From nordquis at UNM.EDU Fri Mar 2 01:10:31 2001 From: nordquis at UNM.EDU (Dawn Nordquist) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 18:10:31 -0700 Subject: Conference Schedule for High Desert Linguistics Society 4 Message-ID: FOURTH ANNUAL HIGH DESERT LINGUISTICS SOCIETY CONFERENCE March 30-31, 2001 The University of New Mexico Campus Friday March 30 8:00-9:30 Registration in the ORTEGA READING ROOM, Ortega Hall, Room #223 (Refreshments Served) 9:30-9:50 Opening Remarks and Credits, President of the High Desert Linguistics Society, K. Aaron Smith and Chair of the Linguistics Department at the University of New Mexico, Joan Bybee Friday, Morning Session All talks held in the Ortega Reading Room, Ortega Hall Room #233 10:00-10:30 The Politics of Indigenous Languages in Literacy and Education in Malawi, Alfred, J. Matiki, The University of New Mexico 10:30-11:00 A Comparison of the Code Switching Behavior and Knowledge of Adults and Children, Julianne Hammink, The University of Texas at El Paso 11:00-11:30 Prototypicality, Metaphor and Second Language Learning, Paula Bramante, The University of New Mexico 11:30-1:00 Break for Lunch 1:00-2:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER ORTEGA READING ROOM, ORTEGA HALL #233 Shana Poplock, University of Ottawa Variation, Prescription and Praxis in the Evolution of French Grammar 2:00-2:30 Break Friday, Afternoon Session All talks held in the Ortega Reading Room, Ortega Hall Room #233 2:30-3:00 Two Forms of Yes-No Questions in Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Analysis, Li-Hsiang Chang, The University of New Mexico 3:00-3:30 Passive Constructions in Modern Irish, Brian Nolan, Trinity College Dublin and the Institute of Technology at Blanchardstown 3:30-4:00 An Analysis of Japanese nearly Synonymous Adverbs, Eiko Torii, Wellesley College 4:00-4:30 Break (Light Refreshments Served) 4:30-5:00 The Representation of Possession: An Interface between Syntax and Semantics, Nancy Mae Antrim, University of Texas at El Paso 5:00-5:30 Pseudogapping: ATB Movement, not Verb Phrase Ellipsis, Brian Agbayani and Ed Zoerner, University of California at Irvine and California State University, Dominguez Hills *On Friday Evening, the conference presenters and attendees are invited to join together for dinner at the Monte Vista Fire House at 7 PM (self-pay). Please RSVP with K. Aaron Smith if you plan to attend the dinner. Directions to the Fire House are included in your registration package. Saturday, March 31 9:00-10:00 Mingle and Breakfast (bagels, pastries, fruit and coffee) Dane Smith Hall, First Floor. Saturday, Morning Session A (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, Room #244 10:00-10:30 Spanish Diminutive Formation without Rules or Constraints, David Eddington, Mississippi State University 10:30-11:00 Evidentiality and beyond in Cha’palaachi, Enrique Bernárdez, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain 11:00-11:30 Aspects of Aspectual Markers in ASL, Robin Thompson, University of San Diego and The Salk Institute Saturday, Morning Session B (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, Room #245 10:00-10:30 The Middle Finger in Handshape Phonology, Christopher Miller, Université du Québec à Montréal 10:30-11:00 Prosodic versus Morphological Mora Augmentation, Stuart Davis, Indiana University 11:00-11:30 Lexical Frequency and the Plural Marker /s/ in Brazilian Portuguese, Fernanda Ferreira, The University of New Mexico 11:30-1:00 Break for Lunch 1:00-2:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER DANE SMITH HALL, ROOM #233 Sherman Wilcox, The University of New Mexico Gesture, Icons, and Symbol: What Signed Languages Tell us about Language 2:00-2:30 Break Saturday, Afternoon Session A (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, #255 2:30-3:00 The Role of Digression in ASL Discourse, Rick Zimmer, The University of Manitoba 3:00-3:30 Perspective Coding and the Use of Space in ASL Verbs, Terry Janzen, The University of Manitoba 3:30-4:00 Break (refreshments not served) 4:00-4:30 A Knowledge-driven, Constraints-based Interface Mechanism for Semantic Analysis of Sentence Structures, Dan Tappan, New Mexico State University 4:30-5:00 Using Translations to Inform Mexican Communities about Health: An in-depth Analysis of the Cultural, Social, and Linguistic Factors Contributing to Miscommunication, Holly E. Jacobson, The University of Arizona Saturday, Afternoon Session B (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, #254 2:30-3:00 The Chiac Verb Particle Construction, Hilary Young, Rice University 3:00-3:30 The Morphologization of qui in Spoken Swiss French, Bonnie Fonseca-Greber, The University of Arizona 3:30-4:00 Break (refreshments not served) 4:00-4:30 The Jury’s still out: Semantic Distinctions in Legal and Comprehension Issues for Layjurors, Stephanie Burdine, Rice University 4:30-5:00 Metaphors of Collaboration, Christopher Shank, The University of New Mexico *There will be an end-of-conference party held on Saturday evening. Place and time TBA. From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Mon Mar 5 15:04:14 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:04:14 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Folks, I have missed most of this discussion. Has anyone brought up the epistemological literature wrt these issues? Putnam, Rorty, Searle, Davidson, Quine, Russell, Plantinga, and *many* others have spoken to these issues with considerable sophistication. Perhaps we are straying slightly beyond the expertise afforded by linguistics training in discussing intentionality? (And John Searle used to say that the quickest way to spot that someone has misunderstood the issue of intentionality is that they will try to derive it from intensionality with an s, as many a bad PhD dissertation in philosophy has tried to do, so John says. I think I saw one reference to intensionality on this list discussion, but cannot remember.) I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through issues). Dan Everett From fujiin at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Mon Mar 5 22:59:35 2001 From: fujiin at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Noriko Fujii) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 14:59:35 -0800 Subject: job at Oregon Message-ID: UNIVERSITY OF OREGON: The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures invites applications for a full-time one-year position as a visiting assistant professor of Japanese linguistics. Applicants should be prepared to teach graduate courses in Japanese phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, and/or in second language acquisition and second language teaching; and undergraduate language courses. The position begins September 16, 2001. Required are a Ph.D. or ABD in (Japanese) linguistics or applied linguistics and native or near-native fluency in Japanese and English. Excellence in teaching is a priority. Send an application letter, CV, three letters of recommendation, and brief research sample to: Japanese Linguistics Search Committee, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. Fax: 541/346-0260. Applications will be reviewed from March 30, 2001. AA/EO/ADA Employer Noriko Fujii Dept. of East Asian Langs. & Lits. Univ. of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 TEl: (541) 346-4004 FAX: (541) 346-0260 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Mon Mar 5 22:33:42 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 17:33:42 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 3/5/2001 10:39:52 AM, dan_everett at SIL.ORG writes: <> Well, to the extent that linguistics is a science, there may be a methodological issue that needs to be addressed. And whether that involves epistemology or just operationally and pragmatically defining terms like "communication" and "intention", there may be at least the need felt for some sense that confusion is not actively being pursued. At minimum. And that need was illustrated in the message that started this trend. In that sense, the epistemology here may be more humble in scope and may be in the category some call the epistemology of science. Popper versus the Pos itivists and John Searle's "Rediscovery of the Mind" certainly have something to say to empirical linguists. These matters of course present themselves quite clearly in the linguistics works of the likes of a Chomsky. But I might suggest the issues here may be a little more narrow. And those issues regarding the relationship between intention and communication may be rather straightforward and observational. When is it justifiable for a linguist or anyone else to infer "intention" from a piece of observable behavior? If we feel it is justifiable to infer intention, then does it make sense to make intention part of the working definition of communication? Newton proved that you don't have to isolate, define or measure gravitrons to isolate, define or measure gravity. Darwin even proved that you don't have to isolate, define or measure genes in order to isolate, define or measure evolution. On a much less grander scale, the whole field of knowledge and consciousness may be too big a bird to swallow in answering the questions above. Not that intention is that small a bird, but at least a basic issue emerges. In an earlier post in this tread, Tom Givon wrote strikingly: <> And this in my very humble opinion is right near the core of the problem. What is intentional is not accidental. But some accidental things look intentional and vice versa. You can pick out structurally when humans have intervened in a wilderness situation. You can even see the functionality in the campfire and tent postholes they left behind. But then again the same sort of outward signs appear in an organ like the liver, signs of intentionality. (A fascinating question a friend of mine has been struggling with for a long time is how biological evolution would be different if it evolved as a result of the intentional efforts of generations of humans designing it. He tried to compare the phylogenic trees of species and automobile technology - e.g., "the Ferrari evolved from the Bugatti, with new transmission and intake traits." It really didn't look that different.) On the linguistic level, the fact is that the dictionary definition of words are not always a guide to why a person said those words. Are random words intentional? Here I think we are not looking at the intention to say words but the intention to accomplish something by saying words. There is not a one-to-one ratio. And that puts the intended effect of linguistic behavior in the cross-hairs of theory in my humble opinion - and however that fits in the epistemology of everything. In all of this the true nature of intention may put us ahead of ourselves. Finding out "why" we give a darn or "how" we give a darn may be premature, at least for these purposes. So it makes sense that we simply assume we must give a darn in order for intention and "intentional communication" to happen. And that, for me in my humble opinion, puts the funk back in funknet. Regards, Steve Long From nrude at UCINET.COM Tue Mar 6 00:36:31 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:36:31 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: <0103059838.AA983806736@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: on 3/5/01 7:04 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, > unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic > issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the > predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through > issues). > > Dan Everett But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know about this -- they do, don't they? Noel From girod at STYBBA.NTC.NOKIA.COM Tue Mar 6 06:51:24 2001 From: girod at STYBBA.NTC.NOKIA.COM (Marc Girod) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 08:51:24 +0200 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: "dan everett"'s message of "Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:04:14 -0500" Message-ID: >>>>> "dan" == dan everett writes: dan> Has anyone brought up the epistemological literature wrt these dan> issues? Putnam, Rorty, Searle, Davidson, Quine, Russell, dan> Plantinga, and *many* others have spoken to these issues with dan> considerable sophistication. And e.g. Gadamer's hermeutics, with understanding being interpretation, and this happening in the light of people's tasks (following Heidegger). This to get out of the issue of the "consciousness" of intentionality. -- Marc Girod P.O. Box 320 Voice: +358-9-511 23746 Nokia Networks 00045 NOKIA Group Mobile: +358-40-569 7954 Hiomo 5/1 Finland Fax: +358-9-511 23580 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 6 14:08:37 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 09:08:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Noel, This is exactly the kind of thing that philosophers should pay attention to. When linguists study language carefully and come up with plausible looking generalizations, then that is something philosophers (or the relevant other discipline, depending on the case) should attend to. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Author: at Internet Date: 3/5/01 4:36 PM on 3/5/01 7:04 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, > unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic > issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the > predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through > issues). > > Dan Everett But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know about this -- they do, don't they? Noel From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 6 16:12:42 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 18:12:42 +0200 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: It is impossible to read literature on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, diachronic linguistics or linguistic typology without constantly enountering expressions like 'this was a reasonable thing to do', 'it would have been irrational to do otherwise' etc etc. Clearly, linguists are trying to say something here, but what is it? It is the following schema of action-explanation: {[G:X & B:(A -> X)] --> G:A} => A' X and A are mental representations of goal-states and actions, respectively. The prefixes G and B represent prositional attitudes of intending (or simply wanting) and believing. The schema says that if someone intends to achieve the goal X and believes that an action A (which he is capable of performing) contributes to bringing X about, then he MUST, as a matter a conceptual necessity, intend to do A. (The necessity is indicated by the 'e-mail entailment sign' -->.) Thus, intention is transferred from goal to action. (As Aristotle put it, "who wants the end, wants the means".) Having this goal and this belief will then bring it about that he does A'. The simple arrow and the double arrow stand for ordinary causation and mental causation, respectively. While A is the mental representation of an action, A' is its spatiotemporal counterpart. A' is a RATIONAL action to the extent that it is indeed an adequate means of bringing about X. The 'rational explanation' of an action consists in showing that the agent thought it to be an adequate means of attaining some goal. As Newton-Smith (1981: 241) has put it: "To explain an action as an action is to show that it is rational. This involves showing that on the basis of the goals and beliefs of the person concerned the action was the means he believed to be the most likely to achieve his goal." It must be added, however, that even (prima facie) IRRATIONAL actions can only be explained by using the schema of rational explanation, i.e. by showing how the action that was in fact irrational could have APPEARED as rational to the agent. Otherwise it just remains incomprehensible. Rational explanation, based on UNCONSCIOUS rationality, turns out to be the common denominator of the linguistic subdisciplines mentioned above (as claimed in my Causality book from 1983). Or, rather than unconscious rationality, what we have here are unconscious ATTEMPTS AT rationality. Fodor (1975) knew it: "For all we know, cognition is saturated with rationality through and through." Esa Itkonen From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 05:40:04 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 21:40:04 -0800 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: Esa, Maybe "unconscious rationality" is just another name for "unconscious intent". And intents need not necessarily be 'rational'. The connection between the sub-corrtical limbic system, where the central processing of 'intention' is localized, and the front-cortical centers of both rationality and attention/ consciousness, is not an automatic connection, but only an optional one. Maybe another element involved here is the contrast between more local vs. more global planning, actions & consequences. In general, both language performance and bilogical evolution tend to rely on relatively local planning & execution, much of it highly automated (thus not conscious). But the consequences are often global, and some of them may be available to (off-line, subsequent) conscious construction. Both linguists & philosophers tend to ignore the difference, assuming that because something *can* be construed consciously (later on) as 'rational', it must have been so during language production/comprehension. This is our trap of "competence" all over again, even when we profess to be non-Chomskyan about it. Best, TG ======================= Esa Itkonen wrote: > > It is impossible to read literature on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, > psycholinguistics, diachronic linguistics or linguistic typology without > constantly enountering expressions like 'this was a reasonable thing to > do', 'it would have been irrational to do otherwise' etc etc. Clearly, > linguists are trying to say something here, but what is it? It is the > following schema of action-explanation: > > {[G:X & B:(A -> X)] --> G:A} => A' > > X and A are mental representations of goal-states and actions, > respectively. The prefixes G and B represent prositional attitudes of > intending (or simply wanting) and believing. The schema says that if > someone intends to achieve the goal X and believes that an action A (which > he is capable of performing) contributes to bringing X about, then he MUST, > as a matter a conceptual necessity, intend to do A. (The necessity is > indicated by the 'e-mail entailment sign' -->.) Thus, intention is > transferred from goal to action. (As Aristotle put it, "who wants the end, > wants the means".) Having this goal and this belief will then bring it > about that he does A'. The simple arrow and the double arrow stand for > ordinary causation and mental causation, respectively. While A is the > mental representation of an action, A' is its spatiotemporal counterpart. > A' is a RATIONAL action to the extent that it is indeed an adequate means > of bringing about X. The 'rational explanation' of an action consists in > showing that the agent thought it to be an adequate means of attaining some > goal. As Newton-Smith (1981: 241) has put it: "To explain an action as an > action is to show that it is rational. This involves showing that on the > basis of the goals and beliefs of the person concerned the action was the > means he believed to be the most likely to achieve his goal." It must be > added, however, that even (prima facie) IRRATIONAL actions can only be > explained by using the schema of rational explanation, i.e. by showing how > the action that was in fact irrational could have APPEARED as rational to > the agent. Otherwise it just remains incomprehensible. Rational > explanation, based on UNCONSCIOUS rationality, turns out to be the common > denominator of the linguistic subdisciplines mentioned above (as claimed in > my Causality book from 1983). Or, rather than unconscious rationality, what > we have here are unconscious ATTEMPTS AT rationality. Fodor (1975) knew it: > "For all we know, cognition is saturated with rationality through and > through." > > Esa Itkonen From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Tue Mar 6 17:49:38 2001 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 09:49:38 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Noel Rude wrote: > But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent > (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know > about this -- they do, don't they? They know all about that one--the concept of intentional Agent is originally theirs. We lifted it from them without thinking carefully about whether it was really suited for our needs, which IMO it certainly isn't--there's very little *grammatical* evidence for the relevance of intention to the Agent role (in the linguistic, as opposed to the philosopher's, sense). Scott DeLancey From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 08:07:23 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 00:07:23 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: With all due respect, if you work on verb complementation & causative construction, the concepts of "agent" and "intent" are absolutely crucial fdor understanding 'rules of grammar'. So let's not throw them out prematurely. TG ======================== Scott Delancey wrote: > > On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Noel Rude wrote: > > > But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent > > (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know > > about this -- they do, don't they? > > They know all about that one--the concept of intentional Agent is > originally theirs. We lifted it from them without thinking carefully > about whether it was really suited for our needs, which IMO it > certainly isn't--there's very little *grammatical* evidence for the > relevance of intention to the Agent role (in the linguistic, as > opposed to the philosopher's, sense). > > Scott DeLancey From hargred at WOU.EDU Tue Mar 6 21:03:07 2001 From: hargred at WOU.EDU (david hargreaves) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 13:03:07 PST Subject: intentional explanation In-Reply-To: <3AA5C9B4.40C54954@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained," devotes a long chapter ('How Words Do Things with Us') to a critique of Levelt's production model; in doing so he makes important larger points about the sloppy ways of talking about "intending" and "meaning." His critique ought to be disturbing for any communication/production models that appeal to "goals" and "intentions" as unproblematic. From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 6 22:24:26 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 17:24:26 -0500 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: To Esa and Tom, First, Esa's posting still leaves me thinking that there is a lot of literature out there which handles intentionality much better than linguists. For us to discuss it without doing our homework and placing our discoveries in the context of what is already known would be unfortunate. And as Scott pointed out, even the notion 'intentional agent' comes from philosophy (although linguists have paid back their debt on that one with considerable empirical work. Unfortunately, few philosophers really read the linguistics literature well, as we often neglect their literature. Rick Grush, John Searle, Jerry Fodor, and a couple of others stand out as exceptions, but there are not many). As to Tom's posting, well, I just don't think that the brain is quite so neatly partioned as Tom seems to suggest. 'Press here for rationality' 'Press here for intentionality', etc. I am seriously skeptical about that understanding of the neurological research. Perhaps an LSA institute course on 'intentionality', offered by Searle or other philosopher with a strong publication record in this area. Dan From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 7 05:10:10 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 22:10:10 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: <3AA5EC3B.356FD2B4@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: > With all due respect, if you work on verb complementation & causative > construction, the concepts of "agent" and "intent" are absolutely > crucial fdor understanding 'rules of grammar'. So let's not throw them > out prematurely. TG I was under the impression that agentivity depended more on the _Absicht_ variety of "intent" than on the lower-level _Intentionalitaet_ that I thought was the topic of this thread. If I'm wrong about this, I need to re-read a whole lot of material in a new light. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 7 06:17:35 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 01:17:35 EST Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: In a message dated 3/6/2001 10:23:00 PM, dan_everett at SIL.ORG writes: << Perhaps an LSA institute course on 'intentionality', offered by Searle or other philosopher with a strong publication record in this area. >> Just to make a point about John Searle's position, this is from a review of his "The Rediscovery of the Mind," that appeared in the Journal of Philosophy at the time of publication and is reproduced on the web at http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/searle.htm. <> In an interesting segment from that review, the author notes a change in Searle's approach in "Rediscovery" that reflects perhaps how much his view diverged (and perhaps still diverges) from those of the mainstream "philosophers and cognitive scientists": <> It might occur to someone reading this review closely that linguists, psychologists and biologists may have as much to contribute as philosophers to "handling" the subject of intentionality. One does not get the impression that, after a few millennium of addressing the problem of intention, philosophy is ever so much closer to an answer. But one does get the impression that even Searle might admit that the answer hinges on what way the science of it falls. And that certainly includes linguistics. I would hope that there would be no conclusion that linguists need some extraordinary training to address the issue of intention and that it should be left to others to define intention IN A LINGUISTIC CONTEXT. There are of course physiological and behavioral constraints, but in all the learning on the subject there's nothing like a "germ theory of disease" that has settled the matter of intention once and for all. Far from it. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 7 07:33:58 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 02:33:58 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 12:30:07 AM, dparvaz at UNM.EDU writes: << I was under the impression that agentivity depended more on the _Absicht_ variety of "intent" than on the lower-level _Intentionalitaet_ that I thought was the topic of this thread. If I'm wrong about this, I need to re-read a whole lot of material in a new light. >> In my humble opinion, that may be a problem here. Husserlian "Intentionalitaet" is a specific, specialized and perhaps bigger issue. But at least one part of this tread simply dealt with the word "intention" as it would be used in a linguistic definition of communication. "Intent" or "intention" in its normal meaning (not Intentionality with a capital "I") is an understandable concept in a variety of sciences and everyday life. And that expected meaning would logically be valid in and of itself in discussing these matters. Not that the specialized meaning (as in "Intentional cause") is not valid, but it should also be possible to invoke the plain meaning in English (and without recourse to the fine definition that happens in German or unique meaning found in some epistemological approaches). How is it that the discussion of "intent" as it is used to describe examples of communications in law or wildlife could possibly invoke a specialized and essentially phenomenological concept to the exclusion of its ordinary meaning, that is, simply purposeful speech or behavior? This seems to go back to the message that started this tread, which was about unstated assumptions. Regards, Steve Long From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Mar 8 04:49:21 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:49:21 -0800 Subject: intentionality Message-ID: Dear Brian, I'm forwarding your note to Scott, together with some comments here. There is a similar passive case in English, the GET passive. Unlike the BE passive, it tends to (in older working-class people, where it is most entrenched) to carry a strong sense that the patiend did something deliberately in order to deserve their misfortune. There's a paper by Young & Givon tracking the history of this passive (Hopper & Fox eds 1994), but also showing why its history (as an ex reflexive- causative) is related to its saynchronic characteristics. The 'agentivity' of the patient of this passive was noted earlier by Robin Lakoff & Dwight Bolinger, no doubt *inter alia*. The reason why Scott is down on agents probably has to do wiyth is "best theory" approach (the 'localistic case hypothesis'), which I myself find less-than-useful in accounting for case-governed grammatical phenomena in most languages I've worked with. But given that Scott works on Tibettan, where the notion of intentionality is rather important in both the drift to active/stative case-marking and the interaction with the aspectual/modal system ('mirativity'), I am not sure why he says what he says. If you ask people who woirk on other active-stative languages (Kartvalian, Chictaw, Lakota, Iroquois) if they need 'agent' to account for what they see in their languages, you'll get a resounding 'yes' (there's a recent paper by Mithun & Chafe on this subject). So I see no way of getting rid of it. But of course, both cognition and folk psychology (not to mention the study of animal behavior) suggest that a notion such as "action under one's own motivation" is a crucial feature for categorizing moving objects in an adaptive, predictive way. So one does not need grammar to arrive at this. Finally, many, perhaps most, cultures have a concept of culpability that depends crucially on intentional action and having control. So the category is certainly all over the place. Best, TG =================== Brian MacWhinney wrote: > > Dear Tom, > I tried posting this, but I am subscribed to Funknet from CMU and not Hong > Kong, so it bounced. Anyway, maybe it is fine to just have you and Scott > read it without a full posting. Unfortunately, I also don't have Scott's > email, so maybe at least you can read my thoughts on this. > > --Brian > > Dear Tom and Scott, > > Could you please be more specific? I assume that Scott is saying that we > choose Agents solely on the basis of whether or not we perceive them as > having instigated an action, whether that action be intentional or not. > However, Hopper and Thompson and many others have claimed that marking of > transitivity prototypically codes volition. But perhaps Scott is saying > that this only affects the nature of the object, not the Agent. > I would have wanted to just jump in agreeing with Tom, but then I realized > that I didn't really understand what he was saying either. Why shift ground > from Scott's focus on the Agent role to the issue of "rules of grammar". If > we just keep the focus on the linguistic marking of agency, can't we still > safely conclude that intentionality or volition is still crucial for > activation of the role. Consider this example from the news yesterday. > Dick Cheney's doctor was discussing his case and asserted that "Patients who > narrow their arteries end up with repeated chest pains." Now I am forced to > imagine Dick Cheney sitting in bed focusing on trying to narrow his > arteries. Perhaps he does this through some form of Tai Chi meditation. > This misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement > to package sentences with Agent roles. However, the opposite also occurs. > Insurance company reports are full of sentences like, "Suddenly this > confused old man appeared on my windshield." > I would love to see a discussion of at least some of the detailed ways in > which perception of intentionality or lack of intentionality ends up shaping > the nature of language. Not being able to speak an ergative language, I > have always worried about that too. And don't the two Finnish passives > involve relative levels of attribution of intention? Can't linguistics > articulate a detailed view of the specific processes of encoding of > intention that is more grounded in discourse and everyday life than the > rather ethereal statements we find in Searle, Dennett, and the others. If > so, what might this vision look like? I know that Len Talmy and Ron > Langacker include intentional arrows in many of their diagrams, but don't we > need to wonder where the arrows come from? What induces us to infer > volition or avoid the inference in our linguistic packagings of experience? > > --Brian MacWhinney From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 18:41:19 2001 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 10:41:19 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <3AA70F51.35C42559@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: OK, this isn't that complicated. I'm certainly not arguing that the concept of intention plays no part in the syntax of any language. As Tom points out, that's not a likely notion to be coming from someone who works on Tibetan. But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose that it is. If that were the case, then given a sentence like: Oh, shit! I broke it! we would have to conclude either a) that it entails an attribution of intentionality to the subject, or b) that the subject is not an Agent. (a) is obviously empirically false. (b) is a recipe for disaster. If _I_ in that sentence is not an Agent, what is it? There are only two solutions here. One is to posit a new semantic role here--but casually adding a new role every time we encounter an analytical problem will quickly render any theory of semantic roles completely vacuous. The other is to assign it to some other role--maybe Dative, because it's a conscious participant? The problem is that there seem to be vanishingly few languages that would treat this argument that way. Lots of languages, of course, mark the "subjects" of predicates like 'like', 'need', etc., as something other than Agents, which gives us concrete evidence that they *are* something other than Agents. And so we would expect that, if arguments like my _I_ here are not Agents, some substantial set of languages would reflect that in their surface marking. Not true, as far as I know. So identifying this argument as something other than an Agent amounts to abandoning any aspirations to a principled account of the relation between semantic roles and surface grammatical relations. Definitely not a good idea. Scott DeLancey From rcameron at uic.edu Wed Mar 7 18:55:59 2001 From: rcameron at uic.edu (Richrd Cameron) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 12:55:59 -0600 Subject: Intentionality Message-ID: A question or two: Does anyone know of research which demonstrates a connection between language change over time or space and intentionality? If so, what is the research? From nrude at UCINET.COM Wed Mar 7 21:47:04 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 13:47:04 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the > semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I > honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose > that it is. Folks, Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a category of grammar? If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the context you give or add it in other contexts? Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles for inferring it. Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. Noel From traugott at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Mar 7 21:43:18 2001 From: traugott at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Elizabeth Traugott) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 13:43:18 -0800 Subject: Intentionality In-Reply-To: <01C0A705.F5A85A20.rcameron@uic.edu> from "Richrd Cameron" at Mar 07, 2001 12:55:59 PM Message-ID: An important reference is: Rudi Keller, On Language Change: The Invisible Hand in Language. Trans. by Brigitte Nerlich. 1994. This is a largely philosophical study. Elizabeth Traugott > > A question or two: > > Does anyone know of research which demonstrates a connection between language change over time or space and intentionality? > > If so, what is the research? > From jbowden at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU Wed Mar 7 23:37:06 2001 From: jbowden at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU (John Bowden) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:37:06 +1100 Subject: agency and intentionality Message-ID: On the question of agency and intentionality and how they work in grammar, here's a paper that should be read much more widely than I suspect it has been. Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. & David P. Wilkins, 1996. The case for 'effector': Case roles, agents, and agentivity revisited. In Shibatani & Thompson, eds, Grammatical constructions: their form and meaning, 289-322. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have some new labels for case roles if many of us seem to be using an old familiar one like 'agent' in lots of different ways? Amongst other things, Van Valin and Wilkins argue convincingly that a role they call 'effector', which is pretty much an agent stripped of intentionality, is what most grammars are sensitive too rather than any intentional agent. Using the notion of effector rather than agent buys them a whole lot of stuff, including the ability to handle sentences like 'this key opens the door' which is just as difficult to handle with the intentional agent role as Scott DeLancey's 'Shit! I broke it!'. I wouldn't want to deny that fully intentional agents are important in some languages sometimes, but I'm with Scott DeLancey on this one: it seems to me that they're of pretty marginal significance most of the time. John Bowden Linguistics Department Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian Natiuonal University Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Mar 8 12:06:34 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 04:06:34 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all frequency-driven. Cheers, TG Noel Rude wrote: > > on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > > > > But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the > > semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I > > honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose > > that it is. > > Folks, > > Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and > abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that > intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I > guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a > category of grammar? > > If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that > intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in > no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the > broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the > context you give or add it in other contexts? > > Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental > and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar > then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles > for inferring it. > > Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour > vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category > better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American > Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- > whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension > 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw > into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. > > Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at > least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow > for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or > the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever > level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. > > Noel From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Mar 8 00:55:43 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 16:55:43 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <3AA775CA.D91556EC@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Indeed! If it turns out that -- after all -- we really are conscious, intentional beings, then any theory of language that ignores this will be off base and models that allow for data as TG suggests will be what the doctor ordered. Noel on 3/8/01 4:06 AM, Tom Givon at tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > > RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all > instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human > cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple > features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always > display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority > will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not > exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend > (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment > will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll > find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as > with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So > one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have > strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to > falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large > enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is > not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently > that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all > frequency-driven. Cheers, TG > > Noel Rude wrote: >> >> on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: >> >>> >>> But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the >>> semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I >>> honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose >>> that it is. >> >> Folks, >> >> Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and >> abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that >> intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I >> guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a >> category of grammar? >> >> If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that >> intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in >> no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the >> broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the >> context you give or add it in other contexts? >> >> Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental >> and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar >> then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles >> for inferring it. >> >> Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour >> vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category >> better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American >> Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- >> whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension >> 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw >> into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. >> >> Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at >> least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow >> for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or >> the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever >> level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. >> >> Noel > From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 8 04:39:43 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 23:39:43 EST Subject: intentionality Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 11:53:26 AM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: << Consider this example from the news yesterday. Dick Cheney's doctor was discussing his case and asserted that "Patients who narrow their arteries end up with repeated chest pains." Now I am forced to imagine Dick Cheney sitting in bed focusing on trying to narrow his arteries. Perhaps he does this through some form of Tai Chi meditation. This misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement to package sentences with Agent roles. >> Respectfully, is this a "misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement to package sentences with Agent roles?" Or was it the intention of the doctor to make the statement one of "volition?" The fact is that a fair number of the audience would recognize how the agent is involved with the object here. And of course it is not Tai Chi. "Narrow arteries" here refers to something other than narrow arteries in the usual sense. In fact, the reference here is to "acting in ways that narrow arteries." To assume otherwise is to assume that the doctor's statement made no sense to his audience. It seems a good bet that a fair percentage of the audience (especially those who have been warned by doctors before about such things) would recognize and report back that the doctor was referring to a lifestyle matter by simply referring to the physical consequences. Once the meaning as it was meant to be understood is inserted -- i.e., act in ways that narrow arteries -- the marking of intention becomes easily understandable, even to those not familiar with doctor jargon. The patients who willfully act in ways that will "narrow arteries" will suffer adverse consequences. Whether this is considered metaphorical or not, I don't know. But I do know that truncating the description of the action by going straight to the relevant consequence is terribly common. The other day a friend of mine "blew the engine" in her car. The full description that she over-revved it spinning her wheels in the snow to the point that the compression blew a hole in the gaskets on the engine was not necessary to my recognition of what had happened. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 8 06:49:36 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 01:49:36 EST Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 4:26:00 PM, nrude at UCINET.COM writes: << Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar then you will have to build into your pragmatic description some principles for inferring it. >> I guess that in a very devout or animistic culture or one where Fates capriciously control all things, there is an intention and an Agent to be found in every action. "Not a single sparrow falls,..." In such a worldview, it really doesn't matter whether you are "hit by a rock" or "a rock hits you." Since both events were in a sense sent by an outside force exercising very human-like intention. You'll notice this sort of thing in reading Homer. There has been a long argument about when and if Homer was using metaphor or being literal. But there are times when even the metaphor seems to convey a very foreign concept of intention. For example, "hôs Achilê' otrune menos kai thumos agênôr antion elthemenai megalêtoros Aineiao." (...so Achilles, exhorted by [his] courage and hard-headed spirit, comes to face the great-hearted Aeneas.) Now is a "cheering on", an "exhortation" in Homer and later, something often done by a cheering crowd or encouraging on-lookers. It will also be used later to describe spurring a horse. What feels so odd about this construction is that it makes Achilles' menos and thumos seem like avid spectators. And definitely separate from Achilles himself, with intentions of their own. If this description was meant in anyway to describe what Achilles was feeling, it must have felt weird. At least to us moderns. And I'm wondering if vestiges of this kind of thinking don't survive and account for the presence or absence of intention markings in the words we use. Compare: Oh shit! I broke it! Yes! I broke it! Good! I broke it! I broke it. Oh shit! I built it! Oh shit! I fixed it! A word like "break" seems to be intention-neutral. It could be intentional or accidental. But words like build and fix don't seem to make sense without the inference of intention. The two sets almost reflect different points-of-view about how much intention is worth mentioning. <> Perhaps these are vestiges of two different world views, inherited together into the modern language? Regards, Steve Long From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Thu Mar 8 07:10:48 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 23:10:48 -0800 Subject: Second Call (JK Conference) Message-ID: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS The 11th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference University of California at Santa Barbara June 29-July 1, 2001 Deadline for Abstract Submission: March 12, 2001 Note: This year abstracts are to be submitted ONLY by e-mail. Website: www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/events/jk11 ======================================= INVITED SPEAKERS Soonja Choi (San Diego State University, USA) Taro Kageyama (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan) Satoshi Kinsui (Osaka University, Japan) James Yoon (University of Illinois, USA) ======================================= This year, the Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference will be held during the 2001 LSA Linguistic Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Institute, with its dual themes of linguistic diversity (how and why languages differ) and Pacific Rim languages (synchronic and diachronic aspects of major Pacific Rim languages), will be an especially appropriate site for the conference. This conference aims to provide a forum for presenting research in Japanese and Korean linguistics, thereby facilitating efforts to deepen our understanding of these two languages, which have striking typological similarities. We especially encourage presentations which investigate both languages. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, typology, grammaticalization, historical linguistics, phonology, morphology, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. Presentations, except for those by invited speakers, will be 20 minutes long, and will be followed by a 10-minute question-answer period. =================================== The address for submission of your abstract for the 11th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference is: pclancy at humanitas.ucsb.edu. In submitting your abstract, it is essential that you follow the instructions below: E-MAIL SUBJECT HEADER: Decide whether your abstract is primarily formal or functional, and which area of linguistics is its main focus, e.g. phonology, historical, pragmatics. Then use the following subject header for your e-mail: "JK11, Last name, First initial, Formal or Functional/ Area. For example: "JK11, Nagashima, S., Formal/Phonology". Please be aware that without this header, your message may not receive proper handling. In the body of your e-mail message, include the following: TITLE: The first line of your e-mail message should be the title of your paper. 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Following your abstract , include the following information, which will be removed before your abstract is sent out for review. 1. Name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s) 2. Address 3. Phone number 4. E-mail address of the primary author. 5. If your address, phone number or e-mail address will be different during the spring or summer, be sure to include this information. Please note that only one abstract from each individual can be considered for acceptance. One individual abstract and one jointly authored abstract may be submitted. Abstract authors will be notified during the last week of April whether their abstract has been accepted. Information about registration, lodging, transportation, and events, such as the conference banquet, will be posted to the conference website, www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/events/jk11, in the coming weeks. ===================================== The proceedings of this conference will be published as Japanese/Korean Linguistics 11 by CSLI and distributed by Cambridge University Press. Patricia M. Clancy Dept. of Linguistics UCSB Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (805) 893-8658 (office) (805) 893-3776 (Ling. Dept. office) (805) 893-7769 (Ling. Dept. FAX) From W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE Thu Mar 8 11:20:51 2001 From: W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:20:51 +0100 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, may well be that I'm somewhat behind the discussion - I had the chance to read the last few postings only. Still, the matter is strongly related to my main research domain - thus you perhaps allow if I add some thoughts that result from what I have been working on. [What follows are some rudimentary thoughts on the issue - more details can be found in the exposition of the underlying frame work ('Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios') as elaborated in W. Schulze 1998. Person, Klasse, Kongruenz, chapters I,7 and IV. Munich/Newcastle: Lincom Europa]. I think, the basic problem is whether you deal with 'intentionality' from a linguistic point of view or from a purely cognitive perspective. By this I mean that it is important to indicate whether the notion of 'intentionality' is [in a given case] substantiatable with the help of a specific 'behavior' of the linguistic paradigm, or whether it stems from the *interpretation* of linguistic data in a psychological or what-so-ever perspective. For instance: If you discuss the German expression: 'Mein Gott, ich habe den Schlüssel vergessen' [Oh my God, I've forgotten the keys] you can easily assume that the whole 'scene' (in the terms of the 'Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios') or cognitive construct of the given State of Affairs is dominated by an 'unintentional reading'. But no morphology, morphosyntax, or morphosemantics helps the listener to infer this feature, it's simply the lexical entry and the 'scenic template' that lies behind it. It's a well known language play in German to construe counterfactual structures that are based on such unintentional scenes, e.g. 'Komm, wir finden einen Schatz!' [instead of: 'Komm, wir suchen einen Schatz!'] [Let's go and find a treasure!] - [Let's go and look for a treasure!] In such instances, there are two competing 'scenes', one which is based on a deontic speech act verb which is structurally coupled with intentionality ['komm!'], and one that is evoking an unintentional scene. In such instances, counterfactual linguistic material can result in the emergence of a 'linguistic' coding of (un)intentionality. But quite often [at least in German], the degree of (un)intentionality has to inferred from the co[n]text; in other words - the allocation of features of (un)intentionality is then strongly related to the state of situative or episodic (as well as encyclopedic) knowledge of the hearer [not the speaker! - For them, the degree of (un)intentionality is an idiosyncratically 'known' feature]. As far as linguistics is concerned, we should (imho) avoid the interpretation of textual material with respect to possibly emerging grades of (un)intentionality, as long as we don't have either a linguistic (or textual) clue to do so, or enough episodic, situativ, and encyclopedic knowledge of the scene communicated by the linguistic expression. Anything else would lie beyond the scope of linguistics. The above mentioned example has referred to what I'd like to call 'relational (un)intentionality': it is the 'relational domain' (in a cognitive sense) established between 'ich' [I] and 'Schlüssel' [keys], i.e. 'vergessen' [to forget] that is encyclopedically marked for the feature of unintentionality. It is not determined by the nature of the referential domain [the restriction in the scene concerns the degree of 'humanness' only]. Now compare: Mein Gott, das Baby hat das Auto gefahren! [My God, the baby has droven the car!] Though 'fahren' normally evokes a scene marked for intentional features [in German], here it is used with a referential domain the proponent of which is normally not associated with such a feature [at least when the encyclopedic knowledge related to 'fahren' is activated']. In this case, the encyclopedically controlled feature 'baby' [-intentional>fahren] is not effected by the 'positive' feature of 'fahren' [at least in a standard reading of the above given example - it may well change if a different (constrastive) word accent applies). The example illustrates the second component of 'scenic intentionality', namely 'referential intentionality'. It is this domain that is often discussed when dealing with 'agentivity' and 'intentionality' [though unfortunately, the two domains - coupled with each other just as the relational domain does not exist without one or more referential domains and vice versa - are often mixed up in the linguistic discussion]. But again we have to state that the fature of (un)intentionality' here is only describable from a non-linguistic, knowledge based perspective. A linguistic reading of (un)intentionality has (imho) to make sure that there either is a specified linguistic category (or linguistic behavior) to encode points on the intentionality scale or that there are other categorial elements (or behavioral patterns) that have the metaphorical potential (often in co-paradigmatization with other elements) to do the job. If the 'direct' way is given (i.e., if there as a symbolic relation form/behavior X <=> pointer on the intentionality scale) things are 'easy'. We can probably start with three basic types: marker in the referential domain; marker in the relational domain; 3) scenic (or: clausal) markers (such as intonation patterns, sentence particles etc.). But typology has shown that such overt pointers are rare. most often, things are 'covert' (or: metaphorized from other paradigmatic / behavioral patterns). Now: In the second case, things become difficult: Are there linguistic (or cognitive based) structures that can be declared to represent the most 'natural' structures comporting features of the intentionality scale? Most people will agree when I say: yes: referential domain > agentivity; relational domain > transitivity scale. These two domains differ in a very important respect: whereas the relational domain is normally fixed with respect to its intentionality parameters, the referential domain is often variable. By this I mean that 'verbs' are normally defined for their intentional scope through encyclopedic knowledge whereas referential items can (logically) 'move along' the intentionality scale (Fluid structures), as long as they have the option of intentionality at all [which includes 'stones', 'storm', etc. in a non-poetic/metaphorical reading]. This assumptions helps us to infer that if a 'verb' is marked for intentional features (exceeding their inherent intentionality grading), this is more likely done with the help of specialized morphemes (e.g. in some Salishan languages). Elements of the referential domain, on the other side, are more likely to operate through 'hidden' behavioral patterns which allows the Fluid operation more than a fixed morphology). From this it follows that the feature cluster related to the starting point of 'force' (in a broader sense of force dynamics) [metaphorized to 'power'] both controls the intentionality grading and the way who this grading is expressed (if it is expressed). If, for instance, this cluster (or, in my terms, the vector {sem;synt;prag}) has a high value for {synt} [grounding procedures etc.], then it is rather unlikely that it is primarily metaphorized with respect to intentionality features (as it is the case for German). But if the vector has high values for {sem} or {prag} things may be different. For instance, in Udi (East Caucasian) the ergative morpheme (covering parts of the agentive relation) has a rather high value for {sem} - no wonder that it can be exploited for playing the intentionality scale. But again: if we ascribe a feature of (un)intentionality to any kind of morpheme of morphosyntactic behavior, we have to show that this function is semantically (and cognitively) correlated to the function of the (less metaphorical) source domain. Anything else would be fiction [I think Scott'S work has marvelously shown how arguments should run]. A final note: If we accept that force>power dynamics is a major feature of the cognitive architecture of linguistic (clausal) expressions, we should be aware of the fact that intentionality may also be crucial for the 'antipode' of 'power dynamics', namely the Objective domain. If we claim that the relation between A and O in transitive structures is basically asymmetric (power verbs less in power), than we can assume that the O domain normally is not involved in features of intentionality. Yet, some languages, e.g. some Papuan languages, but also - I think - Athapaskan and Salishan, show that the O domain can intervene in this standard asymmetry: in such instances, the referential O domain establishes some kind of counter force (or: counter power) that may results from an intentional counter'action' (remember the famous 'finally managed to' principle in some Salishan languages). It such languages, the O domain may be associated with features of intentionality that operate against the dimension of intentionality associated with A. This aspect becomes even more crucial, if we include the so-called IO-domain (primary or indirect objects). esp. in Papuan languages. Let me stop here (as I said: I'm not quite sure whether I really met the current thread - if I didn't, please excuse). Best wishes [and a big thank you for your patience], Wolfgang -- ******************** Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft Universität München - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 München Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office) Fax: ++49-(0)89-2180 5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Web: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/ ******************** From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 8 11:59:58 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 06:59:58 -0500 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: Tom Givon says: >>RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all frequency-driven. Cheers, TG>> ************************ But let's try to make this talk of agents empirical in the following way: is the intentional vs. nonintentional actor distinction causally implicated in any interesting set of generalizations crosslinguistically or within a single language? Or is this merely a conceptual distinction, useful perhaps for human psychology, but not for human language? If there are such generalizations, then we need both kinds. If there are none, then we do not. Now, a wide range of linguists, from Beth Levin to Bob Van Valin, have concluded that the syntax does not, in general, need to appeal to separate classes of actors based on intentionality. Tom suggests the same in his concept of prototype. The question in regard to prototypes is whether there are *linguistically* significant generalizations to be gained by introducing such an entity into *linguistics* at all (whether it is necessary in psychology or not is irrelevant). Role and Reference Grammar (and other models, from Chomskyan theory to Tagmemics) has/ve concluded that in fact prototypes like this lead to no syntactic ends, merely obfuscating results. The best generalizations, by and large, so RRG contends, are in terms of the Macroroles Actor and Undergoer. At one level there are intentional vs. nonintentional actors which we can all recognize, e.g. in examples likethe one Scott presented. And some languages, say, perhaps, Acehnese, may indeed use such notions in its syntax. But other languages may not. Generally the answer is that this distinction isn't made much of crosslinguistically, but there can be many exceptions to this. We need to be careful to allow for flexibility in what we assume to be relevant crosslinguistically, lest we be mistaken for proponents of Universal Grammar, rather than what I consider to be the much more interesting (empirically) proposal of Boas, i.e. that we are looking not for UG but for 'patterns'. Dan Everett From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 8 12:11:33 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 07:11:33 -0500 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality -correction Message-ID: My statement on RRG actually overstates the case a bit. RRG distinguishes between intentional vs. nonintentional actors in principle, but says that most languages will not avail themselves of this distinction in most constructions. The claim is that such distinctions are normally 'neutralized'. However, RRG allows for the flexibility I appealed to in my last posting, by recognizing that in some constructions in a one language or in all constructions in some other language, this neutralization may fail to hold, leading to distinctions in the relevance of intentionality (and whether the roles involved are agent, effector, etc.). The point is that it is misguided to try to impose a 'universal rule' on how this teeny-weeny little bit of intentionality gets 'linguistified'/grammaticized. Dan Everett From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Mar 8 19:34:30 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 11:34:30 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <0103089840.AA984051498@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: OK -- from the hinterlands again: This fuss over "Intention" -- how might it relate to our Functionalist - Formalist divide? Formalists are more likely to designate categories with Greek letters or even numbers (as in Relational Grammar), whereas functionalists are generally less fearful of suggestive labels like "primary topic", "present relevance", and -- I had thought -- "intention". We all -- at least in our less radical wings -- subscribe to both form and function, but one place we differ is in the perceived link between the two. The fundamental categories of the functionalist, as I said, tend to be labeled with respect to meaning/function. And the fundamental categories of the formalist, whose main tenet is the autonomy of structure (and the arbitrariness of the sign even at an abstract level like "theta" roles), are therefore units of structure. Now it is interesting how we still tend to have this convergence, as where functionalists and formalists alike talk about Agents. We're both talking about the same abstract entity even though we may differ in what we want to call it. So here's the rub: Do we -- as functionalists -- gain anything by describing the Agent PROTOTYPE? I think so. And not only will this bring us closer to the folks in psychology/cogsci, it gets us a lot of mileage in our grammatical descriptions. If Agents are prototypically intentional, then we not only account for those supposedly few areas of grammar and particular languages that formally distinguish between intentional and unintentional subjects, we also more accurately account for the vast majority of Agents in all languages which are intentional. We also account for the comparitive rarety of formal Active - Stative systems. If Agents are intentional except when context demands otherwise, then grammaticalizing such a distinction should be rare. Put another way -- if linguistic Agency is completely indifferent to intentionality then one would expect 'on purpose' affixes to be more common. My guess is that 'accidentally' affixes are the more common. It's checkable, no? Formalists, perhaps, while not necessarily denying that most Agents are intentional, will prefer to leave this observation out of their "linguistic" descriptions and let the psychologists or others who deal with meaning - function deal with intention. The tack we take depends a lot -- I'd say -- on just how far to one side or the other of the formalist - functionalist divide we lean. Noel on 3/8/01 3:59 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > But let's try to make this talk of agents empirical in the following > way: is the intentional vs. nonintentional actor distinction causally > implicated in any interesting set of generalizations > crosslinguistically or within a single language? Or is this merely a > conceptual distinction, useful perhaps for human psychology, but not > for human language? If there are such generalizations, then we need > both kinds. If there are none, then we do not. > > Now, a wide range of linguists, from Beth Levin to Bob Van Valin, have > concluded that the syntax does not, in general, need to appeal to > separate classes of actors based on intentionality. Tom suggests the > same in his concept of prototype. The question in regard to prototypes > is whether there are *linguistically* significant generalizations to > be gained by introducing such an entity into *linguistics* at all > (whether it is necessary in psychology or not is irrelevant). Role and > Reference Grammar (and other models, from Chomskyan theory to > Tagmemics) has/ve concluded that in fact prototypes like this lead to > no syntactic ends, merely obfuscating results. The best > generalizations, by and large, so RRG contends, are in terms of the > Macroroles Actor and Undergoer. > > At one level there are intentional vs. nonintentional actors which we > can all recognize, e.g. in examples likethe one Scott presented. And > some languages, say, perhaps, Acehnese, may indeed use such notions in > its syntax. But other languages may not. Generally the answer is that > this distinction isn't made much of crosslinguistically, but there can > be many exceptions to this. > > We need to be careful to allow for flexibility in what we assume to be > relevant crosslinguistically, lest we be mistaken for proponents of > Universal Grammar, rather than what I consider to be the much more > interesting (empirically) proposal of Boas, i.e. that we are looking > not for UG but for 'patterns'. > > Dan Everett > From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Tue Mar 13 15:50:05 2001 From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:50:05 -0700 Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:14:40 -0500 (EST) From: LSA The March 2001 LSA Bulletin is now available on the LSA web site: http://www.lsadc.org From iadimly at usc.es Tue Mar 13 22:09:11 2001 From: iadimly at usc.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mar=EDa_Angeles?=) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:09:11 +0100 Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin Message-ID: We would appreciate it if you could give some publicity to the ICLC II , the details of which are given in the attached file. Best wishes, MLA >******************************* >Dr María Ángeles GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ >Profesora Titular de Filoloxía Inglesa >Departmento de Filoloxía Inglesa >Facultade de Filoloxia >Universidade de Santiago de Compostela >Avda. de Castelao, s/n >E-15704 Santiago de Compostela >Fax.: + 00 34 981-574646 >Tel: + 00 34 981-563100 Ext. 11856 >email: iadimly at usc.es >http://www.usc.es/ia303/benvidag.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: Spike Gildea To: Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 4:50 PM Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin > Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:14:40 -0500 (EST) > From: LSA > > The March 2001 LSA Bulletin is now available on the LSA web site: > > http://www.lsadc.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FIRSTCALLICLCII.doc Type: application/msword Size: 22016 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hcb at ICSI.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Mar 16 01:44:18 2001 From: hcb at ICSI.BERKELEY.EDU (Hans Christian Boas) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 17:44:18 -0800 Subject: First International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 2001) Preliminary Program Message-ID: ========================================================== First International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 2001), UC Berkeley, April 6-8, 2001 ========================================================== Preliminary Program FRIDAY, April 6, 2001 Charles J. Fillmore (ICSI and UC Berkeley): Mini grammars for time-when adjuncts in English Natalie Schilling-Estes (Georgetown University): On the role of memorization in language production: evidence from the sociolinguistic interview Jan-Ola Oestman and Jaakko Leino (University of Helsinki): Constructions and variability Knud Lambrecht (UT Austin): The French presentational relative construction SATURDAY, April 7, 2001 Ronald Langacker (UC San Diego): Integration, grammaticalization, and constructional meaning Cristiano Broccias (University of Pavia): Allative and ablative "at-"constructions Johani Rudanko (University of Tampere): "Into -ing" as a construction in English Anne Neville and Patrizia Paggio (Center for Sprokteknologi): Developing a Danish grammar in the GRASP Project: a construction-based approach to topology and extraction in Danish Ronald Cosper (Saint Mary's University): Rime as sublemic construction in English Natsuko Tsujimura (Indiana University): A constructional approach to mimetic verbs George Lakoff (UC Berkeley): TBA Carmen Bretones-Callejas, Maria Cristobal, and Iraide Ibarretxe-Antunano (UC Berkeley): The construction "salir-de" in Spanish: how Spanish speakers conceptualize exiting events Kyoko Hirose Ohara (Keio University): From relativization to clause-linkage: a case of Japanese Toshio Ohori (University of Tokyo): Construction Grammar as a conceptual framework for linguistic typology: a case from reference marking Ivan Sag (Stanford University): Aspects of a theory of grammatical constructions Serene Gu-jing Lin (National Taiwan University): From temporal adverbial connective to quasi-complementizer: the grammaticalization of "ho" in Tsou SUNDAY, April 8, 2001 Seizi Iwata (Geifu University): The role of verb meaning in locative alternations Noriko Nemoto (Fukushima University): Alternation phenomena and Frame Semantics Christopher Johnson (Soliloquy, Inc.): Toward a frame ontology for English communication predicates Paul Kay (UC Berkeley): Argument structure constructions and the complement-adjunct distinction Seiko Fujii (University of Tokyo): Lexically (un)filled constructional schemes and construction types for modal constructions in Japanese Florian Jaeger (Humboldt University) and Raphael Berthele (University of Fribourg): On the use of Construction Grammar in diachrony and dialectology: the case of perspective constructions in German Nicolas Gisborne (University of Hong Kong): This looks as if it might be a construction: an account of quirky complement clauses Svitlana Zhabotynska (UC San Diego): Genetive "of": a frame semantic approach Arnold Zwicky (Stanford University): Radical constructionism Andreas Kathol and Emily Bender (UC Berkeley): A constructional analysis of "Just Because ... Doesn't Mean" See http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/iccg2001 for further information on registration, accommodation, etc. For questions please contact: iccg2001 at icsi.berkeley.edu ------------------------------------------ Hans C. Boas International Computer Science Institute 1947 Center Street, Suite 600 Berkeley, CA 94704, U.S.A. Phone: (510) 666-2888 Fax: (510) 666-2956 hcb at icsi.berkeley.edu ------------------------------------------ From matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI Fri Mar 16 12:53:45 2001 From: matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI (Matti Miestamo) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:53:45 +0200 Subject: Calls: Endangered Languages: 2nd Call Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple copies) CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 29 - September 1, 2001. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in questions relating to endangered languages. We invite papers addressing general linguistic questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Themes include documentation of endangered languages, standardization of language corpora, and the possible effects of endangerment on the grammar of a language. Other topics relating to language endangerment are also welcome. Invited speakers: David Harrison (University of Pennsylvania), Nomads on the internet: Documentation, endangered languages and technologies William McGregor (Aarhus Universitet), Structural changes in language shift/obsolescence: a Kimberley (Australia) perspective Marja-Liisa Olthuis (Sámi Assizes, Finland): The Inarisaami language as an endangered language Tapani Salminen (University of Helsinki), Linguists and language endangerment in north-western Siberia Stephen A. Wurm (The Australian National University), Languages of the world and language endangerment Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Demonstrations by participants Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is March 30, 2001. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. Participants will be notified about acceptance by April 20, 2001. The accepted abstracts will be published on the webpage of the symposium . Demonstrations The participants are also encouraged to give demonstrations of their projects (research, revitalization, documentation etc). If you are interested in giving a demonstration, please contact the organizers at . Registration: The deadline for registration for all participants is June 21, 2001. 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. For participants coming from abroad we recommend payment in cash upon arrival. However, it is possible to 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 Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact or visit our homepage . The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Seppo Kittilä, Dept of General Linguistics, Hämeenkatu 2 A 7-8, FIN-20014 University of Turku, e-mail: Leena Kolehmainen, Dept of German, 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: Krista Ojutkangas, Dept of Finnish Language and General Linguistics, Fennicum, FIN-200014 University of Turku, Finland, e-mail Esa Penttilä, Dept of English, University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, e-mail Pirkko Suihkonen, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Linguistics, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany, e-mail From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 20 16:08:37 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 18:08:37 +0200 Subject: intent Message-ID: Undoubtedly there is an unconscious intent in linguistic behavior, as both Givon and Wilcox suggest, but specifying it more narrowly brings out that it is always something that makes sense. Consider the argument-marking in nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. If X is theme (the argument of intransitive verbs), Y is agent, and Z is patient, in NA-languages we have X = Y =/ Z, and in EA-languages we have X = Z =/Y. How do we EXPLAIN the fact that other configurations are (much) less frequent? It happens as follows. X = Y = Z would not be very rational, because in the situation {killed, Bill, John} we would like to know who killed whom. X =/ Y =/ Z would not be very rational either, because 'it is smart to be thrifty' (i.e. a special X would be wasteful). X =/ Y = Z would combine the preceding defects. Functional explanations as employed in linguistic are of this type, which means that they reduce to 'unconscious (attempts at) rationality'. You might wish to further reduce the rational explanations to neural activity and ultimately to subatomic behavior, but this is beyond anybody's capacity. Esa Itkonen From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 20 20:49:42 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 15:49:42 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: I recommend that contributors on this list at least read some introductory materials on intention. John Searle's book on this subject is just one of many important ones. For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 6:08 PM Undoubtedly there is an unconscious intent in linguistic behavior, as both Givon and Wilcox suggest, but specifying it more narrowly brings out that it is always something that makes sense. Consider the argument-marking in nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. If X is theme (the argument of intransitive verbs), Y is agent, and Z is patient, in NA-languages we have X = Y =/ Z, and in EA-languages we have X = Z =/Y. How do we EXPLAIN the fact that other configurations are (much) less frequent? It happens as follows. X = Y = Z would not be very rational, because in the situation {killed, Bill, John} we would like to know who killed whom. X =/ Y =/ Z would not be very rational either, because 'it is smart to be thrifty' (i.e. a special X would be wasteful). X =/ Y = Z would combine the preceding defects. Functional explanations as employed in linguistic are of this type, which means that they reduce to 'unconscious (attempts at) rationality'. You might wish to further reduce the rational explanations to neural activity and ultimately to subatomic behavior, but this is beyond anybody's capacity. Esa Itkonen From wilcox at UNM.EDU Tue Mar 20 23:23:17 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:23:17 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <0103209851.AA985124381@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On 3/20/01 1:49 PM, dan everett said: > For example, Searle argues > very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is > incoherent. Well, I haven't read Searle (at least this one), I admit it. So maybe someone who has (Dan?) can answer my simple-minded questions: Unconscious intentions of WHO? Humans? Non-human primates? Lions? Cephalopods? Does it matter? If the notion of 'unconscious intention' is incoherent now, does this mean that it has always been incoherent? Did Searle intend (consciously or unconsciously) for his argument to apply to a broad range of species and an evolutionary time scale? Does it? Genuine questions from someone who simply doesn't have the time to read Searle right now. -- Sherman Wilcox From Pmv321 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 21 03:22:15 2001 From: Pmv321 at AOL.COM (Peter Viles) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:22:15 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet situation. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my family has an on going cross continental debate about this subject. Peter M. Viles Viles Law Office Immigration and Nationality Law 6909 Jefferson Ave. Falls Church, VA 22042 Tel: 703.532.8943 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 21 04:22:36 2001 From: slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan I. SLOBIN) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <87.871f508.27e97867@aol.com> Message-ID: It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. -Dan Slobin Dept of Psychology University of California, Berkeley On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing > systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, > and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must > exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. > > I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of > phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of > dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets > utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was > wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet > situation. > > Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my family has > an on going cross continental debate about this subject. > > > Peter M. Viles > Viles Law Office > Immigration and Nationality Law > 6909 Jefferson Ave. > Falls Church, VA 22042 > Tel: 703.532.8943 > > From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 05:26:50 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:26:50 -0700 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing > systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, > and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must > exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. Farsi uses a consonantal script (borrowed from Arabic, with four extra letters), but there are several homophonous letters: four for the /z/ sound, three for /s/, two for /t/, two for /h/, two for /q/ and two for the glottal stop. This, combined with the vowel-less system that every kid in the second grade has to start learning (not to mention frozen spelling from Arabic and Ottoman Turkish borrowings), causes some spelling difficulties. So why no dyslexia? I can't speak to the cognitive issues, since I'm not sure what effect an alphabetic script has on processing and working memory. I'm pretty sure that letter inversions of the "b/d" variety couldn't happen, since no such pairs exist in Perso-Arabic script (the "alef" is mirror-symmetric, so confusing that is not much of a problem :-) With writing, there are the issues of homophonous letters, and in reading, there are potential difficulties in getting the right short vowels. So my question for the Iranian(s?) on funknet is this: would a kid exhibiting the processing/memory symptoms of dyslexia be labelled as "dyslexic", or simply learning-disabled (worse yet, "aghab-oftadeh")? My question for Dan Slobin: with deaf kids who are learning some kind of graphic notation system (e.g., SignWriting), are there cases of kids with dyslexia mixing up, say, agents and patients in agreement verbs? Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 05:46:44 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:46:44 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of > 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. "Nonetheless, though not all conscious states are intentional, and not all intentional states are conscious, there is an essential connection: we only understand intentionality in terms of consciouness. There are many intentional states that are not conscious, but they are the sort of thing that could potentially be conscious." (Searle, _Mind, Language, and Society_, p.65). This seems to be an important clarification of your point, namely that the NOTION of `unconscious intention' may be incoherent, even though unconscious intention does in fact exist. This speaks to our understanding, not the world of facts. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From efrancis at HKUCC.HKU.HK Wed Mar 21 06:59:22 2001 From: efrancis at HKUCC.HKU.HK (Elaine J. Francis) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:59:22 +0800 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: I asked Alex Francis, from the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department at Hong Kong University, for some more information about dyslexia in readers of Chinese. His response, along with some references, is included below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:21:09 +0800 From: Alexander L. Francis To: Elaine J. Francis Subject: Re: Dyslexia (fwd) Lihai TAN's research suggests that, though reading Chinese does seem to be psychologically and neurologically somewhat different from reading English, it still involves phonological access. Furthermore, brain damage to Chinese readers can cause acquired dyslexia just as it can to readers of other languages (see work by Sam Po LAW, Brendan Weekes, and others). As for developmental dyslexia, my students definitely see children with problems learning to read, and they were able to give me a pretty good run-down of symptoms of dyslexia in Cantonese-speaking (Putonghua-writing) children (though the situation in HK may be more complex than in other parts of China because so much of the schooling is in English). As for non-anecdotal sources, I've appended a bunch of references on developmental dyslexia in Chinese from PsychINFO that I got together for my students last semester. No idea how useful they are. -alex ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-05510-004 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Lai,-Daphne-Ngar-Chi SOURCE: Learning-and-Individual-Differences. 1999; Vol 11(2): 173-186 PUBLISHER: US: JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-02354-003 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: The phonological deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Law,-Teresa-Pui-Sze; Ng,-Penny-Man SOURCE: Reading-and-Writing. 2000 Sep; Vol 13(1-2): 57-79 PUBLISHER: Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISSN: 0922-4777 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1999-05928-002 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children's character reading skills. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Ma,-Rachel-Nga-Lun SOURCE: Journal-of-Research-in-Reading. 1999 Jun; Vol 22(2): 131-142 PUBLISHER: England: Basil Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. ISSN: 0141-0423 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2001-14555-010 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Exploring reading-spelling connection as locus of dyslexia in Chinese. AUTHOR: Leong,-Che-Kan; Cheng,-Pui-Wan; Lam,-Catherine-C-C SOURCE: Annals-of-Dyslexia. 2000; Vol 50: 239-259 PUBLISHER: US: International Dyslexia Assn. ISSN: 0736-9387 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1991-78951-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Chinese acquired dyslexia: Types and significance. AUTHOR: Yin,-Wengang SOURCE: Acta-Psychologica-Sinica. 1990; Vol 22(3): 297-305 PUBLISHER: China: Science Press. ISSN: 0439-755X PUBLICATION YEAR: 1990 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1989-98808-015SEE PREVIOUS CHAPTER SEE NEXT CHAPTER DOCUMENT TYPE: Chapter TITLE: Linguistic parameters in the diagnosis of dyslexia in Japanese and Chinese. AUTHOR: Paradis,-Michel BOOK SOURCE: Aaron, P. G. (Ed); Joshi, R. Malatesha (Ed). (1989). Reading and writing disorders in different orthographic systems. NATO Advanced Science Institutes series. Series D: Behavioural and social sciences, Vol. 52. (pp. 231-266). Norwell, MA, US: Kluwer Academic Publishers. x, 416 pp.SEE BOOK ISBN: 0792304616 (hardcover) PUBLICATION YEAR: 1989 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1985-28379-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Visual and auditory functions of Chinese dyslexics. AUTHOR: Woo,-Eugenie-Y; Hoosain,-Rumjahn SOURCE: Psychologia:-An-International-Journal-of-Psychology-in-the-Orient. 1984 Sep; Vol 27(3): 164-170 PUBLISHER: Japan: Psychologia Society. ISSN: 0033-2852 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1984 >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 >From: Dan I. SLOBIN >To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu >Subject: Re: Dyslexia > >It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing >system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. >Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning >literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. > >-Dan Slobin >Dept of Psychology >University of California, Berkeley > >On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > >> Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in >>other writing >> systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of >>time in Iran, >> and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must >> exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. >> >> I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of >> phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of >> dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets >> utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was >> wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet >> situation. >> >> Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my >>family has >> an on going cross continental debate about this subject. >> >> >> Peter M. Viles >> Viles Law Office >> Immigration and Nationality Law >> 6909 Jefferson Ave. >> Falls Church, VA 22042 >> Tel: 703.532.8943 >> >> From slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 21 08:03:53 2001 From: slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan I. SLOBIN) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 00:03:53 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Elaine and Alex Francis--glad to have another urban myth cleared away. -Dan Slobin From john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL Wed Mar 21 10:27:19 2001 From: john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (John Myhill) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 12:27:19 +0200 Subject: dyslexia Message-ID: It looks to me like the actual reported dyslexia rate has far more to do with sociological and political factors than writing systems. I would expect the Chinese government to claim they have no problem with dyslexia independent of what the actual facts are--Japan used to be that way also (and still is to a significant extent). The same way the Chinese have claimed they have eradicated the rats in their country--in the Chinese view, a problem exists only if the government says that it exists, and the government only says that it exists if it is convenient for the government to say that it exists. In Israel, on the other hand, I seem to meet people who claim to be dyslexic all over the place. What are the actual facts? This would require an enormous amount of directly comparable studies in a wide variety of languages. The only thing I'm sure of is that official published statistics in many countries are totally wrong. John Myhill From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:04:29 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:04:29 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: The fact that a person with their own research program doesn't have time to read in a tenuously related research program is not surprising. It is natural. On the other hand, the issues are deep here and superficial banter about them on the list here is not likely to take us any closer to understanding them. We need to read more. I have stated John's thesis rather baldly here. I won't answer for him on specifics, though, since this would simply repeat the problem I am concerned with. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 4:23 PM On 3/20/01 1:49 PM, dan everett said: > For example, Searle argues > very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is > incoherent. Well, I haven't read Searle (at least this one), I admit it. So maybe someone who has (Dan?) can answer my simple-minded questions: Unconscious intentions of WHO? Humans? Non-human primates? Lions? Cephalopods? Does it matter? If the notion of 'unconscious intention' is incoherent now, does this mean that it has always been incoherent? Did Searle intend (consciously or unconsciously) for his argument to apply to a broad range of species and an evolutionary time scale? Does it? Genuine questions from someone who simply doesn't have the time to read Searle right now. -- Sherman Wilcox From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:10:42 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:10:42 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: The point of the quote is well-taken. It is an issue that I didn't bring up because it is slightly more complex, i.e. the notion of 'potentially conscious'. But I think that when John wrote this (I was taking a class from him while he was writing this and sharing an office with him) he was in particular concerned about some linguists' claims about 'tacit knowledge'. In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. Talk of intentionality which canNOT be made conscious is what he argues to be incoherent. (Such as many of Chomsky's proposals on constraints of UG. Chomsky has answered Searle in lectures, though I am not aware that he has in print. Perhaps his new book.) Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 10:46 PM > For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of > 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. "Nonetheless, though not all conscious states are intentional, and not all intentional states are conscious, there is an essential connection: we only understand intentionality in terms of consciouness. There are many intentional states that are not conscious, but they are the sort of thing that could potentially be conscious." (Searle, _Mind, Language, and Society_, p.65). This seems to be an important clarification of your point, namely that the NOTION of `unconscious intention' may be incoherent, even though unconscious intention does in fact exist. This speaks to our understanding, not the world of facts. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:17:10 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:17:10 -0500 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: There is a PhD dissertation from the University of Pittsburgh on reading which corroborates the statement below that Chinese speakers still employ phonological access in reading, regardless of rate of speed of reading. I forget the title, but it is written by Iris Berent, who now teaches in the Psychology Dept at Florida Atlantic University. Her findings apply to a wide range of languages. We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and representational. Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Dyslexia Author: at Internet Date: 3/21/01 2:59 PM I asked Alex Francis, from the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department at Hong Kong University, for some more information about dyslexia in readers of Chinese. His response, along with some references, is included below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:21:09 +0800 From: Alexander L. Francis To: Elaine J. Francis Subject: Re: Dyslexia (fwd) Lihai TAN's research suggests that, though reading Chinese does seem to be psychologically and neurologically somewhat different from reading English, it still involves phonological access. Furthermore, brain damage to Chinese readers can cause acquired dyslexia just as it can to readers of other languages (see work by Sam Po LAW, Brendan Weekes, and others). As for developmental dyslexia, my students definitely see children with problems learning to read, and they were able to give me a pretty good run-down of symptoms of dyslexia in Cantonese-speaking (Putonghua-writing) children (though the situation in HK may be more complex than in other parts of China because so much of the schooling is in English). As for non-anecdotal sources, I've appended a bunch of references on developmental dyslexia in Chinese from PsychINFO that I got together for my students last semester. No idea how useful they are. -alex ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-05510-004 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Lai,-Daphne-Ngar-Chi SOURCE: Learning-and-Individual-Differences. 1999; Vol 11(2): 173-186 PUBLISHER: US: JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-02354-003 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: The phonological deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Law,-Teresa-Pui-Sze; Ng,-Penny-Man SOURCE: Reading-and-Writing. 2000 Sep; Vol 13(1-2): 57-79 PUBLISHER: Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISSN: 0922-4777 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1999-05928-002 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children's character reading skills. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Ma,-Rachel-Nga-Lun SOURCE: Journal-of-Research-in-Reading. 1999 Jun; Vol 22(2): 131-142 PUBLISHER: England: Basil Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. ISSN: 0141-0423 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2001-14555-010 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Exploring reading-spelling connection as locus of dyslexia in Chinese. AUTHOR: Leong,-Che-Kan; Cheng,-Pui-Wan; Lam,-Catherine-C-C SOURCE: Annals-of-Dyslexia. 2000; Vol 50: 239-259 PUBLISHER: US: International Dyslexia Assn. ISSN: 0736-9387 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1991-78951-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Chinese acquired dyslexia: Types and significance. AUTHOR: Yin,-Wengang SOURCE: Acta-Psychologica-Sinica. 1990; Vol 22(3): 297-305 PUBLISHER: China: Science Press. ISSN: 0439-755X PUBLICATION YEAR: 1990 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1989-98808-015SEE PREVIOUS CHAPTER SEE NEXT CHAPTER DOCUMENT TYPE: Chapter TITLE: Linguistic parameters in the diagnosis of dyslexia in Japanese and Chinese. AUTHOR: Paradis,-Michel BOOK SOURCE: Aaron, P. G. (Ed); Joshi, R. Malatesha (Ed). (1989). Reading and writing disorders in different orthographic systems. NATO Advanced Science Institutes series. Series D: Behavioural and social sciences, Vol. 52. (pp. 231-266). Norwell, MA, US: Kluwer Academic Publishers. x, 416 pp.SEE BOOK ISBN: 0792304616 (hardcover) PUBLICATION YEAR: 1989 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1985-28379-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Visual and auditory functions of Chinese dyslexics. AUTHOR: Woo,-Eugenie-Y; Hoosain,-Rumjahn SOURCE: Psychologia:-An-International-Journal-of-Psychology-in-the-Orient. 1984 Sep; Vol 27(3): 164-170 PUBLISHER: Japan: Psychologia Society. ISSN: 0033-2852 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1984 >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 >From: Dan I. SLOBIN >To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu >Subject: Re: Dyslexia > >It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing >system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. >Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning >literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. > >-Dan Slobin >Dept of Psychology >University of California, Berkeley > >On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > >> Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in >>other writing >> systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of >>time in Iran, >> and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must >> exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. >> >> I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of >> phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of >> dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets >> utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was >> wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet >> situation. >> >> Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my >>family has >> an on going cross continental debate about this subject. >> >> >> Peter M. Viles >> Viles Law Office >> Immigration and Nationality Law >> 6909 Jefferson Ave. >> Falls Church, VA 22042 >> Tel: 703.532.8943 >> >> From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 21 14:27:04 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 09:27:04 EST Subject: Dyslexia/English-Italian Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 12:40:16 AM, dparvaz at UNM.EDU writes: << So why no dyslexia? I can't speak to the cognitive issues, since I'm not sure what effect an alphabetic script has on processing and working memory. I'm pretty sure that letter inversions of the "b/d" variety couldn't happen, since no such pairs exist in Perso-Arabic script (the "alef" is mirror-symmetric, so confusing that is not much of a problem :-) With writing, there are the issues of homophonous letters, and in reading, there are potential difficulties in getting the right short vowels. So my question for the Iranian(s?) on funknet is this: would a kid exhibiting the processing/memory symptoms of dyslexia be labelled as "dyslexic", or simply learning-disabled (worse yet, "aghab-oftadeh")? My question for Dan Slobin: with deaf kids who are learning some kind of graphic notation system (e.g., SignWriting), are there cases of kids with dyslexia mixing up, say, agents and patients in agreement verbs? >> FYI, here's an edited blurb on the study mentioned in the original post. It seems to indicate that the dyslexia "emerges" as a problem due to the predictability of correspondence between symbol and sound. Potential dyslexics are stated to have been identified physiologically. Behavioral dyslexia produced the variance according to language groups. <> Regards, Steve Long From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 14:38:21 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 07:38:21 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <0103219851.AA985181999@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On 3/21/01 6:10 AM, dan everett said: > In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, > every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that > foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the > sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming > subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these > subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. Aha! This is very interesting, Dan. Thanks for adding this. So at least one application of this treatment of consciousness and intentionality is in coordinated movement. What this suggests to me is that we not only need to read Searle and other philosophers, but to get the full picture we need to complement this by reading people in the motor control area (Kelso, MacNeilage, and many others). My gut (and not much more right now) tells me that the question of whether these "subroutines" can in actuality (not just in principle) be brought back to consciousness, and performed as the non-functional or non-entrained components of the coordinated action that they have now become, probably depends greatly on the example we take. For learning to ski, which depends (at least partially) on already learned motor behaviors, I believe Searle is probably correct. For other complex motor behaviors or coordinated actions, I wonder. Also, once again I get the feeling that much of this discussion depends on conceptions of consciousness and intentionality that may be applicable only to humans. Is this correct? It seems to me that my friend's puppy Owen has the intention to catch the frisbee that she throws to it; he doesn't yet have the coordinated motor skill to do it (he really enjoys practicing these skills, though, way more than I enjoy practicing skiing). He doesn't perform the requisite actions correctly; he messes up the intricate timing of component actions. When he finally does learn this skill, does he just have the intention to catch the frisbee (the component skill actions and their timings having now become subconscious subroutines for this function)? When Owen has learned this coordinated action, can the subroutines in principle be brought back to his consciousness? Does this make any sense? If not, then I'm left wondering if the way we have framed the discussion is so limited that it has limited use in understanding these problems in a cross-species, evolutionary way. [But I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.] -- Sherman From geoffn at SIU.EDU Wed Mar 21 14:48:14 2001 From: geoffn at SIU.EDU (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:48:14 -0600 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 07:38 AM 3/21/2001 -0700, Sherman Wilcox wrote: >Also, once again I get the feeling that much of this discussion depends on >conceptions of consciousness and intentionality that may be applicable only >to humans. Is this correct? It seems to me that my friend's puppy Owen has >the intention to catch the frisbee that she throws to it; he doesn't yet >have the coordinated motor skill to do it (he really enjoys practicing these >skills, though, way more than I enjoy practicing skiing). He doesn't perform >the requisite actions correctly; he messes up the intricate timing of >component actions. Sherman describes perfectly the experience children have in acquiring the phonology of their language (and, having spent a week with a year-old labrador I can attest to other similarities between human children and puppies). Kids know what they want their vocal tracts to produce, they just can't exert enough control over them to make their lips and tongues behave. It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. There seems to be some variability here, speaking only anecdotally. Most phonetics students can easily make an alveolar closing gesture on command, but independent control of (say) the velum, or vocal cord vibration seems less open to conscious inspection, at least for relatively untrained speakers. Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527 (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffn at siu.edu From aaghbar at GROVE.IUP.EDU Wed Mar 21 15:24:55 2001 From: aaghbar at GROVE.IUP.EDU (Ali Aghbar) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 10:24:55 -0500 Subject: Request for e-mail management info. Message-ID: My apologies to list members but would the manager of this list send me information on managing e-mail messages from the list (e.g. info about sub, unsub, options for receiving messages). Thanks. Ali Aghbar (724) 357 4937 Department of English, Indiana U. of PA, Indiana PA 15705, USA From bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:26:34 2001 From: bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU (Elizabeth Bates) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:26:34 -0800 Subject: trying again Message-ID: >From bates Wed Mar 21 08:18:08 2001 Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:18:08 -0800 From: Elizabeth Bates To: Pmv321 at AOL.COM Subject: Re: Dyslexia Cc: bates at crl.ucsd.edu, funknet at listserve.rice.edu Interesting you should ask, since this issue was just in the newspapers this week. The answer is complex: (a) yes, dyslexics have been diagnosed in many different languages, with orthographies as different as Italian or Spanish (very transparent orthographies in which the sound is predictable from the print), English and French (very irregular orthographies with many unpredictable sound-print mappings) and Chinese (a non-alphabetic, logographic writing system); (b) however, the kind of orthographic interacts with symptoms, so that dyslexia has much more complex and severe results in English or French, while showing up primarily as a slowing in reading only for transparent orthographies. A study using a neural imaging technique (PET) by Paulesu et al. (this week's Science) showed that there is under- activation in the temporal lobes for dyslexics compared with normals during a reading task, and that this activation is seen in Italian, French and ENglish (in other words, despite the variation in severity of symptoms due to orthographic differences, weak readers show weak activation in the regions taht presumably have a lot to do with extraction of sound from the signal). What we CANNOT conclude from this study is whether the temporal lobe areas are defective in dyslexics (on biological grounds) or whether that is just what a healthy brain looks like when it is reading badly (so that I might show it in a language I don't know well, and children might show it whenthey are learning to read). My guess would be that there ARE dyslexics in Iran (defined as slow, weak readers) but that there has not been much effort to diagnose it as a disorder. -liz bates From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:07:19 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 09:07:19 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010321084128.00b40810@saluki-mail.siu.edu> Message-ID: > Sherman describes perfectly the experience children have in acquiring the > phonology of their language ... > It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to > the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. Geoff spotted what I was hinting at. The reason Dan's retelling of the Searle skiing story hit a chord with me is because this is PRECISELY how I talk about the process of learning to fingerspell (which is one type of phonological learning in the languages I work with): students first have only a "conscious intention" to get each individual finger into the correct position to perform a single fingerspelled letter (and it ain't easy!). Later, when letters become functional units, the learner advances to higher level units, and finally the task becomes "fingerspell the word 'subroutine'" (and not, "fingerspell 's-u-b-r-o ...'"). It's entrainment, emergence of a functional unit, lowering the degrees of freedom, and all that. I've just never thought of in terms of ability to consciously resurrect the individual "subconscious" subroutines of a learned, coordinated action. Geoff also brings up the important point of age of acquisition of these skills. I don't know if I've ever told this story on funknet -- if I have, I apologize. In another life I was a musician, an oboist. I learned to play in junior high school and continued until my late 20s; I then gave up music and didn't touch an oboe again for more than 25 years. If you asked me, "How do you play a b-flat?" I couldn't show you. I could not place my fingers in the correct position to produce a b-flat. I knew this was so. But I always figured if I picked up and held an instrument, I would be able to do it. In 1995 I picked up an oboe, held it (without a reed), and thought to myself "how do you finger a b-flat?" I couldn't do it. The unconscious subroutine couldn't be dredged up to consciousness. Then I put a piece of music in front of me, and tried to read the music and finger the notes (again with no reed, no sound). This time, the entire piece flowed off of my fingers, perfectly. I even produced -- entirely unconsciously (so much so that I had a "shock" reaction at what my body was doing!) -- entirely forgotten alternate fingerings. So, I couldn't bring the subroutines to memory, but the gestalt, "play this piece of music in front of you!" (sort of like Searle's "ski!") popped back into existence remarkably intact. I'm not sure what this says about unconscious intentions. I guess it has something to do with procedural versus declarative knowledge, age of acquisition, etc. Thanks, -- Sherman Wilcox Associate Professor Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 19:31:46 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:31:46 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: >It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to >the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. There seems to be >some variability here, speaking only anecdotally. Most phonetics students >can easily make an alveolar closing gesture on command, but independent >control of (say) the velum, or vocal cord vibration seems less open to >conscious inspection, at least for relatively untrained speakers. >Geoff Nathan A, perhaps apocryphal, story about Ken Pike's writing of his classic, PHONETICS (not the Phonemics text) was that he was in the hospital for a broken leg (in Mexico) and decided to 'do something useful'. So he thought carefully about the way he produced sounds and wrote the book. Of course, he had had extensive training in phonetics, but he did in fact construct most of the book thinking his way through his own production of sounds. Dan Everett From Twright at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU Wed Mar 21 19:41:25 2001 From: Twright at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU (Tony Wright) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 13:41:25 -0600 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <0103219851.AA985182002@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > representational. What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. --Tony Wright From krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA Wed Mar 21 21:25:02 2001 From: krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA (Kevin Russell) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 15:25:02 -0600 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <87.871f508.27e97867@aol.com> Message-ID: I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no other options. I find it odd that many of the respondents here seem to making the same equation. If there's one bit of knowledge that researchers seem to have wrested from the chaos, and that we linguists can pass on to anybody who'll listen, it's that dyslexia is not a monolithic disorder. There are dyslexics who have problems taking apart a word into graphemes and mapping them to phonemes and who get by, to the extent they do, by memorizing entire words -- "phonological dyslexia" in the standard (and no doubt simplistic) first-year-textbook typology. There are dyslexics who are great at grapheme-to-phoneme mapping, can read any regularly spelled word you throw at them, but bomb on the irregular words that have to be memorized -- "surface dyslexia" in the first-year-textbook typology. (I'm working on a body of writing by an English-speaking developmental dysgraphic, who despite decades of work still spells the way a surface dyslexic reads.) And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow", or the doubtless many other kinds of and combinations of dyslexias that are being worked on outside the view of textbook writers. I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. It's probably no coincidence that the study reported on looked only at university students, or that the team had to look really closely to find Italian university students with signs of dyslexia, or that the ones they found all seemed to have surface dyslexia. This is not a sign that the Italian writing system is better for dyslexics. It's a sign that it's better for *some* dyslexics, and brutally worse for others. I would imagine that Chinese would be at the opposite extreme, easier for good-at-memorizing phonological dyslexics (but still not paradise, as the findings pointed to by Dan and and Alex would suggest), harder for good-at-generalizing bad-at-memorizing surface dyslexics. I vaguely recall someone talking about reading problems in Japanese, where you need to strike the right balance between sheer memorization (in order to get most of the lexical items, written in kanji) and generalization (in order to get any of the grammatical markers, written in kana), and different people can have problems with either one. Does this ring a bell with anyone who can give a reference? Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the Science article later this week. Hopefully the "all dyslexia is the same" over-simplification is the fault of the newspaper reporters and not the original researchers. -- Kevin Russell From bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU Wed Mar 21 22:50:20 2001 From: bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU (Liz Bates) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:50:20 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kevin Russell is right that dylexia is not a unitary disorder, and that acquired dylexia (defined as a reading disability due to brain injury in someone who was otherwise normal from birth) comes in several varieties. However, it is worth pointing out that the Paulesu et al. paper cited in the newspaper article was devoted exclusively to developmental (congenital) dyslexia. This is a disorder whose biological basis (assuming that there is one) is still unknown, and a disorder that does not (at least according to most investigators in this field) come in the same varieties that one finds with acquired dyslexias. In fact, all that the word "dyslexia" means right now, as it is commonly applied in school systems and clinics around the country for congenital cases, is "has difficulty reading, by some specified criterion on one or more standardized tests." Because the disorder is defined entirely on behavioral grounds, by relatively broad criteria, it is entirely possible that some forms of developmental dyslexia are really environmental (i.e. kids who can't read well for reasons that have more to do with the family culture). This is an especially important issue these days when schools are dealing with increasing numbers of immigrants, and other individuals who may not be proficient speakers of the language in which they are being taught to read. -liz bates >I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without >blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no >other options. I find it odd that many of the respondents here seem to >making the same equation. If there's one bit of knowledge that >researchers seem to have wrested from the chaos, and that we linguists can >pass on to anybody who'll listen, it's that dyslexia is not a monolithic >disorder. > >There are dyslexics who have problems taking apart a word into graphemes >and mapping them to phonemes and who get by, to the extent they do, by >memorizing entire words -- "phonological dyslexia" in the standard (and no >doubt simplistic) first-year-textbook typology. There are dyslexics >who are great at grapheme-to-phoneme mapping, can read any regularly >spelled word you throw at them, but bomb on the irregular words that have >to be memorized -- "surface dyslexia" in the first-year-textbook typology. >(I'm working on a body of writing by an English-speaking developmental >dysgraphic, who despite decades of work still spells the way a surface >dyslexic reads.) And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who >are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow", or the doubtless >many other kinds of and combinations of dyslexias that are being worked on >outside the view of textbook writers. > >I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a >person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to >memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you >farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone >with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the >spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected >forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological >dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing >environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised >if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. > >It's probably no coincidence that the study reported on looked only at >university students, or that the team had to look really closely to find >Italian university students with signs of dyslexia, or that the ones they >found all seemed to have surface dyslexia. This is not a sign that the >Italian writing system is better for dyslexics. It's a sign that it's >better for *some* dyslexics, and brutally worse for others. > >I would imagine that Chinese would be at the opposite extreme, easier for >good-at-memorizing phonological dyslexics (but still not paradise, as the >findings pointed to by Dan and and Alex would suggest), harder for >good-at-generalizing bad-at-memorizing surface dyslexics. > >I vaguely recall someone talking about reading problems in Japanese, where >you need to strike the right balance between sheer memorization (in order >to get most of the lexical items, written in kanji) and generalization (in >order to get any of the grammatical markers, written in kana), and >different people can have problems with either one. Does this ring a bell >with anyone who can give a reference? > >Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the Science article later this >week. Hopefully the "all dyslexia is the same" over-simplification is >the fault of the newspaper reporters and not the original researchers. > >-- Kevin Russell From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 22 00:22:33 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:22:33 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 4:26:51 PM, krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA writes: << I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no other options.... I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. >> As Liz Bates points out, there is an exceedingly valid problem being voiced here with regard to the over-broad labeling of dyslexia. And to the Press' inability to handle such issues perceptively - even though the quote mentioned came from a mere press clipping. However,... If (note the "if") the study has helped to confirmed that the emergence of certain dysfunctions called "dyslexia" may be highly correlateable to the degree of language symbol-to-sound correspondence, that certainly is an advance. The fact that the research may not elucidate all "dyslexia" should not take away from what the findings apparently (note "apparently") imply. Simply from the point of view of potentially providing real help for some diagnosed "dyslexics," it would seem to be worthy of note and pursuit. Going further, isn't this also a wonderful research opportunity? A testable hypothesis has just been offered above: <> If there is an operational way of identifying "phonological" dyslexics, then the statement above would seem to be testable and provable. We would expect diametrically opposed results with such subjects. And so, based on the above, we might also appreciate the research for not only potentially advancing our understanding of one phenomenon, but also for paving the way for other advances. <> My understanding is that the correlation may be rather higher than a matter of just making life simpler. There seems to be a significant variance between a functional and dysfunctional diagnosis. And of course if the research eventually bares out, it might no longer be a matter of "seeing how." It might become a matter of "finding out why." Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 22 03:40:55 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:40:55 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 5:52:53 PM, bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU writes: << Because the disorder is defined entirely on behavioral grounds, by relatively broad criteria, it is entirely possible that some forms of developmental dyslexia are really environmental (i.e. kids who can't read well for reasons that have more to do with the family culture). >> And this raises the issue of whether the different forms of "dyslexia" can be defined by differences in behavior. One alternative is that different causes (acquired or environmental) result in similar, indistinguishable behavior. The other is that observable behavioral differences correlate to the different causes. Then there is the gray area in between those two alternatives. In any case, it should be noted that "dys-" in "dyslexia" refers most basically to a behavioral matter. Physiological variances that are merely innocent variances are not ordinarily thought of as dysfunctional. The fact that skin melanin varies does not make its lack "dysfunctional," although more melanin is certainly an advantage in certain climates. What the Italian-English-French study hints at is that, in certain linguistic environments, the particular physiological condition studied is NOT "dysfunctional," while in others it is. So, to some degree, it's suggested that it is not the underlying physiological condition that is "dys-" but rather its expression in a particular environment (i.e., among learners of English.) And it is behavior that apparently changes from one language context to another. This is therefore, at least from the point of view of dysfunctionally, environmentally determined. In a message dated 3/21/2001 4:26:51 PM, krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA writes: << And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow",... >> Wouldn't it be interesting to somehow know if this happens significantly more often in English than Italian (or vice versa)? In an earlier post, Liz Bates wrote: <> But wouldn't the initial impression from the research be, at minimum, that statistically, if I do show the physiological signs, I will be more likely to read badly in English as opposed to Italian? Regards, Steve Long From gvk at ciaccess.com Thu Mar 22 06:02:31 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 01:02:31 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: > On 3/21/01 6:10 AM, dan everett said: > > > In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, > > every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that > > foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the > > sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming > > subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these > > subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. If you decide to learn how to ski, I heartily recomend that you read a good sports book like the "Inner Game of Skiing" instead of Searle's philosophy. Galwey the co-author of this book and the author of by the far the best-selling 'how-to' sport book "Inner Game of Tennis" would agree about the role of intention, but not the role of conscious thought in the act of learning. And neither would Betty Edwards-the author of the by far best-selling book on drawing.... All learning requires that we 'lose' ourselves in the act of doing. We can only become consciously aware or understand of how to do what, after we know how to do it! gerry van koeverden From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 22 11:51:49 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:51:49 -0500 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is problematic for connectionism. The primary author of the article for correspondence is Iris Berent. iberent at fau.edu Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Dyslexia Author: at Internet Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > representational. What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. --Tony Wright From lamb at RICE.EDU Thu Mar 22 14:59:50 2001 From: lamb at RICE.EDU (Sydney Lamb) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:59:50 -0600 Subject: Connectionism In-Reply-To: <0103229852.AA985261158@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of > variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of > connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is > problematic for connectionism. > ... Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected anyway as neurologically implausible. - Syd Lamb > ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ > Subject: Re: Dyslexia > Author: at Internet > Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM > > > At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > > > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > > representational. > > What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar > with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about > phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the > difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager > to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. > > --Tony Wright > Sydney M. Lamb http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/ Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences Rice University, Houston, TX From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 22 18:58:43 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 13:58:43 -0500 Subject: Connectionism Message-ID: Maybe. I think our paper is problematic for just about any version of connectionism, though. Have a look and see. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Connectionism Author: at Internet Date: 3/22/01 8:59 AM On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of > variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of > connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is > problematic for connectionism. > ... Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected anyway as neurologically implausible. - Syd Lamb > ______________________________ Reply Separator _______________________________ __ > Subject: Re: Dyslexia > Author: at Internet > Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM > > > At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > > > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > > representational. > > What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar > with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about > phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the > difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager > to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. > > --Tony Wright > Sydney M. Lamb http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/ Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences Rice University, Houston, TX From gthomson at MAC.COM Fri Mar 23 03:01:00 2001 From: gthomson at MAC.COM (gthomson) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 07:31:00 +0430 Subject: Connectionism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:59 -0600 22/03/01, Sydney Lamb wrote: >On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > >> The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of >> variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of >> connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is >> problematic for connectionism. >> ... > >Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of >connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & >McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three >layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected >anyway as neurologically implausible. > > - Syd Lamb I don't know that it is clear what sense of "variables" is intended here. Greg Thomson From paul at BENJAMINS.COM Fri Mar 23 20:32:11 2001 From: paul at BENJAMINS.COM (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 15:32:11 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?New_Book:_Iconicity_(Fischer_&_N=E4nny)?= Message-ID: John Benjamins Publishing announces a new work of interest to Functional Linguists: The Motivated Sign. Iconicity in language and literature 2. Olga FISCHER ((University of Amsterdam) and Max NÄNNY (University of Zürich) (eds.) US & Canada: 1 58811 003 6 / USD 100.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 2574 5 / NLG 220.00 (Hardcover) This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the 'mise en abyme', to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeare's rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwood's writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of 'the motivated sign' represent yet another strong challenge to "Saussure's dogma of arbitrariness" (Jakobson). Contributions by: Earl R. Anderson; C. Jac Conradie; Olga Fischer; Robbie B.H. Goh; Anne C. Henry; William J. Herlofsky; Loretta Innocenti; Frank Jansen; Jean-Jacques Lecercle; Leo Lentz; Christina Ljungberg; Wolfgang G. Müller; Max Nänny; Ralf Norrman; Winfried Nöth; Piotr Sadowski; John J. White; Werner Wolf. 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 6304747 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Sun Mar 25 22:50:28 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 14:50:28 -0800 Subject: Thai Position at UCLA Message-ID: The Program in South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA anticpates an opening for a full-time lecture position in Thai for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal (pending budgetary approval). The lecturer will be responsible for first, second and third year instruction in Thai. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in the target language, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching Thai to both heritage and non-heritage students, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin April 20, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Shoichi Iwasaki, Director of South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures Program, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE. From ashok at TUVOX.COM Mon Mar 26 04:52:38 2001 From: ashok at TUVOX.COM (Ashok Khosla) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 20:52:38 -0800 Subject: unsubscribe ashok@TUVOX.COM In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ashok at TUVOX.COM From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Mon Mar 26 07:27:45 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 15:27:45 +0800 Subject: unsubscribe ashok@TUVOX.COM Message-ID: Status Distribution March 26, 2001 13:15:19 The message regarding "unsubscribe ashok at TUVOX.COM" sent on March 26, 2001 13:15:19 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From annahdo at BU.EDU Tue Mar 27 02:39:45 2001 From: annahdo at BU.EDU (Anna Do) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 21:39:45 -0500 Subject: Calls: Boston University Conference on Language Development Message-ID: ************************************************************************************* THE 26TH ANNUAL BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CALL FOR PAPERS November 2, 3 and 4, 2001 Keynote Speaker: Susan Carey, New York University Plenary Speaker: Daniel A. Dinnsen, Indiana University ************************************************************************************* All topics in the fields of first and second language acquisition from all theoretical perspectives will be fully considered, including: Bilingualism Cognition & Language Creoles & Pidgins Discourse Exceptional Languages Input &Interaction Language Disorders Linguistic Theory (Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon) Literacy & Narrative Neurolinguistics Pragmatics Pre-linguistic Development Signed Languages Sociolinguistics Speech Perception & Production Abstracts submitted must represent original, unpublished research. Presentations will be 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions. PLEASE SUBMIT: 1) Ten copies of an anonymous, clearly titled 450-word summary for review; 2) One copy of a 150-word abstract for use in the conference program book if your abstract is accepted. If your paper is accepted, this abstract will be scanned into the conference handbook. No changes in title or authors will be possible after acceptance. 3) For EACH author, one copy of the information form printed at the bottom of this sheet. Please include e-mail address or a self-addressed, stamped postcard for acknowledgment of receipt. Notice of acceptance or rejection will be sent in early August, by US mail. Pre-registration materials and preliminary schedule will be available in late August, 2001. All authors who present papers at the conference will be invited to contribute their papers to the Proceedings volumes. Those papers will be due in January, 2002. Note: All conference papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted. Although each abstract will be evaluated individually, we will attempt to honor requests to schedule accepted papers together in group sessions. DEADLINE: All submissions must be received by May 15, 2001. Send submissions to: Boston University Conference on Language Development 704 Commonwealth Ave., Suite 101 Boston, MA 02215 U.S.A. Telephone: (617) 353-3085 e-mail: langconf at acs.bu.edu (We regret that we cannot accept abstract submissions by fax or e-mail.) Information regarding the conference may be accessed at http://web.bu.edu/LINGUISTICS/APPLIED/conference.html ************************************************************************** Author Information (Please include a typed sheet containing the following information for EACH author) Title: Full name: Affiliation: Current work address (for publication in handbook) Current e-mail (required): Current phone number (required): Summer address if different, and dates: Summer e-mail (required): Summer phone (required): To accommodate as many papers as possible, we reserve the right to limit each submitter to one first authorship and if circumstances warrant, to limit each submitter to two papers in any authorship status. Please indicate whether, if your paper is not one of the 90 initially selected for presentation, you would be willing to be considered as an alternate. (If you indicate that you are willing to be considered, this does not commit you to accepting alternate status if it should be offered to you.) _____ Yes, consider me as an alternate if necessary _____ No, please do not consider me as an alternate Please indicate how you wish to receive the 2002 Call for Papers: ____e-mail/electronic ___surface mail ____ both -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iadimly at usc.es Tue Mar 27 10:29:41 2001 From: iadimly at usc.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mar=EDa_Angeles?=) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:29:41 +0200 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?NEW_BOOK:_THEME-TOPIC_INTERFACE_=28Mar=EDa_A._G=F3mez-Go?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?nz=E1lez=29?= Message-ID: >******************************* >Dr María de los Ángeles GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ >Profesora Titular de Filoloxía Inglesa >Departmento de Filoloxía Inglesa >Facultade de Filoloxia >Universidade de Santiago de Compostela >Avda. de Castelao, s/n >E- 15782 Santiago de Compostela. Spain >Fax.: + 00 34 981-574646 >Tel: + 00 34 981-563100 Ext. 11856 >email: iadimly at usc.es >http://www.usc.es/ia303/benvidag.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: Antón Anxo Pombo Rodríguez To: Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 10:41 PM Subject: NEW BOOK: THEME-TOPIC INTERFACE (María A. Gómez-González) > > > > > > Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 15:38:49 -0500 > > From: Paul Peranteau > > Subject: Pragmatics & Discourse, The Theme-Topic Interface by > Gomez-Gonzalez > > > > > > John Benjamins Publishing announces a new work in Pragmatics & Discourse: > > > > The Theme-Topic Interface. > > Evidence from English. > > María Ángeles GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ (University of Santiago de Compostella) > > Pragmatics & Beyond NS 71 > > US & Canada: 1 55619 949 X / USD 87.00 (Hardcover) > > Rest of world: 90 272 5086 3 / NLG 190.00 (Hardcover) > > > > The Theme-Topic Interface (TTI) gives a useful catalogue of > > approaches to the concept Theme in the analysis of Natural > > Language. The book is written with both theoretical and descriptive > > goals and aims to synthesize and revise current approaches to pragmatic > > functions. > > In addition, TTI explains that different thematic constructions in natural > > language > > reveal different discourse strategies related to point of view and > > speaker subjectivity, which shows the mutually supportive role of > > form and discourse function vis-á-vis each other. > > > > The book's value is enhanced by the use of natural language corpora, the > > Lancaster > > IBM Spoken English Corpus (LIBMSEC), and by running multivariate > > statistical tests, taking into account both segmental and > > suprasegmental features. The bibliography lists more than 600 > > publications providing ample material for further research into an > > integrated theory of language and its use. The indexes provide easy > > access to most authors mentioned and to the major concepts covered. > > > > > > > > > > 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 6304747 > > Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 > 6739773 > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > > > > > > If you buy one of these books, please tell the publisher or author that > > you saw it on LINGUIST. > > > > > > The following publishers contribute to the support of The LINGUIST List: > > > > > > MAJOR SUPPORTERS > > > > Arnold Publishers > > http://www.arnoldpublishers.com > > > > Athelstan Publications > > http://www.athel.com > > > > Blackwell Publishers > > http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/ > > > > Cambridge University Press > > http://www.cup.org > > > > Cascadilla Press > > http://www.cascadilla.com/ > > > > Elsevier Science Ltd. > > http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/linguistics > > > > John Benjamins > > http://www.benjamins.com/ > > http://www.benjamins.nl/ > > > > Kluwer Academic Publishers > > http://www.wkap.nl/ > > > > Lernout & Hauspie > > http://www.lhsl.com > > > > Lincom Europa > > http://www.lincom-europa.com > > > > MIT Press > > http://mitpress.mit.edu/books-legacy.tcl > > > > Mouton de Gruyter > > http://www.deGruyter.de/hling.html > > > > Multilingual Matters > > http://www.multilingual-matters.com/ > > > > Oxford UP > > http://www.oup-usa.org/ > > > > Pearson Education > > http://www.pearsoneduc.com/catalog.html > > > > Rodopi > > http://www.rodopi.nl/ > > > > Springer-Verlag > > http://www.springer.de > > > > Summer Institute of Linguistics > > http://www.sil.org/ > > > > > > OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS > > > > Anthropological Linguistics > > http://www.indiana.edu/~anthling/ > > > > Finno-Ugrian Society > > http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/sus/ > > > > Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc., Umass > > http://www.umass.edu/linguist/GLSA/ > > > > Kingston Press Ltd. > > http://www.kingstonpress.com > > > > Linguistic Assoc. of Finland > > http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ > > > > Linguistic Society of Southern Africa (LSSA) > > http://www.safest.org.za/bsp > > > > Pacific Linguistics > > http://pacling.anu.edu.au > > > > Pacini Editore Spa > > http://www.pacinieditore.it/ > > > > Virittaja Aikakauslehti > > http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/kks/virittaja.html > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > > LINGUIST List: Vol-12-814 > > From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 27 12:58:22 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:58:22 +0300 Subject: philosophy of linguistics Message-ID: Philosophy of science at its best investigates existing scientific practices; it may suggest improvements, but these must start from what exists already. Otherwise it is vacuous (or utopistic). Philosophy of linguistics at its best investigates the notion of functional explanation as it is employed in typological linguistics as a matter of fact. It cannot investigate e.g. deductive-nomological explanations of language change, because these do not exist; for the same reason, it cannot investigate such explanations of (limits on) variation in argument-marking as are based on neurophysiological computations or on the motion of subatomic particles. Functional/rational explanations presuppose the existence of unconscious goals and beliefs. On Funknet the name of John Searle has been mentioned in this context. Searle is an uneven thinker. Sometimes what he says is wrong, and sometimes it is right. Both sides are illustrated by his book The Rediscovery (read 'Re'discovery) of the Mind. First, Searle claims that mental states are states which either are conscious or can become conscious. The latter states are identical with one subclass of neurophysiological states; the other subclass is constituted by those neurophysiological states that cannot become conscious. (Thus, there are no permanently unconscious goals/beliefs.) Notice that the second type of mental states, identical with the first type of neurophysiological states, entails that '(some) neurophysiological states are mental states', which is gibberish, although, or because, it is the thesis of strong reductionism. More importantly, Searle is committed to the view that until the age of 10 months or so, children have no mental life. Fathers and mothers are likely to disagree. (Animals too are deprived of mentality.) Searle's position beautifully illustrates the oddities which one is driven to as long as one does not reject the discrete ('black-or-white') metaphysics in favor of a CONTINUUM metaphysics. (Here we would just have to accept the continuum between totally unconscious and totally (self-)conscious). Some versions of a priori linguistics, now largely discarded, have suffered from the same metaphysical illness. - What if Searle's die-hard acolytes refuse to be swayed by reason (i.e. by the preceding argument)? Then we will make a concession which may not please them: the one who proposes (adequate) rational explanations HAS become conscious of until-then-uncoscious goals-cum-beliefs in his or her own case, and others CAN follow, or COULD have followed, his or her example (thus fulfilling the Searlean requirement of dispositionality). From there, arriving at functional-typological explanations is simply a matter of analogical generalization. Both ways, the rational explanation is vindicated. (Other examples of Searle not at his best will be mentioned on demand.) Second, it is impossible to deny the cogency of Searle's arguments against the ontological reality of Chomskyan 'computations' (pp. 220-221, 244-246). The preceding argument may discourage devotees of the black-or-white metaphysics, especially those who have restricted their readings to introductory textbooks of philosophy. But one should not give up trying. In a far-off distance, philosophy is beckoning seductively: 'come to me.' The Bible teaches us that in the Heaven of Christianity it is always a special occasion when an ex-sinner has redeemed him- or herself. Analogously, there is a general sense of satisfaction in the esoteric realm of philosophy when someone who has acted like a moron finally rejects the idea that (s)he is innately endowed to remain a moron forever, and decides to become a rational person. Esa Itkonen, Dozent der Philosophie (inter alia) From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 27 14:50:12 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 09:50:12 -0500 Subject: philosophy of linguistics Message-ID: Hey, I was unable to find a function to most of the form of this letter. However, I appreciate Eitkonen bringing the following to my attention: ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Searle is an uneven thinker. Sometimes what he says is wrong, and sometimes it is right. How dare anyone like silly ol me cite someone who is 'sometimes wrong'? In the future, I will only cite people who are always right. That means I can of course cite myself. But who else? Dan Everett From ptb0 at UMAIL.UCSB.EDU Wed Mar 28 19:33:51 2001 From: ptb0 at UMAIL.UCSB.EDU (Paul Barthmaier) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:33:51 -0800 Subject: 2001 LSA Institute Message-ID: A quick reminder that the Housing and Application deadlines for the 2001 Linguistic Institute is April 1, 2001. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to enjoy a summer in sunny Santa Barbara studying Linguistics with some of the top scholars in the world. For more information regarding courses, deadlines and admission please see our website at http://www.summer.ucsb.edu/lsa2001. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Thu Mar 29 07:57:46 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 23:57:46 -0800 Subject: Japanese position at UCLA Message-ID: The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA anticpates an opening for a full-time lecture position in Japanese for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal. The lecturer will be responsible for second and third year instruction in Japanese, and participate in developing a new curriculum. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in Japanese and English, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics or Applied Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching diverse student groups, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin May 1, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Noriko Akatsuka, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles,Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action,Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE. From nordquis at UNM.EDU Fri Mar 2 01:10:31 2001 From: nordquis at UNM.EDU (Dawn Nordquist) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 18:10:31 -0700 Subject: Conference Schedule for High Desert Linguistics Society 4 Message-ID: FOURTH ANNUAL HIGH DESERT LINGUISTICS SOCIETY CONFERENCE March 30-31, 2001 The University of New Mexico Campus Friday March 30 8:00-9:30 Registration in the ORTEGA READING ROOM, Ortega Hall, Room #223 (Refreshments Served) 9:30-9:50 Opening Remarks and Credits, President of the High Desert Linguistics Society, K. Aaron Smith and Chair of the Linguistics Department at the University of New Mexico, Joan Bybee Friday, Morning Session All talks held in the Ortega Reading Room, Ortega Hall Room #233 10:00-10:30 The Politics of Indigenous Languages in Literacy and Education in Malawi, Alfred, J. Matiki, The University of New Mexico 10:30-11:00 A Comparison of the Code Switching Behavior and Knowledge of Adults and Children, Julianne Hammink, The University of Texas at El Paso 11:00-11:30 Prototypicality, Metaphor and Second Language Learning, Paula Bramante, The University of New Mexico 11:30-1:00 Break for Lunch 1:00-2:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER ORTEGA READING ROOM, ORTEGA HALL #233 Shana Poplock, University of Ottawa Variation, Prescription and Praxis in the Evolution of French Grammar 2:00-2:30 Break Friday, Afternoon Session All talks held in the Ortega Reading Room, Ortega Hall Room #233 2:30-3:00 Two Forms of Yes-No Questions in Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Analysis, Li-Hsiang Chang, The University of New Mexico 3:00-3:30 Passive Constructions in Modern Irish, Brian Nolan, Trinity College Dublin and the Institute of Technology at Blanchardstown 3:30-4:00 An Analysis of Japanese nearly Synonymous Adverbs, Eiko Torii, Wellesley College 4:00-4:30 Break (Light Refreshments Served) 4:30-5:00 The Representation of Possession: An Interface between Syntax and Semantics, Nancy Mae Antrim, University of Texas at El Paso 5:00-5:30 Pseudogapping: ATB Movement, not Verb Phrase Ellipsis, Brian Agbayani and Ed Zoerner, University of California at Irvine and California State University, Dominguez Hills *On Friday Evening, the conference presenters and attendees are invited to join together for dinner at the Monte Vista Fire House at 7 PM (self-pay). Please RSVP with K. Aaron Smith if you plan to attend the dinner. Directions to the Fire House are included in your registration package. Saturday, March 31 9:00-10:00 Mingle and Breakfast (bagels, pastries, fruit and coffee) Dane Smith Hall, First Floor. Saturday, Morning Session A (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, Room #244 10:00-10:30 Spanish Diminutive Formation without Rules or Constraints, David Eddington, Mississippi State University 10:30-11:00 Evidentiality and beyond in Cha?palaachi, Enrique Bern?rdez, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain 11:00-11:30 Aspects of Aspectual Markers in ASL, Robin Thompson, University of San Diego and The Salk Institute Saturday, Morning Session B (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, Room #245 10:00-10:30 The Middle Finger in Handshape Phonology, Christopher Miller, Universit? du Qu?bec ? Montr?al 10:30-11:00 Prosodic versus Morphological Mora Augmentation, Stuart Davis, Indiana University 11:00-11:30 Lexical Frequency and the Plural Marker /s/ in Brazilian Portuguese, Fernanda Ferreira, The University of New Mexico 11:30-1:00 Break for Lunch 1:00-2:00 KEYNOTE SPEAKER DANE SMITH HALL, ROOM #233 Sherman Wilcox, The University of New Mexico Gesture, Icons, and Symbol: What Signed Languages Tell us about Language 2:00-2:30 Break Saturday, Afternoon Session A (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, #255 2:30-3:00 The Role of Digression in ASL Discourse, Rick Zimmer, The University of Manitoba 3:00-3:30 Perspective Coding and the Use of Space in ASL Verbs, Terry Janzen, The University of Manitoba 3:30-4:00 Break (refreshments not served) 4:00-4:30 A Knowledge-driven, Constraints-based Interface Mechanism for Semantic Analysis of Sentence Structures, Dan Tappan, New Mexico State University 4:30-5:00 Using Translations to Inform Mexican Communities about Health: An in-depth Analysis of the Cultural, Social, and Linguistic Factors Contributing to Miscommunication, Holly E. Jacobson, The University of Arizona Saturday, Afternoon Session B (Concurrent Sessions) All talks held in Dane Smith Hall, #254 2:30-3:00 The Chiac Verb Particle Construction, Hilary Young, Rice University 3:00-3:30 The Morphologization of qui in Spoken Swiss French, Bonnie Fonseca-Greber, The University of Arizona 3:30-4:00 Break (refreshments not served) 4:00-4:30 The Jury?s still out: Semantic Distinctions in Legal and Comprehension Issues for Layjurors, Stephanie Burdine, Rice University 4:30-5:00 Metaphors of Collaboration, Christopher Shank, The University of New Mexico *There will be an end-of-conference party held on Saturday evening. Place and time TBA. From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Mon Mar 5 15:04:14 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:04:14 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Folks, I have missed most of this discussion. Has anyone brought up the epistemological literature wrt these issues? Putnam, Rorty, Searle, Davidson, Quine, Russell, Plantinga, and *many* others have spoken to these issues with considerable sophistication. Perhaps we are straying slightly beyond the expertise afforded by linguistics training in discussing intentionality? (And John Searle used to say that the quickest way to spot that someone has misunderstood the issue of intentionality is that they will try to derive it from intensionality with an s, as many a bad PhD dissertation in philosophy has tried to do, so John says. I think I saw one reference to intensionality on this list discussion, but cannot remember.) I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through issues). Dan Everett From fujiin at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Mon Mar 5 22:59:35 2001 From: fujiin at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Noriko Fujii) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 14:59:35 -0800 Subject: job at Oregon Message-ID: UNIVERSITY OF OREGON: The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures invites applications for a full-time one-year position as a visiting assistant professor of Japanese linguistics. Applicants should be prepared to teach graduate courses in Japanese phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, and/or in second language acquisition and second language teaching; and undergraduate language courses. The position begins September 16, 2001. Required are a Ph.D. or ABD in (Japanese) linguistics or applied linguistics and native or near-native fluency in Japanese and English. Excellence in teaching is a priority. Send an application letter, CV, three letters of recommendation, and brief research sample to: Japanese Linguistics Search Committee, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. Fax: 541/346-0260. Applications will be reviewed from March 30, 2001. AA/EO/ADA Employer Noriko Fujii Dept. of East Asian Langs. & Lits. Univ. of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 TEl: (541) 346-4004 FAX: (541) 346-0260 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Mon Mar 5 22:33:42 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 17:33:42 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 3/5/2001 10:39:52 AM, dan_everett at SIL.ORG writes: <> Well, to the extent that linguistics is a science, there may be a methodological issue that needs to be addressed. And whether that involves epistemology or just operationally and pragmatically defining terms like "communication" and "intention", there may be at least the need felt for some sense that confusion is not actively being pursued. At minimum. And that need was illustrated in the message that started this trend. In that sense, the epistemology here may be more humble in scope and may be in the category some call the epistemology of science. Popper versus the Pos itivists and John Searle's "Rediscovery of the Mind" certainly have something to say to empirical linguists. These matters of course present themselves quite clearly in the linguistics works of the likes of a Chomsky. But I might suggest the issues here may be a little more narrow. And those issues regarding the relationship between intention and communication may be rather straightforward and observational. When is it justifiable for a linguist or anyone else to infer "intention" from a piece of observable behavior? If we feel it is justifiable to infer intention, then does it make sense to make intention part of the working definition of communication? Newton proved that you don't have to isolate, define or measure gravitrons to isolate, define or measure gravity. Darwin even proved that you don't have to isolate, define or measure genes in order to isolate, define or measure evolution. On a much less grander scale, the whole field of knowledge and consciousness may be too big a bird to swallow in answering the questions above. Not that intention is that small a bird, but at least a basic issue emerges. In an earlier post in this tread, Tom Givon wrote strikingly: <> And this in my very humble opinion is right near the core of the problem. What is intentional is not accidental. But some accidental things look intentional and vice versa. You can pick out structurally when humans have intervened in a wilderness situation. You can even see the functionality in the campfire and tent postholes they left behind. But then again the same sort of outward signs appear in an organ like the liver, signs of intentionality. (A fascinating question a friend of mine has been struggling with for a long time is how biological evolution would be different if it evolved as a result of the intentional efforts of generations of humans designing it. He tried to compare the phylogenic trees of species and automobile technology - e.g., "the Ferrari evolved from the Bugatti, with new transmission and intake traits." It really didn't look that different.) On the linguistic level, the fact is that the dictionary definition of words are not always a guide to why a person said those words. Are random words intentional? Here I think we are not looking at the intention to say words but the intention to accomplish something by saying words. There is not a one-to-one ratio. And that puts the intended effect of linguistic behavior in the cross-hairs of theory in my humble opinion - and however that fits in the epistemology of everything. In all of this the true nature of intention may put us ahead of ourselves. Finding out "why" we give a darn or "how" we give a darn may be premature, at least for these purposes. So it makes sense that we simply assume we must give a darn in order for intention and "intentional communication" to happen. And that, for me in my humble opinion, puts the funk back in funknet. Regards, Steve Long From nrude at UCINET.COM Tue Mar 6 00:36:31 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:36:31 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: <0103059838.AA983806736@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: on 3/5/01 7:04 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, > unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic > issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the > predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through > issues). > > Dan Everett But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know about this -- they do, don't they? Noel From girod at STYBBA.NTC.NOKIA.COM Tue Mar 6 06:51:24 2001 From: girod at STYBBA.NTC.NOKIA.COM (Marc Girod) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 08:51:24 +0200 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: "dan everett"'s message of "Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:04:14 -0500" Message-ID: >>>>> "dan" == dan everett writes: dan> Has anyone brought up the epistemological literature wrt these dan> issues? Putnam, Rorty, Searle, Davidson, Quine, Russell, dan> Plantinga, and *many* others have spoken to these issues with dan> considerable sophistication. And e.g. Gadamer's hermeutics, with understanding being interpretation, and this happening in the light of people's tasks (following Heidegger). This to get out of the issue of the "consciousness" of intentionality. -- Marc Girod P.O. Box 320 Voice: +358-9-511 23746 Nokia Networks 00045 NOKIA Group Mobile: +358-40-569 7954 Hiomo 5/1 Finland Fax: +358-9-511 23580 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 6 14:08:37 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 09:08:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Noel, This is exactly the kind of thing that philosophers should pay attention to. When linguists study language carefully and come up with plausible looking generalizations, then that is something philosophers (or the relevant other discipline, depending on the case) should attend to. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Author: at Internet Date: 3/5/01 4:36 PM on 3/5/01 7:04 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter, > unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic > issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the > predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through > issues). > > Dan Everett But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know about this -- they do, don't they? Noel From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 6 16:12:42 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 18:12:42 +0200 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: It is impossible to read literature on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, diachronic linguistics or linguistic typology without constantly enountering expressions like 'this was a reasonable thing to do', 'it would have been irrational to do otherwise' etc etc. Clearly, linguists are trying to say something here, but what is it? It is the following schema of action-explanation: {[G:X & B:(A -> X)] --> G:A} => A' X and A are mental representations of goal-states and actions, respectively. The prefixes G and B represent prositional attitudes of intending (or simply wanting) and believing. The schema says that if someone intends to achieve the goal X and believes that an action A (which he is capable of performing) contributes to bringing X about, then he MUST, as a matter a conceptual necessity, intend to do A. (The necessity is indicated by the 'e-mail entailment sign' -->.) Thus, intention is transferred from goal to action. (As Aristotle put it, "who wants the end, wants the means".) Having this goal and this belief will then bring it about that he does A'. The simple arrow and the double arrow stand for ordinary causation and mental causation, respectively. While A is the mental representation of an action, A' is its spatiotemporal counterpart. A' is a RATIONAL action to the extent that it is indeed an adequate means of bringing about X. The 'rational explanation' of an action consists in showing that the agent thought it to be an adequate means of attaining some goal. As Newton-Smith (1981: 241) has put it: "To explain an action as an action is to show that it is rational. This involves showing that on the basis of the goals and beliefs of the person concerned the action was the means he believed to be the most likely to achieve his goal." It must be added, however, that even (prima facie) IRRATIONAL actions can only be explained by using the schema of rational explanation, i.e. by showing how the action that was in fact irrational could have APPEARED as rational to the agent. Otherwise it just remains incomprehensible. Rational explanation, based on UNCONSCIOUS rationality, turns out to be the common denominator of the linguistic subdisciplines mentioned above (as claimed in my Causality book from 1983). Or, rather than unconscious rationality, what we have here are unconscious ATTEMPTS AT rationality. Fodor (1975) knew it: "For all we know, cognition is saturated with rationality through and through." Esa Itkonen From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 05:40:04 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 21:40:04 -0800 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: Esa, Maybe "unconscious rationality" is just another name for "unconscious intent". And intents need not necessarily be 'rational'. The connection between the sub-corrtical limbic system, where the central processing of 'intention' is localized, and the front-cortical centers of both rationality and attention/ consciousness, is not an automatic connection, but only an optional one. Maybe another element involved here is the contrast between more local vs. more global planning, actions & consequences. In general, both language performance and bilogical evolution tend to rely on relatively local planning & execution, much of it highly automated (thus not conscious). But the consequences are often global, and some of them may be available to (off-line, subsequent) conscious construction. Both linguists & philosophers tend to ignore the difference, assuming that because something *can* be construed consciously (later on) as 'rational', it must have been so during language production/comprehension. This is our trap of "competence" all over again, even when we profess to be non-Chomskyan about it. Best, TG ======================= Esa Itkonen wrote: > > It is impossible to read literature on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, > psycholinguistics, diachronic linguistics or linguistic typology without > constantly enountering expressions like 'this was a reasonable thing to > do', 'it would have been irrational to do otherwise' etc etc. Clearly, > linguists are trying to say something here, but what is it? It is the > following schema of action-explanation: > > {[G:X & B:(A -> X)] --> G:A} => A' > > X and A are mental representations of goal-states and actions, > respectively. The prefixes G and B represent prositional attitudes of > intending (or simply wanting) and believing. The schema says that if > someone intends to achieve the goal X and believes that an action A (which > he is capable of performing) contributes to bringing X about, then he MUST, > as a matter a conceptual necessity, intend to do A. (The necessity is > indicated by the 'e-mail entailment sign' -->.) Thus, intention is > transferred from goal to action. (As Aristotle put it, "who wants the end, > wants the means".) Having this goal and this belief will then bring it > about that he does A'. The simple arrow and the double arrow stand for > ordinary causation and mental causation, respectively. While A is the > mental representation of an action, A' is its spatiotemporal counterpart. > A' is a RATIONAL action to the extent that it is indeed an adequate means > of bringing about X. The 'rational explanation' of an action consists in > showing that the agent thought it to be an adequate means of attaining some > goal. As Newton-Smith (1981: 241) has put it: "To explain an action as an > action is to show that it is rational. This involves showing that on the > basis of the goals and beliefs of the person concerned the action was the > means he believed to be the most likely to achieve his goal." It must be > added, however, that even (prima facie) IRRATIONAL actions can only be > explained by using the schema of rational explanation, i.e. by showing how > the action that was in fact irrational could have APPEARED as rational to > the agent. Otherwise it just remains incomprehensible. Rational > explanation, based on UNCONSCIOUS rationality, turns out to be the common > denominator of the linguistic subdisciplines mentioned above (as claimed in > my Causality book from 1983). Or, rather than unconscious rationality, what > we have here are unconscious ATTEMPTS AT rationality. Fodor (1975) knew it: > "For all we know, cognition is saturated with rationality through and > through." > > Esa Itkonen From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Tue Mar 6 17:49:38 2001 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 09:49:38 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Noel Rude wrote: > But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent > (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know > about this -- they do, don't they? They know all about that one--the concept of intentional Agent is originally theirs. We lifted it from them without thinking carefully about whether it was really suited for our needs, which IMO it certainly isn't--there's very little *grammatical* evidence for the relevance of intention to the Agent role (in the linguistic, as opposed to the philosopher's, sense). Scott DeLancey From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 08:07:23 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 00:07:23 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: With all due respect, if you work on verb complementation & causative construction, the concepts of "agent" and "intent" are absolutely crucial fdor understanding 'rules of grammar'. So let's not throw them out prematurely. TG ======================== Scott Delancey wrote: > > On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Noel Rude wrote: > > > But one wonders -- might the fact that we posit semantic roles such as Agent > > (intentional cause) be of interest to philosophers? One assumes they know > > about this -- they do, don't they? > > They know all about that one--the concept of intentional Agent is > originally theirs. We lifted it from them without thinking carefully > about whether it was really suited for our needs, which IMO it > certainly isn't--there's very little *grammatical* evidence for the > relevance of intention to the Agent role (in the linguistic, as > opposed to the philosopher's, sense). > > Scott DeLancey From hargred at WOU.EDU Tue Mar 6 21:03:07 2001 From: hargred at WOU.EDU (david hargreaves) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 13:03:07 PST Subject: intentional explanation In-Reply-To: <3AA5C9B4.40C54954@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained," devotes a long chapter ('How Words Do Things with Us') to a critique of Levelt's production model; in doing so he makes important larger points about the sloppy ways of talking about "intending" and "meaning." His critique ought to be disturbing for any communication/production models that appeal to "goals" and "intentions" as unproblematic. From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 6 22:24:26 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 17:24:26 -0500 Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: To Esa and Tom, First, Esa's posting still leaves me thinking that there is a lot of literature out there which handles intentionality much better than linguists. For us to discuss it without doing our homework and placing our discoveries in the context of what is already known would be unfortunate. And as Scott pointed out, even the notion 'intentional agent' comes from philosophy (although linguists have paid back their debt on that one with considerable empirical work. Unfortunately, few philosophers really read the linguistics literature well, as we often neglect their literature. Rick Grush, John Searle, Jerry Fodor, and a couple of others stand out as exceptions, but there are not many). As to Tom's posting, well, I just don't think that the brain is quite so neatly partioned as Tom seems to suggest. 'Press here for rationality' 'Press here for intentionality', etc. I am seriously skeptical about that understanding of the neurological research. Perhaps an LSA institute course on 'intentionality', offered by Searle or other philosopher with a strong publication record in this area. Dan From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 7 05:10:10 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 22:10:10 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. In-Reply-To: <3AA5EC3B.356FD2B4@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: > With all due respect, if you work on verb complementation & causative > construction, the concepts of "agent" and "intent" are absolutely > crucial fdor understanding 'rules of grammar'. So let's not throw them > out prematurely. TG I was under the impression that agentivity depended more on the _Absicht_ variety of "intent" than on the lower-level _Intentionalitaet_ that I thought was the topic of this thread. If I'm wrong about this, I need to re-read a whole lot of material in a new light. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 7 06:17:35 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 01:17:35 EST Subject: intentional explanation Message-ID: In a message dated 3/6/2001 10:23:00 PM, dan_everett at SIL.ORG writes: << Perhaps an LSA institute course on 'intentionality', offered by Searle or other philosopher with a strong publication record in this area. >> Just to make a point about John Searle's position, this is from a review of his "The Rediscovery of the Mind," that appeared in the Journal of Philosophy at the time of publication and is reproduced on the web at http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/searle.htm. <> In an interesting segment from that review, the author notes a change in Searle's approach in "Rediscovery" that reflects perhaps how much his view diverged (and perhaps still diverges) from those of the mainstream "philosophers and cognitive scientists": <> It might occur to someone reading this review closely that linguists, psychologists and biologists may have as much to contribute as philosophers to "handling" the subject of intentionality. One does not get the impression that, after a few millennium of addressing the problem of intention, philosophy is ever so much closer to an answer. But one does get the impression that even Searle might admit that the answer hinges on what way the science of it falls. And that certainly includes linguistics. I would hope that there would be no conclusion that linguists need some extraordinary training to address the issue of intention and that it should be left to others to define intention IN A LINGUISTIC CONTEXT. There are of course physiological and behavioral constraints, but in all the learning on the subject there's nothing like a "germ theory of disease" that has settled the matter of intention once and for all. Far from it. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 7 07:33:58 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 02:33:58 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 12:30:07 AM, dparvaz at UNM.EDU writes: << I was under the impression that agentivity depended more on the _Absicht_ variety of "intent" than on the lower-level _Intentionalitaet_ that I thought was the topic of this thread. If I'm wrong about this, I need to re-read a whole lot of material in a new light. >> In my humble opinion, that may be a problem here. Husserlian "Intentionalitaet" is a specific, specialized and perhaps bigger issue. But at least one part of this tread simply dealt with the word "intention" as it would be used in a linguistic definition of communication. "Intent" or "intention" in its normal meaning (not Intentionality with a capital "I") is an understandable concept in a variety of sciences and everyday life. And that expected meaning would logically be valid in and of itself in discussing these matters. Not that the specialized meaning (as in "Intentional cause") is not valid, but it should also be possible to invoke the plain meaning in English (and without recourse to the fine definition that happens in German or unique meaning found in some epistemological approaches). How is it that the discussion of "intent" as it is used to describe examples of communications in law or wildlife could possibly invoke a specialized and essentially phenomenological concept to the exclusion of its ordinary meaning, that is, simply purposeful speech or behavior? This seems to go back to the message that started this tread, which was about unstated assumptions. Regards, Steve Long From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Mar 8 04:49:21 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:49:21 -0800 Subject: intentionality Message-ID: Dear Brian, I'm forwarding your note to Scott, together with some comments here. There is a similar passive case in English, the GET passive. Unlike the BE passive, it tends to (in older working-class people, where it is most entrenched) to carry a strong sense that the patiend did something deliberately in order to deserve their misfortune. There's a paper by Young & Givon tracking the history of this passive (Hopper & Fox eds 1994), but also showing why its history (as an ex reflexive- causative) is related to its saynchronic characteristics. The 'agentivity' of the patient of this passive was noted earlier by Robin Lakoff & Dwight Bolinger, no doubt *inter alia*. The reason why Scott is down on agents probably has to do wiyth is "best theory" approach (the 'localistic case hypothesis'), which I myself find less-than-useful in accounting for case-governed grammatical phenomena in most languages I've worked with. But given that Scott works on Tibettan, where the notion of intentionality is rather important in both the drift to active/stative case-marking and the interaction with the aspectual/modal system ('mirativity'), I am not sure why he says what he says. If you ask people who woirk on other active-stative languages (Kartvalian, Chictaw, Lakota, Iroquois) if they need 'agent' to account for what they see in their languages, you'll get a resounding 'yes' (there's a recent paper by Mithun & Chafe on this subject). So I see no way of getting rid of it. But of course, both cognition and folk psychology (not to mention the study of animal behavior) suggest that a notion such as "action under one's own motivation" is a crucial feature for categorizing moving objects in an adaptive, predictive way. So one does not need grammar to arrive at this. Finally, many, perhaps most, cultures have a concept of culpability that depends crucially on intentional action and having control. So the category is certainly all over the place. Best, TG =================== Brian MacWhinney wrote: > > Dear Tom, > I tried posting this, but I am subscribed to Funknet from CMU and not Hong > Kong, so it bounced. Anyway, maybe it is fine to just have you and Scott > read it without a full posting. Unfortunately, I also don't have Scott's > email, so maybe at least you can read my thoughts on this. > > --Brian > > Dear Tom and Scott, > > Could you please be more specific? I assume that Scott is saying that we > choose Agents solely on the basis of whether or not we perceive them as > having instigated an action, whether that action be intentional or not. > However, Hopper and Thompson and many others have claimed that marking of > transitivity prototypically codes volition. But perhaps Scott is saying > that this only affects the nature of the object, not the Agent. > I would have wanted to just jump in agreeing with Tom, but then I realized > that I didn't really understand what he was saying either. Why shift ground > from Scott's focus on the Agent role to the issue of "rules of grammar". If > we just keep the focus on the linguistic marking of agency, can't we still > safely conclude that intentionality or volition is still crucial for > activation of the role. Consider this example from the news yesterday. > Dick Cheney's doctor was discussing his case and asserted that "Patients who > narrow their arteries end up with repeated chest pains." Now I am forced to > imagine Dick Cheney sitting in bed focusing on trying to narrow his > arteries. Perhaps he does this through some form of Tai Chi meditation. > This misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement > to package sentences with Agent roles. However, the opposite also occurs. > Insurance company reports are full of sentences like, "Suddenly this > confused old man appeared on my windshield." > I would love to see a discussion of at least some of the detailed ways in > which perception of intentionality or lack of intentionality ends up shaping > the nature of language. Not being able to speak an ergative language, I > have always worried about that too. And don't the two Finnish passives > involve relative levels of attribution of intention? Can't linguistics > articulate a detailed view of the specific processes of encoding of > intention that is more grounded in discourse and everyday life than the > rather ethereal statements we find in Searle, Dennett, and the others. If > so, what might this vision look like? I know that Len Talmy and Ron > Langacker include intentional arrows in many of their diagrams, but don't we > need to wonder where the arrows come from? What induces us to infer > volition or avoid the inference in our linguistic packagings of experience? > > --Brian MacWhinney From delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Wed Mar 7 18:41:19 2001 From: delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Scott Delancey) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 10:41:19 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <3AA70F51.35C42559@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: OK, this isn't that complicated. I'm certainly not arguing that the concept of intention plays no part in the syntax of any language. As Tom points out, that's not a likely notion to be coming from someone who works on Tibetan. But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose that it is. If that were the case, then given a sentence like: Oh, shit! I broke it! we would have to conclude either a) that it entails an attribution of intentionality to the subject, or b) that the subject is not an Agent. (a) is obviously empirically false. (b) is a recipe for disaster. If _I_ in that sentence is not an Agent, what is it? There are only two solutions here. One is to posit a new semantic role here--but casually adding a new role every time we encounter an analytical problem will quickly render any theory of semantic roles completely vacuous. The other is to assign it to some other role--maybe Dative, because it's a conscious participant? The problem is that there seem to be vanishingly few languages that would treat this argument that way. Lots of languages, of course, mark the "subjects" of predicates like 'like', 'need', etc., as something other than Agents, which gives us concrete evidence that they *are* something other than Agents. And so we would expect that, if arguments like my _I_ here are not Agents, some substantial set of languages would reflect that in their surface marking. Not true, as far as I know. So identifying this argument as something other than an Agent amounts to abandoning any aspirations to a principled account of the relation between semantic roles and surface grammatical relations. Definitely not a good idea. Scott DeLancey From rcameron at uic.edu Wed Mar 7 18:55:59 2001 From: rcameron at uic.edu (Richrd Cameron) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 12:55:59 -0600 Subject: Intentionality Message-ID: A question or two: Does anyone know of research which demonstrates a connection between language change over time or space and intentionality? If so, what is the research? From nrude at UCINET.COM Wed Mar 7 21:47:04 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 13:47:04 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the > semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I > honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose > that it is. Folks, Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a category of grammar? If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the context you give or add it in other contexts? Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles for inferring it. Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. Noel From traugott at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Mar 7 21:43:18 2001 From: traugott at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Elizabeth Traugott) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 13:43:18 -0800 Subject: Intentionality In-Reply-To: <01C0A705.F5A85A20.rcameron@uic.edu> from "Richrd Cameron" at Mar 07, 2001 12:55:59 PM Message-ID: An important reference is: Rudi Keller, On Language Change: The Invisible Hand in Language. Trans. by Brigitte Nerlich. 1994. This is a largely philosophical study. Elizabeth Traugott > > A question or two: > > Does anyone know of research which demonstrates a connection between language change over time or space and intentionality? > > If so, what is the research? > From jbowden at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU Wed Mar 7 23:37:06 2001 From: jbowden at COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU (John Bowden) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:37:06 +1100 Subject: agency and intentionality Message-ID: On the question of agency and intentionality and how they work in grammar, here's a paper that should be read much more widely than I suspect it has been. Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. & David P. Wilkins, 1996. The case for 'effector': Case roles, agents, and agentivity revisited. In Shibatani & Thompson, eds, Grammatical constructions: their form and meaning, 289-322. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have some new labels for case roles if many of us seem to be using an old familiar one like 'agent' in lots of different ways? Amongst other things, Van Valin and Wilkins argue convincingly that a role they call 'effector', which is pretty much an agent stripped of intentionality, is what most grammars are sensitive too rather than any intentional agent. Using the notion of effector rather than agent buys them a whole lot of stuff, including the ability to handle sentences like 'this key opens the door' which is just as difficult to handle with the intentional agent role as Scott DeLancey's 'Shit! I broke it!'. I wouldn't want to deny that fully intentional agents are important in some languages sometimes, but I'm with Scott DeLancey on this one: it seems to me that they're of pretty marginal significance most of the time. John Bowden Linguistics Department Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian Natiuonal University Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Mar 8 12:06:34 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 04:06:34 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all frequency-driven. Cheers, TG Noel Rude wrote: > > on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > > > > But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the > > semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I > > honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose > > that it is. > > Folks, > > Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and > abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that > intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I > guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a > category of grammar? > > If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that > intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in > no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the > broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the > context you give or add it in other contexts? > > Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental > and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar > then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles > for inferring it. > > Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour > vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category > better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American > Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- > whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension > 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw > into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. > > Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at > least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow > for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or > the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever > level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. > > Noel From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Mar 8 00:55:43 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 16:55:43 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <3AA775CA.D91556EC@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Indeed! If it turns out that -- after all -- we really are conscious, intentional beings, then any theory of language that ignores this will be off base and models that allow for data as TG suggests will be what the doctor ordered. Noel on 3/8/01 4:06 AM, Tom Givon at tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > > > RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all > instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human > cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple > features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always > display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority > will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not > exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend > (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment > will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll > find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as > with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So > one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have > strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to > falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large > enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is > not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently > that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all > frequency-driven. Cheers, TG > > Noel Rude wrote: >> >> on 3/7/01 10:41 AM, Scott Delancey at delancey at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: >> >>> >>> But it's abundantly clear that intentionality is not part of the >>> semantic role (or whatever you choose to call them) Agent, and I >>> honestly have a very hard time understanding how anyone could suppose >>> that it is. >> >> Folks, >> >> Doesn't any theory have to allow for metaphor and extended use and >> abstraction and feature suppression and all that? We all know that >> intentionality is there in human thought -- we've got a word for it -- so I >> guess what we're questioning is whether it ever drives grammar -- is it a >> category of grammar? >> >> If we deny that Agents are Intentional Causes then we must believe that >> intention is only inferred pragmatically, that a clause like "I broke it" in >> no way of itself implies intentionality, that this comes only from the >> broader context or situation. But which is easier, to suppress it in the >> context you give or add it in other contexts? >> >> Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental >> and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar >> then you will have to build into your pragmatic discription some principles >> for inferring it. >> >> Intention is there lexically lurking in contrasts like look vs. see, pour >> vs. spill, and, really, when you think of it, isn't even the category >> better seen as ? Sahaptin, an American >> Indian language in these here parts, even has a derivational prefix XA- >> whose basic meaning seems to be 'unintentional' (and by extension >> 'suddenly') -- it very often detransitivizes, as, for ex., tamAnuun 'throw >> into water' versus XAtamanuun 'fall into water'. >> >> Why shouldn't Agent (in the prototypical sense) be seen as a complex of at >> least Cause and Intention and Natural Language as flexible enough to allow >> for the suppression (even degrees of suppression or enhancement) of one or >> the other or both these features? It just seems to me that at whatever >> level we deal with intention, deal with them we must. >> >> Noel > From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 8 04:39:43 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 23:39:43 EST Subject: intentionality Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 11:53:26 AM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: << Consider this example from the news yesterday. Dick Cheney's doctor was discussing his case and asserted that "Patients who narrow their arteries end up with repeated chest pains." Now I am forced to imagine Dick Cheney sitting in bed focusing on trying to narrow his arteries. Perhaps he does this through some form of Tai Chi meditation. This misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement to package sentences with Agent roles. >> Respectfully, is this a "misinterpretation of volition is induced by the grammatical requirement to package sentences with Agent roles?" Or was it the intention of the doctor to make the statement one of "volition?" The fact is that a fair number of the audience would recognize how the agent is involved with the object here. And of course it is not Tai Chi. "Narrow arteries" here refers to something other than narrow arteries in the usual sense. In fact, the reference here is to "acting in ways that narrow arteries." To assume otherwise is to assume that the doctor's statement made no sense to his audience. It seems a good bet that a fair percentage of the audience (especially those who have been warned by doctors before about such things) would recognize and report back that the doctor was referring to a lifestyle matter by simply referring to the physical consequences. Once the meaning as it was meant to be understood is inserted -- i.e., act in ways that narrow arteries -- the marking of intention becomes easily understandable, even to those not familiar with doctor jargon. The patients who willfully act in ways that will "narrow arteries" will suffer adverse consequences. Whether this is considered metaphorical or not, I don't know. But I do know that truncating the description of the action by going straight to the relevant consequence is terribly common. The other day a friend of mine "blew the engine" in her car. The full description that she over-revved it spinning her wheels in the snow to the point that the compression blew a hole in the gaskets on the engine was not necessary to my recognition of what had happened. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 8 06:49:36 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 01:49:36 EST Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: In a message dated 3/7/2001 4:26:00 PM, nrude at UCINET.COM writes: << Surely we cannot so easily do away with intention as something fundamental and primitive in Natural Language. If you remove intention from the grammar then you will have to build into your pragmatic description some principles for inferring it. >> I guess that in a very devout or animistic culture or one where Fates capriciously control all things, there is an intention and an Agent to be found in every action. "Not a single sparrow falls,..." In such a worldview, it really doesn't matter whether you are "hit by a rock" or "a rock hits you." Since both events were in a sense sent by an outside force exercising very human-like intention. You'll notice this sort of thing in reading Homer. There has been a long argument about when and if Homer was using metaphor or being literal. But there are times when even the metaphor seems to convey a very foreign concept of intention. For example, "h?s Achil?' otrune menos kai thumos ag?n?r antion elthemenai megal?toros Aineiao." (...so Achilles, exhorted by [his] courage and hard-headed spirit, comes to face the great-hearted Aeneas.) Now is a "cheering on", an "exhortation" in Homer and later, something often done by a cheering crowd or encouraging on-lookers. It will also be used later to describe spurring a horse. What feels so odd about this construction is that it makes Achilles' menos and thumos seem like avid spectators. And definitely separate from Achilles himself, with intentions of their own. If this description was meant in anyway to describe what Achilles was feeling, it must have felt weird. At least to us moderns. And I'm wondering if vestiges of this kind of thinking don't survive and account for the presence or absence of intention markings in the words we use. Compare: Oh shit! I broke it! Yes! I broke it! Good! I broke it! I broke it. Oh shit! I built it! Oh shit! I fixed it! A word like "break" seems to be intention-neutral. It could be intentional or accidental. But words like build and fix don't seem to make sense without the inference of intention. The two sets almost reflect different points-of-view about how much intention is worth mentioning. <> Perhaps these are vestiges of two different world views, inherited together into the modern language? Regards, Steve Long From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Thu Mar 8 07:10:48 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 23:10:48 -0800 Subject: Second Call (JK Conference) Message-ID: SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS The 11th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference University of California at Santa Barbara June 29-July 1, 2001 Deadline for Abstract Submission: March 12, 2001 Note: This year abstracts are to be submitted ONLY by e-mail. Website: www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/events/jk11 ======================================= INVITED SPEAKERS Soonja Choi (San Diego State University, USA) Taro Kageyama (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan) Satoshi Kinsui (Osaka University, Japan) James Yoon (University of Illinois, USA) ======================================= This year, the Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference will be held during the 2001 LSA Linguistic Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Institute, with its dual themes of linguistic diversity (how and why languages differ) and Pacific Rim languages (synchronic and diachronic aspects of major Pacific Rim languages), will be an especially appropriate site for the conference. This conference aims to provide a forum for presenting research in Japanese and Korean linguistics, thereby facilitating efforts to deepen our understanding of these two languages, which have striking typological similarities. We especially encourage presentations which investigate both languages. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, typology, grammaticalization, historical linguistics, phonology, morphology, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. Presentations, except for those by invited speakers, will be 20 minutes long, and will be followed by a 10-minute question-answer period. =================================== The address for submission of your abstract for the 11th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference is: pclancy at humanitas.ucsb.edu. In submitting your abstract, it is essential that you follow the instructions below: E-MAIL SUBJECT HEADER: Decide whether your abstract is primarily formal or functional, and which area of linguistics is its main focus, e.g. phonology, historical, pragmatics. Then use the following subject header for your e-mail: "JK11, Last name, First initial, Formal or Functional/ Area. For example: "JK11, Nagashima, S., Formal/Phonology". Please be aware that without this header, your message may not receive proper handling. In the body of your e-mail message, include the following: TITLE: The first line of your e-mail message should be the title of your paper. ABSTRACT: Your abstract should be a maximum of 500 words long. Be sure to COUNT THE WORDS in your abstract, and indicate the number of words in parentheses following your title. Your abstract will be returned to you if the 500-word limit is exceeded. Additional words may be used ONLY for examples and citing references. In addition to pasting your abstract in the body of your e-mail message, send your abstract as an ATTACHMENT. This is necessary for further processing of your abstract. Please send your attached file as a Microsoft Word document in RTF format. Be sure to include any non- standard fonts that you use, and allow extra time for processing attachments not in Word format. (Please do not use webmail unless you are certain that you can send your abstract as an attachment.) You will be notified by e-mail when your abstract has been received and successfully opened. AUTHOR INFORMATION: Do not include any author information in the body of your abstract. Following your abstract , include the following information, which will be removed before your abstract is sent out for review. 1. Name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s) 2. Address 3. Phone number 4. E-mail address of the primary author. 5. If your address, phone number or e-mail address will be different during the spring or summer, be sure to include this information. Please note that only one abstract from each individual can be considered for acceptance. One individual abstract and one jointly authored abstract may be submitted. Abstract authors will be notified during the last week of April whether their abstract has been accepted. Information about registration, lodging, transportation, and events, such as the conference banquet, will be posted to the conference website, www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/events/jk11, in the coming weeks. ===================================== The proceedings of this conference will be published as Japanese/Korean Linguistics 11 by CSLI and distributed by Cambridge University Press. Patricia M. Clancy Dept. of Linguistics UCSB Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (805) 893-8658 (office) (805) 893-3776 (Ling. Dept. office) (805) 893-7769 (Ling. Dept. FAX) From W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE Thu Mar 8 11:20:51 2001 From: W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE (Wolfgang Schulze) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 12:20:51 +0100 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, may well be that I'm somewhat behind the discussion - I had the chance to read the last few postings only. Still, the matter is strongly related to my main research domain - thus you perhaps allow if I add some thoughts that result from what I have been working on. [What follows are some rudimentary thoughts on the issue - more details can be found in the exposition of the underlying frame work ('Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios') as elaborated in W. Schulze 1998. Person, Klasse, Kongruenz, chapters I,7 and IV. Munich/Newcastle: Lincom Europa]. I think, the basic problem is whether you deal with 'intentionality' from a linguistic point of view or from a purely cognitive perspective. By this I mean that it is important to indicate whether the notion of 'intentionality' is [in a given case] substantiatable with the help of a specific 'behavior' of the linguistic paradigm, or whether it stems from the *interpretation* of linguistic data in a psychological or what-so-ever perspective. For instance: If you discuss the German expression: 'Mein Gott, ich habe den Schl?ssel vergessen' [Oh my God, I've forgotten the keys] you can easily assume that the whole 'scene' (in the terms of the 'Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios') or cognitive construct of the given State of Affairs is dominated by an 'unintentional reading'. But no morphology, morphosyntax, or morphosemantics helps the listener to infer this feature, it's simply the lexical entry and the 'scenic template' that lies behind it. It's a well known language play in German to construe counterfactual structures that are based on such unintentional scenes, e.g. 'Komm, wir finden einen Schatz!' [instead of: 'Komm, wir suchen einen Schatz!'] [Let's go and find a treasure!] - [Let's go and look for a treasure!] In such instances, there are two competing 'scenes', one which is based on a deontic speech act verb which is structurally coupled with intentionality ['komm!'], and one that is evoking an unintentional scene. In such instances, counterfactual linguistic material can result in the emergence of a 'linguistic' coding of (un)intentionality. But quite often [at least in German], the degree of (un)intentionality has to inferred from the co[n]text; in other words - the allocation of features of (un)intentionality is then strongly related to the state of situative or episodic (as well as encyclopedic) knowledge of the hearer [not the speaker! - For them, the degree of (un)intentionality is an idiosyncratically 'known' feature]. As far as linguistics is concerned, we should (imho) avoid the interpretation of textual material with respect to possibly emerging grades of (un)intentionality, as long as we don't have either a linguistic (or textual) clue to do so, or enough episodic, situativ, and encyclopedic knowledge of the scene communicated by the linguistic expression. Anything else would lie beyond the scope of linguistics. The above mentioned example has referred to what I'd like to call 'relational (un)intentionality': it is the 'relational domain' (in a cognitive sense) established between 'ich' [I] and 'Schl?ssel' [keys], i.e. 'vergessen' [to forget] that is encyclopedically marked for the feature of unintentionality. It is not determined by the nature of the referential domain [the restriction in the scene concerns the degree of 'humanness' only]. Now compare: Mein Gott, das Baby hat das Auto gefahren! [My God, the baby has droven the car!] Though 'fahren' normally evokes a scene marked for intentional features [in German], here it is used with a referential domain the proponent of which is normally not associated with such a feature [at least when the encyclopedic knowledge related to 'fahren' is activated']. In this case, the encyclopedically controlled feature 'baby' [-intentional>fahren] is not effected by the 'positive' feature of 'fahren' [at least in a standard reading of the above given example - it may well change if a different (constrastive) word accent applies). The example illustrates the second component of 'scenic intentionality', namely 'referential intentionality'. It is this domain that is often discussed when dealing with 'agentivity' and 'intentionality' [though unfortunately, the two domains - coupled with each other just as the relational domain does not exist without one or more referential domains and vice versa - are often mixed up in the linguistic discussion]. But again we have to state that the fature of (un)intentionality' here is only describable from a non-linguistic, knowledge based perspective. A linguistic reading of (un)intentionality has (imho) to make sure that there either is a specified linguistic category (or linguistic behavior) to encode points on the intentionality scale or that there are other categorial elements (or behavioral patterns) that have the metaphorical potential (often in co-paradigmatization with other elements) to do the job. If the 'direct' way is given (i.e., if there as a symbolic relation form/behavior X <=> pointer on the intentionality scale) things are 'easy'. We can probably start with three basic types: marker in the referential domain; marker in the relational domain; 3) scenic (or: clausal) markers (such as intonation patterns, sentence particles etc.). But typology has shown that such overt pointers are rare. most often, things are 'covert' (or: metaphorized from other paradigmatic / behavioral patterns). Now: In the second case, things become difficult: Are there linguistic (or cognitive based) structures that can be declared to represent the most 'natural' structures comporting features of the intentionality scale? Most people will agree when I say: yes: referential domain > agentivity; relational domain > transitivity scale. These two domains differ in a very important respect: whereas the relational domain is normally fixed with respect to its intentionality parameters, the referential domain is often variable. By this I mean that 'verbs' are normally defined for their intentional scope through encyclopedic knowledge whereas referential items can (logically) 'move along' the intentionality scale (Fluid structures), as long as they have the option of intentionality at all [which includes 'stones', 'storm', etc. in a non-poetic/metaphorical reading]. This assumptions helps us to infer that if a 'verb' is marked for intentional features (exceeding their inherent intentionality grading), this is more likely done with the help of specialized morphemes (e.g. in some Salishan languages). Elements of the referential domain, on the other side, are more likely to operate through 'hidden' behavioral patterns which allows the Fluid operation more than a fixed morphology). From this it follows that the feature cluster related to the starting point of 'force' (in a broader sense of force dynamics) [metaphorized to 'power'] both controls the intentionality grading and the way who this grading is expressed (if it is expressed). If, for instance, this cluster (or, in my terms, the vector {sem;synt;prag}) has a high value for {synt} [grounding procedures etc.], then it is rather unlikely that it is primarily metaphorized with respect to intentionality features (as it is the case for German). But if the vector has high values for {sem} or {prag} things may be different. For instance, in Udi (East Caucasian) the ergative morpheme (covering parts of the agentive relation) has a rather high value for {sem} - no wonder that it can be exploited for playing the intentionality scale. But again: if we ascribe a feature of (un)intentionality to any kind of morpheme of morphosyntactic behavior, we have to show that this function is semantically (and cognitively) correlated to the function of the (less metaphorical) source domain. Anything else would be fiction [I think Scott'S work has marvelously shown how arguments should run]. A final note: If we accept that force>power dynamics is a major feature of the cognitive architecture of linguistic (clausal) expressions, we should be aware of the fact that intentionality may also be crucial for the 'antipode' of 'power dynamics', namely the Objective domain. If we claim that the relation between A and O in transitive structures is basically asymmetric (power verbs less in power), than we can assume that the O domain normally is not involved in features of intentionality. Yet, some languages, e.g. some Papuan languages, but also - I think - Athapaskan and Salishan, show that the O domain can intervene in this standard asymmetry: in such instances, the referential O domain establishes some kind of counter force (or: counter power) that may results from an intentional counter'action' (remember the famous 'finally managed to' principle in some Salishan languages). It such languages, the O domain may be associated with features of intentionality that operate against the dimension of intentionality associated with A. This aspect becomes even more crucial, if we include the so-called IO-domain (primary or indirect objects). esp. in Papuan languages. Let me stop here (as I said: I'm not quite sure whether I really met the current thread - if I didn't, please excuse). Best wishes [and a big thank you for your patience], Wolfgang -- ******************** Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze Institut f?r Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft Universit?t M?nchen - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 M?nchen Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office) Fax: ++49-(0)89-2180 5345 Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Web: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/ ******************** From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 8 11:59:58 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 06:59:58 -0500 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality Message-ID: Tom Givon says: >>RE: AGENT: I think what Scott alludes to is that you cannot reduce all instances of 'agent' to 'intentional'. But if AGENT is a natural human cognitive category -- i.e. constructed as a PROTOTYPE with multiple features--you need not assume that ALL instances of AGENT will always display the feature of intentionality, but only that a large majority will (say at least 90%, my guess?). Natural categories are not exceptionless, they just represent an strong statistical trend (preponderance of evidence). So, I suspect, if a usage-based assessment will be made of supposed 'agentive' or 'active' verbs in text, you'll find a very robust association of AGENT with intentionality. As well as with 'control', 'acting', 'responsibility', and 'blame-worthiness'. So one would expect, as in other natural categories a-la E. Rosch, to have strong but not absolute FEATURE ASSOCIATION. If someone wishes to falsify this hypothesis, it's relatively easy to do so, with a large enough text (say 50 pp.). But until one did such quantification, it is not clear that we have sufficient ground for treating AGENT differently that all other natural cognitive categories. They are all frequency-driven. Cheers, TG>> ************************ But let's try to make this talk of agents empirical in the following way: is the intentional vs. nonintentional actor distinction causally implicated in any interesting set of generalizations crosslinguistically or within a single language? Or is this merely a conceptual distinction, useful perhaps for human psychology, but not for human language? If there are such generalizations, then we need both kinds. If there are none, then we do not. Now, a wide range of linguists, from Beth Levin to Bob Van Valin, have concluded that the syntax does not, in general, need to appeal to separate classes of actors based on intentionality. Tom suggests the same in his concept of prototype. The question in regard to prototypes is whether there are *linguistically* significant generalizations to be gained by introducing such an entity into *linguistics* at all (whether it is necessary in psychology or not is irrelevant). Role and Reference Grammar (and other models, from Chomskyan theory to Tagmemics) has/ve concluded that in fact prototypes like this lead to no syntactic ends, merely obfuscating results. The best generalizations, by and large, so RRG contends, are in terms of the Macroroles Actor and Undergoer. At one level there are intentional vs. nonintentional actors which we can all recognize, e.g. in examples likethe one Scott presented. And some languages, say, perhaps, Acehnese, may indeed use such notions in its syntax. But other languages may not. Generally the answer is that this distinction isn't made much of crosslinguistically, but there can be many exceptions to this. We need to be careful to allow for flexibility in what we assume to be relevant crosslinguistically, lest we be mistaken for proponents of Universal Grammar, rather than what I consider to be the much more interesting (empirically) proposal of Boas, i.e. that we are looking not for UG but for 'patterns'. Dan Everett From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 8 12:11:33 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 07:11:33 -0500 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality -correction Message-ID: My statement on RRG actually overstates the case a bit. RRG distinguishes between intentional vs. nonintentional actors in principle, but says that most languages will not avail themselves of this distinction in most constructions. The claim is that such distinctions are normally 'neutralized'. However, RRG allows for the flexibility I appealed to in my last posting, by recognizing that in some constructions in a one language or in all constructions in some other language, this neutralization may fail to hold, leading to distinctions in the relevance of intentionality (and whether the roles involved are agent, effector, etc.). The point is that it is misguided to try to impose a 'universal rule' on how this teeny-weeny little bit of intentionality gets 'linguistified'/grammaticized. Dan Everett From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Mar 8 19:34:30 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 11:34:30 -0800 Subject: Agentivity and intentionality In-Reply-To: <0103089840.AA984051498@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: OK -- from the hinterlands again: This fuss over "Intention" -- how might it relate to our Functionalist - Formalist divide? Formalists are more likely to designate categories with Greek letters or even numbers (as in Relational Grammar), whereas functionalists are generally less fearful of suggestive labels like "primary topic", "present relevance", and -- I had thought -- "intention". We all -- at least in our less radical wings -- subscribe to both form and function, but one place we differ is in the perceived link between the two. The fundamental categories of the functionalist, as I said, tend to be labeled with respect to meaning/function. And the fundamental categories of the formalist, whose main tenet is the autonomy of structure (and the arbitrariness of the sign even at an abstract level like "theta" roles), are therefore units of structure. Now it is interesting how we still tend to have this convergence, as where functionalists and formalists alike talk about Agents. We're both talking about the same abstract entity even though we may differ in what we want to call it. So here's the rub: Do we -- as functionalists -- gain anything by describing the Agent PROTOTYPE? I think so. And not only will this bring us closer to the folks in psychology/cogsci, it gets us a lot of mileage in our grammatical descriptions. If Agents are prototypically intentional, then we not only account for those supposedly few areas of grammar and particular languages that formally distinguish between intentional and unintentional subjects, we also more accurately account for the vast majority of Agents in all languages which are intentional. We also account for the comparitive rarety of formal Active - Stative systems. If Agents are intentional except when context demands otherwise, then grammaticalizing such a distinction should be rare. Put another way -- if linguistic Agency is completely indifferent to intentionality then one would expect 'on purpose' affixes to be more common. My guess is that 'accidentally' affixes are the more common. It's checkable, no? Formalists, perhaps, while not necessarily denying that most Agents are intentional, will prefer to leave this observation out of their "linguistic" descriptions and let the psychologists or others who deal with meaning - function deal with intention. The tack we take depends a lot -- I'd say -- on just how far to one side or the other of the formalist - functionalist divide we lean. Noel on 3/8/01 3:59 AM, dan everett at dan_everett at SIL.ORG wrote: > But let's try to make this talk of agents empirical in the following > way: is the intentional vs. nonintentional actor distinction causally > implicated in any interesting set of generalizations > crosslinguistically or within a single language? Or is this merely a > conceptual distinction, useful perhaps for human psychology, but not > for human language? If there are such generalizations, then we need > both kinds. If there are none, then we do not. > > Now, a wide range of linguists, from Beth Levin to Bob Van Valin, have > concluded that the syntax does not, in general, need to appeal to > separate classes of actors based on intentionality. Tom suggests the > same in his concept of prototype. The question in regard to prototypes > is whether there are *linguistically* significant generalizations to > be gained by introducing such an entity into *linguistics* at all > (whether it is necessary in psychology or not is irrelevant). Role and > Reference Grammar (and other models, from Chomskyan theory to > Tagmemics) has/ve concluded that in fact prototypes like this lead to > no syntactic ends, merely obfuscating results. The best > generalizations, by and large, so RRG contends, are in terms of the > Macroroles Actor and Undergoer. > > At one level there are intentional vs. nonintentional actors which we > can all recognize, e.g. in examples likethe one Scott presented. And > some languages, say, perhaps, Acehnese, may indeed use such notions in > its syntax. But other languages may not. Generally the answer is that > this distinction isn't made much of crosslinguistically, but there can > be many exceptions to this. > > We need to be careful to allow for flexibility in what we assume to be > relevant crosslinguistically, lest we be mistaken for proponents of > Universal Grammar, rather than what I consider to be the much more > interesting (empirically) proposal of Boas, i.e. that we are looking > not for UG but for 'patterns'. > > Dan Everett > From spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU Tue Mar 13 15:50:05 2001 From: spike at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU (Spike Gildea) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:50:05 -0700 Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:14:40 -0500 (EST) From: LSA The March 2001 LSA Bulletin is now available on the LSA web site: http://www.lsadc.org From iadimly at usc.es Tue Mar 13 22:09:11 2001 From: iadimly at usc.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mar=EDa_Angeles?=) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:09:11 +0100 Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin Message-ID: We would appreciate it if you could give some publicity to the ICLC II , the details of which are given in the attached file. Best wishes, MLA >******************************* >Dr Mar?a ?ngeles G?MEZ-GONZ?LEZ >Profesora Titular de Filolox?a Inglesa >Departmento de Filolox?a Inglesa >Facultade de Filoloxia >Universidade de Santiago de Compostela >Avda. de Castelao, s/n >E-15704 Santiago de Compostela >Fax.: + 00 34 981-574646 >Tel: + 00 34 981-563100 Ext. 11856 >email: iadimly at usc.es >http://www.usc.es/ia303/benvidag.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: Spike Gildea To: Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 4:50 PM Subject: March 2001 LSA Bulletin > Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:14:40 -0500 (EST) > From: LSA > > The March 2001 LSA Bulletin is now available on the LSA web site: > > http://www.lsadc.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FIRSTCALLICLCII.doc Type: application/msword Size: 22016 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hcb at ICSI.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Mar 16 01:44:18 2001 From: hcb at ICSI.BERKELEY.EDU (Hans Christian Boas) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 17:44:18 -0800 Subject: First International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 2001) Preliminary Program Message-ID: ========================================================== First International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 2001), UC Berkeley, April 6-8, 2001 ========================================================== Preliminary Program FRIDAY, April 6, 2001 Charles J. Fillmore (ICSI and UC Berkeley): Mini grammars for time-when adjuncts in English Natalie Schilling-Estes (Georgetown University): On the role of memorization in language production: evidence from the sociolinguistic interview Jan-Ola Oestman and Jaakko Leino (University of Helsinki): Constructions and variability Knud Lambrecht (UT Austin): The French presentational relative construction SATURDAY, April 7, 2001 Ronald Langacker (UC San Diego): Integration, grammaticalization, and constructional meaning Cristiano Broccias (University of Pavia): Allative and ablative "at-"constructions Johani Rudanko (University of Tampere): "Into -ing" as a construction in English Anne Neville and Patrizia Paggio (Center for Sprokteknologi): Developing a Danish grammar in the GRASP Project: a construction-based approach to topology and extraction in Danish Ronald Cosper (Saint Mary's University): Rime as sublemic construction in English Natsuko Tsujimura (Indiana University): A constructional approach to mimetic verbs George Lakoff (UC Berkeley): TBA Carmen Bretones-Callejas, Maria Cristobal, and Iraide Ibarretxe-Antunano (UC Berkeley): The construction "salir-de" in Spanish: how Spanish speakers conceptualize exiting events Kyoko Hirose Ohara (Keio University): From relativization to clause-linkage: a case of Japanese Toshio Ohori (University of Tokyo): Construction Grammar as a conceptual framework for linguistic typology: a case from reference marking Ivan Sag (Stanford University): Aspects of a theory of grammatical constructions Serene Gu-jing Lin (National Taiwan University): From temporal adverbial connective to quasi-complementizer: the grammaticalization of "ho" in Tsou SUNDAY, April 8, 2001 Seizi Iwata (Geifu University): The role of verb meaning in locative alternations Noriko Nemoto (Fukushima University): Alternation phenomena and Frame Semantics Christopher Johnson (Soliloquy, Inc.): Toward a frame ontology for English communication predicates Paul Kay (UC Berkeley): Argument structure constructions and the complement-adjunct distinction Seiko Fujii (University of Tokyo): Lexically (un)filled constructional schemes and construction types for modal constructions in Japanese Florian Jaeger (Humboldt University) and Raphael Berthele (University of Fribourg): On the use of Construction Grammar in diachrony and dialectology: the case of perspective constructions in German Nicolas Gisborne (University of Hong Kong): This looks as if it might be a construction: an account of quirky complement clauses Svitlana Zhabotynska (UC San Diego): Genetive "of": a frame semantic approach Arnold Zwicky (Stanford University): Radical constructionism Andreas Kathol and Emily Bender (UC Berkeley): A constructional analysis of "Just Because ... Doesn't Mean" See http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/iccg2001 for further information on registration, accommodation, etc. For questions please contact: iccg2001 at icsi.berkeley.edu ------------------------------------------ Hans C. Boas International Computer Science Institute 1947 Center Street, Suite 600 Berkeley, CA 94704, U.S.A. Phone: (510) 666-2888 Fax: (510) 666-2956 hcb at icsi.berkeley.edu ------------------------------------------ From matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI Fri Mar 16 12:53:45 2001 From: matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI (Matti Miestamo) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:53:45 +0200 Subject: Calls: Endangered Languages: 2nd Call Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple copies) CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 29 - September 1, 2001. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in questions relating to endangered languages. We invite papers addressing general linguistic questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Themes include documentation of endangered languages, standardization of language corpora, and the possible effects of endangerment on the grammar of a language. Other topics relating to language endangerment are also welcome. Invited speakers: David Harrison (University of Pennsylvania), Nomads on the internet: Documentation, endangered languages and technologies William McGregor (Aarhus Universitet), Structural changes in language shift/obsolescence: a Kimberley (Australia) perspective Marja-Liisa Olthuis (S?mi Assizes, Finland): The Inarisaami language as an endangered language Tapani Salminen (University of Helsinki), Linguists and language endangerment in north-western Siberia Stephen A. Wurm (The Australian National University), Languages of the world and language endangerment Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Demonstrations by participants Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is March 30, 2001. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. Participants will be notified about acceptance by April 20, 2001. The accepted abstracts will be published on the webpage of the symposium . Demonstrations The participants are also encouraged to give demonstrations of their projects (research, revitalization, documentation etc). If you are interested in giving a demonstration, please contact the organizers at . Registration: The deadline for registration for all participants is June 21, 2001. 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. For participants coming from abroad we recommend payment in cash upon arrival. However, it is possible to 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 Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact or visit our homepage . The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Seppo Kittil?, Dept of General Linguistics, H?meenkatu 2 A 7-8, FIN-20014 University of Turku, e-mail: Leena Kolehmainen, Dept of German, 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: Krista Ojutkangas, Dept of Finnish Language and General Linguistics, Fennicum, FIN-200014 University of Turku, Finland, e-mail Esa Penttil?, Dept of English, University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, e-mail Pirkko Suihkonen, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Linguistics, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany, e-mail From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 20 16:08:37 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 18:08:37 +0200 Subject: intent Message-ID: Undoubtedly there is an unconscious intent in linguistic behavior, as both Givon and Wilcox suggest, but specifying it more narrowly brings out that it is always something that makes sense. Consider the argument-marking in nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. If X is theme (the argument of intransitive verbs), Y is agent, and Z is patient, in NA-languages we have X = Y =/ Z, and in EA-languages we have X = Z =/Y. How do we EXPLAIN the fact that other configurations are (much) less frequent? It happens as follows. X = Y = Z would not be very rational, because in the situation {killed, Bill, John} we would like to know who killed whom. X =/ Y =/ Z would not be very rational either, because 'it is smart to be thrifty' (i.e. a special X would be wasteful). X =/ Y = Z would combine the preceding defects. Functional explanations as employed in linguistic are of this type, which means that they reduce to 'unconscious (attempts at) rationality'. You might wish to further reduce the rational explanations to neural activity and ultimately to subatomic behavior, but this is beyond anybody's capacity. Esa Itkonen From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 20 20:49:42 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 15:49:42 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: I recommend that contributors on this list at least read some introductory materials on intention. John Searle's book on this subject is just one of many important ones. For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 6:08 PM Undoubtedly there is an unconscious intent in linguistic behavior, as both Givon and Wilcox suggest, but specifying it more narrowly brings out that it is always something that makes sense. Consider the argument-marking in nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. If X is theme (the argument of intransitive verbs), Y is agent, and Z is patient, in NA-languages we have X = Y =/ Z, and in EA-languages we have X = Z =/Y. How do we EXPLAIN the fact that other configurations are (much) less frequent? It happens as follows. X = Y = Z would not be very rational, because in the situation {killed, Bill, John} we would like to know who killed whom. X =/ Y =/ Z would not be very rational either, because 'it is smart to be thrifty' (i.e. a special X would be wasteful). X =/ Y = Z would combine the preceding defects. Functional explanations as employed in linguistic are of this type, which means that they reduce to 'unconscious (attempts at) rationality'. You might wish to further reduce the rational explanations to neural activity and ultimately to subatomic behavior, but this is beyond anybody's capacity. Esa Itkonen From wilcox at UNM.EDU Tue Mar 20 23:23:17 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:23:17 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <0103209851.AA985124381@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On 3/20/01 1:49 PM, dan everett said: > For example, Searle argues > very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is > incoherent. Well, I haven't read Searle (at least this one), I admit it. So maybe someone who has (Dan?) can answer my simple-minded questions: Unconscious intentions of WHO? Humans? Non-human primates? Lions? Cephalopods? Does it matter? If the notion of 'unconscious intention' is incoherent now, does this mean that it has always been incoherent? Did Searle intend (consciously or unconsciously) for his argument to apply to a broad range of species and an evolutionary time scale? Does it? Genuine questions from someone who simply doesn't have the time to read Searle right now. -- Sherman Wilcox From Pmv321 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 21 03:22:15 2001 From: Pmv321 at AOL.COM (Peter Viles) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:22:15 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet situation. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my family has an on going cross continental debate about this subject. Peter M. Viles Viles Law Office Immigration and Nationality Law 6909 Jefferson Ave. Falls Church, VA 22042 Tel: 703.532.8943 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 21 04:22:36 2001 From: slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan I. SLOBIN) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <87.871f508.27e97867@aol.com> Message-ID: It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. -Dan Slobin Dept of Psychology University of California, Berkeley On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing > systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, > and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must > exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. > > I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of > phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of > dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets > utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was > wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet > situation. > > Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my family has > an on going cross continental debate about this subject. > > > Peter M. Viles > Viles Law Office > Immigration and Nationality Law > 6909 Jefferson Ave. > Falls Church, VA 22042 > Tel: 703.532.8943 > > From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 05:26:50 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:26:50 -0700 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in other writing > systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of time in Iran, > and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must > exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. Farsi uses a consonantal script (borrowed from Arabic, with four extra letters), but there are several homophonous letters: four for the /z/ sound, three for /s/, two for /t/, two for /h/, two for /q/ and two for the glottal stop. This, combined with the vowel-less system that every kid in the second grade has to start learning (not to mention frozen spelling from Arabic and Ottoman Turkish borrowings), causes some spelling difficulties. So why no dyslexia? I can't speak to the cognitive issues, since I'm not sure what effect an alphabetic script has on processing and working memory. I'm pretty sure that letter inversions of the "b/d" variety couldn't happen, since no such pairs exist in Perso-Arabic script (the "alef" is mirror-symmetric, so confusing that is not much of a problem :-) With writing, there are the issues of homophonous letters, and in reading, there are potential difficulties in getting the right short vowels. So my question for the Iranian(s?) on funknet is this: would a kid exhibiting the processing/memory symptoms of dyslexia be labelled as "dyslexic", or simply learning-disabled (worse yet, "aghab-oftadeh")? My question for Dan Slobin: with deaf kids who are learning some kind of graphic notation system (e.g., SignWriting), are there cases of kids with dyslexia mixing up, say, agents and patients in agreement verbs? Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From dparvaz at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 05:46:44 2001 From: dparvaz at UNM.EDU (Dan Parvaz) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 22:46:44 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of > 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. "Nonetheless, though not all conscious states are intentional, and not all intentional states are conscious, there is an essential connection: we only understand intentionality in terms of consciouness. There are many intentional states that are not conscious, but they are the sort of thing that could potentially be conscious." (Searle, _Mind, Language, and Society_, p.65). This seems to be an important clarification of your point, namely that the NOTION of `unconscious intention' may be incoherent, even though unconscious intention does in fact exist. This speaks to our understanding, not the world of facts. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From efrancis at HKUCC.HKU.HK Wed Mar 21 06:59:22 2001 From: efrancis at HKUCC.HKU.HK (Elaine J. Francis) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:59:22 +0800 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: I asked Alex Francis, from the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department at Hong Kong University, for some more information about dyslexia in readers of Chinese. His response, along with some references, is included below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:21:09 +0800 From: Alexander L. Francis To: Elaine J. Francis Subject: Re: Dyslexia (fwd) Lihai TAN's research suggests that, though reading Chinese does seem to be psychologically and neurologically somewhat different from reading English, it still involves phonological access. Furthermore, brain damage to Chinese readers can cause acquired dyslexia just as it can to readers of other languages (see work by Sam Po LAW, Brendan Weekes, and others). As for developmental dyslexia, my students definitely see children with problems learning to read, and they were able to give me a pretty good run-down of symptoms of dyslexia in Cantonese-speaking (Putonghua-writing) children (though the situation in HK may be more complex than in other parts of China because so much of the schooling is in English). As for non-anecdotal sources, I've appended a bunch of references on developmental dyslexia in Chinese from PsychINFO that I got together for my students last semester. No idea how useful they are. -alex ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-05510-004 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Lai,-Daphne-Ngar-Chi SOURCE: Learning-and-Individual-Differences. 1999; Vol 11(2): 173-186 PUBLISHER: US: JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-02354-003 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: The phonological deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Law,-Teresa-Pui-Sze; Ng,-Penny-Man SOURCE: Reading-and-Writing. 2000 Sep; Vol 13(1-2): 57-79 PUBLISHER: Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISSN: 0922-4777 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1999-05928-002 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children's character reading skills. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Ma,-Rachel-Nga-Lun SOURCE: Journal-of-Research-in-Reading. 1999 Jun; Vol 22(2): 131-142 PUBLISHER: England: Basil Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. ISSN: 0141-0423 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2001-14555-010 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Exploring reading-spelling connection as locus of dyslexia in Chinese. AUTHOR: Leong,-Che-Kan; Cheng,-Pui-Wan; Lam,-Catherine-C-C SOURCE: Annals-of-Dyslexia. 2000; Vol 50: 239-259 PUBLISHER: US: International Dyslexia Assn. ISSN: 0736-9387 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1991-78951-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Chinese acquired dyslexia: Types and significance. AUTHOR: Yin,-Wengang SOURCE: Acta-Psychologica-Sinica. 1990; Vol 22(3): 297-305 PUBLISHER: China: Science Press. ISSN: 0439-755X PUBLICATION YEAR: 1990 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1989-98808-015SEE PREVIOUS CHAPTER SEE NEXT CHAPTER DOCUMENT TYPE: Chapter TITLE: Linguistic parameters in the diagnosis of dyslexia in Japanese and Chinese. AUTHOR: Paradis,-Michel BOOK SOURCE: Aaron, P. G. (Ed); Joshi, R. Malatesha (Ed). (1989). Reading and writing disorders in different orthographic systems. NATO Advanced Science Institutes series. Series D: Behavioural and social sciences, Vol. 52. (pp. 231-266). Norwell, MA, US: Kluwer Academic Publishers. x, 416 pp.SEE BOOK ISBN: 0792304616 (hardcover) PUBLICATION YEAR: 1989 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1985-28379-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Visual and auditory functions of Chinese dyslexics. AUTHOR: Woo,-Eugenie-Y; Hoosain,-Rumjahn SOURCE: Psychologia:-An-International-Journal-of-Psychology-in-the-Orient. 1984 Sep; Vol 27(3): 164-170 PUBLISHER: Japan: Psychologia Society. ISSN: 0033-2852 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1984 >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 >From: Dan I. SLOBIN >To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu >Subject: Re: Dyslexia > >It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing >system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. >Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning >literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. > >-Dan Slobin >Dept of Psychology >University of California, Berkeley > >On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > >> Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in >>other writing >> systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of >>time in Iran, >> and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must >> exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. >> >> I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of >> phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of >> dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets >> utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was >> wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet >> situation. >> >> Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my >>family has >> an on going cross continental debate about this subject. >> >> >> Peter M. Viles >> Viles Law Office >> Immigration and Nationality Law >> 6909 Jefferson Ave. >> Falls Church, VA 22042 >> Tel: 703.532.8943 >> >> From slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 21 08:03:53 2001 From: slobin at COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan I. SLOBIN) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 00:03:53 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Elaine and Alex Francis--glad to have another urban myth cleared away. -Dan Slobin From john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL Wed Mar 21 10:27:19 2001 From: john at RESEARCH.HAIFA.AC.IL (John Myhill) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 12:27:19 +0200 Subject: dyslexia Message-ID: It looks to me like the actual reported dyslexia rate has far more to do with sociological and political factors than writing systems. I would expect the Chinese government to claim they have no problem with dyslexia independent of what the actual facts are--Japan used to be that way also (and still is to a significant extent). The same way the Chinese have claimed they have eradicated the rats in their country--in the Chinese view, a problem exists only if the government says that it exists, and the government only says that it exists if it is convenient for the government to say that it exists. In Israel, on the other hand, I seem to meet people who claim to be dyslexic all over the place. What are the actual facts? This would require an enormous amount of directly comparable studies in a wide variety of languages. The only thing I'm sure of is that official published statistics in many countries are totally wrong. John Myhill From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:04:29 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:04:29 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: The fact that a person with their own research program doesn't have time to read in a tenuously related research program is not surprising. It is natural. On the other hand, the issues are deep here and superficial banter about them on the list here is not likely to take us any closer to understanding them. We need to read more. I have stated John's thesis rather baldly here. I won't answer for him on specifics, though, since this would simply repeat the problem I am concerned with. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 4:23 PM On 3/20/01 1:49 PM, dan everett said: > For example, Searle argues > very convincingly that the notion of 'unconcious intention' is > incoherent. Well, I haven't read Searle (at least this one), I admit it. So maybe someone who has (Dan?) can answer my simple-minded questions: Unconscious intentions of WHO? Humans? Non-human primates? Lions? Cephalopods? Does it matter? If the notion of 'unconscious intention' is incoherent now, does this mean that it has always been incoherent? Did Searle intend (consciously or unconsciously) for his argument to apply to a broad range of species and an evolutionary time scale? Does it? Genuine questions from someone who simply doesn't have the time to read Searle right now. -- Sherman Wilcox From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:10:42 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:10:42 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: The point of the quote is well-taken. It is an issue that I didn't bring up because it is slightly more complex, i.e. the notion of 'potentially conscious'. But I think that when John wrote this (I was taking a class from him while he was writing this and sharing an office with him) he was in particular concerned about some linguists' claims about 'tacit knowledge'. In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. Talk of intentionality which canNOT be made conscious is what he argues to be incoherent. (Such as many of Chomsky's proposals on constraints of UG. Chomsky has answered Searle in lectures, though I am not aware that he has in print. Perhaps his new book.) Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: intent Author: at Internet Date: 3/20/01 10:46 PM > For example, Searle argues very convincingly that the notion of > 'unconcious intention' is incoherent. "Nonetheless, though not all conscious states are intentional, and not all intentional states are conscious, there is an essential connection: we only understand intentionality in terms of consciouness. There are many intentional states that are not conscious, but they are the sort of thing that could potentially be conscious." (Searle, _Mind, Language, and Society_, p.65). This seems to be an important clarification of your point, namely that the NOTION of `unconscious intention' may be incoherent, even though unconscious intention does in fact exist. This speaks to our understanding, not the world of facts. Cheers, Dan. ____________ ,,, . . D A N P A R V A Z -- Geek-in-Residence U University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept - dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov} 505.480.9638 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 13:17:10 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:17:10 -0500 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: There is a PhD dissertation from the University of Pittsburgh on reading which corroborates the statement below that Chinese speakers still employ phonological access in reading, regardless of rate of speed of reading. I forget the title, but it is written by Iris Berent, who now teaches in the Psychology Dept at Florida Atlantic University. Her findings apply to a wide range of languages. We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and representational. Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Dyslexia Author: at Internet Date: 3/21/01 2:59 PM I asked Alex Francis, from the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department at Hong Kong University, for some more information about dyslexia in readers of Chinese. His response, along with some references, is included below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:21:09 +0800 From: Alexander L. Francis To: Elaine J. Francis Subject: Re: Dyslexia (fwd) Lihai TAN's research suggests that, though reading Chinese does seem to be psychologically and neurologically somewhat different from reading English, it still involves phonological access. Furthermore, brain damage to Chinese readers can cause acquired dyslexia just as it can to readers of other languages (see work by Sam Po LAW, Brendan Weekes, and others). As for developmental dyslexia, my students definitely see children with problems learning to read, and they were able to give me a pretty good run-down of symptoms of dyslexia in Cantonese-speaking (Putonghua-writing) children (though the situation in HK may be more complex than in other parts of China because so much of the schooling is in English). As for non-anecdotal sources, I've appended a bunch of references on developmental dyslexia in Chinese from PsychINFO that I got together for my students last semester. No idea how useful they are. -alex ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-05510-004 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Naming-speed deficits and phonological memory deficits in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Lai,-Daphne-Ngar-Chi SOURCE: Learning-and-Individual-Differences. 1999; Vol 11(2): 173-186 PUBLISHER: US: JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2000-02354-003 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: The phonological deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Law,-Teresa-Pui-Sze; Ng,-Penny-Man SOURCE: Reading-and-Writing. 2000 Sep; Vol 13(1-2): 57-79 PUBLISHER: Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISSN: 0922-4777 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1999-05928-002 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children's character reading skills. AUTHOR: Ho,-Connie-Suk-Han; Ma,-Rachel-Nga-Lun SOURCE: Journal-of-Research-in-Reading. 1999 Jun; Vol 22(2): 131-142 PUBLISHER: England: Basil Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. ISSN: 0141-0423 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1999 ACCESSION NUMBER: 2001-14555-010 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Exploring reading-spelling connection as locus of dyslexia in Chinese. AUTHOR: Leong,-Che-Kan; Cheng,-Pui-Wan; Lam,-Catherine-C-C SOURCE: Annals-of-Dyslexia. 2000; Vol 50: 239-259 PUBLISHER: US: International Dyslexia Assn. ISSN: 0736-9387 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2000 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1991-78951-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Chinese acquired dyslexia: Types and significance. AUTHOR: Yin,-Wengang SOURCE: Acta-Psychologica-Sinica. 1990; Vol 22(3): 297-305 PUBLISHER: China: Science Press. ISSN: 0439-755X PUBLICATION YEAR: 1990 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1989-98808-015SEE PREVIOUS CHAPTER SEE NEXT CHAPTER DOCUMENT TYPE: Chapter TITLE: Linguistic parameters in the diagnosis of dyslexia in Japanese and Chinese. AUTHOR: Paradis,-Michel BOOK SOURCE: Aaron, P. G. (Ed); Joshi, R. Malatesha (Ed). (1989). Reading and writing disorders in different orthographic systems. NATO Advanced Science Institutes series. Series D: Behavioural and social sciences, Vol. 52. (pp. 231-266). Norwell, MA, US: Kluwer Academic Publishers. x, 416 pp.SEE BOOK ISBN: 0792304616 (hardcover) PUBLICATION YEAR: 1989 ACCESSION NUMBER: 1985-28379-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal-Article TITLE: Visual and auditory functions of Chinese dyslexics. AUTHOR: Woo,-Eugenie-Y; Hoosain,-Rumjahn SOURCE: Psychologia:-An-International-Journal-of-Psychology-in-the-Orient. 1984 Sep; Vol 27(3): 164-170 PUBLISHER: Japan: Psychologia Society. ISSN: 0033-2852 PUBLICATION YEAR: 1984 >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:22:36 -0800 >From: Dan I. SLOBIN >To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu >Subject: Re: Dyslexia > >It has been reported that dyslexia is absent in China, due to a writing >system that does not require analysis of words into sound units. >Apparently when Romanization was introduced as a means of beginning >literacy, millions of dyslexics were suddenly evident. > >-Dan Slobin >Dept of Psychology >University of California, Berkeley > >On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Peter Viles wrote: > >> Is anyone aware of any studies about whether dyslexia occurs in >>other writing >> systems? I am an immigration attorney who spends quite a bit of >>time in Iran, >> and I have never come across dyslexia in Iran. I assume the problem must >> exist, but I have never come across an Iranian dyslexic. >> >> I just saw an article in Time magazine about how the representation of >> phonemes in a writing systems may have a large impact of the rate of >> dyslexia. However, the article was based on studies which used alphabets >> utilizing the Roman alphabet. Farsi does not use a Roman alphabet, so I was >> wondering whether anyone has ever studied dyslexia in a non-Roman alphabet >> situation. >> >> Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated because my >>family has >> an on going cross continental debate about this subject. >> >> >> Peter M. Viles >> Viles Law Office >> Immigration and Nationality Law >> 6909 Jefferson Ave. >> Falls Church, VA 22042 >> Tel: 703.532.8943 >> >> From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Wed Mar 21 14:27:04 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 09:27:04 EST Subject: Dyslexia/English-Italian Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 12:40:16 AM, dparvaz at UNM.EDU writes: << So why no dyslexia? I can't speak to the cognitive issues, since I'm not sure what effect an alphabetic script has on processing and working memory. I'm pretty sure that letter inversions of the "b/d" variety couldn't happen, since no such pairs exist in Perso-Arabic script (the "alef" is mirror-symmetric, so confusing that is not much of a problem :-) With writing, there are the issues of homophonous letters, and in reading, there are potential difficulties in getting the right short vowels. So my question for the Iranian(s?) on funknet is this: would a kid exhibiting the processing/memory symptoms of dyslexia be labelled as "dyslexic", or simply learning-disabled (worse yet, "aghab-oftadeh")? My question for Dan Slobin: with deaf kids who are learning some kind of graphic notation system (e.g., SignWriting), are there cases of kids with dyslexia mixing up, say, agents and patients in agreement verbs? >> FYI, here's an edited blurb on the study mentioned in the original post. It seems to indicate that the dyslexia "emerges" as a problem due to the predictability of correspondence between symbol and sound. Potential dyslexics are stated to have been identified physiologically. Behavioral dyslexia produced the variance according to language groups. <> Regards, Steve Long From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 14:38:21 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 07:38:21 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <0103219851.AA985181999@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On 3/21/01 6:10 AM, dan everett said: > In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, > every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that > foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the > sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming > subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these > subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. Aha! This is very interesting, Dan. Thanks for adding this. So at least one application of this treatment of consciousness and intentionality is in coordinated movement. What this suggests to me is that we not only need to read Searle and other philosophers, but to get the full picture we need to complement this by reading people in the motor control area (Kelso, MacNeilage, and many others). My gut (and not much more right now) tells me that the question of whether these "subroutines" can in actuality (not just in principle) be brought back to consciousness, and performed as the non-functional or non-entrained components of the coordinated action that they have now become, probably depends greatly on the example we take. For learning to ski, which depends (at least partially) on already learned motor behaviors, I believe Searle is probably correct. For other complex motor behaviors or coordinated actions, I wonder. Also, once again I get the feeling that much of this discussion depends on conceptions of consciousness and intentionality that may be applicable only to humans. Is this correct? It seems to me that my friend's puppy Owen has the intention to catch the frisbee that she throws to it; he doesn't yet have the coordinated motor skill to do it (he really enjoys practicing these skills, though, way more than I enjoy practicing skiing). He doesn't perform the requisite actions correctly; he messes up the intricate timing of component actions. When he finally does learn this skill, does he just have the intention to catch the frisbee (the component skill actions and their timings having now become subconscious subroutines for this function)? When Owen has learned this coordinated action, can the subroutines in principle be brought back to his consciousness? Does this make any sense? If not, then I'm left wondering if the way we have framed the discussion is so limited that it has limited use in understanding these problems in a cross-species, evolutionary way. [But I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.] -- Sherman From geoffn at SIU.EDU Wed Mar 21 14:48:14 2001 From: geoffn at SIU.EDU (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:48:14 -0600 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 07:38 AM 3/21/2001 -0700, Sherman Wilcox wrote: >Also, once again I get the feeling that much of this discussion depends on >conceptions of consciousness and intentionality that may be applicable only >to humans. Is this correct? It seems to me that my friend's puppy Owen has >the intention to catch the frisbee that she throws to it; he doesn't yet >have the coordinated motor skill to do it (he really enjoys practicing these >skills, though, way more than I enjoy practicing skiing). He doesn't perform >the requisite actions correctly; he messes up the intricate timing of >component actions. Sherman describes perfectly the experience children have in acquiring the phonology of their language (and, having spent a week with a year-old labrador I can attest to other similarities between human children and puppies). Kids know what they want their vocal tracts to produce, they just can't exert enough control over them to make their lips and tongues behave. It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. There seems to be some variability here, speaking only anecdotally. Most phonetics students can easily make an alveolar closing gesture on command, but independent control of (say) the velum, or vocal cord vibration seems less open to conscious inspection, at least for relatively untrained speakers. Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527 (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffn at siu.edu From aaghbar at GROVE.IUP.EDU Wed Mar 21 15:24:55 2001 From: aaghbar at GROVE.IUP.EDU (Ali Aghbar) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 10:24:55 -0500 Subject: Request for e-mail management info. Message-ID: My apologies to list members but would the manager of this list send me information on managing e-mail messages from the list (e.g. info about sub, unsub, options for receiving messages). Thanks. Ali Aghbar (724) 357 4937 Department of English, Indiana U. of PA, Indiana PA 15705, USA From bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:26:34 2001 From: bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU (Elizabeth Bates) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:26:34 -0800 Subject: trying again Message-ID: >From bates Wed Mar 21 08:18:08 2001 Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:18:08 -0800 From: Elizabeth Bates To: Pmv321 at AOL.COM Subject: Re: Dyslexia Cc: bates at crl.ucsd.edu, funknet at listserve.rice.edu Interesting you should ask, since this issue was just in the newspapers this week. The answer is complex: (a) yes, dyslexics have been diagnosed in many different languages, with orthographies as different as Italian or Spanish (very transparent orthographies in which the sound is predictable from the print), English and French (very irregular orthographies with many unpredictable sound-print mappings) and Chinese (a non-alphabetic, logographic writing system); (b) however, the kind of orthographic interacts with symptoms, so that dyslexia has much more complex and severe results in English or French, while showing up primarily as a slowing in reading only for transparent orthographies. A study using a neural imaging technique (PET) by Paulesu et al. (this week's Science) showed that there is under- activation in the temporal lobes for dyslexics compared with normals during a reading task, and that this activation is seen in Italian, French and ENglish (in other words, despite the variation in severity of symptoms due to orthographic differences, weak readers show weak activation in the regions taht presumably have a lot to do with extraction of sound from the signal). What we CANNOT conclude from this study is whether the temporal lobe areas are defective in dyslexics (on biological grounds) or whether that is just what a healthy brain looks like when it is reading badly (so that I might show it in a language I don't know well, and children might show it whenthey are learning to read). My guess would be that there ARE dyslexics in Iran (defined as slow, weak readers) but that there has not been much effort to diagnose it as a disorder. -liz bates From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Mar 21 16:07:19 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 09:07:19 -0700 Subject: intent In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010321084128.00b40810@saluki-mail.siu.edu> Message-ID: > Sherman describes perfectly the experience children have in acquiring the > phonology of their language ... > It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to > the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. Geoff spotted what I was hinting at. The reason Dan's retelling of the Searle skiing story hit a chord with me is because this is PRECISELY how I talk about the process of learning to fingerspell (which is one type of phonological learning in the languages I work with): students first have only a "conscious intention" to get each individual finger into the correct position to perform a single fingerspelled letter (and it ain't easy!). Later, when letters become functional units, the learner advances to higher level units, and finally the task becomes "fingerspell the word 'subroutine'" (and not, "fingerspell 's-u-b-r-o ...'"). It's entrainment, emergence of a functional unit, lowering the degrees of freedom, and all that. I've just never thought of in terms of ability to consciously resurrect the individual "subconscious" subroutines of a learned, coordinated action. Geoff also brings up the important point of age of acquisition of these skills. I don't know if I've ever told this story on funknet -- if I have, I apologize. In another life I was a musician, an oboist. I learned to play in junior high school and continued until my late 20s; I then gave up music and didn't touch an oboe again for more than 25 years. If you asked me, "How do you play a b-flat?" I couldn't show you. I could not place my fingers in the correct position to produce a b-flat. I knew this was so. But I always figured if I picked up and held an instrument, I would be able to do it. In 1995 I picked up an oboe, held it (without a reed), and thought to myself "how do you finger a b-flat?" I couldn't do it. The unconscious subroutine couldn't be dredged up to consciousness. Then I put a piece of music in front of me, and tried to read the music and finger the notes (again with no reed, no sound). This time, the entire piece flowed off of my fingers, perfectly. I even produced -- entirely unconsciously (so much so that I had a "shock" reaction at what my body was doing!) -- entirely forgotten alternate fingerings. So, I couldn't bring the subroutines to memory, but the gestalt, "play this piece of music in front of you!" (sort of like Searle's "ski!") popped back into existence remarkably intact. I'm not sure what this says about unconscious intentions. I guess it has something to do with procedural versus declarative knowledge, age of acquisition, etc. Thanks, -- Sherman Wilcox Associate Professor Department of Linguistics University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131 From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Wed Mar 21 19:31:46 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:31:46 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: >It is indeed a good question whether we can as adults still have access to >the individual subroutines that make up speech gestures. There seems to be >some variability here, speaking only anecdotally. Most phonetics students >can easily make an alveolar closing gesture on command, but independent >control of (say) the velum, or vocal cord vibration seems less open to >conscious inspection, at least for relatively untrained speakers. >Geoff Nathan A, perhaps apocryphal, story about Ken Pike's writing of his classic, PHONETICS (not the Phonemics text) was that he was in the hospital for a broken leg (in Mexico) and decided to 'do something useful'. So he thought carefully about the way he produced sounds and wrote the book. Of course, he had had extensive training in phonetics, but he did in fact construct most of the book thinking his way through his own production of sounds. Dan Everett From Twright at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU Wed Mar 21 19:41:25 2001 From: Twright at ACCDVM.ACCD.EDU (Tony Wright) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 13:41:25 -0600 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <0103219851.AA985182002@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > representational. What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. --Tony Wright From krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA Wed Mar 21 21:25:02 2001 From: krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA (Kevin Russell) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 15:25:02 -0600 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: <87.871f508.27e97867@aol.com> Message-ID: I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no other options. I find it odd that many of the respondents here seem to making the same equation. If there's one bit of knowledge that researchers seem to have wrested from the chaos, and that we linguists can pass on to anybody who'll listen, it's that dyslexia is not a monolithic disorder. There are dyslexics who have problems taking apart a word into graphemes and mapping them to phonemes and who get by, to the extent they do, by memorizing entire words -- "phonological dyslexia" in the standard (and no doubt simplistic) first-year-textbook typology. There are dyslexics who are great at grapheme-to-phoneme mapping, can read any regularly spelled word you throw at them, but bomb on the irregular words that have to be memorized -- "surface dyslexia" in the first-year-textbook typology. (I'm working on a body of writing by an English-speaking developmental dysgraphic, who despite decades of work still spells the way a surface dyslexic reads.) And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow", or the doubtless many other kinds of and combinations of dyslexias that are being worked on outside the view of textbook writers. I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. It's probably no coincidence that the study reported on looked only at university students, or that the team had to look really closely to find Italian university students with signs of dyslexia, or that the ones they found all seemed to have surface dyslexia. This is not a sign that the Italian writing system is better for dyslexics. It's a sign that it's better for *some* dyslexics, and brutally worse for others. I would imagine that Chinese would be at the opposite extreme, easier for good-at-memorizing phonological dyslexics (but still not paradise, as the findings pointed to by Dan and and Alex would suggest), harder for good-at-generalizing bad-at-memorizing surface dyslexics. I vaguely recall someone talking about reading problems in Japanese, where you need to strike the right balance between sheer memorization (in order to get most of the lexical items, written in kanji) and generalization (in order to get any of the grammatical markers, written in kana), and different people can have problems with either one. Does this ring a bell with anyone who can give a reference? Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the Science article later this week. Hopefully the "all dyslexia is the same" over-simplification is the fault of the newspaper reporters and not the original researchers. -- Kevin Russell From bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU Wed Mar 21 22:50:20 2001 From: bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU (Liz Bates) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:50:20 -0800 Subject: Dyslexia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kevin Russell is right that dylexia is not a unitary disorder, and that acquired dylexia (defined as a reading disability due to brain injury in someone who was otherwise normal from birth) comes in several varieties. However, it is worth pointing out that the Paulesu et al. paper cited in the newspaper article was devoted exclusively to developmental (congenital) dyslexia. This is a disorder whose biological basis (assuming that there is one) is still unknown, and a disorder that does not (at least according to most investigators in this field) come in the same varieties that one finds with acquired dyslexias. In fact, all that the word "dyslexia" means right now, as it is commonly applied in school systems and clinics around the country for congenital cases, is "has difficulty reading, by some specified criterion on one or more standardized tests." Because the disorder is defined entirely on behavioral grounds, by relatively broad criteria, it is entirely possible that some forms of developmental dyslexia are really environmental (i.e. kids who can't read well for reasons that have more to do with the family culture). This is an especially important issue these days when schools are dealing with increasing numbers of immigrants, and other individuals who may not be proficient speakers of the language in which they are being taught to read. -liz bates >I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without >blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no >other options. I find it odd that many of the respondents here seem to >making the same equation. If there's one bit of knowledge that >researchers seem to have wrested from the chaos, and that we linguists can >pass on to anybody who'll listen, it's that dyslexia is not a monolithic >disorder. > >There are dyslexics who have problems taking apart a word into graphemes >and mapping them to phonemes and who get by, to the extent they do, by >memorizing entire words -- "phonological dyslexia" in the standard (and no >doubt simplistic) first-year-textbook typology. There are dyslexics >who are great at grapheme-to-phoneme mapping, can read any regularly >spelled word you throw at them, but bomb on the irregular words that have >to be memorized -- "surface dyslexia" in the first-year-textbook typology. >(I'm working on a body of writing by an English-speaking developmental >dysgraphic, who despite decades of work still spells the way a surface >dyslexic reads.) And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who >are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow", or the doubtless >many other kinds of and combinations of dyslexias that are being worked on >outside the view of textbook writers. > >I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a >person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to >memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you >farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone >with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the >spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected >forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological >dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing >environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised >if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. > >It's probably no coincidence that the study reported on looked only at >university students, or that the team had to look really closely to find >Italian university students with signs of dyslexia, or that the ones they >found all seemed to have surface dyslexia. This is not a sign that the >Italian writing system is better for dyslexics. It's a sign that it's >better for *some* dyslexics, and brutally worse for others. > >I would imagine that Chinese would be at the opposite extreme, easier for >good-at-memorizing phonological dyslexics (but still not paradise, as the >findings pointed to by Dan and and Alex would suggest), harder for >good-at-generalizing bad-at-memorizing surface dyslexics. > >I vaguely recall someone talking about reading problems in Japanese, where >you need to strike the right balance between sheer memorization (in order >to get most of the lexical items, written in kanji) and generalization (in >order to get any of the grammatical markers, written in kana), and >different people can have problems with either one. Does this ring a bell >with anyone who can give a reference? > >Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the Science article later this >week. Hopefully the "all dyslexia is the same" over-simplification is >the fault of the newspaper reporters and not the original researchers. > >-- Kevin Russell From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 22 00:22:33 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:22:33 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 4:26:51 PM, krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA writes: << I found it irritating that the original newspaper article assumes without blinking that dyslexia = surface dyslexia. Period. No subtleties, no other options.... I can see how a more regular orthography would make life simpler for a person with a tendency toward surface dyslexia -- fewer exceptions to memorize (which you're bad at), just applying the rules will get you farther than with English. But Italian would be much *worse* for someone with a tendency toward phonological dyslexia -- the regularity of the spelling does you no good and you've got to memorize a gazillion inflected forms which you have problems taking apart on-line. Phonological dyslexics have a fighting chance of surviving in an English-writing environment. In an Italian-writing environment, I wouldn't be surprised if most got washed out very early on as incurably stupid. >> As Liz Bates points out, there is an exceedingly valid problem being voiced here with regard to the over-broad labeling of dyslexia. And to the Press' inability to handle such issues perceptively - even though the quote mentioned came from a mere press clipping. However,... If (note the "if") the study has helped to confirmed that the emergence of certain dysfunctions called "dyslexia" may be highly correlateable to the degree of language symbol-to-sound correspondence, that certainly is an advance. The fact that the research may not elucidate all "dyslexia" should not take away from what the findings apparently (note "apparently") imply. Simply from the point of view of potentially providing real help for some diagnosed "dyslexics," it would seem to be worthy of note and pursuit. Going further, isn't this also a wonderful research opportunity? A testable hypothesis has just been offered above: <> If there is an operational way of identifying "phonological" dyslexics, then the statement above would seem to be testable and provable. We would expect diametrically opposed results with such subjects. And so, based on the above, we might also appreciate the research for not only potentially advancing our understanding of one phenomenon, but also for paving the way for other advances. <> My understanding is that the correlation may be rather higher than a matter of just making life simpler. There seems to be a significant variance between a functional and dysfunctional diagnosis. And of course if the research eventually bares out, it might no longer be a matter of "seeing how." It might become a matter of "finding out why." Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Mar 22 03:40:55 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:40:55 EST Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: In a message dated 3/21/2001 5:52:53 PM, bates at CRL.UCSD.EDU writes: << Because the disorder is defined entirely on behavioral grounds, by relatively broad criteria, it is entirely possible that some forms of developmental dyslexia are really environmental (i.e. kids who can't read well for reasons that have more to do with the family culture). >> And this raises the issue of whether the different forms of "dyslexia" can be defined by differences in behavior. One alternative is that different causes (acquired or environmental) result in similar, indistinguishable behavior. The other is that observable behavioral differences correlate to the different causes. Then there is the gray area in between those two alternatives. In any case, it should be noted that "dys-" in "dyslexia" refers most basically to a behavioral matter. Physiological variances that are merely innocent variances are not ordinarily thought of as dysfunctional. The fact that skin melanin varies does not make its lack "dysfunctional," although more melanin is certainly an advantage in certain climates. What the Italian-English-French study hints at is that, in certain linguistic environments, the particular physiological condition studied is NOT "dysfunctional," while in others it is. So, to some degree, it's suggested that it is not the underlying physiological condition that is "dys-" but rather its expression in a particular environment (i.e., among learners of English.) And it is behavior that apparently changes from one language context to another. This is therefore, at least from the point of view of dysfunctionally, environmentally determined. In a message dated 3/21/2001 4:26:51 PM, krussll at CC.UMANITOBA.CA writes: << And this isn't even counting the kinds of dyslexics who are liable to see "banana" and read "apple" or "yellow",... >> Wouldn't it be interesting to somehow know if this happens significantly more often in English than Italian (or vice versa)? In an earlier post, Liz Bates wrote: <> But wouldn't the initial impression from the research be, at minimum, that statistically, if I do show the physiological signs, I will be more likely to read badly in English as opposed to Italian? Regards, Steve Long From gvk at ciaccess.com Thu Mar 22 06:02:31 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 01:02:31 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: > On 3/21/01 6:10 AM, dan everett said: > > > In any case, one example he gave was that of skiing. When one begins, > > every move is conscious and intentional. "put this foot here, that > > foot there, bend the knee so, etc." As one becomes better at the > > sport, one just has the intention of skiing, the others becoming > > subconscious subroutines. But, and this is crucial, all these > > subroutines can in principle be brought back to consciousness. If you decide to learn how to ski, I heartily recomend that you read a good sports book like the "Inner Game of Skiing" instead of Searle's philosophy. Galwey the co-author of this book and the author of by the far the best-selling 'how-to' sport book "Inner Game of Tennis" would agree about the role of intention, but not the role of conscious thought in the act of learning. And neither would Betty Edwards-the author of the by far best-selling book on drawing.... All learning requires that we 'lose' ourselves in the act of doing. We can only become consciously aware or understand of how to do what, after we know how to do it! gerry van koeverden From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 22 11:51:49 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:51:49 -0500 Subject: Dyslexia Message-ID: The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is problematic for connectionism. The primary author of the article for correspondence is Iris Berent. iberent at fau.edu Dan Everett ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Dyslexia Author: at Internet Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > representational. What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. --Tony Wright From lamb at RICE.EDU Thu Mar 22 14:59:50 2001 From: lamb at RICE.EDU (Sydney Lamb) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:59:50 -0600 Subject: Connectionism In-Reply-To: <0103229852.AA985261158@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of > variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of > connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is > problematic for connectionism. > ... Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected anyway as neurologically implausible. - Syd Lamb > ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ > Subject: Re: Dyslexia > Author: at Internet > Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM > > > At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > > > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > > representational. > > What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar > with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about > phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the > difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager > to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. > > --Tony Wright > Sydney M. Lamb http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/ Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences Rice University, Houston, TX From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Thu Mar 22 18:58:43 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 13:58:43 -0500 Subject: Connectionism Message-ID: Maybe. I think our paper is problematic for just about any version of connectionism, though. Have a look and see. Dan ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Connectionism Author: at Internet Date: 3/22/01 8:59 AM On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of > variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of > connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is > problematic for connectionism. > ... Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected anyway as neurologically implausible. - Syd Lamb > ______________________________ Reply Separator _______________________________ __ > Subject: Re: Dyslexia > Author: at Internet > Date: 3/21/01 1:41 PM > > > At 08:17 AM 3/21/01 -0500, dan everett wrote: > > > We have a new paper either just out or nearly out in Cognitive > > Psychology on variables in Hebrew word representation, also arguing > > that phonological representation is nonconnectionist, symbolic and > > representational. > > What exactly is meant by "nonconnectionist" in this context? I am familiar > with the concepts of connectionism, but could you expand a bit about > phonological representation being nonconnectionist? Also, what is the > difference between it being symbolic and being representational? I am eager > to know more about this line of inquiry, as it sounds very interesting. > > --Tony Wright > Sydney M. Lamb http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/ Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences Rice University, Houston, TX From gthomson at MAC.COM Fri Mar 23 03:01:00 2001 From: gthomson at MAC.COM (gthomson) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 07:31:00 +0430 Subject: Connectionism In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:59 -0600 22/03/01, Sydney Lamb wrote: >On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, dan everett wrote: > >> The basic idea is that phonological representations require the use of >> variables and cannot be accounted for by different strengths of >> connections or statistical generalizations. Evidence for variables is >> problematic for connectionism. >> ... > >Variables are problematic only for a simple-minded version of >connectionism such as the well-known version of Rumelhart & >McClellan and their colleagues, with its limitation to three >layers, etc. But that simple-minded version has to be rejected >anyway as neurologically implausible. > > - Syd Lamb I don't know that it is clear what sense of "variables" is intended here. Greg Thomson From paul at BENJAMINS.COM Fri Mar 23 20:32:11 2001 From: paul at BENJAMINS.COM (Paul Peranteau) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 15:32:11 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?New_Book:_Iconicity_(Fischer_&_N=E4nny)?= Message-ID: John Benjamins Publishing announces a new work of interest to Functional Linguists: The Motivated Sign. Iconicity in language and literature 2. Olga FISCHER ((University of Amsterdam) and Max N?NNY (University of Z?rich) (eds.) US & Canada: 1 58811 003 6 / USD 100.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 2574 5 / NLG 220.00 (Hardcover) This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the 'mise en abyme', to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeare's rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwood's writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of 'the motivated sign' represent yet another strong challenge to "Saussure's dogma of arbitrariness" (Jakobson). Contributions by: Earl R. Anderson; C. Jac Conradie; Olga Fischer; Robbie B.H. Goh; Anne C. Henry; William J. Herlofsky; Loretta Innocenti; Frank Jansen; Jean-Jacques Lecercle; Leo Lentz; Christina Ljungberg; Wolfgang G. M?ller; Max N?nny; Ralf Norrman; Winfried N?th; Piotr Sadowski; John J. White; Werner Wolf. 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 6304747 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Sun Mar 25 22:50:28 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 14:50:28 -0800 Subject: Thai Position at UCLA Message-ID: The Program in South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA anticpates an opening for a full-time lecture position in Thai for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal (pending budgetary approval). The lecturer will be responsible for first, second and third year instruction in Thai. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in the target language, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching Thai to both heritage and non-heritage students, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin April 20, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Shoichi Iwasaki, Director of South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures Program, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE. From ashok at TUVOX.COM Mon Mar 26 04:52:38 2001 From: ashok at TUVOX.COM (Ashok Khosla) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 20:52:38 -0800 Subject: unsubscribe ashok@TUVOX.COM In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ashok at TUVOX.COM From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Mon Mar 26 07:27:45 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 15:27:45 +0800 Subject: unsubscribe ashok@TUVOX.COM Message-ID: Status Distribution March 26, 2001 13:15:19 The message regarding "unsubscribe ashok at TUVOX.COM" sent on March 26, 2001 13:15:19 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From annahdo at BU.EDU Tue Mar 27 02:39:45 2001 From: annahdo at BU.EDU (Anna Do) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 21:39:45 -0500 Subject: Calls: Boston University Conference on Language Development Message-ID: ************************************************************************************* THE 26TH ANNUAL BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CALL FOR PAPERS November 2, 3 and 4, 2001 Keynote Speaker: Susan Carey, New York University Plenary Speaker: Daniel A. Dinnsen, Indiana University ************************************************************************************* All topics in the fields of first and second language acquisition from all theoretical perspectives will be fully considered, including: Bilingualism Cognition & Language Creoles & Pidgins Discourse Exceptional Languages Input &Interaction Language Disorders Linguistic Theory (Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon) Literacy & Narrative Neurolinguistics Pragmatics Pre-linguistic Development Signed Languages Sociolinguistics Speech Perception & Production Abstracts submitted must represent original, unpublished research. Presentations will be 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions. PLEASE SUBMIT: 1) Ten copies of an anonymous, clearly titled 450-word summary for review; 2) One copy of a 150-word abstract for use in the conference program book if your abstract is accepted. If your paper is accepted, this abstract will be scanned into the conference handbook. No changes in title or authors will be possible after acceptance. 3) For EACH author, one copy of the information form printed at the bottom of this sheet. Please include e-mail address or a self-addressed, stamped postcard for acknowledgment of receipt. Notice of acceptance or rejection will be sent in early August, by US mail. Pre-registration materials and preliminary schedule will be available in late August, 2001. All authors who present papers at the conference will be invited to contribute their papers to the Proceedings volumes. Those papers will be due in January, 2002. Note: All conference papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted. Although each abstract will be evaluated individually, we will attempt to honor requests to schedule accepted papers together in group sessions. DEADLINE: All submissions must be received by May 15, 2001. Send submissions to: Boston University Conference on Language Development 704 Commonwealth Ave., Suite 101 Boston, MA 02215 U.S.A. Telephone: (617) 353-3085 e-mail: langconf at acs.bu.edu (We regret that we cannot accept abstract submissions by fax or e-mail.) Information regarding the conference may be accessed at http://web.bu.edu/LINGUISTICS/APPLIED/conference.html ************************************************************************** Author Information (Please include a typed sheet containing the following information for EACH author) Title: Full name: Affiliation: Current work address (for publication in handbook) Current e-mail (required): Current phone number (required): Summer address if different, and dates: Summer e-mail (required): Summer phone (required): To accommodate as many papers as possible, we reserve the right to limit each submitter to one first authorship and if circumstances warrant, to limit each submitter to two papers in any authorship status. Please indicate whether, if your paper is not one of the 90 initially selected for presentation, you would be willing to be considered as an alternate. (If you indicate that you are willing to be considered, this does not commit you to accepting alternate status if it should be offered to you.) _____ Yes, consider me as an alternate if necessary _____ No, please do not consider me as an alternate Please indicate how you wish to receive the 2002 Call for Papers: ____e-mail/electronic ___surface mail ____ both -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iadimly at usc.es Tue Mar 27 10:29:41 2001 From: iadimly at usc.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Mar=EDa_Angeles?=) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:29:41 +0200 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?NEW_BOOK:_THEME-TOPIC_INTERFACE_=28Mar=EDa_A._G=F3mez-Go?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?nz=E1lez=29?= Message-ID: >******************************* >Dr Mar?a de los ?ngeles G?MEZ-GONZ?LEZ >Profesora Titular de Filolox?a Inglesa >Departmento de Filolox?a Inglesa >Facultade de Filoloxia >Universidade de Santiago de Compostela >Avda. de Castelao, s/n >E- 15782 Santiago de Compostela. Spain >Fax.: + 00 34 981-574646 >Tel: + 00 34 981-563100 Ext. 11856 >email: iadimly at usc.es >http://www.usc.es/ia303/benvidag.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: Ant?n Anxo Pombo Rodr?guez To: Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 10:41 PM Subject: NEW BOOK: THEME-TOPIC INTERFACE (Mar?a A. G?mez-Gonz?lez) > > > > > > Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 15:38:49 -0500 > > From: Paul Peranteau > > Subject: Pragmatics & Discourse, The Theme-Topic Interface by > Gomez-Gonzalez > > > > > > John Benjamins Publishing announces a new work in Pragmatics & Discourse: > > > > The Theme-Topic Interface. > > Evidence from English. > > Mar?a ?ngeles G?MEZ-GONZ?LEZ (University of Santiago de Compostella) > > Pragmatics & Beyond NS 71 > > US & Canada: 1 55619 949 X / USD 87.00 (Hardcover) > > Rest of world: 90 272 5086 3 / NLG 190.00 (Hardcover) > > > > The Theme-Topic Interface (TTI) gives a useful catalogue of > > approaches to the concept Theme in the analysis of Natural > > Language. The book is written with both theoretical and descriptive > > goals and aims to synthesize and revise current approaches to pragmatic > > functions. > > In addition, TTI explains that different thematic constructions in natural > > language > > reveal different discourse strategies related to point of view and > > speaker subjectivity, which shows the mutually supportive role of > > form and discourse function vis-?-vis each other. > > > > The book's value is enhanced by the use of natural language corpora, the > > Lancaster > > IBM Spoken English Corpus (LIBMSEC), and by running multivariate > > statistical tests, taking into account both segmental and > > suprasegmental features. The bibliography lists more than 600 > > publications providing ample material for further research into an > > integrated theory of language and its use. The indexes provide easy > > access to most authors mentioned and to the major concepts covered. > > > > > > > > > > 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 6304747 > > Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 > 6739773 > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > > > > > > If you buy one of these books, please tell the publisher or author that > > you saw it on LINGUIST. > > > > > > The following publishers contribute to the support of The LINGUIST List: > > > > > > MAJOR SUPPORTERS > > > > Arnold Publishers > > http://www.arnoldpublishers.com > > > > Athelstan Publications > > http://www.athel.com > > > > Blackwell Publishers > > http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/ > > > > Cambridge University Press > > http://www.cup.org > > > > Cascadilla Press > > http://www.cascadilla.com/ > > > > Elsevier Science Ltd. > > http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/linguistics > > > > John Benjamins > > http://www.benjamins.com/ > > http://www.benjamins.nl/ > > > > Kluwer Academic Publishers > > http://www.wkap.nl/ > > > > Lernout & Hauspie > > http://www.lhsl.com > > > > Lincom Europa > > http://www.lincom-europa.com > > > > MIT Press > > http://mitpress.mit.edu/books-legacy.tcl > > > > Mouton de Gruyter > > http://www.deGruyter.de/hling.html > > > > Multilingual Matters > > http://www.multilingual-matters.com/ > > > > Oxford UP > > http://www.oup-usa.org/ > > > > Pearson Education > > http://www.pearsoneduc.com/catalog.html > > > > Rodopi > > http://www.rodopi.nl/ > > > > Springer-Verlag > > http://www.springer.de > > > > Summer Institute of Linguistics > > http://www.sil.org/ > > > > > > OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS > > > > Anthropological Linguistics > > http://www.indiana.edu/~anthling/ > > > > Finno-Ugrian Society > > http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/sus/ > > > > Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc., Umass > > http://www.umass.edu/linguist/GLSA/ > > > > Kingston Press Ltd. > > http://www.kingstonpress.com > > > > Linguistic Assoc. of Finland > > http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ > > > > Linguistic Society of Southern Africa (LSSA) > > http://www.safest.org.za/bsp > > > > Pacific Linguistics > > http://pacling.anu.edu.au > > > > Pacini Editore Spa > > http://www.pacinieditore.it/ > > > > Virittaja Aikakauslehti > > http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/kks/virittaja.html > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > > LINGUIST List: Vol-12-814 > > From eitkonen at UTU.FI Tue Mar 27 12:58:22 2001 From: eitkonen at UTU.FI (Esa Itkonen) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:58:22 +0300 Subject: philosophy of linguistics Message-ID: Philosophy of science at its best investigates existing scientific practices; it may suggest improvements, but these must start from what exists already. Otherwise it is vacuous (or utopistic). Philosophy of linguistics at its best investigates the notion of functional explanation as it is employed in typological linguistics as a matter of fact. It cannot investigate e.g. deductive-nomological explanations of language change, because these do not exist; for the same reason, it cannot investigate such explanations of (limits on) variation in argument-marking as are based on neurophysiological computations or on the motion of subatomic particles. Functional/rational explanations presuppose the existence of unconscious goals and beliefs. On Funknet the name of John Searle has been mentioned in this context. Searle is an uneven thinker. Sometimes what he says is wrong, and sometimes it is right. Both sides are illustrated by his book The Rediscovery (read 'Re'discovery) of the Mind. First, Searle claims that mental states are states which either are conscious or can become conscious. The latter states are identical with one subclass of neurophysiological states; the other subclass is constituted by those neurophysiological states that cannot become conscious. (Thus, there are no permanently unconscious goals/beliefs.) Notice that the second type of mental states, identical with the first type of neurophysiological states, entails that '(some) neurophysiological states are mental states', which is gibberish, although, or because, it is the thesis of strong reductionism. More importantly, Searle is committed to the view that until the age of 10 months or so, children have no mental life. Fathers and mothers are likely to disagree. (Animals too are deprived of mentality.) Searle's position beautifully illustrates the oddities which one is driven to as long as one does not reject the discrete ('black-or-white') metaphysics in favor of a CONTINUUM metaphysics. (Here we would just have to accept the continuum between totally unconscious and totally (self-)conscious). Some versions of a priori linguistics, now largely discarded, have suffered from the same metaphysical illness. - What if Searle's die-hard acolytes refuse to be swayed by reason (i.e. by the preceding argument)? Then we will make a concession which may not please them: the one who proposes (adequate) rational explanations HAS become conscious of until-then-uncoscious goals-cum-beliefs in his or her own case, and others CAN follow, or COULD have followed, his or her example (thus fulfilling the Searlean requirement of dispositionality). From there, arriving at functional-typological explanations is simply a matter of analogical generalization. Both ways, the rational explanation is vindicated. (Other examples of Searle not at his best will be mentioned on demand.) Second, it is impossible to deny the cogency of Searle's arguments against the ontological reality of Chomskyan 'computations' (pp. 220-221, 244-246). The preceding argument may discourage devotees of the black-or-white metaphysics, especially those who have restricted their readings to introductory textbooks of philosophy. But one should not give up trying. In a far-off distance, philosophy is beckoning seductively: 'come to me.' The Bible teaches us that in the Heaven of Christianity it is always a special occasion when an ex-sinner has redeemed him- or herself. Analogously, there is a general sense of satisfaction in the esoteric realm of philosophy when someone who has acted like a moron finally rejects the idea that (s)he is innately endowed to remain a moron forever, and decides to become a rational person. Esa Itkonen, Dozent der Philosophie (inter alia) From dan_everett at SIL.ORG Tue Mar 27 14:50:12 2001 From: dan_everett at SIL.ORG (dan everett) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 09:50:12 -0500 Subject: philosophy of linguistics Message-ID: Hey, I was unable to find a function to most of the form of this letter. However, I appreciate Eitkonen bringing the following to my attention: ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Searle is an uneven thinker. Sometimes what he says is wrong, and sometimes it is right. How dare anyone like silly ol me cite someone who is 'sometimes wrong'? In the future, I will only cite people who are always right. That means I can of course cite myself. But who else? Dan Everett From ptb0 at UMAIL.UCSB.EDU Wed Mar 28 19:33:51 2001 From: ptb0 at UMAIL.UCSB.EDU (Paul Barthmaier) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 11:33:51 -0800 Subject: 2001 LSA Institute Message-ID: A quick reminder that the Housing and Application deadlines for the 2001 Linguistic Institute is April 1, 2001. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to enjoy a summer in sunny Santa Barbara studying Linguistics with some of the top scholars in the world. For more information regarding courses, deadlines and admission please see our website at http://www.summer.ucsb.edu/lsa2001. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Thu Mar 29 07:57:46 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 23:57:46 -0800 Subject: Japanese position at UCLA Message-ID: The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA anticpates an opening for a full-time lecture position in Japanese for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal. The lecturer will be responsible for second and third year instruction in Japanese, and participate in developing a new curriculum. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in Japanese and English, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics or Applied Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching diverse student groups, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin May 1, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Noriko Akatsuka, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles,Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action,Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE.