Candidate Languages Research Articles

Taxonomy of Ogu nominal shift to Yoruba

Ogu has been experiencing nominal language shift among its speakers, through the agency of Yorubaization, from the turn of the 19th century. Yorubaization is the conversion of anything to more Yoruba norms, which may come in diverse forms such as names, language and other styles or character. Yorubaization of Ogu personal names to spellings and pronunciations that make them look and sound Yoruba, the domi- nant language in Southwestern Nigeria, has become a common trend among Ogu people, especially the adults. Studies on Yorubaization and even Anglicization, have focused mainly on reasons, effects, patterns and consequences. Such studies do not only suggest that distortion of names is a recent trend, but have also conceded its practice to young people in the main. This study, however reveals that Yorubaization has been a practice of Ogu people, a minority linguistic group in Southwestern Nigeria, since the turn of the 19th century and the trend is not only common among youths, but transference from adults, who have been involved in it, to their children. The study examines the precipitating circumstances that led to Ogu people denying their identity at a time when such practice was rare in Nigeria, with a view to assessing its impact on the affirmation of Ogu individual and group identity in a multilingual, multi ethnic setting. The research methodology, which was qualitative, employed the instruments of participant observation and key informant interviews (KII). A total of 20 family names that have been Yorubaized, across Lagos and Ogun States, were purposively collected. Data gathered were subjected to descriptive, and content analyses. Findings reveal that Yorubaization is a direct consequence of language shift fuelled by inferiority complex, shame and an attempt to deny self. The practice has further engendered language shift, which, in turn, has aggravated the minority status of Ogu people.

Residuality and Learning for Nondeterministic Nominal Automata

We are motivated by the following question: which data languages admit an active learning algorithm? This question was left open in previous work by the authors, and is particularly challenging for languages recognised by nondeterministic automata. To answer it, we develop the theory of residual nominal automata, a subclass of nondeterministic nominal automata. We prove that this class has canonical representatives, which can always be constructed via a finite number of observations. This property enables active learning algorithms, and makes up for the fact that residuality -- a semantic property -- is undecidable for nominal automata. Our construction for canonical residual automata is based on a machine-independent characterisation of residual languages, for which we develop new results in nominal lattice theory. Studying residuality in the context of nominal languages is a step towards a better understanding of learnability of automata with some sort of nondeterminism.

Semantic and Style Concepts in Mass Communication Content

The article examines the semantic and style concepts of the functioning of mass communication in modern conditions, determines their role and significance for the transfer of public information from the communicator to the recipient. The author, analyzing the semantics and stylistics of media texts of an outstanding communicative personality (well-known journalist E.E. Kish), (1) traces gradual changes in the author’s worldview and the associated transformation of the nominal language and style; (2) identifies creative resources strengthening the intention of a journalistic work and improving the perceptual effect in “Author” – “Audience”, (3) comments on the positions established in the theory of the press on the relationship of ideas and style in publishing and (4) gives professional lessons in figurative and logical mastery novice journalists.

A Brief Executive Language Screen for Frontal Aphasia.

Aphasia assessment tools have primarily focused on classical aphasia type and severity, with minimal incorporation of recent findings that suggest a significant role of executive control operations in language generation. Assessment of the interface between language and executive functions is needed to improve detection of spontaneous speech difficulties. In this study we develop a new Brief Executive Language Screen (BELS), a brief tool specifically designed to assess core language and executive functions shown to be involved in spontaneous generation of language. Similar to other measures of aphasia, the BELS assesses articulation and core language skills (repetition, naming and comprehension). Unique additions to the BELS include assessments of spontaneous connected speech, word fluency (phonemic/semantic) and sentence completion (verbal initiation, inhibition and selection). One-hundred and eight healthy controls and 136 stroke patients were recruited. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine construct validity and logistic regression was used to evaluate the discriminative validity, informing the final version of the BELS. The results showed that the BELS is sensitive for articulation and nominal language deficits, and it measures executive aspects of spontaneous language generation, which is a hallmark of frontal dynamic aphasia. The results have encouraging theoretical and practical implications.

Completeness and incompleteness in nominal Kleene algebra

Gabbay and Ciancia (2011) presented a nominal extension of Kleene algebra as a framework for trace semantics with statically scoped allocation of resources, along with a semantics consisting of nominal languages. They also provided an axiomatization that captures the behavior of the scoping operator and its interaction with the Kleene algebra operators and proved soundness over nominal languages. In this paper, we show that the axioms proposed by Gabbay and Ciancia are not complete over the semantic interpretation they propose. We then identify a slightly wider class of language models over which they are sound and complete.

Regular and context-free nominal traces

Two kinds of automata are presented, for recognising new classes of regular and context-free nominal languages. We compare their expressive power with analogous proposals in the literature, showing that they express novel classes of languages. Although many properties of classical languages hold no longer in the nominal case, we design a slight restriction of our models that preserve some interesting ones. In particular, we prove the emptiness problem decidable and we construct the intersection between (restricted) regular and context-free automata. By examples and walking through their properties we argue the relevance of our models in the context of the verification of resource usage patterns.

Banknoten als sprachenpolitisches Instrument

For modern states, multilingualism is not an exception, but the norm. Most states explicitly deal with the status of their languages through their (often rather sparse) legislation, while implicitly reflecting their policy through language use on official documents. Banknotes provide a link between the official policy and its common application, as they are both a document of the state as well as an object of daily use. Here, the state is responsible for bridging the gap between legislature, national identity and the (sometimes conflicting) selfconceptions of its citizens. Thus, banknotes ideally provide evidence on a state’s factual (rather than nominal) language policy. In addition, the textual and pragmatic functions of banknotes are not prone to change over time, which qualifies them as excellent sources for diachronic questions. This article exemplarily illustrates the language policies of Norway, the Faroe Islands, Belgium and Luxembourg, as seen from a sociohistorical perspective, with their respective note emissions during their newer language history (19th and 20th centuries). It closes with a proposal for a typology of different language policies.

Propositional speech in unselected stroke: The effect of genre and external support

Distinguished from nominal language, propositional language generation refers to the spontaneous and voluntary aspect of language that introduces novel concepts to a specific context. Propositional language can be impaired in a range of neurological disorders, including stroke, despite well-preserved nominal language. Although external support can increase speech rate in patients with reduced propositional speech, no specific investigation of propositional speech has been carried out in unselected stroke patients. The current study investigated propositional language in an unselected post-acute stroke group (N = 18) with mild cognitive impairment and prominent executive dysfunction, but without significant aphasia. Specifically, we investigated whether genre or external support affected the number of words, sentences, and novel ideas produced, compared to healthy controls (N = 27). Results showed that discourse genre was not associated with differential performances. By contrast, speech quantity increased without external support although, for stroke patients, speech novelty decreased. Overall, the novelty deficit in unselected stroke patients highlights the importance of assessing cognition and propositional speech. Our findings suggest that for stroke patients with mild cognitive deficits, including executive dysfunction, introducing external support improved speech quality but not quantity. Implications for both assessment and rehabilitation of social communication are discussed.

The functional activities manipulation and adaptation (FAMA) approach in cerebral palsy: a treatment proposal with emphasis on motor learning

There are different approaches used by physiotherapists in the treatment of cerebral palsy (CP), but the majorities are based on theoretical and conceptual knowledge gained from the development of motor control. This work aims to present an approach for the treatment of cerebral palsy based on the knowledge of motor learning. When determining the advancements in studies on motor learning and that such knowledge can somehow assist the physiotherapist in the organization of their clinical intervention, the idea arose of developing a treatment approach that is based on the use of this knowledge of motor learning in the treatment of CP. The Functional Activities Manipulation and Adaptation (FAMA) approach is a physiotherapeutic proposal in the treatment of CP that uses the nominal language of the ICF and, to arrange treatment, uses clinical experience with the best evidence available and the needs of the patient. Its main objective is to provide functionality for mobility, through the knowledge of motor learning, focusing on the classification of functional skills, structures and factors that influence practice. Motor learning is the greatest difference of the FAMA approach, where the knowledge acquired through motor learning seeks to organize the physiotherapy treatment for CP.

Why Japanese is different

A new theory of parametric variation is developed to explain certain differences between English and Japanese. Under a syntactic approach to derivational morphology, a fundamental hypothesis is proposed which states that Japanese is a ‘nominal language’, where all verbs are derived from nouns, and thus differs from English, where verbs and their nominal counterparts are derived from common roots in a parallel way. More specifically, it is argued that whereas in English verbs are derived by verbalization of simple roots, in Japanese they are derived by verbalization of nominalized roots. It is proposed that a parameter couched in terms of selectional relations between syntactic heads is responsible for the difference. It is shown that this parametric difference, coupled with syntactic principles, makes it follow that all Japanese nouns are non-θ-markers, which in turn explains unexpected properties related to the distribution of arguments in Japanese nominals. It is also shown that the proposed approach provides a simple account of the properties exhibited by lexical and null arguments in Japanese clauses that would otherwise remain mysterious.