________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-801. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 320 Subject: 2.801 SE Asian Languages: Segments Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 12:09 U From: "Randy J. LaPolla" Subject: Re: 2.777 A Phonological Query 2) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 14:45:22 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Segment 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 15:42:52 -1000 From: David Stampe Subject: 2.795 Segments and SE Asian 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 17:49:40 EST From: san.duanmu@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Chinese, segmentless language? 5) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 10:34:14 HNE From: Pierre Martin Subject: 2.788 Are Segments Universal? 6) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 14:49:30 EST From: "Arthur S. Abramson" Subject: SE Asian Languages -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 12:09 U From: "Randy J. LaPolla" Subject: Re: 2.777 A Phonological Query David Gil (RHLE813@HAIFAUVM.bitnet) asked about the phonology of SE Asian languages. The type of phonological analysis Gil mentions comes from the Chinese philological tradition. Though the basic split is between initial and rhyme (or rime), finer distinctions are also made when necessary. The syllable would then include (in order) the initial, the medial (called the 'head' of the rhyme in Chinese), the vowel (the 'belly' of the rhyme), and the coda (the 'tail' of the rhyme). As to the difficulty Gil has with communication in certain SE Asian areas, it might correlate with the presence of tone systems in those languages. I remember having similar difficulties when I first started learning Cantonese (which has up to 11 tones depending on the dialect) many years ago. --Randy LaPolla -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 14:45:22 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Segment Chinese secret languages typically break up syllables in ways which do not seem to agree with the often-made claim that speakers cannot go below the level of a syllable, even if they do not go down to the level of the segment. Also, I have often heard claims that Japanese speakers cannot segment utterances beyond moras. The fact that Chinese is written syllabically and Japanese moraically would suggest that perhaps these speaker perceptions are just reflections of the writing system. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 15:42:52 -1000 From: David Stampe Subject: 2.795 Segments and SE Asian David Gil asks whether SE Asian languages have segments. These languages represent a typological extreme at any level of analysis, but they have abundant evidence of psychologically real segmentations shorter than the word. In what follows I'm talking about Mon-Khmer (including Vietnamese and Muong, and Khasi and Nicobarese, though they're in Indian territory), and Daic, Chamic, and Chinese languages: 1 Measures or feet. The first division, of the finally-accented word into an accented ("major") syllable plus zero or more preceding unaccented ("minor") syllables, is widely accepted by SE Asianists on many kinds of evidence. (The widely used terms "major" and "minor" are Harry Shorto's, from his Word and syllable patterns in Palaung, BSOAS 23.544-577). The major syllable is bimoric (and tones typically contour tones, and nuclei typically diphthongal), and in Sinetic can even be bisyllabic (with the second syllable "minor"). Minor syllables are "reduced" (they do not have their own tones, their consonants are minimal, and their nuclei are often just shwas or syllabic consonants). This is all typical of stress-timing, and so, not surprisingly, song and verse meters are often iso-accentual, not iso-syllabic or iso-metric. (This is from listening, not from analyses, but I recall seeing an article by Robbins Burling that recognized the similarity between Chinese and English folk meters.) Since Vietnamese and Muong dialects happen to have lost all minor syllables, you might think they were syllable-timed, if you'd never heard the Vietnamese pronunciation of other languages. 2 Syllables. As the above implies, syllables are less important than accentual measures in SE Asian languages. In level-tone languages, a game that reverses syllables reverses tones as well, but in SE Asian languages it doesn't: there, tones are mapped onto words or measures, not syllables. But I couldn't have stated the generalizations I did in part 1 without referring to syllables, and the usual sorts of evidence one cites for syllables, including the principles governing their internal structure, can be found in SE Asia languages as well as any other. Chinese and Nagari-derived writing systems provide additional evidence for syllables, and some song and verse meter systems do as well (cf. English, which has iso-syllabic as well as iso-accentual meters). 3 Onset vs rhyme. Most SE Asian languages, even Vietnamese and Muong, use matching rhymes as a coupling device in verse. The Chinese traditionally used rhyme tables as a way of classifying words. If there are infixes, as in Mon-Khmer, they go between onset and rhyme (even nonsensical ones, as in the language games Y.R. Chao wrote of, where e.g. mi + infix aik -> maici, see "Nonuniqueness", reprinted in the Joos reader, and the references to his Academia Sinica article on secret languages). Other morphological, prosodic, and phonological processes distinguish onset from rhyme in SE Asia, as anywhere else. 4 Phonemes. Speakers of SE Asian languages have no greater difficulty using alphabetic writing than speakers of other kinds of languages. Syllabic writing is practicable only with considerable modification in languages in which loss of unaccented vowels has left very complex syllable canons (e.g. the CCCCVC of Khasi, cf. the English CCCVCCCC). On the other hand, an alphabetic writing system that treats complex vocalic nuclei as sequences of vowels, or vowels and glides, is not appropriate for these languages, any more than it is for English. (Ask a speaker of an Indian language to say /ay/ backward, and the typical response is /ya/. Ask a Vietnamese or English speaker, and the typical response is /ay/, and a very funny look. You might as well ask them to say /a/ backward. The one good thing about the SPE analysis of English vowels was that it captured the fact that /ay/, /oy/, etc., are atomic phonemes for English speakers. On the other hand, it did that for the wrong reasons, and therefore missed other atomic phonemes like /ar/, /er/, etc. Ask an English speaker to say `barn' backward. The way I have written these, like Trager & Smith, wrongly suggests that they consist of simple vowel plus a glide. Email won't transmit a "tie" diacritic, but please read one in.) The fact that these are psychological atoms in SE Asia is confirmed by the way they act as units in affective phonology (cf. Gerard Diffloth's seminal BLS paper, sorry it's at the office), just as they do in morphology in English (divine/divinity, ride/rode, etc.). In real phonology (mental phonetics) they act exactly like any sequence, so /ay/ is probably no more or less likely to become [ash] in SE Asian languages or English (Ah feel fahn) than in, say, Hindi (Jah Hind). Consonants in SE Asian languages are shifty, like the vowels, and the shifts often result in tonal or registral differences, but those things aren't peculiar to SE Asia, or even to SE Asian type languages. For an attempt to explain why SE Asian languages are the way they are, and why S Asian languages are in most respects exactly opposite - from phonetics to grammar and from verse to music - see P.J. Donegan & D. Stampe, "Rhythm and the holistic organization of language structure", in John Richardson et al., Parasession on the Interfaces of Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax, Chicago: CLS, 1983. The article is terse and speculative, but the bibliography includes the essential works on the typologies and histories of these two areas, which are representatives of the analytic and synthetic poles of the whole linguistic earth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 17:49:40 EST From: san.duanmu@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Chinese, segmentless language? It is not quite right to say that Chinese phonologists have not proposed units smaller than onset and rime. For example, in Y.R. Chao (1968), A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, and in many other works, the Chinese rime is divided into 'initial', 'medial', and 'final' (or 'head', 'belly' and 'tail'). Such units are, essentially, what one would call segments. It is possible that people like Y.R. Chao were influenced by segmental languages such as Greek, English, or Sanskrit, and wrongly extended the analysis of these languages to Chinese. It is also possible, however, that there is something real about segments (whether you call them phonemes or not). The test should not be solely based on how the native speaker feels. The reason is simple: we do not always feel what we are doing. For example, had vision studies solely depended on how we feel we see things, we would hardly have discovered, or believed, that we perceive all colors in terms of three primary colors. The fact that we do not feel we are doing something does not mean that we are not doing it. Indeed, had it been intuitively obvious how we manipulate sounds, it would have been a puzzle why the Greeks were the only people who invented/discovered alphabetic writing. More reliable evidence can be found. I will take a piece from language games. Here it is clear, I believe, that the rime cannot be the smallest unit. Consider the following game, which converts each syllable into two (from Y.R.Chao 1930, with diacritic adaptations, [ng]=velar nasal) (1) ma --> man ta sao --> san tao mai --> man tai mei --> men tei feng --> fen teng ing --> in ting ... The simpliest analysis is stated in (2) and illustrated in (3) (2) a. Copy the syllable b. Chamge the first coda to [n] c. Change the second onset to [t] (3) 2a 2b 2c ma --> ma ma --> man ma --> man ta sao --> sao sao --> san sao --> san tao mai --> mai mai --> man mai --> man tai mei --> mei mei --> men mei --> men tei feng --> feng feng --> en feng --> fen teng ing --> ing ing --> in ing --> in ting Cf. Yip (1982) and Bao (1990), among others, for more discussion of such cases. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 10:34:14 HNE From: Pierre Martin Subject: 2.788 Are Segments Universal? I believe that distinctive features are the only ultimate basic functional characteristics of phonological systems. Their structure and their number vary from one language to another, which is why we face different languages. As I see them, distinctive features consist of phonic contrasts that ensure, in each language, the necessary distinctions between monemes (or morphemes, if you prefer). Of course, from the point of view of segmentation, these features can be analysed as phonemes, accents, tones, mores, codas, etc. Segments (phonemes) and supra-segments (syllables, prosodemes) are therefore specific, and structurally different, bundles of distinctive features. No more, no less. Accordingly, the phoneme (or segment) is not the basic functional unit in phonology, although the structure it represents seems to be present, in some form or another, in all known languages, which is obviously not the case with prosodemes. Phonematics (phonemes) and prosody (prosodemes) are indeed two different chapters of phonology, but there is nothing surprising in the fact that, in languages, one of those chapters will prevail here, and on the contrary, will tend to fade out elsewhere. In some instances, it may even be more appropriate to visualize the functional characteristics in purely syntagmatic terms. That having been said, one should nevertheless be carefull with the use of informant intuition as criteria for the identification (=interpretation and definition, not the perception) of the basic units of a language. While we cannot do without informants on functional matters, the structure of the language is for the linguist to decide. Segmentation, not the inner feeling of the language by the informants, is the basis for the recognition of two categories of functional units (phonemes and tones) in most languages of South East Asia. Pierre Martin Langues et linguistique Universite Laval Quebec, Canada G1K 7P4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 14:49:30 EST From: "Arthur S. Abramson" Subject: SE Asian Languages I am not on your list, but one of your members, Norman Miller, has forwarded David Gil's query to me. I think that Gil's casual inspection of grammar books written in Thailand, Vietnam and China--persumably written in a European language--has misled him. Indeed, in Southeast and East Asian philological tradition one speaks of syllable onsets and endings. This is important for the tone languages of the area in that one can more efficiently state constraints on the distribution of tones. In addition to this, however, there is awareness of segmentation into vowels and consonants, as well as tones. (It is true that in Thai tradition, for example, certain diphthongs and triphthongs are treated simply as vowels.) Thai children learning to read work with primers that are quite analytic, calling their attention to all possible syllable types in the language, even nonsense syllables.That is, I really don't know why one would speak of languages "with only onsets and rhymes." I am very willing to think about phonetic and phonological proposals calling into question the psycho- linguistic status of the segment in the production and perception of any speech signal, but, whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, it is hard to believe that language behavior is not universal in the basic aspects of the answer to the question. Also, from my own lengthy times of residence in Pn Asia, I find it hard to believe that any grammatical tradition will have much effect on the speech behavior of ordinary people. As for the anecdotal evidence given, I am very skeptical. There are too many sociocultural and psychological variables present in the various situations. Also, the languages named as being hardest for a foreigner with 10-20 words to communicate in, note that these are all tone languages! If at a tea-stall Gil uses the wrong tone and says, e.g., 'slow' instead of 'tea,' it could cause at least momentary confusion. As for the point about the mainland sprachbund, Gil should bear in mind that there are non-tonal languages on the Pn Asian mainland, e.g., Malay.which, according to him, gave him no trouble. As for Gil's point (C), let me remind him of the notorious trouble foreigners claim to have when speaking French in France. Would his "cultural explanation" cover this? I find this explanation hard to accept, and I wonder whether it was offered half in jest.With some 37 years of contact with Thailsn, including long stays adding up to a total of four years or more, I can only say that the Thai are delighted with foreigners who try to learn about their language and culture. One who makes an honest effort will get much help from the people. Arthur S. Abramson The University of Connecticut abramson@uconnvm.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-801. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-802. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 111 Subject: 2.802 Rumanian, Right-Dislocation, Colors, French Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 16:52:38 MST From: FD00000 Subject: Rumanian vowels 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 02:21:30 -0500 From: blinson@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Brian Linson) Subject: Query: Right-dislocation 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 17:05:05 EST From: lammens@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Joe Lammens) Subject: Request for references on compound color terms 4) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 10:07:43 -0800 From: suzanne@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: linguistic terms in French -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 16:52:38 MST From: FD00000 Subject: Rumanian vowels I urgently need to contact a linguist who has been doing some work on the historical development of barred /i/ in Rumanian, arguing that this segment developed internally to Rumanian and not as a direct borrowing from Slavic. I know that this person exists, but I do not know his/her name. Can anyone help me out? Grant Goodall Dept. of Lang. and Ling. Univ. of Texas at El Paso El Paso, TX 79968 (915) 747-5767 fd00@utep.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 02:21:30 -0500 From: blinson@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Brian Linson) Subject: Query: Right-dislocation I am working on a project on Right-dislocation and would like to extend my 60-token corpus. If anybody possesses or knows of the whereabouts of a such a collection, please contact me through my e-mail address: blinson@linc.cis.upenn.edu Thank you, Brian Linson -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 17:05:05 EST From: lammens@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Joe Lammens) Subject: Request for references on compound color terms In the context of my dissertation work, I'm looking for references on the syntax (or morphology) of compound color terms in English AND other languages, e.g. (the equivalents of) "yellow-green", "blue-green", and also more descriptive compounds like "sea green", "bluish green", or any other kinds of poly-morphematic color terms. I'm using "compound color terms" as opposed to Berlin & Kay's "basic color terms", which are mono-morphematic (or mono-lexemic). I'm interested in which combinations of the first type do and do not occur, and in general what the syntax or morphology of compound color terms is. I'm especially interested in cases that seem to defy analysis, or cases that look perfectly arbitrary or random. Any observed regularities are welcome too. For instance, I speculate that no language has a term the equivalent of "red-green", meaning something in between red and green (with a theory of opponent colors in mind, of course). Please send any responses directly to me by e-mail (lammens@cs.buffalo.edu), I have not subscribed to the mailing list. If other people are interested I will post a summary of responses. Thank you, Joe Lammens Internet: lammens@cs.buffalo.edu BITNET: lammens%cs.buffalo.edu@ubvms UUCP: ...!{apple,cornell,decwrl,harvard,rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!lammens -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 10:07:43 -0800 From: suzanne@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: linguistic terms in French Does anyone out there, especially the French native speakers, know the French terms for "code switching" and "tag question"? More generally, is there an UP TO DATE lexicon or glossary of linguistic terminology in French? --Suzanne Fleischman (suzanne@ucbgarne.berkeley.edu) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-802. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-803. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 113 Subject: 2.803 Queries: Appropriate Error, Journals, Audio, Focus Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 11:57:00 CST From: Michael Henderson Subject: Appropriate Error 2) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 09:26:41 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Old Journals 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1991 10:36:01 EST From: jlongmire@MADVAX.UOP.EDU Subject: Audio Equipment for Fieldwork 4) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 11:51+0000 From: HASPELMATH@philologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de Subject: query: origin of FOCUS -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 11:57:00 CST From: Michael Henderson Subject: Appropriate Error As far as I know, the first (maybe only) use of the term 'appropriate error' is in Judith Irvine's "Wolof noun classification: the social setting of divergent change" in Language & Society 7 (1978). She uses it to refer to deliberate grammatical errors used by people of high social standing as a means of differentiating themselves from lower- caste people, especially professional verbal artists. Has anyone seen the term used more recently? I would be grateful for any references. Michael M. T. Henderson Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045-2140 mmth@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 09:26:41 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Old Journals I am about dispose of my back issues of Language, ca. 1956-1990 (no guarantees about completeness). Is there any interest in these -- new department, third world library, whatever? Please reply directly to me, not the list. Fred J. Damerau damerau@watson.ibm.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1991 10:36:01 EST From: jlongmire@MADVAX.UOP.EDU Subject: Audio Equipment for Fieldwork I am in the process of observing the language development of two Cambodian children, however my audiotape equipment is very poor. I used to have an Uher reel to reel portable tape recorder which was excellent, but I can no longer use it. I have good videotape equipment, but many times a portable audiotape recorder is better. Is there anyone out there who can advise me about what kind of equipment (tape recorder and microphone) I should get for work in language acquisition research and where I might obtain it? I live in Stockton, California. J. Longmire. University of the Pacific. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 11:51+0000 From: HASPELMATH@philologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de Subject: query: origin of FOCUS I am trying to find out how the term FOCUS came to be used in its current sense. A large part of its popularity seems to be due to the discussion of focus phenomena in Jackendoff 1972 (Semantic interpretation in generative grammar), and the term focus is also used in Chomsky 1970 (Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation). But it is not clear from the formulations in Jackendoff 1972 and Chomsky 1970 that they were introducing a new term into linguistics. So maybe FOCUS was well-known at that time? I have not found a use of FOCUS before 1970 (as late as 1966 a book was published on "emphasis" in Hungarian, a phenomenon that is now universally called focus), so I suspect that it is due to Chomsky. This summer I made a bet with Pierre Pica (UQAM), who claimed that the term FOCUS is much older and was already well-established when he was introduced to (traditional) linguistics in the early seventies. Can anyone help us find out who won the bet? Martin Haspelmath, Free University of Berlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-803. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-804. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 359 Subject: 2.804 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1991 18:35:19 -0600 From: "Mimi Klaiman" Subject: John jLimber's qurery: Parsis 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1991 10:16:59 GMT From: MCCONVELL_P@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU Subject: Grammar of names 3) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 11:36:16 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.790 Queries: Yiddish 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 16:20:02 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: Re: 2.794 Conventionality of Names: Romance 5) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 00:50 EST From: John Bro Subject: conventionality & syntax of names: French 6) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 12:28:32 -0500 From: Joel M. Hoffman Subject: 2.794 Conventionality of Names: Hebrew 7) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 11:59:52 GMT From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) Subject: Re: 2.794 Conventionality of Names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1991 18:35:19 -0600 From: "Mimi Klaiman" Subject: John jLimber's qurery: Parsis John Limber has inquired about nonarbitrary surnames. The Parsis of India have a custom of adopting surnames consisting of the English words for professions, so one finds surnames Doctor, Lawyer and, in the bizarrest instance I've ever heard (involving a family whose patriarch had started a factory to make bottle openers), Sodabottleopenerwallah. --Mimi Klaiman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1991 10:16:59 GMT From: MCCONVELL_P@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU Subject: Grammar of names With reference to John Limber's query on whether names exhibit syntactic peculiarities in any languages: in the southern dialects of the Western Desert Language, Australia (Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara etc.) names have the suffix -nya in the S (intransitive subject) and O (transitive direct object) forms, and the ergative -lu in the A (transitive subject) form. This contrasts both with other nouns, where -nya is not used, and with pronouns where it is used only for O, not for S. The -nya is dropped in the vocative form of names. I think in a number of European languages surnames cannot pluralise in the way they do in English e.g. the Simpsons. Patrick McConvell, Northern Territory University, Australia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 11:36:16 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.790 Queries: Yiddish john limber writes: >I have two questions about names that some of you probably can answer. The fir st >concerns the conventionality of surnames. Are there still language cultures >where surnames are not for the most part conventional? (It would be foolish, >for example, for anyone to infer from my name "Limber" that I am particularly >agile or that Drs. Head, Brain and Pons interest in neurology had anything to >do with their names.) I'd appreciate any examples. don't know if this is what you mean, but in iceland 'surnames' are still patronymics--so, if my name were ellen bjornsdottir, you could infer that my father's name is bjorn. > The second question is to what extent are names in languages more or >less "syntactic"--that is participate or not in whatever formal structures >other NPs do? Again, I'd appreciate any examples or references on this. in yiddish, proper names of people get case-marked in a way that other nps don't. the actual situation is still somewhat mysterious (to me), but it's roughly as follows. most common nouns aren't case-marked at all but a handful of common nouns are. these are high-frequency nouns mostly denoting people--the words for mama, papa, grandpa, jew, rabbi, person,... and one inanimate--heart. and these get marked regardless of what else is in the np. proper names, on the other hand, get marked, but only at the end of the whole np containing them. for example: no marking (the default case): ikh hob gezen a melamed 'i saw a teacher' ikh hob gezen a melamed an alt-n' 'i saw a teacher an old-acc' = 'i saw an old teacher' (adjectives always get case-marked) special common nouns: ikh hob gezen a reb-n 'i saw a rabbi-acc' ikh hob gezen a reb-n an alt-n 'i saw a rabbi-acc an old-acc' = 'i saw an old rabbi' proper nouns: ikh hob gezen shmuel-n 'i saw samuel-acc' ikh hob gezen shmuel gold-n 'i saw samuel gold-acc' ikh hob gezen shmuel (gold) dem alt-n 'i saw samuel (gold) the old-acc' ikh hob gezen shmuel (gold) dem reb-n 'i saw samuel (gold) the rabbi' ikh hob gezen shmuel (gold) dem melamed 'i saw samuel (gold) the teacher' one last thing--in case you think these postnominal modifiers are restrictive and make the proper name into a common noun, no, they can be (and generally are) appositive. proper names of places or things or god are never case-marked. it's very weird. if you hear of an analogous situation in any other lg, i'd be very interested in learning about it. thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 16:20:02 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: Re: 2.794 Conventionality of Names: Romance I would like comment on a bit David Gil's query (Linguist Vol-2-794) about the syntax of names and their (apparent) capacity to function as NPs without being in construction with an article, a quantifier, etc. There are, at least, two more counterexamples to this generalization we could add to the Tagalog example Gil mentions. These are Portuguese and Catalan, where the presence of an article preceding the name is obligatory. In Portuguese the same set of articles as with common nouns is used; thus, we have: (1) a. O Jo~ao canta "The-MASC John sings" b. A Maria canta "The-FEM Mary sings" but not, (2) a. *Jo~ao canta b. *Maria canta (Unless this is interpreted as an imperative, meaning, YOU, John, sing, in which case it is pefectly good.) On the other hand, in Catalan, there exists a special set of articles for proper nouns: EN for the masculine and NA (but also LA) for the feminine: (3) a. En Joan canta "The-MASC John sings" b. Na/la Maria canta "The-FEM Mary sings" Again, as in the Portuguese examples in (2), the absence of the article renders the construction ungrammatical (again, the imperative reading is possible). (4) a. *Joan canta b. *Maria canta A slightly different situation holds in other Romance languages. In Peninsular Spanish, for example, the use of articles with proper nouns, although forbidden by the Academic norm and classified as a "colloquial use, common among illiterate people", is extremely widespread even among such not so illiterate speakers as linguists. Of course, given this double life that languages with an Academia live, these constructions sound perfectly good both with the article and without it, which basically means that we will probably always supply an article when speaking, but we will never write such a thing. In Spanish there is no specialized set of articles, though. However, there are specific uses of the article+name construction which are accepted by the norm. These are uses involving the *last name* of some notorius person, specially in the feminine gender. Thus Maria Callas and Greta Garbo, can be perfectly referred to by the NPs "La Callas" or "La Garbo" without violating any Academic norm. (I strongly suspect that sexism of language is very much involved here since "El Goya" or "El Beethoven" sound extremely awkward, but not "El Sting" or "El Pavarotti", which seems to indicate that the sexist constraint affects mostly "classics" for historical reasons.) Note that these latter comments hold for Italian as well, even if this language seems to be very much reluctant to adopt the article+name construction. Things like (5) a. La Callas b. Il Veronese c. Il Brunelleschi are good in Italian. Concerning then the possiblity to pluralize proper names in construction with quantifiers, this is perfectly possible in Catalan and Spanish (and I conjecture that in Portuguese as well, but I am not completely sure): (6) Catalan a. Hi ha tres Joans en aquesta habitacio' "LOCATIVE_CLITIC-is three Johns in this room" b. Tots els Joans de Barcelona s'han reunit en aquest congre's "All the Johns from Barcelona SE_CLITIC-have met in this conference" (7) Spanish a. Hay tres Juanes en esta habitacio'n "Is three Johns in this room" b. Todos los Juanes de Barcelona se han reunido en este congreso "All the Johns from Barcelona SE_CLITIC-have met in this conference" In Italian, however, this sounds pretty unacceptable; there is not even an obvious way to pluralize many proper nouns (Mario/??Marii, Luca/??Luchi). Thus, while "Ci sono tre Giovanni in questa stanza" seems to be acceptable, it is not "*Ci sono tre Mario/Marii in questa stanza". In the latter case, the alternative construction "In questa stanza ci sono tre persone chiamate Mario (In this room there are three persons called Mario) would be used. Sergio Balari -- Sergio Balari, U of Saarbruecken, Dept. of Computational Linguistics balari@coli.uni-sb.de -- +49 (681) 3024502 -- fax +49 (681) 3024351 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 00:50 EST From: John Bro Subject: conventionality & syntax of names: French >From: David Gil >Subject: conventionality and syntax of names >I would be interested to hear from other LINGUIST participants >how NPs such as "three Johns" are rendered into typologically >diverse languages. >An interesting problem is posed by constructions involving a >proper noun in construction with a quantifier, eg. English >"There are three Johns in the room". What seems to be happening >in such constructions is that the proper noun is undergoing a >"type shift" from proper to common. This kind of construction is simply a shift in the focus via a kind of metonymy (or synecdoche). The focus is on the name itself, more than on the person carrying it. A similar effect has been noted (i forget by whom) as a counterexample to the identity of reference test for homonymy, such that you can't say: *I fished from the bank, and then deposited my money in ONE. But you can say: No, not a bank you fish from, ONE you put money in! In the second sentence, the focus is on what IS common between the homonyms--their form. Pragmatics determines the grammatical form. David Gil also says: >The most salient example of this is the capacity of names to >constitute a full NP in languages that otherwise require the >presence of an article, eg. English "John sang" vs. "*boy sang". Spoken French readily uses an article with a proper name. Especially when respectfulness is not relevant (not necessarily disrespect): Tiens, c'est _l'_Albert qui se repointe! well, it's the Albert who is coming back "Well, look who's coming back, (ol') Albert" V'la _la_ Marie-jeanne qui s' en va there's the M-j who rflx away go "There (ol')Marie-j. going away" However, French does not pluralize family or given names, nor make liasons with them.. eg les Dupont ont 3 enfants (no liaison between t & o) the Duponts have 3 kids il y a 3 Jean ensemble (no liaison bet. n & o) there are 3 Jeans together ------------- John Bro Univ.Fla Gainesville FL -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 12:28:32 -0500 From: Joel M. Hoffman Subject: 2.794 Conventionality of Names: Hebrew David Gil writes: .