Previous work has shown that stance—the way speakers position themselves with respect to what they are talking about and who they are talking to—provides powerful insights into why speakers choose certain linguistic variants, beyond correlations with macro-social categories such as gender, ethnicity, and social class. However, as stancetaking moves are highly context-dependent, they have rarely been explored quantitatively, making the observed variable patterns difficult to generalize. This article seeks to contribute to this methodological gap by proposing a formal guide to coding stance and demonstrating how it can be operationalized quantitatively. Drawing on a corpus of eight individuals, self-recorded in three situations with varying levels of social distance, we apply this method to variation between English complementizers that and zero (i.e. no overt complementizer), providing a replicable and theoretically grounded protocol that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative analyses in a variationist sociolinguistic study. (Stance, complementizers, that, English)*

This essay explores the research practice of French geometer Michel Chasles (1793–1880), from his 1837 Aperçu historique up to the preparation of his courses on ‘higher geometry’ between 1846 and 1852. It argues that this scientific pursuit was jointly carried out on a historiographical and a mathematical terrain. Epistemic techniques such as the archival search for and comparison of manuscripts, the deconstructive historiography of past geometrical methods, and the epistemologically motivated periodization of the history of mathematics are shown to have played a crucial role in the shaping of Chasles's own theories. In particular, we present Chasles's approach to the ‘material history’ of algebraic symbolism and argue that it motivated and informed his subsequent invention of a novel notational technology for the writing of geometrical proofs and propositions. In return, this technology allowed Chasles to carry out a programme for the modernization of geometry in keeping with epistemic requirements he had also delineated via a form of historical writing.

Vandeloise’s (1987, 2017) principle of anticipation proposes that French verbs of motion can enable prospective readings of static locative prepositions. However, it has little to say about verbs of motion that do not have a prospective verbal reference place (VRP): that is, to what extent are verbs of initial polarity like partir and s’enfuir able to trigger prospective readings of prepositions? This article argues that each verb must be analysed individually and that prospective readings of prepositions depend on the interaction of verbal and prepositional semantics: for example, the movement away from a viewer expressed by partir favours a prospective reading of derrière but not of devant: this is due to differences regarding access to perception. The animacy of the Ground and its status as a material or spatial entity (Vandeloise, 2017) is also a key factor (e.g. partir près de + spatial entity). This suggests that verbs of initial polarity participate in synergistic verb/preposition/Ground interpretations that help to overcome their lack of a VRP. The prospective reading of the preposition depends on the choice of verb and Ground, thus supporting a distributed view of spatial semantics (Sinha and Kuteva, 1995; Zlatev, 1997, 2003, 2007; Evans and Tyler, 2004).

This paper analyzes the alternation between the near-synonymous French adverbials à nouveau and de nouveau ‘again’, which has received scarce attention in the literature. While previous descriptions assume that both adverbials are used to express that an eventuality is repeated, it is shown that de nouveau and à nouveau differ systematically with respect to their preferred usage contexts. On the basis of combined results from a questionnaire that tests speakers’ intuitions and a probabilistic analysis of the alternation between the two adverbials in corpus data, à nouveau is shown to be more likely to express a repetitive meaning, whereas de nouveau is more likely to express a restitutive meaning, i.e. the return to a previous state of affairs. The analysis also suggests that due to its status of an innovative variant that is gradually displacing de nouveau, à nouveau is less restricted regarding its usage contexts. Finally, a significant difference between the two variants is found regarding modality, in that the use of à nouveau is more likely in written language, whereas the use of de nouveau is more likely in spoken language.

