Traditionally, typological classifications have been done in a macro-typological perspective; that is,they have been based on balanced world-wide samples of languages, which often avoid includingclosely related languages, since these are supposed to act alike with respect to their typologicalfeatures and structures. However, attention has recently been drawn to the idea that even closelyrelated languages, as well as dialects within languages, may differ on their typological features. Theintention of this thesis is to give an overview of and study how the Germanic languages differ fromeach other in regards to their negative word orders and negation strategies. Mainly their negativeadverbs (English equivalent not), but also their negative indefinite quantifiers, are analyzed in mainclauses, subordinate clauses, and (negative) imperative structures. The focus lies on the standardlanguage varieties, but some of their non-standard varieties are included, in order to be able to give amore detailed description of the variation within the family. The expected result that the ratherhomogeneous described area of the Germanic languages will turn out to be much more complex, withrespect to negation aspects, is confirmed. The results show that the standard language varieties behavedifferently than the non-standard ones, which are less "rare" cross-linguistically. In addition, the nonstandardNorth-Germanic varieties show that multiple negation occurs in the North-Germanic branch,which is traditionally claimed to not occur. / Typologiska klassifikationer har traditionellt gjorts från ett makrotypologiskt perspektiv; vilketinnebär att de har baserats på utvalda språksampel där närbesläktade språk ofta exkluderas, eftersomdessa antas uppvisa liknande typologiska särdrag och strukturer. Nyligen har det dock påpekats attnärbesläktade språk, och även dess dialekter, kan uppvisa signifikant variation med avseende på derastypologiska särdrag. Syftet med den här studien är att ge en översikt över och studera hur degermanska språken skiljer sig åt vad avser deras ordföljd i negativa satser samt derasnegationsstrategier. Det negativa adverbet (motsvarande svenskans inte) står i fokus men ävennegativa indefinita pronomen analyseras, i huvud- och bisatser samt i (negativa) imperativakonstruktioner. Fokus ligger på standardspråkvarianterna, men några icke-standardvarianter till dessainkluderas, för att kunna ge en mer detaljerad beskrivning över variationen inom språkfamiljen.Hypotesen att det traditionellt homogent beskrivna germanska området är mer komplext vad gällernegationsaspekter bekräftas. Resultaten visar att de standardspråkvarieteterna uppvisar olika mönsterjämfört med de icke-standardspråkvarieteterna, som är mindre "ovanliga" i världens språk. Dessutomvisar de nordgermanska icke-standard språkvarieteterna att dubbelnegation förekommer i dennordgermanska språkgrenen, vilket traditionellt har antagits inte förekomma alls.

With basis in critical theory, as defined by Theodor W. Adorno, as well as Hans-Thies Lehmann’s theory on postdramatic theatre this study investigates the ethic and aesthetic processes of negation in Christina Ouzounidis theatre texts. Analyzing the ways in which the postdramatic form serves as a negation of classical dramaturgy, as well as reading the negative statements as representants of the very challenge of portraying utopia, the studie examines three main themes: the notion of postdramatic theatre text, the postdramatic adaption of classical texts and the political postdramatic.

An NNF circuit is a directed acyclic graph (DAG), where each leaf is labelled with either true/false or a literal, and each inner node represents either a conjunction (∧) or a disjunction (∨). A decomposable NNF (DNNF) is an NNF satisfying the decomposabi- lity property for each conjunction node. The C-BDMC language generalizes the DNNF language. In a C-BDMC, the leaves can contain CNF formulae from a given base class C. In this paper, we focus only on renamable Horn formulae. We experimentally compare the sizes of d-BDMC and d-DNNF representations. We describe a new compilation langu- age, called cara DNNF (c-DNNF), that generalizes the DNNF language. A c-DNNF circuit can be considered as a compressed representation of a DNNF circuit. We present a new experimental knowledge compiler, called CaraCompiler, for converting a CNF formula into a d-BDMC or a (c)d-DNNF circuit. CaraCompiler is based on the state-of-the-art compiler D4. Also, we mention some extensions for the compiler D4, such as caching hypergraph cuts that can reduce the compilation times. 1

Ontology-mediated query answering is a popular paradigm for enriching answers to user queries with background knowledge. For querying the absence of information, however, there exist only few ontology-based approaches. Moreover, these proposals conflate the closed-domain and closed-world assumption, and therefore are not suited to deal with the anonymous objects that are common in ontological reasoning. We propose a new closed-world semantics for answering conjunctive queries with negation over ontologies formulated in the description logic ELH⊥, which is based on the minimal canonical model. We propose a rewriting strategy for dealing with negated query atoms, which shows that query answering is possible in polynomial time in data complexity.

