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Sesquipedalian #19
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 19
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Independence Day (Dominican Republic) February 27, 1997
THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT PUNCTUATION
(courtesey of ojo@eden.com)
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are
generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being
useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for
you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever
happy--will you let me be yours?
Gloria
----------
Dear John:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are
generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to
being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I
yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can
be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Gloria
[editor's note: This document originally came to me (from an unknown
source) titled The Importance Of "Correct Punctuation". I don't know
whether this was meant to be part of the humor. I changed the title to
avoid perpetuating the quotes = emphasis mistake.]
-/-\-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-\-/-
Friday, Feb 28, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall (460), Room 146
Steve Franks
Indiana University and University of Connecticut
Slavic Clitics in Search of a Host
There has been much recent debate about whether special clitic
placement in general, and in the South Slavic languages, in
particular, can be handled exclusively through the exploitation of
familiar syntactic categories and movement mechanisms, or whether some
special phonological reordering is required, such as Halpern's
"Prosodic Inversion". This debate has primarily concentrated on
Serbian/Croatian and, to a lesser extent, Bulgarian. In this paper I
champion the syntactic approach, reviewing existing arguments why
Serbian/Croatian clitic placement demands syntactic means and
presenting some novel ones. I also extend the analysis to Slovenian
and Macedonian, showing how these languages differ from
Serbian/Croatian and Bulgarian. I argue that Slavic special clitics
require syntactic support in the form of head adjunction, and that
when no head independently moves up to them to check its own features,
the clitics themselves move, raising, or when that option is
unavailable, actually lowering overtly to a host head.
The program of placing Slavic clitics syntactically faces a
challenge in that there are some obvious phonological effects which
need to be built into the system. I defend a "filtering" approach, in
which the results of strictly syntactic movements are modulated by the
phonology. Thus, the syntax will generate certain orders that "crash"
at PF because the clitics are not supported prosodically.
I also address the difference between the second-position
(Wackernagel) type clitics, as in Serbian/Croatian, Slovenian and
Czech, and the Macedonian and Bulgarian verb-adjacent type. I argue
that all Slavic clitics are functional heads, citing Czech data which
suggest even that a single morpheme can alternate between functional
and substantive status, with its ability to function as a clitic
varying accordingly. Second position pronominal clitics are generated
in the appropriate argument positions, presumably as D or K heads. All
special clitics have strong case features, requiring them to adjoin to
Agr heads overtly. But they also need to be adjoined to the
substantive head that licenses them, typically, the verb. The basic
idea is thus that they raise from argument position to Agr and then
keep on moving until they reach the highest functional head in the
phrase structure, where they must stop and "wait" for the verb to get
there at LF. This is what happens in the case of second-position
clitics. Verb-adjacent clitics, on the other hand, are generated
directly in Agr rather than in argument position, so that the verb
literally "comes to them".
------------------
Reception follows. For directions and a complete list of colloquia,
see http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-/-\-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-\-/-
Rm 146, Bldg 460
Thu. 2/27/97, 7:30 pm
Learnability Arguments Concerning Representational UG
Charles Reiss
Concordia University
This paper offers an alternative view of the acquisition of phonological
inventories from that adopted by most researchers in phonological
acquisition and learnability (Jakobson, Rice, Calabrese, Smollensky,
etc.) In particular, we reject the common formulation of the subset
principle in phonology which is stated (implicitly or explicitly) in
terms of segments, and we demonstrate that the proper formulation must
be in terms of features. We relate our claims to recent work on
underspecification theory. The paper draws on empirical evidence in
the phonetic and psycholinguistic literature, as well as on standard
assumptions of generative theory.
==========
All are welcome for pre-workshop pizza. RSVP.
Pizza will be delivered at 7:00. Thanks.
-/-\-/ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM /-\-/-
This week's Symbolic Systems Forum is combined with Computer Science's
AI seminar. NOTE LOCATION OF TALK:
When: THURSDAY, February 27, 1997
Time: 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Where: Gates Bldg. B01
Speaker: Kurt Konolige
Title: "Robots as Physical Agents"
Abstract
As autonomous mobile robots grow more capable, it becomes more
realistic to integrate their activities in the human workplace. At
SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center, we have developed a robot
control architecture, Saphira, that can reliably perform navigation
tasks in an office environment. So, we can have the robot deliver
documents or donuts to various locations, by typing in a command to
Saphira. Our vision, however, is to have a much more natural
interaction with office delivery robots. This includes communication
in forms that are natural to humans (voice and gesture recognition,
email, and pen/graphic input); integration of disparate information
sources such as floor plans, schedules, and telephone numbers; and
cooperation with other robots. This talk and demonstration will
illustrate how we have integrated physical robots into SRI's
developing Open Agent Architecture (OAA), an assemblage of internet
agents for communication and control.
Biography
Kurt Konolige is a Senior Computer Scientist at the Artificial
Intelligence Center of SRI International, and a Consulting Professor
at Stanford University. He received his PhD in Computer Science from
Stanford University in 1984; his thesis, "A Deduction Model of Belief
and its Logics," develops a model of belief based on the
resource-bounded inferential capabilities of agents. His research
interests are broadly based on issues of commonsense reasoning,
including introspective reasoning, defeasible reasoning, and reasoning
about cognitive state, especially in the context of multiagent
systems. More recently, he has conducted research in fuzzy control
for reactive systems; in constraint-based planning and inference
systems; in reasoning about perceptual information; and in realtime
robotics and vision systems.
-/-\-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-\-/-
--ESSLI WORKSHOP: Quantification: Collectivity, and Reciprocity
Organizers: Stanley Peters & Jaap van der Does
In the first week of the Ninth European Summer School in
Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI'97) there will be a workshop
on Quantification. This workshop aims to give a representative
overview of recent logical and linguistic developments on dynamic
quantification, collectivity, and reciprocity. The focus is on the
interconnections between these topics, and on strategies for
disambiguating the often impressive amount of readings.
