IN ASCII Research Articles

Christina Rossetti, John Keble, and the Divine Gaze

Although William Michael claimed that his sister thought nothing of Keble as a poet, marginalia in Christina Rossetti's copy of The Christian Year (1827) show Keble's influence on her developing religious voice and vision. (1) Recent scholarship has examined Rossetti's indebtedness Keble and the Tractarian tradition: Diane D'Amico and David Kent's review, and the Tractarians, (2) traces contributions by Raymond Chapman, G. B. Tennyson, Linda Marshall, Antony Harrison, Mary Arseneau, Lorraine Kooistra, and others who have explored the connections between Rossetti and the Oxford Movement. Nevertheless, in reading Rossetti's poems in tandem with Keble's St. Peter's Day, from The Christian Year, we notice the poetic and theological distinctiveness of Rossetti's devotional poetics. Whereas Keble emphasizes Peter's prerogative and power of apostolic responsibility transmitted from Christ's divine commission, (3) Rossetti emphasizes individual penitence and humility inspired by Peter's denial of knowing Christ, and Christ's movement in subsequently and at him. Rossetti transfigures the Divine Look, which appears in three stanzas in St. Peter's Day, into a moment of sustained encounter: a gaze. (4) She connects her poems through the gesture of and looking, which becomes, in analogical terms, an outward physical sign of an inner spiritual conviction of repentance. Just as Rossetti's gesture of taking her heart in her hand and offering it her Creator in Twice (I take my heart in my hand--/ All that I have I bring [ll. 41, 45]) (5) is powerful in its simplicity, here the elaboration of an ordinary gesture of turning and looking (6) defines the Rossettian theme of penitence, with the recognition of repentance opening up the possibility of spiritual renewal and transformation as demonstrated by a renovation of the heart. Rossetti's sacred poetry offers a sense of renewed possibility for the individual--a sense of affection and comfort that her secular poetry rarely grants. In Rossetti's religious poetics, comfort and hope originate from both gazing upon the Divine and the Divine gaze. Here gazing is different from merely looking. Although the King James Bible (7) translators use to and to interchangeably (look refers the Hebrew ra'ah ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) as in man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart in 1 Samuel 16.7b and also refers the Greek emblepo [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] as in And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter in Luke 22.61a), in the English language a implies a seeing that is usually less lengthy and intense than a gaze: direct one's attention a subject (look) differs from directing one's attention a subject with studious and fastidious attention (gaze). (8) Rossetti transforms the look that appears in Keble's poem a gaze underscore the relationship between seer and seen. Keble's objective for The Christian Year was assist readers in bringing their thoughts and feelings into more entire unison (9) with those in the Book of Common Prayer. Hence Keble's St. Peter's unsurprisingly derives from passages commemorating Peter's Day in The Book of Common Prayer. The Collect (a short prayer comprising an invocation, petition, and conclusion) begins with a supplication God, who had commanded feed His flock, make ... / all Bishops and Pastors diligently preach thy holy Word, and the people obediently follow the same. (10) The next section, For the Epistle, is taken from the description of being released from prison by an angel in Acts 12. The final section is Matthew 16, which narrates Peter's recognition of Jesus as the Christ and Jesus' giving him the name Simon Peter, the rock upon which He will build His Church and whom He will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven (p. …

“Too Difficult for a Single Man to Understand”: Medea’s Out-Jutting Foot

I The Aegeus scene, set squarely in the middle of Euripides' Medea, has received a great deal of critical attention, set in motion largely by the enigmatic comment of Aristotle that this episode is improperly motivated (alogia). (1) For all that Medea needs a safe haven, and for all that Aegeus's childlessness links him to the central themes of the play, these thematic echoes retroactively supplied by critics do not quite remove the surprise of his arrival on stage. Aegeus remains a foreign presence, a haphazard addition and affront to any organic unity of the plot. (2) But one part of the scene has escaped critical notice almost entirely. For Aegeus himself seems all too aware of his status, and this leads him to motivate his presence in Corinth. Aegeus is on the way back from asking the Delphic oracle to suggest a cure for his childlessness, and on the way to Troezen to see his friend Pittheus about its meaning (674-88): [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 675 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 680 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 685 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] MEDEA: What then did Phoebus tell you about children? AEGEUS: Words too for mortal to interpret. MEDEA: Is it lawful for me to hear the response? AEGEUS: Most certainly: it calls for a mind. MEDEA: What then did the god say? Tell me, if it is lawful to hear. AEGEUS: Do not the wineskin's salient foot untie MEDEA: Until you do what or come to what country? AEGEUS: ... until you come to hearth and home again. MEDEA: And what were you in need of that you sailed to this land? AEGEUS: There is a man named Pittheus, king of Trozen. MEDEA: The son of Pelops and a man most pious, they say. AEGEUS: It is with him that I wish to share the god's response. MEDEA: The man is and experienced in such matters. AEGEUS: What is more, he is closest of all my allies. MEDEA: Well good luck attend you, and may you obtain what you desire. (3) The oracle is mentioned and then forgotten. This is more puzzling because we are teased with the possibility of a solution. Aegeus tells it to the wise mind [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII, 677] of Medea, and the oracle is uttered only after Medea ensures it is appropriate for her to hear it. But she does not preempt Pittheus's future interpretation. (4) She stays silent, wishes Aegeus well, and then attention turns to her tears and the duplicity of Jason. Aegeus and his oracle are left to go their own way. If critics show little interest in the oracle, it is because, first, they refuse to identify with the puzzlement of Aegeus, and are instead quite sure what the oracle means. This suggests that the king himself must be stupid, and some indeed have seen a disturbing comic absurdity here. (5) A hapless, impotent king blunders through Corinth, his dignity further battered by his interpretive obtuseness. A second reason for neglect is that the solution of the oracular riddle is a sexual one. The out-jutting foot, so the story goes, is the penis, and the oracle is telling Aegeus not to have sex before he returns. (6) We are given this key and left to put together the rest of the correspondence between assorted parts of the wineskin and the sexual act on our own. Deemed quietly unsuitable for the lofty genre of tragedy, the oracle is passed over, its obviousness almost as embarrassing as its sexual subject matter, as if Aegeus had caught the Pythia on a particularly uninspired day. …

Comments on Jeske and Krueger's 'Housing and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Implicit Guarantees for Government Sponsored Enterprises'

