________________________________________________________________ Subject: 3.801 Unification Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 11:18:52 +0100 From: "John Nerbonne" Subject: Re: 3.784 Unification vs Constraints 2) Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 10:26:01 EDT From: Randy Allen Harris Subject: Homogeneous goof-up -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 11:18:52 +0100 From: "John Nerbonne" Subject: Re: 3.784 Unification vs Constraints On the inheritance diatribe here: cf. the two(!) special issues of Computational Linguistics, 1993, Vol. 18 (2-3), on Inheritance in Natural Language Processing. Applications of inheritance to syntax, parsing, semantics, pragmatics, phonology and morphology are discussed in the overview article by Daelermans, De Smedt and Gazdar. John Nerbonne, DFKI nerbonne@dfki.uni-sb.de Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3 Tel. (49) +681 302 5300 W-66 Saarbruecken 11 Fax (49) +681 302 5341 GERMANY -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 10:26:01 EDT From: Randy Allen Harris Subject: Homogeneous goof-up The usage that Sue Blackwell queries (3.782) is mine, not Postal's (he uses "homogenEous" in "The best theory"), and so, in the context of my posting, an error. My apologies. By the way, I still haven't figured out where "fallacy" comes in. Avery? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-801. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-802. Tue 20 Oct 1992. Lines: 147 Subject: 3.802 Language Preservation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 15:47:41 EDT From: Mark_Turnbull@iegate.mitre.org (Mark Turnbull) Subject: natural language diversity 2) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:43:50 PDT From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.798 Language Preservation 3) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:44:34 -0400 From: mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br (Leland Emerson McCleary) Subject: Threatened languages -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 15:47:41 EDT From: Mark_Turnbull@iegate.mitre.org (Mark Turnbull) Subject: natural language diversity REGARDING natural language diversity For any of you interested in this topic who are planning on attending the Boston University Conference on Language Development next weekend, Ken Hale will be presenting "On Resisting Language Loss: The Human Value of Local Languages" at 9 am on Sunday morning October 25th. If no one else volunteers, I'll take notes and post them here. Mark Turnbull turnbull@cns.bu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:43:50 PDT From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.798 Language Preservation I was a little puzzled by Patrick McConvell's generalization: "I suspect that AI and cognitive science oriented linguists may be among the least interested in maintaining linguistic diversity. Yet paradoxically they may have the most to learn from the diversity of naturally occurring systems..." I regard myself as both "AI and cognitive science oriented", and I have also worked on a dying language, Breton. I don't agree that having a particular linguistic orientation makes one prejudiced one way or the other. I most heartily agree with his point that those interested in the nature of intelligence have much to learn from the study of exotic languages. I happen to have very mixed feelings about this issue. As someone who came to have a lot of contact with Breton nationalists, I naturally came to adopt something of a sympathetic view of their cause. Nevertheless, I have always believed that my job as a linguist was to be a dispassionate observer of the language. Getting involved in political issues might not skew grammatical analyses, but it can certainly skew your understanding of social trends, which might be important to your work. And it can also get you into some sticky situations, especially when you learn that speech communities are almost never monolithic. When asked whether I thought Breton would survive as a language, I usually answered with a diplomatic "That is up to the Breton people." Not everyone liked that answer, but it seldom got me in hot water. And I learned to take this position from having seen another linguist get scalded. :-) And this brings me to my main point. Why are linguists even debating whether or not they should aid efforts to preserve a dying language? It really is up to the language community, and we exaggerate our power to play a significant role. You can no more stop a language from dying than you can give birth to one. Many of my informants thought me more than a little odd to even want to learn about Breton. They saw no real use for the language outside of their own local conditions. Others saw it as the essence of identity. It was not my place, as an outsider, to take sides in this social dynamic. -Rick Wojcik (rwojcik@boeing.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:44:34 -0400 From: mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br (Leland Emerson McCleary) Subject: Threatened languages I read David Powers' incredible flame immediately after having seen the Chomsky documentary on the manufacture of consent and Hector Babenco's beautiful adaptation of Peter Matthiessen's "Playing in the Fields of the Lord". In the Chomsky film, we see East Timor being liberated from their unfortunate isolation from western civilization and being offered the benefits of standard Indonesian. In the Babenco film we see missionaries sacrificing the comforts of home to bring plastic bowls and the Word of the Lord to savages previously condemned to live out their lives speaking to each other in a dying language. Surely two enterprises that would warm Power's heart. In the ensuing commentary I was puzzled by D Hudson's critique of two of Peter Svenonius' arguments. Hudson said: >The difference between languages and >biological species is that when a species dies out, its genes die out with >it, and we may have lost thereby important material for creating useful >medicines etc. No such argument can be mounted for languages, so far as I >know; >Another related argument is that grammarians need threatened languages in >order to help us to decide on the limits of UG. Surely this is a really >feeble argument, and would be much better not used at all; the only >consideration should be the well-being of the languages' speakers, >and our professional needs are completely irrelevant. Hudson's own logic gives me pause. In the first case, genes should be preserved because they may be *useful* to humans (thanks to the work of biogeneticists and the pharmaceutical corporations, naturally). In the second case, the usefulness of threatened languages to linguists (and possibly also therefore to humans, if knowledge of human cognition and behavior might have practical applications) is not good enough. In this case "the only consideration should be the well-being of the ... speakers". Too bad it's not so easy to argue for the preservation of genes with that same argument. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could garner support for the preservation of the Amazon forest only on the basis of the "well-being" of the plants and animals that live there? Leland MccCleary Universidade de Sao Paulo mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-802. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-803. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 276 Subject: 3.803 Conferences: LSRL, ACL-93 Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 20:08 CDT From: TC0MLM1@NIU.bitnet Subject: LSRL XXIII 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:10:52 -0400 From: walker@bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-93 CALL FOR PAPERS 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:14:10 -0400 From: walker@bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-93 STUDENT SESSIONS -- CALL FOR PAPERS -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 20:08 CDT From: TC0MLM1@NIU.bitnet Subject: LSRL XXIII LINGUISTIC SYMPOSIUM ON ROMANCE LANGUAGES. APRIL 1-3, 1993. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY. DEKALB, ILLINOIS. CALL FOR PAPERS. ABSTRACTS ARE INVITED FOR 20-MINUTE PAPERS. SEND SIX COPIES OF AN ANONYMOUS 1-PAGE ABSTRACT. ENCLOSE A 3X5 CARD WITH YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE NUMBER, E-MAIL ADDRESS, AFFILIATION, AND TITLE OF PAPER. ABSTRACTS TAKING ANY LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO ROMANCE LANGUAGES ARE WELCOME. ADDRESS ABSTRACTS AND INQUIRIES TO: LSRL XXIII, DEPT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES & LITERATURES, NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, DEKALB, IL 60115-2854; (815) 753-6446; E-MAIL: TC0MLM1@NIU. BITNET. DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: DECEMBER 1, 1992. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:10:52 -0400 From: walker@bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-93 CALL FOR PAPERS ACL-93 CALL FOR PAPERS 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 22-26 June 1993 Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA TOPICS OF INTEREST: Papers are invited on substantial, original, and unpublished research on all aspects of computational linguistics, including, but not limited to, pragmatics, discourse, semantics, syntax, and the lexicon; phonetics, phonology, and morphology; interpreting and generating spoken and written language; linguistic, mathematical, and psychological models of language; language-oriented information retrieval; corpus-based language modelling; machine translation and translation aids; natural language interfaces and dialogue systems; message and narrative understanding systems; and theoretical and applications papers of every kind. REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe unique work; they should emphasize completed work rather than intended work; and they should indicate clearly the state of completion of the reported results. A paper accepted for presentation at the ACL Meeting cannot be presented at another conference. Self-references which reveal the authors' identity (e.g., ``We previously showed [Smith, 1991] . . .'') should be avoided as far as possible, since reviewing will be ``blind''. FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Authors should submit four copies of preliminary versions of their papers, not to exceed 3200 words (exclusive of references). To facilitate blind reviewing, two title pages are required. The first (one copy only, unattached) should include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses, a short (5 line) summary, and a specification of the topic area. The second (4 copies, heading the copies of the paper) should omit author names and addresses. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. As well, authors are strongly urged to email the title page (in directly readable ASCII form, with author information). Send to: Lenhart Schubert ACL-93 University of Rochester Department of Computer Science Rochester, NY 14627, USA fax: +1-716-461-2018 acl93@cs.rochester.edu SCHEDULE: Preliminary papers are due by 6 January 1993. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 15 March 1993. Camera-ready copies of final papers prepared in a double-column format, preferably using a laser printer, must be received by 1 May 1993, along with a signed copyright release statement. STUDENT SESSIONS: Following the ACL-91/92 successes, there will again be special Student Sessions organized by a committee of ACL graduate student members. ACL student members are invited to submit short papers describing innovative work in progress in any of the topics listed above. The papers will be reviewed by a committee of students and faculty members for presentation in workshop-style sessions. There is a separate call for papers; to get one or for other information contact Linda Suri or Sandra Carberry, University of Delaware, Computer & Information Science, 103 Smith Hall, Newark, DE 19716, USA; +1-302-831-2712; +1-302-831-8458 fax; suri@cis.udel.edu or carberry@cis.udel.edu. OTHER ACTIVITIES: The meeting will include a program of tutorials coordinated by Philip Cohen, SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA; +1-415-859-4840; pcohen@ai.sri.com. Some of the ACL Special Interest Groups may arrange workshops or other activities. CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Local arrangements are being chaired by Terry Patten, Ohio State University, Computer & Information Science, 2036 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; +1-614-292-3989; patten@cis.ohio-state.edu. Anyone wishing to arrange an exhibit or present a demonstration should send a brief description together with a specification of physical requirements (space, power, telephone connections, tables, etc.) to Robert Kasper,Ohio State University, Linguistics, 222 Oxley Hall, 1712 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; +1-614-292-2844; kasper@ling.ohio-state.edu. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: The committee is chaired by Lenhart Schubert (U Rochester) and also includes Robert Carpenter (CMU) Mitch Marcus (U Pennsylvania) Garrison Cottrell (UC San Diego) Kathleen McCoy (U Delaware) Robert Dale (U Edinburgh) Marc Moens (U Edinburgh) Bonnie Dorr (U Maryland) Johanna Moore (U Pittsburgh) Julia Hirschberg (AT&T Bell Labs) John Nerbonne (German AI Center) Paul Jacobs (GE Schenectady) James Pustejovsky (Brandeis U) Robert Kasper (Ohio State U) Uwe Reyle (U Stuttgart) Slava Katz (IBM Watson) Richard Sproat (AT&T Bell Labs) Judith Klavans (Columbia U) Jun-ichi Tsujii (UMIST) Bernard Lang (INRIA) Gregory Ward (Northwestern U) Diane Litman (AT&T Bell Labs) Janyce Wiebe (New Mexico State U) ACL INFORMATION: For other information on the conference and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; +1-201-829-4312; walker@bellcore.com. 1993 LINGUISTIC INSTITUTE: The 57th Linguistic Institute, sponsored by the LSA and co-sponsored by the ACL, will be held at The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, from June 28 until August 6, 1993, beginning right after the annual meeting of ACL. It will feature a number of computational linguistics courses, as described in the September 1992 issue of The FINITE STRING. For more information and application forms, see the June 1992 issue of the LSA Bulletin, or contact Linguistic Institute, Department of Linguistics, 222 Oxley Hall, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; +1-614-292-4052; +1-614-292-4273 fax; linginst@ling.ohio-state.edu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:14:10 -0400 From: walker@bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-93 STUDENT SESSIONS -- CALL FOR PAPERS ACL-93 CALL FOR STUDENT PAPERS Student Sessions at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 22 - 26 June, 1993 Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA PURPOSE: The goal of these sessions is to provide a forum for student members to present their work in progress and receive feedback from other members of the computational linguistics community, particularly senior researchers. The sessions will be workshop-style, consisting of short paper presentations and discussion. The papers will be published in a special section of the conference proceedings. Note that having student sessions for the presentation of ongoing work in NO way influences the treatment of student-written papers submitted to the main conference. Rather, the student sessions will provide an entirely separate track emphasizing students' work in progress rather than completed work. REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe original, unpublished work in progress that demonstrates insight, creativity, and promise. Topics of interest are the same as for the main conference. Authors must have ACL Student Membership (or be students even though paying the regular member rate because they earn a regular income) at the time of the conference. For membership information contact Don Walker at the address below. Because of differences in focus (complete results vs. work in progress) and submission format, papers submitted to the main conference can not be considered for the student sessions. Students may, of course, submit DIFFERENT papers to BOTH the main conference and the student sessions, and papers on different aspects of a particular problem or project are acceptable. Self-references which reveal the authors' identity should be avoided as much as possible (e.g., write ``[Smith, 1991] showed that ...'' instead of ``We previously showed [Smith, 1991] ...''), since reviewing will be ``blind''. FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Submitted papers are limited to 3 pages (including a mandatory abstract, references, figures, and appendices) and must be laid out in the conventional double-column conference format, with typeface no smaller than 10 pt. For LaTeX users, the ``aaai'', ``kr89'', and ``ijcai91'' styles are recommended. Each page must have a 1" margin on all sides. To accommodate a blind-review process, the author and institution information must not be included in the paper submissions. Rather, a SEPARATE cover page must be supplied, including the title of the paper, name(s) of the author(s), postal addresses, email addresses (if available), phone numbers, and a copy of the abstract. MEDIUM OF SUBMISSION: Authors have the option of submitting their papers by hardcopy only, by email only, or by both hardcopy and email. Email submissions are encouraged. EMAIL ONLY SUBMISSION: LaTeX, Postscript, or ASCII formats are acceptable. For portability, email submissions should use a standard font, such as computer modern, and 8.5"x11" or A4 size pages. Authors submitting a LaTeX source file should include any style files used by the source file. NOTE: the cover page must be mailed in a separate email message from the paper. Email submissions should be sent to: acl93-student-submit@cis.udel.edu HARDCOPY ONLY SUBMISSION: Four copies of the paper and one copy of the cover page should be sent to: Linda Suri (ACL Student Sessions) Department of Computer and Information Sciences 103 Smith Hall University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716, USA HARDCOPY AND EMAIL SUBMISSION: the guidelines for EMAIL ONLY SUBMISSION should be followed, and one copy of the paper and one copy of the cover page should be sent to Suri at the address above. SCHEDULE: Submissions in either format must be RECEIVED by 1 FEBRUARY 1993. Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged by 5 FEBRUARY 1993. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 15 MARCH 1993. Camera-ready copies of final papers must be received by 1 MAY 1993. STUDENT SESSIONS INFORMATION: If you have questions about the student sessions, contact Linda Suri or Sandra Carberry at the postal address above, by phone at +1-302 831-2712, by fax at +1-302 831-8458, or by sending email to suri@cis.udel.edu or carberry@cis.udel.edu. CONFERENCE INFORMATION: For registration forms and other information on the conference and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; +1-201 829-4312; walker@bellcore.com. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: The committee is co-chaired by Sandra Carberry and Linda Suri. The student members of the committee are: Tilman Becker (U Saarbruecken), Beth Ann Hockey (U Pennsylvania), David Hutches (UC San Diego), Andrew Kehler (Harvard U), Sheila Rock (U Edinburgh), Cameron Shelley (U Waterloo), James Skon (Ohio State U), Linda Suri (U Delaware), Keith Vander Linden (U Colorado). The nonstudent members are: Sandra Carberry (U Delaware), Mary Dalrymple (Xerox PARC), Chrysanne DiMarco (U Waterloo), Robert Ingria (BBN), Donald Hindle (AT&T Bell Labs), John Lafferty (IBM), Cecile Paris (USC/ISI), Rebecca Passonneau (Columbia U), Donia Scott (Brighton Polytechnic U), Karen Sparck Jones (U Cambridge), Hans Uszkoreit (U Saarbruecken), Peter Van Beek (U Alberta), David Weir (U Sussex). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-803. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-804. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 163 Subject: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 15:20:14 -0400 From: mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br (Leland Emerson McCleary) Subject: Paradox 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 09:16:46 EDT From: rene@andy.hssc.scarolina.edu (A. Rene' Schmauder) Subject: Negatives 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:28:12 BST From: David Denison Subject: 3.800 Negatives 4) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 09:22:39 +1300 From: Laurie.Bauer@vuw.ac.nz Subject: Negatives 5) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:06 PDT From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.793 Queries: Lexicon, Polish, Dialects -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 15:20:14 -0400 From: mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br (Leland Emerson McCleary) Subject: Paradox After being primed by the "Barber of Seville" discussion, I was amazed to receive the following piece from an undergraduate student in response to the assignment: "Collect real-life examples of logical thinking". The student relates something a cousin of hers said to her several years ago that stuck with her. I give the argument in the original Portuguese and then in an approximate translation. "'Toda regra tem excecao'. E' uma regra, nao e'? Logo, ja' que e' uma regra, tambem deve ter a sua excecao; ou seja, deve haver alguma regra que nao tenha excecao. E qual sera' essa regra? Pode haver mais de uma, mas eu penso comigo que pode ser muito bem ESSA MESMA REGRA. Quer dizer, a regra 'toda regra tem excecao' pode ser considerada a regra que nao tem excecao; e' excecao de si mesma." "'Every rule has an exception'. It's a rule, isn't it? Therefore, since it's a rule, it too must have its exception; in other words, there must be a rule that has no exception. And what should this rule be? There could be more than one, but I think to myself that it could very well be THIS SAME RULE. That is, the rule 'every rule has an exception' can be considered the rule that has no exception; it's its own exception." --Leland McCleary Universidade se Sao Paulo mccleary@cat.cce.usp.br -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 09:16:46 EDT From: rene@andy.hssc.scarolina.edu (A. Rene' Schmauder) Subject: Negatives In response to Henry Kucera's query on negatives and Jane Edwards' contribution to the discussion, I add the following query: I have an acquaintance who regularly uses "So don't I" where most people I know would say "So do I." Were I asked to guess where this person learned this dialect, I would not have picked western Massachusetts. What is the distribution of this usage? -A. Rene' Schmauder (rene@andy.hssc.scarolina.edu) Dept. of Psychology University of South Carolina -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:28:12 BST From: David Denison Subject: 3.800 Negatives You all know about this case of an extra negative, I'm sure: I really miss not having a car. Meaning: I haven't got one at the moment. Very common at all levels of education. David D. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 09:22:39 +1300 From: Laurie.Bauer@vuw.ac.nz Subject: Negatives Another example of negative spreading: I have heard several times recently in news broadcasts the word _irregardless_. Obviously _regardless_ isn't negative enough! Laurie Bauer BauerL@matai.vuw.ac.nz Wellington, New Zealand -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:06 PDT From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.793 Queries: Lexicon, Polish, Dialects Dialects. I have been aware of the expression "I could care less" since the early 1950s in NYC, and suppose that it may be much older than me. Source: sarchasm. I wouldn't claim the expression has a NYC origin but sarchasm does seem to be more readily understood in NYC than, say, in LA. Personally, I noticed in my first years in LA my automatic and sometimes unconscious use of sarchasm was misunderstood by West Coast and MidWesterners and taken as my actual sentiments, rather than the opposite... Phrased more carefully, I would say it is a more frequently employed device in NYC than in many, probably most areas of the US. Some British communities seem to be pretty sarchastic to me as well, so I wouldn't be surprised to find similar things there, say, in London or Liverpool, but nothing immeidately comes to mind. Finally, it has been interesting and amusing to me to note that the Saturday Night Live TV comedy program on NBC has been spreading an explicit marker of sarchasm for comic purposes where any seemingly complimentary proposition can be tagged with the negative marker "NOT!" prosodically marked with abrupt low monotone to sound like a buzzer signalling a wrong answer on a quiz show, e.g., " I think you're really a great cook, NOT!" that means I think you're a lousy cook. This use of a NOT! tag to mark sarchasm explicitly (beyond prosody which often marks it anyway) is relatively new I'm sure, and I think it has the origin in the buzzer sound as I just explained -- and I remember people using the buzzer sound with their voice to mark sarchasm in NYC at an earlier period with the same effect -- or could use it as a response to what they considered a stupid statement just uttered by someone else. The sound could also be interpreted as throwing up, whence the gesture of pointing a finger down one`s own throat as if to indicate or induce nausea as an evaluation of an immedialetly previous utterance... Now putting the whole thing together we can posit a NEW "surface" structure to "I could care less" which is "I could care less, NOT!" This is a joke, the old underlying marker is simply an abstract sarchasm marker which may not be explicit at all, or might come out as the vocal imitation of the buzzer, the retching sound of nausea or some subtler prosody on the proposition itself. In any case, I think the new use of NOT! supplying an explicit sarchasm marker ( and a morphological one at that!) is at least of equal linguistic interest to the question about leaving off negative markers in the expression of sarchasm. It at least gives me a new resource so when my sarchasm is met with "you really think so?" I can say "let me rephrase that. /repetition of previous utterance/, NOT!" OK or OK not? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-804. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-805. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 107 Subject: 3.805 Jobs: Applied/Phonology, Hispanic Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 17:18 EST From: RDK1@vms.cis.pitt.edu Subject: job announcement 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 08:49:20 PST From: (Giorgio Perissinotto) Subject: Job Announcement: University of California -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 17:18 EST From: RDK1@vms.cis.pitt.edu Subject: job announcement The Department of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for a SINGLE tenure-track assistant professorship in EITHER Applied Linguistics OR Theoretical Phonology, beginning August 1993, pending budgetary approval. Applicants should already have a PhD or expect to have one by August 1993 and they should be prepared to teach advanced courses in their area of research, as well as introductory undergraduate classes in general linguistics. We intend to hire the most qualified candidate, although preference will be given to an applied linguist, other things being equal. The ideal candidate in Applied Linguistics will have a strong research background in second language acquisition, with some degree of statistical sophistication, interest in interdisciplinary work with cognitive science, experience in teaching, learning, and acquiring languages, and some computer literacy. The candidate would ideally have a record linking research results in Applied Linguistics to current research in theoretical syntax or phonology. The candidate must have considerable familiarity with the basic principles and formalisms of at least one current model of theoretical syntax or phonology. Preference will be given to candidates who are able to teach courses illustrating the interaction between theoretical and applied linguistics in one of the following areas: computer-assisted language learning, literacy, discourse analysis, or contrastive linguistics. The ideal candidate in Phonology will have a strong research background in multilinear phonology, research experience in nonIndo-European phonologies, preferably American Indian, and some computer literacy, the more the better. Letters of application (including a statement of research interests) should be sent to Prof. Richmond Thomason, Search Committee Chair, Department of Linguistics, 2816 CL, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 - thomason@pogo.isp.pitt.edu. Applicants should also submit a current CV, one or two papers for evaluation by the Search Committee, and have three letters of reference sent. Candidates should also supply an email address if possible. We expect to interview candidates at the January LSA meeting in Los Angeles, although other interview arrangements can be made under exceptional circumstances. Applications should arrive by December 01, 1992 and should indicate whether or not you will be able to attend the LSA meeting. The University of Pittsburgh is an AA/EO employer. Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 08:49:20 PST From: (Giorgio Perissinotto) Subject: Job Announcement: University of California University of California Santa Barbara Assistant Professor position in HISPANIC LINGUISITCS with specialization in Phonology beginning July 1, 1993. A related interest in the historical development of the Romance Languages is highly desirable. Applicants with breadth and versatility will be preferred. A Ph.D. is normally required by the time of appointment. The successful applicant will join a department with a strong linguistics component offering the MA and Ph.D. degrees in both literary and linguistic studies. The position requires teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels and demands that the candidate be able to direct theses. To apply, send current cv and arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent to: Prof. Giorgio Perissinotto Hispanic Linguistics Search Committee Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93111 UC is EO/AAE e-mail inquiries to: Giorgio Perissinotto, whose address is SN01peri@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-805. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-806. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 177 Subject: 3.806 Negatives Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 21 October 1992, 08:43:07 CST From: Margaret.E.Winters.GA3704.at.SIUCVMB@tamvm1.tamu.edu Subject: negatives 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:08:01 EDT From: jsc@mbeya.research.att.com (John S. Coleman) Subject: 3.804 Negatives 3) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:11:58 EDT From: John.M.Lawler@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Ample Negatives 4) Date: 21 Oct 92 15:45:28 MET From: "Soren Harder, Depts. of Phil. & Ling." Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives 5) Date: 21 Oct 1992 11:52:51 -0300 From: WTGORDON@AC.DAL.CA Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 21 October 1992, 08:43:07 CST From: Margaret.E.Winters.GA3704.at.SIUCVMB@tamvm1.tamu.edu Subject: negatives What seems to be going on with phrases like `I could care less' or `I could give a damn' is that the negation has moved to what was a negative polarity item - it has become negative in its own right without the need for a trigger. I suggested in a paper several years ago that the evolution of French `pas' from `step' to negator included that change as well, with what was a negative polarity item (in phrases roughly equivalent to `I won't walk another step!') becoming a full negator. There was much more to the story, but that was part of it. John Lawler has a paper in a CLS volume (197x???) about these expressions in English. Margaret P.S. Note that `I could care less' is still definitely negative - I left that point out above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:08:01 EDT From: jsc@mbeya.research.att.com (John S. Coleman) Subject: 3.804 Negatives In our CLS paper this year, Jennifer Cole and I wrote: "The conventional formalism of generative phonology, including rewrite rules and cyclicity, has long been known to be insufficiently unconstrained." Thanks to Steve Bird for pointing out that the above means that we think generative phonology ought to be even less constrained, whereas we meant the opposite, of course. It still gets me, though, every time I look at it. --- John Coleman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:11:58 EDT From: John.M.Lawler@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Ample Negatives I've tried to keep my discussion of these negative topics out of the general flow of the List, but since they're being discussed here: (1) I am a native speaker of the "...so don't I" (= "...so do I" (!)) dialect, and come from DeKalb County, Illinois, where it is still common and much-remarked-on as a local peculiarity. I have observed it also in the speech of natives of western New England, which is the place where many early settlers of DeKalb County originated. Details of the syntax of this oddity are contained in an article I published in CLS 10 (1974). The title is "Ample Negatives". (2) Also in this article is an analysis of other negative peculiarities, including various cases where there are either more or fewer overt negative markers in the sentence than there are in the semantic representation, such as Labov's "Ain't no cat can't get in no coop" and occurences of negative loss (which are analyzed as promotion of polarity items to full-fledged negative status, similar to the negative force of ...pas in French, where the phonological opacity of the official negative ne... in the ne...pas discontinuous con- struction affords opportunities for promotion, resulting in such examples as "Pas de fumer". "I could give a damn" is analyzed along these lines; "give a damn" is an NPI that has achieved at least temporary, contextual negative force, and the phenomenon is not unusual. (3) By far the most interesting negative construction discussed there is the construction (first noted by Postal) exemplified by: "Will Bush win another term?" "Not if I have anything to say about it, he won't." This is essentially the same phenomenon as a stigmatized "double negative", with two surface Neg's but only 1 semantic one. It is analyzed as being required for (essentially, what we would now say are) functional parsing reasons. Cheers, -John Lawler University of Michigan -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: 21 Oct 92 15:45:28 MET From: "Soren Harder, Depts. of Phil. & Ling." Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives rene@andy.hssc.scarolina.edu (A. Rene' Schmauder) writes > I have an acquaintance who regularly uses "So don't I" where most > people I know would say "So do I." ... Couldn't that be (originally) 'So, don't I?' Just theorizing, Soren Harder ################################################### Soren Harder, Stud. mag. linguistics and philosophy E-mail: linsoha@stud.hum.aau.dk Physical address: University of Aarhus Dept. of Linguistics Nordre Ringgade, Bldg. 327 DK-8000 Aarhus Denmark #################################################### -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: 21 Oct 1992 11:52:51 -0300 From: WTGORDON@AC.DAL.CA Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives I can support Benji Wald's claim that "I could care less" dates from at least the 1950s. I heard it first circa 1954 from a man in Toronto who had recently moved from Saskatchewan. I have long thought it might be a shortened form of the sarcastic question "Do you think I could care less?" or perhaps of "Don't imagine that I could care less." There is in French something called "expressive negation" which is a comparable phenomenon. It is a use of "ne" without the "pas" which normally completes a true negative but also without any negative force. Standard historical grammars such as Brunot and Bruneau give a dozen or more syntactic patterns or lexically determined contexts in which the "ne expressif" occurs. The explanation usually given is that of contamination or carry-over effect. Thus two related sentences such as "Je desire qu'il ne pleuve pas" and "Je crains qu'il pleuve" give rise to "Je crains qu'il ne pleuve". In the latter, "pas is lost, but rise to "Je crains qu'il ne pleuve". In the latter, "pas" is lost, but so is the negative meaning. --Terry Gordon (WTGORDON@AC.DAL.CA) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-806. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-807. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 100 Subject: 3.807 Announcements: LSA Taskforce, Chicago Dissertations Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 13:34:46 CDT From: lynne@kahane.cogsci.uiuc.edu (M. Lynne Murphy) Subject: taskforce needs members 2) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 13:34:46 GMT-0600 From: gldsmth@bloomfield.uchicago.edu (John Goldsmith) Subject: Chicago Dissertations -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 13:34:46 CDT From: lynne@kahane.cogsci.uiuc.edu (M. Lynne Murphy) Subject: taskforce needs members LSA Committee Seeks Volunteers: Student Paper Award Taskforce One of the missions of the Linguistic Society of America's Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics (COSWL) is to foster the study of language and gender. To this end, COSWL is investigating the possibility of establishing an annual award for an outstanding student paper in the study of language and gender. While initial discussions among COSWL members have established the general nature of the competition and award, work remains to be done if we hope to begin the competition in 1993-94. A taskforce is being formed to complete this work, so that other interested linguists can be a part of the project. Our agenda includes: determining the criteria on which papers will be judged, finding financial support for the award, and, once the award is established, overseeing the first year's competition while putting into place the administrative structures for the coming award years. The taskforce will report its recommendations to COSWL, and that body in turn will make recommendations to the LSA Executive Committee. Any linguists (students, PhDs, faculty, etc.) are welcome to volunteer for this taskforce, and those interested in the linguistic study of langauge and gender are particularly encouraged to do so. Those who can attend the 1993 LSA Meeting in Los Angeles will meet there. Until that time, we will primarily communicate via e-mail. Input is also welcomed from linguists who do not wish to become a part of the taskforce, but who (a) have experience or ideas relevant to the paper competition, or (b) would be interested in serving as referees/ judges in the next year. Please share this call for volunteers with colleagues who do not receive the Linguist List or any sort of e-mail. To volunteer or contact the taskforce, contact: M. Lynne Murphy lynne@lees.cogsci.uiuc.edu Dept. of Linguistics U of Illinois 4088 FLB Urbana, IL 61801 217/333-3563 217/367-5210 (h) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 13:34:46 GMT-0600 From: gldsmth@bloomfield.uchicago.edu (John Goldsmith) Subject: Chicago Dissertations The Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago has begun to provide copies of a number of current dissertations at a price that covers printing and postage. "Syllabification and Rule Application in Harmonic Phonology" by Caroline R. Wiltshire is currently available for $14. Available shortly: "Theoretical Foundations in American Sign Language Phonology" by Diane Brentari 1990 ($14) "Phonotactics at the Level iof the Phonological Word" by Anna Bosch 1991 ($14) Orders can be placed to: The Department of Linguistics 1010 E 59th Street Chicago IL 60637 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-807. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-808. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 60 Subject: 3.808 Queries: Songs and acquisition; Presupposition Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu REMINDER [We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.] -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 13:13:11 BS3 From: alamir Subject: songs and lang acqui 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 15:40:03 MEZ From: Uwe Hauck Subject: Roles of Presuppositions ? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 13:13:11 BS3 From: alamir Subject: songs and lang acqui I am working on a preliminary project dealing with the use of resources and technniques based upon songs in a efl classroom, aiming the acquisition of functions of a foreign language. Has anybody seen anything about it (mostly bib references) or has anyone previously worked with that? I am asking that for we do not have access here in Brazil to bib data banks as easily as abroad... I truly appreciate any comments or suggestions. Thanks in advance. PS. Please write directly to my e-mail address. Further on I will post a summary on the list about the replies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 15:40:03 MEZ From: Uwe Hauck Subject: Roles of Presuppositions ? I am working on my Graduate exam in Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence in the moment. The paper will discuss the role of Presuppositions in Natural Language Generation. I am searching for information (Literature, People, Books) on Presuppositions and their role in NL-Communication, expecially in relation with Belief-Revision , Knowledge Representation, and Dialog Focus. Any comment will be welcome. Thanx ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-808. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-809. Wed 21 Oct 1992. Lines: 122 Subject: 3.809 Calls for Papers: Neuropsychology, Georgetown Applied Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 21 October 92, 23:25:29 EDT From: R12040@UQAM Subject: TENNET IV: Call for Papers 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 09:56:33 +1000 From: Catherine.Doughty@linguistics.su.edu.au (Catherine Doughty) Subject: Call for Papers - Applied L -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 21 October 92, 23:25:29 EDT From: R12040@UQAM Subject: TENNET IV: Call for Papers TENNET IV CALL FOR PAPERS ====================================================== The fourth annual conference on theoretical and experimental neuropsychology, TENNET IV, will be on May 12, 13 and 14, 1993 at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The conference structure is (a) refereed submitted poster presentations, about 25 each day, and (b) two thematic symposia of 2-3 hours duration each day, Wednesday through Friday. The poster papers are discussed after the second symposium, each afternoon. This is the only North American neuropsychology conference that is specifically limited to presentations on theoretical and experimental issues. Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 16, 1992, via E-mail, FAX or regular post. For more information on submitting an abstract, for information on the symposia planned for 1993 and for information on registration and hotel arrangements, please contact Local Arrangements chair: Dr. Harry A. Whitaker Departement de Psychologie, UQAM Case postale 8888, Succursale A Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3P8 Telephone: (514) 987-7002 FAX: (514) 987-7953 E-mail: R12040@UQAM.BITNET or the chair of the Program Committee: Dr. S. J. Segalowitz Department of Psychology, Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1 Telephone: (416) 688-5550, X-3465 FAX: (416) 688-6922 E-mail: ssegalow@spartan.ac.brocku.ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 09:56:33 +1000 From: Catherine.Doughty@linguistics.su.edu.au (Catherine Doughty) Subject: Call for Papers - Applied L Call for Papers Georgetown University Round Table (GURT93) Pre-session: Applied Linguistics (March 9, 1993) Focus on Form - What is it? This pre-session aims to address an important new question in applied linguistics research -- that of whether, when and how focus on language form benefits classroom second language learners. Current interest in this question is motivated by findings of immersion and naturalistic acquisition studies which suggest that, when language learning is entirely experiential or communicative, some linguistic features do not ultimately develop to targetlike levels despite years of meaningful communication in the second language. It has been claimed that focus on form is needed to push learners beyond communicatively effective language toward targetlike second language ability. Interest in focus on form is further sparked by effect-of-instruction and negotiation studies which hypothesize a positive influence of focus on (or attention to) form in interlanguage development. But what is focus on form? When and how is focus on form effective? It is important to clarify these issues in relationship to SLA theory in order to prevent overcompensation of the pedagogic pendulum back toward the teaching of linguistic forms in isolation. For this 1-day GURT pre-session, papers are invited which: (a) consider ways to operationalize the notion of focus on form and / or (b) present empirical findings pertaining to the question of whether, when and how focus on language form benefits second language learners and/or (c) discuss the relative contributions of focus on form and communicative interaction to interlanguage development.A Send a 250-word abstract by fax, email, or mail: to arrive by 10 December to: to arrive by 15 January to: Catherine Doughty Catherine Doughty Dept. of Linguistics F12 Dept. of Linguistics University of Sydney NSW 2006 Georgetown University AUSTRALIA Washington DC 20057 USA AAAAfax: 61 2 552 1683 fax: 202 687-5712 email: catherine.doughty@linguistics.su.edu.au (Internet) Final Deadine for Submission: 15 January 1993 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-809. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-810. Thu 22 Oct 1992. Lines: 169 Subject: 3.810 Call For Papers Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 19:40:10 -0600 (PDT) From: Richard McKinnon Subject: SCIL-5 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 22:45 EDT From: S_HOYLE@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: call for papers 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 11:13 EDT From: HHAMILTON@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: Call for papers: discourse analysis -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 19:40:10 -0600 (PDT) From: Richard McKinnon Subject: SCIL-5 SCIL-5 April 17-18, 1993 The Fifth Student Conference in Linguistics is accepting abstracts in all areas of linguistics. Abstracts must be received by Friday, Dec. 18, 1992. Abstracts will be accepted by e-mail or by post. Send e-mail abstracts to "scil5@u.washington.edu". Send posted abstracts to: SCIL-5 Conference Committee Dept. of Linguistics, GN-40 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 All abstracts should be one page in length and contain the following information (on a separate card for posted abstracts): 1) your name, 2) the title of you paper, 3) your affiliation, 4) your e-mail and regular mail addresses, 5) a daytime telephone number. Papers should be appropriate for 30 min. presentation period, and will be followed by a 10 min. question/answer period. All accepted papers will be published in a special volume of the MIT working papers in linguistics. A hard copy of each paper will be required at the conference (no more than 15 pages in length). Participants will be notified of acceptance by March 1, 1993. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 22:45 EDT From: S_HOYLE@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: call for papers Call for Papers Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics Pre-Session: BEYOND ACQUISITION: LANGUAGE PRACTICES OF OLDER CHILDREN March 10, 1993 Organizers: Susan Hoyle Georgetown University Carolyn Temple Adger University of Maryland Most studies of language in interaction have focused on the talk of adults, including, most recently, the elderly. In addition, a rapidly growing body of research is expanding our understanding of the pragmatic and discourse competence of young children. Only a few researchers, however, are investigating the language practices of older children and adolescents. Attention to this neglected population is essential to a complete understanding of the dimensions along which language use can vary. This session will explore the ways that those in this age group construct their social worlds through linguistic interaction in a variety of natural settings, addressing such theoretical and methodological issues as: --What is distinctive about the language of this population? --What are appropriate models for investigating the language of this age group (e.g., language contact, flawed adult model, interlanguage model)? --Does this population constitute a "group"? --What are barriers to investigation of this population. 20-minute papers are solicited on these or any related topics. Send 1-page abstract by Jan. 15, 1993 to: Susan Hoyle Dept. of Linguistics Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 e-mail: s_hoyle@guvax (Bitnet) or s_hoyle@guvax.georgetown.edu (Internet) Please include name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address (if applicable). Electronic submissions are encouraged. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 11:13 EDT From: HHAMILTON@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: Call for papers: discourse analysis CALL FOR ABSTRACTS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: WRITTEN TEXTS March 9, 1993 Pre-session to the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics March 11-13, 1993 Washington, DC Abstracts are invited for individual papers to be part of a one-day multidisciplinary pre-conference session on DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: WRITTEN TEXTS. Contributions from the fields of linguistics (including sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics), anthropology, sociology, psychology, cognitive sciences, speech pathology, and communication studies are welcome. Papers investigating issues of INTERTEXTUALITY, the ways in which relations are established and maintained between written texts and how these are used by the reader to (re)construct a (the writer's?) meaning, are especially encouraged, but papers taking a discourse-level approach to any aspect of written texts or to the comparison of written and spoken texts are welcome. Papers will be 20 minutes long, with 10 minutes' discussion time. Send three copies of an anonymous one-page abstract along with a 3"x5" card containing the title of your paper, your name, address, and institutional affiliation to: Heidi E. Hamilton Department of Linguistics ICC 453 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057-1068 tel: 202/687-6226 301/294-1670 e-mail: hhamilton@guvax.bitnet hhamilton@guvax.georgetown.edu Deadline for receipt of abstracts: January 15, 1993 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-810. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-811. Fri 23 Oct 1992. Lines: 212 Subject: 3.811 Language Preservation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 10:03:52 EST From: mark Subject: 3.798 Language Preservation, Brother's Keeper? 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 20:15:21 BST From: Bill Bennett Subject: Re: [3.802 Language Preservation] 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:00:25 MEZ From: "David M. W. Powers" Subject: Re: Language Preservation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 10:03:52 EST From: mark Subject: 3.798 Language Preservation, Brother's Keeper? I just want to add a note to Bruce E. Nevin's comment > it is clear that U.S. culture, like many of its most > influentual tributary cultures, is toward the low end of the > synergy spectrum (though not so low as the aptly named Ik, > whose dreadful degeneracy was documented by Turnbull). The "degeneracy" of the Ik was *induced*, by their forced removal from their homeland, in which their entire culture had evolved and to which it was adapted, to a totally different terrain, poor in resources and in which they had to struggle even to barely survive as individuals. This was done to them by a government that considered them only in terms of utility to the people that the government represented: "They're in our way, so we'll move them out." That is one result of considering only the "utility" of a people. Analogies with respect to cultures, species, and languages I leave to the reader. Mark A. Mandel Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 20:15:21 BST From: Bill Bennett Subject: Re: [3.802 Language Preservation] I may have missed other contributions in the mood of Rick Wojcik's in 3.802, but I too wonder why this debate is so thriving. I also sympathise with those who want to keep some evidence of the past (that's why I bother about countryside rights of way). BUT -how- do you preserve a language which no longer serves its speakers? WHAT is "a language" anyway but a working fiction; and how to conserve it: if it doesn't vary and modify it is unreal; if it does then HOW can it be caught? And how are naive speakers to be "persuaded" to go on using speech which is surplus to requirements? Bill Bennett -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:00:25 MEZ From: "David M. W. Powers" Subject: Re: Language Preservation It doesn't look like many linguist subscribers will vote for me as world president (including me). But I would like to recall a previous linguist discussion on the epithet: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy". This characterization reflects that the world we live in is far from the ideal which has been proclaimed by some of those who have responded to my original posting. This sort of "survival of the fittest" is based more on temporal power than objective, moral or in any sense considered judgement about the value (moral, linguistic or cultural) of the "less fit" communities. Unfortunately, as Pike put it in relation to language (the emic/etic distinction), you're either an insider or an outsider in relation to any community (in which I include the banding together of nations, unions and social clubs). I was disappointed that this self-same mentality was all too clear in the responses, as my comments were taken as an attack on the linguistics and anthropology communities. Objectivism is an elusive goal (Lakoff and Johnson would have put it even more strongly), and we are all influenced by both our subjective past experience and our perceived future livelihood. I recognize that the kind of community/language which ONLP focuses on has provided the training ground for many (including me). But "it keeps me in a job" is rather a poor reason for undertaking such a project, or indeed for doing anything (in an ideal world). So let's try to look at the possible outworkings of the ONLP in a way which avoids fairytale ideals (a world of non-competing languages and communities), fairytale illusions (man is basically good and unselfish and will live happily ever after) and fairytale theories (Universal Grammar as an expression of an innate linguistic organ - or even its metaphorical undermining in an extreme Cognitive Linguistics). I'd like to do a thought experiment and look at some of the communities ONLP is "helping" in a generation or two's time. Let us first consider Community/Language A: This is an isolated community, self-contained, with relatively insignificant outside influences. A person of sufficient influence and familiar with much of the folklore is whisked away, trained to read and write his own language, and produces a book containing some of their history and lore. He succeeds in teaching others to read and write, and further books are written. In succeeding generations, reading and writing and the language continue to be important. And for comparison Community/Language B: This is a community with contacts to many other minor language groups and to one major language, increasingly dependent on the outside world, and with a significant proprotion of the community envious of the greener grass outside. A person of sufficient influence and familiar with much of the folklore is whisked away, trained to read and write her own language, and produces a book containing some of their history and lore. She succeeds in teaching others to read, and a few to write, and helps people to see some of the values of their own culture. In succeeding generations however the community became smaller and smaller and ceased to exist as people absorbed into the surrounding major language community. These straw communities are idealizations. The scenario in A already presumes some outside contact with community as the language has already been analyzed and an orthography developed. The teaching of reading and writing, even just of their own language, changes their culture, and in this example destroys their tradition of oral preservation of tradition. The teaching of writing may have just been the teaching of physical writing and/or word-processing skills (the ONLP gets them to write their book in a Computerized Desktop Publishing environment), but is likely to have conveyed something of Western stylistics (tables of contents, introductions and conclusions), if not western "objectivity" (if the book extends beyond the setting down of oral traditions in traditional style). For further books to be produced the community needs to have the DP equipment, or at least pens and paper, and the ability to produce these. The culture has already been radically changed. If they are taught something about the western world, or he writes as part of the ONLP volume or later books something of his visit there, this is a further influence. There is no way we can keep it locked up, and we have in fact unlocked the door to the outside world for this community. But in this example, despite all of these factors, the community continues to keep to itself and remains self-sufficient - even in their publishing endeavours and the producing of the necessary equipment. Case B is closer to what I see as the reality of the communities ONLP is dealing with. If it is presently 1000 strong, and the community of native speakers of the language reduces by an order of magnitude each generation, it can only survive three generations. As their culture has been locked into their own language it is lost, as there are no readers of that language anymore (except for one anthropologist who was presented with one book by the grandfather of one of his students, and learnt enough of the language from him). The literacy program in the community had included literacy in the official national language, but the ONLP emphasis on preserving their culture in books in their own language led to its loss (apart from the project of the lone anthropologist). The speakers of the language treasured these books as they moved out into the wider world, but their children always associated their culture with their parents' language and the village life, and thus completely irrelevant to their modern western lifestyle - especially as they had no interest in hearing, let alone reading, their traditional language and at a fairly young aged refused to even try to communicate in that language with anyone but their grandparents, who really hadn't learnt much of anything else. But grandpa's stories, they were interesting enough, yet belonged to a time past. (Personal note, I was brought up in a ghetto community where two-thirds of the children I went to school with belonged to one of two major and many minor minority communities. I have out of necessity of one form or another spent significant portions of my life in language communities where I am not a native speaker. I am all for the absorbtion of different cultural values and ideas, and for promoting opportunity for mutual recognition of these. But I am not at all sure that ONLP is a uniformly positive step in this direction.) I made my original contribution in an attempt to make you think. It rather made you jump down my throat. (But thank you to those who wrote to me personally in support.) Even in this contribution, I have no doubt used far too much too emotive language. But I trust that as trained scientists you are able to see past this to the dilemmas which I am trying to expose. Neither piece is intended as a tirade against ONLP, or anyone else, but is a genuine attempt to seek an exchange of views on a matter which I see as being anything but clear. David Powers World President NOT -- Dr David M. W. Powers +49-631-13786 (GMT+1) E xtraction Auf der Vogelweide 1 +49-631-205-3210 (FAX) O f SHOE W-6750 KAISERSLAUTERN FRG powers@dfki.uni-kl.de H ierarchical S tructure for Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-811. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-812. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 100 Subject: 3.812 Queries: Alienability, morphology, verb-inversion Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu REMINDER [We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.] -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 13:29 CDT From: George Aaron Broadwell Subject: query: 3-way alienability contrasts 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 1:00 BST From: "NAME " William Marslen-Wilson "" Subject:Non-affixational derivational morphology in English 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 23:42:45 EDT From: AAHNY@CUNYVM.bitnet Subject: Request for references: Whole-verb inversion -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 13:29 CDT From: George Aaron Broadwell Subject: query: 3-way alienability contrasts Many languages have a 2-way contrast between alienable and inalienable possession. For example, 'my arm' and 'my house' may have different morphology connected with possession. A student of mine is working with a language that appears to have a 3-way contrast in alienability -- most alienable, moderately alienable, and least alienable. Has anyone heard of another language with similar distinctions? Reply to me and I'll post a summary. Thanks, Aaron Broadwell (aa2492@uokvmsa.bitnet) Univ. of Oklahoma -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 1:00 BST From: "NAME " William Marslen-Wilson "" Subject:Non-affixational derivational morphology in English I would be grateful for any information about studies of non- affixational derivational morphology in English. By this I mean cases such as FOOD/FEED, SALE/SELL, SONG/SING, where the morphological relationship is (arguably) carried by the vowel change in the stem. I am also interested in cases such THIEF/THIEVE, GRIEF/GRIEVE, as well as more marginal cases where some form of affix also seems to be present (THIEVE/THEFT). Apart from information about references, I would be interested in any leads to lists of English words exhibiting these kinds of relations. William Marslen-Wilson ubjta38@cu.bbk.ac.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 23:42:45 EDT From: AAHNY@CUNYVM.bitnet Subject: Request for references: Whole-verb inversion I would like to receive references in the literature to any recent work (i.e. since c. 1980) done on whole-verb inversion in English; i.e. examples like: On the table sits a lamp. In walked Mary. "I'm here", said John. First comes an explanation. (I distinguish this type of inversion from auxiliary inversion, which is associated with messages of hypotheticality or questioning.) Please address responses directly to me. I will be glad to forward what responses I get to other interested parties. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-812. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-813. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 78 Subject: 3.813 Queries: CHILDES database; Addresses for Norwood, Dogil Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu REMINDER [We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.] -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:40:39 PDT From: joeallen@aludra.usc.edu (Joe Allen) Subject: Query: CHILDES Database 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 10:16 EST From: SPEAS@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Seeking Susan Norwood 3) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:04:40 BST From: Mary Tait Subject: Grzegorz Dogil -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:40:39 PDT From: joeallen@aludra.usc.edu (Joe Allen) Subject: Query: CHILDES Database Does anyone have any idea how I might gain access to the CHILDES database? Thank you in advance, Joe Allen joeallen@aludra.usc.edu American Language Institute University of Southern California -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 10:16 EST From: SPEAS@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Seeking Susan Norwood If anyone knows ther whereabouts of Susan Norwood, who has worked on languages in Nicaragua, would they please contact (or have her contact) Ken Hale at KLHALE@athena.mit.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:04:40 BST From: Mary Tait Subject: Grzegorz Dogil Does anyone know an email address for Grzegorz Dogil, University of Bielefeld? I tried the one on the LSA members list, but it doesn't work. thanks Mary Tait Linguistics Department University of Edinburgh -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-813. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-814. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 172 Subject: 3.814 Conferences: Slavic Acquisition, SCIL, Germanic Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:49:12 +0200 From: Dan Slobin Subject: Crosslinguistic Workshop on Slavic Acquisition 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 14:28:29 -0600 (PDT) From: Richard McKinnon Subject: SCIL-5 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:44:17 EDT From: rosina@rosina.german.lsa.umich.edu (Rosina Lippi-Green) Subject: Germanic Linguistics Roundtable -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:49:12 +0200 From: Dan Slobin Subject: Crosslinguistic Workshop on Slavic Acquisition CROSSLINGUISTIC WORKSHOP ON THE ACQUISITION OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES will be held in Cracow, July 8 - 14, 1993, before the VIth IASCL Congress. Researchers investigating the acquisition of particular Slavic languages by children are invited to present their contributions concerning the following topics: ACQUISITION OF NOUN MORPHOLOGY: Case, Gender and Number ACQUISITION OF VERB MORPHOLOGY: Tense, Aspect, Person, Mood, Voice ACQUISITION OF SYNTAX: Verb-Argument Structure, Complex Sentences NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT: Reference, Temporality, Word Order, Cohesion Organizer: Magdalena Smoczynska Co-organizer: Dan I. Slobin ################################################################# If you are interested in attending the workshop or know about people who would, please contact Magdalena Smoczynska. E-mail address: ULSMOCZY@PLKRCY11.BITNET Postal address: Magdalena Smoczynska Dept. of General & Indo-European Linguistics Jagiellonian University Aleja Mickiewicza 9/11 31-120 Krakow Poland -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 14:28:29 -0600 (PDT) From: Richard McKinnon Subject: SCIL-5 SCIL-5 April 17-18, 1993 A note to all submitting hard copy abstracts to SCIL-5: Please include five (5) copies of your original abstract. Thanks, SCIL-5 Conference Committee -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:44:17 EDT From: rosina@rosina.german.lsa.umich.edu (Rosina Lippi-Green) Subject: Germanic Linguistics Roundtable Please post the following: The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Department of Germanic Languages Is Pleased to Announce The Fourth Annual Michigan-Berkeley Germanic Linguistics Roundtable Thursday, April 15 through Saturday, April 17, 1993 Invited Speakers: Werner Abraham, Groningen and Paul Roberge, Chapel Hill We are further pleased to announce that following the Roundtable, on Sunday, April 18, we will host the Michigan-Heidelberg Colloquium on German Language Communities (Sprachinseln) in North America Klaus Mattheier, Heidelberg, Symposium Leader Format for the Roundtable will be single sessions (no parallel sessions), 30 minute presentations, with an additional 10 minute discussion period. General sessions will be held Thursday through Saturday afternoons. Topical sessions will be held Thursday through Saturday mornings. They are: Early Germanic (Joe Salmons, Purdue, Chair); Netherlandic (Paul Roberge, Chapel Hill, Chair); Variation & Change in the Early Modern Period (Rosina Lippi-Green, UM, Chair); Syntax (Wayne Harbert, Cornell, Chair). Sessions for the Colloquium on German Language Communities will be held on Sunday; format to be announced. Call for Papers: Please submit all abstracts (one-page, double-spaced, references on additional page if necessary, targeted session or colloquium clearly specified) by December 15, 1992 to Rosina Lippi-Green/University of Michigan/3120 Modern Languages Building/Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1275. or by electronic mail to: rosina@rosina.german.lsa.umich.edu or by fax to: 313/763-6557 Please send a message to rosina@rosina.german.lsa.umich.edu if you would like to be included on the electronic mailing list for this conference. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-814. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-815. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 57 Subject: 3.815 The Study of Gender? Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:23 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.807 Announcements: LSA Taskforce; Chicago Dissertations -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:23 PDT From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Re: 3.807 Announcements: LSA Taskforce; Chicago Dissertations I was rather surprised to hear that "one of the missions of the LSA's Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics is to foster the study of language and gender." While this is certainly an acceptable goal, it was not the basis of the establishment of the committee, which, was concerned with ensuring a lack of discirimination against women in the profession, increasing the number of women linguists, investigating charges of discrimination etc. While I believe that the study of language and gender is a legitimate topic to study, it should not have a special status (which an award for a best paper on the topic would give it) any more than the study of innate principles, bilingualism, linguistic explanation for aphasia or any of the other issues of interest toO linguists. Let me add that I do not believe that such awards should be given anyway. The history of medals and awards of all kinds, including the Nobel prizes is very unimpressive. It leads to terrible competitiveness, fraud, non-science considerations, political fighting and more. Just look at the newest Nobel Prize in Economics. Gary S. Becker is an economist who uses equations and 'theory' to show that women are not discriminated even if they receive lower wages than men. In the LA Times of Oct 21, there is an article pointing out that according to this Nobel laureate, "women choose jobs voluntarily that pay less than those of their male counterparts, and that their time is less valuable than their husbands, etc. But that's not really the point -- I am just fuming at this latest attack on women which is being exhalted as not only science but the best of science. What I am really concerned with is that the LSA does not start a system of medals and awards for the best paper by students or faculty or for anything else. Let's do the work we want to do because we are concerned with understanding the nature of human language, male and female, in all its manifestations and glory. Vicki Fromkin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-815. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-816. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 98 Subject: 3.816 FYI: Mystery Citation, Diachronic Chinese, Gay Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 09:58 CST From: SABINO@DUCVAX.AUBURN.EDU Subject: responses to query about mystery citation 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 11:42:52 MDT From: "Sam Wang (Wang Hsu), University of Alberta" Subject: 3.786 Summary: diachronic Chinese phonology 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 22:39:11 PDT From: Geoffrey Nunberg Subject: caballeros y caballeras -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 09:58 CST From: SABINO@DUCVAX.AUBURN.EDU Subject: responses to query about mystery citation The consensus was that the the title, Jentrade Improibide, Tal Scu^r De Une Cjamare is probably Friulian meaning "The Dark Room," a one-act play or short story by Tennessee Williams. He doesn't suspect the playwright will have much use for the Friulian royalties-- he being my colleague, of course. Many thanks, Robin Sabino -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 11:42:52 MDT From: "Sam Wang (Wang Hsu), University of Alberta" Subject: 3.786 Summary: diachronic Chinese phonology From: Sam Wang (Wang Hsu), University of Alberta The bibliography supplied for diachronic Chinese phonology is very useful. But an important item is missing: Baxter, William 1992. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Walter de Gruyter. Regards, Sam Wang (Wang Hsu) swang@ualtavm.bitnet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 22:39:11 PDT From: Geoffrey Nunberg Subject: caballeros y caballeras Re: A Technical Question ("gay") You might be interested to see the usage note we attached to the entry for gay in the recently released Third Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, for which I was the usage editor: "The word gay is now standard in its use to refer to the American homosexual community and its members; in this use it is generally lowercased. Gay is distinguished from homosexual in emphasizing the cultural and social aspects of homosexuality (see note at gender). Many writers reserve gay for male homosexuals, but the word is also used to refer to homosexuals of both sexes; when the intended meaning is not clear in the context, the phrase gay and lesbian should be used. Like some other names of social groups that are derived from adjectives (e.g., Black), gay may be regarded as offensive when used as a noun to refer to particular individuals, as in There were two gays on the panel; here a phrase such as gay people should be used instead. But there is no objection to the use of the noun in the plural to refer to the general gay community, as in Gays have united in opposition to the policy." I have no explanation for this curious restriction on the use of nouns like "Black" and "gay" in NP's denoting particular persons, as opposed to kinds. The fact that they are derived from adjectives presumably plays a role; sentences like "There are two African Americans (Jews, etc.) on the panel" are unexceptionable. But "Asian" etc. can also be used in this context. So is zero-derivation the crucial property, and if so, why? By the by, a Nexis search revealed that "straight" is now quite widely used by the mainstream press as the antonym of "gay" (though a few newspapers continue to style it in shudder quotes). This is only the second instance I can think of where a majority has adopted a name for itself that originates within a minority or socially disempowered group. The other is "gentile." Geoff Nunberg -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-816. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-817. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 43 Subject: 3.817 Best Theory Fallacy and Unification Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 09:17:39 EST From: andaling@durras.anu.edu.au (Avery Andrews) Subject: Best Theory Fallacy -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 09:17:39 EST From: andaling@durras.anu.edu.au (Avery Andrews) Subject: Best Theory Fallacy The fallacy is that the use of a uniform mechanism (e.g. global derivational constraints) for a wide range of purposes does not necessarily embody any useful claim about language. It *might*, but this depends on the particular properties of the mechanism. What I think that unification has going for is (a) it has reasonable mathematical properties (those of `and' in logics where consistency is decideable, I'd suggest). (b) it corresponds to the idea that language makes extensive use of `long components' (a Harrisian term, I think I recollect) that get manifested at multiple points in the grammatical structure, with the manifestations having to give consistent information about the long component. But this could all be just wrong. Maybe movement, co-superscripting , etc., really are so different in their empirical properties that it's pointless to try to reduce them to a common formal basis. Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-817. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-818. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 252 Subject: 3.818 Negatives Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 9:39:12 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.806 Negatives - Je crains qu'il ne pleuve 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:55:22 EST From: "Warren A. Brewer " Subject: I could care less, Henry. 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:10:07 CDT From: Michael Kac Subject: Re: 3.806 Negatives 4) Date: 21 Oct 1992 14:48:46 -0500 (CDT) From: ARS7950@TNTECH.bitnet Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives 5) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 10:21:24 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 3.806 Negatives 6) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:03:31 CDT From: Michael Kac Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives 7) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 10:36:52 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Reneging -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 9:39:12 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.806 Negatives - Je crains qu'il ne pleuve > Date: 21 Oct 1992 11:52:51 -0300 > From: WTGORDON@AC.DAL.CA > > There is in French something called "expressive negation" which > is a comparable phenomenon. It is a use of "ne" without the "pas" > which normally completes a true negative but also without any negative > force. Standard historical grammars such as Brunot and Bruneau give a > dozen or more syntactic patterns or lexically determined contexts in > which the "ne expressif" occurs. The explanation usually given is that > of contamination or carry-over effect. Thus two related sentences such > as "Je desire qu'il ne pleuve pas" and "Je crains qu'il pleuve" give > rise to "Je crains qu'il ne pleuve". In the latter, "pas" is lost, but > so is the negative meaning. > --Terry Gordon (WTGORDON@AC.DAL.CA) The hypothesis of a contamination or carry-over effect does not sound very convincing in view of the fact that the real negative marker in Modern Spoken French is *pas*, with *ne* often disappearing (e.g. "Je sais pas", "Je dis pas que c'est pas possible"). How could a particle that tends to disappear be carried over to another construction, whereas the one that remains strongly present disappears in the process? I think we ought to distinguish here between a diachronic and a synchronic explanation/account. I won't go into the diachronics; for a synchronic account (one of many) I refer to an article to appear in one of next year's issues of the French journal *Langue francaise* devoted to semantic primit- ives. The reference is as follows: Marie-Eve RITZ, "La semantique de la negation en francais moderne", Langue francaise, numero sur les primitifs semantiques (B. Peeters, ed), 1993. Further details are as yet unknown. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr Bert Peeters Tel: +61 02 202344 Department of Modern Languages 002 202344 University of Tasmania at Hobart Fax: 002 207813 GPO Box 252C Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au Hobart TAS 7001 Australia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:55:22 EST From: "Warren A. Brewer " Subject: I could care less, Henry. RE: Henry Kucera's query about "could (not) care less". I have two statements to make: (1) regarding my Sprachgefuehl; (2) notice of Partridge's historical facts. (1) In my idiolect, there is subsumed the primacy of the non-negative form: {I could care less.} meaning "I really don't care, am totally unsympathetic to the topic under discussion." About a decade ago, a classmate at UCLA pointed out what she regarded as an ellipsis: {I could care.}, emphasis on "care"; San Fernando Valley (So.Calif.), teen sociolect. Actually, I had never analyzed {I could care less.} as being ironic, which it is after I'd thought about it; it simply had an idiomatic meaning. Clearly sarcastic, as Benji Wald noted. On first reflection, I thought that {could care less} originated in the Folksprache, and had undergone subsequent linguistic cleansing under puristic pressure of hyperlogical pedants: It is not logical to say {could care less}, say {could NOT care less}. My idiolect rejects {could not care less} or {couldn't care less} as awkwardly unrhythmic and pedantically contrived gentrification. That the {not} is not there in the folkmenschian deep structure seemed clear to me from less delicate paraphrases: (A) {I could give a shit (less).} = {I don't give a shit.} (B) {I could give a flying fuck.} = {I don't give a f.f.} To insert a negative in (A) or (B) is impossible for me. Q.E.D. (2) However, what do I do with embarrassing facts contradicting this lovely theory? Eric Partridge (1977), A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, s.v. _couldn't_care_less_, dates it from circa 1940, originally upper-middle class; prompted by (and perhaps as a sarcastic riposte to) _I_couldn't_agree_(with_you)_more_, from 1937. Implication being it spread to the States therefrom. No mention of {could care less}, however; an Americanism? Warren A. Brewer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:10:07 CDT From: Michael Kac Subject: Re: 3.806 Negatives Another speculative hypothesis about *I could care less*: might it not be a hypercorrection, given that *I couldn't care less* is a case of the dread Double Negative (even if a prescriptively permissible one)? Also, the pre- sumptive double negative source IS hard to process. But I dunno. M -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: 21 Oct 1992 14:48:46 -0500 (CDT) From: ARS7950@TNTECH.bitnet Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives One of the quirkier negative/positive dialect features around my area of Middle Tennessee (Cookeville and environs) is the use of "I don't care to" as a positive response. When I was first building my home, I asked a mason to build my fireplace. When he responded "I don't care to," I simply asked someone else. Was I surprised when they both showed up. This is one of those things we have to warn all new "outlander" faculty about. Alan Slotkin ars7950@tntech -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 10:21:24 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 3.806 Negatives Let me join John Lawler, author of the classic "Ample Negatives", in blowing my own...well, anyway, this IS a topic (or set of interrelated topics) on which I've spent some time and ink, not that I have the last word on it. In some papers I published in 1978 and thereabouts, I mentioned the "I could(n't) care less", "miss (not)", "so don't I", and related turns, trying to relate them to the pleonastic negatives in Romance and the concordial negations in various languages (including English, of course). One of my citations was a Boston Globe headline reading COLTS WANT THIS ONE? SO DON'T THE PATS where the (then-)Baltimore Colts and New England Patriots were two pro football teams preparing for a big game. (Those were the days...) This I took to illustrate that the "so don't (can't/won't/...) NP" construction, which I regarded as indeed sarcastic in some sense, is familiar enough in New England to allow the assumption of widespread comprehension. I don't know the range except that informants from southern Maine to Greenwich, Conn. are at least passively quite familiar with it. I don't know if it's attested outside New England. To John Lawler's "not with my spouse, you don't" type example, interested explorers might want to think about the negative parenthetical ("Perot isn't, I (don't) think, actually going to carry any states"), which I also spent some time ruminating over in those papers (appearing in Syntax and Semantics 9 and in volume 4 of Universals of Human Language, Stanford U. Press). Another example of anti-pleonastic "not" in English is the one in "That'll teach you (not) to..."; like the "I could care less", it relies on the standard turn to induce the now-conventionalized sarcastic understanding. The pleonastic negations are of course much more widespread, i.e. those in "I wouldn't be surprised if it didN'T rain" or "I miss not seeing you around". I've collected a bunch of those in my 1990 CLS paper (inexplicably not yet published), "Duplex negatio affirmat: The economy of double negation". If anyone really wants it, I can send them a copy. Finally, on the surprising tolerance of diametrically opposed readings resulting from the coming and going of these negatives (mentioned by Jane Edwards in her posting), there's a nice paper on a Chinese exemplar of this phenomenon involving the construction "chadianr" (lit., 'miss-a-little', i.e. almost): as noted by Charles Li ("A functional explanation for an unexpected ambiguity (S or -S)", in Linguistic Studies Offered to Joseph Greenberg, Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1976), the sequence "chadianr mei" ('miss-a-little not') may signal 'almost' or 'just barely'. A follow-up paper was written recently by Yung-O Biq: "Metalinguistic Negation in Mandarin", Journal of Chinese Linguistics 17 (1989): 75-95. She's at San Francisco State U. if anyone wants to contact her directly. --Larry Horn -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 08:03:31 CDT From: Michael Kac Subject: Re: 3.804 Paradox, Negatives In response to the query about the distribution of 'So don't I': i grew up with it, in Ithaca, New York. Michael Kac -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 10:36:52 EDT From: Larry Horn Subject: Reneging Another couple of bibliographical notes. On redundant negation, both redundant un-verbs ('unthaw', 'unloose(n)', etc.) and various redundant negative adjectives, including the current 'irregardless' (mentioned in one of the earlier postings) and its widely attested 17th century precursors ('unboundless', 'undauntless', 'unmatchless', etc., all with redundant--i.e. singly-neg--meanings), are discussed in an ESCOL 1988 paper of mine. Benjy Wald's query about retro-NOT (he apparently missed the lengthy exchange on the List on the construction last winter) prompts me to mention that I discussed this usage in a paper given last May at Columbus at SALT 2 (2d Conference on Semantics and Linguistics Theory) and since published (available from Dept. of Linguistics, Ohio State U.). I was careful (I hope) to lavish acknowledgments for contributed ...NOTs, and those classic 1910 and 1955 citations I mentioned on the net are included, so the William Safires of the world (all of whom we can confidently expect to read semantics conference proceedings) now have no excuse for claiming that ...NOT was invented by Wayne's World. (I can send anyone interested copies of either of those papers, although any listees from Ohio State will correctly point out that both volumes are worth owning on independent grounds.) --Larry Horn (LHORN@YALEVM.bitnet) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-818. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-819. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 221 Subject: 3.819 Language Preservation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 22 Oct 1992 23:13:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Tomei Subject: Language presevation 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:23:51 BST From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: 3.811 Language Preservation 3) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 09:38:26 PDT From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.811 Language Preservation 4) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 14:32:58 +0000 From: Dyvik@hf.uib.no Subject: Re: 3.811 Language Preservation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 22 Oct 1992 23:13:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Tomei Subject: Language presevation I have been reading with interest the discussion on language death and maintainence. A few points I would like to comment on are the comparison of language disappearance to the loss of biological diversity. A point to be made is that the traditional usage of a dead language has been for Latin and classical Greek, languages in which great amounts of materials still exist. The languages which are disappearing are doing so at a rate so quickly, linguists often reach them at Dorian's stage of 'rememberers' who can only remember isolated words and phrases. Another point which I find interesting in this comparison between biology and language is that it seems that some languages have a certain 'robustness' that others do not, in that they are better able to resist language decline than others. I don't like the fact that this could take a darwinian turn, i.e. languages that are meant to succeed do, and those that didn't shouldn't. But on the other hand, AI researchers are dealing with the possibility that systems 'think', in that some systems can react to certain changes to 'improve' their environment (and the best known example is the "gaia" argument, that the earth is an organism in a certain sense of the word) I suppose that there will be those who argue that language death is merely social and economic pressures that force a people to choose, and, in a strictly logical sense, I have no arguments to offer. The fact that Japanese put their verbs at the end of the sentence doesn't necessitate that they will be deferential. But on another level, it distresses me to think that languages are merely tools to do things with. A system as complex as language should have a dynamic just as other complex systems have. Perhaps this is just an outgrowth of the use of phrases like 'a living language' but I'm not so sure... Joe Tomei University of Oregon JTOMEI@oregon.uoregon.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 14:23:51 BST From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: 3.811 Language Preservation > Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 12:00:25 MEZ > From: "David M. W. Powers" > > I recognize that the kind of community/language which ONLP focuses on has > provided the training ground for many (including me). But "it keeps me > in a job" is rather a poor reason for undertaking such a project, or > indeed for doing anything (in an ideal world). I don't think that anyone was using "it keeps me in a job" as an argument. On the other hand, the argument "we need it for our work" was used, and that was indeed a poor argument. I think Rick Wojcik had the right idea. The Oaxaca community have the right to do what they like with the Oaxaca language. If they choose to abandon it, then the best thing to do for the linguists who intend to use it for their research is to compile a large corpus of material, while this is still possible. In so far as the parallel with biology is valid, there are some experiments that biologists can't afford to perform, although they would be useful for increasing their knowledge. We live in the real world. But if the Oaxaca have the desire to preserve as much as possible of their traditional culture, including as much as possible of their language, then it will be a crime for anyone to prevent them from doing so. And if it turns out that in order to get there they need some assistance from us, if our knowledge and skills can be useful for putting their language into writing and getting a literature started, then I believe it is our duty to make it available to them. We didn't do anything to earn our birth into communities speaking languages used by millions of people, with long literary traditions, and what we have we must share with those who have a different fate. If that succeeds, we will all be richer at the end of the day. Yes, and I also think that it is perfectly possible for it to succeed. > Case B is closer to what I see as the reality of the communities ONLP is > dealing with. If it is presently 1000 strong, and the community of > native speakers of the language reduces by an order of magnitude each > generation, it can only survive three generations. Maybe, but why should it go down by an order of magnitude? > The speakers of the > language treasured these books as they moved out into the wider world, > but their children always associated their culture with their parents' > language and the village life, and thus completely irrelevant to their > modern western lifestyle - especially as they had no interest in hearing, > let alone reading, their traditional language and at a fairly young aged > refused to even try to communicate in that language with anyone but their > grandparents, who really hadn't learnt much of anything else. Here's the catch. We don't know that. I have no idea how much interest the young Oaxaca have in hearing, reading, writing, speaking their traditional language. I'm not sure that they are not interested. > But grandpa's stories, they were interesting enough, yet belonged > to a time past. Yes, and so do Shakespeare's plays. Let's junk 'em. > David Powers > World President NOT Oh, and here's my emphatic vote against the world having a president. `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel) Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu) * Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK * Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 92 09:38:26 PDT From: Rick Wojcik Subject: Re: 3.811 Language Preservation I would like to follow up on Bill Bennett's point about how difficult it is to preserve a language which its speakers have little use for. As a young graduate student who first visited Brittany in 1971, I was full of eagerness to learn the language and help preserve it. My mentor, Wolfgang Dressler, asked me how I might ask directions of a Breton farmer if I got lost on a back road. After my several clumsy attempts to find the correct Breton phrasing, he pointed out that anything less than French would invite an attack with a pitchfork. Why? Because, he explained, the Breton farmer would think "This person thinks I'm so stupid that I don't even know French." :-) Well, not all farmers were that way, but it was a good lesson for me. I had many experiences that made me think I didn't really understand what was going on with Breton. Why, for example, did a man in his 30's, a fluent Breton speaker, refuse to speak Breton with friends and relatives when he returned home from Paris? Reportedly, he spoke it all the time in Paris. The fact was that he felt a need to express his Breton identity in Paris. In Brittany, he wanted to broadcast his success in the world outside, which could only be helped by his use of French. What keeps a language alive is its social function, and we live in a world where the Breton language has little social value for its users. So, despite the deep sense of loss that Bretons feel at the passing of their language, there is little beyond sentimentality to motivate them to keep it alive. Worse yet, the French language itself is feeling cramped by the elevation of English into an international lingua franca. So it is not only the Breton identity that has been under attack, but the French one as well. -Rick Wojcik (rwojcik@boeing.com) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 14:32:58 +0000 From: Dyvik@hf.uib.no Subject: Re: 3.811 Language Preservation At the risk of starting an uninteresting regress of recursive wonder I must express wonder at Bill Bennett's wonder that linguists should be interested in discussing questions pertaining to language preservation and language extinction. Aren't these questions interesting both as a field of research and as a possible field of application for linguistics? This is not to say that linguists should see it as their task to come to the rescue with howling sirens whenever a language threatens to vanish, or that they could do much if its speakers really do not want to go on using it. But is that the kind of scenario anybody has had in mind? Agreed, the impetus towards language preservation, as an aspect of culture preservation in general, must normally come from members of the threatened community itself (although there are examples of successful initiatives from outsiders). But it is a fact that even the simple discovery that your native language actually has grammar may boost the cultural self-respect of a community significantly. Hence the work of linguists may in some cases have some modest influence on the course of events. It is also easy to see the potential relevance of linguistics for various existing language planning programmes around the world. Should linguists take part in, criticize, or (to preserve their objectivity unmolested) ignore such programmes? Isn't it at least worthwhile to discuss such matters on the Linguist List? What I object to in Bennetts posting as well as in Powers' original posting is what I see as the suggestion that developments such as language death are caused by forces beyond human control, or are somehow natural and inevitable. In studying such phenomena linguists are studying aspects of human action, and the role of the totally neutral, objective observer may not always be available to them (to put it carefully) - even though I agree that it remains an ideal for the linguist in his/her capacity as empirical researcher. Helge Dyvik -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-819. ________________________________________________________________ [Moderators' note: The following message describes how to do things on LINGUIST, and with the LINGUISTS Nameserver. We send this out every few weeks so that it will be available through the same channel as the messages, rather like the stylesheet in the front cover of a paper journal. It will always appear without a volume number and with the subject line "LINGUIST How-To's" followed by the date of the latest update, and the annotation (REV) if the file has been changed since the last posting, and (UNREV) if it has not. An asterisk marks these modified sections.] ---VERY IMPORTANT--- When communicating with the Listserv you MUST use the routing appropriate to your subscription. 