CADAVERIC STUDY OF KATIKTARUN MARMA WITH DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ITS LOCATION AND AGHAT LAKSHANS

Marma Science is one of the most distinctive concepts of Ayurveda. There are 107 marma sites in the body, and they are the conglomeration of muscles, veins, ligaments, bones, and joints. This peculiarity makes Marmamarma a somewhat vulnerable point, and any injury can lead to disability, dysfunction and demise. The cause of the damage can either be traumatic or iatrogenic; therefore, it becomes a necessity to rule out the exact location of the marma and anatomical structure responsible for the traumatic effects. Katiktarun being a Prishthagata marma, is prone to get injured during significant surgeries of the gluteal region and spine. Its injury can lead to delayed death. The aim of this study revolves around the anatomical entity responsible for delayed death caused by katiktarun injury. By identifying the location and structure involved in the marma, it might be possible to repair the structure and deferment the delayed end. Based on Ayurvedic literature and cadaveric observations, the superior margin of the sciatic notch (suprapiriform foraman) is considered as the position of Katiktarun Marma, whereas the neurovasculature associated with suprapiriform foramen is the causative structure of marma trauma symptoms.

SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE

Effects of phonetically variable input (PVI) for processing instruction (PI) training and the number of training items were tested with a picture-selection eye-tracking task. Intermediate second language (L2) learners of French (n = 174) were tested before and after they received either a short (24 items), medium (48), or long (96) training on the causative structure with either single- or multivoice input. PI improved picture-selection accuracy from about 10% to above 50% regardless of the training size. Eye-tracking data showed a reduction in looks to the incorrect picture only after the short and medium training: it surfaced regardless of voice variability after the short training, whereas multivoice training led to a greater reduction after the medium training. Long training did not yield a reliable reduction of incorrect looks regardless of voice variability. Taken together, PVI does not hinder L2 syntactic learning. Learners may benefit more from a relatively shorter training with PVI.

L2 LEARNERS’ ADAPTATION TO AN L2 STRUCTURE THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM L1

The present study investigates how L2 learners adapt their production preferences following immediate and cumulative experience with a syntactic structure when an L2 structure differs from an L1 structure in terms of verb subcategorization frame and argument structure. Korean learners of English described causative events in English in a picture-matching game. The meaning of a causative sentence in English (e.g., Jen had her computer fixed) is expressed with an active transitive sentence in Korean (e.g., Jen-NOM computer-ACC fixed). The results demonstrated that both immediate and cumulative experience with a causative structure increased the likelihood of producing grammatical causative descriptions (e.g., Jen had her computer fixed), while decreasing the production of ungrammatical active transitive descriptions (e.g., Jen fixed her computer). The findings provide novel evidence that an implicit learning mechanism is involved in L2 learners’ processing and learning of an L2 structure that is different from L1.

Kartvelian (South Caucasian) Languages

The chapter contains a description of the small Kartvelian, or South Caucasian, language family spoken in the Western part of Transcaucasia and consisting of four languages of which Georgian is the most known and culturally significant. It outlines the structure of the family and the problem of its further genetic affiliation and contains sociolinguistic information, history of its research, basic characteristics of phonology, including a rich consonantal system with unusual consonant clusters, lexical classes, morphology of nominals and verbs, with special emphasis on complexity of the verb and the syntactically motivated morphological classes and processes like valency-changing derivation (benefactive, causative), structure of noun phrases and the role of case marking, simple clause, word order, anaphora, complex sentence, and the role of the three major grammatical relations: Subject, Direct Object, and Indirect Object that dominate in the morphology and syntax; the areal and typological profile of the Kartvelian languages; and issues for further research.

Satellite imaging of the 2015 M7.2 earthquake in the Central Pamir, Tajikistan, elucidates a sequence of shallow strike-slip ruptures of the Sarez-Karakul fault

SUMMARY On 7 December 2015, a shallow Mw 7.2 strike-slip earthquake struck the Murghab River Valley in the Central Pamirs of Tajikistan. Seismologically this event was similar to a large seismic event in 1911 whose causative fault has never been identified. We measure the displacement field of the 2015 event from satellite observations using Sentinel-1 radar interferometry, Landsat-8 optical pixel-tracking, and surface rupture mapping from high resolution SPOT-6/7 imagery to characterize the role this earthquake rupture plays in the accommodation of strain on its causative structure, the Sarez-Karakul fault. We present geomorphic mapping and interpretations of other Quaternary-active reaches of this fault system, which highlight variable rupture history of the different sections. These sections appear to be separated by inherited bedrock structural boundaries. Significantly, the reaches of the fault northeast and southwest of the 2015 rupture exhibit the freshest morphology prior to 2015, indicative of a more recent rupture than elsewhere. Using new high resolution imagery we map fresh scarps at the northern and southern ends of the Sarez-Karakul fault which may represent this 1911 rupture. To test which of these reaches could have been the source of the elusive 1911 event, we compare synthetic seismograms from three plausible fault sources determined from geomorphology, with observed seismic traces from 1911 at early recording stations throughout Europe. We find that the best fitting fault source is in fact southwest of the 2015 rupture, meaning that we have a record of three distinct recent events on the Sarez-Karakul fault system—two of them instrumentally recorded. Our mapping of these separate events reveals a correlation between their boundaries and the active and inherited thrust and suture systems that intersect the northeast striking left-lateral fault, suggesting structural control over the extents of individual ruptures on the active strike-slip fault.

Marked Causative Structures of Chinese Verb-Resultative Construction

This paper aims to study the syntactic and semantic features of ‘marked VRC causative structures’, those special syntactic-semantic structures formed by verb-resultative constructions (VRCs) which violate both the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis and the Thematic Hierarchy. Their syntactic and semantic features are defined as follows: 1) VRC has a causative relation within itself; 2) the argument in the object position is the causee and the only argument of the resultative complement; 3) the causer in the subject position is any conceptual component from the cause event other than the agent of the predicate verb. This paper then attempts to propose an extended account to expound how they are formed syntactically and semantically. On this account, a marked VRC causative structure is re-causativization of a VRC when the VRC is self-causative; it enables other conceptual components of the cause event than the agent to become the causer when a VRC is not self-causative. There are some constraints on what becomes the causer of a marked VRC causative structure.

The relative effects of isolated and combined structured input and structured output on the acquisition of the English causative forms

The present study explores the effects of structured input and structured output when delivered in isolation or in combination on the acquisition of the English causative. Research investigating the effects of processing instruction and meaning output-based instruction has provided some interesting and sometimes conflicting results. Additionally, there are a number of issues (e. g., measuring a combination of structured input and structured output, measuring discourse-level effects) that have not been fully and clearly addressed. To provide answers to the questions formulated in this study, two classroom experiments were carried out. In the first study, fifty-four Chinese university students (age 18–20) participated. The participants were randomly assigned to four groups: structured input only group (n=13); structured output only group (n=15); combined structured input and structured output group (n=16); control group (n=10). In the second study, thirty school-age Greek learners (age 10–12) participated. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups: structured input only group (n=10); structured output only group (n=10); combined structured input and structured output group (n=10).Only subjects who participated in all phases of each experiment and scored lower than 60 % in the pre-tests were included in the final data collection. Instruction lasted for three hours. The control group received no instruction on the causative structure. Interpretation and production tasks were used in a pre-test and post-test design. The design included a delayed post-test battery (3 weeks after instruction) for both experiments. In the first study, the assessment tasks included an interpretation and production task at sentence-level, and an interpretation task at discourse-level. In the second study, an additional discourse-level production task was adopted along with the interpretation discourse-level task. The results indicated that learners who received structured input both in isolation and in combination benefitted more than learners receiving structured output only. These two groups were able to retain instructional gains three weeks later in all assessment measures.