A Sociolinguistic Study of Taboo in Alas Purwo Banyuwangi

Key words: sociolinguistic, taboo, folklore, social mental structure Language can be the most powerful attribute to define the mental structure of the people in particular group. Taboo is one of the social phenomena that can be used as an object of the study in sociolinguistic field. Taboo consists of normative rules that are transferred orally through generations without any specific rational. The appeareance of these taboo rules in society are accepted by the society as their local belief in communicating with others. In order to find the relationship between social mental structure and taboo rules, oral tradition as the device to transfer the information must be examined. The oral tradition as the social behaviour that havethe same characteristics with the taboo rules appear as the form of language that can also define the social mental structure. Based on those backgrounds, the writer is interested in analyzing the existence of taboo rules in Banyuwangi society especially in Alas Purwo which is touted as one of the most superstisious society in Banyuwangi area. The focus of the study attempts to find answers of this following problems of study: (1) What kind of taboo are believed in Alas Purwo Banyuwangi, (2) What are the meanings of the taboo in Alas Purwo Banyuwangi, (3) What are the types of folklore for each of the taboo in Alas Purwo? In the study, the writer uses Keith and Burridge (2006) categorization related to thefunction and the impact of breaking the rules. The writer also uses Danandjaja\u27s (1982) categorization of folklore. The result of the study shows that there are 4 fatal taboos, 1 exploiting taboo, 1Uncleanliness taboo, and 9 less serious taboo. From those taboos, there are two types of folklore that namely Myth and Legend. There are 10 myths and 3 legends in Alas Purwo. This result proves that eventhough the development of technology and information has grown fast in Banyuwangi area, the societ y\u27s subconscious mind still cannot accept the modernity principles in their life which demands eliminating the traditional beliefs which are full of superstition and myths. The writer suggest the study of taboo in Banyuwangi area be developed by the nextresearcher by tracking the existence of the characters like Werjo and Minak Jinggo with the historical data taken

Relativistic J-matrix method

The relativistic version of the J-matrix method for a scattering problem on the potential vanishing faster than the Coulomb one is formulated. As in the non-relativistic case it leads to a finite algebraic eigenvalue problem. The derived expression for the tangent of phase shift is simply related to the non-relativistic case formula and gives the latter as a limit case. It is due to the fact that the used basis set satisfies the ``kinetic balance condition''.Comment: 21 pages, RevTeX, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

An intelligent question: answering system for natural language

As applications of information storage and retrieval systems are becoming more widespread, there is an increased need to be able to communicate with these systems in a natural way. Natural Language applications in the 1990s, as well as in the foreseeable future, have more demanding requirements. Current Natural Language Processing approaches alone have proven to be insufficient as they lack to obtain linguistic understanding. A more suitable approach would be to adopt Computational Linguistics theories, such as the Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) theory complemented with Artificial Intelligence representation and processing techniques. A prototype Question-Answering System has been developed. It takes Natural Language parsed interrogatives, produces the Functional and Semantic structures according to the LFG representation. It compares the functional behaviour of verbs and their linguistic associations in a given query with a general Object Model in that specific domain. It will then attempt to deduce more information from the given processed text and represent it for possible queries. The structural rules of the LFG and the deduced common-sense domain specific information resolve most of the common ambiguities found in Natural Languages and enhance the understanding ability of the proposed prototype. The LFG theory has been adopted and extended: (i) to examine the constituents of the theoretical, syntactic and semantic of Arabic interrogatives, an area which has not been thoroughly investigated, (ii) to represent the Functional and Semantic Structures of the Arabic interrogatives, (iii) to overcome the word-order problem associated with some Natural languages such as Arabic, (iv) to add understanding capabilities by capturing the common-sense domain specific knowledge within a specific domain

Magnetic excitations of spin and orbital moments in cobalt oxide

Magnetic and phonon excitations in the antiferromagnet CoO with an unquenched orbital angular momentum are studied by neutron scattering. Results of energy scans in several Brillouin zones in the (HHL) plane for energy transfers up to 16 THz are presented. The measurements were performed in the antiferromagnetic ordered state at 6 K (well below TN~290 K) as well as in the paramagnetic state at 450 K. Several magnetic excitation modes are identified from the dependence of their intensity on wavevector and temperature. Within a Hund's rule model the excitations correspond to fluctuations of coupled orbital and spin degrees of freedom whose bandwidth is controlled by interionic superexchange. The different ordering domains give rise to several magnetic peaks at each wavevector transfer.Comment: Accepted for publication in Canadian Journal of Physic