scholarly journals Granularity in the Semantics of Comparison

2022 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 550
Author(s):  
Helena Aparicio
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Comparison Class ◽  
Frequency Counts ◽  
Alternative Theories ◽  
Acceptability Judgment ◽  
Semantics Of Comparison

This paper makes the novel observation that definite comparatives, such as the bigger circle, impose restrictions on the cardinality of the comparison class (CC) against which their truth conditions are evaluated. We show that the corpus frequency counts of definite comparatives sharply drop when the comparison class used for their interpretation is formed by more than two individuals. Two alternative theories of these distributional facts are considered and tested experimentally through an acceptability judgment task. According to the first theory, the 2-Individuals Theory, definite comparatives presuppose that the CC is of cardinality 2; under the second theory, the 2-Degrees Theory, the meaning of the comparative is evaluated against a granularity γ that maps the individuals in the CC to degrees in the relevant adjectival scale, and definite comparatives presuppose that the set of the degrees resulting from this mapping is of cardinality 2. Our experimental results show that definite comparative descriptions are most frequent and felicitous when evaluated against comparison classes with two individuals, but also that acceptability drops off with higher cardinalities in a gradient manner that is sensitive to granularity. Taken together, these findings argue against the 2-Individuals theory of definite comparatives and lend support to the 2-Degrees theory.

Processing subject focus across two Spanish varieties

Probus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-127
Author(s):  
Bradley Hoot ◽  
Tania Leal
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
New Information ◽  
Basic Facts

AbstractLinguists have keenly studied the realization of focus – the part of the sentence introducing new information – because it involves the interaction of different linguistic modules. Syntacticians have argued that Spanish uses word order for information-structural purposes, marking focused constituents via rightmost movement. However, recent studies have challenged this claim. To contribute sentence-processing evidence, we conducted a self-paced reading task and a judgment task with Mexican and Catalonian Spanish speakers. We found that movement to final position can signal focus in Spanish, in contrast to the aforementioned work. We contextualize our results within the literature, identifying three basic facts that theories of Spanish focus and theories of language processing should explain, and advance a fourth: that mismatches in information-structural expectations can induce processing delays. Finally, we propose that some differences in the existing experimental results may stem from methodological differences.

scholarly journals Identification of the State of Electrical Appliances with the Use of a Pulse Signal Generator

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 673
Author(s):  
Augustyn Wójcik ◽  
Piotr Bilski ◽  
Robert Łukaszewski ◽  
Krzysztof Dowalla ◽  
Ryszard Kowalik
Keyword(s):  
Measurement System ◽  
Cross Correlation ◽  
Pulse Signal ◽  
Signal Generator ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
The Novel ◽  
End User ◽  
Standard Classification ◽  
Electrical Appliance

The paper presents the novel HF-GEN method for determining the characteristics of Electrical Appliance (EA) operating in the end-user environment. The method includes a measurement system that uses a pulse signal generator to improve the quality of EA identification. Its structure and the principles of operation are presented. A method for determining the characteristics of the current signals’ transients using the cross-correlation is described. Its result is the appliance signature with a set of features characterizing its state of operation. The quality of the obtained signature is evaluated in the standard classification task with the aim of identifying the particular appliance’s state based on the analysis of features by three independent algorithms. Experimental results for 15 EAs categories show the usefulness of the proposed approach.

Research on a Novel Miniature Air Compressor Generating both Compressed Air and Vacuum

2014 ◽  
Vol 1027 ◽  
pp. 253-256
Author(s):  
Jian Hai Han ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Dong Liao Fu ◽  
Zhi Gang Hu
Keyword(s):  
Vacuum Pump ◽  
Operating Principle ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Compressed Air ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Pump Mode ◽  
Air Compressor

A new kind of miniature air compressor is proposed in this paper. This compressor can produce both compressed air and vacuum. The system structure, operating principle and experimental characteristics of the novel miniature air compressor are described in detail. The experimental results prove that the shift between air compressor mode and vacuum pump mode is possible and the design of system structure is appropriate.

scholarly journals Difficulties in Comprehending Affirmative and Negative Sentences: Evidence From Chinese Children With Reading Difficulties

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenai Hu ◽  
Maria Vender ◽  
Gaetano Fiorin ◽  
Denis Delfitto
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Reading Difficulties ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Chinese Children ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Poor Readers ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
General Validity ◽  
Truth Value

Recent experimental results suggest that negation is particularly challenging for children with reading difficulties. This study looks at how young poor readers, speakers of Mandarin Chinese, comprehend affirmative and negative sentences as compared with a group of age-matched typical readers. Forty-four Chinese children were tested with a truth value judgment task. The results reveal that negative sentences were harder to process than affirmative ones, irrespective of the distinction between poor and typical readers. Moreover, poor readers performed worse than typical readers in comprehending sentences, regardless of whether they were affirmative or negative sentences. We interpret the results as (a) confirming the two-step simulation hypothesis, based on the result that the difficulty in processing negation has a general validity (persisting in pragmatically felicitous contexts), and (b) disconfirming that negation, as far as behavioral data are concerned, can be used as a reliable linguistic predictor of reading difficulties.

scholarly journals Intonational effects on English scopally-ambiguous sentences

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Mien-Jen Wu ◽  
Tania Ionin
Keyword(s):  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

