text:
> SCV BOYS & GIRLS CLUB
10th Annual Benefit Auction Catalog.
Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clarita Valley.
10th annual Santa Clarita Valley Boys & Girls Club Benefit Auction catalog.
Venue: California Institute of the Arts
Theme: Mardi Gras
Number of Items Listed: 32 live, 367 silent
Chair: Arthur N. Briner
1981 Club Snapshot:
The Santa Clarita Valley Boys' & Girls' Club welcomes you to its 10th Annual Benefit Auction. It is through your concern and generosity that this youth guidance organization is able to deliver services to the young boys and girls of this area. We wish you a highly enjoyable evening and hope that you continue to help us by bidding generously on the auction items.
The S.C.V. Boys' & Girls' Club is a youth Development Organization dedicated to promoting the health, social, educational, vocational and character development of Boys and Girls. It aims to help young people improve their lives by building self-esteem and developing values and skills during critical periods of growth. As part of a national network of similar organizations affiliated with Boys Club of America, we must adhere to national requirements and standards. These mandatory requirements and voluntary standards are broad enough, however to allow us to adapt our programs and services to meet the needs of the Santa Clarita Valley.
The most inclusive club in the valley, the Boys and Girls Club provides daily activities at 6 different program sites. Conveniently located on school grounds, the club is within easy walking distance for a large number of children. The well-rounded program includes, Social Recreation, Co-ed Sports Leagues, Arts & Crafts and Special Events. Frequent trips and camp-outs are planned for weekends. The program operates during after school and evening hours when youngsters are best able to attend.
The Boys and Girls Club employs a professional staff who are trained in the Boys Club philosophy of providing informal guidance through individual and small group experiences. By recognizing and responding to the restless energies, curiosity, and youthful quest for "something to do" the Boys and Girls Club gives youngsters a chance to improve their lives by allowing them to develop values and skill during critical periods of growth.
In October of 1981, construction on the first of 3 permanent Boys and Girls Club facilities began at Emblem School. The 2400 square foot ultra-modern structure is expected to double our capacity to serve youngsters in the area of Bouquet Canyon. Similar facilities in Canyon Country and Valencia, projected for the near future, will result in a similar increase in activities for the youth of those communities. Enthusiastic support of the Benefit Auction coupled with generous contributions from local industry has made your Boys and Girls Club, an organization. On the Threshold of a Dream.
About the SCV Boys & Girls Club
By Carolina Kelly
Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clarita Valley
Santa Clarita was a small collection of housing tracts and strip malls in 1968. Although separated from the great L.A. "megalopolis" by a range of rolling hills, the residents were not immune to the tragedies that took place in Los Angeles and Memphis that year. The country had scarcely recovered from the shock of President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination, only to be stunned by the 1968 murders of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy. Adding to the national angst was the fierce fighting in Vietnam, which was claiming about 300 American lives each week.
Fortunately for the country, there were some bright spots on the 1968 landscape — the U.S. dominated the Mexico Olympics winning 45 gold medals to the Soviets 29; technological gadgets were enriching the average person's daily life; and young mothers were rejoicing over the introduction of "The Epidural," an anesthetic which eased the pain of childbirth.
On the local scene, there was also a reason for rejoicing. The children and teens of the Newhall-Saugus area were about to get a much-needed recreational boost. Young families, who had flocked to the area to take advantage of its low-priced housing, had discovered a cruel reality — most developers had peppered the area with large tracts of houses leaving little more than passive pocket parks to appease the exuberance of the homeowners' children. The four elementary school districts were among the first to sound the alarm of neglected "latch-key" children, and bored youngsters using neighbors' yards as baseball fields and bike paths.
Current Valencia resident George Pederson was a sergeant working at the L.A. County Sheriff's Newhall office when Sheriff Peter Pitchess demanded some solutions to the area's recreational void. Pederson was directed by Captain Joe Engar to make contact with Larry Margolis and Herb Oberman of the Department of Social Services. The three men were charged with the responsibility of assembling community leaders to create an agency that would supply adult-supervised recreational activities for youngsters 7-18. What seemed a fairly straightforward task turned out to be anything but. After exhaustive study, it was deemed that an affiliation with the Boys Clubs of America would be a good first step.
Margolis, Oberman and Pederson next organized a board of directors seeking men with organizational skills like school superintendent Dr. Jim Foster; the business acumen of entrepreneurs like Ed Bolden, Tony Marincola, and Stan Dyer; the energy of restaurant owner Bill Kohlmeier; the salesmanship of insurance man Jack Boyer; and the P.R. skills of Signal publisher Jon Newhall and Newhall Land's Larry Wade.
The board members set up quarters in a small vacant church at the corner of 6th Street and Newhall Avenue, across from Hart Park, and they called themselves the "Boys Club of Newhall-Saugus." The group discovered that becoming a chartered club of the national agency was the easy part — the challenge would be to secure enough money not only to build a recreational facility, but to keep it running. The men went to the most obvious source of charitable dollars at that time, Tom Lowe, president of the Newhall Land and Farming Company. Lowe gave the new board members two things: a large pallet of bricks to help them with a new building, and their first-ever grant — $24,000 that he secured from the San Francisco-based Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation, payable at $8,000 per year for three years. The annual pledge would have to be matched by the Boys Club board, and the directors would need to find a way of turning the bricks into a building. The two tasks presented formidable challenges, but they were enthusiastically tackled under the leadership of charter president Bill Kohlmeier, and newly hired executive director, Al Vierra.
The pallet of bricks languished in a storage yard while fund-raising efforts took center stage. The board's initial benefit was a community luau held at River's End recreational park in Soledad Canyon. Chairman George Pederson helped dig a pit to roast the traditional luau pig, and Reverend Sam Dixon of Val Verde cooked gourmet side dishes for the 100 guests who attended the event. The colorful affair raised close to $1,000. However, the time and effort expended in the effort made the board face facts — the all-male organization needed a woman's touch.
With the help of Signal editors Ruth and Scott Newhall, a 1970 luncheon was organized at the couple's Piru Mansion. Twelve community matrons carpooled to the home to be regaled with food and inspiration then challenged to organize a Women's Auxiliary of the Newhall-Saugus Boys Club. Before leaving the mansion, a group was formed and Old Orchard I resident Jacque Morse became the president. Jacque would be aided in the quest to fill the Boys Club coffers by her vice president in charge of fund-raising, Newhall resident Linda Pedersen.
The small, but determined group of women became the club's fund-raising front line, decorating and organizing everything from dances to luaus with a Lake Tahoe Casino Night thrown in for good measure. The auxiliary's value to the club was such that in 1971, the officers became its first women board members. The women's influence on the board, coupled with a scarcity of organized recreation in the valley, made it inevitable that the club would expand its membership to include girls. Although not fully sanctioned by Boys Clubs of America, the umbrella organization didn't object when the club added the name "girls" to its title.
This new designation meant added growth in club membership. At the same time, budgetary constraints meant that the dream of a large central facility had to be abandoned for more cost-effective "satellites" utilizing the physical facilities of neighborhood schools. Emblem, Skyblue Mesa, Honby, and Valley View elementary schools became the flagships for the club's after-school programming. (The 80s would later mark such milestones as the construction of a 3,000 sq. ft. modular building at Emblem in 1980; the long-awaited opening of a club in Val Verde in 1981; and the establishment of a 3,000-sq.-ft. facility at Sierra Vista Junior High in 1981. The Haunted Jailhouse, a collaboration between the Boys and Girls Club, the city of Santa Clarita, the Sheriff's Dept. and other agencies added another programming element in 1989 (which doubled as a fund-raiser).
Satellite programs not only served the valley's far-flung communities, but also helped bring recreational opportunities to children who did not have access to transportation (either private or public). As the recreational programs doubled, the need to fund them tripled. With the annual $8,000 pledge from Newhall Land coming to an end, the club needed a quick, reliable source of "big money," something more than luaus and dances could supply.
In 1972, a two-pronged attack was launched under new executive director Bob Ross and directors Herb Oberman and Larry Margolis. The first, securing United Way support, was aided by a grass-roots letter-writing campaign and visits to the downtown L.A. agency by board members like Newhall Land's Tom Lee, Saugus School's Jim Foster, and the women on the Board. Margolis and Oberman asked Signal general manager Tony Newhall to lead the second prong of attack — an innovative fund-raising phenomenon dubbed "The Auction of Thrills."
Newhall's endless supply of creativity, coupled with hours of volunteer support from auction committee members like Hal Carr, Deputy Bob Rollins, Jacque Morse and Linda Pedersen led to a compilation of such unusual items as the chance to drive a car in the Saugus Speedway Demolition Derby, quarterbacking a few scrimmage plays with the College of the Canyons' football team, a ride in The Goodyear Blimp, a street named after you, and lunch with L.A. County Supervisor Warren Dorn. That first auction, held in 1972 at The Ranch House Inn, raised an unprecedented $5,300. The large turnout, over 300 guests, was credited to the ticket-selling talents of social maven Bobbie Trueblood — no one could say "no" to Bobbie.
The auction "fired" the community's enthusiasm and soon became "The Social Event" of every year, packing its new venue, the CalArts main gallery, with crowds that reached over 1,000 and continually raised the bar on net income. In 1976, chair Rick Stephens chose a "Bicentennial" theme and raised $37,500. In 1980, under the chairmanship of HR Textron's Sam Garcia, the "Showboat" themed auction was the first to break the $100,000 mark; and the highest net to date came in 2005 when co-chairs Don & Cheri Fleming chaired the Disco Inferno auction, which earned $527,507.
The annual successes of The Auction, along with United Way support enabled successive board presidents and executive directors to expand programs and membership — that organizational growth was being paralleled by valley-wide growth. Not only were housing tracts proliferating, the Valencia Industrial Center was adding a new "corporate" presence to the Santa Clarita Valley.
That corporate presence created a profound change in the make-up of the board. New and larger corporate donations began augmenting United Way and Auction funding. To meet the challenge of coordinating the diverse recreational programs with the new fund-raising resources, executive director Jim Ventress was brought aboard in 1985. Ventress proved to be the perfect leader to take the club into the 21st Century.
The residential and corporate growth of the '80s and '90s made the dream of a central facility a reality. Familiar corporate leaders like Tom Lee, Dick Keysor, Tom Veloz, Gary Condie, John Reardon, and Tom Dierckman joined forces with educational and political facilitators like Hart District Superintendent Robert Lee, Dr. Clyde Smyth, and Howard "Buck" McKeon to oversee campaigns that resulted in the 1992 opening of the first Central Facility next to Hart High on Newhall Avenue, and the full-service Canyon Country Facility on the Sierra Vista Junior High campus in 2003. (It does not appear that the original pallet of bricks, donated in 1968, was ever used and there is a tongue-in-cheek reward being offered by some of the "old" board members to discover whatever became of them.)
It's almost impossible to comprehend the speed with which the club has grown in 40 years. What started as a bare-bones recreational outlet, established in 1968 by educators, bankers, small businessmen, lawmen, and clergy, has grown and matured exponentially. Today, the SCV Boys and Girls Club is a vital, valley-wide agency offering far more than recreational programs to more than 3,000 boys and girls throughout our valley.
Through the efforts of 40 hard-working boards of directors, the club sites have become beehives of activities, spawning everything from after-school tutoring to educational scholarships to sports and chess tournaments to computer laboratories to gang-prevention resources. The multi-faceted agency has evolved to meet the diverse needs of Santa Clarita Valley youngsters and teens utilizing corporate input, new sources of funding, and guidance from the many community leaders saluted in this program booklet. Obviously, there are far more people and events contributing to this legacy than can be mentioned in this humble essay.
Download individual pages here. Donated by Tony Newhall.
SCV BOYS & GIRLS CLUB
Newsmaker: Jim Ventress 2004
1972 Auction (First)
1973 Auction
Snow Day 1/4/1974
Ruth Newhall Tribute Dinner 1993


