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This paper introduces a new survey of switch-reference in the languages of North America. The survey's purposes are to provide a broad basis for future analysis of switch-reference (SR), spur further research on the languages included, and help revitalization efforts with a better understanding of what SR looks like and how it works. The survey catalogs 33 facts about SR morphology, semantics, and syntax, organized around central questions in SR research. The paper discusses the major findings based on the survey, some of which have major implications for theories of switch-reference: SR is found in nearly 70 American language varieties, mostly in the western United States and Mexico, often spreading by areal diffusion. Cross-linguistically, SR usually indicates subject co-reference across clauses. It is associated with every type of clause juncture except disjunction and is found throughout the verbal morphology. Morphological homophony with case is not due to a common semantic core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her article "Paradigms of Communication in Performance and Dance Studies" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu approaches from an interdisciplinary perspective the measure in which performing arts (theater, music, ballet, Indian classical dance, folk dance, etc.), as well as ritual performance constitute a corpus that may be analysed by means of theoretical and conceptual tools in communication studies and semiotics. Popa Blanariu analyses the relation between signification and communication in performing arts, between different codes and artistic expressions through which these are realized, between verbal and the other artistic "languages," and takes into consideration how "linguistic" functions manifest themselves within "languages" specific to various forms of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps the earliest linguistic resource we have as babies learning to mean is the noun in categorizing the objects around us. The conventional association between the noun and the entity it denotes becomes exploited in use and the speaker learns that through grammar he or she can use nominal expressions to refer. This is one of our most powerful resources. The referring nominal group has the greatest potential for complexity and can serve as a measure of a text's 'nominality' and its density, including its role as an index of register. In Halliday's 1966 paper Grammar, Society and the Noun, he sought to consider 'certain questions of language from the outside' (p. 50). In this paper, I will also look at certain questions of language but instead from the inside. These two alternative views can be thought of as inter-organism orientation and intra-organism orientation (Halliday, Lamb, and Regan, 1988). This paper seeks to answer questions such as what is 'nominality'? Where and how does it fit in the grammar? What relationship does it have, if any, to context? Taking an intra-organism approach, I will consider these questions by examining certain referring expressions in context. Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs (1986) demonstrated how the process of referring is collaborative; however as they point out, 'social factors govern the collaborative mode' (p, 37). This paper will explore these social factors by looking at certain referring expressions in an uncollaborative context, that of a reprisal hearing. The results show that a speech partner uses different strategies following a rejected referring expression depending on the type of exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kripke (1990/2009) argues that the presupposition triggered by the additive particle too is anaphoric in nature, an influential thesis with important ramifications for the theory of presupposition. This article reexamines the empirical evidence and proposes an alternative explanation, leaving too with only its traditional existential presupposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considered the linguistic forms used by 63 English-speaking Canadian children from kindergarten to second grade (ages 5;6–8;8) to introduce, maintain reference to, and reintroduce primary and secondary characters throughout their narratives The expected referring forms were used more frequently for the best-matching referential function: indefinites for introduction, pronouns and null forms for maintenance, and identifiables (i.e., definite and possessive NPs, and proper names) for reintroduction. Developmental changes in form–function mappings were present for both introduction and reintroduction. Many children were also influenced by the relative prominence of story characters in their use of pronominals. Nonetheless, function constraints exerted a much stronger influence on referential choice than did character primacy in all grades. By systematically exploring the interplay of referential function and character primacy on referring expressions, this study adds to existing findings on many levels. It also invites future research that manipulates various features of both primary and secondary characters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper explores language-internal variation in the referential meaning of the lexical form blue. Taking a usage-based cognitive approach, we analyze the referential range of blue in several marketing contexts from a semasiological and an onomasiological perspective. The study develops an interdisciplinary method that combines frequency analysis with mapping of the referent distributions in the three-dimensional CIELab color space. It is argued that the observed referential variation in blue is influenced by usage-related factors such as availability of the referents, diversity of color naming strategies and onomasiological competition between lexical forms in the individual product categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to develop a unified account of communication, competence and reference fixing that surpasses problems with two of the most influential views on the philosophical market, neodescriptivism and the 'locking' theory. Our charge is that the conditions upon communication are less substantive than the neo-descriptivist account requires and the conditions upon reference-fixing are more substantive than those provided by the locking-view. In order to avoid the problems that neodescriptivist views face (e.g. holism), we suggest that the shareability of a specific set of inferences, or dispositions to infer, is not a prerequisite for conceptual shareability. In order to avoid the infamous ‘which-properties-speakers-lock-on’ problem of the locking-view, we establish a more robust causal relation between concepts and their referents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When one wakes up in the early morning of the day, one is struck by all activities performed which, are controlled by time. Every task that one performs,one takes time into cognizance When one stands on the pavement of the road, one is struck by jostling people going up and down the streets in a haste. Some are running while others are walking leisurely .When one enquires why some are running like that while others are walking slowly, the response that one gets is:" time is running out". Sometimes employees observe time while other employees do not observe it. Both parties (the employees and employers) are not satisfied with how each manages time. This practice of not observing time compelled the researcher to attempt to explore the various ways in which time is expressed in Tshivenḓ a. Having explored different ways of expressing time would assist people to consider the importance of time in their everyday activities. The paper investigates the extents of analysing various word categories with properties of expressing time in Tshivenḓ a. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Babel A.F.I.A.L. is the property of Babel A.F.I.A.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This socio-legal study empirically assesses the use of plain language in improving comprehension of legal reference texts by laypeople in Hong Kong, where common-law Chinese was newly engineered. Our study shows that native Chinese speakers have problems understanding the materials, but simple modifications of the texts can significantly improve their comprehension. The results suggest that the seeming incapability of expressing law in a language may not be related to the choice of code, but to how it is written. Based on the data, this study contributes to the improvement of legal communication by identifying features of common- law Chinese that make these materials difficult to understand, and proposes language-specific plain-language strategies that can improve comprehensibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spirit of apologia, this essay illustrates how the rhetoric of Reverend Jeremiah Wright can be better understood when set in relation to the black vernacular tradition of Signification or signifyin(g), the Racial Contract, and Whiteness. A sustained contextualization of Wright’s “controversial statements” reveals a complex performative rhetoric that is highly dependent on elements of delivery, especially tone. We argue that reporters in the mainstream media as well as Barack Obama deliberately maligned the performative dimension of Wright’s rhetoric, thereby misrepresenting it in the service of generating controversy and political expediency, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a pragmatic and semantic study of the English knock-knock jokes, paying particular attention to the dimension of reference, in general, and the use of proper names, in particular, which are described from the viewpoint of discourse analysis and psycholinguistics. The article aims at underlining the twofold discursive function (i.e., identifying and diverging) that names fulfil in this variety of humorous texts. In the end, the study also tries to show how this pattern of English jokes has recently been adapted to Romanian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the (re)creation of referential cohesion in Hungarian-English translation and examines the extent to which shifts of reference are motivated by the differences between the languages, the characteristics of the translation type (news translation) and the genre (news story). As referential cohesion is hypothesized to be affected by certain universals of translation, the explicitation and the repetition avoidance hypotheses are also tested. Analyses show considerable shifts of reference in translations, but these are not statistically significant. The corpus also fails to provide evidence for the universals of translation investigated; however, the in-depth analysis of optional shifts suggests that they are conditioned by the discursive features of the genre and contribute to a more explicit presentation of news content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has long been uncertainty about the relationship between the polities known as Strathclyde and Cumbria. Did medieval writers apply these terms to the same kingdom, or were Strathclyde and Cumbria separate entities? This debate has significant implications for our understanding of the politics of northern Britain during the period from the late ninth century to the twelfth. In this article I analyse the terminology in Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Welsh and Irish texts. I argue that Strathclyde developed into Cumbria: the expansion of the kingdom of Strathclyde beyond the limits of the Clyde valley necessitated the use of a new name. This process occurred during the early tenth century and created a Cumbrian kingdom that stretched from the Clyde to the south of the Solway Firth. The kingdom met its demise in the mid-eleventh century and Cumbrian terminology was subsequently appropriated for smaller ecclesiastical and administrative units. Yet these later usages should not be confused with the tenth-century kingdom, which encompassed a large area that straddled the modern Anglo-Scottish border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors' response to critics of the book "The Reference Book" is presented. Topics discussed include acquaintance constraints on reference and singular thought, conventional requirements related to the use of noun phrases and orthodox notion of reference in semantics. It also reflects on referential use of proper names.

A literary criticism of the book "The Reference Book" by John Hawthorne and David Manley is presented. It examines acquaintance restriction on reference or singular thought in semantics. It also pay attentions on unified account of the semantics of four kinds of expressions and referential uses of these expressions.

The article focuses on the issue of referential use of the semantics of four kinds of expressions including definite descriptions, demonstratives and proper names by reflecting on reference theories discussed in the book "The Reference Book" by John Hawthorne and David Manley. Topics discussed include uniform behavior of names, semantic mode of operation of proper names and referential orthodoxy.

