Present-day Spanish fashion lexicon dresses up in English

Lexical borrowings can be regarded as one of the clearest and most direct consequences of any language contact situation. However, not all the borrowings that enter a language are alike. Since their entrance in a given language is motivated by different reasons, two general kinds of borrowings must be distinguished: necessary borrowings which name ideas and concepts for which the recipient language does not have any equivalent term; and superfluous borrowings which, on the contrary, refer to realities for which the recipient language already has equivalent terms. This paper focuses on the latter type. Specifically, it presents a diachronic corpus-based analysis of 14 English fashion terms with a clear Spanish lexical counterpart —blazer/‘chaqueta’, celebrity/‘famoso’, clutch/‘bolso de mano’, cool/‘de moda’, fashion/‘moda’, fashionable/‘de moda’, fashionista/ ‘adicto a la moda’, jeans/‘vaqueros’, nude/‘color carne’, photocall/‘sesión de fotos’, shorts/‘pantalones cortos’, sporty/‘deportivo’, trench/‘trinchera, gabardina’, and trendy/‘moderno’— in four Spanish corpora: the Corpus del Español, and the CORDE, CREA and CORPES XXI corpora. My objectives are twofold: firstly, to demonstrate to what extent these unnecessary Anglicisms are increasingly becoming part of the everyday contemporary Peninsular Spanish fashion lexicon; and secondly, to account for the three reasons that underlie their alleged constant entrance in twenty-first century Peninsular Spanish: (i) globalization and the impact of English on Spanish; (ii) the highly visible presence of English in the field of advertising; (iii) and the selling power of English

Social Networks: A Source of Lexical Innovation and Creativity in Contemporary Peninsular Spanish

There is no doubt that the Internet, where English is ubiquitous, has revolutionized our way of life. Socially, it has opened frontiers to such an extent that nowadays human beings can be permanently connected, no matter the distance between them, in virtual encounters where social networks play a crucial role. Linguistically, on the other hand, it has created a new global language which combines properties of written and oral speech. The Internet’s lexical level, in particular, is described as extremely innovative, creative and playful since it is full of neologisms, many of which are Anglicisms, coined to name the new realities constantly brought along with the evolution of the digital world. In order to demonstrate that social networks are indeed the source of a wide array of creative and playful neological Anglicisms in Peninsular Spanish, we have carried out a corpus-based analysis of the names of five current social and interactive forms of Internet communication in two contemporary Spanish corpora; specifically, that of the indirect social network generically known as the blog and those of the direct social networks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp. Our study focuses, specifically, on four facets of these neological Anglicisms: (i) their date of introduction into the language; (ii) their frequency of occurrence; (iii) their diverse spellings; and (iv) finally, the different word-formation processes they enterThis research has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Regional Government of Andalusia (FEDER Andalucía 2014–2020), project number UPO-125474

On the Frequency of Ocurrence of Cognate Object Constructions in Present-Day British English. A Preliminary Corpus-Based Analysis.

Despite having always being a central subject-matter in linguistics due to their controversial syntactico-semantic and pragmatic status, the pragmatic dimension of English cognate object constructions of the type He died a gruesome death and She smiled an enigmatic smile has almost gone unnoticed in the literature. For this reason, and with the intention of shedding some light on the real frequency of occurrence of cognate object constructions in present-day British English, the present paper reports on a preliminary, but thorough and exhaustive, corpus-based analysis in the British National Corpus of the four verbal classes that, according to Levin (1993), seem to be potentially compatible with cognate objects: namely, (i) verbs of nonverbal expression; (ii)manner of speaking verbs; (iii) waltz verbs; (iv) and a fourth class which, including the semantically diverse verbs dream, fight, live, sing, sleep and think, describe recurrent processes and activities in the behaviour of human beings. I will prove, first, that cognate object constructions are not as recurrent in contemporary British English as could be expected a priori and, second, I will account for the main reasons underlying their scarce production.Pese a haber ocupado siempre un lugar destacado dentro del campo de la investigación lingüística debido a su controvertido comportamiento sintácticosemántico y pragmático, la dimensión pragmática de las estructuras inglesas de objeto cognado del tipo de He died a gruesome death y She smiled an enigmatic smile ha pasado prácticamente desapercibida en la literatura. Por ello, y con la intención de arrojar algo de luz sobre la frecuencia de uso real de las construcciones de objeto cognado en inglés contemporáneo, este trabajo presenta un análisis de corpus preliminar, pero exhaustivo y meticuloso, de las cuatro clases verbales que, según Levin (1993), parecen ser potencialmente compatibles con un objeto cognado en el Corpus Nacional Británico: a saber, (i) los verbos de expresión no verbal; (ii) los verbos que indican una forma concreta de hablar; (iii) los verbos waltz de movimiento; (iv) y un cuarto grupo que, pese a incluir verbos pertenecientes a clases semánticas diferentes (i.e. dream, fight, live, sing, sleep y think), describe procesos y actividades comunes en el comportamiento diario de los seres humanos. Mi objetivo será demostrar, en primer lugar, que las estructuras de objeto cognado se encuentran muy restringidas en inglés británico contemporáneo para proceder posteriormente a exponer las razones fundamentales que explican el por qué de su escaso uso

