The Multifunctionality of a Morpheme Proposes its Morphosyntactic Features and their Specifications: Feature Matrix

Multifunctionality is a cross linguistic phenomenon. It refers to the linguistic capability of a linguistic form to manifest itself in different syntactic structures that result in different syntactic functions. Treating multifunctionality from a generative perspective, the paper focuses on the different functions of the Hijazi Arabic (HA) maa and contributes to the HA literature by describing these different functions and claiming that they are not instances of homonymy, but of multifunctionality. Those different functions are governed by the different syntactic environments that maa occurs in. Its occurrence in multiple syntactic environments suggests that maa has a feature matrix that includes its morphosyntactic features and their specifications that express the appropriate use and interpretation of a given structure. The findings show that maa may function as a negative particle, emphatic particle, relative pronoun, infinitival particle, conditional particle, interrogative particle, exclamative particle and a particle of inclusion. These uses differ in their syntactic flexibility and rigidity (restrictedness). Although more than one function can incorporate to express multiple senses, the salient point about the different functions of maa is that there is no semantic or syntactic ambiguity between its functions.

Copulas in Spanish: Scalar structure and interpretive economy

This article analyzes the distribution of the copulas ser and estar in Spanish, based on a scalar theoretical framework. The main proposal is that their distribution can be captured in terms of the scalar structure of the predicates involved and the presence of cognitive salient points on those scales. The proposed framework centers around ser predicates involving a single degree on the scale, while those with estar involve an interval, which additionally must involve an onset, or salient point. This analysis has two advantages. First, it accounts for subjects and closed-scale adjective pairs not being able to alternate between ser or estar. The endpoints present on closed-scales act as strong salient points that, based on the Principle of Interpretive Economy, require that the copula estar is used if it can. Second, this analysis also accounts for the distribution of estar with open-scale predicates and explains why adjectives like famoso ‘famous’ or rico ‘rich’ are virtually absent from estar predications, despite having the appropriate temporal reading. Cognitive salient points are also responsible for generating the appropriate scalar interval required for estar predications, although their being weaker than endpoints on closed-scales does not require estar be the only copula available. The article also accounts for the nature of these onsets on open-scale adjectives and provides a diagnostic tool to determine which adjectives have them, and consequently can appear in estar predications.

Theory of ion holes in space and astrophysical plasmas

ABSTRACT Coherent bipolar electric field structures, ubiquitously found in various space and astrophysical plasma environments, play an important role in plasma transport and particle acceleration. Most of the studies found in the literature about them pertain to bipolar structures with positive potentials interpreted in terms of electron holes. Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft have recently observed a series of coherent electric field structures with negative potential in the Earth’s bow shock region, which are interpreted as ion holes. The existing theoretical models of ion holes are inadequate because they entail stringent conditions on the ratio of ion to electron temperature. This letter presents a new theory that provides a satisfactory explanation to these observations. A salient point is that this letter incorporates the electron dynamics in the theoretical formalism, which removes ambiguities associated with existing theories, thus showing that the new theory for ion holes may be widely applicable for space and astrophysical plasmas.

Classification of Rice Leaf Spot Disease using Local Binary Patterns

The fundamental objective of this work is to develop an image processing framework that can perceive a proper methodology for ContentBasedImageRetrieval(CBIR) in Leaf Inadequacy. The salient point selection concept is utilized by selecting the Salient points from the edgy image and the concept of inter-plane relationship method is imposed, LocalBinaryPatterns (LBPs) are computed with respect to the center pixel of the salient point. The research work consists primarily of three sections, namely representation of the leaf image, extraction of features and classifying. During the extraction process of the application the most important and special features of the image are retrieved. The image is contrasted with the data base images in the classification phase. The surface of the plant leaf is divided into smaller regions using which the LBP is obtained and the combination of them produces a single feature vector. An accurate model is constructed by this feature vector which is used to measure differences between flawed and healthy plant images.

The Persistence of Jewish Theocracy

This chapter examines the place of the idea of the halakhic state in Israel today, and how the legacy of its early years has contributed to ongoing tensions in Israeli society. Decades after it was crafted by religious Zionist leaders in the early years of the state, the ideology of the halakhic state emerged even more strongly at the end of the twentieth century and the goal of halakhic supremacy became an ever more salient point of contention between religious and secular Israelis. The chapter challenges the common assumption that there was an abrupt change in religious Zionist attitudes, from accommodation to confrontation, after 1967, arguing instead that the more assertive stance of religious Zionists after 1967 would not have been possible without the earlier ideological groundwork laid by Isaac Herzog and his supporters. The chapter also puts the history of religious Zionism into conversation with recent scholarship on religion and state more globally and tentatively suggests how a fuller understanding of the history of the halakhic state might help alleviate social conflict in Israel today.

Identifying

This chapter explores issues of identity for social workers, including how far there may be multiple or overlapping identities within social work, for example, practitioner/educator, when working with other professionals or in different sectors. It reveals issues with defining the collective form of social work identity, which has implications for individual practitioners. The chapter attempts to demonstrate how social workers may be identifying with their clients/service users empathetically, while simultaneously accounting for themselves in various ways. Incorporating this approach can provide a more detailed examination of social workers' views about working with people, including ‘their’ ‘clients’/‘service users’ (the use of language, including labels, being a salient point here), but also, in some cases, as part of their work as educators, with social work students. The chapter ends with my some personal reflections on the author's identity as an ‘outsider’ to social work.

Fighting about Women: Ideologies of Gender in the Syrian Civil War

This article seeks to map and explain the sudden increase in the appearance of female combatants in the propaganda distributed by various parties to the Syrian civil war. Based on interviews and the analysis of online propaganda, the article argues that the importance of ideologies of gender to two of the four main participants in the Syrian civil war (specifically, the Kurdish Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD, and the Islamic State, or ISIS) has rendered gender ideology an unusually salient point of ideological cleavage in the Syrian context. This has meant that other parties to the conflict, for whom gender ideology is less important, are able to easily signal their position in relation to other conflict participants by means of policies or actions relating to women's participation in the conflict.