Forms of the Word and the Mystery of the Objectified Nature of the Word

The time has come to proceed from forms of givenness of the word to forms of the word as such. They can, if you like, be called external and inner structures. Humboldt, however, preferred to speak of the external and inner forms of the language. Shpet adopted precisely this distinction. Why did this problem interest Shpet? Already in [Appearance and sense], he had set the task of returning to the source of pretheoretical, living science. Shpet wrote that the outer cover of words and logical expressions obscure the objectified meaning and that it was necessary to remove another cover from the objectified sign so as to grasp a certain genuine intimacy, and in it the fullness of being (Shpet, 1914. Pp. 5-6). We shall keep in mind this major undertaking posed by this scientist. The existence of the inner form of words should not come as a surprise. That same year (1914) Ortega y Gasset wrote that material objects have a third dimension. However, we cannot see or touch it: "For just as depth needs a surface beneath which to be concealed, the surface, or outer cover, in order to be so, needs something over which to spread, covering it" (Ortega y Gasset, 2000. Pp. 62-63).     

Transference of Action as a Function of Intellect: A Study of the Intellectual Activity of the Child Using a Variable Problem Box

To help the reader understand the strangeness and absurdity of the tradition of ignoring the work of Shpet, I shall start with his reflections on the classic problem of thought and word, with which all the psychologists mentioned above have dealt. When he says that the cause of thought is sensuously given, Shpet defines it as a springboard from which we vault to the "pure object":

Having pushed off the springboard, thought must not only overcome material resistance but also use it as a supporting medium. If it had to drag along its entire corporeal [veshchnyi] baggage, it would not go far. But, by that same token, it would not survive in an ideal environment, whether in an absolute vacuum or in absolute formlessness, i.e., without expedient adaptation of its form to that environment. Its image, form, appearance, and ideal flesh are the word.     

The Problem of the Development of the Intellect and Learning in Human Psychology

The definition of word from which Shpet proceeds embraces every linguistic phenomenon, both autosemantic and synsemantic. The definition includes every isolated word ("dictionary material") as well as a coherent period or sentence and any organic member or arbitrarily established part of them: "Indeed, whatever specific part of a whole in human speech we isolate, it will contain, if only virtually, the properties, functions, and relations of the whole" (Shpet, 1989. P. 402).     

The Problem of the "Formative" Elements of Consciousness in the Activity Theory of the Mind

The problem of the structure and psychological mechanisms of consciousness has a rich history, to which M. M. Bakhtin, G. G. Shpet, L. S. Vygotsky, and, later, A. N. Leont'ev and S. L. Rubinshtein all made significant contributions. It is our purpose in the present article to discuss only one aspect of this problem: the structure of individual consciousness. Pursuing the line of research delineated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev (1977) posed some cardinal questions: Of what is consciousness composed? How does it arise? What are its components? He called the latter the "formative elements" of consciousness. According to Leont'ev, there are three such "forming" elements: the sensory fabric of perception (or of an image), meaning, and sense. The inclusion of the sensory fabric in the structure of consciousness along with ostensive meaning and sense was a definite step forward along the path toward the ontologization of conceptions of consciousness.¹ But I think that individual consciousness construed in this way is still insufficiently ontological. Leont'ev's three "formative elements" do not completely account for the connection between consciousness and being (see M. M. Bakhtin, for whom consciousness "participates" in being and is essential for life). One might even reproach Leont'ev for a certain inconsistency: activity, although it is the source of consciousness, is itself not one of its "formative elements." Of course, he could answer this reproach by saying that the "formative elements" are structural elements, constituents, not generative elements. However, it seems to me that the distinction between constitutive and generative is very, very relative in any analysis of living consciousness, which is continually in the process of being constructed.     

IX. Meaning and the Semantic Act

Shpet concludes his definition of the structure of the word as follows:

Indeed, if one accepts that morphological forms are external and agrees to call ontic forms of named things pure, then the logical forms lying between them will be inner forms with respect to both the former and the latter since, in this latter case, the "content" of an object is inner content veiled by its pure forms. It is this content, being internally logically formed, that constitutes sense. Logical forms are inner forms as forms of ideal sense, expressed and communicated; ontic forms are pure forms of real and possible corporeal content.     

