Potential Surface Effects Research Articles

Exploring Microvariation in Verb-Movement Parameters within Daco-Romanian and across Daco-Romance

This article reviews some of the principal patterns of morphosyntactic variation within Daco-Romanian and across Daco-Romance in support of a distinction between low vs high V-movement grammars variously distributed in accordance with diatopic variation (Daco-Romance: west vs east, Aromanian: north vs south), diachronic and diagenerational variation (Megleno-Romanian) and endogenous vs exogenous factors (Istro-Romanian). This approach, which builds on the insights of the Borer–Chomsky conjecture, assumes that the locus of parametric variation lies in the lexicon and the (PF-)lexicalization of specific formal feature values of individual functional projections, in our case the clausal heads T and v and the broad cartographic areas that they can be taken to represent. In this way, our analysis locates the relevant dimensions of (micro)variation among different Daco-Romance varieties in properties of T and v. In particular, we show that the feature values of these two heads are not set in isolation, inasmuch as parameters form an interrelated network of implicational relationships: the given value of a particular parameter entails the concomitant activation of associated lower-order parametric choices, whose potential surface effects may consequently become entirely predictable, or indeed render other parameters entirely irrelevant. In this way we can derive properties such as verb–adverb order, auxiliary selection, retention vs loss of the preterite, the availability of a dedicated preverbal subject position, the distribution of DOM, and the different stages of Jespersen’s Cycle across Daco-Romance quite transparently, based on the relevant strength of T and v in individual sub-branches and sub-dialects.

Analysis of a solid-on-solid type block model for particle redeposition in ion-beam erosionprocesses under normal incidence

In this paper we present and investigate a simple yet physically plausible solid-on-solid typeblock model for the redeposition of eroded particles during ion-beam erosion processesunder normal ion incidence. This model, which is based on a more general versionpresented in an earlier study, focuses on the very essential aspects of what one willcommonly associate with the redeposition of sputtered particles. Other potential surfaceeffects such as the Bradley–Harper mechanism are thus not taken account of. Additionally,the model is kept one-dimensional for reasons of simplicity. We introduce that model indetail, and then discuss its properties thoroughly. In particular, we show how todecouple the erosion and redeposition component in the formal description of theevolution process of the sputtered surfaces in order to derive a semi-analyticalcontinuum approximation for both the erosion and the redeposition subprocess.The latter is investigated at length, and eventually a connection is drawn to thenon-locally stabilized Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equation to discuss the potentialrole of particle redeposition as the physical origin of the damping term in thatequation.