Syntactic Cartography

Author(s):  
Ur Shlonsky ◽  
Giuliano Bocci

Syntactic cartography emerged in the 1990s as a result of the growing consensus in the field about the central role played by functional elements and by morphosyntactic features in syntax. The declared aim of this research direction is to draw maps of the structures of syntactic constituents, characterize their functional structure, and study the array and hierarchy of syntactically relevant features. Syntactic cartography has made significant empirical discoveries, and its methodology has been very influential in research in comparative syntax and morphosyntax. A central theme in current cartographic research concerns the source of the emerging featural/structural hierarchies. The idea that the functional hierarchy is not a primitive of Universal Grammar but derives from other principles does not undermine the scientific relevance of the study of the cartographic structures. On the contrary, the cartographic research aims at providing empirical evidence that may help answer these questions about the source of the hierarchy and shed light on how the computational principles and requirements of the interface with sound and meaning interact.

Urbanisation ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 245574712110258
Author(s):  
Megan Maxwell ◽  
Milan Vaishnav

Do working women enjoy greater levels of human agency? While the theoretical foundations underlying this connection are clear, the empirical evidence is quite mixed. We leverage detailed, new data on intra-household decision-making and labour market behaviour from four north Indian urban clusters to shed light on this question. We find that women who work exercise greater say in important decisions around the home. However, this ‘work advantage’ exhibits significant heterogeneity across decision types, decision-making domains, and definitions of work.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109467052110124
Author(s):  
Sarah Köcher ◽  
Sören Köcher

In this article, the authors demonstrate a tendency among consumers to use the arithmetic mode as a heuristic basis when drawing inferences from graphical displays of online rating distributions in such a way that service evaluations inferred from rating distributions systematically vary by the location of the mode. The rationale underlying this phenomenon is that the mode (i.e., the most frequent rating which is represented by the tallest bar in a graphical display) attracts consumers’ attention because of its visual salience and is thus disproportionately weighted when they draw conclusions. Across a series of eight studies, the authors provide strong empirical evidence for the existence of the mode heuristic, shed light on this phenomenon at the process level, and demonstrate how consumers’ inferences based on the mode heuristic depend on the visual salience of the mode. Together, the findings of these studies contribute to a better understanding of how service customers process and interpret graphical illustrations of online rating distributions and provide companies with a new key figure that—aside from rating volume, average ratings, and rating dispersion—should be incorporated in the monitoring, analyzing, and evaluating of review data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 01020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor P. Generalov ◽  
Elena M. Generalova ◽  
Nadezhda A. Kalinkina ◽  
Irina V. Zhdanova

The paper focuses on peculiarities of tall buildings and complexes, their typology and its formation in relation to their functional structure. The research is based on the analysis of tall buildings and complexes and identifies the following main functional elements of their formation: residential, administrative (office), hotel elements. The paper also considers the following services as «disseminated» in the space-planning structure: shops, medicine, entertainment, kids and sports facilities, etc., their location in the structure of the total bulk of the building and their impact on typological diversity. Research results include suggestions to add such concepts as «single-function tall buildings» and «mixed-use tall buildings and complexes» into the classification of tall buildings. In addition, if a single-function building or complex performs serving functions, it is proposed to add such concepts as «a residential tall building (complex) with provision of services», «an administrative (public) tall building (complex) with provision of services» into the classification of tall buildings. For mixed-use buildings and complexes the following terms are suggested: «a mixed-use tall building with provision of services», «a mixed-use tall complex with provision of services».


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 188-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen van de Weijer ◽  
Marjoleine Sloos

This paper questions the assumption made in classic Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993 [2004]) that markedness constraints are an innate part of Universal Grammar. Instead, we argue that constraints are acquired on the basis of the language data to which L1 learning children are exposed. This is argued both on general grounds (innateness is an assumption that should not be invoked lightly) and on the basis of empirical evidence. We investigate this issue for six general markedness constraints in French, and show that all constraints could be acquired on the basis of the ambient data. Second, we show that the order of acquisition of the marked structures matches the frequency of violations of the relevant constraints in the input quite well. This argues in favour of a phonological model in which constraints are acquired, not innate, i.e. a model in which grammatical notions such as constraints are derived from language use.


Author(s):  
Vimal Viswanathan ◽  
Shraddha Sangelkar

Multipurpose products are the artifacts with more than one intended or realized purposes. Abundance of multipurpose products in the market raises interesting questions about the desired customer preferences that lead to success or failure of such products in the market. This study aims to set the premise for developing design guidelines for multipurpose products. The study described in this paper is a qualitative content analysis of reviews of multi-purpose products available from online vendors. A traditional content analysis method is followed, where each sentence from the reviews is coded and categorized by three reviewers. Each category is then carefully analyzed and any redundancies are resolved. Finally, an interrater agreement is achieved between the three coders. The obtained categories shed light on customer expectations from multi-purpose products, their concerns, comments and experiences and their advice from the customer’s viewpoint for the design of such products. Each category identified here shows a potential research direction and a foundation for developing new guidelines for the development of such products.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Berghofer

AbstractHusserl’s transcendental phenomenology is first and foremost a science of the structures of consciousness. Since it is intended to yield eidetic, i. e., a priori insights, it is often assumed that transcendental phenomenology and the natural sciences are totally detached from each other such that phenomenological investigations cannot possibly benefit from empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that a beneficial relationship is possible. To be more precise, I will show how Husserl’s a priori investigations on consciousness can be supplemented by research in experimental psychology in order to tackle fundamental questions in epistemology. Our result will be a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that is in accordance with and supported by empirical phenomena such as perceptual learning and the phenomenon of blindsight. Finally, I shall shed light on the systematic limits of empirical research.


2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francine Lafontaine ◽  
Margaret Slade

Since Ronald H. Coase's (1937) seminal paper, a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input–output structures. In the last twenty-five years, empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories also has been accumulating. We review the findings of empirical studies that have addressed two main interrelated questions: First, what types of transactions are best brought within the firm and, second, what are the consequences of vertical integration decisions for economic outcomes such as prices, quantities, investment, and profits. Throughout, we highlight areas of potential cross-fertilization and promising areas for future work.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Pfau ◽  
Markus Steinbach

Studies on sign language grammaticalization have demonstrated that most of the attested diachronic changes from lexical to functional elements parallel those previously described for spoken languages. To date, most of these studies are either descriptive in nature or embedded within functional-cognitive theories. In contrast, we take a generative perspective on sign language grammaticalization, adopting ideas by Roberts & Roussou (2003), who suggest that grammaticalization can be characterized as “reanalysis ‘upwards’ along the functional structure”. Following an overview of some of the attested modality-independent pathways, we zoom in on the grammaticalization of two types of agreement auxiliaries, the lexical sources of which are the verb give and the noun person. We argue that the grammaticalization of give-aux (in Greek Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language) follows directly from Roberts & Roussou’s model because a lexical verb is reanalyzed as an element which is merged in a structurally higher functional position (little v). The same is true for person, but this change has an additional modality-specific flavor. In spoken languages, agreement affixes typically enter the functional domain of V via cliticization. In contrast, in German Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language, person, after having been reanalyzed as a determiner-like element, ‘jumps’ directly from D into AgrO — most probably because it has the relevant spatial properties necessary to express agreement. Thus, grammaticalization in sign languages, while being structurally similar, allows for types of reanalysis that are not attested in spoken languages.


Author(s):  
Carolina Lacerda Medeiros

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> A literatura que discute a sintaxe do verbo nas línguas naturais em geral assume que as línguas V2 são aquelas em que o verbo flexionado ocupa a segunda posição na sentença, sendo a primeira posição ocupada por qualquer outro elemento. O alemão, assim como outras línguas germânicas, é caracterizado como uma língua de tipo V2. O inglês, por outro lado, não apresenta a ordenação de constituintes segundo a qual o verbo obrigatoriamente ocupa a segunda posição na sentença, tendo sido considerado uma língua V2 apenas em seu período arcaico. Este artigo procura fazer um breve estudo comparativo analisando a fala de duas crianças, uma adquirindo o alemão e uma adquirindo o inglês britânico, em diferentes momentos (1;9 até 3;3). Com base na tipologia de Vikner (1995) temos como objetivo verificar até que ponto as duas línguas se assemelham, no âmbito da sintaxe, e em que momento passam a se comportar como línguas distintas no que respeita à posição do verbo uma vez que, linearmente, o inglês apresenta o verbo em segunda posição nas sentenças simples. Como hipótese, temos que um ponto decisivo para a diferenciação das duas gramáticas seria a aquisição de encaixadas. Desse modo, a criança que adquire o alemão começaria a apresentar traços de uma gramática V2 a partir do momento em que adquire sentenças encaixadas, dado que, diferentemente do inglês, esta língua não apresenta verbo em segunda posição nas subordinadas. A criança adquirindo o inglês, por outro lado, mantém a ordem V2 linear nas encaixadas.  O <em>corpus </em>utilizado neste trabalho é oriundo da base CHILDES e pode ser acessado <em>online</em>. O quadro teórico se baseia na noção de Gramática de Chomsky (1985), convencionada como Língua-I, que remete à possibilidade de se gerarem estruturas linguísticas e não, por exemplo, a um certo inventário de estruturas. Tais possibilidades são limitadas pela Gramática Universal, parte das faculdades inatas do ser humano, que dispõe de princípios imutáveis e parâmetros que podem ser fixados diferentemente em gramáticas particulares, determinando, assim, os limites de variação entre essas gramáticas (Chomsky &amp; Lasnik 1993). Cada gramática particular, neste sentido, representa uma determinada parametrização dos princípios da Gramática Universal. A gramática do falante, na teoria gerativa, será, portanto, uma entidade individual: uma gramática particular internalizada na mente de cada indivíduo.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> <em>The literature usually assumes that V2 languages are those in which the finite verb is on second position on the sentence, like it is in German. English, on the other hand, does not present the same linearization, so Vikner (1995) classified it as a residual V2-language. This paper aims to provide a comparative study analyzing the speech of two children, one acquiring German and the other acquiring European English, in different moments (1;9-3;3). Based on Vikner's typology, we try to verify how these two languages are syntactically alike and in which moment they begin to behave like different grammars, in what concern verb position, since, linearly, English also presents the verb in second position in matrix sentences. As a hypothesis, we believe that a crucial point in this differentiation would be the acquisition of subordinate sentences. In this sense, the child acquiring German would start presenting  V2 grammar traces on the moment s/he acquires subordinate sentences, since, unlike English, this grammar do not present V2 in subordinate structures. The child acquiring English, on the other hand, would maintain the V2 linearization on subordinate sentences. This work is based on the CHILDES corpus, which can be accessed online. The theoretic framework is based on Chomsky's (1985) notion of Grammar as I-Language, that refers to the possibility to generate language structures and not, for example, a certain inventory of structures. Those possibilities are limited by the Universal Grammar, part of human's innate faculties, that is formed by immutable principles and parameters that can be differently fixed by different particular grammars determining the limits of language variation between those grammars. In this sense, each particular grammar represents a different parametrization of the Universal Grammar's principles. Each speaker's grammar, in this sense, will be an individual entity: a particular grammar internalized in the individual's mind</em><em>.</em></p><p>Keywords: <em>Language Acquisition; V2; Comparative Syntax; Generative Grammar.</em></p><p> </p>


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