From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Jan 2 16:51:03 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:51:03 -0700 Subject: [Fwd: Fw: Happy New Year and a conference call form Hungary] Message-ID: From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Jan 2 17:25:56 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 10:25:56 -0700 Subject: call for papers/forwarded Message-ID: [forwarded from the Central European Cog. Sci. Association] ================= CALL FOR PAPERS 1ST Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science DUCOG I Dubrovnik, 22 - 24 MAY (FRIDAY - Sunday), 2009 The newly formed Central European Cognitive Science Association launches its first international conference in the historical town of Dubrovnik, Raguza, Croatia. The conference is open for students doing research on all aspects of cognitive science. The core of the conference consists of five poster sessions, and four tutorial talks that present each one hot topic of research in the conference's lead topic of this year: Language and the brain Poster sessions The core of the conference will consist of student research reports in the form of peer reviewed posters. The posters shall be organized around discussion groups chaired by senior scholars. Five sessions are planned for each conference with approximately 10 posters per session. Posters will be grouped around a central topic. Sessions will be chaired by a senior scholar assigned by the organizing committee. Each poster session shall consist of two parts: a five minute presentation by each participant of his/her own poster, followed by roughly two hours to pose individual questions to the presenting author of the posters. Tutorial talks The tutorials shall be given by internationally well know scholars, concentrating on a given area. This talk is not merely a presentation of some specific new research, but a survey of the tutors' own research, or of their fields, providing a general framework and message. The following tutorial speakers are scheduled up to now. Jacques Mehler (SISSA, Trieste. Italy): Why cognitive development deserves precocious study ? Franck Ramus (École Normale, Paris, France): Genes, brain and language István Winkler (Inst Psych Res, HAS, Budapest) Maintaining the acoustic internet:How auditory processes support verbal communication Abstract submission Abstracts have to be sent to the anonymous site ducog at cogsci.bme.hu by February 1st, 2009. The abstract should have the following structure: TITLE Name Institution Email Text: less than 200 words. Providing a hypothesis, methods and subjects if relevant, main results. No references. If relevant, sponsors are to be mentioned at the end of the abstract. Key words: 5-7 searchable key words. Submissions will be subject to an anonymous peer review, on a strictly scientific basis. 50 posters shall be selected for presentation. Out of selected papers up to 30 students from Central and Eastern Europe[1] will have full financial support (travel, accommodation, participation fees). Acceptance notices will be mailed around January 30th. Abstracts shall be published in a citable reviewed format in journal Learning and Perception, to launched in 2008, published by Akadémiai, a Budapest based Walters Kluwer journal. Talks by the tutors, and a student presentation selected as the best will published in a later issue. Venue Centre for Advanced Academic Studies Dubrovnik, University of Zagreb Don Frana Bulica 4 20000 Dubrovnik CROATIA This down town site of Dubrovnik is a few hundred meters from the old town, and provides both for accommodation and lecture halls. Registration fee General participation fee is 500 Euros. That includes accomodation, conference materials, and a 1 year membership of the CECOG. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Central and Eastern Europe here means Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. From bischoff.st at gmail.com Sat Jan 3 18:19:29 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 14:19:29 -0400 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Hi all, Thanks to those that responded to my previous email. I am wondering if anyone is familiar with work explicitly stating "linguistic axioms" that hold across the subfields. "Axiom" here being "statements which are assumed to be true" or "fundamental assumptions of a pre-formal theory". In the late 20th century perhaps, the notions of "phonology", "morphology", "syntax", and "pragmatics" would seem to be axiomatic...but would something like the "phoneme"? The phoneme raises an interesting question in that if it were assumed to be axiomatic, then would there need to be a unified definition of phoneme? That is, is the Praguian phoneme (a set of distinctive features which are not binary) a potentially different object than the Generative phoneme (taxonomic phenomenon, the only relevant unit in phonology, and a set of binary features ala Chomsky and Halle)? Thus non-axiomatic? Another example of a linguistic axiom would be perhaps word order facts represented in terms of "subjects", "verbs", and "objects"...but do nominal predicates in Russian nullify this or the facts regarding "subjects", "objects", and "verbs" found in Comrie (1985)? Anyway, any thoughts or references would be appreciated. Thanks again, Shannon From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sat Jan 3 18:37:47 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:37:47 -0700 Subject: axioms Message-ID: RE: Bischoff: Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG From elc9j at virginia.edu Sun Jan 4 19:15:45 2009 From: elc9j at virginia.edu (Ellen Contini-Morava) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:15:45 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) Happy new year, Ellen From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Jan 4 19:40:18 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:40:18 -0700 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <49610AE1.2050200@virginia.edu> Message-ID: Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. Best, TG ======= Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: > Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a > speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound > and meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared > code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis > and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge > 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > From hopper at cmu.edu Sun Jan 4 20:13:59 2009 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 15:13:59 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <496110A2.1080909@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable argument"... This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? Paul > > > Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on > the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must > therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this > dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. > Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of > reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of > V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this > illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human > language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an > intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. > Best, TG > > ======= > > > Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >> Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, >> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a >> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >> meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >> pp. 18-52.) >> >> Happy new year, >> >> Ellen >> > > > -- Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper Senior Fellow Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg Albertstr. 19 D-79104 Freiburg and Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA5213 From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Jan 4 21:03:39 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:03:39 -0700 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <50537.72.95.237.27.1231100039.squirrel@72.95.237.27> Message-ID: Just a little dose of honesty. TG ======= Paul Hopper wrote: > WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable argument"... > > This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? > > Paul > > > > > > > > > >> Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on >> the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must >> therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this >> dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. >> Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of >> reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of >> V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this >> illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human >> language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an >> intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. >> Best, TG >> >> ======= >> >> >> Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >> >>> Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >>> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, >>> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a >>> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >>> meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >>> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >>> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >>> pp. 18-52.) >>> >>> Happy new year, >>> >>> Ellen >>> >>> >> >> > > > From robert at vjf.cnrs.fr Sun Jan 4 22:04:53 2009 From: robert at vjf.cnrs.fr (=?iso-8859-1?Q?St=E9phane?= Robert) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 23:04:53 +0100 Subject: A new book: From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations Message-ID: From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations Edited by Martine Vanhove. Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL Studies in Language Companion Series 106. 2008. xiii, 404 pp. http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS%20106 This book is the result of a joint project on lexical and semantic typology which gathered together field linguists, semanticists, cognitivists, typologists, and an NLP specialist. These cross-linguistic studies concern semantic shifts at large, both synchronic and diachronic: the outcome of polysemy, heterosemy, or semantic change at the lexical level. The first part presents a comprehensive state of the art of a domain typologists have long been reluctant to deal with. Part two focuses on theoretical and methodological approaches: cognition, construction grammar, graph theory, semantic maps, and data bases. These studies deal with universals and variation across languages, illustrated with numerous examples from different semantic domains and different languages. Part three is dedicated to detailed empirical studies of a large sample of languages in a limited set of semantic fields. It reveals possible universals of semantic association, as well as areal and cultural tendencies. Table of contents Semantic associations': A foreword Martine Vanhove vii–xiii Part I. State of the art Approaching lexical typology Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm 3–52 Part II. Theoretical and methodological issues Words and their meanings: Principles of variation and stabilization Stéphane Robert. 55–92 The typology of semantic affinities Bernard Pottier. 93–105 Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye Peter Koch. 107–137 Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the "light verb" xordæn 'eat' in Persian Niloufar Family. 139–161 Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages Alexandre Francois. 163–215 A Catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation Anna Zalizniak. 217–232 Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau and Martine Vanhove. 233–264 Part III. Case studies About 'eating' in a few Niger-Congo languages Emilio Bonvini. 267–289 Eating beyond certainties Christine Hénault. 291–301 From semantic change to polysemy: The cases of 'meat/animal' and 'drink' Pascal Boyeldieu. 303–315 Is a 'friend' an 'enemy'? Between "proximity" and "opposition" Sergueï Sakhno and Nicole Tersis. 317–339 Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective Martine Vanhove. 341–370 Cats and bugs: Some remarks about semantic parallelisms Michel Masson. 371–386 General index. 387–395 Index of languages. 397–400 Index of names. 401–404 __________ Stéphane ROBERT CNRS LLACAN, Langages Langues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire, http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr CNRS Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques, http://www.typologie.cnrs.fr From lesleyne at msu.edu Sun Jan 4 23:24:00 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (lesleyne at msu.edu) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 18:24:00 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <50537.72.95.237.27.1231100039.squirrel@72.95.237.27> Message-ID: Paul, I think that functionalists are prone to this type of debate, if some of our exchanges back in '06 are any guide.  I am glad that Shannon, my friend and former colleague from a very repressive formal department is finding it lively here.  Functionalist departments can also be quite ideologically driven, but are more tolerant of debate, and are less prone to driving out students that raise issues with theoretical orthodoxy. Diane Quoting "Paul Hopper" : > WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this > type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable > argument"... > > This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly > don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was > founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? > > Paul > > > > > > >> > >> >> Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on >> the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must >> therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this >> dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. >> Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of >> reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of >> V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this >> illicit trick in an article  titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human >> language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an >> intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. >> Best,  TG >> >> ======= >> >> >> Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >>> Re axioms:  There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >>> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64.  The main one, >>> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159):  "In a >>> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >>> meaning".  Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >>> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >>> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >>> pp. 18-52.) >>> >>> Happy new year, >>> >>> Ellen >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA5213 > > > From lesleyne at msu.edu Sun Jan 4 23:40:33 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (lesleyne at msu.edu) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 18:40:33 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms (Phonology) In-Reply-To: <49610AE1.2050200@virginia.edu> Message-ID: Shannon also might be interested in the workshop that will be held at this phonology conference: Sixth Old World Conference in Phonology 22-24 JANUARY 2009 Deadline for abstracts: 15th September 2008 Invited speakers: B. Elan Dresher (University of Toronto) Jennifer Hay (University of Canterbury) Marc van Oostendorp (Meertens Instituut & Leiden University) The conference will be preceded by a workshop on subsegmental phonology on 21st January, organised by Bert Botma (Leiden) and Patrick Honeybone (Edinburgh), with the title "the Privative Project: is it still worth pursuing?" Those attending the conference will be very welcome to attend the workshop, too. (Further details of the workshop are to follow.) Conference website: www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ocp6 OCP homepage: www.ocp.leidenuniv.nl ------------------------ CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT The department of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh is proud to announce that the sixth Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP6) will take place in Edinburgh from 22nd to 24th January 2009. OCP6 is organised by a group of phonologists  at Edinburgh, and it follows in the line of previous OCP conferences, which have been held in Leiden, Tromsø, Budapest, Rhodes and Toulouse. Abstracts for consideration for presentation as either talks or poster papers at the conference are now invited. The conference will be preceded by a semi-separate workshop entitled "the Privative Project: is it still worth pursuing?" This workshop is organised by Bert Botma (Leiden) and Patrick Honeybone (Edinburgh) and further details will be available soon. Abstracts addressing issues related to the workshop theme will be welcome at the main conference, but there is no conference theme for OCP6 at all, and abstracts on any phonological issue (theoretical or empirical) in any language(s) and in any phonological framework are invited, as are abstracts which deal with connections between phonology and  psycholinguistics or sociolinguistics. ------------------------ Quoting "Ellen Contini-Morava" : > Re axioms:  There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64.  The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159):  "In a > speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound > and meaning".  Though some have questioned the assumption of a > "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In > Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. > London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > > > From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Mon Jan 5 07:33:23 2009 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (Steen, G.J.) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 08:33:23 +0100 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: <495FB07B.6090307@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Dear funknetters, Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. Best, Gerard Steen Professor of Language Use and Cognition Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 Department of Language and Communication VU University Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam T: ++31-20-5986433 F: ++31-20-5986500 http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ ________________________________________ From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon [tgivon at uoregon.edu] Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 To: funknet Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms RE: Bischoff: Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG From tgivon at uoregon.edu Mon Jan 5 13:39:44 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 05:39:44 -0800 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good point. But was he right? The fact that some P. of Sci. people agree with him is fine, they are probably confirmed deductivists. But R.N. Hanson (Patterns of Discovery) surely wouldn't agree, nor would biologists with some philosophical bent (Mayr, e.g.). In fact Mayr would characterize such position as typical of people who take physics, with it's highly math-dependent structure, as the paradigm for science. Mayr argued that biology & other biologically-based sciences (psychology, linguistics), where variation & population curves are the name of the game, are very different. So there you go. It is not that I don't appreciate Popper, he was great, but he had his limits too. Best, TG Steen, G.J. wrote: > Dear funknetters, > > Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. > > Best, > > Gerard Steen > > Professor of Language Use and Cognition > Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program > Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 > Department of Language and Communication > VU University Amsterdam > De Boelelaan 1105 > 1081 HV Amsterdam > > T: ++31-20-5986433 > F: ++31-20-5986500 > > http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ > ________________________________________ > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon [tgivon at uoregon.edu] > Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 > To: funknet > Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms > > RE: Bischoff: > > Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a > useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of > logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some > with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but > this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or > isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are > facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general > agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start > of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of > "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on > empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed > and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of > types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other > hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps > changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG > > From lesleyne at msu.edu Mon Jan 5 17:39:54 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 12:39:54 -0500 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Deat Funknetters,     The problem that the linguistics field faces, is that theoretical paradigms overgenerate or are insufficient and are therefore in constant modification, which is why Dr. Steen's comments are very relevant.    This is good.  However, when serious modification of the basic tenets of the theory are routinely necessary to accommodate the reality of language data, nobody is declaring the theoretical framework or analytical strategy  falsified or invalid.  In fact, it remains in use for a long time.  Then, without saying much, people just move away from it, or stop working in it, because everyone is too cowed by the reality.  It takes an entire career or more to falsify a theory, and researchers and students in America are often being repressed and coerced within programs when their discoveries or questions touch upon the work of their professors or peers, or established linguists suffer when challenging theoretical authorities.--This repression happens in both functionalist and formal programs. When funding is scarce, it is the dissident who gets axed, even if his/her work is good. Because there is always political evaluation and illegitimate assistance to prop up weaker candidates who will do what theoretical authorities say. Too many of us have stakes in maintaining the status quo, even when it is invalid.    In phonology, folks are still using binary +/- nasal even though there are seven positions of the velum--and these are significant to attested phenomena.  the gestures in the production of liquids are also problematic to formal theory.  however, the people working in this must go into a separate subfield--Articulatory phonology--and have for a long time hidden out in speech or psych departments because their findings are still not sufficiently impacting the state of accepted theory within the linguistics world.  Most phonologists do not keep up with relevant literature within the speech world, which has higher scientific standards than the linguistics field. In related fields and even within them, "experts"  are talking past each other instead of working on the implications for the theories that they are using, and this is killing scientific progress.    Did anyone declare Sympathy theory dead?  It was always a cheap theoretical trick, and now even McCarthy does not use it anymore.  In fact, he is now proposing candidate chains.  Is anyone emphasizing the fact that it is a radical departure from parallelism and is in fact confirming serial derivation?  Many still teach the revered cannons out of Kager of parallelism, economy, etc. as if they were irrefutable facts. As well, folks, there is no conflict between functionalism and Optimality Theory, in fact, the typological orientation of the theory is ideal for research on universals, which may typologists and active descriptive linguistis do.  How many functionalist departments do OT, or even want to hire an OT phonologist?       There are very few doing what Andries Coetzee is doing in experimental optimality theory.  