Media-style autobiography (as exemplified by Unauthorized autobiography of Kuba Wojewódzki)

The subject of a detailed analysis presented in this article is the Unauthorized Autobiography of Kuba Wojewódzki. A thorough review of the collected source material enabled the author to characterize this popular genre and indicate its role in a media space. The genological description draws attention to four aspects of the genre pattern. The regularities or deviations from the canonical pattern perceived in this area deepen the knowledge of contemporary autobiography and allows one to capture what makes it attractive.

The Formation of Verbs of Emotion in Arabic

This study aims to explore the characteristics of the formation of Arabic verbal forms within the semantic field of emotions. The paper adopts an analytical statistical method to provide a comprehensive analysis involving three aspects: word-formation of each verbal form; syntactic behaviour of each verbal form in terms of transitivity; and the existence of underived verbal forms in Jordanian Arabic. It examines the derivation of the ten verbal forms (Form I – Form X) from 100 roots within the semantic field of emotions by checking their existence in Arabic dictionaries. The analysed data shows that a Form I verb (the base form in Arabic) is derived 171 times by applying six canonical patterns to 100 roots, generalising that Form I verbs of emotions tend to follow the pattern C1aC2iC3. On the other hand, each of Form II – Form X has a single canonical pattern; applying these patterns to a given root leads to an augmented verb. However, the analysed data shows that 350 Form II – Form X verbs have been derived. The study concludes that the highest derivable form is Form IV, while Form IX is not derived within this semantic field. The study also examines the syntactic behaviour of Form I – Form X verbs, and the analysed data shows a sharp shift from one form to another. Furthermore, in terms of the underived Arabic verbal forms (Form II – Form X) which are not listed in Arabic dictionaries, this study examines their existence in Jordanian Arabic. The findings could be the basis of further work on other semantic fields such as verbs of motion, verbs of social interaction, and verbs of mental process. The outcome of this study will be also useful for NLP applications such as Arabic e-dictionaries, wordnet and ontology applications. Keywords: Verbs of Emotion, Arabic Morphology, Verbal Derivation, Jordanian Dialect.

Positional dependency in Murrinhpatha: expanding the typology of non-canonical morphotactics

Principles of morphotactics are a major source of morphological diversity amongst the world’s languages, and it is well-known that languages exhibit many different types of deviation from a canonical ideal in which there is a unique and consistent mapping between function and form. In this paper we present data from Murrinhpatha (non-Pama-Nyungan, northern Australia) that demonstrates a type of non-canonical morphotactics so far unattested in the literature, one which we call positional dependency. This type is unusual in that the non-canonical pattern is driven by morphological form rather than by morphosyntactic function. In this case the realisation of one morph is dependent on the position in the verbal template of another morph. Thus, it is the linearisation of morphs that conditions the morphological realisation, not the morphosyntactic feature set. Positional dependency in Murrinhpatha thus expands our typology of content-form interactions and non-canonical morphotactics with implications for our understanding of morphological structure cross-linguistically.

Separable EEG Features Induced by Timing Prediction for Active Brain-Computer Interfaces

Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) have witnessed a rapid development in recent years. However, the active BCI paradigm is still underdeveloped with a lack of variety. It is imperative to adapt more voluntary mental activities for the active BCI control, which can induce separable electroencephalography (EEG) features. This study aims to demonstrate the brain function of timing prediction, i.e., the expectation of upcoming time intervals, is accessible for BCIs. Eighteen subjects were selected for this study. They were trained to have a precise idea of two sub-second time intervals, i.e., 400 ms and 600 ms, and were asked to measure a time interval of either 400 ms or 600 ms in mind after a cue onset. The EEG features induced by timing prediction were analyzed and classified using the combined discriminative canonical pattern matching and common spatial pattern. It was found that the ERPs in low-frequency (0~4 Hz) and energy in high-frequency (20~60 Hz) were separable for distinct timing predictions. The accuracy reached the highest of 93.75% with an average of 76.45% for the classification of 400 vs. 600 ms timing. This study first demonstrates that the cognitive EEG features induced by timing prediction are detectable and separable, which is feasible to be used in active BCIs controls and can broaden the category of BCIs.

