Becky Hsu
Biographic Data
| ID | 250023 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Becky Hsu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Becky |
| FAMILY NAME | Hsu |
| SIGNATURE | HSU B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2352-1047 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Word order in Cherokee
Although Cherokee is known to show highly flexible clausal word order, the principles that predict speakers' preferences among possible orders are not extensively described. This article presents a new description of the grammatical properties that predict clausal word order in spoken Cherokee, based on a corpus study of word-order variation. Our results show that the placement of nominal expressions relative to verbs, and the relative order of n…
Word order in Cherokee
Idiosyncratic Hiatus Resolution
This paper discusses implications for generative theories of phonological idiosyncrasy, based on two vowel reduction patterns exhibited in Palauan. First, the process involves multiple degrees of idiosyncrasy; in cases of stress shift, vowels may surface faithfully, reduce to some unpredictable degree, or delete entirely. Second, the process involves unpredictability with respect to the patterning of tautomorphemic vowels with respect to hiatus r…
Gradient symbolic representations in Harmonic Grammar
This paper presents an overview of Harmonic Grammar with gradient symbolic representations (a.k.a. Gradient Harmonic Grammar), a weighted-constraint model of grammatical computation in which language structures are mentally represented with numerically continuous levels of activity, or degree of presence. In this system, the penalty of each constraint violation is proportional to the activity of the structure that incurs it. The adoption of gradi…
Coalescence
This article revisits the status of two proposed bundling operations that affect heads: Feature Scattering ( Giorgi and Pianesi 1997 ), which accounts for variation in the distribution of features across functional heads, and M-Merger ( Matushansky 2006 ), which accounts for head adjunction in head movement. While these mechanisms have been situated in the presyntactic lexicon and a postsyntactic module, respectively, I argue that they can receiv…
Cooccurrence of nonarticle determiners as evidence for split DPs and bundled projections
This research report examines crosslinguistic variation in cooccurrence among nonarticle determiners (demonstratives, proper names, pronouns, possessors) and its implications for understanding nominal (DP) structure and its variation. We present data from several language families and show that languages vary in both the number and permitted combinations of nonarticle determiners within a nominal phrase. These patterns provide new evidence that t…
Exceptional prosodification effects revisited in Gradient Harmonic Grammar
This paper presents an analysis of exceptional prosodification effects, in which exceptional lexical items appear to follow a regular pattern that is found in a different prosodic context. These patterns have been analysed as cases of prosodic prespecification, where morphemes select a non-default prosodic representation. I argue that prespecification approaches should be reconsidered, and that such patterns are predicted without morpheme-specifi…
Weighted scalar constraints capture the typology of loanword adaptation
This paper discusses three basic ways in which loanwords pattern differently than native vocabulary, with a particular focus on the implicational relationships that hold among generalizations that apply at different degrees of nativization. We argue that the overall typology and the effects of the core-periphery structure are best modeled if constraints are weighted as in Harmonic Grammar (Legendre, Miyata & Smolensky 1990), and violation scores …
The ‘Impossible’ Default
Qualitative data reveal how the social context underlying the ties linking borrowers in microfinance programmes influences their decisions. Focusing directly on social context makes it possible to distinguish between two social-collateral structures and explain why one facilitated repayment while the other did not. Fieldwork in rural China shows that the basis of the social ties in the social-collateral structure is central to explaining whether …
Information Structure Features and Syntax-prosody Mapping of Bangla Embedded Clauses
[Abstract not available]
Unifying Phonotactics and Derived Environment Blocking through Prosodic Constraint Indexation
This paper presents a theory of prosodic constraint indexation that derives the blocking of markedness-reducing processes at prosodic and morphological junctures. The principle claim is that markedness constraints are indexed to prosodic categories, and are violated only when a marked structure is fully contained within the span of the indexed constituent. The interaction of prosodically-indexed constraints with faithfulness constraints accounts …
The Importance of Race and Religion in Social Service Providers
Objectives The objectives of this study are to investigate the traits that clients find important in professional social service providers, comparing confidence in client management skills (friendliness, experience, and knowledge) to desire for demographic characteristics (being of the same race and religion). Methods To accomplish this task, we use multiple regression to analyze results of the Lehigh Valley Trust Survey of low‐income recipients …
Microcredit
Microcredit is the practice of distributing very small loans to people who have a very low income as a means of poverty alleviation and economic development. Microcredit is a subset of the broader category of microfinance, which includes all financial services such as insurance and money transfers. The very poor often do not have access to any financial services, and microcredit enables individuals to borrow for a profit‐making enterprise in hope…
Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations
The international religious data in the World Christian Database (WCD), and its print predecessor, the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) have been used frequently in academic studies and the popular press. Scholars have raised questions about the WCD's estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other …
Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations
The international religious data in the World Christian Database (WCD), and its print predecessor, the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) have been used frequently in academic studies and the popular press. Scholars have raised questions about the WCD's estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other …
The Importance of Race and Religion in Social Service Providers
Objectives The objectives of this study are to investigate the traits that clients find important in professional social service providers, comparing confidence in client management skills (friendliness, experience, and knowledge) to desire for demographic characteristics (being of the same race and religion). Methods To accomplish this task, we use multiple regression to analyze results of the Lehigh Valley Trust Survey of low‐income recipients …
Coalescence
This article revisits the status of two proposed bundling operations that affect heads: Feature Scattering ( Giorgi and Pianesi 1997 ), which accounts for variation in the distribution of features across functional heads, and M-Merger ( Matushansky 2006 ), which accounts for head adjunction in head movement. While these mechanisms have been situated in the presyntactic lexicon and a postsyntactic module, respectively, I argue that they can receiv…
Gradient symbolic representations in Harmonic Grammar
This paper presents an overview of Harmonic Grammar with gradient symbolic representations (a.k.a. Gradient Harmonic Grammar), a weighted-constraint model of grammatical computation in which language structures are mentally represented with numerically continuous levels of activity, or degree of presence. In this system, the penalty of each constraint violation is proportional to the activity of the structure that incurs it. The adoption of gradi…
Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations
The international religious data in the World Christian Database (WCD), and its print predecessor, the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) have been used frequently in academic studies and the popular press. Scholars have raised questions about the WCD's estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other …
Microcredit
Microcredit is the practice of distributing very small loans to people who have a very low income as a means of poverty alleviation and economic development. Microcredit is a subset of the broader category of microfinance, which includes all financial services such as insurance and money transfers. The very poor often do not have access to any financial services, and microcredit enables individuals to borrow for a profit‐making enterprise in hope…
Unifying Phonotactics and Derived Environment Blocking through Prosodic Constraint Indexation
This paper presents a theory of prosodic constraint indexation that derives the blocking of markedness-reducing processes at prosodic and morphological junctures. The principle claim is that markedness constraints are indexed to prosodic categories, and are violated only when a marked structure is fully contained within the span of the indexed constituent. The interaction of prosodically-indexed constraints with faithfulness constraints accounts …
The Importance of Race and Religion in Social Service Providers
Objectives The objectives of this study are to investigate the traits that clients find important in professional social service providers, comparing confidence in client management skills (friendliness, experience, and knowledge) to desire for demographic characteristics (being of the same race and religion). Methods To accomplish this task, we use multiple regression to analyze results of the Lehigh Valley Trust Survey of low‐income recipients …
The ‘Impossible’ Default
Qualitative data reveal how the social context underlying the ties linking borrowers in microfinance programmes influences their decisions. Focusing directly on social context makes it possible to distinguish between two social-collateral structures and explain why one facilitated repayment while the other did not. Fieldwork in rural China shows that the basis of the social ties in the social-collateral structure is central to explaining whether …
Information Structure Features and Syntax-prosody Mapping of Bangla Embedded Clauses
[Abstract not available]
Weighted scalar constraints capture the typology of loanword adaptation
This paper discusses three basic ways in which loanwords pattern differently than native vocabulary, with a particular focus on the implicational relationships that hold among generalizations that apply at different degrees of nativization. We argue that the overall typology and the effects of the core-periphery structure are best modeled if constraints are weighted as in Harmonic Grammar (Legendre, Miyata & Smolensky 1990), and violation scores …
Exceptional prosodification effects revisited in Gradient Harmonic Grammar
This paper presents an analysis of exceptional prosodification effects, in which exceptional lexical items appear to follow a regular pattern that is found in a different prosodic context. These patterns have been analysed as cases of prosodic prespecification, where morphemes select a non-default prosodic representation. I argue that prespecification approaches should be reconsidered, and that such patterns are predicted without morpheme-specifi…
Cooccurrence of nonarticle determiners as evidence for split DPs and bundled projections
This research report examines crosslinguistic variation in cooccurrence among nonarticle determiners (demonstratives, proper names, pronouns, possessors) and its implications for understanding nominal (DP) structure and its variation. We present data from several language families and show that languages vary in both the number and permitted combinations of nonarticle determiners within a nominal phrase. These patterns provide new evidence that t…
Coalescence
This article revisits the status of two proposed bundling operations that affect heads: Feature Scattering ( Giorgi and Pianesi 1997 ), which accounts for variation in the distribution of features across functional heads, and M-Merger ( Matushansky 2006 ), which accounts for head adjunction in head movement. While these mechanisms have been situated in the presyntactic lexicon and a postsyntactic module, respectively, I argue that they can receiv…
Gradient symbolic representations in Harmonic Grammar
This paper presents an overview of Harmonic Grammar with gradient symbolic representations (a.k.a. Gradient Harmonic Grammar), a weighted-constraint model of grammatical computation in which language structures are mentally represented with numerically continuous levels of activity, or degree of presence. In this system, the penalty of each constraint violation is proportional to the activity of the structure that incurs it. The adoption of gradi…
Idiosyncratic Hiatus Resolution
This paper discusses implications for generative theories of phonological idiosyncrasy, based on two vowel reduction patterns exhibited in Palauan. First, the process involves multiple degrees of idiosyncrasy; in cases of stress shift, vowels may surface faithfully, reduce to some unpredictable degree, or delete entirely. Second, the process involves unpredictability with respect to the patterning of tautomorphemic vowels with respect to hiatus r…
Word order in Cherokee
Although Cherokee is known to show highly flexible clausal word order, the principles that predict speakers' preferences among possible orders are not extensively described. This article presents a new description of the grammatical properties that predict clausal word order in spoken Cherokee, based on a corpus study of word-order variation. Our results show that the placement of nominal expressions relative to verbs, and the relative order of n…
Word order in Cherokee
Computer Science (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Natural language processing (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (7 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (7 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (7 works) · Grammar (5 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (5 works)