Indexical Expressions: Syntax and Context

Indexicals are those expressions in natural language–such as I, you, here, and now–whose reference varies with occasion of use, picking out individuals in virtue of their contextual roles. Although analyses of the semantics of indexicals have been advanced–most notably by Kaplan–their syntax has heretofore been largely ignored. This dissertation puts forth a theory of the syntax of indexical expressions, within the framework of generative grammar, and proposes a new model of the formal context for natural language. The central argument against prior accounts of indexicals is that such theories draw the distinction between the first and second person pronouns versus third person incorrectly. Evidence for syntactic uniformity –that first, second and third person expressions are individuated in the same way–is presented in chapter 2. It is concluded that Kaplan\u27s notion of character as a semantic function from context to individual is theoretically inadequate. Hypothesized instead is syntactic orientation, a function that operates at the syntactic level of logical form, the output of which is not individuals but syntactic indices. The resulting proposed structure of the formal context is thus two-tiered; the syntactic input to the semantic component is uniform across first, second and third person expressions. Analysis of the switch phenomenon in chapters 3 and 4 lends support to the syntactic orientation hypothesis. A natural account of switch is advanced within Fiengo and May\u27s dependency theory, through the assumption that dependencies may occur among syntactic orientations. The existence of two derivational levels at logical form–as proposed in the new model–is revealed to be crucial to the explanation of more complicated switch data. Additionally, evidence is presented that oriented sentences are the structure of choice in the making of expressive utterances such as speech acts. In chapter 5, syntactic orientation is shown to provide a natural way of describing the pronominal systems across languages. Furthermore, the new model is generalized to include non-pronominals, yielding a general theory of indexical expressions. Finally, demonstrative expressions are defined with respect to indexicals, with which they are argued to be in complementary distribution

Somewhere between remembering and forgetting: Working across generations on The Middle

Inspired by Hamlet, The Middle (2013) is a one-man show devised for a theatre foyer - a liminal space between the outside and the inside, the real world and the theatre. Hamlet is a character caught in a limbo between ?To be or not to be? and by casting my father, Tony Pinchbeck, to play the title role, I sought to explore time passing, staging ageing and the relationship between father and son. My father studied Hamlet when he was at school so he is stuck in the middle between the fading memory of reading that play 50 years ago and reading it now. He is trying to remember what it was like to be Hamlet while I continue my struggle to stay in the wings. For this article, I reflect on the complex dramaturgical process of working with my father to revisit his performative memories. The dramaturg?s job is to look for and after something that is not yet found. As Williams tells Turner and Behrndt, ?you don?t really know what is being sought?.1 As such, the dramaturg is in a limbo, or in the middle, between finding and looking, knowing and not knowing. For The Middle (2013), I spent time playing with the material I wanted to use physically: a table, a chair, 40 metres of bubble wrap. I found I could create interesting images with this material that could speak about the themes of liminality, ageing, stasis and mortality and the archiving of memory. The older we get, and the longer the show toured, between 2013 and 2016, the more the notion of father and son resonated. A retired solicitor, my father is 75 this year, and as he grew older and the show toured for three years, his memory of playing Hamlet faded so the text he spoke was always further from events it described. As Matthew Goulish writes, ?Some words speak of events, other words, events make us speak?. These were the words my Dad?s memories made us speak. For this article, I reflect on concepts of memory, time passing and ageing with Professor Mick Mangan, who explores these themes in his publication Staging Ageing (2013). The article weaves together my dramaturgical experience of making the performance with my father, and Mick?s experience of watching it through the lens of his research, and touches upon recent casting choices in order to explore issues of age and ageing and reminiscence theatre

Hyperphosphatemia, Phosphoprotein Phosphatases, and Microparticle Release in Vascular Endothelial Cells.

Hyperphosphatemia in patients with advanced CKD is thought to be an important contributor to cardiovascular risk, in part because of endothelial cell (EC) dysfunction induced by inorganic phosphate (Pi). Such patients also have an elevated circulating concentration of procoagulant endothelial microparticles (MPs), leading to a prothrombotic state, which may contribute to acute occlusive events. We hypothesized that hyperphosphatemia leads to MP formation from ECs through an elevation of intracellular Pi concentration, which directly inhibits phosphoprotein phosphatases, triggering a global increase in phosphorylation and cytoskeletal changes. In cultured human ECs (EAhy926), incubation with elevated extracellular Pi (2.5 mM) led to a rise in intracellular Pi concentration within 90 minutes. This was mediated by PiT1/slc20a1 Pi transporters and led to global accumulation of tyrosine- and serine/threonine-phosphorylated proteins, a marked increase in cellular Tropomyosin-3, plasma membrane blebbing, and release of 0.1- to 1-μm-diameter MPs. The effect of Pi was independent of oxidative stress or apoptosis. Similarly, global inhibition of phosphoprotein phosphatases with orthovanadate or fluoride yielded a global protein phosphorylation response and rapid release of MPs. The Pi-induced MPs expressed VE-cadherin and superficial phosphatidylserine, and in a thrombin generation assay, they displayed significantly more procoagulant activity than particles derived from cells incubated in medium with a physiologic level of Pi (1 mM). These data show a mechanism of Pi-induced cellular stress and signaling, which may be widely applicable in mammalian cells, and in ECs, it provides a novel pathologic link between hyperphosphatemia, generation of MPs, and thrombotic risk