Antecedent (grammar)

About: Antecedent (grammar) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41824 citations.

A Simple Heart: Architecture on the Ruins of the Post-Fordist City

Abstract: In A Simple Heart, DOGMA (Pier Vittorio Aureli and Martino Tattara) develops an archetype for the contemporary European city. An ‘Edufactory’ of 22 residential units, it has its direct antecedent in Cedric Price's Potteries Thinkbelt (1964–6) project that proposed transforming a redundant railway network in North Staffordshire into a university campus.

Teachers' Abilities to Judge the Difficulty of Reading Materials

Abstract: One issue confronting any teacher of reading is the critical problem of the “match” Placing students into an appropriate difficulty level of reading material seems to be an important antecedent of effective reading instruction Chall and Feldman (1966) explain that teachers’ abilities to select appropriate reading materials for children vary and that the accuracy of these selections has a definite effect on achievement TEACHERS' ABILITIES TO JUDGE THE DIFFICUl TV OF READING MATERIALS

On Issue of Semantics and Pragmatics of Reflexive Constructions

Abstract: The article describes semantics and pragmatics of reflexive constructions. Common notes on the semantics of reflexivity are given. Reflexivity reflects specific subject-object relationships demonstrated in explicitly and implicitly reflexive constructions. Implicit reflexivity is discussed of a relatively small class of verbs in English. It is stated that the full referent identity of an anaphora pronoun and personal antecedent in the position of the subject is not obligatory. Different standpoints on the nature of reflexivity are distinguished. The existence of a special type of referential identity of a reflexive anaphora and an antecedent word is substantiated, when one and the same referent is interpreted by these linguistic units in a different way carrying out different semantic and syntactic functions in a sentence. Moreover, an antecedent and an anaphora turn out to be united at the level of the semantic structure. In the syntactic structure, the anaphora and an antecedent word prove to be referentially non-identical. Using psycholinguistic analysis, reflexive constructions in English are divided into introspective and descriptive. The strangeness of reflexivity is in the use of a reflexive pronoun, conditioned by an aspectual-temporal form of a verb.

Lewis' counterfactual analysis of causation

Abstract: David Lewis offers a counterfactual analysis of causation, limiting his analysis to causation between particular events.1 Exactly what Lewis is analyzing is revealed by the point at which he announces his analysis to be complete. He does so immediately after giving neces sary and sufficient conditions for one event's causing another.2 One event is a cause of another if and only if there is a causal chain that leads from the first to the second. The notion of a causal chain is defined by appeal to causal dependence, which is defined in terms of the truth of certain counterfactuals. The truth value of a counter factual is determined by the truth value of its consequent in those possible worlds in which the antecedent is true which are most similar over-all to the actual world.3 Two sorts of criticisms of Lewis' account have been leveled elsewhere. Jaegwon Kim objects to the account's classification of certain kinds of cases as ones of causal dependence. Among these are ones which Kim says exemplify an 'analytical' or 'logical' relation, and others in which one event is a part of another.4 Bernard Berofsky objects to Lewis' contention that the vagueness of counterfactuals infects causation.5 I agree that the cases cited by Kim and the features of Lewis' analysis cited by Berofsky present problems for his account. However, another potentially far more damaging line of criticism will be offered here. I shall argue that the adequate determination of a set of possible worlds as closest or most similar to the actual must depend upon causal relations. Without appeal to causal relations (though not the particular ones Lewis analyzes here), the truth values expected will not be determined for many counterfactuals whose truth values are pre-analytically clear. And if a set of worlds is determined as closest to the actual without appeal to causal relations, the relevance of those worlds to the causal relations between particular events in the actual world is obscure. Let us begin, however, by elaborating Lewis' account.

An Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP) Study of Complex Anaphora in Spanish

Abstract: This study examines the event- related brain potential (ERP) of 25 Mexican monolingual Spanish-speakers when reading Spanish sentences with single entity anaphora or complex anaphora. Complex anaphora is an expression that refer to propositions, states, facts or events while, a single entity anaphora is an expression that refers back to a concrete object. Here we compare the cognitive cost in processing a single entity anaphora [estafeminine; La renuncia (resignation)] from a complex anaphora [estoneuter; La renuncia fue aceptada (The resignation was accepted)]. Esta elicited a larger positive peak at 200 ms, and esto elicited a larger frontal negativity around 400 ms. The positivity resembles the P200 component, and its amplitude is thought to represent an interaction between predictive qualities in sentence processing (i.e., graphical similarity and frequency of occurrence). Unlike parietal negativities (typical N400), frontal negativities are thought to represent the ease by which pronouns are linked with its antecedent, and how easy the information is recovered from short-term memory. Thus, the complex anaphora recruited more cognitive resources than the single entity anaphora. We also included an ungrammatical control sentence [estemasculine; La renuncia (resignation)] to better understand the unique processes behind complex anaphoric resolution, as opposed to just general difficulty in sentence processing. In this case, event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by estemasculine and estafeminine were compared. Again, esta elicited a larger P200. However, different from the experimental condition, a left anterior negativity (LAN) effect was observed for este; the ungrammatical condition. Altogether, the present research provides electrophysiological evidence indicating that demonstrative pronouns with different morphosyntactic features (i.e., gender) and discourse parameters (i.e., single entity or complex referent) interact during the first stage of anaphoric processing of anaphora. This stage initiated as early as 200 milliseconds after the pronoun onset and probably ends around 400 ms.