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Thesis(M.A. (Translation and Linguistics Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The aim of this study was to examine the notion of projection, as underpinned by the Projection Principle, between the subject, the verb, the object, the adjective and the adverb in Tshivenḓa. Data were collected through participant observation, wherein the researcher collected data in the form of clauses and sentences in Tshivenḓa. This study found that verbs and subject prefixes are predicates which project arguments in sentences. These arguments are characterised both linguistically and in the form of word realities. The study further found that Tshivenḓa is a pro drop language because the adjectival argument prefix can locate the subject argument in absentia. In turn, subject arguments and adjectival arguments carry the same class nominal prefix. The projection of elements of a sentence in Tshivenḓa identifies grammatical relations between constituents. Lastly, it is recommended that studies of a similar nature should be conducted in other African languages to establish how elements of a clause or sentence cohere as informed by the Projection principle.

This thesis examines Robert Nozick’s critique of John Rawls’s theory of justice, focusing on the Chamberlain Argument as a challenging example in their debate. The Chamberlain Argument illustrates the tension between Rawls’s theory, which aims to distribute resources according to a certain pattern for social benefit, and its implications on individual freedom. Nozick argues that such patterned theories infringe upon individual liberty by coercively redistributing resources. Through analysis of patterned theory, it becomes evident, Nozick claims, that such frameworks prioritize specific distributions over individual liberty. I find that Nozick made a valid point in his objection to Rawls. However, I consider that the problem of patterned theories represented by Nozick in his critique of Rawls, is rooted in the first principle, not in the second. I assert that there is much more literature on Rawls’s second principle, but much less on his first principle. To address Nozick’s critique, this thesis proposes a modification to Rawls’s first principle, emphasizing self-respect as a foundational value. By reconceptualizing liberty within the Rawlsian framework, this thesis aims to fortify it against objections like the Chamberlain Argument, ultimately enhancing its coherence and theoretical robustness. For this reason, the research question is as follows: How can the Rawlsian theory overcome the Chamberlain argument? The one thesis I will pursue is that Rawls’s two principles can be immune to Nozick’s Chamberlain Argument, when the first principle is modified according to the priority of rights over liberty. To do so, the goal is to defend a Rawlsian pattern theory of justice. Firstly, I show that the first principle should be grounded on the priority of the rights instead of the good of the person. By reconceptualizing the concept of self-respect, I show that Rawls’s first principle is mainly focused on a negative concept of liberty, which I modify to a positive concept through what I call reciprocal self-respect. Secondly, I formulate responses to Nozick’s Chamberlain Argument and argue that social justice requires a holistic view of the society, not only as individuals, but also as collective and common. This view emphasizes the interdependency of individuals in a society, which presupposes duties of reciprocal self-respect, chosen rationally in the original position behind the veil of ignorance. Thus, Chamberlain would never have been able to make profits and succeed without society, infrastructure, opportunities and hotbed for success and self-determination.

