In Spanish causative constructions with dejar 'let' and hacer 'make' the subject of the embedded infinitive verb can appear in the accusative or the dative case. This case alternation has been ...accounted for by resorting to the notion of direct vs. indirect causation. Under this account, the accusative clitic with a transitive verb denotes direct causation while the dative clitic with an intransitive verb expresses indirect causation. The problem with this account is that we lack an independent definition of (in)direct causation in this context and so this approach suffers from circularity: the case of the clitic is used to determine causation type and causation type implies use of one or the other grammatical case. Therefore, a more objective way to account for clitic case alternation is needed. In this paper, I offer one possible solution in this direction by investigating clitic case alternation against Hopper and Thompson's Transitivity parameters and a small number of other linguistic variables. The novelty of this approach is that I operationalise Transitivity as a weighted continuous measure (which I call the Transitivity Index) and use it to predict the case of the clitic. The results indicate that the transitivity of the infinitive verb, the animacy of the object and the agentivity of the subject are strong predictors of clitic case. Moreover, the Transitivity Index clearly shows that higher levels of Transitivity are associated with the dative clitic contrary to other contexts in which accusative is said to be more transitive. The findings in this paper allow us to arrive at a finer-grained characterization of the contexts in which each clitic case is more likely to occur and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of Transitivity in natural language.
In Spanish clitic-doubling constructions, the clitic should agree in number with its coreferential doubled noun phrase. However, the present corpus analysis with data from 21 Spanish varieties ...reveals that, under certain structural configurations, number agreement is not always realized on the third-person dative clitic. In fact, the data shows that non-agreement appears to be the norm when the indirect object is a lexical noun phrase (77 vs. 23%). In this paper, I investigate two possible explanations for this phenomenon: (i) a processing account
via
an attraction effect and (ii) a syntactic account based on intervention effects. These two hypotheses make clear and testable predictions that I examine by means of conditional inference trees and Bayesian generalized mixed-effects logistic regression modeling. The results of the statistical analyses are incompatible with an intervention account because this type of phenomenon is not sensitive to semantic features of the intervening element or to the true controller of agreement. Thus, I propose that the data is best analyzed as the interplay between attraction and the morphosyntax of the unmarked. In Spanish, this results in attraction effects from the DO in the unmarked word order and inanimate IOs showing a sort of differential dative marking, where animate IOs show a preference for full agreement. The findings reported herein show evidence of a complex and highly dynamic agreement mechanism of the clitic and highlight the probabilistic nature of morphosyntactic processes.
Although the most frequent psychological predicates in Spanish require the third-person clitic experiencer to appear in dative case, there is a well-known subclass of predicates for which the case of ...the clitic alternates between accusative and dative. This alternation has been previously accounted for by certain grammatical properties of the clause containing the clitic as well as elements of transitivity. However, since most studies on the subject have only looked at a subset of the elements comprising transitivity, it remains to be demonstrated whether the alternation in clitic case can reliably be reduced to a difference in transitivity. In this paper, I study the extent to which transitivity is the main predictor of clitic case alternation with reverse psychological predicates by comparing its effect with another potential predictor, namely the bidirectional association strength between the verb and the clitic. The results show that higher levels of association between the clitic and the verb favor the dative clitic, suggesting a higher degree of lexicalization of the dative clitic-verb pair. Furthermore, although it is found that higher levels of transitivity favor the accusative clitic, the effect is rather small compared to the rest of the predictors. All in all, the results support previous findings in the literature, but they also bring to the fore the importance of frequency of co-occurrence on Spanish clitic case alternation in particular, and language variation more generally.
Objectives:
Single-dose del Nido cardioplegia has been used in the pediatric population for many years. Only a small amount of data exists about its use in adult cardiac surgery. We sought to compare ...the outcomes of all patients undergoing coronary artery bypass, using our 4:1 blood cardioplegia versus single-dose 1:4 del Nido cardioplegia, at our institution.
Methods:
Data were retrospectively reviewed from all patients during 2 consecutive years (2013-2014). We switched our cardioplegia protocol from 4:1 blood cardioplegia to exclusively 1:4 single-dose del Nido cardioplegia in early 2014. A total of 408 patients were evaluated. Two hundred and forty-nine consecutive patients underwent coronary artery bypass using blood cardioplegia and 159 using del Nido Cardioplegia.
