"Baby killing trial prosecutor: Video doesn't lie"

[Neal Whitman]

This discussion reminds me of a Linguistics Olympiad problem from a few
years ago that I sometimes do with kids I coach. It's about compound
nouns in Japanese, in which different hierarchical structures like those
we're discussing here are marked morphologically (at least, they are
when the final consonant of a root is voiceless and can therefore become
voiced). It starts with 2-element compounds to introduce the rule, then
has contestants provide English translations of 3-element compounds with
their English meanings. For example, two of them could be translated as
"fake raccoon soup", but the contestants have to be more specific and
translate one as "fake soup made with raccoons" or "soup made of fake
raccoons". (This is where you can tell the examples have been carefully
chosen to show the rule at work.) Then, for the true test, part three of
the problem has a 4-element compound: fake+paper+shelf+maker. There are
5 possible bracketings, but only 4 phonologically distinct surface
forms, and the students have to match them all up, including the
ambiguous case. I've shown the bracketings and translations below, but
in the problem, they just provide the translations and the surface forms.

[[[FP]S]M]"maker of shelves for fake paper"
[[F[PS]]M]"maker of fake shelves for paper"
[F[[PS]M]] "fraudulent maker of shelves for paper"
[F[P[SM]]] "fraudulent shelf-maker made of paper"
[[FP][SM]] "shelf-maker made of fake paper"

You can look at the original problem here:
http://www.naclo.cs.cmu.edu/assets/problems/NACLO08f.pdf.

Neal

On 8/30/2013 2:20 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Baby killing trial prosecutor: Video doesn't lie"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8/30/2013 01:52 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>> How can he present cases if he has been killed by a baby?
> Thanks for suggesting yet a third interpretation to me!
>
> 1)  "Trial prosecutor for case of someone who killed a baby [says]
> 'Video doesn't lie'."
> 2)  "Trial prosecutor who killed a baby [says] 'Video doesn't lie'."
> and the third being:
> 3)   "Baby who killed trial prosecutor [says, while in the act]
> 'Video doesn't lie'."
>
> But since in this case the prosecutor doesn't present anything,
> perhaps Dan is seeing a fourth interpretation.
>
> Joel
>
>
>> DanG
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject:      "Baby killing trial prosecutor: Video doesn't lie"
>>>
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> With that record, I'm surprised he's still permitted to present cases.
>>>
>>> Headline, Associated Press, story by Kate Brumbak, Yahoo News, 53 minutes
>>> ago.
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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