Referential Categories Research Articles

Assessing motivations, benefits, and barriers of implementing virtual field experiences in geoscience-related disciplines

Outdoor field experiences have long been part of the traditional curriculum in geoscience-related disciplines and are considered a key aspect of professional development in these areas. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancelation of many field excursions around the world, geoscience departments were forced to make abrupt changes to the ways students would be introduced to field study. Virtual field experiences, which were often utilized prior to COVID-19 in a variety of ways, including preparation for in-person fieldwork, increasing student interest, and increasing student accessibility, were developed and employed as alternative options to in-person field experiences. This embedded mixed-methods study used open, hierarchical coding schemes with referential category structure to code open-ended survey responses from 89 department heads and 27 instructors in geoscience-related departments across the U.S. The study was aimed at better understanding acceptance and familiarity with VFEs, motivations for use, and the benefits and barriers encountered during development and implementation. Binary quantitative data was collected to identify institution type, familiarity with, and motivation for the use of VFEs. Opportunities for student diversity, inclusion, and access for students from historically underrepresented groups (BIPOC, disabled students, women, and LGBTQ + students) were the most immediate benefits recognized. The most often cited barriers were time, skills, and resources needed to create VFEs and put them to use. As VFEs have been utilized in a variety of ways before and during COVID-19, it has become increasingly necessary to discuss the roles they will play going forward in academic and professional geoscience-related spaces.

Revisiting the Hebrew Definite Article: A Reference Hierarchy Model

Abstract The presence of the article ha on Hebrew noun phrases has long been considered the signal for marking definiteness. Scholars have traditionally explained exceptional cases either within the category of definiteness or by genericity. Applying the cross-linguistically conceived ‘reference hierarchy model’ to ha-marked noun phrases in the Book of Judges has revealed that the article ha can also mark specificity, a referential category often associated with indefiniteness in the literature of Biblical Hebrew. In fact, many of Biblical Hebrew’s exceptions fall within this category. These exceptions display a pattern: the ha- marking for specificity is not determined by features within the noun phrase but rather outside of it. They are licensed by a small set of verb types, preposition and sentential moods.

A Comparative Functional Analysis of Discourse Markers in the Native and the Non-Native English Newspaper Business Corpus

Abstract The current study explores the functional nature of Discourse Markers (DMs) in the newspaper business corpus. DMs function as cohesive devices which, additionally, carry pragmatic and semantic meanings present in both the written and the spoken discourse. The focus of this study is to comparatively highlight the differences in the functions of DMs in the business discourse of the native and the non-native newspapers. The study has employed Fung’s (2003) multi-categorical comprehensive framework of DMs. The framework functionally divides DMs into interpersonal, cognitive, structural, and referential categories. These major categories have further been divided into many subcategories of DMs. Based on this comprehensive framework; the current study identifies different functional DMs and compares them for their quantitative and qualitative differences in use. For the analysis of this study, a corpus of one million words was collected from the native business newspapers (The Daily Mail and The Telegraph) and the non-native business newspapers (The Dawn, The Business Recorder, The Nation and Daily Times). Data analysis shows that the most frequently used functional categories of DMs among the native writers are referential and structural, while the least frequently used functional category is cognitive. On the other hand, non-native Pakistani writers make more use of functional DMs of referential, structural and cognitive categories, while the least frequently used functional category is interpersonal. This quantitative difference in the use of DMs makes the native business corpus more coherent and interactive than that of the non-native business corpus. It is expected that the findings of the study may help understand the differences of textuality in the native and the non-native newspaper corpus. It is also expected that the findings of the current study can assist curriculum developers and ESL instructors in developing better teaching materials for second language learners.

The Types of Discourse Markers in Joko Widodo’s Speeches in KTT APEC China in 2015

This study deals with the discourse marker in Joko Widodo’s Speeches in KTT APEC CHINA in 2015. This study attampted to investigate the domaint elements of Discourse Marker of Joko Widodo speeches in KTT APEC in CHINA 2015, the type and how discourse marker are coded in the president Joko Widodo specches in KTT APEC in CHINA 2015. The study was conducted by quantitative design. The data in this study were the vidio of JOKO widodo’s Speeches in KTT APEC in China 2015 which got 102 clauses from the vidio. The clauses were transcribed in order to be analyzed. In relation to the problems of the study, the purpose of the study is to find the types of discourse markers and to elaborate the reasons of occurrence of discourse markers used the speech based on situational context. And this research was using descriptive qualitative method. From the data analysis and findings, there were four categories from discourse markers found in Joko Widodo speeches they are interpersonal category, referential categories, structural category and cognitive category, and the dominant category found was cognitive category.Keywords: Discourse Markers, Speeches and Types, KTT APEC

The determinants of non-smokers’ opinions about increased health insurance rates for smokers

Abstract Background The rates of obligatory health insurance available to Polish citizens do not depend on their health behaviours. However, there are opinions suggesting that the rates should be increased for those who show risky health behaviours. This study aimed at the assessment of determinants of non-smokers' opinions about the introduction of increased health insurance rates for smokers. Methods The analysis was carried out on the data originating from the telephone-based survey on the representative sample of 1000 adult Polish citizens. Responses from non-smokers in the moment of the study were retrieved from the data set. A dichotomised variable derived from the item asking about the opinion about increased insurance rates for smokers was used as a dependent variable in uni- and multivariate logistic regression models. Sociodemographic characteristics, health status, prior use of health care resources, and history of smoking were included as independent variables. Results The study sample included 779 respondents; of them 60.1% (n = 471) never and 0.39.9% (n = 308) smoked in the past. There were 45.0% and 34.4% of supporters of higher rates in these subgroups. Increased insurance rates were supported by older respondents (OR, 95%CI: 1.01,1,001-1.03) and those with higher income (2.17, 1.27-3.70, and 2.23, 1.34-3.71, for the comparisons of two higher income categories with referential category of net income <1500 PLN). Past smokers (0.51, 0.36-0.74), Internet users (0.49, 0.27-0.90), respondents admitted to hospital in preceding year (0.57, 0.36-0.91), and those who reached higher levels of education (0.49, 0.29-0.84, and 0.50, 0.28-0.90 for comparisons between persons with higher levels of education with those with the lowest level) expressed an opposite view. Conclusions Not only earlier experience of tobacco smoking but also higher education level, prior hospital admission and Internet use are related to lack of the acceptance for increased health insurance rates. Key messages Determinants of opinions about increased insurance rates may be counterintuitive. The use of health services or higher education levels are not associated with the support of higher rates for smokers.

The reconstruction of discourse objects in Libras

This work analyses the referential process performed by a deaf subject in Brazilian Sign Language (BSL) when facing the anaphoric occurrence in a textual cut from Brazilian Portuguese. Therefore, the methodology implemented hereby has had a qualitative nature. A parallel corpus has been compiled using ELAN (EUDICO–Linguistic Annotator) and following the theories of Corpus Linguistics. From all the referential categories contemplated in BSL, the anaphoric deictic has been the most instrumental strategy for conducting the referential chain of the language, e.g. the construction of the referent at specific points in the signalling space.

Bodies, Women and Narratives: Imagining Corporealities and Genders

In this work we consider that bodies are individual, social and symbolic producers of discourses about identity. Through the exploration of the connections between bodies, gender meanings and sexualities, we aim to unveil the values and mean- ings of gender that we associate to feminine bodies; we also aim to analyze the referential categories for the configuration and interpretation of bodies and for our understandings of women's beauty and sensuality. For that purpose, we have used a gallery of images depicting women taken from different magazines. We use that gallery to elicit narratives on the images. The narratives we have worked with show that women's discourses are now merging traditional and non-traditional ideas about feminine bodies and sexualities that illustrate the way how we build, perform and interpret gender in its relation to embodiment, sexuality, and beauty canons.

