General linguistics and cartography : an interview with ur shlonsky

This issue of Revista Letras is dedicated to the publication of some selected papers presented at the “Intermediate Meeting” of the Grammar Theory Working Group (GTTG) of the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Letters and Linguistics (ANPOLL), held at the Federal University of Roraima, July 2019. Currently, GTTG members are researchers from different fields (such as Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Language Acquisition), affiliated to Brazilian universities and institutes of research. At the 2019 meeting, in addition to discussions related more specifically to grammar theory, it was sought to establish dialogues with different ANPOLL working groups, in particular with members of the Psycholinguistics and Indigenous Languages groups. Another topic covered was grammar teaching at the Basic Education. Basic Education has been a concern of many group members, who have come up with proposals to show how grammar theory can contribute to the study of grammar and to the learning of (spoken and written) standard Portuguese. We are delighted to interview in this issue the renowned linguist Ur Shlonsky, professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Geneva. His main areas of expertise are syntactic theory and comparative syntax. With research on aspects of Semitic languages syntax, especially Modern Hebrew, and work on Romance languages and Romance dialectology, Professor Shlonsky has provided important contributions to syntax theory and, more recently, to the Cartographic Approach. Among his various research topics, we can cite the syntax of null subjects, relative sentences, resumptive pronouns, cliticization and wh-interrogatives. For a more detailed view of his cv, as well as a list of some of his publications, the reader can consult the link https://www.unige.ch/lettres/linguistique/collaborateurs/profs/shlonsky/. Surely, the topics addressed in this interview with Professor Ur Shlonsky will definitely bring important contributions to Revista Letras readers—specially those of the present issue—once some of the GTTG priority axes for the 2019-2020 biennium have been addressed in this interview. Some more personal questions make it possible for readers to know when and how Shlonsky’s interest for theoretical Linguistics—and, particularly, for cartographic studies—arose. The interview will also cover some topics on the cartographic program which are more related to Shlonsky’s current research, namely issues on the syntax of the left periphery and the study of the Subject10

Do Choice & Speed of Reforms Matter for Human Rights During Transition?

Conventional wisdom posits absence of systematic relationship between economic reforms and human rights. Taking the case of transition economies, Vadlamannati & Soysa (2008) shows significant positive relationship between economic reforms and various forms of human rights. This brings us to the next question on the impact of choice and speed of reforms on human rights performance. In other words, does speed and choice of reforms increase or decrease government respect for human rights in transition economies? This is the question our paper tries to address. The Anglo-Saxon perspective is that speed of reforms lead to growth and development which inturn generates respect for human rights. While skeptics contend that rushing towards a free market economy would always be destructive as development process tends to be exclusive creating exogenous shocks leading to social and economic unrest. This leads to domestic violence and conflicts, allowing governments to resort to repressive measures. We use a new method to construct ëspeed of reformsí variable for transition economies for the period 1993 ñ 2006 to estimate its impact on all forms of human rights. Further, using the methodology of Wolf (1999) on discrete groupings of choice of reforms of transition economies, we classify the countries under radical, gradual and laggard reformer groups. We measure the impact of speed of reforms on human rights performance conditioned by choice of reforms. Our findings show that speed of reforms significantly improves government respect for all forms of human rights, while volatility in reforms is associated with human rights abuses. But the interesting finding is that, controlling for the speed of reforms attained, the choice with which the country has reformed plays pivotal role in determining human rights performance. While radical reforming countries are associated with better human rights performance, gradualists and laggards share poor human rights performance.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64413/1/wp927.pd

DO CHOICE & SPEED OF REFORMS MATTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DURING TRANSITION?

Conventional wisdom posits absence of systematic relationship between economic reforms and human rights. Taking the case of transition economies, Vadlamannati & Soysa (2008) shows significant positive relationship between economic reforms and various forms of human rights. This brings us to the next question on the impact of choice and speed of reforms on human rights performance. In other words, does speed and choice of reforms increase or decrease government respect for human rights in transition economies? This is the question our paper tries to address. The Anglo-Saxon perspective is that speed of reforms lead to growth and development which inturn generates respect for human rights. While skeptics contend that rushing towards a free market economy would always be destructive as development process tends to be exclusive creating exogenous shocks leading to social and economic unrest. This leads to domestic violence and conflicts, allowing governments to resort to repressive measures. We use a new method to construct ‘speed of reforms’ variable for transition economies for the period 1993 – 2006 to estimate its impact on all forms of human rights. Further, using the methodology of Wolf (1999) on discrete groupings of choice of reforms of transition economies, we classify the countries under radical, gradual and laggard reformer groups. We measure the impact of speed of reforms on human rights performance conditioned by choice of reforms. Our findings show that speed of reforms significantly improves government respect for all forms of human rights, while volatility in reforms is associated with human rights abuses. But the interesting finding is that, controlling for the speed of reforms attained, the choice with which the country has reformed plays pivotal role in determining human rights performance. While radical reforming countries are associated with better human rights performance, gradualists and laggards share poor human rights performance.

Bay Area Spanish : regional sound change in contact languages

Compression of the vowel space area and reduced vowel dispersion have been observed as features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS, D'Onofrio, Pratt, and Van Hofwegen 2019). The present research provides empirical data to address the gap in the literature regarding the influence of regional sound change on contact languages, namely the influence of CVS on Bay Area Spanish. Analysis of word list tasks given to bilingual speakers of Bay Area Spanish and monolingual speakers of Mexican Spanish reveals a more compressed vowel space in Bay Area Spanish and patterns that mirror changes in progress in California English. These results suggest that regional sound changes can influence production within contact languages and may provide evidence for perceptual category assimilation among Spanish-English bilinguals in the Bay Area. These results additionally broaden the scope of regional sound change studies by removing the historically Anglo-centric focus and expanding the consideration of what may constitute a regional feature

Truth: A Shield to Memory

This fireside address was given at the BYU Law School on November 19, 1989