Working Paper 2008-3 February 2008 Abstract: This working paper comments on Karsten Jeske and Dirk Krueger's Housing and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Implicit Guarantees for Government Sponsored Enterprises, delivered at the Fiscal Policy and Monetary/Fiscal Policy Interactions conference held on April 19-20, 2007. Key words: housing, mortgage market, default risk ********** Jeske and Krueger attempt to quantify the effects of implicit guarantees from Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac on the macroeconomy. Modelling the guarantees is an incredibly daunting and complex task. Do the guarantees matter due to times of aggregate turmoil and/or do they have an effect due to the riskiness of individual mortgages? Perhaps the guarantee is simply a straight subsidy? The potential analysis is almost unlimited. I commend the authors for taking up such a task. They choose to focus on Fannie and Freddie providing an interest rate subsidy for mortgages. This comes from the fact that debt issued by Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac is 40 basis points lower than comparable debt. This lower rate can be interpreted as a consequence of Fannie and Freddie having an implicit guarantee from the federal government that lowers the risk premium they face. Jeske and Krueger evaluate the effects of a 40 basis point subsidy on mortagages in a fully specified general equilibrium model of heterogeneous agents who face individual risk and a complex asset choice of bonds, mortgages and housing. An important aspect of their model is that mortgages are defaultable. However, they do not include any aggregate risk. They find that removing a 40 basis point subsidy to mortgages results in * substantially smaller mortgages, with mortgages falling by 91% in the aggregate, * a halving of default, * a 0.72% decrease in the aggregate stock of housing * and higher welfare. In the rest of this discussion I will slowly build up the main features of the model, starting from a representative agent environment and ending with their environment, to illustrate the effects that a mortgage subsidy plays in the economy, with an emphasis on welfare. 1 Model 1.1 Main Features The main features of their model are: (a) Agents are heterogeneous due to idiosyncratic income shocks. (b) Agents derive utility from a consumption good and housing services. (c) Agents can hold two assets: a risk-free bond; and a combination of risky housing and a (continuum of) mortgages. (d) Owning and renting are disconnected. (e) There is a competitive banking sector that issues mortgages. (f) There is a construction sector, but it is normalized away. (g) Last, the government subsidizes mortgages, financed via a proportional earnings tax. 1.2 Representative Agent Model To examine the consequences of a subsidy, let's first consider a representative agent model where safe housing is the only asset. The representative agent's problem is [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] subject to c + [P.sub.l]h + g' = y + (1 - [delta]) g + [P.sub.l]g' where V is the value function, y is income, c is consumption, h is housing rented, g is housing owned and [P.sub.l] is the rental price of housing. Note that I follow the timing in the paper that in the period that a house is purchased it can be rented out to receive [P.sub.l]g'. The price of a house has also been normalized to one as in the paper. The market clearing condition is h = g'. In such a representative agent model there are no inefficiencies so we get the efficient outcome. Therefore there is no role for a subsidy. However, to create a benchmark to examine the effects of a subsidy, modify the budget constraint by the introduction of a subsidy s financed by a tax [tau], c + [P.sub.l]h + g' = y(1 - [tau]) + (1 - [delta])g + ([P.sub. …

The Collision, Interaction, and Integration of Heterogeneous Cultures in the Global Context: The Impact of The Monument on Huaju (Modern Chinese Drama)

China's Central Experimental Theatre first staged the Canadian drama The Monument on October 28, 2000, in Beijing. It was the first Canadian drama to be produced in China and performed in Chinese. Set in an unnamed country in the wake of an unnamed conflict, the play unfolds to the audience a seemingly simple story. A young soldier, Stetko, has confessed to raping and murdering 23 enemy women and girls, acts he claims to have committed only because it was expected of the soldiers at the time. Just as he is about to be executed, a woman named Mejra appears, the mother of one of his victims--a woman who might be his tormentor, his executioner, or his savior: he will be allowed to live on the condition that he obey her every command. Mejra then carries out a confounding revenge. In a desperate scheme to undermine Stetko's will, she chains and beats Stetko and torments him with horrible stories of his girlfriend's possible gang rape and murder. Eventually, Mejra orders him to dig up the corpses of the 23 women he killed, stacking them into a monument to their memory. This is a journey--or rather, a trying pilgrimage--for both characters. As it unfolds, they discover not only unpleasant truths about themselves, but also truths about human nature that they wish could have remained buried beneath the scorched earth of war. Canadian playwright Colleen Wagner, inspired by the war in Bosnia and its cruel aftermath, wrote The Monument as an examination of crime and redemption, a dark fantasy about war and human nature under extreme circumstances. The play poses to audiences, Canadian and Chinese alike, timeless questions that try our soul: To what extent does a soldier have moral choices in wartime? Can murder, rape, and other atrocities be justified under wartime circumstances? Can there be a so-called war of justice or injustice (zhengyi zhanzheng / [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] of fei zhengyi zhanzheng / [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII])? Must a soldier follow orders? And what is left for the mother of the victim--vengeance, forgiveness, or ...? What can be said about human nature--sinful (according to Christianity) or benevolent (in Confucian terms)? Which force is greater, love or hate, redemption or damnation? Part myth, part ritual, part rite of passage, The Monument explores the darkness in human nature and ultimately chooses redemption and the healing power of love. Wagner's cruelly truthful drama demands the attention of both Chinese audiences and Chinese dramatists, challenges mercilessly the playfulness and lack of universality in recent Chinese dramas, and leads Chinese dramatists to reexamine the meaning, value, and nature of drama in general and modern Chinese drama in particular in the global context. China's open-door cultural policy, first implemented in the 1970s and early 1980s, has attracted a large number of Western plays to the Chinese stage. Through these performances, Chinese audiences become closer to Western dramatic theories and practices, in a time when China is in close contact with the rest of the world in matters economic and political as well as cultural. Shouyi Fan observed the far-reaching impact of translated literature on the development of Chinese literature, arguing that it broadens the vision of China's writers and offers up-to-date information about the state of world literature. As a result of that impact, Chinese writers have studied diverse literary trends and adopted diverse literary techniques. Shouyi Fan concluded: Above all, the importation of Western literature into China had helped shape the ideology of the Chinese intellectual community. Many of the famous men of letters in China's modern history began to be exposed to works of translation. In the process, their modes of thinking began to change, they perceived the world from new angles, and found themselves caught in the clashes between the East and West. (1) During the 1980s, an increasing number of Canadian literary works began to be introduced to Chinese readers through translation. …

Fiscal Policy and Minimum Wage for Redistribution: An Equivalence Result

Abstract: In this paper, we derive conditions under which a minimum-wage law combined with anonymous taxes and transfers and an agent-specific tax-transfer scheme are equivalent policies. JEL classification: E62, H21 Key words: redistribution policy, minimum wage, tax-transfer scheme, equivalence result Financial support from Fundacion Ramon Areces and 9/UPV 00035.321-13511/2001 is acknowledged. The views expressed here are the authors' and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve System. Any remaining errors are the authors' responsibility. Please address questions regarding content to Arantza Gorostiaga, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Avenida Lehendakari Aguirre, 83, 48015 Bilbao (Spain), +34 94 601 38 14, arantza.gorostiaga@ehu.es, or Juan Franciso Rubio-Ramirez, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 1000 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, 404-498-8057, juan.rubio@atl.frb.org. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta working papers, including revised versions, are available on the Atlanta Fed's Web site at www.frbatlanta.org. Click Publications and then Working Papers. Use the WebScriber Service (at www.frbatlanta.org) to receive e-mail notifications about new papers. 1. Introduction Many papers in the literature have considered the use of a minimum wage legislation jointly with a tax-transfer scheme to redistribute income among differently productive agents. Moreover, articles such as Allen (1987), Guesnerie and Roberts (1987) and Gorostiaga and Rubio-Ramirez (2004) have shown that minimum wages might be optimal when combined with linear taxes and transfers in a static general equilibrium model. In this paper we prove that any equilibrium allocation attained under a minimum wage law and anonymous taxes and transfers could be implemented through an agent-specific tax-transfer scheme. We also show that the reverse implication is not always true. The equivalence depends on imposing some conditions on the initial agent-specific policy. 2. The basic setup We consider a static general equilibrium model. The economy is populated by two types of agent: low and high productivity households. A proportion [gamma] of households are high-skilled (H), and a proportion 1 - [gamma] are low-skilled (L). This a production economy where a single consumption good is produced. The resource constraint is: [gamma][c.sub.H] + (1 - [gamma])[c.sub.L] = y, (1) where y is the aggregate production, and [c.sub.H] and [c.sub.L] are high-skilled and low-skilled consumption respectively. Firms The available constant returns to scale technology can be represented through the following CES production function: y = F [[gamma](1 - [l.sub.H]), (1 - [gamma])(1 - [l.sub.H])] = [[[phi][[[gamma](1 - [l.sub.H])].sup.[[delta]] + [[(1 - [gamma])(1 - [l.sub.H])].sup.[delta]]].sup.1/[delta]], (2) where [delta] [member of] (0; 1), [phi] > 1, and (1 - [l.sub.H]) and (1 - [l.sub.H]) are high-skilled and low-skilled labor respectively. Firms are price takers and inverse labor demands are: [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (3) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (4) Households Households in this economy derive utility from consumption and leisure. The utility function U([c.sub.i], [l.sub.i]) is assumed to be strictly increasing and concave in both arguments. Households are endowed with one unit of time which can be devoted to work or leisure, and face the following budget constraint: [c.sub.i] = (1 - [[tau].sub.i])[[omega].sub.i](1 - [l.sub.i]) + [T.sub.i], (5) where [[omega].sub.i] is the wage, [[tau].sub.i] is the income tax rate and [T.sub.i] is a lump-sum transfer. Government We consider two alternative policy schemes: Policy scheme A The redistribution policy is implemented through a minimum wage law that sets a lower bound on low-skilled wages, [[omega]. …