The article focuses on the issue of forgetting auld acquaintances by reflecting on acquaintance theories discussed in the book "The Reference Book" by John Hawthorne and David Manley. Topics discussed include presentation of liberalism against acquaintances, truth-referentialism and causal acquaintance restriction on reference.

In this short report, we show that some elements usually deemed as obligatory de se anaphors may be interpreted as non-de se in certain contexts. We argue that this non-de se reading cannot be subsumed under the category of de re, and suggest extending Kuno and Kaburaki's theory of empathy (Kuno & Kaburaki 1977, Kuno 1987) to interpret these readings as indirect de se: namely, that the speaker empathizes with the attitude holder, helping the latter to do self-reference. Applying this idea to other anaphoric expressions like personal pronouns, we obtain a trichotomy of attitude reports--de se, de re, and indirect de se, contra the traditional de se and de re distinction. Our proposal can also help to account for Anand's (2006) observation that only first-person attitude reports in the past tense may have the non-de se reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we report a pilot study which explored the relationship between spatial categorization and cognitive development. Eight participants from four age ranges (infants, teenagers, middle aged adults, old adults) were asked to describe the location of certain elements in a picture, in order to examine which aspects of the spatial location expressions showed differences across age ranges. Analysis showed that spatial categorization grows complex with age, with differences being observed in relation to five parameters: system of reference, reference frame, viewpoint, multidimensionality and visual tracking pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By approaching letter writing as vernacular literacy practice, this paper examines how twentieth-century ordinary Lithuanians organized their letter-writing practices and how these practices were embedded in their everyday lives. The analysis is based on the data that comes from the Database of Private Written Lithuanian Language, developed jointly by a team of researchers working in Lithuania and the U.S.A. The analysis reveals that for many ordinary Lithuanians, letter writing was often embedded within their everyday activities in terms of time, place, domain, participants, tools, and style. Even though letter writing was perceived by many writers as informal writing, references to “poor” handwriting point to the complex interrelationship between vernacular and institutional literacies: informal (vernacular) writing was affected by a formally imposed understanding of “good” and “proper” writing.

Research suggests that the presence of a non-referent from the same category as the referent interferes with anaphor resolution. In five experiments, the hypothesis that multiple non-referents would produce a cumulative interference effect (i.e., a fan effect) was examined. This hypothesis was supported in Experiments 1A and 1B, with subjects being less accurate and slower to recognize referents (1A) and non-referents (1B) as the number of potential referents increased from two to five. Surprisingly, the number of potential referents led to a decrease in anaphor reading times. The results of Experiments 2A and 2B replicated the probe-recognition results in a completely within-subjects design and ruled out the possibility that a speeded-reading strategy led to the fan-effect findings. The results of Experiment 3 provided evidence that subjects were resolving the anaphors. These results suggest that multiple non-referents do produce a cumulative interference effect; however, additional research is necessary to explore the effect on anaphor reading times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a few key elements from Jean- Blaise Grize's semiotic developments. For the Swiss author, it is necessary to understand not only the functioning of reasoning (formal and informal) or the argumentative structures that we use in everyday life. In order to get a better image of the latter, we have to dive into the depths of semiotics and try to figure out the life of signs. This leads to a certain peculiarity within Grize's work, as long as his considerations concerning natural logic, reasoning or discursive schematisations are by far clearer than the semiotic elements which would constitute their basis. Nevertheless, the fact that he opted for an explicative schema that encapsulates a lot of semiotic elements proves that Jean-Blaise Grize had a nuanced view of the matter. In his Logic naturelle et communications (1996), Grize offers an explanation of meaning through an inspired construction of a theoretical hybrid (Saussure and Peirce are brought together in spite of the common view according to which those two traditions are hardly compatible). Far from being a naïve standpoint (as Grize joked about his own view, in a playful selfreferential sequence), this hybrid incorporates enough concepts in order to be not only a mature structure, but also a useful one (signifier, signified, reference, meaning, object of the sign, denotation, designation). Understanding these concepts and the relations that are established among them allows us to grasp two forms of discursive representations, namely models and discursive schematisations. The problem of meaning is innovatively tackled by a two-way approach. On the one hand, we have to keep in mind that in front of us we find several sources of difficulties (lexical, semantic and syntactic). On the other hand, we must pay attention to the process of semiosis that involves a creative form of activity from both speaker and receiver. Moreover, this activity (comprising receiving, understanding and interpreting the signs) is presented by Grize against the background of Michel Meyer's problematology. One important result of this theoretical network developed by Grize is the fact that the classical model of communication created by Shannon and Weaver seems inappropriate a tool for the description of the real communication sequences. Finally, my paper states a few objections that can be made to Grize's project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation of c-command (Reinhart 1976, 1983) is widely believed to be THE fundamental relation in syntax, underlying such diverse phenomena as coreference (the BINDING PRINCIPLES), scope and variable binding, syntactic movement, and so on. Precedence is generally held to be irrelevant. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Syntax does not involve c-command at all, but rather a much coarser notion of command, PHASE-COMMAND, where only phasal nodes matter, not every node in the tree. Precedence also plays an important role. The article argues this point in detail for the binding principles, and shows that the relation that is required is PRECEDE-AND-COMMAND (Langacker 1969, Jackendoff 1972, Lasnik 1976), where command is phase-command. It revisits Reinhart's arguments for c-command and against precedence, and shows that those arguments do not go through. Finally, precede-and-command does not need to be stipulated, but follows from a view of grammar and processing where sentences are built in a left-to-right fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economy & Market Communication Review / Casopis za Ekonomiju i Trzisne Komunikacije is the property of Pan-European University Apeiron and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In her paper “Can Frege Pose Frege's Puzzle", Stavroula Glezakos argues for the claim that, unless one presupposes the theoretical notion of sense, there is no in-principle epistemic divide between sentences of the form “a=a" and “a=b". It would follow that Frege's puzzle cannot be used to argue in favour of senses, as Frege has done, on pain of circularity. Here I argue that a criterion of name identity based on the notion of explicit co-reference can be specified that does not presuppose the notion of sense. I show how such criterion is plausibly implicitly at work in setting up the puzzle, and that it can be deployed to rescue Frege from the accusation of circularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Anthropologie et Sociétés is the property of Anthropologie et Societies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Disambiguation refers to children’s tendency to assign novel labels to unfamiliar rather than familiar referents. It is employed as a word-learning strategy, but it remains unknown whether it is a domain-specific phenomenon or a manifestation of more general pragmatic competence. To assess the domain-specificity and development of disambiguation, this study tested children from two age groups (ages 3;7–4;6 and 4;7–5;7) and adults on a disambiguation of novel labels and referential facts paradigm. A linear contrast analysis showed that the difference between disambiguation from labels and disambiguation from facts increased significantly as the participants’ age increased. The results indicate that at the early stages of word learning, children reason by exclusion to disambiguate the meaning of a variety of referential actions, but with increasing understanding about the communicative process, this inferential reasoning develops into a strategy limited to lexical acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study considered the adequacy of references used by children to introduce, maintain, and reintroduce characters in complex narratives involving multiple characters. Sixty-three English-speaking Canadian children from kindergarten to second grade (M age 7.0 years) told two multi-episode stories from wordless picture books. Analyses considered differences in referential adequacy both within-children and between grades. There was an unexpectedly large difference in adequacy levels across stories, mostly because of an overuse of pronouns in one story. Maintenance was the easiest referential function, whereas reintroduction proved more difficult than introduction only for the story with consistently lower adequacy levels. Participants across grades were affected by referential function and by story in analogous ways. The kindergartners did nonetheless obtain lower adequacy levels than the two higher grades due to a higher use of pronouns and because they were less able to clearly refer to characters even when they were using the same linguistic forms. Participants in the three grades successfully used a diversity of linguistic forms for their character references across referential functions. Together, these findings have important implications for referential cohesion in young school-aged children. First, they invite caution when drawing conclusions regarding developmental changes based on a single story. Second, they suggest that reintroduction may be particularly sensitive to story features that make referencing more demanding. Finally, they underscore the importance of considering reference within the broader textual context in order to produce a detailed account of referential abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A realist view of numbers often rests on the following thesis: statements like 'The number of moons of Jupiter is four' are identity statements in which the copula is flanked by singular terms whose semantic function consists in referring to a number (henceforth: Identity). On the basis of Identity the realists argue that the assertive use of such statements commits us to numbers. Recently, some anti-realists have disputed this argument. According to them, Identity is false, and, thus, we may deny that the relevant statements commit us to numbers. The present paper argues that the correct linguistic analysis of the relevant number statements supports the anti-realist view that Identity is false. However, as will further be shown, pace the anti-realist, this analysis does not establish that such statements do not commit us to numbers after all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I will defend a novel version of the indexical view on proper names. According to this version, proper names have a relatively sparse truth-conditional meaning that is represented by their rigid content and indexical character, but a relatively