We invite researchers who want to participate in our workshop
to send a short abstract (ca. one page; title, name, affiliation,
email included) by email to: jvddoes@fwi.uva.nl, or:
peters@Prosit.Stanford.EDU before March 15. In particular, PhD
students are encouraged to use this event to disseminate their work.
ESSLLI'97 is to be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, from
August 11 until August 22, 1997. For further information see:
http://www.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~esslli97.
-/-\-/ 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.
-\-/-\ TRUE LINGUISTICS \-/-\-
Priorities: a Sufi parable
A grammarian fell into a well one day and had difficulty climbing up
the slippery sides.
A little later, a Sufi chanced by and heard the man's cries for
succor. In the casual language of everyday life, the Sufi offered aid.
The grammarian replied, "I would certainly appreciate your help. But
by the way, you have committed an error in your speech," which the
grammarian proceeded to specify.
"A good point," acknowledged the Sufi. "I had best go off awhile and
try to improve my skills." And so he did, leaving the grammarian at
the bottom of the well.
-\-/-\ 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.)
-- UNIVERSITY OF OREGON: The Linguistics Department at the University
of Oregon announces the opening of one to three non-tenure related
Visiting Assistant Professor positions for the 1997-98 academic year,
potentially renewable, ranging from .50 to 1.0 FTE depending on
departmental needs. The Linguistics Department of Oregon enjoys a
long history of work within the functionalist tradition, concentrating
in descriptive work and field work and in empirical work on language
use, discourse, and language acquisition. We invite applications from
qualified individuals who can contribute to the functional and
typological orientation of the department. Since the openings fill
teaching gaps for faculty on leave, the candidate must show evidence
of considerable teaching skill, at both undergraduate and graduate
levels. The succesful applicant must be able to help cover our core
curriculum, which includes phonetics, phonology,
functional-typological morphosyntax, semantics, and second language
acquisition and teaching. Additional specializations in second
language acquisition, discourse, psycholinguistics, and/or historical
syntax and grammaticalization will be particularly attractive,
depending on department needs. In addition, the succesful applicant
must have an active research profile and must be able to direct
graduate student research. Please submit letter of application, vita,
and names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of three
references to
VAP Search Committee
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403
Applications must be received by March 15, 1997, to receive fullest
consideration.
(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 \-/-\-
--BAY AREA NATIVE QUIZ: Highest score wins this week's insta-prize.
1) Complete the following phrase:
Dublin, Berkeley, San Lorenzo, Cupertino, __________
2) Name the five bridges that cross San Francisco Bay.
Extra credit: put them in order from north to south.
Extra extra credit: explain how to get across the Golden Gate
Bridge during rush hour in less than an hour.
3) Complete the following phrase: 2400 Mission, top of the hill, _______
4) You're at a San Francisco Spiders hockey game at the Cow
Palace. (True: a team called "the Spiders" used to play at a place
called "the Cow Palace." Go figure.) A woman comes out to sing the
Star Spangled Banner wearing a huge hat with a model of the entire
financial district, including the TransAmerica building, on top of it.
Your response is:
a) "Hey, look at that idiot wearing the dorky hat!"
b) "Is this an Agnews field trip?"
c) "Hey, Beach Blanket Babylon!"
d) "Hey, Crazy George!"
e) "Nice lid."
5) What does a dog do when you say 'KOFY?'
6) Which of the following is your typical response to an earthquake?
a) "Earthquake! We're all gonna die!"
b) "Earthquake! Great! Now I don't have to go to class."
c) "Earthquake? We had an earthquake today? I didn't feel it."
7) Match up the following people with the phrases/shows they're associated
with:
a) Bob Wilkins 1) Baghdad-by-the-Bay
b) Pat McCormick 2) Creature Feature
c) Herb Caen 3) Sacratomato
d) Dr. Donald D. Rose 4) Dialing for Dollars
8) If someone asked you how to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
what would be your response?
a) Get onto 101 south and take it all the way.
b) Take 80 east to 580 east to 5 south, then take it all the way.
c) Los Angeles? Why do you want to go to Los Angeles?
9) Which of the following is NOT, repeat NOT, a valid name for a Bay Area
sports stadium, and I don't care how much money they paid?
a) Oakland Coliseum
b) San Jose Arena
c) Candlestick Park
d) 3Com Park
10) The word "Frisco" is:
a) A cute little nickname for that city we also know as
"San Francisco."
b) A really annoying shortening of "San Francisco," no doubt
started by Southern Californians who can't say words
longer than two syllables.
c) The result of a satanic plot.
d) Beats me. Never heard the word before in my life.
11) The little man is on the edge of the chair, clapping wildly; the
little man is sitting in the chair and clapping; the little man is sitting
in the chair and leaning forward; the little man is asleep in the chair;
and the chair is empty. What did I just describe?
12) In referring to a general region of the Bay Area, which of the
following terms is never used? What is that area called instead?
a) Marin
b) West Bay
c) East Bay
d) South Bay
13) BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is not in fact rapid transit for the
entire Bay Area. For instance, it doesn't run to Milpitas (but can you
blame them?) Which of the following is another city that BART doesn't
currently serve?
a) Richmond
b) Fremont
c) Daly City
d) San Jose
14) Which of the following would you be likely to see people wearing at
Bay to Breakers?
a) running shorts
b) an Elvis costume
c) a fancy ball gown
d) a fancy ball gown worn by a male
e) nothing
f) all of the above
Solution to IT'S THE ARTS: Marcel Duchamp.
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