What tone teaches us about language

In ‘Tone: Is it different?’ (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that ‘tone is like segmental phonology in every way—only more so’, emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of phonology, morphology, and syntax, each time posing the question, ‘What else is like this outside of tone?’. A particularly interesting property that is strictly limited to tone is what I term syntagmatic relativity. I suggest that the uniqueness of tonal phenomena is due to the versatility of pitch, which can be manipulated with a wide range of linguistic functions. Given this versatility, I end by considering the question, ‘Why isn’t tone universal?’.*

Diagnosing the DSM: Diagnostic classification needs fundamental reform

Editor’s Note: If all goes as planned, the American Psychiatric Association will release a new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013. Since 1980, the DSM has provided a shared diagnostic language to clinicians, patients, scientists, school systems, courts, and pharmaceutical and insurance companies; any changes to the influential manual will have serious ramifications. But, argues Dr. Steven Hyman, the DSM is a poor mirror of clinical and biological realities; a fundamentally new approach to diagnostic classification is needed as researchers uncover novel ways to study and understand mental illness

The neurobiology of addiction: implications for voluntary control of behavior

There continues to be a debate on whether addiction is best understood as a brain disease or a moral condition. This debate, which may influence both the stigma attached to addiction and access to treatment, is often motivated by the question of whether and to what extent we can justly hold addicted individuals responsible for their actions. In fact, there is substantial evidence for a disease model, but the disease model per se does not resolve the question of voluntary control. Recent research at the intersection of neuroscience and psychology suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior, but this “loss of control” is not complete or simple. Possible mechanisms and implications are briefly reviewed

Getting the Haves to Come out Behind: Fixing the Distributive Injustices of American Health Care

Hyman criticizes an article by Havighurst and Richman regarding the distributive injustices of US health care. Hyman also offers a guide for implementing policy reforms based on the analysis by Havighurst and Richman

The Massachusetts Health Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In spring 2006, Massachusetts enacted legislation to ensure universal health insurance coverage to all residents. The legislation was a hybrid of ideas from across the political spectrum, promoted by a moderately conservative Republican governor with national political aspirations, and passed by a liberal Democratic state House and Senate. Groups from across the political spectrum supported the plan, from the Heritage Foundation on the right to Families USA on the left, although the plan had detractors from across the political spectrum as well. This study briefly describes the basic structure of the Massachusetts plan and identifies the good, the bad, and the ugly. Although the legislation, as Stuart Altman put it, "is not a typical Massachusetts -- Taxachusetts, oh -- just -- crazy -- liberal plan," there is enough "bad" and "ugly" in the mix to raise serious concerns, particularly when the desire to overregulate the health insurance market appears to be hard -- wired into Massachusetts policymakers' DNA. If we want to make health insurance more affordable and avoid the "bad" and the "ugly" of the Massachusetts plan, Congress -- or, barring that, individual states -- should consider a "regulatory federalism" approach. Under such an approach, insurers and insurance purchasers would be required to subject themselves to the laws and regulations of a single state but allowed to select the state. As with corporate charters, this system would allow employers and insurers to select the regulatory regime that most efficiently and cost -- effectively matches the needs of their risk pools. The ability of purchasers and insurers to exit from the state's regulatory oversight (taking their premium taxes with them) would temper opportunistic behavior by legislators and regulators, including the temptation to impose inefficient mandates and otherwise overregulate

Constitutional Aspects of the Covenant

Studier och granskningar har visat på en fokusering på imitativt resonemang i skolsammanhang där eleverna många gånger inte bedöms utifrån samtliga kunskapskrav. Syftet med denna studie är att få fördjupad kunskap kring vilket resonemangskrav som ställs på elever vid skriftliga prov i Matematik 1. I studien har provuppgifter från en lärarhandledning analyserats och klassificerats utifrån ett ramverk för matematiska resonemang. Genom att jämföra resultatet med tidigare forskning om resonemangskrav i nationella prov har även en slutsats kunnat dras huruvida resonemangskraven i lärarhandledningens provuppgifter är tillräckligt höga för att generellt sett kunna följa styrdokumentens riktlinjer. Resultatet visade att 26 % av de analyserade uppgifterna krävde globalt kreativt resonemang medan 26 % fordrade lokalt kreativt resonemang och 47 % var lösbara med någon typ av imitativt resonemang. Utifrån jämförelsen med resonemangskraven för de nationella proven drogs slutsatsen att resonemangskraven i lärarhandledningens provuppgifter överlag inte var tillräckligt höga för att i tillräcklig utsträckning testa alla kunskapskrav. Resultatet indikerar att centrala förmågor, i första hand problemlösnings-, resonemangsförmågan och förmågan att använda matematiska begrepp, inte testas i tillräckligt hög grad

Institutional transfer: industrial relations in eastern Germany

Can industrial relations be successfully transferred between countries. Thispaper reviews experience in eastern Germany since unification in 1990. Theevidence is that the close integration in western Germany between the twoelements of the dual system of interest representation trade unions andworks councils has not been replicated in the east. Hence the formalidentity of institutions does not prevent substantial differences in theirfunctioning. This may be explained both in terms of the adverse economiccircumstances in the east since unification, and of the distinctive socio-cultural inheritance of the former system. -- Kann ein System industrieller Beziehungen erfolgreich von einem Land in einanderes übertragen werden. In dem Papier wird der entsprechende Prozeß in Ostdeutschland seit der Vereinigung untersucht. Dabei wird offenkundig,daß der enge Zusammenhang des Doppel-Systems der Arbeitnehmervertretung im Westen Deutschlands - Gewerkschaften und Betriebsräte - sich im Osten nicht wiederholt hat. Ganz im Gegenteil: Dieformale Gleichheit dieser institutionellen Regelungen steht substantiellen Unterschieden in der Umsetzung nicht entgegen. Dies kann sowohl durch diekritischen wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen als auch durch die starke soziokulturelle Prägung aus DDR-Zeiten erklärt werden.

Mars, clays and the origins of life

To detect life in the Martian soil, tests were designed to look for respiration and photosynthesis. Both tests (labeled release, LR, and pyrolytic release, PR) for life in the Martian soils were positive. However, when the measurement for organic molecules in the soil of Mars was made, none were found. The interpretation given is that the inorganic constituents of the soil of Mars were responsible for these observations. The inorganic analysis of the soil was best fitted by a mixture of minerals: 60 to 80 percent clay, iron oxide, quartz, and soluble salts such as halite (NaCl). The minerals most successful in simulating the PR and LR experiments are iron-rich clays. There is a theory that considers clays as the first organisms capable of replication, mutation, and catalysis, and hence of evolving. Clays are formed when liquid water causes the weathering of rocks. The distribution of ions such as aluminum, magnesium, and iron play the role of bases in the DNA. The information was stored in the distribution of ions in the octahedral and tetrahedral molecules, but that they could, like RNA and DNA, replicate. When the clays replicated, each sheet of clay would be a template for a new sheet. The ion substitutions in one clay sheet would give rise to a complementary or similar pattern on the clay synthesized on its surface. It was theorized that it was on the surface of replicating iron-rich clays that carbon dioxide would be fixed in the light into organic acids such as formic or oxalic acid. If Mars had liquid water during a warm period in its past, clay formation would have been abundant. These clays would have replicated and evolved until the liquid water was removed due to cooling of Mars. It is entirely possible that the Viking mission detected life on Mars, but it was clay life that awaits the return of water to continue its evolution into life based on organic molecules