The growing volume of opinion data presents a significant challenge for policymakers striving to distill public sentiment into actionable decisions. This study aims to explore the capability of large language models (LLMs) to synthesize public opinion data into coherent policy recommendations. We specifically leverage Mistral 7B and Mixtral 8x7B models for text generation and have developed an architecture to process vast amounts of unstructured information, integrate diverse viewpoints, and extract actionable insights aligned with public opinion. Using a retrospective data analysis of the Polis platform debates published by the Computational Democracy Project, this study examines multiple datasets that span local and national issues with 1600 statements posted and voted upon by over 3400 participants. Through content moderation, topic modeling, semantic structure extraction, insight generation, and argument mapping, we dissect and interpret the comments, leveraging voting data and LLMs for both quantitative and qualitative insights. A key contribution of this thesis is demonstrating how LLM reasoning techniques can enhance content moderation. Our content moderation approach shows performance improvements using comment deconstruction in multi-class classification, underscoring the trade-offs between moderation strategies and emphasizing a balance between precision and cautious moderation. Using comment clustering, we establish a hierarchy of semantically linked topics, facilitating an understanding of thematic structures and the generation of actionable insights. The generated argument maps visually represent the relationships between topics and insights, and highlight popular opinions. Future work will leverage advanced semantic extraction and reasoning techniques to enhance insight generation further. We also plan to generalize our techniques to other major discussion platforms, including Kialo. Our work contributes to the understanding of using LLMs for policymaking and offers a novel approach to structuring complex debates and translating public opinion into actionable policy insights.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação foi o de analisar as três demonstrações da existência de Deus nas Meditações Metafísicas de René Descartes. Ela contém três capítulos. No primeiro, tratamos de forma geral do método de Descartes, tendo a intenção de mostrar que este mesmo método será aplicado às Meditações Metafísicas influenciando em grande medida as provas da existência de Deus. No segundo capítulo, já no interior das Meditações Metafísicas, nos detemos na análise da dúvida metódica e do cogito. Estes dois temas são os antecedentes fundamentais para as provas da existência de Deus, na medida em que, através da dúvida, é vedado o recurso ao conhecimento dos seres materiais e à própria Natureza e, através do cogito, é descoberta a única via possível para se chegar a Deus. No terceiro e último capítulo, apresentamos a primeira, a segunda e a terceira prova da existência de Deus. Em todas essas três provas o nó da questão foi a aplicação do principio de causalidade especificado na forma da causalidade eficiente. Na primeira prova, Deus é inferido como causa eficiente de sua idéia presente no intelecto humano. Na segunda, Deus é provado como causa do próprio intelecto que tem sua idéia. Por fim, na última prova, Deus é concebido como causa formal e eficiente de si mesmo. / [en] The objective of this dissertation was to analyze three demonstrations of the existence of God in the Metaphysical Meditations of René Descartes. It contains three chapters. In the first one, we deal with general form of the method of Descartes, having the intention to show that this method will be applied to the Metaphysical Meditations influencing significantly on the tests of the existence of God. In the second chapter, where we are already talking about the Metaphysical Meditations, we withhold them in the analysis of the methodical doubt and cogitation. These two subjects are the basic antecedents for the tests of the existence of God, while through the doubt the resource to the knowledge of material beings and to the proper Nature is forbidden, and through the cogitation is discovered the only possible way to reach the God. In the third and last chapter, we present the first one, the second and third test of the existence of God. In all these three tests the main question was the application of beginning of specified cause to the form of the efficient cause. In the first test, God is inferred as the efficient cause of its present idea in the human intellect. In second, God is proven as a cause of the proper intellect that has its idea. Finally, in the last test, God is conceived as a formal and efficient cause of itself.

Argument coding splits such as differential (= split) object marking and split ergative marking have long been known to be universal tendencies, but the generalizations have not been formulated in their full generality before. In particular, ditransitive constructions have rarely been taken into account, and scenario splits have often been treated separately. Here I argue that all these patterns can be understood in terms of the usual association of role rank (highly ranked A and R, low-ranked P and T) and referential prominence (locuphoric person, animacy, definiteness, etc.). At the most general level, the role-reference association universal says that deviations from usual associations of role rank and referential prominence tend to be coded by longer grammatical forms. In other words, A and R tend to be referentially prominent in language use,while P and T are less prominent, and when less usual associations need to be expressed, languages often require special coding by means of additional flags (casemarkers and adpositions) or additional verbal voice coding (e.g., inverse or passive markers). I argue that role-reference associations are an instance of the even more general pattern of form-frequency correspondences, and that the resulting coding asymmetries can all be explained by frequency-based predictability and coding efficiency.

Polyvalente Verben koennen mit unterschiedlichen Konstituentenmengen kombiniert sein, wobei deren Zahl und Art variieren. In den meisten Grammatikschulen sind Verben zentral fuer syntaktische Gestalt und semantische Interpretation von Saetzen. Sie bestimmen ueber ihre Subkategorisierungsrahmen, wieviele Komplemente welchen Typs im Satz realisiert werden. Daher ist Polyvalenz ein unerwartetes Phaenomen. Eine Diskussion verschiedener Ansaetze der generativen Grammatik ergibt, dass Subkategorisierung fuer die Erklaerung von Polyvalenz ungeeignet ist. Im zweiten Kapitel wird ein Modell fuer die konzeptuell-semantische Interpretation von Verben und Saetzen entwickelt, das dem Rechnung traegt: In Saetzen mit polyvalenten Verben bedingen die Komplemente des Verbs zusammen mit dem Verb die konzeptuell-semantische Interpretation. Die thematische Interpretation wird als inferentieller Prozess angesehen, der keinen Spezialfall allgemeiner konzeptuell-semantischer Interpretationsprozesse darstellt, sondern vielmehr in diese eingebunden ist. / Polyvalent verbs can be combined with different sets of complements. The variation concerns both number and type of the complements. In most grammar theoretical frameworks, verbs are of crucial importance for the syntactic structure and semantic interpretation of clauses. They determine via subcategorization frames how many complements of which type are realized. Polyvalence is therefore an unexpected phenomenon. A discussion of several approaches in generative grammar results in the claim that subcategorization is not very useful for the explanation of polyvalence. In the second chapter, a model for the conceptual-semantic interpretation of verbs and clauses is developed that takes polyvalence into account: the conceptual-semantic interpretation of clauses with polyvalent verbs is determined by the verb and complements together. Thematic interpretation is viewed as an inferential process that is embedded within the general conceptual-semantic interpretation processes, not their prerequisite.