Studying early embryogenesis in the flatwormMaritigrella crozieriindicates a unique modification of the spiral cleavage program in polyclad flatworms

BackgroundSpiral cleavage is a conserved early developmental mode found in several phyla of Lophotrochozoans with highly diverse adult body plans. While the cleavage pattern has clearly been broadly conserved, it has also undergone many modifications in various taxa. The precise mechanisms of how different adaptations have altered the ancestral spiral cleavage pattern is an important ongoing evolutionary question and adequately answering this question requires obtaining a broad developmental knowledge of different spirally cleaving taxa.In flatworms (Platyhelminthes), the spiral cleavage program has been lost or severely modified in most taxa. Polyclad flatworms, however, have retained the pattern up to the 32-cell stage. Here we study early embryogenesis of the cotylean polyclad flatwormMaritigrella crozierito investigate how closely this species follows the canonical spiral cleavage pattern and to discover any potential deviations from it.ResultsUsing live imaging recordings and 3D reconstructions of embryos, we give a detailed picture of the events that occur during spiral cleavage inM. crozieri. We suggest, contrary to previous observations, that the 4-cell stage is a product of unequal cleavages. We show that that the formation of third and fourth micromere quartets are accompanied by strong blebbing events; blebbing also accompanies the formation of micromere 4d. We find an important deviation from the canonical pattern of cleavages with clear evidence that micromere 4d follows an atypical cleavage pattern, so far exclusively found in polyclad flatworms.ConclusionsOur findings highlight that early development inM. crozierideviates in several important aspects from the canonical spiral cleavage pattern. We suggest that some of our observations extend to polyclad flatworms in general as they have been described in both suborders of the Polycladida, the Cotylea and Acotylea.

Sexually dimorphic differentiation of a C. elegans hub neuron is cell-autonomously controlled by a conserved transcription factor

SUMMARYFunctional and anatomical sexual dimorphisms in the brain are either the result of cells that are generated only in one sex, or a manifestation of sex-specific differentiation of neurons present in both sexes. The PHC neurons of the nematode C. elegans differentiate in a strikingly sex-specific manner. While in hermaphrodites the PHC neurons display a canonical pattern of synaptic connectivity similar to that of other sensory neurons, PHC differentiates into a densely connected hub sensory/interneuron in males, integrating a large number of male-specific synaptic inputs and conveying them to both male-specific and sex-shared circuitry. We describe that the differentiation into such a hub neuron involves the sex-specific scaling of several components of the synaptic vesicle machinery, including the vesicular glutamate transporter eat-4/VGLUT, induction of neuropeptide expression, changes in axonal projection morphology and a switch in neuronal function. We demonstrate that these molecular and anatomical remodeling events are controlled cell-autonomously by the phylogenetically conserved Doublesex homolog dmd-3, which is both required and sufficient for sex-specific PHC differentiation. Cellular specificity of dmd-3 action is ensured by its collaboration with non-sex specific terminal selector-type transcription factors whereas sex-specificity of dmd-3 action is ensured by the hermaphrodite-specific master regulator of hermaphroditic cell identity, the Gli-like transcription factor tra-1, which transcriptionally represses dmd-3 in hermaphrodite PHC. Taken together, our studies provide mechanistic insights into how neurons are specified in a sexually dimorphic manner.

The interplay between agency and constraint: some departures from the organization of talk in the classroom

Since the first description of classroom talk from a conversation analytic perspective, the field has significantly expanded, providing a comprehensive account of the system that operates in the specific setting. However, apart from the system that defines the boundaries of the participants’ permissible conduct, the departures from it have received little attention, forming a vague picture of the parties’ opportunities for deviant behavior. The present paper explores exactly this aspect, illuminating the other side of the coin. In particular, students’ departures from the canonical pattern are examined and a broad classification of them (institutionally oriented versus institution-threatening departures) is proposed. The analysis demonstrates the import of those departures and the way they contribute to students’ exercise of agency.

Lexical coding vs. syntactic marking of homogeneity

The purpose of this article is to substantiate the claim that the semantic feature of homogeneity manifests itself differently in different languages. By contrasting data from Spanish and Danish it is shown that homogeneity is lexically coded in Danish nouns, whereas Spanish nouns are lexically neutral to homogeneity. In Spanish the homogeneity interpretation of nouns is determined when they are inserted into a syntactic structure. The empirical relevance of this assumption is assessed by investigating syntactic and semantic aspects related to the occurrence of bare nominals in object position in the two languages under scrutiny. It is well-known that Spanish as a canonical pattern does not semantically license bare singular nouns with count interpretation (BNs) in object position, viz. #Juan repara coche [Juan repairs car], while in Danish the occurrence of BNs in object position is both possible and normal, viz. Ole maler hus [Ole paints house]. It is argued that this contrast is a predictable consequence of the premise that, in Spanish, transitive activity verbs impose a mass reading on any bare object noun whereas, in Danish, BNs maintain their lexically encoded denotation as inhomogeneous entities. However, contrasting with the leading pattern, the so-called HAVE-verbs (Borthen, 2003) actually license Spanish BNs in object position (cf., e.g., Espinal, 2010; Espinal & Mcnally, 2011), viz. Juan tiene perro [Juan has dog]. It is claimed that the occurrence of BNs in these cases is strongly related to the assumption that HAVE-verbs, contrary to activity verbs, are functionally non-eventive and, therefore, do not impose a specific homogeneity reading on the bare noun in object position.