ABSTRACT
Introduction: Psycholinguistic research remains puzzled about the circumstances under which syntactically transformed idioms keep their figurative meaning. There is an abundance of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies that have examined which factors may determine why some idioms are more syntactically fixed than others, including transparency, compositionality, and syntactic frozenness; however, they have returned inconclusive, sometimes even conflicting, results. This is the first study to examine argument structure (i.e., the number of arguments a verb takes) and argument adjacency (i.e., the position of the critical arguments relative to the verb) and their effects on the processing of idiomatic and literal sentences in German. Our results suggest that neither the traditional models of idiom processing (according to which idioms are stored as fixed entries) nor more recent hybrid theories (which concede some compositional handling in addition to a fixed entry) adequately account for the effects of argument structure or argument adjacency. Therefore, this study challenges existing models of idiom processing. Methods: In two sentence-completion experiments, participants listened to idiomatic and literal sentences in both active and passive voice without the sentence-final verb. They indicated which of three visually-presented verbs best completed the sentence. We manipulated the factor argument structure within experiments and argument adjacency across experiments. In Experiment 1, passivized three-argument sentences had the critical argument adjacent to the verb while two-argument sentences had the critical argument non-adjacent to the verb, and vice versa in Experiment 2. Results: In both experiments, voice interacted with argument structure. Active sentences-both literal and idiomatic-showed equivalent processing of two- and three-argument sentences. However, passive sentences returned contrasting effects. In Experiment 1, three-argument sentences were processed faster than two-argument sentences and vice versa in Experiment 2. This pattern corresponds to faster processing when critical arguments are adjacent than non-adjacent. Discussion: The results point to the dominant role of argument adjacency over the number of arguments in the processing of syntactically transformed sentences. Regarding idiom processing, we conclude that the adjacency of the verb to its critical arguments determines whether passivized idioms keep their figurative meaning and present the implications of this finding for relevant models of idiom processing.
ABSTRACT
Continuous improvement efforts, recognized in much literature as Lean management techniques have been used in efforts to improve efficiency in democratic health care contexts for some time to varying degrees of success. The complexity of the health care system is magnified by the sheer number of processes and sub processes required to deliver value within a bureaucratic environment, while maintaining some level of compassionate and personalized care. There is inherent tension between what is required to be efficient and what is required to be caring and this conflict presses against Lean practice at the level of delivery.Administration and care intersect at the point of the patient's experience. In order to achieve the dual goals of improved value and lower costs, the application of Lean thinking for meaningful health care reform must acknowledge the fundamental dichotomy between the impersonal tasks required to provide health services, and human interactions. Meaningful health care reform requires an acknowledgement of this distinction, currently not recognized in literature. While administrative process improvements are necessary, they are insufficient to achieve a sustainable and caring health care system. Lean thinking must be applied differently for administrative processes and patient care encounters, because these are fundamentally different processes. In this way, Lean principles will effectively contribute to sustainable health system improvements.