This dissertation explores the nature and extent of retroflex consonant harmony in South Asia. Using statistics calculated over lexical databases from a broad sample of languages, the study demonstrates that retroflex consonant harmony is an areal trait affecting most languages in the northern half of the South Asian subcontinent, including languages from at least three of the four major families in the region: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Munda (but not Tibeto-Burman). Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages in the southern half of the subcontinent do not exhibit retroflex consonant harmony. In South Asia, retroflex consonant harmony is manifested primarily as a static co-occurrence restriction on coronal consonants in roots/words. Historical-comparative evidence reveals that this pattern is the result of retroflex assimilation that is non-local, regressive and conditioned by the similarity of interacting segments. These typological properties stand in contrast to those of other retroflex assimilation patterns, which are local, primarily progressive, and not conditioned by similarity. This is argued to support the hypothesis that local feature spreading and long-distance feature agreement constitute two independent mechanisms of assimilation, each with its own set of typological properties, and that retroflex consonant harmony is the product of agreement, not spreading. Building on this hypothesis, the study offers a formal account of retroflex consonant harmony within the Agreement by Correspondence (ABC) model of Rose & Walker (2004) and Hansson (2001; 2010). Two Indo-Aryan languages, Kalasha and Indus Kohistani, figure prominently throughout the dissertation. These languages exhibit similarity effects that have not been clearly observed in other retroflex consonant harmony systems; retroflexion is contrastive in both non-sibilant (i.e., plosive) and sibilant obstruents (i.e., affricates and fricatives), but harmony applies only within each manner class, not between them. At the same time, harmony is not sensitive to laryngeal features. Theoretical implications of these and other similarity effects are discussed.

The dissertation aims to set out a methodological framework conducive to further research into the demarcation problem of logical constants through a critical examination of the principal proposals for the problem. Logical constants should be characterised so as the essential values of logic, i.e., necessity, normativity and formality, are secured. Formality is central to the proposed framework in consideration of its relation to validity / necessity and normativity are established with reference to formality. Logical constanthood is analysed into logicality and constanthood to explore the conditions and constraints on logical form. On the purpose of their determination, a Wittgensteinian stance is endorsed, focusing on the view of language as a reflexive autonomous realm. The autonomy of language unfolds a specific viewpoint that indicates that logical form is existentially grounded in the possibilities presented by the autonomy. v Gentzen&rsquo / s natural deduction and sequent calculi are adopted as the proper perspectives to discuss the relations of logicality and constanthood to formalisation. Logical constants are required to be fixed so that the resultant logical form is sterile of content and semantically inert with respect to argument content. In addition to the conditions of harmony in logical form, mutual disharmony is introduced. Analytic and grammatical truths are specified as constraints to logical form. In particular, the conservativeness condition is found to be irrelevant to logical form. The framework incorporates methodological pluralism as a probe into the understanding of logicality. The dissertation suggests a bidimensional programme of research related to formal conditions and the Wittgensteinian grammatical constraints.

This dissertation explores the nature and extent of retroflex consonant harmony in South Asia. Using statistics calculated over lexical databases from a broad sample of languages, the study demonstrates that retroflex consonant harmony is an areal trait affecting most languages in the northern half of the South Asian subcontinent, including languages from at least three of the four major families in the region: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Munda (but not Tibeto-Burman). Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages in the southern half of the subcontinent do not exhibit retroflex consonant harmony. In South Asia, retroflex consonant harmony is manifested primarily as a static co-occurrence restriction on coronal consonants in roots/words. Historical-comparative evidence reveals that this pattern is the result of retroflex assimilation that is non-local, regressive and conditioned by the similarity of interacting segments. These typological properties stand in contrast to those of other retroflex assimilation patterns, which are local, primarily progressive, and not conditioned by similarity. This is argued to support the hypothesis that local feature spreading and long-distance feature agreement constitute two independent mechanisms of assimilation, each with its own set of typological properties, and that retroflex consonant harmony is the product of agreement, not spreading. Building on this hypothesis, the study offers a formal account of retroflex consonant harmony within the Agreement by Correspondence (ABC) model of Rose & Walker (2004) and Hansson (2001; 2010). Two Indo-Aryan languages, Kalasha and Indus Kohistani, figure prominently throughout the dissertation. These languages exhibit similarity effects that have not been clearly observed in other retroflex consonant harmony systems; retroflexion is contrastive in both non-sibilant (i.e., plosive) and sibilant obstruents (i.e., affricates and fricatives), but harmony applies only within each manner class, not between them. At the same time, harmony is not sensitive to laryngeal features. Theoretical implications of these and other similarity effects are discussed.

