The Dunhuang chinese sky: a comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas

This paper presents an analysis of the star atlas included in the medieval Chinese manuscript (Or.8210/S.3326), discovered in 1907 by the archaeologist Aurel Stein at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang and now held in the British Library. Although partially studied by a few Chinese scholars, it has never been fully displayed and discussed in the Western world. This set of sky maps (12 hour angle maps in quasi-cylindrical projection and a circumpolar map in azimuthal projection), displaying the full sky visible from the Northern hemisphere, is up to now the oldest complete preserved star atlas from any civilisation. It is also the first known pictorial representation of the quasi-totality of the Chinese constellations. This paper describes the history of the physical object - a roll of thin paper drawn with ink. We analyse the stellar content of each map (1339 stars, 257 asterisms) and the texts associated with the maps. We establish the precision with which the maps are drawn (1.5 to 4 degrees for the brightest stars) and examine the type of projections used. We conclude that precise mathematical methods were used to produce the atlas. We also discuss the dating of the manuscript and its possible author and confirm the dates 649-684 (early Tang dynasty) as most probable based on available evidence. This is at variance with a prior estimate around +940. Finally we present a brief comparison with later sky maps, both in China and in Europe.Comment: 19 pages, 5 Tables, 8 Figure

Proust et Hergé : de quelques points communs entre À la recherche du temps perdu et Les Aventures de Tintin

Proust and Hergé: on some similarities between À la Recherche du temps perdu and Les Aventures de Tintin. Part I. Marcel Proust and Hergé seem to have nothing in common. Their works are indeed very different: they do not belong to the same genre, nor treat the same themes or have the same public. What parallel could be established between À la Recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), which revolutionized the genre of the novel, and Les Aventures de Tintin (The Adventures of Tintin), a series of comic albums apparently intended only for children? A closer study reveals however that Proust and Hergé, beyond what one could think at first sight, share deep similarities on wh ich this article, published in two parts, will focus. First of all, À la Recherche du temps perdu as well as Les Aventures de Tintin rest on the creation of a specific world, which can be characterized by Balzac’s principle of returning characters and by the importance of the imaginary of space (Proust’s rêveries about the names of places, Hergé’s fictitious geography). Moreover, Proust and Hergé’s characters have a very singular language and linguistic features which can be identified easily (let us think of Dr. Cottard’s puns, of Odette’s anglicisms, etc. in Proust, o r of Captain Haddock’s insults or Dupond and Dupont’s slips of the tongue in Hergé). Eventually, Proust and Hergé both develop a reflection on time which gives rise to a singular temporality in their books, and more precisely a reflection on lost and regained time, with two opposite situations and therefore two opposite conceptions for each of the authors. This first part of our study focuses on the principle of returning characters adopted by Proust and Hergé, on their imaginary of space and on the language of their characters, while the second part, which will be published in the next issue of Interlitteraria, will be devoted to the problematics of time

À propos des suffixes appréciatifs de l’espagnol. Note de mimophonie

On sait que Saussure avait posé dans le Cours de linguistique généraleque le signe était arbitraire, c'est-à-dire qu'il n'y avait pas de lien entre sonsignifiant et son signifié. La preuve qu'il en donnait était essentiellementla suivante: la suite phonique chargée d'exprimer un sens varie d'unelangue à l'autre. Ainsi n'y a-t-il aucun rapport entre la suite sonore boeufen français et la suite sonore Ochs en allemand (Saussure, 1967:100). Cetargument permettait également à Saussure de rejeter l'idée selon laquelleles onomatopées étaient motivées, puisque, là encore, elles variaient d'unelangue à l'autre.Or, la question de l'arbitraire du signe avait été déjà discutée bien avantSaussure et l'est encore après lui, et l'on ne saurait considérer son point devue à l'heure actuel comme fondé.Déjà dans le Cratylede Platon, Cratyle soutenait que le son représentaitla chose et que les mots étaient motivés, contrairement à ce que soutenaitHermogène, qui lui pensait, en pré-saussurien, qu'il n'y avait aucun rapportentre le signifié et le signifiant. L'âge classique a connu des débats similaires,et des grammairiens comme Court de Gébelin s'efforçaient de montrer quechaque lettre était douée d'une valeur sémantique en soi, par exemple lesdentales, qui servent à nomme

Pour une poétique du nom de personnage

Prolegomena to a poetics of the character’s name. We propose in this article a poetics of the character’s name. The character’s name can be studied from an autonomous point of view as well as from a structural point of view. From an autonomous point of view, at first, we show that the character’s name especially reflects a personal, a social, a physical, a generic, a geographical, an autobiographical or a referential characteristic of the character. We also focus on two particular cases, the case in which the name of the character is incomplete and the case in which the identity of the character is changing. The structural point of view, on the contrary, consists in studying the names of the characters of a same work by comparing them to each other. We focus in this way on the thematic role of the characters’ names, and on the case in which some phonetic features are recurrent in the names of several characters and must therefore be interpreted. We eventually mention the problem of the translation of the characters’ names, focusing on two situations: the situation in which the character’s name has no obvious meaning, and is not really translated, and the situation in which the character’s name has a real meaning, and is either translated literally or adapted

Sur la perte de vitalité du diminutif en français

This paper considers the subject of the vitality of diminutives in French, lower than in other Romance languages. The author pays special attention to the use of this morpheme in Spanish, where it does have a higher frequency. The diminutive in French would be lexicalised and therefore it would have lost it vitality.El presente artículo trata el tema de la pérdida de vitalidad del diminutivo en lengua francesa, muy inferior a otras lenguas románicas. El autor le presta especial atención al uso de este morfema en el español, donde sí que presenta una mayor frecuencia. El diminutivo del francés se habría lexicalizado y habría perdido su vitalidad.El presente artículo trata el tema de la pérdida de vitalidad del diminutivo en lengua francesa, muy inferior a otras lenguas románicas. El autor le presta especial atención al uso de este morfema en el español, donde sí que presenta una mayor frecuencia. El diminutivo del francés se habría lexicalizado y habría perdido su vitalidad

Érico Veríssimo lecteur de Dostoïevski. Crime et châtiment, une source de Olhai os lírios do campo

Érico Veríssimo, Reader of Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment, a source of Olhai os lírios do campo.We analyze in this article Érico Veríssimo’s Olhai os lírios do campo, basing ourselves on the study of sources. We try to show from this point of view that Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment constitutes an almost unconscious source of Olhai os lírios do campo. To begin with, we will sum up very briefly the principles of the study of sources, and then we will compare Olhai os lírios do campo and Crime and Punishment. We will see that the two novels share a similar narrative structure that we will describe. We will study afterwards the characters of Eugénio and Raskolnikov on the one hand, and of Olívia and Sonia on the other hand, and we will underline their similarities. We will especially observe that Érico Veríssimo and Dostoyevsky convey the same values with Olívia and Sonia. We will also notice the presence of a passage almost identical in Olhai os lírios do campo and Crime and Punishment. Nevertheless, we will remind in our conclusion that even if the similarities between Olhai os lírios do campo and Crime and Punishment are deep, so are the differences, and we will mention the main ones: there is a kind of optimism in Olhai os lírios do campo and more generally in Érico Veríssimo’s work which is absent from Dostoyevsky’s; on the contrary, Érico Veríssimo does not share Dostoyevsky’s worship of suffering; and whereas Dostoyevsky reveals all his anxiety without trying to calm it, Érico Veríssimo manages to go beyond it

The X-ray emission of magnetic cataclysmic variables in the XMM-Newton era

We review the X-ray spectral properties of magnetic cataclysmic binaries derived from observations obtained during the last decade with the large X-ray observatories XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku. We focus on the signatures of the different accretion modes which are predicted according to the values of the main physical parameters (magnetic field, local accretion rate and white dwarf mass). The observed large diversity of spectral behaviors indicates a wide range of parameter values in both intermediate polars and polars, in line with a possible evolutionary link between both classes.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of "The Golden Age of Cataclysmic Variables (Palermo 2011)", in Mem. Soc. Astron. It. (7 pages, 3 figures

