ALT News No. 10
Johan.VanDerAuwera
auwera at uia.ua.ac.be
Mon Nov 27 16:14:10 UTC 1995
ALT News No. 10
November 1995
Contents: 1. Election Results
2. The ALT Directory
3. The ALT Kartvel Workshop
4. LT Matters
5. Query concerning Greenberg 37/45
6. LoLL
7. Recently Published
8. For your diary
1. Election Results
The votes have been counted and recounted--and what a heavy
poll it was, easily dwarfing the turn-out figures at the recent
Severnaja Zemlja by-election! The ALT management structure
suggested in the previous News and the slate of ALT officers
nominated by the Vitoria-Gasteiz Business Meeting have found
the unanimous approval of the ALT membership. Thus, for the
time being, the blame for bungling the statutes, squandering
the liquid assets, holding the next meetings in the wrong place
and at the wrong time and with the wrong programme, turning
down your submissions to LT and other miscarriages of justice,
and generally taking ALT down-market will primarily fall on
(addresses supplied on request):
The President: Bernard Comrie
The Secretary-Treasurer: Johan van der Auwera
The Executive Committee: Matthew Dryer
Gilbert Lazard
Elena Maslova
Miren Lourdes Onederra
Paolo Ramat
+ The President
The Secretary-Treasurer
The Editor-in-Chief
The Editorial Board: Nicholas Evans
Aleksandr E. Kibrik
Marianne Mithun
Edith Moravcsik
Frans Plank (Editor-in-Chief)
Anna Siewierska
Leon Stassen
Johan van der Auwera
The News Men: The President
The Secretary-Treasurer
The Editor-in-Chief
The Net/Web Man: Peter Kahrel
Look forward to the next News for reports on what these
office-holders of your choice have in store, concerning matters
such as the venue and date of ALT 2.
2. The ALT Directory
ALT now boasts some 180 members in good standing. This implies
that the first edition of the ALT Directory is out of print and
that some 30 members have not received their copy yet. An
updated version is now being produced and should reach these 30
members before the end of the year. Soon the Net/Web Man will
also be putting the Directory on the Web, where it can be
consulted on-line.
3. The ALT Kartvel Workshop
As previously announced, although with slightly inaccurate
dates, the ALT Kartvel Workshop will be held at the
Universitaet Jena (Thueringen, Germany) on 14-17 December 1995
(Thursday afternoon, 2 pm, to Sunday noon). For particulars get
in touch with the locals (Heinz Faehnrich, Bereich fuer
Orientalische Sprachwissenschaft/Kaukasiologie,
Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena, Leutragraben 1, D-07740
Jena, Tel +49-(0)3641-630915) or frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de.
The venue is: Ehemaliges Technisches Kabinett, Tierklinik,
Dornburger Strasse 25, not far from Saalbahnhof--i.e. NOT the
main university building.
The lecturing programme will include Heinz Faehnrich
(Jena) on Georgische und vergleichende kartwelische Phonologie,
Morphologie, Syntax, Lexikologie; Zurab Sardzhveladze
(Tbilisi) on ALTgeorgisch; Silvia Kutscher, Johanna Mattissen,
Sevim Genc (Koeln) on Lazisch; and Michael Job (Marburg) on
Kartwelisch und Indogermanisch. There will also be
opportunities for consultant work.
Advance introductory reading
Aronson, Howard I. 1982. Georgian: A reading grammar. Chicago:
Slavica.
Dzidziguri, Shota. 1969. The Georgian language. Tbilisi:
Tbilisi University Press. (In German but without pictures:
Halle: Niemeyer, 1973.)
Faehnrich, Heinz. 1993. Kurze Grammatik der georgischen
Sprache. Leipzig: Langenscheidt/Enzyklopaedie, 3rd edition.
Faehnrich, Heinz 1994. Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache.
Hamburg: Buske.
Harris, Alice C., ed. (1991). The indigenous languages of the
Caucasus, Vol. 1: The Kartvelian language. Delmar, N.Y.:
Caravan.
Hewitt, B. G. 1995. Georgian: A structural reference grammar.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Klimov, G. A. 1969. Die kaukasischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Buske.
Kutscher, Silvia, Johanna Mattissen, & Anke Wodarg, eds. 1995.
