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Sesquipedalian #1

the SESQUIPEDALIAN 				       Volume VI, No. 1
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Ask a Stupid Question Day			     September 28, 1995


		       'FRISCO?'  YOU'RE UNDER ARREST

Adivce to out-of-state fugitives who want to hide here: Don't call it
Frisco.  
	Two escapees from a Utah prison did just that, each telling
two rookie UB-Berkeley cops, 'I'm from Frisco.' 
	Busted.
	After referring to The City by the one word sure to identify
them as tourists or rubes, the two fugitives are in Alameda County
Jail, awaiting extradition back to Utah.
	'It made our officers suspicious,' Sgt. David Eubanks of the
UC-Berkeley police said.  'No one from here ever says that.'
	But perhaps the biggest blunder Anthony Scott Bailey and Eric
Neil Fischbeck made was deciding when to escape in the first place,
when they were about to be released.
	The two convicted burglars fled from a minimum security prison
even though they each were scheduled for parole in four months.  Once
back in Utah, they will face up to 15 years more behind bars for
escaping.
	'Anybody who escapes with that little time left can't be very
smart,' said Jack Ford, a spokesman for the Utah Department of
Corrections.
	Here's what happened, according to police and prison
officials.  While on routine at about 5 am, officers James West and
Chris Bowers spotted two men asleep under a tree.  UC-Berkeley police
rarely arrest transients found sleeping on campus, usually citing them
or telling them to move on.
	But when asked to provide identification, both men told police
they had none.  Instead, they gave bogus names, and each said, 'I'm
from Frisco.'
	The cops got suspicious.  And the escapees' story just got
worse.  Asked which local schools they had attended, Fischbeck said he
didn't remember, and Bailey replied, 'I never went to any schools,'
according to the police report.
	'He said he never had a drivers license, a social security
number, and never went to school,' Eubanks said.  Bailey spelled out
his assumed surname as 'Martinez,' then a few minutes later as
'Martines.'
	The men were taken into custody and fingerprinted.  Their
descriptions and prints matched those of the two Utah escapees.
	'They did many things that set off our officers' suspicions,'
Eubanks said.  'Frisco was the worst.'

[Jim Herron Zamora, San Francisco Examiner staff writer]

		      -/-\-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-\-/-

-- JOHN FRY has been selected for a six-month guest research
fellowship at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) in Tsukuba Science
City, Japan.  ETL is an institute of the Agency of Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST) of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade
and Industry (MITI).  He will be there from October 1-March 31 working
on projects in computational linguistics and semantics (PCLS) and will
be back at Stanford in Spring quarter.

 	            -\-/-\ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \-/-\-

The colloquium series begins on October 13 with Manfred Krifka.
Watch this space for details, or check the schedule at

http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/~kessler/colloq/colloq.html

		    -/-\-/ SOCIABLE SYNTAX SUPPER /-\-/-

The Sociable Syntax Supper Group meets monthly at members' houses
for a potluck followed by a syntax talk.  The first meeting of
this year will be on Thursday, Oct 19, at 7:00 p.m. at Joan Bresnan's
house. The speaker will be Tracy King, who has some exciting new
results on cliticization in Slavic (arguing for prosodic inversion).

All are welcome.  Our first meeting will also be a planning meeting
for future talks.  If you would like to be added to the email list for
future SSSG announcements, please let me know.  (I apologise for
duplicate announcements to those of you who are on the old sssg list.
I will update the list after this mailing.)

