The senses in language and culture

Multiple social science disciplines have converged on the senses in recent years, where formerly the domain of perception was the preserve of psychology. Linguistics, or Language, however, seems to have an ambivalent role in this undertaking. On the one hand, Language with a capital L (language as a general human capacity) is part of the problem. It was the prior focus on language (text) that led to the disregard of the senses. On the other hand, it is language (with a small "l", a particular tongue) that offers key insights into how other peoples onceptualize the senses. In this article, we argue that a systematic cross-cultural approach can reveal fundamental truths about the precise connections between language and the senses. Recurring failures to adequately describe the sensorium across specific languages reveal the intrinsic limits of Language. But the converse does not hold. Failures of expressibility in one language need not hold any implications for the Language faculty per se, and indeed can enlighten us about the possible experiential worlds available to human experience

Probing Micro-quasars with TeV Neutrinos

The jets associated with Galactic micro-quasars are believed to be ejected by accreting stellar mass black-holes or neutron stars. We show that if the energy content of the jets in the transient sources is dominated by electron-proton plasma, then a several hour outburst of 1--100 TeV neutrinos produced by photo- meson interactions should precede the radio flares associated with major ejection events. Several neutrinos may be detected during a single outburst by a 1km^2 detector, thereby providing a powerful probe of micro-quasars jet physics.Comment: Accepted to PRL. More detailed discussion of particle acceleratio

Demonstratives in context: Comparative handicrafts

Demonstratives (e.g., words such as this and that in English) pivot on relationships between the item being talked about, and features of the speech act situation (e.g., where the speaker and addressee are standing or looking). However, they are only rarely investigated multi-modally, in natural language contexts. This task is designed to build a video corpus of cross-linguistically comparable discourse data for the study of “deixis in action”, while simultaneously supporting the investigation of joint attention as a factor in speaker selection of demonstratives. In the task, two or more speakers are asked to discuss and evaluate a group of similar items (e.g., examples of local handicrafts, tools, produce) that are placed within a relatively defined space (e.g., on a table). The task can additionally provide material for comparison of pointing gesture practices

Neutrino flux predictions for known Galactic microquasars

It has been proposed recently that Galactic microquasars may be prodigious emitters of TeV neutrinos that can be detected by upcoming km^2 neutrino telescopes. In this paper we consider a sample of identified microquasars and microquasar candiates, for which available data enables rough determination of the jet parameters. By employing the parameters inferred from radio observations of various jet ejection events, we determine the neutrino fluxes that should have been produced during these events by photopion production in the jet. Despite the large uncertainties in our analysis, we demonstrate that in several of the sources considered, the neutrino flux at Earth, produced in events similar to those observed, would exceed the detection threshold of a km^2 neutrino detector. The class of microquasars may contain also sources with bulk Lorentz factors larger than those characteristic of the sample considered here, directed along our line of sight. Such sources, which may be very difficult to resolve at radio wavelengths and hence may be difficult to identify as microqusar candidates, may emit neutrinos with fluxes significantly larger than typically obtained in the present analysis. These sources may eventually be identified through their neutrino and gamma-ray emission.Comment: 17 pages. Submitted to Ap