Association for Linguistic Typology

Wed Mar 15 11:22:43 UTC 1995

ALT News No. 5, March 1995

1. Sad News

IN MEMORIAM SIMON C. DIK (1940-1995)

On March 1 Simon Dik passed away.

As a scholar Simon gave typology its due in his own work when this
was not yet the custom, and one of the things he taught his students
was that linguistic diversity was of paramount importance in any
linguistic theorising.  As a member of the Humanities Council of the
European Science Foundation Simon saw to it that EUROTYP, the
ESF programme in Language Typology (1990-1995), got started, and
he was the Chairman of its Scientific Committee until the final phase
of his illness.

Typology owes a great deal to Simon.

Machtelt Bolkestein, Casper de Groot, and Kees Hengeveld sent us
this In Memoriam:

It is with great sadness that we inform you of the death, on March 1,
1995, of Simon C. Dik, one of the world's leading theoreticians in
functional linguistics. Simon had occupied the chair of General
Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam for 25 years when in 1994
his illness, which had manifested itself two years earlier,  forced him
to resign. During these 25 years he developed the theory of Functional
Grammar, the foundations for which had been laid in his 1968
dissertation on coordination. As far as his   illness allowed him,
Simon continued working on the further  development of this theory
until his death. The results of this  work, the two-volume 'The Theory
of Functional Grammar', will be published posthumously .

During his career Simon has been a constant source of inspiration and
encouragement, both as a teacher and as a scholar, for his colleagues
and students. The significance of his work for the field of linguistics
and the effectivity of the enormous energy which he put into
promoting linguistic research deserve our recognition and gratitude.

We, members of the community of linguists working within the
framework of Functional Grammar, especially feel the loss of our
personal contacts with him. We gratefully acknowledge his unending
and invaluable involvement in the progress of linguistic research until
the very end.

Simon leaves behind his wife Willy, his daughters Iris and Hester, and
his son Remco.

2. The Meeting

The first regular, and indeed inaugural, meeting of ALT will take
place in Vitoria-Gasteiz in the (Spanish) Basque Country, on as
neutral linguistic territory as you can get it.  The date is 8-10
September 1995 (Fri-Sun), and the ALT meeting proper will be
preceded by a Basque Day on Thursday, 7 September.

The local organiser is Miren Lourdes Onederra, and Euskal Herriko
Unibertsitatea is proud to host ALT 1.  (Sorry, Miren, but modern
communication technology leaves ALT News no choice but to rob
you of the tilde over the n of your surname.)  Here is Miren's address,
but don't panic -- further practical particulars will also be in the next
and overnext news:

        Miren L. Onederra
        Euskal Filologia Sail
        Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
        Urkixoko Markesaren k, z/g
        E-01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
        E-mail: fvponoll at lg.ehu.es

Anyway, those interested in additional fieldwork or consultant-work
opportunities might want to get in touch with Miren asap.

The Chairperson of the Programme Committee wants this to be known:

Abstract have begun to arrive to us; be sure to keep them coming!  A
one-page summary of your proposed talk along with your name and
address (snail-mail and e-mail if any) should be sent to Edith
Moravcsik:

  - e-mail: edith at csd.uwm.edu
       - fax: (414) 229-6258
       - regular mail (seven copies please):
                Department of Linguistics
                University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
                Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413
                USA

Please specify how much time you need (30, 45, or 60 minutes;
possibly more if you are putting on a symposium).

DEADLINE: ABSTRACTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY WEDNESDAY, MAY 31

3. The Journal

A provisional editorial board of LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY (LT) has
meanwhile been constituted.  Its members, intended to be
representative of the ALT membership, geographically and otherwise,
are Georg Bossong (Zuerich), R. M. W. Dixon (Canberra), Aleksandr
E. Kibrik (Moskva), Edith A. Moravcsik (Milwaukee), Marianne
Mithun (Santa Barbara), Frans Plank (Konstanz), Anna Siewierska
(Lancaster), and Johan van der Auwera (Antwerpen).

