In this dissertation, I study the distribution of number in Azeri within the Exo- Skeletal model of Borer (2005a). I adopt the Exo-Skeletal model's assumption that number marking is a syntactic rather than a lexical process. Following Borer (2005a), I assume that, in order to be counted, nouns need to be individuated by means of a functional category Div. In Borer's model, plural markers and classifiers are argued to be generated in DivP. However, unlike Borer, I propose that the plural marker in Azeri is not an individuator. Instead, it solely marks plurality. Under my proposal, individuation in Azeri is morphologically null. Moreover, I argue that classifiers do not belong to the category of individuators either and their function is to unitize the individuated object. Therefore, I consider classifiers in Azeri to be generated on a cluster head where they contribute to a group formation process. The generation of the plural marker and the classifier on heads other than division derives the conclusion that the individuation in Azeri is morphologically null. Furthermore, I investigate the interpretation of number in the verbal domain, i.e. in TP, in the presence of the viewpoint aspect in both telic and atelic contexts. I argue that the singular interpretation of the Azeri bare noun is linked to the projection of AspQ, where the specific interpretation of the bare noun arises under the effect of the perfective aspect. The presence of AspQ yields a telic interpretation of the event structure, and the DP in the specifier of AspQ is the subject of quantity (Borer, 2005a). Moreover, according to Borer, number ambiguous nouns are generated in atelic structures where AspQ is absent. In this case, the DP does not have to be the subject of quantity and the availability of quantity on the DP remains optional. Nevertheless, (non-)specific interpretation of the noun in telic and atelic contexts in Azeri, I argue to be due to the impact of the viewpoint aspect.

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Developmental studies have revealed that preschool-aged children believe that an agent’s internal properties are more important than its external properties for determining its identity over time. The current study examined the developmental origins of this understanding using a manual-search individuation task with 13-month-old infants. Subjects observed semi-transparent objects that looked and behaved like animate agents placed into box that they could reach but not see into. Across trials infants observed objects with either the same- or different-colored insides placed into the box. We found that infants used internal property differences more than external property differences to determine how many agents were involved in the event. A second experiment confirmed that this effect was specific to the domain of animate entities. These results suggest that infants are biased to see an agent’s ‘insides’ as more important for determining its identity over time than its outside properties.

Parents are among the important socialization agents that influence the persons we become. Previous research (Baumrind, 1967; 1972; 1991; 1987) has identified three primary parenting styles: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian, and a large amount of research has investigated the long term implications of these styles. The current study aimed to investigate the universality of these parenting styles, in particular, among Arab American Adults (N =22). The study examined the relationships between overall mental health and parenting styles, acculturation, and individuation in this population. Unfortunately, a small sample size limited the analyses performed, and the findings did not show any significant correlations between parenting styles, individuation, or acculturation and overall mental health. Implications of findings are discussed as well as suggestions for implementing more culturally sensitive methods and measures.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which levels of individuation and separation in adulthood would predict adjustment to the empty nest transition. Two-hundred and twenty-seven adults (M age = 48) who had experienced the empty nest within the last year completed a battery of scales assessing individuation from family of origin, spouse, and children as well as measures of adjustment, role strain, coping, and sex role attitudes. MANOVAS and hierarchical regression analyses suggested that levels of individuation from one's family of origin, spouse, and children differentially affect one's adjustment to, and coping with, the experience of launching of the youngest child from the home. Empty nest parents who are less differentiated from their own parents, from their spouses, and from their children reported a more negative impact of the empty nest in terms of more overall stress and role strain, more negative mood, and less life satisfaction than did empty nest parents who were more differentiated with regard to parents, spouse, and children. Results regarding the impact of individuation on empty nest adjustment regarding sex role attitudes were less clear cut, and may reflect cohort differences in work role opportunities for women and a parallel redefinition of the work role/parent role dichotomy for men. The data also suggest that women and men experience the empty nest transition differently, with women experiencing more distress and negative mood, supporting the notion that women, who define themselves in a context of relationship may experience more distress at a time when significant relationships are in flux. However, additional results which indicated significantly more proactive and adaptive coping strategies for women as compared to men suggest that women can meet the demands of the new definitions of themselves and their relationships in a relatively positive and adaptive way. The results suggest that present as well as past experiences of separation and individuation impact how one experiences and copes with the empty nest. The findings lend support to the importance of early, successful individuation experiences as possible precursors of how successfully individuals negotiate other developmental experiences involving separation and loss.

Ce travail prend en examen le rapport, du point de vue phénoménologique, entre les notions de temps et de vie, et leur implications transcendantales. À ce but les recherches exposées ici se présentent comme l’étude, plus thématique que historiographique, et le développement de questions qui s’appuient sur le noyau profond de l’oeuvre husserlienne, bien que pas toujours directement abordées par Husserl lui-même. Notre thèse consiste à reconsidérer le statut du transcendantal depuis l’articulation entre la vie et le temps, c’est-à-dire entre la vie et la mort, en interprétant par cela toute l’évolution de la philosophie occidentale, qui s’est significativement déroulée sous le signe de la mort socratique. Husserl donne l’impression d’osciller entre la nécessité de distinguer la vie, en tant que détermination transcendantale, de la temporalité, relative à la dimension du constitué, et leur assimilation, dans la mesure où il reconnaît à une certain type de temporalité une originarité constituante et absolue. En d’autres mots, la tentative de définir la vie tombe sur la même ambiguïté qui émerge déjà à l’époque des Zeitvorlesungen à propos de la conscience absolue: tout comme le seuil entre temporalité constituante et temporalité constituée devient mince et perméable, de même façon celui entre vie et temporalité s’estompe en ce que Husserl appelle Vor-Zeitigung et pour laquelle «nous n’avons pas de noms». Il en va de la possibilité de penser la vie sans la réduire à une détermination physique ou biologique, en évitant tout naturalisme (ce qui ne signifie pas son complet discrédit), et de faire ressortir la priorité du sens toujours impliquée par la temporalité, sans pour autant la connecter à une détermination psychologiste. / This work takes into consideration the relationship, as in a phenomenological perspective, between the notions of time and life, and their transcendental implications. To this aim, here is presented a research coping with the study, thematic more than historiographic, and with the development of those issues that, even if not always tackled as such by Husserl himself, deal with the deeper core of Husserlian oeuvre. This dissertation reconsiders the status of the transcendental after the articulation between life and time, that is to say, between life and death, interpreting in this light the whole evolution of Western philosophy, significantly unwound under the sign of Socrates’ death.Husserl gives the impression to swing back and forth between the necessity of distinguishing life, as transcendental determination, and temporality, inasmuch as related to the dimension of the constituted, and their assimilation, insofar as he acknowledges to a certain type of temporality a constituent and absolute originarity. In other words, the attempt to define life meets the same ambiguity already emerged at the time of the Zeitvorlesungen about the absolute conscience: as the threshold between constituent and constituted temporality grows thinner and more permeable, that between life and temporality softens in what Husserl calls Vor-Zeitigung and that «we have no names [for]». Two issues are here at stake: on one hand, the possibility to think life without reducing it to a physical or biological determination, shying away from any naturalism (which does not entail its complete disrepute); on the other, the chance to consider life without connecting it to a psychologistic understanding, as the link with temporality would imply, though preserving, instead, the priority of sense.