From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Mon Apr 2 13:03:49 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 09:03:49 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming obsolete in yet another respect? Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, the position in American English. In British English, however, the singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now 'dice'. American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) 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 jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca Tue Apr 3 19:57:54 2001 From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 15:57:54 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <16076882.3195198871@wren.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Larry Trask wrote: > Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a > 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, > the position in American English. In British English, however, the > singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now > 'dice'. A couple of points to add to the discussion: (1) 'dice' is not unique, since we also have 'pence' alongside the regular plural 'pennies'; (2) the regular plural 'dies' also occurs in the metal working trade. Originally 'dice' meant the pair of dice that are thrown in gambling with dice, and 'pence' meant a sum of money or a coin, as in the now archaic British terms tuppence, threppence, and sixpence (spellings to indicate the traditional pronunciations for two-, three-). It appears to have been an attempt to establish an internal plural (group plural, dual, etc) that never took root in the grammar of the language. pens/pence is a minimal pair that shows that the regular plural marker is phonologically /-z/. I grew up in the UK and it was always 'a dice' or 'two dice' (never 'two dices, in fact I would still say 'all those dice' -- curious!). Before the currency reform of 30 odd years ago the British coin worth three pence was known as 'a threpny bit' (ie three-penny) where the singular (adjectival) form of 'threppence' can be seen. These forms must be old because they have undergone the shortening of the vowel in the first syllable of disyllabic words that we see in goose vs gosling, dine vs dinner, south vs southern, and many other pairs. In this part of Canada it is my experience that it's the British use of 'a dice' that is the common one. ******************************************************************************* John Hewson, FRSC tel: (709)737-8131 Henrietta Harvey Professor Emeritus fax: (709)737-4000 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9 ******************************************************************************* From igclanguages at earthlink.net Tue Apr 3 19:56:20 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 15:56:20 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- GROAN!! A dying breed! Oh, Larry, pundit of punditry! I, too, am a die-hard user of die as the singular of dice, but find myself, here in the US and in general playing games with reasonably well-educated people, teased with 'Listen to the English teacher!' when I say it. People are aware of the 'correct' form but apparently now consider it 'snooty'. At least here in Philadelphia. Dorine ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From colkitto at sprint.ca Tue Apr 3 12:27:41 2001 From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:27:41 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two dice) It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. "Shake the dice". etc. Robert Orr -----Original Message----- From: Larry Trask To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >obsolete in yet another respect? > >Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, >the position in American English. In British English, however, the >singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now >'dice'. > >American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while >British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. >Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these >cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a >die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not >understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > >However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me >anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, >the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > >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 alanden at cyllene.uwa.edu.au Tue Apr 3 12:27:05 2001 From: alanden at cyllene.uwa.edu.au (Alan Dench) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:27:05 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Larry, My intuition was, on reading your message, that the situation in Australia is much as you describe it for the UK. But I checked. What you don't discuss in your Q is the status of the plural in British English. My quick straw poll of Australian English speakers up and down my corridor (non-linguists) yields interesting results. Unanimous agreement (independently surveyed) that 'dice' is the singular, and that 'die' is the plural. In case you are wondering, 'die' was offered spontaneously as the plural by all I asked. So, knowledge of the form 'die' persists but it has been reanalysed. I'd hazard a guess that this is by analogy to such recognised wierd plurals as 'octopi' etc. Best, Alan Dench University of Western Australia Larry Trask wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming > obsolete in yet another respect? > > Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a > 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, > the position in American English. In British English, however, the > singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now > 'dice'. > > American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while > British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. > Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these > cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a > die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not > understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British > dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a > less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a > very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this > must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > > However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' > occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never > heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the > British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me > anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, > the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > 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 msha8081 at mail.usyd.edu.au Tue Apr 3 12:26:26 2001 From: msha8081 at mail.usyd.edu.au (Margaret Sharpe) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:26:26 EDT Subject: die and dice Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I was enrolled in Mathematics at Sydney University in 1952, and it may have been in 1954 we did some statistics (very much the theoretical sort, we never learnt to apply it). The lecturer astounded me by referring to 'a die'. No-one outside the uni called a dice 'a die' then in Sydney, and I speak as one who came from the North Shore of Sydney and attended a selective high school, both domains where, if anywhere, the old singular 'die' might have survived. Margaret Sharpe 33A Brown St Armidale, NSW 2350 Reply to msharpe at metz.une.edu.au, not this email address. From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:31:35 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Prof R.H.P. Wright) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:31:35 EDT Subject: dice and pence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The British usage of "pence" is also singular; you hear "one pence" more often than "one penny", though "one p" is much commoner than either now. I haven't yet heard anyone refer to two pences, though. RW >A couple of points to add to the discussion: (1) 'dice' is not unique, >since we also have 'pence' alongside the regular plural 'pennies'; (2) the >regular plural 'dies' also occurs in the metal working trade. > >Originally 'dice' meant the pair of dice that are thrown in gambling with >dice, and 'pence' meant a sum of money or a coin, as in the now archaic >British terms tuppence, threppence, and sixpence (spellings to indicate >the traditional pronunciations for two-, three-). It appears to have been >an attempt to establish an internal plural (group plural, dual, etc) that >never took root in the grammar of the language. pens/pence is a minimal >pair that shows that the regular plural marker is phonologically /-z/. From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:31:14 2001 From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:31:14 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Hist-Lingers, Just to note that this odd plural occurs also in two words that have lost the singular, and which themselves have taken over the singular function: _lettuce_ and _truce_; i.e. just like _dice_ except that this doesn't yet have the default plural. I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ `I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). Richard Coates -- Richard Coates School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains) Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html From cecil at cecilward.com Wed Apr 4 11:32:59 2001 From: cecil at cecilward.com (Cecil Ward) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:32:59 EDT Subject: Book recommendations for Latin and Celtic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can anyone recommend textbooks on the diachronic morphology and syntax of Latin? Does a decent textbook on the historical morphology or syntax of Celtic exist? (Apart from "Stair na Gaeilge".) From C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:33:29 2001 From: C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Christian Kay) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:33:29 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On 3 Apr 01, at 15:57, John Hewson wrote: >From a British perspective, it's perhaps also worth noting that "pence" has been recategorised as a singular (one pence change) but I haven't yet heard "pences"! Christian Kay *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Professor Christian Janet Kay, Department of English Language, School of English and Scottish Language and Literature, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk phone: +44 (0)141 330 4150 fax: +44 (0)141 330 3531 http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/EngLang/ From markjjones at hotmail.com Wed Apr 4 16:56:58 2001 From: markjjones at hotmail.com (mark jones) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 12:56:58 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. best wishes Mark Mark J. Jones Department of Linguistics and Trinity College University of Cambridge mjj13 at hermes.cam.ac.uk _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From geoffn at siu.edu Wed Apr 4 15:15:18 2001 From: geoffn at siu.edu (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 11:15:18 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527 (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffn at siu.edu From igclanguages at earthlink.net Thu Apr 5 10:49:03 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 06:49:03 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- My Milwaukee (Wisconsin, mid-western USA) born husband and his sister have both been heard to say 'breakfas'es', and they are well educated (I think it is like wearing tennis shoes instead of sneakers). I've never heard and Easterner say it. Dorine mark jones wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard > someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we > talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From igclanguages at earthlink.net Thu Apr 5 10:49:19 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 06:49:19 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- But then, balls always come in pairs, so it would have to be plural. Dorine "Geoffrey S. Nathan" wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: > >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few > >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can > >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ > >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). > > Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' > (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal > in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly > shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the > other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is > 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From aristar at linguistlist.org Thu Apr 5 23:21:36 2001 From: aristar at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 19:21:36 EDT Subject: List of Extinct Languages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues: The LINGUIST list would like to ask for your help. LINGUIST is at present redesigning its site, and expanding its offerings dramatically. An essential part of this expansion entails moving all our data (and all future data that we collect) into a database. Each piece of data will be categorized in a number of ways that are appropriate to its type. One of the most important ways that data will be categorized is by language. We have benefited from the generosity of SIL, which has agreed to let us use the Ethnologue codes. This has saved us an immense amount of work. We're very pleased that we won't have to launch into a full-scale categorization of all human languages! There are still gaps in the Ethnologue codes, however. As you may know, Ethnologue only includes languages which are either spoken or still in use in some function. Thus Latin, Sanskrit and Ge`ez are listed in Ethnologue, since these are in liturgical use today, but Akkadian is not. On LINGUIST, of course, we need to be able to categorize data which belongs to any language, whether current or not, so it's fallen to us to fill in the gaps in Ethnologue. As a result, we've put together a list of languages, all of which are extinct, and do not appear in Ethnologue, along with a brief set of describing information. The following is an example: Akkadian (Accadian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Babylonian) XAKK First is the canonical language name. Following this, in parenthesis, is a list of alternate names which have been used for the language. Next comes an internal LINGUIST code which you may ignore. In angle brackets follows the following information, in this order: Family to which the language belongs, followed by each node between it and the parent language; place where the language was spoken; time when the language was spoken. Each of these fields is delimited by a semi-colon. What we would like to ask is your help in ensuring that the data in this list is accurate. So we are asking you to look over the data which falls within your area of expertise, and tell us the following: 1. Which extinct languages are missing in the list? 2. If any languages are missing, could you supply us with information to make up a new entry in our list? 3. Is any of the data listed for any of the languages below missing, inaccurate, or just plain wrong? This includes alternate names which we have omitted. We will only be listing languages which have left some trace, even if only slight. Reconstructed languages will be treated separately, as part of our language family tables. Note: The following languages are omitted from the list below, since we have complete data on them: Old Church Slavonic, Old English, Old Frankish, Old High German, Old Irish, Old Norse, Old Persian, Old Prussian, Old Saxon, Old Turkish The data we collect here will be made available to the members of the Open Language Archive Community http://www.language-archives.org/) (and to anyone else who wants it), and will quite possible be used on many sites. So your help will not only benefit LINGUIST, but perhaps ultimately all linguists. Please send all responses to: aristar at linguistlist.org Anthony Aristar Moderator, LINGUIST ********************************************** Akkadian (Accadian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Babylonian) XAKK Bactrian XBAC Carian XCAR Celtiberian (Celto-Iberian) XCEL Chorasmian (Khwarezmian) XCHO Classical Mongolian XCMO Eblaite XEBL Egyptian XEGY Elamitic XELA Elymian XELY Etruscan XETR Faliscan XFAL Gallic (Gaulish) XGAL Hattic (Hattian, Khattic, Khattish, Proto-Hittite) XHAT Hittite (Nesili) XHIT Hurrian XHUR Iberian XIBE Illyrian XILL Jurchin (Jurchi, Jurchen) XJUR Kaskian XKAS Khotanese (Khotanese-Sakan) XKHO Kitan (Khitan, Liao) XKIT Lepontic XLEP Ligurian XLEP Lycian XLYC Lusitanian XLUS Luwian XLUW Lydian XLYD Macedonian XMAC Meroitic XMER Messapian (Messapic) XMES Mycenaean Greek XMYC Mysian XMYS < North Picenian XNPI Numidian (Ancient Berber, Lybico-Berber) XNUM Old Ossetic XASS Oscan XOSC Pahlavi (Pehlevi) XPAH Palaic XPAC Pamphylian XPAM Parthian XPAR Phoenician XPHO Phrygian XPHR Pisidian XPIS Punic XPUN Rhaetic XRHA Sabaean XSAB Sakan XSAK Sicel (Siculan) XSIC Sidetic XSID Sogdian XSOG South Picenian (South Picene, East Italic) XSPI Sumerian XSUM Tangut XTAN Tartessian XTAR Thracian XTHR Tokharian A (Tocharian A, Eastern Tokharian, Turfanian, Karashahrian, Agnean) XTOA Tokharian B (Tocharian B, Western Tokharian, Kuchean) XTOB Ugaritic XUGA Umbrian XUMB Urartian (Urartic, Vannic) XURA Venetic XVEN Volscian XVOL From bowern at fas.harvard.edu Thu Apr 5 17:26:13 2001 From: bowern at fas.harvard.edu (Claire Bowern) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 13:26:13 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <3ACC162A.3303DBD4@earthlink.net> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- So do dice in a lot of board games! (dice being for me (Australian) both singular and plural, although I can confirm Alan's remarks that I thought die an irregular and optional plural of singular "dice' for many years) On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Dorine S. Houston, Director wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > But then, balls always come in pairs, so it would have to > be plural. > > Dorine > > "Geoffrey S. Nathan" wrote: > > > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: > > >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few > > >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can > > >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ > > >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). > > > > Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' > > (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal > > in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly > > shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the > > other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is > > 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). > > -- > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication > 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 > E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 > ______________________ Department of Linguistics Harvard University 305 Boylston Hall Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA Ph: (617) 547-3521 Fax: (617) 496-4447 From montserrat.batllori at udg.es Thu Apr 5 17:15:44 2001 From: montserrat.batllori at udg.es (Montserrat Batllori) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 13:15:44 EDT Subject: 7th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference - Call for papers Message-ID: 7th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DIGS VII) Girona (Spain), 27-29 June, 2002 CALL FOR PAPERS Grammaticalization and Reanalysis The Conference will consist of 20 talks of 20 minutes each plus 10 minutes of discussion. 10 copies of anonymous two-page abstract, Times 12, accompanied by a separate sheet indicating the title of the paper, the author’s name, affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number and the original file in floppy disk with the author’s name, address e-mail and affiliaton should be sent to: DIGS VII Selection Committee C/o Montse Batllori, Elena Castillo, Isabel Pujol and Francesc Roca Department of Philology and Philosophy University of Girona Plaça Ferrater Mora, 1 17071 Girona, Spain phone: 34-972418201 fax: 34-972418230 e-mail:dir.depfilologia at udg.es http://www.udg.es/dff/digs Abstracts may not exceed 2 pages Submissions of abstracts by e-mail WILL NOT BE accepted. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: batllori.gif Type: image/gif Size: 342158 bytes Desc: not available URL: From nytdirect at nytimes.com Thu Apr 5 12:26:19 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 08:26:19 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Thursday, April 5, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "If everybody takes their tax cut and spends it at Wal-Mart or Chrysler -- well, those guys are our customers. And then maybe our customers would start up the orders they canceled, and we'd get some benefit from it. I mean, our tax cut wouldn't be that big, but it does bring out the Republican in me." - BARNEY TAYLOR JR., owner of a software company. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/politics/05FAMI-POL.html NATIONAL ========================= Hope Dwindles in Search for Seattle Fishermen http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/national/05BOAT.html Pressed Against a 'Race Ceiling' http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/national/05MAYO.html Departing Harvard Leader to Organize Digital Art http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05MELL.html U.S. Proposes End to Testing for Salmonella in School Beef http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/education/05MEAT.html /--------------------- ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------\ Welcome Home from Saks Fifth Avenue We've launched our Home & Gifts Boutique at saks.com and we welcome you to stop by...it's replete with objects of uncommon beauty, chosen to give pleasure simply by design. Discover the soul of home at saks.com and in our stores. Live in comfort. Live in luxury. Live a little. http://www.nytimes.com/ads/email/saks/sak4501.html \---------------------------------------------------------/ POLITICS ========================= House Approves Plan to Repeal Estate Tax http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/politics/05TAX.html Washington Memo: Now for Bush, a Novelty - Having to Face Novelty http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/politics/05MEMO.html China Opponents in Congress Emboldened by China's Moves http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/world/05ARMS.html Energy Efficiency Programs Are Set for Bush Budget Cut http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/politics/05BUDG.html INTERNATIONAL ========================= Powell Offers China Aides Outline for Standoff's End http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/world/05PLAN.html Beijing Steps Up Its War of Words Over Air Collision http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/world/05CHIN.html Cattlemen in Lebanon Miss Lucre of Hashish http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/world/05LEBA.html Expectations Low as Israeli-Palestinian Talks Get Under Way http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/world/05MIDE.html BUSINESS ========================= Market Place: Value Investors Warm to Technology Stocks http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05PLA.html Advertising: 2 Different Approaches in Aftermath of Tire Recall http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/business/05ADCO.html A Stinging Office Memo Boomerangs http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05TECH-MEMO.html Risking Ridicule, Some Accountants Talk of Becoming 'Cognitors' http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/business/05ACCO.html TECHNOLOGY ========================= In the Storage Race, Will Consumers Win? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05STORR.html Market Place: Value Investors Warm to Technology Stocks http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05PLA.html A Stinging Office Memo Boomerangs http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05TECH-MEMO.html Recorders to Let You Tame TV http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/technology/05XPOG.html NEW YORK REGION ========================= School Board Selects Giuliani Ally as Its Leader http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/nyregion/05BOAR.html State Senators Ask Verniero to Quit Court http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/nyregion/05TROO.html Judge Stops Power Project Until Review Is Performed http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/nyregion/05POWE.html Boy, 13, Arrested After Taking Stun Gun to School http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/nyregion/05STUN.html SPORTS ========================= Change Looms in the Masters' Future http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/sports/05GOLF.html Nomo Hurls a No-Hitter in Red Sox Debut http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/sports/05NOMO.html Mets Rally in Ninth Is Wiped Out http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/sports/05METS.html A Royal Drubbing by Justice and Pettitte http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/sports/05YANK.html ARTS ========================= Conservators Struggle When Modern Art Shows Its Age http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/arts/05REST.html Gary Sinise: Unwound and Ready for Some Cuckoo Time http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/arts/05SINI.html 'Passion Play': A Marriage Torn Asunder as Bach and Mozart Mourn http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/arts/05PASS.html 'No Place to Go': A Nation and a Novelist With Too Little Sunshine http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/arts/05PLAC.html OP-ED COLUMNISTS ========================= By BOB HERBERT: Public Health in Peril With his home state of Texas an environmental disaster zone, is it really any wonder that President Bush reneged on his campaign pledge to seek reductions in carbon dioxide emissions? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/05HERB.html By WILLIAM SAFIRE: The Politics of Apology China's reaction to what is so obviously an accident reveals a standard cold-war Communist mindset and exposes Beijing's national insecurity. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/05SAFI.html HOW TO CHANGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------ You received these headlines because you requested The New York Times Direct e-mail service. To cancel delivery, change delivery options, change your e-mail address or sign up for other newsletters, see http://www.nytimes.com/email HOW TO ADVERTISE ------------------------------------------------------------ For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo From gramma at hum.uva.nl Fri Apr 6 10:43:41 2001 From: gramma at hum.uva.nl (Muriel Norde) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 06:43:41 EDT Subject: grammaticalization conference Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS The second international New Reflections on Grammaticalization conference will be held at the University of Amsterdam, April 4-6, 2002. Scholars are invited to submit abstracts for 40-minute papers (including 10 minute discussion time) on current topics in grammaticalization studies. Case studies examining the implications of particular data for theoretical issues are particularly welcome. Deadline for abstracts is NOVEMBER 1, 2001. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by January 30, 2002. Conference registration is 100 Euro until March 1, 2002. Late registration is 120 Euro. For preliminary registration, send an e-mail message to the address below. If you wish to present a paper, please provide us with a provisional title. Once you have registered, you will receive the first circular containing information on conference themes, plenary speakers, submission of abstracts, travel to Amsterdam and accommodation. For more information you may also visit our website: http://www.hum.uva.nl/gramma/ The organizing committee: Harry Perridon, Olga Fischer and Muriel Norde Conference address: Organizers of "Gramma2" Scandinavian Department University of Amsterdam Spuistraat 134 1012 VB Amsterdam The Netherlands E-mail: gramma at hum.uva.nl From markjjones at hotmail.com Fri Apr 6 16:50:01 2001 From: markjjones at hotmail.com (mark jones) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 12:50:01 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. best wishes Mark Mark J. Jones Department of Linguistics and Trinity College University of Cambridge mjj13 at hermes.cam.ac.uk _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From colkitto at sprint.ca Fri Apr 6 16:49:33 2001 From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 12:49:33 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two dice) It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. "Shake the dice". etc. Robert Orr -----Original Message----- From: Larry Trask To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >obsolete in yet another respect? > >Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, >the position in American English. In British English, however, the >singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now >'dice'. > >American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while >British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. >Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these >cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a >die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not >understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > >However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me >anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, >the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > >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 nytdirect at nytimes.com Sat Apr 7 19:26:58 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:26:58 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Saturday, April 7, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "I'm not looking for a tax cut to buy a Lexus. I've got kids to put through school and a retirement to plan. Certainly, I could use the tax money for my family." - DR. ROBERT CLINE, Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/politics/07TEXA.html NATIONAL ========================= California's Largest Utility Files for Bankruptcy http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07ENER.html Gap Between Best and Worst Widens on U.S. Reading Test http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/national/07READ.html Publisher Who Resigned Urges Editors to Put Readers First http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/national/07PAPE.html Preserving the Birthplaces of the Atom Bomb http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/national/07ATOM.html /--------------------- ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------\ What's ahead for business in 2001? Get the Times's perspective on business and the economy in 2001, both foreign and domestic. Explore our Web exclusive interactive timeline of business in 2000 that ranges from the AOL Time Warner merger to the plunging Nasdaq with an essay by Floyd Norris, the Times's senior financial correspondent. http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/2001outlook1-index.html?ibd \---------------------------------------------------------/ POLITICS ========================= Senate Passes Budget Plan With a $1.2 Trillion Tax Cut http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/politics/07TAX.html News Analysis: For Bush, Vote on Tax Cut Is a Lesson on Compromise http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/politics/07ASSE.html Bush and Jiang Exchange Drafts of a Letter Stating U.S. Regrets http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/world/07PLAN.html Senators Close to Deal on Education http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/politics/07EDUC.html INTERNATIONAL ========================= Bush and Jiang Exchange Drafts of a Letter Stating U.S. Regrets http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/world/07PLAN.html Estonia's President: Un-Soviet and Unconventional http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/world/07ESTO.html Pakistani Supreme Court Gives Benazir Bhutto Major Victory http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/world/07PAKI.html S http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/world/07BRAZ.html BUSINESS ========================= Job Loss in March Biggest in 9 Years http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07ECON.html DaimlerChrysler Vows to Match Rivals in S.U.V. Gas Mileage http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07CHRY.html Trying to Get the Drop on Detroit's Latest Designs http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/technology/07SPY.html California's Largest Utility Files for Bankruptcy http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07ENER.html TECHNOLOGY ========================= Intel Under Investigation by European Commission http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/technology/07CHIP.html Motorola Disputes a Report That It Could Be Short of Cash http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/technology/07MOTO.html Trying to Get the Drop on Detroit's Latest Designs http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/technology/07SPY.html How to E-Mail Like a C.E.O. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/magazine/08WWLN.html NEW YORK REGION ========================= Board of Education Member Says Vote Wasn't Payback http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/nyregion/07SCHO.html Cling, Cling, Cling to the Trolley? Newark Says No http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/nyregion/07TROL.html Weekend Cuts in Subway Trips From Brooklyn http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/nyregion/07SUBW.html A Sick Tribe and a Dump as a Neighbor http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/nyregion/07MOHA.html SPORTS ========================= DiMarco in Spotlight, but All Eyes on Woods http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/sports/07GOLF.html Triple Duty at the Masters: Caddie, Wife and Mother http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/sports/07ANDE.html Parker Unravels in His Yankee Debut http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/sports/07YANK.html Mets Start Quickly, but Expos Finish on Top http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/sports/07METS.html ARTS ========================= When Emotion Worms Its Way Into Law http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07DISG.html Preserving Books? It's Easy on Paper http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07PAPE.html A Festival of Images, via Rauschenberg and Others http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07NOTE.html 'Clouds of May': The Hero Makes Movies Oddly Like Life http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07CLOU.html HOW TO CHANGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------ You received these headlines because you requested The New York Times Direct e-mail service. To cancel delivery, change delivery options, change your e-mail address or sign up for other newsletters, see http://www.nytimes.com/email HOW TO ADVERTISE ------------------------------------------------------------ For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo From ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu Sat Apr 7 19:28:36 2001 From: ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:28:36 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <007501c0bbf6$4c6c78a0$f58a6395@roborr.uottawa.ca> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Growing up in the south of England (Surrey and Sussex), I had never heard the singular "die" until my early teens, and then only in the expression "the die is cast". "Dice" stood for both singular and plural, definite and indefinite ("Why don't you boys play Monopoly?"-"We haven't got a dice"), but I share Robert Orr's intuition that the indefinite singular form is quite rare, so that it was usually irrelevant whether "the dice" was singular or plural. Until I read Larry's posting, I didn't realize there were people for whom dice was only plural. On John Hewson's "threppence", where I grew up that was said mainly by aged aunts and girls from Roedean; we said thruppence (with u as in full). I also recall "thrupny bit" for a three pence coin, with u as in full. The old half-penny was a ha'penny [heypni], also archaically showing the vowel change of alf > al > a: > ey. My grandmother, who was from Yorkshire, said eighteenpence for one and a half shillings [one and sixpence], and this also goes to show how very traditioned these common money combinations were before the currency change. She also said five-and-twenty for twenty-five when telling the time. Paul Hopper ---------------------- Paul Hopper Thomas S. Baker Professor English and Linguistics Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Phone (USA)(412)268-7174 Fax: (USA)(412)268-7989 --On Tuesday, April 03, 2001 8:27 AM +0000 Robert Orr wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. > > People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had > become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two > dice) > > It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. > > "Shake the dice". etc. > > Robert Orr > > -----Original Message----- > From: Larry Trask > To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU > Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM > Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' > > >> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >> Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >> obsolete in yet another respect? >> >> Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >> 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I >> think, the position in American English. In British English, however, >> the singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form >> is now 'dice'. >> >> American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', >> while British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a >> dice'. Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one >> of these cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like >> "throw a die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do >> not understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >> dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >> less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >> very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >> must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. >> >> However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >> occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >> heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >> British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell >> me anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, >> Australia, the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying >> breed? (Sorry.) >> >> >> 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 X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Apr 8 14:55:27 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 10:55:27 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In a message dated 4/7/2001 2:28:56 PM, ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu writes: << "Dice" stood for both singular and plural, definite and indefinite ("Why don't you boys play Monopoly?"-"We haven't got a dice"), but I share Robert Orr's intuition that the indefinite singular form is quite rare, so that it was usually irrelevant whether "the dice" was singular or plural.>> To add a slant from a different part of the world, "die" was definitely the technical term for a single die in Brooklyn. As in, "uh-uh, ya only trow one die. Da book sez so." In my youth (yUt) we all seemed to believe that this was because we were a last bastion of the accurate American English. Now, I suspect this erudite use of "die" was due entirely to the authoritative influence of the rule book writers at the Milton-Bradley Co. Incidentally, if you did roll two dice and it came up two threes, universally these were described as "trays." Steve Long From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz Sun Apr 8 14:58:14 2001 From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING)) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 10:58:14 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Hopper [mailto:ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu] > Sent: Sunday, 8 April 2001 7:29 a.m. > To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU > Subject: Re: Q: 'die', 'dice' > > > ----------------------------Original > message---------------------------- > Growing up in the south of England (Surrey and Sussex), I had > never heard > the singular "die" until my early teens, and then only in the > expression > "the die is cast". > Only by conscious effort can I remind myself that this expression has to do with throwing dice. My first interpretation was that it had to do with putting hot metal into a mold, which after all is an equally suitable metaphor for taking an irrevocable step, though perhaps it lacks the implication of uncertain outcome. A childhood (or rather adolescent) misunderstanding, not exactly a mondegreen, but something like it. I add my vote (representing western Canada) to those for whom "dice" is both singular and plural, and the business about "die" is just another odd fact about language one happens to learn. Ross Clark From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Sun Apr 8 15:03:27 2001 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 11:03:27 EDT Subject: apology Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Yesterday in the process of plowing through 140 messages (no exaggeration) in my mail reader, I inadvertently forwarded my daily posting from the New York Times to HISTLING. Besides being somewhat embarrassed by this public slip-up, I feel that I should apologize to all subscribers who were inconvenienced by this. Dorothy Disterheft Moderator, HISTLING From cecil at cecilward.com Mon Apr 9 14:13:55 2001 From: cecil at cecilward.com (Cecil Ward) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 10:13:55 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am an Englishman now living in Scotland. The only time I have ever heard the word "die" used is in the expression "the die is cast". From Hines at Cardiff.ac.uk Tue Apr 10 10:45:27 2001 From: Hines at Cardiff.ac.uk (J HINES) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 06:45:27 EDT Subject: Die, dice, dis a disiau Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I assume this discussion is continuing for some intrinsic interest rather than because none of us has anything better to do, so the following may be of use to some of you: The Welsh word for die (sg.) is "dis" -- in other words English "dice", borrowed pre-GVS. (There is a modern anglicized variant, "deis".) As a loanword it is recorded as early as the C14, and by the C15 there are records of it regularly pluralizing as "disiau". Presumably then "dice" was here understood as a singular this long ago. As far as I can see, the first unambiguous evidence for "dis" referring to a single item/specimen, as opposed to being unspecific, is a Welsh-Latin glossary of 1632 which glosses "dis" with a series of singulars: cubus, alea, tessera. Particularly notable in this case, is that "dis" would seem an ideal candidate for the common Welsh practice of adding a distinct singular suffix to what is otherwise a non-count noun, e.g. "pysgoden" (a fish), "pysgod" (fish, pl.). Geiriadur y Brifysgol (the major university dictionary) records only one instance of such a form, "disyn", again in the C15. Returning to the personal reminiscences, I was faced with this problem when having to translate a Scandinavian article about the archaeological find of a "terning" (die, sg.) for publication about 20 years ago. I was in no doubt then that "dice" was simply incorrect, but felt obliged to create the term "gaming-die" for clarity's sake. In an archaeological context, the term "die" would usually be assumed to refer to a model used in die-stamping processes. I can also remember back to student days (1970's) in Britain when it wasn't totally unknown for the singular to be used. And while my background wouldn't count for much in terms of street-cred, these were not the most polished of circles either. OK the usage is obsolescent, but let's not give up on it yet! JH Professor/Yr Athro John Hines Editor/Golygydd, Medieval Archaeology School of History and Archaeology/Ysgol Hanes ac Archaeoleg Cardiff University/Prifysgol Caerdydd P O Box 909/Blwch S P 909 Cardiff/Caerdydd CF10 3XU United Kingdom/Y Deyrnas Gyfunol Tel/Ffon: [44] 029 20 874736 Fax/Ffacs: [44] 029 20 874929 From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 11 17:19:32 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 13:19:32 EDT Subject: Sum: 'die, dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A few days ago I posted a query about the singular form of 'dice'. I received responses from twenty people reporting on their local usage, plus supplementary comments from five more. Most of the responses came from various places in the USA and in Australia, with a scattering from Canada, England, Wales, Scotland, and South Africa. Not all the respondents described themselves as youthful. All respondents report that singular 'dice' is now prevalent in their area. Some respondents still use singular 'die' themselves, while others use only 'dice', and one or two were unaware that there *was* a singular 'die' -- at least in current use. A couple of people reported that singular 'dice' was virtually universal in the areas in which they grew up several decades ago. One person reported that, when he was growing up in England, singular 'die' was at least known to adults but was wholly unknown to children. A couple of people noted that, for them, it was highly unusual to encounter any form of the word anywhere except after 'the', and that either 'a die' or 'a dice' was odd. Two people were unaware that the expression 'the die is cast' had anything to do with dice, and they associated it rather with the casting of metal dies. Most interesting. I am tempted to launch into a tirade about how, in my day, we had to read Julius Caesar in the original in high school, but I'll refrain. ;-) Incidentally, nobody commented on the (possibly British) expression 'as straight as a die' (= 'perfectly honest'), which the dictionaries assure me also derives from dice, and not from metal-casting. The status of singular 'die' varies according to region. There were three groups of replies, with the second predominating slightly. * Singular 'die' is a less usual but perfectly acceptable alternative to singular 'dice'. * Singular 'die' is known, but it is highly marked: it is elevated; it is a mysterious form learned in school; it is fussy; it is pretentious; it is a form learned only through studying English grammar or linguistics professionally. * Singular 'die' is wholly unknown. One respondent observed that singular 'die' was still the preferred form among educated speakers in southern Scotland several decades ago. Another reported that singular 'die' was usual among game-players in Brooklyn several decades ago, but suspected that this resulted from the consistent use of 'die' in the rules to American games. And one reported that singular 'dice' was used but clearly