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Sesquipedalian #21
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To: ling-local
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Subject: Sesquipedalian #21
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From: Kyle Wohlmut <kyle@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
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Date: Thu, 23 Mar 95 14:31:39 PST
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Cc: gopher-quip
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume V, No. 21
/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\
Rally for Decency Day March 23, 1995
COMMITTEE REPORT: WHY THE CHICKEN CROSSED THE ROAD
Plato: For the greater good.
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
Machiavelli: So that its subjects would view it with admiration, as a
chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the
road, but also with fear, for who among them has the strength
to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a
manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.
Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its
pancreas.
Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered
within the act of a chicken crossing the road, and each
interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can
never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!
Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll
find out.
Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment
would let it take.
Douglas Adams: Forty-two.
Nietzche: Because if You gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes
also across You.
B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its
sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a
fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while
believing these actions to be of its own free will.
Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt
necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this
historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought
such occurences into being.
Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself,
the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of 'crossing' was encoded into
the objects 'chicken' and 'road,' and circumstances came into
being which caused the actualization of this potential
occurence.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road, or the road
crossed the chicken, depends on your frame of reference.
Aristotle: To actualize its potential.
Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
Napoleon I: To conquer Russia.
Darwin: It was the next step after coming down from the trees.
Sigmund Freud: Sometimes a chicken is just a chicken.
Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.
Epicurus: For fun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.
Johann Friedrich von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.
Ernest Hemingway: To die... in the rain...
Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken
was on, but it was moving very fast.
David Hume: Out of custom and habit.
James Joyce: And a very good chicken it was.
Jack Nicholson: 'Coz it [expletive] wanted to. That's the [expletive]
reason.
Salvador Dali: A tiger leaping from a pomegranate full of eels, and a
nude woman.
Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?
John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide
transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed
himself of the opportunity.
The Sphinx of Giza: You tell me.
Mr. T: If you saw me comin' you'd cross the road too!
Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Molly Yard: It was a hen!
Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.
Noam Chomsky: The mind of the chicken is structured in such a way
that it assigns crossing tasks governing roads, and this is
what sets the chicken apart from other fowl.
^\^\^\ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /^/^/^
-- Ruth Wodak (University of Vienna) is coming to Stanford next week.
Wednesday, March 29, there will be a reception in the MHJ conference
room (146), and we would especially like to invite acquainted faculty,
staff, and her former students (Ruth Wodak was a visiting professor in
the linguistics department in 1992.)
-- Rudi Gaudio has been awarded a FLAS (Foreign Language Area Studies)
Dissertation Fellowship for 1995-1996.
^/^/^/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \^\^\^
...no colloquium this week... return to your homes... no colloquium
this week... nothing for you to see here...
^\^\^\ CLRF-XXVII /^/^/^
27th ANNUAL CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM
Stanford University April 7-8-9, 1995
Jordan Hall, Lower Level
FRIDAY, 7 APRIL
7.00-7.30 pm Registration
7.30 pm Introductory Remarks: Eve V. Clark
7.40 pm Panel: "Current approaches to phonological development"
Organizer: Katherine Demuth (Brown U)
Keren Rice (U Toronto) Phonological variability in language
acquisition: a representational account
Clara C. Levelt (Rutgers U) Segmental structure of early words:
Articulatory frames or phonological output constraints?
Jane Fee (Dalhousie U) Two strategies in the acquisition of
syllable and word structure
Katherine Demuth (Brown U) The development of prosodic words
9.45 pm Reception, Rm 146 Margaret Jacks Hall
SATURDAY, 8 APRIL
8.30 am - Registration
9.00-10.30 am Paper Session - Chair: Rachel Nordlinger
9.00 am Shanley E. M. Allen (MPI f. Psycholinguistik) Acquisition of
causatives in Inuktitut
9.30 am Clifton Pye, Diane Loeb, & Yin-Yin Pao (University of Kansas)
Learning to "cut" and "break"
10.00 am Charlotte Koster & Sjoukje van der Wal (U of Groningen) A
negative polarity verb: acquiring its lexical licensers
10.30-11.00 am Break
11.00-12.30 pm Paper Session - Chair:
11.00 am Elena V. M. Lieven (U Manchester) Early grammatical
development and positional learning
11.30 am Evelien Krikhaar & Frank Wijnen (U Groningen) Semantic and
syntactic cues to categorisation in Dutch child language
12.00 pm Katharina Boser (Cornell U) Verb initial utterances in early
child German: Development of grammar or pragmatics?
