From C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Fri Jun 1 10:27:20 2001 From: C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Christian Kay) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 06:27:20 EDT Subject: HISTLING subscriber list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Two posts are available from an early date on an EPSRC-funded project to create a Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS) 1. Postgraduate Research Assistant with research experience in English or Scots Language or Linguistics 2. Postgraduate Computing Officer with experience of text encoding, Web server and Unix system administration Closing date: 22/6/01 Salary in the range £16,775 – 18,731 For further details, see http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/SCOTS/ *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* 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 c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk Mon Jun 4 14:27:35 2001 From: c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk (Claire Cowie) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 10:27:35 EDT Subject: PhD Studentship in corpus linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This is a re-advertisement. Apologies for cross-postings. The University of Sheffield has PhD funding available (starting September 2001) for a project involving the British National Corpus. The studentship is jointly held by the departments of English Language and Linguistics and Information Studies. A suitable candidate would have a project in mind involving the BNC and be able to draw on expertise from both of these departments. We welcome proposals in the following areas of corpus linguistics: lexical statistics, word frequency, lexical innovation, lexicography text type/register/genre analysis stylistics discourse analysis variation and change text retrieval, text processing text markup computing in the humanities Please note that this is a university studentship and so fees are paid at the home rate only. If the candidate is not from the EU, funding must be available to make up the difference between home and overseas fees. Arrangements for supervision: The successful candidate will be a member of the Department of English Language and Linguistics which forms part of the School of English. The project will be jointly supervised by Dr Claire Cowie and Dr Claire Warwick from the department of Information Studies. Dr Cowie works on word-formation and lexical innovation in historical corpora, with particular reference to register differences. Dr Warwick works on humanities computing, with a particular interest in the application of computers to the study of English literature and language. She was previously part of the BNC project team. More information about the departments may be found at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/language/index.html and http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is. Application forms and further details can be obtained from: Fozia Yasmin, Graduate Research Office Graduate Research Office 156 Broomspring Lane Sheffield S10 2FE Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 1404 Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 1420 Email : grad.school at sheffield.ac.uk To discuss the project informally, please contact Claire Cowie (0114 2220217- c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk) or Claire Warwick (0114 222 2632 - c.warwick at sheffield.ac.uk). From DEHolt01 at gwm.sc.edu Tue Jun 5 17:39:32 2001 From: DEHolt01 at gwm.sc.edu (D. Eric Holt) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 13:39:32 EDT Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear colleagues, In discussing the various types of modifications rules (and the rule component) may undergo (addition, loss, reordering, inversion), examples are usually drawn from phonology. Examples from syntax are not usually cited, so I'm wondering if anyone on the list might have come across examples, specifically of rule inversion, especially ones in the published literature. Some examples that may qualify are the following (but they're really morphosyntactic): May perhaps be exemplified by cases of morpho-syntactic hypercorrection (though not all hypercorrections involve rule inversion, and vice versa), as in the nonstandard overuse in English of whom (presumably by overapplication/reanalysis of a rule of objective case assignment), and perhaps the extension (overgeneralization) of second person singular -s in nonstandard Spanish to the preterit forms (e.g., comistes 'you ate', like present tense comes, vs. standard comiste). A perhaps clearer case of inversion, a morphological one that has been completed, is that of the indefinite article in English (a ~ an): originally there was a nasal deletion rule that applied before consonants (e.g., an car > a car), but now the underlying form is a with nasal insertion before words that begin with a vowel (e.g., a car, but an orange). Are there any clearly syntactic cases, rather than morphosyntactic ones? Other types of rule change may be exemplified via the following: A case of rule addition in syntax may be taken from Early Irish (see Disterheft 1997), where an innovation introduced the infinitive as a distinct category and which gave rise to a series of Raising structures, whereby both subject and object may move from the embedded clause to become matrix subject, object or object of preposition (p. 129). A case of rule loss in syntax may be that of Caribbean Spanish, where, in contrast to the international standard, subjects and verbs are not inverted in question formation (e.g., ¿Cómo tú te llamas? 'What is your name?', rather than standard ¿Cómo te llamas tú?) A case of rule reordering in the syntactic component, as argued in Klima (1964; presented in McMahon, §5.2.2.2) is that of the distribution of who and whom in English, where, in some varieties speakers say Who did John give it to? (in contrast to earlier Whom did John give it to?) but To whom did John give it? Klima analyzes this as a reordering of the transformations of Wh-Movement and Case-Marking. I would welcome your thoughts on these. I'll post a summary of responses if there are sufficient responses. Regards, Eric Holt References: Disterheft, Dorothy. 1997. Syntactic innovation in Early Irish. In Ahlqvist, Anders and Vera Capková, eds., Dán do Oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. Ó Cléirgh. Dublin: Institiúid Tengeolaíochta Éireann. 123-133. Klima, E.S. 1964. Relatedness between grammatical systems. Language 40.1-20. McMahon, April. 1994. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____________________________________________ D. Eric Holt Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese and Linguistics Program University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 (803) 777-0798 (office) (803) 777-4884 (messages) (803) 777-7828 (fax) holt at sc.edu http://www.cla.sc.edu/SIP/ From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Jun 6 14:22:16 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (roger wright) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 10:22:16 EDT Subject: An Important Message for ISHL members Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ***** This message is for members of the International Society for Historical Linguistics. I write to you as current Head of the Society's Nominating Committee. At the Business Meeting of the International Society for Historical Linguistics during the 2001 Conference in Melbourne, the members of the society will be asked to vote on a slate of nominees, to fill several committee vacancies. (1) There are vacancies for places on the Executive Committee: SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY (in place of Dorothy Disterheft) FUTURE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR (for the 2005 Conference) MEMBER (until 2007) Those members of the present Committee who will continue in office after the next ICHL will be Barry Blake, as the by then former conference director; Lene Schoesler, as the by then president, being the director of the 2003 Conference in Copenhagen; Kate Burridge (Australia) and Rosanna Sornicola (Italy), as Members till 2003 and 2005 respectively. We (the nominating committee) are proposing the following slate of nominees. In each case we have asked the nominee if they are happy to serve in the capacity in question, and they have told us that they are indeed happy to do so: As SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY: John Charles Smith (Oxford, England) As FUTURE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR: Thomas Cravens (Madison, Wisc., USA) AND: Joseph Salmons (Madison, Wisc., USA) As MEMBER (till 2007): Vit Bubenik (Canada) This implies that the 2005 Conference will be held at Madison, Wisconsin (probably in July). We are hereby accepting at last an offer from Madison which was first made many years ago. The two nominees are planning to run the conference jointly, which is why we are nominating both for the committee; should any question of voting arise, they would share one vote. (2) There is also one vacancy on the Nominating Committee (in place of myself), to serve till 2009. We propose to nominate Dr Concepci'on Company Company (Mexico) for this vacancy. She has expressed her willingness to be so nominated. The other members of the committee will continue: Harold Koch (Australia, till 2003), Martin Maiden (England, till 2005) and Ans van Kemenade (The Netherlands, till 2007). The ISHL constitution allows nominations from the membership at large. If any member wishes to make an alternative nomination, please let Dorothy Disterheft and myself know by 6th August. All nominators and nominees must be members of the ISHL, of course. Perhaps I should also make clear that Dorothy Disterheft is happy to continue to be moderator of HISTLING. With best wishes to all the ISHL - Roger Wright (Liverpool) ***** From paoram at unipv.it Wed Jun 6 14:20:48 2001 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 10:20:48 EDT Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Some comments (inserted in Holt's letter between << >>) Best, P.Rt. ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Eric Holt" To: Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 19:39 Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Dear colleagues, > > In discussing the various types of modifications rules (and the rule component) may undergo (addition, loss, reordering, inversion), examples are usually drawn from phonology. Examples from syntax are not usually cited, so I'm wondering if anyone on the list might have come across examples, specifically of rule inversion, especially ones in the published literature. > > Some examples that may qualify are the following (but they're really morphosyntactic): > > May perhaps be exemplified by cases of morpho-syntactic hypercorrection (though not all hypercorrections involve rule inversion, and vice versa), as in the nonstandard overuse in English of whom (presumably by overapplication/reanalysis of a rule of objective case assignment), and perhaps the extension (overgeneralization) of second person singular -s in nonstandard Spanish to the preterit forms (e.g., comistes 'you ate', like present tense comes, vs. standard comiste). << Why should this overapplication of the present tense paradigm qualify as 'inversion'? It is not clear to me what is meant by 'inversion'. The same holds also for the previous Engl. ex. *who/whom*: see Sapir, Language. We could perhaps speak of inversion in the case we had *whom* in subject position and *who* in object/oblique position. But this is not the case, I suppose.>> A perhaps clearer case of inversion, a morphological one that has been completed, is that of the indefinite article in English (a ~ an): originally there was a nasal deletion rule that applied before consonants (e.g., an car > a car), but now the underlying form is a with nasal insertion before words that begin with a vowel (e.g., a car, but an orange). > > Are there any clearly syntactic cases, rather than morphosyntactic ones? << Again: we have many instances of syntactic uses of the indicative pro subjunctive: substandard Ital. *credo che e' bene* instead of *credo che sia bene*, as in French and Span., where the indicat. has become the unmarked use. But also in this case I would just speak of overextension of the indic. and not of rule inversion. The process might eventually end up with a rule loss, if all dependent clauses wouldn't use the subjunctive any longer (see the ex. of non-inversion in interr. sentences quoted below from Caribbean Span.>> > > Other types of rule change may be exemplified via the following: > > A case of rule addition in syntax may be taken from Early Irish (see Disterheft 1997), where an innovation introduced the infinitive as a distinct category and which gave rise to a series of Raising structures, whereby both subject and object may move from the embedded clause to become matrix subject, object or object of preposition (p. 129). > > A case of rule loss in syntax may be that of Caribbean Spanish, where, in contrast to the international standard, subjects and verbs are not inverted in question formation (e.g., ¿Cómo tú te llamas? 'What is your name?', rather than standard ¿Cómo te llamas tú?) > > A case of rule reordering in the syntactic component, as argued in Klima (1964; presented in McMahon, §5.2.2.2) is that of the distribution of who and whom in English, where, in some varieties speakers say Who did John give it to? (in contrast to earlier Whom did John give it to?) but To whom did John give it? Klima analyzes this as a reordering of the transformations of Wh-Movement and Case-Marking. > > I would welcome your thoughts on these. > > I'll post a summary of responses if there are sufficient responses. > > Regards, > Eric Holt > > References: > > Disterheft, Dorothy. 