Quelques réflexions autour des nouvelles d’exil de Jan Čep

This article focuses on the six short stories that the Czech writer Jan Čep wrote during his exile in France, when he fled the new Czechoslovak communist regime after 1948. These texts are as follows: Les Tziganes [The Gypsies], which was written in French and published in the journal Terre humaine in 1952, Tajemství Kláry Bendové [The Secret of Klára Benda], Před zavřenými dveřmi [In Front of the Closed Door], Ostrov Ré [Ré Island], Květnové dni [Days of May], and Tři pocestní [Three Pilgrims]. These short stories are interesting for several reasons. First of all, they present a changing point in Čep’s themes, for they take place during the more recent events – the Second World War and the arrival to power of the communist regime, – and evoke a humanity who has been destroyed. The existential drama of the individual, which had previously been predominant in Čep’s work, is now extended to the entire human community. Fear has separated people from each other, and every genuine personal relation has become impossible. What’s more, language is incapable of bringing together human beings. True communication implies a form of silence, in which God can speak to the heart of man, and where the possibility of communion with the others still exists. At the same time, Čep’s characters have to face this recent history, which obliges them to make a choice, in particular as far as exile is concerned. As a consequence, a new form of anguish appears, and is superimposed on Čep’s original one. It gives rise to a feeling of guilt over those who stayed in Czechoslovakia, especially his mother, but also confronts Čep with the inability to write, since he doesn’t manage to find a publisher in France and can no longer write in Czech. As a “pilgrim on the earth”, he endures his suffering and the suffering of the world united to Christ, in communion with Him. Eventually, these later short stories represent a transition for Čep, and reveal that he accepts, as painful as this decision can be, to abandon fiction and to engage in the genre of essay, above all for Radio Free Europe. He will thus manage to give hope to people who suffer behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia, while expressing his intimate concerns in a very personal way.Cet article se penche sur les six nouvelles rédigées par l’écrivain tchèque Jan Čep durant son exil en France après 1948. Ces textes sont intéressants à plus d’un titre. Ils présentent tout d’abord un renouveau thématique dans l’œuvre de Čep, dans la mesure où ils s’ancrent dans les événements immédiats, la Seconde Guerre mondiale et l’arrivée au pouvoir du régime communiste, et évoquent une humanité détruite, élargissant le drame existentiel de l’individu à l’ensemble de la communauté humaine. En même temps, les personnages de Čep sont en quelque sorte interpelés par l’histoire, qui les oblige à faire des choix, notamment celui de l’exil, ce qui donne lieu à une nouvelle forme d’angoisse qui se superpose à l’angoisse originelle de l’écrivain. Enfin, ces nouvelles tardives constituent pour Čep une phase de transition entre la création fictionnelle et l’essai. Keletas pasvarstymų apie Jano Čepo tremties noveles Straipsnyje analizuojamos čekų rašytojo Jano Čepo novelės, parašytos 1948 m. jam esant tremtyje Prancūzijoje. Tekstai įdomūs daugeliu atžvilgiu. Pirmiausia, juose pastebimas teminis Čepo kūrybos atsinaujinimas, nulemtas nesenų įvykių – Antrojo pasaulinio karo ir komunistų atėjimo į valdžią. Novelėse kalbama apie žmonijos destrukciją, vieno asmens egzistencinę dramą, susiejant ją su visos žmonijos likimu. Tuo pat metu Čepo novelių personažai mezga dialogą su istorija, kuri verčia juos rinktis, vykti į tremtį. Pasirinkimas kelia nerimą, išreiškiantį ir paties rašytojo dvasinę būseną. Vėlyvosios novelės leidžia Čepui pereiti nuo fikcinės kūrybos prie esė.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Jan Čep, tremtis, vėlyvosios novelės, čekų literatūra, krikščionybė

« "Le gênant", c‟est qu‟Olivier ne sera pas seul ». Le problème de l‟adjectif substantivé thématisé en français

This article analyzes turns of phrases such as “Le gênant, c‟est qu‟Olivier ne sera pas seul”, which are frequently described from a formal point of view as structures of the type article/substantivized adjective. After analyzing the morphosyntactic properties of the turn, we establish that we cannot in reality speak of an adjective substantivized by an article, since neither the adjective becomes a substantive nor the article functions as a real article. The latter can indeed be defined as a “neuter demonstrative-article”. From this perspective we are bound to re-evaluate the pattern of the article within the psychomecanics of language, and to propose a broadened vision of the Guillaumean tenseur binaire, which can be represented by a trimorph model.Estudiamos en este artículo los giros de tipo «Le gênant, c‟est qu‟Olivier ne sera pas seul», los cuales vienen frecuentemente descritos, desde un punto de vista formal, como estructuras de tipo artículo/adjetivo sustantivado. Después de analizar las propiedades morfosintácticas de nuestro giro, mostramos que en realidad no se puede hablar de adjetivo sustantivado por un artículo, ya que ni el adjetivo se convierte en un sustantivo, ni el artículo funciona como un verdadero artículo. Este último, en efecto, puede ser definido como un «artículo-demostrativo neutro». Esta perspectiva nos lleva a examinar de nuevo el esquema del artículo de la psicomecánica del lenguaje, y a proponer del tenseur binaire guillaumiano una visión ampliada, la cual se puede representar con un modelo trimorfe.Nous étudions dans cet article les tournures du type « Le gênant, c’est qu’Olivier ne sera pas seul », lesquelles sont fréquemment décrites, d’un point de vue formel, comme des structures de type article/adjectif substantivé. Après avoir analysé les propriétés morphosyntaxiques de notre tournure, nous montrons qu’en réalité on ne saurait parler d’adjectif substantivé par un article, dans la mesure où ni l’adjectif ne devient un substantif, ni l’article ne fonctionne comme un véritable article. Ce dernier, en effet, peut être défini comme un « article-démonstratif neutre ». Nous sommes dans cette perspective amené à repenser le schéma de l’article de la psychomécanique du langage, et à proposer du tenseur binaire guillaumien une vision élargie que l’on peut représenter par un schème trimorphe