Y a-t-il une typologie profonde? : quelques considérations théoriques et pratiques

Même dans le domaine de la typologie il est nécessaire de s'interroger sur le type de suppositions et sur le status des operations que l'on conduit pour en comprendre 1a valeur epistemologique, pour – en employant les mots de Ferdinand de Saussure – "montrer au linguistique ce qu'il fait". Car il est hors de doute que – pour le dire encore avec le maître genevois – dans une discipline qui s'occupe d'un phénomène humain si comp1exe et historiquement variable tel que le langage, "c'est le point de vue qui crée l'objet". L'objet d'une analyse n'est pas une chose qui 'va de soi'; il suffit de penser aux changements au cours du developpement de la linguistique du concept même de 'langue', tout comme celui de 'matière' en physique, au fur et à mesure que les connaissances ont avancé. Or, il y a dans les théories linguistiques les plus recentes et aussi à la page des suppositions qui sont suggérées, voire conditionnées, par le cadre theorique choisi, mais dont la réalité empirique reste à vérifier ou, ce qui revient au même, a falsifier

The Effect of Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex Deficits and Covert Saccades on Dynamic Vision in Opioid-Induced Vestibular Dysfunction

Patients with bilateral vestibular dysfunction cannot fully compensate passive head rotations with eye movements, and experience disturbing oscillopsia. To compensate for the deficient vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), they have to rely on refixation saccades. Some can trigger "covert'' saccades while the head still moves; others only initiate saccades afterwards. Due to their shorter latency, it has been hypothesized that covert saccades are particularly beneficial to improve dynamic visual acuity, reducing oscillopsia. Here, we investigate the combined effect of covert saccades and the VOR on clear vision, using the Head Impulse Testing Device - Functional Test (HITD-FT), which quantifies reading ability during passive high-acceleration head movements. To reversibly decrease VOR function, fourteen healthy men (median age 26 years, range 2131) were continuously administrated the opioid remifentanil intravenously (0.15 mu g/kg/min). VOR gain was assessed with the video head-impulse test, functional performance (i.e. reading) with the HITD-FT. Before opioid application, VOR and dynamic reading were intact (head-impulse gain: 0.87 +/- 0.08, mean +/- SD;HITD-FT rate of correct answers: 90 +/- 9%). Remifentanil induced impairment in dynamic reading (HITD-FT 26 +/- 15%) in 12/14 subjects, with transient bilateral vestibular dysfunction (head-impulse gain 0.63 +/- 0.19). HITD-FT score correlated with head-impulse gain (R = 0.63, p = 0.03) and with gain difference (before/with remifentanil, R = -0.64, p = 0.02). One subject had a non-pathological head-impulse gain (0.82 +/- 0.03) and a high HITD-FT score (92%). One subject triggered covert saccades in 60% of the head movements and could read during passive head movements (HITD-FT 93%) despite a pathological head-impulse gain (0.59 +/- 0.03) whereas none of the 12 subjects without covert saccades reached such high performance. In summary, early catch-up saccades may improve dynamic visual function. HITD-FT is an appropriate method to assess the combined gaze stabilization effect of both VOR and covert saccades (overall dynamic vision), e.g., to document performance and progress during vestibular rehabilitation

Exploring causality of the association between smoking and Parkinson's disease

Background: The aim of this paper is to investigate the causality of the inverse association between cigarette smoking and Parkinson's disease (PD). The main suggested alternatives include a delaying effect of smoking, reverse causality or an unmeasured confounding related to a low-risk-taking personality trait. Methods: A total of 715 incident PD cases were ascertained in a cohort of 220 494 individuals from NeuroEPIC4PD, a prospective European population-based cohort study including 13 centres in eight countries. Smoking habits were recorded at recruitment. We analysed smoking status, duration, and intensity and exposure to passive smoking in relation to PD onset. Results: Former smokers had a 20% decreased risk and current smokers a halved risk of developing PD compared with never smokers. Strong dose-response relationships with smoking intensity and duration were found. Hazard ratios (HRs) for smoking 30 years 0.54 (95% CI 0.43-0.36) compared with never smokers. The proportional hazard assumption was verified, showing no change of risk over time, arguing against a delaying effect. Reverse causality was disproved by the consistency of dose-response relationships among former and current smokers. The inverse association between passive smoking and PD, HR 0.70 (95% CI 0.49-0.99) ruled out the effect of unmeasured confounding. Conclusions: These results are highly suggestive of a true causal link between smoking and PD, although it is not clear which is the chemical compound in cigarette smoking responsible for the biological effect

Expletive negation and related problems

This paper makes two main claims: the presence of two or more negative elements in Negative Concord, Negative Comparison, and Expletive Negation basically rests upon the pragmatic need of intensifying the negative import of the sentence. Secondly, the paper aims at identifying a possible path of functional expansion that may account for the use of the Expletive Negation in the constructions under scrutiny. Expletive Negation is originally tied to the core concept of inequality comparison (x is more/has more y than z, where y refers to a state, a quality or property), as well as to temporal comparison (x before y)–where the second member is implicitly negated; it may then expand to other constructions such as Negative Concord and the construction of fear verbs

Pour une typologie de la négation

Ramat Paolo. Pour une typologie de la négation. In: Annexes des Cahiers de linguistique hispanique médiévale, volume 7, 1988. Hommage à Bernard Pottier. pp. 659-669