A note on the punctuated nature of movement paths

This paper addresses the question of how a moving item affects the nodes that lie along the path of movement. In particular, we are concerned with the question whether all nodes along the path of movement are affected in the same way or not. We first observe that most arguments that have been given to support the existence of intermediate reconstruction sites do not bear on this issue. We then discuss the logic of what a true argument would look like. Finally, we present three case studies. Two of them (A-reconstruction in Norwegian and VP-ellipsis in Dutch) provide prima facie arguments in favor of a position along the lines of Chomsky (1973, 1986, 2000), where some but not all nodes along the path of movement are affected by movement.Aquest article tracta de com afecta un element en moviment els nodes que es troben en el seu camí. Més concretament, ens interessem per la qüestió de si tots els nodes que es troben en el camí de l'element en moviment queden afectats de la mateixa manera. Primer observem que la majoria d'arguments que s'han donat a favor de l'existència de posicions intermèdies de reconstrucció no són rellevants per la qüestió que ens ocupa. Tot seguit considerem com hauria de ser un argument rellevant al nostre propòsit. Finalment, estudiem tres fenòmens concrets, dos dels quals (reconstrucció A en noruec i el·lipsi d'SV en neerlandès), aparentment, donen suport a la idea que només alguns nodes, no tots, queden afectats pel moviment, una postura anàloga a la defensada per Chomsky (1973, 1986, 2000)

On the distribution of scope ambiguities in Polish

Polish, an SVO language with relatively free constituent order, has a scope extending mechanism of quantifier raising that shows remarkable similarities to quantifier raising in English. The paper shows experimentally that SVO and OVS structures in Polish are scopally ambiguous. Furthermore, ditransitive structures are scopally rigid when the indirect object precedes the direct object but ambiguous when the direct object precedes the indirect object (Łęska 2019), a fact which we show to hold independently of whether the indirect object is realized as a DP or a PP. The phrase structure of ditransitive VPs in Polish mirrors the geometry that Janke & Neeleman (2012) proposed for English ditransitives, though the category of the indirect object again plays no role. Pulling these findings together, we adapt Bruening’s (2001) analysis of scope freezing in English to our own analysis of Polish.Our findings contradict the idea that free word order languages lack quantifier raising and/or reconstruction for scope. The results are, however, fully compatible with multifactorial approaches to word order and scope

Who Gives a Damn about Minimizers in Questions?

No abstract

Perioperative Care and the Importance of Continuous Quality Improvement—A Controlled Intervention Study in Three Tanzanian Hospitals

Introduction Surgical services are increasingly seen to reduce death and disability in Sub-Saharan Africa, where hospital-based mortality remains alarmingly high. This study explores two implementation approaches to improve the quality of perioperative care in a Tanzanian hospital. Effects were compared to a control group of two other hospitals in the region without intervention. Methods All hospitals conducted quality assessments with a Hospital Performance Assessment Tool. Changes in immediate outcome indicators after one and two years were compared to final outcome indicators such as Anaesthetic Complication Rate and Surgical Case Fatality Rate. Results Immediate outcome indicators for Preoperative Care in the intervention hospital improved (52.5% in 2009; 84.2% in 2011, p<0.001). Postoperative Inpatient Care initially improved to then decline again (63.3% in 2009; 70% in 2010; 58.6% in 2011). In the control group, preoperative care declined from 50.8% (2009) to 32.8% (2011, p <0.001), while postoperative care did not significantly change. Anaesthetic Complication Rate in the intervention hospital declined (1.89% before intervention; 0.96% after intervention, p = 0.006). Surgical Case Fatality Rate in the intervention hospital declined from 5.67% before intervention to 2.93% after intervention (p<0.0010). Surgical Case Fatality Rate in the control group was 4% before intervention and 3.8% after intervention (p = 0.411). Anaesthetic Complication Rate in the control group was not available. Discussion Immediate outcome indicators initially improved, while at the same time final outcome declined (Surgical Case Fatality, Anaesthetic Complication Rate). Compared to the control group, final outcome improved more in the intervention hospital, although the effect was not significant over the whole study period. Documentation of final outcome indicators seemed inconsistent. Immediate outcome indicators seem more helpful to steer the Continuous Quality Improvement program. Conclusion Specific interventions as part of Continuous Quality Improvement might lead to sustainable improvement of the quality of care, if embedded in a multi-faceted approach

The fundamental left-right asymmetry in the Germanic verb cluster

Cinque (2005, 2009, 2014a) observes that there is an asymmetry in the possible ordering of dependents of a lexical head before versus after the head. A reflection on some of the concepts needed to develop Cinque’s ideas into a theory of neutral word order reveals that dependents need to be treated separately by class. The resulting system is applied to the problem of word order in the Germanic verb cluster. It is shown that there is an extremely close match between theoretically derived expectations for clusters made up of auxiliaries, modals, causative ‘let’, a main verb, and verbal particles. The facts point to the action of Cinque’s fundamental left-right asymmetry in language in the realm of the verb cluster. At the same time, not all verb clusters fall under Cinque’s generalization, which, therefore, argues against treating all cases of restructuring uniformly