Nekonvencionalno niječno slaganje: ni u hrvatskom, španjolskom i francuskom

This paper explores the interaction between connective negation (‘neither ... nor’) and negative concord, an issue that has not received much attention. It looks at different ‘negative concord’ languages, viz. Croatian, Spanish, and French. The approach is synchronic; the data come from existing descriptions and from native speaker judgments. The paper describes the many idiosyncrasies but also lays bare some of the similarities.U ovom radu razmatra se međudjelovanje vezivne negacije (poput primjerice ‘neither ... nor’ u engleskom jeziku) i niječnog slaganja, što je pitanje koje dosad u literaturi nije bilo dovoljno obrađeno. Promatraju se neki jezici u kojima se provodi niječno slaganje, točnije hrvatski, španjolski i francuski. Spomenuta se pojava promatra iz sinkronijske perspektive, a podaci su prikupljeni iz postojećih opisa i temelje se na prosudbama izvornih govornika. U radu su opisane brojne idiosinkratičnosti niječnog slaganja u tri promatrana jezika, ali se ukazuje i na neke međusobne sličnosti

Mapping indefinites: towards a Neo-Aristotelian map

The semantic map that Haspelmath (1997) offered for indefinite pronouns is highly valuable, but it is problematic and too simple about the relation between the meaning of the indefinite pronoun itself, its context, and the resulting meaning-in-context. As a representation of the meaning-in-context, it is claimed that one should go back to the Square of Oppositions, more particularly, to a three layered ‘Neo-Aristotelian’ representation of this square

Negatives between Chamic and Bahnaric

The paper deals with the verb embracing double negation found in both Chamic and Bahnaric languages and with the question how it developed. We propose both an internal and external explanation. The former relates to what is called a ‘Jespersen Cycle’, a hypothesis about the renewal of single negation out of double negation, itself developing out of another single negation. The latter is language interference from Chamic to Bahnaric. We argue that the Jespersen Cycle hypothesis is more plausible for Chamic, thus revisiting Lee (1996), and that the language contact hypothesis makes more sense for Bahnaric, thus supporting a more general hypothesis about the direction of interference between the two families (Sidwell 2008: 261, 265)

Revisiting be supposed to from a diachronic constructionist perspective

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Raising: Dutch between English and German

As a complement to C. B. van Haeringen's classic comparative study (1956) that positioned the grammar of Dutch in between the grammars of English and German, this study compares the productivity of three kinds of "raising" patterns in these languages: Object-to-Subject, Subject-to-Object, and Subject-to-Subject raising. It establishes the extent to which Dutch, as well as English and German, have evolved from the old West Germanic starting point these languages are assumed to have shared in this area of grammar. The results are a test case for Hawkins' (1986) case syncretism account of the difference in "explicit-ness" between the grammars of English and German. © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2011.published_or_final_versio

Diachronic Approaches to Modality in World Englishes: Introduction to the Special Issue

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That COMP-fusions

Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1984), pp. 660-67

Connective negation and negative concord in Balto-Slavic

With negative indefinite pronouns the Balto-Slavic languages all exhibit strict negative concord. In this study we investigate how negative concord functions in a context in which a connective negator (‘neither ... nor’) combines either phrases or clauses. We show that there are various types of non-concordant patterns

Conjugative plasmid pAW63 brings new insights into the genesis of the Bacillus anthracis virulence plasmid pXO2 and of the Bacillus thuringiensis plasmid pBT9727

BACKGROUND: Bacillus cereus, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus thuringiensis belong to the genetically close-knit Bacillus cereus sensu lato group, a family of rod-shaped Gram-positive bacteria. pAW63 is the first conjugative plasmid from the B. cereus group to be completely sequenced. RESULTS: The 71,777 bp nucleotide sequence of pAW63 reveals a modular structure, including a 42 kb tra region encoding homologs of the Type IV secretion systems components VirB11, VirB4 and VirD4, as well as homologs of Gram-positive conjugation genes from Enterococcus, Lactococcus, Listeria, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus species. It also firmly establishes the existence of a common backbone between pAW63, pXO2 from Bacillus anthracis and pBT9727 from the pathogenic Bacillus thuringiensis serovar konkukian strain 97-27. The alignment of these three plasmids highlights the presence of well conserved segments, in contrast to distinct regions of high sequence plasticity. The study of their specific differences has provided a three-point reference framework that can be exploited to formulate solid hypotheses concerning the functionalities and the molecular evolution of these three closely related plasmids. This has provided insight into the chronology of their divergence, and led to the discovery of two Type II introns on pAW63, matching copies of the mobile element IS231L in different loci of pXO2 and pBT9727, and the identification on pXO2 of a 37 kb pathogenicity island (PAI) containing the anthrax capsule genes. CONCLUSION: The complete sequence determination of pAW63 has led to a functional map of the plasmid yielding insights into its conjugative apparatus, which includes T4SS-like components, as well as its resemblance to other large plasmids of Gram-positive bacteria. Of particular interest is the extensive homology shared between pAW63 and pXO2, the second virulence plasmid of B. anthracis, as well as pBT9727 from the pathogenic strain B. thuringiensis serovar konkukian strain 97-27

Public attitudes towards psychiatry and psychiatric treatment at the beginning of the 21st century: a systematic review and meta-analysis of population surveys

Public attitudes towards psychiatry are crucial determinants of help-seeking for mental illness. It has been argued that psychiatry as a discipline enjoys low esteem among the public, and a “crisis” of psychiatry has been noted. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of population studies examining public attitudes towards various aspects of psychiatric care. Our search in PubMed, Web of Science, PsychINFO and bibliographies yielded 162 papers based on population surveys conducted since 2000 and published no later than 2015. We found that professional help for mental disorders generally enjoys high esteem. While general practitioners are the preferred source of help for depression, mental health professionals are the most trusted helpers for schizophrenia. If respondents have to rank sources of help, they tend to favor mental health professionals, while open questions yield results more favorable to general practitioners. Psychiatrists and psychologists/psychotherapists are equally recommended for the treatment of schizophrenia, while for depression psychologists/psychotherapists are more recommended, at least in Europe and America. Psychotherapy is consistently preferred over medication. Attitudes towards seeking help from psychiatrists or psychologists/psychotherapists as well as towards medication and psychotherapy have markedly improved over the last twenty-five years. Biological concepts of mental illness are associated with stronger approval of psychiatric help, particularly medication. Self-stigma and negative attitudes towards persons with mental illness decrease the likelihood of personally considering psychiatric help. In conclusion, the public readily recommends psychiatric help for the treatment of mental disorders. Psychotherapy is the most popular method of psychiatric treatment. A useful strategy to further improve the public image of psychiatry could be to stress that listening and understanding are at the core of psychiatric care