text:
Q: Anaconda Prompt finds libraries, cmd -> Python doesn't. Python was only installed with Anaconda package, nothing else I'm not sure what's going on here. I installed Python with Anaconda, there are no previous versions of Python installed. Everything works fine with Spyder, Jupyter Notebooks, or within Anaconda prompt itself. When I try to run numpy or pandas in cmd, I get an error. When I run them in Anaconda prompt, no issue.

Looks like both prompts are pointing to the exact same installation of Python. I've even ran python.exe from the Anaconda install folder and get the same error.
My Environment Variable path points to C:\Anaconda , where the python.exe is found. Any ideas as to what's going on?
Edit: I noticed I import numpy on the conda screenshot and I'm trying to import numpy on the cmd screenshot. Importing either pandas or numpy on conda loads it successfully.
Edit 2: Opening python.exe within the Anaconda folder gives the same output. Can't import numpy/pandas. Opening Anaconda Navigator -> base (root) -> Open with Python successfully imports numpy/pandas. How can the python.exe within Anaconda not detect libraries installed by Anaconda... yet running Python within Anaconda Navigator works?
Edit 3: SOLVED Ended up uninstalling and reinstalling both Pandas and Numpy through Anaconda prompt. Really odd but now both packages work regardless if I use Conda prompt or cmd.