Darwin and political economy: The connection reconsidered

Conclusion It seems to me that no substantial support can be provided for the thesis that the Darwinian theory of evolution drew significantly upon ideas in contemporary Political Economy. What Darwin may have derived from Malthus was not an integral part of the theory of population that the classical economists, including Malthus, put forward. He did not know the literature of Political Economy; and if he had been acquainted with it, he would not have been able to derive anything from it that was important for the theory of natural selection. The judgment that with Darwin's theory there was a real transfer of knowledge from political economy to biology (Pancaldi 1985:262) cannot be sustained.     

The evolution of color vision in the primates

There will be no difficulty in seeing how and by what mixtures the colors are made … He, however, who should attempt to verify all this by experiment would forget the difference of the human and the divine nature. For God only has the knowledge and also the power which are able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one into many. But no man either is or ever will be able to accomplish either the one or the other operation.The law of proportion according to which the several colors are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation of them (Jowett, 1871).     

A Concept of Educational Activity for Schoolchildren

About two years ago, on a cool Southern California day, Vasili Davydov addressed a group of social scientists at the University of California, San Diego. He began his talk with a paradox. He had come, he said, to tell us about educational activity. He promised to exhibit principles that promote educational activity, and applied programs deriving from those principles. Then he laughed. "But you'll never see educational activity in the school," he said, and laughed again.     

The 2009 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Sir Harold Kroto,Chemistry 1996

English Chemist Harold Kroto shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of Fullerenes (C₆₀), molecules composed completely of carbon (C₆₀) that form hollow spheres (also known as Buckyballs), tubes, or ellipsoids. These structures hold the potential for use in future technologies ranging from drug development and antimicrobial agents, to armor and superconductors.Harold Kroto was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in 1939 and grew up in Bolton. Educated at Bolton School, he entered Sheffield University in 1958 to study Chemistry. During his time there he played tennis for the university team, illustrated the university''s magazine covers, and played folk music with other students. Enjoying his time at Sheffield very much, he chose to stay on and complete a Ph.D. in Chemistry under Richard Dixon.Following graduation in 1964, Kroto went on to post doc at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottowa, Canada where microwave spectroscopy became his specialty. After two years of study at the NRC he spent a year at Bell Laboratories. He then accepted a position as a tutorial fellow at the University of Sussex, where he was soon offered a permanent position. There, he applied his expertise in microwave spectroscopy to the field of astronomy and spent several fruitful years detecting long carbon chains in the interstellar medium.Upon hearing of the work of Richard Smalley at Rice, who developed a laser that could vaporize graphite, Kroto thought they could use Smalley''s instrument to see carbon chains similar to those they had observed in interstellar matter. He suggested his idea for an experiment to Bob Curl, also at Rice. In 1985 he traveled to Rice to perform the experiment (and also to visit a half-price bookstore he''d heard about in Houston).Although he felt certain that the apparatus would create the carbon chains, the experiment revealed a totally unexpected result: the spontaneous formation of spherical shapes, which they called Buckminster Fullerenes in honor of the architect who popularized the geodesic dome.Though he is pleased to have received the Nobel Prize, Kroto does not believe in prizes or competition as a motivator for scientific (or athletic) progress. Rather, he believes that the pursuit of science or athletics should be simply for the enjoyment or interest in the subject matter, and he prefers to investigate subjects that other people aren''t working on.Kroto has mixed feelings about the effect the prize has had on his life. On the one hand, he would like to be able to spend more time pursuing graphic design, something he has always deeply enjoyed. On the other hand, he now enjoys a sense of responsibility for supporting the scientific community.As an atheist, Kroto feels that science is, in itself, atheistic. He doesn''t accept anything without evidence. Kroto expresses concern about people holding positions of power who do not use evidence as a basis for decision-making. "When they are prepared to accept one of 20-30 stories from thousands of years ago, I wonder what else they are prepared to accept when it comes to decisions which affect me?"Kroto is particularly worried about the effect of policies that require the teaching of non-scientific ideas, to the detriment of evidence-based scientific education. He points to the forced teaching of creationism in public schools and the existence of a "creation museum" in the United States as sources of misinformation that have given rise to "a whole generation of school children who''ve been abused."Download video file.^{(80M, mp4)}     

The Prebiotic Leslie Orgel: Some of His Contributions to Our Understanding of the Origins of Life

In the previous recollection Jack Dunitz presented a delightful account of Leslie's pre-prebiotic life as a theoretical inorganic chemist. In this account I will present my recollections of his contributions, as a chemist-molecular biologist, to the field of origins of life.Leslie officially started his prebiotic research upon arrival at the Salk Institute in September 1964. Anna Beck and I, who arrived there at that time and Rolf Lohrmann and Robert Sanchez who joined the group within first year, were the vanguard of the large group of postdoctorals and graduate students that have spent time in Leslie's laboratory. John Sulston and Carl Woese were among the notables that spent time in Leslie's lab during his initial years at Salk.Leslie's emphasis on the new and different, which was described by Jack Dunitz, continued at Salk. He would greet me each day with well Jim, what's new! Or he would come upon an unusual reaction from the organic chemistry literature and ask me to explain it. Occasionally something new would occur in the lab and we would discuss its ramifications at great length throughout the day. He would often come up with a key suggestion on how this new finding should be extended to provide insight into an entirely different area. On other occasions he would suggest an empirical approach, such as setting up a series of reaction mixtures putting one of each of the metal salts in the lab inventory into each reaction, to determine if it was catalyzed by metal ions. This latter approach always seemed to me to be inconsistent with his background as a theoretician since I have yet to find a theoretician who would follow such a blatantly empirical approach to the discovery of new chemical reactions.Leslie claims to have no competence in the laboratory but he certainly understands what is required to obtain meaningful experimental data. First, he can often see through a forest of data and suggest a pivotal simple experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Second, he has demanding standards for quality experimental design and execution. I have heard him on many occasions patiently (occasionally impatiently if it was a repeat offender) chastising a researcher in his laboratory ... for not performing the proper controls... to establish the validity of their experimental findings.Leslie started working on the prebiotic synthesis of nucleic acids and their replication when he came to Salk and was extremely successful in both studies. He improved the Oro synthesis of adenine (Oro, 1960) by extending it to dilute solutions of HCN (Ferris and Orgel, 1966) and to a general prebiotic synthesis of purines (Sanchez et al., 1966a). He also recognized that cyanoacetylene contained the carbon backbone of the pyrimidine ring and used it as a starting material for the prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidines (Sanchez et al., 1996b). Approaches to the prebiotic syntheses of nucleosides and nucleotides flowed logically from these studies (Beck et al., 1967; Lohrmann and Orgel, 1968, 1971; Fuller et al., 1972).Leslie conducted research on the nonenzymatic template-directed synthesis of RNA concurrently with studies on prebiotic synthesis. This research was initiated by the important discovery that the carbodiimide-driven condensation of A with pA gives higher yields of A²pA in the presence of poly(U) than in its absence (Sulston et al., 1968). Some minor reaction products included A³pA, A⁵pA and trimers. This discovery was followed by the substitution of an imidazole activated pA (ImpA) for the carbodiimide and pA in the reaction with A on a poly(U) template which gave much better yields of dimers and trimers (Weimann et al., 1968). In the following year this reaction was extended to the synthesis of oligo(G)s on a poly(C) template (Sulston et al., 1969), the system that was eventually shown to be optimal for probing the scope of nonenzymatic template-directed syntheses. The development of the RPC-5 column for the analysis of the oligonucleotides formed by template-directed synthesis was pivotal in characterizing the length and the regioselectivity of the phosphodiester bonds formed in these reactions (Lohrmann et al., 1980). A further advance was the development of the 2-methylimidazole activating group which resulted in the formation of oligo(G)s by template-directed synthesis that contain predominantly 3', 5'-linked phosphodiester bonds. This reaction proceeds in the solution phase (Inoue and Orgel, 1981) in contrast to the Zn²⁺- and Pb²⁺-catalyzed reactions which, while regioselective for the formation of the 3', 5'- and 2', 5'-linked phosphodiester bonds respectively, proceed via an insoluble metal complex (Lohrmann et al., 1980). Thus the 2-methylimidazole activating group made it possible to explore the efficiency of template-directed synthesis using templates containing different bases.The first self-replicating system, that was based on template-directed synthesis, was prepared by Günter von Kiedrowski in Leslie's laboratory in 1986 (von Kiedrowski, 1986). Leslie devised a replicater, which exhibited autocatalytic kinetics, that was also based on a templating reaction (Zielinski and Orgel, 1987).While prebiotic peptide synthesis was not a dominant theme in his laboratory Leslie did make important contributions to this field of work. He investigated the mechanism of peptide synthesis in aqueous solution using carbonyl diimidazole as the condensing agent (Ehler and Orgel, 1976) and he was able to make polypeptides containing 55 mers on mineral surfaces (Ferris et al., 1996). He proposed that the condensation of amino acids on the primitive Earth could have resulted in short polypeptides with alternating structures that would have formed small -sheets (Brack and Orgel, 1975). Subsequent studies have shown that some -sheets catalyze the hydrolysis of RNA (Barbier and Brack, 1992).Leslie, collaboratively with Francis Crick, has also published some theoretical papers dealing with the origin of life. The most perceptive was their anticipation of the RNA world before the name was coined by Gilbert (1986). In companion papers (Crick, 1968; Orgel, 1968), they suggested that RNA could have catalytic activity in addition to its ability to store genetic information, so that it could have been the basis for the first life. They noted that life based on protein was less likely because of its inability to preserve its sequence information by replication. In another very provocative paper they proposed that life on Earth may have been seeded here by intelligent aliens in a process they call Directed Panspermia (Crick and Orgel, 1973). They reckoned that the seeds of life might not survive the trip through open space but these initial microorganisms could have survived a trip through space if properly shielded in a spacecraft. In this scenario the Earth is a giant Petri dish and these aliens have performed an experiment using it. I have always felt that this paper had a major tongue-in-cheek component but it is often seriously mentioned as one possible explanation for the presence of life on Earth.In addition to his search for the novel and unusual Leslie also finds it challenging to search for the practical (again, not the usual practice of a theoretician!). He has the remarkable ability to appreciate the practical applications of his research and I know of at least two ideas that resulted in useful patents. (Some of the income from these patents is used to finance group parties at first rate restaurants.) One patent stemmed from the research on the prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidine nucleosides which Bob Sanchez developed into a an efficient preparation of the antileukemia agent cytosine arabinoside from cyanoacetylene, cyanamide and arabinose (Sanchez and Orgel, 1970). This successful patent is an excellent example of how the so called esoteric work in prebiotic chemistry led to a simple and new route to the synthesis of drugs or other useful materials. Another valuable patent came from the work of Barbara Chu which has been developed into a test for the genes from pathogens. She found that it was possible to prepare the 5'-imidazolides of high molecular weight QB RNA without affecting its autocatalytic replicating ability. This made it possible to attach cleavable reporter groups such as biotin or DNA probes to QB via the imidazolide intermediate, the selected DNA-QB probe could then be amplified by QB replicase, and easily detected after amplification (Chu et al., 1986).The search for useful therapeutic agents continues. In 1997 Leslie identified yet another possible application of Barbara's work. She made use of results from prebiotic chemistry showing that oligomers of glutamic acid bind irreversibly to hydroxylapatite, the predominant mineral in bone. She then attached potential therapeutic agents to the amino acid oligomers and demonstrated that they bound to the hydroxylapatite. This approach may be used to bind potential therapeutic agents to hydroxylapatite with the possibility that this might be a way to bring these agents to particular target site in bones (Chu and Orgel, 1997).The honors and awards that Leslie has received underline the high esteem in which he is held by his fellow scientists. He was recognized as a brilliant scientist by the British colleagues when he was awarded the Harrison prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry at the tender age of 30. Only five years later was he elected to the Royal Society. Among the awards he has received in the US are his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, the National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and the Harold C. Urey medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of life in 1993. We in the field of the origins of life have not only benefitted from his major contributions to this field but the reputation of the field has also benefitted from having such a distinguished scientist as one of our own.Happy 70th birthday, Leslie! I thank you for baptizing me with HCN and sending me forth into the prebiotic world. It has been great fun as well as rewarding for me and I look forward to continuing our discussions of the origins of life for many years to come.     

