Este trabalho examina a interpretação dos dispositivos constitucionais que atribuem competências tributárias aos entes federados (União, Estados, Distrito Federal e Municípios). Tais enunciados normativos constituem o material bruto a partir do qual o intérprete reconstrói as chamadas "regras de competência tributária": normas que predeterminam aquilo que pode ser objeto de disciplina pelo legislador infraconstitucional para criação de tributos. A presente obra tem duas finalidades. De um lado, pretende analisar a questão do "como" se atribui significado a esses dispositivos. Nesse sentido, enfrenta questões ligadas à teoria da interpretação, aos tipos de operações realizadas pelos intérpretes e aos limites da atividade interpretativa. De outro lado, propõe-se a examinar a questão do "porquê" o significado atribuído é o correto, e não outro. Isto é, por que o significado "X" – e não o significado "Y" ou "Z" – deve ser considerado como a melhor interpretação de determinada expressão constitucional usada para delimitar o poder de tributar? Para responder a essa pergunta, o trabalho investiga os argumentos utilizados no âmbito do STF e os fundamentos constitucionais que lhes emprestam força para justificar as decisões interpretativas. Ao final, o trabalho propõe diretrizes materiais de preferência argumentativa, de tal modo a viabilizar algum controle sobre a interpretação dos dispositivos constitucionais responsáveis por limitar o poder tributário estatal. / This dissertation examines the interpretation of constitutional provisions that assign tax power to federal entities (Union, States, Federal District and Municipalities). These normative statements constitute the raw material from which the interpreter reconstructs the so-called "tax competence rules": norms that predetermine what can be subject to discipline by the infraconstitutional legislator to create taxes. The present work has two purposes. On one hand, it aims to analyze the question of "how" meaning is assigned to these provisions. In this sense, it deals with issues related to the theory of interpretation, the operations performed by the interpreters and the limits of interpretive activity. On the other hand, it sets out to examine the question of "why" the assigned meaning is the correct one, and not another. That is, why meaning "X" - and not meaning "Y" or "Z" - should be considered the best interpretation of a certain constitutional expression used to set limits on the power to tax? To answer this question, this work investigates the arguments used by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) and the constitutional foundations that give them strength to justify interpretive decisions. Ultimately, this work proposes material guidelines of argumentative preference, in order to allow some control over the interpretation of constitutional provisions responsible for limiting the state tax power.

Este trabalho examina a interpretação dos dispositivos constitucionais que atribuem competências tributárias aos entes federados (União, Estados, Distrito Federal e Municípios). Tais enunciados normativos constituem o material bruto a partir do qual o intérprete reconstrói as chamadas "regras de competência tributária": normas que predeterminam aquilo que pode ser objeto de disciplina pelo legislador infraconstitucional para criação de tributos. A presente obra tem duas finalidades. De um lado, pretende analisar a questão do "como" se atribui significado a esses dispositivos. Nesse sentido, enfrenta questões ligadas à teoria da interpretação, aos tipos de operações realizadas pelos intérpretes e aos limites da atividade interpretativa. De outro lado, propõe-se a examinar a questão do "porquê" o significado atribuído é o correto, e não outro. Isto é, por que o significado "X" – e não o significado "Y" ou "Z" – deve ser considerado como a melhor interpretação de determinada expressão constitucional usada para delimitar o poder de tributar? Para responder a essa pergunta, o trabalho investiga os argumentos utilizados no âmbito do STF e os fundamentos constitucionais que lhes emprestam força para justificar as decisões interpretativas. Ao final, o trabalho propõe diretrizes materiais de preferência argumentativa, de tal modo a viabilizar algum controle sobre a interpretação dos dispositivos constitucionais responsáveis por limitar o poder tributário estatal. / This dissertation examines the interpretation of constitutional provisions that assign tax power to federal entities (Union, States, Federal District and Municipalities). These normative statements constitute the raw material from which the interpreter reconstructs the so-called "tax competence rules": norms that predetermine what can be subject to discipline by the infraconstitutional legislator to create taxes. The present work has two purposes. On one hand, it aims to analyze the question of "how" meaning is assigned to these provisions. In this sense, it deals with issues related to the theory of interpretation, the operations performed by the interpreters and the limits of interpretive activity. On the other hand, it sets out to examine the question of "why" the assigned meaning is the correct one, and not another. That is, why meaning "X" - and not meaning "Y" or "Z" - should be considered the best interpretation of a certain constitutional expression used to set limits on the power to tax? To answer this question, this work investigates the arguments used by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) and the constitutional foundations that give them strength to justify interpretive decisions. Ultimately, this work proposes material guidelines of argumentative preference, in order to allow some control over the interpretation of constitutional provisions responsible for limiting the state tax power.

