From TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Wed Jan  3 22:50:13 1996
From: TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 14:50:13 -0800
Subject: happy new year...
Message-ID: <WED.3.JAN.1996.145013.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

From:   IN%"noonan at csd.uwm.edu"  "Michael Noonan"  3-JAN-1996 10:14:18.35
To:     IN%"downing at alpha2.csd.uwm.edu"  "Pamela A Downing", IN%"sathomps at humanitas.ucsb.edu", IN%"tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU", IN%"spikeg at owlnet.rice.edu"
CC:
Subj:   Happy New Year

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From: Michael Noonan <noonan at csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Happy New Year
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 tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU, spikeg at owlnet.rice.edu
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This may amuse you, depress you, or both.  Edith Moravcsik and I received
this from David Pesetsky, who is spearheading a drive to remove the
`functionalist bias' from reading instruction in Massachusetts.  He blames
Halliday for the wrongheadedness he perceives.  This could be put down to
just another example of MITnikian silliness except that it's now entered
the public arena and could have an effect on public policy.

Mickey


_________________________________________________________________________

NOTE: This letter is a communication by Massachusetts residents to
Massachusetts officials.  It was not intended for distribution outside our
area.  We do not authorize distribution or quotation by organizations or
groups.  Individuals who choose to make copies for others should include
this notice at the top.  Also note that our letter commented on an early
first draft of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework.  This draft has
been revised in light of our comments and those of others, and is
currently undergoing further revisions. We are entirely satisfied that our
views as expressed in this letter have been listened to seriously.

From:  Forty Massachusetts specialists in linguistics and
        psycholinguistics To :  Dr. Robert V. Antonucci
       Commissioner of Education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Cc:    Linda Beardsley, Curriculum Frameworks Coordinator, Dept. of
        Education
       Dr. Michael Sentance,  Secretary of  Education
       His Excellency, William F. Weld, Governor of Massachusetts
Date:  July 12, 1995
Subject:  Standards for Reading Instruction in Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Antonucci:

     We are researchers in linguistics and psycholinguistics -- and
Massachusetts residents.  We are writing to raise certain questions
about the inclusion of contentious and, in our view, scientifically
unfounded views of language in the sections on reading instruction of
the draft Curriculum Content Chapter on Language Arts ("Constructing and
Conveying Meaning"), recently circulated by the Massachusetts Department
of Education.  These views are presented as a principal support for the
reading curriculum advocated as an instructional "standard" in this
document.

     The proposed Content Chapter replaces the common-sense view of
reading as the decoding of notated speech with a surprising view of
reading as directly "constructing meaning".  According to the document,
"constructing meaning" is a process that can be achieved using many
"strategies" (guessing, contextual cues, etc.).  In this view, the
decoding of written words plays a relatively minor role in reading
compared to strategies such as contextual guessing.  This treats the
alphabetic nature of our writing system as little more than an accident,
when in fact it is the most important property of written English -- a
linguistic achievement of historic importance.

     The authors of the draft Content Chapter claim that research on
language supports their views of reading.  The document asserts that
research on language has moved from the investigation of particular
"components of language -- phonological and grammatical units" to the
investigation of "its primary function -- communication".  These
supposed developments in linguistic research are used as arguments for a
comparable view of reading.  We are entirely unaware of any such shift
in research.

     We want to alert the educational authorities of Massachusetts to
the fact that the view of language research presented in this document
is inaccurate, and that the claimed consequences for reading instruction
should therefore be subjected to serious re-examination.

     The facts are as follows.  Language research continues to focus on
the components of language, because this focus reflects the "modular"
nature of language itself.  Written language is a notation for the
structures and units of one of these components.  Sound methodology in
reading instruction must begin with these realities.  Anything else will
shortchange those students whom these standards are supposed to help.

     As linguists, we are concerned that the Commonwealth, through its
powers to set standards for schools, should presume to legislate an
erroneous view of how human language works, a view that runs counter to
most of the major scientific results of more than 100 years of
linguistics and psycholinguistics.  We are even more concerned that
uninformed thinking about language should lie at the heart of a
"standards" document for Massachusetts schools.

                              Respectfully,
                              [list of signers starts on next page]
               [Signers are listed in alphabetical order]

1. Prof. Emmon Bach
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst;
       President, Linguistic Society of America)

2. Prof. Andrea Calabrese
       (Linguistics, Harvard)

3. Dr. David Caplan
       (Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital;
       Director of the Reading Disability Clinic, Massaschusetts General
       Hospital)

4. Prof. Charles Clifton
       (Chair, Dept. of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at
       Amherst)

5.  Prof. Mark Feinstein
       (Dean of Cognitive Science & Cultural Studies, Hampshire College)

6. Prof. Kai von Fintel
       (Linguistics, MIT)

7. Prof. Suzanne Flynn
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

8. Prof. John Frampton
       (Mathematics, Northeastern University)

9. Prof. Lyn Frazier
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

10. Prof. Edward Gibson
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT)

11. Prof. Kenneth Hale
       (Linguistics, MIT;
       former President (1994), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

12. Prof. Morris Halle
       (Institute Professor, Linguistics, MIT;
       former President (1973), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

13. Prof. Irene Heim
       (Linguistics, MIT)

14. Prof. Kyle Johnson
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

15. Prof. James Harris
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

16. Prof. Ray Jackendoff
       (Linguistics/Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis;
       author, Patterns in the Mind)

17. Prof. Samuel J. Keyser
       (Linguistics, MIT)

18. Prof. Michael Kenstowicz
       (Linguistics, MIT)

19. Prof. John Kingston
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

20. Prof. John McCarthy
       (Chair, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at
       Amherst)

21. Prof. Joan Maling
       (Linguistics/Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis)

22. Prof. Gary Marcus
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

23. Dr. Janis Melvold*
       (Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital)

24. Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

25. Prof. Mary Catherine O'Connor
       (Developmental Studies and Applied Linguistics, Boston
       University)

26. Prof. Wayne O'Neil
       (Chair, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT)

27. Prof. Barbara Partee
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst;
       former President (1986), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

28. Prof. David Pesetsky*
       (Linguistics, MIT;
       Co-director, Research Training Program "Language: Acquisition and
       Computation")

29. Prof. Steven Pinker
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT;
        Director, McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience;
       author, The Language Instinct)

30. Prof. Alexander Pollatsek
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

31. Prof. Mary C. Potter
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT)

32. Prof. Janet Randall
       (Director, Linguistics Program, Northeastern University)

33. Prof. Keith Rayner
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

34. Prof. Thomas Roeper
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

35. Prof. Elisabeth O. Selkirk
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

36. Prof. Margaret Speas
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

37. Prof. Esther Torrego
       (Chair, Dept. of Hispanic Studies, University of Massachusetts at
       Boston).

38. Dr. Gloria Waters
       (Neuropsychology Lab,  Massachusetts General Hospital;
       School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill
       University)

39. Prof. Calvert Watkins
       (Linguistics/Classics; Harvard)

40. Prof. Kenneth Wexler
       (Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT;
       Co-director, Research Training Program "Language: Acquisition and
       Computation")



*For further information or discussion, please contact:

Prof. David Pesetsky
Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy
20D-219
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139



phone: (617) 253 0957
fax:   (617) 253 5017
e-mail:pesetsk at mit.edu
Dr. Janis Melvold
Neuropsychology Lab
Dept. of Neurology
Vincent-Burnham 827
Massachusetts General Hospital
Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114

phone:         (617) 726 5007
e-mail:
melvold at helix.mgh.harvard.edu


From wjgriff at KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Thu Jan  4 23:03:47 1996
From: wjgriff at KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (William J. Griffiths)
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 17:03:47 -0600
Subject: absolutive usage
Message-ID: <THU.4.JAN.1996.170347.0600.>

Does anyone know the origin of the use of the term 'absolutive' in
reference to the absolutive usage of certain transitive verbs (e.g. 'He
drinks')?


From M.Durie at LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU  Fri Jan  5 02:46:25 1996
From: M.Durie at LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Mark Durie)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 12:46:25 +1000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.124625.1000.M.DURIE@LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>

The idea that meaning is 'constructed' by the reader, rather than 'decoded'
is virtually universal-in some form or another-in school
language/literature syllabuses AND teaching practices thoughout the English
speaking world.  To quote from the position statement of the Australian
Association for the Teaching of English:

"Students...learn that meaning is made in the interaction between the
individual and the text, rather than existing in the text itself. ... The
idea that meaning is actively constructed rather than passibely found in
the text is fundamental to the composing and comprehending activities which
take place in classrooms.",

This can be taken to be the "default" understanding in education of how
meaning is derived from texts, right around the world.  And not only in
education:  the perspective is fundamental to much contemporary work in
literature, film, advertising, journalism, criticism etc etc.  That so many
linguists could be 'surprised' to find this understanding of the reading
process prospering in Massachussetts schools ought to be surprising but
sadly it is not.

I would agree with my Massachussetts colleagues that there are problems
with this understanding of the construction of meaning (without endorsing
the simplistic 'decoding' theory).  A review, for example, of German
mother-tongue learning policy statements, reveals a more balanced
understanding of meaning which acknowledges the social, held-in-common
nature of linguistic signs, and the perspective that texts are composed of
such signs, as well as the active nature of interpretation.

However the MA linguists' comments display a certain 'detachment' from 30
years of developments in mother-tongue English curricula (and thus from
mainstream developments in contemporary society's understandings of
communication) that does not bode well for establishing a dialogue with
educators.

Mark Durie

================================
From:  Mark Durie,
       Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics,
       University of Melbourne
       Parkville 3052

       Hm  (03) 9380-5247
       Wk  (03) 9344-5191
       Fax (03) 9347 7305

M.Durie at linguistics.unimelb.edu.au
http://www.arts.unimelb.edu.au/Dept/Linguistics/mark_durie.html


From tpc1 at RA.MSSTATE.EDU  Fri Jan  5 06:08:52 1996
From: tpc1 at RA.MSSTATE.EDU (Thomas Price Caldwell, Jr.)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 00:08:52 -0600
Subject: happy new year...
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.000852.0600.TPC1@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

The letter from Pesetsky, et al, made me laugh.

I think they are barking up the wrong tree for all the wrong reasons, but I
hope they prevail.

My guess is that the ideology of the curriculum reform, despite the talk
about  "phonological and grammatical units," comes not functionalists or
any other kind of linguists, but rather from literature professors from,
say, UMass/Amhurst and Williams and Brandeis.

On the face of it, the argument that readers "construct" the contexts
within which sentences make sense is a very benign argument.    There is no
doubt that every text is to some extent contingent on, and an expression
of,  the time and place and means of its production.   This is little more
than arguing that meaning depends on context, and that contexts are social
and economic as well as linguistic, personal, or psychological.   The
"deconstructionist" techniques derived by Derrida and other
"post-structuralists" are interpretive methods intended to show, largely by
noticing what is NOT said, how arguments made by individuals also reveal
the social and political and economic interests informing those arguments,
even on an unconscious level.

The only trouble with it is that over 20 years this very powerful and
insightful critical method  has become an institutionalized political
weapon of leftist academics.

 The feminists and radical democrats among them have interpreted Derrida to
mean that what Pesetsky calls the "common-sense view of reading" is really
the oppression of children by meanings which have been insidiously
"constructed" by rich white males.  In short, what we used to call western
civilization, as communicated by the great books, is really the result of
centuries of concerted effort to inculcate racist, sexist, and capitalist
assumptions as fundamental.   And since that is the case, leftist
literature departments have for a long time now felt that it was far more
important to sponsor a social revolution against racism, sexism and
capitalism than to teach literature "for its own sake."   (Indeed, they
have attributed insidious RIGHT wing political motivations, with some
justice, to the older "new critical" curriculum.)  They have felt that they
must "deconstruct" those abusive meanings and replace them with more
"democratic" ones.

If those educators wish, by emphasizing the constructedness of discourse,
to "correct" the anti-democratic past by imposing politically correct
readings on all texts, then they certainly ought to be discouraged.   I am
not anti-democratic, but to see everything in Western culture as having
been tainted by their favorite three evils (sexism, racism, and capitalism)
is reductivist and purely political.   There are enormous resources in
literature which are not political, and inspire students in innumerable
ways, but they are going unnoticed.   Meanwhile the leftist ideology is
seeking to establish itself at the level of institutional policy in many
places.

So if they are up to what I suspect, I agree with the move to oppose them.
But I'd bet it has nothing at all to do with "functionalist bias" or
Halliday.   Those linguists ought to get their heads out of their modules
and see what their colleagues are doing.

--Price Caldwell


From Kees.Hengeveld at LET.UVA.NL  Fri Jan  5 15:30:50 1996
From: Kees.Hengeveld at LET.UVA.NL (Kees Hengeveld)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:30:50 +0100
Subject: VIIth International Conference on Functional Grammar
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.163050.0100.KEES.HENGEVELD@LET.UVA.NL>

REMINDER

The deadline for the submission of abstracts for the VIIth
International Conference on Functional Grammar (Cordoba (Spain),
September 23-27, 1996) is:

JANUARY 15, 1996.

Those interested in receiving the original announcement may write
to:

KEES.HENGEVELD at LET.UVA.NL


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan  5 18:41:01 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 12:41:01 -0600
Subject: Call for Papers
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.124101.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

The 23rd Annual Forum of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the
United States (LACUS) will be hosted by Brigham Young University, August
6th (Tuesday) through 10th (Saturday), 1996.  There will be four days of
refereed papers and lectures by eminent scholars including Brian
MacWhinney of Carnegie-Mellon University, a leading researcher in the
neuro-psychology of language.

A special feature of the conference will be a SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE AND
THE BRAIN, to be introduced by Brian MacWhinney's lecture.  Papers are
invited on this topic and on all other topics of linguistic interest.

LACUS fosters a broad interdisciplinary approach to language, providing a
congenial and stimulating forum for functional views and for
contributions on the cognitive and neurological bases of language.
The annual meeting is held in August of each year at an American or
Canadian college or university.

Members of LACUS may submit an anonymous abstract on one 8.5 x 11 inch page
(single-spaced, 1.5" margin on all sides, camera ready), in 15 copies.
Include a 3x5" card with name, address, affiliation, telephone, fax,
e-mail, title of paper and audio-visual equipment needs.

Non-members may submit membership application accompanying the abstract,
consisting of the information indicated above plus annual dues of $35 US
or $45 Canadian; student dues $20 US, $25 Canadian (with faculty
signature on memo indicating student status).

Abstracts should be submitted by January 15th, 1996 to:

    Ruth Brend, LACUS Conference Chair
    3363 Burbank Dr.
    Ann Arbor, MI 48105

    (phone 313-665-2787, fax 313-665-9743, e-mail ruth.brend at um.cc.umich.edu)

Questions may also be addressed to me, Syd Lamb, LACUS Chair, at:

    Linguistics, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892
    smlamb at owlnet.rice.edu
    phone: 713-661-3565
    fax: 713-661-3570

I particularly want your questions if you have an interest in participating
in the SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN.


From ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU  Fri Jan  5 21:33:10 1996
From: ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Ellen F. Prince)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:33:10 EST
Subject: constructing meaning vs. reading
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.163310.EST.ELLEN@CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU>

the issue addressed in the letter is not how to teach a martian to understand
earthling language but how to teach fluent native speakers how to READ, a
talent which has been in dire straits for quite some time (correlating with
what, i will not say). i only wish the linguists of the commonwealth of
pennsylvania got their act together to do what the linguists of the
commonwealth of massachusetts have done.


From kuzar at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL  Sat Jan  6 18:12:52 1996
From: kuzar at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (Ron Kuzar)
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 20:12:52 +0200
Subject: NP-internal argument
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JAN.1996.201252.0200.KUZAR@RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL>

Dear funknetters,

If we define argument structure (I prefer valency) as the determination
by a predicate of the number and type of NPs to participate in the
sentence, we unsurprisingly find that these NPs appear as separate
phrases within the sentence, in positions that are exclusive of one
another (I am trying to use broad terms, not school-specific), so that
one argument would not be part of the phrase of another argument.
However, if we find that in a certain sentence a possessive element is
compulsory, then we have an additional NP - the possessor - inside the NP
being possessed. Take the Hebrew sentence:

aSrei hama'amin
the-happiness-of the-believer

This is a single noun phrase in the construct state with 'aSrei' as
predicate and 'hama'amin' as a single argument.

similar forms are:

tori=my turn; mazali=my luck etc.