1997. Syntactic innovation in Early Irish. In Ahlqvist, Anders and Vera Capková, eds., Dán do Oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. Ó Cléirgh. Dublin: Institiúid Tengeolaíochta Éireann. 123-133. > > Klima, E.S. 1964. Relatedness between grammatical systems. Language 40.1-20. > > McMahon, April. 1994. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. > > _____________________________________________ > D. Eric Holt > Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese and > Linguistics Program > University of South Carolina > Columbia, South Carolina 29208 > (803) 777-0798 (office) (803) 777-4884 (messages) > (803) 777-7828 (fax) > holt at sc.edu > http://www.cla.sc.edu/SIP/ > From marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr Thu Jun 14 10:04:31 2001 From: marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr (Michel Santacroce) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 06:04:31 EDT Subject: [diffusion_ML] Marges Linguistiques : Premier num=?ISO-8859-1?B?6Q==?=ro / First Issue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Français / English below _____________________________________________________ Veuillez nous excuser pour les diffusions multiples mais n'hésitez pas à diffuser ce message à toutes les personnes que cela peut intéresser Revue internationale Marges Linguistiques Mai/Juin 2001 Chers collègues, Le premier numéro de la revue électronique gratuite en Sciences du Langage Marges linguistiques est désormais disponible à : http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Tous les articles sont librement téléchargeables à la rubrique "Sommaire du dernier numéro" 1- Thématique du premier numéro de Marges Linguistiques : _______________________________________________________ Faits de langue - Faits de discours Données - processus et modèles Qu'est-ce qu'un fait linguistique ? 2- Au sommaire du premier numéro de Marges Linguistiques: _______________________________________________________ - Qu'est-ce qu'un fait linguistique ? par William Labov (Université de Pennsylvanie, USA) - La connection empirique entre la réalité et le discours. Sieyès et l'ordre de la langue par Jacques Guilhaumou (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France) - Pragmatique : état de l'art et perspectives par Jacques Moeschler (Université de Genève, Suisse) - Langage et hors langage - Quelques remarques par Frédéric François (France) - Borrowing as a semantic fact par Yong-Ho Choi (Hankuk University of foreign studies, Corée du sud) - Entre langue, discours (texte), et narration: sur le choix de l'anaphore dans un exemple de style/discours indirect libre par Guy Achard-Bayle (Université de Paris VII, France) - Pour une linguistique interactionnelle par Lorenza Mondada (Université de Bâle, Suisse) - Peut-on construire des " faits linguistiques " comme chaotiques ? Eléments de réflexion pour amorcer le débat par Didier de Robillard (Université de Tours, France) Comptes rendus d'ouvrages : - Compte rendu de l'ouvrage : La linguistique de terrain. Méthode et théorie. Une approche ethno sociolinguistique, de P. Blanchet (2000) par Leila Messaoudi (Université Ibn Tofail Kénitra - Maroc) - Compte rendu de l'ouvrage : Les dimensions culturelles des enseignements de langue de J-C. Beacco (2000) par Michel Santacroce (Cnrs, Université de Provence, France) Pour télécharger ces textes, rendez-vous à http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Vous souhaitez réagir ? Faire part de vos commentaires et/ou de vos critiques ? Ecrivez à la Revue marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr ou encore directement aux auteurs 3- Les rubriques du site Marges Linguistiques ________________________________________ Le site web Marges Linguistiques présente également de nombreuses rubriques utiles pour les linguistes, enseignants, chercheurs et étudiants : - Présentation et diffusion des actes du colloque d'Albi 2000, consacré au stéréotype - une quarantaine de textes téléchargeables - Une base de données textuelles en sciences du langage librement consultable et que vous pouvez à tout moment enrichir en proposant vos propres contributions - Un moteur de recherche dédié à la linguistique (Aleph-Linguistique) qui n'attend que vos soumissions de sites - Des milliers de liens internationaux actualisés consacrés à la linguistique - des outils et ressources pour les linguistes - Des centaines de moteurs de recherche, referencés et listés - des groupes de discussions auxquels vous pouvez souscrire - Un annuaire éléctronique en Sciences du Langage - Une rubrique Thèses en ligne, vous permettant de télecharger gratuitement des travaux universitaires et de proposer vos propres productions Tous les services de marges Linguistiques sont gratuits Pour télécharger ces textes, rendez-vous à http://www.marges-linguistiques.com 4- Les appels à contributions ________________________ Marges Linguistiques, revue électronique semestrielle généraliste en sciences du langage, entièrement gratuite, souhaite concilier, dans un esprit de synthèse et de clarté, d'une part les domaines traditionnels de la linguistique: syntaxe, phonologie, sémantique; d'autre part les champs plus éclatés de la pragmatique linguistique, de l'analyse conversationnelle, de l'analyse des interactions verbales et de la communication sociale. Deux appels à contributions sont en cours (Numéros 2 et 3 de la revue) Après avoir pris connaissance des thèmes et des délais adressez-nous vos textes en écrivant à contributions.ML at wanadoo.fr Numéro 2 (Novembre 2001): Approches interactives des faits de langue (Sous la direction de R. Vion, Université de Provence, France) Numéro 3 (Mai 2002) : Lieux de ville : langue(s) urbaine(s), identité et territoire - Perspectives en sociolinguistique urbaine (Sous la direction de Thierry Bulot, Université de Rouen, France). Prendre connaissance des thématiques ? Rendez-vous à http://www.marges-linguistiques.com (Rubrique Appels à contributions) 5- Important : ___________ Le site internet et La revue Marges Linguistiques, qui s'adressent prioritairement à l'ensemble des chercheurs, praticiens, étudiants, concernés par les questions s'inscrivant dans le champ des sciences du langage, peuvent également intéresser un public plus large ; c'est pourquoi nous vous serions extrêmement reconnaissant de bien vouloir retransmettre cette annonce électronique intégralement à un nombre important de personnes qui pourront par suite, faire de même... Grâce à vos efforts de diffusion, nous pouvons espérer toucher rapidement un très large public et nous vous en remercions par avance. BONNE VISITE http://www.marges-linguistiques.com MERCI D'AVANCE pour vos commentaires et suggestions ainsi que pour la diffusion de la présente annonce. Directeur de publication Michel Santacroce Université de Provence - chercheur associé CNRS, UMR 6057, France dirpubl at marges-linguistiques.com _____________________________________________________ English / Français _____________________________________________________ With apologies for cross-postings .... However, please pass on this announcement to any interested person. The online international linguistics Journal Marges Linguistiques May/June 2001 Dear colleagues, The first issue of the free online journal dedicated to linguistics: Marges Linguistiques is now avalaible at the following adress: http://www.marges-linguistiques.com All contributions can be freely downloaded please go to Contents of the latest issue 1- Topic of the first issue of Marges Linguistiques : ________________________________________________ Linguistic facts Data, processes and models What is a linguistic fact ? 2- Contents of the first issue of Marges Linguistiques: _______________________________________________________ - What is a linguistic fact ? by William Labov (University of Pennsylvania, USA) - The empirical connection between reality and language - Sieyes or the rule of discourse by Jacques Guilhaumou (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France) - Pragmatics : review and perspectives by Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva, Switzerland) - Within the bounds of language and outside : petty remarks by Frédéric François (Université de Paris V : René Descartes, France) - Borrowing as a semantic fact by Yong-Ho Choi (Hankuk University of foreign studies, South Korea) - In between language, discourse (text) and narration : on the choice of anaphora in a case of indirect free speech by Guy Achard-Bayle (University of Paris VII, France) - Pro interactional linguistics by Lorenza Mondada (University of Bale, Switzerland) - Linguistic facts and the theory of chaos. Preliminary remarks for discussion by Didier de Robillard (University of Tours, France) Reviews /Book notices : - La linguistique de terrain. Méthode et théorie. Une approche ethno sociolinguistique, P. Blanchet (2000) by Leila Messaoudi (Université Ibn Tofail Kénitra - Maroc) - Les dimensions culturelles des enseignements de langue, J-C. Beacco (2000) by Michel Santacroce (Cnrs, Université de Provence, France) To download these texts go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com If you feel like reacting, send your queries, comments and squibs to marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr or mail directy to the authors 3- Web site Content ________________________________________ Marges Linguistiques website also presents several helpful resources for linguists, teachers, researchers or students : - The proceedings of Albi 2000 colloquium, on "stereotyp " - about forty papers avalaible - A textual database in linguistics which you may freely use and that you can also complete with your own contributions - A specific search engine dedicated to linguistics (Aleph-Linguistics) which allows you to submit and to reference your own websites. - Numerous links on the World Wide Web - Several tools and online ressources in linguistics - Numerous international search engines, listed, referenced and ranked - Discussion Fora at the disposal of researchers, teachers and students - Online directories in Linguistics - Ph. D Theses online section that allows you to freely download theses in linguistics and to submit your own thesis for electronic edition on the web All the resources of Marges Linguistiques are free In order to download these texts, go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com 4- Calls for contributions ________________________ Marges Linguistiques, a bi-yearly journal in Linguistics, only available online on the Web, wishes to reconcile traditional fields in Linguistics, such as syntax, phonology and semantics with the less unified domains of pragmatics, conversational analysis, interactional analysis or social communication. Two calls for contribution are currently in process Themes and time schedule can be examined at http://www.marges-linguistiques.com, if you are interested, send your contribution to contributions.ML at wanadoo.fr Number 2 (November 2001): Interactional Approaches to linguistic Facts (directed by R. Vion, University of Provence, France) Number 3 (May 2002) : Places in Cities : urban Language(s), Identities and Territories - Perspectives in urban Sociolinguistics (Directed by Thierry Bulot, University of Rouen, France). To know more about the themes, go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com (Section : Call for papers) 5- Important ____________ This web site and the journal (enterely free) are targeted towards researchers, practioners, students interested in the various subareas of Linguistics, and for a more general public. We would be extremely grateful if you could pass on this information to interested persons who could circulate the information in turn. Thanks to your help, we hope to reach a wider public. We thank you beforehand. Enjoy the web site seeing ! Go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Thank you for your comments and for passing on this announcement Editor : Michel Santacroce - Cnrs, University of Provence (France) dirpubl at marges-linguistiques. Pour vous abonner à ce groupe, envoyez un email vide à inscriptions.ML at wanadoo.fr Pour vous désabonner de ce groupe, envoyez un email vide à abonnements_ML-unsubscribe at egroups.fr From B.Blake at latrobe.edu.au Thu Jun 14 10:04:47 2001 From: B.Blake at latrobe.edu.au (Barry Blake) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 06:04:47 EDT Subject: ICHL XV interim Message-ID: Dear ICHL participant, This is just a brief reminder about a few things. 1. Some participants have still not registered. All participants, including those taking part only in workshops must register. A repeat of the 3rd circular containing the registration form is attached. 2. You may need a visa. Contact the Australian Embassy or High Commission in your country for all information including visa requirements. An Australian Government Guide to Visiting Australia www.immi.gov.au/visitors provides up-to-date information in 17 languages. 3. Kate is preparing a timetable. It will appear on our web page later this week or early next week. A list of papers and presenters already appears. 4. A fouth circular mostly giving information about local travel will appear in late July. Barry Blake Conference Director -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd circular.word 6 Type: application/msword Size: 12288 bytes Desc: not available URL: From johncharles.smith at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk Fri Jun 15 20:48:09 2001 From: johncharles.smith at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk (John Charles Smith) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 16:48:09 EDT Subject: Oxford-Kobe Seminar, April 2002 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Announcement: Oxford-Kobe Seminar on Language Change and Historical Linguistics The Kobe Institute of St. Catherine's College (University of Oxford), in Kobe, Japan, was founded in September 1991, with the objective of stimulating and facilitating international intellectual exchange. 