42 research outputs found
The speech of one family: a phonetic comparison of the speech of three generations in a family of East Londoners
A study of the speech of one family, obviously crucially important
for an understanding of the nature of sound-change and variation, was
first, and last, made at the end of the last century by Rousselot. With
no knowledge of modern structuralism he could not make a comparative
analysis which would satisfy modern descriptive linguists. This thesis
proposes a new structural method for describing variation in pronunciation
with a referential framework postulated on the basis of words. Various
implications of this method are discussed. About one-third of the
recorded speech of the Informants is then compared in an extremely
detailed manner, revealing a high degree of idiosyncratic variation both
in and between individuals, such as has not hitherto been described with
reference to any dialect. It is shown that certain specific words may
and often do have quite characteristic pronunciations which differentiate
them from other words which in a conventional phonemic analysis would
probably be spelt with the same phoneme. Furthermore, it is shown that
the basic phonological units which may differentiate words, can, and, in
fact often do, overlap phonetically. A fairly noticeable degree of
difference between individuals was detected. There is a good deal of
research which remains to be done before the fullest possible conclusions
can be drawn from the material, but this thesis shows the way towards
the conclusions both in the new method of description and the nature of
the facts revealed by it. To the author's knowledge, no such detailed
study of variation in speech has been made before and it is in the wealth
of detailed statements about variation that hints at the answers to
questions about the intimate mechanisms of sound-change are to be found.
This study makes a start at collecting and organizing such hints
THSim v3.2: The Talking Heads simulation tool
The field of language evolution and computation may benefit from using efficient and robust simulation tools that are based on widely exploited principles within the field. The tool presented in this paper is one that could fulfil such needs. The paper presents an overview of the tool -- THSim v3.2 -- and discusses some research questions that can be investigated with it
Forbush decreases and solar events seen in the 10 - 20GeV energy range by the Karlsruhe Muon Telescope
Since 1993, a muon telescope located at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe
(Karlsruhe Muon Telescope) has been recording the flux of single muons mostly
originating from primary cosmic-ray protons with dominant energies in the 10 -
20 GeV range. The data are used to investigate the influence of solar effects
on the flux of cosmic-rays measured at Earth. Non-periodic events like Forbush
decreases and ground level enhancements are detected in the registered muon
flux. A selection of recent events will be presented and compared to data from
the Jungfraujoch neutron monitor. The data of the Karlsruhe Muon Telescope help
to extend the knowledge about Forbush decreases and ground level enhancements
to energies beyond the neutron monitor regime.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, in Press AS
Non-crossing dependencies: Least effort, not grammar
The use of null hypotheses (in a statistical sense) is common in hard sciences but not in theoretical linguistics. Here the null hypothesis that the low frequency of syntactic dependency crossings is expected by an arbitrary ordering of words is rejected. It is shown that this would require star dependency structures, which are both unrealistic and too restrictive. The hypothesis of the limited resources of the human brain is revisited. Stronger null hypotheses taking into account actual dependency lengths for the likelihood of crossings are presented. Those hypotheses suggests that crossings are likely to reduce when dependencies are shortened. A hypothesis based on pressure to reduce dependency lengths is more parsimonious than a principle of minimization of crossings or a grammatical ban that is totally dissociated from the general and non-linguistic principle of economy.Postprint (author's final draft
The evolution of language: a comparative review
For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful "just so stories" about language origins. However, in the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language. I review some of this recent progress, focusing on the value of the comparative method, which uses data from animal species to draw inferences about language evolution. Discussing speech first, I show how data concerning a wide variety of species, from monkeys to birds, can increase our understanding of the anatomical and neural mechanisms underlying human spoken language, and how bird and whale song provide insights into the ultimate evolutionary function of language. I discuss the ‘‘descended larynx’ ’ of humans, a peculiar adaptation for speech that has received much attention in the past, which despite earlier claims is not uniquely human. Then I will turn to the neural mechanisms underlying spoken language, pointing out the difficulties animals apparently experience in perceiving hierarchical structure in sounds, and stressing the importance of vocal imitation in the evolution of a spoken language. Turning to ultimate function, I suggest that communication among kin (especially between parents and offspring) played a crucial but neglected role in driving language evolution. Finally, I briefly discuss phylogeny, discussing hypotheses that offer plausible routes to human language from a non-linguistic chimp-like ancestor. I conclude that comparative data from living animals will be key to developing a richer, more interdisciplinary understanding of our most distinctively human trait: language
Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19
Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease
Crustal thermal regime prior to, during and following rifting: A geochronological and modelling study of the Mesozoic South-Alpine rifted margin.
An approximately 15-km-thick segment of the Mesozoic passive continental margin of Adria was involved in Alpine shortening and is now exposed in the Lake Como-Lake Lugano area (southern Alps, northern Italy and southern Switzerland). The segment comprises the Monte Generoso basin, a deep (~9 km) extensional basin controlled by the activity of the Lugano-Val Grande normal fault. The paleosurface and Mesozoic geometric relations are well preserved so that the kinematics of fault blocks prior to, during, and after extension are well constrained. Rb/Sr