It should be noted that unlike the English 'my bad luck' which is an
idiomatic expression/interjection, 'tori' and 'mazali' can be embedded:

lo yadati Setori
not I-knew that-my-turn
'I didn't know it was my turn'

A similar phenomenon exists in Hungarian (excuse lack of diacritics):

van penzem
there-is my-money
'I have money'

The addition of a lexical possessor in emphatic sentences is possible:

nekem van penzem
to-me there-is my-money

but the '-em' of 'penz-' does not disappear, thus 'nekem' is appositional
to the suffix, not the other way around.

There are some traditional treatments of this phenomenon in Hebrew. Does
anybody know of (1) treatment of Hungarian in this spirit; (2) other
languages (and biblio) on 'possessive arguments'; (3) general theoretical
discussion of such issues.

I am new to funknet, not sure about procedures here. Do responses go
straight to the list, or to the person posting the question, to be later
summarized? If the latter is the case I will summarize responses.

Ron Kuzar, Haifa University
kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il


From KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Sun Jan  7 20:04:25 1996
From: KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Kathie Carpenter)
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 12:04:25 -0800
Subject: Reminder: SEALS conference call for abstracts
Message-ID: <SUN.7.JAN.1996.120425.0800.KATHIEC@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post


Call for Papers


SEALS VI
Southeast Asian Linguistics Society


May 11-13, 1996
University of Oregon, Eugene  OR



The conference will feature papers from any of the languages of Southeast
Asia. Topics will include:

o descriptive, theoretical or historical linguistics
o language planning
o literacy
o bilingual education
o linguistic anthropology
o enthnolinquistics
o language attitudes and ideology discourse and conversational analysis
o language and gender
o language and politics


The Society encourages and welcomes suggestions for invited speakers.


SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS  -  INSTRUCTIONS

By February 6, 1996 please submit five copies of an anonymous abstract with
a separate 3 x 5 card identifying:

author and affiliation;
address where notification of acceptance or rejection should be mailed in
mid-February;
daytime phone number; and
e-mail address, if available.

Abstracts should not exceed 1 page, but an additional page of data and
references may be submitted.

Inquiries should be directed to Kathie Carpenter at University of Oregon.
Phone (541) 346-3898 or kathiec at oregon.uoregon.edu.

Papers presented at SEALS VI will be published in the Society's
Proceedings. To ensure inclusion in the volume, authors are asked to submit
a camera-ready copy of their paper by August 15, 1996. Presentations will
be 20 minutes in length with 10 minutes for questions.

The University of Oregon is an equal opportunity, affirmative action
institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the
Americans with Disabilities Act. Accommodations for people with
disabilities will be provided if requested in advance to (503) 346-5084.





SEALS Conference Registration


Name:
Affiliation:
Address:

Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Date of arrival:                                        Date of departure:

Enclosed is my check or money order payable to SEALS for the following:

Registration Fee (includes 5 coffee breaks and reception):

        Students                       Non-students
Before April 1, 1996    _____$35         _____$50
After April 1, 1996     _____$40        _____$55
Luncheon on May 11th    _____$15         _____$15

Total Enclosed   $_________

Send this registration form to SEALS, Department of Linguistics, University
of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1246.

Information about accommodations will be included in subsequent mailings.

SEALS
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1264


From noonan at CSD.UWM.EDU  Mon Jan  8 19:24:54 1996
From: noonan at CSD.UWM.EDU (Michael Noonan)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 13:24:54 -0600
Subject: apologies
Message-ID: <MON.8.JAN.1996.132454.0600.NOONAN@CSD.UWM.EDU>

This is in response to a posting that had been sent out last week on
Funknet concerning reading instruction in Massachusetts.  The posting
bore my name and contained a note written by me.

I would like to apologize to my colleagues in Massachusetts and to David
Pesetsky in particular for a letter, which David had sent privately to
Edith Moravcsik, being posted on Funknet together with an injudicious note
written by me.  I had sent the letter with my note privately to some
friends, and it was not my intention that the letter and/or the note be
served up for public consumption.  In addition, I would like to point out
that the views attributed to David on the note accompanying the letter are
not necessarily his and that the quotation marks in my note do not reflect
a quotation from anything David had written to me or to Edith Moravcsik.
I should also like to say that characterizing anyone's beliefs as `silly',
as I did in my note, serves no useful function in a public forum:  again I
should like to emphasize that I did not intend my remarks for anyone but
the four people to whom my original note was addressed.


Since my note seemed to imply complete disagreement with the position
taken by the Massachusetts linguists, perhaps I should explain briefly
what my position on the issue at hand really is.
        I have argued for years with my colleagues in literature against
the view that meaning is a mere construct of the reader/hearer and cannot
be said in any way to inhere in text/speech.  There are many arguments
against the `social constructionist' view, but the simplest one derives
from the observation that linguistic communication is overwhelmingly
successful, whereas the social constructionist view would predict
otherwise.
        While I believe a simplistic social constructionist view to be
wrong, I also believe its opposite, a simplistic decoding view [as Mark
Durie recently characterized it on Funknet] is wrong too.  [I don't want
to imply in any way anything about what Mark believes or doesn't believe
concering this issue.] It was this simplistic decoding view of meaning
that the Massachusetts linguists seemed to be endorsing in their letter,
though perhaps this was only a rhetorical stance.  I believe the truth
here, as is so often the case, lies somewhere in the messy middle.


Mickey Noonan


From A.M.Bolkestein at LET.UVA.NL  Tue Jan  9 20:11:22 1996
From: A.M.Bolkestein at LET.UVA.NL (A.M. Bolkestein)
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 21:11:22 +0100
Subject: NP-internal argument
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91.960106192122.16634A-100000@research.haifa.ac.il>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JAN.1996.211122.0100.A.M.BOLKESTEIN@LET.UVA.NL>

Dear Ron there is of course a wealth of litt. on the subject of the
expression of possessive relations. One publ. which you may have missed
is Dik, S.C. (ed) 1983 Advances in Functional Grammar, Dordrecht: Foris
(now available through Mouton De Gruyter) in which there are several
papaers on possessive constructions, one by myself (`Genitive and dative
possessors in Latin', p. 55-91), one by C. Vet `Possessive constructions in
French', p. 123-140, and one by C. De Groot `On non-verbal predicates in
Functional Grammar: the case of possessives in Hungarian', p. 93-122. The
references to these papers will probably be useful too: among other to
work by H. J. Seiler. Good luck!

Machtelt Bolkestein
Dept. of Classics, University of Amsterdam
Oude Turfmarkt 129
NL-1012 GC Amsterdam
Fax: ++31.20.5252544
E-mail: a.m.bolkestein at let.uva.nl


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Wed Jan 10 13:34:59 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 08:34:59 -0500
Subject: Ron Kuzar's Hungarian example
Message-ID: <WED.10.JAN.1996.083459.0500.>

An interesting note on Ron's Hungarian example.  In Estonian possession
is typically indicated through the use of the addessive case.  I can't
remember the word for "money" right now, so I'll substitute "a car":

                Mul                                                                             on                                                                      auto.
                first                                                                   be                                                                              car
                singular                                                third
                addessive                                       singular
                                                                                                                                present
literally:  'at/on/stuck to me is car'
idiomatically:  'I have a car'

I'll look through my Sami grammar to see how Sami does it.


Carl Mills


From TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Jan 11 18:08:16 1996
From: TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:08:16 -0800
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.100816.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Happy NY!
Hope you're doing well. Re that bruhaha -- we are caught between the
two extreme poles of atomic-meaning reductionism and contextual-meaning
reductionism. For our own sanity, we need to remember that neither extreme
is empirically viable without the other. Meaning has a large relatively-
invariant (relatively!) component, but also a considerable supplement of
context-mediated interpretation. A cognitively-founded theory of lexical
representation in the brain, i.e. a NETWOK model integrated within a Rosch-
type PROTOTYPE approach, accounts for such "centrist" behavior in a very
natural way. What we need to watch out for is the tendency by both
extreme schools to push us to an extreme position. It would be nice to
reaffirm a middle-ground, emoirically viable position, and somehow not
let the two extreme dictate the terms of a "debate" which is, in my
experience, one more pseudo-argument in modern linguistics. It would be
unfortunate if we allow ourselves to be defined by the unreasonable,
reductionist positions of the less-empirical lobbies. It is time for this
field (linguistics) to stop this silly game, and to go on with serious
science; where, most often than not, complex problems are not solved by
simple reductionist dogmas. TG


From 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM  Thu Jan 11 23:31:21 1996
From: 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM (Marilyn M. Goebel)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 18:31:21 EST
Subject: Language acquisition and language change
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.183121.EST.73232.3472@COMPUSERVE.COM>

Hi,

I am interested in the relationship between language acquisition by children
and language change. Are there studies that show that children's 'mistakes' --
i.e. the result of functional pressure (simplicity, iconicity, parsing ease,
or whatever) to make them the reanalyze their parents' grammars -- are an
important factor in language change? It sounds like it should be obviously
true, but I don't know of any work that discusses this with real examples.

Thanks! I'll summarize on the net what I find.

Marilyn Goebel


From dquesada at EPAS.UTORONTO.CA  Fri Jan 12 03:00:06 1996
From: dquesada at EPAS.UTORONTO.CA (Diego Quesada)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 22:00:06 -0500
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
In-Reply-To: <01HZVP97BEWW8ZG85Q@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.220006.0500.DQUESADA@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>

On Thu, 11 Jan 1996, Tom Givon wrote:

> Happy NY!
> Hope you're doing well. Re that bruhaha -- we are caught between the
> two extreme poles of atomic-meaning reductionism and contextual-meaning
> reductionism. For our own sanity, we need to remember that neither extreme
> is empirically viable without the other. Meaning has a large relatively-
> invariant (relatively!) component, but also a considerable supplement of
> context-mediated interpretation. A cognitively-founded theory of lexical
> representation in the brain, i.e. a NETWOK model integrated within a Rosch-
> type PROTOTYPE approach, accounts for such "centrist" behavior in a very
> natural way. What we need to watch out for is the tendency by both
> extreme schools to push us to an extreme position. It would be nice to
> reaffirm a middle-ground, emoirically viable position, and somehow not
> let the two extreme dictate the terms of a "debate" which is, in my
> experience, one more pseudo-argument in modern linguistics. It would be
> unfortunate if we allow ourselves to be defined by the unreasonable,
> reductionist positions of the less-empirical lobbies. It is time for this
> field (linguistics) to stop this silly game, and to go on with serious
> science; where, most often than not, complex problems are not solved by
> simple reductionist dogmas. TG
>
 While I agree wholeheartedly with this point of view, some uneasiness
has invaded me, which translates in a kind of innocent question:
Extremist cross-fire has at least one aspect (advantage?) worth
mentioning: it keeps the whole linguistic community somehow connected.
Don't we run the risk of developing two linguistics' separate of each other?
"Middleness" could not be attained thus, could it? (Modularity of the
profession/science?)
J. Diego Quesada
University of Toronto


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Fri Jan 12 13:06:08 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:06:08 -0500
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JAN.1996.080608.0500.>

A strong (or at least loud) second to Tom Givon's call for those of us
who are interested in real people's use of real language to avoid the
two extreme positions that are surfacing in the bruhaha.


Carl


From WCSTOKOE at GALLUA.GALLAUDET.EDU  Fri Jan 12 15:59:28 1996
From: WCSTOKOE at GALLUA.GALLAUDET.EDU (Stokoe, W.C.)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 10:59:28 -0500
Subject: Thanks to Tom Givon
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JAN.1996.105928.0500.>

Another hearty second. It is now just shy of 40 years since I heard some
fine analysts of language, Henry Lee Smith and George L. Trager, insisting
in their department of Anthropology, not linguistics, that the study of
A language without attention to the people who use it and what they use it
for is quite sterile. Perhaps something of value has been added to knowledge
about language in the last four decades, but from here it seems more than
ever evident that we need a lot more data, a lot more natural history, befor
getting into theories so universal they explain everything--and nothing.
Bill Stokoe


From LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU  Tue Jan 16 04:33:24 1996
From: LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU (Lise Menn, Linguistics, CU Boulder)
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 21:33:24 -0700
Subject: retry - phonics  es
Message-ID: <MON.15.JAN.1996.213324.0700.LMENN@CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU>

  PINE 3.91   MESSAGE TEXT             Folder: INBOX  Message 18 of 34 50%      Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:29:19 -0600
From: "L-Soft list server at Rice University (1.8b)"
     <LISTSERV at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: lmenn at U.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Rejected posting to FUNKNET at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU
You  are  not   authorized  to  send  mail  to  the   FUNKNET  list  from  your
lmenn at U.ARIZONA.EDU account. You  might be authorized to send to  the list from
another of  your accounts,  or perhaps  when using  another mail  program which
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any question regarding the policy of  the FUNKNET list, please contact the list
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------------------------ Rejected message (23 lines) -----------------------Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:28:37 -0700 (MST)
From: lise menn <lmenn at U.Arizona.EDU>
X-Sender: lmenn at aruba.ccit.arizona.edu
To: Tom Givon <TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
cc: Multiple recipients of list FUNKNET <FUNKNET at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
Subject: Re: happy new year...

the depressing thing is that they are right about the importance of
phonics in reading instruction, but did not include any reading
researchers - or at least not school-based ones - like Maryanne Wolf of
Tufts or Jeanne Chall of Harvard - who could have given them much better
data to cite, and greatly improved their credibility.  Lise Menn
[END of message text]


From linzubin at UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU  Tue Jan 16 17:34:47 1996
From: linzubin at UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (DAVID A. ZUBIN, LINGUISTICS, SUNY BUFFALO, 685 BALDY,
 BUFFALONY 14260, 716-645-2177,
 FAX 645-3825)
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 12:34:47 -0500
Subject: Tom's middle ground
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JAN.1996.123447.0500.>

Dear Tom,

Having paid attention and learned a great deal from your pleas for the
middle ground, and having incorporated a great deal of it into my
thinking, I would still respectfully like to counter you with the
following points:

Good work along extremist lines--"atomism," aka concretist semantics of
the Berkeley school;  pure conceptualist semantics such as Len Talmy's;
abstract semantics such as Roman Jakobson's work, or the Columbia
School--is anything but reductionist in the negative sense.  The
"extremism" of these approaches, the willingness to stretch the envelope,
School--is anything but reductionist in the negative sense.  Theto push
ideas beyond what at first glance seems reasonable, has led to
the development of substantial new ideas, and the testing and refinement
of lideas across 'camp' lines by people willing to listen and worry.  Let
me briefly cite two examples:

1.  The long-term debate between abstractionist and concretist semantics
over whether there is any central "abstract" meaning to a category, and
in the other direction, whether there are conventionalized submeanings
and sus-sub meanings etc.  Abstractions willing to listen have been
troubled by the fact that you can't come anywhere near predicting use
from a single abstract meaning, and have increasing worked on the
conventionalization of inferences run off an abstract meaning + context;
this amounts to a submeaning with some motivation for its association
with the abstract meaning of the category.  On the concretist side, many
have worried about the proliferation of submeanings, and have
increasingly worked on general principles for how submeanings may be
derived and linked.  Both these lines of investigation have been fruitful.
increasingly worked on general principles for how submeanings may be
derived and linked.  Both these lines of investigation have been fruitful.

2.  In recent years increasing attention has been paid to an
exemplar-based theory of category structure.  Now here's a crazy,
extremist idea (from a linguist's point of view) if there ever was one.
No structure, no stable links, just thousands, millions of
representations of individuals that you've encountered in the past and
assigned to that category.  So how does one assign new members to such a
category?  A typical story goes like this:  having gotten into the right
general domain through some heuristic, you grab a bunch of exemplars at
random from each of the candidate categories and assign the new exemplar
whereever it gets the highest resemblance score.  Sounds crazy, but there
is a growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology that something like
this is going on.

Do I believe the extremists?  I believe they should keep stretching their
envelopes to see what they can find.  And I believe they should patiently
listen to eachother.  Its good exercise.  We should all practice a little

                             [END of message text]
  PINE 3.91   MESSAGE TEXT         Folder: sent-mail  Message 10 of 10 END

envelopes to see what they can find.  And I believe they should patiently
listen to eachother.  Its good exercise.  We should all practice a little
exremism in our work.

P.S.  Enjoy Matthew D. while he's on sabbatical at your place.  But you
can't have him.

best,

David


From KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Wed Jan 17 03:32:40 1996
From: KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Kathie Carpenter)
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 19:32:40 -0800
Subject: Missing persons
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JAN.1996.193240.0800.KATHIEC@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

For some reason, the SEALS conference mailing list does not have current
snail mail addresses for any of the folks listed below, and their hardcopy
conference announcements all came bouncing back to me.
If you know the whereabouts of any of them, please forward this message to
them, or send me their address.
Thanks!

Kathie Carpenter
SEALS VI - Southeast Asian Linguistics Society Annual Conference
University of Oregon
11-13 May


Poeraatmadja Andang
Supa Angkurawaranon
B.W. Bender
Michael Dennison
Keith Denning
Sayasithsena Douangkeo
Mohammad Fallahi
Susana Felizardo
Lang Hein
Than Hlaing
Deiter Huber
Lisma Ibrahim
Kitima Indrambarya
Hitoshi Isahara
Nadar Jahangiri
Iran Kalbassi
John Kerby
Paul Kroeger
Somanat Nakornjarupong
Der Hwa Rau
Noiwan Saeng
Eric Schiller
Emily Sityar
Nancy Smith-Hefner
Sayasithsena Souksomboun
Sawangwong Vanavech
Lopao Vang
Nicholas Zefran


From kontra at PILOT.MSU.EDU  Wed Jan 17 20:38:48 1996
From: kontra at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Miklos Kontra)
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 15:38:48 -0500
Subject: Slovak language law
Message-ID: <WED.17.JAN.1996.153848.0500.KONTRA@PILOT.MSU.EDU>

This is to bring to your attention the following information about the
language situation in Slovakia.


>                        Slovak language law
>
>
> On 15 November, 1995 the National Council of the Slovak Republic
> approved "The law on the state language of the Slovak Republic",
> which took effect on 1 January 1996 (except for Section 10 on
> fines, which will take effect a year later). Below is a partial
> demonstration of the consequences of the law in light of one of the
> principles in the Linguistic Society of America's Statement on
> Language Rights (circulated on LINGUIST, 15 November 1995).
>
> [Background information on Slovakia: over 10% of Slovakia's
> population, about 600,000 people, are ethnic Hungarians, who are
> indigenous to southern Slovakia and constitute the majority of the
> population in hundreds of localities. Since 1990, under law
> 428/1990 on the official language of the Slovak Republic, in
> localities with at least a 20 % minority population the minority
> language was used in official contacts. The new law on the state
> language has revoked that law.]
>
> The LSA Statement on Language Rights contains, among other things,
> the following principle:
>
> "At a minimum, all residents of the United States should be
> guaranteed the following linguistic rights:
> A.   To be allowed to express themselves, publicly or privately, in
> the language of their choice."
>
> Under the Slovak State Language Law, citizens of Slovakia do not
> have the right to use "the language of their choice" in the
> following domains of language use, among others:
>
>
> - local government (according to Section 3, Paragraph 1)
>
> - a public transport bus driver talking to a fellow driver on the
> job (3, 2)
>
> - public announcements by local governments (3, 3, a)
>
> - sessions of local government; teachers' meeting in a state school
> (3, 3, b)
>
> - church bulletins (3, 3, c)
>
> - street signs (3, 3, d)
>
> - written submissions to local governments (3, 5)
>
> - elementary and secondary school-leaving certificates (4, 3)
>
> - the presentation of the program of cultural events such as poetry
> recitation, concerts etc. (5, 7)
>
> - legal documents relating to employment (8, 2)
>
> - verbal contact between health care workers and patients (8, 4)
>
>
> Under the same law, citizens of Slovakia may use a language other
> than the state language, but only at a cost. Four such cases are
> illustrated below by quoting the text of the law (according to the
> unabridged unofficial translation issued by CTK news agency,
> Prague, 13 December 1995).
>
>
> - Foreign audiovisual works aimed at children under 12 years must
> be dubbed into the state language. (Section 5, Paragraph 2)
>
> - Broadcasts by regional and local television channels, radio
> stations and radio facilities takes place in the state language.
> Other languages may be used only before the broadcast or after the
> broadcast of the given program in the state language. (5, 4)
>
> - Occasional publications designed for the public, catalogues for
> galleries, museums and libraries, programs for cinemas, theaters,
> concerts and other cultural events are issued in the state
> language. If necessary they may contain translations into other
> languages. (5, 6)
>
> - All signs, advertisements and announcements designed to inform
> the public, especially in shops, sports grounds, restaurants, in
> the street, on roads, at airports, bus and railway stations, in
> prisons and in public transport must be in the state language. They
> may be translated into other languages, but the text in other
> languages must follow after a text of equal length in the state
> language. (8, 6)
>
>
> According to Sections 9 and 10, enforcement of the said law will be
> carried out by the Ministry of Culture levying fines for violations
> of the law. For instance, a maximum of 250,000 Slovak Crowns can be
> the fine for violating Section 8, Paragraph 6 on signs,
> advertisements and announcements in shops, restaurants etc. A fine
> of up to 500,000 Crowns can be levied on violators of Section 5,
> Paragraph 4 on what amounts to compulsory airing of non-state
> language radio and TV programs in the state language as well. For
> comparison, note that the maximum fine for desecration of the
> Slovak national flag is 3,000 Crowns. The maximum fine for
> endangering Slovakia's nuclear safety equals the maximum language
> use violation fine (half a million Crowns).
>
> In a letter to the New York Times (Nov. 27, 1995) the Ambassador of
> the Slovak Republic in Washington, Branislav Lichardus stated that
> "This law governs only the use of the Slovak language. Use of
> minority languages in Slovakia will be included in a different law
> dedicated to this issue." As can be seen above, use of the Slovak
> language is governed such that in many important domains of
> language use citizens of Slovakia do not have the right to use the
> language of their choice. In other domains they have an unduly
> costly choice and are discriminated against.
>
>
> --
> Miklos Kontra
>
> Department of Linguistics           Fax: USA 517 432 2736
> Wells Hall                          Phone: USA 517 353 0740
> Michigan State University           Email: kontra at pilot.msu.edu
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> USA
>


From 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM  Thu Jan 18 17:22:04 1996
From: 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM (Marilyn M. Goebel)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:22:04 EST
Subject: SUM: children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.122204.EST.73232.3472@COMPUSERVE.COM>

Dear Funknet,

Last week I posted a query about the role of children's functionally-driven
errors in language change and received helpful replies from the following
people, all of whom I would like to thank: Bill Croft, Bill Turkel, Dorit
Ravid, Joan Bybee, Mickey Noonan, Jan Anward, and somebody else whose name I
accidently deleted. Their suggested readings are at the end of this message.

Surprisingly, Bill Croft and Jan Anward told me that they think that children
play a very *small* role in language change. This goes against all I had been
taught. The argument, as I understand it, is that children lack the social
status that causes innovations to spread. Both the innovations and the
spreads, the argument goes, are the work of high-status adults.

I'm certainly no expert on this, but there are a couple factors that make me
think that children must have *some* fairly important role in language change.
The first is empirical, the second theoretical:

1. Don't studies show that functionally-driven changes correlate inversely
with age? Take the change [hw] -> [w] in English in words like 'which',
'when', etc. I'm pretty sure that the older you are, the more likely you are
to have [hw]; the younger you are the more likely to have [w].

2. On grounds of plausibility, is somebody who has been saying something the
same way for, say, 40 years, all of a sudden going to succumb to the pressure
of parsing ease, discourse efficiency, or whatever, and start saying it a
different, more functionally-driven, way? It seems implausible to me that they
would, though, of course a child, without entrenched habits, would be very
likely to make such a change.

But I'm just learning about this and would love to hear other peoples'
opinions.

Marilyn Goebel
--------------------------
Robin Clark and Ian Roberts (1993)  'A computational model of language
learnability
and language change Linguistic Inquiry 24:299-345 .

Nioygi, P. & Berwick, R. C. (1993) Formalizing triggers: a learning
model for finite spaces.  AI Memo 1449, CBCL Paper 86, MIT.

Niyogi, P. & Berwick, R. C. (1995) The logical problem of language
change.  AI Memo 1516, CBCL Paper 115, MIT.

Ravid, Dorit Diskin. Language Change in Child and Adult Hebrew: A
Psycholinguistic
Perspective", by , Oxford University Press, 1995

Hooper, Joan Bybee. 1980.  Child morphology and morphophonemic change. in
J. Fisiak. Historical morphology. The Hague: Mouton.

Bybee, J and D. Slobin. 1982. Why small children cannot change language
on their own: evidence from the English past tense. In A. Alqvist (ed.)
Papers from the 5th International Conference on Historical Linguistics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 11-47.

Hooper, Joan B. 1976. Word frequency in lexical diffusion and the source
of morphophonological change. In William Christie (ed.) Current progress
in Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: North Holland, 96-105.

There was also a workshop on this issue at the Child Language Research
Forum in 1993 and the discussion is in the volume edited by Eve Clark and
published by CSLI at Stanford.

 Andersen, Henning: `Abductive and deductive change'. Language 49/4,
1973.


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Thu Jan 18 19:16:58 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:16:58 -0500
Subject: children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.141658.0500.>

The flaw in Marilyn Goebel's remarks on children and language change
stems from the fact that her arguments are arguments from plausibility,
common sense, and so forth.  But she is not alone.  Most remarks on
children and language change that I have read depend on arguments from
"theories" that are so loosely stated that they lead to unfalsifiable
conclusions or on appeals to plausibility.

For example, the /hw/ ----> /w/ change in English that Marilyn Goebel
refers to is not simply a matter of age-graded frequency.  Numerous
other factors apply to this change.  Just to mention 2, the chances of
having /hw/ vs. /w/ depend, at the very least, on where one is, when one
is, and who one thinks one is.  Bill Labov has amply documented language
change in process in the speech of adults.

And anyone who believes that children do not have "entrenched habits" is
not a parent.

No doubt, Milford Wolpoff is right:  the data do not speak for
themselves.  But when in doubt, there is no substitute for sound
observation.


Carl Mills


From AAGHBAR at GROVE.IUP.EDU  Thu Jan 18 18:40:46 1996
From: AAGHBAR at GROVE.IUP.EDU (Ali Aghbar)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:40:46 -0500
Subject: Children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.134046.0500.AAGHBAR@GROVE.IUP.EDU>

I think I am the one whose name Marilyn had accidentally deleted.
I had told her that, when children are given the chance, they play
a great role in language change.  The example i had given her was
with pidgins and creoles.  I am no expert, but I think anyone
interested in the children's role in language change should start
by looking into the process of creolization.

Ali Aghbar


From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 19 17:34:53 1996
From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 11:34:53 -0600
Subject: Children and language change
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.113453.0600.SPIKEG@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

My impression is that young children do not show a lot of deviation from
their parents, but that real language change starts to happen during
adolescence and continues through young adulthood.  Certainly semantic
innovation is particularly common in this age group.  Looking at
sociological motivations for change, this is also exactly the age group
where innovation is most highly prized, and group identification is usually
with the age group peers *in opposition to* older role models.

Has anyone actually studied the speech of children versus that of
adolescents with an eye to identifying the points at which the innovations
which stick begin to occur?  Do you find, e.g., that some innovations
*begin* with older children?  Would it even be possible to test the
hypothesis, given (a) that language change is such a slow process and (b)
that younger children are so frequently exposed to older children and
adolescents?

The only ideas I have would be something akin to longitudinal studies of
first and second language acquisition, in which one could study speakers of
one social or geographical dialect (ideally with a sample inculding a range
of ages) who move into a different social or geographical dialect area.  We
could then perhaps see if the children are the only ones who alter their
speech accordingly (i.e. who become bi-dialectal).  My guess is that adults
of any age (but especially young adults) would be able to acquire the
relevant morphosyntactic properties (if not the phonological properties of
the "accent") and use them productively; I'd be willing to bet that
teenagers would do as well as the children.

What about some better ways to test the hypotheses?

Spike


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 19 20:22:53 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 14:22:53 -0600
Subject: Children and language change
In-Reply-To: <199601191734.LAA01481@owlnet.rice.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.142253.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

Spike seems to be talking about (1) semantic and lexical change, and also
about (2) change defined as change from the adult norm.  If we think instead
of (1) phonological change and of (2) change defined as changes within
the linguistic system of the individual (a cognitively oriented
viewpoint), we get a quite different picture.

Consider first change in the cognitive orientation.  It takes place
most rapidly during childhood, the earlier the more rapid; continues
throughout adolescence and for mentally active people throughout
adulthood too, but for most it slows down more and more.  Also, it
operates much more at phonological levels in childhood.  Throughout the
lifetime, both in childhood and later, the changes are of two types (to
an observer, though not necessarily involving two diff mechanisms): (1)
those which bring the system into closer alignment with those of others
in the speech community, or some subcommunity, (2) innovations such as
new slang terms.  The latter are much less common than the former, for
some people we could probably say they are rare; the
former are much more common in the earlier stages of life than later.

Considering now phonological change --- the general process would seem to
be that the child keeps adapting his/her system to bring it closer to
that of others up to some point at which he/she is satisfied with the
effectiveness of his/her communication.  This may or may not be a point
at which the phonological system is the same as that of the previous
generation.  If the child has not perceived a given contrast, for example
w- : wh- , it won't ever get learned.

The result, from the macroscopic point of view (i.e. what we usually
have meant by the term linguistic change, rather than the cognitive
view), if enough kids do this, is a phonological
change in the language or dialect.  An interesting thing about this
type of change is that it really seems to be phonological, a change of
phonological rather than lexical elements --- as opposed to a change in
pronunciation acquired in adulthood, which takes place lexeme by lexeme.
The former type is necessarily of the Ausnahmslosigkeit variety, while
the latter is not, unless over time it spreads widely throughout the lexicon.

These observations may already be in the literature somewhere; if so I
will happily acknowledge that I haven't done my homework.

Syd Lamb .


From LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU  Fri Jan 19 23:11:23 1996
From: LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU (Lise Menn, Linguistics, CU Boulder)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 16:11:23 -0700
Subject: children and language change
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.161123.0700.LMENN@CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU>

This discussion is overlooking the last several decades of work by Bill Labov and his students on
the factors causing sound chances to spread.  He has a recent (T94 or T95) book on sound change out
from  Blackwell that people should consult.  And his work has shown in particular the importance
of young adults who are leaders in their social networks in making sound changes TtakeU.
        As for young kids - I know its tempting to consider their role as important - but reflect
that children have undoubtedly been overregularizing the past tense of TgoU as long as the verb has
been irregular - which probably means since proto-Indo-European - but because of its
frequency, they learn not to do it.
Lise  Menn


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Mon Jan 22 15:47:39 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:47:39 -0600
Subject: children and language change
In-Reply-To: <01I0789I8PQI003TC5@clipr.Colorado.EDU>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JAN.1996.094739.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

It seems that Lise Menn has answered her own objection to the idea that
children play an important role in language change.  She points out that
the past tense of go remains irregular after all this time precisely
because of its great frequency of occurrence, which is just what forces the
kids to learn it eventually.  But if we look at the past few hundred
years of English we see that over and over the less frequently occurring
verbs have had their past tenses regularized.  So also for the heretofore
irregular plurals of less frequently occurring nouns --- and they change
from irregular to regular after the culture change which reduces their
frequency of occurrence.


From jrubba at HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU  Wed Jan 24 01:19:54 1996
From: jrubba at HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba)
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 17:19:54 -0800
Subject: Ling. & the milennium
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JAN.1996.171954.0800.JRUBBA@HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU>

Hello funknetters,

Have any of you seen the summary of the 'linguistics and the milennium'
discussion on Linguist? When I saw the original query, I wanted to send
in some votes for things like our arrival at the relation between grammar
and discourse, the realization that metaphor is an everyday thing, the
importance of image-schematic gestalts in meaning, and the
experientialist position. These are things that I think have truly
advanced our understanding of language in the past century, not to
mention the strength of the ever-discussed language/thought connection.

I expected, of course to see the votes for things like the 'discovery' of
the autonomy of the language faculty and Chomskyan Universal Grammar. I
was hoping for some votes from "our side" to balance things. Any of you
feel the same?

-- this is another one of those occasions where I feel it is too
Balkanizing to have a separate funknet. If we had our discussions on
Linguist, at least _some_ people would read them, no? Our voice would be
out there!

Functionally yours,
jo

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              =
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   =
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     =
Tel. (805)-756-0117  E-mail: jrubba at oboe.aix.calpoly.edu      =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 26 18:26:36 1996
From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 12:26:36 -0600
Subject: New address for Colette Grinevald (a.k.a. Colette Craig)
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JAN.1996.122636.0600.SPIKEG@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

Hi all,

Colette Grinevald Craig (now minus the Craig) recently dropped me a message
from her new home in Lyon, France.  She asked me to announce to the FUNKNET
world that she is back with us (electronically speaking), and while she's
delighted to be living in France again, she would like to stay hooked up to
the community she's been a part of these last 25 years (i.e. she invites
messages from friends).  Her new e-mail address is:

Colette.Grinevald at mrash.fr (Colette Grinevald)

Spike


From micko at AISB.ED.AC.UK  Mon Jan 29 14:07:56 1996
From: micko at AISB.ED.AC.UK (Mick O'Donnell)
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 14:07:56 0000
Subject: Systemic-Functional Linguistics Web Pages
Message-ID: <MON.29.JAN.1996.140756.0000.>

For those of you interested, I have started a web-site
Systemic-oriented information.

http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/staff/personal_pages/micko/systemics.html

Here you can find:

    Systemic Email Addresses.
    Systemic Mail Groups.
    Systemic Bibliography.
    Systemic-Computational Bibliography.
    Recent Systemic Publications.
    Software for Systemic-Functional Linguistics.
    Systemic Conferences & Meetings.
    Journals Relevant to Systemics.

 Another Systemic web-site, run by Tony Berber Sardinha, is available on:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~tony1/systemic.html.


Mick O'Donnell


From MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET  Tue Jan 30 15:16:55 1996
From: MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET (Maxim Stamenov)
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 15:16:55 BG
Subject: Self as a Sign conference
Message-ID: <TUE.30.JAN.1996.151655.BG.MAXSTAM@BGEARN.BITNET>

           First Announcement and Call for Papers

                  International Conference

                       SELF AS A SIGN
Aspects of self-representation, self-consciousness and self-
                       interpretation

         September 19-21, 1996, Varna, Bulgaria

Organized by: The New Bulgarian University, Sofia, BULGARIA

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this conference will be to consider
the applicability of the notion of sign to the structure and
functions of the self. Contributions are invited from the
disciplines of linguistics, semiotics, cognitive psychology,
philosophy of language and mind and the adjacent disciplines
and areas of research. The topics under discussion include
(but are not limited to): the `meaning' and `form' of the
self; the language-specific and language-nonspecific aspects
of subjecthood and representability to oneself of the self;
the ontogenetic `roots' of the self; the specificity of the
experience of the self; the relationships between self-image
and body-schema; the self- and other-image in developmental
perspective; multiple selves and multiple presentations in
the social context and in pathology; syntax/semantics of the
presentation of the subject in everyday life and in
everyday-sentence perspective; the discursive basis of the
self, etc.

WORKSHOP: The Cognitive Turn in Semiotics
Coordinator:
Dr. Maxim STAMENOV, Institute of the Bulgarian Language
Shipchenski Prokhod St. 52, bl. 17, 1113 Sofia, BULGARIA;
maxstam at bgearn.bitnet.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the workshop will be to discuss the
applicability of the concept of sign with its structure of
signifier/signified to cognitive structures at different
levels of their formation and functioning. Contributions are
invited from the disciplines of semiotics, cognitive
psychology, linguistics, philosophy of language and mind.
While during the sessions of conference the focus will be on
the signs of subjectivity, here the participants will be
supposed to face the sign as an object along the following
lines (among others): the relationships between image and
sign, concept and sign, symptom and sign; the specificity of
signifying structures in cognition, emotion, perception, and
imagination; the relationships between signs and names,
sentences, utterances, discourses, texts, etc.; the concept
of sign in symbolic and subsymbolic (connectionist) theories
of mind; the emergent signs -- the signifier/signified
relationship in the top-down and bottom-up hierarchies of
information processing in mind and brain functioning, etc.

Further proposals for workshops are welcome.

SITE
The conference site is The International House of
Journalists which is located 25 km. from Varna international
airport near the internationally known resort "Golden
Sands". It is possible to reach this location by local
public transportation (bus 409) as well as by taxi from the
airport or from the town of Varna central railway station.
Further more detailed information about the ways of access
will be given in the Second and Third Announcements.

ACCOMMODATION
The cost for a single room per night plus the board for the
corresponding day is US$29.00 at the International House of
Journalists plus a resort tax of US$4.00 per day. The House
is nicely located in a privately owned small park and
vineyard at the seaside.

CONFERENCE FEE
The regular fee is US$35.00. The fee for students is
US$20.OO. The fee is valid BOTH for the conference and the
school (cf. below). It should be paid at the registration
desk after arrival. The conference and school fee is waived
for the participants from the countries of Eastern and
Central Europe.

DEADLINES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION
The deadline for applications for both the school and the
conference is June 01, 1996. It is acceptable to submit your
proposal for a paper for the conference (with its title and
an abstract of approx. 200-250 words) by e-mail, but the
application will be considered complete after we receive
your proposal (in three hard copies in a camera ready form
by air mail) according to the following format: title; name;
affiliation; postal address; e-mail address; abstract of
approx. 200 words (preferably on a laser printer).
     Each participant will be given 20 min. for presentation
of her/his paper and 10 min. for discussion. The future
participants will be notified about the acceptance of their
papers by the Programme Committee in two weeks after their
application reached us by e-mail. The official notification
of acceptance by air mail may reach them a week later. We
use this scheme in order to give more time for those who
intend to attend to arrange the details of their trip.

LANGUAGES
Official languages of the meeting will be Bulgarian and
English (invited papers and lectures will be given in
English; papers will be given predominantly in English).
                    **********

            A RELATED EVENT OF INTEREST
Second Early Fall School of Semiotics, September 17-18,
            1996, Varna (the same site).

              THE WAR WE LIVE(D) BY
    Signs of Fear, Catastrophism and Loaded Silence

OBJECTIVE: The multi-ethnic fabric of newly emerged complex
societies in post-war Balkans irradiates aggressive
ideologies of intolerance and distrust that exacerbated the
feelings of catastrophism and predestiny. Those feelings
faded away around the hot-war spots in places like Albania,
Rumania, and Bulgaria as signs of `loaded silence'.
     The `image of difference' and `otherness' were
constructed and communicated through derogatory metaphors,
implicit biases and stereotypes. How to transfer the signs
of loaded silence into the potential silence of creative
work? Is there are `moonlighting' employment of the metaphor
of `loaded silence' in literature, philosophy and visual
arts? A wide range of approaches including semiotics,
pragmatism, psychology, sociology, feminism, ethnology,
cultural studies, media studies, etc., should combine their
efforts to model a strategy for implementing the pieces of
the new `alternative' discourses.
                       *********

SCHEDULE:
Deadline for applications: June 01, 1996;
Arrival at the site of the events: September 16, 1996;
Working time of the school: September 17-18, 1996;
Working time of the conference: September 19-21, 1996;
Departure: September 22, 1996.
                       *********
All requests for information and further orientation for the
CONFERENCE should be addressed to:

Maxim Stamenov, Institute of the Bulgarian Language,
Shipchenski Prokhod St. 52, bl. 17, 1113 Sofia, BULGARIA
Tel./fax (359-2) 732-217; E-mail: maxstam at bgearn.bitnet
                       *********
All requests for information and orientation for the SCHOOL
should be addressed to:

The New Bulgarian University, Department of Anthropology -
EFSS, Ljulin Planina St. 2, 1606 Sofia, BULGARIA
Fax: (359-2) 540-802.


From MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET  Wed Jan 31 10:55:46 1996
From: MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET (Maxim Stamenov)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 10:55:46 BG
Subject: Linguistics and Poetics symposium
Message-ID: <WED.31.JAN.1996.105546.BG.MAXSTAM@BGEARN.BITNET>

         Second Announcement and Call for Papers

     International Symposium "Linguistics and Poetics"
               (to honor Roman Jakobson)

           May 24-26, 1996, Sofia, BULGARIA

ORGANIZED BY: Academic Slavic Society, Sofia University,
Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the symposium will be to discuss some
of the most seminal contributions of Roman Jakobson to the
fields of linguistics and poetics. They include (but are not
limited to) an analysis of the relationships between
signirier/signified and structure/function in the
comprehension and production of different types of texts,
the hierarchies of language functions in written and oral
texts of different type, the strategies for selection and
combination of language units in the text, the aspects of
the poetics of morphology and syntax, etc., in the context
of the interdisciplinary investigations of text production,
comprehension, and interpretation at the end of the XXth
century.

INVITED SPEAKERS include:
Rosanna Benacchio (Italy)
Alexander Bondarko (Russia)
Catherine Chvany (USA)
Frantisek Danes (Czech Republic)
Karl Gutschmidt (Germany)
Boris Norman (Bialorussia)
Ricardo Picchio (Italy)
Catherine Rudin (USA)
Ludmila Uhlirova (Czech Republic)

LANGUAGES: all Slavic languages, English and German.

DEADLINE for submission of paper abstracts: February 29,
1996 .

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: The abstracts (in hard copy only)
of approx. 200 words, in four copies with the title and
author's name and affiliation, should be sent to the
organizers at the postal address given below by the deadline
of February 29, 1996. The notification of acceptance will
reach the  authors of accepted papers not later than March
15, 1996.

FEES: The regular conference fee is 20 USD. The fee is
waived for the participants from the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe.

ACCOMODATION: Hotel accommodation (single room) is available
at 40 USD (breakfast included); double room - 25 USD per
person (breakfast included).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS:

Postal address: Iskra Likomanova,  Institute for Bulgarian
Language, Shipchenski Prohod 52, bl. 17, Sofia 1113,
BULGARIA

E-mail: Maxim Stamenov at maxstam at bgearn.bitnet;

Fax: Lili Lashkova at 00359-2-463589 Sofia University.


From suzanne at GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU  Wed Jan 31 23:07:20 1996
From: suzanne at GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU (suzanne fleischman)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 15:07:20 -0800
Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.31.JAN.1996.150720.0800.SUZANNE@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU>

>Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:30:43 GMT
>From: Teresa Bridgeman <T.M.Bridgeman at bristol.ac.uk>
>Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
>To: Fleischman <suzanne at garnet.berkeley.edu>
>Priority: Normal
>Read-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>Delivery-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>Return-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>
>
>Forwarded Message:
>From: Dee Reynolds <D.A.Reynolds at bristol.ac.uk>
>Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 20:30:33 GMT
>Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
>To: fh-staff at bristol.ac.uk
>
>
>Forwarded Message:
>From: Pumfrey S <S.Pumfrey at lancaster.ac.uk>
>Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 15:11:00 GMT
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>To: Dee Reynolds <D.A.Reynolds at bristol.ac.uk>
>
>
>
> ----------
>From: Bliss R
>To: HARMAN P; Winchester A; Evans E; O'neill G; Brooke J; Walton J; Cross J;
>Stringer K; Blinkhorn R; Heale M; Mullett M; Winstanley M; Palladino P;
>Henig R; Smith R o g e r; Constantine S; Barber S; Pumfrey S; MUNBY J
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 14:34
>
>
> ----------
>From: Clements J
>To: Armitage S
>Cc: Ashcroft K; Bird K; Gardner M M; Collins R; Wareham T; Coleman R; Clark
>W; Mcenery A; Bliss R; Kirby M; Borlase R; G.Inkster
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date:  30 January 1996 14:10
>
>
> ----------
>From: Lindsay M
>To: Glass B; Bland D; Lindsay R; Brennan S; Reed C; Thomson A; Clements J;
>Dawson D; Widden M; SAUNDERS I J; Edmonds M; Elliott P
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 12:12
>
>
> ----------
>From: Hands H
>To: Lindsay M; WORTHINGTON C; COHAN A; DENVER D; HOPFL H; KING P;
>Travers D;
>Worthington M; Wilkin P; GARETH DAVIES; Ms H Willes; I Bellany
>Subject: RE: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 10:53
>
>> Andrew Sayer sent me the following virus warning, which has
>> been circulated round Sociology.
>>
>> >>   SUBJECT:  VIRUSES--IMPORTANT PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY
>> >>
>> >>>>>>       There is a computer virus that is being sent across the
>> >>>>>> Internet.   If you receive an e-mail message with the subject
>> >>>>>> line "Good  Times",   DO NOT  read  the  message,  DELETE it
>> >>>>>> immediately.  Please read the messages below.  Some miscreant
>> >>>>>> is sending  e-mail under  the title "Good Times" nation wide,
>> >>>>>> if you  get anything like this, DON'T DOWN LOAD THE FILE! It
>> >>>>>> has a  virus that  rewrites  your  hard  drive, obliterating
>> >>>>>> anything on  it.  Please be careful and forward this mail to
>> >>>>>> anyone you care about.
>> >>>>>********************************************************
>> >>>>>> WARNING!!!!!!!  INTERNET VIRUS
>> >>>>>The FCC  released a warning last Wednesday concerning a
>> >>>>>> matter of  major  importance  to  any  regular  user  of the
>> >>>>>> Internet.     Apparently  a   new  computer  virus  has been
>> >>>>>> engineered by  a user of AMERICA ON LINE that is unparalleled
>> >>>>>> in its destructive capability.  Other more well-known viruses
>> >>>>>> such as  "Stoned",  "Airwolf"  and  "Michaelangelo"  pale in
>> >>>>>> comparison to  the prospects  of this  newest creation  by a
>> >>>>>> warped mentality.   What makes this virus so terrifying, said
>> >>>>>> the FCC,  is the  fact that  no program needs to be exchanged
>> >>>>>> for a  new computer to be infected.  It can be spread through
>> >>>>>> the existing e-mail systems of the Internet.  Once a Computer
>> >>>>>> is infected,  one of  several things  can  happen.    If  the
>> >>>>>> computer contains  a hard  drive, that  will most  likely be
>> >>>>>> destroyed.   If the  program is  not stopped,  the computer's
>> >>>>>> processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary
>> >>>>>> loop -which can severely damage the processor if left running
>> >>>>>> that way too long.
>> >>>>>>       Unfortunately, most  novice  computer  users  will not
>> >>>>>> realize what is happening until it is far too late. Luckily,
>> >>>>>> there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the
>> >>>>>> "Good Times"  virus.   It always travels to new computers the
>> >>>>>> same way  in a  text email  message  with  the  subject line
>> >>>>>> reading "Good  Times".   Avoiding infection  is easy once the
>> >>>>>> file has been received- not reading it!    The act of loading
>> >>>>>> the file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good
>> >>>>>> Times" mainline program to initialize and execute.
>> >>>>>>     The program is highly intelligent- it will send copies of
>> >>>>>> itself to  everyone whose  e-mail address  is contained in a
>> >>>>>> receive-mail file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It
>> >>>>>> will then proceed to trash the computer it is running on. The
>> >>>>>> bottom line  here is - if you receive a file with the subject
>> >>>>>> line "Good  Times", delete  it immediately!   Do not read it"
>> >>>>>> Rest assured  that whoever's  name was on the "From" line was
>> >>>>>> surely struck  by the  virus.   Warn your  friends and local
>> >>>>>> system users  of this newest threat to the Internet! It could
>> >>>>>> save them a lot of time and money.
>> >>>>>>> ---- End of mail text
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>



From TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Wed Jan  3 22:50:13 1996
From: TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 14:50:13 -0800
Subject: happy new year...
Message-ID: <WED.3.JAN.1996.145013.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

From:   IN%"noonan at csd.uwm.edu"  "Michael Noonan"  3-JAN-1996 10:14:18.35
To:     IN%"downing at alpha2.csd.uwm.edu"  "Pamela A Downing", IN%"sathomps at humanitas.ucsb.edu", IN%"tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU", IN%"spikeg at owlnet.rice.edu"
CC:
Subj:   Happy New Year

Return-path: <noonan at csd.uwm.edu>
Received: from batch1.csd.uwm.edu (batch1.csd.uwm.edu)
 by OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (PMDF V5.0-5 #13764)
 id <01HZKJ5MSG1S8ZNA78 at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU> for tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU; Wed,
 03 Jan 1996 10:14:15 -0800 (PST)
Received: from alpha2.csd.uwm.edu (noonan at alpha2.csd.uwm.edu [129.89.169.2])
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Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 12:14:06 -0600 (CST)
From: Michael Noonan <noonan at csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Happy New Year
To: Pamela A Downing <downing at alpha2.csd.uwm.edu>, sathomps at humanitas.ucsb.edu,
 tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU, spikeg at owlnet.rice.edu
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Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT



This may amuse you, depress you, or both.  Edith Moravcsik and I received
this from David Pesetsky, who is spearheading a drive to remove the
`functionalist bias' from reading instruction in Massachusetts.  He blames
Halliday for the wrongheadedness he perceives.  This could be put down to
just another example of MITnikian silliness except that it's now entered
the public arena and could have an effect on public policy.

Mickey


_________________________________________________________________________

NOTE: This letter is a communication by Massachusetts residents to
Massachusetts officials.  It was not intended for distribution outside our
area.  We do not authorize distribution or quotation by organizations or
groups.  Individuals who choose to make copies for others should include
this notice at the top.  Also note that our letter commented on an early
first draft of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework.  This draft has
been revised in light of our comments and those of others, and is
currently undergoing further revisions. We are entirely satisfied that our
views as expressed in this letter have been listened to seriously.

From:  Forty Massachusetts specialists in linguistics and
        psycholinguistics To :  Dr. Robert V. Antonucci
       Commissioner of Education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Cc:    Linda Beardsley, Curriculum Frameworks Coordinator, Dept. of
        Education
       Dr. Michael Sentance,  Secretary of  Education
       His Excellency, William F. Weld, Governor of Massachusetts
Date:  July 12, 1995
Subject:  Standards for Reading Instruction in Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Antonucci:

     We are researchers in linguistics and psycholinguistics -- and
Massachusetts residents.  We are writing to raise certain questions
about the inclusion of contentious and, in our view, scientifically
unfounded views of language in the sections on reading instruction of
the draft Curriculum Content Chapter on Language Arts ("Constructing and
Conveying Meaning"), recently circulated by the Massachusetts Department
of Education.  These views are presented as a principal support for the
reading curriculum advocated as an instructional "standard" in this
document.

     The proposed Content Chapter replaces the common-sense view of
reading as the decoding of notated speech with a surprising view of
reading as directly "constructing meaning".  According to the document,
"constructing meaning" is a process that can be achieved using many
"strategies" (guessing, contextual cues, etc.).  In this view, the
decoding of written words plays a relatively minor role in reading
compared to strategies such as contextual guessing.  This treats the
alphabetic nature of our writing system as little more than an accident,
when in fact it is the most important property of written English -- a
linguistic achievement of historic importance.

     The authors of the draft Content Chapter claim that research on
language supports their views of reading.  The document asserts that
research on language has moved from the investigation of particular
"components of language -- phonological and grammatical units" to the
investigation of "its primary function -- communication".  These
supposed developments in linguistic research are used as arguments for a
comparable view of reading.  We are entirely unaware of any such shift
in research.

     We want to alert the educational authorities of Massachusetts to
the fact that the view of language research presented in this document
is inaccurate, and that the claimed consequences for reading instruction
should therefore be subjected to serious re-examination.

     The facts are as follows.  Language research continues to focus on
the components of language, because this focus reflects the "modular"
nature of language itself.  Written language is a notation for the
structures and units of one of these components.  Sound methodology in
reading instruction must begin with these realities.  Anything else will
shortchange those students whom these standards are supposed to help.

     As linguists, we are concerned that the Commonwealth, through its
powers to set standards for schools, should presume to legislate an
erroneous view of how human language works, a view that runs counter to
most of the major scientific results of more than 100 years of
linguistics and psycholinguistics.  We are even more concerned that
uninformed thinking about language should lie at the heart of a
"standards" document for Massachusetts schools.

                              Respectfully,
                              [list of signers starts on next page]
               [Signers are listed in alphabetical order]

1. Prof. Emmon Bach
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst;
       President, Linguistic Society of America)

2. Prof. Andrea Calabrese
       (Linguistics, Harvard)

3. Dr. David Caplan
       (Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital;
       Director of the Reading Disability Clinic, Massaschusetts General
       Hospital)

4. Prof. Charles Clifton
       (Chair, Dept. of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at
       Amherst)

5.  Prof. Mark Feinstein
       (Dean of Cognitive Science & Cultural Studies, Hampshire College)

6. Prof. Kai von Fintel
       (Linguistics, MIT)

7. Prof. Suzanne Flynn
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

8. Prof. John Frampton
       (Mathematics, Northeastern University)

9. Prof. Lyn Frazier
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

10. Prof. Edward Gibson
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT)

11. Prof. Kenneth Hale
       (Linguistics, MIT;
       former President (1994), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

12. Prof. Morris Halle
       (Institute Professor, Linguistics, MIT;
       former President (1973), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

13. Prof. Irene Heim
       (Linguistics, MIT)

14. Prof. Kyle Johnson
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

15. Prof. James Harris
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

16. Prof. Ray Jackendoff
       (Linguistics/Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis;
       author, Patterns in the Mind)

17. Prof. Samuel J. Keyser
       (Linguistics, MIT)

18. Prof. Michael Kenstowicz
       (Linguistics, MIT)

19. Prof. John Kingston
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

20. Prof. John McCarthy
       (Chair, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at
       Amherst)

21. Prof. Joan Maling
       (Linguistics/Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis)

22. Prof. Gary Marcus
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

23. Dr. Janis Melvold*
       (Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital)

24. Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa
       (Foreign Languages and Literatures/Linguistics, MIT)

25. Prof. Mary Catherine O'Connor
       (Developmental Studies and Applied Linguistics, Boston
       University)

26. Prof. Wayne O'Neil
       (Chair, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT)

27. Prof. Barbara Partee
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst;
       former President (1986), Linguistic Society of America;
       Member, National Academy of Sciences;
       Fellow,  American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

28. Prof. David Pesetsky*
       (Linguistics, MIT;
       Co-director, Research Training Program "Language: Acquisition and
       Computation")

29. Prof. Steven Pinker
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT;
        Director, McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience;
       author, The Language Instinct)

30. Prof. Alexander Pollatsek
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

31. Prof. Mary C. Potter
       (Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT)

32. Prof. Janet Randall
       (Director, Linguistics Program, Northeastern University)

33. Prof. Keith Rayner
       (Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

34. Prof. Thomas Roeper
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

35. Prof. Elisabeth O. Selkirk
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

36. Prof. Margaret Speas
       (Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

37. Prof. Esther Torrego
       (Chair, Dept. of Hispanic Studies, University of Massachusetts at
       Boston).

38. Dr. Gloria Waters
       (Neuropsychology Lab,  Massachusetts General Hospital;
       School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill
       University)

39. Prof. Calvert Watkins
       (Linguistics/Classics; Harvard)

40. Prof. Kenneth Wexler
       (Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT;
       Co-director, Research Training Program "Language: Acquisition and
       Computation")



*For further information or discussion, please contact:

Prof. David Pesetsky
Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy
20D-219
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139



phone: (617) 253 0957
fax:   (617) 253 5017
e-mail:pesetsk at mit.edu
Dr. Janis Melvold
Neuropsychology Lab
Dept. of Neurology
Vincent-Burnham 827
Massachusetts General Hospital
Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114

phone:         (617) 726 5007
e-mail:
melvold at helix.mgh.harvard.edu


From wjgriff at KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Thu Jan  4 23:03:47 1996
From: wjgriff at KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (William J. Griffiths)
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 17:03:47 -0600
Subject: absolutive usage
Message-ID: <THU.4.JAN.1996.170347.0600.>

Does anyone know the origin of the use of the term 'absolutive' in
reference to the absolutive usage of certain transitive verbs (e.g. 'He
drinks')?


From M.Durie at LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU  Fri Jan  5 02:46:25 1996
From: M.Durie at LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Mark Durie)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 12:46:25 +1000
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.124625.1000.M.DURIE@LINGUISTICS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU>

The idea that meaning is 'constructed' by the reader, rather than 'decoded'
is virtually universal-in some form or another-in school
language/literature syllabuses AND teaching practices thoughout the English
speaking world.  To quote from the position statement of the Australian
Association for the Teaching of English:

"Students...learn that meaning is made in the interaction between the
individual and the text, rather than existing in the text itself. ... The
idea that meaning is actively constructed rather than passibely found in
the text is fundamental to the composing and comprehending activities which
take place in classrooms.",

This can be taken to be the "default" understanding in education of how
meaning is derived from texts, right around the world.  And not only in
education:  the perspective is fundamental to much contemporary work in
literature, film, advertising, journalism, criticism etc etc.  That so many
linguists could be 'surprised' to find this understanding of the reading
process prospering in Massachussetts schools ought to be surprising but
sadly it is not.

I would agree with my Massachussetts colleagues that there are problems
with this understanding of the construction of meaning (without endorsing
the simplistic 'decoding' theory).  A review, for example, of German
mother-tongue learning policy statements, reveals a more balanced
understanding of meaning which acknowledges the social, held-in-common
nature of linguistic signs, and the perspective that texts are composed of
such signs, as well as the active nature of interpretation.

However the MA linguists' comments display a certain 'detachment' from 30
years of developments in mother-tongue English curricula (and thus from
mainstream developments in contemporary society's understandings of
communication) that does not bode well for establishing a dialogue with
educators.

Mark Durie

================================
From:  Mark Durie,
       Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics,
       University of Melbourne
       Parkville 3052

       Hm  (03) 9380-5247
       Wk  (03) 9344-5191
       Fax (03) 9347 7305

M.Durie at linguistics.unimelb.edu.au
http://www.arts.unimelb.edu.au/Dept/Linguistics/mark_durie.html


From tpc1 at RA.MSSTATE.EDU  Fri Jan  5 06:08:52 1996
From: tpc1 at RA.MSSTATE.EDU (Thomas Price Caldwell, Jr.)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 00:08:52 -0600
Subject: happy new year...
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.000852.0600.TPC1@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

The letter from Pesetsky, et al, made me laugh.

I think they are barking up the wrong tree for all the wrong reasons, but I
hope they prevail.

My guess is that the ideology of the curriculum reform, despite the talk
about  "phonological and grammatical units," comes not functionalists or
any other kind of linguists, but rather from literature professors from,
say, UMass/Amhurst and Williams and Brandeis.

On the face of it, the argument that readers "construct" the contexts
within which sentences make sense is a very benign argument.    There is no
doubt that every text is to some extent contingent on, and an expression
of,  the time and place and means of its production.   This is little more
than arguing that meaning depends on context, and that contexts are social
and economic as well as linguistic, personal, or psychological.   The
"deconstructionist" techniques derived by Derrida and other
"post-structuralists" are interpretive methods intended to show, largely by
noticing what is NOT said, how arguments made by individuals also reveal
the social and political and economic interests informing those arguments,
even on an unconscious level.

The only trouble with it is that over 20 years this very powerful and
insightful critical method  has become an institutionalized political
weapon of leftist academics.

 The feminists and radical democrats among them have interpreted Derrida to
mean that what Pesetsky calls the "common-sense view of reading" is really
the oppression of children by meanings which have been insidiously
"constructed" by rich white males.  In short, what we used to call western
civilization, as communicated by the great books, is really the result of
centuries of concerted effort to inculcate racist, sexist, and capitalist
assumptions as fundamental.   And since that is the case, leftist
literature departments have for a long time now felt that it was far more
important to sponsor a social revolution against racism, sexism and
capitalism than to teach literature "for its own sake."   (Indeed, they
have attributed insidious RIGHT wing political motivations, with some
justice, to the older "new critical" curriculum.)  They have felt that they
must "deconstruct" those abusive meanings and replace them with more
"democratic" ones.

If those educators wish, by emphasizing the constructedness of discourse,
to "correct" the anti-democratic past by imposing politically correct
readings on all texts, then they certainly ought to be discouraged.   I am
not anti-democratic, but to see everything in Western culture as having
been tainted by their favorite three evils (sexism, racism, and capitalism)
is reductivist and purely political.   There are enormous resources in
literature which are not political, and inspire students in innumerable
ways, but they are going unnoticed.   Meanwhile the leftist ideology is
seeking to establish itself at the level of institutional policy in many
places.

So if they are up to what I suspect, I agree with the move to oppose them.
But I'd bet it has nothing at all to do with "functionalist bias" or
Halliday.   Those linguists ought to get their heads out of their modules
and see what their colleagues are doing.

--Price Caldwell


From Kees.Hengeveld at LET.UVA.NL  Fri Jan  5 15:30:50 1996
From: Kees.Hengeveld at LET.UVA.NL (Kees Hengeveld)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:30:50 +0100
Subject: VIIth International Conference on Functional Grammar
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.163050.0100.KEES.HENGEVELD@LET.UVA.NL>

REMINDER

The deadline for the submission of abstracts for the VIIth
International Conference on Functional Grammar (Cordoba (Spain),
September 23-27, 1996) is:

JANUARY 15, 1996.

Those interested in receiving the original announcement may write
to:

KEES.HENGEVELD at LET.UVA.NL


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan  5 18:41:01 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 12:41:01 -0600
Subject: Call for Papers
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.124101.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

The 23rd Annual Forum of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the
United States (LACUS) will be hosted by Brigham Young University, August
6th (Tuesday) through 10th (Saturday), 1996.  There will be four days of
refereed papers and lectures by eminent scholars including Brian
MacWhinney of Carnegie-Mellon University, a leading researcher in the
neuro-psychology of language.

A special feature of the conference will be a SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE AND
THE BRAIN, to be introduced by Brian MacWhinney's lecture.  Papers are
invited on this topic and on all other topics of linguistic interest.

LACUS fosters a broad interdisciplinary approach to language, providing a
congenial and stimulating forum for functional views and for
contributions on the cognitive and neurological bases of language.
The annual meeting is held in August of each year at an American or
Canadian college or university.

Members of LACUS may submit an anonymous abstract on one 8.5 x 11 inch page
(single-spaced, 1.5" margin on all sides, camera ready), in 15 copies.
Include a 3x5" card with name, address, affiliation, telephone, fax,
e-mail, title of paper and audio-visual equipment needs.

Non-members may submit membership application accompanying the abstract,
consisting of the information indicated above plus annual dues of $35 US
or $45 Canadian; student dues $20 US, $25 Canadian (with faculty
signature on memo indicating student status).

Abstracts should be submitted by January 15th, 1996 to:

    Ruth Brend, LACUS Conference Chair
    3363 Burbank Dr.
    Ann Arbor, MI 48105

    (phone 313-665-2787, fax 313-665-9743, e-mail ruth.brend at um.cc.umich.edu)

Questions may also be addressed to me, Syd Lamb, LACUS Chair, at:

    Linguistics, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892
    smlamb at owlnet.rice.edu
    phone: 713-661-3565
    fax: 713-661-3570

I particularly want your questions if you have an interest in participating
in the SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN.


From ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU  Fri Jan  5 21:33:10 1996
From: ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU (Ellen F. Prince)
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 16:33:10 EST
Subject: constructing meaning vs. reading
Message-ID: <FRI.5.JAN.1996.163310.EST.ELLEN@CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU>

the issue addressed in the letter is not how to teach a martian to understand
earthling language but how to teach fluent native speakers how to READ, a
talent which has been in dire straits for quite some time (correlating with
what, i will not say). i only wish the linguists of the commonwealth of
pennsylvania got their act together to do what the linguists of the
commonwealth of massachusetts have done.


From kuzar at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL  Sat Jan  6 18:12:52 1996
From: kuzar at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (Ron Kuzar)
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 20:12:52 +0200
Subject: NP-internal argument
Message-ID: <SAT.6.JAN.1996.201252.0200.KUZAR@RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL>

Dear funknetters,

If we define argument structure (I prefer valency) as the determination
by a predicate of the number and type of NPs to participate in the
sentence, we unsurprisingly find that these NPs appear as separate
phrases within the sentence, in positions that are exclusive of one
another (I am trying to use broad terms, not school-specific), so that
one argument would not be part of the phrase of another argument.
However, if we find that in a certain sentence a possessive element is
compulsory, then we have an additional NP - the possessor - inside the NP
being possessed. Take the Hebrew sentence:

aSrei hama'amin
the-happiness-of the-believer

This is a single noun phrase in the construct state with 'aSrei' as
predicate and 'hama'amin' as a single argument.

similar forms are:

tori=my turn; mazali=my luck etc.

It should be noted that unlike the English 'my bad luck' which is an
idiomatic expression/interjection, 'tori' and 'mazali' can be embedded:

lo yadati Setori
not I-knew that-my-turn
'I didn't know it was my turn'

A similar phenomenon exists in Hungarian (excuse lack of diacritics):

van penzem
there-is my-money
'I have money'

The addition of a lexical possessor in emphatic sentences is possible:

nekem van penzem
to-me there-is my-money

but the '-em' of 'penz-' does not disappear, thus 'nekem' is appositional
to the suffix, not the other way around.

There are some traditional treatments of this phenomenon in Hebrew. Does
anybody know of (1) treatment of Hungarian in this spirit; (2) other
languages (and biblio) on 'possessive arguments'; (3) general theoretical
discussion of such issues.

I am new to funknet, not sure about procedures here. Do responses go
straight to the list, or to the person posting the question, to be later
summarized? If the latter is the case I will summarize responses.

Ron Kuzar, Haifa University
kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il


From KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Sun Jan  7 20:04:25 1996
From: KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Kathie Carpenter)
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 12:04:25 -0800
Subject: Reminder: SEALS conference call for abstracts
Message-ID: <SUN.7.JAN.1996.120425.0800.KATHIEC@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post ***Please Post


Call for Papers


SEALS VI
Southeast Asian Linguistics Society


May 11-13, 1996
University of Oregon, Eugene  OR



The conference will feature papers from any of the languages of Southeast
Asia. Topics will include:

o descriptive, theoretical or historical linguistics
o language planning
o literacy
o bilingual education
o linguistic anthropology
o enthnolinquistics
o language attitudes and ideology discourse and conversational analysis
o language and gender
o language and politics


The Society encourages and welcomes suggestions for invited speakers.


SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS  -  INSTRUCTIONS

By February 6, 1996 please submit five copies of an anonymous abstract with
a separate 3 x 5 card identifying:

author and affiliation;
address where notification of acceptance or rejection should be mailed in
mid-February;
daytime phone number; and
e-mail address, if available.

Abstracts should not exceed 1 page, but an additional page of data and
references may be submitted.

Inquiries should be directed to Kathie Carpenter at University of Oregon.
Phone (541) 346-3898 or kathiec at oregon.uoregon.edu.

Papers presented at SEALS VI will be published in the Society's
Proceedings. To ensure inclusion in the volume, authors are asked to submit
a camera-ready copy of their paper by August 15, 1996. Presentations will
be 20 minutes in length with 10 minutes for questions.

The University of Oregon is an equal opportunity, affirmative action
institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the
Americans with Disabilities Act. Accommodations for people with
disabilities will be provided if requested in advance to (503) 346-5084.





SEALS Conference Registration


Name:
Affiliation:
Address:

Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Date of arrival:                                        Date of departure:

Enclosed is my check or money order payable to SEALS for the following:

Registration Fee (includes 5 coffee breaks and reception):

        Students                       Non-students
Before April 1, 1996    _____$35         _____$50
After April 1, 1996     _____$40        _____$55
Luncheon on May 11th    _____$15         _____$15

Total Enclosed   $_________

Send this registration form to SEALS, Department of Linguistics, University
of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1246.

Information about accommodations will be included in subsequent mailings.

SEALS
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1264


From noonan at CSD.UWM.EDU  Mon Jan  8 19:24:54 1996
From: noonan at CSD.UWM.EDU (Michael Noonan)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 13:24:54 -0600
Subject: apologies
Message-ID: <MON.8.JAN.1996.132454.0600.NOONAN@CSD.UWM.EDU>

This is in response to a posting that had been sent out last week on
Funknet concerning reading instruction in Massachusetts.  The posting
bore my name and contained a note written by me.

I would like to apologize to my colleagues in Massachusetts and to David
Pesetsky in particular for a letter, which David had sent privately to
Edith Moravcsik, being posted on Funknet together with an injudicious note
written by me.  I had sent the letter with my note privately to some
friends, and it was not my intention that the letter and/or the note be
served up for public consumption.  In addition, I would like to point out
that the views attributed to David on the note accompanying the letter are
not necessarily his and that the quotation marks in my note do not reflect
a quotation from anything David had written to me or to Edith Moravcsik.
I should also like to say that characterizing anyone's beliefs as `silly',
as I did in my note, serves no useful function in a public forum:  again I
should like to emphasize that I did not intend my remarks for anyone but
the four people to whom my original note was addressed.


Since my note seemed to imply complete disagreement with the position
taken by the Massachusetts linguists, perhaps I should explain briefly
what my position on the issue at hand really is.
        I have argued for years with my colleagues in literature against
the view that meaning is a mere construct of the reader/hearer and cannot
be said in any way to inhere in text/speech.  There are many arguments
against the `social constructionist' view, but the simplest one derives
from the observation that linguistic communication is overwhelmingly
successful, whereas the social constructionist view would predict
otherwise.
        While I believe a simplistic social constructionist view to be
wrong, I also believe its opposite, a simplistic decoding view [as Mark
Durie recently characterized it on Funknet] is wrong too.  [I don't want
to imply in any way anything about what Mark believes or doesn't believe
concering this issue.] It was this simplistic decoding view of meaning
that the Massachusetts linguists seemed to be endorsing in their letter,
though perhaps this was only a rhetorical stance.  I believe the truth
here, as is so often the case, lies somewhere in the messy middle.


Mickey Noonan


From A.M.Bolkestein at LET.UVA.NL  Tue Jan  9 20:11:22 1996
From: A.M.Bolkestein at LET.UVA.NL (A.M. Bolkestein)
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 21:11:22 +0100
Subject: NP-internal argument
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91.960106192122.16634A-100000@research.haifa.ac.il>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.JAN.1996.211122.0100.A.M.BOLKESTEIN@LET.UVA.NL>

Dear Ron there is of course a wealth of litt. on the subject of the
expression of possessive relations. One publ. which you may have missed
is Dik, S.C. (ed) 1983 Advances in Functional Grammar, Dordrecht: Foris
(now available through Mouton De Gruyter) in which there are several
papaers on possessive constructions, one by myself (`Genitive and dative
possessors in Latin', p. 55-91), one by C. Vet `Possessive constructions in
French', p. 123-140, and one by C. De Groot `On non-verbal predicates in
Functional Grammar: the case of possessives in Hungarian', p. 93-122. The
references to these papers will probably be useful too: among other to
work by H. J. Seiler. Good luck!

Machtelt Bolkestein
Dept. of Classics, University of Amsterdam
Oude Turfmarkt 129
NL-1012 GC Amsterdam
Fax: ++31.20.5252544
E-mail: a.m.bolkestein at let.uva.nl


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Wed Jan 10 13:34:59 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 08:34:59 -0500
Subject: Ron Kuzar's Hungarian example
Message-ID: <WED.10.JAN.1996.083459.0500.>

An interesting note on Ron's Hungarian example.  In Estonian possession
is typically indicated through the use of the addessive case.  I can't
remember the word for "money" right now, so I'll substitute "a car":

                Mul                                                                             on                                                                      auto.
                first                                                                   be                                                                              car
                singular                                                third
                addessive                                       singular
                                                                                                                                present
literally:  'at/on/stuck to me is car'
idiomatically:  'I have a car'

I'll look through my Sami grammar to see how Sami does it.


Carl Mills


From TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Thu Jan 11 18:08:16 1996
From: TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:08:16 -0800
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.100816.0800.TGIVON@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Happy NY!
Hope you're doing well. Re that bruhaha -- we are caught between the
two extreme poles of atomic-meaning reductionism and contextual-meaning
reductionism. For our own sanity, we need to remember that neither extreme
is empirically viable without the other. Meaning has a large relatively-
invariant (relatively!) component, but also a considerable supplement of
context-mediated interpretation. A cognitively-founded theory of lexical
representation in the brain, i.e. a NETWOK model integrated within a Rosch-
type PROTOTYPE approach, accounts for such "centrist" behavior in a very
natural way. What we need to watch out for is the tendency by both
extreme schools to push us to an extreme position. It would be nice to
reaffirm a middle-ground, emoirically viable position, and somehow not
let the two extreme dictate the terms of a "debate" which is, in my
experience, one more pseudo-argument in modern linguistics. It would be
unfortunate if we allow ourselves to be defined by the unreasonable,
reductionist positions of the less-empirical lobbies. It is time for this
field (linguistics) to stop this silly game, and to go on with serious
science; where, most often than not, complex problems are not solved by
simple reductionist dogmas. TG


From 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM  Thu Jan 11 23:31:21 1996
From: 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM (Marilyn M. Goebel)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 18:31:21 EST
Subject: Language acquisition and language change
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.183121.EST.73232.3472@COMPUSERVE.COM>

Hi,

I am interested in the relationship between language acquisition by children
and language change. Are there studies that show that children's 'mistakes' --
i.e. the result of functional pressure (simplicity, iconicity, parsing ease,
or whatever) to make them the reanalyze their parents' grammars -- are an
important factor in language change? It sounds like it should be obviously
true, but I don't know of any work that discusses this with real examples.

Thanks! I'll summarize on the net what I find.

Marilyn Goebel


From dquesada at EPAS.UTORONTO.CA  Fri Jan 12 03:00:06 1996
From: dquesada at EPAS.UTORONTO.CA (Diego Quesada)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 22:00:06 -0500
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
In-Reply-To: <01HZVP97BEWW8ZG85Q@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
Message-ID: <THU.11.JAN.1996.220006.0500.DQUESADA@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>

On Thu, 11 Jan 1996, Tom Givon wrote:

> Happy NY!
> Hope you're doing well. Re that bruhaha -- we are caught between the
> two extreme poles of atomic-meaning reductionism and contextual-meaning
> reductionism. For our own sanity, we need to remember that neither extreme
> is empirically viable without the other. Meaning has a large relatively-
> invariant (relatively!) component, but also a considerable supplement of
> context-mediated interpretation. A cognitively-founded theory of lexical
> representation in the brain, i.e. a NETWOK model integrated within a Rosch-
> type PROTOTYPE approach, accounts for such "centrist" behavior in a very
> natural way. What we need to watch out for is the tendency by both
> extreme schools to push us to an extreme position. It would be nice to
> reaffirm a middle-ground, emoirically viable position, and somehow not
> let the two extreme dictate the terms of a "debate" which is, in my
> experience, one more pseudo-argument in modern linguistics. It would be
> unfortunate if we allow ourselves to be defined by the unreasonable,
> reductionist positions of the less-empirical lobbies. It is time for this
> field (linguistics) to stop this silly game, and to go on with serious
> science; where, most often than not, complex problems are not solved by
> simple reductionist dogmas. TG
>
 While I agree wholeheartedly with this point of view, some uneasiness
has invaded me, which translates in a kind of innocent question:
Extremist cross-fire has at least one aspect (advantage?) worth
mentioning: it keeps the whole linguistic community somehow connected.
Don't we run the risk of developing two linguistics' separate of each other?
"Middleness" could not be attained thus, could it? (Modularity of the
profession/science?)
J. Diego Quesada
University of Toronto


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Fri Jan 12 13:06:08 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:06:08 -0500
Subject: bruhaha (after Lise Menn)
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JAN.1996.080608.0500.>

A strong (or at least loud) second to Tom Givon's call for those of us
who are interested in real people's use of real language to avoid the
two extreme positions that are surfacing in the bruhaha.


Carl


From WCSTOKOE at GALLUA.GALLAUDET.EDU  Fri Jan 12 15:59:28 1996
From: WCSTOKOE at GALLUA.GALLAUDET.EDU (Stokoe, W.C.)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 10:59:28 -0500
Subject: Thanks to Tom Givon
Message-ID: <FRI.12.JAN.1996.105928.0500.>

Another hearty second. It is now just shy of 40 years since I heard some
fine analysts of language, Henry Lee Smith and George L. Trager, insisting
in their department of Anthropology, not linguistics, that the study of
A language without attention to the people who use it and what they use it
for is quite sterile. Perhaps something of value has been added to knowledge
about language in the last four decades, but from here it seems more than
ever evident that we need a lot more data, a lot more natural history, befor
getting into theories so universal they explain everything--and nothing.
Bill Stokoe


From LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU  Tue Jan 16 04:33:24 1996
From: LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU (Lise Menn, Linguistics, CU Boulder)
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 21:33:24 -0700
Subject: retry - phonics  es
Message-ID: <MON.15.JAN.1996.213324.0700.LMENN@CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU>

  PINE 3.91   MESSAGE TEXT             Folder: INBOX  Message 18 of 34 50%      Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:29:19 -0600
From: "L-Soft list server at Rice University (1.8b)"
     <LISTSERV at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: lmenn at U.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Rejected posting to FUNKNET at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU
You  are  not   authorized  to  send  mail  to  the   FUNKNET  list  from  your
lmenn at U.ARIZONA.EDU account. You  might be authorized to send to  the list from
another of  your accounts,  or perhaps  when using  another mail  program which
generates slightly  different addresses, but  LISTSERV has no way  to associate
this other account or address with yours. If you need assistance or if you have
any question regarding the policy of  the FUNKNET list, please contact the list
owners: FUNKNET-Request at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU.
------------------------ Rejected message (23 lines) -----------------------Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:28:37 -0700 (MST)
From: lise menn <lmenn at U.Arizona.EDU>
X-Sender: lmenn at aruba.ccit.arizona.edu
To: Tom Givon <TGIVON at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
cc: Multiple recipients of list FUNKNET <FUNKNET at RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
Subject: Re: happy new year...

the depressing thing is that they are right about the importance of
phonics in reading instruction, but did not include any reading
researchers - or at least not school-based ones - like Maryanne Wolf of
Tufts or Jeanne Chall of Harvard - who could have given them much better
data to cite, and greatly improved their credibility.  Lise Menn
[END of message text]


From linzubin at UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU  Tue Jan 16 17:34:47 1996
From: linzubin at UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (DAVID A. ZUBIN, LINGUISTICS, SUNY BUFFALO, 685 BALDY,
 BUFFALONY 14260, 716-645-2177,
 FAX 645-3825)
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 12:34:47 -0500
Subject: Tom's middle ground
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JAN.1996.123447.0500.>

Dear Tom,

Having paid attention and learned a great deal from your pleas for the
middle ground, and having incorporated a great deal of it into my
thinking, I would still respectfully like to counter you with the
following points:

Good work along extremist lines--"atomism," aka concretist semantics of
the Berkeley school;  pure conceptualist semantics such as Len Talmy's;
abstract semantics such as Roman Jakobson's work, or the Columbia
School--is anything but reductionist in the negative sense.  The
"extremism" of these approaches, the willingness to stretch the envelope,
School--is anything but reductionist in the negative sense.  Theto push
ideas beyond what at first glance seems reasonable, has led to
the development of substantial new ideas, and the testing and refinement
of lideas across 'camp' lines by people willing to listen and worry.  Let
me briefly cite two examples:

1.  The long-term debate between abstractionist and concretist semantics
over whether there is any central "abstract" meaning to a category, and
in the other direction, whether there are conventionalized submeanings
and sus-sub meanings etc.  Abstractions willing to listen have been
troubled by the fact that you can't come anywhere near predicting use
from a single abstract meaning, and have increasing worked on the
conventionalization of inferences run off an abstract meaning + context;
this amounts to a submeaning with some motivation for its association
with the abstract meaning of the category.  On the concretist side, many
have worried about the proliferation of submeanings, and have
increasingly worked on general principles for how submeanings may be
derived and linked.  Both these lines of investigation have been fruitful.
increasingly worked on general principles for how submeanings may be
derived and linked.  Both these lines of investigation have been fruitful.

2.  In recent years increasing attention has been paid to an
exemplar-based theory of category structure.  Now here's a crazy,
extremist idea (from a linguist's point of view) if there ever was one.
No structure, no stable links, just thousands, millions of
representations of individuals that you've encountered in the past and
assigned to that category.  So how does one assign new members to such a
category?  A typical story goes like this:  having gotten into the right
general domain through some heuristic, you grab a bunch of exemplars at
random from each of the candidate categories and assign the new exemplar
whereever it gets the highest resemblance score.  Sounds crazy, but there
is a growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology that something like
this is going on.

Do I believe the extremists?  I believe they should keep stretching their
envelopes to see what they can find.  And I believe they should patiently
listen to eachother.  Its good exercise.  We should all practice a little

                             [END of message text]
  PINE 3.91   MESSAGE TEXT         Folder: sent-mail  Message 10 of 10 END

envelopes to see what they can find.  And I believe they should patiently
listen to eachother.  Its good exercise.  We should all practice a little
exremism in our work.

