From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Wed Mar 1 15:13:23 2000 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 09:13:23 -0600 Subject: looking for book(s) Message-ID: March 1, 2000 Dear Funknetters, I'm looking (with no success, so far) for copies of two of Dwight Bolinger's books: _Intonation and Its Parts_, and _Intonation and Its Uses_. It doesn't matter to me at all if they're battered or falling apart. The new copies at $55.00 each are way beyond the limits of my budget. If you have a copy of either one that you'd be willing to sell for a more reasonable sum plus shipping, please let me know. Thanks.... Suzette PS: My e-mail address has been changed to ocls at madisoncounty.net. From marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR Thu Mar 2 05:06:13 2000 From: marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR (hamideh marefat) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 08:36:13 +0330 Subject: Pinker's Broad Range and Narrow Range Rules Message-ID: Dear Members, I wanted to know what the difference between Pinker's BRR and NRR rules is.As for the Liking Rules he says they are universal. As for the NRR, he says they are language specific and the learner has to get them through the input. What is the status of the BRR? Does he make any claim about their being universal or language specific? Thank you in advance. hamideh From dryer at ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Fri Mar 3 17:26:15 2000 From: dryer at ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew S Dryer) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 12:26:15 -0500 Subject: form and function Message-ID: I thought it might be worth adding to the recent discussion regarding the need to identify and describe form independent of function the observation that while one might expect that such a practice would be normal for formal linguists, I think that there is a strong tendency for this NOT to be the case, at least with respect to analyses of languages other than English. Namely, I believe that there is a strong tendency (with exceptions) in formal work on languages other than English to assume forms and structures that are identified largely on the basis of their meaning. For example, the work on Mohawk by Mark Baker frequently assumes that Mohawk sentences have structures that look like the structures of the English translations, without much attempt to justify these structures in terms of evidence from Mohawk forms. This contrasts sharply with much of the work on Mohawk and other Iroquoian languages by Wally Chafe and Marianne Mithun, whose assumptions about how to describe these languages are firmly grounded in the system of forms that is specifically Iroquoian. Admittedly, there is much functional-typological work where linguists who are not experts on a language assume analyses that derive largely from the English translations, but I think that it is fair to say that functionally-oriented linguists working more intensively on specific languages are more likely than formal linguists to assume analyses motivated by forms within the language rather than to assume descriptions of form motivated largely by their English translations. Matthew Dryer From marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR Sat Mar 4 18:52:36 2000 From: marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR (hamideh marefat) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 22:22:36 +0330 Subject: Pinker's Broad Range and Narrow Range Rules Message-ID: Dear Members, I wanted to know what the difference between Pinker's BRR and NRR rules is.As for the Liking Rules he says they are universal. As for the NRR, he says they are language specific and the learner has to get them through the input. What is the status of the BRR? Does he make any claim about their being universal or language specific? Thank you in advance. hamideh Iran Tehran The University of Tehran P.O.Box: 11495 - 136 From kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU Sat Mar 4 19:27:32 2000 From: kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Keith Johnson) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 14:27:32 -0500 Subject: Summer session: Spoken Language in Context Message-ID: Summer 2000 at Ohio State University Spoken Language in Context: Methods and Models During July of 2000, the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University will be offering a unique combination of short courses aimed at exploring spoken language, with a particular focus on the empirical study of naturally-occurring speech through various instrumental, quantitative, and analytic means. Scholars, researchers (industry or academic), and students are invited to join us for an intense and rewarding summer session. Course offerings: Laboratory Phonology - Mary Beckman Quantitative Methods - Michael Broe Field Phonetics - Keith Johnson Historical Phonology - Brian Joseph & Richard Janda Practicum in English Intonation - Julia McGory The Pragmatics of Focus - Craige Roberts For more information see the website: http://ling.ohio-state.edu/SU2000 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Sun Mar 5 10:11:23 2000 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 05:11:23 EST Subject: form and function Message-ID: In a message dated 2/27/2000 3:31:40 PM, jaske at SALEM.MASS.EDU writes: <> One small and modest point about things that acquire functions different from those for which they were designed. It would seem that the more specialized a tool is, the more difficult it is to apply it to other functions. (I was given for example a set of antique little screwdrivers, designed for tiny old star-head screws, that are just too delicate and strangely shaped to use for much else and they are too short to stir drinks with.) Going beyond tools and intentionality, isolated species that specialize to a very specific environment sucessfully will become less adaptable to other environments. The observation may be obvious, but a corrolary of it may possibly not be. When structure becomes especially 'formalized' to a very specific function, and when that function recedes, what happens to the formality? I think that the answer is that we try to find another use for it, but if we don't the "formality" isn't necessarily junked. As part of some kind of a conservation of resource impulse, we feel compeled to retain it and put it in a drawer someplace where we keep such things and that we only open on odd occasions. These old special forms like my old screwdrivers, not being adaptable for anything, even with generous applications of duct tape, go into suspended animation. And sometimes we forget for what purpose those old screwdrivers were designed. On another list I've been involved in discussions about measuring the time of separation from the original proto-language among ancient IE languages. And there's a school of thought that consistently uses not the amount of innovations in those languages to measure time, but rather the most anachronic attributes - look-alike old cognates that didn't change very much as the languages hypothetically branched off. This strikes me as an odd way to measure time, because such forms are prima facie the least effected by time and change. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious by suggesting that the more specialized a structure is, the harder it is to find other functions for it. But maybe a little less obvious is the idea that such specialized formalities also die-hard - perhaps simply because of their uniqueness - and therefore give a false impression of structure without function (we don't remember what the original function was) and structure beyond time (the structure did not undergo change because it could not be adapted to a new function.) How much of those old vestigal formalities - for which we've forgotten the original functions - are part of our language seems like an interesting question. Just a very modest observation, humbly submitted. Regards, Steve Long From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sun Mar 5 17:41:05 2000 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 11:41:05 -0600 Subject: Requesting help on sources for semantics of Eng verb Message-ID: >Return-Path: bounce-lingfac-list-58554 at lists.services.wisc.edu >Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 10:08:26 -0600 >To: lingfac-list at lists.services.wisc.edu >From: "David S. Danaher" >Subject: Requesting help on sources for semantics of Eng verb >Reply-To: "David S. Danaher" > >Hello, everyone, > >My specialty is Slavic linguistics, and I'm currently working on research >on the semantics of iterative verb forms in Czech and Russian. I have been >trying to find some specialized studies on the expression of iteration in >English (for example, studies of the history and modern usage of the >English verbal paraphrase *used to*, as in "He used to visit San Francisco >2 or 3 times a year, but hasn't been there in a decade or more"), but all I >can come up with are general descriptions of the verb in English which tend >to have very little specific information on the usage of "used to" (for >example, how does it differ from "would" as a marker of iteration and what >is its discourse function?). > >I would be grateful for suggestions on sources from any English-oriented >linguists at UW. > >Thanks in advance for the help, > >David > >********************************* >David S. Danaher, Assistant Professor >Slavic Languages, 1432 Van Hise >University of Wisconsin-Madison >Madison, WI 53706 > > > > Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park Street University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Mon Mar 6 16:27:38 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 10:27:38 -0600 Subject: March LSA Bulletin Message-ID: >Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 07:47:22 -0500 >From: LSA >Subject: March LSA Bulletin > >The March 2000 LSA Bulletin is now available on the Linguistic Society >website: > > http://www.lsadc.org > From kfeld at CITRUS.UCR.EDU Mon Mar 6 17:52:36 2000 From: kfeld at CITRUS.UCR.EDU (David B. Kronenfeld) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 09:52:36 -0800 Subject: form and function Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, Anent form and function, in case you are interested in an offering from the perspective of anthropological work on word semantics, let me offer the following (thinly outlined from my 1996 Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers, OUP). The interactions are a bit complicated (for which I apologize), but my sense is that the complications are intrinsic to how we do it. In my theory a functional situation causes something (object, action, attribute, or whatever) to be talked of frequently enough to get its own word (Saussurean "sign"), and to be distinguished from otherwise similar things with which it gets contrasted. The "signified" part of the sign, the concept, is formed through the interaction of what's functionally important about the something with the form of its semantic relations and typical exemplars. The signified is linked to an abstract pragmatic schema of the relevant objects and relations of the functional situation. The primary (non-linguistic) reference of the signified is to a focal referent (or prototype). The focal referent is represented in a filled out form in the pragmatic schema--that is, with more detail than what is "essential" (in the sense of being actually necessary for effective functioning). In the absence of any other contextual information, discussions involving the sign will be taken by speakers as referring to the prototype. In ordinary, everyday usage, many of the things we speak of do not have their own words, and so get spoken of via other words; that is, words whose focal references are to something else get their ranges extended to cover these things. The focal referent is defined jointly in terms of the function served by whatever generated the sign and the form typically taken by whatever serves that function. The simplest extension is to other referents that fit the form definition and the function definition, but that differ from the prototype's detailed specification. Specifically "denotative" extension is to referents that fit the form definition, but that do not fit the functional one, while specifically "connotative" extension is to referents that fit the function definition but not the form one. Figurative extension is to referents outside the domain of the basic sign; figurative extension is a two stage process in which first a source domain is selected that carries useful information relative to the target domain and the communicative aims, and second the relations among entities (properties, or ...) in the target domain are matched with the pragmatic schema relations of the source domain in order to pick a sign/word which accomplishes the desired communication. In the book I offer reasons for speakers' assigning definitional primacy to form attributes, evinced inter alia via the application of hedges such as "is really..., but ..." to examples which fit the folk denotative definition but not the folk connotative one. Conversely, cases which fit connotatively but not denotatively are edged differently--"is not really ..., but is more like" or "...is used like/as if ..." In other work (outside the book) I have adduced empirical data showing the sharp difference between typicality and prototypicality, and in the book I discuss the reasons for the importance of the distinction. The traditional distinction between essential vs. accidental features is taken as applying to prototypic referents rather than extended ranges (which enables a sensible reconsideration of past negative evidence regarding essential attributes); the features of prototypic referents are split into those which are essential to the functional basis of the category (and to the category's semantic relations) vs. those which are common but unnecessary (or unimportant) features of typical exemplars. Changes over time in prototypic exemplars are considered in this connection. In sum, I want to suggest that the form/function distinction is important to our native speaker processing of at least some linguistic phenomena, but that form and function are tightly tied together in that processing. From this strongly functional point of view, even from an admittedly outsider's relationship to functional linguistics, I would like to see the discussion of the use of form (including formal characterizations of linguistic phenomena) separated from discussion of the uses or virtues of formal descriptions (aka formalist theories) of linguistic phenomena, and that separated in turn from any consideration of the particular uses or drawbacks of any one formalist theory or its adherents. I might add that my views on these matters come in part out of a long history of work on kinship terminological systems (not, I should hasten to add, what the book deals with), where the function vs. form or structure debate has been going on for a very long time--and maybe now is finally nearing some effective reconciliation. Thank you, David David B. Kronenfeld Phone Office 909/787-4340 Department of Anthropology Message 909/787-5524 University of California Fax 909/787-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email kfeld at citrus.ucr.edu http://www.ucr.edu/CHSS/depts/anthro/home.htm http://pweb.netcom.com/~fanti/david.html From Zylogy at AOL.COM Mon Mar 6 19:25:40 2000 From: Zylogy at AOL.COM (Jess Tauber) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 14:25:40 EST Subject: form and function Message-ID: Since everyone else is throwing their two cents in, I will as well: phonosemantics (my particular hobby-horse, as Ray Jackendoff has put it) is one area where form and function are as tightly interwoven as they can be within language structure. The underlying motivating iconicity is diagrammatic in nature, and should by all rights invite interest from Chomskyans. The asyntactic behavior of the most obviously transparent forms (should they be noticed at all in this most Saussurean of all possible worlds), however, means that they are off their radar screens, like in the story of the drunk looking for his keys on the street under the lamppost because the light is better there. Recent work by a variety of scholars is "illuminating" the various ways phonosemantically transparent forms work their very orderly way into the normal lexicon through typologically influenced, historically salient constructional reanalysis, and this should be of interest to functionalists of a panchronic bent, as well as to folks with optimality in their hearts. And there are pragmatic angles to consider as well, which should appeal to the loosier-goosier among functionalists. But you gotta get over de Saussure. Just because something gets repeated long enough (especially in your linguistic primer) doesn't make it true. And by the way- the man himself didn't believe in arbitrariness of the sign the way his posthumous editors would have you believe- he was in fact quite a collector of phonosemantically transparent forms. You've been had. Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Tue Mar 7 17:54:07 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 11:54:07 -0600 Subject: "forms" and "formalists" In-Reply-To: <38B86512.1435BF6E@canal-1.com.br> Message-ID: Sorry for the length of this posting, but ideas just kept coming until now, and I just want to send it before I spend any more time I can't afford on it. It seems to me that the recent debate/discussion on FUNKNET has sort of conflated the analytical category "form" with the social/professional category "formalist" (one heuristic definition of "formalist" might be 'one who would introduce him/herself with a phrase like "I am a formal syntactician"'). As I have reviewed the postings, three issues have stood out as dividing formalists and functionalists, (and creating internal divisions in both camps as well). I wanted to tease them apart and see if anyone else finds this a useful contribution. First, the analytical category of "form" is not homogenous, but consists of a scale from more concrete, lower-level forms (which I suspect most functionalists accept) to more abstract, sometimes theory-dependent categories of forms (which appear to be more to the taste of formalists). Second, formalists prefer to "explain" more concrete kinds of form with reference to these more abstract formal categories, whereas functionalists look for explanation outside the domain of form. Third, actual databases of concrete forms collected by different methods are not equally reliable, and the methods that appear to be favored by formalists are among the least reliable. None of these observations is original to me, but they seem to have gotten obscured in recent postings. I can accept that the first two differences might be matters of preference, but the third is really disturbing if true. While I have not really encountered much useful typological data in writings from the professional category of formalists (due in part to the small number of grammars), I do believe that it is impossible to do interesting linguistics without some concept of more concrete linguistic "form". I think TG's and Edith's postings told a story about such forms that makes a lot of sense, but that perhaps skirts the more divisive issue, which doesn't arise in earnest until you get beyond the simplest forms (like phoneme, or maybe morpheme). The problem comes when we begin to categorize "types" or "categories" of forms in individual languages, and then typologically. Even if we can agree on some important types (maybe agreement, parts of speech, phrase structure...), the more abstract and theory-dependent the formal categories get, the less likely you are to find widespread agreement that the category is central, or even relevant, to understanding languages/Language (grammatical relations, passive, or for more abstract and theory-dependent categories, maybe C-command, government, etc.). Some functionalists seem happy to just get a decent phonemic analysis so they can get reasonably accurate written representations of utterances; their interest in form stops once they have sufficiently discrete clusters of phonemes to ascribe meanings/functions to. Others want to go a little further up the abstractness scale in search of additional formal patterns that might be of interest (i.e. that might correlate with some function). For instance, I am very interested in formal properties usually ascribed to formal categories like parts of speech and grammatical relations. Examples of such patterns in the domain of "subject properties" would be control of coreference with reflexive possessor pronouns/prefixes, control of coreference with participants in adjacent/embedded clauses, or control of agreement (with auxiliaries, verbs, etc.). My main reason for being so interested is not anything inherent to the formal patterns, but it is the fact that these patterns evolve diachronically in ways that suggest their cognitive reality to speakers, and in ways that allow me to make much richer functional analyses of the processes of grammaticalization (which, among other things, could be characterized as change in formal category membership). As to the second issue, whereas formalists utilize membership in an abstract formal category as an "explanation" for formal behavior, functionalists will look for a function-based alternative or derive a function-based historical story that creates (and thus "accounts for") the modern patterns of formal behavior. For instance, everyone agrees that the formal category of gender/number suffixes exists in Romance languages, but not everyone agrees that their distribution is best explained as a consequence of nominal membership in a formal gender/number category (although the huge majority can be explained in this way, a significant number -- as well as certain types of counter-examples -- indicate a semantic basis to gender/number as well). As your categories get more abstract (e.g. C-command as an "explanation" for the domain of control of a reflexive pronoun), you won't even get a hearing from most functionalists. Returning to "subject properties", I don't need to refer to (or even to have) a formal category of "subject" in order to describe these patterns, and I would reject out-of-hand the suggestion that the formal category of subject in any way motivates or explains these patterns. But when the subject properties all line up to point to the same participant, it sure makes the existence of a formal category of subject look plausible. Of course, when they don't all line up, the formal category breaks down and people that insist on finding a "subject" in every language/construction type either have to switch to nonformal criteria to define subject (Givón, Dixon), select some (nonuniversal) subset of the criteria to define subject (RG), or decide that "subject" is not a universal category (Dryer). But leaving aside the issue of the abstract formal category "subject", and whether such a category might be useful in describing languages, I don't see that it is possible to question the *existence* of coreference and agreement patterns in speech -- these are a more abstract type of "form", but still not particularly theory-dependent. The problem is collecting sufficiently reliable samples of speech to verify the nature of such patterns in individual languages. This is the third issue that is intertwined in our debates, and I think it is the most serious issue, as it speaks to the legacy we leave in our descriptive work. In my experience to date, elicitation is a reasonably reliable way to generate a corpus of utterances regarding simple morphology and phrase structure in relatively simple clauses, but as the sentences get longer and the morphology gets more complex (i.e. when one needs to code concepts that do not obviously belong to the simple clause), the elicited corpus gets less and less reliable -- the results are often not replicable across what appears to be a relatively homogenous population of speakers, and at least in the work I'm familiar with first-hand from South America, different linguists record different sorts of utterances/grammaticality judgements, even from the same speakers. I have had the least success replicating simple grammaticality judgements about utterances cooked up for the purpose of testing my ongoing hypotheses about abstract patterns like complex coreference. Sociolinguistics research has found a parallel decline in reliability as people switch from producing language to reflecting on language (cf. especially Labov's publications in the mid-70s). I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language. I have had conversations with some friendly formalists who do not accept this characterization, either of their databases or their methods, but my impression remains strong that the majority of data actually published in formalist syntax articles are of this type. Perhaps this impression reveals my theoretical bias, as a simple review of the examples in any article does not reveal the methods by which each example was collected. Would anyone else be interesting in seeing a session on fieldwork methodology someday at a conference that is attended by both formalists and functionalists, in which fieldworkers of both persuasions might really describe their data collection procedures, the makeup of their database, and the concerns they feel (if any) about the reliability of their data? best, Spike P.S. Speaking of Labov and methodology, I would be interested to know if anyone in formalist linguistics has ever refuted (or even addressed) the main points of Labov's (1975) crushing indictment of grammaticality judgements produced by linguistically sophisticated native speakers (especially by native speaker linguists!). From nrude at ucinet.com Tue Mar 7 22:51:30 2000 From: nrude at ucinet.com (Noel Rude) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 14:51:30 -0800 Subject: Medium, Message, AND Code? Message-ID: Friends and neighbors, To add to all the wonderful insight (with me it's likely to be contributing to the confusion), let me mumble a moment on our formalist-functionalist divide. Let me suggest that--besides temperament--our schism is rooted in Aristotle vs. Plato (as someone we know has already suggested). Let me also suggest that both philosophies miss one side or the other in what is really a tripartite beast--its three sides being the Medium and the Message AND the Code. And let me illustrate with those old physics and biology metaphors you've heard about. Platonic dualism lived on in physics where mathematics was immutable and eternal and the laws (as they began to be uncovered) were believed to derive directly from that heavenly realm. There was no need for empiricism (this attitude has persisted among a number of theoretical physicists--even Einstein). Nevertheless it seems to be pretty universally accepted today that the laws and constants are not necessary but rather contingent. It is often said that the laws and constants are written in the language of mathematics. And so our physics metaphor becomes complete when matter-energy is the medium, the laws and constants are the message, and mathematics is the code. Biology, on the other hand, has long been Aristotelian, and accordingly it has emphasized the two sides of the picture which--in our analogy--are the medium and the message (form being the medium and function the message). It was not always fully appreciated that biological information cannot be transferred from parent to child without a language. But this Mendel and later Watson and Crick have done much to remedy, and so now biologists also study a code. So how about us? Well, maybe the analogy isn't perfect, but the formalists are more the Platonic dualists with their fixation on the medium (phonology) and the code (syntax). They tend to ignore the message--in fact I think I've even heard them argue that language evolved BEFORE it found a function. But then sometimes I think some of us tend to be narrow Aristotelians who see only the medium and the message and forget the code. Maybe that explains why some of us keep saying that there is no grammar. From the larger philosophical perspective, I think, it has to be agreed that any real information system must be more than just form and function. Maybe the formalists aren't on the right track, etc., etc., but maybe we should not forget that Language requires a code or grammar with its own hierarchies and categories. At least that's what I'm suggesting. What do you think? Noel From dziegeler at YAHOO.COM Wed Mar 8 01:56:55 2000 From: dziegeler at YAHOO.COM (debra ziegeler) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 17:56:55 -0800 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Dea Funknetters, It is difficult to resist a comment on Spike Gildea's interesting note on grammaticality judgements: "I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language." While I have no comment on the way in which formalist theory makes use of grammaticality judgements, I do believe this type of data can be useful, in some way or other, to functionalists as well. First, it is often the case that grammaticality judgements can indicate roughly the distribution of a morphological feature across a population, and given a sample of speakers large enough and representative enough, can give some clue as to patterns of synchronic grammaticalisation (though these would necessarily have to be compared with actual production levels). Statistically, though, they provide interesting data. Second, grammatical intuitions often can be found to correlate very precisely with diachronic phenomena, amd make for a fascinating ground for observing grammaticalisation processes in the psychology of the individual speaker. Again, in a large and representative population of speakers, the data can be examined for levels of grammaticalisation at a single time point across a community. The problem naturally concerns the fact that grammaticality judgements only concern the comprehension of utterances. However, they can provide a useful means of testing the presence and distribution in a population of pragmatic inferences and conversational implicatures, phenomena which may require some means of elicitation in order to observe them without interference from the subjective analysis of the observer. Finally, even the production of specific target items may be successfully accomplished by the use of more creative, naturalistic methods of elicitation. Given a typical set of circumstances in which a speaker may have no option but to use the item required, the observer has already provided the functional setting for use of the form, and the speaker may have no idea of the linguistic objectives of the task. Furthermore, if the speaker IS unaware of the task objectives, the data obtained will not be likely to be at the level of the sentence, but at the level of the utterance, however much that does or does not comprise a sentence form. Debra Ziegeler __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From dziegeler at YAHOO.COM Wed Mar 8 07:10:06 2000 From: dziegeler at YAHOO.COM (debra ziegeler) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 23:10:06 -0800 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, It is difficult to resist a comment on Spike Gildea's interesting note on grammaticality judgements: "I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language." While I have no comment on the way in which formalist theory makes use of grammaticality judgements, I do believe this type of data can be useful, in some way or other, to functionalists as well. First, it is often the case that grammaticality judgements can indicate roughly the distribution of a morphological feature across a population, and given a sample of speakers large enough and representative enough, can give some clue as to patterns of synchronic grammaticalisation (though these would necessarily have to be compared with actual production levels). Statistically, though, they provide interesting data. Second, grammatical intuitions often can be found to correlate very precisely with diachronic phenomena, amd make for a fascinating ground for observing grammaticalisation processes in the psychology of the individual speaker. Again, in a large and representative population of speakers, the data can be examined for levels of grammaticalisation at a single time point across a community. The problem naturally concerns the fact that grammaticality judgements only concern the comprehension of utterances. However, they can provide a useful means of testing the presence and distribution in a population of pragmatic inferences and conversational implicatures, phenomena which may require some means of elicitation in order to observe them without interference from the subjective analysis of the observer. Finally, even the production of specific target items may be successfully accomplished by the use of more creative, naturalistic methods of elicitation. Given a typical set of circumstances in which a speaker may have no option but to use the item required, the observer has already provided the functional setting for use of the form, and the speaker may have no idea of the linguistic objectives of the task. Furthermore, if the speaker IS unaware of the task objectives, the data obtained will not be likely to be at the level of the sentence, but at the level of the utterance, however much that does or does not comprise a sentence form. Debra Ziegeler _________________________________ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From lakoff at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 8 08:19:25 2000 From: lakoff at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (George Lakoff) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 01:19:25 -0700 Subject: Senses of "formal" Message-ID: Hi, I've been observing the discussion of what "formal" means. I generally draw a three-way distinction: 1. Pertaining to form. 2. Formal systems, in the technical mathematical sense. This is the sense intended in the Chomskyan tradition and more recent variants on that tradition. 3. A new sense coming out of work on the Neural Theory of Language, referring to neural parameterizations that can be given a symbolic notation useful in linguistic descriptions and natural language processing. Sense 1: Pertaining to form. Meaning is expressed in terms of form; e.g., phonological and morphological form, surface orderings, agreement, and so on. This is just part of language. All serious linguists have to describe how form and meaning are related. This has nothing to do with "formal linguistics" per se. Sense 2: At the beginning of Syntactic Structures, Chomsky sets out a metaphor characterizing what has commonly come to be called "formal linguistics." Chomsky's Metaphor: Sentences are strings of abstract symbols. A language is a set of such strings. A grammar is an algorithmic mechanism for generating such sets of strings of abstract symbols. Chomsky's Metaphor had many entailments: 1. Autonomy: Within a mathematical formal system, generative rules or other algorithmic mechanisms can only refer to the abstract symbols inside the system. This eliminates many things from the content of syntactic rules: the meaning of the symbols (all of semantics and conceptual systems), the use of the symbols in context (all of pragmatics), communicative function (old and new information, topicality, etc.), degrees of conventionality (and hence, grammaticalization in process), anything from the sensory-motor system, cognitive mechanisms, memory, anything at the neural level, and so on. 2. Data restrictions: Any real linguistic phenomena having to do with the causal effect of any of the above on the distribution of surface forms cannot be characterized within a formal system proper, unless the information is somehow coded in appropriate symbolic terms. An example of such a coding was the coding of minuscule aspects of semantics and pragmatics in terms of logical forms introduced by myself and Jim McCawley back in Generative Semantics days and since adopted by Chomsky and others. 3. Disembodied theoretical constraints: Ideas like "generative power" only make sense within Chomsky's Metaphor. Thus, arguments like "such and such a form of rule is too powerful" only makes sense using Chomsky's Metaphor. I gave up on Chomsky's Metaphor back in the 60's, because I saw language as a product of embodied human minds, not disembodied formal systems in the methematical sense. However, before then, I and many of my close friends learned a lot about language using that metaphor, as limiting and distorting as I now think it is. Smart people with good linguistic intuitions can do interesting research despite that metaphor. Sense 3: NTL formal notation One of the insights coming out of the neural theory of language, is the distinction made by Feldman between dynamic neural processes and the neural parameterizations that trigger them. This has enabled our group at ICSI in Berkeley to develop symbolic notations for both parameterizations and dynamic processes that can be mapped to neural models (structured, not PDP). We are developing notations for parameterizations of cognitive semantics - image-schemas, force-dynamic schemas, frames, metaphorical maps, blends, and so on. Ben Bergen is in the process of developing such notations for phonology and morphology. We see grammar as consisting of constructions - neural maps connecting parameterized semantics and parameterized phonology, with constraints provided by all aspects of context, background knowledge, and communicative function. In short, grammar is in the connections. NTL no autonomous syntax and doesn't miss it. Grammatical generalizations, so far as we can tell to date, can be stated perfectly with without it. And a neural learning theory is being developed to accommodate real acquisition data. These symbolic notations are constrained in three ways: They must be reducible to plausible neural models. They must be able to state real linguistic generalizations. They must be able to be used in natural language processing models for computers. We call these notations "formalisms." They are precise - precise enough to be used in natural language computing. Yet that are capable of representing semantics, pragmatics, context, communicative function, iconicity, probabilistic phenomena, degrees of entrenchment (and hence grammaticalization in process), and so on. NTL formalisms differ in a deep way from the formalisms used in formal systems. They are not constrained by purely formal ideas like generative power. The constraints on such systems are biological; they have to be reducible to neural systems. They are embodied, not disembodied. They have to be grounded ultimately in the sensory-motor system or other bodily systems. What this shows is that the issue in "formalism" is not whether linguistic form must be described; it must. It is not whether precise notations can be used in real linguistic descriptions; they can. The issue, at least for us, is whether we accept Chomsky's Metaphor and all the limitations that go with it (we don't), or whether we seek to create a precise way of symbolically notating both the static neural parameterizations and the neural dynamics in such a way that we accurately characterize real natural language. I hope this helps a bit to clarify issues. George -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 6618 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Wed Mar 8 16:00:21 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 10:00:21 -0600 Subject: grammaticality judgements In-Reply-To: <20000308071006.4001.qmail@web1104.