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Spanish voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ surfaced as fricatives [β, ð, ɣ] in intervocalic position due to a phonological process known as spirantization or, more broadly, lenition. However, conditioned by various factors such as stress, place of articulation, flanking vowel quality, and speaking rate, phonetic studies reveal a great deal of variation and gradience of these surface forms, ranging from fricative-like to approximant-like [ β ⊤ , ð ⊤ , ɣ ⊤ ]. Several acoustic measurements have been used to quantify the degree of lenition, but none is standard. In this study, the posterior probabilities of sonorant and continuant phonological features in a corpus of Argentinian Spanish estimated by a deep learning Phonet model as measures of lenition were compared to traditional acoustic measurements of intensity, duration, and periodicity. When evaluated against known lenition factors: stress, place of articulation, surrounding vowel quality, word status, and speaking rate, the results show that sonorant and continuant posterior probabilities predict lenition patterns that are similar to those predicted by relative acoustic intensity measures and are in the direction expected by the effort-based view of lenition and previous findings. These results suggest that Phonet is a reliable alternative or additional approach to investigate the degree of lenition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on enhancing the understanding of lung cancer development but also offers the potential to assess the effects of other toxins on cells. Topics include providing a comprehensive pattern of DNA modifications consistent with known mutations in lung cancer; and identifying specific DNA alterations consistent with known lung cancer mutations.

The focus of this article is the origins of (1) reduced vowels in languages of the Balkan Sprachbund, (2) lenition of soft stops, (3) its (pre)nasalization, (4) the change of ‑n‑ into ‑r‑ in the Tosk dialect of Albanian and a similar process in Old Romanian as well as the Istro‑Romanian, Maramuresh and Oltenian dialects of this language, a parallel change of Latin ‑l‑ into ‑r‑ in common Romanian and certain Italian dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolutionary and adaptive potential of a pathogen is a key determinant for successful host colonization and proliferation but remains poorly known for most of the pathogens. Here, we used experimental evolution combined with phenotyping, genomics, and transcriptomics to estimate the adaptive potential of the bacterial plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum to overcome the quantitative resistance of the tomato cultivar Hawaii 7996. After serial passaging over 300 generations, we observed pathogen adaptation to within-plant environment of the resistant cultivar but no plant resistance breakdown. Genomic sequence analysis of the adapted clones revealed few genetic alterations, but we provide evidence that all but one were gain of function mutations. Transcriptomic analyses revealed that even if different adaptive events occurred in independently evolved clones, there is convergence toward a global rewiring of the virulence regulatory network as evidenced by largely overlapping gene expression profiles. A subset of four transcription regulators, including HrpB, the activator of the type 3 secretion system regulon and EfpR, a global regulator of virulence and metabolic functions, emerged as key nodes of this regulatory network that are frequently targeted to redirect the pathogen's physiology and improve its fitness in adverse conditions. Significant transcriptomic variations were also detected in evolved clones showing no genomic polymorphism, suggesting that epigenetic modifications regulate expression of some of the virulence network components and play a major role in adaptation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies covering some aspects of SARS-CoV-2 data analyses are being published on a daily basis, including a regularly updated phylogeny on nextstrain.org. Here, we review the difficulties of inferring reliable phylogenies by example of a data snapshot comprising a quality-filtered subset of 8,736 out of all 16,453 virus sequences available on May 5, 2020 from gisaid.org. We find that it is difficult to infer a reliable phylogeny on these data due to the large number of sequences in conjunction with the low number of mutations. We further find that rooting the inferred phylogeny with some degree of confidence either via the bat and pangolin outgroups or by applying novel computational methods on the ingroup phylogeny does not appear to be credible. Finally, an automatic classification of the current sequences into subclasses using the mPTP tool for molecular species delimitation is also, as might be expected, not possible, as the sequences are too closely related. We conclude that, although the application of phylogenetic methods to disentangle the evolution and spread of COVID-19 provides some insight, results of phylogenetic analyses, in particular those conducted under the default settings of current phylogenetic inference tools, as well as downstream analyses on the inferred phylogenies, should be considered and interpreted with extreme caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on online data supplement for ivacaftor in people with cystic fibrosis and a 3849+10kb CT or D1152H residual function mutation including examines that male or female with confirmed diagnosis of cystic fibrosis are ready to participate.

