12.3100, Qs: Metathesis/Am Eng, Grounding in Narratives

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Sun Dec 16 03:22:53 UTC 2001


LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-3100. Sat Dec 15 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.3100, Qs: Metathesis/Am Eng, Grounding in Narratives

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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 13 Dec 2001 14:59:51 -0800
From:  "John Goldsmith" <ja-goldsmith at uchicago.edu>
Subject:  metathesis in (American) English

2)
Date:  Sun, 16 Dec 2001 10:59:51 +0800 (CST)
From:  "Jinting, Cai" <caiyyx at 163.net>
Subject:  Grounding in Narratives

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

Date:  Thu, 13 Dec 2001 14:59:51 -0800
From:  "John Goldsmith" <ja-goldsmith at uchicago.edu>
Subject:  metathesis in (American) English

There's been lots of discussion of the relationship between "ask" and
"aks" as pronunciations for the word "ask" (so to speak), but I've heard
none about other apparent metatheses in (American) English.  Three that
I've noticed are (@ for schwa, R/L for syllabic r/l, flap not
indicated):

realtor ( riy - l@ - tR, in my New York speech)
comfortable ( kumf - tR - bL )
jewelry  ( juw - l@ - ry )

The motivation behind these changes is pretty obvious, but how
widespread is the phenomenon in English - any ideas?

John A. Goldsmith
Department of Linguistics, The University of Chicago
ja-goldsmith at uchicago.edu
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith




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

Date:  Sun, 16 Dec 2001 10:59:51 +0800 (CST)
From:  "Jinting, Cai" <caiyyx at 163.net>
Subject:  Grounding in Narratives

Dear colleagues,

I've met some problems in coding the discourse structure of
narratives into foreground and background.

Are adverbials clauses usually used for background? Can they sometimes
express foreground information?  In particular, is clause CLY03-02
listed in (2) a backgrounded clause? It does set up a temporal scene
for the main clause, so it is background in this sense. However, it
also narrates the main event, so can it be regarded as
foreground. What¡¯s your solution?

code	clause	Grounding
CLY03-01	this regretable happened in the last year.	B?
CLY03-02	When I came to this college.	B?
CLY03-03	I recognized a beautiful girl.	F
CLY03-04	She study very well	B
CLY03-05	and she is very gentle.	B
CLY03-06	With the time passed, we became good friends.	F
CLY03-07	I often went to talk to her	F
CLY03-07.2	and studied with her.	F
CLY03-08	Our friendship was great.	B

How about these clauses:
When I came to his college,
I was very happy.

Do you think the relationships between the adverbial clause and the
main clause are the same?


Thanks in advance!

Merry Christmas!

Cai Jinting (PhD)







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