From ‘Employab-ility’ to ‘Entrepreneurial-ity’ in Spain: youth in the spotlight in times of crisis

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the processes of individualisation of work and redefinition of the referential category of worker fostered by youth employability schemes in Spain. Employability measures proposed by the recent Spanish Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan and its antithetical youth representations (as a group ‘without qualities’ – the ‘NEETS’– while at the same time as a referential value and cultural model – ‘the young entrepreneur’-) will be analysed. These paradoxes strengthened by employability policies, and further aggravated in the wake of the current economic crisis, do not give rise to political contradictions due to the depolitisation promoted by employability policies: social problems are converted into individual deficits. These processes of psychologisation of work are further discussed on the basis of a recent study on employment counselling and career guidance to help to enhance the employability of jobless people in three Spanish cities, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. These tools are aimed at fostering employability of unemployed people with a high risk of social exclusion and are emblematic concerning the principle of employability (new governance tools, different intervention logics/principles). Some paradoxes concerning employability policies (entrepreneuriality) in the current labour market crisis will be outlined.

Indefinite Nominal Gerunds, or the Particularization of a Reified Event

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on nominal gerunds that combine verb-like semantics with the use of an indefinite article, as in Such reflection enables [a sharing of understandings]. The indefinite article in constructions like these is at first sight irreconcilable with the uncount status of the nominal gerund, and this gerund type has therefore tended to be either neglected or reduced to fully lexicalized (count) nouns. We argue that the use of the indefinite article is functionally motivated but cannot be captured in traditional referential categories, indefinite nominal gerunds being either specific, non-specific or generic and locating their referents in spatio-temporal, virtual or generic space. Instead, it is suggested, indefinite nominal gerunds impose a more schematic type of conceptualization on the event that is reified, that is they conceptualize it as a delineated event. The “particularized”, well-delineated event that indefinite nominal gerunds profile, it is shown, is either viewed directly, as a second-order entity, or the perspective that is taken is third-order, conceptualizing the event as an “idea”, “problem” or so forth. The delineation imposed by the indefinite article can be contextually supported by the syntactic function assumed by the indefinite nominal gerund, and/or through the use of lexical items.

Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement

AbstractApart from common cases of differential argument marking, referential hierarchies affect argument marking in two ways: (a) through hierarchical marking, where markers compete for a slot and the competition is resolved by a hierarchy, and (b) through co-argument sensitivity, where the marking of one argument depends on the properties of its co-argument. Here we show that while co-argument sensitivity cannot be analyzed in terms of hierarchical marking, hierarchical marking can be analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity. Once hierarchical effects on marking are analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity, it becomes possible to examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in exactly the same way as one can examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in cases of differential argument marking and indeed any other condition on alignment (such as tense or clause type). As a result, instances of hierarchical marking of any kind turn out not to present a special case in the typology of alignment, and there is no need for positing an additional non-basic alignment type such as “hierarchical alignment”. While hierarchies are not needed for descriptive and comparative purposes, we also cast doubt on their relevance in diachrony: examining two families for which hierarchical agreement has been postulated, Algonquian and Kiranti, we find only weak and very limited statistical evidence for agreement paradigms to have been shaped by a principled ranking of person categories.

The Relation of Switch-Reference, Animacy, and Obviation in Plains Cree

This paper offers a novel approach to the classical referential categories described for Plains Cree (Algonquian), paying particular attention to the notions of “animate obviative” and “inanimate obviative.” Based on the asymmetric morphological expression of these two proposed categories, I argue that the term “obviative” ought not to be applied equally to animate and inanimate, and that the grammatical category “inanimate obviative” is not relevant for Plains Cree. A compositional approach is developed instead, which demonstrates that the semantic and syntactic properties of “obviative” are predictable from the properties of the elements that construct them. So the grammatical category “obviative” is a property of constructions but not of particular morphosyntactic elements. I then consider the typological implications of this discussion, both for Algonquian and cross-linguistically.

At-Risk Phenotype of Neurofibromatose-1 Patients: A Multicentre Case-Control Study

ObjectivesTo assess associations between subcutaneous neurofibromas (SC-NFs) and internal neurofibromas in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF-1) and to determine whether the association between SC-NFs and peripheral neuropathy was ascribable to internal neurofibromas.Patients and methodsProspective multicentre case-control study. Between 2005 and 2008, 110 NF-1 adults having two or more SC-NFs were individually matched for age, sex and hospital with 110 controls who had no SC-NF. Patients underwent standardized MRI of the spinal cord, nerve roots and sciatic nerves and an electrophysiological study. Analyses used adjusted multinomial logistic regression (ORa) to estimate the risk of the presence of internal neurofibromas or peripheral neuropathies associated with patients presented 2 to 9 SC-NFs, at least 10 SC-NFs as compared to patients without any (referential category).ResultsCases had a mean age of 41 (± 13) years; 85 (80%) had two to nine SC-NFs and 21 (19%) at least ten SC-NFs. SC-NFs were more strongly associated with internal neurofibromas in patients with ten or more SC-NFs than in patients with fewer NF-SCs (e.g., sciatic nerve, aOR = 29.1 [8.5 to 100] vs. 4.3 [2.1 to 9.0]). The association with SC-NFs was stronger for diffuse, intradural, and > 3 cm internal neurofibromas than with other internal neurofibromas. Axonal neuropathy with slowed conduction velocities (SCV) was more strongly associated with having at least ten SC-NFs (aOR = 29.9, 5.5 to 162.3) than with having fewer SC-NFs (aOR = 4.4, 0.9 to 22.0). Bivariate analyses showed that the association between axonal neuropathy with SCV and sciatic neurofibromas was mediated by the association between SC-NFs and sciatic neurofibromas.ConclusionThe at-risk phenotype of NF-1 patients (i.e. NF-1 patients with SC-NFs) is ascribable to associations linking SC-NFs to internal neurofibromas at risk for malignant transformation and to axonal neuropathies with slowed conduction velocities. Axonal neuropathies with SCV are particularly common in patients with at least ten SC-NFs.Registration detailsORPHA86301

Chinese-type pro in a Romance-type null-subject language

Abstract In this paper, I analyze null subjects in absolute clauses (AC) in Spanish, comparing them to finite-clause null subjects and infinitival subjects. AC null subjects mostly pattern like finite-clause null subjects, but they cannot be identified by a rich inflection and they require a grammatically encoded antecedent (like some infinitival subjects). I propose that AC null subjects must be identified by a topic operator through the operation of AGREE, a matching operation between two categories in which one of them copies its values to the other. AC null subjects remain unvalued in their own clause, seeking an antecedent in the preceding clause through a mediating null topic in the absolute clause’s periphery. Finite-clause null subjects, on the other hand, are identified within their own clause by verbal morphology through the same AGREE mechanism. Two distinct ways of relating null subjects to discourse-antecedents are proposed, one for finite-clause subjects, one for absolute-clause subjects. By proposing a distinct discourse-identification process not mediated by rich agreement, this proposal opens the door to a unified theory of null referential categories, in which discourse-topic identification plays a central role.

