Search Results (15)

From the 16th to the 18th century, Jesuit missionaries in China pioneered inter-cultural exchange by integrating cultural accommodation with groundbreaking linguistic research. By adopting Confucian scholarly practices and systematically studying the Chinese language, they developed innovative approaches to Chinese phonetics, grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, and teaching. Their linguistic achievements not only facilitated missionary work but also contributed to early modern sinology and cross-cultural communications. This paper examines the Jesuits’ dual strategy of cultural accommodation and linguistic research, demonstrating how their deep engagement with Chinese intellectual traditions enabled them to study the Chinese language successfully, to communicate with local elites smoothly, and to disseminate Christianity effectively. Through the combination of local philological traditions with Western linguistic techniques, they introduced new perspectives on the Chinese language, influencing both Western sinology and China’s linguistic development. Their translations of religious, scientific, and philosophical texts also played a key role in shaping Sino-Western intellectual exchanges. By analyzing the Jesuits’ linguistic activities and the strategies they employed in the process, this study highlights the Jesuits’ impact on Chinese linguistic scholarship, the transmission of Christianity, and their role in cross-cultural communication. Their work also exemplifies how language, culture, and religion can effectively collaborate in cross-cultural encounters, shaping historical narratives and fostering dialogue between civilizations. Full article

This study delves into the multifaceted realm of citrus fruits, exploring their significance and socioeconomic implications from their early introduction to Western Muslim and Renaissance gardens, tracing their journey throughout history. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from biological, archaeobotanical, iconographic, and textual sources, our study offers a comprehensive exploration of citrus symbolism and cultural significance, integrating historical, artistic, horticultural, and socioeconomic viewpoints. The genus Citrus (Rutaceae) comprises around thirty species and its natural habitat spans from the southern slopes of the Himalayas to China, Southeast Asia, nearby islands, and Queensland. Originating from only four of these species, humans have cultivated hundreds of hybrids and thousands of varieties, harnessing their culinary, medicinal, and ornamental potential worldwide. We delve into the symbolic value of citrus fruits, which have served as indicators of economic status and power. From their early presence in Mediterranean religious rituals to their depiction in opulent Roman art and mythical narratives like the Garden of the Hesperides, citrus fruits have epitomized luxury and desire. Christian lore intertwines them with the forbidden fruit of Eden, while Islamic and Sicilian gardens and Renaissance villas signify their prestige. We analyze diverse perspectives, from moralists to hedonists, and examine their role in shaping global agriculture, exemplified by rare varieties like aurantii foetiferi. Full article

This paper argues for proximity between the two branches of a jurisprudential–adjudicative genre: manuals for judges or the etiquette for the judgeship. I wish to demonstrate that the proximity, lexicography, ways and tools of argument, etc., are founded upon a meta-legal stratum that contains kalam theology. In this paper, I will elaborate on the genre and its discovery, define some basic principles for the field of discussion, and provide textual examples of the proximities between the two branches of the genre based on pre-legal or meta-halachic demands. I suggest a preliminary result here and lay the groundwork for further research in the future: The criteria for the appointment of the true judge sketch out his idealized personality. He is more than an administrator of the judicial bureaucracy: he is a guide for the legally perplexed peoplehood, both in Judaism and Islam. Full article

This paper addresses the crucial question of the structuring of scientific Notions for the purpose of their proper teaching/acquisition. It aims to demonstrate that non-taxonomic structures, derived from the systematic lexicographic definition of terminological lexical units, can be rigorously constructed and are adequate for implementing a non-isolationist approach to terminology modeling: one that embeds the description of terminological units within a more global model of the general lexicon. Using theoretical and descriptive principles of Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology and the lexicography of lexical networks known as Lexical Systems, we apply our approach to the core terminology of chemistry and chemistry-related environmental terminology. This allows us to propose Notion building road maps for three languages—English, French and Russian—that can be used as guides for the teaching/acquisition of chemistry Notions. Additionally, exploiting the special case of the noun carbon—which pertains to chemistry, environmental science and, even, general language—we demonstrate the potential of our non-isolationist approach for interfacing distinct sectors of terminological knowledge. Full article

This article presents the innovative endeavor by Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābrī and Nasr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd in interpreting the Qurʾān through a humanistic lens. Their approach marks a pivotal shift, viewing the Qurʾān as a dynamic text that actively engages with the human interpreter. This human-centric perspective underpins their hermeneutical method, which employs lexicography, philology, and semantics to unearth the layered meanings within the Qurʾānic narrative. The article delves into the nuances of their methodologies, drawing parallels and distinctions, and underscores their profound impact on modern Qurʾānic hermeneutics. Full article

