Amharisch lernen mit Montessoris Wortartensymbolen

The study of Amharic presents German-speaking students with a rather difficult task. In addition to a new writing system and some unfamiliar sounds, they have to learn many grammatical structures that differ significantly from those found in the German language. This is especially true of the Amharic verbal system, which is characterized by a great variety of forms, some of which—the relative verbal form, the gerundive, or the qualifying copula constructions—do not exist in German. In addition, Amharic differs greatly from German in the arrangement of the elements within a sentence. These syntactic differences are a great challenge when learning Amharic. Thus, this article describes a method of learning some elements of Amharic syntax, making them more accessible to students. In order to make the grammatical structures visible, the word symbols developed by the Italian doctor and teacher Maria Montessori are used as aids. The individual types of words in a sentence are represented by symbols, for instance verbs by a red circle, nouns by a black triangle, or adjectives by a blue triangle, thus illustrating the word order and facilitating language learning.

Speakers and listeners exploit word order for communicative efficiency: A cross-linguistic investigation

Pragmatic theories and computational models of reference must account for people’s frequent use of redundant color adjectives (e.g., referring to a single triangle as ‘the blue triangle’). The standard pragmatic view holds that the informativity of a referential expression depends on pragmatic contrast: color adjectives should be used to contrast competitors of the same kind to preempt an ambiguity (e.g., between two triangles of different colors), otherwise they are redundant. Here we propose an alternative to the standard view, the incremental efficiency hypothesis, according to which the efficiency of a referential expression must be calculated incrementally, over the entire visual context. This is the first theoretical account of referential efficiency that is sensitive to the incrementality of language processing, making different cross-linguistic predictions depending on word order. Experiment 1 confirmed that English speakers produced more redundant color adjectives (e.g., ‘the blue triangle’) than Spanish speakers (e.g., ‘el triángulo azul’), but both language groups used more redundant color adjectives in denser displays where it would be more efficient. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we used eye tracking to show that pragmatic contrast is not a processing constraint. Instead, incrementality and efficiency determine that English listeners establish color contrast across categories (BLUE SHAPES > TRIANGULAR ONE), whereas Spanish listeners establish color contrast within a category (TRIANGLES > BLUE ONE). Spanish listeners, however, reversed their visual search strategy when tested in English immediately after. Our results show that speakers and listeners of different languages exploit word order to increase communicative efficiency.

EFEKTIVITAS KOMUNIKASI BADAN PENANGGULANGAN BENCANA DAERAH (BPBD) KABUPATEN BANJAR DALAM MENGURANGI RESIKO BENCANA BANJIR DI KABUPATEN BANJAR

This study aims to describe how the flood of information delivered via a variety of interpersonal communication activities include socializing, discussion and drills / simulations can be understood by people in the District Pengaron and Simpang Empat.What was raised by the officers of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) and its partners with all kinds of communication media were prepared very appealing to the public. They do play a role which is preferred when drills / simulations in the field.The symbols of communication in the form of a blue triangle emblem (symbol BPBDs). Meeting points, evacuation routes, pemantaub tool Anjir, and signs warning gong sounds in the form of code Early Warning System (EWS) and the notification of the place of worship can be understood by the people of the District and the District of Simpang Empat Pengaron Banjar district. Techniques used k omunikasi officers Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) Banjar district for the provision of information through the dissemination and discussion through the Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Community-Based and flood disaster management practices through drills / simulations of floods in the next events.Keywords: Effectiveness Of Communication, Disaster Management and Risks

On the Number of 2-SAT Functions

We give an alternative proof of a conjecture of Bollobás, Brightwell and Leader, first proved by Peter Allen, stating that the number of Boolean functions definable by 2-SAT formulae is $(1+o(1))2^{\binom{n+1}{2}}$. $(1+o(1))2^{\scurvy{n+1}{2}}$. One step in the proof determines the asymptotics of the number of ‘odd-blue-triangle-free’ graphs on n vertices.

On the Mental Representation of Conditional Sentences

Four experiments are reported which attempt to externalize subjects’ mental representation of conditional sentences, using novel research methods. In Experiment 1, subjects were shown arrays of coloured shapes and asked to rate the degree to which they appeared to be true of conditional statements such as “If the figure is green then it is a triangle”. The arrays contained different distributions of the four logically possible cases in which the antecedent or consequent is true or false: TT, TF, FT, and FF. For example, a blue triangle would be FT for the conditional quoted above. In Experiments 2 to 4, subjects were able to construct their own arrays to make conditionals either true or false with any distribution of the four cases they wished to choose. The presence and absence of negative components was varied, as was the form of the conditional, being either “if then” as above or “only if”: “The figure is green only if it is a triangle”. The first finding was that subjects represent conditionals in fuzzy way: conditionals that include some counter-example TF cases (Experiment 1) may be rated as true, and such cases are often included when subjects construct an array to make the rule true (Experiments 2 to 4). Other findings included a strong tendency to include psychologically irrelevant FT and FF cases in constructed arrays, presumably to show that conditional statements only apply some of the time. A tendency to construct cases in line with the “matching bias” reported on analogous tasks in the literature was found, but only in Experiment 4, where the number of symbols available to construct each case was controlled. The findings are discussed in relation to the major contemporary theories of conditional reasoning based upon inference rules and mental models, neither of which can account for all the results.

The large-blue-triangle: a matter of logic

Learning activities that encourage students to think logically and to discover valid modes of reasoning are receiving increased attention in the elementary mathematics curriculum. Several excellent games through which children learn to ask good questions and to make efficient use of available information have been described in the Arithmetic Teacher (Gessel et al. 1972, Aichele 1972). A concrete setting for a variety of experiences for developing principles of logical reasoning is provided by a set of attribute blocks (Dienes and Golding 1966). In this article a guessing-type game based on these materials is described. While the game in its simplest form can be played and enjoyed by children in the primary grades, it can also be used as a point of departure for worthwhile activities for junior and senior high school students.