Dimensional adjectives in Nuosu Yi

A Vector Space Semantics for Dimensional Adjectives

The paper presents a compositional semantics for comparatives of dimensional adjectives within the framework of vector space semantics, including measure phrases and comparison of deviation.

Digraphia of the Nuosu language

Conceptualizing Adjectives Conceptualizing Adjectives Conceptualizing Adjectives

We specify a model for the conceptual interpretation of relative adjectives (like \big"), which covers a crucial aspect of the underlying comprehension process { the comparison to a norm that is associated with a comparison class. Building on an elaborate domain ontology and knowledge about intercorrelations, comparison classes are dynamically created depending on the context in which adjectiva...

A precarious rite of passage in postreform China: heroin use among Nuosu youths on the move.

This article employs the rite of passage concept to analyze why and how heroin use and a subsequent HIV/AIDS epidemic have taken hold among minority Nuosu (Yi) young men in Southwest China. It juxtaposes structural inequalities and sociocultural particularities in social suffering among Nuosu youths as they attempt to create meaningful lives in China's market reform era. Since the 1980s, young ...

Nouns as Adjectives and Adjectives as Nouns

Many languages have morphological devices to turn a noun into an adjective. Often this morphology is genuinely derivational in that it adds a semantic predicate such as ‘havingN’ (proprietive), ‘lacking-N’ (caritive’), ‘similar-to-N’ (similitudinal) and so on. In other cases the denominal adjective expresses some vaguely defined notion of possession as in Russian Ivan-ovo (detstvo) ‘Ivan’s (chi...