This paper examines the effect of intonation contour on two types of scopally ambiguous constructions in English: configurations with a universal quantifier in subject position and sentential negation (e.g., Every horse didn’t jump) and configurations with quantifiers in both subject and object positions (e.g., A girl saw every boy). There is much prior literature on the relationship between the fall-rise intonation and availability of inverse scope with quantifier-negation configurations. The present study has two objectives: (1) to examine whether the role of intonation in facilitating inverse scope is restricted to this configuration, or whether it extends to double-quantifier configurations as well; and (2) to examine whether fall-rise intonation fully disambiguates the sentence, or only facilitates inverse scope. These questions were investigated experimentally, via an auditory acceptability judgment task, in which native English speakers rated the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences in contexts matching surface-scope vs. inverse-scope readings. The results provide evidence that fall-rise intonation facilitates the inverse-scope readings of English quantifier-negation configurations (supporting findings from prior literature), but not those of double-quantifier configurations.

scholarly journals Testing the Vainshtein mechanism using stars and galaxies

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (12) ◽  
pp. 1544021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sakstein ◽  
Kazuya Koyama
Keyword(s):  
General Relativity ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Main Sequence ◽  
Alternative Theories Of Gravity ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Sequence Stars ◽  
Cosmic Expansion ◽  
Astrophysical Objects ◽  
Theories Of Gravity ◽  
Alternative Theories

The Vainshtein mechanism is of paramount importance in many alternative theories of gravity. It hides deviations from general relativity (GR) in the solar system while allowing them to drive the acceleration of the cosmic expansion. Recently, a class of theories have emerged where the mechanism is broken inside astrophysical objects. In this essay, we look for novel probes of these theories by deriving the modified properties of stars and galaxies. We show that main-sequence stars are colder, less luminous and more ephemeral than GR predicts. Furthermore, the circular velocities of objects orbiting inside galaxies are slower and the lensing of light is weaker. We discuss the prospects for testing these theories using the novel phenomena presented here in light of current astrophysical surveys.

Limits on semantic prediction in the processing of extraction from adjunct clauses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Alfonso Chacón
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Maze Task ◽  
Serial Search ◽  
Conceptual Semantic ◽  
Syntactic Islands ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Processing filler-gap dependencies (‘extraction’) depends on complex top-down predictions. This is observed in comprehenders’ ability to avoid resolving filler-gap dependencies in syntactic island contexts, and in the immediate sensitivity to the plausibility of the resulting interpretation. How complex can these predictions be? In this paper, we examine the processing of extraction from adjunct clauses. Adjunct clauses are argued to be syntactic islands, however, extraction is permitted if the adjunct clause and main clause satisfy specific compositional and conceptual semantic criteria. In an acceptability judgment task, we found that this generalization is robust. Additionally, our results show that this is a property specific to adjunct clauses by comparing adjunct clauses to conjunct VPs, which are similarly argued to permit extraction depending on semantic factors. However, in an A-Maze task, we found no evidence that this knowledge is deployed in real-time sentence processing. Instead, we found that comprehenders attempted to resolve a filler-gap dependency in an adjunct clause regardless of its island status. We propose that this is because deploying this linguistic constraint depends on a second-order serial search over event schemata, which is likely costly and time-consuming. Thus, comprehenders opt for a riskier strategy and attempt resolution into adjunct clauses categorically.

Novel Algorithmic Approach to Deciphering Rovash Inscriptions

2015 ◽  
pp. 7222-7233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loránd Lehel Tóth ◽  
Raymond Pardede ◽  
Gábor Hosszú
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Results ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Statistical Probability ◽  
Algorithmic Approach ◽  
Topological Parameters ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Novel Algorithm

The article presents a method to decipher Rovash inscriptions made by the Szekelys in the 15th-18th centuries. The difficulty of the deciphering work is that a large portion of the Rovash inscriptions contains incomplete words, calligraphic glyphs or grapheme errors. Based on the topological parameters of the undeciphered symbols registered in the database, the presented novel algorithm estimates the meaning of the inscriptions by the matching accuracies of the recognized graphemes and gives a statistical probability for deciphering. The developed algorithm was implemented in software, which also contains a built-in dictionary. Based on the dictionary, the novel method takes into account the context in identifying the meaning of the inscription. The proposed algorithm offers one or more words in a different random values as a result, from which users can select the relevant one. The article also presents experimental results, which demonstrate the efficiency of method.

An Efficient and Effective Approach to Developing Engineering E-Training Courses

2011 ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Judy C.R. Tseng ◽  
Wen-Ling Tsai ◽  
Gwo-Jen Hwang ◽  
Po-Han Wu
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Traditional Learning ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Learning Materials ◽  
Challenging Issue ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Oriented Approach

In developing traditional learning materials, quality is the key issue to be considered. However, for high technical e-training courses, not only the quality of the learning materials but also the efficiency of developing the courses needs to be taken into consideration. It is a challenging issue for experienced engineers to develop up-to-date e-training courses for inexperienced engineers before further new technologies are proposed. To cope with these problems, a concept relationship-oriented approach is proposed in this paper. A system for developing e-training courses has been implemented based on the novel approach. Experimental results showed that the novel approach can significantly shorten the time needed for developing e-training courses, such that engineers can receive up-to-date technologies in time.

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