The prosody of French ambiguous multiple negative sentences.

While it has long been assumed that prosody can help resolve syntactic and semantic ambiguities, empirical evidence has shown that the mapping between prosody and meaning is complex (Hirschberg & Avesani, 2000; Jackendoff, 1972). This paper investigates the prosody of ambiguous French sentences with multiple potentially negative terms that allow two semantically very distinct interpretations—a single negation reading involving so-called negative concord (NC), and a double negative reading (DN) with a positive meaning reflecting a strictly compositional interpretation—with the goal to further research on the role of prosody in ambiguities by examining whether intonation can be recruited by speakers to signal distinct interpretations of these sentences to hearers. Twenty native speakers produced transitive sentences with potentially negative terms embedded in contexts designed to elicit single-negation or double-negation readings. Analysis regarding the F0 and the duration of the utterances revealed distinct prosodic profiles for the two readings, confirming previous evidence that speakers can produce characteristic acoustic cues to signal intended distinctive meanings (Kraljic & Brennan, 2005; Syrett, Simon, & Nisula, 2014). Our results reveal that NC readings feature a focused subject and a deaccented object, in contrast to DN readings where both the subject and the object were independently focused. They do not relate DN to contradiction but link negative meaning with focus on French negative concord items (NCI). The paper discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical approaches to NC and outlines further questions for the syntax-prosody interface of these constructions.

THE AESCHYLEAN STING IN WASPS’ TALE: ARISTOPHANES’ ENGAGEMENT WITH THE ORESTEIA

The sting to Aristophanes’ ‘little tale’ in Wasps (λογίδιον, Vesp. 64) materializes from the comedy's interplay with the Oresteia. This article argues that Aristophanes alludes to both Agamemnon and Eumenides in the scenes running up to (and including) the trial scene, and that he exploits this intertext in the cloak scene (Vesp. 1122–264). While isolated allusions to the Oresteia have been identified in Wasps, a systematic consideration of these references has not been undertaken: a surprising absence in discussions of the ongoing competition between the comic and the tragic genres permeating Wasps’ dramatic action. Moreover, Aristophanes’ engagement with the Oresteia offers a special type of tragic intertext, in which the first and the last plays of a connected trilogy are referenced simultaneously, provocatively destabilizing the original. Furthermore, this allusion has implications for our understanding of a scene which recent scholarship has established as pivotal within the comedy, namely the cloak scene. The first part of this article, therefore, establishes the extent of Wasps’ engagement with the Oresteia and considers the significance of the ‘pastiche’ formed through the combined intertextual references to Agamemnon and to Eumenides. The second part explores the impact of this intertext on the interpretation of the cloak scene, revealing that its use of costume can be understood as a criticism of Aeschylus’ dramaturgy, inviting a negative reading of Bdelycleon's ideological stance and reinforcing the play's pessimistic view of the Athenian law courts.

Around Arendt’s table: Bureaucracy and the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council

Non-permanent members’ strategies to augment their influence in the United Nations Security Council usually seek parity of status with the permanent members. A more radical and transformative strategy would seek to change the Council itself. Working methods reform holds more potential in this respect than composition reform. At present, however, working methods reform is oriented to increasing non-permanent members’ status and focuses on redistributing administrative roles like sub-committee chairing and penholding. The price non-permanent members pay for their offices, however, is bureaucratic drudgery, which both keeps them from pursuing their own political priorities, and socializes them into the permanent members’ rhythms of work. Using Hannah Arendt’s concepts of work, labour, and natality, this contribution analyses strategies for influence in the Security Council, and offers a negative reading of Arendt’s ideas to suggest that non-permanent members should present a more obstructive counterforce in the Council, by cultivating their difference.

Changes in Transcript, Metabolite, and Antibody Reactivity During the Early Protective Immune Response in Humans to Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection

Background Strategies to prevent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection are urgently required. In this study, we aimed to identify correlates of protection against Mtb infection. Methods Two groups of Mtb-exposed contacts of tuberculosis (TB) patients were recruited and classified according to their Mtb infection status using the tuberculin skin test (TST; cohort 1) or QuantiFERON (QFT; cohort 2). A negative reading at baseline with a positive reading at follow-up classified TST or QFT converters and a negative reading at both time points classified TST or QFT nonconverters. Ribonucleic acid sequencing, Mtb proteome arrays, and metabolic profiling were performed. Results Several genes were found to be differentially expressed at baseline between converters and nonconverters. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed a distinct B-cell gene signature in TST nonconverters compared to converters. When infection status was defined by QFT, enrichment of type I interferon was observed. A remarkable area under the curve (AUC) of 1.0 was observed for IgA reactivity to Rv0134 and an AUC of 0.98 for IgA reactivity to both Rv0629c and Rv2188c. IgG reactivity to Rv3223c resulted in an AUC of 0.96 and was markedly higher compared to TST nonconverters. We also identified several differences in metabolite profiles, including changes in biomarkers of inflammation, fatty acid metabolism, and bile acids. Pantothenate (vitamin B5) was significantly increased in TST nonconverters compared to converters at baseline (q = 0.0060). Conclusions These data provide new insights into the early protective response to Mtb infection and possible avenues to interfere with Mtb infection, including vitamin B5 supplementation. Analysis of blood from highly exposed household contacts from The Gambia who never develop latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection shows distinct transcriptomic, antibody, and metabolomic profiles compared to those who develop latent tuberculosis infection but prior to any signs of infection.

The use of any with factive predicates

While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anything), they are known to be found in factive environments that involve veridicality (I regret you said anything). There is however disagreement in the literature about the types of factive environments in which any is found. This paper proposes the first systematic large-scale survey of the use of any with factive predicates. Based on corpora totaling nearly 5 billion words, the paper establishes the relative frequency of any licensed by the different factive predicates (epistemic factives, as well positive, negative and counterexpectative emotives). Negative emotive factives (e.g. regret) were found to license any 1.8 times more frequently than counterexpectative factives (be amazed), which license any 25.8 times more than do positive emotives (be glad). Emotive factives are associated with counterfactual preferences and expectations that make available a negative reading that licenses any. The examination of the data does not support a rescuing analysis that separates these occurrences of any from other licensed uses. On the contrary, the data show that any is licensed by at-issue meaning, as proposed by (Horn, Laurence. 2016. Licensing NPIs: Some negative (and positive) results. In Pierre Larrivée & Chungmin Lee (eds.), Negation and polarity. Experimental and cognitive perspectives, 281–305. Dordrecht: Springer.).

Paratactic negation revisited

This paper examines the phenomenon of paratactic negation (PN) by analyzing the usage of the Finnish verb epäillä (‘doubt’, ‘suspect’, ‘suppose’), which is associated with both inherent negation and negative evaluation. Paratactic negation refers to an overt negation in a complement clause of an inherently negative verb that results in a single negative reading. This analysis draws on previous research going back to Jespersen (1917), in observing that the PN complement clause verbalizes the content of the activity that is expressed by the matrix verb. In this case, the verb of inherent negation does not have scope over the complement despite its negative semantics. This paper addresses the question of where and why content complements actually occur. The answer to this question is given by accounting for the differences of the content complements from more clearly subordinate target complements. It is shown that this distinction is related to verb semantics and conventionalized syntagmatic patterns. This is demonstrated by accounting for the differences of the content complements from more clearly subordinate target complements. On the basis of these results, the paper offers a refined definition of paratactic negation. This definition has two major implications: First, it suggests that a semantically non-vacuous PN may be a conventionalized pattern. Second, it leads us to reconsider the limits of PN and the definition of inherent negation.

Countering Trump: Toward a Theory of Charismatic Counter-Roles

This article conducts a negative reading of Weber’s ideal type of charismatic authority, seeking to anticipate and discern hidden social interactants that are implicated in his descriptions of charismatic social processes. In so doing, this article advances the “charismatic counter-role” as an umbrella term that captures the performative bearing of a variety of actors on processes of charismatic interaction. Specifically, in addition to devoted followers (already much discussed in the literature), this typology contains unworthy challengers (competitors who fall short when judged by the new terms of legitimacy that the charismatic leader creatively establishes); and colossal players (interlocutors that are appropriately “to scale” for highlighting the extraordinary missions to which the charismatic leader aspires). Together, these charismatic counter-roles interact in ways that comprise a charismatic social system that gives a better account than has heretofore been available for the unstoppable momentum of charismatic challenges. Using the “Trump phenomenon” of 2015–2016 as its empirical source, and employing analytical tools from symbolic interactionist and performative approaches to social theory, this article has implications for future studies of how charisma destabilizes traditional and/or rational-legal social orders.

Resisting and Persisting: Identity Stability Among Adolescent Readers Labeled as Struggling

This phenomenological case study explores the persistence of high school readers labeled as struggling as they described their responses to recurring, consistent, externally originating challenges to positive reading identities growing from their experiences in a Young Adult Literature (YAL) course. Through application of Weinreich’s identity theory, the article examines three challenges that emerged: the home environment, friend influence, and school norms and practices. Findings drawn from student-generated oral reflections gathered through Seidman’s interview protocol suggest that participants possessed the power to dissociate from perceived negative reading identities and enact agency over identities that conflicted with their desired reading identities. However, participants were particularly vulnerable to the influence of school-ascribed reading identities they defined as negative. Given the perceived validity of these ascribed labels, readers were challenged more significantly in their attempts to persist in the self-construal of their desired identity conceptions in response to in-school, rather than out-of-school, challenges.