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In this comment paper on von Fircks (2023a), I would like to focus on four issues and offer some reflections on them: first, what is happening in the process of a new I arising through mindfulness meditation practice? I would like to supplement the dialogue between Buber and Rogers in 1957 on the dynamism of I and Me, which is the basis of Mead's theory of self formation, in which I and Me separate, discover and meet a new self. The second, is that meditation, which at first glance appears to be an internal meditation practice and a personal activity, leads to a semiotic mediated social process. The Tao and early Buddhist ideas that form the background to the experiential process of mindfulness meditation will be reviewed, and the significance of people experiencing the interdependence of non-human nature and the environment through the practice will be discussed. Third, connecting this to the idea of Umwelt (Uexküll) and the semiosphere (Lotman), an attempt is made to extend the otherness as a collating body of self formation to Umwelt. Fourth, mindfulness meditation focuses attention on the breath. In relation to Mead's focus on the environment under the skin, i.e. corporeality, I will supplement the psychological meaning of cultivating the body's sense of interoception through the sensing of repetitive movements of tension and relaxation. Through the above, what kind of semiotic mediating function does mindfulness meditation have in relation to the construction of the new I, and how does it lead to the creation of social meaning? We would like to discuss these points. Clinical Trial Registration: The article does not contain any studies with clinical trial. This, clinical Trial registration is not applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The proposed work is devoted to research to clarify the axiomatization of arithmetic in connection with the presence of special assumptions in it. The conceptual problem of analyzing new properties of numbers is formulated under the assumption of the possibility of losing any initial premise. Materials and methods. A solution to the conceptual problem is given, followed by a logical analysis of the meaningful axiomatic theory of natural numbers, which led to the discovery of logical errors. An analysis of logical errors is given based on the meaningful axiomatic theory of natural numbers. It is shown that the properties of an established set of "finite real numbers", or positive real numbers contained in a given segment e, have the property of being discovered depending not only on the "requested numbers" of the actually infinite region, but also on real (positive) numbers infinite half-interval. Results. Conditions have been identified that allow us to establish new properties of numbers. Conclusions. The natural series N begins only with 1, there is no zero in it. It has been proven that modern arithmetic has an incorrect axiomatization and is subject to revision.

This study aims to describe the form of reference and context contained in the anthology of “Guru Welas Asih” memoirs. Qualitative descriptive method used in this study. This research aims at mapping references contained in the form of changes in the meaning of synesthesia. The data in this study are the form of words or phrases in the anthology of “Guru Welas Asih” memoirs. The data source for this research is an anthology of memoirs by the Komunitas Menulis Memoar entitled “Guru Welas Asih”. The memoir consists of 17 titles written by 17 members of the community. Provision of data in this study using note-taking techniques and documentation. Furthermore, data analysis uses the equivalent method with the application of referential techniques. The results of this study indicate that referent references cannot be separated from context. According to the findings of this study, the references contained in the anthology of “Guru Welas Asih” memoirs are: (1) reference words and (2) deictic words. The identified deixis is (1) persona deixis, (2) pointer deixis, and (3) place deixis. The type of reference refers to something that is bound by context. Therefore, the referent and context interact to show the reference.

