Learning French Liaison with Gradient Symbolic Representations: Errors, Predictions, Consequences

Smolensky & Goldrick (2016) first made the case for Gradient Symbolic Representations (GSRs) as the inputs to phonological grammar using the phenomena of French liaison. Under this view, many common French words are stored underlyingly with partially-activated word-final consonants, and others with gradient blends of partially-activated word-initial consonants. In this paper, we follow up some of that view's predictions and consequences, focusing on the acquisition of French liaison using GSRs. We compare our simulations of error-driven GSR learning with observed errors made by French-learning children, and find the results to be encouragingly similar. We also compare predictions about the end state of GSR learning with a pilot study reporting adult French speakers' use of liaison in nonce words, where we find a rather less good explanatory fit. The paper emphasizes the role of word and collocation frequency in the development of phonological patterns by a GSR learner, and outlines many future avenues for research.

A Schrift to Fest Kyle Johnson

This volume of forty-three papers celebrates Kyle Johnson\u27s contribution to linguistics. Written by Johnson’s colleagues and former students, the papers touch upon topics that have defined Johnson’s career, including verb movement, ellipsis, gapping, Germanic, extraposition, quantifiers and determiners, object positions, among others.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/linguist_oapubs/1000/thumbnail.jp

An indigenous-non-indigenous collaborative experience at the college level in Quebec

Comprend des références bibliographiques et webographiquesDisponible en français dans EDUQ.info sous le titre "Expérience d’un faire ensemble autochtone-allochtone dans une formation collégiale au Québec""In recent years, inquiry reports across Canada have detailed the devastating consequences of many of the policies and decisions faced by First Nations, Métis and Inuit. Each of these reports, whether issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse, the Viens Commission (2019) or the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019), has made various recommendations, some of which specifically target higher education institutions. Despite these publications, a number of tragic situations that are reported from time to time in the media and on social networks, show that there is still an imperative to act in order to prevent history from repeating itself. By way of example, and never to be forgotten, let us recall the intolerable conditions that led to the deaths of Joyce Echaquan on September 28, 2020; Raphael André on January 17, 2021; Elisapie Pootoogook on November 12, 2021; and the Manawan baby on April 4, 2022." -- AQP

Exploration de l’intégration des nouveaux savoirs infirmiers aux savoirs antérieurs chez des infirmières et infirmiers diplômés hors Québec, durant un programme d’intégration professionnelle

Ce mémoire présente les résultats d’une recherche qualitative exploratoire, ayant pour objet l’intégration des nouveaux savoirs infirmiers aux savoirs antérieurs chez les infirmières et infirmiers diplômés hors Québec (IDHQ), durant un programme d’intégration professionnelle. Un problème est posé par la faible réussite dans l’atteinte des exigences du programme d’intégration. Le but de cette recherche est d’explorer chez des IDHQ en cours d’apprentissage, l’intégration des nouveaux savoirs aux savoirs antérieurs essentiels à la pratique infirmière auprès d’adultes et de personnes âgées hospitalisés requérant des soins infirmiers de médecine et de chirurgie. La théorie de l’apprentissage transformationnel de Mezirow (1978) a servi de cadre de référence et a guidé la formulation du but et de la question de recherche. Nous nous sommes inspirés des critères de la méthode de cas, proposée par Stake (1994), s’inscrivant dans une approche épistémologique constructiviste pour élaborer notre devis exploratoire. La population cible de l’étude était l’ensemble des IDHQ inscrites à un programme d’intégration collégiale en soins infirmiers au Québec. Le cas était un groupe d’IDHQ qui étudiait dans un tel programme d’intégration dans un milieu collégial montréalais. Le groupe était constitué de 27 participantes, recrutées selon la méthode d’échantillonnage de convenance, parmi deux cohortes du programme. L’analyse thématique des données recueillies grâce à quatre focus group a été faite selon Paillé et Mucchielli (2012) et a résulté en un schéma (arbre thématique). Le schéma présente les quatre phases d’intégration des savoirs par les IDHQ : l’ouverture aux nouveaux savoirs ; l’activation des savoirs antérieurs où les participantes perçoivent un frein à cette intégration ; le dépassement des barrières et défis à l’intégration des savoirs dont fait partie le changement de statut et enfin, ces éléments se conjuguent pour arriver à la phase de mise en pratique des savoirs en voie d’intégration des nouveaux savoirs aux savoirs antérieurs, où une « bataille » cognitive pour le choix des savoirs prédomine. Nous pouvons penser que les résultats de cette recherche peuvent être utiles particulièrement dans la bonification des programmes d’intégration professionnelle, mais aussi pour l’orientation des IDHQ en unités de soins. Mots-clés : Savoirs infirmiers, infirmières diplômées hors Québec, programme d’intégration, apprentissage transformationnel de Mezirow, étude exploratoire.This Master’s thesis presents the results of an exploratory qualitative research, aimed at integrating recent nursing knowledge with previous knowledge among nurses having graduated outside Quebec (IDHQ), during a professional integration program. One problem is the poor result in meeting the requirements of the integration program. The purpose of this research is to explore in IDHQs in the process of learning, the integration of new knowledge with previous knowledge essential to the practice of nursing with adults and elderly hospitalized requiring nursing care of medicine and surgery. Mezirow's theory of transformational learning (1978) served as a frame of reference and guided the formulation of the purpose and research question. We were inspired by the criteria of the case method as proposed by Stake (1994), within a constructivist epistemological approach to develop our exploratory estimate. The target population of the study was all IDHQ enrolled in a college integration program in nursing in Quebec. The case was a group of IDHQ who were studying in such an integration program in a college environment in Montreal. The group consisted of 27 participants, recruited according to the suitability sampling method, from two cohorts of the program. The thematic analysis of the data collected through four focus groups was done according to Paillé and Mucchielli (2012) and resulted in a diagram (thematic tree). The diagram presents the four phases of knowledge integration by the IDHQ: openness to new knowledge; activation of prior knowledge where participants perceive a brake to integration; the overcoming of the barriers and challenges to the integration of knowledge, of which the change of status is a part of, and finally, these elements combine to arrive at the phase of putting into practice knowledge in the process of integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge, where the cognitive "battle" for the choice of knowledge prevails. We can think that the results of this research can be useful particularly in the improvement of the programs of professional integration, but also for the orientation of the NGOQ in units of care

