scholarly journals Adverbial quantification and focus in Hausa

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-467
Author(s):  
Malte Zimmermann

The paper investigates the interaction of focus and adverbial quantification in Hausa, a Chadic tone language spoken in West Africa. The discussion focuses on similarities and differences between intonation and tone languages concerning the way in which adverbial quantifiers (AQs) and focus particles (FPs) associate with focus constituents. It is shown that the association of AQs with focused elements does not differ fundamentally in intonation and tone languages such as Hausa, despite the fact that focus marking in Hausa works quite differently. This may hint at the existence of a universal mechanism behind the interpretation of adverbial quantifiers across languages. From a theoretical perspective, the Hausa data can be taken as evidence in favour of pragmatic approaches to the focus-sensitivity of AQs, such as e.g. Beaver & Clark (2003).  

Author(s):  
Shakuntala Mahanta ◽  
Kalyan Das ◽  
Amalesh Gope

It is discussed widely in the literature on tone and intonation that both these phenomenon make use of changes in the f0. It is often assumed that intonation in tone languages is only slightly more limited than it is in non-tonal ones (Yip 2002). This paper addresses the question of tone assignment in Boro and investigates how it operates as a function of focus. This paper studies both the phonetics and phonology of intonation in Boro and delineates the way in-situ and morphological focus markers influence sentence prosody. The results show that in-situ focus does not result in any change of the f0 value of the target word. The only consistent acoustic correlate for focus marking is found to be post focus compression. The morphological focus marker leads to discrete downstepping of the following High tone and also emerges with an H* by deleting the neighboring H tones. One of the significant results of this experiment is that while H tones were realized at a higher f0 while co-occurring with the H* of the MF marker, L tones did not lead to any changes unless the stem were disyllabic, showing that there are phonological factors constraining sentential prosody.


Author(s):  
Robert C. Ehle

This chapter offers the author's theory of the origins of music in ancient primates a million years ago, and how would music have sounded like. Origins of nasal and tone languages and the anatomy of larynx is discussed, and then a hypothesis is presented that these creatures would fashioned a tone language, they had absolute pitch that allowed them to recognize each other voices and to read each other's emotions from the sounds they made with their voices, and to convey specific information about strategies, meeting places, etc. over these distances. Having an acute sense of pitch, they would have sung, essentially using tonal language for aesthetic and subjective purposes. Thus, they would have invented music. Then the physicality of the human (or hominid) voice is discussed and the way an absolute pitch can be acquired, as the musicality still lies in the vocalisms it expresses. The reason for this is that music is actually contained in the way the brain works, and the ear and the voice are parts of this system.


SUHUF ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Afifur Rochman Sya'rani

Most of traditional Muslim exegetes interpret Q. 4:34 in terms of maintaining the superiority of men over women. Some progressive Muslim scholars then insist a contextual approach to the verse to criticize gender inequality. Among some progressive Muslim scholars, this article comparatively examines the interpretations of Amina Wadud and Mohammed Talbi of Q. 4:34. Although both of them propose a contextual reading of the verse, they have different intellectual background, approach and method in interpreting the Qur’ān. The questions are to what extent the similarities and differences of both Wadud’s and Talbi’s interpretation of Q. 4:34 and how far their interpretations reflect their respective intention and perspective? Applying Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach, the article concludes that [1] Both Wadud and Talbi argue that the verse does not establish the superiority of men over women, but acknowledges duties division among married couple; [2] the difference among their interpretations is on the status of relationship among married couple; [3] Wadud’s and Talbi’s interpretations represent their respective hermeneutical situations and the way they define ontologically the nature of  interpretation and Qur’anic hermeneutics affect on producing the meanings of the verse.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Mirosława Czaplińska ◽  
Małgorzata Rymarzak ◽  
Dariusz Trojanowski

Abstract In the last few years, there has been a visible change in the structure of the fuel station market in both Poland and the United Kingdom. The changes taking place both in the fuel station market structure and the management forms of fuel stations, along with the increasing significance of convenience goods sales, result in the necessity of verifying the existing Polish valuation standards of the income approach. Moreover, there is an urgent need to develop specific fuel station valuation guidelines. Fuel station valuation requires both the specific approach and profits method adjustment to be able to account for the specificity of the valuation. The universal character of property valuation in Poland cannot result in ignoring the specificity of fuel station valuation and the market where it operates. Property valuers undertaking valuations of this type of facilities must be familiar with the rules operating on the fuel station market. This paper focuses on the comparison analysis of the fuel station market structure in Poland and the United Kingdom along with the specificity of the way fuel stations operate. Its emphasis is on the comparison analysis of fuel station valuation methods under Polish and RICS standards in order to show their similarities and differences. The aim of the paper is to present the methods of fuel station valuation in Poland and the United Kingdom, though mainly to show the areas of changes in the Polish valuation standards with regards to the profits method under the income approach that would take into account the specificity of fuel stations and their market.


