We investigated age-related differences in neural activation associated with recognition of familiar melodies, a process that requires retrieval from musical semantic memory and leads to a feeling of familiarity. We used sparse sampling fMRI to determine the neural correlates of melody processing and familiarity by comparing activation when listening to melodies versus signal-correlated noise, and to familiar versus unfamiliar melodies, respectively. Overall, activity in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus correlated well with melody processing. Familiarity was associated with several frontal regions (bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, and precentral gyrus; left insular cortex), right superior temporal gyrus; left supramarginal gyrus and cingulate gyrus; bilateral putamen and thalamus; cerebellum and brainstem. No significant differences were found between younger and older adults for either melody processing or familiarity based activation. Assessment of familiarity-related group differences using less stringent criteria identified plausible areas; greater activation was seen bilaterally in the superior temporal gyrus in younger adults and in some left parietal regions in older adults. This study adds to the knowledge of musical semantic memory with results based on a large sample (N = 40) that includes older adults. Our findings for activation associated with melody processing and familiarity support some, but not all, previous results of related studies. We were unable to find conclusive evidence of age-related differences in neural correlates of musical semantic memory, while also being the first study (to the best of our knowledge) to search for these differences. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-16 12:38:10.757

This work is dedicated to the study of the dialect of Spanish at Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico). The work is divided into three sections. In the first part, the basic concepts related to the subject of the work are delimited. The second part focuses on the evolution of Spanish and Amerindian languages in Mexico, as well it includes the linguistic situation at Yucatan Peninsula and characterizes the Mayan languages. As for the third part, it consists of the analysis of Spanish of Yucatan, it includes descriptions of characteristics of phonetics, morphology and lexicology. The work emphasizes the influence of Mayan language on the dialect.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of linguistic tools typical for French political discourse. The thesis is based on an analysis of selected political speeches of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It tries to capture how a change in a specific political situation of a particular author can affect communicative strategies, discursive practices, and then select the linguistic tools due to the addressee in a particular communicative situation and the communicative intention. The first part of the thesis is focused on the rhetoric and stylistics, which contribute to the typological definition of texts falling within the French political discourse. The second part is based on an analysis of three essential political speeches Nicolas Sarkozy.

The main objective of the present thesis is to characterize lexical and word-formation differences in the New Testament translation by John Purvey (also known as the second version of the Wycliffite Bible, 1388) and the translators of the Douay-Rheims Bible (1582), with the focus on the differences which are believed to be influenced by the objective changes in the language. For this reason, the very analysis is preceded by two chapters, the first one identifying the subjective strategies of the translators and the second one describing the objective changes that occurred in the language during the two hundred years that separate the two Bibles. The comparison of the Wycliffite and Douay-Rheims Bible, which is also a contribution to a word-formation and lexical-semantic development from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, is based on four books of the New Testament, namely the Gospel of Mark, Acts of the Apostles, the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the Book of Revelation. The thesis also aims to assess the attitude of the translators towards their common source, the Latin Vulgate, but leaves aside the circumstances of religious controversy and its impact on the motivation and strategy of the translators. Another objective is to assess both translations as certain milestones in the...

Les constructions à verbe support et les constructions à prédicat composé ont été longuement étudiées, mais de façon indépendante dans la linguistique française et anglo-saxonne. En se basant sur le courant du Lexique-Grammaire, cette thèse a visé de répondre à la lacune dans les langues africaines, des études sur des constructions similaires dans lesquelles le verbe est sémantiquement vague et dont la force prédicative repose principalement sur nom. Cette thèse comprend aussi une étude comparative entre les langues des familles différentes pour valider la notion d’universalité de ce type de verbes qui sont dénommés les verbes supports dans le courant dont nous nous basons. En effet notre recherche à démontré que les verbes délexicalisés et désemantisés actualisent des nominaux gérondifs prédicatifs dans la langue éwé, une langue Kwa de la famille Nigéro-congolaise pour laquelle il n’existait pas d’études préalables à ce sujet. D’ailleurs, une étude comparative nous a aussi révélé que les constructions à verbe support en français partagent certaines propriétés syntaxico-sémantiques avec des constructions à prédicat composé en anglais et des constructions à nominal gérondif en éwé telles que la réduction du verbe support et sa reconstructibilité par le biais d’une proposition relative. Les trois langues ont aussi partagé la propriété de certains verbes actualisateurs fonctionnant comme des agents de nominalisation. Cependant, il existe aussi des différences au niveau des constructions. L’une des différences est le fait que la détermination du nom joue un rôle important dans les constructions à verbe support en français et les constructions à prédicat composé en anglais alors que la détermination n’est pas un enjeu important dans la construction à nominal gérondif. D’autres différences qui sont ressorties de notre thèse étaient les différences dans le nombre et la fréquence des constructions à verbe support dans les trois langues ainsi que les différences dans les relations d’interdépendance des éléments différents des constructions étudiées dans les trois langues. En général, l’anglais et le français semblaient très proches et il y avait peu des distinctions syntaxico-sémantiques. Par contre, l’éwé montrait plus de différences – ce qui est un argument en faveur de l’existence de grammaires locales différenciées selon les langues comme le suggère le cadre du Lexique-Grammaire.Cependant, il existe aussi des différences au niveau des constructions. L’une des différences est le fait que la détermination joue un rôle important dans les constructions à verbe support en anglais et en français alors que la détermination n’est pas un enjeu important dans la construction à support en éwé. D’autres différences qui sont ressorties de notre thèse étaient les différences dans le nombre et la fréquence des constructions à verbe support dans les trois langues ainsi que les différences dans les relations d’interdépendance des éléments différents des CVS dans les trois langues. En général, l’anglais et le français semblaient très proches et il y avait peu des distinctions syntaxico-sémantiques. Par contre, l’éwé montrait plus de différences – ce qui est un argument en faveur de l’existence de grammaires locales différenciées selon les langues comme le suggère le cadre du Lexique-Grammaire. / Support verbs have been studied to a great extent in the Lexicon-Grammar framework. This thesis aims at filling the gap of studies of support verb constructions in African languages, as well as that of comparative studies among languages of different families in order to validate the notion of the universality of support verbs. Indeed our research has demonstrated that support verbs do exist in Ewe, a Kwa language of the Niger-Congo family for which there had been no prior study of this notion. Moreover, a comparative study also revealed to us that support verb constructions in English, French and Ewe share certain syntax-semantic properties such as the reduction of the support verbe and its reconstruction through a relative clause. The three languages also shared the property of support verbs being agents of nominalization. However, there are also differences in these constructions. One of the differences is the fact that determination plays an important role in support verb constructions in English and French. However, determination is not an important factor in support verb constructions in Ewe. Other differences that were reflected in our thesis include the differences in number and frequency of support verb constructions (SVCs) in the tree languages, as well as differences in the interdependency links among the various elements of SVCs in the three languages. On the whole, English and French seem linguistically close and there were few syntax-semantic differences. On the other hand, Ewe displayed more differences – which supports the concept of different language-specific local grammars suggested by the Lexical-Grammar framework.

Esta tese, com o intuito de contribuir para uma reflexão em torno da história da formação da língua portuguesa no Brasil, propõe como objetivo geral realizar um estudo do léxico no município de Cáceres-MT, tendo como base a discussão sobre manutenção, tendência à manutenção, desuso, tendência ao desuso e neologismo semântico de unidades lexicais extraídas de um manuscrito oitocentista. Os objetivos específicos são os seguintes: (i) compreender a história social da Capitania de Mato Grosso e do município de Cáceres, a partir das informações constantes no manuscrito Memoria, e aspectos que envolvam as condições de produção do documento e a biografia do autor; (ii) levantar o léxico do manuscrito, com recorte nos substantivos e adjetivos para servir de base na seleção das unidades lexicais a serem testadas in loco, e investigar a acepção registrada no documento das unidades lexicais, caracterizando, assim, o léxico do período oitocentista; (iii), fazer um cotejo lexicográfico abrangendo dicionários gerais dos séculos XVIII ao XXI; (iv) testar e identificar, a partir do corpus oral constituído por meio de pesquisa de campo na região urbana cacerense, o grau de manutenção, tendência à manutenção, desuso, tendência ao desuso e neologismo semântico em relação às unidades lexicais e suas respectivas acepções registradas no manuscrito. Dessa forma, toma-se como corpus de língua escrita de análise o manuscrito oitocentista Memoria sobre o plano de guerra offensiva e deffensiva da Capitania de Matto Grosso e, a partir das unidades lexicais selecionadas e extraídas dele, realizou-se a pesquisa de campo para o recolhimento do corpus de língua oral. Antes dessa recolha, tendo como base teórico-metodológica as disciplinas de Dialetologia e de Geolinguística, selecionou-se a localidade (município de Cáceres - MT) e os informantes (total de dezesseis); elaborou-se o questionário semântico-lexical, considerando fundamentalmente a proposta apresentada pelo Comitê Nacional do Projeto ALiB (2001); e realizou-se a pesquisa de campo e as transcrições das entrevistas. Para análise de natureza semântico-lexical dos corpora, recorreu aos estudos lexicográficos e lexicológicos. Tomando por base os resultados do estudo realizado, constatou-se que na realidade linguística do informante cacerense encontram-se unidades que já integravam o léxico oitocentista da língua portuguesa escrita no Brasil, ou seja, há uma memória semântico-lexical que se mantém no sistema lexical, provavelmente, devido às condições sócioculturais do município de Cáceres, Mato Grosso, cuja população, em grande parte, por quase duzentos anos, viveu na área rural. Todavia, vislumbrou-se um certo equilíbrio entre a manutenção do léxico oitocentista sem deixar de lado a inovação e o mecanismo polissêmico constitutivo do léxico. / This thesis aims to contribute for a reflection on the history of Brazilian Portuguese language formation by proposing a study on the lexicon in the municipality of Cáceres, State of Mato Grosso, based on a discussion on the maintenance, the tendency to maintain, the disuse, the tendency to disuse and the semantic neologism of lexical units extracted from an eighthundredth manuscript. The specific goals of the study are the following: (i) understand the social history of the Mato Grosso Captainship and the municipality of Cáceres from the information available in the manuscript Memoria, and from aspects involving the conditions of production of the document and the authors biography; (ii) survey the lexicon of the manuscript, taking nouns and adjectives as the basis in the selection of lexical units to be tested in loco and investigate the meaning of lexical units registered in the document, thus characterizing the lexicon of the eight-hundredth period; (iii) carry out a lexicographical comparison including general dictionaries from the 18th to 21th centuries; (iv) test and identify, from the oral corpus built through the field work in the urban region of Cáceres, the degree of maintenance, the tendency to maintain, the disuse, the tendency to disuse and the semantic neologism regarding the lexical units and their respective meanings recorded in the manuscript. FFIn In order to achieve these goals, we take the eight-hundredth manuscript Memoria sobre o plano de Guerra offensive e deffensiva da Capitania de Matto Grosso [Memoir on the Offensive and Defensive War Plan of Matto Grosso Captainship] as a written language corpus for analysis and from the lexical units extracted and selected from this work we carried out field work to collect an oral language corpus. Before collecting this material, the courses Dialectology and Geolinguistics were used as theoretical and methodological basis for the selection of the site (municipality of Cáceres, State of Mato Grosso) and the informants (a total of sixteen). We then prepared a semantic-lexical questionnaire essentially considering the proposal presented by the National Project Committee (ALiB, 2001) and carried out the field research and the transcription of the interviews. Lexicographical and lexicological studies were used in the analysis of the lexical-semantic nature of the corpora. Building on the results of the study, we found out that the linguistic reality of the Cáceres informant showed units already comprised in the eight-hundredth lexicon of written Portuguese language in Brazil, that is, there is a semantic-lexical memory remaining in the lexical system, probably due to the sociocultural conditions of the municipality of Cáceres, State of Mato Grosso, where, for almost two hundred years, most of the population lived in the rural area. Nonetheless, a certain balance between the maintenance of the eight-hundredth lexicon was conceived without leaving aside innovation and the polysemic mechanism constituting the lexicon.

We investigated age-related differences in neural activation associated with recognition of familiar melodies, a process that requires retrieval from musical semantic memory and leads to a feeling of familiarity. We used sparse sampling fMRI to determine the neural correlates of melody processing and familiarity by comparing activation when listening to melodies versus signal-correlated noise, and to familiar versus unfamiliar melodies, respectively. Overall, activity in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus correlated well with melody processing. Familiarity was associated with several frontal regions (bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, and precentral gyrus; left insular cortex), right superior temporal gyrus; left supramarginal gyrus and cingulate gyrus; bilateral putamen and thalamus; cerebellum and brainstem. No significant differences were found between younger and older adults for either melody processing or familiarity based activation. Assessment of familiarity-related group differences using less stringent criteria identified plausible areas; greater activation was seen bilaterally in the superior temporal gyrus in younger adults and in some left parietal regions in older adults. This study adds to the knowledge of musical semantic memory with results based on a large sample (N = 40) that includes older adults. Our findings for activation associated with melody processing and familiarity support some, but not all, previous results of related studies. We were unable to find conclusive evidence of age-related differences in neural correlates of musical semantic memory, while also being the first study (to the best of our knowledge) to search for these differences. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-16 12:38:10.757

This study examined the effects of linguistic task demands on the neuroanatomical localization of the neural response related to automatic semantic processing of concrete German nouns combining the associative priming paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To clarify the functional role of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) for semantic processing with respect to semantic decision making compared to semantic processing per se, we used a linguistic task that involved either a binary decision process (i.e., semantic categorization; Experiment 1) or not (i.e., silently thinking about a word's meaning; Experiment 2). We observed associative priming effects indicated as neural suppression in bilateral superior temporal gyri (STG), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), occipito-temporal brain areas, and in medial frontal brain areas independently of the linguistic task. Inferior parietal brain areas were more active for silently thinking about a word's meaning compared to semantic categorization. A conjunction analysis of linguistic task revealed that both tasks activated the same left-lateralized occipito-temporo-frontal network including the IFG. Contrasting neural associative priming effects across linguistic task demands, we found a significant interaction in the right IFG. The present fMRI data give rise to the assumption that activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in the semantic domain might be important for semantic processing in general and not only for semantic decision making. These findings contrast with a recent study regarding the role of the LIFG for binary decision making in the lexical domain (Wright et al. 2011).

Young adult literature (YA) has been stereotypical in many of its portrayals of LGBTQ teens from the 1960s to the early 2000s, but three contemporary YA series--Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments, Sarah Rees Brennan's Demons trilogy, and Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales--indicate a change toward more nuanced characterizations. Using four categories--scriptedness, context, importance, and sexuality--to determine whether these representations of LGBTQ youth challenge or reiterate older tropes, my analysis indicates that YA has moved toward more complex representations of queerness, yet some normative discursive structures are still at work, such as poisonings or curses, supernatural parallels to coming out, and heteronormative humour. Although representations of queerness have diversified, then, the implicit ideologies in each author's portrayal of queerness demands closer attention.

Partendo da un punto di vista lessicale, la ricerca si ripropone di investigare la presenza di elementi musicali all’interno della produzione epigrammatica del periodo ellenistico, con riferimenti, talora, anche ad autori più tardi. Sono stati analizzati due tipi di fonti: epigrammi di tradizione letteraria (che includono componimenti dall’Anthologia Palatina, dal Nuovo Posidippo, e dal materiale raccolto da Gow e Page) ed epigrafi (che comprendono iscrizioni dagli Steinepigramme aus dem Griechischen Osten e dalle Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte greco-romain), in modo tale da poter agire su un campo di indagine coerente e bilanciato. Il materiale è stato articolato in due sezioni principali, “Mousikà stoikheia” e “Organikè mousa”, rispettivamente dedicate alle categorie musicali e agli strumenti musicali. L’analisi, partendo dalla ricostruzione della potenzialità semantica di ogni termine, basata sull’origine etimologica e sullo sviluppo letterario e teorico, e procedendo attraverso l’interpretazione delle occorrenze più significative all’interno dei testi epigrammatici, evidenzia una particolare sensibilità verso la componente musicale, richiamando sia la terminologia specifica musicale sia, più spesso, il tradizionale trattamento di alcuni temi appartenenti alla tradizione letteraria. Il presente lavoro include anche una Appendice finale, nella quale sono indicizzati i termini emersi durante l’indagine testuale. / Starting from a lexical point of view, this research aims at investigating the presence of musical elements within the epigrammatic production of the Hellenistic period, with references also to later authors. Two kinds of sources have been analysed: literary epigrams (including poems from the Greek Anthology, the New Posidippus, and the material collected by Gow-Page) and epigraphic epigrams (including inscriptions from Steinepigramme aus dem Griechischen Osten and Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte greco-romain), in order to have a coherent and balanced field of investigation. The material has been divided into two main parts, “Mousikà stoikheia” and “Organikè mousa”, referred to musical categories and musical instruments. The analysis, starting from the reconstruction of the potential musical meaning of each term, based on etymology and literary and theoretical development, and going on through the interpretation of the most relevant occurrences of the term in epigrammatic texts, shows a particular sensibility towards the musical element, recalling both the terminology of musical theory and, more often, the traditional treatment of some themes belonging to the literary tradition. A final Appendix provides an index with the terms found during the textual investigation.