________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-451. Mon 02 Sep 1991. Lines: 73 Subject: Queries Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 13:19-0400 From: Greg.Lessard@QueensU.CA Subject: Digression 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 10:08:14 CDT From: Barbara Need Subject: Addresses needed 3) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 11:33:03 WST From: harrison%cs.uwa.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Sheldon Harrison) Subject: Linguistics and Computer Science -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 13:19-0400 From: Greg.Lessard@QueensU.CA Subject: Digression This is for a literary colleage of mine. Is anyone aware of any recent (or even not-so-recent) work on digression? This could include formal analyses of digression markers, or semantic or pragmatic analyses. My colleague has found quite a few literary studies of the phenomenon, but not much in linguistics. __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 10:08:14 CDT From: Barbara Need Subject: Addresses needed Does any one know where the following linguists are now? The only addresses I have are three years old. Anne Lobeck, P. Hirschbuehler, F Dupuis, M.-O. Junker, M. Labelle, D. Valois, Zhiji Lu, David Shaul, Rong Chen, Roger Woodard. Thanx. Barbara Need Univesity of Chicago barbara@sapir.uchicago.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 11:33:03 WST From: harrison%cs.uwa.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Sheldon Harrison) Subject: Linguistics and Computer Science I am in need of information regarding linguistics programs that are embedded within computer science departments and/or linguistics courses taught within computer science departments. Information about the sort/range of linguistics courses taught within such programs would also be of tremendous value to me. Thanks in advance. Shelly Harrison Anthropology University of Western Australia __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-451. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-452. Mon 02 Sep 1991. Lines: 101 Subject: Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 13:14:30 HAE From: Patrick Drouin 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 13:38:18 PDT From: corina@crl.ucsd.edu (David Corina) Subject: post -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 13:14:30 HAE From: Patrick Drouin POSTE DE PROFESSEUR OU DE PROFESSEURE EN LEXICOGRAPHIE Le Departement de langues et linguistique ouvre un concours pour un poste de professeur ou de professeure en lexicographie. Le poste devra etre pourvu le 1er juin 1992. Poste a temps complet. Conditions d'engagement et traitement selon la convention collective en vigueur entre l'Universite Laval et le Syndicat des professeurs de l'Universite Laval. DESCRIPTION DU POSTE Enseignement dans les domaines de la lexicologie, de la lexicographie et de la geographie linguistique. Recherche en lexicographie quebecoise, notamment dans une perspective historique et etymologique. Encadrement d'etudiants/es de 2e et 3e cycles. QUALIFICATIONS Doctorat en linguistique avec specialisation en lexicologie ou en lexicographie. Excellente connaissance de l'histoire du francais, notamment de sa variete quebecoise. Experience de la recherche universitaire sur le francais quebecois. Dossier de publications dans l'un ou l'autre des domaines sus-mentionnes. Aptitude au travail en equipe. L'Universite Laval applique un programme d'acces a l'egalite qui consacre la moitie des postes vacants a l'engagement de femmes. DATE DE CLOTURE DU CONCOURS le 15 decembre 1991 Faire parvenir un curriculum vitae complet et a jour, un exemplaire des principales publications, ainsi que le nom, l'adresse de trois repondants/es et, le cas echeant, la liste des employeurs/es, a: Monsieur le directeur Departement de langues et linguistique Faculte des lettres Pavillon Charles-De Koninck, 2275 Universite Laval, QUEBEC G1K 7P4 N.B.: Conformement aux exigences prescrites en matiere d'immigration au Canada, la priorite sera accordee aux citoyens/nes canadiens/nes et aux residents/es permanents/es. __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 13:38:18 PDT From: corina@crl.ucsd.edu (David Corina) Subject: post Dear Colleague: Please post this notice and/or give to any persons you believe would be appropriate candidates. Thank you for your assistance. THE SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES JOB NOTICE RESEARCH SCIENTIST Position: The Salk Institute has an immediate opening for a Research Scientist in the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience to join a team of scientists investigating signed and spoken languages and their representation in the brain. Researcher to coordinate project on Brain Organization: Clues from Sign Aphasia. Candidates should have some knowledge of American Sign Language and background in neuropsychology, neurolinguistics, or cognitve science. Central research directions of the laboratory involve issues of brain organization for language and spatial cognition. Salary dependent on background and experience. Please send resume, letter of interest, and names of references to: Dr. Ursula Bellugi, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037. An affirmative action employer. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-452. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-453. Mon 02 Sep 1991. Lines: 176 Subject: Linguistic Software Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 13:43:19 MET DST From: hartmut@ruc.dk (Hartmut Haberland) Subject: Re: Linguistic Software 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 08:17:23 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: RE: Linguistic Software 3) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 16:17:26 IST From: joel walters Subject: Re: Linguistic Software 4) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 14:54:05 EDT From: sed91ln@BUACCA.BU.EDU Subject: Re: Linguistic Software 5) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 10:14:58 HST From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) Subject: print formatting of interlinear text 6) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 06:21:57 GMT From: jcj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Jason Johnston) Subject: Re: Software -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 13:43:19 MET DST From: hartmut@ruc.dk (Hartmut Haberland) Subject: Re: Linguistic Software I've heard about the German Partitur system as well. It's a Macintosh implementation of a transcription system called HIAT. Probably you can get information about this system from Prof. Jochen Rehbein, Dept. of German as a Second Language, University of Hamburg, Van-Melle-Park, D-W 2000 Hamburg 13, Germany. A colleague of mine here in Denmark (Johs Wagner, jam@dou.dk) mentioned the program to me a while ago, he may be able to supply the vendor's address. I've done some of what Shoebox is supposed to do for non-proportional fonts for proportional ones in Wordperfect 5.1. It's the hard way, but it works. What you do is to use the 'move to position' function, aligning lines pair-wise. It takes you some time, but it's pretty fail-proof and it looks decent. I've done the same thing ONCE with Nota Bene SLS and it made me give up NotaBene for ever! Hartmut Haberland __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 08:17:23 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: RE: Linguistic Software John E. Koontz says: >Doing the same task as these TeX macros in most word processors is virtually >impossible. It involves setting up customized sets of tab stops for each >bundle of lines, or reverting to nonproportional fonts. Please lobby your >word processing vendors for this feature! Surely linguists aren't the only >ones who can make good use of it! Just thought I'd point out that in Microsoft Word for the Mac (but *not* for the IBM) there is a very easy way to align glosses without using tab stops and using any kind of font (proportional or not). You just use the math formatting commands to make an array with as many columns as you have items you want to gloss. You put the original on the first line, and the glosses on the second. You could also have several different lines of glosses, for the same original. To make the glossing almost automatic, you can use the macro package included with Word to prompt you for the number of items. This is how I do all my glossing. As a further note, if you add brackets to an array (also using the math formatting) you can get a feature matrix or and attribute value matrix, depending on your point of view. Again, this how I do things. As long as I'm at it, there is are commercial math formatting packages (e.g. Expressionist for the Mac) that draw trees. WHile they are not as pretty as linguists' trees, they are adequate. If people want the exact details of how to do the things in Word, I would be willing to put them on the server. Chris cculy@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 16:17:26 IST From: joel walters Subject: Re: Linguistic Software For psycholinguistic work, e.g. semantic priming, stroop test, try Explorations in Cognitive Psychology. It works on IBM with windows and is available from WISC-Ware out of Madison, WI. __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 14:54:05 EDT From: sed91ln@BUACCA.BU.EDU Subject: Re: Linguistic Software There is abook by Renata Tesch, "Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software Tools, The Falmer Press, 1990, that describes several software programs for handling large amounts of data such as a corpus. I found it worth reading. Bruce Fraser __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 10:14:58 HST From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) Subject: print formatting of interlinear text >From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) >Subject: Re: Software > >Susan Fisher asks: > >> Someone from Australia told me that there is software "out there" that >> lets you keep 2 lines together, as in word-for-word glosses. Does anyone >> know more about these programs, and could they be submitted to the >> software exhibit? > >... >Doing the same task as these TeX macros in most word processors is virtually >impossible. It involves setting up customized sets of tab stops for each >bundle of lines, or reverting to nonproportional fonts. >... If you don't insist on WYSIWYG, the TeX formatting is not that hard. The TeX macros should put words and corresponding glosses into vertical boxes, then TeX will format those into lines and paragraphs just as though they were simple words. I have a set of macros and a little batch program to add appropriate calls to them into an ordinary text file which has glosses already vertically aligned. The stuff is available by ftp from uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu in file linguist/ilshar.01. It is free and in the public domain. I don't subscribe to this list, but you can email to lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu or, for a general discussion, post to Usenet sci.lang. -- Greg, lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu (lee@uhunix on Bitnet) __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 06:21:57 GMT From: jcj@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Jason Johnston) Subject: Re: Software Susan Fischer asks about software 'out there' that lets you keep two lines together for the purposes of word-by-word glosses. I imagine her informant was thinking of IT, the Interlinear Text Processor put out by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas TX. IT will in fact allow you to keep *any* number of lines together (up to some limit, I suppose), so that you can simultaneously have lexical glosses, category glosses, functional information, etc. I have used it on a Macintosh but I'm not sure if there's an MS-DOS version or others. As I recall, SIL distribute it quite cheaply, with no licensing restrictions and with a liberal attitude to copying. They have other good software for linguists too. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-453. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-454. Mon 02 Sep 1991. Lines: 124 Subject: Responses Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 1 Sep 91 11:07:00 EDT From: "Pamela (student" Subject: RE: Queries 2) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 14:17:53 EDT From: feit@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Elissa Feit) Subject: Re: Responses: Software, Addresses, "On" 3) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 15:01 CDT From: TB0NRN1%NIU.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: "on" this theory 4) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 22:12 EDT From: BELMORE%Vax2.Concordia.CA@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Subject: Re: Queries 5) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 00:59 +0100 From: Nicholas Ostler Subject: Mama and Papa 6) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 17:47:47 PDT From: "Charles A. Bigelow" Subject: Re: Wh-, Sound Change -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 1 Sep 91 11:07:00 EDT From: "Pamela (student" Subject: RE: Queries For work done on reported speech or "constructed dialogue" see Deborah Tannen's book, Talking Voices. Also Greg Urban's article entitled, "The I of Discourse", in Semiotics, Self, and Society, ed. by Lee and Urban, 1986, which directly addresses both direct and indirect quotations. Also work done by Gisela Redecker, but I don't know any specific references. --pam saunders psaunders@guvax.georgetown.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 14:17:53 EDT From: feit@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Elissa Feit) Subject: Re: Responses: Software, Addresses, "On" Gilbert Harman writes: The use of "on" rather than "in" in this context has been common in philosophical writing (and probably elsewhere) for years. I still resent the first time a copy editor changed my "On X's view..." to "In X's view..." When I discussed this with colleagues, many of them thought that "On X's view..." was quite normal. This must have been 20 years ago. ... A little fuel for the fire 8-) : I think there is, in fact, a difference in meaning between "on X's view..." and "in X's view...", where "on" signals a meta-argument concerning the overall view or analysis (similar to "with regards to...") while "in" signals a reference to specific details within that view, or analysis. Elissa Feit (feit@cs.buffalo.edu) __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 15:01 CDT From: TB0NRN1%NIU.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: "on" this theory Besides "on this theory" etc. in linguistic parlance, "on" has become increasingly common in sports statistics phrasing, e.g. "on the year" "on the season" . This usage goes back at least ten years or so. Neal R. Norrick tb0nrn1@niu.bitnet __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 22:12 EDT From: BELMORE%Vax2.Concordia.CA@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Subject: Re: Queries "on X's view" etc. sounds as wierd to me as it does to you. __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 00:59 +0100 From: Nicholas Ostler Subject: Mama and Papa Japanese "haha" < *papa means "mother". __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 17:47:47 PDT From: "Charles A. Bigelow" Subject: Re: Wh-, Sound Change In a nice discussion of the wh- words, Jack Rea asks "What is the first word of _Beowulf_?" It might not be giving away the answer to say that in the unique manuscript, the first word is spelled: "H Wen Ash T", where wen (wynn) is a letter of runic origin and ash (aesc) is an ae ligature. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-454. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-455. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 191 Subject: Conference and Workshop Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 18:00:14 EST From: mccray%nlm.nih.gov@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Alexa T. McCray) Subject: announcement for workshop, full description already sent 2) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:19:23 MSZ From: Subject: QUALICO - Invitation Program -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 18:00:14 EST From: mccray%nlm.nih.gov@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Alexa T. McCray) Subject: announcement for workshop, full description already sent WORKSHOP ON LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION PROCESSING 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sunday, October 27, 1991 Washington Hilton & Towers Washington, D.C. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers who are concerned with the potentially significant role of sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) in intelligent information retrieval (IR). The workshop will focus on the progress that has been made to date on the application of NLP methods to the IR problem and will provide a forum for discussing some promising areas for future research. Topics to be presented include concept based retrieval and indexing, processing information for speech synthesis, using specialized dictionaries to improve retrieval, and integrating NLP and IR. The workshop will conclude with a panel discussion on recent initiatives in natural language processing and information retrieval. A full proceedings of the workshop will be made available to those attend. The workshop is open to all interested researchers. There will be a workshop registration fee which will be used to cover the cost of preparing the proceedings and providing refreshments. Lunch will not be provided. Workshop Committee: Alexa T. McCray (Chair), National Institutes of Health Elizabeth Liddy, Syracuse University Carl Weir, Unisys David Lewis, University of Chicago [Moderators' note: additional information relevant to this posting is available on the server. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au The message should consist of the single line: get lang-info-workshop You will then receive the complete program.] __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:19:23 MSZ From: Subject: QUALICO - Invitation Program Q U A L I C O First Quantitative Linguistics Conference (Invitation Program) University of Trier, Germany September 23-27, 1991 PROGRAM COMMITTEE Chair: Burghard B. Rieger, University of Trier Moisei Boroda, Tbilisy State Conservatory Baron Brainerd, University of Toronto Sheila Embleton, University of Calgary Daffyd Gibbon, University of Bielefeld Ruediger Grotjahn, University of Bochum Hans Haller, University of Saarbruecken Peter Hellwig, University of Heidelberg Edward Hopkins, University of Bochum Joerg Kindermann, GMD Bonn-St.Augustin Ursula Klenk, University of Goettingen Reinhard Koehler, University of Trier Jens-Peter Koester, University of Trier Juergen Krause, University of Regensburg Werner Lehfeldt, University of Konstanz Christoph Lischka, GMD Bonn-St. Augustin Wolfhart Matthaeus, University of Bochum Raimund G. Piotrovskij, University of Leningrad Dietmar Roesner, FAW Ulm Gerda Ruge, Siemens AG, Munich Burkhard Schaeder, University of Siegen Helmut Schnelle, University of Bochum Jadwiga Sambor, University of Warsaw ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE Chair: Reinhard Koehler, University of Trier Juergen Schrepp, University of Trier OVERVIEW ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Monday, | Tuesday, | Wednesday, | Thursday, | Friday, | September 23| September 24| September 25| September 26| September 27 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9.00 | Registration| Invited | Invited | Invited | GLDV-Session | (all day) | Speaker: | Speaker: | Speaker: | Papers: Uni- | | John S. Ni- | Michail V. | Hans Goebl, | fication ------| | colis, Uni- | Arapov, So- | University | based Gram- 9.30 | Opening | versity of | viet Academy| of Salzburg,| mars and | | Patras, | of Sciences,| Austria | Models | | Greece | Moscow, So- | | | | | viet Union | | ------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------| 10.00 | Invited | Models and | Process | Dialecto- | | Speaker: | Explanation | Dynamics and| metrics | | Gabriel Alt-| I | Semiotics I | | ------| mann, Uni- |-------------|-------------|-------------|------------- 10.30 | vers ty of | Coffee Break| Coffee Break| Coffee Break| Coffee Break | Bochum, | | | | | Germany | | | | ------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|------------- 11.00 | Coffee Break| Models and | Process | Textual | GLDV-Session ------|-------------| Explanation | Dynamics | Structures | Papers: Na- 11.30 | Quantifi- | II | and | and Pro- | tural Lan- | cation and | | Semiotics II| cessing III | guage Pro- | Measurement | |*************|*************| cessing and ------| | | Reports, | Reports, | Tools 12.00 | | | Projects | Projects | | | | and Results | and Results | | | | I | II | ------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|------------- 12.30 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch ------| | | | | 13.00 | | | | | ------| | | | | 13.30 | | | | | ------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|------------- 14.00 | Textual | Textual | | 14.00: | GLDV Working ------| Structures | Structures | | GLDV | Group 14.30 | and Pro- | and Pro- | | Executive | Meeting ------| cessing I | cessing II | | Board | 15.00 | | | | Meeting | ------|-------------|-------------| | | 15.30 | Coffee Break| Coffee Break| | 15.00: | ------|-------------|-------------| | GLDV General| 16.00 | Phonetics | Statistical | | Assembly | ------| and | Studies | Excursion |*************| 16.30 | Phonemics | | afternoon: | 16.00: | ------|-------------|-------------| Boat Trip | Guided City |------------- 17.00 | Invited | Invited | to the City | Tour through| | Speaker: | Speaker: | of Saarburg | ancient and | | Mildred L.G.| Kenneth W. | and Dinner | historical | | Shaw, Uni- | Church, Uni-| | Trier ("2000| ------| versity of | versity of | | Years by | 17.30 | Calgary, | Southern | | 2000 Steps")| | Canada | California, | | | | | United | | | | | States of | | | | | America | | | ------|-------------|-------------| | | 20.00 | Reception | Visit of | | | | by the City | Winery with | | | | of Trier | Wine Tasting| | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Moderators' note: additional information relevant to this posting is available on the server. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au The message should consist of the single line: get qualico You will then receive the complete program.] __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-455. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-456. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 144 Subject: French Word Frequencies Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 14:58:01 +0200 From: Dominique Estival Subject: French Word Frequencies -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 14:58:01 +0200 From: Dominique Estival Subject: French Word Frequencies Following a request from Dan Kahn , I had posted some time ago on the Langage Naturel list an inquiry about word frequency data in French. A number of people replied to give references and pointers to databases, and I hope I have thanked them all individually. I passed the information they sent me on to Dan, but as it could prove useful to many others, here is a digest of all the answers I got. ================== Bibiliography BRUNET, Etienne - Le vocabulaire francais de 1789 a nos jours d'apres les donnes du TLF (Tresor de la langue francaise) vol. I - IV, Slatkine, Geneve, 1981 CATACH, Nina "Les listes orthographiques de base du francais (LOB)" [sous-titre: Les mots les plus frequents et leurs formes flechies les plus frequentes], ed. Nathan Recherche. GOUGENHEIM, G., G.R. MICHEA, P. RIVENC, A. SAUVAGEOT (1964) L'elaboration du francais fondamental (1er degr) : Etude sur l'etablissement d'un vocabulaire et d'une grammaire de base, Didier, Paris, 302 p. Tine Greidanus. 1990. _Les constructions verbales en francais parle. Etude quantitative et descriptive de la syntaxe des 250 verbes les plus frequents_ (_Linguistische Arbeiten_, 243). Tubingen: Niemeyer. [inclut des indications tirees de cinq listes de frequence differentes] LACOUTURE, R et G. LAPALME, Une implantation informatique du francais fondamental. TSI, Vol 7, no 5, 1988, p 465-475 LEBART, Ludovic; SALEM, Andre (1988), Analyse statistique des donnees textuelles, Bordas, Paris, 209 p. MULLER, Charles (1973), Initiation aux methodes de la statistique linguistique, Hachette, Paris, 187 p. MULLER, Charles (1977), Principes et methodes de statistique lexicale, Hachette, Paris, 205 p. PHAL, Andre (1971), Vocabulaire general d'orientation scientifique et technique : Part du lexique commun dans l'expression scientifique, CREDIF, Paris, 128 p. SAVARD et RICHARDS, Les indices d'utilite du vocabulaire fondamental francais (Quebec: L'universite Laval, 1970) ================== ================== Databases ARTFL, a Cooperative Project between the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (TLF, Nancy) and The University of Chicago, is a Textual Database of 2000 Texts from 17th-20th Centuries in Literature, Philosophy, Arts, Sciences... Can provide frequency lists based on the Tresor de la Langue Francaise (115 million tokens) in a number of authors and periods. Contact: Mark Olsen The TLF ("Tresor de la langue francaise") database contains a series of word frequency statistics. The frequency of a word according to the database is given at the end of each entry. The ARTFL researchers have established lists giving the frequencies of words in their texts (literature) in 50 years periods. The lists are in alphabetical order and list everything: typos and nonce words as well as everyday words. ================== Works published by the "Francais Fondamental" project contain word statistics (on which morphology must be done afterwards). The idea behind the FF project was to delimit the smallest subset of French allowing one to understand and be understod. The goal was to teach French this subset to foreigners. Gougenheim et al. contains the frequency of everyday conversation words, established from recorded conversations. The dictionary contains the 1000 most frequent French words. Savard et Richards contains a list of more than 1000 words, taken from a "basic vocabulary", each word given with its frequency. ================== The Hansards (bilingual transcripts of the Canadian Parliament debates) corpus is currently available through the ACL/DCI. Counting word frequencies in it is pretty straightforward (says Ken Church). Contact: ACL/DCI ================== ================== Thanks to: Mark Olsen Annie Zaenen Ken Church Evelyne Tzoukermann Patrick Drouin Frederique Molines Dusko Vitas Tony Chadwick Guy Lapalme Gary A. Coen Bert Peeters Dominique Estival ISSCO, Universite de Geneve 54 rte des Acacias CH-1227 Geneve tel: +41-22-705-7116 fax: +41-22-300-1086 __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-456. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-457. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 178 Subject: Flaming and Colorless Green Ideas Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 01 Sep 91 02:30:28 -0400 Subject: fyi: flaming revisited From: Ellen Prince 2) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 03:42 EST From: KROVETZ%cs.umass.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: colorless green ideas -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 01 Sep 91 02:30:28 -0400 Subject: fyi: flaming revisited From: Ellen Prince Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 21:11:00 -0600 From: forsythe@track29.lonestar.org (Charles Forsythe) Subject: Flaming makes the mainstream media (again, I guess) FLAME THROWERS: Why the heated bursts on your computer network? by Doug Stewart (copied without permission from Omni magazine Sept 1991 issue) "You are a thin-skinned reactionary jerk," begins the computer message sent from one highly educated professional to another. "I will tell you this, buster, If you were close enough and you called me that, you'd be picking up your teeth in a heartbeat." There follows an obscene three-word suggestion in screaming capital letters. The writer of the above message, sent over the Byte Information Exchange, was apparently enraged after a sarcasm he'd sent earlier was misinterpreted as racist. In the argot of computers, his response was a "flame" -- a rabid, abusive, or otherwise overexuberant outburst sent via computer. In networking's early days, its advocates promised a wonderful world of pure mind-to-mind, speed-of-light, electronic conversation. What networks today often find instead are brusque putdowns, off-color puns and screenfuls of anonymous gripes. The computer seems to be acting as a collective Rorshach test. In the privacy of their cubicles, office workers are firing off spontaneous salvos of overheated prose. Sara Keisler, a social psychologist at Carnagie Mellon University and Lee Sproull, a Boston University sociologist, have observed that networking can make otherwise reasonable people act brash. In studies originally designed to judge the efficiency of computerized decision-making, they gave small groups of students a deadline to solve a problem. Groups either talked together in a room or communicated via isolated computer terminals. The face-to-face groups reported no undue friction. The computerized sessions frequently broke down into bickering and name-calling. In one case, invective escalated into physical threats. "We had to stop the experiment and escort the students out of the building separately," Keisler recalls. Kiesler and Sproul documented a tendency toward flaming on corporate electronic-mail systems as well. At one large company, employees cited an average of 33 flames a month over the email system; comparable outbursts in face-to-face meetings occurred about four times a month. Keisler and Sproull attribute the phenomenon largely to the absence of cues normally guiding a conversation -- a listeners's nod or raised eyebrows. "With a computer," Keisler says,"there's nothing to remind you there are real humans on the other end of the wire." Messages become overemphatic -- all caps to signify a shout; "(smile)" or ":-)", a sideways happy-face, to mean "I'm kidding." Anonymity makes flaming worse, she says, by creating the equivalent of "a tribe of masked and robed individuals." In real life, what we say is tempered by when and where we say it. A remark where lights are low and colleagues tipsy might not be phrased the same under flourescent lights on Monday morning. But computerized messages may be read days later by hundreds or thousands of readers. Flaming's ornery side is only half the picture, says Sproull, who co-authored _Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization_ with Keisler. "People on networks feel freer to express more enthusiam and positive excitement as well as socially undesirable behavior," she says. Sproull finds it ironic that computers are viewed as symbols of cool, impersonal efficiency. "What is fascinating is the extent to which they elicit deeply emotional behaviors. We're not talking about zeroes and ones. People reveal their innermost souls or type obscenities about the the boss." What, she asks, could be more human? ------- End of Forwarded Message __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 03:42 EST From: KROVETZ%cs.umass.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: colorless green ideas Bert Peeters asked about translations of Chomsky's famous sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". While I don't have any translations, I do have the results of a competition held several years ago at Stanford: Date: Wed 30 Oct 85 23:02:50-PST From: Paul Roberts Subject: Colourless Green Ideas [Excerpted from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] For the Literary competition set on Christmas Eve you were asked to compose not more than 100 words of prose, or 14 lines of verse, in which a sentence described as grammatically acceptable but without meaning did, in the event, become meaningful. The sentence, devised by Noam Chomsky, was: colourless green ideas sleep furiously. [...] Competitors rose to this challenge good-humouredly and in force.... It can only be the thought of verdure to come, which prompts us in the autumn to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable matter covered by a brown papery skin, and lovingly to plant them and care for them. It is a marvel to me that under this cover they are labouring unseen at such a rate within to give us the sudden awesome beauty of spring flowering bulbs. While winter reigns the earth reposes but these colourless green ideas sleep furiously. C. M. Street Behold the pent-up power of the winter tree; Leafless it stands, in lifeless slumber. Yet its very resting is revival and renewal: Inside the dark gnarled world of trunk and roots, Cradled in the chemistry of cell and sap, Colourless green ideas sleep furiously In deep and dedicated doormancy, Concentrating, conserving, constructing: Knowing, by some ancient quantum law Of chlorophyll and sun That come the sudden surge of spring, Dreams become reality, and ideas action. Bryan O. Wright Let us think on them, the Twelve Makers Of myths, trailblazing quakers Scourging earthshakers Colourless green ideas sleep furiously Before their chrysalides open curiously Anarchy burgeons spuriously Order raises new seedlings in the world By word and gun upheld The scarlet banner is unfurled The New Country appears Man loosens his fears The New Dawn nears Recollect our first fathers The good society in momentum gathers. ("recently discovered sonnet by Alexander Blok") translated by Edward Black [...] (and the winner:) (got 50 lbs.) Thus Adam's Eden-plot in far-off time: Colour-rampant fowers, trees a myriad green; Helped by God-bless'd wind and temp'rate clime. The path to primate knowledge unforseen, He sleeps in peace at eve with Eve. One apple later, he looks curiously At the gardens of dichromates, in whom colourless green ideas sleep furiously then rage for birth each morning, until doom Brings rainbows they at last perceive. D. A. H. Byatt ------------------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-457. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-458. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 154 Subject: Calls for Papers Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 08:58:23 +1000 From: peterw%lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Peter White) Subject: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH FOR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION 2) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 13:14 GMT From: Onderzoeks instituut voor Taal en Spraak Subject: workshop Lex. Specification & Lex. Insertion: call for papers -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 08:58:23 +1000 From: peterw%lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Peter White) Subject: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH FOR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION ------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH FOR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION CALL FOR PAPERS March 26,27,28 1992 Organised by the Department of English City Polytechnic of Hong Kong Deadline for abstracts: November 30, 1991. The goals of the conference are to examine the scope and parameters of English for Professional Communication (EPC) in second or foreign language settings, to discuss approaches to the teaching of EPC, and to examine areas of related research. Abstracts (250 words) for papers and workshops are invited which address the following areas: - teaching English for professional purposes; - issues in cross-cultural communication; - discourse & genre analysis in professional settings; - second language communication in the workplace; - issues in organisational communication; - design of curriculum and instructional materials; - teacher education in EPC. Abstracts should be sent to: Conference on English for Professional Communication, C/- Dept of English City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon, Hong Kong FAX: (852) 788-8894 TEL: (852) 788-8850 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 13:14 GMT From: Onderzoeks instituut voor Taal en Spraak Subject: workshop Lex. Specification & Lex. Insertion: call for papers PLEASE POST Call for Papers Workshop on LEXICAL SPECIFICATION and LEXICAL INSERTION Research Institute for Language and Speech University of Utrecht December 9 - 11, 1991 In December a workshop will be held in Utrecht on the issues of what type of lexical specifications we need in a generative grammar and by what principles this information is projected onto syntactic configurations, i.e. how lexical insertion is executed. A number of invited speakers have agreed to present their ideas on topics related to these questions. They include: Hans Bennis (Leiden), Joe Emonds (Washington-Seattle), Jane Grimshaw (Brandeis), Hubert Haider (Stuttgart), Lars Hellan (Trondheim), Rita Manzini (UC London), Bozena Rozwadowska (Wroclaw), Margaret Speas (Amherst), Edwin Williams (Princeton). The workshop will have a limited number of slots available for people who want to present 35-minute papers on issues covered by the topic description of the workshop (see below). Those who want to present a paper should submit an abstract (max. 2 pages) to the organizers no later than October 20, 1991. Notice of acceptance will be given very shortly afterwards. Organizing committee: Peter Coopmans, Martin Everaert, Jane Grimshaw For further information, please contact Research Institute for Language and Speech phone: 31-30-392006 University of Utrecht fax: 31-30-333380 Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht email: ots@let.ruu.nl The Netherlands ots@hutruu59.bitnet TOPIC DESCRIPTION: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on Lexical Specification and Lexical Insertion This workshop addresses the issues of what type of lexical specifications we need in a generative grammar and by what principles this information is projected onto configurations, i.e. how lexical insertion is executed. The workshop will particularly focus on the question of what the syntactic consequences are of choices that are made with respect to the lexical specifications of heads. The general assumption is that 'lexical insertion' means replacing a X-o position in a phrase-marker by a lexical formative. Simultaneous insertion of more than one X-o, as in the case of phrasal idioms, is probably exceptional. Lexical formatives contain inherent and contextual features. Through the projection of the contextual features of a X-o (= head) the structural properties of phrases are determined. Although the Projection Principle is one of the core principles of UG, very little explicit discussion has been devoted to determining what contextual features we have and what 'projection' actually means and how it is executed. Since Chomsky's Aspects several forms of lexical encoding have been proposed in the literature, such as 'subcategorization', 'selectional restrictions', 'theta grid/argument structure', 'predicate argument structure', 'grammatical function assignment', 'lexical conceptual structure', and more recently 'event structure'. It is clear that some of these notions are mutually incompatible, others are not, and that, furthermore, there is redundancy. Despite the work that has been done, it is still very much open to debate to what extent the lexical specifications that have been offered in the literature are necessary and sufficient to fully specify the structural configurations in which a head can appear. Specific questions that come to mind are: - How are theta roles mapped onto syntactic configurations? Through specific realization rules, universal mapping principles, or through mediation of aspectual marking? - To what extent are the types of lexical specifications autonomous, or are they linked? For instance is theta-specification linked to aspectual information or to specifications of Case information? - How is,in general, the projection part of the Projection Principle executed? - Should we distinguish inherent theta-grids and non-inherent theta-grids for semi-adjuncts? How is this encoded, and what syntactic consequences can be derived from this? - Do we need a lexical specification of aspectual information, and if so what would such a specification look like? - Is there a distinct level of lexical representation on which 'lexical collocational restrictions' are encoded? And if so, in what way are they expressed grammatically? - To what extent can subcategorization be reduced to other selectional properties of predicates? __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-458. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-459. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 140 Subject: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1) Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 21:17:34 EDT From: Subject: linguists in film 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 11:27:45 EST From: j.guy%trl.OZ.AU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Jacques Guy) Subject: Linguistics in novels, etc. 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 20:33 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 4) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 21:13 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE%BSUVAX1.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu> Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 21:17:34 EDT From: Subject: linguists in film Now that the discussion has proceeded to the portrayal of linguists in movies, we must at least acknowledge the movie "Iceman," which came out in the early 80's I think. Researchers in the Arctic find a prehistoric man frozen solid in the ice. When he is thawed out and brought back to life, a linguist from MIT must be flown up to determine the iceman's "parameter settings" (with the aid of a fancy computer system of course). As far as I can remember (which isn't very far), the scene with the linguist is pretty anticlimactic and doesn't have much bearing on the plot, but it does show that the makers of the movie did some homework. Tom Green __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 11:27:45 EST From: j.guy%trl.OZ.AU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Jacques Guy) Subject: Linguistics in novels, etc. About Chris Culy's summary of responses (28.08.91). _The Cunning Linguist_, if I remember correctly, has nothing to do with linguistics, apart from the pun in its title: it is a pornographic novel (The Cunnilinguis). About the chimpanzee in the TV detective story (Nancy L. Dray, 29.08.91). I do not see there any misunderstanding on the part of the script writer. Ever watched a Marx Brothers movie and how they communicate with Harpo? Like Harpo, the chimpanzee can hear, but cannot speak. It has no sign for "cheater" and "embezzler", but has for "cheetah" and "buzzard". So it signs "cheetah" and "buzzard" instead -- a phonetic rebus as it were -- as Harpo would. We need not even posit that the chimpanzee knows what "cheater" and "embezzler" mean. It is sufficient (and it is likely) that it should have heard "embezzler", which it did not know, as "...b?zz?er...". And to those of you who object to crediting chimpanzees with any understanding, I say "fear not". It is sufficient that it should have been taught by Messrs Pavlov and Skinner to respond to the sounds of "cheetah" and "buzzard" by certain movements of its hands. And now a question to all: in the light of the above discussion, just what argument can you present that Harpo is a sentient being? Jacques Guy __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 20:33 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles Michael Kac -- Sorry -- I should have known better re your suggestion. I also would love to have a copy of the Dr Syntax Poster. Someone can get rich out there. Who painted the paiting ' irrecoverability of deleted tracers'? I don't really believe tyis but it is a wonderful put-on. Re tv programs and linguists etc (noone really mentioned them but wothehell) -- I think my major claim to fame with the Linguistic 1 students at UCLA is that I wrote a language called PAKU spoken by the Pakuni (monkey people) in a children's TV program called Land of the Lost. I had no idea anyone knew of it and happened to mention it and got a standing ovation from the usual bored, noisy group of 500 students. It seems they keep showing it. For those of you who are Africanists out there -- you will notice that it is very much like a Kwa language of West Africa. This of course has no relation to any of the linguistic novels. To finish -- re Paku and Land of the Lost -- I never saw the show -- just the scripts which I had to translate into Paku. The whole experience was very funny. They -- the producers were worried about the sear words I wrote in Paku. I tried to convince them that noone would know what they meant anyway but I am not sure they believed me. Anyway, it is a lovely language which I understand children were beginning to pick up (which was my purpose of course) -- nice regular anti-penultimate stress, homorganic nasals, nasalization of vowels before nasals, deletion of final vowels before vowel initial suffixes. A wonderful language! Vicki Fromkin _________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 21:13 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE%BSUVAX1.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu> Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels I missed some of this discussion while on vacation, so I hope my reaction isn't redundant. Two linguistic novels that haven't been commented on are Jack Vance's _The Languages of Pao_ and Samuel Delany's _Triton_. _Pao_ criminally suspends disbelief about the usual reductions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and then descends into imperialistic linguistic engineering. In addition to poor linguistics, it's not a very good novel. _Triton_ is at the opposite end of the aesthetic and linguistic spectrum, as one might suspect given the author. Delany deals interestingly with the cultural implications of the form/meaning dichotomy. Triton, an uninhabitable moon, has been given a complete artificial make-over so that it can support life. The culture is largely transient and it is socially unacceptable to speak of one's past. The only residents who acknowledge their pasts and exhibit real human feelings are outcasts living in a slum. It is possible to have a complete physical make-over done so that a leading character, a tall, athletic black man, started life on Mars as a five-foot-two blue-eyed blonde woman. And so on. Herb Stahlke __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-459. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-460. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 85 Subject: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 2) Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 11:13:04 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 2) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 14:36:47 -1000 From: Phil Bralich Subject: Movies with linguistics themes 3) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 21:23:48 +0100 From: Richard Coates Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 8:58:24 +0800 (SST) From: A_DENCH@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU Subject: RE: Linguistic Terms in Titles -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 11:13:04 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles wrt michael kac's point about how linguistics is viewed by the public, i'd like to add 'the exorcist', where the georgetown lx dept decodes the devil's language by cleverly playing the tape backwards and discovering that it's standard american english in reverse. gee, i never would have thought of doing that... __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 14:36:47 -1000 From: Phil Bralich Subject: Movies with linguistics themes I am surprised someone hasn't reminded subscribers that the "Planet of the Apes" and subsequent spinoffs were based on the premise that chimps, gorillas and other primates took over the planet earth after having been taught to speak. Dan Quayle is problem enough are we going to sit idly by and see Washoe and Koko move to places of prominence in our society? But then again Koko and Washoe might be not be a step a backward. __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 21:23:48 +0100 From: Richard Coates Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles Dr Syntax: He goes back much further than any 20c novels. He was the hero of some very long narrative poems published in the early part of the 19c, and illustrated by Rowlandson. The writer's name escapes me, probably with some justice. Dr Syntax was very famous. A headland near Land's End in Cornwall is called _Dr Syntax's Head_ after him. Richard Coates __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 8:58:24 +0800 (SST) From: A_DENCH@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU Subject: RE: Linguistic Terms in Titles How come nobody has yet mentioned Derek Bickerton's science fiction (and I don't mean Roots of Language)? His novel "King of the sea" is one of the best attempts to construct a believable dolphin language I have seen. I won't give the game away, but lets just say that it all hinges on the arbitrariness of the linbguistic sign - at least as far as human language is concerned. Alan Dench. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-460. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-461. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 95 Subject: Queries Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 01:11 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: Sound change by lexical diffusion 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 12:08:40 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Re: Queries 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 13:54 MET From: Koenraad De Smedt Subject: professeure -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 01:11 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: Sound change by lexical diffusion >It is possible that the change didn't really even have anything to do with >the function/content distinction at all. Sound changes often spread through >the lexicon one word at a time, with two common patterns: frequent words >change first (with infrequent words unaffected), or infrequent words change >first (with frequent words unaffected). (Labov had a paper in LANGUAGE a >few years back on what determines whether sound change will be >word-by-word. There was a paper in LINGUISTICS ca. 1984 that tried to sort >out what determines whether it is infrequent or frequent words that change >first; I don't recall the author's name.) It is quite possible that this >change affected frequent words first, which would largely be function >words, since they are the most frequent words in the language. The change >may have ended (and who knows why?) before spreading to even relatively >frequent content words like THINK. (It may not have spread to words like >THREE and THROUGH because of a phonological constraint in English barring >voiced fricatives in syllable-initial consonant clusters. English doesn't >allow *VRY or *ZLIP, either.) >Anyway, this congruence may be entirely accidental. Anyone know more of the >details? I'm not an expert on such long-ago sound changes. Joe Stemberger is talking about lexical diffusion. It will be some time before I can come up with something like a bibliography. Can somebody out there help with this? Tom Lai __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 12:08:40 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Re: Queries I have nothing to add on [sic] Lee Hartman's query about the use of _on_. Rather I have a similar query of my own, which that one reminded me of. Linguists generally seem to use _(just) in case X_ to mean 'iff X', which is quite foreign to my, British dialect. For me, _(just) in case X_ means something like 'in anticipation of possible occurrence of X', as in _I'm going to look at the paper in case there's an ad for a used bike._ Here's my question. Is the other usage, i.e. the 'iff X' one, (a) only used in linguistics/logic, etc, (b) normal North American usage, (c) normal British usage and it's me that's weird? David Denison (d.denison @ uk.ac.man) __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 13:54 MET From: Koenraad De Smedt Subject: professeure In a recent job advertisement, we read: > Le Departement de langues et linguistique ouvre un concours pour un poste de > professeur ou de professeure en lexicographie. Le poste devra etre pourvu > le 1er juin 1992. I always thought 'professeur' covers both male and female. Indeed, my French dictionary does not contain 'professeure'. Has this word existed long or is it relatively new? Or was it forced into existence by equal opportunities pressure? Koenraad de Smedt NICI __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-461. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-462. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 170 Subject: Sound-Change Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:07:20 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Natural Sound-Change 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:24:23 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Sound-Change and Teleology 3) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 21:00:03 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Natural Sound-Change -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:07:20 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Natural Sound-Change > Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 13:12:27 PDT > From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com > Subject: Natural Sound Change > > [...] Which > brings me to the following recommendation (to be read before Bert Peeters' > Martinet reference, i.e. in chronological sequence): Paul Passy. 1890. > "Etude sur les Changements Phonetiques" Paris: Librairie-Diderot. One of the > earliest works discussing the two great opposing forces in language: ease and > clarity. Correction to Rick's reference: Passy, Paul. 1890. _Etude sur les changements phone'tiques et leurs caracte`res ge'ne'raux_. Paris: Firmin-Didot. (Diderot may sound more French, but at the end of the 19th century he had long died... :-) ) In my 200-page MS referred to in earlier posts (_Diachronie, phonologie, et linguistique fonctionnelle_) there is a chapter titled "L'e'conomie linguistique d'Andre' Martinet mise en perspective". It contains ample refs to people who before Martinet had said similar things without bringing them all together under the one heading of "economy". Copies of the MS are still available for interested LINGUIST readers who wish to comment and to exchange publications in areas to be mutually agreed upon. > Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 11:47:42 CDT > From: GA5123%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU > Subject: Sound change > > [...] The purpose of this note is both to request and to offer: > to ask if anyone has found a metaphor that helps them grasp > that elusive moment when random variation turns into nascent > regular change; and to offer two of my own (as yet whimsical) images > for possible discussion -- (1) the Brownian motion of molecules > in a fluid, and (2) a stampede of wildebeests. Yes, whimsical: > I hereby forbid any reader to treat either one as a solid proposal > at this time. I've always been quite impressed with Martinet's description of sound change in terms of "fields of dispersion", "margins of security" and "centers of gravity" (the latter NOT the kind of thing Roger Lass refers too in an article published in the early eighties). Details and allusions to earlier similar ideas can again be found in my MS mentioned before. (Sorry to make so much publicity for my own work; if you get annoyed, please stop reading and skip to the next contribution. :-) ) > [...] Kiparsky, in > "Historical Linguistics" discusses the difference between "competence theories" > ------------------------------------------------------------ > (in Lyons, ed.; not his 1971 essay of the same title, in Dingwall, ed. -- > chapter 3 of K's 1982 book _Explanation in Phonology_) > ------------------------------------------------------------ > vs. "performance theories" of sound change (referring to where change > is thought to originate). H. Anderson, in a 1973 article in _Language_, > distinguishes between "evolutive" and "adaptive" changes. > My question: What does anyone today think of either or both > of these dichotomies? Are they valid? For readers who can't immediately identify Lyons, ed (1970): it is the Pelican Original titled _New Horizons in Linguistics_ (Kiparsky's paper is on pp. 302-315. Although "change" is the commonly used terminology, we should be reminded every so now and then that there is no such thing. In a language system and in a speaker's competence, there is no change, no evolution, but merely substitution of variants. Change and evolution are performance-related concepts. For the third time around (SORRY!!) there is a bit more on this in my MS. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:24:23 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Sound-Change and Teleology > Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 23:57 EET > From: MANYMAN%FINUHA.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU > Subject: Teleology of function/purpose > > [...] Suppose the Latin change "-nct- > -nt-" (quinctus > quintus; > sanctus > santus; &c) took place because the sequence -nct- was > "not easy enough". This is scarcely substantially different from > saying that this change took place for the purpose of ease > of pronunciation. That is: the gist of Martinet's principle of > economy remains the same, whether economy is conceived as a telos, > or as a function. Not at all. If purpose of ease of pronunciation were the real motive behind sound change, far more changes would occur than actually do and most languages would be in a total state of anarchy. It is actually very often possible to think of easier pronunciations than the ones that currently prevail in a language. Yet these easier pronunciations do not necessarily come about because the way in which we speak is not too bad after all (that is, we can cope with our languages as they are). But at times, there will be a quite general feeling that such or such a pronunciation is really "not easy enough" (or in other words, is too hard). That is the beginning of a sound change, and it's got to be explained not in terms of the result but in terms of the origin. Hence, the gist of Martinet's principle of economy is not that it is a disguised form of teleology. He is quite explicit as far as that is concerned (but lots of people do not read him carefully enough). Am I allowed to refer once more to "the" MS? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 21:00:03 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Natural Sound-Change Rick Wojcik is 100% right in pointing out that 'natural' means different things in different contexts, and that sometimes it appears to mean only 'frequent' (though we would, of course, be led to want to see what it is that favors such things if it isn't obvious). I will point out one other common sense of 'natural', this time as it's used in reference to specific analyses of linguistic phenomena -- as in 'The na- tural solution to this problem is ...' Here the term has a highly technical usage, on which it means 'my'. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-462. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-463. Tue 03 Sep 1991. Lines: 97 Subject: Responses Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 17:28 BST From: John Coleman Subject: RE: Responses 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 9:35:06 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Linguistic Terms in Titles 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 20:13 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Queries 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:27:35 MET DST From: lachlan%let.vu.nl@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Digressions -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 17:28 BST From: John Coleman Subject: RE: Responses Re: on X's theory "on this view, a concern with `capturing generalizations' may not be psychologically justified" Dresher (1980:78) in Hornstein and Lightfoot, eds. "Explanation in Linguistics". --- John Coleman __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 9:35:06 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Linguistic Terms in Titles > Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 17:20:37 CST > From: Chris Culy > Subject: More linguistic title summary > > Hi all, > > As promised, here is a summary of works with linguistic terms in their titles. [...] > Appel, Rene _Het[De?] derde persoon_ The given name is Rene', and the title _De derde persoon_ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 20:13 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Queries TO: Barbara Need -- Daniel Valois (if he is not still at UCLA) is at or will be at the University of Quebec at Montreal -- Dept of Linguistics. __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:27:35 MET DST From: lachlan%let.vu.nl@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Digressions An important linguistic source on digressions is: Marcelo Dascal and Tamar Katriel, "Digressions: a study in conversational coherence". PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 4 (1979), 203-232. The authors are/were at Tel Aviv University and Haifa University respectively. Lachlan Mackenzie, Free University, Amsterdam __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-463. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-464. Wed 04 Sep 1991. Lines: 162 Subject: Linguistc novels, films, TV Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 10:05 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 10:31:10 EDT From: Robert Mathiesen Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 12:14:36 CDT From: GA5123%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: linguistic novels 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:43 From: EDMONDSONWH%VAX1.COMPUTER-CENTRE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Dr.Syntax 5) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 12:28:14 -0700 From: Bill Poser Subject: linguistics in film 6) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:44:39 CDT From: Nancy L. Dray Subject: linguistics in TV shows -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 10:05 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles With regard to movies with linguists in them, there is one other: "Chan is Missing", which has a minilecture on sociolinguistics; supposedly the character is based on Deborah Tannen. __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 10:31:10 EDT From: Robert Mathiesen Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1 My favorite novels with a linguist/anthropologist as protagonist are by Janet Kagan: _Hellspark_ and _Uhura's Song_ (the latter a Star Trek item). __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 12:14:36 CDT From: GA5123%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: linguistic novels For whoever is compiling the list of novels involving linguistics, a title: _Babel 17_. I don't have other data on hand (author? date?). It's science fiction. ----------------------------------- Lee Hartman, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, ga5123@siucvmb.bitnet __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:43 From: EDMONDSONWH%VAX1.COMPUTER-CENTRE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Dr.Syntax I just got back from a holiday in Cornwall, where I purchased a 2.5 inch to the mile map for detailed information about the area I Was staying - right down near the end - in St.Ives. I was intrigued to see that what appears to be the promontary we refer to as LAND'S END is actually 'Dr. Syntax's Head', or if not that one a minor bump next to it (but such bumps are not usually referred to as ' heads' (whoops). Is this the same Dr. Syntax? Who was responsible for naming the headland? Anyone got any ideas? __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 12:28:14 -0700 From: Bill Poser Subject: linguistics in film As I recall, in the movie "The Iceman" they bring in "a linguist from MIT", who turns out to be a crusty older woman who stares a lot at a device labelled "Pitch-Stress Meter". She looked quite a lot like Judy Thompson, an MIT philosopher. Phil Lieberman was listed in the credits as linguistic consultant. Bill Poser __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:44:39 CDT From: Nancy L. Dray Subject: linguistics in TV shows In re Jacques Guy's response to my note re TV mystery with chimp/"cheetah" etc. : Guy and others who have contacted me assume that the chimp has not only been taught manual signs for "cheetah" and "buzzard" (in ASL or some other manual language, or perhaps in some system designed for the experiment) but also has been exposed to the English words "cheetah" and "buzzard" (spoken) in such a way that s/he could match the spoken words with the manual signs. If this were the case, then, depending on such things as the ability of chimps to discriminate among speech sounds (something I know nothing about), the scenario might, as Guy suggests, be plausible (or at least within the limits of what counts as "plausible" on silly TV shows). I'm not surprised that linguists have made this assumption, since it's necessary if the plot is to stand a chance of making sense. But, as I recall, the show did absolutely nothing to suggest that the chimp had been receiving both signed and spoken stimuli. Thus, the misunderstanding I was referring to would be the notion that if the chimp knows the manual sign for, e.g., "cheetah" (or perhaps just the concept "cheetah"?) then s/he will necessarily also have some awareness of the corresponding spoken sign in English. So much for the arbitrariness of the sign. Also, isn't it just a bit odd that a chimp in captivity would be taught signs for "cheetah" and "buzzard"? I found this unlikely, though if I am wrong, I hope someone who does this kind of work will enlighten me. When I saw the show, I wondered whether the choice of "buzzard" and "cheetah" might even reflect an underlying assumption that a chimp would have some sort of innate knowledge of these concepts. (By the way, do chimps in the wild even deal with buzzards and cheetahs, or is there some sort of "all wild animals are the same" notion in here, as well?) Moreover, if, as above, the writers assume that signs are nonarbitrary, then they might think that having access to these concepts would enable the chimp to recognize the corresponding linguistic signs in whatever language or modality, if only the s/he tries hard enough. Perhaps now I'm stretching it-- and, in particular, presuming more thought on the part of the writers than is probably justified--but I did find the choice of "cheetah" and "buzzard" as words such a chimp would know rather comical. Whew! It's alarming to think that I have now written so much about such a silly show... (especially since I may well have misremembered it...) ------ re Malcolm Bradbury's "Rates of Exchange"--check out also his parody travel guide, "Welcome to Slaka" (or "Why Come to Slaka"?). Among other things, it includes a list of phrases for for travelers to (fictitious) Slaka. Not nearly as funny as some of the real guides it parodies, but very entertaining nonetheless. NLD __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-464. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-465. Wed 04 Sep 1991. Lines: 235 Subject: Software Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 12:15:29 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Displayed glosses 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 9:36:47 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: Re: linguistic software for interlinear text 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 16:54:39 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: Re: Mac text analysis software 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 15:29:00 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: New Macintosh publication for linguists -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 12:15:29 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Displayed glosses I regret I have lost the recent query about getting word processors to align words and their individual glosses - a problem that has bugged me too. I am grateful to the correspondent who suggested using the Table facility in Word: I shall try the same for WordPerfect, which I occasionally use. There is a German program called List, a development of T3 (i.e. T superscript-3: sorry, I don't have your typographic conventions to hand), which does it very well. A working party from the Arts Faculty at Manchester was given a demo of List as part of our effort to report on available multi- lingual word processors. It was a very curate's-eggy sort of demo. In some ways the product seemed excellent: displayed glosses, full Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew (though without right-to-left processing), scalable Postscript fonts, very quick text marking. BUT, footnotes are held in separate files and cannot be searched together with main text, other standard WP features were lacking, and - crucially - the price was for us prohibitive: DM 3,500 for basic program, plus extra for each set of fonts and for graphics import program, and DM 10,000 for a network licence for only four users. As I recall the program had been developed for text editing of biblical and classical texts rather than linguistics, but it might suit some users. I haven't got the company's address to hand but if anyone is interested I think I could find it out for them. David Denison (d.denison @ uk.ac.man) __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 9:36:47 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: Re: linguistic software for interlinear text There have been a number of postings recently about software to handle interlinear text, such as Partitur, MS Word, TeX, and IT. I think it is helpful to distinguish (at least) three different applications that involve interlinear text and suggest that each requires different software. First, one may need interlinear text software in order to analyze a large text corpus for linguistic purposes. For this, you need an interlinear text editor that will do two major tasks: keep the bundles of interlinear glosses vertically aligned, and do semi-automatic glossing by maintaining a lexicon of the glosses. The program should also permit any number of interlinear lines and handle texts of arbitrary length. As others have noted, the two main programs available for this large-scale text analysis are IT (that's 'eye-tee', DOS and Macintosh versions) and Shoebox (DOS only). Both programs were developed under the auspices of SIL (Summer Insitute of Linguistics). There should be an SIL software catalog on the Linguist server (but I don't know the file name); or write to me and I will e-mail it to you, or send a hard copy. Now the bad news: DOS IT is out of print and will not be available again until the software and manual are revised. This work is in progress, but no promises on a delivery date (the price shouldn't exceed $40). Mac IT is the only SIL program that is marketed commercially and is available for about $200 from Linguist's Software in Edmonds, WA. Shoebox is available for about $12. It is a data management system for field linguists that includes as one of its features a text interlinearizer. While Shoebox's interlinearizer is not as flexible as IT, it has some advantages in how it stores its lexicon; plus it does things other than interlinearize text. Second, one may want to produce a typeset book of interlinear texts. You will need software that can give you full control over formatting. For this I recommend the Interlinear Text Formatter (ITF), which is a set of TeX macros that will produce a professionally typeset book. It is available from SIL for about $14. A caveat: use ITF only if you intend to do large-scale formatting and typesetting of interlinear texts. Also, it helps to have a TeX expert handy. Third, one may want to include fragments of interlinear text as examples in a paper. If this is all you need to do, you probably don't need the power of IT or ITF. Try something simpler such as MS Word formulas or Greg Lee's TeX macros. Of course if you already have a text corpus in IT format, examples can be extracted and pasted into your paper. Evan Antworth Academic Computing Department Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 U.S.A. Internet: evan@txsil.sil.org <------- new address as of May 1991 UUCP: ...!uunet!convex!txsil!evan phone: 214/709-2418 fax: 214/709-3387 __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 16:54:39 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: Re: Mac text analysis software In a recent posting, Willard McCarty asked for information on textual analysis software for the Macintosh. Here is some information on a program called AnyText. It is a commercial program published by Linguist's Software of Edmonds, WA. (Disclaimer: The following is for your information only; it is not an endorsement or recommendation. I have no connection to Linguist's Software or to this program, though Linguist's Software does market one SIL program [which is how I happened to find out about AnyText].) Evan Antworth evan@txsil.sil.org _______________________________________________________ The following is taken directly from promotional material provided by Linguist's Software. AnyText is a full proximity Boolean search engine and index generator. It is a Hypercard-based program that allows you to create concordances and do fast word searches on ordinary text files in English, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and several other Semitic and Cyrillic languages. AnyText provides: Two indexed word lists for fast proximity word searches. Boolean AND and OR functions for operations between the two indexed word lists. Wild card string searches. Book, chapter, and verse references available for properly-formatted text files. Two files of different languages can be open for searching. Concordances with the key words in context aligned in the center of the screen. Full context easily retrieved for any concordance entry. Creates text files containing complete concordances and word lists or the partial word list and concordances resulting from proximity searches. Includes AnyText, AnyText on-line Help, Hypercard 2.0v2, screen fonts for Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and phonetics, and User's Manual. Price: $99.95 Order from: Linguist's Software P.O. Box 580 Edmonds, WA 98020 U.S.A. phone (206) 775-1130 fax (206) 771-5911 __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 15:29:00 CDT From: txsil!evan%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Evan Antworth) Subject: New Macintosh publication for linguists Linguist List readers may be interested in a new publication for Macintosh users called Notes on Apple Macintosh, or NOAM for short (no connection whatsoever with that other Noam). NOAM is intended for field linguists of SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), but should be of considerable use to anyone using a Mac to do linguistic and anthropological work. NOAM will be particularly focused on techniques for management and analysis of multilingual data. NOAM is edited by Randy Valentine, whose stated goal is "to present you with ideas and instruction that will help you to do a better job in your anthropology, linguistics, education and translation work." Randy is a top-notch linguist and teacher, as well as the author of some of the most creative and useful Hypercard stacks I have ever seen. Randy's special area of interest is Native North American cultures. The first issue of NOAM just appeared this summer. In format it is 5.5" by 8.5", 54 pages long, and profusely illustrated. The content includes the following: an overview of system 7.0; formatting text for syntax and discourse study using Hypercard and Word; Macintosh news; software squibs. NOAM is published quarterly. The subscription price for one year is U.S. $14.00. For overseas airmail delivery, add U.S. $12.00 per year. You may obtain a trial copy of the first issue for $3.00. Send subscription requests and trial copy requests to: NOAM Box 248 Waxhaw, NC 28173 U.S.A. ------------------------------------------ Evan Antworth Academic Computing Department Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 U.S.A. Internet: evan@txsil.sil.org <------- new address as of May 1991 UUCP: ...!uunet!convex!txsil!evan phone: 214/709-2418 fax: 214/709-3387 __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-465. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-466. Wed 04 Sep 1991. Lines: 97 Subject: Announcement; Responses: in/on Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 20:49:04 EDT From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: LINGUIST Headers 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 09:57 PDT From: Scott Delancey Subject: Re: Queries 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 23:23 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: in case 4) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:57:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Responses -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 20:49:04 EDT From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: LINGUIST Headers We received the following suggestion from Chris Culy: >For whatever reasons, I seem to get issues of Linguist out of order on a >fairly regular basis. This is confusing when the responses come before the >questions! I was wondering if it would be possible to include the issue >number in the header--that way I could read them in order. >Chris Culy >cculy@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about the issues coming out of order, since this depends on the way that peer servers handle the LINGUIST files. Some seem to send out the shorter issues first and hoard the longer ones. However, we could certainly put the volume and issue nos. in the subject line if you all are willing to give up a content word or two. Do any of you have any strong feelings about this? If so, let us know. If not, we will soon begin to use subject lines like: Subject: [2-254] Linguistic Novels -Helen Dry -Anthony Aristar __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 09:57 PDT From: Scott Delancey Subject: Re: Queries Reply to David Denison -- North American usage of _just in case_ is the same as yours (unless my speech is more wildly divergent from that of my community than I suspect). I still remember (who knows why) the shock of stumbling on the 'iff' sense in something by Hockett when I first started reading linguistics. Scott DeLancey __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 23:23 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: in case David Denison asks if _in case X_ is used to mean 'iff X' (only) in linguistics/logic. If there's such usage in (formal) logic, it must be a relatively new phenomenon. At least, I have not heard of or read anything like that before. Tom Lai __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:57:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Responses I get "on this view (hypothesis), but "under this interpretation." Is this distinction shared? -- Rick Russom __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-466. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-467. Thu 05 Sep 1991. Lines: 207 Subject: Linguistic Novels, Films Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 21:01:34 CDT From: GA3704%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Linguistic Titles 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 18:54 MST From: WDEREUSE@ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 09:28:10 -0400 From: peter@sug.std.com (Peter Salus) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels 4) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:05:22 -0500 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1) 5) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 08:31 CST From: LIFY460@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1) 6) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:37:42 -0400 From: gb661%csc.albany.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: linguists and movies 7) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:53 CDT From: Joe Stemberger Subject: Re: Linguist Novels, Films, TV 8) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:10:15 -0500 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 2) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 21:01:34 CDT From: GA3704%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Linguistic Titles Nobody yet has mentioned C.S. Lewis's hero of the Perelandra novels (his religious/science fiction trilogy). He is a philologist named Ransome who, says Lewis, is really not as dull as one would expect of philologists. It is sad to add that Humphrey Carpenter says much the same thing about JRR Tolkien in the biography he wrote of him! Let me add how much I am enjoying this discussion of popular culture and linguistics. It allows me to read LINGUIST instead of reading science fiction and mysteries, which is a good thing given the number of postings that arrive every day! Margaret Winters Southern Illinois University __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 18:54 MST From: WDEREUSE@ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles Since our trivia on linguistic tiltes now includes musical groups, I can't resist mentioning a pop-rock group, the flyer of which I never threw out. Their name is the Semantics, and they supposedly were to perform in Boulder, Colo., on July 21st, 1984. Never got to see them, and have no idea why they chose this name. Even though he's a linguist, I think we should mention the Klingon Dictionary, written by Mark Okrand, who did a superb diss. on Mutsun on the basis of J.P.Harrington's fieldnotes. The book contains a short grammar, and a conversation manual. Sure, enough, the language has a few Native Californian features, but is also a bit esperanto-like with its absence of any morphophonemics. Not really a novel, but lots of fun nonetheless. Willem de Reuse Department of Anthropology, U. of Arizona. __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 09:28:10 -0400 From: peter@sug.std.com (Peter Salus) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels There was a posting concerning a novel (featuring a dolphin) by Derek Bickerton. There is no listing for this work in the Books in Print or the pb Books in Print I looked at yesterday. Could someone with a copy please supply full bibliographic information? Peter H. Salus __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:05:22 -0500 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1) There is Joan Smith's mystery novel, "A Masculine Ending" (Fawcett Crest, 1987), which contains a description of an academic conference sounding a lot like the LSA, among many other interesting things, and there is also a grammar in Marc Okrand's 1985 "The Klingon Dictionary: English/Klingon, Klingon/English". __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 08:31 CST From: LIFY460@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 1) Two additions to the Popularization of Linguistics discussion: Ursula LeGuin: In reply to Carol Georgeopoulos's query about Ursula LeGuin's linguistic "novel": it's not a novel (at least the one I know about), it's a short story, the first title in a collection called _The Compass Rose_. It's own title is something like "Lines Written on an Acadia Seed." It's written like a linguistic anthropology article, addressing new discoveries in the language of a variety of life- (and non-life-) forms. The title of the story is taken from the first language discussed, ant writings scribbled on an acacia seed. It reveals the "literal" meaning of the text (the one I remember is "up with the queen") and takes stabs at the cultural meaning (since ants live underground, "up with the queen" would expose her (the queen ant) to the killing elements and so, in "our" terms, may mean "down with the queen"; so this acacia seed is something like a revolutionary tract. The story takes up three or four other languages, each only slightly less plausible, until at the end we are asked to contemplate the language of stones. Really wonderfully done! While you have the book, read another story, called something about "... the Shortage of Time," in which several causes of the shortage of time are discussed; for instance it may be because there's a tiny hole in the space-time continuum through which time is leaking.... The Dark Crystal: In the movie "The Dark Crystal", with those fantastic Jim Henson creatures, the humanoid Jen, wandering alone after some disaster, is befriended by another creature who takes him to her people and introduces him in what sounded to me like Serbian. I can imagine the writers sitting around trying to come up with the wildest, craziest language that they could put in the mouths of these creatures, one that nevertheless was a real language, so they wouldn't have to make it up! I think the movie is available for rental; people who are sure they would recognize Serbian might want to check it out. Christine Kamprath __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:37:42 -0400 From: gb661%csc.albany.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: linguists and movies When I was at UCLA, the linguistics dept. used to get a lot of strange calls from people in the film industry asking us things. My favorite was the studio that called us to ask how to say 'shit list' in Latin. After some discussion, the classicists in the dept. came up with 'index cacorum'. __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:53 CDT From: Joe Stemberger Subject: Re: Linguist Novels, Films, TV The movie (and book) "Day of the Dolphin" involves a project to teach English to dolphins. There is a scene in the movie where the researcher is telling someone about the dolphin's language acquisition; the filmmaker's attempts to prevent this from being dreadfully dull "talking heads" are ludicrous. In the classic SF movie "Forbidden Planet" from the 1950's, one of the main characters is a "philologist". This fact plays virtually no role in the movie, though. __________________________________________________________________________ 8) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:10:15 -0500 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: Linguistics in Novels, Film... (Part 2) There appeared a SF novel entitled, roughly, "Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright", in which a rebel underground invented a spoken language in which each binary phonological feature carried a separate message. Hence, a given utterance conveyed 18 plus messages simultaneously! __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-467. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-468. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 76 Subject: Just in case/468 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 09:39:01 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Announcement; Responses: in/on 2) Date: Wednesday, 4 September 1991 10:15am ET From: "Barbara.Abbott" Subject: "just in case" 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 22:39 EST From: BARBARA PARTEE Subject: Re: Queries -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 09:39:01 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Announcement; Responses: in/on When I took logic from Pat Suppes at Stanford, I was puzzled by the use of the phrase "just in case" to mean "if and only if." As a speaker of American English, I had always used "just in case" to mean something like "to provide for the possibility that." So I would say, e.g., "I'm taking my umbrella just in case it rains despite the forecast." I think that for people who talk this way there's a sense that the occasion provided for is not too likely to occur, but likely enough to worry about. Pat and Donald Davidson said things like "You're married just in case you've said 'I do' in the appropriate circumstances." I believe this may derive from British English, but I don't know for sure. -- Rick Russom __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wednesday, 4 September 1991 10:15am ET From: "Barbara.Abbott" Subject: "just in case" My own first experience with "just in case" in the sense 'if and only if' was at UC Berkeley in 1969, in a class (called "Foundations of Organization of Knowledge") taught by Patrick Wilson, who had been a philosopher at UCLA before coming to Berkeley to head the School of Library Science (which is where the class was being taught). __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 22:39 EST From: BARBARA PARTEE Subject: Re: Queries To David Denison's query about the use of "just in case" for "iff": I remember being very surprised by that use of "just in case" in my first year at MIT in 1961 - it struck me as curious to be setting m to 0 on the chance that n might turn out to be odd, which is how I interpreted it the first time I heard it (from Chomsky, I think). I do not know how widespread it is or already then was among mathematicians, but I hadn't encountered it as an undergraduate math major, and it certainly isn't plain American English. I considered it sufficiently unusual and potentially misleading that I included a warning about it in the "Preliminaries" section of my _Fundamentals of Mathematics for Linguistics_. Barbara Partee (partee@cs.umass.edu) __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-468. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-469. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 109 Subject: Linguistic novels, films/469 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 17:35:10 -0700 From: saka%cogsci.Berkeley.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Paul Saka) Subject: RE: science fiction novels 2) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 23:12:09 EST From: Ralf Thiede Subject: Linguistic Novels 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 18:30:15 -1000 From: Phil Bralich Subject: Linguistics in titles. -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 17:35:10 -0700 From: saka%cogsci.Berkeley.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Paul Saka) Subject: RE: science fiction novels Philip Jose Farmer is a prolific sf writer whose output has ranged from pure hack work to the near-genius. He himself is not a linguist, but many of his books reflect an educated interest in Lx. _Time's Last Gift_ is about a team of anthropologists and linguists who travel back to the last ice age, when PIE was a living language. The protagonist, it turns out, is Lord Greystoke. If you like Tarzan, you will surely like this book; but if you are like me, you will want to stay away from this one. (Even as a little kid, I thought Tarzan was hokey.) _Tongues of the Moon_ is interesting because it was one of the few sf novels that paid attention to multi- lingualism and lg contact. (In more recent years, cyberpunk has been depicting English under the massive influence of Spanish and Japanese.) Farmer's best known work, for which he won the Hugo award, is _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_. This is part of the Riverworld series, which is based on the supposition: What if everyone who ever lived were resurrected and put on a single planet? Farmer follows the adventures of Mark Twain, Hermann Goering, Lewis Carroll's real-life Alice, and above all the Victorian Sir Richard Burton. Burton was a polyglot who explored the peoples and languages of the upper Nile, who penetrated Moslem areas disguised as an Arab, and who translated the 1001 Nights and other Near Eastern erotica... In Farmer's series, Esperanto quickly becomes the lingua franca of Riverworld. Farmer has a fondness for puns, which reaches a height in his joycean story "Riders of the Purple Wage". This story has been reprinted in several places, including, I believe, _The Classic Philip Jose Farmer_ and the justly titled _The Purple Book_. In my opinion, Farmer is at his best in the collection _Strange Relations_ and in the novel _The Lovers_. Finally, I should note that _Venus on the Half Shell_, written under the pseudonym "Kilgore Trout", is not really by Kurt Vonnegut, as many believe; it is by Farmer. __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 23:12:09 EST From: Ralf Thiede Subject: Linguistic Novels In response to Lee Hartman, who mentioned _Babel 17_ but couldn't remem- ber the exact reference: Delany, S. R. 1967. Babel 17. London: Gollancz. I found the reference in Neil Smith's _The Twitter Machine: Reflections on Language_ (Blackwell 1989) pp. 24, 36. [I checked it out and was un- derwhelmed, by the way]. In a footnote on pp. 36-37, Smith makes ment- ion of other novels "which deal interestingly, if not always very real- istically, with problems of language and linguistics": Elgin, S. H. 1984. Native Tongue. New York: DAW Books. Golding, W. 1955. The Inheritors. London: Faber. Vance, J. 1974. The Languages of Pao. St. Albans: Mayflower. Watson, I. 1975. The Embedding. London: Quartet Books. Ralf Thiede UNCC Dept. of English __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 18:30:15 -1000 From: Phil Bralich Subject: Linguistics in titles. Some readers might remember the last cut on the second side of one of the "Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Blues Band" albums called "Labio-dental" fricative. It was nothing more than two minutes of hissing, but it was a title on an album. Phil Bralich __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-469. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-470. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 169 Subject: Professeure/470 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 19:41 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Queries 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 20:54:34 CDT From: GA3704%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: professeure 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 16:02:01 EST From: bert peeters Subject: professeure 4) Date: Thu, 05 Sep 91 08:06:47 HAE From: Patrick Drouin Subject: Re: Queries 5) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 20:35 EDT From: TELLIERC@CC.UMontreal.CA Subject: Re: Queries -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 19:41 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Queries to Koenraad de Smedt: "FORCED into existence by equal opportunity pressures"? Really now! I was unaware of the use of 'professeure' but it sounds to me like a good idea. Do you really feel you and others are being forced? If so you must be resisting. Thus pressure had better be brought. And I am not one who thinks language is sexist or that changing language can eradicate sexism -- language just reflects the sexism in society but using a word like 'professeure' can help raise consciousness a little. Then we wouldn't have PROFESSEURS saying things like "We will hire anyone regardless of his sex" which was actually said by a Chair (who of course happened to be a Chairman) at UCLA at a meeting on affirmative action. Vicki Fromkin __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 20:54:34 CDT From: GA3704%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: professeure I too noticed this feminine form yesterday on the job announcement. I tried it out on a native (continental) French speaker in class today - it was new to her too. Note that the ad came from Univer- site' Laval in Canada: different neologisms. I *have* seen `la professeur' in L'Express, the French (of France) news magazine, and have read various articles on the problems with higher-level professional terms. Even Grevisse (of _Bon Usage_ fame - THE prescriptive Bible of French) wrote a couple of short papers which appear in his _Proble`mes de langage_ in the 1950s about such matters - he points out, for example, that la me`decine cannot be a female physician since it is the name of the discipline and may even consider le/la professeur somewhere in there. Margaret Winters Southern Illinois University __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 16:02:01 EST From: bert peeters Subject: professeure > Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 13:54 MET > From: Koenraad De Smedt > Subject: professeure > > In a recent job advertisement, we read: > > > Le Departement de langues et linguistique ouvre un concours pour un poste de > > professeur ou de professeure en lexicographie. Le poste devra etre pourvu > > le 1er juin 1992. > > I always thought 'professeur' covers both male and female. Indeed, my > French dictionary does not contain 'professeure'. Has this word existed > long or is it relatively new? Or was it forced into existence by equal > opportunities pressure? *Professeure* is Canadian French (the quote provided by Koenraad is part of a job advertisement issued by a Canadian university). There is a strong movement in Quebec to create new feminines where in standard (= French) French one term is used for both males and females. No wonder it is not in Koenraad's dictionary - you would have to consult a Canadian French dictionary to find it. I'm not really sure how recent this tendency is. It was already well established when I spent a fortnight at Laval in 1983 (at least one paper presented at the conference which I attended actually dealt with these new "Canadian feminines"). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Thu, 05 Sep 91 08:06:47 HAE From: Patrick Drouin Subject: Re: Queries The word "professeure" has been used here in Que'bec for about 5 ou 6 years. I don't know where it's origin are exactly but I would suspect that the Office de la langue franc,aise has something to do with it. The OLF has been working actively in this field in the last few years as did the Universite' du Que'bec a Montr'eal (UQAM). However, the OLF and the UQAM did not start the whole feminization movement since it has been in preparation in the general public, here in Que'bec, for quite a while. The job offer I posted was transmitted to me from the De'partement de langues et linguistique so I believe that they must use a terminology which is widely accepted on campus. I know that the SPUL (the prof's union here at Laval) also uses the combination "professeur/e" in its documents. The ending in "eure" is due to the fact that endings in "euse" usually reflect (at least here in Que'bec) a blue-collar work situation while endings in "eure" are usually linked to white-collar work situation. These are just my quick reflections on the subject and may not reflect the ideas of the De'partement de langues et linguistique de L'Universite' Laval where the job offer was written. Patrick Drouin __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 20:35 EDT From: TELLIERC@CC.UMontreal.CA Subject: Re: Queries In response to a query by Koenraad de Smedt re: professeure "Professeur" still covers both male and female in France,though not in Quebec since the advent of the -eure forms: commonly in use in the academic circles are "professeure", "auteure", and I have also seen "directeure". This is fairly recent, and stems from a will to break the subtle but nonetheless real semantic shift which up to now went along with the feminisation of a term: for instance,, "directeur" could denote the head of an important firm, but "direc- trice" sounds distinctly less prestigious, and mostly evokes the direction of a high school. It is hoped that the systematic use of the (new) feminine forms, especially when relatively presti- gious jobs are involved, will neutralize these distinctions. The question of course remains as to what to do with words such as "medecin", "chef d'Etat", "prefet". - Christine Tellier __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-470. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-471. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 145 Subject: Sound-Change/471 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:46:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Sound-Change 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 15:54:20 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Lexical diffusion 3) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 15:14 EET From: MANYMAN%FINUHA.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Teleology of Sound Change -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:46:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Sound-Change On "natural" sound change: Any discussion of this topic would I think have to account for the fact that there are isolated languages like Hawaiian in which you have almost all open syllables (e.g. the name of a fish, humuhumunukunukuapua, if I remember correctly). Japanese comes pretty close, too. Aren't these much easier for a random foreigner to pronounce properly than languages like English and Russian? If so, they would appear to be more "natural" in a universal sense. It is also worth noting that the more cosmopolitan languages (the ones with armies and navies) tend to borrow foreign words and blend adjacent dialects to a considerable extent (radicalism of the center), so the "standards" we study are always being rendered more complex, creating numerous counterexamples to "ease of articulation" that may be no more than apparent counterexamples. -- Rick Russom __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 15:54:20 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Lexical diffusion > Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 01:11 +8 > From: Tom Lai > Subject: Sound change by lexical diffusion > > Joe Stemberger is talking about lexical diffusion. It will be some > time before I can come up with something like a bibliography. Can > somebody out there help with this? One paper that comes to mind was published in 1987 in *La linguistique*. It is by David S. Fagan, and its title is "On profiles in lexical diffusion" (La linguistique 23:2, 1987, pp. 47 sqq). See also the brief introduction by Andre' Martinet (pp. 43-46) titled "Notes sur les 'changements phone'tiques'". --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 15:14 EET From: MANYMAN%FINUHA.