Extant Characters Research Articles

Determining Significant Correlation Between Pairs of Extant Characters in a Small Parsimony Framework.

When studying the evolutionary relationships among a set of species, the principle of parsimony states that a relationship involving the fewest number of evolutionary events is likely the correct one. Due to its simplicity, this principle was formalized in the context of computational evolutionary biology decades ago by, for example, Fitch and Sankoff. Because the parsimony framework does not require a model of evolution, unlike maximum likelihood or Bayesian approaches, it is often a good starting point when no reasonable estimate of such a model is available. In this work, we devise a method for determining if pairs of discrete characters are significantly correlated across all most parsimonious reconstructions, given a set of species on these characters, and an evolutionary tree. The first step of this method is to use Sankoff's algorithm to compute all most parsimonious assignments of ancestral states (of each character) to the internal nodes of the phylogeny. Correlation between a pair of evolutionary events (e.g., absent to present) for a pair of characters is then determined by the (co-) occurrence patterns between the sets of their respective ancestral assignments. The probability of obtaining a correlation this extreme (or more) under a null hypothesis where the events happen randomly on the evolutionary tree is then used to assess the significance of this correlation. We implement this method: parcours (PARsimonious CO-occURrenceS) and use it to identify significantly correlated evolution among vocalizations and morphological characters in the Felidae family.

Yìcún Wénzì (extant characters) in Japanese lexicon: Exploring characters of historically Chinese origin with evidence from Six dynasties, Sui and Tang dynasties, China

A careful analysis of historical literary sources reveals that some supposedly Japanese native characters are in fact of historically Chinese origin, namely “extant characters” (yicun wenzi). In th...

Cantar de Mio Cid by de Alberto Montaner (review)

Reviewed by: Cantar de Mio Cid by de Alberto Montaner George D. Greenia Cantar de Mio Cid. Edición, estudio y notas de Alberto Montaner. Con un ensayo de Francisco Rico. Madrid: Real Academia Española, 2011. Pp. 1179. ISBN 978-84-8109-908-9. The Real Academia Española has launched a new Biblioteca Clásica series of 111 authoritative editions starting with the Cantar de Mio Cid. Alberto Montaner, surely the greatest living expert on Spain’s national epic, has established himself as the Ramón Menéndez Pidal of his generation, and this edition proves that Montaner’s encyclopedic mastery of history, literature, and philology matches Pidal’s and with perhaps even greater discernment. It is a big book, and big books can be worrisome for two reasons: their encyclopedic weight may dampen fresh inquiry, and there’s always the risk that authors simply seize the chance to publish everything they have that’s even remotely pertinent. But for all its heft, Montaner’s massive volume is chaste in its selection (the end bibliography alone could have been five times its size), measured in its judgments, helpful in demonstrating new directions for research, and judicious in weighing and incorporating the torrent of critical commentary done before him. Montaner has long since established himself as an authority in Semitic studies, his actual doctoral field, and brought his knowledge to bear in highly original contributions to the epic of the Cid, as in his masterful Guerra de Šarq Al’andalus: Las batallas cidianas de Morella [End Page 600] (1084) y Cuarte (1094) (with Alfonso Boix Jovaní, 2005). His expertise in medieval Latin documents has produced the nearly definitive edition and study of the Carmen Campidoctoris (with Ángel Escobar, 2001). He has also written exhaustive historical studies, publications on medieval codicology, and even Iberian heraldry, Montaner being the driving force behind the weighty journal Emblemata: Revista Aragonesa de Emblemática. This RAE edition is a natural successor to the one Montaner and editor Francisco Rico produced for the Crítica series (first issued Barcelona, 1993). The heart of the volume is prefaced by a modest presentation of the work for the new reader followed by a meticulous edition with textual clarifications and perceptive interpretative notes, both vast and precise (1–218). Rico’s subtle and eloquent appreciation of the Cantar de Mio Cid as a literary and historical masterpiece (221–55) is reproduced from twenty years ago, while Montaner’s notes and extensive complementary essays (257–560) are scrupulously updated to account for the latest assessments of “La composición del Cantar de Mio Cid,” “El poema épico y su contexto,” “Constitución interna del Cantar,” and so on, while yet another set of critical apparatus spans an even longer section (561–1035). Modern line drawings to explain clothing and artifacts, maps, bibliography and indices complete the volume (1037–79). One example of Montaner’s care and good judgment may be found on the sections discussing the final verses of the sole surviving copy, lines 3731–35, an essay which has almost doubled in length since he framed the Crítica edition. This passage of the Cantar de Mio Cid, which contains the only internal statement on the date of composition, apparently 1207 of the Common Era: “En era de mill et ·C·C· x·L·v· años” (or 1245 of the Spanish Era, which adds 38 years of Roman rule in Iberia), has generated over a century of heated theories and contradictory scenarios. Menéndez Pidal preferred to read a dappled space close to the extant characters as revealing the ghost of an additional “C” rendering the date as 1307, closer to the style of handwriting the manuscript in fact displays, but which makes many other internal features and references, such as the relative novelty of pendant seals and an economy based on minted currency, deliberate archaisms on the part of the poet. Montaner thoughtfully addresses diplomatic issues and the physical qualities of the Vivar codex starting with a dispassionate report on how the manuscript was mistreated with damaging reactive baths to help a nineteenth-century editor better read faded traces of ink. But in the sixteenth century...

