Cross-Lingual Dependency Parsing for Closely Related Languages - Helsinki's Submission to VarDial 2017

This paper describes the submission from the University of Helsinki to the shared task on cross-lingual dependency parsing at VarDial 2017. We present work on annotation projection and treebank translation that gave good results for all three target languages in the test set. In particular, Slovak seems to work well with information coming from the Czech treebank, which is in line with related work. The attachment scores for cross-lingual models even surpass the fully supervised models trained on the target language treebank. Croatian is the most difficult language in the test set and the improvements over the baseline are rather modest. Norwegian works best with information coming from Swedish whereas Danish contributes surprisingly little

Baltų *kalu̯ā

The purpose of this contribution is to separate Baltic *kalu̯ā “hill” from Baltic *kalnas “mountain” and to connect it with Indo-Aryan *kū́lva-, Iranian *karu̯a- „thin-haired“; Greek *κόλϝος “docked, hornless”; Italic *kalau̯o- & *kalau̯ā “bald (head)”, and the Pre-Romance oronym *kalauos, besides the Gaulish cognomen calaua. The semantic shift from “bald” to “hill” is supported by numerous examples of “bald hills”.Straipsnio tikslas – atskirti baltų *kalu̯ā nuo *kalnas ir susieti jį su indų-iranėnų *kū́lva-, iranėnų *karu̯a- „plonų plaukų“; graikų *κόλϝος „beuodegis, beragis“; italikų *kalau̯o- & *kalau̯ā „plikas“ ir ikiromaniškuoju oronimu *kalauos, plg. dar galų pravardę calaua. Semantinę raidą nuo „plikas“ iki „kalva“ patvirtina gausūs „plikų kalvų“ pavyzdžiai

Dva Sveta Jurja i najraniji slavenski kulturni pejzaž između Save i Drave

The objective of this paper is to provide initial evidence for the pre-Christian, Early Slavic startum of cultural landscape in the area of the medieval Slavonia. Following upon the research of Croatian linguists (Katičić) and ethnologists (V. Belaj) the author proposes several sites in the landscape of Northwestern Croatia which, in his opinion, go back to pre-Christian times. First of all, those are the Trema area near Križevci, with the churches of Sv. Juraj in Đurđic and Sv. Julijana in Trema, the site of Đurđička- Rudina near Daruvar, and Pogano St. Peter at the Western Papuk. The paper also discusses the methodology involved in a study of cultural landscape which is defined as history, myth, and art, the last component being the proper field for art historical research, and of an utmost importance for the contemporary planning within historical environments

Functions of stories of night-time encounters with witches in Eastern Slovenia

Este artigo debruça-se sobre as possíveis funções de memorates sobre encontros nocturnos com bruxas recolhidos em 2001-2002 em zonas rurais da Eslovénia oriental.As bruxas apareciam sob a forma de luzes e/ou faziam as pessoas extraviar-se, impediam-nas de prosseguir o seu caminho ou “transferiam-nas” para outro lugar. As histórias sobre pessoas levadas por seres sobrenaturais poderiam fornecer uma desculpa culturalmente aceitável para um comportamento desviante, por exemplo num estado de embriaguez. Certos memorates mostram claramente que essas experiências vezes davam-se muitas vezes no regresso das feiras ou do trabalho e em ligação com bebedeiras. Pelo menos em certos casos, as descrições desses encontros serviam talvez para ocultar experiências sexuais ou fantasias sexuais de jovens do sexo masculino excitados pela tensão sexual. As mulheres poderiam contar estas histórias como uma “arma” contra maridos ciumentos, e estes memorates tinham também uma função económica: as pessoas largavam do trabalho mais cedo e iam para a cama, de forma a não encontrar as bruxas, para estarem bem descansados para o trabalho no dia seguinte. Mas a mais importante função dos memorates sobre encontros com “bruxas nocturnas” era a demarcação de espaços-fronteira e tempos-fronteira, lugares que se tornavam perigosos em certos momentos do dia. Por fim, os memorates tinham uma função psicológica: contar histórias sobre essas experiências (lugar, tempo, forma) proporcionava às pessoas um modo seguro de se orientarem no espaço, tornava-as conscientes de quais os movimentos no espaço e no tempo que eram ou não permitidos e –se não seguiam tais regras– mostravam-lhes as consequências do seu comportamento

De rerum natura: On the Nature of Existence and the Existence of Nature in the mundo maya and Beyond

In Mayan languages, as in many other Indigenous languages around the world, there is no traditional word for ‘nature.’ The lack of such terminology stems from the fact that the division between the human realm and the environment we live in has not been (historically or culturally) as separated as it is in the modern world. However, while there are no traditional words for ‘nature’ in Mayan languages, some of the languages use descriptive terms or neologisms that are often translated as ‘nature’ in dictionaries and other linguistic sources. The focus of this article is to understand the concept of nature in the Maya worldview based primarily on linguistic sources.Peer reviewe

Adapting to Climate Change in Reindeer Herding: The Nation-State as Problem and Solution.

This paper discusses the role of nation-states and their systems of gover- nance as sources of barriers and solutions to adaptation to climate change from the point of view of Saami reindeer herders. The Saami, inhabiting the northernmost areas of Fennoscandia, is one of more than twenty ethnic groups in the circumpolar Arctic that base their traditional living on reindeer herding. Climate change is likely to affect the Saami regions severely, with winter temperatures predicted to increase by up to 7 centigrade. We argue that the pastoral practices of the Saami herders are inherently better suited to handle huge natural variation in climatic con- ditions than most other cultures. Indeed, the core of their pastoral practices and herding knowledge is skillful adaptation to unusually frequent and rapid change and variability. This paper argues that the key to handle permanent changes successfully is that herders themselves have sufficient degrees of freedom to act. Considering the similarities in herding practices in the fours nation-states between which Saami culture is now divided . Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia . the systems of governance are surprisingly different. Indeed, the very definition of what is required to be defined as an ethnic Saami is very different in the three Nordic countries. We argue that timely adjust- ments modifying the structures of governance will be key to the survival of the Saami reindeer herding culture. Since the differences in governance regimes . and the need to change national governance structures . are so central to our argument, we spend some time tracing the origins of these systems.