Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms

This volume brings together contributions by international experts reflecting on Covid19-related neologisms and their lexicographic processing and representation. The papers analyze new words, new meanings of existing words, and new multiword units, where they come from, how they are transmitted (or differ) across languages, and how their use and meaning are reflected in dictionaries of all sorts. Recent trends in as many as ten languages are considered, including general and specialized language, monolingual as well as bilingual and printed as well as online dictionaries

Social and Discourse Contributions to the Determination of Reference in Cross-Situational Word Learning

How do children infer the meanings of their first words? Even in infant-directed speech, object nouns are often used in complex contexts with many possible referents and in sentences with many other words. Previous work has argued that children can learn word meanings via cross-situational observation of correlations between words and their referents. While cross-situational associations can sometimes be informative, social cues to what a speaker is talking about can provide a powerful shortcut to word meaning. The current study takes steps toward quantifying the informativeness of cues that signal speakers' chosen referent, including their eye-gaze, the position of their hands, and the referents of their previous utterances. We present results based on a hand-annotated corpus of 24 videos of child-caregiver play sessions with children from 6 to 18 months old, which we make available to researchers interested in similar issues. Our analyses suggest that although they can be more useful than cross-situational information in some contexts, social and discourse information must also be combined probabilistically to be effective in determining reference.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF #DDRIG #0746251)United States. Department of Education (Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship

Generative models for sequential dynamics in active inference

A central theme of theoretical neurobiology is that most of our cognitive operations require processing of discrete sequences of items. This processing in turn emerges from continuous neuronal dynamics. Notable examples are sequences of words during linguistic communication or sequences of locations during navigation. In this perspective, we address the problem of sequential brain processing from the perspective of active inference, which inherits from a Helmholtzian view of the predictive (Bayesian) brain. Underneath the active inference lies a generative model; namely, a probabilistic description of how (observable) consequences are generated by (unobservable) causes. We show that one can account for many aspects of sequential brain processing by assuming the brain entails a generative model of the sensed world that comprises central pattern generators, narratives, or well-defined sequences. We provide examples in the domains of motor control (e.g., handwriting), perception (e.g., birdsong recognition) through to planning and understanding (e.g., language). The solutions to these problems include the use of sequences of attracting points to direct complex movements—and the move from continuous representations of auditory speech signals to the discrete words that generate those signals

Word-play in Shakespeare.

A careful perusal of Shakespeare’s works leads to one outstanding conclusion. Shakespeare was preeminently interested in words, as such. His every play shows a painstaking attention to words in their various shades of meaning. It is our interest to present some definite proof of this extraordinary emphasis on words, and to attempt in a small way to explain the reason for this particular trait of Shakespeare’s. Certainly as skillful a playwright as he would not have included so many carefully planned word-plays in his dramas if the audience of the time were not interested in the language itself as well as in the dramatic qualities of the play. In those days when the language was in its infancy there must certainly have been a keen interest in the flexibility of the English tongue. Shakespeare was reflecting the spirit of an age in which new words were being coined daily, and new meanings for old words constantly discovered. The clown in Twelfth Night expresses the spirit of the ages toward the language. After a lengthy word-play he says;’ “You have said, sir. To see this age. A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit: how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward.” ((III.1.12) In Love’s Labour’s Lost we find a few lines which reveal much of the real state of the language at that time. The King has praised Armado as an entertainer. Biron answers :- “Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.” (I. :, 178-179) Fashion must, then, have favored the man who could coin new words, or make new linguistic discoveries. In a period when many scholars were denying the ability of the English language to adapt itself to the uses of the nation, and were persistently proclaiming the merits of Latin as the only language of true flexibility and beauty, Shakespeare, Lyly, Jonson, and others, fortunately gifted with the power to mould the language to their purpose, successfully illustrated the great resources of the English tongue to a public keenly alive to the literary conflict then going on. The present work does not attempt to prove or illustrate the great changes then taking place in the grammar, or to show the relation between Elizabethan grammar and that of the present day. It will not mention Shakespeare’s rhetorical or grammatical use of the language at all, or make any effort to show the relation of his vocabulary to that of his contemporaries. The present thesis is an attempt to show Shakespeare’s interest in words themselves by means of his word-play in the form of direct puns, phrases, pronunciation, and misused words. Some of these word-plays are known by the writer to be borrowed. In such cases the source will be given. In such places where a proverb, saying, or custom of the time is the source of the play on words it will be classified as such. Only the first ten plays of the author will be used for illustrative material:- Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors. Some effort will be made to show that Shakespeare used certain types of characters for his play on words, but it is impossible to limit the illustrations of his interest in words to these characters, as our author never lost an opportunity to play upon the meaning of a word in any sense

Independent writing in grades one and two

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University Page misnomered no 14

Intermediate reading exercises for use with the Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

First grade reading materials of high interest level for children from the ages of seven through twelve.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Double impact: what sibling data can tell us about the long-term negative effects of parental divorce

Journal ArticleMost prior research on the adverse consequences of parental divorce has analyzed only one child per family. As a result, it is not known whether the same divorce affects siblings differently. We address this issue by analyzing paired sibling data from the 1994 General Social Survey (GSS) and 1994 Survey of American Families (SAF). Both seemingly unrelated regressions and random effects models are used to study the effect of family background on offspring's educational attainment and marital stability. Parental divorce adversely affects the educational attainment and the probability of divorce of both children within a sibship; in other words, siblings tend to experience the same divorce the same way. However, family structure of origin only accounts for a trivial portion of the shared variance in offspring's educational attainment and marital stability, so parental divorce is only one of many factors determining how offspring fare. These findings were unchanged when controlling for a number of differences both between and within sibships. Also, the negative effects of parental divorce largely do not vary according to respondent characteristics

Construction and evaluation of self-teaching exercises in capitalization and punctuation through team learning in grades four, five, and six.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit