Arabic-L:LING:New article and book

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 29 Aug 2008
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1) Subject:New article and book

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1)
Date: 29 Aug 2008
From:moderator
Subject:New article and book

The following article and book that may have some interest from  
subscribers have been announced:

Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
Weighted constraints and gradient restrictions on place co-occurrence  
in Muna and Arabic

Andries W. Coetzee1  and Joe Pater2

(1)
Department of Linguistics, University of Michigan, 440 Lorch Hall, 611  
Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220, USA
(2)
Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA  
01003, USA
Received: 14 October 2005  Revised: 20 September 2007  Accepted: 16  
November 2007  Published online: 14 August 2008

Abstract  This paper documents a restriction against the co-occurrence  
of homorganic consonants in the root morphemes of Muna, a western  
Austronesian language, and compares the Muna pattern with the much- 
studied similar pattern in Arabic. As in Arabic, the restriction  
applies gradiently: its force depends on the place of articulation of  
the consonants involved, and on whether the homorganic consonants are  
similar in terms of other features. Muna differs from Arabic in the  
relative strengths of these other features in affecting co-occurrence  
rates of homorganic consonants. Along with the descriptions of these  
patterns, this paper presents phonological analyses in terms of  
weighted constraints, as in Harmonic Grammar. This account uses a  
gradual learning algorithm that acquires weights that reflect the  
relative frequency of different sequence types in the two languages.  
The resulting grammars assign the sequences acceptability scores that  
correlate with a measure of their attestedness in the lexicon. This  
application of Harmonic Grammar illustrates its ability to capture  
both gradient and categorical patterns.


________________


Title: "The" Fifth Modality: On Languages that Shape our Motivations and
Cultures
Series Title: International Comparative Social Studies

Publication Year: 2008
Publisher: Brill
           http://www.brill.nl

Book URL: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=18&pid=21177

Author: Carl W. Roberts

Hardback: ISBN:  9789004162358 Pages: 210 Price: Europe EURO 89.00
Hardback: ISBN:  9789004162358 Pages: 210 Price: U.S. $ 129.00

Abstract:

This is a book about how people understand each other. Like Simmel's
writings and works written by Foucault and Goffman toward the ends of  
their
careers, this book depicts interactions as behavioral forms. Its  
novelty is
that it grounds these forms in linguistic structure, particularly in the
ubiquitous presence of modality in discourse within all mass  
societies. Its
concluding argument is that all persons, situations, and cultures have
mutual significance in accordance with four fundamental modal forms:
ability (most common in the United States), necessity (most common in  
the
socialist countries of Western Europe and Scandinavia), obligation (most
common in ancient Chinese and Indic societies), and permission (most  
common
in the Islamic world).

Table of contents
Preface
Glossary
Chapter 1: On Persuasion
Chapter 2: Reading Personhood
Chapter 3: Gedankenexperiment
Chapter 4: Individualism
Chapter 5: Mutualism
Chapter 6: Essentialism
Chapter 7: Doctrinism
Chapter 8: Another Modality
Appendix: A Formalization
Index

Keywords:
Modality, culture linguistics, persuasion, personhood, individualism,
mutualism, essentialism, reformism.

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End of Arabic-L:  29 Aug 2008