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Sesquipedalian #8
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 8
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Death of Jakob Bihme (1624) November 21, 1996
THE MUSICIAN MAKES HIMSELF GLIERE
You can Telemann by where he wants to live. I just Toch a
trip Orff into the Beethoven spaces Faure Weick, and to be Franck,
it drove Menotti. Within a few days I was missing the city so Munch
that, even though the weather wasn't Clementi, I couldn't resist my
Honegger to Galuppi right Bach home early Satie. I know opinion
Varese: but Vivaldi noise of the Bizet traffic, de Falla engines,
and knowing there are Mennin the streets Callas enough to knock
your Bloch off, I Haieff to say I prefer the Mitropolous.
The Boyce were Sor I couldn't stand the Riegger out in the
Field, but I don't give a Schutz. I thought I'd lose my Saint-Saens
in the country. Let me Lizst the sounds: the Rorum of the wind, the
Lipatti, Patti, Tippett, Glinka, Poulenc of the rain on the roof,
the Massenet of the horses, the Menuhin of the cats, the
Gluck-Gluck of the woodpeckers Chopin holes in the Bartok, the
incessent Tcherpnin of a Byrd in a nearby Grofe, and every morning
LeCocq crows.
I got poison Ives when a Wolf chased me into a Brio Partch.
I'm no Robeson Caruso. I could have died of Borodin talking to the
Babbitt. A friend said the country is the best place to live; Abegg
his pardon. Another friend said he didn't like it in those
Gotterdammerung Hills; I agree, only Morceau. Not for all the Gould
and Diamond would I go back.
I don't Cherubini for the Ruggles life. I like a full Mehul
three times a day, a dry Martini and Szigeti at Joe's. I like to
Locatelli in the evenings. Is that asking for Egk in Meyerbeer?
Nono! In fact, I Ravel in the Bliss of urban existence. So many
Weber under a Holst of problems they feel they can't Handel. Their
answer is too Offenbach to nature - into Haydn I call it. I carry
on a d'Indy life in this Berg.
Delibes me.
[Denys Parsons in 'Funny Ha Ha Funny Peculiar']
-\-/-\ LOOK WHO'S TALKING \-/-\-
-- LOOK WHO GOOFED: It has been pointed out that the Boston University
conference where Eve Clark gave the keynote address November 1st was
the Boston University Conference on Language Development, NOT the
Boston University Conference on Child Language Development, as
reported in last week's newsletter.
-\-/-\ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \-/-\-
Friday, November 11, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Room 146
Scott Schwenter
Stanford University
Adversativity, Argumentation, and Refutation
In this paper, I explore different types of refutation,
concentrating on the contrast between two adversative connectives in
Spanish, pero 'but' and si as these are used in dialogues. The latter form,
the canonical conditional sentence marker, is usually translated by 'if',
but also has adversative uses translatable by 'but' in declaratives. The
analysis builds on techniques from Argumentation Theory (Ducrot 1996), and
focuses on how linguistic elements constrain expression of points of view
in discourse. Both pero and si typically introduce a proposition Q
anti-oriented to some other preceding proposition P in the context, but
differ in how they orient speaker point of view towards P and/or its
potential implicatures. The two forms in this usage are exemplified in (1):
(1a) A: Juan es un genio. (Vamos a invitarlo.)
'Juan is a genius. (Let's invite him.)'
B: (S'i) Pero es un idiota (al mismo tiempo). (No vamos a invitarlo.)
'(Yes) But he's an idiot (at the same time). (Let's not invite him.)'
(1b) A: Juan es un genio. (Vamos a invitarlo.)
'Juan is a genius. (Let's invite him.)'
B: (#S'i) Si es un idiota (#al mismo tiempo). (No vamos a invitarlo.)
'(#Yes) SI he's an idiot (#at the same time). (Let's not invite him.)'
The difference between these two connectives can be established on
the basis of what it is they object to within the prior context: pero
reflects a viewpoint that accepts an argumentative sequence P-->R that
precedes it (where R=some implicit or explicit conclusion, like vamos a
invitarlo in (1a,b)), but then introduces a "stronger" sequence
anti-oriented to the preceding one. On the other hand, si also introduces a
"stronger" anti-oriented sequence, but cannot be used to accept the prior
argumentative sequence P-->R in its totality, as the #-incompatibilities
show. It is however possible to use si where one accepts the explicit
propositional content of the prior utterance, but not the inferential
conclusion R that follows from this content.
A key finding of this study is that refutation is not limited to
propositions, but also to inferences from them, or to combinations of
propositions and inferences used in an argumentative sequence. As the
Spanish pero/si contrast illustrates, these different types of refutation
may be conventionally indicated by different forms, which differ in how
they orient points of view to what precedes. A hypothesis for further
research is that differences between other markers of adversativity in
Spanish, English, and other languages can be explained in a similar
fashion.