Kepler is mainly known among historians of science due to his astronomical theories and his approaches to problems having to do with philosophy of science and ontology. This thesis attempts to contribute to Kepler studies by providing a comprehensive discussion of a topic hitherto not really considered, namely Kepler’s theory of the soul, a general theory of knowledge or epistemology whose central problem is what makes knowledge possible—rather than what makes knowledge true, as happens in the case of Descartes’s and Bacon’s epistemologies. Kepler’s theory consists of four issues: the theory of the different sorts of soul—i.e. the human soul, the animal soul, the vegetable soul, and the Earth soul—concerning their faculties, the differences and the resemblances that emerge among them, the relation they maintain with their own bodies and the world, and the distinction soul-world. The thesis discusses these issues from a historical perspective, that is, it reconstructs the way they appear in three periods of Kepler’s career: the period prior to the publication of the Mysterium Cosmographicum, the period going from 1596 to 1611, and the harmonic period. Finally, Kepler’s epistemology is briefly contrasted with Descartes’s and Bacon’s in order to suggest why Kepler’s is philosophically interesting and valuable. / October 2006

This dissertation is an acoustic description of the phonemic inventory of Nez Perce [nez], a Penutian language of the United States. Acoustic work has been conducted on the consonants of Nez Perce, but no acoustic work has been conducted on the vowels or vowel harmony system. This work begins with an overview of the dissertation, language situation, and previous research. Following the introduction are chapters on ejectives and plain obstruents, plain and glottalized sonorants, vowels, vowel harmony, and the conclusion. Nez Perce has both plain and ejective stop series, a plain and ejective affricate series, and a plain fricative series. I examine these segments for acoustic correlates comparing them to previous research, other languages and current theory. The ejectives are described with f0, intensity, jitter, burst amplitude and VOT. I discuss fricatives in terms of spectra, duration, formant transitions, and moments. The timing and realization of glottalization on glottalized and plain sonorants is investigated. Segments are measured for duration and are visually and aurally inspected for variation of glottalization, realized using pitch, laryngealization, glottal stops, or a combination of these features. It is nearly always realized on the sonorant rather than before or after. Vowels are plotted and compared to previous phonological descriptions. The inventory is /i, æ, a, o, u/ rather than the canonical five-vowel system, leading to the description of the inventory as having a “gap” and not maximally contrastive. I suggest that if Nez Perce vowels are considered using a shifted axis then the vowels are maximally contrastive. The non-canonical vowel inventory leads to two seeming unrelated vowel harmony sets: dominant, /i, a, o/, and recessive, /i, æ, u/. The proposed shifted axis view becomes important for reanalyzing the vowel harmony to reconcile these unusual sets. Previous analyses have described Nez Perce vowel harmony as based on advanced tongue root (ATR). I investigated Nez Perce vowels for ATR acoustic correlates; however, the results provide evidence both supporting and not supporting an ATR analysis. I propose an alternate analysis for the vowel harmony based on the principle of maximal contrast, evidenced by the shifted axis model.

