From a.v.kemenade at let.kun.nl Sat Jul 1 11:34:02 2000 From: a.v.kemenade at let.kun.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:34:02 EDT Subject: call for papers: workshop on preverbs at Nijmegen (Netherlands) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Call for papers for a two-day workshop on PREVERBS Date of the workshop: 19-20 January 2001 Venue: University of Nijmegen Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2000 Notification of acceptance: 20 October 2000 Invited speakers (confirmed) include Farrell Ackerman (UCSD), Alice Harris (Vanderbilt), Adrienne Bruyn (Amsterdam/Manchester), Thorhallur Eythorsson (Manchester), Marian Klamer (Amsterdam), Muriel Norde (Amsterdam), Willem Koopman (Amsterdam) Abstracts are solicited for 40-minute papers (including discussion). Here follows a brief description of the topic indicating the types of work that we welcome in particular: Preverbs pose a range of interesting questions along many dimensions of linguistic study. They are of relevance to current theoretical debates concerning the nature of the syntax-morphology interface and the representation of argument structure. They are attested across a broad range of language families, so that one is led to ask what are the typological factors that impinge on their distribution. Last but not least, their historical development can both provide further evidence about their synchronic status and shed interesting light on the mechanisms of morphosyntactic change. In this workshop, therefore, we will attempt to bring together typological, historical and theoretical insights, in order to gain a better understanding of how and why preverbs developed in the way they did. Proposals for contributions are invited under the followed heads: * theoretically informed analyses of a synchronic set of data pertaining to preverbs in one or more languages or language families * theoretically informed analyses of the diachronic development in one or more of the languages or language families * typologically based surveys of preverbs across a larger or smaller set of languages * systematic (sub)inventories of data for those languages for which preverbs do not seem to have been much of an issue so far Organisers: Geert Booij, Bettelou Los (Vrije Univ.) Olga Fischer (Univ. of Amsterdam) Nigel Vincent (Manchester), Ans van Kemenade (Nijmegen, local organiser) The workshop is sponsored by NWO, through the collaborative effort between the Dutch linguistics network LOT, and the NorthWest Centre of Linguistics From degraff at MIT.EDU Sat Jul 1 11:40:33 2000 From: degraff at MIT.EDU (Michel DeGraff) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:40:33 EDT Subject: Morphology in Creole Languages: Request for Comments Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues, This is a request for data and/or comments related to a paper of mine on (Haitian) Creole morphology. The paper is called "Morphology in Creole genesis: A prolegomenon". There, I evaluate a variety of widely-believed received notions about Creole morphology or, rather, about the absence or simplicity of Creole morphology. This is the sort of truisms one often reads in introductory linguistics textbooks, including some of the classics (Jespersen 1922, Bloomfield 1933, Hockett 1958, Martinet 1969, etc). What I argue in this paper (focusing on Haitian Creole) is that, in spite of their observational inadequacy, these persistently-popular received notions span the entire course of Creole studies and a variety of theoretical approaches. The paper examines relevant Haitian Creole data and related theoretical observations, and raises various questions about both the linguistics and the sociology underlying the `simple Creole morphology' truisms. The essay also revisits some of the historical foundations of Creole studies and their relationships to contemporary sociological concerns in, and about, Creole communities. As this is the beginning of a long-term project with rather broad scientific and political concerns, I'd very much welcome constructive comments from all quarters, including comments about (dis)similar morphological phenomena in other `Creole' varieties and---more generally---about related phenomena in language contact and language change. The paper is available for downloading and circulating in both PDF and postscript format. PDF for Acrobat Reader (424,724 bytes): http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/festschrift.pdf Postscript (496,574 bytes): http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/festschrift.ps Thank you very much, -michel. ___________________________________________________________________________ MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307 degraff at MIT.EDU http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff.home.html ___________________________________________________________________________ From bao at cphling.dk Sat Jul 1 11:43:35 2000 From: bao at cphling.dk (Birgit Anette Olsen) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:43:35 EDT Subject: Conference in Copenhagen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > > > > > > CALL FOR PAPERS > > > > > > A conference on the subject: > > > > > > Indo-European Word Formation/Indogermanische Wortbildung > > inventory and analysis > > > > > > > > will take place at the University of Copenhagen > > > > > > October 20th - 22th 2000. > > > > > > Preference will be given to papers dealing with nominal and verbal > > derivation, including the formation of compounds, in the Indo-European > > language family in general or in one of the separate branches. > > A minor session of the conference will be dedicated to the discussion > > of lexical projects and other works of registration. > > > > > > Potential speakers are kindly invited to send a working > > title and a brief abstract, preferably in English or > > German, no later than July 16th 2000, to: > > > > > > Birgit Anette Olsen > > University of Copenhagen, Institut for Almen og Anvendt > > Sprogvidenskab, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300, Copenhagen S. > > DENMARK. > > > > > > > > From ellyvangelderen at asu.edu Sat Jul 1 11:48:23 2000 From: ellyvangelderen at asu.edu (Elly van Gelderen) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:48:23 EDT Subject: CFP Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- GLAC-7 Seventh Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference Banff, Alberta, Canada Saturday, April 21 to Monday, April 23, 2001 Call for Papers Faculty and graduate students are invited to submit abstracts for 30-minute papers on any linguistic or philological aspect of any historic or modern Germanic language or dialect, including English (to 1500) and the extraterritorial varieties. Papers from a range of linguistic subfields, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, socio-linguistics, language acquisition, contact, and change, as well as differing theoretical approaches, are especially welcome. Please send to the address below a one-page, 12-point font abstract that is headed only by the title of your paper, as well as a separate 3" x 5" index card with your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, phone/fax numbers, email address, and the title of your paper. Submissions must be received by January 5, 2000. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by February 11, 2000. GLAC-7 Department of Linguistics University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4 Location and Accomodation Banff is the townsite of Banff National Park located in the Rocky Mountains. This area is easily one of the most beautiful in the world and certainly an ideal place to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. For further information on the townsite and park, please go to Parks Canada or the Canadian Rockies site. The conference will take place at the Banff Conference Centre. Rooms, including breakfast and lunch, are available at a special conference rate of CDN $137.03 (U.S. $92.50) for a single or CDN $87.53 (U.S. $59.10) per person for a double. (Please note: These rates apply only to conference participants. If two people (e.g. you and your spouse or a friend) share a room and only one is attending the conference, the single rate applies; i.e. CDN $137.03 (U.S. $92.50). There is an additional 5% provincial hotel room tax, and a 7% Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST on all accomodation is refundable to Non-Canadian residents upon application. The Banff Conference Centre is extending these rates for three days before and after the conference, so we hope that you will find time to explore the area. Further information will be provided later. Please note: The exchange rate is presently U.S. $1.00 = CDN $1.48. You might find the Currency Converter useful. Transportation Banff is most easily accessible from Calgary, Alberta, located about 120 kilometres (70 miles) to the east. There are some direct shuttle buses from Calgary International Airport to Banff, and frequent buses from Calgary downtown to Banff. We will provide full details on transportation later. The Diebold Awards Beginning with GLAC-6, thanks to generous funding from the Diebold Foundation, a number of prizes in the amount of $250 are awarded to the best graduate student papers presented at the conference. A jury of three members appointed by the Executive Committee of the Society for Germanic Philology will judge conference papers submitted in writing within four weeks of the conference. The Society for Germanic Philology The Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference is sponsored by the Society for Germanic Linguistics (SGL). The SGL also publishes the Journal of Germanic Linguisticsa semiannual journal devoted to the study of all present and historical Germanic varieties, including English (to 1500). Information on submissions to the journal, as well as Society membership, are accessible through the SGL website. Contact For further more information, send email to the local organizers: Prof. Robert W. Murray Prof. Amanda Pounder glac7 at ucalgary.ca From Egidio.Marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr Mon Jul 3 14:41:20 2000 From: Egidio.Marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr (Egidio Marsico) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 10:41:20 EDT Subject: Database of protolanguages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear historical linguists, I am in the process of finishing the compilation of a database of proto languages (BDPROTO) as part of my PhD dissertation. The idea is to perform a statistical analysis of proto phonological systems in the way Ian Maddieson has done with the UPSID database. This will provide a "diachronic" counterpart of UPSID and thus allow the comparison of different stages of phonological evolution. You will find below the list of languages and bibliographical sources I have selected. Before starting my statistical analysis (next week...!) I would like to make sure that my sample is adequate both in terms of proto-languages chosen as well as bibliographical sources. I would very much appreciate your advices, comments and/or criticisms on the choices I have done (eg. missing proto-languages, erroneous references). I will obviously be happy to give you access to the final version of the database if you are interested. A great thanks in advance to all who will answer. Best regard, Egidio Marsico Current sample of BDPROTO : FAMILY PROTOLANGUAGE REFERENCE **************** AFRO-ASIATIC 1 afroasiatic C. Ehret, 1995, 'Reconstructing proto afroasiatic : vowels, tones, consonants and vocabulary', UC Press 2 chadic P. Newman, 1977, 'Chadic classification and reconstructions', Monographic Journals of the Near East Afrosiatic Linguistics, 5/1 3 common berber A. Basset, 1952, 'La langue berbere', Handbook of African Languages, University Press, Oxford 4 coptic R. Kasser, 1991, 'Phonology', in The Coptic Encyclopedia, Editor in chief Aziz S. Atiya, vol. 8, Macmillan ; Collier Macmillan Canada ; Maxwell Macmillan International, New YorkToronto 5 cushitic C. Ehret, 1995, 'Reconstructing proto afroasiatic : vowels, tones, consonants and vocabulary', UC Press 6 hausa Paul Newman, 1979, 'The historical development of medial /ee/ and /oo/ in Hausa', Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, vol 1, no 2 7 semitic Moscati, Spitaler, Ullendorff, Van Soden, 1969, 'An introduction to the comparative grammar of the semitic languages : phonology and morphology', Otto Harrassovitz, Wiesbaden **************** ALTAIC 8 ainu A. Vovin, 1993, "A reconstruction of proto-Ainu", E.J. Brill, Leiden ; New York 9 altaic A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 10 japanese S. E. Martin, 1987, "The Japanese language through time", Yale University Press, New Haven **************** AMERIND 11 algonquian L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 12 chiapanec manguean R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 13 chibcha A. Constenla Umana, 1993, 'La famiglia chibcha', in Estado actual de la classificacion de las lenguas indigenas de Colombia, Ponencias presentadas en el seminario-Taller realizado en el instituto caro y cuervo (Febrero 10, 11 y 12 de 1988), Santafe de Bogota 14 chimakuan L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 15 chinantecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 16 keresan W. R. Miller, I. Davis, 1963, 'Proto keresan phonology', IJAL, vol. 29, no4, pp 310-330 17 maidun R. Ultan, 1964, 'Proto maidun phonology', IJAL, vol.30, no 4, pp 355-370 18 mayan L. Campbell, 1990, 'Mayan languages and linguistic change', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 19 mixtecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 20 otomanguean C. R. Rensch, 1976, "Comparative Otomanguean phonology", Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies Indiana University, Bloomington 21 otomi R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 22 otomi mazahua R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 23 otomi pame R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 24 pomo S. Mc Lendon, 1973, 'Proto-Pomo", University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 25 popolocan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 26 quichean L. Campbell, 1977, 'Quichean linguistic prehistory', University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 27 salish L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 28 takanan V. Girard, 1971, 'Proto takanan phonology', University of California Publications, Linguistics, vol. 70 29 totonocan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 30 uto aztecan R. W. Langaker, 1970, 'The vowels of proto uto-aztecan', American Journal pf American linguistics, vol. 36 31 yokuts V. K. Golla, 1964, 'Comparative Yokuts phonology', Studies in Californian Linguistics, vol.34 32 zapotecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 33 zoquean R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin ************* australian 34 australian R. M. W. Dixon, 1990, 'Sumary report : linguistic change and reconstruction in the australian language family', 35 paman Bruce, A. Sommer, 19, 'Umbuygamu : the classification of a Cape York language, in Papers in australian linguistics, no 10, Pacific Linguistics, Series A, no 47 36 pre norman pama Paul Black, 19, 'Norman pama historical phonology', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-no 59 : Papers in Australian Linguistics no 13, Contribution to Australian Linguistics, B. Rigsby & P. Sutton, eds ************* austric 37 austronesian Malcom D. Ross, 1995, 'Some current issues in Austronesian linguistics', in "Comparative Austronesian dictionary. An introduction to Austronesian Studies, Part 1 : Fascicle 1", Trends in Linguistics, Documentation 10, Darrell T. Tryon, ed., Mouton de Gryuter, Berlin, New York 38 central pacific P. Geraghty, 1986, 'The sound system of proto central pacific, Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no 94 39 central tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 40 east tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 41 far west Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 42 huon gulf Suzanne Holzknecht, 1989, 'The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, 115 43 katouique G. Diffloth, 1982, 'Registres, devoisement, timbres vocaliques : leur histoire en katouique', Mon-Khmer Studies XI : 4/82 44 kimbe R. L. Johnston, 19, 'Proto kimbe and the New Guinea Oceanic hypothesis', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no 74 45 lakes plain Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 46 lakkja L. Thongkum Theraphan, 19, 'A preliminary reconstruction of proto-lakkja (cha shan yao)', Mon-Khmer Studies, no 20 47 malayo polynesian L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 48 markham Suzanne Holzknecht, 1989, 'The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, 115 49 micronesian Byron, W. Bender, Judith W. Wang, 19, 'The status of proto micronesian', Australian Linguistics at the 15th Pacific Science Congress, Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no88 50 new caledonian F. Ozanne-Rivierre, 1992, 'The proto-oceanic consonantal system and the languages of New Caledonia, Oceanic Linguistics, vol 31, no2 51 oceanic Malcom D. Ross, 1988, 'Proto Oceanic and the austronesian languages of Western Melanesia', Pacific Studies, Series C, no 98 52 philippine R. Blust, 1991, 'The great Central Philippines hypothesis', Oceanic Linguistics, vol XXX, no 2 53 plang Debbie Paulsen, 19, 'A phonological reconstruction of proto-plang', Mon-Khmer Studies 18-19 54 polynesian D. S. Walsh, B. Biggs, 1966, 'Proto-Polynesian word list I', Te Reo monographs, Linguistic Society of New Zealand, Auckland 55 sangiric J. N. Sneddon, 1984, 'Proto-Sangiric and the sangiric languages', Pacific Linguistics, series B, no 91 56 tai Fang Kuei Li, 1977, 'A handbook of comparative Tai', Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no 15, University Press of Hawai 57 tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 58 vietnamese M. Ferlus, 19, 'Histoire abregee de l'evolution des consonnes initiales du vietnamien et du sino-vietnamien', Mon-Khmer Studies, no 20 59 west tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 60 western malayo polynesian L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 ************ CAUCASIAN 61 kartvelian A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. ************ CHUKCHI KAMCHATKAN 62 chukotko-kamchatkan Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York ************ ELAMO-DRAVIDIAN 63 dravidian Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 1961, 'Telugu verbal basis, a comparative and descriptive study', University of California Publication in Linguistics, vol 24, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 64 old telugu Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 1961, 'Telugu verbal basis, a comparative and descriptive study', University of California Publication in Linguistics, vol 24, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles ************ ESKIMO-ALEUT 65 eskimo Fortescue, Jacobson and Kaplan, 1994, 'Comparative Eskimo dictionary with Aleut cognates', Alaska Native Center 66 eskimo-aleut Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York ************ INDO-HITTITE 67 anatolian H. Craig Melchert, 1994, 'Anatolian historical phonology', Rodopi, Amsterdam, Atlanta 68 attic S.-T. Teodorsson, 1974, "The phonemic system of the Attic dialect, 400-340 B.C", Institute of Classical Studies of the University of Goteborg], [Gothenburg, Sweden 69 common nordic Elmer H. Antonsen, Proto scandinavian and common nordic', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 39, feb. 1967, pp 16-39 70 germanic Elmer H. Antonsen, 1963, 'The proto norse vowel system and the younger futhark', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 35, no3, August 1963, pp 195-207 71 indo-european A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 72 late proto norse Elmer H. Antonsen, 1963, 'The proto norse vowel system and the younger futhark', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 35, no3, August 1963, pp 195-207 73 middle english Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 74 pre anglian old english Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 75 west saxon Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 ************ INDO-PACIFIC 76 gorokan W. A. Foley, 1986, "The Papuan languages of New Guinea", Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York 77 lower sepik A. W. Foley, 1986, 'The papuan languages of New Guinea', Cambridge language survey ************ KHOISAN 78 central khoisan Kenneth, Baucom, "Proto central khoisan" ************ ISOLATES 79 pre basque R. L. Trask, 1997, "The history of Basque", Routledge, London ; New York 80 sumerian A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. ************ MACRO-FAMILY 81 nostratic A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 82 uralo-siberian Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York na-dene 83 athapaskan M. E. Krauss, 1964, 'Proto athapaskan-eyak and the problem of na-dene : the phonology', IJAL, vol. 30, no 2, pp 118-131 ************ NIGER-KORDOFANIAN 84 bantu A. E. Meeussen, 1965, "Reconstructions grammaticales du bantou", Tervuren, 85 central gur Tony Naden, 19, 'Gur', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 86 edoid O. B. Elugbe, 1989, 'Comparative Edoid : phonology and lexicon, Delta series no 6, University of Port Harcourt Press 87 gbaya Y. Monino and L. Bouquiaux, 1995, "Le Proto-Gbaya : essai de linguistique comparative historique sur vingt-et-une langues d'Afrique centrale", Peeters, Paris ; Louvain 88 guang Keith L. Snider, 1989, 'The vowels of proto guang', The Journal of West African Languages, vol. XIX, no 2 and Keith L. Snider, 1990, 'The consonants of proto guang', The Journal of West African Languages, vol. XX, no 1 89 ijo K. Williamson, 1979, 'Medial consonants in proto ijo', Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, vol 1, no 1, Foris Publications, Dordrecht 90 lower cross B. Connell, 1995, 'The historical development of Lower Cross consonants', Journal of African Languages and linguistics, vol 16, number 1, Mouton de Gruyter 91 mande D. J. Dwyer, 19, 'Mande', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 92 mandekan K. D. Bimson, 1976, 'Comparative reconstruction of Mandekan', Studies in African Linguistics, vol 7, no 3 93 pre nizaa R. T. Endresen, 1991, 'Diachronic aspects of the phonology of nizaa', Journal of African Language and Linguistics, vol 12 , no 2, Mouton de Gruyter 94 sabaki D. Nurse, T. J. Hinnebusch, 1993, 'Swahili and Sabaki, a linguistic history', University of California Publications, Linguistics vol 121, University of California Press 95 tano congo J. M. Stewart, 1983, 'The high unadvanced vowels of proto tano congo', The Journal of West African languages, vol XIII, number 1 96 volta Kay Williamson, 19, 'Niger Congo overview', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London ************ NILO-SAHARAN 97 maa R. Vossen, B. Heine, 1989, 'The historical reconstruction of proto ongamo-maa', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 181-218 98 maba J. Edgar, 1991, 'First step towards proto-maba', African Languages and Cultures, vol 4, no 2 99 nubian B. Gerst, 1989, 'Nile Nubian reconsidered', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 85-96 100 ongamo maa R. Vossen, B. Heine, 1989, 'The historical reconstruction of proto ongamo-maa', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 181-218 101 sara bongo baguirmian P. Boyeldieu, unpublished reconstruction ************ SINO-TIBETAN 102 karen R. B. Jones, jr., 1961, 'Karen linguistic studies, description, comparison and texts', University of California publication in linguistics, vol 25, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 103 lolo burmese J. A. Matissoff, 19, 'Problems and progress in lolo burmese : quo vadimus ?', Linguistics of the Tibeto Burman Area 104 mon Michel Ferlus, 19, 'Essai de phonetique historique du Mon', Mon-Khmer Studies XII 105 old chinese L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 ************ URALIC-YUKAGHIR 106 early proto finnic M. Korhonen, 1988, 'The history of the lapp language', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 107 finno permic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 108 finno-ugric G. Lako, 19, ' Proto finno-ugric sources of the hungarian phonetic stock', Indiana University, Bloomington, Mouton & Co., The hague, The Netherlands 109 lapp M. Korhonen, 1988, 'The history of the lapp language', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 110 north samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 111 ob ugric P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 112 permic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 113 samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 114 south samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 115 ugric P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 116 uralic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln __________________________________________ Egidio Marsico Dynamique du Langage Institut des Sciences de l'Homme 14, avenue Berthelot 69363 Lyon Cedex 07 FRANCE Phone: +33 4 72 72 64 62 Fax: +33 4 72 72 65 90 E-Mail: egidio.marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr __________________________________________ From G.Caglayan at deGruyter.de Mon Jul 3 14:40:17 2000 From: G.Caglayan at deGruyter.de (Gillian Caglayan) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 10:40:17 EDT Subject: Carling, Die Funktionen der lokalen Kasus im Tocharischen Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- New publication from Mouton de Gruyter!!! Gerd Carling Die Funktionen der lokalen Kasus im Tocharischen 2000. 23 x 15,5 cm. xxii, 442 pages. Cloth. DM 178,- /EUR 91,01 /öS 1299,- /sFr 158,- /approx. US$ 89.00 ISBN 3-11-016827-8 This volume, written in German, deals with the use of the local cases in Tocharian A and Tocharian B, Indo-European languages of the Tarim Basin, Eastern Central Asia, of the 6th - 9th centuries AD. Tocharian differs typologically from most of the other Indo-European languages in that it is basically inflectional-agglutinative. This tendency is dominant in the case system: generally, local relations are expressed by local cases alone, and adpositional phrases are used only in order to express more specific local relations. The study concentrates on the local cases expressing location and direction (i.e. oblique, allative, perlative, and locative) in the following contexts: - case constructions expressing concrete or abstract local relations - case constructions expressing temporal relations - adpositional constructions expressing local and temporal relations. The uses of the local cases with various reference objects is presented. A theoretical discussion of the nature of the respective local cases and a reconstruction of a possible evolution of the function of the cases from Proto-Tocharian to Tocharian A and Tocharian B concludes this study. Locality in Tocharian is a field in which almost no research has been carried out, and in this sense this study fills a slot within the field of Indo-European syntax. This book is of special interest to historical and comparative linguists, especially those working with Indo-European languages, to general linguists interested in localism and specialists in Central Asian languages. For more information please contact the publisher: Mouton de Gruyter Genthiner Str. 13 10785 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49 30 26005 222 e-mail: orders at degruyter.de Please visit our website for other publications by Mouton de Gruyter http://www.degruyter.com From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Jul 5 15:50:36 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 11:50:36 EDT Subject: Q: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- As is well known, vernacular American English frequently uses the simple past tense in contexts in which other varieties of English, including edited American English, require the perfect. Examples: 'Did you eat yet?' = 'Have you eaten yet?' 'I just ate.' = 'I've just eaten.' Most published commentary on this usage suggests that it may derive from the influence of European immigrant languages which do not systematically distinguish the past and the perfect. But, around a year ago, I stumbled across a suggestion that this vernacular usage might in fact be a conservative feature of spoken English, of some antiquity but little recorded in writing, surviving in the US but not elsewhere. Unfortunately, I didn't note the reference, but now one of my colleagues, not on this list, is interested in pursuing this idea, and would like to retrieve this reference, or any other such suggestion. Does anybody know of any such published suggestion? Or would anybody like to comment on its degree of plausibility, if any? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu Thu Jul 6 11:34:17 2000 From: Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu (Randall Gess) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 07:34:17 EDT Subject: Bibliography: call for updates Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear listmembers: First, apologies to subscribers of both lists for the cross-posting. This is a request for updates to the bibliography on Optimality Theory and language change which I posted to the Optimality archive last year. The bibliography is available as ROA-359-1199. Thanks, Randall Gess Randall Gess, Asst. Prof. Department of Linguistics 255 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 2328 University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0492 Office: (801) 585-3009, Fax: (801) 585-7351 Email: Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu From paoram at unipv.it Thu Jul 6 11:34:57 2000 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 07:34:57 EDT Subject: R: Q: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Larry, the idea seems quite plausible, from a diachronic point of view. We know for sure that periphrastic forms developed in many IE languages, including the Germanic ones, relatively later. The situation of my native language is very similar. As is well-known, simple past forms are used only in some varieties of Italian, whereas they have disappeared or almost disappeared in other varieties. Sicilians may say _'Ora ora arrivo' il ferry-boat'_, North Italians,on the contrary, use forms with the 'have' or 'be' AUX also for very remote events: _'Napoleone ha perso la battaglia di Waterloo'_, _'N. e' stato sconfitto a W.'_ The use of the simple past ("passato remoto") seems to be limited to narrative, literary texts. Finally there are also language varieties (Tuscany) where a functional opposition between periphrastic and non-periphrastic forms seems to be still there. (_*?ora ora arrivo' il f.-b._ vs. _...e' arrivato..._ and conversely _*?Napoleone e' stato sconfitto a W._ vs. _...fu sconfitto..._) Thus, the choice depends upon many diatopic, diastratic (i.e. sociolinguistic), diaphasic factors. No wonder if Engl. varieties would reflect a similar complex situation. -----Messaggio originale----- Da: Larry Trask A: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Data: giovedì 6 luglio 2000 2.01 Oggetto: Q: Am Eng past for perfect >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >As is well known, vernacular American English frequently >uses the simple past tense in contexts in which other >varieties of English, including edited American English, >require the perfect. Examples: > > 'Did you eat yet?' = 'Have you eaten yet?' > 'I just ate.' = 'I've just eaten.' > >Most published commentary on this usage suggests that it >may derive from the influence of European immigrant languages >which do not systematically distinguish the past and the perfect. >But, around a year ago, I stumbled across a suggestion that >this vernacular usage might in fact be a conservative feature >of spoken English, of some antiquity but little recorded in >writing, surviving in the US but not elsewhere. Unfortunately, >I didn't note the reference, but now one of my colleagues, not on >this list, is interested in pursuing this idea, and would like >to retrieve this reference, or any other such suggestion. > >Does anybody know of any such published suggestion? Or would >anybody like to comment on its degree of plausibility, if any? > > >Larry Trask >COGS >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk > >Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); 1273-678693 (from abroad) >Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); 1273-671320 (from abroad) > From W.O.G.Abraham at let.rug.nl Thu Jul 6 15:06:41 2000 From: W.O.G.Abraham at let.rug.nl (abraham) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:06:41 EDT Subject: Larry trask's question on preterites Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Synthetic preterites were the original form for the past in all (Indo- )Germanic, certainly to the extent that no explicit distinction was made between aorists and preterites. However, whether or not the simple, synthetic preterite was used for meanings quoted by Larry Trask, rather than only a selection, for example, for perfective meanings, is a different question altogether. It depended, to all appearances, on the lexical Aktionsart of the predicate in question. Thus, perfective AA (marked or unmarked, i.e. truly lexical) could take the synthetic preterite to express past-to-present, but AA- imperfectives (duratives,statives, ect.) could not. Some of this inconclusiveness could be balanced by way of case assignment, similarly to Russian. See my paper in Kemenade/Vincent, CUP three years back. Notice that the 'present perfect' in PDSE is NOT a continuation of this original aspectual stage of OE or Germanic. what the present perfect means in PDSE is different from the original perfectivity in Germanic and certainly a novel development.An unpublished paper of mine (based on original observations made by Elly van Gelderen, in response to Giorgi/Pianesi 1995) about that is available upon request. This is just to say that illustrations such as those provided by Trask need to be looked at from a AA-perspective, and therefore in greater numbers for conclusive generalisations, before any direct link to Germanic and inheritance can be made. Werner Abraham Werner Abraham ********************************************************************** * Werner Abraham * * * German - Letteren - University of Groningen * * PoB 716 * * NL-9700 Groningen * * tel. +31-50-36 35 920 or ...5850 * * FAX +31-50-36 35 821 * * * * private: Meerkoetlaan 3 * * NL-9765 TC Paterswolde * * Tel=FAX +31-50-30 92 631 * * http://www.let.rug.nl/~abraham/text ********************************************************************** NEW addresses as of July 15, 2000 (E-address remains unchanged): * home: A-8942 Wörschach, Maitschern Nr. 128 Steiermark, Austria tel.=fax +43-3682-23175 office(Aug.28,2000-May 20,2001): Dept. of German, UCB 5319 Dwinelle HL, Berkeley, CA 94720-3243, USA abraham at let.rug.nl or abraham at socrates.berkeley.edu * ********************************************************************** From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Jul 7 12:50:29 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 08:50:29 EDT Subject: Sum: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The other day I posted a query about the American use of the simple past where other varieties require the perfect. I received a number of helpful replies. Werner Abraham has already posted a comment to the list. There follows a summary of the main points made by those who responded to me privately. I'll just add here that the Americans who responded agreed at once that my examples of the past tense were entirely natural, and one of them expressed surprise that I regarded them as non-standard, or at least as unacceptable in edited American English. Well, I'm American, too, but everybody assures me I speak 1912 English. 1. The idea that the American use of the simple past in these contexts represents a survival, rather than an innovation, is indeed taken seriously. 2. Precisely this idea was put forward by Visser; see sections 792, 806, 807. 3. Much the same idea has been defended by Charles-James Bailey, and is probably to be found in his publications, though I have no reference. Try orlapubs at ilhawaii.net . Bailey reportedly sees the English perfect as a declining form propped up to some extent by a Romance superstrate. [This view would certainly be in line with Bailey's general views about the history of English -- LT.] 4. Dulcie Engel at the University of Wales, Swansea (d.engel at swansea.ac.uk) and Marie-Eva Ritz at the University of Western Australia (mritz at ecel.uwa.edu.au) have been working on this topic for a while, especially from an Australian angle. They have been reporting their findings at conferences, and they will probably be publishing their work soon in the Australian Journal of Linguistics. 5. Anders Ahlqvist at the National University of Ireland, Galway, ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Histling, In a recent volume of _Nature_ (Vol. 405, 29 june 2000), there are two articles on a quantitative study of the family-tree of the Austronesian languages. There is one 'letter to nature' by R.D.Gray & F.M.Jordan from the department of Psychology in Auckland, entitled 'Language trees support the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion' (pp. 1052-1055) and a 'news and views' comment by Rebecca L. Cann, from the department of Genetics and Molecular Biology in Honolulu (pp. 1008-1009). After a first jump of joy that _Nature_ would publish articles on historical linguistics, my first caution was raised by the affiliation of the authors, none of whom seems to be a linguist. And indeed, in my opinion (please note that I am not a specialist in this field!), the articles are rather tendentious towards historical linguistics. The authors are very eager to proclaim that their quantitative methods, which are taken from biology (cf the resent discussion on cladistic classification), are important, or even better than the methods used by linguistists: 'so, although linguists routinely use the "comparative method" to construct language family trees from discrete lexical, morphological and phonological data, they do not use an explicit optimality criterion to select the best tree, nor do they typically use an efficient computer algorithm to search for the best tree form the discrete data.' (p. 1052) The authors used 'an efficient computer algorith' on the unpublished data from Blusts's Austronesian Comparative Dictionary to build a language-tree of the Austronesian languages. As far as I can see, nothing new results form their analysis. There is a rather nice congruence between their tree and the tree as I knew it from the literature. 'We found that the topology of the language tree was highly compatible with the express-train model.' (p. 1052) So, the method seems to work. Yet, a main error they seem to make is that they think that linguistic data are 'discrete', that there is a clear yes/no answer to the question whether a part of words is cognate or not (see also the methods-section, p. 1054). In general, I grew rather angry after reading the articles. The method is a nice addition to historical linguistics, but there is nothing really new. So, it seems to be possible to publish an article in _Nature_ just by using the right computer programm and forget that many years of research that has been performed in linguistics to be able to perform these analyses. I even started to wonder whether _Nature_ has had the article reviewed by a real historical linguist. Of course, it is a good thing to have some historical linguistic research published in _Nature_, and maybe this is the best possible outcome for something to get published in such a journal. Still, I would have liked to see some more credit to the linguistic effort. Michael Cysouw University of Nijmegen From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Jul 18 15:52:34 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:52:34 EDT Subject: Austronesian tree in _Nature_ Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am grateful to Michael Cysouw for bringing the two articles in Nature to our attention. I've just rushed off to the library and read them, and now I'd like to offer a few comments. My first reaction to the articles is not as negative as Michael's, but I agree that there are points of concern. Gray and Jordan do not claim that their method can supplant any existing linguistic methods. Instead, they appear to see their method as supplementing, or complementing, our existing methods, and in particular they express hope that their method might be useful in integrating data from linguistics, genetics, archaeology and ethnography. Note in particular that G&J are not merely interested in constructing a linguistic family tree: they want to find a linguistic tree which is highly consistent with the archeological evidence for the Austronesian expansion. They do, however, express surprise that historical linguists have not made more use of best-tree algorithms. They seem unaware of the existing work by linguists with this technique, notably (perhaps) at Pennsylvania and at Cambridge. They also seem unaware of the formidable difficulties which linguists have pointed to in getting best-tree methods to do anything useful. Like many non-linguists, they seem to take it for granted that linguistic data are not significantly different in nature from (say) genetic data, and that the same techniques can be applied successfully to all these data. Well, this has yet to be demonstrated. Of course, G&J's paper constitutes an attempt at just such a demonstration, but we'll see. The enthusiasm here is expressed by Cann, who writes the following: "A systematic tool that could reveal hidden subgroups among similar Austronesian languages would be a powerful way of analysing Pacific prehistory." But G&J do not identify any "hidden subgroups", nor do they claim to have identified any. More on this below. Moreover, G&J acknowledge the importance of the Austronesian work already done by linguists, though perhaps not as explicitly as they might have. But the article is written in the dense and compressed style of a scientific publication, and it is much more concise than what we are used to seeing in a linguistics journal. G&J make the following assumptions. (1) The Austronesian family exists, and its membership is known. This, of course, results entirely from linguistic work. (2) Cognate lexical items exist, and very many have been identified. This too results from linguistic work. (3) There is no doubt about whether two lexical items are cognate or not. This again results from linguistic work, and specifically from Bob Blust's data, the sole source of data used by G&J. And the possible difficulties here have already been noted by Michael. (4) Linguistic family trees can be adequately established on the basis of lexical cognates alone, without reference to phonology, morphology or syntax. G&J use only lexical items as data. Members of this list will have their own views on this matter. Cann, in her comment, asserts flatly that words are similar to genes. Members will also have their own views on this assertion, not overtly made by G&J, but implicitly assumed by them -- though G&J do assert that languages are like molecules. (5) No weighting is necessary. As far as I can tell, G&J have assigned no weightings, but have treated all cognates equally as evidence. Members of this list will doubtless have their own views on this matter. (6) The Austronesian family spread out from Taiwan into the Pacific. This assumption again derives mainly from linguistic work, though G&J tell us that it is confirmed by genetic and archaeological data. The assumption is necessary in order to root the tree. The program, by itself, can only produce an unrooted tree exhibiting degrees of divergence, and a root must be introduced from outside, as an auxiliary assumption. This means, not just that Taiwan is taken as a geographical root, but that the Taiwanese languages are taken as a linguistic root, divergence from which is the criterion used to set up the tree. So, it should be clear that an enormous amount of linguistic work had to be done before G&J could even approach the task of constructing a tree with their program. And, as Michael has complained, this obvious fact is not at all emphasized by G&J, or by Cann. (7) Though the Austronesian family contains about 1200 languages, a judicious sample of 77 languages is enough to work out the family tree in its main lines. This sort of assumption is routine in best-tree work, of course. G&J chose from Bob Blust's database the 68 languages which were represented in the most cognate sets, and then added a further nine languages selected to represent those recognized branches of Austronesian which were otherwise poorly represented in the sample, giving them a final sample of 77 languages. With these assumptions, G&J put their program to work to compute the best tree. They obtained a tree which is strikingly similar to the one constructed by Austronesianists using traditional methods. But there were a few significant differences: some languages were placed in different branches from the ones where the Austronesianists put them. But G&J do not claim that their tree is better. Rather, they acknowledge that their program has produced spurious results, probably because of borrowing. In their words, Austronesian cultural history is not "totally tree-like". Then G&J go on to test two models of the Austronesian expansion: the 'express-train' model and the 'entangled-bank' model. The express-train model holds that Austronesian spread out rapidly and unidirectionally from west to east, with rapid branching, with little borrowing among branches of Austronesian, with little linguistic intermingling with the languages of earlier inhabitants, and with few or no east-to-west movements. The entangled-bank model holds the contrary: extensive linguistic intermingling between different Austronesian languages and between Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages. The first model predicts a clean and simple family tree; the second predicts no identifiable family tree at all. G&J conclude that their results are highly consistent with the express-train model, but not at all consistent with the entangled- bank model. And both G&J and Cann see this potential for testing proposed models as a great virtue, perhaps *the* great virtue, of the best-tree approach. So there is perhaps something here to think about. However, as Cann observes in her commentary, the Austronesian case may not be typical in linguistics. Rather, it may be an exceptionally simple case: a single family expanding rapidly into a vast territory much of which is not yet inhabited, with significant distances between the habitable locations. It remains to be seen whether G&J's method can produce useful results in other cases, especially in cases which are known to be messy. Consider Afro-Asiatic. This is a recognized family, but one at the very limit of our ability to detect relationships. The location of Proto-AA is not known, and so no geographical root can be identified. So far, in spite of vigorous efforts, we have no accepted reconstruction of Proto-AA, and so we cannot use Proto-AA as a linguistic root, in the way that the Penn team used PIE to root their IE tree. Moreover, the evidence that I have seen in support of the validity of the AA family is mostly morphological, not lexical. So, what -- if anything -- could G&J's best-tree approach tell us about the family tree of AA? And what about convergence phenomena? G&J conclude that their success in obtaining a good tree shows that borrowing and other convergence phenomena have not occurred on a large scale within Austronesian. Fine. But what about all those other cases in which large-scale convergence is known to have occurred? Presumably G&J's method would simply return no tree in such cases, but surely the method needs to be tested on a few messy cases, in order to find out just what it does do. Until that is done, I guess we can contain our enthusiasm. I myself believe that mathematical and computational methods must eventually prove to be valuable in comparative linguistics. But it's interesting that the linguists who engage in such work are usually far more cautious in their claims than the non-linguists. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From theswain at yahoo.com Sun Jul 23 20:04:24 2000 From: theswain at yahoo.com (Larry Swain) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 16:04:24 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS: "The Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent, 550-800" This is an invitation to submit papers for a session of the 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, sponsored and organized by The Heroic Age journal. The subject matter may deal specifically with Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Contributions are sought from the fields of archaeology, history, literature, linguistics, art history, religion, music, and folklore. Research articles, essays, and biographies are all welcome. Topics may include but by no means are limited to: *Bede's accounts of Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent *Relations between the Continent and Ireland or England *Theological differences between Anglo-Saxons and Irish and their acceptance on the Continent *specific points of interaction *The events of specific personages, such as Columbanus, Boniface, Alcuin, and others. The papers presented may be included in a future issue of the Heroic Age. The URL for the Heroic Age is http://members.aol.com/heroicage1/homepage.html The URL for the 36th Congress and the Heroic Age is http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/36cfp/h.htm#her Abstracts should be submitted to: L. J. Swain 836 W. Vine Kalamazoo, MI 49008 E-MAIL: theswain at yahoo.com Phone: 616-388-8168 Abstracts should be submitted by September 15 in order to make the October deadline imposed by the Congress committee. Abstracts may be submitted in print form via traditional mail or via email at the above addresses. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From erickson at hawaii.edu Tue Jul 25 21:29:23 2000 From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:29:23 EDT Subject: Uvular R Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A while back, I asked for reference on uvular R spreading from French to German. I would like to thank the following people for their responses: David Fertig Tore Janson Tony Kroch Roger Lass Paul M. Lloyd Marisa Lohr Marc Picard Paolo Ramat Beatrice Santorini Nigel Smith Piet van Reenen Nigel Vincent Here are the references that they recommended, along with a few I found myself. Chambers, J. K. & Peter Trudgill. 1998. Dialectology. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenberg, Peter. 1994. German. In The Germanic Languages, edited by E. Konig & J. van der Auwera. London: Routledge. Howell, Robert B. 1987. Tracing the Origin of Uvular R in the Germanic Languages. Folia Linguistica Historica 7 (2): 317-349. Janson, Tore. 1983. Sound Change in Perception and Production. Language 59:18-34. Runge, Richard M. 1974. Proto-Germanic /r/: The Pronunciation of /r/ Throughout the History of the Germanic Languages. Goppingen: Alfred Kummerle. Wollock, Jeffrey. 1982. Views on the Decline of Apical R in Europe: Historical Study. Folia Linguistica Historica 3 (2): 185-238. Many thanks again for the comments and references. Blaine Erickson erickson at hawaii.edu From inge.genee at uleth.ca Thu Jul 27 00:04:52 2000 From: inge.genee at uleth.ca (Inge Genee) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:04:52 EDT Subject: SMML Call for Papers - Kalamazoo 2001 Message-ID: For those of us interested in the study of medieval languages and/or linguistics, the Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics is sponsoring four sessions (up from three) at next year's Kalamazoo Medieval Congress. Here is some more information on submission deadlines. > > Dear Colleagues, > > The Call for Papers for Kalamazoo 2001 is now available online, and if you > have already looked at it, you may have noticed that we have had four > sessions accepted. Here is a copy of what appears there: > > Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics (4): > I. Studies in Insular Linguistics: In Memory of Ruth Lehmann > II. Interference and Interlanguage in Medieval Texts > III-IV. Medieval Language and Linguistics I and II > > Paul A. Johnston, Jr. > Department of English > Western Michigan University > 1903 W. Michigan Ave. > Kalamazoo, MI 49008 > > Phone: (wk) 616-387-2618; (hm) 616-344-0697 > FAX: 616-357-3999 > E-Mail:johnstonp at wmich.edu > > If you are interested in presenting a paper at one of these sessions, > please let Paul Johnston know. Deadline for submission of abstracts is > October 1. For complete details, see the Call for Papers page on the SMML > website. > > The complete Kalamazoo 2001 Call for Papers is at > http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/36cfp/index.html > > The SMML Call for Papers is at > http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/mll/cfpaprs.html > > Sincerely, > ____ _____ > / (_) | o (_) \ > \__ __ | _ _ __ _ _ | |_ __ _ __ __, _ _ > / / \| | | | | |/ | _ | || ||/ | / ) / | |/ | > \____)\__/|_ \/ \/ |_| |_) ( /\___/ \_/|| |_\___/\_/|_| |_) > > eduncan at towson.edu Department of English > http://www.towson.edu/~duncan Towson University > 301E Linthicum - (410) 830-2847 Towson, Maryland 21252 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Edwin Duncan Subject: SMML Call for Papers - K'zoo 2001 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:01:57 -0400 Size: 3325 URL: From jjbowks at adam.cheshire.net Thu Jul 27 17:24:33 2000 From: jjbowks at adam.cheshire.net (Jay Bowks) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 13:24:33 EDT Subject: Interlingua Institute: A History (New Book) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Interlingua Institute: A History by Frank Esterhill Published by Interlingua Institute pb (c) 2000 ISBN 0-917848-02-0 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-091345 Publication Date: May 2000 x & 106 pages Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches Price: US$35.oo At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, serious consideration was given by many academicians and linguists to the idea of an international auxiliary language. The Nobel Laureate, Wilhelm Ostwald, at the University of Leipzig, interested his student, the young chemist, Dr. Frederick Gardner Cottrell, in the idea as early as 1902. After the First World War, Cottrell, Chairman of the Committee on International Auxiliary Language (which had been set up in 1919) of the International Research Council, persuaded two wealthy and prominent New Yorkers, Alice Vanderbilt Morris and Dave Hennen Morris, to found the International Auxiliary Language Association [IALA] in 1924, with an illustrious team of leading academics and business leaders. For a dozen years, IALA sponsored linguistic research (under the aegis of Sapir, Jespersen, and Collinson, together with Debrunner, Von Wahl, Peano, and others) and organized meetings dedicated to the task of effecting conciliation between the already existing international auxiliary language systems. Then, in 1937, realizing that all of the previously elaborated interlanguages were fundamentally flawed and that compromise was impossible, IALA, with a grant from Rockefeller Foundation, undertook the second stage of its research, the registration of the international vocabulary, under E. Clark Stillman at the University of Liverpool. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, IALA's files and records were safely transferred to New York where Stillman assembled a new team to continue the work. He enlisted the support of an able assistant, Alexander Gode, who assumed the direction of IALA when Stillman left on war duty. By the time WWII was over, IALA had completed its basic work and was ready to offer to the public, in its General Report 1945, three variants of its proposed interlanguage. In 1946, André Martinet joined IALA's staff (full-time for the first year and part-time in the second), formulating both a questionnaire and an analysis of IALA's (now) four variants - the Présentation des Varientes. After Martinet's abrupt departure in 1948 in a dispute regarding his salary, Alexander Gode once again assumed the direction of IALA's staff and brought the work to completion with the publication of the Interlingua - English Dictionary and the Interlingua Grammar in 1951. The application of Interlingua to the sciences began the next year with the inception of Scientia International, the monthly abstracts of Science News Letter. Over the span of almost twenty years, Gode supplied Interlingua summaries for more than two dozen medical journals, and he wrote Interlingua abstracts for 11 world medical congresses from 1954 to 1962. The Interlingua translations (Esterhill with Andersen and Frodelund) in the two volumes of the Multilingual Compendium of Plant Dieseases (1976 and 1977), published by the American Phytopathological Society in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture, marked the final milestone in the distinguished history of Interlingua in the service of science. Contents: This book, the first to make extensive use of the Archives of IALA, examines four pivotal stages in the history of the international auxiliary language idea: (1) the Foundation of IALA in 1924 and early attempts at compromise; (2) the Formulation of the Interlingua of IALA after 1937 on the solid basis of the international vocabulary; (3) the Publication of the Interlingua - English Dictionary and the Interlingua Grammar in 1951; and (4) the Application from 1951 to 1977. References: An extensive bibliography of the subject, including still - unpublished documents found in the Archive of IALA. Biographical Notes of the most important figures associated with IALA and with the Interlingua Institute. List of Directors of the Interlingua Institute. Representative Interlingua Texts from (I) Spectroscopia Molecular, (II) Third World Congress of Psychiatry, (III) Journal of the American Medical Association, (IV) Danish Medical Bulletin, (V) Scientia International, (VI) New York State Journal of Medicine, (VII and VIII) Multilingual Compendium of Plant Diseases. List of Journals with Interlingua summaries. List of World Medical Congresses which published Interlingua abstracts. Index of Names. -- administrator at interlingua.org http://www.interlingua.org From a.v.kemenade at let.kun.nl Sat Jul 1 11:34:02 2000 From: a.v.kemenade at let.kun.