From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Oct 10 13:38:48 1996 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:38:48 +0100 Subject: French VAGIN Message-ID: I'm posting this query for a colleague who doesn't have e-mail. If you can help, please reply directly to me. Latin VAGINA `sheath' is grammatically feminine, and so, in general, are its Romance descendants, including popular French GAINE `sheath'. But the French learned borrowing, VAGIN `vagina', is unexpectedly masculine. Anybody know why? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From bjoseph at ling.ohio-state.edu Thu Oct 10 17:03:16 1996 From: bjoseph at ling.ohio-state.edu (Brian Joseph) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:03:16 -0400 Subject: Conference Posting Message-ID: Fifth Annual Workshop in Comparative Linguistics 1996 LANGUAGE CONTACT -- LANGUAGE CHANGE November 16 - 17, 1996 The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio All sessions to be held in 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue (just a five-minute walk down Neil Avenue going south from the Department of Linguistics office in Oxley Hall), at the corner of Neil Avenue and 8th Avenue (note that there is parking in two small lots behind the Center, off of Pennsylvania Avenue, itself a block west Neil Avenue between 8th Avenue and King Avenue). For information, contact Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University (phone: 614-292-4052; fax: 614-292-4273; e-mail: lingadm at ling.ohio-state.edu) SATURDAY 11/16 9.00 - 9.10 Welcome Session I: Phonological Contact 9.10 - 9.40 Neil Jacobs, Ohio State University "Contact Features in Yiddish and Jewish German Phonology" 9.40 - 10.10 Frans Hinskens, Univ. of Nijmegen/Ohio State Univ. "A wave rolling backwards. The Old High German Consonant Shift and the feature [cont] in a derivational suffix in a group of Dutch dialects" 10.10 - 10.25 BREAK Session II: Prosodic Contact 10.30 - 11.10 Joe Salmons, University of Wisconsin "Internal and External Factors in Prosodic Change" 11.10 - 11.50 Graham Thurgood, California State Univ., Fresno "Language contact and the origins of tone and register systems in Southeast Asia: the cases of Tsat, Haroi, and Jiamao" 11.50 - 12.20 Ilse Lehiste, Ohio State University "Testing the generality of Salmons' and Thurgood's results by comparison with the situation in the Baltic Convergence Area" 12:20 - 1:40 LUNCH Session III: Plenary Address 1.45 - 3.00 Sarah G. Thomason, University of Pittsburgh "Contact as a Cause of Change" 3.00 - 3.15 BREAK Session IV: Morpho-Syntactic Contact 3.15 - 3.55 Ellen Prince, University of Pennsylvania "Yiddish Subject-Prodrop as a Window on Language Contact Effects" 3.55 - 4.15 Terence Odlin, Ohio State University "Commentary on Prince" 4.15 - 4.30 Mini-Break 4.30 - 5.00 Steven Hartman Keiser, Ohio State University "Case change in the Pennsylvania German of Kalona, Iowa" 5.00 - 5.30 Bettina Migge, Ohio State University "The origin of reduplicated predicates in Sranan" DINNER SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17 Session V: Contact in the Ancient World 9.30 - 10.00 John A. C. Greppin, Cleveland State University "Urartean Loanword Intrusion into Armenian" 10.00 - 10.20 Rex Wallace, University of Massachusetts "The Venetic Genitive: An Italic Crux" 10.20 - 10.35 BREAK Session VI: Convergence Areas 10.40 - 11.10 Brian Joseph, Ohio State University "On the spread of constructions in the Balkans" 11.10 - 11.40 Hans H. Hock, University of Illinois "Dialectology and Convergence Areas: Retroflexion in Indo- Iranian" 11.40 - 12.10 Martha Ratliff, Wayne State University "An introduction to the Southeast Asia Sprachbund" 12.10 - 12.25 BREAK Session VII: Wrap-up Discussion 12.30 - 1.00 Bernard Comrie, Univ. of Southern California (Discussant/Moderator) "What have we learned?" [Comments and open discussion.] End of Workshop (by 1.00 PM) HOTEL INFORMATION available upon request from Department of Linguistics, The Ohio STate University/ From kemenade at wim.let.vu.nl Fri Oct 11 08:04:56 1996 From: kemenade at wim.let.vu.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:04:56 +0200 Subject: ICHL workshop Message-ID: Abstracts are invited for a workshop to be held with the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Duessel-dorf 10-17 August 1997, titled: Functional categories and morphosyntactic change Convener: Ans van Kemenade (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Speakers confirmed: Ian Roberts (Stuttgart) Nigel Vincent (Manchester) Abstracts are invited for 40-minute papers (including discussion), which address issues concerning the role of functional categories in morphosyntactic change. The term 'functional categories' may be taken in a theory- neutral sense (changes in the way categories like tense, mood, aspect, case, number, gender etc. are expressed), or in the sense in which it is used in current models of generative syntax, where morphological categories are taken to project a functional projection according to phrase structure format. Suggestions for problem areas include the following: The role of functional categories in the