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The article discusses theoretical repercussions of a number of diachronic corpus studies establishing the patters of development of marked indefinites across languages (Aguilar-Guevara et al. 2012). The focus is on the case of wh-based free choice (FC) indefinites. After summarising the key results of two studies on the historical development of Spanish cualquiera and Dutch wie dan ook, we present a semantic analysis of the diachronic phases of these two FC indefinites demonstrating how historical data provide additional support for the abstract operators posited by analyses in Alternative Semantics style (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, Aloni 2007, Menéndez-Benito 2010).

Contains fulltext : 228972.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (COGSCI 2020), 29 juli 2020

There are two prominent treatments of disjunction in formal semantics. Traditionally, disjunction is taken to express an operator that applies to any two elements A and B of a Boolean algebra and yields their join. In particular, if A and B are propositions, then disjunction delivers their union, . Another, more recent proposal is to treat disjunction as expressing an operator that can apply to any two objects of the same semantic type, and yields the set consisting of these two objects. In particular, if disjunction applies to two propositions A and B, it delivers a set of propositional alternatives, . Each of the two approaches has certain merits that the other one lacks. Thus, it would be desirable to reconcile the two, combining their respective strengths. This paper shows that this is indeed possible, if we adopt a notion of meaning that does not just take truth-conditional, informative content into consideration, but also inquisitive content.

This paper offers an account of the fact that certain verbs license wh-questions as their complement but not whether-questions. For instance, it is felicitous to say It is surprising who Bill had invited but not to say It is surprising whether Bill had invited his wife. We refer to this contrast as the *whether puzzle. We propose an account which crucially rests on the assumption that the relevant kind of verbs are sensitive to the semantic objects that their complement clause brings into salience, rather than just its truth/resolution conditions. It has been argued in previous work that the semantic objects that matrix questions bring into salience are important to understand the role of such questions in discourse. The present paper is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to argue that this aspect of meaning is also crucial for understanding the role of embedded questions in grammar.

Contains fulltext : 102113.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

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For many breast cancer (BC) risk factors, there is growing evidence concerning molecular subtypes for which the risk factor is specific. With regard to mammographic density (MD), there are inconsistent data concerning its association with estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) expression. The aim of our study was to analyze the association between ER and PR expression and MD. In our case-only study, data on BC risk factors, hormone receptor expression and MD were available for 2,410 patients with incident BC. MD was assessed as percent MD (PMD) using a semiautomated method by two readers for every patient. The association of ER/PR and PMD was studied with multifactorial analyses of covariance with PMD as the target variable and including well-known factors that are also associated with MD, such as age, parity, use of hormone replacement therapy, and body mass index (BMI). In addition to the commonly known associations between PMD and age, parity, BMI and hormone replacement therapy, a significant inverse association was found between PMD and ER expression levels. Patients with ER-negative tumors had an average PMD of 38%, whereas patients with high ER expression had a PMD of 35%. A statistical trend toward a positive association between PMD and PR expression was also seen. PMD appears to be inversely associated with ER expression and may correlate positively with PR expression. These effects were independent of other risk factors such as age, BMI, parity, and hormone replacement therapy, possibly suggesting other pathways that mediate this effect.

There is growing evidence that certain breast cancer (BC) risk factors specifically increase the risk for specific molecular tumor subtypes. Different molecular subtypes of BC can partly be described by analyzing proliferation in tumors. Very few data are available regarding the association of mammographic density (MD), as a BC risk factor, with proliferation. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between Ki-67 expression in BCs and MD. In this case-only study, data on BC risk factors, hormone receptor expression, and MD were available for 1,975 patients with incident BC. MD was assessed as percentage mammographic density (PMD) using a semiautomated method by two readers for every patient. The association of the Ki-67 proliferation index and PMD was studied using multifactorial analyses of covariance (ANCOVA), with PMD as the target variable and including well-known factors that are also associated with MD such as age, parity, use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and body mass index (BMI). There were no significant differences in PMD between women with BC who had low and high Ki-67 values (P = 0.31). However, there were relevant differences in women with low BMI (P = 0.07), and in women using postmenopausal HRT (P = 0.06) as well as in women with low PR values (P = 0.07). In these subgroups, the Ki-67 expression index increased with decreasing PMD. Likewise PMD is correlated with BMI, parity status, and menopausal status stronger in patients with low proliferating tumors, and with progesterone receptor expression in patients with high proliferating tumors. MD correlates inversely with Ki-67 proliferation in BC tumors only in some subgroups of BC patients, defined by commonly known BC risk factors that are usually associated with MD as well.

Introduction: Several common breast cancer genetic susceptibility variants have recently been identified. We aimed to determine how these variants combine with a subset of other known risk factors to influence breast cancer risk in white women of European ancestry using case-control studies participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium.Methods: We evaluated two-way interactions between each of age at menarche, ever having had a live birth, number of live births, age at first birth and body mass index (BMI) and each of 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (10q26-rs2981582 (FGFR2), 8q24-rs13281615, 11p15-rs3817198 (LSP1), 5q11-rs889312 (MAP3K1), 16q12-rs3803662 (TOX3), 2q35-rs13387042, 5p12-rs10941679 (MRPS30), 17q23-rs6504950 (COX11), 3p24-rs4973768 (SLC4A7), CASP8-rs17468277, TGFB1-rs1982073 and ESR1-rs3020314). Interactions were tested for by fitting logistic regression models including per-allele and linear trend main effects for SNPs and risk factors, respectively, and single-parameter interaction terms for linear departure from independent multiplicative effects.Results: These analyses were applied to data for up to 26,349 invasive breast cancer cases and up to 32,208 controls from 21 case-control studies. No statistical evidence of interaction was observed beyond that expected by chance. Analyses were repeated using data from 11 population-based studies, and results were very similar.Conclusions: The relative risks for breast cancer associated with the common susceptibility variants identified to date do not appear to vary across women with different reproductive histories or body mass index (BMI). The assumption of multiplicative combined effects for these established genetic and other risk factors in risk prediction models appears justified. © 2010 Milne et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Introduction: Several common breast cancer genetic susceptibility variants have recently been identified. We\ud aimed to determine how these variants combine with a subset of other known risk factors to influence breast\ud cancer risk in white women of European ancestry using case-control studies participating in the Breast Cancer\ud Association Consortium.\ud Methods: We evaluated two-way interactions between each of age at menarche, ever having had a live birth,\ud number of live births, age at first birth and body mass index (BMI) and each of 12 single nucleotide\ud polymorphisms (SNPs) (10q26-rs2981582 (FGFR2), 8q24-rs13281615, 11p15-rs3817198 (LSP1), 5q11-rs889312\ud (MAP3K1), 16q12-rs3803662 (TOX3), 2q35-rs13387042, 5p12-rs10941679 (MRPS30), 17q23-rs6504950 (COX11), 3p24-rs4973768 (SLC4A7), CASP8-rs17468277, TGFB1-rs1982073 and ESR1-rs3020314). Interactions were tested for by\ud fitting logistic regression models including per-allele and linear trend main effects for SNPs and risk factors,\ud respectively, and single-parameter interaction terms for linear departure from independent multiplicative effects.\ud Results: These analyses were applied to data for up to 26,349 invasive breast cancer cases and up to 32,208\ud controls from 21 case-control studies. No statistical evidence of interaction was observed beyond that expected by\ud chance. Analyses were repeated using data from 11 population-based studies, and results were very similar.\ud Conclusions: The relative risks for breast cancer associated with the common susceptibility variants identified to\ud date do not appear to vary across women with different reproductive histories or body mass index (BMI). The\ud assumption of multiplicative combined effects for these established genetic and other risk factors in risk prediction\ud models appears justified.

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