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Sesquipedalian #18
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 18
\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/
Hoodie-Doo Day (Northern Hemisphere) February 20, 1996
QUEER THINGS DONE IN TYPE
The Hawaiian Gazette, 22 July 1865, p. 3
The mistakes of printers are often very funny to readers, and
very exasperating to authors. A single letter is often of the
greatest importance, and a small mistake frequently changes the whole
effect of an article. Some very funny stories are told of the mishaps
of this character, and we give below some of the best:
An English paper once said that Russian General Bachinowsky was
found dead with "a long word in his mouth." It should have been
"sword." In this case, however, the printer could not have been
blamed for leaving out a letter after setting up the Russian's name so
correctly. During the Mexican war, an English paper hurriedly
announced an important item of news from Mexico--that General Pillow
and thirty-seven men had been lost "in a bottle." It should have read
"battle."
A lad in the printing office came upon the name of Hecate;
occurring in a line like this:
-- Shalt reign the Hecate of the deepest hell.
The boy thinking that he had discovered an error, ran to the
master printer and inquired eagerly whether there was an "e" in "cat."
"Why no, you blockhead," was the reply. Away went the boy to the
press and extracted the objectionable letter. But fancy the horror of
both poet and publisher when the poem appeared with the line:
-- Shalt reign the He Cat of the deepest hell.
A newspaper some time ago gravely informed its readers that a rat
descending to the river came in contact with a steamboat, with such
serious injury to the boat that great exertions were necessary to save
it. It was a "raft," and not a "rat," descending the river.
In the directions for conducting the Catholic service in a place
of France, a shocking blunder once occurred in printing the word
"cullotte." Now a "callotte" is an eclesiastical cap or mitre, while
the "cullotte" means what is known in the drawing-room English as a
gentleman's small undergarments. The sentence read, "Here the priest
will take off his 'cullotte.' "
But let the form of types be ever so correct when sent to press,
errors not unfrequently happen from the liability of letters to drop
out, when the form has not been properly adjusted, or locked
sufficiently tight. A newspaper recently stated, in a report of a
battle, that the conflict was dreadful, and that the enemy was
repulsed with great "laughter" (slaughter). A man was said once to
have been brought up to answer a charge of having "eaten" (beaten) a
stage driver for demanding more than his fare. The public were
informed a short while ago that a man was committed for having stolen
a small "ox" (box) from a lady's work-bag.
A laughable mistake is shown in the following mixing of two
articles, one concerning a preacher, the other about the freaks of a
mad dog--which occurred in the hurried "make up" in a printing office:
"Rev. James Thompson, Rector of St. Andrew's church, preached to
a large concourse of people on Sunday last. This was his last sermon.
In a few weeks he will bid farewell to his congregation, as his
physician advises him to cross the Atlantic. He exhorted his brethren
and sisters, and after the conclusion of a short prayer, took a whim
to cut up some frantic freaks. He ran up Trinity street to the
college. At this stage of the proceedings a couple of boys seized him
and tied a tin kettle to his tail, and he again started. A great
crowd collected, and for a time there was a grand scene of running and
confusion. After a long race he was finally shot by a policeman."
-/-\-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-\-/-
-- John Rickford continues to be in the public eye: The Sunday
Chronicle, Feb 17, featured a full page interview with him entitled
'Holding on to a Language of Our Own' (relation between Ebonics and
Black identity). He also appeared in a "Nick News" segment on Ebonics
Sunday night on the Nickolodeon cable channel (seriously). Finally,
was on a Ebonics panel at Berkeley last week along with John McWhorter
and Pedro Noguera, responding to a lead paper by John Ogbu (Stanford
Anthropology).
-/-\-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-\-/-
Friday, Feb 21, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Room 146
Cleo Condoravdi
Cycorp
Polarity Reversal in Counterfactuals
Certain positive polarity items are acceptable within negated
antecedents of counterfactuals, as pointed out by Baker (1970) and
Horn (1970). These include temporal adverbials such as 'already' and
'still' and degree modifiers such as 'pretty':
(1) If she were not already/still here, we would have postponed the meeting.
(2) If she weren't pretty smart, she wouldn't have passed the exam.
Baker (1970) attributed this type of polarity reversal to the
presupposition of the falsity of the antecedent associated with
counterfactuals and regarded it as evidence that polarity items can be
licensed derivatively by presupposition as well as entailment.
