Morpheme Ordering Across Languages Reflects Optimization for Processing Efficiency

The ordering of morphemes in a word displays well-documented regularities across languages. Previous work has explained these in terms of notions such as semantic scope, relevance, and productivity. Here, we test a recently formulated processing theory of the ordering of linguistic units, the efficient tradeoff hypothesis (Hahn et al., 2021). The claim of the theory is that morpheme ordering can partly be explained by the optimization of a tradeoff between memory and surprisal. This claim has received initial empirical support from two languages. In this work, we test this idea more extensively using data from four additional agglutinative languages with significant amounts of morphology, and by considering nouns in addition to verbs. We find that the efficient tradeoff hypothesis predicts ordering in most cases with high accuracy, and accounts for cross-linguistic regularities in noun and verb inflection. Our work adds to a growing body of work suggesting that many ordering properties of language arise from a pressure for efficient language processing.

Termes exprimant la notion d’amour en grec, leurs traductions adoptées et leur contexte d’emploi dans les Évangiles synoptiques et dans l’Évangile selon saint Jean

The purpose of the present article is the analysis of the Greek terms expressing the concept of love ἔρως (eros), στοργή (storge), φιλία (philia) and ἀγάπη (agape) and the impact of their semantic character on the uses appearing in the Bible. The author is primarily concerned with the study of etymology and determination of historical changes in the meaning of the analyzed terms, their use in secular and religious literature, in classical and late Greek.The next step is a detailed analysis of the verbs φιλέω (phileo) and ἀγαπάω (agapao), which are the only of the four terms to appear in the Gospels. The text ends by indicating for each form used in the Gospels its semantic scope and checking whether it corresponds to the basic semantic features of each of the verbs.

„Euthymia” we fragmentach Demokryta z Abdery

The author carries out a thorough philological analysis of 9 fragments of Democritus, in which both the noun εὐθυμίη and related verbs and adjectives appear. This allows to establish the contextual semantic scope of the basic concept and to define the role it plays in Democritus’ ethical thought.

Semantic scope restrictions in complex verb constructions in Dutch

This article addresses the question of how and why verbs combine in complex verb constructions in Dutch. We discuss introspective data reported in reference grammars and add evidence from corpus data to uncover the systematic ways in which Dutch verbs combine. Our analysis shows that verbs expressing meanings such as tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality are organized in a semantic scope hierarchy; that is, some verb meanings systematically have scope over others but not the other way round. We argue that this scope hierarchy reflects hierarchies of functional categories, elaborated in both functional and generative frameworks.

Features of Adaptation of English Borrowings in Chinese (Using of Word ‘Hacker’)

The peculiarities of adaptation of anglicisms in the Chinese language are considered. It is shown that the penetration of English linguistic units into the Chinese language is a modern trend, especially in the field of computer technology. It is noted that the morphemes of borrowed words, penetrating into the Chinese language, take part in word formation in the role of classifiers, becoming a constant component of a complex word, which ensures the productivity of a certain model in the Chinese language. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the semantic scope of the term hacker. It has been established that the word hacker has developed different meanings over the past decades. It is pointed out that as the role of the hacker in life changed, the word acquired new interpretations, from neutral ‘specialist’ to negative ‘miscreant’. It is shown that the most active way of borrowing anglicisms is transliteration: the word hacker functions in the Chinese language in the form of two hieroglyphs 黑客, where the second component is included in the “X + 客” model, according to which other neologisms are created. It was revealed that the model is the most productive for the formation of words with the meaning of a person engaged in a certain activity, which is largely due to the active use of the word hacker in the Chinese language.

Negotiating a human . Viveiros de Castro – Descola – Turner

The article offers an analysis of selected anthropological models transforming the semantic scope of what in the Western discourses of knowledge used to be considered the domain of human being. The text presents concepts developed by three anthropologists: Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Phillipe Descola and Terry S. Turner. Each conducted research among the indigenous people of South America, each invoked the structural imagination of Claude Lévi-Strauss and considered similar theoretical and methodological problems. The models developed by these Amazonianists will be examined based on the methods they use to expand the field of anthropological research and to reconfigure its conceptual framework. The aim of this article is to determine potential benefits and limitations resulting from applying these models in the study of culture.

Entre jeu et nostalgie. Les topoï courtois dans Les Trois Aveugles de Compiègne de Jean Ott

The subject of this paper is an analysis of Jean Ott’s theater play Les Trois Aveugles de Compiègne. In his adaptation of a 13th-century famed “fabliau” Jean Ott (1878–1935), a lesser-known French author, offers its receiver an interesting intertextual play. In a manner that is both parodic and nostalgic he appeals to the courtly topoi, treating it as a signpost that defines the development of action and the semantic scope of his work.

Próby normalizacji polskiej terminologii ekonomicznej w XIX wieku na podstawie prac Fryderyka Skarbka i Józefa Supińskiego

The object of the linguistic analysis is the Polish economic terminology, which intensively evolved in the 19thcentury under the influence of new Western European ideas related to technological progress and develop-ment of the capitalist economy. This paper presents the rules for coining new terms and assimilating bor-rowings (mainly from French) into the Polish scientific literature. Attempts at standardisation of the Polish economic terminology, consisting in the systematisation of notions, polarisation of terms, and specification of their semantic scope are characterised based on studies by Fryderyk Skarbek and Józef Supiński. The aspi-ration for separating economic categories from legal ones and terms from colloquial lexis is illustrated with selected examples. The methods of popularising the knowledge of economics and the related terminology in the society applied by both scholars are also indicated here.

The ways of expressing attributive possession in Ket: possessive syntactic constructions

The paper analyzes the structural models of Ket possessive constructions. The means of ex-pressing possessive construction components and the ways of marking possessive relations between the first possessive construction component denoting the subject of possession (a possessor) and the second component indicating the object of possession (a possessum) are considered. The study is based on the conception proposed by E. Vajda, according to which the possessive markers are possessive pronominal clitics, used as either clitics or proclitics, depending on the context. Two-component and multiple-component constructions are identi-fied. The two-component constructions contain a possessor, a possessum, and a linking mark-er, the semantic scope of which is a possessum. The non-expanded and expanded possessive constructions are analyzed. Both the first and the second substantive component of the two-component construction may be expanded by an attribute. The two-component constructions having a possessor expanded by an attribute are characterized by a distant ordering of a pos-sessor noun and a possessum noun, including distant positions of a possessive proclitic and a possessum noun. The derivative processes of transforming possessive constructions are con-sidered. The rising derivation process consists of embedding one more possessor into the con-struction with an original possessor. Both possessors are marked by appropriate possessive pronominal clitics. It is found that in Ket, the recessive derivation of omitting a possessor noun expressed by a personal pronoun stem is available as well, resulting in a construction with a non-expressed (omitted) possessor. The corresponding possessive pronominal clitic attaching proclitically to possessum noun is overtly retained at the surface morphosyntactic level.

Interpenetration Phenomenon of Public & Private Aspects in Contemporary Theatrical Practices

The article hypothesises that the opposition of ‘publicity/privacy’ concepts (alongside with other fundamental dichotomies, e.g. spiritual/material, social/individual, political/personal) in the media era, and first of all in the era of the Internet together with related communicative resources, is no longer productive. The study was performed via discursive analysis since it concerns methods of making use of the original concepts of ‘publicity’ and ‘privacy’. The author also addresses media survey methods since it is a contemporary media context that guides changes in the balance between the concerned phenomena. The deconstruction method is also important since the theatre institution itself, on the example of which the phenomenon of the interpenetration of the public and the private is examined, is deconstructed and shadowed by absolutely new theatrical practices. The culturological approach is the paradigmal prism through which the declared topic is researched, since the study goal is to demonstrate how ‘current’ (Z. Bauman) changes of the modern cultural landscape change habitual ideas on some or other dichotomies, particularly the dichotomy of ‘publicity/private’. The aforementioned research tools were used in the study to address theatrical practices explicitly demonstrating the removal of the dichotomy of public and private. A closer look was taken at the play ‘Questioning’ staged by the contemporary Petersburg theatre Pop-up, and where invasion of publicity into the area of privacy and intimity, and exposition of aspects taken out from ultimate existential depths constitutes the very essence of the play. The article concludes that such theatrical practices can take place when the cultural horizon is extended to enable the attribution of a new semantic scope, in particular ‘forced publicness’ (E. Shulman).