Functional categories

Reviewed by: Functional categories Jürgen M. Meisel Functional categories. By Pieter Muysken. (Cambridge studies in linguistics 117). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. 297. ISBN 9780521619981. $45. The distinction between lexical and functional categories (FCs) is well established in linguistic theorizing and is couched in different theoretical frameworks, although under different labels (content words, referential categories, and so on versus function words, grammatical categories, empty categories, and the like). It gained particular importance in generative grammar when parameterized principles of universal grammar (UG) were argued to relate exclusively to functional categories, more specifically to the featural composition of functional heads (Borer 1984, Chomsky 1991). Under this assumption, FCs define the locus of parametric variation and play a crucial role in all types of grammatical variation and development, including crosslinguistic variation, language acquisition, and diachronic change. The particular importance of FCs for numerous [End Page 975] areas of linguistic research stands in stark contrast to the fact that there exists no broadly accepted consensus on their theoretical status. In fact, even the questions of which elements may justly be classified as functional, whether an identical set is instantiated in all human grammars, or whether a specific FC will consistently occupy the same position in clause structures across grammars, as well as related issues, are a matter of controversy. Interestingly, these disagreements reflect not merely theoretical dividing lines, as was to be expected, but they also persist among researchers following the same or similar theoretical approaches. The debate on the set of FCs specified by UG, for instance, illustrates the controversy: whereas Chomsky (2000) and others aim to drastically reduce their number in the minimalist framework, the ‘cartographic’ school (e.g. Cinque 2006) advocates finely grained structures that contain a considerable number of functional heads. A study of the status of FCs and their manifestations in typologically and genetically distinct languages, in language contact, and in historical change is therefore a desideratum in linguistic research. This is what Pieter Muysken sets out to do, and I cannot think of anyone more appropriate to tackle the challenges that such a task presents. On the one hand, he is highly respected by linguists who take different theoretical approaches (both functional and formal); on the other hand, he has made significant contributions to grammatical theory and more applied areas of linguistic research, most notably to the study of language contact phenomena. M has also carried out extensive empirical work on a variety of languages, including non-Indo-European ones like Quechua. He has precisely the profile required if one attempts to ‘provide an analytic survey of this topic’ from an ‘integrated cross-linguistic perspective’ (2). The volume comprises eighteen chapters, organized in four parts, preceded by an introduction and followed by conclusions. In the ‘Introduction’ (1–10), M starts with an intuitive definition of FCs. He argues that FCs do not represent a homogeneous group of categories and also mentions an ‘intermediate status’ between functional and lexical elements. This leads him to favor a gradient treatment of the functional/lexical distinction and to advocate a multidimensional approach. The concept of FCs is claimed to ‘lie at the interface of different representations—morpholexical, syntactic, phonological, and semantic’ (5), with its ‘roots’ in morphosyntax (7) since they account for the structural skeleton of clauses. Surprisingly, M refrains from giving an explicit definition of FCs and does not state explicitly which properties an element must have in order to be classified as an FC. Part 1,‘Grammar’, consists of four chapters that review treatments of FCs in various theoretical approaches to language and grammar, mainly in search of defining criteria for FCs. The survey begins in Ch. 2, ‘Functional categories and language typology’ (13–25), with a short presentation of the views held by Edward Sapir and Roman Jakobson, focusing subsequently on linguistic typology, before it finally assesses the contribution of ‘Theoretical syntax: The generative tradition’ in Ch. 5 (53–70). This discussion produces several sets of defining criteria and a growing list of FCs. The resulting picture becomes more complex when ‘Lexical, morphological, and phonological dimensions of functional categories’ are taken into account in Ch. 3 (26–41) and when aspects of ‘Semantics and pragmatics...

Quantifier position in Japanese and the domain of specificity and indefiniteness

Abstract It has been noted that the variation in syntactic positioning of quantity expressions in Japanese - the pre-nominal construction and the NP-external construction - reflects different referential domains of the quantified entities (Martin 1975, Inoue 1978, Okutsu 1986, Downing 1996). The distinction between definiteness/indefiniteness as well as the notion of specificity have been used to explain the behavioral patterns of quantity expressions. However, due to the lack of a clearly defined framework that illuminates the relationship between the two separate referential categories of definiteness/indefiniteness and specificity/non-specificity, previous studies could not offer a coherent account of why the two constructions sometimes yield contrasting definite and indefinite readings, sometimes become synonymous, and sometimes allow slight differences in nuance. Using a framework that illuminates the relationship between the two referential categories, this study re-analyzes the observations made in previous studies and ascertains the referential characteristics of the two quantifier constructions. It suggests that the pre-nominal construction and NP-external construction do not express opposing domains of one referential category, but instead express one of the domains of two independent categories of referentiality, i.e. the domains of specificity and indefiniteness respectively. This study also discerns the referential meanings expressed by the constructions themselves from contextually derived meanings.

Triggering and blocking effects in the diachronic development of DOM in Romanian

According to recent studies, the diachronic development of differential object marking (DOM) in Romance is expected to start from elements high on the definiteness scale and spread steadily to elements low on the definiteness scale, whereby each development step is facilitated by fine-grained semantic distinctions which act as triggering conditions (cf. von Heusinger and Kaiser 2005). In Romanian the expected line of development can be observed until the 19th century, however this unidirectional evolution is surprisingly reversed around the 19th‐20th century: the conditions for the marking of indefinite direct objects with the preposition pe are more restrained today than two centuries ago. In this study we present the diachronic development of DOM in Romanian based on a diachronic corpus consisting of Bible translations from different centuries. We shall contend that the transition of DOM from one referential category to another, such as from proper names to definite NPs and from definite NPs to indefinite NPs is enabled by some distinction in the category DOM is spreading to. For instance in 16th century Romanian DOM spreads to definite NPs such that first NPs having a strong unique interpretation get pe-marked while other definite NPs receive DOM only in a later step involving the neutralization of this transitory distinction. However, Romanian data show that such a fine-graded distinction may not only occur in the category DOM is spreading to but also inside of referential categories already pe-marked. In this case

