Versatility?
Pamela Munro
munro at ucla.edu
Sun Mar 20 21:26:02 UTC 2011
The first time the observation about the analyzability of /rooster/ was
made here, I thought, sure, I know the ending -/ster/, but what is /roo/?
I blush. :)
Ron Smyth wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>
>
--
Pamela Munro,
Professor, Linguistics, UCLA
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/munro/munro.htm
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