What tone teaches us about language

In ‘Tone: Is it different?’ (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that ‘tone is like segmental phonology in every way—only more so’, emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of phonology, morphology, and syntax, each time posing the question, ‘What else is like this outside of tone?’. A particularly interesting property that is strictly limited to tone is what I term syntagmatic relativity. I suggest that the uniqueness of tonal phenomena is due to the versatility of pitch, which can be manipulated with a wide range of linguistic functions. Given this versatility, I end by considering the question, ‘Why isn’t tone universal?’.*

The Massachusetts Health Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In spring 2006, Massachusetts enacted legislation to ensure universal health insurance coverage to all residents. The legislation was a hybrid of ideas from across the political spectrum, promoted by a moderately conservative Republican governor with national political aspirations, and passed by a liberal Democratic state House and Senate. Groups from across the political spectrum supported the plan, from the Heritage Foundation on the right to Families USA on the left, although the plan had detractors from across the political spectrum as well. This study briefly describes the basic structure of the Massachusetts plan and identifies the good, the bad, and the ugly. Although the legislation, as Stuart Altman put it, "is not a typical Massachusetts -- Taxachusetts, oh -- just -- crazy -- liberal plan," there is enough "bad" and "ugly" in the mix to raise serious concerns, particularly when the desire to overregulate the health insurance market appears to be hard -- wired into Massachusetts policymakers' DNA. If we want to make health insurance more affordable and avoid the "bad" and the "ugly" of the Massachusetts plan, Congress -- or, barring that, individual states -- should consider a "regulatory federalism" approach. Under such an approach, insurers and insurance purchasers would be required to subject themselves to the laws and regulations of a single state but allowed to select the state. As with corporate charters, this system would allow employers and insurers to select the regulatory regime that most efficiently and cost -- effectively matches the needs of their risk pools. The ability of purchasers and insurers to exit from the state's regulatory oversight (taking their premium taxes with them) would temper opportunistic behavior by legislators and regulators, including the temptation to impose inefficient mandates and otherwise overregulate

Getting the Haves to Come out Behind: Fixing the Distributive Injustices of American Health Care

Hyman criticizes an article by Havighurst and Richman regarding the distributive injustices of US health care. Hyman also offers a guide for implementing policy reforms based on the analysis by Havighurst and Richman

The Domestic Violence Component of the New York Task Force Report on Women in the Courts: An Evaluation and Assessment of New York City Courts

This piece contains the findings of a survey conducted to evaluate the impact of the New York Task Force On Women in the Court\u27s Report in the area of domestic violence and of the progress that has taken place since the Report\u27s publication. The authors hope to provide insight not only into the next steps that should be taken in New York City, but also into the most effective methods of implementing change to combat bias against women in the courtroom. The authors conclude that although progress has been made in the area of combating bias against women in the courtroom, especially in domestic violence cases, the original issues of bias identified by the Task Force are still very prevalent and must be attacked with educational programs for court employees, judges, practitioners and police

"The Capitalist Development of the Economy and the Structure of Financial Institutions"

This paper evolves from the sharp contrast in Smithian and Keynesian views about the relationship between the financial structure and the economy. The Smithian perspective implies that the financial structure is irrelevant, whereas the Keynesian position concludes that effective financing is necessary for the "capital development of the economy"- there is also a need to constrain any tendency of what Keynes referred to as speculation to dominate. Thus, the essential elements of equilibrium in Keynesian theory, the financial theory of investment and the investment theory of business cycles, are most apt when examined as outcomes of processes that operate over time. During the 1980s, there was a sharp increase in speculative financing resulting from the trend toward leveraged buyouts and the rising demand for short-term marketable corporate liabilities. A main characteristic of a capitalist economy that is stagnant or immersed in a depression is that the capital development of the economy is not progressing. The 1980s were filled with examples of financing inept investments, while the current climate is one of grossly inadequate investment levels to create a progressive full-employment economy. The financial instability interpretation of Keynes rests upon the profitability of debt financing, and incorporates the potential collapse of asset values in an environment of speculative and Ponzi financing. Consequently, the financial structure is significantly more fragile today than earlier in the post World War II era.

Implementing Privacy Policy: Who Should Do What?