Das Mutafi-Lazische. Koeln: Institut fuer Sprachwissenschaft,
Arbeitspapier Nr. 24 (N.F.).
Schanidse, Akaki. 1982, Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache.
(Aus dem Georgischen von Heinz Faehnrich.) Tbilissi:
Staatsuniversitaet Tbilissi.
Tschenkeli, Kita. 1958. Einfuehrung in die georgische Sprache.
Zuerich: Amirani, 2 vols.
Vogt, Hans. 1971. Grammaire de la langue georgienne. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
Jazyki narodov SSSR, Vol. 4: Iberijsko-kavkazskie jazyki.
Moskva: Nauka, 1967.
4. LT Matters
The first issue of LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY (LT) is scheduled to
appear in September 1996, the second in December. Hurry up if
you still want to make it into LT's very first--as it were
virgin--pages. Instructions for Contributors are available
from frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de (Tel +49-(0)7531-882656 or
-57450).
If curious about what you are letting yourself in for,
and too impatient to wait for the publisher's publicity blurb,
read on.
Linguistic Typology
Introducing a new journal
THE SUBJECT
Linguistics is about languages, in the plural and with the
universal quantifier understood. Typology is simultaneously
about the diversity and uniformity of this universe. What
typology thrives on is variation across languages; but what
makes the typologist's day is co-variation-the discovery that
logically independent variables have identical values in one
language after the other, or at any rate do not show all
logically possible combinations of values. Hence the
preoccupation with implications, the relationship which holds
when two variables are empirically interdependent.
The typological research programme has been under way
for more than two centuries now, but in view of the daunting
complexity of its remit progress was bound not to be rapid and
comprehensive. Often, too much was missing for typology to
come into its own: reliable, in-depth, and accessible
information about less well documented languages (and these
count by the thousands); technology to store, retrieve, and
sort the information collected; well-chosen representative
samples; sound descriptions of the languages sampled, not
couched in extraneous formats; imagination, and perhaps
serendipity, in probing for generalizations, and rigour in
checking them against the evidence; theoretical
sophistication; manpower, and especially mutual awareness and
cooperation.
Happily, such shortcomings have not gone unrecognized
and unattended. Owing to numerous individual and collective
efforts to give languages their due in linguistics, typology
has been coming of age over the last few decades. Today's
typology, done competently, is at the cutting edge of
theoretical linguistics. With no party line to be followed, it
will be poised to discover rather than rehash for some time to
come. Its potential for applied linguistics is considerable,
as is beginning to be appreciated by those who apply
linguistics to more than one language. Language description is
rarely done these days in blissful ignorance of what is on
record about the possibilities and limits of typological
variation. Cultural and cognitive anthropology stand to
benefit from being pursued in tandem with a typology that has
long shed its ideological biases.
THE JOURNAL
After the foundation of the Association for Linguistic Typology
(ALT) in 1994, the launching of this journal, published by
Mouton de Gruyter (Berlin & New York) under the auspices of
ALT, is another sign that typology is internationally
consolidating its position.
Linguistic Typology (LT ) has five ambitions: to be
good, distinctive, useful, affordable, and available.
LT will aim to distinguish itself as a forum for the
typological community, catering for its special professional
needs. These are to do in particular with the empirical
dimensions of the typological enterprise and with the ensuing
demands to coordinate research and keep track of a profusion of
data and results. Therefore LT will specially encourage
informed dialogue and the proper recording of past and present
achievements. Its content structure will be diversified,
comprising the following regular and occasional elements:
(a) articles with peer commentary, complementary articles,
other interactive formats;
(b) independent articles;
(c) The Implications Register, documenting the implications
on record, with known counterexamples and all, and gradually
building up networks of registered implications;
(d) Language Profiles and Family Portraits, from a
typological viewpoint;
(e) basic topical bibliographies;
(f) The Present Perfect, featuring highlights from typology
as done in the past but persisting into the present (hence this
section's title);
(g) reviews, multiple reviews, book notices, literature
surveys.
Something is useful if life would be harder without it.
LT aims to make life without LT miserable for all those with a
stake in linguistic diversity. Plainly, what missing an issue
of LT should mean is missing the best instruction (and perhaps
entertainment) that is to be had in this department of
learning. Moreover, its thematic foci, its documentary parts,
and the possibilities to classify and retrieve its contents by
means of keywords and indices, also electronically supported,
are designed to guarantee LT a longer than average shelf life
for a journal, adding to the misery of those from whose shelves
it is missing.
