Logic and Humour in the Fabliaux - An Essay in Applied Narratology
Joseph Bédier's 1893 definition of the fabliaux as 'funny stories in verse' is still widely accepted as the best brief and general description for a heterogeneous collection of texts. But the heterogeneity creates difficulties and at the periphery of the canon all three of the criteria included in Bédier's definition are open to question. The inventory proposed in the current study is based on a new structural definition, a conjointure, akin to that of romance, combining a logical episteme with a rhetorical narreme.
"Whatever goes up must come down" does not, fortunately, apply to most of the structures in today's world. In fact, whenever a building, a bridge, a tunnel, or a dam collapses nowadays, it is front page news and often the beginning of a hunt for clues and culprits as fascinating as any detective story. In this book, two of the world's premier structural engineers take us on a journey through the history of architectural and structural catastrophes, from the Parthenon and Rome's Coliseum to more recent disasters such as the Ronan Point Tower in London, the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City
The book is dedicated to one of the most popular types of test tasks - paraphrasing, i.e. expressing the same content using a different grammatical structure (or other lexical expression). The entire collection is divided into small chapters that provide guidance and training of individual structures.
It has a carefully graded, structural syllabus which provides steady progression in all four skills. The emphasis on grammar and vocabulary acquisition is combined with many opportunities for lively communicative tasks. New language is presented in context through picture stories and a variety of entertaining characters. Practice and reinforcement is provided by child-centred activities such as songs, rhymes, and games.
Over the last thirty years, a new paradigm in banking theory has overturned economists' traditional vision of the banking sector. The asymmetric information model, extremely powerful in many areas of economic theory, has proven useful in banking theory both for explaining the role of banks in the economy and for pointing out structural weaknesses in the banking sector that may justify government intervention.
