In this chapter, the syllable structure of Romance languages is addressed, focusing on properties shared by all varieties as well as some specific aspects of individual varieties. The syllable template adopted is hierachical and binary, with crucial recognition of the rhyme as an intermediate constituent. The fate of vowel quantity is discussed within a framework that takes the concepts of variation and multilingualism are primary, whilst making reference to current historical sociolinguistics. In addition to the main phonological processes sensitive to syllable structure, the prosodic categories of stress and timing are also briefly illustrated. The notion of proto-Romance is criticized as not corresponding to any historically documented linguistic reality nor to a uniform system, but only to an artificially reconstructed schema. In a classification of the Romance languages, taking into account the more dynamic force of the northern Romance varieties, it is argued that a vertical axis (i.e., North–South) is better than the traditional horizontal East–West axis.

This chapter offers an overview of the development of the theory of agreement highlighting the major contributions that have been proposed on the basis of the Romance languages. The first part of the chapter follows the analysis of verb–subject agreement from early generative grammar to contemporary syntactic theory. After a short overview of syntactic agreement, the chapter moves on to morphological agreement, discussing among other things the relation between rich agreement and null subjecthood as well as agreement and subject clitics in Romance. The chapter offers a number of examples from standard and non-standard Romance languages.

This chapter provides a critical survey of some of the most significant phenomena that show how the study of Romance languages can make a strong contribution to our current theoretical understanding of the principles and empirical generalizations relevant to argument structure and its realization. After defining the notion of argument structure, two different current theoretical approaches to the lexicon–syntax interface are briefly presented: the projectionist one, which is typically adopted in lexicalist frameworks, and the constructivist/neo-constructionist one, which is assumed in non-lexicalist frameworks. The selection of empirical phenomena made in this chapter includes a discussion of the well-known distinction among intransitive verbal predicates (unaccusatives vs unergatives) in the context of Romance linguistics, a review of the crucial role of the Romance clitic se in argument structure and argument realization, a survey of some relevant explorations of events of transferal based on the grammar of dative clitics as well as other aspects of dative-marked arguments in Romance languages, and, finally, a discussion of the prominent place that these languages occupy in the huge literature on Talmy’s lexicalization patterns together with an overview of several refinements made to his initial typology of motion events.

The second decade of the present century has been marked by the growth of data science. The mixture of computing, statistical, and domain knowledge that represents data science has become an essential skill across all sectors of industry, academia, and government. Data science is also inherently multidisciplinary, being able to accommodate a diverse set of backgrounds operating in interdisciplinary teams to have the most impact. Two developments simultaneously took shape around the middle of the decade to catalyze data science research for undergraduates at UC Berkeley. Launched in 2014, the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) was designed as a focal point on campus for data science research and software development. In 2015, to meet the growing demand for data science skills among its students, UC Berkeley launched Data 8, an introductory class on the Foundations of Data Science. With these two initiatives, the Data Science Discovery Program was piloted to allow UC Berkeley students coming out of Data 8 and other data science courses to make a real-world impact with partners across academia, industry, and government.

Digitalization is strongly affecting the field of higher education. This chapter investigates the implications of digital tools for the future development of undergraduate research (UR). It asks how the design of digital learning environments and the provision of digital tools can contribute to UR. The chapter starts with outlining digitalization in higher education and the use of digital technology in undergraduate studies. Then, teaching and learning scenarios are presented that serve as design options to integrate digital learning environments in teaching for UR. Moreover, digital tools are analyzed that can support different phases and objectives of UR. Overall, the chapter stresses the importance to critically consider the added value of digital technology for learning in general and for the case of teaching and learning UR in particular. A well-elaborated instructional design plays a key role to develop and implement digital learning environments in UR, to spur student engagement and to foster social interaction successfully. The chapter concludes by discussing future trajectories for UR in the light of digitalization.

Undergraduate research in nursing has demonstrated effectiveness in producing emerging scholars and leaders for the profession by nurturing the spirit of inquiry, creativity, and collaboration needed to advance the profession. Undergraduate research in nursing opens a window of creativity, mentoring, longitudinal relationships, and inspiration for the bright and gifted students entering the profession. The diverse nature of nursing provides a broad spectrum of transformative research opportunities for nursing students to establish scholarly identity at the launch of their careers. These range from diverse curricular models, clinical research internships, service-learning/global initiatives, faculty-led studies, and interprofessional research collaboration. Nursing theories guide research projects grounded in the discipline. Visionary leadership with adequate resources and a strategic approach to undergraduate research mentoring yield mutually beneficially outcomes in the process of developing requisite skills for graduate studies. Nursing education transformation that fosters a research culture contributes to a bright future with a vision of global significance.

This chapter deals with phonological and morpho-lexical phenomena in Romance that are conditioned by prominence or – more generally speaking – metrical structure. Relevant in this respect are synchronic phonological effects on surface forms, in other words, systematic alternations, as well as diachronic effects on underlying representations, that is, on linguistic inventories and systems. Among the phonological effects of prominence treated here are lengthening, well-attested in Italian, and diphthongization of stressed vowels – found in most Romance languages. Of equal interest are effects of non-prominence, such as vowel aphaeresis, apocope and syncope, and vowel reduction. As to phenomena conditioned by constraints on metrical well-formedness, considered here as effects of stress, the chapter deals with the Italo-Romance type of consonant gemination, as well as compensatory lengthening more generally. Adjacent stresses may be subject to clash resolution, a phenomenon that has been described for some, but not all, Romance languages. In the realm of morphophonology, alternations of the verb root often depend on the position of stress, which is particularly evident for diphthongization. The chapter ends with a discussion of how metrical structure shapes the form of words, imposing requirements on the minimal size of lexical entries.

