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Standard accounts hold that regularities of behavior must be arbitrary to constitute a convention. Yet, there is growing consensus that conventionality is a graded phenomenon, and that conventions can be more or less natural. I develop an account of natural conventions that distinguishes two basic dimensions of conventional naturalness: a probabilistic dimension and an inherent one. A convention is probabilistically natural if it is likely to emerge in a population of agents, and inherently natural if its content is a regularity that scores high on relevant measures for naturalness. I motivate the proposal on conceptual grounds and then showcase its descriptive benefits by discussing two case studies in language: the tendency towards word-length optimality and the prevalence of shape opacity in spoken language vocabularies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the results of an experimental study dedicated to analysing the concept of translation naturalness in terms of the processoriented paradigm of Translation Studies. The multidisciplinary nature of modern Translation Studies is revealed through applying methods, concepts, and theories of different areas of knowledge in regard to different translation-related phenomena as well as translation itself. Experimental methods devised by cognitive psychology for exposing the mechanisms of decision-making in complex processes have proven their validity in translatology for the last thirty years. The aim of the study is to investigate the translators' decisions intended to make their output look more natural. Our hypothesis is that such decisions are in particular motivated by aspiration to eliminate different types of inconsistencies that can potentially result in unnaturalness in the target text. To verify this hypothesis, we developed and conducted an introspective experiment based on the think-aloud methodology. The material for the study was taken from Terry Pratchett's novel A Hat Full of Sky, within which we singled out three control elements characterised by structural, semantic or stylistic inconsistency. The analysis of the TAPs of ten semi-professional subjects demonstrated that they did not always successfully identify the inconsistencies in the control elements, but when they did, their reaction was to apply strategies aimed at eliminating them and therefore enhancing the target text naturalness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 'Putnam's Paradox', Lewis defended global descriptivism and reference magnetism. According to Schwarz [2014], Lewis didn't mean what he said there, and really held neither position. We present evidence from Lewis's correspondence and publications which shows conclusively that Lewis endorsed both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses one of the most contested issues in phonology: unnatural alternations. First, non-natural phonological processes are subdivided into unmotivated and unnatural. The central topic of the paper is an unnatural process: post-nasal devoicing (PND). I collect thirteen cases of PND and argue that in all reported cases, PND does not derive from a single unnatural sound change (as claimed in some individual accounts of the data), but rather from a combination of three sound changes, each of which is phonetically motivated. I present new evidence showing that the three stages are directly historically attested in the pre-history of Yaghnobi. Based on several discussed cases, I propose a new diachronic model for explaining unnatural phenomena called the Blurring Process and point to its advantages over competing approaches (hypercorrection, perceptual enhancement, and phonetic motivation). The Blurring Process establishes general diachronic conditions for unnatural synchronic processes and can be employed to explain unnatural processes beyond PND. Additionally, I provide a proof establishing the minimal sound changes required for an unmotivated/unnatural alternation to arise. The Blurring Process and Minimal Sound Change Requirement have implications for models of typology within the Channel Bias approach. This paper thus presents a first step toward the ultimate goal of quantifying the influences of Channel Bias on phonological typology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kris McDaniel has recently defended a criterion for being an ontological pluralist that classifies the quantifier variantist as one. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake. There is an important difference between the two views, which is sometimes obscured by a common view in the metaphysics of fundamentality. According to the simple analysis, a language is ideal—it allows for a maximally metaphysically perspicuous description of reality—just in case all its primitives are perfectly natural. I argue that this analysis struggles to distinguish quantifier variance from ontological pluralism, and then I discuss various accounts that can do better. I then propose a criterion for being an ontological pluralist that does not misclassify the quantifier variantist. Finally, I discuss some additional advantages of my proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the use of proverbs in translating the Bible into mother-tongues constitutes an essential ingredient to naturalness in the receptor-language text, thereby enhancing acceptability. Thus, the subject of translating proverbs and translating using proverbs should be handled with the attention it deserves. Using the Dagaare New Testaments as the main texts, the study aims to explore the use of proverbs in the Dagaare text in general; examine how English proverbs were translated; identify which proverbs translate well between English and Dagaare; find out how parallel proverbs were used in Dagaare and how non-proverbial expressions were translated as proverbs in the RL. This study also considered how proverbs were translated as ordinary expressions and how connotative proverbs used in the Dagaare