1997 saw the establishment, as part of this programme, of the Oxford-Kobe seminars, which aim to bring together researchers in a particular discipline to discuss the 'state of the art' in their area of expertise. An Oxford-Kobe Seminar on Language Change and Historical Linguistics is being organized at the Institute by John Charles Smith (University of Oxford) between 7 and 11 April 2002. To date, the following scholars have agreed to participate: Henning Andersen, University of California Los Angeles, USA Richard Bowring, University of Cambridge, UK Lyle Campbell, University of Canterbury, New Zealand William Croft, University of Manchester, UK Bjarke Frellesvig, University of Oxford, UK Susan Herring, Indiana University, USA William Labov, University of Pennsylvania, USA Roger Lass, University of Cape Town, South Africa Martin Maiden, University of Oxford, UK April McMahon, University of Sheffield, UK Marianne Mithun, University of California Santa Barbara, USA Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge, UK Suzanne Romaine, University of Oxford, UK Malcolm Ross, Australian National University, Australia Masayoshi Shibatani, Kobe University, Japan Nigel Vincent, University of Manchester, UK More details of the seminar will be forthcoming in autumn 2001. Anyone who wishes to be added to our electronic mailing list and receive further particulars when they are available is invited to send an email message to the organizer: johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk -- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + John Charles Smith + + Official Fellow and Tutor College Phone +44 1865 271700 + + St. Catherine's College Direct Line +44 1865 271748 + + Oxford OX1 3UJ UK College Fax +44 1865 271768 + + + + johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/ + + + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From wolfskil at MIT.EDU Mon Jun 18 20:28:36 2001 From: wolfskil at MIT.EDU (Jud Wolfskill) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 16:28:36 EDT Subject: book announcement--Ken Hale Message-ID: I thought readers of the Historical Linguistics List might be interested in this book. For more information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/KENKHS01 Ken Hale A Life in Language edited by Michael Kenstowicz The essays in this collection celebrate Ken Hale's lifelong study of underdocumented languages and their implications for universal grammar. The authors report their latest research in syntax, morphology, semantics, phonology, and phonetics. Michael Kenstowicz is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Contributors Elena Anagnostopoulou, Noam Chomsky, Michael DeGraff, Morris Halle, James Harris, Sabine Iatridou, Roumyana Izvorski, Michael Kenstowicz, Samuel Jay Keyser, Shigeru Miyagawa, Wayne O'Neil, David Pesetsky, Hyang-Sook Sohn, Kenneth N. Stevens, Ester Torrego, Kai von Fintel, Cheryl Zoll. 6 x 9, 496 pp., 1 illus., paper ISBN 0-262-61160-0, cloth ISBN 0-262-11257-4 Current Studies in Linguistics 36 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jud Wolfskill 617.253.2079 phone Associate Publicist 617.253.1709 fax MIT Press wolfskil at mit.edu 5 Cambridge Center http://mitpress.mit.edu Fourth Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 From sle2001 at arts.kuleuven.ac.be Wed Jun 20 13:24:28 2001 From: sle2001 at arts.kuleuven.ac.be (Bert Cornillie (SLE 2001)) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:28 EDT Subject: SLE 2001: call for participation Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------- SLE 2001: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ---------------------------------------------------------- The 34th International Conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea Language Study in Europe at the turn of the Millennium: Towards the integration of cognitive, historical and cultural approaches to language. August 28 - 31 2001 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/sle2001 The 34th SLE meeting will focus on recent advances in cognitive, historical and cultural approaches in linguistic research. The SLE 2001 website contains - the full program - the abstracts of the plenary sessions, the 200 papers and the 9 workshops - information on the last minute registration (final deadline: July 15th 2001) WORKSHOPS - Microvariation in the Syntax of Auxiliaries - Early phases in the acquisition of lexicon and morphology by children - Immersion and the issue of linguistic accuracy - Translatorisches Handeln und interkulturelle Kommunikation - Luxemburgisch: Synchronie und Diachronie - Hard Science Linguistics - Empirical methods in the new millennium: Linguistically Interpreted Corpora - On top-down functionalism and bottom-up corpus research: can they meet? - Translation and Institutions KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Prof. Peter Auer (Universität Freiburg): Prof. Jacques François (Université de Caen) Prof. Anthony Pym (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona) Prof. John Joseph (University of Edinburgh) Prof. Pieter Seuren (Max Planck Instituut, Nijmegen) Prof. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (Roskilde Universitetscenter) Prof. Gerd Wotjak (Universität Leipzig) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Prof. Nicole Delbecque (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Dirk Geeraerts (K.U.Leuven) Prof. José Lambert (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Pierre Swiggers (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Johan van der Auwera (U. Antwerpen) Ass. Bert Cornillie (K.U.Leuven) -------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Cornillie Assistent Spaanse Taalkunde K.U. Leuven Erasmushuis, LW 01.22 tel. : ++ 32 16 32 47 65 fax : ++ 32 16 32 47 67 E-mail : bert.cornillie at arts.kuleuven.ac.be http://fuzzy.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/ling/led/abap/bco.htm From bwarvik at abo.fi Wed Jun 20 13:24:00 2001 From: bwarvik at abo.fi (Brita Warvik) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:00 EDT Subject: Call for Papers: Historical Discourse Linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- First Circular - Call for Papers Historical discourse linguistics is rapidly emerging as an important sub-field within historical linguistics and philology. The number of publications and conference sessions dealing with the topic has increased in the last few years, but there has not yet been a conference devoted exclusively to it. "Organization in Discourse II: The Historical Perspective", to be held at the University of Turku, Finland, August 7-11, 2002, is an international conference for historical text, discourse, and pragmatic studies of any language. Hosted by the Discourse Perspectives on Early English Project, the conference is a sequel to the successful 1994 Turku conference, "Organization in Discourse". We now invite papers, posters, and proposals for thematic sessions for the conference. The plenary speakers will include A. Machtelt Bolkestein, Laurel Brinton, Andreas Jucker, Françoise Salager-Meyer, Irma Taavitsainen, and Laura Wright. Abstracts for papers (500 words) and posters (300 words) must be received by 15 January, 2002. Please include a list of 3 to 4 keywords at the end of the abstract. Papers should be twenty minutes in length. Proposals for thematic sessions (300 words) must be received by 15 November, 2001. Sessions should be ninety minutes in length. The conveners will be responsible for speaker selection, and for arranging the format of the sessions. E-mail submission, with plain-text abstracts in the body of the message, is strongly preferred. More information is available on our website at http://www.utu.fi/hum/engfil/oid2002.html Contact us to be included in our mailing list! E-mail address: oid2002 at utu.fi Postal address: OID II Conference, Department of English, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland. We look forward to seeing you in Turku! Professor Risto Hiltunen Chairman of the Organizing Committee From haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu Thu Jun 21 14:38:05 2001 From: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Harold F. Schiffman) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 10:38:05 EDT Subject: English historical ling Message-ID: I am looking for studies on the loss of the you/thou distinction in early modern English, in particular, when it began, what sources we have for detailed documentation of the loss, and when it can be said to have been completed. I am not a historical linguist, nor even a scholar of English, but I have seen a claim (By M. Silverstein) that the loss of 'thou' can be attributed to the fact that Quakers in 17th century England used only 'thou' forms ('thee, thine, etc.) and eschewed 'you', and therefore other speakers avoided 'thou' usage and switch to exclusive use of 'you'. (In fact modern Quaker usage, such as it is, has "thee" as the nominative and accusative, and 'thine' for possessive; there's no 'thou' there at all; I assume this is dialectal; northern?) My problem with this is that I have seen evidence that the loss of 'thou' began earlier than the time when Quakerism arose. One can see in Shakespeare's works, e.g., that 'thou' usage declined dramatically from early works to later ones. (I have some stats on this that show this roughly, but it's merely percentages and doesn't rely on sociolinguistic situations, i.e. who is speaking what to whom. The poetry, sonnets etc., even if written later, have a lot MORE thou usage, because of the genre: "How do I love thee" etc.) George Fox wasn't even born when Shakespeare died, and Quakerism didn't spread until mid-century, 20 or 30 years after Shakespeare died. So I can't see the pragmatic use of 'thou' by Quakers as the CAUSE of the loss of this distinction, only perhaps hastening it. Silverstein is not so much interested in the fine points of this as he is in showing how the "ideology" of Quakerism (egalitarianism, simplicity, plain speech etc.) in fact effected a HISTORICAL CHANGE in English. This is, to me, a *strong claim* and I'd like to be able to refute it; but not being a scholar of early modern English, I lack the sources to show this, other than the stats I got from a very kind volunteer, which I'd be glad to share with anyone who wonders what they are. Thanks much, Hal Schiffman =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Harold F. Schiffman Professor of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture Acting Director Dept. of South Asia Regional Studies Penn Language Center 820 Williams Hall, Box 6305 715-16, Williams Hall Box 6305 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 Phone: (215) 898-5825 (215) 898-6039 Fax: (215) 573-2138 Fax (215) 573-2139 Email: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn plc at ccat.sas.upenn.edu WWW: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~plc/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From linkb at lurac.latrobe.edu.au Thu Jun 21 12:05:54 2001 From: linkb at lurac.latrobe.edu.au (Kate Burridge) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 08:05:54 EDT Subject: ICHL message Message-ID: >Dear ICHL participant, >This is just a brief reminder about a few things. > >1. Some participants have still not registered. All participants, including >those taking part only in workshops must register. A repeat of the 3rd >circular containing the registration form is attached. > >2. You may need a visa. Contact the Australian Embassy or High Commission >in your country for all information including visa requirements. "An >Australian Government Guide to Visiting Australia" >www.immi.gov.au/visitors provides up-to-date information in 17 languages. > >3. Kate is preparing a timetable. It will appear on our web page later this >week or early next week. A list of papers and presenters already appears. > >4. A fouth circular mostly giving information about local travel will appear >in late July. > >Barry Blake >Conference Director > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd_circular.rtf Type: application/mac-binhex40 Size: 18905 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd_circular.word_6.doc Type: application/msword Size: 12288 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- Kate Burridge Associate Professor, Linguistics La Trobe University Bundoora, 3086 Vic From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 16:37:56 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 12:37:56 EDT Subject: New book: Dravidian Historical Linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dravidian Historical Linguistics Mikhail S. Andronov Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The book is composed of papers dealing with controversial problems in the history and comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages. A historical overview of Dravidian studies in the 19th and 20th centuries is followed by a detailed discussion of various systems of language classification worked out by leading comparativ-ists in the past two centuries. The major principles of the comparative-historical method are discussed in connection with unceasing attempts to establish genetic relationship between Dravidian and non-Dravidian languages. The origin and historical evolution ot finite forms of the Dravidian verb are dealt with in several papers, and those of the adjective in Tamil and personal pronouns in Brahui are traced in the other two. A peculiar case of grammar hybridization in Old Malayalam mixed with Sanskrit and cases of structural borrowing in modern Dravidian languages are described and analysed in three papers. Finally, the etymologies of the word 'Dravidian' and a dozen of other ethnonyms are explained. A bibliography of over 300 items indicates the relevant literature, both classical and modern. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter]. ISBN 3 89586 413 7. LINCOM Language Research 02. Ca.160pp. USD 52 / DM 98 / # 33. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 16:37:43 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 12:37:43 EDT Subject: New book: Dravidian linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A Grammar of the Brahui Language in Comparative Treatment Mikhail S. Andronov Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The Brahui language, spoken by some 1.5 million people in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, is the earliest offshoot of the Dravidian stock. Isolated from the kindred languages for several thousand years, it combines ancient features inherited from the Proto-Dravidian ancestor with numerous borrowings from its Iranian and Indo-Aryan neighbours. Apart from a detailed practical grammar, illustrated with copious examples from Brahui literary texts, the book offers the latest comparative-historical information on the evolution and origin of the main elements of the language. The Brahui phonemes are traced to their Old Dravidian sources, the origins of case suffixes and other nominal desinences are expounded, the Brahui numerals and pronouns are also traced to their ancient archetypes, and so are the personal suffixes in the verb. The primary systems of gender, tense and mood, lost or modified in the contemporary language, are reconstructed in comparison with these of Old Tamil and other classical languages. The general information on Brahui is given in the Introduction. The history of its study is also briefly outlined there and, in particular, the position of Brahui within the Dravidian family is discussed. A bibliography of earlier works on the Brahui language is appended in the end. The subject index will make the use of the book easier. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter]. ISBN 3 89586 412 9. LINCOM Language Research 01. Ca.100pp. USD 40 / DM 74 / # 24. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 12:49:04 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:49:04 EDT Subject: New book: Spanish Historical Phonology Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Vowel Raising in Spanish Historical Phonology: A feature geometry analyis Lucma I. Llorente Berry College This work addresses the raising effect that a palatal glide had upon the stressed vowel of the preceding syllable, a process which happened in the development from Late Latin to Old Spanish. This effect is particularly visible in the lack of diphthongization of mid-open stressed vowels, which, under normal conditions, would undergo a process of diphthongization. All Late Latin vowels, however, except for the highest ones, undergo raising one degree. This "irregular" development of vowels has been traditionally linked to the presence of a palatal glide in the environment, and this study follows the traditional analysis, but tries to integrate it within the recent phonological framework of Feature Geometry, which has been proved to be an ideal model to describe assimilation processes. In particular, it follows Jung's (1991) hierarchical representation, focusing on the structure of the place node. In order to describe vowels, Jung makes use of the standard features [high], [low], and [ATR], placing them under what he calls the "vertical" node. When analyzing the raising process using the tools provided by Jung's work, two processes are possited. On the one hand, the lack of diphthongization of mid-open stressed vowels is attributed to the spreading of the feature [+ATR] from the glide onto the preceding stressed vowel. On the other, in order to explain the raising undergone by /e/ and /o/ on some occasions the notion of parasitic harmony (as described in Cole (1991)) is used. The feature that is considered to be under assimilation in this case is [+high], but the process only happens when the trigger (the glide) and the target (the preceding vowel) share a contextual feature, which, in the present case, is the specification for [+ATR]. This second process is sometimes blocked, because the intervening consonants are specified for the feature [+high], which is the one being spread. In order to explain the behavior of /a/ in the presence of the palatal glide, the notion of strict adjacency is brought into the picture. Only in this situation does /a/ undergo raising. ISBN 3 89586 441 2. LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics 25. Ca. 220pp. USD 70 / DM 128 / #44. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From rockliff at indiana.edu Mon Jun 25 17:07:01 2001 From: rockliff at indiana.edu (Rockliff, Rolf D) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 13:07:01 EDT Subject: Graduate Programs Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Graduate Programs in Historical Linguistics in the United States Dear list members, Could someone among you suggest to me a list of graduate programs in historical linguistics in the United States? I am specifically interested in M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Indo-European historical and comparative linguistics, but am also somewhat curious about where the Nostratic hypothesis might be receiving some attention as well. I am aware that, among those American universities that have linguistics departments, most list 'historical linguistics' as a possible area of graduate specialization. However, I also know (by personal experience) that many of these, in reality, only offer one token course in generic historical linguistics, and often do not even have a historical linguist to teach it. I suppose, ideally, I am hoping to find a list of linguistic programs in the United States that have *real* historical graduate programs (not token programs), with some hint of what sort of historical linguistics is going on there, e.g. 'Indo-European,' or 'Dravidian,' or 'Nostratic,' etc. I would be most grateful for any suggestions at all. Thank you. Rolf Rockliff From igclanguages at earthlink.net Tue Jun 26 18:23:58 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 14:23:58 EDT Subject: English historical ling Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This may not be supported by resesarch, but I have always understood that 'you' had the value of politeness in singular usage in early modern English comparable to 'vous' in French, and that people got so polite that they used 'you' rather than 'thou' with everybody, so that being polite to everybody became the norm and 'thou' was lost. This is parellel to a trend in certain dialects of contemporary Spanish. In general, 'tu' is the intimate singular, 'usted' is the formal singular; 'vosotros' is the intimate plural and 'ustedes' is the formal plural. Tu/vosotros uses the second person vverb conjugation forms and usted/ustedes shares the conjugation with the third person pronouns (el/ella, ellas/ellos). * Note that I have not used the appropriate acute accent marks here as some people's email systems will translate their usage as unreadable 'junk'. In Colombia, I have observed that at least some people now use only the 'usted' forms even with their closest iintimates (brothers and sisters). I have asked two well educated Colombians of my acquaintance about this trend. (BTW, one of them is Licenciada as a teacher of Spanish as a Foreign Language at a pres- tigious Colombian university.) Both have indicated that this is indeed a trend and that it stems from a sense of respect for everybody. This sounds very similar to what I had understood occurred in English--a memory that stretches very far back, perhaps to my undergraduate days in the Dark Ages. In contrast, I have observed that the opposite trend is occurring in Spain. As a young adult in the early 70s, I lived in Spain for several years teaching EFL. At that time, people used tu/vosotros among friends and usted/ustedes with their elders and 'betters'. Hence, my friends addressed me as 'tu' but students of my age, and even students much older than I--grey-haired to my wetness behind the ears--addressed me as usted. I was instructed by my supervisor to address all students in the adult classes, regardless of apparent age, as usted, and all in the children's classes (none over 12) as tu. In recent years, my hair has greyed and my skin has wrinkled. However, I have observed that young Spanish students who come to me to study ESL, upon figuring out that I know Spanish, otherwise treat me with all the respect due to my age and position, but address me as tu and do not show any other sign of disrespect with it. About a year ago I asked a young Spanish man (not a linguist) about the trend and he indicated that he thought using usted was a habit of his parents' generation but not of his. (His parents' generation would be my generation.) During that same youthful period, I became friends with a young French woman, a fellow teacher. When she invited me to Marseilles to spend part of the summer vacation with her family, I had a chance to put my college French to the test. After about a week, I asked her mother about the matter of tu/vous and the social rules. (I had been applying Spanish rules and addressing my friend's teenage and preteen siblings as tu and her parents as vous; she and I code-switched when together, since we both spoke fairly good Spanish and each other's languages to a lesser degree so primarily used Spanish together with a smattering of both French and English thrown in.) Her mother told me that 'la politesse francaise' demanded that one use vous even with children--and she repeated 'even with children' quite firmly a few times--but that se tutoyer was a university student's fashion 'mais n'est pas la politesse francaise'. When I decided to amend my ways and address the younger sibs as vous, they reacted by saying that I was a friend and should use tu and that their mother was too old-fashioned. In other words, we see a trend in two related Indo-European languages to reduce the separate usages and conflate them into a single one. In both European countries cited, greater informality is shown to be the trend according to these anecdotes, whereas in America greater formality, similar to the loss of thou, is the trend. I cite only personal anecdotes, of course, and have never explored the subject in research--as an ESL teacher I tend to focus on more contemporary trends. However, they may represent a possibility to consider. I hope to read more on the topic as others better red in historical English than I make their contributions. Cheers, Dorine "Harold F. Schiffman" wrote: > I am looking for studies on the loss of the you/thou distinction in early > modern English, in particular, when it began, what sources we have for > detailed documentation of the loss, and when it can be said to have been > completed. > > I am not a historical linguist, nor even a scholar of English, but I have > seen a claim (By M. Silverstein) that the loss of 'thou' can be attributed > to the fact that Quakers in 17th century England used only 'thou' forms > ('thee, thine, etc.) and eschewed 'you', and therefore other speakers > avoided 'thou' usage and switch to exclusive use of 'you'. (In fact modern > Quaker usage, such as it is, has "thee" as the nominative and accusative, > and 'thine' for possessive; there's no 'thou' there at all; I assume this > is dialectal; northern?) > > My problem with this is that I have seen evidence that the loss of 'thou' > began earlier than the time when Quakerism arose. One can see in > Shakespeare's works, e.g., that 'thou' usage declined dramatically from > early works to later ones. (I have some stats on this that show this > roughly, but it's merely percentages and doesn't rely on sociolinguistic > situations, i.e. who is speaking what to whom. The poetry, sonnets etc., > even if written later, have a lot MORE thou usage, because of the genre: > "How do I love thee" etc.) > > George Fox wasn't even born when Shakespeare died, and Quakerism didn't > spread until mid-century, 20 or 30 years after Shakespeare died. So I > can't see the pragmatic use of 'thou' by Quakers as the CAUSE of the loss > of this distinction, only perhaps hastening it. Silverstein is not so > much interested in the fine points of this as he is in showing how the > "ideology" of Quakerism (egalitarianism, simplicity, plain speech etc.) > in fact effected a HISTORICAL CHANGE in English. > > This is, to me, a *strong claim* and I'd like to be able to refute it; but > not being a scholar of early modern English, I lack the sources to show > this, other than the stats I got from a very kind volunteer, which I'd be > glad to share with anyone who wonders what they are. > > Thanks much, > > Hal Schiffman > > =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Harold F. Schiffman > > Professor of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture Acting Director > Dept. of South Asia Regional Studies Penn Language Center > 820 Williams Hall, Box 6305 715-16, Williams Hall Box 6305 > > University of Pennsylvania > Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 > > Phone: (215) 898-5825 (215) 898-6039 > Fax: (215) 573-2138 Fax (215) 573-2139 > > Email: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn plc at ccat.sas.upenn.edu > WWW: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~plc/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Fri Jun 1 10:27:20 2001 From: C.Kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Christian Kay) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 06:27:20 EDT Subject: HISTLING subscriber list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Two posts are available from an early date on an EPSRC-funded project to create a Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS) 1. Postgraduate Research Assistant with research experience in English or Scots Language or Linguistics 2. Postgraduate Computing Officer with experience of text encoding, Web server and Unix system administration Closing date: 22/6/01 Salary in the range ?16,775 ? 18,731 For further details, see http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/SCOTS/ *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* 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 c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk Mon Jun 4 14:27:35 2001 From: c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk (Claire Cowie) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 10:27:35 EDT Subject: PhD Studentship in corpus linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This is a re-advertisement. Apologies for cross-postings. The University of Sheffield has PhD funding available (starting September 2001) for a project involving the British National Corpus. The studentship is jointly held by the departments of English Language and Linguistics and Information Studies. A suitable candidate would have a project in mind involving the BNC and be able to draw on expertise from both of these departments. We welcome proposals in the following areas of corpus linguistics: lexical statistics, word frequency, lexical innovation, lexicography text type/register/genre analysis stylistics discourse analysis variation and change text retrieval, text processing text markup computing in the humanities Please note that this is a university studentship and so fees are paid at the home rate only. If the candidate is not from the EU, funding must be available to make up the difference between home and overseas fees. Arrangements for supervision: The successful candidate will be a member of the Department of English Language and Linguistics which forms part of the School of English. The project will be jointly supervised by Dr Claire Cowie and Dr Claire Warwick from the department of Information Studies. Dr Cowie works on word-formation and lexical innovation in historical corpora, with particular reference to register differences. Dr Warwick works on humanities computing, with a particular interest in the application of computers to the study of English literature and language. She was previously part of the BNC project team. More information about the departments may be found at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/language/index.html and http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is. Application forms and further details can be obtained from: Fozia Yasmin, Graduate Research Office Graduate Research Office 156 Broomspring Lane Sheffield S10 2FE Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 1404 Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 1420 Email : grad.school at sheffield.ac.uk To discuss the project informally, please contact Claire Cowie (0114 2220217- c.s.cowie at sheffield.ac.uk) or Claire Warwick (0114 222 2632 - c.warwick at sheffield.ac.uk). From DEHolt01 at gwm.sc.edu Tue Jun 5 17:39:32 2001 From: DEHolt01 at gwm.sc.edu (D. Eric Holt) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 13:39:32 EDT Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear colleagues, In discussing the various types of modifications rules (and the rule component) may undergo (addition, loss, reordering, inversion), examples are usually drawn from phonology. Examples from syntax are not usually cited, so I'm wondering if anyone on the list might have come across examples, specifically of rule inversion, especially ones in the published literature. Some examples that may qualify are the following (but they're really morphosyntactic): May perhaps be exemplified by cases of morpho-syntactic hypercorrection (though not all hypercorrections involve rule inversion, and vice versa), as in the nonstandard overuse in English of whom (presumably by overapplication/reanalysis of a rule of objective case assignment), and perhaps the extension (overgeneralization) of second person singular -s in nonstandard Spanish to the preterit forms (e.g., comistes 'you ate', like present tense comes, vs. standard comiste). A perhaps clearer case of inversion, a morphological one that has been completed, is that of the indefinite article in English (a ~ an): originally there was a nasal deletion rule that applied before consonants (e.g., an car > a car), but now the underlying form is a with nasal insertion before words that begin with a vowel (e.g., a car, but an orange). Are there any clearly syntactic cases, rather than morphosyntactic ones? Other types of rule change may be exemplified via the following: A case of rule addition in syntax may be taken from Early Irish (see Disterheft 1997), where an innovation introduced the infinitive as a distinct category and which gave rise to a series of Raising structures, whereby both subject and object may move from the embedded clause to become matrix subject, object or object of preposition (p. 129). A case of rule loss in syntax may be that of Caribbean Spanish, where, in contrast to the international standard, subjects and verbs are not inverted in question formation (e.g., ?C?mo t? te llamas? 'What is your name?', rather than standard ?C?mo te llamas t??) A case of rule reordering in the syntactic component, as argued in Klima (1964; presented in McMahon, ?5.2.2.2) is that of the distribution of who and whom in English, where, in some varieties speakers say Who did John give it to? (in contrast to earlier Whom did John give it to?) but To whom did John give it? Klima analyzes this as a reordering of the transformations of Wh-Movement and Case-Marking. I would welcome your thoughts on these. I'll post a summary of responses if there are sufficient responses. Regards, Eric Holt References: Disterheft, Dorothy. 1997. Syntactic innovation in Early Irish. In Ahlqvist, Anders and Vera Capkov?, eds., D?n do Oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. ? Cl?irgh. Dublin: Institi?id Tengeola?ochta ?ireann. 123-133. Klima, E.S. 1964. Relatedness between grammatical systems. Language 40.1-20. McMahon, April. 1994. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____________________________________________ D. Eric Holt Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese and Linguistics Program University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 (803) 777-0798 (office) (803) 777-4884 (messages) (803) 777-7828 (fax) holt at sc.edu http://www.cla.sc.edu/SIP/ From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Jun 6 14:22:16 2001 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (roger wright) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 10:22:16 EDT Subject: An Important Message for ISHL members Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ***** This message is for members of the International Society for Historical Linguistics. I write to you as current Head of the Society's Nominating Committee. At the Business Meeting of the International Society for Historical Linguistics during the 2001 Conference in Melbourne, the members of the society will be asked to vote on a slate of nominees, to fill several committee vacancies. (1) There are vacancies for places on the Executive Committee: SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY (in place of Dorothy Disterheft) FUTURE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR (for the 2005 Conference) MEMBER (until 2007) Those members of the present Committee who will continue in office after the next ICHL will be Barry Blake, as the by then former conference director; Lene Schoesler, as the by then president, being the director of the 2003 Conference in Copenhagen; Kate Burridge (Australia) and Rosanna Sornicola (Italy), as Members till 2003 and 2005 respectively. We (the nominating committee) are proposing the following slate of nominees. In each case we have asked the nominee if they are happy to serve in the capacity in question, and they have told us that they are indeed happy to do so: As SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY: John Charles Smith (Oxford, England) As FUTURE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR: Thomas Cravens (Madison, Wisc., USA) AND: Joseph Salmons (Madison, Wisc., USA) As MEMBER (till 2007): Vit Bubenik (Canada) This implies that the 2005 Conference will be held at Madison, Wisconsin (probably in July). We are hereby accepting at last an offer from Madison which was first made many years ago. The two nominees are planning to run the conference jointly, which is why we are nominating both for the committee; should any question of voting arise, they would share one vote. (2) There is also one vacancy on the Nominating Committee (in place of myself), to serve till 2009. We propose to nominate Dr Concepci'on Company Company (Mexico) for this vacancy. She has expressed her willingness to be so nominated. The other members of the committee will continue: Harold Koch (Australia, till 2003), Martin Maiden (England, till 2005) and Ans van Kemenade (The Netherlands, till 2007). The ISHL constitution allows nominations from the membership at large. If any member wishes to make an alternative nomination, please let Dorothy Disterheft and myself know by 6th August. All nominators and nominees must be members of the ISHL, of course. Perhaps I should also make clear that Dorothy Disterheft is happy to continue to be moderator of HISTLING. With best wishes to all the ISHL - Roger Wright (Liverpool) ***** From paoram at unipv.it Wed Jun 6 14:20:48 2001 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 10:20:48 EDT Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Some comments (inserted in Holt's letter between << >>) Best, P.Rt. ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Eric Holt" To: Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 19:39 Subject: cases of rule inversion in syntax? > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Dear colleagues, > > In discussing the various types of modifications rules (and the rule component) may undergo (addition, loss, reordering, inversion), examples are usually drawn from phonology. Examples from syntax are not usually cited, so I'm wondering if anyone on the list might have come across examples, specifically of rule inversion, especially ones in the published literature. > > Some examples that may qualify are the following (but they're really morphosyntactic): > > May perhaps be exemplified by cases of morpho-syntactic hypercorrection (though not all hypercorrections involve rule inversion, and vice versa), as in the nonstandard overuse in English of whom (presumably by overapplication/reanalysis of a rule of objective case assignment), and perhaps the extension (overgeneralization) of second person singular -s in nonstandard Spanish to the preterit forms (e.g., comistes 'you ate', like present tense comes, vs. standard comiste). << Why should this overapplication of the present tense paradigm qualify as 'inversion'? It is not clear to me what is meant by 'inversion'. The same holds also for the previous Engl. ex. *who/whom*: see Sapir, Language. We could perhaps speak of inversion in the case we had *whom* in subject position and *who* in object/oblique position. But this is not the case, I suppose.>> A perhaps clearer case of inversion, a morphological one that has been completed, is that of the indefinite article in English (a ~ an): originally there was a nasal deletion rule that applied before consonants (e.g., an car > a car), but now the underlying form is a with nasal insertion before words that begin with a vowel (e.g., a car, but an orange). > > Are there any clearly syntactic cases, rather than morphosyntactic ones? << Again: we have many instances of syntactic uses of the indicative pro subjunctive: substandard Ital. *credo che e' bene* instead of *credo che sia bene*, as in French and Span., where the indicat. has become the unmarked use. But also in this case I would just speak of overextension of the indic. and not of rule inversion. The process might eventually end up with a rule loss, if all dependent clauses wouldn't use the subjunctive any longer (see the ex. of non-inversion in interr. sentences quoted below from Caribbean Span.>> > > Other types of rule change may be exemplified via the following: > > A case of rule addition in syntax may be taken from Early Irish (see Disterheft 1997), where an innovation introduced the infinitive as a distinct category and which gave rise to a series of Raising structures, whereby both subject and object may move from the embedded clause to become matrix subject, object or object of preposition (p. 129). > > A case of rule loss in syntax may be that of Caribbean Spanish, where, in contrast to the international standard, subjects and verbs are not inverted in question formation (e.g., ?C?mo t? te llamas? 'What is your name?', rather than standard ?C?mo te llamas t??) > > A case of rule reordering in the syntactic component, as argued in Klima (1964; presented in McMahon, ?5.2.2.2) is that of the distribution of who and whom in English, where, in some varieties speakers say Who did John give it to? (in contrast to earlier Whom did John give it to?) but To whom did John give it? Klima analyzes this as a reordering of the transformations of Wh-Movement and Case-Marking. > > I would welcome your thoughts on these. > > I'll post a summary of responses if there are sufficient responses. > > Regards, > Eric Holt > > References: > > Disterheft, Dorothy. 1997. Syntactic innovation in Early Irish. In Ahlqvist, Anders and Vera Capkov?, eds., D?n do Oide: Essays in Memory of Conn R. ? Cl?irgh. Dublin: Institi?id Tengeola?ochta ?ireann. 123-133. > > Klima, E.S. 1964. Relatedness between grammatical systems. Language 40.1-20. > > McMahon, April. 1994. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. > > _____________________________________________ > D. Eric Holt > Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese and > Linguistics Program > University of South Carolina > Columbia, South Carolina 29208 > (803) 777-0798 (office) (803) 777-4884 (messages) > (803) 777-7828 (fax) > holt at sc.edu > http://www.cla.sc.edu/SIP/ > From marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr Thu Jun 14 10:04:31 2001 From: marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr (Michel Santacroce) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 06:04:31 EDT Subject: [diffusion_ML] Marges Linguistiques : Premier num=?ISO-8859-1?B?6Q==?=ro / First Issue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Fran?ais / English below _____________________________________________________ Veuillez nous excuser pour les diffusions multiples mais n'h?sitez pas ? diffuser ce message ? toutes les personnes que cela peut int?resser Revue internationale Marges Linguistiques Mai/Juin 2001 Chers coll?gues, Le premier num?ro de la revue ?lectronique gratuite en Sciences du Langage Marges linguistiques est d?sormais disponible ? : http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Tous les articles sont librement t?l?chargeables ? la rubrique "Sommaire du dernier num?ro" 1- Th?matique du premier num?ro de Marges Linguistiques : _______________________________________________________ Faits de langue - Faits de discours Donn?es - processus et mod?les Qu'est-ce qu'un fait linguistique ? 2- Au sommaire du premier num?ro de Marges Linguistiques: _______________________________________________________ - Qu'est-ce qu'un fait linguistique ? par William Labov (Universit? de Pennsylvanie, USA) - La connection empirique entre la r?alit? et le discours. Siey?s et l'ordre de la langue par Jacques Guilhaumou (Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, Lyon, France) - Pragmatique : ?tat de l'art et perspectives par Jacques Moeschler (Universit? de Gen?ve, Suisse) - Langage et hors langage - Quelques remarques par Fr?d?ric Fran?ois (France) - Borrowing as a semantic fact par Yong-Ho Choi (Hankuk University of foreign studies, Cor?e du sud) - Entre langue, discours (texte), et narration: sur le choix de l'anaphore dans un exemple de style/discours indirect libre par Guy Achard-Bayle (Universit? de Paris VII, France) - Pour une linguistique interactionnelle par Lorenza Mondada (Universit? de B?le, Suisse) - Peut-on construire des " faits linguistiques " comme chaotiques ? El?ments de r?flexion pour amorcer le d?bat par Didier de Robillard (Universit? de Tours, France) Comptes rendus d'ouvrages : - Compte rendu de l'ouvrage : La linguistique de terrain. M?thode et th?orie. Une approche ethno sociolinguistique, de P. Blanchet (2000) par Leila Messaoudi (Universit? Ibn Tofail K?nitra - Maroc) - Compte rendu de l'ouvrage : Les dimensions culturelles des enseignements de langue de J-C. Beacco (2000) par Michel Santacroce (Cnrs, Universit? de Provence, France) Pour t?l?charger ces textes, rendez-vous ? http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Vous souhaitez r?agir ? Faire part de vos commentaires et/ou de vos critiques ? Ecrivez ? la Revue marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr ou encore directement aux auteurs 3- Les rubriques du site Marges Linguistiques ________________________________________ Le site web Marges Linguistiques pr?sente ?galement de nombreuses rubriques utiles pour les linguistes, enseignants, chercheurs et ?tudiants : - Pr?sentation et diffusion des actes du colloque d'Albi 2000, consacr? au st?r?otype - une quarantaine de textes t?l?chargeables - Une base de donn?es textuelles en sciences du langage librement consultable et que vous pouvez ? tout moment enrichir en proposant vos propres contributions - Un moteur de recherche d?di? ? la linguistique (Aleph-Linguistique) qui n'attend que vos soumissions de sites - Des milliers de liens internationaux actualis?s consacr?s ? la linguistique - des outils et ressources pour les linguistes - Des centaines de moteurs de recherche, referenc?s et list?s - des groupes de discussions auxquels vous pouvez souscrire - Un annuaire ?l?ctronique en Sciences du Langage - Une rubrique Th?ses en ligne, vous permettant de t?lecharger gratuitement des travaux universitaires et de proposer vos propres productions Tous les services de marges Linguistiques sont gratuits Pour t?l?charger ces textes, rendez-vous ? http://www.marges-linguistiques.com 4- Les appels ? contributions ________________________ Marges Linguistiques, revue ?lectronique semestrielle g?n?raliste en sciences du langage, enti?rement gratuite, souhaite concilier, dans un esprit de synth?se et de clart?, d'une part les domaines traditionnels de la linguistique: syntaxe, phonologie, s?mantique; d'autre part les champs plus ?clat?s de la pragmatique linguistique, de l'analyse conversationnelle, de l'analyse des interactions verbales et de la communication sociale. Deux appels ? contributions sont en cours (Num?ros 2 et 3 de la revue) Apr?s avoir pris connaissance des th?mes et des d?lais adressez-nous vos textes en ?crivant ? contributions.ML at wanadoo.fr Num?ro 2 (Novembre 2001): Approches interactives des faits de langue (Sous la direction de R. Vion, Universit? de Provence, France) Num?ro 3 (Mai 2002) : Lieux de ville : langue(s) urbaine(s), identit? et territoire - Perspectives en sociolinguistique urbaine (Sous la direction de Thierry Bulot, Universit? de Rouen, France). Prendre connaissance des th?matiques ? Rendez-vous ? http://www.marges-linguistiques.com (Rubrique Appels ? contributions) 5- Important : ___________ Le site internet et La revue Marges Linguistiques, qui s'adressent prioritairement ? l'ensemble des chercheurs, praticiens, ?tudiants, concern?s par les questions s'inscrivant dans le champ des sciences du langage, peuvent ?galement int?resser un public plus large ; c'est pourquoi nous vous serions extr?mement reconnaissant de bien vouloir retransmettre cette annonce ?lectronique int?gralement ? un nombre important de personnes qui pourront par suite, faire de m?me... Gr?ce ? vos efforts de diffusion, nous pouvons esp?rer toucher rapidement un tr?s large public et nous vous en remercions par avance. BONNE VISITE http://www.marges-linguistiques.com MERCI D'AVANCE pour vos commentaires et suggestions ainsi que pour la diffusion de la pr?sente annonce. Directeur de publication Michel Santacroce Universit? de Provence - chercheur associ? CNRS, UMR 6057, France dirpubl at marges-linguistiques.com _____________________________________________________ English / Fran?ais _____________________________________________________ With apologies for cross-postings .... However, please pass on this announcement to any interested person. The online international linguistics Journal Marges Linguistiques May/June 2001 Dear colleagues, The first issue of the free online journal dedicated to linguistics: Marges Linguistiques is now avalaible at the following adress: http://www.marges-linguistiques.com All contributions can be freely downloaded please go to Contents of the latest issue 1- Topic of the first issue of Marges Linguistiques : ________________________________________________ Linguistic facts Data, processes and models What is a linguistic fact ? 2- Contents of the first issue of Marges Linguistiques: _______________________________________________________ - What is a linguistic fact ? by William Labov (University of Pennsylvania, USA) - The empirical connection between reality and language - Sieyes or the rule of discourse by Jacques Guilhaumou (Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, Lyon, France) - Pragmatics : review and perspectives by Jacques Moeschler (University of Geneva, Switzerland) - Within the bounds of language and outside : petty remarks by Fr?d?ric Fran?ois (Universit? de Paris V : Ren? Descartes, France) - Borrowing as a semantic fact by Yong-Ho Choi (Hankuk University of foreign studies, South Korea) - In between language, discourse (text) and narration : on the choice of anaphora in a case of indirect free speech by Guy Achard-Bayle (University of Paris VII, France) - Pro interactional linguistics by Lorenza Mondada (University of Bale, Switzerland) - Linguistic facts and the theory of chaos. Preliminary remarks for discussion by Didier de Robillard (University of Tours, France) Reviews /Book notices : - La linguistique de terrain. M?thode et th?orie. Une approche ethno sociolinguistique, P. Blanchet (2000) by Leila Messaoudi (Universit? Ibn Tofail K?nitra - Maroc) - Les dimensions culturelles des enseignements de langue, J-C. Beacco (2000) by Michel Santacroce (Cnrs, Universit? de Provence, France) To download these texts go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com If you feel like reacting, send your queries, comments and squibs to marges.linguistiques at wanadoo.fr or mail directy to the authors 3- Web site Content ________________________________________ Marges Linguistiques website also presents several helpful resources for linguists, teachers, researchers or students : - The proceedings of Albi 2000 colloquium, on "stereotyp " - about forty papers avalaible - A textual database in linguistics which you may freely use and that you can also complete with your own contributions - A specific search engine dedicated to linguistics (Aleph-Linguistics) which allows you to submit and to reference your own websites. - Numerous links on the World Wide Web - Several tools and online ressources in linguistics - Numerous international search engines, listed, referenced and ranked - Discussion Fora at the disposal of researchers, teachers and students - Online directories in Linguistics - Ph. D Theses online section that allows you to freely download theses in linguistics and to submit your own thesis for electronic edition on the web All the resources of Marges Linguistiques are free In order to download these texts, go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com 4- Calls for contributions ________________________ Marges Linguistiques, a bi-yearly journal in Linguistics, only available online on the Web, wishes to reconcile traditional fields in Linguistics, such as syntax, phonology and semantics with the less unified domains of pragmatics, conversational analysis, interactional analysis or social communication. Two calls for contribution are currently in process Themes and time schedule can be examined at http://www.marges-linguistiques.com, if you are interested, send your contribution to contributions.ML at wanadoo.fr Number 2 (November 2001): Interactional Approaches to linguistic Facts (directed by R. Vion, University of Provence, France) Number 3 (May 2002) : Places in Cities : urban Language(s), Identities and Territories - Perspectives in urban Sociolinguistics (Directed by Thierry Bulot, University of Rouen, France). To know more about the themes, go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com (Section : Call for papers) 5- Important ____________ This web site and the journal (enterely free) are targeted towards researchers, practioners, students interested in the various subareas of Linguistics, and for a more general public. We would be extremely grateful if you could pass on this information to interested persons who could circulate the information in turn. Thanks to your help, we hope to reach a wider public. We thank you beforehand. Enjoy the web site seeing ! Go to http://www.marges-linguistiques.com Thank you for your comments and for passing on this announcement Editor : Michel Santacroce - Cnrs, University of Provence (France) dirpubl at marges-linguistiques. Pour vous abonner ? ce groupe, envoyez un email vide ? inscriptions.ML at wanadoo.fr Pour vous d?sabonner de ce groupe, envoyez un email vide ? abonnements_ML-unsubscribe at egroups.fr From B.Blake at latrobe.edu.au Thu Jun 14 10:04:47 2001 From: B.Blake at latrobe.edu.au (Barry Blake) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 06:04:47 EDT Subject: ICHL XV interim Message-ID: Dear ICHL participant, This is just a brief reminder about a few things. 1. Some participants have still not registered. All participants, including those taking part only in workshops must register. A repeat of the 3rd circular containing the registration form is attached. 2. You may need a visa. Contact the Australian Embassy or High Commission in your country for all information including visa requirements. An Australian Government Guide to Visiting Australia www.immi.gov.au/visitors provides up-to-date information in 17 languages. 3. Kate is preparing a timetable. It will appear on our web page later this week or early next week. A list of papers and presenters already appears. 4. A fouth circular mostly giving information about local travel will appear in late July. Barry Blake Conference Director -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd circular.word 6 Type: application/msword Size: 12288 bytes Desc: not available URL: From johncharles.smith at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk Fri Jun 15 20:48:09 2001 From: johncharles.smith at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk (John Charles Smith) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 16:48:09 EDT Subject: Oxford-Kobe Seminar, April 2002 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Announcement: Oxford-Kobe Seminar on Language Change and Historical Linguistics The Kobe Institute of St. Catherine's College (University of Oxford), in Kobe, Japan, was founded in September 1991, with the objective of stimulating and facilitating international intellectual exchange. 1997 saw the establishment, as part of this programme, of the Oxford-Kobe seminars, which aim to bring together researchers in a particular discipline to discuss the 'state of the art' in their area of expertise. An Oxford-Kobe Seminar on Language Change and Historical Linguistics is being organized at the Institute by John Charles Smith (University of Oxford) between 7 and 11 April 2002. To date, the following scholars have agreed to participate: Henning Andersen, University of California Los Angeles, USA Richard Bowring, University of Cambridge, UK Lyle Campbell, University of Canterbury, New Zealand William Croft, University of Manchester, UK Bjarke Frellesvig, University of Oxford, UK Susan Herring, Indiana University, USA William Labov, University of Pennsylvania, USA Roger Lass, University of Cape Town, South Africa Martin Maiden, University of Oxford, UK April McMahon, University of Sheffield, UK Marianne Mithun, University of California Santa Barbara, USA Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge, UK Suzanne Romaine, University of Oxford, UK Malcolm Ross, Australian National University, Australia Masayoshi Shibatani, Kobe University, Japan Nigel Vincent, University of Manchester, UK More details of the seminar will be forthcoming in autumn 2001. Anyone who wishes to be added to our electronic mailing list and receive further particulars when they are available is invited to send an email message to the organizer: johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk -- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + John Charles Smith + + Official Fellow and Tutor College Phone +44 1865 271700 + + St. Catherine's College Direct Line +44 1865 271748 + + Oxford OX1 3UJ UK College Fax +44 1865 271768 + + + + johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/ + + + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From wolfskil at MIT.EDU Mon Jun 18 20:28:36 2001 From: wolfskil at MIT.EDU (Jud Wolfskill) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 16:28:36 EDT Subject: book announcement--Ken Hale Message-ID: I thought readers of the Historical Linguistics List might be interested in this book. For more information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/KENKHS01 Ken Hale A Life in Language edited by Michael Kenstowicz The essays in this collection celebrate Ken Hale's lifelong study of underdocumented languages and their implications for universal grammar. The authors report their latest research in syntax, morphology, semantics, phonology, and phonetics. Michael Kenstowicz is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Contributors Elena Anagnostopoulou, Noam Chomsky, Michael DeGraff, Morris Halle, James Harris, Sabine Iatridou, Roumyana Izvorski, Michael Kenstowicz, Samuel Jay Keyser, Shigeru Miyagawa, Wayne O'Neil, David Pesetsky, Hyang-Sook Sohn, Kenneth N. Stevens, Ester Torrego, Kai von Fintel, Cheryl Zoll. 6 x 9, 496 pp., 1 illus., paper ISBN 0-262-61160-0, cloth ISBN 0-262-11257-4 Current Studies in Linguistics 36 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jud Wolfskill 617.253.2079 phone Associate Publicist 617.253.1709 fax MIT Press wolfskil at mit.edu 5 Cambridge Center http://mitpress.mit.edu Fourth Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 From sle2001 at arts.kuleuven.ac.be Wed Jun 20 13:24:28 2001 From: sle2001 at arts.kuleuven.ac.be (Bert Cornillie (SLE 2001)) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:28 EDT Subject: SLE 2001: call for participation Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------- SLE 2001: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ---------------------------------------------------------- The 34th International Conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea Language Study in Europe at the turn of the Millennium: Towards the integration of cognitive, historical and cultural approaches to language. August 28 - 31 2001 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/sle2001 The 34th SLE meeting will focus on recent advances in cognitive, historical and cultural approaches in linguistic research. The SLE 2001 website contains - the full program - the abstracts of the plenary sessions, the 200 papers and the 9 workshops - information on the last minute registration (final deadline: July 15th 2001) WORKSHOPS - Microvariation in the Syntax of Auxiliaries - Early phases in the acquisition of lexicon and morphology by children - Immersion and the issue of linguistic accuracy - Translatorisches Handeln und interkulturelle Kommunikation - Luxemburgisch: Synchronie und Diachronie - Hard Science Linguistics - Empirical methods in the new millennium: Linguistically Interpreted Corpora - On top-down functionalism and bottom-up corpus research: can they meet? - Translation and Institutions KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Prof. Peter Auer (Universit?t Freiburg): Prof. Jacques Fran?ois (Universit? de Caen) Prof. Anthony Pym (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona) Prof. John Joseph (University of Edinburgh) Prof. Pieter Seuren (Max Planck Instituut, Nijmegen) Prof. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (Roskilde Universitetscenter) Prof. Gerd Wotjak (Universit?t Leipzig) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Prof. Nicole Delbecque (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Dirk Geeraerts (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Jos? Lambert (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Pierre Swiggers (K.U.Leuven) Prof. Johan van der Auwera (U. Antwerpen) Ass. Bert Cornillie (K.U.Leuven) -------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Cornillie Assistent Spaanse Taalkunde K.U. Leuven Erasmushuis, LW 01.22 tel. : ++ 32 16 32 47 65 fax : ++ 32 16 32 47 67 E-mail : bert.cornillie at arts.kuleuven.ac.be http://fuzzy.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/ling/led/abap/bco.htm From bwarvik at abo.fi Wed Jun 20 13:24:00 2001 From: bwarvik at abo.fi (Brita Warvik) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:00 EDT Subject: Call for Papers: Historical Discourse Linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- First Circular - Call for Papers Historical discourse linguistics is rapidly emerging as an important sub-field within historical linguistics and philology. The number of publications and conference sessions dealing with the topic has increased in the last few years, but there has not yet been a conference devoted exclusively to it. "Organization in Discourse II: The Historical Perspective", to be held at the University of Turku, Finland, August 7-11, 2002, is an international conference for historical text, discourse, and pragmatic studies of any language. Hosted by the Discourse Perspectives on Early English Project, the conference is a sequel to the successful 1994 Turku conference, "Organization in Discourse". We now invite papers, posters, and proposals for thematic sessions for the conference. The plenary speakers will include A. Machtelt Bolkestein, Laurel Brinton, Andreas Jucker, Fran?oise Salager-Meyer, Irma Taavitsainen, and Laura Wright. Abstracts for papers (500 words) and posters (300 words) must be received by 15 January, 2002. Please include a list of 3 to 4 keywords at the end of the abstract. Papers should be twenty minutes in length. Proposals for thematic sessions (300 words) must be received by 15 November, 2001. Sessions should be ninety minutes in length. The conveners will be responsible for speaker selection, and for arranging the format of the sessions. E-mail submission, with plain-text abstracts in the body of the message, is strongly preferred. More information is available on our website at http://www.utu.fi/hum/engfil/oid2002.html Contact us to be included in our mailing list! E-mail address: oid2002 at utu.fi Postal address: OID II Conference, Department of English, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland. We look forward to seeing you in Turku! Professor Risto Hiltunen Chairman of the Organizing Committee From haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu Thu Jun 21 14:38:05 2001 From: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Harold F. Schiffman) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 10:38:05 EDT Subject: English historical ling Message-ID: I am looking for studies on the loss of the you/thou distinction in early modern English, in particular, when it began, what sources we have for detailed documentation of the loss, and when it can be said to have been completed. I am not a historical linguist, nor even a scholar of English, but I have seen a claim (By M. Silverstein) that the loss of 'thou' can be attributed to the fact that Quakers in 17th century England used only 'thou' forms ('thee, thine, etc.) and eschewed 'you', and therefore other speakers avoided 'thou' usage and switch to exclusive use of 'you'. (In fact modern Quaker usage, such as it is, has "thee" as the nominative and accusative, and 'thine' for possessive; there's no 'thou' there at all; I assume this is dialectal; northern?) My problem with this is that I have seen evidence that the loss of 'thou' began earlier than the time when Quakerism arose. One can see in Shakespeare's works, e.g., that 'thou' usage declined dramatically from early works to later ones. (I have some stats on this that show this roughly, but it's merely percentages and doesn't rely on sociolinguistic situations, i.e. who is speaking what to whom. The poetry, sonnets etc., even if written later, have a lot MORE thou usage, because of the genre: "How do I love thee" etc.) George Fox wasn't even born when Shakespeare died, and Quakerism didn't spread until mid-century, 20 or 30 years after Shakespeare died. So I can't see the pragmatic use of 'thou' by Quakers as the CAUSE of the loss of this distinction, only perhaps hastening it. Silverstein is not so much interested in the fine points of this as he is in showing how the "ideology" of Quakerism (egalitarianism, simplicity, plain speech etc.) in fact effected a HISTORICAL CHANGE in English. This is, to me, a *strong claim* and I'd like to be able to refute it; but not being a scholar of early modern English, I lack the sources to show this, other than the stats I got from a very kind volunteer, which I'd be glad to share with anyone who wonders what they are. Thanks much, Hal Schiffman =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Harold F. Schiffman Professor of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture Acting Director Dept. of South Asia Regional Studies Penn Language Center 820 Williams Hall, Box 6305 715-16, Williams Hall Box 6305 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 Phone: (215) 898-5825 (215) 898-6039 Fax: (215) 573-2138 Fax (215) 573-2139 Email: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn plc at ccat.sas.upenn.edu WWW: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~plc/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From linkb at lurac.latrobe.edu.au Thu Jun 21 12:05:54 2001 From: linkb at lurac.latrobe.edu.au (Kate Burridge) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 08:05:54 EDT Subject: ICHL message Message-ID: >Dear ICHL participant, >This is just a brief reminder about a few things. > >1. Some participants have still not registered. All participants, including >those taking part only in workshops must register. A repeat of the 3rd >circular containing the registration form is attached. > >2. You may need a visa. Contact the Australian Embassy or High Commission >in your country for all information including visa requirements. "An >Australian Government Guide to Visiting Australia" >www.immi.gov.au/visitors provides up-to-date information in 17 languages. > >3. Kate is preparing a timetable. It will appear on our web page later this >week or early next week. A list of papers and presenters already appears. > >4. A fouth circular mostly giving information about local travel will appear >in late July. > >Barry Blake >Conference Director > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd_circular.rtf Type: application/mac-binhex40 Size: 18905 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ICHL3rd_circular.word_6.doc Type: application/msword Size: 12288 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- Kate Burridge Associate Professor, Linguistics La Trobe University Bundoora, 3086 Vic From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 16:37:56 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 12:37:56 EDT Subject: New book: Dravidian Historical Linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dravidian Historical Linguistics Mikhail S. Andronov Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The book is composed of papers dealing with controversial problems in the history and comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages. A historical overview of Dravidian studies in the 19th and 20th centuries is followed by a detailed discussion of various systems of language classification worked out by leading comparativ-ists in the past two centuries. The major principles of the comparative-historical method are discussed in connection with unceasing attempts to establish genetic relationship between Dravidian and non-Dravidian languages. The origin and historical evolution ot finite forms of the Dravidian verb are dealt with in several papers, and those of the adjective in Tamil and personal pronouns in Brahui are traced in the other two. A peculiar case of grammar hybridization in Old Malayalam mixed with Sanskrit and cases of structural borrowing in modern Dravidian languages are described and analysed in three papers. Finally, the etymologies of the word 'Dravidian' and a dozen of other ethnonyms are explained. A bibliography of over 300 items indicates the relevant literature, both classical and modern. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter]. ISBN 3 89586 413 7. LINCOM Language Research 02. Ca.160pp. USD 52 / DM 98 / # 33. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 16:37:43 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 12:37:43 EDT Subject: New book: Dravidian linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A Grammar of the Brahui Language in Comparative Treatment Mikhail S. Andronov Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The Brahui language, spoken by some 1.5 million people in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, is the earliest offshoot of the Dravidian stock. Isolated from the kindred languages for several thousand years, it combines ancient features inherited from the Proto-Dravidian ancestor with numerous borrowings from its Iranian and Indo-Aryan neighbours. Apart from a detailed practical grammar, illustrated with copious examples from Brahui literary texts, the book offers the latest comparative-historical information on the evolution and origin of the main elements of the language. The Brahui phonemes are traced to their Old Dravidian sources, the origins of case suffixes and other nominal desinences are expounded, the Brahui numerals and pronouns are also traced to their ancient archetypes, and so are the personal suffixes in the verb. The primary systems of gender, tense and mood, lost or modified in the contemporary language, are reconstructed in comparison with these of Old Tamil and other classical languages. The general information on Brahui is given in the Introduction. The history of its study is also briefly outlined there and, in particular, the position of Brahui within the Dravidian family is discussed. A bibliography of earlier works on the Brahui language is appended in the end. The subject index will make the use of the book easier. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter]. ISBN 3 89586 412 9. LINCOM Language Research 01. Ca.100pp. USD 40 / DM 74 / # 24. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de Fri Jun 22 12:49:04 2001 From: LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de (LINCOM EUROPA) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:49:04 EDT Subject: New book: Spanish Historical Phonology Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Vowel Raising in Spanish Historical Phonology: A feature geometry analyis Lucma I. Llorente Berry College This work addresses the raising effect that a palatal glide had upon the stressed vowel of the preceding syllable, a process which happened in the development from Late Latin to Old Spanish. This effect is particularly visible in the lack of diphthongization of mid-open stressed vowels, which, under normal conditions, would undergo a process of diphthongization. All Late Latin vowels, however, except for the highest ones, undergo raising one degree. This "irregular" development of vowels has been traditionally linked to the presence of a palatal glide in the environment, and this study follows the traditional analysis, but tries to integrate it within the recent phonological framework of Feature Geometry, which has been proved to be an ideal model to describe assimilation processes. In particular, it follows Jung's (1991) hierarchical representation, focusing on the structure of the place node. In order to describe vowels, Jung makes use of the standard features [high], [low], and [ATR], placing them under what he calls the "vertical" node. When analyzing the raising process using the tools provided by Jung's work, two processes are possited. On the one hand, the lack of diphthongization of mid-open stressed vowels is attributed to the spreading of the feature [+ATR] from the glide onto the preceding stressed vowel. On the other, in order to explain the raising undergone by /e/ and /o/ on some occasions the notion of parasitic harmony (as described in Cole (1991)) is used. The feature that is considered to be under assimilation in this case is [+high], but the process only happens when the trigger (the glide) and the target (the preceding vowel) share a contextual feature, which, in the present case, is the specification for [+ATR]. This second process is sometimes blocked, because the intervening consonants are specified for the feature [+high], which is the one being spread. In order to explain the behavior of /a/ in the presence of the palatal glide, the notion of strict adjacency is brought into the picture. Only in this situation does /a/ undergo raising. ISBN 3 89586 441 2. LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics 25. Ca. 220pp. USD 70 / DM 128 / #44. New: A Students' and course discount of 40% is offered to the above title. Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers. Free copies of LINCOM'S newsflashes 24 & 25 are now available from LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. LINCOM EUROPA, Freibadstr. 3, D-81543 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +49 89 62269404; http://www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM.EUROPA at t-online.de. From rockliff at indiana.edu Mon Jun 25 17:07:01 2001 From: rockliff at indiana.edu (Rockliff, Rolf D) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 13:07:01 EDT Subject: Graduate Programs Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Graduate Programs in Historical Linguistics in the United States Dear list members, Could someone among you suggest to me a list of graduate programs in historical linguistics in the United States? I am specifically interested in M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Indo-European historical and comparative linguistics, but am also somewhat curious about where the Nostratic hypothesis might be receiving some attention as well. I am aware that, among those American universities that have linguistics departments, most list 'historical linguistics' as a possible area of graduate specialization. However, I also know (by personal experience) that many of these, in reality, only offer one token course in generic historical linguistics, and often do not even have a historical linguist to teach it. I suppose, ideally, I am hoping to find a list of linguistic programs in the United States that have *real* historical graduate programs (not token programs), with some hint of what sort of historical linguistics is going on there, e.g. 'Indo-European,' or 'Dravidian,' or 'Nostratic,' etc. I would be most grateful for any suggestions at all. Thank you. Rolf Rockliff From igclanguages at earthlink.net Tue Jun 26 18:23:58 2001 From: igclanguages at earthlink.net (Dorine S. Houston, Director) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 14:23:58 EDT Subject: English historical ling Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This may not be supported by resesarch, but I have always understood that 'you' had the value of politeness in singular usage in early modern English comparable to 'vous' in French, and that people got so polite that they used 'you' rather than 'thou' with everybody, so that being polite to everybody became the norm and 'thou' was lost. This is parellel to a trend in certain dialects of contemporary Spanish. In general, 'tu' is the intimate singular, 'usted' is the formal singular; 'vosotros' is the intimate plural and 'ustedes' is the formal plural. Tu/vosotros uses the second person vverb conjugation forms and usted/ustedes shares the conjugation with the third person pronouns (el/ella, ellas/ellos). * Note that I have not used the appropriate acute accent marks here as some people's email systems will translate their usage as unreadable 'junk'. In Colombia, I have observed that at least some people now use only the 'usted' forms even with their closest iintimates (brothers and sisters). I have asked two well educated Colombians of my acquaintance about this trend. (BTW, one of them is Licenciada as a teacher of Spanish as a Foreign Language at a pres- tigious Colombian university.) Both have indicated that this is indeed a trend and that it stems from a sense of respect for everybody. This sounds very similar to what I had understood occurred in English--a memory that stretches very far back, perhaps to my undergraduate days in the Dark Ages. In contrast, I have observed that the opposite trend is occurring in Spain. As a young adult in the early 70s, I lived in Spain for several years teaching EFL. At that time, people used tu/vosotros among friends and usted/ustedes with their elders and 'betters'. Hence, my friends addressed me as 'tu' but students of my age, and even students much older than I--grey-haired to my wetness behind the ears--addressed me as usted. I was instructed by my supervisor to address all students in the adult classes, regardless of apparent age, as usted, and all in the children's classes (none over 12) as tu. In recent years, my hair has greyed and my skin has wrinkled. However, I have observed that young Spanish students who come to me to study ESL, upon figuring out that I know Spanish, otherwise treat me with all the respect due to my age and position, but address me as tu and do not show any other sign of disrespect with it. About a year ago I asked a young Spanish man (not a linguist) about the trend and he indicated that he thought using usted was a habit of his parents' generation but not of his. (His parents' generation would be my generation.) During that same youthful period, I became friends with a young French woman, a fellow teacher. When she invited me to Marseilles to spend part of the summer vacation with her family, I had a chance to put my college French to the test. After about a week, I asked her mother about the matter of tu/vous and the social rules. (I had been applying Spanish rules and addressing my friend's teenage and preteen siblings as tu and her parents as vous; she and I code-switched when together, since we both spoke fairly good Spanish and each other's languages to a lesser degree so primarily used Spanish together with a smattering of both French and English thrown in.) Her mother told me that 'la politesse francaise' demanded that one use vous even with children--and she repeated 'even with children' quite firmly a few times--but that se tutoyer was a university student's fashion 'mais n'est pas la politesse francaise'. When I decided to amend my ways and address the younger sibs as vous, they reacted by saying that I was a friend and should use tu and that their mother was too old-fashioned. In other words, we see a trend in two related Indo-European languages to reduce the separate usages and conflate them into a single one. In both European countries cited, greater informality is shown to be the trend according to these anecdotes, whereas in America greater formality, similar to the loss of thou, is the trend. I cite only personal anecdotes, of course, and have never explored the subject in research--as an ESL teacher I tend to focus on more contemporary trends. However, they may represent a possibility to consider. I hope to read more on the topic as others better red in historical English than I make their contributions. Cheers, Dorine "Harold F. Schiffman" wrote: > I am looking for studies on the loss of the you/thou distinction in early > modern English, in particular, when it began, what sources we have for > detailed documentation of the loss, and when it can be said to have been > completed. > > I am not a historical linguist, nor even a scholar of English, but I have > seen a claim (By M. Silverstein) that the loss of 'thou' can be attributed > to the fact that Quakers in 17th century England used only 'thou' forms > ('thee, thine, etc.) and eschewed 'you', and therefore other speakers > avoided 'thou' usage and switch to exclusive use of 'you'. (In fact modern > Quaker usage, such as it is, has "thee" as the nominative and accusative, > and 'thine' for possessive; there's no 'thou' there at all; I assume this > is dialectal; northern?) > > My problem with this is that I have seen evidence that the loss of 'thou' > began earlier than the time when Quakerism arose. One can see in > Shakespeare's works, e.g., that 'thou' usage declined dramatically from > early works to later ones. (I have some stats on this that show this > roughly, but it's merely percentages and doesn't rely on sociolinguistic > situations, i.e. who is speaking what to whom. The poetry, sonnets etc., > even if written later, have a lot MORE thou usage, because of the genre: > "How do I love thee" etc.) > > George Fox wasn't even born when Shakespeare died, and Quakerism didn't > spread until mid-century, 20 or 30 years after Shakespeare died. So I > can't see the pragmatic use of 'thou' by Quakers as the CAUSE of the loss > of this distinction, only perhaps hastening it. Silverstein is not so > much interested in the fine points of this as he is in showing how the > "ideology" of Quakerism (egalitarianism, simplicity, plain speech etc.) > in fact effected a HISTORICAL CHANGE in English. > > This is, to me, a *strong claim* and I'd like to be able to refute it; but > not being a scholar of early modern English, I lack the sources to show > this, other than the stats I got from a very kind volunteer, which I'd be > glad to share with anyone who wonders what they are. > > Thanks much, > > Hal Schiffman > > =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Harold F. Schiffman > > Professor of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture Acting Director > Dept. of South Asia Regional Studies Penn Language Center > 820 Williams Hall, Box 6305 715-16, Williams Hall Box 6305 > > University of Pennsylvania > Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 > > Phone: (215) 898-5825 (215) 898-6039 > Fax: (215) 573-2138 Fax (215) 573-2139 > > Email: haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn plc at ccat.sas.upenn.edu > WWW: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~plc/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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