Procedural Meaning Explicatures in the Development of New Subordination Strategies in Romance

The sociocultural changes that led to the genesis of Romance languages widened the gap between oral and written patterns, which display different discoursive and linguistic devices. In early documents, discoursive implicatures connecting propositions were not generally codified, so that the reader should furnish the correct interpretation according to his own perception of real facts; which can still be attested in current oral utterances. Once Romance languages had undergone several levelling processes which concluded in the first standardizations, implicatures became explicatures and were syntactically codified by means of univocal new complex conjunctions. As a consequence of the emergence of these new subordination strategies, a freer distribution of the information conveyed by the utterances is allowed. The success of complex structural patterns ran alongside of the genesis of new narrative genres and the generalization of a learned rhetoric. Both facts are a spontaneous effect of new approaches to the act of reading. Ancient texts were written to be read to a wide audience, whereas those printed by the end of the XV th century were conceived to be read quietly, in a low voice, by a private reader. The goal of this paper is twofold, since we will show that: a) The development of new complex conjunctions through the history of Romance languages accommodates to four structural patterns that range from parataxis to hypotaxis. b) This development is a reflex of the well known grammaticalization path from discourse to syntax that implies the codification of discoursive strategies (Givón 2 1979, Sperber and Wilson 1986, Carston 1988, Grice 1989, Bach 1994, Blackemore 2002, among others]

Estrategia educativa para la motivación profesional de los estudiantes que ingresan en la carrera de Agronomía en las facultades de Montaña del Escambray

La Universidad tiene el reto de servir a la sociedad y por ello no basta que se dedique a una labor simplemente profesionalizante. En Cuba constituye un reto para la pedagogía contemporánea la búsqueda y puesta en práctica de nuevos enfoques para incentivar la Motivación Profesional. La investigación que se presenta parte de un estudio realizado sobre las necesidades educativas de los estudiantes, que cursan la carrera de Agronomía en la Facultad Agropecuaria de Montaña del Escambray con el objetivo de proporcionarles una orientación profesional que se corresponda con las demandas que deben enfrentar. Se declara la metodología cualitativa como fundamento en la realización de este trabajo y se describe el proceso de investigación seguido. Los resultados del diagnóstico realizado llevan a la presentación de una Propuesta de Estrategia Educativa para la Motivación Profesional de los estudiantes que ingresan y se valora la misma mediante una experiencia piloto.

A compositional data analysis package for R providing multiple approaches

”compositions” is a new R-package for the analysis of compositional and positive data. It contains four classes corresponding to the four different types of compositional and positive geometry (including the Aitchison geometry). It provides means for computation, plotting and high-level multivariate statistical analysis in all four geometries. These geometries are treated in an fully analogous way, based on the principle of working in coordinates, and the object-oriented programming paradigm of R. In this way, called functions automatically select the most appropriate type of analysis as a function of the geometry. The graphical capabilities include ternary diagrams and tetrahedrons, various compositional plots (boxplots, barplots, piecharts) and extensive graphical tools for principal components. Afterwards, ortion and proportion lines, straight lines and ellipses in all geometries can be added to plots. The package is accompanied by a hands-on-introduction, documentation for every function, demos of the graphical capabilities and plenty of usage examples. It allows direct and parallel computation in all four vector spaces and provides the beginner with a copy-and-paste style of data analysis, while letting advanced users keep the functionality and customizability they demand of R, as well as all necessary tools to add own analysis routines. A complete example is included in the appendix