Three sound-correlated text-structuring devices in pre-Qín philosophical prose

The description of sound correlated figures of speech in early Chinese prose − where it was attempted since Jiāng Yŏugàos (d. 1851) trailblazing work on prose rhyming at all − typically did not go beyond the analysis of prosodic phenomena occuring in phrase or sentence edge positions, which are moreover subject to relatively strict conditions of adjacency. After a short initial discussion of the problem of how to classify artfully crafted argumentative pre-imperial prose texts, the validity of approaching recurrences within Early Chinese prose in reconstructions, rather than through the intricate veil of its written representation, will be exemplified by looking at three repeatedly encountered phonological figures in Warring States-Han texts and the way the establish textual coherence. For lack of an established terminology, these will be preliminarily be called “rhyme nets”, “assonance chains”, and “paronomastic cadences”. Consideration of the latter category leads to a discussion of its relationship with genuine figura etymologica, and its role as a window on the self-awareness of linguistic structure on the part of early Chinese writer

Noncommutative Gauge Theory beyond the Canonical Case

In this thesis noncommutative gauge theory is extended beyond the canonical case, i.e. to structures where the commutator no longer is a constant. In the first part noncommutative spaces created by star-products are studied. We are able to identify differential operators that still have an undeformed Leibniz rule and can therefore be gauged much in the same way as in the canonical case. By linking these derivations to frames (vielbeins) of a curved manifold, it is possible to formulate noncommutative gauge theories that admit nonconstant noncommutativity and go to gauge theory on curved spacetime in the commutative limit. We are also able to express the dependence of the noncommutative quantities on their corresponding commutative counterparts by using Seiberg-Witten maps. In the second part we study noncommutative gauge theory in the matrix theory approach. There, the noncommutative space is a finite dimensional matrix algebra (fuzzy space) which emerges as the ground state of a matrix action, the fluctuations around this ground state creating the gauge theory. This gauge theory is finite, goes to gauge theory on a 4-dimensional manifold in the commutative limit and can also be used to regularize the noncommutative gauge theory of the canonical case. In particular, we are able to match parts of the known instanton sector of the canonical case with the instantons of the finite theory.Comment: 156 pages, PhD-Thesis, Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Julius Wess, v2: references adde

Morphological notes on the Old Chinese counterfactual

The claim that Chinese had neither unambiguous, nor obligatory syntactic or morphological markers of counterfactuality, which has loomed large with philosophers of language, sinologists, and cognitive psychologists during the better part of the 20th century, is reviewed here from a diachronic and typological perspective, focussing on Old Chinese (OC). In contradistinction from the cross-linguistically widespread use of past-tense morphology or, less commonly, of dissociative spatial markers, the predominant strategy to mark counterfactuals in OC was ‘direct’ assertion in the protasis. It made use of a non-indicative copula marked for stativity by prefixation, which acts as a complementizer vis-à-vis the dependent clause. Morphological analysis, building upon advances in the reconstruction of OC phonology in Jacques (2000), suggests that OC combined this non-indicative copula with a causative morpheme (*s-) to encode concessives and with an existential negative (*ma-) to express a non-facultative negative counterfactual, surfacing as wēi 微 (“if it be not that...”). Straightforward “positive” counterfactuality could also be expressed through conjunction compounding in late Classical and Medieval Chinese, or by the use of simple superordinate verbs such as shǐ 使 or lìng 令. Morphologically, these share the property of being derived from the underlying verb base by causative or deontic prefixes, but CF interpretation also depends on the interplay with schetic markers and pragmatic embedding in the remainder of the sentence. Non-obligatory marking of counterfactuals thus emerges as a preference, not as a categorical incapacity, while the choice of ‘direct’ assertion, rather than temporal or distal implicatures to convey it, is unrelated to the richness of morphology in a given language

Der gegenwärtige Forschungsstand zur Etymologie von rén 仁 im Überblick

Der gegenwärtige Forschungsstand zur Etymologie von rén 仁 im Überblick in: W. Behr, Licia di Giacinto, Ole Döring, Christine Moll-Murata, eds., Auf Augen­höhe. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Heiner Roetz, special issue of Bochumer Jahr­buch zur Ostasienforschung 38, 2015, 199–224. The paper summarizes current knowledge on the paleographical evidence for rén 仁 and its earliest variants. It is argued that no reliable attestations of the character exist prior to the mid-Warring States period. The variants recently discovered in the Guōdiàn and Shàngbó corpuses and elsewhere are shown to be predominantly based on phonetic principles which can be explained in a systematic fashion using current models of reconstruction. Proceeding from Baxter’s (1991) arguments for rén as a cognate of Written Tibetan snying (heart; mind) and extending it to Tibeto-Burman congeners, a final section speculates about a chain shift, which propelled rén from its Sino-Tibetan meanings to an ethical notion harnessed by early Confucianism. This shift left a lexical gap which was quickly filled by xīn 心 and ài 愛

Asking probing questions in web surveys: which factors have an impact on the quality of responses?

Cognitive interviewing is a well-established method for evaluating and improving a questionnaire prior to fielding. However, its present implementation brings with it some challenges, notably in terms of small sample sizes or the possibility of interviewer effects. In this study, the authors test web surveys through nonprobability online panels as a supplemental means to implement cognitive interviewing techniques. The overall goal is to tackle the above-mentioned challenges. The focus in this article is on methodological features that pave the way for an eventual successful implementation of category-selection probing in web surveys. The study reports on the results of 1,023 respondents from Germany. In order to identify implementation features that lead to a high number of meaningful answers, the authors explore the effects of (1) different panels, (2) different probing variants, and (3) different numbers of preceding probes on answer quality. The overall results suggest that category-selection probing can indeed be implemented in web surveys. Using data from two panels - a community panel where members can actively get involved, for example, by creating their own polls, and a "conventional" panel where answering surveys is the members' only activity - the authors find that high community involvement does not increase the likelihood to answer probes or produce longer statements. Testing three probing variants that differ in wording and provided context, the authors find that presenting the context of the probe (i.e., the probed item and the respondent's answer) produces a higher number of meaningful answers. Finally, the likelihood to answer a probe decreases with the number of preceding probes. However, the word count of those who eventually answer the probes slightly increases with an increasing number of probes. (author's abstract

Cognitive probes in web surveys: on the effect of different text box size and probing exposure on response quality

In this study, we explore to what extent the visual presentation of open-ended probes, in connection with different prior probing exposure, impacts on response quality. We experiment with two text box sizes for a specific immigrant probe (Which type of immigrants were you thinking of when you answered the question?). On the one hand, we use a standard size equal to the other text box sizes in the survey but oversized for the specific response task. On the other hand, we use a smaller text box which fits the response task. The other probes in the survey that use the standard text box are mainly category-selection probes that ask for a reasoning for the chosen answer value. Due to randomized rotation of questions, respondents receive different numbers of category-selection probes prior to the immigrant probe, resulting in different degrees of exposure to category-selection probing prior to the immi-grant probe. For the immigrant probe, we find that respondents who receive the standard text box and who have had a high exposure to category-selection probing are more likely to provide mismatching answers: The mismatch consists of not answering the specific immigrant probe but rather providing a reasoning answer as typically expected for a category-selection probe. Thus, previous experience with probing in the questionnaire can override the actual probe wording. This problem can be minimized by considering possible carryover effects of prior probes and using an appropriate survey design strategy