A field-based ultrasound and acoustic study of Iwaidja, an endangered Australian Aboriginal language, investigates the phonetic identity of nonnasal velar consonants in intervocalic position, where past work has proposed a [+continuant] vs. [-continuant] phonemic contrast. We analyze the putative contrast within a continuous phonetic space, defined by both acoustic and articulatory parameters, and find gradient variation: from more consonantal realizations, such as [?], to more vocalic realizations, such as [a]. The distribution of realizations across lexical items and speakers does not support the proposed phonemic contrast. This case illustrates how lenition that is both phonetically gradient and variable across speakers and words can give the illusion of a contextually restricted phonemic contrast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Slawistik is the property of De Gruyter 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 paper is a modest contribution to the understanding of vocalic strength. Our aim is to show that the strength of consonants and the strength of vowels can be unified. For this, we propose that the only factor of strength is length. More precisely: branching segments are stronger and segments sharing their positions with other segments are weaker. We discuss several examples of phenomena related to vowels which illustrate this strength hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alveolar fricative consonant /s/in plosive position (middle and end of the word) was studied in a sample composed by 161 speakers of Chilean Spanish, divided in four age groups from 2;0 up to 3;11. The main purpose of the study was to consider this segment from a dialectal perspective, in order to understand at what point in its acquisition children start to use this sound's variants, i.e., [h] and [Ø]. Results were analyzed according to age and socioeconomic status variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After providing an analysis of Celtic phonology as per the approach to phonology known as Laryngeal Realism, this paper addresses the differing realizations of the two mutations common to Goidelic and Brittonic, the first lenition and nasalization. It is proposed that differences in interarticulatory timing between consecutive segments led to the attested differing realizations of these mutations. Some attention is also paid to the differing realizations of nasalization between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses corpus data of modern conversational speech to examine variation in the mutation of place-names in Welsh as spoken in both Wales and Patagonia. Specifically, it considers how speakers from both areas mutate (or do not mutate) place-names following the nasal mutation trigger yn 'in', through a two-step statistical approach of conditional inference trees and random forests. Results show no significant difference in how speakers from Wales and Patagonia mutate place-names in this environment, but that the radical initial consonant, speaker age, and place-name type - including the geographical, linguistic, and cultural 'Welshness' of the place-name - all significantly affect mutation behaviour. Furthermore, while nasal mutation is present in the data, the results also illustrate the growing use of soft mutation as an alternate mutation strategy following yn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the expressive power of three programming abstractions for user-defined computational effects: Plotkin and Pretnar's effect handlers, Filinski's monadic reflection, and delimited control. This comparison allows a precise discussion about the relative expressiveness of each programming abstraction. It also demonstrates the sensitivity of the relative expressiveness of user-defined effects to seemingly orthogonal language features. We present three calculi, one per abstraction, extending Levy's call-by-push-value. For each calculus, we present syntax, operational semantics, a natural type-and-effect system, and, for effect handlers and monadic reflection, a set-theoretic denotational semantics. We establish their basic metatheoretic properties: safety, termination, and, where applicable, soundness and adequacy. Using Felleisen's notion of a macro translation, we show that these abstractions can macro express each other, and show which translations preserve typeability. We use the adequate finitary set-theoretic denotational semantics for the monadic calculus to show that effect handlers cannot be macro expressed while preserving typeability either by monadic reflection or by delimited control. Our argument fails with simple changes to the type system such as polymorphism and inductive types. We supplement our development with a mechanised Abella formalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vox Romanica: Annales Helvetici Explorandis Linguis Romanicis Destinati is the property of Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH & Co.KG 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.)