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Teleology of Sound Change > Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:24:23 EST > From: bert peeters > Subject: Sound-Change and Teleology > > (...) It is actually very often > possible to think of easier pronunciations than the ones that currently > prevail in a language. Yet these easier pronunciations do not necessarily > come about because the way in which we speak is not too bad after all (that > is, we can cope with our languages as they are). Yes. Sound change isn't predictable. It is only after the Latin change -nct- > -nt- took place that we can see that the -nct- sequence was too hard, given the human inertia (and other factors). > But at times, there will > be a quite general feeling that such or such a pronunciation is really > "not easy enough" (or in other words, is too hard). That is the beginning > of a sound change, and it's got to be explained not in terms of the result > but in terms of the origin. I agree that sound change must be explained "in terms of origin" (though this isn't enough). However, that doesn't preclude teleological explanation. > Hence, the gist of Martinet's principle of > economy is not that it is a disguised form of teleology. In 1949, Martinet wrote: "Puisque ... on parle pour se faire comprendre, les de'viations accidentelles, ine'vitables, auront des changes d'e^tre e'limine'es si elles tendent a` empe^cher la compre'hension mutuelle, puisque le locuteur devra se corriger s'il veut atteindre son but" (quoted from B.Peeters, La Linguistique 19, 1983, 114). This may be a rare bird, but scarcely a lapsus. In Folia Linguistica (20, 1983, p.540), Peeters quotes Martinet's dictum "les langues changent parce qu'elles fonctionnent", adding by way of a comment: "c.a`.d. servent a` la communication". Isn't Martinet represented as a crypto- teleologist here? He didn't write "les langues changent pour fonctionner". Why? Enough cavilling! Peeters (Folia Linguistica 1986, p.539) objects to Josef Vachek's statement that Martinet endorses the view that 'function' presupposes a teleological approach. Whereas Vachek may be wrong with respect to Martinet, he is obviously right in metatheory. Functional explanation consists in relating a set of functions to some goal(s). A function (qua possible action) gets its meaning or raison d'e^tre from the goal. Martinet's and Peeters's reason for rejecting teleology is this: "Si vraiment il y avait te'le'ologie dans l'e'volution des langues, la plupart d'elles ne pre'senteraient pas, dans leur version standard, la relative stabilite' dont elles font actuellement preuve" (Peeters, Fo.Ling., p.540). So, teleology is supposed to bring forth phonetic anarchy. This fallacy is probably due to Martinet's autonomist conception of phonological systems. If phonology is looked upon as a sub-system interacting with other grammatical sub-systems (morphology, syntax, ..), nothing of this ilk will happen. That language is neither anarchically nor ideally organized is due to the interplay between sub-systems. The Lautgesetz-Analogie approach is basically sound, though the Neogrammarians lacked the systems theoretical framework. Whereas I'm not calling into question the "eternally unstable balance" between the human inertia and man's communicative needs (= Martinet's principle of economy) as a condition of sound change, I think that isn't enough, as it doesn't pay regard for the interplay between sound change and other types of change. Martti Nyman (Univ of Helsinki, Finland) __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-471. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-472. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 165 Subject: Queries /2-472 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:47:53 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Re: Queries 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 09:55:05 +0800 From: onghiok%LIB.nthu.edu.tw@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (H.Samual Wang (035)715131-4398) Subject: Query 3) Date: 3 Sep 91 23:43:00 EST From: "STEVE SEEGMILLER" Subject: Query 4) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:43:30 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: what to do next! 5) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 23:06:21 EDT From: Scott Horne Subject: "Cyrillic languages"? 6) Date: 4 Sep 91 11:21 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Software 7) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 20:46:12 PDT From: ctlntt@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 8) Date: Thu, 05 Sep 91 12:06:20 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Discourse Analysis -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:47:53 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Re: Queries In Discourse analysis Birmingham UK style - when is a response an R move or an F move. eg I (el) Can we move on to the next point R/F yes of course Is the granting of permissin here a sort of feedback/ follow up or is it response move. This ought to be basic but the categories are not clear cut I find. Is ayone else out there usng Disc Analysis - or any more rigorous system than conversation analysis Looking forward to a response! john __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 09:55:05 +0800 From: onghiok%LIB.nthu.edu.tw@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (H.Samual Wang (035)715131-4398) Subject: Query Does anyone know Michael Dobrovolsky's e-mail address? Sam Wang onghiok@ling.nthu.edu.tw __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: 3 Sep 91 23:43:00 EST From: "STEVE SEEGMILLER" Subject: Query Does anyone out there have a current e-mail address for Cathy Ball, newly of Georgetown U.? I have only her old address. Thanks. Steve Seegmiller __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:43:30 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: what to do next! I'm looking for linguisitc chat for contacts interested in discourse analysis - especially of professional small group talk Thanks. John __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 23:06:21 EDT From: Scott Horne Subject: "Cyrillic languages"? > and several other Semitic and Cyrillic languages. What, pray, are "Cyrillic languages"? --Scott __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: 4 Sep 91 11:21 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Software A question for David Denison: Please define "curate's-eggy" for your American readers. Thanks, Paul Chapin __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 20:46:12 PDT From: ctlntt@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 Actually, what follows is a by-product of the abundant literature generated by queries on Linguistic novels, etc. Throughout the replies and commentaries there is a recurring way of referring to authors or characters as "X is a linguist" or "X is not really a linguist". I wonder if anyone would care to share their thoughts about what, in this day and age, constitutes "a linguist", and how one can tell a linguist form a non-linguist. (I meant "from" not "form"). Milton Azevedo ctlntt@violet.berkeley.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 8) Date: Thu, 05 Sep 91 12:06:20 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Discourse Analysis Is anyone out there into D.A especially of professional group talk? Do you have coding problems? Or like me problems in general I'd like tohear from yo john wheatley __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-472. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-473. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 112 Subject: Responses /2-473 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 14:21:35 BST From: Julian Bradfield Subject: "Just in case" 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:44:30 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Flaming and Colorless Green Ideas 3) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 11:46:46 EDT From: Richard.W.Bailey@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Responses: reflexives, standard language, dialect 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 12:00 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 14:21:35 BST From: Julian Bradfield Subject: "Just in case" I was interested in this query, since one of my ex-supervisor's idiosyncrasies is the use of "just in case" to mean "iff". He's a computer scientist, formerly a philosopher, and says he picked the usage up from Dummett. Perhaps Dummett is the originator? __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:44:30 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Flaming and Colorless Green Ideas Possibly redundant historical note: A poem by John Hollander published in *The Night Reader* (Atheneum 1971) en- titled 'Coiled Alizarine' goes as follows: Curiously deep, the slumber of crimson thoughts: While breathelss, in stodgy viridian, Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. This poem appears as an epigraph to *On Noam Chomsky, Critical Essays* edited by Gilbert Harman (Anchor Books, 1974) and it bears a dedication to Chomsky. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 11:46:46 EDT From: Richard.W.Bailey@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Responses: reflexives, standard language, dialect In re: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Herbert Paper told me that he had heard this analogy from Weinrich (the father). I searched briefly but unsuccessfully for it in his history of Yiddish. His son Gabriel (the physicist) told me it sounded like something his father would say but he had no specific recollection of it. __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 12:00 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE Yes, Quebec is more concerned with fairness in titles than France is. This is a most interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon since it shows that culture as much as language is at issue. The French still argue that titles cannot be changed -- while the Quebecers have long since done it. Just read the job section of a Quebec newspaper like LA PRESSE to see the many different solutions to the definitely difficult issue of gender and sex in French. For scholarly and semi-scholarly references on this topic see: Andre Martin & Henriette Dupuis La feminisation des titres et les leaders d'opinion... Gouvernement du Quebec, 1985 Office de la langue francaise Titres et fonctions au feminin: essai d'orientation de l'usage Gouvernement du Quebec, 1986 "Titres et fonctions au feminin" [journal entitled] La francisation en marche, vol. 5, no. 5 October 1986 [Office de la langue francaise, 800 place Victoria, Montreal H4Z 1G8] I need hardly point out that French newspapers all call French Prime Minister Edith Cresson, "Madame LE ministre". Michel Grimaud P.S. I'm French, not from Quebec... so this message is _not_ pro domo... __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-473. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-474. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 113 Subject: Linguistics in Literature /2-474 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 17:51 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 23:12:07 CDT From: txsil!dale@utafll.uta.edu (Dale Savage) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 3) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1991 08:09 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE%BSUVAX1.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu> Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 4) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:00:41 +0100 From: Richard Coates Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 17:51 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 Reply to Larry Hutchinson: 'A Masculine Ending' by Joan Smith does not include a conference similar to LSA, but a meeting of feminists in Paris who argue about whether to delete all gender endings from French nouns so as to do away with the generic masculine form. The group is small and mainly composed of English Lit academics who do splilt between the radical faction and the less radical faction who do not think that the proposal will do much to broaden the 'movement' and win over new adherents to the feminist struggle. But thanks for mentioning it. Joan Smith is not bad -- and the book does have linguistic aspects (but not many). Vicki Fromkin __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 23:12:07 CDT From: txsil!dale@utafll.uta.edu (Dale Savage) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 In reply to Peter Salus: Bickerton, Derek. 1979. King of the Sea. NY: Random House. (Paperback edition: 1981. NY: Berkley Books). >From the inside cover: I had one card left to play. I played it. "I have a confession to make," I said. "Yes?" "I lied to you. The reports on my research. They're pure bullsh*t. What actually happened was, the stenos have a language...and I'm learning it!" KING OF THE SEA A young researcher becomes the ultimate outlaw when he sides with the dolphins against nature's worst enemy...man! So much for the teaser. Though I didn't particularly like the book, Bickerton's background as a creolist allows for some enjoyable spots in regard to both the dolphin/language connection, and the portrayal of Hawaiian Pidgin English. Dale Savage __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1991 08:09 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE%BSUVAX1.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu> Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 Another language and culture wrinkle in a science fiction novel: John Boyd's _The Rakehells of Heaven_ is a wonderfully satirical novel about a future in which North America has become a theocracy. NASA has become its mission program, and two young cadets are sent off to explore a newly discovered planet, one of them a "smart Alabama Baptist" and the other an "atavistic Irish Catholic." They work on the language and culture and learn that the civilization has the social structure of a loose confederation of underground universities. The closest word they can find to "God" actually means "the dean," who turns out to be a computer operated by a janitor named Bobo. The novel ends in a delicious parody of a crucifixion scene. Herb Stahlke Ball State University __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:00:41 +0100 From: Richard Coates Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 Further to my note on Dr Syntax, just in case anyone wished to pursue it: the original narrative poem was by W. Combe, and it was edited for publication by J.C. Hotten under his own imprint in 1868. Richard Coates __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-474. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-475. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 177 Subject: Linguistics in Literature: Final Posting /2-475 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 14:57:57 CDT From: birner@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Betty Birner) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:25:17 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles 3) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 17:18:35 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Linguist Novels, Films, TV 4) Date: Fri, 06 Sep 91 00:16:37 CDT From: GA5123%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Linguists in film 5) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 08:55:28 -0600 From: clifford%clipr.colorado.edu%psych.colorado.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Joe Clifford) Subject: Linguistics in film 6) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 09:54 MST From: WDEREUSE@ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 7) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 16:54:26 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Linguists and linguistics in literature -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 14:57:57 CDT From: birner@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Betty Birner) Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 I don't recall whether anybody has already mentioned this, but there is a 1988 book by Milorad Pavic entitled "Dictionary of the Khazars: a Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words." I haven't read it, but apparently it is a novel in dictionary form. It was published in two forms, labeled "male" and "female", which are said to be identical except for, I think, 17 crucial lines. Betty Birner __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 16:25:17 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Linguistic Terms in Titles Nancy Dray alludes briefly in a recent posting to a film called 'Ball of Fire'. It's been a while since I've seen it but here are the particulars I recall. The movie stars Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, as respectively an English professor and a ganster's moll. Gary Cooper is Professor Potts, one of a group of academics quartered in a New York brownstone researching a new encyclopedia. He is writing the entry on slang and decides to go to a nightclub to learn some. There he meets the Barbara Stanwyck character (I forget her name in the film), she being a singer there and also the girlfriend of a bad guy on the lam from the law. Anyway, because she knows where her boyfriend is, the police are also after her so she decides to hide out in the brownstone with Professor Potts and his funny, eccentric fellow professors. And of course they fall in love, totally inappropriately etc. It's a Hollywood formula product but, taken on its own terms, wonderful. The other professors are played by a whole stable of character actors the best known of which is Oscar Homolka. One of the funniest scenes comes toward the end when Professor Potts has to engage in fisticuffs with the bad guys. I'll give it three and a half stars. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 17:18:35 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Linguist Novels, Films, TV How could we have forgotten this one? George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion', and the musical it spawned, 'My Fair Lady' (of which there is a film version for which, if I am not mistaken, Peter Ladefoged served as a technical consultant -- Peter can verify or refute this piece of alleged information). The character of Henry Higgins is supposed to be based on Henry Sweet. And while we might not want to condone the blatant prescriptivism that constitutes the essential plot gimmick, the Higgins character is intended to be a serious phonetician. Come to think of it, there's a movie version of 'Pygmalion' too, with Leslie Howard as Higgins. The set for his living room includes some recording equipment obviously connected with his professional work. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Fri, 06 Sep 91 00:16:37 CDT From: GA5123%SIUCVMB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Linguists in film One informant reminds me that the film "A Thousand Clowns" has a child character who identifies dialects ("Upper East Side, but you spent a couple of years in Chicago"). Also -- I was gratified to see the citation of "The Forbidden Planet" and its philologist character (I'm sorry, I didn't record the name of the contributor). I respectfully beg to add that Dr. Morbius, played by Walter Pigeon in this 1956 classic, was far more than just "one of the characters": he was the one who "forbade" the Planet. His background as a philologist -- far from being insignificant -- was what enabled him to read the hieroglyphics of the ancient Krel civilization and thus to recover and exploit their secrets. There was also a paperback book, post-production I think. ----------------------------------- Lee Hartman, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, ga5123@siucvmb.bitnet __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 08:55:28 -0600 From: clifford%clipr.colorado.edu%psych.colorado.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Joe Clifford) Subject: Linguistics in film Forgive me if this one was mentioned; I have missed a few newsletters. There was a Polish movie called _Camouflage_ which passed some years back at the local art house. As I remember, it was rather political and all the action took place at a week long linguistics conference on an island. __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 09:54 MST From: WDEREUSE@ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Re: Linguistic Novels, Films/467 To Peter H. Salus The novel by Derek Bickerton is King of the Sea. A Berkley Book/published by arrangment with Random House. 1979. ISBN 0-425-04846-2. 199 pp. $2.50, paperback. In addition to the topic of dolphin language, there's also a bit of Hawaiian Creole English in it. Willem J. de Reuse __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 16:54:26 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Linguists and linguistics in literature I am told by Ken Anderson, a graduate student here, that there is a short story by Henry Kuttner called 'Nothing but Gingerbread Left' which tells how linguists won the Second World War. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-475. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-476. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 100 Subject: FYI: Language vs Dialect, Software /2-476 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 08:33:12 CST From: txsil!huttar@dallas%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: language & dialect: thanks! 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 10:22:25 GMT+0400 From: LARSSON%sjclus.tele.nokia.fi@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Arne Larsson tel 358-0-5117476 fax Subject: Linguistic Software: GULP -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 08:33:12 CST From: txsil!huttar@dallas%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: language & dialect: thanks! The trickle of replies about the origin of "a language is a dialect with its own army and navy" seems to have stopped now, so I'll thank you all for your interesting range of responses. To summarize for those interested, and for those who compulsively read everything in LINGUIST: replies via LINGUIST or direct to me came up with Bill Welmers, Roman Jakobson via Paul Kiparsky, Otto Jespersen, and Max Weinreich. Weinreich got two mentions, but both derive from the same source, _The Native Speaker is Dead_; the reference there to MW's originating that aphorism sounds about as solidly based on hearsay and unexamined memory as the other replies. Dissertation on the rise and spread of ((meta)socio)linguistic myths, anyone? Thanks again. George Huttar __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 10:22:25 GMT+0400 From: LARSSON%sjclus.tele.nokia.fi@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Arne Larsson tel 358-0-5117476 fax Subject: Linguistic Software: GULP Dr. Michael Covington has kindly provided the following information concerning his Prolog tool for graph unification in logic programming. I think it's useful to know about for my colleagues, who are joining the Linguist Discussion Network. Best regards, Arne Larsson This is Dr. Covinton's answer: Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:15:13 EDT From: Michael Covington Subject: Re: Linguistic software To: Arne Larsson tel 358-0-5117476 fax 358-0-51044287 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 29 Aug 1991 10:37:04 GMT+0400 On Thu, 29 Aug 1991 10:37:04 GMT+0400 you said: > > I have your list of AI reports, revised 10 September 1990, > which also mentions Prolog software. > > Among those programs, at least GULP would be widely > useful in the linguistic community. Is it available for > downloading using anonymous FTP? Yes. Connect to aisun1.ai.uga.edu and get the file 'README' for further information. I don't remember the file name for GULP; I think it is in directory ai.natural.language. > If not, what is the > cost for the diskette distribution? ($15 was quoted on > the 1990 list I'm referring to, but prices may changes...) > That's still correct. But FTP is easier and cheaper. Best regards, Michael Covington ------------------------------------------------------------- - Michael A. Covington internet mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu - - Artificial Intelligence Programs bitnet MCOVINGT@UGA - - Graduate Studies Research Center phone 404 542-0359 - - The University of Georgia fax 404 542-0349 - - Athens, Georgia 30602 bix, mci mail MCOVINGTON - - U.S.A. packet radio N4TMI@WB4BSG - ------------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-476. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-477. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 95 Subject: FYI: Software, Pragmatics /2-477 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:47:57 -0500 From: david%snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Language Learning Programs 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 07:59:18 EST From: ipra%ccu.UIA.AC.BE%CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: International Pragmatics Conference -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 10:47:57 -0500 From: david%snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: Language Learning Programs This is in reply to an earlier query regarding language learning programs. There are two which I know of: "Around the Room" (Not sure about that name) Developed by John Mitterer and others of the Brock University Multi-Media Lab. I believe that there was some later packages that they were working on to do with language learning. This package was developed for the Macintosh. Contact: pfmitterer@brocku.ca (John Mitterer) "The Reading Assistant" Developed by Dario Giuse of Carnegie Mellon University This package runs on the NeXT platform. Contact: dzg@cs.cmu.edu -David Leip. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | David Leip University of Guelph | | david@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca Computing & Information Science | | (519) 824-4120 ext.3709 Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 07:59:18 EST From: ipra%ccu.UIA.AC.BE%CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Subject: International Pragmatics Conference information on: INTERNATIONAL PRAGMATICS ASSOCIATION (IPrA) IPrA Secretariat, P.O. Box 33, B-2018 Antwerp 11, Belgium Tel. + fax: +32 3 230 55 74. E-mail: ipra@ccu.uia.ac.be IPrA Research Center (IRC), University of Antwerp, Linguistics (GER) Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium Tel.: +32 3 820 27 73. Fax: +32 3 820 22 44. E-mail: ipra@ccu.uia.ac.be The INTERNATIONAL PRAGMATICS ASSOCIATION (IPrA) was established in 1986 to represent the field of pragmatics in its widest sense as a functional (i.e. cognitive, social, and cultural) perspective on language and communication. In particular, it pursues the following goals: 1. the search for a coherent general framework for the discussion and comparison of results of the fundamental research, in various disciplines, carried out by those dealing with aspects of language use or the functionality of language; 2. the stimulation of various fields of application (such as language teaching, the study of problems of intercultural and international communication, the treatment of patients with language disorders, the development of computer communication systems, etc.); 3. the dissemination of knowledge about pragmatic aspects of language, not only among pragmaticians of various 'denominations' and students of language in general, but in principle among everyone who, personally or professionally, could benefit from more insight into problems of language use. The Association's research and documentation activities are coordinated by the IPrA Research Center (IRC). [Moderators' note: additional information relevant to this posting is available on the server. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au The message should consist of the single line: get ipra You will then receive all the information available.] __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-477. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-478. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 288 Subject: Calls for Papers /2-478 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 11:59:11 -0700 From: edwards%cogsci.Berkeley.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Jane Edwards) Subject: Conference on Linguistic Rules 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 09:02 EDT From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" Subject: ALLC/ACH '92: Call For Papers -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 11:59:11 -0700 From: edwards%cogsci.Berkeley.EDU@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Jane Edwards) Subject: Conference on Linguistic Rules ************************************************************************* INFO-PSYLING -- September 6, 1991 Please do not use the reply function, but instead respond to -info-psyling@andrew.cmu.edu NSFNet/Internet or -info-psyling@andrew BITNET ************************************************************************* From: Gregory K. Iverson CALL FOR PAPERS 21st Annual University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Linguistics Symposium April 10-12, 1992 THE REALITY OF LINGUISTIC RULES Invited Speakers: John DuBois, University of California, Santa Barbara Janet Dean Fodor, City University of New York John Goldsmith, University of Chicago William Labov, University of Pennsylvania Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University Steven Pinker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This conference will address the question of the nature--in fact the existence--of linguistic rules. Are such rules best seen simply as convenient tools for the description of languages, or are they actually invoked, as a guide to performance, by individual language users? We anticipate that this issue can be addressed from a number of linguistic, psychological, and philosophical perspectives, including, but not restricted to, the following: --Does knowledge of language consist of mentally represented rules? --Are such rules categorical or variable? --What sorts of evidence can be taken to indicate the presence of a linguistic rule? What is the relevance in this connection of historical change and language variation? --Do rules inhere in the individual, the speech community, the species? --To what extent can linguistic rules be distinguished from strategies motivated by the pressures of situated language use? --What types of representation are necessary in order to characterize phonological or syntactic patterns? Are the principles involved significantly different in the two cases? --To what extent can linguistic rules be eliminated in favor of constraint satisfaction? Is there evidence for the mental representation of such constraints? --What is the nature of the child's innate equipment for language learning--a set of unmarked parameters, a specifically linguistic rule-based architecture, or some other more general cognitive architecture? How is this equipment modified as the child learns a specific language? --If children come equipped with linguistic rules, how do they adjust these rules and symbolic representations in the course of language development? --If children do not use linguistic rules, what learning algorithms can be used to describe developmental changes in language? --Is linguistic processing best characterized as modular or interactive? --What is the proper role of connectionism in modeling language comprehension and production? --Do parallel distributed processing networks eliminate the need for linguistic rules? --What changes in formal language theory does adoption of a non-rule based architecture require? Papers will be twenty minutes long, and it is anticipated that a selection of them will be published. Send ten copies of a camera-ready, anonymous abstract (one typed page, with figures and references allowed on a second page) along with a 3"x5" card containing the title of your paper, your name, address, and institutional affiliation, to: Pamela Downing Department of English P.O. Box 413 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53201 Deadline for receipt of abstracts: Friday, November 1, 1991 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 09:02 EDT From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" Subject: ALLC/ACH '92: Call For Papers ASSOCIATION FOR LITERARY AND LINGUISTIC COMPUTING ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES 1992 JOINT CONFERENCE ALLC-ACH92 5-9 April 1992 Christ Church, Oxford, England CALL FOR PAPERS This conference is the major annual forum for literary, linguistic and humanities computing. Its focus is on the development of new computing methodologies for research and teaching in the humanities, on the development of significant new materials and tools for humanities research, and on the application and evaluation of computing techniques in humanities subjects. TOPICS: Submissions are invited on all areas of literary, linguistic and humanities computing, including, but not limited to: text encoding; hypertext; text corpora; computational lexicography; statistical models; syntactic, semantic and other forms of text analysis; also computer applications in history, philosophy, music and other humanities disciplines. The deadline for submissions is 1 OCTOBER 1991. Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged. Please pay particular attention to the format given below. Submissions which do not conform to this format will be returned to the authors for reformatting, or may not be considered if they arrive very close to the deadline. REQUIREMENTS: Proposals should describe substantial and original work. Those which concentrate on the development of new computing methodologies should make clear how the methodologies are applied to research and/or teaching in the humanities, and should include some critical assessment of the application of those methodologies in the humanities. Those which concentrate on a particular application in the humanities (e.g. a study of the style of an author) should cite traditional as well as computer-based approaches to the problem and should include some critical assessment of the computing methodologies used. All proposals should include conclusions and references to important previous related work. INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Abstracts for individual papers should be 1500-2000 words in length. Thirty minutes will normally be allowed for the presentation of each paper including questions. SESSIONS: Proposals for sessions (90 minutes) are also invited. These should take the form of either: (a) Three papers. The proposer of the session should submit a statement of approximately 500 words describing the topic of the session. Abstracts of 1000-1500 words should be submitted for each of the papers, together with an indication that the author of each paper is willing to participate in the session. or (b) A panel of up to 6 speakers. The proposer of the panel should submit an abstract of 1500 words describing the topic of the panel and how it will be organized, together with the names of all the speakers, and an indication that each of the speakers is willing to participate in the session. FORMAT OF SUBMISSIONS All submissions should begin with the following information: TITLE: title of paper AUTHOR(S): names of authors AFFILIATION: of author(s) CONTACT ADDRESS: full postal address E-MAIL: electronic mail address of main author (for contact), followed by other authors (if any) FAX NUMBER: of main author PHONE NUMBER: of main author (1) Electronic submissions These should be plain ASCII files, not wordprocessor files, and should not contain TAB characters or soft hyphens. Paragraphs should be separated by blank lines. Headings and subheadings should be on separate lines and be numbered. Footnotes should not be included and endnotes only where absolutely necessary. References should be given at the end. Choose a simple markup scheme for accents and other characters which cannot be transmitted by electronic mail and include an explanation of the scheme after the title information and before the start of the text. Electronic submissions should be sent to ALLCACH@VAX.OX.AC.UK with the subject line " Submission for ALLCACH92". If diagrams are necessary for the evaluation of electronic submissions, they should be faxed to 44-865-273275 (international, or 0865-273275 (from within UK) and a note to indicate the presence of diagrams put at the beginning of the abstract. (2) Paper submissions Submissions should be typed or printed on one side of the paper only, with ample margins. Six copies should be sent to ALLC-ACH92 (Paper submission) Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England DEADLINES Proposals for papers and sessions 1 October 1991 Notification of acceptance 15 December 1991 Advance registration 8 February 1992 There will be a substantial increase in the registration fee for registrations received after 8 February 1992. PUBLICATION A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published in the series Research in Humanities Computing edited by Susan Hockey and Nancy Ide and published by Oxford University Press. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Proposals will be evaluated by panel of reviewers who will make recommendations to the Programme Committee which consists of: Chair: Thomas Corns, University of Wales (ALLC) Gordon Dixon, Manchester Polytechnic (ALLC) Paul Fortier, University of Manitoba (ACH) Jacqueline Hamesse, Universite Catholique Louvain-la-Neuve (ALLC) Nancy Ide, Vassar College (ACH) Randall Jones, Brigham Young University (ACH) Donald Ross, University of Minnesota (ACH) Antonio Zampolli, University of Pisa (ALLC) Local organiser: Susan Hockey, Oxford University (ALLC) ACCOMMODATION Accommodation has been reserved for the conference in Christ Church which is one of Oxford University's oldest and best-known colleges. It is situated in the centre of the city, but overlooks Christ Church Meadow and the River Thames. The conference will run from dinner on Sunday 5 April until lunch on Thursday 9 April. There will be a banquet in Christ Church's Tudor hall on the evening of 8 April. LOCATION Oxford is an hour from London and from Heathrow Airport and is also close to Stratford-on-Avon and the Cotswolds, a beautiful area of English countryside. There is a frequent bus service from Heathrow to Oxford and good transport arrangements from Gatwick airport. ENQUIRIES Please address all enquiries to ALLC-ACH92 Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England Telephone: 44-865-273200 or (from within UK) 0865-273200 Fax: 44-865-273275 or (from within UK) 0865-273275 E-mail: ALLCACH@VAX.OX.AC.UK Please make sure that you give your name, full mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address with any enquiry. Linguist List: Vol-2-478. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-479. Sun 08 Sep 1991. Lines: 118 Subject: Australian Modern Language Teachers Ass: Conference /2-479 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 09:31:17 +1000 From: dbadmin%lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Database Admistrator) Subject: Australian Modern Language Teachers Association -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1991 09:31:17 +1000 From: dbadmin%lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Database Admistrator) Subject: Australian Modern Language Teachers Association THE NINTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE Of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers' Associations (AFMLTA) Inc. TOWARDS LANGUAGE EXCELLENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS AND WORKSHOP OUTLINES 6 - 9 July 1992, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia To be held at the Beaufort Hotel Much progress has been made in the field of language studies in Australia during recent years. Moves towards common national goals in education have drawn states and territories together to discuss and make decisions about language related issues and to share resources. Languages and language learning are increasingly featured on the political, social and economic agendas in Australiatoday. Nevertheless it is not yet true to say that as a nation we prize mastery in languages. The Conference aims to further recent developments in language learning and to reinforce the current momentum of support for languages in education, government, business and the general community. It will provide a forum for those who have interests in the field of languages to explore the issue of language excellence for australia, for example: * What does it mean to strive for language excellence - both for the individual & the nation? * What are the consequences for not doing so? * What progress has been made? * How and where should we be directing our efforts in the future? * How can Australia be more active in a multilingual world? * What level of language skills is required by business & trade? The Conference will focus on the 4 social goals in the National Policy on Languages (J. Lo Bianco 1987): Enrichment (cultural and intellectual) Language learning enhances the quality of cultural and intellectual life in general. It develops the capacity to think clearly and divergently and increases mental flexibility; it further develops knowledge & skills in one's own language; it provides access to cultural, familial, social & economic networks. Economics (vocational and trade) Australia's trading efforts depend on the availability of highly skilled language speakers. Australia needs to place greater emphasis on development of quality language courses and training of interpreters and translators. As a result vocational opportunities for Australians will increase. Equality (social justice) The development of literacy skills, access to information in one's first language & opportunities to further develop one's first language language should be the right of all Australians. External (Australia's role in the world) The learning of languges enables Australians to participate fully in regional and world affairs. The dissemination of accurate knowledge about Australia & other countries, and vice versa, enhances mutual understanding. It is to Australia's advantage that personnel placed in other countries speak the language of the local group. Plenary sessions led by experts in the field of languages will set the theme for each day, and provide the context & issues for discussion groups, workshops and seminars which will follow. Those wishing to present papers or conduct workshops or panels are invited to submit topics as soon as possible. Abstracts of papers, workshop outlines and/or proposals for panels (of about 150 words each) should be sent, to reach the Conference Secretariat by 13 December 1991. For further information please phone Anne Wait, Academic Coordinator, (089) 220-703. If you would like to be placed on the Conference mailing list to receive further information and a copy of the conference registration form, please contact: The Secretariat Ninth National Languages Conference Language Teachers Association of the NT PO Box 42446 CASUARINA NT 0811 (above taken from conference brochures) Peter White Information Services Manager NLIA/LATTICE peterw@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-479. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-480. Sat 07 Sep 1991. Lines: 89 Subject: Just In Case /2-480 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:05:50 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Announcement; Responses: in/on 2) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 11:45:48 -0400 From: Dana_Scott@PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: "Just in case" -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 12:05:50 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Announcement; Responses: in/on Re: Just in case The usage of this to mean "iff" is fairly common in philosophy; I've even seen it in intro logic texts. I consider it an aberration. I've heard it explained by one who used it as more or less short for "only if", which is also often (incorrectly in my opinion) used where "iff" should be. William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science Center for Cognitive Science Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 ||fax: (716) 636-3464 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 11:45:48 -0400 From: Dana_Scott@PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: "Just in case" I am a logician. I studied with Tarski and Mates at Berkeley and with Church at Princeton. Montague was a fellow student. I was a colleague of Suppes. I met and known in my life Russell, Carnap, Godel, Quine, Heyting, Beth, Mostowski, Kreisel, Kleene, Rosser, Robinson, Dummmett, and many, many more logicians. My impression is that none of these people would be surprised by the use of "just in case" for "if, and only if". (Someone should ask Quine, since he is very sensitive to language and terminology -- in many languages.) Here is my explanation about how this usuage came about. First, in mathematics it is quite common to say things like: "The number x solves the problem just in these cases: x < 3 or x > 7." And there might just be a single case, say, x = 0, for some problems. Here the word "case" means "particular instance," which I believe is a well accepted sense. (And, of course, the word has other meanings as well.) In more logical talk we say quite naturally, "It is the case that "All me are mortal" is true." Even in everyday speech the question, "Just what IS the case?", means clearly, "Come on, will you finally tell me what is the real truth about the matter!" So, with the usual slide between use and mention (and without bringing in quasiquotes), it does not seem difficult to understand how people would say "P, just in case Q" for "It is the case that P is true exactly when (in the particular instance that) Q is true." And this works out equivalent to "P if, and only if, Q". Is anyone convinced by this explanation? -- DANA SCOTT __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-480. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-481. Mon 09 Sep 1991. Lines: 150 Subject: 2.481 Responses: French, in case Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 7 Sep 91 12:47 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Just In Case /2-480 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 12:00 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE [corrected version] 3) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 9:38:35 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Job descriptions in French -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 7 Sep 91 12:47 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Just In Case /2-480 Dana Scott's posting probably makes this one superfluous, but I remember clearly that "just in case" ( = 'iff') was common parlance in the Harvard Philosophy Department when I was a grad student there in 1960/61, which probably puts its origin a little too early to credit to Dummett. I never thought much about it, because they talked funny in lots of other ways too. Paul Chapin __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1991 12:00 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE Yes, Quebec is more concerned with fairness in titles than France is. This is a most interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon since it shows that culture as much as language is at issue. The French still argue that titles cannot be changed -- while the Quebecers have long since done it. Just read the job section of a Quebec newspaper like LA PRESSE to see the many different solutions to the definitely difficult issue of gender and sex in French. For scholarly and semi-scholarly references on this topic see: Andre Martin & Henriette Dupuis La feminisation des titres et les leaders d'opinion... Gouvernement du Quebec, 1985 Office de la langue francaise Titres et fonctions au feminin: essai d'orientation de l'usage Gouvernement du Quebec, 1986 "Titres et fonctions au feminin" [journal entitled] La francisation en marche, vol. 5, no. 5 October 1986 [Office de la langue francaise, 800 place Victoria, Montreal H4Z 1G8] I need hardly point out that French newspapers all call French Prime Minister Edith Cresson, "Madame LE ministre". Michel Grimaud P.S. I'm French, not from Quebec... so this message is _not_ pro domo... __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 9:38:35 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Job descriptions in French > Even Grevisse (of _Bon Usage_ fame - THE > prescriptive Bible of French) wrote a couple of short papers which > appear in his _Proble`mes de langage_ in the 1950s about such > matters - he points out, for example, that la me`decine cannot be a female > physician since it is the name of the discipline and may even > consider le/la professeur somewhere in there. > > Margaret Winters > Southern Illinois University I haven't checked the _Proble`mes de langage_ (5 volumes published between 1960 and 1970) but if Grevisse really argues that _une me'decine_ cannot be a female physician since it is the name of the discipline, then (very uncharacteristically) he is wrong. It is like saying that in English _stop to do sth_ cannot mean the same thing as _stop doing sth_ because it already means _stop IN ORDER TO do sth_ (on this particular example, see Anna Wierzbicka, _The semantics of grammar_, Amsterdam: Benjamins. 1988 (chapter 1; AW refutes the above argument which had been put forward by R.M.W. Dixon). In French, the word _cafetie`re_ can be used for a female _cafetier_ (cafe'-owner), although it usually means 'coffeepot'. About the professeur/professeure case, I wrote in an earlier contribution: > I'm not really sure how recent this tendency is. It > was already well established when I spent a fortnight at Laval in 1983 (at > least one paper presented at the conference which I attended actually dealt > with these new "Canadian feminines"). Patrick Drouin, on the other hand, observed: > The word "professeure" has been used here in Que'bec for about 5 ou 6 years. Unfortunately, I discarded the hand-out distributed by Annette Paquot and Henriette Dupuis before the oral presentation of their paper at the Laval conference referred to (reference below), but I'm quite sure that the handout covered far more data (including the professeur/professeure case) than are included in the text printed in the conference proceedings. The latter doesn't mention a new feminine for the word _professeur_, but the discussion reveals that something in that area must have been said. Paquot, Annette and Dupuis, Henriette. 1984. "Aperc,u fonctionnaliste sur l'innovation lexicale dans le domaine du fe'minin des noms de profession". S.I.L.F. Actes du 10e Colloque (Pierre Martin, ed.). Quebec: Universite' Laval. Pp. 108-111. The discussion (pp. 131-136) includes a question referring to _femme professeur_ vs _professeur-femme_. Patrick Drouin again: > The job offer I posted was transmitted to me from the De'partement de langues > et linguistique so I believe that they must use a terminology which is widely > accepted on campus. I know that the SPUL (the prof's union here at Laval) also > uses the combination "professeur/e" in its documents. I would imagine that the language used in tertiary job ads and in union docum- ents is kind of official (at least in Quebec). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-481. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-482. Mon 09 Sep 1991. Lines: 222 Subject: 2.482 Just in case Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1991 20:58:46 PDT From: Geoffrey Nunberg Subject: "just in case" 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:36:59 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Just in case/468 3) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 17:28:59 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: 'just in case' 4) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:12:07 MET DST From: lachlan@let.vu.nl Subject: just in case 5) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 10:15 BST From: John Coleman Subject: RE: Just in case/468 6) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:39 From: EDMONDSONWH@vax1.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: just in case 7) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 12:01 From: EDMONDSONWH@vax1.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: just in case (again) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1991 20:58:46 PDT From: Geoffrey Nunberg Subject: "just in case" Dana Scott is characteristically ingenious in showing how the use of "just in case" to mean "iff" could have been derived by a kind of ellipsis from something like "just in this case." He demonstrates, not for the first time, how much more intellectually satisfying linguistics would be if it were a purely deductive science. The crassly empirical OED suggests another, more pedestrian origin for the phrase. It gives a sense (from c1400) for "in case" to mean simply "in the event or contingency that, if it should prove or happen that, if" with no implication of provision against an untoward outome, as in "In case one sudden chance... had not interrupted me." It is not clear when this sense became obsolete, but the OED does give two 19th-century citations for it, and it's fair to assume that Bradley or Russell would have regarded "just in case" as an unremarkable if perhaps slightly literary way of saying "just if" or "just in the event that." __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:36:59 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Just in case/468 I first ran into 'just in case' in the 'iff' sense in the late sixties, in linguistic literature -- my recollection is that I first encountered it in this sense in a paper by Jerry Fodor. I also remember being initially slightly puzzled by it but in the context it became evident what it meant and I have since incorporated it into my own usage when I write for publi- cation. I will confess to some metaperplexity here, not over the fact that people encountering the usage for the first time found it at odds with their nor- mal understanding of the phrase but by what I take to be surprise that 'just in case' COULD have 'iff' as one if its meanings. Since 'in case' is a synonym of 'if' in at least some contexts ('In case of rain I'll have an umbrella with me') and since 'just' in one of its senses means 'only' ('I'm just a simple country lawyer') why is it so surprising that 'just in case' can mean 'if and only if'? Or am I reading more into some of the comments than is warranted? Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 17:28:59 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: 'just in case' A codicil to an earlier posting re 'just in case' for 'iff'. In taking *just* in its 'only' sense, I do not in fact make a full case for *just in case* being naturally interpretable as *if and only if*. It would make more sense to allude to yet another sense of *just* on which it means *exactly* (as in 'The temperature is just right'). Between my earlier posting and this one, I read Dana Scott's analysis, which prompted me to realize that I was justifying an interpretation of *just in case* on which it shold mean *only if*. It may be coincidence that it doesn't. A sidelight: I almost zapped a Linguist volume devoted to this question be- cause the phrase wasn't in quotes. I concluded that it was concerned with contingency plans of some kind. Let's hear it for the use-mention distinction! Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:12:07 MET DST From: lachlan@let.vu.nl Subject: just in case In the Longman Guide to English Usage, s.v. case, Sidney Greenbaum et al. write that in case can mean if in American English, giving as both American and British English We'd better insure the house in case it burns downs and as purely American We'll get the insurance money in case the house burns down. Similar information is to be found in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englihsh, s.v. case. Is this right? No American non-linguist that I have consulted in a straw poll here in Amsterdam recognizes the latter usage, and to judge by the reactions on the net so far, linguists appear to regard the usage as restricted to the register of logic, mathematics, formal linguistics, etc. I wonder if the American scientific-register usage has a Germanic origin. In German Im Falle, dass (lit. In-the case that) and Im Falle + genitive can, as far as I know, have a neutral conditional sense, whereas the contingency sense of English In case it rains is usually Fuer den Fall, dass (for the case that). Similar remarks apply to Dutch, where we find in het geval dat, in het geval van and in geval van with a conditional sense, the contingency sense being expressed as voor het geval dat. Interestingly, a mistake commonly made by Dutch academics writing English is to use in case of where the sense is a neutral conditional. In a medical text, for example, a medical researcher undergoing training in writing English for publication wrote 'In case of an adverse reaction, act as follows' to mean 'If an adverse reaction occurs, act as follows'. S/he did not intend the meaning 'To avoid an adverse reaction, act as follows'. Lachlan Mackenzie, Free University, Amsterdam, Netherlands __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 10:15 BST From: John Coleman Subject: RE: Just in case/468 Geoffrey Russom's speculation that the logicians' use of "just in case" may derive from British English isn't right, I don't think. As a British English speaker, logicians' "just in case" sounds wrong to me in exactly the way being reported on by Russom, Partee, et al. In fact, the first time I came across this usage, I thought it must be American! So, who can we blame it on now? --- John Coleman __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:39 From: EDMONDSONWH@vax1.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: just in case I'm responding to Rus Russom's contribution, and more genrally, but belatedly to the in/on discussion. I am a native English speaker (as opposed to a native American speaker) and the 'just in case' to mean 'if and only if' is not, as far as I am concerned English. I have always had problems with this American usage - it interrupts my reading of anything containing it (as does 'plow' which for me rhymes with 'blow' not 'now', and unavoidably so - but that is another story). The reading which Rus offers - the taking of an umbrella just in case it rains - is English. In my view, if I encounter 'on X's view' in some text or other (which I don't recall having done - but lets assume I have poor memory) then I automatically assume that the person is illiterate/non-English. I would certainly correct it in anything for which I was given editorial responsibility. Likewise, an irritating error is creeping into English - 'on the weekend' when people mean 'at the weekend'. That's my formal response. Informally I can say it much more rudely - but I notice that the Linguist is very polite - so Ileave it to your imaginations. But there is a further interesting question. Does the meaning of these words migrate in the following sense? A given set of meanings maps onto some prepositions, and then 'creative' use of language over a period shifts the meanings to a different mapping (but doesn't change the overall semantic package). So, in the current debate, can we expect to find some other use developing for 'in'? Or, is everything drifting to a single general purpose preposition? Or, is there some profound change in the semantics whereby metaphors are leaking or whatever (after all, I wouldn't object to someone taking a stand on this issue, and we have 'standpoint' and 'viewpoint') giving us the underlying notion that a view is something to stand on (rather than sit in?). Just a thought. __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 12:01 From: EDMONDSONWH@vax1.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: just in case (again) In reply to Dana Scott's contribution. No And then again, perhaps. The problem is that the derivation offered suggests that those concerned are totally unware that 'just in case' has a strong other reading with logical significance which confuses many readers (cf the weight of opinion expressed in Linguist). Just in case I am misunderstood, my suggestion that logician's are insensitive to language is intended to be humorous. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-482. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-483. Mon 09 Sep 1991. Lines: 205 Subject: 2.483 Professeure Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:56:11 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Professeure/470 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 17:30:33 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Masculine terms applied to females 3) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:43:49 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: ProfesseurE 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:39:02 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Professeure 5) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 21:36:39 HAE From: Patrick Drouin Subject: Re: 2.481 Responses: French, in case -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:56:11 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: Professeure/470 A purely linguistic question about *professeure*: why isn't it *professeuse*, on analogy to *chanteuse*, *masseuse*, etc.? I would be interested in knowing what native French speakers in all countries where the language is spoken have to say about *doctoresse* 'female physician'. It is in my Larousse dictionary but I can remember being told by someone many years ago that it was not good French. The discussion of *professeur* brought it back to mind. An etymological question: My recollection is that it was at least once the practice in France to use *professeur* to refer to a teacher in a lyce'e. Is that still true? And if so, how does one handle talking about female teachers in such establishments? I had a year of public education in Geneva, where the word for a teacher, at least at the grade school level, was *maitre* or *maitresse* depending on sex. Is this still so? Finally: how do English speakers feel about the gender of *professor*? To me it's gender-neutral, but we have pairs like *actor/actress*; back in the days when people flew planes were called aviators (if male), the term *aviatrix* was used to describe people like Amelia Earhart. And one used to hear *authoress* from time to time. It might be interesting to take a systematic look at some of this. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 17:30:33 -0500 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Masculine terms applied to females A net subscriber (whose name I've lost, forgive me please) notes that the current Prime Minister of France is addressed as Madame le Ministre. In English up until fairly recently -- at least in the U.S. -- the term Chairman was applied to persons of both sexes and the appropriate way in a formal meeting to address a female holder of this office was *Madame Chairman*. Michael Kac __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:43:49 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: ProfesseurE Neologisms such as "la professeure" strike me not only as against the grain of the language (since the general pattern is -eur/-euse, less frequently -eur/-rice), but above all as an ill-advised borrowing from English. For the correlation between grammatical gender and sex is extremely poor for animate referents in French. ("Sex for *inanimate* referents?" I can hear you scream. Eh, eh, what about: le cadavre, la charogne. And how about "la bitte" et "le con", hm?). It seems better for human referents, as long as you don't look too close: vigie, sentinelle, estafette, ordonnance. If at least we want to indulge in that farce, let us then go the whole hog, but along existing patterns. I propose: Female Male la vigie le vigien (model: Felicie, Felicien) la sentinelle le sentineau l'estafette l'estafet l'ordonnance l'ordonnanc (model: la France, le franc) And let us not forget nos amies les betes: l'antilope l'antilaud (model: salope, salaud) la hyene le hyen and names (mostly animal) for calling people names: la teigne le teing la charogne le charoing (model: pogne, poing) Incidentally, "les cognes" has always felt feminine to me (probably parce que les cognes, c'est la rousse, c'est les vaches). How about, then, adding to "flic" and "fliquette": la cogne le coing La rousse, a ce compte-la, ca devient "le cognassier". __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:39:02 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Professeure Neologisms such as "la professeure" are strange, nay, foreign. First, "professeure" goes straight again the grain of the language, for the general patterns are -eur/-euse (danseur, danseuse), -eur/-oresse (docteur, doctoresse), and -eur/-rice (acteur, actrice). Second, it is based on a fundamental misapprehension of what gender conveys in French, a mishapprehension imported wholesale from English. For the correlation between grammatical gender and sex is extremely poor for animate referents in French. ("Sex for *inanimate* referents?" I can hear you scream. Eh, eh, what about: le cadavre, la charogne, la bitte (or, if you want to be proper, la verge), et le con (ou le callibistri) hm?). Correlation seems better for human referents, but don't look too close: vigie, sentinelle, estafette, ordonnance. If some wish to indulge in that exercise, so be it. But let them go the whole hog, and not butcher the language in the process. So here: Female Male la vigie le vigien (model: Felicie, Felicien) la sentinelle le sentineau l'estafette l'estafet l'ordonnance l'ordonnanc (model: la France, le franc) A farce, but let's push on regardless. "Les cognes", that's feminine comme "les vaches", isn't it? Bad, bad, bad. What we want is: Female Male la vache le vac (model: blanche, blanc) la cogne le coing (model: la pogne, le poing) >From which we shall derive this lovely word: le cognassier (police station). Now, having at long last catered for men's lib, let us not forget animal liberationists. Allow me to fire the first shots: Female Male la hyene le hyen l'antilope l'antilaud (model: salope, salaud) A votre tour maintenant. __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 21:36:39 HAE From: Patrick Drouin Subject: Re: 2.481 Responses: French, in case I wrote about a week ago that the word "professeurE" did appear in the documents produced by the SPUL at Laval. This isn't totally acurate since it still hasn't been written in the *final* version of the documents. I was told that the formulation "professeur/e" has made its way to the draft version of the documents but it still has to be approved by the SPUL for the final version. Patrick Drouin __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-483. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-484. Mon 09 Sep 1991. Lines: 91 Subject: 2.484 Participation in LINGUIST List discussions Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:57:16 PDT From: herring@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: Participation in Linguist List discussions -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:57:16 PDT From: herring@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: Participation in Linguist List discussions To: All Linguist List subscribers Re: Participation in Linguist List discussions I am conducting a sociolinguistic study of participation in the Linguist List discussion group. The following is a brief (12 question) survey regarding the debate which took place during February and March of this past year on the use of the term 'cognitive linguistics'. If you read even one contribution to that debate, please take the time to fill out the survey below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SURVEY 1) A total of 48 messages appeared under the heading 'cognitive linguistics' (or 'language autonomy/modularity') in Feb. and March of this year. What percentage (approximate) of these did you read/glance through? 