Syntax in the Treetops

A proposal that syntax extends to the domain of discourse in making core syntax link to the conversational context. In Syntax in the Treetops, Shigeru Miyagawa proposes that syntax extends into the domain of discourse by making linkages between core syntax and the conversational participants. Miyagawa draws on evidence for this extended syntactic structure from a wide variety of languages, including Basque, Japanese, Italian, Magahi, Newari, Romanian, and Spanish, as well as the language of children with autism. His proposal for what happens at the highest level of the tree structure used by linguists to represent the hierarchical relationships within sentences—“in the treetops”—offers a unique contribution to the new area of study sometimes known as “syntacticization of discourse.” Miyagawa's main point is that syntax provides the basic framework that makes possible the performance of a speech act and the conveyance of meaning; although the role that syntax plays for speech acts is modest, it is critical. He proposes that the speaker-addressee layer and the Commitment Phrase (the speaker's commitment to the addressee of the truthfulness of the proposition) occur together in the syntactic treetops. In each succeeding chapter, Miyagawa examines the working of each layer of the tree and how they interact

The precedence of syntax in the rapid emergence of human language in evolution as defined by the integration hypothesis

Our core hypothesis is that the emergence of human language arose very rapidly from the linking of two pre-adapted systems found elsewhere in the animal world—an expression system, found, for example, in birdsong, and a lexical system, suggestively found in non-human primate calls (Miyagawa et al., 2013, 2014). We challenge the view that language has undergone a series of gradual changes—or a single preliminary protolinguistic stage—before achieving its full character. We argue that a full-fledged combinatorial operation Merge triggered the integration of these two pre-adapted systems, giving rise to a fully developed language. This goes against the gradualist view that there existed a structureless, protolinguistic stage, in which a rudimentary proto-Merge operation generated internally flat words. It is argued that compounds in present-day language are a fossilized form of this prior stage, a point which we will question

A feature-inheritance approach to root phenomena and 2 parametric variation

This work concerns itself with Root Transformations (RT), specifically discussing the RT/non-RT nature of topic fronting in English, Japanese, and Spanish. We claim that this fronting is in principle compatible with all types of embedded clauses regardless of whether the selecting predicate is factive/non-factive, or whether the selected proposition is asserted/non-asserted. Languages vary on how freely they allow topic preposing in various types of complements. Adapting an intervention account of RTs in which an event operator moving to Spec,CP intervenes with other types of operations, we claim that two A0-movements compete for the same syntactic position in certain types of clauses. We account for the variation in the distribution of RTs and non-RTs across languages by the options made possible by inheritance of discourse features. In Japanese and Spanish, the topic feature may be inherited by T from C, so that some instances of topic fronting are to Spec,TP. This movement does not compete with the operator that has moved to Spec,CP, so no competition arises. In contrast, the topic feature stays in C in English, so that topic fronting and the operator movement to CP vie for the same position. This then triggers a competition effect in many constructions such as factives where operator movement has occurred

Negative sensitive items and the discourse-configurational nature of Japanese

We take up three Negative Sensitive Items (NSIs) in Japanese, Wh-MO plain negative indefinites, exceptive XP-sika, and certain minimizing indefinites, such as rokuna N (‘any decent N’). Although these three NSIs behave differently, we demonstrate that the two traditional NSI categories of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) and Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) are sufficient for characterizing these items. We argue that Wh-MO and XP-sika are NCIs, thus they contain a neg feature ([uneg]) which enters into (upward) agreement with its corresponding an uninterpretable feature ([ineg]). The third NSI, rokuna N, is an NPI. Two issues arise with XP-sika. First, it has an inherent focus feature, which distinguishes it from the other two. Second, this focus feature is syntactically active – meaning that movement is forced – only for the argument XP-sika. We argue that these properties of XP-sika associated with focus are independent of NP-sika as an NSI, and should be dealt with as an overall property of Japanese being a discourse configurational language. We introduce a case-theoretic solution to how focus becomes syntactically active solely with argument XP-sika

Influences of finished geometry of specimen for compression test on the stability of testing and precision of measured stress and strain

This paper deals with the influence of the specimen geometry on the precision of measured stress-strain curve on the compression side. Cylindrical specimen is adopted after ASTM-E9 89a and laboratory experiment and elastic-plastic FEA are carried out to evaluate the influence of the degree of parallelism of end surfaces. Present tolerance value of 0.5/1000 for the inclination of end surface can be relieved up to 6/1000

Detection of air within the northern hemisphere polar vortex at Wakkanai and at Tsukuba, Japan