Traditionally, Romance diachronic lexicology has focused on the formal and content-level semantic history of nominal, verbal, adjectival, and lexical adverbial bases. Lately, specialists in general historical linguistics have explored the interface between what appears to be syntactic change and certain semantic phenomena affecting the lexical items involved in these shifts. They have examined facets of language change usually associated with syntax but with consequences for the semantic status of the items involved, such as recurrent paths of grammaticalization and the less common phenomenon of degrammaticalization, as well as lexicalization, subjectification, the genesis of pragmatic and discourse markers, and the creation of lexical items with evidential functions. Romanists working on issues of diachronic lexicology are beginning to focus their attention on the genesis and subsequent evolution of prepositions, grammatical particles, pragmatic and discourse markers, as well as the acquisition by some independent lexical items of evidential and subjectification functions. Consequently, they are forging a new link between diachronic syntax and lexicology. Such an approach to lexical studies constitutes a fruitful meeting place for Romanists and for specialists in general historical linguists.

Recently, the Chinese government has advocated a shift in focus from quantity expansion to quality promotion in the field of higher education, with a specific emphasis on enhancing the research competence of higher education institutions. Since 2012, a new state-held “National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program” has pushed undergraduate research (UR) in China to its peak. Tsinghua University, a leading university in science and engineering in the country, is one of the first higher education institutions to promote UR in China and is China’s flagship endeavor. In the future, it is likely there will be a disciplinary balance that maintains the emphasis on science and technology but increases the proportions of humanities and social sciences. Formative assessment is needed for the management and reporting of UR programs. Moreover, further actions must be taken to grant Chinese higher education institutions more autonomy to design UR programs consistent with their own academic strengths.

Phonology/phonetics and morphology interact in such a way as to render difficult any clear-cut dividing line between these subfields. Romanists have long observed that phonetics play a crucial role in language change. From this point of view there is nothing exceptional in the fact that phonetics/phonology may provide the system with the very substance of morphological oppositions. The number and the extension of the morphological processes amenable to phonetic principles in the Romance domain are so wide that only a few typical phenomena are treated in this chapter. Furthermore, it is not always evident how one can establish the extent to which a given morphological alternation is phonologically driven, whether we are dealing with a purely phonological phenomenon or whether we should recognize some lexical conditioning in the choice of the allomorphs. The examples discussed (allomorphy in the definite article, subject clitics and affixes, possessives, and the nominal, verbal, and adjectival stems) show that the phonetic impulse for a morphological alternation may no longer be transparent ; in other cases, the trigger of a given pattern is no longer available or can only be identified following a process of diachronic reconstruction.

Undergraduate research in mathematics is growing and has become a standard practice in some countries. However, for a novice there is much to learn about mentoring students in mathematics research. In this chapter, we discuss the state of undergraduate research in mathematics and detail a set of best practices for successfully mentoring undergraduate students. Also, we explore some needs and future directions that would help improve undergraduate research in mathematics. Throughout the chapter, we include resources for more information on various topics.

The dissemination of research via publications and conference presentations gives students the opportunity to understand their work in even more detail, to receive and respond to criticism, and to contribute confidently to academic conversations. However, this last phase of the research cycle is one that is often not comprehensively addressed at the undergraduate level. Over more than a decade, the authors have developed opportunities for international dissemination of undergraduate research, including training and support activities. Co-created with students, their projects include a long-standing international undergraduate research journal, Reinvention, and the International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR). The authors will draw upon their own experiences to explore both the benefits and challenges of providing such opportunities at the undergraduate level and offer some suggestions and solutions to sustain these projects over the long term.

Research into comparative syntax over the last four decades has revealed that, despite some quite considerable superficial differences, syntactic variation among different languages and varieties is not random, but is ultimately constrained by a small and finite set of principles and parameters, the number and nature of which can be successfully teased apart especially through the careful study of closely related languages and varieties where, all other things being equal, a particular parametric choice can be readily isolated. It is for this reason that investigations of parametric variation in the area of syntax have so often drawn on Romance data since empirical investigations of Romance morphosyntax, especially of non-standard varieties and dialects in more recent times, have uncovered a wealth of small-scale microvariation. Drawing on such examples as the variation found in subject clitic systems, auxiliary selection (variously driven by transitivity, mood, tense, and grammatical person), active participle agreement, the extent and distribution of verb movement, sentential negation, and C(omplementizer)-systems (e.g., dual/triple complementizer systems; V2; availability of V-to-C movement and focus fronting), this chapter provides a critical overview of the some of the principal dimensions of morphosyntactic parametric variation with the aim of identifying the nature of the choices involved and, in particular, the differences between macro-, meso-, micro-, and nanoparameters and how these are formally organized within the grammar, the interaction between these parameters both in diachrony and synchrony, and what the formal limits of such parametric variation are.

Undergraduate research needs to be rooted in a specific disciplinary context, such as geography. Depending on the disciplinary tradition, training students as researchers requires a research-based curriculum that involves students in the research process instead of merely confronting them with the outcome of previous research. Walkington (2019) stresses that significant progress is already visible in the field, yet myriad aspects, such as mentoring, the role of research in teacher training, or research skills and employability require further attention. This chapter takea up Willison and O’Regan’s (2007) inclusive definition of student research as “[…] a continuum of knowledge production, from knowledge new to the learner to knowledge new to humankind, moving from the commonly known, to the commonly not known, to the totally unknown.” The chapter explores possible curricular architectures for geography undergraduate programs followed by a brief discussion of geography’s special formats to foster undergraduate research.

The chapter provides an overview of the Austrian higher education system and its legal, cultural, and administrative frameworks for Austrian universities, particularly regarding research-based education. Four short case studies give insights into specific approaches showing how undergraduate research is promoted and supported. In the conclusion further national developments for the promotion of undergraduate research are discussed.