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

Influence of Arbuscular Mycorrhizae on Biomass Production and Nitrogen Fixation of Berseem Clover Plants Subjected to Water Stress.

Several studies, performed mainly in pots, have shown that arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis can mitigate the negative effects of water stress on plant growth. No information is available about the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis on berseem clover growth and nitrogen (N) fixation under conditions of water shortage. A field experiment was conducted in a hilly area of inner Sicily, Italy, to determine whether symbiosis with AM fungi can mitigate the detrimental effects of drought stress (which in the Mediterranean often occurs during the late period of the growing season) on forage yield and symbiotic N2 fixation of berseem clover. Soil was either left under water stress (i.e., rain-fed conditions) or the crop was well-watered. Mycorrhization treatments consisted of inoculation of berseem clover seeds with arbuscular mycorrhizal spores or suppression of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis by means of fungicide treatments. Nitrogen biological fixation was assessed using the 15N-isotope dilution technique. Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis was able to mitigate the negative effect of water stress on berseem clover grown in a typical semiarid Mediterranean environment. In fact, under water stress conditions, arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis resulted in increases in total biomass, N content, and N fixation, whereas no effect of crop mycorrhization was observed in the well-watered treatment

Plant Arrangement Effects on Dry Matter Production and Nitrogen Fixation of Berseem Clover: Annual Ryegrass Mixture

Agronomic factors affect the productivity and efficiency of cereal-legume intercropping systems (Ofori & Stern, 1987). This research aimed to determine the effects of different plant arrangement on hay yield, nitrogen (N) content and N fixation of berseem clover-annual ryegrass mixture in a Mediterranean semi-arid environment

Agroecosystem Performances of Livestock Farms in a Mountain Area of Sicily

Agroecosystem performance indicators (APIs) represent instruments for studying agroecosystem performance via an input/output approach and a knowledge base, with the aim of improving the sustainability level of the farm\u27s activity (Tellarini & Caporali, 2000). This research used APIs to evaluate the influence of stocking rate on the performance (in terms of energy) of farms in a mountainous area of northern Sicily, Italy