The affordability of LT, as of other commodities, will
be a question of the price asked by its seller and the net
income of its buyers, and it is perhaps best left to the
Invisible Hand to sort this out to mutual advantage.
LT will be available to the general reading public to
the extent that libraries will realize that they are not worth
their money unless they spend some of it on an LT subscription.
It is up to its contributors to make LT the good
journal that no self-respecting library will want to be
without, however underfunded. Its editors' and referees'
comparatively simple brief is to recognize quality wherever and
in whatever guises they see it and channel it into LT's
open-minded pages.
SUBSCRIPTION AND SUBMISSION
Beginning in 1996, LT will annually appear in two issues of
about 200 pages each. The subscription price for members of
the Association for Linguistic Typology, including membership
in ALT, will be around DM 100. Contact the Secretary-Treasurer
of ALT, Johan van der Auwera, for particulars.
The Editors invite suitable manuscripts, to be
submitted in three copies to the Editor-in-Chief (address
below). Instructions for Contributors are available upon
request and will also appear in the first issue of the journal.
Refereeing should not take longer than two months.
LT will be covered by relevant citation indexes and
abstracting services.
The Editors
Nicholas Evans - Aleksandr E. Kibrik - Marianne Mithun
Edith A. Moravcsik - Frans Plank (Editor-in-Chief)
Anna Siewierska - Leon Stassen - Johan van der Auwera
5. Query concerning Greenberg 37/45
If anybody is aware of counterexamples to the implications Nos.
37 and 45 of Greenberg 1963--to do with the distribution of
gender distinctions over numbers and claiming, essentially,
that there will never be more genders in non-singulars than in
the singular--frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de would greatly
appreciate being informed. A collection of those currently on
record is to be found in EUROTYP Working Papers VII/20: 81-111
(1994) and VII/23: 87-107 (1994), and an update is planned to
appear in LT.
6. LoLL: List of Language Lists
Michael Everson and Bernard Comrie maintain the List of
Language Lists (LoLL), a list of computer bulletin boards for
individual languages. This file lists bulletin boards devoted
primarily to the linguistic study of individual languages and
groups of languages (though a couple of others, in particular
lists for language learners, have been included as well). The
current version of this list is available by anonymous ftp from
midir.ucd.ie (137.43.1.13) in /pub/everson. Please access it by
ftp if you can. If you cannot, please contact the compilers
(everson at internet-eireann.ie, comrie at bcf.usc.edu). In addition
to being a source of sources on individual languages and groups
of languages, LoLL is also relevant to ALT members in the
following ways:
(i) If you want information on a language listed in
LoLL, you can often get information readily by posting a
message to the appropriate list. But please do bear the
following netiquette in mind: If you are not a subscriber to a
list, do not post a message directly; contact the list owner
for permission.
(ii) If you find out about relevant lists that are not
included in the current version of LoLL, please contact Everson
or Comrie with the relevant information (at least the
approximate scope of the list and the name of the owner from
whom we can get further information).
Bernard Comrie
Dept of Linguistics GFS-301 tel +1 213 740 2986
University of Southern California fax +1 213 740 9306
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1693, USA e-mail comrie at bcf.usc.edu
7. Recently Published
If you'd like to review any of the titles listed (or not
listed) in this recurring section of the ALT News for LT,
contact LT's editor-in-chief (frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de)
Douglas Biber 1995: Dimensions of register variation. A
cross-linguistic comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
(Languages covered: English, Kulele, Tuvalu, Korean, Somali.)
Albert J. Borg & Frans Plank (eds) 1995: The Maltese noun
phrase meets typology. EUROTYP Working Papers VII/25.
(With contributions by A Borg, M Mifsud, D Gil, E Fenech, G G
Corbett, J Payne, F Plank & E Moravcsik, M Haspelmath & J
Caruana, R Fabri, M Koptjevskaja-Tamm, L Stassen.)
Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (eds) 1995: Modality in grammar
and discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins (TSL 32).
(With contributions by, among others, the editors, B Heine, E L
Bavin, J Myhill & L A Smith, F Lichtenberk, J Haiman, W Chafe,
M Mithun, F R Palmer, Z Frajzyngier.)
Marina Chini 1995: Genere grammaticale e acquisizione. Aspetti
della morfologia nominale in italiano L2. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Pamela Downing & Michael Noonan (eds) 1995: Word order in
discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins (TSL 30).
(With contributions by, among others, the editors, M Dryer, R
LaPolla, S Luraghi, M Mithun, R Schaefer.)
Katalin E. Kiss 1995: Discourse configurational languages. New
York: Oxford UP.
(Languages covered: Chadic, Somali, Basque, Catalan, Greek,
Hungarian, Finnish, Korean, Quechua.)
Silvia Kutscher, Johanna Mattissen, Anke Wodarg (eds) 1995: Das
Mutafi-Lazische. Arbeitspapier Nr. 24 (N.F.), Institut fuer
Sprachwissenschaft, Universitaet zu Koeln.
Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson 1995: The sounds of the world's
languages. Oxford: Blackwell.
Frans Plank (ed) 1995: Overdetermination. EUROTYP Working
Papers VII/24.
(With contributions by the editor, K Boerjars, M
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, J van der Auwera, D Gil, E Moravcsik.)
Andre Rousseau (ed) 1995: Les Preverbes dans les langues
d'Europe. Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
(With contributions by the editor, D Amiot, C Buridant, Z
Cygal-Krupa, I Fougeron, T Fraser, P Y Lambert, G Lazard, H Le
Bourdeles, C Paris, J Perrot, G-J Pinault, J van der Auwera)
Kristina Sands 1995: The ergative in proto-Australian.
Unterschleissheim: Lincom (Lincom Studies in Australian
Linguistics 1).
Hans-Juergen Sasse 1995: A preliminary bibliography on Focus.
Arbeitspapier Nr. 23 (N.F.), Institut fuer Sprachwissenschaft,
Universitaet zu Koeln.
Frank Schneider 1995: Der Typus der Sprache. Eine
Rekonstruktion des Sprachbegriffs Wilhelm von Humboldts auf der
Grundlage der Sprachursprungsfrage. Muenster: Nodus (Studium
Sprachwissenschaft, Beiheft 24).
Rolf Thieroff (ed) 1995: Tense systems in European languages.
Vol. 2. Tuebingen: Niemeyer (Linguistische Arbeiten 338).
(Languages covered: Icelandic, Swedish, French, Portuguese,
Rumanian, Polish, Sorbian, Slovene, Serbo-Croat, Bulgarian,
Lithuanian, Modern Greek, Albanian, Estonian, Maltese.)
Heinrich Werner 1995: Zur Typologie der Jenissej-Sprachen.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (Veroeffentlichungen der Societas
Uralo-Altaica 45).
8. For Your Diary
LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN
Spring Meeting 1996: University of Sussex
First Circular and Call for Papers
The 1996 Spring Meeting will be held from Thursday 11 April to
Saturday 13 April at the University of Sussex, where the
Association will be the guests of the Linguistics Subject Group
of the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences. The Local
Organiser is Nicola Woods (nicolajw at cogs.susx.ac.uk).
Travel: The University of Sussex is easily accessible by
British Rail; local busses provide easy access to the campus.
Brighton itself is an hour from London by train or 30 minutes
from Gatwick by car.
Events: The Linguistics Association 1996 Lecture on the
Thursday evening will be delivered by Professor Johanna Nichols
(Berkeley) and is entitled "Where on earth is Indo-European?"
Professor Nichols will also present a Language Tutorial on the
Chechen and Ingush languages. This will cover: basic structure,
typologically and theoretically interesting features,
historical comparison, lexicon, transcription and orthography.
Some cultural and geographical information on the people.
Slides; tape recordings of the languages and Chechen and Ingush
music. Practicum giving the audience active command of some
basic phrases. Some basic grammatical and lexical material and
a bibliography will be distributed.
There will also be a Workshop, organised by Kersti Borjars
(Manchester), entitled "New cognates for historical
linguistics". One of the most promising developments in current
historical linguistics involves attempts to connect results
from this domain with cognate disciplines. Participants will
address potential connections of historical linguistics with
typology, experimental phonetics/laboratory phonology, and
genetics.
Enquiries about the LAGB meeting about its Call for Papers
should be sent to the Meetings Secretary, Dr. Billy Clark,
Middlesex University, e-mail: billy1 at mdx.ac.uk.
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