Remembrance and denial. A critical look into correspondence of Adolf Butenandt, MPG president 1960-1972

Adolf Butenandt was one of the great biochemists of the last century. He was also a most successful organiser of science. Which price did he have to pay to be a success in the Third Reich? He persistently avoided seeing or hearing the blatant injustice around him. Injustice he knew nothing about did not exist. So he became the perfect model for the postwar generation of German scientists. Is he still a model today?     

Studies of animal populations from Lamarck to Darwin

Summary and conclusions Darwin's theory of evolution brought to an end the static view of nature. It was no longer possible to think of species as immortal, with secure places in nature. Fluctuation of population could no longer be thought of as occurring within definite limits which had been set at the time of creation. Nor was it any longer possible to generalize from the differential reproductive potentials, or from a few cases of mutualism between species, that everything in nature was fitted to produce general ends, and reciprocal uses. ¹³⁴ The appeal to design could no longer be substituted for answers to questions concerning animal demography. Instead, the dynamics of a population had to be viewed as the outcome of species' struggle against animate and inanimate factors in the environment. Both the members of a species and the environmental factors tend to vary randomly, and therefore neither evolution nor population dynamics could be fully understood alone. For this reason Darwin's linking of the two subjects was inevitable and not merely an historical accident. Since Darwin had shown that no automatic equilibrium existed, he demonstrated the importance of closer study of the causes of population dynamics and extinction. He also indicated that an understanding of population depends upon the development of a broad knowledge in ecology.Viewed from another direction, Darwin's work ended the early modern era of population studies by clarifying three interrelated problems which were important for understanding population: extinction, distribution, and the nature of species. The components of his answer had been discussed in the eighteenth century, but there had not existed enough evidence for the completion of the revolution in thought which had then begun. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Playfair found the evidence for extinction conclusive, and, in spite of Lamarck, Curvier convinced the scientific world that there could no longer be any doubt about it. This was a step the importance of which, with his limited knowledge of biogeography and population, Cuvier could not have fully realized. Lamarck attempted, with his evolutionary theory, to circumvent the necessity for admitting extinction, but he overestimated the adaptability of organisms and in doing so he underestimated the importance of competition and the whole field of ecology. On the other hand, he was not willing to let questions such as the origin of species remain taboo to science. The origin of species was a biogeographical as well as a paleontological question. Humboldt correlated environment with the distribution of species and conveyed the impression that plant communities are subject to change. De Candolle, following the lead of Linnaeus and Humboldt, emphasized the ecological aspects of biogeography, not only the importance of habitat and range, clearly showing the ecological effects of competition. The entomologists Kirby and Spence took a faltering step toward understanding the relationship between population and ecological role, but they fell short of any significant new conclusions. Neither they nor Swainson could fully comprehend the new perspective of De Candolle.Lyell was able to bring together the evidence from these three lines of investigation and weave them into an important synthesis that almost accomplished that Darwin later did. Although opposing Lamarck's theory of evolution, Lyell had a dynamic view of ecology. He realized that population dynamics offered an important key to the understanding of biogeography. Since he knew that species become extinct, he investigated closely the factors which could either preserve or extinguish species. While explaining these factors, he described the interrelationships of species in greater detail than had ever been done before. Forbes continued to develop Lyell's ecological concepts, and his first-hand field experience enabled him to describe biotic communities more concretely than Lyell had.Having the advantages of Lyell's understanding and his own experience from a global voyage, Darwin could take the final step from the static to the dynamic concept of life. He had seen populations fluctuating and also fossil species in South America, and on the Galapagos Islands he had encountered a biogeographical problem that could not be credibly solved without the idea of evolution. However, the bare idea of evolution did not fully answer his questions. He sought physiological causes of extinction before he read Malthus and realized that De Candolle and Lyell had correctly emphasized the importance of competition. Darwin found that, in order to understand evolution, he needed to improve his understanding of ecology. He wanted to know when populations were most easily decimated, how extensive were competition and cooperation, what effects parasites have upon populations, and what changes occur in biotic communities when a species is either added or subtracted. He contributed to some extent to answering these questions. Though there remained much for others to do, there was now a new and more secure theoretical framework within which later studies could be interpreted. As Ernst Mayr has observed, Darwin's consistent thinking in terms of population has had an impact on biological theory and practice which is second only to his sponsorship of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. ¹³⁵     