2011 ◽  
Vol 47 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Maria Fausta Pereira Castro

This work deals with argument construction in child speech, starting by submitting to revision some of the questions handled by the author all along her research on that subject. In order to stress the theoretical moves which have been made, two main questions were brought into discussion. Namely, the presence of arguments from the adult speech in the child utterances and the effect of argumentative utterances of the type x connective y in restraining deviation in dialogue, thus assuring both meaning and unity. However, the cohesive force of arguments is not free from being disrupted by dispersion and unpredictability. The unfolding of this theoretical perspective opens the way to a hypothesis both on language functioning and on the subjectivity who is constituded in it.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Jaime Tomás Page Pliego

Suele asumirse que la noción de persona es igual entre los pueblos de tsotsiles y tesltales de los Altos de Chiapas. Sin embargo, su configuración varía sustancialmente, sin perder la base que los une. Este trabajo trata sobre las diferencias y similitudes que se presentan en el concepto denominado complejo persona en tres municipios: Oxchuc —de habla tseltal—, Chamula y Chenalhó —de habla tsotsil—, y en forma destacada sobre la importancia del cuerpo en dicho concepto. Asimismo, se abordan las variaciones que se han suscitado en torno a esa noción a partir de 1940, bajo la incidencia de la escalada proselitista cristiana. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BODY WITHIN THE COMPLEX OF THE NOTION OF PERSONHOOD AMONG CONTEMPORARY MAYANS FROM OXCHUC, CHAMULA AND CHENALHÓ IN CHIAPAS STATE There is a tendency to assume that the Tsotsil and Tseltal communities in the Chiapas Highlands (Altos de Chiapas) share the same notion of personhood. However, the way this notion is constructed does vary substantially without losing a common foundation. This piece of research deals with the similarities and differences present in the concept of personhood complex in three different municipalities: Oxchuc —a tseltal-speaking community—, Chamula and Chenalhó —tsotsil-speaking communities—, and emphasizes the importance of the body in this concept. It also addresses the permutations that have emerged around this notion since 1940, under the escalating influence of Christian proselytism.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn M Frank

<p>Translation is usually understood as the practice of rendering a text written in one language into another, a process that also requires taking into consideration the cultural similarities and differences entrenched in each language. In this chapter a set of European folktales, referred to collectively as the tale of “The Bear’s Son,” are analysed, focusing on the way that the interpretative framework utilised by storytellers and their audiences has changed over time. The chapter enters a terrain that has been little explored, engaging with and addressing not only the question of the role played by folktales in projecting cultural mindsets, but also their role in constructing, maintaining, and ultimately deconstructing a worldview that appears to have been grounded initially in the belief that humans descended from bears.</p>


Author(s):  
Robert C. Ehle

This chapter offers the author's theory of the origins of music in ancient primates a million years ago, and what music would have sounded like. Origins of nasal and tone languages and the anatomy of larynx is discussed, and then a hypothesis is presented that these creatures would fashioned a tone language. They had absolute pitch that allowed them to recognize other voices, to read each other's emotions from the sounds they made with their voices, and to convey over long distances specific information about strategies, meeting places, etc. Having an acute sense of pitch, they would have sung, essentially using tonal language for aesthetic and subjective purposes. Thus, they would have invented music. Then the physicality of the human (or hominid) voice is discussed and the way an absolute pitch can be acquired, as the musicality still lies in the vocalisms it expresses. The reason for this is that music is actually contained in the way the brain works, and the ear and the voice are parts of this system. The final part discusses the origins of musical emotion as the case for imprinting in the perinatal period.


Author(s):  
Gary Smith

Humans have invaluable real-world knowledge because we have accumulated a lifetime of experiences that help us recognize, understand, and anticipate. Computers do not have real-world experiences to guide them, so they must rely on statistical patterns in their digital data base—which may be helpful, but is certainly fallible. We use emotions as well as logic to construct concepts that help us understand what we see and hear. When we see a dog, we may visualize other dogs, think about the similarities and differences between dogs and cats, or expect the dog to chase after a cat we see nearby. We may remember a childhood pet or recall past encounters with dogs. Remembering that dogs are friendly and loyal, we might smile and want to pet the dog or throw a stick for the dog to fetch. Remembering once being scared by an aggressive dog, we might pull back to a safe distance. A computer does none of this. For a computer, there is no meaningful difference between dog, tiger, and XyB3c, other than the fact that they use different symbols. A computer can count the number of times the word dog is used in a story and retrieve facts about dogs (such as how many legs they have), but computers do not understand words the way humans do, and will not respond to the word dog the way humans do. The lack of real world knowledge is often revealed in software that attempts to interpret words and images. Language translation software programs are designed to convert sentences written or spoken in one language into equivalent sentences in another language. In the 1950s, a Georgetown–IBM team demonstrated the machine translation of 60 sentences from Russian to English using a 250-word vocabulary and six grammatical rules. The lead scientist predicted that, with a larger vocabulary and more rules, translation programs would be perfected in three to five years. Little did he know! He had far too much faith in computers. It has now been more than 60 years and, while translation software is impressive, it is far from perfect. The stumbling blocks are instructive. Humans translate passages by thinking about the content—what the author means—and then expressing that content in another language.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Del Campo Martínez

<p>This article addresses the caused-motion construction from the theoretical perspective of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM). Within the LCM, the way in which lexical templates fuse with constructional templates is coerced by internal and external constraints. Internal constraints specify the conditions under which allow predicates to take part in a construction. External constraints take the form of high-level metaphoric and metonymic operations that affect lexical-constructional subsumption. This proposal makes use of the theoretical tools of the LCM with a view to exploring instantiations of the construction with verbs of perception. Apart from internal constraints, high-level metaphor will be found to play a prominent role in the construal of the examples under scrutiny. The study will suffice to point out that the semantics of the caused-motion construction needs to be understood with reference to the underlying metaphoric mappings.</p>


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