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Two quick points: (1) I have received a number of requests for the reference to Labov (1975). It is essentially an expansion of several ideas in Chapter 8 in his 1972 textbook on sociolinguistics: Labov, William. 1975. Empirical foundations of linguistic theory. The scope of American linguistics, ed. by Robert Austerlitz: 77-133. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press. (2) I agree with Debra Ziegeler's comments on the usefulness of *reliable* grammaticality judgements. The very process of testing grammaticality judgements on a representative sample of speakers increases the probability that reliable judgements will be filtered out from spurious judgements. My original concern was that many fieldworkers -- who do not themselves speak the language they are trying to describe or theorize about -- might rely excessively on a single speaker for all their judgements, and might not therefore discover which judgements represent real speech patterns in some community and which represent artifacts of a forced judgement task in the elicitation context. As sentences being tested become increasingly abstract and unlikely ever to be uttered, my concern is that the latter becomes more common. Of course, even artifacts of forced judgement tasks can be replicable, or if there are only two outcomes (yes/no), can be taken to represent a dialectal variation, at least increasing the number of speakers involved is an important improvement on the model given in most field methods classes, where you work with a single speaker's intuitions (a model which is explicitly endorsed by folks who just want to describe "my own dialect/the dialect of my informant", and who thereby sidestep the issue of whether variation might represent real dialect distinctions or just spurious responses to the grammaticality judgement task). Of course, I have never tried to quantify this effect. I have the anecdotal evidence based on the experience that everyone in field lingusitics must have had, where a native speaker changes his/her mind (sometimes multiple times) about whether something could in fact be said, or what it would mean if it could be said. I also have the anecdotal evidence that on more than one occasion, after I developed a hypothesis based on examples from a single, relatively sophisticated speaker (read: experienced linguistic informant), I was unable to get consistent agreement on critical examples in back-translation questionnaires that I ran by other speakers from the same communities. This latter step has since become a core aspect of my field methodology, as I no longer trust examples that have not been produced or back-translated without hesitation by at least a half-dozen speakers. It might be interesting to compose actual quantifiable experiments to test these anecdotal claims: Are there types of sentences that yield less reliable judgements? Are there types of elicitation that yield less reliable databases of utterances? Participant observer "enriched" elicitation (also suggested in Labov 1975 as a way to add statistically rare examples to a corpus of recorded 'natural' speech) is nice if you are fluent enough to avoid foreigner talk data, where speakers adjust their language to accommodate your perceived weakness as an interlocutor. I never have been. I have succeeded a couple of times in getting such examples by working with a monolingual speaker and a bilingual speaker at the same time, feeding the bilingual speaker general questions that ought to lead towards certain types of constructions and then recording their entire interactions. I have also recorded the interactions when presenting sentences to a group for grammaticality judgements, or for fine-grained semantic distinctions. While the resulting answers are interesting, the recorded texts are still more interesting as a genre of speech that is very rich in the language of conflict and resolution. But such texts take a hell of a long time to transcribe and gloss... Spike From MILLSCR at UCMAIL.UC.EDU Wed Mar 8 17:03:55 2000 From: MILLSCR at UCMAIL.UC.EDU (Mills, Carl (MILLSCR)) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 12:03:55 -0500 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Debra Ziegeler and Spike Gildea have provided some intelligent comments on, and questions about grammaticality judgments. Having been concerned with grammaticality and acceptability judgments for 30 years, I have a few more comments. First, when the reliance of formalists on grammaticality judgments is questioned, formalists are apt to reply that work by formalists have established the "robustness" of such judgments. Works most often cited are Schutze, Carson T. 1996. The empirical base of linguistics: grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. U Chicago. Cowart, Wayne. 1997. Experimental syntax: applying objective methods to sentence judgements. Sage. These are fine books, as far as they go, but I would argue that the robustness of grammaticality judgments that the authors see lies more in the eyes of formalist linguists than in real judgments by real language users. Part of the problem with grammaticality judgments stems from the fact that formalists tend to read only other formalists. In 1970 Thomas Bever published an extensive, and as far as I know, unanswered critique of grammaticality judgments. My own work on grammaticality and acceptability judgments began with my dissertation (1975), continued with a volume from the Fourth Nordic Linguistics Conference (1978), and has appeared from time to time in selected volumes of the Lacus Forum. And of course, the master Bolinger used to routinely give papers showing that sentences starred by formalists could be perfectly acceptable if given the proper context. But anyone looking at the indexes of Newmeyer's fine book, Language form and language function, will note that there are no references to grammaticality judgments, acceptability judgments, or the works of Cowert or Schutze. If pressed, formalists tend to respond to problems with such judgments by asserting (correctly) that "grammaticality" is not the same thing as "acceptability." Such defenses of grammaticality judgments then go on to assert that "grammaticality" is a "theory internal" matter and not subject to correction based on acceptability judgments. What such a view means for the philosophy of science is truly mind boggling. Finally regarding Spike's calls for experiments: >It might be interesting to compose actual quantifiable experiments to test >these anecdotal claims: Are there types of sentences that yield less >reliable judgements? Are there types of elicitation that yield less >reliable databases of utterances? I do not know about tests of elicitation procedures, but those of us who use acceptability judgments have all noted quantitative evidence (distribution of responses, for example) that the reliability of such judgments is rather variable. Carl Mills -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 13 18:04:57 2000 From: kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Keith Johnson) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 13:04:57 -0500 Subject: Postdoc position announcement Message-ID: POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITION IN SPOKEN LANGUAGE GENERATION AND UNDERSTANDING We invite applications for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher with a specialization in phonetics and phonology. The position is for one year with the possibility of one additional year, pending funding. The researcher will be expected to take a leadership role in the phonological and phonetic analysis of a corpus of conversational speech. Candidates should hold a PhD in linguistics. Essential knowledge and experience for the position are familiarity with Windows-based and Unix/Linux-based operating systems and some knowledge of computational speech analysis. The starting date can be as early as July 15 but no later than September 15, 2000. Starting salary for the twelve-month appointment is $28,000 plus benefits. Please send a cover letter, curriculum vitae, representative samples of published or unpublished work, and three letters of recommendation to the address below. Review of applications will begin April 17, 2000. The Ohio State University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. Women, minorities, Vietnam-era veterans, disabled veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. See http://vic.psy.ohio-state.edu for additional information about the position and the project. Professor Elizabeth Hume Spoken Language Generation and Understanding Department of Linguistics Ohio State University 222 Oxley Hall Columbus, Ohio 43210 Address queries to Elizabeth Hume (ehume at ling.ohio-state.edu) or Mark Pitt (pitt.2 at osu.edu). From matmies at ling.helsinki.fi Thu Mar 16 10:27:50 2000 From: matmies at ling.helsinki.fi (Matti Miestamo) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 12:27:50 +0200 Subject: Calls: Parts of Speech Message-ID: (Apologies if you get multiple copies of this message) CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on *** PARTS OF SPEECH IN AND ACROSS LANGUAGES *** to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 17-19, 2000. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in problems relating to parts of speech. We invite papers addressing general typological questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Possible themes include the universality of the noun/verb distinction, (the grammaticalization of) adpositions, the status of particles and interjections in grammar and discourse. Other topics relating to parts of speech are equally welcome. Invited speakers: Leon Stassen (University of Nijmegen) Anneli Pajunen (University of Turku) Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by other participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Theme sessions Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is May 15, 2000. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address: . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. E-mail submissions are strongly recommended. If, however, you send your abstract by ordinary mail, please provide an e-mail address as a contact address. Participants will be notified about acceptance by June 5, 2000. Registration: The deadline for registration and payment for all participants is June 21, 2000. Register by e-mail to the address above. Registration fees: -general: FIM 200 -members of the association: FIM 100 -undergraduate and MA students free -send by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY)/Symposium. When paying from abroad, please pay via Eurogiro or SWIFT to our account (number 800013-1424850) with Leonia Bank plc, Helsinki, Finland. SWIFT-address: PSPBFIHH; Telex 121 698 pgiro sf -In case of technical difficulty, payment in cash upon arrival is also accepted. Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Matti Miestamo, Dept of General Linguistics, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Marja Pälsi, Vironkatu 8 B 33, FIN-00170 Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, Sörnäisten rantatie 25, 00500 Helsinki, e-mail: From STRECHTER at CSUCHICO.EDU Fri Mar 17 18:05:27 2000 From: STRECHTER at CSUCHICO.EDU (Trechter, Sara) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 10:05:27 -0800 Subject: 2, one-year positions Message-ID: > The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill > a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professor position in > Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL. This is a > leave replacement position. Teaching Load is four courses per semester. > Responsibilities: Teaching ESL (specifically ESL for Academic Purposes), > and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods > courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon departmental > needs and background of individual. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in > Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong > linguistics background). ABD will be considered. Teaching experience in > EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs in the US or ESL in a non-US > setting, or ESL/bilingual programs in K-12 schools in the US. A > demonstrated record of teaching and scholarship, and commitment to ESL > teaching. Salary will be based on qualifications and experience. Position > begins Fall 2000. As a university that educates students of various > ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and > seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. To ensure > full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send > letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., > California State University, Chico, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an > EEO/AA/ADA employer. > > The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill > a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professor position in > linguistics. This is a leave replacement position. Teaching load is four > courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching introduction to > linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and > Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon > departmental needs and background of individual. Candidates should be > knowledgeable about and interested in working with California's diverse > student population. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in linguistics (ABD > will be considered). Ability and experience in teaching both introduction > to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories > and Methods courses, with a demonstrated record in teaching and > scholarship. Teaching experience in credential or ESL teacher training > programs is desirable. As a university that educates students of various > ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and > seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. Salary will > be based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. To > ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. > Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., > California State University, Chico, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an > EEO/AA/ADA employer. > From pwd at RICE.EDU Sun Mar 19 01:22:05 2000 From: pwd at RICE.EDU (Philip W Davis) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 19:22:05 -0600 Subject: Lecturer at Rice University,Houston,TX,USA Message-ID: Rice University Lecturer Department of Linguistics The Department of Linguistics, Rice University, seeks a visiting Lecturer for the AY 2000-2001. Ph.D. required. We are a functionally oriented department, and we are looking for a recent Ph.D. who shares that approach to language. Course load is two per semester. Possible courses are Linguistic Analysis, Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Discourse Analysis, and Morphology. Salary commensurate with experience. For full consideration, reply by April 15 with three letters of reference to: Chair, Department of Linguistics MS23, 6100 Main St., Rice University, Houston, TX 77005. E-mail: ling at rice.edu. AA/EOE. From hilaryy at RUF.RICE.EDU Mon Mar 20 06:10:38 2000 From: hilaryy at RUF.RICE.EDU (Hilary Young) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 00:10:38 -0600 Subject: Rice Symposium Message-ID: Rice University's department of linguistics is pleased to announce the Eigth Biennial Rice Symposium on Linguistics to be held at Rice University (Houston, Tx) April 6-9, 2000. This year's theme is 'Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation in the Languages of Central and South America'. For general information and to see the symposium program, go to www.ruf.rice.edu/~hilaryy/symp.html. For more information, please contact Hilary Young at hilaryy at rice.edu. From johannes at COMPLING.HU-BERLIN.DE Mon Mar 20 08:18:23 2000 From: johannes at COMPLING.HU-BERLIN.DE (Johannes Heinecke) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:18:23 +0100 Subject: English Linguistics at Potsdam (fwd) Message-ID: Professor (C4) for Modern English (= "Englische Sprache der Gegenwart") The Institute for English and American Studies of the University of Potsdam (Potsdam, Germany) has a vacancy in English linguistics to announce. This position (one professor plus two assistants) is responsible for instruction in the existing M.A. and pre-service teacher training programs in the areas: English phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicology, and varieties of English. Applicants should have demonstrable research exper-tise in at least two of the above-mentioned areas, with an emphasis on the structures and functions of modern English. Also desirable are demonstrated research capacity in one of the areas of specialisation of the Institute. Please see the Institute's home-page for further information: http://www.rz.uni.potsdam.de/u/anglistik/index.htm In addition to teaching and research duties, the successful candidate will participate in academic administration, and is expected to co-operate with other institutes and interdisciplinary centres of the University http://www.uni-potsdam.de/over/homegd.htm Employment preconditions are laid out in paragraph 38 of the Branden-burg Hochschulgesetz. These include a completed doctorate in a relevant area and additional demonstrated research ability equivalent to the German Habilitation (or "second dissertation"). While the exact definition of "equivalent" qualification will be decided by the hiring committee, foreign applicants should understand that minimally qualified German applicants will have two book publications (the D.Phil. dissertation and the Habilitation dissertation). Foreign applicatns will therefore be expected to have publications in addition to the doctoral dissertation. The University of Potsdam encourages good teaching. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate teaching ability. The University strongly encourages applications from female candidates and individuals with physical disabilities. Fluency in German from foreign applicants is expected. Persons interested in responding to this notice should consult the official German-language advertisement which appeared in the Ausschreibungsdienst des Deutschen Hochschulverbandes (Tue, 14 March 2000): DHV-SPRACH_UND_KULTURWISSENSCHAFTEN-L at listserv.gmd.de The deadline for applications is April 28, 2000. Applications should be sent to: Rektor der Universitaet Potsdam, Postfach 60 15 53, D-14 415 Potsdam, Germany. Applicants with additional questions should direct them to the chair of the committee, Professor Dr. Hildegard L.C. Tristram, tristram at rz.uni-potsdam.de -- Johannes Heinecke heinecke at compling.hu-berlin.de From gthurgood at csuchico.edu Thu Mar 23 18:06:13 2000 From: gthurgood at csuchico.edu (Graham Thurgood) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:06:13 -0800 Subject: temporary job openings Message-ID: 1. The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill a one- year, full-time temporary sabbatical replacement position in Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong linguistics background). This is a leave replacement position. Teaching Load is four courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching ESL (specifically ESL for Academic Purposes), and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon departmental needs and the background of the individual. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong linguistics background). ABD will be considered. Teaching experience in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs in the US or ESL in a non-US setting, or ESL/bilingual programs in K-12 schools in the US. A demonstrated record of teaching and scholarship, and commitment to ESL teaching. Rank and salary are based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. As a university that educates students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. To ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., California State University, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an EEO/AA/ADA employer. 2. The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professorship in linguistics. This is a leave replacement position. Teaching load is four courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching introduction to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon department needs and background of individual. Candidates should be knowledgeable about and interested in working with California's diverse student population. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in linguistics (ABD will be considered). Ability and experience in teaching both introduction to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses, with a demonstrated record in teaching and scholarship. Teaching experience in credential or ESL teacher training programs is desirable. As a university that educates students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. Rank and salary are based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. To ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., California State University, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an EEO/AA/ADA employer. From msoto at SERVIDOR.UNAM.MX Fri Mar 24 20:27:20 2000 From: msoto at SERVIDOR.UNAM.MX (Dr. Ricardo Maldonado) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:27:20 -0600 Subject: Time and Spanish Message-ID: A few comments about Carmen Bretones' insight of whether the observer can move towards a future time. 09:39 AM 18/03/00 -0800, ha escrito: >Dear Vyv, >>Is the following sentence a grammatical sentence in Spanish? 1)nos estamos acercando a la Navidad > >Yes, it is grammatical. >You could say, for example, "nos estamos acercando a tu casa(spatial >location)" o "nos estamos acercando a un momento culminante(temporal >location)". > >>Essentially I'm trying to find out if it is possible in Spanish to >>conceptualise the observer as moving towards a future time. >> 2>*Avanzamos hacia la Navidad 3>*Nos aproximamos a la Navidad 4>*Nos movemos hacia la Navidad 5>*Vamos hacia la Navidad 6>*Nos acercamos a la Navidad >These examples do not sound right, but I am afraid that many people would >consider it as due to stylistics rather than to grammar. >In general terms, the correct expression for the general temporal location >"Christmas time" would be "se acerca la Navidad" meaning that the period >of the year called Christmas is coming. In this case, it is implied that >Christmas "se acerca" (comes closer) to the present time, the time in which >"we" are now. I believe that given the appropriate context all those examples can be just fine. That's the kind of thing we here in political discourse all the time. Change the word Navidad 'Christmas' to a real goal in time like "un futuro mejor = a better future". Examples 2-6 become perfect. >In Spanish you would never say "se NOS está acercando la navidad" >(Christmas is getting closer TO US). Here I disagree with Carmen. Spanish is quite flexible to create this type of metaphor, given the right context. Consider the case where I need to buy Christmas presents for all the family and I have been unable to get enough money to do so, then it is perfectly fine to say "se me acerca peligrosamente/amenazantemente la navidad" "Christmas is getting closer to me dangerously/ dearlingly" A phrase like "Se nos avecinan tiempos difíciles = Hard times are approaching/coming to us" is not only possible but quite common. Thus imposing agency or activity on time is perfectly possible. Notice that in most cases the sentence is construed with the middle clitic which in motion verbs depicts an incohative construal (Further analysis of what I have called "Dynamic SE" can be seen either in my book "A media voz" (1999) or in a previous paper Maldonado 1992 "Dynamic construals in Spanish" sorry for the reference) A secnd point. Carmen says: >In "se acerca la navidad" We (observers) (note that I do not say "I", but >"we") are considered as a stationary object towards which Christmas >(the actor in this case) is moving. Its agency or self-movement is expressed >through the reflexive verb (or, more specifically, thanks to the reflexive >pronoun "se"=itself). The use of the reflexive could imply the idea of time >as actor or performer, or the metaphor TIME IS ACTION. >Look at thefollowing examples: ( right, *not so right, ***wrong) 7>La Navidad se acerca 8>*Nos acercamos a la Navidad 9>***La Navidad se nos acerca > 10>La Navidad se aproxima 11>*Nos aproximamos a la Navidad 12>***Se nos aproxima la Navidad > 13>La vejez se acerca 14>Nos acercamos a la vejez 15>Se nos acerca la vejez > >As you see, the last example is right in its three uses. >In "NOS" we include action, - the action of agent subjects as builders of >that coming time. NOS could also imply more personalised and more >coloquial meaning. That would imply that maybe we personify Christmas in >Spanish, and so we avoid our agency (nos). I am sorry to disagree here again. First in NOS there is no agency at all. It is a dative clitic that depicts an active participant in the target domain. It is thus the goal and it is an experiencer subject to be affected as all datives are. Now, if "navidad" is seen as something threatening just like "vejez=old age" is in 13-15 then 7-12 are perfect. There are nice and interesting differences between Spain and Latin America on this respect. As I have shown in another paper (Maldonado "Datividad distancia conceptual" 1998 sorry again for the reference!) in Mexican Spanish the conceptualizer can easily become part of the scene and be affected by it. Thus, given the right context 7-12 are fine. An anecdote on this issue is pertinent. When I presented the dative paper in Spain most Penisular speakers in the audience rejected examples like 9 and 12, yet in informal conversation after the conference I heard a few of those examples from the same people. Carmen points out that "NOS could also imply more personalised and more coloquial meaning" I think that is totally correct. In informal contexts that type of construction is quite common even in dialects that reject them in formal situations. From the last messages we have received, it is clear that in Andalucía and other parts of Spain as well as in Chile. Examples in 7-12 are fine given the appropriate context. I hope this helps From clements at INDIANA.EDU Sat Mar 25 18:38:06 2000 From: clements at INDIANA.EDU (J. Clancy Clements) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 12:38:06 -0600 Subject: 4th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Message-ID: SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS 4th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Nov. 17-19, 2000 at Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote Speakers John Lipski, University of New Mexico Bill VanPatten, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign Abstract deadline: April 10, 2000 Response from organizers: May 1, 2000 We are soliciting one page abstracts of original work on any area of Hispanic linguistics: historical, phonology, second language acquisition, semantics, sociolinguistics, syntax; and ALL theoretical frameworks Abstracts can be submitted electronically to James F. Lee: leejames at indiana.edu or via regular mail: James F. Lee, Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Department of Spanish and Portuguese 844 Ballantine Hall Bloomington, IN 47405 For details, please consult the Symposium homepage at http://www.indiana.edu/~spanport/linguisticsymp2.html --------------------- J. Clancy Clements Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Ballantine Hall 844 / IU Bloomington, IN 47405 USA Tel. (812) 855-6141 Fax: (812) 855-4526 From jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU Thu Mar 30 23:58:12 2000 From: jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:58:12 -0800 Subject: Spanish intro ling textbook Message-ID: I posted a query a while ago asking for recommendations for a basic (usable by non-majors) introduction to linguistics in Spanish. Sadly, I seem to have lost the replies I got. Now I have a student who would benefit greatly from being able to read about basic linguistics concepts in Spanish. Can anyone direct me to a good book? One that would be available in the USA? Thanks -- Johanna ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics English Department, California Polytechnic State University One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-259 • E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu • Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ** "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From jlmendi at POSTA.UNIZAR.ES Fri Mar 31 11:27:09 2000 From: jlmendi at POSTA.UNIZAR.ES (Jose-Luis Mendivil Giro) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 12:27:09 +0100 Subject: Spanish intro ling textbook In-Reply-To: <38E3EA12.AD487E35@calpoly.edu> Message-ID: At 15:58 -0800 30/3/00, Johanna Rubba wrote: >I posted a query a while ago asking for recommendations for a basic >(usable by non-majors) introduction to linguistics in Spanish. Sadly, I >seem to have lost the replies I got. Now I have a student who would >benefit greatly from being able to read about basic linguistics concepts >in Spanish. Can anyone direct me to a good book? One that would be >available in the USA? Hello. Your last condition restricts severely my suggestions. I have used profitably the following in my classes: Moreno Cabrera, J.C. (1991) Curso Universitario de Linguistica General, Madrid: Sintesis (2 vols.) ***************************************** Dr. Jose-Luis Mendivil Giro Dept. of General and Hispanic Linguistics Universidad de Zaragoza C/ Pedro Cerbuna, 12 50009 Zaragoza (Spain) Phone: (+34) 976 761 000 Fax: (+34) 976 761 541 E-mail: jlmendi at posta.unizar.es From paul at BENJAMINS.COM Fri Mar 31 21:15:10 2000 From: paul at BENJAMINS.COM (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:15:10 -0500 Subject: New Books for Functionalists Message-ID: John Benjamins would like to bring to your attention four recently published functionalist works: 1) Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. Michael DARNELL, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds.) Studies in Language Companion Series 41 US & Canada: 1 55619 927 9 / USD 98.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world:90 272 3044 7 / NLG 196.00 (Hardcover) The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches - functionalists and formalists - in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume I includes papers discussing the two basic approaches to linguistics; with contributions by: Werner Abraham, Stephen R. Anderson, Joan L. Bybee, William Croft, Alice Davidson, Mark Durie, Ken Hale, Michael Hammond, Bruce P. Hayes, Nina Hyams, Howard Lasnik, Brian MacWhinney, Geoffrey S. Nathan, Daniell Nettle, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Edith A. Moravcsik, Doris Payne, Janet Pierrehumbert, Kathleen M. Wheatley. 2) Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies. Michael DARNELL, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds.) Studies in Language Companion Series 42 US & Canada: 1 55619 928 7 / USD 82.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 3045 5 / NLG 164.00 (Hardcover) The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches - functionalists and formalists - in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume II consists of case studies which draw upon the strengths of both approaches and thus help to bridge the gap between the two camps; with contributions by: Mira Ariel, Melissa Axelrod, Robbin Clamons, Bernard Comrie, Kees Hengeveld, Erika Hoff-Ginsberg, James Hurford, Lizanne Kaiser, Nicholas Kibre, Simon Kirby, Feng-hsi Liu, André Meinunger , Viola Miglio, Ann Mulkern, Waturu Nakamura, Maria Polinsky, Elizabeth Purnell, Gerald Sanders, Nancy Stenson, Maggie Tallerman, Ronnie Wilbur. 3) Function and Structure. In honor of Susumu Kuno. Akio KAMIO and Ken-Ichi TAKAMI (eds.) Pragmatics & Beyond NS 59 US & Canada: 1 55619 822 1 / USD 89.00 (Hardcover) Rest of World: 90 272 5073 1 / NLG 178.00 (Hardcover) This collection of papers on functional syntax shows the development of a specific stream of functional linguistics initiated by Susumu Kuno of Harvard University. Inspired by Prague School linguists such as Jan Firbas and Vilém Mathesius, Kuno developed a more comprehensive and theory-oriented approach and linked it with the American formalist approach of generative grammar. His approach is thus a unique combination of functionalism and formalism that constantly urges the promotion of interactions between these two major trends in linguistics. The papers in this collection coherently deal with functional aspects of linguistics from a wide variety of perspectives such as theoretical, applicational, experimental and diachronic aspects, incorporating the functional concept advocated by Kuno. Contributions by: Noriko Akatsuka; Jacqueline Guillemin-Flescher; Akio Kamio and Margaret Thomas; Becky Kennedy; Kiri Lee; Lise Menn et al.; Ken-ichi Takami; Etsuko Tomoda; Aiko Utsugi; Gregory Ward; John Whitman. 4) External Possession. PAYNE, Doris L. and Immanuel BARSHI (eds.) Typological Studies in Language 39 US & Canada: 1 55619 652 0 / USD 125.00 (Hardcover) 1 55619 655 5 / USD 34.95 (Paperback) Rest of world: 90 272 2938 4 / NLG 250.00 (Hardcover) 90 272 2941 4 / NLG 70.00 (Paperback) External Possession Constructions (EPCs) are found in nearly all parts of the world and across widely divergent language families. The data-rich papers in this first-ever volume on EPCs document their typological variability, explore diachronic reasons for variations, and investigate their functions and theoretical ramifications. EPCs code the possessor as a core grammatical relation of the verb and in a constituent separate from that which contains the possessed item. Though EPCs express possession, they do so without the necessary involvement of a possessive predicate such as "have" or "own". In many cases, EPCs appear to "break the rules" about how many arguments a verb of a given valence can have. They thus constitute an important limiting case for evaluating theories of the relationship between verbal argument structure and syntactic clause structure. They also raise core questions about intersections among verbal valence, cognitive event construal, voice, and language processing. Contributions by: Doris L. Payne; Immanuel Barshi; Murray Singer; Keiko Uehara; Maura Velázquez-Castillo; Martin Haspelmath; Donna B. Gerdts; Judith Aissen; Hilary Chappell; Jack B. Martin; Pamela Munro; Mark Baker; Paulette Levy; Roberto Zavala Maldonado; Mark Donohue; Noel Rude; William McGregor; Ronald P. Schaefer; Mirjam Fried; Vera I. Podlesskaya; Ekaterina V. Rakhilina; Maria Polinsky; Bernard Comrie. John Benjamins Publishing Co. Offices: Philadelphia Amsterdam: Websites: http://www.benjamins.com http://www.benjamins.nl E-mail: service at benjamins.com customer.services at benjamins.nl Phone: +215 836-1200 +31 20 6762325 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From agarbode at indiana.edu Fri Mar 31 21:31:19 2000 From: agarbode at indiana.edu (Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:31:19 -0500 Subject: agreement & frequency Message-ID: Is anyone aware of work that has been done on grammatical agreement and frequency? For example, if a verb agrees with an object (variably) by (variably)adding some sort of verbal inflection, at what point is there generally considered to be "agreement." Is it at 50%, 75%, 100% of the time? The particular phenomenon that I am working with is indirect object clitic-doubling in Spanish. This has been called agreement by many working in formalist and functionalist frameworks. I am interested in at what point clitic-doubling ceases to be doubling and begins to be grammatical agreement. Any references to relevant literature (perhaps in the field of grammaticalization?) would be greatly appreciated. Andrew -- Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese Indiana University Ballantine Hall 848 Bloomington, IN 47405 U.S.A. From agarbode at indiana.edu Fri Mar 31 22:07:22 2000 From: agarbode at indiana.edu (Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:07:22 -0500 Subject: frequency and agreement Message-ID: Is anyone aware of work that has been done on grammatical agreement and frequency? For example, if a verb agrees with an object (variably) by (variably)adding some sort of verbal inflection, at what point is there generally considered to be "agreement." Is it at 50%, 75%, 100% of the time? The particular phenomenon that I am working with is indirect object clitic-doubling in Spanish. This has been called agreement by many working in formalist and functionalist frameworks. I am interested in at what point clitic-doubling ceases to be doubling and begins to be grammatical agreement. Any references to relevant literature (perhaps in the field of grammaticalization?) would be greatly appreciated. If there is sufficent interest, I'll post a summary. Andrew -- Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese Indiana University Ballantine Hall 848 Bloomington, IN 47405 U.S.A. From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Wed Mar 1 15:13:23 2000 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 09:13:23 -0600 Subject: looking for book(s) Message-ID: March 1, 2000 Dear Funknetters, I'm looking (with no success, so far) for copies of two of Dwight Bolinger's books: _Intonation and Its Parts_, and _Intonation and Its Uses_. It doesn't matter to me at all if they're battered or falling apart. The new copies at $55.00 each are way beyond the limits of my budget. If you have a copy of either one that you'd be