The nature of regressions in the acquisition of phonological grammars

Children's acquisition of their L1 phonological grammar is typically understood as a gradual progression from an initial universal state towards a language-specific one, in which learners incrementally change their grammars to better approximate the target. One challenging problem for this view, however, are the many reports of 'U-shaped development' in which production temporarily regresses, diverging further from the target rather than drawing closer. Based on existing and novel analyses of longitudinal data, this paper argues that phonological regressions should not be captured directly within the normal workings of children's error-driven mechanisms for grammar learning. It also identifies a kind of regression that seems plausible but is nonetheless apparently unattested: one in which markedness constraints flip-flop over time, so that improvement on one marked structure entails regression on another. With this initial empirical base, the paper then demonstrates that an error-driven OT-like learner which stores its errors and imposes certain persistent biases can in fact easily regress in the unattested way. Section 5 discusses how OT's grammatical parallelism is in part responsible for creating the unattested regression pattern, and how a serial constraint-based grammar like Harmonic Serialism (McCarthy 2007 et seq) avoids this regression.

Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon

This paper studies the phonological properties of shitgibbons, a class of insulting English compounds made up of a monosyllabic obscenity followed by a trochaic innocuous noun. Our experimental data shows that in addition to these categorical prosodic requirements, there are gradient segmental requirements: native speakers judge shitgibbons as more wellformed when their two stressed vowels are identical (e.g. shit-whistle is better than fuck-whistle), but matching word-initial consonants do not improve wellformedness. A corpus study of English compounds shows that both vowel identity and initial consonant identity are overrepresented in the lexicon. Our explanation for the mismatch between the lexicon and the experiment relies on a typological asymmetry: vowels interact across intervening consonants in many languages, but consonants do not selectively interact across other intervening consonants in this way, e.g. the two matching [f]'s in fuck-frisbee cannot be compelled to match while ignoring the intervening coda [k]. The analysis is implemented as a MaxEnt grammar, with a locality bias that prevents assigning weight to the constraint that demands initial consonant matching.