Abstract Taiwan's social security has implemented at the institutional for a while. The development of social security shows the face of diversity in each era. There is diverse social security law can be described with impressive results, but we also have to reflect on another issue: What is Taiwan's social security law the common purpose? Every laws and regulations both have a different development process, in the whole social security should have their roles, if the social security policies and regulations have a lack in the principle of system, the government which in the administrative system may be faces obstacles. Particularly, after the democratization of political system in Taiwan, the development of social security measures cannot prevent the intrusion of politics, vote often become the means of achieving the people's welfare and security, and just in the implementation of policies on social security payments of uncertainty measures, it is unable to satisfy what people's need essentially. At this point, the state is difficult to achieve the protection of people's right and equalize opportunity and remove social conflicts, the state power is hard to protect the right of freedoms and vulnerable function, it caused the implementation of social justice by the state as the legitimate role become increasingly disordered. View of diverse of the development of Taiwan's social security law, the legal system reflects the purpose of social security to promote harmony development of society which has become an important starting point. Thus, this study is about the status of social security law, the legal aspects of evidence which in our Constitution, "Social Security" in the normative sense, that is what we want to create? The concept of this country endowed with a local social security of the explanation? Or should we look for the legal science for another closer theory of state and society relations outside positive law, in order to facilitate the establishment of law system. And another study is from the philosophy of law, analysis Lorenz von Stein's book of social theory, which is German scholar of public law, and the book of John Rawls theory of justice, which is American political scientist. And then look for the social constitution real meaning behind the words to construct a more complete system of social security law. Attempt to think through the social sciences, the social security law find a common language, and to answer how to construct a Taiwanese legal system of social security, people's social life will have a more harmonious development of justice in order.

The perceptual reality of the music theoretical relation between the Neapolitan chord and the dominant / and the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate was investigated within the chord priming paradigm. In Experiment 1, expectation towards the dominant chord after the Neapolitan chord was observed in Turkish musicians and non-musicians with piano timbre. In Experiment 2, expectation towards the dominant chord after the Neapolitan chord was observed in European musicians but not in European non-musicians. In Experiment 3, Turkish non-musicians were tested with Shepard tones / but it was not possible to observe any priming effects. To understand effects of cultural background on the difference between the results of Experiments 1 and 2 further studies are necessary. In Experiments 4-5, the perceptual reality of the relation between the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate was investigated in Turkish non-musicians. In Experiment 4, chord sequences that included secondary dominant chords were played with Shepard tones / and they were scrambled with 2by2 scrambling algorithm. Experiment 5 was identical with Experiment 4, except chord sequences were played with the piano timbre. Experiment 6 was identical with Experiment 5, except chord sequences were scrambled with 4by4. However, in Experiments 4-6 detrimental effects of scrambling sequences that include secondary dominant chords on the priming of chords were not observed. Turkish non-musicians did perceive the relation between the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate. In neural network simulations of this thesis it was shown that statistical learning from the musical environment with self-organization could be achieved without committing the questionable assumptions of previous studies.

The aim of this study is to analyze the concept on dikaiosune in Plato&#039 / s Republic with its main aspects. Republic as an overarching philosophical work will be reviewed as a whole and the overall scheme will be taken into account. There will be an emphasis on the ethical point of view rather than a political standpoint. The main interest of the thesis is what dikaiosune is and its relationship with goodness and eudaimonia which are terms sometimes used interchangeably. Still, the intervowen concepts of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, desire and unity will be taken into consideration as also for Plato these are perpetually connected. Various commentators of the Republic, their views and arguments will also be examined and analyzed within this study.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 321-336).

In this thesis, we are studying the issue of transformational leadership in Chinese context, which is subjected to social science category. The reason why we concentrate on this research issue is based on the limited available references of Chinese transformational leadership, on our personal interests of transformational leadership and on the rather interesting and mysterious Chinese context covering the influence of globalization, digitalization and so forth. At the same time, we will focus on two major research questions, what leaders and followers’ expectations are during transformation in Chinese companies and what skills and abilities Chinese transformational leaders need in practice.Since we have ascertained the research issue and questions, the methodology of grounded theory and relevant literatures of organizational change, full range of leadership model, followership, and skill approach laid the solid foundation for our further data collection and data analysis. And the way of interviewing and questionnaire as specific methods of data collection played a crucial role in gathering empirical data, which gives contributions to theory development for our research.Through collecting and analyzing data, we constructed our theory of Chinese transformational leadership. For improving transformation performance in Chinese companies, transformational leaders is required to take both leaders and followers’ expectations into consideration and to lead the transformation with effective leadership skills and abilities. In addition, we found that there is a new implication of transformational followership for readers and a comparatively vague concept of trust in transformation process in Chinese companies for further study.