6.794, Qs: Lowth's Grammar, Negations, Spanish-Eng dictionary

Fri Jun 9 06:04:29 UTC 1995

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-794. Fri 09 Jun 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 154

Subject: 6.794, Qs: Lowth's Grammar, Negations, Spanish-Eng dictionary

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu>

Asst. Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
               Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
               Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
               Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>

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[We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually
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then  strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list.   This policy was
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would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.]

-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1)
Date: 04 Jun 95 20:12:14 EDT
From: "Indigenous Lang. Proj." (102134.2274 at compuserve.com)
Subject: Q: Lowth's Grammar

2)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 01:38:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: jasam at fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Elke Hentschel)
Subject: Query: negated questions

3)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 01:42:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: jasam at fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Elke Hentschel)
Subject: Query: negated exclamations

4)
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:25:16 -0400
From: ewb2 at cornell.edu (E. Wayles Browne)
Subject: Spanish-English dictionary/synthesizer

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 04 Jun 95 20:12:14 EDT
From: "Indigenous Lang. Proj." (102134.2274 at compuserve.com)
Subject: Q: Lowth's Grammar

Does anyone know where I could obtain a copy of Bishop Robert
Lowth's _A Short Introduction to English Grammar_ (1762)?
(This is the guy that made up all those rules that put fear
into English students from Kindergarten through Ph.D.)

I would prefer an electronic version, but a hard copy version
would be fine, too.

I'll post a summary to the list.

Thank you,
Chuck Coker
102134.2274 at CompuServe.Com  (= New Temporary Address
CJCoker at CSUPomona.Edu       (= Still good, but I'm not checking
                               it regularly during the summer

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2)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 01:38:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: jasam at fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Elke Hentschel)
Subject: Query: negated questions

Dear colleagues,

I am interested in negated questions of the typ: "Look, over there -
isn't that John?", where the speaker is really almost certain that it IS
John, and makes use of the negated question in order to convey this.

So far, I have been able to collect data from 44 languages; I have found
only two (Apache and Navajo, both belonging to the Athapaskean group)
where a similar construction cannot be used in the sam sense.

I would be very grateful to everybody who could provide me with further
data - about other languages that allow that type of construction as well
as about languages that do not allow it.
The languages collected so far are:

Indo-European languages:
Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czesh, Creole, Danish, Dutch, English,
Farsi, French, Greek, Islandish, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese,
Rumanian, Russian, Swedish, Serbo-Croat, Singhalese, Slovenian, Spanish,
Ukrainian

non-Indo-European languages:
Apache, Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, Georgian, Hungarian, Indonesian,
Japanese, Korean, Mina (Togo), Navajo, Quechua, Tagalog, Tatar, Turkish,
Uzbek, Yoruba (Nigeria), Gulmanuma (Burkina Faso), Hebrew, Liele
(Gurunsi), Meekakan (Mandingo; Senegal), Moore (Burkina Faso).

Thank you very much for your help, and of course I'll publish a summary!

Elke Hentschel
jasam at zedat.fu-Berlin.de

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3)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 01:42:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: jasam at fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Elke Hentschel)
Subject: Query: negated exclamations

Dear colleagues,

in some languages, one can use negated exclamations like for instance:
Bengali: Kee misti swad naa! (literally: 'How sweet is not the taste')
German: Was es nicht alles gibt! (literally: 'What there is not all!')
Serbo-Croatian: Sta nisam sve doziveo! (literally: 'What didn't I all
live through')
when the speaker is not wondering about the lack of taste, or astonished
at the absence of adventures, but quite on the contrary.

So far, I have been able to find the same kind of construction in the
following languages:

Bengali, Bulgarian, Danish, Farsi, French, Georgian, Hungarian, Islandic,
Italian, Polish, Quetchua, Russian, Serbo-Croation, Singhalese,
Slovenian, Tartar, Ukrainian.

Does anyone know other langues which allow the same kind of negated
utterances with positive meanings?

Thank you very much for your help!

Elke Hentschel
jasam at zedat.fu-berlin.de

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4)
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:25:16 -0400
From: ewb2 at cornell.edu (E. Wayles Browne)
Subject: Spanish-English dictionary/synthesizer

Wanted: Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionary with
Spanish-speaking auditory output component. Can be on floppy disks or
CD-Rom.  Preferably for use with DOS. Anyone with information, please write
directly to me:
ewb2 at cornell.edu . =A1Muchas gracias!

Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Dept. of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Morrill Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu (1989 to 1993 was: jn5j at cornella.bitnet //
jn5j at cornella.cit.cornell.edu)

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