stigmatized in New York City in the 1950s. And, of course, two Australian respondents reported that 'die' was -- or formerly had been -- the *plural* of 'dice' in their circles, a use which astonished the other Australians as much as it does me. Wow. Some history. OED 2 tells me that singular 'die' is recorded from 1393, while plural 'dice' is recorded from 1330. It also says that singular 'dice' is recorded from 1425, though the earlier existence of this may be inferred from a plural 'dices', recorded from 1388 but apparently long obsolete. This early singular 'dice' is presumably the source of the Welsh singular reported by one respondent, with a regular Welsh plural (and a striking hapax singulative !), and it is presumably also the source of the verb 'dice' and of the adjective 'dicey'. I've just consulted an arbitrary collection of British and American dictionaries, and what I found surprised me. Every single dictionary published before 1990 gave the singular as 'die' exclusively, and declined to recognize a singular 'dice'. But dictionaries published since 1990 are more complicated. Every British dictionary of the last ten years gives 'dice' as the ordinary singular. Usually 'die' is admitted as a rare alternative -- one dictionary labels it "American or old" -- but one recent British dictionary declines to mention 'die' at all. Nevertheless, every American dictionary I managed to consult from the last ten years insisted on singular 'die' and refused to recognize singular 'dice'. (I'm counting Encarta as non-American here; it follows British usage on this point, but it describes itself as an international dictionary.) The testimony from my American respondents suggests strongly that the lexicographers are dozing here. In fact, though, one respondent tells me that Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate recognizes singular 'dice', but I haven't been able to check this dictionary. All current British usage handbooks firmly recommend singular 'dice'. Unfortunately, I don't have ready access to non-British handbooks, so I don't know what they say. But one respondent pointed out that Fowler's famous handbook provides no entry for 'die, dice', suggesting that the matter was not seen as an issue in his day. On the supplementary reports, a couple of respondents drew attention to British 'pence'. When I first arrived in Britain 31 years ago, the old LSD currency was still in use, and at that time the singular was 'penny', while 'pence' was strictly plural, and people spoke unfailingly of 'a sixpenny piece'. But, since the switch to decimal currency, this has changed dramatically. Today 'pence' is invariable for most speakers, and we hear only 'one pence' and 'a one-pence piece'. When I go to the bank to get change, and I ask for "some twenty-penny pieces", I get only a blank stare, and I must ask for "some twenty-pence pieces" if I want to get any coins. This change has happened in a generation -- far faster than the case of 'dice'. So, as I feared, my English turns out to be fossilized in yet another respect. But I can't tell you young whippersnappers how awful that "a dice" sounds to an old fart like me: it's right up there with "this phenomena" and "another criteria", things which I see constantly in my students' written work. ;-) Anyway, I have just written a handbook of English usage, which will be out shortly, and I'm afraid I am now doomed to recommend singular 'die' for anyone other than a Brit writing for a British readership. Sigh. Guess I should title the thing 'English Usage for Tedious Old Farts'. Oh, well, it could be worse. Apropos of nothing much, I'd like to quote the entry for 'die, dice' in another handbook of English usage published in Britain last year. It is extraordinary in several respects. ('Ludo' is the British name of parcheesi.) dice, die: Although 'die' is the correct singular for the plural 'dice' ('the die is cast'), nobody in their right minds today would say to his fellow Ludo player, "Hey, Bill, hurry up and throw that die!" ([sic] all the way through) I hope I have done a little better than this. My thanks to Elena Bashir, Barry Blake, John Bowden, Claire Bowern, Bobby Bryant, Ross Clark, Richard Coates, Alan Dench, David Fertig, John Hewson, John Hines, Paul Hopper, Dorine Houston, Martin Huld, Mark Jones, Christian Kay, Roger Lass, Steve Long, Geoffrey Nathan, Robert Orr, Margaret Sharpe, Benjamin Slade, Cecil Ward, Gordon Whittaker, and Roger Wright. P.S. Plaintive moan: is there anybody else out there who still pronounces 'harass' to rhyme with 'embarrass'? 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 larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Apr 24 19:20:53 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:20:53 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A question has arisen on another list about loans from Latin into other languages. The question is this: in such borrowings, which form of a Latin noun or adjective is borrowed? In Basque, it is almost always the accusative (masculine for an adjective), though there are some exceptions: a few nominatives and even one vocative. My questioner is wondering whether borrowing of the accusative is usual, and I don't know. I've looked at Morris Jones's history of Welsh, and he usually cites the Latin nominative as the source of a borrowing, though occasionally he cites the accusative instead. I suppose he has good reason for this, but he doesn't seem to discuss the matter, and the apparently general disappearance of the Latin endings in Welsh makes it impossible for me to judge. So: in Welsh, or in any other relevant language, which form of a Latin noun or adjective is typically borrowed? 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 digs at udg.es Tue Apr 24 19:44:13 2001 From: digs at udg.es (DIGS VII) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:44:13 EDT Subject: 7th DIGS Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Further information about VII DIGS can be found at: http://www.udg.es/dff/digs.html You can contact us through: digs at udg.es From barddal at nessie.mcc.ac.uk Tue Apr 24 19:17:47 2001 From: barddal at nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Johanna Barddal) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:17:47 EDT Subject: Subject affected vs. Speaker affected! Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm looking at the semantics of dative subject verbs in Icelandic. It turns out, not surprisingly, that the simplistic view of dative subject verbs being experiencer verbs or benefactive verbs does not hold. In stead I have found that these verbs divide on various non-agentive verb groups. However, one of the most interesting feature here is that one subgroup is not subject affected but rather speaker affected, i.e. these predicates express the evaluation of the speaker, which of course, does not at all have to coincide with the subject. I'm not sure how to account for this; it might be viewed as a metaphorical extension of some sort, but at least, it seems to me that this should constitute a nice example of subjectification. Is there anybody out there who can give me references to any relevant literature, on for instance, subjectification? Thanks in advance, Johanna Barddal Dept. of Linguistics University of Manchester, johanna.barddal at man.ac.uk http://ling.man.ac.uk/Html/JB From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 25 11:54:22 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (roger wright) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 07:54:22 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: <109443603.3196750259@wren.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Romance languages are obviously a special case, but worth mentioning even so; in general it is has been just the stem of a Latin noun or adjective that's been borrowed, and the morphological endings are those of the borrowing language. Thus Latin RADIUS was borrowed as Spanish "radio" (to mean the radius of a circle), and despite the [-o] it would be wrong for us to derive Spanish "radio" from the Latin dative or ablative form RADIO. Maybe something similar applies to all languages that have their own obligatory nominal morphology (by obligatory I mean that the stem doesn't usually appear as a whole word in itself). But sometimes a complete Latin form has indeed been borrowed whole in Romance; Spanish "radium" means radium, as in English, even though [-um] (or in practice [-un]) isn't a Spanish morpheme. We can feel sure that the word "radio" (with this meaning) is indeed a borrowing from Latin rather than a native development; the word which does derive directly from the Latin noun in Spanish is "rayo", meaning a ray (which we can be sure comes from the accusative form RADIUM, partly because very nearly all Spanish nouns seem to come from the accusative form, and partly because RADIUS would have given "rayos", as CAROLUS > Carlos). The form "radium" probably comes immediately into Spanish from French or English rather than Latin, of course, but the point is that it hasn't been reformed even so, and so far as I know neither French nor Spanish scientists have thought of calling it **"radius". (Standard Italian can't usually accept word-final [-m], so it's "radio" there.) Which seems to suggest that the accusative form has generally been thought to be the citation form, and thus the one to be borrowed if for some reason the borrowers don't want to confine themselves to borrowing the stem, adding their own inflectional morphology. It has been argued that the accusative was the citation form in original Latin, too, but the lemmata of dictionaries and grammars of Roman times, at least, don't always support this, so this may not be right. One way to test this in Welsh, etc, and other non-Romance languages, is to look at imparisyllabic nouns. In the case of e.g. HOMO, genitive HOMINIS, accusative HOMINEM, the source form might even be obvious (in the same way as in Romance, standard Italian "uomo" undoubtedly comes from the nominative, as usual in Italy, and the Spanish "hombre" comes undoubtedly from the accusative, as usual in Spain). My guess is that Morris Jones simply (and understandably) chose a source form that seemed appropriate. RW On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Larry Trask wrote: >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >A question has arisen on another list about loans from Latin into other >languages. The question is this: in such borrowings, which form of a Latin >noun or adjective is borrowed? > >In Basque, it is almost always the accusative (masculine for an adjective), >though there are some exceptions: a few nominatives and even one vocative. >My questioner is wondering whether borrowing of the accusative is usual, >and I don't know. > >I've looked at Morris Jones's history of Welsh, and he usually cites the >Latin nominative as the source of a borrowing, though occasionally he cites >the accusative instead. I suppose he has good reason for this, but he >doesn't seem to discuss the matter, and the apparently general >disappearance of the Latin endings in Welsh makes it impossible for me to >judge. > >So: in Welsh, or in any other relevant language, which form of a Latin noun >or adjective is typically borrowed? > > >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 mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 25 19:53:16 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 15:53:16 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Wed, 25 Apr 2001 07:54:22 EDT, roger wright wrote: > But sometimes a complete Latin form has indeed been borrowed whole >in Romance; Spanish "radium" means radium, as in English, even though >[-um] (or in practice [-un]) isn't a Spanish morpheme. Actually, the chemical element is "radio" in Spanish. I've never seen "radium". There's only a few Spanish words ending in -m (album, ultimatum). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From tore.janson at swipnet.se Thu Apr 26 15:06:47 2001 From: tore.janson at swipnet.se (Tore Janson) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 11:06:47 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask asks which case form of a Latin word is borrowed into other languages, such as Basque or Welsh. There is no simple answer to that question; it depends on when the word is borrowed, and from what source, and also on the structure of the recipient language. The earliest Latin loanwords into Germanic languages are found in Gothic, and many clearly retain the Latin nominative for Gothic nominative. Examples are Gothic nom. katils from Latin nom. catillus (acc. catillum), Gothic spaikulatur from Latin nom. speculator (acc. speculatorem). When those words were borrowed, not later than the fourth century AD, the Latin nominative form was still in general use in the spoken language. But later loans into German and other Germanic languages, say from about the seventh century and onwards, are often based upon the Latin accusative form, for example Old High German calc, Old English cealc, "chalk/lime", which is derived from Latin acc. calcem (nom. calx). This is quite natural, for in the Romance area the formal distinction between nominative and accusative in nouns eventually disappeared in the spoken language, and the remaining form normally came from the old Latin accusative, not from the nominative. Whether those loans are from Latin or from a Romance language/dialect is of course a matter for debate. I would contend they are from Latin, at least in the early Middle Ages, and so, I think, would Roger Wright. Although I know nothing about Welsh or Basque, I suspect these languages continued borrowing from Latin/Romance throughout the Middle Ages, and so probably have imported many forms ultimately derivable from the Latin accusative. But there is a further complication. What is said so far refers to words borrowed from one spoken language into another. But Latin has been the learned written language of Europe for two millennia, and very many words have been introduced into other languages directly from written Latin, sometimes quite recently. Many of these ultimately derive from Latin accusatives, but often indirectly. The English word president is from Latin accusative praesidentem via French, for example. In some cases, though, the nominative is used, as in the recent English word processor. A couple of comments to the interesting letter from Roger Wright. The English word radium for a substance is actually not derived from the Latin accusative of radius. Rather, it is a new formation by 19th century chemists, who coined dozens or hundreds of names for substances by using a Latin or Greek stem an attaching the ending -ium to it. Examples are helium, iridium, and so on. Some are also formed from other stems, as ytterbium, an element first found on the farm Ytterby in Sweden. All those words can be regarded as Latin neutral nouns; for them, the nominative and accusative forms are identical. I must also object to Roger's statement that Italian usually forms nouns from the Latin nominative. They normally come from Latin accusative, as in all other Romance languages. The example uomo from homo is one of a few enumerable exceptions, like French soeur from soror and Spanish Dios from deus Regards, Tore Janson From nytdirect at nytimes.com Sun Apr 29 12:33:38 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 08:33:38 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Sunday, April 29, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "George W. Bush has a little more of his mother in him. Where his father would bite his tongue, every once in a while George W. Bush flaps his tongue." - ANDREW CARD, the White House chief of staff. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29BUSH.html NATIONAL ========================= Mexican Laborers in U.S. During World War II Sue for Back Pay http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29BRAC.html Search for the Right Church Ends at Home http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29PRAY.html Vieques Turns Into a Symbol of Discontent http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29PUER.html Navy Bombing Is Betrayal, Puerto Rico's Governor Says http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29SILA.html /--------------------- ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------\ What's ahead for business in 2001? Get the Times's perspective on business and the economy in 2001, both foreign and domestic. Explore our Web exclusive interactive timeline of business in 2000 that ranges from the AOL Time Warner merger to the plunging Nasdaq with an essay by Floyd Norris, the Times's senior financial correspondent. http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/2001outlook1-index.html?ibd \---------------------------------------------------------/ POLITICS ========================= In Early Battles, Bush Learns Need for Compromises http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29BUSH.html Labor Leaders Joining Forces in Opposition to Trade Plan http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29LABO.html 5 Seals With Kerrey Back Him on War Raid http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29VIET.html Strom in the Balance http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/magazine/29STROM.html INTERNATIONAL ========================= Millionaire Embarks on Joy Ride in Space http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/science/29SPAC.html For Afghan Exiles, 'Promised Land' Turns Hostile http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29AFGH.html Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29IRAQ.html China Looks to Foil U.S. Missile Defense System http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29CHIN.html BUSINESS ========================= By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29HARA.html Buffett Stuck to His Stocks, and He's Up as Wall Street Is Down http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/business/29BUFF.html A Software Company Runs Out of Tricks http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29COMP.html Workers, and Bosses, in a Visa Maze http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29VISA.html TECHNOLOGY ========================= By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29HARA.html Why Wait for That Money? Download It Instead http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29CASH.html Business World: A High-Tech Lifeline in Europe's Rust Belt http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29WORL.html Workers, and Bosses, in a Visa Maze http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29VISA.html NEW YORK REGION ========================= In Rural Counties, the Squeeze of Poverty Can Be Stronger http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29RURA.html Those Little Town Blues, in Old New York? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29YORK.html Mother Faults 'Signal' Sent in Diallo Case http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29DIAL.html McCall and Silver Enjoying a New Rapport http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29MCCA.html SPORTS ========================= Devils Win Four-Period Playoff Thriller http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29DEVI.html Hit Batter Provides Jolt to Give Mets a Pulse http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29METS.html Knoblauch Supports Good Effort by Lilly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29YANK.html Knicks Won't Have Camby for Game 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29KNIC.html ARTS ========================= Destiny's Child: In Tune With the New Feminism http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29POWE.html Judy Garland: Acting as She Sings, She Makes Each Song a Drama http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29MCGR.html Sharing the Stage With August Wilson http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29SHEW.html What's New in Classical Music? Not Much http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29TOMM.html OP-ED COLUMNISTS ========================= By MAUREEN DOWD: I Have a Nickname!!! I wasn't sure if President Bush's nickname for me was an insult or a sign of respect. So I figured I'd read up on some cobra traits. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/opinion/29DOWD.html By PAUL KRUGMAN: The Real Wolf The evidence is now overwhelming that there isn't workable competition in California's power market. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/opinion/29KRUG.html HOW TO CHANGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------ You received these headlines because you requested The New York Times Direct e-mail service. To cancel delivery, change delivery options, change your e-mail address or sign up for other newsletters, see http://www.nytimes.com/email HOW TO ADVERTISE ------------------------------------------------------------ For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Mon Apr 2 13:03:49 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 09:03:49 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming obsolete in yet another respect? Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, the position in American English. In British English, however, the singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now 'dice'. American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) 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 jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca Tue Apr 3 19:57:54 2001 From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 15:57:54 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <16076882.3195198871@wren.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Larry Trask wrote: > Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a > 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, > the position in American English. In British English, however, the > singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now > 'dice'. A couple of points to add to the discussion: (1) 'dice' is not unique, since we also have 'pence' alongside the regular plural 'pennies'; (2) the regular plural 'dies' also occurs in the metal working trade. Originally 'dice' meant the pair of dice that are thrown in gambling with dice, and 'pence' meant a sum of money or a coin, as in the now archaic British terms tuppence, threppence, and sixpence (spellings to indicate the traditional pronunciations for two-, three-). It appears to have been an attempt to establish an internal plural (group plural, dual, etc) that never took root in the grammar of the language. pens/pence is a minimal pair that shows that the regular plural marker is phonologically /-z/. I grew up in the UK and it was always 'a dice' or 'two dice' (never 'two dices, in fact I would still say 'all those dice' -- curious!). Before the currency reform of 30 odd years ago the British coin worth three pence was known as 'a threpny bit' (ie three-penny) where the singular (adjectival) form of 'threppence' can be seen. These forms must be old because they have undergone the shortening of the vowel in the first syllable of disyllabic words that we see in goose vs gosling, dine vs dinner, south vs southern, and many other pairs. In this part of Canada it is my experience that it's the British use of 'a dice' that is the common one. ******************************************************************************* John Hewson, FRSC tel: (709)737-8131 Henrietta Harvey Professor Emeritus fax: (709)737-4000 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9 ******************************************************************************* From igclanguages at earthlink.net Tue Apr 3 19:56:20 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 15:56:20 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- GROAN!! A dying breed! Oh, Larry, pundit of punditry! I, too, am a die-hard user of die as the singular of dice, but find myself, here in the US and in general playing games with reasonably well-educated people, teased with 'Listen to the English teacher!' when I say it. People are aware of the 'correct' form but apparently now consider it 'snooty'. At least here in Philadelphia. Dorine ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From colkitto at sprint.ca Tue Apr 3 12:27:41 2001 From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:27:41 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two dice) It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. "Shake the dice". etc. Robert Orr -----Original Message----- From: Larry Trask To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >obsolete in yet another respect? > >Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, >the position in American English. In British English, however, the >singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now >'dice'. > >American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while >British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. >Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these >cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a >die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not >understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > >However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me >anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, >the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > >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 alanden at cyllene.uwa.edu.au Tue Apr 3 12:27:05 2001 From: alanden at cyllene.uwa.edu.au (Alan Dench) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:27:05 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Larry, My intuition was, on reading your message, that the situation in Australia is much as you describe it for the UK. But I checked. What you don't discuss in your Q is the status of the plural in British English. My quick straw poll of Australian English speakers up and down my corridor (non-linguists) yields interesting results. Unanimous agreement (independently surveyed) that 'dice' is the singular, and that 'die' is the plural. In case you are wondering, 'die' was offered spontaneously as the plural by all I asked. So, knowledge of the form 'die' persists but it has been reanalysed. I'd hazard a guess that this is by analogy to such recognised wierd plurals as 'octopi' etc. Best, Alan Dench University of Western Australia Larry Trask wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming > obsolete in yet another respect? > > Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a > 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, > the position in American English. In British English, however, the > singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now > 'dice'. > > American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while > British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. > Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these > cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a > die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not > understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British > dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a > less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a > very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this > must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > > However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' > occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never > heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the > British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me > anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, > the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > 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 msha8081 at mail.usyd.edu.au Tue Apr 3 12:26:26 2001 From: msha8081 at mail.usyd.edu.au (Margaret Sharpe) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:26:26 EDT Subject: die and dice Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I was enrolled in Mathematics at Sydney University in 1952, and it may have been in 1954 we did some statistics (very much the theoretical sort, we never learnt to apply it). The lecturer astounded me by referring to 'a die'. No-one outside the uni called a dice 'a die' then in Sydney, and I speak as one who came from the North Shore of Sydney and attended a selective high school, both domains where, if anywhere, the old singular 'die' might have survived. Margaret Sharpe 33A Brown St Armidale, NSW 2350 Reply to msharpe at metz.une.edu.au, not this email address. From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:31:35 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Prof R.H.P. Wright) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:31:35 EDT Subject: dice and pence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The British usage of "pence" is also singular; you hear "one pence" more often than "one penny", though "one p" is much commoner than either now. I haven't yet heard anyone refer to two pences, though. RW >A couple of points to add to the discussion: (1) 'dice' is not unique, >since we also have 'pence' alongside the regular plural 'pennies'; (2) the >regular plural 'dies' also occurs in the metal working trade. > >Originally 'dice' meant the pair of dice that are thrown in gambling with >dice, and 'pence' meant a sum of money or a coin, as in the now archaic >British terms tuppence, threppence, and sixpence (spellings to indicate >the traditional pronunciations for two-, three-). It appears to have been >an attempt to establish an internal plural (group plural, dual, etc) that >never took root in the grammar of the language. pens/pence is a minimal >pair that shows that the regular plural marker is phonologically /-z/. From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:31:14 2001 From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:31:14 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Hist-Lingers, Just to note that this odd plural occurs also in two words that have lost the singular, and which themselves have taken over the singular function: _lettuce_ and _truce_; i.e. just like _dice_ except that this doesn't yet have the default plural. I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ `I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). Richard Coates -- Richard Coates School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains) Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html From cecil at cecilward.com Wed Apr 4 11:32:59 2001 From: cecil at cecilward.com (Cecil Ward) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:32:59 EDT Subject: Book recommendations for Latin and Celtic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can anyone recommend textbooks on the diachronic morphology and syntax of Latin? Does a decent textbook on the historical morphology or syntax of Celtic exist? (Apart from "Stair na Gaeilge".) From C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Wed Apr 4 11:33:29 2001 From: C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Christian Kay) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 07:33:29 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On 3 Apr 01, at 15:57, John Hewson wrote: >From a British perspective, it's perhaps also worth noting that "pence" has been recategorised as a singular (one pence change) but I haven't yet heard "pences"! Christian Kay *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Professor Christian Janet Kay, Department of English Language, School of English and Scottish Language and Literature, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk phone: +44 (0)141 330 4150 fax: +44 (0)141 330 3531 http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/EngLang/ From markjjones at hotmail.com Wed Apr 4 16:56:58 2001 From: markjjones at hotmail.com (mark jones) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 12:56:58 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. best wishes Mark Mark J. Jones Department of Linguistics and Trinity College University of Cambridge mjj13 at hermes.cam.ac.uk _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From geoffn at siu.edu Wed Apr 4 15:15:18 2001 From: geoffn at siu.edu (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 11:15:18 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527 (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffn at siu.edu From igclanguages at earthlink.net Thu Apr 5 10:49:03 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 06:49:03 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- My Milwaukee (Wisconsin, mid-western USA) born husband and his sister have both been heard to say 'breakfas'es', and they are well educated (I think it is like wearing tennis shoes instead of sneakers). I've never heard and Easterner say it. Dorine mark jones wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard > someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we > talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From igclanguages at earthlink.net Thu Apr 5 10:49:19 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 06:49:19 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- But then, balls always come in pairs, so it would have to be plural. Dorine "Geoffrey S. Nathan" wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: > >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few > >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can > >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ > >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). > > Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' > (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal > in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly > shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the > other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is > 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 From aristar at linguistlist.org Thu Apr 5 23:21:36 2001 From: aristar at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 19:21:36 EDT Subject: List of Extinct Languages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues: The LINGUIST list would like to ask for your help. LINGUIST is at present redesigning its site, and expanding its offerings dramatically. An essential part of this expansion entails moving all our data (and all future data that we collect) into a database. Each piece of data will be categorized in a number of ways that are appropriate to its type. One of the most important ways that data will be categorized is by language. We have benefited from the generosity of SIL, which has agreed to let us use the Ethnologue codes. This has saved us an immense amount of work. We're very pleased that we won't have to launch into a full-scale categorization of all human languages! There are still gaps in the Ethnologue codes, however. As you may know, Ethnologue only includes languages which are either spoken or still in use in some function. Thus Latin, Sanskrit and Ge`ez are listed in Ethnologue, since these are in liturgical use today, but Akkadian is not. On LINGUIST, of course, we need to be able to categorize data which belongs to any language, whether current or not, so it's fallen to us to fill in the gaps in Ethnologue. As a result, we've put together a list of languages, all of which are extinct, and do not appear in Ethnologue, along with a brief set of describing information. The following is an example: Akkadian (Accadian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Babylonian) XAKK First is the canonical language name. Following this, in parenthesis, is a list of alternate names which have been used for the language. Next comes an internal LINGUIST code which you may ignore. In angle brackets follows the following information, in this order: Family to which the language belongs, followed by each node between it and the parent language; place where the language was spoken; time when the language was spoken. Each of these fields is delimited by a semi-colon. What we would like to ask is your help in ensuring that the data in this list is accurate. So we are asking you to look over the data which falls within your area of expertise, and tell us the following: 1. Which extinct languages are missing in the list? 2. If any languages are missing, could you supply us with information to make up a new entry in our list? 3. Is any of the data listed for any of the languages below missing, inaccurate, or just plain wrong? This includes alternate names which we have omitted. We will only be listing languages which have left some trace, even if only slight. Reconstructed languages will be treated separately, as part of our language family tables. Note: The following languages are omitted from the list below, since we have complete data on them: Old Church Slavonic, Old English, Old Frankish, Old High German, Old Irish, Old Norse, Old Persian, Old Prussian, Old Saxon, Old Turkish The data we collect here will be made available to the members of the Open Language Archive Community http://www.language-archives.org/) (and to anyone else who wants it), and will quite possible be used on many sites. So your help will not only benefit LINGUIST, but perhaps ultimately all linguists. Please send all responses to: aristar at linguistlist.org Anthony Aristar Moderator, LINGUIST ********************************************** Akkadian (Accadian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Babylonian) XAKK Bactrian XBAC Carian XCAR Celtiberian (Celto-Iberian) XCEL Chorasmian (Khwarezmian) XCHO Classical Mongolian XCMO Eblaite XEBL Egyptian XEGY Elamitic XELA Elymian XELY Etruscan XETR Faliscan XFAL Gallic (Gaulish) XGAL Hattic (Hattian, Khattic, Khattish, Proto-Hittite) XHAT Hittite (Nesili) XHIT Hurrian XHUR Iberian XIBE Illyrian XILL Jurchin (Jurchi, Jurchen) XJUR Kaskian XKAS Khotanese (Khotanese-Sakan) XKHO Kitan (Khitan, Liao) XKIT Lepontic XLEP Ligurian XLEP Lycian XLYC Lusitanian XLUS Luwian XLUW Lydian XLYD Macedonian XMAC Meroitic XMER Messapian (Messapic) XMES Mycenaean Greek XMYC Mysian XMYS < North Picenian XNPI Numidian (Ancient Berber, Lybico-Berber) XNUM Old Ossetic XASS Oscan XOSC Pahlavi (Pehlevi) XPAH Palaic XPAC Pamphylian XPAM Parthian XPAR Phoenician XPHO Phrygian XPHR Pisidian XPIS Punic XPUN Rhaetic XRHA Sabaean XSAB Sakan XSAK Sicel (Siculan) XSIC Sidetic XSID Sogdian XSOG South Picenian (South Picene, East Italic) XSPI Sumerian XSUM Tangut XTAN Tartessian XTAR Thracian XTHR Tokharian A (Tocharian A, Eastern Tokharian, Turfanian, Karashahrian, Agnean) XTOA Tokharian B (Tocharian B, Western Tokharian, Kuchean) XTOB Ugaritic XUGA Umbrian XUMB Urartian (Urartic, Vannic) XURA Venetic XVEN Volscian XVOL From bowern at fas.harvard.edu Thu Apr 5 17:26:13 2001 From: bowern at fas.harvard.edu (Claire Bowern) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 13:26:13 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <3ACC162A.3303DBD4@earthlink.net> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- So do dice in a lot of board games! (dice being for me (Australian) both singular and plural, although I can confirm Alan's remarks that I thought die an irregular and optional plural of singular "dice' for many years) On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Dorine S. Houston, Director wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > But then, balls always come in pairs, so it would have to > be plural. > > Dorine > > "Geoffrey S. Nathan" wrote: > > > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote: > > >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few > > >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can > > >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_ > > >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up'). > > > > Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey' > > (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950). For those who deal > > in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly > > shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century. On the > > other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is > > 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring). > > -- > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication > 1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA 215-893-8400 > E-MAIL: dshouston at earthlink.net FAX: 215-735-9718 > ______________________ Department of Linguistics Harvard University 305 Boylston Hall Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA Ph: (617) 547-3521 Fax: (617) 496-4447 From montserrat.batllori at udg.es Thu Apr 5 17:15:44 2001 From: montserrat.batllori at udg.es (Montserrat Batllori) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 13:15:44 EDT Subject: 7th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference - Call for papers Message-ID: 7th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DIGS VII) Girona (Spain), 27-29 June, 2002 CALL FOR PAPERS Grammaticalization and Reanalysis The Conference will consist of 20 talks of 20 minutes each plus 10 minutes of discussion. 10 copies of anonymous two-page abstract, Times 12, accompanied by a separate sheet indicating the title of the paper, the author?s name, affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number and the original file in floppy disk with the author?s name, address e-mail and affiliaton should be sent to: DIGS VII Selection Committee C/o Montse Batllori, Elena Castillo, Isabel Pujol and Francesc Roca Department of Philology and Philosophy University of Girona Pla?a Ferrater Mora, 1 17071 Girona, Spain phone: 34-972418201 fax: 34-972418230 e-mail:dir.depfilologia at udg.es http://www.udg.es/dff/digs Abstracts may not exceed 2 pages Submissions of abstracts by e-mail WILL NOT BE accepted. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: January 15, 2002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: batllori.gif Type: image/gif Size: 342158 bytes Desc: not available URL: From nytdirect at nytimes.com Thu Apr 5 12:26:19 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 08:26:19 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Thursday, April 5, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "If everybody takes their tax cut and spends it at Wal-Mart or Chrysler -- well, those guys are our customers. And then maybe our customers would start up the orders they canceled, and we'd get some benefit from it. I mean, our tax cut wouldn't be that big, but it does bring out the Republican in me." - BARNEY TAYLOR JR., owner of a software company. 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To cancel delivery, change delivery options, change your e-mail address or sign up for other newsletters, see http://www.nytimes.com/email HOW TO ADVERTISE ------------------------------------------------------------ For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo From gramma at hum.uva.nl Fri Apr 6 10:43:41 2001 From: gramma at hum.uva.nl (Muriel Norde) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 06:43:41 EDT Subject: grammaticalization conference Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS The second international New Reflections on Grammaticalization conference will be held at the University of Amsterdam, April 4-6, 2002. Scholars are invited to submit abstracts for 40-minute papers (including 10 minute discussion time) on current topics in grammaticalization studies. Case studies examining the implications of particular data for theoretical issues are particularly welcome. Deadline for abstracts is NOVEMBER 1, 2001. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by January 30, 2002. Conference registration is 100 Euro until March 1, 2002. Late registration is 120 Euro. For preliminary registration, send an e-mail message to the address below. If you wish to present a paper, please provide us with a provisional title. Once you have registered, you will receive the first circular containing information on conference themes, plenary speakers, submission of abstracts, travel to Amsterdam and accommodation. For more information you may also visit our website: http://www.hum.uva.nl/gramma/ The organizing committee: Harry Perridon, Olga Fischer and Muriel Norde Conference address: Organizers of "Gramma2" Scandinavian Department University of Amsterdam Spuistraat 134 1012 VB Amsterdam The Netherlands E-mail: gramma at hum.uva.nl From markjjones at hotmail.com Fri Apr 6 16:50:01 2001 From: markjjones at hotmail.com (mark jones) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 12:50:01 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We in Britain don't talk about pences, it's true (though I have heard someone ask for "three breakfas'es", but that's a separate issue). Nor do we talk about 'dices', so the usage seems identical to me. best wishes Mark Mark J. Jones Department of Linguistics and Trinity College University of Cambridge mjj13 at hermes.cam.ac.uk _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From colkitto at sprint.ca Fri Apr 6 16:49:33 2001 From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 12:49:33 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two dice) It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. "Shake the dice". etc. Robert Orr -----Original Message----- From: Larry Trask To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >obsolete in yet another respect? > >Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I think, >the position in American English. In British English, however, the >singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form is now >'dice'. > >American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', while >British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a dice'. >Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one of these >cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like "throw a >die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do not >understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. > >However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell me >anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, Australia, >the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying breed? (Sorry.) > > >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 nytdirect at nytimes.com Sat Apr 7 19:26:58 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:26:58 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Saturday, April 7, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "I'm not looking for a tax cut to buy a Lexus. I've got kids to put through school and a retirement to plan. Certainly, I could use the tax money for my family." - DR. 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It's Easy on Paper http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07PAPE.html A Festival of Images, via Rauschenberg and Others http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07NOTE.html 'Clouds of May': The Hero Makes Movies Oddly Like Life http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/arts/07CLOU.html HOW TO CHANGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------ You received these headlines because you requested The New York Times Direct e-mail service. To cancel delivery, change delivery options, change your e-mail address or sign up for other newsletters, see http://www.nytimes.com/email HOW TO ADVERTISE ------------------------------------------------------------ For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo From ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu Sat Apr 7 19:28:36 2001 From: ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu (Paul Hopper) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:28:36 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: <007501c0bbf6$4c6c78a0$f58a6395@roborr.uottawa.ca> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Growing up in the south of England (Surrey and Sussex), I had never heard the singular "die" until my early teens, and then only in the expression "the die is cast". "Dice" stood for both singular and plural, definite and indefinite ("Why don't you boys play Monopoly?"-"We haven't got a dice"), but I share Robert Orr's intuition that the indefinite singular form is quite rare, so that it was usually irrelevant whether "the dice" was singular or plural. Until I read Larry's posting, I didn't realize there were people for whom dice was only plural. On John Hewson's "threppence", where I grew up that was said mainly by aged aunts and girls from Roedean; we said thruppence (with u as in full). I also recall "thrupny bit" for a three pence coin, with u as in full. The old half-penny was a ha'penny [heypni], also archaically showing the vowel change of alf > al > a: > ey. My grandmother, who was from Yorkshire, said eighteenpence for one and a half shillings [one and sixpence], and this also goes to show how very traditioned these common money combinations were before the currency change. She also said five-and-twenty for twenty-five when telling the time. Paul Hopper ---------------------- Paul Hopper Thomas S. Baker Professor English and Linguistics Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Phone (USA)(412)268-7174 Fax: (USA)(412)268-7989 --On Tuesday, April 03, 2001 8:27 AM +0000 Robert Orr wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I remember die and dice from my youth in Britain. > > People still remembered the correct usage, but among children, "dice" had > become a noun morphologically equivalent to "sheep", "deer" (one dice, two > dice) > > It was nearly always used with the definite article, though. > > "Shake the dice". etc. > > Robert Orr > > -----Original Message----- > From: Larry Trask > To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU > Date: Monday, April 02, 2001 8:52 PM > Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' > > >> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >> Nothing hangs on this: I'm just curious. Is my native English becoming >> obsolete in yet another respect? >> >> Traditionally, a spotted cube used in playing certain games is called a >> 'die', with the uniquely irregular plural 'dice'. This is still, I >> think, the position in American English. In British English, however, >> the singular 'die' has almost wholly disappeared, and the singular form >> is now 'dice'. >> >> American board games invariably instruct the player to 'throw a die', >> while British games equally invariably instruct the player to 'throw a >> dice'. Most Britons do not even know that 'die' is another word for one >> of these cubes, and most of them are flummoxed when I say something like >> "throw a die", which they find utterly mysterious. And most Britons do >> not understand the origin of the expression 'the die is cast'. British >> dictionaries now enter the word under 'dice', and merely cite 'die' as a >> less usual singular form. Some years ago, I was playing Scrabble with a >> very well-educated British woman, and she played DI, assuming that this >> must be the spelling of the mysterious word she had often heard me use. >> >> However, in the last few years, I've begun to hear 'throw a dice' >> occasionally from Americans -- something which I'm pretty sure I never >> heard when I was growing up in the States. So, I'm wondering. Is the >> British usage now becoming established in the States? Can anybody tell >> me anything about this? And, while I'm here, what about Canada, >> Australia, the Caribbean, anywhere? Are we users of 'die' a dying >> breed? (Sorry.) >> >> >> 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 X99Lynx at aol.com Sun Apr 8 14:55:27 2001 From: X99Lynx at aol.com (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 10:55:27 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In a message dated 4/7/2001 2:28:56 PM, ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu writes: << "Dice" stood for both singular and plural, definite and indefinite ("Why don't you boys play Monopoly?"-"We haven't got a dice"), but I share Robert Orr's intuition that the indefinite singular form is quite rare, so that it was usually irrelevant whether "the dice" was singular or plural.>> To add a slant from a different part of the world, "die" was definitely the technical term for a single die in Brooklyn. As in, "uh-uh, ya only trow one die. Da book sez so." In my youth (yUt) we all seemed to believe that this was because we were a last bastion of the accurate American English. Now, I suspect this erudite use of "die" was due entirely to the authoritative influence of the rule book writers at the Milton-Bradley Co. Incidentally, if you did roll two dice and it came up two threes, universally these were described as "trays." Steve Long From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz Sun Apr 8 14:58:14 2001 From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING)) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 10:58:14 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Hopper [mailto:ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu] > Sent: Sunday, 8 April 2001 7:29 a.m. > To: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU > Subject: Re: Q: 'die', 'dice' > > > ----------------------------Original > message---------------------------- > Growing up in the south of England (Surrey and Sussex), I had > never heard > the singular "die" until my early teens, and then only in the > expression > "the die is cast". > Only by conscious effort can I remind myself that this expression has to do with throwing dice. My first interpretation was that it had to do with putting hot metal into a mold, which after all is an equally suitable metaphor for taking an irrevocable step, though perhaps it lacks the implication of uncertain outcome. A childhood (or rather adolescent) misunderstanding, not exactly a mondegreen, but something like it. I add my vote (representing western Canada) to those for whom "dice" is both singular and plural, and the business about "die" is just another odd fact about language one happens to learn. Ross Clark From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Sun Apr 8 15:03:27 2001 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 11:03:27 EDT Subject: apology Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Yesterday in the process of plowing through 140 messages (no exaggeration) in my mail reader, I inadvertently forwarded my daily posting from the New York Times to HISTLING. Besides being somewhat embarrassed by this public slip-up, I feel that I should apologize to all subscribers who were inconvenienced by this. Dorothy Disterheft Moderator, HISTLING From cecil at cecilward.com Mon Apr 9 14:13:55 2001 From: cecil at cecilward.com (Cecil Ward) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 10:13:55 EDT Subject: Q: 'die', 'dice' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am an Englishman now living in Scotland. The only time I have ever heard the word "die" used is in the expression "the die is cast". From Hines at Cardiff.ac.uk Tue Apr 10 10:45:27 2001 From: Hines at Cardiff.ac.uk (J HINES) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 06:45:27 EDT Subject: Die, dice, dis a disiau Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I assume this discussion is continuing for some intrinsic interest rather than because none of us has anything better to do, so the following may be of use to some of you: The Welsh word for die (sg.) is "dis" -- in other words English "dice", borrowed pre-GVS. (There is a modern anglicized variant, "deis".) As a loanword it is recorded as early as the C14, and by the C15 there are records of it regularly pluralizing as "disiau". Presumably then "dice" was here understood as a singular this long ago. As far as I can see, the first unambiguous evidence for "dis" referring to a single item/specimen, as opposed to being unspecific, is a Welsh-Latin glossary of 1632 which glosses "dis" with a series of singulars: cubus, alea, tessera. Particularly notable in this case, is that "dis" would seem an ideal candidate for the common Welsh practice of adding a distinct singular suffix to what is otherwise a non-count noun, e.g. "pysgoden" (a fish), "pysgod" (fish, pl.). Geiriadur y Brifysgol (the major university dictionary) records only one instance of such a form, "disyn", again in the C15. Returning to the personal reminiscences, I was faced with this problem when having to translate a Scandinavian article about the archaeological find of a "terning" (die, sg.) for publication about 20 years ago. I was in no doubt then that "dice" was simply incorrect, but felt obliged to create the term "gaming-die" for clarity's sake. In an archaeological context, the term "die" would usually be assumed to refer to a model used in die-stamping processes. I can also remember back to student days (1970's) in Britain when it wasn't totally unknown for the singular to be used. And while my background wouldn't count for much in terms of street-cred, these were not the most polished of circles either. OK the usage is obsolescent, but let's not give up on it yet! JH Professor/Yr Athro John Hines Editor/Golygydd, Medieval Archaeology School of History and Archaeology/Ysgol Hanes ac Archaeoleg Cardiff University/Prifysgol Caerdydd P O Box 909/Blwch S P 909 Cardiff/Caerdydd CF10 3XU United Kingdom/Y Deyrnas Gyfunol Tel/Ffon: [44] 029 20 874736 Fax/Ffacs: [44] 029 20 874929 From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 11 17:19:32 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 13:19:32 EDT Subject: Sum: 'die, dice' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A few days ago I posted a query about the singular form of 'dice'. I received responses from twenty people reporting on their local usage, plus supplementary comments from five more. Most of the responses came from various places in the USA and in Australia, with a scattering from Canada, England, Wales, Scotland, and South Africa. Not all the respondents described themselves as youthful. All respondents report that singular 'dice' is now prevalent in their area. Some respondents still use singular 'die' themselves, while others use only 'dice', and one or two were unaware that there *was* a singular 'die' -- at least in current use. A couple of people reported that singular 'dice' was virtually universal in the areas in which they grew up several decades ago. One person reported that, when he was growing up in England, singular 'die' was at least known to adults but was wholly unknown to children. A couple of people noted that, for them, it was highly unusual to encounter any form of the word anywhere except after 'the', and that either 'a die' or 'a dice' was odd. Two people were unaware that the expression 'the die is cast' had anything to do with dice, and they associated it rather with the casting of metal dies. Most interesting. I am tempted to launch into a tirade about how, in my day, we had to read Julius Caesar in the original in high school, but I'll refrain. ;-) Incidentally, nobody commented on the (possibly British) expression 'as straight as a die' (= 'perfectly honest'), which the dictionaries assure me also derives from dice, and not from metal-casting. The status of singular 'die' varies according to region. There were three groups of replies, with the second predominating slightly. * Singular 'die' is a less usual but perfectly acceptable alternative to singular 'dice'. * Singular 'die' is known, but it is highly marked: it is elevated; it is a mysterious form learned in school; it is fussy; it is pretentious; it is a form learned only through studying English grammar or linguistics professionally. * Singular 'die' is wholly unknown. One respondent observed that singular 'die' was still the preferred form among educated speakers in southern Scotland several decades ago. Another reported that singular 'die' was usual among game-players in Brooklyn several decades ago, but suspected that this resulted from the consistent use of 'die' in the rules to American games. And one reported that singular 'dice' was used but clearly stigmatized in New York City in the 1950s. And, of course, two Australian respondents reported that 'die' was -- or formerly had been -- the *plural* of 'dice' in their circles, a use which astonished the other Australians as much as it does me. Wow. Some history. OED 2 tells me that singular 'die' is recorded from 1393, while plural 'dice' is recorded from 1330. It also says that singular 'dice' is recorded from 1425, though the earlier existence of this may be inferred from a plural 'dices', recorded from 1388 but apparently long obsolete. This early singular 'dice' is presumably the source of the Welsh singular reported by one respondent, with a regular Welsh plural (and a striking hapax singulative !), and it is presumably also the source of the verb 'dice' and of the adjective 'dicey'. I've just consulted an arbitrary collection of British and American dictionaries, and what I found surprised me. Every single dictionary published before 1990 gave the singular as 'die' exclusively, and declined to recognize a singular 'dice'. But dictionaries published since 1990 are more complicated. Every British dictionary of the last ten years gives 'dice' as the ordinary singular. Usually 'die' is admitted as a rare alternative -- one dictionary labels it "American or old" -- but one recent British dictionary declines to mention 'die' at all. Nevertheless, every American dictionary I managed to consult from the last ten years insisted on singular 'die' and refused to recognize singular 'dice'. (I'm counting Encarta as non-American here; it follows British usage on this point, but it describes itself as an international dictionary.) The testimony from my American respondents suggests strongly that the lexicographers are dozing here. In fact, though, one respondent tells me that Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate recognizes singular 'dice', but I haven't been able to check this dictionary. All current British usage handbooks firmly recommend singular 'dice'. Unfortunately, I don't have ready access to non-British handbooks, so I don't know what they say. But one respondent pointed out that Fowler's famous handbook provides no entry for 'die, dice', suggesting that the matter was not seen as an issue in his day. On the supplementary reports, a couple of respondents drew attention to British 'pence'. When I first arrived in Britain 31 years ago, the old LSD currency was still in use, and at that time the singular was 'penny', while 'pence' was strictly plural, and people spoke unfailingly of 'a sixpenny piece'. But, since the switch to decimal currency, this has changed dramatically. Today 'pence' is invariable for most speakers, and we hear only 'one pence' and 'a one-pence piece'. When I go to the bank to get change, and I ask for "some twenty-penny pieces", I get only a blank stare, and I must ask for "some twenty-pence pieces" if I want to get any coins. This change has happened in a generation -- far faster than the case of 'dice'. So, as I feared, my English turns out to be fossilized in yet another respect. But I can't tell you young whippersnappers how awful that "a dice" sounds to an old fart like me: it's right up there with "this phenomena" and "another criteria", things which I see constantly in my students' written work. ;-) Anyway, I have just written a handbook of English usage, which will be out shortly, and I'm afraid I am now doomed to recommend singular 'die' for anyone other than a Brit writing for a British readership. Sigh. Guess I should title the thing 'English Usage for Tedious Old Farts'. Oh, well, it could be worse. Apropos of nothing much, I'd like to quote the entry for 'die, dice' in another handbook of English usage published in Britain last year. It is extraordinary in several respects. ('Ludo' is the British name of parcheesi.) dice, die: Although 'die' is the correct singular for the plural 'dice' ('the die is cast'), nobody in their right minds today would say to his fellow Ludo player, "Hey, Bill, hurry up and throw that die!" ([sic] all the way through) I hope I have done a little better than this. My thanks to Elena Bashir, Barry Blake, John Bowden, Claire Bowern, Bobby Bryant, Ross Clark, Richard Coates, Alan Dench, David Fertig, John Hewson, John Hines, Paul Hopper, Dorine Houston, Martin Huld, Mark Jones, Christian Kay, Roger Lass, Steve Long, Geoffrey Nathan, Robert Orr, Margaret Sharpe, Benjamin Slade, Cecil Ward, Gordon Whittaker, and Roger Wright. P.S. Plaintive moan: is there anybody else out there who still pronounces 'harass' to rhyme with 'embarrass'? 