A: Try upgrading the pip first and then try to uninstall if they are already present in the below order.
pip uninstall pandas
pip uninstall numpy
pip install pandas
pip install numpy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics
Oxford Research Encyclopedias Linguistics
Biology of Language
Language Families/Areas/Contact
Linguistic Theories
Neurolinguistics
Phonetics/Phonology
From: 20152016201720182019
To: 20152016201720182019
Exact year: 20152016201720182019
Biology of Language (1)
Cognitive Science (16)
Computational Linguistics (10)
Historical Linguistics (32)
History of Linguistics (20)
Language Families/Areas/Contact (79)
Linguistic Theories (42)
Morphology (71)
Neurolinguistics (3)
Phonetics/Phonology (57)
Pragmatics (23)
Psycholinguistics (28)
Semantics (52)
Sign Languages (3)
Sociolinguistics (28)
You are looking at 21-40 of 244 articles
Bilingualism and Multilingualism from a Socio-Psychological Perspective
Tej K. Bhatia
Bilingualism/multilingualism is a natural phenomenon worldwide. Unwittingly, however, monolingualism has been used as a standard to characterize and define bilingualism/multilingualism in ... More
Bilingualism/multilingualism is a natural phenomenon worldwide. Unwittingly, however, monolingualism has been used as a standard to characterize and define bilingualism/multilingualism in linguistic research. Such a conception led to a "fractional," "irregular," and "distorted" view of bilingualism, which is becoming rapidly outmoded in the light of multipronged, rapidly growing interdisciplinary research. This article presents a complex and holistic view of bilinguals and multilinguals on conceptual, theoretical, and pragmatic/applied grounds. In that process, it attempts to explain why bilinguals are not a mere composite of two monolinguals. If bilinguals were a clone of two monolinguals, the study of bilingualism would not merit any substantive consideration in order to come to grips with bilingualism; all one would have to do is focus on the study of a monolingual person. Interestingly, even the two bilinguals are not clones of each other, let alone bilinguals as a set of two monolinguals. This paper examines the multiple worlds of bilinguals in terms of their social life and social interaction. The intricate problem of defining and describing bilinguals is addressed; their process and end result of becoming bilinguals is explored alongside their verbal interactions and language organization in the brain. The role of social and political bilingualism is also explored as it interacts with individual bilingualism and global bilingualism (e.g., the issue of language endangerment and language death).
Other central concepts such as individuals' bilingual language attitudes, language choices, and consequences are addressed, which set bilinguals apart from monolinguals. Language acquisition is as much an innate, biological, as social phenomenon; these two complementary dimensions receive consideration in this article along with the educational issues of school performance by bilinguals. Is bilingualism a blessing or a curse? The linguistic and cognitive consequences of individual, societal, and political bilingualism are examined.
Biolinguistics
Cedric Boeckx and Pedro Tiago Martins
All humans can acquire at least one natural language. Biolinguistics is the name given to the interdisciplinary enterprise that aims to unveil the biological bases of this unique ... More
All humans can acquire at least one natural language. Biolinguistics is the name given to the interdisciplinary enterprise that aims to unveil the biological bases of this unique capacity.
Blending in Morphology
Natalia Beliaeva
Morphology, Phonetics/Phonology, Semantics
Blending is a type of word formation in which two or more words are merged into one so that the blended constituents are either clipped, or partially overlap. An example of a typical blend ... More
Blending is a type of word formation in which two or more words are merged into one so that the blended constituents are either clipped, or partially overlap. An example of a typical blend is brunch, in which the beginning of the word breakfast is joined with the ending of the word lunch. In many cases such as motel (motor + hotel) or blizzaster (blizzard + disaster) the constituents of a blend overlap at segments that are phonologically or graphically identical. In some blends, both constituents retain their form as a result of overlap, for example, stoption (stop + option). These examples illustrate only a handful of the variety of forms blends may take; more exotic examples include formations like Thankshallowistmas (Thanksgiving + Halloween + Christmas). The visual and audial amalgamation in blends is reflected on the semantic level. It is common to form blends meaning a combination or a product of two objects or phenomena, such as an animal breed (e.g., zorse, a breed of zebra and horse), an interlanguage variety (e.g., franglais, which is a French blend of français and anglais meaning a mixture of French and English languages), or other type of mix (e.g., a shress is a type of clothes having features of both a shirt and a dress).
Blending as a word formation process can be regarded as a subtype of compounding because, like compounds, blends are formed of two (or sometimes more) content words and semantically either are hyponyms of one of their constituents, or exhibit some kind of paradigmatic relationships between the constituents. In contrast to compounds, however, the formation of blends is restricted by a number of phonological constraints given that the resulting formation is a single word. In particular, blends tend to be of the same length as the longest of their constituent words, and to preserve the main stress of one of their constituents. Certain regularities are also observed in terms of ordering of the words in a blend (e.g., shorter first, more frequent first), and in the position of the switch point, that is, where one blended word is cut off and switched to another (typically at the syllable boundary or at the onset/rime boundary). The regularities of blend formation can be related to the recognizability of the blended words.
Franz Rainer
History of Linguistics, Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Psycholinguistics, Syntax
Blocking can be defined as the non-occurrence of some linguistic form, whose existence could be expected on general grounds, due to the existence of a rival form. *Oxes, for example, is ... More
Blocking can be defined as the non-occurrence of some linguistic form, whose existence could be expected on general grounds, due to the existence of a rival form. *Oxes, for example, is blocked by oxen, *stealer by thief. Although blocking is closely associated with morphology, in reality the competing "forms" can not only be morphemes or words, but can also be syntactic units. In German, for example, the compound Rotwein 'red wine' blocks the phrasal unit *roter Wein (in the relevant sense), just as the phrasal unit rote Rübe 'beetroot; lit. red beet' blocks the compound *Rotrübe. In these examples, one crucial factor determining blocking is synonymy; speakers apparently have a deep-rooted presumption against synonyms. Whether homonymy can also lead to a similar avoidance strategy, is still controversial. But even if homonymy blocking exists, it certainly is much less systematic than synonymy blocking.
In all the examples mentioned above, it is a word stored in the mental lexicon that blocks a rival formation. However, besides such cases of lexical blocking, one can observe blocking among productive patterns. Dutch has three suffixes for deriving agent nouns from verbal bases, -er, -der, and -aar. Of these three suffixes, the first one is the default choice, while -der and -aar are chosen in very specific phonological environments: as Geert Booij describes in The Morphology of Dutch (2002), "the suffix -aar occurs after stems ending in a coronal sonorant consonant preceded by schwa, and -der occurs after stems ending in /r/" (p. 122). Contrary to lexical blocking, the effect of this kind of pattern blocking does not depend on words stored in the mental lexicon and their token frequency but on abstract features (in the case at hand, phonological features).
Blocking was first recognized by the Indian grammarian Pāṇini in the 5th or 4th century bc, when he stated that of two competing rules, the more restricted one had precedence. In the 1960s, this insight was revived by generative grammarians under the name "Elsewhere Principle," which is still used in several grammatical theories (Distributed Morphology and Paradigm Function Morphology, among others). Alternatively, other theories, which go back to the German linguist Hermann Paul, have tackled the phenomenon on the basis of the mental lexicon. The great advantage of this latter approach is that it can account, in a natural way, for the crucial role played by frequency. Frequency is also crucial in the most promising theory, so-called statistical pre-emption, of how blocking can be learned.
Bracketing Paradoxes in Morphology
Heather Newell
Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Phonetics/Phonology, Semantics, Syntax
Bracketing paradoxes—constructions whose morphosyntactic and morpho-phonological structures appear to be irreconcilably at odds (e.g., unhappier)—are unanimously taken to point to truths ... More
Bracketing paradoxes—constructions whose morphosyntactic and morpho-phonological structures appear to be irreconcilably at odds (e.g., unhappier)—are unanimously taken to point to truths about the derivational system that we have not yet grasped. Consider that the prefix un- must be structurally separate in some way from happier both for its own reasons (its [n] surprisingly does not assimilate in Place to a following consonant (e.g., u[n]popular)), and for reasons external to the prefix (the suffix -er must be insensitive to the presence of un-, as the comparative cannot attach to bases of three syllables or longer (e.g., *intelligenter)). But, un- must simultaneously be present in the derivation before -er is merged, so that unhappier can have the proper semantic reading ('more unhappy', and not 'not happier'). Bracketing paradoxes emerged as a problem for generative accounts of both morphosyntax and morphophonology only in the 1970s. With the rise of restrictions on and technology used to describe and represent the behavior of affixes (e.g., the Affix-Ordering Generalization, Lexical Phonology and Morphology, the Prosodic Hierarchy), morphosyntacticians and phonologists were confronted with this type of inconsistent derivation in many unrelated languages.
Andrej L. Malchukov
Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Syntax
Morphological case is conventionally defined as a system of marking of a dependent nominal for the type of relationship they bear to their heads. While most linguists would agree with this ... More
Morphological case is conventionally defined as a system of marking of a dependent nominal for the type of relationship they bear to their heads. While most linguists would agree with this definition, in practice it is often a matter of controversy whether a certain marker X counts as case in language L, or how many case values language L features. First, the distinction between morphological cases and case particles/adpositions is fuzzy in a cross-linguistic perspective. Second, the distinctions between cases can be obscured by patterns of case syncretism, leading to different analyses of the underlying system. On the functional side, it is important to distinguish between syntactic (structural), semantic, and "pragmatic" cases, yet these distinctions are not clear-cut either, as syntactic cases historically arise from the two latter sources. Moreover, case paradigms of individual languages usually show a conflation between syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cases (see the phenomenon of "focal ergativity," where ergative case is used when the A argument is in focus). The composition of case paradigms can be shown to follow a certain typological pattern, which is captured by case hierarchy, as proposed by Greenberg and Blake, among others. Case hierarchy constrains the way how case systems evolve (or are reduced) across languages and derives from relative markedness and, ultimately, from frequencies of individual cases. The (one-dimensional) case hierarchy is, however, incapable of capturing all recurrent polysemies of individual case markers; rather, such polysemies can be represented through a more complex two-dimensional hierarchy (semantic map), which can also be given a diachronic interpretation.
Case Interactions in Syntax
Jessica Coon and Clint Parker
The phenomenon of case has been studied widely at both the descriptive and theoretical levels. Typological work on morphological case systems has provided a picture of the variability of ... More
The phenomenon of case has been studied widely at both the descriptive and theoretical levels. Typological work on morphological case systems has provided a picture of the variability of case cross-linguistically. In particular, languages may differ with respect to whether or not arguments are marked with overt morphological case, the inventory of cases with which they may be marked, and the alignment of case marking (e.g., nominative-accusative vs. ergative-absolutive). In the theoretical realm, not only has morphological case been argued to play a role in multiple syntactic phenomena, but current generative work also debates the role of abstract case (i.e., Case) in the grammar: abstract case features have been proposed to underlie morphological case, and to license nominals in the derivation.
The phenomenon of case has been argued to play a role in at least three areas of the syntax reviewed here: (a) agreement, (b) A-movement, and (c) A'-movement. Morphological case has been shown to determine a nominal argument's eligibility to participate in verbal agreement, and recent work has argued that languages vary as to whether movement to subject position is case-sensitive. As for case-sensitive A'-movement, recent literature on ergative extraction restrictions debates whether this phenomenon should be seen as another instance of "case discrimination" or whether the pattern arises from other properties of ergative languages. Finally, other works discussed here have examined agreement and A'-extraction patterns in languages with no visible case morphology. The presence of patterns and typological gaps—both in languages with overt morphological case and in those without it—lends support to the relevance of abstract case in the syntax.
Caucasian Languages
Marina Chumakina
Languages from at least five genetically unrelated families are spoken in the Caucasus, but there are only three endemic linguistic families belonging to the region: Kartvelian, West ... More
Languages from at least five genetically unrelated families are spoken in the Caucasus, but there are only three endemic linguistic families belonging to the region: Kartvelian, West Caucasian, and Northeast Caucasian. These families are rather heterogeneous in terms of the number of languages and the distribution of the speakers across them. The Caucasus represents a situation where languages with millions of speakers have coexisted with one-village languages for hundreds of years, and where multilingualism has always been the norm. The richness of Caucasian languages on every linguistic stratum is dazzling: here we find some of the largest consonant inventories, inflectional systems where the mere number of word forms strains credibility (one of the Caucasian languages, Archi, is claimed to have over a million and a half word forms), and challenging syntactic structures. The typological interest of the Caucasian languages and the challenges they present to linguistic theory lie in different areas. Thus, for Kartvelian languages, the number of factors at play in the verbal system make the task of the production of a correct verbal form far from trivial. West Caucasian languages represent an instance of polysynthetic polypersonal verb inflection, which is unusual not only for Caucasus but for Eurasia in general. East Caucasian languages have large systems of non-finite forms which, unusually, retain the ability to realize agreement in gender and number while their non-finite nature is determined by the inability to head an independent clause and to express certain morpho-syntactic categories such as illocutionary force and evidentiality. Finally, all Caucasian languages are ergative to some extent.
Child Phonology
Yvan Rose
Phonetics/Phonology, Psycholinguistics
Child phonology refers to virtually every phonetic and phonological phenomenon observable in the speech productions of children, including babbles. This includes qualitative and ... More
