<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Recent research in syntax and corpus linguistics has shown how the German <italic>Perfekt</italic> (present perfect) and <italic>Präteritum</italic> (simple past) are widely used in written language—even though these tenses are commonly described in DAF (German as a foreign language) materials as used respectively in the spoken and written forms. While these analyses only focus on written corpora, an extensive study on the use of tenses in spoken interaction is still missing. In this paper, I try to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the use of <italic>Perfekt</italic> and <italic>Präteritum</italic> in the recordings of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, held in Frankfurt am Main, from December 20, 1963, to August 19, 1965, and available on the web page of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Textual analyses of the depositions of five former German prisoners of the Polish concentration camp show that German native speakers use both tenses in their spoken interactions. These results widely contradict their depiction in DAF materials, textbooks, and grammars. Furthermore, the types of <italic>Präteritum</italic> found are far more diverse than is traditionally held by scholars, who claimed that the use of this tense in spoken language is limited to verbs such as <italic>sein</italic> (to be), <italic>haben</italic> (to have) and modals, such as <italic>können</italic> (can), <italic>müssen</italic> (must), <italic>sollen</italic> (should), etc. The outcome of this study shows how the difference between <italic>Perfekt</italic> and <italic>Präteritum</italic> is determined by the subjective attitude of the speakers in relation to the information they want to convey.</abstract>

Grammatical Tenses and Communicative Intentions: A case study of the German Perfekt and Präteritum

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>A description of living systems is still a topic of discussion among a number of disciplines. By an evaluation of the approaches, we get to an axis differentiating those that are indisputable in sense of dealing with verifiable and measurable phenomena. We thus also get to approaches that integrate particular extensions when dealing with the possibilities to describe living systems and processes. It is a task for biosemiotics to find connections of these approaches and thus ways to enrich each other or simply describe phenomena to the widest extent possible. One of the authors whose work is permeated by this idea is Howard Pattee. Inspired by his work, we discuss the options of description when talking about living systems and semiotic apparatuses. We do so by a formulation of two viewpoints that differ in questions of contextual dependency, interpretation and necessity of the existence of an autonomous agent as indispensable elements for the description of life phenomena.</abstract>

Describing Life: Towards the Conception of Howard Pattee

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Recent research in syntax and corpus linguistics has shown how the German <italic>Perfekt</italic> (present perfect) and <italic>Präteritum</italic> (simple past) are widely used in written language—even though these tenses are commonly described in DAF (German as a foreign language) materials as used respectively in the spoken and written forms. While these analyses only focus on written corpora, an extensive study on the use of tenses in spoken interaction is still missing. In this paper, I try to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the use of <italic>Perfekt</italic> and <italic>Präteritum</italic> in the recordings of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, held in Frankfurt am Main, from December 20, 1963, to August 19, 1965, and available on the web page of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Textual analyses of the depositions of five former German prisoners of the Polish concentration camp show that German native speakers use both tenses in their spoken interactions. These results widely contradict their depiction in DAF materials, textbooks, and grammars. Furthermore, the types of <italic>Präteritum</italic> found are far more diverse than is traditionally held by scholars, who claimed that the use of this tense in spoken language is limited to verbs such as <italic>sein</italic> (to be), <italic>haben</italic> (to have) and modals, such as <italic>können</italic> (can), <italic>müssen</italic> (must), <italic>sollen</italic> (should), etc. The outcome of this study shows how the difference between <italic>Perfekt</italic> and <italic>Präteritum</italic> is determined by the subjective attitude of the speakers in relation to the information they want to convey.
</abstract>

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In this study, we aim to introduce the analytical method bag-of-words, which is mainly used as a tool for the analysis (document classification, authorship attribution and so on; e.g. [1, 2]) of natural languages. Quantitative linguistic methods similar to bag-of-words (e.g. Damerau–Levenshtein distance in the paper by Serva and Petroni [3]) have been used for the mapping of language evolution within the field of glottochronology. We attempt to apply this method in the field of biological taxonomy – on the Brassicaceae (Cruciferae) family. The subjects of our interest are well-known cultivated crops, which at first sight are morphologically very different and culturally perceived as objects of different interests (e.g. oil from oilseed rape, turnip as animal feed and cabbage as a side dish). Despite the phenotypic divergence of these crops, they are very closely related, which is not morphologically obvious at first sight. For this reason, we think that Brassicaceae crops are appropriate illustrative examples for introducing the method. For the analysis, we use genetic markers (internal transcribed spacer [ITS] and maturase K [matK]). Until now, the bag-of-words model has not been used for biological taxonomisation purposes; therefore, the results of the bagof-words analysis are compared with the existing very well-developed Brassica taxonomy. Our goal is to present a method that is suitable for language development reconstruction as well as possibly being usable for biological taxonomy purposes.</abstract>

Genetic analysis of cabbages and related cultivated plants using the bag-of-words model

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The author discusses the question of whether animals have a language. The article examines the similarities and differences in the linguistic capabilities of animals and humans. The similarity lies in the fact that animals can use symbolic signs to receive and send messages. Among other things, they can receive and interpret signs on a delayed basis without the direct presence of their sender, although to a fundamentally lesser extent than people. The comparison is carried out both for signs perceived by the organism (afferent signs) and for signs created by the organism (efferent signs), both related to communication and the perception of the environment outside the community.
The main difference is the possibility of telling about events outside the “here and now” in which the narrator could or may not take part. This is the narrative. No signs of animals using the narrative were found. The resulting differences in storytelling use are hypothesized to be related to additional language functions that have increased in humans compared to animals. People have psychological characteristics caused by the presence of the stage of individuation and separation in development. This allows them to move away from the situation and see it from the outside, which is necessary for retelling. On the other hand, people need to communicate with the help of a narrative, since their society includes a sacred part, whose members receive descriptions of events, requests, questions, and their answers in the form of various signs and the results fortune-telling need a detailed interpretation.
</abstract>

Semiotic Threshold: Animals and People

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This paper introduces rhetorical meaning to semantic theory; we use the term by analogy to tropes like metonymy in classical rhetoric, which yields ‘the American president’ from <italic>the White House</italic>—that is, it substitutes one referential meaning for another. Here we focus on two rhetorical meanings: <italic>intensification</italic> and <italic>attenuation</italic>. Intensification is expressed in English and many other languages by total reduplication (<italic>an old old man</italic>); attenuation is exemplified by Spanish ‘synthetic’ diminutive forms (<italic>hombrecito</italic> ‘little man’; cf. <italic>hombre</italic> ‘man’) and English and French ‘analytic’ formations (<italic>My Little Chickadee</italic> (film); <italic>petit caporal</italic> ‘Little Corporal’ (Napoléon Bonaparte)). Formally, a rhetorical meaning is a <italic>relation</italic> with one referential meaning as its domain and, as its codomain, a set of related referential meanings, the particular set specified by the rhetorical meaning at hand. The selection from among elements of the codomain, which can even seem contradictory out of context, is in fact highly context-dependent and indicates a critical role for pragmatics in an overall account of this meaning type.</abstract>

Rhetorical meaning

Erratum

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
From which principal factors did Charles Peirce‘s scientific theory of Semeiotic evolve? How are those components different from foundational features in theories of semiotics.
A major difference is shown in the fact that Semeiotic, a scientific theory of natural Semeioses, arises from Peirce‘s work in logic, especially the logic of relations. A semeiosis is precisely a relational phenomenon, thus a logic of relations is an essential part of the theory of Semeiotic. This essay will provide a roadmap for the development of Semeiotic from Peirce‘s logical researches. The essay concludes with some examples for use of Semeiotic for objective study of the activity of semeioses within various areas of scientific research.
Instead of extensive textual references readers may consult kenketner.net which contains resources underlying the account of Peirce‘s work given here.
</abstract>

A Survey of Semeiotic as Practice of Reasoning

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This paper addresses the origin, evolution, and explosive profusion of the German Anglicism <italic>der Shitstorm</italic> referring to social media outrage across all registers in German. The word <italic>Shitstorm</italic> was declared <italic>Anglicism of the Year</italic> 2011 in the context of a project initiated by a group of German linguists that was designed to characterize Anglicisms as a positive contribution to the German lexicon. Using detailed corpus analysis, this paper explains the origin of the English etymon, its evolution and resemanticization over time. By comparing data from news media corpora in English and German, this study explains why the Anglicism <italic>Shitstorm</italic> is not perceived as vulgar in German. While German linguists behind the <italic>Anglicism of the Year</italic> intended to change the negative perception of the increasing influence of English in contemporary German, this analysis explains why Anglicisms like <italic>Shitstorm</italic> in German can be problematic in international contexts. From a wider perspective on the semiotics of a general German Anglophilia, the profusion of the Anglicism <italic>Shitstorm</italic> in German is representative of precisely the social media practices the word is used to describe. The case of the Anglicism <italic>der Shitstorm</italic> in German is therefore symptomatic of the influence social media have on all media.
</abstract>

Ungainly lexical borrowing? The case of the Anglicism der Shitstorm in German

The World of Codes: An Interview with Marcello Barbieri

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Animal utterances are metastudied based on a framework describing relations between aspects of utterance, genre, and lifeworld, <italic>form, content, act, time</italic>, and <italic>space.</italic> The study concerns a set of problems: How is context perceived theoretically and empirically? Where are time and space positioned? Is time and space studied separately or as chronotope, as spacetime, as a whole? What does embodied context mean? What are systemic studies? Of the studies two focus on systemic projects, two on complexity and contextual variations, two on time and space as separate phenomena, and three on spacetime. Since aspects such as signs, utterances, and genres evolved before language, they presumably constituted animals’ communicational system, working as a resource for communication even for all species, hominids and humans included. Studying such elements challenges how we conceive how they interrelate, especially in spacetime. The study revealed that spacetime was mostly positioned outside utterances and only occasionally as embodied. Integration of all key elements was not found in the excerpt.
</abstract>

The Challenge of Positioning Space and Time in Systemic Studies of Animal Utterances as Both Embodied and External Contexts

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This is a review of the recently published collective monograph Approaches to Biosemiotics by Rodríguez and Coca (eds.). The publication can be used as a window into the current trends in the research area of biosemiotics, especially in the connection with the social sciences. We review briefly each of the chapters of the monograph and make some general conclusions about the significance and importance of the book by Rodríguez and Coca.
</abstract>

Quo Vadis, Biosemiotics?

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This paper will introduce the results of a study conducted in 2019 about how humans perceive species they have to live with, despite not wanting to do so—liminal species—, specifically rats and mice. The results presented here are part of a wider study about rats and mice in cities, their relationship with humans, the nuisances they generate as well as the various and important roles they play in the urban ecosystem, introduced at the Gatherings in BIosemiotics 2020.
The study originally focused solely on rats, which are in a difficult societal context in France, especially in Paris: due to heat waves, planned works and floods, rats are becoming more and more present on the surface, instead of being invisible underground as they used to be. However, some of the results suggest that a significant number of participants are not completely positive about being able to distinguish between a rat and a mouse. In order to present a more precise and detailed overview, it was decided to study the difference not only between the cohabitation issues humans may have with actual rats and/or mice, but also between the semiotic relationships that humans have with the symbolic rat and symbolic mouse. As such, this paper will present the results for both species, with their similarities and divergences.
It shows that a significant part of nuisances and cohabitation issues are more “believed” than factual. The paper focuses on how the cultural and emotional backgrounds of participants influence their semiotic relationship with these species, and how the perceived nuisances, threats or issues can vary according to these parameters.
This study aims to develop a better understanding of the different elements that play a part in issues of cohabitation between humans—especially urban humans—and liminal species—especially rodents. It will show how some of the nuisances can be addressed, not by coercive methods on the actual animals, such as extermination, repellents or removal, but through semiotic work and education on the symbolic animal, its related myths, superstitions, fears and phobias.
</abstract>

