16.3385, Qs: Lie Detectors;Morphology & Adjectival Alternations

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3385. Fri Nov 25 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3385, Qs: Lie Detectors;Morphology & Adjectival Alternations

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

1)
Date: 23-Nov-2005
From: Mark Jones < markjjones at hotmail.com >
Subject: Airport Lie Detectors 

2)
Date: 22-Nov-2005
From: Idan Landau < idanl at bgu.ac.il >
Subject: Morphological Markers of Adjectival Alternations 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:23:36
From: Mark Jones < markjjones at hotmail.com >
Subject: Airport Lie Detectors 
 

A recent report on Yahoo (and in sections of the British press) mentions a
walk-through airport lie detector being developed in Israel by the company
Nemesysco.

Story below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051117/tc_nm/security_liedetector_dc

The software apparently relies on picking up ''uncontrollable tremors'' in
the voice to 'identify' liars.

The system would seem to be very unreliable in principle, given that a
speaker with an inherently creaky voice will show a great deal of random
variation in vocal fold vibrations (jitter). A slight cold, some voice
pathologies, and low pitch accompanied by creak at the end of an utterance
would also produce jitter. Older speakers, and those suffering from e.g.
Parkinson's disease, would also produce more jitter.

Is anyone aware of the background to this research and testing of its accuracy?

It seems some governments are willing to spend between £6,000 and £17,000
per unit on this system in the light of security concerns, but my fear is
that it is money wasted, and the introduction of this system may lead to a
number of innacurate identifications of 'liars' at airport check-ins.

I will post a summary of responses.

Thanks

Mark Jones

Mark J. Jones
British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Department of Linguistics
University of Cambridge
http://kiri.ling.cam.ac.uk/mark/
mjj13 at cam.ac.uk 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Phonetics



	
-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:23:38
From: Idan Landau < idanl at bgu.ac.il >
Subject: Morphological Markers of Adjectival Alternations 

	

Hi,

In many languages, there is a class of evaluative adjectives that appears
in two syntactic frames:

1. John was rude.
2. That was rude of John.

Other adjectives in this class are: nice, kind, impolite, selfish,
charming, clever, considerate etc.

Although the form of the adjective ''rude'' in (1)-(2) above is the same -
apparently this is not a universal situation. I'm interested to find pairs
where different forms of the adjective are used in (1) and (2).

If you speak such a language, I would be grateful to receive examples of
this sort, with an indication, if possible, which alternant of the
adjective is derived from the other, by which affix.

thanks,
Idan Landau

idanl at bgu.ac.il 

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
                     Syntax


 



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