This dissertation presents the bases on which Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca settled their Traité de l'argumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique [The new rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation], in the restructuring context of creating concepts and rhetoric of universal audience and the spirit of community , leading to the construction of an idealized community of communication where all subjects are perceived with the same capacity for understanding and communication. Speaker and audience in this community recognize the rationality of their discussions and arguments based on agreements based on the system of beliefs, accepting the arguments of plausible, of likelihood, of probable, assuming the free argumentative rather than coercive argument. In this case, speaker and audience engage in a context of mutual construction training in the auditorium of what is universal and the community of spirits that Perelman s theory act as a legitimate institution of the actions of speech that occur between speaker and audience. / Este trabalho apresenta as bases em que Chaïm Perelman e Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca fundamentam o Traité de l'argumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique (Tratado da Argumentação: a nova retórica), no contexto de reestruturação da retórica criando conceitos como auditório universal e comunidade dos espíritos , levando à construção de uma comunidade idealizada de comunicação onde todos os sujeitos são percebidos com as mesmas capacidades de entendimento e de comunicação. Nessa comunidade orador e integrantes do auditório admitem a racionalidade das discussões e fundamentam sua argumentação sobre acordos baseados no sistema de crenças, admitindo a argumentação do plausível, da verossimilhança, do provável e da liberdade argumentativa em detrimento da argumentação coerciva. Nesse sentido, orador e membros do auditório se envolvem em um contexto de mútua construção na formação do que é o auditório universal e da própria comunidade dos espíritos que na teoria de Perelman passa a agir como a instituição legitimadora das ações de fala que se dão entre orador e auditório.

Does Yahweh exist? What is the ontological status of Yahweh-as-depicted in the Old Testament texts? Is the deity merely a character of fiction or does He also exist in extra-textual reality? According to the viewpoint of the devil’s advocate whose perspective on the issue is articulated in this thesis, the answer to the question is simply, no – Yahweh does not exist. He may seem real to those who believe in him and in the world of the text but he has no extra-textual and extra-psychical counterpart. To prove such a controversial claim, the philosophy of religion has been utilised as auxiliary discipline within Old Testament studies in the form of philosophicalcritical analysis (philosophical criticism / philosophy of Old Testament religion). A devil’s advocate's case against realism in Old Testament theology has been reconstructed in the form of seven arguments against the existence of Yahweh. According to the argument from theological pluralism, one element of the depiction of Yahweh in the text that is rather suspicious is the fact that Yahweh is characterised in ways that blatantly contradict each other. Both synchronic and diachronic perspectives on the theological contradictions suggest that there is no coherent biblical view of what Yahweh is actually like, what his will is and what he supposedly did. This deconstructs realism since the same actually existing entity cannot have discrepant attributes, hold mutually exclusive moral beliefs and have a history of both doing something and not doing the same thing at the same time. From the perspective of the argument from unorthodox theology, it is apparent that Yahweh is often depicted in ways most unorthodox from the point of view of Christian philosophical theology. Some texts appear to suggest he may not be eternal, single, omnipotent, omniscient, precognisant, immutable, omnipresent or wholly uninvolved in the actualisation of evil. If there is a God and if this God has all the attributes assigned to him by popular classical Christian philosophical theology, it follows that unorthodox depictions of Yahweh must be fictitious. In the view of the argument from polymorphic projection, everything about the god Yahweh appears suspiciously all-too-human. What Yahweh believes about the world, his self-talk, what he considers morally right and wrong and the way in which his own abode is run are all uncannily similar to the worldview and superstitions of the Iron Age Levant. The divine variables never transcend this all-too-local and all-too-cultural matrix and even change along with it. This unmasks Yahweh as ananthropomorphic, sociomorphic and sychomorphic projection – a character of fiction who does not exist outside the minds of those who created him in their image. The argument from mythology and syncretism demonstrates that the discourse of Yahweh’s religion and the sacred stories and poems in which he features contain numerous parallels to the myths, legends, folklore and superstitions found in other pagan religions. There are also marked traces of syncretism between the cult and theology of Yahweh and the ideologies of the Israelites' neighbours which, in each case, predates Yahwism. This suggests that Yahweh’s ontological status may very well not be all that different from that of El, Baal, Zeus or Maduk. From the perspective of the argument from fictitious cosmography, the world in the text where Yahweh is depicted as existing, acting and in which his abode is located and of which he is the creator, does not exist. Yahweh’s world and his worldview are demonstrably fictitious. Since the Old Testament depicts Yahweh as being “up there” in the sky and since we know that he is demonstrably not there, Yahweh-as-depicted stands unmasked as a character of fiction. The argument from fictitious history asserts that the Old Testament is filled with historical fiction. For a variety of reasons, it can be demonstrated that many of the depictions of supposed historical scenarios are completely fictitious in that they never happened in the way the details of the accounts imply were the case. Since what was intended as history is actually fiction and no god literally appeared, acted and spoke as Yahweh is depicted as doing, it follows that Yahweh as thus depicted is a character of fiction. He does not exist. Finally, the argument from meta-textual history shows that, on the one hand, the all-too-recent and all-too-local origins of the worship of Yahweh on a historical and cosmic scale unmask it as a wholly human enterprise. On the other hand, the Old Testament texts themselves have all-too-human origins rather than being the result of actual divine revelation. The Old Testament appears not to be the Word of God but human words about an allegedly existing deity. The development of Yahwism and its derivatives (Judaism and Christianity) seems not to have been determined by progressive revelation but by socio-cultural paradigm shifts and a history of repressed anti-realist tendencies. From such a meta-textual historical perspective it becomes obvious that Yahweh-as-depicted in the text is indeed no more than a product of human ideological imagination. In other words, he does not really exist. Though not all seven of these devil’s advocate’s arguments may be equally devastating when viewed in isolation, in the form of a cumulative argument against realism, they constitute seemingly irrefutable proof that Yahweh-as-depicted in the text does not exist. Consequently, realism collapses not only in Old Testament theology but also in any form of theism somehow related to, rooted in and/or dependent on realism in its discourse. / Thesis (PhD (Old Testament Science))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

La linguistique informatique est un domaine de recherche qui se concentre sur les méthodes et les perspectives de la modélisation formelle (statistique ou symbolique) de la langue naturelle. La linguistique informatique, tout comme la linguistique théorique, est une discipline fortement modulaire : les niveaux d'analyse linguistique comprennent la segmentation, l'analyse morphologique, la désambiguïsation, l'analyse syntaxique et sémantique. Tandis qu'un nombre d'outils existent déjà pour les traitements de bas niveau (analyse morphologique, étiquetage grammatical), le hongrois peut être considéré comme une langue peu doté pour l'analyse syntaxique et sémantique. Le travail décrit dans la présente thèse vise à combler ce manque en créant des ressources pour le traitement syntaxique du hongrois : notamment, un analyseur en chunks et une base de données lexicale de schémas de sous-catégorisation verbale. La première partie de la recherche présentée ici se concentre sur la création d'un analyseur syntaxique de surface (ou analyseur en chunks) pour le hongrois. La sortie de l'analyseur de surface est conçue pour servir d'entrée pour un traitement ultérieur visant à annoter les relations de dépendance entre le prédicat et ses compléments essentiels et circonstanciels. L'analyseur profond est mis en œuvre dans NooJ (Silberztein, 2004) en tant qu'une cascade de grammaires. Le deuxième objectif de recherche était de proposer une représentation lexicale pour la structure argumentale en hongrois. Cette représentation doit pouvoir gérer la vaste gamme de phénomènes qui échappent à la dichotomie traditionnelle entre un complément essentiel et un circonstanciel (p. ex. des structures partiellement productives, des écarts entre la prédictibilité syntaxique et sémantique). Nous avons eu recours à des résultats de la recherche récente sur la réalisation d'arguments et choisi un cadre qui répond à nos critères et qui est adaptable à une langue non-configurationnelle. Nous avons utilisé la classification sémantique de Levin (1993) comme modèle. Nous avons adapté les notions relatives à cette classification, à savoir celle de la composante sémantique et celle de l'alternance syntaxique, ainsi que la méthodologie d'explorer et de décrire le comportement des prédicats à l'aide de cette représentation, à la tâche de construire une représentation lexicale des verbes dans une langue non-configurationnelle. La première étape consistait à définir les règles de codage et de construire un vaste base de données lexicale pour les verbes et leurs compléments. Par la suite, nous avons entrepris deux expériences pour l'enrichissement de ce lexique avec des informations sémantiques lexicales afin de formaliser des généralisations syntaxiques et sémantiques pertinentes sur les classes de prédicats sous-jacentes. La première approche que nous avons testée consistait en une élaboration manuelle de classification de verbes en fonction de leur structure de compléments et de l'attribution de rôles sémantiques à ces compléments. Nous avons cherché la réponse aux questions suivantes: quelles sont les composants sémantiques pertinents pour définir une classification sémantique des prédicats hongrois? Quelles sont les implications syntaxiques spécifiques à ces classes? Et, plus généralement, quelle est la nature des alternances spécifiques aux classes verbales en hongrois ? Dans la phase finale de la recherche, nous avons étudié le potentiel de l'acquisition automatique pour extraire des classes de verbes à partir de corpus. Nous avons effectué une classification non supervisée, basée sur des données distributionnelles, pour obtenir une classification sémantique pertinente des verbes hongrois. Nous avons également testé la méthode de classification non supervisée sur des données françaises. / We present the creation of two resources for Hungarian NLP applications: a rule-based shallow parser and a database of verbal subcategorization frames. Hungarian, as a non-configurational language with a rich morphology, presents specific challenges for NLP at the level of morphological and syntactic processing. While efficient and precise morphological analyzers are already available, Hungarian is under-resourced with respect to syntactic analysis. Our work aimed at overcoming this problem by providing resources for syntactic processing. Hungarian language is characterized by a rich morphology and a non-configurational encoding of grammatical functions. These features imply that the syntactic processing of Hungarian has to rely on morphological features rather than on constituent order. The broader interest of our undertaking is to propose representations and methods that are adapted to these specific characteristics, and at the same time are in line with state of the art research methodologies. More concretely, we attempt to adapt current results in argument realization and lexical semantics to the task of labeling sentence constituents according to their syntactic function and semantic role in Hungarian. Syntax and semantics are not completely independent modules in linguistic analysis and language processing: it has been known for decades that semantic properties of words affect their syntactic distribution. Within the syntax-semantics interface, the field of argument realization deals with the (partial or complete) prediction of verbal subcategorization from semantic properties. Research on verbal lexical semantics and semantically motivated mapping has been concentrating on predicting the syntactic realization of arguments, taking for granted (either explicitly or implicitly) that the distinction between arguments and adjuncts is known, and that adjuncts' syntactic realization is governed by productive syntactic rules, not lexical properties. However, besides the correlation between verbal aspect or actionsart and time adverbs (e.g. Vendler, 1967 or Kiefer, 1992 for Hungarian), the distribution of adjuncts among verbs or verb classes did not receive significant attention, especially within the lexical semantics framework. We claim that contrary to the widely shared presumption, adjuncts are often not fully productive. We therefore propose a gradual notion of productivity, defined in relation to Levin-type lexical semantic verb classes (Levin, 1993; Levin and Rappaport-Hovav, 2005). The definition we propose for the argument-adjunct dichotomy is based on evidence from Hungarian and exploits the idea that lexical semantics not only influences complement structure but is the key to the argument-adjunct distinction and the realization of adjuncts

Il est du rôle d’une discipline comme l’analyse du discours de revenir sur des textes, considérés dès lors comme discours, qui n’ont pas encore dévoilé leurs secrets et les enjeux qu’ils mettent sur le marché du sens. Nous avons cherché dans le cadre de cette recherche à démontrer le lien étroit entre le sujet du discours, en l’occurrence Pierre Rivière, le cadre familial dans lequel il a vécu et le cadre social qui l’a amené à commettre son triple assassinat. Comment le dire de Pierre Rivière est-il conçu pour argumenter en faveur d’un crime que le jeune paysan assume ? Quel rapport y a-t-il à établir alors entre le dire et les moyens linguistiques mis au service de ce dire lui-même ?Le dernier point sur lequel nous nous arrêtons est celui du pouvoir de l’écriture. L’écriture elle-même est un pouvoir dont jouit celui qui y recourt.Mots clésAnalyse du discours, arguments, discours, écriture, mémoire, prédiscours, texte, pouvoir, crime, société. / It is one of the roles of Discourse Analysis as a discipline to consider texts, regarded so far as speeches that have not yet totally revealed the secrets and issues that they place on the market of meaning. In this research, the close relationship between the subject of the discourse namely Pierre Rivière, the family where he lived and the social context that led him to commit the triple murder is investigated. How was the speech of Pierre Riviere designed to argue in favor of a crime that the young peasant assumes? What kind of connection is then, possible to establish between the speech and the available linguistic devices of this very speech? The last point to be mentioned is that of the power of writing. Writing in itself is a kind of power that only those who know it enjoy it. Key wordsDiscourse analysis, arguments, discourse, writing, memory, text, power, crime, society

This Diplomas thesis is focused on critical thinking. The main goal of this thesis is to define methods and tools leading to improvement of critical thinking in decision making and problem solving. The thesis is divided into five parts. First part is about characteristic of current world and importance of critical thinking in it. Second part defines fundamental errors in judgment and provides methods that could prevent these errors to occur. Third part is about fallacious arguments and philosophical concepts which define to which problems use of critical thinking is appropriate. These concepts could also help to simplify our decision making. Fourth part describes methods to enhance our cognitive abilities and rational thinking. Fifth part summarizes methods and tools leading to improvement of critical thinking.

The researcher in this case study sought to determine the ways in which teachers support their students to create viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others (SMP3). In order to achieve this goal, the self-conceived classroom roles of two teachers, one experienced and one novice, were elicited and then compared to their actualized roles observed in the classroom. Both teachers were provided with professional development focused on supporting student engagement in SMP3. This professional development was informed by the guidelines that describe the behaviors students should exhibit as they are engaged in the standards for mathematical practice contained in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The teachers were observed, video recorded, and interviewed during and immediately after the professional development. A final observation was performed four weeks after the PD. The marked differences in the teachers' characteristics depicted in each case added to the robustness of the results of the study. A cross-case analysis was performed in order to gauge how the novice and experienced teachers' roles compared and contrasted with each other. The comparison of the teachers' self-perception and their actual roles in the classroom indicated that they were not supporting their students as they thought they were. The analysis yielded specific ways in which novice and experienced teachers might support their students. Furthermore, the cross-case analysis established the support that teachers are able to provide to students depends on (a) teaching experience, (b) teacher content and pedagogical knowledge, (c) questioning, (d) awareness of communication, (e) teacher expectations, and (f) classroom management. Study results provide implications regarding the kinds of support teachers might need given their teaching experience and mathematics content knowledge as they attempt to motivate their students to engage in SMP3.

