Showing papers on "Phrase published in 1968"

The Myth of a State

Abstract: That the distinction between myth and history is a tenuous one hardly requires elaborate documentation. Anthropologists have recorded the way in which accounts of the tribal past, recorded in genealogies, change with the organisation of the social groups to which they refer. In Malinowski's phrase, they serve as the ‘mythical charters’ of the social system. But this is a feature not only of non-literate societies.

Two critical problems in accent rules

Abstract: Beginning with the paper of Chomsky, Halle & Lukoff (1956) a theory of accent has been developed which attempts to explain by certain fairly simple rules the complex pattern of degrees of prominence assigned to any given sentence. In the present paper I will not be concerned with those rules which specify the main stress for stems (or, more precisely, for words containing only one stem), but only with the rules which introduce degrees of prominence in compound words and phrases. Let me call these latter rules Phrase-Accent-rules, or for short, PA-rules. The general conditions on the form and the manner of operation of PA-rules may be stated as follows: (i) PA-rules apply cyclically, beginning with the innermost, or lowest constituents of given final derived phrase markers, proceeding ‘upward’ until the topmost constituent is reached. (ii) PA-rules pick out one of the several primary accents of a constituent to which they apply, and make it the main accent of that constituent, thereby lowering all other accents by one degree. (iii) Formally, PA-rules are strictly local transformations whose structural descriptions recognize only three factors: first, the constituents, or bracketing, of a sentence; second, the categorization of the constituents; and third, the previously assigned accents.

Semantic, syntactic, and associative context effects in a stereoscopic rivalry situation.

Abstract: Rommetveit, R., Toch, H. & Svendsen, D. Semantic, syntactic, and associative context effects in a stereoscopic rivalry situation. Scand. J. Psychol., 1968, 9, 145–149.—Typographically similar words (e.g. ‘wine’ and ‘nine’) were presented to left and right eye, each pair in combination with three unequivocal words in such a way that the test word (‘wine’) would appear in either a meaningful phrase (‘sweet wine’), or in an anomalous phrase (‘wrinkled wine’), or in an associated-words context (‘beer wine’). All three types of context proved effective in making the test word dominate, but anomalous phrase was inferior to the others. A set to ‘read part of a text’ appeared to facilitate the effect of phrase context.

Storage, Retrieval, and Editing of Information for a Dictionary

Abstract: A computer system has been designed for storing, retrieving, and editing data for the Dictionary of American Regional English (D.A.R.E.). This dictionary, in contrast to most commercial dictionaries, will consist of words which have regional rather than national currency and will derive its entries from data collected by its own fieldworkers, readers, and researchers. Entries, consisting of a headword or phrase, plus descriptors for such items as the user, meaning, pronunciation, and collection technique for this word or phrase are stored in a central file. Interrogations on this file can be made on the value of any headword or description, or any logical combination of such values. Any portion of an entry which satisfies an interrogation may be designated for retrieval. An experimental editing system employing an on-line CRT terminal has been developed for the editing process, although a more flexible system will be needed for the actual editing which is scheduled to begin in approximately three years.

The Phonology of the grammatical constituents of verbal-phrase words in spoken Tibetan (Lhasa Dialect)

Abstract: The thesis is a study of certain phonetic, phonological, and grammatical aspects of the Lhasa dialect of Tibetan as spoken by Rinzin Wangpo. For this purpose such phonetic criteria as there are for distinguishing Words are first stated; atter which, the Phrase unit is distinguished. Criteria are adduced for distinguishing those grammatical categories, (Verb, Verbal Particle) which supply the characteristic grammatical constituents of Words comprised in the Verbal Phrase. All lexical items that can be classified as Verb-constituent (or Verb) lexical items, and as VerbalParticle- constituent (or Verbal-Particle) lexical items are then subjected to phonological analysis: they are classified prosodically in accordance with the prosodic types of Word or Piece in which each can be exemplified; and then such of the phonetic data as remain to be accounted for atter the prosodic analysis has been completed are stated as exponents of terms in phonematic systems. The thesis is, therefore, restricted to the Verbal Phrase, except that, where Verb constituent lexical items are exemplifiable in the Noun Phrase, (in Nominalized forms and in certain disyllabic Nouns), it is necessary, in order that the phonetic and phonological description of these lexical items shall be complete, to go outside the Verbal Phrase.

Letters to the editor: On “prime phrase” in Feldman and Gries paper

Abstract: EDITOR : The need to determine the elapsed number of days between any two given calendar dates seems to be a common problem in writ ing computer programs. Generally speaking, ra ther elaborate logic is needed to take into account the varying number of days in each month, plus the occurrence of leap years, and perhaps also the omission of a February 29 in years divisible evenly by 100 but not by 400. The following algorithm takes advantage of the t runcat ion feature of integer ari thmetic in the FORTRAN programming language to solve this problem in a very compact way. I t converts any given calendar date (I = year; J = month, a number from 1 to 12; K = day of month) to a Julian Date ( JD) a continuous count of days from an epoch in the very dis tant past . For example, noon at Greenwich, England, on January 1, 1970, is the beginning of Julian Date 2,440,588. So if I = 1970, J = 1, and K = 1, then the algorithm gives JD = 2440588. Clearly, the interval between any two calendar dates (on the Gregorian Calendar) can be found by obtaining the Julian Date for each, and finding the difference. The algorithm is given below (presented as a FORTRAN arithmetic s ta tement function). I t is valid for any Gregorian Date producing a Julian Date greater than zero.

The Problem of Interference in Beginning Portuguese

Abstract: THERE appears to be little doubt either among learning theorists or among linguists that interference is an important factor in second language learning. It is a real problem for the language teacher to structure the learning situation in such a manner as to minimize interference of the student's well-established speech patterns in his native tongue upon the patterns to be mastered in the target language. The problem of interference is particularly evident when a written stimulus is used to evoke a verbal response-that is when the student attempts to pronounce a word or phrase in the target language while seeing or visualizing the word or phrase in its printed form. The situation in most foreign language classrooms in the United States is one of literate English speaking students attempting to learn a language which utilizes an orthographic system quite similar to that of English. The student is presented with certain combinations of letters as stimuli for the utterance of certain sound patterns in the target language. Previous exposure to these same letter combinations as stimuli for the utterance of sound patterns in English will frequently produce interference. This interference results in a response to the stimulus in the target language utilizing the sound patterns of Eng sh or a response utilizing sound patterns whi h are not ordinarily cued by the written stimu us, either in the target language or in English. An even more difficult problem is presented when the native speaker of English who has learned to respond orally with relative accuracy to written stimuli in a second language, whose orthography is similar to that of English, attempts to learn a third language with an orthographic system similar to both English and the other language. Even though the problem of interference in the learning of the sound patterns of a foreign language caused by the tendency to respond with previously learned sound patterns when confronted by familiar written stimuli is generally accepted, the question of how to minimize the effects of this interference is a controversial one. One main issue is between (1) those who would withhold from the students contact with the written word in the foreign language for varying lengths of time or until varying degrees of oral proficiency have been reached and (2) those who would immediately, or almost immediately, allow the students access to the 201