Effects of word predictability on eye movements during Arabic reading

Contextual predictability influences both the probability and duration of eye fixations on words when reading Latinate alphabetic scripts like English and German. However, it is unknown whether word predictability influences eye movements in reading similarly for Semitic languages like Arabic, which are alphabetic languages with very different visual and linguistic characteristics. Such knowledge is nevertheless important for establishing the generality of mechanisms of eye-movement control across different alphabetic writing systems. Accordingly, we investigated word predictability effects in Arabic in two eye-movement experiments. Both produced shorter fixation times for words with high compared to low predictability, consistent with previous findings. Predictability did not influence skipping probabilities for (four- to eight-letter) words of varying length and morphological complexity (Experiment 1). However, it did for short (three- to four-letter) words with simpler structures (Experiment 2). We suggest that word-skipping is reduced, and affected less by contextual predictability, in Arabic compared to Latinate alphabetic reading, because of specific orthographic and morphological characteristics of the Arabic script.

Japanese orthographic complexity and speech duration in a reading task

The number of letters in a word’s orthographic form can affect speech duration (Brewer, Jordan B. 2008. Phonetic reflexes of orthographic characteristics in lexical representation. University of Arizona Doctoral Dissertation; Warner, Natasha, Allard Jongman, Joan Sereno & Rachèl Kemps. 2004. Incomplete neutralization and other sub-phonemic durational differences in production and perception: Evidence from Dutch. Journal of Phonetics 32(2). 251–276. Previous research in this area has been limited to studies of languages with alphabets. The current study expands upon this previous research by investigating effects on speech duration from units of orthographic complexity potentially analogous to letter length in Japanese, a language with a logography. In a modified version of Brewer, Jordan B. 2008. Phonetic reflexes of orthographic characteristics in lexical representation. University of Arizona Doctoral Dissertation, reading task, native Japanese-speaking participants were audio-recorded reading pairs of homophonous words that varied by: 1) number of pen strokes in a single character; or 2) number of whole characters in their orthographic forms. Two-character words were produced significantly longer than one-character words. No significant effect was found from pen strokes on speech duration. These results are presented as evidence that the orthographic duration effect observed in previous studies is not limited to languages with alphabetic writing systems.

The Early Greek Alphabets

Regional variation, a persistent feature of Greek alphabetic writing throughout the Archaic period, has been studied since at least the late nineteenth century. The subject was transformed by the publication in 1961 of Lilian H. (Anne) Jeffery's Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (reissued with a valuable supplement by A. Johnston in 1990), based on first-hand study of more than a thousand inscriptions. Much important new evidence has emerged since 1987 (Johnston's cut-off date), and debate has continued energetically about all the central issues raised by the book: the date at which the Phoenician script was taken over and filled out with vowels; the priority of Phrygia or Greece in that takeover; whether the takeover happened once, and the resulting alphabet then spread outwards, or whether takeover occurred independently in several paces; if the takeover was a single event, the region where it occurred; if so again, the explanation for the many divergences in local script. The hypothesis that the different scripts emerged not through misunderstandings but through conscious variation has been strongly supported, and contested, in the post-Jeffery era; also largely post-Jeffery is the flourishing debate about the development and functions of literacy in Archaic Greece. Dialectology, the understanding of vocalization, and the study of ancient writing systems more broadly have also moved forwards rapidly. In this volume a team of scholars combining the various relevant expertises (epigraphic, philological, historical, archaeological) provide the first comprehensive overview of the state of the question 70 years after Jeffery's masterpiece.

Etruria between the Iron Age and Orientalizing Period and the Adoption of Alphabetic Writing

This chapter combines a cultural approach (Naso) with a philological (Benelli) one to examine the emergence of Etruscan alphabetic writing in the eighth century BC. Naso outlines changes in settlement patterns and major social transformations in Etruria in this period, largely to be connected with maritime trade and openness to the broader Mediterranean world. Benelli focuses on the mechanism through which the new idea was taken up. He notes that epigraphy is by no means a necessary and immediate consequence of the adoption of writing skills. The oldest Etruscan inscriptions provide evidence of a system of gift exchange amongst the newly forming aristocracy which was strongly tied up with ritualized friendship between kinship groups and peer groups. It is within this milieu that alphabetic writing was articulated and disseminated. All forms of Etruscan letters can be traced back to Euboean prototypes, with the possible exception of the so-called san.

Review Essay: The Beginnings of Civilization

What can contemporary social scientists learn from ancient history? Key features of modern civilization began in the fertile crescent of today’s Middle East many thousands of years ago. Thanks to geography and other factors, these innovations spread—east and west. Not just agriculture and engineering but monotheistic religion and alphabetic writing took root there. Parallels to or offshoots of Sumerian culture emerged in the Indus River, Persia, and Egypt. Their distinctive ways of life took shape, waxed, and then waned. Social scientists who try to keep up with a world in turmoil by listening to the BBC or reading Le Monde may be tempted to ask: “How did all this begin and where are we going?” The Singapore-based political analyst Parag Khanna answers: “Asia.” Civilization began in Western Asia and is now being shaped by “Asianization” of the planet. (See Khanna, The Future is Asian, 2019). Whether or not Khanna’s hypothesis about the future proves correct, the importance of Western Asia in global history is documented in the books Uruk and Mesopotamia.

Określenia podmiotów czynności prawnych w chińskim języku prawnym

The aim of this paper is to analyze the terms of the subjects of acts in law in Chinese legal language. Morphologically, Chinese is an isolating language. It also uses a non‑alphabetic writing system. Creating the terms of the subjects of acts in law is governed by fairly strict language rules; however, there are numerous exceptions that may be misleading for the translator. These terms are commonly used, among others, in the civil law contracts and therefore are an important element of the legal language, also used by non-specialists (e.g. parties to the contract). The analysis of particular terms has allowed to identify the aforementioned general rules in the legal language, as well as to find some exceptions. The research material included the civil law acts (General Principles of Civil Law of the PRC, new General Provisions of Civil Law of the PRC, the Contract Law, and the Inheritance Law – in modern Chinese law, as yet, no unified civil code has been adopted, therefore its role is played by the general law and the so-called satellite laws). The study is complemented by the comparison of the Chinese legal terms and their suggested Polish equivalents, which can be a valuable help for translators.