10.346, FYI: Humor, EAMT workshop, Mixed languages workshop
LINGUIST Network
linguist at linguistlist.org
Fri Mar 5 19:51:31 UTC 1999
LINGUIST List: Vol-10-346. Fri Mar 5 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Subject: 10.346, FYI: Humor, EAMT workshop, Mixed languages workshop
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>
Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>
Reviews: Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>
Associate Editors: Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
Brett Churchill <brett at linguistlist.org>
Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
Assistant Editors: Scott Fults <scott at linguistlist.org>
Jody Huellmantel <jody at linguistlist.org>
Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>
Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
Chris Brown <chris at linguistlist.org>
Home Page: http://linguistlist.org/
Editor for this issue: Brett Churchill <brett at linguistlist.org>
=================================Directory=================================
1)
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 15:09:28 -0500 (EST)
From: "Heidi B. Harley" <hharley at BABEL.ling.upenn.edu>
Subject: Linguistics humor: Simpsons, cont.
2)
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:31:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Martin Cmejrek <cmejrek at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz>
Subject: Machine Translation
3)
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 11:50:25 MET
From: "Peter Bakker" <linpb at hum.au.dk>
Subject: Workshop on mixed languages in Aarhus
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 15:09:28 -0500 (EST)
From: "Heidi B. Harley" <hharley at BABEL.ling.upenn.edu>
Subject: Linguistics humor: Simpsons, cont.
Since there's been a few postings on the subject of linguistics humor
lately, including one mentioning the classic "embiggens" from the
Simpsons, I thought I'd point out that the Simpsons is full of
linguistically amusing wordplay in general. My suspicion is that Groening
(the creator) is a _linguiste manque'_ and peppers the series with jokes
that are all the funnier if you're familiar with lingusitic theory.
Here are some of my favorite examples:
EMBIGGENS class
1999 valentine's day episode: Kent Brockman (the news anchor) is narrating
a story about how Abu is giving his wife many extravagant presents for
Valentine's day, and the rest of the town's wives are annoyed at their
husbands for their comparative romantic lameness. He says something like:
"One Springfield man is treating his wife to an extra-special valentine's
day this year, (sotto voce) and introubulating the rest of us."
(where "introubulate" of course means "get into trouble").
ISLAND violation:
1998 Christmas episode: The Simpsons' house has been broken into on
Christmas eve, and all their christmas presents and decorations stolen.
Homer is telling his woes to Moe, the barman, and Moe sympathises. He
says,
"You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society!"
CONSTITUENCY in verb-particle constructions:
1998 Christmas episode, same one. Kent Brockman is narrating a news story
about the Simpsons' misfortune. The story starts something like:
"Something WAS stirring in one Springfield house this Christmas eve, and
what it was stirring was up trouble!"
DEIXIS in personal pronouns:
I just noticed this one in a rerun from a couple of years ago. Homer has
brought his family along on a business team-building exercise in the
woods, and Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are stuck in the National Park
Service building while all the employees are off team-building (Homer and
Burns eventually get trapped in a cabin by an avalanche). Bart is standing
in front of a Smokey the Bear statue, who has an electronic voice and a
little 'quiz' to administer. Bart and Smokey have the following exchange:
Smokey: (electronic intonation) "Who is the only one who can stop forest
fires?
Bart: (examines response panel, which has two buttons, marked "you" and
"me". He presses "you").
Smokey: (electronic intonation) "You pressed YOU, meaning me. This is
incorrect. You should have pressed ME, meaning you."
As I've become more aware of these tendencies of Groening's, I notice more
and more. I'm beginning to think that someone should keep track of such
examples and write Groening to let him know the relevant linguistic
theory, and persuade him to pursue what is clearly his calling. Who knows,
maybe he'd donate some money to deserving linguistic charities.
Amusedly,
Heidi Harley
-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:31:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Martin Cmejrek <cmejrek at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz>
Subject: Machine Translation
Second announcement
The European Association for Machine Translation in the collaboration with
the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of
Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, are pleased to announce that
the 1999 EAMT Workshop will be held at the Krystal hotel, Jose Marti Str.,
Prague 6, Czech Republic on April 22 - 23, 1999. The welcome reception is
scheduled for Wednesday 21, April 21st.
The theme of the workshop is:
EU and the new languages
Translation - possibilities, policies and practicalities
All who are interested in Machine Translation or in any related area are
very welcome to attend!
Please find programme and registration information at
http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/eamt.html
or refer to Martin Cmejrek: cmejrek at ufal.mff.cuni.cz
For your convenience, you can find the ASCII version at the end of the
email.
