This article presents a bibliometric analysis of research on dementia in the field of linguistics. We reviewed and analyzed 545 articles published in 89 peer-reviewed journals between 1994 and 2023, to identify key bibliometric information and major research topics in this expanding field of research. The distribution of countries indicates that the United States is the most productive country, and researchers from the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada also play an important role. Aphasiology and Brain and Language are the most influential journals in terms of research productivity and impact. The analysis of highly cited references demonstrates the intellectual foundation of this research field. The topics generated by structural topic modeling show that scholars in linguistics have responded to a variety of issues on dementia, encompassing semantic processing, multilingualism and cognitive functions, primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech, natural language processing techniques, the role of speech-language pathologists, communication dynamics in contexts, speech processing, syntactic processing, and word retrieval and language processing. This study aims to enhance researchers’ understanding of the current state of this research field and provide insights for future studies.
Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar, Medicine (General)
What-if analysis is widely used to explore hypothetical scenarios and evaluate alternative pathways to desired results. However, current approaches are fragmented: systems implement what-if capabilities under diverse terminologies with different analytic techniques. Such fragmentation limits expressiveness, impedes flexible composition and reuse of workflows, and hinders tighter integration with AI. We present PRAXA, a compositional grammar of what-if analysis derived from recurring patterns across 141 publications in visual analytics and HCI venues. PRAXA formulates three primitives: (1) data, defining variables under analysis, (2) model, specifying predictive mechanisms, and (3) interaction operations-pairs of user actions and system responses that execute analyses. We encode PRAXA into a declarative specification language, PSL. To evaluate PRAXA, we first show expressiveness by reconstructing representative workflows from prior work as structured compositions, exposing the predominant focus on single-step rather than multi-step reasoning. Second, we demonstrate composability by revealing that capabilities described under distinct terminologies share the same grammatical structure with different parameterizations, and that new multi-step workflows emerge through composition. Third, we illustrate PSL as an intermediate representation for translating natural-language what-if queries into executable interactive interfaces, enabling inspection, validation, and more transparent AI integration. By unifying diverse what-if approaches as a grammar, PRAXA provides a foundation for analyzing, composing, and supporting workflows in next-generation what-if systems.
Italy has recently been one of the main entry points for asylum seekers and refugees into Europe (UNHCR 2023). Credibility assessment of claims in asylum procedures heavily hinges on the applicants’ ability to (re)construct their refugee identity in written declarations and oral testimonies, which are in turn shaped and reshaped within the interaction in the further course of the procedure, not only but also by interpreters. Over the past 30 years, a growing number of publications testifies to the importance of asylum interpreters’ roles and ethics and show that asylum interpreters rarely fulfil the expectations of normative role prescriptions. This paper aims to gain a better understanding of some critical aspects of interpreting in the asylum context in Italy, an understudied area of interpreting so far, mainly for difficult access to data. It is based on a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews to some of the participants in the hearings and documentation about our dataset, which was collected at a Prefecture in central Italy in 2023. After an overview of the normative aspects of the right to asylum in the world and, more specifically, in Italy, we discuss the main issues concerning the complex profile and role of asylum interpreters and provide a description of the Italian international protection system. We then contextualise the dataset and the linguistic-ethnographic methods adopted to unravel the complex interactional dynamics under investigation. Based on our data analysis, we conclude that, in order to provide quality services, more specialised interpreter training is needed – not only in terms of language, legal knowledge and terminology, intercultural and communication skills, but also in terms of interviewing techniques and interactional mechanisms, as well as awareness of roles and respective boundaries in the asylum hearing.
Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar, Communication. Mass media
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of kennings’ use in Old English (OE) poetry beyond their rhetorical power, more specifically, their role as mnemonic devices. Generally, kennings are used to refer to a certain entity using a more complex and descriptive way, more than one individual tag. This way of encoding referents seems to carry more than aesthetic value for poets and bards. Seeing as Old English poetry is oral in nature, I believe there is an argument to be made for the use of specific structures that can aid word and context retrieval, especially in longer-form content. As such, kennings would function as anchors, and I argue that they function this way because they contain semantic information that supports word retrieval. The framework for analysing this type of word formation is based on semantic feature analysis, which is a protocol used in the therapy of aphasia and anomia to improve word retrieval in post-stroke patients. Beyond this analysis, this paper will argue for the importance of considering alternate, novel techniques and methodologies for the study of Old English and for the diachronic study of language altogether, hoping to help bridge the gap between different areas of research.
Per oltre sessant'anni, Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) ha esplorato con la propria penna una straordinaria varietà di spazi, dalle piazze e dai portici d'Italia alle main street e i brownstone degli Stati Uniti. Luoghi vissuti e ricordati, ma anche criticati. Questo saggio si propone di ripercorrere alcune tappe della sua “autogeografia”, seguendo come filo conduttore un'idea di spazio abitabile che ai confini troppo definiti predilige una continua metamorfosi di funzioni. Attraverso i propri disegni, Steinberg fornisce un contributo, frammentario nella forma ma coerente corente nella sostanza, al dibattito novecentesco sull'ambiente urbano, da porre accanto a quelli di Bernard Rudofsky e Le Corbusier.
Geography. Anthropology. Recreation, Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar
We present a highly parallelizable text compression algorithm that scales efficiently to terabyte-sized datasets. Our method builds on locally consistent grammars, a lightweight form of compression, combined with simple recompression techniques to achieve further space reductions. Locally consistent grammar algorithms are particularly suitable for scaling, as they need minimal satellite information to compact the text. We introduce a novel concept to enable parallelisation, stable local consistency. A grammar algorithm ALG is stable, if for any pattern $P$ occurring in a collection $\mathcal{T}=\{T_1, T_2, \ldots, T_k\}$, the instances $ALG(T_1), ALG(T_2), \ldots, ALG(T_k)$ independently produce cores for $P$ with the same topology. In a locally consistent grammar, the core of $P$ is a subset of nodes and edges in $\mathcal{T}$'s parse tree that remains the same in all the occurrences of $P$. This feature is important to achieve compression, but it only holds if ALG synchronises the parsing of the strings, for instance, by defining a common set of nonterminal symbols for them. Stability removes the need for synchronisation during the parsing phase. Consequently, we can run $ALG(T_1), ALG(T_2), \ldots, ALG(T_k)$ fully in parallel and then merge the resulting grammars into a single compressed output equivalent to $ALG(\mathcal{T})$. We implemented our ideas and tested them on massive datasets. Our results showed that our method could process a diverse collection of bacterial genomes (7.9 TB) in around nine hours, requiring 16 threads and 0.43 bits/symbol of working memory, producing a compressed representation 85 times smaller than the original input.
Graph grammars form an interesting area of research because of their versatility in modelling diverse situations with graphs as the structures which are to be manipulated. A new class of graph grammars, nc-eNCE Graph Grammars has been introduced recently with an aim of restricting the order of application of graph production rules, thereby generating different graph classes using the same set of rules. On the other hand 2D game design using an algorithmic approach known as procedural content generation has been of interest recently. In this paper we modify the structure of nc-eNCE graph grammars with the aim of generating directed graphs. We show that employing these graph grammars simplifies the design of 2D games. We have also developed an algorithm which makes use of these graph grammars for generating random game level layouts ensuring that the players will get a different gaming experience each time they play.
Within linguistic theory, the division of labour between syntax and the lexicon has been a central issue for debate among different architectures of grammar, roughly corresponding to the distinction between memorization and rule governed aspects of language competence. In this article, I give some historical context for these debates, concluding that differences in architectural assumptions are only resolvable ultimately if we are willing to allow these implementational decisions to have consequences for (and make predictions concerning) human behaviours or mental processes. I proceed then to assess the psycholinguistic evidence concerning the lexicon and processing from the cognitive science literature, and offer a reassessment of what this means for the linguistic debates that have dominated discussions of the lexicon to this date. My conclusion will be that some of the comfortable dichotomies often relied on in these discussions are untenable and that some of the classical positions need to be reevaluated.
Benjamin Lee, Arvind Satyanarayan, Maxime Cordeil
et al.
