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The paper studies the conditions that determine the Discourse-Linked or non-Discourse-Linked status of noun-less Determiner Phrases introduced by different determiners, in Italian and in English. For instance, given the sentence Ten bombs exploded yesterday, the continuation [Three] were cluster bombs tends to have a meaning equivalent to 'three of the bombs that exploded’ (D-Linked), while [Three] will explode today is understood as 'three (different) bombs’ (non D-Linked). Beside world-knowledge, the syntax of the determiners and their position with respect to the verb affect the availability of DL/non-DL readings. This and other facts undermine an analysis cast purely in terms of semantic domain restrictions, and suggest that DL readings are due to the presence of a covert partitive structure. While perhaps intuitive, this idea faces various issues in Italian, due to its interactions with the syntax of the pro-form ne. We show that an NP-based structure for numeral and proportion-based partitives (three/half of the bombs) is actually compatible with the facts, and offers a cue on the nature of sub-DP pro-forms and their uses.

In order to memorize sentences we use both processes of language comprehension during encoding and processes of language production during maintenance. While the former processes are easily testable via controlled presentation of the input, the latter are more difficult to assess directly as language production is typically initiated and controlled internally. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study we track subvocal rehearsal of sentences, with the goal of studying the concomitant planning processes with the help of a silent cued-production task. Native German participants read different types of sentences word-by-word, then were prompted by a visual cue to silently repeat each individual word, in a rehearsal phase. In order to assess both local and global effects of sentence planning, we presented correct sentences, syntactically or semantically violated sentences, or random word order sequences. Semantic violations during reading elicited an N400 effect at the noun violating the selectional restrictions of the preceding verb. Syntactic violations, induced by a gender incongruency between determiner and noun, led to a P600 effect at the same position. Different ERP patterns occurred during the silent production phase. Here, semantically violated sentences elicited an early fronto-central negativity at the verb, while syntactically violated sentences elicited a late right-frontal positivity at the determiner. Random word order was accompanied by long-lasting slow waves during the production phase. The findings are consistent with models of hierarchical sentence planning and further indicate that the ongoing working memory processes are qualitatively distinct from comprehension mechanisms and neurophysiologically specific for syntactic and lexical-semantic level planning. In conclusion, active working memory maintenance of sentences is likely to comprise specific stages of sentence production that are indicated by ERP correlates of syntactic and semantic planning at the phrasal and clausal level respectively.

The paper offers a broad overview of several structures that fall under the umbrella term of “partitives”. It surveys previous analyses and proposes a treatment based on two null operators, PART% and PARTPRO, with different syntactic and semantic properties. The approach is argued to outperform previous theories in its ability to cover conjunctions, mass cases and contrastive differences across Italian and English. Crowd-sourced grammaticality judgments and corpus searches are used to supplement informal judgments and try to shed light on a complex set of facts.

Starting from an analysis for the crosslinguistic variation in the grammaticality of DP-internal conjunctions such as This [man and woman] are in love, this article develops a theory of the syntax/semantics interface within the DP and a novel proposal for the interpretation of conjunction. The main claims are that plural/mass denotations are built in stages within the DP, by the combined effect of number features and semantic operators associated with functional heads; that languages differ in whether the denotation of nouns is filtered for singular or plural number; and that the word and crosslinguistically denotes Set Product, an operation which, in different contexts, can mimic the behavior of intersection and union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External electrical cardioversion or defibrillation may be necessary in patients with implanted cardiac pacemaker (PM) or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Sudden discharge of high electrical energy employed in direct current (DC) transthoracic countershock may damage the PM/ICD system resulting in a series of possible device malfunctions. For this reason, when defibrillation or cardioversion must be attempted in a patient with a PM or ICD, some precautions should be taken, particularly in PM dependent patients, in order to prevent damage to the device. We report the case of a 76-year-old woman with a dual chamber PM implanted in the right subclavicular region, who received two consecutive transthoracic DC shocks to treat haemodynamically unstable broad QRS complex tachycardia after cardiac surgery performed with a standard sternotomic approach. Because of the sternal wound and thoracic drainage tubes together with the severe clinical compromise, the anterior paddle was positioned near the pulse generator. At the following PM test, a complete battery discharge was detected.