Tiempo, aspecto y modo en segundas lenguas (TAML2). Estudios recientes de Lingüística Aplicada

There is no doubt that the acquisition of tense, aspect and modality in second languages (TAML2) is a widely studied topic, due to the complexity it entails, being, in fact, one of the most fruitful lines of research in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). However, after a long tradition of 30 years of study, which has brought to light numerous and important findings as regards how these three grammatical categories are acquired by second language learners, such as, for instance, the Aspect Hypothesis (AH) (Andersen & Shirai, 1996), the Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), the Default Past Tense Hypothesis (Salaberry, 1999), and the Lexical Underspecification Hypothesis (Giacalone-Ramat & Rastelli, 2008), in the twenty-first century there are still many unanswered questions related to their acquisition in second languages

Durmiendo sueños and borracheras: Transitive structures with the verb dormir

En este trabajo se estudian, a través de un análisis de corpus llevado a cabo en el CORPES XXI, los posibles usos transitivos del verbo dormir en la variedad peninsular del español. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que la transitividad de dicho verbo no puede reducirse, como se suele indicar en la bibliografía al respecto, a la construcción de objeto cognado, puesto que, además de en esta, dormir experimenta un proceso de transitivización en otras tres construcciones: (I) las causativas léxicas; (II) otras de clara tipología germánica; (III) y finalmente, estructuras de carácter adverbial.This papes studies, by means of a corpus-based analysis carried out in the CORPES XXI corpus, the possible transitive uses of the verb dormir in Peninsular Spanish. Our findings show that the transitivity of this verb cannot be reduced, as usually pointed out in the bibliography, to the cognate object construction since, in addition to this pattern, dormir undergoes a transitivization process in three other constructions: (I) lexical causative patterns; (II) structures which are typologically clearly Germanic; (III) and finally, constructions of adverbial nature.La presente investigación ha sido financiada por el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y por la Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad de la Junta de Andalucía, en el marco del programa operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020. Objetivo específico 1.2.3. “Fomento y generación de conocimiento frontera y de conocimiento orientado a los retos de la sociedad, desarrollo de tecnologías emergentes” en el marco del proyecto de investigación de referencia UPO-1254742

Le système attributif de devenir dans l'interlangue des étudiants anglais d’espagnol comme langue étrangère. Problèmes d’interférence et proposition de solution