Superstitious Marginalia: Coleridge and "Waverley"

In late 1820s, commenting on in margins of Waverley (I:24), Coleridge interpreted Scott's novel of Scottish rebellion and Union in terms of his transcendental imagination: In most reflecting minds there may, nay must, exist a certain 'reserve of Superstition', from consciousness of vast disproportion of our knowledge terra incognita yet be known--Between these is a region of indistinctness, not forms, but which [begin strikethrough]you[end strikethrough] we give a form/ [begin strikethrough]Less[end strikethrough] Some few are aware, form is their own gift yet without denying a SOMEWHAT seen/ whenever last understood causes must be, still aliquid superstat--and these it is, which constitutes reason of Superstition, and makes it (CM IV 579). [A]liquid superstat echoes Coleridge's description of imagination as tertium aliquid, third thing, in Biographia Literaria, chapter 13 (1817; NC 485, 485nl). Like imagination, reasonable was for Coleridge a faculty gave rational form sights at border between knowledge and unknown. Coleridge's note appears where Waverley, injured in a stage hunt, passive and dependent, is nursed by a Highland surgeon combining the characters of a leech and a conjuror (189) and murmuring Gaelic prayers or spells, which narrator dismisses as gibberish (190). Edward observed, with some surprise, Scott writes, that even Fergus, notwithstanding his knowledge and education, seemed fall in with superstitious ideas of his countrymen; either because he deemed it impolitic affect skepticism on a matter of general belief, or more probably because, like most who do not think deeply or accurately on such subjects, he had in his mind a of which balanced freedom of his expressions and practice upon other occasions (Scott 191, CM IV 579). Where Waverley condescends, Coleridge identified a reserve of an enabling superstition, in Scott's men of action. Coleridge had been thinking about in Waverley's derogative sense as early as 1804, on his return from Malta, when he observed unaccountable terrors and apprehensions Hume, another Scot who wrote on superstition, had attributed Weakness, fear, [and] melancholy, together with ignorance (Hume 73). Coleridge had begun an essay on its philosophical and most comprehensive Sense' [in] of action--soldiers, sailors, fisherman, farmers, even lovers and gamblers--who are placed 'in absolute Dependence on Powers & Events, which they have no Control' (CN II 2060, Holmes DR 11). In An Essay on Scrofula, he wrote about eradication of unfounded by science; and, in and Natural Philosophy, he concluded Philosophy guided by Torch of History will cleanse dark and noisome cave of superstitious Error! (CC 11.I 27). In On Constitution of Church and State and his Notebooks, too, Coleridge used superstition denote ignorant idolatry, which he associated with Fancy. This was Keats would deride in his sonnet Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition (1816). In 1821, however, Coleridge explored etymology and potential puns of superstition in his Notebooks. The English word is a derivative of Latin superstitio, a compound of super and stare--above and to respectively. H. J. Jackson notes root-words superstare, to stand above, and superstes, one standing over or a survivor (CM IV 579n; cf. CN IV 4605, 4605n, 4708, and 5274). Coleridge's play with etymology of echoes puns he used in his Conversation poems. Like signatures S.T.C., [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and ESTEESI, alludes St. …

MCMC Method for Markov Mixture Simultaneous-Equation Models: A Note

Abstract: This paper extends the methods developed by Hamilton (1989) and Chib (1996) to identified multiple-equation models. It details how to obtain Bayesian estimation and inference for a class of models with different degrees of time variation and discusses both analytical and computational difficulties. JEL classification: C3 Key words: simultaneity, identification, time variation, volatility, Bayesian method I. INTRODUCTION We consider nonlinear stochastic dynamic simultaneous equations of the structural form: [y'.sub.t][A.sub.0]([s.sub.t]) = [x'.sub.t] + ([S.sub.t] + [[epsilon'].sub.t], t = 1,...., T, (1) Pr([S.sub.t] = i|[S.sub.t] - 1 = k) = [P.sub.ik], i,k = 1,...,h, (2) where s is an unobserved state, y is an nx1 vector of endogenous variables, x is an m x 1 vector of exogenous and lagged endogenous variables, A0 is an n x n matrix of parameters, [A.sub.+] is an m x n matrix of parameters, T is a sample size, and h is the total number of states. Denote the longest lag length in the system of equations (1) by v. The vector of right-hand variables, [x.sub.t] , is ordered from the n endogenous variables for the first lag down to the n variables for the last ([v.sup.th]) lag with the last element of [x.sub.t] being the constant term. For t = 1,..., T, denote [Y.sub.t] = {[y.sub.1],..., [y.sub.t]}. We treat as given the initial lagged values of endogenous variables Y0 = {[y.sub.1], ..., [y.sub.0]}. Structural disturbances are assumed to have the distribution: [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] where N(a,b) refers to the normal pdf with mean a and covariance matrix b and [I.sub.n] is an nxn identity matrix. Following Hamilton 1989 and Chib 1996, we impose no restrictions on the transition matrix P = [[p.sub.ik]]. The reduced-form system of equations implied by (1) is: [y'.sub.t] = [x'.sub.t] B([s.sub.t])+ [u'.sub.t]([s.sub.t]), t = 1,..., T; (3) where B([S.sub.t]) = [A.sub.+]([s.sub.t] )[A.sup.-1.sub.0]([s.sub.t]), (4) [u.sub.t]([s.sub.t]) = [A'.sup.-1.sub.0]([s.sub.t])[[epsilon].sub.t], (5) E([u.sub.t]([s.sub.t])[u.sub.t]([s.sub.t])') = ([A.sub.0]([s.sub.t])[A'.sub.0][([s.sub.t]).sup.-1]. (6) In the reduced form (4)-(6), B([s.sub.t]) and [u.sub.t]([s.sub.t]) involve the structural parameters and shocks across equations, making it impossible to distinguish regime shifts from one structural equation to another. In contrast, the structural form (1) allows one to identify each structural equation, such as the policy rule, for regime switches. II. PRIOR RESTRICTIONS II.1. Restrictions on time variation. If we let all parameters vary across states, it is relatively straightforward to apply the existing methods of Chib 1996 and Sims and Zha 1998 to the model estimation because [A.sub.0]([s.sub.t]) and [A.sub.+]([s.sub.t]) in each given state can be estimated independent of the parameters in other states. But with such an unrestricted form for the time variation, if the system of equations is large or the lag length is long, the number of free parameters in the model becomes impractically large. For a typical monthly model with 13 lags and 6 endogenous variables, for example, the number of parameters in [A.sub.+]([s.sub.t]) is of order 468 for each state. Given the post-war macroeconomic data, however, it is not uncommon to have some states lasting for only a few years and thus the number of associated observations is far less than 468. It is therefore essential to simplify the model by restricting the degree of time variation in the model's parameters. Such a restriction entails complexity and difficulties that have not been dealt with in the simultaneous-equation literature. To begin with, we rewrite A+ as [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (7) where [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] If we place a prior distribution on D([s. …