However, such an approach fails to account for the asymmetry between
positive and negative polarity items in this respect: (3) is
unacceptable even in contexts entailing that he is not yet here;
similarly (4) is unacceptable even in contexts entailing that he did
not write terribly well.
(3) *If he were here yet/anymore, we would have postponed the meeting.
(4) *If he had written terribly well, he would have passed the exam.
In this talk I show that both the polarity reversal in (1) and
(2) and the asymmetry between (1)-(2) and (3)-(4) can be explained
without any special mechanisms over and above those required to
account for regular licensing. They are a consequence of the lexical
meaning of the polarity items involved - including their assertive and
presuppositional content as well as the alternatives they are
associated with - and of the semantics of counterfactual conditionals.
The account I propose relies crucially on the analysis of polarity
items by Krifka (1990, 1991, 1995), according to which polarity items
are associated with alternatives inducing an ordering of (contextually
restricted) semantic strength. Their acceptability then depends on a
general condition requiring that assertions based on polarity items be
informationally stronger than those based on the alternatives.
Polarity reversal in counterfactuals thus provides support for
a theory of polarity licensing which is symmetric in its treatment of
positive and negative polarity items and which locates the context
sensitivity of licensing in the need to satisfy the general condition
for greater informativity.
------------------
Reception follows. For directions and a complete list of colloquia,
see http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-/-\-/ SEMANTICS WORKSHOP /-\-/-
The next talk in the semantics workshop will be presented by Cleo
Condoravdi (title and abstract below). We will meet this Thursday
9--11 am in MJH 146, that is the large seminar room in the linguistics
department. All are welcome!
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Temporal Presuppositions and Scope: The Case of `Ksana'
The Greek (compounding) adverb `ksana' means ``again'' or ``before'',
depending on the tense of the verb. Moreover, the two readings exhibit
an interesting complementarity in their assertions and
presuppositions. The assertion of one reading constitutes the
presupposition of the other and vice versa. The central
generalization is that the meaning ``again'' appears with the present,
aorist, and future tenses, as seen e.g. in (1), and the meaning
``before'' with the (existential) perfect, as seen in (2).
(1) afto to ksanaidha htes [Aorist]
this it re-saw-1Sg yesterday
`I saw this yesterday' (assertion)
`I had seen it before yesterday' (presupposition)
(2) afto to exo ksanadhi [Present perfect]
this it have-1Sg re-seen
`I've seen this before (now)' (assertion)
`I am seeing it (now)' (presupposition)
On the face of it, this is a classic instance of systematic ambiguity;
even so the non-occurring readings must be filtered out in some
way.
I will propose an analysis of `ksana', within a dynamic system of
interpretation, without resort to ambiguity. Its two readings and
their dependence on the tense of the verb are the result of the
presupposition it is associated with and its relative scope with
respect to tense or other aspectual operators. `Ksana' is an operator
on eventuality descriptions and it presupposes the existence of an
event of the same type occurring within an interval delimited by the
currently active reference time. Adopting an idea that is quite
common in the literature, I assume that the morphological tenses of
aorist, future and present constitute tense operators while the
perfect and `ksana' constitute aspectual operators occurring within
the scope of tense operators and scoping freely with respect to each
other. Given the presupposition of `ksana' and the interpretation of
the perfect certain scopal configurations, however, result in
incompatible conditions being placed on the currently active context.
This analysis predicts that with the resultative perfect `ksana'
should have the ``again'' reading and that in the presence of certain
temporal expressions such as `since then' both readings are available
with the perfect. These predictions are indeed borne out.
-/-\-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-\-/-
Rm 146, Bldg 460
Thu. 2/20/97, 7:30 pm
LOCALITY AND SEGMENT REALIZATION IN SPREADING
Maire Ni Chiosain and Jaye Padgett
UCSC
This work investigates the status of apparently transparent segments
in feature spreading. The price of transparency for phonological
theory has been a weakening of locality claims in various ways,
e.g. the relativization of locality to prosodic or feature geometric
anchors, process-specific locality principles, etc. It seems fair to
say that this program has failed to bring unity or explanatory
elegance to the domain of locality in spreading. We take up an
alternative line of thinking here, one getting increasing attention by
researchers. Segment skipping is denied, and the burden of explanation
for apparent transparency is shifted to the area of segment
realization. In particular, we show how Dispersion Theory (Flemming
1995b) eliminates any reference to transparency, for a large class of
cases. This alternative view calls only on independently needed
markedness principles and representations, effectively eliminating
locality in spreading as an issue in itself.
