoit l’énonciation à l’aune de l’assignation de la valeur référentielle du sujet de la relation prédicative et Cervoni (1992) dans la sous-catégorisation en « modalité » assertive, impérative, interrogative de l’énoncé. Compte a été également tenu des acquis descriptifs de Kassan (1996) et Lébikaza (1999). Les données analysées sont recueillies au cours de différents travaux de terrains auprès des locuteurs natifs du kabiyè à Kara. Il résulte de l’étude que l’énoncé est construit autour d’un contexte de communication, élément de base de son interprétation sémantique. Au-delà, sa structure est diversifiée. Verbal ou non verbal, l’énoncé kabiyè peut se réduire à un constituant. Par contre, quelle que soit son étendue, il peut admettre des expansions selon les besoins de communication des interlocuteurs. The topic of enunciation, already addressed by Kassan (1996) in relation to the verbal system, finds a renewed interest in the present study. The aim was to focus the analysis on the structural types of statements in order to identify their properties. Theoretical grounding ps between Culioli (1978), who conceives the enunciation on the basis of the assignment of the referential value of the predicative relationship, and Cervoni (1992) in the modality subcategorization in assertive, imperative and interrogative statements. Account was also taken of descriptive results of Kassan (1996) and Lébikaza (1999). The analyzed data are collected during various fieldworks in Kara with native speakers of Kabiyè. The study shows that the statement is built around a communication context, the basic element of its semantic interpretation. Beyond that, its structure is diversified. Verbal or non-verbal, the Kabiyè utterance can be reduced to a constituent. On the other hand, whatever its extent, it can admit expansions according to the communication needs of the interlocutors. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0720/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

African conversion from a world religion: religious diversification by the Waso Boorana in Kenya

Africa ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario I. Aguilar
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
World Religion ◽  
Northern Kenya ◽  
Local Principle ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Second Period

AbstractThe Boorana of the Waso area of north-eastern Kenya settled there in the 1930s. Upon the settling of colonial administrative boundaries in 1934 they became isolated from the rest of the Boorana in northern Kenya and Ethiopia. Thereafter a process of ‘somalisation’ took place through which they replaced their Oromo ritual moments with Islamic practices. By the 1950s most of the Waso Boorana had converted to Islam, and since then have been considered Muslims by the rest of Kenya. Nevertheless recent research has shown that there has been a revival of traditional religious practices among them. The article divides the history of the Waso Boorana into two periods: (1) from their settlement in the Waso area to the events leading to Kenya's independence (1932–62) and (2) from Kenya's independence to the 1990s (1963–92). It is in this second period in their history that the Waso Boorana began a process of religious diversification. Traditional religious practices revived in their settlements and distrust emerged of Islam. The article argues that there has been a reconversion to traditional practices, based on a local principle, the Waso Boorana division of herds.

scholarly journals Rules of English Spelling and the Choice to Use t or s in Shun-Words: A Wink at Anglophone Cameroonian Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blasius Achiri-Taboh
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Base Word ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Significant Interest ◽  
Spelling Variation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
English Spelling

Although English spelling has been of significant interest to scholars since the 1950s, it has remained a major problem even to native speakers. One peculiar problem with it is the spelling variation of the noun formation suffix often represented in discourse as “shun,” mainly between -tion and -sion. Current textbooks of English grammar have generally not discussed rules of its spelling with either form, even though they do many others. However, following online resources, conflicting on how to spell it are in current debate, with two main schools of thought that each fall in line with one of two approaches that can be called the “word-based model” and the “base-word model.” In Achiri-Taboh (2018), I have shown that, in writing down words that end with “shun,” the base-word model is to be preferred, presenting argument for a synchronic rule following the base-word model with seven conditions to warrant the use of -sion as opposed to -tion, albeit with exceptions. Following current debates and a test of Anglophone Cameroonian students for their spelling preferences, the present study establishes the problem as global and compelling enough, especially for Non-Native users and learners of English, to warrant an address in grammar textbooks by means of available recourses like the recent base-word-based rule. The study also demonstrates that the prevalence of the problem actually stems from the lack of readily available spelling rules in grammar textbooks, and that there is a need for further research on spelling rules in English.

scholarly journals Is Spanish Becoming more Gender Fair? A Historical Perspective on the Interpretation of Gender-specific and Gender-neutral Expressions

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Kjær Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Gender Neutral ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Male Image ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
Over Time

During the last three decades, many recommendations for a gender fair Spanish language have been proposed, but, generally speaking, it has been the substitution of the so-called 'masculine generic' (e.g. los profesores 'the teachers [masc.]') by gender neutral (e.g. el pro¬fesorado 'the staff of teachers) or explicit references (e.g. los profesores y (las) profesoras 'the teachers [masc. and fem., resp.]') which has been favoured. Two important assumptions are implicit in these recommendations. First, the sentences containing the masculine forms would lead to associations primarily to men (thus leaving women 'invisible'), whereas sentences containing either the gender-neutral forms or the gender-explicit references would evoke a generic association. Second, the associations between form and mental representation are considered inalterable and unlikely to change over time. This paper intends to interrogate these assumptions by means of two questionnaire investigations that were carried out in Spain in 1995 and 2005 in which native speakers of Spanish were asked to complete specific filler sentences. The results of both investigations demonstrate that there is no clear-cut correspondence between certain linguistic forms and the mental (gender-) representations evoked in peoples' minds. For example, a masculine form is not automatically connected with a male image. The investigation also shows that some associations significantly change over time; for example, a clear male bias of the masculine form in the first study seems to have vanished within a time span of ten years. With respect to another aim of the gender fair recommendations - namely to make women more visible in public discourse – the investigations show that this, indeed, is best achieved by explicitly referring to women. Interestingly, this result appears to be stable over time. Altogether, it seems justifiable to conclude that the assumptions underlying the recommendations for a gender fair language can be challenged. At any rate, it is important to point out that these assumptions are subject to change over time - at least within politically influenced language matters – and perhaps faster than has been expected.

Arabic Literacy Among the Yalunka of Sierra Leone

Africa ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
Leland Donald
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe Yalunka of north-eastern Sierra Leone are predominantly Muslim. Their religion seems to be a straightforward variant of contemporary West African Islam. They have been exposed to Islam for several centuries and although they had powerful Muslim neighbours during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for most of this period they resisted conversion and remained pagan (Laing, 1825; Donald, 1968) until 1882, when they were conquered by one of the armies of Samory and forcibly converted. After the establishment of British and French control over their area in the 1890s many Yalunka reverted to paganism, but Islam remained viable and the number of adherents increased steadily. By the 1950s nearly all Yalunka in Sierra Leone were at least nominal Muslims.

scholarly journals Ethnography as a tool of cinema history

2016 ◽  
pp. 62-77
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Leveratto ◽  
Fabrice Montebello
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Industrial Town ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Film Market ◽  
Written Sources

This article shows the heuristic value of a film consumption study that combines oral archives and fieldwork with written sources. Oral archives on film consumption provided by a local film market of Longwy, an industrial town of north-eastern France, during the 1950s allow the researcher to reconstruct the audience’s collective experience of the films released on this market. Combined with a systematic study of local releases and their box office, they give us access to the artistic expertise of local filmgoers in the past and motivate us to challenge the conventional interpretation of film consumption as the ostensibly predictable expression of a social taste.

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