A Pluralistic Theory of Wordhood

What are words and how should we individuate them? There are two main answers on the philosophical market. For some, words are bundles of structural-functional features defining a unique performance profile. For others, words are non-eternal continuants individuated by their causal-historical ancestry. These conceptions offer competing views of the nature of words, and it seems natural to assume that at most one of them can capture the essence of wordhood. This paper makes a case for pluralism about wordhood: the view that there is a plurality of acceptable conceptions of the nature of words, none of which is uniquely entitled to inform us as to what wordhood consists in

English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers: effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first and dominant language on L2 and L3 morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g., taxi driver) and non-compounds provided by a group of native speakers and three groups of learners at various levels of English proficiency: L1 Spanish-L2 English sequential bilinguals and two groups of early Spanish-Basque bilinguals with English as their L3. Crucially, the two trilingual groups differed in their first and dominant language (i.e., L1 Spanish-L2 Basque vs. L1 Basque-L2 Spanish). Our materials exploit an (a)symmetry between these languages: while Basque and English pattern together in the basic structure of (productive) NV-er compounds, Spanish presents a construction that differs in directionality as well as inflection of the verbal element (V[3SG] + N). Results show between and within group differences in accuracy and response times that may be ascribable to two factors besides proficiency: the number of languages spoken by a given participant and their dominant language. An examination of response bias reveals an influence of the participants' first and dominant language on the processing of NV-er compounds. Our data suggest that morphological information in the nonnative lexicon may extend beyond morphemic structure and that, similarly to bilingualism, there are costs to sequential multilingualism in lexical retrieval

Enhancing Long-Haul 15-Mode Fiber Performance: Mode Permutation for Reduced Modal Dispersion

We explore the efficacy of mode permutation to mitigate the impact of modal dispersion in a 15-mode fiber link for long-haul space-division multiplexed transmission. By introducing strong coupling between all the fiber modes, mode permutation reduces the growth rate of the link's intensity impulse response (IIR) with transmission distance, yielding a reduction in the receiver MIMO-DSP complexity. Using a recirculating fiber-loop configuration, we experimentally compare four permutation schemes and find that they are similarly effective in reducing the increase of the IIR duration from proportional to the square-root of propagation distance. At the reach of 530 km - the largest achievable with the time-domain MIMO window of 71.4 ns available in the experiment in the absence of mode permutation - the IIR duration is seen to reduce from almost 40 ns to less than 15 ns, while the maximum reach achieved with the use of mode permutation increases to 1178 km. We also devise a simple model to simulate propagation in realistic MMF links with independent fiber spans, whose parameters can be conveniently extracted from the data. In achieving good agreement between the simulated and experimental results, the model suggests that the effectiveness of mode permutation in a realistic 15-mode fiber link, composed of independent fiber spans, is only slightly greater than in the experimental recirculating-loop configuration

Cancer Genomics Identifies Regulatory Gene Networks Associated with the Transition from Dysplasia to Advanced Lung Adenocarcinomas Induced by c-Raf-1

Background: Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer morbidity. To improve an understanding of molecular causes of disease a transgenic mouse model was investigated where targeted expression of the serine threonine kinase c-Raf to respiratory epithelium induced initialy dysplasia and subsequently adenocarcinomas. This enables dissection of genetic events associated with precancerous and cancerous lesions. Methodology/Principal Findings: By laser microdissection cancer cell populations were harvested and subjected to whole genome expression analyses. Overall 473 and 541 genes were significantly regulated, when cancer versus transgenic and non-transgenic cells were compared, giving rise to three distinct and one common regulatory gene network. At advanced stages of tumor growth predominately repression of gene expression was observed, but genes previously shown to be upregulated in dysplasia were also up-regulated in solid tumors. Regulation of developmental programs as well as epithelial mesenchymal and mesenchymal endothelial transition was a hall mark of adenocarcinomas. Additionaly, genes coding for cell adhesion, i.e. the integrins and the tight and gap junction proteins were repressed, whereas ligands for receptor tyrosine kinase such as epi- and amphiregulin were up-regulated. Notably, Vegfr- 2 and its ligand Vegfd, as well as Notch and Wnt signalling cascades were regulated as were glycosylases that influence cellular recognition. Other regulated signalling molecules included guanine exchange factors that play a role in an activation of the MAP kinases while several tumor suppressors i.e. Mcc, Hey1, Fat3, Armcx1 and Reck were significantly repressed. Finally, probable molecular switches forcing dysplastic cells into malignantly transformed cells could be identified. Conclusions/Significance: This study provides insight into molecular pertubations allowing dysplasia to progress further to adenocarcinoma induced by exaggerted c-Raf kinase activity

Morfologia Construcional: principais ideias, aplicação ao português e extensões necessárias

Neste trabalho, apresentamos o modelo de Morfologia Construcional (Construction Morphology) desenvolvido por Booij (2005, 2007, 2010), condensando seus diferentes trabalhos. Com base nessa apresentação, mostramos as vantagens desse modelo na descrição de diversos fenômenos morfológicos do português. Como resultado, não somente propomos uma nova abordagem para a formação e a estruturação de palavras complexas, mas também sugerimos instrumentos teóricos adicionais, de modo a especificar, com maior riqueza de detalhes, o polo semântico das construções morfológicas. Focalizamos, no trabalho, sobretudo, (a) as chamadas formas combinatórias (GONÇALVES, 2011), a exemplo de -nejo e caipi-, que criam padrões lexicais semelhantes aos de afixos, (b) o salto de etapas na formação de palavras (SANDMANN, 1994), observável, por exemplo, em construções como “desratizar” e “churrascabilidade”, com concatenação simultânea de dois afixos, e (c) os padrões derivacionais gerais (BASILIO, 1980), por meio dos quais duas construções morfológicas interagem, por se pressuporem mutuamente, como X-ista e X-ismo, em dados do tipo “marxismo”/“marxista” e “budismo”/“budista”