REFERENCE
Ducrot, Oswald. 1996. Slovenian Lectures/Conf'erences Slov`enes.
Ljubljana: ISH.
------------------
Reception follows.
For directions and a complete list of colloquia, see
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-/-\-/ SPECIAL OT WORKSHOP /-\-/-
CSLI Workshop
Optimality Theory and its implications for cognitive theory
December 6-8, 1996
Cordura Hall
Each speaker session includes approx. 50 minutes presentation and
approx. 25 minutes discussion.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 6
8.30 Coffee and Breakfast
Session I: 8.45--12.00
Issues in Computation and Learnability
8.45--10.00 Paul Smolensky
Generalizing Optimization in OT, with Implications for Learning
10.10--11.25 Bruce Tesar
Robust Interpretive Parsing and Its Role in Language Learning
(tentative)
11.30--12.00 Discussion of session I: Stanley Peters
12.00--1.15 Lunch
Session II: 1.15--3.55
Issues in Phonology and Phonetics I
1.15--2.30 Arto Anttila, Young-Mee Yu Cho
Partial Constraint Ranking in Optimality Theory
2.40--3.55 Edward Flemming
Optimization in phonetics and phonology (tentative)
3.55--4.30 Break
Session III: 4.30--6.30
Issues in Phonology and Phonetics II
4.30--5.45 Alan Prince
Some aspects of mapping under OT
5.45--6.30 General discussion of sessions II and III
7.30 Dinner Location tba
SATURDAY DECEMBER 7
8.45 Coffee and breakfast
Session IV: 9.15--11.55
Issues in Syntax
9.15--10.30 Hye-Won Choi, Joan Bresnan
Discourse Competes with Syntax: Focus and Binding (tentative)
10.40--11.55 Colin Wilson
Alignment and Anaphora
11.55--1.15 Lunch
Session V: 1.15--3.55
Issues in Morphology and Syntax
1.15--2.30 Joan Bresnan
Morphology Competes with Syntax: Beyond the Inflectional
Paradigm (tentative)
2.40--3.55 Geraldine Legendre
On Balkan Clitics
3.55--4.20 Break
Session VI: 4.20--6.30
Issues in Morpho-Syntax I
4.20--5.35 Judith Aissen
Voice and Alignment
5.35--6.30 General discussion of sessions IV--VI
7.30 Dinner/Party at Joan Bresnan's house
SUNDAY DECEMBER 8
8.15 Coffee and breakfast
Session VII: 8.30--11.10
Issues in Morpho-Syntax II
8.30--9.45 Paul Kiparsky
Morphosyntactic Hierarchies (tentative)
9.55--11.10 Peter Sells
Japanese Verb Morphology in OT
Session VIII: 11.25--1.10
11.25--12.40 Jane Grimshaw
The best clitic and the best place to put it
12.40--1.10 Discussion of sessions VII--VIII: Geoff Pullum
-/-\-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-\-/-
-- LFG97: June 19 -- 21, 1997, University of California-San Diego.
LFG97 will take place in June 1997 at the University of California-San
Diego. Papers are invited both within the formal architecture of
Lexical-Functional Grammar and in the `spirit of LFG', as a lexicalist
approach to language within a parallel, constraint-based framework.
There will be a series of 20-minute talks (with 10 minutes for
discussion), poster presentations, and workshops with invited
participants (see below). The talks and poster presentations may
focus on results from completed as well as ongoing research, with an
emphasis on novel approaches, methods, ideas, and perspectives,
whether descriptive, theoretical, formal or computational. Abstract
submissions should include:
- Five copies of a one-page abstract of the paper with a title. OMIT
name and affiliation. A second page may be used for data, c-/f- and
related structures, and references, but not for text.
- A 3" by 5" card with the title of the paper and the name(s) of the
author(s), address, e-mail address, and whether the author(s) are
students.
- If possible, please send a postscript or ascii file of the abstract
via email IN ADDITION TO the five hard copies.
Abstracts should be sent to the following address and should indicate
whether the submission is for a talk or a poster:
Dr. Tracy Holloway King
Information Sciences and Technologies Laboratory
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA
Important dates:
ABSTRACT RECEIPT DEADLINE: January 31, 1997
NOTIFICATION DATE: March 15, 1997
We plan to organize workshops on the following topics, with special
emphasis on how results in these areas are best accommodated within
lexicalist frameworks:
Grammaticalization and Linguistic Theory
Morphology and Linguistic Theory
Discourse and Phrase Structure
We hope to be able to offer some financial assistance to student
presenters attending the conference. Further information about
student subsidies will be available in late March.
A copy of this announcement is available by anonymous FTP from:
parcftp.xerox.com/pub/nl/lfgconference-announcement
Inquiries about abstract submissions should be sent to Dr. Tracy King,
thking@parc.xerox.com, and Dr. Miriam Butt, mutt@ims.uni-stuttgart.de.