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 larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Apr 24 19:20:53 2001 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:20:53 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A question has arisen on another list about loans from Latin into other languages. The question is this: in such borrowings, which form of a Latin noun or adjective is borrowed? In Basque, it is almost always the accusative (masculine for an adjective), though there are some exceptions: a few nominatives and even one vocative. My questioner is wondering whether borrowing of the accusative is usual, and I don't know. I've looked at Morris Jones's history of Welsh, and he usually cites the Latin nominative as the source of a borrowing, though occasionally he cites the accusative instead. I suppose he has good reason for this, but he doesn't seem to discuss the matter, and the apparently general disappearance of the Latin endings in Welsh makes it impossible for me to judge. So: in Welsh, or in any other relevant language, which form of a Latin noun or adjective is typically borrowed? 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 digs at udg.es Tue Apr 24 19:44:13 2001 From: digs at udg.es (DIGS VII) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:44:13 EDT Subject: 7th DIGS Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Further information about VII DIGS can be found at: http://www.udg.es/dff/digs.html You can contact us through: digs at udg.es From barddal at nessie.mcc.ac.uk Tue Apr 24 19:17:47 2001 From: barddal at nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Johanna Barddal) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:17:47 EDT Subject: Subject affected vs. Speaker affected! Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm looking at the semantics of dative subject verbs in Icelandic. It turns out, not surprisingly, that the simplistic view of dative subject verbs being experiencer verbs or benefactive verbs does not hold. In stead I have found that these verbs divide on various non-agentive verb groups. However, one of the most interesting feature here is that one subgroup is not subject affected but rather speaker affected, i.e. these predicates express the evaluation of the speaker, which of course, does not at all have to coincide with the subject. I'm not sure how to account for this; it might be viewed as a metaphorical extension of some sort, but at least, it seems to me that this should constitute a nice example of subjectification. Is there anybody out there who can give me references to any relevant literature, on for instance, subjectification? Thanks in advance, Johanna Barddal Dept. of Linguistics University of Manchester, johanna.barddal at man.ac.uk http://ling.man.ac.uk/Html/JB From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 25 11:54:22 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (roger wright) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 07:54:22 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: <109443603.3196750259@wren.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Romance languages are obviously a special case, but worth mentioning even so; in general it is has been just the stem of a Latin noun or adjective that's been borrowed, and the morphological endings are those of the borrowing language. Thus Latin RADIUS was borrowed as Spanish "radio" (to mean the radius of a circle), and despite the [-o] it would be wrong for us to derive Spanish "radio" from the Latin dative or ablative form RADIO. Maybe something similar applies to all languages that have their own obligatory nominal morphology (by obligatory I mean that the stem doesn't usually appear as a whole word in itself). But sometimes a complete Latin form has indeed been borrowed whole in Romance; Spanish "radium" means radium, as in English, even though [-um] (or in practice [-un]) isn't a Spanish morpheme. We can feel sure that the word "radio" (with this meaning) is indeed a borrowing from Latin rather than a native development; the word which does derive directly from the Latin noun in Spanish is "rayo", meaning a ray (which we can be sure comes from the accusative form RADIUM, partly because very nearly all Spanish nouns seem to come from the accusative form, and partly because RADIUS would have given "rayos", as CAROLUS > Carlos). The form "radium" probably comes immediately into Spanish from French or English rather than Latin, of course, but the point is that it hasn't been reformed even so, and so far as I know neither French nor Spanish scientists have thought of calling it **"radius". (Standard Italian can't usually accept word-final [-m], so it's "radio" there.) Which seems to suggest that the accusative form has generally been thought to be the citation form, and thus the one to be borrowed if for some reason the borrowers don't want to confine themselves to borrowing the stem, adding their own inflectional morphology. It has been argued that the accusative was the citation form in original Latin, too, but the lemmata of dictionaries and grammars of Roman times, at least, don't always support this, so this may not be right. One way to test this in Welsh, etc, and other non-Romance languages, is to look at imparisyllabic nouns. In the case of e.g. HOMO, genitive HOMINIS, accusative HOMINEM, the source form might even be obvious (in the same way as in Romance, standard Italian "uomo" undoubtedly comes from the nominative, as usual in Italy, and the Spanish "hombre" comes undoubtedly from the accusative, as usual in Spain). My guess is that Morris Jones simply (and understandably) chose a source form that seemed appropriate. RW On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Larry Trask wrote: >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >A question has arisen on another list about loans from Latin into other >languages. The question is this: in such borrowings, which form of a Latin >noun or adjective is borrowed? > >In Basque, it is almost always the accusative (masculine for an adjective), >though there are some exceptions: a few nominatives and even one vocative. >My questioner is wondering whether borrowing of the accusative is usual, >and I don't know. > >I've looked at Morris Jones's history of Welsh, and he usually cites the >Latin nominative as the source of a borrowing, though occasionally he cites >the accusative instead. I suppose he has good reason for this, but he >doesn't seem to discuss the matter, and the apparently general >disappearance of the Latin endings in Welsh makes it impossible for me to >judge. > >So: in Welsh, or in any other relevant language, which form of a Latin noun >or adjective is typically borrowed? > > >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 mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 25 19:53:16 2001 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 15:53:16 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Wed, 25 Apr 2001 07:54:22 EDT, roger wright wrote: > But sometimes a complete Latin form has indeed been borrowed whole >in Romance; Spanish "radium" means radium, as in English, even though >[-um] (or in practice [-un]) isn't a Spanish morpheme. Actually, the chemical element is "radio" in Spanish. I've never seen "radium". There's only a few Spanish words ending in -m (album, ultimatum). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl From tore.janson at swipnet.se Thu Apr 26 15:06:47 2001 From: tore.janson at swipnet.se (Tore Janson) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 11:06:47 EDT Subject: Q: Latin loans into other languages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask asks which case form of a Latin word is borrowed into other languages, such as Basque or Welsh. There is no simple answer to that question; it depends on when the word is borrowed, and from what source, and also on the structure of the recipient language. The earliest Latin loanwords into Germanic languages are found in Gothic, and many clearly retain the Latin nominative for Gothic nominative. Examples are Gothic nom. katils from Latin nom. catillus (acc. catillum), Gothic spaikulatur from Latin nom. speculator (acc. speculatorem). When those words were borrowed, not later than the fourth century AD, the Latin nominative form was still in general use in the spoken language. But later loans into German and other Germanic languages, say from about the seventh century and onwards, are often based upon the Latin accusative form, for example Old High German calc, Old English cealc, "chalk/lime", which is derived from Latin acc. calcem (nom. calx). This is quite natural, for in the Romance area the formal distinction between nominative and accusative in nouns eventually disappeared in the spoken language, and the remaining form normally came from the old Latin accusative, not from the nominative. Whether those loans are from Latin or from a Romance language/dialect is of course a matter for debate. I would contend they are from Latin, at least in the early Middle Ages, and so, I think, would Roger Wright. Although I know nothing about Welsh or Basque, I suspect these languages continued borrowing from Latin/Romance throughout the Middle Ages, and so probably have imported many forms ultimately derivable from the Latin accusative. But there is a further complication. What is said so far refers to words borrowed from one spoken language into another. But Latin has been the learned written language of Europe for two millennia, and very many words have been introduced into other languages directly from written Latin, sometimes quite recently. Many of these ultimately derive from Latin accusatives, but often indirectly. The English word president is from Latin accusative praesidentem via French, for example. In some cases, though, the nominative is used, as in the recent English word processor. A couple of comments to the interesting letter from Roger Wright. The English word radium for a substance is actually not derived from the Latin accusative of radius. Rather, it is a new formation by 19th century chemists, who coined dozens or hundreds of names for substances by using a Latin or Greek stem an attaching the ending -ium to it. Examples are helium, iridium, and so on. Some are also formed from other stems, as ytterbium, an element first found on the farm Ytterby in Sweden. All those words can be regarded as Latin neutral nouns; for them, the nominative and accusative forms are identical. I must also object to Roger's statement that Italian usually forms nouns from the Latin nominative. They normally come from Latin accusative, as in all other Romance languages. The example uomo from homo is one of a few enumerable exceptions, like French soeur from soror and Spanish Dios from deus Regards, Tore Janson From nytdirect at nytimes.com Sun Apr 29 12:33:38 2001 From: nytdirect at nytimes.com (The New York Times Direct) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 08:33:38 EDT Subject: Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- TODAY'S HEADLINES The New York Times on the Web Sunday, April 29, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------ For news updated throughout the day, visit www.nytimes.com QUOTE OF THE DAY ========================= "George W. Bush has a little more of his mother in him. Where his father would bite his tongue, every once in a while George W. Bush flaps his tongue." - ANDREW CARD, the White House chief of staff. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29BUSH.html NATIONAL ========================= Mexican Laborers in U.S. During World War II Sue for Back Pay http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29BRAC.html Search for the Right Church Ends at Home http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29PRAY.html Vieques Turns Into a Symbol of Discontent http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29PUER.html Navy Bombing Is Betrayal, Puerto Rico's Governor Says http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29SILA.html /--------------------- ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------\ What's ahead for business in 2001? Get the Times's perspective on business and the economy in 2001, both foreign and domestic. Explore our Web exclusive interactive timeline of business in 2000 that ranges from the AOL Time Warner merger to the plunging Nasdaq with an essay by Floyd Norris, the Times's senior financial correspondent. http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/2001outlook1-index.html?ibd \---------------------------------------------------------/ POLITICS ========================= In Early Battles, Bush Learns Need for Compromises http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29BUSH.html Labor Leaders Joining Forces in Opposition to Trade Plan http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/politics/29LABO.html 5 Seals With Kerrey Back Him on War Raid http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29VIET.html Strom in the Balance http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/magazine/29STROM.html INTERNATIONAL ========================= Millionaire Embarks on Joy Ride in Space http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/science/29SPAC.html For Afghan Exiles, 'Promised Land' Turns Hostile http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29AFGH.html Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29IRAQ.html China Looks to Foil U.S. Missile Defense System http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/world/29CHIN.html BUSINESS ========================= By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29HARA.html Buffett Stuck to His Stocks, and He's Up as Wall Street Is Down http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/business/29BUFF.html A Software Company Runs Out of Tricks http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29COMP.html Workers, and Bosses, in a Visa Maze http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29VISA.html TECHNOLOGY ========================= By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29HARA.html Why Wait for That Money? Download It Instead http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29CASH.html Business World: A High-Tech Lifeline in Europe's Rust Belt http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29WORL.html Workers, and Bosses, in a Visa Maze http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/technology/29VISA.html NEW YORK REGION ========================= In Rural Counties, the Squeeze of Poverty Can Be Stronger http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29RURA.html Those Little Town Blues, in Old New York? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29YORK.html Mother Faults 'Signal' Sent in Diallo Case http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29DIAL.html McCall and Silver Enjoying a New Rapport http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/nyregion/29MCCA.html SPORTS ========================= Devils Win Four-Period Playoff Thriller http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29DEVI.html Hit Batter Provides Jolt to Give Mets a Pulse http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29METS.html Knoblauch Supports Good Effort by Lilly http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29YANK.html Knicks Won't Have Camby for Game 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/sports/29KNIC.html ARTS ========================= Destiny's Child: In Tune With the New Feminism http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29POWE.html Judy Garland: Acting as She Sings, She Makes Each Song a Drama http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29MCGR.html Sharing the Stage With August Wilson http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/arts/29SHEW.html What's New in Classical Music? 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