Cet article analyse, dans une perspective comparative, deux classes de marqueurs de reformulation en français et en russe. La première est construite autour d’un indéfini en autre (rus. inoj) : fr. autrement dit, en d’autres termes ; rus. inače govorja, inymi slovami ; la seconde est historiquement dérivée d’une clause verbale finie ce + est (rus. to + estʹ) : fr. c’est-à-dire, rus. to estʹ. Il sera démontré que le français et le russe partagent bon nombre de propriétés dans le fonctionnement de ces marqueurs, qu’il s’agisse de leur fonctionnement grammatical ou sémantico-pragmatique. Il sera aussi argumenté que les marqueurs de la deuxième classe font l’objet d’un stade de grammaticalisation, mais aussi de pragmaticalisation, plus avancé et sont, par conséquent, plus appropriés à des interactions spontanées que les marqueurs construits autour d’un indéfini en autre.

Au sein de l’enseignement de l’oral, il est souvent difficile de convaincre les didacticiens du français qu’un recours à la phonologie et à la phonétique faisant place à la variation et la diversité des usages est possible et souhaitable. Pourtant, dès la fin du 19ème siècle, une autre pratique était défendue par des jeunes phonéticiens dont Paul Passy, auteur des Sons du français (1887) et coordinateur de la mise en place de l’API. Passy, à cause de ses engagements socio-politiques et religieux, de sa défense souvent mal comprise de l’API et de son combat pour la réforme de l’orthographe, est fréquemment relégué à une place relativement mineure dans l’histoire de la phonétique du français. Nous démontrons ici que les nombreuses révisions des Sons du français fourmillent de descriptions fines et de remarques sur des changements en cours qui, dans bien des cas, seront redécouverts dans la deuxième partie du 20ème siècle sans mention de son travail. Nous abordons alors la question de la norme et l’attachement de Passy à la variation et montrons sa modernité à travers son traitement de la prosodie, des unités distinctives, des réalisations allophoniques et de la transcription phonétique.

Duldul, a beloved she-mule of the Prophet Muhammad and ʿAli b. Abi Talib (d. 661), fourth caliph and Muhammad's son-in-law, was a venerated riding beast in early Islamic tradition. The article argues that Duldul reflected the transmission of political authority and became a tool of legitimation for hadith compilers and medieval Muslim writers to use, contest, and navigate an emergent Shiʿa-Sunni rift. Exploring the responsive relationship between hadith construction and the Shiʿa-Sunni polemic, the article first analyzes three literary genres—maghāzī, hadith, and sīra—to describe Duldul and her role in early Islamic history. Second, the article examines the writings of al-Jahiz (d. 868) and al-Damiri (d. 1405) to understand medieval Muslim attitudes toward Duldul and she-mules in general. By taking Duldul more seriously as a historical actor, we can gain deeper insight into the disputes over Muhammad's legacy in medieval Islam.

Lexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, problems of the same kind remain.

Scholarship on architecture and urbanism in antiquity has focused on building activity and investment in the fabric of cities as positive processes, typically starting from the assumption that such developments were welcomed by inhabitants – but were they? This article examines objections to urban renewal and the construction of monumental public building in the Roman world. Specifically, it focuses on the city of Prusa and the controversy surrounding the renovation of its civic centre by the local politician Dio Chrysostom in the early 2nd century AD. Using speeches and letters written at the time, the article presents both a new interpretation of this specific episode and brings to the fore the rarely articulated and yet highly controversial nature of building projects that are traditionally thought of as being beneficial. In the conclusion, we also see how this example contributes to research on the issue of heritage as a pre-modern phenomenon.

Drawing on an ethnographic survey in Svalbard before and during the coronavirus outbreak, this commentary reflects on the multiple dimensions of fieldwork highlighted by the pandemic. Firstly, the cancellation of many field campaigns has revealed the decisive role of personnel inhabiting scientific bases in the maintenance of scientific activities in Svalbard. Automatic and remote-controlled instruments are autonomous only in appearance as the crucial phases of data acquisition often call for human presence. Secondly, airborne remote sensing can be perceived as a response to fill data gaps. Although embedded in a long history, the use of remote sensed data has taken on a new meaning in the context of the pandemic. Finally, the fact that several researchers endeavour to go to the field whatever the travel conditions underlines a certain need of being in Svalbard as well as limitations of science performed remotely.