Simultaneity and “increased present” in the European Spanish perfect

This paper deals with the concept of “simultaneity” in relation to the Spanish Present Perfect based on the descriptions made by Rojo (1974) and Rojo & Veiga (1999), and seeks to link it to other similar concepts proposed by other scholars, such as Alarcos’ presente ampliado (“Increased Present” (IP)), McCoard’s Extended Now (XN), and Iatridou et al.’s Perfect Time Span (PTS). Although not all these terms refer to the same concept, as their limits depend on the respective languages they account for, they all share the notion that there is some kind of temporal coincidence between the event and the speech act that informs the Perfect. We posit that the way this temporal coincidence is conceived may explain the temporal and aspectual differences between the Perfect in languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and English

Alineamiento fonético de acentos tonales en el castellano de Vitoria

En este artículo se describe y analiza el alineamiento fonético de los acentos tonales en el castellano de Vitoria, y se compara con otros dialectos del castellano que se han analizado anteriormente: el castellano de Madrid y el de Lekeitio. En la variedad de Vitoria, el acento en las sílabas tónicas se caracterizan por una subida de la altura tonal. En los acentos prenucleares se llega al pico en la sílaba postónica, mientras que en las sílabas nucleares se llega al pico dentro de la sílaba tónica. Respecto a la alineación de los valles, éstos se alinean antes del onset de la sílaba tónica en todas las posiciones.In this article, we describe and analyse the phonetic alignment of pitch accents in Vitoria Spanish, and we compare it to other dialects of Spanish that have been previously analysed: Madrid Spanish and Lekeitio Spanish. In the variety of Vitoria, accent is intonationally realized as a pitch rise. In prenuclear accents, peaks are aligned in the posttonic syllable, whereas in nuclear accents, peaks are aligned within the tonic syllable. For valleys, these are aligned before the onset of the stressed syllable in all positions.En este artículo se describe y analiza el alineamiento fonético de los acentos tonales en el castellano de Vitoria, y se compara con otros dialectos del castellano que se han analizado anteriormente: el castellano de Madrid y el de Lekeitio. En la variedad de Vitoria, el acento en las sílabas tónicas se caracterizan por una subida de la altura tonal. En los acentos prenucleares se llega al pico en la sílaba postónica, mientras que en las sílabas nucleares se llega al pico dentro de la sílaba tónica. Respecto a la alineación de los valles, éstos se alinean antes del onset de la sílaba tónica en todas las posiciones

Reseñas

Obra ressenyada: Adele E. CLARKE, Situational analysis : grounded theory after postmodern turn. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2005

A new navigation paradigm for virtual reality: the guided visit through a virtual world

The three main navigation paradigms for virtual worlds, i.e., free navigation, automatic tours, and multiuser navigation show important limitations when dealing with guided visits that involve interactive cooperation among several users in 3D virtual worlds over the Internet. In this paper, we present our research into this issue and some important results. We propose a new navigation paradigm denominated guided visit through a virtual world, where the capacity of a user guiding several remote users through the virtual world is enriched with the capacity to dynamically interchange the role of guiding between the connected users. The user that acts as a guide moves freely through the virtual world, and his/her movements are reproduced by the browsers of the other guided users. We also present the architecture and the system we developed that implements this paradigm, as well as its integration in a working realworld application that demonstrates its use

El "estilo de lengua". Antecedentes y fundamentos metodológicos

En este trabajo presentamos una concepción del estilo no vinculada ni a su uso en la Crítica Literaria ni a las versiones actuales del Análisis del Discurso. Es una visión del concepto no parcelada en usos individuales y contextuales, que aspira a aplicarse a la lengua en general como el conjunto de elementos del sistema y de la norma que la caracterizan frente a otras. Se buscan los antecedentes de esta idea en otros autores y se propone abordar su estudio mediante la comparación histórica e interlingüística, además de esbozar algunas de sus principales aplicaciones.In this paper the term style is linked neither to Literary Criticism nor to recent versions of Discourse Analysis. It has no connection with the individual and contextual usage of the language, but with the set of elements of system and norm that distinguishes one language from others. We look for the theoretical background of the concept and propose that style should be studied by means of historical and cross-linguistic comparisons. Some of its main applications are also pointed out

The acquisition of complex wh-questions in L2

The main goal of this paper is to review how complex wh-questions are acquired in the process of learning a second language (L2). Adopting a generative perspective, the paper will consider experimental studies that have dealt with the issue of whether L2 learners have access to Universal Grammar (UG) and how other factors such as first language (L1) transfer, derivational complexity, the age of the learners, age of first exposure and length of exposure might be influential in this process. Although most studies to date have focused on learners acquiring English as an L2 with a rather wide variety of first languages (L1s), two recent studies have considered the acquisition of L2 French. They will be reviewed too in order to provide a wider perspective on the acquisition of the syntactic structure under focus: wh-movement. The paper is structured as follows: the first section presents a brief overview of different ideas about how languages are learned to then focus on the generative approach. Additionally, basic concepts of the approach and several misconceptions about it will be commented on. Section 2 provides a crosslinguistic review on wh-question formation, considering other possible structures in other languages, and analyzes how this structure is formed in English and what its main constraints are. Section 3 reviews some studies on the acquisition of wh-questions in L1 and L2 acquisition, whereas section 4 focuses on two more recent studies that consider derivational complexity as a crucial factor in the L2 acquisition process. Section 5 touches on the issue of ultimate attainment and section 6 concludes the paper