From bobwyatt at GEOCITIES.COM Sat Apr 4 21:24:47 1998 From: bobwyatt at GEOCITIES.COM (Bob Wyatt) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 18:24:47 -0300 Subject: markedness Message-ID: Dear list colleagues, I would greatly appreciate any recommendations of articles or books which deal with "markedness" from a systemic-functional point of view. References to it are scant in the SFG texts I have. Essentially, my problem is this: If "markedness" is based on frequency of use (an impression I get from the use of words like "typical" or "common" for describing "unmarked" choices in a given system), are there statistics which support these categories (marked/unmarked)? Moreover, if it is based on frequency, wouldn't that imply the possibility of local or regional preferences or broad variation in what elements are considered "unmarked" among larger groups of speakers (for example: in Australia, Canada, the UK, the US)? Writing from a non-SFG stance, Andrews (1990) says: "The purpose of markedness theory is to explain properties that are invariant, not to justify a system based upon stastical frequency, which, by definition, is a context-specific phenomenon (p.137)." Any guidance or opinions on the subject will be greatfully accepted. Best wishes, Bob Wyatt -- Bob Wyatt, Applied Linguistics, Distance Education Group (EAD), Extension Course Service (COGEAE), The Catholic Univ. of São Paulo (PUC/SP), Homepage http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8604 From bergler at CS.CONCORDIA.CA Thu Apr 9 20:31:36 1998 From: bergler at CS.CONCORDIA.CA (Bergler Sabine) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:31:36 -0400 Subject: Call for papers: transcription Message-ID: ********************************************************** CALL FOR PAPERS CALL FOR PAPERS CALL FOR PAPERS ********************************************************** ACL/COLING-98 Workshop on PARTIALLY AUTOMATED TECHNIQUES FOR TRANSCRIBING NATURALLY OCCURRING, CONTINUOUS SPEECH August 16, 1998 (following ACL/COLING-98) University of Montreal, Montreal (Quebec, Canada) CALL FOR PAPERS DESCRIPTION ----------- The development of robust systems for speech analysis and synthesis depends crucially on the availability of well-annotated corpora of naturally occurring, continuous speech. Yet existing speech corpora are rarely well-annotated. A key to proper annotation is the availability of partially automated systems for linking selected portions of a visual display of speech to the corresponding transcriptions. To be of practical use, such systems must be able to handle large files of digitized speech and they should permit transcriptions at different levels of analysis. This workshop will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of papers and software demonstrations which reflect the current state of the art. We invite proposals of up to 800 words which address the development, use, evaluation, or potential commercial application of such systems. SUBMISSIONS ----------- Only email submissions in LaTeX or Ascii will be accepted. Authors should submit an abstract of no more than 800 words to: trans98 at cs.concordia.ca Style files and templates for LaTeX submissions can be found at http://coling-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/Styles.html A copy of this call for papers can be found at: http://coling-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/Workshops.html The official language of the conference is English. IMPORTANT DEADLINES ------------------- Submission Deadline: April 15, 1998 Notification Date: May 15, 1998 Camera ready copy due: June 15, 1998 PROGRAM COMMITTEE -------------------- Nancy Belmore Concordia University, Canada Sabine Bergler Concordia University, Canada John Esling Univ. of Victoria, Canada Eric Keller Univ. of Lausanne, Switzerland Roland Kuhn Panasonic Technologies, Inc., U.S.A. Douglas O'Shaughnessy INRS-Telecommunications, Canada Ching Y. Suen Concordia University, Canada ORGANIZERS ---------- Nancy Belmore Concordia University, Canada Sabine Bergler Concordia University, Canada Douglas O'Shaughnessy INRS-T\'el\'ecommunications, Canada REGISTRATION ------------ There is a discounted workshop fee for participants of Coling/ACL. Participants who are not registered for Coling/ACL will have to pay the full workshop fee (to be announced shortly). INFORMATION ----------- Any requests for information should be sent to trans98 at cs.concordia.ca From mdavies at RS6000.CMP.ILSTU.EDU Thu Apr 9 23:42:36 1998 From: mdavies at RS6000.CMP.ILSTU.EDU (Mark Davies) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:42:36 -0500 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" Message-ID: I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : a) "John has been working for three hours" b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." c) "I've been working here since 1995" I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the construction, however. Questions: 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at all. 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: SPANISH a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja makes three hours that J. works "John has been working for three hours" b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." c) trabajo aca desde 1995 I-work here since 1995 "I've been working here since 1995" I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. Mark Davies ================================================================== Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790-4300 Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ ================================================================== From ashby at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU Thu Apr 9 23:55:44 1998 From: ashby at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU (William J. Ashby) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:55:44 -0700 Subject: Unsubscribe Funknet Message-ID: William J. Ashby Provost, College of Creative Studies Professor of French University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA e-mail: ashby at humanitas.ucsb.edu phone: 805-893-3827 fax: 805-893-4003 From Jon.Aske at SALEM.MASS.EDU Fri Apr 10 01:26:02 1998 From: Jon.Aske at SALEM.MASS.EDU (Jon Aske) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:26:02 -0400 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Mark, Interesting question. I guess my first comment would be that I don't think we should call this a "construction", but rather a linguistic "function", or "meaning", which may be expressed by different constructions, even within one language, as you point out happens in Spanish, and as happens in English too. The hace .. que construction in Spanish seems to be etymologically equivalent to the English "It's been ... since/that ... ". Its range of applicability, however, is rather different. You didn't mention that in the construction in (c) the time expression following desde "from/since" must have the "hace + period of time" if the time expression doesn't mark a point in time, but a period of time: Juan trabaja desde hace tres horas. The role of hace in these constructions is really interesting. By most tests it seems to still be a verb, not least of all because it is still conjugated. Not only that, the time expression, if emphatic, can be fronted to preverbal (F1) focus position: TRES horas hace que trabaja Juan! And, of course, there is the Spanish llevar "carry" construction which also instantiates this same general function/meaning: Juan lleva tres horas trabajando Juan lleva trabajando desde que llegó Please do post a summary if people write directly to you. Best, Jon ------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Aske -- Jon.Aske at salem.mass.edu -- aske at earthlink.net Department of Foreign Languages, Salem State College Salem, Massachusetts 01970 - http://home.earthlink.net/~aske/ ------------------------------------------------------------- In youth we learn; in age we understand. --Ebner-Eschenbach. From clements at INDIANA.EDU Fri Apr 10 01:42:59 1998 From: clements at INDIANA.EDU (J. Clancy Clements (Kapil)) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 20:42:59 -0500 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Mark, Regarding all your questions, I addressed just these issues in my dissertation (Verb Classes and Verb Class change in Spanish), from 1985 (under the name Joseph A. Clements). You'll find a lot of info there. Eldemiro (sp?) Salas did his dissertation on this topic, focusing on Spanish, from a formal semantic point of view. (Univ. of California at Davis dissertation, advisor Ojeda), 1995 or 1996. Hope this helps. saludos, Clancy Clements On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Mark Davies wrote: > I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the > following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : > > a) "John has been working for three hours" > b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > c) "I've been working here since 1995" > > I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, > Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. > Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior > continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of > persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the > construction, however. > > Questions: > > 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? > > 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this > construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched > extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at > all. > > 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for > the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to > email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have > Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and > Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: > > SPANISH > > a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja > makes three hours that J. works > "John has been working for three hours" > > b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba > make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF > "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > > c) trabajo aca desde 1995 > I-work here since 1995 > "I've been working here since 1995" > > I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is > sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. > > Mark Davies > > > ================================================================== > Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics > Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University > Normal, IL 61790-4300 > > Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu > Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ > ================================================================== > From darnell at CSD.UWM.EDU Sun Apr 12 14:13:29 1998 From: darnell at CSD.UWM.EDU (Michael Darnell) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 09:13:29 -0500 Subject: conference announcement Message-ID: THE 24TH UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE LINGUISTICS SYMPOSIUM DISCOURSE ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES SEPTEMBER 10 - 12, 1998 Our 24th symposium will be what we believe to be one of the first conferences to bring together scholars from fields such as CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC, RHETORICAL TYPOLOGY, TRANSLATION STUDIES, AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS. Although these scholars work in related fields, little opportunity has existed for interaction among them. The goal of this symposium is to provide such an opportunity and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about cross-cultural and cross-linguistic patterns in discourse, whether that discourse be spoken or written. Featured Speakers include: Ruth Berman (Tel-Aviv University) Wallace Chafe (University of California-Santa Barbara) Susanna Cumming (University of California-Santa Barbara) William Eggington (Brigham Young University) Robert Longacre (University of Texas at Arlington) Carol Lynn Moder (Oklahoma State University) Ronald Scollon (Georgetown University) Dan I. Slobin (University of California-Berkeley) Sonja Tirkonnen-Condit (University of Joensuu) All sessions will be held on our campus in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Union. The first plenary session is scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon. A full program will be provided at a later date. REGISTRATION: Pre-registration fees are $20 for students, $45 for regular registration. On-site registration fees are $25 for students, $50 for regular. All pre-registration forms must be accompanied by a check or money order in U.S. dollars and received by August 1, 1998. (We cannot, unfortunately, accept credit cards.) If you wish to pre-register, please send the following information to the address below. NAME ADDRESS AFFILIATION EMAIL ADDRESS Cassandra Stephens UWM Linguistics Symposium