2) a. Did you contribute to the discussion, and if so, how many times? b. If you did not contribute, explain as fully as you can why not (not interested in topic; interested but too busy; interested but felt intimidated; etc.) 3) At times the 'cognitive linguistics' discussion became heated and even personal. As best you can recall, describe your reactions to the discussion at the time. 4) Have you contributed to any other discussions on LINGUIST? How often? Respondent Information (IMPORTANT) ---------------------------------- 5) Your academic position (Lecturer [non-tenure track]; Assist./Assoc./ Professor; Emeritus; Grad Student; Undergrad; not affiliated with academia) 6) Male or female? 7) Number of years in linguistics (break down into student years/post-grad): 8) a. If you teach, average number of courses taught per year: b. Number of courses you were teaching in Feb./March 1991: 9) Principal area of specialization within linguistics: (If not primarily a linguist, state major field) 10) If you had to choose, would you describe yourself as more of a 'formalist' or a 'functionalist'? 11) How long have you been using a computer? 12) How comfortable/competent do you feel with computer technology? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for your responses. Please return this survey electronically to: herring@violet.berkeley.edu or mail a print-out to: S.C. Herring Dept. of English California State University San Bernardino, CA 92407 USA NB: This study is in no way connected with the moderators or organizers of the Linguist List. Please address any questions, comments, or requests for summaries of survey results to S. Herring at either of the above addresses. Thanks again. --SCH __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-484. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-485. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 186 Subject: 2.85 Queries Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:47:53 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Re: Queries 2) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:33 GMT From: FARGHALY@auc.eg Subject: Allegro Common LISP and Foreign Characters 3) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 15:13:50 -0400 From: grefen@cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) Subject: The Hansards 4) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 16:56:42 -0400 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: the book that's cover ... 5) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 11:16:56 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Ossetic (Ossetian?) 6) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 10:02:43 -0500 From: Dennis Baron Subject: professeure/madelle 7) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:33:02 CDT From: kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) Subject: cunniform scanner 8) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:38:22 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Professeure/470 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 14:47:53 BST From: WHEATLJS@ibm3090.computer-centre.birmingham.ac.uk Subject: Re: Queries In Discourse analysis Birmingham UK style - when is a response an R move or an F move. eg I (el) Can we move on to the next point R/F yes of course Is the granting of permissin here a sort of feedback/ follow up or is it response move. This ought to be basic but the categories are not clear cut I find. Is ayone else out there usng Disc Analysis - or any more rigorous system than conversation analysis Looking forward to a response! john __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:33 GMT From: FARGHALY@auc.eg Subject: Allegro Common LISP and Foreign Characters I have been trying to get Allegro Common LISP to process Arabic texts without much success. Is it impossible for Allegro Commpn LISP to process non Roman characters? Has anybody tried doing that? Does anyone have suggestions that might work? please send replies to Farghaly@AUC.EG Ali Farghaly, The American University Thanks. __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 15:13:50 -0400 From: grefen@cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) Subject: The Hansards A recent listing in the LINGUIST spoke of The Hansards (bilingual transcripts of the Canadian Parliament debates) currently available through the ACL/DCI. and then said to contact the ACL/DCI. Does anyone know the e-mail coordinates of this contact? --Gregory Grefenstette __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 16:56:42 -0400 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: the book that's cover ... I was talking to my class the other day, and mentioned that we only have one genitive relative pronoun in English -- whose, and that we use it for both animates and inanimates (even though the interrogative version is restricted to animates -- oops, make that humans and non-humans). I gave as an example `The book whose cover is red is about syntax.' One of my students objected that this was incorrect, that one ought to say `The book that's cover is red ...' I'm not sure that I've ever heard this before. Could other people tell me if there are other speakers who use this construction. Or was my student engaging in hypercorrection? Clearly, this is not standard English. But I would be interested in hearing whether this is okay for others. __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 11:16:56 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Ossetic (Ossetian?) Does anybody know a speaker of or an expert on the Iranian language of the USSR whose name in English is either Ossetic or Ossetian or something like that? __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 10:02:43 -0500 From: Dennis Baron Subject: professeure/madelle I've been following the _professeurE_ discussion with interest. Earlier this year someone on another discussion group mentioned coming across a French term, _madelle_, designed to function like English _Ms._ But I haven't been able to get any information on it. Does anyone out there know about the origin or use of this term? __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:33:02 CDT From: kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) Subject: cunniform scanner A professor of Religious Studies needs a Scanner which is capable of reading cunniform texts directly off clay tablets. Since the tablets are in the Near East the scanner needs to be portable. Does such a scanner exists? If so, where could one get one? Please respond directly to me or to the following address: hermes@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Thanks, Ed Kovach __________________________________________________________________________ 8) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:38:22 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Professeure/470 Hasn't it struck (stricken?) anyone as odd that in Canadian French, it's a sign of feminism to create feminine nouns (professeur/e) while in English it's considered a sign of feminism to do away with them (actress -> actor, etc.)? Probably has to do with languages with nouns marked by gender vs. those without? William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science Center for Cognitive Science Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 ||fax: (716) 636-3464 __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-485. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-486. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 122 Subject: Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 14:49:43 EDT From: beckwith@vertigo.princeton.edu Subject: job 2) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1991 13:52:39 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: Job announcement -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 14:49:43 EDT From: beckwith@vertigo.princeton.edu Subject: job The Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University is seeking a full-time Technical Staff Member to work on the WordNet project. WordNet is a lexical database organized around psycholinguistic principles. At the simplest level it is composed of four components: (1) raw lexical files edited by lexicographers, (2) a database that is derived from the lexicographic files using a program referred to as the grinder, (3) search code to retrieve the data for end-users, and (4) various command line and window based interfaces including SunView, X-windows, MS-Windows, SuperCard, command line (PC, UNIX, MacOS,NEXT). The candidate will have a mix of responsibilities including all 4 components of WordNet. The raw lexical files are edited using an editor derived from emacs that has a basic understanding of the syntax of the database. Some minimal maintenance of this editor written in emacs-lisp is required. The grinder is currently maintained by another programmer, but the candidate should become knowledgeable about the input files and the format of the output files. The search code for the database is written in C, and runs on the previously mentioned platforms. The candidate should have a strong background in C development on a UNIX/Sun platform. Previous efforts at porting the code to other platforms have required only minimal knowledge of PC software as the code is generic in that it does not depend on specific hardware or operating systems. The interfaces are all written in C. The Sunview interface is being phased out and the focus is on the X-window interface. It was developed using the Athena widget set. However, knowledge of MOTIF and WCL would be helpful as this is the direction the project will be taking. Other interfaces that have been developed include MS-Windows and SuperCard. The other responsibilities include general UNIX support relating to assisting others on the project in using the software related to the WordNet project. The first application of WordNet is going to be disambiguation of English text. A prerequisite to this will be the indexing and analysis of large online corpora of spoken and written English. WordNet in concert with the statistical data provided by the online corpora will be applied to the disambiguation task. Qualifications include 3 years of experience and, because of the nature of WordNet and the proposed applications, a background in psychology and or computational linguistics would be highly desirable. Salary dependent on qualifications and experience. Send resume or cv to Pam Wakefield, Green Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544-1010. Princeton University is an equal opportunity / affirmative action employer. Thanks, Richard beckwith@vertigo.princeton.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 1991 13:52:39 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: Job announcement September 1991 TENURE TRACK POSITION The Department of Linguistics at The University of Iowa invites applications for a tenure track position in applied linguistics beginning August 1992. Research and teaching experience in applied topics related to English as a second language _and_ specialization in phonological theory required. Candidates with intensive ESL program experience and a willingness to teach historical linguistics preferred. It is most likely that the appointment will be at the rank of assistant professor, but applications are solicited from exceptionally well-qualified candidates at higher levels. Ph. D. required by time of appointment. Applicants should send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and the names of three references to W.D. Davies, Search Committee Chair Department of Linguistics The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 52242 Screening will begin immediately. Send e-mail inquiries to: blalwdwy@uiamvs.bitnet THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA IS AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-486. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-487. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 185 Subject: 2.487 ProfesseurE Part 1 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 15:17:45 +0100 From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr Subject: Re: 2.481 Responses: French, in case 2) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 23:44:11 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 15:42:08 EST From: bert peeters Subject: ProfesseurE 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 16:00:18 EST From: bert peeters Subject: ProfesseurE -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 15:17:45 +0100 From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr Subject: Re: 2.481 Responses: French, in case I wouldn't dream of infringing on a venerable usage (at least 4 or 5 years old) but the whole point of Madame LE Premier Ministre et al is that one should consider Premier Ministre, resp Professeur, as NOT implying a gender, viz that it can be and *is* actually a function occupied by a woman. Let us leave it to the Quebecquois to decide whether they still prefer their way of putting things. And whether it be a question of "fairness" or plain linguistic feeling for a language. Michel Eytan Univ. Strasbourg II __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 23:44:11 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure >Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:39:02 EST >From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) >Subject: Professeure >If some wish to indulge in that exercise, so be it. But let >them go the whole hog, and not butcher the language in the >process. So here: > > Female Male > > la vigie le vigien (model: Felicie, Felicien) > la sentinelle le sentineau > l'estafette l'estafet > l'ordonnance l'ordonnanc (model: la France, le franc) > la vache le vac (model: blanche, blanc) > la cogne le coing (model: la pogne, le poing) > la hyene le hyen > l'antilope l'antilaud (model: salope, salaud) > >A votre tour maintenant. ok, i can't resist anymore. how about: la personne le person (model: la bretonne, le breton) or would that be rejected because it looked like english? in a (slightly) more serious vein, those who say that french is 'fairer' than english in worrying about feminine forms have a particular view of fairness. english feminine forms like authoress and sculptress and even actress have been discarded by many in favor of author, sculptor, actor, etc., as sex-neutral terms. i believe the feeling is that, if one acts seriously (for example), one wants to be called an actor, not a special case thereof. here, by the way, is an excellent illustration of how nice it would be if gender still meant gender, i.e. noun class. one could then say that le professeur was masculine gender but could denote an individual of either sex, just as la personne is feminine gender but (...) either sex, just as la table is feminine gender but (...) no sex. oh well. p.s. jacques, what would you do for the poor husband of madame la souris? that's a toughie, n'est-ce pas? __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 15:42:08 EST From: bert peeters Subject: ProfesseurE > Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 16:56:11 -0500 > From: "Michael Kac" > Subject: Re: Professeure/470 > > A purely linguistic question about *professeure*: why isn't it > *professeuse*, on analogy to *chanteuse*, *masseuse*, etc.? chanteuse = personne de sexe fe'minin qui chante masseuse = personne de sexe fe'minin qui masse idem for coiffeuse/menteuse etc professeuRE =/= personne de sexe fe'minin qui professe auteuRE - ??? (no verb available) This is maybe not THE explanation, but it is the one that comes to mind. I'm prepared to accept there will be exceptions. Another fact, the -eure formations are recent; the -eur/-rice opposition seems to work where there has traditionally always been a gender contrast but with no verb available (unless after morphological alterations): directeur - directrice = personne qui *directe / dirige > An etymological question: My recollection is that it was at least once > the practice in France to use *professeur* to refer to a teacher in a > lyce'e. Is that still true? And if so, how does one handle talking about > female teachers in such establishments? > > I had a year of public education in Geneva, where the word for a teacher, > at least at the grade school level, was *maitre* or *maitresse* depending > on sex. Is this still so? Mai^tre and mai^tresse are used in primary schools, professeur from secondary schools onward (lyce'e, colle`ge, universite'). In standard French, female secondary school and college teachers are referred to as "professeur-femme" or "femme professeur" or simply "professeur". --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 16:00:18 EST From: bert peeters Subject: ProfesseurE > Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:43:49 EST > From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) > Subject: ProfesseurE > > Neologisms such as "la professeure" strike me not only as against the > grain of the language (since the general pattern is -eur/-euse, less > frequently -eur/-rice), but above all as an ill-advised borrowing from > English. > Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:39:02 EST > From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) > Subject: Professeure > > Neologisms such as "la professeure" are strange, nay, > foreign. > > First, "professeure" goes straight again the grain of the > language, for the general patterns are -eur/-euse (danseur, > danseuse), -eur/-oresse (docteur, doctoresse), and > -eur/-rice (acteur, actrice). Against the grain of the language? Maybe - but at least there seems to be some kind of logic behind it (see my other posting on the topic). Strange? Ditto. Foreign? An ill-advised borrowing from English? I don't see in what way. Jacques Guy's proposals towards a more transparent morphology in French are exactly what he calls them: a farce. Nobody could ever take them seriously - unless we want to look as well at pairs such as *pe`re - me`re*, *coq - poule* and defigure the French language in the process. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-487. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-488. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 239 Subject: 2.488 ProfesseurE Part 2 Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:09:53 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 09:58 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: Madame LE Professeur... LA Prof... Madame LA ProfesseurE 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:40 EDT From: Jean Veronis Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 13:48 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE: Gender and Sex -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 09:09:53 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure In response to the question about the related English word: "professor" seems clearly gender-neutral. In general, the "-or" nomen agentis suffix seems to be losing its masculine implication. My neighbor, Diana Jackson, whose sculpture sells quite well, calls herself a sculptor, not a sculptress. I doubt that a certain American Airlines line captain calls herself an aviatrix. If the prevailing suffix has only a weak gender bias, it seems best simply to ignore it (this works best if concrete political action changes reality in the meantime). French job descriptions might simply declare that gender is not a consideration rather than trying to communicate this through the title. Another of my neighbors, a relaxed sort of French Canadian woman, formerly in the armed services, doubts that "professeure" has staying power, so perhaps it's time to do the job some other way. __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 09:58 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: Madame LE Professeur... LA Prof... Madame LA ProfesseurE Unlike other "-eur" words "professeur" does not derive from a verb or another noun -- it was borrowed directly from Latin ("professor"). As LINGUISTs know this can make a difference in the way a word is treated. Of course, "-eur" ===> "-eure" also exists as in "prieur" / "prieure" or "sup'erieur" / "sup'erieure". *And* two of France's best known grammarians Ferdinand Brunot and Albert Dauzat proposed "UNE PROFESSEURE" in the early Twentieth century. But the main reason for the choice of one suffix over another is the current value of each suffix in contemporary speech: -eur ===> -euse for NOUNS is not particularly PRODUCTIVE these days it can also have a somewhat negative aura to it This last comment suggests of course that if enough people care to use the term it can change that aura (as the "black is beautiful" movement did for "black" if the Sixties) --eur ===> -eure is simple, elegant, GRAPHICAL rather than radically different and is well received by speakers of French who are not, in principle, against feminine forms PROFESSEURE, PROFESSEUR was used in SECONDARY SCHOOLS as well as universities in France. If I remember correctly, I read a few months ago that MAITRES and MAITRESSES in ELEMENTARY school asked and finally were given the title of PROFESSEURE and PROFESSEUR also. In high schools children say "la, le prof" so that the issue of endings never occurs. But it wouldn't in spoken French anyway -- except in the South of France where schwas *are* pronounced... and thus their absence noted. The issue of productivity is essential: "doctoresse" (mentioned by Michael Kac) is a rather unique derivation and is thus avoided. The issue of what is aesthetic or what goes with or against the grain of a language is an interesting issue. Usually what exists is good and what is new is bad -- as we all know. This has been studied experimentally for grammaticality judgements (see a recent [1989+] article in _Brain and Language_ (I think)). Habituation works marvels as the history of language shows. The references I quoted in my first email on "ProfesseurE" deal with all of this and provide more than I can do in this text. Email even more than linguistics perhaps fosters the "proof by example" method as the only way to get one's point across speedily. To give examples of how CULTURE changes LANGUAGE, it is good to remember that in the 19th century 'etudiantE = mistress of a male student and _not_ female student In recent years female pharmacists have come to be extremely numerous if not dominant in France: la pharmacienne = used to be the wife of LE pharmaCIEN but today no one thinks of her as anything but the pharmacist herself And as for the frequent charge of "ridiculousness" of novel terms, this used to be joked about a lot when feminists first wanted to be called --'ecrivainE = the "vainE = vain" stood out in the feminine although, of course, it was there all the time in the masculine form too but people did not hear it and don't now in many circles --cuisini`ere = no one thinks that it is both the woman cooking (masc. = cuisinier) and the stove she cooks on (Just as no parent thinks of "maitresse" as "mistress" when going to school for a PTO/PTA meeting -- "teacher" is the meaning that psychologically present... after the first milliseconds anyway Michel Grimaud __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:40 EDT From: Jean Veronis Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure Context: - I am French, and male. - I am completely in favor of using feminine equivalent for profession names (provided they respect some basic linguistic rules...) This being said, I agree with Jacques Guy on his remark that gender is much more loosely associated with sex in French than it is in English, and therefore applying the same judgements to English and French might be a little dangerous. As soon as we (French speakers) are born we are surrounded by a universe in which objects are either masculine or feminine. Everything, not only animate things. A cup is feminine, a glass is masculine. This is *completely* arbitrary (foreign learners know how much it is frustrating). I think we understand this arbitrariness very early, and it is deeply part of our approach to language. When I think of a cup or a glass, I certainly do not think of them as feminine and masculine objects respectively. They are neutral in my mind. I have the feeling that this neutrality conveyed by gender does not exist (or in any case not to that extent) in English. As soon as someone uses "he" or "she", there is a clear sex implication. Of course, when it comes to people, there is a correlation between gender and sex, but this correlation is pretty loose, and the sense of arbitrariness still applies. I can't tell how women feel when they are applied masculine terms, but I can tell what I feel when I am applied *feminine* terms. For example, I can be called "une recrue" (recruit, new member), "une basse" (bass in a choir), etc.--and consequently be referred to as "elle" ("she"). I do not feel at all offended, embarassed, effeminated, etc. by those terms. I never heard of anybody having any such reaction. I don't even think about their gender when they are applied to me. The most clear example is that a man is called "une personne" ! Person is *feminine* in French. English speakers can achieve sex-neutrality by using "person" instead of "man" or "woman", but this sex-neutrality is impossible in French. Therefore, the problem is much more complex than just adding a few profession names. If we want to be linguistically correct, much more is involved than changing a few "he"'s into "he or she"'s. Lots of terms will have to change. "The reader" will have to be referred to as "le lecteur ou la lectrice", "s'adresser au Professeur" will become "s'adresser au Professeur ou a la Professeure", etc. And what to say about agreement? We will have "Le nouveau professeur ou la nouvelle professeuse est heureux ou heureuse de vous annoncer qu'il ou elle a ete nomme ou nommee expert ou experte aupres du president directeur general ou de la presidente directrice generale, etc.". This is going to be pretty heavy. These various considerations may explain why French speakers are less concerned about sex equity in language than English speakers: on one hand gender has a large built-in arbitrariness for French speakers, on the other hand, sex equity is much more difficult to accomplish fully in French than in English. This does not mean it is not worth trying. There are probably a number of things we can do, and some of them have a symbol value, like create feminine profession names, or invent a title for women that doesn't imply their married ("Mme") or unmarried ("Mlle") status. Jean Ve'ronis __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 13:48 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE: Gender and Sex Professor Jacques Guy argues that "correlation between grammatical gender and sex is extremely poor [even] for animate referents." Aside from anecdotal evidence, there is little scholarship on the topic. However, there is *some* scholarship _and_ in any case it would be nice if long-standing "obvious facts" were investigated. If "la sentinelle" and "la vigie" are striking as examples for occupations of men it is precisely because it is exceptional that strongly marked feminine suffixes like -ELLE (that is double consonant + e) and -IE (that is, vowel + e) should represent men... it goes against one's intuition. It also goes against what children expect. As Lambert et al. (1967) showed children can predict the gender of a word from its ending. But the basic fact is that -E is THE feminine marker in French for ADJECTIVES and also NOUNS. This is true, statistically, morphologically, psychologically, etc. Prima facie -- at least if one is a cognitively inclined linguist... but even otherwise -- grammatical gender is thus closely associated with sex. Psychological agreement, something French grammarians have occasionally talked about (compare "DAS Madchen... SIE), is yet another prima facie instance. In French METAPHORICAL USAGE takes gender into account when it SOCIALIZES/HUMANIZES an animal or an object: --la souris ===> MADAME la souris (not MONSIEUR) --le livre ===> Messieurs les livres (examples attested of course) In short, there is a strong connection betwen gender and sex for speakers of French. However, there are exceptions -- but let's not be impressed by them without remembering that (as Lambert et al. 1967) shows, there are striking regularities (see -elle, -ie etc. above). However Lambert's work has not been continued: his was only a phonetic study not a morphological and historical one, and not a cognitively oriented one. Much work needs to be done for French, although there is more work on French (mostly from Quebec oddly enough) than on other languages, although there is some on German and Spanish. At the present time the work on German, Spanish, and even French is insufficient -- but that's good news for prospective PhDs in linguistics. Michel Grimaud __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-488. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-489. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 119 Subject: 2.489 Language and dialect Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 11:21:57 EDT From: Karen Kay Subject: Responses /2-473 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 10:01:05 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Weinreich 3) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 22:26:44 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: FYI: Language vs Dialect, Software /2-476 4) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 08:45:26 CST From: RYATES@CMSUVMB.BITNET Subject: army/navy/nation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 11:21:57 EDT From: Karen Kay Subject: Responses /2-473 > In re: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. > Herbert Paper told me that he had heard this analogy from > Weinrich (the father). I searched briefly but unsuccessfully > for it in his history of Yiddish. His son Gabriel (the physicist) > told me it sounded like something his father would say but he > had no specific recollection of it. This sounds right to me--I took a course on Languages in Contact from Ilse Lehiste in the late '70's, and I remember her telling us this definition, and talking about Weinreich. (Sorry, this was in under- graduate school--a long time ago...) Karen Kay __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 10:01:05 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Weinreich > In re: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. > Herbert Paper told me that he had heard this analogy from > Weinrich (the father). I searched briefly but unsuccessfully > for it in his history of Yiddish. His son Gabriel (the physicist) > told me it sounded like something his father would say but he > had no specific recollection of it. Richard Bailey refers of course to Weinreich (Uriel), not to Weinrich (Harald). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Sat, 07 Sep 91 22:26:44 -0400 From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: FYI: Language vs Dialect, Software /2-476 >Date: Thu, 5 Sep 91 08:33:12 CST >From: txsil!huttar@dallas%utafll.uta.edu@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU >Subject: language & dialect: thanks! > > > The trickle of replies about the origin of "a language is a dialect > with its own army and navy" seems to have stopped now, so I'll thank > you all for your interesting range of responses. To summarize for > those interested, and for those who compulsively read everything in > LINGUIST: replies via LINGUIST or direct to me came up with Bill > Welmers, Roman Jakobson via Paul Kiparsky, Otto Jespersen, and Max > Weinreich. Weinreich got two mentions, but both derive from the same > source, _The Native Speaker is Dead_; the reference there to MW's > originating that aphorism sounds about as solidly based on hearsay and > unexamined memory as the other replies. Dissertation on the rise and > spread of ((meta)socio)linguistic myths, anyone? > Thanks again. > George Huttar huh??? as one of the two who answered 'max weinreich', i'm totally confused by this 'derivation'. what is _the native speaker is dead_? and why is it my source? __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Mon, 09 Sep 91 08:45:26 CST From: RYATES@CMSUVMB.BITNET Subject: army/navy/nation The notion that an army and a navy is important for a nation is not new. Shelby Foote, in volume 1 of his narrative history of the Civil War (p 791), quotes the following lines by William Gladstone, Chanc>ellor of the Exchequer: There is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army. They are making, it appears, a navy. And they have made what is more than either; they have make a nation. Bob Yates __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-489. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-490. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 230 Subject: 2.490 Sound-Change Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Sep 91 16:42:07 -0700 From: ervin-tr@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Susan Ervin-Tripp) Subject: Re: Sound-Change/471 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 9:51:09 EST From: bert peeters Subject: "Natural" = "easy" 3) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:46:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Sound-Change 4) Date: 7 Sep 91 12:52 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Sound-Change/471 5) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 18:09:13 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Teleology and sound change -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Sep 91 16:42:07 -0700 From: ervin-tr@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Susan Ervin-Tripp) Subject: Re: Sound-Change/471 Another indicator of naturalness--which Fromkin could speak to--is the direction of production errors. Possibly these are so different cross- linguistically that no generalizations can be made. For example, the proposal that 'nuclear' and 'nucular' differ either in measurable complexity measures, or just in being made of cv syllables or not, may account for the very common replacement of the first by the second. But are such replacement errors common in other languages which permit consonant clusters? S. Ervin-Tripp __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 9:51:09 EST From: bert peeters Subject: "Natural" = "easy" > Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:46:19 EDT > From: Geoffrey Russom > Subject: Re: Sound-Change > > On "natural" sound change: Any discussion of this topic would I think > have to account for the fact that there are isolated languages like > Hawaiian in which you have almost all open syllables (e.g. the name of > a fish, humuhumunukunukuapua, if I remember correctly). Japanese comes > pretty close, too. Aren't these much easier for a random foreigner to > pronounce properly than languages like English and Russian? If so, > they would appear to be more "natural" in a universal sense. It's not a matter of open vs closed syllables (why do most people say [hawaj] rather than [hawa-i]?), but of strongly contrasting sounds in succession (usually, of course, CVCVCVCVCV...). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 11:46:19 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: Sound-Change On "natural" sound change: Any discussion of this topic would I think have to account for the fact that there are isolated languages like Hawaiian in which you have almost all open syllables (e.g. the name of a fish, humuhumunukunukuapua, if I remember correctly). Japanese comes pretty close, too. Aren't these much easier for a random foreigner to pronounce properly than languages like English and Russian? If so, they would appear to be more "natural" in a universal sense. It is also worth noting that the more cosmopolitan languages (the ones with armies and navies) tend to borrow foreign words and blend adjacent dialects to a considerable extent (radicalism of the center), so the "standards" we study are always being rendered more complex, creating numerous counterexamples to "ease of articulation" that may be no more than apparent counterexamples. -- Rick Russom __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: 7 Sep 91 12:52 EST From: pchapin@nsf.gov Subject: Sound-Change/471 This isn't to Rick Russom's main point, but rather a reaction to his comment that "there are isolated languages like Hawaiian in which you have almost all open syllables ...". In the first place, it isn't "almost": all syllables are open. Second, I'm not sure what is meant by an "isolated language". If he means Hawaii is an isolated place, that's true enough, though the Hawaiian Department of Tourism is spending millions to make it less true. But if there is some implication of a "language isolate", then it certainly doesn't apply to Hawaiian. There are some 30 Polynesian languages, all clearly and closely related, and they all have open syllables. Paul Chapin __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 18:09:13 EST From: bert peeters Subject: Teleology and sound change > I agree that sound change must be explained "in terms of origin" (though > this isn't enough). I don't understand. What else is there to be explained? Once one knows why a change originated, one has an explanation - although the explanatory process may have (will have) to be renewed, as due consideration is to be given to social factors and the like. > However, that doesn't preclude teleological explanation. Indeed, I would say it makes teleological explanation unnecessary. > In 1949, Martinet wrote: "Puisque ... on parle pour se faire comprendre, > les de'viations accidentelles, ine'vitables, auront des changes d'e^tre > e'limine'es si elles tendent a` empe^cher la compre'hension mutuelle, > puisque le locuteur devra se corriger s'il veut atteindre son but" > (quoted from B.Peeters, La Linguistique 19, 1983, 114). This may be > a rare bird, but scarcely a lapsus. In Folia Linguistica (20, 1983, > p.540), Peeters quotes Martinet's dictum "les langues changent parce > qu'elles fonctionnent", adding by way of a comment: "c.a`.d. servent > a` la communication". Isn't Martinet represented as a crypto- > teleologist here? He didn't write "les langues changent pour > fonctionner". Why? The first passage may indeed have a teleological ring. It should not be forgotten, however, that in 1949 Martinet had not yet reached the final formulation of his principle of economy, and that he was trying hard to get his own point (against teleology) across. It is not surprising that he was not successful in his earliest attempts. More importantly, neither passage addresses a particular instance of sound change. The first one tells us why certain changes DO NOT take place, the second one is meant to explain why LANGUAGES as such change. The argument is that as soon as languages do not function anymore - do not serve communicative purposes anymore - they will stop changing and become extinct. Some people may feel Martinet is to be accused of inconsistency: he looks very much like a teleologist as far as synchrony is concerned (stressing as he does that languages serve communicative purposes) whereas he speaks out against teleology as soon as language change is at the order of the day. I don't feel there is an inconsistency at all. An analogy with eating may be in place. At the synchronical level, one may say that humans eat in order to stay alive (teleology? yes, in some sense). But once one studies why dishes do not always remain the same, the explanation is obviously not teleological at all: they change because our culinary tastes are changing - because we need a change. > Enough cavilling! Peeters (Folia Linguistica 1986, p.539) objects to > Josef Vachek's statement that Martinet endorses the view that 'function' > presupposes a teleological approach. Whereas Vachek may be wrong with > respect to Martinet, he is obviously right in metatheory. Functional > explanation consists in relating a set of functions to some goal(s). That is one way of defining what "functional explanation" is: it all boils down to "explaining functions" (in terms of the goals related to them). However, "functional explanation" can mean something entirely different - and Martinet has that other meaning in mind: he thinks of functional explanation as of "explanations with respect to function". That is to say, he tries to explain sound change while taking into account the function of the elements involved, and their place in the phonological system. > So, teleology > is supposed to bring forth phonetic anarchy. This fallacy is > probably due to Martinet's autonomist conception of phonological > systems. If phonology is looked upon as a sub-system interacting > with other grammatical sub-systems (morphology, syntax, ..), nothing > of this ilk will happen. That language is neither anarchically nor > ideally organized is due to the interplay between sub-systems. Nyman's argument seems to be that teleology will only bring forth phonetic anarchy if phonological systems are looked upon as autonomous systems which don't interact with the morphology, the syntax, the lexicon of a language. I must disagree. As in language there is no goal, defined once and for ever, and agreed upon by all the speakers of a language, even at a subconscious level, teleology must lead to anarchy - in the area of language change, but not for instance in theology, where teleology (cf. the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) has probably far more reality. (Don't quote me on this one: I'm not a theologian). In the case of language change, simplicity may seem to be a common goal. But what is simple for one speaker is not necessarily simple for the next; we may have different simplicities in mind and set off different changes, but the fact that our languages are not too bad after all generally stops us from doing so (ex- cept when communicative needs are so pressing that we cannot but give in). I also believe that it is unfair to accuse Martinet of blindness as far as interrelatedness of language subsystems is concerned. One example that comes immediately to mind is where he talks about the strategies used by speakers when the opposition between the two a's in French (anterior and posterior) started breaking up: there was lexical substitution (ta^che being more and more often replaced with travail, devoir, boulot; las being replaced with fatigue', etc. - in order to prevent misunderstanding as there are words that used to differ only with respect to the nature of the vowel: tache = spot (without a circumflex); la` = there) Have I convinced anyone? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia Linguist List: Vol-2-490. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-491. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 132 Subject: 2.491 CSS 92 Conference Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:32:48 EDT From: CSS.Conference92@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: CSS92 Call for Papers -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:32:48 EDT From: CSS.Conference92@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: CSS92 Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS 1992 Conference on Computing for the Social Sciences May 4-7, 1992 // University of Michigan // Ann Arbor Sponsored by the Social Science Computing Association in cooperation with the Bureau of the Census and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory You are invited to submit an abstract of a paper for possible presentation at the third annual conference on Computing for the Social Sciences. The conference theme -- Gateways to the Future -- focuses on the revolutionary capabilities for the management and analysis of social, economic, political, and demographic data brought about by the technological changes of recent years. The conference will offer a forum for an expected 300 users, and potential users, on the computing power, storage of mass data, electronic networks, graphics systems, and applications made possible by this new technology. The program will follow five major tracks, with several sub-themes featured in each track. Selected papers will be photocopied for all registrants. Presenters will be have 30 minutes for presenta- tion and Q&A. Papers will be reviewed for possible publication in the Social Science Computer Review. The conference will also include opening and closing general sessions (with keynote speakers); opening panel discussions introducing each of the tracks; hands-on tutorials and special demonstrations for direct experience with tools, applications, and data; an on-site contest using census and survey data; and several food/social events. The conference registration fee will be $200. Registration, accommodation, and travel fees will be the responsibility of each presenter. The deadline for submitting abstracts is December 1, 1991. The deadline for sending full text of selected papers is April 1, 1992. MAJOR TRACKS: 1. DATA ACQUISITION, MANAGEMENT, AND DISTRIBUTION Creating, managing, or accessing local and remote data archives; acquiring census/survey data; networking to remote archives -- including CATI/CAPI. 2. RESEARCH STRATEGIES AND ANALYTIC METHODS Innovative applications of computing and information technology to the management and analysis of social data -- including Artificial Intelligence and simulation. 3. GRAPHICS AND VISUALIZATION Graphics and visualization as tools for the analysis of data and the presentation of findings -- including graphical techniques for exploratory data analysis and geographic information systems. 4. INFRASTRUCTURE Facilities, administrative and technical support, and funding required to create and maintain computer environments for social science instruction, research, and planning. This track will also discuss resources for the physically and mentally challenged. 5. NETWORKS Resources available via local, national, and international networks; access to the networks; and electronic communication -- including file transfers, e-mail, and electronic conferences. Any of these tracks may include special topics such as teaching methods; international collaboration; ethics and values; PCs/Macs; supercomputing; operating systems, user interfaces; or other topics that you may suggest. If you have questions or suggestions about the program, contact: Al Anderson, Program Chairman University of Michigan Phone: 313-998-7140 Fax: 313-998-7415 Internet: albert_f._anderson@um.cc.umich.edu BITNET: UserLD52@umichum If you would like to submit an abstract, send a fax or e-mail message to the Program Chairman with the following information: - Your Name - Job Title - Organization Name - Address - Phone - Fax - E-mail Address - Preferred Track 1 2 3 4 5 - Abstract and outline of your paper in 300-800 words DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING ABSTRACTS IS DECEMBER 1, 1991 If you are not submitting an abstract, but would like to receive registration material in January, send your name and address to: Internet: css92@um.cc.umich.edu BITNET: UserCS92@umichum ----------------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-491. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-492. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 127 Subject: 2.492 Conferences Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:48:29 +0200 From: nestr01@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (R. Tracy) Subject: conference info 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 20:29:50 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Language in Prehistory at the Internatl Congress of Linguists in Quebe -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:48:29 +0200 From: nestr01@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (R. Tracy) Subject: conference info Announcement of an International Conference Crossing Boundaries: Formal and Functional Determinants of Language Acquisition Organized by the Research Program "Spracherwerb" (Language Acquisition) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Tbingen, October 2. - 5. 1991 (The Conference Language will be English) Over the last 30 years linguistic and psycholinguistic research has become more and more interested in child language acquisition. In 1986 the German Research Foundation funded a special program which, so far, has supported twenty different projects on language acquisition. These projects focus on different structural domains (e.g. word order, morphology, phonology, semantics, discourse, narrative ca- pacities, interaction between children and adults), different types of acquisition (e.g. monolingual, bilingual, language im- paired and dysphasic acquisition), and different theoretical ap- proaches (e.g. linguistic, psychological and sociolinguistic, for- mal or functional). On the whole the program reflects the full range of different approaches also to be found in child language research in general. The conference in Tbingen is intended to provide an international forum for the presentation of empirical and theoretical results of the research program and to discuss these in a broader context. A special interest lies in the question: what can different ap- proaches achieve, what are their limits, and in what respects could they turn out to be complementary. The following workshops are planned: (1) Acquisition of Phonology (2) The Acquisition of Discourse Units (3) Interaction: On the Development of Children's Discourse Abilities (4) The Acquisition of Morphology (5) The Development of Clause Structure Apart from the projects funded by the German Research Foundation invited speakers will participate in these workshops. There will be plenary talks (E. Bates, M. Bowerman, W. Deutsch, A. Mills, K. Wexler) addressing the central topics of the conference, namely 2 the need for more interdisciplinary work and for glances "over the fence" towards complementary explanatory approaches. If you are interested in attending this conference, please send your registration to: Cleo Becker DFG-Projekt Tracy Englisches Seminar Universitt Tbingen Wilhelmstr. 50 W 7400 Tbingen-1 Federal Republic of Germany Conference fee: DM 30.00 for students and DM 70.00 for other par- ticipants, to be paid at the registration desk in Tbingen. Beginning: October 2nd, 230 p.m. in the lobby of the Neuphilologie, Wilhelmstraae 50, Tbingen. Hotel booking: Please send your room request to the Tourist In- formation Office in Tbingen Verkehrsverein Tbingen An der Neckarbrcke Postfach 2623 W 7400 Tbingen-1 Federal Republic of Germany [Moderators' note: additional information relevant to this posting is available on the server. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au The message should consist of the single line: get acquisition-conf You will then receive the complete program.] __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Fri, 6 Sep 91 20:29:50 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Language in Prehistory at the Internatl Congress of Linguists in Quebe It is not too late to submit an abstract for the workshop on Language in Prehistory. Please respond by email to this address by Sept. 20. __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-492. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-493. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 119 Subject: 2.493 Responses: Just In case, and the Curate Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:35 BST From: Steve Harlow Subject: RE: Queries /2-472 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:01:20 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Re: Queries /2-472 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 10:04 PDT From: Scott Delancey Subject: Re: 2.482 Just in case 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:43:45 +0200 From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen Subject: just in case 5) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 01:09 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: "just in case" -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 11:35 BST From: Steve Harlow Subject: RE: Queries /2-472 "Curate's eggy" = "good in parts" It comes from a 19th century Punch cartoon depicting a curate being entertained to breakfast by his superior and dealing with a rotten egg. In response to his host's inquiry "How is your egg?", he replies "Good in parts". This has given rise to various locutions of the form "Like the curate's egg". Steve Harlow sjh1@vaxa.york.ac.uk __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:01:20 BST From: "(Dr) David Denison" Subject: Re: Queries /2-472 An answer for Paul Chapin: Look up _curate_ in the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (or in the second ed. of the Dictionary, presumably). Makes me feel excessively English to have to refer you to (a) OED, (b) old cartoons in Punch, (c) ecclesiastical patronage, but there you go. David D __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 10:04 PDT From: Scott Delancey Subject: Re: 2.482 Just in case Comment on the postings by EDMONSONWH: 1) What in Heaven's name (informally I could say it much more rudely ...) does 'at the weekend' mean? Whatever it is, it's not familiar out here in the American wilderness. 2) You're surely on the right track in suggesting that untameable metaphor is having its way in all this. The distinction that a couple of respondents have reported for on vs. in x's view is, from a metaphorical point of view, perfectly natural. If I say *in* X's view, I am adopting a viewpoint close to X's, and the content which I ascribe to the view should be content that I assume X will feel comfortable with. In contrast, if I say *on*, I am looking at the view from outside, so to speak--the view is there, and I am suggesting further edifices which can be constructed with it as a base; but it is entirely possible that someone happily ensconced within the view might not be aware of the affordances that it seems to provide to an external observer. Scott DeLancey University of Oregon __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 14:43:45 +0200 From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen Subject: just in case What I find most remarkable in this is that philosophers (or whoever) choose an expression that has an idiomatic meaning very different from the one they intend, when there are a lot of similar expressions that have no idiomatic baggage to contend with. I am not a native speaker of English, but wouldn't any of the following phrases be understood by lay and learned alike to mean "if and only if" --- "just in the case", "exactly in case", "precisely when", or even "just if"? __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 01:09 +8 From: Tom Lai Subject: "just in case" I have reservation about the use of "just in case" in the sense of "iff" by famous English-speaking logicians (and mathematicians) as reported by Dana Scott as first-hand experience. I am not a native speaker of English, but I did receive my mathematics training in this language. (Isn't English an international academic language?) My experience has been that I have never used "just in case" in this sense. I say this with due regard for Russell and Quine (and others). Tom Lai (Hong Kong) Linguist List: Vol-2-493. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-494. Tue 10 Sep 1991. Lines: 183 Subject: 2.494 FYI: English Word List, Call for Papers Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:04:22 CDT From: evan@utafll.uta.edu (Evan Antworth) Subject: English word list on SIMTEL20 2) Date: 9 September 91, 01:28:47 EDT From: R12040.at.UQAM@tamvm1.tamu.edu Subject: TENNET Conference -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 91 13:04:22 CDT From: evan@utafll.uta.edu (Evan Antworth) Subject: English word list on SIMTEL20 An English word list is now available in the LINGUISTICS subdirectory on SIMTEL20. It is a list of nearly 110,000 English words, one word per line, in pure ASCII format. Although the list is in MS-DOS files, it can easily be transferred to a Macintosh or any computer that handles ASCII text (but you will first need to unzip the files on a DOS machine). The list includes inflected forms of the words, such as plural nouns and the -s, -ed, and -ing forms of verbs; thus the number of lexical stems in the list is considerably smaller than the total number of word forms. The files are as follows: Directory PD1: WORDS1.ZIP B 95306 910907 English word list (ascii), A through D, 1of4 WORDS2.ZIP B 74597 910907 English word list (ascii), E through K, 2of4 WORDS3.ZIP B 99024 910907 English word list (ascii), L through R, 3of4 WORDS4.ZIP B 84500 910907 English word list (ascii), S through Z, 4of4 These files are available via FTP from WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [192.88.110.20]. SIMTEL20 can also be accessed using LISTSERV commands from BITNET via LISTSERV@NDSUVM1, LISTSERV@RPIECS and in Europe from EARN TRICKLE servers (for example, FRMOP11 in France). In the U.S. you can also obtain files from SIMTEL20 by e-mail. For example, to obtain the first file send this line as the only message to listserv@vm1.nodak.edu (1 = one): /PDGET MAIL PD1:WORDS1.ZIP UUENCODE If you are unable to access SIMTEL20 or mirror site wuarchive.wustl.edu, most SIMTEL20 MSDOS files are available for downloading on the Detroit Download Central network at 313-885-3956. Evan Antworth Academic Computing Department Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 U.S.A. Internet: evan@sil.org <------- new address as of September 1991 UUCP: ...!uunet!convex!txsil!evan phone: 214/709-2418 fax: 214/709-3387 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: 9 September 91, 01:28:47 EDT From: R12040.at.UQAM@tamvm1.tamu.edu Subject: TENNET Conference The message below is an announcement and call for papers for next year's TENNET conference which will be held in Montreal; I'd appreciate it very much if you would run this in the next available announcement section. Thanks very much! Sincerely, Whit (Harry Whitaker) ====================================================== TENNET III; Announcement and CALL FOR PAPERS The third annual conference on theoretical and experimental neuropsychology, TENNET III, will be on May 20, 21 and 22, 1992, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The conference structure is (a) refereed submitted poster presentations, about 20 each day, and (b) two thematic symposia of 2-3 hours duration each day, Wednesday through Friday. The poster papers are discussed after the second symposium, each afternoon. This is the only North American neuropsychology conference that is specifically limited to presentations on theoretical and experimental issues. Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 13, 1991, via E-mail, FAX or regular post. For more information on submitting an abstract, for information on the symposia planned for 1992 and for information on registration and hotel arrangements, please contact Local Arrangements chair: Dr. Harry A. Whitaker Departement de Psychologie Universite du Quebec a Montreal Case postale 8888, Succursale A Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3P8 Telephone: (514) 987-7002 FAX: (514) 987-7953 E-mail: R12040@UQAM.BITNET or the chair of the Program Committee: Dr. S. J. Segalowitz Department of Psychology Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1 Telephone: (416) 688-5544, X-3465 FAX: (416) 688-2789 E-mail: PSFSID@BROCKU.CA ========================================================== Information for Submitting a Poster Paper Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: December 13, 1991 Poster presentations should deal with a well-defined topic or problem in any domain of experimental or theoretical neuro- psychology. Submissions are in two parts: (a) A 200 word abstract in English which will be published in the journal Brain & Cognition, if the paper is accepted by the Program Committee for presentation at TENNET III. Eight (8) copies are required if you submit by FAX or by regular mail; if you submit by E-mail, please do so only once. (b) A detailed description of the paper, maximum of two pages in either English or French, which is to be refereed by the Program Committee. Authors who choose to have their descriptions refereed blindly should prepare the abstact and two-page summary accordingly, using a code that you have identified to the chair program committee. Eight (8) copies are required if you submit by FAX or by regular mail; if you submit by E-mail, please do so only once. Please make sure that your complete mailing address, with your institutional affiliation if any, is included with your submission, particularly if you submit by E-mail or FAX. This is needed to properly prepare the program, if your poster paper is accepted. Your submission should be sent by post, E-mail or Fax to arrive by the December 13 deadline, to the chair of the Program Committee: Dr. S. J. Segalowitz. Please remember: Eight (8) copies of your submission are needed, except if you send it by E-mail! ======================================================== Program Committee for TENNET III: Sidney Segalowitz, Brock University, (Chair) Harry Whitaker, UQAM, (Local Arrangements) Christine Chiarello, Syracuse University Yves Joanette, Universite de Montreal Dennis Molfese, Southern Illinois University Jean-Luc Nespoulous, Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail Brenda Rapp, Johns Hopkins University Xavier Seron, Universite de Louvain ========================================================== To get information on registration and hotel arrangements, please contact Local Arrangements chair: Dr. Harry Whitaker __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-494. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-495. Thu 12 Sep 1991. Lines: 170 Subject: 2.495 For Your Information Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 22:16:45 EDT From: myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Answer to Hansard Inquiry 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 22:54 MST From: "Pat E. Perez" Subject: The Coyote Papers 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:31:54 +0200 From: nestr01@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (R. Tracy) Subject: Correction to conference on language acquisition -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 22:16:45 EDT From: myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Answer to Hansard Inquiry In Linguist List Vol-2-485, 9/10/91, grefen@cs.pitt.edu (Gregory Grefenstette) inquires: >A recent listing in the LINGUIST spoke of The Hansards >(bilingual transcripts of the Canadian Parliament debates) >currently available through the ACL/DCI. >and then said to contact the ACL/DCI. > >Does anyone know the e-mail coordinates of this contact? I'm probably the best contact for this material, since I'm the one who is trying to put it in shape to distribute. My email address is myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu; the Hansard corpus will be available on CD-ROM sometime later this year. That's the short answer. Since many Linguist readers don't know what the ACL/DCI is, and some of these may want to know, I give a longer answer below. I apologize to others for running on at such length. In early 1989, the Association for Computational Linguistics set up an ad hoc committee called the Data Collection Initiative (hence ACL/DCI), to oversee the acquisition and preparation of a large linguistic corpus to be made available for scientific research at cost and without royalties. All materials submitted for inclusion in the collection remain the exclusive property of the copyright holders (if any) for all other purposes. Each applicant for data from the ACL/DCI is required to sign an agreement not to redistribute the data or make any direct commercial use or it; however, commercial application of "analytical materials" derived from the text, such as statistical tables or grammar rules, is explicitly permitted. The ACL/DCI has gathered several hundred million words of text, one dictionary, and a bit of speech data. About 40 individuals and research groups have gotten portions of the ACL/DCI's holdings, mostly by cartridge tape. Future distribution will mainly be by CD-ROM. Because of restrictions placed on us by the original information providers, anonymous ftp is not an option as a distribution mechanism. For the first couple of years of its operation, the ACL/DCI was run entirely by volunteer labor, using borrowed computer resources. Last spring, the General Electric company gave us some much-appreciated seed money, which we used to buy some disk drives, and AT&T Bell Labs lent us some other disks. This past summer, we got a grant from the NSF (IRI 91-13530), which provides for some additional computer equipment, and a graduate RA for a year and a half to help with data preparation and distribution. Dragon Systems Inc. paid for the manufacture of our first CD-ROM, and IBM has offered to pay for the second one. The first ACL/DCI CD-ROM is now being manufactured, and 200 copies of it should be shipped to me on Sept. 16. It contains about 310 MB of Wall Street Journal text, about 180 MB of scientific abstracts, the full text of the 1979 edition of the Collins English Dictionary, and a preliminary sample of tagged and parsed text from the Penn Treebank project. In order to get it, users need only sign and return a copy of the ACL/DCI User Agreement, with a $25 check to the ACL. Most, if not all, of the Hansard material should be on the second ACL/DCI CD-ROM, which we hope to produce later this fall. Other material will be released later on. I now have a total of about six years of the Hansard, derived by two different routes at two different times by two different people from the Canadian government. For half of it, I have official permission to re-distribute via the ACL/DCI, to bona fide researchers who sign the ACL/DCI's User Agreement. For the other half, there are a few loose ends to tie up to get such permission. Each part amounts to about 500 MB. The format of the two parts is somewhat different. One part arrived in the form of a typographer's tape, which I have analyzed and marked up so that information in font shifts and the distribution of white space is replaced by explicit tagging of headings, speaker attributions, tables, and so forth. The original version of this portion has also been aligned (by researchers at Bell Labs), in the sense of explicitly connecting the corresponding French and English sentences. The marked-up version and the aligned version have yet to be merged, and both mark-up and alignment are more errorful than I would like. The second part was cleaned up and aligned some time ago by researchers at IBM. They have given it to me in the form of two lists of sentences, one in French and one in English, numbered correspondingly. All other material (including the identification of who is talking, the boundaries of speaking turns, the indication of session boundaries, etc.) has been elided. The division into sentences and the alignment of the two languages have been done to a very high standard, and thus this portion is a wonderful resource for research on translation (or other issues) at the level of the sentence. Those interested in discourse phenomena may perhaps prefer the other half of the Hansard database, or other available texts. Mark Liberman myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 22:54 MST From: "Pat E. Perez" Subject: The Coyote Papers The University of Arizona Linguistics Circle is pleased to bring you 'Linguists on the Net' the opportunity to purchase volumes of our working papers - _The Coyote Papers_. Please check out the order form that will be available on the server for more information on the volumes (authors, titles, prices, etc.). If you're interested, you can either: 1) Download or capture the order form, print it, fill it out, and return it to the US Mail address provided (please notice that all orders must be prepaid) OR 2) Send a message to the address below telling me what volumes you'd like. You'll still need to send us the pre-payment though. No email money allowed - sorry! :-) Thank you for your cooperation! Patricia E. Perez Linguistics Circle patep@arizrvax.bitnet [Moderators' note: additional information relevant to this posting is available on the server. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au The message should consist of the single line: get coyote You will then receive the complete file.] __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:31:54 +0200 From: nestr01@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (R. Tracy) Subject: Correction to conference on language acquisition Correction: Please substitute "Tuebingen" for "Tingen" throughout the text of my conference announcement. Sorry, that's what happens when you think the computer can handle the German "umlaut" !! __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-495. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-496. Thu 12 Sep 1991. Lines: 154 Subject: 2.496 Queries Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 20:23:42 PDT From: William McKellin Subject: Re: query - classifiers 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 06:44:43 -0500 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: Question: "compositionality" of semantics 3) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 08:04:16 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Query: Egyptian Arabic 4) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 11:43:54 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: American Dialects 5) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 00:22:19 -0400 From: auger@linc.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Picard 6) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 10:19:24 +0200 From: Jan Olsen Subject: WH-Movement 7) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:02:35 +0200 From: dennis@ling.gu.se (Dennis Day) Subject: CALL programs -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 20:23:42 PDT From: William McKellin Subject: Re: query - classifiers A colleague is working on numeral classifiers in Polynesian and Micronesian languages. He would like to know of any work done on classifiers using Connectionist or PDP models. Prof. Bill McKellin mcke@unixg.ubc.ca Department of Anthropology and Sociology University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 06:44:43 -0500 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: Question: "compositionality" of semantics One of the questions that seems to get asked a lot among my formal/computational friends is, "is your semantics compositional?". There seem to be more ideas as to what that might mean, however, than answers to the question; at the extremes it seems that "having a compositional semantics" is used for both "ignoring pragmatic issues completely" and "having some FORMAL theory of interpretation, with or without reference to 'meaning'". I wonder if I might garner some informed opinion as to what a "compositional" semantics might be. Or, perhaps more informatively (in these days of lambda-calculus and denotational semantics), what could a NON-compositional semantics be like? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stephen p spackman Center for Information and Language Studies systems analyst University of Chicago ---------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 08:04:16 EDT From: Alexis Manaster Ramer Subject: Query: Egyptian Arabic Looking for an expert on the Arabic dialects of Upper Egypt (not Cairene!). Can anybody help? __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 11:43:54 EDT From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: American Dialects Thadious Davis, a professor in our English department, asked me to try to locate a 60-minute video on American dialects that she saw in Europe. She misplaced the reference (as we all do at conferences), but thinks that the title may have been something like "American Voices." Your help will be appreciated, especially if you can tell her how to obtain a copy for class use. -- Rick Russom __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 00:22:19 -0400 From: auger@linc.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Picard I was wondering if there is anyone currently working on Picard or if someone knows of references on Picard syntax. All I have found, so far, is a collection of texts at the end of Flutre's 1977 book, but there is no syntactic analysis at all. I am interested in so-called clitic-doubling and would also like to find references about other Romance dialects with clitic-doubling such as Pied-Noir French, Fiorentino, Trentino (in addition to Brandi & Cordin 1989), etc. Thanks in advance. --Julie Auger __________________________________________________________________________ 6) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 10:19:24 +0200 From: Jan Olsen Subject: WH-Movement In English, both topicalization and Focus or Heavy NP-Shift seem to block WH-movement: *who did you give to a book *who do you think that books, he would never give to German object scrambling does not have comparable effects: wem hat das Buch keiner geben wollen 'who-dat has the book-ac nobody give wanted' I would like to know what languages pattern with English or German in this respect. Gisbert Fanselow fanselow@unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de __________________________________________________________________________ 7) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:02:35 +0200 From: dennis@ling.gu.se (Dennis Day) Subject: CALL programs Does anyone out there know of any good computer-assisted language teaching material. I'm particulary interested in programs for learning Japanese and Chinese Thanx Dennis Day __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-496. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-497. Fri 13 Sep 1991. Lines: 96 Subject: 2.497 Just in case Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 18:32:55 CDT From: msingh@cs.utexas.edu Subject: just in case 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 06:41:39 -0500 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: just in case 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 09:27:38 CDT From: GA5123@SIUCVMB.BITNET Subject: "in case of" is not "just in case" -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Sep 91 18:32:55 CDT From: msingh@cs.utexas.edu Subject: just in case It seems to me that "just in case" is a mathematical abbreviation for "just in the case." In ordinary English, "just in the case" works pretty much like "if and only if," especially if one understands cases as being more than specific instances. For example, I might state that odd(x) is true just in the case that x = 2n+1, for some natural number n. The dropping of the "the" seems to be part of a general pattern in mathematical and scientific English. For example, one might annotate the calculation of the momentum of a given object as follows (note the missing "the"s): Mass of object = 5 kg Velocity of object = 5m/s Momentum of object = 25m kg/s Munindar Singh __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 06:41:39 -0500 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: Just in case I thought it worth mentioning a respect in which classical logicians and mathematicians are perhaps operating in a slightly different semantic field from the most of us. Having performed a case analysis, it's entirely comfortable to say "just in case 3" [just = only] to mean "iff classification(situation) = 3"; but supposing an analyis binary, it fits more or less the same pattern to say "just in case p" (as opposed to, "in case not-p", and playing on the proposition/characteristic set duality). It's then a small distance from "in case p" to "in case ". That is to say, there are two constructions, "just in [case x]" and "just [in case] x", and the first is often an available analysis IF you are in the habit of blurring the distinction between "p" and "p is true" and reifying everything to hell :-). In the general case, however, I still personally translate: "in [the] case [that] ...". Then again, I'm no more really a mathematician than I am really a linguist. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stephen p spackman Center for Information and Language Studies systems analyst University of Chicago ---------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 09:27:38 CDT From: GA5123@SIUCVMB.BITNET Subject: "in case of" is not "just in case" Lachlan Mackenzie in Amsterdam cites "In case of an adverse reaction" as an error of a Dutch writer in English, but I would contend -- on the basis of my native American-English (and let's talk about linguists' use and non-use of hyphens next!) -- that "in case of" is a whole different animal from "just in case". Fire-fighting equipment in (U.S.) public buildings used to be stored behind a pane of glass labeled "In case of fire, break glass" -- a far cry from "Just in case there's a fire, make duplicate copies and store them elsewhere." ----------------------------------- Lee Hartman, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, ga5123@siucvmb.bitnet __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-497. ________________________________________________________________ Message: 9460331, 281 lines Posted: 10:13am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91, imported: 10:47am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91 Subject: 2.498 Professeure To: linguistics-l, LINGUIST@TAMVM1 From: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Sender: LINGUIST%TAMVM1.BITNET@umix.cc.umich.edu ReplyTo: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-498. Fri 13 Sep 1991. Lines: 280 Subject: 2.498 Professeure Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 18:44:33 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 2.487 ProfesseurE 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 11:44:41 +0200 From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen Subject: 2.488 ProfesseurE Part 2 3) Date: 11 Sep 91 12:00 From: Subject: ProfesseurE/ProfessorIn 4) Date: 11 Sep 91 07:58:00 EST From: "ALICE FREED" Subject: RE: 2.483 Professeure 5) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:44:32 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Make mine "Professoresse" -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 18:44:33 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 2.487 ProfesseurE > Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 15:17:45 +0100 > From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr > Subject: Re: 2.481 Responses: French, in case > > (...) > but the whole point of Madame LE Premier Ministre et al is that one should > consider Premier Ministre, resp Professeur, as NOT implying a gender, viz > that it can be and *is* actually a function occupied by a woman. > (...) Idle thoughts, I would say (with all due respect): the fact that we say *Le* Premier Ministre and *Le* Professeur IMPLIES a masculine gender - whether you like it or not. However, they don't imply a male referent. But this is a purely linguistic contrast (gender - sex) and you can't blame non-linguists in Canada for getting upset because they fail to realize that there is a difference between gender and sex. They think it's the same thing, so they want separate words for both sexes. In France, for some reason or other, that same urgency does not exist. Not that all native speakers of "French French" know of the distinction between sex and gender. I doubt they do. There must be another reason (which I don't know). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 11:44:41 +0200 From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen Subject: 2.488 ProfesseurE Part 2 Geoffrey Russom wrote: French job descriptions might simply declare that gender is not a consideration rather than trying to communicate this through the title. This was done in Denmark --- a law was passed to the effect that if a job description includes the abbreviation M/K (for mand/kvinde == man/woman) it is by definition sex-neutral. Danish only has common and neutral gender, so the main application was to professions with traditional sex implications (secretary, typist, nurse, ...). It has had the effect that job titles that were compounds with words for men or women ("work man", "cleaning woman", "keypunch lady") looked silly with the mandatory M/K, so alternative terms have largely been found. But women still find it easiest to get jobs in the traditional areas, and there are very few male typists. In fact, M/K is seldom seen anymore (I don't think anybody official cares). -- Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Denmark [uunet!]mcsun!diku!thorinn Warning: This article may contain unmarked humour. thorinn@diku.dk __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: 11 Sep 91 12:00 From: Subject: ProfesseurE/ProfessorIn Those who have engaged in the debate on French "la professeure" might be interested in a recent development in German. In German, as in French, gender assignment is largely morphologically determined, so one cannot just say "die Professor" for a female professor. In contrast to French, the derivational process that makes female nouns is practically unrestricted, so words like "die Professorin", "die Ministerin", etc. are easily accepted. But there is still the case of the generic or non-specific use of nouns denoting persons, as in "We are looking for a professor of linguistics". Here the masculine/male word "der Professor" is the only possibility, because "Wir suchen eine Professorin" would mean that she must be female. Feminists have objected to the generic use of male person-denoting nouns in German, just as they have objected to the use of generic masculine pronouns in English. About six years ago feminists started to use FEMALE nouns generically, and they have been surprisingly successful in this. At first their followers were mainly in intellectual progressive-alternative circles, but now there is a nationwide newspaper that makes use of the generic feminine, and increasingly one sees official job announcements. An orthographic trick has helped to void misunderstandings: Whenever a feminine person-denoting noun is meant to refer generically, the "i" of the suffix "-in" is capitalized. Thus: Wir suchen eine ProfessorIn, die StudentInnen, etc. Martin Haspelmath (Free University of Berlin) __________________________________________________________________________ 4) Date: 11 Sep 91 07:58:00 EST From: "ALICE FREED" Subject: RE: 2.483 Professeure This is in reply to Michael Kac's remarks about English and the gender identification of words. More than a cursory look HAS been taken of this in English. There is a large and valuable literature on the subject, written mostly in the past twenty years, motivated in part by an interest in the analysis and elimination of sexism in English. The references are too vast to list here. _Language , Gender and Society_ (edited by Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramarae and Nancy Henley) Newbury House, 1983, contains a detailed annotated bibliography. Section II of the bibliography is entitled, "Gender Marking and Sex Bias in Language Structure and Content." It is not the most recent but remains pertinent. In a language such as English, where, in theory, grammatical gender does not exist, the issues are slightly different from those in a language like French. In French there is the matter of grammatical gender as well as the matter of words reflecting the attitutdes of the socity in which they are used. Most of the people I talk to have eliminated from their speech almost all occupational terms that distinguish male from female by the addition of different grammatical endings. _actor/actress_ remains but many actresses refer to themselves simply as actors. _waiter and waitress_ is still used but very few others. __________________________________________________________________________ 5) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 16:44:32 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Make mine "Professoresse" My point was to argue par l'absurde that the whole exercise was a farce. It is a farce in a regard which Michel Eytan encapsulated very nicely. Verbosely: So far, nouns denoting people by their professions, tastes, beliefs, or habits have fallen into two categories: (1) those with one form only (either f. or m.) (2) those with two forms, f. and m., one derived from the other. In case (1) the sex of the referent is not expressed. In case (2) the sex of the referent is expressed by its grammatical gender. The purpose of the proposed reform of the language is to remove references to sex (to make it non-sexist, if you prefer). And it is being carried out by turning the nouns of category (1) into category (2), in which sex is obligatorily expressed! Not only a farce in general implementation, a farce in the details of it. This sexualization of the language is being implemented en depit du bon sens, et en depit de celui de la langue. Take Michel Grimaud's arguments. First, the evidence presented for a pattern -eur/-eure is: "prieur/prieure" and "superieur/superieure". The latter is an adjective used as a noun, of which there are more: meilleur(e), inferieur(e), anterieur(e), posterieur(e), ulterieur(e).... What is "prieur"? I have never heard or read "la prieure" (du couvent je suppose). Never fear: even though to me the word "prieur" automatically conjures up the meaning "one who prays", I suspect that I am wrong there, and that it is originally an adjective (prior). Professeur is not an adjective. So much then for -eur/-eure. (Oh, the lofty authority of Brunot and Dauzat? Let me call on the lowly authority of Montaigne: "Au plus haut trone du monde si ne sommes assis que sus notre cul"). Second, "-eur ==> -euse for NOUNS is not particularly PRODUCTIVE these days". Uh? Wot? Programmeur / programmeuse, emmerdeur / emmerdeuse, tirlipoteur / tirlipoteuse...? Oh, I see, "-eur / -euse SUFFIXED to NOUN STEMS". No, indeed, it is not particularly productive these days. Matter of fact, it never was. Examples, please, of -eur/-euse tagged onto nouns. Who advocated "professeuse" at any rate? Third, "-eur ==> -eure is simple, elegant... well received by speakers of French who are not, in principle, against feminine forms". I do not receive it well, therefore I am, in principle, against feminine forms. And you can tell those who are in principle against feminine forms, I imagine, from that they do not receive it well. E.g. my wife does not receive "professeure" well, ergo she is a closet male chauvinist sow (et elle cachait bien son jeu la garce, jusqu'au point d'avoir garde son nom de jeune fille; oh, mais maintenant la voila demasquee). So in summary: Point one: an erroneous interpretation of the data, and an argument ad hominem (per homine rather?). Point two: un non-sens. Point three: an argument ad hominem (fortasse ad Jacobum Vitum?) On the other hand, if you care to observe words in -eur, you will notice two very productive suffixes: -eur/-euse and -teur/-trice. The former if there exists a verb, the latter a noun in -tion, most often (but not necessarily always) formed from a verb. E.g.: programmeur/programmeuse <---> programmer programmateur/programmatrice <---> programmation (Careful there! This latter relation is not 100% transitive, only close to it, viz. precepteur/preceptrice. I wonder if you could refine it so that it never failed? Any ideas?) The opinion that the pair docteur/doctoresse is not the outcome of a still productive formation is debatable. I have thought about it, and come to the conclusion (nothing firm, opinions welcome), that it is the result of a productive process, only obscured by a morphophonological change. Consider: prophete prophetesse maitre maitresse patron patronnesse ("Les dames patronnesses", merci le Grand Jacques!) negre negresse drole drolesse See? An alternance /-esse? Apply it now to "docteur": docteur --> docteur+esse --> doctoresse on which model you will derive the word in my posting. (and I hope that no-one will have le toupet de me chercher des poux dans la tete a propos de eu/o) Now I am all for the enrichment of the French language, sorely depleted par les pisse-vinaigre of some 300 years ago. Not at the cost of destroying what holds it together. French is complex at all levels (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax; of the languages of which I know, only Navaho compares). Innovations that reinforce the already existing patterns are welcome, especially welcome when they help reinforce a not-so-evident pattern. Innovations that weaken them are not. Innovations that confuse them stink. "Professeure" is one. It leads to asinine neologisms in the style of those I showered you with (I am rather partial to antilope/antilaud). __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-498. ________________________________________________________________ Message: 9460316, 164 lines Posted: 10:20am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91, imported: 10:46am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91 Subject: 2.499 Professeure To: linguistics-l, LINGUIST@TAMVM1 From: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Sender: LINGUIST%TAMVM1.BITNET@umix.cc.umich.edu ReplyTo: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-499. Fri 13 Sep 1991. Lines: 163 Subject: 2.499 Professeure Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 01:01 EST From: John Bro Subject: Re: professeurE, madelle 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 19:28:10 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 2.488 ProfesseurE 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 10:16:53 CDT From: Dennis Baron Subject: professor -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 01:01 EST From: John Bro Subject: Re: professeurE, madelle My wife was frequently referred to by the parents of her students in Normandy (Nord Cotentin) as the "professeuSe" and even "PROFESSEUSE D'ANGLAISE" although I suspect that the latter may have been most often 'langue en joue' ;^). (I'll ask her in the morning..) In any case, "professeuse" seems to be/have been the natural form in the Patois around Cherbourg. As for "MADELLE" I remember hearing it suggested in the (early) seventies, but have never heard anyone actually use it. (I lived in France from 1971-1984). Sorry, no references. re: just_in_case as iff. I found this to be perfectly opaque jargon, and was quite confused by it the first few times I encountered it, and still cannot use it comfortably. It seems very strange to me, too, to take an idiom with a solid conventional interpretation and give it another related but significantly different sense. --------------------- John Bro bougie@ufpine Prog in Ling. bougie@pine.circa.ufl.edu Univ. of Florida Gainesville FL __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 19:28:10 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 2.488 ProfesseurE > Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1991 09:58 EDT > From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" > Subject: Madame LE Professeur... LA Prof... Madame LA ProfesseurE > > PROFESSEURE, PROFESSEUR was used in SECONDARY SCHOOLS as well as > universities in France. If I remember correctly, I read a few months ago > that MAITRES and MAITRESSES in ELEMENTARY school asked and finally were > given the title of PROFESSEURE and PROFESSEUR also. Both words may well have been used and be used in France, but do the feminine forms have the same (at least semi-) official character that they have in Quebecois? *Professeure* is not listed in my edition of the Petit Robert, for instance. > The issue of what is aesthetic or what goes with or against the grain of a > language is an interesting issue. Usually what exists is good and what is > new is bad -- as we all know. This has been studied experimentally for > grammaticality judgements (see a recent [1989+] article in _Brain and > Language_ (I think)). Could anyone provide a full reference to this particular paper? Michel Grimaud then discusses the influence of culture on language, with examples such as *e'tudiante* (student's girlfriend -> female student) and *pharmacienne* (pharmacist's wife -> female pharmacist). How about *Madame la ge'ne'rale* ? According to my Petit Robert, this still refers to the general's wife, not to a female general (are there any - forgive my ignorance). > Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:40 EDT > From: Jean Veronis > Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure > > As soon as we (French speakers) are born we are surrounded by a universe in > which objects are either masculine or feminine. Everything, not only animate > things. A cup is feminine, a glass is masculine. This is *completely* > arbitrary (foreign learners know how much it is frustrating). I think we > understand this arbitrariness very early, and it is deeply part of our > approach to language. When I think of a cup or a glass, I certainly do not > think of them as feminine and masculine objects respectively. They are neutral> in my mind. The objects are not either masculine or feminine: their names are. A cup or a glass, qua objects, are surely not thought of - by anyone - as being a feminine or a masculine object. They may well be "neutral" in the speaker's (conscious) mind, but their names remain feminine and masculine, respectively. Any speaker of French is aware of that fact: it is sufficient to think of noun-adjective agreement for instance. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 202186 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 10:16:53 CDT From: Dennis Baron Subject: professor Geoffrey Russom comments that the -or suffix is not gendered in English, noting the obsolesence of _authoress_, _poetess_ and the like. Mebbe so. Trench declared such suffixes dead in the mid-19th century, and every once in a while their death is proclaimed again, most recently perhaps by Jacques Barzun in the mid 1980s. But such reports may be premature, to say the least. Wbster's 9th New Collegiate DIctionary defines _authoress_ simply as "A woman author" with no note explaining any derogatory or trivializing connotations and no hint the word is disappearing. Indeed, _Webster's Dictionary of English Usage_ finds that although _authoress_ is not a heavily used word, it has proved useful in its 500 year history and cites Jane Austen's application of the word to herself. WDEU concludes, "It can be used condescendingly but it is more often simply neutral." To reprise a popular expression among the young, "I don't think so." The word is seldom neutral and probably in light of the social history of the past 20 years cannot be neutral now. Jane Austen may have used the term neutrally, but Charlotte Bronte did not when she remarked, in explaining why she and her sister chose non-feminine pen names, "We had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice." I think it was Robert Lowell who wrote the jacket notes for Sylvia Plath's first collection of poems, calling her a "poetess" with the clear implication, this is good stuff, for a woman. Even the _Random House Webster's College Dictionary_ gives no indication of the death of _authoress_, though its usage note (s.v. -ess) indicates it is rare and discouraged nowadays. Of course one pair of gendered words where there is some current activity is waiter/waitress, with wait, waitperson, waitron, waitri (pl.) and server as gender- neutral alternatives. -- debaron@uiuc.edu ____________ 217-333-2392 __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-499. ________________________________________________________________ Message: 9460432, 166 lines Posted: 10:24am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91, imported: 10:52am EDT, Fri Sep 13/91 Subject: 2.500 Professeure To: linguistics-l, LINGUIST@TAMVM1 From: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Sender: LINGUIST%TAMVM1.BITNET@umix.cc.umich.edu ReplyTo: linguist%tamsun.tamu.edu@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-500. Fri 13 Sep 1991. Lines: 165 Subject: 2.500 Professeure Moderators: Anthony Aristar (e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu) Helen Dry (hdry@emunix.emich.edu) -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 12:30:49 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: 2.488 ProfesseurE Part 2 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1991 13:31 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE -- Feminists & Asymmetries between French and English 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1991 13:01 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: Terms of Address in French: "Mad.", "Madelle", "Mr." etc. -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 91 12:30:49 EDT From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: 2.488 ProfesseurE Part 2 3) Date: Tue, 10 Sep 91 12:40 EDT From: Jean Veronis Subject: Re: 2.483 Professeure ...As soon as we (French speakers) are born we are surrounded by a universe in which objects are either masculine or feminine. Everything, not only animate things. A cup is feminine, a glass is masculine. This is *completely* arbitrary (foreign learners know how much it is frustrating). Not necessarily completely arbitrary, at least not for German. See: Zubin, David A. (1977), ``The Semantic Basis of Case Alteration in German,'' in R. Fasold & R. Shuy (eds.), Studies in Language Variation (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press). William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science Center for Cognitive Science Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 ||fax: (716) 636-3464 __________________________________________________________________________ 2) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1991 13:31 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: ProfesseurE -- Feminists & Asymmetries between French and English Professor Geoffrey Russom notes that in the U.S. "actor" or "sculptor" is preferred by many women as the neutral term and Professor Ellen Prince notes that the feminine is seen as a "special case thereof" -- which is something anyone who "acts seriously" would not want. ROLE OF GENDER IN ENGLISH VS. FRENCH This is true for English. In fact, reference books such as F. W. Frank & P . A. Treichler's "Language, Gender, and Professional Writing" (MLA 1989) and Rosalie Maggio's "The Nonsexist Word Finder: A Dictionary of Gender- Free Usage" (Beacon Press, 1988) both argue in that manner. English, as several LINGUISTs have noted is far more gender-free than French in the first place. English being poor in feminine suffixes, it seems more "productive" to go the gender-free route. But French has many productive feminine suffixes. Some of them are pejorative today. But languages change and can be made to change by one's actions. This has been true for terms of address over the centuries and for many grammatical points both in English and French. The issue is not usually change but rather whether one approves of the change. Judging from the battle over French orthography reform -- where arguments about beauty and disfiguring the language are made by people who ought to know better (haven't they read Rabelais' French or even Racine's?) -- one cannot expect that an emotionally laden issue having to do with the social status of women over the centuries and how it is reflected in language -- would be easy to change. But (remember my earlier examples about "etudiante" -- mistress of a male student -- and "pharmacienne" -- wife of the pharmacist, but now pharmacist plain and simple) things do change although language is usually slow to catch up with social realities. THE WHOLE OR NOTHING APPROACH The issue in French is complex. One might never reach simple, direct, and universal solutions. So what. Many partial solutions are still possible. There is no need to solve the problem across the board: IF we want to deal with titles of address (and many other terms) in a manner that reflects the sex of the bearer, we can do it easily in many cases like "ProfesseurE". That's one step. Will we be forced to say "professeurs et professeures"? In some cases perhaps, but check the Quebec job ads for variety of standard solutions. There are also solutions that respect standard linguistic and socio- psychological principles: --point of view --sex of speaker --audience If I am a man speaking to a male audience, it would seem that the dominant point of view may well be "professeurs"... or on the other hand, I may want to stress that I'm also thinking of women and, in my dialect, I would say "professeurs et professeuREs" (with stress of the last unstressed syllable) Conversely: A women talking to women... (see above) For a woman or a man talking to a mixed audience... well how mixed is it? How does it "feel" to the speaker? I would fight for a psychologically tolerant grammar... which would accept psychological gender as French grammarians have since the 17th century... although they would not have wanted to apply it to gender, only to pluralization. But, in addition, one does hear psychological gender in speech even though it is considered incorrect grammatically. (In English, I suppose, the equivalent is the use of singular/neutral "they" -- which was shown to have been in use for centuries.) Michel Grimaud __________________________________________________________________________ 3) Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1991 13:01 EDT From: "MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@WELLCO.BITNET) GRIMAUD" Subject: Terms of Address in French: "Mad.", "Madelle", "Mr." etc. In answer to Dennis Baron's query about "Madelle" and the French equivalent of "Ms.": Mad. = Madame or Mademoiselle on some commercial addresses But it is not officially equivalent to "Ms." Madelle = Mad + elle in superscript This is one of the myriad of variations on Mademoiselle, Madame and Monsieur I have found (to be precise, I've attested 31 non-nonce uses for both singular or plural of the standard forms Mme, Mlle, M.) "Madelle" is attested around 1627-37 in French in letters by N. de Peiresc. He also uses "Monsr", "Mr" and "Mesdelles". "Mr" which many French people think of as "wrong" or even as an anglicism -- as the above attestation shows has been around for a long time in French and is used regularly by the best authors, e.g., randomly, Voltaire. Michel Grimaud __________________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-500.