grammati- calization process. Grammaticalization very often involves the reanalysis of a lexical category into a functional category, e.g. from verb to complement- izer. Papers might address the nature of and motiva- tion for such reanalysis (semantically vs. syntacti- cally driven). Changes in case systems: issues that might be addres- sed include the functional (non)equivalence of case and prepositions as evidenced when morphological case systems are lost; the relation between syntactic and morphological case; the interplay between changes in case and categories like aspect, and the grammatical analysis thereof; the implications of regarding case as a functional projection in the generative sense for the analysis of changes in case. The role of functional categories in word order change: in generative approaches to word order change functional projections play a key role in word order change. Case studies in this area are welcomed. Since functional projections are assumed to express morphological catego ries, a close correlation between morphology and word order is predicted. To what extent is this empirically justified? Send two copies of a one-page abstract, NO LATER THAN 1 February 1997, to: Dr. Ans van Kemenade Vrije Universiteit, Vakgroep Taalkunde/Engels De Boelelaan 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam Netherlands Snailmail is much preferred, but abstracts sent by e-mail or fax will not be rejected: e-mail: kemenade at let.vu.nl fax: #31(0)204446500 (state name of convener) From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 14 17:09:36 1996 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 13:09:36 EDT Subject: correction Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I've just forwarded a posting which has the incorrect return address. Please ignore it: I'm forwarding the corrected version now. With apologies for clogging your mailboxes, Dorothy Disterheft From MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk Mon Oct 14 17:35:12 1996 From: MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:35:12 GMT0BST Subject: 10ICEHL dates confirmed Message-ID: The Tenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics University of Manchester, UK 21-26 August 1998 Invited speakers include Cynthia Allen (ANU) Elan Dresher (Toronto) David Lightfoot (Maryland) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Nikolaus Ritt (Vienna) Elizabeth Traugott (Stanford) Wim van der Wurff (Leiden) For current information see the conference WWW page at http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/10icehl.html First circular will go out in Spring 1997. Conference e-mail address: 10icehl at man.ac.uk David Denison chair of organising committee From MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk Mon Oct 14 17:38:24 1996 From: MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:38:24 GMT0BST Subject: 10ICEHL dates confirmed Message-ID: The Tenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics University of Manchester, UK 21-26 August 1998 Dates now confirmed. Invited speakers include: Cynthia Allen (ANU) Elan Dresher (Toronto) David Lightfoot (Maryland) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Nikolaus Ritt (Vienna) Elizabeth Traugott (Stanford) Wim van der Wurff (Leiden) For current information see the conference WWW page at http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/10icehl.html First circular will go out in Spring 1997. Conference e-mail address: 10icehl at man.ac.uk David Denison chair of organising committee From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Wed Oct 16 04:10:51 1996 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 16:10:51 +1200 Subject: Query: "grown" with two syllables, what's its history? Message-ID: In the Origins of New Zealand English Project are are investigating words with the past participle shape of -own, as in 'known', 'grown', 'shown', 'blown', etc. In New Zealand some pronounce these as two syllables, e.g. 'grow-en' [schwa in second] in contrast to, for example, monosyllabic 'groan', whereas for others both are monosyllabic. At present it seems that the population is fairly evenly divided between those who use a monosyllabic pronunciation and those who use a disyllabic pronunciation, with no detectible sociolinguistic correlations with age, sex, social class, etc., and the population seems to be about equally divided in their view as to which is the "correct" version. Question: We would like to know the 2-syllable version is attested in other varieties of English elsewhere and whether anyone knows of any historical information about these forms which could throw some light on their history here in NZ. Thanks in advance, Elizabeth Gordon, Margaret Maclagan, and Lyle Campbell Please send replies to: e.gordon at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Elizabeth Gordon) Dept of Linguistics University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Lyle Campbell Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2065 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 21 17:15:55 1996 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 13:15:55 