Yiddish in Amerike: Translating Multilingual Texts: Jacob Gordin's "Moses, Jesus Christ and Karl Marx Visit New York"

the opposite happened--Esther 9:1 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Un es iz gevorn farkert]--Yehoash translation of Esther 9:1 [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Un er hot gezen dafke farkert]--Moses segment (Gordin, Ale shriftn 197) And he saw, on the contrary, the opposite. -Translation of Gordin (Ale shriftn 197) This article will examine the historical context, thematic content, and translation problems associated with a turn-of-the-century satire by Jacob Gordin that also pits Jesus, and Karl Marx against the realities of twentieth-century life in the US. First published in the Yiddish American press, Gordin's piece, and other examples of modern American Jewish humor such as assimilationist rabbi jokes and Lenny Bruce's stand-up routine, Christ and Moses, spring from the same cultural sources that produced the badkhonim (wedding jesters) and carnivalesque purimshpils (Purim plays), recycling and updating age-old motifs in Jewish folklore. (1) From Abraham's bold-faced reproach in Genesis 18, Shall not the Judge of the earth do justly? and his marketplace-inspired bargaining with God over the number of righteous required to save the city of Sodom from destruction (down from the original asking price of fifty to the bargain price of ten), to one of Woody Allen's preferred formulas coupling the sublime with the mundane, Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends (Allen 33) (2), Jews have had a tradition of taking God to task for perceived faults with God's universe in the twin forms of lamentations (sacralizing the profane) and jokes (profaning the sacred). God is perceived as the original source of this duality: the Book of Lamentations asks, Out of the mouth of the Most High, do not both good and evil come? (3:38), while the Yiddish proverb, mentsh trakht, un got lakht (literally, A person thinks, and God laughs; more familiar in English is the proverb, Man proposes, God disposes), suggests not only that the best-laid plans of mice and men go astray if that is God's will, but also that God is not above laughing at us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Psalms tell us (2:1). (3) Yet laughter also makes us more divine. This idea, which appears in Western thought with Aristotle's maxim, Of living creatures only man is endowed with laughter, sees laughter as God-like and God-given, and therefore something, like the soul, that separates us from animals (Bakhtin, Rabelais 68-69). In Jewish tradition as well, the gift of laughter is equivalent to the gift of civilization itself in the form of the Laws of Moses: one Talmudic commentator writes, is as great as the day on which the Torah was given on Sinai (Rubenstein 275). For the uninitiated, is to Passover as Carnival is to Easter--a short period of satiric lunacy before the solemnities begin. The source is the Biblical Book of Esther. The holiday of has been especially influential in establishing a central role for humor in Jewish culture. On Purim, Jews laugh at Haman's humiliation as his plans to destroy the Jews are reversed (And the opposite happened, Esther 9:1); they do not gather in solemn remembrance of the threat he posed, or their deliverance from it, as on so many other holidays. The earliest instances of parody in Jewish literature are predominately Purim-related: a thirteenth-century collection of maxims written in imitation of a portion of the Passover service urges all good Jews to eat well and to drink plenteously on the night of Purim (Doniach 237). The medieval Midrash Abba Guryon has scenes in heaven, with Satan playing the part of Haman, and God playing the part of King Akhashverosh: Meanwhile in Heaven Satan had explained before the Lord Almighty the folly and the sinfulness of his people Israel. Let Israel be destroyed! said God; bring me a roll that I may record the decree of destruction! …

Too Much to Swallow: On Terms Meaning "Swallow" in Oceanic Languages

At least seven terms with the meaning 'to swallow' can be reconstructed for Proto-Oceanic, and four more for lower-level protolanguages. All of these bear some phonological resemblance to each other, and also to forms reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian and Proto--Malayo-Polynesian (some of which have the meaning 'to sink, drown, disappear under water'). Only two, however, directly continue earlier terms. The remainder involve change in a single consonant, metathesis, or a process of blending in which the initial syllable of one earlier form combines with the second syllable of another form. Semantic change and Austronesian root theory are included in the discussion. 1. INTRODUCTION. Blust (1988, n.d.) reconstructs the following terms for the verb 'swallow' in high-level Austronesian protolanguages, which incorporate the root [-len.sup.*]: (1) (I) PMP [telen.sup.*], [tilen.sup.*] (doublets, both meaning 'to swallow') PCMP [belen.sup.*] 'to swallow' He also reconstructs (i) PWMP [tunen.sup.*] 'to swallow', and (ii) the following terms meaning variously 'sink', 'disappear under water', 'drown' (which I will represent in this paper by the shorthand gloss 'sink+'), some of which seem to have a possible connection with one or more of the 'swallow' forms: (2) PMP [telem.sup.*] 'sink, disappear under water' PWMP [benem.sup.*] 'sink, drown', [taR-benem.sup.*] 'sink' PWMP [[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].sup.*] 'sink, disappear under water' It is possible that the following term is also related: (3) PWMP [inem.sup.*] 'drink' (doublet of PMP [inum.sup.*]) In looking at possibly cognate forms in Oceanic languages, it is clear that there is a connection between forms reconstructed with the meaning 'sink+' and forms meaning 'swallow'. It is also clear that there is a considerable number of possible reconstructions with the meaning 'swallow', some of which involve minor permutations on higher-level terms; and there are other forms in certain restricted subgroups that exhibit other permutations. 2. PROTO-OCEANIC RECONSTRUCTIONS. In what follows, a form is labeled POc if it either regularly reflects a higher-order term or if there are cognates in widely separated branches of Oceanic; the label means that the form continues a higher-level term but with a phonological modification that is found with a more restricted distribution. 2.1 POC [P-INITIAL.sup.*] FORM. may have had one [p-initial.sup.*] form meaning 'swallow' (noting that [p.sup.*] continues PMP [b.sup.*]): (4) POc? [polo(m).sup.*], [polom-i.sup.*] 'to swallow'. Blust lists as reflexes of [belen.sup.*] 'swallow' Samoan folo and Rennellese hogo, and proposes a form [polon.sup.*]. (2) Biggs (2000) reconstructs Proto-Polynesian [folo.sup.*] 'swallow, ingest', with exemplary reflexes in 27 Polynesian languages--that is, all languages reflect medial [1.sup.*] and also [0.sup.*] in each syllable. However, the suffixed forms of these verbs (where such exist) contain the consonant m rather than the expected n: for example, Mae, Ifira-Mele, Maoriforo-mia Pilenifolo-mia, Tahitian horo-mi'i, etc. These suggest an earlier form [polo(m).sup.*] rather than [polo(n).sup.*]. I reconstruct this in the form [polo(m).sup.*], [polom-i.sup.*] (following the conventions established in Ross, Pawley, and Osmond 1998:25, 27-28), with final [(m).sup.*], indicating that no reflex has been found with word-final m, and final [m-i.sup.*] indicating that this m is found in suffixed forms. Yapese fuul' is cognate with the Polynesian roots, but it is not clear whether it derived from a root with final [m.sup.*] or final [n.sup.*] Ross (1996:160) suggests that it may be a Polynesian loan, but later (pers. comm.) comments that it may be directly inherited. If it is directly inherited, initial f suggests that the form is more likely to have had initial [blank. …

