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English VP-preposing allows VP modifiers to remain on the right (John said he would arrive on Tuesday, and arrive he did, on Tuesday). The classic analysis of this invokes VP constituency, claiming that the modifiers are right-adjoined to VP and stranded by movement of a smaller VP ([VP arrive] he did [VP [VP arrive] on Tuesday]). This article proposes a radically different view based on the copy theory of movement (Chomsky 1993), wherein moved items leave a copy in their site of origin. I propose that VP-preposing always involves movement of the maximal VP with possible/impossible argument/ modifier "strandings" representing possible/impossible pronunciations of the original copy. This proposal allows a straightforward analysis of "paradox" examples in which VP-preposing constituency appears to clash with c-command requirements. It also raises the possibility of eliminating adjunction entirely in the analysis of modifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Councils Act, 1909, the Government of India Act, 1919, and the Government of India Act, 1935, defined political space—an arena of political negotiations through electoral representation—along religious lines. The most crucial aspect of these legislative-institutional developments was the definition and delimitation of 'communal-territorial constituencies', and franchisee qualifications. This specific colonial form of representative politics, which was debated, negotiated and translated by the religio-political elite in the arena of local politics, produced a communal notion of space. Thus, each of the localities, wards, cities and regions at large were officially demarcated into Muhammadan, General/Hindu, Sikh and Indian-Christian electoral constituencies. The paper explores the intricacies of this process and the complex question of 'representation' during the period of the national movement. It argues that this official demarcation of social groups and localities into political constituencies produced a complex configuration of identity and space, which had multiple manifestations with extended franchise. It established electoral representation as a mode to make legitimate claims and counterclaims over space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper addresses the representation of territorialized and conflicting interests by the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) through a case study on the posting of workers. Public debates on the reforms to the legal framework for this controversial practice have been steadily increasing since the EU's eastward enlargement. Focusing on parliamentary questions, our mixed-methods research design analyses why and how MEPs take position on this highly divisive issue, beyond their nationality and a so-called opposition between Eastern and Western EU member states. MEPs' implication depends both on the impact that the posting of workers has on employment in their home country and on their own political career, including whether they hold national or local electoral mandates. These factors also determine which political roles are performed by MEPs (moral entrepreneur, policy maker, interest groups broker), as the textual analysis of their questions in Parliament highlights. These results emphasize the influence of parliamentary socialization on the positions taken in the debates about social Europe, but also the significance of the territorial dimension of parliamentary representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial representation, the representation of local entities in the Westminster Parliament, lies at the heart of British democracy. In the recent academic debate, it has been asked whether local representation also needs a local representative and which specific characteristics would constitute 'localness' in this context. Investigating the biographies of 1108 Westminster MPs between 2010 and 2019 and exploring different dimensions of local base, this study examines the extent to which the demand for a local representative is actually fulfilled in the British Parliament. We discover a slow yet stable increase in the descriptive representation of the local (DRL) over time as well as notable variations across party and regions, especially among the constituent nations of the United Kingdom. Applying a genuine territorial perspective to our results, we link the detected DRL increase to the general territorialisation of politics in the UK. The fact that the political divergence of its constituent parts affects even the implementation of a core principle of British democracy is finally depicted as another indicator of the deep territorial divisions pervading British politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm has been applied for solving the power loss lessening problem. Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm is stimulated by the election procedure legislative body. Every citizen in the country had a wish and will to vote in order to elect a democratic government. There will be formation of political party, identification of constituency for contesting, campaign for the election etc. In this paper these procedure are imitated and mathematically formulated to design the Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm. Exclamation stratagem is based on discrete arguments, is integrated in the Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm. Exclamation stratagem will overcome the inadequacies dwindling into local optimal solution. Subsequent to the usage of the exclamation stratagem a derivative optimum solution is engendered and it equated with the elucidation engendered by Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm. If the elucidation is superior to engendered solutions by LO approach, then it will be swapped; or else, the solution engendered by Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm will be engaged. Procurement of a virtuous equilibrium between exploration and exploitation is the important constituent of optimization methods. Comprehensive exploration includes the examination of new-fangled probable zones. Consecutively, it is risky to uphold the multiplicity of the populace. Confined exploitation encompasses probing for a great meticulousness elucidation in a minor zone, which is exposed through comprehensive examination. Extreme comprehensive exploration leads to sluggish convergence promptness, however disproportionate confined exploitation fallouts in early convergence..In initial period of iterations, a loftier Acclimatize factor value can create a superior stride, which points to sturdier comprehensive exploration. At this period, the deteriorating promptness of Acclimatize factor requires to be loftier. In last phase iterations, a minor Acclimatize factor value can create a minor stride, which points to sturdier confined exploitation. Nevertheless, the minor Acclimatize factor value tip-offs to an inferior populace multiplicity and fallouts in an upper possibility at confined optimum value. Legitimacy of the Legislative Optimization (LO) algorithm is corroborated in IEEE test systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western neo-liberal Democracies are often and shortly characterized by having a representa-tive procedure of participation in the public sphere of life, determining a self-ruled form of politicalregime, affirming the sovereignty of the people in a specific territory; an economic welfare system; po-litical institutions that administrate and organize public life based on their citizen ́s confidence; publicsecurity and order. Yet, the lack of political representation of local communities, or at least their senseof ineffectiveness of the representative system to respond to their needs, promotes their alienation fromnational political systems and weakens it. It is a vicious circle, i.e., the political system does not ade-quately represent the political communities, and these, if not represented, weakens the political systemand its ability to respond to the needs of local communities. Our intent is to show that breaking this vi-cious circle means strengthening democracy with new mechanisms of political representation.