Este trabajo presenta un estudio contrastivo de corpus sobre el sistema atributivo de devenir en la interlengua de los estudiantes ingleses de español, donde se examinan los errores encontrados en su producción. En concreto, el análisis de hacerse, ponerse, volverse, que-darse, llegar a (ser) y convertirse en en los corpus de aprendices CEDEL2, CAES y SPLLOC demuestra que la adquisición de este área específica del español, mucho más desarrollada y restringida en términos sintáctico-semánticos que su contrapartida inglesa, debido principal-mente a la ausencia de un verbo atributivo equivalente a become, resulta extremadamente difícil para los estudiantes ingleses. Los resultados obtenidos constatan, primero, la presencia indiscutible de la lengua materna del estudiante en la adquisición de este grupo verbal español y sugieren, consecuentemente, que su enseñanza debería apoyarse en estudios contrastivos que enfaticen las semejanzas y diferencias entre sendas lenguas, contribuyendo, así, a evitar los errores detectados en la producción de los estudiantes.This paper presents a contrastive corpusbased interlanguage study of the attributive system of becoming, where the errors made by the English learners of Spanish are examined. Specifically, the analysis of hacerse, ponerse, volverse, quedarse, llegar a (ser) and convertirse en carried out in the learner corpora CEDEL2, CAES and SPLLOC demonstrates that the acquisition of this particular area of Spanish grammar, much broader in scope and more syntacticosemantically constrained than its English counterpart, due mainly to the lack of an attributive verb equivalent to become, proves extremely difficult for English learners. The findings obtained show, first, that the students’ mother tongue is highly present in the acquisition of this specific Spanish verbal group and, consequently, suggest that its teaching should be supported with contrastive analyses that, by highlighting the similarities and differences between both languages, will help learners avoid the common mistakes found in their production.Cet article présente une étude contrastive du corpus sur le système attributif de devenir dans l'interlangue des étudiants anglais d’espagnol, où les erreurs dans leur production sont examinées. Plus précisément, l'analyse de hacerse, ponerse, volverse, quedarse, llegar a (ser) et convertirse dans le corpus des apprenants CEDEL2, CAES et SPLLOC montre que l'acquisition de ce domaine spécifique de l'espagnol, beaucoup plus développé et syntaxico-sémantiquement restreint que son équivalent anglais, principalement en raison de l'absence d'un verbe attributif équivalent à become, reste extrêmement difficile pour les étudiants anglais. Les résultats obtenus constatent, en premier lieu, la présence indéniable de la langue maternelle de l'élève dans l'acquisition de ce groupe verbal espagnol et suggèrent, par conséquent, que son enseignement devrait être basé sur des études contrastives qui soulignent les similitudes et les différences entre les langues respectives, contribuant, ainsi, à éviter les erreurs détectées dans la production des étudiants

The effect of sieve mesh size on the description of macroinvertebrate communities

Considerable time and effort is required to estimate the abundance and biomass of benthic macroinvertebrates, and often variable mesh size sieves are used to clean collected samples. We test whether the use of a mesh with a 1 mm pore size is adequate to obtain a valid description of a benthic macroinvertebrate community. Stream benthic surber samples were collected from 24 headwater streams. The densities, biotic indices and biological traits ofmacroinvertebrates retained in al mm mesh ('> 1 mm' fraction) were compared to the same descriptors for the of macroinvertebrates retained in a 0.5 mm mesh sieve ('total'). We found that, if only the large fraction (> 1 rnm) is examined, the cornmunity descriptors are affected. Nevertheless, the observed changes were proportional and predictable for all of the variables describing invertebrate communities. Statistical differenti­ation of the tested metrics between sites was similar for both mesh sizes. Depending on the aim of the study (e.g., environmental impact assessments), the use of a 1 mm mesh sieve would be sufficient in describing macroinvertebrate communities.Para las estimas de abundancia y biomasa, el procesado de las muestras en laboratorio de invertebrados bentónicos requiere un tiempo y esfuerzo considerable y generalmente implica el uso de tamices de diferente luz de malla para lavar la muestra. Nuestro trabajo trata de comprobar si es suficiente para una descripción válida de la comunidad el uso de un tamiz de malla de 1 mm de poro en el procesado de muestras. Con tal propósito se recogieron muestras bentónicas de río en 24 tramos de cabecera y se compararon densidades, índices bióticos y rasgos biológicos de los invertebrados que eran retenidos en un tamiz de luz de malla de 1 mm (fracción '>1 mm') con los obtenidos usando una de 0.5 mm ('total'). Nuestro estudio revela que el análisis exclusivo de la malla gruesa afecta a los descriptores de la comunidad. Sin embargo, los cambios observados son proporcionales para todas las variables y se pueden predecir bien con ecuaciones lineales. Por otro lado, la diferenciación estadística entre estaciones es similar usando ambos tipos de malla, lo que en definitiva sugiere que, dependiendo del objetivo del estudio (por ejemplo, evaluación de impacto ambiental), el examen de la fauna retenida en un tamiz de 1 mm de poro puede ser suficiente para la descripción de las comunidades de macroinvertebrados