Hedda and Bailu: Portraits of Two "Bored" Women

A shot is heard within the inner room. Tesman runs in. Immediately, we hear him yelling at Brack: herself! Shot herself in the temple! Think of that! Brack replies, as if speaking to himself: But, good God Almighty ... people don't do such things! (1) Such is the last scene before curtain falls in Ibsen's Gabler (1890). The person who shoots herself is Hedda, the heroine of the play. According to Ibsen's description, is lady of 29. Her face and her figure are aristocratic and elegant in their proportions. Her complexion is of an even pallor (179). The suicide of a young beauty is not unique in modern drama. In Cao Yu's well-known play Richu [CHINESE TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Sunrise, 1936), we witness the suicide of a young Chinese beauty, Chen Bailu [CHINESE TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. She is even younger, aged twenty-three, with jet-black hair and bright, attractive eyes. (2) Despite being the center of a distinguished social group and surrounded by admirers, Chen Bailu finds that life is becoming so boring that she would rather die than live. Unlike Hedda, she does not have access to a gun; instead, just before the end of the play, she takes enough sleeping pills to kill herself. These two suicides can easily be written off as just two random events of modern dramatic creation if no further connections are established between them, despite the fact that Cao Yu knew Ibsen very well and openly spoke about Ibsen's influence on his own work. (3) Critics have shown enormous interest in the influence of Western writers--particularly Ibsen--on Cao Yu, but no comparative study so far been made between Gabler and Sunrise. Yet, such a study reveals that the two plays have much in common. First and foremost, the motives behind the suicides are remarkably similar. The title Ibsen chose for his play Gabler is significant. Hedda's married name is Mrs. (Norw.: fru) Tesman, which is the name the playwright uses in the list of characters for his play. The use of Hedda's maiden name (Gabler) for the title highlights not only Hedda's aristocratic family background (her father is a general) but also her close association with the upperclass standard of living, both materially and spiritually. It may also suggest the difficulties in adjusting to the middle-class environment of the Tesmans--to become, in a real sense, Tesman. It is, as a matter of fact, not the material comfort with which she is discontent (Tesman's villa is reasonably elegant). She is contemptuous of Tesman and unable to relate to his bourgeois lifestyle, as Ibsen details: Jorgen Tesman, his old aunts, and the elderly serving-maid Berta together form a whole and a unity. They have a common way of thinking; common memories, and a common attitude to life. For they appear as an inimical and alien power directed against her fundamental nature (505). and Tesman are far too different to be united, and as such their relationship is cold. As Else Host points out, has used him [Tesman] as her provider, and will have little to do with him as a human being. (4) The play begins with Miss Tesman's early visit. The reunion of the old aunt and her orphan nephew is a warm and harmonious one. The entrance of Hedda, however, turns the atmosphere to uneasiness and discomfort. refuses to get involved in Tesman's excitement over getting his old slippers back and later deliberately mistakes Miss Tesman's hat for the maid's. The gap between and the Tesmans becomes obvious. By the time Miss Tesman leaves, is dearly agitated: Hedda walks about the room, raises her arms and clenches her fists as though in a frenzy (183). However, she quickly brings her emotions under control in keeping with her aristocratic upbringing. Her agitation turns into a distracted melancholy in the following sequence: Tesman: (picking up the slippers from the floor) What are you looking at, Hedda? …

Judeo-Christian Apocalyptic Literature and John Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem

John Crowne followed his first comedy, Countrey Wit (1676), with the two parts of Destruction of Jerusalem, arguably two of his finest works. first part premiered on 12 January 1677 and the second part one week later. (1) Neither play has received much critical attention, and those critics who have offered commentary have either condemned it out of hand simply for being a rhymed heroic drama or have been content with discussing Crowne's sources. Capwell, who first noted this tendency to criticize the genre rather than the work, (2) chose to respond by limiting his discussion to Crowne's departures from his sources without ever engaging directly with the implications of the play itself. White demonstrates beyond doubt that Crowne combined elements drawn from Racine's Berenice, Josephus's Wars of the Jews, and Suetonius's account of the relationship between Titus and Berenice. Capwell criticizes White for simply listing these sources and then attempts to explain Crowne's alterations. However, he seems to regard the romantic plots to be the chief focus of the play: The historical material, however, primarily supplies merely background for the love stories, and Crowne's skill in weaving the fortunes of Phraartes and Clarona and Titus and Berenice into the historical material is notable. (3) While these plots and characters are significant and can certainly provide insight into characters Crowne subsequently created, the center of the play (4) is, as the title suggests, the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. A cursory reading of Racine's play or of Otway's Titus and Berenice, (5) which is much closer to the French original than Crowne's work, reveals them to be works nearly devoid of dramatic action. Indeed, Berenice has been held up as an exemplar of the tendency of seventeenth-century French drama to employ simple plots. Racine himself noted that he wished to follow the simplicite d'action qui a ete si fort du gout des anciens. (6) Crowne's spectacular stage effects and supernatural events could not be more different. prologue to the first part of Destruction of Jerusalem announces that the purpose of the play (or, at least, the purpose of the damned playwright) is to reveal hid treasure (a literal [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), offering the first hint that we should recognize the strong element of apocalyptic literature within the drama. Although it seems unusual that Crowne's earlier critics chose not to comment on this element, perhaps it is simply the reemergence of apocalyptic themes in the last days of the twentieth century that make them stand out so clearly now. As we enter the new millennium and have become accustomed to apocalyptic themes in virtually every area of popular culture, it seems appropriate to look at an apocalypse from an earlier period that was also known for its political and religious schisms and excesses. Given this cultural preoccupation with the ending of the second millennium, it is not surprising that scholars have recently turned their attention to the question as well. Most of these scholars have been theologians, but literary critics have also been among their number, often attempting to apply the findings of the theologians to their own discipline. Bernard McGinn is one such scholar. In his historiographical survey of the origins and current state of the scholarship of apocalypse and apocalypticism, he offers this method of approaching the question of genre: I would suggest the following five questions as a useful introductory tool for this task: who reveals? to whom? how, or under what circumstances? what? and for what purpose? (7) Likewise, Brian Stiegler's examination of Cervantes' La Numancia (8) uses the definition of apocalyptic vision set out by the theologian Klaus Koch. These elements are as follows: 1. Urgent expectation of the overthrow of all earthly things in the immediate future 2. end a vast cosmic catastrophe 3. …