Peter Mair argued that political parties and society are withdrawing from each other, thus creating a 'void' in the heart of representation in many established democracies. However, Members of Parliament (MPs) are increasing the time and resources devoted to constituency work. This article explores how MPs, as parties' representatives, engage with constituents, and whether this work takes the disconnected form expected in a political void. Interviews with 20 Australian state legislators show MPs building policy, service, symbolic and partisan connections with citizens. Though parties no longer definitively structure representation, these findings highlight the importance of understanding party–society relationships in the constituency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many democracies use geographic constituencies to elect some or all of their legislators. Furthermore, many people regard this as desirable in a noncomparative sense, thinking that local constituencies are not necessarily superior to other schemes but are nevertheless attractive when considered on their own merits. Yet, this position of noncomparative constituency localism is now under philosophical pressure as local constituencies have recently attracted severe criticism. This article examines how damaging this recent criticism is, and argues that within limits, noncomparative constituency localism remains philosophically tenable despite the criticisms. The article shows that noncomparative constituency localism is compelling in the first place because geographic constituencies foster partisan voter mobilisation, and practices of constituency service help to sustain deliberation among constituents and within the legislature and promote the realisation of equal opportunity for political influence. The article further argues that it is unwarranted to criticise geographic constituencies for being biased against geographically dispersed voter groups, for causing vote-seat disproportionality, and for being vulnerable to gerrymandering. The article also discusses the criticisms that local constituencies may pose risks of inefficiency and injustice in resource allocation decisions, may lead legislators to neglect the common good, and may limit citizens' control over the political agenda. Whilst conceding that these objections may be valid, the article argues that they do not outweigh the diverse and normatively weighty considerations speaking in favour of noncomparative constituency localism. Finally, the article's analysis is defended against several variants of the charge that it exaggerates the benefits of geographic constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Whig MP, playwright, theatre manager, press manager and orator Richard Brinsley Sheridan's relationship with his constituency of Stafford and his role as a constituency MP. It addresses the web of patronage that was important for obtaining and maintaining a freeman borough seat such as Stafford in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It considers a range of electoral behaviours throughout Sheridan's time as MP for Stafford and how this fits into the unreformed electoral system, as well as the relationships, expectations, and obligations of a constituency MP in Stafford, at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentence structure is a basic and general concept for syntax studies. Many topics such as word categories such as nouns and adjectives, sentence elements such as subject and predicate, phrases, their functions, sentence types fall into the concept of 'sentence structure'. Every structure that can be divided into parts, which has different parts, where the parts are combined in a certain order, and where each part has a certain function, is a subject of 'sentence structure analysis'. In syntax theory, these parts are called constituents. In a sentence, each of the constituent is embedded in another constituent. So there is a constituent hierarchy. In other words, it is called hierarchical structure when constituents contain other constituents. The biggest constituent in the hierarchical structure is the sentence. This study aims to analyze the hierarchical constructive structure in line with syntax theory. The topic is limited to establishing constituents, constituent tests, and tree diagram representation of constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The present paper aims to investigate the spatiality of electoral behavior and its changing dimensions concerning the contemporary general elections in West Bengal. It analyses the general elections of 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 and observes the spatial changes of voting behavior in the context of political parties contesting the election. The study is based upon electoral data and theoretical arguments framed as opinion and analysis over the changing political reflection from the particular political space of West Bengal. The electoral data and inferences are shown by the Geospatial technique to visualize the voting behavior in the spatial context. It is true that political aspects of electoral behavior are organized on the basis of certain theoretical backgrounds having interdisciplinary nature. The methodology adopted for the study is theoretical and qualitative; however, arguments and analyses are based upon secondary electoral data derived from the Election Commission of India about elections and electoral behavior. The cartographic technique is adopted to show the spatio-temporal trends of the electoral behavior of the electorates of West Bengal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been recognised that phrases and sentences are organised hierarchically, but many computational models of language treat them as sequences of words without computing constituent structure. Against this background, we conducted two experiments which showed that participants interpret ambiguous noun phrases, such as second blue ball, in terms of their abstract hierarchical structure rather than their linear surface order. When a neural network model was tested on this task, it could simulate such "hierarchical" behaviour. However, when we changed the training data such that they were not entirely unambiguous anymore, the model stopped generalising in a human-like way. It did not systematically generalise to novel items, and when it was trained on ambiguous trials, it strongly favoured the linear interpretation. We argue that these models should be endowed with a bias to make generalisations over hierarchical structure in order to be cognitively adequate models of human language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistemic impairment has been the decisive yardstick when excluding infants from political agency. One of the suggestions to bypass the epistemic requirement of political agency and to encourage the inclusion of infants in representative democracies is to resort to proxies or surrogates who share or advocate interests which may be coincidental with their interests. However, this solution is far from desirable, given that it privileges the political agency of parents, guardians and trustees over other adult citizens. This article offers an alternative to this conceptual frame of reference by making a case for the political agency of infants. Firstly, it maintains that political agency can be understood in terms of the several facets involved in political representation. Secondly, it claims that the all-affected principle can be reformulated as an 'infant-affected-interests principle' in light of which infants are members of the class of the represented. Thirdly, it explores the ways through which this political agency can occur without having to resort to alternative conceptions of representation. The conclusion ascertains that infant enfranchisement is highly undesirable and that there are more viable forms to promote infant political agency, such as virtual representation, infant-beneficial principles of political action and ombudspersons for infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long-standing assumption in the syntactic literature is that coordination can only target constituents. This assumption has been a subject of much debate, with many authors questioning its validity. This article enters this debate by reconsidering a constraint on left-sharing in coordination which Osborne & Gross (2017) have recently introduced, namely left node blocking. To account for this constraint, Osborne & Gross propose the Principle of Full Clusivity which states that coordination cannot cut into a constituent. They couch their analysis in a Dependency Grammar, assuming that coordination does not have to conjoin constituents and that syntactic structures should be construed as flat. Given that the empirical ground on which the LNB is based is not firm, I seek to experimentally investigate it by conducting a large-scale experiment. The results of the investigation reveal that LNB is wrong; left-sharing is as permissive as right-sharing. The results of the investigation have the immediate consequence that the assumptions on which LNB is based are wrong as well, namely that syntactic structures should be construed as flat. I spell out an analysis couched in terms of left-to-right syntax to account for major cases of left-sharing in coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dovish and hawkish constituency pressures influence representative negotiations. Dovish constituency voices promote a collaborative and problem-solving approach, but can also allow for exploitation in negotiations. Hawkish voices encourage a competitive approach, but may leave value on the table. These dynamics are investigated in four experiments. In two interactive dyadic-negotiation experiments (Experiments 1 & 2; N = 186 and N = 220), we investigated how constituency pressures influenced outcomes in two negotiation settings (distributive and integrative). Representatives of dovish constituencies reached higher negotiation outcomes than representatives of hawkish constituencies, when facing a representative with a similar constituency (Experiment 1). However, when representatives with a dovish constituency met with representatives of a hawkish constituency, dovish representatives reached lower gains in both negotiation settings (Experiment 2). This hawkish advantage was replicated in two online scenario studies (Experiments 3 & 4; N = 248 and N = 319). There was no consistent empirical support for the role of a potential future interaction in eliciting representatives' concessions (Experiment 1–3), however, an absence of accountability to constituents reduced representatives' competitiveness, irrespective of whom they represented (Experiment 4). Theoretical and practical implications for labor relations, diplomacy, and business negotiations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to analyze the information needs of Indian Members of Parliament (MPs) related to the rural and urban development in their constituency or region. Rural Connectivity is a key component of the rural development, thus the current study explores the level of awareness of Indian MPs about the status of rural connectivity with the Urban areas and rural accessibility via various means of Transport available for the people in their region/constituency for Intercity and Interstate Travel. The implementation of various Government schemes for the development of rural India by the Indian MPs has also been studied. The data is collected through survey methodology with the help of a predefined structured questionnaire including interview method to get the exact insight about the rural and urban development information needs of Indian MPs. The survey results were tabulated and analyzed with the help of descriptive statistical methods and hypothesis testing is done with Pearson's Chi Square testing technique. The findings reveals that the majority of people use Auto Rickshaw (98.7%) and Taxi (98.7%) followed by Rickshaw (93.6%) for local travelling in their area or region. The major modes of transportation available in the constituencies are Bus (100%) & Rail (97.4%) respectively. The majority of MPs have implemented 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana' (i.e. 94.9%) and 'Pradhan Mantri Aawaas Yojna' (i.e. 89.5%) in the villages/rural areas of their constituencies. The majority of MPs have responded that HDFC Bank is the Top loan provider agency in both Rural (23) and Urban (24) areas respectively. Lastly, the study concludes that highest number of beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Aawaas Yojna (PMAY) are from North region (i.e., 4,01,100) of India followed by 2,78,920 beneficiaries from Central region and 2,45,600 beneficiaries respectively from South region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several classical syntactic frameworks, including phrase structure grammar, have failed to explain a variety of linguistic phenomena, including the existence of intermediary phrases that are smaller than a full phrase but larger than the head of a phrase and the distributional difference between nominal modifiers. The main aims of the current study are to determine how X-bar syntax depicts differences between noun modifiers and how analytical evidence supports such differences. In order to accomplish this goal, the author first compared and contrasted X-bar syntax and phrase structure grammar. Employing X-bar syntax theory, he then compared and contrasted prenominal and postnominal modifiers. The findings of the study revealed that X-bar syntax can explain a wide range of linguistic phenomena that other syntactic frameworks, particularly PS grammar, cannot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western neo-liberal Democracies are often and shortly characterized by having a representative procedure of participation in the public sphere of life, determining a self-ruled form of political regime, affirming the sovereignty of the people in a specific territory; an economic welfare system; political institutions that administrate and organize public life based on their citizen´s confidence; public security and order. Yet, the lack of political representation of local communities, or at least their sense of ineffectiveness of the representative system to respond to their needs, promotes their alienation from national political systems and weakens it. It is a vicious circle, i.e., the political system does not adequately represent the political communities, and these, if not represented, weakens the political system and its ability to respond to the needs of local communities. Our intent is to show that breaking this vicious circle means strengthening democracy with new mechanisms of political representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pandemic affects both individuals and groups in various ways, requiring that consequential decisions be satisfactory to multiple constituencies. The ultimate objective is to foster a balanced decision-making environment where, while each constituency might not obtain its optimal outcome, the outcomes are aligned and, in some measure, good enough overall. To determine the value of alternatives, we use the Comfort Decision Model, utilizing attitudinal measures. Sensitivity of the resulting decision is demonstrated and a measure of satisfaction to the implemented alternative is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the interplay of lexical and grammatical aspect with other grammatical phenomena in the interpretation of the aspectual suffix ‑ile (which we analyse as Perfective) in isiNdebele, a Nguni Bantu language spoken in South Africa. Crucial other phenomena include constituency-related factors such as the conjoint-disjoint distinction and (related) penultimate lengthening, along with morphophonological conditions that trigger different forms of ‑ile. These factors appear to interact differently in isiNdebele than they do in closely related Zulu, suggesting two different paths of grammaticalization, which we argue can change the interpretation of markers of grammatical aspect as they interact with lexical aspectual classes.

Legislative committees are a critical part of any democratic, parliamentary, internal operating system. It is impossible to overstate their responsibilities in lawmaking, ensuring responsible representation of constituents, and monitoring government institutions to make certain that there is accountability to the public. However, the extent to which the Nigerian Parliament performs these functions through its committee system has been viewed with suspicion, as members who are supposed to expose corruption are deeply involved in it. In contrast, Singaporean parliamentary committees have had some success in combating corruption, as evidenced in the ranking of the country as the least corrupt in Asia. Given the significant difference in the two committee systems, the essay asks the question: What can Nigerians learn from the Singaporean parliamentary committee system about corruption control? While studies have examined the consequences of corruption in all sectors of the economy, including the Nigerian Parliament, there is little knowledge about how corruption among legislative committees discourages foreign direct investment and causes industries to leave Nigeria. This essay advances understanding in this direction, using the secondary data method. It concludes that political corruption among parliamentary committee members aggravates constituency woes and impedes socio-economic development in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed description of the results of 24 constituency diagnostics, both morphosyntactic and phonological, to Chácobo, a southern Pano language of the northern Bolivian Amazon. While it is often assumed that misalignments across the domains that emerge from constituency diagnostics can be resolved by reference to a distinction between phonological and morphosyntactic words, I argue that this is not true of Chácobo. Divergence is at least as high within phonological domains and morphosyntactic domains as it is across them. While it is often assumed that domains tend to converge overall on a single wordhood candidate or that domain divergence is marginal, I argue that this is not true of Chácobo. I present a cluster of methodologies that assess the motivation for a word constituent as an empirical hypothesis, rather than treating it as an a priori assumption. No strong evidence for a word constituent emerges from the Chácobo data. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legislature plays important roles of domesticating and monitoring the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and as well, ensuring that government is accountable to the public for national progress on them. These hallowed responsibilities require that legislators are in constant communication and dialogue with the citizens they represent. E-parliament has been seeing to enhance the relationship between legislators and their constituencies, thus enhancing their democratic values. The study engaged a mixed method involving content analysis and case study design. Information were drawn through content analysis of the Nigerian National Assembly (NASS) website and literature search. The aim is to determine the accessibility, usability, and usefulness of the NASS website for citizens-legislature interactions to enhance inclusive governance. Results of the analysis reveal that implementation of e-parliament in Nigeria is still majorly at the stage of information provisioning with low supporting tools for interacting and consulting the constituents. The paper argues that, despite the numerous challenges being encountered in the application of ICTs tools, e-parliament is fundamental to reducing the wide gap between citizens and their representatives in Nigeria. With e-parliament, government’s policies and programmes and their implementation are in agreement with citizens aspirations and expectations which are considered pivotal to realizing SDGs in Nigeria.

The extent of local order varies widely in rebel held areas, from total chaos to well-run governing institutions. When these institutions exist, why do some include civilian input in local affairs, while others exclude civilians from governance? I argue that rebels choose different governing strategies that maximize their utility of territorial control, based on certain characteristics of civilian inhabitants populating the territory. Rebels' constituency determines whether rebels seek to govern civilians or control them solely with coercive violence, and community cohesion (or lack thereof) then determines the type of institutions that rebels develop. I focus on three different outcomes for communities under rebel control—no institutions, exclusive institutions, and inclusive institutions. I test my argument using historical, statistical, and case evidence, leveraging original cross-national data on local order in rebel held territory as well as interviews with village heads, ex-combatants, and community members in Aceh, Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing representation entails making choices about prioritizing the needs of diverse groups within one's constituency. While citizens cannot reasonably expect that representatives will cater to their particular interests or priorities all the time, we know little about citizens' expectations in this regard. In this paper, we present the results of two survey experiments that probe the relationship between citizens' group identifications, their perceptions of their constituencies, and their demands regarding representation. We find that citizens are generally egocentric, in that they expect a representative to cater to personally relevant interests even when such interests are not an important part of the representative's constituency. Moreover, we find that this egocentrism is not mitigated through the provision of information about the district's diversity or composition, indicating that voter ignorance about the nature of constituencies is not the primary cause of these expectations. Regardless of sophistication, we observe expectations that are unrealistically self-centered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small clause is considered as a constituent with [NP XP] structure which can appear as the argument of “consider-type” verbs. In some languages like French, Swedish, Arabic and Farsi the aforesaid chain makes a constituent called “Small Clause”, SC from now. As a matter of fact, since the appearance of the term SC in Linguistics by Williams (1974), a considerable number of studies have been devoted to investigate the constituency and categorical status of SCs. However, this topic is still controversial. SC complements are the structures with a subject NP and a predicate XP which have the clausal characteristics and predicative meaning. The XP can be a noun phrase, adjective phrase or a preposition phrase. The present study aims at providing some arguments on constituency of the chain [NP XP] as the complement of consider-type verbs in Mokryani Variant. Providing some arguments and diagnostic tests, this chain is proved to make a constituent in this variant. Consequently, the chain [NP XP], as the argument of consider-type verbs, makes a constituent called “Small Clause”.

While organizations strive for ethical conduct, the activity of negotiating offers strong temptations to employ unethical tactics and secure benefits for one's own party. In four experiments, we examined the role of constituency communication in terms of their attitudes towards (un)ethical and competitive conduct on negotiators' willingness and actual use of unethical tactics. We find that the mere presence of a constituency already increased representatives' willingness to engage in unethical behavior (Experiment 1). More specifically, a constituency communicating liberal (vs. strict) attitudes toward unethical conduct helps negotiators to justify transgressions and morally disengage from their behavior, resulting in an increased use of unethical negotiation tactics (Experiment 2–3). Moreover, constituents' endorsement of competitive strategies sufficed to increase moral disengagement and unethical behavior of representative negotiators in a similar fashion (Experiment 4ab). Our results caution organizational practice against advocating explicit unethical and even competitive tactics by constituents: it eases negotiators' moral dilemma towards unethical conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how MPs use ties to their constituency, or localness, is important for understanding the nature of the MP-constituency relationship. MPs are expected to actively focus on their constituency in their work to help their campaign and gain re-election. To explore the relationship between MPs and the use of localness we examine the use of localness in their legislative activity. Combining the focus on constituency and parliamentary behaviour data is not often done and we utilise a dataset allowing us to test the impact of localness on parliamentary behaviour. We support the quantitative findings with qualitative interviews with MPs. We find that, above all, MPs with local ties will seek to signal their localness to the electorate in terms of constituency focus, but not in their parliamentary contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a pattern in which a finite verb is preceded by a locative PP which combines with an initial or final occurrence of the adverb dan ('then') and which may look like a violation of the V2 constraint. The paper is relevant in the context of how to handle what look like exceptions to the V2 pattern, a point that is sometimes neglected in the formal literature, though Zwart (2008a) draws attention to the importance of also capturing such recalcitrant data. Based on standard arguments for constituency, it will be shown that the adverb, which has a non-temporal reading, and the associated PP form one constituent. Thus, a pattern that might at first appear to be a violation of V2 in fact is shown to be in line with the constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a pattern in which a finite verb is preceded by a locative PP which combines with an initial or final occurrence of the adverb dan ('then') and which may look like a violation of the V2 constraint. The paper is relevant in the context of how to handle what look like exceptions to the V2 pattern, a point that is sometimes neglected in the formal literature, though Zwart (2008a) draws attention to the importance of also capturing such recalcitrant data. Based on standard arguments for constituency, it will be shown that the adverb, which has a non-temporal reading, and the associated PP form one constituent. Thus, a pattern that might at first appear to be a violation of V2 in fact is shown to be in line with the constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A not inconsiderable part of the content that the reader will find in this repository contains three types of publications. The first group is dedicated to taking stock of the achievements and deficiencies of the Spanish electoral system based on the logic of democratization. A second group of publications makes proposals whose concrete objective is to make the various mechanisms and instruments of the Spanish electoral system serve the purpose of democratic deepening. And finally, there is a third group that focuses on analyzing specific aspects of the existing regulation, the reforms carried out and the actions of the Administration to see if they effectively meet the objective of improving constitutional democracy by deepening its democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the electoral systems of Ireland, Switzerland and Portugal. These three countries, like Spain, share the use of low magnitude constituencies within the framework of a proportional electoral system. However, each uses a different ballot structure, a circumstance that helps to understand the relevance of this element in the functioning of electoral systems. The analysis of the legal framework, its evolution and political performance offers us valuable information on different electoral models which can serve as a reference to assess some problematic aspects of the Spanish electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For describing grammatical organization, metaphors based on a variety of source domains – including trees, networks, chains, paths, and windows – all appear to have some validity. In Cognitive Grammar, they pertain to facets of assemblies, where semantic and phonological structures are connected by relations of symbolization, composition, and categorization. Assemblies have a temporal dimension; consisting in sequenced processing activity that runs concurrently on different time scales, they involve both seriality and hierarchy. In their hierarchical aspect, they are comparable to constituency trees, and in their connections, to dependency trees. Assembly elements, which can be characterized at any level of specificity, are connected in both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. A person's linguistic ability comprises a vast assembly of conventional units, a portion of which are activated as part of the transient assembly constituting a particular expression. Lexicon and grammar effect the implementation of semantic functions – affective, interactive, descriptive, and discursive – which emerge with varying degrees of salience depending on their symbolization by segmental, prosodic, and other means. Assemblies thus make possible a unified approach to processing, structure, function, and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]