Dept. of English University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413 ACCOMMODATIONS: Blocks of rooms have been reserved at two hotels near UWM. Both have special rates for the symposium, but require mention of the UWM Linguistics Symposium, and must be secured by credit card, or one-night's stay in advance. Some van service from the hotels will be available. The Park East Hotel ($63 for single, $73 for double, until Aug. 18) 916 E. State St. Milwaukee, WI 53202 phone: 1-800-328-7275 The Astor Hotel ($54 for single, $59 for double, until Aug. 9) 924 E. Juneau Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53202 phone: 1-800-558-0200 We may have a limited amount of "crash space" available. If you are interested, please indicate this on your pre-registration letter. We cannot, however, guarantee such space. For additional information, or questions, contact Mike Darnell at darnell at csd.uwm.edu From martin.haspelmath at SPLIT.UNI-BAMBERG.DE Tue Apr 14 09:22:26 1998 From: martin.haspelmath at SPLIT.UNI-BAMBERG.DE (martin.haspelmath@split) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:22:26 GMT+0100 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" Message-ID: Hi Mark, in my recent book "From time to space: Temporal adverbials in the world's languages" (Munich: Lincom Europa, 1997) I studied more than a dozen types of time adverbials in a world-wide sample of 53 languages, among them the following two: (1) Posterior-durative, e.g. desde 1995, "since 1995" (2) Distance-posterior, e.g. hace tres semanas, "for three weeks" I focused on the time adverbials, not on the tense-aspect on the verb, but I did observe that the use of the perfect in this construction is very rare -- apart from English, I found it only in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian (so it seems to be a Circum-Baltic areal phenomenon, cf. 1997:77). As far as the termporal adverbials are concerned, there is enormous cross-linguistic diversity; both the Spanish and the English patterns for the Distance-posterior function are very common cross-linguistically, but quite a few others occur (e.g. German, where we say _seit drei Wochen_, lit. 'since three weeks'). Hope this helps, best regards, Martin Haspelmath (FU Berlin & Universitaet Bamberg) From holton at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU Tue Apr 14 21:47:13 1998 From: holton at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU (Gary Holton) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:47:13 -0700 Subject: Confs: American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) Message-ID: WAIL '98 Workshop on American Indigenous Languages University of California, Santa Barbara May 9-10, 1998 The linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara presents the first annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL). The workshop will be a forum for the discussion of theoretical and descriptive linguistic studies of indigenous languages of the Americas. Registration is $15. Further information is available at the workshop website http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/depts/linguistics/wail, or contact the workshop coordinator at wail at humanitas.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WORKSHOP PROGRAM Friday, May 8 ** Evening (Time TBA) ** Welcoming reception Saturday, May 9 ** Early morning session (8:30 -10:00 a.m.) ** Invited speaker: Wallace Chafe, University of California, Santa Barbara Verbal artistry James Kari, Alaska Native Language Center and Dena'inaq Titaztun Notes on mnemonic devices and strategy in Northern Athabaskan geographic names Kathleen Martin, University of California, Santa Barbara Translation and analysis of a Lakota woman's story ** Late morning session (10:15-11:45 a.m.) ** Jack B. Martin, College of William and Mary 'Switch reference' and temporal distance in Creek Matthew Davidson, State University of New York, Buffalo Inversion in Makah Janne Underriner, University of Oregon Nonconfigurationality in Klamath ** Keynote address (1:00-1:45 p.m.) ** Nicola Bessell, University of Texas, Austin / University of California, Santa Barbara Phonetic naturalness in phonology ** Early afternoon session (2:00-3:30 p.m.) ** Madelaine Plauche, University of California, Berkeley Glottalized Sonorants in Yowlumne (Yawelmani) Rosemary G. Beam de Azcona, University of California, Berkeley Preliminary remarks on tone in Coatlan-Loxicha Zapotec Carrie Weiman, Georgetown University Constraint reranking in Plains Cree ** Late afternoon session (3:30-5:15 p.m.) ** Loretta O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara Active case-marking in Chontal David Beck, University of Toronto Eliding the obvious: Zero subjects in Lushootseed Pilar M. Valenzuela, University of Oregon The grammaticalization of the nominative case in Wariapano (Panoan) ** Saturday evening ** Dinner party -- all invited! 6:30-9:00 p.m., Chafe/Mithun residence ---------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 10 ** Early morning session (9:00-10:30 a.m.) ** Invited speaker: Marianne Mithun, University of California, Santa Barbara Noun and verb in possession Troi Carleton and Rachelle Waksler, San Francisco State University The pronominal system of Zenzontepec Chatino Donna Gerdts, Simon Fraser University The double life of Halkomelem suffixes ** Late morning session (10:45-12:15) ** Aaron Broadwell, State University of New York, Albany; University of California, Los Angeles Directionals as complex predicates in Choctaw Suzanne Wash, University of California, Santa Barbara Constituency and dependent marking in Barbareno Chumash Tim Thornes, University of Oregon 'Secondary' verbs in Northern Paiute ** Early afternoon session (1:30-3:00 p.m.) ** Veronica Grondona, University of Pittsburgh Location and direction in Mocovi Jordan Lachler, University of New Mexico Sense development and grammaticization of 'he' in West Virginia Mingo Ferdinand de Haan, University of New Mexico On the grammaticalization of visual evidentiality ** Late afternoon session (3:15-4:45 p.m.) ** Christiane Cunha de Oliveira, University of Oregon Functions of Apinaje 'o': A diachronic perspective Heidi Johnson, University of Texas at Austin Serial verb constructions in Zoque Anna Berge, University of California, Berkeley Language reacquisition in a Cherokee semi-speaker: Evidence from clause construction From apawley at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU Wed Apr 15 04:12:39 1998 From: apawley at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU (Andy Pawley) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 14:12:39 +1000 Subject: Indonesian ling. post Message-ID: Herewith information about a post in Indonesian linguistics at the Australian National University, available from 1 Sept. 1998. Andrew Pawley __________ THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES RESEARCH SCHOOL OF PACIFIC AND ASIAN STUDIES DIVISION OF SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW/RESEARCH FELLOW Level A/Level B (non-continuing) Applications are sought for an appointment in the field of Indonesian linguistics. The position is available from 1 September 1998. Applicants should have a PhD, publications and field experience in Indonesian linguistics. The appointee will contribute to the Department's program of field research on the Austronesian language family and to interdisciplinary studies of language and society undertaken by members of the Division of Society and Environment. The Department's Indonesian focus is chiefly in eastern Indonesia, defined as the region from Sulawesi to Irian Jaya. The appointee will be expected to share in the supervision of doctoral students and in the editing and refereeing of MSS submitted to the book series, Pacific Linguistics, which the Deparment publishes. Appointment: 3 years fixed term. Contact: For further information Professor Andrew Pawley, telephone (61-2) 6249-0028. Further particulars are available from the School Secretary, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, tel: (61-2)-6249-2678; fax (61-2)-249-64836; email: schlsec.rspas at anu.edu.au. Applications from suitably qualified women will be particularly welcome. Closing Date: 31 May 1998 Ref: PA 22.4.1 Salary: Postdoctoral Fellow AUS$37,422 - $45,159 p.a (salary on qualification for or possession of doctorate not less than AUS$42,201 p.a) Research Fellow AUS$47,435 - $55,966 p.a From john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL Wed Apr 15 09:26:26 1998 From: john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (John Myhill) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:26:26 +0300 Subject: Matt Shibatabi's email address Message-ID: Could anyone please tell me Matt Shibatani's email address? Thanks very much. John Myhill From fling11 at EMDUCMS1.SIS.UCM.ES Fri Apr 17 14:51:27 1998 From: fling11 at EMDUCMS1.SIS.UCM.ES (Marta Carretero) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:51:27 +0200 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: I have not done any research on the subject, but as a native speaker of Spanish,I can suggest two equivalent constructions to the English 'Juan has been working for three hours': a) Juan ha estado trabajando tres horas. (present perfect progressive) This construction entails that the situation is not persistent, i.e. Juan is not working any longer, he has just stopped. Stress is laid on the duration, and Juan may or not have finished the work concerned. b) Juan lleva trabajando tres horas / Juan lleva tres horas trabajando (periphrastic construction) This construction entails that the situation is persistent, i.e. Juan is still working. I hope this helps. Best wishes, Marta. ************************************************************************* On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Mark Davies wrote: > I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the > following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : > > a) "John has been working for three hours" > b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > c) "I've been working here since 1995" > > I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, > Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. > Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior > continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of > persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the > construction, however. > > Questions: > > 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? > > 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this > construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched > extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at > all. > > 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for > the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to > email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have > Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and > Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: > > SPANISH > > a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja > makes three hours that J. works > "John has been working for three hours" > > b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba > make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF > "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > > c) trabajo aca desde 1995 > I-work here since 1995 > "I've been working here since 1995" > > I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is > sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. > > Mark Davies > > > ================================================================== > Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics > Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University > Normal, IL 61790-4300 > > Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu > Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ > ================================================================== > From bingfu at USC.EDU Wed Apr 22 02:59:54 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:59:54 -0700 Subject: query: prenominal and postnominal adjectives in Romance Message-ID: Dear netters! I am still organizing the final summary of correspondences to my previous query about left-right asymmetries in word order variations. I should say sorry for delay to those who have corresponded to me. As part of the survay, I need to know more data about the differences between prenominal and postnominal modifiers in Romance languages. The following is my issue and inquiry. In some languages, adjectives can occur both on the left side and the right side of the head N. The contrast between pre-N and post-N positions resembles the same pattern of that between pre- and post-demonstrative positions. For instance, according to Greenbef 1978, in Bedauye, a northern Cushitic language, the order is AN when the phrase is definite, but NA when it is indefinite. Since I do not have direct access to Bedauye, I would like know more about Romance languages, which,ormally allow both AN and NA orders. The following statistic by Klein-Andrew about Spanish also indicate that AN order is more correlated with definiteness than NA is. a. For NPs occurring as subjects, as compared to nonsubject NPs. (77% vs. 54%, meaning 77% of the subjects with pre-N modifiers while only 54% nonsubjects with pre-N modifiers) b. For NPs accompanied by the definite articles el, la, los, las, as compared with NPs accompanied by indefinite articles uno(s)/una(s) 'one/a (some)'. (58% vs. 23%) c. For proper nouns (names) as compared with common nouns. (93% vs. 56%) I tentatively classify the functional contrasts between prenominal and postnominal adjectives as the following four major types. 