The influence of semantic features on lexical geographical variation

In this paper, we investigate the influence of semantic concept features on lexical geographical variation. More specifically, we take an onomasiological approach to inquire into the effect of concept vagueness, salience, affect and semantic field. We use quantitative operationalizations of these features as predictors in a linear regression analysis. Our response variable is a composite variable that takes into account the number of variants per concept and the degree to which the concepts are scattered across geographical space in a heterogeneous way. Our model reveals that vaguer, less salient and non-neutral concepts show significantly more variation and that the lexical variants for these concepts are scattered across geographical space in a less homogeneous way. We also find differences between semantic fields

Childhood Estimates of Glomerular Filtration Rate Based on Creatinine and Cystatin C: Importance of Body Composition

__Background:__ Creatinine and cystatin C concentrations are commonly used to estimate glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in clinical practice and epidemiological studies. To estimate the influence of different body composition measures on eGFR from creatinine and cystatin C blood concentrations, we compared the associations of different anthropometric and body composition measures with eGFR derived from creatinine (eGFRcreat) and cystatin C (eGFRcystC) blood concentrations. __Methods:__ In a population-based cohort study among 4,305 children aged 6.0 years (95% range 5.7-8.0), we measured weight and height and calculated body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA), and lean and fat mass using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. At the same age, we measured creatinine and cystatin C blood concentrations and estimated the GFR. __Results:__ Correlation between eGFR based on creatinine and cystatin C concentrations was r = 0.40 (p value <0.01). Higher BMI was associated with lower eGFRcystC but not with eGFRcreat. Higher BSA was associated with higher eGFRcreat and lower eGFRcystC (p value <0.05). Lean and fat mass percentages were associated with eGFRcreat but not with eGFRcystC. __Conclusion:__ Our findings suggest that both eGFRcreat and eGFRcystC are influenced by BMI and BSA. eGFRcreat is more strongly influenced by body composition than eGFRcystC

An organelle-specific protein landscape identifies novel diseases and molecular mechanisms

Contains fulltext : 158967.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Cellular organelles provide opportunities to relate biological mechanisms to disease. Here we use affinity proteomics, genetics and cell biology to interrogate cilia: poorly understood organelles, where defects cause genetic diseases. Two hundred and seventeen tagged human ciliary proteins create a final landscape of 1,319 proteins, 4,905 interactions and 52 complexes. Reverse tagging, repetition of purifications and statistical analyses, produce a high-resolution network that reveals organelle-specific interactions and complexes not apparent in larger studies, and links vesicle transport, the cytoskeleton, signalling and ubiquitination to ciliary signalling and proteostasis. We observe sub-complexes in exocyst and intraflagellar transport complexes, which we validate biochemically, and by probing structurally predicted, disruptive, genetic variants from ciliary disease patients. The landscape suggests other genetic diseases could be ciliary including 3M syndrome. We show that 3M genes are involved in ciliogenesis, and that patient fibroblasts lack cilia. Overall, this organelle-specific targeting strategy shows considerable promise for Systems Medicine

Variatie in de lexicale diversiteit van de Limburgse dialecten: enkele algemene patronen

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Concept features and lexical diversity. A dialectological case study on the relationship between meaning and variation