=============
All are welcome for the pre-workshop pizza. If you want to
join, R.S.V.P. Pizza will be delivered at 7:00 pm. Thanks.
-/-\-/ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM /-\-/-
Dr. David Franke, Trilogy Corporation
THURSDAY, FEB. 20, 1997, 4:15pm
ROOM 146, MARGARET JACKS HALL
Dr. David Franke of Trilogy will be giving a lecture on Trilogy's use of
Artificial Intelligence in solving real world business problems using
Trilogy's world class configuration technology.
The lecture will take place at the Symbolic Systems Forum this Thursday,
February 20 in Room 146 of the Margaret Jacks Hall, Building 460 (facing
the Oval) from 4:00 -6:00 PM and we would like you to join us.
Please find below an abstract of the lecture, Dr. Franke's biography, as
well as Trilogy's Employment Profiles. We will be holding a recruiting
event afterward from 6:00 -7:00 PM at the Linguistics Courtyard ("Thai
Cafe courtyard"). Refreshments will be provided.
Abstract
Engineering-Level Configuration - Reasoning From First Principles
Trilogy offers a commercial configuration solution that is being
applied throughout the sales process from point-of-sale to
manufacturing. Trilogy's s configuration technology accepts input
specifications in terms of high-level needs and complete or partial
lists of components to be used in the configuration. Trilogy?s
configuration solution is currently being used in multiple domains
including the following: computer configuration (PC, workstation,
mainframe, and supercomputer hardware and software); telecommunication
configuration (PBX, routers, switches); transportation (airplanes,
trucks, automobiles); modular furniture configuration; configuration
of custom manufactured materials; and services. While addressing
these configuration domains, Trilogy has accumulated over 200 person
years of experience in building configuration solutions, in the form
of a configuration engine and configuration models. Trilogy has
unique experience in breadth of domains examined and in numbers of
configuration solutions implemented and delivered.
Trilogy's configuration representation is model-based, using
an ontology consisting of functions, components, and complex,
inter-component and component/function relationships. Components and
functions are organized in a type hierarchy, with relationships
(manifested in configuration conditions) associated with types. Our
configuration approach is constructive, goal-oriented search. The
input specification identifies components and/or functions defined in
the configuration model that have associated configuration conditions.
Intra-component and inter-component relationships can also be declared
in the input specification. These configuration conditions define
intra- and inter- component and function relationships that must be
established during the construction of the resulting configuration.
These configuration conditions also contain heuristics that guide the
search when alternative configurations are possible.
Listed below are some of the specific configuration issues
Trilogy has addressed:
- topological reasoning/configuration (e.g., cabling, networks)
- spatial reasoning/configuration
- modifying/upgrading existing configurations
- abstract input specifications (user functionality requirements vs.
specific components)
- scalability (tens of thousands to millions of configurable components)
- multi-purpose configuration models
Bio:
David Franke has worked in industry since 1977, involved in research
and development of operating systems, computer architecture, decision
support applications, design knowledge representation, embedded
inference techniques, hardware/software codesign, model-based
reasoning, functional reasoning, and configuration. Prior to joining
Tilogy Development Group, he held the position of Senior Member,
Technial Staff at the Microelectronics and Computer Technology
Corporation (MCC) and at Texas Instruments, Inc. His publications
include technical papers on design knowledge acquisition and
representation, model-based reasoning, and object-oriented technology
and technical reports from MCC and the AI Lab of the University of
Texas, Austin. He is co-inventor on three software patents. He
received a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Oklahoma, an
M.S. in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, and a
Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas, Austin.
Selected Publications:
- "A Theory of Teleology," Ph.D. Dissertation, TR AI93-201, Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin.
- "Classifying and Indexing Design Modifications via Descriptions of
Purpose," AAAI Spring Symposium Series, Symposium on Computational
Considerations in Supporting Incremental Modification, March 1992.
- "Deriving and Using Descriptions of Purpose," IEEE Expert (special track
on Functional Reasoning), Vol. 6, No. 2 (April 1991).
- "Embedding Rule Inferencing in Applications," IEEE Expert (special track
on Object-Oriented Programming in AI), Vol. 5, No. 6 (December 1990).
- "Representing and Acquiring Teleological Descriptions," Proceedings of
the 1989 Workshop on Model-Based Reasoning.
- "Component-Connection Models, Proceedings of the 1989 Workshop on
Model-Based Reasoning (coauthor: Daniel Dvorak).
