Extraposition in English and Spanish: A comparative study

451 p.

The Derivation of Dative Alternations

Maia Duguine, Susana Huidobro and Nerea Madariaga (eds.)

Language distance and non-native syntactic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

[EN] In this study, we explore native and non-native syntactic processing, paying special attention to the language distance factor. To this end, we compared how native speakers of Basque and highly proficient non-native speakers of Basque who are native speakers of Spanish process certain core aspects of Basque syntax. Our results suggest that differences in native versus non-native language processing strongly correlate with language distance: native/non-native processing differences obtain if a syntactic parameter of the non-native grammar diverges from the native grammar. Otherwise, non-native processing will approximate native processing as levels of proficiency increase. We focus on three syntactic parameters: (i) the head parameter, (ii) argument alignment (ergative/accusative), and (iii) verb agreement. The first two diverge in Basque and Spanish, but the third is the same in both languages. Our results reveal that native and non-native processing differs for the diverging syntactic parameters, but not for the convergent one. These findings indicate that language distance has a significant impact in non-native language processing.

Syntactic change

[ES] En este trabajo se define el cambio sintáctico, se analizan los factores que lo causan o facilitan y se estudian sus tipos principales en griego antiguo.

Breaking verbs. From event structure to syntactic categories in Basque

445 p.

El sistema sanitario público, sus servicios y sus responsables: creación y pilotaje de su imagen

[ES] Actualmente, el sistema sanitario público en España se encuentra en una etapa de modernización, marcadamente orientada hacia los destinatarios de sus servicios, es decir, el conjunto de los ciudadanos. Entre el amplio conjunto de acciones que se están implementando, destaca la implantación de nuevas fórmulas organizativas, la instalación de tecnologías avanzadas en información y comunicación, la gestión estratágica de los recursos humanos o la aplicación de técnicas de calidad total.

Astarloaren sintaxia eta hitz ordena naturala

[EN] This paper examines the syntactic ideas of Pablo Pedro Astarloa (1752-1806) as he explained in his Discursos filosóficos sobre la lengua primitiva (1805), and tries to put them in the context of the debate between rationalists and sensualists, who argued whether there is a «natural order» of words. Astarloa developed a system for accounting the word order in the primitive language of mankind (and hence in the Basque language) founded in three types of «nobleness», and in the principle that the noblest element precedes the less noble one. The first type (nobleza de origen) orders words according to their meaning. The second type (nobleza de ministerio) orders words according to the part of speech they belong to, or the semantic function they have. Finally, the third type (nobleza de mérito or de movilidad) considers the will for communication and, as a result, word order reflects the information structure. Moreover Astarloa ’s three types of nobleness are arranged in a hierarchy of superiority: movilidad > ministerio > origen. So Astarloa ’s syntax appears near to sensualists ’ conceptions on word order because it did not appeal for a fixed natural order of words; instead he proposed a variable word order based mainly on the communicative process.

Invariant-free deduction systems for temporal logic

In this thesis we propose a new approach to deduction methods for temporal logic. Our proposal is based on an inductive definition of eventualities that is different from the usual one. On the basis of this non-customary inductive definition for eventualities, we first provide dual systems of tableaux and sequents for Propositional Linear-time Temporal Logic (PLTL). Then, we adapt the deductive approach introduced by means of these dual tableau and sequent systems to the resolution framework and we present a clausal temporal resolution method for PLTL. Finally, we make use of this new clausal temporal resolution method for establishing logical foundations for declarative temporal logic programming languages. The key element in the deduction systems for temporal logic is to deal with eventualities and hidden invariants that may prevent the fulfillment of eventualities. Different ways of addressing this issue can be found in the works on deduction systems for temporal logic. Traditional tableau systems for temporal logic generate an auxiliary graph in a first pass.Then, in a second pass, unsatisfiable nodes are pruned. In particular, the second pass must check whether the eventualities are fulfilled. The one-pass tableau calculus introduced by S. Schwendimann requires an additional handling of information in order to detect cyclic branches that contain unfulfilled eventualities. Regarding traditional sequent calculi for temporal logic, the issue of eventualities and hidden invariants is tackled by making use of a kind of inference rules (mainly, invariant-based rules or infinitary rules) that complicates their automation. A remarkable consequence of using either a two-pass approach based on auxiliary graphs or aone-pass approach that requires an additional handling of information in the tableau framework, and either invariant-based rules or infinitary rules in the sequent framework, is that temporal logic fails to carry out the classical correspondence between tableaux and sequents. In this thesis, we first provide a one-pass tableau method TTM that instead of a graph obtains a cyclic tree to decide whether a set of PLTL-formulas is satisfiable. In TTM tableaux are classical-like. For unsatisfiable sets of formulas, TTM produces tableaux whose leaves contain a formula and its negation. In the case of satisfiable sets of formulas, TTM builds tableaux where each fully expanded open branch characterizes a collection of models for the set of formulas in the root. The tableau method TTM is complete and yields a decision procedure for PLTL. This tableau method is directly associated to a one-sided sequent calculus called TTC. Since TTM is free from all the structural rules that hinder the mechanization of deduction, e.g. weakening and contraction, then the resulting sequent calculus TTC is also free from this kind of structural rules. In particular, TTC is free of any kind of cut, including invariant-based cut. From the deduction system TTC, we obtain a two-sided sequent calculus GTC that preserves all these good freeness properties and is finitary, sound and complete for PLTL. Therefore, we show that the classical correspondence between tableaux and sequent calculi can be extended to temporal logic. The most fruitful approach in the literature on resolution methods for temporal logic, which was started with the seminal paper of M. Fisher, deals with PLTL and requires to generate invariants for performing resolution on eventualities. In this thesis, we present a new approach to resolution for PLTL. The main novelty of our approach is that we do not generate invariants for performing resolution on eventualities. Our method is based on the dual methods of tableaux and sequents for PLTL mentioned above. Our resolution method involves translation into a clausal normal form that is a direct extension of classical CNF. We first show that any PLTL-formula can be transformed into this clausal normal form. Then, we present our temporal resolution method, called TRS-resolution, that extends classical propositional resolution. Finally, we prove that TRS-resolution is sound and complete. In fact, it finishes for any input formula deciding its satisfiability, hence it gives rise to a new decision procedure for PLTL. In the field of temporal logic programming, the declarative proposals that provide a completeness result do not allow eventualities, whereas the proposals that follow the imperative future approach either restrict the use of eventualities or deal with them by calculating an upper bound based on the small model property for PLTL. In the latter, when the length of a derivation reaches the upper bound, the derivation is given up and backtracking is used to try another possible derivation. In this thesis we present a declarative propositional temporal logic programming language, called TeDiLog, that is a combination of the temporal and disjunctive paradigms in Logic Programming. We establish the logical foundations of our proposal by formally defining operational and logical semantics for TeDiLog and by proving their equivalence. Since TeDiLog is, syntactically, a sublanguage of PLTL, the logical semantics of TeDiLog is supported by PLTL logical consequence. The operational semantics of TeDiLog is based on TRS-resolution. TeDiLog allows both eventualities and always-formulas to occur in clause heads and also in clause bodies. To the best of our knowledge, TeDiLog is the first declarative temporal logic programming language that achieves this high degree of expressiveness. Since the tableau method presented in this thesis is able to detect that the fulfillment of an eventuality is prevented by a hidden invariant without checking for it by means of an extra process, since our finitary sequent calculi do not include invariant-based rules and since our resolution method dispenses with invariant generation, we say that our deduction methods are invariant-free.

Aldaera sintaktikoak aditzaren fokalizazioan

2008ko abenduaren 13-14ean, Baionan Aldaketak, aldaerak, bariazioak euskaran eta euskal testugintzan Nazioarteko Mintegia-ren barruan aurkeztua.