willing to sell for a more reasonable sum plus shipping, please let me know. Thanks.... Suzette PS: My e-mail address has been changed to ocls at madisoncounty.net. From marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR Thu Mar 2 05:06:13 2000 From: marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR (hamideh marefat) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 08:36:13 +0330 Subject: Pinker's Broad Range and Narrow Range Rules Message-ID: Dear Members, I wanted to know what the difference between Pinker's BRR and NRR rules is.As for the Liking Rules he says they are universal. As for the NRR, he says they are language specific and the learner has to get them through the input. What is the status of the BRR? Does he make any claim about their being universal or language specific? Thank you in advance. hamideh From dryer at ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Fri Mar 3 17:26:15 2000 From: dryer at ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU (Matthew S Dryer) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 12:26:15 -0500 Subject: form and function Message-ID: I thought it might be worth adding to the recent discussion regarding the need to identify and describe form independent of function the observation that while one might expect that such a practice would be normal for formal linguists, I think that there is a strong tendency for this NOT to be the case, at least with respect to analyses of languages other than English. Namely, I believe that there is a strong tendency (with exceptions) in formal work on languages other than English to assume forms and structures that are identified largely on the basis of their meaning. For example, the work on Mohawk by Mark Baker frequently assumes that Mohawk sentences have structures that look like the structures of the English translations, without much attempt to justify these structures in terms of evidence from Mohawk forms. This contrasts sharply with much of the work on Mohawk and other Iroquoian languages by Wally Chafe and Marianne Mithun, whose assumptions about how to describe these languages are firmly grounded in the system of forms that is specifically Iroquoian. Admittedly, there is much functional-typological work where linguists who are not experts on a language assume analyses that derive largely from the English translations, but I think that it is fair to say that functionally-oriented linguists working more intensively on specific languages are more likely than formal linguists to assume analyses motivated by forms within the language rather than to assume descriptions of form motivated largely by their English translations. Matthew Dryer From marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR Sat Mar 4 18:52:36 2000 From: marefat at CHAMRAN.UT.AC.IR (hamideh marefat) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 22:22:36 +0330 Subject: Pinker's Broad Range and Narrow Range Rules Message-ID: Dear Members, I wanted to know what the difference between Pinker's BRR and NRR rules is.As for the Liking Rules he says they are universal. As for the NRR, he says they are language specific and the learner has to get them through the input. What is the status of the BRR? Does he make any claim about their being universal or language specific? Thank you in advance. hamideh Iran Tehran The University of Tehran P.O.Box: 11495 - 136 From kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU Sat Mar 4 19:27:32 2000 From: kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Keith Johnson) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 14:27:32 -0500 Subject: Summer session: Spoken Language in Context Message-ID: Summer 2000 at Ohio State University Spoken Language in Context: Methods and Models During July of 2000, the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University will be offering a unique combination of short courses aimed at exploring spoken language, with a particular focus on the empirical study of naturally-occurring speech through various instrumental, quantitative, and analytic means. Scholars, researchers (industry or academic), and students are invited to join us for an intense and rewarding summer session. Course offerings: Laboratory Phonology - Mary Beckman Quantitative Methods - Michael Broe Field Phonetics - Keith Johnson Historical Phonology - Brian Joseph & Richard Janda Practicum in English Intonation - Julia McGory The Pragmatics of Focus - Craige Roberts For more information see the website: http://ling.ohio-state.edu/SU2000 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Sun Mar 5 10:11:23 2000 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 05:11:23 EST Subject: form and function Message-ID: In a message dated 2/27/2000 3:31:40 PM, jaske at SALEM.MASS.EDU writes: <> One small and modest point about things that acquire functions different from those for which they were designed. It would seem that the more specialized a tool is, the more difficult it is to apply it to other functions. (I was given for example a set of antique little screwdrivers, designed for tiny old star-head screws, that are just too delicate and strangely shaped to use for much else and they are too short to stir drinks with.) Going beyond tools and intentionality, isolated species that specialize to a very specific environment sucessfully will become less adaptable to other environments. The observation may be obvious, but a corrolary of it may possibly not be. When structure becomes especially 'formalized' to a very specific function, and when that function recedes, what happens to the formality? I think that the answer is that we try to find another use for it, but if we don't the "formality" isn't necessarily junked. As part of some kind of a conservation of resource impulse, we feel compeled to retain it and put it in a drawer someplace where we keep such things and that we only open on odd occasions. These old special forms like my old screwdrivers, not being adaptable for anything, even with generous applications of duct tape, go into suspended animation. And sometimes we forget for what purpose those old screwdrivers were designed. On another list I've been involved in discussions about measuring the time of separation from the original proto-language among ancient IE languages. And there's a school of thought that consistently uses not the amount of innovations in those languages to measure time, but rather the most anachronic attributes - look-alike old cognates that didn't change very much as the languages hypothetically branched off. This strikes me as an odd way to measure time, because such forms are prima facie the least effected by time and change. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious by suggesting that the more specialized a structure is, the harder it is to find other functions for it. But maybe a little less obvious is the idea that such specialized formalities also die-hard - perhaps simply because of their uniqueness - and therefore give a false impression of structure without function (we don't remember what the original function was) and structure beyond time (the structure did not undergo change because it could not be adapted to a new function.) How much of those old vestigal formalities - for which we've forgotten the original functions - are part of our language seems like an interesting question. Just a very modest observation, humbly submitted. Regards, Steve Long From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sun Mar 5 17:41:05 2000 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 11:41:05 -0600 Subject: Requesting help on sources for semantics of Eng verb Message-ID: >Return-Path: bounce-lingfac-list-58554 at lists.services.wisc.edu >Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 10:08:26 -0600 >To: lingfac-list at lists.services.wisc.edu >From: "David S. Danaher" >Subject: Requesting help on sources for semantics of Eng verb >Reply-To: "David S. Danaher" > >Hello, everyone, > >My specialty is Slavic linguistics, and I'm currently working on research >on the semantics of iterative verb forms in Czech and Russian. I have been >trying to find some specialized studies on the expression of iteration in >English (for example, studies of the history and modern usage of the >English verbal paraphrase *used to*, as in "He used to visit San Francisco >2 or 3 times a year, but hasn't been there in a decade or more"), but all I >can come up with are general descriptions of the verb in English which tend >to have very little specific information on the usage of "used to" (for >example, how does it differ from "would" as a marker of iteration and what >is its discourse function?). > >I would be grateful for suggestions on sources from any English-oriented >linguists at UW. > >Thanks in advance for the help, > >David > >********************************* >David S. Danaher, Assistant Professor >Slavic Languages, 1432 Van Hise >University of Wisconsin-Madison >Madison, WI 53706 > > > > Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park Street University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Mon Mar 6 16:27:38 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 10:27:38 -0600 Subject: March LSA Bulletin Message-ID: >Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 07:47:22 -0500 >From: LSA >Subject: March LSA Bulletin > >The March 2000 LSA Bulletin is now available on the Linguistic Society >website: > > http://www.lsadc.org > From kfeld at CITRUS.UCR.EDU Mon Mar 6 17:52:36 2000 From: kfeld at CITRUS.UCR.EDU (David B. Kronenfeld) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 09:52:36 -0800 Subject: form and function Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, Anent form and function, in case you are interested in an offering from the perspective of anthropological work on word semantics, let me offer the following (thinly outlined from my 1996 Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers, OUP). The interactions are a bit complicated (for which I apologize), but my sense is that the complications are intrinsic to how we do it. In my theory a functional situation causes something (object, action, attribute, or whatever) to be talked of frequently enough to get its own word (Saussurean "sign"), and to be distinguished from otherwise similar things with which it gets contrasted. The "signified" part of the sign, the concept, is formed through the interaction of what's functionally important about the something with the form of its semantic relations and typical exemplars. The signified is linked to an abstract pragmatic schema of the relevant objects and relations of the functional situation. The primary (non-linguistic) reference of the signified is to a focal referent (or prototype). The focal referent is represented in a filled out form in the pragmatic schema--that is, with more detail than what is "essential" (in the sense of being actually necessary for effective functioning). In the absence of any other contextual information, discussions involving the sign will be taken by speakers as referring to the prototype. In ordinary, everyday usage, many of the things we speak of do not have their own words, and so get spoken of via other words; that is, words whose focal references are to something else get their ranges extended to cover these things. The focal referent is defined jointly in terms of the function served by whatever generated the sign and the form typically taken by whatever serves that function. The simplest extension is to other referents that fit the form definition and the function definition, but that differ from the prototype's detailed specification. Specifically "denotative" extension is to referents that fit the form definition, but that do not fit the functional one, while specifically "connotative" extension is to referents that fit the function definition but not the form one. Figurative extension is to referents outside the domain of the basic sign; figurative extension is a two stage process in which first a source domain is selected that carries useful information relative to the target domain and the communicative aims, and second the relations among entities (properties, or ...) in the target domain are matched with the pragmatic schema relations of the source domain in order to pick a sign/word which accomplishes the desired communication. In the book I offer reasons for speakers' assigning definitional primacy to form attributes, evinced inter alia via the application of hedges such as "is really..., but ..." to examples which fit the folk denotative definition but not the folk connotative one. Conversely, cases which fit connotatively but not denotatively are edged differently--"is not really ..., but is more like" or "...is used like/as if ..." In other work (outside the book) I have adduced empirical data showing the sharp difference between typicality and prototypicality, and in the book I discuss the reasons for the importance of the distinction. The traditional distinction between essential vs. accidental features is taken as applying to prototypic referents rather than extended ranges (which enables a sensible reconsideration of past negative evidence regarding essential attributes); the features of prototypic referents are split into those which are essential to the functional basis of the category (and to the category's semantic relations) vs. those which are common but unnecessary (or unimportant) features of typical exemplars. Changes over time in prototypic exemplars are considered in this connection. In sum, I want to suggest that the form/function distinction is important to our native speaker processing of at least some linguistic phenomena, but that form and function are tightly tied together in that processing. From this strongly functional point of view, even from an admittedly outsider's relationship to functional linguistics, I would like to see the discussion of the use of form (including formal characterizations of linguistic phenomena) separated from discussion of the uses or virtues of formal descriptions (aka formalist theories) of linguistic phenomena, and that separated in turn from any consideration of the particular uses or drawbacks of any one formalist theory or its adherents. I might add that my views on these matters come in part out of a long history of work on kinship terminological systems (not, I should hasten to add, what the book deals with), where the function vs. form or structure debate has been going on for a very long time--and maybe now is finally nearing some effective reconciliation. Thank you, David David B. Kronenfeld Phone Office 909/787-4340 Department of Anthropology Message 909/787-5524 University of California Fax 909/787-5409 Riverside, CA 92521 email kfeld at citrus.ucr.edu http://www.ucr.edu/CHSS/depts/anthro/home.htm http://pweb.netcom.com/~fanti/david.html From Zylogy at AOL.COM Mon Mar 6 19:25:40 2000 From: Zylogy at AOL.COM (Jess Tauber) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 14:25:40 EST Subject: form and function Message-ID: Since everyone else is throwing their two cents in, I will as well: phonosemantics (my particular hobby-horse, as Ray Jackendoff has put it) is one area where form and function are as tightly interwoven as they can be within language structure. The underlying motivating iconicity is diagrammatic in nature, and should by all rights invite interest from Chomskyans. The asyntactic behavior of the most obviously transparent forms (should they be noticed at all in this most Saussurean of all possible worlds), however, means that they are off their radar screens, like in the story of the drunk looking for his keys on the street under the lamppost because the light is better there. Recent work by a variety of scholars is "illuminating" the various ways phonosemantically transparent forms work their very orderly way into the normal lexicon through typologically influenced, historically salient constructional reanalysis, and this should be of interest to functionalists of a panchronic bent, as well as to folks with optimality in their hearts. And there are pragmatic angles to consider as well, which should appeal to the loosier-goosier among functionalists. But you gotta get over de Saussure. Just because something gets repeated long enough (especially in your linguistic primer) doesn't make it true. And by the way- the man himself didn't believe in arbitrariness of the sign the way his posthumous editors would have you believe- he was in fact quite a collector of phonosemantically transparent forms. You've been had. Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Tue Mar 7 17:54:07 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 11:54:07 -0600 Subject: "forms" and "formalists" In-Reply-To: <38B86512.1435BF6E@canal-1.com.br> Message-ID: Sorry for the length of this posting, but ideas just kept coming until now, and I just want to send it before I spend any more time I can't afford on it. It seems to me that the recent debate/discussion on FUNKNET has sort of conflated the analytical category "form" with the social/professional category "formalist" (one heuristic definition of "formalist" might be 'one who would introduce him/herself with a phrase like "I am a formal syntactician"'). As I have reviewed the postings, three issues have stood out as dividing formalists and functionalists, (and creating internal divisions in both camps as well). I wanted to tease them apart and see if anyone else finds this a useful contribution. First, the analytical category of "form" is not homogenous, but consists of a scale from more concrete, lower-level forms (which I suspect most functionalists accept) to more abstract, sometimes theory-dependent categories of forms (which appear to be more to the taste of formalists). Second, formalists prefer to "explain" more concrete kinds of form with reference to these more abstract formal categories, whereas functionalists look for explanation outside the domain of form. Third, actual databases of concrete forms collected by different methods are not equally reliable, and the methods that appear to be favored by formalists are among the least reliable. None of these observations is original to me, but they seem to have gotten obscured in recent postings. I can accept that the first two differences might be matters of preference, but the third is really disturbing if true. While I have not really encountered much useful typological data in writings from the professional category of formalists (due in part to the small number of grammars), I do believe that it is impossible to do interesting linguistics without some concept of more concrete linguistic "form". I think TG's and Edith's postings told a story about such forms that makes a lot of sense, but that perhaps skirts the more divisive issue, which doesn't arise in earnest until you get beyond the simplest forms (like phoneme, or maybe morpheme). The problem comes when we begin to categorize "types" or "categories" of forms in individual languages, and then typologically. Even if we can agree on some important types (maybe agreement, parts of speech, phrase structure...), the more abstract and theory-dependent the formal categories get, the less likely you are to find widespread agreement that the category is central, or even relevant, to understanding languages/Language (grammatical relations, passive, or for more abstract and theory-dependent categories, maybe C-command, government, etc.). Some functionalists seem happy to just get a decent phonemic analysis so they can get reasonably accurate written representations of utterances; their interest in form stops once they have sufficiently discrete clusters of phonemes to ascribe meanings/functions to. Others want to go a little further up the abstractness scale in search of additional formal patterns that might be of interest (i.e. that might correlate with some function). For instance, I am very interested in formal properties usually ascribed to formal categories like parts of speech and grammatical relations. Examples of such patterns in the domain of "subject properties" would be control of coreference with reflexive possessor pronouns/prefixes, control of coreference with participants in adjacent/embedded clauses, or control of agreement (with auxiliaries, verbs, etc.). My main reason for being so interested is not anything inherent to the formal patterns, but it is the fact that these patterns evolve diachronically in ways that suggest their cognitive reality to speakers, and in ways that allow me to make much richer functional analyses of the processes of grammaticalization (which, among other things, could be characterized as change in formal category membership). As to the second issue, whereas formalists utilize membership in an abstract formal category as an "explanation" for formal behavior, functionalists will look for a function-based alternative or derive a function-based historical story that creates (and thus "accounts for") the modern patterns of formal behavior. For instance, everyone agrees that the formal category of gender/number suffixes exists in Romance languages, but not everyone agrees that their distribution is best explained as a consequence of nominal membership in a formal gender/number category (although the huge majority can be explained in this way, a significant number -- as well as certain types of counter-examples -- indicate a semantic basis to gender/number as well). As your categories get more abstract (e.g. C-command as an "explanation" for the domain of control of a reflexive pronoun), you won't even get a hearing from most functionalists. Returning to "subject properties", I don't need to refer to (or even to have) a formal category of "subject" in order to describe these patterns, and I would reject out-of-hand the suggestion that the formal category of subject in any way motivates or explains these patterns. But when the subject properties all line up to point to the same participant, it sure makes the existence of a formal category of subject look plausible. Of course, when they don't all line up, the formal category breaks down and people that insist on finding a "subject" in every language/construction type either have to switch to nonformal criteria to define subject (Giv?n, Dixon), select some (nonuniversal) subset of the criteria to define subject (RG), or decide that "subject" is not a universal category (Dryer). But leaving aside the issue of the abstract formal category "subject", and whether such a category might be useful in describing languages, I don't see that it is possible to question the *existence* of coreference and agreement patterns in speech -- these are a more abstract type of "form", but still not particularly theory-dependent. The problem is collecting sufficiently reliable samples of speech to verify the nature of such patterns in individual languages. This is the third issue that is intertwined in our debates, and I think it is the most serious issue, as it speaks to the legacy we leave in our descriptive work. In my experience to date, elicitation is a reasonably reliable way to generate a corpus of utterances regarding simple morphology and phrase structure in relatively simple clauses, but as the sentences get longer and the morphology gets more complex (i.e. when one needs to code concepts that do not obviously belong to the simple clause), the elicited corpus gets less and less reliable -- the results are often not replicable across what appears to be a relatively homogenous population of speakers, and at least in the work I'm familiar with first-hand from South America, different linguists record different sorts of utterances/grammaticality judgements, even from the same speakers. I have had the least success replicating simple grammaticality judgements about utterances cooked up for the purpose of testing my ongoing hypotheses about abstract patterns like complex coreference. Sociolinguistics research has found a parallel decline in reliability as people switch from producing language to reflecting on language (cf. especially Labov's publications in the mid-70s). I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language. I have had conversations with some friendly formalists who do not accept this characterization, either of their databases or their methods, but my impression remains strong that the majority of data actually published in formalist syntax articles are of this type. Perhaps this impression reveals my theoretical bias, as a simple review of the examples in any article does not reveal the methods by which each example was collected. Would anyone else be interesting in seeing a session on fieldwork methodology someday at a conference that is attended by both formalists and functionalists, in which fieldworkers of both persuasions might really describe their data collection procedures, the makeup of their database, and the concerns they feel (if any) about the reliability of their data? best, Spike P.S. Speaking of Labov and methodology, I would be interested to know if anyone in formalist linguistics has ever refuted (or even addressed) the main points of Labov's (1975) crushing indictment of grammaticality judgements produced by linguistically sophisticated native speakers (especially by native speaker linguists!). From nrude at ucinet.com Tue Mar 7 22:51:30 2000 From: nrude at ucinet.com (Noel Rude) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 14:51:30 -0800 Subject: Medium, Message, AND Code? Message-ID: Friends and neighbors, To add to all the wonderful insight (with me it's likely to be contributing to the confusion), let me mumble a moment on our formalist-functionalist divide. Let me suggest that--besides temperament--our schism is rooted in Aristotle vs. Plato (as someone we know has already suggested). Let me also suggest that both philosophies miss one side or the other in what is really a tripartite beast--its three sides being the Medium and the Message AND the Code. And let me illustrate with those old physics and biology metaphors you've heard about. Platonic dualism lived on in physics where mathematics was immutable and eternal and the laws (as they began to be uncovered) were believed to derive directly from that heavenly realm. There was no need for empiricism (this attitude has persisted among a number of theoretical physicists--even Einstein). Nevertheless it seems to be pretty universally accepted today that the laws and constants are not necessary but rather contingent. It is often said that the laws and constants are written in the language of mathematics. And so our physics metaphor becomes complete when matter-energy is the medium, the laws and constants are the message, and mathematics is the code. Biology, on the other hand, has long been Aristotelian, and accordingly it has emphasized the two sides of the picture which--in our analogy--are the medium and the message (form being the medium and function the message). It was not always fully appreciated that biological information cannot be transferred from parent to child without a language. But this Mendel and later Watson and Crick have done much to remedy, and so now biologists also study a code. So how about us? Well, maybe the analogy isn't perfect, but the formalists are more the Platonic dualists with their fixation on the medium (phonology) and the code (syntax). They tend to ignore the message--in fact I think I've even heard them argue that language evolved BEFORE it found a function. But then sometimes I think some of us tend to be narrow Aristotelians who see only the medium and the message and forget the code. Maybe that explains why some of us keep saying that there is no grammar. From the larger philosophical perspective, I think, it has to be agreed that any real information system must be more than just form and function. Maybe the formalists aren't on the right track, etc., etc., but maybe we should not forget that Language requires a code or grammar with its own hierarchies and categories. At least that's what I'm suggesting. What do you think? Noel From dziegeler at YAHOO.COM Wed Mar 8 01:56:55 2000 From: dziegeler at YAHOO.COM (debra ziegeler) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 17:56:55 -0800 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Dea Funknetters, It is difficult to resist a comment on Spike Gildea's interesting note on grammaticality judgements: "I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language." While I have no comment on the way in which formalist theory makes use of grammaticality judgements, I do believe this type of data can be useful, in some way or other, to functionalists as well. First, it is often the case that grammaticality judgements can indicate roughly the distribution of a morphological feature across a population, and given a sample of speakers large enough and representative enough, can give some clue as to patterns of synchronic grammaticalisation (though these would necessarily have to be compared with actual production levels). Statistically, though, they provide interesting data. Second, grammatical intuitions often can be found to correlate very precisely with diachronic phenomena, amd make for a fascinating ground for observing grammaticalisation processes in the psychology of the individual speaker. Again, in a large and representative population of speakers, the data can be examined for levels of grammaticalisation at a single time point across a community. The problem naturally concerns the fact that grammaticality judgements only concern the comprehension of utterances. However, they can provide a useful means of testing the presence and distribution in a population of pragmatic inferences and conversational implicatures, phenomena which may require some means of elicitation in order to observe them without interference from the subjective analysis of the observer. Finally, even the production of specific target items may be successfully accomplished by the use of more creative, naturalistic methods of elicitation. Given a typical set of circumstances in which a speaker may have no option but to use the item required, the observer has already provided the functional setting for use of the form, and the speaker may have no idea of the linguistic objectives of the task. Furthermore, if the speaker IS unaware of the task objectives, the data obtained will not be likely to be at the level of the sentence, but at the level of the utterance, however much that does or does not comprise a sentence form. Debra Ziegeler __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From dziegeler at YAHOO.COM Wed Mar 8 07:10:06 2000 From: dziegeler at YAHOO.COM (debra ziegeler) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 23:10:06 -0800 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, It is difficult to resist a comment on Spike Gildea's interesting note on grammaticality judgements: "I believe a part of FUNKNET's antipathy for "formalist" linguistics follows from our collective impression that it is precisely these sorts of unreliable data that are at the core of the empirical database for most formalist theories. It is not *just* the limitation of the database to sentence-level data, but to a type of sentence-level data (grammaticality judgements of unusual sentence types) that does not appear to represent the way speakers really *use* language." While I have no comment on the way in which formalist theory makes use of grammaticality judgements, I do believe this type of data can be useful, in some way or other, to functionalists as well. First, it is often the case that grammaticality judgements can indicate roughly the distribution of a morphological feature across a population, and given a sample of speakers large enough and representative enough, can give some clue as to patterns of synchronic grammaticalisation (though these would necessarily have to be compared with actual production levels). Statistically, though, they provide interesting data. Second, grammatical intuitions often can be found to correlate very precisely with diachronic phenomena, amd make for a fascinating ground for observing grammaticalisation processes in the psychology of the individual speaker. Again, in a large and representative population of speakers, the data can be examined for levels of grammaticalisation at a single time point across a community. The problem naturally concerns the fact that grammaticality judgements only concern the comprehension of utterances. However, they can provide a useful means of testing the presence and distribution in a population of pragmatic inferences and conversational implicatures, phenomena which may require some means of elicitation in order to observe them without interference from the subjective analysis of the observer. Finally, even the production of specific target items may be successfully accomplished by the use of more creative, naturalistic methods of elicitation. Given a typical set of circumstances in which a speaker may have no option but to use the item required, the observer has already provided the functional setting for use of the form, and the speaker may have no idea of the linguistic objectives of the task. Furthermore, if the speaker IS unaware of the task objectives, the data obtained will not be likely to be at the level of the sentence, but at the level of the utterance, however much that does or does not comprise a sentence form. Debra Ziegeler _________________________________ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From lakoff at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 8 08:19:25 2000 From: lakoff at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (George Lakoff) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 01:19:25 -0700 Subject: Senses of "formal" Message-ID: Hi, I've been observing the discussion of what "formal" means. I generally draw a three-way distinction: 1. Pertaining to form. 2. Formal systems, in the technical mathematical sense. This is the sense intended in the Chomskyan tradition and more recent variants on that tradition. 3. A new sense coming out of work on the Neural Theory of Language, referring to neural parameterizations that can be given a symbolic notation useful in linguistic descriptions and natural language processing. Sense 1: Pertaining to form. Meaning is expressed in terms of form; e.g., phonological and morphological form, surface orderings, agreement, and so on. This is just part of language. All serious linguists have to describe how form and meaning are related. This has nothing to do with "formal linguistics" per se. Sense 2: At the beginning of Syntactic Structures, Chomsky sets out a metaphor characterizing what has commonly come to be called "formal linguistics." Chomsky's Metaphor: Sentences are strings of abstract symbols. A language is a set of such strings. A grammar is an algorithmic mechanism for generating such sets of strings of abstract symbols. Chomsky's Metaphor had many entailments: 1. Autonomy: Within a mathematical formal system, generative rules or other algorithmic mechanisms can only refer to the abstract symbols inside the system. This eliminates many things from the content of syntactic rules: the meaning of the symbols (all of semantics and conceptual systems), the use of the symbols in context (all of pragmatics), communicative function (old and new information, topicality, etc.), degrees of conventionality (and hence, grammaticalization in process), anything from the sensory-motor system, cognitive mechanisms, memory, anything at the neural level, and so on. 2. Data restrictions: Any real linguistic phenomena having to do with the causal effect of any of the above on the distribution of surface forms cannot be characterized within a formal system proper, unless the information is somehow coded in appropriate symbolic terms. An example of such a coding was the coding of minuscule aspects of semantics and pragmatics in terms of logical forms introduced by myself and Jim McCawley back in Generative Semantics days and since adopted by Chomsky and others. 3. Disembodied theoretical constraints: Ideas like "generative power" only make sense within Chomsky's Metaphor. Thus, arguments like "such and such a form of rule is too powerful" only makes sense using Chomsky's Metaphor. I gave up on Chomsky's Metaphor back in the 60's, because I saw language as a product of embodied human minds, not disembodied formal systems in the methematical sense. However, before then, I and many of my close friends learned a lot about language using that metaphor, as limiting and distorting as I now think it is. Smart people with good linguistic intuitions can do interesting research despite that metaphor. Sense 3: NTL formal notation One of the insights coming out of the neural theory of language, is the distinction made by Feldman between dynamic neural processes and the neural parameterizations that trigger them. This has enabled our group at ICSI in Berkeley to develop symbolic notations for both parameterizations and dynamic processes that can be mapped to neural models (structured, not PDP). We are developing notations for parameterizations of cognitive semantics - image-schemas, force-dynamic schemas, frames, metaphorical maps, blends, and so on. Ben Bergen is in the process of developing such notations for phonology and morphology. We see grammar as consisting of constructions - neural maps connecting parameterized semantics and parameterized phonology, with constraints provided by all aspects of context, background knowledge, and communicative function. In short, grammar is in the connections. NTL no autonomous syntax and doesn't miss it. Grammatical generalizations, so far as we can tell to date, can be stated perfectly with without it. And a neural learning theory is being developed to accommodate real acquisition data. These symbolic notations are constrained in three ways: They must be reducible to plausible neural models. They must be able to state real linguistic generalizations. They must be able to be used in natural language processing models for computers. We call these notations "formalisms." They are precise - precise enough to be used in natural language computing. Yet that are capable of representing semantics, pragmatics, context, communicative function, iconicity, probabilistic phenomena, degrees of entrenchment (and hence grammaticalization in process), and so on. NTL formalisms differ in a deep way from the formalisms used in formal systems. They are not constrained by purely formal ideas like generative power. The constraints on such systems are biological; they have to be reducible to neural systems. They are embodied, not disembodied. They have to be grounded ultimately in the sensory-motor system or other bodily systems. What this shows is that the issue in "formalism" is not whether linguistic form must be described; it must. It is not whether precise notations can be used in real linguistic descriptions; they can. The issue, at least for us, is whether we accept Chomsky's Metaphor and all the limitations that go with it (we don't), or whether we seek to create a precise way of symbolically notating both the static neural parameterizations and the neural dynamics in such a way that we accurately characterize real natural language. I hope this helps a bit to clarify issues. George -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 6618 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU Wed Mar 8 16:00:21 2000 From: spikeg at OWLNET.RICE.