Yet, students have been squelched, not admitted  or driven out of programs because they raised issues of grounding, or want to take social or historical factors into account,  even when it is supported by respected literature, and equally out of functionalist departments  because they try to maintain connection with formal theory.  As a result, departments in America are falling behind the rest of the world scientifically because we are injuring our productivity, and linguistics departments often lose the funding battles within their own institutions because of their lack of scientific achievement. Funding linguistics departments is considered to be a waste of money, and we need to begin to assume our share of the blame for this state of affairs.       We need to begin to have official minimal standards for a programs to be recognized within the linguistics field, much in the same way speech and psych departments do.  This way, a university will be forced to hire a linguist within a particular area or a construct a lab instead of spending money on improvements to already excellent athletic facilities, or pay a football coach a half a million dollars. The LSA needs to be more than just a body that holds summer school every two years and job talk preparation.  It needs to establish the power of accreditation so that departments don't go without faculty in essential areas, either with the consent of more powerful linguists in other subfields who want their buddy specialists hired, or because the university wants to concentrate on football or a white elephant project with alumni pressure.     My apologies if my tone has gotten a little disagreeable.  I welcome any and all comments on and critiques of the thoughts expressed above, especially if I am mistaken.     ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Quoting "Steen, G.J." : > Dear funknetters, > > Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a > useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific > Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and > re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and > elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom > productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather > influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to > agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. > > Best, > > Gerard Steen > > Professor of Language Use and Cognition > Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program > Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 > Department of Language and Communication > VU University Amsterdam > De Boelelaan 1105 > 1081 HV Amsterdam > > T: ++31-20-5986433 > F: ++31-20-5986500 > > http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ > ________________________________________ > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon > [tgivon at uoregon.edu] > Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 > To: funknet > Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms > > RE: Bischoff: > > Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a > useful notion in  empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of > logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some > with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but > this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or > isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are > facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general > agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start > of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of > "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on > empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed > and and internally consistent. According to both  Russell ('theory of > types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other > hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps > changing with new facts & new insights.  Happy New Year,  TG > > From Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl Mon Jan 5 20:24:15 2009 From: Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl (Amiridze, Nino) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:24:15 +0100 Subject: Second Call -- Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities, Tartu 2009 Message-ID: [Apologies for multiple posting] Second Call Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities Date: May 28, 2009 Location: Tartu, Estonia Workshop at the International Conference on Minority Languages XII (ICML 2009) Website: http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Contact: tartulcc at gmail.com The workshop aims at exploring the language contact and language change phenomena that characterize multiple linguistic minorities. It focuses on but is not confined to signed, Uralic and Caucasian languages. On the one hand, we intend to explore the situation of bimodal bilingualism. Data from changes in multi-modal bilingual contexts can lead to new insights into bilingualism, the typology and structure of languages, and language change and contact in general. Research into bimodal bilingualism can draw upon several methods and approaches developed for studying the bilingualism of other minority languages, and vice versa. On the other hand, we know that it is difficult to reach the bilingual individuals and communities that are deaf and belong to several linguistic minorities. Therefore, we approach the bimodal target via individual studies on minority languages. More specifically, we concentrate on the issue of language change in contact in the context of a typologically wide range of minority languages. We are looking for answers to questions such as the following: - How do deaf children of (hearing) parents belonging to linguistic minorities (e.g., Nganasan) communicate with the Deaf communities in their country and with their own parents? - How does their language change? - How can we test the change in the structure of the languages in contact in a uniform way? - What are the factors that influence the developments? - Can we work towards a typology? Invited keynote speakers: Csilla Bartha (hearing) (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest): The situation of the Deaf and national minorities in Hungary; Östen Dahl (hearing) (Stockholm University): Contact induced changes in tense and aspect systems; Tatiana Davidenko (Deaf) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Sign Language Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries; Anna Komarova (hearing) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Development of Bilingual Education of the Deaf in Post-Soviet Countries; Gaurav Mathur (Deaf) (Gallaudet University): The relationship between agreement and finiteness in sign languages; Johanna Mesch (Deaf) (Stockholm University): Variations in tactile signing - the case of one-handed conversation; Helle Metslang (hearing) (University of Tartu): Changes in Finnish and Estonian tense and aspect; Christian Rathmann (Deaf) (Hamburg University): Minority Communities within German Deaf Community; Don Stilo (hearing) (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig): Introduction to an Atlas of the Araxes-Iran Linguistic Area. Check for updates, our interdisciplinary areas, and more research questions at http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Submission (deadline January 15, 2009, notification January 31, 2009). Abstracts (in English, maximum 2 pages, including data and references) have to be submitted electronically as portable document format (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) files via the EasyChair conference management system (https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=lcc09). If you do not have an EasyChair account, click on the button "I have no EasyChair Account" on that page and follow the instructions. When you receive a password, you can enter the site and upload your abstract. Organizers: Nino Amiridze, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) Östen Dahl, University of Stockholm (Sweden) Anne Tamm, University of Florence (Italy) and Institute for the Estonian Language (Estonia) Manana Topadze, University of Pavia (Italy) Inge Zwitserlood, Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) From drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu Tue Jan 6 00:49:36 2009 From: drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu (Daisy Rosenblum) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 16:49:36 -0800 Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT and 2nd Call for Papers: 12th Annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages May 8-9 Message-ID: PLEASE NOTE: CONFERENCE DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO MAY 8-9, 2009. DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2009 SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on American Indigenous Languages University of California, Santa Barbara May 8-9, 2009 The Linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with the American Indian Cultural Resource Center, announces its 12thannual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL), which provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical, descriptive, and practical studies of the indigenous languages of the Americas. The keynote speaker will be Aaron Fox, Columbia University. Anonymous abstracts are invited for talks on any topic relevant to the study of language in the Americas. Submissions describing collaborative, community-based models for language maintenance and revitalization are encouraged, as are presentations by community members and language activists. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Abstracts should be 500 words or less (excluding examples and/or references) and can be submitted online athttp://linguistlist.org/confcustom/wail2009 . Hard copy submissions will be accepted from those who do not have internet access. Individuals may submit abstracts for one single- authored and one co-authored paper. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Special Panel on Technology and Language Documentation: This year we are welcoming abstracts for a Special Panel on the uses of technology in language documentation, description, maintenance, and revitalization. Talks will be 20 minutes each, followed by a group discussion/question-and-answer period. For hard copy submissions: Please send four copies of your abstract, along with a 3x5 card with the following information: (1) your name; (2) affiliation; (3) mailing address; (4) phone number; (5) email address; (6) title of your paper; (7) whether your submission is for the general session or the Special Panel. Send hard copy submissions to: Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Attn: Daisy Rosenblum or Carrie Meeker Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance will be by email no later than February 15, 2009. General Information: Santa Barbara is situated on the Pacific Ocean near the Santa Yñez Mountains. The UCSB campus is located near the Santa Barbara airport. Participants may also fly into LAX airport in Los Angeles, which is approximately 90 miles southeast of the campus. Shuttle buses run between LAX and Santa Barbara. Information about hotel accommodations will be posted on our website (http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ ). For further information contact the conference coordinators, Daisy Rosenblum and Carrie Meeker, at wail.ucsb at gmail.com, or visit our website at http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/. Daisy Rosenblum Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu From v.evans at bangor.ac.uk Tue Jan 6 14:18:32 2009 From: v.evans at bangor.ac.uk (Vyv Evans) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 14:18:32 +0000 Subject: Receive LANGUAGE & COGNITION free of charge Message-ID: NEW JOURNAL --- LANGUAGE & COGNITION --- SPECIAL OFFER FOR 2009 The first volume of the new journal LANGUAGE AND COGNITION appears this year. As a special offer the entire first volume (two issues) is offered as a downloadable e-file free of charge, and is available to all. To take advantage register to receive your free copy now! Full details of how to register can be found on the journal website: www.languageandcognition.net Table of contents for volumes 1 and 2, is available below. LANGUAGE AND COGNITION is a venue for the publication of high quality peer-reviewed research of a theoretical and/or empirical/experimental nature, focussing on the interface between language and cognition. The journal publishes research from the full range of subject disciplines, theoretical backgrounds, and analytical frameworks that populate the language and cognitive sciences, on a wide range of topics. Research published in the journal typically adopted an interdisciplinary, comparative, multi-methodological approach to the study of language and cognition and their intersection. The journal is edited by Daniel Casasanto, Seana Coulson, Vyvyan Evans, David Kemmerer, Laura Michaelis and Chris Sinha. The journal is open to contributions from any theoretical perspective and methodological approach which bears on the scientific study of language and its relationship with cognition. In particular it publishes both theoretical and empirical research. Submission details can be found on the journal website: www.languageandcognition.net TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1 (2009) Issue 1 How do infants build a semantic system? Suzy J. Styles and Kim Plunkett (University of Oxford) The cognitive poetics of literary resonance. Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham) Action in cognition: The case of language. Lawrence J. Taylor and Rolf A. Zwaan (Erasmus University of Rotterdam) Prototype constructions in early language acquisition. Paul Ibbotson (University of Manchester) and Michael Tomasello (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) The Enactment of Language: Decades of Interactions Between Linguistic and Motor Processes. Sarah E. Anderson (Cornell University) and Michael J. Spivey (University of California, Merced) Episodic affordances contribute to language comprehension. Arthur M. Glenberg (Arizona State Universtiy), Raymond Becker (Wilfrid Laurier University), Susann Klötzer, Lidia Kolanko, Silvana Müller (Dresden University of Technology), and Mike Rinck (Radboud University Nijmegen) Reviews: Daniel D. Hutto. 2008. Folk Psychological Narratives: The Sociocultural Basis of Understanding Reasons (MIT Press). Reviewed by Chris Sinha Aniruddh Patel. 2008. Music, Language, and the Brain (Oxford Univeristy Press). Reviewed by Daniel Casasanto Issue 2 Pronunciation reflects syntactic probabilities: Evidence from spontaneous speech. Hal Tily (Stanford University), Susanne Gahl (University of California, Berkeley), Inbal Arnon, Neal Snider, Anubha Kothari, and Joan Bresnan (Stanford University) Causer subjects in English, Korean and Chinese and the individuation of events. Phillip Wolff, Ga-hyun Jeon, and Yu Li (Emory University) Correlation versus prediction in children’s word learning: Cross-linguistic evidence and simulations. Eliana Colunga (University of Colorado at Boulder), Linda B. Smith (Indiana University) and Michael Gasser (Indiana University) Toward a theory of word meaning. Gabriella Vigliocco, Lotte Meteyard and Mark Andrews (University College London) The sensory-motor theory of semantics: A functional imaging perspective. Uta Noppeney (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen) Reviews: Ronald Langacker. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A basic introduction. (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by Vyvyan Evans Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigagalia. Mirrors in the brain: How our minds share actions and emotions. 2008. (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by David Kemmerer. VOLUME 2 (2010) Issue 1 Adaptive cognition without massive modularity: The context-sensitivity of language use. Raymond W. Gibbs (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Guy Van Orden (University of Cincinnati) Spatial foundations of the conceptual system. Jean Mandler (University California, San Diego and University College London) Metaphor: Old words, new concepts, imagined worlds. Robyn Carston (University College London) Language Development and Linguistic Relativity. John A. Lucy (University of Chicago) Construction Learning. Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Space and Language: some neural considerations. Anjan Chatterjee (University of Pennsylvania) Issue 2 Abstract motion is no longer abstract. Teenie Matlock (University California, Merced) When gesture does and doesn't promote learning. Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago) Discourse Space Theory. Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) Relational language supports relational cognition. Dedre Gentner (Northwestern University) Talking about quantities in space. Kenny Coventry (Northumbria University) Making sense of language: Insights from cognitive science research. Jos van Berkum (MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen) Précis of The Genesis of Grammar. Bernd Heine (University of Cologne) and Tania Kuteva (Heinrich Heine University) -- Gall y neges e-bost hon, ac unrhyw atodiadau a anfonwyd gyda hi, gynnwys deunydd cyfrinachol ac wedi eu bwriadu i'w defnyddio'n unig gan y sawl y cawsant eu cyfeirio ato (atynt). Os ydych wedi derbyn y neges e-bost hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a dilëwch y neges. Os na fwriadwyd anfon y neges atoch chi, rhaid i chi beidio â defnyddio, cadw neu ddatgelu unrhyw wybodaeth a gynhwysir ynddi. Mae unrhyw farn neu safbwynt yn eiddo i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd yn unig ac nid yw o anghenraid yn cynrychioli barn Prifysgol Bangor. Nid yw Prifysgol Bangor yn gwarantu bod y neges e-bost hon neu unrhyw atodiadau yn rhydd rhag firysau neu 100% yn ddiogel. Oni bai fod hyn wedi ei ddatgan yn uniongyrchol yn nhestun yr e-bost, nid bwriad y neges e-bost hon yw ffurfio contract rhwymol - mae rhestr o lofnodwyr awdurdodedig ar gael o Swyddfa Cyllid Prifysgol Bangor. www.bangor.ac.uk This email and any attachments may contain confidential material and is solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email. If you are not the intended recipient(s), you must not use, retain or disclose any information contained in this email. Any views or opinions are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of the Bangor University. Bangor University does not guarantee that this email or any attachments are free from viruses or 100% secure. Unless expressly stated in the body of the text of the email, this email is not intended to form a binding contract - a list of authorised signatories is available from the Bangor University Finance Office. www.bangor.ac.uk From dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be Tue Jan 6 15:56:58 2009 From: dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be (Idiatov Dmitry) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 16:56:58 +0100 Subject: CALL: Workshop on Quotative markers (SLE 42, Lisbon, 9-12 Sep 2009) Message-ID: Location: Lisbon, Portugal Start Date: 09-Sep-2009 - 12-Sep-2009 Contact: Dmitry Idiatov Meeting Email: dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be Meeting Description: A workshop at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, University of Lisbon, 9-12 September, 2009. "Quotative markers: origins and use" Linguistic Subfield: General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Typology; Descriptive Linguistics CALL FOR PAPERS: "Quotative markers: origins and use" Convenors: Dmitry Idiatov (University of Antwerp) Hubert Cuyckens (University of Leuven) Keynote speaker: Tom Gu?ldemann (University of Zu?rich / Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) Quotative markers are linguistic signs conventionally signaling the presence of an adjacent representation of reported discourse, i.e. the quote. Semantically, they are largely similar to generic speech verbs, such as say and tell in English, with which they share the feature of reference to an utterance. Functionally, however, they differ from the latter in being conventionalized in relation to reported discourse. That is, either they are not used in other contexts at all or they lack (fully or partially) the feature of reference to an utterance when no representation of reported discourse is adjacent. Consider, for instance, _be like_ in English in _And he's like: "That's great!"_. Following Güldemann (2008), the quote frame based on a quotative marker or/and a speech verb is called a quotative index. Güldemann (2008) also provides a detailed classification of quotative markers. Thus, syntactically, quotative markers can be either predicative or nonpredicative elements. Morphosyntactically, predicative quotative markers may behave as regular verbs and are then classified as quotative verbs. Those predicative quotative markers that do not fully qualify for the status of verb in a given language are referred to as quotative predicators. Nonpredicative quotative markers are often referred to as quotative complementizers, especially when they are also used for purposes of clause combining. Historically, quotative markers may derive from a large number of sources, such as generic speech verbs, generic verbs of equation, inchoativity, action, and motion, markers of similarity and manner, markers of focus, presentation and identification. Somewhat surprisingly, according to Güldemann (2008:295), at least in African languages, generic speech verbs appear to be "far less important" as sources of quotative markers than is usually assumed in the literature. At the same time, it is remarkable that quotative markers of various nonpredicative origins often tend to gradually acquire verbal features up to becoming full-fledged verbal lexemes through their conventionalized use as core elements of quotative indexes. In many African languages, quotative markers are also regularly employed for purposes of clause combining and extended to constructions expressing intention and various kinds of modal meanings. The proposed workshop is intended to bring together scholars interested in the origins and use of quotative markers in individual languages, language families or linguistic areas from any part of the world. Particularly welcome are papers based on data from spontaneous and spoken language use and data from less documented languages. Authors are also encouraged to situate their findings in a broader cross-linguistic perspective, both as regards the known sources of quotative markers as well as their typical secondary extensions to contexts not involving instances of reported discourse in the strict sense. References: Güldemann, Tom. 2008. Quotative indexes in African languages: A synchronic and diachronic survey. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 34) SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Abstracts in English are invited for 30 minute (20+10) presentations. Abstracts should not exceed 500 words (exclusive of references) and should state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. The abstract should not mention the presenter(s) nor their affiliations or addresses. Abstracts are preferably in DOC or RTF format; if your abstract contains special symbols, please include a PDF version as well. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2009. Please submit your abstract to dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be AND the organizers of the SLE conference. As to the latter part of the submission procedure, please follow the instructions on the conference website at http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/meetings/conference%20lisboa/call%20for%20papers.htm. When submitting the title of your abstract on the conference website, please indicate between brackets (Workshop on quotative markers) after the title of your abstract. IMPORTANT DATES: 31 January 2009: Deadline for submission of abstracts 31 March 2009: Notification of acceptance 1 April 2009: Early registration starts 1 June 2009: Registration (full fee) 9-12 September 2009: Conference From edith at uwm.edu Tue Jan 6 19:13:42 2009 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith Moravcsik) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 13:13:42 -0600 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Regarding basic ideas that linguists do - or tend to - agree on, see also Richard Hudson's paper of 1981: "Some issues on which linguistis can agree" Journal of Linguistics 17, 333-343. Edith Moravcsik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ellen Contini-Morava" To: Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:15 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] linguistic axioms > Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a speech-community > some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and meaning". Though > some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, > "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), > Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > > From pwd at rice.edu Wed Jan 7 00:44:07 2009 From: pwd at rice.edu (Philip W. Davis) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 18:44:07 -0600 Subject: Information about Modern Greek? Message-ID: I would like to get responses from native speakers of Modern Greek concerning the data below. What I would like to know is whether the proposed responses to the respective questions are acceptable or not. It could be "Yes," "No," or "Somewhat." Or it could be "That's not Greek at all." I know that there may be other ways (perhaps more usual, comfortable, etc.) to answer the questions, but I need to know specifically about the A, B, C, and D answers. I have taken the examples from published work on Modern Greek or composed them as best as I can on the model of cited utterances. I believe that they are internally grammatically correct, i.e., observing proper gender and case distinctions. It is very important to pay attention to the uppercase, which is intended to identify what is commonly called "focal stress" in the literature on Modern Greek. I think that apelise is the way to say 'fired'. One speaker suggested jokse. And another suggested accusative forms tin Maria and ton Janis for 'Mary' and 'John'. That is not what I am interested in. From the literature, I think there may be a fair degree of variation by dialect, idiolect, and speaker sensibility. If you want to respond, you can send me your reactions at the e-mail address in the signature. I am asking on Funknet before going to LinguistList. Thank you all very much in advance. Best, Philip ***************************************************** Question 1: Pjos apelise ti Maria? 'Who fired Mary?' Answer A: Tin apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer B: Apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer C: O JANIS tin apelise 'John fired her' Answer D: O JANIS tin apelise ti Maria 'John fired Mary' ***************************************************** Question 2: Pjon apelise i Maria? 'Who did Mary fire?' Answer A: Apelise i Maria TO JANI 'Mary fired John' Answer B: TO JANI apelise i Maria 'Mary fired John' Answer C: I Maria apelise TO JANI 'Mary fired John' **************************************************** Question 3: Ti ejine? 'What happened?' Answer A: Apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer B: APELISE o Janis ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer C: Apelise o Janis TI MARIA 'John fired Mary' -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Philip W. Davis E-mail: pwd at rice.edu 2635 Nottingham Phone: 713-667-0512 (H), 713-503-0528 (C) Houston, TX 77005 Fax: 713-666-5720 URL: www.ruf.rice.edu/~pwd/index.html +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= From sepkit at utu.fi Wed Jan 7 15:41:31 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 17:41:31 +0200 Subject: Second call for abstracts: Case in and across languages Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Second call for abstracts Case in and across languages SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ‘Case in and across languages’ in Helsinki (Finland), August 27-29, 2009. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information, is found at: http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/case/ As a system that marks the relations between words in a sentence, case is essential to every language. Case has, for example, the function of distinguishing between agent and patient, and it often codes adverbial functions, such as location, instruments and manner, all of which are central concepts in every language. Yet while there is no doubt that case constitutes a core feature of grammar, linguists are not fully agreed on how to define it theoretically. What, for example, are the differences between adpositions and morphological cases? The status and definition of case also varies across different theories of grammar. In addition to the multitude of theoretical definitions, languages display significant differences, for example, in the number, characteristics and functions of cases. Furthermore, while morphological case is a significant grammatical feature in many languages, it is not obligatory in language generally: numerous languages lack (morphological) case altogether and use distinct formal means (such as serial verb constructions and applicatives) to encode relations that other languages express via case marking. Cases also differ according to whether their form and meaning is determined by the verb or other head word, or whether they are more independent in nature. The goal of this symposium is to bring together scholars working on case. We welcome contributions dealing with case from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), and with both language-specific and cross-linguistic approaches to case. Presentations should be accessible to all scholars regardless of their backgrounds. Possible topics for talks include (but are not restricted to) the following: - Case inventories/systems in individual languages/language families - Languages without morphological cases/with poor case inventories - Distinction between morphological cases and adpositions - Grammaticalization of cases - Functions expressed by case in/and across languages - Differences between semantic and grammatical cases - Discussions of core vs. peripheral cases - Case in psycholinguistics (e.g. acquisition of cases, processing of cases) - Case in different theories of grammar - Case polysemy - The expression of case functions in languages without cases - The relevance of case to linguistic theory/definitions of case - Corpus-based studies of case - Non-existent cases that ought to be The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words, an additional page is allowed for data, tables and references) is March 1, 2009. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (sky-case at helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). The abstracts must be anonymous (author information must be given in the body of the message only). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified of acceptance by April 3, 2009. The collection of abstracts will be made available on the symposium website after the program has been finalized. The time allotted for talks is 20 minutes for the talk and 10 minutes for discussion. Workshops Proposals for workshops should be submitted no later than February 15, 2009. Workshop proposals will be evaluated by the organizing committee. Notification of acceptance status will be given by March 15. These one-day workshops may run in parallel sessions with the main conference program; alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). The body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): 1) Name of the participant 2) Title of presentation 3) Affiliation 4) E-mail address 5) Whether the paper is meant as a section paper, a poster, or a workshop? Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentations by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Tromso) Scientific committee Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky (MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig) Martin Haspelmath (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) Bernd Heine (University of Cologne) Helen de Hoop (University of Nijmegen) Andrej Malchukov (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) John Newman (University of Alberta) Urpo Nikanne (Åbo Akademi University) Krista Ojutkangas (University of Turku) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Maria Vilkuna (Research Centre for the Languages of Finland) Organizing committee Seppo Kittilä, University of Helsinki Aki Kyröläinen, University of Turku Ulla Vanhatalo, University of Helsinki Laura Visapää, University of Helsinki Registration The registration deadline is August 1, 2009. Please send your registration by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee, given below. Registration fees General: 75 Euro Members of the association: 50 Euro Undergraduate students: 25 Euro The registration fee includes conference folder, refreshments during coffee breaks, get-together on August 27 and the conference dinner on August 28. Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance with bank transfer, when at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH), though we will also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival. In the case of advance bank transfer payment from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring with you and present upon registration a COPY of the original transaction receipt. Conference venue Tieteiden talo (House of Sciences), address Kirkkokatu 6. How to get there information will be found at the webpage of the symposium closer to the conference. Contact Please send all queries to the address of the organizing committee at sky-case at helsinki.fi From iwasaki at humnet.ucla.edu Thu Jan 8 02:00:16 2009 From: iwasaki at humnet.ucla.edu (Iwasaki, Shoichi) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 18:00:16 -0800 Subject: Southeast Asian Language Conf at UCLA Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: The program of the "Languages of Southeast Asia" at UCLA (1/30-2/1, 2009) is now available at the following site. http://www2.humnet.ucla.edu/lsea/ Keynote speakers: Bernard Comrie (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig / University of California, Santa Barbara) "Areal typology of Southeast Asian languages: evidence from the World Atlas of Language Structures". John Hartmann (Northern Illinois University) Tai toponymic analysis: GIS insights into migration and settlement patterns Nick Enfield (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) "Dynamics of Human Diversity in Mainland Southeast Asia" Andrew Simpson (University of Southern California) "Vietnamese and the typology of passive constructions" From vanvalin at buffalo.edu Thu Jan 8 09:42:22 2009 From: vanvalin at buffalo.edu (Robert Van Valin) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 10:42:22 +0100 Subject: RRG Conference 09 Call for Papers Message-ID: THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL COURSE AND CONFERENCE ON ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR University of California, Berkeley August 7-9, 2009 The annual International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) will be held at the University of California, Berkeley, in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. The Conference will deal with issues in linguistic theory from a functional and typological perspective. Papers dealing with further elaboration of RRG in areas like morphology, syntax, semantics, information structure, as well as language processing are encouraged. Abstracts must be received electronically by March 15, 2009 at rrgconf09 at phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de . Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including data and references, and must be submitted as PDF documents. The abstracts should be anonymous. The email message must include the following information: author’s name(s), affiliation, email address, and title of abstract. The selection of papers for presentation will be announced by April 15, 2009. The talks will last twenty minutes, followed by another ten minutes for discussion. Further information about keynote speakers, registration fee and accommodation will be posted on the Conference website at a later date. Organizing Committee: Delia Bentley (University of Manchester), Daniel Everett (Illinois State University), Lilián Guerrero (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Rolf Kailuweit (Universität Freiburg), Ricardo Mairal (UNED, Madrid), Toshio Ohori (University of Tokyo), Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, University at Buffalo) . From bischoff.st at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 18:58:50 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 14:58:50 -0400 Subject: what is linguistics? Message-ID: Hi all, I'm on a tropical island rather isolated (in terms of linguists and much more)...if you are wondering why so many posts in a short time...and why this one is so long... Thanks again to those that responded to the earlier question regarding axioms. Bloomfield 1926 turned out to be quite interesting and informative. Also Tom's comments about axioms in the sciences was something I wish I'd heard the first day of graduate school. I had thought that Plato's onomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) expanded on by Aristotle, would perhaps be have been axiomatic or "laws" but Bloomfield notes, "Other notions, such as subject, predicate, verb, noun, will apply only to some languages, and may have to be defined differently for different ones,-unless, indeed, we prefer to invent new terms for divergent phe- nomena." rightly I think...despite Baker's 2002 attempt to make nouns, verbs, and adjectives universal. This led me to Hegege 2004 (''On categories, rules and interfaces in linguistics''). Hegege argues that all theoretical frameworks (I interpret "theory" here as "linguistic inquiry" perhaps not rightly so) have in common the notions of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics...but that technical terms in these various theories are "far from having the same meanings." This leads me to a second question...what is linguistic inquiry and what is langauge? That is, what is it that "linguists" are interested in learning or discovering? Chomsky seems only interested in "language" as much as it can tell him something about the "mind/brain"...is that really what linguistics is? It seems for C "language" is a phenomena to study in order to learn something about the object that produces it the "mind/brain"...but sure;y typologist and others view the issue differently...so what do we tell introductory linguistics students "language" is and "linguistics" is about? From lesleyne at msu.edu Thu Jan 8 19:55:08 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 14:55:08 -0500 Subject: Axioms and Definitions Message-ID: Shannon, Funknet has a tradition, in spurts, of proposing very lively debate with frequent postings.  Keep on!  We are all on islands in our own way, which is why we have Funknet.   One problem with linguistic axioms, is that we are still determining what language is in terms of mind, and as a stand-alone definition itself.  AS we continue to propose and research, we get more information that gives us possibilities of improving these definitions.  The process shares some of the same types of pitfalls as the process of internal reconstruction within historical linguistics--that of researching from within and try to get at the big picture, even though the important information may be hidden or lost. Many of the initial axioms are found to be quite limited, but who has the authority of officially recognizing that this is such?      One other problem that we have is the explosion of knowledge of so many sub-fields working, that enough people are not getting together to gather this information together  and provide updates and new definitions.  This is because the careful practice within each subfield is an all-consuming effort.  Even the philosophy of science folk are bogged down in philosophy of science as a sub-field.  Many of us wish we were on that tropical island with you so that we have time to ponder these issues.  Then, there are the other political problems I mentioned in my previous post. Relevant people doing relevant work are not communicating with each other, or, for political survival, talking past each other.  We often realize that we have a partial perspective only, given the way we spend our energies.  This is why people clam up rather than offer what may be a certainly incomplete definition in public.    I don't have the time right now to try to offer a complete one, but will do my little-bitty part in a communal effort: Language is a mechanism for autonomously constructed communication, which simultaneously structures the mind and offers a window into it, in both its conscious and unconscious processes.      Readings: Vygotsky's  Thought and Language.  Update: Fields of speech perception and production, lexical access, and sentence processing. Tom's /Biolinguistics and the /Chomskyian counterparts.        A good way to zero in on the issue is with the literature pertaining to models of speech perception and production, which are based on well-executed, experimental literature.  the problem with this, is that you have very polished scientific experimental evidence defending well-argued models, a good portion of which contradict one another, so our definition of language with have to be a kind of Ubermodel that can take all the evidence into account. ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 From dcyr at yorku.ca Thu Jan 8 22:54:27 2009 From: dcyr at yorku.ca (Danielle E. Cyr) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 17:54:27 -0500 Subject: Axioms and Galileo's Mistake In-Reply-To: <20090108145508.213692xu7azu7q58@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: Talking axioms, definitions, evidence, science, philosophy and tropical islands (and, why not, snowbanks), everyone of us can go to Renaissance and contemporary Italy only by reading «Galileo's Mistake» by Wade Rowland. I had kept it in my library for eight years since its publication and finally I read it over Christmas Holiday. I found it totally enlightening and quite delightful at the same time. Rowland wrote it adopting Galileo's own writing technique for his «Dialogues about two New Sciences», involving two imaginary participants in the conversation and constantly questioning them (which technique Galileo himself had borrowed from Socrates). See reveiw below. It makes us think a lot about the fragile, asymptotic and so evanescent nature of truth ... Danielle Cyr The following ISBNs are associated with this title: ISBN - 10:091902842X ISBN - 13:9780919028425 >>From the Publisher Veteran literary journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most influential myths - the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head. Rowland argues that at the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s, Galileo''s mistake was to insist that science provides truth about nature. The Church fought back against this challenge to its authority by declaring that science provides only models + read moreVeteran literary journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most influential myths - the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head. Rowland argues that at the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s, Galileo''s mistake was to insist that science provides truth about nature. The Church fought back against this challenge to its authority by declaring that science provides only models for reality and that the ultimate truth is accessible only through metaphysical or spiritual insight. Although the 1633 trial centred on Galileo''s telescopic observations of the night sky, Rowland argues persuasively that this was merely the public face put on a much more profound issue: what is truth and how can we know it? Galileo''s ultimate recantation, Rowland argues, must be understood in this light. Couched in the engaging style of travel narrative, this provocative reexamination deconstructs the myth that Galileo was a freethinker waging war against reactionary and anti-intellectual Church. Using the Socratic method of examining arguments, "Galileo''s Mistake" moves seamlessly through Galileo''s life and his ideas about the nature of reality. By no means an apologist for the Church, Rowland skillfully and persuasively identifies the source of the ontological crisis that plagues us today: the unquestioned authority of science in determining the nature of reality. From straight at binghamton.edu Sat Jan 10 03:49:40 2009 From: straight at binghamton.edu (Straight, H. Stephen) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 22:49:40 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs Message-ID: Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put forward a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or language production and with only a circular (descriptive but not explanatory) relationship to "grammaticality". The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the case of Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his followers both its rise into the academic firmament and its having become stuck there with no tie to earthly reality. The only important insights into language that have emerged in the last 50 years have occurred in spite of or in opposition to Chomskyan theory. Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist as prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known person to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" (Wikipedia). FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a corticocentric view of language, in which the neural subcomponents of language processing, both receptive and expressive, are seen as separate but interacting agents in the creation of linguistic percepts and products, with no overarching "grammar" governing their interaction beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of their need to interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. H Stephen Straight Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics | Binghamton University, State University of New York -----Original Message----- From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: snip.. > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. -- David Harvey 60 Gipps Street Drummoyne NSW 2047 Australia Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 From dcyr at yorku.ca Sat Jan 10 06:41:33 2009 From: dcyr at yorku.ca (Danielle E. Cyr) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:41:33 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks Stephen, I tend to think that linguistics needs someone who would go way farther than Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo went in astronomy and physics. In my view, we need someone who would dare to go into the quantum language universe. Indeed, in language as in quantum physics, «separating what is from what happens is not so easy» (Kenneth W. Ford, The Quantum World). Interestingly, once while attending a talk on Derrida and Co's postmodernism views, I couldn't refrain smiling because I thought how Algonquian people had seen the world in the same way since eons. Now that I look a bit more at quantum physics, I have the same smile because quantum physics echoes so appropriately the way Algonquian people and other Aboriginal peoples, once again, look at the world and at the language. In their view, human beings stand (or try to stand) on a huge membrane below which is a constant chaos where things can be there and not there at the same time, where you can't really predict anything with total accuracy, where things and beings can change form and shape in a tick of time and where it is almost impossible to separate what is from what happens, especially in language. Could it be that it is US who are scientifically, or at least philosophically, behind? I have to admit that some of us, like you and Hopper at al., who have seriously questioned the reality of grammar, have come quite close to a quantum approach. Hopefully, one day some Aboriginal person will become a linguist able to write down her/his view of language and make us understand at another level. Two Aboriginal thinkers who are already expressing their views are much closer to quantum physics that to the classic one Out of curiosity, some of us might like to look at a conversation between Moonhawk and C. Loftig at http://www.enformy.com/dma-ls13.htm Enjoy! Danielle Cyr Quoting "Straight, H. Stephen" : > Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th > century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological > "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put forward > a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) > operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or language > production and with only a circular (descriptive but not explanatory) > relationship to "grammaticality". > > The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons > parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying > model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the case of > Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his followers > both its rise into the academic firmament and its having become stuck there > with no tie to earthly reality. The only important insights into language > that have emerged in the last 50 years have occurred in spite of or in > opposition to Chomskyan theory. > > Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a > Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist as > prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known person > to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" (Wikipedia). > FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a corticocentric view of language, > in which the neural subcomponents of language processing, both receptive and > expressive, are seen as separate but interacting agents in the creation of > linguistic percepts and products, with no overarching "grammar" governing > their interaction beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of > their need to interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. > > H Stephen Straight > Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics | Binghamton University, State > University of New York > > -----Original Message----- > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of > dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au > Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 > To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies > > At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > snip.. > > > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. > > A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and > a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a > discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory > of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a > rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or > Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. > -- > David Harvey > 60 Gipps Street > Drummoyne NSW 2047 > Australia > Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 > > "The only hope we have as human beings is to learn each other's languages. Only then can we truly hope to understand one another." Professor Danielle E. Cyr Department of French Studies York University Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3 Tel. 1.416.736.2100 #310180 FAX. 1.416.736.5924 dcyr at yorku.ca From straight at binghamton.edu Sat Jan 10 21:27:43 2009 From: straight at binghamton.edu (Straight, H. Stephen) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:27:43 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs In-Reply-To: <200901101735.n0AHZow3024546@mail09.syd.optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: I agree that observational deficiencies make it unfair to Ptolemy to call Chomskyan approaches Ptolemaic, which makes me wonder why you think Chomsky has more in common with Galileo, who also as you say made stunning observations. OTOH, Galileo's insistence that orbits must be circular smacks of the same sort of a priori reasoning as Chomsky's insistence that the knowledge underlying language ability must be an abstract rule system ("competence") that language users deploy (in some never-described way) in both comprehension and production ("performance") and that emerges from an innate faculty ("universal grammar"). Despite innumerable terminological changes and constant tweaking, Chomskyan approaches (and many non-Chomskyan approaches) still adhere to this constellation of a priori assumptions (of the sort that have been called a "axioms", I believe, in some recent FUNKNET contributions). H Stephen Straight  -----Original Message----- From: David Harvey [mailto:dharv at optusnet.com.au] Sent: Saturday 10 January 2009 12:36 To: Straight, H. Stephen Cc: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs None of the parallels are exact of course, but Ptolemy at least attempted to make his theories consonant with observation. In this respect I think Chomsky has more in common with Galileo who made both stunning observations and theoretical contributions but couldn't seem to put the two together. Davidd Harvey > Straight, H. Stephen wrote: > > Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th > century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological > "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put > forward a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) > operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or > language production and with only a circular (descriptive but not > explanatory) relationship to "grammaticality". > > The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons > parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying > model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the > case of Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his > followers both its rise into the academic firmament and its having > become stuck there with no tie to earthly reality. The only important > insights into language that have emerged in the last 50 years have > occurred in spite of or in opposition to Chomskyan theory. > > Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a > Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist > as prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known > person to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" > (Wikipedia). FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a > corticocentric view of language, in which the neural subcomponents of > language processing, both receptive and expressive, are seen as separate > but interacting agents in the creation of linguistic percepts and > products, with no overarching "grammar" governing their interaction > beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of their need to > interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. > > H Stephen Straight > Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics |Ã' Binghamton University, > State University of New York > > -----Original Message----- > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of > dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au > Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 > To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies > > At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > snip.. > > > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. > > A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and > a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a > discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory > of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a > rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or > Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. > -- > David Harvey > 60 Gipps Street > Drummoyne NSW 2047 > Australia > Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 David Harvey From amnfn at well.com Tue Jan 13 14:31:38 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:31:38 -0800 Subject: Summer Volunteer Internship Opportunity In Ape Language Study Message-ID: Summer Internship with Project Bow Hiring Organization: Inverted-A, Inc. Date Posted: 2009-01-13 Position Description: Interns will work on language acquisition and literacy with Bow, a seven year old chimpanzee. Bow communicates using standard orthography in two languages: English and Hebrew. (Special consideration will be given to applicants who are fluent in Hebrew, as well as English.) The teaching method involves intensive floortime interactions to draw Bow into as many circles of communication as possible. We use language in context, not rote training. In order to learn, Bow has to be interested in and enjoy the interactions with others. Interns must respect Bow's considerable intellectual achievements and at the same time be willing to demand even more of him. Interns must maintain realistic expectations and avoid undue sentimentality. The average workday in the internship will involve three hours playing with Bow, three hours filming others playing with Bow or taking shorthand notes on dialogues with Bow, and two hours editing video footage or transcribing data into the computer. Interns will be involved in contributing to progress reports in both written and video formats. Qualifications/Experience: Native speaker of at least one of the test languages: English or Hebrew. Candidates with fluency in more than one of the test languages are especially encouraged to apply. B.A. or B.S. in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, anthropology or a related field. Application requires a letter of application, CV, three letters of reference on academic matters, three letters of reference from a landlord, roommate or neiighbor and a medical report. The medical report must include tests for communicable diseases such as TB, hepatitis (all forms) and HIV. It should also include a regular physical and a medical history. Email us to receive the new medical report form. Interns must be assertive and willing to use their voice in order to command Bow's respect. If you are not able to lower the pitch of your voice or to increase the decibel level as necessary, you will not be able to perform adequately. Some experience working with children with behavioral problems would be a plus. Salary/funding: No stipend is available, but room and board will be provided. Support provided for internship/volunteer positions (travel, meals, lodging): Lodging and meals during the internship period will be provided. There is no allowance for transportation. The location is secluded. You will need a car. Term of Appointment: June 1, 2009 through August 31, 2009 Application Deadline: May 1, 2009 Comments: In order to be considered complete, an application must include : (1) letter of application (2) CV (3) Medical report from physician (a) Blood tests (b)physical (c) medical history (4) 3 letters of academic reference and 3 letters of reference concerning status as responsible tenant. The medical report takes time. It is a good idea to start the process with your doctor at least one month in advance of the application deadline. Ask for our medical report form well in advance of the deadline. Contact Information: Aya Katz Inverted-A, Inc.P.O. Box 267 Licking, MO 65542 USA Telephone Number: 573-247-0055 Fax Number: 417-457-6652 Websites: http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Project-Bow-2007-DVD http://hubpages.com/hub/So-you-want-to-work-with-Bow E-mail Address: amnfn at well.com From Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl Thu Jan 15 15:54:40 2009 From: Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl (Amiridze, Nino) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:54:40 +0100 Subject: Deadline changed! Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities, Tartu 2009 Message-ID: [Apologies for multiple posting] Final Call Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities New deadline for abstracts: January 19, 2009. Date: May 28, 2009 Location: Tartu, Estonia Workshop at the International Conference on Minority Languages XII (ICML 2009) Website: http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Contact: tartulcc at gmail.com The workshop aims at exploring the language contact and language change phenomena that characterize multiple linguistic minorities. It focuses on but is not confined to signed, Uralic and Caucasian languages. On the one hand, we intend to explore the situation of bimodal bilingualism. Data from changes in multi-modal bilingual contexts can lead to new insights into bilingualism, the typology and structure of languages, and language change and contact in general. Research into bimodal bilingualism can draw upon several methods and approaches developed for studying the bilingualism of other minority languages, and vice versa. On the other hand, we know that it is difficult to reach the bilingual individuals and communities that are deaf and belong to several linguistic minorities. Therefore, we approach the bimodal target via individual studies on minority languages. More specifically, we concentrate on the issue of language change in contact in the context of a typologically wide range of minority languages. We are looking for answers to questions such as the following: - How do deaf children of (hearing) parents belonging to linguistic minorities (e.g., Nganasan) communicate with the Deaf communities in their country and with their own parents? - How does their language change? - How can we test the change in the structure of the languages in contact in a uniform way? - What are the factors that influence the developments? - Can we work towards a typology? Invited keynote speakers: Csilla Bartha (hearing) (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest): The situation of the Deaf and national minorities in Hungary; Östen Dahl (hearing) (Stockholm University): Contact induced changes in tense and aspect systems; Tatiana Davidenko (Deaf) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Sign Language Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries; Anna Komarova (hearing) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Development of Bilingual Education of the Deaf in Post-Soviet Countries; Gaurav Mathur (Deaf) (Gallaudet University): The relationship between agreement and finiteness in sign languages; Johanna Mesch (Deaf) (Stockholm University): Variations in tactile signing - the case of one-handed conversation; Helle Metslang (hearing) (University of Tartu): Changes in Finnish and Estonian tense and aspect; Christian Rathmann (Deaf) (Hamburg University): Minority Communities within German Deaf Community; Don Stilo (hearing) (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig): Introduction to an Atlas of the Araxes-Iran Linguistic Area. Check for updates, our interdisciplinary areas, and more research questions at http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Submission (deadline January 19, 2009, notification January 31, 2009). Abstracts (in English, maximum 2 pages, including data and references) have to be submitted electronically as portable document format (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) files via the EasyChair conference management system (https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=lcc09). If you do not have an EasyChair account, click on the button "I have no EasyChair Account" on that page and follow the instructions. When you receive a password, you can enter the site and upload your abstract. Organizers: Nino Amiridze, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) Östen Dahl, University of Stockholm (Sweden) Anne Tamm, University of Florence (Italy) and Institute for the Estonian Language (Estonia) Manana Topadze, University of Pavia (Italy) Inge Zwitserlood, Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) From lamb at rice.edu Fri Jan 16 20:16:48 2009 From: lamb at rice.edu (Sydney Lamb) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:16:48 -0600 Subject: LACUS meeting -- new featured speaker Message-ID: Linguistics Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS) 2009 Call for Papers - Revised List of Featured Speakers The 2009 annual meeting of LACUS will be held August 4-8 at Pitzer College (one of the Claremont Colleges), Claremont, California. Conference theme: Mechanisms of Linguistic Behavior LACUS invites abstracts representing a broad range of approaches to language, including interdisciplinary topics and innovative ideas. Featured Speakers: * Gregory Hickok, UC Irvine What is the Nature of Sensory-motor Interaction in Speech Processing? Evidence from Neuroscience * Sydney Lamb, Rice University Categories in the Brain: A Hypothesis * Ronald Langacker, UC San Diego Conceptual Semantics, Symbolic Grammar, and the day after day Construction * Michel Paradis, McGill University Implications of the Declarative/Procedural Distinction Neurolinguistic Studies * William S-Y. Wang, UC Berkeley and Chinese University of Hong Kong Concepts, Percepts, and Languages Due Date for Abstracts: February 1, 2009 Earlier submission will be appreciated Abstract Submission Guidelines are posted at http://lacus.org/wordpress/?page_id=16 Suggested topics The following list of topics is intended as suggestive rather than comprehensive: Neurological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Psychological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Sociological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Language and thought Stratificational grammar Relational network grammar Computational linguistics Functional linguistics Cognitive linguistics Linguistics and the physical sciences The aims of linguistics Language and reality For further information: www.ruf.rice.edu/~lacus/2009.html Program Chair: Douglas Coleman, Univerity of Toledo Local host: John Regan, Claremont Graduate University From amnfn at well.com Mon Jan 19 01:03:51 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:03:51 -0800 Subject: Text-to-Speech from Hebrew Unpointed Text Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, As a part of my attempts to come up with more rigorous methods of proof for Project Bow, I find myself looking for a text-to-speech program that can take unpointed written Hebrew input and come up with correct pronunciation. Is anybody already working on this problem? Has anyone suggested an algorithm? Providing the unspecified vowels in a standard Hebrew text is something speakers do in reference to the discourse context. Is there any software that attempts to do what speakers do naturally when reading unpointed Hebrew? Thank you in advance for your help, --Aya Katz http://hubpages.com/hub/Bow-and-Literacy From twood at uwc.ac.za Mon Jan 26 09:01:38 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:01:38 +0200 Subject: Proposition query Message-ID: I have a query for these lists. It concerns the status of the proposition within linguistic theory. Kintsch (1998:69) says that “propositions appear to be the semantic processing units of the mind” and that they have only an indirect relationship to the syntax of sentences, this because natural language has “many purposes other than the expression of meaning”, whereas propositions are those representations that are “focused on meaning”. This is indeed my point of departure but it doesn't exactly take us very far theoretically. I'm working on the theoretical aspect but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. If anyone can point me to a good theoretical discussion of the proposition that would be useful -- particularly if it can be located easliy on the web! -- I would be most grateful. Concerning my own leanings, I am most interested in a notion that would reflect psychologism rather than logicism (as in Frege, Russell etc)? For that reason I would expect that the notion of truth would not come into a linguistic definition of the proposition. (I am aware also of the theologically inclined debates about whether propositions 'exist' or not.) BTW it also doesn't make sense to me to treat the proposition as a grammatical entity, where it is regarded as more or les synonymous with predication or sentence. But if a proposition is a meaning that is independent of the constructions of any specific language then this would suggest a 'depth' approach to semantics, which is anathema to many linguistics approaches nowadays, not so? I'm trying to show that there is a theoretical place for the proposition which doesn't depend on truth, is not inherently linked to grammatical structures in any language, and which is therefore distinct from judgement, predicate, entence, clause, etc. Any help, or refutations, would be appreciated. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Jan 27 10:22:35 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:22:35 +0200 Subject: Re proposition query Message-ID: Thanks to all of those on these lists who posted some really useful information to me, whether on-list or off-list. I will send a list of the readings and authors that I received soon. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Jan 27 13:05:46 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:05:46 +0200 Subject: [Cogling-L] Proposition query In-Reply-To: <497EF56A.3A3B.00A9.0@port.ac.uk> Message-ID: Chris, thanks, a couple of brief ripostes below. >>> "Chris Sinha" 01/27/09 1:52 PM >>> Dear Tahir, Taking a psychological or cognitive stance does not solve the problem, since there is no definition of a proposition that is theory independent. Tahir: No, I wouldn't have expected it. I am looking at a wide variety of approaches and different notions of proposition. I must say I have come to doubt whether there is anywhere a really good cognitivist definition that is even theory-dependent, which is why I put out this request for information. I am working on a theory of the proposition, and I have not been able to find something like this, but of course I'm happy to be proved wrong. Most generally (and I guess theory - neutrally) a proposition is a single attribute predicated to a (not necessarily singular) argument. Tahir: This is a grammatical definition of the kind I'm not satisfied with. It implies that there is lexical selection as part of the make-up of the proposition. If you take that as your starting point you end up saying that a proposition is not different from a predication, and, moreover, it is therefore tied to expression in one specific language only. No way do I think that a proposition (if it really is a content, meaning or thought of some kind) can be this. Classical Cognitivism in the style of Fodor considers propositions to be logically structured entities of this sort couched in the Language of Thought, or (secondarily) the natural language translations of these. If however you consider (as many do) natural languages to BE the language(s) of thought, then propositions are linguistic entities and propositional reasoning is language-dependent. Different theories have different psychological consequences, amongst others that in classical cognitivism infants (possessing an innate LoT) can be legitimately ascribed propositional attitudes such as belief, whereas if propositions are natural language dependent only language users are able to entertain propositional attitudes. Tahir: "Language-dependent" is very vague. Does it mean the strong version of the Whorf hypothesis? "Propositional attitudes" implies that you already know what a proposition is. A proposition cannot be a belief for me, because it belongs to ideation, not to truth, logic or reference. If 'proposition' is going to just mean the same as things like 'belief', 'judgment', 'reference', 'declarative sentence' or anything similar then we don't need it; i.e. then it doesn't exist, as Quine and others have said. But I think it does exist as a mental operation, or as a semantic form, if you like. Fodor takes propositional attitudes to be directed to propositions in LoT, bracketing off the issue of the referential relation of these to the world (traditionally this is supposed to be dealt with by truth in relation to "states of affairs" or facts). A qualified realist but language-relative approach consistent with Cognitive Linguistics would say that the attitudes are directed to linguistically conceptualized or construed referential situations; thus the referential scope of Eng "the cat is on the mat" is different from that of Dutch "de kat ligt op de mat" or of utterances in more elaborate positional languages such as Tzeltal, or body part locative languages such as Mixtec or Zapotec; and there is neither a LoT into which each of these are translated nor an unmediated relation to "states of affairs" (though we can assume that there is a world independent of our linguistic concpetualizations of it). Tahir: But translation is possible in many cases. I don't accept a strong version of the language-relative argument, because it means that all the different languages are totally incommensurable and so therefore are all the thought processes of the groups who speak them. I think languages only differ radically in terms of their possible meanings/contents to the degree that the experiences of their speakers are different. And then this also applies to speakers of the same language who have very different experiences of life! So there you go. The language-relative argument really doesn't take us very far and it can just become a dogma. Why not go all the way and say that propositions only pertain to some languages and not to others? Anthropolgy also shows that very farflung people with very different languages often come up with the same things, bow and arrow, incest taboo, etc. etc. There is one very compelling idea here that is motivating my research and that is onomasiology: Meanings arise before and independently of their precise mode of expression. That is why identical meanings can appear in different cultures; in fact that is why they can appear at all. The semasiological view, on the other hand, says that first there is a sentence (or expression or whatever) and THEN it has a meaning. We all know that this is the dominant approach to linguistics, but it is implausible. There could never have been any linguistic innovation (nor any original thought) in history if that were true. -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Jan 2 16:51:03 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:51:03 -0700 Subject: [Fwd: Fw: Happy New Year and a conference call form Hungary] Message-ID: From tgivon at uoregon.edu Fri Jan 2 17:25:56 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 10:25:56 -0700 Subject: call for papers/forwarded Message-ID: [forwarded from the Central European Cog. Sci. Association] ================= CALL FOR PAPERS 1ST Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science DUCOG I Dubrovnik, 22 - 24 MAY (FRIDAY - Sunday), 2009 The newly formed Central European Cognitive Science Association launches its first international conference in the historical town of Dubrovnik, Raguza, Croatia. The conference is open for students doing research on all aspects of cognitive science. The core of the conference consists of five poster sessions, and four tutorial talks that present each one hot topic of research in the conference's lead topic of this year: Language and the brain Poster sessions The core of the conference will consist of student research reports in the form of peer reviewed posters. The posters shall be organized around discussion groups chaired by senior scholars. Five sessions are planned for each conference with approximately 10 posters per session. Posters will be grouped around a central topic. Sessions will be chaired by a senior scholar assigned by the organizing committee. Each poster session shall consist of two parts: a five minute presentation by each participant of his/her own poster, followed by roughly two hours to pose individual questions to the presenting author of the posters. Tutorial talks The tutorials shall be given by internationally well know scholars, concentrating on a given area. This talk is not merely a presentation of some specific new research, but a survey of the tutors' own research, or of their fields, providing a general framework and message. The following tutorial speakers are scheduled up to now. Jacques Mehler (SISSA, Trieste. Italy): Why cognitive development deserves precocious study ? Franck Ramus (?cole Normale, Paris, France): Genes, brain and language Istv?n Winkler (Inst Psych Res, HAS, Budapest) Maintaining the acoustic internet:How auditory processes support verbal communication Abstract submission Abstracts have to be sent to the anonymous site ducog at cogsci.bme.hu by February 1st, 2009. The abstract should have the following structure: TITLE Name Institution Email Text: less than 200 words. Providing a hypothesis, methods and subjects if relevant, main results. No references. If relevant, sponsors are to be mentioned at the end of the abstract. Key words: 5-7 searchable key words. Submissions will be subject to an anonymous peer review, on a strictly scientific basis. 