We present Deimos, a grammar for specifying dynamic embodied immersive visualisation morphs and transitions. A morph is a collection of animated transitions that are dynamically applied to immersive visualisations at runtime and is conceptually modelled as a state machine. It is comprised of state, transition, and signal specifications. States in a morph are used to generate animation keyframes, with transitions connecting two states together. A transition is controlled by signals, which are composable data streams that can be used to enable embodied interaction techniques. Morphs allow immersive representations of data to transform and change shape through user interaction, facilitating the embodied cognition process. We demonstrate the expressivity of Deimos in an example gallery and evaluate its usability in an expert user study of six immersive analytics researchers. Participants found the grammar to be powerful and expressive, and showed interest in drawing upon Deimos' concepts and ideas in their own research.
Hypergraph Lambek grammars (HL-grammars) is a novel logical approach to generating graph languages based on the hypergraph Lambek calculus. In this paper, we establish a precise relation between HL-grammars and hypergraph grammars based on the double pushout (DPO) approach: we prove that HL-grammars generate the same class of languages as DPO grammars with the linear restriction on lengths of derivations. This can be viewed as a complete description of the expressive power of HL-grammars and also as an analogue of the Pentus theorem, which states that Lambek grammars generate the same class of languages as context-free grammars. As a corollary, we prove that HL-grammars subsume contextual hyperedge replacement grammars.
Building interactive data interfaces is hard because the design of an interface depends on the data processing needs for the underlying analysis task, yet we do not have a good representation for analysis tasks. To fill this gap, this paper advocates for a Data Interface Grammar (DIG) as an intermediate representation of analysis tasks. We show that DIG is compatible with existing data engineering practices, compact to represent any analysis, simple to translate into an interface design, and amenable to offline analysis. We further illustrate the potential benefits of this abstraction, such as automatic interface generation, automatic interface backend optimization, tutorial generation, and workload generation.
File formats specify how data is encoded for persistent storage. They cannot be formalized as context-free grammars since their specifications include context-sensitive patterns such as the random access pattern and the type-length-value pattern. We propose a new grammar mechanism called Interval Parsing Grammars IPGs) for file format specifications. An IPG attaches to every nonterminal/terminal an interval, which specifies the range of input the nonterminal/terminal consumes. By connecting intervals and attributes, the context-sensitive patterns in file formats can be well handled. In this paper, we formalize IPGs' syntax as well as its semantics, and its semantics naturally leads to a parser generator that generates a recursive-descent parser from an IPG. In general, IPGs are declarative, modular, and enable termination checking. We have used IPGs to specify a number of file formats including ZIP, ELF, GIF, PE, and part of PDF; we have also evaluated the performance of the generated parsers.
В статье проводится лингвистический анализ контрастов в избранных произведениях В. Токаревой.
Теория контрастности выстраивается в опоре на теорию антонимии с ее исходным понятием
противопоставления. Дается характеристика языковых и контекстуальных антонимов в произведениях
писательницы и проводится анализ стилистических фигур, основанных на противопоставлении –
антитезы, диатезы, акротезы, амфитезы, оксюморона и градации. Выявляется роль и значение данных
стилистических фигур как выразительного средства индивидуально-авторского стиля.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-language: ER;">In this Article, an effort was made to get a good understanding about Schimmel’s books, in the very context of Metaphysics, Mysticism, Culture, History and of Fine Arts. Much of these books are byproduct of Schimmel’s lectures which she gave in different universities and in institutions, world over. She was a dedicated Western Scholar and had an extended repute both in East and West. Her books are profoundly contained diversified or versatile topics related to Muslim living, irrespective of Muslim sect or dogmatic differences. She presented Islam a true faith and gave an impressive look of it to its western readers. For this, she particularly focused Mysticism and Fine Arts. In fact, she produced a great canvass of Islam and did her best to draw a good look of it in different socio-cultural perspectives. Her academic attire for the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) is another distinction to be valued. We should admit that this was Muslim Mysticism which engraved her ideas from childhood to her old age and she led a life, more or less, under the very shadow of Sufi Path.</span></strong></p>
Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar, Computational linguistics. Natural language processing
In 1966, Semenov, by using a technique based on power series, suggested an algorithm that tells apart the languages described by an unambiguous grammar and a DFA. At the first glance, it may appear that the algorithm can be easily modified to yield a full solution of the equivalence problem for unambiguous grammars. This article shows why this hunch is, in fact, incorrect.
