Sum: symbols and abbreviations

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
My query the other day about symbols and abbreviations has elicited
only a modest number of responses, but these have been extremely
useful.  I've had various suggestions for improving entries, and a
number of suggestions for further entries.  I won't bother to list
all these here, but I'm taking them all very seriously, and I'll
incorporate as many of them as I can.
 
But I do have a length limit, imposed on me by my editor on day one,
and I'm surely going to be exceeding this.  Unless I can sweet-talk
my editor into some additional space, there will have to be some hard
choices made about what to include.  All arguments for persuading
editors will be gratefully received.  I assume that, after the
initial flurry of library purchases, the book will probably sell
about 27 copies a year, and I need to persuade my editor that those
vital 27 people care more about coverage than about price.
 
After all, my HL textbook was a hundred pages over contract length,
which caused a certain amount of consternation at Arnold, but we
eventually managed to work something out without cutting anything.
 
A few general points have arisen.  For one thing, it is very clear
that there exists considerable variation in the use of certain
devices, most notably the several kinds of brackets.  Here I can do
little except to note the usages that occur.
 
For another, I now have four quite distinct uses for the double
asterisk, as follows: (1) to mark a "second-level" reconstruction,
one itself based upon reconstructions; (2) to mark a reconstruction
as doubtful (I would have thought `?*' might be preferable here); (3)
to mark a form as non-existent rather than as merely unattested; (4)
to mark a form as impossible rather than as merely non-existent.
I've received various recommendations here, and I'm listening, but
I'll still have to enter the attested uses.
 
Several people advised me to provide the full Latin forms lying behind
the various abbreviations.  OK; I can do this, though I'm not always
certain just what things like `om.' and `add.' might be abbreviating.
 
A number of people asked me to include angle brackets for orthographic
transcriptions, square brackets for phonetic transcriptions, and
slashes for phonemic transcriptions.  Well, because of space
limitations, my general policy is not to include anything typical of
general linguistics and not confined to historical work.  I'm
assuming any reader will have at least an elementary knowledge of
general linguistics (I have to assume that), and that anything
unfamiliar can readily be looked up in other reference works.  Still,
it's perhaps true that philologists use angle brackets for
orthographic renderings far more frequently than anybody else, so
I'll think about it.
 
One or two people also suggested the inclusion of Latin abbreviations
of a more general kind, like `q.v.', `sc.' and `v. supra'.  My
original intention was to exclude these, on the ground that they are
not even peculiar to linguistics, let alone to historical linguistics,
and that they can readily be looked up even in an ordinary English
dictionary.  But I'm having second thoughts.  For one thing,
philologists perhaps use these things far more regularly than do most
other people.  For another, ordinary dictionaries, I now find, are
often not particularly helpful in explaining these things.  My
favorite British dictionary defines `q.v.' as `quod vide', and then
provides no entry for `quod vide', which I consider less than
maximally illuminating.  And most dictionaries don't enter `sc.' at
all.  So maybe there's a good case for including these things.
Anyway, I have a weakness for any opportunity to harangue the world
about what I see as the proper use of `cf.': I *really* do not like
the now almost universal tendency among linguists (except
philologists) to use this thing merely to mean `see, consult'.  No
doubt I am a tedious old fart, but I have to have at least one bee in
my bonnet, even if I wind up being bracketed with Prince Charles.
 
(Yesterday Prince Charles made a speech declaring that we shouldn't
grow genetically engineered tomatoes because God doesn't want us to,
and this morning's Times gave him an editorial solemnly approving
these words of wisdom.  I only know this because the newsboy delivered
the Times this morning by mistake instead of the Guardian -- I don't
actually *read* the Times.  But I digress.)
 
The thing is that every thumbs-up either increases the length of the
book, leading to possible shouts from my editor, or forces me to
exclude something else, leading to deep depression.  Life is hard.
 
I could, of course, reverse some earlier policy decisions to make
room.  For example, at present I am trying to include brief entries
for at least the more prominent extinct ancient languages, on the
ground that many users will be particularly interested in finding out
just what the hell Ligurian or Lepontic or Amorite might be.  But
maybe there are better uses of the space.  Sigh.
 
When I started this project, one of my colleagues expressed surprise
that HL had enough terms to fill a dictionary.  Well, if any of you
out there are losing sleep over this, you can sleep soundly tonight.
IE alone has enough terms to fill a small dictionary, especially since
most of them have German equivalents often used in English (I mean,
you did want to look up `grammatischer Wechsel', now, didn't you?), and
all these youngsters are busily coining terms like `metatypy',
`exaptation', `Bill Peters effect', and `accretion zone', and you've
probably forgotten the finer points of Shaxmatov's Law, and you can't
quite remember what Polnoglasie is, and the grammaticalization people
have invented a whole battery of terms that didn't exist when I was a
student, and...and now I find that we don't even agree about what
`cognate' means (see my next summary, after I've finished marking my
next pile of exam scripts).
 
Anyway, I will be pleased to receive further suggestions (of any kind)
until well into the summer.  I hope to submit the book by the end of
August, or by the end of September at the latest.
 
My thanks to Johanna Nichols, Bobby Bryant, Richard Coates, Roger
Wright, Marisa Lohr, Peter Michalove, Max Wheeler, Jacob Baltuch,
Anna Morpurgo Davies, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Tore Janson, Richard
Krause, Sam Martin, and Richard Hogg.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk