Linguistic Explanation Research Articles

A Linguistic-Discourse Analysis of the Language of Psalm 23

This paper examines the linguistic-discourse Analysis of Psalm 23, from the holy Bible, the book of the Christian religion. Linguistic-discourse analysis is one of the approaches used in disbanding the entanglements and ambiguities in language study. The linguistics and discourse features discussed include the graphological features, phonological features, syntactic structure,lexico-semantic representation, and cohesive relations. The graphological features are the punctuation marks, indentation, paragraphing and capitalization of letters in the text. The phonological features in the text are alliteration and assonance. Moreover, the syntactic structure includes short phrases, clauses, sentences, and pattern repetition, and the use of archaic pronouns which form part of the clauses and sentences. The lexico-semantic representation explains the linguistic explanation of the structure and meaning of the text. Consequently, the cohesive relations discussed in the text are anaphora, cataphora, substitution, conjunction, synonym,repetition and collocational converse. The theoretical framework adopted in this study is the Neo-Firthian Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar . The word 'systemic' means that language is viewed as a set of options for making meaning (Halliday, 1990; Obodeh, 2018). Brown and Yule (1983) Theory on Discourse analysis is also used as a backup to Halliday systemic grammar. The theory contains four approaches which include reference, presupposition, implicative and influence. Brown and Yule stated that the theory would help in the analysis of written textual, spoken and interaction for the research and also for the reader of the analysis, and this paper is an analysis of a written discourse. The library is also one of the research methods for this study. This is where books, journals and other useful research information are kept. The analysis in the study portrays the fact that a religious text could be analysed using the tenets of linguistics discourse. Since language is a tool of all activities in life, this paper therefore has tried to solve some language problems by analyzing the linguistics and discourse features of the language of the text, Psalm 23, for better understanding of the text by readers, clergy, congregations, and scholar of language and literature in particular and the academia in general.

PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS IN A WRITTEN MONUMENT SAFE SHEDS «GULISTAN BIT-TURKI»

The language of written monuments of the Golden Horde era is rich in such artistic and stylistic means as phraseological units and metaphors that reflect the worldview and way of life of the Turkic peoples. Therefore, the relevance of the research topic is due to the value of studying phraseological units and metaphors found in the written monument of the Sarai Safe «Gulistan bit-Turki» (hereinafter – «Turkshe Gulistan») of the Golden Horde period. The article analyzes phraseological units and metaphors in two aspects: structural-semantic and linguocognitive. Phraseological units and metaphors are divided into four lexical and semantic groups and their continuity with the Kazakh language is analyzed. Phraseological units and figurative expressions, collected in eight sections of the written monument, form the concept of «Man», which reflect the existence and knowledge of the people. They are intertwined with the religious knowledge of that period. The concept of «Man» is subdivided and analyzed according to the linguocognitive models «Man – power», «Man – satisfaction», «Man – about the benefits of laconicism». The practical significance of the work. Linguistic explanations of metaphors and phraseological units in the text of "Turkshe Gulistan" can be used in the practical development of semantic meta-marks of linguistic units of medieval texts of the historical subcorpus. They are being developed within the framework of the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language at the Institute of Linguistics Akhmet Baitursynov.

Can sequencing of articulation ease explain the in–out effect? A preregistered test

ABSTRACT Words whose consonantal articulation places move from the front of the mouth to the back (e.g. BADAKA; inward) receive more positive evaluations than words whose consonantal articulation places move from the back of the mouth to the front (e.g. KADABA; outward). This in–out effect has a variety of affective, cognitive, and even behavioural consequences, but its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Most recently, a linguistic explanation has been proposed applying the linguistic easy-first account and the so-called labial-coronal effect from developmental speech research and phonology to the in–out effect: Labials (front) are easier to process than coronals (middle); and people prefer easy followed by harder motor components. Disentangling consonantal articulation direction and articulation place, the present three preregistered experiments (total N = 1012) found in–out effects for coronal-dorsal (back), and labial-dorsal articulation places. Critically, no in–out effect emerged for labial-coronal articulation places. Thus, the in–out effect is unlikely an instantiation of easy first.

“Marked as seen” – Considerations on role ambiguity in social media

crush marked you as seen!” is a language hybrid encountered on the internet, with two English words poured into a Romanian expression. A pun copied after a Romanian folk saying is, in posthumanism (Braidotti 2016) a representation and symbolising formula (Todorov, apud Răutu 2021). A pun, but without humour, more like a cynical ascertainment (Iftode, Voinea 2016) that imposes a sociological research, in which linguistics, communication sciences, and behavioural psychology can bear adequate witness. We’ll analyse the phrase “marked as seen” in social media contexts and the explanations of those involved. We’ll try a linguistic explanation as to its formation and we’ll establish borders and resemblances with similar phrases in Romanian. Then, starting from details and general characteristics of virtual communication, we shall observe the community implications, the emotional participation rate and the depression signs, and the marginalisation status. A simple question is asked in the communication field: Is “marked as seen” a limit of the virtual communication system automatization? Also, is “marked as seen” a point of view towards the ethics conceived by Ricoeur (1994)? “Our own interpretation mediated by the ethic evaluation of our actions”. The dramatization through denial and the confession of the nude truth that hides untruths (Sloterdijk 2000) sends towards the idealism and the fragility of social media relations. In a territory of efficient communication, “marked as seen” creates behavioural breaks. In an area lacking “free will” (Lernier 2018), there is an inadequacy between technology and the individual. Where there is a supremacy of automatisms (Lernier 2018) individual will or disregard creates ambiguity. “Marked you as seen” can be, despite the “cancel culture” statements, at least a community gesture of post-humanity explained with the means of modernity.

Linguistic Explanations of Black Box Deep Learning Detectors on Simulated Aerial Drone Imagery.

Deep learning has become increasingly common in aerial imagery analysis. As its use continues to grow, it is crucial that we understand and can explain its behavior. One eXplainable AI (XAI) approach is to generate linguistic summarizations of data and/or models. However, the number of summaries can increase significantly with the number of data attributes, posing a challenge. Herein, we proposed a hierarchical approach for generating and evaluating linguistic statements of black box deep learning models. Our approach scores and ranks statements according to user-specified criteria. A systematic process was outlined for the evaluation of an object detector on a low altitude aerial drone. A deep learning model trained on real imagery was evaluated on a photorealistic simulated dataset with known ground truth across different contexts. The effectiveness and versatility of our approach was demonstrated by showing tailored linguistic summaries for different user types. Ultimately, this process is an efficient human-centric way of identifying successes, shortcomings, and biases in data and deep learning models.

Critical indicators for assessing the life cycle social footprint of Australian freeways

Purpose Freeways in Australia play a significant role in connecting distant communities, shifting freight and strengthening the country’s economy. To meet the growing needs of present and future generations, delivering a socially sustainable road infrastructure that creates generational benefits is essential. However, the existing literature reveals the lack of comprehensive indicators to assess the social sustainability performance of freeway projects. Therefore, this paper aims to identify a critical set of system-specific indicators to evaluate the life cycle social footprint of Australian freeways. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted 31 interview questionnaire surveys with actively engaged stakeholders involved in various freeway projects around Australia. The data collected was analysed using fuzzy set theory and other statistical approaches. Findings The study identified 42 critical indicators for assessing the social sustainability performance throughout the life cycle of freeways in the Australian context. For example, stakeholder involvement, reduction of casualty rate due to road accidents, fair remuneration to project workforce and improved accessibility to required services. Practical implications The context-specific opinions extracted from the industry experts and the comprehensive set of critical indicators identified would ensure that all the vital aspects of social sustainability are considered throughout the life cycle of Australian freeways in the future, assisting the decision-makers in enhancing the project’s social sustainability performance. Originality/value The linguistic explanations associated with the ratings given by the industry experts provide greater insight into the context of the life cycle social sustainability assessment of Australian freeways exclusively.

A CNN-Based Born-Again TSK Fuzzy Classifier Integrating Soft Label Information and Knowledge Distillation

This paper proposes a CNN-based born-again Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy classifier denoted as CNNBaTSK. CNNBaTSK achieves the following distinctive characteristics: 1) CNNBaTSK provides a new perspective of knowledge distillation with a non-iterative learning method (least learning machine with knowledge distillation, LLM-KD) to solve the consequent parameters of fuzzy rule, where consequent parameters are trained jointly on the ground-truth label loss, knowledge distillation loss, and regularization term; 2) with the inherent advantage of the fuzzy rule, CNNBaTSK has the capability to express the dark knowledge acquired from the CNN in an interpretable manner. Specifically, the dark knowledge (soft label information) is partitioned into five fixed antecedent fuzzy spaces. The centers of each soft label information in different fuzzy rules are {0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1}, which may have corresponding linguistic explanations: { <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">very low, low, medium, high, very high</i> }. For the consequent part of the fuzzy rule, the original features are employed to train the consequent parameters that ensure the direct interpretability in the original feature space. The experimental results on the benchmark datasets and the CHB-MIT EEG dataset demonstrate that CNNBaTSK can simultaneously improve the classification performance and model interpretability.