P.S.  Enjoy Matthew D. while he's on sabbatical at your place.  But you
can't have him.

best,

David


From KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU  Wed Jan 17 03:32:40 1996
From: KathieC at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Kathie Carpenter)
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 19:32:40 -0800
Subject: Missing persons
Message-ID: <TUE.16.JAN.1996.193240.0800.KATHIEC@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

For some reason, the SEALS conference mailing list does not have current
snail mail addresses for any of the folks listed below, and their hardcopy
conference announcements all came bouncing back to me.
If you know the whereabouts of any of them, please forward this message to
them, or send me their address.
Thanks!

Kathie Carpenter
SEALS VI - Southeast Asian Linguistics Society Annual Conference
University of Oregon
11-13 May


Poeraatmadja Andang
Supa Angkurawaranon
B.W. Bender
Michael Dennison
Keith Denning
Sayasithsena Douangkeo
Mohammad Fallahi
Susana Felizardo
Lang Hein
Than Hlaing
Deiter Huber
Lisma Ibrahim
Kitima Indrambarya
Hitoshi Isahara
Nadar Jahangiri
Iran Kalbassi
John Kerby
Paul Kroeger
Somanat Nakornjarupong
Der Hwa Rau
Noiwan Saeng
Eric Schiller
Emily Sityar
Nancy Smith-Hefner
Sayasithsena Souksomboun
Sawangwong Vanavech
Lopao Vang
Nicholas Zefran


From kontra at PILOT.MSU.EDU  Wed Jan 17 20:38:48 1996
From: kontra at PILOT.MSU.EDU (Miklos Kontra)
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 15:38:48 -0500
Subject: Slovak language law
Message-ID: <WED.17.JAN.1996.153848.0500.KONTRA@PILOT.MSU.EDU>

This is to bring to your attention the following information about the
language situation in Slovakia.


>                        Slovak language law
>
>
> On 15 November, 1995 the National Council of the Slovak Republic
> approved "The law on the state language of the Slovak Republic",
> which took effect on 1 January 1996 (except for Section 10 on
> fines, which will take effect a year later). Below is a partial
> demonstration of the consequences of the law in light of one of the
> principles in the Linguistic Society of America's Statement on
> Language Rights (circulated on LINGUIST, 15 November 1995).
>
> [Background information on Slovakia: over 10% of Slovakia's
> population, about 600,000 people, are ethnic Hungarians, who are
> indigenous to southern Slovakia and constitute the majority of the
> population in hundreds of localities. Since 1990, under law
> 428/1990 on the official language of the Slovak Republic, in
> localities with at least a 20 % minority population the minority
> language was used in official contacts. The new law on the state
> language has revoked that law.]
>
> The LSA Statement on Language Rights contains, among other things,
> the following principle:
>
> "At a minimum, all residents of the United States should be
> guaranteed the following linguistic rights:
> A.   To be allowed to express themselves, publicly or privately, in
> the language of their choice."
>
> Under the Slovak State Language Law, citizens of Slovakia do not
> have the right to use "the language of their choice" in the
> following domains of language use, among others:
>
>
> - local government (according to Section 3, Paragraph 1)
>
> - a public transport bus driver talking to a fellow driver on the
> job (3, 2)
>
> - public announcements by local governments (3, 3, a)
>
> - sessions of local government; teachers' meeting in a state school
> (3, 3, b)
>
> - church bulletins (3, 3, c)
>
> - street signs (3, 3, d)
>
> - written submissions to local governments (3, 5)
>
> - elementary and secondary school-leaving certificates (4, 3)
>
> - the presentation of the program of cultural events such as poetry
> recitation, concerts etc. (5, 7)
>
> - legal documents relating to employment (8, 2)
>
> - verbal contact between health care workers and patients (8, 4)
>
>
> Under the same law, citizens of Slovakia may use a language other
> than the state language, but only at a cost. Four such cases are
> illustrated below by quoting the text of the law (according to the
> unabridged unofficial translation issued by CTK news agency,
> Prague, 13 December 1995).
>
>
> - Foreign audiovisual works aimed at children under 12 years must
> be dubbed into the state language. (Section 5, Paragraph 2)
>
> - Broadcasts by regional and local television channels, radio
> stations and radio facilities takes place in the state language.
> Other languages may be used only before the broadcast or after the
> broadcast of the given program in the state language. (5, 4)
>
> - Occasional publications designed for the public, catalogues for
> galleries, museums and libraries, programs for cinemas, theaters,
> concerts and other cultural events are issued in the state
> language. If necessary they may contain translations into other
> languages. (5, 6)
>
> - All signs, advertisements and announcements designed to inform
> the public, especially in shops, sports grounds, restaurants, in
> the street, on roads, at airports, bus and railway stations, in
> prisons and in public transport must be in the state language. They
> may be translated into other languages, but the text in other
> languages must follow after a text of equal length in the state
> language. (8, 6)
>
>
> According to Sections 9 and 10, enforcement of the said law will be
> carried out by the Ministry of Culture levying fines for violations
> of the law. For instance, a maximum of 250,000 Slovak Crowns can be
> the fine for violating Section 8, Paragraph 6 on signs,
> advertisements and announcements in shops, restaurants etc. A fine
> of up to 500,000 Crowns can be levied on violators of Section 5,
> Paragraph 4 on what amounts to compulsory airing of non-state
> language radio and TV programs in the state language as well. For
> comparison, note that the maximum fine for desecration of the
> Slovak national flag is 3,000 Crowns. The maximum fine for
> endangering Slovakia's nuclear safety equals the maximum language
> use violation fine (half a million Crowns).
>
> In a letter to the New York Times (Nov. 27, 1995) the Ambassador of
> the Slovak Republic in Washington, Branislav Lichardus stated that
> "This law governs only the use of the Slovak language. Use of
> minority languages in Slovakia will be included in a different law
> dedicated to this issue." As can be seen above, use of the Slovak
> language is governed such that in many important domains of
> language use citizens of Slovakia do not have the right to use the
> language of their choice. In other domains they have an unduly
> costly choice and are discriminated against.
>
>
> --
> Miklos Kontra
>
> Department of Linguistics           Fax: USA 517 432 2736
> Wells Hall                          Phone: USA 517 353 0740
> Michigan State University           Email: kontra at pilot.msu.edu
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> USA
>


From 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM  Thu Jan 18 17:22:04 1996
From: 73232.3472 at COMPUSERVE.COM (Marilyn M. Goebel)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:22:04 EST
Subject: SUM: children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.122204.EST.73232.3472@COMPUSERVE.COM>

Dear Funknet,

Last week I posted a query about the role of children's functionally-driven
errors in language change and received helpful replies from the following
people, all of whom I would like to thank: Bill Croft, Bill Turkel, Dorit
Ravid, Joan Bybee, Mickey Noonan, Jan Anward, and somebody else whose name I
accidently deleted. Their suggested readings are at the end of this message.

Surprisingly, Bill Croft and Jan Anward told me that they think that children
play a very *small* role in language change. This goes against all I had been
taught. The argument, as I understand it, is that children lack the social
status that causes innovations to spread. Both the innovations and the
spreads, the argument goes, are the work of high-status adults.

I'm certainly no expert on this, but there are a couple factors that make me
think that children must have *some* fairly important role in language change.
The first is empirical, the second theoretical:

1. Don't studies show that functionally-driven changes correlate inversely
with age? Take the change [hw] -> [w] in English in words like 'which',
'when', etc. I'm pretty sure that the older you are, the more likely you are
to have [hw]; the younger you are the more likely to have [w].

2. On grounds of plausibility, is somebody who has been saying something the
same way for, say, 40 years, all of a sudden going to succumb to the pressure
of parsing ease, discourse efficiency, or whatever, and start saying it a
different, more functionally-driven, way? It seems implausible to me that they
would, though, of course a child, without entrenched habits, would be very
likely to make such a change.

But I'm just learning about this and would love to hear other peoples'
opinions.

Marilyn Goebel
--------------------------
Robin Clark and Ian Roberts (1993)  'A computational model of language
learnability
and language change Linguistic Inquiry 24:299-345 .

Nioygi, P. & Berwick, R. C. (1993) Formalizing triggers: a learning
model for finite spaces.  AI Memo 1449, CBCL Paper 86, MIT.

Niyogi, P. & Berwick, R. C. (1995) The logical problem of language
change.  AI Memo 1516, CBCL Paper 115, MIT.

Ravid, Dorit Diskin. Language Change in Child and Adult Hebrew: A
Psycholinguistic
Perspective", by , Oxford University Press, 1995

Hooper, Joan Bybee. 1980.  Child morphology and morphophonemic change. in
J. Fisiak. Historical morphology. The Hague: Mouton.

Bybee, J and D. Slobin. 1982. Why small children cannot change language
on their own: evidence from the English past tense. In A. Alqvist (ed.)
Papers from the 5th International Conference on Historical Linguistics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 11-47.

Hooper, Joan B. 1976. Word frequency in lexical diffusion and the source
of morphophonological change. In William Christie (ed.) Current progress
in Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: North Holland, 96-105.

There was also a workshop on this issue at the Child Language Research
Forum in 1993 and the discussion is in the volume edited by Eve Clark and
published by CSLI at Stanford.

 Andersen, Henning: `Abductive and deductive change'. Language 49/4,
1973.


From Carl.Mills at UC.EDU  Thu Jan 18 19:16:58 1996
From: Carl.Mills at UC.EDU (Carl Mills)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:16:58 -0500
Subject: children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.141658.0500.>

The flaw in Marilyn Goebel's remarks on children and language change
stems from the fact that her arguments are arguments from plausibility,
common sense, and so forth.  But she is not alone.  Most remarks on
children and language change that I have read depend on arguments from
"theories" that are so loosely stated that they lead to unfalsifiable
conclusions or on appeals to plausibility.

For example, the /hw/ ----> /w/ change in English that Marilyn Goebel
refers to is not simply a matter of age-graded frequency.  Numerous
other factors apply to this change.  Just to mention 2, the chances of
having /hw/ vs. /w/ depend, at the very least, on where one is, when one
is, and who one thinks one is.  Bill Labov has amply documented language
change in process in the speech of adults.

And anyone who believes that children do not have "entrenched habits" is
not a parent.

No doubt, Milford Wolpoff is right:  the data do not speak for
themselves.  But when in doubt, there is no substitute for sound
observation.


Carl Mills


From AAGHBAR at GROVE.IUP.EDU  Thu Jan 18 18:40:46 1996
From: AAGHBAR at GROVE.IUP.EDU (Ali Aghbar)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:40:46 -0500
Subject: Children and language change
Message-ID: <THU.18.JAN.1996.134046.0500.AAGHBAR@GROVE.IUP.EDU>

I think I am the one whose name Marilyn had accidentally deleted.
I had told her that, when children are given the chance, they play
a great role in language change.  The example i had given her was
with pidgins and creoles.  I am no expert, but I think anyone
interested in the children's role in language change should start
by looking into the process of creolization.

Ali Aghbar


From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 19 17:34:53 1996
From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 11:34:53 -0600
Subject: Children and language change
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.113453.0600.SPIKEG@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

My impression is that young children do not show a lot of deviation from
their parents, but that real language change starts to happen during
adolescence and continues through young adulthood.  Certainly semantic
innovation is particularly common in this age group.  Looking at
sociological motivations for change, this is also exactly the age group
where innovation is most highly prized, and group identification is usually
with the age group peers *in opposition to* older role models.

Has anyone actually studied the speech of children versus that of
adolescents with an eye to identifying the points at which the innovations
which stick begin to occur?  Do you find, e.g., that some innovations
*begin* with older children?  Would it even be possible to test the
hypothesis, given (a) that language change is such a slow process and (b)
that younger children are so frequently exposed to older children and
adolescents?

The only ideas I have would be something akin to longitudinal studies of
first and second language acquisition, in which one could study speakers of
one social or geographical dialect (ideally with a sample inculding a range
of ages) who move into a different social or geographical dialect area.  We
could then perhaps see if the children are the only ones who alter their
speech accordingly (i.e. who become bi-dialectal).  My guess is that adults
of any age (but especially young adults) would be able to acquire the
relevant morphosyntactic properties (if not the phonological properties of
the "accent") and use them productively; I'd be willing to bet that
teenagers would do as well as the children.

What about some better ways to test the hypotheses?

Spike


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 19 20:22:53 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 14:22:53 -0600
Subject: Children and language change
In-Reply-To: <199601191734.LAA01481@owlnet.rice.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.142253.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

Spike seems to be talking about (1) semantic and lexical change, and also
about (2) change defined as change from the adult norm.  If we think instead
of (1) phonological change and of (2) change defined as changes within
the linguistic system of the individual (a cognitively oriented
viewpoint), we get a quite different picture.

Consider first change in the cognitive orientation.  It takes place
most rapidly during childhood, the earlier the more rapid; continues
throughout adolescence and for mentally active people throughout
adulthood too, but for most it slows down more and more.  Also, it
operates much more at phonological levels in childhood.  Throughout the
lifetime, both in childhood and later, the changes are of two types (to
an observer, though not necessarily involving two diff mechanisms): (1)
those which bring the system into closer alignment with those of others
in the speech community, or some subcommunity, (2) innovations such as
new slang terms.  The latter are much less common than the former, for
some people we could probably say they are rare; the
former are much more common in the earlier stages of life than later.

Considering now phonological change --- the general process would seem to
be that the child keeps adapting his/her system to bring it closer to
that of others up to some point at which he/she is satisfied with the
effectiveness of his/her communication.  This may or may not be a point
at which the phonological system is the same as that of the previous
generation.  If the child has not perceived a given contrast, for example
w- : wh- , it won't ever get learned.

The result, from the macroscopic point of view (i.e. what we usually
have meant by the term linguistic change, rather than the cognitive
view), if enough kids do this, is a phonological
change in the language or dialect.  An interesting thing about this
type of change is that it really seems to be phonological, a change of
phonological rather than lexical elements --- as opposed to a change in
pronunciation acquired in adulthood, which takes place lexeme by lexeme.
The former type is necessarily of the Ausnahmslosigkeit variety, while
the latter is not, unless over time it spreads widely throughout the lexicon.

These observations may already be in the literature somewhere; if so I
will happily acknowledge that I haven't done my homework.

Syd Lamb .


From LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU  Fri Jan 19 23:11:23 1996
From: LMENN at CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU (Lise Menn, Linguistics, CU Boulder)
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 16:11:23 -0700
Subject: children and language change
Message-ID: <FRI.19.JAN.1996.161123.0700.LMENN@CLIPR.COLORADO.EDU>

This discussion is overlooking the last several decades of work by Bill Labov and his students on
the factors causing sound chances to spread.  He has a recent (T94 or T95) book on sound change out
from  Blackwell that people should consult.  And his work has shown in particular the importance
of young adults who are leaders in their social networks in making sound changes TtakeU.
        As for young kids - I know its tempting to consider their role as important - but reflect
that children have undoubtedly been overregularizing the past tense of TgoU as long as the verb has
been irregular - which probably means since proto-Indo-European - but because of its
frequency, they learn not to do it.
Lise  Menn


From smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Mon Jan 22 15:47:39 1996
From: smlamb at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Sydney M Lamb)
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 09:47:39 -0600
Subject: children and language change
In-Reply-To: <01I0789I8PQI003TC5@clipr.Colorado.EDU>
Message-ID: <MON.22.JAN.1996.094739.0600.SMLAMB@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

It seems that Lise Menn has answered her own objection to the idea that
children play an important role in language change.  She points out that
the past tense of go remains irregular after all this time precisely
because of its great frequency of occurrence, which is just what forces the
kids to learn it eventually.  But if we look at the past few hundred
years of English we see that over and over the less frequently occurring
verbs have had their past tenses regularized.  So also for the heretofore
irregular plurals of less frequently occurring nouns --- and they change
from irregular to regular after the culture change which reduces their
frequency of occurrence.


From jrubba at HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU  Wed Jan 24 01:19:54 1996
From: jrubba at HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba)
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 17:19:54 -0800
Subject: Ling. & the milennium
Message-ID: <TUE.23.JAN.1996.171954.0800.JRUBBA@HARP.AIX.CALPOLY.EDU>

Hello funknetters,

Have any of you seen the summary of the 'linguistics and the milennium'
discussion on Linguist? When I saw the original query, I wanted to send
in some votes for things like our arrival at the relation between grammar
and discourse, the realization that metaphor is an everyday thing, the
importance of image-schematic gestalts in meaning, and the
experientialist position. These are things that I think have truly
advanced our understanding of language in the past century, not to
mention the strength of the ever-discussed language/thought connection.

