'Der und der hat mir neulich das und das erzählt': On the Interpretation of DPs with Article Conjunction

In this paper, we investigate DPs with article-conjunction heads in German (AC-DPs). We argue that they are non-referential expressions, which impose certain constraints on the discourse model in which they can felicitously be used. We suggest that AC-DPs presuppose the existence of a previous conversation between the speaker and someone other than the hearer, and that a definite or a name was used in this conversation to refer to the referent of the AC-DP. We also illustrate how the use of AC-DPs can be explained by way of general pragmatic principles like 'Maximise Presupposition'

Ziehen Auftraggebende Nutzen aus Evaluationen? Ergebnisse einer Follow-up-Studie

'Die fokussierte Kurzstudie, die den längerfristigen Nutzen von vier abgeschlossenen Evaluationen aus den Bereichen Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung ermittelt, wurde Anfang 2004 durchgeführt. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse dienen der Qualitätssicherung und helfen, die Leistungen zu optimieren. Für das auftraggebende Evaluationsinstitut wurden vier ehemalige Auftraggebende in leitfadengestützten Telefon-Interviews zur Nutzung der Erkenntnisse aus früheren Evaluationen und zu ihrer Zufriedenheit mit dem Evaluationsprozess befragt. Fazit: Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse dienen diesen Auftraggebenden auch noch mehrere Jahre nach Abschluss der Evaluation. Auftraggebende legen besonderen Wert darauf, dass das Evaluationsteam fachliche, methodische sowie Sozialkompetenz einbringt. Spezifische Kompetenz für das Feld, aus dem der Evaluationsgegenstand stammt, wird nachrangig erwartet. Das Evaluationsteam soll mit den Auftraggebenden in einen kritisch-konstruktiven Dialog eintreten und deren Bedürfnisse aufgreifen. Es soll zuverlässig und termingerecht arbeiten und den Abschlussbericht anschaulich und verständlich abfassen. Kompetenzerweiterung wird für betriebswirtschaftliches Know-how gewünscht.' (Autorenreferat

Associations between blood glucose and carotid intima-media thickness disappear after adjustment for shared risk factors: the KORA F4 study.

The association between blood glucose and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) is considered to be established knowledge. We aimed to assess whether associations between different measures of glycaemia and CIMT are actually independent of anthropometric variables and metabolic risk factors. Moreover, we checked published studies for the adjustment for shared risk factors of blood glucose and CIMT. Fasting glucose, 2-hour glucose, HbA1c, and CIMT were measured in 31-81-years-old participants of the population-based Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) F4 study in Southern Germany (n = 2,663). CIMT was assessed according to the Rotterdam protocol. Linear and logistic regression models with adjustment for age, sex, anthropometric measures, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia were fitted to assess the association between continuous measures of glycaemia, and categories of glucose regulation, respectively, with CIMT. We found a 0.10 mm increase (95%-confidence interval: 0.08-0.12) in CIMT in subjects with compared to subjects without diabetes in crude analysis. This increase was not significant in age-sex adjusted models (p = 0.17). Likewise, neither impaired fasting glucose (p = 0.22) nor impaired glucose tolerance (p = 0.93) were associated with CIMT after adjustment for age, sex, and waist circumference. In multivariable adjusted models, age, sex, hypertension, waist circumference, HDL and LDL cholesterol, but neither fasting glucose nor 2-hour glucose nor HbA1c were associated with elevated CIMT. Literature findings are inconclusive regarding an independent association of glucose levels and CIMT. CIMT is highly dependent on traditional cardiovascular risk factors, but no relationships between blood glucose and CIMT were found after adjustment for age, sex, and anthropometric variables

Free Indirect Discourse Meets Character Viewpoint Gestures

Contribution to Linguistic Evidence 202

'Der und der hat mir neulich das und das erzählt': On the Interpretation of DPs with Article Conjunction

In this paper, we investigate DPs with article-conjunction heads in German (AC-DPs). We argue that they are non-referential expressions, which impose certain constraints on the discourse model in which they can felicitously be used. We suggest that AC-DPs presuppose the existence of a previous conversation between the speaker and someone other than the hearer, and that a definite or a name was used in this conversation to refer to the referent of the AC-DP. We also illustrate how the use of AC-DPs can be explained by way of general pragmatic principles like 'Maximise Presupposition'

Antonym adjective pairs and prosodic iconicity: evidence from letter replications in an English blogger corpus

This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.While the general assumption has long been that natural languages exhibit an arbitrary pairing of form and meaning, there is increasing empirical evidence that iconicity in language is not uncommon. One example from spoken language involves iconic prosodic modulation, i.e. the changing of prosodic features such as duration and fundamental frequency to express meanings such as size and speed. In this paper, we use data from an English social media corpus, with 140 million words written by 19,320 bloggers, to investigate a counterpart to iconic prosodic modulation in written language, namely letter replications (e.g. loooong). We examine pairs of gradable adjectives such as short/long, tiny/huge and fast/slow, finding a higher frequency of letter replications for adjectives associated with greater size or spatial/temporal extent. We did not find an iconic effect on the number of replicated letters. Our results show evidence for iconic prosody in written language, and further demonstrate that social media databases offer an excellent opportunity to investigate naturalistic written language.Peer Reviewe

The Role of Gesture-Speech Alignment for Gesture Interpretation

Contribution to Linguistic Evidence 202