The Productive Status of Laurentian French Liaison: Variation across Words and Grammar

There are competing views in contemporary phonological theory about how to best represent processes that are pervasive, frequent, and phonologically motivated, yet still lexically sensitive. To what extent can – or should – a process that applies idiosyncratically to different morphemes, words, and even phrases, be represented in a way that allows it to generalize to novel forms? We examine this question by looking at prenominal liaison as it is used in contemporary Laurentian French, spoken in Canada. We present the results of an online production study that compares application of liaison in real vs. nonce nouns, and that considers the effect of nonce nouns’ phonological properties and morphosyntactic context on the process. We interpret our results as evidence that liaison behaviour is driven jointly by lexical representations and an abstract grammar, with properties of the real-word lexicon affecting liaison rates in nonce words. We further show that there is considerable variation in the population in the extent to which speakers produce liaison with real h-aspiré words, but that all speakers nonetheless share an understanding of what types of words are more vs. less likely to undergo liaison

Predictive role of physical activity on muscular strength in elderly

Objective: to study the relationship between body composition, knee isokinetic muscle strength, and physical activity over lifetime and during specific age periods in healthy elderly men and women aged 60 years and over. Methods: peak torque measurement of right and left knee extensors and flexors were realized using a Biodex dynamometer in 25 men (age: 70.3 ± 7.1 years) and 49 women (age: 70.0 ± 6.3 years). Physical activity was measured using QUANTAP, a computer-assisted questionnaire designed to quantify lifetime physical activity. Relationship between peak torque and physical activity was studied in multiple regression models including following variables: sex, age, height, weight, lean mass, and interaction between sex and age and sex and lean mass. Results: whatever the model considered, lean mass and age explain muscular performance. Past year, past 20 years and lifetime sport activity explain peak torque of the knee (R2 = 0.71, 0.69 and 0.68 respectively). Conclusion: Aging is associated with decreased muscle strength resulting in an increased risk of dependent living. These data suggests that physical activity over lifetime contribute to preserve muscular performance with advancing age.Objectif: étudier la relation entre la composition corporelle, la force musculaire isocinétique du genou et l'activité physique exercée au cours de la vie et au cours de périodes spécifiques. Méthodes: le moment maximal des extenseurs et fléchisseurs des genoux droit et gauche a été mesuré à l'aida d'un dynamomètre Biodex chez 25 hommes (âge : 70.3 ′ 7.1 ans) et 49 femmes (âge: 70.0 ′ 6.3 ans). L'activité physique a été évaluée à l'aide du logiciel QUANTAP conçut pour quantifier l'activité physique pratiquée au cours de la vie entière. La relation entre le moment maximal et l'activité physique a été étudiée par des modèles d'analyse de régression multiple incluant les variables suivantes: sexe, âge, taille, poids, masse maigre, interaction sexe*âge et sexe*masse maigre. Résultats: quelque soit le modèle considéré, la masse maigre et l'âge expliquent la performance musculaire. Le sport pratiqué au cours de l'année ou des 20 années précédant l'étude et le sport pratiqué au cours de la vie entière explique également cette performance (R = 0.71, 0.69 and 0.68 respectivement). Conclusion: le vieillissement est associé à une baisse de la performance musculaire qui accroît le risque de dépendance. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'activité sportive pratiquée tout au long de la vie permet de préserver la fonction musculaire avec l'avancée en âge

Microglial Involvement in Neuroplastic Changes Following Focal Brain Ischemia in Rats

The pathogenesis of ischemic stroke is a complex sequence of events including inflammatory reaction, for which the microglia appears to be a major cellular contributor. However, whether post-ischemic activation of microglial cells has beneficial or detrimental effects remains to be elucidated, in particular on long term brain plasticity events. The objective of our study was to determine, through modulation of post-stroke inflammatory response, to what extent microglial cells are involved in some specific events of neuronal plasticity, neurite outgrowth and synaptogenesis. Since microglia is a source of neurotrophic factors, the identification of the brain-derived neurophic factor (BDNF) as possible molecular actor involved in these events was also attempted. As a means of down-regulating the microglial response induced by ischemia, 3-aminobenzamide (3-AB, 90 mg/kg, i.p.) was used to inhibit the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1). Indeed, PARP-1 contributes to the activation of the transcription factor NF-kB, which is essential to the upregulation of proinflammatory genes, in particular responsible for microglial activation/proliferation. Experiments were conducted in rats subjected to photothrombotic ischemia which leads to a strong and early microglial cells activation/proliferation followed by an infiltration of macrophages within the cortical lesion, events evaluated at serial time points up to 1 month post-ictus by immunostaining for OX-42 and ED-1. Our most striking finding was that the decrease in acute microglial activation induced by 3-AB was associated with a long term down-regulation of two neuronal plasticity proteins expression, synaptophysin (marker of synaptogenesis) and GAP-43 (marker of neuritogenesis) as well as to a significant decrease in tissue BDNF production. Thus, our data argue in favour of a supportive role for microglia in brain neuroplasticity stimulation possibly through BDNF production, suggesting that a targeted protection of microglial cells could represent an innovative approach to potentiate post-stroke neuroregeneration