The Phase Structure of the Speech Act and the Nature of Plans

The notion of the phase structure of the speech act—or to be more precise—the special structure of the "inner speech" stage in utterance production, belongs to L. S. Vygotsky. Vygotsky conceptualized the process of speech production, the progress from thought to word to external speech, as follows: "from the motive that engenders a thought, to the formulation of that thought, its mediation by the inner word, and then by the meanings of external words, and finally, by words themselves"¹ Elsewhere he said, "Thought is an internally mediated process. It moves from a vague desire to the mediated formulation of meaning, or rather, not the formulation, but the fulfillment of the thought in the word." And finally, "Thought is not something ready-made that needs to be expressed. Thought strives to fulfill some function or goal. This is achieved by moving from the sensation of a task—through construction of meaning—to the elaboration of the thought itself."²     

Extracellular Matrix Penetration by Epithelial Cells Is Influenced by Quantitative Changes in Basement Membrane Components and Growth Factors

We have previously shown that isolated mouse fetal choroid plexus epithelial (CPE) cells penetrate a basement membrane matrix (Matrigel) substratein vitroto form single-layered epithelial vesicles embedded within the matrix. To determine which properties of the matrix are important for inducing or permitting cells to penetrate the substrate and organize into multicellular vesicles we have made quantitative changes to the basement membrane components and growth factors in cell cultures. Matrigel diluted to 33 or 10% with a collagen I gel was not permissive to cell invasion, and CPE cells formed a polarized epithelial monolayer on the substrate surface which had ultrastructural characteristics similar to those of CPE vesicles. Cells in these monolayers proliferated more rapidly than cells in epithelial vesicles. When deliberately embedded within a 33 or 10% Matrigel matrix, CPE cells were able to form vesicles, indicating that a dilute matrix is nonpermissive to cell invasion but promotes epithelial polarization and organization into vesicles. Cells embedded within a 100% collagen I matrix did not proliferate or form epithelial vesicles and the majority of cells did not remain viable. Addition of laminin to the collagen I gel promoted cell adhesion and cell survival, but did not promote the formation of extensive monolayers on the substrate nor the formation of epithelial vesicles within the matrix. Cell invasion into the 33% Matrigel matrix was induced by addition of laminin, nidogen, or a laminin–nidogen complex to the substrate or by addition of TGFβ2 to the culture medium, but not TGFβ1 or PDGF. These studies show that CPE cells are sensitive to quantitative changes in matrix composition, which influences their survival and proliferation and also their ability to penetrate the matrix and organize into multicellular epithelial vesicles.     

Richard Weinshilboum: Pharmacogenetics: The future is here!

Richard Weinshilboum has a no-nonsense attitude about pharmacogenetics. He is enthusiastic about the practicalities and ramifications of the field's solid accomplishments, but he carefully measures statements that might feed the hype that is en courant about the brave new postgenomic world of drug therapy. Although the terms "pharmacogenomics" and "pharmacogenetics" are often used interchangeably (a linguistic quirk to which Weinshilboum does not object), he consistently avoids the latter, perhaps more glitzy, word. Weinshilboum has spent over thirty years as a clinical pharmacologist, exploring in particular the variability of drug metabolism that occurs among patients as a function of their genetic constitution. The research efforts from his line of work have materialized into clinical application and have helped to set the stage for the individualization of drug treatment according to each patient's genetic constitution-not yet on the genomewide scale that Weinshilboum enthusiastically foresees, but certainly as pertains to multiple genes and drugs for any given patient. The interview with Weinshilboum occurred at this year's annual meeting of ASPET, at which he was conferred the Harry Gold Award in Clinical Pharmacology.     

Is “Huh?” a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent Evolution of Linguistic Items

A word like Huh?–used as a repair initiator when, for example, one has not clearly heard what someone just said– is found in roughly the same form and function in spoken languages across the globe. We investigate it in naturally occurring conversations in ten languages and present evidence and arguments for two distinct claims: that Huh? is universal, and that it is a word. In support of the first, we show that the similarities in form and function of this interjection across languages are much greater than expected by chance. In support of the second claim we show that it is a lexical, conventionalised form that has to be learnt, unlike grunts or emotional cries. We discuss possible reasons for the cross-linguistic similarity and propose an account in terms of convergent evolution. Huh? is a universal word not because it is innate but because it is shaped by selective pressures in an interactional environment that all languages share: that of other-initiated repair. Our proposal enhances evolutionary models of language change by suggesting that conversational infrastructure can drive the convergent cultural evolution of linguistic items.     

The root and word distinction: an experimental study of Hebrew denominal verbs

The morpho-syntactic structure of Semitic languages, traditionally seen as based on abstract root morphemes, has been analysed by some as being fully word based. Others have proposed a root-based system which allows for word-based derivation as well. A distinction between word-based and root-based morpho-syntactic derivations has previously been posited in both morpho-syntactic and lexical semantic literature. Under this distinction the semantic and phonological access to a root morpheme during morpho-syntactic construction is fully available in a root-based derivation, but is restricted by the category bearing head in a word-based derivation. However, there has to date been no behavioural evidence for the distinction, and it is by no means universally accepted that words are morphemically decomposable into root morphemes. The current study utilized a masked priming experimental paradigm of word recognition in an attempt to differentiate root-based derivation from word-based derivation in Hebrew, proposing an analogy between availability under Marantz (2000) and Arad (2003), and linkage within the mental lexicon model under Frost et al. (2005). The results strongly support the proposed analogy, and the cognitive reality of the root morpheme as the basis of Hebrew morphological derivation. In addition they provide a first experimental verification of the theoretically motivated distinction between root derivation and word derivation.     

About true science and false words: "oxidase", "cryostat" and "apoptosis".

The author examines the concept's deviations due to some erroneous constructions of words, by considering the words oxidase, cryostat and apoptosis. But he insists much more on the bandy-legged structures linked to these words which deviate totally from any significance attached "officially" to them and leading to false deductions. The author conveys all scientists to use: oxydase, cryotome and Programmed Cell Death, or PCD, forgetting all other queer non-sense words. He suggests to use the word "cytoptosis".     

Darwin and palaeontology: a re-evaluation of his interpretation of the fossil record

Charles Darwin's empirical research in palaeontology, especially on fossil invertebrates, has been relatively neglected as a source of insight into his thinking, other than to note that he viewed the fossil record as very incomplete. During the Beagle voyage, Darwin gained extensive experience with a wide diversity of fossil taxa, and he thought deeply about the nature of the fossil record. That record was, for him, a major source of evidence for large-scale transmutation, but much less so for natural selection or single lineages. Darwin's interpretation of the fossil record has been criticised for its focus on incompleteness, but the record as he knew it was extremely incomplete. He was compelled to address this in arguing for descent with modification, which was likely his primary goal. Darwin's gradualism has been both misrepresented and exaggerated, and has distracted us from the importance of the fossil record in his thinking, which should be viewed in the context of the multiple, sometimes competing demands of the multifaceted argument he presented in the Origin of Species.