White natures: Sydney's Royal Agricultural Show in post‐humanist perspective

Few events perform so ritualistically the triumphal narrative of human ingenuity and agency over the natural world, as the metropolitan displays of produce and machinery known as agricultural shows. The Royal Agricultural Show held in Sydney (Australia) is a case in point. Since the 1890s those liminal forms, of Herefords, hay, harvesters and the like that spill over the categories we think of as culture and nature, have been annually assembled. In the showground, they were made to stand as testimony to the successful march of ‘civilization’ to the colony of New South Wales – with civilization conceived, in European and humanist terms, as a spatialized progression out of an animal‐baseline in nature, through an agrarian garden, to the evolved space of the City. This was the trajectory that had long since been presumed to mark out the life of humanity from all other life‐forms that simply lived. Rather than reinscribe the privilege of that partial perspective, I use the New South Wales agricultural society and its Sydney show's ‘white natures’ to think across the referential categories of humanity and nature. By critically juxtaposing the Show's hybrid things with its dramatizations of human invention and ingenuity, the article opens cracks in the normativities of civilization that shaped the conviction of ‘the human’ as the being who transcends the merely natural. In so doing, the article also offers a fresh line of critique of those pernicious hierarchies that have, and continue to assign, premodern people and livelihoods to an anterior developmental space.

An etholinguistic analysis of mother-child discourse at 30 months

Ethological models of social development stress that diversity in early experience induces stylistic variation in patterns of early communication. Variation in children's speech was examined in a sample of 44 French-speaking mother–child dyads, filmed at home during semi-structured play when the children were 30 months of age. Eight speech act categories were used to describe the language of both partners. In addition, measures of the relative use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, as well as child mean length of utterance were tabulated from transcribed verbal exchanges. Cluster analyses of relative frequency of speech acts revealed five sub-groups of children with distinct speech profiles. Three clusters differed on referential categories of speech and two clusters were distinguished on affective expressive dimensions. Expressive children had a more diversified lexicon. Mothers of referential children spoke most often using predominantly descriptive statements and attention requests. In contrast, mothers of expressive children asked for descriptive information more often and used more playful expressive speech. The typological analysis of individual differences in early communication provides a complement to normative assessments of developmental milestones in language acquisition. Such an approach provides the possibility of integrating psycholinguistic studies of language acquisition with ethological concerns about processes shaping early behavioral development.

On noun phrase architecture, referentiality, and article systems

Some languages have articles, others have not. This article argues that semantically equivalent noun phrases have the same underlying phrase structure across languages, no matter whether articles exist or not. The core idea is that functional categories are abstract syntactic heads correlated with specific referential categories. Presence vs. absence of a functional category determines whether or not its particular referential properties are found on the noun phrase. The functional heads are found universally and are a part of Universal Grammar, but since they are abstract, they must be ‘identified’: Identification is accomplished when an element with the relevant morphological features is merged within the functional head projection. When the numeration contains several candidates for identification, the one with the highest number of relevant morphological features (with particular qualifications) is chosen. Crucially, articles are on principle available as potential identifiers, and languages that have articles must therefore use them if they are more appropriate identifiers than any of the elements in a given numeration. Having no semantic properties of their own, articles become specialized identifiers for particular functional categories. This theory, Identification Theory, captures important traits of the article systems of various languages, notably those of English, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Mainland Scandinavian, and Northern and Northeastern Swedish ‘O¨sterbotten’ dialects.

Fictionality as a Pragmatic and Referential Category

This article proposes an account of fictionality within a framework of pragmatics and referential semantics, by addressing the prototypical case of literary narrative. As a start, two major conceptualizations will be described, a referential one and, respectively, a pragmatic one, and then the role of both pragmatic and referential factors in determining the nature of this category will be assessed.