Iconicity (of Reading). Lolita

The paper focuses on the issue of iconicity of (printed) literary narrative and proposes the idea of iconic reading (or iconicity of reading). It discusses Peircean notion of iconic sign, examines its use within the field of iconicity studies in language and literature (Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Winfried Nöth, etc.), and considers the differences of paradigms in iconicity research: (1) iconicity as a permanent property of a sign; imitation pattern – form mimes meaning; (2) iconicity as a variable quality of a sign, actualized by the speaker; imitation pattern – form miming form; (3) iconicity as the ground of human thought and a function of a sign, actualized by the reader / reading. Consideration of the differences within the field of iconicity research helps to reveal the underestimated textual aspects that actualize iconic dimension of literary narrative, and inspires to examine their role in the analysis of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, precisely, its “Foreword” (both original English and Russian versions). The analysis of the fictional “Foreword”, which establishes the pattern of iconization of the novel as a whole, and inevitably includes the references to its “main” part, shows how the novel iconizes writing. Withal, the analysis demonstrates how this iconization configures the particular model of reading, which becomes the representamen of the specific cognitive icon. The mental representamen of this icon “stands for” the specific object – the text as the tangible media product, marked by the structural and discursive traits of its own. Respectively, such (cognitive) icon represents the pattern of mimetic relationship between form and meaning, introduced by Lars Elleström (2010), – meaning mimes form, worthy of further consideration.

The Historical Role of Leviticus 25 in Naturalizing Anti-Black Racism

Leviticus 25:39–46 describes a two-tier model of slavery that distinguishes Israelites from foreign slaves. It requires that Israelites be indentured only temporarily while foreigners can be enslaved as chattel (permanent property). This model resembles the distinction between White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves in the American colonies. However, the biblical influence on these early modern practices has been obscured by the rarity of citations of Lev. 25:39–46 in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about slavery. This article reviews the history of slavery from ancient Middle Eastern antiquity through the seventeenth century to show the unique degree to which early modern institutions resembled the biblical model. It then exposes widespread knowledge of Leviticus 25 in early modern political and economic debates. Demonstrating this awareness shows with high probability that colonial cultures presupposed the two-tier model of slavery in Leviticus 25:39–46 to naturalize and justify their different treatment of White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves.

The Russian prefix pod- from the viewpoint of lexical concepts

abstractThe Russian prefix pod- has several meanings, both concrete ones having to do with approaching or being under or down, and a series of seemingly unrelated abstract meanings such as imitating, ingratiating, or doing in secret. This paper approaches the polysemy of pod- from the viewpoint of the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Conceptual Models (LCCM) that sees word meaning not as a permanent property of words, but as a dynamic process in which context and accessed non-linguistic knowledge representation play an important role. This approach uses the notion of lexical concepts to describe the mediating unit between concrete linguistic examples and cognitive models that these examples are connected to. The 505 verbs analyzed bring up the lexical concepts [UNDER], [VERTICAL MOVEMENT], [CLOSE], and [CONTACT]. The connection of these lexical concepts with certain metaphorical and metonymical models is also discussed. Twelve of the 505 verbs are examined more closely in different contexts with the help of twenty-nine illustrative examples from the spoken corpus of the Russian National Corpus.

Static and dynamic states: the case of Estonian stative colour expressions

The aim of this study is to account for stative situations through the example of structurally different but semantically close colour expressions: the Estonian stative verbs derived from colour adjectives and colour adjectives appearing as the predicative. Stative verbs are assumed to be similar to copula constructions, with the aspectual distinction of temporary/permanent property. In this article, the stative colour expressions are analysed using the linguistic diagnostics developed for the determination of ontological properties of different types of states – the sc. Davidsonian and Kimian states (see e.g. Maienborn 2003). Analysis reveals that the copula construction with colour adjective as predicative is ambiguous, inclining to the Kimian states but also assigning properties characteristic to the Davidsonian states; the stative colour verbs, in turn, are true examples of Davidsonian states. In addition to the examination of the stative properties, the conceptual structure analysis of the colour expressions instantiating stative and dynamic states is given. The observer’s evaluation of the coloured object as a mental image is treated as part of the lexical information of the colour statives. Also, sentential and contextual phenomena of the colour statives are discussed.

This sentence sucks to analyse: Are suck, bite, blow, and work tough-predicates?

This paper investigates tough-predicates and whether four verbs (suck, bite, blow, and work) can function as this type of predicate. The theoretical analysis uses two syntactic and two semantic properties of prototypical tough-predicates to determine the status of the tough-verb candidates. Syntactically, tough-predicates select a to-infinitival complement and require a referential dependency between the matrix subject and the object gap in the complement clause. Semantically, the matrix subject must possess an inherent or permanent property and tough-predicates assign an “experiencer” role. From these four diagnostic properties, the analysis concludes that suck, bite, and blow are indeed tough-verbs, while the conclusions concerning work are less definitive. To complement the conclusions of the theoretical analysis, native speaker judgements were collected from 22 Canadian English speakers. The results show that for a majority of the consultants, suck, bite, and blow can function as tough-predicates. The behaviour of these verbs suggests that suck, bite, and blow (and possibly work) should be added to the small list of known tough-verbs.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PROPERTY AND DEPRECIATION ACCOUNTING IN MUNICIPAL ACCOUNTING

Generally accepted accounting principles require the exclusion of permanent property and the non-recognition of depreciation in most governmental funds. Although this issue was settled in the early 1930s fervent debate continued as to the merits of this practice from 1895 to around 1925. Several prominent accountants argued for the inclusion of permanent property and the recognition of depreciation in governmental funds during this earlier period.

THE CREEP OF ICE IN BENDING

Observations were made on the creep behavior of columnar ice beams of different thicknesses subjected to repeated and reversed loading. More than half of the beams tested showed unusual creep behavior. During transient creep the strain rate increased to a maximum value and decreased only thereafter. It was established that this behavior was not a permanent property of ice. On reloading, the same beams exhibited normal creep behavior. For the conditions of the experiments, the deflection was very sensitive to the thickness of the beams. It was found that the neutral axis was located at the center of the beam when the maximum strain was less than 1%.