LINGUIST List 2.412

Fri 16 Aug 1991

Disc: Perfect, LDC, Pig Latin

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "John Nerbonne", Re: The Perfect Passive Continuous
2. Dan I. Slobin, Re: Responses: reflexives, standard language, dialect
3. "Joyce Neu, Re: Linguistic Data Consortium
4. "Sue.Gass", Igpay Atinlay

This doesn't focus on passives, but it probably has a discussion (I
no longer have a copy at hand). At any rate, it has loads of
examples of perfect continuous forms:
Joachim Schmole "Die Expanded Form im Present Perfect: Eine Studie
zum Verbalaspekt des Neuenglischen" Diss., Freiburg. 1975.
I take the discussion to indicate that many find examples of these OK.
Furthermore, Denison (previous
note to this list) has many attestations; that suggests that we
oughtn't try to explain their unacceptability on formal
grounds. Instead, we ought to be looking for pragmatic explanations
of why they're often awkward (I take it there's agreement here, too).
--John Nerbonne

Re: Language and dialect
I always thought this famous quip was due to Jespersen,
and am amazed at the range of guesses. Now I'll have
to check if my own firm belief is an illusion.
Dan Slobin

In reply to John Lawler's posting, and having talked to Charles Wayne
myself about the Consortium, I remain skeptical. Wayne was unfamiliar
with the CHILDES database (Brian MacWhinney has organized this at
Carnegie Mellon) which consists of corpera from many different
sources available *free of charge*. Would the $1000-3000 be spent
for access by 1 person, 1 dept, or 1 institution? Because linguists
are frequently located in several depts (at Penn State, we are in
6 different depts.), this is an important question.
 Wayne was also unclear about where the data would come from, and
why linguists would want to release their corpera to the consortium.
I'd thought that perhaps the beginning of the consortium would be
to use the data collected under previous military grants--data that
I thought existed. Wayne did not know if such data existed nor if
it would go into the Lx data consortium.
 My sense after our phone conversation was that either the consortium
needs a great deal of planning or else Wayne is an ineffective
spokesperson for it. It remains unclear what the consortium will
do that CHILDES does not now do for free.
Joyce Neu
L1_________________________________________________________________L2
| Joyce Neu, Assistant Professor |_|_|_|_|
| Center for English as a Second Language |_|_|_|
| Department of Speech Communication |_|_|
| 305 Sparks Building E-mail: jn0psuvm.bitnet|_|
| Penn State University jn0psuvm.psu.edu |
| University Park, PA 16802 Fax: (814) 863-7986 |
| USA Phone: (814) 865-7365 |
L2_________________________________________________________________L1

There is a new book about Verlan (a French language game) by Natalie
Lefkowitz. I think it is published by Gunter Narr Verlag. Sue Gass