A strain of Bacillus thuringiensis containing a novel cry7Aa2 gene that is toxic to Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

The genome of the Bacillus thuringiensis BM311.1 strain was sequenced and assembled in 359 contigs containing a total of 6,390,221 bp. The plasmidic ORF of a putative cry gene from this strain was identified as a potential novel Cry protein of 1138 amino acid residues with a 98% identity compared to Cry7Aa1 and a predicted molecular mass of 129.4 kDa. The primary structure of Cry7Aa2, which had eight conserved blocks and the classical structure of three domains, differed in 28 amino acid residues from that of Cry7Aa1. The cry7Aa2 gene was amplified by PCR and then expressed in the acrystalliferous strain BMB171. SDS-PAGE analysis confirmed the predicted molecular mass for the Cry7Aa2 protein and revealed that after in vitro trypsin incubation, the protein was degraded to a toxin of 62 kDa. However, when treated with digestive fluids from Leptinotarsa decemlineata larvae, one major proteinase-resistant fragment of slightly smaller size was produced. The spore and crystal mixture produced by the wild-type BM311.1 strain against L. decemlineata neonate larvae resulted in a LC50 value of 18.8 mu g/mL, which was statistically similar to the estimated LC50 of 20.8 mu g/mL for the recombinant BMB17-Cry7Aa2 strain. In addition, when this novel toxin was activated in vitro with commercial trypsin, the LC50 value was reduced 3.8-fold to LC50 = 4.9 mu g/mL. The potential advantages of Cry7Aa2 protoxin compared to Cry7Aa1 protoxin when used in the control of insect pests are discussed.This research was funded by the Programa Nacional de España (No. AGL2015-70584-C2-2-R) and the Gobierno de Navarra (No. IIQ14065: RI1)

Trisomy 8, A Cytogenetic Abnormality In Myelodysplastic Syndromes, Is Constitutional Or Not?

Isolated trisomy 8 is not considered presumptive evidence of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in cases without minimal morphological criteria. One reason given is that trisomy 8 (+8) can be found as a constitutional mosaicism (cT8M). We tried to clarify the incidence of cT8M in myeloid neoplasms, specifically in MDS, and the diagnostic value of isolated +8 in MDS. Twenty-two MDS and 10 other myeloid neoplasms carrying +8 were studied. Trisomy 8 was determined in peripheral blood by conventional cytogenetics (CC) and on granulocytes, CD3+ lymphocytes and oral mucosa cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). In peripheral blood CC, +8 was seen in 4/32 patients. By FISH, only one patient with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia showed +8 in all cell samples and was interpreted as a cT8M. In our series +8 was acquired in all MDS. Probably, once discarded cT8M by FISH from CD3+ lymphocytes and non-hematological cells, +8 should be considered with enough evidence to MDS

miR-146a rs2431697 identifies myeloproliferative neoplasm patients with higher secondary myelofibrosis progression risk

Myelofibrosis (MF) occurs as part of the natural history of polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET), and remarkably shortens survival. Although JAK2V617F and CALR allele burden are the main transformation risk factors, inflammation plays a critical role by driving clonal expansion toward end-stage disease. NF-κB is a key mediator of inflammation-induced carcinogenesis. Here, we explored the involvement of miR-146a, a brake in NF-κB signaling, in MPN susceptibility and progression. rs2910164 and rs2431697, that affect miR-146a expression, were analyzed in 967 MPN (320 PV/333 ET/314 MF) patients and 600 controls. We found that rs2431697 TT genotype was associated with MF, particularly with post-PV/ET MF (HR = 1.5; p < 0.05). Among 232 PV/ET patients (follow-up time=8.5 years), 18 (7.8%) progressed to MF, being MF-free-survival shorter for rs2431697 TT than CC + CT patients (p = 0.01). Multivariate analysis identified TT genotype as independent predictor of MF progression. In addition, TT (vs. CC + CT) patients showed increased plasma inflammatory cytokines. Finally, miR-146a−/− mice showed significantly higher Stat3 activity with aging, parallel to the development of the MF-like phenotype. In conclusion, we demonstrated that rs2431697 TT genotype is an early predictor of MF progression independent of the JAK2V617F allele burden. Low levels of miR-146a contribute to the MF phenotype by increasing Stat3 signaling