This dissertation focuses on lexical diversity, the amount of lexical variation that a concept shows, in the dialects of Dutch. Lexical diversity can differ between concepts. For the concept 'drunk', for instance, nearly 3000 English expressions exist, including blitzed, intoxicated, hammered and I’m not as think as you drunk I am (Dickson 2009, cited in Lillo 2009). For the concept 'sober', however, a significantly smaller number of lexical items are available, like sober or abstinent. As is apparent from this example, variation in lexical diversity is influenced by the meaning of the concepts to be expressed: concepts that are prone to taboo show more variation. The finding that meaning influences lexical diversity was first confirmed on a large scale in three pilot studies (Geeraerts & Speelman 2010, Speelman & Geeraerts 2007, 2008). Importantly, however, these pilot studies not only inquired into the proneness to taboo of a particular concept, but showed that other types of meaning-related concept features (viz. features that concern the prototypical organization of the lexicon) significantly affect lexical diversity as well. Nonetheless, as these pilot studies only focused on one dialect area, viz. the Limburgish dialect area, and only took into account one universal semantic field, viz. the field of concepts relating to the human body, the extent to which these features are also relevant in other datasets has not yet been examined. In this dissertation, four case studies are presented that examine the relationship between lexical diversity and meaning in different ways. In part 1, we show that cognitive concept features, related to the maximalist view on meaning of the Cognitive Linguistics paradigm, affect the amount of variation a concept shows. The main aim of the first case study, outlined in chapter 3, is to confirm that concept features related to the prototype-theoretical organization of the lexicon influence the amount of variation a concept shows in other datasets than were used in the pilot studies. More specifically, we examine the influence of these features on six semantic fields (the human body, the house, celebration & entertainment, personality & feelings, family & sexuality and society, school & education) of the digitized databases of the Dictionaries of the Brabantic and Limburgish Dialects. The analysis shows that the results of the pilot studies are the same in other dialectal data and in other semantic fields: less salient, more vague and affect-sensitive concepts are characterized by significantly more lexical diversity. Additionally, we elaborate on the results of the pilot studies by selecting semantic fields organized along two dimensions (viz. concreteness and universal versus society-related versus locally bound concepts). This indicates that these dimensions affect the relative impact of the concept features between semantic fields. In the second case study, presented in chapter 4, we inquire into the effect of these concept features on the different aspects of lexical diversity in dialect data, viz. the number of unique types that are available per concept, on the one hand, and the extent to which these types are heterogeneously scattered across geographical space, on the other. The results of the regression models indicate that the effect of the concept features is relevant for every aspect of lexical diversity. However, some predictors play a larger role for the number of unique types (viz. affect and, to a lesser extent, onomasiological vagueness), while onomasiological salience seems to influence the geographical spread of the lexical variants more. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that the fact that the data are geographically stratified is not the only reason why the concept features reached significance in the first case study (chapter 3). In part 2, we take into account the fact that concept-related features can differ between language users. More specifically, we examine the extent to which the experiential and usage-based nature of meaning is reflected in lexical diversity between dialect speakers from different locations. Chapter 5 investigates how the interaction between semantic features and lectal differences is reflected in the types of lexical variants that are used in different locations. In practice, we inquire into the usage of non-native variants from three source languages (viz. French, Latin and German) in four semantic fields (society, school & education, personality & feelings, church & religion and clothing & personal hygiene) in the Brabantic and Limburgish dialect area. The results indicate that we find geographical and semantic structure in the lexical variants that are used: loanwords are not used at random. The data show clear differences between the source languages and between the semantic fields. Although these results corroborate previous findings, this case study contributes to contact linguistic research in Cognitive Sociolinguistics as it is one of the first to simultaneously investigate differences between source languages and in different semantic fields on a large scale using quantitative inferential techniques (viz. Generalized Additive Modelling). In chapter 6, finally, we examine to what extent an experience-based characteristic of a concept, viz. experiential salience, correlates with lexical diversity. We rely on extra-linguistic, objective frequency counts of plants that occur naturally in the northern part of Belgium to gauge the experiential salience of a plant. The analysis shows that experiential salience correlates with lexical diversity: the more frequently a plant occurs in the everyday environment of a language user, the smaller the amount of unique types that are available, given the amount of tokens. However, as indicated in the discussion, experiential frequency alone does not cause complete lexical homogeneity in the speech community: dialect speakers not only need to encounter a plant frequently in their everyday environment, but they need to talk about it as well. Overall, then, this dissertation contributes to the field of lexical semantics from a Cognitive Sociolinguistics perspective. It shows how, through the use of quantitative techniques on a semantically diverse dataset, aspects of the structure of lexical diversity are revealed and how an examination of dialectological data can contribute to theoretical linguistics.Preface 13 Background 15 1. Introduction 16 A dialectological case study in Cognitive Sociolinguistics 2. Data 28 Case Studies – part 1 37 3. Revisiting lexical diversity in dialect data. 38 The influence of semantic concept features beyond the human body 4. Deconstructing lexical diversity. 62 An exploratory study Case studies – part 2 79 5. Formal variation in dialect data: 80 Semantic and geographical patterns in the distribution of loanwords 6. Botany meets lexicology: 104 The relationship between experiential salience and lexical diversity Epilogue 125 7. Discussion 126 References 132 List of Figures 142 List of Tables 144 Appendices 147 Nederlandse samenvatting 162nrpages: 163status: publishe

Het gebruik van leenwoorden in de Limburgse dialecten: semantische en geografische factoren

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Explaining lexical diversity in dialect data: The influence of concept features (invited talk)

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Lexicale diversiteit en geografische heterogeniteit in de Limburgse dialecten (guest lecture)

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Concept features and lexical heterogeneity in dialects

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Waarom kunnen we boerenkool ook groenkool, boerenmoes of winterkool noemen, maar kennen we slechts één woord voor een tomaat? De invloed van conceptkenmerken op lexicale dialectvariatie in het Woordenboek van de Limburgse dialecten. (guest lecture)

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