State grammars are context-free grammars where the productions have states associated with them, and a production can only be applied to a nonterminal if the current state matches the state in the production. Once states are added to grammars, it is natural to add various stores, similar to machine models. With such extensions, productions can only be applied if both the state and the value read from each store matches between the current sentential form and the production. Here, generative capacity results are presented for different derivation modes, with and without additional stores. In particular, with the standard derivation relation, it is shown that adding reversal-bounded counters does not increase the capacity, and states are enough. Also, state grammars with reversal-bounded counters that operate using leftmost derivations are shown to coincide with languages accepted by one-way machines with a pushdown and reversal-bounded counters, and these are surprisingly shown to be strictly weaker than state grammars with the standard derivation relation (and no counters). The complexity of the emptiness problem involving state grammars with reversal-bounded counters is also studied.
We present an algorithm for building the extended BWT (eBWT) of a string collection from its grammar-compressed representation. Our technique exploits the string repetitions captured by the grammar to boost the computation of the eBWT. Thus, the more repetitive the collection is, the lower are the resources we use per input symbol. We rely on a new grammar recently proposed at DCC'21 whose nonterminals serve as building blocks for inducing the eBWT. A relevant application for this idea is the construction of self-indexes for analyzing sequencing reads -- massive and repetitive string collections of raw genomic data. Self-indexes have become increasingly popular in Bioinformatics as they can encode more information in less space. Our efficient eBWT construction opens the door to perform accurate bioinformatic analyses on more massive sequence datasets, which are not tractable with current eBWT construction techniques.
We propose a new grammar-based language for defining information-extractors from documents (text) that is built upon the well-studied framework of document spanners for extracting structured data from text. While previously studied formalisms for document spanners are mainly based on regular expressions, we use an extension of context-free grammars, called {extraction grammars}, to define the new class of context-free spanners. Extraction grammars are simply context-free grammars extended with variables that capture interval positions of the document, namely spans. While regular expressions are efficient for tokenizing and tagging, context-free grammars are also efficient for capturing structural properties. Indeed, we show that context-free spanners are strictly more expressive than their regular counterparts. We reason about the expressive power of our new class and present a pushdown-automata model that captures it. We show that extraction grammars can be evaluated with polynomial data complexity. Nevertheless, as the degree of the polynomial depends on the query, we present an enumeration algorithm for unambiguous extraction grammars that, after quintic preprocessing, outputs the results sequentially, without repetitions, with a constant delay between every two consecutive ones.
Lars Jaffke, Mateus de Oliveira Oliveira, Hans Raj Tiwary
It can be shown that each permutation group $G \sqsubseteq S_n$ can be embedded, in a well defined sense, in a connected graph with $O(n+|G|)$ vertices. Some groups, however, require much fewer vertices. For instance, $S_n$ itself can be embedded in the $n$-clique $K_n$, a connected graph with n vertices. In this work, we show that the minimum size of a context-free grammar generating a finite permutation group $G \sqsubseteq S_n$ can be upper bounded by three structural parameters of connected graphs embedding $G$: the number of vertices, the treewidth, and the maximum degree. More precisely, we show that any permutation group $G \sqsubseteq S_n$ that can be embedded into a connected graph with $m$ vertices, treewidth k, and maximum degree $Δ$, can also be generated by a context-free grammar of size $2^{O(kΔ\logΔ)}\cdot m^{O(k)}$. By combining our upper bound with a connection between the extension complexity of a permutation group and the grammar complexity of a formal language, we also get that these permutation groups can be represented by polytopes of extension complexity $2^{O(k Δ\log Δ)}\cdot m^{O(k)}$. The above upper bounds can be used to provide trade-offs between the index of permutation groups, and the number of vertices, treewidth and maximum degree of connected graphs embedding these groups. In particular, by combining our main result with a celebrated $2^{Ω(n)}$ lower bound on the grammar complexity of the symmetric group $S_n$ we have that connected graphs of treewidth $o(n/\log n)$ and maximum degree $o(n/\log n)$ embedding subgroups of $S_n$ of index $2^{cn}$ for some small constant $c$ must have $n^{ω(1)}$ vertices. This lower bound can be improved to exponential on graphs of treewidth $n^{\varepsilon}$ for $\varepsilon<1$ and maximum degree $o(n/\log n)$.