The article considers the descriptive attribute ‘perfect’ and its derivatives as a commonly used abstraction for creating persuasive emotional texts that encourage potential customers to make purchases and satisfy their needs. The study analyses the objects of reference, semantic field, and syntactic functions of the concept through the prism of its functioning in promotional brochures devoted to passenger automobiles belonging to 44 brands. The material included 115 brochures over the previous decade, 22,000 words of minimal contexts and 520 contextual occurrences of ‘perfect’ and its derivatives. The obtained results show that ‘perfect’ tends to reveal two meanings – excellence and compliance to a standard – which historically go back to its original meaning in Latin ‘per factum’ (made thoroughly). Over the period of the decade, there has been a shift from idealisation to practicality in the automotive industry under the influence of economic and environmental factors. The semantic mapping of contextual associative adjectives also indicates that ‘perfect’ is currently more oriented to highlighting practical utility of the cars rather than their excellence. In effect, such practical aspects as technological advancement, technicality, customisation, reliability, comfort, dynamics, style, noiselessness, sound, and price outnumber abstract qualities which express positive impressions, elevation, idealisation, and exaggeration of relevance, by 30%. Semantically, the concept ‘perfection’ follows the promotional principle of combining rational and emotional arguments. ‘Perfect’ is applicable to any car part – be it the exterior, interior or engine. The derivational paradigm has no limitations in syntactic distribution; however, in promotional discourse it typically occurs in nominative structures. The results contribute to the theoretical development of the linguistic worldview through the lens of valuable marketing concepts and can be practically useful in training professional writing skills to students specialising in PR and advertising and learning English for specific purposes.

This paper aims to explore the generalization of address terms in online discourse, a largely unheeded pragmatic phenomenon. Taking the generalized Chinese kinship term "son" (érzi) as an example, it analyzes its referents and functions. The analysis was based on a sizable data set collected from WeChat, and interviews with some WeChat users. It demonstrates that the address term "son" (érzi) conveys its faithful meaning when referring to the male child of (a) parent(s) but virtual meaning when referring to the addresser's friends, classmates or pets. It is also argued that the generalized use of the address term "son" (érzi) can function to enhance relationships, make jocular abuse, and express emotions. These functions suggest the users' identity avoidance and relating needs in a virtual community. This study attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the virtualization of address terms and rapport management in online discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an alternative approach to the essential matter of the factors involved in the process of waiting, especially in critical contexts such as civil emergencies. Some categories for the analysis of waiting are developed here, taking an alternative theoretical perspective, where waiting processes are conceived of as operational and institutionalised in nature, rather than mere temporal phenomena. Importantly, this paper contributes to research in the field of anthropology studying processes of waiting, as it presents a unique perspective of analysis. This perspective shifts the focus of these processes from temporalities to institutions and highlights the essential importance of operations in their analysis. In order to exemplify the proposed perspective, empirical waiting processes in crisis will be analysed. These examples of critical waiting have been selected with consideration to their historical, political or social impact. The demand for operational behaviour among the people waiting has also been considered in these examples. These processes will be analysed using categories established from an institutional and operational approach based on the materialistic philosophical approach of the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno Martinez, sometimes called Discontinuous Materialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the descriptive attribute 'perfect' and its derivatives as a commonly