- "CADRES: CAD Design Knowledge Representation System, MCC Technical Report
CAD-198-89 (coauthors: David E. Newton, Richard P. Johns)
-/-\-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-\-/-
-- The Third Annual Mini-Symposium on Phonetics and Phonology:
Sponsored by the Phonology Laboratory and the Society of Linguistics
Undergraduates (SLUG). April 21st, 1997, Faculty Club, University of
California, Berkeley, California. "Vowels as Victims and Perpetrators
of Phonetic Variation" The third annual Berkeley mini-symposium on
Phonetics and Phonology will feature the topic of vowels in
interaction with other phonetic entities (consonants, other vowels,
suprasegmentals) to produce phonetic and phonological variation. The
presentations should address, even if speculatively, possible phonetic
factors influencing phonological behavior. Send abstracts (400 words
or less) by 28 February, 1997 email to : phonadmn@garnet.berkeley.edu
or by regular post to:
Mini-Symposium '97
Department of Linguistics/ Phonology Laboratory
2337 Dwinelle Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94030-2650
Include author's name, affiliation, and where to send notification
(preferable e-mail).
Submission of abstracts: February 28th, 1997 (NOTE! THIS DEADLINE IS
STRICT!)
For more information please visit the following Web page :
http://trill.berkeley.edu/Talks/symp.html
-/-\-/ SOCIOLINGUISTICS RAP /-\-/-
Next Tuesday, February 25, there will be a sociorap at 6:30 at the
home of Penny Eckert. Miyako Inoue, a first year faculty member in the
Anthropology department, will be talking informally about her work and
her interests. This is an opportunity to get to know Miyako, who is a
very exciting and valuable addition to our sociolinguistics community.
We will be ordering pizza, so please RSVP.
--------------
Ivan Sag and Penny Eckert Tel: (415) U-JINGLE
6 Cedar Court
Menlo Park, CA 94025
-/-\-/ CAREER WORSKSHOP /-\-/-
In our continuing series of talks about career paths for linguists
outside of regular university boundaries, on Thursday March 6th, at
noon in Rm. 146, Miriam Butt will come to talk about her career as a
computational linguist. Many of you know Miriam, a 1993 graduate of
this department, currently visiting this area for a few months. All
are welcome to this partly informational and partly social event.
-\-/-\ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS \-/-\-
-- The Dean of Research Office and the Development Office have created
a set of web pages to publicize the new Stanford Graduate Fellowships
Program in the Sciences and Engineering. One of the pages includes
links to all Departments and Programs in which these Fellowships are
available. The Linguistics Department Home Page is one of those
links. The Grad Fellowships Home Page can be found at
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/dept/DoR/Fellows/index.html
Right now it is accessible from several locations within the Dean of
Research Department directory.
-- USAID/Egypt, Tel: 011-20-2-357-3257/58, Fax: 011-20-2-356-2932.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is
seeking the services of a qualified firm or institution to provide
technical assistance for the $36.5m Integrated English Language
Program II (IELP-II). The short term objective of this program is to
provide Egypt with qualified English language teachers and
providers. The longer term objective is to provide Egypt with a system
which will supply quality education to future English language
teachers and which will meet the needs of specific occupational
areas. This program seeks to transfer and institutionalize
technological and methodological instructional/communicative
approaches that will enhance the quality of instruction and student
proficiency as well as advance the English language teaching
profession to sustainability in Egypt by Egyptians. In addition,
institutional reform of the English language testing and evaluation
system in the Ministry of Education and Faculties of Education are
critical to the sustainability of new interactive/communicative
language approaches. The program draws upon the knowledge and
experience of institutions involved in designing, implementing and
evaluating English language training programs for non-native English
speakers. The program description involves working with URL :
http://web.fie.com/htdoc/fed/aid/any/any/proc/any/02199701.htm
-- FEMINIST STUDIES COURSE DEVELOPMENT: The Stanford Program in
Feminist Studies will be able to fund one or two faculty members to
develop courses that will be taught regularly in the program. The
designated amount will depend on the faculty member's needs and on the
number of proposals we receive, but we expect to be able to offer
awards of up to a total of $2500. Preference will be given to members
of the academic council. We would particularly like to add to our
curriculum courses on masculinity; sexualities; cross-cultural issues;
health; race; gender, technology, and science; class and gender; and
international feminisms. We also have funds available to incorporate
lesbian/gay studies into the curriculum and welcome proposals for new
courses or to revise existing courses to incorporate lesbian and gay
scholarship. If you are interested in applying, please send either a
proposal for a new course, or a syllabus and revision plan for an
existing course. Please specify the feminist scholarly content of the
course and how you intend to use the course development funds.
