Nerve Transfers to Recover External Rotation of the Shoulder after Brachial Plexus Injuries in Adults

Restoration of external rotation of the shoulder in adults with partial brachial plexus palsies is challenging. While nerve grafts are possible, nerve transfers are currently the most use method for satisfactory restoration of function. Numerous nerve transfers have been described, although the transfer of the spinal accessory nerve to the suprascapular nerve remains the gold standard. The suprascapular nerve and the nerve to the teres minor muscle are the two preferred targets to restore external rotation of the shoulder. There are numerous nerve donors, but their use obviously depends on the initial injury. The most common donors are the spinal accessory nerve, the rhomboid nerve, branches of the radial nerve, the C7 root fascicle or the ulnar nerve. The choice for the transfer depends on the available nerves and first of all on chosen approach, whether it be cervical or scapular. It also depends on the other associated reconstruction procedures, grafts, or nerve transfers for the recovery of other functions, specifically, elevation of the shoulder and flexion of the elbow. The objective of this chapter is to present the main nerve transfers and to propose a therapeutic strategy

Dire et vouloir dire dans la logique médiévale : Quelques jalons pour situer une frontière

La philosophie médiévale du langage présente deux séries d’affinités remarquables avec les approches contemporaines. L’une se situe du côté des sémantiques formelles et, plus généralement, des analyses logiques des conditions de vérité des énoncés. L’autre relève plutôt de la pragmatique, notamment des perspectives contextuelles sur les actes de langage. Les logiciens, grammairiens et théologiens du Moyen Âge étaient, de fait, pleinement conscients qu’ils avaient à leur disposition deux types d’approche des énoncés, selon qu’ils prenaient en compte les seules propriétés sémantiques de leurs composants ou qu’ils intégraient des considérations extralinguistiques allant de l’intention des auteurs / locuteurs à leur statut, en passant par le contexte d’énonciation. Chacune de ces perspectives a bénéficié d’un certain nombre d’études récentes ; la question que je voudrais aborder est plutôt celle de leur frontière en logique, de son emplacement, ses déplacements, sa porosité éventuelle. La complexité des matériaux en jeu ne permettra pas de proposer plus que quelques points de repères, qui peuvent toutefois aider à évaluer l’hypothèse d’un « projet formel » en sémantique médiévale.The promotion, since the seventies, of late middle ages to the rank of important moment in the history of philosophy of language has been in part fuelled by the acknowledgment of the affinities of their “theories of properties of terms” with logical approaches developed after Frege and Russell. More recently, studies of medieval analyses of speech acts, as they are carried out for instance in theology, have revealed another parallel between the two periods, involving this time the ‘ordinary language philosophers’ of the second half of the 20th-century. In short, we are faced on the one hand with a main logical paradigm displaying elements of a formal semantics, and on the other with an ability to develop pragmatic devices to handle ordinary language issues arising elsewhere (in theological contexts, for instance). To complete the picture, one must add an old awareness that sometimes what the author of a sentence means is different from what the sentence says on the sole basis of the meanings of its components – knowing that logic should only take the latter into account. In short, here are all the elements for a semantics versus pragmatics scenario to take place. Unfortunately for the historian of philosophy (or logic), sameness of devices or, even, issues, between two distant sets of theories does not amount to sameness of ‘projects’ – ambitions, objectives, principles, constraints: the kind of sameness which would allow to straightforwardly declare the theory of properties of terms a formal semantics of ideal language opposed, say, to a pragmatics of ordinary language. The aforementioned affinities nevertheless provide an opportunity to tackle a specific aspect of the medieval ‘terminist’ project, namely its borders, as they were drawn, implicitly – through analytic choices – or explicitly, by 13th and 14th-century authors. Apprehended in terms of intra-linguistic versus extra-linguistic features, semantic versus pragmatic considerations, the borders offer varying degrees of porosity and mobility, from the integration of speaker’s freedom to the requirement of linguistic anchoring, to the use of different forms of intention or voluntas. The picture is that of an ever changing balance between the will to take into account a large range of semantic phenomena and the ambition to systematically anchor them at the level of linguistic properties. However changing the balance, though, it always settle within the scope of the theory of properties of terms, whose rules might be reinterpreted, or even enhanced, but never ignored