1. Purely referential vs. attributive French yhmple (1) a. un ancien roi a ancient kin 'a former king' b. un roi ancien a king ancient 'an old/ancient king' (2) a. une autre éducation a different education 'another education/ b. une éducation autre a education different 'a different education' (3) a. une certaine nouvelle a certain news 'a certain piece of news' b. une nouvelle certime a news certain 'an unquestionable piece of news' (4) a. la première cause the first cause 'the first, initial cause' b. la cause première the cause first 'the foremost, pjmary cause' 2. Specific vs. general (5) a. un jeune ministre a young minister 'a minister younger than most ministers' b. un ministre jeune a minister young 'a minister young in age' (6) a. heureux poète happy poet 'happy post' b. poète heureux poet happy 'successful poet' (7) a. vie ami old friend 'a long-standing friend' b. ami vie friend old 'old-aged friend' This type of contrast is similar to that between Russian long-form and short form predicate adjectives: (8) a. Studentka umnaja (Long form) student intelligent 'a student who is intelligent in her role as student' b. Studentka umna (Short form) student intelligent 'a student who is intelligent as a human in general' 3. subjective evaluative vs. objective property (9) a. un pauvre pays riche a poor country rich 'a poor rich country' (poor in value, but rich in wealth) b. un riche pays pauvre a rich country poor 'a rich poor country' (rich in value though poor in wealth) 4. Redundant pre-N adjectives (10) la negra noche the black night (11) dulce miel sweet honey Now, my questions are: 1. I need more data of type 4. Could you please provide some? 2. Do you know any other majort|pes of the contrast? I will incorporate the replies to my future summary of left-right asymmetries of world order variations. Thanks! Bingfu Lu USC From efiguero at CAPOMO.USON.MX Wed Apr 22 17:14:48 1998 From: efiguero at CAPOMO.USON.MX (Max Enrique Figueroa Esteva) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:14:48 -0600 Subject: query: prenominal and postnominal adjectives in Romance In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Guitart has commented, your query is indeed an interesting one. I'd just like -for the time being- to add this comment to yours: in Russian, the position of the adjective is prenominal when it "qualifies" the noun and is usually "postponed" (apparently, I should say) when its function is predicative: Umnaja studentka (A clever or bright she-student) Studentka umnaja (The she-student is clever or bright) [With a slight pause and a different intonational pattern] Occasionally, one may even find a written dash to indicate the pause and the int. pattern (also, of course, the "missing" copula jest'): Studentka _ umnaja This contrast, therefore, must be taken into consideration, along with the distinction -to which you correctly point- between long and short adjetives, especially since short adjectives are mostly associated with the predicative function (long ones, mostly with the "qualifying" function). Nota bene: I have said mostly, not necessarily. Best regards. Max On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, bingfu wrote: > Dear netters! > > I am still organizing the final summary of correspondences to my previous > query about left-right asymmetries in word order variations. I should say > sorry for delay to those who have corresponded to me. > > As part of the survay, I need to know more data about the differences > between prenominal and postnominal modifiers in Romance languages. > > The following is my issue and inquiry. > > In some languages, adjectives can occur both on the left side and > the right side of the head N. The contrast between pre-N and post-N > positions resembles the same pattern of that between pre- and > post-demonstrative positions. For instance, according to Greenbef 1978, > in Bedauye, a northern Cushitic language, the order is AN when the phrase > is definite, but NA when it is indefinite. Since I do not have direct > access to Bedauye, I would like know more about Romance languages, > which,ormally allow both AN and NA orders. > > The following statistic by Klein-Andrew about Spanish also > indicate that AN order is more correlated with definiteness than NA is. > > a. For NPs occurring as subjects, as compared to > nonsubject NPs. > (77% vs. 54%, > meaning 77% of the subjects with pre-N modifiers while only 54% > nonsubjects with pre-N modifiers) > > b. For NPs accompanied by the definite articles el, la, los, las, > as compared with > NPs accompanied by indefinite articles > uno(s)/una(s) 'one/a (some)'. > (58% vs. 23%) > > c. For proper nouns (names) as compared with common nouns. > (93% vs. 56%) > > I tentatively classify the functional contrasts between prenominal and > postnominal adjectives as the following four major types. > > 1. Purely referential vs. attributive > French yhmple > (1) a. un ancien roi > a ancient kin > 'a former king' > > b. un roi ancien > a king ancient > 'an old/ancient king' > > (2) a. une autre �ducation > a different education > 'another education/ > > b. une �ducation autre > a education different > 'a different education' > > (3) a. une certaine nouvelle > a certain news > 'a certain piece of news' > > b. une nouvelle certime > a news certain > 'an unquestionable piece of news' > > (4) a. la premi�re cause > the first cause > 'the first, initial cause' > > b. la cause premi�re > the cause first > 'the foremost, pjmary cause' > 2. Specific vs. general > > (5) a. un jeune ministre > a young minister > 'a minister younger than most ministers' > > b. un ministre jeune > a minister young > 'a minister young in age' > > (6) a. heureux po�te > happy poet > 'happy post' > > b. po�te heureux > poet happy > 'successful poet' > > (7) a. vie ami > old friend > 'a long-standing friend' > > b. ami vie > friend old > 'old-aged friend' > > This type of contrast is similar to that between Russian long-form and > short form predicate adjectives: > (8) a. Studentka umnaja (Long form) > student intelligent > 'a student who is intelligent in her role as > student' > b. Studentka umna (Short form) > student intelligent > 'a student who is intelligent as a human in > general' > > > 3. subjective evaluative vs. objective property > (9) a. un pauvre pays riche > a poor country rich > 'a poor rich country' > (poor in value, but rich in wealth) > > b. un riche pays pauvre > a rich country poor > 'a rich poor country' > (rich in value though poor in wealth) > > 4. Redundant pre-N adjectives > > (10) la negra noche > the black night > > (11) dulce miel > sweet honey > > Now, my questions are: > 1. I need more data of type 4. Could you please provide some? > > 2. Do you know any other majort|pes of the contrast? > > > I will incorporate the replies to my future summary of left-right > asymmetries of world order variations. > > Thanks! > Bingfu Lu > USC > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 03:44:04 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:44:04 -0700 Subject: Italian NP Message-ID: Dear Netters, Longogbardi 1994 provides the following paradigm. a. Il mio Giani ha finalmente telefonato the my Gianni finally called up b. *Mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato my Gianni finally called up c. Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato Gianni my finally called up d. Il Giani mio ha finalmente telefonato the Gianni my finally called up He accounts for the paradigm in formalist terms. My question is: 1. Is there any functional explanation? 2. Is there any meaning difference among a, c and d, especially between c and d. I will incorporate the responses into my final summary of the query about left-right asymmetries in word order variation. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 07:02:30 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:02:30 -0700 Subject: basic words for taste Message-ID: Dear netter, English seems to have the following basic words for taste: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, hot (chilli). Chinese has one more basic taste word: xian (with first tone), which describes the taste of monosodium glutamate or simple protein molecules. And 'xian' is regarded the primary criterion for tasty food. I would know how many basic taste words do you have in your language. I will make a summary later. Thanks! Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 13:27:03 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:27:03 -0700 Subject: MSG (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:22:26 -0700 (PDT) From: bingfu To: "Jane A. Edwards" Subject: re: MSG Dear Jane, Thanks for your informative message! 'Ajinomoto' is the first word that is corresponding to Chinese xian1. However, my impression is that it is not basic in terms of morpheme. it is a compound composed of 'origin/basis of taste'. In addition, it is not an adjecitve. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Jane A. Edwards wrote: > > > I wanted to mention the following also: > > 5. O'Mahony, Michael; Ishii, Rie. > A comparison of English and Japanese taste languages: Taste descriptive > methodology, codability and the umami taste. > British Journal of Psychology, 1986 May, v77 (n2):161-174. > > Abstract: In 3 studies, everyday taste descriptions for a range of stimuli were > obtained from 118 Americans (aged 18-62 yrs) and 222 Japanese (aged 18-70 > yrs), using a variety of stimuli, stimulus presentation procedures, and > response conditions. In English there was a tendency to use a > quadrapartite classification system: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The > Japanese had a different strategy, adding a 5th label: "Ajinomoto," > referring to the taste of monosodium glutamate. Stimulus presentation by > filter-paper or aqueous solution elicited the same response trends. > Language codability was only an indicator of degree of taste > mixedness/singularity if used statistically with samples of sufficient > size; it had little value as an indicator for individual Subjects. > > Best Wishes, > > -Jane Edwards > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 13:52:58 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:52:58 -0700 Subject: taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Frans, Thanks very much for your informative message and keep me informed of your study! By 'basic word', I mean of more frequency of use in daily life than etymological. For example, Chinese 'se4' and its English counterpart 'puckery/astrigent' are not basic because they are rarely used in food time. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Frans Plank wrote: > Dear Bingfu, > > the English taste adjective SALTY is not basic; it's transparently derived > from the noun SALT. > > Arguably STALE is a basic taste term in English. > > My associates and I have been working on taste and other perceptual > terminology for the last three or so years; we'll keep you informed about > our findings when they are in publishable form. Much has already been > written on this subject, though rarely from a serious crosslinguistic > perspective. > > Frans Plank > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 15:27:40 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:27:40 -0700 Subject: smell and taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Manfred, Thannks for your wonderful observation and explanation, which is typically functional! Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Manfred Krifka wrote: > Dear all, > > Bingfu's question about basic taste words reminded me of the following > asymmetry between the uses of the basic predicates for tasting and smelling > that can be illustrated with English and German: > > German: > "Das schmeckt", lit. 'This tastes', i.e. this tastes good. > "Das riecht", lit. 'This smells', i.e. this smells bad. > > English: > "This is tasty", i.e. it tastes good. > "This is smelly", i.e. it smells bad. > > There is a ready explanation for this asymmetry: We have more control over > things that we put in our mouth than over the gaseous substances that enter > our nose. And we typically put good things into our mouth, hence the > tendency for the unmodified use of tasting predicates to denote something > good. I'm curious whether the same type of asymmetry manifests itself > cross-linguistically. > > > > > > ================================================================ > Manfred Krifka > Dept. of Linguistics, B5100 > University of Texas at Austin > Austin, TX 78712-1196, USA > phone: 1-512-4711701, fax: 4714340 > http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~krifka/ > From dcyr at YORKU.CA Thu Apr 23 15:35:51 1998 From: dcyr at YORKU.CA (Danielle Cyr) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:35:51 -0400 Subject: Taste in Mi'kmaq Message-ID: Dear Netters, Mi'kmaq has a word _gakkimàq_ which means "something that tastes in between sweet and sour" Danielle E. Cyr, Assoc. Prof. York University / French Studies-4700, Keele Toronto, Ontario Canada M3J 1P3 Tel. 1.416.736.2100 ext. 30180 Fax. 1.416.736.5734 From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 15:55:30 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:55:30 -0700 Subject: taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Sorry, by 'basic' I mean both of the frequency used by dining talbe and 'primary'. 'Rich', like 'tasty, delicious' , is not primary, but composed of different primary tastes. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Randy Rightmire wrote: > > To your list of five basic taste terms in English (sweet, sour, salty, > bitter, hot/spicy) you might consider adding "rich" -- the taste > component added by fats and oils. I think this term meets your > "frequency" criterion for basicness. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Randall Rightmire > Department of Linguistics > University of California, Santa Barbara > Santa Barbara, CA 93106 > randy at vowel.ucsb.edu > http://ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu/~6500rig > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > From velazqum at GBMS01.UWGB.EDU Thu Apr 23 20:27:39 1998 From: velazqum at GBMS01.UWGB.EDU (Maura Velazquez-Castillo) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:27:39 -0600 Subject: Spanish linguistics lecturer Message-ID: >Non-tenure track position to begin in August 30, 1998. Ph.D preferred, ABD >considered. Responsibilities will include undergraduate teaching of all >levels of Spanish including two upper-level classes: "Advanced Grammar" and >"Spanish Phonetics". Native fluency expected along with documentation of >effective teaching. Course load is 12 credits per semester (4 courses). >Participation in program activities expected. Salary range: $28,000 to >$33,000 depending on qualifications. Send letter of application and resume >including three telephone numbers of professional references to Prof. >Cristina Ortiz, Humanistic Studies Department/Spanish, 2420 Nicolet Drive, >Green Bay, WI 54311; phone (920) 465-2450; fax (920) 465-2890 and e-mail >ortizc at uwgb.edu. Applications reviewed until position is filled. > >The University of Wisconsin--Green Bay is a comprehensive regional >university, widely recognized for its innovative interdisciplinary >curriculum. > >Under a court approved settlement agreement and Wisconsin Statutes, we are >required to provide a list of all nominees and applicants who have not >requested in writing that their identity not be revealed. Persons agreeing >to be final candidates will have their identity revelaled as a final >candidate. The university of Wisconsin--Green Bay is an equal opportunity, >afirmative action employer. > From bingfu at USC.EDU Sun Apr 26 21:33:04 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:33:04 -0700 Subject: query about "he painted the barn red" Message-ID: QUERY ABOUT CROSS-LINGUISTIC WORD ORDER IN THE EXPRESSION "He painted the barn red". Dear netters, In my previous query about left-right asymmetries in word order variation, I haven't mentioned the following one, which I would like to get more information now. Hawkins lists ten linear precedence asymmetries as follows in one of his recent papers ("Adjacency, linear precedence and theory of dependency strength", USC ms). 1.Languages with Wh-question words all prepose them, and none postpose them. 2. Topicalized XPs with gaps in a sister sentence generally precede the sentence. 3. Controller NPs generally precede empty controllee position in embedded VP structures. 4. Subjects generally precede objects. 5. Antecedents generally precede reflexive anaphors. ........ 9. In the expressions like "he painted the barn red", the predication categories regularly precede direct objects in subject-initial languages while follow in subject-final languages. 10. Negative polarity items prefer to follow the negation, shown in the opposition "I didn't see her on any visit" and "*On any visit I didn't see her". According to Hawkins, in all the above ten asymmetries, the general form is that A+B is productive while B+A is either completely unattested, very rare, or limited in its distribution. Since the form is not directly involved in a head word as reference point, these phenomena differ directly from, though indirectly related to, my lest-right asymmetries of word order variation, which necessarily makes particular reference to the head word. However, in type 9 asymmetries listed by Hawkins, if we change the relevant reference point 'matrix subject' to 'matrix main verb', then the phenomenon fall in the realm of my current topic. Indeed, there appears an asymmetry such as that in VO languages, predication expressions may or may not follow the direct object, but in OV languages predication expressions seem almost all to follow direct objects, as far as I know now, like in Japanese, Korean. In short, regarding the expressions like 'he painted the barn red", Verb-final construction is more stable than the corresponding verb-initial construction. I would like to make sure of it. Any suggestions on this issue will be most welcome and be incorporated in my future summaries. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Wed Apr 29 16:09:07 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:09:07 -0700 Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith Message-ID: Dear netters, In the sentence "J sent M a book for S" Who is the recipient and benefactive? Is the sentence ambiguous. Is the following sentence acceptable? "J sent M a book to S/her hotel" Are there any relevant discussions in the literature? How to translate these sentences in other your native languages? (For formalists): How do these sentences behave with respect to anaphoric and reflexivity? If responses are intersting enough, I will make a summary. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Apr 29 22:45:09 1998 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:45:09 -0700 Subject: Job announcement Message-ID: DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS UNIVERSITY OF OREGON OPEN POOL ANNOUNCEMENT (#049805) The Department of Linguistics at the University of Oregon seeks applications for an open pool, for the 1998-1999 academic year. The Department occasionally needs to cover specific courses in our curriculum on short notice. All positions filled through th is advertisement are for temporary, part time and/or emergency hires. There will be no permanent positions filled through this pool. Teaching positions may be made for one to two courses a term and may be renewable up to but not over four terms dependin g on Departmental needs and funds. For teaching positions, candidates must show evidence of considerable teaching skill at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Qualifications: Ph.D. in Linguistics Duties: Up to two courses per term of hire (we are on a quarter system) Mentor students in research projects, as needed Participate in Department life, as appropriate For teaching and all other Linguistics applicants: Please submit a letter of application, vita, and names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of three references to: Open Pool 98-99, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403. For consideration for possible Fall 1998 appointments please apply by June 15. Web address: http://logos.uoregon.edu The University of Oregon is an AA/EO/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity. From kay at PARC.XEROX.COM Thu Apr 30 06:51:36 1998 From: kay at PARC.XEROX.COM (Martin Kay) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 23:51:36 PDT Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:09:07 PDT." Message-ID: In message you write: >Dear netters, > > In the sentence > > "J sent M a book for S" > >Who is the recipient and benefactive? >Is the sentence ambiguous. M is the recipient and S the adenificiary (the phrase or verb is benefactive!) > > Is the following sentence acceptable? > > "J sent M a book to S/her hotel" For me, the hotel is OK, but not S I have had difficulty persuading my conative speakers that a teacher might say to a pupil I want you to take me your mother this note Maybe the subscribers to this list are more liberal. --Martin Kay From geoffn at SIU.EDU Thu Apr 30 13:20:23 1998 From: geoffn at SIU.EDU (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:20:23 -0500 Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith In-Reply-To: <98Apr29.235136pdt."198"@cky.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: At 11:51 PM 4/29/98 PDT, Martin Kay wrote: >For me, the hotel is OK, but not S > >I have had difficulty persuading my conative speakers that a teacher might >say to a pupil > I want you to take me your mother this note >Maybe the subscribers to this list are more liberal. > >--Martin Kay > Precisely this issue came up in a basic syntax course I was teaching many years ago, using the first edition of the Radford text. An American Structuralist colleague (who shall remain nameless, but he was famous once) suggested that the reason that Radford (and I) could not accept: *Which car did you put Mary in the garage? was due to the fact that I (and Chomsky) came from an immigrant background (!!!!) and that we hadn't been exposed to the whole range of American dialects. It turned out that he could get an ethical dative reading for 'Mary' in that sentence. He had no coherent answer for why Radford had equal trouble with it, except, presumably for the fact that he had been somehow influenced by Chomsky. My colleague, who was from the hill country of Kentucky, claimed that such sentences were just fine. The rest of the class consisted of non-native speakers, who were, to put it mildly, bewildered. Geoff [Sociological footnote--I, like Chomsky, am Jewish. And, like him, my ancestors immigrated from Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. My colleague was, I assume, alluding to this fact--he claimed that most of generative grammar was based on such dubious grammaticality judgments. His comments speak for themselves.] [Grammatical footnote: His intended interpretation was Which car did you put in the garage for Mary.] Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, 62901 USA Phone: +618 453-3421 (Office) FAX +618 453-6527 +618 549-0106 (Home) From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Apr 30 16:38:54 1998 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:38:54 -0700 Subject: Visiting position at UOregon Message-ID: Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics The Linguistics Department at the University of Oregon announces the opening of a non- tenure related Visiting Assistant Professor position for the 1998-1999 academic year, potentially renewable pending funding, ranging from .50 to 1.0 FTE depending on Departmental needs. The Linguistics Department of Oregon enjoys a long tradition of work within the functionalist tradition, concentrating in descriptive work and field work and in empirical work on language use, discourse, and language acquisition. We invite applications from qualified individuals who can contribute to the functional and typological orientation of the department. Since the openings fill teaching gaps for faculty on leave, the candidate must show evidence of considerable teaching skill, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The successful applicant must be able to help cover our core curriculum, which includes phonetics, phonology, functional-typological morphosyntax, semantics, and second language acquisition and teaching. Additional specializations in discourse, psycholinguistics, and/or historical syntax and grammaticalization will be particularly attractive, depending on department needs. In addition, the successful applicant must have an active research profile and must be able to direct graduate student research. Qualifications: Ph.D. in Linguistics Duties: Up to two courses per term of hire (we are on a quarter system) Mentor students in research projects, as needed Participate in department life, as appropriate Please submit a letter of application, vita, and names, addresses, phone numbers and e- mail addresses of three references to: VAP Search Committee, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403. Applications must be received by June 1, 1998 to receive fullest consideration. Web Address: http://logos.uoregon.edu (Job Posting #7208) From bobwyatt at GEOCITIES.COM Sat Apr 4 21:24:47 1998 From: bobwyatt at GEOCITIES.COM (Bob