Latín, nacionalismo y arte alusiva en la historiografía de Antonio de Nebrija

"The Role of Latin in the Early Modern World: Linguistic identity and nationalism 1350-1800". Contributions from the conference held at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Casa Convalescència, 5-6 May 2010. Edited by Alejandro Coroleu, Carlo Caruso & Andrew Laird

Use of generalised additive models to categorise continuous variables in clinical prediction

13 P.

Word frequency cues word order in adults: cross-linguistic evidence

[EN] One universal feature of human languages is the division between grammatical functors and content words. From a learnability point of view, functors might provide entry points or anchors into the syntactic structure of utterances due to their high frequency. Despite its potentially universal scope, this hypothesis has not yet been tested on typologically different languages and on populations of different ages. Here we report a corpus study and an artificial grammar learning experiment testing the anchoring hypothesis in Basque, Japanese, French, and Italian adults. We show that adults are sensitive to the distribution of functors in their native language and use them when learning new linguistic material. However, compared to infants’ performance on a similar task, adults exhibit a slightly different behavior, matching the frequency distributions of their native language more closely than infants do. This finding bears on the issue of the continuity of language learning mechanism.

I edo adikzio baten anatomia

[EN] This paper is devoted to i, the Basque dative case marker. In part I, the paper aims at presenting a general approach the locus of syntactic variation within Universal Grammar (sections 1.1 to 1.3). After an excursus on the use of minorized languages in science (1.4), a discussion on parameters is provided. In (1.5), the notion of macroparameter from the 80’s is critically discussed mainly but not along the lines of Newmeyer (2005). The last section (1.6)supports to focus on microparameters, along the lines of Kayne (2000, 2005), as the right way to properly understand and explain variation. Part II provides an analysis of the main properties of Basque datives (sections 2.1 and 2.2). Sections 2.3 and 2.4 are devoted to the nature of Basque inflectional morpheme (k)i, interpreted asan applicative morpheme which ‘applies’ dative object arguments to the structure. Finally, microcomparative analyses on Basque Differential Object Marking and Dative Displacement are presented in sections (2.6) and (2.7) respectively.

Funtzio sintaktikoen gold estandarra eskuz etiketatzeko gidalerroak

[EN]In this report we present the tags we use when annotating the gold standard of syntactic functions and the decisions taken during its annotation. The gold standard is a necessary resource to evaluate the rulebased surface syntactic parser (the one based on the Constraint Grammar formalism), and, moreover, it can be useful to develop and evaluate statistical parsers. The tags we are presenting here follow the Constraint Grammar (CG) formalism (Karlsson et al., 1995). In fact, last experiments show that good results have been obtained when parsing with CG (Karlsson et al., 1995; Samuelsson and Voutilainen,1997; Tapanainen and Järvinen, 1997; Bick, 2000).

Predictive score for mortality in patients with COPD exacerbations attending hospital emergency departments

Background: Limited information is available about predictors of short-term outcomes in patients with exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (eCOPD) attending an emergency department (ED). Such information could help stratify these patients and guide medical decision-making. The aim of this study was to develop a clinical prediction rule for short-term mortality during hospital admission or within a week after the index ED visit. Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of patients with eCOPD attending the EDs of 16 participating hospitals. Recruitment started in June 2008 and ended in September 2010. Information on possible predictor variables was recorded during the time the patient was evaluated in the ED, at the time a decision was made to admit the patient to the hospital or discharge home, and during follow-up. Main short-term outcomes were death during hospital admission or within 1 week of discharge to home from the ED, as well as at death within 1 month of the index ED visit. Multivariate logistic regression models were developed in a derivation sample and validated in a validation sample. The score was compared with other published prediction rules for patients with stable COPD. Results: In total, 2,487 patients were included in the study. Predictors of death during hospital admission, or within 1 week of discharge to home from the ED were patient age, baseline dyspnea, previous need for long-term home oxygen therapy or non-invasive mechanical ventilation, altered mental status, and use of inspiratory accessory muscles or paradoxical breathing upon ED arrival (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.85). Addition of arterial blood gas parameters (oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressures (PO2 and PCO2)) and pH) did not improve the model. The same variables were predictors of death at 1 month (AUC = 0.85). Compared with other commonly used tools for predicting the severity of COPD in stable patients, our rule was significantly better. Conclusions: Five clinical predictors easily available in the ED, and also in the primary care setting, can be used to create a simple and easily obtained score that allows clinicians to stratify patients with eCOPD upon ED arrival and guide the medical decision-making process.