Yours sincerely
Martin Cmejrek
Martin Cmejrek
Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics,
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics,
Charles University
Malostranske namesti 25,
CZ-118 00, Prague
E-mail: cmejrek at ufal.mff.cuni.cz
Phone: ++420-2-2191-4304
Eva Hajicova, Director
Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics,
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics,
Charles University
Malostranske namesti 25,
CZ-118 00, Prague
E-mail: hajicova at ufal.mff.cuni.cz
Phone: ++420-2-2191-4252
- -----------------------------------------------------------
EAMT Workshop
EU and the new languages
Translation - possibilities, policies and practicalities
April 22-23
Prague, Hotel Krystal
Preliminary Programme
(this programme is dated February 10th 1999. It is subject to change)
- Welcome and introduction
Eva Hajicova, Prague, Local organizer
John Hutchins, EAMT president
Bente Maegaard, Copenhagen, Programme Committee chair
- Government language policy
Czech Coordinative Centre for Translation of EU materials (speaker
to be announced)
- Experience from translation of EU documents
Gabor Proszeky, Morphologic, Budapest
- Local business with a translation need (e.g. because of machine
directive, patents)
Speaker to be announced
- Aligning and extracting translation equivalents from EU documents - a
possible look on EU integration
Elena Paskaleva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia
- EU: Preparing for new languages
Dimitri Theologitis, EC Translation Services (SdT), Luxembourg
- News from large international MT providers
- The SYSTRAN approach to development of tools for the
new languages
D. Sabatakakis, SYSTRAN, Luxembourg
- The new Logos Concept (Translation Technology,
Language Services, Consulting)
Friederike Bruckert, Logos
- The L&H approach to development of tools for the new
languages
Gregor Thurmair, Lernout & Hauspie
- On translation between closely related languages, with examples from
Czech and Slovak
Jan Hajic and Vladislav Kubon, Charles University, Prague
- Translation to and from Russian: the ETAP-3 system (to be confirmed)
Igor Boguslavsky, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
- On intermediate structures and tectogrammatics with regard to
simplifying transfer
Petr Sgall, Prague
- Tools for the CEEC languages, an overview (to be confirmed)
Poul Andersen, EC DG XIII, Luxembourg
- On automatic dictionary extraction from Czech-English parallel corpora,
Martin Cmejrek, Jan Curin, Charles University, Prague
- Summary and Conclusions
Dimitri Theologitis, EC Translation Services (SdT), Luxembourg
- Close
-------------------------------- Message 3 -------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 11:50:25 MET
From: "Peter Bakker" <linpb at hum.au.dk>
Subject: Workshop on mixed languages in Aarhus
WORKSHOP ON MIXED LANGUAGES IN AARHUS, DENMARK
May 6,7, 8.
This workshop will bring together a number of people who have been
working on the genesis of mixed languages from a variety of
perspectives. We consider as mixed languages not Pidgins and Creoles,
but rather those languages which cannot be classified in a genetic
tree model, because they inherit one component (e.g. the lexicon)
from one language and another component (e.g. the grammatical system)
from different language. Prime examples are languages like Ma'a,
Media Lengua, Michif, Mednyj Aleut and Para-Romani verieties such as
Angloromani.
At the Leiden workshop on mixed languages in 1994 (1), the
participants spoke about particular languages that they had been
working on. Few people at that time were aware of the existence of
class (or classes) of mixed languages. In the meantime, more and more
linguists have become aware of the fact that they do constitute a
special type, be it not necessarily homogenous in structure or
function. A handful of books and a number of articles on the subject
have been published in the last five years, and a few others are in
preparation. These mixed languages pose special challenges, not only
as to the question of their genesis and their structural similarities
and differences, but also for linguistic theories and
psycholinguistic models. At this workshop, the focus will not
be on the individual languages, but on the general properties and
issues. Participants are asked to give informal presentations about
special subjects. We hope to have speakers on the following subjects:
- codeswitching and the genesis of mixed languages
- Creoles and mixed languages
- types of mixed languages
- functions of mixed languages
- phonology of mixed languages
- registers and mixed languages
- use of historical data in mixed language research
- language death and mixed languages
- bilingual acquisition and mixed languages
- intergenerational competence differences and the genesis of mixed
languages
- relexification and mixed languages
- lexically mixed pidgins, Creoles and other languages
- bilingual production/processing and mixed languages
- distortion of form in mixed languages
- how many structurally different types of mixed languages are there
- mixed languages and historical linguistics
- mixed languages without systematic mixture
- diachronic evolution of mixed languages
- alternatives to the genetic tree model
- mixed languages, predictability and retrospection
- convergence and mixed languages
- language contact phenomena in the Chinese-Mongolian-Turkic-Tibetan
area
- field report on Danish Romani
- mixed languages and typology
- extreme borrowing and mixed languages
- secret languages and mixed languages
Hopefully, there will not only be linguists, but also some people
from other disciplines, notably biology and psychology, who will be
able to give their view on some of the matter.
The workshop will take place on the University Campus,
Conference Centre, Nordre Ringgade 1, Richard Mortensen Stue, on
Thursday May 6 (afternoon), May 7 (whole day) and May 8 (morning
only?).
Aarhus is the second city of Denmark, and the capital of
Jutland. The University has some 20.000 students. The linguistic
department has a small, but growing staff, and the number of students
increases each year. Visit the institute's websites on
http://www.au.dk/uk/hum/lingvist/index.html and
http://ling.hum.aau.dk The campus of Aarhus university is found on
the fringe of the city centre. Aarhus can be reached by car, train,
bicycle, boat and aeroplane. The bus to and between Aarhus Tirstrup
Airport takes 50 minutes and the bus trip between Billund Airport and
Aarhus 80 minutes.
There is still room for more people, both as participants and
speakers. Please contact Peter Bakker as soon as possible if you want
to come.
(1) The book which resulted from this workshop (Bakker & Mous
eds., 1994) is still available. Its new distributor is HAG
(Holland Academic Graphics) in The Hague. Address: P.O. Box 53292,
2505 AG The Hague, Netherlands. E-mail: mail at hag.nl
Information:
linpb at hum.aau.dk
Peter Bakker
Linguistics
Aarhus University
Willemoesgade 15-D
8200 Aarhus N
Denmark
tel. 00-45-8942.2178
fax: 00-45-8942.2175
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-10-346
More information about the LINGUIST
mailing list