Grammatical meaning and the second language classroom : introduction

This special issue assembles empirical work on second language teaching and learning from a generative linguistic perspective. The focus is on properties that constitute grammar–meaning interaction, that differ in the native and target language grammars, and that have not been highlighted in the pedagogical literature so far. Common topics address whether and how learners acquire grammatical meanings in the second language, including difficult misalignments between native and target-language constructions and functional morphemes. We propose that teaching and learning a second language can be enhanced by focusing on the relationship between grammatical forms and their meanings, as elucidated by contemporary linguistic theory

Controlled Term Rewriting

International audienceMotivated by the problem of verification of imperative tree transformation programs, we study the combination, called controlled term rewriting systems (CntTRS), of term rewriting rules with con- straints selecting the possible rewrite positions. These constraints are specified, for each rewrite rule, by a selection automaton which defines a set of positions in a term based on tree automata computations. We show that reachability is PSPACE-complete for so-called monotonic CntTRS, such that the size of every left-hand-side of every rewrite rule is larger or equal to the size of the corresponding right-hand-side, and also for the class of context-free non-collapsing CntTRS, which transform Context-Free (CF) tree language into CF tree languages. When allowing size-reducing rules, reachability becomes undecidable, even for flat CntTRS (both sides of rewrite rules are of depth at most one) when restricting to words (i.e. function symbols have arity at most one), and for ground CntTRS (rewrite rules have no variables). We also consider a restricted version of the control such that a position is selected if the sequence of symbols on the path from that position to the root of the tree belongs to a given regular language. This restriction enables decision results in the above cases

A Phenomenological Study of the Process e+e−→μ+μ−νlνˉle^+e^-\to\mu^+\mu^-\nu_l\bar\nu_l at High Energy e+e−e^+e^- Colliders and Measurement of the ZWWZWW and γWW\gamma WW Couplings

We perform a detailed study of the process $e^+e^-\to \mu^+\mu^-\nu_l\bar\nu_l$ including all contributions. The contributions other than from real gauge boson production leads to a rich phenomenology. We explore the use of the process as a means of precision measurement of the $ZWW$ and $\gamma WW$ vertices. We concentrate on LEP II energies, $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV, and energies appropriate to the proposed Next Linear Collider (NLC) high energy $e^+e^-$ collider with center of mass energies $\sqrt{s}=500$ and 1~TeV. At 200 GeV, the process offers, at best, a consistency check of other processes being considered at LEP200. At 500~GeV, the parameters $\kappa_\gamma$, $\lambda_\gamma$, $\kappa_Z$, and $\lambda_Z$ can be measured to about $\pm 0.1$ or better at 95\% C.L. while at 1 TeV, they can be measured to about $\pm 0.01$. At the high luminosities anticipated at high energy linear colliders precision measurements are likely to be limited by systematic rather than statistical errors.Comment: 33 pages, OCIP/C 93-18, UQAM-PHE-930

S.-Y. Kuroda, Pour une théorie poétique de la narration: Essais de S.-Y. Kuroda, traduits de l'anglais (États-Unis) par Cassian Braconnier, Tiên Fauconnier et Sylvie Patron, introduction, notes et édition de Sylvie Patron

The six essays which make up this volume are all concerned, either centrally or in a more marginal way, with the problem of fictional narration considered in a linguistic light. The texts question the linguistic foundations of particular narrative theories which already exist, as well as the place that a more descriptively adequate theory of fictional narration might occupy within a general theory of language use. Most of the essays were written and published in the 1970s (excepting the sixth, which was published in 1987, although the preface specifies that it was written nearly ten years earlier). They need, of course, to be read and resituated in the context of their time and their particular intellectual circumstances. Yet I consider that I will have achieved my goal in preparing this edition if I can show that despite their (relative) age, Kuroda's texts are still of immediate theoretical interest. The essays offer a concise overview of the nature and strength of Kuroda's complete works, like a sort of synecdoche. They include ideas and principles that Kuroda had in common with his community of university and research colleagues: autonomy and the primacy of syntax, recourse to speakers' judgments, the opposition between linguistic competence and performance, mentalism; they also contain a certain number of characteristics that contributed powerfully to his originality: the primacy of Japanese (Kuroda always used Japanese as a basis for his critique of generalizations based on English; Japanese often helped him clarify fundamental aspects of language which are not necessarily expressed in other languages), his constant interest in semantics and the philosophical inflection of linguistics, drawn notably from European philosophy of language.Les six essais qui composent cet ouvrage concernent tous, centralement ou de façon plus marginale, le problème de la narration de fiction, envisagé d'un point de vue linguistique. Ces textes interrogent aussi bien les fondements linguistiques de certaines théories de la narration existantes que la place que pourrait avoir une théorie descriptivement plus adéquate de la narration de fiction dans une théorie générale de l'usage du langage. La plupart des essais ont été écrits et publiés dans la décennie 1970. Ils doivent, bien sûr, être lus et replacés dans leur temps, dans la conjoncture intellectuelle qui leur est propre. On peut néanmoins leur reconnaître une importance fondamentale dans le contexte de la réflexion actuelle. Ces essais résument et synthétisent la nature et la force de l'œuvre de Kuroda comme une sorte de synecdoque. On y retrouve des idées et des principes que Kuroda partage avec les autres membres de sa communauté de travail et de recherche : l'autonomie et le primat de la syntaxe, le recours aux jugements des locuteurs, l'opposition entre la compétence et la performance linguistiques, le mentalisme ; mais aussi un certain nombre de traits qui contribuent puissamment à son originalité : le primat du japonais, l'intérêt constant pour la sémantique, l'inflexion philosophique de la linguistique, donnée notamment par la philosophie du langage européenne