Child phonology refers to virtually every phonetic and phonological phenomenon observable in the speech productions of children, including babbles. This includes qualitative and quantitative aspects of babbled utterances as well as all behaviors such as the deletion or modification of the sounds and syllables contained in the adult (target) forms that the child is trying to reproduce in his or her spoken utterances. This research is also increasingly concerned with issues in speech perception, a field of investigation that has traditionally followed its own course; it is only recently that the two fields have started to converge. The recent history of research on child phonology, the theoretical approaches and debates surrounding it, as well as the research methods and resources that have been employed to address these issues empirically, parallel the evolution of phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics as general fields of investigation. Child phonology contributes important observations, often organized in terms of developmental time periods, which can extend from the child's earliest babbles to the stage when he or she masters the sounds, sound combinations, and suprasegmental properties of the ambient (target) language. Central debates within the field of child phonology concern the nature and origins of phonological representations as well as the ways in which they are acquired by children. Since the mid-1900s, the most central approaches to these questions have tended to fall on each side of the general divide between generative vs. functionalist (usage-based) approaches to phonology. Traditionally, generative approaches have embraced a universal stance on phonological primitives and their organization within hierarchical phonological representations, assumed to be innately available as part of the human language faculty. In contrast to this, functionalist approaches have utilized flatter (non-hierarchical) representational models and rejected nativist claims about the origin of phonological constructs. Since the beginning of the 1990s, this divide has been blurred significantly, both through the elaboration of constraint-based frameworks that incorporate phonetic evidence, from both speech perception and production, as part of accounts of phonological patterning, and through the formulation of emergentist approaches to phonological representation. Within this context, while controversies remain concerning the nature of phonological representations, debates are fueled by new outlooks on factors that might affect their emergence, including the types of learning mechanisms involved, the nature of the evidence available to the learner (e.g., perceptual, articulatory, and distributional), as well as the extent to which the learner can abstract away from this evidence. In parallel, recent advances in computer-assisted research methods and data availability, especially within the context of the PhonBank project, offer researchers unprecedented support for large-scale investigations of child language corpora. This combination of theoretical and methodological advances provides new and fertile grounds for research on child phonology and related implications for phonological theory.
Children's Acquisition of Syntactic Knowledge
Rosalind Thornton
Psycholinguistics, Syntax
Children's acquisition of language is an amazing feat. Children master the syntax, the sentence structure of their language, through exposure and interaction with caregivers and others ... More
Children's acquisition of language is an amazing feat. Children master the syntax, the sentence structure of their language, through exposure and interaction with caregivers and others but, notably, with no formal tuition. How children come to be in command of the syntax of their language has been a topic of vigorous debate since Chomsky argued against Skinner's claim that language is 'verbal behavior.' Chomsky argued that knowledge of language cannot be learned through experience alone but is guided by a genetic component. This language component, known as 'Universal Grammar,' is composed of abstract linguistic knowledge and a computational system that is special to language. The computational mechanisms of Universal Grammar give even young children the capacity to form hierarchical syntactic representations for the sentences they hear and produce. The abstract knowledge of language guides children's hypotheses as they interact with the language input in their environment, ensuring they progress toward the adult grammar. An alternative school of thought denies the existence of a dedicated language component, arguing that knowledge of syntax is learned entirely through interactions with speakers of the language. Such 'usage-based' linguistic theories assume that language learning employs the same learning mechanisms that are used by other cognitive systems. Usage-based accounts of language development view children's earliest productions as rote-learned phrases that lack internal structure. Knowledge of linguistic structure emerges gradually and in a piecemeal fashion, with frequency playing a large role in the order of emergence for different syntactic structures.
Chinese Semantics
Haihua Pan and Yuli Feng
Language Families/Areas/Contact, Semantics
Cross-linguistic data can add new insights to the development of semantic theories or even induce the shift of the research paradigm. The major topics in semantic studies such as bare noun ... More
Cross-linguistic data can add new insights to the development of semantic theories or even induce the shift of the research paradigm. The major topics in semantic studies such as bare noun denotation, quantification, degree semantics, polarity items, donkey anaphora and binding principles, long-distance reflexives, negation, tense and aspects, eventuality are all discussed by semanticists working on the Chinese language. The issues which are of particular interest include and are not limited to: (i) the denotation of Chinese bare nouns; (ii) categorization and quantificational mapping strategies of Chinese quantifier expressions (i.e., whether the behaviors of Chinese quantifier expressions fit into the dichotomy of A-Quantification and D-quantification); (iii) multiple uses of quantifier expressions (e.g., dou) and their implication on the inter-relation of semantic concepts like distributivity, scalarity, exclusiveness, exhaustivity, maximality, etc.; (iv) the interaction among universal adverbials and that between universal adverbials and various types of noun phrases, which may pose a challenge to the Principle of Compositionality; (v) the semantics of degree expressions in Chinese; (vi) the non-interrogative uses of wh-phrases in Chinese and their influence on the theories of polarity items, free choice items, and epistemic indefinites; (vii) how the concepts of E-type pronouns and D-type pronouns are manifested in the Chinese language and whether such pronoun interpretations correspond to specific sentence types; (viii) what devices Chinese adopts to locate time (i.e., does tense interpretation correspond to certain syntactic projections or it is solely determined by semantic information and pragmatic reasoning); (ix) how the interpretation of Chinese aspect markers can be captured by event structures, possible world semantics, and quantification; (x) how the long-distance binding of Chinese ziji 'self' and the blocking effect by first and second person pronouns can be accounted for by the existing theories of beliefs, attitude reports, and logophoricity; (xi) the distribution of various negation markers and their correspondence to the semantic properties of predicates with which they are combined; and (xii) whether Chinese topic-comment structures are constrained by both semantic and pragmatic factors or syntactic factors only.
Clinical Linguistics
Louise Cummings
Morphology, Phonetics/Phonology, Pragmatics, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Syntax
Clinical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that applies linguistic concepts and theories to the study of language disorders. As the name suggests, clinical linguistics is a ... More
Clinical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that applies linguistic concepts and theories to the study of language disorders. As the name suggests, clinical linguistics is a dual-facing discipline. Although the conceptual roots of this field are in linguistics, its domain of application is the vast array of clinical disorders that may compromise the use and understanding of language. Both dimensions of clinical linguistics can be addressed through an examination of specific linguistic deficits in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, craniofacial anomalies, adult-onset neurological impairments, psychiatric disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders. Clinical linguists are interested in the full range of linguistic deficits in these conditions, including phonetic deficits of children with cleft lip and palate, morphosyntactic errors in children with specific language impairment, and pragmatic language impairments in adults with schizophrenia.
Like many applied disciplines in linguistics, clinical linguistics sits at the intersection of a number of areas. The relationship of clinical linguistics to the study of communication disorders and to speech-language pathology (speech and language therapy in the United Kingdom) are two particularly important points of intersection. Speech-language pathology is the area of clinical practice that assesses and treats children and adults with communication disorders. All language disorders restrict an individual's ability to communicate freely with others in a range of contexts and settings. So language disorders are first and foremost communication disorders. To understand language disorders, it is useful to think of them in terms of points of breakdown on a communication cycle that tracks the progress of a linguistic utterance from its conception in the mind of a speaker to its comprehension by a hearer. This cycle permits the introduction of a number of important distinctions in language pathology, such as the distinction between a receptive and an expressive language disorder, and between a developmental and an acquired language disorder. The cycle is also a useful model with which to conceptualize a range of communication disorders other than language disorders. These other disorders, which include hearing, voice, and fluency disorders, are also relevant to clinical linguistics.
Clinical linguistics draws on the conceptual resources of the full range of linguistic disciplines to describe and explain language disorders. These disciplines include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. Each of these linguistic disciplines contributes concepts and theories that can shed light on the nature of language disorder. A wide range of tools and approaches are used by clinical linguists and speech-language pathologists to assess, diagnose, and treat language disorders. They include the use of standardized and norm-referenced tests, communication checklists and profiles (some administered by clinicians, others by parents, teachers, and caregivers), and qualitative methods such as conversation analysis and discourse analysis. Finally, clinical linguists can contribute to debates about the nosology of language disorders. In order to do so, however, they must have an understanding of the place of language disorders in internationally recognized classification systems such as the 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric Association.
Coarticulation
Daniel Recasens
The study of coarticulation—namely, the articulatory modification of a given speech sound arising from coproduction or overlap with neighboring sounds in the speech chain—has attracted the ... More
The study of coarticulation—namely, the articulatory modification of a given speech sound arising from coproduction or overlap with neighboring sounds in the speech chain—has attracted the close attention of phonetic researchers for at least the last 60 years. Knowledge about coarticulatory patterns in speech should provide information about the planning mechanisms of consecutive consonants and vowels and the execution of coordinative articulatory structures during the production of those segmental units. Coarticulatory effects involve changes in articulatory displacement over time toward the left (anticipatory) or the right (carryover) of the trigger, and their typology and extent depend on the articulator under investigation (lip, velum, tongue, jaw, larynx) and the articulatory characteristics of the individual consonants and vowels, as well as nonsegmental factors such as speech rate, stress, and language. A challenge for studying coarticulation is that different speakers may use different coarticulatory mechanisms when producing a given phonemic sequence and they also use coarticulatory information differently for phonemic identification in perception. More knowledge about all these research issues should contribute to a deeper understanding of coarticulation deficits in speakers with speech disorders, how the ability to coarticulate develops from childhood to adulthood, and the extent to which the failure to compensate for coarticulatory effects may give rise to sound change.
Cognitively Oriented Theories of Meaning
Peter Gärdenfors
Cognitive Science, Pragmatics, Semantics
There are two main theoretical traditions in semantics. One is based on realism, where meanings are described as relations between language and the world, often in terms of truth ... More
There are two main theoretical traditions in semantics. One is based on realism, where meanings are described as relations between language and the world, often in terms of truth conditions. The other is cognitivistic, where meanings are identified with mental structures. This article presents some of the main ideas and theories within the cognitivist approach.
A central tenet of cognitively oriented theories of meaning is that there are close connections between the meaning structures and other cognitive processes. In particular, parallels between semantics and visual processes have been studied. As a complement, the theory of embodied cognition focuses on the relation between actions and components of meaning.
One of the main methods of representing cognitive meaning structures is to use images schemas and idealized cognitive models. Such schemas focus on spatial relations between various semantic elements. Images schemas are often constructed using Gestalt psychological notions, including those of trajector and landmark, corresponding to figure and ground. In this tradition, metaphors and metonymies are considered to be central meaning transforming processes.
A related approach is force dynamics. Here, the semantic schemas are construed from forces and their relations rather than from spatial relations. Recent extensions involve cognitive representations of actions and events, which then form the basis for a semantics of verbs.
A third approach is the theory of conceptual spaces. In this theory, meanings are represented as regions of semantic domains such as space, time, color, weight, size, and shape. For example, strong evidence exists that color words in a large variety of languages correspond to such regions. This approach has been extended to a general account of the semantics of some of the main word classes, including adjectives, verbs, and prepositions. The theory of conceptual spaces shows similarities to the older frame semantics and feature analysis, but it puts more emphasis on geometric structures.
A general criticism against cognitive theories of semantics is that they only consider the meaning structures of individuals, but neglect the social aspects of semantics, that is, that meanings are shared within a community. Recent theoretical proposals counter this by suggesting that semantics should be seen as a meeting of minds, that is, communicative processes that lead to the alignment of meanings between individuals. On this approach, semantics is seen as a product of communication, constrained by the cognitive mechanisms of the individuals.
Communicative Repertoires in African Languages
Anne Storch
Even though the concept of multilingualism is well established in linguistics, it is problematic, especially in light of the actual ways in which repertoires are composed and used. The ... More
Even though the concept of multilingualism is well established in linguistics, it is problematic, especially in light of the actual ways in which repertoires are composed and used. The term "multilingualism" bears in itself the notion of several clearly discernable languages and suggests that regardless of the sociolinguistic setting, language ideologies, social history and context, a multilingual individual will be able to separate the various codes that constitute his or her communicative repertoire and use them deliberately in a reflected way. Such a perspective on language isn't helpful in understanding any sociolinguistic setting and linguistic practice that is not a European one and that doesn't correlate with ideologies and practices of a standardized, national language. This applies to the majority of people living on the planet and to most people who speak African languages. These speakers differ from the ideological concept of the "Western monolingual," as they employ diverse practices and linguistic features on a daily basis and do so in a very flexible way. Which linguistic features a person uses thereby depends on factors such as socialization, placement, and personal interest, desires and preferences, which are all likely to change several times during a person's life. Therefore, communicative repertoires are never stable, neither in their composition nor in the ways they are ideologically framed and evaluated. A more productive perspective on the phenomenon of complex communicative repertoires puts the concept of languaging in the center, which refers to communicative practices, dynamically operating between different practices and (multimodal) linguistic features. Individual speakers thereby perceive and evaluate ways of speaking according to the social meaning, emotional investment, and identity-constituting functions they can attribute to them. The fact that linguistic reflexivity to African speakers might almost always involve the negotiation of the self in a (post)colonial world invites us to consider a critical evaluation, based on approaches such as Southern Theory, of established concepts of "language" and "multilingualism": languaging is also a postcolonial experience, and this experience often translates into how speakers single out specific ways of speaking as "more prestigious" or "more developed" than others. The inclusion of African metalinguistics and indigenuous knowledge consequently is an important task of linguists studying communicative repertoires in Africa or its diaspora.
The Compositional Semantics of Modification
Sebastian Bücking
Semantics, Syntax
Modification is a combinatorial semantic operation between a modifier and a modifiee. Take, for example, vegetarian soup: the attributive adjective vegetarian modifies the nominal modifiee ... More