rich use-conditional meaning, which I call the ( contextual) constraint of a proper name. Firstly, I will provide a brief outline of my favoured indexical view on names in contrast to other indexical views proposed in the relevant literature. Secondly, two general motivations for an indexical view on names will be introduced and defended. Thirdly, I will criticize the two most popular versions of the indexical view on names: formal variable accounts and salience-based formal constant accounts. In the fourth and final section, I will develop my own use-conditional indexical view on names in three different steps by confronting an initial version of this view with three different challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brian Loar [1976] observed that, even in the simplest of cases, such as an utterance of (1): ‘He is a stockbroker’, a speaker's audience might misunderstand her utterance even if they correctly identify the referent of the relevant singular term, and understand what is being predicated of it. Numerous theorists, including Bezuidenhout [1997], Heck [1995], Paul [1999], and Récanati [1993, 1995], have used Loar's observation to argue against direct reference accounts of assertoric content and communication, maintaining that, even in these simple cases, the propositional contribution of a referring expression must be more than just its referent. I argue here that, while Loar's observation is correct, the conclusion he and others have sought to draw from it simply does not follow. Rather, his observation helps to remind us of an important Gricean insight into the nature of communicative acts—including acts of speaker-reference—namely, that there is more to understanding a communicative act than merely entertaining what a speaker is intending to communicate thereby. Once we remember this insight, we see that the phenomenon to which Loar is calling our attention should actually beexpectedgiven the direct reference theorist's assumptions, together with independently plausible Gricean principles concerning how we make our referential intentions manifest in communication. More generally, the Gricean strategy for explaining the challenge posed by Loar cases suggests a novel way to account for certain crucial anti-direct reference intuitions—one requiring no modification of the original theory (e.g., no invocation of ‘descriptive enrichments’ as in Soames [2002]), thereby allowing for a direct reference account ofwhat is assertedin utterances of ‘simple sentences’ such as (1). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on recent studies on cohesion, some scholars believe that there is a positive relation between teaching cohesion, reference, in this case and learners writing quality. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the relationship between teaching reference through simple prose to Iranian intermediate EFL learners and their writing improvement in terms of the correct use of this cohesive tie. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected to participate in this study. A pretest was also administered on the writing ability of participants prior to the treatment. Twelve sessions of instruction each lasting for about 60 minutes comprised the whole treatment to the learners. After the treatment, a post-test was conducted to determine learning improvement compared to pre-test. The results of the study through independent t-test revealed that, there was no significant relationship between teaching of reference as a cohesive device and the writing quality of Iranian intermediate EFL learners before and after the treatment. The findings of the present study although did not reveal any statistically significant results, they showed an indication of the efficacy of the treatment. Therefore it is suggested that definitely more emphasis should be placed on teaching of reference during the practices of TEFL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using longitudinal data on the Boston Naming Test (Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 1983) collected over 20 years from healthy individuals aged 30 to 94, we examined change in lexical retrieval with age, gender, education, and their interactions. We compared results between random-effects longitudinal and traditional cross-sectional models. Random-effects modeling revealed significant linear and quadratic change in lexical retrieval with age; it also showed a Gender x Education interaction, indicating poorest performance for women with less education. Cross-sectional analyses produced greater estimates of change with age than did longitudinal analyses.

Hilary Putnam has reformulated his model-theoretic argument as an argument against indirect realism in the philosophy of perception. This new argument is reviewed and defended. Putnam's new focus on philosophical theories of perception (instead of metaphysical realism) makes better sense of his previous responses to the objection from the causal theory of reference. It is argued that the model-theoretic argument can also be construed as an argument that holders of a causal theory of reference should adopt direct realism in the philosophy of perception.

One claim about I, regularly made and almost universally endorsed, is that uses of the term are logically guaranteed to refer successfully (if they refer at all). The claim is only rarely formulated perspicuously or argued for. Such obscurity helps disguise the fact that those who profess to advance the claim actually turn out to support not a logical guarantee at all but merely high security through fortunate coincidence. This is not surprising. For we have no good reason to accept the claim--granted, any use of I is apt to refer successfully; but that can be explained by pragmatic features of its use. And we have some reason to reject the claim--it is notoriously difficult to see how genuine reference and guaranteed success do not exclude each other when considered as properties of the logic of any term.

The views on universals and reference of Herbert Marcuse are discussed. Topics include the critique of pure analytic reason and universality in relation to negation.