Results:
Cardiopulmonary bypass time, cross-clamp time, in-hospital mortality and length of stay were similar (p>0.05): 63 ± 23 vs. 65 ± 21 min, 50 ± 20 vs. 52 ± 20 min, 0.8% vs. 0.6% and 6.4 ± 3 vs. 5.8 ± 3 days, respectively. For secondary outcomes: patients requiring defibrillation was 105/249 (42%) vs. 13/159 (8%) (p<0.0001), blood transfusion was required in 96/249 (38%) vs. 48/159 (30%) (p<0.085), total volume administered was 1139mL vs. 813 mL per case (p<0.0001), hematocrit change was 11.6% vs. 10.9% (p<0.04) and the mean cost per dose was $157.54 vs $5.74.
Conclusions:
Single-dose del Nido cardioplegia is an effective and economic cardioplegia and can be used with good outcomes in coronary surgery. Most patients have spontaneous return of sinus rhythm and there is a trend towards decreased transfusion rate.
Subjunctive clauses in Spanish are traditionally claimed to obey Concordantia Temporum (CT), an agreement in tense between the matrix and subjunctive clauses. Treating this phenomenon literally as ...agreement is problematic, so an analysis in which CT falls out from general principles of tense interpretation, as in Laca (2010a), is very attractive. Nevertheless, this analysis seems to make some prima facie incorrect predictions. Here we test these predictions by means of a large-scale, formal sentence acceptability experiment in three countries. We show that despite superficial appearances, speakers do allow “violations” of CT (specifically, a present subjunctive clause embedded under a matrix present clause) in exactly the environment that Laca’s analysis predicts: when the context allows for a double access reading (DAR). We also find, however, that a subset of speakers also allows these violations in environments where the DAR interpretation is not possible. This finding is not predicted by Laca’s analysis, but it can be accommodated within it by positing that for those speakers, the present subjunctive form is actually unspecified for tense, a claim for which we provide independent evidence. Overall, our experimental results lend support to an analysis like Laca’s and suggest that CT can be eliminated as a separate mechanism of the grammar.
In Spanish causative constructions with dejar ‘let’ and hacer ‘make’ the subject of the
embedded infinitive verb can appear in the accusative or the dative case. This case alternation has been ...accounted for by resorting to the notion of direct vs. indirect causation. Under
this account, the accusative clitic with a transitive verb denotes direct causation while the
dative clitic with an intransitive verb expresses indirect causation. The problem with this
account is that we lack an independent definition of (in)direct causation in this context and
so this approach suffers from circularity: the case of the clitic is used to determine causation
type and causation type implies use of one or the other grammatical case. Therefore, a
more objective way to account for clitic case alternation is needed. In this paper, I offer one
possible solution in this direction by investigating clitic case alternation against Hopper and
Thompson’s Transitivity parameters and a small number of other linguistic variables. The
novelty of this approach is that I operationalise Transitivity as a weighted continuous measure (which I call the Transitivity Index) and use it to predict the case of the clitic. The results
indicate that the transitivity of the infinitive verb, the animacy of the object and the agentivity
of the subject are strong predictors of clitic case. Moreover, the Transitivity Index clearly
shows that higher levels of Transitivity are associated with the dative clitic contrary to other
contexts in which accusative is said to be more transitive. The findings in this paper allow us
to arrive at a finer-grained characterization of the contexts in which each clitic case is more
likely to occur and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of Transitivity in natural
language
This paper contributes to the study of transitivity as a general property of the clause. Unlike most previous work on the subject, however, transitivity in the present article is used to study a ...lexical alternation, namely the two causative predicates
‘let’ and
‘make’ in Spanish. To do this, I use the transitivity index (TI), a weighted continuous measure of transitivity based on Hopper and Thompson’s (1980, transitivity in grammar and discourse,
56, 251–299) transitivity parameters. The advantage of the TI is that it assigns different weights to each of the transitivity parameters and it is therefore sensitive to the particular construction it is applied to. I show that the TI can correctly predict the two Spanish causatives
‘let’ and
‘make’ with 80% accuracy and demonstrate that
is associated with higher transitivity contexts. In addition, linguistic features of the causer such as grammatical person and number are found to help distinguish between the two predicates. The finding that a lexical alternation can be reduced to a difference in transitivity raises important questions regarding the structure of the lexicon and the type of information it may contain.