Rats, Mice and Humans

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Metaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics is not exempt from their influence, and an important range of semiotic theories depends on metaphors to be meaningful. In this paper, we wish to examine the place of theory-constitutive metaphors considering the interaction view and the extent to which some areas of semiotics, particularly, the semiotics of culture and biosemiotics, are enriched by having metaphors dominate the way we think about them. The intention of the paper is not to document the different metaphors that have built semiotic theory, but rather to observe through a number of examples that semiotic research contains theory-building metaphors and that these are productive means of developing semiotic thinking further, with the caveat that theory change can be unexpected based on how we build metaphors for our theories.</abstract>

Productive perils: on metaphor as a theory-building device

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The article departs from the Teilhardean opposition of the inside (le dedans) and the outside (le dehors), notions of reflection and self-enclosure (enroulement sur lui-même), and an experimental law of recurrence (une loi expérimentale de recurrence). The author supplements them with his own apparatus of simplex-complex transformations as an epistemic principle and a set of related practices. The article starts with quantum emergence, forging its inside and outside by an interface and an alternative way to represent it as Diracean membrane, branes of the string theory, and the eigenform. The interface instrumentality for operating the inside and outside of the quantum allows their structured totality to enact agency potential. Simplex-complex transformations allow to represent an evolutionary series of agency transformations as modules of a single model up to a developed human self. The article discusses the recurrence, enclosure, and other trickeries of emergence as well as their representation with the help of cognitive metaphors likme Ouroboros or mathematical formalisms like the Moebius strip. It proceeds to chemical catalysis and autocatalysis, further to emergence of autopoiesis, and finally to biogenesis. Forms of life internalize environmental productive factor (Umwelt) by duplication, recursion, enclosing, folding, etc. to evolve a series of codes, making up integral genetic agency and genome as its key vehicle. The article considers organismic symbiosis and respective autocatalytic recursions, addresses the emergence of signal systems and cognition, which is parallel to and duplicating neural processes. It discusses primary cognitive abilities and their further autocatalytic transformations into a range of more advanced capabilities, along with the emergence of higher levelhigher-level signal systems. Finally, it ends up by discussing anthropogenesis and stepwise emergence and advancement of human language and thought in a series of internalizations of communicative contexts (frames, typical communicative settings, mementoes and typical remembrances, etc.) into codes of the first, second, and further orders.</abstract>

Emergence and advancement of basic human capacities

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This article reviews the achievements and challenges that appear from attempts to integrate the studies of the semiotic and the social. Based on an analysis of the projects of Social Semiotics, semiotic sociology, and sociosemiotic approach to culture, it is suggested that the development of sociosemiotics could be represented (both retrospectively and prospectively) as trajectories of two frontiers. These are the frontier of sociosemiotic material and the frontier of sociosemiotic methodology. The frontier of sociosemiotic material represents how social semiotics progresses in broadening its scope by extending the set of materials which are considered as objects of sociosemiotic analysis. The frontier of sociosemiotic methodology describes how semiotic tools are integrated with other methodologies of social studies. The article shows what key steps have already been made to transcend the boundaries between social and semiotic research, and what directions are possible for further integration of social and semiotic sciences.</abstract>

Sociosemiotic Frontiers. Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects of Converging Semiotic and Social

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In this article, we deal with the similarity between epigenetic marks in DNA and hapax legomena in language; based on the so-called hapaxes, a grammar description is designed. We reflect hapax analysis of Czech language provided by Novotná (2013) and avoid random selection of the corpus. For this reason, we analyze a corpus of 12 authentic books from 12 authors who elaborated the theme “What’s new in…” concerning their field of science, assigned by Nová beseda publishing. By analyzing a middle-sized corpus, we expected results similar to those of large-scale national corpus (see Novotná 2013). We chose to classify hapaxes into different categories in comparison to Novotná, yet the results show similar language productive categories. This kind of language potentiality seems to be analogical to epigenetic processes in biology, which is briefly introduced.</abstract>

Once again about the hapax grammar: Epigenetic Linguistics

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Linguistic Frontiers

 Linguistic Frontiers is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on research and collaboration in linguistics, life science, mathematics, social science and the...

 Linguistic Frontiers is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on research and collaboration in linguistics, life...