My purpose with this thesis is to examine Adorno’s rethinking of the aesthetic concept of form, in his last work, Ästhetische Theorie. Artistic form has in the tradition of aesthetics been quite forgotten according to Adorno. He even calls it, “the blind spot of aesthetics”. To rework the concept of form he introduces a set of conceptual relationships that takes an indispensable part in the new multifaceted concept of form. In fact, there is a plurality of concepts that is being put to work, to arrive at a new understanding of form. My methodological approach has been to trace these conceptual relationships that revolve around the aesthetic form and to highlight their connections. My contribution with this undertaking is to accentuate the weightiness of the form concept in Ästhetische Theorie. In the concept, Adorno’s materialistic thinking also becomes discernible. This aspect is especially mirrored in the theoretical attention he pays to the aesthetic material and the artifact itself. Another purpose of this thesis is to explore how the aesthetic form can be critical and to fathom what it implies. Criticism in Ästhetische Theorie is closely related to what Adorno calls aesthetic truth, which is taking shape in the artistic form. The form is thus related to many of the essential concepts in Ästhetische Theorie, such as truth and illusion. The study further examines how the critical form can be autonomous, while at the same time being deeply enmeshed in society.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation presents a analysis of negation in a spoken language, i.e., Khuzestani Arabic (KhA), and a sign language, i.e., Sadat Tawaher Sign Language (STSL). STSL emerged naturally without any intervention such as deaf education after a man lost his hearing around sixty years ago in a small village named Sadat Tawaher located in southwestern Iran. After this incident, the deaf person's family came up with a gestural system to communicate with him. Despite the fact that everyone in Sadat Tawaher, including the deaf person's family, speaks KhA, I hypothesized that KhA and STSL possess different grammatical ways to express negation. Data gathered using signed productions, story-telling, and grammaticality judgments clearly showed that negation is preverbal in KhA but sentence-final in STSL. </p>

Les réflexions au point de départ de Bergson nous donnent une forte impression. Maintenant, nous pouvons dire qu’il y a là la puissance intuitive de négation et le temps qui « agit ». Et quand nous promenons nos yeux sur les œuvres de Bergson, il nous semble qu’on ne peut pas les négliger. En premier lieu, Bergson aboutit déjà à une méthode de la connaissance autre que l’intelligence. Comme l’intuition est une méthode de la connaissance propre à Bergson, l’intuition qui porte la puissance de négation est une découverte qui fait époque. En deuxième lieu, cette intuition incite elle-même à se rendre vers l’intuition immédiate. Elle soutient l’intuition de la durée. En troisième lieu, le temps qui « agit » est une appréhension originelle de l’expérience. Un des fondements et un des contenus de la liberté proviennent de ce temps qui « agit » et de cette intuition. En quatrième lieu, Bergson souligne que l’illusion du « possible » fait méconnaître « la nouveauté radicale ». Et cette appréhension montre que l’acte libre et l’univers sont la création du nouveau. L’idée d’illusion du « possible » qui s’établit dans les dernières années de sa vie provient des réflexions au point de départ. Enfin, obtenir une appréhension originale par la puissance intuitive de négation, semble être une façon d’étudier chez Bergson. Il recueille les faits scientifiques ou académiques qui font l’objet de son étude. Et il trouve un problème par la puissance intuitive de négation. Il semble que nous pouvions imaginer que ce qui est profond chez Bergson revient à ces deux points. Dès lors, nous pensons que les réflexions au point de départ sont dignes d’être pris comme objet de réflexion. / We can say that the action of time and the intuitive power of negation are important aspects in Bergson’s reflections on his point of departure. And when we survey his works, it seems to us that they cannot be neglected. First, Bergson arrives already at a method of acquiring knowledge which differs from the intelligence. As intuition is a method of the knowlege proper to Bergson, intuition that has the power of negation is an important discovery. Second, this intuition urges itself to proceed to an intuition of the duration. And the former supports the latter. Third, his notion of the action of time is an original understanding of its experience. One of the foundations of the freedom and one of the contents of the freedom are derived from the action of time and this previously mentioned intuition. Fourth, Bergson emphasizes that the illusion of the « possible » leads us to misunderstand « the radical novelty ». And this understanding shows that the free act and the universe are both creations of novelty. The notion of the illusion of the « possible » that is established in his later years has its origin in his reflections on his point of de departure. Finally, it seems that to obtain an original understanding through the intuitive power of the negation is a Bergson’s way of studying his subject. He gathers scientific or academic facts. He identifies problems through the use of the intuitive power of the negation. In short, it seems that we can imagine that what is profound in Bergson’s thought comes from the action of time and the intuitive power of negation. So we think that the reflections on the point of departure is worthy of in-depth consideration.

This thesis focuses on the issues of lexical negation in French adjectives as well as on other parts of speech - nouns and adverbs. Its objective is the description of functioning of the lexical negation and the examination of restriction, which it is accompanied by. Based on these findings, the practical part (i.e. personal research) will try to define the tendencies of the use of lexical negation in the near future. Last but not least, this thesis also describes the use of general negation or out of standard French language - in argot or in spoken language.

Prosodi är en väsentlig komponent för att uppfatta och tala svenska. Forskning lyfter betoning och stavelsekvantitet som det mest centrala i korrekt prosodi, och är därmed det som prioriteras i en uttalsundervisning med begränsade resurser. Dock har flera obetonade ord betydelse för förståelsen av ett yttrande, trots att de har mindre artikulatorisk kvalité och ofta reduceras. Denna studie undersöker andraspråksinlärares perception av det obetonade ordet inte i vardaglig yttrandeprosodi, samt deras förmåga att särskilja ordet från de obetonade prepositionerna in och till. Studien genomförde ett perceptionstest där vuxna andraspråksinlärare i SFI lyssnade på meningar och svarade på frågor. Svaren analyserades för att se huruvida deltagarna uppfattade negationen i meningen eller inte. Resultaten visar att den totala andelen korrekta svar för båda experimentgrupper är 57%. Varken meningarna med negation samt motsvarande kontrollfrågor utan negation hade påtagligt större andel korrekta svar. Slutsatsen är att dessa andraspråksinlärare saknar den kognitiva medvetenhet som krävs för att uppfatta den prosodiska skillnaden mellan obetonade ord med likartad fonetisk struktur.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à des problèmes à la croisée de deux domaines, les bases de données et les bases de connaissances. Nous considérons deux problèmes équivalents concernant les requêtes conjonctives avec négation : l'inclusion de requêtes et l'évaluation d'une requête booléenne sous l'hypothèse du monde ouvert. Nous reformulons ces problèmes sous la forme d'un problème de déduction dans un fragment de la logique du premier ordre. Puis nous raffinons des schémas d'algorithmes déjà existants et proposons de nouveaux algorithmes. Pour les étudier et les comparer expérimentalement, nous proposons un générateur aléatoire et analysons l'influence des différents paramètres sur la difficulté des instances du problème étudié. Finalement, à l'aide de cette méthodologie expérimentale, nous comparons les apports des différents raffinements et les algorithmes entre eux. / In this thesis, we consider problems at the intersection of two areas: databases and knowledge bases. We focus on two equivalent problems on conjunctive queries with negation : query containment and query answering with boolean queries while making the open-world assumption. We reformulate these problems as a problem of deduction in a first order logic fragment. Then we refine existing algorithm schemes and propose new algorithms. To study and compare them experimentally, we propose a random generator and we analyze the influence of parameters on problem instances difficulty. Finally, we analyse the contributions of the different refinements and we compare experimentally the algorithms.