"To prove him with hard questions": answerability in Hopkins' writings

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. --I Kings 10.1-3 [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [paideia]: teaching, education, formation, discipline, correction. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it--but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take upon yourself and hate nothing. --Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to Young Poet [1] What is at risk when question is posed in Hopkins text? They are presented in God's Grandeur and Spring and Fall to enact rituals of decisive, affective answering. Poems such as Candle Indoors, however, culminate in questions rather than satisfy them. Interrogatives proliferate in the drama fragments to prompt dialogue--discursive engineers of exposition and explanation which prepare the stage for tortured soliloquies or choruses burnished with commitment to self and beauty's giver. Yet in Wreck of the Deutschland, questions gather to frantic cacophony in stanzas 18 and 28, where they (temporarily) destabilize the speaker and through him, with him, the ode itself. Gradually, the reader discovers hierarchy of questions in the canon, ranging from the easily mastered who to the complexities of what. Throughout Hopkins' writings, questions work to summon speaker and auditor/reader alike to participate in epistemological, aesthetic, and religious dialogues; they variously trouble and intensify the discursive order. To contextualize this fundamental modus operandi and vivendi, I demonstrate how his schooling in questionable pursuits-from the Socratic stylizations of his undergraduate essays to the theological, Scholastic tradition of Sic et Non and the meditative practices of the Spiritual Exercises--constituted multi-dimensional paideia which provided the intellectual groundwork for poetic rigors. The paper also identifies the fundamental biblical questions which frame the positive and negative poles of Hopkins' spiritual and poetic inquiries: from the promise of Who then can be saved? (Mark 10.26) to the anguish of My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27.46). Each query represents degree of textual risk-taking; the reader consider what is hazarded in such an enterprise, and what is accomplished. In broader terms, I correlate Hopkins' quests for meaning with Mikhail Bakhtin's insistence that art, like the individual, must become answerable through and through, that the constituent moments of each interpenetrate each other in the unity of guilt and answerability. [2] In Hopkins' prose and poetry, gestures of grammar, syntax, and rhetoric identify the degrees and limits of answerability--both for humans, and from the deity. Vertiginous possibilities Paul de Man's intriguing, schismatic essay on Semiology and Rhetoric alerts us to a possible discrepancy, tension between grammatical structures and rhetorical structures that disturbs the tradition of letting grammar and rhetoric function in perfect continuity. …

THE MISSION TO HEAL IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

STUART C. BATE [*] Introduction Health, faith and healing are aspects of Christianity that are clearly linked together. Healing was a central part of the way in which Jesus carried out his mission, and he mandated this mission his disciples. [1] In fact Jesus' ministry can be categorized into three basic activities: He preached good news, he healed the sick and he died on the cross. Clearly, Christian activity and praxis must take the issue of healing seriously. I would like focus on four main areas in this input. 1. The biblical notion of healing in the ministry of Jesus; 2. The nature of the mission passed on the church; 3. Developing a missiological model for praxis; 4. Commonalities in different cultural healing processes. I will also provide two examples of how the missiological model developed may be applied in practice. 1. The biblical notion of healing in the ministry of Jesus It is informative look at the terms used for healing in the scriptures and their meaning within the culture of the time. Five different Greek words are used refer the healing work of Jesus. These are iasthai [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] sozo [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] therapeuo [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] katharizomai [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and apokathistemi [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. The first three are by far the most frequent, and we will concentrate on these. The first, iasthai [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], refers the kind of healing done by a physician (iatros: [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. It appears seventeen times in the gospels and is used of Jesus in all gospels (cf. Mark 2:17 and parallels) but especially in Luke (5:17; 6:19; Acts 10:38). The related word for a physical cure (jasis [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) is used both literally (cf. Luke 13:32) and figuratively in gospel texts (cf. Matt. 13:15, John 12:40).[2] However the use of this word is quite limited and, in fact, the main words used for the healings by both Jesus and the apostles are sozo [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and therapeuo [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Sozo also means save, rescue or maintain integrity, and always refers the whole person and not individual members of the body. [3] It is used 16 times for healing in the New Testament and 35 times in a less clinical sense for other forms of saving. Therapeuo is used in the New Testament in the sense of to heal, and always in such a way that the reference is not medical treatment which might fail but real healing. [4] This term is used 33 times for healing in the New Testament. When it comes the act whereby Jesus heals, the word that is primarily used is dunamis [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Dunamis is a powerful or marvellous force which originates in God. [5] We get our English word dynamic from the same Greek word. Unfortunately, dunamis has often been translated miracle in English translations and the current Western understanding of this word is of an event which is outside the normal rules of nature. This restrictive usage is not what the original text wishes communicate. Dunamis gives Jesus control of all powers and spirits, and in this way he is able work signs and wonders. However the term is really misunderstood when interpreted in the sense of miracle as this is understood in modern Western culture. In fact, the healings of Jesus and the casting out of demons are always about the saving, rescuing or restoring of human life for the person. Sometimes this power is impeded and Jesus and the apostles are unable heal. Such is the case in Mark 6 (Matt. 13) when Jesus cannot heal because of a lack of faith of the people of his hometown. On another occasion the apostles cannot heal (Matt. 17:16) as the people do not believe. …

HEALING–A CHALLENGE TO CHURCH AND THEOLOGY

International Review of MissionVolume 90, Issue 356-357 p. 26-40 HEALING–A CHALLENGE TO CHURCH AND THEOLOGY Christoffer H. Grundmann, Christoffer H. Grundmann Dr. Christoffer Grundmann, while presently holding the vice-directorship at the Centre for Health Care and Ethics of the Lutheran Church at Hannover, is also senior lecturer for mission, ecumenics and the history of religion at Hamburg University, Germany.Search for more papers by this author Christoffer H. Grundmann, Christoffer H. Grundmann Dr. Christoffer Grundmann, while presently holding the vice-directorship at the Centre for Health Care and Ethics of the Lutheran Church at Hannover, is also senior lecturer for mission, ecumenics and the history of religion at Hamburg University, Germany.Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2001.tb00257.xCitations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume90, Issue356-357January‐April 2001Pages 26-40 RelatedInformation