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:34:02 EDT Subject: call for papers: workshop on preverbs at Nijmegen (Netherlands) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Call for papers for a two-day workshop on PREVERBS Date of the workshop: 19-20 January 2001 Venue: University of Nijmegen Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2000 Notification of acceptance: 20 October 2000 Invited speakers (confirmed) include Farrell Ackerman (UCSD), Alice Harris (Vanderbilt), Adrienne Bruyn (Amsterdam/Manchester), Thorhallur Eythorsson (Manchester), Marian Klamer (Amsterdam), Muriel Norde (Amsterdam), Willem Koopman (Amsterdam) Abstracts are solicited for 40-minute papers (including discussion). Here follows a brief description of the topic indicating the types of work that we welcome in particular: Preverbs pose a range of interesting questions along many dimensions of linguistic study. They are of relevance to current theoretical debates concerning the nature of the syntax-morphology interface and the representation of argument structure. They are attested across a broad range of language families, so that one is led to ask what are the typological factors that impinge on their distribution. Last but not least, their historical development can both provide further evidence about their synchronic status and shed interesting light on the mechanisms of morphosyntactic change. In this workshop, therefore, we will attempt to bring together typological, historical and theoretical insights, in order to gain a better understanding of how and why preverbs developed in the way they did. Proposals for contributions are invited under the followed heads: * theoretically informed analyses of a synchronic set of data pertaining to preverbs in one or more languages or language families * theoretically informed analyses of the diachronic development in one or more of the languages or language families * typologically based surveys of preverbs across a larger or smaller set of languages * systematic (sub)inventories of data for those languages for which preverbs do not seem to have been much of an issue so far Organisers: Geert Booij, Bettelou Los (Vrije Univ.) Olga Fischer (Univ. of Amsterdam) Nigel Vincent (Manchester), Ans van Kemenade (Nijmegen, local organiser) The workshop is sponsored by NWO, through the collaborative effort between the Dutch linguistics network LOT, and the NorthWest Centre of Linguistics From degraff at MIT.EDU Sat Jul 1 11:40:33 2000 From: degraff at MIT.EDU (Michel DeGraff) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:40:33 EDT Subject: Morphology in Creole Languages: Request for Comments Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues, This is a request for data and/or comments related to a paper of mine on (Haitian) Creole morphology. The paper is called "Morphology in Creole genesis: A prolegomenon". There, I evaluate a variety of widely-believed received notions about Creole morphology or, rather, about the absence or simplicity of Creole morphology. This is the sort of truisms one often reads in introductory linguistics textbooks, including some of the classics (Jespersen 1922, Bloomfield 1933, Hockett 1958, Martinet 1969, etc). What I argue in this paper (focusing on Haitian Creole) is that, in spite of their observational inadequacy, these persistently-popular received notions span the entire course of Creole studies and a variety of theoretical approaches. The paper examines relevant Haitian Creole data and related theoretical observations, and raises various questions about both the linguistics and the sociology underlying the `simple Creole morphology' truisms. The essay also revisits some of the historical foundations of Creole studies and their relationships to contemporary sociological concerns in, and about, Creole communities. As this is the beginning of a long-term project with rather broad scientific and political concerns, I'd very much welcome constructive comments from all quarters, including comments about (dis)similar morphological phenomena in other `Creole' varieties and---more generally---about related phenomena in language contact and language change. The paper is available for downloading and circulating in both PDF and postscript format. PDF for Acrobat Reader (424,724 bytes): http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/festschrift.pdf Postscript (496,574 bytes): http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff/festschrift.ps Thank you very much, -michel. ___________________________________________________________________________ MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307 degraff at MIT.EDU http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff.home.html ___________________________________________________________________________ From bao at cphling.dk Sat Jul 1 11:43:35 2000 From: bao at cphling.dk (Birgit Anette Olsen) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:43:35 EDT Subject: Conference in Copenhagen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > > > > > > CALL FOR PAPERS > > > > > > A conference on the subject: > > > > > > Indo-European Word Formation/Indogermanische Wortbildung > > inventory and analysis > > > > > > > > will take place at the University of Copenhagen > > > > > > October 20th - 22th 2000. > > > > > > Preference will be given to papers dealing with nominal and verbal > > derivation, including the formation of compounds, in the Indo-European > > language family in general or in one of the separate branches. > > A minor session of the conference will be dedicated to the discussion > > of lexical projects and other works of registration. > > > > > > Potential speakers are kindly invited to send a working > > title and a brief abstract, preferably in English or > > German, no later than July 16th 2000, to: > > > > > > Birgit Anette Olsen > > University of Copenhagen, Institut for Almen og Anvendt > > Sprogvidenskab, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300, Copenhagen S. > > DENMARK. > > > > > > > > From ellyvangelderen at asu.edu Sat Jul 1 11:48:23 2000 From: ellyvangelderen at asu.edu (Elly van Gelderen) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:48:23 EDT Subject: CFP Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- GLAC-7 Seventh Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference Banff, Alberta, Canada Saturday, April 21 to Monday, April 23, 2001 Call for Papers Faculty and graduate students are invited to submit abstracts for 30-minute papers on any linguistic or philological aspect of any historic or modern Germanic language or dialect, including English (to 1500) and the extraterritorial varieties. Papers from a range of linguistic subfields, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, socio-linguistics, language acquisition, contact, and change, as well as differing theoretical approaches, are especially welcome. Please send to the address below a one-page, 12-point font abstract that is headed only by the title of your paper, as well as a separate 3" x 5" index card with your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, phone/fax numbers, email address, and the title of your paper. Submissions must be received by January 5, 2000. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by February 11, 2000. GLAC-7 Department of Linguistics University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4 Location and Accomodation Banff is the townsite of Banff National Park located in the Rocky Mountains. This area is easily one of the most beautiful in the world and certainly an ideal place to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. For further information on the townsite and park, please go to Parks Canada or the Canadian Rockies site. The conference will take place at the Banff Conference Centre. Rooms, including breakfast and lunch, are available at a special conference rate of CDN $137.03 (U.S. $92.50) for a single or CDN $87.53 (U.S. $59.10) per person for a double. (Please note: These rates apply only to conference participants. If two people (e.g. you and your spouse or a friend) share a room and only one is attending the conference, the single rate applies; i.e. CDN $137.03 (U.S. $92.50). There is an additional 5% provincial hotel room tax, and a 7% Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST on all accomodation is refundable to Non-Canadian residents upon application. The Banff Conference Centre is extending these rates for three days before and after the conference, so we hope that you will find time to explore the area. Further information will be provided later. Please note: The exchange rate is presently U.S. $1.00 = CDN $1.48. You might find the Currency Converter useful. Transportation Banff is most easily accessible from Calgary, Alberta, located about 120 kilometres (70 miles) to the east. There are some direct shuttle buses from Calgary International Airport to Banff, and frequent buses from Calgary downtown to Banff. We will provide full details on transportation later. The Diebold Awards Beginning with GLAC-6, thanks to generous funding from the Diebold Foundation, a number of prizes in the amount of $250 are awarded to the best graduate student papers presented at the conference. A jury of three members appointed by the Executive Committee of the Society for Germanic Philology will judge conference papers submitted in writing within four weeks of the conference. The Society for Germanic Philology The Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference is sponsored by the Society for Germanic Linguistics (SGL). The SGL also publishes the Journal of Germanic Linguisticsa semiannual journal devoted to the study of all present and historical Germanic varieties, including English (to 1500). Information on submissions to the journal, as well as Society membership, are accessible through the SGL website. Contact For further more information, send email to the local organizers: Prof. Robert W. Murray Prof. Amanda Pounder glac7 at ucalgary.ca From Egidio.Marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr Mon Jul 3 14:41:20 2000 From: Egidio.Marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr (Egidio Marsico) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 10:41:20 EDT Subject: Database of protolanguages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear historical linguists, I am in the process of finishing the compilation of a database of proto languages (BDPROTO) as part of my PhD dissertation. The idea is to perform a statistical analysis of proto phonological systems in the way Ian Maddieson has done with the UPSID database. This will provide a "diachronic" counterpart of UPSID and thus allow the comparison of different stages of phonological evolution. You will find below the list of languages and bibliographical sources I have selected. Before starting my statistical analysis (next week...!) I would like to make sure that my sample is adequate both in terms of proto-languages chosen as well as bibliographical sources. I would very much appreciate your advices, comments and/or criticisms on the choices I have done (eg. missing proto-languages, erroneous references). I will obviously be happy to give you access to the final version of the database if you are interested. A great thanks in advance to all who will answer. Best regard, Egidio Marsico Current sample of BDPROTO : FAMILY PROTOLANGUAGE REFERENCE **************** AFRO-ASIATIC 1 afroasiatic C. Ehret, 1995, 'Reconstructing proto afroasiatic : vowels, tones, consonants and vocabulary', UC Press 2 chadic P. Newman, 1977, 'Chadic classification and reconstructions', Monographic Journals of the Near East Afrosiatic Linguistics, 5/1 3 common berber A. Basset, 1952, 'La langue berbere', Handbook of African Languages, University Press, Oxford 4 coptic R. Kasser, 1991, 'Phonology', in The Coptic Encyclopedia, Editor in chief Aziz S. Atiya, vol. 8, Macmillan ; Collier Macmillan Canada ; Maxwell Macmillan International, New YorkToronto 5 cushitic C. Ehret, 1995, 'Reconstructing proto afroasiatic : vowels, tones, consonants and vocabulary', UC Press 6 hausa Paul Newman, 1979, 'The historical development of medial /ee/ and /oo/ in Hausa', Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, vol 1, no 2 7 semitic Moscati, Spitaler, Ullendorff, Van Soden, 1969, 'An introduction to the comparative grammar of the semitic languages : phonology and morphology', Otto Harrassovitz, Wiesbaden **************** ALTAIC 8 ainu A. Vovin, 1993, "A reconstruction of proto-Ainu", E.J. Brill, Leiden ; New York 9 altaic A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 10 japanese S. E. Martin, 1987, "The Japanese language through time", Yale University Press, New Haven **************** AMERIND 11 algonquian L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 12 chiapanec manguean R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 13 chibcha A. Constenla Umana, 1993, 'La famiglia chibcha', in Estado actual de la classificacion de las lenguas indigenas de Colombia, Ponencias presentadas en el seminario-Taller realizado en el instituto caro y cuervo (Febrero 10, 11 y 12 de 1988), Santafe de Bogota 14 chimakuan L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 15 chinantecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 16 keresan W. R. Miller, I. Davis, 1963, 'Proto keresan phonology', IJAL, vol. 29, no4, pp 310-330 17 maidun R. Ultan, 1964, 'Proto maidun phonology', IJAL, vol.30, no 4, pp 355-370 18 mayan L. Campbell, 1990, 'Mayan languages and linguistic change', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 19 mixtecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 20 otomanguean C. R. Rensch, 1976, "Comparative Otomanguean phonology", Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies Indiana University, Bloomington 21 otomi R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 22 otomi mazahua R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 23 otomi pame R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 24 pomo S. Mc Lendon, 1973, 'Proto-Pomo", University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 25 popolocan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 26 quichean L. Campbell, 1977, 'Quichean linguistic prehistory', University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 27 salish L. Campbell and M. Mithun, 1979, "The Languages of Native America : historical and comparative assessment", University of Texas Press, Austin 28 takanan V. Girard, 1971, 'Proto takanan phonology', University of California Publications, Linguistics, vol. 70 29 totonocan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 30 uto aztecan R. W. Langaker, 1970, 'The vowels of proto uto-aztecan', American Journal pf American linguistics, vol. 36 31 yokuts V. K. Golla, 1964, 'Comparative Yokuts phonology', Studies in Californian Linguistics, vol.34 32 zapotecan R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin 33 zoquean R. Longacre, 1967, 'Systemic comparison and reconstruction', Handbook of middle american indians, vol. 5 : linguistics, R. Wachope editor, N. Mc Quown, volume editor, University of Texas Press, Austin ************* australian 34 australian R. M. W. Dixon, 1990, 'Sumary report : linguistic change and reconstruction in the australian language family', 35 paman Bruce, A. Sommer, 19, 'Umbuygamu : the classification of a Cape York language, in Papers in australian linguistics, no 10, Pacific Linguistics, Series A, no 47 36 pre norman pama Paul Black, 19, 'Norman pama historical phonology', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-no 59 : Papers in Australian Linguistics no 13, Contribution to Australian Linguistics, B. Rigsby & P. Sutton, eds ************* austric 37 austronesian Malcom D. Ross, 1995, 'Some current issues in Austronesian linguistics', in "Comparative Austronesian dictionary. An introduction to Austronesian Studies, Part 1 : Fascicle 1", Trends in Linguistics, Documentation 10, Darrell T. Tryon, ed., Mouton de Gryuter, Berlin, New York 38 central pacific P. Geraghty, 1986, 'The sound system of proto central pacific, Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no 94 39 central tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 40 east tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 41 far west Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 42 huon gulf Suzanne Holzknecht, 1989, 'The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, 115 43 katouique G. Diffloth, 1982, 'Registres, devoisement, timbres vocaliques : leur histoire en katouique', Mon-Khmer Studies XI : 4/82 44 kimbe R. L. Johnston, 19, 'Proto kimbe and the New Guinea Oceanic hypothesis', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no 74 45 lakes plain Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 46 lakkja L. Thongkum Theraphan, 19, 'A preliminary reconstruction of proto-lakkja (cha shan yao)', Mon-Khmer Studies, no 20 47 malayo polynesian L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 48 markham Suzanne Holzknecht, 1989, 'The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea', Pacific Linguistics, Series C, 115 49 micronesian Byron, W. Bender, Judith W. Wang, 19, 'The status of proto micronesian', Australian Linguistics at the 15th Pacific Science Congress, Pacific Linguistics, Series C, no88 50 new caledonian F. Ozanne-Rivierre, 1992, 'The proto-oceanic consonantal system and the languages of New Caledonia, Oceanic Linguistics, vol 31, no2 51 oceanic Malcom D. Ross, 1988, 'Proto Oceanic and the austronesian languages of Western Melanesia', Pacific Studies, Series C, no 98 52 philippine R. Blust, 1991, 'The great Central Philippines hypothesis', Oceanic Linguistics, vol XXX, no 2 53 plang Debbie Paulsen, 19, 'A phonological reconstruction of proto-plang', Mon-Khmer Studies 18-19 54 polynesian D. S. Walsh, B. Biggs, 1966, 'Proto-Polynesian word list I', Te Reo monographs, Linguistic Society of New Zealand, Auckland 55 sangiric J. N. Sneddon, 1984, 'Proto-Sangiric and the sangiric languages', Pacific Linguistics, series B, no 91 56 tai Fang Kuei Li, 1977, 'A handbook of comparative Tai', Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no 15, University Press of Hawai 57 tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 58 vietnamese M. Ferlus, 19, 'Histoire abregee de l'evolution des consonnes initiales du vietnamien et du sino-vietnamien', Mon-Khmer Studies, no 20 59 west tariku Duane A. Clouse, 1996, 'Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plain languages of Irian Jaya', Pacific Linguistics, Series A-85, edited by Karl Franklin 60 western malayo polynesian L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 ************ CAUCASIAN 61 kartvelian A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. ************ CHUKCHI KAMCHATKAN 62 chukotko-kamchatkan Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York ************ ELAMO-DRAVIDIAN 63 dravidian Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 1961, 'Telugu verbal basis, a comparative and descriptive study', University of California Publication in Linguistics, vol 24, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 64 old telugu Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 1961, 'Telugu verbal basis, a comparative and descriptive study', University of California Publication in Linguistics, vol 24, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles ************ ESKIMO-ALEUT 65 eskimo Fortescue, Jacobson and Kaplan, 1994, 'Comparative Eskimo dictionary with Aleut cognates', Alaska Native Center 66 eskimo-aleut Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York ************ INDO-HITTITE 67 anatolian H. Craig Melchert, 1994, 'Anatolian historical phonology', Rodopi, Amsterdam, Atlanta 68 attic S.-T. Teodorsson, 1974, "The phonemic system of the Attic dialect, 400-340 B.C", Institute of Classical Studies of the University of Goteborg], [Gothenburg, Sweden 69 common nordic Elmer H. Antonsen, Proto scandinavian and common nordic', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 39, feb. 1967, pp 16-39 70 germanic Elmer H. Antonsen, 1963, 'The proto norse vowel system and the younger futhark', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 35, no3, August 1963, pp 195-207 71 indo-european A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 72 late proto norse Elmer H. Antonsen, 1963, 'The proto norse vowel system and the younger futhark', Scandinavian Studies, vol. 35, no3, August 1963, pp 195-207 73 middle english Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 74 pre anglian old english Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 75 west saxon Elmer H. Antonsen, 1961, 'Germanic umlaut anew', Language, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 37, 1961, pp 215-230 ************ INDO-PACIFIC 76 gorokan W. A. Foley, 1986, "The Papuan languages of New Guinea", Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York 77 lower sepik A. W. Foley, 1986, 'The papuan languages of New Guinea', Cambridge language survey ************ KHOISAN 78 central khoisan Kenneth, Baucom, "Proto central khoisan" ************ ISOLATES 79 pre basque R. L. Trask, 1997, "The history of Basque", Routledge, London ; New York 80 sumerian A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. ************ MACRO-FAMILY 81 nostratic A. R. Bomhard, 1990, 'Comparative study of the 'Nostratic' languages', Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 45, Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, P. Baldi, ed. 82 uralo-siberian Michael Fortescue, 1998, "Language relations across Bering Strait. Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence", Cassell, London and New York na-dene 83 athapaskan M. E. Krauss, 1964, 'Proto athapaskan-eyak and the problem of na-dene : the phonology', IJAL, vol. 30, no 2, pp 118-131 ************ NIGER-KORDOFANIAN 84 bantu A. E. Meeussen, 1965, "Reconstructions grammaticales du bantou", Tervuren, 85 central gur Tony Naden, 19, 'Gur', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 86 edoid O. B. Elugbe, 1989, 'Comparative Edoid : phonology and lexicon, Delta series no 6, University of Port Harcourt Press 87 gbaya Y. Monino and L. Bouquiaux, 1995, "Le Proto-Gbaya : essai de linguistique comparative historique sur vingt-et-une langues d'Afrique centrale", Peeters, Paris ; Louvain 88 guang Keith L. Snider, 1989, 'The vowels of proto guang', The Journal of West African Languages, vol. XIX, no 2 and Keith L. Snider, 1990, 'The consonants of proto guang', The Journal of West African Languages, vol. XX, no 1 89 ijo K. Williamson, 1979, 'Medial consonants in proto ijo', Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, vol 1, no 1, Foris Publications, Dordrecht 90 lower cross B. Connell, 1995, 'The historical development of Lower Cross consonants', Journal of African Languages and linguistics, vol 16, number 1, Mouton de Gruyter 91 mande D. J. Dwyer, 19, 'Mande', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 92 mandekan K. D. Bimson, 1976, 'Comparative reconstruction of Mandekan', Studies in African Linguistics, vol 7, no 3 93 pre nizaa R. T. Endresen, 1991, 'Diachronic aspects of the phonology of nizaa', Journal of African Language and Linguistics, vol 12 , no 2, Mouton de Gruyter 94 sabaki D. Nurse, T. J. Hinnebusch, 1993, 'Swahili and Sabaki, a linguistic history', University of California Publications, Linguistics vol 121, University of California Press 95 tano congo J. M. Stewart, 1983, 'The high unadvanced vowels of proto tano congo', The Journal of West African languages, vol XIII, number 1 96 volta Kay Williamson, 19, 'Niger Congo overview', in "The Niger Congo Languages ", SIL, University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London ************ NILO-SAHARAN 97 maa R. Vossen, B. Heine, 1989, 'The historical reconstruction of proto ongamo-maa', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 181-218 98 maba J. Edgar, 1991, 'First step towards proto-maba', African Languages and Cultures, vol 4, no 2 99 nubian B. Gerst, 1989, 'Nile Nubian reconsidered', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 85-96 100 ongamo maa R. Vossen, B. Heine, 1989, 'The historical reconstruction of proto ongamo-maa', Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, L. Bender, ed., Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, pp 181-218 101 sara bongo baguirmian P. Boyeldieu, unpublished reconstruction ************ SINO-TIBETAN 102 karen R. B. Jones, jr., 1961, 'Karen linguistic studies, description, comparison and texts', University of California publication in linguistics, vol 25, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 103 lolo burmese J. A. Matissoff, 19, 'Problems and progress in lolo burmese : quo vadimus ?', Linguistics of the Tibeto Burman Area 104 mon Michel Ferlus, 19, 'Essai de phonetique historique du Mon', Mon-Khmer Studies XII 105 old chinese L. C. Hogan, 1993, 'A comparison of reconstructed Austronesian, Old Chinese and Austro-Thai, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, vol. 16:2 ************ URALIC-YUKAGHIR 106 early proto finnic M. Korhonen, 1988, 'The history of the lapp language', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 107 finno permic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 108 finno-ugric G. Lako, 19, ' Proto finno-ugric sources of the hungarian phonetic stock', Indiana University, Bloomington, Mouton & Co., The hague, The Netherlands 109 lapp M. Korhonen, 1988, 'The history of the lapp language', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 110 north samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 111 ob ugric P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 112 permic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 113 samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 114 south samoyed P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 115 ugric P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln 116 uralic P. Sammallahti, 1988, 'Historical phonology of the uralic languages', The uralic languages, description, history and foreign influences, edited by Denis Sinor, E. J. Brill, Leiden, New York, Kobenhaun, Koln __________________________________________ Egidio Marsico Dynamique du Langage Institut des Sciences de l'Homme 14, avenue Berthelot 69363 Lyon Cedex 07 FRANCE Phone: +33 4 72 72 64 62 Fax: +33 4 72 72 65 90 E-Mail: egidio.marsico at ish-lyon.cnrs.fr http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr __________________________________________ From G.Caglayan at deGruyter.de Mon Jul 3 14:40:17 2000 From: G.Caglayan at deGruyter.de (Gillian Caglayan) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 10:40:17 EDT Subject: Carling, Die Funktionen der lokalen Kasus im Tocharischen Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- New publication from Mouton de Gruyter!!! Gerd Carling Die Funktionen der lokalen Kasus im Tocharischen 2000. 23 x 15,5 cm. xxii, 442 pages. Cloth. DM 178,- /EUR 91,01 /?S 1299,- /sFr 158,- /approx. US$ 89.00 ISBN 3-11-016827-8 This volume, written in German, deals with the use of the local cases in Tocharian A and Tocharian B, Indo-European languages of the Tarim Basin, Eastern Central Asia, of the 6th - 9th centuries AD. Tocharian differs typologically from most of the other Indo-European languages in that it is basically inflectional-agglutinative. This tendency is dominant in the case system: generally, local relations are expressed by local cases alone, and adpositional phrases are used only in order to express more specific local relations. The study concentrates on the local cases expressing location and direction (i.e. oblique, allative, perlative, and locative) in the following contexts: - case constructions expressing concrete or abstract local relations - case constructions expressing temporal relations - adpositional constructions expressing local and temporal relations. The uses of the local cases with various reference objects is presented. A theoretical discussion of the nature of the respective local cases and a reconstruction of a possible evolution of the function of the cases from Proto-Tocharian to Tocharian A and Tocharian B concludes this study. Locality in Tocharian is a field in which almost no research has been carried out, and in this sense this study fills a slot within the field of Indo-European syntax. This book is of special interest to historical and comparative linguists, especially those working with Indo-European languages, to general linguists interested in localism and specialists in Central Asian languages. For more information please contact the publisher: Mouton de Gruyter Genthiner Str. 13 10785 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49 30 26005 222 e-mail: orders at degruyter.de Please visit our website for other publications by Mouton de Gruyter http://www.degruyter.com From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Jul 5 15:50:36 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 11:50:36 EDT Subject: Q: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- As is well known, vernacular American English frequently uses the simple past tense in contexts in which other varieties of English, including edited American English, require the perfect. Examples: 'Did you eat yet?' = 'Have you eaten yet?' 'I just ate.' = 'I've just eaten.' Most published commentary on this usage suggests that it may derive from the influence of European immigrant languages which do not systematically distinguish the past and the perfect. But, around a year ago, I stumbled across a suggestion that this vernacular usage might in fact be a conservative feature of spoken English, of some antiquity but little recorded in writing, surviving in the US but not elsewhere. Unfortunately, I didn't note the reference, but now one of my colleagues, not on this list, is interested in pursuing this idea, and would like to retrieve this reference, or any other such suggestion. Does anybody know of any such published suggestion? Or would anybody like to comment on its degree of plausibility, if any? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu Thu Jul 6 11:34:17 2000 From: Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu (Randall Gess) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 07:34:17 EDT Subject: Bibliography: call for updates Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear listmembers: First, apologies to subscribers of both lists for the cross-posting. This is a request for updates to the bibliography on Optimality Theory and language change which I posted to the Optimality archive last year. The bibliography is available as ROA-359-1199. Thanks, Randall Gess Randall Gess, Asst. Prof. Department of Linguistics 255 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 2328 University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0492 Office: (801) 585-3009, Fax: (801) 585-7351 Email: Randall.Gess at m.cc.utah.edu From paoram at unipv.it Thu Jul 6 11:34:57 2000 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 07:34:57 EDT Subject: R: Q: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Larry, the idea seems quite plausible, from a diachronic point of view. We know for sure that periphrastic forms developed in many IE languages, including the Germanic ones, relatively later. The situation of my native language is very similar. As is well-known, simple past forms are used only in some varieties of Italian, whereas they have disappeared or almost disappeared in other varieties. Sicilians may say _'Ora ora arrivo' il ferry-boat'_, North Italians,on the contrary, use forms with the 'have' or 'be' AUX also for very remote events: _'Napoleone ha perso la battaglia di Waterloo'_, _'N. e' stato sconfitto a W.'_ The use of the simple past ("passato remoto") seems to be limited to narrative, literary texts. Finally there are also language varieties (Tuscany) where a functional opposition between periphrastic and non-periphrastic forms seems to be still there. (_*?ora ora arrivo' il f.-b._ vs. _...e' arrivato..._ and conversely _*?Napoleone e' stato sconfitto a W._ vs. _...fu sconfitto..._) Thus, the choice depends upon many diatopic, diastratic (i.e. sociolinguistic), diaphasic factors. No wonder if Engl. varieties would reflect a similar complex situation. -----Messaggio originale----- Da: Larry Trask A: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Data: gioved? 6 luglio 2000 2.01 Oggetto: Q: Am Eng past for perfect >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >As is well known, vernacular American English frequently >uses the simple past tense in contexts in which other >varieties of English, including edited American English, >require the perfect. Examples: > > 'Did you eat yet?' = 'Have you eaten yet?' > 'I just ate.' = 'I've just eaten.' > >Most published commentary on this usage suggests that it >may derive from the influence of European immigrant languages >which do not systematically distinguish the past and the perfect. >But, around a year ago, I stumbled across a suggestion that >this vernacular usage might in fact be a conservative feature >of spoken English, of some antiquity but little recorded in >writing, surviving in the US but not elsewhere. Unfortunately, >I didn't note the reference, but now one of my colleagues, not on >this list, is interested in pursuing this idea, and would like >to retrieve this reference, or any other such suggestion. > >Does anybody know of any such published suggestion? Or would >anybody like to comment on its degree of plausibility, if any? > > >Larry Trask >COGS >University of Sussex >Brighton BN1 9QH >UK > >larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk > >Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); 1273-678693 (from abroad) >Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); 1273-671320 (from abroad) > From W.O.G.Abraham at let.rug.nl Thu Jul 6 15:06:41 2000 From: W.O.G.Abraham at let.rug.nl (abraham) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 11:06:41 EDT Subject: Larry trask's question on preterites Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Synthetic preterites were the original form for the past in all (Indo- )Germanic, certainly to the extent that no explicit distinction was made between aorists and preterites. However, whether or not the simple, synthetic preterite was used for meanings quoted by Larry Trask, rather than only a selection, for example, for perfective meanings, is a different question altogether. It depended, to all appearances, on the lexical Aktionsart of the predicate in question. Thus, perfective AA (marked or unmarked, i.e. truly lexical) could take the synthetic preterite to express past-to-present, but AA- imperfectives (duratives,statives, ect.) could not. Some of this inconclusiveness could be balanced by way of case assignment, similarly to Russian. See my paper in Kemenade/Vincent, CUP three years back. Notice that the 'present perfect' in PDSE is NOT a continuation of this original aspectual stage of OE or Germanic. what the present perfect means in PDSE is different from the original perfectivity in Germanic and certainly a novel development.An unpublished paper of mine (based on original observations made by Elly van Gelderen, in response to Giorgi/Pianesi 1995) about that is available upon request. This is just to say that illustrations such as those provided by Trask need to be looked at from a AA-perspective, and therefore in greater numbers for conclusive generalisations, before any direct link to Germanic and inheritance can be made. Werner Abraham Werner Abraham ********************************************************************** * Werner Abraham * * * German - Letteren - University of Groningen * * PoB 716 * * NL-9700 Groningen * * tel. +31-50-36 35 920 or ...5850 * * FAX +31-50-36 35 821 * * * * private: Meerkoetlaan 3 * * NL-9765 TC Paterswolde * * Tel=FAX +31-50-30 92 631 * * http://www.let.rug.nl/~abraham/text ********************************************************************** NEW addresses as of July 15, 2000 (E-address remains unchanged): * home: A-8942 W?rschach, Maitschern Nr. 128 Steiermark, Austria tel.=fax +43-3682-23175 office(Aug.28,2000-May 20,2001): Dept. of German, UCB 5319 Dwinelle HL, Berkeley, CA 94720-3243, USA abraham at let.rug.nl or abraham at socrates.berkeley.edu * ********************************************************************** From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Jul 7 12:50:29 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 08:50:29 EDT Subject: Sum: Am Eng past for perfect Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The other day I posted a query about the American use of the simple past where other varieties require the perfect. I received a number of helpful replies. Werner Abraham has already posted a comment to the list. There follows a summary of the main points made by those who responded to me privately. I'll just add here that the Americans who responded agreed at once that my examples of the past tense were entirely natural, and one of them expressed surprise that I regarded them as non-standard, or at least as unacceptable in edited American English. Well, I'm American, too, but everybody assures me I speak 1912 English. 1. The idea that the American use of the simple past in these contexts represents a survival, rather than an innovation, is indeed taken seriously. 2. Precisely this idea was put forward by Visser; see sections 792, 806, 807. 3. Much the same idea has been defended by Charles-James Bailey, and is probably to be found in his publications, though I have no reference. Try orlapubs at ilhawaii.net . Bailey reportedly sees the English perfect as a declining form propped up to some extent by a Romance superstrate. [This view would certainly be in line with Bailey's general views about the history of English -- LT.] 4. Dulcie Engel at the University of Wales, Swansea (d.engel at swansea.ac.uk) and Marie-Eva Ritz at the University of Western Australia (mritz at ecel.uwa.edu.au) have been working on this topic for a while, especially from an Australian angle. They have been reporting their findings at conferences, and they will probably be publishing their work soon in the Australian Journal of Linguistics. 5. Anders Ahlqvist at the National University of Ireland, Galway, ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Histling, In a recent volume of _Nature_ (Vol. 405, 29 june 2000), there are two articles on a quantitative study of the family-tree of the Austronesian languages. There is one 'letter to nature' by R.D.Gray & F.M.Jordan from the department of Psychology in Auckland, entitled 'Language trees support the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion' (pp. 1052-1055) and a 'news and views' comment by Rebecca L. Cann, from the department of Genetics and Molecular Biology in Honolulu (pp. 1008-1009). After a first jump of joy that _Nature_ would publish articles on historical linguistics, my first caution was raised by the affiliation of the authors, none of whom seems to be a linguist. And indeed, in my opinion (please note that I am not a specialist in this field!), the articles are rather tendentious towards historical linguistics. The authors are very eager to proclaim that their quantitative methods, which are taken from biology (cf the resent discussion on cladistic classification), are important, or even better than the methods used by linguistists: 'so, although linguists routinely use the "comparative method" to construct language family trees from discrete lexical, morphological and phonological data, they do not use an explicit optimality criterion to select the best tree, nor do they typically use an efficient computer algorithm to search for the best tree form the discrete data.' (p. 1052) The authors used 'an efficient computer algorith' on the unpublished data from Blusts's Austronesian Comparative Dictionary to build a language-tree of the Austronesian languages. As far as I can see, nothing new results form their analysis. There is a rather nice congruence between their tree and the tree as I knew it from the literature. 'We found that the topology of the language tree was highly compatible with the express-train model.' (p. 1052) So, the method seems to work. Yet, a main error they seem to make is that they think that linguistic data are 'discrete', that there is a clear yes/no answer to the question whether a part of words is cognate or not (see also the methods-section, p. 1054). In general, I grew rather angry after reading the articles. The method is a nice addition to historical linguistics, but there is nothing really new. So, it seems to be possible to publish an article in _Nature_ just by using the right computer programm and forget that many years of research that has been performed in linguistics to be able to perform these analyses. I even started to wonder whether _Nature_ has had the article reviewed by a real historical linguist. Of course, it is a good thing to have some historical linguistic research published in _Nature_, and maybe this is the best possible outcome for something to get published in such a journal. Still, I would have liked to see some more credit to the linguistic effort. Michael Cysouw University of Nijmegen From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Jul 18 15:52:34 2000 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:52:34 EDT Subject: Austronesian tree in _Nature_ Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am grateful to Michael Cysouw for bringing the two articles in Nature to our attention. I've just rushed off to the library and read them, and now I'd like to offer a few comments. My first reaction to the articles is not as negative as Michael's, but I agree that there are points of concern. Gray and Jordan do not claim that their method can supplant any existing linguistic methods. Instead, they appear to see their method as supplementing, or complementing, our existing methods, and in particular they express hope that their method might be useful in integrating data from linguistics, genetics, archaeology and ethnography. Note in particular that G&J are not merely interested in constructing a linguistic family tree: they want to find a linguistic tree which is highly consistent with the archeological evidence for the Austronesian expansion. They do, however, express surprise that historical linguists have not made more use of best-tree algorithms. They seem unaware of the existing work by linguists with this technique, notably (perhaps) at Pennsylvania and at Cambridge. They also seem unaware of the formidable difficulties which linguists have pointed to in getting best-tree methods to do anything useful. Like many non-linguists, they seem to take it for granted that linguistic data are not significantly different in nature from (say) genetic data, and that the same techniques can be applied successfully to all these data. Well, this has yet to be demonstrated. Of course, G&J's paper constitutes an attempt at just such a demonstration, but we'll see. The enthusiasm here is expressed by Cann, who writes the following: "A systematic tool that could reveal hidden subgroups among similar Austronesian languages would be a powerful way of analysing Pacific prehistory." But G&J do not identify any "hidden subgroups", nor do they claim to have identified any. More on this below. Moreover, G&J acknowledge the importance of the Austronesian work already done by linguists, though perhaps not as explicitly as they might have. But the article is written in the dense and compressed style of a scientific publication, and it is much more concise than what we are used to seeing in a linguistics journal. G&J make the following assumptions. (1) The Austronesian family exists, and its membership is known. This, of course, results entirely from linguistic work. (2) Cognate lexical items exist, and very many have been identified. This too results from linguistic work. (3) There is no doubt about whether two lexical items are cognate or not. This again results from linguistic work, and specifically from Bob Blust's data, the sole source of data used by G&J. And the possible difficulties here have already been noted by Michael. (4) Linguistic family trees can be adequately established on the basis of lexical cognates alone, without reference to phonology, morphology or syntax. G&J use only lexical items as data. Members of this list will have their own views on this matter. Cann, in her comment, asserts flatly that words are similar to genes. Members will also have their own views on this assertion, not overtly made by G&J, but implicitly assumed by them -- though G&J do assert that languages are like molecules. (5) No weighting is necessary. As far as I can tell, G&J have assigned no weightings, but have treated all cognates equally as evidence. Members of this list will doubtless have their own views on this matter. (6) The Austronesian family spread out from Taiwan into the Pacific. This assumption again derives mainly from linguistic work, though G&J tell us that it is confirmed by genetic and archaeological data. The assumption is necessary in order to root the tree. The program, by itself, can only produce an unrooted tree exhibiting degrees of divergence, and a root must be introduced from outside, as an auxiliary assumption. This means, not just that Taiwan is taken as a geographical root, but that the Taiwanese languages are taken as a linguistic root, divergence from which is the criterion used to set up the tree. So, it should be clear that an enormous amount of linguistic work had to be done before G&J could even approach the task of constructing a tree with their program. And, as Michael has complained, this obvious fact is not at all emphasized by G&J, or by Cann. (7) Though the Austronesian family contains about 1200 languages, a judicious sample of 77 languages is enough to work out the family tree in its main lines. This sort of assumption is routine in best-tree work, of course. G&J chose from Bob Blust's database the 68 languages which were represented in the most cognate sets, and then added a further nine languages selected to represent those recognized branches of Austronesian which were otherwise poorly represented in the sample, giving them a final sample of 77 languages. With these assumptions, G&J put their program to work to compute the best tree. They obtained a tree which is strikingly similar to the one constructed by Austronesianists using traditional methods. But there were a few significant differences: some languages were placed in different branches from the ones where the Austronesianists put them. But G&J do not claim that their tree is better. Rather, they acknowledge that their program has produced spurious results, probably because of borrowing. In their words, Austronesian cultural history is not "totally tree-like". Then G&J go on to test two models of the Austronesian expansion: the 'express-train' model and the 'entangled-bank' model. The express-train model holds that Austronesian spread out rapidly and unidirectionally from west to east, with rapid branching, with little borrowing among branches of Austronesian, with little linguistic intermingling with the languages of earlier inhabitants, and with few or no east-to-west movements. The entangled-bank model holds the contrary: extensive linguistic intermingling between different Austronesian languages and between Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages. The first model predicts a clean and simple family tree; the second predicts no identifiable family tree at all. G&J conclude that their results are highly consistent with the express-train model, but not at all consistent with the entangled- bank model. And both G&J and Cann see this potential for testing proposed models as a great virtue, perhaps *the* great virtue, of the best-tree approach. So there is perhaps something here to think about. However, as Cann observes in her commentary, the Austronesian case may not be typical in linguistics. Rather, it may be an exceptionally simple case: a single family expanding rapidly into a vast territory much of which is not yet inhabited, with significant distances between the habitable locations. It remains to be seen whether G&J's method can produce useful results in other cases, especially in cases which are known to be messy. Consider Afro-Asiatic. This is a recognized family, but one at the very limit of our ability to detect relationships. The location of Proto-AA is not known, and so no geographical root can be identified. So far, in spite of vigorous efforts, we have no accepted reconstruction of Proto-AA, and so we cannot use Proto-AA as a linguistic root, in the way that the Penn team used PIE to root their IE tree. Moreover, the evidence that I have seen in support of the validity of the AA family is mostly morphological, not lexical. So, what -- if anything -- could G&J's best-tree approach tell us about the family tree of AA? And what about convergence phenomena? G&J conclude that their success in obtaining a good tree shows that borrowing and other convergence phenomena have not occurred on a large scale within Austronesian. Fine. But what about all those other cases in which large-scale convergence is known to have occurred? Presumably G&J's method would simply return no tree in such cases, but surely the method needs to be tested on a few messy cases, in order to find out just what it does do. Until that is done, I guess we can contain our enthusiasm. I myself believe that mathematical and computational methods must eventually prove to be valuable in comparative linguistics. But it's interesting that the linguists who engage in such work are usually far more cautious in their claims than the non-linguists. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad) Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad) From theswain at yahoo.com Sun Jul 23 20:04:24 2000 From: theswain at yahoo.com (Larry Swain) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 16:04:24 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS: "The Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent, 550-800" This is an invitation to submit papers for a session of the 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, sponsored and organized by The Heroic Age journal. The subject matter may deal specifically with Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Contributions are sought from the fields of archaeology, history, literature, linguistics, art history, religion, music, and folklore. Research articles, essays, and biographies are all welcome. Topics may include but by no means are limited to: *Bede's accounts of Irish and Anglo-Saxons on the Continent *Relations between the Continent and Ireland or England *Theological differences between Anglo-Saxons and Irish and their acceptance on the Continent *specific points of interaction *The events of specific personages, such as Columbanus, Boniface, Alcuin, and others. The papers presented may be included in a future issue of the Heroic Age. The URL for the Heroic Age is http://members.aol.com/heroicage1/homepage.html The URL for the 36th Congress and the Heroic Age is http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/36cfp/h.htm#her Abstracts should be submitted to: L. J. Swain 836 W. Vine Kalamazoo, MI 49008 E-MAIL: theswain at yahoo.com Phone: 616-388-8168 Abstracts should be submitted by September 15 in order to make the October deadline imposed by the Congress committee. Abstracts may be submitted in print form via traditional mail or via email at the above addresses. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From erickson at hawaii.edu Tue Jul 25 21:29:23 2000 From: erickson at hawaii.edu (Blaine Erickson) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:29:23 EDT Subject: Uvular R Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A while back, I asked for reference on uvular R spreading from French to German. I would like to thank the following people for their responses: David Fertig Tore Janson Tony Kroch Roger Lass Paul M. Lloyd Marisa Lohr Marc Picard Paolo Ramat Beatrice Santorini Nigel Smith Piet van Reenen Nigel Vincent Here are the references that they recommended, along with a few I found myself. Chambers, J. K. & Peter Trudgill. 1998. Dialectology. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenberg, Peter. 1994. German. In The Germanic Languages, edited by E. Konig & J. van der Auwera. London: Routledge. Howell, Robert B. 1987. Tracing the Origin of Uvular R in the Germanic Languages. Folia Linguistica Historica 7 (2): 317-349. Janson, Tore. 1983. Sound Change in Perception and Production. Language 59:18-34. Runge, Richard M. 1974. Proto-Germanic /r/: The Pronunciation of /r/ Throughout the History of the Germanic Languages. Goppingen: Alfred Kummerle. Wollock, Jeffrey. 1982. Views on the Decline of Apical R in Europe: Historical Study. Folia Linguistica Historica 3 (2): 185-238. Many thanks again for the comments and references. Blaine Erickson erickson at hawaii.edu From inge.genee at uleth.ca Thu Jul 27 00:04:52 2000 From: inge.genee at uleth.ca (Inge Genee) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 20:04:52 EDT Subject: SMML Call for Papers - Kalamazoo 2001 Message-ID: For those of us interested in the study of medieval languages and/or linguistics, the Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics is sponsoring four sessions (up from three) at next year's Kalamazoo Medieval Congress. Here is some more information on submission deadlines. > > Dear Colleagues, > > The Call for Papers for Kalamazoo 2001 is now available online, and if you > have already looked at it, you may have noticed that we have had four > sessions accepted. Here is a copy of what appears there: > > Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics (4): > I. Studies in Insular Linguistics: In Memory of Ruth Lehmann > II. Interference and Interlanguage in Medieval Texts > III-IV. Medieval Language and Linguistics I and II > > Paul A. Johnston, Jr. > Department of English > Western Michigan University > 1903 W. Michigan Ave. > Kalamazoo, MI 49008 > > Phone: (wk) 616-387-2618; (hm) 616-344-0697 > FAX: 616-357-3999 > E-Mail:johnstonp at wmich.edu > > If you are interested in presenting a paper at one of these sessions, > please let Paul Johnston know. Deadline for submission of abstracts is > October 1. For complete details, see the Call for Papers page on the SMML > website. > > The complete Kalamazoo 2001 Call for Papers is at > http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/36cfp/index.html > > The SMML Call for Papers is at > http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/mll/cfpaprs.html > > Sincerely, > ____ _____ > / (_) | o (_) \ > \__ __ | _ _ __ _ _ | |_ __ _ __ __, _ _ > / / \| | | | | |/ | _ | || ||/ | / ) / | |/ | > \____)\__/|_ \/ \/ |_| |_) ( /\___/ \_/|| |_\___/\_/|_| |_) > > eduncan at towson.edu Department of English > http://www.towson.edu/~duncan Towson University > 301E Linthicum - (410) 830-2847 Towson, Maryland 21252 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Edwin Duncan Subject: SMML Call for Papers - K'zoo 2001 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:01:57 -0400 Size: 3325 URL: From jjbowks at adam.cheshire.net Thu Jul 27 17:24:33 2000 From: jjbowks at adam.cheshire.net (Jay Bowks) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 13:24:33 EDT Subject: Interlingua Institute: A History (New Book) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Interlingua Institute: A History by Frank Esterhill Published by Interlingua Institute pb (c) 2000 ISBN 0-917848-02-0 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-091345 Publication Date: May 2000 x & 106 pages Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches Price: US$35.oo At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, serious consideration was given by many academicians and linguists to the idea of an international auxiliary language. The Nobel Laureate, Wilhelm Ostwald, at the University of Leipzig, interested his student, the young chemist, Dr. Frederick Gardner Cottrell, in the idea as early as 1902. After the First World War, Cottrell, Chairman of the Committee on International Auxiliary Language (which had been set up in 1919) of the International Research Council, persuaded two wealthy and prominent New Yorkers, Alice Vanderbilt Morris and Dave Hennen Morris, to found the International Auxiliary Language Association [IALA] in 1924, with an illustrious team of leading academics and business leaders. For a dozen years, IALA sponsored linguistic research (under the aegis of Sapir, Jespersen, and Collinson, together with Debrunner, Von Wahl, Peano, and others) and organized meetings dedicated to the task of effecting conciliation between the already existing international auxiliary language systems. Then, in 1937, realizing that all of the previously elaborated interlanguages were fundamentally flawed and that compromise was impossible, IALA, with a grant from Rockefeller Foundation, undertook the second stage of its research, the registration of the international vocabulary, under E. Clark Stillman at the University of Liverpool. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, IALA's files and records were safely transferred to New York where Stillman assembled a new team to continue the work. He enlisted the support of an able assistant, Alexander Gode, who assumed the direction of IALA when Stillman left on war duty. By the time WWII was over, IALA had completed its basic work and was ready to offer to the public, in its General Report 1945, three variants of its proposed interlanguage. In 1946, Andr? Martinet joined IALA's staff (full-time for the first year and part-time in the second), formulating both a questionnaire and an analysis of IALA's (now) four variants - the Pr?sentation des Varientes. After Martinet's abrupt departure in 1948 in a dispute regarding his salary, Alexander Gode once again assumed the direction of IALA's staff and brought the work to completion with the publication of the Interlingua - English Dictionary and the Interlingua Grammar in 1951. The application of Interlingua to the sciences began the next year with the inception of Scientia International, the monthly abstracts of Science News Letter. Over the span of almost twenty years, Gode supplied Interlingua summaries for more than two dozen medical journals, and he wrote Interlingua abstracts for 11 world medical congresses from 1954 to 1962. The Interlingua translations (Esterhill with Andersen and Frodelund) in the two volumes of the Multilingual Compendium of Plant Dieseases (1976 and 1977), published by the American Phytopathological Society in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture, marked the final milestone in the distinguished history of Interlingua in the service of science. Contents: This book, the first to make extensive use of the Archives of IALA, examines four pivotal stages in the history of the international auxiliary language idea: (1) the Foundation of IALA in 1924 and early attempts at compromise; (2) the Formulation of the Interlingua of IALA after 1937 on the solid basis of the international vocabulary; (3) the Publication of the Interlingua - English Dictionary and the Interlingua Grammar in 1951; and (4) the Application from 1951 to 1977. References: An extensive bibliography of the subject, including still - unpublished documents found in the Archive of IALA. Biographical Notes of the most important figures associated with IALA and with the Interlingua Institute. List of Directors of the Interlingua Institute. Representative Interlingua Texts from (I) Spectroscopia Molecular, (II) Third World Congress of Psychiatry, (III) Journal of the American Medical Association, (IV) Danish Medical Bulletin, (V) Scientia International, (VI) New York State Journal of Medicine, (VII and VIII) Multilingual Compendium of Plant Diseases. List of Journals with Interlingua summaries. List of World Medical Congresses which published Interlingua abstracts. Index of Names. -- administrator at interlingua.org http://www.interlingua.org