Talk:  Tracy King, "Verbal and Second-Position Clitics in Slavic"
       (thking@csli.stanford.edu)

Place: Joan Bresnan's
       11 Franciscan Ridge
       Portola Valley, CA 94028
       ph: 415 851-1670

Directions: in /russell/user/bresnan/directions/directions.txt

		  -/-\-/ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-\-/-

-- AFRICAN STUDIES FOREIGN LANG. AND AREA STUDIES FELLOWSHIP:
Two-Quarter FLAS fellowships for the Winter and Spring quarters of the
95-96 academic year are available now from the Stanford Center for
African Studies.  Application Deadline: Nov. 1, 1995.  Because of an
unprecedented increase in our FLAS Fellowship funding from the U.S.
Department of Education, the Stanford Center for African Studies is
pleased to announce the opening of a special, two-quarter FLAS
competition for the Winter and Spring quarters of the 95-96 academic
year.
Requirements for the FLAS fellowship are:
1.  Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.
2.  Applicants must be enrolled in a Stanford graduate degree
    program.
3.  Applicants must be planning to engage in the study of an
    African language during the period of their award.  For
    applications, please contact:
The Center for African Studies
Littlefield Center, Rm, 14
Mail Code:  5013
Tel.  No.  (414) 723-0295
e-mail:  HF.ASN@forsythe.stanford.edu
The FLAS fellowships may be used for either foreign language
training or for dissertation research.  With specific approval from
the U.S. Department of Education, fellowships may be used in support
of overseas language study or for dissertation research abroad.
The two-quarter FLAS will include full tuition, plus a two-quarter
stipend of $2,667 per quarter.
Applications must be received by Nov. 1, 1995
(There will be absolutely NO extensions.)

-- The Institute for Research on Women and Gender invites applications
for the Institute Associates' Faculty Research Fellowship.  The
Institute Associates' Faculty Research Fellowship supports a Stanford
faculty member's research of how gender, race, and class impact the
lives of women and their families.  One award of $10,000 will be made
for the 1995-96 academic year.  Applicants should submit a complete
description of the proposed research, including a brief overview of
the literature, description of the methodology to be used, time-line
for completion, and detailed budget.  Where appropriate, a copy of the
approval from the Human Subjects Committee should be attached.  The
completed application may not exceed 10 pages and six copies should be
sent to Sherri Matteo, Ph.D., Deputy Director, IRWG, Serra House,
Stanford CA 94305-8640.  Applications must be received by October 15,
1995.

	               -\-/-\ CALL FOR PAPERS \-/-\-

-- CLIM-96: Student Conference in computational Linguistics In
Montreal (Colloque Etudiant de Linguistique Informatique de Montreal).
8-11 June 1996, Universite de Montreal, Universite du Quebec a
Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.   
 OBJECTIVES :  to provide graduate students in computational linguistics
 with an international forum where they can meet and exchange ideas, and
 present  their  research. The conference will consist  mainly  of short
 talks by students, as well as some invited talks.
 PRESENTATIONS : Authors  (and co-authors)  must be students.  The talks
 must  describe  original  work in any area  of theoretical or practical
 computational  linguistics.  The  sessions  will  consist  of 30-minute
 talks, that may be given in English or in French.  Proceedings  will be
 published.
 APPEAL : This  call  for  participation is intended to help us plan the
 conference by giving us an idea  of how many students are interested in
 participating. We would therefore kindly ask interested parties to send
 us  an e-mail  at the following address  by October 5th, stating  their
 intention to submit a paper or to attend, and clearly  indicating their
 affiliation (university name and location) :
        CLIM@iro.umontreal.ca
 A second call for papers will be issued later this Fall, containing all
 the details on the format for submissions. At that time, we will invite
 students to send us a one-page abstract for review.
 A French version of this Call for Participation has been issued separately.
 Une version francaise de cet appel a participation a ete envoyee separement.

-- COLING 96: International Conference on Computational Linguistics.
Dates: 5 (Mon) August - 9 (Fri) August, 1996, University of
Copenhagen, Denmark.  The International Committee on Computational
Linguistics invites the submission of papers for Coling 96, the 16th
International Conference on Computational Linguistics, in Copenhagen,
Denmark.  Papers are invited on substantial, original and unpublished
research on all aspects of computational linguistics, including, but
not limited to, the following: syntax, semantics, phonetics,
phonology, morphology, discourse, pragmatics, quantitative
linguistics, corpus linguistics, mathematical linguistics, cognitive
linguistics, parsing, generation, language understanding, discourse
processing, speech analysis/synthesis, computational lexicon, large
text corpora, computational terminology, text data base, information
retrieval, knowledge representation for NLP, automatic abstraction,
knowledge acquisition from corpora, machine translation, machine aids
for translation, dialogue, multi-media systems involving language,
man-machine interface, hardware/software for NLP.  Papers should
describe unique work: They should emphasize completed work rather than
intended work: A paper accepted for presentation at the Coling cannot
be presented or have been presented at any other meeting with publicly
available published proceedings. Papers that are being submitted to
other conferences must reflect this fact on the title page.  Authors
should submit preliminary versions of their papers, not to exceed 4000
words (exclusive of references). Papers outside the specified length
and formatting requirements are subject to rejection without review.
Since reviewing will be "blind", the title page of the paper should
omit author names and addresses.  Furthermore, self-references that
reveal the authors' identity.  To identify each paper, a separate
identification page should be supplied, containing the paper's title,
the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses, a short summary (10
lines), a word count, and a specification of the topic area.  Papers
should be submitted electronically or in hard copy to
	Program Chair: 
	Jun-ichi TSUJII
	Department of Information Science
	Faculty of Science
	University of Tokyo
	113 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku Tokyo
	Japan
	+ 81-3-3818-1073 (fax.)
	coling96@nttkb.ntt.jp 
Electronic submission should be either self-contained Latex source or
plain text. LaTex submissions must use the COLING style file and
should not refer to any external files or styles. The COLING style
file is retrievable by anonymous ftp from cst.ku.dk,
/pub/COLING96/colsub.sty. A model submission is provided in
/pub/COLING96/modelsub.tex. Alternatively, the information can be
obtained by sending an e-mail request to coling96@cst.ku.dk, with the
subject line containing the word "style" and "model", respectively.
Hard copy submissions should consist of five (5) copies of the paper
and one (1) copy of the identification page. For both kinds of
submissions, if at all possible, a plain text version of the
identification page should be sent separately by electronic mail.
Papers received after 15 December will be returned unopened.
Notification of acceptance will be mailed to the first author (or
designated author) soon after receipt. All inquiries regarding lost
papers must be made by 21 January.  

-- SALT-VI: Semantics and Linguistic Theory Sixth Annual Meeting
(April 26-28, 1996), Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ.  SALT-VI
invites submissions for 30-minute presentations (with 10 additional
minutes for discussion) on any topic in the semantic analysis of
natural language emphasizing the connection to linguistic theory.
Authors should submit 10 copies of abstracts, no more than 2 pages
(1000 words) long.  Authors' names, addresses, affiliations, phone
numbers and e-mail addresses, and paper title should accompany the
abstracts on a 3x5 card.  No fax or e-mail submissions will be
accepted.  Deadline for submission of abstracts is December 1, 1995.
Send abstracts to
	SALT-VI Committee
	Department of Linguistics 
	Rutgers University
	18 Seminary Place 
	New Brunswick NJ 08903

-- CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE, DISCOURSE & LANGUAGE II: (April 12-14, 1996,
SUNY Buffalo).  A major purpose of this meeting is to create an
opportunity for discussion and exchange of ideas between the
Cognitive, Semantic and Discourse Pragmatic communities.  The
Organizing Committee thus welcomes abstracts for papers on conceptual
structure, discourse, metaphor, lexical semantics, pragmatics,
theoretical foundations, grammaticalization, constructions,
psycholinguistics, computation, and acquisition.  Abstract submissions
should include seven (7) copies of a ONE-page abstract of the paper,
in 12-pt font or type, with a title.  OMIT name and affiliation.  A
3x5 card with the title of the paper and the name(s) of the author(s),
address and e-mail address should be included.  Specify one or two
primary topics from the list above.  If none of the topics applies,
please specify 'other subject area.'  Send abstracts by November 15 to
	CSDL-- Department of Linguistics
	684 Baldy Hall
	SUNY at Buffalo, 
	Buffalo NY 14260-1030

-- AABS: 15th Conference on Baltic Studies (June 27-29, 1996, Bentley
College, Waltham MA).  'Transformation and Continuities in the Baltic
States.'  Linguistics division: Abstracts invited on any topic
concerning a language or languages spoken in Lithuania, Latvia, or
Estonia.  Papers are to be presented in one of the two official
languages of the AABS, English or German.  Send abstracts of one page
or less to
	Krisjanis Karins
	Department of Linguistics
	University of Pennsylvania
	619 Williams Hall
	Philadelphia PA 19104
	email: kkarins@unagi.cis.upenn.edu
Email submissions are also welcome.  Deadline for receipt of
abstracts: October 20, 1995.

