________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-201. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 117 Subject: 3.201 Queries: Raisiig, Politeness, Articles, Cog-Sci Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:38:16 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query: "Canadian" Raising 2) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 16:51:07 CET From: Eugeniusz Rzewuski Subject: query: politeness in African languages 3) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1992 19:11 IST From: Anita Mittwoch Subject: affixed articles 4) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 21:57:44 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: cognitive science macware -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:38:16 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query: "Canadian" Raising By "Canadian" Raising I mean the raising of the vowel of words like 'write' and 'wife' (as opposed to 'ride' and 'wives') which is found in parts of Canada but also in such U.S. dialects as those of Chicago, Minneapolis, and Rochester. I have two queries: (1) Does anyone know of any work on this phenomenon other than that of Joos (in Language in the 40's), Chambers (Canadian J. of Lx, I think), and Vance (American Speech)? (2) Would people who have this phenomenon be willing to write to me and tell me whether or not they have raising in the following words: hide cider tiger spider writer rider -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 16:51:07 CET From: Eugeniusz Rzewuski Subject: query: politeness in African languages A colleague of mine (Ms. Zofia Podobinska) is working on politeness in Swahili speech acts. Surpisingly very little study has been done on this subject, and, to our knowledge, on other major African languages. Could anyone of you testify to the contrary by indicating published or unpublished studies (e.g. Ph.D. or M.A. thesis) based on a corpus of texts, recorded conversations etc.? Please answer to: Zofia Podobinska e-mail: orientuw@plearn.bitnet or by "snail-mail" to: Warsaw University Institute of Oriental Studies Dept. of African Languages & Cultures 00-927 Warszawa 64, Poland. Thank you in advance Eugeniusz Rzewuski (same address) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1992 19:11 IST From: Anita Mittwoch Subject: affixed articles Can anyone out there give me any references for work dealing with affixed articles, especially in Romanian. Please address your replies to me at the above e-mail address or Dept. of English, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Anita Mittwoch -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 21:57:44 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: cognitive science macware A couple of weeks ago, I posted an SOS for information on teaching linguistics in a cognitive science context. I received many thoughtful replies, for which I am most grateful, and which I have summarized and submitted as a file on the Listserv. (An announcement is forthcoming.) In my previous posting, I mentioned that I would have access to an IBM 386 for classroom use (e.g., to demo models of language learning, grammars, parsers, etc.). Now it turns out I will also have access to a Mac (2 plus) for this purpose. So, if anyone knows of available Macware that would be appropriate, please let me know. Thanks, Gregory Ward ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-201. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-202. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 103 Subject: 3.202 Spanish Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 27 Feb 1992 19:56:32 CST From: Subject: Re: 3.189: Correction 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 18:25:43 PST From: elordie@girtab.usc.edu (Gorka Elordieta) Subject: Re: 3.188 Spanish la -> el 3) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 18:22:10 PST From: elordie@girtab.usc.edu (Gorka Elordieta) Subject: Re: 3.188 Spanish la -> el 4) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1992 16:53 EST From: LRUDOLPH@vax.clarku.edu Subject: Re: 3.053 Origin of "Honkie" 5) Date: 28 Feb 92 13:40:00 EST From: "SUSAN SOTILLO" Subject: RE: 3.188 Spanish la -> el -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 27 Feb 1992 19:56:32 CST From: Subject: Re: 3.189: Correction This is a clarification on some Spanish la-> el facts. It is not true that azuc ar is like aguila as someone else has suggested. Aguila is a fem. noun stressed on the first syllable (*el aguila negro is out). Azucar, which is stressed on the second syllable behaves as masculine for some people and as feminine for so me other people (check any Spanish dictionary). In Spain (and perhaps other pla ces) the use is erratic. The official names for white sugar and brown sugar are respectively azucar blanquilla and azucar moreno (I repeat, in Spain). For me "the sugar is wet" could be either el azucar esta mojado or el azucar esta moja da. Ditto for avestruz (originally a compound). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 18:25:43 PST From: elordie@girtab.usc.edu (Gorka Elordieta) Subject: Re: 3.188 Spanish la -> el In my dialect of Spanish we say "la 'a' personal", not "el 'a' personal", as Weinberg indicated for the variety she is familiar with. -Gorka Elordieta. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 18:22:10 PST From: elordie@girtab.usc.edu (Gorka Elordieta) Subject: Re: 3.188 Spanish la -> el I am a quasi-native speaker of Spanish, and I would like to share my judgments (at least my dialectal ones, i.e.,Spanish spoken in the Basque Country) with those interested on the topic of la->el in Spanish. I've always said and heard "la Ana", "la Alvarez (a female belonging to the Alvarez family)" and "la hache", but "el Africa negra", for example, which shows that proper names with an initial stressed 'a' do not always escape the use of 'el' in front. Then, as an answer to the person asking for judgments on the gender of "azucar", I can say that my dialectal variant takes "azucar" as masculine. Thus, "mucho azucar", "el azucar moreno", etc. -Gorka Elordieta -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1992 16:53 EST From: LRUDOLPH@vax.clarku.edu Subject: Re: 3.053 Origin of "Honkie" Do any Latin American Spanish dialects partially devoice initial yod? It struck me that if, say, Afro-Cuban Spanish speakers, or Afro-Panamanians, did so, then "honkie" might come from "yanqui". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: 28 Feb 92 13:40:00 EST From: "SUSAN SOTILLO" Subject: RE: 3.188 Spanish la -> el Que quieren decir con "a personal." A que se estan refiriendo? "al personal," "lo personal"???? El avestruz, el azucar, el aguila, etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-202. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-203. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 320 Subject: 3.203 CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 16:37:49 EST From: Marsha Frankel Subject: CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 16:37:49 EST From: Marsha Frankel Subject: CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference FIFTH ANNUAL CUNY CONFERENCE ON HUMAN SENTENCE PROCESSING March 19-21, 1992 Sponsors: Computational Linguistics Program, Carnegie Mellon University Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona The Conference will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY. -Program- THURSDAY MORNING, March 19 9:30-12:00 noon Demonstration of Software for Use of Speech in Sentence Processing Studies If you wish to attend this session, you must e-mail LNGGC@CUNYVM by March 1st. THURSDAY AFTERNOON, 12:30-6:00 (Auditorium, Library level) (Registration from 12:00 noon) Announcements WELCOME: Frances Degen Horowitz, President of the Graduate School and University Center of CUNY Karen Emmorey and Ursula Bellugi (Salk Institute) -- Processing a Dynamic Visual-spatial Language: Psycholinguistic Studies of American Sign Language Sandiway Fong (NEC Research Institute, Princeton) and Robert Berwick (MIT) -- Parsing English and Japanese with Principles and Parameters Theory Lyn Frazier (U. of Massachusetts) -- Processing Dutch Sentence Structures coffee break 2:30-3:00 Robert Kluender, Marta Kutas, Kimberly Kellogg and Kathleen Ahrens (U. of California at San Diego) -- Specificity Effects in Sentence Processing Elizabeth Gilboy and Josep Sopena (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) -- Studying Late Closure (in Spanish) Using a Probe Recognition Task Kenneth I. Forster and Kyoko Yoshimura (U. of Arizona) -- Kanji to Kana Masked Form-priming: Evidence for Automatic Phonological Encoding coffee break 4:30-5:00 Richard Larson (SUNY at Stony Brook) Tutorial on Logical Form (LF) THURSDAY EVENING (Room 1700; 17th floor) WINE RECEPTION 6:00-8:30 POSTER SESSION 6:30-8:30 FRIDAY MORNING March 20 9:00-12:30 (Auditorium) (coffee from 8:30) Special Session on Statistical Approaches to Natural Language Processing Chair & Introductory Remarks: Steven P. Abney (Bell Communications Research) Kenneth Church (AT&T Bell Laboratories) -- Part of Speech Tagging Robert Mercer (IBM-Watson Research) -- With Friends like Statistics, Who Needs Linguistics? Ezra Black (IBM-Watson Research) -- Real Grammars for Real Tasks: Developing and Evaluating Large-Scale Grammars for Practical Application coffee break 10:30-11:00 Yves Schabes (U. of Pennsylvania) -- Statistical Techniques with Partially Parsed Corpora Mitchell P. Marcus (U. of Pennsylvania) -- Experiments in Acquiring Grammars from Large Corpora Donald Hindle (AT&T Bell Laboratories) -- Multiple Evidence for Attachment Disambiguation FRIDAY AFTERNOON 2:30-6:00 (Auditorium) Bradley L. Pritchett (Carnegie-Mellon U.) and John Whitman (Cornell U.) -- Cross-linguistic Evidence for a Unified Account of Perceptual Complexity at SS and LF Aravind Joshi (U. of Pennsylvania) -- Complexity of Scrambling David Pesetsky (MIT) -- Islands without Barriers coffee break 4:00-4:30 Keith Rayner (U. of Massachusetts) -- Contextual Influences on Processing Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence From Eye Movements Don C. Mitchell (U. of Exeter), Fernando Cuetos (U. of Oviedo, Spain) and Martin Corley (U. of Exeter) -- Statistical versus Linguistic Determinants of Parsing Bias: Cross-linguistic Evidence Anne Cutler (Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, UK) -- Exploiting Phonological Structure in Word Class Decisions SATURDAY MORNING March 21 9:00-12:30 (Auditorium) (coffee from 8:30) Thomas Bever, Itziar Laka, and Montse Sanz (U. of Rochester) -- NP-trace, Priming, Unaccusatives and the UTAH Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon U.) and Elizabeth Bates (U. of California at San Diego) -- Relative Clause Processing in English, German and Hungarian Stuart Shieber (Harvard U.) and Mark Johnson (Brown U.) -- Variations on Incremental Interpretation coffee break 10:30-11:00 Michael K. Tanenhaus and Cornell Juliano (U. of Rochester) -- What to Do About 'that': Use of Co-occurence Information in Parsing Martin Kay (CSLI Stanford U.) -- What Do Translators Know about Language? Josef Bayer (Heinrich-Heine-U., D -- The Processing of Scrambled and Topicalized Arguments in German SATURDAY AFTERNOON 2:30-6:00 (Auditorium) Howard Lasnik (U. of Connecticut) -- Some Consequences of an LF Theory of Case Amy Weinberg (U. of Maryland) -- Parameterising the Parser: A Grammar-based Theory of Garden Paths Marica De Vincenzi (Istituto di Psicologia del CNR, Rome) -- Syntactic Strategies in Italian coffee break 4:00-4:30 Julie E. Boland (Ohio State U.) -- Verb Argument Structure and the Coordination of Syntactic and Semantic Processing Atsu Inoue (Kantoogakuin U., Japan) and Janet Dean Fodor (CUNY Graduate Center) -- Information-paced Parsing of Japanese Janet Nicol (U. of Arizona), Martin Pickering (U. of Edinburgh) and Gregory Hickok (MIT) -- Processing Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence From Lexical Priming HOTEL LIST These hotels have been visited by a member of the organizing committee. However, CUNY can take no responsibility for the provision of satisfactory service. For alternative accommodations, consult Meegan Services (718 995 9292 or 800 441 1115). For tourist information call the New York Convention and Visitors' Bureau, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019, Tel: (212) 397-8222. Make reservations as soon as possible! * = Arrangements for special rates have been made. Reservations necessary by March 1; mention CUNY Conference. Rates quoted are per room, not per person, unless noted otherwise. IT PAYS TO SHARE. A double room, or a suite for four, is a very much better bargain than single rooms. The Alogonquin Hotel The Empire Hotel 59 W. 44th St. 44 W. 63rd St NY, NY 10036 New York, NY 212 840 6800 212 265 7400 800 548 0345 800 545 7400 Dbl or sgl $135 (Some Moderate Rooms, across from Lincoln Ctr) *The Iroquois Hotel *The Roosevelt Hotel 49 W. 44th St. Madison Ave & 45 St New York, NY 10036 New York, NY 10017 212 840 3080 212 661 9600 800 332 7220 800 223 1870 Dbl or sgl $75, 2-rm suite Dbl or sgl $89. can sleep 4 at $99. St. Moritz Washington Sq.Hotel 50 Central Park South 103 Waverly Place (at 6th Ave.) (Greenwich Village) New York, NY 10019 New York, NY 10011 212 755 5800 212 777 9515 800 221 4774 800 222 0418 (great location; not cheap) (Moderate; 2 subway stops on D train) *New York Internat'l Hostel Vanderbilt YMCA (coed 891 Amsterdam Ave (W 103 St) 224 E. 47th St. New York, NY 10025 New York, NY 10017 212 932 2300 212 755 2410 Bunk-beds, dorm style. sgl $39, dbl $49 $18.75 @ person, $3.00 one-time charge for sheets and pillow. Blankets $2 to buy (or BYO). West Side YMCA (coed) CHAINS 5 W. 63rd St. Helmsley 800 221 4982 New York, NY 10023 Holiday Inn 800 465 4329 212 787 4400 Hyatt 800 228 9000 Sgl $34, Dbl $46 Sheraton 800 325 3535 PRE-REGISTRATION FORM Please pre-register if possible. Pre-registration fees must be included with this form; fees may be paid with check or money order payable to CUNY SENTENCE PROCESSING CONFERENCE. Pre-registration will be accepted through March 15. FEES Student Non- Student Pre-registrations $10 $30 Walk-in Registration $20 $40 ________There MAY be some limited student travel fellowships available. We will not know until late February. Check here to apply for travel funds IF AVAILABLE. NAME: STATUS: _____Student* _____Non-student (check one) _____Check here if you need crash space. *Faculty name and signature to verify student status____________________ Send registration form and fee to: Linguistics Dept, Graduate Center The City University of New York Sentence Processing Conference 33 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 If you have reason to doubt that your correct address is on our mailing list, please give us the correct address on this form. *****Any queries to LNGGC@CUNYVM (BITNET)***** *****or Tel: 212 642-2154***** The CUNY Graduate Center is on the north side of 42nd St. between 5th Avenue and Avenue of the Americas (also known as 6th Avenue)--within walking distance of Grand Central Terminal, Penn. Station, Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Subway and bus fare is $1.25; exact change in coins or a token purchased from any subway token booth is required on buses. BUSES: Uptown M1, M2, M3, M4 Madison Ave M5 and M7 on 6th Ave M6 on 6th Avenue to 59th St M104 and M10 on 8th Ave Downtown M1, M2, M3, M5 on 5th Ave M4 on 5th Ave to Penn Sta M6 and M7 Broadway M10 on 7th Ave Crosstown M104 and M42 on 42nd St SUBWAY: 4,5,6 at Grand Central 1,2,3 at Times Square B,D,Q,F,& at 42nd St and 5th Ave Crosstown: S and 7 Bus and subway maps are available at no cost at any subway token booth and at the conference. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-203. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-204. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 111 Subject: 3.204 Stuttgart Ellipsis Workshop Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 15:59:12 +0100 From: Ellipsis Workshop Subject: Announcement: Stuttgart Ellipsis Workshop -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 15:59:12 +0100 From: Ellipsis Workshop Subject: Announcement: Stuttgart Ellipsis Workshop WORKSHOP ON ELLIPSIS University of Stuttgart March 19-22, 1992 The Sonderforschungsbereich 340 (a multiple research project on the theoretical foundations for computational linguistics, located at the Universities of Stuttgart and Tuebingen) is holding a three day workshop on the topic of ellipsis. The workshop will take place at the University of Stuttgart from Friday, March 20 till noon of the following Sunday, March 22. Attendance will be limited to invited speakers and a small number of participants. Anyone interested in attending or interested in information may inquire at the following e-mail address: ellipsis@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de P R O G R A M Friday, March 20: 09:00-10:00 Robert Fiengo (CUNY) and Robert May (UC Irvine): "The Eliminative Puzzles of Ellipsis" 10:00-11:00 Mary Dalrymple (Xerox PARC): "The Equational Analysis of Ellipsis Resolution" 11:00-11:45 (break) 11:45-12:45 Arild Hestvik (IMS, Stuttgart): "Subordination and Strict Identity Interpretation of Reflexives" 12:45-14:30 (lunch break) 14:30-15:30 Anne Lobeck (University of Western Washington): "Licensing and Identification of Ellipted Categories in English" 15:30-16:30 Shalom Lappin (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center): "The Syntactic Basis of VP Ellipsis Resolution" 16:30-17:00 (break) 17:00-18:30 Plenum discussion. Saturday, March 21: 09:00-10:00 John Nerbonne (Universitaet des Saarlandes): TBA 10:00-11:00 Franz Beil (IMS, Stuttgart): "Negation and Adverbial Modification in Elliptical Sentences" 11:00-11:45 (break) 11:45-12:45 Barbara Zimmermann (Universitaet des Saarlandes): "Syntactic Constraints on INFL-Free Discourse-Extensions" 12:45-14:30 (lunch break) 14:30-15:30 Claire Gardent (University of Utrecht): "Gapping and VP ellipsis: a multi-level approach" 15:30-16:30 Mats Rooth (IMS, Stuttgart): "Redundancy in Ellipsis and Contrastive Focus" 16:30-17:00 (break) 17:00-18:00 Mark Steedman (University of Pennsylvania): "Background and Ellipsis in Combinatory Grammars" Sunday, March 22: 09:00-10:00 Daniel Hardt (University of Pennsylvania): "VP Ellipsis and Discourse" 10:00-11:00 Hans Kamp (IMS, Stuttgart): "Ellipsis and Plural Pronoun Anaphora" 11:00-11:45 (break) 11:45-12:45 Plenum discussion. -----**----- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-204. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-205. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 68 Subject: 3.205 Last Posting on -ed Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 21:30:09 -0600 From: lambrec@emx.utexas.edu (Knud Lambrecht) Subject: Re: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:02:08 EST From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed 3) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 20:59 CET From: Nicholas Ostler Subject: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 21:30:09 -0600 From: lambrec@emx.utexas.edu (Knud Lambrecht) Subject: Re: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed Re: mash (potatoes) etc. I like Greg Ward's story about his Greek luncheonette (I wish I had one of those here in Austin). MY favorite STORE in Berkeley, when I lived there, was `Canned Foods' (because they sold $5 and more wines for 99 cents). Anyway here in Austin, and I assume elsewhere, the supermarket aisle that has canned vegetables etc. is labeled `can foods'. I realize that this could just be a noun compound, but I have a feeling that the `can' used to be `canned', like in the name of my Berkeley store. But then, I'm only an alien. Knud Lambrecht -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:02:08 EST From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed Re: Loss of -ed Another example: Old fashion(ed) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 20:59 CET From: Nicholas Ostler Subject: 3.197 Responses: Lexicon, Speech Therapy, Loss of -ed Give us a bash At the bangers and mash Mi mother used to make! (old English ditty) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-205. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-207. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 67 Subject: 3.207 Summary on the la -> el rule Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 92 23:41:50 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Summary on the la -> el rule -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 92 23:41:50 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Summary on the la -> el rule] I would like to thank all those who wrote in about the la -> el rule in Spanish and summarize briefly the results. It appears that (a) all speakers have 'el' before feminine nouns beginning with a stressed 'a', except personal names (e.g. La Ana), the place name La Haya 'The Hague', and the letter names la a and la hache, (b) there is a lot of variation involving feminines starting with unstressed 'a', such as azucar 'sugar' and avestruz 'ostrich' as well as diminutives such as almita 'little soul'. There are some speakers who have 'el' in all of these but there are also some who have no such examples at all (either because they use 'la' or because they treat some of these as masculines) and there are apparently also some other kinds of speakers (incl. ones who vacillate). One speaker, I should add, reports using la alma in the phrase la alma de casa. Also, nouns derived from adjectives (as well as adjectives themselves, of course) do not trigger the rule, hence la arabe 'the Arab woman'. I should perhaps add that all this is significant because in some recent work in phonology theoretical claims have been made which assume that the rule applies simply before stressed 'a' and in diminutives derived from words beginning with stressed 'a' (i.e. in cases like el alma and el almita). To the extent that there are speakers who say el alma but la almita and also that there are speakers who say el azucar and/or el avestruz (with feminine modifiers), these claims would appear to be on shaky ground. One further question would be worth having an answer to: What do native speakers of Spanish feel in the case of a common noun which begins with a stressed 'a' but which is new to the language? For example, if you were told that a kind of, let us say, carriage used in some culture or an exotic species of gazelle, or something, was called arba, would you then want to say 'el arba' or 'la arba'? I ask this because phonology, like syntax, is supposed to deal with the possible forms in a language rather than merely the ones attested in a standard dictionary or grammar, so we should find out whether the la -> el rule is fully productive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-207. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-208. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 67 Subject: 3.208 Jobs: London, New Zealand Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 21:07 GMT From: William Marslen-Wilson Subject: Research Associate Position London 2) Date: 2 Mar 1992 15:28:07 +1300 From: Kon Kuiper Subject: Post-doctoral fellowship in sociolinguistics at U of Canterbury -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 21:07 GMT From: William Marslen-Wilson Subject: Research Associate Position London Birkbeck College University of London Department of Psychology RESEARCH ASSOCIATE (1A) Applications are invited for a post-doctoral Research Associate to work on an MRC programme grant on spoken language understanding with L.Tyler and W.Marslen-Wilson. The research covers aspects of spoken language comprehension in normal and aphasic subjects, ranging from acoustic-phonetic analysis and word recognition to syntactic parsing and discourse interpretation. Candidates will be expected to contribute at all levels to the conduct and development of the research. Preferred candidates will have experience in cognitive neuropsychology, experimental psychology, linguistics, or related disciplines. The position is available from August 1 1992 until December 31 1994. Salary is on the 1A scale: #12129 to 19328 (+ #2042 London weighting). Send 3 copies of a recent CV to: Professor L.K.Tyler or Professor W.D. Marslen-Wilson, Department of Psychology, Birkbeck College, Malet St., London WC1E 7HX, by March 27th 1992 (or e-mail to ubjta38@cu.bbk.ac.uk). The University is an equal opportunity employer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 2 Mar 1992 15:28:07 +1300 From: Kon Kuiper Subject: Post-doctoral fellowship in sociolinguistics at U of Canterbury The University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand is offering a 2 year post-doctoral fellowship in sociolinguistics. The Fellow will conduct an investigation of an emerging accent in New Zealand English and so competence in phonetics would be of assistance. For further information including application forms interested linguists should contact Dr Koenraad Kuiper at either of the following e-mail addresses or . Give a fax number and the relevant details can be got to you that way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-208. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-209. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 90 Subject: 3.209 Not Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 11:41:06 -0500 From: ckamprath@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: RE: 3.184 All's, Not 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 10:10:27 EST From: SLSHELLY Subject: Re: 3.184 All's, Not 3) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 07:07:59 EST From: Joe Danks Subject: An Early NOT! -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 11:41:06 -0500 From: ckamprath@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: RE: 3.184 All's, Not Re: NOT! Has anyone mentioned this variety, if it is one, practiced by my sister and her 14-year-old friends in Houston 25 years ago: A: He's a great dancer. B: I'm pretty sure. (uttered with disdainful low and falling pitch, stress on each word) I think that both A and B thought that he was not a great dancer. The same expression could be used with a positive sense, in the same way that "I'm not believin' it", also used in that speech community, was positive. I think that two such teenagers could go to the Grand Canyon and one could say "I'm pretty sure" and the other could say "I'm not believin' it", not in response to each other but to the sight, with the same meaning: "I'm cool, but I'm not totally insensitive to what is obviously an awe-inspiring experience." C. Kamprath -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 10:10:27 EST From: SLSHELLY Subject: Re: 3.184 All's, Not Just a quick confirmation of the examples provided by Larry Horn and Dr. M. Sebba: my 75-year-old mother, a native Oklahoman raised in Texas, read Linda Shrieves's article on "not" and responded to me as follows -- "I wonder if an expression of MY early youth might have been the primitive beginning: 'I don't think.' For example: 'Welcome home -- I don't think!' or, 'He's a real jewel -- I don't think!', etc." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 92 07:07:59 EST From: Joe Danks Subject: An Early NOT! My teenage son discovered a retroactive "not" in a one-act play he directed at school. "The Eve in Evelyn" by Glenn Hughes, copyrighted and published in 1928, depicts parents chasing after their daughter who has just eloped. The mother and father are talking: MRS. PRICE [through her tears]. They're married. What can we do? In the sight of God they're man and wife. All we can do is forgive. MR. PRICE. Yes, we will! Not! We'll find them to-night and annul the marriage to-morrow. >From _Fifty More Contemporary One-Act Plays_ edited by Frank Shay, New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1928, p. 283. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-209. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-210. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 82 Subject: 3.210 Introductory Texts Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 13:01:26 CST From: Michael Earl Darnell Subject: textbooks 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 17:45:43 CST From: maynor@Ra.MsState.Edu (Natalie Maynor) Subject: Re: 3.190 Introductory Texts -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 13:01:26 CST From: Michael Earl Darnell Subject: textbooks I'm posting this brief list/review of the responses I've received to my query on textbooks for an intro to English linguistics course. From the lack of response I assume most folks have been happy with the intro texts available, or haven't had to deal with this situation. If anyone is still out there I'll be glad to hear from you, and will funnel the results to the list. There appears to be no need to further discuss Fromkin and Rodman's intro text. A previous posting has accurately assessed its value. I used it and liked it, as did my students. Finegan and Besnier's 'Language its structure and use' published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. I've also used this text in intro linguistics course and its presently being used by someone here in the intro English linguistics course. Like Fromkin and Rodman it's a good intro book. If you are of the functionalist persuasion, you may prefer it to Fromkin and Rodman. Another instructor is considering using 'The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language' by David Crystal, Cambridge U. Press. I found this fairly interesting from the amount I skimmed. The different style/organization doesn't seem to detract at all from the content. Betty Birner reccommended Jeffery Kaplan's 'English grammar: principle and Fact' I'd highly recommend this one if you only have one course in which to teach both linguistics and English grammar. It seems to deal well with the basic issues and provides extentsive coverage of English. We have a separate course dealing specifically with English grammar so. . . Finally, Ian Smith kindly offered to send me a copy of a book in progress that he uses in a similar course. His description sounded great, but I haven't had a chance to look it over. For those interested contact Ian at IANSMITH@VM1.YorkU.CA Thanks Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 17:45:43 CST From: maynor@Ra.MsState.Edu (Natalie Maynor) Subject: Re: 3.190 Introductory Texts > It's hard to recommend a "general text" because it very much depends > on the student type. I'd be interest in hearing comments from > those of you "in the field". If the course is truly an introduction, I can't imagine finding a better better book than Fromkin and Rodman. I'm quite content with it. Natalie Maynor (maynor@ra.msstate.edu) English Department, Mississippi State University -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-210. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-211. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 155 Subject: 3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 16:25:12 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Popular Press 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 21:37:32 CST From: GA5123@SIUCVMB.bitnet Subject: E(nglish)-Prime -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 16:25:12 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Popular Press Here's an item on dialects from the San Diego Reader's trivia-question column. It appeared on Feb. 20, 1992. The columnist's name is Matthew Alice. I quote the exchange in full: Hi, Matt: Being in Pittsburgh and Atlanta recently, I got to wondering about accents and how they develop. Where did that distinctive "Pittsburghese" accent come from? -John Kent, Carlsbad They must have known you'd ask, John. Just this month, "Pittsburgh" magazine published a story about how a ripe, juicy western Pennsylvania accent can keep you out of certain image-laden jobs in that city. Apparently, nobody wants an executive who says things like "dahntahn, worsh, wrench" and "yinz" instead of "downtown, wash, rinse" and "you" (plural form). Yours truly remembers a sojourn in Steeltown ("Stilltahn" to the locals) and the happy hours spent decoding things like "Redd up the place" (translation: "It's your turn to do the housecleaning"); "Ahm fahred" ("Just lost my job"); and "My car needs worshed" ("The impala's dirty"). Pittsburghese evolved the way most regional dialects appear, as an extension and distillation of the accent, vocabulary, and grammar of the various population groups in the area. According to University of Pittsburgh linguistics professor Sarah Thomason (remarkably accentless, by the way), there's no scholarly study of the origins of Pittsburghese, but certain characteristics are found in Scottish dialects. Scots settled and built the city in the 18th and 19th centures and may have set the tone for proper speech -- or so the story goes. The hair-raising word "yinz" is the Iron City's offical second-person plural pronoun ("Did all of yinz see the Pahrts game las naht?"). It is related to the Southerner's "y'all" and the New Yorker's "youze." British English traditionally had separate words for the singular and plural forms of "you." "Y'all, yinz" and "youze" are just contracted forms of "you all" and "you ones," Americans' feeble substitutes for the old Britspeak plural "ye." Dialecticians have spent plenty of personhours trying to identify the sources of America's regional accents, grammar, and vocabulary. Mostly all they've proved is that Ph.D.s can get into fistfights just as easily as the rest of us; most U.S. regions have so many language influences that the resulting pastiche (known in the trade as a koine) is difficult to untangle with any certainty. In the past, a Brooklynite's "dem, dese," and "doze" was considered the result of the Dutch pronunciation of English words ("them, these" and "those"), Dutch having no equivalent "th" sound and "d" being the closest approximation. But as linguists like J.L. Dillard have pointed out, many of the scores of languages spoken in New York have no "th" sound, so who's to say "dem, dese," and "doze" is only the fault of the Dutch? Soon all this may be even more academic than it is now. As the "Pittsburgh" magazine article suggests, regional accents, particularly those that have some social class implications, are not helpful when you're trying to talk your way up the corporate ladder. Speech therapists and voice coaches have made a tidy living in recent years ridding people of their regional accents. And the increased geographical mobility of the average American has also diluted our regional speech. End quote. Matthew Alice's answer is a nice pastiche of folk wisdom concerning dialects ("Americans' feeble substitutes") and the attempt (by the journalist or his telephonic sources?) to compress complex linguistic wisdom into a few (remarkably unenlightening) sentences -- "an extension and distillation of the accents ...." As a consequence of the AP release on the 'grammar gene', which I thought was a particularly bad piece (I think it could have been much more enlightening and linguistically accurate in the same space and without fancier wording), I talked it over with a reporter friend of mine. We put the blame for the badness of the AP piece in two areas: (a) failure of the linguist(s) interviewed to explain things in a way comprehensible to a layperson (the journalist) (b) failure of the journalist to show his finished piece to said linguist(s) for confirmation that the ideas were not hopelessly mangled in the process of writing up the piece. Other factors not under the journalist's immediate control are what her/his editor and the copy editor do with the piece after it leaves her/his hands. The moral of the story, for me, is that linguists need to find ways to explain their work in everyday terms that still preserve the complexity of the topic without being abstract to the point of meaninglessness. This is essentially the task that faces anyone teaching intro ling courses. Second, if linguists are interviewed by journalists, they should ask for follow-up, for a copy of whatever product emerges, and give the journalist follow-up on what they think of the piece. Any space we can get in the popular press is a valuable opportunity to educate a public that is badly linguistically undereducated, and pieces on sociolinguistics are, I feel, particularly important (this area of linguistics is likely to have an impact on many lives, cf. the bilingual ed. controversy and the national English-as-official- language movement that has been afoot for a number of years). We need to treat such interviews with care and give them the follow-up they deserve. I know I'm implying that the linguists named in these articles didn't do that, so I beg forgiveness if I'm wrong. Jo Rubba, UC San Diego -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 21:37:32 CST From: GA5123@SIUCVMB.bitnet Subject: E(nglish)-Prime In an intended posting under the subject heading "Linguistics in the media", which seems to have been lost (or I missed it for some other reason) I pointed out that National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" recently interviewed a fluent speaker of E-Prime, the be-less English. He made two interesting points: (1) that in his opinion the necessity to find alternatives to constructions with "be" forced him into clearer and more honest expression; and (2) that most people don't notice that he is speaking a "different" language until it is pointed out to them. As I listened to the interview, I found the second assertion quite credible. He also mentioned a book on E-Prime, produced by the International Society for General Semantics, entitled "To Be or Not". On the remote possibility that my previous posting was suppressed for the commercial implications of mentioning the price of the book, I will not repeat that information here, but I will repeat the I.S.G.S.'s new address and telephone number, as well as my disclaimer that I have no financial or other partisan interest in the book. The International Society for General Semantics is at P. O. Box 728 Concord, CA 94522 U.S.A. (510) 798-0311 The Polish-American linguist who founded General Semantics is Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950). ---------------- Lee Hartman ga5123 @ siucvmb.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-211. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-212. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 160 Subject: 3.212 Parsing Problems Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 14:50:04 HST From: Niko Besnier Subject: Multiple tokens in sequence 2) Date: 27 Feb 92 15:35 -0800 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re: 3.194 Lloyd Holliday 3) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 15:53 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.194 Parsing Problems 4) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:48:37 -0500 From: jeffmar@umiacs.UMD.EDU (Jeffrey Martin) Subject: Parsing Challenges 5) Date: 28 Feb 92 12:43 -0800 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re: 3.194 - Another Parse -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 14:50:04 HST From: Niko Besnier Subject: Multiple tokens in sequence Here's another example for the collection of parsing puzzles consisting of identical tokens in sequence. It's not as glamorous as some others that have been presented on LINGUIST, but it has an interesting object complement structure: KEEP COUNTRY COUNTRY Maybe Midwesterners will have seen this before. It was spotted on a bumper sticker on the Eastbound Lunalilo Freeway at the Bingham Street exit in Honolulu at 11:32 Aleutian Standard Time today, on a car, generic American brand, color: tasteless blue, driver: blonde Haole female, mid-30s. Niko Besnier Department of Anthropology, Yale University Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawaii -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 27 Feb 92 15:35 -0800 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re: 3.194 Lloyd Holliday In response to the request for a parse of the sentence "The player kicked the ball kicked him" This has the same structure as the traditional garden path sentence "The horse raced past the barn fell" Try these sentences intsead: The player who was kicked the ball kicked Bill. (The player kicked Bill. Which player? The one who was kicked the ball (or "given the present").) The horse which was raced past the barn fell. (The horse fell. Which horse? The one which was raced past the barn (or "fed the oats").) Carl Alphonce (alphonce@cs.ubc.ca) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 15:53 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.194 Parsing Problems re parsing challenge: The player kicked the ball kicked him. The player kicked (complained) (that) the ball kicked him. Can't see that it is ambiguous but it certainly is hard to parse as are all such garden path sentences. And Marslen Wilson is obviously right about the ability to clarify such sentences in spoken utterances by intonation and pausing. VAF -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 11:48:37 -0500 From: jeffmar@umiacs.UMD.EDU (Jeffrey Martin) Subject: Parsing Challenges Here are some more tests for getting one's antecedents straight. They are taken from a collection of answers to exam questions by undergrad students (I don't remember the title of the book): Rustum did not reveal his identity to Sohrab because he did not want his father to know that he had killed him. A cheetah is an animal with four legs, some of them quite fierce. For someone bitten by a dog: put him away for several days. If he has not recovered then kill it. Socratic dialog was speeches between two persons on a certain subject such as holiness, piety, love. One person does most of the talking and dominates the whole talk while the other person merely assents to what is said whether the answer is yes or no. The person that does not talk much is usually shown that what he said is untrue and that he does not know what he is talking about. ___ Jeffery D. Martin | jeffmar@umiacs.umd.edu Linguistics Department | University of Maryland | Never appeal to a man's better nature. College Park, MD 20740 | He may not have one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: 28 Feb 92 12:43 -0800 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re: 3.194 - Another Parse I just realized that there is another possible parse for the sentence "The player kicked the ball kicked him" In addition to [ the player [ kicked the ball ] ] kicked him there is also the structure the player kicked [ the ball [ kicked him ] ] So its an ambiguous garden path - ugh! Carl Alphonce (alphonce@cs.ubc.ca) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-212. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-213. Wed 04 Mar 1992. Lines: 69 Subject: 3.213 FYI: Notice, Software Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 13:25:39 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Notice 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 16:45 CST From: Harriet Ottenheimer Subject: Re: 3.186 Software available 3) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 92 10:59:35 EST From: Karen Chenausky Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 13:25:39 EST From: "Fredrick J. Damerau" Subject: Notice Some time ago, I asked if here was any interest in back issues of Language, and received a substantial response. My copies have been sent to the African Language Teachers Association for re-distribution. The list managers have put my file of requests for copies on the server, if any of you wish to dispose of your back issues. The file can be retrieved by sending the following mail message to listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu (Internet) or listserv@tamvm1 (Bitnet): GET NEED LST LINGUIST Fred J. Damerau (damerau.watson.ibm.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 16:45 CST From: Harriet Ottenheimer Subject: Re: 3.186 Software available Re: Christopher Brewster's query regarding lexicon construction software: LEXWARE is a set of programs designed for construction and maintenance of bilingual lexicons. I have been using it on both mainframe and PC since 1986. For more information about it, contact Bob Hsu c/o linguistics, at the University of Hawaii-Manoa (T119920@UHCCMV). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 92 10:59:35 EST From: Karen Chenausky Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia RE Ur Shlonsky's request for a phonetic font: Linguist's Software, in Washington State, should have a compatible version of their IPA fonts. You may have their IPA font for MacIntosh, but they also make versions for IBM and other computers, as well as laser versions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-213. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-214. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 239 Subject: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:24:18 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: Re: Laugh and the world laughs with you 2) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 20:39:58 EST From: "Wlodek Zadrozny" Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you 3) Date: 3 Mar 92 11:52 From: Subject: conditional imperative 4) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 11:42:07 EST From: thrainss@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia 5) Date: 2 Mar 92 17:03 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re:3.198 - Natural Languages 6) Date: 3 Mar 92 12:15 From: Subject: natural language -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:24:18 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: Re: Laugh and the world laughs with you Martin Wynne asks about this intriguing imperative-like construction. I think what is going on here is elision of subject "you": You laugh and the world laughs with you; you weep and you weep alone. ==> Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone. This "you" is also found in other constructions that are even more like imperatives, as in the threat: You take one more step and you'll wish you hadn't! Proverbs often preserve constructions that are no longer fully productive--proverbially so, you might say. A similar "you" subject is much more common with auxiliaries, as in "you might say" (previous sentence) and as in things like: You should look before you leap ==> Look before you leap. This differs from "laugh and (etc.)" by the elided "should." And it differs from "Look at that!" (<== I ask/request/command that you look at that) because the elided "should" makes it an injunction (advice) rather than an imperative (command). There are various other examples. You pays your money (or your attention) and you takes your choice. Bruce Nevin bn@bbn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 20:39:58 EST From: "Wlodek Zadrozny" Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you I would like to respond to the recent posting that follows, because it indirectly raises some important issues of principle: > From: Martin Wynne > How to describe the initial verb in the following sentences? > (1) Laugh and the world laughs with you. > (2) Go and I'll never speak to you again. > They look like imperatives, as in: > (3) Go and never come back. > but the second clause in (1) and (2) is declarative. What is > more, the meaning is not that of a normal imperative. Is it a > case of imperative in form, but conditional in content? Or is it > not an imperative at all? Also, is there something odd about the > coordination of two different sentence types in this way? So > perhaps it isn't really coordination (as in "Go and tell him"). > Someone tells me that Jesperson calls this ellipsis, with > 'if...then' elided. But where does 'and' come from then? The questions posed here make sense only under some assumptions which it is high time to question (although they used to be generally accepted): (a) The sentence "but the second clause in (1) and (2) is declarative" presupposes that there is something wrong with combining an "imperative" and a "declarative". (b) The mention of "ellipsis" assumes that there is a "deep" structure on which some processes operate to give the "surface" forms of (1) and (2). The analysis we would propose is based on the principle that different classes of meanings in NLs are given by different forms, and that, except for circumscribed domains, it is impossible to separate forms and meanings. In other words, we can describe language not as an application of pragmatics to semantics which has been applied to syntax, but as a collection of constructions in which forms and meanings (including pragmatics) are intertwined. (Some papers about it are available). A similar approach has been suggested by Fillmore et al. in their 1988 paper in Language. Thus, it doesn't make sense to ask whether "the" is a determiner in the construction The X-er, the Y-er, (e.g. "the more grammar you learn, the weaker your intuitions are"), since obviously the meaning of "the" is different here than in the NP "the grammar". The point is that English evolved in such a way that we express a proportional dependence using "the X-er, the Y-er". Similarly, for the construction under discussion here, the question should be not whether this is an example of coordination, but what this construction can be used to express. My own reading is that it not only says about what happens if something, but also expresses the attitude of the speaker (threat or the like). It is this extra nuance of meaning which is involved in the combination of an "imperative" protasis with a "declarative" apodosis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: 3 Mar 92 11:52 From: Subject: conditional imperative Re Martin Wynne's question on "conditional imperatives" like (1) Say that again and I'll never see you again. That such forms are really imperatives used in a conditional sense is clear from languages with a uniquely marked imperative, e.g. German: (2) Sag das noch einmal und ich komme nie wieder. The form "sag" can only be imperative. This phenomenon is discussed by John Haiman and Ekkehard Koenig in their contributions to the 1985 CUP volume "On conditionals" (ed. Ferguson & Traugott). However, it is not excluded that such imperatives begin to lead a life of their own syntactically. For example, in Russian the imperative may even be used with first and third person subjects in conditionals, e.g. (3) Pridi ona vovremja, my uspeli by. 'If she arrived on time, we would not be late.' Majja Cheremisina (Novosibirsk) argues in several publications that this form is a special non-finite conditional form (deeprichastie, converb) which is accidentally homophonous with the imperative. Martin Haspelmath, Free University of Berlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 11:42:07 EST From: thrainss@husc.harvard.edu Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia I am teaching a course this spring that deals with aphasia among other things. I contacted Harold Goodglass at the Boston VA Hospital and he kindly supplied a video tape with an interview of one Broca's aphasic and one Wernicke's aphasic. (Goodglass, Aphasia Research Center, Dept. of Neurology, BU Medical School, Boston, MA 02118) Hoskuldur Thrainsson -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: 2 Mar 92 17:03 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Re:3.198 - Natural Languages I believe at least part of the answer derives from the distinction made between "natural" and "formal" languages. Formal languages are used much in mathematics and computer science. Chomsky did quite a bit of work in formal language theory, and defined four classes of languages which form a hierarchy. This hierarchy is known as the Chomsky hierarchy. A very good (though technical) book on the topic is "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation" by J. Hopcroft and J. Ullman (Addison-Wesley, 1979). Carl Alphonce alphonce@cs.ubc.ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: 3 Mar 92 12:15 From: Subject: natural language The term 'natural language' seems to be used mainly by linguists with a strong interest in formal, mathematical or computational 'languages'. Cf. the new journal 'Natural language semantics' (which deals with formal, mathematically-oriented semantics), or the journal 'Natural language and linguistic theory', also with a heavy emphasis on formal analysis. I am surprised that so few linguists have problems with this usage because it suggests that there are two manifestations of the same phenomenon, 'formal languages', and 'natural languages'. It seems that linguists should stress the uniqueness of their object of study and refer to it simply as 'language' (contrasting with derivative concepts such as 'mathematical language', 'computer language', 'animal language', etc.) The term 'natural language' seems to reflect the philosophers' perspective, who have often been interested only in specific aspects of language and have otherwise concentrated on their formal languages. I don't think Esperanto is a good example for a 'non-natural' language, because not only is it widely used as a second language, just like pidgins and other languages of wider communication, but there are actually quite a few native speakers of Esperanto. The fact that Esperanto is a young language doesn't make it 'unnatural' per se. I agree that expressions like 'devoicing of final obstruents is common in natural languages' don't make much sense. Here one should use the term 'spoken languages', because the statement is not true of sign languages. Another term that is used by Joseph Greenberg is 'human language' (Universals of human language, 4 vols, Stanford UP, 1978), reflecting Greenberg's anthropological perspective. Martin Haspelmath, Free University of Berlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-214. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-215. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 149 Subject: 3.215 Summaries: Language Deficit, Devoicing Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 14:22:35 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Posting to Lingnet re retarded language learning 2) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:32:44 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Summary of devoicing responses -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 14:22:35 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Posting to Lingnet re retarded language learning A couple weeks ago, I posted the following: > In my (very) generative linguistics training, I had always heard > that language acquisition was largely independent of general > intelligence, and I have faithfully repeated this statement > without really knowing what I was talking about. I have > nonetheless been impressed at how our (normal) children have > learned the "difficult" things (e.g. constraints on > wh-movement), even when they couldn't seem to learn some of the > "simple" things (e.g. irregular past participles), in agreement > with the idea that the grammar learning faculty (as opposed to, > say, the ability to memorize irregular forms) is innate and > distinct from general intelligence. > Could someone fill me in on the truth? Do Downs Syndrome children > (or other retarded children) learn language at the same rate as > others, or do they learn more slowly but end up at about the same > level? Are there some areas where they always remain behind (e.g. > vocabulary, irregular morphology)? Slightly condensed/ edited replies follow. Thank you to all who wrote! From Grant Goodall (FD00%UTEP@ricevm1.rice.edu): Down's Syndrome speech is generally fairly different from normal. There is a lot of variation, but many individuals have noticeably deviant speech with regard to BOTH syntax and phonetics. In fact, intelligibility is often a problem. I say this NOT as an expert in the field (I'm a generative syntactician) but as a sibling of someone with Down's Syndrome. I have lived with Down's Syndrome speech all of my life, but I'm not at all familiar with with the recent literature on the topic. Jo Rubba (UC San Diego, Ling. Dept., rubba@bend.ucsd.edu) wrote: Work is going on at the Salk Institute in La Jolla on language use in retarded populations. The main subjects are Williams' syndrome kids, who have very sophisticated language use in spite of severe deficits in other areas. There has been some comparison with Downs' syndrome subjects, who apparently do NOT attain full language skills. ...look for recent stuff in > psychology/neuro/psycholinguistics journals under the names Klima and/or Bellugi, or contact Ed Klima directly at Salk. Try 'klima@salk-sci.sdsc.edu'... Last year Ed Klima and I published a short paper on Williams' preposition use in the CRL Newsletter put out by the Center for here at UC San Diego. Title: Preposition Use in Speakers with Williams' Syndrome: Some Cognitive Grammar Proposals', CRL Newlsetter April 1991, Vol. 5 No. 3 (also available from CRL at: crl@crl.ucsd.edu). Jeff (SNOWJS@hugse1.harvard.ed) wrote: The general consensus is that for the most part children with DS acquire language at a rate which is consistent with their mental age (which is lower than their chronological age) but that there are pockets of things they are better or worse at. There have been many review articles that you may wish to read: Chapters in Rosenberg's Advances in Applied Psycholinguistics (1987) Miller's chapter in Nadel's The Psychobiology of Down Syndrome (1988) Rosenberg's Handbook of Applied Psycholinguistics (1982) The main journal to explore is: The American Journal of Mental Deficiency/Retardation. And from charlotte_linde@irl.com: In the most recent issue of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol 1, Number 2, 1991, you will find an article by Keith Kernan, Sharon Sabsay, and Phyllis Schneider, called Structure and Repair in Narratives of Mentally Retarded Adults. It uses Chafe's Pear Stories film to collect narratives, and finds that mentally retarded speakers produced shorter narratives and made more repairs than normal adults. However the narratives showed a canonical narrative structure, and their self-initiated repairs were similar to those of normal adults. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:32:44 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Summary of devoicing responses Thanks to all those who responded in connection with my query about final devoicing in various languages. The question was as follows: In a language with final devoicing in normal speech, can you have a contrast in highly enunciated speech (with a noticeable, vocoid release) between voiced and voiceless, and would this be used to convey different meanings? Both for Dutch and for Catalan, I received responses indicating that this is so, and that (just as I claimed for Polish) a voiced pronounciation would be used to correct a spelling error, whereas a voiceless one could be used to correct a foreigner who has not learned to devoice. The responses I have had for German were, many of them, equivocal, but at least one seemed to describe the same phenomenon. I have had no responses regarding the presense or absence of this phenomenon in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, etc. (I would still welcome such!) As noted by John Kingston in a posting directly to LINGUIST, all this does have a bearing on the question of whether these languages have a rule of final devoicing in the first place. This has been denied in recent years by several contributors to the experimental phonetics literature (the names Dinnsen and Luce come to mind). Since I am writing up a letter to the Journal of Phonetics addressing this very issue, I would only point out that (a) the pronounciations described above (and clearly based on the spelling!) go a long way towards explaining the phenomena reported in the literature and (b) it would only be fair to note that the work referred to has been subjected to rather detailed (and in my view correct) criticism by Fourakis and Iverson, Mascaro, and most recently by the great Polish experimental phonetician Jassem. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-215. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-216. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 217 Subject: 3.216 Conferences: SCIL IV, Law & Society Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 18:03:45 EST From: Student Conference in Linguistics Subject: SCIL IV schedule 2) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 14:52 EST From: Subject: LAW & SOCIETY ASS'N PAPERS ON LANGUAGE & LAW -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 18:03:45 EST From: Student Conference in Linguistics Subject: SCIL IV schedule SCIL IV, SCHEDULE: (still subject to change) Dept. of Linguistics 222 Oxley Hall April 4th-5th, 1992 1712 Neil Ave. Ohio State University Ohio State University, 113 Dreese Labs Columbus, OH 43210 (614) 292-4052 scil@ling.ohio-state.edu Saturday, 4th April 09:00 - 09:10 Opening Remarks 09:10 - 09:50 Alfredo Arnaiz - University of Southern California "On Word Order in Wh-questions in Spanish" 09:50 - 10:30 Dag Wold - University of Wisconsin "Some Remarks on Scope Reconstruction of Subjects" 10:30 - 10:50 Coffee Break 10:50 - 11:30 Claudia Maria Schmitt - University of Cologne "Parameters as Interface between Lexicon, UG, and Learning Principles: Evidence from Clause Structure in German and its Acquisition" 11:30 - 12:10 Holly Wilson - University of New Mexico "An Integrative Model for Bilingual Language Storage" 12:10 - 13:40 Lunch Break 13:40 - 14:20 Pascual Jose Masullo - University of Washington "Quirky Datives in Spanish and the Non-nominative Subject Parameter" 14:20 - 15:00 Dong-In Cho - University of Southern California "Multiple Accusative Constructions and Verb Movement" 15:00 - 15:20 Coffee Break 15:20 - 16:00 Tibor Laczko' - Kossuth University/Stanford University "Complex Predicates and Derived Nominals in Hungarian NPs" 16:00 - 16:40 Hisako Takano - Central Michigan University/Michigan State University "A Non-NP Analysis of Japanese Predicate Nominals" 17:00 - 18:30 The Student Linguistic Association at OSU presents: Geoffrey K. Pullum - UC Santa Cruz "The Lighter Side of Being a Linguist" 18:30 - 19:30 Organizational Meeting (SCIL 1993) 20:00 Party Sunday, April 5th 09:00 - 09:40 Jairo M. Nunes - University of Maryland "English Infinitives and Case Theory" 09:40 - 10:20 Adamantios Gafos - Purdue University "Against a Contextual Definition of Head in Morphology: Evidence from Modern Greek Compounds" 10:20 - 10:40 Coffee Break 10:40 - 11:20 Pilar Prieto - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign "On the Influence of Gutturals on Vowels" 11:20 - 12:00 Siri Tuttle - University of Washington "A Case for Move X in Salcha Athapaskan" 12:00 - 13:30 Lunch Break 13:30 - 14:10 Daeho Chung - University of Southern California "A Principles-and-Parameters Approach to Korean Consonant Clusters" 14:10 - 14:50 Hotze Rullmann - UMass, Amherst "The Semantics of Topicalization and Scrambling in Dutch" 14:50 - 15:10 Coffee Break 15:10 - 15:50 Sungki Suh - University of Maryland "The Distribution of Topic-Marked Phrases in Korean" 15:50 - 16:30 Myung-Kwan Park - University of Connecticut "Psych-Binding, LF Experiencer Movement, and Verb Raising" 16:30 - 17:10 Jeong-Shik Lee - University of Connecticut "Partitive Case on the Body-Part NP" Alternates: Mona Singh - University of Texas, Austin "Determining the Definiteness of Noun Phrases" Cristina Sanz-Alcala'/Maria Ferna'ndez-Graci'a - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign "Non-native Processing of Verbal Morphology in Spanish" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 14:52 EST From: Subject: LAW & SOCIETY ASS'N PAPERS ON LANGUAGE & LAW Law and Society Association Papers on Language & Law Several weeks ago, I solicited an additional paper for 1 of 3 Language & Law sessions to be scheduled at the Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Ass'n (Philadelphia May 28-31). I received a number of excellent proposals or abstracts & then organized a 4th session on Language and Law. I want to thank all who either responded or told their friends and colleagues about the sessions. Below I have listed the presenters and their titles. All papers have been scheduled for the meeting; individuals will receive official invitations soon. (Inquiries should be directed not to me but to the Program Chair: Professor Austin Sarat, LSA Program Chair Program in Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought Amherst College, Box 2259 Amherst, MA 01002 Fax: 413-542-2264) Language & Law I: Ethics and Politics of Some Linguistic Issues CHAIR: Allen Silber (Hayden, Silber, and Perle/Weehawken, NJ) SPEAKERS: John Conley (University of North Carolina School of Law) & David W. Peterson (Personnel Research, Inc./Chapel Hill, NC), "The Scientist and the Adversary System: Case Studies in Ethical Conflict" Deborah Ramirez (Northeastern University School of Law), "Excluded Voices: Political Implications of Language-Based Juror Exclusion" Peter Meijes Tiersma (Loyola Law School [Los Angeles]), "Speech, Conduct and the First Amendment" Wei Ping Wu (Georgetown University), "Chinese Evidence in a U.S. Court: Linguistic Analysis in a Money Laundering Case" DISCUSSANT: [TBA--possibly Bruce Fraser (Northeastern Univ.)] Language & Law II: Linguists in the Judicial Process CHAIR: Sharon S. Selby (State of Tennessee) SPEAKERS: Ronald A. Butters (Duke University), "If the Wages of Sin Are for Death: The Semantics/Pragmatics of a Statutory Ambiguity" Michael L. Geis (ohio State University), "On the Contribution of Linguistics to Trademark Law" William O'Barr (Duke University), "Defining Plagarism: Sharpening Legal Definitions through Case Law" Roger W. Shuy (Georgetown University), "Deceit, Distress, and False Imprisonment: The Anatomy of a Car Sales Event" Lawrence Solan (Orans, Elsen and Lupert/New York City), "When Judges Use the Dictionary" DISCUSSANT: Ann Short (Knoxville, Tennessee) Language & Law III: Speaker Intentionality in the Law CHAIR: Jerry J. Phillips (University of Tennessee School of Law) SPEAKERS: Bethany K. Dumas (University of Tennessee), "Linguistic Issues in Statutory Interpretation: Examples from Tennessee Criminal Law and RICO" George Gopen (Duke University), "Statutory Interpretation and the Problem of Authorial Intention" Michael G. Johnson (University of Tennessee), "Knowledge, Communication, and the Ordinary Reasonable Person" Bruce Fraser (Northeastern University), "Discourse Markers and Conflict Management in the Thomas-Hill Hearings" DISCUSSANT: [TBA--possibly Bethany Dumas (Univ. of Tennessee)] Language & Law IV: Linguistic Analysis of Jury Instructions and Taped Confessions in Death Penalty Cases CHAIR: Steve Cushing (Boston University) SPEAKERS: Judith Levi (Northwestern University), "Adequacy of the Language of Death Penalty Instructions" Greg Colomb (University of Illinois), "Death Penalty Instructions 'Considered as a Whole'" Phyllis Morrow (University of Alaska), "Communicative Style and Judicial Outcomes in a Cross-Cultural Setting" Malcolm Coulthard (University of Birmingham [UK]), "The Role of Linguistic Analysis in the Analysis of a Taped Confession" DISCUSSANT: Jeff Kaplan (University of California, San Diego) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-216. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-217. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 98 Subject: 3.217 Queries: Case, Pama-Ngungan, Dialect Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1992 16:46:10 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: (Q) Case marking and ambiguity 2) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 12:33:12 CET From: Ingo Plag Subject: query: Pama-Nyungan language family 3) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 15:23:03 EST From: geyer@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Howard L. Geyer) Subject: Query -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1992 16:46:10 CST From: Chris Culy Subject: (Q) Case marking and ambiguity I have a question about ambiguity and case marking. Specifically, in his book _Language Universals and Linguistic Typology_, Comrie states (p. 130 in the 2nd edition) that "there are some languages where the occurrence of the special ergative or accusative marker is conditioned not by any specific rigid cut-off point on the animacy or definiteness hierarchy, but rather by a more general condition of the kind: use the special marker only if there is a likelihood of confusion between A [subject of a transitive verb--CC] and P [direct object of a transitive verb--CC]; the assessment of likelihood of confusion is left to the speaker in the particular context. Hua is an example of a language of this type." I am interested in other languages where optional case marking is used to disambiguate a clause. Any references, pointers, etc. would be most appreciated. Please reply directly to me (cculy@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu) and I will post a summary of the responses. Thanks in advance. Chris Culy cculy@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 12:33:12 CET From: Ingo Plag Subject: query: Pama-Nyungan language family I need information on the Pama-Nyungan language family, a group of Aboriginal languages spoken in Western Australia. Can anybody help with references? Many thanks in advance. Ingo Plag s-mail: Univ. Marburg Englische Sprachwissenschaft Wilh.-Roepke-Str. 6D D-3550 Marburg -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 15:23:03 EST From: geyer@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Howard L. Geyer) Subject: Query I have a friend who consistently uses constructions such as Are you done dinner? Is this acceptable in anyone else's dialect? Howard Geyer Department of Psychology and School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania 3815 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-217. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-218. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 83 Subject: 3.218 Spanish la -> el Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 5 Mar 1992 13:37:07 CST From: Subject: the Spanish la-> el rule 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 13:53:26 UTC+0100 From: Francisco Salguero Subject: Spanish la -> el 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 12:31 EDT From: Mark Littlefield Subject: 3.207 la > el -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 5 Mar 1992 13:37:07 CST From: Subject: the Spanish la-> el rule This is a reply to Manaster-Ramer's posting on Spanish la->el. Manaster-Ramer concludesthat,since there is dialectal variation and exceptions to the rule, recent theoretical claims based on these facts must be "on shaky grounds". I don't see why the existence of this variation would preclude providing a rule for unexceptional items in a given dialect. Obviously different dialects will require different analyses. For instance Harris (1989) in LI notes the exceptional behavior of azucar and names of letters and also the existence of dialectal variation with derived and compound words (fns. 5&7); but he focuses on the dialect that is relevant to the point he wants to make. I am not sure that the (lack of) applicability of the rule to new borrowings would show anything either. For instance, nobody would doubt that the rule of plural formation for Spanish words ending in a consonant is to add /-es/; but new borrowings may not undergo the rule, as in poster-s (*poster-es), cf. the integrated dolar-es 'dollars'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 13:53:26 UTC+0100 From: Francisco Salguero Subject: Spanish la -> el I am a Spanish native speaker. My Spanish modality is Sothern Spanish (Andalu- sian Spanish), but I think there are not many differences among Spanish speakersrelated to this question. If a new word like "arba" is introduced in Spanish, I would say "el arba", without doubting it. By the way, I think that when you report the phrase "el alma de casa" there is a mistake on it. Surely, you mean the phrase "el ama de casa" (the house- keeper woman). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 12:31 EDT From: Mark Littlefield Subject: 3.207 la > el The problem with rules of phonology is that they must bend - and break- to other rules. The rule for la > el before stressed "a" is valid, but in two of the cases recently discussed, "la hache" and "la arabe", there is an overriding rule; in the first case, the need for symmetry in naming the letters, i.e., all letters are feminine, thus leading to the apparent anomaly of "la hache." As for "la arabe," the overriding consideration is the sexual identification of the person, not the fact that the noun is derived from an adjective. Mark G. Littlefield BITNET: littlemg@snybufva Foreign Language Department INTERNET: littlemg@snybufva.cs.snybuf.edu Buffalo State College TELEPHONE: (716) 878-5810 Buffalo NY 14222 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-218. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-219. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 108 Subject: 3.219 Queries: Russian, Vocabulary, Eggs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 17:25:26 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Queries about Russian 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 15:27-0500 From: DONALDM@QUCDN.bitnet Subject: Vocabulary size (query) 3) Date: 6 Mar 1992 11:13:29 +1300 From: Carstairs-McCarthy Subject: French 'eggs' after numerals -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 17:25:26 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Queries about Russian Generative phonologists have at various times accepted (a) Trubetzkoy's claim that the word 'solnce' ('sun') has a higher [o] vowel than normal and this reflects the underlying (and orthographic) /l/, (b) Jakobson's claim that /f/ does not undergo voicinh=g assimilation before a voiced obstruent, and/or (c) Reformatskij's claim that in sequences of voiced obstruent plus /v/, when the /v/ devoices, the preceding voiced obstruent stays voiced, e.g., 'trezv' ('sober') is supposed to be pronounced [trezf]. All these claims seem to be weakly supported, and I would appreciate any helpful comments (one way or the other) from linguists who are native speakers and/or experts on Russian. Please direct responses to me. I will post a summary. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 15:27-0500 From: DONALDM@QUCDN.bitnet Subject: Vocabulary size (query) Subject: Vocabulary size (query) How can you measure the number of words in a language with any reliability? An d secondarily, how can you measure the number of words in the vocabulary of an i ndividual speaker? Simply listing every word you hear would obviously not suf f ice; and in languages without writing, there would be no dictionaries to consu l t. Sampling discourse would only approximate the real number of words in use. I ask this because I have read claims that "neolithic" vocabularies contain on l y a few hundred, or at most a few thousand words (a related claim is that the c ore vocabulary of IndoEuropean is only a few hundred words); but are such clai m s based on a really reliable estimate? Estimating the vocabulary size of an individual speaker or writer is even more difficult (Shakespeare used more words than Hemingway in writing, for stylisti c reasons; this does not imply that his actual working vocabulary was less than Shakespeare's). Presumably we might employ the word-frequency counts of Engli s h to roughly estimate vocabulary size; on this strategy a person's vocabulary w ould bear a lawful relationship to the number of "rare" words inhis or her wor k ing vocabulary. Estimating the "average" vocabulary size of a modern English- s peaker thus appears to be largely a guessing game, and estimating the size of v ocabularies in preliterate cultures a very rough guessing game. Am I right? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: 6 Mar 1992 11:13:29 +1300 From: Carstairs-McCarthy Subject: French 'eggs' after numerals How do French native speakers pronounce 'quatre oeufs'? Is it [...o] or [...oef]? The standard pronunciation of 'oeufs' is said to be [o], but Swiggers in Folia Linguistica 19 (1985) 63-66 claims that [oef] is used when the preceding word does not end in [z]. Opinion among the few native speakers I have consulted is divided. Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-219. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-220. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 143 Subject: 3.220 Jobs Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 20:08:54 EST From: 343I2TW@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Subject: Re: 3.208 Jobs: London, New Zealand 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 11:40:11 EST From: rxr23@cas.org (Ray Reighart (ex. 2985) rxr23@cas.org) Subject: temporary position 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 11:40:11 EST From: rxr23@cas.org (Ray Reighart (ex. 2985) rxr23@cas.org) Subject: temporary position -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 20:08:54 EST From: 343I2TW@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Subject: Re: 3.208 Jobs: London, New Zealand Central Michigan Univ., English Language and Literature, Mt. Pleasant, MI, 48859. Assistant Professor. Nontenure track, one year appointment, 92-93; possibility of renewal. Applied linguistics, TESOL, and composition; 3 course load. Ph. D. required. Apply and send resume and three letters of recommendation by April 18 to Francis Molson, Chairperson. CMU (AA/EO institution) encourages diversity and resolves to provide equal opportunity regardless of race, sex, handicap, sexual orientation, or other irrelevant criteria. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 11:40:11 EST From: rxr23@cas.org (Ray Reighart (ex. 2985) rxr23@cas.org) Subject: temporary position VISITING RESEARCH SCIENTIST Chemical Information Science Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society and a world leader in chemical information database production, seeks applicants for a 9-18 month appointment in its Research Department as a Visiting Research Scientist. Research experience in natural language processing or information retrieval is required. Appointment will be made at the junior or senior level, commensurate with experience. Specific areas of interest include - sublanguage analysis of chemical journal articles - lexical knowledge base construction - probabilistic retrieval of text or bibliographic information The appointee should be capable of working independently but will have an opportunity to collaborate with CAS scientists on projects in the above areas. Publication of research results is encouraged. Interested candidates should submit a resume and description of research interests by May 1, 1992 to: The CAS Division of the ACS Employment Department - 23 P.O. Box 3012 Columbus, Ohio 43210 An Equal Opportunity employer M/F/H/V Please address questions to Ray Reighart (rxr23@cas.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 11:40:11 EST From: rxr23@cas.org (Ray Reighart (ex. 2985) rxr23@cas.org) Subject: temporary position VISITING RESEARCH SCIENTIST Chemical Information Science Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society and a world leader in chemical information database production, seeks applicants for a 9-18 month appointment in its Research Department as a Visiting Research Scientist. Research experience in natural language processing or information retrieval is required. Appointment will be made at the junior or senior level, commensurate with experience. Specific areas of interest include - sublanguage analysis of chemical journal articles - lexical knowledge base construction - probabilistic retrieval of text or bibliographic information The appointee should be capable of working independently but will have an opportunity to collaborate with CAS scientists on projects in the above areas. Publication of research results is encouraged. Interested candidates should submit a resume and description of research interests by May 1, 1992 to: The CAS Division of the ACS Employment Department - 23 P.O. Box 3012 Columbus, Ohio 43210 An Equal Opportunity employer M/F/H/V Please address questions to Ray Reighart (rxr23@cas.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-220. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-221. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 146 Subject: 3.221 FYI: Texts, Icelandic, PhD Training Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 09:40:19 EST From: myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu Subject: ACL/DCI CD-ROM I 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:04:32 GMT From: malvis@rhi.hi.is (Thorsteinn G. Indridason) Subject: New Publication: Icelandic 3) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 12:50:12 GMT From: Ellen Bard Subject: PhD training at Edinburgh -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 09:40:19 EST From: myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu Subject: ACL/DCI CD-ROM I The Association for Computational Linguistics Data Collection Initiative (ACL/DCI) is an activity which collects machine-readable text for the purpose of scientific and humanistic research, and distributes it at cost and without royalties. Since September 1991, we have been distributing our first CD-ROM. It is in ISO 9660 format, and contains about 300 Mb of Wall Street Journal text, a collection of about 200,000 scientific abstracts, the full text of the 1979 edition of the Collins English Dictionary in the form of a typographer's tape, and some samples of tagged and parsed text from the Penn Treebank project. In order for us to send you an ACL/DCI CD-ROM, we need a copy of our User Agreement, signed by you or by some responsible party on behalf of your institution. Please send your mailing address to Rafi Khan (khanr@unagi.cis.upenn.edu), and he will send a paper copy of this form, which you can sign (or have signed) and return to him. When you return this form, we will also ask you to send a check for $25, payable to the ACL. Mark Liberman University of Pennsylvania -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:04:32 GMT From: malvis@rhi.hi.is (Thorsteinn G. Indridason) Subject: New Publication: Icelandic NEW PUBLICATION Kristja'n A'rnason: The Rhythms of Dro'ttkvaett and other Old Icelandic Metres. This book (182 p.) is the result of several years of research into the structure of the Old Icelandic dro'ttkvaett metre, where the findings of earlier scholars, such as Eduard Sievers and Andreas Heusler, are reexamined in the light of recent developments in phonological theory and metrics. It is shown that the rhythm of the dro'ttkvaett metre is in important respects different from that of the fornyrd-islag and other Eddic metres, which have features in common with Old German and Old English metres. In particular, quantity plays a much more important role in the dro'ttkvaett metre than in the fornyrd-islag. A simple model of the dro'ttkvaett is presented and its structure compared with that of other metres from the same period. Close attention is paid throughout to general theoretical issues, for example the relation between metrical structure and linguistic structure, and the value of metrical facts as evidence for linguistic analysis and vice versa. The author is Professor of Icelandic at the University of Iceland, Reykjavi'k. CONTENTS: Chapter 1. Language and metre (pp.3-44) Chapter 2. Eddic metres (pp.45-64) Chapter 3. Stress and quantity in Old Icelandic (pp.65-80) Chapter 4. The dro'ttkvaett metre (pp.81-110) Chapter 5. Dro'ttkvaett and the quantity structure of Icelandic (pp.111-123) Chapter 6. The rhythm of dro'ttkvaett (124-148) Chapter 7. The Old Icelandic metrical set (149-172) Those who are interested can order a copy through e-mail: malvis@rhi.hi.is or surface mail: Institute of Linguistics University of Iceland A'rnagardur /Sudurgotu 101 Reykjavik Iceland The price is USD 35. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 12:50:12 GMT From: Ellen Bard Subject: PhD training at Edinburgh >>>> UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH <<<< <<<< DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS >>>> >>>> Ph.D. IN LINGUISTICS <<<< ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT. The Department of Linguistics is part of a lively community of departments and research centres involved in the study of speech and language. The Department maintains broad collaborations with the Centre for Cognitive Science, the Human Communication Research Centre and the Centre for Speech Technology Research and can offer PhD supervision in many research areas, both purely linguistic and interdisciplinary. Research facilities include computing systems, phonetics and psycholinguistics laboratories, and several major libraries. Beginning PhD students may follow a wide range of postgraduate courses, but participation is not always required. WHO CAN APPLY? Graduates with good Honours degrees (or the equivalent) in linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, languages, and related fields are invited to apply for admission as PhD students. ABOUT STUDENTSHIPS: Support for UK and other EC students includes studentships from the British Academy (arts-based topics), the ESRC (social science-based topics) and SERC (topics with scientific and technological applications). FOR MORE INFORMATION: For further information and application forms (which should be submitted by 31 March 1992) contact Mrs. Ethel Jack, Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, Adam Ferguson Building, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LL (Tel: (0)31-650-3961; E-mail ethel@uk.ac.ed.ling). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-221. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-222. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 130 Subject: 3.222 Conferences: DIMACS WORKSHOP, Second Language Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 10:33:06 EST From: Eric Sven Ristad Subject: DIMACS WORKSHOP ON HUMAN LANGUAGE 2) Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 14:44 EST From: RDK1@vms.cis.pitt.edu Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS: Second Language Research Forum -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 10:33:06 EST From: Eric Sven Ristad Subject: DIMACS WORKSHOP ON HUMAN LANGUAGE ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** DIMACS WORKSHOP ON HUMAN LANGUAGE March 20--22, 1992 Princeton, NJ ***************************************************************** SCOPE. The goal of the workshop is to precisely state computational problems that must be "solved" in the comprehension, production, and acquisition of human languages. The workshop will focus on computations related to linguistic sounds (phonology, phonetics) and word structure (morphology). ----------------------TECHNICAL PROGRAM-------------------------- ====FRIDAY 3/20==== 1.PHONETICS (9-12am) Moderator: David Johnson Kaiser: Vocal Tract Models Kornai: Relating Phonetics to Phonological Categories Sleator: Adaptive Algorithms and Data Structures 2.LEXICON (2-5pm) Moderator: Gil Harman Miller: The Lexical Component Micali: Interactive Proof Systems Benmamoun, Kaye, and Vergnaud: Morphology and the Lexicon 3.MORPHOLOGY (7-10pm) Moderator: Len Babby Anderson: Morphology Pinker and Prince: Interaction of Regular and Irregular Morphology Williams: Acquisition of Paradigm Structure ====SATURDAY 3/21==== 4.PHONOLOGICAL STRESS (9-12:30am) Moderator: Bob Tarjan Halle and Idsardi: Phonological Stress Dresher: Acquiring Stress Systems Burzio: Metrical Constituency Goldsmith: Computing Phonological Constituents 5.LEARNING (2-6pm) Moderator: Alec Marantz Vitanyi: Inductive Reasoning Rissanen: Minimum Description Length Principle Baum: Capacity of Neural Net Models Valiant: Computational Learning Theory 6.OPEN SESSION (6-7pm) (posters, demos, short talks, and panel discussion.) ====SUNDAY 3/22==== 8.MORPHOLOGY to PHONETICS (9-1pm) Moderator: Daniel Sleator Marantz: How Morphemes are Realized Phonologically McCarthy and Prince: Constraint Interaction in Prosodic Morphology Ristad: Morpheme Analysis and Composition Fujimura: C/D Model of Phonetic Implementation 9.OPEN SESSION (2-3pm, tentatively) (more posters, demos, short talks, and panel discussion.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 29 Feb 1992 14:44 EST From: RDK1@vms.cis.pitt.edu Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS: Second Language Research Forum CALL FOR PAPERS The 13th annual Second Language Research Forum March 19 to 21, 1993 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania "Cognitive Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition" Deadline for submission of abstracts is October 15, 1992. Please submit 12 copies of a one-page 200- to 250-word abstract, double spaced, without name. Attach a 3" x 5" card with name(s) of author(s), title of paper, affiliation, address, phone number, and e-mail address to: Marion Delarche & Dawn McCormick SLRF Conference Co-Chairs Linguistics Department 2816 Cathedral of Learning University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh PA 15260 phone: (412) 624-5900 fax: (412) 624-6130 e-mail: (BITNET) mldst9@pittvms (INTERNET) mldst9@unix.cis.pitt.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-222. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-223. Fri 06 Mar 1992. Lines: 129 Subject: 3.223 Parsing Problems Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 10:33 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 14:16:31 CST From: green@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Georgia Green) Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 08:34 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems 4) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:34:02 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Ambiguous parse -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 10:33 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems Thanks Carl Alphonce -- for information re the ambiguity of THE PLAYER KICKED THE BALL KICKED HIM. Interesting that my 'only' interpretation was your second one -- The player kicked - the ball kicked him. rather than - The player -- kicked the ball -- kicked him. Wonder what factors dominate re one's interpretation of ambiguous sentences. I know work has been done on this. Glad it is not a linguistic problem or at least not adccording to my view. VAF -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 14:16:31 CST From: green@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Georgia Green) Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems I trust everyone realizes now that "The player kicked the ball kicked him" is not only grammatical, but at least 5-ways ambiguous: The player who kicked the ball kicked him. [=someone else] The player who was kicked the ball kicked him. [=someone else] The player kicked the ball that was kicked to him. The player kicked the ball that kicked him. [takes more imagination] The player complained that the ball kicked him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 08:34 EST From: Herb Stahlke <00HFSTAHLKE@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: 3.212 Parsing Problems Has the term "garden path" undergone a semantic shift? I recall that in graduate school, shortly after Haj Ross' dissertation hit the world at the Illinois LSA Summer Institute, the term referred to sentences with island constraint violations like Who do you know the woman that married? and other sentences that were imparsible for because of complex grammaticality problems. Grammatical sentences with insufficient redundancy to be easily parsed were of less interest since, at that time, we could pass them off as performance problems. Not. Herb Stahlke Ball State University -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:34:02 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Ambiguous parse Carl Alphonce wrote: >Subject: Re: 3.194 - Another Parse >I just realized that there is another possible parse >for the sentence > "The player kicked the ball kicked him" >In addition to > [ the player [ kicked the ball ] ] kicked him >there is also the structure > the player kicked [ the ball [ kicked him ] ] A few years ago, I developed a grammar of English for a parsing program written by Phil Harrison at Boeing Computer Services. After reading the above, I thought it would be fun to see if "my" grammar parsed the sentence ambigously. Phil tried it out, and behold, there is also a third parse. It is distinct from the second parse above only by the labels on the bracketing, or putting it differently, the second parse above is ambiguous, depending on the labels. The least unnatural (at least to me) labeling of the second parse is: [ the player [ kicked [ the ball [ kicked him]]] S VP NP S --in which the first "S" is an independent clause, while the second is a reduced relative. The other labeling of the second parse (i.e. the third parse) is: [ the player [ kicked [ the ball [ kicked him]]] NP S NP S which can be paraphrased as "the player who was kicked the ball that was kicked to him." (Both Ss are reduced relatives.) Parsing "kicked him" as a reduced relative, as in the second and third parse structures, requires being able to passivize the second (direct) object of a double-object verb, which for some people is questionable. ("John was given the book" is OK for everyone, while "The book was given John" is in that gray area.) I should mention that Phil had to add a subcategorization for this passive to the lexical entry for "kick" before the sentence would parse. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-223. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-224. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 80 Subject: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:28:04 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: quality of discourse -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:28:04 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: quality of discourse >From: Richard Ogden >Date: Tue, 11 Feb 92 17:07 GMT >I have recently been re-reading some of the old papers and books, things > like Saussure, Twaddell, Firth... and the impression is much more of a >culture which was less aggressive, less dogmatic than our present one. It's >only an impresion and others will surely disagree. But the pioneer attitude, >where more questions are asked than answers given is something which I just >don't find in modern linguistics; maybe not because it isn't there, but >because it's hidden underneath the rhetoric. I'm sorry to be so very slow responding, but I'm only just getting to look at back issues that have piled up. I believe there was a deep qualitative change in the discourse of the field with the rise of generative linguistics. Noam Chomsky is very skilled as a debater and polemicist. These qualities may have attracted to him students with like emphases; certainly, students and coworkers have had to be able to work in a combative milieu, whether by temperamental preference or as an acquired skill and taste. (As one friend says, "if you want to talk to Chomsky, wear boxing gloves.) A number of early champions, such as Lees and Postal, are notable for their aggressiveness if not ferocity, not always matched by factual accuracy (e.g. the absurd overstatements in Postal's _Constituent Structures_). Many times arguments have been made in an aggressive and indeed outright hostile manner that could have been made with equal substantive effect by more humane means, means exemplified over and over in the scholarly conduct of Sapir, or Bloomfield, or indeed Bolinger and many others. The literature of the period shows many examples of the yet-unconverted expressing reactions of being bemused, stunned, or shocked at this quality of argumentation as war. The exchange with Householder, often quoted as one of the last stages in the "defeat" of "structuralism," is a good example. Harris commented on an aspect of this in a footnote to Transformational Theory (Language 1965): The pitting of one linguistic tool against another has in it something of the absolutist postwar temper of social institutions, but is not required by the character and range of these tools of analysis. Some see these not as tools of analysis but as putative facts about innate devices for the control of language. Under this sort of hypostasis, only one such set of facts can be correct and others must be vanquished. And then (minor detail) egos get involved in the vanquishing and vanquishment. I agree with you, Richard Ogden. I should like to see discourse in our field greatly enriched with more humane modes of linguistic conduct. I think the linguist list as an email forum contributes very substantially to this. At least so it seems to me, and so I hope. Bruce Nevin bn@bbn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-224. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-225. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 53 Subject: 3.225 Phonology: Long Vowels, Raising Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:35:34 GMT-0600 From: gldsmth@bloomfield.uchicago.edu (John Goldsmith) Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:35:13 -0800 From: Ellen Kaisse Subject: Raising -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 10:35:34 GMT-0600 From: gldsmth@bloomfield.uchicago.edu (John Goldsmith) Subject: Re: 3.198 Queries: Long Vowels, Flapping, Aphasia On long vowels in non-final syllables, there are a number of Bantu languages (such as KiRundi) where vowels adjacent to word-boundaries can't be long, but all others can. This affects the vowel of every final syllable, since all words end in a vowel, and it affects those words that begin with a vowel (though that's a minority of the words). John Goldsmith -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:35:13 -0800 From: Ellen Kaisse Subject: Raising My Montreal dialect has clear raising in writer, optional raising in cider (to my surprise!), and no raising in tiger, hide, or rider. I THINK I have a contrast between cider, where raising is optional and spider, where it is conceivable but highly unlikely. But it's hard to keep my non-naivete out of it. So what's going on Alexis? Have I lexicalized spider with a /d/ but cider with a /t/ OR a /d/?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-225. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-226. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 188 Subject: 3.226 Queries: Theory, Tone, Children, Spelling, Such, Esperanto Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 15:32:36 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query about Formal Language Theory 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:44:48 +1000 From: mdr412@coombs.anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Subject: The genesis of tone 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:17 GMT From: Alison Henry Subject: The language of children's books 4) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 15:49:28 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: Spelling checkers 5) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 10:21:10 CST From: weinberg@ils.nwu.edu (Michele Weinberg) Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language 6) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:20:14 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 15:32:36 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query about Formal Language Theory Does anybody have any idea how to prove that the copying language over a two- (or more) letter alphabet is not the intersection of any two (or more) context-free languages? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:44:48 +1000 From: mdr412@coombs.anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Subject: The genesis of tone I have just reconstructed the history of a pair of tone languages in Papua New Guinea. These are Austronesian languages, and there is little doubt that tone is an innovation in these languages and that low tone arose in syllables whose onset was a voiced obstruent. I have been wondering about the processes by which tonogenesis occurs, and am wondering if there is any published literature describing tonogenesis (preferably in languages where it seems to be occurring -- I know that tonogenesis has been reconstructed for various groups of languages). I am interested, for example, in the phonetic (and phonological) process whereby voicing gives rise to low tone. I would be very grateful for an references or other relevant information. Please send direct to me, and I will summarise for the list. Malcolm Ross Linguistics RSPacS Australian National University -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:17 GMT From: Alison Henry Subject: The language of children's books I am posting this message on behalf of a student not on e-mail, who is looking for references on the kinds of syntactic structures used in children's books (particularly as compared to the structures children themselves use); she is particularly interested in books intended for the 5-10 age group. If you send information directly to me, I will summarize it for the list. Alison Henry -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 15:49:28 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: Spelling checkers I am trying to find out what spelling checkers are available on the market for French, German and Italian. The people I am doing this research for want to run them on IBM PCs under OS2, but would be willing to do (or negotiate) some porting, so any pointers will be appreciated. Please direct your answers directly to me, and I will post a summary later if there is interest. Thanks, Dominique Estival ISSCO, Universite de Geneve 54 rte des Acacias CH-1227 Geneve tel: +41-22-705-7116 fax: +41-22-300-1086 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 10:21:10 CST From: weinberg@ils.nwu.edu (Michele Weinberg) Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language In his article in Linguist List: Vol-3-214, Martin Haspelmath states: > but there are actually quite a few >native speakers of Esperanto. I was wondering if I could get more information on this, as I was not aware that there were native Esperanto speakers. Thanks, Shelli Weinberg weinberg@ils.nwu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:20:14 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language New Query: I am finishing up a paper for presentation at CLS (April) that deals with the intensifier use of 'such' as in He is such a nice boy! I have been searching the linguistic literature for discussion, but have so far come up empty (though I am waiting for the library to get back Bolinger 1972). Many similar constructions are dealt with in detail in Napoli 91989) and McCawley (1988), but nothing that deals with the syntactic and semantic characteristics of this 'such', which has semantic scope over the adjective but syntactically is [NP/NP] (GPSG) or is the nether-regions of infamous SPEC (GB) or must be transformationally liberated from the NP (Generative Semantics and ddescendants). I am treating it as a typical syntax/semantics discrepancy with strongly historical motivations as a construction (cf. Barbara Need's BLS paper last month - we are collaborating on the CLS paper and the BLS offering contained much of the relevant syntactic and sematntic analysis). There are, of course, related phenomena (What a nice guy!). Has anyone out there ever come across a discussion of why 'such' got kicked out of the NP in Middle English, never to return in the intensifier function (but OK anaphorically - There is no such thing as workable Reaganomics). I would hate to overlook previous work on the construction, and will profusely thank anyone who can point to relevant literature or provide any useful insights. The basic theoretical thrust of the paper is to argue for the categories which are functions, e.g., combine with an NP to create an NP, as lexical categories within Autolexical theory. So for me, a determiner is [N1>>N2] and is syntactically headless - since we deal with the semantic properties in the logico-syntax, and not in the syntax, where willow trees populated by empty nodes or ghost traces are strictly verboted. That said, I would like to see a tight GB account of this phenomena if anyone has one (no, it isn't in Abney 1987). Again, I appreciate all input, anecdotal, couched in any framework, or even off the wall! Eric Schiller Department of Linguistics University of Chicago -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-226. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-227. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 73 Subject: 3.227 Available on Listserv: Cog-sci, Ellipsis Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 22:01:32 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: Announcement: Cog-Sci Summary 2) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 16:00:22 +0100 From: Ellipsis Workshop Subject: Stuttgart Ellipsis Workshop; Abstracts -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 22:01:32 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: Announcement: Cog-Sci Summary A summary in more or less chronological order of the replies I received in response to my posting regarding the teaching of linguistics in cognitive science courses has been placed on the Listserv. Again, many thanks to all who contributed. Rather than go back and check with each contributor, I've just deleted all personal and ad hominem remarks, except certain email addresses are provided to obtain particular software programs. A comprehensive list of available software is appears at the end of this summary. [Contributors, please excuse certain editorial liberties.] I hope this information is useful -- it certainly was to me. Gregory Ward ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu [Moderators' note: The summary mentioned in this message is available on the server. It includes a list of sources of software useful in cog-sci courses. To get the file, send a message to: listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu (if you are on the Internet) OR listserv@tamvm1 (if you are on the Bitnet) The message should consist of the single line: get cogsci sum linguist You will then receive the complete file.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 3 Mar 92 16:00:22 +0100 From: Ellipsis Workshop Subject: Stuttgart Ellipsis Workshop; Abstracts The abstracts for the WORKSHOP ON ELLIPSIS, to be held in Stuttgart, March 20-22 1992, are available on the Listserv. [Moderators' note: To get the file mentioned in this message, send a message to: listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu (if you are on the Internet) OR listserv@tamvm1 (if you are on the Bitnet) The message should consist of the single line: get ellipsis abs linguist You will then receive the complete file.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-227. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-228. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 82 Subject: 3.228 V and V Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 13:56 CST From: "FRANK R. BRANDON" Subject: Laugh and the world laughs etc. 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 13:49:40 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 13:56 CST From: "FRANK R. BRANDON" Subject: Laugh and the world laughs etc. On the conditional interpretation of these V and V constructions, I think it is worthwhile to remember the sequential interpretation of and with respect to time. The example of my student days was 'Mary married John and got pregnant' vs. 'Mary got pregnant and married John' (I forget who first pointed this out -- it was in those days when people were trying to shoehorn natural language into the existing logics (artificial languages)). Sequential- ity in time can easily be extended to cause and effect to get the conditional interpretation. (To get backto artificial languages, I often used to use the AND of Lisp for conditional operations. I'd say that Prolog does thisin a hidden way too. It works when AND is tested sequentially and perhaps that testifies also to the way humans think of this conjunction!). As to the imperative plus declarative syntax, this is also true in Portuguese, where (at least in some cases) the subjunctive morphology is unmistakeable in the first verb: 'Faca isso mais uma vez e eu te mato' (Sorry no accents) [Do-imperative this once more and I kill-present indic. you] I don't think very elaborate ellipsis is needed. Excuse my dullness, but why would there be a problem with the conjunction of an imperative and a declarative? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 13:49:40 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you I haven't read the Haiman/Koenig paper, but here are a few off the cuff observations about these constructions. There certainly seems to be a relation to imperatives; viz. the German comparative evidence and the fact that both constructions can have 'you' for emphasis -- You walk out that door and you'll never see me again! Sentences like these suggest an origin in imperatives, with 'then' lost (with 'then' I get only an imperative reading on the first part): Finish your spinach and (then) you can watch "The Simpsons." Do the dishes and (then) I'll help you with your homework. Eat your dinner and (then) you can play outside. As the conditional meaning was gained, the imperative part shifted to expressing things the speaker expressly doesn't want to happen, or generic statements like 'laugh and the world laughs with you.' From that point you have a construction with a meaning distinct from the imperative. Interestingly, the sentences with 'then' can be read as having either the time sense of 'then' or its sense in conditionals. Jo Rubba, UC San Diego -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-228. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-229. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 70 Subject: 3.229 Selectional Restrictions Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 17:10:22 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 3.176 Semantics, Selectional Restrictions -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 17:10:22 CST From: Eric Schiller Subject: Re: 3.176 Semantics, Selectional Restrictions Dick Hudson is absolutely correct in pointing out that very little work on these sorts of selectional restrictions is done in many of the frameworks cited. My point is that I find no mechanical reason why such restrictions cannot be implemented, if one broadens the number and types of semantic categories, and allow a bit of cog-sci, especially metaphor, to kick in. We all know a "fresser" or two who is otherwise human, don't we? But creating a set of categories which will get everything right will be difficult for ANY theory, as Lakoff (1987), among many others, has pointed out. Why haven't GB'ers and other alphabetically oriented theories come up with an explicit account of these restrictions? I think it has more to do with the value these linguists place on getting the semantics right (and explicit) than on the difficulty of implementation. we all know that it is more important to fine tune the notion of F-command and Pluto-marking than to account for real world use of language, don't we? I think that this issue bridges an unfilled gap between cog-sci and formalist approaches to linguistic theory, one which Bill Croft has been looking at from a typological standpoint. The interaction of real-world semantics with natural language does not have a clear place in most theories (including my preferred Autolexical approach), but to the extent that they are grammaticalized it is important to develop such a link. There is no need for partisanship on this issue, though, because I cannot see how any contemporary theory is prohibited from implementing such a programme. Anyone who gets down and dirty with real language data is aware of these phenomena, but few take up the challenge of developing formal accounts. In particular, no one has yet come up with a clear and coherent (or even muddy and loose) formal account of Expressives in Southeast Asian languages (see Diffloth 1972, 76, 79 for the data, also reprinted in the Best of CLS (1988). I have struggled with this over the years - with only a few preliminary results to date. What a wonderful thesis this topic would make, if there is anyone out there willing to do the work. Eric Schiller -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-229. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-230. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 84 Subject: 3.230 Linguistics in the Popular Press Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 13:00:36 EST From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 18:45:43 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 92 13:00:36 EST From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press Check out the profile in the February SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. A certain physicist who knows a lot about linguistics (his opinion) regards the more ambitious reconstructive attempts of our day as kinderleicht and reprehends those who will not seem wise by swift agreement. This may interest the person who wondered where SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN was getting advice about our field. -- Rick -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 18:45:43 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press Jo Rubba's recent posting is one of several that raises the question of how to make linguistics more intelligible to the layperson. I will express some skepticism that this can be done in more than a superficial way, with the addendum that I think this is true of most scientific disciplines. A comparison is drawn in the posting between communicating with journalists and teaching introductory courses in linguistics, but I think there's a major difference. A course lasts ten to fifteen weeks, calls on the student to do problems and exercises to assist in developing mastery of the basic ideas of the subject, and permits (ideally, anyway) the opportunity to spend time mulling things over. A journalist assigned on a one-shot basis to cover some story which may have been deemed newsworthy for any of a number of reasons, including an editor's not understanding what the story is really about, is not in the same position as a student in a beginning linguistics course. But we're not alone in this -- ask any mathematician! (I once read an article in the New York Times education section on the rising importance of what the author consistently referred to as 'discreet mathematics', causing me to imagine a lecture hall filled with people speaking in whispers.) Some fields admittedly fare better than ours, perhaps be- cause the general public at least understands (or thinks it understands) the problems to which the field is addressed. Molecular biology is con- cerned with the mechanisms of heredity, for example, something any edu- cated person both knows and cares about (though for anyone but a mole- cular biologist to understand in any detail how it is that, say, the structure of the DNA molecule ties into this mechanism is difficult at best). There is one journalist who does know a lot about linguistics. His name is Jim Quinn and he contributes from time to time to The Nation on ques- tions pertaining to langauge. He is also the author of a highly recom- mended book called *American Tongue and Cheek* in which he nails William Safire, Edwin Newman and John Simon to the wall. In one of his Nation col- umns (from some years ago) he referred to linguistics as 'the secret sci- ence', commenting that while every educated person has at least a sort of an idea of what a quark is, almost nobody knows what a phoneme or a morpheme is. Well he does, God bless him. Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-230. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-231. Sat 07 Mar 1992. Lines: 62 Subject: 3.231 Are Rules Psychologically Real? Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 06 Mar 92 22:38:48 EST From: JASKE@bat.bates.edu Subject: on the existence of rules (WAS: la -> el) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 06 Mar 92 22:38:48 EST From: JASKE@bat.bates.edu Subject: on the existence of rules (WAS: la -> el) At the risk of seeming contentious, I must take exception to Jose Ignacio Hualde's statement that "nobody would doubt that the rule of plural formation for Spanish words ending in a consonant is to add /-es/; but new borrowings may not undergo the rule, as in poster-s (*poster-es), cf. the integrated dolar-es 'dollars'." (Vol-3-218, Fri 06 Mar 1992) This may seem like a minor point, but for those of us who are interested in determining what a speaker's real psychological linguistic knowledge is, saying that there is a rule X that speakers know, but that they just happen not to apply that rule to new words, or in a certain number of occasions, doesn't make much sense. I think we must acknowledge that a lot of 'regular' linguistic knowledge is stored in the lexicon. One need not be alarmed by this heresy once one realizes that the present models of lexical storage (repository of arbitrary, idiosyncratic information, etc.) are not very realistic. For example, as I have argued elsewhere (BLS 16, 1990), the different rules that have been proposed for Spanish stress, in spite of being about 95% accurate (about 5% exceptions), do not seem to have any real existence in the speakers heads apart from the words in the lexicon themselves. So when speakers are presented with new words they have never seen before they do not go to the rules to tell them how to stress them, but rather they go to the lexicon and extract the pattern right from there. Perhaps this is a topic whose time has come to be aired out in the Linguist list. I for one would like to know more about what other people have to say, especially since I am not a phonologist or a morphologist. Jon Aske Linguistics, UC Berkeley jaske@bat.bates.edu jonaske@garnet.berkeley.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-231. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-232. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 148 Subject: 3.232 V and V Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 12:15:35 EST From: rws@mbeya.research.att.com (Richard Sproat) Subject: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives 2) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 22:46:40 MET From: hartmut@ruc.dk (Hartmut Haberland) Subject: Re: 3.228 V and V 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 11:31:48 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you 4) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 18:19:49 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Laugh and the world does too 5) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 14:50:37 EST From: mark Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 12:15:35 EST From: rws@mbeya.research.att.com (Richard Sproat) Subject: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives Bruce Nevin's response that constructions of the form "Laugh and the world laughs at you" involve "you"-deletion may be right, but note that the verb cannot be the indicative form, as the following series shows: 1) If you are fair to others then others will be fair to you. 2) ?If you be fair to others then others will be fair to you. (archaic) 3) *Are fair to others and others will be fair to you. 4) Be fair to others an others will be fair to you. Perhaps the (archaic) use of the subjunctive is preserved in such forms. Or maybe such forms really are imperatives used as conditionals as Martin Haspelmath's German evidence suggests is possible. Richard Sproat Linguistics Research Department AT&T Bell Laboratories tel (908) 582-5296 600 Mountain Avenue, Room 2d-451 fax (908) 582-7308 Murray Hill, NJ 07974 rws@research.att.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 22:46:40 MET From: hartmut@ruc.dk (Hartmut Haberland) Subject: Re: 3.228 V and V Sorry, I didn't get the beginning of the discussion. Is the paper by Haiman referred to his 1983 paper 'Paratactic if-clauses' (which vovers structures of the type S[1] (and) S[2]) in Journal of Pragmatics 7(3):263-281? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 11:31:48 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you French also provides supporting evidence for the argument that the first clause in such sentences is an imperative. The ordering of clitic pronouns in (positive) imperative clauses is different from the ordering found in any other type of clauses, and it is this ordering you find here, not the ordering of a declarative clause you would get by ellipsis of the subject: "Donne-le-moi" (give it to me) "Tu me le donnes" (you give it to me) "Donne-le-moi une fois de plus et nous aurons fini" (give it to me one more time and we will be done) "Donnez-lui un coup de pied et il vous en rendra cent" (kick him one and he will kick you back a hundred times) By the way, I too fail to see what the problem is in allowing the conjunction of an imperative and a declarative clause. Dominique Estival -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 18:19:49 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Laugh and the world does too re "weep and you weep alone" Assume elision of a pronoun for the initial verb to be plausible, since that covert pronoun must be co-indexed with the later overt pronoun (as no other filler could grammatically be). The elision surely concerns not any personal pronoun but (what I term) "weak pronouns"; those without specific antecedent, roughly ="people", as in "you have to go on breathing" (scarcely in normal relationships "YOU have to.." The presence of "and" in such conditional sentences ("gnomic" would be a good term for what is being discussed) is not different from any other co-ordination of clauses, where the second is properly a consequence of the first, "he came and spoke to me" being different in discourse from "he spoke and came to me". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 14:50:37 EST From: mark Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you I was hoping someone else with a better memory would post on this subject, but I haven't seen it yet. Someone, perhaps at Berkeley, wrote on just this subject, probably in the seventies since that's when I was there. Furthermore, the parallel construction with "or" is just as common: Finish your spinach or (else)/ you can't watch "The Simpsons". \ no "Simpsons". [commoner?] Buy this comic or we WON'T shoot the cat! [from the cover of a comic book... it's a long story] Surrender or die! (And how do we parse "Root hog or die"? Is "hog" vocative, with the surrounding commas/pauses deleted?) The "or" is exclusive. A child who finished her spinach and was denied "The Simpsons" anyway, with no further justification, would have good cause to complain. Mark A. Mandel Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-232. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-233. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 146 Subject: 3.233 Queries: Specificity, French, Quasi-Natives, Font Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 92 22:58:58 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: specificity problems 2) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 12:53:30 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query about French: neveu 3) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 19:11:58 EST From: "Wayles Browne, Cornell Univ." Subject: teaching quasi-native speakers 4) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 22:25:58 EST From: Leandre_Racicot@CMR001.bitnet Subject: Looking for a font... -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 92 22:58:58 EST From: Michael Newman Subject: specificity problems In doing work on my dissertation on pronominal usage in a corpus I am en- countering a semantic conundrum which my training in semantics is not adequate to solve. The problem is related to the semantic distinction between referents which are +specific (or +referential) or more informally real, existing out there in some way, and those which are -specific, hypothetical or generic. Thus there is a clear distinction between two readings of , to use a rather unoriginal example. "Peter is going to marry the richest woman in town." So far so good. The issue seems relatively clear when you are using example sen- tences, but when you use real language, things do get messy sometimes. For ex- ample, I would be reluctant to use the + or - specific lable for the following example from my corpus, (which is based on TV talk shows by the way) The prob- lematic antecedent-anaphor pair are in caps: (1) I have become involved with a consumer advocacy group called s.h.a.m.e. it stands for Stop[ Hospital and Medical Errors, and it is a group that was formed by MALPRACTICE VICTIMS and THEIR families. In this case there were indeed a concrete set of people who formed this group, yet neither speaker nor hearer were in any position to specify that set any further. In addition it is certainly conceivible that there might be some dis- pute as to who exactly belongs in this set or not. So my solution was to label this type as semi-specific (actually I use the term 'semi-solid' reserving 'solid' for specific and non-solid for -specific, but I don't want to get into that here) Cases like (1) where there are sets which none of the interlocutors are in any position to identify are fairly common, and using this semi label, I have managed to reduce the number of problematic tokens by more than half. If any semanticists have any objections to this, I would like to hear them now, before I get any further. Yet I have not solved all my problems. Here are a few cases which I am puzzling over. In (2) the speaker (George Carlin on Larry King Live by the way) is talk- ing about censorship on the radio (2) you know THESE MORAL COMMANDOS who want us to think THEIR way and want to change what we can hear and see and think in this country are dangerous. . . This is close to a generic, but is it a true generic? The use of the definite specifier would seem to tilt the image in the direction of a closed set of people. (3) is also from George Carlin who is talking about Andrew Dice Clay and his fans. Clay is (or was since he disappeared from view) a comedian who would make hostile jokes about gays, blacks, women, immigrants, etc. (3) I think he's appealing largely, I think his core audience are young white males who are threatended by these groups. I think A LOT OF THESE GUYS aren't sure of THEIR manhood, because that's a problem when you're going through ado- lesence, you know, am I really, am I? This ambiguity or perhaps more acurately, vagueness, of specificity of refer- ence seems typical of Carlin and some other speakers. It will be part of the findings of my dissertation, but I would like it if someone with more semantic training than myself would help me draw the lines on what appears to be a cline from one extreme, the concrete individual(s) whose identities are known, to the other, hypothetical or generic referents. Michael Newman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 12:53:30 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Query about French: neveu If there is anybody familiar with French usage in the 18th century (before the Revolution), can you tell me whether 'neveu' can mean something like 'protege, favorite'? I am dealing with a diplomatic document from that time in which the term is used, even though the normal meaning 'nephew' is clearly impossible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 19:11:58 EST From: "Wayles Browne, Cornell Univ." Subject: teaching quasi-native speakers As a teacher of Slavic languages, I sometimes encounter people in class who have, let's say, a partial command of Serbo-Croatian from home, or an approximate knowledge of Polish from spending time in Poland. My usual teaching methods often do not work well with such people; they have great difficulties in expanding their vocabulary in the language, or in learning its morphology correctly (both in getting the endings correct and in realizing that the endings are vital for proper understanding of sentences). Have there been any second-language acquisition studies, or psycho- linguistic researches, or empirical observations that would help in working with such quasi-native speakers? Please write to me at jn5j@cornella.bitnet or jn5j@cornella.cit.cornell.edu and I will summarize to the list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 22:25:58 EST From: Leandre_Racicot@CMR001.bitnet Subject: Looking for a font... Hi, I am desperately in search of a Windows International Phonetical Alphabet font. I looked at CICA and SIMTEL and found nothing. If that font does not exist anywhere, I would settle for a font editor and make it up myself. Please answer directly, if you know anything that would help me on this... thanks in advance. Benoit Racicot BPROF02@CMR001.BITNET -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-233. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-234. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 102 Subject: 3.234 Linguistic Discourse Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 14:07:53 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse 2) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 14:01 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse 3) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 02:32:02 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 14:07:53 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse Richard Ogden's and Bruce Nevin's comments on the tenor of contemporary linguistic discourse (in some areas, at least) reminds me of something I realized myself in thinking about this question some years ago. It had struck me that in a lot of what I was reading at the time the strategy seemed be not merely to show that your opponent was wrong but that (s)he was an idiot. On one level, of course, the effect is quite devastating. But then you ask 'Okay, so this person has just shown that (s)he is smarter than an idiot. Am I supposed to be impressed by that?' Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 14:01 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse Sharp debate, including, unfortunately, ad hominem attacks on the 'opposition' is certainly not a unique characeristic of linguistics as other scientists will tell you, nor did it start with the Chomsky era. As an old timer (I remember when I was young and foolish) I can assure you that the acrimony between the anti- and pro-mentalists was as great as between the functionalists and 'formalists' today, and frankly some of the arguments re. for example, whether or not a plus juncture could be considered 'real enough' to be used in phonemic analysis were oftenmore heated than arguments between GBers and GPSGers or Relational Grammar or LFGers etc. In the days when discovery procedures were mistakenly considered theories, the shouting in conferences over what was admissible as data and how to proceed from one level to the next discussion was far from polite and there were times I was sure the shouting would be replaced by fist fights. Furthermore, the idea that it is Chomsky and his followers who today are the most agressive and dogmatic of linguists is not supported by the empirical facts. During my five years as Secretary-Treasurer of the LSA I was amazed by those who wrote us attacking the LSA and LANGUAGE for being the handservants of the 'generativists' which as Newmeyer has shown is very far from the truth. I spent lots of time trying to convince some of our historical leaders not to resign as members, and attempt to show that straw men were being erected and then shot down. But wotthehell -- if one is passionate about one's work and beliefs it is understandable that such arguments and fights arise, despite the myth of scientific objectivity. In the years before World War II, when heated discussions over any number of questions arose, a common admonition was "Save your strength to fight fascism" so I would suggest we save ours to do whatever we can to understand the nature of human language, the common goal of all linguists, and while we're at it, the way things look in the world, we may also want to save our strength to fight fascism once again. Vicki Fromkin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 02:32:02 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.224 Linguistic Discourse in response to richard ogden's and bruce nevin's nostalgia for the good old days, my understanding is that they were pretty vicious themselves. perhaps the only change is the abandonment of a certain 'gentlemanly' rhetoric, a rhetoric that camouflaged some of the most pernicious motives and behaviors. remember morris halle's extraordinary lsa presentation a few years ago on the jacobson-bloomfield correspondence, not to mention the well known stories of hockett's reaction to jacobson--by comparison, the field today is extremely humane and civilized. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-234. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-235. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 135 Subject: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 17:16:52 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: 3.231 Are Rules Psychologically Real? 2) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 09:16:17 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Re: [3.231 Are Rules Psychologically Real?] 3) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 10:05 EST From: CHARLES LAUGHLIN Subject: ON THE EXISTENCE OF RULES -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 17:16:52 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: 3.231 Are Rules Psychologically Real? I second Jon Aske's idea that an open discussion of the question of how we establish the existence of rules would be ideally suited to the LINGUIST format (or vice versa). I would only like to suggest that we consider more possibilities than (a) yes, there is a rule and it is in the usual "generative" format, and (b) no, there is no rule, all the attested forms are "in the lexicon". Thus, if we decide, as Jon suggests, that something (say, Spanish stresses or plurals in -es or the feminines that take 'el' instead of 'la'), that all by itself unfortunately does not tell us whether speakers will access this information when dealing with novel forms or not. For example, the Polish verb meaning 'can, be able to' has no imperative, but I have found that some speakers simply cannot form one no matter how hard they try, others (like me) had to consciously find a rhyming verb that does have an imperative and use simply analogy, while yet others were not aware of how they knew the form, they just knew it. It could be that the first and second types both have identical lexicons, but differ on how readily they access what's there, whereas the third group are using a rule. But it could also be that all three have no rule, and that even the third group used analogy to what is in the lexicon (only did so with the conscious effort that group two needed). Indeed, one could have a situation in which analogy to what is in the lexicon would always give the same results as a system of rules. I would also suggest that we adopt the policy "Write your every rule like it was your first one", i.e., do not assume that something is a rule because somebody has argued previously for a similar rule in, say, a different language or dialect. Finally, may I urge the importance of the point I made in an earlier posting, namely, that phonology and morphology, no less than syntax and semantics, must deal not merely with closed corpora but with productivity and creativity in language use, yet it seems obvious that an enormous chunk of what has been written about phonology and morphology does rely on closed corpora (of course, there are notable--and noble--exceptions, but they ARE exceptions). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 92 09:16:17 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Re: [3.231 Are Rules Psychologically Real?] Jon Aske ia right to expect no less than a fitting MODEL of the speaker-hearer's mental activity. But we need to sort out "real" and "the pattern" first, don't we? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 10:05 EST From: CHARLES LAUGHLIN Subject: ON THE EXISTENCE OF RULES I am delighted that Jon Aske raises the question about the psychological reality of rules in generative acccounts of language. We anthropologists ran through this issue in the '70s and early '80s re Levi-Straussian structuralism. The issue remains the same, and several answers are the same. Let me briefly tic them off: 1. When the rules are determined by solely deductive methods from observables, then there is no way within the confines of those methods to determine whether the rule "structures" are real or not. This is because more than one deduced structure may account for the observables. Some independent method must be used to evaluate the reality of the "structures." 2. Rule structures deduced from observables often bear no clear relationship to actual physiological (neurophysiological) structures. There is no LAD in the human brain. 3. Any explanation of "errors" in utterances based on failure to apply rules that are presumed to be "in the speakers head" violates obvious rules of logic -- guilty of both tautology and post hoc fallacies. There are other problems with the kind of methods linguists use to generate accounts of language and adduce evidence in support of those accounts, but these are the main ones. Generative accounts leave themselves open to charges of anti-empiricism and epiphenomenalism. My own bias is that any approach to the explanation of the productions of the nervous system that do not AT LEAST IN PRINCIPLE leave themselves open to disconfermation via the neurosciences is increasingly obsolete. Thanks for bringing up the question, Jon! Charles Laughlin Department of Sociology and Anthropology Carleton University Ottawa, CANADA K1S 5B6 Charles Laughlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-235. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-236. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 134 Subject: 3.236 Summary: German Spelling Checkers Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 07:41:47 EST From: jordan@starbase.MITRE.ORG (Pamela W. Jordan) Subject: 3.226 Queries: Theory, Tone, Children, Spelling, Such, Esperanto -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 07:41:47 EST From: jordan@starbase.MITRE.ORG (Pamela W. Jordan) Subject: 3.226 Queries: Theory, Tone, Children, Spelling, Such, Esperanto I posted a request for information about German spelling checkers a few months back and the current request from Dominique Estival prompted me to finally send a summary of what I've collected. A belated thanks to everyone who responded. Pam Jordan Company name: Alki Software (800)669-9673, Fax 206-286-2785. Word processor/hardware: Word 4.0 on the Mac Cost: $69.95 Description: Does spelling and hypenation checks. Languages include Dutch, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Spanish Company name: Alki Software (800)669-9673, Fax 206-286-2785. Word processor/hardware: Word 5.0 and WinWord 2 Cost: upgrade is $35.00 (it has a thesaurus). non-upgrade $89.95 Description: Available in 14 languages, including German. They are supposed to be fully integrated and most also include a thesaurus (except Finnish and Portuguese). A specialized dictionary for English (legal, medical, business, etc.) and other goodies are also available, but for various extra amounts. From: Henry Kucera Company name: Houghton Mifflin for Microsoft Word processor/hardware: Word 5.0 on Mac and WinWord 2 From: a-peggym@microsoft.com (Peggy MacEachern) Company name: Soft-Art Word processor/hardware: Mac Word 4 Description: I've had better luck with Houghton Mifflin (English-language) spellers than with those made by Soft-Art, but I can't guarantee that quality is consistent across languages. From: a-peggym@microsoft.com (Peggy MacEachern) Company Name: WordPerfect, Utah Word Processor/hardware: Mac and MS-DOS Description: I know that WordPerfect has a spell checker for German that works with WP. I have the French and Spanish spellers. They contain only the basic vocabulary, however. It is easy to add more words to the speller however. From: edding@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dave Eddington) and SDFNCR@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Susan Fischer) Company Name: INK International PO Box 75477 1070 AL Amsterdam The Netherlands tel +31-20-6164591, fax +31-20-6163851 Description: for term banks and spelling checkers From: imlah@canon.co.uk (Bill Imlah) Company Name: SITE 11 Avenue Morane Saulnier BP 189 78143 Velizy-Vliiacoublay Cedex France Tel +33-1-30-70-16-16, fax +33-1-34-65-91-43 Description: for term banks and spelling checkers From: imlah@canon.co.uk (Bill Imlah) Company Name: Chris Blowers Software and Translation Eidelbachstra_e 2 7155 Oppenweiler Germany tel. +49-7191-44813 Description: for term banks and spelling checkers From: imlah@canon.co.uk (Bill Imlah) Organization Name: CELEX-Centre for Lexical Information Wundtlaan 1 6525 XD Nijmegen THE NETHERLANDS EMAIL: celex@celex.kun.nl (INTERNET) celex@hnympi52 (EARN/BITNET) Description: The CELEX lexical database is a non-public domain service distributing orthographic, phonological, morphological, inflectional, syntactic and frequency information for English, German and Dutch headwords (lemmas) and flections. Our data can de accessed on-line or used off-line stored on any electronic medium in a format tailor-made to your specifications. The German lexical information is scheduled to comprise the orthography for some 370,000 wordforms in a month or so. This release will not merely be a type frequency list culled from a large corpus, but an ordered database of lemmas with their full inflectional paradigms, based on sources obtained from the American Noetic Circle Co., the Institut fu"r Kommunikationswissenschaft und Phonetik (IKP) in Bonn, West-Germany (the Bonnlex files) and the Institut fu"r Deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim, West-Germany (the Molex files). Cost: Our licence prices are meant to be cost-effective, as we are a non-profit organization functioning within the University of Nijmegen structure. From: RICHARD@CELEX.KUN.NL Advice on using multiple spelling checkers with MS Word: If you need to have both an English and a German dict. in the same folder at the same time, things are a little more complicated since you cannot have two files with the same name and MSW will automatically assume that your dictionary has a particular name (i.e. Dictionary for the English MSW program and Worterbuch for the German version). The way to get around this is: 1. copy both dictionaries to the same folder 2. to check spelling in German start MSW by clicking the icon for the German Worterbuch. 3. If you the German dict. then becomes the default, start MSW from the English Dictionary icon to change. From: Michael Cheney, Internet: Michael.cheney@teol.lu.se, EARN/Bitnet cheney@seldc52 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-236. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-237. Mon 09 Mar 1992. Lines: 114 Subject: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 11:44:32 CST From: Warren Brewer Subject: Intro lx for a Chinese clientele 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 16:02:23 +0100 From: tovena lucia Subject: polarity idioms 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 09:45:47 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Off the cuff 4) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 17:56:37 From: MI9900@pa.ealing.ac.uk Subject: request -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 11:44:32 CST From: Warren Brewer Subject: Intro lx for a Chinese clientele RE: Introduction to linguistics for Chinese students For five years, I have been looking for the best way to teach introductory linguistics to Chinese students in Taiwan, who are second- or third-year English majors, most of whom will get jobs in trading companies or as primary and secondary school teachers. The problem with texts on the market is one of relevance; the most widely used texts here are completely grounded in a Western cultural milieu and are consequently unintelligible to my students in great part; naturally, everything here must be related to Chinese to have effect. Several years ago, I tried a text (in English) from the Mainland, on the notion that it was a primer written by Chinese for Chinese students; but it was way too abstract, closely toeing the fashionably American formalist line, with which I lose patience anyway. If anyone has any suggestions for a two-semester intro lx course, geared to a Chinese clientele, several colleagues here and I would be eternally grateful, hopefully before we embark on solving the problem ourselves. In the interim, I have settled on Crystal's encyclopedia, because of its comprehensiveness, lack of ideological axe-grinding, and clarity: it seems as if for the first time my EFL students can understand what a linguist is trying to write. [A State-side correspondent tells me there's a 1991 paperback, which should make students happier.] Mike Darnell's mentioning [LINGUIST Vol-3-210] of his colleague's using the same approach indicates a glimmer of hope for some sanity in the field. Warren A. Brewer Tamsui, Taiwan e-mail: bae01@twntku10.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 16:02:23 +0100 From: tovena lucia Subject: polarity idioms I am looking for bibliography on idiomatic polarity sensitive expressions. Please send references directly to: lucia@divsun.unige.ch -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 09:45:47 EDT From: maxwell@jaars.sil.org Subject: Off the cuff Something struck me as I read Johanna Rubba's recent posting: >...a few off the cuff observations... What kind of a thing is "off the cuff"? An adjective? If so, it is certainly an example of an idiom whose part of speech does not match its head. Are there more examples of such idioms? Off hand, I can't think of any, e.g. I can't say "*An out to lunch man" or a "down in the boondocks boy." ******************************************************** Mike Maxwell Phone: (704) 843-6369 JAARS Internet:maxwell@jaars.sil.org Box 248 Waxhaw, NC 28173 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 17:56:37 From: MI9900@pa.ealing.ac.uk Subject: request I am now collecting EST materials for a reading corpus in my research project called "CARP" (a computer reading program). I would like to get in touch with people who are doing similar researches in CALL and we can then exchange our opinions, with particular emphasis on the critera of material production. Hope to hear from you soon. Zhang -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-237. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-238. Wed 11 Mar 1992. Lines: 230 Subject: 3.238 Parsing, Selectional Restrictions Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:51:47 PST From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.223 Parsing Problems 2) Date: 7 Mar 92 1:40 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Parsing 3) Date: Sun, 8 Mar 92 12:08:16 -0600 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: 3.229 Selectional Restrictions -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:51:47 PST From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.223 Parsing Problems Mike Maxwell wrote: > A few years ago, I developed a grammar of English for a > parsing program written by Phil Harrison at Boeing > Computer Services. After reading the above, I thought > it would be fun to see if "my" grammar parsed the > sentence ambigously. Phil tried it out, and behold, > there is also a third parse... > which can be paraphrased as "the player who was kicked > the ball that was kicked to him." (Both Ss are reduced > relatives.) Right. The Boeing parser (nicknamed the "Sapir Parser" now) produces a total of 8 parses for the word sequence. Here they are: [The player kicked the ball] kicked him. ...subject... [The player] kicked [the ball kicked him]. ...object... [The player kicked] the ball kicked him *gap*. ('kicked' = passive verb in ...topicalized NP... reduced relative) [The player kicked] the ball kicked him *gap*. ('kicked' = participial adj ...topicalized NP... in reduced relative) The player kicked [the ball kicked] him. ('kicked' = passive verb...) ...object... The player kicked [the ball kicked] him. ('kicked' = participial ...object... adj...) The player kicked the ball kicked him (Mike's NP mentioned above) [The player kicked] the ball kicked him (meaning roughly "the player kicked which the ball kicked him" > I should mention that Phil had to add a > subcategorization for this passive to the lexical entry > for "kick" before the sentence would parse. Right. But it would have been easier for him to type in the sentence: The man sent the man sent him. This string has the same number of parses, but all the ambiguities are semantically felicitous. The problem with the original sentence was that it is semantically anomalous to have balls doing the kicking. Nevertheless, you want your syntactic parser to see all the possibilities in case it encounters "the man sent..." type of situation. Some people may have trouble getting the distinction between postmodifier 'sent' as an adjective and as a verb. It makes more sense if you take a participle like 'joined', where the semantic distinction between the verb and adjective readings is more salient. I do not claim that these are all the possible parses, only the ones that our system has been programmed to generate. -Rick Wojcik (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 7 Mar 92 1:40 From: Carl Alphonce Subject: Parsing A number of comments and questions regarding the parsing of The player kicked the ball kicked him. Regarding the five possible parses of green@boas.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Georgia Green): I can only get 3 of the 5 parses you claim are valid - can you explain the others? Your parses are: (1) [ the player [ (who) kicked the ball ] ] kicked him At least in my dialect, it is impossible in this case (where relativization is from subject position) to leave out the "who" or "that" - and I believe this is generally the case (please correct me if I am wrong): (a) [ the rat [ that the cat bit ] ] died (a') [ the rat [ the cat bit ] ] died (b) [ the rat [ that bit the cat ] ] died (b') * [the rat [ bit the cat ] ] died (2) [ the player [ (who was) kicked the ball ] ] kicked him Fine. (3) the player kicked [ the ball [ (that was) kicked (to) him ] ] Fine. (4) the player kicked [ the ball [ (that) kicked him ] ] Same comments as for (1). (5) the player complained that the ball kicked him At the risk of making my ignorance public (if it isn't already :-) I must admit that I had to look up "kick" in the dictionary to understand this meaning of the sentence. In an (older) one I found this meaning: "to show opposition, resentment, or discontent" (from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1971) Vicki Fromkin in 3.212 also suggested this as a possible parse: The player kicked the ball kicked him. The player kicked (complained) (that) the ball kicked him. I have never heard "kick" empoyed this way - is it perhaps not very widely used these days? Regarding the meaning of "garden path" from <00HFSTAHLKE@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU> (Herb Stahlke): It could very well be that the term has "undergone a semantic shift". I have always understood it to refer to structures which, although perfectly grammatical, have a structure which "fools" one into pursuing a straightforward analysis which turns out to be incorrect - leading one down a garden path . . . I must admit I have never heard of it being applied to island violation structures - but then there's a lot I haven't heard of :-) Can anyone enlighten us? Regarding the third possible parse from maxwell@jaars.sil.org: Sounds good to me! I guess I was subconsciously thinking that it had to be a sentence rather than just an NP. Carl Alphonce (alphonce@cs.ubc.ca) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sun, 8 Mar 92 12:08:16 -0600 From: "Larry G. Hutchinson" Subject: Re: 3.229 Selectional Restrictions The principal goal seems to be to get a generative grammar, of whatever stripe, to generate only sentences a speaker MIGHT actually use. Many generativists have rejected this goal, after initial flirtations with it some years ago. On the one hand, this rejection seems reasonable, since so much rests on what beliefs various speakers have about the world, rather than about language. On the other hand, languages do have ways of encoding these beliefs formally, and a grammar has to say SOMETHING about this. The trick is to specify the mechanisms and how they encode nonlinguistic beliefs, without enumerating these beliefs. This can be done pretty easily, making a grammar "portable" from one speaker to another, from one knowledge system or belief system to another. I first proposed "grammatical implicationals" back in the mid 1970's to do precisely this, in fact. Disregarding niceties of formulation, such implications take the form "If you believe X, do Y" Examples: 1) If you believe the head denotes human-like objects, use "who" as the relative pronoun. The apparent oddity of such NP's as "the train who arrived late" comes from the fact that it commits a speaker who has this grammatical belief about English to the belief that trains are human-like, a belief most of us don't appear to share. It would be a hideous mistake to assume that the only way to get 1) into a grammar also requires marking the word "train" in the lexicon as [+Human]. 2) A number of African languages show "notional concord"; anaphors and concords are taken from a set of forms indicating animacy when the controlling referring expression, whatever its grammatical gender, is believed to denote an animate object. This is a grammatical fact. But there are mismatches between European and African belief-systems, so what actually gets SAID will vary. For instance, Temnes believe a certain kind of tree is animate (capable of casting spells and the like). This is an anthropological fact. Temnes use animate concords in this case, which the grammar predicts when coupled with the belief-system of a Temne speaker. Europeans speaking Temne use regular gender-contolled concords in this case, though, as the vary same grammar predicts when coupled with their belief- system. The grammars do not differ at all, and it is most expressly NOT the case that a grammar of Temne has to try to specify for every referring expression (an infinitude, by the way) whether its denotation is believed by (some, all, most?) speakers possesses the nonlinguistic property of animacy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-238. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-239. Wed 11 Mar 1992. Lines: 215 Subject: 3.239 Natural Language, E-Prime, Rules Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 14:43:21 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 10:50:08 MET From: powers@kub.nl (David Powers, ITK Visiting Fellow) Subject: E(nglish)-Prime 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 20:12:59 -0600 From: onghiok@ling.nthu.edu.tw (H.Samual Wang (035)715131-4398) Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules 4) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 21:26 EST From: FASOLD@guvax.georgetown.edu Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules 5) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 11:57 CDT From: Subject: the psychological reality of rules 6) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 18:09:19 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 14:43:21 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.214 Responses: Imperatives, Aphasia, Natural Language A little more about the term 'natural language'. My personal recollection is that I first ran across it in the context of studying logic, the idea being to contrast an 'invented' language like predicate calculus, which comes with a completely specified and explicit syntax and semantics, with the kinds of languages that people acquire natively. From somewhere I recall someone defining natural languages as those which humans acquire as part of the normal socialization process; by this de- finition pidgins are not NL's but Esperanto is given that there are now native speakers of the language. The term 'human language' doesn't really equate to 'natural language' since predicate calculus is a human language whereas one might argue that computer languages are not. True, humans are called upon to use these languages when they write programs, but this is expressly for purposes of communicating with nonhumans, not other humans. Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 10:50:08 MET From: powers@kub.nl (David Powers, ITK Visiting Fellow) Subject: E(nglish)-Prime [In the message entitled "3.211 Linguistics in the Popular Press", GA5123@SIUCVMB.bitnet writes > which seems to have been lost (or I missed it for some other reason) > I pointed out that National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" > recently interviewed a fluent speaker of E-Prime, the be-less English. > He made two interesting points: (1) that in his opinion the necessity > to find alternatives to constructions with "be" forced him into clearer > and more honest expression; and (2) that most people don't notice that he > is speaking a "different" language until it is pointed out to them. > ^^ ^^ > As I listened to the interview, I found the second assertion quite credible. > He also mentioned a book on E-Prime, produced by the International Society > for General Semantics, entitled "To Be or Not". > > > The International Society for General Semantics is at > P. O. Box 728 > Concord, CA 94522 U.S.A. > (510) 798-0311 > The Polish-American linguist who founded General Semantics is ^^ > Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950). > ---------------- > Lee Hartman ga5123 @ siucvmb.bitnet -- End of excerpt from The Linguist List ] As far as I can see, Lee himself used precisely four (unquoted) instances of "be" - I don't know to what extent that was influenced by his subject matter, but by and large it supports the second contention raised above. However a complete absence of "be" will require elimination of whole families of tenses (and aspects and modes and voices) which hardly seems to support the claim of additional precision in the first contention quoted. The only instances of Lee's usage of copular constructions are in his postscript with their concise information disseminations. The participular constructions earlier seem particularly difficult to transform away though. I'd be interested to see a long unconstrained passage in E-prime. Speaking it fluently may well be comparable to the work involved in achieving fluency in a foreign language. But I would hazard that it leaves a language which is not "natural" in the sense that it omits universal features and lacks efficiency in these areas as a result. I wonder how stable it would be (in a community - how fast would it redevelop the missing aspects). Thanks for the stimulation. dP -- Dr David M. W. Powers Email: powers@kub.nl Visiting Fellow, SHOE E xtraction ITK, Tilburg University, Tel: +31-13 663116 O f P.O. Box 90153 Fax: +31-13 663019 H ierarchical 5000 LE TILBURG Sec: +31-13 663060 S tructure SHOE is an international project in Machine Learning of Natural Language -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 20:12:59 -0600 From: onghiok@ling.nthu.edu.tw (H.Samual Wang (035)715131-4398) Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules In response to Jon Aske's comment on the reality of rules, I recently presented a paper in Bankok (Pan-Asiatic Linguistics) where I demonstrated that the tone sandhi phenomenon in Taiwanese, though completely regular phonologically (though there are some irregularities in the phonosyntactic aspects), is anything but rule-like. Sam Wang onghiok@ling.nthu.edu.tw -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 21:26 EST From: FASOLD@guvax.georgetown.edu Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules Is psychological reality the only reality to be contemplated? I think it is entirely possible that linguistic grammars might be much more elegant than whatever goes on in human brains when people talk to each other. Ralph Fasold -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 11:57 CDT From: Subject: the psychological reality of rules RE: J. Aske's interesting comments, do we not refer to the fact that, though we would say "colors" in English as the plural of color, and "colores" in Spanish as the plural or color, what is operational is our "unconscious grammar?" And is not the purpose of certain new methods of second language teaching, at least in part, to foster an "unconscious grammar" rather than one to which we have to refer, consciously? J.C. Maloney -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 18:09:19 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules Those interested in this issue should note that this year's UWM linguistics symposium is devoted to precisely the question at hand. The issue raised by Alexis Manaster-Ramer in his recent posting on this question is partly addressed in an article by Steven Pinker that appeared in Science several issues ago. Joe Stemberger also has an interest in this question, if I'm not mistaken. Charles Laughlin's posting reminds me of an interesting symposium I attended some years ago at the Minnesota Center for Research in Learning, Perception and Cognition on musical perception. I went partly because I'm interested in music but also partly because I wanted to see if the same kinds of issues that obsess us linguists would arise in that context. Damned if they didn't. Here's one for instance: A speaker whose name I now forget who is by profession an engineer for 3M but whose hobby is barbershop quartet singing did an analysis of the way in which top quality b.q.'s approach temperament -- that is, the slight deviations from true pitch that are sometimes necessary in order to keep the sound from being too bland. He determined that the system in use by all the best groups was one called Equal Beating, an obscure one which he found described in a musico- logical journal and which the author of the article had presented as only a theoretical possibility. At the conclusion of the talk, someone from the audience got up and said 'I don't hold with all this numerological nonsense. Those guys don't know that that's what they're doing.' To which the speaker replied 'I agree with you. They don't know that that's what they're doing. But it IS what they're doing.' I'm still thinking about that one. Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-239. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-240. Wed 11 Mar 1992. Lines: 161 Subject: 3.240 French Eggs, Idioms Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 16:21 EST From: "NAME MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@LUCY.WELLESLEY.EDU) GRIMAUD" Subject: Re: 3.219 Queries: Russian, Vocabulary, Eggs 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 10:37:37 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: French 'eggs' after numerals 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 19:19:41 PST From: israel@bend.UCSD.EDU (Michael Israel) Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST 4) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 16:39:36 EST From: mark Subject: Off the cuff -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 16:21 EST From: "NAME MICHEL (MGRIMAUD@LUCY.WELLESLEY.EDU) GRIMAUD" Subject: Re: 3.219 Queries: Russian, Vocabulary, Eggs FRENCH OEUFS In certain registers (and perhaps?) regions "des_oeufs" (with liaison and [f] pronounced) is not unusual, as in "tu veux des oeufs" which sounds right to me as having been heard in the Midi (Toulon and Marseille) in the 1950-60. In 1985-86, I lived again in France. At that that there was a egg crisis and the government named an "Egg Czar" a "M. Oeufs" which was thus written in _Le Monde_. ("Monsieur Drogue" would mean Drug Czar; this is a productive phrase in France; see my article "Les appellatifs dans le discours" in _Le francais moderne_, 57, 1989) However, on TV, this was pronounced "M. Oeufs" and did *NOT* rhyme with "eux" or "euh" but rhymed "incorrectly" with "veufs" [-f]. Why? In this particular case Monsieur ["eu"] Oeufs ["eu"] is an un- euphonious internal rhyme and is semantically unclear. "Oeufs" with the [f] is semantically clear. Conclusion? -- See if "boeuf"/"boeufs" alternates in a similar way. In my speech it does if I think of myself as speaking in a very "relaxed" register. --See if this is age related (children); regional... --Etc. But "oeuFs" is definitely part of my dialect and has the same status as the "forbidden" liaison "des_haricots" or the feminine "une 'elastique" for "un": I used to say it but as a teacher avoid it as un-standard. Michel Grimaud Dept of French Wellesley College -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1992 10:37:37 +0100 From: Dominique Estival Subject: French 'eggs' after numerals It definitely is [katroe] for me. Whether the preceding word ends in [z] or not is irrelevant. Dominique Estival -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 19:19:41 PST From: israel@bend.UCSD.EDU (Michael Israel) Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST Mike Maxwell is puzzled by the expression "off the cuff""-- an idiomatic prepositional phrase that appears to act like an adjective and can appear prenominally. Seems to me these are not so terribly rare. The following all seem fairly good to me: "an out of the way place" "the out of order photocopier" "an above board business" "Under the counter dealings" "an off hand remark" "an out to lunch dude" Mike actually specifically claims he can't get this last one, but I think it is at least marginally acceptable. And if I try a little bit, I can even imagine myself calling something "a real out of the frying pan into the fire kind of a plan" Although that does require some effort. It should not be surprising that such conventionalized idiomatic PP's can sometimes be reanalyzed as adjectives since PP's function semantically (often anyway) as one place predicates modifying nouns. The only thing that changes in the reanalysis is where you're allowed to put them. The question, of course, remains: why can some idiomatic PP's prepose, while others can't? I don't know and I'm not sure there is any real answer but I think it might be worth noting that, as far as I can tell, all the examples that are good involve originally spatial prepositions that have been bleached of their original spatial senses. An expression like "above board" has (or had) some locative significance which has been lost in the conventional usage; on the other hand, an expression like "in trouble", which doesn't prepose is always metaphorical (a boy in trouble is not in any particular place under any interpretation). This may of course be totally wrong, since it is after all, quite off the cuff. Michael Israel -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 16:39:36 EST From: mark Subject: Off the cuff In formal punctuation i would require hyphens in this phrase when it's used attributively ("an off-the-cuff remark"), as opposed to predicatively ("My remarks tonight will be off the cuff"). That applies to any phrase used attributively. Now that that's out of the way: an under-the-table payment We had to pay under the table. over-the-counter stocks/medicines These stocks/medicines are sold over the counter. an out-of-town guest We have a couple of people coming from out of town. an out-of-the-way location ?That village is way out of the way. In the last pair I find the predicative construction somewhat less acceptable -- obsolescent? Mark A. Mandel Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-240. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-241. Wed 11 Mar 1992. Lines: 91 Subject: 3.241 Linguistics In The Press Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Mar 92 21:01:59 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Re: 3.230 Linguistics in the Popular Press 2) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 92 14:53:24 EST From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 3.230 Linguistics in the Popular Press 3) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 19:13:19 CST From: DBEDELL3@UA1VM.bitnet Subject: Linguists in the news -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 8 Mar 92 21:01:59 PST From: rubba@bend.UCSD.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Subject: Re: 3.230 Linguistics in the Popular Press I'd like to respond to Michael Kac's response to my posting on ling. in the popular press. Two points: (a) It's very true that linguistics gets into an educated person's education far less frequently than other sciences; this is a problem of not yet succeeding ingetting linguistics and anthro topics into elementary and high school curricula, something it would probably be worth our while to campaign for somehow or other, although the prospects for doing so might be dim. There are some people working on this, right? I seem to recall seeing something to this effect associated with Geoff Nunberg's name. As to the invalid comparison of journalists with ling 101 students, I get the point, of course, but I also insist that it isn't _that_ hard to explain linguistics to people, even in a one-time telephone interview with a journalist. In my experience, I have been able to convey some pretty arcane points to lay folk, and also to convey the point that a lot of arcane linguistics would require a few years of coursework to understand. I mean, I sat down with my journalist friend and went over that grammar gene piece, and I think, with about a half hour of talk, I was able to 'translate' what I thought the article meant into something he could understand better than what he got out of the original, and something that sounded a little less far-fetched (I agree with Joe Stemberger that it probably is premature to link any aspect of language to a single gene, but that's not a very informed opinion -- I haven't read the research the article was about, and don't know much about genetically transmitted language deficits). In his novel "Cat's Cradle" Kurt Vonnegut had a line that went something like 'any scientist who can't explain what s/he is doing to an eight year-old is a charlatan.' While that clearly is an overstatement, there's a grain of truth in it, and I have long been inspired by the line. Jo Rubba, UC San Diego -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 92 14:53:24 EST From: Geoffrey Russom Subject: Re: 3.230 Linguistics in the Popular Press It was the **March** SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN that had the profile slamming those of us who are skeptical about deep reconstruction. Sorry I misread the month, and apologies for any confusion. Guess the smoke coming out my ears got in my eyes. -- Rick -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 19:13:19 CST From: DBEDELL3@UA1VM.bitnet Subject: Linguists in the news Another linguist goes public. Note that Klingon typology is OVS--do any human languages follow that order? --D. Bedell, U. of Alabama ======================================================================== Down-to-Earth Philologist creates a far-out language for 'Star Trek' -------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-241. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-242. Wed 11 Mar 1992. Lines: 67 Subject: 3.242 Bolinger; Thanks Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 17:25 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.200 Tributes to Dwight Bolinger 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:01:34 -0500 From: ljd@world.std.com (Larry Davidson) Subject: cowabunga -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 17:25 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.200 Tributes to Dwight Bolinger It saddened me very much to hear of Dwight's passing. I didn't know him very well, but I was very impressed with the seemingly inexhaustable supply of knowledge he had at his fingertips. For example, at the Stanford Child Language Conference in 1984 I gave a paper about the acquisition of "even though" subordinate clauses. As a side comment, I noted that the form "although" is acquired even later, and seems to have a slightly different meaning, implication, whatever... Dwight was in the audience. He came up to me after the paper and told me of a paper written in 1948 for publication but never actually published about that very subject. Later he sent me a copy. If I remember correctly it was by Bloch (I can check, but I'm responding to this topic without preparation -- and I clearly don't have a memory anywhere near as impressive as Bolinger's). Those of you who knew Bolinger well can say with authority what kind of person we have lost. I can't say that, but based on my limited experience I realise we lost a lot. More than we'll probably ever realise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 92 15:01:34 -0500 From: ljd@world.std.com (Larry Davidson) Subject: cowabunga I am grateful to all eleven of you who replied to my query about "cowabunga". Thank you. The clear consensus was that it originated on the Howdy Doody Show, though few cared to speculate on why that particular sequence of phonemes was picked. --Larry __________________________________________________________________ Larry Davidson Learning Strategies 955 Massachusetts Ave Suite 182 Internet: ljd@world.std.com Cambridge MA 02139 (617) 825-4684 __________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-242. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-243. Thu 12 Mar 1992. Lines: 99 Subject: 3.243 FYI: _EJournal_ , FTP Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1992 11:59:00 EST From: EJOURNAL%ALBNYVMS.BITNET@acadvm1.uottawa.ca Subject: _EJournal_ 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 09:00 CDT From: Timothy Montler Subject: Re: IPA font -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1992 11:59:00 EST From: EJOURNAL%ALBNYVMS.BITNET@acadvm1.uottawa.ca Subject: _EJournal_ Announcing an Electronic Journal March 1992 _EJournal_ is a peer-reviewed, all-electronic, network distributed, serial publication. We are particularly interested in theory and practice surrounding the creation, transmission, storage, interpretation, alteration and replication of electronic "text," broadly defined. We are also interested in the social, psychological, literary, economic, pedagogical, philosophical and other ramifications of computer-mediated networks. Our review process is anonymous, all-electronic, and consensual. We prefer brief, authentic, lively essays to exhaustive technical reports. Single-essay issues appear as often as submissions are affirmatively reviewed; there were four (free) distributions to subscribers in 1991. There are two dozen consulting editors, in several disciplines, who review submissions. Members of _EJournal_'s advisory board are: Stevan Harnad, Princeton University Dick Lanham, University of California at Los Angeles Ann Okerson, Association of Research Libraries Joe Raben, City University of New York Bob Scholes, Brown University Harry Whitaker, University of Quebec at Montreal To subscribe to _EJournal_, send a mail message to listserv@albnyvm1.bitnet containing as its only line the command: subscribe ejrnl your_first_name your_last_name Information about getting back issues will accompany the "Welcome" message sent to people who subscribe. Please send submissions for editorial consideration to our "office" at: ejournal@albnyvms.bitnet Ted Jennings, Editor, Department of English, University at Albany/SUNY -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 09:00 CDT From: Timothy Montler Subject: Re: IPA font Anyone who has tried to implement the IPA fonts available by anonymous ftp from lth.se might be interested in the following message sent to me by Timothy Montler (who created the fonts): ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I'm having trouble with the IPA font files which I obtained through >FTP from lth.se. I transfered the files and put them on a hard drive, >but when I tried to unpack them I couldn't. For example, with the file >FONTS.EXE, when I entered "fonts" I got the message "Cannot execute." >This was on a hard drive with 9,998,000 bytes free. On another machine >with 55,275,000 bytes free I got the message "Memory allocation error." >Can you help me find the problem? (--D. Bedell) Please send a message to the person responsible for that ftp site and tell them to remove the damaged files. I know nothing about that site. I don't know who posted the fonts or what version of the fonts they might be. If you want the latest version you can send me a SAS disk mailer and a disk. I'll put the fonts and drivers on it and mail it back. They are temporarily available by anonymous ftp to vaxb.acs.unt.edu in the TMP directory in the file FONTS.ZIP. Please let me know if you do ftp them. (--T. Montler) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-243. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-244. Thu 12 Mar 1992. Lines: 124 Subject: 3.244 Queries: China, Pro-Drop, Reviewer Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 22:45:45 CST From: DBEDELL3@UA1VM.bitnet Subject: fieldwork in Guizhou, China 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 14:20:47 UTC+2 From: tony@FRPERP51.bitnet Subject: e-mail address wanted 3) Date: 11 Mar 92 18:45 +0100 From: Carsten Guenther Subject: address from D.Robert Ladd? 4) Date: 11 Mar 92 16:26:13 EST From: Christopher.D.Sciglitano@Dartmouth.EDU Subject: Query: Null subject 5) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 19:03 CST From: e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu (Anthony Aristar) Subject: Reviewer Needed -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 22:45:45 CST From: DBEDELL3@UA1VM.bitnet Subject: fieldwork in Guizhou, China Does anyone know about linguistic research on minority languages in Guizhou Province, China? I've been told that a group of foreign linguists is currently doing fieldwork there on Miao or other languages. I would appreciate any info about this or other similar projects in China. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 14:20:47 UTC+2 From: tony@FRPERP51.bitnet Subject: e-mail address wanted I am anxious to contact Douglas Biber. He doesn't appear to be on the Linguist list. Does anyone have an e-mail address? If so could you send it direct to me at the address below. Thanks, Tony Jappy tony@frperp51 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: 11 Mar 92 18:45 +0100 From: Carsten Guenther Subject: address from D.Robert Ladd? I'm looking for the e-mail address from D.Robert Ladd. Can anyone help me? Thanks Carsten Guenther ================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4) Date: 11 Mar 92 16:26:13 EST From: Christopher.D.Sciglitano@Dartmouth.EDU Subject: Query: Null subject I am looking for information on input to and output of children learning so-called null subject or pro-drop languages (languages such as Italian and Japanese that do not require overt subjects in tensed clauses). Specifically, I am interested in learning the following: 1) What is the percentage of sentences without subjects that a child learning a null subject language hears? What about children learning non-pro-drop languages? 2) What percentage of sentences produced by such children do not have subjects? Information about these questions in relation to any language will be welcome. (I know of only two papers that address these concerns, both of which deal almost exclusively with output rather than input: Valian's 1991 paper in Cognition and Mazuka, Lust, Wakayama and Snyder's 1986 piece in Papers and Reports on Child Language Development). Please send references directly to: scig@dartmouth.edu Thanks very much, Chris Sciglitano -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 19:03 CST From: e311aa@tamuts.tamu.edu (Anthony Aristar) Subject: Reviewer Needed I have a friend who edits a journal of classical and medieval literature, Allegorica. He's received a book for review, one which deals with translation and Relevance Theory. Is there anyone on the list who might be kind enough to review this book for him? Please reply directly to me. My thanks! Anthony Aristar -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-244. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-245. Thu 12 Mar 1992. Lines: 63 Subject: 3.245 Intro. Texts Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 18:19 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 17:56:25 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 18:19 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST re. Intro Lx for Chinese students. A couple of years ago Fromkin & Rodman was translated into Chinese and published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I do not have a copy however but the two linguists who did the translation planned I know to put it in a context which could be understood by Chinese students. The translators were Chen Ping (PhD from UCLA) and Shen. Wish I could tell you more. Also wish I had a copy. Not sure any of this will help but .... Vicki Fromkin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 92 17:56:25 -0600 From: "Michael Kac" Subject: Re: 3.237 Queries: Intro. Lx, Polarity, Idioms, EST To Mike Maxwell: To compound the mystery, *off the wall* DOES appear to be usable prenominally (unlike *off the cuff*): so e.g. *That was a to- tally off the wall statement* seems fine. Why? I dunno. Warren Brewer's query about a suitable text for his introductory course in Taiwan, and comparable queries that come in to LINGUIST with some frequency, puzzle me a little. Most of us have the technological wherewithal to dis- pense with conventional textbooks altogether. We can write up our lecture notes on our word processors, make high quality hard copy thereof and repro- duce them cheaply via Kinko's and other copy services. Granted, it may take some initial work to do the writeup but once you've done it you've got (a) a text tailored exactly to what you're going to teach; (b) something you can easily update and modify; and (c) a text that will cost your students a fraction of what they'd have to pay for a book from a publisher. For this reason, I've essentially stopped using textbooks for low-level classes. Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-245. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-246. Mon 16 Mar 1992. Lines: 151 Subject: 3.246 Pro-Drop Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 16:17:36 +0100 From: nuyts@ccu.UIA.AC.BE Subject: Pro-Drop references 2) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1992 10:12:15 GMT From: MCCONVELL_P@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU Subject: Pro-Drop acquisition -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 16:17:36 +0100 From: nuyts@ccu.UIA.AC.BE Subject: Pro-Drop References Some time ago I asked for references on the use of pronouns in pro-drop languages, on behalf of a colleague of mine. Below is a list of references she compiled on the basis of your responses (some of them are unfortunately incomplete). Thanks a lot to all those who have replied. If you want to get in touch with her (her name is Luisa Martin-Rojo), her email-address is luisa@ccuam3.sdi.uam.es. Jan Nuyts ************************************************************************ Akmajian, Adrian, 1984. "Sentence Types and the Form-Function Fit". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 2, 1-23. Barton, Elena, 1990. Nonsentential Constituents, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bentivoglio, Paoloa, 1983. "Topic continuity and Discontinuity in Discourse: A Study of Spoken Latino-American Spanish". T.Givon, Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross- Language Study. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 255-311. Fern ndez Soriano, Olga, 199?. "Strong Pronouns in Null-Subject Language and the Avoid Pronoun Principle" Fleischman, Suzanne, 1991. "Discourse Pragmatics and the Grammar of Old French: A functional Reinterpretation of 'si' and the Personal Pronouns". Romance Philology 44/3, 251-283. Haiman, John, 1991. "From V/2 to Subject Clitics: Evidence from Nothern Italian". E. Traugott & B. Heine, Approaches to Grammaticalization, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Lapolla, Randy, 1990. Grammatical relations in Chinese: Synchronic and Diachronic considerations. PhD Dissertation, University of California: Berkeley. Li, Charles N, & Thompson, Sandra, 1979. "Third-person Pronouns and Zero-anaphora in Chinese Discourse". Talmy Giv"n (ed.), Syntax and Semantics, vol.12: Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 311-335. Liceras, Juana, 1989. "On some properties of the "pro-drop" parameter: looking for missing subjects in non-native Spanish". Linguistic perspectives on Language adquisition, Cambridge University Press. Napoli, Jo, 1982. "Initial Material Delection". English Glossa 16, 85-111. Ping, Chen, 1984. "A discourse analysis of third person zero anaphora in chinese". Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistic Club. -, 1987. Referent Introducing and Referent Tracking in Chinese narrative. PhD Dissertation: UCLA. -, 1987. Nangu Lingxing huizhi de huayu fenxi (A discourse anylisis of zero anaphora in CHinese). Zhongguo Yuwen 5, 363-378. Rigau, Gemma, 1986. "Some remarks on the nature of strong pronouns in null-subjects languages". Ivonne Bordelois, Heles Contreras, Zagona (eds.), Generative Studies in Spanish Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. -, 1987. "Sobre el car cter de cuantificador de los pronombres t"nicos en catal n". V. Demonte and M., Fern ndez Lagunilla, Sintaxis de las lenguas romances. Madrid: El Arquero. -, 1989. "Connexity Establised by Emphatic Pronouns". Maria Elisabeth Conte, Janos S. Petfi, Szen (eds.), Text and Discourse Connected. Schwarts, Arthur, 1975. "Verb-anchoring and verb-movement". Li, Charles N (ed.), Word order and word order change. Austin: University of Texas. Schmerling, Susan, 1973. Subjectless sentences and the notion of surface structure. (ref:cotelinc.cis.upenn.edu.) Silva-Croval n, Carmen, 1983. "Tense and aspect in oral Spanish: context and meaning". Language 59, 761-780. Tao, Liang, 1986. "Clause linkage and zero anphora in Mandarin Chinese", Davis Working Papers in Linguistcs 1, 36-102. Thrasher, Randolph, Hallet, 19784. Shouldn't Ignore this Things: A Study of Conversational Delection. Michigan University. microfilm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1992 10:12:15 GMT From: MCCONVELL_P@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU Subject: Pro-Drop acquisition I have no specific references to supply to Chris Sciglitano, who is investigating input to children learning pro-Drop languages. I would like to raise a related query, which contributors may wish to discuss on Linguist, or about which they could send me references directly. I work on Australian Aboriginal languages, many of which (particularly the non-Pama-Nyungan ones) have complex verb morphology including reference to subject, objects and often other arguments; independent subject and object pronouns are rarely overtly present except for emphasis. It has been reported to me anecdotally that speakers of at least some of these languages use a simplified register to young children in which the verb morphology is simplified and independent pronouns are used much more. I do not know of any published description of this phenomenon. I have been unable to study it because with all such languages that I have worked on, use of an English based creole has replaced any such child register. This kind of language is very common on a world scale and I would be very interested to learn of related phenomena. It seems to me that this has implications for theories of historical change. There seems to me to be a bias towards regarding cliticisation and morphologisation of pronouns as a natural phenomenon. I have studied some cases where the opposite process seems to have occurred - loss of crossreference morphology and restoration of free pronouns. This may result from "creolisation" - implying some disturbace in inter-generational transmission. However if simple child registers exist, the source of the new non-Pro-Drop language may not be so mysterious as is sometimes implied. Patrick McConvell, Anthropology, Northern Territory University, PO Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811, Australia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-246. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-247. Mon 16 Mar 1992. Lines: 157 Subject: 3.247 V and V Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 11:22:05 EST From: larry Subject: Re: 3.228 V and V 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 08:43 EST From: MORGAN@LOYOLA.EDU Subject: Re: 3.232 V and V 3) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 12:04:26 EST From: cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan) Subject: Re: Root hog or die 4) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 03:53 EET From: Martti Arnold Nyman Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 92 11:22:05 EST From: larry Subject: Re: 3.228 V and V In response to the discussion on "Laugh and the world laughs with you" and other instances of apparent imperative + declarative coordination: Those interested in this construction will soon have the opportunity to read a paper on the topic which was just accepted for publication in Linguistics & Philosophy, "Relevance and 'Pseudo-Imperatives'" by Billy Clark of the U. of London. Clark presents a Relevance-theory (as in Sperber & Wilson) account of these as involving a grammatical and semantic imperative in the first clause, with the utterance interpretation (variously involving threats or warnings, promises or guarantees, or neither) provided by Relevance theory. An historical perspective: the suggested treatments of these as involving disguised conditionals was always most convincingly supported (at least to my mind) by the distribution of negative polarity items in the first conjunct that are not found in corresponding simple imperatives: Eat any of that fugu fish and you're dead. (*Eat any of that fugu fish) (OK: If you eat any of that fugu fish...) Of course, these NPIs only occur felicitously in threat/warning type pseudo- imperatives: Budge an inch and you'll be sorry/you'll regret it/you'll lose #you'll be happy/#you'll win But the same distinctions hold in the antecedent of conditionals (those facts were first noted by Robin Lakoff in her 1969 Language article on "why there can't be any some-any rule", which does not however discuss pseudo-imperatives), which supports the idea that such sentences are indeed disguised conditionals. Larry Horn -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 08:43 EST From: MORGAN@LOYOLA.EDU Subject: Re: 3.232 V and V I was interested to note some French examples in the latest discussion of "imperative-or-not", and also the "gnomic" category suggested for some of the examples in English. I have another example to propose for the gnomic category, which I think cannot be classified as an imperative, since one presumably cannot order someone to love them- Aime moi, aime mon chien. usually given as a proverb, meaning something like take me as I am, accept my prejudices, family, etc. Here the sentence seems to be a type of conditional? Leslie Morgan (Loyola in Md.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 12:04:26 EST From: cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan) Subject: Re: Root hog or die Mark Mandel writes: > (And how do we parse "Root hog or die"? Is "hog" vocative, with > the surrounding commas/pauses deleted?) Apparently this phrase has been the subject of a long-running dispute. The alternative view is that "hog" is imperative, in the sense "act like a hog, eat up everything in sight." In any case, commas would normally be required by English orthography, but there is much usage for weakened punctuation (semicolon -> comma, comma -> zero) when the connectands are short: "I came, I saw, I conquered" would be intolerable as "*I came; I saw; I conquered". -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 03:53 EET From: Martti Arnold Nyman Subject: Laugh and the world laughs with you Some fellow linguists have confessed that they fail to see the problem with sentences such as (1) Laugh and the world laughs with you. Become a formal linguist and you'll be surprised at phenomena no one else would be. :-) It's the point of view that creates the problem. Suppose compound sentences such as (1) are generated by a phrase structure rule like (2) S --> S (and S)* (where * = 0 or more). Suppose also that all conjunct S's are "underlyingly" tensed and you've got a lot to explain! Bruce Nevis's (3-214) solution in terms of subject "you" deletion is presumably intended to suggest that the first _laugh_ isn't really imperative but rather ("underlyingly") a finite form. But the data brought forward by Richard Sproat (3-232), (3) *Are fair to others and others will be fair to you, evidences against this. That the first clause (protasis) in sentence types exemplified in (1) is imperative in form is confirmed by evidence from German (Martin Haspelmath; 3-214), Portuguese (Frank Brandon; 3-228), and French (Dominique Estival; 3-232); and I can add Finnish and Swedish. (More evidence in: John Haiman: "Paratactic IF-clauses". Journal of Pragmatics 7, 1983, 263-281.) Consider the following sentences: (4) a. You laugh and the world laughs with you. b. Laugh and the world laughs with you. c. Laugh! The world laughs with you. In principle, (4a-c) could be looked upon as steps in a derivational history of a deletion analysis: subject "you" deletion in (4b); "and" deletion in (4c). But certainly this would be absurd. Martin Wynne (3-198) points out re (1) that "the meaning is not that of a normal imperative". But the same holds for (4c) as well, when taken as a discourse unit. It's the sentential cohesion, brought forth by the human mind, that gives rise to the conditional interpretation of the discourse unit (4c). The conjunction _and_ in (1=4b) is a discourse marker added for the sake of increasing coherence (see Deborah Schiffrin: Discourse Markers. Cambridge &c.: Cambridge University Press 1987). So, the basic representation of (1 = 4b) is not (4a) but rather (4c)! (When it comes to (4a), my non-native intuition is silent; I'd guess it's sort of emphatic.) Martti Nyman Department of General Linguistics University of Helsinki, Finland -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-247. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-248. Mon 16 Mar 1992. Lines: 97 Subject: 3.248 Conferences: Slavic, Epistemocritique Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 20:25:15 CET From: jazysks@savba.cs (Slovak Committee of Slavists) Subject: The 11th Int. Congress of Slavists 2) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 11:21:03 PST From: "Dana Paramskas : DanaP@CSUS.edu" Subj: EPISTEMOCRITIQUE ET COGNITION -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 20:25:15 CET From: jazysks@savba.cs (Slovak Committee of Slavists) Subject: The 11th Int. Congress of Slavists P O Z V A' N K A Dear friends, colleagues, slavists: The Slovak Committee of Slavists, which is responsible for the organization of the 11th International Congress of Slavists to be held this time in Bratislava, invites you to the traditional meeting of slavists from all over the world. We will do our best to provide optimal working conditions during the course of the Congress here in Bratislava. THE 11TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SLAVISTS will take place in Bratislava on August 30 - September 8, 1993. Arrival date: Monday, August 30, 1993 Departure date: Wednesday, September 8, 1993 We believe that you will find Bratislava a pleasant and friendly place with a rich cultural history. We sincerely encourage your participation in the 11th International Congress of Slavists in Bratislava. Please forward your response by the end of March, 1992. We will then send you additional and more detailed information. In the name of the Slovak Committee of Slavists Sincerely Yours, Jan Dorula chairman Slovak Committee of Slavists phone/fax: +42 7 57527 Klemensova 19 Internet: jazysks@savba.CS CS-81364 Bratislava, CSFR EUnet: jazysks@savba.UUCP -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 11:21:03 PST From: "Dana Paramskas : DanaP@CSUS.edu" Subj: EPISTEMOCRITIQUE ET COGNITION From: MX%"balzac-l@CC.UMontreal.CA" 10-MAR-1992 07:00:41.08 EPISTEMOCRITIQUE ET COGNITION PARIS, Services Culturels Canadiens 19-20-21 mars 1992 Le programme complet du colloque est maintenant disponible. On peut l'obtenir aupres de Claude Lamy (LAMYC@ere.umontreal.ca) ou aupres du Centre Culturel Canadien (fax: 47-05-43-55). Communications de: Fernand Hallyn, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Benoit Tadie, Pierre Ouellet, Francois Rastier, Jean-Francois Chassay, Jean Bollack, Sydney Levy, Anthony Wall, Michel Serres, Donald Bruce, Jean-Claude Guedon, David Porush, Francoise Gaillard, Walter Moser, Paul Harris, Maris Assad, Louis Kaplan, Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, William Paulson, Paisley Livingston, Sophie Marret, Ronald Shusterman, Jacques Neefs, Paul DUmouchel, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Scott Stewart, Michael Manson, Pierre Laszlo, Michel Pierssens, Judith Schlanger. Adresse: 5, rue de Constantine 7e, Mo Invalides -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-248. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-249. Mon 16 Mar 1992. Lines: 90 Subject: 3.249 A Query about the Addresses of Lists Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 12:22:07 +0000 From: HUMA1@FRCICT81.bitnet Subject: List-Addresses -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 12:22:07 +0000 From: HUMA1@FRCICT81.bitnet Subject: List-Addresses Would you help me obtain some email addresses of the following lists : - list(serv) of Translation - list(serv) of Second Language Teaching - list(serv) of Intercultural studies and I would like to have the list of all the existing listservs. Thanks in advance. Universite de Toulouse 2 Departement de Sciences du Langage Email address for your answers [Moderators' Note: Since this query is of general interest, we will point out publicly that there is a regularly updated Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences available on LISTSERV@KENTVM and via anonymous FTP from KSUVXA.KENT.EDU. The files available are: filename filetype ------------------- ACADLIST README (explanatory notes for the Directory with an index) ACADLIST FILE1 (Anthropology-Education) ACADLIST FILE2 (Futurology-Latin American Studies) ACADLIST FILE3 (Library and Information Science-Music) ACADLIST FILE4 (Political Science-Writing) ACADLIST FILE5 (biological sciences) ACADLIST FILE6 (physical sciences) ACADLIST FILE7 (business and general academia) ACADWHOL HQX (binhexed self-decompressing Macintosh M.S. Word 4.0 document of all 6 directories) ACADSOCH HQX (binhexed self-decompressing Macintosh M.S. Word 4.0 document of the Social Science and Humanities files 1-3) ACADLIST CHANGES (all the major additions, deletions and alterations) HOW TO RETRIEVE FILES FROM THIS SERVER To retrieve files via e-mail, send the message: GET to LISTSERV@KENTVM (e.g., GET ACADLIST FILE1) To retrieve files via anonymous FTP from KSUVXA.KENT.EDU you must have an Internet e-mail account on a system running the TCP/IP. Ask your computer services people about your local situation. First type: FTP KSUVXA.KENT.EDU When prompted for 'USERID' type ANONYMOUS. Your password will be your actual userid on your local machine. When you've logged on, type: cd library To get the file(s) you want, type: GET . (e.g., GET ACADLIST.FILE2) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-249. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-250. Mon 16 Mar 1992. Lines: 159 Subject: 3.250 Rules Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 11:01:33 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.239 Natural Language, E-Prime, Rules 2) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 11:08:35 GMT From: ADA612@csc1.anu.edu.au (AVERY D ANDREWS) Subject: rules 3) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 92 16:34:45 -0600 From: edding@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dave Eddington) Subject: Psychological reality 4) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 18:38:58 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Reality and rules -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 11:01:33 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.239 Natural Language, E-Prime, Rules >From: FASOLD@guvax.georgetown.edu >Subject: Re: 3.235 The Psychological Reality of Rules > > >Is psychological reality the only reality to be contemplated? I think it is >entirely possible that linguistic grammars might be much more elegant than >whatever goes on in human brains when people talk to each other. > >Ralph Fasold uh, where exactly *are* these grammars, if not in people's brains? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 11:08:35 GMT From: ADA612@csc1.anu.edu.au (AVERY D ANDREWS) Subject: rules An important point about the reality of rules that is often missed, I think, is that the regularities they systematize are actually there, and deserve some kind of explanation. Sometimes the explanation may be historical, but very often this is not a serious option, and some kind of psychological reality is the only plausible one (my favorite candidate is the Peacocke-Davies conception of `psychological reality at level 1.5). Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 92 16:34:45 -0600 From: edding@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dave Eddington) Subject: Psychological reality What exactly does it mean to say that a given analysis is 'psychologically real?' A lot can be learned by examining how linguists do linguistic analyses. When confronted with alternations in a corpus of linguistic information, a linguist attempts to account for them in the most succinct, general, and elegant way, in accordance with the constraints of the particular linguistic theory which happens to be in vogue at the moment. I believe that there is a lot to be gained from such an analysis. It provides a very explicit description of the alternations. The issue of psychological reality comes in only when, as is most often the case in contemporary linguistic analyses, it is claimed that the rules that the linguist has invented correspond in some way to the way that real speakers comprehend and produce language. Therefore, a rule is psychologically valid to the extent that it describes a process that plays a part in a speakers comprehension or production of language. Often, linguists will use circular reasoning when asked what evidence they have that their analysis is psychologically valid: A- There exists an alternation between X and Y. The alternation is regularly conditioned, therefore speakers must have captured the alternation as a rule. B- How do you know that the rule is psychologically real? A- Look at the data! The alternation is there and it's regular! The above argument is nothing more than a restatement of the following quote by Chomsky: "Challenged to show that the constructions postulated in the theory have 'psychological reality,' we can do no more than repeat the evidence and the proposed explanations that involve these constructions or . . . we can search for more conclusive evidence . . . " 1980. Rules and Representations. 191. I heartily agree that more searching needs to be done for more conclusive evidence, yet most of the work in the field continues to be based on a corpus of utterances (with occasional, methodologically unsound, probes into native speakers' judgements). The call for more conclusive evidence is often repeated, but seldom followed. A researcher who is truly interested in the psychological validity of rules, and who believes that linguistics should be a branch of cognitive psychology , should be willing to approach linguistics as cognitive psychologists approach their field, that is by following the scientific method. A wealth of literature exists which demonstrates that the majority of what is done in the name of 'empirical linguistics' is not empirical at all but rather should be categorized along with the non-empirical sciences such as formal logic (see Derwing, Botha, Linell, Itkonen, Skousen). David Eddington -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 18:38:58 GMT From: WAB2@phx.cam.ac.uk Subject: Reality and rules I should like to comment again on Jon Aske's very useful reminder of our basic need to establish the nature of linguistic rules. They could not be "real" in the sense of being open to representation in neurological terms. If that were so, then our science would be concerned with the brain and not with the mind. The "reality" of a linguistic model surely lies outside the physical. For instance, phonology will always be more central to our study than phonetics. It is no refutation of the metatheoretical value of the black box model that Charles Laughlin could regret(?) that 'there is no LAD in the brain'. If there were, we would be turning our theoretical questioning elsewhere. LAD is "in" the mind. What has always been at fault with our modelling of the human use of language is the homogeneity which comes from a too early and all too pervasive demand of idealization in what must be at least a bifurcal model. What is the model-theoretic status of polysemy or homonymy? And how unitary can a model be which will represent BOTH phatic communion AND advertising copy-writing? And are we always to regard speakers of English in the Ozarks who say 'for to' or those in "Fleet Street"who write 'whom it is believed' as outside the scope of our model and devoid of regularity? Bill Bennett. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-250.