Modification is a combinatorial semantic operation between a modifier and a modifiee. Take, for example, vegetarian soup: the attributive adjective vegetarian modifies the nominal modifiee soup and thus constrains the range of potential referents of the complex expression to soups that are vegetarian. Similarly, in Ben is preparing a soup in the camper, the adverbial in the camper modifies the preparation by locating it. Notably, modifiers can have fairly drastic effects; in fake stove, the attribute fake induces that the complex expression singles out objects that seem to be stoves, but are not. Intuitively, modifiers contribute additional information that is not explicitly called for by the target the modifier relates to. Speaking in terms of logic, this roughly says that modification is an endotypical operation; that is, it does not change the arity, or logical type, of the modified target constituent. Speaking in terms of syntax, this predicts that modifiers are typically adjuncts and thus do not change the syntactic distribution of their respective target; therefore, modifiers can be easily iterated (see, for instance, spicy vegetarian soup or Ben prepared a soup in the camper yesterday). This initial characterization sets modification apart from other combinatorial operations such as argument satisfaction and quantification: combining a soup with prepare satisfies an argument slot of the verbal head and thus reduces its arity (see, for instance, *prepare a soup a quiche). Quantification as, for example, in the combination of the quantifier every with the noun soup, maps a nominal property onto a quantifying expression with a different distribution (see, for instance, *a every soup). Their comparatively loose connection to their hosts renders modifiers a flexible, though certainly not random, means within combinatorial meaning constitution. The foundational question is how to work their being endotypical into a full-fledged compositional analysis. On the one hand, modifiers can be considered endotypical functors by virtue of their lexical endowment; for instance, vegetarian would be born a higher-ordered function from predicates to predicates. On the other hand, modification can be considered a rule-based operation; for instance, vegetarian would denote a simple predicate from entities to truth-values that receives its modifying endotypical function only by virtue of a separate modification rule. In order to assess this and related controversies empirically, research on modification pays particular attention to interface questions such as the following: how do structural conditions and the modifying function conspire in establishing complex interpretations? What roles do ontological information and fine-grained conceptual knowledge play in the course of concept combination?
Compound and Complex Predicates in Japanese
Taro Kageyama
Language Families/Areas/Contact, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax
Compound and complex predicates—predicates that consist of two or more lexical items and function as the predicate of a single sentence—present an important class of linguistic objects ... More
Compound and complex predicates—predicates that consist of two or more lexical items and function as the predicate of a single sentence—present an important class of linguistic objects that pertain to an enormously wide range of issues in the interactions of morphology, phonology, syntax, and semantics. Japanese makes extensive use of compounding to expand a single verb into a complex one. These compounding processes range over multiple modules of the grammatical system, thus straddling the borders between morphology, syntax, phonology, and semantics. In terms of degree of phonological integration, two types of compound predicates can be distinguished. In the first type, called tight compound predicates, two elements from the native lexical stratum are tightly fused and inflect as a whole for tense. In this group, Verb-Verb compound verbs such as arai-nagasu [wash-let.flow] 'to wash away' and hare-agaru [sky.be.clear-go.up] 'for the sky to clear up entirely' are preponderant in numbers and productivity over Noun-Verb compound verbs such as tema-doru [time-take] 'to take a lot of time (to finish).'
The second type, called loose compound predicates, takes the form of "Noun + Predicate (Verbal Noun [VN] or Adjectival Noun [AN])," as in post-syntactic compounds like [sinsya : koonyuu] no okyakusama ([new.car : purchase] GEN customers) 'customer(s) who purchase(d) a new car,' where the symbol ":" stands for a short phonological break. Remarkably, loose compounding allows combinations of a transitive VN with its agent subject (external argument), as in [Supirubaagu : seisaku] no eiga ([Spielberg : produce] GEN film) 'a film/films that Spielberg produces/produced'—a pattern that is illegitimate in tight compounds and has in fact been considered universally impossible in the world's languages in verbal compounding and noun incorporation.
In addition to a huge variety of tight and loose compound predicates, Japanese has an additional class of syntactic constructions that as a whole function as complex predicates. Typical examples are the light verb construction, where a clause headed by a VN is followed by the light verb suru 'do,' as in Tomodati wa sinsya o koonyuu (sae) sita [friend TOP new.car ACC purchase (even) did] 'My friend (even) bought a new car' and the human physical attribute construction, as in Sensei wa aoi me o site-iru [teacher TOP blue eye ACC do-ing] 'My teacher has blue eyes.' In these constructions, the nominal phrases immediately preceding the verb suru are semantically characterized as indefinite and non-referential and reject syntactic operations such as movement and deletion. The semantic indefiniteness and syntactic immobility of the NPs involved are also observed with a construction composed of a human subject and the verb aru 'be,' as Gakkai ni wa oozei no sankasya ga atta 'There was a large number of participants at the conference.' The constellation of such "word-like" properties shared by these compound and complex predicates poses challenging problems for current theories of morphology-syntax-semantics interactions with regard to such topics as lexical integrity, morphological compounding, syntactic incorporation, semantic incorporation, pseudo-incorporation, and indefinite/non-referential NPs.
Compounding in Morphology
Pius ten Hacken
Compounding is a word formation process based on the combination of lexical elements (words or stems). In the theoretical literature, compounding is discussed controversially, and the ... More
Compounding is a word formation process based on the combination of lexical elements (words or stems). In the theoretical literature, compounding is discussed controversially, and the disagreement also concerns basic issues. In the study of compounding, the questions guiding research can be grouped into four main areas, labeled here as delimitation, classification, formation, and interpretation. Depending on the perspective taken in the research, some of these may be highlighted or backgrounded.
In the delimitation of compounding, one question is how important it is to be able to determine for each expression unambiguously whether it is a compound or not. Compounding borders on syntax and on affixation. In some theoretical frameworks, it is not a problem to have more typical and less typical instances, without a precise boundary between them. However, if, for instance, word formation and syntax are strictly separated and compounding is in word formation, it is crucial to draw this borderline precisely. Another question is which types of criteria should be used to distinguish compounding from other phenomena. Criteria based on form, on syntactic properties, and on meaning have been used. In all cases, it is also controversial whether such criteria should be applied crosslinguistically.
In the classification of compounds, the question of how important the distinction between the classes is for the theory in which they are used poses itself in much the same way as the corresponding question for the delimitation. A common classification uses headedness as a basis. Other criteria are based on the forms of the elements that are combined (e.g., stem vs. word) or on the semantic relationship between the components. Again, whether these criteria can and should be applied crosslinguistically is controversial.
The issue of the formation rules for compounds is particularly prominent in frameworks that emphasize form-based properties of compounding. Rewrite rules for compounding have been proposed, generalizations over the selection of the input form (stem or word) and of linking elements, and rules for stress assignment. Compounds are generally thought of as consisting of two components, although these components may consist of more than one element themselves. For some types of compounds with three or more components, for example copulative compounds, a nonbinary structure has been proposed.
The question of interpretation can be approached from two opposite perspectives. In a semasiological perspective, the meaning of a compound emerges from the interpretation of a given form. In an onomasiological perspective, the meaning precedes the formation in the sense that a form is selected to name a particular concept. The central question in the interpretation of compounds is how to determine the relationship between the two components. The range of possible interpretations can be constrained by the rules of compounding, by the semantics of the components, and by the context of use. A much-debated question concerns the relative importance of these factors.
Computational Approaches to Morphology
Emmanuel Keuleers
Computational psycholinguistics has a long history of investigation and modeling of morphological phenomena. Several computational models have been developed to deal with the processing ... More
Computational psycholinguistics has a long history of investigation and modeling of morphological phenomena. Several computational models have been developed to deal with the processing and production of morphologically complex forms and with the relation between linguistic morphology and psychological word representations. Historically, most of this work has focused on modeling the production of inflected word forms, leading to the development of models based on connectionist principles and other data-driven models such as Memory-Based Language Processing (MBLP), Analogical Modeling of Language (AM), and Minimal Generalization Learning (MGL). In the context of inflectional morphology, these computational approaches have played an important role in the debate between single and dual mechanism theories of cognition. Taking a different angle, computational models based on distributional semantics have been proposed to account for several phenomena in morphological processing and composition. Finally, although several computational models of reading have been developed in psycholinguistics, none of them have satisfactorily addressed the recognition and reading aloud of morphologically complex forms.
Computational Phonology
Jane Chandlee and Jeffrey Heinz
Computational Linguistics, Linguistic Theories, Phonetics/Phonology, Psycholinguistics, Syntax
Computational phonology studies the nature of the computations necessary and sufficient for characterizing phonological knowledge. As a field it is informed by the theories of computation ... More
Computational phonology studies the nature of the computations necessary and sufficient for characterizing phonological knowledge. As a field it is informed by the theories of computation and phonology.
The computational nature of phonological knowledge is important because at a fundamental level it is about the psychological nature of memory as it pertains to phonological knowledge. Different types of phonological knowledge can be characterized as computational problems, and the solutions to these problems reveal their computational nature. In contrast to syntactic knowledge, there is clear evidence that phonological knowledge is computationally bounded to the so-called regular classes of sets and relations. These classes have multiple mathematical characterizations in terms of logic, automata, and algebra with significant implications for the nature of memory. In fact, there is evidence that phonological knowledge is bounded by particular subregular classes, with more restrictive logical, automata-theoretic, and algebraic characterizations, and thus by weaker models of memory.
PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, LINGUISTICS (oxfordre.com/linguistics). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
War Resisters' International
a global network of grassroots antimilitarist and pacifist groups, working together for a world without war
Shop Donate Subscribe
The Right to Refuse to Kill
A CO's Guide to the International Human Rights System
Conscientious objection action alerts
World Survey of Conscription and Conscientious Objection
International Conscientious Objection day
Prisoners for Peace Day
In prison now: Prisoners for Peace list
Nonviolence Programme
Empowering Nonviolence
Countering the Militarisation of Youth
War Profiteers
War profiteer companies
War Profiteers News
Turkey: Stop the Cycle of Violence
Women and Conscientious Objection
Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns
War Resisters' Stories
CO-Update
The Broken Rifle
Writing for WRI
Resisting police militarisation
Report: European and Israeli arms sales to Mexico
A new report published by an international coalition of peace organisations explores the way arms companies in Europe and Israel are fuelling violence in Mexico.
Organising Refuser Support
Return to Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements
A key activity of the movements for whom this book is intended is likely to be supporting those who refuse to join the military. How to go about organising that support is the question addressed by Sergeiy Sandler in this chapter. Sergeiy is a conscientious objector and antimilitarist activist from Israel. He is one of the founders of the Counselling Network for Refusers operated by the Israeli feminist and antimilitarist movement New Profile and is also an International Council member of the War Resisters' International.
On March 2nd, 2001, about thirty people met in a small conference room in the Druze Palestinian town of Isfiya on Mount Carmel. A few of us had had some years of experience supporting declared conscientious objectors. Others had been helping friends and acquaintances obtain medical exemptions from military service. A few more came to learn from the rest. Working under the aegis of the feminist antimilitarist movement, New Profile, we formed a network of volunteers committed to counselling and supporting any person refusing to perform military service in Israel. More than fourteen years later, this network receives, and successfully resolves, well over a thousand calls for support every year, from people from all walks of life, genders, and ethnic backgrounds. Many more use us to help themselves: our Internet forum and other resources posted online have hundreds of thousands of hits a year. We were even enough of a menace for the Israeli police to start a criminal investigation against us (for 'inciting draft evasion', i.e. encouraging people to resist conscription) a few years back. All in all — a nice little success story, especially if measured against the bleak backdrop of Israeli political realities.
Idan's Story
Idan Halili became the first Israeli conscientious objector to refuse military service on the g
Prisoners for peace list: 2020
A list of some of those currently in prison for their work for peace. Write to them on 1st December, Prisoners for Peace Day, help us grow our solidarity!
Israel: Refuser Hallel Rabin imprisoned again
Israeli conscientious objector Hallel Rabin, 19, was imprisoned again last week, following her refusal to serve in the military. This is Hallel's fourth imprisonment and she was sentenced to more 10 days in military prison. Hallel has already spent 40 days behind the bars in three separate terms.
Take Action: Israeli conscientious objector Hallel Rabin imprisoned
Israeli conscientious objector Hallel Rabin, 19, was imprisoned for her refusal to serve in the army. On 19th October, Rabin was sentenced to 25 days in military prison. This is Rabin's third imprisonment, adding to 15 days she already spent behind bars. Write to the Israeli authorities here demanding Rabin's immediate release.
The illusion of security as a tool of social control: The militarisation of pandemic response in Israel
Israel is a highly militarised state with a highly militarised society, and the COVID-19 pandemic interacts with this militarisation in a variety of ways – from the way it has been used as a cover and an excuse for violence against Palestinians1 to the way it has served as a pretext for enhancing authoritarian trends in general.
Israeli conscientious objector Tair Kaminer's declaration
Tair Kaminer, who refused to serve in the Israeli military (IDF), spent more than 150 days in prison between January and July 2016. Following her repeated refusals, Israeli military court eventually exempted Tair from the military for 'bad behaviour'.
UN publishes database of companies profiting from Israel's illegal settlements
The United Nations has published a list of companies with ties to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, the first time that such a list of companies has been published by the UN.
Exporting militarism: how Israeli companies market repression in Latin America
On the first day of our Antimilitarism in Movement conference, Nada Hussien discussed the impact of Israeli militarisation around the world. Here is an edited version of her speech.
Israel: A conscientious objector was released - another was imprisoned
After twenty five days of imprisonment the IDF's Conscience Committee granted conscientious objector Maya Brand-Feigenbaum a release from military service. "I believe that refusing to serve in the military is the best and most effective way for me to promote anti-war principles and contribute to ending the occupation", she said.
Israel: Conscientious objector Yasmin Ricci-Yahav imprisoned again
Conscientious objector Yasmin Ricci-Yahav, 18, was imprisoned again for her refusal serve in the army. This is Yasmin's second imprisonment and she will spend 20 more days behind bars. Yasmin was first sentenced to 10 days following her declaration of refusal at the military recruitment centre in Tel Aviv. By the end of her current term, she will have spent a total of 30 days in prison.
Subscribe to Israel
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR ALERTS
Cuba: Osmel Adrián arrested
Regular supporters help us build sustainable campaigns - could you become one of our new supporters?
Sign up to receive content by email
Right to Refuse to Kill
Archived projects and campaigns
Other WRI Sites
antimili-youth.net
co-guide.info
nonviolence.wri-irg.org


text:
World War II hobbyist solves a family's decades-old mystery
Villagers from the Vudal settlement who helped uncover a U.S. Marine Corsair fighter that crashed in Papua New Guinea in late 1944 gather after markings on the plane were identified. Pilot Lt. Moszek Murray Zanger bailed out but was killed by the Japanese. Zanger's three nieces stand behind the USMC flag (left to right): Andrea Talbutt, Marcy Hanigan and Susan Nishihira. Holding the Papua New Guinea flag is Veline Wesley, who found the Goodyear marking on a fragment that everybody had been searching for. In the rear between Wesley and Talbutt in sunglasses is Henry Sakaida, a Temple City researcher who had discovered for the sisters what had happened to their uncle. Expedition leader Justin Taylan is kneeling in shorts and a hat at front left.
(Justin Taylan)
By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times
After 31 years, military historian and researcher Henry Sakaida has finally closed his most perplexing wartime investigation.
Sakaida is a retired Temple City nursery owner whose hobby is studying World War II air combat incidents and then tracking down dogfight participants in hope of turning old enemies into friends.
He's back home after taking three sisters, including one from North Hollywood, to a remote South Pacific island jungle where their uncle disappeared in late 1944 after bailing out of his Marine Corps Corsair fighter.
The fate of Los Angeles pilot Lt. Moszek Murray Zanger had been unknown to nieces Marcy Hanigan, Andrea Talbutt and Susan Nishihira until Sakaida stepped in.
It was 1981 when Sakaida first learned from Australian military records that several Japanese prisoners of war had seen a downed American pilot in captivity in March 1945. In the reports, the Japanese airmen remembered his name as "Zanga."
Sakaida researched Marine fighter squadron records from the National Archives and discovered the captured pilot's actual name was Zanger. The documents indicated he had collided with his wingman's plane while patrolling over Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.
Zanger parachuted out of his Corsair as it spiraled 4,000 feet down and slammed into the jungle. His wingman managed to limp back to base in his damaged plane.
The Japanese reported that Zanger had been shot and killed shortly after his capture when he grabbed a sword and attacked two guards while trying to escape.
But Sakaida learned that a forensic study of Zanger's remains when they were recovered by the U.S. showed he had been beaten, not shot.
Further research showed that the downed pilot had tried to flee the island in an inflatable dinghy and was captured by a Japanese Navy patrol boat. He was kept chained inside a hut, malnourished, for about six months before being killed and buried near an airstrip, according to Sakaida.
Hoping to include the Zanger incident in his book "Siege of Rabaul," Sakaida in 1997 discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that the flier was later reinterred somewhere in Los Angeles.
Sakaida began calling local cemeteries. One memorial park operator said the name Zanger might be Jewish and suggested that Sakaida call the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles. Zanger's grave was there.
Soon visiting the cemetery, Sakaida left a Post-It note on Zanger's grave marker in hope of contacting surviving family members. He heard nothing, however.
It turned out that Zanger's mother had remarried, changed her name and died in 1976. His father had died in 1982, but the death certificate mistakenly listed his last name as "Sanger."
So the circumstances of their uncle's disappearance had been a mystery to his three nieces. Their mother had spared them the sad details of her brother's death and eventual burial in Los Angeles. When she died in 2009 at age 92, her daughters decided to piece together their family's Polish-immigrant history on their own.
The trio was flabbergasted when Talbutt typed the name of the man they knew as "Uncle Mike" into an Internet search engine. They discovered on https://www.pacificwrecks.com that Sakaida had researched Zanger's disappearance.
They contacted him through the nursery, where as a boy Sakaida honed his interest in aerial dogfights by building model warplanes and then crashing and burning them in the back of the family-run business.
"Instead of me tracking them down, they tracked me down," said Sakaida, now 60. "I turned over a thick folder I'd collected about him and told them that we all should someday go to Rabaul."
Last month, they did.
Pacificwrecks' Justin Taylan found the coordinates of the Corsair's crash site and helped plan the expedition. Familiar with Pacific Islanders and the local etiquette in Papua New Guinea, he suggested the group arrive with items to give to villagers.
"We brought a whole bunch of Frisbees, little toys and candies for the kids," said Sakaida. "And we asked permission to enter peoples' property to search. An earlier governmental group hadn't, and people didn't like that."
Taylan, Sakaida and Ray Nishihira, husband of Susan, scouted out the crash site first as the women stayed behind. Engulfed by the steamy jungle, part of the plane was visible in a crater filled with rainwater. As swarms of mosquitoes dive-bombed the trio, they decided to retreat until things dried out a bit.
Three days later, they returned to the site with the three sisters. The group was stunned by what they saw.
"Villagers from the settlement of Vudal had cleared a lot of space to work, they had opened up the whole area and put flowers around," Sakaida said. "There were 20 or 30 adults and 40 schoolkids there to help us. Everybody was pitching in."
The locals scrubbed mud off pieces of metal pulled out of the crater and looked for serial numbers or the symbol of the manufacturer of Zanger's Corsair.
"We were looking for a Goodyear mark. Goodyear built Uncle Mike's plane," said Talbutt. "I drew the little symbol on my backpack to show people. It was a capital G with a small capital A within it."
The sisters were surprised by the villagers' enthusiasm. "They'd built a shelter out of banana leaves and a place for us to sit to get out of the rain or sun. They'd bailed as much water out of the crater as they could. It was as if they were looking for one of their own. I've never met people like this before in my life," said Talbutt, 69, a retired teacher from Elmsford, N.Y.
Soon, villager Veline Wesley shouted out that she had found a piece of metal — a 4-foot section of wing strut — with the Goodyear symbol stamped on it. A cheer went up and the search was over.
"It was unbelievable. Everything couldn't have happened more perfectly," said Susan Nishihira, a 66-year-old retired art coordinator from Kirkland, Wash. "My husband had come back from the recon three days earlier and said, 'Don't get your hopes up — the wreckage is really embedded.'"
Nishihira said a village elder "asked the spirits to release the pieces. And that's what happened."
Hanigan, a 61-year-old retail worker from North Hollywood, said she and her sisters were at first skeptical when Sakaida suggested a trek to Papua New Guinea. "We said, 'Yeah, yeah,'" she remembers.
"But this was a life-changing, transformational thing for all of us," she said.
bob.pool@latimes.com
Bob Pool
Bob Pool retired in 2014 from the Los Angeles Times, where he had been a general assignment reporter on the Metro staff since 1983.


text:
InfraStrata signs exclusivity deal for Cumbria FSRU project
InfraStrata has signed an exclusivity agreement to acquire a planned floating storage regasification and reloading unit (FSRU) project in the UK from Cayman Islands company Meridian.
InfraStrata has signed an exclusivity agreement to acquire a planned floating storage regasification and reloading unit (FSRU) project in the UK from Cayman Islands-based company Meridian.
The FSRU project includes the development of a floating liquified natural gas (LNG) receiving port offshore Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria in northwest England. Upon completion, the project will deliver re-gasified volumes of natural gas directly into the UK market through its own national transmission system interconnection at Barrow-in-Furness.
InfraStrata will have three months of exclusivity to look into the feasibility of the project, and if the company said if it is satisfied it will buy the project with the help of investors and financiers.
If the parties agree to go ahead to a formal contractual agreement, InfraStrata will issue 25 million new shares to Meridian, and then another 75 million shares if a final investment decision is taken. The deal also includes a cash consideration at the completion worth over 100 million shares to be issued.
InfraStrata said a typical project such as this would require capital expenditure of between £250m to £400m, taking nearly three to four years to build.
InfraStrata CEO John Wood said: "We are very pleased to enter into this Exclusivity Agreement with Meridian Holdings. The UK gas market is witnessing a significant shift in its supply stack and LNG is set to form an important part.
"As an energy infrastructure company, we are looking at not only building a diverse portfolio of assets but also creating the ability for each asset to complement the others. Such a strategy adds significant trading value to our prospective clients who themselves have a portfolio of energy contracts to monetise."
InfraStrata said that similar to the Islandmagee gas storage project, it will seek an ongoing project management role along with a minority equity stake in the FSRU project.
SafetyGrip Solutions
Anti-Slip Safety Products for the Oil and Gas Industry
OCTOMAR Serviços Marítimos
Offshore Diving and Marine Support Services
OTN Systems
Offshore Communication Networks
Woodside divests 49% stake in Pluto Train 2 JV
Wintershall to sell stakes in two Argentine blocks for $140m


text:
Elena Kaliská (Zvolen, 19 januari 1972) is een Slowaaks kanovaarster gespecialiseerd in slalom.

Kaliská won tweemaal olympisch goud in de K-1 tijdens de Olympische Zomerspelen 2004 en 2008. Kaliská werd alleen in 2005 wereldkampioen individueel. Op 46-jarige leeftijd nam Kaliská in 2018 nog deel aan de wereldkampioenschappen.

Belangrijkste resultaten

Olympische Zomerspelen

Wereldkampioenschappen kanoslalom

Slowaaks olympisch kampioen
Slowaaks kanovaarder

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Does a wireless receiver need always power? In a wireless switch system,

*

*does the receiver always have to have power or

*are there methods that allow to power the circuit only when it has received the signal?

A: Contact less card and RFID tags use a magnetic field to power themself and transmit data.
The range for card is less than 5 cm and for RFID it can be few cm to 10m or more depending on the frequency used, antenna and other factors.

A: Your question can be understood in two ways:

*

*Is it possible to design a receiver that has no power source (battery, power supply...) of any kind? or

*Is it possible to design a receiver that only consumes power when it's active, but is "ready for reception" continuously?

Re: 1. Is it possible to design a receiver that has no power source (battery, power supply...) of any kind?
Of course! Radio waves have energy, and that energy can be used, not only amplified externally.
The classical example is the crystal radio: The current induced by the waves captured in an antenna is rectified, and used to drive a small earphone. Works splendidly, with all sorts of semiconductor rectifiers ("proper" diodes, rusty razor blades…)
RFID is kind of a borderline example of that, because, and I have to repeat that far too often, RFID is not what one typically calls radio: RFID is not based on waves propagating through space, but works basically by the fact that with coils in both the reader and the RFID tag, you can build an air-coil transformer. Still, these devices get powered only by what the reader transmits.
Also, there's a whole world of energy harvesting devices, even in ISM bands (where that behaviour is hard to implement legally), where energy is extracted from the signal, enough to actually drive an active receiver.
Re: 2. Is it possible to design a receiver that only consumes power when it's active, but is "ready for reception" continuously?
Yes; well, depending on your understanding of "continuously".
In fact, this is how small receivers can last on a single coin cell for years – just turn on for a very short amount of time in a limited mode, sense whether there is some "known" wake-up signal on the air, and if it is, then fully power up and initiate full receiving capabilities.
That means that the transmitter needs to transmit that "wake-up call" for at least the period of time between two of these short sensing times, but that might be something in the dozens of milliseconds, still, so, for many purposes, that's kind of "continuous", with an extended preamble (many digital transceiver systems have preambles, anyway).
Taking this concept even further: Cellular phones would go through batteries extremely fast if they were fully listening all the time. Instead, they "know" at which moments there might be information coming in that concerns them, and typically, these times are short compared to the full operation span.
At these times, cellular base stations usually inform the handset that there will be more info coming in at specific times, so that the receiver can then be turned on again.
So, receivers that are turned off most of the time are very typical for modern systems that are based on some kind of Time-Division Multiple access (TDMA, multiple devices use the same part of the spectrum by making sure only one is sending/receiving at a time), or Time-Division Duplex (TDD, two devices send and receive on the same frequency, by making sure only one and is actively transmitting, whilst the other one is actively receiving).
Another energy preservation technique very common e.g. in satellite phones is to send a very strong signal to "ring up a phone", so that the phone's receiving amplifier can be driven in a very energy-efficient manner, and a more power-hungry RX mode is only entered when there's actually data to receive.


Yes but the challenge is to NOT look like a complete poseur wearing it.
Awesome! How did you get your hands on it???
I want one of these....now! My wife can get a second job!
...Why doesn't anyway ever post a photo of it being worn on a wrist? I want to see what it looks like being WORN.
Anyway, that last photo, the watch on the right is a regular Sea Dweller, right?
It was an engineering exercise and was never meant to be worn on the wrist. The bracelets were specially rigged so that they could attach securely to James Cameron's Deep Sea Challenger sub.