Welsh is described as having two series of nasals, a voiced series [m, n, ŋ], and a voiceless series, transcribed as [...] or [mh, nh, ŋh]. In this paper, I give a synchronic analysis of the nasals and argue that the second series are phonologically sequences of a nasal followed by [h], i.e. [mh, nh, ŋh]. Moreover, I show that the properties and distribution of these consonants all follow from this assumption. The argument for the analysis comes from: phonetics, the distribution of the mutation system, syllabification, the distribution of [h], poetry, and dialect data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catalan has a [З] ~ [t⌢∫] alternation that has traditionally been viewed as the consequence of final affrication of an underlying /З/, a fortition operation, followed by general devoicing of obstruents. This interpretation has been held in classical generative rule-based approaches and also in autosegmental models, amounting either to a highly specific process or, when an attempt is made to generalize it, to wrong predictions; these shortcomings are also applicable to optimality-theoretic analyses. Following ideas in (Wheeler, Max W. 2005. The phonology of Catalan. Oxford: Oxford University Press), we propose that underlying affricates are subject to intervocalic lenition triggered by independently motivated general constraints. Sequences of a stop followed by a fricative can become affricates but cannot be affected by lenition. The interaction between affricates and gemination is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates voiceless stop lenition in Chilean Spanish. Recent studies (e.g. Pérez 2007, Figueroa & Evans 2014, among others) have documented high levels of lenition of /b d g/ in Chilean Spanish. As a result, the present study seeks to document the degree to which the voiceless stops /p t k/ undergo lenition in this variety of Spanish. Furthermore, the relationship between lenition and social factors (e.g., age, gender, and socioeconomic stratification) is examined. Data was taken from the sociolinguistic interviews of 32 speakers from the Province of Concepción, Chile. In all, 4,419 intervocalic tokens of /p t k/ were analyzed for lenition using three different measurement criteria: total voicing, articulatory reduction, and duration. Results confirm that according to all three criteria, elevated levels of lenition are observed in the production of /p t k/ in Concepción. Likewise, results indicate that as a social phenomenon, voiceless stop lenition in Concepción is primarily conditioned by age and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We investigate the emergence of iconicity, specifically a bouba‐kiki effect in miniature artificial languages under different functional constraints: when the languages are reproduced and when they are used communicatively. We ran transmission chains of (a) participant dyads who played an interactive communicative game and (b) individual participants who played a matched learning game. An analysis of the languages over six generations in an iterated learning experiment revealed that in the Communication condition, but not in the Reproduction condition, words for spiky shapes tend to be rated by naive judges as more spiky than the words for round shapes. This suggests that iconicity may not only be the outcome of innovations introduced by individuals, but, crucially, the result of interlocutor negotiation of new communicative conventions. We interpret our results as an illustration of cultural evolution by random mutation and selection (as opposed to by guided variation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What causes Indonesian to lenite word-final Ik/, American English to lenite word-final it/, and Spanish to lenite word-final /s/? This article shows that all three observed lenition patterns can be motivated using a single principle: languages preferentially lenite segments that provide relatively low informativity compared to the amount of informativity those segments carry in other languages. In a comparison of a diverse sample of seven languages from the LDC CALLHOME and CALLFRIEND corpora, Indonesian/k/, American English /t/, and Spanish /s/ are found to have the lowest informativity, predicting that they would be more likely to be affected by sound change processes. In a subsequent regression-based corpus study, low informativity predicted the propensity of word-final lenition of all obstruents in American English after phonetic and phonological factors were controlled for. This article therefore provides a partial solution to the famous actuation problem (Weinreich et al. 1968) with respect to the actuation of lenition processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been extraordinary attention devoted to the Celtic mutations over the years, with various authors arguing for phonological, morphological, or lexical treatments (and various blends thereof). Strikingly, this literature is virtually bereft of any mention of the phonological restrictions that can sometimes limit the applicability of mutation. In this article, we provide a detailed experimental and corpus-based investigation of the phonological restrictions on Scottish Gaelic mutation. Using both techniques, we show that the phonological restrictions are alive yet are in a state of flux. The continued productivity of these phonological aspects of the mutation system argues that any analysis of mutation must attend to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents select phonological processes found to occur in Barak Valley Meitei (hence forth BVM) using a descriptive framework. The idiosyncratic phonological feature of BVM is the substitution of /ɟ/ in the place of /j/ in word initial position. This is not found to occur in other positions except