Seryl-tRNA synthetases (SerRSs), members of the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase family, interact with diverse proteins, enabling SerRSs to enhance their role in the translation of the genetic message or to perform alternative functions in cellular processes beyond translation. Atypical archaeal SerRS interacts with arginyl-tRNA synthetase and proteins of the ribosomal P-stalk to optimize translation through tRNA channeling. The complex between yeast SerRS and peroxin Pex21p provides a connection between translation and peroxisome function. The partnership between Arabidopsis SerRS and BEN1 indicates a link between translation and brassinosteroid metabolism and may be relevant in plant stress response mechanisms. In Drosophila, the unusual heterodimeric mitochondrial SerRS coordinates mitochondrial translation and replication via interaction with LON protease. Evolutionarily conserved interactions of yeast and human SerRSs with m³C32 tRNA methyltransferases indicate coordination between tRNA modification and aminoacylation in the cytosol and mitochondria. Human cytosolic SerRS is a cellular hub protein connecting translation to vascular development, angiogenesis, lipogenesis, and telomere maintenance. When translocated to the nucleus, SerRS acts as a master negative regulator of VEGFA gene expression. SerRS alone or in complex with YY1 and SIRT2 competes with activating transcription factors NFκB1 and c-Myc, resulting in balanced VEGFA expression important for proper vascular development and angiogenesis. In hypoxia, SerRS phosphorylation diminishes its binding to the VEGFA promoter, while the lack of nutrients triggers SerRS glycosylation, reducing its nuclear localization. Additionally, SerRS binds telomeric DNA and cooperates with the shelterin protein POT1 to regulate telomere length and cellular senescence. As an antitumor and antiangiogenic factor, human cytosolic SerRS appears to be a promising drug target and therapeutic agent for treating cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and possibly obesity and aging. Full article

The objective of knowledge graph question answering is to assist users in answering questions by utilizing the information stored within the graph. Users are not required to comprehend the underlying data structure. This is a difficult task because, on the one hand, correctly understanding the semantics of a problem is difficult for machines. On the other hand, the growing knowledge graph will inevitably lead to information retrieval errors. Specifically, the question-answering task has three difficulties: word abbreviation, object complement, and entity ambiguity. An object complement means that different entities share the same predicate, and entity ambiguity means that words have different meanings in different contexts. To solve these problems, we propose a novel method named the Chunked Learning Network. It uses different models according to different scenarios to obtain a vector representation of the topic entity and relation in the question. The answer entity representation that yields the closest fact triplet, according to a joint distance metric, is returned as the answer. For sentences with an object complement, we use dependency parsing to construct dependency relationships between words to obtain more accurate vector representations. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Full article

The speech of native speakers is full of idiosyncrasies. Especially prominent are lexically restricted binary word co-occurrences of the type high esteem, strong tea, run [an] experiment, war break(s) out, etc. In lexicography, such co-occurrences are referred to as collocations. Due to their semi-decompositional nature, collocations are of high relevance to a large number of natural language processing applications as well as to second language learning. A substantial body of work exists on the automatic recognition of collocations in textual material and, increasingly also on their semantic classification, even if not yet in the mainstream research. Especially classification with respect to the lexical function (LF) taxonomy, which is the most detailed semantically oriented taxonomy of collocations available to date, proved to be of real use to human speakers and machines alike. The most recent approaches in the field are based on multilingual neural graph transformer models that use explicit syntactic dependencies. Our goal is to explore whether the extension of such a model by a semantic relation extraction network improves its classification performance or whether it already learns the corresponding semantic relations from the dependencies and the sentential contexts, such that an additional relation extraction network will not improve the overall performance. The experiments show that the semantic relation extraction layer indeed improves the overall performance of a graph transformer. However, this improvement is not very significant, such that we can conclude that graph transformers already learn to a certain extent the semantics of the dependencies between the collocation elements. Full article

In this work, we discuss how Araujo & Hagemeijer’s Santome/Portuguese bilingual dictionary defines and describes ideophones and realia lemmata. We show that ideophones were listed individually along with their expression counterparts. Realia lemmata (words and expressions for culture-specific items) or specialized lexical units were presented in their Santomean forms, followed by a description of their endemic specificities. Many realia items from Santome can also be found in Portuguese. We conclude that the authors contribute to the lexicographic record of ideophones, lexical items that did not exist in Portuguese, but relevant to the language and culture of Santome. On the other hand, with the documentation of realia entries, they collaborate for the validation of lexical units (originating in Santome) in the local vernacular variety of São Tomé and Príncipe’s Portuguese, a common historical practice in Portuguese lexicography. Full article