used abstraction for creating persuasive emotional texts that encourage potential customers to make purchases and satisfy their needs. The study analyses the objects of reference, semantic field, and syntactic functions of the concept through the prism of its functioning in promotional brochures devoted to passenger automobiles belonging to 44 brands. The material included 115 brochures over the previous decade, 22,000 words of minimal contexts and 520 contextual occurrences of 'perfect' and its derivatives. The obtained results show that 'perfect' tends to reveal two meanings - excellence and compliance to a standard - which historically go back to its original meaning in Latin 'per factum' (made thoroughly). Over the period of the decade, there has been a shift from idealisation to practicality in the automotive industry under the influence of economic and environmental factors. The semantic mapping of contextual associative adjectives also indicates that 'perfect' is currently more oriented to highlighting practical utility of the cars rather than their excellence. In effect, such practical aspects as technological advancement, technicality, customisation, reliability, comfort, dynamics, style, noiselessness, sound, and price outnumber abstract qualities which express positive impressions, elevation, idealisation, and exaggeration of relevance, by 30%. Semantically, the concept 'perfection' follows the promotional principle of combining rational and emotional arguments. 'Perfect' is applicable to any car part - be it the exterior, interior or engine. The derivational paradigm has no limitations in syntactic distribution; however, in promotional discourse it typically occurs in nominative structures. The results contribute to the theoretical development of the linguistic worldview through the lens of valuable marketing concepts and can be practically useful in training professional writing skills to students specialising in PR and advertising and learning English for specific purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relevant to the emerging field of semiotic cultural psychology theory (SCPT), the present paper considers 'We', 'Us', 'I' and 'Me' as semiotic and cultural psychology phenomena. Drawing on the semiotics of Saussure, Peirce, Jakobson, and Cousins, a semiotic dynamic 'double-dyadic' model of the signifier and the referent is proposed. For each 'We', 'Us', 'I' and 'Me', the COVID-19 global pandemic related cases are used to analyse and illustrate the signifier-referent model. Implications are drawn from the new model for the complex systems entailed in organizing self and culture. Finally, suggestions are made for testing the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term forest can signify many different physical realities. However, discourse analysis of Irish National and European Union forestry-related documents indicates ambiguity around this term is often cultivated rather than clarified. We argue here that policy language often embraces the multiple potential affordances within the term forest as a means of discursively bridging contradictions between economic and conservation goals. While this technique increases the readability and acceptability of such documents by diverse user groups and government bodies, it mutes the on-the-ground tensions of what forests mean for locals. Moreover, cultivating ambiguity favors the status quo through circumventing points of contradiction and shifting the work of interpretation and application of such documents to those on-the-ground, therefore perpetuating existing power differentials. As forests are central to resource management and responses to climate change, addressing this tendency is crucial to finding meaningful and place-specific environmental solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L'étude du contenu lexical de l'ensemble du corpus « récit de voyage » fournit l'occasion de définir les champs notionnels privilégiés et d'élaborer un glossaire des termes exotiques ou « xénismes » susceptibles de contribuer à la « couleur locale » des textes ou à « l'effet de réel », en privilégiant les informations fournies par les écrivains eux-mêmes. On s’intéresse plus particulièrement à l’adaptabilité et à la flexibilité du texte qui le rendent plus didactique et par conséquent plus compréhensible au lecteur. C'est à travers l'étude des stratégies mises en place par l'auteur que nous étudions le rapprochement cognitif et sémantique lorsque le texte s'adapte au monde du récepteur.

Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" has enjoyed a lengthy and varied history as a jazz standard. Like many other standards, hundreds of recordings of the tune exist, each rendition different from the last. This radically pluralistic identity makes it difficult to pin down what exactly "All the Things You Are" is. In this article, I argue that the notion of an avant-texte may be used to engage with the pluralistic identity of the jazz tune. Originally developed by literary scholars dealing with authors' sketches, the term avant-texte describes a network of documents that can be traced in order to determine how the identity of a text is constituted and changes over time. I argue that improvisers construct such networks based on the versions of a tune with which they become familiar, eventually forming a referent for improvisation. By analyzing some of the manifold relations between various recordings of Kern's composition across history, I demonstrate how particular creative choices proliferate throughout the network and gradually alter not only the tune's current identity as a referent but also the future paths the tune's identity might take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In wide-ranging information society, fast and easy access to information in language of one’s choice is indispensable, which may be provided by using various multilingual Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications. Natural language text contains references among different language elements, called anaphoric links. Resolving anaphoric links is a key problem in NLP. Anaphora resolution is an essential part of NLP applications. Anaphoric links need to be properly interpreted for clear understanding of natural languages. For this purpose, a mechanism is desirable for the identification and resolution of these naturally occurring anaphoric links. In this paper, a framework based on Hobbs syntactic approach and a system developed by Lappin & Leass is proposed for resolution of reflexive anaphoric links, present in Urdu text documents. Generally, anaphora resolution process takes three main steps: identification of the anaphor, location of the candidate antecedent(s) and selection of the appropriate antecedent. The proposed framework is based on exploring the syntactic structure of reflexive anaphors to find out various features for constructing heuristic rules to develop an algorithm for resolving these anaphoric references. System takes Urdu text containing reflexive anaphors as input, and outputs Urdu text with resolved reflexive anaphoric links. Despite having scarcity of Urdu resources, our results are encouraging. The proposed framework can be utilized in multilingual NLP (m-NLP) applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the phenomenon of the sequel as a type of metatext practice and as an integral component in the chain of knowledge transfer. The reproducibility of the original text is thus correlated with "unlimited" semiosis / interpretation. The phenomenon of metatext is closely related to the functioning of secondary texts, since any metatext belongs to the category of secondary texts. By secondary, we mean text created as a result of processing the original, primary text. The sequel acts as a secondary text, and the text that interprets the main text. The relevance of the research, therefore, is related to such philosophical and linguistic problems as reference and interpretation. The popularity of sequels written by modern authors to Jane Austen's novels can be seen as a particular manifestation of the general "fashion" for secondariness. Consciously or not, modern "successors" of her novels tend to repeat her style, even if they simply borrow the characters and plot of the novels. Within the framework of semiotics, the sequel can be considered as a "sign" that displays its referent - the novels of Austen. However (from the point of view of stylistics), the sequel cannot be an exact copy of its original, since it is invariably created in other socio-cultural conditions. A sequel as a sign can display its referent (novel) in three main types: index, icon, symbol, and their combinations. Thus, the article analyzes each of the ways of display and concludes that it is impossible to symbolically reflect the proto-text on the example of the novel "Pride and prejudice" and its sequels written by contemporary authors. One of the results of the work is the assumption that the ontological status of the new "possible world" in the sequel and therefore its communicative success, are in direct correlation with the way of referential representation of the original. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between cultural knowledge and the specific meaning of a pronominal adverb in legal English where Chinese translators need to get the correct translation in their venture into translating the language of law. On the one hand, relying on the relevant legal cultural knowledge functioning as domain-general reference within a community or jurisdiction, translators, especially those non-lawyers, may find out the common grounds for decoding the meaning of linguistic expressions in source legal English and adopt such commonalities as bases for further exploring the specific meaning of a pronominal adverb, which would let translators, no matter a professional lawyer or not, get the general sketch of the meaning thereof. On the other hand, such efforts to consult the general sense cultural information need further extraction. Since the framework information out of such extraction would be organized into a systematic structure and lead to their final determination of the translation with efficiency.