>An interesting problem is posed by constructions involving a .>proper noun in construction with a quantifier, eg. English .>"There are three Johns in the room". What seems to be happening .>in such constructions is that the proper noun is undergoing a .>"type shift" from proper to common. However, other languages .>appear to be less tolerant of such constructions. For example, .>in Hebrew, the corresponding construction with a pluralized .>proper noun sounds awkward; most speakers prefer to either .>retain the basic non-pluralized form of the name (in spite .>of the preceding numeral) or else construct a paraphase such Two thoughts come to mind re Hebrew. First, there is a reasonably well-known song that mentions ``all the Dalias, all the Rinas, all the Rivkas,'' using the plural form for each name (``Dalia,'' ``Rina'' and ``Rivka'' are all popular names). Also, it's not uncommon in Hebrew to use non-pluralized forms after numerals. ``Five dollar,'' e.g., or ``five man.'' -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 11:59:52 GMT From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) Subject: Re: 2.794 Conventionality of Names David Gil writes: > The most salient example of this is the capacity of names to > constitute a full NP in languages that otherwise require the > presence of an article, eg. English "John sang" vs. "*boy sang". Like pronouns, no? This is what you would expect of definite noun phrases in general, especially when, like names, they are intended to be referentially unique relative to the given context. When they are not referentially unique in this way, you find articles: "Will the John standing behind Mary please aplogise to the John under the table." > This seems to be a common cross-linguistic pattern. (The closest > thing to a counterexample that I am familiar with is provided by > Philippine languages where there is a separate series of articles It is quite common to use the definite article with a personal name in Italian, with no semantic/pragmatic marking. (I'm not sure, but I believe it may be restricted to women's names.) tom -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-804. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-805. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 219 Subject: 2.805 Conferences Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 03:48:21 EST From: nuyts@ccu.uia.ac.be Subject: 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 21:38:43 GMT From: Henry "S." Thompson Subject: Workshop on Semi-Automatic Grammar and Lexicon Acquisition -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 03:48:21 EST From: nuyts@ccu.uia.ac.be Subject: 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR REMINDER: Call for papers for the 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR to be held at the University of Antwerp, August 24-28, 1992. The conference will be devoted to recent developments in the theory of Functional Grammar as developed by S.C.Dik. Papers pertaining to any area of relevance to the model are eligible for presentation. We also encourage the submission of papers comparing (aspects of) the model of Functional Grammar to other models and theories in linguistics and related disciplines. Time allotted for presentation will be 30 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion time. If you intend to submit a paper for presentation, please send six copies of a one-page camera-ready abstract to Functional Grammar Organizing Committee c/o Jan Nuyts University of Antwerp fax: ++32/3/820.22.44 Linguistics (GER) e-mail: nuyts@ccu.uia.ac.be Universiteitsplein 1 B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium The deadline for submission is February 1st, 1992. If you intend to attend the conference (with or without a paper), please return the slip below to the same address at your earliest convenience, and no later than December 1st, 1991. Only those who send in the slip will receive further information concerning the conference. Registration fees will be 1500 BFr, or 1000 BFr for students and unemployed colleagues. This includes coffee/tea, lunch, and all paperwork related to the conference. We can also provide hotel accommodation at reduced rates (app. 2000 BFr per person per night) for those who are interested. There will be a limited number of cheaper accommodations for those who have a limited budget. The organizing committee C.Braecke, G.De Schutter, B.Devriendt, L.Goossens, J.Nuyts, J.Van den Hauwe, J.Van der Auwera ************************************************************** Pre-registration slip for the 5th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR Antwerp, August 24-28, 1992 I intend to participate in the conference. I intend to present a paper YES / NO I want the organizers to reserve hotel accommodation for me YES / NO Name and address .............................................................. .............................................................. .............................................................. .............................................................. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 21:38:43 GMT From: Henry "S." Thompson Subject: Workshop on Semi-Automatic Grammar and Lexicon Acquisition UK Speech and Language Technology (SALT) Club in associaton with ELSNET -- The European Network in Language and Speech Workshop on Sublanguage Grammar and Lexicon Acquisition for Speech and Language Processing 7-8 January 1992 Edinburgh, Scotland The state of the art in speech and natural language processing has difficulty in delivering cost-effective applications. One of the main reasons for this is the high cost in time and high-quality personpower required to produce grammars and lexicons targeted to the specific application domain involved. Whether these linguistic resources are needed to serve as a language model to reduce perplexity in a speech recognition system, or the basis for managing ambiguity in a natural language front-end, they typically make a critical contribution to system performance, but can be expensive and tedious to construct. The goal of this workshop is to explore an emerging response to this bottleneck, namely the use of automatic and semi-automatic data-intensive methods to acquire the grammars and lexicons required from appropriate corpora. The workshop will be residential, and include tutorial sessions on the nature of sublanguages, stochastic grammars, parsed corpora and the lexicon; an invited keynote talk; contributed reports and discussions. Discussion session topics will be announced in advance, together with a list of questions to be addressed. The traditional report from a UK DTI representative about programmes past, present and future will also be presented. Our aim is to provide a productive balance between review and speculation of key issues for this technology, with an emphasis on how it can contribute to the practical demands of speech and language systems. Contributed Presentations We anticipate having several sessions of short contributed presentations. Two copies of an abstract not exceeding one and one-half pages or 750 words should be sent, one each, by post or electronic mail, to the programme chairmen to arrive no later than 13 December: Henry Thompson HCRC 2 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9LW SCOTLAND hthompson@uk.ac.edinburgh Jock McNaught Centre for Computational Linguistics UMIST PO Box 88 Sackville Street Manchester M60 1QD UK jock@uk.ac.umist.ccl Contributions reporting results, as opposed to promissory notes, and those including some attempt at objective evaluation, will be favoured if demand exceeds the time available for presentations. Registration Those wishing to attend should return a copy of the attached registration form to the address given as soon as possible. As in the past, it is the Committee's hope that no member of the SALT club will be prevented from attending purely for financial reasons. Anyone desiring to attend but unable to afford the cost should contact the SALT Club Chairman, John Holmes, 19, Maylands Drive, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1BH (0895) 236328, who may be able to find some way of assisting. _______________________________________________________________________ Registration Form SALT Club Workshop 7 - 8 January, 1992 Moray House College, Cramond Campus, Edinburgh, Scotland Name Address Email Telephone I wish to attend the workshop, with accommodation as indicated below: Residential #62.00 | |Score out one Non-residential #49.00 | Extra night's accommodation (6th January) #16.50 Score out if not required Total Enclosed: ______ Approximate time of arrival State any special meal requirements ________________________________________________________________________ Please send cheques in pounds sterling only payable to The University of Edinburgh, with the completed registration form, to arrive no later than 9 December 1991, to Margaret Rennex Human Communication Research Centre University of Edinburgh 2 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9LW. Questions regarding the workshop should be directed via e-mail to margaret@uk.ac.ed.cogsci -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-805. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-806. Wed 20 Nov 1991. Lines: 107 Subject: 2.806 Spanish Inversion, Grammar Checkers Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 15 Nov 91 14:33:03 EST From: JASKE@bat.bates.edu Subject: spanish inversion 2) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 91 12:39 SST From: SYSTEM@NUSDISCS.bitnet Subject: grammar/stype checker 3) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 11:15 MET From: Koenraad De Smedt Subject: grammar checkers -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 15 Nov 91 14:33:03 EST From: JASKE@bat.bates.edu Subject: spanish inversion One article that comes to mind is: Lantolf, James P. 1980. "Evolutive change in syntax: Interrogative word order in Puerto Rican Spanish. Frank H. Nuessel, Jr., ed., _Contemporary studies in Romance languages. Proceedings of the eighth annual symposium on Romance languages. Bloomington, IN: IULC. An interesting fact about this is that std Spanish allows no inversion with some question words, notably POR QUE (why), as in: Por que' tu' no quieres venir? An interesting paper on Spanish inversion (though i don't care for the theoretical orientation) is: Torrego, Esther. 1984. "On inversion in Spanish and some of its effects. _Linguistic Inquiry_ 15.1. Good luck, and please send in your findings. Jon Aske -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 91 12:39 SST From: SYSTEM@NUSDISCS.bitnet Subject: grammar/stype checker Hi, This is to reponse to Arie Verhagen's request about style or grammar checker. I have used some of these commercial products. But I must say I am not too happy about them. Most systems grade the text with some scales to indicate the degree of difficulty of it. It alter the users whenever it finds a sentence in passive voice, or when the length of a sentence exceeds certain number. Some other also check verb noun agreement, the use of article (a, the) and whether a sentence is completed. However, they warn the users that they must have certain 'minimum' command of the language, ie English. They all fail to Sometimes, they fail to locate some very simple grammr mistakes. Speed can also be a problem. Lua K T > lua kim teng ( REPLIES to LUAKT@NUSDISCS.BITNET) > National University of Singapore > Department of Information Systems and Computer Science -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 11:15 MET From: Koenraad De Smedt Subject: grammar checkers In response to the query on grammar checkers: there is also a system called CORRIE that is different from others in the sense that it - does grammar-based spelling checking rather than grammar and style; - works on Dutch, and is aimed at specific Dutch grammar and spelling problems, e.g. verbal inflections, subject-verb agreement, determiner-adjective-noun agreement, soundalikes, and newonewordcompounds; - runs on UNIX machines and is aimed at large publishers rather than PC users; The system was developed by Stichting Cognitieve Technologie, contact adijkstra@nici.kun.nl K. de Smedt -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-806. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-807. Thu 21 Nov 1991. Lines: 143 Subject: 2.807 Hiatus Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 09:28:27 PST From: scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) Subject: Re: 2.796 Queries: hiatus; Spanish; Italian; MAC; pidgins; pronouns 2) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 15:46:25 CST From: Nancy L. Dray Subject: a apple (cf. 2.790) 3) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 05:22:26 -0500 From: lojbab@grebyn.com (Logical Language Group) Subject: hiatus -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 09:28:27 PST From: scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) Subject: Re: 2.796 Queries: hiatus; Spanish; Italian; MAC; pidgins; pronouns Geoffrey Russom says: >It seems to me that if the vowel in "a, the" is schwa, only a glottal >stop could prevent hiatus in your cited phrases "a apple, the apple." >Does anyone know of other possibilities... The schwa-final words "a" "the" and "to" do not, in my experience, take part in r-sandhi. An underlying /r/ analysis must posit a different representation for these nonalternating schwa than it does for the "-er" suffix in "manager" and the schwa in "India". (I analyse the long vowels /scripta:/ of "ma", "mar" and /openo:/ of "sore", "saw" as the same thing also, [-high] for concreteness.) Now this seems a bit of a problem, and perhaps it is. But note that these words that do not deal with the ill-formed hiatus of [nonhigh-vowel][vowel] by the realisation of an onset [r] each has a pre-vocalic allomorph. a /a/ - an /an/ (or /@/-/@n/) the /dh@/ - the /dhi:/ to /t@/ - to /tu:/ So does the prevocalic allomorph bleed the r-sandhi environment? Well, for a-an I think it fair to say it does. "A apple" is strongly deviant I think. But the "to eat" /t@?i:t/ and "the eagle" /dh@?i:gl/ versions seem to be ok. The allomorphic pronunciations tuwi:t (with, to answer geoffrey's question, a /w/ glide) dhiyi:gl (a /j/ glide) seem to be being lost. (I may be getting mixed up here by those accents which have strong onset glides after high vowels in addition to the strong onset glides after nonhigh vowels (r-sandhi), but I'm fairly sure the use of /w/ and /y/ above is independent of these accents.) Of course, this predicts that the allomorphs "to" /tu:/ and "the" /dhi:/ can appear before pause, although r-sandhi cannot. Th[i:] ... apple *fo[r] ... Andy I think this is correct. It means supposing that the availability of an allomorph takes precedence over the appearance of some phonology. I take it this is no problem. Otherwise it means supposing that to/the have underlying glottal glide, or, better, being unstressed vowels in function words, have different vowels than word-final vowels do (a polysystemic analysis). -- James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 15:46:25 CST From: Nancy L. Dray Subject: a apple (cf. 2.790) Re Russom's comment (2.790) on glottal stop between, e.g., "a" (pronounced schwa) and "apple" to prevent hiatus: Another alternative is to have intrusive "h"--e.g., "a happle." If I recall correctly, this is attested in at least one variety of Newfoundland English. It may be in the same area where you "drop your H in 'olyrood and pick it up in H'Avondale," but I seem to recall there being several versions of h-dropping/adding, so I won't try to be any more specific (though I'd be happy to hear from anyone who can be...). I'm sure there are also other dialects of English that have "a happle" rather than "an apple" or "a ?apple". NLD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 05:22:26 -0500 From: lojbab@grebyn.com (Logical Language Group) Subject: hiatus >Date: Wed, 13 Nov 91 09:47:32 EST >From: Geoffrey Russom >Subject: A Apple > >It seems to me that if the vowel in "a, the" is schwa, only a glottal >stop could prevent hiatus in your cited phrases "a apple, the apple." >Does anyone know of other possibilities (not necessarily restricted to >those viable in English)? In general, what SORT of sound is introduced >to prevent hiatus? One thinks of liquids, nasals, and glides first, but >of course there's the glottal stop as perhaps the unmarked >hiatus-preventer.... Lojban prevents hiatus between vowels of the same word using a devoiced breathy 'glide' (represented by apostrophe) to prevent glottal stop (represented by period), which is phonemic with pause as forcing a word break. When both vowels are the same, the effect is an [h] sound, when they differ, Lojban gains an effective 3 way contrast between diphthongs /ei/, disyllable /e'i/ and word-break /e.i/. In some words (names and borrowings), voiced glides are permitted as a fourth contrast. The contrasts work quite well, but I have to admit that we invented it out of whole cloth. Is something similar with an /h/-like sound found in any natural language? natural languages? ---- lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 lojbab@grebyn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-807. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-808. Thu 21 Nov 1991. Lines: 167 Subject: 2.808 Responses: Focus, Grammar Checkers, Do What Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 15:27:16 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Focus 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 23:15:05 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.803 Queries: Focus 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 00:25:34 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.806 Grammar Checkers 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 12:13:53 -0500 From: Bill Schipper Subject: RE: 2.796 Queries: Do What 5) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 09:25 MST From: Mike Hammond Subject: Do What 6) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 10:47:50 GMT From: am@cstr.edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 2.790 Do what? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 15:27:16 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Focus The term focus was used in Philippine linguistics by several SIL linguists in the late 50's to mean essentially what traditional grammars of Philippine languages had called subject. At roughly the same time two other terms were introduced, topic and highlight. Of these three, topic is the one which has survived and thrived in this sense, highlight died aborning, while focus gradually acquired a related but different sense, equivalent to what was traditionally called voice. But perhaps there were even earlier uses of the term focus somewhere else. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 23:15:05 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.803 Queries: Focus >From: HASPELMATH@philologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de >Subject: query: origin of FOCUS > > >I am trying to find out how the term FOCUS came to be used in its current >sense. A large part of its popularity seems to be due to the discussion >of focus phenomena in Jackendoff 1972 (Semantic interpretation in generative >grammar), and the term focus is also used in Chomsky 1970 (Deep structure, >surface structure, and semantic interpretation). ... > I have not found a use of FOCUS before 1970 (as late as 1966 a book was >published on "emphasis" in Hungarian, a phenomenon that is now universally >called focus), so I suspect that it is due to Chomsky. halliday (1967) definitely uses the term, actually 'information focus', in the sense you mean. of course, he may have used it earlier than 1967 and others may have used it before him. (i would check out the czechs and also bolinger.) anyway, here's the reference: halliday, m.a.k. 1967. notes on transitivity and theme in english. part ii. journal of linguistics 3.199-244. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 00:25:34 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.806 Grammar Checkers Just a footnote to Lau Kim Teng posting about his experience with grammar checkers. The newer versions of the commercial products that I described here previously now allow the user to turn off certain features (such as flagging of the passive voice), adjust the maximum sentence length and, in the more advanced products, even control specific syntactic and stylistic features (e.g. the number of words between "to" and verb before the system considers the construction to be a "split infinitive.") It is also true, however, that all commercial products make some effort at judging the "difficulty" of the text, using the old educationalist procedures (all of them linguistically quite primitive) of so-called "readability." (There must be about a dozen variations on this theme.) One reason for this is that some agencies of the US government apparently require that a document submitted or published by them does not exceed a particular grade level. (This is based on the optimistic assumption that government employees have mastered at least fifth-grade reading skills, or something like that). Speed has also improved. Correct Grammar, for example, analyzes a sentence (including a full parse, not always correct, however) in less than 1/2 second on an 8 Mhz machine. (Aver. sentence length considered to be about 18 words). Finally, it is indeed true that all of these commercial products are intended for speakers/writers of English and are not good learning tools (as yet, anyway). I would be interested in any further comments or experiences. Henry Kucera, e-mail: henry@brownvm.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 12:13:53 -0500 From: Bill Schipper Subject: RE: 2.796 Queries: Do What To add to the wrinkles on this question, are you aware of the phrase "Say what" for std. "What?" used as interrogative requesting that the listener has not heard the previous statement. - Bill Schipper (schipper@kean.ucs.mun.ca) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 09:25 MST From: Mike Hammond Subject: Do What On the subject of "do what" as a substitute for "what", I have "say what" as a real colloquial substitute as well. mike hammond -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 10:47:50 GMT From: am@cstr.edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 2.790 Do what? The use of "Do what?" as an alternative to "What?" or "I beg your pardon?" is certainly well-known in British English, particularly South London speech, and was made famous by that catchy Monty Python song, "Do What, John?": Do what, John? Do what, John? Come again? Do what? Do what, John? Do what, John? Do what? Do what? Do what? Do what, John? Do what, John? Do what, with whom, and when? T'rific, really t'rific: Pardon? Come again? *In this dialect, "John" can be used to refer to any male, familiar or not, and is equivalent to "mate", "fella", etc: if i really wanted to get a lengthy discussion going here, i could ask if anyone knows of a technical term for such items ... but i won't do that. (Do what?) alex monaghan -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-808. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-809. Thu 21 Nov 1991. Lines: 111 Subject: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 22:00:41 +0000 From: Mark Sanderson Subject: Brown and LOB 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 19:03:41 IST From: David Gil Subject: Circassian 3) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1991 16:00-0500 From: Allan C. Wechsler Subject: Croatian query 4) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 12:10:20 GMT From: Martin Wynne Subject: Serb and Croat -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1991 22:00:41 +0000 From: Mark Sanderson Subject: Brown and LOB I was reading about a version of the Brown corpus where all the words had been grammatically tagged, also a corpus built at Lancaster University called LOB that had been similarly tagged. Are these corpuses generally available, if so where, if not does anyone have an address of the custodians of these corpuses that I could contact. Thanks very much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 19:03:41 IST From: David Gil Subject: Circassian I would be grateful for any information whatsoever (references, fleeting mentions, even anecdotes) on the dialect of Circassian spoken in Israel (or neighboring ME countries), and how it differs from those varieties of Circassian (aka Kabardian, Adygh, etc.) spoken in the Caucasus. Thanks, David Gil University of Haifa Haifa, 31999, Israel rhle813@haifauvm.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1991 16:00-0500 From: Allan C. Wechsler Subject: Croatian query A friend would like to know how to say "Madonna" or "Blessed Virgin" or any other equivalents in Croatian. Thanks in advance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 12:10:20 GMT From: Martin Wynne Subject: Serb and Croat A friend of mine, a journalist (and not a linguist), reports an interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon from Yugoslavia. It seems that the current conflict has encouraged many, especially the Croats, to 'invent' ethnic and cultural differences between themselves and the Serbs. So, for example the Serbs are Eastern, Orthodox (in religious terms), Slavic, dark-haired and -skinned etc, while the Croats are Western, Christian, European, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. In its more extreme forms, this demonology portrays the Serbs as uncivilized bearded barbarians threatening the Western way of life (e.g. bombing "the jewel of the Adriatic", a symbol of 'Western civilization'). This racist stereotyping seems to have become accepted as the standard terms of the debate in the West. I think that it is quite important as it is being used to rewrite the history of the region and to rehabilitate Croatia's fascist past, as well as encouraging a xenophobic and exclusive reinterpretation of the concept of Europe. The facet of this new scenario that should be of interest to linguists is the sudden discovery of the separarate 'languages' Serbian and Croatian. I am told that regional dialect differences have been exaggerated, and in many cases invented, in order to assert the differences between the language of Serbs and Croats. A colleague from Slavonic Studies tells me that when she went to Zagreb a few months ago, many people pretended not to understand her when she spoke standard Serbo-Croat. Does anyone have any concrete examples of this sort of thing, or perhaps disagreements with the way I have things? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-809. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-810. Thu 21 Nov 1991. Lines: 138 Subject: 2.810 Creoles: Malay and Afrikaans Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 13:00 U From: "Randy J. LaPolla" Subject: Re: 2.790 Queries 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 22:57:13 -0700 From: scumming@clipr.colorado.edu (Susanna Cumming) Subject: Malay/Indonesian -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 13:00 U From: "Randy J. LaPolla" Subject: Re: 2.790 Queries Willem de Reuse's question about the pidginization of Malay and Afrikaans seems to presuppose that a creole must be quite different from the target language, yet this need not be the case. If pidginization is second-language learning with restricted input, and creolization is first-language learning with restricted input, as argued by Derek Bickerton, then we would expect to find degrees of difference between targets and pidgins/creoles based on the degree of restriction on the input. Also, as the speakers of a creole gain greater access to the target language, the creole will de-creolize, becoming more and more like the target language. This would explain the continuum of degrees of pidginlikeness de Reuse found among Afrikaans speakers. A similar continuum is found among speakers of Jamaican creole. --Randy LaPolla --Institute of History & Philology --Academia Sinica, Taiwan -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 91 22:57:13 -0700 From: scumming@clipr.colorado.edu (Susanna Cumming) Subject: Malay/Indonesian Willem de Reuse has queried the claim that Indonesian (i.e. Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia) is derived from "a pidgi- nized Malay". As is usual where sociolinguistic factors -- and millions of speakers -- are concerned, the situation is far from simple. Briefly, Malay has been a lingua franca in Southeast Asia since at least the 7th century. At the present time there are dozens of different varieties of this language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, and pockets of mainland Southeast Asia. Some variety of Malay is a national language in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei; but in addition to these (more or less) "standardized" varieties, there are many other varieties. These can be divided roughly into two classes: "indigenous" varieties, i.e. those spoken by populations (mostly on the Malay peninsula and in Sumatra) whose traditional language is Malay; and "non-indigenous" vari- eties, i.e. those spoken by populations who were originally exposed to Malay as a contact language. In some places (e.g. areas of Eastern Indonesia) and among some ethnic groups (e.g. Chinese in Java), some kind of "contact Malay" has replaced -- and is still replacing -- other native languages, creating monolingual non-indigenous Malay-speaking populations. When it comes to applying labels such as "pidginized" and "proper", the Malay spoken in every community where it is used has to be considered separately. The terms "pidgin", "creole", and "koine" -- as well as whatever term should be used for varieties which are none of the above -- are probably all appropriately applied to different Malay varieties. The structural characteristics of local varieties also vary con- siderably; Malaysians and Indonesians are likely to speak of "Bazaar Malay" ("Melayu Pasar") as if it were a single variety, but in fact non- standard varieties vary not only geographically, but also across ethnic groups in a single community. The same is true of the indigenous varie- ties: there is a wide range of geographical dialects, and even "Standard Indonesian" or "Malaysian" as reflected in public speaking and con- temporary literature varies a good deal (much more than the governments are willing to acknowledge) according to the native language or dialect, geographical origin, ethnicity, age etc. of the speaker. To make a long story short, however, Standard Indonesian has features both of the non-indigenous ('low') varieties used in Java and elsewhere at the time when Indonesian national identity was being born (at the beginning of this century) and of the "High (or Classical) Malay" used in Malay-speaking court literature from at least the 17th century on. 'High' features generally involve copious use of morphology (voice prefixes, applicative suffixes, nominalizers etc.) that tend to be absent in non-indigenous varieties. 'Low' features include a preference for SVO order (Classical Malay prefers VX order), 'active' rather than 'passive' syntax (Classical Malay prefers the 'passive' clause), and non-use of the fancy particles (maka, pun, lah) that dotted Classical Malay texts. Early language planners in Indonesia (notably S. Takdir Alisjahbana) consciously attempted to mold the syntactic patterns of the nascent national lan- guage on the model of European languages, which were considered more "active", "dynamic" and therefore "modern". The use of all these features is highly variable, however, depending on the situation and the social identity of the speaker. Incidentally, Malay became the national language of Malaysia quite a bit after it was well-entrenched in Indonesia -- in spite of the fact that only a tiny minority of Indonesians speak it natively -- because of two factors: a) English is a viable prestige language in Malaysia in a way that Dutch never was in Indonesia, due to differing colonial policies; and b) ethnic rivalries between nearly equal numbers of Chinese, Indians and Malays in Malaysia militated against the favoring of one group over the others -- language riots occur periodically in Malaysia, resulting in the 60s in the renaming of the national language from Bahasa Melayu ('Malay' or 'the language of the Malays') to Bahasa Malaysia ('Malaysian', or 'the language of the Malaysians'). (This is reminiz- cent of the renaming of Bahasa Melayu to Bahasa Indonesia in the 20s by early Indonesian nationalists.) Because of this time lag, and because Malaysia is interested in preserving linguistic unity with its larger neighbor, standard Malaysian is largely based on standard Indonesian, rather than the other way around. In case anyone is still reading I will append a plug for my recent book, "Functional Change: the case of Malay constituent order", from Mouton de Gruyter (compares the use of various syntactic constructions in Classi- cal Malay and Modern Indonesian). If anyone is interested they may contact me directly for further references; Ellen Rafferty and Jim Collins in particular have done a good deal of interesting work on the history and social functions of several Malay varieties, and the above discussion owes a good deal to them. Susanna Cumming, University of Colorado scumming@clipr.colorado.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-810. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-811. Thu 21 Nov 1991. Lines: 178 Subject: 2.811 Conferences Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:24:07 +1100 From: mdr412@coombs.anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Subject: Third International Papuan Linguistics Conference 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 20:52:24 -0800 From: edwards@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Jane Edwards) Subject: CUNY conference on Human Sentence Processing -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:24:07 +1100 From: mdr412@coombs.anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Subject: Third International Papuan Linguistics Conference REMINDER The THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PAPUAN LINGUISTICS will be held 15-18 September 1992 in Madang, Papua New Guinea. The tentative venue is the Divine Word Institute. CALL FOR PAPERS Papers are solicited dealing with any aspect of Papuan languages including (but not limited to): * Syntax * Semantics/Pragmatics * Phonology * Historical development/Reconstruction * Sociolinguistics/Language use * Papuan-based pidgins. The term 'Papuan languages' refers to the non-Austronesian languages of eastern Indonesia (Timor, Alor, Pantar, Halmahera, Irian Jaya), Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Abstracts should be no longer than one page and should not include the author's name or institution. These should be included instead in a cover letter or on a card. All abstracts, as well as requests for further information, should be sent to: Carl Whitehead Third International Conference on Papuan Linguistics P.O. Box 418 Ukarumpa via Lae Papua New Guinea. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 20:52:24 -0800 From: edwards@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Jane Edwards) Subject: CUNY conference on Human Sentence Processing ANNOUNCEMENT Fifth Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing March 19 (12:30 P.M.) - March 21 (6 P.M.) 1992 CUNY Graduate Center 33 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 The theme of this year's CUNY Conference is: Cross-linguistic Studies of Sentence Processing Papers will be presented on this and other topics by: Elizabeth Bates (University of California at San Diego) and Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie-Mellon University) Josef Bayer (Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf) Ursula Bellugi and Karen Emmorey (Salk Institute) Robert Berwick (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Sandiway Fong (NEC Research Institute, Princeton) Marica De Vincenzi (Istituto di Psicologia del CNR, Rome) Kenneth I. Forster (University of Arizona) Lyn Frazier (University of Massachusetts) Elizabeth Gilboy and Josep Sopena (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) Atsu Inoue (University of Connecticut) and Janet Dean Fodor (CUNY Graduate Center) Aravind Joshi (University of Pennsylvania) Martin Kay (CSLI Stanford University) Howard Lasnik (University of Connecticut) Don C. Mitchell (University of Exeter) David Pesetsky (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Keith Rayner (University of Massachusetts) Stuart Shieber (Harvard University) David Swinney (CUNY Graduate Center) Michael K. Tanenhaus (University of Rochester) Statistical Approaches to Natural Language Processing Participants: Ezra Black (IBM-Watson Research) Kenneth Church (AT&T Bell Laboratories) Donald Hindle (AT&T Bell Laboratories) Mitchell P. Marcus (University of Pennsylvania) Robert Mercer (IBM-Watson Research) Yves Schabes (University of Pennsylvania) Richard K. Larson (SUNY at Stonybrook) will give a Tutorial on Logical Form (LF) Demonstration of Software For Use of Speech in Sentence Processing Studies: We are considering having a demonstration session in the morning of Thursday March 19 of software for the computer manipulation and presentation of speech in experimental settings. If you have programs you would like to demonstrate, please contact David Swinney by E-mail(BITNET) at: LNGGC@CUNYVM as soon as possible. Poster Session: There will be a poster session on Thursday evening, March 19. We encourage both faculty and graduate students engaged in research to offer poster presentations. Poster abstracts should be approximately half a page long and should be accompanied by a separate sheet giving the name, affiliation, and return address (E-mail, if available) of the author(s). Students, please include faculty advisor's name also. Note: space has been left on the program so that a few poster submissions can be chosen for presentation as papers during the regular sessions of the conference. To be considered for presentation as a paper, poster abstracts should arrive by November 30; otherwise the deadline is January 3, 1992. Abstracts will be anonymously reviewed and authors notified by E-mail or letter by December 31 for November submissions and by Feb 1 for January submissions. Please send your abstracts to Martin Chodorow by E-mail(BITNET) at MSCHC@CUNYVM, or by mail to: Martin Chodorow, Department of Psychology, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021. Please do not send poster abstracts to Janet Fodor or to the Linguistics program office. Student travel fellowships: We are hoping to obtain funding for travel for graduate students attending the conference. More details will be provided in the second announcement in late January, including information about how to apply. Further information: A detailed program will be mailed out in late January. It will include hotel information, applications for crash space and early registration forms. If you need further information in the mean time, or if you are not now on the mailing list and would like to be, please send a message by E-mail(BITNET) to: LNGGC@CUNYVM, or call: (212) 642-2154, or write: Conference Committee, Linguistics Program, CUNY Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. CUNY Conference Steering Committee: Steven P. Abney Janet Dean Fodor Martin Chodorow David Swinney Charles A. Clifton Michael K. Tanenhaus Please post this on your department bulletin board. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-811. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-812. Fri 22 Nov 1991. Lines: 138 Subject: 2.812 Inflection/Derivation; Focus Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 19:47 MST From: Mike Hammond Subject: Russsian reflexive 2) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 22:09:40 -0500 Subject: Re: 2.770 Queries From: bochner@das.harvard.edu 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 17:38:00 From: Kenesei Istvan Subject: Focus 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 08:45 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU> Subject: Origin of Focus -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 19:47 MST From: Mike Hammond Subject: Russsian reflexive I've just noticed a flurry of discussion on whether the Russian reflexive ending s'a/s' is a problem for the claim that inflection always follows derivation. I have a paper on the general issue of bracketing paradoxes that deals with this question and discusses the Russian case specifically. The paper is to appear in the next issue of _Yearbook_of_Morphology_. (4?). The basic idea I explore is that many of these cases can be dealt with by enriching the theory of prosodic morphology (McCarthy and Prince, 1990 [NLLT]) so that it can target morphemes in addition to prosodic units. Mike Hammond -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 22:09:40 -0500 Subject: Re: 2.770 Queries From: bochner@das.harvard.edu John Nerbonne asks, in 2.770 > My question is rather, assuming the plausibility of an inflection/derivation > distinction, can one make sense of the Russian s'/s'a as anything but a > counterexample to Greenberg's 28th? I agree with the validity of this example, but others might not accept the argument that s'a is derivational, and clearer cases are not too hard to find. I discussed 3 in a paper "Inflectional within Derivation" in Linguistic Review (1984) (and would be glad to send offprints to anyone interested). The best, I think, is Georgian, where inflectional prefix intervene between clearly derivational prefixes and the root. Anderson in recent work has tried to refine the Greenberg's prediction so that cases like Georgian can be accomodated, but there's no doubt that it's a counterexample to the clear, simple statement that Greenberg gives. Similar cases arise in the Iroquoian and Athapascan language families; see "Here and There in Oneida" by Cliff Abbot in IJAL(81) and "On the placement of Inflection" by Keren Rice in LI(85), respectively. Cases of the sort mentioned by David Stampe in 2.786 of this list are also persuasive from my point of view, but because the derivational suffix has a syntactic function, they're more subject to fiddling with the relation between the components of the grammar. In the Georgian, Iroquoian and Athapascan cases the prefixes frequently have arbitrary lexicalized meanings, so that they are derivational by any criteria I can imagine. Possibly universal status can be saved by attempts like Anderson's to refine the claim, but otherwise I think it's clear that the nesting of inflectional material outside derivational material is a strong statistical tendency rather than a Universal. Harry Bochner bochner@das.harvard.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 17:38:00 From: Kenesei Istvan Subject: Focus Re: Focus It might be of interest that Barbara M.H. Strang in her Modern English Structure (Edward Arnold, London; first ed.: 1962) uses the term "focus of attention" precisely in the sense "contrastive focus" is used today, and in the examples even abbreviates it as "focus" (notation somewhat simplified): I want to go (focus, _go_) 3- 2-4 [numbers stand for intonation contours] I want to go (focus, _want_) 3- 2 -4 I want to go (focus, _I_) 2-4 (p. 53) Note that in the second edition (1968), the relevant section has been altered to "focus contrastive attention" (p. 64). Istvan Kenesei -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 08:45 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU> Subject: Origin of Focus Kenneth Pike discusses focus at some length in his _Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Second, Revised Edition_ (Mouton 1967). The preliminary edition appeared in 1954, (Part I) 1955 (Part II), and 1960 (Part III), published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Glendale (now Santa Ana), California, but I don't have a copy and I don't know how extensively focus was discussed in that edition. Herb Stahlke Ball State University -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-812. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-813. Fri 22 Nov 1991. Lines: 127 Subject: 2.813 Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 23:42:24 PST From: herring@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: California State University, San Bernardino 2) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 15:02:46 EST From: SOEMARMO@OUACCVMB.bitnet Subject: Ohio University, Athens: Tenure track - Japanese language instructor 3) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 11:44 GMT From: "Fred Weerman, OTS Utrecht" Subject: Utrecht University -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 23:42:24 PST From: herring@violet.berkeley.edu Subject: California State University, San Bernardino California State University, San Bernardino is seeking a linguist to teach introductory courses in linguistics and language acquisition and develop/teach in M.A. program in TESL and composition. Versatility in TESL applications to writing and speaking an advantage. Position is tenure-track, assistant professor level. Teaching load 3 courses (12 hrs)/quarter. Ph.D., teaching experience, and evidence of professional accomplishment required. Send letter and vita by Dec. 2, 1991 to H. Hellenbrand, Chair, Department of English, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407. Will acknowledge. AA/EOE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 15:02:46 EST From: SOEMARMO@OUACCVMB.bitnet Subject: Ohio University, Athens: Tenure track - Japanese language instructor Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. The Department of Linguistics has a tenure track, assistant professor, position beginning September 1, 1992. Ph.D. in Linguistics or Foreign Language Education is required. Native or near native competence in Japanese language. Primary duty is to teach Japanese language courses, develope teaching materials, and research in language acquisition and related areas. Salary is competitive, minimum = $27,000. Send vita, transcripts, and three letters of recommendation to: Dr. Marmo Soemarmo, Chair, Department of Linguistics, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701. Deadline of application: JANUARY 1, 1992. Tel.: (614) 593-4564 -- FAX: (614) 593-4577. Ohio University is an equal opportunity & affirmative action employer. Women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 11:44 GMT From: "Fred Weerman, OTS Utrecht" Subject: Utrecht University The faculty of letters, located in the centre of Utrecht, is one of the largest in the Netherlands and is growing rapidly. It has two research institutes and 18 fields of study covering research and teaching in language, literature, arts and history. Special emphasis is put on orientation towards society, information technology in the arts and interdisciplinary cooperation. The Department of Linguistics invites applications for a position in first language acquisition (associate level, part-time - 8/10) (nr. 68.131) Tasks: - teaching at all levels in the field of General Linguistics; in particular participation in the specialized curriculum in which sociolinguistics, language change and first language acquisition have been brought together. - doing and coordinating research on first language acquisition within the Research Institute for Language & Speech (OTS). - administration Requirements: - solid background and expertise in first language acquisition, in particular research based on recent language-theoretical perspectives. Ability to initiate and coordinate new research from this perspective. - PhD, preferably with publications in international journals. - ability to cooperate in the further development of the specialized curriculum; affinity with the other parts of this programme, i.e. sociolinguistics and language change - didactic, managerial and organisational skills. Offer: tenure-track position (evaluation for tenure after 2 years). salary range: Dfl 6700 - Dfl 9000 per month (excl. tax) for full- time position Further information from: Sieb Nooteboom, tel. (0)30-392060; e-mail: nooteboom@let.ruu.nl Fred Weerman, tel. (0)30-392062; e-mail: weerman@let.ruu.nl Letter of application should be sent to: L. van Zanten Personeel en Organisatie Faculteit der Letteren Kromme Nieuwegracht 46 3512 HJ UTRECHT NETHERLANDS Letters should reach this address before December 14, 1991. Refer to "vacature nr. 68.131". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-813. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-814. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 146 Subject: 2.814 Responses: Clicks, French Terms, Hiatus, Do What Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 14:41:10 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query on clicks 2) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 01:52 EET From: Juhani H{rm{, CEFO, Univ. de Paris III Subject: Re: 2.802 French Terms 3) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 09:02:37 GMT Subject: Re: 2.807 Hiatus From: Richard Coates 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 12:46:48 EST From: cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan) Subject: Re: 2.808 Do What 5) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 17:28:00 EST From: Ron Smyth Subject: Re: 2.808 Responses: Focus, Grammar Checkers, Do What 6) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 12:42:21 -0500 From: macaulay@j.cc.purdue.edu (Monica Macaulay) Subject: do/say what? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 14:41:10 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query on clicks There is a paper in Phonetica a few years back claiming that in French the way that stops are released when appearing in clusters is the same thing as clicks. There is also a recent claim in a book by T. F. Mitchell called "Pronouncing Arabic I" that a certain Upper Egyptian dialect "seems to" have a click where Standard Arabic has a so-called "emphatic" t, but I think he may have gotten glottalization confused with clicks. For, glottalized t is well attested in this situation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 01:52 EET From: Juhani H{rm{, CEFO, Univ. de Paris III Subject: Re: 2.802 French Terms > Does anyone out there, especially the French native speakers, know the > French terms for "code switching" and "tag question"? More generally, > is there an UP TO DATE lexicon or glossary of linguistic terminology in > French? > --Suzanne Fleischman (suzanne@ucbgarne.berkeley.edu) One of the most recent lexicons is "La grammaire d'aujourd'hui - guide analytique de linguistique francaise", by Arrive', Godet & Galmiche (1986), which you might of course know. If there are more recent ones, it would be interesting indeed to know about them. Since I'm in Paris (rather than e.g. Helsinki), I haven't been able to check if "code switching" and "tag question" can be found there; presumably not. Juhani H{rm{ harma@cc.helsinki.fi HARMA@FINUH.BITNET Helsingin yliopisto, Hallituskatu 11, SF-00100 Helsinki -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 09:02:37 GMT From: Richard Coates Subject: Re: 2.807 Hiatus Re hiatus with articles in English: my daughter certainly went through a brief phase of inserting sandhi - [r] in expressions like _a_ followe by _apple_. I'm no longer sure of the exact age she was at. Richard Coates -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 12:46:48 EST From: cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan) Subject: Re: 2.808 Do What Alex Monaghan writes: > The use of "Do what?" as an alternative to "What?" or "I beg your pardon?" is > certainly well-known in British English, particularly South London speech, > and was made famous by that catchy Monty Python song, "Do What, John?": I would like to add to this list (so far: "What?", "Say what?", "Do what?", "[I beg your] pardon?") the form I use in non-intimate situations, which is Excuse me? (with rising contour) When I was traveling in Ireland a few years ago, I noticed that this form frequently didn't get the desired response. I also use Excuse me. (with falling contour) to mean "Please let me pass by" or "Pardon me for bumping you", and I conjecture that Irish people tended to confuse one form with the other. ObDemographics: white American middle-class Northeasterner. -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 17:28:00 EST From: Ron Smyth Subject: Re: 2.808 Responses: Focus, Grammar Checkers, Do What I've never heard 'do what' before. Does it exist anywhere in Canada? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 12:42:21 -0500 From: macaulay@j.cc.purdue.edu (Monica Macaulay) Subject: do/say what? At least for me, "say what?" is not only a request for repetition. It also expresses incredulity. My "do what?" informants say that "do what?" doesn't have this - that it's much more neutral. Monica -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-814. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-815. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 243 Subject: 2.815 Croatian, Serbian and Dialects Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:55:03 EST From: Stavros Macrakis Subject: Serbocroatian 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 11:36 CST From: Joe Stemberger Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:08:24 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio 4) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 09:58:25 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Serb vs Croatian 5) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 12:22:28 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: RE: Serb and Croat, and others 6) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 14:54:33 -0800 From: Mike Migalski Subject: Reply to M. Wynne -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:55:03 EST From: Stavros Macrakis Subject: Serbocroatian Martin Wynne says: ...the current [Yugoslav] conflict has encouraged many...to 'invent' ethnic and cultural differences...[including] the sudden discovery of the separarate 'languages' Serbian and Croatian. ... regional dialect differences have been exaggerated, and in many cases invented, in order to assert the differences between the language of Serbs and Croats.... So what's new? Playing games with standard languages, dialects, and ethnonyms (ethnica?) for political reasons seems to be a constant in ethnic struggle, sometimes splitting, sometimes joining, depending on the political goal. In fact, there has been a steady stream of information on such situations on this very newsgroup, most recently re Indonesian/Malaysian/Malay and the Turkic languages. cf. also Moldavian/Rumanian, Slovenian/Croatian/Croatoserbian/Serbocroatian (ije/je/i/e)/Serbian/Macedonian/Bulgarian (clearly not one language, but how many lines do you draw and where?), Catalan/Gascon/.../ Occitan/Provencal, Chinese `dialects', etc. Certainly when I was in Yugoslavia some years ago, there were already people who insisted that I not call their language `Serbocroatian' (Srpskohrvatski) but rather `Croatoserbian' (Hrvatosrpski) or `Croatian' or `Serbian'. The dictum that `a language is a dialect with an army' takes on its full tragic force these days in Yugoslavia. -s -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 11:36 CST From: Joe Stemberger Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio Martin Wynne reports that Serbs and Croats are trying to treat their dialects as separate languages. I don't think that this is related to the recent military conflicts. When I was visiting relatives in Slovenia back in 1973, I was warned to call Serbo-Croatian "Croatian" when talking to a Croat and "Serbian" when talking to a Serb. I also heard from several Americans that I met there that Croatians would often claim that they didn't understand if you tried to talk to them in a more Serbian-type version of the language. I don't really know if either claim was true, though; I didn't want to test whether the Croatians that I met would get mad if I said "Srpsko-Hrvatsko", and I don't speak Serbo-Croatian myself. Although the dialects are perfectly mutually intelligible, the claimed status of different languages is reinforced by the orthography: Croats use a modified Latin alphabet, Serbs use Cyrillic. ---joe stemberger -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:08:24 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio >From: Martin Wynne >Subject: Serb and Croat ... >So, for example the Serbs are Eastern, Orthodox (in religious terms), Slavic, >dark-haired and -skinned etc, while the Croats are Western, Christian, >European, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. a linguistically-irrelevant question: aren't the eastern orthodox classified as christian? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 09:58:25 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Serb vs Croatian When I came to Australia as a 10-bob migrant (20 bob, really, not being British), I often had to act as an interpreter in the 10 days I spent at the migrants' hostel. One of the Croat newcomers spoke Italian, one of the Serbs French. Or perhaps it was the other way around. None spoke any English. I had to translate the same sentence twice. Once into French, to be translated again into Serbian, once into Italian, to be translated into Croatian. On the other hand, the Spaniards, who knew no Italian, were perfectly happy with just the Italian translation. Said one Italian to me:"I never knew I could understand Spanish!". Only very rarely did I have to elucidate, in Spanish, an Italian word or two. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 12:22:28 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: RE: Serb and Croat, and others In response to Martin Wynne query about exaggeration of dialectal differences (Linguist: Vol-2-809). Unfortunately, this seems to be a much more common situation than we think (although it is not always the case that a civil war in going on). A good place to look for such things is polylinguistic Spain. I can give (at least) three examples of the same phenomenon Wynne describes about Serbo-Croatian. The first concerns Catalan. The geographic area where Catalan is spoken extends well beyond the administrative boundaries of Catalonia. It is spoken in the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza), in the South of France (Roussillon), in the independent state of Andorra (where it is co-official with French) and in a wide stripe along the Mediterranean coast in Spain comprising the provinces of Castello', Val`encia and Alacant. When the new administrative divisions of Spain were designed these three provinces became the so-called "Autonomous Community of Valencia" and soon it came the time to decide which was the official language of the Community. Most of the political parties agreed that it should be Catalan (along with Spanish), since most scholars agree that in Valencia is spoken one of the so-called Eastern Dialects of Catalan. Many right-wing parties, however, objected to this decision on the basis that "Valencian", as they claim it should be named, is not a dialect of Catalan but an independent Romance language developed from "Mozarabic" (Mozarabs were those muslims who during the muslim occupation of the Peninsula became catholic and who spoke a language of which very little is known); even some linguists, for political reasons, supported this theory, which just hides old interregional conflicts (political, economical, etc.) which have notihing to do with language. The debate still continues. The second case concerns Galician, spoken in the North-West of the Peninsula. It is very close to Portuguese. In this case, the debate concerns the independence of Galician from Portuguese and it is still going on, in particular with respect to the orthography of Galician which now uses a system based on Spanish (or Castillian) orthography; for example the "nh" group used in Portuguese to denote the nasal palatal has been eliminated in favor of the Castillian n-with-tilde, tildes in nasal vowels have been suppressed, etc. Many scholars defend, however, that the linguistic unity of Galician and Portuguese is unquestionable (they use the term "Galaico-Portuguese") and that the Portuguese orthography should be used instead. The third example concerns "Bable", spoken in Asturias, a region covering the stripe along the Atlantic coast between the Basque Country and Galicia. Bable is most likely a dialect of Castillian Spanish with some Galician-like features (especially intonation and phonology), but some scholars in Asturias claim it is a language independent from both Spanish and Galician and want it to become the official language of the region (which is not). As in the case of Serbo-Croatian, language is only the means to generate conflicts whose origins and goals have very little or nothing to do with language itself. But language is the most clear sign of identity for people (perhaps along with religion) and it seems to be very easy to awaken xenophobic feelings on the basis of linguistic differences, especially in an economic crisis. In these days, there are many cases like these, in Spain and in Europe, but the ultimate reason, I think, reduces always to the same: the rich who think that their wealth is being misused to help poorer areas appeal to cultural and linguistic differences to claim independence (so the money stays at home); or the poor who have nothing but just "identity" to fight for their rights. Sergio Balari Sergio Balari, U of Saarbruecken, Dept. of Computational Linguistics balari@coli.uni-sb.de -- +49 (681) 3024502 -- fax +49 (681) 3024351 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 14:54:33 -0800 From: Mike Migalski Subject: Reply to M. Wynne I am posting this for someone who doesn't have access to e-mail. Since I am not on the LINGUIST list, please direct any responses to mmigalsk@orion.oac.uci.edu SUBJECT: CROAT & SERB This comment is in response to the discussion started by Martin Wynne, Monday, November 18. The insinuation that Croats "invented" ethnic and cultural differences between themselves and the Serbians is a prime example of ignorance in this very serious matter. The cultural, historical and religious differences between Croats and Serbs are facts. Croats are Catholics and were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Serbs are Orthodox and were part of the Ottoman Empire. (The blonde hair, blue eyed vs. dark skinned bearded is pushing it!) As to the use of the word "barbarian", any persons and/or government responsible for the deaths of nearly 5,000 people, direct cause for over 500,000 refugees to flee, hundreds of thousand wounded people, destruction of the economy of Croatia and the intentional destruction of the land including historial sites and cities ("jewel of the Adriatic") are, and should be labeled, barbarians. In case you have not watched the news lately, this is exactly what the communist Serbian government and army is doing to the Croatian people on their own soil! If this is not barbarism, what is it then?? This "label" is not a racist, demonic stereotype, but rather an appropriate description of only those Serbians responsible for this reign of terror against Croatia, not every Serbian. As to the difference in language between Croats & Serbs, put it this way, there is not such language as Serbo-Croatian! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-815. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-816. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 65 Subject: 2.816 Segments and Speech Interfaces Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 14:41:27 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Chinese: a segmentless language? 2) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 10:22 GMT From: MURRAY@hprg.psychology.cardiff.ac.uk Subject: HCI/Speech Interfaces -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 14:41:27 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Chinese: a segmentless language? Time to air a perfectly outrageous proposition which has been on my mind for a few years. So outrageous that I am not sure I believe in it myself. And again... Here: the order of the elements of a Chinese syllable (Peking dialect, at least) is not emic. Enough said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 10:22 GMT From: MURRAY@hprg.psychology.cardiff.ac.uk Subject: HCI/Speech Interfaces Re. Peter Benson's query about HCI research on speech interfaces, here are some which touch on human errors & effects of extended periods of ASR use: Frankish C & Noyes J "Sources of Human Error in Data Entry Tasks Using Speech Input". Human Factors l990 32(6) 697-716. Frankish C Jones D & Hapeshi K. "Maintaining Recognition Accuracy during Data Entry Tasks Using Speech Input". Contemporary Ergonomics (Ed EJ Lovesay) Taylor & Francis l991 (pp 445-449). Shortly to appear in Int. J. of Man Machine Studies: Frankish C Jones D & Hapeshi K: "Decline in Accuracy of ASR as a Function of Time on Task". HR Kirby & PJ Roach of Leeds University also did some work in l987 (?) on 'voice degradation' after long periods of using ASR interfaces, & its effect on recogniser performance - but I don't know if/where it was published. Alison Murray. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-816. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-817. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 149 Subject: 2.817 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 11:16:48 MST From: li_am@lewis.umt.edu Subject: RE: 2.804 Names 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 15:26:39 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: Re: 2.804 Names 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:27:15 IST From: David Gil Subject: Names 4) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 21:39:16 EST From: Dave Moskovitz Subject: RE: 2.804 Names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 11:16:48 MST From: li_am@lewis.umt.edu Subject: RE: 2.804 Names Sergio Balari: >Note that these latter comments hold for Italian as well, even if this >language seems to be very much reluctant to adopt the article+name >construction. Things like > >(5) a. La Callas > b. Il Veronese > c. Il Brunelleschi > >are good in Italian. Tom Wachtel: >It is quite common to use the definite article with a personal name in >Italian, with no semantic/pragmatic marking. (I'm not sure, but I >believe it may be restricted to women's names.) Migliorini and Chiappelli in Lingua e Stile (1968), a high school textbook write: "I nomi propri di persona (o prenomi) non vogliono l'articolo: Carlo e' uscito; ... Ho visto Teresa. "Nel linguaggio familiare, accennando a persone intime, si puo' usare l'articolo davanti ai nomi di donna: Ho fatto la pace con la Titina e con la Giulietta. E' invece errato dire il Giulio, il Carlo. "I cognomi sono di solito preceduti dall'articolo: E' giunto il Panetti... per alcuni cognomi di grandissima notorieta' come Colombo, Verdi, Gari- baldi, Mazzini, l'articolo non si adopera mai. Per altri l'uso e' oscil- lante: Carducci o il Carducci, Leopardi o il Leopardi..." (p. 118). Tony Mattina, U MT. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 15:26:39 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: Re: 2.804 Names Just a clarification on Sergio Balari's comments on names in Catalan. While the use of a special article for males 'en' is normative, most of the time--in in- formal situations, at least in the Barcelona area--what you hear is the normal masculine article 'el.' Thus, I am known as'EL MICHAEL' not'EN MICHAEL.' The use of that form would have been excessively formal, approaching the level of the Spanish form 'don.' (In fact, etymologically, 'en' and 'don' are cognates. Unfortunately, due to the peculiar sociolinguistic situation marked by greater than average linguistic insecurtiy, Catalans will often report what they think they should say, when asked, rather than what they do say. Now, I think such insecurity is misplaced. Don't we have proof of imminent Cat -alanization of the English in New York, since our most famous if-somewhat less-rich-than-he-used-to-be millionaire, Mr Trump, is universally known in tabloid land as THE DONALD. Then again maybe the influence is from Portuguese. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:27:15 IST From: David Gil Subject: Names Thanks to all of you who commented on my remarks in LINGUIST Vol 2.794 on the syntax of names. Many of the remarks pointed to the use of articles in construction with names in a variety of European languages. Together, these remarks suggest the existence of a sprachbund of the article-name construction, stretching across a (very rough) triangle with Portugese, Flemish and Greek at the three apexes. This leads to a follow-up query: is anybody familiar with occurrences of the article-name construction *outside* this triangle? (Negative answers also welcome!) >From a general typological perspective, the following implicational universal seems to be true: If a language uses articles in construction with names, then it also uses articles in construction with prototypical common nouns (but not vice versa). This universal predicates the existence of three types of languages (a) using articles in construction with names and prototypical common nouns, eg. Portugese; (b) using articles in construction with prototypical common nouns, eg. English; (c) not using articles, eg. Russian. However, it rules out a fourth type of language, using articles in construction with names (but not protypical common nouns. Is anybody familiar with a counterexample? Perhaps some further hedges should be added to take into account various ways in which the use of articles with either names or prototypical common nouns may be optional. David Gil Department of English University of Haifa Haifa, Israel, 31999 rhle813@haifauvm.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 21:39:16 EST From: Dave Moskovitz Subject: RE: 2.804 Names With regards to John Limber's query about names, there is an excellent recent paper on Name Signs in ASL: Suppala, Samuel J. 1990. The Arbitrary Name Sign System in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 67. This paper also briefly describes the descriptive (non-arbitrary) name sign system. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-817. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-818. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 69 Subject: 2.818 Singular They, Human Research Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 11:42:24 MET From: David Powers Subject: A name for "Singular They" etc. 2) Date: 21 Nov 91 17:01:23 MET-1DST From: STOWE@let.rug.nl Subject: Re: 2.768 Human Subject Research, I -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 11:42:24 MET From: David Powers Subject: A name for "Singular They" etc. May I suggest 3rd person singular (masculine, feminine, neuter) "interdeterminate" dP -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 21 Nov 91 17:01:23 MET-1DST From: STOWE@let.rug.nl Subject: Re: 2.768 Human Subject Research, I > R12040.at.UQAM@tamvm1.tamu.edu says re Query 2,768 Human Research > This will be one of many similar responses: all human subjects > research these days must go through a human subjects committee > approval procedure, no matter how benign or banal. I thought > everyone knew that, but evidently not. At least you don't need > approval for political correctness, yet. Don't kid yourself. I know of at least one case where a child acquisition project was blocked (temporarily) because it used materials like: The horse kicked the cow. This was said to be encouraging violence, and is possibly particularly offensive to animal rights activists, etc. This is obviously absurd. However, is it encouraging punishing behavior if you ask the child to respond differently to a puppet that has said something "silly" and to reward it if it has said the right thing? (This in order to encourage the child to make a grammaticality judgment) Laurie Stowe -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-818. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-819. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 118 Subject: 2.819 FYI: Phonetics for the Mac, Old Journals Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:15 PST From: Peter Ladefoged Subject: Re: 2.796 Queries: Phonetics for the Mac 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 08:19:56 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Re.: Old Journals -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:15 PST From: Peter Ladefoged Subject: Re: 2.796 Queries: Phonetics for the Mac With regard to programs that might help in teaching linguistics, the following phonetics-related programs for Macintosh computers (minimum 1 megabyte of RAM required) are available from the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory. Write to me (Peter Ladefoged, idu0pnl@uclamvs.bitnet) for further information Sounds of the World's Languages database of digitized sounds found in the world's languages produced by native speakers; illustrates less familiar sounds (Hypercard 1.2 or higher; about 25 meg. Hard disk required) Acoustic phonetics Hypercard tutorial on some basic concepts of acoustic phonetics. PlotFormants plots formant frequencies in Mel,Bark or linear scales, with axes as in A Course in Phonetics. draws ellipses around collections of points showing the Standard Deviation UCLA/Uppsala version of SoundWave Reads MacRecorder (SoundEdit) files Shows pitch curves, also LPC and FFT analyses giving values of formants A basic, nothing fancy, analysis system Vocal 2.1 allows the user to create vocal tract shapes and assesses the acoustic results of different articulatory configurations. Somewhat dated Draw vocal tracts A utility program making it easy to draw phonetic diagrams. IPAMacintalk text to speech program using IPA transcription based on the public domain program 'HyperMacintalk' (Hypercard) MacSynth an old formant synthesizer demonstration program Not compatible with the SE/30 or MacII series IPASounds digitized recordings of John Wells and Susan Ramsaran linked to the IPA symbols; When used with MacRecorder lets the user practice the sounds as well as learn the symbols See SPECIAL NOTE regarding payment for this program All the above are available from: Phonetics Lab Department of Linguistics UCLA Los Angeles, CA 90024-1543 Prices Effective September 1, 1991 (subject to change without notice) Make checks payable to: Regents, University of California (Sorry, but we have to cover our costs) A: ___ All UCLA software (B & C) $65.00 B: ___ Sound's of the World's Languages $50.00 C: ___ Individual programs $5.00/disk SPECIAL NOTE The program IPASounds is free to IPA members. Others must pay $20 For this one program a separate check is required payable to the IPA (not to UCLA) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 08:19:56 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Re.: Old Journals I must say I am surprised at the response to my posting offering back issues of Language. I have even had offers of purchase. In the interest of scholarship, I will send them to some academic institution, since there appears to be enough interest. I will be away next week, and will make some decision the following week. Thanks to all who replied. If any others of you want to clean your shelves, there appears to be a substantial need in other countries. It remains to be seen whether the cost of sending material like this out of the country is within reason. Fred J. Damerau -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-819. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-820. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 139 Subject: 2.820 Queries Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:53:04 -0500 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: helium 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 16:50 GMT From: Arie.Verhagen@let.ruu.nl Subject: Experiences with grammar checkers 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:35:38 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 07:53:18 MST From: "don l. f. nilsen" Subject: contemporary legends 5) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 12:10:07 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Word for the Mac -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:53:04 -0500 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: helium In my lecture on phonetics yesterday, a student asked me why inhaling helium makes your voice go up. I was totally stumped. Can anyone out there explain this to me? ****************************************************************************** Aaron Broadwell, Dept. of Linguistics, University at Albany -- SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 gb661@leah.albany.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 16:50 GMT From: Arie.Verhagen@let.ruu.nl Subject: Experiences with grammar checkers One of the questions I asked in my earlier query about grammar and style checkers was whether anybody knew publications about the way users worked with them and evaluated them. As it turned out, I received several answers to my other questions, but not to this one. I was reminded of this striking fact when reading the recent anecdotes about some people's personal experiences. I still wonder: Is it really the case that nobody has done any research on this topic and published it? --Arie Verhagen -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:35:38 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia Serbs and Croats: The press speaks of three ethnic groups in Bosnia/Herzegovina: Serbs, Croats, and "Slavic Muslims." But, surely, the third group must speak something like either "Serbian" or "Croatian"-- or is there no real language difference, but only a religious split between Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim? What variety of Serbo-Croatian do the Muslims speak, and in which alphabet do they prefer to write? -Dan Slobin (slobin@cogsci.berkeley.edu) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 07:53:18 MST From: "don l. f. nilsen" Subject: contemporary legends Is anyone out there interested in discussing the CONTEMPORARY or URBAN LEGEND, and/or related genres like THE TALL TALE, the LEGEND, the GOTHIC NOVEL, etc. I'm especially looking for Archetypes, Prototypes, and Stereotypes as they relate to these traditions. =-) ;-> 8*) {^_^} Don L. F. Nilsen , (602) 965-7592 Executive Secretary International Society for Humor Studies English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 12:10:07 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Word for the Mac A discovery and a query (sorry if I'm not the first on this): I just brought home my new Mac bundle, complete with an official, unpirated version of MS Word 4, with its full documentation. This documentation includes a hefty (450 page) reference guide to the word processing program featuring, as usual, a number of example documents to illustrate how to perform various functions in Word. Imagine my surprise when I found, among the standard items (School Auction, Zoo Inventory, Form Letter for a mail order food company offering pesto sauce, country pate's, and chocolate macadamias--very upscale, these Word users), a thesis on (or at least covering) the rise of periphrastic "do". No author is named, of course, but it looks real, and the short excerpt appearing on the screen cites Traugott and Visser. (See p. 394 of "Reference to Microsoft Word", if you have a copy, for the clearest illustration, but it pops up elsewhere as well.) A couple of questions arise: Does this mean that (the Microsoft people think) linguists are especially likely to use Macintoshes (and Word) for their academic computing? Does it mean that a relative of the MS Word technical staff is working on historical English syntax? Does the writer of the (putative) thesis know his or her work is borrowed without acknowledgment? And--just in case the question arises in the linguistics category of the new edition of Trivial Pursuit--who IS the writer, anyway? Larry Horn -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-820. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-821. Sat 23 Nov 1991. Lines: 123 Subject: 2.821 Brown and LOB Corpora Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:49:23 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 16:48:41 GMT From: Steve Fligelstone Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 09:49:23 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio This concerns the query re the Brown and LOB corpora: The Brown corpus (American English) is available to non-profit organizations (such as universities), essentially in two formats: text only (so called "untagged" version) on tape or diskettes from our friends at the Norwegian Centre for Humanistic Research, P.O. Box 54, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. The cost varies depending on format and the dollar exchange rate. It is in the range of $100 -$200. E-mail (for Bitnet) is: FAFSRV@NOBERGEN. However, you would have to sign a written agreement (no copying, no commercial use, etc.). The size varies depending on format but the untagged uncompressed Brown corpus (without grammatical designators) is about 8mb. The "tagged" version of the corpus (which includes an annotation of every word by an expanded grammatical class-82 classes in all) is available from Text Research, 196 Bowen Street, Providence, RI 02906. Because of its size, it comes on mag. tape only (1600 or 6250 bpi, ASCII or EBCDIC) and its cost to academic institutions is $1,000.- The reason for the difference is that the tagged corpus provides much more information and carries a separate copyright. There are also some restrictions: no copying, no commercial use, etc. A written agreement must be signed by a responsible official of the Department or University Administration. Text Research has no connection with Brown University and has no e-mail address. However, you can either send e-mail to me for transmission or a fax to Text Research at 401-751-8958. The size of the tagged database is quite large--about 53mb. However, it can be fairly easily compressed by a skilled programmer. A large manual, giving a detailed description of tags, etc. is included. Incidentally, there are no discounts available for either the tagged or the untagged version. These are fixed prices. Non-academic use is possible only by obtaining a license from Text Research. As for the LOB corpus (British English): Both untagged and tagged versions are available, but only to non-profit institutions, from the address in Bergen given above. There are fairly severe restrictions on its use, as far as I remember (because of British copyright laws). I can't cite the prices right now but the Bergen people a pretty good in answering e-mail. Hope this helps. Henry Kucera. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 16:48:41 GMT From: Steve Fligelstone Subject: Re: 2.809 Queries: Brown Corpus, Circassian, Croat, Socio Mark Sanderson asks about availability of tagged versions of the Brown and LOB (Lancaster/Oslo-Bergen) Corpora. The tagged LOB Corpus, along with several other widely used corpora can be obtained by writing to ICAME (International Computer Archive of Modern English) at this address: Knut Hofland, ICAME Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Harald Harfagresgt. 31 Postboks 53 Universitetet N-5027 Bergen NORWAY email (earn/bitnet): fafkh@nobergen The Brown Corpus is also available from this source, but not in tagged format. However, I understand that the tagged version may be obtained from: TEXT RESEARCH, 186 Bowen St., Providence RI 02906, U.S.A. There is furthermore a grammatically analysed (parsed as opposed to merely part-of-speech tagged) version of part of the Brown Corpus. This is referred to as the Gothenburg Corpus. For details contact: Gudrun Magnusdottir Sprakdata Goteborgs Universitet S-412 98 Goteborg Sweden Finally, here at Lancaster work is nearing completion (honestly!) on a parsed version of part of the LOB Corpus. Write to me if you want to be kept informed of its progress and availability. Steve Fligelstone UCREL Linguistics Department Bowland College Lancaster University GB-Lancster LA1 4XZ email: eia002@uk.ac.lancaster Steve Fligelstone -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-821. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-822. Mon 25 Nov 1991. Lines: 197 Subject: 2.822 Serb, Croat, and Dialectal Differences Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 09:29:41 CST From: huttar%dallas@utafll.uta.edu Subject: vol. 2.809 - exaggeration of dialect differences 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 12:39:22 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: South Slavic 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 13:22:58 CST From: kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 15:38:23 EST From: "Wayles Browne, Cornell University" Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries: Slavic Muslims -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 09:29:41 CST From: huttar%dallas@utafll.uta.edu Subject: vol. 2.809 - exaggeration of dialect differences For a non-European example of the exaggeration of differences between speech varieties for political purposes, or at leat correlated with political differences, the following may be of interest: In the early 18th century runaway slaves from Suriname's coastal plantations established a society, eventually known as the Ndjukas, in the east and southeast of the country. Fairly early in their history, rivalry between two candidates for paramount chief of the society, and their respective backers, led to animosity between Upriver and Downriver Ndjukas among those living on the Tapanahony. Upriver people came to look down on the Downriver people, an attitude to which is attributed, in part, the failure of the Afaka script, a syllabary developed by a Downriver man around 1910, to gain the approval of the paramount chief, an Upriver man. When we began fieldowrk in the Upriver area (Drietabbetje, the residence of the chief) in the late 60s, my wife and I were told that the Downriver people spoke differently, and were given, fairly consistently, a number of specific examples of differences. But subsequent fieldwork (in the early 80s) in a Downriver village--admittedly of only a few days, but including probing for precisely those differences--found the Downriver people speaking mor like the Upriver people than we had been led to believe, even with regard to the features that the Upriver people had always mentioned to us. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 12:39:22 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: South Slavic Some personal anecdotes on South Slavic may point up ways in which the dialects were treated as both similar and distinct long before the current carnage. When I did research in Yu- goslavia in the early seventies I picked up the national first-grade reading text, which came in the form of two identical paperbacks, differing only in alphabet. All chil- dren in both Serbia and Croatia were introduced to the language in both alphabets, using these identical first readers (Nash jezik `Our language'). The books are page- for-page, word-for-word identical, one in Latin and the oth- er in Cyrillic. The language, when written in Latin, was referred to as Hrvatskosrpski (Croato-Serbian) and when in written in Cyrillic as Srpskohrvatski (Serbo-Croatian). I have school grammars of each, from the sixties, and each of them says that the language has three basic dialects (Shtokavian, Chakavian, and Kaykavian), agreeing that Shtokavian is spoken in most of Croatia and all of Serbia and Montenegro. At the same time, however, my Croatian gra- duate student was pained to have to refer to the language of her dissertation research as "Serbo-Croatian," out of fear that this would discredit her in seeking employment in Za- greb. English-speaking practice did not allow her to write about the "Croato-Serbian" language, even though she gave me a "Croato-Serbian English Dictionary" published in Zagreb in -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 13:22:58 CST From: kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries Concerning the Slavic Muslims. The Serbian husband of a colleague of mine told me that most of the Slavs who converted to Islam were Serbians, hence their descendants still speak Serbian. My colleague, a nonSlav, told me that the Muslims' dialect have many more borrowings from Turkist and Arabic than the "standard" Serbian dialect. The Muslims consider their dialect a separate langauge which they have named "Muslim". Ed Kovach -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 15:38:23 EST From: "Wayles Browne, Cornell University" Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries: Slavic Muslims >Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:35:38 -0800 >From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) >Subject: Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia > >Serbs and Croats: > >The press speaks of three ethnic groups in Bosnia/Herzegovina: >Serbs, Croats, and "Slavic Muslims." But, surely, the third >group must speak something like either "Serbian" or "Croatian"-- >or is there no real language difference, but only a religious >split between Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim? What variety of >Serbo-Croatian do the Muslims speak, and in which alphabet do >they prefer to write? > >-Dan Slobin (slobin@cogsci.berkeley.edu) > The standardization of the different varieties of Serbo-Croatian took place in the last century and early in this one. The standard form used in Serbia was based on a corpus of linguistic raw material largely due to the writer, folklorist and lexicographer Vuk Karadzic [hacek on the z, acute accent on the c] but with some material from older Serbian writings and with replacement of one of V.K.'s phonetic traits (the je or ije reflex of the Common Slavic vowel "jat'", a sort of long e) with the e reflex of the same vowel. So where V.K. wrote lijep "beautiful", the standard in Serbia writes lep. The standard form used in Croatia was based largely on V.K.'s material with a lot of material from earlier Croatian writings and some words from various Croatian regions and newly-coined words. The standard form used in the Repub- lic of Bosnia and Hercegovina (where most of the Slavic Muslims live, but where a lot of Serbs and Croatians also live) is comparatively close to that of V.K. It doesn't have the e reflex used in Serbia, but keeps the je or ije. It also doesn't have some of the words from Croatian regions, nor the words made up in recent times by Croatian literary people. It does have a number of words of Turkish origin that are not so familiar in either the Republic of Serbia nor the Republic of Croatia. The Muslims use the Latin alphabet more than the Cyrillic, but both are used to some extent. (In the past, some of them used an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet.) As an example, I have some literature published by the Islamic Religious Community in Sarajevo, which is the capital of the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina. It is mostly in Latin script, but some readings from the Koran are presented also in Cyrillic with the comment "To make it possible for our respected readers who know only the Cyrillic writing to study [= read] the Jasin verses [of the Koran], we have decided to transcribe it also in Cyrillic." Some of the Serbs in B and H may prefer to use the standard of Serbia, but others use the standard of B and H. Some of the Croatians in B and H prefer to use the standard of Croatia, but others use the standard of B and H. The colloquial language of educated people in most of Serbia doesn't differ very much from the standard of Serbia. The colloquial language of educated people in B and H doesn't differ very much from the standard of B and H. The colloquial language of educated people in various regions of Croatia can differ quite a bit from the standard of Croatia, since Croatia is the region with the greatest dialectal differentiation in the whole Serbo-Croatian lan- guage area, but the same educated people are also able to use the standard in speech (apart from some of the suprasegmental features) and certainly in writing. The difference between the three standards (and I could add a fourth, that of the Republic of Montenegro, which is very similar to that of Serbia but doesn't replace the je/ije reflex with e) is not great enough to hinder communication in most instances, but 1) there are some vocabulary items which have become symbols of the various nationalities, so that if one askes for kruh (Croatian standard for 'bread') in Serbia one may get criticized for not saying hleb, and similarly if one asks for hleb in Croatia; 2) there are some vocabulary items which are unknown or misinterpret- ed in one republic or another, so that a resident of Serbia, B and H, or Montenegro may honestly not know which month a Croatian resident means by travanj or svibanj. (Travanj is april in the other standards, and svibanj is maj 'May'.) A few sample words: 'book' S. knjiga, B&H knjiga, M knjiga, C knjiga (People in Serbia would frequently, and those in Montenegro would almost always, write this in Cyrillic.) 'bread' hleb, hljeb, hljeb, kruh 'beautiful' lep, lijep, lijep, lijep 'I am not' nisam, nisam, nijesam, nisam 'holiday' praznik, praznik, praznik, praznik/blagdan Now, when a group has a standard form of its own, it may well wish to call this standard 'its language', and so many people in Croatia prefer the term 'the Croatian language'. Many people in Serbia have always said 'the Serbian language', at least when speaking informally, although both linguists and politicians (at least until recently) have felt it was better to speak of 'the Serbo-Croatian language'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-822. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-823. Mon 25 Nov 1991. Lines: 126 Subject: 2.823 Helium Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 22:41 PST From: Peter Ladefoged Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries 2) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 0:47:40 EST From: geyer@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Howard Geyer) Subject: Re: helium 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 15:38 EST From: KINGSTON@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 15:26:11 -0600 From: "Mimi Klaiman" Subject: Inquiry about helium 5) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 17:25:32 -0500 From: oneil@husc.harvard.edu Subject: helium -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 22:41 PST From: Peter Ladefoged Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries Helium speech has (among other things) formants with higher frequencies because the speed of sound is faster in helium than in air. Formant frequencies depend on the resonances of the vocal tract. The resonances depend on such things as the length of the vocal tract. For example, the lowest resonance in a neutral (schwa) vowel has a wavelength that is 4 times the length of the vocal tract. If the vocal tract is 17.5 cm long the wavelength will be 70 cm. The frequency (f) of a sound depends on the wavelength (l) and the speed of sound (c) in accordance with the formula: f = c/l. So in a neutral vowel f = 35,000 / 70 = 500 Hz. If the speed of sound goes up and the wavelength remains the same (because the vocal tract dimensions remain the same), the frequency must also go up. All that is more than you want to tell you students. Just say it is because the speed of sound is faster in helium. Peter Ladefoged (idu0pnl@uclamvs.bitnet) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 0:47:40 EST From: geyer@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Howard Geyer) Subject: Re: helium The reason one's voice sounds higher after inhaling helium is related to the lighter density of helium compared to nitrogen, the primary constituent of air. The atomic weight of helium is much less than that of nitrogen, and waves travel at a higher frequency through a less dense medium than a more dense one. Consequently, the sound waves emitted upon speaking into helium emerge at a higher frequency. Howard Geyer Department of Psychology and School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania geyer@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Internet) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 15:38 EST From: KINGSTON@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Re: 2.820 Queries This is a reply to Aaron Broadwell's (hi, Aaron) question about why breathing helium makes "your voice go up." The answer is that the frequencies at which the air inside your vocal tract resonates are directly proportional to the speed of sound. Since sound travels faster in air in which helium has been mixed, the frequencies of all the vocal tract resonances will be higher. John Kingston kingston@cs.umass.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 15:26:11 -0600 From: "Mimi Klaiman" Subject: Inquiry about helium In answer to Aaron Broadwell's query about helium making one's voice go up, I'm pretty sure it's an instance of Graham's Law of Diffusion; the velocity of helium is faster than that of air, and since velocity is proportional to frequency, using helium as a medium for a soundwave to travel on will result in the wave frequency being higher than it would in air. I won't swear I'm right on this, but I think that's the reason. Mimi Klaiman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 17:25:32 -0500 From: oneil@husc.harvard.edu Subject: helium Because helium is a lighter gas than air, the speed of sound in it is greater. Your vocal tract creates (i.e. filters out all but) waves at certain wavelengths -- which will have a higher pitch (more waves per second) since they are travelling faster in helium. John O'Neil -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-823. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-824. Mon 25 Nov 1991. Lines: 158 Subject: 2.824 FYI: LSA Crash Space, Brown Corpus, Idiom Conference Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 12:14:08 EST From: coreym@gradient.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Crash Space at LSA Annual Meeting 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 10:45:59 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.821 Brown and LOB Corpora 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1991 17:27:50 +0100 From: Erik-Jan van der Linden Subject: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS: Idioms -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 12:14:08 EST From: coreym@gradient.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Crash Space at LSA Annual Meeting The University of Pennsylvania Linguistics Club is happy to announce that it will attempt to provide crash space for those who need it during the LSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in January. Anyone interested in obtaining crash space should send an e-mail letter stating the dates needed, particular preferences and phone and e-mail address to coreym@gradient.cis.upenn.edu. Please advise any colleagues who may not see this message of its contents. Anyone not able to send e-mail is requested to send a letter to: Corey Miller, Crash Space Coordinator Department of Linguistics 619 Williams Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 10:45:59 EST From: Henry Kucera Subject: Re: 2.821 Brown and LOB Corpora >The Brown Corpus is also available from this source, but not in tagged >format. However, I understand that the tagged version may be obtained >from: > TEXT RESEARCH, > 186 Bowen St., > Providence RI 02906, > U.S.A. > Please note: the street address is 196 (one ninety six) Bowen St. (Since 186 does not exist, our smart postal service is likely to return the letter). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1991 17:27:50 +0100 From: Erik-Jan van der Linden Subject: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS: Idioms !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS IDIOMS September 2-4, 1992, Tilburg, The Netherlands Idioms are the subject of research in theoretical linguistics, computational linguistics, and psycholinguistics. The aim of the IDIOMS conference is to bring together scholars from these disciplines with an interest in idioms, in order to further the interaction between these disciplines and to transfer results from one discipline to another. The theme of IDIOMS is the representation of idioms at the various levels of grammar and the analysis and generation of idioms both in psychological models of the human language faculty, and in computational and theoretical linguistic frameworks. Original papers are sollicited, including but not limited to - comparison of idiomatic expressions to other forms of non-literal language. - accounts of the prosodic, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic behaviour of idioms. - lexical representation of idioms; representation of idioms in the mental lexicon. - ambiguity resolution in the case of idiomatic expressions. - analysis and generation of idioms. In order to guarantee the multi-disciplinary character of the workshop, contributions should stress relevance to the study of idioms, rather than focus on the relevance to the study of theoretical and computational linguistic formalisms or psychological models. The conference comprises invited and contributed papers. Papers will be one hour including discussion. The following speakers have been invited: - Joan Bresnan (Stanford University) - Lynn Frazier (University of Massachusetts) (to be confirmed) - Raymond Gibbs (University of California at Santa Cruz) - George Lakoff (Berkely University) - Igor Mel'cuk (Universite' Quebec Montreal) SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS Authors are requested to submit four copies of an extended abstract (4 pages; 1500 words) written in English in hardcopy format to the address below. All abstracts will be refereed by a programme committee which consists of Peter Coopmans (Utrecht), Dirk Geeraerts (Leuven), Jan Odijk (Philips Eindhoven), Louis des Tombe (Utrecht), Wietske Vonk (Nijmegen) and the members of the organising committee. ACCEPTED PAPERS Accepted papers (max. 15 pages) will be published in the proceedings of the conference. Guidelines for submission of final versions of accepted papers will be sent to the authors. TIMETABLE Abstracts must be received before December 15, 1991. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by February 1, 1992. Final camera-ready papers must be received by June 1, 1992. A copy of the conference proceedings will be distributed among the participants of the conference. ORGANISING COMMITTEE Martin Everaert (Research Institute for Language and Speech, Utrecht) Erik-Jan van der Linden (Institute for Language Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Tilburg) Andre' Schenk (Philips Research Labs, Eindhoven) Rob Schreuder (Center for Language Studies, Nijmegen) IDIOMS / Erik-Jan van der Linden Institute for Language Technology and AI PO BOX 90153 NL-5000 LE Tilburg The Netherlands tel.: +31 13 663070 / 3113 fax.: +31 13 663110 E-mail: idioms@kub.nl -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-824. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-825. Mon 25 Nov 1991. Lines: 126 Subject: 2.825 Queries: Belize, Macs, Amiga, Communicative Strategies Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1991 14:34:31 EST From: jblack@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: bembe 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 18:01:03 -0800 From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Mac software query 3) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 11:58:49 EST From: talmage@luvthang.aquin.ori-cal.com (David W. Talmage) Subject: IPA character set for Amiga 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 15:56 CST From: CARLSON@vicvx1.vic.uh.edu Subject: linguistic and communicative strategies -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1991 14:34:31 EST From: jblack@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: bembe A colleague is looking for information on the origins and precise meaning of the word "BEMBE", used in Belize to designate something like "a gossip", "a market woman" - usually of the organizing or haranguing sort. Replies please to - all replies gratefully acknowledged. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 18:01:03 -0800 From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Mac software query I need some advice on software for my research. I've collected a large amount of data on some constructions involving dis- continuous constituents (e.g. various extrapositions) and am looking at the relevance of various factors such as grammatical relation (GR) of the head, its position, +/-def, +/-pl, and other things, which I am entering with each example. I would like to use my Mac to figure out the statistics on these factors, but don't know what (type of) software would be the best for my needs. I've been told a spreadsheet or database should do the trick, but don't know which one. Suggestions have included Excel, Filemaker Pro, Double Helix/Data Desk, Fourth Dimension, and Foxbase. I'd like to be able to ask questions such as the following about examples with extraposition (E): o what's the total number of examples & how many have E? o how frequent is extraposition from various positions? o how frequent is extraposition if the head is either the Subj or PObj? o if the head's position = 1, how often is its GR Subj, Obj etc.? o if the head's position = medial, how often is it +def? o what's the average number of elements following the head? o what's the maximum number of elements following the head? My requirements are the following. The application must: o run on Mac SE with 4MB RAM; o be easy to use (I don't program!!), especially in querying; o allow queries on multiple factors (with &, or, etc.); o allow me to enter multiple lines of text in a field; o be able to import (& export) data from MS Word; o be able to print out examples with all related information; o accommodate 1,000-3,000 examples with 10-20 categories; o it'd be nice if the data could also be transferred to an IBM. I would appreciate any suggestions which colleagues may have. Respondents should reply to me directly (tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu), so as not to clutter up this discussion group. I'd be happy to summarize the recommendations I receive, if there's interest. Thanks. tom shannon tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu PS: I'm posting this on both Linguist & Humanist. Apologies for repeats! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 91 11:58:49 EST From: talmage@luvthang.aquin.ori-cal.com (David W. Talmage) Subject: IPA character set for Amiga The recent announcement of IPA characters for IBM + WP + HPLJ reminds me that I've been looking for the set of IPA characters for my Amiga. Can someone kindly help me? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 15:56 CST From: CARLSON@vicvx1.vic.uh.edu Subject: linguistic and communicative strategies Am writing manuscript on conflicts between ethnic/cultural groups in classroom in the U.S. Have found research of Frederick Erickson, Susan Philips and Hymes and Gumperz very helpful in opening the door for teachers wrestling with conflicts in linguistic and communicative strategies. But I'm running out of such research. Would especially appreciate references to Hispanic-American, African- American and other groups who have arrived in country recently. I teach teachers to deal with communication conflicts and am frustrated at the lack of success in finding fresh literature. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-825. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-826. Mon 25 Nov 1991. Lines: 142 Subject: 2.826 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 12:48:56 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: Names and definiteness 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 17:55:43 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: Re: 2.817 Names 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 13:09:08 EST From: "George Fowler h(317)571-9471 o(812)855-2829" Subject: RE: 2.817 Names 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 18:45:56 -0500 From: cooneys@gw.wmich.edu (SEAMUS COONEY, DEPT. OF ENGLISH, SPRAU TOWER 917) Subject: RE: 2.817 Names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 12:48:56 -0800 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Dan I. Slobin) Subject: Names and definiteness Names and definiteness: Obviously, the name of an individual is definite, and this is noted in languages that mark definiteness in other ways than in the use of articles. In Turkish, for example, the accusative is restricted to definites, and it is, of course, used with names. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 17:55:43 +0000 From: balari@coli.uni-sb.de (Sergio Balari) Subject: Re: 2.817 Names >2) >Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 15:26:39 EST >From: Michael Newman >Subject: Re: 2.804 Names > >Just a clarification on Sergio Balari's comments on names in Catalan. While the >use of a special article for males 'en' is normative, most of the time--in in- >formal situations, at least in the Barcelona area--what you hear is the normal >masculine article 'el.' Thus, I am known as'EL MICHAEL' not'EN MICHAEL.' >The use of that form would have been excessively formal, approaching the >level of the Spanish form 'don.' (In fact, etymologically, 'en' and 'don' are >cognates. I tend to disagree with this observation. While it is true that "el" is used in informal speech, for me (as a native bilingual Spanish/Catalan speaker born in Barcelona) "en" is not at all as formal as "don" is in Spanish (although the feminine "na" is in fact very formal). Talking to my father about my brother I would refer to him as "en Gabriel", but NEVER as "don Gabriel". There is, however, an alternance "en/el" in Catalan, but I think it is mostly due to phonological reasons. For example "en Joan", "en Pere" (and "en Michael") are perfect, but not "n'Alfred" or "n'Eloi". In the latter case "l'Alfred" and "l'Eloi" are used instead. >Unfortunately, due to the peculiar sociolinguistic situation marked >by greater than average linguistic insecurtiy, Catalans will often report what >they think they should say, when asked, rather than what they do say. But you are absolutely right in this point, although Catalans seem to be a bit more relaxed in their linguistic judgements lately. Sergio Balari -- Sergio Balari, U of Saarbruecken, Dept. of Computational Linguistics balari@coli.uni-sb.de -- +49 (681) 3024502 -- fax +49 (681) 3024351 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 13:09:08 EST From: "George Fowler h(317)571-9471 o(812)855-2829" Subject: RE: 2.817 Names On David Gil's comment on the "triangle" for personal names with articles: Hungarian would like roughly on the side connecting Flemish and Greek, and it evidences the phenomenon optionally, as a kind of stylistic thing. Without thinking about other languages that do the same sort of thing, I always assumed a sort of Hungarian-internal explanation. Hungarian distinguishes between the "definite" and "indefinite" conjugations, the former with definite direct objects and the second without (indefinite object or no object at all). Hungarian also has explicit definiteness markers like articles, demonstrative pronouns, and so forth. Some NP's without such explicit markers are also definite for the purposes of determining which conjugation to use, e.g., any morphologically possessed noun is definite, and personal names without articles are also definite. This is reasonable semantically, but does create a mechanical deviation from the syntactic pattern of definite verb--explicitly definite NP. So I always assumed that articles were first used with personal names in direct object position, and from there spread to other constructions. Note that articles can optionally be used with possessed nouns as well, on more or less the same stylistic basis (perhaps it is more common than with names). Perhaps this is wrong and/or naive. Or perhaps other languages that have articles with names also offer evidence for the need to mark inherent semantic definiteness explicitly? George Fowler Dept. of Slavic Languages Indiana University Ballantine 502 Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-2624 [office] (317) 571-9471 [home] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 91 18:45:56 -0500 From: cooneys@gw.wmich.edu (SEAMUS COONEY, DEPT. OF ENGLISH, SPRAU TOWER 917) Subject: RE: 2.817 Names In D. H. Lawrence's "The Fox," he refers frequently to one of his pair of female characters -- the one who is more or less the "male" in what we assume to be a lesbian relationship -- as "The Banford." I've always felt uncertain about how to paraphrase what that usage registers, beyond a certain obvious irony. And I don't think it's native English; I think DHL is anglicizing something he's picked up from Italian or German. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-826. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-827. Sat 30 Nov 1991. Lines: 128 Subject: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Helium Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1991 13:32 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.825 Queries: Belize, Macs, Amiga, Communicative Strategies 2) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1991 08:57 EDT From: BELMORE@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: Mac software query 3) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1991 09:10 EDT From: BELMORE@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: French translation of 'tag question' 4) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1991 19:08 CST From: PETER GINGISS Subject: Mac DataBases 5) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 10:41:02 CST From: Pamela A Downing Subject: Re: 2.825 Intercultural communication 6) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 18:11:33 -0500 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: helium explained -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1991 13:32 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.825 Queries: Belize, Macs, Amiga, Communicative Strategies Re the linguistic and communicative strategies query posed by Carlson, you might want to look at some things that Steve Boggs worked on at least 15 years ago at the University of Hawaii. I'm afraid I don't know if or where they were published, but it was under the aegis of Kamehameha Schools. Susan Fischer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1991 08:57 EDT From: BELMORE@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: Mac software query Concerning T. Shannon's request: I have used a Mac for years in my linguistics research and think that far and away the best all-purpose tool is Fourth Dimension. The best way to start, however, may be with FileForce, a subset of 4D, which is considerably cheaper and would probably answer all your needs. If not, you can upgrade to 4D. You may also want one of the excellent statistics programs like Systat although from the description of what you're doing, I would think the excellent DeltaGraph from DeltaPoint would meet your needs. You can order both from MacConnection 1-800-800-4444 and doubt- less from other mail order houses. Belmore@Vax2.Concordia.Ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1991 09:10 EDT From: BELMORE@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: French translation of 'tag question' A colleague has suggested "reprise interrogative". So far no one has come up with a translation of "code switching". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1991 19:08 CST From: PETER GINGISS Subject: Mac DataBases My suggestion for Tom Shannon is "Panorama," a flat database which is very powerful but is easy to use. I have used it for over a year with great results. There are still features I haven't used yet, but the basic operation is simple. Moroever, PROView supplies booklets and video tapes to help folks learn it. Peter Gingiss -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 10:41:02 CST From: Pamela A Downing Subject: Re: 2.825 Intercultural communication For information and further references on cross-cultural communicative strategies, you might look at: Donal Carbaugh, ed. Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact. 1990. Lawrence Erlbaum. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 18:11:33 -0500 From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) Subject: helium explained Thanks to all the people who wrote to explain the effect of helium on the voice to me. There was a bit of difference of opinion, but the majority (and most convincing to me) explanation goes something like this -- Helium is less dense than air, therefore the speed of sound in helium is faster. Since faster sound equals higher frequency, helium speech is higher than ordinary speech. (I hope I haven't muddled this recount!) I considered bringing helium balloons to class to let the students try it, but I decided I couldn't get it past the human subjects board. :-) Aaron Broadwell -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-827. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-828. Sat 30 Nov 1991. Lines: 107 Subject: 2.828 Queries: Macs, Historical Linguistics, Paper Search Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 00:10:09 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 2.822 Serb, Croat, and Dialectal Differences 2) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1991 09:22:31 EST From: jblack@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: Workbook for Historical Linguistics course 3) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 22:13:44 MST From: Randy_Allen_Harris@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca Subject: query 4) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 17:27:30 PST From: kumashi@bend.UCSD.EDU (Toshiyuki Kumashiro) Subject: Tree-drawing program for Mac -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 00:10:09 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 2.822 Serb, Croat, and Dialectal Differences As a postscript to the recent net inventories of current colloquialisms for expressing incredulity or seeking repetition (say what? do what?) and for introducing (in)direct discourse, I'd like some feedback on a feature of some American dialects that is quite foreign to my own but that I'm interested in for reasons some of you may guess. This is the independent "not" of (I think) sarcastic denial, as in "That was a great idea. [PAUSE] Not." This is not an actual datum, though, and I'd appreciate real instances and any suggestions towards a grammar of post-affirmation freestanding "not"s that anyone can provide. Some obvious data questions: is it only one's own affirmations that can be cancelled in this way, or those of one's interlocutors? Did this start on a TV show, and if so which? Who uses it, and when? (The WHY I can guess.) --Larry Horn -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1991 09:22:31 EST From: jblack@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: Workbook for Historical Linguistics course Suggestions are sought for a suitable manual / workbook for an introductory historical linguistics course to be offered at Memorial University. The instructor has chosen as primary text the book by Anthony Arlotto - INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS - and is seeking supplementary materials to accompany this text. If anyone has prepared exercises in this area, especially using the text mentioned above, I would appreciate hearing from you. Address: . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 22:13:44 MST From: Randy_Allen_Harris@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca Subject: query I hate to use Linguist for this, but ... Does anyone out there know of a linguist by the name of Ian Boal? Unfortunately, I don't know much about him myself, except that he wrote an unpublished paper which (among other things) compares the 1955 ms. of Chomsky's LSLT with the published version that came out in 1975. Konrad Koerner and Stephen Murray have cited the paper in publications, but neither one seems to have a copy any longer. So, if you don't know anything of Boal's whereabouts, do you know anything of the paper (c1984, "Chomsky and the state of linguistics")? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 17:27:30 PST From: kumashi@bend.UCSD.EDU (Toshiyuki Kumashiro) Subject: Tree-drawing program for Mac Does anybody know of a Macintosh program that would help you draw tree diagrams? It would be nice if the program can convert bracketed representations into tree diagrams which can be exported as PICT files editable by other drawing programs. Thanks in advance. Toshiyuki Kumashiro University of California, San Diego kumashi@bend.ucsd.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-828. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-829. Mon 02 Dec 1991. Lines: 176 Subject: 2.829 Responses: Grammar Checkers, Clicks, Say what Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 12:52:50 -0500 (EST) From: Leslie Burkholder Subject: grammar checkers 2) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 12:27:10 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: say what vs. do what 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 15:09:22 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: Re: 2.818 Singular They, Human Research 4) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 16:29 GMT From: JL1@vaxa.york.ac.uk Subject: RE: 2.814 Responses: Clicks, French Terms, Hiatus, Do What 5) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1991 16:24 CST From: CARLSON@vicvx1.vic.uh.edu Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, 6) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 20:16:57 -0800 From: ervin-tr@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Susan Ervin-Tripp) Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Helium -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1991 12:52:50 -0500 (EST) From: Leslie Burkholder Subject: grammar checkers >One of the questions I asked in my earlier query about grammar and >style checkers was whether anybody knew publications about the way >users worked with them and evaluated them. As it turned out, I >received several answers to my other questions, but not to this one.... >Is it really >the case that nobody has done any research on this topic and published >it? Try the following: (1) An unpublished study by Sandy Friedlander and Cheryl Giesler at Carnegie Mellon University about 5 years ago. Friedlander is now at Drexel University in Philadelphia PA (Dept of Technical Communications). I think the study used Writer's Workbench. (2) Peek et al, "The efficacy of syntax checkers on the quality of accounting students' writing", Computers and Composition, Aug 1989. There are several different problems. I doubt any of them have been researched well. Among them: (1) Correct identification of syntax errors. This includes: flagging a string as an error, and correctly identifying the kind of error. Many remarks have been made about grammar checkers (2) Differences in the ability of novice and expert writers to make use of the advice provided by grammar checkers. Grammar checkers are often suggested as aids for undergraduate students (novice writers) but reviewed by practiced expert writers. (3) Transfer of any learning that might have taken place while using a grammar checker to subsequent writing. Leslie Burkholder CMU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 12:27:10 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: say what vs. do what Monica Macaulay observes: >At least for me, "say what?" is not only a request for repetition. >It also expresses incredulity. My "do what?" informants say that >"do what?" doesn't have this - that it's much more neutral. As a former speaker of a dialect with both forms, remembered intuition is that "Say what?!" is a reduction of "You say what?!" and "Do what?" is a reduction of "You want me to do what?" As is usual with reductions, the intonation of the unreduced form is retained, as far as possible, in the reduced form. Bruce Nevin bn@bbn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 15:09:22 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: Re: 2.818 Singular They, Human Research In reply to David Powers suggestion for 3ps indeterminate for what has (unfortunately) come to be known as singular they, I'm afraid that this does not solve the problem. Actually I should say it does not solve the problems. 'Singular THEY would be a wonderful name because it's short and easy to under-s tand. The problem with it is that it implies that some sort of singular quality has somehow leaked into the pronoun THEY itself. It is hard to imagine what sort of singularity that is supposed to be. It's evidently not syntactic--THEY does not start taking 's's on its verbs; and it's not notional--if the antece- dent is EVERY, for example, it does not seem singular in any semantic sense. Whatever name is suggested would have to describe this usage of THEY in some way. Yet 3ps indeterminate doesn't either. First there are a number of cases of singular THEY in which the gender of the referent is actually known. Here's one particular obvious case from the NY Times:'When you have a friendship with A FEMALE, you don't want to ruin it by telling THEM that you like THEM.' NYT 5/1/91) For that reason I still use singular THEY, but I make sure to note my problems with that term. For the simple situation of indeterminate-gender I follow Den- nis Baron (1981. 'THE Epicene Pronoun: The word that failed. AMERICAN SPEECH 56 : 83-97) and use the Greek word for common gender, EPICENE. It's not transpa- rent, but it is precise. Michael Newman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 16:29 GMT From: JL1@vaxa.york.ac.uk Subject: RE: 2.814 Responses: Clicks, French Terms, Hiatus, Do What Re Alexis Manaster Ramer's comments on clicks - the 'French clicks' are a bit of a problem as Marchal (Phonetica, 1987, 44:30-37) doesn't actually present any intra-oral pressure data - the EPG data presented are amenable to a number of interpretations (eg 'percussives' in the sense of Pike) - or acoustic waveforms which might reveal the characteristic 'big spikes'. With respect to AlexisU coment on Mitchell's phonetic observation about clicks. It's highly unlikely that a phonetician of Mitchell's sophistication would confuse 'glottalization' (whatever that may be construed as meaning) with velaric initiation. I also wonder what Alexis means by the 'well attested' 'glottalized t'(= realization of 'emphatic'). I've observed a variety of phonetic events associated with 'emphatics' produced by Arabic speakers but IUve not observed something which could straightforwardly be labelled 'glottalized' (maybe this is just a UK vs USA terminological difference) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1991 16:24 CST From: CARLSON@vicvx1.vic.uh.edu Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Would like to thank those of you who responded to my query about communicative strategies across groups. Some of the references you gave appear to have potential for my quest for developing classroom strategies. Would be happy to receive any more that come to mind. Thanks very much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 20:16:57 -0800 From: ervin-tr@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Susan Ervin-Tripp) Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Helium Re Boggs: Speaking, Relating, and Learning: A study of Hawaiian children at home and at chool. Stephen T. Boggs, Ablex, 1985. There is a substantial literature from the Kamehameha project, much referenced in Boggs' book. S. Ervin-Tripp -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-829. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-830. Mon 02 Dec 1991. Lines: 262 Subject: 2.830 FYI: Electronic Texts, Chinese Information Processing Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 18:24:22 EST From: Heyward Ehrlich Subject: SUSAN HOCKEY--December NEACH 2) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 91 13:55:06 sst From: luakt@iscs.nus.sg (lua kim teng) Subject: CHINESE AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES INFORMATION PROCESSING SOCIETY -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 18:24:22 EST From: Heyward Ehrlich Subject: SUSAN HOCKEY--December NEACH [From Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0481. Wednesday, 27 Nov 1991.] An Invitation from NEACH NEACH is pleased to invite you to hear a talk by SUSAN HOCKEY on the new CENTER FOR ELECTRONIC TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES. It will take place on WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1991 at 1:30 P.M. in New York City at the IBM Building, 57th Street & Madison Avenue. The meeting is free and open to the public. Susan Hockey, formerly at Oxford University, recently became director of the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities, a new project formed by Rutgers and Princeton Universities with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She will describe plans for the development of the Center during its initial stages, including the inventory of machine- readable texts and the Center's role in archiving texts and providing educational programs. The talk will also examine some current issues in humanities computing which need to be addressed for the long-term development of the center. There will an opportunity for the audience to comment on the center's objectives and priorities. To attend Susan Hockey's talk, please ask at the ground floor of the IBM building for a pass to "NEACH" or "Humanities." The meeting is scheduled for room 25A. NEACH PROGRAM SCHEDULE FOR 1991-1992: Wed. Oct. 9 Humanist & Women Writers Project Elaine Brennan Tues. Nov 12 The Writer's PC: New Horizons Judith Glassman ------------------------------------------------------------------------- WED. DEC. 11 CENTER FOR ELECTRONIC TEXTS SUSAN HOCKEY, DIRECTOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tues. Jan. 21 Global Network Resources Mary Sproule, Princeton Wed. Feb. 12 Managing Textual Variants F. W. Wilson, Morgan Lib. Tues. Mar. 10 Poetry and NLP Mary Dee Harris Wed., Apr 8 TBA Tues., May 12 TBA NEACH: The Northeast Association for Computers and the Humanities is a regional affilate of ACH: Association for Computers and the Humanities. Its monthly meetings alternate between the second Wednesday and the second Tuesday of the month and take place from October through May. Should you wish to join NEACH, annual memberships are $15, or, if you already belong to ACH, are only $5 additional when you join or renew NEACH and ACH at the same time. For membership information, contact Nan Hahn, NEACH Treasurer, 322 Second St., Dunellen, N.J. 08812, USA. Phone: (908) 752-5841. --Heyward Ehrlich, President (ehrlich@andromeda.rutgers.edu) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 28 Nov 91 13:55:06 sst From: luakt@iscs.nus.sg (lua kim teng) Subject: CHINESE AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES INFORMATION PROCESSING SOCIETY ======================================================================= C A L L F O R P A P E R S Comm.COLIPS COMMUNICATIONS OF CHINESE AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES INFORMATION PROCESSING SOCIETY -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Information for Authors This journal is intended to be published 4 issues per volume. Its scope includes all aspects related to Computer Processing of Chinese & Oriental Languages, e.g., computer input and output of characters, typesetting and design of characters, coding and compression of data, voice input and output, analysis, recognition and synthesis of speech, man-computer communications, language processing and text understanding, representation of knowledge and inferencing, computational linguistics, machine translation, software and design of Chinese language computers, database management and systems, information retrieval, text handling, question answering, applications of theories, methods and techniques.$ Manuscripts Manuscripts will be reviewed for possible publication on the understanding that they are being submitted to this journal only, and have not been published, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication in any other journal. All manuscripts must be submitted in triplicate to the Editor-in-Chief, K T Lua, Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 0511. When the paper is accepted, the author will also be requested to submit an electronic copy of the manuscript on a 5.25" diskette in IBM PC 360KB or 1.2 MB format. The text should be in GB2312/Big-5 codes if possible. The official languages of this journal are English and Chinese. Occasionally invited papers may be published in other oriental languages with English abstracts. Papers which contain Copyright Material It is the author's responsibility to obtain written permission from both author and publisher to reproduce material which has appeared in another publication. Copies of this permission must also be enclosed with the manuscript.$#j[50] Style for Manuscript Manuscripts must be typed on one side of paper only, one and half spacing or double-spaced with wide margins. 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Drawings should be in black ink on paper or glossy photographs. Use 8.5" by 11" size sheets whenever possible, to facilitate handling of the manuscript. All lettering and drawings should be large enough to permit legible reduction of the figure to about one-half or a third of the original size. Number each original at the bottom of the front or on the back. Captions lettered on figures may be blocked out in reproduction in favor of captions of a uniform style. Tables ------ Tables must be typed on separate sheets. Please number tables consecutively. Voluntary Page Charges After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author's institution or company will be requested to pay a the publication cost. This page charge is not obligatory nor is its payment a prerequisite for publication. The author will receive 4 volumes of the journal if the charge is honored. Agreement on Copyright and Editing A statement transferring copyright from the authors (or their employers, if they hold the copyright) to the publisher of this journal will be required before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. The editors of the publication of COMM. COLIPS reserved the right to edit, correct and select appropriate material from the above paper for publication. The necessary form for this agreement will be supplied.$ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ORDER FORM Subscription rates: S$40 per year for 4 issues for Singapore and Malaysia; S$80 for all other destinations. Please make cheque payable to COLIPS. Name(Prof/Dr/Mr/Mrs/Miss): Amount Enclosed: Cheque/Draft No: Address: Telephone: Telex: Telefax: Signature: Date: Please mail this form with payment to COLIPS, c/o DISCS, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 0511. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-830. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-831. Mon 02 Dec 1991. Lines: 245 Subject: 2.831 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 13:39:41 CST From: Dennis Baron Subject: names 2) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 21:38:18 PST From: poser@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Bill Poser) Subject: articles with names in Catalan 3) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1991 15:14 EST From: CARTER@ACFcluster.NYU.EDU Subject: Re: 2.826 Names 4) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 12:58:38 EST From: "Sharon L. Shelly" Subject: Re: 2.804 Names 5) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 15:37:49 -0600 From: William Robboy Subject: Lesbian Relationships 6) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 12:20:43 GMT From: peturk@rhi.hi.is (Petur Knutsson) Subject: names in Iceland -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 13:39:41 CST From: Dennis Baron Subject: names Sorry I haven't been following the name discussion very closely. If the semester ever ends, I'll get someone to teach me how to retrieve archive files of discussions. Anyway, the _OED_ attributes the use of _the_ + last name in reference to women (specifically singers and actresses) to imitation of the French/Italian practice, s.v. _the_. It is extended to women who seem, in the (male) speaker's view, to be prima donnas, though I expect it's not as common now as it was in 19c and earlier 20c. Of course, _the_ was formerly more common than it is now in such expressions as _the chess_, _the dressmaking_ (we see remnants of this in _the law_, _the arts_). -- debaron@uiuc.edu ____________ 217-333-2392 |:~~~~~~~~~~:| fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron |: :| Dept. of English |: db :| Univ. of Illinois |: :| 608 S. Wright St. |:==========:| Urbana IL 61801 \\ """""""" \ \\ """""""" \ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 21:38:18 PST From: poser@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Bill Poser) Subject: articles with names in Catalan My understanding is that the variation between en and el before consonant-initial masculine names in Catalan is a matter of geographic dialect, not register. Most of the time I have spent in Catalunya was in Girona (where Castillian has made fewer inroads than in Barcelona), and my impression is that there en is always used, but speakers from other areas have told me that they do not use en. In Girona contractions of prepositions and articles also show the special form, so that we have can for ca + en, e.g. can Joan "chez Juan". Historically, special forms were more widespread. n' was used before vowel-initial masculine names, and na was used before feminine names, e.g. na Maria. You can see this not only in old texts, but also on street signs, which frequently retain archaic forms. Bill Poser -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1991 15:14 EST From: CARTER@ACFcluster.NYU.EDU Subject: Re: 2.826 Names The medieval Arab grammarians treat all metalanguage items as proper names, which shows up nice and clearly when you say "this book", kitaab haadhaa, with the demonstrative following the noun as it would if it were a proper name, e.g. muHammad haadhaa = "this Muhammad", contrast "book" as a common noun in the phrase haadhaa l-kitaab "this book". I wrote an article on this topic which may make sense to non-Arabists (everything is in transliteration and translated), in Historiographia Linguistica, vol. 8, no. 2/3, 1981, entitled "The use of proper names as a testing device in Sibawayhi's Kitab", the Kitab being the first and greatest grammatical treatise in Arabic, written towards the end of the 8th cent A.D. M. G. Carter, New York University -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 12:58:38 EST From: "Sharon L. Shelly" Subject: Re: 2.804 Names In reference to the discussion of definite articles with proper names: does anyone know how/why Donald Trump was dubbed "The Donald"? And does the use of the article reflect any particular attitude of respect (or lack thereof)? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 15:37:49 -0600 From: William Robboy Subject: Lesbian Relationships In Seamus Cooney's message of Nov. 23 on the topic Names, he writes: >In D. H. Lawrence's "The Fox," he refers frequently to one of his pair >of female characters -- the one who is more or less the "male" in what >we assume to be a lesbian relationship -- as "The Banford." I've I must beg the List's indulgence for addressing a non-linguistic issue, the more so since I haven't even read "The Fox," and Prof. Cooney's intent is unclear to me, though I'm sure it was not malign. But I can't let this go by without remark. None of the lesbian relationships I'm acquainted with can be said illuminatingly to have anybody in them who is more or less the "male," whatever that means. Perhaps it says something enlightening about the relationship Lawrence was depicting, or more generally about relationships depicted in Prof. Cooney's area of literature. It might even say something illuminating about real-life lesbian relationships in the time and place Lawrence was writing in, or writing about. Maybe Prof. Cooney meant one or more of these things. But in the absence of any such clarification, I'm afraid the effect is simply to activate ignorant stereotypes. William Robboy wrobboy@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu blawlrwy@uiamvs.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 12:20:43 GMT From: peturk@rhi.hi.is (Petur Knutsson) Subject: names in Iceland Before we accept David Gil's triangular sprachbund (21 Nov 91) we should make a distinction between the restrictive use of the article with names, anticipating a definitive relation: (1) The Paul I remember and the familiar use: (2) Tiens! C'est la Jeanne! where (1) might be more widespread (it's English, for instance) than (2). Here's the situation in Icelandic. (In parenthesis, since the subject has come up: use of first (given-) names is obligatory in Icelandic in all situations, all registers. Patronymics, as some contributors have pointed out, are the norm, but surnames are not uncommon. However surnames seem to have the same secondary-identification function as patronymics: it would make no more sense to call an Icelander by her patronymic alone, his surname (truly a sur-name) alone, or her title (Oh look! here comes PhD!). Thus Icelanders are listed alphabetically by their first names, for instance in the telephone directory. Close parenthesis.) Icelandic does not normally use the article in either (1) or (2). Possibly because since the definite artice (there is no indefinite article) is suffixed to the noun it would change the shape of the name rather oddly. Thus in sense (1): (3) Madurinn sem eg man eftir 'The man (whom) I remember' where madur = man NOM MASC, inn = the NOM MASC but not (4) *Pallinn sem eg man eftir 'The Paul (whom) I remember' where Pall = Paul NOM MASC, inn = the NOM MASC. A non-devious form of (4) would use the demonstrative pronoun, anticipating the relative pronoun: (5) Sa Pall sem eg man eftir 'That (NOM MASC) Paul (whom) I remember' - although one can postulate marginally acceptable, for instance jocular, instances: (6) Hvada Pall? Thetta er ekki Pallinn sem eg thekki 'Which Paul? That's not the Paul (that) I know' As for sense (2) - la Jeanne - Icelandic commonly uses a personal NP construction in which the personal pronoun fills the slot filled by the def article in some examples we've been having recently: (7) Hann Jon ser um thetta 'He(NOM MASC) John'll see to that' (8) Hun Maria veit um hamarinn 'She(NOM FEM) Maria knows where the hammer is' (9) Segdu honum Joni hvad thu sagdir mer 'Tell him(DAT MASC) John what you told me' (10) Gefdu henni Mariu bita 'Give her(DAT FEM) Maria a piece' Corresponding forms occur with the other two Icelandic cases, ACC and GEN. This usage is optional, independent of register (colloquial, formal and literary), and I have the impression that it is favoured in oblique cases, less common when the NP is the subject of the clause. When occurring in the plural there is a prescriptive preference for this form in all syntactical positions, which thus becomes more common in formal/literary register and actually less common colloquially (regressing in mod. coll. Ice): (11) Their Pall og Thorsteinn neita ad svara 'They(NOM MASC PLUR) Paul and Thorsteinn refuse to answer' (12) Hann taldi thaer Gudrunu og Mariu enntha i husinu 'He believed them(ACC FEM PLUR) Gudrun and Maria still to be in the house' Note the use of neuter plural forms to denote a mixture of sexes: (13) Thau Thorsteinn og Maria toku bilinn 'They (NOM NEUT PLUR) TH. and M took the car' This usage allows for one of the names to be dropped in literary style, and this is still common in colloquial usage, although probably regressing: (14) Thau Gudrun gengu heim saman 'They (NEUT PLUR) Gudrun walked home together' (i.e. He and Gudrun walked home together). (15) Vid Pall erum sammala 'We Paul are in agreement' (i.e. Paul and I...) (16) Thid Maria farid med Joni 'You (PLUR) Maria will go (PLUR) with John' (i.e. you and Maria...) By 'regressing' I mean that an English-type word-order ('He and Gudrun' instead of 'They NEUT Gudrun', etc.) is becoming common amongst younger speakers. However the singular use, (7)-(10) above, is holding ground. This raises another question. What other juicy examples are there out there of mainstream (read: English) syntax calquing itself upon cherished minority characteristics? (one at a time, please!) peturk@rhi.hi.is (Petur Knutsson) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-831. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-832. Tue 03 Dec 1991. Lines: 207 Subject: 2.832 Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 17:08 GMT From: "Fred Weerman, OTS Utrecht" Subject: Sociolinguistics at Utrecht 2) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 12:37:54 mst From: Carpenter Subject: Job - Comp Ling - CMU 3) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 12:22:27 EST From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: spoken language training fellowships -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 17:08 GMT From: "Fred Weerman, OTS Utrecht" Subject: Sociolinguistics at Utrecht The Faculty of Letters, located in the centre of Utrecht, is one of the largest in the Netherlands and is growing rapidly. It has two research institutes and 18 fields of study covering research and teaching in language, literature, arts and history. Special emphasis is put on orientation towards society, information technology in the arts and interdisciplinary cooperation. The Department of Linguistics invites applications for a position in sociolinguistics (associate level, part-time - 8/10) (nr. 68.130) Tasks: - teaching at all levels in the field of General Linguistics; in particular participation in the specialized curriculum in which sociolinguistics, language change and first language acquisition have been brought together. - doing sociolinguistic research within the Research Institute for Language & Speech (OTS). - administration Requirements: - PhD - ability to cooperate in the further development of the specialized curriculum; affinity with the other parts of this programme, i.e. first language acquisition and language change - didactic, managerial and organisational skills. Offer: tenure-track position (evaluation for tenure after 2 years). salary range: Dfl 4136 - Dfl 7500 per month (excl. tax) for full- time position Further information from: Sieb Nooteboom, tel. (0)30-392060; e-mail: nooteboom@let.ruu.nl Geert Koefoed, tel. (0)30-392076 Letter of application should be sent to: L. van Zanten Personeel en Organisatie Faculteit der Letteren Kromme Nieuwegracht 46 3512 HJ UTRECHT NETHERLANDS Letters should reach this address before December 14, 1991. Refer to "vacature nr. 68.130". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 12:37:54 mst From: Carpenter Subject: Job - Comp Ling - CMU ============================================================================== Positions in Computational Linguistics At Carnegie Mellon University ============================================================================== The Philosophy Department at Carnegie Mellon University solicits candidates for one or more full-time, tenured or tenure-track positions in its Computational Linguistics Program. Jobs will commence September 1, 1992. The Computational Linguistics Program has 12 Core Faculty with appointments in either the Department of Philosophy or Computer Science. The Program offers the Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Computational Linguistics. Currently, there are 30 graduate students, approximately half of whom are in the Ph.D. Program. Applicants should be prepared to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in linguistics theory and computational linguistics; to engage in interdisciplinary research with colleagues, for example, in Computer Science, Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy (including Logic), or Machine Translation; to assist in the advising and administration of students in the Computational Linguistics Program; and to participate in the activities of the Laboratory for Computational Linguistics. Candidates should have backgrounds in computer science as well as linguistics. Special consideration will be given to applicants who have demonstrated competence in adapting linguistic theory to computational applications. Candidates should include a statement of research interests, a sample of papers, curriculum vitae, and the names of at least three people from whom letters of recommendation have been requested. Applicants who do not already have the Ph.D. degree must offer evidence that the degree will be granted by August 1992. Send applications by December 16, 1991, to: Computational Linguistics Search Committee Department of Philosophy Carnegie Mellon University Schenley Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213-3890 (USA) Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate and Carnegie Mellon University is required not to discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or handicap in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or other federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. In addition, Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs on the basis of religion, creed, ancestry, belief, age, veteran status, sexual orientation or in violation of any federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. Inquiries concerning application of these statements should be directed to the Provost, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone (412) 268-6684 or the Vice President for Enrollment, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone (412) 268-2056. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 12:22:27 EST From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: spoken language training fellowships UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO State University of New York DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY I wish to call to your attention the availability of PRE- and POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS that we have through our NIH Train- ing Grant on the "Development of Spoken Language Capacities". The training grant provides support for individuals who have in- terests in the development of speech production and perception. Our training program is an interdisciplinary one involving the participation of the departments of Psychology, Lingusitics, Com- municative Disorders and Sciences, and Neurology and Pediatrics. Pre-doctoral trainees will receive graduate degrees from one of the cooperating departments and will participate in a specialized training program. The training program emphasizes the use of computerized laboratories so that trainees acquire competence in the development of speech perception and production, the anatomy and physiology of the auditory system, neurophysiological corre- lates of speech processes, articulatory and acoustic phonetics, phonology, and developmental disorders of speech processes. Trainees are expected to conduct original experimental research related to these topics in one or more of the laboratories of the core faculty. In addition, training will consist of participa- tion in interdisciplinary seminars and research meetings and for- mal coursework (as necessary) in Psychology, Communicative Disorders, Cognitive Science, and Linguistics. The core faculy participating in this program include: Peter W. Jusczyk, Program Director, Department of Psychology Jan Charles-Luce, Departments of Communicative Disorders and Sciences and Linguistics LouAnn Gerken, Department of Psychology Donald Henderson, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences Jeri Jaeger, Department of Linguistics Paul A. Luce, Department of Psychology James R. Sawsuch, Department of Psychology David Shucard, Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics Elaine T. Stathopolous, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences Joan E. Sussman, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences Robert Van Valin, Department of Linguistics If you know of any interested, qualified students please en- courage them to apply. For further details, please contact: Peter W. Jusczyk, Professor and Program Director Department of Psychology State University of New York at Buffalo 373 Park Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 PSYPWJ@UBVMS.BITNET -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-832. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-833. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 164 Subject: 2.833 Code-Switching, Helium, Mac Tree-processing, Lojban Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 13:13:52 MET From: lachlan@let.vu.nl Subject: code-switching in French 2) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 15:30:19 EST From: Osamu Fujimura Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Helium 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 09:25:22 GMT From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr (Michel Eytan LILoL) Subject: Re: Tree-processing on Macs 4) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 08:11:39 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Fantastic linguistics -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 13:13:52 MET From: lachlan@let.vu.nl Subject: code-switching in French In an article by Sankoff and Mainville in the Revue quebecoise de linguistique (1986), code-switching is referred to a 'alternance de langue'. Lachlan Mackenzie -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 15:30:19 EST From: Osamu Fujimura Subject: Re: 2.827 Responses: Macs, Tag Questions, Communicative Strategies, Helium > Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 18:11:33 -0500 > From: gb661@csc.albany.edu (BROADWELL GEORGE AARON) > Subject: helium explained > > Helium is less dense than air, therefore the speed of sound in > helium is faster. Since faster sound equals higher frequency, helium > speech is higher than ordinary speech. > > (I hope I haven't muddled this recount!) > > I considered bringing helium balloons to class to let the students try it, > but I decided I couldn't get it past the human subjects board. :-) > > Aaron Broadwell I think the explanation above reflects a common misunderstanding. From a theoretical point of view, the sound propagation speed is determined, assuming ideal gas, by the gas constant gamma, which is the ratio of the specific heat constants, one with volume constant and the other pressure constant. This constant is in turn determined by the degree of freedom for describing the state of each molecule, and is a function of the number of atoms that compose the gas molecule. Helium thus has a higher speed of sound propagation basically because it is monoatomic, unlike most gas molecules in the air. There are further details that affect the actual speed. The empirical values for different gases can be found in the handbook issued by the Institute of Physics, for example. There is another effect that affects the formant frequencies, particularly the lowest, as well as formant bandwidth: the acoustic impedance of the vocal tract walls has different effects on the acoustic characteristics of the vocal tract acoustic system depending on the density of the gas contained. The lighter the gas, the more reflective the walls, acoustically. The effect of the air density on the first formant frequency, particularly for high vowels, is quite significant. For example, when the acoustic tube is completely closed by, say, the bilabial closure, the first formant should be zero Hz if the walls were infinitely heavy (relative to the gas). The empirical value of the first formant frequency for bilabial closure, with the glottis closed, is about 170Hz to 200Hz for male subjects according to our sweeptone measurements, and higher for female subjects. This discrepancey is due to the finite density ratio between the flesh (basically water) and gas. References: G. Fant and B. Sonesson, Speech at high ambient airpressures, QPSR No. 2, Royal Inst. Tech. pp. 9-21 (1964) O. Fujimura and J. Lindqvist, Sweep-tone measurements of vocal-tract characteristics, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 49, 541-558 (1971). Osamu Fujimura osamu@shs.ohio-state.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 09:25:22 GMT From: me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr (Michel Eytan LILoL) Subject: Re: Tree-processing on Macs a few days ago smeone asked about a Mac program for tree-processing (sorry, I lost the message so I cannot reply directly to the sender). There is a very old program that seems to do just what was asked for: 'Hands On' by John Glenn, Dartmouth Aug. '84 It seems very little known and I am not sure it is still sold. Anyway, it is a very nice product and near perfection as far as the programming is concerned, since it _still works_, on a Mac II si with system 6.0.7! (I must admit that I do not use system 7.0 because I do not feel like chucking out 50% of my INITs and trying to acquire new versions of the other 50%). Although not doing exactly what Hands On does, there is another old program for tree-processing that might interest some people: 'Think'n Time' from Mainstay '87 it comes with some text-processing abilities but no parsing, contrary to Hands On. I can give the exact references to people who are interested (an address in the U.S. and one in Belgium); I guess there must be new versions around. #Michel Eytan #Tel:+33 88 41 74 29 # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 08:11:39 EST From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Subject: Fantastic linguistics ...perhaps a continuation of the "language in movies" thread. During my electronic peregrinations I have discovered this artificial language called "guaspi", which seems to me a send-up of Lojban and Loglan. For those interested in the unusual, here is how to get it. Send this message: send guaspi brochure to this address: langserv@hebrew.cc.columbia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-833. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-834. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 146 Subject: 2.834 Queries: Clitics, Tamil, French, They, Bursaries Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 10:42:45 EST From: salmons@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Joe Salmons) Subject: Diachronic query: Clitics 2) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 91 17:13:00 PST From: raman Subject: Tamil fonts 3) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 91 17:31:19 HNE From: Pierre Martin Subject: Quebec French 4) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 17:02:18 PST From: scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) Subject: singular they and other comments 5) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 13:36:41 EST From: stainton@Athena.MIT.EDU Subject: Travel Bursaries -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 10:42:45 EST From: salmons@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Joe Salmons) Subject: Diachronic query: Clitics Does anybody know of ANY recent work on diachronic aspects of clitics and cliticization in early Germanic or Celtic languages? Even basic descriptive work would be of some interest. Many thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 91 17:13:00 PST From: raman Subject: Tamil fonts Hi, I'm looking for Tamil (a South Indian language) fonts that I can use on a Unix box, preferably in Postscript or TeX. I know that the U Mich archives have Tamil fonts for the Mac, but I need something I can use on Unix. Thanks very much for your time. --raman (Internet: raman@us.oracle.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 91 17:31:19 HNE From: Pierre Martin Subject: Quebec French Next January, a team of researchers from Laval University, in Quebec city, will initiate a survey on the Quebec French semi-vowel [w] as opposed to the corresponding vowel [u]. Is there here a basis to recognize two distinct phonemes? And if so, what is the individual, social, and lexical extent of the phonological contrast, or, simply, of the phonetic variation, if that is the case? All pertinent structural and sociolinguistic factors will be considered. If anyone has hints, comments, suggestions, references (on semi-vowels, in general), etc., on the matter, please write to Pierre Martin: E-Mail or Dept de langues et linguistique pmartin@vm1.ulaval.ca Faculte des lettres, Universite Laval Sainte-Foy, Quebec G1K 7P4 Canada phone: (418) 656.3263 fax: (418) 656.2019 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 17:02:18 PST From: scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) Subject: singular they and other comments ITEM 'they' might not take singular verb morphology, but it does show, at least in my speech, a singular reflexive morphology: 'themself'. What I don't know is if this is just myself that does this. ================ ITEM A thought: 'criminal lawyer' is ambiguous, but 'criminal criminal lawyer' is not. Structural syntactic analyses of bracketing 'paradox' phrases ought to get this for free, but I'm not so sure about semantic analyses. ================ ITEM I heard a football commentator, just after the final whistle, say "that will be the last play of the game". Using 'will' to refer to past time is normal for me, and the meaning is roughly estimational 'must surely': "Are they your unwashed dishes?" "They will be." I never noticed this usage myself, by the way. After seeing Lawrence of Arabia, someone asked if many of the characters were based on real people. "Yes, they will be" I said. It was carefully explained to me that I had said something rather odd. After hearing this commentator, I wonder if this is not a mere dialectal difference after all. Does anyone else use 'will' to express probability in the past/present like this? Is what I am doing the same as the football commentator? If Quirk and Greenbaum go over this, just say the word and I'll do my reading before posting the next time. (that'll be right!) -- James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 13:36:41 EST From: stainton@Athena.MIT.EDU Subject: Travel Bursaries I have heard rumours about organizations which offer bursaries to graduate students, to off set the cost of travel to conferences. I'm intending to deliver a paper in Sydney, Australia in July. So I am very interested to know if the rumours are true. If you know of any such organizations, could you please drop me at line at STAINTON@ATHENA.MIT.EDU? Thanks, Rob Stainton MIT -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-834. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-835. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 99 Subject: 2.835 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 17:52:52 EST Subject: 2.817 Names From: Stavros Macrakis 2) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 91 09:23:07 EST From: LL23000 Subject: "The Donald" 3) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 17:29 MET From: RICHARD@celex.kun.nl Subject: RE: 2.831 Names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 17:52:52 EST Subject: 2.817 Names From: Stavros Macrakis David Gil says: ... these remarks suggest the existence of a sprachbund of the article-name construction, stretching across a (very rough) triangle with Portugese, Flemish and Greek at the three apexes. A net poll strikes me as a less than reliable way of assembling statistics on features of languages. This universal ... rules out a fourth type of language, using articles in construction with names (but not protypical common nouns). Oh? How about Ottoman Turkish `bey' or Japanese `san'? (or for that matter English `Mr.' -- but English does use articles for common nouns). You may argue that these are not articles at all, but would you call any word used only in construction with names and not common nouns an `article'? (Of course, `bey' is also a common noun meaning `lord', but this appears to be quite distinct from its use as an honorific, just as `Mr.' and `master' are now completely distinct in English; I understand also that `san' can be applied to some inanimate objects, but perhaps this is `personification'?) My point is that you'd better have a watertight definition of `article' before you look for universals. -s -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 91 09:23:07 EST From: LL23000 Subject: "The Donald" > In reference to the discussion of definite articles with > proper names: does anyone know how/why Donald Trump was > dubbed "The Donald"? And does the use of the article reflect > any particular attitude of respect (or lack thereof)? This is what Ivana calls him--I have no idea where she is from, but my ---- understanding is that this is an anglicization of what she would say in her native language. I think it USED to be meant affectionately! Karen Kay LL23@NEMOMUS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 17:29 MET From: RICHARD@celex.kun.nl Subject: RE: 2.831 Names In reply to Sharon L. Shelly's query about Donald Trump: I think Donald Trump was dubbed "The Donald" because his ex-wife, Ivana, called him that way, supposedly because she was born and raised in Czechoslovakia where addressing someone by the definite article is common practice. As I don't know any Czech, I'd like to see this verified by someone more knowledgeable about this subject. If so, it would be a nice addition to the other languages with definite-article reference mentioned so far. Richard Piepenbrock CELEX - Centre for Lexical Information Nijmegen -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-835. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-836. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 65 Subject: 2.836 Inflection vs derivation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 13:49:27 EST From: Greg Stump Subject: Inflection vs derivation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 91 13:49:27 EST From: Greg Stump Subject: Inflection vs derivation In recent work, I have argued that there are at least two distinct subclasses of cases in which--contrary to Greenberg's 28th universal--inflection may appear inside of derivation; the two subclasses correlate with a distinction between category-changing derivation and category-preserving derivation. In those cases in which category-changing derivation applies to an inflected form, the inflection does not contribute to the morphosyntactic feature content of the derived form (and is therefore irrelevant to its syntax); e.g. Breton _ler-ou_ (n.) `sock-s', _dilerou_ (adj.) `without socks on' (lit. `socksless'). For additional examples of this and other such processes in Breton, see my article `Breton Inflection and the Split Morphology Hypothesis', _Syntax_and_Semantics_23:_The_Syntax_of_the_Modern_Celtic_Languages_, ed. by R. Hendrick, Academic Press, 1990. In those cases in which category-preserving derivation applies to an inflected form, the inflection does contribute to the morphosyntactic feature content of the derived form; that is, inflections that are morphologically realized `inside of' an outermost layer of category-preserving derivation (or compounding) function logically as if they were `outside of' this layer. Instances of this phenomenon are legion, and include the Georgian case cited by Harry Bochner (1984); the Oneida case mentioned by Clifford Abbott (1981); the first of the two Slave cases discussed by Keren Rice (1985) [the second of which seems to belong with _dilerou_, etc.]; Sanskrit cases like _pari-n.i:-_ `marry' (lit. `lead around'), imperfect _pary-a-n.ayat_ `he married'; German cases like _Kindchen_, plural _Kinderchen_; English [ un- [ happi -er ]]; and, I believe, the case of Russian verbs in _s'/s'a_ raised by John Nerbonne. A detailed formal account of this phenomenon is developed in my article `A Paradigm-based Theory of Morphosemantic Mismatches', to appear in the December issue of _Language_. All of this presumes a well-defined distinction between category-changing and category-preserving derivation; in the _Language_ article, I present specific proposals about the nature of this distinction (which ends up not being the simplistic distinction which the terms `category-changing' and `category-preserving' could be taken to imply). I'd like to know more about the Munda evidence cited earlier by David Stampe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-836. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-837. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 96 Subject: 2.837 Infinite Languages Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 13:26:13 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: infinitude of what? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 13:26:13 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: infinitude of what? Alexis Manaster Ramer wondered > . . . if it would help people who are puzzled by the issue of >the size of natural language (like Bruce Nevin, in his latest posting) >if we considered analogies to other areas of human knowledge and >behavior. Just to set the record straight, I hadn't expressed puzzlement. Language is not well defined. The arguments for infinitude refer to an idealization that is well defined. The boundaries between language and nonlanguage are unclear. Is the grammar of a language part of that language? Is the speaker's internal knowledge of a language part of that language? Are the memory traces and neural mechanisms by which speakers control their perception and understanding of a language part of that language? Presumably the muscles, cartileges, and other structures of the vocal tract and ear are not part of language though they are requisite for its control. We must answer "yes" to at least the first two of these questions or else we cannot embrace the idealization that is normal fare in our field--the referent in my "assume a spherical language" post. Of course, one can affirm that the grammar and the speaker's knowledge of it are part of the language without necessarily reducing issues of heterogeneity in language to second-class status as matters of mere performance. For it is in looking along the axis of language variety and language change (just one axis here: the temporal and social dimensions are mutually inextricable) that we see other obvious ways that language is not well defined. Not even in terms of membership in the "set of sentences" is language well defined. A third axis along which language (construed as a set of utterances) is ill-defined is language users' graded judgements of acceptability. At least some of these graded differences in acceptability of word combinations turn out to have a simpler form when you partition a language into sublanguages. In at least some restricted subject-matter domains, especially those of science or technical fields of other sorts, we get something like binary selection restrictions. The graded character of selection in less disciplined usage might be understandable in terms of analogic borrowing from one such domain into another. A fourth axis, or perhaps it is only another way of looking at the third, and certainly it intersects the second, arises through analogic extension of new combinations on the basis of established ones. This is the growing edge of language. It is also the dying edge, as seen in language obsolescence (Fishman's "language shift") in communities and language loss in individuals. It is not at all clear when in these processes a language ceases to be. The converse of this is the retention of relics, dismoored and adrift in the currents and eddies of language change. These are typical not only of obsolescence and loss but also of any normal living language situation. Borrowings from technical sublanguages, perhaps once vivid metaphors, are retained as frozen expressions whose literal meaning is lost. A couple of nautical examples may illustrate: "two sheets to the wind" for staggering drunkenness, where sheets are ropes attached to the clew of a sail for trimming it, which if free "in the wind" leave the sails to luff; or someone "taking a bath" in the stock market, which I surmise is from the wealthy man's experience of capsizing his yacht. This axis, then, is that of metaphors, living and dead. I don't think I have exhausted the possibilities. But perhaps I don't have to. It is only the idealized "spherical" aspect of language that is arithmetic-like and therefore infinite. And of course one could take a perspective on language that sees it in all its heterogeneity and variety over time and space and social space as a single thing, Language. Perhaps these two idealizations are not so very different. Bruce Nevin bn@bbn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-837. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-838. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 62 Subject: 2.838 Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 15:59 CST From: Peter Schreiber Subject: position listing Wisconsin-Madison 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 10:23:04 +0000 From: Hans Uszkoreit Subject: Stipends for Cognitive Science Studies in Saarbrucken -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 91 15:59 CST From: Peter Schreiber Subject: position listing Wisconsin-Madison The Department of Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison anticipates a position in Linguistics beginning academic year 1992-93. The position requires specialization in syntax/linguistic theory and will be at the tenure-track assistant professor level. Send application and 3 letters of recommendation by February 15, 1992, to: Manindra K. Verma, Chair Department of Linguistics University of Wisconsin-Madison 1168 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive Madison, Wisconsin 53706 To ensure possible interview at the LSA meetings, application information should be completed by December 20, 1991. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 10:23:04 +0000 From: Hans Uszkoreit Subject: Stipends for Cognitive Science Studies in Saarbrucken Grants for Pre- and Postdoctoral Studies in Saarbrucken The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Association) has approved funding for an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program (Graduiertenkolleg) in Cognitive Science. The funding includes a number of stipends for predoctoral studies and a few postdoctoral grants. Further information may be obtained by writing to the chair of the program Prof. Dr. Werner Tack (EMAIL: werner@gandalf.cops.uni-sb.de). Attached please find the official call for applications: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-838. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-839. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 116 Subject: 2.839 Not Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 13:08:12 -0500 From: macaulay@j.cc.purdue.edu (Monica Macaulay) Subject: NOT 2) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1991 20:31 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.828 Queries: Macs, Historical Linguistics, Paper Search 3) Date: Mon, 02 Dec 91 09:27 CST From: TB0NRN1@NIU.bitnet Subject: sarcastic post-affirmative NOT 4) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 11:19:51 CST From: ryberg@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Stephen Ryberg) Subject: origins of free-standing _Not_ 5) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 91 23:38:44 -0900 From: "CHARLOTTE S BASHAM" Subject: Re: 2.828 Queries: Macs, Historical Linguistics, Paper Search -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 91 13:08:12 -0500 From: macaulay@j.cc.purdue.edu (Monica Macaulay) Subject: NOT Re Larry Horn's query: to my knowledge that "Not" originated from "Wayne's World," a skit on Saturday Night Live. It's supposed to be a public access program hosted by these two high school boys. It's pretty hilarious, actually. But to tell you the truth, I've never been sure if they originated that use of "Not" or if it was part of teen slang that they then picked up and popularized. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1991 20:31 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.828 Queries: Macs, Historical Linguistics, Paper Search With regard to Larry Horn's query about XXXXX. Not. I've seen this on TV on Saturday Night Live, specifically on the "Wayne's World" segments. Although "Wayne's World" takes place in Illinois, my suspicion is that it's a california-ism, though unfortunately I am not around California teenagers enough to confirm the suspicion. Susan Fischer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 02 Dec 91 09:27 CST From: TB0NRN1@NIU.bitnet Subject: sarcastic post-affirmative NOT Sarcastic post-affirmative NOT seems to have been popularized by the movie BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and a take-off on it or the type of talk it make popular in the WAYNE'S WORLD sketch on Saturday Night Live. My students insist, however, that they used the construction before the movie came out, so the film was recording a current pattern rather than inventing something new. Undergraduates tell me a second speaker may intrude a post-posed NOT following an affirmative statement by some other speaker as well. Either way it forces the listener to go back and re-hear the original statement. I don't think it's significantly different than a sarcastic NOT MUCH post-posed to a negative statement like the following, which has no special dialect or register feeling to it for me. Al doesn't smoke any more -pause- not MUCH. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 91 11:19:51 CST From: ryberg@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Stephen Ryberg) Subject: origins of free-standing _Not_ Larry Horn asks about (among other things) the origins of the free-standing _Not_ following an affirmative statement. For what it's worth, I first heard this used on the "Wayne's World" skits of Saturday Night Live perhaps a year or more ago. It is also featured in a current Budweiser commercial starring an elderly lady (from Nashville?) who plays the quitar and the former guitarist for The Stray Cats, when the former says to the latter, during a strange dream of his, "You're pretty good. Not!" Sorry I have no real natural data to supply. Steve Ryberg Northwestern -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 91 23:38:44 -0900 From: "CHARLOTTE S BASHAM" Subject: Re: 2.828 Queries: Macs, Historical Linguistics, Paper Search Larry Horn asked about the use of NOT as sarcastic denial. I can't provide a verbatim example, but I know that in conversations with my 18 year old son, he has responded with NOT to statements that I have made (lots of times, in fact). I'll pay more attention to it and report in. Charley Basham FFCSB@ALASKA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-839. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-840. Wed 04 Dec 1991. Lines: 149 Subject: 2.840 New Publication; Papers needed for COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 19:06:52 SET From: Pier Marco Bertinetto 2) Date: 4 Dec 91 13:16 -0800 From: Subject: COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE special issue on non-literal language -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 19:06:52 SET From: Pier Marco Bertinetto May I ask to help me to spread the news concerning the following publication, w hich might interest many people working in the field? P.M.Bertinetto, M.Kenstowicz &M.Loporcaro (eds), Certamen Phonologicum II, Tori no, Rosenberg & Sellier 1991. It contains the papers presented at the second Cortona Phonology Meeting, held in spring 1990. The book is organized in three sections, each containing 5 or 6 papers: General issues, Prosodic theory, Italian dialects and phonological the ory. Among the authors: H.Basboll, H.van der Hulst & C.Ewen, B.Hurch, D.Michael s, I.Vogel, L.Burzio, M.Kenstowicz, E.Selkirk, Th.Vennemann, N.Smith. Pier Marco Bertinetto Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 4 Dec 91 13:16 -0800 From: Subject: COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE special issue on non-literal language Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0497. Wednesday, 4 Dec 1991. CALL FOR PAPERS Computational Approaches to Non-Literal Language COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Special Journal Issue August 1992 Not too late to send intention to submit Submissions are invited to a Special Issue of COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Journal on Computational Approaches to Non-Literal Language. Guest editors are Dan Fass, James Martin and Elizabeth Hinkelman. Response to earlier calls for papers, asking people to notify of us of an intention to submit a paper, has been good. Intended papers cover a wide variety of topics related to processing non-literal language. There is a possibility that a research monograph may be published containing papers from the special issue. Please inform Dan Fass if you intend to submit a paper but have not yet done so, giving a tentative title and brief description of your intended paper. 1. Focus of the Special Issue Non-literal language includes metaphor, idiom, "indirect" speech acts, implicature, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, sarcasm, and other devices whose meaning cannot be obtained by direct composition of their constituent words. Papers are invited on topics including (but not limited to) the computer recognition, interpretation, acquisition, generation, and robust parsing of non-literal language. Issues of interest include: o the relationship of non-literal to literal language, o the adequacy of various forms of knowledge representation (symbolic vs connectionist vs statistical), o static vs dynamic mechanisms, o general vs idiosyncratic treatment of instances, o instances as novel vs conventional forms, o comparison and contrast of models of the various forms of non-literal language, o broader implications for AI. 2. Impetus for the Special Issue The editors of the Special Issue recently organized a workshop on non-literal language at IJCAI-91. Attendees, besides the organizers, were John Barnden, Ted Briscoe, Jerry Hobbs, Eric van der Linden, Hiroshi Motoda, Yamagami Matsumoto, David Powers, Lisa Rau, Cameron Shelley, Raoul Smith, Susan Weber, Sylvia Weber Russell, and Janet Wiles. The 169 page workshop proceedings is available as technical report CU-CS-550-91 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. It costs $5 per copy (including postage). Please contact James Martin for further details. 3. Schedule for the Special Issue Date Stage Thurs Feb 6 1992 Submission deadline. Thurs Mar 19 1992 Reviews returned. Thurs Apr 23 1992 Revised, accepted papers received. 4. Manuscript Preparation and Review Typical submissions should be 25-50 pages in manuscript form, though exceptions may be made. The manuscript should be double spaced and typed on one side of the page only. Each page of the manuscript should be numbered, beginning with the title page. The title page should include the title, authors' names, institution of origin, and its address (including postal code). Please include telephone number(s) and e-mail address. An abstract should be not more than 200 words, and on a separate page. References should not be cited in the abstract. Please note that for an author's submission to be reviewed, the author must review three other submissions to the Special Issue. More detailed Instructions to Authors will be sent to those intending to submit a paper. 5. The Guest Editors Dan Fass James Martin Centre for Systems Science, Computer Science Department and Simon Fraser University, Institute of Cognitive Science, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. University of Colorado at Boulder, Tel: (604) 291-3208 Box 430, Boulder, CO 80309-0430, USA. Fax: (604) 291-4951 Tel: (303) 492-3552 E-mail: fass@cs.sfu.ca Fax: (303) 492-2844 E-mail: martin@boulder.colorado.edu Elizabeth Hinkelman Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Tel: (312) 702-8887 Fax: (312) 702-0775 E-mail: eliz@tira.uchicago.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-840. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-841. Thu 05 Dec 1991. Lines: 189 Subject: 2.841 Conferences Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 10:47:42 EST From: weir-5@PRC.Unisys.COM Subject: CFP 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 17:32:19 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Call for Papers: Chicago Linguistic Society -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 26 Nov 91 10:47:42 EST From: weir-5@PRC.Unisys.COM Subject: CFP The AAAI Workshop on Statistically-Based NLP Techniques held at the Tenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence DESCRIPTION OF WORKSHOP: Interest in statistically-based NLP techniques has grown considerably over the last five years, partly because of disenchantment with the rate of technological progress in developing NLP systems within a strictly ``knowledge-based'' framework. Such systems have suffered from three chronic problems. First, their reliance upon domain restrictions tends to result in a lack of robustness when confronted with gaps in coverage. Second, because domain knowledge is handcoded in such systems, extending them to support new domains tends to be a laborious process. Third, such systems generally must be maintained by developers, not by users. There are, of course, good reasons why researchers have developed NLP systems within a knowledge-based framework---some information is very difficult to capture and represent by statistical means. Rather than completely abandoning a knowledge-based framework, researchers have begun to develop hybrid systems in which an effort is made to maximize the potential of statistically-based and knowledge-based techniques. With the growing interest in statistically-based techniques, it is time for a forum on their use in NLP applications. What components of an NLP system can benefit from such techniques? What tradeoffs exist in using statistical techniques, and in combining them with handcrafted knowledge? Are there interesting interactions that arise when more than one such technique is used? And finally, is there evidence that a given technique is capable of supporting large-scale applications---for example, is it reasonable to expect grammar induction systems to be capable of generating broad-coverage grammars capable of supporting large-scale data extraction applications, and if so, are there any special benefits of using such an approach in a large-scale system? The objective of this workshop is to establish the capabilities of existing statistically-based NLP techniques, and to envision how they may be improved. Discussions of significant success stories and interesting failures in efforts to employ such techniques within large-scale NLP applications will be emphasized. Reports on the use of statistically-based methods in syntactic and semantic analysis will be especially encouraged, along with reports on efforts to automate the acquisition of linguistic knowledge from large text and spoken language corpora. TOPICS: corpus-based acquisition of linguistic knowledge dealing with sparse data stochastic grammars grammar induction statistically-based semantic interpretion generation of corpora for statistically-based NLP methods formal evaluation of statistically-based techniques part-of-speech tagging FORMAT: The papers that are accepted will determine the format of the workshop. If general topics emerge, then the papers will be organized into panel sessions with time allocated at the end of each session for a brief discussion of the session's theme. ATTENDANCE: 25-50 participants will be invited to present papers at the workshop, depending on the quality of the submissions. A maximum of two authors per paper will be invited. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Five copies of a 10-page abstract must be submitted to the address given below. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 13, 1992 NOTIFICATION DATE: April 3, 1992 FINAL DATE FOR CAMERA-READY COPIES TO ORGANIZERS: April 17, 1992 SUBMIT TO: Carl Weir Center for Advanced Information Technology Unisys Defense Systems, Inc. 70 E. Swedesford Rd. PO BOX 517 Paoli, PA 19301 WORKSHOP CHAIR: Carl Weir Center for Advanced Information Technology Unisys Defense Systems, Inc. 70 E. Swedesford Rd. PO BOX 517 Paoli, PA 19301 Phone: (215) 648-2369 Fax: (215) 648-2288 Email: weir@prc.unisys.com WORKSHOP COMMITTEE: Stephen Abney Bellcore email: abney@bellcore.com Ralph Grishman Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU grishman@cs.nyu.edu Ralph Weischedel BBN weischedel@BBN.COM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 17:32:19 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Call for Papers: Chicago Linguistic Society Call for Papers: 28th Annual Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society April 23-25, 1992 Main Session (April 23-24) We invite original, unpublished work on any topic of general linguistic interest. Invited Speakers are: Susumu Kuno, Harvard University Charles Kisseberth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Arnold Zwicky, The Ohio State University Parasession (April 24-25) on The Role of the Cycle in Linguistic Theory We invite original, unpublished work which supports or refutes the notion of the cycle in the analysis of language. Abstracts from all areas of linguistic investigation are welcome, including, but not limited to, syntax, phonology, and morphology. Invited Speakers are: John Goldsmith, University of Chicago James McCawley, University of Chicago Geoffrey Pullum, University of California, Santa Cruz Jerrold Sadock, University of Chicago Elizabeth Selkirk, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Abstracts: Please submit ten copies of a one-page, 500-word anonymous abstract (for a 25-minute paper), along with a 3x5 card with your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, title of paper, and indication of whether the paper is intended for the main session or the parasession. The abstract should clearly indicate the data covered, outline the arguments presented, and include any broader implications of the work. If necessary, append a page of data and/or references. An individual may submit at most one single and one coauthored abstract. Deadline for receipt of abstracts is February 14th, 1992. Send abstracts to Chicago Linguistic Society, 1010 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. For more information: cls@sapir.uchicago.edu. 312-702-8529 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-841. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-842. Thu 05 Dec 1991. Lines: 148 Subject: 2.842 Responses: Pidginized Afrikaans, Cuban Spanish, Serbo-Croat Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 13:11:01 CST From: GA3662@SIUCVMB.bitnet Subject: Pidginized Afrikaans 2) Date: 4 Dec 91 17:38:00 EST From: "SUSAN SOTILLO" Subject: Cuban Spanish 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 18:03:58 GMT From: Martin Wynne Subject: Serbian and Croatian -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 91 13:11:01 CST From: GA3662@SIUCVMB.bitnet Subject: Pidginized Afrikaans The thesis on pidginized versions of Afrikaans is a Southern Illinois University at Carbondale MA thesis by Dennis Makhudu. Information is available from Glenn Gilbert at the address below. He is not on the net but has an e-mail address: GA3591@SIUCVMB.BITNET or Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA. from: Geoff Nathan (same address) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 4 Dec 91 17:38:00 EST From: "SUSAN SOTILLO" Subject: Cuban Spanish Carlos Otheguy has done work on Cuban Spanish (Que tu quieres?) and this is very common among Caribbean speakers. I believe he is at CUNY -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 91 18:03:58 GMT From: Martin Wynne Subject: Serbian and Croatian Firstly, thanks to all those that took the trouble to reply to my original posting on Serbian and Croatian. I would like to take the opportunity to reply to some of the criticisms: Stavros Macrakis: > So what's new? Playing games with standard languages, dialects, and > ethnonyms (ethnica?) for political reasons seems to be a constant in > ethnic struggle, sometimes splitting, sometimes joining, depending on > the political goal. Yes, but let's not let this knowledge lead us to ignore the details of what's happening in Yugoslavia. I realise that it is the norm that definitions of language and dialect are subjective and determined by social factors. Pointing to the social roots of the identification of Croats with the Croat language was not intended to imply that this is an unusual or inauthentic process. Saying "people define languages for their political ends", should not be a substitute for sociolinguistic investigation. The other point is that many people seem to want to believe that Serbo-Croatian has never existed, and that there has only ever been Serbian and Croatian. Joe Stemberger: > I don't think that this is related to the recent military conflicts. > When I was visiting relatives in Slovenia back in 1973, I was warned > to call Serbo-Croatian "Croatian" when talking to a Croat and "Serbian" > when talking to a Serb. This a point worth pursuing: what were the perceived linguistic identities of Serbs and Croats before the current conflict? While there will always be elements of continuity from older conflicts (some people never want to forget the Second World War, as we know here in Britain), and individuals have always had differing ideas of their cultural identity, I would suggest that the current conflict has it's roots in the 1970's, (so examples from before then would be interesting!) when in response to the economic crisis the leaders of the local bureaucracies in the republics began to promote nationalism as part of the struggle to secure their share of diminshing resources. In a stable political system with economic growth, the ethnic conflicts were individual prejudices with no greater social significance. However, with the collapse of the stalinist system and the uneven development of the market in Yugoslavia, a struggle for economic resources escalated and assumed a nationalist form. Suddenly, cultural and linguistic differences assumed a new significance, and became the alibi for for an economic dispute. I would like to thank the author of the anonymous tirade forwarded by Mike Migalski, which serves to prove that the ideas I identified are really with us, viz: > As to the difference in language between > Croats & Serbs, put it this way, there is > not such language as Serbo-Croatian! What currency did this idea have pre-1990? Certainly all the standard textbooks I have looked at recently just mention Serbo-Croat. Did Tito fool all of us for so long, or is it now the case, as I have argued, that previously inconsequential differences are now being raised to a new inflated status, with their whole history rewritten. The Serbo- Croat language was forged by the South Slav nationalists of Serbia and Croatia in the 19th century, a 'national' language that was the product of the joint struggles against the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. There are now new realities, and the linguistic map will inevitably be redrawn, but let us not rewrite history as well. > As to the use of the word "barbarian", any persons and/or > government responsible for the deaths of nearly 5,000 people, > direct cause for over 500,000 refugees to flee, hundreds of thousand > wounded people, destruction of the economy of Croatia and the > intentional destruction of the land including > historial sites and cities ("jewel of the Adriatic") are, > and should be labeled, barbarians. In case you have not > watched the news lately, this is exactly what the communist Serbian > government and army is doing to the Croatian people on their own soil! Briefly, and finally (so just skip this if you're not interested), if I might just have the right to reply to the non-linguistic points: Suffice to say that it is the Croats who have sought to break away from the federation in order to protect their economic advantage over the remaining republics, and the Croats who at every stage have attempted to escalate the conflict in order to draw the Western powers in to 'defend' them. Frankly, I would not wish to take sides in what is a squabble between rival sections of the old stalinsit bureaucracy (it's not "the communist Serbian government" against "the Croatian people") over who will control the mess created by the introduction of the market. What I do take issue with is the way that the West is attempting to demonise the East, and to erect a new Iron Curtain. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-842. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-843. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 127 Subject: 2.843 Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 17:06:51 -0500 From: justine@psusun01.psu.edu (Justine Cassell) Subject: Penn State: Director of Linguistics Program 2) Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 13:25:36 EST From: Peter Cole Subject: Jobs at Delaware - An Update 3) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 15:02:34 CST From: green@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Georgia Green) Subject: Position in Formal Semantics (fwd) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 17:06:51 -0500 From: justine@psusun01.psu.edu (Justine Cassell) Subject: Penn State: Director of Linguistics Program Penn State. Linguistics Program. DIRECTOR. Appointment at associate or full professor level; rank and salary commensurate with qualifications. Administrative experience preferred and a strong record of teaching, research, and publication. Seeking a theoretical linguist with specialization in syntax. Preference will be given to applicants interested in further strengthening links to the interdepartmental Cognitive Studies program based in Psychology, and/or furthering links with the language departments. Applications received by December 15, 1991, will be assured of consideration; however, applications will be considered until the position is filled. Send letter of application, vita, and the names and addresses of at least three references to: Search Committee, Linguistics Program, 425 Moore Building, Box N, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802-3104. Some preliminary interviews at LSA meeting, January, 1992, in Philadelphia. An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 13:25:36 EST From: Peter Cole Subject: Jobs at Delaware - An Update This is an update on faculty openings at the Dept. of Linguistics of the University of Delaware. The Department anticipates that there will be an open- ing for a psycholinguist with an interest in language acquisition for the 1992- 93 academic year. The appointment will, in all probability, be made at the rank of Assistant Professor, but candidates whop are close to promotion to Associate Professor, as well as entry level candidates will be encouraged to apply. The research interests of the individual selected can be in any area of psycholinguistics, but we are especially interested in candidates whose inter- ests span theoretical and applied linguistics. The individual selected should be able to work with students in second and first language acquisition, and an interest in computation would also be helpful. It is not yet clear whether the position will be advertised as a one year or as a tenure-track position. This decision will be made by the University Admin- istration as the budgetary situation becomes clearer. Some readers may know that Delaware, like many other universities, has been under some financial stress. As a result, during the 1990 AY the Administration examined whether linguistics and certain other graduate programs should be phased out. After a formal examination, the Universion reaffirmed its commitment to Linguistics at Delaware. Linguistics, like most other Departments at Delaware has suffered some cuts, but we hope that the effects of these cuts will be remedied when the general financial situation at the University improves. The above information is for informational purposes only. While we have no objection to receiving CVs of individuals who might be interested in teaching here, we will send out another notice when we are ready to advertise the pos- ition. If potential candidates wish to write now, they should mention whether they are interested in both temporary and tenure track possibilities, or if their interest is restricted to a tenure track position. I should also mention that Delaware will have a number of assistantships and fellowships open for very promising graduate students. Please pass this information on to anyone who might be interested. Telephone 302-451-6806 Fax 302-451-8000 Email LINGUISTICS@UDEL.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 15:02:34 CST From: green@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Georgia Green) Subject: Position in Formal Semantics (fwd) The Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, is seeking a specialist in formal semantics for a position to begin in August, 1992. This is a tenure track position at the assistant professor or junior associate level, salary minimum $34,000 for nine months, or commensurate with qualifications. The position arises as part of an interdiscip- linary cognitive science program at the University of Illinois. Strong research and teaching interest in formal semantics of natural language is required, and concomitant interest in related areas of cognitive science is desirable, including an interest in relevant computational research and applications. It is expected that candidates will have completed the Ph.D. at the time of appointment. Send vita, description of research interests, reprints, and at least three letters of recommendation to: Head, Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois, 4088 Foreign Language Bldg., 707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801; phone: (217) 244-3065. Although interviews may begin at any time, applications received by January 31 will be given full consideration, and no offer of appointment will be made before that date. The University of Illinois is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-843. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-844. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 293 Subject: 2.844 Conferences Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1991 10:45:23 GMT From: confling@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Sydney Conferences 1992) Subject: announcement of linguistics conferences in Australia 2) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 22:13 CDT From: Subject: Hispanic Culture Conference 3) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 11:41:28 EST From: "Wlodek Zadrozny" Subject: call for papers Mathematics of Language (MOL3) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1991 10:45:23 GMT From: confling@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Sydney Conferences 1992) Subject: announcement of linguistics conferences in Australia LINGUISTICS CONFERENCES IN AUSTRALIA 1992 -- ANNOUNCEMENT--- [Further information is available by sending LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU the message: get aust conf linguist or from confling@extro.ucc.su.oz.au.] >From 29th June to 17th July 1992 there will be several linguistics conferences held in Sydney, Australia. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Meeting (ALS) 27-29 June, Sancta Sophia College, University of Sydney Australasian Lexicography Association (AUSTRALEX) 28 June, Sancta Sophia College, University of Sydney Inaugural Australian Linguistic Institute (ALI) 29 June--10 July, Sancta Sophia College Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA) 10-13 July, Sancta Sophia College, University of Sydney International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC92) 13-17 July, Macquarie University Inaugural Pacific Second Language Acquisition Research Forum (PacSLRF) 13-16 July, Sancta Sophia College, University of Sydney ------------------ 1. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION *****ALS***** ALS 1992 Committee c/- Dr Barbara Horvath Department of Linguistics University of Sydney NSW 2006 e-mail: bmh@extro.ucc.su.oz.au *****ALI***** The ALI Planning Committee Linguistics Department University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA phone 61-2-692-4348 fax 61-2-552-1683 email confling@extro.ucc.su.oz.au *****ALAA***** Prof. Ross Steele French Department University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA. *****AUSTRALEX***** William Ramson Kingsley St Cottage Australian National University GPO Box 4 Canberra ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA e-mail: ramband@fac3.anu.oz.au *****ISFC92***** Prof Ruqaiya Hasan School of English and Linguistics Macquarie University NSW 2109 AUSTRALIA e-mail isc92@srsuna.shlrc.mq.oz.au. *****PacSLRF***** Tony Erben LARC University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA tony_erben@larc.su.oz.au ---------------- 2. REGISTRATION To register for ALI, ALS, AUSTRALEX and PacSLRF, and to arrange accommodation and travel, contact: National Australia Travel Attn Deborah Gellert Convention Services Dept. Centennial Plaza, 14th Floor 300 Elizabeth St, Sydney NSW 2000 AUSTRALIA phone 61-2-215-7063; toll-free 008-028-329 (in Australia) fax 61-2-215-7025 -------------- 3. CALL FOR PAPERS (a) ALS 1992 You are invited to submit abstracts for 20 minute papers (plus 10 minutes discussion) to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australian Linguistics Society. Papers representing all aspects of linguistics will be considered. Abstracts should be neatly typewritten on a single sheet of paper and no more than 200 words long (excluding examples and references). The talk's title should be given at the top of the page. Two copies of the abstract are required, one with the author's full name, affiliation, address, phone number, (fax number and e-mail address if possible), and the other without this. Abstracts should be sent to the ALS 1992 Committee Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 2 March 1992 ********* (b) -- AUSTRALEX 1992 You are invited to submit abstracts for 20 minute papers (plus 10 minutes discussion) to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australasian Lexicography Association. Papers on the development of an Australian corpus will be particularly welcome. Abstracts should be sent to the Secretary, William Ramson Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 28 February 1992 ----------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 22:13 CDT From: Subject: Hispanic Culture Conference CALL FOR PAPERS RIO GRANDE RESEARCH GROUP FOR LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS VI ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SPANISH TOPIC: HISPANIC CULTURE THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS-PAN AMERICAN EDINBURG, TEXAS APRIL 16-18, 1992 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: PROFESSOR DJELAL KADIR "CULTURE: HISPANIC, HERPANIC, THEIRPANIC" PAPERS ARE INVITED ON TOPICS RELATED TO ANY ASPECTS OF HISPANIC CULTURE AND INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: -HISTORY OF SPAIN -SPANISH-AMERICA -THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD -CIVILIZATION DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN NEW SPAIN: ART, MUSIC, LITERATURE -THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES -EARLY RANCHOS AND HACIENDAS IN TEJANO COMMUNITIES -THE SEPHARDIC JEWISH CULTURAL CONTRIBUTION AND PRESENCE -CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY THE INDIANS, SPANIARDS, AND PRESENT DAY MEXICAN-AMERICANS PAPERS MUST ADDRESS THE MAIN TOPIC OF HISPANIC CULTURE IN ITS DIVERS MANIFESTATIONS. PERSONS INTERESTED IN PRESENTING A PAPER SHOULD SUBMIT A ONE-PAGE ABSTRACT BEFORE MARCH 10,1992 TO: Dr. Lino Garcia Jr. 1992 RGRGLL Symposium Chairman Department of Modern Languages and Literatures The University of Texas - Pan American Edinburgh, Texas 78539-2999 Tel:(512) 381-3441 Fax:(512) 381-2177 E-mail: DG3890@PANAM.BITNET -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 11:41:28 EST From: "Wlodek Zadrozny" Subject: call for papers Mathematics of Language (MOL3) Call for Papers THIRD MEETING ON MATHEMATICS OF LANGUAGE (MOL3) November 13-14, 1992 Austin, Texas, USA Sponsored by the Association for Mathematics of Language (A Special Interest Group of the Association for Computational Linguistics) Submissions are invited from all areas of study which deal with the mathematical properties of natural language. These areas include, but are not limited to, formal mathematical models of syntax, semantics, and/or phonology; computational complexity of natural language processing; mathematical theories of language learning; parsing theory; quantitative models of language. This is the third in a series of meetings on the mathematics of language. The first such meeting was held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in October, 1984. The second was held near Yorktown Heights, N.Y. in May, 1991. It is anticipated that the papers from the meeting will be published after peer review in a collection or a special journal issue. No unrefereed proceedings are planned. Papers from MOL1 can be obtained as the volume Mathematics of Language edited by A. Manaster-Ramer and published by John Benjamins Publishing Co. Selected papers from MOL2 will appear in a special issue of the Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence. All contributions to MOL3 are to be made electronically. We need all submissions to be received by us no later than June 30, 1992. Submissions should consist of an abstract of length equivalent to between two and five pages. The abstracts will be read and processed in electronic form, rather than being converted to hard copy. Therefore we ask that you submit a file without typesetting commands so that it can easily be read from a terminal screen. The addresses for submissions and other correspondence regarding the conference are MOL3@UCSD.EDU MOL3@UCSD.BITNET Authors will be notified around August 15, 1992, by electronic mail. Please enclose your e-mail address when you send in your abstract. MOL3 Program Committee: Robert Berwick (MIT) Nelson Correa (U. de los Andes) David Johnson (IBM) Aravind Joshi (Penn) Philip Miller (Ohio State) Carl Pollard (Ohio State) Walter Savitch (UCSD, Co-Chair) Thomas Wasow (Stanford) Wlodek Zadrozny (IBM, Co-Chair) MOL3 Local Arrangements Chair: Robert Wall (Austin) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-844. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-845. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 110 Subject: 2.845 FYI: Graduate Study at Delaware, COSWL Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 13:13:00 EST From: Peter Cole Subject: Graduate Study at Delaware 2) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 13:02:49 CST From: battiste@cis.uab.edu (Ed Battistella) Subject: COSWL Breakfast meeting in Philadelphia -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 13:13:00 EST From: Peter Cole Subject: Graduate Study at Delaware The Department of Linguistics at the University of Delaware is actively recruiting graduate students in both theoretical and applied linguistics. The Department has special strength in syntax, phonology and both first and second language acquisition. The Department offers excellent financial aid pos- sibilities. Teaching Assistantships pay about $9500 plus tuition and fellow- ships are in the same range. The University of Delaware is located in Newark, DE, which is about an hour from Philadelphia and Baltimore, and about two hours from New York and Washington. The primary criterion for admission and financial aid is academic excellence. The Department requires the GRE and three letters of recommendations. Please inform your students of this possibility. For further information, please contact Dr. Irene Vogel, Graduate Advisor, Department of Linguistics, University of Delaware, Newark DE 19711, 302-451-68 06, Fax 302-451-8000, email LINGUISTICS@UDEL.EDU. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 13:02:49 CST From: battiste@cis.uab.edu (Ed Battistella) Subject: COSWL Breakfast meeting in Philadelphia At this year's Annual Meeting of the LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA (Jan. 9-12, 1992) the Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics will once again sponsor a breakfast meeting to update LSA members on its current and planned activities. The COSWL breakfast will be held on the morning of January 11, from 7:30 to 9:00 AM. All LSA members--women and men--are invited to join us. Preregistration is required and the cost of the breakfast is $10 for regular members and $5 for student members. Preregistration must be received by the LSA by December 20. You can send your preregistration for the breakfast along with your LSA preregistration by checking the appropriate box on the preregistration form. This year's COSWL breakfast will be supported in part by contributions from Kluwer Academic Publishers and from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Our thanks especially to Martin Scrivener of Kluwer and to Judith Amsel of LEA. On Friday, January 10, from 12:30 to 2:00 PM, COSWL will also sponsor an open discussion on "Language Guidelines and Other Usage Issues," at which we will present proposals for usage guidelines for scholarly communication in linguistics and will invite suggestions, comments, and ideas. If you would like to obtain a copy of our current draft version, contact any COSWL member. The members of COSWL would also like to recognize and thank the current members whose terms of expiring, Ellen Broselow of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Penny Eckert of the Institute for Research on Learning, and Cari Spring of Ohio State University. We would also like to welcome our three new members: Victoria Bergvall, Lynne Murphy and Susan Steele. Coswl Members Email addresses: 1991 Chair Penny Eckert Penny_Eckert@IRL.com 1992 Co-chairs Sally McConnell-Ginet smg@cornella.cit.cornell.edu Craige Roberts croberts@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Dawn Bates atdeb@asuacad.bitnet Ed Battistella battiste@cis.uab.edu Victoria Bergvall vbergval@mtus5.cts.mtu.edu Ellen Broselow broselow@sbccvm.BITNET Lynne Murphy lynne@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu Cari Spring spring@shs.ohio-state.edu Susan Steele steele@ccit.arizona.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-845. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-846. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 93 Subject: 2.846 Queries: Ling. Dictionary, Texas Ling. Forum, Reduplication Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 15:53:18 EST From: Kelly.K.Wahl@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: QUERIE: Linguistics Dictionary 2) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:50:41 EST From: Michael Covington Subject: Texas Ling. Forum 3) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:49:45 EST From: Michael Covington Subject: Reduplication 4) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 18:40:53 EST From: ingria@BBN.COM Subject: NOT? Yes Way! -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 15:53:18 EST From: Kelly.K.Wahl@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: QUERIE: Linguistics Dictionary Does anyone out there know of a good, current dictionary of Linguistic Terminology? I have in mind particularly a mono-lingual English dictionary, but would also be interested in any info on dictionaries (mono- or bi-lingual) of linguistic terms in German, French, and Russian. Thanks. (Kelly_Wahl@ub.cc.umich.edu) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:50:41 EST From: Michael Covington Subject: Texas Ling. Forum Where, if anywhere, can I find the issue of Texas Linguistic Forum (vol. 22, 1983 I think) containing Karttunen's and others' papers on two-level morphological processing? ------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:49:45 EST From: Michael Covington Subject: Reduplication Does reduplication always occur at the beginning of the stem? I.e., from a stem ABC, you can get AABC, ABABC, or ABCABC, but is there any language in which you could get ABCC or ABCBC? ------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 18:40:53 EST From: ingria@BBN.COM Subject: NOT? Yes Way! Speaking of ... NOT!, does anybody have anything to say about the origins of ``Yes way''? As far as I know, this is used only as a reply to ``No way'': Your music is going to revolutionize the world. No way! Yes way. This shows up in _Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure_, uttered by George Carlin, in a context not unlike the example. I've also heard it attributed to ``hoodsie'' speak in the Massachussetts area. (``Hoodsie'' is a slighting term that refers to young women from the suburbs, you know, the 'hoods.) Hoping for the straight poop... -30- Bob -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-846. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-847. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 60 Subject: 2.847 Quoting from LINGUIST Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 12:58:41 EST From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: quoting LINGUIST submissions -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 12:58:41 EST From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: quoting LINGUIST submissions [Moderators' note: we thought the following interchange might be of interest to some LINGUIST subscribers, since it deals with the ethics/conventions of quoting LINGUIST submissions. Discussion anyone? --Anthony & Helen] >I'm a subscriber of LINGUIST. I'm wondering if it is possible >to quote the articles in LINGUIST. If yes, could you tell me >what I should do besides giving each writer proper credit for > the articles which I quote in my writing? Do I need a written >permission from LINGUIST and/or each writer of the articles? >Thank you. >Makoto SHIMIZU >Kyushu Institute of Technology >td8909a@hakobera.isct.kyutech.ac.jp > >Dear Makoto, >My personal opinion (and I speak for Anthony as well) is that >you are welcome to quote LINGUIST as you would any other journal, simply >citing tthe list (LINGUIST), the volume/issue number, and date of the issue. >However, unlike paper journals, LINGUIST does not hold a copyright on the >material it "publishes," so it would seem courteous, if not legally >necessary, to get permission from the author of the message as well. >The legalities involved in citing electronic mail contributions are >the subject of much discussion on lists from time to time. The issue hasn't >been raised on LINGUIST yet, however; and your question makes me think it >should be. So if you don't mind, I'll post your query and this response >to the list, as a way of soliciting subscriber's opinions. >Regards, >Helen > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-847. ________________________________________________________________ LSA Computer Committee expires this December; so perhaps this is an appropriate time to publicly acknowledge how important his support has been for LINGUIST. John has offered a great deal of practical help--e.g., establishing a permanent archive of LINGUIST issues on the U. of Michigan computer, and arranging computational access for us which has proved invaluable at times when Eastern Michigan U. or Texas A&M were inaccessible. Even more important, however, may have been the moral support he has offered in both his personal and his official capacity. His interest, computational knowledge, and problem-solving ability have been a great resource during LINGUIST's first eleven months. Indirectly, they have benefitted all LINGUIST subscribers. So we thought we'd take a little LINGUIST space to thank him on behalf of the list. -Helen & Anthony (The Moderators) ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-848. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 233 Subject: 2.848 Last Posting on NOT Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:28:32 EST From: mark Subject: 2,828 post-affirmation freestanding "Not" 2) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 9:49:01 +0800 (SST) From: A_DENCH@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU Subject: RE: 2.839 Not 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:44:34 PST From: brugman@crl.ucsd.edu (Claudia Brugman) Subject: Re: 2.839 Not 4) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 01:06:53 EST From: Sarah Jones Subject: RE: 2.839 Not 5) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 0:42:32 CST From: gliesche@lonestar.utsa.edu (Jules D. Gliesche) Subject: Re: 2.835 Names 6) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 09:45 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Not 7) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 16:12:54 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 2.839 Not 8) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 13:10 CST From: TB0NRN1@NIU.bitnet Subject: NOT -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 17:28:32 EST From: mark Subject: 2,828 post-affirmation freestanding "Not" A month or several ago I noticed my 15-year-old daughter Susannah Mandel using this construction and asked her about it. She gave me a one-line reference, which she has just expanded at my request in response to Larry's query. I typed as she talked, and have edited the result somewhat, subject to her approval. Here is her analysis. This usage originated on the regular "Wayne's World" sketch on Saturday Night Live. The sketch is supposedly a show on a local cable station in Aurora, Illinois, produced by 2 college kids, Wayne (Mike Myers) and his buddy Garth (Dana Carvey), out of Wayne's basement. It features their teenage American dialect, peppered with terms such as "Excellent!", "Party on, dude", "He shoots, he scores!"[context- specific to the sketch], "Okayyy! Alll righht!", and this "Not!" (Direct quotation of Susannah:) "Anyone hip enough to watch Saturday Night Live will be able to use it. You can use it to cancel your own statement in a self-derogatory way, or you can use it on somebody else. It's not really insulting, more of a disagreement, meant to express a difference of opinion (although Wayne and Garth are insulting to each other, because it's their attitude)." (1) Context: You and some friends see this guy walking by. One of you says, "Oh God, he's really hot. (pause a few beats) NOT!!(very emphatic)" and everybody laughs, everybody breaks up. (2) Context: You're just walking along talking to someone. A: "I'll see you at the mall tonight." B: "Not.(in conversational tone) I'm grounded. I can't go." I.e., no, you're wrong, I can't go. To really insult someone's opinion you wouldn't use that, because it's actually genial and friendly, even though on occasion you say it in a loud, insulting voice. "It's really quite friendly; it's not insulting... it's not, umm, *nasty*." It's insulting only when you say it about someone else, not when you say it about your own statement or the person you're talking to's. Everybody uses it in form (1), but only some people use form (2); it's dialectal. People are more likely to use it to negate their own statements than someone else's. [Sounds like a classic Labovian implicational ordering.] -- As further context, we live in Framingham, Massachusetts, a large town in the suburban area between Boston and Worcester. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 9:49:01 +0800 (SST) From: A_DENCH@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU Subject: RE: 2.839 Not The use of NOT reported in the last few days (and I should point out that this is totally alien to Australians - at least to date, but Bill and Fred or whoever are onour big screens too) reminds me very much of a pattern in some Australian languages. In Kurrama, Yinyjiparnti and Panyjima (at least), of North West Western Australia, a declarative statement can be followed by a raspberry - that is, an egressive velaric bilabial trill (and it is velaric, in case you're wondering). Or alternatively, by the word "thumpirr", in which the last consonant is an alveolar trill, often voiceless and prolonged in this usage. The word means fart, and perhaps the best characterisation is that the speaker is indicating that the last statement was as if he (and I've only heard men using this) were talking through his arse. It can be sarcastic, ments and then back off from these. And it appears to me that sarcasm is, for these people, quite outrageous, very impolite (to the point of dangerous), and so needs some qualification. Alan Dench Linguistics University of Western Australia A_DENCH@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:44:34 PST From: brugman@crl.ucsd.edu (Claudia Brugman) Subject: Re: 2.839 Not re S. Fisher's speculation that this is a californianism: I haven't heard it among my students or my younger friends. (Of course, like all modern literati, I've heard it on "Wayne's World" and the Budweiser commercial.) --C. Brugman, UCSD (and a lifelong Californian who bridles at these blanket accusations!) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 01:06:53 EST From: Sarah Jones Subject: RE: 2.839 Not While it may well be true that the current use of post-affirmative "not" comes from Bill and Ted's Big Adventure/Wayne's World, it's certainly not new. As a young adolescent in the mid 60's, my peers and I (well, at least the female peers) used this construction quite a lot. (This was a in a small town in Iowa.) Does anyone know of/remember using it prior to the 1960's? Sarah Jones Indiana University--Bloomington saajones@iubacs.bitnet saajones@ucs.indiana.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 0:42:32 CST From: gliesche@lonestar.utsa.edu (Jules D. Gliesche) Subject: Re: 2.835 Names I don't remember too much Czech, but I can certain vouch for the fact that it is very common in German to put an article before someone's name. I don't believe the perscriptive grammarians have accepted it yet, but in speech it's very normal to speak of someone as "der Donald" or "die Ivana." Seems logical that other languages would do this as well....as to the best of my recollection Czech is one of these languages. JG -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 09:45 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Not I just had a thought. Maybe the source of S+Not is Hawaiian English. As I recall, "Not" is used as a one-word response to deny what one's interlocutor has just said. Susan Fischer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 16:12:54 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 2.839 Not ...not! Compare hawaiian creole english final ...but! (See Pidgin to da max or any standard source). Given the California Surf community interactions with the Hawaiian surfers, who borrow expressions from Hawaiian Creole English, there is a plausible borrowing source. I make no claims, just a suggestion for researcgh - in the field, if possible! Eric Schiller University of Chicago -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 13:10 CST From: TB0NRN1@NIU.bitnet Subject: NOT A correction of my original response to Larry Horn's query about sarcastic post-affirmative NOT: I watched the movie BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and found no examples of the relevant construction, though it's the model for WAYNE'S WORLD in many other ways, as my students reported, for instance the phrase PARTY ON, and the overuse of EXCELLENT. Apparently it can not only follow a pause, but even an intervening turn by the addressee as in the constructed sequence below. A: I really like that tie you're wearing. B: Gee, thanks. A: NOT! Neal R. Norrick, tb0nrn1@niu.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-848. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-849. Fri 06 Dec 1991. Lines: 146 Subject: 2.849 Names Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:28:09 EST From: poesio@cs.rochester.edu Subject: 2.835 Names - articles and proper names (Italian) 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:38:31 -0500 From: "Lester C Jacobson" Subject: Re: 2.835 Names 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 17:26 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.835 Names 4) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 20:08:24 EST From: Michael Morse Subject: Re: 2.835 Names 5) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 09:01:15 EST From: "George Fowler h(317)571-9471 o(812)855-2829" Subject: RE: 2.835 Names 6) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 13:45:45 GMT From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: 2.835 Names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:28:09 EST From: poesio@cs.rochester.edu Subject: 2.835 Names - articles and proper names (Italian) Perhaps this has been pointed out already, since I missed the previous postings in this discussion, but in certain dialects of Italian it's certainly possible to say `la Maria' (the Mary) or `il Giuseppe' (the Joseph); actually, it's the rule, rather than the exception. This construct seems more common with first names than with family names. And it seems especially common in the areas around Lombardy, including Piacenza (one of my grandfathers comes from there); I don't know whether it occurs in other regions. Massimo -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:38:31 -0500 From: "Lester C Jacobson" Subject: Re: 2.835 Names In reply to the proprosals that "The Donald" arose from Czech usage: Ivana Trump is Czech and left the country as an adult. However, Czech, like most Slavic dialects, has no definite article. The West Slavic linguist here assures me that there is no such form of address in Czech. L. Jake Jacobson Pittsburgh -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 17:26 EST From: Fan mail from some flounder? Subject: Re: 2.835 Names With regard to whether things like -san or -bey are articles, I don't know Turkish, but Mr. and -san are *not* restricted to proper nouns, though -san may be restricted to humans. Okyaku-san means "honored guest", roughly, just as we have English locutions like Mr. Postman (look and see if there's a letter for me). You are right in that both -san and Mr. may have the effect of *turning* the noun they modify into a proper noun. I believe that some people use Mr. when referring to various organs of their body. While this is personification, it is still limited. Then of course there's Mr. Potatohead.. Susan Fischer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 91 20:08:24 EST From: Michael Morse Subject: Re: 2.835 Names I can't speak for Czech, but it it is certainly colloquial German to say [e.g.] "Who is it on the phone? Ach, 's ist ja der Hans!" Czech speakers? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 09:01:15 EST From: "George Fowler h(317)571-9471 o(812)855-2829" Subject: RE: 2.835 Names On "The Donald": The comment was made that this is what Ivana Trump calls/called her hubby, and that the practice is transferred from Czech. But Czech HAS NO ARTICLES!! This has to be a joke, and if influenced by Ivana's Czech background, then only because she feels the impact of the English articles more keenly than we native speakers, and finds it easier to play with. A similar "misuse" of "the" is regularly practiced by Hannah Gray, president of the University of Chicago, and other members of the U. of C. bureaucracy. She refers to the university and "THE University of Chicago", with heavy emphasis on "the" (not that there are any OTHER Universities of Chicago!). This grated on me all the time I was a grad student there. When I get obnoxious alumni mailings I always expect this "the" to be set off in bold type, and am vaguely disappointed when it isn't. Consistency, after all, is next to godliness. George Fowler -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 13:45:45 GMT From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: 2.835 Names From: RICHARD@celex.kun.nl Subject: RE: 2.831 Names > I think Donald Trump was dubbed "The Donald" because his ex-wife, Ivana, > called him that way, supposedly because she was born and raised in > Czechoslovakia where addressing someone by the definite article is common > practice. Czech has no definite article. In fact, it has no means whatsoever for expressing definiteness. The same holds for Slovak. ---- --- -- - Long Live the Rose and the Heather! - -- --- ---- Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu) * Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK * Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-849. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-2-850. Mon 09 Dec 1991. Lines: 138 Subject: 2.850 Queries: Discourse, Elamite, Kimmo, Black English, Us Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Editorial Assistant: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 91 10:55:28 EST From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: texts for Discourse Analysis course 2) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 22:40:08 PST From: Geoffrey Mess Subject: proto-Elamite, request for clarification. 3) Date: Sun, 08 Dec 91 12:07:50 SET From: Aleksander Murzaku Subject: query: Two Level Morphology of Italian? 4) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 22:09:13 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: till death do us part 5) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 23:26:59 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: African-American English -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 91 10:55:28 EST From: hdry@emunix.emich.edu (helen dry) Subject: texts for Discourse Analysis course I'm putting together a graduate course in Discourse Analysis and realize I've become dissatisfied with the book I've used before (Brown & Yule, _Discourse Analysis_, CUP). Does anyone have suggestions about replacement(s)? There will be a packet of articles as well on topics like evidentiality/affect, repetition, structure of personal narrative, etc. But I'd like to give the students an "overview" text if possible--or, conceivably, two texts, since the course will treat both written and spoken discourse. Any suggestions that you send to my personal address I'll summarize and post to the list. Thanks very much for your help. Helen Dry hdry@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 91 22:40:08 PST From: Geoffrey Mess Subject: proto-Elamite, request for clarification. The September issue of Atlantic contained an article by D. Roberts "The Decipherment of Ancient Maya". In passing the author makes some inaccurate statements about the status of various scripts (for instance, he said that Elamite and futhark runes were not understood). The latest issue contains two letters to the editor pointing out mistakes. These letters seemed to disagree on the question of whether proto-Elamite is understood. Would anyone care to enlighten me? - Is the proto-Elamite script a descendant of Sumerian cuneiform? Is it ideographic, syllabic, or alphabetic ? - Where are the proto-Elamite sites ? I understand that generally they are near Susa, S.W. Iran. But what is the geographical range of the sites ? about how many are there? - Is anything known about the proto-Elamite language ? -To what period has the proto-Elamite culture been dated ? And changing the subject a bit, -Has the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis been generally accepted ? Has there been much published since Mcalpin's (hope I got the name right) memoir on this ? (I posted a similar note in the newsgroups sci.lang, sci.archaeology but no one's replied except to suggest suscribing to LINGUIST - thanks, Jacques Guy) --Geoffrey Mess -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 08 Dec 91 12:07:50 SET From: Aleksander Murzaku Subject: query: Two Level Morphology of Italian? Does anyone know if there exists any article or anything else describing the italian morphology using the Koskeniemi two level model? If anyone have heard anything about, please, let me know. Thank you very much, +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Aleksander Murzaku Tel:+39/50/597342 | | Scuola Normale Superiore Fax:+39/50/563513 | | Piazza dei Cavalieri, 7 Bitnet: murzaku AT ipisnsib | | I-56126 PISA Internet: murzaku@vaxsns.infn.it | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 22:09:13 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: till death do us part there's a country western song sung by randy travis that has the refrain: together forever, till death do we part... yeah, '...do *we* part'. clearly, the change of from 'us' to 'we' was not made for reasons of rhyme or meter. does anyone know why it was changed? could it be that the archaic sov word order was unparsable and a semantically weird but at least parsable instance of subject-aux inversion was preferred? that is, the interpretation that we are parting until death is just not possible given the rest of the lyrics, all about how we're together--it really does seem that the singer intends to convey the meaning of 'till death do us part'. is there some other explanation, e.g. dialectal, that i'm missing? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 06 Dec 91 23:26:59 EST From: Ellen Prince Subject: African-American English is there anyone out there in LINGUISTland with native intuitions in african-american english who'd be willing to give me some grammaticality judgments? thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-2-850.