I expected, of course to see the votes for things like the 'discovery' of
the autonomy of the language faculty and Chomskyan Universal Grammar. I
was hoping for some votes from "our side" to balance things. Any of you
feel the same?

-- this is another one of those occasions where I feel it is too
Balkanizing to have a separate funknet. If we had our discussions on
Linguist, at least _some_ people would read them, no? Our voice would be
out there!

Functionally yours,
jo

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              =
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   =
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     =
Tel. (805)-756-0117  E-mail: jrubba at oboe.aix.calpoly.edu      =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU  Fri Jan 26 18:26:36 1996
From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea)
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 12:26:36 -0600
Subject: New address for Colette Grinevald (a.k.a. Colette Craig)
Message-ID: <FRI.26.JAN.1996.122636.0600.SPIKEG@OWLNET.RICE.EDU>

Hi all,

Colette Grinevald Craig (now minus the Craig) recently dropped me a message
from her new home in Lyon, France.  She asked me to announce to the FUNKNET
world that she is back with us (electronically speaking), and while she's
delighted to be living in France again, she would like to stay hooked up to
the community she's been a part of these last 25 years (i.e. she invites
messages from friends).  Her new e-mail address is:

Colette.Grinevald at mrash.fr (Colette Grinevald)

Spike


From micko at AISB.ED.AC.UK  Mon Jan 29 14:07:56 1996
From: micko at AISB.ED.AC.UK (Mick O'Donnell)
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 14:07:56 0000
Subject: Systemic-Functional Linguistics Web Pages
Message-ID: <MON.29.JAN.1996.140756.0000.>

For those of you interested, I have started a web-site
Systemic-oriented information.

http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/staff/personal_pages/micko/systemics.html

Here you can find:

    Systemic Email Addresses.
    Systemic Mail Groups.
    Systemic Bibliography.
    Systemic-Computational Bibliography.
    Recent Systemic Publications.
    Software for Systemic-Functional Linguistics.
    Systemic Conferences & Meetings.
    Journals Relevant to Systemics.

 Another Systemic web-site, run by Tony Berber Sardinha, is available on:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~tony1/systemic.html.


Mick O'Donnell


From MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET  Tue Jan 30 15:16:55 1996
From: MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET (Maxim Stamenov)
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 15:16:55 BG
Subject: Self as a Sign conference
Message-ID: <TUE.30.JAN.1996.151655.BG.MAXSTAM@BGEARN.BITNET>

           First Announcement and Call for Papers

                  International Conference

                       SELF AS A SIGN
Aspects of self-representation, self-consciousness and self-
                       interpretation

         September 19-21, 1996, Varna, Bulgaria

Organized by: The New Bulgarian University, Sofia, BULGARIA

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this conference will be to consider
the applicability of the notion of sign to the structure and
functions of the self. Contributions are invited from the
disciplines of linguistics, semiotics, cognitive psychology,
philosophy of language and mind and the adjacent disciplines
and areas of research. The topics under discussion include
(but are not limited to): the `meaning' and `form' of the
self; the language-specific and language-nonspecific aspects
of subjecthood and representability to oneself of the self;
the ontogenetic `roots' of the self; the specificity of the
experience of the self; the relationships between self-image
and body-schema; the self- and other-image in developmental
perspective; multiple selves and multiple presentations in
the social context and in pathology; syntax/semantics of the
presentation of the subject in everyday life and in
everyday-sentence perspective; the discursive basis of the
self, etc.

WORKSHOP: The Cognitive Turn in Semiotics
Coordinator:
Dr. Maxim STAMENOV, Institute of the Bulgarian Language
Shipchenski Prokhod St. 52, bl. 17, 1113 Sofia, BULGARIA;
maxstam at bgearn.bitnet.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the workshop will be to discuss the
applicability of the concept of sign with its structure of
signifier/signified to cognitive structures at different
levels of their formation and functioning. Contributions are
invited from the disciplines of semiotics, cognitive
psychology, linguistics, philosophy of language and mind.
While during the sessions of conference the focus will be on
the signs of subjectivity, here the participants will be
supposed to face the sign as an object along the following
lines (among others): the relationships between image and
sign, concept and sign, symptom and sign; the specificity of
signifying structures in cognition, emotion, perception, and
imagination; the relationships between signs and names,
sentences, utterances, discourses, texts, etc.; the concept
of sign in symbolic and subsymbolic (connectionist) theories
of mind; the emergent signs -- the signifier/signified
relationship in the top-down and bottom-up hierarchies of
information processing in mind and brain functioning, etc.

Further proposals for workshops are welcome.

SITE
The conference site is The International House of
Journalists which is located 25 km. from Varna international
airport near the internationally known resort "Golden
Sands". It is possible to reach this location by local
public transportation (bus 409) as well as by taxi from the
airport or from the town of Varna central railway station.
Further more detailed information about the ways of access
will be given in the Second and Third Announcements.

ACCOMMODATION
The cost for a single room per night plus the board for the
corresponding day is US$29.00 at the International House of
Journalists plus a resort tax of US$4.00 per day. The House
is nicely located in a privately owned small park and
vineyard at the seaside.

CONFERENCE FEE
The regular fee is US$35.00. The fee for students is
US$20.OO. The fee is valid BOTH for the conference and the
school (cf. below). It should be paid at the registration
desk after arrival. The conference and school fee is waived
for the participants from the countries of Eastern and
Central Europe.

DEADLINES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION
The deadline for applications for both the school and the
conference is June 01, 1996. It is acceptable to submit your
proposal for a paper for the conference (with its title and
an abstract of approx. 200-250 words) by e-mail, but the
application will be considered complete after we receive
your proposal (in three hard copies in a camera ready form
by air mail) according to the following format: title; name;
affiliation; postal address; e-mail address; abstract of
approx. 200 words (preferably on a laser printer).
     Each participant will be given 20 min. for presentation
of her/his paper and 10 min. for discussion. The future
participants will be notified about the acceptance of their
papers by the Programme Committee in two weeks after their
application reached us by e-mail. The official notification
of acceptance by air mail may reach them a week later. We
use this scheme in order to give more time for those who
intend to attend to arrange the details of their trip.

LANGUAGES
Official languages of the meeting will be Bulgarian and
English (invited papers and lectures will be given in
English; papers will be given predominantly in English).
                    **********

            A RELATED EVENT OF INTEREST
Second Early Fall School of Semiotics, September 17-18,
            1996, Varna (the same site).

              THE WAR WE LIVE(D) BY
    Signs of Fear, Catastrophism and Loaded Silence

OBJECTIVE: The multi-ethnic fabric of newly emerged complex
societies in post-war Balkans irradiates aggressive
ideologies of intolerance and distrust that exacerbated the
feelings of catastrophism and predestiny. Those feelings
faded away around the hot-war spots in places like Albania,
Rumania, and Bulgaria as signs of `loaded silence'.
     The `image of difference' and `otherness' were
constructed and communicated through derogatory metaphors,
implicit biases and stereotypes. How to transfer the signs
of loaded silence into the potential silence of creative
work? Is there are `moonlighting' employment of the metaphor
of `loaded silence' in literature, philosophy and visual
arts? A wide range of approaches including semiotics,
pragmatism, psychology, sociology, feminism, ethnology,
cultural studies, media studies, etc., should combine their
efforts to model a strategy for implementing the pieces of
the new `alternative' discourses.
                       *********

SCHEDULE:
Deadline for applications: June 01, 1996;
Arrival at the site of the events: September 16, 1996;
Working time of the school: September 17-18, 1996;
Working time of the conference: September 19-21, 1996;
Departure: September 22, 1996.
                       *********
All requests for information and further orientation for the
CONFERENCE should be addressed to:

Maxim Stamenov, Institute of the Bulgarian Language,
Shipchenski Prokhod St. 52, bl. 17, 1113 Sofia, BULGARIA
Tel./fax (359-2) 732-217; E-mail: maxstam at bgearn.bitnet
                       *********
All requests for information and orientation for the SCHOOL
should be addressed to:

The New Bulgarian University, Department of Anthropology -
EFSS, Ljulin Planina St. 2, 1606 Sofia, BULGARIA
Fax: (359-2) 540-802.


From MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET  Wed Jan 31 10:55:46 1996
From: MAXSTAM at BGEARN.BITNET (Maxim Stamenov)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 10:55:46 BG
Subject: Linguistics and Poetics symposium
Message-ID: <WED.31.JAN.1996.105546.BG.MAXSTAM@BGEARN.BITNET>

         Second Announcement and Call for Papers

     International Symposium "Linguistics and Poetics"
               (to honor Roman Jakobson)

           May 24-26, 1996, Sofia, BULGARIA

ORGANIZED BY: Academic Slavic Society, Sofia University,
Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the symposium will be to discuss some
of the most seminal contributions of Roman Jakobson to the
fields of linguistics and poetics. They include (but are not
limited to) an analysis of the relationships between
signirier/signified and structure/function in the
comprehension and production of different types of texts,
the hierarchies of language functions in written and oral
texts of different type, the strategies for selection and
combination of language units in the text, the aspects of
the poetics of morphology and syntax, etc., in the context
of the interdisciplinary investigations of text production,
comprehension, and interpretation at the end of the XXth
century.

INVITED SPEAKERS include:
Rosanna Benacchio (Italy)
Alexander Bondarko (Russia)
Catherine Chvany (USA)
Frantisek Danes (Czech Republic)
Karl Gutschmidt (Germany)
Boris Norman (Bialorussia)
Ricardo Picchio (Italy)
Catherine Rudin (USA)
Ludmila Uhlirova (Czech Republic)

LANGUAGES: all Slavic languages, English and German.

DEADLINE for submission of paper abstracts: February 29,
1996 .

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: The abstracts (in hard copy only)
of approx. 200 words, in four copies with the title and
author's name and affiliation, should be sent to the
organizers at the postal address given below by the deadline
of February 29, 1996. The notification of acceptance will
reach the  authors of accepted papers not later than March
15, 1996.

FEES: The regular conference fee is 20 USD. The fee is
waived for the participants from the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe.

ACCOMODATION: Hotel accommodation (single room) is available
at 40 USD (breakfast included); double room - 25 USD per
person (breakfast included).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS:

Postal address: Iskra Likomanova,  Institute for Bulgarian
Language, Shipchenski Prohod 52, bl. 17, Sofia 1113,
BULGARIA

E-mail: Maxim Stamenov at maxstam at bgearn.bitnet;

Fax: Lili Lashkova at 00359-2-463589 Sofia University.


From suzanne at GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU  Wed Jan 31 23:07:20 1996
From: suzanne at GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU (suzanne fleischman)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 15:07:20 -0800
Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.31.JAN.1996.150720.0800.SUZANNE@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU>

>Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:30:43 GMT
>From: Teresa Bridgeman <T.M.Bridgeman at bristol.ac.uk>
>Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
>To: Fleischman <suzanne at garnet.berkeley.edu>
>Priority: Normal
>Read-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>Delivery-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>Return-Receipt-To: Teresa Bridgeman <fhtmb at mail.bris.ac.uk>
>
>
>Forwarded Message:
>From: Dee Reynolds <D.A.Reynolds at bristol.ac.uk>
>Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 20:30:33 GMT
>Subject: FW: Virus warning (fwd)
>To: fh-staff at bristol.ac.uk
>
>
>Forwarded Message:
>From: Pumfrey S <S.Pumfrey at lancaster.ac.uk>
>Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 15:11:00 GMT
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>To: Dee Reynolds <D.A.Reynolds at bristol.ac.uk>
>
>
>
> ----------
>From: Bliss R
>To: HARMAN P; Winchester A; Evans E; O'neill G; Brooke J; Walton J; Cross J;
>Stringer K; Blinkhorn R; Heale M; Mullett M; Winstanley M; Palladino P;
>Henig R; Smith R o g e r; Constantine S; Barber S; Pumfrey S; MUNBY J
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 14:34
>
>
> ----------
>From: Clements J
>To: Armitage S
>Cc: Ashcroft K; Bird K; Gardner M M; Collins R; Wareham T; Coleman R; Clark
>W; Mcenery A; Bliss R; Kirby M; Borlase R; G.Inkster
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date:  30 January 1996 14:10
>
>
> ----------
>From: Lindsay M
>To: Glass B; Bland D; Lindsay R; Brennan S; Reed C; Thomson A; Clements J;
>Dawson D; Widden M; SAUNDERS I J; Edmonds M; Elliott P
>Subject: FW: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 12:12
>
>
> ----------
>From: Hands H
>To: Lindsay M; WORTHINGTON C; COHAN A; DENVER D; HOPFL H; KING P;
>Travers D;
>Worthington M; Wilkin P; GARETH DAVIES; Ms H Willes; I Bellany
>Subject: RE: Virus warning
>Date: 30 January 1996 10:53
>
>> Andrew Sayer sent me the following virus warning, which has
>> been circulated round Sociology.
>>
>> >>   SUBJECT:  VIRUSES--IMPORTANT PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY
>> >>
>> >>>>>>       There is a computer virus that is being sent across the
>> >>>>>> Internet.   If you receive an e-mail message with the subject
>> >>>>>> line "Good  Times",   DO NOT  read  the  message,  DELETE it
>> >>>>>> immediately.  Please read the messages below.  Some miscreant
>> >>>>>> is sending  e-mail under  the title "Good Times" nation wide,
>> >>>>>> if you  get anything like this, DON'T DOWN LOAD THE FILE! It
>> >>>>>> has a  virus that  rewrites  your  hard  drive, obliterating
>> >>>>>> anything on  it.  Please be careful and forward this mail to
>> >>>>>> anyone you care about.
>> >>>>>********************************************************
>> >>>>>> WARNING!!!!!!!  INTERNET VIRUS
>> >>>>>The FCC  released a warning last Wednesday concerning a
>> >>>>>> matter of  major  importance  to  any  regular  user  of the
>> >>>>>> Internet.     Apparently  a   new  computer  virus  has been
>> >>>>>> engineered by  a user of AMERICA ON LINE that is unparalleled
>> >>>>>> in its destructive capability.  Other more well-known viruses
>> >>>>>> such as  "Stoned",  "Airwolf"  and  "Michaelangelo"  pale in
>> >>>>>> comparison to  the prospects  of this  newest creation  by a
>> >>>>>> warped mentality.   What makes this virus so terrifying, said
>> >>>>>> the FCC,  is the  fact that  no program needs to be exchanged
>> >>>>>> for a  new computer to be infected.  It can be spread through
>> >>>>>> the existing e-mail systems of the Internet.  Once a Computer
>> >>>>>> is infected,  one of  several things  can  happen.    If  the
>> >>>>>> computer contains  a hard  drive, that  will most  likely be
>> >>>>>> destroyed.   If the  program is  not stopped,  the computer's
>> >>>>>> processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary
>> >>>>>> loop -which can severely damage the processor if left running
>> >>>>>> that way too long.
>> >>>>>>       Unfortunately, most  novice  computer  users  will not
>> >>>>>> realize what is happening until it is far too late. Luckily,
>> >>>>>> there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the
>> >>>>>> "Good Times"  virus.   It always travels to new computers the
>> >>>>>> same way  in a  text email  message  with  the  subject line
>> >>>>>> reading "Good  Times".   Avoiding infection  is easy once the
>> >>>>>> file has been received- not reading it!    The act of loading
>> >>>>>> the file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good
>> >>>>>> Times" mainline program to initialize and execute.
>> >>>>>>     The program is highly intelligent- it will send copies of
>> >>>>>> itself to  everyone whose  e-mail address  is contained in a
>> >>>>>> receive-mail file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It
>> >>>>>> will then proceed to trash the computer it is running on. The
>> >>>>>> bottom line  here is - if you receive a file with the subject
>> >>>>>> line "Good  Times", delete  it immediately!   Do not read it"
>> >>>>>> Rest assured  that whoever's  name was on the "From" line was
>> >>>>>> surely struck  by the  virus.   Warn your  friends and local
>> >>>>>> system users  of this newest threat to the Internet! It could
>> >>>>>> save them a lot of time and money.
>> >>>>>>> ---- End of mail text
>>
>>
>>
>>
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