LINGUIST List 10.1747

Wed Nov 17 1999

Qs: Homography,ESL Teaching Tapes, LF-PF Mapping

Editor for this issue: James Yuells <jameslinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Mahmoud Kassaei, Homography
2. Elizabeth Winkler, ESL/EFL teaching tapes
3. Lotfi, LF-PF mapping

Dear Linguists,

I am currently working on my PhD thesis on HOMOGRAPHY and HOMOGRAPH 
DISAMBIGUATION in Text-to-Speech systems and looking for references. Any 
research material you might know of in this area would be a great help.
I would also love to collect homograph examples / lists in any language you 
might know of. I am aware of homographs in German, English, Persian, and 
Spanish (when accets are omitted). I will post a summary of this query.

Thank you very much for your time.

Regards

Mahmoud Kassaei

Dear Linguist List members;
 I am teaching a class in second language acquisition at the 
undergraduate level. Most of the students are education majors who 
plan to be classroom teachers. Unfortunately, the university at which 
I teach has no Intensive English Program to which I could send 
students to observe and critique various aspects of real language 
learning and teaching. 
 I would like to get a couple of tapes of classroom interaction - 
both structured and less structured classroom lessons and activities. 
No one I know has tapes of themselves teaching that I could copy. 
Thus, I am coming to the list for help. If you have any tapes that 
you would be willing to part with or make copies of, please respond 
to me off the list. I will be happy to cover the cost of tapes and 
postage. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Elizabeth Winkler


Dept. of Language and Literature
Columbus State University
4225 University Avenue
Columbus, GA 31907-5645

(706) 568-2054 office - business only
(706) 221-7168 home

Dear Linguists,
In Minimalist Program (1995), Chomsky states that '[t]he
language L ... generates three relevant sets of computations:
the set D of derivations, a subset Dc of convergent derivations
of D, and a subset Da of admissible derivations of D. FI
(Full Interpretation) determines Dc, and the economy conditions
select Da (p. 220)."
It is further assumed that "[a] derivation converges at one of
the interface levels if it yields a representation satisfying FI
at this level, and converges if it converges at both interface
levels, PF and LF; otherwise, it crashes (pp. 219-220)."
Moreover, it is hypothesized that " there are no PF-LF inter-
actions relevant to convergence --which is not to deny, of course,
that a full theory of performance involves operations that apply
to the (pi, lambda) pair" (p.220)."
Now some uneasy (for me, of course!) questions:
(1) Suppose the derivation D converges at PF but crashes at LF.
This means D crashes in the final run. Now how does PF 'under-
stand' that D has crashed at LF, then not to be articulated
phonetically? How do PF and LF communicate? Are sensori-motor
instructions sent to PF temporarily stored somewhere (where?) so
that the case of D is decided on at LF, and then PF is informed
(how?) to proceed with the sensori-motor business of D?
(2) Two rival derivations have converged but only one of them,
say Da, passes the test of optimality at LF. Da must be blocking
the less economical but still convergent derivation. How is
it signalled to the other interface level to phonetically articulate
this single admissible derivation and not the other? How long
should PF wait before deciding to articulate a pi (it is too
risky to articulate pi even if D has converged at LF
as it may simply prove to be less economical than another)?
Can one take care of such a mapping between PF and LF without
violating the independence assumption of interface levels?
Is it the computational system that monitors PF and LF in this
respect? Or perhaps all these questions are to be simply dismissed
as the concerns of "a full theory of performance" rather than those of
the minimalist syntax as a theory of competence?
Best,
Ahmad R. Lotfi, Ph. D
Chair of Eglish Dept.
Azad University at
Khorasgan, IRAN.
- --------------------------------------------------------------