LINGUIST List 2.54

Thursday, 28 Feb 1991

Qs: Textbook, Austronesian Conf, Arabic proverbs

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Directory

1. , Introductory Linguistics Textbook for Graduates
2. Rachelle Waksler, International Austronesian Conference
3. Joe Giampapa, text-linguistic image acquisition in arabic proverbs

I keep on looking for the holy grail: a good textbook for 
a graduate level introduction to linguistics. Does anyone have any 
suggestions this year?

Is anyone going to the International Austronesian Conference
in Hawaii in May that would like to share accomodations?
Please respond to Shelley Waksler at
rwakslersfsuvax1.sfsu.edu

Keywords: text linguistic arabic proverb

I am trying to help a friend with her research in Arabic proverbs, and have a
few questions about what she is studying.

Her research is occupied with the following:

"With the Text-linguistic concept of the closeness of the text, I seek the
signals of the self-contained status of the proverb as well as of the arabic
traditional line of verse on the rhythmical, phonetical, syntactical and
semantic levels; which are the devices and which are the most recurring
characteristics."

1. What are "text-linguistics"? Is it an approach or hypothesis which states
that the creation of an image by text (ie. phrase or sentence) is made possible
by the words' semantics, argument structure, pronunciation, phrasal syntax,
etc.?

2. What is the text-linguistic "concept of the closeness of the text"? To what
would the text be "close", and based on which criteria? Is "closeness" a
statistical concept?

For what regards the seeking of "signals of the self-contained status of the
proverb":

3. Is this an example of how "text-linguistics" empower the comprehension of a
proverb?

4. What could constitute valid "signals" in a general human experience of
poetry or proverbs. Are there recurrent human perceptually-based primitives?

5. Is there any computational or automatic method for extracting signals from
text?

6. Is there any computational or automatic method for constructing images,
based on such signals, from text?

7. Does anyone have any experiences to share, be they in a similar approach to
analyzing poetry, prose, proverbs, manners of speech, etc.?

8. Are there any arabists out there?

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Due to constraints of time and disk space, I would prefer that e-mail responses
be sent to me, though I shall try to stay in touch with group discussions as
well.

-Joe Giampapa
Sixcom
Host Systems and Remote Processing Division of the Olivetti Group
Milano (Italia)

garofsixcom.it
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