-- WORKSHOP ON FOCUS (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, December
8-10, 1995): The Department of Linguistics and the GLSA (Graduate
Linguistics Student Association) at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst invite submission of abstracts for the Workshop on Focus, an
interdisciplinary workshop on the role of focus in grammar.  It
intends to cover diverse areas of formal linguistics, such as
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and
psycholinguistics.  Each talk will be 30 minutes long, followed by a
10 minute discussion.  The proceedings will be published as a special
volume of UMOP (University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers).
Please send six copies of an anonymous abstract, maximum 2 pages long
including references, tables, diagrams and examples.  Fonts should be
no smaller than 12 points, and at least 1" margin on all sides.  The
abstract should arrive at the address below by OCTOBER 2, 1995.  No
email or fax submissions will be accepted.  Along with the abstract,
enclose a 3x5 card with title of paper, author's name, affiliation,
telephone number, and e-mail address.
	Workshop on Focus
	Organizing Committee 
	Department of Linguistics
	South College, 
	University of Massachusetts
	Amherst MA 01003
	fax: 413/545-2792
	email: focus@linguist.umass.edu

		      -/-\-/ TRUE LINGUISTICS /-\-/-

J'NE SAY WHAT? Department:

HARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS? - Can you drive a French motorcycle?
EX POST FUCTO - Lost in the mail.
IDIOS AMIGOS - We're wild and crazy guys!
VENI, VIPI, VICI - I came; I'm a very important person; I conquered.
J'Y SUIS, J'Y PESTES - I can stay for the weekend.
COGITO EGGO SUM - I think; therefore, I waffle.
RIGOR MORRIS - The cat is dead.
RESPONDEZ S'IL VOUS PLAID - Honk if you're Scottish.
QUE SERA SERF - Life is feudal.
LE ROI EST MORT. JIVE LE ROI - The King is dead.  No kidding.
POSH MORTEM - Death styles of the rich and famous.
PRO BOZO PUBLICO - Support your local clown.
PARDONNEZ-MOT - That wasn't funny. Sorry.
FELIX NAVIDAD - Our cat has a boat.
HASTE CUISINE - Fast French food.
VENI, VIDI, VICE - I came, I saw, I partied.
QUIP PRO QUO - A fast retort.
ALOHA OY - Love; greetings; farewell; from such a pain you should
		never know.
MAZEL TON - Lots of luck.
APRES MOE LE DELUGE - Larry and Curly get wet.
PORTE-KOCHERE - Sacramental wine.
ICH LIEBE RICH - I'm really crazy about having dough.
FUI GENERIS - What's mine is mine.
VISA LA FRANCE - Don't leave chateau without it.
CA VA SANS DIRT - And that's not gossip.
MERCI RIEN - Thanks for nothin'.
AMICUS PURIAE - Platonic friend.
L'ETAT, C'EST MOO - I'm bossy around here.
L'ETAT, C'EST MOE - All the world's a stooge.

		     -\-/-\ 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.)

-- Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Chiao
Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.  The Department plans to fill
a number of teaching positions in the following fields:
1. Anglo-American literature, literature and film, literature and
philosophy, multiculturalism.
2. Computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, discourse and
grammar (or alternative syntax), social linguistics.
Appointees will be required to conduct individual and collaborative
research, teach specialized as well as language proficiency courses
(including translation), participate in curriculum development, and
perform some administrative duties.
Candidates must have Ph.D. degrees by the time of appointment, which
is scheduled for August, 1996. Appointments will be made at the ranks
of Assistant Professorship (pending government approval), Associate
Professorship, or Professorship.  Salaries will be based on the
government pay scale, and commensurate with qualifications and
experience.
Letters of application, brief statements of current research, C.V.
(including names, addresses, telephone or fax number of 3 referees)
should be sent (by Feb. 1st., 1996) to
	Professor Shu-chen Chiang
	Chair, Dept. of Foreign Lang. & Lit.
	1001 Ta Hsueh Road, Hsinchu
	Taiwan 30050, R.O.C.
For inquiry, please contact the Department:
Telephone:886-35-712121 ext. 58100
Fax:886-35-726037
Email:cptsai@cc.nctu.edu.tw

-- SILICON GRAPHICS: Multi-Lingual Web Editor wanted.  This individual
will be working with the Silicon Graphics Electronic Marketing team to
edit/develop content for the home pages of our French subsidiary on
Silicon Surf (SGI's external customer-oriented web site).  Activities
include writing and editing documents in French, entering hard-copy
data and converting electronic word-processing files to HTML format,
importing image files, and working with international marketing reps
to ensure that content is accurate and kept up to date.  We are
looking for candidates with the following skills: multi-lingual
editing (French) and excellent written communications skills;
candidates must be computer savvy; HTML formatting skills desired.
This is a paid intership--up to 15 hours/week.  PLEASE SUBMIT RESUMES
OR BACKGROUND INFORMATION TO
	Cheryl Quist
	Channel Manager
	Electronic Sales - MS 24-182
	Silicon Graphics
	2011 N. Shoreline
	Mountain View, CA 94043
	email:  quist@corp.sgi.com
	fax#:	415 933-0804
	voice#: 415 390-5574

-- MACALASTER COLLEGE: Macalaster College has two vacancies opening in
the Fall of 1996.  The first is tenure-track, while the second is a
one-year sabbatical replacement.  We are looking in both cases for
scholars with a flair for teaching ALL subjects in the core curriculum
(from phonetics through sociolinguistics to field methods), plus an
interest in 'hyphenated' or interdisciplinary linguistics which are of
interest to a wider and less specialized audience.  Examples of
courses that we have offered and hope to continue with include
Advertising and Propaganda; Freedom, Speech, and Action; Natural and
Artificial Languages; Language and Alienation; Language and Gender;
Metaphor; and Language and Music.  Previous experience in, or a
commitment to, developing such courses is a definite asset.
	Macalester College is typically and accurately described as a
small but lively liberal arts college, with a frisky and irreverent
student body: a flair for teaching is a MUST.  Minorities are
especially encouraged to apply.
	Applicants should send resumes, CV, and letters of reference,
as well as representative samples of their best work, to
	John Haiman
	Linguistics Program
	Macalester College
	St Paul MN 55105
as soon as possible.

(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 /-\-/-

After a student failed to attend class for several weeks, she was
contacted by her academic advisor.  She explained why she had no time
for classes:
	'I sleep 8 hours a day.  That makes 8x365 or 2,920 hours.
There are 24 hours per day so that's the same as 2,920/24 or about 122
days. 
	'Saturday and Sunday are not school days, so that amounts to
104 days per year.
	'We have 60 days of summer vacation.
	'I need three hours a day for meals, so that's 3x365 or 1,095
hours per year, which is about 45 days per year.
	'And I need at least 2 hours per day for recreation, so that
comes to 2x365 or 730 hours, or 730/24, which is about 30 days per
year.'
	Sleep 		122
	Weekends	104
	Summer		 60
	Meals		 45
	Recreation	 30
        -------------------
			361

The total came to 361 days.
	'See, that leaves me only 4 days for other things, and that
doesn't even take into account school holidays!'
	The advisor spotted the fallacy in this reasoning right
away... can you?  First correct answer to kyle@csli wins this week's
insta-prize.


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                    -\-/-\ 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
infringe privately owned rights.  No specific reference constitutes or
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University or the Linguistics Department, or their employees.  Any
similarity to actual linguists, living or dead, is purely
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.

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