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Sesquipedalian #27
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VI, No. 27
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Captain Kidd hanged (1701) May 23, 1996
IRISH LEAST ACCOMPLISHED LINGUISTS, STUDY SAYS
BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuter) - The Irish are the least
linguistically gifted national group in the 15-state European
Union, according to a directory on the EU.
The latest edition of ``The European Companion,'' said fewer
than a quarter of Irish politicians and diplomats attached to
the EU can make themselves understood by their colleagues in a
second language.
The directory, which bases its findings on an analysis of
over 1,700 EU officials, said Luxembourgers were the most
polyglot Europeans, with over 84 percent able to be understood
in two or more languages, apart from their own.
The Dutch (73 percent) and Belgians (69 percent) were second
and third in the list, while France (27 percent) and Britain (28
percent), only just beat the Irish.
Vincent Herlihy, spokesman for the Irish mission to the EU,
acknowledged his compatriots might not be Europe's best
linguists, but disputed they were worse than the British.
``I bet they haven't considered Gaelic,'' he said.
[AP]
-\-/-\ LOOK WHO'S TALKING \-/-\-
-- Jim Blevins gave a talk in Berkeley this Tuesday called
"Constituent Coordination,' hosted by the Linguistics Department at UC
Berkeley.
-\-/-\ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \-/-\-
Friday, May 24, 3:30 pm.
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Rm 146
Miriam Butt (Stuttgart) and Tracy King (Stanford)
Distribution of Objects in Urdu
In an examination of the interaction between object positions,
(morphological) case marking, and discourse functions in both Urdu and
Turkish we determined in previous work (Butt and King 1995) that the
interaction between immediately preverbal focus and the distribution
of objects must distinguish between two differing types of objects. To
this end, we adopted a version of the structural and semantic
distinction between Strong and Weak objects first proposed by de Hoop
(1992).
The data to be accounted for are essentially as follows. Urdu
allows direct objects to surface with two kinds of morphological case:
nominative (unmarked) and accusative ("-ko"). This difference in
morphological marking correlates with a difference in interpretation:
accusative objects must be interpreted as specific, nominative objects
need not be. This is reminiscent of a similar pattern in Turkish (Enc
1991). Furthermore, nominative objects can only be interpreted as
nonspecific in the immediately preverbal position. When scrambled,
they must be interpreted as specific. This pattern was first noted by
T. Mohanan (1993) for Hindi and is again reminiscent of Turkish where
"bare" NPs cannot usually appear in any position other than the
immediately preverbal one (Kornfilt 1995). In addition, focus is also
situated in the immediately preverbal position in both Urdu and
Turkish, thus leading to a seeming conflict of interest with regard to
this position.
In this talk, we present the interaction between topic,
background, immediately preverbal focus, and objects for Urdu, and
then concentrate on examining the distribution of the two differing
types of objects in Urdu from a linking perspective. In particular, we
propose to inform the linking theory of LFG through a different
semantic perspective, thus allowing for a linking rather than a
structural account of the distinction between Strong and Weak objects.
--------------
Reception follows.
For directions and a complete list of colloquia, see
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/~kessler/colloq/
-\-/-\ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP \-/-\-
REGULAR AND EXCEPTIONAL STRESS IN GERMAN
Caroline Fery
University of Tuebingen
Thursday, May 23, 1996, 7:30 p.m.
Margaret Jacks Hall, Seminar Room 146
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Optimality Theory has shed a new light on the problem of the best
treatment of exceptional stress, as exemplified by the work of Sharon
Inkelas, Mike Hammond and John McCarthy. In traditional metrical
phonology, exceptional stress is really exceptional in the sense that
it is not accounted for by the stress assignment rules of the
language. Hayes (1995) makes a distinction between predictable or
fixed stress patterns as opposed to unpredictable, or free or
lexically listed stress. But he says that this distinction is a blurry
one, because languages can have additional conditions restricting
stress position. These additional conditions are particularly
interesting, because they can be stated as violable constraints in the
OT framework. The guiding idea of my talk will be that one stress
pattern (the moraic trochee) is unmarked in German; other patterns are
more or less deviant from this regular one (antepenultimate stress and
final stress on a light syllable).
-\-/-\ LLC-V \-/-\-
-- The 5th Annual CSLI conference on Logic, Language, and Computation
takes place May 31-June 2 at CSLI. For schedule and abstracts, see
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/kyle/llc5.html
-\-/-\ CALL FOR PAPERS \-/-\-
-- THE FIRST SEOUL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PHONETIC SCIENCES
(Seoul National University (SNU), October 24-26, 1996). Deadline for
the Submission of Abstracts : June 30, 1996. THE FIRST SEOUL
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PHONETIC SCIENCES will be held in Seoul,
Korea to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Phonetic
Society of Korea. The Seoul Conference aims to provide a forum for
presenting research on all aspects of phonetics and its related
fields. There will be two types of sessions :
PLENARY SESSIONS : Five leading scholars will provide critical discussion
on the current status and future prospects for
phonetics, phonology, speech technology, speech
pathology and language teaching.
REGULAR SESSIONS : Papers will report on individual research in
phonetics, phonology, speech technology, speech
pathology, and language teaching. Each speaker will
be allotted 15 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes
for discussion.
The official languages of the conference are English and Korean.
Abstracts should be sent to the address below by June 30, 1996. The
abstract should include :
1. Four(4) copies of a one-page abstract(no more than 500 words)
with a title; Omit your name and affiliation from the abstract. A second
page may be used for citing references.