This paperwork has, as Main objective, approach concept of the French philosopher Dany Robert-Dufour who has worked in his book Madness and democracy: Unary. This concept have their reference as in philosophy as in psychoanalysis. The Dufour proposal is that the contemporary societies experience the fall of referent, which has organized a subjective life in many different historical ages, as God, State and Reason. Those references, for the French philosopher organized the individual subjective and gave sense to their regular life. However the fall of the references switched the values and the common sense got lost. This lack of sense is traduced in impossibility for de subjective to move around him and all his environment. As consequence, the relationship between the lack of sense and the fall of references, Dufour show us, is the thing that take us to a new way of madness that moves around the unary.

In this paper I will deal with the solution to the problem of cognitive significance offered by the so-called new theorists of reference, as well as with the critique of that solution given by Howard Wettstein. I will claim that the answer to this critique provided by John Perry is not sufficiently convincing. First, I will clarify some relevant concepts in order to present the problem of cognitive significance in a clear manner. Then I will expose the solution to the problem offered by Perry and David Kaplan. After that, I will present Wettstein’s critique of that solution. Subsequently, I will also analyze Perry’s attempt to defend against this critique. Finally, I will discuss the extent to which Perry’s attempt is successful. It will be shown that it is significantly not so.

It is often claimed that reference tracking is a key function of nominal classification systems, not least because of the role such systems can play in referent disambiguation. This paper reports on the results of a comparative study of reference in texts from four languages, focusing specifically on the disambiguating function of nominal classification. The results strongly suggest that disambiguation is not a primary function of nominal classification systems. While gender and/or classifiers sometimes contribute to the avoidance of referential conflict, the reality is that the conditions have to be just right – all competing references must be of opposing genders, and those genders must be formally distinct – and this happens with surprisingly low frequency. We are better off viewing disambiguation as a convenient by-product of nominal classification systems that a language can exploit when conditions allow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the process of discursive construction of the worldview which leads to a change in the characteristics of political discourse and its transformation into political public relations discourse, namely to the transition from socially important referents to those that are personally relevant. Based on the modern understanding of the social phenomenon of public relations activity the author gives a definition of political public relations discourse; it is proven that the main principle which allows distinguishing political public relations discourse from political discourse is the construction of the referent situation by a politician. Linguistic analysis of English political public relations discourse (a fragment of B. Obama's speech made during the election campaign in 2012) shows how the referent situation is constructed so as to discursivize certain personal (positive) qualities of the politician and to carry out a strategy of self-presentation; the politician's image and reputation as well as the political party he represents become the main themes and referents of his political public relations discourse. It is concluded that in political public relations discourse a version of reality is constructed which is favourable for the politician and which he then uses in order to create another, possible world, represented as a desirable world in discourse.

A definition of the field of semantics is attempted, approaching its development from the earliest studies, in connection with those of etymology as well as with those of classical grammar. Reasons are given for the prevalence of the lexical approach in traditional semantics, and the question of the referent, excluded in structuralist studies but reintroduced in contemporary theories, is also taken into account. An approximation with classical semantics is arrived at from the exams of the most significant contemporary trends, with emphasis on prototype theory as part of cognitive linguistics. Evolutionary paths are seen as based on encyclopedic knowledge as well as on the human ability of categorization. The concern of classical semantics with the lexicon and with polysemy is reconsidered and situated within the communicative function of language.

Namen prispevka je na kratko predstaviti in utemeljiti, zakaj je znotraj jezika oz. v našem primeru v slovenščini, možna celostna izrazitev referenčnega spola le na poimenovalni ravni, medtem ko skladenjska oz. slovnična razmerja v procesu upovedovanja in s ciljem jasnega sporočanja zahtevajo prevlado slovničnega ujemanja, ki lahko ohranja najvišjo možno skladenjskopomensko razločevalnost leksike in s tem tudi jasnost ubesedenega.