Extensive collections of data of linguistic, historical and socio-cultural importance are stored in libraries, museums and national archives with enormous potential to support research. However, a sizable portion of the data remains underutilised because of a lack of the required knowledge to model the data semantically and convert it into a format suitable for the semantic web. Although many institutions have produced digital versions of their collection, semantic enrichment, interlinking and exploration are still missing from digitised versions. In this paper, we present a model that provides structure and semantics to a non-standard linguistic and historical data collection on the example of the Bavarian dialects in Austria at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. We followed a semantic modelling approach that utilises the knowledge of domain experts and the corresponding schema produced during the data collection process. The model is used to enrich, interlink and publish the collection semantically. The dataset includes questionnaires and answers as well as supplementary information about the circumstances of the data collection (person, location, time, etc.). The semantic uplift is demonstrated by converting a subset of the collection to a Linked Open Data (LOD) format, where domain experts evaluated the model and the resulting dataset for its support of user queries. Full article

The English-Xhosa Dictionary for Nurses (EXDN) is a bilingual, unidirectional printed dictionary in the public domain, with English and isiXhosa as the language pair. By extending the digitisation efforts of EXDN from a human-readable digital object to a machine-readable state, using Resource Description Framework (RDF) as the data model, semantically interoperable structured data can be created, thus enabling EXDN’s data to be reused, aggregated and integrated with other language resources, where it can serve as a potential aid in the development of future language resources for isiXhosa, an under-resourced language in South Africa. The methodological guidelines for the construction of a Linguistic Linked Data framework (LLDF) for a lexicographic resource, as applied to EXDN, are described, where an LLDF can be defined as a framework: (1) which describes data in RDF, (2) using a model designed for the representation of linguistic information, (3) which adheres to Linked Data principles, and (4) which supports versioning, allowing for change. The result is a bidirectional lexicographic resource, previously bounded and static, now unbounded and evolving, with the ability to extend to multilingualism. Full article

A vocabulary is a linguistic resource that helps manage, query and retrieve information and/or knowledge via words. If vocabularies are built and used in electronic format, they are referred as e-vocabularies. E-vocabularies have been used in Education to help teachers and students to, amongst many issues, (1) comprehend and relate the concepts and the objects of a given knowledge domain; (2) understand and learn languages, be they specialized or not; and (3) identify, describe and query knowledge and digital educational resources. Despite its utility, it is in this field where vocabularies seem to be less systematically developed, known, studied, analyzed, compared and/or linked. For this reason, we thought it was an opportunity to edit a dedicated volume with real experiences concerning the construction, use and evaluation of electronic vocabularies relating to education, and their application to the Internet and e-learning. The result is, finally, this Special Issue with five papers that represent part of the current state-of-the-art in the construction and use of e-vocabularies and education. Full article

Vocabularies are linguistic resources that make it possible to access knowledge through words. They can constitute a mechanism to identify, describe, explore, and access all the digital resources with informational content pertaining to a specific knowledge domain. In this regard, they play a key role as systems for the representation and organization of knowledge in environments in which content is created and used in a collaborative and free manner, as is the case of social wikis and blogs on the Internet or educational content in e-learning environments. In e-learning environments, electronic vocabularies (e-vocabularies) constitute a mechanism for conceptual representation of digital educational resources. They enable human and software agents either to locate and interpret resource content in large digital repositories, including the web, or to use them (vocabularies) as an educational resource by itself to learn a discipline terminology. This review article describes what e-vocabularies are, what they are like, how they are used, how they work, and what they contribute to the retrieval of digital educational resources. The goal is to contribute to a clearer view of the concepts which we regard as crucial to understand e-vocabularies and their use in the field of e-learning to describe and retrieve digital educational resources. Full article

The application of a methodology based on S.C. Dik’s Functionalist Grammar linguistic principles, which is addressed to the teaching of Latin to secondary students, has resulted in a quantitative improvement in students’ acquisition process of knowledge. To do so, we have used a self-learning tool, an ad hoc dictionary, of which the use in different practices has made students understand, at a basic level, the functioning of this language. Full article

This contribution, based on the DICONALE ON LINE and COMBIDIGILEX (FFI2015-64476-P) research projects, aims to create an onomasiological bilingual dictionary with online access for German and Spanish verbal lexemes. The objective of this work is to present the most relevant contributions of the dictionary based on two lexemes from the COGNITION conceptual field, the LERNEN/APRENDER subfield. The DICONALE dictionary aims to fill the gap left by the current German–Spanish bilingual lexicography. The novelty is not only the electronic format, but also the inclusion of paradigmatic and syntagmatic information into one dictionary, and the contrastive aspects, subjects that until now have not been found in any onomasiological dictionaries in this area. In addition to the description of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships, it also presents certain characteristics related to the contrastive analysis of the two lexemes. On the one hand, it aims to offer a panoramic view of the most relevant features of the dictionary while, on the other hand, attempting to demonstrate the relevance of said criteria in the contrasting German-Spanish lexicography. Full article