Left-Dislocation in Japanese and Information Structure Theory

国立国語研究所 言語対照研究系 非常勤研究員(元)[former] Adjunct Researcher, Department of Crosslinguistic Studies, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics日本語の左方転位構文(文頭への移動などの派生は想定しない)を検討し,3つの主張をした。(I)左方転位構文の通言語的な機能:従来,左方転位句は文の題目をアナウンスすると言われてきたが,日本語・韓国語・英語では焦点をアナウンスすることもできる。(例(誰が一朗を殺した犯人でしたか?)山田次朗,彼[=焦点]が犯人でした。)(II)情報構造理論:日本語・韓国語では変項を含んだ命題を表す間接疑問節が左方転位され,文の題目をアナウンスできる(例 なぜ帰ったのか,理由は簡単だ。)。従って,それが表わす変項を含んだ命題も題目やdiscourse referentになれると言える。(III)日本語の題目的な無助詞名詞句と言われているものは指摘されている機能が左方転位句のものと酷似しており,左方転位名詞句で主節内にそれを受ける代名詞がないものだと考えられる。The present paper has put forward three arguments pertaining to left-dislocation in Japanese and information structure theory (Lambrecht 1994). (i) The function of left-dislocation is not limited to announcing the topic of the following clause. It can announce not only topic but also focus, for in Japanese, Korean, and English, left-dislocation can be employed in answering a wh-question. (ii) Since indirect question clauses including an interrogative can be left-dislocated, open propositions represented by such clauses are eligible as a topic, not to speak of a discourse referent. (iii) The function and features of left-dislocated elements are quite similar to those of Japanese bare topical NPs which have been pointed out in previous studies, and the structure of left-dislocation is consistent with that of topical bare NPs. Japanese topical bare NPs can be considered left-dislocated elements with their coreferential pronoun ellipted

A New Disorder in UV-Induced Skin Cancer with Defective DNA Repair Distinct from Xeroderma Pigmentosum or Cockayne Syndrome

We report the characterization of a Japanese woman who exhibited many freckles and skin cancers in sun-exposed areas, but displayed no photosensitivity. Fibroblasts (KPSX7) derived from this patient showed similar UV sensitivity to that of normal human fibroblasts. The KPSX7 cells showed normal levels of unscheduled DNA synthesis, recovery of RNA synthesis, recovery of replicative DNA synthesis, protein-binding ability to UV-damaged DNA, and post-translational modification of xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) C. These results indicate that the patient had neither XP nor Cockayne syndrome. Although these results suggest that the KPSX7 cells were proficient in nucleotide excision repair activity, host-cell reactivation (HCR) activity of KPSX7 cells was reduced. Furthermore, introduction of UV damage endonuclease into the cells restored repair activity in the HCR assay to almost normal levels. These results indicate that KPSX7 cells are defective for some types of repair activity in UV-damaged DNA. In summary, the patient had a previously unknown disorder related to UV-induced carcinogenesis, with defective DNA repair

レメディアル ダイガク エイゴ キョウイク ニ オケル エイワ ジテン シヨウホウ ノ キョウイク ニ ツイテ ノ オボエガキ

This paper discusses the whys, whats, and hows of teaching English–Japanese dictionary use in remedial English courses at university. After a brief introduction, I describe the context of this study. This study is based on my experience of teaching dictionary use in remedial classes. Next, I explain why I call for dictionary usage to be taught in some universities. It may be assumed that as long as learners know the alphabetical order and read Japanese, they can readily use English– Japanese dictionaries, even if they do not have a habit of using them, which is very often not the case when they are not familiar with the microstructure of dictionaries, in other words, how information is encoded and presented in an entry. Without microstructure knowledge and skills, users are often misled by dictionaries. This fact is illustrated by the results of my dictionary usage test, in which students answered mostly multiple-choice questions, first without dictionaries, and then with dictionaries. With dictionaries, the scores of students in remedial courses increased from 28% to 37%. Among cases in which they changed their answers with dictionaries, they switched from wrong answers to correct answers in only about 30 to 40% of the cases. Most surprising are the results of four questions that ask for a contextually appropriate meaning of a verb. The answers to all the four questions are not the meaning that is typically listed first in a dictionary entry, and such meanings are among distractors. The percentage of correct answers dropped from 23% without dictionaries to 13% with dictionaries. Furthermore, only 40% of the students who had chosen the right answer without dictionaries preserved their correct choice, and roughly the same number of them converted to first-listed distractors. As a result, the percentage of the first-listed distractors increased from 43% to 57%. Lastly, in only 4% of cases did students convert to correct answers. This teaches us that learners need to know how to use dictionaries to avoid being misled. Finally, I propose, in the case of dictionary teaching in remedial courses at university, to focus on how to disambiguate unclear words based on lexico-grammatical information in dictionaries. To that end, dictionary users need to recognize numerous correspondences within a dictionary, and between a dictionary and a text they are reading. I exemplify the disambiguation process, showing how adept users employ lexico-grammatical information to disambiguate an ambiguous word in a sentence.研究ノー

Human RAD18 is involved in S phase-specific single-strand break repair without PCNA monoubiquitination

Switching from a replicative to a translesion polymerase is an important step to further continue on replication at the site of DNA lesion. Recently, RAD18 (a ubiquitin ligase) was shown to monoubiquitinate proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in cooperation with RAD6 (a ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme) at the replication-stalled sites, causing the polymerase switch. Analyzing RAD18-knockout (RAD18−/−) cells generated from human HCT116 cells, in addition to the polymerase switch, we found a new function of RAD18 for S phase-specific DNA single-strand break repair (SSBR). Unlike the case with polymerase switching, PCNA monoubiquitination was not necessary for the SSBR. When compared with wild-type HCT116 cells, RAD18−/− cells, defective in the repair of X-ray-induced chromosomal aberrations, were significantly hypersensitive to X-ray-irradiation and also to the topoisomerase I inhibitor camptothecin (CPT) capable of inducing single-strand breaks but were not so sensitive to the topoisomerase II inhibitor etoposide capable of inducing double-strand breaks. However, such hypersensitivity to CPT observed with RAD18−/− cells was limited to only the S phase due to the absence of the RAD18 S phase-specific function. Furthermore, the defective SSBR observed in S phase of RAD18−/− cells was also demonstrated by alkaline comet assay

シザ ヲ フカン シタ ニンチテキ メタ ケジジョウガク ノ ココロミ コウセイ ノ アンチノミー ヲ メグッテ

論文Article

Effect of DNA Repair Protein Rad18 on Viral Infection

Host factors belonging to the DNA repair machineries are assumed to aid retroviruses in the obligatory step of integration. Here we describe the effect of DNA repair molecule Rad18, a component of the post-replication repair pathway, on viral infection. Contrary to our expectations, cells lacking Rad18 were consistently more permissive to viral transduction as compared to Rad18(+/+) controls. Remarkably, such susceptibility was integration independent, since retroviruses devoid of integration activity also showed enhancement of the initial steps of infection. Moreover, the elevated sensitivity of the Rad18(−/−) cells was also observed with adenovirus. These data indicate that Rad18 suppresses viral infection in a non-specific fashion, probably by targeting incoming DNA. Furthermore, considering data published recently, it appears that the interactions between DNA repair components with incoming viruses, often result in inhibition of the infection rather than cooperation toward its establishment