Quantitative Traits and Diversification

Quantitative traits have long been hypothesized to affect speciation and extinction rates. For example, smaller body size or increased specialization may be associated with increased rates of diversification. Here, I present a phylogenetic likelihood-based method (quantitative state speciation and extinction [QuaSSE]) that can be used to test such hypotheses using extant character distributions. This approach assumes that diversification follows a birth-death process where speciation and extinction rates may vary with one or more traits that evolve under a diffusion model. Speciation and extinction rates may be arbitrary functions of the character state, allowing much flexibility in testing models of trait-dependent diversification. I test the approach using simulated phylogenies and show that a known relationship between speciation and a quantitative character could be recovered in up to 80% of the cases on large trees (500 species). Consistent with other approaches, detecting shifts in diversification due to differences in extinction rates was harder than when due to differences in speciation rates. Finally, I demonstrate the application of QuaSSE to investigate the correlation between body size and diversification in primates, concluding that clade-specific differences in diversification may be more important than size-dependent diversification in shaping the patterns of diversity within this group.

Morphological awareness and learning to read Chinese

This study investigated the nature of morphological awareness and its relation to learning to read Chinese characters among 46 Chinese-speaking preschool children. The children took a morphological awareness task, which varied in semantic transparency and morpheme position. Children’s vocabulary knowledge and extant character reading ability were measured. Additionally, a character learning task was administered. Results showed that children’s performances on morphological awareness were affected by semantic transparency but not by morpheme position. Morphological awareness was related to vocabulary knowledge when partialling out character reading ability but not to character reading ability after partialling out vocabulary knowledge. The results of the character learning task further revealed that morphological awareness was related to character identification in the words that were just taught but not to character identification in the words that were not taught or in pseudowords. The relation between morphological awareness and character identification ceased to be significant when partialling out the variance in children’s prior knowledge of the characters to be learnt. Taken together, the findings suggested that vocabulary knowledge may play a more important role than reading ability in the initial development of morphological awareness and that the facilitative effect of morphological knowledge in reading does not seem to be significant in the very initial stages of reading acquisition.

A propos de « stûpa miniatures » votifs du Ve siècle découverts à Tourfan et au Gansu

The object of the present article is to point out the existence of a group of twelve «miniature» votive stupas, all of them having similar aspects of iconography and carrying the same engraved Buddhist sûtra. According to our assessments, based on five stupas giving dates of their construction, they could all date from the first half of the fifth century A.D. The earliest finds of this type of stûpa was made by A. Grunwedel and A. von le Coq in Qotcho (Chotscho) in 1902-1905 (our stûpa numbers 8 and 9). In figure 4, the complete text of stûpa number 8 is reproduced and analysed for the first time. Following Shi Yan's article in 1956 reporting new discoveries (note 2, d), A.C. Soper had grouped together five stupas (our stûpa numbers 2, 4, 5, 1 1 and 12) together with von Le Coq's find (our stûpa number 9) and had published a penetrating article (note 2, e). Stûpa numbers 3 and 6 mentioned here represent complete specimens and provide important comparative evidence for all other stupas discovered since 1956. The Introduction is based on a descriptive account of each stûpa. In figure 21, Lai Tung-Hung has reproduced each extant character of the engraved text figuring on the different stupas, and has provided a correspondence of text, including the section relating to sûtra. This procedure has enabled H. Durt to note that the sûtra featured on the stupas are all from the same source and stems from «Law of Dependent Origination » ox pratîtyasamutpâda. H. Durt also cites several hypotheses made by other authors, and suggests the Ekottarâgama sûtra as the canonical reference for these texts.