as allophones after /ə/ prefixation. Phonological processes occurring in the language such as Lenition, Apocope, Elision, and Vowel harmony lend the language a more distinct quality and the paper attempts to account for these phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the challenges in creating Mutator VR: Vortex, a virtual reality experience based on interaction with semi-autonomous, organically inspired agents. The work allows the immersant to morph between a vast number of procedurallygenerated microworlds, each with its own visual elements, sounds, agent dynamics, and user interactions. We outline two methods used for procedural generation that are based fundamentally on integration of different modalities. Curve-based synthesis is used for simultaneous generation of entity sounds and shape and flow grains are employed to determine both agent dynamics and user interaction with the agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the hypothesis that late first-language English / second-language Spanish learners (L1 English / L2 Spanish learners) acquire spirantization in stages according to the prosodic hierarchy (Zampini, 1997, 1998). In Spanish, voiced stops [b d g] surface after a pause or nasal stop, and continuants [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] surface postvocalically, among other contexts. We adopt an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the phenomenon that assumes that postvocalic continuants surface due to the ranking of prosodic positional faithfulness constraints below a markedness constraint that prohibits stops in postvocalic position. L1 English speakers are presumed to start with a ranking in which prosodic positional faithfulness outranks the markedness constraint. In line with the Gradual Learning Algorithm (Boersma and Hayes, 2001), gradual demotion of the relevant faithfulness constraints is predicted in L2 Spanish, extending the prosodic domain until continuants surface postvocalically across domains. A cross-section of 44 L1 English / L2 Spanish learners and a control group (n = 5) completed a recitation task, and data were analysed acoustically for manner of articulation and degree of constriction. Results partially align with Zampini’s impressionistic data: Learners first produce underlying stops as postvocalic approximants at the onset of the syllable (word-medial position), followed by the onset of the prosodic word (word-initial position). Unlike Zampini’s findings, there is no evidence for an intermediate stage of acquisition across the boundary of a word and its clitic. Advanced L2 learners produce continuants in postvocalic position at all applicable prosodic levels, which we take to indicate acquisition of the target ranking. We also examined whether learners’ postvocalic continuants are lenited to the same degree as the control group, and whether degree of lenition changes across development. The difference in degree of lenition between controls and learners lessens at higher levels of the prosodic hierarchy as acquisition progresses, and several advanced learners produce target-like segments across prosodic levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although word-initial consonants are highly salient cross-linguistically, the process of initial-consonant mutation has nonetheless continued to affect them in the Celtic languages. This paper investigates the use of the mixed mutation (MM) in Breton, following the progressive particle. Like all mutation, it naturally affects the phonology, but also gives (redundant) information for morphosyntax. Mutation is generally presumed to be a regular process, but as there has been a gap in the transmission of Breton, the extent to which this phono-syntactic phenomenon is consistent across generations remains open to discussion. It has been claimed that younger speakers, being strongly French-dominant, do not use mutation correctly. We tested this examining both distribution of usage and acoustic measurements of the consonants in question. Data from original fieldwork indicate that young adults use MM in the same way as older speakers, but children attending Breton-medium schooling are less proficient. Mixed mutation is difficult to acquire, the crucial factor being sustained Breton input beyond the early teenage years. Acoustically, there is no difference in the production of MM cross-generationally. The difference between the two generations is in the use of the progressive particle itself, omitted by the older generation, but retained by younger speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMO) algorithms are actively used for answering optimization problems with multiple contradictory objectives and scheming interpretable and precise real-time applications. A majority of existing EMO algorithms performs better on two or three objectives non-dominated problems; however, they meet complications in managing and maintaining a set of optimal solutions to multi-objective optimization problems. This paper proposes a search space-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (SSMOEA) for multi-objective optimization problems. To accomplish the potential of the search space-based method for solving multi-objective optimization problems and to reinforce the selection procedure toward the ideal direction while sustaining an extensive and uniform distribution of solutions is our key objective. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to propose a search space-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for multi-objective optimization. The experimental setup used showed that the proposed algorithm is good and competitive in comparison to the existing EMO algorithms from the viewpoint of finding a scattered and estimated solution set in multi-objective optimization problems. SSMOEA can achieve a good trade-off between search space convergence and search space diversity in the appropriate experimental setup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A characteristic feature of the Spanish spoken in the Mexican state of Chihuahua is the pronunciation of the standard phoneme /ʧ/ () as a nonstandard variant [ʃ] (). The present study analyzes the social and linguistic factors that influence variation in the Mexico-United States border community of Ciudad Juárez. A Direct and an indirect elicitation technique was used to gather tokens of /ʧ/ from a sample of 40 local speakers who varied in age, sex, socioeconomic status, education level, and degree of bilingualism. The data was perceptually and acoustically interpreted and then statistically examined using variable rules analysis. On the linguistic side, the results show that /s/, /i/, /u/ in preceding phonological context favor weakening. On the social side, the most prone participants to produce [ʃ] were young men from low socioeconomic status, regardless of being Spanish monolinguals or Spanish-English sequential bilinguals. These findings indicate an ongoing gender shift with respect to previous research in the same community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we report on an instrumental analysis of /spstsk/ clusters in south-central Peninsular Spanish, documenting a three-way system of /s/ realization: speakers tend to produce alveolar fricatives in /st/ clusters, velar fricatives in /sk/ clusters, and glottal fricatives or deletions in /sp/ clusters. An analysis based on the discrete classification of /s/ variants shows that a combination of linguistic factors (following consonant and stress) influences /s/ realization. An analysis based on the phonetic coding of /s/ variants (using measures of fricative duration, relative voicing, and center of gravity) reveals the extent to which velar fricatives display an intermediate status along the phonetic continuum of /s/ lenition variations. Taken together, these analyses shed light on the nature of coda /s/ in Spanish and on the extent to which the attested allophony constitutes a lenition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wide array of spellings attested in Middle English for initial OE hw- in words such as WHEN, WHERE, WHAT, WHO, WHICH. Those beginning with ‘q’, found mostly in the North (including Scotland) and Northeast Midlands, have long been the subject of scholarly debate. The consensus is that they represented an articulation stronger than [hw], usually assumed to be [xw]. Just a handful of scholars have suggested that the articulation could have been [kw], but there is so far little detailed argument for this position. We propose that at least a subset of reflexes of OE hw- words came at least variably to be pronounced with initial [kw]. We suggest that this strengthened pronunciation existed alongside [xw], and lenited [hw] and [w], as well as simple [h] with the [w] deleted. We link (as some other scholars have) the history of these spellings with that of northern lenition of original initial [kw] to [xw]/[hw]/[w]. We approach the problem from a strongly variationist perspective, presenting (in accompanying appendices) detailed information on the ‘q’ spellings accessible from LAEME and eLALME. We review all the data, from the earliest attested forms through to modern dialect surveys, including place-name evidence, and we assess previous arguments on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential evolution (DE) is a well-known evolutionary algorithm which has been successfully applied in many scientific and engineering fields. In most DE algorithms, the base and difference vectors for mutation are randomly selected from the current population. That is, the useful population information cannot be fully exploited to guide the search of DE through mutation. Furthermore, the selection of parents in mutation has been verified to be critical for the DE performance. Therefore, to alleviate this drawback and improve the performance of DE, a novel DE algorithm with a directional mutation based on cellular topology is proposed in this study. This proposed algorithm is named as Cellular Direction Information based DE (DE-CDI). In DE-CDI, the cellular topology is employed first to define a neighborhood for each individual of population and then the direction information based on the neighborhood is incorporated into the mutation operator. In this way, DE-CDI not only utilizes the neighborhood information to exploit the regions of better individuals and accelerate convergence, but also introduces the direction information to guide the search to the promising area. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, DE-CDI is applied to the original DE algorithms, as well as several advanced DE variants. Experimental results demonstrate the high performance of DE-CDI for most DE algorithms studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that processes traditionally classified as lenition fall into at least two subsets, with distinct phonetic reflexes, formal properties and characteristic contexts. One type, referred to as loss lenition, frequently neutralises contrasts in positions where they are perceptually indistinct. The second type, referred to as continuity lenition, can target segments in perceptually robust positions, increases the intensity and/or decreases the duration of those segments, and very rarely results in positional neutralisation of contrasts. While loss lenition behaves much like other phonological processes, analysing continuity lenition is difficult or impossible in standard phonological approaches. The paper develops a phonetically based optimality-theoretic account that explains the typology of the two types of