Towards the Question on the Zero Subject in English

Introduction. The article considers the case, when no subject is present in an impersonal English sentence. Many linguists believe that the subject in this case is implicit, because the sentence preserves its predicativity. In addition, the subject “it” is sometimes substituted in impersonal English sentences by the formal particle “there”. However, the question whether this particle performs the function of subject is still open. That is why it is rather pertinent to consider all cases of subject, both explicit and implicit one, including the cases, when the sentence contains the formal particle “there”. The objective of this work is to build a formal logical model of implicit subject in impersonal English sentence. Implicit subject is often named as zero subject.Methodology and sources. The research methodology is based on traditional approaches towards studying the phenomenon of zero subject, as well as on the binomiality idea, having been developed since 1993 at ETU. On the material of English the status of the issue, whether it is eligible to consider the implicit subject as the zero one, is investigated. The examples illustrating the functional features of the implicit subject in English sentence were selected by means of the method of continuous sampling from 7 corpora. To represent the structural features of the implicit subject the method of formal logical modelling is applied.Results and discussion. The article presents the diversity of subject structures in English sentence. There is dealt with the question on the functions of the formal particle “there” in hypothetical comparison with the formal particle “it”. In this regard, a formal logical modelling of English subject is undertaken, for declarative and interrogative sentences. Herewith both independent and dependent sentences are modelled. Questions to the subject are out of the present consideration. The implicit subject has been assumed to be a “trace” of the explicit subject and may not be recognized as the absolute zero subject.Conclusion. Linguistics has elaborated a variety of original views on the reasons, why “incomplete” subjects emerge. Our language models allow, however, to come to more original and, as we hope, objective conclusions. Dependent on its environment the subject in English can be implicit fully or partly. If the subject is fully implicit, it is a strong or weak implicit semifinitive, fixed in the weak specifier. If the subject is partly implicit, it is a weak implicit semifinitive, fixed in the strong specifier. The English subject appears to be fully implicit much less frequent, than partly implicit. Making the subject fully implicit is possible by means of additional elements. Making the subject partly implicit is possible by means of the strong specifier “there”; no additional elements are then needed.

Nominal Conceptualism and Logical Modelling of Agents’ Conceptions

In the view of my philosophical position ‘nominal conceptualism’, cognitive/knowledge agents, who are in some way aware of expressing the world based on their mental concepts, deal with their linguistic and/or symbolic expressions. In this paper I rely on nominal concep- tualism to logically characterise agents’ concept-based descriptions of the world and analyse a undamental logical system for conception representation.

Logical modelling of in vitro differentiation of human monocytes into dendritic cells unravels novel transcriptional regulatory interactions

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the major specialized antigen-presenting cells, thereby connecting innate and adaptive immunity. Because of their role in establishing adaptive immunity, they constitute promising targets for immunotherapy. Monocytes can differentiate into DCs in vitro in the presence of colony-stimulating factor 2 (CSF2) and interleukin 4 (IL4), activating four signalling pathways (MAPK, JAK/STAT, NFKB and PI3K). However, the downstream transcriptional programme responsible for DC differentiation from monocytes (moDCs) remains unknown. By analysing the scientific literature on moDC differentiation, we established a preliminary logical model that helped us identify missing information regarding the activation of genes responsible for this differentiation, including missing targets for key transcription factors (TFs). Using ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data from the Blueprint consortium, we defined active and inactive promoters, together with differentially expressed genes in monocytes, moDCs and macrophages, which correspond to an alternative cell fate. We then used this functional genomic information to predict novel targets for previously identified TFs. By integrating this information, we refined our model and recapitulated the main established facts regarding moDC differentiation. Prospectively, the resulting model should be useful to develop novel immunotherapies targeting moDCs.

A Comparative Study of the Past Tense Aspects in Russian and Italian

Introduction. The problem of aspect categorisation in Italian, as well as in other Romance languages, is studied not so profoundly compared to what has been done in Russian linguistics. The Indo-European Presence – Aorist – Perfect in their aspectual meaning, which are the most independent forms, have turned to build the tense system both in Italian and Russian. The brightest aspectual meanings are expressed in the forms of the Past. The different perception of ‘completeness’ and ‘incompleteness’ aspects in these forms by the speakers of Italian and Russian is probably connected with the peculiarities of the tense formation on the deep level of the language system. So, additional grammar comments are needed. Methodology and sources. The main language unit is believed to be the semifinitive. Thereby we can facilitate the application of formal logical modelling to the description and explanation of syntactic phenomena. The material of the investigation is the surface structure of a predicate, which is formed, on the deep level, by a verbal semifinitive and a time specifier.Results and discussion. A scheme has been elaborated, demonstrating, how a verbal semifinitive becomes polarised by a time specifier. The whole range of aspectual variants, which may occur in a predicate due to the interaction of its constituents through their charges, has been shown. It is reasoned about a charge on participle II. The notion of polarisation is added to the notions of Indefinite or Perfect aspects to represent traditional grammar tenses more exact. This investigation allows to establish a correspondence of Italian and Russian tenses to different charge states of a semifinitive, touched by a specifier. It is rather admittable that the difference between incomplete and complete aspects in Russian is expressed by participles II, which are in complex semifinitives, and in Italian – by simple semifinitives.Conclusion. A comparative analysis of the verbal aspect category in Indo-European tenses, including the past ones, can be carried out, to our mind, both by stemming from the polarisation peculiarities of verbal semifinitives, and through investigation of literature translations, where correspondence is established on the level of language examples. In this case the genetic identity of Indo-European constructions has a chance to be represented as evidently as possible.

Causal reasoning and symbolic relationships in Medieval Illuminations

This work applies knowledge engineering’s techniques to medieval illuminations. Inside it, an illumination is considered as a knowledge graph which was used by some elites in the Middle Ages to represent themselves as a social group and exhibit the events in their lives, and their cultural values. That graph is based on combinations of symbolic elements linked each to others with semantic relations. Those combinations were used to encode visual metaphors and influential messages whose interpretations are sometimes tricky for not experts. Our work aims to describe the meaning of those elements through logical modelling using ontologies. To achieve that, we construct logical reasoning rules and simulate them using artificial intelligence mechanisms. The goal is to facilitate the interpretation of illuminations and provide, in a future evolution of current social media, logical formalisation of new encoding and information transmission services.

EpiLog: A software for the logical modelling of epithelial dynamics

Cellular responses are governed by regulatory networks subject to external signals from surrounding cells and to other micro-environmental cues. The logical (Boolean or multi-valued) framework proved well suited to study such processes at the cellular level, by specifying qualitative models of involved signalling pathways and gene regulatory networks. Here, we describe and illustrate the main features of EpiLog, a computational tool that implements an extension of the logical framework to the tissue level. EpiLog defines a collection of hexagonal cells over a 2D grid, which embodies a mono-layer epithelium. Basically, it defines a cellular automaton in which cell behaviours are driven by associated logical models subject to external signals. EpiLog is freely available on the web at http://epilog-tool.org. It is implemented in Java (version ≥1.7 required) and the source code is provided at https://github.com/epilog-tool/epilog under a GNU General Public License v3.0.