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 10:00:21 -0600 Subject: grammaticality judgements In-Reply-To: <20000308071006.4001.qmail@web1104.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Two quick points: (1) I have received a number of requests for the reference to Labov (1975). It is essentially an expansion of several ideas in Chapter 8 in his 1972 textbook on sociolinguistics: Labov, William. 1975. Empirical foundations of linguistic theory. The scope of American linguistics, ed. by Robert Austerlitz: 77-133. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press. (2) I agree with Debra Ziegeler's comments on the usefulness of *reliable* grammaticality judgements. The very process of testing grammaticality judgements on a representative sample of speakers increases the probability that reliable judgements will be filtered out from spurious judgements. My original concern was that many fieldworkers -- who do not themselves speak the language they are trying to describe or theorize about -- might rely excessively on a single speaker for all their judgements, and might not therefore discover which judgements represent real speech patterns in some community and which represent artifacts of a forced judgement task in the elicitation context. As sentences being tested become increasingly abstract and unlikely ever to be uttered, my concern is that the latter becomes more common. Of course, even artifacts of forced judgement tasks can be replicable, or if there are only two outcomes (yes/no), can be taken to represent a dialectal variation, at least increasing the number of speakers involved is an important improvement on the model given in most field methods classes, where you work with a single speaker's intuitions (a model which is explicitly endorsed by folks who just want to describe "my own dialect/the dialect of my informant", and who thereby sidestep the issue of whether variation might represent real dialect distinctions or just spurious responses to the grammaticality judgement task). Of course, I have never tried to quantify this effect. I have the anecdotal evidence based on the experience that everyone in field lingusitics must have had, where a native speaker changes his/her mind (sometimes multiple times) about whether something could in fact be said, or what it would mean if it could be said. I also have the anecdotal evidence that on more than one occasion, after I developed a hypothesis based on examples from a single, relatively sophisticated speaker (read: experienced linguistic informant), I was unable to get consistent agreement on critical examples in back-translation questionnaires that I ran by other speakers from the same communities. This latter step has since become a core aspect of my field methodology, as I no longer trust examples that have not been produced or back-translated without hesitation by at least a half-dozen speakers. It might be interesting to compose actual quantifiable experiments to test these anecdotal claims: Are there types of sentences that yield less reliable judgements? Are there types of elicitation that yield less reliable databases of utterances? Participant observer "enriched" elicitation (also suggested in Labov 1975 as a way to add statistically rare examples to a corpus of recorded 'natural' speech) is nice if you are fluent enough to avoid foreigner talk data, where speakers adjust their language to accommodate your perceived weakness as an interlocutor. I never have been. I have succeeded a couple of times in getting such examples by working with a monolingual speaker and a bilingual speaker at the same time, feeding the bilingual speaker general questions that ought to lead towards certain types of constructions and then recording their entire interactions. I have also recorded the interactions when presenting sentences to a group for grammaticality judgements, or for fine-grained semantic distinctions. While the resulting answers are interesting, the recorded texts are still more interesting as a genre of speech that is very rich in the language of conflict and resolution. But such texts take a hell of a long time to transcribe and gloss... Spike From MILLSCR at UCMAIL.UC.EDU Wed Mar 8 17:03:55 2000 From: MILLSCR at UCMAIL.UC.EDU (Mills, Carl (MILLSCR)) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 12:03:55 -0500 Subject: grammaticality judgements Message-ID: Debra Ziegeler and Spike Gildea have provided some intelligent comments on, and questions about grammaticality judgments. Having been concerned with grammaticality and acceptability judgments for 30 years, I have a few more comments. First, when the reliance of formalists on grammaticality judgments is questioned, formalists are apt to reply that work by formalists have established the "robustness" of such judgments. Works most often cited are Schutze, Carson T. 1996. The empirical base of linguistics: grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. U Chicago. Cowart, Wayne. 1997. Experimental syntax: applying objective methods to sentence judgements. Sage. These are fine books, as far as they go, but I would argue that the robustness of grammaticality judgments that the authors see lies more in the eyes of formalist linguists than in real judgments by real language users. Part of the problem with grammaticality judgments stems from the fact that formalists tend to read only other formalists. In 1970 Thomas Bever published an extensive, and as far as I know, unanswered critique of grammaticality judgments. My own work on grammaticality and acceptability judgments began with my dissertation (1975), continued with a volume from the Fourth Nordic Linguistics Conference (1978), and has appeared from time to time in selected volumes of the Lacus Forum. And of course, the master Bolinger used to routinely give papers showing that sentences starred by formalists could be perfectly acceptable if given the proper context. But anyone looking at the indexes of Newmeyer's fine book, Language form and language function, will note that there are no references to grammaticality judgments, acceptability judgments, or the works of Cowert or Schutze. If pressed, formalists tend to respond to problems with such judgments by asserting (correctly) that "grammaticality" is not the same thing as "acceptability." Such defenses of grammaticality judgments then go on to assert that "grammaticality" is a "theory internal" matter and not subject to correction based on acceptability judgments. What such a view means for the philosophy of science is truly mind boggling. Finally regarding Spike's calls for experiments: >It might be interesting to compose actual quantifiable experiments to test >these anecdotal claims: Are there types of sentences that yield less >reliable judgements? Are there types of elicitation that yield less >reliable databases of utterances? I do not know about tests of elicitation procedures, but those of us who use acceptability judgments have all noted quantitative evidence (distribution of responses, for example) that the reliability of such judgments is rather variable. Carl Mills -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 13 18:04:57 2000 From: kjohnson at LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Keith Johnson) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 13:04:57 -0500 Subject: Postdoc position announcement Message-ID: POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITION IN SPOKEN LANGUAGE GENERATION AND UNDERSTANDING We invite applications for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher with a specialization in phonetics and phonology. The position is for one year with the possibility of one additional year, pending funding. The researcher will be expected to take a leadership role in the phonological and phonetic analysis of a corpus of conversational speech. Candidates should hold a PhD in linguistics. Essential knowledge and experience for the position are familiarity with Windows-based and Unix/Linux-based operating systems and some knowledge of computational speech analysis. The starting date can be as early as July 15 but no later than September 15, 2000. Starting salary for the twelve-month appointment is $28,000 plus benefits. Please send a cover letter, curriculum vitae, representative samples of published or unpublished work, and three letters of recommendation to the address below. Review of applications will begin April 17, 2000. The Ohio State University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. Women, minorities, Vietnam-era veterans, disabled veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. See http://vic.psy.ohio-state.edu for additional information about the position and the project. Professor Elizabeth Hume Spoken Language Generation and Understanding Department of Linguistics Ohio State University 222 Oxley Hall Columbus, Ohio 43210 Address queries to Elizabeth Hume (ehume at ling.ohio-state.edu) or Mark Pitt (pitt.2 at osu.edu). From matmies at ling.helsinki.fi Thu Mar 16 10:27:50 2000 From: matmies at ling.helsinki.fi (Matti Miestamo) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 12:27:50 +0200 Subject: Calls: Parts of Speech Message-ID: (Apologies if you get multiple copies of this message) CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on *** PARTS OF SPEECH IN AND ACROSS LANGUAGES *** to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 17-19, 2000. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in problems relating to parts of speech. We invite papers addressing general typological questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Possible themes include the universality of the noun/verb distinction, (the grammaticalization of) adpositions, the status of particles and interjections in grammar and discourse. Other topics relating to parts of speech are equally welcome. Invited speakers: Leon Stassen (University of Nijmegen) Anneli Pajunen (University of Turku) Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by other participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Theme sessions Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is May 15, 2000. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address: . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. E-mail submissions are strongly recommended. If, however, you send your abstract by ordinary mail, please provide an e-mail address as a contact address. Participants will be notified about acceptance by June 5, 2000. Registration: The deadline for registration and payment for all participants is June 21, 2000. Register by e-mail to the address above. Registration fees: -general: FIM 200 -members of the association: FIM 100 -undergraduate and MA students free -send by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY)/Symposium. When paying from abroad, please pay via Eurogiro or SWIFT to our account (number 800013-1424850) with Leonia Bank plc, Helsinki, Finland. SWIFT-address: PSPBFIHH; Telex 121 698 pgiro sf -In case of technical difficulty, payment in cash upon arrival is also accepted. Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Matti Miestamo, Dept of General Linguistics, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Marja P?lsi, Vironkatu 8 B 33, FIN-00170 Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, S?rn?isten rantatie 25, 00500 Helsinki, e-mail: From STRECHTER at CSUCHICO.EDU Fri Mar 17 18:05:27 2000 From: STRECHTER at CSUCHICO.EDU (Trechter, Sara) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 10:05:27 -0800 Subject: 2, one-year positions Message-ID: > The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill > a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professor position in > Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL. This is a > leave replacement position. Teaching Load is four courses per semester. > Responsibilities: Teaching ESL (specifically ESL for Academic Purposes), > and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods > courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon departmental > needs and background of individual. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in > Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong > linguistics background). ABD will be considered. Teaching experience in > EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs in the US or ESL in a non-US > setting, or ESL/bilingual programs in K-12 schools in the US. A > demonstrated record of teaching and scholarship, and commitment to ESL > teaching. Salary will be based on qualifications and experience. Position > begins Fall 2000. As a university that educates students of various > ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and > seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. To ensure > full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send > letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., > California State University, Chico, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an > EEO/AA/ADA employer. > > The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill > a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professor position in > linguistics. This is a leave replacement position. Teaching load is four > courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching introduction to > linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and > Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon > departmental needs and background of individual. Candidates should be > knowledgeable about and interested in working with California's diverse > student population. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in linguistics (ABD > will be considered). Ability and experience in teaching both introduction > to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories > and Methods courses, with a demonstrated record in teaching and > scholarship. Teaching experience in credential or ESL teacher training > programs is desirable. As a university that educates students of various > ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and > seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. Salary will > be based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. To > ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. > Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., > California State University, Chico, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an > EEO/AA/ADA employer. > From pwd at RICE.EDU Sun Mar 19 01:22:05 2000 From: pwd at RICE.EDU (Philip W Davis) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 19:22:05 -0600 Subject: Lecturer at Rice University,Houston,TX,USA Message-ID: Rice University Lecturer Department of Linguistics The Department of Linguistics, Rice University, seeks a visiting Lecturer for the AY 2000-2001. Ph.D. required. We are a functionally oriented department, and we are looking for a recent Ph.D. who shares that approach to language. Course load is two per semester. Possible courses are Linguistic Analysis, Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Discourse Analysis, and Morphology. Salary commensurate with experience. For full consideration, reply by April 15 with three letters of reference to: Chair, Department of Linguistics MS23, 6100 Main St., Rice University, Houston, TX 77005. E-mail: ling at rice.edu. AA/EOE. From hilaryy at RUF.RICE.EDU Mon Mar 20 06:10:38 2000 From: hilaryy at RUF.RICE.EDU (Hilary Young) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 00:10:38 -0600 Subject: Rice Symposium Message-ID: Rice University's department of linguistics is pleased to announce the Eigth Biennial Rice Symposium on Linguistics to be held at Rice University (Houston, Tx) April 6-9, 2000. This year's theme is 'Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation in the Languages of Central and South America'. For general information and to see the symposium program, go to www.ruf.rice.edu/~hilaryy/symp.html. For more information, please contact Hilary Young at hilaryy at rice.edu. From johannes at COMPLING.HU-BERLIN.DE Mon Mar 20 08:18:23 2000 From: johannes at COMPLING.HU-BERLIN.DE (Johannes Heinecke) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:18:23 +0100 Subject: English Linguistics at Potsdam (fwd) Message-ID: Professor (C4) for Modern English (= "Englische Sprache der Gegenwart") The Institute for English and American Studies of the University of Potsdam (Potsdam, Germany) has a vacancy in English linguistics to announce. This position (one professor plus two assistants) is responsible for instruction in the existing M.A. and pre-service teacher training programs in the areas: English phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicology, and varieties of English. Applicants should have demonstrable research exper-tise in at least two of the above-mentioned areas, with an emphasis on the structures and functions of modern English. Also desirable are demonstrated research capacity in one of the areas of specialisation of the Institute. Please see the Institute's home-page for further information: http://www.rz.uni.potsdam.de/u/anglistik/index.htm In addition to teaching and research duties, the successful candidate will participate in academic administration, and is expected to co-operate with other institutes and interdisciplinary centres of the University http://www.uni-potsdam.de/over/homegd.htm Employment preconditions are laid out in paragraph 38 of the Branden-burg Hochschulgesetz. These include a completed doctorate in a relevant area and additional demonstrated research ability equivalent to the German Habilitation (or "second dissertation"). While the exact definition of "equivalent" qualification will be decided by the hiring committee, foreign applicants should understand that minimally qualified German applicants will have two book publications (the D.Phil. dissertation and the Habilitation dissertation). Foreign applicatns will therefore be expected to have publications in addition to the doctoral dissertation. The University of Potsdam encourages good teaching. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate teaching ability. The University strongly encourages applications from female candidates and individuals with physical disabilities. Fluency in German from foreign applicants is expected. Persons interested in responding to this notice should consult the official German-language advertisement which appeared in the Ausschreibungsdienst des Deutschen Hochschulverbandes (Tue, 14 March 2000): DHV-SPRACH_UND_KULTURWISSENSCHAFTEN-L at listserv.gmd.de The deadline for applications is April 28, 2000. Applications should be sent to: Rektor der Universitaet Potsdam, Postfach 60 15 53, D-14 415 Potsdam, Germany. Applicants with additional questions should direct them to the chair of the committee, Professor Dr. Hildegard L.C. Tristram, tristram at rz.uni-potsdam.de -- Johannes Heinecke heinecke at compling.hu-berlin.de From gthurgood at csuchico.edu Thu Mar 23 18:06:13 2000 From: gthurgood at csuchico.edu (Graham Thurgood) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:06:13 -0800 Subject: temporary job openings Message-ID: 1. The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill a one- year, full-time temporary sabbatical replacement position in Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong linguistics background). This is a leave replacement position. Teaching Load is four courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching ESL (specifically ESL for Academic Purposes), and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon departmental needs and the background of the individual. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition or TESOL (with a strong linguistics background). ABD will be considered. Teaching experience in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs in the US or ESL in a non-US setting, or ESL/bilingual programs in K-12 schools in the US. A demonstrated record of teaching and scholarship, and commitment to ESL teaching. Rank and salary are based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. As a university that educates students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. To ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., California State University, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an EEO/AA/ADA employer. 2. The English Department at California State University, Chico seeks to fill a one-year, full-time temporary, Visiting Assistant Professorship in linguistics. This is a leave replacement position. Teaching load is four courses per semester. Responsibilities: Teaching introduction to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses. The exact teaching assignments are dependent upon department needs and background of individual. Candidates should be knowledgeable about and interested in working with California's diverse student population. Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in linguistics (ABD will be considered). Ability and experience in teaching both introduction to linguistics and introduction to Second Language Acquisition Theories and Methods courses, with a demonstrated record in teaching and scholarship. Teaching experience in credential or ESL teacher training programs is desirable. As a university that educates students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff and seek to create as diverse a pool of candidates as possible. Rank and salary are based on qualifications and experience. Position begins Fall 2000. To ensure full consideration, application must be received by May 16, 2000. Send letter, dossier and recs. to Karen Hatch, Chair., English Dept., California State University, Chico, CA. 95929-0830. Chico is an EEO/AA/ADA employer. From msoto at SERVIDOR.UNAM.MX Fri Mar 24 20:27:20 2000 From: msoto at SERVIDOR.UNAM.MX (Dr. Ricardo Maldonado) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:27:20 -0600 Subject: Time and Spanish Message-ID: A few comments about Carmen Bretones' insight of whether the observer can move towards a future time. 09:39 AM 18/03/00 -0800, ha escrito: >Dear Vyv, >>Is the following sentence a grammatical sentence in Spanish? 1)nos estamos acercando a la Navidad > >Yes, it is grammatical. >You could say, for example, "nos estamos acercando a tu casa(spatial >location)" o "nos estamos acercando a un momento culminante(temporal >location)". > >>Essentially I'm trying to find out if it is possible in Spanish to >>conceptualise the observer as moving towards a future time. >> 2>*Avanzamos hacia la Navidad 3>*Nos aproximamos a la Navidad 4>*Nos movemos hacia la Navidad 5>*Vamos hacia la Navidad 6>*Nos acercamos a la Navidad >These examples do not sound right, but I am afraid that many people would >consider it as due to stylistics rather than to grammar. >In general terms, the correct expression for the general temporal location >"Christmas time" would be "se acerca la Navidad" meaning that the period >of the year called Christmas is coming. In this case, it is implied that >Christmas "se acerca" (comes closer) to the present time, the time in which >"we" are now. I believe that given the appropriate context all those examples can be just fine. That's the kind of thing we here in political discourse all the time. Change the word Navidad 'Christmas' to a real goal in time like "un futuro mejor = a better future". Examples 2-6 become perfect. >In Spanish you would never say "se NOS est? acercando la navidad" >(Christmas is getting closer TO US). Here I disagree with Carmen. Spanish is quite flexible to create this type of metaphor, given the right context. Consider the case where I need to buy Christmas presents for all the family and I have been unable to get enough money to do so, then it is perfectly fine to say "se me acerca peligrosamente/amenazantemente la navidad" "Christmas is getting closer to me dangerously/ dearlingly" A phrase like "Se nos avecinan tiempos dif?ciles = Hard times are approaching/coming to us" is not only possible but quite common. Thus imposing agency or activity on time is perfectly possible. Notice that in most cases the sentence is construed with the middle clitic which in motion verbs depicts an incohative construal (Further analysis of what I have called "Dynamic SE" can be seen either in my book "A media voz" (1999) or in a previous paper Maldonado 1992 "Dynamic construals in Spanish" sorry for the reference) A secnd point. Carmen says: >In "se acerca la navidad" We (observers) (note that I do not say "I", but >"we") are considered as a stationary object towards which Christmas >(the actor in this case) is moving. Its agency or self-movement is expressed >through the reflexive verb (or, more specifically, thanks to the reflexive >pronoun "se"=itself). The use of the reflexive could imply the idea of time >as actor or performer, or the metaphor TIME IS ACTION. >Look at thefollowing examples: ( right, *not so right, ***wrong) 7>La Navidad se acerca 8>*Nos acercamos a la Navidad 9>***La Navidad se nos acerca > 10>La Navidad se aproxima 11>*Nos aproximamos a la Navidad 12>***Se nos aproxima la Navidad > 13>La vejez se acerca 14>Nos acercamos a la vejez 15>Se nos acerca la vejez > >As you see, the last example is right in its three uses. >In "NOS" we include action, - the action of agent subjects as builders of >that coming time. NOS could also imply more personalised and more >coloquial meaning. That would imply that maybe we personify Christmas in >Spanish, and so we avoid our agency (nos). I am sorry to disagree here again. First in NOS there is no agency at all. It is a dative clitic that depicts an active participant in the target domain. It is thus the goal and it is an experiencer subject to be affected as all datives are. Now, if "navidad" is seen as something threatening just like "vejez=old age" is in 13-15 then 7-12 are perfect. There are nice and interesting differences between Spain and Latin America on this respect. As I have shown in another paper (Maldonado "Datividad distancia conceptual" 1998 sorry again for the reference!) in Mexican Spanish the conceptualizer can easily become part of the scene and be affected by it. Thus, given the right context 7-12 are fine. An anecdote on this issue is pertinent. When I presented the dative paper in Spain most Penisular speakers in the audience rejected examples like 9 and 12, yet in informal conversation after the conference I heard a few of those examples from the same people. Carmen points out that "NOS could also imply more personalised and more coloquial meaning" I think that is totally correct. In informal contexts that type of construction is quite common even in dialects that reject them in formal situations. From the last messages we have received, it is clear that in Andaluc?a and other parts of Spain as well as in Chile. Examples in 7-12 are fine given the appropriate context. I hope this helps From clements at INDIANA.EDU Sat Mar 25 18:38:06 2000 From: clements at INDIANA.EDU (J. Clancy Clements) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 12:38:06 -0600 Subject: 4th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Message-ID: SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS 4th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Nov. 17-19, 2000 at Indiana University, Bloomington Keynote Speakers John Lipski, University of New Mexico Bill VanPatten, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign Abstract deadline: April 10, 2000 Response from organizers: May 1, 2000 We are soliciting one page abstracts of original work on any area of Hispanic linguistics: historical, phonology, second language acquisition, semantics, sociolinguistics, syntax; and ALL theoretical frameworks Abstracts can be submitted electronically to James F. Lee: leejames at indiana.edu or via regular mail: James F. Lee, Hispanic Linguistics Symposium Department of Spanish and Portuguese 844 Ballantine Hall Bloomington, IN 47405 For details, please consult the Symposium homepage at http://www.indiana.edu/~spanport/linguisticsymp2.html --------------------- J. Clancy Clements Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Ballantine Hall 844 / IU Bloomington, IN 47405 USA Tel. (812) 855-6141 Fax: (812) 855-4526 From jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU Thu Mar 30 23:58:12 2000 From: jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU (Johanna Rubba) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:58:12 -0800 Subject: Spanish intro ling textbook Message-ID: I posted a query a while ago asking for recommendations for a basic (usable by non-majors) introduction to linguistics in Spanish. Sadly, I seem to have lost the replies I got. Now I have a student who would benefit greatly from being able to read about basic linguistics concepts in Spanish. Can anyone direct me to a good book? One that would be available in the USA? Thanks -- Johanna ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics English Department, California Polytechnic State University One Grand Avenue ? San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Tel. (805)-756-2184 ? Fax: (805)-756-6374 ? Dept. Phone. 756-259 ? E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu ? Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ** "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From jlmendi at POSTA.UNIZAR.ES Fri Mar 31 11:27:09 2000 From: jlmendi at POSTA.UNIZAR.ES (Jose-Luis Mendivil Giro) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 12:27:09 +0100 Subject: Spanish intro ling textbook In-Reply-To: <38E3EA12.AD487E35@calpoly.edu> Message-ID: At 15:58 -0800 30/3/00, Johanna Rubba wrote: >I posted a query a while ago asking for recommendations for a basic >(usable by non-majors) introduction to linguistics in Spanish. Sadly, I >seem to have lost the replies I got. Now I have a student who would >benefit greatly from being able to read about basic linguistics concepts >in Spanish. Can anyone direct me to a good book? One that would be >available in the USA? Hello. Your last condition restricts severely my suggestions. I have used profitably the following in my classes: Moreno Cabrera, J.C. (1991) Curso Universitario de Linguistica General, Madrid: Sintesis (2 vols.) ***************************************** Dr. Jose-Luis Mendivil Giro Dept. of General and Hispanic Linguistics Universidad de Zaragoza C/ Pedro Cerbuna, 12 50009 Zaragoza (Spain) Phone: (+34) 976 761 000 Fax: (+34) 976 761 541 E-mail: jlmendi at posta.unizar.es From paul at BENJAMINS.COM Fri Mar 31 21:15:10 2000 From: paul at BENJAMINS.COM (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:15:10 -0500 Subject: New Books for Functionalists Message-ID: John Benjamins would like to bring to your attention four recently published functionalist works: 1) Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. Michael DARNELL, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds.) Studies in Language Companion Series 41 US & Canada: 1 55619 927 9 / USD 98.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world:90 272 3044 7 / NLG 196.00 (Hardcover) The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches - functionalists and formalists - in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume I includes papers discussing the two basic approaches to linguistics; with contributions by: Werner Abraham, Stephen R. Anderson, Joan L. Bybee, William Croft, Alice Davidson, Mark Durie, Ken Hale, Michael Hammond, Bruce P. Hayes, Nina Hyams, Howard Lasnik, Brian MacWhinney, Geoffrey S. Nathan, Daniell Nettle, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Edith A. Moravcsik, Doris Payne, Janet Pierrehumbert, Kathleen M. Wheatley. 2) Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies. Michael DARNELL, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds.) Studies in Language Companion Series 42 US & Canada: 1 55619 928 7 / USD 82.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 3045 5 / NLG 164.00 (Hardcover) The 23rd UWM Linguistics Symposium (1996) brought together linguists of opposing theoretical approaches - functionalists and formalists - in order to determine to what extent these approaches really differ from each other and to what extent the approaches complement each other. The two volumes of Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics contain a careful selection of the papers originally presented at the symposium. Volume II consists of case studies which draw upon the strengths of both approaches and thus help to bridge the gap between the two camps; with contributions by: Mira Ariel, Melissa Axelrod, Robbin Clamons, Bernard Comrie, Kees Hengeveld, Erika Hoff-Ginsberg, James Hurford, Lizanne Kaiser, Nicholas Kibre, Simon Kirby, Feng-hsi Liu, Andr? Meinunger , Viola Miglio, Ann Mulkern, Waturu Nakamura, Maria Polinsky, Elizabeth Purnell, Gerald Sanders, Nancy Stenson, Maggie Tallerman, Ronnie Wilbur. 3) Function and Structure. In honor of Susumu Kuno. Akio KAMIO and Ken-Ichi TAKAMI (eds.) Pragmatics & Beyond NS 59 US & Canada: 1 55619 822 1 / USD 89.00 (Hardcover) Rest of World: 90 272 5073 1 / NLG 178.00 (Hardcover) This collection of papers on functional syntax shows the development of a specific stream of functional linguistics initiated by Susumu Kuno of Harvard University. Inspired by Prague School linguists such as Jan Firbas and Vil?m Mathesius, Kuno developed a more comprehensive and theory-oriented approach and linked it with the American formalist approach of generative grammar. His approach is thus a unique combination of functionalism and formalism that constantly urges the promotion of interactions between these two major trends in linguistics. The papers in this collection coherently deal with functional aspects of linguistics from a wide variety of perspectives such as theoretical, applicational, experimental and diachronic aspects, incorporating the functional concept advocated by Kuno. Contributions by: Noriko Akatsuka; Jacqueline Guillemin-Flescher; Akio Kamio and Margaret Thomas; Becky Kennedy; Kiri Lee; Lise Menn et al.; Ken-ichi Takami; Etsuko Tomoda; Aiko Utsugi; Gregory Ward; John Whitman. 4) External Possession. PAYNE, Doris L. and Immanuel BARSHI (eds.) Typological Studies in Language 39 US & Canada: 1 55619 652 0 / USD 125.00 (Hardcover) 1 55619 655 5 / USD 34.95 (Paperback) Rest of world: 90 272 2938 4 / NLG 250.00 (Hardcover) 90 272 2941 4 / NLG 70.00 (Paperback) External Possession Constructions (EPCs) are found in nearly all parts of the world and across widely divergent language families. The data-rich papers in this first-ever volume on EPCs document their typological variability, explore diachronic reasons for variations, and investigate their functions and theoretical ramifications. EPCs code the possessor as a core grammatical relation of the verb and in a constituent separate from that which contains the possessed item. Though EPCs express possession, they do so without the necessary involvement of a possessive predicate such as "have" or "own". In many cases, EPCs appear to "break the rules" about how many arguments a verb of a given valence can have. They thus constitute an important limiting case for evaluating theories of the relationship between verbal argument structure and syntactic clause structure. They also raise core questions about intersections among verbal valence, cognitive event construal, voice, and language processing. Contributions by: Doris L. Payne; Immanuel Barshi; Murray Singer; Keiko Uehara; Maura Vel?zquez-Castillo; Martin Haspelmath; Donna B. Gerdts; Judith Aissen; Hilary Chappell; Jack B. Martin; Pamela Munro; Mark Baker; Paulette Levy; Roberto Zavala Maldonado; Mark Donohue; Noel Rude; William McGregor; Ronald P. Schaefer; Mirjam Fried; Vera I. Podlesskaya; Ekaterina V. Rakhilina; Maria Polinsky; Bernard Comrie. John Benjamins Publishing Co. Offices: Philadelphia Amsterdam: Websites: http://www.benjamins.com http://www.benjamins.nl E-mail: service at benjamins.com customer.services at benjamins.nl Phone: +215 836-1200 +31 20 6762325 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From agarbode at indiana.edu Fri Mar 31 21:31:19 2000 From: agarbode at indiana.edu (Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:31:19 -0500 Subject: agreement & frequency Message-ID: Is anyone aware of work that has been done on grammatical agreement and frequency? For example, if a verb agrees with an object (variably) by (variably)adding some sort of verbal inflection, at what point is there generally considered to be "agreement." Is it at 50%, 75%, 100% of the time? The particular phenomenon that I am working with is indirect object clitic-doubling in Spanish. This has been called agreement by many working in formalist and functionalist frameworks. I am interested in at what point clitic-doubling ceases to be doubling and begins to be grammatical agreement. Any references to relevant literature (perhaps in the field of grammaticalization?) would be greatly appreciated. Andrew -- Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese Indiana University Ballantine Hall 848 Bloomington, IN 47405 U.S.A. From agarbode at indiana.edu Fri Mar 31 22:07:22 2000 From: agarbode at indiana.edu (Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:07:22 -0500 Subject: frequency and agreement Message-ID: Is anyone aware of work that has been done on grammatical agreement and frequency? For example, if a verb agrees with an object (variably) by (variably)adding some sort of verbal inflection, at what point is there generally considered to be "agreement." Is it at 50%, 75%, 100% of the time? The particular phenomenon that I am working with is indirect object clitic-doubling in Spanish. This has been called agreement by many working in formalist and functionalist frameworks. I am interested in at what point clitic-doubling ceases to be doubling and begins to be grammatical agreement. Any references to relevant literature (perhaps in the field of grammaticalization?) would be greatly appreciated. If there is sufficent interest, I'll post a summary. Andrew -- Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese Indiana University Ballantine Hall 848 Bloomington, IN 47405 U.S.A.