EDT Subject: listserv changes Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Our listserv administrator has just informed me that, due to especially heavy e-mail use at our university, they are instituting a change for their larger discussion lists (i.e. those over 300 members). For lists such as ours, they will now distribute mail after peak hours, which are defined as 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. M-F, Eastern time (that's -5 GMT). Dorothy Disterheft Listowner, HISTLING UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Oct 22 08:37:57 1996 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:37:57 +0100 Subject: Sum: French VAGIN Message-ID: Some days ago I posted a query as to why French VAGIN `vagina' should have masculine gender and form in place of the expected feminine *VAGINE. Several people responded with various suggestions and bits of information. Here's what turned up. First, the phonological form of VAGIN virtually guarantees that it will be masculine, since -IN is a highly reliable masculine ending. But, of course, this doesn't explain why the word has a masculine form in the first place. A further complication is that the word, clearly borrowed from Latin, is attested in 1611 in the feminine form VAGINE, in the sense of `scabbard'. The following suggestions were put forward. 1. French VAGIN derives directly from an unrecorded Latin *VAGINUS or *VAGINUM. 2. Latin VAGINA was mistakenly interpreted as a neuter plural, and an erroneous singular *VAGINUM was extracted and used as the source of VAGIN. 3. The word was attracted into the masculine gender by the influence of the synonymous everyday word CON (from Latin CUNNUS), which is, of course, masculine, and the form was adjusted accordingly. 4. The word for `vagina' was deliberately altered into a masculine form in order to distance it from the existing VAGINE `scabbard'. The third suggestion was the most popular, but it seems clear that nobody really knows. My thanks to Richard Coates, Marc Picard, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Ralf-Stefan Georg, Nicholas Ostler, and one other person whose response I deleted by mistake during a burst of housecleaning. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 28 16:32:59 1996 From: LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU (L-Soft list server at U. of South Carolina (1.8b)) Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 11:32:59 EST Subject: HISTLING: approval required (200038) Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The following posting about a virus has been sent by G. Banti. I have checked it with our computer services center here and have ascertained that this is a real virus (not a hoax like the Good Times Virus). However campus again (and probably elsewhere). It has been publicized for over a year, so virus checkers should snag it. For more info, you can go to the CIAC site: http://www.nha.com/ciac6165.html Dorothy Disterheft ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This message was originally submitted by G.Banti at AGORA.STM.IT to the HISTLING list at VM.SC.EDU. You can approve it using the "OK" mechanism, ignore it, or repost an edited copy. The message will expire automatically and you do not need to do anything if you just want to discard it. Please refer to the list owner's guide if you are not familiar with the "OK" mechanism; these instructions are being kept purposefully short for your convenience in processing large numbers of messages. ------------------------ Original message (39 lines) -------------------------- Return-Path: Received: from UNIVSCVM (NJE origin SMTP at UNIVSCVM) by VM.SC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8 a) with BSMTP id 3256; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 11:42:34 -0500 Received: from agora.stm.it by VM.SC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Sun, 27 Oct 96 11:42:29 EST Received: (from root at localhost) by agora.stm.it (8.7.5/8.6.6) id SAA20250; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 18:43:07 GMT From: G.Banti at agora.stm.it Message-Id: <199610271843.SAA20250 at agora.stm.it> To: histling at vm.sc.edu Date: Sun, 27 Oct 96 18:36:33 GMT Subject: Hello, I got this warning from Waruno Mahdi through the ArcLing mailing-list. Giorgio ---- I have no idea whether this is serious or just a hoax. In the latter instance I apologize in advance, but just in case, here it is for whatever it is worth. Regards, Waruno ---- Subject: VIRUS WARNING DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF EXTENSION. A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the Internet with the name PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this file is a new version of the PKZIP software used to "zip" compressed files DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!! If you install or expand the file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean and affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely destructive virus & there is NOT yet a way of cleaning this one up. PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE YOU KNOW. From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Oct 10 13:38:48 1996 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:38:48 +0100 Subject: French VAGIN Message-ID: I'm posting this query for a colleague who doesn't have e-mail. If you can help, please reply directly to me. Latin VAGINA `sheath' is grammatically feminine, and so, in general, are its Romance descendants, including popular French GAINE `sheath'. But the French learned borrowing, VAGIN `vagina', is unexpectedly masculine. Anybody know why? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From bjoseph at ling.ohio-state.edu Thu Oct 10 17:03:16 1996 From: bjoseph at ling.ohio-state.edu (Brian Joseph) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:03:16 -0400 Subject: Conference Posting Message-ID: Fifth Annual Workshop in Comparative Linguistics 1996 LANGUAGE CONTACT -- LANGUAGE CHANGE November 16 - 17, 1996 The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio All sessions to be held in 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue (just a five-minute walk down Neil Avenue going south from the Department of Linguistics office in Oxley Hall), at the corner of Neil Avenue and 8th Avenue (note that there is parking in two small lots behind the Center, off of Pennsylvania Avenue, itself a block west Neil Avenue between 8th Avenue and King Avenue). For information, contact Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University (phone: 614-292-4052; fax: 614-292-4273; e-mail: lingadm at ling.ohio-state.edu) SATURDAY 11/16 9.00 - 9.10 Welcome Session I: Phonological Contact 9.10 - 9.40 Neil Jacobs, Ohio State University "Contact Features in Yiddish and Jewish German Phonology" 9.40 - 10.10 Frans Hinskens, Univ. of Nijmegen/Ohio State Univ. "A wave rolling backwards. The Old High German Consonant Shift and the feature [cont] in a derivational suffix in a group of Dutch dialects" 10.10 - 10.25 BREAK Session II: Prosodic Contact 10.30 - 11.10 Joe Salmons, University of Wisconsin "Internal and External Factors in Prosodic Change" 11.10 - 11.50 Graham Thurgood, California State Univ., Fresno "Language contact and the origins of tone and register systems in Southeast Asia: the cases of Tsat, Haroi, and Jiamao" 11.50 - 12.20 Ilse Lehiste, Ohio State University "Testing the generality of Salmons' and Thurgood's results by comparison with the situation in the Baltic Convergence Area" 12:20 - 1:40 LUNCH Session III: Plenary Address 1.45 - 3.00 Sarah G. Thomason, University of Pittsburgh "Contact as a Cause of Change" 3.00 - 3.15 BREAK Session IV: Morpho-Syntactic Contact 3.15 - 3.55 Ellen Prince, University of Pennsylvania "Yiddish Subject-Prodrop as a Window on Language Contact Effects" 3.55 - 4.15 Terence Odlin, Ohio State University "Commentary on Prince" 4.15 - 4.30 Mini-Break 4.30 - 5.00 Steven Hartman Keiser, Ohio State University "Case change in the Pennsylvania German of Kalona, Iowa" 5.00 - 5.30 Bettina Migge, Ohio State University "The origin of reduplicated predicates in Sranan" DINNER SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17 Session V: Contact in the Ancient World 9.30 - 10.00 John A. C. Greppin, Cleveland State University "Urartean Loanword Intrusion into Armenian" 10.00 - 10.20 Rex Wallace, University of Massachusetts "The Venetic Genitive: An Italic Crux" 10.20 - 10.35 BREAK Session VI: Convergence Areas 10.40 - 11.10 Brian Joseph, Ohio State University "On the spread of constructions in the Balkans" 11.10 - 11.40 Hans H. Hock, University of Illinois "Dialectology and Convergence Areas: Retroflexion in Indo- Iranian" 11.40 - 12.10 Martha Ratliff, Wayne State University "An introduction to the Southeast Asia Sprachbund" 12.10 - 12.25 BREAK Session VII: Wrap-up Discussion 12.30 - 1.00 Bernard Comrie, Univ. of Southern California (Discussant/Moderator) "What have we learned?" [Comments and open discussion.] End of Workshop (by 1.00 PM) HOTEL INFORMATION available upon request from Department of Linguistics, The Ohio STate University/ From kemenade at wim.let.vu.nl Fri Oct 11 08:04:56 1996 From: kemenade at wim.let.vu.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:04:56 +0200 Subject: ICHL workshop Message-ID: Abstracts are invited for a workshop to be held with the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Duessel-dorf 10-17 August 1997, titled: Functional categories and morphosyntactic change Convener: Ans van Kemenade (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Speakers confirmed: Ian Roberts (Stuttgart) Nigel Vincent (Manchester) Abstracts are invited for 40-minute papers (including discussion), which address issues concerning the role of functional categories in morphosyntactic change. The term 'functional categories' may be taken in a theory- neutral sense (changes in the way categories like tense, mood, aspect, case, number, gender etc. are expressed), or in the sense in which it is used in current models of generative syntax, where morphological categories are taken to project a functional projection according to phrase structure format. Suggestions for problem areas include the following: The role of functional categories in the grammati- calization process. Grammaticalization very often involves the reanalysis of a lexical category into a functional category, e.g. from verb to complement- izer. Papers might address the nature of and motiva- tion for such reanalysis (semantically vs. syntacti- cally driven). Changes in case systems: issues that might be addres- sed include the functional (non)equivalence of case and prepositions as evidenced when morphological case systems are lost; the relation between syntactic and morphological case; the interplay between changes in case and categories like aspect, and the grammatical analysis thereof; the implications of regarding case as a functional projection in the generative sense for the analysis of changes in case. The role of functional categories in word order change: in generative approaches to word order change functional projections play a key role in word order change. Case studies in this area are welcomed. Since functional projections are assumed to express morphological catego ries, a close correlation between morphology and word order is predicted. To what extent is this empirically justified? Send two copies of a one-page abstract, NO LATER THAN 1 February 1997, to: Dr. Ans van Kemenade Vrije Universiteit, Vakgroep Taalkunde/Engels De Boelelaan 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam Netherlands Snailmail is much preferred, but abstracts sent by e-mail or fax will not be rejected: e-mail: kemenade at let.vu.nl fax: #31(0)204446500 (state name of convener) From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 14 17:09:36 1996 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 13:09:36 EDT Subject: correction Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I've just forwarded a posting which has the incorrect return address. Please ignore it: I'm forwarding the corrected version now. With apologies for clogging your mailboxes, Dorothy Disterheft From MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk Mon Oct 14 17:35:12 1996 From: MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:35:12 GMT0BST Subject: 10ICEHL dates confirmed Message-ID: The Tenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics University of Manchester, UK 21-26 August 1998 Invited speakers include Cynthia Allen (ANU) Elan Dresher (Toronto) David Lightfoot (Maryland) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Nikolaus Ritt (Vienna) Elizabeth Traugott (Stanford) Wim van der Wurff (Leiden) For current information see the conference WWW page at http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/10icehl.html First circular will go out in Spring 1997. Conference e-mail address: 10icehl at man.ac.uk David Denison chair of organising committee From MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk Mon Oct 14 17:38:24 1996 From: MFCEPDD at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (David Denison) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:38:24 GMT0BST Subject: 10ICEHL dates confirmed Message-ID: The Tenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics University of Manchester, UK 21-26 August 1998 Dates now confirmed. Invited speakers include: Cynthia Allen (ANU) Elan Dresher (Toronto) David Lightfoot (Maryland) Donka Minkova (UCLA) Nikolaus Ritt (Vienna) Elizabeth Traugott (Stanford) Wim van der Wurff (Leiden) For current information see the conference WWW page at http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/10icehl.html First circular will go out in Spring 1997. Conference e-mail address: 10icehl at man.ac.uk David Denison chair of organising committee From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Wed Oct 16 04:10:51 1996 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 16:10:51 +1200 Subject: Query: "grown" with two syllables, what's its history? Message-ID: In the Origins of New Zealand English Project are are investigating words with the past participle shape of -own, as in 'known', 'grown', 'shown', 'blown', etc. In New Zealand some pronounce these as two syllables, e.g. 'grow-en' [schwa in second] in contrast to, for example, monosyllabic 'groan', whereas for others both are monosyllabic. At present it seems that the population is fairly evenly divided between those who use a monosyllabic pronunciation and those who use a disyllabic pronunciation, with no detectible sociolinguistic correlations with age, sex, social class, etc., and the population seems to be about equally divided in their view as to which is the "correct" version. Question: We would like to know the 2-syllable version is attested in other varieties of English elsewhere and whether anyone knows of any historical information about these forms which could throw some light on their history here in NZ. Thanks in advance, Elizabeth Gordon, Margaret Maclagan, and Lyle Campbell Please send replies to: e.gordon at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Elizabeth Gordon) Dept of Linguistics University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Lyle Campbell Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2065 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 21 17:15:55 1996 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 13:15:55 EDT Subject: listserv changes Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Our listserv administrator has just informed me that, due to especially heavy e-mail use at our university, they are instituting a change for their larger discussion lists (i.e. those over 300 members). For lists such as ours, they will now distribute mail after peak hours, which are defined as 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. M-F, Eastern time (that's -5 GMT). Dorothy Disterheft Listowner, HISTLING UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Oct 22 08:37:57 1996 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:37:57 +0100 Subject: Sum: French VAGIN Message-ID: Some days ago I posted a query as to why French VAGIN `vagina' should have masculine gender and form in place of the expected feminine *VAGINE. Several people responded with various suggestions and bits of information. Here's what turned up. First, the phonological form of VAGIN virtually guarantees that it will be masculine, since -IN is a highly reliable masculine ending. But, of course, this doesn't explain why the word has a masculine form in the first place. A further complication is that the word, clearly borrowed from Latin, is attested in 1611 in the feminine form VAGINE, in the sense of `scabbard'. The following suggestions were put forward. 1. French VAGIN derives directly from an unrecorded Latin *VAGINUS or *VAGINUM. 2. Latin VAGINA was mistakenly interpreted as a neuter plural, and an erroneous singular *VAGINUM was extracted and used as the source of VAGIN. 3. The word was attracted into the masculine gender by the influence of the synonymous everyday word CON (from Latin CUNNUS), which is, of course, masculine, and the form was adjusted accordingly. 4. The word for `vagina' was deliberately altered into a masculine form in order to distance it from the existing VAGINE `scabbard'. The third suggestion was the most popular, but it seems clear that nobody really knows. My thanks to Richard Coates, Marc Picard, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Ralf-Stefan Georg, Nicholas Ostler, and one other person whose response I deleted by mistake during a burst of housecleaning. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU Mon Oct 28 16:32:59 1996 From: LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU (L-Soft list server at U. of South Carolina (1.8b)) Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 11:32:59 EST Subject: HISTLING: approval required (200038) Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The following posting about a virus has been sent by G. Banti. I have checked it with our computer services center here and have ascertained that this is a real virus (not a hoax like the Good Times Virus). However campus again (and probably elsewhere). It has been publicized for over a year, so virus checkers should snag it. For more info, you can go to the CIAC site: http://www.nha.com/ciac6165.html Dorothy Disterheft ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This message was originally submitted by G.Banti at AGORA.STM.IT to the HISTLING list at VM.SC.EDU. You can approve it using the "OK" mechanism, ignore it, or repost an edited copy. The message will expire automatically and you do not need to do anything if you just want to discard it. Please refer to the list owner's guide if you are not familiar with the "OK" mechanism; these instructions are being kept purposefully short for your convenience in processing large numbers of messages. ------------------------ Original message (39 lines) -------------------------- Return-Path: Received: from UNIVSCVM (NJE origin SMTP at UNIVSCVM) by VM.SC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8 a) with BSMTP id 3256; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 11:42:34 -0500 Received: from agora.stm.it by VM.SC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Sun, 27 Oct 96 11:42:29 EST Received: (from root at localhost) by agora.stm.it (8.7.5/8.6.6) id SAA20250; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 18:43:07 GMT From: G.Banti at agora.stm.it Message-Id: <199610271843.SAA20250 at agora.stm.it> To: histling at vm.sc.edu Date: Sun, 27 Oct 96 18:36:33 GMT Subject: Hello, I got this warning from Waruno Mahdi through the ArcLing mailing-list. Giorgio ---- I have no idea whether this is serious or just a hoax. In the latter instance I apologize in advance, but just in case, here it is for whatever it is worth. Regards, Waruno ---- Subject: VIRUS WARNING DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF EXTENSION. A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the Internet with the name PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this file is a new version of the PKZIP software used to "zip" compressed files DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!! If you install or expand the file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean and affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely destructive virus & there is NOT yet a way of cleaning this one up. PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE YOU KNOW.