50 posters shall be selected for presentation. Out of selected papers up to 30 students from Central and Eastern Europe[1] will have full financial support (travel, accommodation, participation fees). Acceptance notices will be mailed around January 30th. Abstracts shall be published in a citable reviewed format in journal Learning and Perception, to launched in 2008, published by Akad?miai, a Budapest based Walters Kluwer journal. Talks by the tutors, and a student presentation selected as the best will published in a later issue. Venue Centre for Advanced Academic Studies Dubrovnik, University of Zagreb Don Frana Bulica 4 20000 Dubrovnik CROATIA This down town site of Dubrovnik is a few hundred meters from the old town, and provides both for accommodation and lecture halls. Registration fee General participation fee is 500 Euros. That includes accomodation, conference materials, and a 1 year membership of the CECOG. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Central and Eastern Europe here means Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. From bischoff.st at gmail.com Sat Jan 3 18:19:29 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 14:19:29 -0400 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Hi all, Thanks to those that responded to my previous email. I am wondering if anyone is familiar with work explicitly stating "linguistic axioms" that hold across the subfields. "Axiom" here being "statements which are assumed to be true" or "fundamental assumptions of a pre-formal theory". In the late 20th century perhaps, the notions of "phonology", "morphology", "syntax", and "pragmatics" would seem to be axiomatic...but would something like the "phoneme"? The phoneme raises an interesting question in that if it were assumed to be axiomatic, then would there need to be a unified definition of phoneme? That is, is the Praguian phoneme (a set of distinctive features which are not binary) a potentially different object than the Generative phoneme (taxonomic phenomenon, the only relevant unit in phonology, and a set of binary features ala Chomsky and Halle)? Thus non-axiomatic? Another example of a linguistic axiom would be perhaps word order facts represented in terms of "subjects", "verbs", and "objects"...but do nominal predicates in Russian nullify this or the facts regarding "subjects", "objects", and "verbs" found in Comrie (1985)? Anyway, any thoughts or references would be appreciated. Thanks again, Shannon From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sat Jan 3 18:37:47 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:37:47 -0700 Subject: axioms Message-ID: RE: Bischoff: Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG From elc9j at virginia.edu Sun Jan 4 19:15:45 2009 From: elc9j at virginia.edu (Ellen Contini-Morava) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:15:45 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) Happy new year, Ellen From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Jan 4 19:40:18 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:40:18 -0700 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <49610AE1.2050200@virginia.edu> Message-ID: Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. Best, TG ======= Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: > Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a > speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound > and meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared > code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis > and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge > 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > From hopper at cmu.edu Sun Jan 4 20:13:59 2009 From: hopper at cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 15:13:59 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <496110A2.1080909@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable argument"... This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? Paul > > > Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on > the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must > therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this > dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. > Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of > reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of > V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this > illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human > language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an > intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. > Best, TG > > ======= > > > Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >> Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, >> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a >> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >> meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >> pp. 18-52.) >> >> Happy new year, >> >> Ellen >> > > > -- Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper Senior Fellow Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg Albertstr. 19 D-79104 Freiburg and Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA5213 From tgivon at uoregon.edu Sun Jan 4 21:03:39 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:03:39 -0700 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <50537.72.95.237.27.1231100039.squirrel@72.95.237.27> Message-ID: Just a little dose of honesty. TG ======= Paul Hopper wrote: > WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable argument"... > > This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? > > Paul > > > > > > > > > >> Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on >> the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must >> therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this >> dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. >> Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of >> reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of >> V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this >> illicit trick in an article titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human >> language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an >> intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. >> Best, TG >> >> ======= >> >> >> Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >> >>> Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >>> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, >>> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a >>> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >>> meaning". Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >>> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >>> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >>> pp. 18-52.) >>> >>> Happy new year, >>> >>> Ellen >>> >>> >> >> > > > From robert at vjf.cnrs.fr Sun Jan 4 22:04:53 2009 From: robert at vjf.cnrs.fr (=?iso-8859-1?Q?St=E9phane?= Robert) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 23:04:53 +0100 Subject: A new book: From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations Message-ID: From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations Edited by Martine Vanhove. Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), F?d?ration TUL Studies in Language Companion Series 106. 2008. xiii, 404 pp. http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS%20106 This book is the result of a joint project on lexical and semantic typology which gathered together field linguists, semanticists, cognitivists, typologists, and an NLP specialist. These cross-linguistic studies concern semantic shifts at large, both synchronic and diachronic: the outcome of polysemy, heterosemy, or semantic change at the lexical level. The first part presents a comprehensive state of the art of a domain typologists have long been reluctant to deal with. Part two focuses on theoretical and methodological approaches: cognition, construction grammar, graph theory, semantic maps, and data bases. These studies deal with universals and variation across languages, illustrated with numerous examples from different semantic domains and different languages. Part three is dedicated to detailed empirical studies of a large sample of languages in a limited set of semantic fields. It reveals possible universals of semantic association, as well as areal and cultural tendencies. Table of contents Semantic associations': A foreword Martine Vanhove vii?xiii Part I. State of the art Approaching lexical typology Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm 3?52 Part II. Theoretical and methodological issues Words and their meanings: Principles of variation and stabilization St?phane Robert. 55?92 The typology of semantic affinities Bernard Pottier. 93?105 Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye Peter Koch. 107?137 Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the "light verb" xord?n 'eat' in Persian Niloufar Family. 139?161 Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages Alexandre Francois. 163?215 A Catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation Anna Zalizniak. 217?232 Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau and Martine Vanhove. 233?264 Part III. Case studies About 'eating' in a few Niger-Congo languages Emilio Bonvini. 267?289 Eating beyond certainties Christine H?nault. 291?301 From semantic change to polysemy: The cases of 'meat/animal' and 'drink' Pascal Boyeldieu. 303?315 Is a 'friend' an 'enemy'? Between "proximity" and "opposition" Sergue? Sakhno and Nicole Tersis. 317?339 Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective Martine Vanhove. 341?370 Cats and bugs: Some remarks about semantic parallelisms Michel Masson. 371?386 General index. 387?395 Index of languages. 397?400 Index of names. 401?404 __________ St?phane ROBERT CNRS LLACAN, Langages Langues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire, http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr CNRS F?d?ration Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques, http://www.typologie.cnrs.fr From lesleyne at msu.edu Sun Jan 4 23:24:00 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (lesleyne at msu.edu) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 18:24:00 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms In-Reply-To: <50537.72.95.237.27.1231100039.squirrel@72.95.237.27> Message-ID: Paul, I think that functionalists are prone to this type of debate, if some of our exchanges back in '06 are any guide. ?I am glad that Shannon, my friend and former colleague from a very repressive formal department is finding it lively here. ?Functionalist departments can also be quite ideologically driven, but are more tolerant of debate, and are less prone to driving out students that raise issues with theoretical orthodoxy. Diane Quoting "Paul Hopper" : > WOW! "post-modernist ploy," "logical fallacy", "dubious", "just this > type of reasoning", "illicit trick", "less-then-respectable > argument"... > > This is the rhetoric of a threatened and angry person. I honestly > don't think we've sen this kind of rage on Funknet since it was > founded. What's gotten into you, Tom? > > Paul > > > > > > >> > >> >> Well, Roy Harris's "questioning" is a typical post-modernist ploy based on >> the logical fallacy that "if meaning is not 100% absolute, it must >> therefore be 100% relative". Many functionalists have indulged in this >> dubious mode of reasoning, and some of us have even recanted leter. >> Hopper's "emergent grammar" thesis is based on just this type of >> reasoning. Sandy Thompson's theoretical conclusions about the status of >> V-complements are founded on such reasoning. And I myself used this >> illicit trick in an article? titled "Logic vs. pragmatics, with human >> language as a referee" (J. of Pragmatics 1981). Nice title, but it was an >> intellectually less-than-respectable argument then, and it still is now. >> Best,? TG >> >> ======= >> >> >> Ellen Contini-Morava wrote: >>> Re axioms:? There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the >>> science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64.? The main one, >>> slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159):? "In a >>> speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and >>> meaning".? Though some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" >>> (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and >>> Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, >>> pp. 18-52.) >>> >>> Happy new year, >>> >>> Ellen >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper > Senior Fellow > Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies > Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t Freiburg > Albertstr. 19 > D-79104 Freiburg > and > Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities > Carnegie Mellon University > Pittsburgh, PA5213 > > > From lesleyne at msu.edu Sun Jan 4 23:40:33 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (lesleyne at msu.edu) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 18:40:33 -0500 Subject: linguistic axioms (Phonology) In-Reply-To: <49610AE1.2050200@virginia.edu> Message-ID: Shannon also might be interested in the workshop that will be held at this phonology conference: Sixth Old World Conference in Phonology 22-24 JANUARY 2009 Deadline for abstracts: 15th September 2008 Invited speakers: B. Elan Dresher (University of Toronto) Jennifer Hay (University of Canterbury) Marc van Oostendorp (Meertens Instituut & Leiden University) The conference will be preceded by a workshop on subsegmental phonology on 21st January,?organised by Bert Botma (Leiden) and Patrick Honeybone (Edinburgh), with the title "the?Privative Project: is it still worth pursuing?" Those attending the conference will be?very welcome to attend the workshop, too. (Further details of the workshop are to follow.) Conference website: www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ocp6 OCP homepage: www.ocp.leidenuniv.nl ------------------------ CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT The department of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh is?proud to announce that the sixth Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP6) will take place?in Edinburgh from 22nd to 24th January 2009. OCP6 is organised by a group of phonologists? at Edinburgh, and it follows in the line of previous OCP conferences, which have been?held in Leiden, Troms?, Budapest, Rhodes and Toulouse. Abstracts for consideration for?presentation as either talks or poster papers at the conference are now invited. The conference will be preceded by a semi-separate workshop entitled "the Privative?Project: is it still worth pursuing?" This workshop is organised by Bert Botma (Leiden)?and Patrick Honeybone (Edinburgh) and further details will be available soon. Abstracts?addressing issues related to the workshop theme will be welcome at the main conference,?but there is no conference theme for OCP6 at all, and abstracts on any phonological issue?(theoretical or empirical) in any language(s) and in any phonological framework are?invited, as are abstracts which deal with connections between phonology and? psycholinguistics or sociolinguistics. ------------------------ Quoting "Ellen Contini-Morava" : > Re axioms:? There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64.? The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159):? "In a > speech-community some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound > and meaning".? Though some have questioned the assumption of a > "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, "On redefining linguistics". In > Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), Redefining Linguistics. > London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > > > From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Mon Jan 5 07:33:23 2009 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (Steen, G.J.) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 08:33:23 +0100 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: <495FB07B.6090307@uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Dear funknetters, Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. Best, Gerard Steen Professor of Language Use and Cognition Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 Department of Language and Communication VU University Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam T: ++31-20-5986433 F: ++31-20-5986500 http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ ________________________________________ From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon [tgivon at uoregon.edu] Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 To: funknet Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms RE: Bischoff: Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG From tgivon at uoregon.edu Mon Jan 5 13:39:44 2009 From: tgivon at uoregon.edu (Tom Givon) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 05:39:44 -0800 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good point. But was he right? The fact that some P. of Sci. people agree with him is fine, they are probably confirmed deductivists. But R.N. Hanson (Patterns of Discovery) surely wouldn't agree, nor would biologists with some philosophical bent (Mayr, e.g.). In fact Mayr would characterize such position as typical of people who take physics, with it's highly math-dependent structure, as the paradigm for science. Mayr argued that biology & other biologically-based sciences (psychology, linguistics), where variation & population curves are the name of the game, are very different. So there you go. It is not that I don't appreciate Popper, he was great, but he had his limits too. Best, TG Steen, G.J. wrote: > Dear funknetters, > > Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. > > Best, > > Gerard Steen > > Professor of Language Use and Cognition > Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program > Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 > Department of Language and Communication > VU University Amsterdam > De Boelelaan 1105 > 1081 HV Amsterdam > > T: ++31-20-5986433 > F: ++31-20-5986500 > > http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ > ________________________________________ > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon [tgivon at uoregon.edu] > Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 > To: funknet > Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms > > RE: Bischoff: > > Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a > useful notion in empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of > logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some > with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but > this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or > isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are > facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general > agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start > of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of > "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on > empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed > and and internally consistent. According to both Russell ('theory of > types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other > hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps > changing with new facts & new insights. Happy New Year, TG > > From lesleyne at msu.edu Mon Jan 5 17:39:54 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 12:39:54 -0500 Subject: axioms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Deat Funknetters, ?? ?The problem that the linguistics field faces, is that theoretical paradigms overgenerate or are insufficient and are therefore in constant modification, which is why Dr. Steen's comments are very relevant. ? ?This is good. ?However, when serious modification of the basic tenets of the theory are routinely necessary to accommodate the reality of language data, nobody is declaring the theoretical framework or analytical strategy ?falsified or invalid. ?In fact, it remains in use for a long time. ?Then, without saying much, people just move away from it, or stop working in it, because everyone is too cowed by the reality. ?It takes an entire career or more to falsify a theory, and researchers and students in America are often being repressed and coerced within programs when their discoveries or questions touch upon the work of their professors or peers, or established linguists suffer when challenging theoretical authorities.--This repression happens in both functionalist and formal programs. When funding is scarce, it is the dissident who gets axed, even if his/her work is good. Because there is always political evaluation and illegitimate assistance to prop up weaker candidates who will do what theoretical authorities say. Too many of us have stakes in maintaining the status quo, even when it is invalid. ?? In phonology, folks are still using binary +/- nasal even though there are seven positions of the velum--and these are significant to attested phenomena. ?the gestures in the production of liquids are also problematic to formal theory. ?however, the people working in this must go into a separate subfield--Articulatory phonology--and have for a long time hidden out in speech or psych departments because their findings are still not sufficiently impacting the state of accepted theory within the linguistics world. ?Most phonologists do not keep up with relevant literature within the speech world, which has higher scientific standards than the linguistics field. In related fields and even within them, "experts" ?are talking past each other instead of working on the implications for the theories that they are using, and this is killing scientific progress. ?? Did anyone declare Sympathy theory dead? ?It was always a cheap theoretical trick, and now even McCarthy does not use it anymore. ?In fact, he is now proposing candidate chains. ?Is anyone emphasizing the fact that it is a radical departure from parallelism and is in fact confirming serial derivation? ?Many still teach the revered cannons out of Kager of parallelism, economy, etc. as if they were irrefutable facts. As well, folks, there is no conflict between functionalism and Optimality Theory, in fact, the typological orientation of the theory is ideal for research on universals, which may typologists and active descriptive linguistis do. ?How many functionalist departments do OT, or even want to hire an OT phonologist?? ?? ? There are very few doing what Andries Coetzee is doing in experimental optimality theory. ?Yet, students have been squelched, not admitted ?or driven out of programs because they raised issues of grounding, or want to take social or historical factors into account, ?even when it is supported by respected literature, and equally out of functionalist departments ?because they try to maintain connection with formal theory. ?As a result, departments in America are falling behind the rest of the world scientifically because we are injuring our productivity, and linguistics departments often lose the funding battles within their own institutions because of their lack of scientific achievement. Funding linguistics departments is considered to be a waste of money, and we need to begin to assume our share of the blame for this state of affairs. ? ?? ?We need to begin to have official minimal standards for a programs to be recognized within the linguistics field, much in the same way speech and psych departments do. ?This way, a university will be forced to hire a linguist within a particular area or a construct a lab instead of spending money on improvements to already excellent athletic facilities, or pay a football coach a half a million dollars. The LSA needs to be more than just a body that holds summer school every two years and job talk preparation. ?It needs to establish the power of accreditation so that departments don't go without faculty in essential areas, either with the consent of more powerful linguists in other subfields who want their buddy specialists hired, or because the university wants to concentrate on football or a white elephant project with alumni pressure.? ?? My apologies if my tone has gotten a little disagreeable. ?I welcome any and all comments on and critiques of the thoughts expressed above, especially if I am mistaken. ??? ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Quoting "Steen, G.J." : > Dear funknetters, > > Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a > useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific > Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and > re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and > elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom > productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather > influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to > agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis. > > Best, > > Gerard Steen > > Professor of Language Use and Cognition > Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program > Faculty of Arts, 11A-35 > Department of Language and Communication > VU University Amsterdam > De Boelelaan 1105 > 1081 HV Amsterdam > > T: ++31-20-5986433 > F: ++31-20-5986500 > > http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/ > ________________________________________ > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon > [tgivon at uoregon.edu] > Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37 > To: funknet > Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms > > RE: Bischoff: > > Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a > useful notion in? empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of > logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some > with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but > this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or > isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are > facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general > agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start > of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of > "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on > empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed > and and internally consistent. According to both? Russell ('theory of > types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other > hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps > changing with new facts & new insights.? Happy New Year,? TG > > From Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl Mon Jan 5 20:24:15 2009 From: Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl (Amiridze, Nino) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:24:15 +0100 Subject: Second Call -- Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities, Tartu 2009 Message-ID: [Apologies for multiple posting] Second Call Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities Date: May 28, 2009 Location: Tartu, Estonia Workshop at the International Conference on Minority Languages XII (ICML 2009) Website: http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Contact: tartulcc at gmail.com The workshop aims at exploring the language contact and language change phenomena that characterize multiple linguistic minorities. It focuses on but is not confined to signed, Uralic and Caucasian languages. On the one hand, we intend to explore the situation of bimodal bilingualism. Data from changes in multi-modal bilingual contexts can lead to new insights into bilingualism, the typology and structure of languages, and language change and contact in general. Research into bimodal bilingualism can draw upon several methods and approaches developed for studying the bilingualism of other minority languages, and vice versa. On the other hand, we know that it is difficult to reach the bilingual individuals and communities that are deaf and belong to several linguistic minorities. Therefore, we approach the bimodal target via individual studies on minority languages. More specifically, we concentrate on the issue of language change in contact in the context of a typologically wide range of minority languages. We are looking for answers to questions such as the following: - How do deaf children of (hearing) parents belonging to linguistic minorities (e.g., Nganasan) communicate with the Deaf communities in their country and with their own parents? - How does their language change? - How can we test the change in the structure of the languages in contact in a uniform way? - What are the factors that influence the developments? - Can we work towards a typology? Invited keynote speakers: Csilla Bartha (hearing) (E?tv?s Lor?nd University, Budapest): The situation of the Deaf and national minorities in Hungary; ?sten Dahl (hearing) (Stockholm University): Contact induced changes in tense and aspect systems; Tatiana Davidenko (Deaf) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Sign Language Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries; Anna Komarova (hearing) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Development of Bilingual Education of the Deaf in Post-Soviet Countries; Gaurav Mathur (Deaf) (Gallaudet University): The relationship between agreement and finiteness in sign languages; Johanna Mesch (Deaf) (Stockholm University): Variations in tactile signing - the case of one-handed conversation; Helle Metslang (hearing) (University of Tartu): Changes in Finnish and Estonian tense and aspect; Christian Rathmann (Deaf) (Hamburg University): Minority Communities within German Deaf Community; Don Stilo (hearing) (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig): Introduction to an Atlas of the Araxes-Iran Linguistic Area. Check for updates, our interdisciplinary areas, and more research questions at http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Submission (deadline January 15, 2009, notification January 31, 2009). Abstracts (in English, maximum 2 pages, including data and references) have to be submitted electronically as portable document format (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) files via the EasyChair conference management system (https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=lcc09). If you do not have an EasyChair account, click on the button "I have no EasyChair Account" on that page and follow the instructions. When you receive a password, you can enter the site and upload your abstract. Organizers: Nino Amiridze, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) ?sten Dahl, University of Stockholm (Sweden) Anne Tamm, University of Florence (Italy) and Institute for the Estonian Language (Estonia) Manana Topadze, University of Pavia (Italy) Inge Zwitserlood, Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) From drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu Tue Jan 6 00:49:36 2009 From: drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu (Daisy Rosenblum) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 16:49:36 -0800 Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT and 2nd Call for Papers: 12th Annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages May 8-9 Message-ID: PLEASE NOTE: CONFERENCE DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO MAY 8-9, 2009. DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2009 SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on American Indigenous Languages University of California, Santa Barbara May 8-9, 2009 The Linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with the American Indian Cultural Resource Center, announces its 12thannual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL), which provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical, descriptive, and practical studies of the indigenous languages of the Americas. The keynote speaker will be Aaron Fox, Columbia University. Anonymous abstracts are invited for talks on any topic relevant to the study of language in the Americas. Submissions describing collaborative, community-based models for language maintenance and revitalization are encouraged, as are presentations by community members and language activists. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Abstracts should be 500 words or less (excluding examples and/or references) and can be submitted online athttp://linguistlist.org/confcustom/wail2009 . Hard copy submissions will be accepted from those who do not have internet access. Individuals may submit abstracts for one single- authored and one co-authored paper. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Special Panel on Technology and Language Documentation: This year we are welcoming abstracts for a Special Panel on the uses of technology in language documentation, description, maintenance, and revitalization. Talks will be 20 minutes each, followed by a group discussion/question-and-answer period. For hard copy submissions: Please send four copies of your abstract, along with a 3x5 card with the following information: (1) your name; (2) affiliation; (3) mailing address; (4) phone number; (5) email address; (6) title of your paper; (7) whether your submission is for the general session or the Special Panel. Send hard copy submissions to: Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Attn: Daisy Rosenblum or Carrie Meeker Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance will be by email no later than February 15, 2009. General Information: Santa Barbara is situated on the Pacific Ocean near the Santa Y?ez Mountains. The UCSB campus is located near the Santa Barbara airport. Participants may also fly into LAX airport in Los Angeles, which is approximately 90 miles southeast of the campus. Shuttle buses run between LAX and Santa Barbara. Information about hotel accommodations will be posted on our website (http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ ). For further information contact the conference coordinators, Daisy Rosenblum and Carrie Meeker, at wail.ucsb at gmail.com, or visit our website at http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/. Daisy Rosenblum Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu From v.evans at bangor.ac.uk Tue Jan 6 14:18:32 2009 From: v.evans at bangor.ac.uk (Vyv Evans) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 14:18:32 +0000 Subject: Receive LANGUAGE & COGNITION free of charge Message-ID: NEW JOURNAL --- LANGUAGE & COGNITION --- SPECIAL OFFER FOR 2009 The first volume of the new journal LANGUAGE AND COGNITION appears this year. As a special offer the entire first volume (two issues) is offered as a downloadable e-file free of charge, and is available to all. To take advantage register to receive your free copy now! Full details of how to register can be found on the journal website: www.languageandcognition.net Table of contents for volumes 1 and 2, is available below. LANGUAGE AND COGNITION is a venue for the publication of high quality peer-reviewed research of a theoretical and/or empirical/experimental nature, focussing on the interface between language and cognition. The journal publishes research from the full range of subject disciplines, theoretical backgrounds, and analytical frameworks that populate the language and cognitive sciences, on a wide range of topics. Research published in the journal typically adopted an interdisciplinary, comparative, multi-methodological approach to the study of language and cognition and their intersection. The journal is edited by Daniel Casasanto, Seana Coulson, Vyvyan Evans, David Kemmerer, Laura Michaelis and Chris Sinha. The journal is open to contributions from any theoretical perspective and methodological approach which bears on the scientific study of language and its relationship with cognition. In particular it publishes both theoretical and empirical research. Submission details can be found on the journal website: www.languageandcognition.net TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1 (2009) Issue 1 How do infants build a semantic system? Suzy J. Styles and Kim Plunkett (University of Oxford) The cognitive poetics of literary resonance. Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham) Action in cognition: The case of language. Lawrence J. Taylor and Rolf A. Zwaan (Erasmus University of Rotterdam) Prototype constructions in early language acquisition. Paul Ibbotson (University of Manchester) and Michael Tomasello (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) The Enactment of Language: Decades of Interactions Between Linguistic and Motor Processes. Sarah E. Anderson (Cornell University) and Michael J. Spivey (University of California, Merced) Episodic affordances contribute to language comprehension. Arthur M. Glenberg (Arizona State Universtiy), Raymond Becker (Wilfrid Laurier University), Susann Kl?tzer, Lidia Kolanko, Silvana M?ller (Dresden University of Technology), and Mike Rinck (Radboud University Nijmegen) Reviews: Daniel D. Hutto. 2008. Folk Psychological Narratives: The Sociocultural Basis of Understanding Reasons (MIT Press). Reviewed by Chris Sinha Aniruddh Patel. 2008. Music, Language, and the Brain (Oxford Univeristy Press). Reviewed by Daniel Casasanto Issue 2 Pronunciation reflects syntactic probabilities: Evidence from spontaneous speech. Hal Tily (Stanford University), Susanne Gahl (University of California, Berkeley), Inbal Arnon, Neal Snider, Anubha Kothari, and Joan Bresnan (Stanford University) Causer subjects in English, Korean and Chinese and the individuation of events. Phillip Wolff, Ga-hyun Jeon, and Yu Li (Emory University) Correlation versus prediction in children?s word learning: Cross-linguistic evidence and simulations. Eliana Colunga (University of Colorado at Boulder), Linda B. Smith (Indiana University) and Michael Gasser (Indiana University) Toward a theory of word meaning. Gabriella Vigliocco, Lotte Meteyard and Mark Andrews (University College London) The sensory-motor theory of semantics: A functional imaging perspective. Uta Noppeney (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen) Reviews: Ronald Langacker. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A basic introduction. (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by Vyvyan Evans Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigagalia. Mirrors in the brain: How our minds share actions and emotions. 2008. (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by David Kemmerer. VOLUME 2 (2010) Issue 1 Adaptive cognition without massive modularity: The context-sensitivity of language use. Raymond W. Gibbs (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Guy Van Orden (University of Cincinnati) Spatial foundations of the conceptual system. Jean Mandler (University California, San Diego and University College London) Metaphor: Old words, new concepts, imagined worlds. Robyn Carston (University College London) Language Development and Linguistic Relativity. John A. Lucy (University of Chicago) Construction Learning. Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Space and Language: some neural considerations. Anjan Chatterjee (University of Pennsylvania) Issue 2 Abstract motion is no longer abstract. Teenie Matlock (University California, Merced) When gesture does and doesn't promote learning. Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago) Discourse Space Theory. Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) Relational language supports relational cognition. Dedre Gentner (Northwestern University) Talking about quantities in space. Kenny Coventry (Northumbria University) Making sense of language: Insights from cognitive science research. Jos van Berkum (MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen) Pr?cis of The Genesis of Grammar. Bernd Heine (University of Cologne) and Tania Kuteva (Heinrich Heine University) -- Gall y neges e-bost hon, ac unrhyw atodiadau a anfonwyd gyda hi, gynnwys deunydd cyfrinachol ac wedi eu bwriadu i'w defnyddio'n unig gan y sawl y cawsant eu cyfeirio ato (atynt). Os ydych wedi derbyn y neges e-bost hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a dil?wch y neges. Os na fwriadwyd anfon y neges atoch chi, rhaid i chi beidio ? defnyddio, cadw neu ddatgelu unrhyw wybodaeth a gynhwysir ynddi. Mae unrhyw farn neu safbwynt yn eiddo i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd yn unig ac nid yw o anghenraid yn cynrychioli barn Prifysgol Bangor. Nid yw Prifysgol Bangor yn gwarantu bod y neges e-bost hon neu unrhyw atodiadau yn rhydd rhag firysau neu 100% yn ddiogel. 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Unless expressly stated in the body of the text of the email, this email is not intended to form a binding contract - a list of authorised signatories is available from the Bangor University Finance Office. www.bangor.ac.uk From dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be Tue Jan 6 15:56:58 2009 From: dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be (Idiatov Dmitry) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 16:56:58 +0100 Subject: CALL: Workshop on Quotative markers (SLE 42, Lisbon, 9-12 Sep 2009) Message-ID: Location: Lisbon, Portugal Start Date: 09-Sep-2009 - 12-Sep-2009 Contact: Dmitry Idiatov Meeting Email: dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be Meeting Description: A workshop at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, University of Lisbon, 9-12 September, 2009. "Quotative markers: origins and use" Linguistic Subfield: General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Typology; Descriptive Linguistics CALL FOR PAPERS: "Quotative markers: origins and use" Convenors: Dmitry Idiatov (University of Antwerp) Hubert Cuyckens (University of Leuven) Keynote speaker: Tom Gu?ldemann (University of Zu?rich / Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) Quotative markers are linguistic signs conventionally signaling the presence of an adjacent representation of reported discourse, i.e. the quote. Semantically, they are largely similar to generic speech verbs, such as say and tell in English, with which they share the feature of reference to an utterance. Functionally, however, they differ from the latter in being conventionalized in relation to reported discourse. That is, either they are not used in other contexts at all or they lack (fully or partially) the feature of reference to an utterance when no representation of reported discourse is adjacent. Consider, for instance, _be like_ in English in _And he's like: "That's great!"_. Following G?ldemann (2008), the quote frame based on a quotative marker or/and a speech verb is called a quotative index. G?ldemann (2008) also provides a detailed classification of quotative markers. Thus, syntactically, quotative markers can be either predicative or nonpredicative elements. Morphosyntactically, predicative quotative markers may behave as regular verbs and are then classified as quotative verbs. Those predicative quotative markers that do not fully qualify for the status of verb in a given language are referred to as quotative predicators. Nonpredicative quotative markers are often referred to as quotative complementizers, especially when they are also used for purposes of clause combining. Historically, quotative markers may derive from a large number of sources, such as generic speech verbs, generic verbs of equation, inchoativity, action, and motion, markers of similarity and manner, markers of focus, presentation and identification. Somewhat surprisingly, according to G?ldemann (2008:295), at least in African languages, generic speech verbs appear to be "far less important" as sources of quotative markers than is usually assumed in the literature. At the same time, it is remarkable that quotative markers of various nonpredicative origins often tend to gradually acquire verbal features up to becoming full-fledged verbal lexemes through their conventionalized use as core elements of quotative indexes. In many African languages, quotative markers are also regularly employed for purposes of clause combining and extended to constructions expressing intention and various kinds of modal meanings. The proposed workshop is intended to bring together scholars interested in the origins and use of quotative markers in individual languages, language families or linguistic areas from any part of the world. Particularly welcome are papers based on data from spontaneous and spoken language use and data from less documented languages. Authors are also encouraged to situate their findings in a broader cross-linguistic perspective, both as regards the known sources of quotative markers as well as their typical secondary extensions to contexts not involving instances of reported discourse in the strict sense. References: G?ldemann, Tom. 2008. Quotative indexes in African languages: A synchronic and diachronic survey. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 34) SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Abstracts in English are invited for 30 minute (20+10) presentations. Abstracts should not exceed 500 words (exclusive of references) and should state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. The abstract should not mention the presenter(s) nor their affiliations or addresses. Abstracts are preferably in DOC or RTF format; if your abstract contains special symbols, please include a PDF version as well. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2009. Please submit your abstract to dmitry.idiatov at ua.ac.be AND the organizers of the SLE conference. As to the latter part of the submission procedure, please follow the instructions on the conference website at http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/meetings/conference%20lisboa/call%20for%20papers.htm. When submitting the title of your abstract on the conference website, please indicate between brackets (Workshop on quotative markers) after the title of your abstract. IMPORTANT DATES: 31 January 2009: Deadline for submission of abstracts 31 March 2009: Notification of acceptance 1 April 2009: Early registration starts 1 June 2009: Registration (full fee) 9-12 September 2009: Conference From edith at uwm.edu Tue Jan 6 19:13:42 2009 From: edith at uwm.edu (Edith Moravcsik) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 13:13:42 -0600 Subject: linguistic axioms Message-ID: Regarding basic ideas that linguists do - or tend to - agree on, see also Richard Hudson's paper of 1981: "Some issues on which linguistis can agree" Journal of Linguistics 17, 333-343. Edith Moravcsik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ellen Contini-Morava" To: Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:15 PM Subject: [FUNKNET] linguistic axioms > Re axioms: There's Bloomfield's classic "A set of postulates for the > science of language", Language 2 (1926), pp. 153-64. The main one, > slightly rephrased in his 1933 Language (p. 159): "In a speech-community > some utterances are alike or partly alike in sound and meaning". Though > some have questioned the assumption of a "shared code" (e.g. Roy Harris, > "On redefining linguistics". In Hayley Davis and Talbot Taylor (eds.), > Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge 1990, pp. 18-52.) > > Happy new year, > > Ellen > > From pwd at rice.edu Wed Jan 7 00:44:07 2009 From: pwd at rice.edu (Philip W. Davis) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 18:44:07 -0600 Subject: Information about Modern Greek? Message-ID: I would like to get responses from native speakers of Modern Greek concerning the data below. What I would like to know is whether the proposed responses to the respective questions are acceptable or not. It could be "Yes," "No," or "Somewhat." Or it could be "That's not Greek at all." I know that there may be other ways (perhaps more usual, comfortable, etc.) to answer the questions, but I need to know specifically about the A, B, C, and D answers. I have taken the examples from published work on Modern Greek or composed them as best as I can on the model of cited utterances. I believe that they are internally grammatically correct, i.e., observing proper gender and case distinctions. It is very important to pay attention to the uppercase, which is intended to identify what is commonly called "focal stress" in the literature on Modern Greek. I think that apelise is the way to say 'fired'. One speaker suggested jokse. And another suggested accusative forms tin Maria and ton Janis for 'Mary' and 'John'. That is not what I am interested in. From the literature, I think there may be a fair degree of variation by dialect, idiolect, and speaker sensibility. If you want to respond, you can send me your reactions at the e-mail address in the signature. I am asking on Funknet before going to LinguistList. Thank you all very much in advance. Best, Philip ***************************************************** Question 1: Pjos apelise ti Maria? 