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Sesquipedalian #7
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 7
\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/
National Guacamole Day November 14, 1996
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until
they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents,
the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said
he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
-\-/-\ LOOK WHO'S TALKING \-/-\-
-- Eve Clark gave the Keynote Address at the 21st annual Boston
University Conference on Child Language Development (November 1-3,
1996).
-\-/-\ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \-/-\-
Friday, November 15, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Room 146
Veerle van Geenhoven
Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen
West Greenlandic Incorporated Nouns are Predicative Indefinites
In this talk, I present the semantic analysis of West
Greenlandic noun incorporating configurations developed in van
Geenhoven (1996). I defend the view that - like any other "narrow"
indefinite - an incorporated noun and its external modifiers are
interpreted as predicates. The latter are absorbed by a verb as the
restrictions of this verb's internal argument whose existential
interpretation is lexicalized as a part of the verb's meaning. I show
how this process - called Semantic Incorporation - captures the
inherent narrow scope of incorporated nouns as well as their lack of a
partitive and of a definite reading. From a cross-linguistic
perspective, Semantic Incorporation sheds new light on the notion of
"weak NP". Moreover, I show how this semantic process brings us to the
source of Milsark's Definiteness Restriction.
van Geenhoven, V. (1996) Semantic Incorporation and Indefinite
Descriptions: Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Noun Incorporation in
West Greenlandic, Ph.D. Diss., Universitaet Tuebingen.
------------------
Reception follows.
For directions and a complete list of colloquia, see
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-\-/-\ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM \-/-\-
WHAT GOES ON AT THE METAPHYSICS RESEARCH LAB AT CSLI
Edward N. Zalta
on Thursday, November 14
4:15 p.m., Bldg. 460:146 (Margaret Jacks Hall)
Edward N. Zalta is a Senior Researcher at the Center for the Study
of Language and Information and a Consulting Associate Professor in
the Philosophy Department at Stanford University. His areas of
specialization include Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language,
Epistemology, Intensional Logic, and Philosophy of Mathematics.
Further info on the homepage: http://mally.stanford.edu/zalta.html
Sugar and caffeine will be served at the forum.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract:
This talk will be about the abstract objects which play an essential
role in our scientific conception of the world. Scientists use
natural numbers, real numbers, and functions of reals to represent the
behavior of physical objects and processes; they formulate natural
laws that govern not only existing objects but physically possible
objects which haven't yet materialized (many such laws are framed in
terms of fictional entities such as frictionless planes, point masses,
and ideal gases); and natural laws themselves seem to express
relations between the forms that matter can take. In our lab, we are
developing a theory that recognizes abstract objects such as numbers,
possible objects, fictions, forms, etc., as entities in their own
right and organizes them into a single symbolic system. This symbolic
system attempts to formalize the logic and metaphysics which is
presupposed by our scientific conception of the world.
After discussing the research that goes on in the lab, we
conclude the talk with a brief discussion of a second project that is
being managed in the lab, namely, an online, dynamic (updatable)
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Students can prepare for the talk by
examining the URLs
http://mally.stanford.edu/ and
http://plato.stanford.edu/
-/-\-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-\-/-
Stuart Davis
Indiana University/UCSC
Margaret Jacks Hall, Seminar Rm 146
Thursday, November 14, 1996, 7:30 pm
SYLLABLE CONTACT IN OPTIMALITY THEORY
This talk is a first attempt at examining a constraint on
syllable contact in optimality theory. The basic idea behind syllable
contact is that langauges try to avoid a sequence of rising sonority
over a syllable boundary (Vennemann 1988). I first review the few
citations to a syllable contact constraint that have already been made
in OT. These include Alderete (1995, UMOP) who uses syllable contact
to account for Dorsey's Law in Winnabago and Bat El (to appear,
Phonology) who uses syllable contact to account for the output
sequence of two (truncated) words that comprise a blend in Modern
Hebrew. After reviewing the specifics of these proposals, I will argue
for the need of a syllable contact constraint based on manner
assimilation in Korean. (My discussion will refer to unpublished
working being done by Seung Hoon Shin at Indiana University.) The
Korean manner assimilations are well-known in the literature on Korean
phonology and involve alternations such as the following: (@ = schwa)
(1) /napnita/ ---- [nam.ni.da] 'to sprout'
(2) /kamli/ ---- [kam.ni] 'supervision
(3) /nonli --- [nol.li] 'logic'
(4) /p@pli/ --- [p@m.ni] 'principle of law'
(5) /kamki --- [kam.ki] 'flu'
(6) /kalpi/ --- [kal.pi] 'ribs'
An examination of these data reveal that a manner alternation occurs (1-4)
to avoid a potential rise of sonority over a syllable boundary.
Normally, if the faithful candidate results in a fall of sonority over a
syllable boundary (5-6), there is no change in manner. Thus one could
see the motivation for the manner alternations in (1-4) as an avoidance
of bad syllable contact. Most revealing is the example in (4) where a
sequence of a stop + liquid results in two nasals. I contend that this
is not a case of assimilation or one that involves rule ordering, rather
it results from avoiding bad syllable contact in a way that tries not to
violate too severely feature faithfulness. An optimality theoretic
analysis for the Korean data like that in (1)-(6) will be presented.
Additionally, I hope to show how the syllable contact constraint can shed
light on the phonolgoy of such diverse languages as Ponapean (Takano, 1996
UCIWPL) and Kazakh (Eulenberg, 1996, ROA posting).
-----
ANNOUNCEMENT
1. We are updating the pinterest mailing list, and future workshop
announcements will be sent out to pinterest. If you want to be added,
or cancelled from the list, please contact Eunjin Oh (eunjin@csli).
2. All are welcome for pizza before the PW talk. Come at 6:30 pm to
Rm 146 to enjoy pizza. R.S.V.P. for us to get some idea of how many
people are coming, so that we will know how much pizza to order.
Thanks!
-\-/-\ SOCIABLE SYNTAX SUPPER \-/-\-
The next Sociable Syntax Supper will be Wednesday evening, November
20, 7:00pm, at Joan Bresnan's House. The address is 11 Franciscan
Ridge, Portola Valley, and directions can be found on turing in
/user/bresnan/Directions/directions.txt
The speaker is Susanne Riehemann and her talk is entitled "An
Empirical Approach to Learnability". This is Susanne's dissertation
proposal, and so the presentation won't focus on results, but rather
on the problems and approaches that are likely to figure prominently
in her thesis. All are welcome. Please bring some dish or drinks to
share at the potluck.
-\-/-\ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS \-/-\-
-- 1997-98 School of Humanities & Sciences Dissertation Fellowships:
We are pleased to announce that the H&S Dean's Office will coordinate
applications and appointments for the following Dissertation
Fellowships for the 1997-98 academic year. Contact Roni Holeton in
the H&S Dean's Office for applications.
Humanities Center Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellowship
The Dissertation Prize Fellowship, endowed by Theodore and Frances
Geballe, is awarded to a graduate student whose work is of the highest
distinction and promise. The twelve month stipend for 1996-97 was
$13,500 plus TGR fees for three quarters. The holder of this
fellowship will have an office at the Center and will take part, with
other graduate and faculty fellows, in the Center's programs for
1997-98, promoting humanistic research and education at Stanford.
Applications will be accepted from students in humanities departments
only.
G.J. Lieberman Fellowships
The Lieberman Fellowships will be awarded to outstanding advanced
doctoral students who intend to pursue a career in university teaching
and research and who have demonstrated the potential for leadership
roles in the academic community. One fellowship will be awarded to an
applicant from the social sciences and one to an applicant from the
humanities. The stipend in 1996-97 was $13,500 plus TGR fees for
three quarters.
Lurcy Fellowship
The Georges Lurcy Education and Charitable Trust funds one fellowship
for full time graduate study or research in France. Although the
Foundation prefers to fund research in contemporary French language,
culture, or civilization, it does not restrict the fellowship to
students in the contemporary field. The 1996-97 award was $15,000 and
included TGR fees for three quarters. Applicants may be from
humanities or social science departments.
McCoy Charitable Foundation Fellowship in the Social Sciences
The McCoy Charitable Foundation Fellowship will be awarded to an
outstanding dissertation level doctoral candidate in the social
sciences. The 1996-97 stipend was $14,000 plus TGR fees.
Whiting Fellowships in the Humanities
The award is designed to reward excellent performance and further
outstanding achievement in the humanities. The twelve month stipend
for 1996-97 was $13,500 plus TGR fees for three quarters and was
awarded to seven doctoral candidates. Applications will be accepted
from students in humanities departments only.
ELIGIBILITY FOR ALL FELLOWSHIPS
* completed all requirements for the Ph.D., other than the
dissertation (and its defense in departments where the
University Oral Examination is such a defense)
* have an approved dissertation proposal
* have a strong likelihood of completing the degree within the tenure
of the fellowship
* have not previously held a dissertation fellowship, including Mellon
* have at least one quarter of teaching experience
ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS
* No other employment, assistantship, or fellowship (unless
specifically for travel or research expenses) may be held concurrently,
except as noted below:
*Whiting Fellows may work up to eight hours a week each quarter
during the tenure of their fellowship, or ALTERNATIVELY, they may serve as
a teaching assistant/fellow for one quarter during their tenure if the
course is related to their dissertation area, subject to approval by the
Chair of their department. Elementary language courses do not qualify for
exemption.
*Lurcy Fellows may only work up to eight hours a week each quarter
and must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
* The recipient of the Humanities Center Geballe Dissertation Prize
Fellowship must be in residence at the Center during the 1997-98 academic
year and may not have held a previous fellowship at the Center.
APPLICATION MATERIALS
* application cover sheet (attached) indicating for which
fellowship(s) the applicant wishes to be considered
* curriculum vitae
* current transcript (unofficial is okay)
* timetable for completion of the degree
* brief outline of the dissertation project (no more than 2,000 words
unless the actual proposal is 2,000 words or less.) Applicants for the
Lurcy Fellowship should be sure to include a statement of their reasons for
studying in France and the anticipated length of their stay.
* Lurcy Fellowship applicants must provide evidence of language
skills adequate to the research task.
* two letters by Stanford faculty members evaluating the quality of
the research project and its successful and timely completion; one must be
from the dissertation advisor. Referee letters for applicants for the
Humanities Center Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellowship should include a
paragraph speaking to the ways the applicant would be an appropriate
candidate for a Center fellowship. Referee letters for applicants for the
Lieberman Fellowships should address the applicants promise as a scholar
and leader in the academic community and evidence of teaching ability.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Completed applications should be sent to the Department Chair, who will
evaluate all the applicants from the Department and then forward them in
rank order (on the basis of merit ) to the Dean's Office. The deadline for
receipt of applications from department chairs to the Dean's Office is
February 7, 1997. Departments will set an earlier deadline so as to afford
a reasonable amount of time for the Chair's evaluation. Please check with
your department to find out what the deadline is. Decisions will be
announced in April.
As in the past, members of a faculty panel will review and rank the
applications for the Geballe, Whiting, Lieberman, Lurcy, and McCoy
fellowships and recommend awards to the H&S Deans (in the case of the
Lurcy Fellowship, recommend a nominee to the Lurcy Foundation and for
the Lieberman fellowships, recommend nominees to the Dean of
Research.) Applications will be judged by the evidence of
intellectual distinction, by the quality and precision of the
dissertation proposal, by the applicant's timely progress toward the
degree, and by the applicant's promise as a teacher. Further, in
recognition of the needs of the humanities and in the expectation that
most candidates will be teaching, teaching experience and student and
faculty evaluation of performance will be important in the selection
process.
Applications should be forwarded by departments to: Roni Holeton, H&S
Dean's Office, Mail Code 2070. Questions may be directed to her at
3-7245.
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- HARVARD: The Department of Linguistics at Harvard University has
been authorized to make an appointment at the junior level (assistant
professorship, five-year contract) in the area of theoretical
phonology. Strong interest in one or more language areas or a second
specialization in a related subfield (e.g. morphology, historical
linguistics) preferred. Interviewing at LSA. Letter of application, a
detailed curriculum vitae, including a complete bibliography, and
three confidential letters of recommendations should be sent to:
Prof. Michael S. Flier,
Chairman, Linguistics Search
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
77 Dunster Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The deadline for receipt of applications is December 10, 1996
Harvard University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
Employer. Qualified women and minority candidates are especially
encouraged to apply.
-- HARVARD: The Department of Linguistics at Harvard University has
been authorized to make an appointment at the junior level (assistant
professorship, five-year contract) in the area of theoretical
syntax. Strong interest in one or more language areas or a second
specialization in a related subfield (e.g. psycholinguistics,
semantics, language acquisition) preferred. Interviewing at
LSA. Letter of application, a detailed curriculum vitae, including a
complete bibliography, and three confidential letters of
recommendations should be sent to:
Prof. Michael S. Flier, Chairman
Linguistics Search Committee/Syntax
Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
77 Dunster Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The deadline for receipt of applications is December 10,1996
Harvard University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
Employer. Qualified women and minority candidates are especially
encouraged to apply.
-- CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY: Assistant professor of
English, Fall 1997. Tenure track position pending funding.
Responsibilities: To teach courses in theoretical and applied
linguistics (especially language testing) in a TESOL MS program;
supervision of TESOL practicum. Also teach and develop curriculum for
undergraduate linguistics courses such as Introduction to Language,
Introduction to Linguistics, Language Acquisition, Animal
Communication, and Languages of the World. May also teach TESOL
courses or Freshman Composition. Research in an appropriate area is
expected. Qualifications: Ph.D. in Linguistics with a strong
background in language teaching. Publications. Desired areas of
specialization include syntax, language testing. Credentials and
experience substantially comparable to the above will also be
considered. Please send letter of application, transcripts, three
representative publications, and three letters of recommendation to
Dr Loftus Jestin, Chair, or
Dr Andrea G. Osburne, TESOL MS coordinator
English Department
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain CT 06050-4010
Review of candidates will begin on February 1, 1997. EOE/AA
-- THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: The Department of Linguistics at The
University of Iowa invites applications for a one-semester, non-tenure
track position for spring semester of the 1997-98 academic year. It is
possible that an additional one semester (non-tenure track) position
(for fall of 1997) will be available, in which case an appointment for
the entire academic year will be made. Candidates should be able to
teach introductory phonology as well as at least one of the following:
sociolinguistics, history of English, introductory syntax,
introductory semantics. First consideration will be given to those
candidates who will have completed the PhD degree by the time of
appointment. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Applicants
should send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and the names
of three references to
Catherine Ringen, Chair, Search Committee
Department of Linguistics
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 522421408
Applicants for this position should indicate that they are
applying for the visiting position and not the tenure-track position
for a phonologist, which was announced earlier. Applicants who wish to
be considered for both positions should indicate this in the letter of
application. For fullest consideration, candidates should make
application by January 1, 1997. Screening will begin immediately.
(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 \-/-\-
-- STAR TREK TRIVIA: What was Lt. Sulu's first name? First correct
answer gets this week's insta-prize.
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-\-/-\ CONSERVE DISK SPACE \-/-\-
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