Search results for "Information structure"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
Language for International Communication: Linking Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2nd international symposium)
2014
This collection contains papers delivered at the 2nd international symposium "Language for International Communication: Linking Interdisciplinary Perspectives" held at the University of Latvia, Latvia, on 23-24 May 2013.
Information structure and practice as facilitators of deaf users' navigation in textual websites
2009
Deaf users might find it difficult to navigate through websites with textual content which, for many of them, constitutes the written representation of a non-native oral language. With the aim of testing how the information structure could compensate for this difficulty, 27 prelingual deaf users of sign language were asked to search a set of headlines in a web newspaper where information structure and practice were manipulated. While practice did not affect deep structures (web content distributed through four layers of nodes), wide structures (web content concentrated in two layers) did facilitate users' performance in the last trial block and compromised it in the first trial block. It is…
Static output-feedback control under information structure constraints
2013
An important challenge in the static output-feedback control context is to provide an isolated gain matrix possessing a zero-nonzero structure, mainly in problems presenting information structure constraints. Although some previous works have contributed some relevant results to this issue, a fully satisfactory solution has not yet been achieved up to now. In this note, by using a Linear Matrix Inequality approach and based on previous results given in the literature, we present an e cient methodology which permits to obtain an isolated static output-feedback gain matrix having, simultaneously, a zero-nonzero structure imposed a priori. Peer Reviewed
From matrix clause to discourse marker: the grammaticalization of Hauptsache
2021
[EN] This paper has a double purpose. On the one hand, it intends to prove the existence of a discourse marker (DM) Hauptsache. This element preserves the core conceptual meaning of the homonymous noun, but differs from it with regard to its morphosyntactic and semantic features as well as to its discourse-organizing, information structuring, and modal functions. On the other hand, the emergence of Hauptsache as a discourse particle is explained on the grounds of a grammaticalization process similar to the ones described for the prototypical German DMs. Evidence drawn from a corpus of German and Austrian parliamentary protocols will show in which ways the six fundamental processes implied i…
What Makes a Text Easy or Difficult to Understand?
1989
Abstract The question of what makes a text easy or difficult to comprehend is answered on the basis of an empirical investigation, which draws especially on theories related to text and memory linguistics. Easy and difficult texts, verified empirically, were analyzed on micro‐ and macro‐levels. Certain aspects of syntax, lexicon and information structure were first studied. These were followed by text‐level analyses related to the narrative and structural organization and the propositional structure of the texts. The article gives an account of the parameters that were most clearly associated with level of text comprehension. The results are also discussed in the light of the possible impli…
Methods for defining user groups and user-adjusted information structures
1999
A common problem in the design of information systems is how to structure the information in a way that is most useful to different groups of users. This paper describes some statistical methods for revealing the structure inherent in empirical data elicited from users. It is illustrated by the application of these methods to the design of some web pages giving information about the Universitat de Valencia. Three potential user groups were identified, administrative staff, teaching staff and students. The first analysis demonstrated that users within these three groups assign relatively homogeneous structures, but that the structures assigned by the three groups are not the same, and also, …
Performance in Knowledge Assessment Tests from the Perspective of Linguistic Typology
2019
An important part of cross-linguistic variation manifests itself in the grammatical categories which are available in the grammar of a language, their semantic fine-grainedness and the obligatoriness of their use. The present paper will focus on three domains of grammar: (1) information structure and topicality, (2) converbs and clause combining and (3) modality and evidentiality. These domains are known to be prominent in Japanese and Korean grammar while they are clearly less relevant in English. The paper will first give a detailed account of these structures with examples from the US Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE). As will become quite clear, the versions of the test …
Cyber Security Strategy Implementation Architecture in a Value System
2018
In this chapter, we introduce an approach toward enhancing the quality of strategy implementation. As a framework, we use cybersecurity strategy implementation planning and execution. Justification for this work is the observed need to be able to perform strategy readjustment processes quickly and in an agile way, when needed. This requires processes and practices that are simple enough and executable with small resources in a relatively short timeframe. The problem statement can be formulated as follows: “We need to determine an utterly simplified, noncomplicated model to help us to tackle the complex problem of implementing a cybersecurity strategy of adequate efficiency in a changing ope…
'Do'-support in a Sicilian variety, an Italian pseudo-cleft, and the packaging of information
2009
A parallel is drawn between a Sicilian structure with do-support strategy, and a type of pseudo-cleft in Italian in which a do-verb occurs. These structures are examined from three different perspectives. First, morpho-syntax: the two clause-types share a number of formal aspects, which include the do-verb, a lexical verb in the infinitive, and the sharing of the same subject by both verbs. The second has to do with their packaging of information: in both cases, higher communicative prominence is given to an event (VP) rather than a participant (NP or PP). The expression of the event is broken down into two separable components, its existence (an event is expressed without being specified, …
Awareness and partitional information structures
1994
This is the first of two papers where we present a formal model of unawareness. We contrast unawareness with certainty and uncertainty. A subject is certain of something when he knows that thing; he is uncertain when he does not know it, but he knows he does not: he is consciously uncertain. On the other hand, he is unaware of something when he does not know it, and he does not know he does not know, and so on ad infinitum: he does not perceive, does not have in mind, the object of knowledge. The opposite of unawareness is awareness, which includes certainty and uncertainty. This paper has three main purposes. First, we formalize the concept of awareness, and introduce a symmetry axiom whic…