12.30-2.00 pm Lunch
1.30-3.00 pm Poster Session
Jeffrey G. Bettger, Bonita Ewan, Colleen Lee Smith, & Edward S.
Klima (Salk Institute) Acquisition of spatial devices in
American Sign Language as evidence by sentence repetition
Ursula Brinkmann (Free U, Amsterdam) Discovering non-alternating
verbs: Does lack of affectedness provide enough information?
Stella Ceytlin & Marina Elisseva (Herzen State U, St Petersburg)
Children's word-building innovations
Gavin N. Huntley-Fenner & Susan Carey (MIT) The effect of the
whole-object bias on preschoolers' understanding of collective nouns
Mutsumi Imai (Keio U) Asymmetry in the taxonomic assumption:
Word learning vs inductive projection
Diane Ohala (U Arizona) Sonority driven cluster reduction
Matthew Rispoli (Northern Arizona U) Factors contributing to the
frequency of pronoun case overextension
2.30-3.30 pm Paper Session - Chair:
2.30 pm Sharon Armon-Lotem (Tel Aviv U) Locating parameters: Evidence
from early word order
3.00 pm Xiangdong Jia, Patricia J. Brooks, & Martin D. S. Braine (New
York U) A study of Chinese children's comprehension of
universal quantifiers
3.30-4.00 pm Break
4.00-6.00 pm Workshop: "Evaluative Elements in Children's Narratives"
Organizers: Ruth Berman (Tel Aviv U)
& Judith Reilly (San Diego State U)
SUNDAY, 9 APRIL
8.30 am - Registration
9.00-10.30 am Paper Session - Chair:
9.00 am Hilke Elsen (U. Muenchen) Linguistic teamwork - the interaction
of linguistic modules in first language acquisition
9.30 am Catalina M. Johnson (St Louis) Verb errors in the early
acquisition of Mexican and Castilian Spanish
10.00 am Melissa Bowerman (MPI f. Psycholinguistik), Lourdes de Leon
(Reed Coll.), & Soonja Choi (San Diego State U) Verbs,
particles, and spatial semantics: Learning to talk about
spatial actions in typologically different languages
10.30-11.00 am Break
11.00-12.30 pm Paper Session - Chair: Scott Schwenter
11.00 am Marie E. Helt & Susan H. Foster-Cohen (Northern Arizona U) Like,
how do children use _like_? A relevance theoretic approach
11.30 am Elaine S. Andersen, Beatrice DuPuy, & Maquela Brizuela (U
Southern California) The acquisition of discourse markers as
sociolinguistic variables: A cross-linguistic comparison
All the meeting sessions will be held in the Lower Level Auditorium,
Jordan Hall (Psychology Department), Stanford University. This building
is located at the head of the Oval, to the right along the front of
the Quad.
^/^/^/ CALL FOR PAPERS \^\^\^
-- ACH-ALLC 95: ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
ASSOCIATION FOR LITERARY AND LINGUISTIC COMPUTING 1995 JOINT
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (JULY 11-15, 1995, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT SANTA BARBARA). Those of you who have submitted abstracts for this
year's ACH/ALLC Joint International Conference will be aware that the
announced date for notifying applicants was March 15, 1995. Due to
unforeseen circumstances, however, we are obliged to move the this
date ahead to APRIL 20, 1995. The Association for Computers and the
Humanities, as primary organizer of this year's conference, apologizes
for the delay. We understand that some potential contributors to the
conference program may need to be notified earlier than April 20, in
order to secure travel funds, etc. If for such a reason you must know
as soon as possible, we ask that you contact hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
so that we may expedite the processing of your abstract. Please do not
contact us unless your need is serious. We received a strong response
to this year's call for papers, and we have every expectation that the
conference program will be excellent. I look forward to seeing you in
Santa Barbara this summer, and thank you for your patience and
understanding.
Nancy Ide, President
Association for Computers and the Humanities
-- CSSP: The Colloque de syntaxe et semantique de Paris (October
12-14, 1995). University of Paris VII and CNRS organize a syntax and
semantics conference. One of the aims of the conference is to promote
discusson between competing theories and formalisms. The meeting will
consist of a general session and a thematic one. Papers are invited
for both sessions. Papers will be accepted in English and French.
The thematic session will be dedicated to THETA ROLES. Invited
speakers include Joan Bresnan. Abstracts are invited for 30 minute
talks. Send 8 hard copies of an anonymous 2 page abstract and a
camera-ready original with the author's name, affiliation, address and
e-mail to
Colloque de syntaxe et semantique de Paris
Universite Paris 7, Linguistique
UFRL, Case 7003
Tour Centrale, 9o etage,
2 Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris-Cedex 05, FRANCE
Please do not send abstracts via fax or e-mail. Deadline for
submission is 30 May, 1995. Notification by July 10, 1995. For
further information contact Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, Universite Paris 7,
Linguistique.
cssp95@linguist.jussieu.fr
http://www.linguist.jussieu.fr/cssp95.html
^\^\^\ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /^/^/^
-- UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Applications are invited from EK/EU students
to pursue doctoral research for up to three years. Fees will be paid
by the University, and students will receive a bursary from the
department at research council rates. Applications are also invited
from students anywhere in the world for another 3 year doctoral
research position. UK/EU rate fees will be paid by the university,
and students will receive a bursary from the department at research
council rates. Non-UK/EU students will be liable for the remainder of
the fees (current fee difference is #3200). Students applying for
either of the above studentships should have a good first degree, and
be willing to investigate a topic compatible with the department's
research priorities. Applications are particularly welcome from those
wishing to pursue research in theoretical aspects of language
acquisition (first or second), syntax, psycholinguistics,
sociolinguistics or phonology; but applicants with other interests
should not be discouraged from applying. Closing date: 31 March 1995.
The department has also been awarded three ESRC studentship quota
awards to fund one MA student on each of the following advanced
training courses in 1995-96: (1) MA in applied linguistics, (2) MA in
sociolinguistics and language variation, and (3) MA in linguistics.
Awards cover the course fees, and provide a subsistence allowance at
current ESRC rates. Students wishing to apply for an award should
request an application form from the Graduate Secretary (Admissions)
indicating that they wish to be considered for an ESRC quota award.
Closing date for ESRC awards: 14 April 1995.
Further details and application forms can be obtained from
Graduate Secretary (Admissions)
Department of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex,
Wivenhoe Park,
Colchester CO4 2SQ, UK.
phone: +44 1206 872083
fax: +44 1206 872085
email: laladms@uk.ac.essex
^\^\^\ TRUE LINGUISTICS /^/^/^
-- In Spring quarter, Geoff Nunberg will be offering Linguistics
138/238, 'Lexicon and the Dictionary.' This course will look at the
enterprise of lexicography in both its traditional and modern guises,
with particular attention to its relevance to linguistic studies of
the lexicon. The overall question is, what kinds of apparatus--
theoretical and material-- do we need to create large-scale
representations that do justice to the full range of relevant lexical
properties? The first half of the course looks at the history and
practice of traditional lexicography, and in particular at problems of
polysemy, idioms and collocations, and definition. The second half
considers some alternatives to traditional dictionaries, both
theoretical and computational, and in particular at systems aimed at
capturing lexical properties that traditional dictionaries neglect--
for example, subcategorization frames and paradigmatic relations. The
course will also address the use of tools for automating the
compilation process with various tools for corpus analysis. There
will be several demonstrations and guest lectures.
^/^/^/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS \^\^\^
(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-- UMASS/AMHERST: The Departments of Linguistics and Psychology at the
University of Massachusetts/Amherst anticipate the availability of one
postdoctoral traineeship, contingent upon funding. The NIH- sponsored
traineeship provides advanced training in linguistic and psychological
perspectives on psycholinguistics. Holders of the PhD degree in
linguistics, psychology, or allied disciplines may apply. NIH
requires that all trainees be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Current stipend for individuals with no post- doctoral experience is
$19,608. Initial appointment will be for one year with the
possibility of a one-year renewal. Interview not required. Send
vita, statement of interests, reprints, and three letters of
recommendation to
Dr. Thomas Maxfield
Dept. of Psychology
Univ. of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003
The traineeship will become available after July, 1995. Review of
applications will begin March 14. The University of Massachusetts is
an equal opportunity employer.
-- DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer positions have
recently been advertised in the School of Computer Applications at
Dublin City University in the following areas: Computational
Linguistics, Computer Science, Statistics. Application forms and
other information on the above programmes are available from
The Personnel Office,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9, Ireland.
Phone: +353-1-7045149
Fax: +353-1-7045500
Closing date: 31-3-95. Further information on the School of Computer
Applications may be gathered by accessing our WWW page at the
following address: http://www.compapp.dcu.ie
-- RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: HUMANITIES COMPUTING SPECIALIST. Center for
Electronic Texts in the Humanities. Develops and maintains
information services for Center, including World Wide Web Server,
newsletter, and planned series of guides to electronic text resources
and applications. Provides research support for humanities computing
and electronic texts on a national basis. Gives presentations and
seminars on electronic texts in the humanities. Coordinates electronic
text center at Rutgers University including supervision of student
assistants. Assists participants at CETH Summer Seminar. Strong
background in the humanities with PhD preferred. Experience with
computer applications in humanities research required, with at least
two years preferred. Reading knowledge of some foreign languages
preferred. Knowledge of TEI SGML and experience with Internet, PCs
(DOS and Windows), Macintosh and Unix preferred. Good oral and
written communication skills required. Faculty status, non-tenure
track, calendar year appointment, TIAA/CREF pension, life/health
insurance, prescription drug, dental and eyeglass plans, tuition
remission, one month vacation. Resumes received no later than April
10, 1995 will receive first consideration. Submit resume, cover
letter, and names of three referees to
Sandra Troy (APP.112)
Libraries Personnel Officer
Rutgers University Libraries
169 College Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08903
FAX #908-932-7637
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey upholds a commitment to
affirmative action and equal opportunity.
-- CMU: Pittsburgh, PA. Center for Machine Translation, CATALYST
project seeks Machine Translation Language Developers.
ftp.let.ruu.nl:/pub/colibri/nlp/general/catalyst.11-1995
mail mail-server@let.ruu.nl: " send colibri/nlp/general/catalyst.11-1995 "
-- University of the Saarland: Department of Computational Linguistics
advertises Research positions for computational linguists.
ftp.let.ruu.nl:/pub/colibri/nlp/general/job_saarbruecken.11-1995
mail mail-server@let.ruu.nl: " send colibri/nlp/general/job_saarbruecken.11-1995 "
-- VERBMOBIL Project (Saarbruecken, Germany). Research Positions for
Computational Linguists/Computer Scientists.
ftp.let.ruu.nl:/pub/colibri/logic/general/verbmobil.11-1995
mail mail-server@let.ruu.nl: " send colibri/logic/general/verbmobil.11-1995 "
-- USC: The Information Sciences Institute of the University of
Southern California invites applications for several full-time
positions at the Master's and Ph.D. levels, in areas such as
Knowledge-Based Systems, Knowledge Acquisition, Intelligent
Information Integration, Intelligent Agents, Human-Computer
Interfaces, Electronic Commerce, Intelligent Computer Aided design,
Intelligent CAI, Virtual Environments for Training, Machine
Translation. Ideal candidates will have demonstrated the ability to
perform innovative research and/or construct large-scale, leading-edge
systems. Positions are available for recent graduates as well as
researchers with considerable experience. Candidates must be able to
work well in a cooperative research environment and express their
ideas clearly in presentations and in writing. Qualified applicants
should reference "BB-495" and send resumes and references via e-mail
to resumes@isi.edu, or via US Mail to
Lisa Moses * USC/Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way * Marina del Rey * CA * 90292
USC IS AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
-- MIT: The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology invites applications for a PostDoctoral
Associate, Position #95-0148C. A Postdoctoral Associate in
computational linguistics is needed to work with a team developing a
natural language understanding system targeted at unrestricted
domains. The research will be part of a fundamental research project
seeking to embed intelligence into the information infrastructure;
several prototypes have been developed that have been tested and used
by the U.S. White House. The individual will develop a bidirectional
parser-generator for English as a component of a larger system. The
parser-generator will be closely coupled to a semantic representation
built on research in lexicalist and constructivist semantics and
directed towards bottom-up acquisition of knowledge from text. The
system will be applied to unrestricted English and must fail
gracefully when its coverage is exceeded. Qualifications: PhD in
computational linguistics or related field. Individual must
demonstrate an exceptional ability to design and implement complex
systems in Common Lisp; Lisp Machine experience is a plus. Excellent
communications and computational skills are important because this
individual will be working with a team and building on a substantial
software base. NOTE: At present we anticipate that funding for this
position will continue through 7/31/96, with potential follow-on
funding. Qualified applicants, please respond with position # to
Mr. James McCarthy
MIT Personnel Office
Building E19-238
400 Main Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
MIT is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.
