9.1312, Qs: Usage, Lang Acquisition, Spectrum of Sibilants

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-1312. Tue Sep 22 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.1312, Qs: Usage, Lang Acquisition, Spectrum of Sibilants

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1)
Date:  Mon, 21 Sep 1998 19:45:09 -0400 (EDT)
From:  manaster at umich.edu
Subject:  Q: "Sexual relations"

2)
Date:  Thu, 17 Sep 1998 13:33:45 +0100
From:  Ronald Peereman <peereman at u-bourgogne.fr>
Subject:  English and French children vocabulary

3)
Date:  Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:37:50 +0300
From:  "Simona Herdan" <simona at interplus.ro>
Subject:  Q: acquisition of causative verbs

4)
Date:  Mon, 21 Sep 1998 16:28:45 -0500 (CDT)
From:  Jack Wiedrick <jackw at ruf.rice.edu>
Subject:  Spectral analysis of sibilant sounds

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 21 Sep 1998 19:45:09 -0400 (EDT)
From:  manaster at umich.edu
Subject:  Q: "Sexual relations"

I have been surprised by the lack of discussion by linguists
of the descriptive facts regarding the phrase "sexual relations"
as used by Clinton.  I am not sure what these are, but it does
seem to me that this was once a rather standard term for
genital intercourse, just as he says, although the same is
not the case for apparently similar terms like "to have sex"
or even "sexual relationship".  Is there anybody out there
with relevant data about actual usage over the last 40 years,
say.

AMR


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 17 Sep 1998 13:33:45 +0100
From:  Ronald Peereman <peereman at u-bourgogne.fr>
Subject:  English and French children vocabulary

Hello,

Interested in language acquisition, I am looking for speech corpora and
word frequency lists which could be used to estimate the vocabulary
directed to French and English children of different ages (from birth to
9 years old), as well as the vocabulary used in children productions
(from 4 to 9 years old).

Is any one of you aware of any resources I could use

Thank you in advance,
Ronald Peereman
-
Ronald Peereman
Laboratoire Etude Apprentissages & Developpement, C.N.R.S.
Universite de Bourgogne, 6 bd Gabriel, F21000 Dijon, France
Tel. ++33 0380395756, Fax. ++33 0380395767
e-mail. peereman at u-bourgogne.fr


-------------------------------- Message 3 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:37:50 +0300
From:  "Simona Herdan" <simona at interplus.ro>
Subject:  Q: acquisition of causative verbs


Dear Linguists,
	I'm trying to find out whether there is a link between the complexity
in a causative structure and the difficulty in its acquisition. I suspect
that, although very complex themselves, the lexical pairs (eg. die-kill) are
acquired first, more complex syntactical patterns like "have something done"
only coming later. I also wonder whether this might have anything to do with
the example given in Lakoff and Johnson's "Metaphors We Live By":

Sam killed Harry. - single event
Sam caused Harry to die. - complex event structure

Their conclusion is that "the closer the form indicating causation is to the
form indicating effect, the stronger the causal link." (pages 128-133)
Following this I would assume that the child goes for the stronger
effect and minimum effort (simplest event structure)

	Any feedback, including references to (preferably available online)
books or articles that deal with this topic will be highly appreciated. I
will post a summary if I get enough responses.

Thanks in advance,
Simona Herdan


-------------------------------- Message 4 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 21 Sep 1998 16:28:45 -0500 (CDT)
From:  Jack Wiedrick <jackw at ruf.rice.edu>
Subject:  Spectral analysis of sibilant sounds

Is there anyone out there who is currently doing - or knows someone who is
doing - work on the sound spectra of fricative speech sounds, and
especially sibilants?  I am particularly interested in locating
any research which attempts to characterise auditory distinctions between
sibilants in terms of sound spectra, i.e. which tries to provide a
perceptually significant acoustic signature for the sounds in question.

Jack Wiedrick
Rice University

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