Incomplete conditionals and the syntax-pragmatics interface

This paper is concerned with conditional thoughts that are expressed via ‘incomplete conditionals’ in which an if-clause is uttered with no corresponding main clause, and yet still succeeds at communicating a fully-fledged conditional proposition. Incomplete conditionals pose a puzzle for the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals as in one respect, a condition is expressed explicitly using the canonical form ‘if p’, yet in another, the target of the condition is left unexpressed, requiring recourse to other linguistic or extra-linguistic information for its recovery. Taking observations from attested corpora, we explore the various ways in which the consequent of an incomplete conditional can be recovered, demonstrating that cases of incompleteness range from simple cases of ellipsis which are susceptible to a syntactic solution at one end of the continuum, to pragmatically recoverable cases at the other. This involves considering aspects of meaning arising out of the co-text, including cross-sentential anaphoric dependencies and considerations of coherence, as well as extra-linguistic context such as shared sociocultural information and world knowledge

Bilan des connaissances actuelles sur la cicatrisation des plaies cutanées chez le chien et le chat

Les plaies cutanées constituent un motif de consultation majeur en clientèle canine. L auteur présente d abord les principales caractéristiques de la peau des chiens et chats et s attarde sur les particularités ayant des conséquences sur les plaies. Les plaies sont ensuite abordées dans leur grande diversité clinique et étiologique puis leur évolution physiologique est décrite. Les aspects de la cicatrisation sont à la fois étudiés sur un plan microscopique et macroscopique. Après avoir décrit les complications, l auteur présente les principaux facteurs pouvant altérer la cicatrisation, comme les affections pathologiques ou les traitements associés. L auteur aborde enfin le traitement des plaies. Les traitements classiques sont décrits de la réception de l animal à la cicatrisation complète. Les traitements plus récents ou alternatifs sont aussi présentés. Les connaissances sur la cicatrisation continuent d évoluer, l auteur a tenté d en réaliser un bilan complet et actuel

Metalinguistic conditionals and the role of explicit content

This paper aims to bridge the relationship between metalinguistic 'if you like' as a non-propositional discourse marker and its conditional counterparts. This paper claims that metalinguistic 'if you like' is polysemous between a hedge that denotes the speaker's reduced commitment to some aspect of the main clause, and an optional yet potential conditional reading that interlocutors can legitimately draw on in interaction which is brought about due to the 'if p, q' sentence form. That is, although the metalinguistic reading is most likely obtained automatically by default, it also carries an available conditional reading that is akin to other metalinguistic conditional clauses such as 'if you see what I mean'. Next, a semantic representation of metalinguistic 'if you like' is developed that takes on board a characterization of conditionality that departs from lexico-grammatical conventions, such that conditionals of the form 'if p, q' no longer bear a one-to-one correspondence with 'conditional' truth conditions. Employing a radical contextualist semantic framework in which the unit of truth-conditional analysis is not constrained to the sentence from, utterances employing metalinguistic 'if you like' are given a semantic representation such that the if-clause does not contribute propositional content, yet they also maintain their status as conditionals as the sentence form gives rise to a potential conditional secondary meaning

Negotiating What Is Said in the Face of Miscommunication

In post-Gricean pragmatics, communication is said to be successful when a hearer recovers a speaker’s intended message. On this assumption, proposals for ‘what is said’ – the semantic, propositional meaning of a speaker’s utterance – are typically centred around the content the speaker aimed to communicate. However, these proposals tend not to account for the fact that speakers can be deliberately vague, leaving no clear proposition to be recovered, or that a speaker can accept a hearer’s misconstrual even though the speaker didn’t intend it. In such cases, identifying ‘what is said’ is more contentious, even though communication is arguably no less successful. Building on recent interactionist approaches to meaning, this chapter offers a proposal for ‘what is said’ that can account for cases of ‘imperfect’ communication in which the recovery of a speaker’s intention goes awry. This involves taking ‘what is said’ as the co-constructed meaning that the speaker and hearer jointly agree on, giving ‘grounded meanings’ – those mutually and manifestly accepted into the discourse by speaker and hearer – higher precedence in a theory of communication than simply the speaker’s intended meaning. In such cases, rather than speaker and hearer converging at the level of explicit utterance content, communication is expected to be successful as long as the hearer recovers a proposition which is compatible with the speaker’s higher-order discursive goal. The hearer’s uptake is then allowed to override the content of the speaker’s intended meaning in the process of negotiating ‘what is said’

Alternative mutational pathways, outside the VPg, of Rice yellow mottle virus to overcome eIF(iso)4G-mediated rice resistance under strong genetic constraints

The adaptation of rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) to rymv1-mediated resistance has been reported to involve mutations in the viral genome-linked protein (VPg). In this study, we analysed several cases of rymv1-2 resistance breakdown by an isolate with low adaptability. Surprisingly, in these rarely occurring resistance-breaking (RB) genotypes, mutations were detected outside the VPg, in the ORF2a/ORF2b overlapping region. The causal role of three mutations associated with rymv1-2 resistance breakdown was validated via directed mutagenesis of an infectious clone. In resistant plants, these mutations increased viral accumulation as efficiently as suboptimal RB mutations in the VPg. Interestingly, these mutations are located in a highly conserved, but unfolded, domain. Altogether, our results indicate that under strong genetic constraints, a priori unfit genotypes can follow alternative mutational pathways, i.e. outside the VPg, to overcome rymv1-2 resistance

Should Metabolic Diseases Be Systematically Screened in Nonsyndromic Autism Spectrum Disorders?

Abstract Background: In the investigation of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), a genetic cause is found in approximately 10-20%. Among these cases, the prevalence of the rare inherited metabolic disorders (IMD) is unknown and poorly evaluated. An IMD responsible for ASD is usually identified by the associated clinical phenotype such as dysmorphic features, ataxia, microcephaly, epilepsy, and severe intellectual disability (ID). In rare cases, however, ASD may be considered as nonsyndromic at the onset of a related IMD

Carbon recovery dynamics following disturbance by selective logging in Amazonian forests

Abstract When 2 Mha of Amazonian forests are disturbed by selective logging each year, more than 90 Tg of carbon (C) is emitted to the atmosphere. Emissions are then counterbalanced by forest regrowth. With an original modelling approach, calibrated on a network of 133 permanent forest plots (175 ha total) across Amazonia, we link regional differences in climate, soil and initial biomass with survivors' and recruits' C fluxes to provide Amazon-wide predictions of post-logging C recovery. We show that net aboveground C recovery over 10 years is higher in the Guiana Shield and in the west (21 AE3 Mg C ha À1 ) than in the south (12 AE3 Mg C ha À1 ) where environmental stress is high (low rainfall, high seasonality). We highlight the key role of survivors in the forest regrowth and elaborate a comprehensive map of post-disturbance C recovery potential in Amazonia