Wyatt) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 18:24:47 -0300 Subject: markedness Message-ID: Dear list colleagues, I would greatly appreciate any recommendations of articles or books which deal with "markedness" from a systemic-functional point of view. References to it are scant in the SFG texts I have. Essentially, my problem is this: If "markedness" is based on frequency of use (an impression I get from the use of words like "typical" or "common" for describing "unmarked" choices in a given system), are there statistics which support these categories (marked/unmarked)? Moreover, if it is based on frequency, wouldn't that imply the possibility of local or regional preferences or broad variation in what elements are considered "unmarked" among larger groups of speakers (for example: in Australia, Canada, the UK, the US)? Writing from a non-SFG stance, Andrews (1990) says: "The purpose of markedness theory is to explain properties that are invariant, not to justify a system based upon stastical frequency, which, by definition, is a context-specific phenomenon (p.137)." Any guidance or opinions on the subject will be greatfully accepted. Best wishes, Bob Wyatt -- Bob Wyatt, Applied Linguistics, Distance Education Group (EAD), Extension Course Service (COGEAE), The Catholic Univ. of S?o Paulo (PUC/SP), Homepage http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8604 From bergler at CS.CONCORDIA.CA Thu Apr 9 20:31:36 1998 From: bergler at CS.CONCORDIA.CA (Bergler Sabine) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:31:36 -0400 Subject: Call for papers: transcription Message-ID: ********************************************************** CALL FOR PAPERS CALL FOR PAPERS CALL FOR PAPERS ********************************************************** ACL/COLING-98 Workshop on PARTIALLY AUTOMATED TECHNIQUES FOR TRANSCRIBING NATURALLY OCCURRING, CONTINUOUS SPEECH August 16, 1998 (following ACL/COLING-98) University of Montreal, Montreal (Quebec, Canada) CALL FOR PAPERS DESCRIPTION ----------- The development of robust systems for speech analysis and synthesis depends crucially on the availability of well-annotated corpora of naturally occurring, continuous speech. Yet existing speech corpora are rarely well-annotated. A key to proper annotation is the availability of partially automated systems for linking selected portions of a visual display of speech to the corresponding transcriptions. To be of practical use, such systems must be able to handle large files of digitized speech and they should permit transcriptions at different levels of analysis. This workshop will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of papers and software demonstrations which reflect the current state of the art. We invite proposals of up to 800 words which address the development, use, evaluation, or potential commercial application of such systems. SUBMISSIONS ----------- Only email submissions in LaTeX or Ascii will be accepted. Authors should submit an abstract of no more than 800 words to: trans98 at cs.concordia.ca Style files and templates for LaTeX submissions can be found at http://coling-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/Styles.html A copy of this call for papers can be found at: http://coling-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/Workshops.html The official language of the conference is English. IMPORTANT DEADLINES ------------------- Submission Deadline: April 15, 1998 Notification Date: May 15, 1998 Camera ready copy due: June 15, 1998 PROGRAM COMMITTEE -------------------- Nancy Belmore Concordia University, Canada Sabine Bergler Concordia University, Canada John Esling Univ. of Victoria, Canada Eric Keller Univ. of Lausanne, Switzerland Roland Kuhn Panasonic Technologies, Inc., U.S.A. Douglas O'Shaughnessy INRS-Telecommunications, Canada Ching Y. Suen Concordia University, Canada ORGANIZERS ---------- Nancy Belmore Concordia University, Canada Sabine Bergler Concordia University, Canada Douglas O'Shaughnessy INRS-T\'el\'ecommunications, Canada REGISTRATION ------------ There is a discounted workshop fee for participants of Coling/ACL. Participants who are not registered for Coling/ACL will have to pay the full workshop fee (to be announced shortly). INFORMATION ----------- Any requests for information should be sent to trans98 at cs.concordia.ca From mdavies at RS6000.CMP.ILSTU.EDU Thu Apr 9 23:42:36 1998 From: mdavies at RS6000.CMP.ILSTU.EDU (Mark Davies) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:42:36 -0500 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" Message-ID: I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : a) "John has been working for three hours" b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." c) "I've been working here since 1995" I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the construction, however. Questions: 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at all. 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: SPANISH a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja makes three hours that J. works "John has been working for three hours" b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." c) trabajo aca desde 1995 I-work here since 1995 "I've been working here since 1995" I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. Mark Davies ================================================================== Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790-4300 Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ ================================================================== From ashby at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU Thu Apr 9 23:55:44 1998 From: ashby at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU (William J. Ashby) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:55:44 -0700 Subject: Unsubscribe Funknet Message-ID: William J. Ashby Provost, College of Creative Studies Professor of French University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA e-mail: ashby at humanitas.ucsb.edu phone: 805-893-3827 fax: 805-893-4003 From Jon.Aske at SALEM.MASS.EDU Fri Apr 10 01:26:02 1998 From: Jon.Aske at SALEM.MASS.EDU (Jon Aske) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:26:02 -0400 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Hi, Mark, Interesting question. I guess my first comment would be that I don't think we should call this a "construction", but rather a linguistic "function", or "meaning", which may be expressed by different constructions, even within one language, as you point out happens in Spanish, and as happens in English too. The hace .. que construction in Spanish seems to be etymologically equivalent to the English "It's been ... since/that ... ". Its range of applicability, however, is rather different. You didn't mention that in the construction in (c) the time expression following desde "from/since" must have the "hace + period of time" if the time expression doesn't mark a point in time, but a period of time: Juan trabaja desde hace tres horas. The role of hace in these constructions is really interesting. By most tests it seems to still be a verb, not least of all because it is still conjugated. Not only that, the time expression, if emphatic, can be fronted to preverbal (F1) focus position: TRES horas hace que trabaja Juan! And, of course, there is the Spanish llevar "carry" construction which also instantiates this same general function/meaning: Juan lleva tres horas trabajando Juan lleva trabajando desde que lleg? Please do post a summary if people write directly to you. Best, Jon ------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Aske -- Jon.Aske at salem.mass.edu -- aske at earthlink.net Department of Foreign Languages, Salem State College Salem, Massachusetts 01970 - http://home.earthlink.net/~aske/ ------------------------------------------------------------- In youth we learn; in age we understand. --Ebner-Eschenbach. From clements at INDIANA.EDU Fri Apr 10 01:42:59 1998 From: clements at INDIANA.EDU (J. Clancy Clements (Kapil)) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 20:42:59 -0500 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Mark, Regarding all your questions, I addressed just these issues in my dissertation (Verb Classes and Verb Class change in Spanish), from 1985 (under the name Joseph A. Clements). You'll find a lot of info there. Eldemiro (sp?) Salas did his dissertation on this topic, focusing on Spanish, from a formal semantic point of view. (Univ. of California at Davis dissertation, advisor Ojeda), 1995 or 1996. Hope this helps. saludos, Clancy Clements On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Mark Davies wrote: > I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the > following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : > > a) "John has been working for three hours" > b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > c) "I've been working here since 1995" > > I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, > Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. > Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior > continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of > persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the > construction, however. > > Questions: > > 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? > > 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this > construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched > extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at > all. > > 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for > the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to > email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have > Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and > Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: > > SPANISH > > a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja > makes three hours that J. works > "John has been working for three hours" > > b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba > make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF > "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > > c) trabajo aca desde 1995 > I-work here since 1995 > "I've been working here since 1995" > > I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is > sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. > > Mark Davies > > > ================================================================== > Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics > Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University > Normal, IL 61790-4300 > > Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu > Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ > ================================================================== > From darnell at CSD.UWM.EDU Sun Apr 12 14:13:29 1998 From: darnell at CSD.UWM.EDU (Michael Darnell) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 09:13:29 -0500 Subject: conference announcement Message-ID: THE 24TH UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE LINGUISTICS SYMPOSIUM DISCOURSE ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES SEPTEMBER 10 - 12, 1998 Our 24th symposium will be what we believe to be one of the first conferences to bring together scholars from fields such as CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC, RHETORICAL TYPOLOGY, TRANSLATION STUDIES, AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS. Although these scholars work in related fields, little opportunity has existed for interaction among them. The goal of this symposium is to provide such an opportunity and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge about cross-cultural and cross-linguistic patterns in discourse, whether that discourse be spoken or written. Featured Speakers include: Ruth Berman (Tel-Aviv University) Wallace Chafe (University of California-Santa Barbara) Susanna Cumming (University of California-Santa Barbara) William Eggington (Brigham Young University) Robert Longacre (University of Texas at Arlington) Carol Lynn Moder (Oklahoma State University) Ronald Scollon (Georgetown University) Dan I. Slobin (University of California-Berkeley) Sonja Tirkonnen-Condit (University of Joensuu) All sessions will be held on our campus in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Union. The first plenary session is scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon. A full program will be provided at a later date. REGISTRATION: Pre-registration fees are $20 for students, $45 for regular registration. On-site registration fees are $25 for students, $50 for regular. All pre-registration forms must be accompanied by a check or money order in U.S. dollars and received by August 1, 1998. (We cannot, unfortunately, accept credit cards.) If you wish to pre-register, please send the following information to the address below. NAME ADDRESS AFFILIATION EMAIL ADDRESS Cassandra Stephens UWM Linguistics Symposium Dept. of English University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413 ACCOMMODATIONS: Blocks