This article relates to a study that deals with the linguistic analysis of proform in French Sign Language (LSF). To our knowledge, these structures remain poorly defined and are almost never taken into account in computer modelling, which is the longer-term goal of our studies that aims to design Sign Languages (SL) automatic processing. Given their rather frequent use in SL discourses, it seems necessary to us to study the different linguistic functions that they can take and the most frequent observable forms associated with these functions. This requires us to study which body articulators are involved (manual and non-manual) and how they are organised within spatiotemporal structures. In this article, we present the results of an exploratory study concerning one of these functions, the use of proforms to introduce an entity into the discourse. We have carried out a corpus analysis which revealed particular structures associated with this function and not described so far. We have modelled them using a formalism that takes into account the multilinear, spatiotemporal and iconic structure of SL, and which can be used in automatic processing. For us, a "proform" is a conventional handshape, generally motivated and iconic, representing an entity that has been already mentioned in the discourse or not. The proform takes its full meaning only in context. We use the term proform without a priori regarding the level of language (morphology or syntax) or linguistic functionalities. A number of linguistic functions have been mentioned in the literature, coming with a variation in the terminology (“classifier”, “polymorphemic predicate”, productive sign”, etc). We have tried to identify the different functions of the proforms mentioned in the literature, which could be: classifying function: An ambivalent function, since "classifying" can mean both the semantic class or the classes of forms, depending on the theory. adjectival function: These are mainly descriptors or size and/or shape specifiers. anaphoric function: In the case where the proform is used as an entity already mentioned in the discourse, often in tandem with a relevant spatialisation. spatio-locative function: Often used in the case of classifier constructions. presentative function: Presented as the case of nominal classifiers that introduce an entity into the discourse. In our study, our aim was to examine in detail this last function, which is how the proforms are performed when introducing a new entity in a discourse. We wanted to determine which forms correspond to this function. For this, we adopted a corpus-based methodology. The main corpus that has been used is the MOCAP1 corpus, a corpus of LSF created to conduct multidisciplinary studies. One of the tasks of this corpus was to describe 25 different photographs. These descriptions include many uses of proforms with different linguistic functions, including the one we are interested in. We then proceeded to annotate the corpus by identifying the temporal segments corresponding to the activity of the manual articulators (lexical signs, pointing, illustrative structures including the use proforms, etc) and non-manual ones (head, eyebrows, closing of the eyes, direction of gaze, cheeks, lips). For this study, we took into account the annotations carried out on 5 of the images for the 8 signers (40 videos) and carried out a first step of essentially qualitative analysis. These images were chosen for the greatest richness they generated in the descriptions. We do not yet have at this stage elements of a statistical nature to give. Statistical analysis would require extending the annotation to other videos in the corpus and other types of discourses in order to have enough occurrences for each observed phenomenon. At this stage, our aim is mainly to identify and describe structures that seem to be frequently produced by the signers. In order to describe the recurrent patterns observed, we used a formal representation called AZEE which takes into account the specificities of signed languages. AZEE was chosen among other systems because it allows to represent the activity of the different manual and non-manual articulators with the necessary and sufficient constraints for their realisation in any spatial and temporal context. This representation also aims to be implementable and thus usable for sign language processing. We focused particularly on three structures: First, the introduction of an entity with a “buoy” (perseveration of a handshape coming from a gestural unit previously signed). We observed that the entities that were introduced with a buoy are performed with a proform maintained by the non-dominant hand, while lexical elements (with the dominant hand) specify this proform. The structure ends with a blink. Second, the introduction of an entity with a sequential organisation: the succession of a proform and lexical elements that specify the proform. In the same way, the structure ends with a blink. These two structures can be combined. Finally, proforms without a manual referent. These structures contain a proform, but rather than a manual element that specifies it, there is some mouthing or mouth gestures. As with the two previous structures, this one ends with a blink. Using proforms to introduce a new entity is not a discovery. But finding recurrent structures could be a good start with the prospect of formalisation for automatic processing of signed languages. Nevertheless, before any modelling, questions remain unanswered. On the one hand, we started from the premise that buoy structures could be considered as the manifestation of an anaphoric relationship between the proform and the specifier, but this can still be discussed. On the other hand, sequential structures offer less doubt about an analysis in favor of an anaphoric relationship. For proforms with a non-manual and simultaneous specifier, this also raises questions. If we end this article with more questions than precise answers, we think that finding several structures implementing various articulators in a systematic way could eventually allow automatic identification and/or generation of these structures. On the other hand, if identification of a referent could be done more easily, it could help the automatic processing of the reference, if we admit that there is reference (especially for the case of tags). Obviously, this is the first step of an observation that will have to be refined and validated on a larger corpus. But if a generalisation of these structures is possible, then we will be able to define patterns usable in SL processing.