Proposals should be sent to
Professor Estelle Freedman
Program in Feminist Studies
Serra House
MC 8640
Proposals are due March 31, 1997. If you have any questions, please
contact Estelle Freedman at 3-4951 or Cathy Jensen at 3-2412.
-- GEORGE P. SHULTZ FUND FOR CANADIAN STUDIES: The Canadian Studies
Committee announces the availability of limited funds to support
research-related activities for advanced level graduate students
specializing in Canadian Studies. This program is intended to fill in
the gaps between the availability of university and external funding
for dissertation work. Funds are limited, so it is not possible to
support every worthy proposal. Awards will be made on a competitive
basis primarily to students who are in one of the following
categories: (1) preparing disertation proposals, (2) undertaking field
research and requiring supplemental assistance, (3) writing up the
results of the dissertation research. Applicants must have completed
all qualifying exams and be engaged in dissertation research or
write-up at the time of application. The awards can be used to cover
partial tuition, travel, and reasonable living expenses. No funds are
available to cover travel or maintenance costs for dependents and
spouses. Deadline: Monday, March 17, 1997. For information and
applications, contact
Institute for International Studies
Attn: Fellowship Coordinator
200 Encina Hall
Stanford CA 94305-6055
phone: 415 725 2564
mailto: cs.jrc@forsythe.stanford.edu
-\-/-\ TRUE LINGUISTICS \-/-\-
An alert reader in the Ivory Coast spotted this sign in a popular
pizza joint in Abidjan:
Pizzeria - Restaurant
La Dolce Vita
Ouvert tous les jours
Ferme' lundi
Sauf jours fe'rie's
[Translation:
Open every day
Closed Monday
Except holidays]
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- Nuance Communications is looking for immediate-term help with a
project. Nuance, based in Menlo Park, is the leader in developing
speech recognition and language understanding software for
over-the-telephone applications. Nuance is currently working on
implementing one of its demo applications in Spanish and needs
assistance from someone who is a native speaker of Spanish, has solid
understanding of the language's grammar & dialects, a basic
understanding of software, and an understanding of the linguistics of
the language. Specific project tasks will include:
- translate demo prompts into Spanish
- translate speech recognition grammars into Spanish
- monitor the recording of Spanish prompts
- help us round up some Spanish speakers for testing
- help us analyze speech data from testing
- general application development support wherever possible
This will be an opportunity to work hands-on with a venture funded
software company doing exciting things with speech recognition
(naturally, we'll pay you too).
For more background on Nuance, please visit our web site at
www.nuance.com. The project begins as soon as possible with
deliverables due end-of-April.
If you're interested, please send an email to John Kirkpatrick
at jdk@nuance.com as soon as possible.
-- UCSD: *Application deadline has been extended to April 1, 1997.*
Applications are invited for postdoctoral fellowships in Language,
Communication and Brain at the Center for Research in Language at the
University of California, San Diego. The fellowships are supported by
the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD), and provide an annual
stipend ranging from $20,292 to $32,300 depending upon years of
postdoctoral experience. In addition, some funding is provided for
medical insurance and travel.
The program provides interdisciplinary training in:
(1) psycholinguistics, including language processing in adults
and language development in children;
(2) communication disorders, including childhood language
disorders and adult aphasia;
(3) electrophysiological studies of language, and
(4) neural network models of language learning and processing.
Candidates are expected to work in at least one of these four areas, and
preference will be given to candidates with background and interests
involving more than one area.
Grant conditions require that candidates be citizens or permanent residents
of the U.S. In addition, trainees will incur a payback obligation during
their first year of postdoctoral NRSA support and are required to complete
a Payback Agreement.
Applications must be RECEIVED by April 1, 1997.
Applicants should send a statement of interest, three letters of
recommendation,
a curriculum vitae and copies of relevant publications to:
Elizabeth Bates
Center for Research in Language 0526
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, California 92093-0526
(619) 534-2536
Women and minority candidates are specifically invited 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 \-/-\-
-- IT'S THE ARTS: What 20th Century artist quit painting altogether in
order to devote his live to the study of chess?
Answer to THAT DARNED CAMEL: 833.
/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\-/-\
-\-/-\ 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/), and at
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All rights revoked
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