lenition. The crucial proposal is that, unlike loss lenition, continuity lenition is driven by constraints that reference multiple prosodic positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our previous study, X-31ca-based H5N1 LAIVs, in particular, became more virulent in mice than the X-31ca MDV, possibly by the introduction of the surface antigens of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus, implying that additional attenuation is needed in this cases to increase the safety level of the vaccine. In this report we suggest an approach to further increase the safety of LAIV through additional cold-adapted mutations in the hemagglutinin. The cold-adaptation of X-31 virus resulted in four amino acid mutations in the HA. We generated a panel of 7:1 reassortant viruses each carrying the hemagglutinins with individual single amino acid mutations. We examined their phenotypes and found a major attenuating mutation, N81K. This attenuation marker conferred additional temperature-sensitive and attenuation phenotype to the LAIV. Our data indicate that the cold-adapted mutation in the HA confers additional attenuation to the LAIV strain, without compromising its productivity and immune response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the role of articulatory and perceptual factors in the change from pre- to post-aspiration in two varieties of Andalusian Spanish. In an acoustic study, the influence of stop type, speaker age, and variety on the production of pre- and post-aspiration was analyzed in isolated words produced by 24 speakers of a Western and 24 of an Eastern variety, both divided into two age groups. The results confirmed previous findings of a sound change from pre- to post-aspiration in both varieties. Velar stops showed the longest, bilabials the shortest, and dental stops intermediate pre- and post-aspiration durations. The observed universal VOTpattern was not found for younger Western Andalusian speakers who showed a particularly long VOT in /st/-sequences. A perception experiment with the same subjects as listeners showed that post-aspiration was used as a cue for distinguishing the minimal pair /pata/-/pasta/ by almost all listeners. Production-perception comparisons suggested a relationship between production and perception: subjects who produced long post-aspiration were also more sensitive to this cue. In sum, the results suggest that the sound change has first been actuated in the dental context, possibly due to a higher perceptual prominence of post-aspiration in this context, and that post-aspirated stops in Andalusian Spanish are on their way to being phonologized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traces of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's constant philosophical interest in cinema have been multiplying since the mid-1990s. These traces lead us to understand that such an interest was implicitly linked to the effort of ontologically rehabilitating the screen understood as the condition of possibility of our vision. Therefore I believe that the late Merleau-Ponty was trying to elaborate a conception of our way of seeing that can no longer be shaped on the representative window model, but rather on the screen model. In this light, my aim is to develop, specify (mainly through my notion of "arche-screen"), and update Merleau-Ponty's insights concerning the screen as a decisive element of our visual experiences. In such a perspective, it is no doubt very important to reflect on the modified spatio-temporality of desire at work in our present relations to screens. This is what I try to do in the second part of my paper. Indeed, concerning the way in which nowadays screens surround and accompany us at every turn, in which we live through them (and not merely with them), we can state something similar to what Merleau-Ponty wrote about modern painting in Eye and Mind, that is to say that the novelty of that way of painting gave him "a feeling of mutation within the relations of man and Being." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and categorises the various medieval and modern Welsh prepositions and particles yn and the initial mutations that follow them. It investigates possible manuscript variants such as Old Welsh int and it and Middle Welsh y, and examines variations in mutation. Historical explanations are suggested, including a new explanation of the absence of mutation in the productive yn + verbal noun construction, which is argued to have spread from the construction in which possessive pronouns between yn and the verbal nouns of intransitive stative verbs prevented yn from mutating the verbal nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a diachronic Optimality-based account of the principal lenition patterns witnessed in obstruents from Indo-European to New Persian through Old Persian and middle Persian. At first, a brief introduction of Optimality Theory and its basic concepts is presented. After that, the paper gives an introductory account of lenition, its definition and categorization, and then it investigates different lenition patterns that have happened in the history of Persian. Among different patterns of lenition, loss of aspiration, lenition of voiceless stops to voiced ones, spirantization, degemination, and final neutralization were witnessed in transition from IE to OP as well as from OP to NP and dealt with in this paper. For this purpose, Optimality Theory (OT) is applied to account for the changes based on major works done on lenition. Using different constraints, all of these processes are accounted for. This work indicates the success of OT in accounting for diachronic phenomena, that is, by constraint re-ranking it can adequately account for sound change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]