Versatility?

[Ron Smyth]

There was research in the late 70s following up on the original
observations by Jean Berko Gleason.  Bruce Derwing published work on this
issue; he had adults rate the phonological and semantic similarity of word
pairs like "wild/wilderness".  Other people answered two questions that I
contributed, such as "Does WILDERNESS come from WILD?".  And they were
also asked "Have you ever thought of this before?".

In the 80s morpheme identification was a major issue in studies of
atypical language development and it is still used as a part of language
assessment.
ron
p.s. I'm 60 and in response to a previous msg, I do think that "rooster"
must come from "roost", but I had never thought of it before.
r

 ==============================================================================
Ron Smyth, Associate Professor
Linguistics & Psychology
University of Toronto
 ===========================================================================

On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, Paul Hopper wrote:

> Alison Wray in her book on fixed expressions tells of a survey in which
> people were asked what the main ingredient in Rice Krispies was, and
> evidently a surprising number of informants were unable to say. An
> elementary school teacher couldn't get her children to say why a certain
> holiday was called 'Thanksgiving', but got answers like 'because we eat
> turkey', 'because we go to Grandma's' etc. There's plenty of evidence,
> both serious and anecdotal, that compounds (and other sequences) that are
> repeated quite quickly lose their internal structure. But Aya, are there
> really no comparable examples in Hebrew? Has anyone ever done a similar
> survey among Hebrew speakers? Aren't there any compounds that (one might
> think) ought to be transparent but which are produced as unanalyzed chunks
> by speakers?
>
> - Paul
>
>
> On Sun, March 20, 2011 14:07, A. Katz wrote:
> > Lise,
> >
> >
> > Of course, I am not suggesting that an understanding of the meaning of
> > the words alone will give you the equivalent of a medical education. But
> > it might make becoming conversant a little easier.
> >
> > However, being accustomed to having everything be opaque can cause
> > peculiar blindness to componential analysis. For instance, the same doctor
> >  who didn't understand how being a linguist could help with a medical
> > discussion also had no idea where the Brookfield Zoo was located, despite
> >  living in the Chicago area, and having heard of that zoo. "Do you know
> > where Brookfield is?" I asked him. He said yes. I told him the Brookfield
> >  Zoo was in Brookfield. This was new information to him, since he never
> > imagined that the name of the zoo could have anything to do with its
> > location.
> >
> > Nothing helps with meaning unless you expect it to. If you don't expect
> > proper names to make sense, then you will never guess who is buried in
> > Grant's Tomb.
> >
> >
> > For a more detailed discussion of this issue, read my LACUS article:
> >
> >
> > http://www.lacus.org/volumes/27/207_katz_a.pdf
> >
> >
> > Best,
> >
> >
> > --Aya
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, Lise Menn wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Transparency in derivation doesn't really give us meanings when we meet
> >> a new technical word - or phrase - that has a specialized meaning
> >> (although it is
> >> certainly important in helping us hold onto the term and to the
> >> specialized meaning once we have learned it).  That's why so many
> >> 'transparent' terms
> >> have to be listed in dictionaries, after all. Example: my dear cousin
> >> Louise
> >> was told she had 'motor system disease', a nice transparent phrase that
> >> didn't worry her too much, and only later learned that the term covers
> >> the whole miserable group of degenerative disorders including
> >> Parkinson's disease
> >> and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is what she had. Lise
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mar 20, 2011, at 6:24 AM, A. Katz wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Johanna,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> If your point is: English works just fine, thank you very much, we
> >>> don't lack for anything, then I agree. Of course, it works just fine.
> >>> I'm the one
> >>> on this list who said that no matter what you lose in one place
> >>> through language change, you gain someplace else, so overall it's
> >>> always pretty much the same, and no progress is made through language
> >>> change, but there is also no regression.
> >>>
> >>> Of course, English derives new words every day. What I was addressing
> >>> was the way in which this is largely an irregular process, and the
> >>> blindness to internal boundaries in already derived words that this
> >>> irregularity induces.
> >>>
> >>> One example is that only very educated people can parse the internal
> >>> boundaries of medical terms, and so it creates a class divide between
> >>> doctors and patients, which can prevent laymen and doctors from
> >>> having intelligent discussions about medical problems. To some extent,
> >>> Alex
> >>> alluded to this in his post.
> >>>
> >>> I had the experience of discussing a problem with a medical
> >>> specialist in great depth, and because I understood what he was
> >>> talking about, he assumed I was a professional. When I told him I
> >>> wasn't a doctor, he said, yes, but you're a biologist, right? When I
> >>> answered that I wasn't, he asked, perplexed, then what are you? The
> >>> answer: "a linguist" had him totally
> >>> confused.
> >>>
> >>> It's amazing what you can pick up about expert jargon if you can only
> >>> parse the words! In cultures where medical terms are couched in
> >>> regular derivations in the native tongue, you don't have to be a
> >>> linguist to understand roughly what the doctor is talking about.
> >>>
> >>> So in essence, my point was less about production than it was about
> >>> comprehension. Regularity in derivation leads to improved
> >>> comprehension.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --Aya
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, 19 Mar 2011, Johanna Rubba wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> I don't get the talk about speakers of English lacking versatility
> >>>> in word-building due to massive borrowing. A lot of what we've
> >>>> borrowed has become productive derivational morphology! And English
> >>>> is quite free with zero derivation, as well. We also do tons and
> >>>> tons of compounding. We've come up with new suffixes like '-oholic'
> >>>> and '-erati' ('glitterati'), we now have 'e-' everything, '-meister'
> >>>> seems to be making a comeback, etc.
> >>>>
> >>>> If you doubt the versatility of English derivational morphology,
> >>>> check out wordspy.com. They're a tad better than Urban Dictionary
> >>>> because they actually cite published sources of the words they're
> >>>> listing. English wordcraft is thriving, and there's a lot of  humor
> >>>> in it!
> >>>>
> >>>> Dan spoke of "the pronoun problem." For most speakers of English,
> >>>> there is no problem. The singular generic is 'they.' Apparently, it
> >>>> was used that way before the prescription of generic 'he,' seeing as
> >>>> how an early English prescriptive grammar inveighs against it. I see
> >>>> no reason not to accept this democratic solution. People who object
> >>>> that it's "grammatically plural" don't seem to have noticed that
> >>>> "grammatically
> >>>> plural" 'you' has been in use as a singular for hundreds of years.
> >>>> Unless
> >>>> we're to go back to 'thou,' these people need to get over
> >>>> themselves.
> >>>>
> >>>> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D.
> >>>> Professor, Linguistics
> >>>> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> >>>> English Dept.
> >>>> Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo
> >>>> San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> >>>> Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184
> >>>> Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596
> >>>> Dept. fax: 805-756-6374
> >>>> E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu
> >>>> URL: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >> Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
> >> 1625 Mariposa Ave	Fax: 303-413-0017
> >> Boulder CO 80302
> >> http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html
> >> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
> >> Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
> >> University of  Colorado
> >>
> >>
> >> Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
> >> Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
> >>
> >>
> >> Campus Mail Address:
> >> UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science
> >>
> >>
> >> Campus Physical Address:
> >> CINC 234
> >> 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Paul J. Hopper
> Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities
> Department of English
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> and
> Senior External Fellow
> School of Linguistics and Literature
> Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
> Albertstr. 19
> D-79105 Freiburg i.Br.
> Germany
>
>