1,720,974 research outputs found
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
The Greek in Daniel 3: Code-switching, not loanwords
Get PDFThe presence of words deriving from Greek κιθάρα ‘cithara,’ σαμβύκη ‘sambuca,’ ψαλτήριον ‘psaltery,’ and συμφωνία ‘symphonia’ in Daniel 3 has long been taken as damning evidence against the traditional sixth-century B.C.E. date of composition for the book of Daniel. For the past 50 years, however, scholars have increasingly argued that Greek loanwords could have occurred in sixth-century Aramaic. This paper challenges the underlying assumption that the Greek words in Daniel 3 result from lexical borrowing. They are characterized by a lack of phonological and morphological integration. This suggests that they are not established loanwords, but instances of code-switching: Greek linguistic material was inserted into an Aramaic framework by a multilingual author, writing for an audience that was similarly multilingual. As widespread proficiency in Greek is not known to have occurred in the Near East before the Macedonian conquests of the 330s, the identification of these words as code-switches thus limits their use in Daniel 3 to the Hellenistic period and strongly suggests they were used for literary effect: together with the lack of Greek code-switching elsewhere in the chapter, they highlight the transience of worldly empires. The phonology of the Greek underlying these code-switches as revealed by the use of matres lectionis moreover points to a terminus post quem of ca. 200 B.C.E., later than the story collection of Daniel 2–6 is usually held to have been put together.sponsorship: FWO|1231920Nstatus: Publishe
The development of the Biblical Hebrew vowels
Get PDFIn historical linguistics, the prevailing view is that sound change is phonetically regular: within one language variety, the same sound in the same phonetic environment always undergoes the same sound changes, regardless of other factors like word meaning or part of speech. Many of the sound changes previously identified for Biblical Hebrew, however, seem to operate irregularly or only affect certain categories of words. Earlier attempts to make sense of these processes are either hindered by outdated assumptions about the nature of Hebrew, rely on implausible appeals to analogy, or offer explanations that are contradicted by other Hebrew data.
This dissertation takes a fresh, holistic look at the sound changes affecting the vowels of Biblical Hebrew, starting from the reconstructed Proto-Northwest-Semitic stage. The sound changes investigated include the Canaanite Shift (*ā > *ō), the contraction of diphthongs and triphthongs, (pre-)tonic and pausal lengthening, changes of *i > *a and *a > *i, and the loss of word-final vowels. Additionally, the interaction of these sound laws with various morphological changes is examined in a concise historical morphology of Biblical Hebrew. The conclusion is that purely phonetic conditions can indeed be established for practically all sound changes affecting the Biblical Hebrew vowels
Proto-Semitic existentials: *yθaw and *laθθaw
Get PDFA historical relationship has long been suspected between the Northwest Semitic existential particles like Biblical Hebrew יֵשׁ and Biblical Aramaic אִיתַי , negative existentials like Syriac layt and Akkadian laššu, the Arabic negative copula laysa, and the East Semitic verbs i-ša-wu “to exist” (Eblaite) and išû “to have” (Akkadian). But due to various formal and semantic problems, no Proto-Semitic reconstruction from which all these words can regularly be derived has yet been put forward. This article argues that the Akkadian sense of “to have” is typologically the oldest and reconstructs a Proto-Semitic grammaticalization of *yiyθaw “it has” to *yθaw “there is/are”. Also in Proto-Semitic, a negative counterpart was formed through contraction with the negative adverb “not”, yielding *layθaw and *laθθaw.FWO 1231920NDescriptive and Comparative Linguistic
The Origin of *s3 in the Ḥaḍramitic and Modern South Arabian Third Person Feminine Personal Pronouns
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The Modern South Arabian third person feminine pronouns show an unexpected reflex s for Proto-Semitic *s1. This s is argued to be the regular outcome of *s3 = *ts, which replaced *s1 = *s in these forms due to phonological reanalysis in constructions like *malkat sī’ ‘she is a queen’ → *malkat tsī’. In Ḥaḍramitic, these feminine pronouns also reflect *s3, but their relation to the Modern South Arabian forms remains unclear.Descriptive and Comparative LinguisticsLanguage Use in Past and PresentMiddle Eastern Studie
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
The old Aramaic “feminine” suffix -t as an accusative case ,arker
Get PDFA small number of Old Aramaic words attest a spelling of the inherited "feminine" suffixes as -t. Strikingly, all of these words occur in syntactic contexts where Proto-Semitic would use the accusative case. Wherever the nominative or genitive case is expected instead, the "feminine" suffix is not spelled with -t. This includes several forms that are here argued to showcase a development of the "feminine" plural ending *-āt- into *-ā, spelled -h in the Sefire inscriptions and left unspelled in the Tell Fekheriye inscription. This identification of-h and zero as spelling the "feminine" plural suffix provides us with enough evidence to establish the syntactic conditioning of-t in accusative contexts vs.-h or zero in other contexts. The retention of t in the accusative follows naturally from the longer retention of word-final *-a in Proto-Aramaic compared to *-u and *-i, which is supported by morphological developments in the verb. Together with the plene spelling of the "masculine" plural ending as -wn in nominative contexts and as -yn elsewhere in the Tell Fekheriye inscription, the identification of a separate accusative form of the "feminine" suffixes shows that Old Aramaic retained a partial contrast between the three Proto-Semitic cases. Later on, this case distinction was lost, while accusative forms in -t became lexicalized adverbs.NWOVI.Veni.191T.023Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe 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
Ordinal numerals as a criterion for subclassification: the case of semitic
Get PDFThis article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic
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