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Sesquipedalian #2
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 2
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Thelonius Monk born October 10, 1996
ALGEBRA, WORK, AND MONEY
After applying some simple algebra to some trite phrases and cliches a
new understanding can be reached of the secret to wealth and success.
Here it goes.
Knowledge is Power
Time is Money and as every engineer knows,
Power is Work over Time.
So, substituting algebraic equations for these time worn bits of wisdom,
we get:
K = P (1)
T = M (2)
P = W/T (3)
Now, do a few simple substitutions:
Put W/T in for P in equation (1), which yields:
K = W/T (4)
Put M in for T into equation (4), which yields:
K = W/M (5).
Now we've got something. Expanding back into English, we get:
Knowledge equals Work over Money.
What this MEANS is that:
1. The More You Know, the More Work You Do, and
2. The More You Know, the Less Money You Make.
Solving for Money, we get:
M = W/K (6)
Money equals Work Over Knowledge.
From equation (6) we see that Money approaches infinity as Knowledge
approaches 0, regardless of the Work done.
What THIS MEANS is:
The More you Make, the Less you Know.
Solving for Work, we get
W = M K (7)
Work equals Money times Knowledge
From equation (7) we see that Work approaches 0 as Knowledge approaches
0.
What THIS MEANS is:
The stupid rich do little or no work.
Working out the socioeconomic implications of this breakthrough is left
as an exercise for the reader.
-\-/-\ LOOK WHO'S TALKING \-/-\-
-- Visiting Researcher, Nine Elenbaas (University of Utrecht) will be
presenting, with Rene Kager, 'The prosodic level of rhythmic
constraints,' at WECOL (UCSC), on October 25th.
-\-/-\ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \-/-\-
Friday, Oct 11, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Room 146
Larry M. Hyman
University of California, Berkeley
y/X Alternation and the Phonology-Morphology Interface in Luganda
In this talk I address the issue of how phonology and morphology
interact in a highly agglutinative language (lu-Ganda) and language
family (Bantu). The issue is whether the phonological facts support
an "interactionist" view of this interface, with progressive
morphology-phonology interleaving, i.e. add an affix, do some
phonology, add another affix, repeat the phonology. Attention will be
on verb structure, which, as shown below, may be quite complex:
(i) Word = prefixes + stem
(ii) Stem = ROOT + suffixes
(iii) Example (stem in brackets, root capitalized):
a-ba-ta-li- [ FUMB-ir-agan-a ] 'they who will not cook for
IV-they-neg-fut cook-appl-e.o.-FV each other'
(IV = initial vowel morpheme; FV = final vowel morpheme)
In previous work on lu-Ganda (Hyman and Katamba 1991) and ci-Bemba
(Hyman 1995), we have shown that the stem-level ("stratum 1") suffixal
morphology and phonology are cyclic, a demonstration that can be
extended to many other Bantu languages. In this paper I shift
attention to the nature of the morphology-phonology interface in
prefixation (hence at the word level, "stratum 2"). The question in
this paper, then, is whether the "slot-and-filler"-type prefixes show
the same kind of cyclic effects as suffixes or whether the prefixal
phonology is non-cyclic, as generally assumed. I will show that here
too there are cyclic effects, though of quite a different
type. Complex facts from root-initial y/X alternation establish not
only the unimportance of "slots" in prefix morphology-phonology
interactions, but also that these, although cyclic in a sense to be
discussed, must not be handled in a "compositional" manner.
Specifically, stratum 1 (stem) and stratum 2 (word) intersensitivities
argue for an integrated interface, where all requirements are checked
at the same time. This result is of course consistent with the move
away from procedural derivationality and towards direct-mapping
approaches to grammar.
References
Hyman, Larry M. 1995. "Cyclic phonology and morphology in Cibemba". In
J. Cole and Charles Kisseberth (eds.), Perspectives in Phonology,
81-112. Stanford: C.S.L.I.
Hyman, Larry M. and Francis X. Katamba. 1993. "Cyclicity and suffix
doubling in the Bantu verb stem." In Special Session on African
Language Structures, 134-144. Berkeley Linguistic Society 17.
------------------
Reception follows.
For directions and a complete list of colloquia, see
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-\-/-\ CALL FOR PAPERS \-/-\-
-- The 20th International Wittgenstein Symposium will be held in Kirchberg,
Lower Austria, August 10-16, 1997. The general topic will be: "The Role of
Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy." The symposium will consist of the
following six sections:
1. Pragmatic Aspects of Applied Logic
2. The Pragmatic Dimension of Language
3. Pragmatic Problems in the Philosophy of Science
4. Pragmatic Approaches in Ethics and in the Theory of Action
5. Pragmatic Philosophers and Pragmatic Systems of Thought
6. Wittgenstein
If you want to participate, please contact between 1 December 1996 and 31
July 1997:
The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society
Markt 63
A-2880 Kirchberg am Wechsel
Austria, Europe
Tel/fax: +43 2641 2557
A detailed registration form will then be sent to you. If you return this
with the indication that you would like to give a paper, you will receive
the guidelines for the submission of papers (deadline: 30 April 1997),
along with a list of key words outlining the contents of the sections.
Up-to-date information on the next Wittgenstein symposium is obtainable via
internet (WorldWideWeb). The Wittgenstein '97 Home Page can be found at:
http://www.sbg.ac.at/phs/docs/wittgenstein97.htm
-- 21st ANNUAL PENN LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM: The Penn Linguistics Club
announces the 21st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, February 22-23,
1997. We welcome papers on any topic in linguistics. In addition,
this year's meeting will feature a special session on morphology.
Speakers will have 20 minutes for presentations and five minutes for
discussion and questions. Prospective speakers should submit an
abstract no later than December 2, 1996, to
Penn Linguistics Colloquium Committee
Department of Linguistics
619 William Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-6305
Abstracts for either the general conference or the special session
should be no longer than 2 pages in 12 point font with 1 inch margins
and should be accompanied by an index card including your name,
affiliation (department and institution), address, email, and the
subfield of linguistics or related discipline that you find most
appropriate to your topic. All abstracts labeled 'morphology' will be
considered for inclusion in the special session. submission by email
to plc21@babel.ling.upenn.edu will be greatly appreciated.
-\-/-\ TRUE LINGUISTICS \-/-\-
-- 'HE'S LYING': A judge admonished the police in Radnor, Pa., for
pretending a Xerox copy machine was a lie detector. Officials had
placed a metal colander on the head of a suspect and attached the
colander to the copier with metal wires. In the copy machine was a
typewritten message: "He's lying."
Each time investigators received answers they didn't like, they pushed
the copy button and out popped the message, "He's lying." Apparently
convinced the machine was accurate, the suspect confessed.
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- Motorola, Inc. has an opening for an individual to research and
develop spoken language systems at the Motorola Corporate Research
Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. This researcher will be a member of an
interdisciplinary team exploring the integration of speech
recognition, speech synthesis, and natural language processing
technologies for product applications of man-machine
communications. The duties of the position include applied research,
software development, and transfer of developed technologies to
product groups. Innovation in research and applications of technology
is the standard for all members of the team. Experience in natural
language processing is required. In particular concentration in
developing robust spoken language parsers, grammars for spoken
language, dialogue models, or integrated spoken language applications
is desired. A Ph.D., or direct experience in one of these areas, is
desired. Strong candidates with Masters degree will also be
considered. Programming skills in C++ and object oriented programming
are required. Please send resume and cover letter by October 31, 1996
to be considered for this position. The reference number for this
position, T1521, should be included in any correspondences.
To: Motorola, Inc.
Corporate Staffing Office
1303 E. Algonquin Road
Schaumburg, IL 60196
Fax: (847) 538-4688
Motorola is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. We
welcome and encourage diversity in our workforce.
-- CORNELL: The Department of Modern Languages (DML) at Cornell has a
tenure-track position for August 1997 for an assistant professor or
beginning associate professor. The candidate will work with the
faculty of the DML in the governance of our language programs. We are
looking for someone in an area which concerns language use, including
sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, discourse analysis, languages in
contact, corpus linguistics, etc. The successful candidate will have
strong credentials in either Chinese, German or Russian. Fluency in
one of these languages is essential; language teaching experience is
desirable; and an interest in other languages is a plus, but not
necessary. Strong credentials in research and publications are
essential. Send letter of application, CV and any supporting
documentation, and have three letters of recommendation sent to: Linda
Waugh, Chair, Dept. of Modern Languages, Morrill Hall, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York 14853. Inquiries may also be addressed
by e-mail to: lrw1@cornell.edu. Review of applications will begin
Dec. 9, but we would like to hear from interested candidates as soon
as possible. We will be conducting interviews at the MLA and LSA.