This is a non-smoking environment.
-- The Proteus Project at New York University invites inquiries
regarding a full-time research position in computational linguistics
for the 1995-96 year (starting September 1995 or before). The Project
is involved in combining traditional, linguistically-based analysis
methods with statistically-based corpus methods to improve on the
state of the art in several areas of natural language processing,
including document retrieval (IR), information extraction, machine
translation, and language modeling for speech understanding. We
currently have 5 full-time research staff pursuing research in all
these areas, with funding from ARPA, NSF, and the Linguistic Data
Consortium. Applicants should have good programming skills (Lisp and
C preferred), a knowledge of statistical training methods, and
experience in applying computational linguistics techniques.
Applicants should have a proven research record as demonstrated
through publications. An M.S. is required; a Ph.D. is preferred.
Please send resume (including list of publications) to
grishman@cs.nyu.edu or by mail to
Prof. Ralph Grishman
Computer Science Department
New York University
715 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
-- SONOMA STATE: The linguistics program anticipates a temporary
opening in applied linguistics with special emphasis on second
language acquisition/teaching. CAND (PHIL.) in Applied Linguistics,
Linguistics or TESOL, experience as an instructor of courses in
language teacher education, and classroom experience in teaching ESL
in a range of instructional contexts required. Preferred: ability to
teach discourse analysis and/or sociolinguistic approaches to language
use in the classroom; current knowledge of issues in second language
acquisition; familiarity with the sociocultural and political contexts
of second language learning/teaching at the levels of elementary,
secondary, and adult education. Also desireable: interests in
language-literacy relations, bilingualism, and in the development of
materials and techniques which realize innovative approaches to
language teaching. For further information, contact Dr Shirley
Silver, coordinator: (707/664-2307), referencing Position #A129-95/97.
The Department of Anthropology anticipates a temporary
teaching position in the area of Linguistic Anthropology, including
courses in language change and Language and Communication. Minimum
qualifications: Ph.D. in Anthropology with emphasis in linguistic
anthropology or a Ph.D. in Linguistics with emphases in descriptive
linguistics and sociolinguistics; anthropological/linguistic field
experience. Combination of strengths preferred: Pacific Rim area
specialty; ethnography of communication and/or discourse analysis
orientation; and research interest in language in education issues.
For further information contact Dr Sue T. Parker, Chair:
(707/664-2312), referencing Position #A123-95/97.
Deadline for postmark of applications for Fall 1995 is April
14, 1995. Applications postmarked by July 10, 1995 will be accepted
for any position that remains unfilled.
(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
^/^/^/ INSTA-PRIZE \^\^\^
HOW MANY MORE SIGNS: How many ways can you add plus and minus signs to
the left side of the following equasion to make it correct?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 100
Solution to NAME THAT TUNE: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.' US
foreign policy from 1901-1909.
\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/
^\^\^\ CONSERVE DISK SPACE /^/^/^
So you may delete your copy after you've read it (or better yet,
before you've read it), the Sesquipedalian Weekly Herald is stored
online at Stanford (in directory /user/linguistics/Sesquip/93-94), and
at Berkeley (in the directory /usr/pub.) The most current issue of
the Herald can be found by typing 'help quip'.
Neither Stanford University nor the Linguistics Department, nor any of
their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever, implied, or assumes
any legal liability or responsibility regarding any information,
disclosed, in this publication, or represents that its use would not
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coincidental. The views and opinions expressed herein do not
necessarily reflect those of Stanford University or the Linguistics
Department, or their employees, and shall not be used for advertising
or product endorsement purposes.
No user-serviceable parts inside
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