South Efate Phonological History

The South Efate language in central Vanuatu forms a transition between the phonologically more conservative languages to the north and the more aberrant languages to the south. Based on more data than were available to Clark (1985), a more detailed phonological history of South Efate is presented here. Particular attention is paid to a low-vowel dissimilation rule and to rules deleting final vowels and final consonants, which Lynch (to appear a) suggests are shared with the Southern Vanuatu languages and thus constitute evidence for subgrouping South Efate with Southern Vanuatu. I also add to the growing literature on instances of low-vowel dissimilation in Oceanic languages (Blust 1996a, b) without, however, bringing us any nearer to an integrated explanation of this phenomenon. 1. INTRODUCTION. Three languages are native to Efate in Central Vanuatu. Ifira-Mele is a Polynesian Outlier spoken by about 3,500 people on Ifira Island in Vila harbor and in Mele (Imere) village just outside Vanuatu's capital Port Vila. Nakanamanga is a dialect chain, whose component dialects are spoken by almost ten thousand people in the villages of northern Efate, on the western and northern offshore islands of Lelepa, Moso, Nguna, Pele, and Emau, in the village of Sesake on Emae, and on the western half of Tongoa in the area of Woraviu. This paper deals with the third of these languages, South Efate, which has about 6,000 speakers. This language is spoken in mutually intelligible varieties in the villages of Pango, Erakor, and Eratap along the southern coast of Efate. To the southeast and east, the villages of (a) Eton and Pangpang, and (b) Epau speak divergent varieties that Clark (pers. comm.) suggests are transitional between South Efate and Nakanamanga in a dialect-chain situation, but possibly more similar overall to South Efate than to Nakanamanga. [1] My main source of data is from Erakor (Thieberger 1997, 1998, 2000); data on Eton (including Pangpang) and Epau are limited to those given in Clark (1985). South Efate is of particular interest, because it seems to form a transition between the phonologically more conservative central Vanuatu languages (notably Nakanamanga) and the more aberrant languages of Southern Vanuatu, particularly in relation to apparently shared patterns of dissimilation of Proto-Oceanic (POC) *a and loss of medial and final vowels in certain environments. At the same time, the ordering of its low-vowel deletion rule with respect to a rule deleting final vowels differs from that found in a number of other Oceanic subgroups (Blust 1996a, b). In this paper, I examine the development of POC consonants, vowels, and morpheme structure in South Efate. I will also from time to time use Proto--Eastern Oceanic (PEOC) or Proto--North-Central Vanuatu (PNCV) reconstructions--especially in those cases where a POC protophoneme has few reflexes. [2] In his survey of the Efate dialects, Clark (1985) pays attention to the development of certain phonemes, but mainly from a Proto-Efate stage. In addition, as a result of recent work by Thieberger, there is now more data than were available to Clark--at least for the Erakor dialect. 2. RELEVANT FEATURES OF SOUTH EFATE. South Efate has the following consonant phonemes (written phonemically rather than in the standard orthography): (1) [k.sub.p] p t k f s [[LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].sub.m] m n [LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 1 r [[LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].sub.r] w [k.sub.p] and [[LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].sub.m] are labiovelars coarticulated with initial velar followed by labial closure (Thieberger 1997:5), while [n.sub.r] is a prenasalized trill. Vowel phonemes are e a o u. Vowel length seems to be distinctive and is written by doubling the vowel. Like most Central Vanuatu languages, South Efate shows root-initial consonant alternation in some verbs. …

Compound Case Markers in Australian Languages

In several Australian languages, it is possible for nominals to carry more than one inflectional case marker. This can be due to adnominal multiple case where two or more cases are assigned to a nominal. This type has been known as Suffixaufnahme. The recent book Double Case (Plank 1995) gives a good survey of this topic (including data from Australian languages). A further possibility is derivational multiple case (compound cases). Here a case marker forms an oblique stem (founding form) that may attract further case markers. The use of a ligative (ease spacing) can be seen as an interesting mixture of (adnominal) double case and compound case. This paper presents the results of a pilot study that includes several languages from the Pama-Nyungan and the Tangkic family. 1. INTRODUCTION. A good survey of multiple case in Australian languages is given in Dench and Evans 1988. Following a classification proposed in Austin 1995, three situations can be distinguished where multiple case may occur. The present paper is a pilot study of a special type of multiple case marking, namely, compound cases. In many Australian languages, a certain [CASE.sub.1] that the nominal X already be marked for [CASE.sub.2], so that the pattern X-[CASE.sub.2]-[CASE.sub.1] is found. We give an example from Kalkatungu. Here we find matyumpa 'kangaroo', matyumpathu 'kangaroo + ERG', and matyumpathu[LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]u 'kangaroo + CAUS'. The causal suffix -[LANGUAGE CHARACTER NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]u requires that the noun be marked by the ergative suffix -thu. The most common situations seem to be the following (more details are given in section 4): (1) The outer [CASE.sub.1] is a local case. (2) The inner [CASE.sub.2] is a local case, or a case genitive/dative, or an oblique case. (3) In some languages th ere is a split for only some nominals does [CASE.sub.1] require [CASE.sub.2], while for others it does not. (4) For pronouns it seems to be the rule that several cases require an oblique stem that is related to the genitive or dative form. In section 2, a brief account is given on the three major subtypes of multiple case marking: derivational, adnominal, and referential. Some first examples of derivational case (= compound cases) are included. The following case-marking patterns within the noun phrase may be distinguished. A language is called phrase-marking if the case marker is attached to some word of the noun phrase. There are three subtypes: final-marking (the last word of the NP is marked for case), head-marking (the head of the NP is marked for case), and free marking (any word of the NP may be marked for case). A language is called word-marking if all words in the NP are marked for case. The use of a ligative (case spacing in Dench and Evans 1988) is mentioned as occurring in each language in the sample. It is noted that, in the languages in the sample, pronouns distinguish two or three case forms to express the core relations S, A, and O, and typically use an oblique stem as a founding form for other cases. To mak e the appearance of compound cases less exotic, examples from Estonian and Slovak are discussed briefly. No attempt is made to extend this study further beyond Australian languages, although compound cases are to be found in Uralic, Caucasian, Dravidian, and other languages. Section 3 is the main part of the present study. The result of a search based on a sample of 20 Australian languages is presented. These languages are Anguthimri, Diyari, Djabugay, Djapu, Gumbaynggir, Guugu Yimidhirr, Kalkatungu, Madhimadhi, Margany/Gunya, Mbabaram, Ngiyambaa, Nyawaygi, Panyjima, Pitta-Pitta, Uradhi, Wargamay, Watjarri, Yankunytjatjara, Yaygir, and Yukulta The location of the languages reveals some regional features, but further investigation is needed to reach conclusions on areal diffusion or genetic relationship. …

Coping with Accelerated Capital Flows from the Globalization of Financial Markets

The usual response to the tremendous increase in international capital flows to the emerging markets in the last two' decades is an optimistic one because this development allows the poorer economies to accelerate their development by borrowing more from abroad. As long as the investment yields a return rate that is higher than the loan rate, the borrower is better off. The fact that private capital has come to account for an increasing share of capital flows increases the probability that the preceding condition holds. However, the Asian financial crisis, that started with the devaluation of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997, has caused a reconsideration of the optimistic view about the globalization of financial markets. It is possible that the widespread acceleration of capital account liberalization in the last decade has introduced a very high degree of volatility into international capital movements. The greatly increased volatility may have rendered capital flows to be an important new negative shock to the world economy, especially to the developing economies because of their shallow financial markets. Some observers have hence argued for a halt in financial market integration. However, many other observers have interpreted the recent sharp reversal of capital flows in Asia to be the result and not the cause of the economic collapse in these countries. Economic fundamentals, it is argued, had deteriorated significantly under the crony capitalism practised in these countries, and the large capital outflows were the sensible economic response to this development. The correct response to the Asian financial crisis should therefore be focussed on the reform of the domestic economy, and to continue to keep the capital account open. Obviously, what should be done to avoid future financial crises depends on the diagnosis of the present Asian financial crisis. To anticipate our analysis, we conclude that the process of international integration of financial markets should be continued even though capital account shocks were the most important cause of the Asian financial crisis. We can reduce the cost of external financial shocks by reforming international institutions and coordinating international actions on several financial practices to reduce the occurrence of financial crises, and by restructuring the domestic economy to strengthen it against financial crises. I. Opposite Movements in Asian Default Premia In retrospect, only the collapse of the Thai baht could be argued to have been anticipated by the international financial markets. The basis of the preceding statement lies in that the interest rate linkage between the interest rate in country X on loans denominated in X's currency ([r.sub.x]) and the interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds ([r.sub.us]) can be decomposed as follows: [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] where [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] = interest rate on US$ loans borrowed by X's enterprises in the Eurocurrency market (Euromarket, for short). The two right hand side terms can be interpreted as follows: * ([MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) is the currency premium which is a function of, one, the penalty paid by X's enterprises that have no access to Euromarket loans; and, two, the premium charged to cover the devaluation risk of X's currency. * ([MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) is the default premium, commonly called the Eurobond spread, paid on Euromarket loans by X's enterprises. So, the movements in the Eurobond spread of a particular country indicate changes in the expectations of the international financial markets about the probability of default by enterprises in that country. The record indicates that, generally, there was growing optimism about the future of the emerging market economies up to the eve of the Asian financial crisis. …

