“You are the Murderer!” The Semantic Function of Precedent Phenomena in the Interpretation of a Political Communicative Event in Modern Network Anecdotes

The article considers the semantic function of precedent phenomena in the interpretation of a political communicative event in the texts of modern network anecdotes. The material of the study was anecdotes, which actualize the verbal formula “Whoever calls names is called that himself” used by V.V. Putin in response to a statement by Joe Biden during an interview on ABC on March 17, 2021. In the process of analyzing the material, contextual and discursive analysis techniques were used, as well as elements of Intent-analysis and general scientific methods of generalization and comparison. Since ordinary humorous communication reflects the real ideas of Russian citizens about political events in the country, an analysis of the texts of jokes will reveal stable ideas about the government and the international political situation that have developed in the public consciousness. The study reveals that in the texts of anecdotes that appeared as a reaction to the political dialogue of J. Biden and V. Putin, the most frequent are precedent phenomena dating back to children’s folklore. The analyzed cycle of anecdotes is dominated by the topic of children’s yard quarrel, with which relations between the presidents of Russia and America are associatively correlated. Fiction, history and jurisprudence became other areas-sources of precedent phenomena in anecdotes about J. Biden and V. Putin. Due to the use of precedent phenomena dating back to various sources and causing numerous associations, there is a semantic variability in the interpretation of the same political event in ordinary humorous communication.

Description of the Imperative Programming Language in Haskell

When creating a programming language, it is necessary to determine its syntax and semantics. The main task of syntax is to describe all constructions that are elements of the language. For this purpose, a specific syntax highlights syntactically correct sequences of characters of the language alphabet. Most often it is a finite set of rules that generate an infinite set of all construction languages, such as the extended Backus-Naur (BNF) form.To describe the semantics of the language, the preference is given to the abstract syntax, which in real programming languages is shorter and more obvious than specific. The relationship between abstract syntax objects and the syntax of the program in compilers solves the parsing phase.Denotational semantics is used to describe semantics. Initially, it records the denotations of the simplest syntactic objects. Then, with each compound syntactic construction, a semantic function is associated, which by denotations of components of a design calculates its value – denotation. Since the program is a specific syntactic construction, its denotation is possible to determine using the appropriate semantic function. Note that the program itself is not executed when calculating its denotation.The denotative description of a programming language includes the abstract syntax of its constructions, denotations – the meanings of constructions and semantic functions that reflect elements of abstract syntax (language constructions) in their denotations (meanings).The use of the functional programming language Haskell as a metalanguage is considered. The Haskell type system is a good tool for constructing abstract syntax. The various possibilities for describing pure functions, which are often the denotations of programming language constructs, are the basis for the effective use of Haskell to describe denotational semantics.The paper provides a formal specification of a simple imperative programming language with integer data, block structure, and the traditional set of operators: assignment, input, output, loop and conditional. The ability of Haskell to effectively implement parsing, which solves the problem of linking a particular syntax with the abstract, allows to expand the formal specification of the language to its implementation: a pure function — the interpreter.The work contains all the functions and data types that make up the interpreter of a simple imperative programming language.

"Unity in thinking: transformations of the concept of cooperation in the German cognitive-linguistic continuum"

The work is an attempt to consider the concept of “cooperation” in cognitive-linguistic terms, taking as a syntagmatic basis “thinking”, which contains the motivating feature of the primary basis: the cognitive verb denken [think]. The term “semantic function” is one of the main terms in the work: this function acts as a stimulus for semantic transformation and the formation of a new semantic quality. The aim of the research is to analyze different semantic transformations in: 1. Formation of a derivative prefixed verb mitdenken. 2. Formation of the reflexive verbs sich einigen and sich sammeln. 3. Formation of the construction “adverb and cognitive verb”: miteinanderdenken/ zusammendenken / gemeinsamdenken. 4. Formation of the construction “preposition, pronoun and cognitive verb”: mit anderen erarbeiten. Through the method of componential analysis, the work presents lexemes, morphemes and functional words referring to the same semantic field.

Language evolution from a cognitive-grammar perspective

This paper considers language evolution from a cognitive-grammar (CG) perspective taking Classical Arabic Case Marking (CACM) as a case in point and a departure point. It is argued that the accusative case is diachronically the baseline case mark, designating the Objective Scene (OS) and demarcating an object of perception in the initial stage of maximal subjectivity in which the ground (G) is totally implicit. Such maximum is then attenuated through a process of objectification such that g entities are gradually put onstage to fulfill the functions of identification and predication. The nominative case, then, figures to mark such emerging entities in their baseline, immediate status. This conception of G with its functions is later extended to mark entities external to G, which gives rise to the full, nominative-marked, baseline existential core (C∃) comprising the existential predicate (P∃) and the existential subject (S∃). The truncation (T) of a verb’s nominative case is argued to fulfill the semantic function of situating a process out of existential reality yielding the existential predicate minus (P-∃), which represents a basic elaboration on baseline C∃. Processes being extensions from perception, the accusative case attenuates to mark entities (D) that demarcate processes, implementing the semantic function of processual modification. Finally, a genitive-marked entity (RP) is proposed to implement the semantic function of referential modification, anchoring and referencing the conceptions of all those facets of reality.

The organization of individually mapped structural and functional semantic networks in aging adults

Language function in the brain, once thought to be highly localized, is now appreciated as relying on a connected but distributed network. The semantic system is of particular interest in the language domain because of its hypothesized integration of information across multiple cortical regions. Previous work in healthy individuals has focused on group-level functional connectivity (FC) analyses of the semantic system, which may obscure interindividual differences driving variance in performance. These studies also overlook the contributions of white matter networks to semantic function. Here, we identified semantic network nodes with a semantic decision fMRI task in 53 typically-aging adults, characterized network organization using structural connectivity (SC), and quantified the segregation and integration of the network using FC. Hub regions were identified in left inferior frontal gyrus. The individualized semantic network was composed of three interacting modules: 1) default-mode module characterized by bilateral medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate regions and also including right-hemisphere homotopes of language regions; 2) left frontal module extending dorsally from inferior frontal gyrus to pre-motor area; and 3) left temporoparietal module extending from temporal pole to inferior parietal lobule. FC within Module3 and integration of the entire network related to a semantic verbal fluency task, but not a matched phonological task. These results support and extend the tri-network semantic model (Xu et al., 2017) and the controlled semantic cognition model (Chiou et al., 2018) of semantic function.

des-, mata- ja maks-konverbitarindi inforoll

Kokkuvõte. Artikkel käsitleb eesti keele des-, mata- või maks-konverbitarindit sisaldavat komplekslauset. Aluseks on kvalitatiivne uurimus, mille käigus on analüüsitud 1803 konverbitarindit sisaldava lause semantilisi, morfosüntaktilisi ja infostruktuurilisi tunnuseid. Antakse ülevaate sellest, missuguseid inforolle täidab konverbitarind põhilause suhtes ja missuguste teguritega seostub konverbitarindi inforolli varieerumine. Uurimusest selgub konverbitarindi neli põhilist inforolli: 1) raamistav teema, 2) reema taustaosa, 3) fookus ja 4) omaette infoüksus. Konverbitarindi inforoll seostub tihedalt sõnajärjega, nii konverbi kui ka tarindi asukohaga. Konverbialguline tarind toimib tavaliselt omaette infoüksusena, konverbilõpuline ja ühesõnaline tarind aga moodustavad põhilausega ühise infoüksuse. Tarindi inforoll oleneb seejuures tarindi asukohast: konverbilõpuline või ühesõnaline eestarind toimib tavaliselt raamistava teemana, sisetarind reema taustaosana ja järeltarind fookusena. Teistest teguritest seostuvad konverbitarindi inforolliga nt kirjavahemärgistus, põhilause kommunikatiivne tüüp, fookustavad üldlaiendid, konverbi laiendite pikkus ja struktuur ning semantiline funktsioon. Abstract. Carl Eric Simmul: The informational role of Estonian ‑des, ‑mata and ‑maks converb constructions. This article discusses the complex clauses that entail an Estonian ‑des, ‑mata or ‑maks converb construction, i.e., an infinite construction functioning as a free modifier. The article is based on a study of 1803 sentences entailing a converb construction, and gives an overview of the informational roles of the converb construction as well as the main factors of its variation. The study revealed that the Estonian converb construction has four main informational roles: 1) frame-setting topic, 2) background of the comment, 3) focused part of the comment and 4) distinct information unit. The informational role of a converb construction mainly depends on the word order. A construction starting with a converb normally functions as a distinct information unit. A construction ending with a converb or consisting only of a converb normally forms an unitary information unit together with the main clause. The specific informational role of the construction ending with a converb or consisting only of a converb is dependent on the position of the construction: constructions located before the main clause function as topics, constructions located inside the main clause function as the background part of the comment, constructions located after the main clause function as foci. Other important factors related to the informational role are, for example, the interpunction, the communicative type of the main clause, focusing adverbs, the semantic function of the converb construction, the length and structure of the arguments of the converb construction.

