On trend estimation under monotone Gaussian subordination with long-memory: application to fossil pollen series

Fossil pollen data from stratigraphic cores are irregularly spaced in time due to non-linear age-depth relations. Moreover, their marginal distributions may vary over time. We address these features in a nonparametric regression model with errors that are monotone transformations of a latent continuous-time Gaussian process Z(T). Although Z(T) is unobserved, due to monotonicity, under suitable regularity conditions, it can be recovered facilitating further computations such as estimation of the long-memory parameter and the Hermite coefficients. The estimation of Z(T) itself involves estimation of the marginal distribution function of the regression errors. These issues are considered in proposing a plug-in algorithm for optimal bandwidth selection and construction of confidence bands for the trend function. Some high-resolution time series of pollen records from Lago di Origlio in Switzerland, which go back ca. 20,000 years are used to illustrate the methods.

Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals

In the course of language acquisition learners have to deal with the task of producing narrative texts that are coherent across a range of conceptual domains (space, time, entities) -- both within as well as across utterances. The organization of information is analyzed in this study, on the basis of retellings of a silent film, in terms of devices used in the coordination and subordination of events within the narrative sequence. The focus on subordination reflects a core grammatical difference between Italian and French, as Italian is a null-subject language while French is not. The implications of this contrast for information structure include differences in topic management within the sequence of events. The present study investigates in how far Italian-French bilingual speakers acquire the patterns of monolingual speakers of Italian. It compares how early and late bilinguals of these two languages proceed when linking information in narratives in Italian.

Clitics, affixes, and wordhood in Garifuna (Arawak): A multidimensional continuum of morphosyntactic boundness

Recent research on wordhood and morphosyntactic boundness suggests that the domains word and clitic do not lend themselves to cross-linguistic categorization but must be defined language specifically. In most languages, it is necessary to define word on two separate levels, the phonological word (p-word) and the grammatical word (g-word), and to describe mismatches between the two. This paper defines those domains for Garifuna, an Arawak language spoken in Honduras, Central America. Garifuna has auxiliary and classifier constructions which make up two p-words, and only one g-word. P-words made up of more than one g-word involve second position enclitics, word scope clitics, and proclitic connectives and prepositions. Garifuna clitics are typically unstressed, able to attach to hosts of any word class and able to string together into clusters. Enclitics are used to express tense-aspect, modality, and adverbial meanings, among others. In other languages, clitic clusters tend to display a fixed order; Garifuna clitic order seems quite free, although certain orders are preferred. Also, contrary to cross-linguistic tendencies, proclitic connectives can act as hosts for enclitic clusters, contradicting the commonly used definition of clitics as phonologically weak elements that need to attach to a host to form a p-word; such clitic-only p-words are problematic for traditional definitions of clitics.

Root system of singular perturbations of the harmonic oscillator type operators

We analyze perturbations of the harmonic oscillator type operators in a Hilbert space H, i.e. of the self-adjoint operator with simple positive eigenvalues μ k satisfying μ k+1 − μ k ≥ Δ > 0. Perturbations are considered in the sense of quadratic forms. Under a local subordination assumption, the eigenvalues of the perturbed operator become eventually simple and the root system contains a Riesz basis.