CONtract/conTRACT

[Dennis R. Preston]

Ron,

Have you been out practicin yore stress since 10/31? The Ioway stress
rules you got are way too complicated fer me. I ADDress the envelope
one minute, and give a short ADDress to the audience the next.

dInIs (one of whose students went to syntax class the other day and
was told by the instructor that Professsor Preston's judgments about
grammaticality were not trustworthy; in fact, the instructor
reflected, they were dangerous)



>What was the ADDress on the envelope on which Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg
>addRESS? Surely he addRESSED the audience and ADDressed the envelope? Even in
>the South, stress is sometimes phonemic.
>
>In a message dated 10/31/2001 6:57:51 PM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes:
>
><< Come South. CON-tract is a noun but CON-tract is a verb. See, us
>hillbillies have got pragmatic and syntactic ways of telling nouns
>from verbs; don't need us no stress stuff. We could send some
>RE-verse carpetbaggers up to hep y'all with the problem if y'all
>cain't tell yer nouns from yer verbs.
>
>dInIs >>

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736