of rooms have been reserved at two hotels near UWM. Both have special rates for the symposium, but require mention of the UWM Linguistics Symposium, and must be secured by credit card, or one-night's stay in advance. Some van service from the hotels will be available. The Park East Hotel ($63 for single, $73 for double, until Aug. 18) 916 E. State St. Milwaukee, WI 53202 phone: 1-800-328-7275 The Astor Hotel ($54 for single, $59 for double, until Aug. 9) 924 E. Juneau Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53202 phone: 1-800-558-0200 We may have a limited amount of "crash space" available. If you are interested, please indicate this on your pre-registration letter. We cannot, however, guarantee such space. For additional information, or questions, contact Mike Darnell at darnell at csd.uwm.edu From martin.haspelmath at SPLIT.UNI-BAMBERG.DE Tue Apr 14 09:22:26 1998 From: martin.haspelmath at SPLIT.UNI-BAMBERG.DE (martin.haspelmath@split) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:22:26 GMT+0100 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" Message-ID: Hi Mark, in my recent book "From time to space: Temporal adverbials in the world's languages" (Munich: Lincom Europa, 1997) I studied more than a dozen types of time adverbials in a world-wide sample of 53 languages, among them the following two: (1) Posterior-durative, e.g. desde 1995, "since 1995" (2) Distance-posterior, e.g. hace tres semanas, "for three weeks" I focused on the time adverbials, not on the tense-aspect on the verb, but I did observe that the use of the perfect in this construction is very rare -- apart from English, I found it only in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian (so it seems to be a Circum-Baltic areal phenomenon, cf. 1997:77). As far as the termporal adverbials are concerned, there is enormous cross-linguistic diversity; both the Spanish and the English patterns for the Distance-posterior function are very common cross-linguistically, but quite a few others occur (e.g. German, where we say _seit drei Wochen_, lit. 'since three weeks'). Hope this helps, best regards, Martin Haspelmath (FU Berlin & Universitaet Bamberg) From holton at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU Tue Apr 14 21:47:13 1998 From: holton at HUMANITAS.UCSB.EDU (Gary Holton) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:47:13 -0700 Subject: Confs: American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) Message-ID: WAIL '98 Workshop on American Indigenous Languages University of California, Santa Barbara May 9-10, 1998 The linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara presents the first annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL). The workshop will be a forum for the discussion of theoretical and descriptive linguistic studies of indigenous languages of the Americas. Registration is $15. Further information is available at the workshop website http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/depts/linguistics/wail, or contact the workshop coordinator at wail at humanitas.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WORKSHOP PROGRAM Friday, May 8 ** Evening (Time TBA) ** Welcoming reception Saturday, May 9 ** Early morning session (8:30 -10:00 a.m.) ** Invited speaker: Wallace Chafe, University of California, Santa Barbara Verbal artistry James Kari, Alaska Native Language Center and Dena'inaq Titaztun Notes on mnemonic devices and strategy in Northern Athabaskan geographic names Kathleen Martin, University of California, Santa Barbara Translation and analysis of a Lakota woman's story ** Late morning session (10:15-11:45 a.m.) ** Jack B. Martin, College of William and Mary 'Switch reference' and temporal distance in Creek Matthew Davidson, State University of New York, Buffalo Inversion in Makah Janne Underriner, University of Oregon Nonconfigurationality in Klamath ** Keynote address (1:00-1:45 p.m.) ** Nicola Bessell, University of Texas, Austin / University of California, Santa Barbara Phonetic naturalness in phonology ** Early afternoon session (2:00-3:30 p.m.) ** Madelaine Plauche, University of California, Berkeley Glottalized Sonorants in Yowlumne (Yawelmani) Rosemary G. Beam de Azcona, University of California, Berkeley Preliminary remarks on tone in Coatlan-Loxicha Zapotec Carrie Weiman, Georgetown University Constraint reranking in Plains Cree ** Late afternoon session (3:30-5:15 p.m.) ** Loretta O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara Active case-marking in Chontal David Beck, University of Toronto Eliding the obvious: Zero subjects in Lushootseed Pilar M. Valenzuela, University of Oregon The grammaticalization of the nominative case in Wariapano (Panoan) ** Saturday evening ** Dinner party -- all invited! 6:30-9:00 p.m., Chafe/Mithun residence ---------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 10 ** Early morning session (9:00-10:30 a.m.) ** Invited speaker: Marianne Mithun, University of California, Santa Barbara Noun and verb in possession Troi Carleton and Rachelle Waksler, San Francisco State University The pronominal system of Zenzontepec Chatino Donna Gerdts, Simon Fraser University The double life of Halkomelem suffixes ** Late morning session (10:45-12:15) ** Aaron Broadwell, State University of New York, Albany; University of California, Los Angeles Directionals as complex predicates in Choctaw Suzanne Wash, University of California, Santa Barbara Constituency and dependent marking in Barbareno Chumash Tim Thornes, University of Oregon 'Secondary' verbs in Northern Paiute ** Early afternoon session (1:30-3:00 p.m.) ** Veronica Grondona, University of Pittsburgh Location and direction in Mocovi Jordan Lachler, University of New Mexico Sense development and grammaticization of 'he' in West Virginia Mingo Ferdinand de Haan, University of New Mexico On the grammaticalization of visual evidentiality ** Late afternoon session (3:15-4:45 p.m.) ** Christiane Cunha de Oliveira, University of Oregon Functions of Apinaje 'o': A diachronic perspective Heidi Johnson, University of Texas at Austin Serial verb constructions in Zoque Anna Berge, University of California, Berkeley Language reacquisition in a Cherokee semi-speaker: Evidence from clause construction From apawley at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU Wed Apr 15 04:12:39 1998 From: apawley at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU (Andy Pawley) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 14:12:39 +1000 Subject: Indonesian ling. post Message-ID: Herewith information about a post in Indonesian linguistics at the Australian National University, available from 1 Sept. 1998. Andrew Pawley __________ THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES RESEARCH SCHOOL OF PACIFIC AND ASIAN STUDIES DIVISION OF SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW/RESEARCH FELLOW Level A/Level B (non-continuing) Applications are sought for an appointment in the field of Indonesian linguistics. The position is available from 1 September 1998. Applicants should have a PhD, publications and field experience in Indonesian linguistics. The appointee will contribute to the Department's program of field research on the Austronesian language family and to interdisciplinary studies of language and society undertaken by members of the Division of Society and Environment. The Department's Indonesian focus is chiefly in eastern Indonesia, defined as the region from Sulawesi to Irian Jaya. The appointee will be expected to share in the supervision of doctoral students and in the editing and refereeing of MSS submitted to the book series, Pacific Linguistics, which the Deparment publishes. Appointment: 3 years fixed term. Contact: For further information Professor Andrew Pawley, telephone (61-2) 6249-0028. Further particulars are available from the School Secretary, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, tel: (61-2)-6249-2678; fax (61-2)-249-64836; email: schlsec.rspas at anu.edu.au. Applications from suitably qualified women will be particularly welcome. Closing Date: 31 May 1998 Ref: PA 22.4.1 Salary: Postdoctoral Fellow AUS$37,422 - $45,159 p.a (salary on qualification for or possession of doctorate not less than AUS$42,201 p.a) Research Fellow AUS$47,435 - $55,966 p.a From john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL Wed Apr 15 09:26:26 1998 From: john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (John Myhill) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:26:26 +0300 Subject: Matt Shibatabi's email address Message-ID: Could anyone please tell me Matt Shibatani's email address? Thanks very much. John Myhill From fling11 at EMDUCMS1.SIS.UCM.ES Fri Apr 17 14:51:27 1998 From: fling11 at EMDUCMS1.SIS.UCM.ES (Marta Carretero) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:51:27 +0200 Subject: "Juan has been working for three hours" In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980409184236.00b3d458@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: I have not done any research on the subject, but as a native speaker of Spanish,I can suggest two equivalent constructions to the English 'Juan has been working for three hours': a) Juan ha estado trabajando tres horas. (present perfect progressive) This construction entails that the situation is not persistent, i.e. Juan is not working any longer, he has just stopped. Stress is laid on the duration, and Juan may or not have finished the work concerned. b) Juan lleva trabajando tres horas / Juan lleva tres horas trabajando (periphrastic construction) This construction entails that the situation is persistent, i.e. Juan is still working. I hope this helps. Best wishes, Marta. ************************************************************************* On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Mark Davies wrote: > I'm starting into some research on the historical development of the > following type of construction in Spanish and Portuguese : > > a) "John has been working for three hours" > b) "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > c) "I've been working here since 1995" > > I've looked through the standard sources on tense and aspect (Comrie, > Bybee, etc) and find very little regarding this kind of construction. > Bybee et al _Evolution of Grammar_ (1994:62) calls it the "anterior > continuing" and Comrie _Aspect_ (1976:60) refers to it as the "perfect of > persistent situation". Neither spends more than a sentence or two on the > construction, however. > > Questions: > > 1) Is there a standard name for this type of construction? > > 2) Is anyone aware of any studies dealing specifically with this > construction, especially those related to diachronic issues? I've searched > extensively on OCLC and in other bibliographies, and haven't found much at > all. > > 3) I'd like to get some sense of the cross-linguistic possibilities for > the construction, and am wondering whether any of you might be able to > email me with glosses for the following three sentences. I already have > Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and > Mandarin, but would appreciate any other languages. E.g.: > > SPANISH > > a) hace tres horas que Juan trabaja > makes three hours that J. works > "John has been working for three hours" > > b) hacia tres horas que Juan trabajaba > make-IMPF three hours that J. work-IMPF > "John had been working for three hours, when . . ." > > c) trabajo aca desde 1995 > I-work here since 1995 > "I've been working here since 1995" > > I'd be happy to post a summary a summary of these responses if there is > sufficient interest. Thanks in advance. > > Mark Davies > > > ================================================================== > Mark Davies, Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics > Dept. of Foreign Languages, Illinois State University > Normal, IL 61790-4300 > > Voice:309/438-7975 email:mdavies at ilstu.edu > Fax:309/438-8038 http://138.87.135.33/~mdavies/ > ================================================================== > From bingfu at USC.EDU Wed Apr 22 02:59:54 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:59:54 -0700 Subject: query: prenominal and postnominal adjectives in Romance Message-ID: Dear netters! I am still organizing the final summary of correspondences to my previous query about left-right asymmetries in word order variations. I should say sorry for delay to those who have corresponded to me. As part of the survay, I need to know more data about the differences between prenominal and postnominal modifiers in Romance languages. The following is my issue and inquiry. In some languages, adjectives can occur both on the left side and the right side of the head N. The contrast between pre-N and post-N positions resembles the same pattern of that between pre- and post-demonstrative positions. For instance, according to Greenbef 1978, in Bedauye, a northern Cushitic language, the order is AN when the phrase is definite, but NA when it is indefinite. Since I do not have direct access to Bedauye, I would like know more about Romance languages, which,ormally allow both AN and NA orders. The following statistic by Klein-Andrew about Spanish also indicate that AN order is more correlated with definiteness than NA is. a. For NPs occurring as subjects, as compared to nonsubject NPs. (77% vs. 54%, meaning 77% of the subjects with pre-N modifiers while only 54% nonsubjects with pre-N modifiers) b. For NPs accompanied by the definite articles el, la, los, las, as compared with NPs accompanied by indefinite articles uno(s)/una(s) 'one/a (some)'. (58% vs. 23%) c. For proper nouns (names) as compared with common nouns. (93% vs. 56%) I tentatively classify the functional contrasts between prenominal and postnominal adjectives as the following four major types. 