Les syncatégorèmes au XIIIe siècle

ABSTRACT: In the 13th Century, the syncategoremata remain what they were previously: words which, because of their lack of semantic autonomy, depend upon others •namely, the categoremata. But the framework within which they are studied changes. If being semantically dependent is still their main lexical feature, this dependence has to be considered insofar as it pertains to a compositional approach. By determining the term which «completes» them the syncategoremes modify the proposition’s truth conditions; the different modifications they can effect according to their syntactical environment constitute the lens through which they are mainly studied. The impacts they can have each correspond to a propositional configuration, usually figured via a type sentence •a sophisma. The collection of sophismata matches the list of the syncategoremes’ features, that is to say, a list of problems analyzed within a formal semantics of natural language.RÉSUMÉ: Si les syncatégorèmes restent au XIIIe siècle ce qu’ils étaient auparavant •des mots qui, dépourvus d’autonomie sémantique, dépendent des autres, à savoir les catégorèmes •le cadre dans lequel ils sont appréhendés change. La dépendance sémantique qui caractérise les syncatégorèmes s’inscrit dans une approche compositionnelle du langage naturel: ils déterminent le terme qui les complète et, ce faisant, ils modifient les conditions de vérité de la proposition. La description d’un syncatégorème passe donc avant tout par l’analyse des impacts qu’il peut avoir sur une proposition en fonction de la composition de celle-ci. À chaque impact correspond une architecture propositionnelle précise, représentée le plus souvent par une «phrase-type», un sophisma. Au total, les caractéristiques d’un syncatégorème, ou plus précisément de la classe de phénomènes dont il est le porte-drapeau (distribution, exclusion, etc.) correspondent à une collection de problématiques analysées au sein d’une sémantique plus ou moins formelle du langage naturel.Goubier Frédéric. Les syncatégorèmes au XIIIe siècle. In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 25, fascicule 2, 2003. Les syncatégorèmes. pp. 85-113

<i>Virtus sermonis</i> and the semantics-pragmatics distinction

Abstract Late medieval theories of language and contemporary philosophy of language have been compared on numerous occasions. Here, we would like to compare two debates: that between the nature of Virtus sermonis , on the medieval side—focusing on a statute published in 1340 by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris and its opponents—and, on the contemporary side, the on-going discussion on the semantics-pragmatics distinction and how the truth-value of an utterance should be established. Both the statute and Gricean pragmatics insist on the importance of taking into account the speaker’s intention and the context in establishing the signification of an utterance. Yet, upon closer examination, a more convincing parallel might be drawn between the statute’s position and current theories in truth-conditional pragmatics. Focusing on a few aspects of the statute that seem to find a counterpart within contemporary pragmatics, we try to show how the issues they give rise to converge, but also diverge. </p

Compte rendu de History of Logic and Semantics. Studies in the Aristotelian and Terminist Traditions, ed. by Paloma Pérez-Ilzarbe and María Cerezo

Comme tout hommage posthume réussi, le livre que nous recensons souffre de ce douloureux paradoxe : celui dont on honore la mémoire aurait adoré le lire. Il s’agit également de l’un des très rares hommages posthumes dont la liste des contributeurs comprend le nom du défunt lui-même. Joli pied de nez qu’aurait sans aucun doute apprécié l’apparemment très austère Angel d’Ors (1951-2012). Les quelque treize contributions réunies par Paloma Pérez-Ilzarbe et María Cerezo sont parfaitement représen..

Anton Marty on Naming (Nennen) and Meaning (Bedeuten): A Comparison with Medieval Supposition Theory

Can two semantic theories belonging to very different periods of time be compared? And if so, what can be gained from such an enterprise? In the following, we will consider the case of Anton Marty’s (1847-1914) semantics of names and the medieval theory of supposition. The tertium comparationis is offered by the fact that Marty is making use of the distinction between suppositio materialis and formalis, a distinction that is found in a few late medieval logicians such as William of Sherwood, Walter Burley and John Wyclif and which had a certain success in post-medieval scholastic. Although the three authors mentioned do not describe formal supposition in exactly the same way, they do describe the same notion. Insofar as Sherwood can be considered as emblematic of the medieval position, we chose his Introductiones in logicam, which Marty may have known at least partly through Carl Prantl’s Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, as a basis for comparing Marty’s semantics with the medieval theory of supposition. Whatever role Prantl may have played, Marty’s master, Franz Brentano, who wrote himself a history of medieval philosophy, certainly also contributed to his knowledge of medieval thought. It is not our aim to discuss at length the question of Marty’s sources, nor do we want to compare the use of the notion of suppositio in Marty, Brentano and, say, Tarski. Rather, we want to focus on Marty and consider Sherwood’s definitions of significatio, suppositio and appellatio as points of reference or terms of comparison. Thus, we will begin with some remarks on the two passages in which Marty uses supposition theory; in a second step, we will present some of Sherwood’s basic semantic notions and Marty’s semantics of names; finally, we will attempt to draw some comparative conclusions

Une sémantique fragmentée. Référence et détermination au 13è siècle.

PARIS7-Bibliothèque centrale (751132105) / SudocSudocFranceF

Une pragmatique sans implicatures? Approches lexicales du vouloir dire dans la philosophie médiévale

International audienceCet article examine les raisons pour lesquelles on ne trouve pas vraiment, en philosophie médiévale, un équivalent de la notion gricéenne d'implicature, en dépit de l'intérêt marqué des auteurs pour la distinction entre sens propre et sens visé par les locuteurs. Cela est avant tout dû à une approche médiévale de cette distinction qui s’attache à réduire les phénomènes traités à des combinaisons propriétés sémantiques au niveau lexical. Appliqué à certains des phénomènes que Grice considérait relever de l’implicature, ce modèle rapproche les médiévaux des positions ‘lexicalistes’ en pragmatique contemporaine. Il s’en distingue toutefois par le peu d’intérêt que nos auteurs médiévaux accordent aux formes d’implicite qui ne sont pas réductibles à des changements sémantiques au niveau des mots. En ce sens, la sémantique médiévale est une sémantique de l’explicite