6.172 Qs: Articles, Yoshihiro Masuya, Function words, Vowel-shifts

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-172. Thu 09 Feb 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 118
 
Subject: 6.172 Qs: Articles, Yoshihiro Masuya, Function words, Vowel-shifts
 
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            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu>
 
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               Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
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1)
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 13:56:13 -0100
From: oystein at rhi.hi.is
Subject: Q: Articles
 
2)
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 1995 11:57:22 EST
From: stuurman at MIT.EDU
Subject: yoshihiro masuya
 
3)
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 95 14:00:07 EDT
From: fintel at MIT.EDU (Kai von Fintel)
Subject: Function words
 
4)
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 15:22:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Timothy Miller (millert at babbage.csee.usf.edu)
Subject: German/English/Umulating/Vowel-shifts
 
-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 13:56:13 -0100
From: oystein at rhi.hi.is
Subject: Q: Articles
 
Dear Linguists,
 
A system of articles is an innovative feature of a number of languages. Are
there any examples of languages that have lost their articles? I would also
be interested in creoles, especially, say, if both (all) source languages
had articles, but the pidgin/creole turned out lacking them. Please respond
to:
 
oystein at rhi.hi.is,
 
in real life:
0ystein Alexander Vangsnes
 
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2)
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 1995 11:57:22 EST
From: stuurman at MIT.EDU
Subject: yoshihiro masuya
 
 
I used to carry on a regular correspondence with Yoshihiro Masuya, in Kobe in
Japan. Unfortunately, when I left my Utrecht home-base for a sabbatical at
MIT, I didn't take his address with me. Masuya didn't use to be on e-mail, and i
have looked at the public domain sources in vain, so he probably still isn't.
 
Does anyone have Masuya's snail-mail address? Or better still, any news about
him and his family after the earthquake?
 
Please reply to me, not to the list. Thanks. frits
 
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3)
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 95 14:00:07 EDT
From: fintel at MIT.EDU (Kai von Fintel)
Subject: Function words
 
I would like the help of LINGUIST readers in finding examples of
function words that have as part of their meaning an unusually specific
component. I vaguely remember a case of a language having "honorific"
pronouns that mean something like "you shit". Or a language whose
prepositional system incorporates reference to the river that speakers
of the language live next to. In general of course, we find that
function morphemes are "semantically bleached" and do not have
comparatively rich meanings.
 
Please reply to fintel at mit.edu and I will post a summary.
 
 ----------------------------------
Kai von Fintel (fintel at mit.edu)
Dept. of Linguistics & Philosophy
MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139
 
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4)
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 15:22:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Timothy Miller (millert at babbage.csee.usf.edu)
Subject: German/English/Umulating/Vowel-shifts
 
)From my very cursory look into similarities in English and German, I have
found that Old High German and Old English/Saxon independantly went
through some very similar changes, such as umlauting and vowel shifts.
 
To my knowlege, neither Old High German nor Old Saxon had umulating and
they developed it independantly.  Furthermore, they both independantly
made very similar vowel shifts (/i/ -) /ai/, /u/ -> /au/, /e/ -> /i/,
etc.).
 
What structural similarities or instabilities did Old High German and Old
Saxon share that caused the independant introduction of these features?
 
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