This dissertation attempts to deepen our understanding of teachers’ work and professionality, which involves not only their reasoning about what to teach and how to teach it, but also of what it is that makes education possible. This is accomplished by exploring a highly influential, if underestimated and under-researched, dimension of teacher practice and professionality: the relational dimension, involving the establishment and maintenance of educational relationships with and among students. In the imperatives and challenges of the 21st century the importance of highlighting the relational dimension seems to be a concern of increasing importance. Through interviews and observation that have generated the empirical material, the relational practices of eleven teachers are analyzed in accordance with a particular methodological scheme. Apart from providing a descriptive mapping of these practices, this study presents the practical arguments given by informants to substantiate their use. The numerous examples of relational practices and practical arguments that are herein provided serve to empirically confirm the pervasive relational character of a teacher’s work. What emerges is an understanding of an educational relationship, established and maintained by practices that seek genuine human contact with students, and that views relational attributes such as trust, social justice, benevolence, empathy and openness to the other as being of vital importance to the entirety of the educational process. In addition, the practices involving enacting educational communities among students, are shown to have significance for the educational process. What emerges as well is a conception of relational professionality as something that can be learned, meaning that teachers are made, not born. Moreover, “being professional” is here conceived, in pedagogical rather than sociological terms, as something that involves the quality of a teacher’s actions rather than the fact that s/he belongs to a particular profession. The findings of this study strongly suggest that relationships in schools often require conscious attention, rigorous work and delicate negotiations on the part of teachers in order to be (or become) educational. The process of education is sustained by an array of subtle relational conditions. The attempt of the teacher to deal with these conditions requires specific professional experience, understandings and practices.

This thesis presents a description and analysis of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian. It consists of an introduction and six articles, providing historical and/or contrastive perspective to this issue. More specifically, using data from Lithuanian dialects, Old Lithuanian and other languages such as Icelandic, Latin and Finnic for comparison, the thesis examines the development and current state of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian The present work draws on empirical findings and theoretical considerations to investigate non-canonical case-marking, language variation and historical linguistics. Special attention is paid to the variation in the case-marking of body parts in pain verb constructions, where an accusative-marked body part is used in Standard Lithuanian, and alongside, a nominative-marked body part in Lithuanian dialects. A common objective of the first three articles is to clarify and to seek a better understanding for the reasons for this case variation. The research provides evidence that nominative is the original case-marking of body parts in pain specific construction, i.e. with verbs, with the original meaning of pain, like skaudėti and sopėti ‘hurt, feel pain’. On the contrary, in derived pain constructions, i.e. with verbs like gelti with the original meaning of ‘sting, bite’ and diegti with the original meaning ‘plant’, accusative is the original case-marking of body parts. This accusative is explained by means of an oblique anticausative and it is argued furthermore that it is extended into the pain specific construction. The three last articles focus on the comparative and contrastive perspective. Their main results include the following: Lithuanian and Icelandic differ considerably in the frequency of using accusative vs. dative marking on the highest ranked argument. Accusative is more frequently used in Lithuanian while dative is dominant in Icelandic. The semantic fields of the dative subject construction have remained very stable, suggesting that the dative subject construction is inherited. It has, however, become productive in the history of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. The similarities in Finnic and Baltic partiality-based object and subject-marking systems are due to Baltic influence. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: In press. Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: In press.</p>