'Who fired Mary?' Answer A: Tin apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer B: Apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer C: O JANIS tin apelise 'John fired her' Answer D: O JANIS tin apelise ti Maria 'John fired Mary' ***************************************************** Question 2: Pjon apelise i Maria? 'Who did Mary fire?' Answer A: Apelise i Maria TO JANI 'Mary fired John' Answer B: TO JANI apelise i Maria 'Mary fired John' Answer C: I Maria apelise TO JANI 'Mary fired John' **************************************************** Question 3: Ti ejine? 'What happened?' Answer A: Apelise O JANIS ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer B: APELISE o Janis ti Maria 'John fired Mary' Answer C: Apelise o Janis TI MARIA 'John fired Mary' -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Philip W. Davis E-mail: pwd at rice.edu 2635 Nottingham Phone: 713-667-0512 (H), 713-503-0528 (C) Houston, TX 77005 Fax: 713-666-5720 URL: www.ruf.rice.edu/~pwd/index.html +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= From sepkit at utu.fi Wed Jan 7 15:41:31 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 17:41:31 +0200 Subject: Second call for abstracts: Case in and across languages Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Second call for abstracts Case in and across languages SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ?Case in and across languages? in Helsinki (Finland), August 27-29, 2009. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information, is found at: http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/case/ As a system that marks the relations between words in a sentence, case is essential to every language. Case has, for example, the function of distinguishing between agent and patient, and it often codes adverbial functions, such as location, instruments and manner, all of which are central concepts in every language. Yet while there is no doubt that case constitutes a core feature of grammar, linguists are not fully agreed on how to define it theoretically. What, for example, are the differences between adpositions and morphological cases? The status and definition of case also varies across different theories of grammar. In addition to the multitude of theoretical definitions, languages display significant differences, for example, in the number, characteristics and functions of cases. Furthermore, while morphological case is a significant grammatical feature in many languages, it is not obligatory in language generally: numerous languages lack (morphological) case altogether and use distinct formal means (such as serial verb constructions and applicatives) to encode relations that other languages express via case marking. Cases also differ according to whether their form and meaning is determined by the verb or other head word, or whether they are more independent in nature. The goal of this symposium is to bring together scholars working on case. We welcome contributions dealing with case from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), and with both language-specific and cross-linguistic approaches to case. Presentations should be accessible to all scholars regardless of their backgrounds. Possible topics for talks include (but are not restricted to) the following: - Case inventories/systems in individual languages/language families - Languages without morphological cases/with poor case inventories - Distinction between morphological cases and adpositions - Grammaticalization of cases - Functions expressed by case in/and across languages - Differences between semantic and grammatical cases - Discussions of core vs. peripheral cases - Case in psycholinguistics (e.g. acquisition of cases, processing of cases) - Case in different theories of grammar - Case polysemy - The expression of case functions in languages without cases - The relevance of case to linguistic theory/definitions of case - Corpus-based studies of case - Non-existent cases that ought to be The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words, an additional page is allowed for data, tables and references) is March 1, 2009. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (sky-case at helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). The abstracts must be anonymous (author information must be given in the body of the message only). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified of acceptance by April 3, 2009. The collection of abstracts will be made available on the symposium website after the program has been finalized. The time allotted for talks is 20 minutes for the talk and 10 minutes for discussion. Workshops Proposals for workshops should be submitted no later than February 15, 2009. Workshop proposals will be evaluated by the organizing committee. Notification of acceptance status will be given by March 15. These one-day workshops may run in parallel sessions with the main conference program; alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). The body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): 1) Name of the participant 2) Title of presentation 3) Affiliation 4) E-mail address 5) Whether the paper is meant as a section paper, a poster, or a workshop? Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentations by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Tromso) Scientific committee Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky (MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig) Martin Haspelmath (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) Bernd Heine (University of Cologne) Helen de Hoop (University of Nijmegen) Andrej Malchukov (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) John Newman (University of Alberta) Urpo Nikanne (?bo Akademi University) Krista Ojutkangas (University of Turku) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Maria Vilkuna (Research Centre for the Languages of Finland) Organizing committee Seppo Kittil?, University of Helsinki Aki Kyr?l?inen, University of Turku Ulla Vanhatalo, University of Helsinki Laura Visap??, University of Helsinki Registration The registration deadline is August 1, 2009. Please send your registration by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee, given below. Registration fees General: 75 Euro Members of the association: 50 Euro Undergraduate students: 25 Euro The registration fee includes conference folder, refreshments during coffee breaks, get-together on August 27 and the conference dinner on August 28. Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance with bank transfer, when at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH), though we will also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival. In the case of advance bank transfer payment from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring with you and present upon registration a COPY of the original transaction receipt. Conference venue Tieteiden talo (House of Sciences), address Kirkkokatu 6. How to get there information will be found at the webpage of the symposium closer to the conference. Contact Please send all queries to the address of the organizing committee at sky-case at helsinki.fi From iwasaki at humnet.ucla.edu Thu Jan 8 02:00:16 2009 From: iwasaki at humnet.ucla.edu (Iwasaki, Shoichi) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 18:00:16 -0800 Subject: Southeast Asian Language Conf at UCLA Message-ID: Dear Colleagues: The program of the "Languages of Southeast Asia" at UCLA (1/30-2/1, 2009) is now available at the following site. http://www2.humnet.ucla.edu/lsea/ Keynote speakers: Bernard Comrie (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig / University of California, Santa Barbara) "Areal typology of Southeast Asian languages: evidence from the World Atlas of Language Structures". John Hartmann (Northern Illinois University) Tai toponymic analysis: GIS insights into migration and settlement patterns Nick Enfield (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) "Dynamics of Human Diversity in Mainland Southeast Asia" Andrew Simpson (University of Southern California) "Vietnamese and the typology of passive constructions" From vanvalin at buffalo.edu Thu Jan 8 09:42:22 2009 From: vanvalin at buffalo.edu (Robert Van Valin) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 10:42:22 +0100 Subject: RRG Conference 09 Call for Papers Message-ID: THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL COURSE AND CONFERENCE ON ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR University of California, Berkeley August 7-9, 2009 The annual International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) will be held at the University of California, Berkeley, in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. The Conference will deal with issues in linguistic theory from a functional and typological perspective. Papers dealing with further elaboration of RRG in areas like morphology, syntax, semantics, information structure, as well as language processing are encouraged. Abstracts must be received electronically by March 15, 2009 at rrgconf09 at phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de . Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including data and references, and must be submitted as PDF documents. The abstracts should be anonymous. The email message must include the following information: author?s name(s), affiliation, email address, and title of abstract. The selection of papers for presentation will be announced by April 15, 2009. The talks will last twenty minutes, followed by another ten minutes for discussion. Further information about keynote speakers, registration fee and accommodation will be posted on the Conference website at a later date. Organizing Committee: Delia Bentley (University of Manchester), Daniel Everett (Illinois State University), Lili?n Guerrero (Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de M?xico), Rolf Kailuweit (Universit?t Freiburg), Ricardo Mairal (UNED, Madrid), Toshio Ohori (University of Tokyo), Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. (Heinrich-Heine-Universit?t D?sseldorf, University at Buffalo) . From bischoff.st at gmail.com Thu Jan 8 18:58:50 2009 From: bischoff.st at gmail.com (s.t. bischoff) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 14:58:50 -0400 Subject: what is linguistics? Message-ID: Hi all, I'm on a tropical island rather isolated (in terms of linguists and much more)...if you are wondering why so many posts in a short time...and why this one is so long... Thanks again to those that responded to the earlier question regarding axioms. Bloomfield 1926 turned out to be quite interesting and informative. Also Tom's comments about axioms in the sciences was something I wish I'd heard the first day of graduate school. I had thought that Plato's onomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) expanded on by Aristotle, would perhaps be have been axiomatic or "laws" but Bloomfield notes, "Other notions, such as subject, predicate, verb, noun, will apply only to some languages, and may have to be defined differently for different ones,-unless, indeed, we prefer to invent new terms for divergent phe- nomena." rightly I think...despite Baker's 2002 attempt to make nouns, verbs, and adjectives universal. This led me to Hegege 2004 (''On categories, rules and interfaces in linguistics''). Hegege argues that all theoretical frameworks (I interpret "theory" here as "linguistic inquiry" perhaps not rightly so) have in common the notions of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics...but that technical terms in these various theories are "far from having the same meanings." This leads me to a second question...what is linguistic inquiry and what is langauge? That is, what is it that "linguists" are interested in learning or discovering? Chomsky seems only interested in "language" as much as it can tell him something about the "mind/brain"...is that really what linguistics is? It seems for C "language" is a phenomena to study in order to learn something about the object that produces it the "mind/brain"...but sure;y typologist and others view the issue differently...so what do we tell introductory linguistics students "language" is and "linguistics" is about? From lesleyne at msu.edu Thu Jan 8 19:55:08 2009 From: lesleyne at msu.edu (Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 14:55:08 -0500 Subject: Axioms and Definitions Message-ID: Shannon, Funknet has a tradition, in spurts, of proposing very lively debate with frequent postings. ?Keep on! ?We are all on islands in our own way, which is why we have Funknet. ??One problem with linguistic axioms, is that we are still determining what language is in terms of mind, and as a stand-alone definition itself. ?AS we continue to propose and research, we get more information that gives us possibilities of improving these definitions. ?The process shares some of the same types of pitfalls as the process of internal reconstruction within historical linguistics--that of researching from within and try to get at the big picture, even though the important information may be hidden or lost. Many of the initial axioms are found to be quite limited, but who has the authority of officially recognizing that this is such? ?? ? One other problem that we have is the explosion of knowledge of so many sub-fields working, that enough people are not getting together to gather this information together ?and provide updates and new definitions. ?This is because the careful practice within each subfield is an all-consuming effort. ?Even the philosophy of science folk are bogged down in philosophy of science as a sub-field. ?Many of us wish we were on that tropical island with you so that we have time to ponder these issues. ?Then, there are the other political problems I mentioned in my previous post. Relevant people doing relevant work are not communicating with each other, or, for political survival, talking past each other. ?We often realize that we have a partial perspective only, given the way we spend our energies. ?This is why people clam up rather than offer what may be a certainly incomplete definition in public. ?? I don't have the time right now to try to offer a complete one, but will do my little-bitty part in a communal effort: Language is a mechanism for autonomously constructed communication, which simultaneously structures the mind and offers a window into it, in both its conscious and unconscious processes. ? ?? Readings: Vygotsky's ?Thought and Language. ?Update: Fields of speech perception and production, lexical access, and sentence processing. Tom's /Biolinguistics and the /Chomskyian counterparts. ? ?? ? A good way to zero in on the issue is with the literature pertaining to models of speech perception and production, which are based on well-executed, experimental literature. ?the problem with this, is that you have very polished scientific experimental evidence defending well-argued models, a good portion of which contradict one another, so our definition of language with have to be a kind of Ubermodel that can take all the evidence into account. ______________________________ Diane Lesley-Neuman Linguistics Program Wells A-614 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 From dcyr at yorku.ca Thu Jan 8 22:54:27 2009 From: dcyr at yorku.ca (Danielle E. Cyr) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 17:54:27 -0500 Subject: Axioms and Galileo's Mistake In-Reply-To: <20090108145508.213692xu7azu7q58@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: Talking axioms, definitions, evidence, science, philosophy and tropical islands (and, why not, snowbanks), everyone of us can go to Renaissance and contemporary Italy only by reading ?Galileo's Mistake? by Wade Rowland. I had kept it in my library for eight years since its publication and finally I read it over Christmas Holiday. I found it totally enlightening and quite delightful at the same time. Rowland wrote it adopting Galileo's own writing technique for his ?Dialogues about two New Sciences?, involving two imaginary participants in the conversation and constantly questioning them (which technique Galileo himself had borrowed from Socrates). See reveiw below. It makes us think a lot about the fragile, asymptotic and so evanescent nature of truth ... Danielle Cyr The following ISBNs are associated with this title: ISBN - 10:091902842X ISBN - 13:9780919028425 >>From the Publisher Veteran literary journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most influential myths - the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head. Rowland argues that at the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s, Galileo''s mistake was to insist that science provides truth about nature. The Church fought back against this challenge to its authority by declaring that science provides only models + read moreVeteran literary journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most influential myths - the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head. Rowland argues that at the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s, Galileo''s mistake was to insist that science provides truth about nature. The Church fought back against this challenge to its authority by declaring that science provides only models for reality and that the ultimate truth is accessible only through metaphysical or spiritual insight. Although the 1633 trial centred on Galileo''s telescopic observations of the night sky, Rowland argues persuasively that this was merely the public face put on a much more profound issue: what is truth and how can we know it? Galileo''s ultimate recantation, Rowland argues, must be understood in this light. Couched in the engaging style of travel narrative, this provocative reexamination deconstructs the myth that Galileo was a freethinker waging war against reactionary and anti-intellectual Church. Using the Socratic method of examining arguments, "Galileo''s Mistake" moves seamlessly through Galileo''s life and his ideas about the nature of reality. By no means an apologist for the Church, Rowland skillfully and persuasively identifies the source of the ontological crisis that plagues us today: the unquestioned authority of science in determining the nature of reality. From straight at binghamton.edu Sat Jan 10 03:49:40 2009 From: straight at binghamton.edu (Straight, H. Stephen) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 22:49:40 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs Message-ID: Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put forward a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or language production and with only a circular (descriptive but not explanatory) relationship to "grammaticality". The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the case of Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his followers both its rise into the academic firmament and its having become stuck there with no tie to earthly reality. The only important insights into language that have emerged in the last 50 years have occurred in spite of or in opposition to Chomskyan theory. Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist as prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known person to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" (Wikipedia). FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a corticocentric view of language, in which the neural subcomponents of language processing, both receptive and expressive, are seen as separate but interacting agents in the creation of linguistic percepts and products, with no overarching "grammar" governing their interaction beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of their need to interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. H Stephen Straight Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics |?Binghamton University, State University of New York -----Original Message----- From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: snip.. > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. -- David Harvey 60 Gipps Street Drummoyne NSW 2047 Australia Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 From dcyr at yorku.ca Sat Jan 10 06:41:33 2009 From: dcyr at yorku.ca (Danielle E. Cyr) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:41:33 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks Stephen, I tend to think that linguistics needs someone who would go way farther than Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo went in astronomy and physics. In my view, we need someone who would dare to go into the quantum language universe. Indeed, in language as in quantum physics, ?separating what is from what happens is not so easy? (Kenneth W. Ford, The Quantum World). Interestingly, once while attending a talk on Derrida and Co's postmodernism views, I couldn't refrain smiling because I thought how Algonquian people had seen the world in the same way since eons. Now that I look a bit more at quantum physics, I have the same smile because quantum physics echoes so appropriately the way Algonquian people and other Aboriginal peoples, once again, look at the world and at the language. In their view, human beings stand (or try to stand) on a huge membrane below which is a constant chaos where things can be there and not there at the same time, where you can't really predict anything with total accuracy, where things and beings can change form and shape in a tick of time and where it is almost impossible to separate what is from what happens, especially in language. Could it be that it is US who are scientifically, or at least philosophically, behind? I have to admit that some of us, like you and Hopper at al., who have seriously questioned the reality of grammar, have come quite close to a quantum approach. Hopefully, one day some Aboriginal person will become a linguist able to write down her/his view of language and make us understand at another level. Two Aboriginal thinkers who are already expressing their views are much closer to quantum physics that to the classic one Out of curiosity, some of us might like to look at a conversation between Moonhawk and C. Loftig at http://www.enformy.com/dma-ls13.htm Enjoy! Danielle Cyr Quoting "Straight, H. Stephen" : > Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th > century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological > "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put forward > a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) > operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or language > production and with only a circular (descriptive but not explanatory) > relationship to "grammaticality". > > The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons > parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying > model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the case of > Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his followers > both its rise into the academic firmament and its having become stuck there > with no tie to earthly reality. The only important insights into language > that have emerged in the last 50 years have occurred in spite of or in > opposition to Chomskyan theory. > > Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a > Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist as > prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known person > to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" (Wikipedia). > FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a corticocentric view of language, > in which the neural subcomponents of language processing, both receptive and > expressive, are seen as separate but interacting agents in the creation of > linguistic percepts and products, with no overarching "grammar" governing > their interaction beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of > their need to interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. > > H Stephen Straight > Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics |? Binghamton University, State > University of New York > > -----Original Message----- > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of > dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au > Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 > To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies > > At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > snip.. > > > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. > > A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and > a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a > discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory > of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a > rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or > Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. > -- > David Harvey > 60 Gipps Street > Drummoyne NSW 2047 > Australia > Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 > > "The only hope we have as human beings is to learn each other's languages. Only then can we truly hope to understand one another." Professor Danielle E. Cyr Department of French Studies York University Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3 Tel. 1.416.736.2100 #310180 FAX. 1.416.736.5924 dcyr at yorku.ca From straight at binghamton.edu Sat Jan 10 21:27:43 2009 From: straight at binghamton.edu (Straight, H. Stephen) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:27:43 -0500 Subject: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs In-Reply-To: <200901101735.n0AHZow3024546@mail09.syd.optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: I agree that observational deficiencies make it unfair to Ptolemy to call Chomskyan approaches Ptolemaic, which makes me wonder why you think Chomsky has more in common with Galileo, who also as you say made stunning observations. OTOH, Galileo's insistence that orbits must be circular smacks of the same sort of a priori reasoning as Chomsky's insistence that the knowledge underlying language ability must be an abstract rule system ("competence") that language users deploy (in some never-described way) in both comprehension and production ("performance") and that emerges from an innate faculty ("universal grammar"). Despite innumerable terminological changes and constant tweaking, Chomskyan approaches (and many non-Chomskyan approaches) still adhere to this constellation of a priori assumptions (of the sort that have been called a "axioms", I believe, in some recent FUNKNET contributions). H Stephen Straight? -----Original Message----- From: David Harvey [mailto:dharv at optusnet.com.au] Sent: Saturday 10 January 2009 12:36 To: Straight, H. Stephen Cc: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu Subject: Re: An overdue remark on what linguistics needs None of the parallels are exact of course, but Ptolemy at least attempted to make his theories consonant with observation. In this respect I think Chomsky has more in common with Galileo who made both stunning observations and theoretical contributions but couldn't seem to put the two together. Davidd Harvey > Straight, H. Stephen wrote: > > Chomsky has more in common with Ptolemy (2nd century) than Galileo (17th > century). Chomsky, while claiming to replace anti-psychological > "structuralism" with a "mind"-focused theory of language, in fact put > forward a model of language knowledge as a "grammar" with no (to date) > operationalizable relationship to either language comprehension or > language production and with only a circular (descriptive but not > explanatory) relationship to "grammaticality". > > The rules of a generative grammar have proven problematic for reasons > parallel to those of Ptolemy's heavenly epicycles. The underlying > model--ethnocentricity in the case of Ptolemy, logicentricity in the > case of Chomsky--is a non-starter. Linguistics owes to Chomsky and his > followers both its rise into the academic firmament and its having > become stuck there with no tie to earthly reality. The only important > insights into language that have emerged in the last 50 years have > occurred in spite of or in opposition to Chomskyan theory. > > Linguistics lacks not only a Galileo or Kepler (17th century) but also a > Copernicus (16th century) and, arguably, has not yet even had a theorist > as prescient as Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC), "the first known > person to speculate that the Earth revolves around a stationary sun" > (Wikipedia). FWIW, my candidate Aristarchian insight is a > corticocentric view of language, in which the neural subcomponents of > language processing, both receptive and expressive, are seen as separate > but interacting agents in the creation of linguistic percepts and > products, with no overarching "grammar" governing their interaction > beyond the brute and always conflict-ridden reality of their need to > interact effectively in physico-temporal reality. > > H Stephen Straight > Professor of Anthropology & of Linguistics |?'??Binghamton University, > State University of New York > > -----Original Message----- > From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu > [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of > dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au > Sent: Monday 10 November 2008 02:09 > To: Salinas17 at aol.com; funknet at mailman.rice.edu > Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Concerning WALS - Bees, Bats, Butterflies > > At 10:48 PM -0500 9/11/08, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > snip.. > > > we need a Copernicus, not a Chomsky or a Greenberg. > > A reminder that it was Kepler who formulated the planetary laws, and > a comment that Chomsky has in common with Galileo a > discipline-changing body of work (subsequently elevated into a theory > of everything). Both also had clashes with authority although of a > rather different kind. Maybe we haven't yet had our Darwin or > Einstein but to be a Galileo is not to be sniffed at. > -- > David Harvey > 60 Gipps Street > Drummoyne NSW 2047 > Australia > Tel: 61-2-9719-9170 David Harvey From amnfn at well.com Tue Jan 13 14:31:38 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:31:38 -0800 Subject: Summer Volunteer Internship Opportunity In Ape Language Study Message-ID: Summer Internship with Project Bow Hiring Organization: Inverted-A, Inc. Date Posted: 2009-01-13 Position Description: Interns will work on language acquisition and literacy with Bow, a seven year old chimpanzee. Bow communicates using standard orthography in two languages: English and Hebrew. (Special consideration will be given to applicants who are fluent in Hebrew, as well as English.) The teaching method involves intensive floortime interactions to draw Bow into as many circles of communication as possible. We use language in context, not rote training. In order to learn, Bow has to be interested in and enjoy the interactions with others. Interns must respect Bow's considerable intellectual achievements and at the same time be willing to demand even more of him. Interns must maintain realistic expectations and avoid undue sentimentality. The average workday in the internship will involve three hours playing with Bow, three hours filming others playing with Bow or taking shorthand notes on dialogues with Bow, and two hours editing video footage or transcribing data into the computer. Interns will be involved in contributing to progress reports in both written and video formats. Qualifications/Experience: Native speaker of at least one of the test languages: English or Hebrew. Candidates with fluency in more than one of the test languages are especially encouraged to apply. B.A. or B.S. in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, anthropology or a related field. Application requires a letter of application, CV, three letters of reference on academic matters, three letters of reference from a landlord, roommate or neiighbor and a medical report. The medical report must include tests for communicable diseases such as TB, hepatitis (all forms) and HIV. It should also include a regular physical and a medical history. Email us to receive the new medical report form. Interns must be assertive and willing to use their voice in order to command Bow's respect. If you are not able to lower the pitch of your voice or to increase the decibel level as necessary, you will not be able to perform adequately. Some experience working with children with behavioral problems would be a plus. Salary/funding: No stipend is available, but room and board will be provided. Support provided for internship/volunteer positions (travel, meals, lodging): Lodging and meals during the internship period will be provided. There is no allowance for transportation. The location is secluded. You will need a car. Term of Appointment: June 1, 2009 through August 31, 2009 Application Deadline: May 1, 2009 Comments: In order to be considered complete, an application must include : (1) letter of application (2) CV (3) Medical report from physician (a) Blood tests (b)physical (c) medical history (4) 3 letters of academic reference and 3 letters of reference concerning status as responsible tenant. The medical report takes time. It is a good idea to start the process with your doctor at least one month in advance of the application deadline. Ask for our medical report form well in advance of the deadline. Contact Information: Aya Katz Inverted-A, Inc.P.O. Box 267 Licking, MO 65542 USA Telephone Number: 573-247-0055 Fax Number: 417-457-6652 Websites: http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Project-Bow-2007-DVD http://hubpages.com/hub/So-you-want-to-work-with-Bow E-mail Address: amnfn at well.com From Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl Thu Jan 15 15:54:40 2009 From: Nino.Amiridze at let.uu.nl (Amiridze, Nino) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:54:40 +0100 Subject: Deadline changed! Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities, Tartu 2009 Message-ID: [Apologies for multiple posting] Final Call Language Contact and Change: Multiple and Bimodal Bilingual Minorities New deadline for abstracts: January 19, 2009. Date: May 28, 2009 Location: Tartu, Estonia Workshop at the International Conference on Minority Languages XII (ICML 2009) Website: http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Contact: tartulcc at gmail.com The workshop aims at exploring the language contact and language change phenomena that characterize multiple linguistic minorities. It focuses on but is not confined to signed, Uralic and Caucasian languages. On the one hand, we intend to explore the situation of bimodal bilingualism. Data from changes in multi-modal bilingual contexts can lead to new insights into bilingualism, the typology and structure of languages, and language change and contact in general. Research into bimodal bilingualism can draw upon several methods and approaches developed for studying the bilingualism of other minority languages, and vice versa. On the other hand, we know that it is difficult to reach the bilingual individuals and communities that are deaf and belong to several linguistic minorities. Therefore, we approach the bimodal target via individual studies on minority languages. More specifically, we concentrate on the issue of language change in contact in the context of a typologically wide range of minority languages. We are looking for answers to questions such as the following: - How do deaf children of (hearing) parents belonging to linguistic minorities (e.g., Nganasan) communicate with the Deaf communities in their country and with their own parents? - How does their language change? - How can we test the change in the structure of the languages in contact in a uniform way? - What are the factors that influence the developments? - Can we work towards a typology? Invited keynote speakers: Csilla Bartha (hearing) (E?tv?s Lor?nd University, Budapest): The situation of the Deaf and national minorities in Hungary; ?sten Dahl (hearing) (Stockholm University): Contact induced changes in tense and aspect systems; Tatiana Davidenko (Deaf) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Sign Language Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries; Anna Komarova (hearing) (Moscow Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education): Development of Bilingual Education of the Deaf in Post-Soviet Countries; Gaurav Mathur (Deaf) (Gallaudet University): The relationship between agreement and finiteness in sign languages; Johanna Mesch (Deaf) (Stockholm University): Variations in tactile signing - the case of one-handed conversation; Helle Metslang (hearing) (University of Tartu): Changes in Finnish and Estonian tense and aspect; Christian Rathmann (Deaf) (Hamburg University): Minority Communities within German Deaf Community; Don Stilo (hearing) (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig): Introduction to an Atlas of the Araxes-Iran Linguistic Area. Check for updates, our interdisciplinary areas, and more research questions at http://www.dipfilmod-suf.unifi.it/CMpro-v-p-236.html Submission (deadline January 19, 2009, notification January 31, 2009). Abstracts (in English, maximum 2 pages, including data and references) have to be submitted electronically as portable document format (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) files via the EasyChair conference management system (https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=lcc09). If you do not have an EasyChair account, click on the button "I have no EasyChair Account" on that page and follow the instructions. When you receive a password, you can enter the site and upload your abstract. Organizers: Nino Amiridze, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) ?sten Dahl, University of Stockholm (Sweden) Anne Tamm, University of Florence (Italy) and Institute for the Estonian Language (Estonia) Manana Topadze, University of Pavia (Italy) Inge Zwitserlood, Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) From lamb at rice.edu Fri Jan 16 20:16:48 2009 From: lamb at rice.edu (Sydney Lamb) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:16:48 -0600 Subject: LACUS meeting -- new featured speaker Message-ID: Linguistics Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS) 2009 Call for Papers - Revised List of Featured Speakers The 2009 annual meeting of LACUS will be held August 4-8 at Pitzer College (one of the Claremont Colleges), Claremont, California. Conference theme: Mechanisms of Linguistic Behavior LACUS invites abstracts representing a broad range of approaches to language, including interdisciplinary topics and innovative ideas. Featured Speakers: * Gregory Hickok, UC Irvine What is the Nature of Sensory-motor Interaction in Speech Processing? Evidence from Neuroscience * Sydney Lamb, Rice University Categories in the Brain: A Hypothesis * Ronald Langacker, UC San Diego Conceptual Semantics, Symbolic Grammar, and the day after day Construction * Michel Paradis, McGill University Implications of the Declarative/Procedural Distinction Neurolinguistic Studies * William S-Y. Wang, UC Berkeley and Chinese University of Hong Kong Concepts, Percepts, and Languages Due Date for Abstracts: February 1, 2009 Earlier submission will be appreciated Abstract Submission Guidelines are posted at http://lacus.org/wordpress/?page_id=16 Suggested topics The following list of topics is intended as suggestive rather than comprehensive: Neurological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Psychological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Sociological mechanisms of linguistic behavior Language and thought Stratificational grammar Relational network grammar Computational linguistics Functional linguistics Cognitive linguistics Linguistics and the physical sciences The aims of linguistics Language and reality For further information: www.ruf.rice.edu/~lacus/2009.html Program Chair: Douglas Coleman, Univerity of Toledo Local host: John Regan, Claremont Graduate University From amnfn at well.com Mon Jan 19 01:03:51 2009 From: amnfn at well.com (A. Katz) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:03:51 -0800 Subject: Text-to-Speech from Hebrew Unpointed Text Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, As a part of my attempts to come up with more rigorous methods of proof for Project Bow, I find myself looking for a text-to-speech program that can take unpointed written Hebrew input and come up with correct pronunciation. Is anybody already working on this problem? Has anyone suggested an algorithm? Providing the unspecified vowels in a standard Hebrew text is something speakers do in reference to the discourse context. Is there any software that attempts to do what speakers do naturally when reading unpointed Hebrew? Thank you in advance for your help, --Aya Katz http://hubpages.com/hub/Bow-and-Literacy From twood at uwc.ac.za Mon Jan 26 09:01:38 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:01:38 +0200 Subject: Proposition query Message-ID: I have a query for these lists. It concerns the status of the proposition within linguistic theory. Kintsch (1998:69) says that ?propositions appear to be the semantic processing units of the mind? and that they have only an indirect relationship to the syntax of sentences, this because natural language has ?many purposes other than the expression of meaning?, whereas propositions are those representations that are ?focused on meaning?. This is indeed my point of departure but it doesn't exactly take us very far theoretically. I'm working on the theoretical aspect but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. If anyone can point me to a good theoretical discussion of the proposition that would be useful -- particularly if it can be located easliy on the web! -- I would be most grateful. Concerning my own leanings, I am most interested in a notion that would reflect psychologism rather than logicism (as in Frege, Russell etc)? For that reason I would expect that the notion of truth would not come into a linguistic definition of the proposition. (I am aware also of the theologically inclined debates about whether propositions 'exist' or not.) BTW it also doesn't make sense to me to treat the proposition as a grammatical entity, where it is regarded as more or les synonymous with predication or sentence. But if a proposition is a meaning that is independent of the constructions of any specific language then this would suggest a 'depth' approach to semantics, which is anathema to many linguistics approaches nowadays, not so? I'm trying to show that there is a theoretical place for the proposition which doesn't depend on truth, is not inherently linked to grammatical structures in any language, and which is therefore distinct from judgement, predicate, entence, clause, etc. Any help, or refutations, would be appreciated. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Jan 27 10:22:35 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:22:35 +0200 Subject: Re proposition query Message-ID: Thanks to all of those on these lists who posted some really useful information to me, whether on-list or off-list. I will send a list of the readings and authors that I received soon. Tahir -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm From twood at uwc.ac.za Tue Jan 27 13:05:46 2009 From: twood at uwc.ac.za (Tahir Wood) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:05:46 +0200 Subject: [Cogling-L] Proposition query In-Reply-To: <497EF56A.3A3B.00A9.0@port.ac.uk> Message-ID: Chris, thanks, a couple of brief ripostes below. >>> "Chris Sinha" 01/27/09 1:52 PM >>> Dear Tahir, Taking a psychological or cognitive stance does not solve the problem, since there is no definition of a proposition that is theory independent. Tahir: No, I wouldn't have expected it. I am looking at a wide variety of approaches and different notions of proposition. I must say I have come to doubt whether there is anywhere a really good cognitivist definition that is even theory-dependent, which is why I put out this request for information. I am working on a theory of the proposition, and I have not been able to find something like this, but of course I'm happy to be proved wrong. Most generally (and I guess theory - neutrally) a proposition is a single attribute predicated to a (not necessarily singular) argument. Tahir: This is a grammatical definition of the kind I'm not satisfied with. It implies that there is lexical selection as part of the make-up of the proposition. If you take that as your starting point you end up saying that a proposition is not different from a predication, and, moreover, it is therefore tied to expression in one specific language only. No way do I think that a proposition (if it really is a content, meaning or thought of some kind) can be this. Classical Cognitivism in the style of Fodor considers propositions to be logically structured entities of this sort couched in the Language of Thought, or (secondarily) the natural language translations of these. If however you consider (as many do) natural languages to BE the language(s) of thought, then propositions are linguistic entities and propositional reasoning is language-dependent. Different theories have different psychological consequences, amongst others that in classical cognitivism infants (possessing an innate LoT) can be legitimately ascribed propositional attitudes such as belief, whereas if propositions are natural language dependent only language users are able to entertain propositional attitudes. Tahir: "Language-dependent" is very vague. Does it mean the strong version of the Whorf hypothesis? "Propositional attitudes" implies that you already know what a proposition is. A proposition cannot be a belief for me, because it belongs to ideation, not to truth, logic or reference. If 'proposition' is going to just mean the same as things like 'belief', 'judgment', 'reference', 'declarative sentence' or anything similar then we don't need it; i.e. then it doesn't exist, as Quine and others have said. But I think it does exist as a mental operation, or as a semantic form, if you like. Fodor takes propositional attitudes to be directed to propositions in LoT, bracketing off the issue of the referential relation of these to the world (traditionally this is supposed to be dealt with by truth in relation to "states of affairs" or facts). A qualified realist but language-relative approach consistent with Cognitive Linguistics would say that the attitudes are directed to linguistically conceptualized or construed referential situations; thus the referential scope of Eng "the cat is on the mat" is different from that of Dutch "de kat ligt op de mat" or of utterances in more elaborate positional languages such as Tzeltal, or body part locative languages such as Mixtec or Zapotec; and there is neither a LoT into which each of these are translated nor an unmediated relation to "states of affairs" (though we can assume that there is a world independent of our linguistic concpetualizations of it). Tahir: But translation is possible in many cases. I don't accept a strong version of the language-relative argument, because it means that all the different languages are totally incommensurable and so therefore are all the thought processes of the groups who speak them. I think languages only differ radically in terms of their possible meanings/contents to the degree that the experiences of their speakers are different. And then this also applies to speakers of the same language who have very different experiences of life! So there you go. The language-relative argument really doesn't take us very far and it can just become a dogma. Why not go all the way and say that propositions only pertain to some languages and not to others? Anthropolgy also shows that very farflung people with very different languages often come up with the same things, bow and arrow, incest taboo, etc. etc. There is one very compelling idea here that is motivating my research and that is onomasiology: Meanings arise before and independently of their precise mode of expression. That is why identical meanings can appear in different cultures; in fact that is why they can appear at all. The semasiological view, on the other hand, says that first there is a sentence (or expression or whatever) and THEN it has a meaning. We all know that this is the dominant approach to linguistics, but it is implausible. There could never have been any linguistic innovation (nor any original thought) in history if that were true. -------------- next part -------------- All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm