LINGUIST List 2.373

Wednesday, 31 July 1991

Qs: Standard lgs, Achenese, Japanese CALL, Prolog

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1. Vera Horvath, Standard Language(s) - query
2. Ralf Thiede, query: agreement in Achenese passive
3. Jock McNaught, Help with Japanese CALL
4. Karl Dotzek, Query, Prolog

I am interested in the different ways one can define what is
the/a "standard language", particularly, but not exclusively,
what is Standard American English. I would be interested in any
references to published works, as well as in personal opinions or
reactions to my question.
Vera Horvath
00V0HORVATHBSUVAX1.BITNET

On the off chance that any of you know Achenese: In Studies in Relation-
al Grammar 2 (U of Chicago P, 1984), pages 8 to 9, David M. Perlmutter
used material provided by Iskandar and Hoekstra from Achenese to demons-
trate the necessity of the notion of initial subjecthood (or "1-hood").
The argument is that the verb in Achenese passive constructions agrees
with the nominal that was *originally* the subject and that RG therefore
needs to represent passivization in two strata so that the original sub-
ject is represented as "1". Here is one example [read ")" as the half-
open "o"]: _
 G)pnyan ka gi-c)m lon
 ^^^^^^^ ^^
 she PERF AGR-kiss me
 _
 Lon ka gi-c)m le-g)pnyan
 ^^ ^^^^^^^
 I PERF AGR-kiss by-her
The same (underlined) elements in both sentences agree. I know nothing
of the language, but I did notice that "lon" was translated in the vari-
ous examples as "I," "me," and "my," and it looks like there is no Case
inflection on Achenese (pro?)nominals. If that is so, then my next sus-
picion is that grammatical functions like subject and object are usually
expressed positionally. At this point, I may already be well off the
mark, but my question now is: are both above sentences active, with g)p-
nyan as grammatical subject, and is "le" the marker of subjects in non-
canonical positions or of a lower predication?
 Ralf Thiede
 UNCC Dept. of Engl.

I wonder if anyone has experience of Computer Assisted Language Learning
systems for Japanese (with English as the native language). We wish to
offer Japanese CALL to our university undergraduate students ab initio and
would be glad to learn about any packages available.
Information sought:
Name of package
Particular features of package
Supplier
Cost
Hardware and software requirements
We run mainly SUN Unix systems, IBM PC and PS/2 clusters.
Any help appreciated.
JMcN
--
John McNaught		 jock%ccl.umist.ac.ukean-relay.ac.uk (ean)
Centre for Computational jock%ccl.umist.ac.ukcunyvm.cuny.edu (arpa)
 Linguistics 		 jock%ccl.umist.ac.ukac.uk (earn)
UMIST			 jockcclsun.uucp
PO Box 88
Sackville Street
Manchester, UK 	 +44.61.200.3098 (direct)
M60 1QD

Dear all,
I am planning to organize a Prolog crash course for linguist students,
who (most of them) have never heard anything yet about Prolog.
What I am interested in is to hear your experiences during your first
contact with Prolog (those of you, having already tried to learn and
maybe succeeded to manage Prolog). What ideas did you have about it
first? What difficulties did you encounter? What principles in it seemed
hard for you to understand? What went wrong (or right) during your lessons?
Please, try to remember a little bit even if it might be long ago.
Hints from experienced Prolog teachers are also welcome.
Thanx, Karl Dotzek.