LINGUIST List 14.1955

Fri Jul 18 2003

Qs: Disfluency; Dictionary Presentation

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Directory

  1. Stefano Bertolo, disfluency questions
  2. Bruno Maroneze, dictionary presentation of derived words

Message 1: disfluency questions

 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:13:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: Stefano Bertolo <bertolocyc.com>
Subject: disfluency questions

Being completely ignorant of what I understand to be a vast 
literature on the subject of disfluency, I'd like to ask four
questions on disfluency:

a) is there a phonology of disfluency? I.e. (putting aside 
 repetition of words) a theory that explains why "um" and "er" 
 are common disfluencies while "grtsknmab" is not?

b) is there a syntax of disfluency? I.e. to give a completely 
 fictional example, a theory that would predict the occurrence
 of a sequence such as

	um, um, er...

 and rule out the occurrence of a sequence such as

	er, um, er, um, ...

c) is there a semantics of disfluency? Conceivably, this 
 could include a theory of disfluencies as epistemic/evidential 
 operators on the expressions over which they take scope (if 
 such a notion is possible) or directly express a state of mind such
 as confusion, indecision, shame, etc...

d) to what extent are these theories cross-linguistic?

Thank you in advance for any pointer. I will summarize and
post if I receive a sufficiently large number of replies.

	Best,

	Stefano Bertolo
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Message 2: dictionary presentation of derived words

 Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:59:12 +0000
From: Bruno Maroneze <bmaronezebol.com.br>
Subject: dictionary presentation of derived words

Dear linguists,
	In English language dictionaries, derived words are generally
indicated after the primitive word's definition (except when the
derived word's meaning is not the sum of the meanings of its
parts). An example from the ''English Dictionary Concise Edition''
(Geddes & Grosset, 1999):

nomad n one of a people or tribe who move in search of pasture; a
wanderer. - nomadic adj.

	This, as far as I know, is a tradition only in English
language lexicography. I wish to know when this tradition began (in
which lexicographical work), and if there are dictionaries in other
languages which also present derived words this way.
	I will be glad to post a summary of the responses.

Best regards,
Bruno O. Maroneze
Graduate Student - University of Sao Paulo - Brazil
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