Linguistic Change and Metre: A Reply

In a recent article, Ad Putter discusses apparent exceptions to the norms governing metrical treatment of weak adjectives in the verse of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve. Putter advances a purely linguistic explanation for these poets’ variable counting or discounting of inflectional -e in two adjectives whose roots end in /i/ in Middle English, ‘high’ and ‘sly’: The rule applies generally to monosyllabic adjectives, but not to ‘high’ and ‘sly’, where pronunciation of final -e had become optional. The main reason for this, I would suggest, is that final -e was recessive after /i/… . Since Gower and Chaucer were both contemporaries and Londoners, it is reasonable to suppose that the loss of inflectional -e in this specific phonological environment reflected developments in the language of London.1 Yet there exists a long-recognized, well-formed metrical subrule that accounts for nearly all of the counterexamples Putter adduces. This is that the inflectional -e of weak adjectives regularly drops out of metre before a word with aft stress.2 Of the thirty-one examples Putter cites of ‘high’ or ‘sly’ without expected metrical -e in Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve, fully twenty-eight are covered by the subsidiary rule because in these cases ‘high’ or ‘sly’ precedes a word with aft stress.3 It is easy to understand the convenience of the aft stress rule for iambic verse, as otherwise poets would be obliged to crowd two unstressed syllables into a single weak position, a disfavoured arrangement, or else to minimize the use of words with aft stress, which are common in Middle English. Many other adjectives than ‘high’ and ‘sly’ exhibit the same alternation between metrical forms with -e and metrical forms without -e. Derek Pearsall cites examples from Chaucer involving ‘fair’, ‘good’, ‘great’, ‘old’, ‘small’, ‘such’, and ‘young’.4 Needless to say, none of these adjectives ends in /i/. The deciding factor for this morphological category, one must conclude, is not phonology at all. Rather, the metrical shape of the following word in the line governs the metrical–phonological form taken by the weak adjective. As Steven R. Guthrie puts it succinctly, ‘the explanation is metrical, not grammatical’.5 Nor is the rule mere tautology, as if one had said, ‘in alternating-stress metres, stresses alternate’, for the rule does not cover the case where the word following the weak adjective is monosyllabic and occupies a metrically weak position in the metre through metrical demotion. The sequence the (metrically unstressed) + [weak adjective without -e] (metrically stressed) + [monosyllabic word] (metrically unstressed), while grammatically and metrically conceivable, was avoided by Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve. The aft stress rule is admittedly recherché, a metrical finesse only sporadically recognized in existing scholarship on Chaucerian metres, but it illustrates the broader conclusion that metrical -e in Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve cannot be conflated with linguistic -e without qualifications.

The pervasiveness of language contact: Evidence from negative existentials in Romeyka/Turkish code-switching

This paper investigates the morpho-syntactic features of language contact in the endangered Greek dialect Romeyka with Turkish. We analyze the use of the borrowed negative existential jok to (a) determine its role in Romeyka’s negation patterns (b) examine the effects of contact in Romeyka through cross-linguistic comparisons of jok with Turkish and forms of the dialect as spoken in Greece and (c) apply the identified grammatical patterns of jok to Myers-Scotton’s linguistic explanations for the code switching phenomena in the Matrix Language Turnover Hypothesis. The analysis demonstrates the pervasive influence of Turkish on the morpho-syntax of Romeyka through the incorporation of Turkish grammatical structures. We observe changes in the fundamental predicate grammar that are aligned with Turkish and that are inconsistent with Pontic’s existential constructions where the verb indicating existence is used. The patterns of contact confirm the Matrix Language hypothesis and provide evidence that indicate that Romeyka may be undergoing language turnover. Our findings are relevant to further understanding code switching among speakers of minority languages and assessing the vitality of Romeyka in Turkey.

Neutralising Tendency in Subtitling Chinese Culture-Specific References into English

Culture-specific references (hereafter CSRs) feature prominently in films by Chinese fifth- and sixth-generation directors. Based on the observation of 25 English-subtitled Chinese films made by four directors between 1984 and 2017, this paper identifies that the CSRs in the original Chinese dialogue are neutralised in their English subtitles through various translation strategies. The CSRs examined in this study encompass CSRs of customs in Zhang Yimou’s films, CSRs of local arts in Chen Kaige’s films, slang in Jia Zhangke’s films, and humour in Feng Xiaogang’s films, respectively embodying the quintessence of each director’s filmmaking style. A textual analysis is conducted to demonstrate how and why the neutralising tendency emerges in subtitling these Chinese CSRs. It is revealed that the strategies of explicitation, substitution, transposition, compensation and omission are employed to neutralise the CSRs. From a linguistic perspective, such a neutralising tendency can be attributed to the lack of equivalence in English culture, the polysemy of the Chinese CSRs, the compactness of the Chinese language, and sometimes the mistaken intralingual Chinese subtitles. As a constrained translation activity, the subtitling itself aggravates the neutralisation of the CSRs due to technical constraints and target audience considerations. As these films are representative Chinese films, the neutralisation indicates a product norm on the best practice of subtitling high-profile Chinese films. Meanwhile, it is a linguistic explanation for the cultural discount in translating Chinese audiovisual productions (Díaz-Cintas &amp; Zhang, 2022).

The Ontology of the City in the Quran: A Study Based on Ibn ‘Āšūr’s Commentaries in the Book of al-Taḥrīr wa al-Tanwīr

Abstract Ibn ‘Āšūr was an interdisciplinary commentator. His thoughts on the development and civilization of Islam are remarkable and spectacular. This article discusses Ibn ‘Āšūr’s thoughts on the response of the Quran to one of the civilization issues, especially in the city definition. Ontology dimensions of the city still play an essential role and basis for understanding the urban characteristics in establishing civilizational construction. This study is based on the thematic interpretation method (maudū’ī) by explaining six-city terms according to Ibn Āšūr’s interpretation in the Book al-Taḥrīr wa al-Tanwīr. The findings illustrate that city definition is more context-oriented to the region’s functioning than the linguistic explanation, while the function of an area determines the scale of the city. Overall, this study presents the approach of Ibn ‘Ašūr in exegeting the Quran by combining the Quran sciences with urban theories.

Acquired Language System and Educated Language System: A Vision in Acquisition and Learning Systems

This study is designed to address the linguistic questions in the field of Arabic language teaching and acquisition, these questions reveal the problem of this study, and address the question of linguistic explanation in the domain of language acquisition strategies. Then the study presents the question of relational approaches, and addressing this central question reveal the influence relationship between the first language and the second language or the foreign language. After the relational approach, the study tries to address a question in the procedural approach, that to reveal the correlation patterns and comparisons between all elements of the acquisition process. It tried to demonstrate the impact of acquired first language system on the learning of second languages.

