1,720,982 research outputs found
Indefinites, Dependent Plurality, and the Viability Requirement on Scalar Alternatives
No full textSpanish has two plural existential determiners, unos and algunos, which have been argued to contrast in a number of ways (Gutierrez-Rexach 2001, 2010; Marti 2008, 2009). In this paper, we analyze an unexplored difference between these two determiners. A sentence like esos chicos tienen unas cabezas grandes ('those kids have huge heads') has a dependent plural reading: it can be true in a situation where those kids have exactly one huge head each. In contrast, its counterpart with algunos (esos chicos tienen algunas cabezas grandes) would be odd in that situation. Surprisingly, however, algunos seems to block dependent plural readings only when those are the only readings allowed by world knowledge: a sentence like esos chicos tienen algunas monedas viejas ('those kids have some old coins') can be true and felicitous in situations where the kids have exactly one coin each. We argue that the dependent plural readings of unos are cumulative readings, and we link the different behavior of unos and algunos with respect to dependent plurality to another well-known difference between them: that only algunos is a scalar item. Our investigation of the scalar component of algunos leads us to putting forth the hypothesis that scalar items require that at least one of the alternatives that they evoke be compatible with common knowledge
When we fail to question in Japanese
No full textWhen we pay close attention to the prosody of Wh-questions in Japanese, we discover many novel and interesting empirical puzzles that would require us to devise a much finer syntactic component of grammar. This paper addresses the issues that pose some problems to such an elaborated grammar, and offers solutions, making an appeal to the information structure and sentence processing involved in the interpretation of interrogative and focus constructions
Modal indefinites
No full textAcross languages, we find indefinites that trigger modal inferences. This article contributes to a semantic typology of these items by contrasting Spanish algA(0)n with indefinites like German irgendein or Italian uno qualsiasi. While irgendein-type indefinites trigger a Free Choice effect (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002; Chierchia 2006), algA(0)n simply signals that at least two individuals in its domain are possibilities. Additionally, algA(0)n, but not irgendein, can convey that the speaker does not know how many individuals satisfy the existential claim in the world of evaluation. We contend that the two types of indefinites impose different constraints on their domain of quantification: irgendein and its kin are domain wideners (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002), whereas algA(0)n is an 'anti-singleton' indefinite (its domain cannot be restricted to a singleton). This, together with the fact that algA(0)n does not require uniqueness, allows us to derive the contrast between irgendein and algA(0)n by using the pragmatic reasoning presented by Kratzer and Shimoyama
Domain Restrictions, Modal Implicatures and Plurality: Spanish Algunos
No full textIn language after language, we find existential determiners that convey information about the speaker's epistemic state. To date, research on these 'epistemic indefinites' has focused on their singular forms. The present work brings plural epistemic indefinites into the picture by analysing the contrast between Spanish algun and its plural counterpart algunos. While algun signals speaker's ignorance, algunos does not. We provide an account of this contrast that builds on our previous research on algun (Alonso-Ovalle & Menendez-Benito 2008, 2010). In those works, we proposed that the epistemic effect conveyed by algun comes about because this indefinite imposes an antisingleton constraint on its domain of quantification. In this article, we argue that the interaction of this constraint with plurality blocks the epistemic effect. The analysis crucially hinges on the assumption that plural noun phrases are number neutral, as argued, for instance, in Sauerland et al. (2005), among others
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
