We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The clinical psychologist writes on the multiplicity of laughter and its interpretation in philosophy, psychology and in the common understanding. The train of thought also touches on the classical interpretations of Bergson and Freud when examining the role of laughter in human communication. Based on the results of recent research, it provides an overview of the relieving effects of laughter on stress. Cases from international and Hungarian praxis serve as examples for the possible benefits arising from the appreciation of humour and laughter in life and in the service of maintaining health.
More...
Irony is one of the most important rhetorical figures which have influenced our view of the connection and mutuality of rhetorical and aesthetical aspects of literature. In the modern age, Friedrich Schlegel was - to use Hegel's expression - „the father of irony"; thus founding the tradition of romantic irony which, in spite of the suspicion or, rather, hatred towards Hegelian philosophy, has reached its climax in the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Beside romantic art criticism and idealistic philosophy of art, the modern concept of irony has its root in the context of ancient literature (Aristophanes, Plato), moral philosophy (Aristotle), and rhetoric (Cicero, Quintilian). In the history of the category, two main aspects of irony have been alternating each other: irony as a rhetorical tool governed by the intention of the orator and the author, on the one hand, and irony as a linguistic event with a desperately unpredictable output, on the other. Reading Kant, Schlegel, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, this essay is concentrating on the latter case.
More...
Irony in John's Gospel is a rhetorical device which expresses negation in the form of a positive statement. It also serves as a dramatic means to represent characters differently as they really are. We have reasonable ground to assume that the author of this Gospel was master of Hellenistic culture so as to apply the devices of rhetoric and drama when writing his Gospel. He also borrowed from the irony of the Old Testament, especially from the books of the prophets. Irony plays an important role in the fourth gospel, e.g. in the motives of misunderstanding and the so-called redactor's notes. Irony addresses not only the esthetical perception but also the missionary goals of the Gospel.
More...
In this paper it will be argued that the “so-called” paradigm of the First Imperative of Tungusic is secondary. The functions attributed to the First Imperative may have been originally conveyed by particles or structures which are preserved in Manchuric. However, they were grammaticalized and modeled into a paradigm only in Common Tungusic.
More...
The present article rectifies a noticeable lacuna in the analysis of the Mandinka verbal system and offers a detailed discussion of the meaning of the KAŊ locution (i.e. of the analytical expression be + infinitive + kaŋ) as well as a presentation of its most relevant structural properties. First, the author demonstrates that there are no structural or contextual restrictions on the use of the formation. It may be employed in all kinds of environments: transitive and intransitive or affirmative and negative. It likewise tolerates various types of roots, admitting dynamic, static and adjectival predicates. Second, in respect to the semantic content, although the progressive value of the periphrasis clearly predominates various refinements are necessary. The progressive meaning – limited to the present and past temporal sphere – can also be also portrayed as repeated and frequentative. Adjectival predicates are invariably employed with a dynamic transitory-ingressive force. However, certain static verbs employed in the KAŊ form regularly denote continuous situations. Additionally, the periphrasis may indicate general, durative and extended in time activities, corresponding to Indo-European simple tenses. Finally, it also appears with the force of an inclusive perfect.
More...
The aim of the article is to analyse the grammatical rules for the use of English articles which are offered to students of English as a foreign language and evaluate them from the perspective of their pedagogical effectiveness. The article highlights the most problematic issues and the potential weaknesses of the rules most commonly used in contemporary pedagogical/reference grammars. It is argued that some of the problems identified could be at least partially solved or avoided by the introduction of rules based on Cognitive Grammar. A brief outline of the Cognitive Grammar conception of articles is presented to show how the specific “uses” of articles can be subsumed under more general, broader, conceptually-based rules.
More...
The purpose of the paper is to analyse linguistic practices of specifically one group of English Facebook users – the speakers of Indian English. As one of the most thoroughly studied members of the so-called New Englishes group, Indian English is believed to demonstrate a number of characteristic features resulting especially from the prolonged English-Hindi language and culture contact. Following a brief outline of the history and current position of English in India the paper examines in detail characteristic features of Indian English found in the Facebook material collected from fan pages and private messages: changes in spelling and pronunciation of English words, use of abbreviations, characteristic features of nativised Indian English grammar, language errors, as well as some typical sociolinguistic features of that variety of English, notably forms of address, culture-specific elements, and code-switching.
More...
Discussed are the etymologies of twelve Hittite words and word groups (alpa- ‘cloud’, aku- ‘seashell’, ariye/a-zi ‘determine by or consult an oracle’, heu- / he(y)aw- ‘rain’, hāli- ‘pen, corral’, kalmara- ‘ray’ etc., māhla- ‘grapevine branch’, sūu, sūwaw- ‘full’, tarra-tta(ri) ‘be able’ and tarhu-zi ‘id.; conquer’, idālu- ‘evil’, tara-i / tari- ‘become weary, henkan ‘death, doom’) and some points of Hittite historical phonology, such as the fate of medial *-h2n- (sub §7) and final *-i (§13), all of which appear to receive somewhat inadequate treatment in Kloekhorst’s 2008 Hittite etymological dictionary. Several old etymologies are defended and some new ones suggested.
More...
This note reacts to an article by Marek Stachowski in Studia Linguistica UIC (no. 127, 2010, pp. 179–186) by suggesting that a phonemic opposition between /b/ and /v/ may be a relatively late development in the world’s known languages and by suggesting that dialectal Turkish goğuz ‘nutshell’ may in some way be etymologically related to certain words in Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Persian meaning ‘nut’.
More...
This paper is an edition of an article by Władysław Kotwicz (1872–1944) entitled Les voyelles longues dans les langues altaïques, which the author could not publish himself during wartime and did not live to publish after the War was over. The edition is designed to read almost as if published by Kotwicz, but without falsifying the actual manuscript. Also, a brief archival description is provided and the history of the last four years of the text has been reconstructed, based mostly on Kotwicz’s correspondence.
More...
Increasing popularity and dynamic expansion of online newspapers creates a need for an in-depth analysis of online press, genre and discourse properties of online news in particular. The aim of the following analysis is to investigate genre characteristics of a newly developed news structure – a news abstract. The analysis examines the basic conventions concerning the purpose, form and content of these text types. The study encompasses news abstracts published on the websites of leading British, German and Polish newspapers. The inclusion of websites of culturally distinct newspapers was designed to evaluate the degree of universality and internationalization of the structure.
More...
The article addresses the issue of diglossia in its original and extended definition. The main point of discussion is the validity of the ‘defining cases’ of diglossia selected by Ferguson (1959) to substantiate his concept. The four well-known pairs of languages described by Ferguson in his seminal article include the ‘Swiss pair’ of Standard German and Swiss German and their functional distribution. Following a number of critical opinions, I will show that the consistency between the definition and its Swiss illustration raises a few questions and cannot be considered tenable. Lastly, I will highlight the main differences between diglossia and bilingualism as two phenomena which in certain contexts may overlap.
More...
Franciscus Meninski generally used the letter ‹y› as a symbol for today’s Turkish ı. However, this letter also appears in front vocalic words which contradicts the palato-velar aspect of Turkish vowel harmony. Mertol Tulum has recently attempted to show that the phonetic value of ‹y› in front vocalic words was a central, high vowel placed between the Turkish i and ı (one that would probably be rendered [ɨ] in the IPA; however, since this letter is barely visible in print, especially in the footnotes, I have decided to replace it with its Fenno-Ugristic equivalent [i] here). The present author, thus, examines Tulum’s line of reasoning and dicusses the possibility of reinterpreting the functions fulfilled by ‹y› and ‹ü› in Meninski’s work.
More...
Generally, we can observe in European languages a high percentage of plant names among the words with unclear etymology. Many designations for plants – like for trees – derive from pre-Indo-European languages. Latin tree names are in most cases far from an unambiguous etymological assignment.
More...
Some problems connected with the phonetic adaptation of Mongolian loanwords in Khakas are discussed in the article. The focus is on non-uniform reflexes of Mongolian VCV groups, especially on the change into a short vowel in Mongolian loanwords found in the Khakas language.
More...
1. Naturally reflexive actions are expressed by intransitive reflexive stems in Hebrew and by transitive verbs with the reflexive pronoun się in Polish. 2. Actions that are not naturally reflexive are expressed by transitive stems with the reflexive pronoun ’acmo in Hebrew, and by transitive verbs with the reflexive pronoun siebie in Polish. 3. Adverbials with anaphors referring to a subject contain personal pronouns in Hebrew, the reflexive pronoun siebie in Polish, if the reflexive reference of the pronoun is not abnormal. Otherwise the reflexive pronoun ’acmo and the emphatic pronoun samego siebie are used. 4. If a pronoun referring to the subject is a predicate, then in Hebrew it always has the form of an ordinary personal pronoun, while in Polish both the personal and the reflexive pronoun is possible, depending on the copula.
More...