SYNTACTIC IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEGATIVE CLITIC NICHT IN THE MODERN GERMAN LANGUAGE

The article focuses on the main approaches to the analysis of sentence negation in the modern German language. The phenomenon of full and partial sentence negation has been presented. The special attention is focused on the grammatical meaning of negation. In traditional studies negation is characterized as an expression of non-existing relationships within lingual elements, or when an affirmative sentence is denied by a speaker as an incorrect one. In Germanic grammar studies there is no consensus as to the concept of negation as well as means for its implementation. Theoretical syntax deals with an absolute and double negation. The typology of neg-elements in the German language is not sufficiently highlighted due to their heterogeneity in classification. It causes opacity in the treatment of negative constructions, resulting in ambiguous outcome, and complicates the assignment of the lingual units to the appropriate category. In theoretical grammar the grammatical negation is classified according to word classes. In German a general pattern of sentence negation is represented by the clitic “nicht” in the pre-position and the post-position in relation to the verb. Traditionally negation is regarded in terms of volume of negation and the focus of negation, when the semantic function of negation has been implemented. Also grammatical studies of the German language distinguish between full negation, when the whole sentence is denied, and partial negation, which refers to certain parts of the sentence. Thereby for the grammatical negation in the German sentence the regulated order of subject and verb plays an important role. Regarding the above mentioned the article outlines the criteria for distinguishing the full and the partial negation depending on position of sentence elements in the frame construction. The position of constituents in the negative sentence and its influence on the scopus of negation has been analyzed. The analysis of syntactic distribution of clitic “nicht” in relation to full and partial negation in the models of verbal representation has been outlined.Key words: category of negation, clitic, full negation, partial negation, volume of negation, focus of negation, syntactical distribution. У статті викладено основні підходи до аналізу реченнєвого заперечення в сучасній німецькій мові. Представлено явище повного й часткового реченнєвого заперечення, увагу зосереджено на граматичному змісті заперечення. У статті проаналізовано заперечення як синтаксичну категорію щодо й змісту, й граматичного оформлення. У традиційних мовознавчих студіях заперечення схарактеризовано як вираження ненаявних відношень у межах мовних елементів. У германістиці відсутній консенсус стосовно концепції заперечення та засобів його реалізації. Теоретичний синтаксис має справу з абсолютним і подвійним запереченням. Типологію заперечних елементів у німецькій мові розглянуто не досить через їх неоднорідність у класифікації. Це спричиняє непрозорість у трактуванні заперечних конструкцій, що призводить до неоднозначних результатів та ускладнює зарахування мовних одиниць до відповідної категорії. Теоретична граматика класифікує граматичні засоби вираження заперечення відповідно до класів слів. У німецькій мові загальну модель реченнєвого заперечення представлено клітиком nicht у препозиції або постпозиції щодо дієслова. Традиційно категорія заперечення розглядається в термінах об’єму й фокусу заперечення, коли реалізується семантична функція негації, а запере-чення постає як форма модифікації дійсності. Також у граматичних студіях із німецької мови розрізняють повне й часткове заперечення. У німецькій мові граматичне заперечення пов’язано з рамковою структурою речення. У роботі окреслено граматичне оформлення та функціонування речень із повним і частковим запереченням у німецькій мові, наголошено на їх відмінностях. Проаналізовано позицію конституентів заперечного речення та їхній вплив на сферу заперечення. Визначено критерії виокремлення спеціального заперечення залежно від позиції елементів речення в рамковій конструкції. Також у статті здійснено аналіз синтаксичної дистрибуції клітика nicht щодо повного й часткового заперечення в моделях вербальних репрезентацій заперечення та про-ілюстровано їх неоднорідність.Ключові слова:категорія заперечення, клітик, повне заперечення, часткове заперечення, об’єм заперечення, фокус заперечення, синтаксична дистрибуція.

RETORYKA EKSPRESYWNEJ EGZEMPLIFIKACJI W JĘZYKACH TYPOLOGICZNIE ODLEGŁYCH – NA PRZYKŁADZIE WYBRANYCH WYPOWIEDZI POLSKICH ORAZ JAPOŃSKICH

A confrontative analysis of distant natural languages proves fully useful in terms of cognition when, as a result, formal differences in statement/utterance structures arising from typological dissimilarities, yet disclosing universal communication strategies, can be noticed. This refers also to the colloquial rhetoric, which is illustrated by this attempt at comparing the strategy of expressive exemplifi cation combined with the mechanism of negation in Polish and Japanese. Usages of the Polish negative pronoun żaden (no, none) are compared here based on an extensive corpus of colloquial sentences to the corresponding Japanese exemplifi cation structure based on the use of the form nanka, which, in turn, permits the observation of characteristic shifts in the hierarchy of the exponents of the former and the latter semantic function mentioned here. The synthetic nature of the Polish structure places the negation higher in the hierarchy, thus prevailing over the meaning of the exemplifi cation, while in the Japanese language the analytical separation of both meanings places the exemplifi cation and the negation at an equal level as part of the separately shaped thematic-rhematic segmentation of statements/utterances.