Esse y sta: selección de auxiliar en el dialecto del Aquila

This paper presents data on auxiliary selection in Aquilan dialect. It focuses on the two auxiliary verbs esse and sta, which respectively express a permanent and temporary property that holds for a given predicate. The goals of the paper are twofold. A first goal is to offer data on the distribution of these auxiliary verbs, filling an empirical void in the literature. A second goal is to offer a formal syntactic and semantic treatment of these two auxiliaries. This treatment is shown to make several predictions on the properties of these auxiliaries, and their interaction with other parts of speech.En este trabajo se presentan datos sobre la selección de auxiliar en el dialecto del Aquila. Se centra en los dos verbos auxiliares esse y esta, que respectivamente expresan una característica permanente y temporal que se mantiene para un predicado dado. Los objetivos del artículo son dos. El primero es ofrecer datos sobre la distribución de estos verbos auxiliares, llenando un vacío empírico en la bibliografía. El segundo es ofrecer un tratamiento formal de carácter sintáctico y semántico de estos dos auxiliares. Este tratamiento permite hacer varias predicciones sobre las propiedades de estos auxiliares y su interacción con otras partes del discurso

On the syntax and semantics of Italian spatial Ps

This paper offers a unified approach to Italian spatial prepositions, such as di fronte a ‘in front of’, verso ‘towards’, in ‘in’, dietro a ‘behind’, and nel mezzo di ‘in the middle of’. Three assumptions play a key role. First, Italian spatial prepositions can differ sensibly in their morphological structure, but share the same syntactic properties. Second, their sentential distribution is in part context-sensitive, thus based on the categories with which they combine. Third, their semantic contribution is “layered”, in the sense that it includes the meaning dimensions of both aspectual boundedness and specificity. The main result is a generalised theory on the structure and semantic interpretation of these prepositions

Which Side are You On? The Worlds of Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison is a key figure among the first wave of authors of the so-called British Generation (Sandifer and Eklund). The works of the other two creators, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, have been the basis for a wealth of scholarly research within the field of comics studies and whole constellations of literary scholarship (Sandifer and Eklund; Sanders; Krueger and Shaeffer; Millidge). Morrison\u27s fictional worlds, however, remain understudied, despite the fact that, as Marc Singer observes, Morrison\u27s work and career seem to be evenly distributed along a continuum ranging from the alternative Vertigo material to the mainstream superhero comics (Singer 10-30). Furthermore, what should be of interest to comics scholars is the peculiar character of Morrison\u27s method, which seems to lie in his unique approach to the creative process. A chaos magician, shrewd comic entrepreneur, self-proclaimed geek and a closet workaholic, Morrison has always juggled several projects at once, often transferring ideas and concepts across series as a result, using subtle references to Borges and Calvino together with obscure mentions of silver age characters of DC comics, as for instance Buddy Baker/Animal Man (Callahan; Shapira). Since Morrison has spread his intense commitment to artistic production over a vast continuum of work, the net result is that the boundaries between mainstream and alternative productions have become thin

First detection of X-ray polarization from the accreting neutron star 4U 1820-303

This paper reports the first detection of polarization in the X-rays for atoll-source 4U 1820-303, obtained with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) at 99.999% confidence level (CL). Simultaneous polarimetric measurements were also performed in the radio with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The IXPE observations of 4U 1820-303 were coordinated with Swift-XRT, NICER, and NuSTAR aiming to obtain an accurate X-ray spectral model covering a broad energy interval. The source shows a significant polarization above 4 keV, with a polarization degree of 2.0(0.5)% and a polarization angle of -55(7) deg in the 4-7 keV energy range, and a polarization degree of 10(2)% and a polarization angle of -67(7) deg in the 7-8 keV energy bin. This polarization also shows a clear energy trend with polarization degree increasing with energy and a hint for a position-angle change of about 90 deg at 96% CL around 4 keV. The spectro-polarimetric fit indicates that the accretion disk is polarized orthogonally to the hard spectral component, which is presumably produced in the boundary/spreading layer. We do not detect linear polarization from the radio counterpart, with a 99.97% upper limit of 50% at 7.25 GHz

X-ray pulsar GRO J1008−-57 as an orthogonal rotator

X-ray polarimetry is a unique way to probe geometrical configuration of highly-magnetized accreting neutron stars (X-ray pulsars). GRO J1008$-$57 is the first transient X-ray pulsar observed at two different flux levels by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) during its outburst in November 2022. The polarization properties were found to be independent of the source luminosity, with the polarization degree varying between non-detection to about 15% over the pulse phase. Fitting the phase-resolved spectro-polarimetric data with the rotating vector model allowed us to estimate the pulsar inclination (130 deg, which is in good agreement with the orbital inclination), the position angle (75 deg) of the pulsar spin axis, and the magnetic obliquity (74 deg). This makes GRO J1008$-$57 the first confidently identified X-ray pulsar as a nearly orthogonal rotator. The results are discussed in the context of the neutron star atmosphere models and theories of pulsars' axis alignment.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, submitted to A&A. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.0244

First X-ray polarization measurement confirms the low black-hole spin in LMC X-3

X-ray polarization is a powerful tool to investigate the geometry of accreting material around black holes, allowing independent measurements of the black hole spin and orientation of the innermost parts of the accretion disk. We perform the X-ray spectro-polarimetric analysis of an X-ray binary system in the Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC X-3, that hosts a stellar-mass black hole, known to be persistently accreting since its discovery. We report the first detection of the X-ray polarization in LMC X-3 with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, and find the average polarization degree of 3.2% +- 0.6% and a constant polarization angle -42 deg +- 6 deg over the 2-8 keV range. Using accompanying spectroscopic observations by NICER, NuSTAR, and the Neil Gehrels Swift observatories, we confirm previous measurements of the black hole spin via the X-ray continuum method, a ~ 0.2. From polarization analysis only, we found consistent results with low black-hole spin, with an upper limit of a < 0.7 at a 90% confidence level. A slight increase of the polarization degree with energy, similar to other black-hole X-ray binaries in the soft state, is suggested from the data but with a low statistical significance.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Tracking the X-ray Polarization of the Black Hole Transient Swift J1727.8-1613 during a State Transition

We report on a campaign on the bright black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8$-$1613 centered around five observations by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). This is the first time it has been possible to trace the evolution of the X-ray polarization of a black hole X-ray binary across a hard to soft state transition. The 2--8 keV polarization degree slowly decreased from $\sim$4\% to $\sim$3\% across the five observations, but remained in the North-South direction throughout. Using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), we measure the intrinsic 7.25 GHz radio polarization to align in the same direction. Assuming the radio polarization aligns with the jet direction (which can be tested in the future with resolved jet images), this implies that the X-ray corona is extended in the disk plane, rather than along the jet axis, for the entire hard intermediate state. This in turn implies that the long ($\gtrsim$10 ms) soft lags that we measure with the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) are dominated by processes other than pure light-crossing delays. Moreover, we find that the evolution of the soft lag amplitude with spectral state differs from the common trend seen for other sources, implying that Swift J1727.8$-$1613 is a member of a hitherto under-sampled sub-population.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 20 pages, 8 figure

On the structure of toponyms

This paper offers an account of toponyms (e.g. London, Shanghai, Roma, Kulosaari), in four languages on a cline of increasing morphological complexity: English, Mandarin, Italian and Finnish. The common morphological processes that underlie these four sets of toponyms are connected to their syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. An account is thus offered within a minimal version of Type-Logical syntax, coupled with a simple semantic analysis