1. Purely referential vs. attributive French yhmple (1) a. un ancien roi a ancient kin 'a former king' b. un roi ancien a king ancient 'an old/ancient king' (2) a. une autre ?ducation a different education 'another education/ b. une ?ducation autre a education different 'a different education' (3) a. une certaine nouvelle a certain news 'a certain piece of news' b. une nouvelle certime a news certain 'an unquestionable piece of news' (4) a. la premi?re cause the first cause 'the first, initial cause' b. la cause premi?re the cause first 'the foremost, pjmary cause' 2. Specific vs. general (5) a. un jeune ministre a young minister 'a minister younger than most ministers' b. un ministre jeune a minister young 'a minister young in age' (6) a. heureux po?te happy poet 'happy post' b. po?te heureux poet happy 'successful poet' (7) a. vie ami old friend 'a long-standing friend' b. ami vie friend old 'old-aged friend' This type of contrast is similar to that between Russian long-form and short form predicate adjectives: (8) a. Studentka umnaja (Long form) student intelligent 'a student who is intelligent in her role as student' b. Studentka umna (Short form) student intelligent 'a student who is intelligent as a human in general' 3. subjective evaluative vs. objective property (9) a. un pauvre pays riche a poor country rich 'a poor rich country' (poor in value, but rich in wealth) b. un riche pays pauvre a rich country poor 'a rich poor country' (rich in value though poor in wealth) 4. Redundant pre-N adjectives (10) la negra noche the black night (11) dulce miel sweet honey Now, my questions are: 1. I need more data of type 4. Could you please provide some? 2. Do you know any other majort|pes of the contrast? I will incorporate the replies to my future summary of left-right asymmetries of world order variations. Thanks! Bingfu Lu USC From efiguero at CAPOMO.USON.MX Wed Apr 22 17:14:48 1998 From: efiguero at CAPOMO.USON.MX (Max Enrique Figueroa Esteva) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:14:48 -0600 Subject: query: prenominal and postnominal adjectives in Romance In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Guitart has commented, your query is indeed an interesting one. I'd just like -for the time being- to add this comment to yours: in Russian, the position of the adjective is prenominal when it "qualifies" the noun and is usually "postponed" (apparently, I should say) when its function is predicative: Umnaja studentka (A clever or bright she-student) Studentka umnaja (The she-student is clever or bright) [With a slight pause and a different intonational pattern] Occasionally, one may even find a written dash to indicate the pause and the int. pattern (also, of course, the "missing" copula jest'): Studentka _ umnaja This contrast, therefore, must be taken into consideration, along with the distinction -to which you correctly point- between long and short adjetives, especially since short adjectives are mostly associated with the predicative function (long ones, mostly with the "qualifying" function). Nota bene: I have said mostly, not necessarily. Best regards. Max On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, bingfu wrote: > Dear netters! > > I am still organizing the final summary of correspondences to my previous > query about left-right asymmetries in word order variations. I should say > sorry for delay to those who have corresponded to me. > > As part of the survay, I need to know more data about the differences > between prenominal and postnominal modifiers in Romance languages. > > The following is my issue and inquiry. > > In some languages, adjectives can occur both on the left side and > the right side of the head N. The contrast between pre-N and post-N > positions resembles the same pattern of that between pre- and > post-demonstrative positions. For instance, according to Greenbef 1978, > in Bedauye, a northern Cushitic language, the order is AN when the phrase > is definite, but NA when it is indefinite. Since I do not have direct > access to Bedauye, I would like know more about Romance languages, > which,ormally allow both AN and NA orders. > > The following statistic by Klein-Andrew about Spanish also > indicate that AN order is more correlated with definiteness than NA is. > > a. For NPs occurring as subjects, as compared to > nonsubject NPs. > (77% vs. 54%, > meaning 77% of the subjects with pre-N modifiers while only 54% > nonsubjects with pre-N modifiers) > > b. For NPs accompanied by the definite articles el, la, los, las, > as compared with > NPs accompanied by indefinite articles > uno(s)/una(s) 'one/a (some)'. > (58% vs. 23%) > > c. For proper nouns (names) as compared with common nouns. > (93% vs. 56%) > > I tentatively classify the functional contrasts between prenominal and > postnominal adjectives as the following four major types. > > 1. Purely referential vs. attributive > French yhmple > (1) a. un ancien roi > a ancient kin > 'a former king' > > b. un roi ancien > a king ancient > 'an old/ancient king' > > (2) a. une autre ?ducation > a different education > 'another education/ > > b. une ?ducation autre > a education different > 'a different education' > > (3) a. une certaine nouvelle > a certain news > 'a certain piece of news' > > b. une nouvelle certime > a news certain > 'an unquestionable piece of news' > > (4) a. la premi?re cause > the first cause > 'the first, initial cause' > > b. la cause premi?re > the cause first > 'the foremost, pjmary cause' > 2. Specific vs. general > > (5) a. un jeune ministre > a young minister > 'a minister younger than most ministers' > > b. un ministre jeune > a minister young > 'a minister young in age' > > (6) a. heureux po?te > happy poet > 'happy post' > > b. po?te heureux > poet happy > 'successful poet' > > (7) a. vie ami > old friend > 'a long-standing friend' > > b. ami vie > friend old > 'old-aged friend' > > This type of contrast is similar to that between Russian long-form and > short form predicate adjectives: > (8) a. Studentka umnaja (Long form) > student intelligent > 'a student who is intelligent in her role as > student' > b. Studentka umna (Short form) > student intelligent > 'a student who is intelligent as a human in > general' > > > 3. subjective evaluative vs. objective property > (9) a. un pauvre pays riche > a poor country rich > 'a poor rich country' > (poor in value, but rich in wealth) > > b. un riche pays pauvre > a rich country poor > 'a rich poor country' > (rich in value though poor in wealth) > > 4. Redundant pre-N adjectives > > (10) la negra noche > the black night > > (11) dulce miel > sweet honey > > Now, my questions are: > 1. I need more data of type 4. Could you please provide some? > > 2. Do you know any other majort|pes of the contrast? > > > I will incorporate the replies to my future summary of left-right > asymmetries of world order variations. > > Thanks! > Bingfu Lu > USC > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 03:44:04 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:44:04 -0700 Subject: Italian NP Message-ID: Dear Netters, Longogbardi 1994 provides the following paradigm. a. Il mio Giani ha finalmente telefonato the my Gianni finally called up b. *Mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato my Gianni finally called up c. Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato Gianni my finally called up d. Il Giani mio ha finalmente telefonato the Gianni my finally called up He accounts for the paradigm in formalist terms. My question is: 1. Is there any functional explanation? 2. Is there any meaning difference among a, c and d, especially between c and d. I will incorporate the responses into my final summary of the query about left-right asymmetries in word order variation. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 07:02:30 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:02:30 -0700 Subject: basic words for taste Message-ID: Dear netter, English seems to have the following basic words for taste: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, hot (chilli). Chinese has one more basic taste word: xian (with first tone), which describes the taste of monosodium glutamate or simple protein molecules. And 'xian' is regarded the primary criterion for tasty food. I would know how many basic taste words do you have in your language. I will make a summary later. Thanks! Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 13:27:03 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:27:03 -0700 Subject: MSG (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:22:26 -0700 (PDT) From: bingfu To: "Jane A. Edwards" Subject: re: MSG Dear Jane, Thanks for your informative message! 'Ajinomoto' is the first word that is corresponding to Chinese xian1. However, my impression is that it is not basic in terms of morpheme. it is a compound composed of 'origin/basis of taste'. In addition, it is not an adjecitve. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Jane A. Edwards wrote: > > > I wanted to mention the following also: > > 5. O'Mahony, Michael; Ishii, Rie. > A comparison of English and Japanese taste languages: Taste descriptive > methodology, codability and the umami taste. > British Journal of Psychology, 1986 May, v77 (n2):161-174. > > Abstract: In 3 studies, everyday taste descriptions for a range of stimuli were > obtained from 118 Americans (aged 18-62 yrs) and 222 Japanese (aged 18-70 > yrs), using a variety of stimuli, stimulus presentation procedures, and > response conditions. In English there was a tendency to use a > quadrapartite classification system: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The > Japanese had a different strategy, adding a 5th label: "Ajinomoto," > referring to the taste of monosodium glutamate. Stimulus presentation by > filter-paper or aqueous solution elicited the same response trends. > Language codability was only an indicator of degree of taste > mixedness/singularity if used statistically with samples of sufficient > size; it had little value as an indicator for individual Subjects. > > Best Wishes, > > -Jane Edwards > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 13:52:58 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:52:58 -0700 Subject: taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Frans, Thanks very much for your informative message and keep me informed of your study! By 'basic word', I mean of more frequency of use in daily life than etymological. For example, Chinese 'se4' and its English counterpart 'puckery/astrigent' are not basic because they are rarely used in food time. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Frans Plank wrote: > Dear Bingfu, > > the English taste adjective SALTY is not basic; it's transparently derived > from the noun SALT. > > Arguably STALE is a basic taste term in English. > > My associates and I have been working on taste and other perceptual > terminology for the last three or so years; we'll keep you informed about > our findings when they are in publishable form. Much has already been > written on this subject, though rarely from a serious crosslinguistic > perspective. > > Frans Plank > From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 15:27:40 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:27:40 -0700 Subject: smell and taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Manfred, Thannks for your wonderful observation and explanation, which is typically functional! Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Manfred Krifka wrote: > Dear all, > > Bingfu's question about basic taste words reminded me of the following > asymmetry between the uses of the basic predicates for tasting and smelling > that can be illustrated with English and German: > > German: > "Das schmeckt", lit. 'This tastes', i.e. this tastes good. > "Das riecht", lit. 