Academic scholarship on privacy has focused on the substantive rules and policies governing the protection of personal data. An extensive literature has debated alternative approaches for defining how private and public institutions can collect and use information about individuals. But, the attention given to the what of U.S. privacy regulation has overshadowed consideration of how and by whom privacy policy should be formulated and implemented. U.S. privacy policy is an amalgam of activity by a myriad of federal, state, and local government agencies. But, the quality of substantive privacy law depends greatly on which agency or agencies are running the show. Unfortunately, such implementation-related matters have been discounted or ignored— with the clear implication that they only need to be addressed after the “real” work of developing substantive privacy rules is completed. As things stand, the development and implementation of U.S. privacy policy is compromised by the murky allocation of responsibilities and authority among federal, state, and local governmental entities—compounded by the inevitable tensions associated with the large number of entities that are active in this regulatory space. These deficiencies have had major adverse consequences, both domestically and internationally. Without substantial upgrades of institutions and infrastructure, privacy law and policy will continue to fall short of what it could (and should) achieve

"Finance and Stability: The Limits of Capitalism"

Once again the United States economy is facing a crisis, resolution of which first requires the realization that there are many types of capitalism: Solutions implemented in the past, therefore, may or may not be an appropriate solution today, as they could have been implemented as an answer to a problem posed within the context of a different model. Alternatively, the solution may lie in the implementation of a totally new economic regime in answer to reoccurring problems inherent in capitalism in general. The implementation of a new model is not a unique happening in United States economic history. The interventionist model-set in motion by President Roosevelt in answer to the failure of the laissez-faire model in the 1930s-dealt with the obvious flaw inherent in capitalism in general namely, its inability to maintain a level of aggregate demand consistent with full employment. Implementation of the interventionist model prevented a massive depression of the type experienced in the 1930s from being repeated due to the larger role played by the government sector in maintaining demand via active fiscal policy, while moderating inflation through the use of monetary policy. The interventionist model also recognized the less obvious, deeper flaw of capitalism-namely, the manner in which the financial system can adversely affect the price of assets relative to that of current output. Absent any interventionist policy, the resulting decline in private investment and profits leads to a downward spiral and collapse of the financial sector. The institutional roadblocks included in the interventionist model were sufficient to avert large disequilibriums in asset and output prices, thereby sustaining profits and precluding a deep recession. (Indeed, the Federal Reserve was not forced to act to avert a financial crisis until 1968, when problems arose in the commercial paper market.) The interventionist model, however, was abrogated during the 1980s with the reinstitution of a new laissez-faire model. The new model eliminated many of the restrictions imposed on financial sector, massive increases in national deficits through unproductive public sector spending (made even more inefficient by the resulting interest on the debt), and the growth of speculative financing schemes that left us with too many highly indebted firms. A large, financially induced depression was contained only through the reintroduction of massive governing monetary and fiscal intervention in the form of the S&L bailout and the maintenance of profits with massive deficits. Although the subsequent drop in interest rates has resulted in a rise in asset values and somewhat abated the turmoil in the financial markets, the economy continues to stagnate.

Integrating Spatial Working Memory and Remote Memory: Interactions between the Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Hippocampus

In recent years, two separate research streams have focused on information sharing between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus (HC). Research into spatial working memory has shown that successful execution of many types of behaviors requires synchronous activity in the theta range between the mPFC and HC, whereas studies of memory consolidation have shown that shifts in area dependency may be temporally modulated. While the nature of information that is being communicated is still unclear, spatial working memory and remote memory recall is reliant on interactions between these two areas. This review will present recent evidence that shows that these two processes are not as separate as they first appeared. We will also present a novel conceptualization of the nature of the medial prefrontal representation and how this might help explain this area’s role in spatial working memory and remote memory recall

Diagnosing the DSM: Diagnostic classification needs fundamental reform

Editor’s Note: If all goes as planned, the American Psychiatric Association will release a new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013. Since 1980, the DSM has provided a shared diagnostic language to clinicians, patients, scientists, school systems, courts, and pharmaceutical and insurance companies; any changes to the influential manual will have serious ramifications. But, argues Dr. Steven Hyman, the DSM is a poor mirror of clinical and biological realities; a fundamentally new approach to diagnostic classification is needed as researchers uncover novel ways to study and understand mental illness