In Italiano, as Gaeilge: a Matter of Metaphorical Semantics

In the present article the linguistic expression of MATTER will be considered with regards to (a) the prepositions involved and (b) the basic spatial meanings (BSMs) of such prepositions. The analysis will concentrate on Italian and Irish. The motivations for the choice of the preposition(s) will be sought after in the theoretical frame provided by Lakoff’s metaphorical semantics. In other words, we shall assume that the MATTER sense is a motivated extension of the spatial senses that primarily expressed by those prepositions. According to the abovementioned framework, a preposition is chosen to express MATTER when there is a metaphorically (i.e., analogically) motivated link between its BSM and the MATTER sense. A sense extension of MATTER (that is, a further sense extension of the BSMs via MATTER) shall be then examined, which – in a way consistent with another widespread metaphor – justifies the employ of MATTER to express linguistic medium

Gender and Mutation in Irish: a Preliminary Account for Further Investigation

Standard Irish is the outcome of language planning and as such it significantly diverges from the three main spoken dialects of the language (or traditional Gaeltacht varieties) that provided the basis for its creation. It is also expected to differ, in its codified form, from the way it is actually employed within the small, usually urban communities of bilinguals who employ standard Irish and not some form of Gaeltacht Irish as a second language. The reason why such difference is expected is that the language planners codified as part of the standard many complex structures that had already been abandoned in the spoken dialects, basing their reconstruction on historicity rather than actual usage (especially as the actual usages were far from uniform). In this article, which presents part of the work involved in my currently ongoing research, some such complexities are presented which pertain to grammatical gender

Cross-linguistic comparisons: a case study involving Irish and Italian prepositions

Cross-linguistic comparison of unrelated or distantly related languages is often hindered by the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between the formal repertoires of the different languages. This article presents an example of such a situation, where the comparison of the Irish and Italian prepositional inventories is made impossible, on a formal basis, by the different sizes of the two sets of forms and the different semantic segmentation of the spatial-content continuum, i.e., the fact that one and the same form can express different concepts in a way that is cross-linguistically not always valid, and – conversely – that one and the same concept may be expressed by more than one linguistic form in a language and by just one in the other. A possible way of tackling this problem for the case at hand, based on a conceptual rather than formal comparison, is subsequently expounded. The aims of the comparison in point, that is, finding patterns of metaphorical sense extensions in the domain of Irish and Italian prepositions, are also explained

Nowcasting economic time series: real versus financial common factors

In this paper we want to assess the impact of real and financial variables in nowcasting smoothed GDP. We implement the generalized dynamic factor model, on which Eurocoin indicator is based. We can assess that, during the structural break in 2008, the impact of real variables in estimating smoothed GDP becomes particularly relevant in relation to that concerning financial data as money supply, spreads

Estimating Accidents at Work in European Union

This paper describes safety at work as an issue to be addressed in terms of legislation, with due statistical knowledge of the phenomenon. Through the application of multiple indicators while investigating the rate of homogeneity and non-homogeneity of available data, especially at international level, the concept at study can be analyzed using specific scientific methods. The Total Frequency Rate of accidents could be influenced by a country’s industrial structure. The standardization of industrial structures into NACE divisions or sub-divisions (and not only on an aggregate activity level), has proved very useful as an integral part of the statistical infrastructure used within the European statistical system for producing comparable statistics. Looking at the distribution of the Total Frequency Rates (TFR) of accidents in different world regions, the picture is quite different, as the phenomenon is by no means evenly spread across the globe. Fatalities are proportionately much higher in some regions than in others. Carrying out a country-by-country analysis would in no doubt reveal greater variations. Occupational accidents and work-related diseases in some European countries are twice as high as in some others.We show that the shadow economy has an important impact in outlining an “effective frequency rate of accidents”. In Italy, the impact of an excessive economy and the influence of organized crime in the South, which could alter the basis for reporting work-related accidents and occupational safety performance indicators, has led to the consideration of the actual rate of accidents in Italy slightly higher than the European average