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NB-6: Please don't attempt to reach us with a TELL message. You will only get a NO SUCH NODE message back. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-820. Sat 24 Oct 1992. Lines: 166 Subject: 3.820 Phonetician: report on the references Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 23:21:24 EDT From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Phoneticians -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 23:21:24 EDT From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Phoneticians The debate about neutralization has just taken a new turn. I have called for the people who accuse me of being cloth-eared, ignorant of phonetics, etc., to cite specific references. And now JL1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK writes: > 1. The following ear phoneticians have all described differences > between the so-called 'neutralised' word-final 'voiced' and > 'voiceless' portions in languages such as German: Ellis, 1876, > Pronunciation for Singers (and in Ealy English Pronunciation); > Sweet, 1877, A Handbook of Phonetics; Vietor,1884, German > Pronunciation; Jesperson, 1933, Lehrbuch der Phonetik; Heffer, > 1950, General Phonetics (American one this!!). I have yet to get a hold of Ellis or Heffner, but I can report the following: Sweet (p. 76) does discuss "half-voiced obstruents" in intervocalic position in Danish and without specifying the position in Southern German (although we know from other places that in S. German this occurs in all positions and in place of both the voiced and the voiceless stops of Standard German (which is, as everyone knows I think, a curious conglomerate of basically Northern pronunciation and Southern (almost) everything else). Thus, this is a case of what I mentioned in my last posting: the "half-voiced" sounds do, of course, occur (except we would probably call them voiceless lax), but NOT in the languages/dialects at issue in this whole discussion. Indeed, on p. 134, Sweet describes the speech of a Hanover speaker in which "Final stops are always voiceless". Also, Sweet describes the medial consonant of 'bigger' in English as a short stop (shorter than in 'big'). Jespersen (p. 107) also mentions that the "voiceless mediae" (as he calls the "half-voiced" sounds) occur in Danish and in Southern German, and clearly states that (and he is right) in Southern German these occur in place of both the voiced and the voiceless sounds of Standard German. Interestingly, he adds that THESE are the sounds he has "heard often enough in American pronunciation ... in place of intervocalic [p t k]", e.g., in words like 'baker'. Further, he says very clearly (p. 111-112) that those German speakers who have the voiced/voiceless contrast (as noted, many Southerners do not), have final devoicing and cites numerous examples, including the one which us cloth-eared phonologists always use, namely, 'Rat' and 'Rad', which he describes as homophonous. Vietor (p. 366 of the 7th edition) says that in Standard German "In final position, aside from the liquids ..., only the voiceless [sounds] are allowed", and cites 'Land' as being pronounced with a final [t]. It is, of course, true that a different scholar, Theodor Siebs, Deutsche Bu"hnenaussprache Hochsprache (I will cite from the 15th ed., 1930) says something different. He claims that there is a difference (having to do with the transition from the preceding vowel) between the way that orthographic p and b, t and d, and k and g ARE TO BE pronounced (pp. 72-82). However, (a) He does not make a parallel distinction in the case of /s/ and /z/, where there is not to be any contrast (p. 66), where, of course, there is no consistent orthographic distinction. This to my mind indicates that the whole thing is probably invented. (b) He only says that this is the way these things "ARE TO BE pronounced". Indeed, he refers (pp. 7-10) to the way in which a small group of scholars tried in the late 19th century to CREATE the standard pronunciation. He never says that anyone actually has been heard to speak this way. (This kind of thing was not uncommon: Y. R. Chao and others tried to create a standard pronunciation for Chinese, based on Beijing speech, but with several contrasts added in, and failed no less than Siebs in the case of German). (c) Vietor (op. cit., p. 366) specifically says that these distinctions are totally artificial (by the way, Vietor was one of the experts Siebs refers to earlier). >From (b) and (c), I infer that we should no more take Siebs as DESCRIBING the pronunciation of any actual speaker than we would (HOPEFULLY) take any other prescriptive statement, AIN'T THAT RIGHT? (d) Finally, this contrast is claimed only if the preceding vowel is long or if the preceding segment is a sonorant, but it is specified that there is no contrast after a short vowel. This distinction in terms of environment bears no relationship to the claims of the recent Incomplete Neutralization literature I have been referring to. Thus, I stand by my statement that there is no evidence that anybody has ever heard such contrasts in German. As for the other languages at issue, Polish, Russian, and Catalan, no one has yet purported to have a reference claiming absence of final neutralization of voice in the non- instrumental literature. (It is interesting that none of my opponents in this discussion seem to be aware of the work on Polish, for example, of such outstanding phoneticians as Tytus Benni or Wiktor Jassem). There also exists a very important work on Russian pronunciation coauthored by Daniel Jones (who seems to be one of the people who are not supposed to have been cloth- eared), dating to the early '20's. This book, as far as I can remember (I have not seen it for a long time), agrees with everybody else that there is complete final devoicing in Russian. Perhaps, since I went to the trouble of checking Sweet, Vietor, Jespersen (and even Siebs), somebody on the other side would read Daniel Jones before continuing this discussion. (It might also be nice if someone would try to see if Jones anywhere in his prolific corpus gives us any examples of German or Polish or Catalan that would be relevant. Unfortunately, all I have at hand is Jones's stuff on the German diminutive '-chen' and related matters.) Of course, as also noted, the continuant pronunciations of intervocalic velars in English were also missed by at least some of these great phoneticians. But, in this case, I must say that I do not know the literature very well, so perhaps SOMEONE has identified these sounds without the help of instruments. I am still waiting for a specific reference, though. (In this connection, I would also like to say that the people who have reported such sounds as far as I know DO note that they are unlike the velar fricatives we normally transcribe with the symbols [x] and gamma. Whatever the distinction (duration, amount of friction, whatever), it is perfectly legitimate for me to suggest that this is precisely why even such non-cloth-eared phoneticians as Sweet and Jespersen did not hear them.) Getting back to the question of neutralization in German, Polish, Catalan, and Russian, let me also say one more time that EVEN the instrumental findings that the neutralization is incomplete have been challenged by perfectly competent phoneticians such as Fourakis and Jassem. While I myself am beginning to think that the distinctions may be real (I did not at first), the fact that even the instrumental findings are in doubt suggests that anyone who expects to find that these distinctions have actually been HEARD is very likely to be disappointed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-820. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-821. Sun 25 Oct 1992. Lines: 116 Subject: 3.821 Negatives Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 18:06:32 EDT From: Henry Kucera Subject: Could[n't] care less--summary 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:53:20 EDT From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: 3.818 Negatives 3) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:12:33 CDT From: steven schaufele c/o elaine schaufele Subject: evanescent negatives -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 18:06:32 EDT From: Henry Kucera Subject: Could[n't] care less--summary I was suprised and gratified to receive (so far) more than twenty private responses to my query about "could[n't] care less," in addition to the postings that appeared on Linguist. I could hardly to justice to the various interesting opinions in a brief summary, but here are just a few of the most often cited observations (without attribution, in order not the misrepresent anybody): 1. The form "could care less" is certainly not new in American English; people remember it going back to the 1960's, if not before. 2. I have receive no communications about British English but did get one about Australian English where the expression seems to occur in specific contexts only, apparenlty as an "americanization". 3. The most common explanations (some of which were also given in the postings on Linguist) include: "less" as a sufficient negation; [n't] as a phonetically "weak" element dropped; the expression as intentional irony or sarcasm; a change that results in a less "pedantic" or--as one person said-- "cool" sounding expression & the general complex negation functions discussed in the public postings. 4. One speaker (born in Alabama and educated at Harvard) claims to use both expressions interchangeably, depending on circumstances. This suggests a "register" factor, also mentioned by others. 5. I have also learned that the problem of correctness has been discussed in Ann Landers' column in the past (no references). Three respondents thought that the form without the negative was a simple mistake that gets corrected occasionally (or should be). Only one person (a non-linguist) said bluntly that "could care less" is just a "dumb mistake". Linguists are a generous lot, it seems. Many thanks to all who responded. Henry Kucera -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:53:20 EDT From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: 3.818 Negatives Just 2 quick words about the "ne expressif" of French. (1) We know that these started centuries ago, at a time when 'ne' WAS the normal negative marker, and (2) Many other languages have such constructions, often using the same negative marker which they normally use (e.g., Polish). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:12:33 CDT From: steven schaufele c/o elaine schaufele Subject: evanescent negatives A couple of possibly interesting points relevant to the discussion of the construction 'could(n't) care less' that, as far as i can tell, haven't been made yet. (1) Although this isn't true in all languages, in English as in many other 'Standard Average European' languages negative morphenes tend to be relatively unaccented, ergo easily elided from a phonological point of view-- witness the fact that, alongside 'could care less' and 'couldn't care less', the phrase 'could not care less' is heavily marked, at least in my judgment. (2) The construction 'could(n't) care less' has no competition: I have never to my knowledge come across any English speaker (native or otherwise) use it, with or without the negative marker on the auxiliary, to express anything other than total disinterest. In other words, the following utterance would strike me as definitely weird, and possibly unidiomatic: ??? I definitely care about acing the final; i could care less if i had done better on the midterm. 'might care less' might be acceptable in this context; 'would care less', while rather marginal in my judgment, is definitely better than 'could care less' in this context. My point is that, since 'could care less' serves no other function in Standard English, it can be appropriated as a semantic doublet for the version with the overt negative marker on the auxiliary. Steven Schaufele University of Illinois -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-821. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-822. Sun 25 Oct 1992. Lines: 98 Subject: 3.822 Queries: ASL and parameters; morphology; re- Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu REMINDER [We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.] -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 23 Oct 1992 19:41:30 +0200 (EET) From: Martti Arnold Nyman Subject: Q: ASL and Parameter Setting 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 12:46:18 EST From: OSH Subject: Inflectional and derivational morphemes 3) Date: 23 Oct 1992 17:24:48 -0600 (CST) From: Henry Churchyard Subject: morphological Bushism... -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 23 Oct 1992 19:41:30 +0200 (EET) From: Martti Arnold Nyman Subject: Q: ASL and Parameter Setting I have two related questions: (1) Are there any studies, published or in progress, on ASL or other sign languages in terms of the 'parameter-setting' approach? (2) According to Chomsky, UG determines the class of possible languages. Judging from the literature available to me, the principles and parameters of the Chomsky-inspired UG have been designed on the basis of the written/spoken modality of language. Given the fact that (e.g.) ASL is a full-fledged human language that capitalizes on the visual channel modality, it follows that the ASL syntax must belong to the class of possible languages defined by UG. A priori (i.e. not knowing ASL or any other sign language), I reckon with the possibility that at least some of the proposed parameters are modality-dependemt. (For instance, what about the PRO-drop parameter?) In principle, channel-modality should be kept apart from what is universal in language and language processing. I'd like to know whether the inclusion of ASL will give rise to major/minor/no changes in the present design of (Chomskyan) UG. Please, send any bibliographical references directly to me. I'll compile a bibliography, if that seems feasible. Point (2) may be of some theoretical interest. Insofar as I get theoretically serious private responses, I'll summarize. Thanks. Martti Nyman Department of General Linguistics University of Helsinki (manyman@cc.helsinki.fi) University of Turku (manyman@polaris.utu.fi) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 12:46:18 EST From: OSH Subject: Inflectional and derivational morphemes Inflectional morphemes generally occur outside derivational morphemes. Does this generalization apply to languages with infixes? O.S. Her National Chengchi Univ. Taiepi, Taiwan -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: 23 Oct 1992 17:24:48 -0600 (CST) From: Henry Churchyard Subject: morphological Bushism... Pres. Bush in public statement today (10/23): "We are redetermined to" [move ahead in relationship with Vietnam]. Anyone care to guess what the analogical model for this formation was, or even what it is supposed to mean in particular? --Henry Churchyard lify436@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-822. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-823. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 110 Subject: 3.823 Jobs: Syntax, German, Indonesian Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 15:54:28 EDT From: Martha Ratliff Subject: Wayne State: Syntax Job 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 17:32:31 +1100 From: bert peeters Subject: Jobs at University of Tasmania, Hobart (Australia) -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 15:54:28 EDT From: Martha Ratliff Subject: Wayne State: Syntax Job Pending final authorization, the Wayne State University English Department and Linguistics Program anticipate recruitment for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor beginning September 1993. We expect to seek applicants whose research specialty is syntax, with related interests in one or more of the following areas: semantics, morphology, language acquis- ition, applied linguistics, language description. Teaching responsibilities will include directing M.A. essays and teaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Ph.D. required. The salary is negotiable, and will depend upon accomplishments and experience. Applicants should send cv, samples of work, and three letters of reference by December 1st 1992 to: Professor Lesley Brill, Chair, Department of English, 51 W. Warren Ave., Wayne State University, Detroit MI 48202. Wayne State University is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer. Martha Ratliff, Director Linguistics Program -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 17:32:31 +1100 From: bert peeters Subject: Jobs at University of Tasmania, Hobart (Australia) A. LECTURESHIP (LEVEL B - LECTURER) IN GERMAN Applications are invited for a 4 yr contract lectureship in German in the Department of Modern Languages, within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, commencing in February 1993. The appointee will be required to teach courses in German language and related subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and may choose to teach relevant units in European Literature. The appointee must possess or show significant progress towards obtain- ing a PhD in German linguistics, literautre or a related field, and have a proven research record and extensive experience in teaching German at the tertiary (including postgraduate) level. Skills in course design, implementation and administration are essential. Salary will be in the Academic Level B range, AUD 41,000 - 48,688 per annum. Further information about the position may be obtained from the Head of Department, Dr Maria Flutsch, on +61 02 20 2359, or fax +61 02 20 7813, or from Dr Bert Peeters (e-mail: Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au). Closing date: 15 November 1992. B. LECTURESHIP (LEVEL B - LECTURER) IN INDONESIAN - 2 POSITIONS Applications are invited for one Lectureship in Indonesian in the Department of Modern Languages - Hobart (Ref 97/92) and one Lecture- ship in Indonesian in the Department of Humanities - Launceston (Ref 96/92) within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, commencing as early as possible in 1993. The contracts will be up to 4 years. The appointees will be required to implement and teach courses in Indonesian language and related subjects under the direction of the Head of Department at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The appointees must possess a higher degree, or show good progress towards a PhD, in Indonesian Linguistics, literature or a related field. The appointees will have experience and a good record in teaching Indo- nesian at the tertiary level in an Englsh-speaking country. Salary will be within the Academic Level B range, AUD 41,000 - 48,688 per annum. Further information about the positions may be obtained from the Head of Department, Dr Maria Flutsch, on +61 02 20 2359, fax +61 02 20 7813, or from Dr Bert Peeters (e-mail: Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au). Closing date: 25 November 1992. Late applications will be considered. Position information and application forms are available from the Staff Office Secretary, on +61 02 20 2013. Applications should reach the Acting Staff Officer, University of Tasmania at Hobart, GPO Box 252C, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia, by the specified date. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-823. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-824. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 87 Subject: 3.824 Queries: American English Corpora, Irish Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 25 Oct 1992 09:20:01 -0600 (MDT) From: rebecca wheeler Subject: American English Corpera 2) Date: 26 Oct 1992 19:02:02 +1000 From: "LLOYD HOLLIDAY, LA TROBE UNIV, EDUCATION" Subject: Irish -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 25 Oct 1992 09:20:01 -0600 (MDT) From: rebecca wheeler Subject: American English Corpera I'm looking for American English corpora of relatively current sources such as newspapers or novels. I've got a Mac IIsi and a CD-reader. It, as usual, needs to be economical since I'm an independent scholar, without University support. I'm aware of Wordcruncher CD (which has novels by faulkner, cather, london etc.) and of FrontPageNews which has annual international wire services text. The former is a bit older than I want to be dealing with and the latter has a very cumbersome search routine. Of course, i'm also aware of the Brown and the LUNDES (sp) corpera, but am looking, again for more contemporary encodings. My purpose is lexical semantic research -- I look at the relationship between semantics, syntax and pragmatics and want to be able to search for a given lexical item, and pull up its syntactic and discourse context. The corpus doesn't have to be tagged -- am willing to do that myself at this point. Anyone with info on such contemporary American corpora, do let me know. thanks! rebecca wheeler logan, utah -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 26 Oct 1992 19:02:02 +1000 From: "LLOYD HOLLIDAY, LA TROBE UNIV, EDUCATION" Subject: Irish Following up the general discussion on language preservation and in particular Rick Wojcik's comments about the social function of Breton, I'd like to ask what social function Irish Gaelic has for the Irish. A student reports that she overheard a tourist in Ireland who wanted to hear it (in Dublin) receiving the following reply: "We don't speak it, we only learn it." While this is not altogether precise, it does appear that there are no genuine native speakers of Irish even in the Gaeltacht. An enormous amount of money is spent on "reviving" / preserving Irish, that does not seem to lead to its general use in the society, nor to an increase in the number of native speakers. Why is this done? Does Irish simply have a symbolic as opposed to social function for the Irish and is that sufficient motivation to keep at "learning" it? Do the Irish in fact need this symbol since independence? Is it's preservation an act of homage by politicians rather than an expression of the will of the people, etc? The student is planning to do an in depth investigation into the domains of use of Irish by speakers spanning a range of socio-economic and geographic variables in an attempt to provide some answers to these questions. But any comments speculations, theories, literature would be most welcome. Thanks. Lloyd Holliday edulh@lure.latrobe.edu.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-824. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-825. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 160 Subject: 3.825 Language Preservation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 13:05:28 +0000 From: Patrick John Coppock Subject: 3.819 Language Preservation 2) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 17:02:11 +0100 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: Re: 3.819 Language Preservation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 13:05:28 +0000 From: Patrick John Coppock Subject: 3.819 Language Preservation David Powers has obviously stirred up quite a wasp's nest with his "flame" on the relevance of the ONL project. I don't want to be accused of trying to go for (or jump down) Dave's throat, as some others seem to done in the lively discussion which followed his initial contribution. Iwould though, like to bring up the question of at least one family of minority languages and cultures which seems to have documented a particular ability to survive processes of decay and depletion due to their percieved (on the part of more dominant cultures) lack of value as language systems, dissolution of the political and cultural systems they coexist with, increasing levels of inter- and intracultural mobility for minority language users and minority culture members, development and dissemination of more and more knowledge to steadily increasing numbers of people by means of "majority" languages. In spite of an apparent complete lack of "survival value" within the "economy" of the lingustic and cultural systems of the world it would seem that this particular family of languages will probably manage to survive such processes for a very long time to come. As such they will surely be of great interest, not only as objects for study, but also as languages and cultures which should be actively promoted and developed. It is also important that the people responsible for the work of documentation, promotion and development are, to as large a degree as possible, themselves members of these cultures, and users of these languages. The particular family of languages and cultures I am referring to here is of course the various native sign languages and cultures of deaf people throughout the world. Why have these particular languages and cultures been so resilient? The most obvious reason is their essential functionality for the deaf and hard of hearing communities who have chosen to use, maintain and devlop them. Another important reason, which is closely linked to this particular functionality, is the fact that these languages and cultures represent an important, and in many cases, absolutely necessary, choice and are a prerequisite for development of a realistic, tenable and positive bi- and/or multicultural identity for the deaf and hard-of-hearing people who are speakers of these languages. (I use the term "speakers" here quite consciously by the way, in spite of the fact that it can seem somewhat anomalous do do so when talking about visual-spatial languages that do not involve the use of the channel we generally use for speech, i.e. the vocal-auditory channel. Up until quite recent times, the sign languages of deaf people have not had any status at all as "real languages" from the point of view of the majority cultures they exist in close relation to. In some darker periods of our collective history sign languages and the cultures of deaf people have even been systematically suppressed within education of the deaf, and well-meaning attempts have also been made to replace these languages with other types of visual-spatial code systems, developed with the aim of visualising spoken language structures. Interestingly enough, none of these constructed code-systems have shown any survival ability within the various communities and cultures of deaf people around the world. Sign languages have also survived in spite of the fact that no official writing systems have ever been developed for them. The cultures of deaf people, and their sign languages have been, and are still essentially transmitted and maintained orally. Sign languages and deaf people's cultures have constantly to compete with, and yet exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship to, the majority spoken and written languages that are all around them. What is becoming more and more apparent now though, is that deaf people's cultures and sign languages in general represent a vital resource for any society, in the sense that they constitute a pool of carefully refined procedural and propositional knowledge, built up over many generations, for how to successfully manage a life in a predominantly hearing culture without being able to hear sound, and even without having the possibility of naturally acquiring and/or maintaining full use of a spoken/ written language that can be 100% functional in everyday life together with people who hear. It might be interesting to hear how Dave (or others) would view this particular family of cultural an d linguistic minotities, within the framework of a language unification- type theory? Will the need for the knowledge resources sign language and deaf culture represent gradually disappear because deafness at some time in the future will be totally eradicated? What then will happen to those who suddenly become irretrievably deaf as a result of accidents etc., or children who are born deaf in spite of the last advances in genetic engineering etc? When languages and cultures disappear it is not just the language that disappears, but the procedural and propositional knowledge bases that go with them; knowledge bases which only to a very small degree have been written down and formalized, even within our own more "advanced" westernized cultures, but especially in more orally literate cultures. pat coppock dept of applied linguistics university of trondheim n-7055 dragvoll norway -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 17:02:11 +0100 From: Stephen P Spackman Subject: Re: 3.819 Language Preservation A small thought experiment: suppose that I, as a linguist, were studying language extinction processes. Should I attempt to further (would I be justified in furthering) my scholarly ends by discouraging indigenous literacy movements? What about externally motivated ones? Another one: suppose a language that is widely spoken in some places is threatened with extinction in another. Should it receive the same attention that a language faced with global extinction might? Does it matter whether this language is a primary vehicle of cultural transmission? Whether the culture so transmitted is distinctive? Does it matter whether the threatened community has, in practise, access to the publication facilities of the broader language? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-825. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-826. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 78 Subject: 3.826 Japanese; Objectionable words; Gender Studies Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: 19 OCT 92 14:53:16 From: D00712@JPNAC.bitnet Subject: RE 3.765 Japanese pronouns 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 8:47:40 MDT From: BIASCA DEBRA HALPERIN Subject: Re: 3.816 FYI: Mystery Citation, Diachronic Chinese, Gay 3) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 06:55:32 IST From: "Mira Ariel, Tel-Aviv University" Subject: Re: 3.815 The Study of Gender? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: 19 OCT 92 14:53:16 From: D00712@JPNAC.bitnet Subject: RE 3.765 Japanese pronouns Having just got back on to Linguist I'm coming into the middle of this discussion, so for all I know Kazuto Matsumura is right in saying it 'stinks'; but I would like to know which of 'all aspects of [J pronouns'] syntactic and semantic behavior' he thinks argue against classifying BOKU etc as pronouns. It certainly is true, as Shimizu points out, that eg BOKU was originally a common noun [and the character can still be read as SHIMOBE 'manservant']; but this is hardly here or there for the Japanese child acquiring the language. So far as I know, BOKU, ANATA, KARE, etc. have reference only, and no more sense than ME, YOU, etc. [Well, almost; KARE can mean boyfriend]. Japnese pronouns certainly look like pronouns, anyway; I'd be curious to know specifically what arguments, other than historical ones, there are for excluding them from that class. Kevin R. Gregg D00712@sinet.ad.jp -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 8:47:40 MDT From: BIASCA DEBRA HALPERIN Subject: Re: 3.816 FYI: Mystery Citation, Diachronic Chinese, Gay In response to the note about usage of "gay," I am not in agreement that usage of "Jew" to refer to individuals is unobjectionable. I definitely would use "there were two Jewish P people on the panel." (ignore the typo--my editing capabilities are minimal). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 06:55:32 IST From: "Mira Ariel, Tel-Aviv University" Subject: Re: 3.815 The Study of Gender? In reply to Vicky Fromkin's protest: I would not presume to know what the situation in U.S. is concerning the topic of language and gender, but in some places this not considered quite an o.k. topic, especially in linguistics departments (as opposed to applied linguistics, sociology, women studies and th e like). We do not need an award for a principles and parameters work, because that gets awarded with plenty of prestige by being part of the mainstream, pres tigious reearch agenda. Perhaps not so the topic of language and gender? Yours, Mira Ariel -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-826. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-827. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 63 Subject: 3.827 Conferences: LACUS; Dictionary Society Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 22:26:21 EDT From: Sheila Subject: LACUS: Conference announcement/call for papers 2) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 10:41:19 -0800 From: Thomas L. Clark Subject: Dictionary Society of North America - Call for Papers -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 22:26:21 EDT From: Sheila Subject: LACUS: Conference announcement/call for papers The 20th Annual Meeting of LACUS (the Linguistic Association of Canada and the US) will take place at the University of Illinois at Chicago, July 20-24, 1993. Please send a one page abstract (of a paper of no more than 20 minutes), in an original and fourteen copies, to: Dr. Ruth M. Brend, 3363 Burbank Drive, Ann A rbor, MI 48105, USA. Deadline: January 15, 1993. For further information, please write to Dr. Brend (at the address above), or a t ruth.brend@um.cc.umich.edu (internet) or usersx6j@umichum (bitnet). PLEASE DO NOT WRITE TO THE LIST, NOR TO THE SENDER OF THIS MESSAGE. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 10:41:19 -0800 From: Thomas L. Clark Subject: Dictionary Society of North America - Call for Papers The Dictionary Society of North America will meet on May 24 - 26, 1993 in Las Vegas, Nevada The Society invites papers on any topic in lexicography or lexicology. Papers will be allowed twenty minutes for presentation, ten minutes for discussion. Please send THREE copies of a one-page abstract OR an internet copy to Professor Thomas L. Clark English Department University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas NV 89154-5011 or internet: tlc@nevada.edu Deadline for proposals: January 15, 1993 Same address for housing info for those who plan to attend, but not offer a paper. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-827. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-828. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 49 Subject: 3.828 FYI: CHILDES Database Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 08:59:48 +0000 From: Patrick John Coppock Subject: 3.813 Queries: CHILDES database; Addresses for Nowood, Dogil -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 08:59:48 +0000 From: Patrick John Coppock Subject: 3.813 Queries: CHILDES database; Addresses for Nowood, Dogil joeallen@aludra.usc.edu (Joe Allen) asks: >Does anyone have any idea how I might gain access to the CHILDES database? This has been the topic of discussion earlier in another discussion list called CORPORA, which is administered from the University of Bergen, Norway. You can subscribe to CORPORA at CORPORA@nora.hd.uib.no. (Be forewarned though, that they are relatively new in the conferencing game, and have had some trouble with distribution of mail - you sometimes get multiple copies of contributions. Anyway, the CHILDES base is available via ftp at poppy.psy.cmu.edu. Here you can log into the main base via anonymous ftp and get some programs and files for using and referencing the database. You can also get information about the CHILDES database by e-mail, from childes@andrew.cmu.edu. The person responsible for CHILDES is Brian McWhinney. Good luck pat coppock department of applied linguistics university of trondheim - avh n-7055 dragvoll norway -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-828. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-829. Mon 26 Oct 1992. Lines: 80 Subject: 3.829 Ne Pleonastique Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 16:08:51 PDT From: "Don W." Subject: 'Ne' pleonastique 2) Date: 25 October 1992, 14:14:33 CST From: GA3704@SIUCVMB.Bitnet Subject: negation -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 16:08:51 PDT From: "Don W." Subject: 'Ne' pleonastique In 3-806 Terry Gordon cites "Je crains qu'il ne pleuve" with "ne" as a fossilized negation that no longer exists. "'pas' is lost, but so is the negative meaning," he says. The sentence does mean 'I fear it may rain', but I thought the "ne" never had anything to do with a negation ('I fear it may not rain'?) but that it is used in the subordinate clause following "craindre que," "de crainte que," "avant que" "a' moins que" and perhaps other expressions. As such, I understand, "ne" is a holdover from a Latin construction. I'd be obliged to any Latinists on the list who can explain it to me. Afterthought: "ne" is also placed after the subject of the second clause when two clauses are compared, e.g. "Ce 'ne' est plus difficile a' comprendre que je ne pensais," 'This "ne" is harder to understand than I thought." Again, no negation is implied. But was it ever? Perhaps Latin could help us here, as well. These constructions are not to be confused, of course, with ones in which "ne" is used as a full, general negation without "pas," as with the verbs /pouvoir, savoir, oser, cesser, craindre/, e.g. "N'ayez crainte," 'Fear not'; "Je ne saurais le croire," 'I cannot believe that'; "Je n'ose le dire," 'I dastn't say' (= 'Gag me with a spoon'??). Or with "ne" as a full negation in a second clause when the first is fully negated, e.g. "Cela ne se dit pas ni ne s'ecrit," 'That isn't said or written'. Probably more about "ne" than we really wanted to know... Don W. (DonWebb@CSUS.EDU) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: 25 October 1992, 14:14:33 CST From: GA3704@SIUCVMB.Bitnet Subject: negation I am not sure that the fact that *pas* is now the unmarked negator in French (Je le vois pas) is relevant to the analysis of `ne espressif' arising from a conflation of two ideas. My impression is that this *ne* after expressions like *avant que* *avoir craint que* etc. is on its way out and shows up in comparatively careful written and spoken French only. Any reactions from native speakers? Margaret -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-829. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-830. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 110 Subject: 3.830 Pleonastic Ne Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 23:16 est From: SKIESLING@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: Re: 3.829 Ne Pleonastique 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 13:48:12 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: making sense of pleonastic ne etc. 3) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 20:37:33 GMT From: Bill Bennett Subject: Ne in French -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 23:16 est From: SKIESLING@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: Re: 3.829 Ne Pleonastique Although my French is very, very limited, it strikes me that the only possibility being entertained for this 'ne pleonastique' is negation. Why not something else, like modality. The sentences cited by Don Webb ("Je crains qu'il ne pleuve" "I fear it may rain" and "Ce 'ne' est plus difficile a'comprendre que je ne pensais" "This 'ne' is harder to understand than I thought") both seem to entail a certain amount of irrealis or uncertainty on the speaker's part (judging from the translation, however), especially in the former sentence, where the translation contains a modal expressing uncertainty. Perhaps the 'ne' no longer functions with respect to negation, but has nevertheless taken over a modal function (and possibly structure, but that's another story). Agaido the native speakers think? Scott Kiesling Georgetown University SKIESLING@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 13:48:12 EST From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: making sense of pleonastic ne etc. It seems to me that in our recent discussion of reinterpretations we missed the observation that in the process of language acquisition reinterpretation has to be the rule rather than the exception. The discussion of pleonastic ne re-evoked this for me. Language learners do not seem to require that everything make sense according to the logic of etymology, of derivation (structural consistency), or of the syllogism. A case in point that springs to mind: for at least some teenage speakers of the working class American English dialect of Gloucester, Massachusetts a contraction of the type "would've" is adamantly derived from "would of" and decidedly not from "would have." Nothing that a bit more education wouldn't fix of course :-). But evidently this rather startling (to me) extension of domain for the preposition "of" needs no more motivation than superficial phonetic similarity to the reduced form of "have." If there is some hidden structural basis that I have overlooked, it must be strong enough to overcome the analogy to "have" constructions without modals (I have gone: I would of gone). There are enough frozen expressions in any language, fragments of archaic structure cut adrift from their etymological moorings, that language learners must have the means to take them in their stride as "words" no more arbitrary than the rest of the roster of lexemes. So it is perhaps with things like negative particles that do not negate. Bruce Nevin bn@bbn.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 20:37:33 GMT From: Bill Bennett Subject: Ne in French Don Webb is quite right, of course, when he points out the difference between `ne' as the remnant of `ne pas' and the lone `ne' used in certain careful styles, in clauses dependent on verbs such as -craindre- or introduced by conjunctions such as -avant que. Without wishing to go into the logic of these markers, I would like to draw attention to the frequency of overlap between them and the subjunctive. In its non-lexicalised, optional use the French subjunctive releases the speaker from commitment to the truth of the dependent clause as proposition. The `ne' in question is a reminder of the same implication by the speaker. As well as this overlap with the subjunctive, clues to the meaning of `ne' can be gathered from the final -n- of -than- and the use of this conjunction. And from the etymology of the English word -lest- (in my SOED). After all, the speaker's fear may well motivate that speaker to want to hypothesize, to defactualize, the proposition representing the source of the fear! Perhaps, this `ne' has no real place in a discussion of negatives as such. It should have to wait until the BB gets around to implicatures. Bill Bennett, Cambridge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-830. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-831. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 176 Subject: 3.831 Susanne Corpus available Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1992 10:42:56 EST From: Geoffrey Sampson Subject: susanne corpus -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1992 10:42:56 EST From: Geoffrey Sampson Subject: susanne corpus THE SUSANNE CORPUS [Revised announcement including modified access instructions] 26 October 1992 Geoffrey Sampson School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, England geoffs@uk.ac.susx.cogs Colleagues needing the use of a grammatically-analysed corpus of English may like to know that Release 1 of the SUSANNE Corpus is now complete, and is freely available from the Oxford Text Archive via anonymous ftp to any machine connected to the Internet. Instructions for retrieving a copy of the Corpus are given at the end of this announcement. The SUSANNE Corpus has been created, with the sponsorship of the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), as part of the process of developing a comprehensive NLP-oriented taxonomy and annotation scheme for the (logical and surface) grammar of English. The SUSANNE scheme attempts to provide a method of representing all aspects of English grammar which are sufficiently definite to be susceptible of formal annotation, with the categories and boundaries between categories specified in sufficient detail that, ideally, two analysts independently annotating the same text and referring to the same scheme must produce the same structural analysis. The SUSANNE scheme may be likened to a "Linnaean taxonomy" of the grammatical domain: its aim (comparable to that of Linnaeus's eighteenth-century taxonomy for the domain of botany) is not to identify categories which are theoretically optimal or which necessarily reflect the psychological organization of speakers' linguistic competence, but simply to offer a scheme of categories and ways of applying them that make it practical for NLP researchers to register everything that occurs in real-life usage systematically and unambiguously, and for researchers at different sites to exchange empirical grammatical data without misunderstandings over local uses of analytic terminology. The SUSANNE Corpus comprises an approximately 128,000-word subset of the Brown Corpus of American English, annotated in accordance with the SUSANNE scheme. The SUSANNE analytic scheme is defined in detail in a book by myself, ENGLISH FOR THE COMPUTER, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and briefly in a documentation file which accompanies the Corpus. The Chairman of the Analysis and Interpretation Working Group of the US/EC-sponsored Text Encoding Initiative has proposed the adoption of the scheme as a recognised TEI standard. The SUSANNE scheme aims to specify annotation norms for the modern English language; it does not cover other languages, although it is hoped that the general principles of the SUSANNE scheme may prove helpful in developing comparable taxonomies for these. Regrettably, Release 1 of the SUSANNE Corpus is not a "TEI-conformant" resource, though aspects of the annotation scheme have been decided in such a way as to facilitate a move to TEI conformance in later releases. The working timetable of the Initiative meant that relevant aspects of the TEI Guidelines were not yet complete at the point when the SUSANNE Corpus was ready for initial release; delaying this release would have been unfortunate. Although the SUSANNE analytic scheme is by now rather tightly defined, Release 1 of the SUSANNE Corpus undoubtedly still contains errors despite considerable proof-checking. It is intended to correct these in later releases; I should be extremely grateful if users discovering errors would notify me, preferably by post rather than e-mail. The SUSANNE Corpus consists of 64 data files (each comprising an annotated version of one Brown text), together with a documentation file. However, the versions held by the Oxford Text Archive are compressed, in order to reduce file transfer time, into single files in two alternative formats, suitable for Unix users and for users who have access only to a PC. The procedure for retrieving a copy of the Corpus in either case is as follows: >From a machine on the Internet, type either: ftp black.ox.ac.uk or, since the Archive is not yet in many official name tables: ftp 129.67.1.165 When connected, you will be prompted for an account name, to which you should respond: ftp or: anonymous You will be asked to supply a password, in response to which you should type your e-mail address. After this is accepted, your first command should be to move to the directory containing the Text Archive files, by typing: cd ota To see a list of the files and directories currently available, type: ls All files relating to the SUSANNE Corpus are kept in the directory "susanne", so your next command should be: cd susanne Apart from a README file containing the instructions which you are currently reading, this directory contains the two alternative compressed versons of the SUSANNE Corpus. To retrieve a copy of the corpus, if you are a Unix user, type: get susanne.tar.Z Having successfully transferred a copy of "susanne.tar.Z" to your home system, get the material into a usable state by the successive commands: uncompress susanne.tar.Z and: tar -xf susanne.tar If you are not a Unix user, you need to retrieve the other version of the Corpus, which will be uncompressed using the PKUNZIP software on an IBM-PC. First, set ftp transfer mode to binary by typing the command: bin at the ftp prompt. Then retrieve the appropriate version of the Corpus by typing: get susanne.zip Having transferred a copy of the Corpus to your home machine, uncompress it with the command: pkunzip -x susanne.zip In either case (whether you have followed the Unix or the non-Unix instructions) you should now have the Corpus split up into its 65 files, one of which, "SUSANNE.doc", is a text file describing the format and contents of the 64 data files. To log out of the ftp connexion, type: bye If you encounter any problems, please send an e-mail message to archive@black.ox.ac.uk or archive@uk.ac.oxford.vax. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-831. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-832(a). Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 387 Subject: 3.832(a) Survey of Computational Linguistics Courses Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 12:21:11 +0100 From: ide@grtc.cnrs-mrs.fr (Nancy Ide) Subject: Survey of Computational Linguistics Courses -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 12:21:11 +0100 From: ide@grtc.cnrs-mrs.fr (Nancy Ide) Subject: Survey of Computational Linguistics Courses To: Instructors of Classes in Computational Linguistics As a follow-on to the Directory of Graduate Programs recently compiled by Martha Evens, the Association for Computational Linguistics will publish a new edition of the Survey of Computational Linguistics Courses. This is a revised version of the 1986 survey, published in Computational Linguistics (vol. 12) by Robin Cohen, which is intended to be a systematic compilation of syllabi from individual classes that teach computational linguistics (i.e., it is not an enumeration of classes taught in CL programs as in the Directory of Graduate Programs). The new version of the survey will be published in the Computational Linguistics journal in 1993. We are eager to include two types of classes: those that teach computational linguistics as the sole topic and those that teach computational linguistics as one of several topics. The survey will allow us to share with colleagues ideas on how to teach computational linguistics. It will also provide an idea of how the field of computational linguistics is being portrayed to potential new researchers. Our listing will include the name and address of the University and Department(s) offering the class, the name and number of the class, the type of class, and information about the syllabus (e.g., topics, texts used, software used, format, workload, enrollment, duration, frequency, and assistance). In addition it will include some statistics on the responses (i.e., total number of classes having particular characteristics) and a bibliography of the most frequently cited references. We would appreciate your response to the survey as soon as possible. The intention is to complete the report by early 1993. You may send information electronically to: cl-survey@umiacs.umd.edu or by mail: Ms. Sandy Tsue CL-SURVEY Institute for Advanced Computer Studies A.V. Williams Building University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 USA (Electronic transmission is preferred.) Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely, Bonnie J. Dorr - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SURVEY OF COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS COURSES INSTRUCTIONS This survey, originally designed by Robin Cohen, and now revised by Bonnie Dorr, attempts to gather information as painlessly as possible for both respondents and surveyor. The primary change that has been made since this survey was last conducted is that it now incorporates questions about different types of software that people use in their CL courses. Brief answers are solicited to the questions that follow. For multiple choice questions, simply type in the appropriate answer(s) from the list. For open-ended questions, use sentence fragments separated by semicolons. For illustration, a sample response is provided after the questionnaire. If possible, return your response electronically as one file of question numbers and answers, using the message header "ACL Survey Response." Hardcopy is acceptable as well. Feel free to include a copy of course description handouts, if available, for filing with the ACL. Regrettably, we will not be able to transcribe syllabi for the journal survey, but these could serve as the basis for a more extended treatment later. Note: If you have taught your course a number of times, respond according to the latest version of the course. In Q12, you may allude to topics covered and techniques used in previous versions. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTROL INFORMATION Name: Department: Institution: Address: Net address: Name and number of course: LEVEL A. Is the course - undergraduate? - graduate? - cross-listed, undergraduate and graduate? CL STATUS B. In any given year that you teach this course, is it a course in computational linguistics (CL) or is CL just one of several topics covered? - only CL - topics other than CL Note: Respond to the remainder of the questionnaire with respect to the computational linguistics part of the course, only. ACL SURVEY QUESTIONS TOPICS Q1. What topics are covered in the course? Suggestion: list the topics, one per line, in the order they are addressed in the course. Use brief summaries of the topic name, followed by names of researchers used as references for each topic in parentheses, where appropriate e.g., lexical acquisition and use of corpora (Boguraev & Briscoe, 1987; Zernik, 1990). REFERENCES Q2. What kinds of reference materials are used in the course? - course text(s); specify author & name (publisher & year, if known) - recommended reading texts; specify as above - papers on various topics; specify if different from those in Q1 Note: If your texts are not written in English, please provide a brief English translation of the title. FORMAT Q3. What format of teaching is used? - formal lectures - paper presentations by professor - paper presentations by students - guest lectures - open discussions - other; please specify WORKLOAD Q4. What workload/method of assessment is used in the course? - midterm exam(s) - final exam - assignments with programming - assignments without programming? - course project - class presentations - other; please specify Note: You may provide further details--e.g., midterm exam: take-home, no programming; class presentations: including one on project topic. SOFTWARE WRITTEN BY STUDENTS Q5. Which of the following do students write? - parsers - generators - morphological processors - tagging programs - discourse processors - language translators - ATNs - semantic network processors - lexical-semantic processors - knowledge-based processors - parallel processors - connectionist processors - statistical processors - other; please specify - none SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO STUDENTS Q6. Which of the following are provided for students? (Label them C if commercial source, N if non-commercial outside source, H if built in house; also specify type, e.g., unification parser, chart parser, etc.) - parsers - generators - morphological processors - tagging programs - discourse processors - language translators - ATNs - semantic network processors - lexical-semantic processors - knowledge-based processors - parallel processors - connectionist processors - statistical processors - grammars - lexicons - corpora - semantic networks - data bases - knowledge bases - other; please specify - none SOFTWARE AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION Q7. If you've developed software and distribute it, please specify type (e.g., grammars, lexicons, parsers, generators, etc.) and mode (e.g., by diskette, tape, cdrom, anonymous ftp (give addresses), etc.). ENROLLMENT Q8. About how many people take the course each time it is offered? DURATION Q9. Does the course last one term or a full year? - one term - full year FREQUENCY Q10. How often is the course offered? - more than once per year - once per year - every other year - occasionally ASSISTANCE Q11. Are there teaching assistants/markers assigned to the course? - yes; conduct tutorial sessions - yes; only mark and hold office hours - no - other; please specify COMMENTS Q12. Include here any other comments about the course--what you would have liked to do ideally, what you plan for the future, what lessons you've learned. ------------------------- Sample response ------------------------ Name: Bonnie J. Dorr Department: Computer Science Institution: University of Maryland Address: A.V. Williams Building, College Park, MD 20742 Net Address: bonnie@cs.umd.edu Course: Computational Linguistics (CMSC 828) Level(A): graduate, cross-listed in linguistics Status(B): CL only Q1. TOPICS The course is divided into 3 sections: (1) Syntax, (2) Lexicon, and (3) Machine Translation and Generation. The course outline is as follows: - - Introduction to CL: techniques and analytical tools for comparing linguistic theories and comparing computational practice; levels of representation and their importance in a computational theory. - - Syntax: introduction to basic concepts and theories; bottom-up vs. top-down parsing; Earley algorithm; Tomita's algorithm; ATN's. (Sells, 1985; Kay in "Readings," 1986; Earley, 1970; Tomita, 1987; Woods, 1970; Kaplan, 1972.) - - Contemporary syntactic models: government-binding theory; principle-based parsing; deterministic parsing; unification-based approaches; GPSG; LFG. (Berwick & Fong, 1990; Marcus in "Readings," 1986; Berwick & Weinberg, 1984; Sells, 1985; Shieber, 1986; Kaplan & Bresnan, 1982.) - - Lexicon: lexical representations; semantic roles; primitives; case frames; thematic relations; predicate-argument structure; conceptual dependencies; spatial fields; nonspatial fields; compositionality; linking routines. (Gruber, 1967; Fillmore, 1968; Jackendoff, 1972, 1983; Schank, 1973; Dorr, 1991.) - - Lexical Acquisition: non-representational vs. representational approaches; statistical methods; use of corpora; acquisition of syntactic information; bootstrapping semantics from syntax. (Boguraev & Briscoe, 1987; Klavans & Tzoukermann, 1990; Church & Hanks, 1990; Zernik, 1990; Pustejovsky, 1987; Hindle, 1990; Brent, 1991.) - - Machine translation and generation: basic theory and technology; major characteristics and tradeoffs; mapping techniques; problems in MT and generation; divergences; mismatches; lexical selection; syntactic realization; parameterization. (Slocum, 1988; Thurmair, 1990; Kaplan et al., 1989; Abeille et al., 1990; Arnold & Sadler, 1990; Lindop & Tsujii, 1991; Barnett et al., 1991; Dorr, 1991.) Q2. REFERENCES No required texts. Papers on various topics (see Q1) are assigned on a weekly basis. Some reading texts are recommended: - - Allen, J., Natural Language Understanding, Benjamin-Cummings, New York, NY, 1987. - - Berwick, R., and Weinberg, A., The Grammatical Basis of Linguistic Performance, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1984. - - Grosz, B., K. Sparck-Jones, and B. Webber, Readings in Natural Language Processing, Morgan-Kaufman, Los Altos, CA, 1986. - - Hutchins, W., Machine Translation: Past, Present, Future, Ellis Horwood, Chichester, England, 1986. - - Sells, P., Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic Theories, University of Chicago Press, CLSI, Chicago, IL, 1985. - - Zernik, U. (ed.), Lexical Acquisition: Using on-line Resources to Build a Lexicon, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1987. Q3. FORMAT - - formal lectures - - open discussions - - paper presentations by students - - two guest lectures Q4. WORKLOAD - - 2-4 assigned readings per week - - One written assignment - - One programming lab - - Class presentation - - Final term paper Q5. SOFTWARE WRITTEN BY STUDENTS - - simple generator and lexical-semantic processor for a language translation program - - small grammar and lexicon Q6. SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO STUDENTS - - parser (N; Marcus Parser) - - grammar (N; Marcus style rules) Q7. SOFTWARE AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION - - none Q8. ENROLLMENT - - 20 Q9. DURATION - - one semester (14 weeks, 2-1/2 hours/week) with one semester follow-on taught in the linguistics department (LING 819). Q10. FREQUENCY - - every other year Q11: ASSISTANCE - - none. Q12: COMMENTS - - The goal of the course is to introduce topics, issues, and theories in computational linguistics, to relate the field to linguistics and AI, and to provide the background necessary for analysis and evaluation of computational models of natural language understanding, generation, and translation. - - The distribution of students is approximately 60% computer science, 30% linguistics, and 10% engineering. - - Students work in groups of 4 for the laboratory. The goal is to allow linguists and computer scientists to be able to benefit from each other's knowledge while also giving students a chance to have hands-on experience with some of the concepts that are presented in class at a more abstract level. A minimal amount of programming in Lisp is expected. - - Sample topics chosen by the students for final papers include syntactic models of parsing, logic programming approaches to generation, connectionist processing models, speech processing models, knowledge representation, lexical semantics, and machine translation. Students are expected to compare and critique different approaches to natural language processing and to give a 20 minute in-class presentation of their paper. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-832(a). ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-832(b). Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 427 Subject: 3.832(b) Conferences: Workshop on Comparative Linguistics; Belgium Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 16:29:38 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Workshop on Comparative Linguistics 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 15:32:43 +0100 From: nuyts@ccu.uia.ac.be (Jan Nuyts) Subject: Linguistic Society of Belgium -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 16:29:38 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Workshop on Comparative Linguistics WORKSHOP ON METHODS OF LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION AND RECONSTRUCTION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 3050 FRIEZE BUILDING ANN ARBOR, NOV. 6-7, 1992 The purpose of this workshop is to try to settle some of the fundamental issues that have arisen over the last 30 or so years in the work on language classification and the reconstruction of extinct languages (incl. the reconstruction of unattested features of partially attested languages, such as the phonology of languages written hieroglyphically). Participants include: Raimo Anttila (UCLA), Anthony Aristar (Texas A & M), William Baxter (Michigan), Miguel Civil (Chicago), Sheila Embleton (York) Eric, P. Hamp (Chicago), Jeff Heath (Michigan), Brian Joseph (Ohio State), Alexis Manaster Ramer (Wayne State), Mary Niepokuj (Purdue), Martha Ratliff (Wayne State), William Rozycki (Bloomington), Joe Salmons (Purdue), Vitaly Shevoroshkin (Michigan), Sergei Starostin (Russian Academy of Sciences), Thomas Toon (Michigan), Alexander Vovin (Michigan), John B. Whitman (Cornell). The workshop will take the form of extended discussions involving specialists in the different areas, each discussion to be started off by a rapporteur (in parentheses): Friday, November 6 Philology and Comparative Linguistics (Toon) 9:30-10:45 Language Contacts (Heath) 11:00-12:15 Universals and Comparative Ling (Aristar) 1:15-2:30 Reconstructing Partially Attested Languages (Civil) 2:45-4:00 Phonological Naturalness (Salmons) 4:15-5:45 Methods in Macrocomparison (Ratliff) 7:30-8:45 Saturday, November 7 Statistical Methods (Niepokuj) 9:30-10:45 Microcomparison (Joseph) 11:00-12:15 Culture and Comparative Ling (Mannheim) 1:15-2:30 Loan Words (Vovin) 2:45-4:00 Reconstruction vs. Relationship (Baxter) 4:15-5:45 Sponsored by the Linguistics Program, University of Michigan Organizing Committee: Baxter, Ratliff, Vovin, Manaster Ramer. Contact: Manaster Ramer (AMR@MTS.CC.WAYNE.EDU) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 15:32:43 +0100 From: nuyts@ccu.uia.ac.be (Jan Nuyts) Subject: Linguistic Society of Belgium 1992 Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Belgium THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LINGUISTIC AND CONCEPTUAL REPRESENTATION Antwerp, November 26-28, 1992 Jan Nuyts - Eric Pederson University of Antwerp - Linguistics Universiteitsplein 1 B-2610 Wilrijk - Belgium PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE PROGRAM Site of the lectures: University of Antwerp - UFSIA Rodestraat 14 in Antwerp WEDNESDAY November 25th 19:00 - 21:00 Registration (at conference desk in Hotel Arcade) THURSDAY November 26th 9:00 - 9:15 Opening remarks 9:15 - 10:15 Plenary lecture by D.Slobin Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish 10:15 - 10:45 Coffee 10:45 - 12:55 Parallel sessions 10:45 - 11:25 Room A: D.Tuggy: Ambiguity, polysemy, and vagueness Room B: C.Tenny: Linguistic underspecification and pragmatic interference in aspectual verb Room C: C.Balkenius: Spatial schemata and language 11:30 - 12:10 Room A: D.Geeraerts: Generalised onomasiological saliency Room B: Y.Matsumoto: Abstract motion and English and Japanese verbs Room C: M.Carroll, C.von Stutterheim: New territory on home ground: Differences in the conceptualisation and linguistic representation of spatial relations in English and German 12:15 - 12:55 Room A: F.Ungerer: Basic level concepts, parasitic concepts and word classes Room B: T.Kuteva: Verb grammaticalization and conceptual structuring Room C: S.A.Rice: The grammaticization of space: Non-spatial conceptualization with spatial prepositions 12:55 - 14:30 Lunch 14:30 - 15:30 Plenary lecture by A.Herskovits Across, along, and other ways to travel: Exploring the interplay of linguistic knowledge and perceptual geometry 15:30 - 16:00 Coffee 16:00 - 17:25 Parallel sessions 16:00 - 16:40 Room A: C.Schaeffner: The `balance' metaphor as a linguistic and conceptual phenomenon Room B: Y.Ziv: Conceptual causality and context dependence Room C: J.Berg: On the very idea of thinking in words 16:45 - 17:25 Room A: H.-J.Schmid: The abstract word idea: Concept without prototype? Room B: A.Verhagen: Linguistic change and the conceptualization of causality Room C: S.Davis: Anti-individualism and conceptual representation FRIDAY November 27th 9:00 - 10:00 Plenary lecture by H.Clark Means of meaning 10:00 - 13:00 Poster session A.Aksu-Koc: Cultural frames of mind through narrative discourse I.Barbier, C.Foley, Z.Nunez del Prado, B.Lust: The interaction between pragmatics and syntax in VP ellipsis structures: Evidence from first language acquisition K.Bibok: Conceptual semantic investigations of lexicalization patterns in Russian and Hungarian A.Carlier: Correlations between the conceptual content of the generic noun phrase and the choice of the article in French L.Ekberg: The Take and V-construction: A split concept H.Filip: Quantification in linguistic and conceptual representation S.Gillis: On the conceptual basis of morphological and syntactic distinctions in early multiword utterances: A study of two Dutch triplets F.Heny, C.Tenny: Scope and core event structure: The relationship between syntactic and conceptual structures S.Ide: Social deixis of uchi (ingroup) / soto (outgroup) and linguistic representation in Japanese F.Van der Leek: The function of to in perception reports: Conceptualization and linguistic representation S.Lopez Ornat: The linguistic model of spatial movement relations as presented by parents to Spanish children from 12 to 30 months C.Masduraud: Presupposition as a context-building and a context-managing process W.de Mulder: Demonstratives and de re propositions M.Polinsky: Referential identification: In search of a holistic representation O.Ravnholt: Non-coreferential relations in anaphora A.De Roeck, J.Nuyts: The use of epistemic modal expression by autistic and normal adults: What deficits can tell us about the relationship between linguistic and conceptual representation L.Romary: Referring expressions as markers of conceptual relations T.Stolz, C.Kilian-Hatz: Commitative, concomitance, and beyond: On the interdependency of grammaticalization and conceptualization J.van Voorst: Against a composite analysis of certain causative constructions 13:00 - 14:30 Lunch 14:30 - 15:30 Plenary lecture by L.Talmy The windowing of attention in language 15:30 - 16:00 Coffee 16:00 - 17:25 Parallel sessions 16:00- 16:40 Room A: L.Naigles, A.Eisenberg, E.Kako: Acquiring a language-specific lexicon: Verbs in English and Spanish Room B: K.Inoue: Japanese numeral classifiers and their implications for conceptual coherence Room C: R.S.Tomlin: Mapping conceptual representations into linguistic representations: The role of attention in grammar 16:45 - 17:25 Room A: G.Senft: Speaking about body and mind in Kilivila Room B: P.Gerstl: Variability and referential scope: The case of left Room C: E.Wande: The propositional/visual dichotomy - or is there more to it? 19:00 - ... Banquet in the Marble Hall of the Zoological Gardens (advance reservation required) SATURDAY November 28th 9:00 - 10:00 Plenary lecture by W.J.M.Levelt The language of space, perspective taking, and ellipsis 10:00 - 10:30 Coffee 10:30 - 12:40 Parallel sessions 10:30 - 11:10 Room A: M.Boerkel: A conceptual interpretation of polysemy Room B: E.A.Robinson: Direct pragmatics: Investigations in the domain of implicature Room C: K.-E.McCullough: Visual imagery in language and gesture Room D: C.H.van Schooneveld: In final Praguean-Jakobsonian structural semantic analysis, conceptualization is mathematical 11:15 - 11:55 Room A: P.Werth: Remote worlds: The conceptual representation of linguistic would Room B: V.Poznanski: A relevance-theoretic view of the semantic-pragmatic interface Room C: S.Kita: The linguistic realization of mental imagery without intermediate semantic representation: Evidence from Japanese giongo/gitaigo (`sound/manner' mimetics) and spontaneous gesture Room D: U.T.Place: A connectionist/behaviour-analytic perspective on the relation between pre- linguistic and post-linguistic concepts 12:00 - 12:40 Room A: H.Baayen: Same or different? Lexical statistics and lexical conceptual structure Room B: G.Everaert, J.Lerot, T.van Steenberghe: Conceptual graphs as semantic representations for multilingual generation Room C: S.Duncan: The conceptual representation of temporal aspect in English and Mandarin Room D: F.K.Lehman, G.Bennardo: A conceptual approach to the cognition of space and its linguistic expression 12:45 - 14:15 Lunch 14:15 - 16:25 Parallel sessions 14:15 - 14:55 Room A: P.Bosch: Lexical semantics versus conceptual representations Room B: J.M.Delgado Moreira, L.Martin Rojo: Language and fear: The boundaries of linguistic conceptualization Room C: S.Vogeleer: Associations conceptuelles et assertions existentielles faibles Room D: X.Wang: The role of culture in the development of linguistic representations: A comparative study of the gestural communication systems of Chinese and American deaf children 15:00 - 15:40 Room A: E.Viegas: Conceptualization and lexicalization: A problematic relationship Room B: R.Hirsch, K.Sandell: Eco-views and ethnosemantics: On the relationship between linguistic and conceptual representation Room C: J.Verschueren: The pragmatics of conceptual accessibility and communicative transparency Room D: M.Shibatani: A grammatical structure as a conceptualization schema: The case for benefactive constructions 15:45 - 16:25 Room A: C.Sinha: Canonicality, contextuality, closed classes, and concepts: Acquisition and distribution of spatial prepositions Room B: D.Leonard: What language reveals about the internal representation of `center' in modern dance Room C: D.Simeoni, K.Fall: Quels outils pour l'analyse des representations conceptuelles et linguistiques? Room D: C.von Stutterheim, R.Mangold, S.Barattelli, U.Kohlmann, H.G.Koelbing: Reference to objects: Getting the form right 16:25 - 16:45 Coffee 16:45 - 18:15 Round table discussion by H.Clark, A.Herskovits, W.Levelt, D.Slobin, L.Talmy Chair/discussant: S.Levinson 18:15 - ... Closing drink FURTHER INFORMATION All correspondence concerning the conference should be sent to the organizers at the following address: University of Antwerp - UIA Linguistics (GER) Universiteitsplein 1 B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium Conference site: The conference will be held in the Rodestraat building of the UFSIA-campus of the University of Antwerp, which is located in the center of town, near the central station. Address: Rodestraat 14 2000 Antwerpen Registration: You can register for the conference, preferably on Wednesday evening from 19:00 till 21:00 at our desk in Hotel Arcade (see below), or if necessary on Thursday morning at the conference site. Registration fees are: * 2000 BFr/60 USD (advance payment) or 2300 BFr (on-site payment) for regular participants; * 1000 BFr/30 USD (advance payment) or 1300 BFr (on-site payment) for members of IPrA and of the MPRG for Cognitive Anthropology, and for students and unemployed; * Free if you are a member of the Linguistic Society of Belgium. You can pay in advance by sending to the mailing address: (i) a barred Eurocheck, made out to Jan Nuyts, in Belgian Francs; or (ii) an International Postal Money Order, made out to Jan Nuyts, in Belgian Francs; or (iii) a US personal check, made out to the International Pragmatics Association, in US Dollars. The deadline for advance payment is Friday, November 13th. On-site payment must be in cash or by means of a Eurocheck, in Belgian Francs only. No other forms of payment (non-US personal checks, money transfers, bank checks, etc.) will be accepted, since they involve considerable costs on our part. Receipts can be obtained at the conference desk. Hotel information: The conference hotel is the Arcade Hotel, in the center of Antwerp, 10 minutes walking from the conference site. Address: Hotel Arcade Meistraat 39 2000 Antwerp Phone: ++32/3/231.88.30 Fax: ++32/3/234.29.21 There are special rates available, only through the organizers: Single room: 1995,- BFr/night (incl. breakfast) Double room: 2400,- BFr/night (incl. breakfast) The special rates are available only for reservations received by the organizers by Friday, November 13th, but preferably earlier, since at present there are no more than 10 rooms left in the hotel. We will make reservations on a first come, first served basis. Use the attached reservation slip. Full payment of the hotel room is due upon check-in at the hotel desk. Banquet information: The Friday evening banquet will be held in the Marble Hall of the Antwerp Zoo (which is just next to the central station). Address: Koningin Astridplein 26 (ZOO entrance) 2018 Antwerp It will consist of an aperitif (different types of draft Belgian beers) in the beautiful winter gardens, a 4 course meal with wine served in a 19th century neo-classicist entourage, and a closing drink in the winter gardens. There will be a vegetarian menu available. The non-vegetarian variant will consist of: Pat Canard in Port Wild boar with forest mushrooms Bavarois Coffee Reservations must be received by the organizers by Friday, November 13th. Use the attached form. The price will be approximately 1500,- BFr. (everything included). Payment is due at the conference desk upon registration. All further information (maps etc.) is mailed to those who return the attached pre-registration slip. If you have already returned a pre- registration slip earlier, you do not have to do so again. ***************************************************************************** Conference on Conceptual and Linguistic Representation, Antwerp, November 26-28, 1992 Please arrange hotel accommodation at reduced rates for me: YES/NO Arrival date:_______________ Departure date:_______________ Please check: O I would like a single room O I would like a double room O I am willing to share a room with another conference participant I would like to share the room with ____________________ I will participate in the Friday-evening banquet YES/NO O I would like a vegetarian meal Name, address, email: ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Must be received by the organizers by November 13th. Return to: Jan Nuyts University of Antwerp Linguistics (GER) Universiteitsplein 1 B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-832(b). ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-833. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 95 Subject: 3.833 Objectionable Words? Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 15:00:58 EST From: mark Subject: Re 3.826 Jew vs. Jewish person 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 10:38:09 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.826 Japanese; Objectionable words; Gender Studies -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 15:00:58 EST From: mark Subject: Re 3.826 Jew vs. Jewish person In 3.816 (in the discussion of "gay" w.r.t. homosexuality) Geoff Nunberg wrote that the noun "Jew" is unexceptionable; in 3.826 Biasca Debra Halperin (order of names??) took exception. As a linguist and a Jew, I have long wondered why so many of my fellow Jews, in speech and in writing, choose the awkward and circumlocutory "Jewish person/people" over "Jew(s)", even while I myself feel an unexplained internal pressure against using the monosyllable. My speculations range far from "purely" linguistic considerations, but I cannot therefore declare them off-limits in the search for an explanation. Maybe it's that "Jew" has been spat at us so often that we've associated that context with the word. Although I've been fortunate not to have experienced significant antisemitism, I've certainly felt enough of it at second hand, through identification with literature I've read, stories I've heard, movies I've seen. Maybe the well-known (isn't it?) greater affective strength of the root noun, as compared with the derived adjective, is involved... but do "Jew"-circumlocutors feel that there's something unacceptable about Jewishness itself, or something offensive about mentioning it too directly? I've heard the circumlocution from plenty of people whom I would not suspect of doubting the value of their own Jewishness. Maybe the phenomenon is partially rooted in assimilation to the American paradigm, in which religion is defined as a system of beliefs and a group with voluntary membership, in contrast with the traditional self-definition of "the Jewish people" by descent and ethnicity: a lump that refuses to melt in the melting pot. Maybe any of these explanations applies to the gentile majority, and Jewish circumlocutors have picked up the result as a purely linguistic phenomenon. As I said, I can't contribute any answers to this issue, but maybe these speculations will spark some light on it. Mark A. Mandel Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 10:38:09 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.826 Japanese; Objectionable words; Gender Studies >From: BIASCA DEBRA HALPERIN >Subject: Re: 3.816 FYI: Mystery Citation, Diachronic Chinese, Gay > >In response to the note about usage of "gay," I am not in agreement that >usage of "Jew" to refer to individuals is unobjectionable. I definitely >would use "there were two Jewish people on the panel." i don't know what ethnic group you are from or where you grew up or how old you are, but i think there are definite sociolinguistic variables at work here. to my 40-something brooklyn-bred jewish ears, 'jewish people' is very marked and indicates one of the following: (a)the speaker is gentile and is afraid that 'jew' tout court is offensive to co-present jews, (b)the speaker is young and, whether jewish or gentile, grew up hearing more gentiles than jews. for what it's worth, _my_ private reaction to 'jewish person/people', steemming from standard gricean inferences, is always 'hey, whatsamatta, you think 'jew' is a dirty word?' -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-833. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-834. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 43 Subject: 3.834 Unification Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:04:05 CDT From: steven schaufele c/o elaine schaufele Subject: unification, inheritance, and cognitive theory -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 92 11:04:05 CDT From: steven schaufele c/o elaine schaufele Subject: unification, inheritance, and cognitive theory I wish to record total agreement with Anoop Sarkar's remarks (LINGUIST 3-784) on the psycholinguistic/computational 'good sense' of lexical and grammatical theories based on hierarchical network 'operations' like inheritance and unification. Of course, this is consistent with my 'soft spot' for frameworks like LFG ... However, i can't agree that it would be desirable to abandon the constraint concept in favour of an ontological theory, as Sarkar suggests in an earlier posting (LINGUIST 3-782). As Mark Johnson and i have noted in previous postings (LINGUIST 3-759, 3-784), there is a variety fo conceivable constraint-types. What about cognitive-based constraints? By which i mean, 'constraints' that are simply formalizations of cognitive organization/ structure? We have textbook statements of physical 'laws' that read like constraining equations but which are merely (supposed to be) formalizations of aspects of the structure of the universe. Can't theoretical constraints in linguistics be regarded as analogical to these? Steven Schaufele University of Illinois -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-834. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-835. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 139 Subject: 3.835 Language Preservation Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 18:26:02 GMT From: Bill Bennett Subject: Language survival 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 19:17 CST From: George Aaron Broadwell Subject: Oaxaca 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 09:20:38 GMT From: caoimhin@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk (Caoimhin P. ODonnaile) Subject: Re: 3.824 Queries: American English Corpora, Irish -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 18:26:02 GMT From: Bill Bennett Subject: Language survival I learned, once again, from Helge Dyvik's posting (in 3.811), that brevity in language gains nothing but misunderstanding. Thus I have learned, and it will be shown, I trust, by my changed behaviour. Here goes. Let me first distinguish between speakers and linguists. There may be overlap between these two classes, but the linguist, at least, should haven a professional interest in maintaining the separation. The linguist, of course, may be interested in a language because of its rich inflexion or because of its configurality alone. The taste for Classical Latin may well not be of the same kind as that for English. I take it as axiomatic that speakers intuitively prefer languages for what they allow them to achieve. They may know pride when the linguist draws attention to the ornateness or clarity of the system of one or all these languages. And the speaker may be just as chuffed as M Jourdain or as if the speaker were to be shown the human innate knowledge of mathematics or logic. I also take it as axiomatic that we are all born with innate knowledge for survival (presumably all who can read this are survivors). This includes knowledge of the use of expelled breath to achieve rewards (either just survival or the sort of quality of life which counts the number of TVs in each room...). The system of modification of expelled breath either organises the world for rewarding response or not. Which system will go on being used? Did Classical Latin "die" or simply, for sound semantic impoverishent reasons, transmogrify into "the" Romance languages? And why has Spanish, for instance, survived better than the Romantsch languages? The educated may collect languages as others collect stamps. They may form groups for this purpose as others form groups to support German Shepherd-dogs. I do not presume to evaluate any of these activities. All that remains obvious (Cornish, Welsh, Breton, Jerriais..) is that no external intervention can save language which no longer serves the speaker. I do not suppose many of my readers will recall a British government's attempt to revive Welsh (which one, I cannot remember) by restricting jobs in local government in Wales to those who spoke Welsh. Was this enough? I do not for a moment doubt the value of such in-house discussions on such marvellous BBs as this one. My wonder of wonders was only that it has run and run. With regards to all who worry about language, and my apologies to the long-suffering and overwhelmed Editors. Bill Bennett, Cambridge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 19:17 CST From: George Aaron Broadwell Subject: Oaxaca Two brief notes on the language preservation thread: Oaxaca is a place -- a state in Mexico. About 20 languages are spoken there, so it doesn't make sense to refer to 'the Oaxaca language' or 'the Oaxacas'. (And it's pronounced wa-HA-ka.) I've done some field work on the Zapotec language there. It has 250,000 speakers, so the argument that the language is necessarily an obsolete relic doesn't impress me much. (Of course, not all languages spoken there are this large.) One poster suggested that introducing pens, paper, and literacy into language communities in Oaxaca would corrupt/change/be meddling with the native culture. But speakers of native languages in Oaxaca are certainly familiar with all these things already -- they go to school and learn to read and write Spanish now. Literacy is not even a European innovation in Oaxaca, since the ancient Zapotec civilization had a writing system. Aaron Broadwell Univ. of Oklahoma -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 09:20:38 GMT From: caoimhin@sabhal-mor-ostaig.ac.uk (Caoimhin P. ODonnaile) Subject: Re: 3.824 Queries: American English Corpora, Irish > it does appear that there are no genuine native speakers of Irish even > in the Gaeltacht. Whatever about the rest of your message, this statement is certainly wrong. It is true that the language has been and still is loosing ground in the Gaeltacht. > Is it's preservation an act of homage by politicians rather than an > expression of the will of the people, etc? See numerous opinion surveys which show that the will of the people is that the language should be maintained and preserved. > The student is planning to > do an in depth investigation into the domains of use of Irish by > speakers spanning a range of socio-economic and geographic variables > in an attempt to provide some answers to these questions. Do you speak Irish yourself? If not, you won't be able to do any more than a superficial survey. A tourist would think that there is no Gaelic at all spoken in this part of Skye, apart from at the Gaelic college where I work. But I know differently because I know the people who know Gaelic and who are prepared to speak it - not necessarily to learners. Do you know of the LISTSERV list GAELIC-L@IRLEARN.UCD.IE? It is for Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. Messages are supposed to be in Gaelic, but messages in English are ok if they are relevant and not too lengthy. Kevin Donnelly -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-835. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-836. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 210 Subject: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 17:29 MET From: KAHREL@alf.let.uva.nl Subject: ne in French - a reference 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 14:14:36 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.830 Pleonastic Ne 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:25:00 EST From: John.M.Lawler@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Poets' Corner -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 17:29 MET From: KAHREL@alf.let.uva.nl Subject: ne in French - a reference Most of the observations and questions asked in connection with the French element "ne" (it is not negative; it might be modal; etc.) are discussed in a very interesting paper written in 1929. Full referencce: Damourette & Pichon (1929). 'Sur la signification psychologique de la ne'gation en franc,ais.' In: Journal de Psychologie 3, 228-254. Peter Kahrel University of Amsterdam The Netherlands kahrel@alf.let.uva.nl -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 14:14:36 ESTF Subject: Re: 3.830 Pleonastic Ne From: "Ellen F. Prince" just in case people think that pleonastic negation is limited to french and possibly english, i'd like to point out that it certainly occurs in yiddish, and definitely not only in 'careful' speech. it always occurs in a construction which would be translated in english by a 'wh-ever' phrase, e.g. es iz mir gut vu ikh zol nit zayn it is me good where i shall not be 'i'm fine wherever i am' vi groys a mentsh zol nit zayn... how big a person shall not be... 'however great a person may be...' vi er zol nit gehat laydn fun ir... how he shall not had sufferings from her... 'however much he suffered because of her...' also, pleonastic negation often occurs in the complement of 'fear', as in french: "hot dokh der vaybls mame moyre gehat, az imitser fun di shkhoynim zol NIT gebn dem kind KEYN aynore." (RP:5) has PRT the woman's mama fear had, that someone of the neighbors shall NOT give the child NO evil-eye 'so the woman's mother was afraid that one of the neighbors might give the child an evil eye' note that there is a difference between yiddish and french here, however. yiddish, like french, has negative concord; unlike french, both 'parts' of the negation must occur in the complement of 'fear', if either does. as for the note about modality, all the examples of pleonastic negation in my yiddish corpus have _zoln_ 'shall' as the inflected verb, which is the verb that does the work of the subjunctive mood in yiddish. some of the cases, however, do not seem to me to be irrealis in any obvious way, e.g. 'however much he suffered from her...'--in the context, he DID suffer a great deal-- the text goes on to say that, however much he suffered from her, he still missed her when she died. of course english could use _may_ here--however much he may have suffered from her--so perhaps there is something irrealis going on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:25:00 EST From: John.M.Lawler@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Poets' Corner Well, folks, if we're going to be discussing negation, let's make sure we're all playing with something like the same deck. Herewith my list of English NPI's (Negative Polarity Items). Some of these are no doubt idiosyncratic, others are well-worn classics; and it is no doubt also incomplete. But it's a start. I'm sure most of you have your own; let's merge them. Following that is a list of English negative lexical items, idioms, and constructions, i.e, things that license the occurrence of NPI's, for which I use the cover term "Negative Trigger". These are lightly classified for my own convenience; feel free to reclassify them for yours. Negative Polarity Items ------------------------------- any ever [Suppletes w/ any] any more much, many at all yet last long, take long, be long [But NOT: a long time] in weeks, in ages, in a coon's age, in donkey's years, in the longest time until [With Punctual Predicates] need / dare [As Modals] bother [+ V-ing] can seem to [+ V-inf] care to [+ V-inf] mind [+ V-ing] can help (X-self) [+ V-ing] the hell, the fuck, in the world too [= very] (be) all that [+ Adj/Adv] ...but that/but what [+ S] ...to speak of budge a red cent do a thing, bat an eye, lift a finger, drink a drop, give/be worth (a) shit/damn, ... [Open Class: V + Minimal DO Idioms] Negative "Triggers" ------------------------------------ a) Negatives Proper not [Immediately Commanding Clausemate NPI] [Immediately Commanding Non-Clausemate NPI] [Non-Immediately Commanding NPI] [Transported Non-Incorporated] Transported Incorporated: doubt, improbable, unlikely Incorporated In Vb/Adj: dislike, dissatisfied, prevent, dissuade Neg Frequency Adverbs: seldom, rarely Neg Degree Adverbs: hardly, barely, scarcely keep [+ from] only few [But NOT: a few] not many b) Interrogatives: Yes/No Questions Negative Questions Wh- Questions Tag Questions Embedded Questions [whether = if] the question of c) Hypotheticals: If-Clauses When-Clauses Embedded Whether-Questions Wh-X-Ever Clauses d) Comparison: Equatives: at least as ... as [Note: Different Potentialities] exactly as ... as [ For Triggering NPI's] Comparatives: [In Than-Clauses Only] Less-Comparatives Lexical Comparative: prefer Idiomatic Comparative: would rather no more/not any more ... than not much ... -er Superlatives [In Of-Phrases Only] Lexical Superlatives: first, last, ultimate e) Others before, by the time [Counterfactually] beyond almost surprised too odd, strange hard, tough, difficult, a bitch unless, except(ing) lack, (be) missing, (be) without (the) chances (be) 1 in 100 / 100 to 1 (/ *even) that ... ------------------------------- These are, to put it mildly, a mixed lot. You find some of the oldest (e.g, need/dare as modals) and youngest (e.g, ...NOT!) phenomena in the language as negatives, and there's irregularity enough to frustrate any searcher for order. The single most relevant remark on negation that I've encountered in 20 years of studying it was made by Fred Lupke. He characterized negation in English as a strange place where the boundaries are thin; the last stronghold of ancient parts of the language, and the first place where young, headstrong constructions crop up, creep in, and strut around irritating people. In his phrase, a "Poets' Corner". I've always found that incredibly apt. -John Lawler University of Michigan -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-836. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-837. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 75 Subject: 3.837 Queries: SLART, Japanese, Objectionable Language Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 14:37:39 MET From: Victoria Codina Espurz Subject: SLART 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:04:36 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: translation diplomacy 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 11:25:32 EST From: jaske@abacus.bates.edu (Jon Aske) Subject: Two Jews and two Basques -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 14:37:39 MET From: Victoria Codina Espurz Subject: SLART I have heard of an interest group on Second Language Acquisition called SLART-L. Does anyone know how to contact this group or any other group on SLA? Thanks in advance. Victoria Codina. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:04:36 CST From: ward@pico.ling.nwu.edu (Gregory Ward) Subject: translation diplomacy A question for those fluent in Japanese: What is the most natural translation of "fukaku kanashimi to suru"? The Chicago Tribune ran a story this weekend about the Japanese emperor's visit to China in which the emperor was quoted as using the above phrase. The article said this phrase "was translated as `deeply deplore' but [...] normally would be rendered in the more literal `feel sorrow deeply'." The article also reported that the Chinese government's official translation "used words for the phrase that translate into English as `deeply grieved'." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 11:25:32 EST From: jaske@abacus.bates.edu (Jon Aske) Subject: Two Jews and two Basques I am very interested in the ongoing discoussion about the objectionability of using de-adjectival nominals to refer to members of social groups (as opposed to using Adj + person/people). Would people who might have something intelligent to say about this please ellaborate on this? I also would like to know what the facts are as i don't always have good intuitions about this phenomenon or know how different groups feel about it. -- -------------------- Jon Aske; Political Science/Anthropology, Bates College, Lewiston, ME 04240 Phone: (207) 786-0589 e-mail: jaske@abacus.bates.edu jonaske@garnet.berkeley.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-837. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-838. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 85 Subject: 3.838 Place-Names and Articles Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 09:14 CST From: TB0EXC1@NIU.bitnet Subject: The Bronx -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 09:14 CST From: TB0EXC1@NIU.bitnet Subject: The Bronx Re: 'the' The situation regarding the use and nonuse of the definite article in place names turns out to be quite complicated indeed, showing areal and language- specific dimensions that are not immediate apparent. One of the few discussions in print of which I am aware is an article by Steven Hess, 'From the Hague to the Bronx: Definite Articles in Place Names,' which appeared in the Fall, 1987 issue of the Journal of the North Central Name Society. Hess dispenses quickly of 'the Hague' (Den Haag) by noting that it is an abbreviation of the full (apparently legal) name "s' Gravenhage" (a name which will live forever in the history of linguistics), meaning 'the Count's enclosure, or hedge.' The definite article was also loan-translated into French and Spanish as well as English. Of more general interest are Hess's findings regarding the distribution of the definite article in languages and societies of the world. Article usage varies considerably from country to country and from one language group to another. The greatest use is in Spain (but not in other Romance- speaking countries) and the least is in Germany (and also in other Germanic-speaking countries). There is an apparent abundance of place names with the article thruout the Spanish- speaking world: in Aragon La Fresnada (grove of ashes), La Ginebrosa (the Junipers), etc. The article even makes its way into the official names of several Latin American countries: El Salvador, officially Republica de El Salvador, noteworthy because de does not contract as would be expected. Hess suggests that the unusually large number of place names with articles in Spain/Spanish can be attributed to the pervasice influence of Arabic in Spain, an influence affecting both place names and the language in general. The Arabic practice of definite article plus name (usually deleted in English transliterations, Algiers from Al Juza' Ir (the sands), but not in El Alamein) was followed in Moorish Spain (Alcala, Almaden) and then became superimposed onto more general naming patterns in Spain, into Spanish and into areas with little Arabic influence. Historically, Spanish placenames in the US follow this practice and stand in sharp contrast to the British pattern (Las Vegas, El Paso,...). But this contrast is today of historical interest only since it plays little if any role in contemporary naming, where at least non-Spanish Americans, even those who 'know' Spanish are inclined to interpret article plus noun as a single, though not indivisible name, which itself may take the English article, and we find such double article names as The El Commodore Cafe' and The Los Angeles Hilton, a continuation of the practice which has given us The Rio Grande River. And how about the Bronx? Just as The Hague is shortened from s' Gravenhage, The Bronx is abbreviated from 'Borough of the Bronx River,' an older term designating the surrounding area. Jonas Bronck, from whom The Bronx takes its name, would love the attention. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-838. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-839. Tue 27 Oct 1992. Lines: 138 Subject: 3.839 Final Devoicing Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 12:06:52 EDT From: jsc@mbeya.research.att.com (John S. Coleman) Subject: 3.783 Phoneticians -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 12:06:52 EDT From: jsc@mbeya.research.att.com (John S. Coleman) Subject: 3.783 Phoneticians On Oct. 5th Alexis Manaster-Ramer submitted the following to the LINGUIST list: > There is the entire literature on incomplete > neutralization, which claims that in Russian, Polish, German, > and Catalan (which every phonetician has always heard as having > absolute total exceptionless final devoicing), there are small > but systematic measurable differences in the way underlying voiced > and voiceless finals are realized (differences realized in the > preceding vowel usually, as I understand). to which I responded with a message saying that the above statement > is incorrect: not EVERY phonetician has ALWAYS heard these > cases as having totally exceptionless final devoicing. Alexis reiterated his point of view in a message to me: > Some of the > world's finest phoneticians have certainly heard Polish, Russian, > and German. As far as I know, all of them have always reported > that there is no distinction of ANY kind in pairs like Polish > grat and grad. Many of them even claim that INSTRUMENTALLY > there is no difference, either. Alexis's claim is that the incomplete neutralization claim was not discovered by impressionistic listening, and that the durational and other differences which cue the distinction between word-final devoiced final obstruents and lexically voiceless obstruents is not audible by trained phoneticians or native speaker-hearers. I would like to add the following to the references which John Local recently posted in refutation of Alexis's claim: Malmberg, B. (1963) Phonetics. Dover Publications, New York. p. 52n. "in the latter languages, the voiced types are always fully voiced, while in English, German, etc., they are often only half-voiced or even voiceless without becoming fortes. So a solid distinction between the series is retained." Port, R. F. and M. L. O'Dell (1985) Neutralization of syllable-final voicing in German. J. Phonetics 13, 455-471. p. 455: "German is well known for its neutralization of the voicing contrast in word-final obstruents. However, acoustic analysis of ten pairs of German words produced by ten native speakers revealed that the distributions of acoustic parameters for underlying voiced and voiceless stops are significantly different." Chen, M. (1970) Vowel Length Variation as a Function of the Voicing of the Consonant Environment. Phonetica 22: 129-159. p. 135n. "in Russian voiced obstruents are devoiced in word-final positions, ... it is interesting to note that the primary feature of voicing of the final stops in the underlying represent notions of /gleb/, etc. remains under the guise of the secondary feature of lengthening of the preceding vowel, even though voicing itself is absent phonetically." Dinnsen, D. A. and J. Charles-Luce (1984) Phonological neutralization, phonetic implementation and individual differences. J. Phonetics 12, 49-60. p. 49 "It was found, contrary to all phonological accounts, that individual speakers vary in their treatment of word-final devoicing such that there is no neutralization for, at least, some speakers." Alexis further says: > However, I do not see any references to studies > that show that phoneticians (or ANY human beings) can hear the > distinctions which have been claimed to show up in instrumental > studies of, for example, Polish, Russian, German, and Catalan > final underlyingly voiced vs. underlyingly voiceless obstruents. Port and O'Dell (1985:455) state: "Furthermore, in a listening test, German listeners were able to distinguish the voiced and voiceless pairs with about 60% accuracy --- significantly better than chance." Alexis Manaster-Ramer writes: > Thus, I stand by my statement that there is no evidence that > anybody has ever heard such contrasts in German Ear-trained phoneticians, in fact most linguists, will know that phonetic theory is taught and perpetuated mostly through oral tradition, rather than published citations. Like it or not, therefore, however good or bad I and my colleagues are at digging up the old references to support the claim about incomplete neutralization cannot settle the argument. I was taught in class that for some speakers and dialects at least Final Obstruent Devoicing in German is NOT absolute neutralization, and we listened to some native speakers of German. This was in 1981, i.e. 4 years before Port and O'Dell's J. Phonetics article. I took it to be one of those pieces of "common knowledge" that all or perhaps I should say most ear-trained phoneticians in the Ellis/Bell/Sweet/Jones tradition learned. So I know that SOME ear-trained phoneticians at least claimed that German FOD was not incomplete neutralization, before Mitleb, Port, Dinnsen, Charles-Luce, and Kohler's studies were published. Perhaps it came from David Abercrombie. I'm not sure and I admit it has proved very difficult to track down the claim in writing. By the way, I would like to throw the writer/rider stuff into the pot, since I have references to show the acuteness of ear-trained phoneticians in spotting THIS instance of incomplete neutralization. P.S. On the incomplete neutralization of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ in American English, see also Donia Scott's abstract in JASA Suppl. 1, Vol. 75, (1984), p. S66. The experiment she reports verified the skills of ear-trained phoneticians to resolve cues to the voicing distinction even when the so-called identical /t/ and /d/ were cross-spliced. --- John Coleman -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-839. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-840. Wed 28 Oct 1992. Lines: 86 Subject: 3.840 Jobs: German, Speech Perception Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:42:19 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.823 Jobs: German (erratum) 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 12:10:49 EST From: Ronnie Wilbur Subject: Speech Perception -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 10:42:19 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.823 Jobs: German (erratum) > A. LECTURESHIP (LEVEL B - LECTURER) IN GERMAN > > Applications are invited for a 4 yr contract lectureship in German > in the Department of Modern Languages, within the School of Humanities > and Social Sciences, commencing in February 1993. Please read as follows: Applications are invited for a 4 yr contract or tenurable lectureship in German in the Department of Modern Languages, within the School of Hum- anities and Social Sciences, commencing in February 1993. > The appointee will be required to teach courses in German language > and related subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, > and may choose to teach relevant units in European Literature. > > The appointee must possess or show significant progress towards obtain- > ing a PhD in German linguistics, literautre or a related field, and > have a proven research record and extensive experience in teaching > German at the tertiary (including postgraduate) level. Skills in course > design, implementation and administration are essential. > > Salary will be in the Academic Level B range, AUD 41,000 - 48,688 per > annum. > > Further information about the position may be obtained from the Head of > Department, Dr Maria Flutsch, on +61 02 20 2359, or fax +61 02 20 7813, > or from Dr Bert Peeters (e-mail: Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au). > > Closing date: 15 November 1992. > Position information and application forms are available from the Staff > Office Secretary, on +61 02 20 2013. Applications should reach the > Acting Staff Officer, University of Tasmania at Hobart, GPO Box 252C, > Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia, by the specified date. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 12:10:49 EST From: Ronnie Wilbur Subject: Speech Perception ASSISTANT PROFESSOR. Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in areas of speech perception, acoustic bases of speech, and related topics. Conduct research in speech perception and/or production in normally-functioning or clinical populations. Ph.D. in speech/hearing science or related field. Application deadline is January 8, 1993, but applications will be accepted until position is filled. Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to: Dr. Laurence B. Leonard, Audiology and Speech Sciences, Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Purdue is an EO/AAE. P.S. Linguistics at Purdue is interdepartmental; the new faculty member could become a member of the Program if appropriate. [RBW] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-840. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-841. Wed 28 Oct 1992. Lines: 59 Subject: 3.841 Queries: Afrikaans, Unification Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:34:46 EST From: andaling@durras.anu.edu.au (Avery Andrews) Subject: Afrikaans query 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:00:13 EST From: rh@inmet.camb.inmet.com (Rich Hilliard) Subject: 3.834 Unification, Inheritance, and Cognitive Theory -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:34:46 EST From: andaling@durras.anu.edu.au (Avery Andrews) Subject: Afrikaans query In Linguistic Inquiry, 1977, Hans du Plessis published a squib on evidence for the successive cyclicity of Wh-Movement in Afrikaans. Has there been any followup on this work? It seems like it would support serveral dissertations. Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:00:13 EST From: rh@inmet.camb.inmet.com (Rich Hilliard) Subject: 3.834 Unification, Inheritance, and Cognitive Theory Steven Schaufele writes: > I wish to record total agreement with Anoop Sarkar's remarks (LINGUIST 3-784) > on the psycholinguistic/computational 'good sense' of lexical and grammatical > theories based on hierarchical network 'operations' like inheritance and > unification. Of course, this is consistent with my 'soft spot' for frameworks > like LFG I'm interested in the computational 'good sense' of unification-based grammars. Can someone direct me to work on the computational complexity of such operations as unification and inheritance in this setting or on the 'learnability' of such grammars? Any references? -- Rich Hilliard -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-841. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-842. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 427 Subject: 3.842 Objectionable Words Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 8:14 GMT From: Julie Coleman Subject: RE: 3.833 Objectionable Words? 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 13:07 From: BLACKWELLSA@vax1.bham.ac.uk Subject: "Jew" vs. "Jewish people" 3) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 09:41:38 -0600 From: Dennis Baron Subject: jew(ish) 4) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:09:37 MEZ From: "David M. W. Powers" Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? 5) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 14:40:48 EST From: Stanley Dubinsky Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? 6) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 16:13:57 EST From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? 7) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 17:40:42 -0500 From: Stavros Macrakis Subject: "Jew" 8) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 19:54 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 8:14 GMT From: Julie Coleman Subject: RE: 3.833 Objectionable Words? For me, one reason for avoiding the nouns 'jew', 'gay' (etc.) is that they seem assign the referent to that category only -- as if to say that the main or the only important fact about that individual is that they are gay or jewish; whereas the circumlocutions 'a jewish person', 'a gay man', at least suggest the possibility that there may also be other relevant features. It's also possible that this applies only to my usage. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 13:07 From: BLACKWELLSA@vax1.bham.ac.uk Subject: "Jew" vs. "Jewish people" To my British gentile ears, "Jewish people" seems less likely to be construed as offensive than "Jew". But I wonder if there is another variable at work here, namely gender-inclusiveness. I doubt whether anyone says "Jewess" any more (if they did it surely WOULD be offensive), but the fact that for a while it was in contrast with "Jew" would seem to leave "Jew" as exclusively male. Wouldn't "there were two Jews on the panel" conjure up an image of two Jewish MEN in the hearer's mind? Whereas "two Jewish people" leaves the sex(es) of the referents more open. Afterthought: was there ever a time when "Jewess" WASN'T offensive? Sue Blackwell University of Birmingham U.K. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 09:41:38 -0600 From: Dennis Baron Subject: jew(ish) The usage of *Jew* still remains divided, which Geoff Nunberg's usage note in AHD 3e confirms, though perhaps not so clearly as some people might like. The following excerpt from my *Declining Grammar* (1989) shows the lexicographical history relating to this and related words. It has been updated for this post. Jews and Jesuits Jews, at least in America, prefer *Jewish person* or the simple adjective *Jewish* (in UK usage *Jew* seems more common). As Dwight Bolinger notes in *Aspects of Language* (1968, p. 11), "The word *Jew* has been used unfavorably by so many of the world's big and little defamers that it is sometimes avoided even at the expense of grammar." At one time *Hebrew* was considered the polite term (hence YMHA, Young Men's Hebrew Association, and UAHC, Union of American Hebrew Congregations), though it is no longer current. *The Standard Dictionary* (1890) recommends *Hebrew* for the race and language, *Israelite* for one who practices the religion (for example, the newspaper *The Carolina Israelite*; the meaning of this word too has changed). In the 1870s, complaints about two words, *jew* and *jesuitical*, caused a stir in the American press. Richard Grant White (1870) discusses a case in which the *New York Times* labeled certain criminals as Jews. A reader objected, asking the question, "Would you speak of the arrest of two Episcopalians, a Puseyite, three Presbyterians, and a Baptist?" White, who felt the label *Jew* was racial rather than religious (and therefore of legitimate interest to the readers of the newspaper!), was disturbed because the *Times* apologized for its error. White was not the only writer on correct English to be insensitive to the implications of words. Both George Philip Krapp, in his *Comprehensive Guide to Good English* (1927), and Maurice H. Weseen, in *Crowell's Dictionary of English Grammar and Handbook of American Usage* (1928), label *jew down*, meaning `to cheat, to bargain down the price of something,' as colloquial, and both explain in the front matter to their usage guides that colloquial speech is good, careful, acceptable, informal English. The use of *jew* as a verb meaning `to cheat' is cited as early as 1849 by the OED, and the *Dictionary of Americanisms* records the word even earlier in this country, in citations dated 1824 and 1825. It did not appear in the dictionaries of Noah Webster or Joseph Emerson Worcester, the two major nineteenth-century American lexicographers, until mid-century, however, and then it was labeled either colloquial or opprobrious. In 1872 Mr. A. S. Solomons wrote to G. & C. Merriam, publishers of Webster's dictionaries, to protest the definition. Merriam agreed to drop it in the next edition, and it is still omitted from their series of Collegiate desk dictionaries, although it soon reappeared in the larger, unabridged books. A usage note on *jew down* in *The Century Dictionary* (1889-97) calls the phrase well-established in colloquial speech, having little or no overt reference to the Jews themselves, but adds, "regarded by Jews as offensive and opprobrious." *Webster's New International Dictionary* (1925) warns of the antisemitic character of jew as a verb, though it does admit a neutral sense as well: "Used opprobriously in allusion to practices imputed to the Jews by those who dislike them, or now sometimes colloquially without conscious reference to the Jews." Funk and Wagnalls' *Standard Dictionary* derives it from stereotype: "Referring to the proverbial keenness of Jewish traders," but adds a second sense that is somewhat more negative: "To practice sharp methods in trade, such as are vulgarly ascribed to Jews." *Webster's Third*, which was roundly and mistakenly criticized for not providing usage guidance to its readers, comments after its definition of *jew down*, "usually taken to be offensive." Despite the legitimate insistence of dictionaries on publishing the bad meanings of words alongside the good ones, complaints of discrimination can still be heard. In 1973 Marcus Shloimovitz, a Manchester textile merchant, lost a four-year court battle to have the *Oxford English Dictionary* drop what he considered to be the "derogatory, defamatory and wholly deplorable definitions" of the word Jew. Shloimovitz argued that the dictionary editors "should have the decency to make it clear that the definitions are obsolete, archaic and past usage." Being careful not to set a precedent, the judge dismissed the suit on a technicality, ruling that no *personal* damage had been done to the complainant. In defining *Jew*, the OED does note that the word frequently carries, in its early use, an opprobrious sense. But the dictionary does not mark those negative definitions based on stereotype as in any way obsolete, since in fact they are not. Thus *Jew* can serve as an insulting term for any "grasping or extortionate money-lender or usurer, or a trader who drives hard bargains or deals craftily." [matter omitted on *dogmatic*, *cabal*, *pontificate*] Another word with even clearer anti-Catholic associations is *jesuitical*. Although they acknowledged the nineteenth-century complaint against *jew* as a verb, Merriam's dictionary editors refused to honor another contemporary complaint against *jesuitical*, one of whose senses was defined as `crafty, sly, deceitful, or prevaricating.' While most dictionary makers agree that *jew down* is at best offensive slang, and at worst outright, raving antisemitism, *jesuitical* seems to the lexicographers more a part of the genteel English literary tradition (itself xenophobic as well as anti-Catholic and antisemitic at times). Worcester's dictionary of 1860 does note after its definition of Jesuit, "their opponents have also ascribed to them those [qualities] of craft and deceit, and have accordingly given odious meanings to the word," and Webster's dictionary of 1864 says of *jesuitical*, "now marked as opprobrious," though subsequent editions do not repeat this warning. To this day the word has not been labeled as defamatory in the Merriam-Webster publications, although *Webster's New World Dictionary* (1982) marks Jesuit, `crafty schemer, cunning dissembler, casuist,' as a "hostile and offensive term, as used by anti-Jesuits," while the *American Heritage Dictionary* (1975) disguises the negative sense of Jesuit by simply defining it as "one given to subtle casuistry." Only by checking under casuist do we discover the comment, "often used disparagingly." Dictionary update: *Random House Webster's College Dictionary* (1991) notes sense 4 of *Jew*, `of Jews, Jewish' is offensive. Neither RHWCD nor AHD 3e suggests the negative definitions of *jesuit* and *jesuitical* may be offensive. debaron@uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ __________ Department of English / '| ()_________) Univ. of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~ \ 608 S. Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~ \ Urbana IL 61801 ==). \__________\ (__) ()__________) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:09:37 MEZ From: "David M. W. Powers" Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? Is the objection to refering to people as Jews/gays uniquely American? I find it surprising, awkward and unidiomatic in terms of Australian and British English. It's an interesting contrast to that of "nigger, negro, black, coloured", where even the substantivized adjectives are not necessarily negatively marked (except where the adjective is simpler - "He is black" rather than "He is a black"). Of course good style might prefer "Black human-rights crusaders in Jo'burg today ... " to "Blacks in Jo'burg ...". Use of an adjective as a noun implies that there is no more appropriate classification of the person, but in my book since "person" adds nothing to this classification, it is redundant. However, if the group concerned is habitually devalued, the addition may well serve as a reminder/sop/insurance that the membership, or these individuals, are "still" human and have the dignity and rights which go with that. Addition of "man" or "woman" does convey additional information, "a black man" is more usual or "a male caucasian" or "a black female" in police usage - where description mandates use of adjectives, and there may be a grammatical factor in the ordering of these and the choice of which to nominalize. What about indians, eskimos and aboriginals? Most European nationalities take the form "Xman" when individuals are referred too. Englishman, Welshman, Irishman, Frenchman (German ;-), Scotsman (or Scotchman ;-) alternates with Scot. Further afield, we don't have the Xman form: Turk, Indian, Australia, US of American, South American, Canadian. (I don't know what the origin of the -sh adjectival form is, but only these take -man). Now that man has lost its common gender reading, is person taking its place in the production of similar forms? David Powers -- Dr David M. W. Powers +49-631-13786 (GMT+1) E xtraction Auf der Vogelweide 1 +49-631-205-3210 (FAX) O f SHOE W-6750 KAISERSLAUTERN FRG powers@dfki.uni-kl.de H ierarchical S tructure for Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 14:40:48 EST From: Stanley Dubinsky Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? I must second Ellen Prince's reaction to the use of the nominal appelation 'Jew' (vs. 'Jewish'). Agreed that the word has been, all too often and for far too long, pronounced by non-Jews with that certain derisive intonation which is designed to offend. I have always felt, however, that the avoidance of the noun by certain Jews is a tacit acknowledgement on their part that the word actually =is= derisive. I think that it requires a bit more positive self-identification to say 'I am a Jew', as opposed to 'I am Jewish'. In some ways, Christians and Moslems are categorially more comfortable, never having to =overtly= choose between an adjective and a noun. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 16:13:57 EST From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? On 'Jew' vs. 'Jewish person': while I agree with Ellen Prince that the latter does seem like a lily-livered euphemism for a denotatum that shouldn't really need euphemizing, the opposition between the noun and the adjective is subtler in other contexts, especially predicatively. My favorite example of this is Jonathan Miller's line, in which the neurologist/comedian/opera director maintains "I'm not a Jew. I'm Jew-ISH. I don't go the whole hog." The standard treatment of the relative loading or semantic power of nouns vis-a-vis other, non-categorizing labels is probably Bolinger's; in his discussion in "Language--the Loaded Weapon" (1980) and "Aspects of Language" he somewhere cites a Vietnam-era exile in Sweden as insisting "I'm not a deserter--I deserted." Whether or not "(be) Jewish" can be viewed as a euphemism for "(be a) Jew" or as a way of avoiding the classificatory, if not pigeonholic, effect characteristically associated with the nominal version, the same factor is evidently responsible for the perception on the part of at least some respondents on the 'gay'/'lesbian' question (LinguistList 3.793; full summary forthcoming when I get the chance) that the former can sometimes count as an attenuated version of the latter, as in the following reported dialogue: Woman #1: I came out to my mother over the break. I told her I'm gay. Woman #2: That's very brave, telling your mother you're a lesbian. W #1: Oh, I'm not ready to tell to her I'm a \lesbian/... Larry Horn (LHORN@YALEVM) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 17:40:42 -0500 Subject: "Jew" From: Stavros Macrakis I am not Jewish, but grew up in an upper-middle class environment where Jews were well represented. I agree with Prince's judgement that 'jewish people' seems like a genteelism. As for linguistic reasons for all this, there doesn't seem to be any phonological particularity with either "Jew" (ju(nior), (d)ew, (p)ew -- although the latter have glides) or "Jewish" ((n)ewish). One might think the zero of the zero/-ish alternation is marked. But other ethnica follow this pattern with no pejorative connotations: Jew Jewish Swede Swedish Lett Lettish Finn Finnish Turk Turkish Dane Danish Moor Moorish Scot Scottish Pole Polish So it seems that the problem is strictly lexical: historically, "Jew" was extended beyond Jewish individuals to cover anyone with stereotypically Jewish characteristics: "stingy person", "userer", etc. (cf. OED). -s -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 19:54 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.833 Objectionable Words? RE: Ellen's observations, sure there are sociolinguistic variables going on here. My own experience -- and I have spoken with other Jews from NY about this topic over the years -- is as follows: I'm about the same age as Ellen and grew up in Queens in the 50s. At that time I perceived what I would call a class as well as an ethnic slant to using "Jew/s" the noun or "Jewish" the adjective. Working class people used the noun. If they were Jewish (I mean, Jews) I perceived them to be using in-group talk. If they were non-Jews, I figured they were hostile to Jews. My perception was that working class non-Jews ere hostile to Jews, so I expected them to use the noun -- and they did. On the other hand, I expected middle-class people, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, to use the adjective. This was "proper" to me, not colloquial. Regardless of class, a non-Jew could not use the noun without sounding hostile. A Jew never sounded hostile using the noun, just colloquial vs. proper. Maybe my perception od proper is related to Ellen's perception of euphemism, but to me it was necessary that a non-Jew avoid the noun in order not to sound hostile. Blacks, by the way, didn't count as far as usage. My perception of Blacks in Queens (but not Manhattan) at that time was that they did not make a distinction between Jews and other whites, and if they came from the South they might even use "I tried to jew him" or "he tried to jew me" with what I felt was innocence of its offense to Jews, not that I expected them to care. With regard to linguistic contexts, Jew/s was inevitable and thus not subject to such judgment when it occurred with an adjective, because here the alternative "Jewish" was already an adjective which would make modifying it intolerable, e.g., "Russian Jew/s", not "Jewish Russians" or "Russian Jewish people". The sociolinguistics went into operation when the syntax was simpler, e.g., and I expect Ellen to agree, the non-Jewish "are you a Jew?" sounded hostile, "are you Jewish?" was OK. Meanwhile, "are you a Russian Jew?" I suppose would not be hostile -- it really didn't come up, and anti- Semites were not expected to be interested in distinctions among Jews. Of course, super-hostile was the expunging of "Jewish" from the vocabulary altogether so that "Jew" was used as an adjective, e.g., "the Jew lady", "the Jew church"... (but not necessarily the apparent toponym Jew Town, which referred to an area in Manhattan). This went beyond "normal" hostility, in my view. It was, to say the least, disrespectful, whereas I perceived "Jew" when used by non-Jews, to be a manifestation of "normal" hostility, maybe even an unintentional breech of verbal etiquette by some who did not know any better. Needless to say, my experience and the times have changed since the 50s -- and even they weren't so bad compared to the 30s and 40s. By the 70s and certainly in Los Angeles -- where Jews are somewhat less of a presence and topic than in New York -- I no longer found the noun to even suggest hostility to Jews. Meantime, it did seem to me that Jews were more assertive about their identity, probably a ripple of the wave of it's OK to be different which started with the Blacks in the'60s and moved through other non-white to white ethnic groups, so that they no longer shrank from using the in-group-like noun in self-identification to non-Jews. (Here I also have a general impression of a younger cohort of Jews, who I wouldn't expect to be aware of the connotations of "Jew" in the 50s)in the city. Although their English was fluent, I found myself moved to say when in this context one woman referred to somebody as "a Jew", that in English usage it is "better" to say "Jewish". An inside and baffling fact about English to young Germans. But I figured if they want Jews to realize that they're sympathetic to Jews they are better off saying "she's Jewish" than "she's a Jew" (and I don't wanna hear from "she's a Jewess!". Benji -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-842. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-843. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 104 Subject: 3.843 Job Announcements Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 11:52:28 MEZ From: Martin Haase Subject: job English as foreign language 2) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1992 11:51:26 +0100 From: Thomas Mueller-Bardey Subject: job announcement -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 11:52:28 MEZ From: Martin Haase Subject: job English as foreign language I was asked by some colleagues to forward the following message (needless to say that I don't take any responsibilty for its contents, so please direct all correspondence directly to the address given below). --------------------- forwarded message ------------------------------ (Re-advertisement) Applicants who answered the original advertisement, who wish to have their applications re-considered in the second round (and who satisfy the basic, qualifying requirements), need only to submit a brief letter confirming their continued interest. Post: LEKTOR in ENGLISH (BAT IIA) Location: UNIVERSITY of OSNABRUECK GERMANY Starting time: 1.4.1993 Main duties: 8 x 90 minute courses per term. i) English as a foreign language to future teachers of English ii) courses in translation from German into English. Minimum requirements: Native speaker. First degree. Experience. Qualification in TEFL/Applied Linguistics. Qualification in German. Pay and benefits: BAT IIA is a salary scale according to which earnings will be between 4,700 - 5,200 DM per month before tax, depending on age, marital status, number of children etc. Other information: The post is for 1 - 4 years, non-renewable. APPLICANTS MUST NOT HAVE BEEN RESIDENT OUTSIDE THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS PRIOR TO THEIR APPLICATION. Applications (plus usual documentation) to: Dekan, Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Universitaet Osnabrueck, Postfach 4469, W-4500 Osnabrueck, Germany. FAX (+49 541) 969 4256. Closing date for applications: 30.11.92. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1992 11:51:26 +0100 From: Thomas Mueller-Bardey Subject: job announcement Post: "European Professorship" Field: Northern European and Baltic languages Location: University of Mainz (Germany), Dep. of Ling. Duration: 6 months (Possibility of tenure) Beginning: As soon as possible Salary: DM 24.000 Teaching: 4hrs./week The professorship must be seen in the framework of a major areal topic called Northern European and Baltic languages, which is planned to get institutionalized within the Institute for General and Comparative Linguistics at the University of Mainz, and which involves a remunerative professorship. Within this topic, we mainly want to deal with questions of language typology, language contact and language change. We are aware of the fact that it is very difficult to find somebody who covers all three language groups (North Germanic, Balto-Finnic, Baltic), but it would, of course, also be very interesting to find somebody who covers either two language groups or, who knows one language group particularly well. Application/information: Prof.Dr. Walter Bisang FB 14-20 Universitaet Postfach 3980 DW-6500 Mainz Tel.: ++49/6131/39 27 78 Fax: ++49/6131/39 51 00 E-mail (only for this purpose): am007@aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-843. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-844. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 86 Subject: 3.844 FYI: Minority Recruitment, OUTIL Mailing List Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 22:58 EST From: BARBARA PARTEE Subject: Minority Recruitment 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 15:55:36 EST From: Arnold Zwicky Subject: OUTIL -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 22:58 EST From: BARBARA PARTEE Subject: Minority Recruitment Bloch Fellow Jill Beckman and LSA President Arnold Zwicky will host a special open meeting for students and those concerned with the administration of linguistics programs on Jan. 8 during the LSA meeting in Los Angeles, on the topic "Encouraging Diversity in the Community of Linguists". The program will feature short presentations relating to the situation in the discipline with respect to women, to members of ethnic and racial minorities, and to lesbian/gay/bisexual linguists. I have volunteered as part of the program to lead a discussion on recruiting and retaining minority graduate students into our graduate programs. This is an area my own department is trying to become more active in, and I would suppose the same is true for many other departments. The aim is to share ideas about ways to reach and expand the potential applicant pool, identify factors that affect the successful recruitment of minority graduate students, and address the issue of retention. I consider myself a novice in this domain and want to serve as catalyst more than as speaker. I would like to request input from others either before or at the meeting; I will be glad to share any resource material that people can provide me with in advance, and others are encouraged to bring relevant handouts to the meeting and/or contribute to the discussion. Both faculty and students are encouraged to participate. Barbara H. Partee partee@cs.umass.edu Dept. of Linguistics South College University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 15:55:36 EST From: Arnold Zwicky Subject: OUTIL OUTIL (OUT In Linguistics) is an electronic mailing list for lesbian, gay, bisexual, dyke, queer, homosexual, etc. linguists and their friends. The only requirement for subscribing to the list is that you be willing to be out to everyone on the list as glb(-friendly). As of late October 1992, there were 119 people on the list, from all parts of the world (though heavily concentrated in U.S. academic institutions) and with a wide range in age. The organization, if such it can be said to be, is deeply anarchic; nobody is in charge of anything, and anyone is welcome to institute any sort of event. (Arnold Zwicky merely maintains the list.) The only official purposes of the group are to be visible to one another and to gather occasionally (especially at conferences) to enjoy one another's company. OUTILists have discussed linguistic questions of interest to lgb people, plans for gatherings, queries and stories about our lives (especially in the academic world), and political issues. To subscribe to OUTIL, send a message to outil-request@csli.stanford.edu - Arnold Zwicky -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-844. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-845. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 84 Subject: 3.845 Summary on ASCII IPA Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:26:37 EST From: rws@mbeya.research.att.com (Richard Sproat) Subject: Summary Posting on ASCII IPA -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:26:37 EST From: rws@mbeya.research.att.com (Richard Sproat) Subject: Summary Posting on ASCII IPA A few weeks ago I posted a request for info on uniform two-byte ascii encodings of the IPA. The advantages of such a representation are: A) One byte per ipa symbol -- even assuming an extended (8 bit) character set --- would not not be sufficient to represent all the ipa symbols that one would want in order to handle a lot of languages. B) Uniform n-byte codes (as opposed to codes which have differing numbers of bytes to represent different symbols) simplify the problem of parsing phonetic representations. C) (7 bit) ascii makes display of the characters generally trivial. It does not appear that exactly what I was after exists as such, but there are at least a few apposite schemes around. This posting summarizes the responses to the query: 1) There is the 16-bit ISO 10646 standard as used in Unicode. One problem with this for the moment is the fact that these are 8-bit bytes. 2) Also, there has been a discussion on the sci.lang newsgroup where Evan Kirshenbaum is working on a complete representation of the IPA in ascii. This convention is basically intended for network discussions, and it only maps a subset of the IPA characters and diacritics to the ascii set, using a featural representation for the rest. The representations are not necessarily compact, therefore. 3) Finally, there is the following reference: J. C. Wells, _Computer Coded Phonetic Transcription_, Journal of the IPA, 17(2): 94-114, 1987. For input, thanks to: Chet A. Creider (creider@taptet.sscl.uwo.ca) E. Dean Detrich (22743MGR@msu.edu) Lee Hartman (GA5123@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU) Lars Mathiesen (thorinn@diku.dk) Jon Whalen (jon@hook.corp.mot.com) (I hope I haven't forgotten anyone). 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, USA | rws@research.att.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-845. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-846. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 175 Subject: 3.846 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:43:12 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.830 Pleonastic Ne 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 21:21:26 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items 3) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:00:36 MET From: Laszlo Kalman Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items 4) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 08:43:42 -0600 From: lambrec@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Knud Lambrecht) Subject: Re: 3.829 Ne Pleonastique 5) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 16:11:52 +0100 From: HASPELMATH@philologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de Subject: pleonastic negation 6) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 17:02 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:43:12 EST From: bert peeters Subject: 3.830 Pleonastic Ne > Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 23:16 est > From: SKIESLING@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu > > Although my French is very, very limited, it strikes me that the only > possibility being entertained for this 'ne pleonastique' is negation. > Why not something else, like modality. The sentences cited by Don Webb > ("Je crains qu'il ne pleuve" "I fear it may rain" and "Ce 'ne' est > plus difficile a'comprendre que je ne pensais" "This 'ne' is harder to > understand than I thought") both seem to entail a certain amount of > irrealis or uncertainty on the speaker's part (judging from the > translation, however), especially in the former sentence, where the > translation contains a modal expressing uncertainty. If it were not some sort of an implicit negation, but a matter of irrealis or uncertainty, we would surely see a far more extensive use of 'ne pleo- nastique' than we actually do, e.g. in hypothetical clauses of the type "If I had known, I wouldn't have come" -> in French "si j'avais su, je ne serais pas venu". There is no 'ne pleonastique' in the irrealis part. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 21:21:26 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items oops. i misglossed and mistranslated a yiddish sentence and the real gloss may be relevant to the modality issue: >vi er zol nit gehat laydn fun ir... >how he shall not had suffer from her... >'however much he had suffered because of her...' the pluperfect in yiddish is not very common (yiddish lacks most 'sequence of tense' phenomena, so the need doesn't arise very often) and is usually conveyed by helping verb + _gehat_ 'had' + past ppl but it may also be, as in the above sentence, helping verb (here _zoln_ 'shall') + _gehat_ 'had' + infin (here _laydn_ 'suffer'). i'd never seen a pluperfect where the helping verb was not _zayn_ 'be' or _hobn_ 'have', whichever one the main verb selects, but here it is _zoln_ 'shall', presumably required by the pleonastic negation. but perhaps the pluperfect is there to override somehow the irrealis effect of _zoln_... anyway, sorry for the mistake in my previous posting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 10:00:36 MET From: Laszlo Kalman Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items Does not French `jamais' in the sense of `ever' also fall into the category of pleonastic negation? In addition to `si jamais' (`just in case'), which is idiomatic, I think constructions like `le plus beau village que j'ai jamais vu' (`the most beautiful town I've ever seen) are quite common, unlike those with expletive `ne'. -- Laszlo Kalman Dept. of Computational Linguistics University of A'dam -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 08:43:42 -0600 From: lambrec@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Knud Lambrecht) Subject: Re: 3.829 Ne Pleonastique As a classical-philologist-turned-generative-linguist who now teaches syntax-semantics in a French department I thought I should have something intelligent to say about those funny NEs in written French, but all I can come up with (in response to the quest for information from latinists) is something I learned in highschool from my Latin teacher in Germany. The NE in Latin complement clauses after verbs like TIMEO `to fear' etc. was explained to me as a vestige of "old parataxis", so TIMEO NE VENIAT `I'm afraid that he might come' started out as TIMEO! NE VENIAT `I'm scared! May he not come!, where the second clause has the desiderative subjunctive (or whatever it's called). It made sense to me then and it still does now. But Latin PRIUSQUAM `before' and ANTEQUAM `before' to my recollection do not have clausal complements introduced by NE. They just have the plain subjunctive, so French AVANT QU'IL NE VIENNE is probably not a Latin vestige. Wish I knew more, and I hope someone will give a nice explanation for the NE in those other French subordinate constructions. Knud Lambrecht -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 16:11:52 +0100 From: HASPELMATH@philologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de Subject: pleonastic negation Ellen Prince points out that "pleonastic negation" occurs in (what I call) parametric concessive conditional clauses in Yiddish: Es iz mir gut vu ikh zol nit zayn. it it to.me good where I SBJV NEG be 'I'm fine wherever I am.' This also occurs in some Slavic languages, notably Polish and the East Slavic languages, so the Yiddish construction is clearly a calque. Cf. Russian: Mne xorosho gde by ja ni byl. to.me good where SBJV I NEG be:PAST 'I'm fine wherever I am.' The only other language where I have found negation in parametric concessive conditional clauses is Georgian. In this language, influence from Slavic is much less likely, though not impossible. In a recent talk on the typology of concessive conditional clauses by Ekkehard Koenig and myself, we speculate that there might be a connection between pleonastic negation in concessive conditionals and negation in exclamative clauses, e.g. German Was du nicht sagst! what you NEG say:PRES:2SG 'What are you saying!' Martin Haspelmath, Free University of Berlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 17:02 PST From: benji wald Subject: Re: 3.836 Negatives: Ne Pleonastique and Polarity Items Getting back to English, is the literary "I fear lest S" a calque on French, since "lest" is a negative meaning "so that NOT" in other contexts? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-846. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-847. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 66 Subject: 3.847 Place-Names and Articles Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:15:26 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Place-Names and Articles 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 22:10:10 EST From: Michael Subject: group names -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 20:15:26 EST From: Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu Subject: Place-Names and Articles Just in case no one else writes in on this, the posting by TB0EXC1@NIU.bitnet seems to me to be in need of some commentary on two points which, while inessential, may possibly give rise to misunderstandings. (1) 'The Hague' would appear to be based, not on the full official Dutch name 'sGravenhage' but rather on the more common short form 'Den Haag'. (2) Arabic does not use the definite article with ALL place names, but only with certain ones, typically ones which are also common nouns, e.g., al-Qahira 'the Victorious'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 22:10:10 EST From: Michael Subject: group names I don't mean to imply that this is the whole reason behind the reported object- tionableness of some group names, but I noticed an interesting tendency when I lived in England about twelve years ago, and that was that people tended to avoid the traditional nouns used for members of nations. That is I rarely heard Spaniard, Frenchman/woman, Dane from any English speakers; only second language learners who were taught that these were the correct appela- tions for themselves used these terms. I became aware of this when I was lis- tening to a Scottish cmedian (Billy Connolly) who described himself by saying "I'm a Scottish person." I wondered to myself why use this long way around when Scot was semantically equivalent. Then I noticed the rest, and that in fact, I as an American would be probably not say any of these terms either. The problem seems to be limited to words that are not also adjectives, but that of course does not explain why "A gay" or "A black" might be considered disrespectful. comments from any Turks, Poles, Croats, Slovaks, or Serbs? Michael -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-847. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-848. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 128 Subject: 3.848 Jobs: Stanford, UT Arlington, Queensland Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 12:06:28 PST From: Tom Wasow Subject: Stanford 2) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 19:34:29 CST From: susan@utafll.uta.edu (Susan Herring) Subject: jobs: phonology and sociolinguistics/ESOL 3) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 12:11:39 +1000 From: saddy@psych.psy.uq.oz.au Subject: Linguistics Position at the University of Queensland -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 12:06:28 PST From: Tom Wasow Subject: Stanford The Department of Linguistics at Stanford University solicits applications for a tenure-track appointment in Linguistics at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning September 1, 1993. Applicants should have a research and teaching specialization in some area that both interacts with and complements the research interests of the present faculty. Research of applicants should be theoretically informed and should strengthen work currently done in the department in one or more of the following areas: Language in society; language variation and change; semantics; pragmatics; discourse. Applicants with breadth and demonstrated versatility will be preferred, as will applicants with demonstrated excellence in teaching, especially at the undergraduate level. A strong research interest in some language or language family is desirable. To apply, please send vita, representative publications, three letters of recommendation, and a statement of research interests to: Search Committee, Stanford University, Department of Linguistics, Stanford, CA 94305-2150. Deadline for application is February 1, 1993. Stanford University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. Applications from minority and women candidates are especially welcome. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 19:34:29 CST From: susan@utafll.uta.edu (Susan Herring) Subject: jobs: phonology and sociolinguistics/ESOL The University of Texas at Arlington, Program in Linguistics, announces two openings for August 1993. 1. Tenure-track position, Assistant Professor of Phonology and Phonetics. PhD, publications and grant experience required. Candidates should have a record of linguistic fieldwork and have a non-IE language area specialty. Responsibility for teaching and research in traditional and contemporary phonological theory. The University of Texas at Arlington is connected with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas, TX with a graduate linguistics program at the MA and PhD levels, special emphasis on field linguistics. 2. Tenure-track position, Assistant Professor of ESOL and Sociolinguistics. PhD, publications and grant experience required. Responsibility for teaching and research in the areas of ESOL and Sociolinguistics. The University of Texas at Arlington is connected with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas, TX with a graduate linguistics program at the MA and PhD levels, special emphasis on field linguistics. Deadline for CVUs and names and addresses of persons to provide supporting letters, Dec. 14, 1992 to Jerold A. Edmondson, Director, Program in Linguistics, Box 19559 UTA, Arlington, TX 76019, jerry@ling.uta.edu. J -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 12:11:39 +1000 From: saddy@psych.psy.uq.oz.au Subject: Linguistics Position at the University of Queensland University of Queensland, Australia Tenurable Lectureship B in Linguistics Department of English (1) Qualifications and duties: The Appointee will be expected to teach, research and undertake supervision in the Linguistics section of the English Department. Applicants should possess a PhD degree and preferably have a number of publications. Preference is for a candidate who combines expertise in one or more areas of linguistic theory (morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology) with a demonstrated interest in or commitment to develop a program of empirical research in one or more languages of the region. An interest in and ability to teach in some area of applied linguistics would also be an advantage. Further details are available from Dr David Lee, Department of English, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia 4072, email dalee@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au, phone (07)365-2514 fax 365-2799. (2) Salary: An appointment will be made at a suitable point on the Lecturer B salary scale, currently Aus$41,000-48,688. (3) Date of taking up duty: It is hoped that the successful applicant will be able to take up duty early in 1993. (4) Period of Appointment: Tenurable (5) Method of Application: The University requires nine (9) copies (an original plus eight (8)) of an application and and resume. (6) Closing Date for Applications: Applications quoting Reference No 46092 must be forwarded to: The Director, Personnel Services, The University of Queensland, Queensland, 4072, Australia and should reach him no later than 30 November, 1992. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-848. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-849. Thu 29 Oct 1992. Lines: 68 Subject: 3.849 LSA: Committee on the Status of Women Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 21:44:36 EST From: sally mcconnell-ginet Subject: FURTHER INFO ON COSWL STUDENT PAPER AWARD TASKFORCE -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 21:44:36 EST From: sally mcconnell-ginet Subject: FURTHER INFO ON COSWL STUDENT PAPER AWARD TASKFORCE This is a follow-up to the earlier posting asking for taskforce volunteers. Along with many other provisions, the LSA mandate for the Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics (COSWL) has, since its inception, included the charge that COSWL engage in activities to encourage the scholarly study of language and gender. In connection with this charge, COSWL is exploring the establishment of a prize for the best linguistics paper by a student on this topic. We have in mind the model of the AAAL student paper award, as well as models from other disciplines such as the American Psychological Association's annual award for the best paper in the psychology of women. The purpose of a student award would be to draw increased attention to an area of scholarship that continues to lie somewhat outside the mainstream of linguistic research, outside in part because the research is often interdisciplinary in its methods and in part for reasons of scholarly fashion in linguistics. Increasing the visibility of language-gender research within linguistics and offering an opportunity for considered review of such work by students might also, we think, help foster excellence in the area. The Taskforce on a Student Award, for which our earlier listing sought volunteers, will report its recommendations to COSWL and that body in turn will make recommendations to the LSA Executive Committee. The Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics Dawn Bates Edwin Battistella Victoria Bergvall Janet Bing Alice Freed Sally McConnell-Ginet (Co-chair, 1992) Bonnie McElhinney Lynne Murphy Craige Roberts (Co-chair, 1992) Susan Steele -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-849. ________________________________________________________________ Linguist List: Vol-3-850. Sat 31 Oct 1992. Lines: 123 Subject: 3.850 Conferences: Semantics, Dialectology Moderators: Anthony Aristar: Texas A&M University Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan University Assistant Editor: Brian Wallace: bwallace@emunix.emich.edu -------------------------Directory------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 11:19:02 PST From: Linguist%ling%SSA@phobia.ss.uci.edu Subject: SALT III: Semantics and Liinguistic Theory 2) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 21:00:26 PST From: jarthurs@sol.UVic.CA (J. Arthurs) Subject: Methods 8 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 11:19:02 PST From: Linguist%ling%SSA@phobia.ss.uci.edu Subject: SALT III: Semantics and Liinguistic Theory first announcement SEMANTICS AND LINGUISTIC THEORY Third Annual Meeting SALT III University of California, Irvine March 5 - 7, 1993 CALL FOR PAPERS SALT welcomes submitted papers on any topic relevant to the semantic analysis of natural language within linguistic theory emphasizing empirical studies. Authors should submit ten copies of abstracts for 40 minute presentations. Abstracts may be no longer than 2 pages in length. Please enclose a 3 x 5 index card providing author's name, paper title, affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address. No e-mail or fax abstract submissions will be accepted. Abstract Deadline: January 5, 1993 Parasession: The Syntax-Semantics Interface There will be a parasession on the theme of The Syntax-Semantics Interface. If you wish to have your paper presented in this session, please indicate with your abstract submission. Send abstracts to: SALT III COMMITTEE Department of Linguistics School of Social Sciences University of California Irvine, CA 92717 Inquires about SALT III can be adressed via e-mail to: salt@phobia.ss.uci.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 21:00:26 PST From: jarthurs@sol.UVic.CA (J. Arthurs) Subject: Methods 8 !Please Post! !Please Post! !Please Post! !Please Post! 88888888888888888888888888888 8 8 8 8 8 METHODS VIII: 8 8 International Conference on Dialectology 8 8 8 8 8 M M E AUGUST 3 - 7, 1993 E T at T H University of Victoria, VICTORIA, B.C. H O O D D S S 8 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT 8 8 & 8 8 CALL FOR PAPERS. 8 8 8 8 8 88888888888888888888888888888 88888888888888888888888888888 8 8 8 8 8 Submissions are invited for papers on any 8 8 aspect of dialectology or methods: papers 8 8 must last no more than 30 minutes (incl'g 8 8 discussion & questions). 8 M M E Abstracts will be accepted until Jan.15/93 E T Notice of acceptance: March 15/93 T H H O For further information, please contact: O D D S METHODS 93, Department of Linguistics, S 8 P.O. Box 3045, VICTORIA B.C., CANADA V8W 3P4 8 8 8 8 Tel: (604)721-7424 Fax: (604)721-7423 8 8 E-mail: linguist@uvvm.bitnet 8 8 8 888888888 METHODS 8 888888888 !Please Post! !Please Post! !Please Post! !Please Post! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linguist List: Vol-3-850.