7.6, Qs: Psycholing, Pausal alternations, Number words

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-6. Tue Jan 2 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  158
 
Subject: 7.6, Qs: Psycholing, Pausal alternations, Number words
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu>
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Editor for this issue: dseely at emunix.emich.edu (T. Daniel Seely)
 
We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually
best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is
then  strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list.   This policy was
instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we
would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 19 Dec 1995 18:52:01 +0100
From:  fmdaly at tcd.ie (Vicki McCarthy)
Subject:  Psycholinguistics
 
2)
Date:  Tue, 26 Dec 1995 21:48:03 EST
From:  decaen at epas.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)
Subject:  "pausal" alternations
 
3)
Date:  Fri, 29 Dec 1995 13:26:19 EST
From:  awechsle at bbn.com (Allan Wechsler)
Subject:  number words
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 19 Dec 1995 18:52:01 +0100
From:  fmdaly at tcd.ie (Vicki McCarthy)
Subject:  Psycholinguistics
 
Hello, my name is Vicki McCarthy,
and I am researching an area of psycholinguistics, concerning syntax and the
natural language context-particular, production, in structure and
sentential choice.
 
I am looking for an extensive grammar check as a writing skills tool, for
a specific language impairment particularly affected, under pressure of
rate of text generation.
 
I wonder if you could see your work being, with development applicable to
this; or if you might help me access anyone that you know of doing work
that would be applicable to computational NL linguistic aids operatable
on HP's, Pentium or DOS/Windows.
I am interested in forming a language production aid that would address a
situation of the following tendencies of a subject, in natural language
reference and sentence formulation:
1) a difficulty in choosing the word from the various alternatives, which
flash up on the subject's mental screen. Selection errors and compensatory
additions and also grammatical paraphrases can then result.
2) While with a high accuracy level on all tasks, often omitting specifying
whom or what is being referred to, this tendency problem may also be
described, as an over-appreciation, of the recursive structure unboundedly
complex, typically relevant ideal forms said to underlie the `conceptual
creativity' of syntax.
There is fluent delivery and excellent categorisation while at the same
time their mind inadvertently over-prepares itself quite often, as
suggested by spoken errors such as:
                                The beach was flowing with pebbles (water)
There is no impairment of the lexicon, or comprehensional analytical skills
and abilities.
3) There is the use of expression, which refers to or stands for an earlier
word or group of words/the repetition of the same word or phrase in several
successive clauses or sentences.
The task at hand is that of sequential co-ordinations necessary for the
production of connected speech.
Help is needed with choosing/proportionalising the use of the form of
syntax and word order, to a level of the task orientated relaying of
intentional (not only extensional) meaning of conceptualised ideas. A
repetitive syntactical patterned result would be satisfactory, as a
trade off for that of typical relevance in vocabulary choice.
 
     If there is any work and contact that you could relay to me at
                       fmdaly at tcd.ie
concerning this area of a computational research tools or developments,
applied linguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, natural language
support, and communicational nature, I would be very grateful.
 
     Thank you in advance,
        V McCarthy
 
 
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2)
Date:  Tue, 26 Dec 1995 21:48:03 EST
From:  decaen at epas.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)
Subject:  "pausal" alternations
 
I had occasion over the holidays to consider the Indiana accent of
some of my in-laws.  I noticed a drawl on vowels, most noticeably
short vowels, at the end of major phonological phrases, or as we say
in Biblical studies, in major "pause."  (my ears aren't good enough to
pick out what is going on;  phoneticians might be able to tell me.)
 
In Biblical Hebrew, forms can differ minimally depending on where in
the phonological phrase they appear: at the end ("pausal") or not
("contextual").  My question is this: in light of the Indiana
phenomenon, I'm thinking that this can't be that rare.  Surely the
pausal phenomenon must be more widespread than generally thought.  I
would be grateful indeed for leads in other languages.
 
Here, e.g., are some contrasting pairs.  Spirantization ignored; transcribing
vowels i,E,e,a,o,O,u; stress marked ['].
 
PAUSE			CONTEXTUAL
lo'k			lko'		"to you (ms)"
o'ben			e'ben		"stone"
koto'bto		kota'bto	"you (ms) wrote"
wayyomO't		wayyo'mot	"and he dies/died"
koto'bu			kotbu'		"they wrote"
 
I will post a summary if there is sufficient/interesting response.
Thanks
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vincent DeCaen		 	 	       decaen at epas.utoronto.ca
Near Eastern Studies,				   Religion & Culture,
University of Toronto		 	    Wilfrid Laurier University
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3)
Date:  Fri, 29 Dec 1995 13:26:19 EST
From:  awechsle at bbn.com (Allan Wechsler)
Subject:  number words
 
I would like to gather as much information as I can for as many
languages as possible about two topics: number names, and
lexicographic ordering.  Can anyone supply some good initial
references?  I would like as much detail as possible about the
algorithms by which names are assigned to numbers, and by which words
are ordered lexicographically.
 
(This odd query was prompted by a mathematics puzzle in which numbers
are arranged in alphabetical order.  In American English, the first
number in the dictionary is 11 "eleven", and the last, theoretically,
is
2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,002,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,002,
000,000,002,202 "two vigintillion two undecillion two trillion two
thousand two hundred two".  We would like to repeat this work for
other languages.)
 
-A
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