LINGUIST List 10.618

Wed Apr 28 1999

Qs: Awards for TAs, Use/Usage, "Gonna"

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Gladys.Scott, Teaching awards for TAs
2. Thomas Baldwin, 'USE'/'USAGE'
3. Jules Levin, gonna, et al.

Dear netters:
We are in the process of reinstating the tradition of giving teaching awards
to our TAs, and we would like to know how it is done at other schools.
Basically, we would like to get some input on the criteria used to decide who
gets the award/s (student evaluations, supervisor observations, peer
evaluations? do TAs need to apply for it? etc). 
We would appreciate ANY information on the selection process used at your
institutions. I'd be more than happy to make a summary of the responses I get
and share it with those interested in it. 

Thanks in advance!

Gladys
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Gladys Vega Scott
gladys.scottasu.edu
Department of Languages and Literatures
Arizona State University

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Plea for assistance in tracking down the first occurrence,preferably with
 
definitions and exemplification, of the terms 'USE' and 'USAGE'.I have a
feeling that it might have been Henry Widdowson that first applied the
terms to language (but did he actually 'coin' the terms?) but am not
sure of the source/s.Can anyone enlighten me (and forgive me for such
ingenuous questions)? 

Thomas.Baldwinunimi.it

 

I am a Balto-Slavicist by trade, but for decades I have been collecting
examples of the following forms in English: gonna, oughta, shoulda, coulda,
woulda, kinda, sorta, gotta, etc., specifically when they appear in print
outside of their presumed stylistic level, i.e., in a Wm Buckley column
(!!!), on the NYTimes Web page, etc.
I would like to write about this phenomenon, and have 2 related queries:
1) Do they have a generally agreed-upon name [I don't mean a generic term
for allegro forms that would include *don't*, etc.] I use the term
"construct" stress on 1st syllable, after Semitic grammar, since things
like "kinda nice" are analogous, if not identical, to the constructs of
Hebrew, cf. "b'nai brith" lit. sonsa the covenant.
2) Has anyone published anything about them, specifically, their below the
radar appearance outside of transcriptions of spoken colloquial English. I
think I began collecting them almost as soon as they began to appear.
Right now I am searching for examples in earlier texts, i.e., Civil War
letters by combatants, with NO results.
Please respond off line, and thanks.