İBN CİNNÎ’NİN EL-MUHTESEB ADLI ESERİNDE ŞÂZ KIRAATLERE YAKLAŞIM METODUNUN İNCELENMESİ

Ibn Jinni lived during the Abbasids period. He was born in Mosul in 322/934. His full name was Ebu’l-Fath Osman b. Jinni al-Mavsılı al-Bağdadı. Ibn Jinni showed competency in a variety of fields including syntax, grammar, literature and recitation. It was due to this variety of competencies that he was mentioned in numerous fields throughout the centuries. He was dubbed a grammarian due to his knowledge in syntax, for his knowledge in lexicon he was considered a lexicographer, in regards to his birthplace he was also known as Mavsılı and in reference to the family for whom his father had been a servant he was called Ezdi as well. His competence in the fields of language and literature and his proficiency in solving the problems in these fields also earned him the tag of Ebu’l Fath. His best known work in the field of recitation is al-Muhtasab fı tabyını vucuhı şavazzı’l-kıraat ve’l-ızâh anha. This book is one of the most comprehensive and systematic works on shaz recitations. In this work, Ibn Jinni mentioned and compiled the other recitations that were previously excluded when Ibn Mujahid had restricted them to a number of seven. Yet, this work of the author does not in fact include all the recitations that are described as shaz and which had been excluded in the seven recitations (the qiraat-i seb’a ). As a matter of fact, in the introduction to his book Ibn Jinni pointed to this fact and explained that he had only included those recitations that possess subtle differences that would evade the attention at first glance and that he found it redundant to toil on those which required no linguistic explanations and were easy to figure out as they already were. While recounting the recitation styles and viewpoints, Ibn Jinni mentioned the names of those whom he considered to be the scholars to whom the commonly accepted recitation style was referred. Ibn Jinni also included an expound in length on the criterion of principles that would be employed in separating the authentic recitations from those with a slim chance of qualifying to be considered so, and opting for one of the choices in the former category. In the evaluation of principles, Ibn Jinni employed linguistic evidence such as imputation, al-rasmu’l moshaf, norms of the Arabic language, rules of grammar and syntax, and the differences in dialects along with the narrative evidence like verses of the Qur’an, hadiths, the recitations of the companions of the prophet, the phenomenon of seven letters and the like. Ibn Jinni made vast use of Arabic poetry and the sayings, dialects, grammar and syntax rules of the Arabic language in providing proof to the recitations. Described as he author of unique and wonderful works in the studies of Arabic sciences and a great scholar of grammar and syntax studies, Ibn Jinni applied his scientific proficiency in the Arabic language to establish proof for the recitations. He made use of the principles such as comparison, cause, reason and evidence, which are employed in determining the general norms of language, to grade the recitation styles and sought to find the rhetoric meanings behind the disputes in recitation styles. It has been detected that almost all of the recitations narrated by him were proved by linguistic and narrative evidence. What the author initially aimed to achieve by creating such a work was to reject the traditionally inferior consideration of the recitations which were excluded from the qiraat-i seba and to demonstrate that these recitations did not fall short of the seven recitations. He tried to prove that these recitations too were based on authentic grounds and they were equal to the seven recitations in terms of fluency and rhetoric. It is important to examine the work in point of recitations, in which he mentions the recitation aspects that are equivalent to seven recitations in terms of language and fluency. In this context, this paper examined the method of Ibn Jinnî, one of the leading scholars of the Arabic language, on the way of working, concentrating and choosing the recitations in his al-Muhteseb. Furthermore, this papers refers to the works of previous and latter Quranic commentaries and recitations while depicting Ibn Jinnî’s views method of transference and recitation angles. In this way, Ibn Jinnî's understanding of qiraat and his approach to recitations were determined by comparing them with other sources.

The Role of Philosophy of Science in Quantitative Linguistics

Abstract The paper aims to evaluate the role of the philosophy of science in contemporary quanti-tative linguistics. The primary goal is the reflection of the scientific methods and models of scientific explanations (Köhler 1986, 2012) used in quantitative linguistics. The paper shows that the current philosophy of science has adopted some new approaches to ex-planation that are conducive to quantitative linguistics (Craver, Darden 2013, Eck, Mennes 2016). Above all, the philosophy of science offers new models of non-causal explanations (Reutlinger, Saatsi 2018; Lange 2017). The paper’s primary goal is to propose a new topo-logical model of explanation in system-theoretical linguistics, following Kostić’s (2019a) and Huneman’s (2018) approaches. This model of explanation overcomes various difficul-ties of functional explanation, such as the nature of the structural axiom and the func-tional equivalents. Simultaneously, it establishes a non-causal form of linguistic explana-tion which builds on the previous analysis of quantitative linguists (Andres 2009; Ferrer-i-Cancho, Solé 2003; Hřebíček 2002).

An improved fuzzy controller on electromechanical nano-tweezers

This paper aims to develop an improved fuzzy controller for position controlling of nano-wire-based electromechanical nano-tweezers. The nonlinear governing equation is developed by incorporating the Euler–Bernoulli beam model and Hamilton’s principle. Also, the quantum vacuum fluctuations are assimilated in the developed model in terms of Casimir attraction. The nonlinear constitutive equation is transformed into a nonlinear state-space form by employing the Galerkin method. Based on the linguistic explanation of the system, an improved fuzzy controller is designed to control the nano-tweezers for manipulating desired objects. The Taguchi technique has been used to decrease the number of independent experiments and improve the structure of membership functions, consequently. The designed controller is employed for both controlling and path tracking of nano-tweezers. The outcomes indicate that the proposed improved fuzzy controller has excellent performance for stabilizing the nano-tweezers at any desired gap.