'This smells', i.e. this smells bad. > > English: > "This is tasty", i.e. it tastes good. > "This is smelly", i.e. it smells bad. > > There is a ready explanation for this asymmetry: We have more control over > things that we put in our mouth than over the gaseous substances that enter > our nose. And we typically put good things into our mouth, hence the > tendency for the unmodified use of tasting predicates to denote something > good. I'm curious whether the same type of asymmetry manifests itself > cross-linguistically. > > > > > > ================================================================ > Manfred Krifka > Dept. of Linguistics, B5100 > University of Texas at Austin > Austin, TX 78712-1196, USA > phone: 1-512-4711701, fax: 4714340 > http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~krifka/ > From dcyr at YORKU.CA Thu Apr 23 15:35:51 1998 From: dcyr at YORKU.CA (Danielle Cyr) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:35:51 -0400 Subject: Taste in Mi'kmaq Message-ID: Dear Netters, Mi'kmaq has a word _gakkim?q_ which means "something that tastes in between sweet and sour" Danielle E. Cyr, Assoc. Prof. York University / French Studies-4700, Keele Toronto, Ontario Canada M3J 1P3 Tel. 1.416.736.2100 ext. 30180 Fax. 1.416.736.5734 From bingfu at USC.EDU Thu Apr 23 15:55:30 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:55:30 -0700 Subject: taste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Sorry, by 'basic' I mean both of the frequency used by dining talbe and 'primary'. 'Rich', like 'tasty, delicious' , is not primary, but composed of different primary tastes. Best Bingfu On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Randy Rightmire wrote: > > To your list of five basic taste terms in English (sweet, sour, salty, > bitter, hot/spicy) you might consider adding "rich" -- the taste > component added by fats and oils. I think this term meets your > "frequency" criterion for basicness. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Randall Rightmire > Department of Linguistics > University of California, Santa Barbara > Santa Barbara, CA 93106 > randy at vowel.ucsb.edu > http://ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu/~6500rig > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > From velazqum at GBMS01.UWGB.EDU Thu Apr 23 20:27:39 1998 From: velazqum at GBMS01.UWGB.EDU (Maura Velazquez-Castillo) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:27:39 -0600 Subject: Spanish linguistics lecturer Message-ID: >Non-tenure track position to begin in August 30, 1998. Ph.D preferred, ABD >considered. Responsibilities will include undergraduate teaching of all >levels of Spanish including two upper-level classes: "Advanced Grammar" and >"Spanish Phonetics". Native fluency expected along with documentation of >effective teaching. Course load is 12 credits per semester (4 courses). >Participation in program activities expected. Salary range: $28,000 to >$33,000 depending on qualifications. Send letter of application and resume >including three telephone numbers of professional references to Prof. >Cristina Ortiz, Humanistic Studies Department/Spanish, 2420 Nicolet Drive, >Green Bay, WI 54311; phone (920) 465-2450; fax (920) 465-2890 and e-mail >ortizc at uwgb.edu. Applications reviewed until position is filled. > >The University of Wisconsin--Green Bay is a comprehensive regional >university, widely recognized for its innovative interdisciplinary >curriculum. > >Under a court approved settlement agreement and Wisconsin Statutes, we are >required to provide a list of all nominees and applicants who have not >requested in writing that their identity not be revealed. Persons agreeing >to be final candidates will have their identity revelaled as a final >candidate. The university of Wisconsin--Green Bay is an equal opportunity, >afirmative action employer. > From bingfu at USC.EDU Sun Apr 26 21:33:04 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:33:04 -0700 Subject: query about "he painted the barn red" Message-ID: QUERY ABOUT CROSS-LINGUISTIC WORD ORDER IN THE EXPRESSION "He painted the barn red". Dear netters, In my previous query about left-right asymmetries in word order variation, I haven't mentioned the following one, which I would like to get more information now. Hawkins lists ten linear precedence asymmetries as follows in one of his recent papers ("Adjacency, linear precedence and theory of dependency strength", USC ms). 1.Languages with Wh-question words all prepose them, and none postpose them. 2. Topicalized XPs with gaps in a sister sentence generally precede the sentence. 3. Controller NPs generally precede empty controllee position in embedded VP structures. 4. Subjects generally precede objects. 5. Antecedents generally precede reflexive anaphors. ........ 9. In the expressions like "he painted the barn red", the predication categories regularly precede direct objects in subject-initial languages while follow in subject-final languages. 10. Negative polarity items prefer to follow the negation, shown in the opposition "I didn't see her on any visit" and "*On any visit I didn't see her". According to Hawkins, in all the above ten asymmetries, the general form is that A+B is productive while B+A is either completely unattested, very rare, or limited in its distribution. Since the form is not directly involved in a head word as reference point, these phenomena differ directly from, though indirectly related to, my lest-right asymmetries of word order variation, which necessarily makes particular reference to the head word. However, in type 9 asymmetries listed by Hawkins, if we change the relevant reference point 'matrix subject' to 'matrix main verb', then the phenomenon fall in the realm of my current topic. Indeed, there appears an asymmetry such as that in VO languages, predication expressions may or may not follow the direct object, but in OV languages predication expressions seem almost all to follow direct objects, as far as I know now, like in Japanese, Korean. In short, regarding the expressions like 'he painted the barn red", Verb-final construction is more stable than the corresponding verb-initial construction. I would like to make sure of it. Any suggestions on this issue will be most welcome and be incorporated in my future summaries. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From bingfu at USC.EDU Wed Apr 29 16:09:07 1998 From: bingfu at USC.EDU (bingfu) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:09:07 -0700 Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith Message-ID: Dear netters, In the sentence "J sent M a book for S" Who is the recipient and benefactive? Is the sentence ambiguous. Is the following sentence acceptable? "J sent M a book to S/her hotel" Are there any relevant discussions in the literature? How to translate these sentences in other your native languages? (For formalists): How do these sentences behave with respect to anaphoric and reflexivity? If responses are intersting enough, I will make a summary. Thanks Bingfu Lu USC From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Apr 29 22:45:09 1998 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:45:09 -0700 Subject: Job announcement Message-ID: DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS UNIVERSITY OF OREGON OPEN POOL ANNOUNCEMENT (#049805) The Department of Linguistics at the University of Oregon seeks applications for an open pool, for the 1998-1999 academic year. The Department occasionally needs to cover specific courses in our curriculum on short notice. All positions filled through th is advertisement are for temporary, part time and/or emergency hires. There will be no permanent positions filled through this pool. Teaching positions may be made for one to two courses a term and may be renewable up to but not over four terms dependin g on Departmental needs and funds. For teaching positions, candidates must show evidence of considerable teaching skill at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Qualifications: Ph.D. in Linguistics Duties: Up to two courses per term of hire (we are on a quarter system) Mentor students in research projects, as needed Participate in Department life, as appropriate For teaching and all other Linguistics applicants: Please submit a letter of application, vita, and names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of three references to: Open Pool 98-99, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403. For consideration for possible Fall 1998 appointments please apply by June 15. Web address: http://logos.uoregon.edu The University of Oregon is an AA/EO/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity. From kay at PARC.XEROX.COM Thu Apr 30 06:51:36 1998 From: kay at PARC.XEROX.COM (Martin Kay) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 23:51:36 PDT Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:09:07 PDT." Message-ID: In message you write: >Dear netters, > > In the sentence > > "J sent M a book for S" > >Who is the recipient and benefactive? >Is the sentence ambiguous. M is the recipient and S the adenificiary (the phrase or verb is benefactive!) > > Is the following sentence acceptable? > > "J sent M a book to S/her hotel" For me, the hotel is OK, but not S I have had difficulty persuading my conative speakers that a teacher might say to a pupil I want you to take me your mother this note Maybe the subscribers to this list are more liberal. --Martin Kay From geoffn at SIU.EDU Thu Apr 30 13:20:23 1998 From: geoffn at SIU.EDU (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:20:23 -0500 Subject: John sent Mary a book for Smith In-Reply-To: <98Apr29.235136pdt."198"@cky.parc.xerox.com> Message-ID: At 11:51 PM 4/29/98 PDT, Martin Kay wrote: >For me, the hotel is OK, but not S > >I have had difficulty persuading my conative speakers that a teacher might >say to a pupil > I want you to take me your mother this note >Maybe the subscribers to this list are more liberal. > >--Martin Kay > Precisely this issue came up in a basic syntax course I was teaching many years ago, using the first edition of the Radford text. An American Structuralist colleague (who shall remain nameless, but he was famous once) suggested that the reason that Radford (and I) could not accept: *Which car did you put Mary in the garage? was due to the fact that I (and Chomsky) came from an immigrant background (!!!!) and that we hadn't been exposed to the whole range of American dialects. It turned out that he could get an ethical dative reading for 'Mary' in that sentence. He had no coherent answer for why Radford had equal trouble with it, except, presumably for the fact that he had been somehow influenced by Chomsky. My colleague, who was from the hill country of Kentucky, claimed that such sentences were just fine. The rest of the class consisted of non-native speakers, who were, to put it mildly, bewildered. Geoff [Sociological footnote--I, like Chomsky, am Jewish. And, like him, my ancestors immigrated from Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. My colleague was, I assume, alluding to this fact--he claimed that most of generative grammar was based on such dubious grammaticality judgments. His comments speak for themselves.] [Grammatical footnote: His intended interpretation was Which car did you put in the garage for Mary.] Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, 62901 USA Phone: +618 453-3421 (Office) FAX +618 453-6527 +618 549-0106 (Home) From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Apr 30 16:38:54 1998 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 09:38:54 -0700 Subject: Visiting position at UOregon Message-ID: Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics The Linguistics Department at the University of Oregon announces the opening of a non- tenure related Visiting Assistant Professor position for the 1998-1999 academic year, potentially renewable pending funding, ranging from .50 to 1.0 FTE depending on Departmental needs. The Linguistics Department of Oregon enjoys a long tradition of work within the functionalist tradition, concentrating in descriptive work and field work and in empirical work on language use, discourse, and language acquisition. We invite applications from qualified individuals who can contribute to the functional and typological orientation of the department. Since the openings fill teaching gaps for faculty on leave, the candidate must show evidence of considerable teaching skill, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The successful applicant must be able to help cover our core curriculum, which includes phonetics, phonology, functional-typological morphosyntax, semantics, and second language acquisition and teaching. Additional specializations in discourse, psycholinguistics, and/or historical syntax and grammaticalization will be particularly attractive, depending on department needs. In addition, the successful applicant must have an active research profile and must be able to direct graduate student research. Qualifications: Ph.D. in Linguistics Duties: Up to two courses per term of hire (we are on a quarter system) Mentor students in research projects, as needed Participate in department life, as appropriate Please submit a letter of application, vita, and names, addresses, phone numbers and e- mail addresses of three references to: VAP Search Committee, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403. Applications must be received by June 1, 1998 to receive fullest consideration. Web Address: http://logos.uoregon.edu (Job Posting #7208)