"long" and "short" vowels

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:51 AM -0400 6/20/09, David Bowie wrote:
>From:    Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>
>>I would think that the word, "speech," encompasses all languages.
>>And I would think the word "speech" is exclusive of non language
>>sounds, such that it doesn't need the word "human" in front of it.
>
>It also comes, I think, from the fact that there are a number of people
>who were trying to teach non-human animals to speak (with "speak" here
>including signing).[1] It's unclear whether these animals ever actually
>learned to speak, but if they did it's important to draw a distinction
>between the human language they learned (or at least were attempted to
>be taught[2] by the researchers) and the non-human language they may
>have had coming into the experience, since any such non-human languages
>could presumably have different rules and restrictions.
>
>Also, there are a number of computer languages that certainly have
>syntax (and arguably, in some cases, a sort of phonology-like system),
>but they're quite different than any human language.
>
>I think that in general the human vs. non-human distinction is more
>important for morphology and syntax than phonetics and phonology, but
>it's a not-worthless bit of carefulness.

More commonly, to distinguish human (real) speech from synthesized
speech, in which case it's a retronym.

>
>[1] Are any of these projects still going on, or has all the funding
>finally dried up for them?
>
>[2] I can't think up an elegant passive construction for this. Weird.
>
Maybe Arnold can direct us to something on Language Log on this.
I've noticed the same gap, largely through attempts by students to
fill it ("The chimpanzees were tried to teach/taught/be taught
American Sign Language") without striking success.

LH

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