scholarly journals Long-Distance Licensing in Harmonic Grammar

Author(s):  
Aaron Kaplan

Positional Licensing constraints can compel a feature to spread to a prominent position such as a stressed syllable.  In Harmonic Grammar, this spreading takes a pathological form: over long distances, spreading can be blocked because it would accumulate too many faithfulness violations.  The result is an unattested system in which there is an arbitrary upper bound to the distance across which a feature can spread.  This defect is remedied here by modifying Positional Licensing so that rather than simply assigning one violation for an unlicensed feature, it assigns violations in proportion to the distance between the feature and its licensor.  It can therefore counter faithfulness regardless of the distance between trigger and target.  This reformulation necessitates other changes to avoid new problems: Positional Licensing must reward licensed features instead of penalizing unlicensed ones, and it must be couched in Serial Harmonic Grammar.  This result provides new support for those theoretical constructs, and it helps clarify the differences between OT and HG.

Phonology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-626
Author(s):  
Aaron Kaplan

Kaplan (2018a) argues for a positive and gradient version of positional licensing in Harmonic Grammar. A chief difference between this formalism and standard positional licensing is that it predicts that harmony whose goal is to place a feature in a licensing position may overshoot its target by extending beyond the licensing position. Centralisation harmony in Tudanca Montañés bears out this prediction: though harmony triggered by a final vowel typically stops at the stressed syllable, under particular circumstances it extends into the pretonic domain. Positive gradient positional licensing is indispensable in an account of this. It plays a central role in a gang effect that drives overshoot, an interaction that cannot be replicated with standard versions of positional licensing.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaibhav Kulkarni ◽  
Abhijit Mahalunkar ◽  
Benoit Garbinato ◽  
John Kelleher

We challenge the upper bound of human-mobility predictability that is widely used to corroborate the accuracy of mobility prediction models. We observe that extensions of recurrent-neural network architectures achieve significantly higher prediction accuracy, surpassing this upper bound. Given this discrepancy, the central objective of our work is to show that the methodology behind the estimation of the predictability upper bound is erroneous and identify the reasons behind this discrepancy. In order to explain this anomaly, we shed light on several underlying assumptions that have contributed to this bias. In particular, we highlight the consequences of the assumed Markovian nature of human-mobility on deriving this upper bound on maximum mobility predictability. By using several statistical tests on three real-world mobility datasets, we show that human mobility exhibits scale-invariant long-distance dependencies, contrasting with the initial Markovian assumption. We show that this assumption of exponential decay of information in mobility trajectories, coupled with the inadequate usage of encoding techniques results in entropy inflation, consequently lowering the upper bound on predictability. We highlight that the current upper bound computation methodology based on Fano’s inequality tends to overlook the presence of long-range structural correlations inherent to mobility behaviors and we demonstrate its significance using an alternate encoding scheme. We further show the manifestation of not accounting for these dependencies by probing the mutual information decay in mobility trajectories. We expose the systematic bias that culminates into an inaccurate upper bound and further explain as to why the recurrent-neural architectures, designed to handle long-range structural correlations, surpass this upper limit on human mobility predictability.


Phonology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie S. Shih

This paper examines a key difference between constraint conjunction and constraint weight additivity, arguing that the two do not have the same empirical coverage. In particular, constraint conjunction in weighted probabilistic grammar allows for superadditive constraint interaction, where the effect of violating two constraints goes beyond the additive combination of the two constraints’ weights alone. A case study from parasitic tone harmony in Dioula d'Odienné demonstrates superadditive local and long-distance segmental feature similarities that increase the likelihood of tone harmony. Superadditivity in Dioula d'Odienné is formally captured in Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar by weighted constraint conjunction. Counter to previous approaches that supplant constraint conjunction with weight additivity in Harmonic Grammar, information-theoretic model comparison reveals that weighted constraint conjunction improves the grammar's explanatory power when modelling quantitative natural language patterns.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Paulina Lyskawa ◽  
Rodrigo Ranero

We analyze sibilant harmony in the Santiago Atitlán dialect of Tz’utujil (Mayan), a phenomenon that was briefly described by Dayley (1985). Novel data show that the obligatory harmony process (i) is asymmetrical (triggered only by [+ant] sibilants), (ii) progressive, and (iii) applies long-distance. Furthermore, we argue that the process is not stem-controlled. In contextualizing the phenomenon within the typology of sibilant harmony (Hansson 2010), we conclude that it is unique. Finally, we suggest that Santiago Tz’utujil sibilant harmony has been stable diachronically because the target segment /ʃ/ is always in the stressed syllable, thus being salient in the input during acquisition.


Author(s):  
Phillip Alexander Burness ◽  
Kevin James McMullin ◽  
Jane Chandlee

Whether we analyze phonological processes using a system of rules or constraints, the resulting map from underlying representations to surface pronunciations can be characterized as a function. Viewing processes as mathematical objects in this way allows us to study properties of phonology that hold no matter how it is implemented. Work in this vein has found that a majority of phonological processes only consider information within a finite window, placing them in the highly restrictive class of Strictly Local (SL) functions (Chandlee 2014; Chandlee et al. 2014;2015). Long-distance phonological processes, however, lie outside the capabilities of the SL functions since they consider information that can be arbitrarily distant. The more powerful class of subsequential functions has been offered as a potential upper bound on the complexity of long-distance phonology (Heinz and Lai 2013; Luo 2017; Payne 2017), but we will argue that an even tighter bound is possible. Specifically, by incorporating an autosegmental tier (e.g., Goldsmith 1976) into the structure of an SL function, the non-local information crucial for applying long-distance processes can be rendered local. In addition to assessing the typological coverage of these Tier-based Strictly Local (TSL) functions (Burness and McMullin 2019; Hao and Andersson 2019; Hao and Bowers 2019), we show that they fail to generate a number of pathological patterns that can be characterized as subsequential functions. We therefore conclude that the TSL functions are a better hypothesized upper bound on phonological complexity.


Author(s):  
James Cronshaw

Long distance transport in plants takes place in phloem tissue which has characteristic cells, the sieve elements. At maturity these cells have sieve areas in their end walls with specialized perforations. They are associated with companion cells, parenchyma cells, and in some species, with transfer cells. The protoplast of the functioning sieve element contains a high concentration of sugar, and consequently a high hydrostatic pressure, which makes it extremely difficult to fix mature sieve elements for electron microscopical observation without the formation of surge artifacts. Despite many structural studies which have attempted to prevent surge artifacts, several features of mature sieve elements, such as the distribution of P-protein and the nature of the contents of the sieve area pores, remain controversial.


VASA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 262-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schweizer ◽  
Hügli ◽  
Koella ◽  
Jeanneret

On the occasion of diagnosing a popliteal entrapment syndrome in a 59-year old man with no cardiovascular risk factors, who developed acute ischemic leg pain during long distance running, we give an overview on this entity with emphasis on patients’age. The different types of the popliteal artery compression syndrome are summarized. The diagnostic and therapeutic approaches are discussed. The most important clinical sign of a popliteal entrapment syndrome is the lack of atherosclerotic risk factors in patients with limited walking distance. Not only in young athletes but also in patients more than 50 years old the popliteal entrapment syndrome has to be taken into account.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-112
Author(s):  
Anita Shrivastava ◽  
Andrea Burianova

This study aimed to explore the relationships between attachment styles, proximity, and relational satisfaction. This was achieved by assessing a distinct type of long distance romantic relationship of flying crews, compared with proximal (non-flying crew) romantic relationships. The responses of 139 expatriate professionals revealed significant associations between proximity and anxious and avoidant attachment dimensions. The role of the avoidant dimension in comparison with that of the anxious dimension was found to be a significant predictor of relational satisfaction. This study contributes significantly toward addressing the role of proximity and attachment in relational satisfaction in a new context of geographic separation.


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