Intensive ozonesonde observations were conducted at Wakkanai(45.4°N , 141.7°E ), the northernmost city of Japan, during the period 15th to 24th February 2001. Air in the polar vortex passed over Wakkanai on 19th February 2001 on the 700K isentropic surface. An increase of potential vorticity and a decrease of ozone mixing ratio on the 700K isentropic surface over Wakkanai were observed on the same day, 19th February 2001. On the other hand, on the 450K isentropic surface the air in the polar vortex passed over Tsukuba(36.1°N , 140.1°E ), Japan, where the Aerological Observatory and the Meteorological Research Institute are located, on 20th February 2001. Decrease of the ratio of observed HCl(hydrogen chloride) to HCl estimated from HF(hydrogen fluoride) and increases of the potential vorticity and ozone mixing ratio on the 450K isentropic surface were observed over Tsukuba on 20th February 2001. These facts indicate that the polar vortex passed over Tsukuba on the 450K isentropic surface on 20th February 2001. Observations show that the polar vortex on the 700K isentropic surface existed over Europe and Siberia on 14th February 2001 moved eastward, and reached Wakkanai, Japan on 19th February 2001. Observations also show that the polar vortex on the 450K isentropic surface found over Europe and Siberia on the 14th moved eastward and reached Wakkanai, Japan between 15th and 20th February 2001 and covered Tsukuba, Japan on 20th February 2001. The ozone mixing ratio derived from ozonesonde data shows the possibility of decrease of ozone mixing ratio with ozone destructive chemical reactions in the northern hemisphere polar vortex on the 450K isentropic surface

The integration hypothesis of human language evolution and the nature of contemporary languages

How human language arose is a mystery in the evolution of Homo sapiens. Miyagawa et al. (2013) put forward a proposal, which we will call the Integration Hypothesis of human language evolution, that holds that human language is composed of two components, E for expressive, and L for lexical. Each component has an antecedent in nature: E as found, for example, in birdsong, and L in, for example, the alarm calls of monkeys. E and L integrated uniquely in humans to give rise to language. A challenge to the Integration Hypothesis is that while these non-human systems are finite-state in nature, human language is known to require characterization by a non-finite state grammar. Our claim is that E and L, taken separately, are in fact finite-state; when a grammatical process crosses the boundary between E and L, it gives rise to the non-finite state character of human language. We provide empirical evidence for the Integration Hypothesis by showing that certain processes found in contemporary languages that have been characterized as non-finite state in nature can in fact be shown to be finite-state. We also speculate on how human language actually arose in evolution through the lens of the Integration Hypothesis

Preliminary results of vertical ozone soundings at Wakkanai, Japan

In order to obtain better understanding of ozone change in northern Japan, soundings of vertical ozone profile by using an ECC type ozone sonde were conducted at Wakkanai (45.4°N, 141.7°E) in Hokkaido, the northernmost city of Japan, between 15th-24th February, 2001. Ten vertical profiles of ozone on consecutive ten days were obtained successfully. In this paper, the methods and results of the observations are shown

パーソナル・メディアと人のコミュニティ

高速通信をベースにした双方向メディアが普及するにしたがって、「パーソナル・メディア」の出現という現象が起こっている。「パーソナル・メディア」は、「マスメディア」とは対照的に、ユーザーが双方向な場に、まさに双方向参加することで形成されるものであり、メディアの生産者と消費者の間に引かれた境界線が曖昧になってゆくような視点をもたらしてくれる。本論では、私がMITで製作した「スターフェスティバル」(starfestival.com)というプログラムを通じて、「パーソナル・メディア」のいくつかの特徴を解説する。「スターフェスティバル」では、プログラム内に準備されたモデルをベースにして、ユーザーは自分自身の視点を見つけ、自分だけのストーリーを作り出してゆくことができる。また、それをするために、様々な他のメディアの流用をすることもできる。このような自分のストーリー作りや、流用といった視点は、「パーソナル・メディア」が持つ重要な特徴である。As interactive media spread on high-speed networks, we are seeing a phenomenon which I call "personal media." In opposition to "mass media," personal media is content generated by the users as part of participating in the interactivity on the interactive stage, leading to a view of media in which the line between producer and consumer of media gets blurred. I explore some features of personal media through a program I created at MIT called StarFestival (starfestival.com). In StarFestival the users finds their own individual point of view, generate their own narrative based on the model provided, and appropriate media from a variety of sources in order to do so. These features of point of view, storytelling, and appropriation, are some of the important features of personal media