According to the United States Census Bureau, women's 2016 earnings equated to approximately 80% of men's annual median income (Semega et al. in U.S. Census Bureau, current population reports. Income and poverty in the United States: 2016. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2017). This pay gap, while decreasing marginally over time, has remained fairly consistent. Social science research has not sufficiently explained the gap. Research has tended to focus on the existence of the gap or on women's lower expectations. Women's use of same-gender referents has been found to both result in perceptions of wages as more just (Mueller and Wallace in Soc Psychol Q 59:338-349, 1996; Valet in Work Occup 1-26, 2018) as well as in higher job satisfaction (Buchanan in Sociol Focus 41:177-196, 2008. 10.1080/00380237.2008.10571329). This gender paradox of the contented female worker (Crosby in Relative deprivation and working women, Oxford University Press, New York, 1982) is important as it potentially hinders the demand for equal pay and perpetuates the gender gap. Gender biases in work performance evaluations are critical to our understanding of women's lower pay. This article examines both men and women's use of same-gender referents and the impact on perceptions potentially biasing the evaluations of women's work. Using a survey of 488 undergraduate university students from the mid-southern United States, we first compare the salary expectations and work aspirations of women and men and find no gender differences. Next, we investigate how same-gender referent use, particularly for men, impacts work performance assessments using the perceptions of gendered work performance scale. We find men perceive women as inferior performers, with this tendency being stronger for men who use same-gender referents, as well as, for men lacking work experience, while same-gender referent use by women is not associated with gendered performance perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an attempt to address the subject of polysemy and synonymy in the terminological systems of English and Romanian languages. It is well known that terminological units are words, i.e. terms that have an exact reference in the source language, and their translation are committed to focus on the same dimension in the target language. Yet, this desideratum is not fully respected, this is due to the fact that the terminology is subject to the phenomenon of very active polysemy and synonymy. The factors related to this occurrence are many, nevertheless we consider that the most important feature of the synonymy and polysemy is that new terms are coined form already existing words via different means as suffixation, agglutination, change in the meaning, etc. The research below is an effort to classify the types of synonyms and their influence on the incidence of polysemy. The purpose of this research is to detect the cases of polysemy and synonymy by bringing examples of translation into Romanian and Russian and to give translators practical advice in order to avoid the pitfalls stretched by the phenomena described in the study that we have conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exoplanets, discovered by Mayor and Queloz, have changed our definition of the word planet. Nowadays, nobody can defin precisely this term. Study this exemple shows that the referential sense is neither in words, nor in the head, but in a linguistic use, socially shared and guaranteed by experts.

The relation of human beings with reality and the issue of knowledge is based on two realms of the lived culture: the realm of experimented significances and the one of mediated ones. The first promotes a subjective reality, that organizes and confirms our self-consciousness, our direct contact with the elements of reality, determining a correspondence in substance between the knower and the object to be known. In the mediated knowledge, our interaction with the objective reality is achieved by translation of mediated significances into experienced significances; in other words, the mediated significances replace our relation with reality, they assume for themselves the necessity of direct contact, apparently simplifying and at the same time expanding the process of knowing. Despite philosophical divergences within the classical knowledge, the generally shared feeling was that reality is identifiable, and hope was also nurtured that one day it would be possible to hold it down in a definition. Mediated knowledge bestows on us a realization that things do not exist in themselves or by virtue of their belonging to any superior reality, and neither by their intrinsic values; they exist only to that extent in which they are part of the process of communication. Through their mediated significances, reality is produced and reproduced, frontiers lose their fixity, they interfere and infuse with each other. The objects of reality and their defining concepts become elastic and multiply ad infinitum, producing the same number of composition patterns, as the number of existing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dans son effort d’appréhension du référent, l’auteur-voyageur procède à «l'adaptation » pour décrire l’Altérité. Cela consiste à ramener le référent réel à des catégories connues. La fonction du procédé d’analogie est de réduire l’Autre au Même dans un procédé d’appropriation doxique. Nous verrons comment l’auteur parvient à traiter le référent réel dans le corpus viatique du XIXème siècle à l’aide des concepts de préconstruit et de mémoire collective. In his effort of apprehension of the referent, the writer-traveler proceeds to a new category to name and describe Otherness. This is to reduce the real referent to known categories. The function of the analogy process is to reduce the Other to the Same in a doxic appropriation process. We will see how the author treats the real referent in the viaticum corpus in nineteenth century with the concepts of pre-built and collective memory.

Prispevek se posveča številnim primerom lingvi- stičnega branja termina “referenca” na področju semantike in filozofije jezika. Pri tem razlikuje med razširitvijo in skrčenjem ter opozarja na po- men koncepta v okviru teorije jezikovnega akta. Nadalje se posveča številnim različicam »reference« v sodobnem spektru lingvističnih disciplin. Konč- no preide besedilo od lingvističnih postopkov k njihovi uporabi znotraj muzikološkega problem- skega področja.

Vagueness and its expression in Modern English have not been investigated in details. This problem dates from the treatises of Ancient Greece philosophers, who laid the foundations of vagueness. The notion of vagueness or imprecision, its substance as well as thefinal list of linguistic means ofits description have not been identified so far and vary considerably with the researchers. Modern linguistics associates vagueness with the reference theory which is based on B. Russell’s denotation ideas.The author of this paper is making an attempt to describe some linguistic means of vagueness expression – referential imprecision in particular – analyzing texts of some English advertisements. As a result of the research, it was found out that copywriters deliberately use referential imprecision while writing advertisement texts just to hook the reader and to involve them in speculations about the potential referent or antecedent of the offered advertisement texts. Since the target audience of such texts is diverse, vagueness helps copywriters to achieve the target – toincrease the variety of possible interpretations of the advert texts and the amount of potential buyers.

Dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) are monitored in the U.S. population using data collected with the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Until recently, participants' serum samples have been analyzed individually, and summary statistics defining reference ranges by age, gender, and race/ethnicity have served as the background by which other biomonitoring data can be evaluated. In the most recent NHANES DLC data, 2005–2006 and 2007–2008, participants' sera have been physically pooled prior to laboratory analysis, introducing major challenges to their utility as a reference population: variability among individuals and relations with covariates are lost, and individual design effects cannot be applied. Further, the substantial drop in limits of detection (LODs) in pooled sample biennials prevents reliable comparisons to individual data, and has complicated estimates of change over time. In this study, we address the drawbacks introduced by pooled samples by generating U.S. population reference ranges based on individual-level data adjusted to 2005–2006 and 2007–2008 levels. Using publicly available data, multiple imputation (MI) generated four NHANES biennials (2001–2008) of individual DLC data; we then trended the change over time in each DLC by demographic stratum. NHANES 2003–2004 individuals were adjusted by the trended change over time. Population estimates of toxic equivalency (TEQ) concentrations were calculated using traditional MI survey analysis methods and reference tables provided for 2005–2006 and 2007–2008 by age, race, and gender. Demographic differences in TEQ concentrations and trended change are reported, e.g. TEQ continues to drop in young adults aged 20–39, but distributions appear stable in older adults 60 +; Mexican Americans have consistently lowest dioxins, furans, and PCBs, with non-Hispanic Blacks dropping to the same levels as non-Hispanic Whites in dioxins and PCBs and significantly below non-Hispanic Whites in furans by 2007–2008. Additionally, the ratio of 95th percentile to mean in DLC distributions was found to vary by age, between dioxins, furans, and PCBs, and across mean, making a simple ratio approach impractical for describing population concentrations using pooled samples. We discuss the practical implications of the pooled sample method, the performance of this trending solution in the context of other methods, and expected effects of distribution assumptions on variability and TEQ estimates, particularly in largely undetected congeners. These updated reference populations of individuals, along with information on trending, provide a common and valid basis for interpreting other individually sampled biomonitoring data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the space research technical terms of the category Locus and sets of adjacent technical terms in fragments of the terminological network. We argue that the technical terms of the category Locus have the potential to establish semantic relations of certain types with the technical terms of certain categories only, thus forming prototypic semantic schemes. We consider the categories of the defined first and second order technical terms and the types of semantic relations between them. The productive and non-productive semantic relations as well as those that are not characteristic of the category Locus are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the syntactic valence of Yiddish prefixed verbs with unterand provides the morposyntactic classification of prefixal verbs as accessive, recessive and equivalent. , The correlations of different description and representation levels are introduced.

Reading Barthes today implies a reader’s response: looking for its “effects”, his reception, hearing from him through those who have come after him, trying to go beyond his canonization (Compagnon, 1998). It also means to read his original texts looking for the coherence of his ideas (Jouve, 1986). In this article, we intend to reflect on the possibility of an urban semiology conjectured by Barthes, to which he invites the discourse of several “sign specialists”. This approach is meaningful today when literary theory reconsiders the “referent” (Roelens, 2014).