Line-End Hyphenation as a Problem for Editors, with Case-Studies from De Quincey

'I had an idiotic hatred of hyphens in those days', wrote Tennyson in a note to 'Oenone', explaining his youthful preference for such unhyphenated forms as 'glenriver' and 'tendriltwine'.[1] Idiotic or not, his anathema would probably be echoed by most textual editors. For such a small and inconspicuous character, the hyphen causes a disproportionate amount of trouble. The situation is not improved by the fact that, historically speaking, the problematic aspects of the hyphen appear to have gone unnoticed until quite recently. As a result there is no body of editorial tradition as to how the various hyphen-related problems should be dealt with. Nor is historical information readily available to clarify questions that arise. Most reference books, bibliographies, and databases contain, under the heading 'Hyphen', either nothing or items of interest mainly to linguisticians and software designers.[2] Editors, accordingly, tend to deal with hyphenation problems on an ad hoc basis, as if confronting a difficulty no-one had ever faced before. Constantly reinventing the wheel is a process likely to produce, on the whole, fairly poor wheels. One purpose of this essay is to assemble some information about the hyphen and its quirks, in the hope of providing a focus around which greater knowledge and further thought may coalesce. The hyphen -- not to be confused with the long dash which follows this phrase -- is a character resembling a very short typographical rule, used either to join the parts of a compound, or to indicate that a word has been broken at a line-ending in the interests of justification. In this ambiguity lies its problematic nature. As its appearance suggests, the word hyphen is originally Greek, [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a contraction of [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ('under one'), an indication that what the hyphen joins is to be treated as a single entity; to be read, that is, as a compound and not as two separate words. The problems raised by the hyphen in classical manuscripts are not part of my present concern, and indeed the real difficulties begin only with the arrival of print; for (as implied above) the ambiguity of the hyphen arises from its use in justification. Sometimes it joins the parts of a compound (of a 'hyphenated compound', as we often say): linking two words each of which can stand alone but which are felt to be closely linked, and which may function, when linked, as a different part of speech. Thus, above, I used the compound 'hyphen-related'. A case only slightly different, also used above, is 'no-one', where the hyphen is used not just to link the words into a compound (for in some contexts 'no one' would risk ambiguity), but also to keep them graphically apart (one might well feel uncertain about how to pronounce 'noone' aloud, and the other theoretical alternative, 'noone', would be even more worrying). So much for the hyphenated compounds, as I shall call them for clarity. But the hyphen is also used to indicate that a word has been broken at the line-end. In modern typographical practice such breaking is normally done between major elements of the word: certainly between syllables, but where convenient between semantic units too. And when a line-end hyphen is found between elements that look as if they may be either parts of a single unbroken compound word, or the elements of a hyphenated compound, the problems begin. For when the passage is retyped or reset, the chances are that most of the line-end hyphens will no longer be at the ends of lines. Should they disappear, or should they be retained? In the modern period, line-end hyphenation is mainly a problem of printed texts for the simple reason that most people when writing by hand tend to avoid breaking words, and even hyphenated compounds, across line-endings. The inherent flexibility of handwriting makes this avoidance fairly easy. Of course cases of ambiguous line-end hyphenation occur; but look at any handwritten page of your own notes, or at a hand-written letter (if you still receive such things) and you are unlikely to see many line-end hyphens. …

Fuzzy Techniques of Pattern Recognition in Risk and Claim Classification

Introduction In 1961, Ellsberg presented the following paradox. An experiment was designed with two urns, each containing 100 balls, of which the first one was known to contain 50 red balls and 50 black balls, while no further information was given about the contents of the other urn. If asked to bet on the color of a ball drawn from one of the urns, most people were found indifferent as to which color they would choose no matter whether the ball was drawn from the first or the second urn. On the other hand, Ellsberg found that if people were asked which urn they would prefer to use for betting on either color, they consistently favored the first urn (no matter what color they were asked to bet on). What seems to be present in this experiment is the participants' perception of uncertainty. When we say the usual association is with probability. The Ellsberg paradox illustrates that some other form of uncertainty can indeed exist. Probability theory provides no basis for the outcome of the Ellsberg experiment. Klir and Folger (1988) analyze the semantic context of the term uncertain and arrive at the conclusion that there are two main types of uncertainty, captured by the terms and ambiguity. Vagueness is associated with the difficulty of making sharp or precise distinctions among objects. Ambiguity is caused by situations where the choice between two or more alternatives is unspecified. The basic set of axioms of probability theory originating from Kolmogorov, rests on the assumption that the outcome of a random event can be observed and identified with precision. Any vagueness of observation is considered negligible, or significant to the construction of the theoretical model. Yet one cannot escape the conclusion that forms of uncertainty represented by vagueness of observations, human perceptions, and interpretations, are missing from probabilistic models, which equate uncertainty with randomness (i.e., a sophisticated version of ambiguity). Several reasons may exist for wanting to search for models of a form of uncertainty other than randomness. One is that vagueness is unavoidable. Given imprecision of natural language, or human perception of the phenomena observed, vagueness becomes a major factor in any attempt to model or predict the course of events. But there is more. When the phenomena observed become so complex that exact measurement involving all features considered significant would be impossible, or longer than economically feasible for study, mathematical precision is often abandoned in favor of more workable simple, but vague, common sense models. Thus, complexity of the problem may be another cause of vagueness. These reasons were the driving force behind the development of the fuzzy set theory (FST). This field of applied mathematics has become a dynamic research and applications field, with success stories ranging from a fuzzy logic rice cooker to an artificial intelligence in control of Japan's Sendai subway system. The main idea of fuzzy set theory is to propose a model of uncertainty different from that given by probability, precisely because a different form of uncertainty is being modeled. Fuzzy set theory was created in Zadeh's (1965) historic article. To present this basic idea, recall that a characteristic function of a subset E of a universe of discourse U is defined as [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] In other words, the characteristic function describes the membership of an element X in a set E. It equals one if X is a member of E, and zero otherwise. Zadeh challenged the idea that membership in all sets behaves in the manner described above. One example would be the set of people. We consistently talk about the set of people, yet understand that the concept used is precise. A person who is 5'11 is tall only to a certain degree, and yet such a person is not tall. …

Greeks and Serbs during Their Struggles for Freedom, 1804-1830.

Journal Article [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 1804— 1830 Get access 111. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 1804— 1830. Greeks And Serbs During Their Struggles For Freedom, 1804–1830. By Michael Th. Laskaris. 1936. (Athens: Xenos. 8vo. 97 pp.) William Miller William Miller Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 15, Issue 4, July-August 1936, Page 619, https://doi.org/10.2307/2603718 Published: 01 July 1936