text manifest themselves. Proverbs thus identified were read out to users of the text drawn from different denominations in the area to test for naturalness. The study found that majority (50%) of the SL proverbs translated into Dagaare were ‘near natural’; 33% ‘natural’, and the remaining 17% ‘less natural’. This study recommends that, in future reviews of the two Dagaare NT texts, translators and consultants take note of suggestions made so that proverbs/idioms and cultural equivalents that translate more naturally into the language are adopted to enhance the quality of the translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a prominent view of organism persistence (“vitalicism”), organisms cease to exist at death. According to a rival view (“somaticism”), organisms can continue to exist as dead organisms. Most of the arguments in favor of the latter view rely on linguistic and common sense intuitions. I propose a new argument for somaticism by appealing to two other sources that have thus far not figured in the debate: the concept of naturalness, and biological descriptions of organisms, in particular in ethology and ecology. I show that if we hone in on the relevant notion of naturalness, we can show that organisms can (and often do) continue to instantiate the natural property being an organism after death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the standard interpretation of Lewis's theory of predicate meaning (the U&N theory), the naturalness of meaning candidates should be stated metaphysically - as a length of definition in terms of fundamental properties. Recently, Weatherson has criticized the U&N theory and argued that the criterion of naturalness should be stated epistemologically - as the amount of evidence needed to form a belief. Despite the criticism, his attitude towards the U&N theory is quite relaxed. According to Weatherson, the U&N theory can be used as a good heuristic for delivering the correct verdicts when doing applied semantics, i.e., when we try to determine the best meaning candidate for a particular predicate. In this paper, I try to show that the "good heuristic strategy" is of no use because A) there is no guarantee that the epistemological and the metaphysical criteria of naturalness deliver the same verdicts and B) even if they deliver the same verdicts, the difference in their theoretical backgrounds may affect arguments which rely on the verdicts. The difference will be shown by drawing on the example of Theodore Sider and his use of the U&N theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturalness Theory (NT) is founded on the notion of naturalness and claims that when a linguistic phenomenon can be processed by humans with little effort, both sensomotorically and cognitively, it is deemed more natural compared to other, more complex phenomena. Drawing on evidence such as language change, language acquisition, and language disorders, various parameters of naturalness (e.g., biuniqueness, constructional iconicity) have been postulated, which focus on the phonological and morphological subsystems of language. This paper offers an outline of how naturalness can be adapted to grapholinguistic phenomena. Comparative graphematics (cf. Weingarten 2011), extended to comparative grapholinguistics, is assessed as a method that can be used to reveal naturalness parameters which apply to both material (graphetic) and linguistic (graphematic) aspects of writing. The reduction of extrinsic symmetry across various scripts will be discussed as an example. By integrating these preliminary theoretical ideas into the framework of NT, it is demonstrated that so-called Natural Grapholinguistics could offer promising new insights as well as a tertium comparationis method for future comparative analyses of scripts and writing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Following George Eliot, Elizabeth von Arnim showcases a male rhetoric of naturalness. Her men cultivate and punish their women when they resist naturalizing. Without denigrating the intelligence of women, von Arnim shows their unwitting complicity in their subjection. InThe Pastor’s Wife(1914) and inVera(1921), the highly literate women have read the wrong books or missed the unfriendly truths about relationships in those they have read. The husbands and lovers make shallow use of philosophical and scientific reasoning to justify their control and enforce female uniformity deemed ‘natural’. Darwin is misappropriated by the tyrannical Wemyss: evolutionary theories support his imperious dismissal of Lucy’s aunt and friends. Wemyss’s most monstrous actions suggest an atavistic patriarchal dominance like the hereditary reversion theorized by Samuel Butler as unconscious memory. Wemyss brings up the issue of England’s inheritance, and a disturbing vision dawns as the philistine and self-appointed natural man subdues Lucy. Daphne du Maurier’sRebecca(1938) followsVera’s plot, but it does not interrogate naturalness in the same way. Entrapped in her husband’s vision of a natural woman, the narrator registers Rebecca’s wild transgressiveness as more powerful and universal than her own tamed naturalness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adding a sound to a certain environment is likely to be effective for design of impression there in acoustical point of view. However, until now, little is known about the effectiveness of additional sound on the change in impression. In order to investigate the effect of additional sound, an experiment was conducted by using three kinds of audio-visual materials offering three environments and five kinds of additional sounds. The audio-visual materials were respectively recorded at ''forest,'' ''park,'' and ''shopping street.'' They represent ''natural,'' ''artificial green,'' and ''urban'' environments, respectively. Five kinds of sound stimuli were respectively chosen as: ''bird singing,'' ''sound of stream,'' ''roaring of waves,'' ''traffic noise,'' and ''hum of voices.'' The former three stimuli are regarded as sounds in nature, while the latter two are regarded as artificial ones. The experiment was based on the method of paired comparison, consisting of the unprocessed original audio-visual material and that with one of the additional sounds. The subjects evaluated relative comfortableness and naturalness of each pair. Sound pressure level of the additional sound was controlled in order to discuss the influence of the loudness of the additional sound to the evaluation. The experimental results showed that the comfortableness was improved when the additional sound was 'bird singing' or 'sound of stream' categorized in the nature sound and its sound pressure level was a little lower than that at the original environment. Moreover, it was found out that the naturalness is degraded gradually for almost of the additional sound stimuli, as their sound pressure level is increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Central Catalan, word-final sibilants and stop + sibilant clusters undergo voicing when followed by a vowel in the next word. In word-final pre-vocalic singleton stops, however, no voicing is observed. This asymmetry is unexpected from the point of view of phonetic naturalness, and it invites a closer empirical investigation, especially in the light of recent phonetic findings which challenge earlier descriptions of a similar voicing process before sonorant consonants in Catalan. This study presents a systematic acoustic comparison of voicing in pre-vocalic stops /p, b/, sibilants /s, z/ and stop + sibilant clusters /bz/ with voicing before obstruents and before sonorant consonants. The results show that while pre-sonorant voicing is limited and highly variable, pre-vocalic sibilant and cluster voicing are both robust categorical processes for most speakers. Drawing on evidence from how voicing is realised in a subset of gradient cases, I propose that pre-vocalic cluster voicing developed from pre-vocalic sibilant voicing which in turn descended from an earlier intervocalic voicing process. I further question whether the outcome of the sound changes in Catalan can be synchronically analysed using grounded markedness constraints, and to what extent the pre-vocalic voicing may be regulated by universal vs. language-specific mechanisms of phonological abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in ESL learner language has gained momentum since the 1990s with the generation of learner corpora, development of robust Concordance software and the establishment of the principles of the corpus –-linguistic methodology. All these innovations have empowered researchers to investigate not only the frequent but also the idiosyncratic features of different language phenomena in learner language. This corpus-based content analysis stydy was an attempt to explore the phenomena of creativity and unnaturalness in the use of phrasal verbs in an ESL context. Findings revealed that albeit the ESL learners were competent enough in creating compositional phrasal verbs, hence creative, they often produced unusual forms in their attempt to use and create idiomatic phrasal verbs. Materials developers and teachers are, therefore, recommended to provide materials and learning activities that would enable ESL learners to more effectively acquire phrasal verbs in general and idiomatic combinations in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine physicists' charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particle physics. We argue that even though this charge never rested on a clear-cut and well-entrenched definition of 'ad hoc', it is based on conceptual and methodological assumptions and principles that are well-founded elements of the scientific practice of high-energy particle physics. We further evaluate the implications of the recent discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the CERN's Large Hadron Collider for the charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an ethnographic study conducted in both biomedical and complementary and alternative medicine settings in north Italy, I explore how people and practitioners make sense of allergy and how patients utilize plural healing options. Despite a wide range of medical modalities, people categorize and use medicine according to whether they are ‘natural’ or ‘not-natural,’ thus dissolving any potential confusion between diverse therapies. I analyze how the concept of naturalness relates to allergy and medical pluralism. Nature is perceived as opposed to pollution, the first associated with a reassuring and idealized past and the latter to a modernity riddled with uncertainties. Participants associated a diverse set of meanings with nature, permitting them the syncretism of different medical modalities. Medical pluralism in the study area is an uneven platform for discussion and experimentation, the outcome of historical and cultural context and local entanglements of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pitch (F0) modification is one of the most important problems in the area of speech synthesis. Several techniques have been developed in the literature to achieve this goal. The main restrictions of these techniques are in the modification range and the synthesised speech quality, intelligibility and naturalness. The control of formants in a spoken language can significantly improve the naturalness of the synthesised speech. This improvement is mainly dependent on the control of the first formant (F1). Inspired by this observation, this article proposes a new approach that modifies bothF0andF1of Arabic voiced sounds in order to improve the naturalness of the pitch shifted speech. The developed strategy takes a parallel processing approach, in which the analysis segments are decomposed into sub-bands in the wavelet domain, modified in the desired sub-band by using a resampling technique and reconstructed without affecting the remained sub-bands. Pitch marking and voicing detection are performed in the frequency decomposition step based on the comparison of the multi-level approximation and detail signals. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated by listening tests and compared to the pitch synchronous overlap and add (PSOLA) technique in the third approximation level. Experimental results have shown that the manipulation in the wavelet domain ofF0in conjunction withF1guarantees natural-sounding of the synthesised speech compared to the classical pitch modification technique. This improvement was appropriate for high pitch modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For most people “naturalness” is a highly appreciated material characteristic. For instance, a natural wooden floor is seen as more valuable than a fake replica, though they may be comparable in quality and durability. In the present study we investigated how sensory input (vision and touch) contributes to the perception of naturalness in wood. Participants rated samples of wood or imitations thereof, such as vinyl and veneers. We first attempted to provide a validation of the measurement of perceived naturalness by comparing four psychophysical measurement methods (labelled scaling, magnitude estimation, binary decision, and ranked ordering). Second, we investigated the contribution of vision and touch by measuring the perception of naturalness in three exploration modalities (vision only, touch only, and visuo-tactile). The results show a high degree of consistency across measurement methods, suggesting that we measured a common underlying construct that relates to naturalness. It also suggests that this construct is represented on a metathetic (categorical) continuum. Moreover, we found that both vision and touch are highly correlated predictors of visuo-tactile perception of naturalness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of using speech rate-conversion software by artificially decreasing sound waveforms without changing the pitch was studied in 62 individuals with dysarthria. Besides having patients read a standard common passage entitled "The North Wind and the Sun" aloud, they had casual conversations on a different occasion. Both reading and conversations were recorded on a digital audiocassette recorder in a sound- treated studio. Using speech rate-conversion software, the two types of speech samples (reading and speaking) were played back under 5 rate-delay conditions (100, 150, 200, 250, and 300% slower than the original recording) for evaluation of intelligibility and naturalness by 3 speech and language pathologists. With regard to both intelligibility and naturalness, a significant difference was observed among the 5 rate-delay conditions regardless of the type and severity of dysarthria. A 200% delay in rate delivered the greatest improvement in intelligibility; conversely, any rate-delay less or more than 200% resulted in slight deterioration. In addition, a 150% rate-delay in speech yielded the greatest improvement in naturalness, while any delay less or more than 150% resulted in a significant deteriorating tendency. These findings suggest that reducing verbal speed within the range of 150 - 200% may be useful in the clinical management of dysarthria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper asks the question, whether nakedness embodies a potential wisdom. It deals with two different approaches to the phenomenon of nakedness: the first one rejecting, the second one appreciating the corporeality. The authors show different meanings the various cultures and civilizations attributed to nakedness, e.g. nakedness as a religious symbol of social subordination or belittling (Mesopotamia, Israel) or of a specific national dominance (Greece). Attention is paid also to the meanings of nakedness in Jainism, where the nakedness is a symbol of non-possessiveness; in Christianity, where the approach to nakedness is ambiguous; in tantrism with its vision of a person with numerous bodies, where the role of nakedness and sexuality is seen in cosmic context. Thus the meaning of nakedness remains multiple, depending on its context and visualization. The authors reject the pornography culture of contemporary society in favor of gymnosophy as the hierophany of the naturalness of nakedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The purposes of this study were to investigate naturalness of the post-treatment speech of Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) clients and differences in naturalness ratings by three listener groups. Listeners were 21 student speech-language pathologists, 9 community members, and 15 listeners who stutter. Listeners rated perceptually fluent speech samples of CSP clients obtained immediately post-treatment (Post) and at 5 years follow-up (F5), and speech samples of matched typically fluent (TF) speakers. A 9-point interval rating scale was used. A 3 (listener group)×2 (time)×2 (speaker) mixed ANOVA was used to test for differences among mean ratings. The difference between CSP Post and F5 mean ratings was statistically significant. The F5 mean rating was within the range reported for typically fluent speakers. Student speech-language pathologists were found to be less critical than community members and listeners who stutter in rating naturalness; however, there were no significant differences in ratings made by community members and listeners who stutter. Results indicate that the naturalness of post-treatment speech of CSP clients improves in the post-treatment period and that it is possible for clients to achieve levels of naturalness that appear to be acceptable to adults who stutter and that are within the range of naturalness ratings given to typically fluent speakers. Educational objectives: Readers will be able to (a) summarize key findings of studies that have investigated naturalness ratings, and (b) interpret the naturalness ratings of Comprehensive Stuttering Program speaker samples and the ratings made by the three listener groups in this study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]