Additional inquiries about the conference should be sent to
Prof. Farrell Ackerman, ackerman@ling.ucsd.edu.
-- ESCOL-97: Eastern States Conference on Linguistics, November 21-23,
1997. Yale University, New Haven, CT. Special session: Clitics.
Abstracts are invited for 20-minute presentations on any area of
linguistics in addition to clitics. Abstracts must be received by
Thursday, May 15, 1997. Abstracts (including references) should fit
on one page with margins of at least one inch, employing a font of 11
pt or larger. Please submit six anonymous copies and one additional
copy with author's name and affiliation typewritten. Also include 3x5
card with name, paper title, subfield, institution, address, phone and
e-mail. Send abstracts to
ESCOL 97
Yale Department of Linguistics
Box 208236
New Haven CT 06520-8236
Futher information can be obtained by addressing an e-mail message to
arkaun@minerva.cis.yale.edu or writing to the above address.
-\-/-\ SEMANTICS WORKSHOP \-/-\-
The first meeting of the semantics workshop this year will take place
on Thursday November 21, 12--2 pm in MJH 146. Cleo Condoravdi will
then present her work on presuppositionality and polarity (title and
abstract below). All are welcome! Bring your brownbag lunch.
In the future, announcements for the semantics workshop will be sent
out to the semantics interest mailing list. If you did not receive a
separate announcement about this workshop, you are not on that list.
If you would like to be added please contact Henriette de Swart
(deswart@csli).
-------
Presuppositional Polarity Items in Counterfactuals
Cleo Condoravdi
Positive polarity temporal adverbials such as {\em already, still\/}
show an interesting asymmetry with respect to negative polarity
adverbials such as {\em yet, anymore\/}. Positive polarity temporal
adverbials are acceptable within negated antecedents of
counterfactuals (Baker 1970):
(1) If he were not already/still here, we would have postponed the meeting.
Baker (1970) and Karttunen (1971) proposed that this is to be
attributed to the presupposition of the falsity of the antecedent
associated with counterfactuals. However, (2) is unacceptable even in
contexts entailing that he is not yet here.
(2) * If he were here yet/anymore, we would have postponed the meeting.
In this talk I provide an account of this asymmetry. The account is
based on the analysis of polarity items by Krifka (1990a, 1990b, 1996)
and it relies crucially on the presuppositions and the type of
alternatives associated with these adverbials, as well as a `flexible
exploitation' of polarity items by illocutionary operators, in the
sense of Krifka (1996). It also takes the interpretation of
counterfactuals to involve revision of the context, comprised of an
epistemic state and a selection function (Heim 1992, Morreau 1992).
With a positive polarity adverbial in a negated antecedent and an
illocutionary operator taking the entire conditional in its scope,
there are no alternatives which would result in an informationally
stronger statement, hence the acceptability of (1). This is not the
case, however, for cases with a negative polarity adverbial in a
non-negated antecedent regardless of whether the illocutionary
operator takes scope over the entire conditional or only over the
antecedent, hence the unacceptability of (2).
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- HELP NEEDED FOR MULTILINGUAL DATA CONVERSION PROJECTS: Inso
Corporation, a publisher of electronic reference databases located in
Boston, MA, is looking for linguists with data conversion skills to
convert electronic bilingual and multilingual dictionaries to
SGML. Special consideration for these contract positions will be given
to people with a background in Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and/or who
have text processing skills (sed, awk, perl). SGML knowledge is
helpful, but we are willing to train. Applicants from any geographic
locatino will be considered, as long as they have internet access and
proper equipment. For more information, please call Carol Ellerbeck
at (617) 753-6580 or send email to: cellerbeck@inso.com.
-- RESEARCH LINGUIST: The SRI Speech Technology and Research (STAR)
Laboratory has an immediate opening for a speech/language researcher
to manage data acquisition and analysis in support of speech
research. Will be expected to join a world-class team of speech
recognition researchers. Must be an independent worker. Must work well
with others. Responsibilities include: planning and managing all
aspects of speech data collection projects (conferring with internal
and external clients to determine data needs, estimating costs,
writing proposals, developing timelines, hiring, training, and
managing temporary personnel), setting and working within budgets and
making sure contractual obligations are met, ensuring quality of data
at all stages of production from recording through transcription,
delivering finished data to clients, writing documentation and
administrative reports. The ideal candidate would also be interested
in and capable of contributing to other projects (see the STAR Lab's
main web page for descriptions of current projects). Experience:
Should have Unix experience as user and some project management
experience. Background in linguistics (especially
phonetics/phonology), scripting languages, and/or audio a plus. Some
programming experience also a plus. Education: B.S., M.S., or
Ph.D. in linguistics, psycholinguistics or related area.
(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 \-/-\-
No hard decode, and, in this case
A solid answer you can claim.
It has, I'm told, a different face
For every letter of its name.
[Hubert Philips]
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