Objectives Despite improvements in the management of blunt thoracic aortic injury, mortality remains high. We report our experience with blunt thoracic aortic injury at a level 1 trauma center over ...the past 15 years. Methods Between January 1, 1997, and January 1, 2012, data on 338 patients who presented with suspected blunt thoracic aortic injury were entered into the University of Texas Medical School at Houston Trauma Center Registry. A total of 175 patients (52%) underwent thoracic aortic repair; 29 (17%) had open repair with aortic crossclamping, 77 (44%) had open repair with distal aortic perfusion, and 69 (39%) had thoracic endovascular aortic repair. Outcomes were determined, including early mortality, morbidity, length of stay, and late survival. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to compute adjusted estimates for the effects of the operative technique. Results The early mortality for all patients with blunt thoracic aortic injury was 41% (139/338). Early mortality was 17% (27/175) for operative aortic interventions, 4% (3/69) for thoracic endovascular aortic repairs, 31% (11/29) for open repairs with aortic crossclamping, and 14% (11/77) for open repairs with distal aortic perfusion. Survival for thoracic endovascular aortic repair at 1 year and 5 years was 92% and 87%, respectively. Survival for open repair at 1, 5, 10, and 15 years was 76%, 75%, 72%, and 68%, respectively. Conclusions Blunt thoracic aortic injury remains associated with significant early mortality. Delayed selective management, when applied with open repair with distal aortic perfusion and the use of thoracic endovascular aortic repair, has been associated with improved early outcomes. The long-term durability of thoracic endovascular aortic repair is unknown, necessitating close radiographic follow-up.
Two subjunctives or three? Guajardo, Gustavo
International journal of corpus linguistics,
07/2021, Volume:
26, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Abstract
This paper examines the use of the three non-periphrastic subjunctives in Spanish in embedded clauses under obligatory subjunctive predicates in the past tense in three Spanish varieties: ...Argentinean, Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. By means of random forest and logistic regression analyses, I demonstrate that a grammar where the two “past” subjunctives make up one group, such that the variation can be modeled on a binary opposition between (morphologically)
past
vs. (morphologically)
present
, achieves better prediction accuracy and goodness-of-fit parameters than a grammar with a three-way split. The results suggest that, at least in complement clauses of obligatory subjunctive predicates, there appear to be no semantic differences between the two past subjunctives but there are still relatively large differences in how the three subjunctive forms are used across the three Spanish varieties studied.
1
In Spanish causative constructions with dejar ‘let’ and hacer ‘make’ the subject of the embedded infinitive verb can appear in the accusative or the dative case. This case alternation has been ...accounted for by resorting to the notion of direct vs. indirect causation. Under this account, the accusative clitic with a transitive verb denotes direct causation while the dative clitic with an intransitive verb expresses indirect causation. The problem with this account is that we lack an independent definition of (in)direct causation in this context and so this approach suffers from circularity: the case of the clitic is used to determine causation type and causation type implies use of one or the other grammatical case. Therefore, a more objective way to account for clitic case alternation is needed. In this paper, I offer one possible solution in this direction by investigating clitic case alternation against Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity parameters and a small number of other linguistic variables. The novelty of this approach is that I operationalise Transitivity as a weighted continuous measure (which I call the Transitivity Index) and use it to predict the case of the clitic. The results indicate that the transitivity of the infinitive verb, the animacy of the object and the agentivity of the subject are strong predictors of clitic case. Moreover, the Transitivity Index clearly shows that higher levels of Transitivity are associated with the dative clitic contrary to other contexts in which accusative is said to be more transitive. The findings in this paper allow us to arrive at a finer-grained characterization of the contexts in which each clitic case is more likely to occur and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of Transitivity in natural language.
PDF
