LINGUIST List 12.2077

Tue Aug 21 2001

Qs: Amalgams, Expectations Based on the Voice

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

Directory

1. bender, Amalgams
2. feargal murphy, expectations based on the voice

Dear linguists,

I am working on an analysis of one of the types of sentences that
Lakoff dubbed "amalgams", illustrated in (1):

(1) Kim invited you'll never guess how many people to God knows
 what kind of a party.

(In outline, the construction in question licenses clauses as NPs
where the clauses contain subordinate sluiced clauses.)

I am looking for references to work on this construction in English
and/or related constructions in other languages. I am also curious
what other languages have similar phenomena.

I will post a summary to the list.

Many thanks,

Emily M. Bender
Stanford University/YY Technologies

Dear linguists,

A student asked me the other day if there was any work done on what
aspects of the human voice cause expectations about appearance in the
hearer (say the iamge you create of a person you hear over the phone
or the qualities of a voice that an advertiser would be interested in
in a voice).

I have no knowledge of this are and was wondering if anyone out there
knew of any work in this area, either from a linguistic or
psychological approach.

Please send any information to 

feargal.murphyucd.ie

I will post a summary.

Thanks in advance,

Feargal Murphy,
Dept of Linguistics,
UCD, Dublin 4,
Ireland.