Cornell is an AA/EO Employer.
-- MONTCLAIR: The Linguistics Department at Montclair State University
announces two tenure-track openings, subject to funding,
one at the assistant level and one with
rank open, for Applied Linguists for the Fall 1997
semester. Montclair is a New Jersey State teaching
university located about 15 miles outside of New York
City.
Candidates for these positions should have a
primary specialization in one of the following areas of
Applied Linguistics and a strong secondary
specialization in another: Second Language
Acquisition, Language Education, Literacy,
Bilingualism, Discourse Analysis, Sociology of
Language, and American Sign Language. Applicants with
professional experience in contexts where linguistic
theory is applied are especially encouraged to apply.
A commitment to undergraduate and graduate education is
essential. Responsibilities: undergraduate and
graduate teaching in a variety of areas of applied
linguistics, student advisement, scholarly research,
and committee assignments. Qualifications: Ph.D. in
Linguistics, university teaching experience and a
demonstrated record of scholarly research. Application
deadline is November 1, 1996 but applications will be
read until the end of November. Please send a cover
letter, curriculum vitae, and 3 letters of
recommendation to:
Chair, Search Committee
Linguistics Department
Montclair State University
Box C 316 V - 12
Upper Montclair, NJ 07043
Montclair State is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative
Action Institution.
-- UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: The Department of Linguistics and the
University of Iowa solicits applications for a tenure track position
in phonology beginning August 1997. Candidates should be able to
teach courses in phonology at all levels as well as introductory
courses in phonetics and introductory historical linguistics. Initial
appointment will be at the rank of Assistant Professor. First
consideration will be given to those candidates whi will have
completed Ph.D. degree by the time of appointment. Applicants should
send a letter of application, CV, and the names of three references to
C. O. Ringen, Chair,
Search Committee
Department of Linguistics
University of Iowa
Iowa City IA 52242-1408
For fullest consideration, candidate should make application by
December 1, 1996. Screening will begin immediately. The University
of Iowa welcomes the employment on its faculty and staff of
professional couples, permits the appointment of faculty couples
within the same department, permits the sharing of a single
appointment by a faculty couple, and will refer the resume of a second
member of a couple to appropriate offices in order to help that person
find a professional position. Women and minorities are encouraged to
apply.
(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 \-/-\-
-- MUCH GIGGLING: The old market town of Much Giggling has a town
council of nine members; these are Messrs Baker, Butcher, Brewer,
Carter, Draper, Ironmonger, Painter, Saddler and Smith. These folks
are (not necessarily respectively) a baker, a butcher, a brewer, a
carter, a draper, an ironmonger, a painter, a saddler and a smith.
The saddler is the ironmonger's father-in-law. Mr Saddler is
engaged to the painter's only daughter, who has already rejected Mr
Saddler's rivals, the draper and the baker. Mr Carter's daughter
partners her fiancee at tennis. Mr Draper, who is a bachelor, has
succeeded the namesake of his vocation as captain of the cricket
team. Mr Smith shares an allotment with his son-in-law. The draper's
father is a brother of the wife of Mr Baker. The brewer and the
carter are married to each other's sisters. No councillor has more
than one daughter; two councillors have one each. The brewer is the
namesake of the vocation of the namesake of the vocation of Mr Carter,
and the carter is the namesake of the vocation of the namesake of the
vocation of Mr Smith.
Identify the vocation of each of the nine councillors for this
week's insta-prize.
[from 'Brush up Your Wits,' Hubert Phillips]
Solution to last week's puzzle: Half the hole was 5 feet, 3 inches
deep; the whole hole was 10 feet, 6 inches deep.
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-\-/-\ CONSERVE DISK SPACE \-/-\-
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