The Semantics and Pragmatics of Some Scalar Expressions in Spanish

This article provides a basic description of a variety of scalar additive particles (SAPs) in Spanish that roughly translate into English as even. Following Giannakidou's 2007 description and analysis of similar items in Greek, I call the three classes of expressions the 'positive', the 'negative' and 'concessive' scalar expressions. Positive SAPs in Spanish include incluso and hasta; negative SAPs include ni, ni siquiera, siquiera; though the bare siquiera (without the ni) can also double as a concessive SAP. The expression aunque sea is argued to be the Spanish 'concessive' SAP par excellence. I describe and discuss the distribution of each one of these classes of expressions in the context of two major approaches to the study of these expressions, viz., the scope theory of even and the lexical ambiguity theory of even. I discuss problems with both, noting that lexical ambiguity is not necessarily incompatible with these SAPs also being scope taking elements

The Semantics and Pragmatics of Some Scalar Expressions in Spanish

This article provides a basic description of a variety of scalar additive particles (SAPs) in Spanish that roughly translate into English as even. Following Giannakidou's 2007 description and analysis of similar items in Greek, I call the three classes of expressions the 'positive', the 'negative' and 'concessive' scalar expressions. Positive SAPs in Spanish include incluso and hasta; negative SAPs include ni, ni siquiera, siquiera; though the bare siquiera (without the ni) can also double as a concessive SAP. The expression aunque sea is argued to be the Spanish 'concessive' SAP par excellence. I describe and discuss the distribution of each one of these classes of expressions in the context of two major approaches to the study of these expressions, viz., the scope theory of even and the lexical ambiguity theory of even. I discuss problems with both, noting that lexical ambiguity is not necessarily incompatible with these SAPs also being scope taking elements

Modal-Aspect interactions in Bangla

Bhatt (1999) observed that ability modals crosslinguistically carry an actuality entailment when they appear with the perfective aspect (e.g., the English John was able to swim the English Channel (on the episodic reading of the sentence) entails that John did, indeed (manage to) swim the English Channel). The imperfective counterpart, however, lacks this entailment. Hacquard (2006, 2009) showed that Bhatt’s generalization is insufficiently general in that the actuality entailments appear with all root modals, not just ability modals, independently of whether they are possibility or necessity modals. This paper presents novel data from Bangla where modals can take the progressive as well as the perfective aspect morphology, and also carry an actuality entailment, that asserts the actual existence of a process rather than the culmination. I show that this can be explained on Hacquard’s general account of Modal-Aspect interactions if one adopts a perspective on the semantics of the Progressive that has a component of its meaning anchored in the world of evaluation over and above its modal component. The actuality entailment with the Perfect also follows on particular assumptions about its meaning

Demonstratives in Arabic: Evidence from Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic

This study aims at exploring demonstratives in two dialects: Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic and Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and comparing them to Modern Standard Arabic. The description of the demonstratives in the two dialects along with Modern Standard Arabic focused on tracing the syntactic and semantic evidence they are like to exhibit. The model used to undertake the analysis follows Diessel (1999). Although demonstratives attracted considerable scholarly attention, the literature reflects a scarcity of research on the two dialects chosen for this study. The findings reveal that the two dialects somehow differ from Modern Standard Arabic. It is concluded that the differences between Modern Standard Arabic and the two other dialects are confined to a semantic aspect. As for the similarities, the study evidences that demonstratives in Modern Standard Arabic, Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic syntactically belong to two categories (demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adverbs) and they can occur in more than one syntactic context. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic almost share similar linguistic features as far as demonstratives are concerned. The study ends up recommending further research on more Yemeni dialects

