Linear Lengthening in Iwaidja: An Event-Quantifying Intonation at the Phonology to Semantics/Pragmatics Interface

This paper investigates the meaning of a specific intonation contour found in the Northern Australian language Iwaidja called Linear Lengthening Intonation (LLI). Using an experimental field work approach, we analysed approximately 4,000 utterances. We demonstrate that the semantics of LLI is broadly event-quantificational as well as temporally scalar. LLI imposes aspectual selectional restrictions on the verbs it combines with (they must be durative, i.e. cannot describe ‘punctual’, atomic events), and requires the event description effected by said verbs to exceed a contextually-determined relative scalar meaning (e.g., a ‘typical duration’ à la (Tatevosov 2008)). Iwaidja differs from other Northern Australian languages with similar intonation patterns (see e.g. (Bishop 2002: 2002; Simard 2013)), in that it does not seem to have any argument NP-related incremental or event scalar meaning. This suggests that LLI is a decidedly grammatical, language-specific device; not a purely iconic kind of expression (even though it also possibly has an iconic dimension).

Complications following replantation of primary teeth: a case report

Introduction: the avulsion of primary teeth is a disturbing and unexpected event. Description: this report describes the clinical case of a three-year-old child who suffered an avulsion and replantation of the primary upper central incisors at the site of the injury. The guardians sought treatment for the child at the Federal University of Minas Gerais after the replantation. Four months later, the child suffered a new trauma and the replanted teeth presented advanced mobility, root resorption and fistula. The clinical conduct was extraction and rehabilitation with a fixed esthetic maintainer. Discussion: the literature describes two treatment options for avulsion of primary incisors: replantation and non-replantation. According to a recent systematic review, the difficulty in obtaining a consensus regarding the best clinical conduct is due, in part, to the scarcity of publications that present not only follow-ups with clinical success, but also with failures. The outcomes of replantation can be influenced by several factors. The time elapsed between replantation and splinting, and the new episode of trauma, negatively influenced the prognosis in the present case, leading to failure. Replantation of primary incisors is not yet evidence-based treatment. Therefore, this option must be chosen with caution and in ideal situations. It requires constant clinical and radiographic monitoring for evaluation of outcomes.

On event-denoting deadjectival nominalizations

This paper offers a principled account for the nominalizations of dispositional evaluative adjectives. On the descriptive side, the paper shows that (i) in addition to the largely studied deverbal nominalizations, certain deadjectival nominalizations can also refer to events; (ii) the types of adjectives that enable eventive denotation are of a specific sort, namely, those deriving from Dispositional Evaluative Adjectives (e.g., imprudent). At the theoretical level, this paper argues that (i) dispositional deadjectival nominalizations introduce an event description not in a head but in a specifier position, as their subject of predication; (ii) in order for a word to have functional structure of the sort associated to verbs, an event description is not enough: functional projections must form a head-sequence with the event-descriptive heads; without this configuration, the merge of a fully-fledged verbal functional structure is blocked, which explains the limitations regarding temporal modification; (iii) The event present in the dispositional deadjectival nominalizations is a partial event description consisting of a head referring to the Process subevent.

Interpreting Adjuncts: Processing English As-Clauses

Four experiments probed the interpretation of sentence-final as-clauses (e.g., Close the book as a librarian would/would do) ambiguous between a manner interpretation and a “propositional” interpretation. Experiment 1, an interpretation study, found a predominance of manner interpretations for sentences containing would and would do as the elliptical predicate inside the as-clause, biased by which form participants were initially exposed to. In Experiment 2, we assumed that a comma may be present before the as-clause for both interpretations, but that when the contrast between a comma and no comma is called to the reader’s attention it will favor the propositional interpretation. The expectation was confirmed. In Experiment 3 a would-sentence was preceded by a How question or by a What’s with question: propositional interpretations were rare but more prevalent following the What’s with question than the manner question. Experiment 4 added a What did question and tested both no-comma would (NoComma) sentences and comma would do (CommaDo) sentences. CommaDo sentences received more propositional interpretations than NoComma sentences, and were read faster following the What’s with question than the How question, whereas the NoComma were read faster after the How question. All four studies showed manner interpretations prevail, though would do, a (contrastive) comma or a non-manner question increase the frequency of propositional interpretations. Two possibilities are considered for what underlies the manner preference: a general preference for an adjunct to be part of the event description in cases of ambiguity, or the availability of a pre-existing event-“slot” for manner. The reading time results favor the former possibility.

THE SPECIFICITY OF EVENT EXPRESSION IN FIRST LANGUAGE INFLUENCES EXPRESSION OF OBJECT PLACEMENT EVENTS IN SECOND LANGUAGE

Speakers show cross-linguistic differences in expressing placement events involving support (cup on table) and containment (apple in bowl) in first language (L1) contexts. They rely on either more-general (e.g., Spanish for support, Polish for containment) or more-specific (e.g., German, Polish for support; Spanish, German for containment) descriptions. Relatively less is known about the expression of placement events in second language (L2) production contexts. In this study, we examined object-placement event descriptions produced by two groups of L1 Polish speakers—with either German or Spanish as their L2—in comparison to monolingual speakers of German, Spanish, and Polish, using an animated event description task. Bilingual speakers showed greater effect of L1 patterns in moving from a more-general to a more-specific system and L2 patterns in moving from a more-specific to a more-general or between two more-specific systems, suggesting that the specificity of event expression in L1 influences patterns of placement expression in L2.

Situated AR Simulations of a Lantern Festival Using a Smartphone and LiDAR-Based 3D Models

A lantern festival was 3D-scanned to elucidate its unique complexity and cultural identity in terms of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Three augmented reality (AR) instancing scenarios were applied to the converted scanned data from an interaction to the entire site; a forward additive instancing and interactions with a pre-defined model layout. The novelty and contributions of this study are three-fold: documentation, development of an AR app for situated tasks, and AR verification. We presented ready-made and customized smartphone apps for AR verification to extend the model’s elaboration of different site contexts. Both were applied to assess their feasibility in the restructuring and management of the scene. The apps were implemented under a homogeneous and heterogeneous combination of contexts, originating from an as-built event description to a remote site as a sustainable cultural effort. A second reconstruction of screenshots in an AR loop process of interaction, reconstruction, and confirmation verification was also made to study the manipulated result in 3D prints.

Elkövetőből áldozat – a csoportközi konfliktusok narratív konstrukciójának percepciója*

Háttér és célkitűzések:Tanulmányunkban azokat a narratív eseménykonstrukciós eszközöket vizsgáljuk, amelyek összefüggésbe hozhatók a kollektív áldozati tudat (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori és Gundar, 2009) közvetítésével és fenntartásával. Igazolni kívánjuk, hogy a László (2012) által felvázolt áldozati narratív kompozíciós eszközök (nyelvi ágencia, értékelés, és pszichológiai perspektíva csoportelfogult használata) révén közvetíthető egy csoport áldozati pozíciója. Továbbá megvizsgáljuk, hogy egy csoport konfl iktustörténetének percepcióját képes-e megváltoztatni a narratív kompozíció kísérleti úton történő manipulálása: lehetséges-e elkövetőből áldozatot kreálni pusztán a nyelvi megszerkesztettség útján?Módszer:A társas észlelési paradigmára épülő vizsgálatban nemzeti csoportok áldozati történeteinek szisztematikus nyelvi manipulációján keresztül kialakított elfogult és elfogulatlan változatát megítélve, kérdőíves módszerrel (Egyéni és Csoportvélekedés Skála, Eidelson, 2009) mértük fel a narratív kompozíciós eszközök észlelésre gyakorolt hatását.Eredmények:Az áldozati narratívum kompozíciós eszközei statisztikai értelemben is hatással voltak a bemutatott csoportok áldozati pozíciójának észlelésére. A csoportok megítélése attól függően változott, hogy a résztvevők melyik szövegváltozatot olvasták: az elfogulatlan eseményleírás esetén az „áldozati” csoport, az elfogult változat esetén az „agresszor” észlelt áldozati pozíciója válik hangsúlyosabbá. Egyúttal azt is sikerült bizonyítani, hogy pusztán a nyelvi megszerkesztettség útján megváltoztatható egy agresszor csoport észlelése, és áldozati színezettel is bemutathatók tetteik.Következtetések:A László és munkatársai által leírt narratív kompozíció közvetíti az áldozati tudattal összefüggő hiedelmeket, és a csoport szemantikus szerepe képes felülírni az objektíven meghatározott cselekményszerepeket.Background and goals:In this paper we explore the narrative event-constructional devices that can be linked to the transmission and sustainment of collective victim consciousness (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, and Gundar, 2009). Our goal is to verify that with the narrative compositional devices (linguistic agency, evaluation, group-biased use of psychological perspective) described by László (2012), a group’s victim position can be transmitted. It is further explored, if the perception of a group’s confl ict-story can be altered by the experimental manipulation of the narrative composition: is it possible to create a victim from a perpetrator by just the linguistic composition?Method:The study is based on the social perception paradigm, in which biased and unbiased variants of national groups’ victimhood stories were created through systematic linguistic manipulation. The effect of the narrative compositional devices on the perception of the stories was evaluated with a questionnaire (Individual- and Group Beliefs Scale, Eidelson, 2009).Results:The narrative compositional devices of the victimhood narrative had a statistically signifi cant effect on the perception of the introduced groups’ victimhood position. The evaluation of the groups changed according to which variant of the story was introduced: in the case of the unbiased event-description, the „victim” group’s victim position is salient; and in the case of the biased event-description, the „perpetrator” group’s victim position becomes more salient. In addition, it is demonstrated that the perception of a perpetrator group can be changed by only the narrative construction and their actions can acquire a „victim tone”.Conclusion:The narrative compositional devices described by László et al. transmit the beliefs linked to victimhood consciousness, and the group’s semantic role can overwrite the objectively defi ned roles.

Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events

Speaking a second language (L2) involves another way of “thinking for speaking” (Slobin 1996). Adopting Talmy’s typological framework of motion event description, this study examined how learning Japanese as L2 restructures English-Japanese bilingual speakers’ thinking-for-speaking. Thirteen English-speaking intermediate learners of L2 Japanese described motion events in English and Japanese. The analysis focused on speech and gesture describing ‘rolling down’ and ‘swinging’ events, for which English and Japanese native speakers’ descriptions differ (Kita, Özyürek 2003). The results suggest some restructuring in their thinking-for-speaking.