The immediate tasks of the board include (i) the production of a
model Issue Zero of LT, to be available to (paid-up) ALT members
before the autumn meeting, and (ii) the preparation for publication of
the first regular issues of LT, scheduled to appear in 1996.

Material that has already flooded in for LT is in the process of
refereeing.  Continue to submit high-quality papers of the various
kinds envisaged in the ALT Charter -- for the benefit of those who
have forgotten:

--target articles worthy of peer commentary
--standard articles (worthy but uncommentaried)
--implications register
--language profiles, family portraits
--topical bibliographies
--reminiscences
--reviews, book notices, literature surveys

Submit three hard copies (and a disk version on acceptance) to the
managing editor: Frans Plank, Sprachwissenschaft, Universitaet
Konstanz, Postfach 5560, D-78434 Konstanz, Germany.

There will be a style-sheet in Issue Zero;  in the meantime take
LINGUISTICS, another publication of Mouton de Gruyter's, as your
stylistic model.

It is planned to devote parts of the first issue of LT to debating a topic
that has figured at ALT 0, "Association and Number".  Those
interested in contributing will receive further particulars from Edith
Moravcsik (address as above).  Another early theme for commentary might be the
co-variation of sound structure and of grammatical structure; alas, the
number of hypotheses about such co-variation is unmatched by
empirical demonstrations of their existence.  A catalogue of such
allegations is available from Frans Plank (address as above; e
-mail: frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de),  in case you consider
contributing to this discussion.

4. Workshops

ALT Regional Workshop No. 1: Methodology

There will be an informal workshop devoted to methodological
matters at Konstanz (Germany) on 30 June - 1 July 1995 (Fri-Sat),
locally organised by Frans Plank (frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de) &
Jan Rijkhoff (jan.rijkhoff at uni-konstanz.de).  In particular, we would
like to discuss the questions of sampling in typology and of
documenting implications, with a view to developing guidelines that
prospective contributors to LINGUISTIC
TYPOLOGY might find helpful.  If you want to attend and present
a paper, drop us a line.  Here is a basic reading list on sampling for
intending participants and the rest of humankind.

Bakker, Dik 1994: Formal and computational aspects of Functional
Grammar and language typology. Amsterdam: IFOTT.
Bell, Alan 1978: "Language samples." Universals of human language,
ed. J.H. Greenberg et al., vol. 1, 123-156. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Dryer, Matthew 1989: "Large linguistic areas and language
sampling."Studies in Language 13, 257-292.
Nichols, Johanna 1992: Linguistic diversity in space and time.
Chicago University of Chicago Press.
Otterbein, Keith F. 1976: "Sampling and samples in cross-cultural
studies." Behavior Science Research 11, 107-121.
Perkins, Revere D. 1989: "Statistical techniques for determining
language sample size." Studies in Language 13, 293-315.
Perkins, Revere D. 1992: Deixis, grammar, and culture. Amsterdam:
Benjamins (esp. ch. 7).
Rijkhoff, Jan, Dik Bakker, Kees Hengeveld, Peter Kahrel 1993: "A
method of language sampling." Studies in Language 17, 169-203.

Concerning implications documentation, we welcome information on
publications containing large amounts of implications or also other
universals, such as:

Decsy, Gyula 1987: A select catalog of language universals.
Bloomington: Eurolingua.
Dryer, Matthew 1992: "The Greenbergian word order correlations."
Language 68, 81-138.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963: "Some universals of grammar, with
particular reference to the order of meaningful elements." Universals
of language, ed. J. H. Greenberg, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.
Greenberg, Joseph H. et al., eds. 1978: Universals of human
language. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 4 vols.
Hawkins, John A. 1983: Word order universals. New York: Academic
Press.
Hurford, Jim & Simon Kirby 1995: "The Noun Phrase Universals
Archive." EUROTYP Working Papers VII/26.
Jakobson, Roman 1944: Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine
Lautgesetze. Uppsala.
Lass, Roger 1984: Phonology: An introduction to basic concepts.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (ch. 7).
Moravcsik, Edith A. 1994: "Inflectional morphology in the Hungarian
noun phrase -- A typological assessment." EUROTYP Working
Papers VII/22, 127-185.
Moravcsik, Edith A. 1995: "Summing up Suffixaufnahme." Double
case: Agreement by Suffixaufnahme, ed. F. Plank, 451-484. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Nartey, J. N. A. 1979: "A study in phonemic universals, especially
concerning fricatives and stops." UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics
46.
Plank, Frans 1989: "On Humboldt on the dual." Linguistic
categorization, ed. R. Corrigan et al., 293-333. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
Plank, Frans 1991: "Review of Agreement in natural language, ed. M.
Barlow & C. A. Ferguson (Stanford: CSLI, 1988)." Journal of
Linguistics 27, 532-542.
Plank, Frans 1994: "What agrees with what in what, generally
speaking?" EUROTYP Working Papers VII/23, 39-58.
Plank, Frans 1995: "A catalogue of allegations concerning the
co-variation of sound and of meaningful form." Unpublished.
Rijkhoff, Jan 1992: The noun phrase: A typological study of its form
and structure. Ph.D. thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam (esp. ch. 9).
Sedlak, Philip 1969: "Typological considerations of vowel quality
systems." Working Papers on Language Universals (Stanford) 1,
1-40.
Stassen, Leon 1985: Comparison and universal grammar. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Uspenskij, Boris A. 1965: Strukturnaja tipologija jazykov. Moskva:
Nauka (pp 182-221).

5. To whom it may concern, 1

We remind 'whom it may concern' that one becomes a regular member
by returning the form below, filled in, to Johan van der Auwera and
by making a transfer of the 1995 membership dues to the benefit of
same.  The
experience of  January and February 1995 makes us slightly modify
the transfer rules. So please effect the transfer in one out of FIVE
ways:

(a) send Johan a Eurocheque for an amount of 600 Belgian Francs
(salaried) or 400 Belgian Francs (student or unsalaried);

(b) send Johan a cheque drawn on an American bank for an amount
of 21 US $ (salaried) or 14 US $ (student or unsalaried); be sure that
the cheque can be cashed at any American bank without cost;

(c) make a bank transfer to Johan, account 001-2276637-26 at   the
ASLK, Brussels, Belgium for an amount of 600 (salaried) or  400
(student or unsalaried) Belgian Francs. 'ASLK' is the name of the
bank to profit from this mode of transfer; don't worry  about the fact
that it is an abbreviation: the number uniquely  identifies the bank as
well the account, and there is no need to identify a branch office.
Please be sure that we will not incur bank charges from our end. Most
likely, YOU will incur heavy bank costs from your end though.

(d) send Johan a cheque for the equivalent of 900 (salaried) or 700
Belgian Francs (student or unsalaried) or make a bank transfer of this
amount to account 001-2276637-26 at the ASLK,  Brussels to the
benefit of same. Do this only if you know that we will have to pay no
bank charges from this side.

(e) send a postal money order to Johan for an amount of 600 Belgian
Francs (salaried) or 400 Belgian Francs (student or   unsalaried).

It is not possible to pay by credit card, though we suspect it will be
from next year onwards.

Would members from countries with soft currencies (and this does
not include Spain or the US) please get in touch with us.  Any advice
on how to solve this kind of problem would be appreciated.

6. To whom it may concern, 2

Would those of you who have NOT received ALT News No. 4 of
January this year please tell us.  This was the first news to have been
distributed via Texas, and we have been notified that some messages
appear to have gone astray.

FP & JvdA
8 March 1995

---------------------------------------------------------------
MEMBERSHIP FORM - I would like to join the Association for
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