2. A 3" by 5" card with the title of the paper, the name of the
author(s), the mailing address of the author, and the author's affiliation
and e-mail/fax numbers.
The Phonetic Society of Korea
c/o Department of Linguistics, Seoul National University
San 56-1 Shinlim-dong, Gwanag-gu, Seoul 151-742, KOREA
Tel: +82-2-880-6170 Fax : +82-2-877-0946
E-mail : hanslee@power1.snu.ac.kr
-- 1997 FOURTH ANNUAL UCLA GRADUATE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM FOR JAPANESE
STUDIES: 'JAPAN: THE MAKING OF A NATION.' The symposium committee
welcomes proposals from all academic disciplines that attempt to view
Japanese culture, society, politics, and economy in relation to the
process of nation-building. Cross-cultural and comparative approaches
are also welcome. The fourth annual UCLA graduate student symposium
for Japanese Studies on April 19,1997 is sponsored by the UCLA Center
for Japanese Studies. It offers interested graduate students from the
Western United States and faculty commentators a forum in Which to
discuss these questions. Transportation and two nights lodging for
presenters will be provided by the symposium. Please submit proposals
of no more than two pages, single spaced, by October 20, 1996. Include
your university department, field of specialization, name, address,
and telephone number along with a self-addressed stamped postcard for
acknowledgement of receipt of your submission. Send proposals to
UCLA Graduate School Student Symposium
Center for Japanese Studies
405 Hilgard Avenue
11250 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1487
We include in the western region the following: Alaska, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah,
Washington, Wyoming, and British Colombia. For further information,
please contact Hiromi Mizuno at hmizuno@ucla.edu.
-\-/-\ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS \-/-\-
-- NEW! A company called "Federal Information Exchange, Inc." has
sent some information regarding a free on-line e-mail service
"delivering targeted research and education funding opportunities
within your area(s) of interest." To receive the information, here's
what you do. 1) Register on FEDIX at location: http://www.fie.com/ 2)
Select the keywords that identify your area(s) of interest.
The company says there are no registration fees or user costs.
"And beginning with the next business day, the results of a daily
search of new federal opportunities that match your area(s) of
interest will be e-mailed directly to you."
I've used the www.fie.com site to look at federal announcements,
but have not used this service, so this is not an endorsement.
If it's useful to any of you, perhaps you could let us know.
Thanks,
Michele Armstrong
Assistant Dean of Research
3-1655, rs.mma@forsythe
-\-/-\ TRUE LINGUISTICS \-/-\-
http://www.etcorngods.com/crnsmple.html
This site's main page says:
In 1986, George R. Simpson, a businessman, engineer, and inventor,
was contacted by God and extraterrestrials (ETs) and was told that
there was another language overlaid on the English language. He
was told that he had been chosen to break the code and to teach
the world the hidden language.
...need we say more?
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- PITZER COLLEGE: Pitzer College is looking for someone to teach two
undergraduate courses in the fall semester 1996 (September 5-December
21). The courses are: Introduction to the Study of Language
(Mon. Wed. 1:15-2:30), our basic introductory course, and Languages of
the World (Tues. Thurs. 9:40-11:00), a course dealing with a range of
languages, addressing questions of language universals, linguistic
typology, and interlanguage translatability. (Pomona College is
looking for someone to teach an undergraduate course on Phonetics
(Tues.Thurs, 1:15-2:30). It would be possible to combine either or
both of the Pitzer courses with the Pomona course.) Pitzer College, a
member of The Claremont Colleges, maintains a set of educational
objectives which promotes interdisciplinary perspectives,
intercultural understanding, and concern with the social consequences
and ethical implications of knowledge and action. In addition the
College is committed to maintaining and enriching a socially and
culturally diverse faculty. We encourage applications from people who
have been historically underrepresented on college faculties. Pitzer
College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Send
applications (including the names of three references) as soon as
possible to
Susan Seymour
Dean of Faculty
Pitzer College
Claremont, CA 91711-6101
-- UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: The Department of Linguistics, University of
Arizona, has an opening for an Adjunct Lecturer with a Ph.D. in
Linguistics to teach a number of undergraduate courses in the
1996-1997 academic year. The stipend is $5,000 per course. The courses
include Linguistics 101 (Introduction to Language), Linguistics 201
(Introduction to Linguistics), and Linguistics 320 (Language and
Social Issues). Linguistics 101 and Linguistics 320 are General
Education courses designed for broad audiences. Linguistics 201 is a
course designed for students majoring in Linguistics. Applications,
consisting of a letter of interest, a current curriculum vitae, the
names of two references, and evidence of teaching excellence, should
be addressed to
Richard T. Oehrle, Acting Head
Department of Linguistics
Douglass 200E
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
E-mail: oehrle@u.arizona.edu
Telephone: 520-621 6898
Fax: 626-9014
Review of applications will begin May 24 and continue until the
position is filled. Ph.D. is required before appointment. Inquiries
are welcome. EOE/AA
(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 \-/-\-
BACK TO THE CLASSICS: Name the five rivers of Hades for this week's
insta-prize.
Solution to SUM, PRODUCT, PUZZLER: 4 and 13. An axiomatization is
described in McCarthy, John (1990): Formalizing Common Sense,
p. 163. (Thanks to Emily Bender for submitting this question, and
Gertraud Benke for locating the axiomatization!)
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