Probability Matching versus Probability Maximization in Morphophonology: The Case of Korean Noun Inflection

韓国語名詞の屈折において接語のない形が基底形であるという分析に対し、歴史的に保守的な形が基底形である分析が紹介され、２つの分析が比較される。後者に問題があることが示され、前者の妥当性が確認される。その結論を確立した上で、基底形X が複数のYiと交替する場合に、話者が複数の確率規則を立てるか最も頻度の高い交替のみを規則とするかという問題が検討される。既存の語幹、新しい語幹に対し、変異の有無に関する予測がそれぞれの分析方法に応じて生成され、インターネットおよび新しい韓国語字幕コーパスにおける検索をもとに、その予測が検証される。最も頻度の高い交替のみが音韻化され、少数交替は確率規則としてではなく、語彙目録の情報として表示されることが結論になる。The assumption that speakers take isolation forms as basic in Korean noun inflection is confronted with an alternative according to which historically conservative forms are basic. That alternative is shown to be problematic, validating the original assumption. With that conclusion in place, the question of whether speakers analyze cases in which basic X alternates with multiple Yi by postulating multiple stochastic rules or by taking only the most frequent alternation as regular is raised. Predictions regarding the presence or absence of variation in innovative and established stems are generated for each mode of analysis, and searches of a new Korean subtitle corpus and of the internet are used to test those predictions. The conclusion is reached that only the most frequent alternation is phonologized; minor alternations are represented in the lexicon rather than as probabilistic rules

Double Horizontal Branches in NGC 6440 and NGC 6569 unveiled by the VVV Survey

We report the discovery of a peculiar horizontal branch (HB) in NGC 6440 and NGC 6569, two massive and metal-rich Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) located in the Galactic bulge, within 4 kpc from the Galactic Center. In both clusters, two distinct clumps are detected at the level of the cluster HB, separated by only ~ 0.1 magnitudes in the Ks band. They were detected with IR photometric data collected with the "VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea" (VVV) Survey, and confirmed in independent IR catalogs available in the literature, and HST optical photometry. Our analysis demonstrates that these clumps are real cluster features, not a product of field contamination or interstellar reddening. The observed split HBs could be a signature of two stellar sub-populations with different chemical composition and/or age, as recently found in Terzan 5, but it cannot be excluded that they are caused by evolutionary effects, in particular for NGC 6440. This interpretation, however, requires an anomalously high helium content (Y > 0.30). Our discovery suggests that such a peculiar HB morphology could be a common feature of massive, metal-rich bulge GGCs.Comment: Accepted by Astrophysical Journal Lette

Descartes, corpuscles and reductionism : mechanism and systems in Descartes' physiology

I argue that Descartes explains physiology in terms of whole systems, and not in terms of the size, shape and motion of tiny corpuscles (corpuscular mechanics). It is a standard, entrenched view that Descartes’s proper means of explanation in the natural world is through strict reduction to corpuscular mechanics. This view is bolstered by a handful of corpuscular-mechanical explanations in Descartes’s physics, which have been taken to be representative of his treatment of all natural phenomena. However, Descartes’s explanations of the ‘principal parts’ of physiology do not follow the corpuscular–mechanical pattern. Des Chene (2001) has identified systems in Descartes’s account of physiology, but takes them ultimately to reduce down to the corpuscle level. I argue that they do not. Rather, Descartes maintains entire systems, with components selected from multiple levels of organisation, in order to construct more complete explanations than corpuscular mechanics alone would allow