Experience-based effects

Author(s):  
Rui P. Chaves ◽  
Michael T. Putnam

This chapter presents experimental evidence suggesting that the acceptability of certain island violations is contingent on the prior experience that speakers have with both main situation type described by the proposition itself, and the particular syntactic construction in which it is conveyed. Highly coherent and prototypical complex structures more easily lend themselves to licensing extraction from otherwise deeply embedded positions, and comprehenders can adapt to the frequency of the input in order to overcome the processing difficulty caused when the input is unusual and inconsistent with their prior experience. Acceptability ratings thus range from highly acceptable to unacceptable, suggesting that the plausibility of the proposition itself, the degree to which the extracted phrase plays a role in the main action, and the frequency of such dependencies create a malleable acceptability cline. Acceptability differences likely stem from the proposition itself, the world knowledge it evokes, and the degree to which the extracted relevant matters for the main state-of-affairs that the utterance conveys.

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 719-750
Author(s):  
Rui P. Chaves ◽  
Adriana King

Abstract The idea that conventionalized general knowledge – sometimes referred to as a frame – guides the perception and interpretation of the world around us has long permeated various branches of cognitive science, including psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence. In this paper we provide experimental evidence suggesting that frames also play a role in explaining certain long-distance dependency phenomena, as originally proposed by Deane (1991). We focus on a constraint that restricts the extraction of an NP from another NP, called subextraction, which Deane (1991) claims is ultimately a framing effect. In Experiment 1 we provide evidence showing that referents are extractable to the degree that they are deemed important for the proposition expressed by the utterance. This suggests that the world knowledge that the main verb evokes plays a key role in establishing which referents are extractable. In Experiment 2 we offer evidence suggesting that the acceptability of deep subextractions is correlated with the overall plausibility of the proposition, suggesting that complex structures can evoke complex frames as well, if sufficiently frequent and semantically coherent, and therefore more easily license deeper subextractions.


1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Alvino E. Fantini

Languages are more than mere tools. They are, in fact, paradigms of a view of the world. Knowledge of more than one language holds promise for an expanded worldview, for understanding other people on their own terms, Viewed this way, bilingualism becomes an essential ingredient in the formation of interculturally minded individuals.


Author(s):  
Maya Sabatello ◽  
Mary Frances Layden

Children with disabilities are among the most vulnerable groups in the world—and a children’s rights approach is key for reversing historical wrongs and for promoting an inclusive future. To establish this argument, this chapter explores the state of affairs and legal protections for upholding the rights of children with disabilities. It critically examines major developments in the international framework that pertain to the rights of children with disabilities, and it considers some of the prime achievements—and challenges—that arise in the implementation of a child-friendly disability rights agenda. The chapter then zooms in on two particularly salient issues for children with disabilities, namely, inclusive education and deinstitutionalization, and highlights the successes and challenges ahead. The final section provides some concluding thoughts about the present and the prospect of upholding the human rights of children with disabilities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-452
Author(s):  
Mathura Umachandran

Abstract We live in an age of globalized and globalizing phenomena: the contemporary agenda of academic inquiry takes in ‘networks’, ‘connectivity’, and other modes of articulating complex structures of human activity. In Comparative Literature and beyond, the idea of world literature has borne the weight of idealist intercultural understanding, the hopes of translation studies, and the anxieties around the failure of communication. Erich Auerbach offers a touchstone in the conceptual genealogy of world literature (Weltliteratur). This article illuminates how Auerbach’s Weltliteratur is predicated on a polemic with German philhellenism, tracked through Auerbach’s declaration that his idea is ‘ungoethisch’. Auerbach’s revisions to Weltliteratur constituted a strategy to render it a historicist concept. Since Auerbach’s notion of historicism was itself derived from nineteenth-century German humanism, this essay argues that Auerbach was attempting to go with Goethe beyond Goethe. Finally, this essay assesses how successful Auerbach’s decoupling of Weltliteratur from universalism, under the sign of Goethe and the Greeks. I suggest that Weltliteratur is still a pertinent concept today because of Auerbach’s intervention to install historicist and dialectical resources therein.


Author(s):  
TIAN-SHUN YAO

With the word-based theory of natural language processing, a word-based Chinese language understanding system has been developed. In the light of psychological language analysis and the features of the Chinese language, this theory of natural language processing is presented with the description of the computer programs based on it. The heart of the system is to define a Total Information Dictionary and the World Knowledge Source used in the system. The purpose of this research is to develop a system which can understand not only Chinese sentences but also the whole text.


Author(s):  
V. Pan'kov

In a long historical perspective, the globalization of the economy is, no doubt, the future of the mankind. However, we should not overlook the contradiction that has dramatically intensified as a result of the 2008-2009 recession. This is the contradiction between globalization as an objective process with mostly positive effects and its model that is being implemented today (namely, the policy of globalization). Furthermore, we can propose a number of important arguments in favor of a statement that at the current state of affairs the globalization has exhausted itself. Nobody can exclude a short-term braking down of the globalization progress nor even a U-turn, albeit temporary, to a de-globalization. Under unfavorable circumstances such a reverse movement can cover the entire period up to 2020. The author states that transnational corporations are the main subject of the world economy which will the most actively oppose such a development.


Author(s):  
Raymond Pierotti ◽  
Brandy R. Fogg

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the relationship between humans and wolves. The relationship began as coevolutionary, with the species cooperating at times but also capable of functioning independently. This state of affairs dominated early stages of the relationship between the two species and may have persisted for 20,000 years or longer. In other parts of the world, for example, southern Asia, humans began to shape wolves into clearly domestic forms: animals phenotypically distinct from wolves, especially in body size. This latter process involves various aspects of the wolf gene pool being essentially divided, with many individuals staying true wolves while others changed in form, becoming what people now describe as “dogs” without losing their genetic links to their wolf ancestry or their ability to interbreed with wolves.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Tatiana V. Korsakova

In the 21st century universities cannot survive if they simply support an established state of affairs because the modern world is described by the following relation: the rate of change tends to infinity; the transition interval tends to zero. This leads to the fact that universities cannot rest on their laurels and not change. The university that cannot construct new organizational ties loses its magnitude forever. The article describes the specific features of the new reality which are of great importance for building modern organizational systems in universities. Reference points have been being identified and that allows presenting the direction of development that meets the new requirements of the modern world to people, processes, technologies, structures, and systems accordingly to the university. Analysis of the selected reference points leads to the conclusion that in the conditions of dynamic changes and uncertainty of the world the concrete way of the vision of the university’s situation is to see it as if in the light of the modern world. A metaphor is presented, which is based on a comparison of the university internal world with the current reality. It is expressed by the acronym VUCA.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 174-180
Author(s):  
Giedrė Rimkevičiūtė

In this article the possibilities of finding the job by net are displayed. In today's world job hunting on‐line becomes more and more popular. The majority of Internet sites that can be used for job hunting is classified in thematic categories. Brainbench is the most authoritative system of the world that values skills of employees of different fields on‐line. Brainbench, the technologies of the world knowledge assessing system tests which Lithuanian market of job search ‐supply cannot offer, are being analyzed. The conclusions about the advantages and shortcommings of Brainbench system are given about the importance and significance of Brainbench certificates in job market.


10.33287/1195 ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
Ю. І. Коломоєць

Russian political emigration from the beginning of its birth in the first half of the nineteenth century was constantly in search of forms and methods of struggle with royal power in the homeland. Detachment from Russia, the feeling of isolation that was inherent in emigration to the early twentieth century, were an important factor in the ongoing conflicts that took place in its environment. We note the conflicts between the «old» and the «young» emigration in the late 1860’s, between the Marxists and the populists of the 1880’s, between the revolutionary Marxists and the «economists» at the end of the 1890’s. All of these, as a rule, were due to excessive the ambitions of some leaders, the attempt to become the «rulers of ideas» for revolutionary youth, due to significant financial problems. In the list of these and similar conflicts there are events of 1870, when in the environment of political emigration there are two serious confrontations between the leader of anarchists M. Bakunin on the one hand and S. Nechaev or «Russian section of the First International» - on the other. These conflicts significantly influenced the situation in emigration, disorganized it, weakened the ability to fight the tsarist regime. They were accompanied by sharp accusations, searches for compromising materials, attempts to get support from leaders of the world revolutionary movement. The ambitions of young revolutionaries such as S. Nechaev or M. Utin were also connected with the attempt to take the main place among the emigrants, moving to the background of former leaders M. Bakunin, M. Ogarev, P. Lavrov. All this led to split in emigrant colonies, which consisted mainly of student youth. Violent discussions, accusations, boycotts became a hallmark of emigrant life. Basically, all these events took place in Switzerland, which at that time already became the center of not only Russian, but also international political emigration. Conflicts were directed at the political annihilation of the opponents, which subsequently resulted in the arrest and extradition to the Russian government of S. Nechaev in 1872, the cessation of the activities of the Russian Section of the First International and the return of M. Utin to Russia and the cessation of revolutionary activity in general. The positive side of these conflicts was the rallying of emigrants around their leaders, better information on the state of affairs in their environment, the development of new forms and methods of interaction and the strengthening of the role of revolutionaries from Russia itself.


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