A study on oxidized-LDL cholesterol in normolipidemic retinal vein occlusion

Background: Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) has been implicated in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Arteriolosclerosis is an important causative factor for retinal vein occlusion (RVO). Till, date there is dearth of literature on ox-LDL and RVO. Aims and Objectives: The objectives of this study were to see whether ox-LDL cholesterol is an independent risk factor in RVO with normal lipid profile. Materials and Methods: Lipid profiles and ox-LDL levels were assayed in 122 adult unilateral RVO cases and 142 age and sex matched controls in this 1 year old case–control study. Results: ox-LDL cholesterol levels were significantly elevated in RVO cases than controls (54.5±6.1 in cases vs. 36.6±5.6 in controls, P<0.01), although serum lipid profiles were normal in both cases and controls. Conclusion: The ox-LDL-induced atherosclerosis may be responsible for the retinal venous occlusion in absence of other risk factors. Hence, screening for ox-LDL in RVO patients should be worth considering especially in patients with normal lipid profiles

A study to determine the prevalence of oxidised low-density lipoprotein in retinal venous occlusion in a population of West Bengal

Background: Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) has been implicated in both coronary artery disease and retinal vein occlusion (RVO) because of atherosclerosis. However, there is no study to show the prevalence of ox-LDL in RVO till date. Aims and Objectives: This study aimed to find the prevalence of ox-LDL in RVO in a population of West Bengal. Materials and Methods: A 2-year prospective cross-sectional study of consecutive, unrelated adult patients, with a diagnosis of RVO, attending the outpatient department in a Medical College, was taken up for study. A pilot study was done to determine the expected prevalence of ox-LDL. Sample size was calculated based on the formula n=d2z2pq(z=1.96, d=0.04, p=0.196, q=0.804, n=minimum sample size). ox-LDL was measured in a total of 512 subjects who were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: In this study, 272 males (aged 50 ± 7.2 years) and 240 females (aged 46 ± 7.7 years) with RVO were screened for ox-LDL. Elevated ox-LDL levels were found in 142 patients out of 512 participants in this study (27.7%). Moreover, 102 cases (19.9%) were found to have both raised LDL and ox-LDL, whereas 40 RVO cases (7.8%) had only elevated ox-LDL among the study participants. 71.8% of 142 RVO cases with elevated ox-LDL levels also had raised LDL levels, whereas remaining 28.2% had normal LDL cholesterol levels. Conclusion: It is high time to look beyond the traditional lipid parameters such as ox-LDL cholesterol levels as a risk factor of RVO. This study proved that ox-LDL cholesterol is highly prevalent in RVO cases. Thereby, proper screening of ox-LDL is a must as a tool for risk reduction of RVO cases, especially in a population with normal LDL cholesterol levels

Strict and non-strict negative concord in Hungarian: A unified analysis

Surányi (2006) observed that Hungarian has a hybrid (strict + non-strict) negative concord system. This paper proposes a uniform analysis of that system within the general framework of Zeijlstra (2004, 2008) and, especially, Chierchia (2013), with the following new ingredients. Sentential negation NEM is the same full negation in the presence of both strict and non-strict concord items. Preverbal SENKI `n-one’ type negative concord items occupy the specifier position of either NEM `not' or SEM `nor'. The latter, SEM spells out IS `too, even’ in the immediate scope of negation; it is a focus-sensitive head on the clausal spine. SEM can be seen as an overt counterpart of the phonetically null head that Chierchia dubs NEG; it is capable of invoking an abstract (disembodied) negation at the edge of its projection

Deposition and characterization of diamond-like nanocomposite coatings grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition over different substrate materials

Diamond-like nanocomposite (DLN) coatings have been deposited over different substrates used for biomedical applications by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). DLN has an interconnecting network of amorphous hydrogenated carbon and quartz-like oxygenated silicon. Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform-infra red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have been used for structural characterization. Typical DLN growth rate is about 1 m/h, measured by stylus profilometer. Due to the presence of quartz-like Si:O in the structure, it is found to have very good adhesive property with all the substrates. The adhesion strength found to be as high as 0 center dot 6 N on SS 316 L steel substrates by scratch testing method. The Young's modulus and hardness have found to be 132 GPa and 14 center dot 4 GPa, respectively. DLN coatings have wear factor in the order of 1 x 10 (-aEuro parts per thousand 7) mm (3) /N-m. This coating has found to be compatible with all important biomedical substrate materials and has successfully been deposited over Co-Cr alloy based knee implant of complex shape