Attributes of democratic culture as represented in young children’s drawings

Democratic culture refers to a set of values, attitudes, and practices shared by citizens and institutions, without which democracy cannot exist. Preschools and schools have a core role in teaching and transmitting democratic culture as they offer most children their early encounters with the public realm that provides social environments for democratic culture. The aim of this article is to increase knowledge on democratic education of young children and creative means to implement it. The core questions raised are: How do young children understand their classroom social environment and their own role in it? Which of the children’s understandings of their classroom social environment reflect attributes of democratic culture? The data include 125 children’s drawings and their linguistic explanations of them collected from schools that implemented the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme in Cyprus, Israel, Lithuania, Portugal, and the UK. The method used is data-driven content analysis, including qualitative categorizing of the data, quantification of its core features, and a reflexive interpretation of the contents of the drawings. The study reveals how children aged 5–6 are able to elaborate on the ideas, principles, and practices of democratic culture, including participation, collaboration, negotiation, dialogue, listening, and expressing one’s own opinions. The analysis of the data elicited five thematic categories of how children think about social life in their classroom, approach democratic culture, and understand their role in practising it in school. The categories were based on the children’s approach to rules; suggestions taking the action either alone or as a member of a group; and views of the purpose and beneficiary of this action. The analysis revealed how drawing with peers is a multimodal and dialogic process of learning democratic culture. Children engage in dialogic chains of thinking not only in verbal, but also in visual interaction. Since the ability to participate in a dialogue is seen as a core skill in democratic education, educators should better recognize visual dialogic chains of thinking as a way for students to familiarize themselves with and practise democratic culture. • Even very young children can elaborate on the principles and practices of democratic culture. • Drawing with peers is a dialogic process of learning democratic culture. • Young children’s understanding of democratic culture draws on different approaches to rules and agency.

Candrakīrti’s Linguistic Explanation of pratītyasamutpāda from the Perspective of the Pāṇini and Cāndra Grammars

Candrakīrti’s Linguistic Explanation of pratītyasamutpāda from the Perspective of the Pāṇini and Cāndra Grammars

Explain and improve: LRP-inference fine-tuning for image captioning models

This paper analyzes the predictions of image captioning models with attention mechanisms beyond visualizing the attention itself. We develop variants of Layer-wise Relevance Propagation (LRP) and gradient-based explanation methods, tailored to image captioning models with attention mechanisms. We compare the interpretability of attention heatmaps systematically against the explanations provided by explanation methods such as LRP, Grad-CAM, and Guided Grad-CAM. We show that explanation methods provide simultaneously pixel-wise image explanations (supporting and opposing pixels of the input image) and linguistic explanations (supporting and opposing words of the preceding sequence) for each word in the predicted captions. We demonstrate with extensive experiments that explanation methods (1) can reveal additional evidence used by the model to make decisions compared to attention; (2) correlate to object locations with high precision; (3) are helpful to “debug” the model, e.g. by analyzing the reasons for hallucinated object words. With the observed properties of explanations, we further design an LRP-inference fine-tuning strategy that reduces the issue of object hallucination in image captioning models, and meanwhile, maintains the sentence fluency. We conduct experiments with two widely used attention mechanisms: the adaptive attention mechanism calculated with the additive attention and the multi-head attention mechanism calculated with the scaled dot product.

Il Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico nel sardo medievale

Raddoppiamento fonosintattico (RF) is a consonant lengthening phenomenon that is observed at word-boundaries in different Italo-Romance varieties, Standard Italian included. RF is also a peculiarity of Sardinian. Sardinian RF is triggered by few monosyllables that displayed a final coda in Latin (i.e., ad > a, et > e, non > no). This kind of RF originated from consonant assimilation. The paper aims at tracing the origins of Sardinian RF through the analysis of the written evidence for consonant gemination in RF contexts in Old Sardinian texts, by showing which dialectal areas were more affected, which monosyllables induced RF, and which consonants were more often geminated. A linguistic explanation of the observed differences in Southern and Northern Sardinian texts will be proposed with reference to other phonological processes of the respective varieties.

The Past Time Uses of the Imperfect in the Aramaic of Daniel

Abstract In the Aramaic of Daniel, the imperfect expresses past situations 29 times. Scholars have long wrestled with these past time uses, and although important contributions have been made along the way, one of the most salient semantic issues that arise with these uses—the semantic intersection of imperfective aspect and telicity—has been overlooked. This study addresses this issue directly by providing a linguistic analysis of the past imperfective uses of the imperfect that describes their semantics in light of situation aspect and (un)boundedness. This study also describes the past modal use of the imperfect, and offers a linguistic explanation for how the imperfect acquired such a use. Ultimately, this study provides a linguistic analysis of the past time uses of the imperfect that fosters more artful and nuanced readings of the text in light of its semantic and functional sophistication.