Search Results (4)

The Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedikā-Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtra) translated by the Sui Dynasty monk Dharmagupta is the fourth Chinese rendition of the Diamond Sutra. Characterized by unprecedented linguistic opacity and syntactic complexity within the history of Buddhist textual transmission, this translation’s distinctive features have attracted significant scholarly attention. This study synthesizes existing academic perspectives and employs Sanskrit–Chinese textual criticism and comparative analysis of parallel translations to conduct a granular examination of Dharmagupta’s retranslation. Our findings reveal that this text fundamentally deviates from conventional sutras designed for religious dissemination or liturgical recitation. Its defining traits, including morphological calquing of Sanskrit structures, simplified pronominal systems, and etymologically prioritized equivalence, collectively reflect a pedagogical focus characteristic of language instructional texts. Dharmagupta’s approach epitomizes a translation-as-pedagogy paradigm, with the text’s deviations from conventional norms resulting from the interplay of religious development, historical context, and translator agency. We argue that the Diamond Sutra retranslation constitutes a radical experimental paradigm in translation history, warranting re-evaluation of its significance within the broader trajectory of Buddhist textual practice. Full article

LLMs have created new possibilities for machines to learn from data and produce content without human intervention. We address the question of whether they provide reliable and efficient Natural Language Processing. We differentiate Generative Grammar Language Models from Large Language Models. We take Structure Dependency to be a first principle of language, a prerequisite to Semantic Compositionality, applying in conjunction with Principles of Efficient Computation to generate structured content. We discuss the behavior of ChatGPT-3.5, GPT-4.o mini and Grok 3 in response to complex queries including pronominal Binding, Coreference, and structural ambiguity and point to the relevance of deep syntactic and semantic principles for LLMs. We outline consequences for the development of reliable and efficient Natural Language Processing systems in emergent technologies. Full article

Grammaticalization has long been understood as a process that takes place gradually, but within it, discrete and abrupt changes take place. This tension has been reconciled by claiming that the semblance of a gradual process is given by different parts of a construction undergoing changes at different points in time. Focusing on synchronic microvariation as gradience, this article discusses cases of clitic loss in four Romance varieties (Brazilian Portuguese, Raeto-Romance, some northeastern Italo-Romance varieties, and French), and identifies common patterns in the cells of the paradigms that are most vulnerable to the process of loss. Relating the grammatical and semantic properties of these cells to established typological hierarchies, the paper explores how general cognitive principles can account for the key properties of gradualness and gradience and, ultimately, language change. Full article

In their quest to find a suitable tone of voice in an informalizing society, many companies are confronted with the choice of using T or V pronouns in their B2C communications. This paper presents an experimental study addressing the question of whether the recipients of these messages actually notice the difference between being addressed with a T form, which carries social meanings of informality and proximity, or a more distant V form, and to what extent the presence of additional informal linguistic features influences the salience of a pronoun switch. We furthermore investigate to what extent the professional socialization of participants impacts on the noticing of pronoun use. In a case study for Belgian Dutch, participants (N = 279) were presented with two versions of an information letter that they were asked to read quickly. The texts were manipulated for the use of T/V pronouns, as well as, depending on the condition, a number of additional informal linguistic features (i.e., informal punctuation, intensifiers, and English lexical items). Participants were not warned in advance about the changes between the two versions of the stimulus text. In a salience test following the presentation of the two text versions, less than 10% of participants noticed a switch in T/V form regardless of the presence of additional informal features. Similarly low rates of noticing were found for the other informal features, except for English loanwords. No differences were found depending on whether participants had a language-related professional background (e.g., language teachers, journalists, editors). We argue that the lack of noticing T/V pronouns may be due to the specifics of the Belgian Dutch system of pronominal address that has an additional highly salient colloquial pronoun of address which may obscure the difference in social meaning between the standard T and V pronouns. The discussion critically evaluates the implications of the study for the use of T/V pronouns in professional communication, musing on the complex relationship between noticing and evaluating. Full article