A new theoretical approach to language has emerged in the past 10–15 years that allows linguistic observations about form–meaning pairings, known as ‘construc- tions’, to be stated directly. Constructionist approaches aim to account for the full range of facts about language, without assuming that a particular subset of the data is part of a privileged ‘core’. Researchers in this field argue that unusual constructions shed light on more general issues, and can illuminate what is required for a complete account of (...) language. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there is ample corpus evidence of statistical preemption for learners to make use of. In the case of argument structure constructions, a verbi is preempted from appearing in a construction A, CxA, if and only if the following probability is high: P(CxB|context that would be suitable for CxA and verbi). For example, the probability of hearing a preemptive construction, given a context that would otherwise be well-suited for the ditransitive is high for verbs like explain (...) that overwhelmingly appear in the dative, and low for verbs like tell that readily appear in the ditransitive. Strength of statistical preemption is determined both by this probability, and by the frequency (ln (F)) of a verb in a preemptive construction when the context is at least as well suited to the preempted construction. The critiques of preemption by Stefanowitsch (Cognitive Linguistics 19: 513–531, 2008, this volume) are countered by arguing that the relevant probabilities were not considered. Moreover, we find evidence that constructions are somewhat less constrained when yoked to non-alternating verbs, as Stefanowitsch (cf. this volume) suggests should be the case. (shrink)

This paper provides a concise overview of Constructions at Work (Goldberg 2006). The book aims to investigate the relevant levels of generalization in adult language, how and why generalizations are learned by children, and how to account for cross-linguistic generalizations.

We investigate the order in which speakers produce the proper names of couples they know personally in English and Japanese, two languages with markedly different constituent word orders. Results demonstrate that speakers of both languages tend to produce the name of the person they feel closer to before the name of the other member of the couple (N = 180). In this way, speakers’ unique personal histories give rise to a remarkably systematic linguistic generalization in both English and Japanese. Insofar (...) as closeness serves as an index of cognitive accessibility, the current work demonstrates that systematicity emerges from a domain-general property of memory. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The idea that correspondences relating grammatical relations and semantics (argument structure constructions) are needed to account for simple sentence types is reviewed, clarified, updated and compared with two lexicalist alternatives. Traditional lexical rules take one verb as ‘input’ and create (or relate) a different verb as ‘output’. More recently, invisible derivational verb templates have been proposed, which treat argument structure patterns as zero derivational affixes that combine with a root verb to yield a new verb. While the derivational template perspective (...) can address several problems that arise for traditional lexical rules, it still faces problems in accounting for idioms, which often contain specifications that are not appropriately assigned to individual verbs or derivational affixes (regarding adjuncts, modification, and inflection). At the same time, it is clear that verbs play a central role in determining their distribution. The balance between verbs and phrasal argument structure constructions is addressed via the Principles of Semantic Coherence and Correspondence together with a usage-based hierarchy of constructions that contains entries which can include particular verbs and other lexical material. (shrink)

There are times when a curiously odd relic of language presents us with a thread, which when pulled, reveals deep and general facts about human language. This paper unspools such a case. Prior to 1930, English speakers uniformly preferred male-before-female word order in conjoined nouns such asuncles and aunts; nephews and nieces; men and women. Since then, at least a half dozen items have systematically reversed their preferred order (e.g.,aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews) while others have not (men and (...) women). We review evidence that the unusual reversals began withmother and dad(dy)and spread to semantically and morphologically related binomials over a period of decades. The present work proposes that three aspects ofcognitive accessibilitycombine to quantify the probability of A&B order: (1) the relative accessibility of the A&B terms individually, (2) competition from B&A order, and critically, (3) cluster strength (i.e., similarity to related A'&B' cases). The emergent cluster of female-first binomials highlights the influence of semantic neighborhoods in memory retrieval. We suggest that cognitive accessibility can be used to predict the word order of both familiar and novel binomials generally, as well as the diachronic change focused on here. (shrink)

In the current media landscape, it is becoming increasingly difficult for citizens to rely on trustworthy information, not least because reliable facts are mixed with dubious claims, unsubstantiated opinions, or outright lies. The ability to distinguish factual from other types of mediated information is becoming increasingly crucial, but we know little about how well-equipped citizens are to make these distinctions. In an original survey study conducted in ten European countries, we asked respondents whether they considered six different statements relating to (...) the European Union to be factual or opinion statements. Our results show that citizens have considerable difficulties in correctly identifying both factual information and opinions. Next to pre-existing judgements, we identify media-related, political, and sociodemographic factors that influence categorisation accuracy. We discuss our findings in relation to citizens’ perceptions of journalistic credibility and their information literacy as well as ongoing debates about the effectiveness of fact-checkers on social media. (shrink)

Although the target article emphasizes the important role of prediction in language use, prediction may well also play a key role in the initial formation of linguistic representations, that is, in language development. We outline the role of prediction in three relevant language-learning domains: transitional probabilities, statistical preemption, and construction learning.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 10, Page 15-16, October 2011.

This book offers a theoretical and practical overview of the specific ethical and legal issues in pediatric organ transplantation. Written by a team of leading experts, Ethical Issues in Pediatric Organ Transplantation addresses those difficult ethical questions concerning clinical, organizational, legal and policy issues including donor, recipient and allocation issues. Challenging topics, including children as donors, donation after cardiac death, misattributed paternity, familial conflicts of interest, developmental disability as a listing criteria, small bowel transplant, and considerations in navigating the media (...) are discussed. It serves as a fundamental handbook and resource for pediatricians, transplant health care professionals, trainees, graduate students, scholars, practitioners of bioethics and health policy makers. (shrink)

No political, economic, or cultural segment of society has escaped the universal impact of recent cataclysmic change. Physicians were no exception. During the 20th century, all members of society, including physicians, have experienced change of enormous speed and magnitude. Futurist Alvin Toffler noted that global societal transformation has created a of personal malaise that poses difficulty for both individual and group adaptation. Toffler further described current change as a fundamental shift and conflict in all aspects of civilization (how we live, (...) work, and relate to each other). Toffler also noted major alterations in the basis for distribution of societal power (who controls what, why, and how). One manifestation of recent change directly affecting all members of society, includingphysicians, has been the social transformation of medicine that has been a power shift from the individual physicians to control by organizations and management. (shrink)

This collection of "comparisons and contrasts" explores Heinz Kohut's self psychology in relation to a wide-ranging group of modern thinkers, both inside and outside of analysis. Separate sections analyze self psychology alongside Freud and the first generation of psychoanalytic dissidents; British object relations theorists; and contemporary theorists like Kernberg, Mahler, Lacan, and Masterson.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the health system worldwide. The organ and tissue donation and transplantation (OTDT) system is no exception and has had to face ethical challenges related to the pandemic, such as risks of infection and resource allocation. In this setting, many Canadian transplant programs halted their activities during the first wave of the pandemic.MethodTo inform future ethical guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic or other public health emergencies of international concern, we conducted a (...) literature review to summarize the ethical issues.ResultsThis literature review identified three categories of ethical challenges. The first one describes the general ethical issues and challenges reported by OTDT organizations and transplantation programs, such as risks of COVID-19 transmission and infection to transplant recipients and healthcare professionals during the transplant process, risk of patient waitlist mortality or further resource strain where transplant procedures have been delayed or halted, and resource allocation. The second category describes ethical challenges related to informed consent in the context of uncertainty and virtual consent. Finally, the third category describes ethical issues related to organ allocation, such as social considerations in selecting transplant candidates.ConclusionThis literature review highlights the salient ethical issues related to OTDT during the current COVID-19 pandemic. As medical and scientific knowledge about COVID-19 increases, the uncertainties related to this disease will decrease and the associated ethical issues will continue to evolve. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 37-39.

As the rates of intravenous opioid use have increased, so have its associated medical complications, such as endocarditis, and known interventions, such as heart‐valve replacements. For many patients, including Jacob, whose case was brought to my psychiatric consult service and to my colleagues in the clinical ethics service, relapse increases the risk of repeat endocarditis and the need for repeat surgical interventions. Previous works have posed the bioethical quandary regarding the responsibilities of a surgeon in these repeat procedures and whether (...) a surgeon may ethically refuse to perform a repeat intervention in a patient who has relapsed. Notions of futility are commonly used to navigate this complex terrain, and they were the focus of the ethics consideration given to Jacob's case, in which surgeons were reluctant to perform valve replacements. In this narrative essay, I interrogate the concept of futility by appealing to its history and variable meanings, and I argue against its relevance in cases like Jacob's. I propose that a more suitable bioethical approach in such cases would consider resource allocation, the sociocultural stigma of addiction, and the interpersonal and narrative factors that make each case unique. (shrink)

The recognition that contentful universals are rare and often does not undermine the fact that most non-universal but recurring patterns of language are amenable to explanation. These patterns are sensical or motivated solutions to interacting and often conflicting factors. As implied by the Evans & Levinson's (E&L's) article, linguistics would be well served to move beyond the essentialist bias that seeks universal, innate, unchanging categories with rigid boundaries.

Like the navigation tools that freed ancient sailors from the need to stay close to the shoreline—eventually affording the discovery of new worlds—Big Data might open us up to new sociological possibilities by freeing us from the shackles of hypothesis testing. But for that to happen we need forensic social science: the careful compilation of evidence from unstructured digital traces as a means to generate new theories.

One anaphora (e.g., this is a good one) has been used as a key diagnostic in syntactic analyses of the English noun phrase, and “one‐replacement” has also figured prominently in debates about the learnability of language. However, much of this work has been based on faulty premises, as a few perceptive researchers, including Ray Jackendoff, have made clear. Abandoning the view of anaphoric one (a‐one) as a form of syntactic replacement allows us to take a fresh look at various uses (...) of the word one. In the present work, we investigate its use as a cardinal number (1‐one) in order to better understand its anaphoric use. Like all cardinal numbers, 1‐one can only quantify an individuated entity and provides an indefinite reading by default. Owing to unique combinatoric properties, cardinal numbers defy consistent classification as determiners, quantifiers, adjectives, or nouns. Once the semantics and distribution of cardinal numbers, including 1‐one, are appreciated, many properties of a‐one follow with minimal stipulation. We claim that 1‐one and a‐one are distinct but very closely related lexemes. When 1‐one appears without a noun (e.g., Take one), it is nearly indistinguishable from a‐one (e.g., take one)—the only differences being interpretive (1‐one foregrounds its cardinality while a‐one does not) and prosodic (presence versus absence of primary accent). While we ultimately argue that a family of constructions is required to describe the full range of syntactic contexts in which one appears, the proposed network accounts for properties of a‐one by allowing it to inherit most of its syntactic and interpretive constraints from its historical predecessor, 1‐one. (shrink)