Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis of Categorical and Continuous Time Series: an R package

This paper describes the R package crqa to perform cross-recurrence quantification analysis of two time series of either a categorical or continuous nature. Streams of behavioral information, from eye movements to linguistic elements, unfold over time. When two people interact, such as in conversation, they often adapt to each other, leading these behavioral levels to exhibit recurrent states. In dialogue, for example, interlocutors adapt to each other by exchanging interactive cues: smiles, nods, gestures, choice of words, and so on. In order for us to capture closely the goings-on of dynamic interaction, and uncover the extent of coupling between two individuals, we need to quantify how much recurrence is taking place at these levels. Methods available in crqa would allow researchers in cognitive science to pose such questions as how much are two people recurrent at some level of analysis, what is the characteristic lag time for one person to maximally match another, or whether one person is leading another. First, we set the theoretical ground to understand the difference between 'correlation' and 'co-visitation' when comparing two time series, using an aggregative or cross-recurrence approach. Then, we describe more formally the principles of cross-recurrence, and show with the current package how to carry out analyses applying them. We end the paper by comparing computational efficiency, and results' consistency, of crqa R package, with the benchmark MATLAB toolbox crptoolbox. We show perfect comparability between the two libraries on both levels

Building complex events: the case of Sicilian Doubly Inflected Construction

We examine the Doubly Inflected Construction of Sicilian (DIC; Cardinaletti and Giusti 2001, 2003, Cruschina 2013), in which a motion verb V1 from a restricted set is followed by an event verb V2 and both verbs are inflected for the same person and tense features. The interpretation of DIC involves a complex event which behaves as a single, integrated event by linguistic tests. Based on data drawn from different sources, we argue that DIC is an asymmetrical serial verb construction (Aikhenvald 2006). We propose an analysis of DIC in which V1 and V2 enter the semantic composition as lexical verbs, with V1 contributing a motion event and projecting a theme and a goal argument which are identified, respectively, with an agent and a location argument projected by V2. A morphosyntactic mechanism of feature-spread requires that the person and tense features be realized both on V1 and on V2, while, semantically, these features are interpreted only once, in a position from which they take scope over the complex predicate resulting from the combination of V1 and V2. The semantic analysis is based on an operation of event concatenation, defined over spatio-temporally contiguous events which share specific participants, and is implemented in a neo-Davidsonian framework (Parsons 1990)

Understanding confounding effects in linguistic coordination: an information-theoretic approach

We suggest an information-theoretic approach for measuring stylistic coordination in dialogues. The proposed measure has a simple predictive interpretation and can account for various confounding factors through proper conditioning. We revisit some of the previous studies that reported strong signatures of stylistic accommodation, and find that a significant part of the observed coordination can be attributed to a simple confounding effect - length coordination. Specifically, longer utterances tend to be followed by longer responses, which gives rise to spurious correlations in the other stylistic features. We propose a test to distinguish correlations in length due to contextual factors (topic of conversation, user verbosity, etc.) and turn-by-turn coordination. We also suggest a test to identify whether stylistic coordination persists even after accounting for length coordination and contextual factors

Modelling the reliability of search operations within the UK through Bayesian belief networks

This paper uses a Bayesian belief networks (BBN) methodology to assess the reliability of search and rescue (SAR) operations within the UK coastguard (maritime rescue) coordination centers. This is an extension of earlier work, which investigated the rationale of the government's decision to close a number of coordination centers. The previous study made use of secondary data sources and employed a binary logistic regression methodology to support the analysis. This study focused on the collection of primary data through a structured elicitation process, which resulted in the construction of a BBN. The main findings of the study are that approaches such as logistic regression are complementary to BBN's. The former provided a more objective assessment of associations between variables but was restricted in the level of detail that could be explicitly expressed within the model due to lack of available data. The latter method provided a much more detailed model but the validity of the numeric assessments was more questionable. Each method can be used to inform and defend the development of the other. The paper describes in detail the elicitation process employed to construct the BBN and reflects on the potential for bias

A Bi-Polar Theory of Nominal and Clause Structure and Function

It is taken as axiomatic that grammar encodes meaning. Two key dimensions of meaning that get grammatically encoded are referential meaning and relational meaning. The key claim is that, in English, these two dimensions of meaning are typically encoded in distinct grammatical poles—a referential pole and a relational pole—with a specifier functioning as the locus of the referential pole and a head functioning as the locus of the relational pole. Specifiers and heads combine to form referring expressions corresponding to the syntactic notion of a maximal projection. Lexical items and expressions functioning as modifiers are preferentially attracted to one pole or the other. If the head of an expression describes a relation, one or more complements may be associated with the head. The four grammatical functions specifier, head, modifier and complement are generally adequate to represent much of the basic structure and function of nominals and clauses. These terms are borrowed from X-Bar Theory, but they are motivated on semantic grounds having to do with their grammatical function to encode referential and relational meaning

Semantic Variation in Online Communities of Practice

We introduce a framework for quantifying semantic variation of common words in Communities of Practice and in sets of topic-related communities. We show that while some meaning shifts are shared across related communities, others are community-specific, and therefore independent from the discussed topic. We propose such findings as evidence in favour of sociolinguistic theories of socially-driven semantic variation. Results are evaluated using an independent language modelling task. Furthermore, we investigate extralinguistic features and show that factors such as prominence and dissemination of words are related to semantic variation.Comment: 13 pages, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computational Semantics (IWCS 2017

Comparing and evaluating extended Lambek calculi

Lambeks Syntactic Calculus, commonly referred to as the Lambek calculus, was innovative in many ways, notably as a precursor of linear logic. But it also showed that we could treat our grammatical framework as a logic (as opposed to a logical theory). However, though it was successful in giving at least a basic treatment of many linguistic phenomena, it was also clear that a slightly more expressive logical calculus was needed for many other cases. Therefore, many extensions and variants of the Lambek calculus have been proposed, since the eighties and up until the present day. As a result, there is now a large class of calculi, each with its own empirical successes and theoretical results, but also each with its own logical primitives. This raises the question: how do we compare and evaluate these different logical formalisms? To answer this question, I present two unifying frameworks for these extended Lambek calculi. Both are proof net calculi with graph contraction criteria. The first calculus is a very general system: you specify the structure of your sequents and it gives you the connectives and contractions which correspond to it. The calculus can be extended with structural rules, which translate directly into graph rewrite rules. The second calculus is first-order (multiplicative intuitionistic) linear logic, which turns out to have several other, independently proposed extensions of the Lambek calculus as fragments. I will illustrate the use of each calculus in building bridges between analyses proposed in different frameworks, in highlighting differences and in helping to identify problems.Comment: Empirical advances in categorial grammars, Aug 2015, Barcelona, Spain. 201