LINGUIST List 15.1762

Thu Jun 10 2004

Qs: Syntax/Names; English Reduplication

Editor for this issue: Andrea Berez <andrealinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Marge McShane, The Syntax of Personal Names
2. James Norris Stanford, English reduplication

The Institute for Language and Information Technologies (ILIT) at the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County is developing a system for
recognizing references to named entities in texts in any language. So,
we need a broad cross-linguistic knowledge base about a) the types of
elements that comprise names in many languages and b) in what order
and combinations these elements can occur.

If you know or are working on a language that has interesting
properties for name formation (especially for so-called
less-commonly-taught languages) and could answer the two questions
below, we'd much appreciate it.

QUESTION 1: 
Our current inventory of components of people's names includes: 
- personal name (e.g., Mary)
- surname (e.g., Smith)
- middle name (e.g., Ann)
- middle initial (e.g., A.)
- patronymic (e.g., Ivanovich)
- matronymic (e.g., Espinosa)
- title (Dr., Mr.)
- post-name descriptor [a rather broad category] (Jr., Sr., III, DDS)
- tribal name (Abnaki)
- particle (de, von)

If any language you know uses name components other than these, please
name it, describe it briefly, and indicate the language in which it is
used.

QUESTION 2: 
Our inventory of attested name patterns (e.g., 'title + surname' as in
'John Smith') is too long to list but includes all the patterns
typically found in Western European languages, with well-known
patterns from other languages as well. Taking that as a rough
(although underspecified, for reasons of space) starting point, if you
can suggest any additions from less well studied languages please list
them below, providing the pattern in terms of category labels and an
example, and provide the source language. If you have suggested new
category types above, we'd really like to know what patterns they
participate in!

Please respond directly to

margeumbc.edu

and let me know if you'd like to see the compiled results of the
survey.

Many thanks for your help!
Marge McShane 

I am looking for publications on the class of English partial
reduplication expressions such as 'super duper', 'fuzzy wuzzy', 'lovey
dovey', 'fancy shmancy', etc.

Thank you for any suggestions,
James N. Stanford 

stanfo23msu.edu 

Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University