LINGUIST List 2.546

Sat 21 Sep 1991

Qs: Border lg, Roles, Features, Bilingualism, etc.

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Stieber's Law
2. Ted Pedersen, Border Language
3. Gabriel Decio, query
4. Ron Smyth, Re: 2.531 Warning
5. Jacques Guy, Let's change the subject please
6. Leslie, Software to get IPA in Word Perfect
7. Edward Kovach, Classics notes
8. , SMALL TALK
9. Jean Veronis, Q: Feature structures
10. Robert D Hoberman, Bilingual brain and language attrition

If I may repeat a query I posted over the summer (hoping that some of
you who were then on vacation will be able to help),
I am trying to find out who first proposed that analogical processes
may NOT affect the phonemic system of a language (create new phonemes,
redistribute allophones, etc.). The earliest formulation of this
I now know is by the Polish linguist Stieber (first name Zdzislaw, I
think) in the 1930's, but he does not sound as though he thought this
up. And I am SURE it was NOT Max Weinreich.

I am interested in finding out if anyone is doing linguistic research
on the impact of Spanish on English and English on Spanish in our border
areas with Mexico. Has anyone theorized that a "new" language may emerge?
Any researchers known or publications seen would be very helpful.
Thanks,
Ted Pedersen
University of Arkansas

I'm doing research on THEMATIC ROLES in the Spanish language. I would
appreciate suggestions about bibliography on:
* thematic roles in the Spanish language
* event structure in the Spanish language
Bibliography welcome in English, Spanish, Italian, French, and German.
Thanks,
Gabriel Decio deciomace.cc.purdue.edu
Dept. of English
Purdue University

Message 4: Re: 2.531 Warning

What does 'posted' mean? It has been mentioned a few times, and I've
seen it in the US, but it's not in my (Canadian) dialect. My guess is that
it's some sort of generic warning about trespassing, hunting, snowmobiling,
fishing, and gathering wild mushrooms, but it could mean that the land has
been staked off with posts.
--- Puzzled.
smythlake.scar.utoronto.ca

Contrary to what earlier posting may have suggested, what I am interested
in is:
(1) the decipherment of still unknown languages, e.g. Easter Island
 tablets, Voynich manuscript.
(2) the reconstruction of the filiation of languages (I just avoided
 the terms "lexicostatistics" and "glottochronology" on purpose)
(3) the theories and methods developed thirty years ago by one Russian
 researcher by the name of B.V. Sukhotin.
Anyone else with similar interests, please?

I have been using an IBM PC since 1983, but I can't get most IPA symbols with i
t (using Word Perfect and the departmental laser printer I am connected to). N
ow there is a chance I could get my university to buy me a computer, but I'm no
t sure what to ask for. The folks in my computer center advise me to switch to
 Macintosh, and I have seen some ads for software (from Ecological Linguistics)
that look pretty good. Does anyone have any suggestions? I probably could ge
t $3,000-4,000, but I would like that to include a laser printer so that I coul
d ensure that the printer will print all of the symbols my software will genera
te. Other alphabets would be nice, but they aren't crucial (except the usual E
uropean stuff, like unlauts and accents). Most important would be to get all t
he IPA symbols. Advise Welcome. Leslie Barratt (EJLESBBINDST.BITNET)

I am looking for the addresses of notes files and/or listservers which
deal with the Ancient Classics - ie Latin, Greek, their literature, and
the history and culture of this period.
Please e-mail any information you have to me.
Thank you,
Edward G. Kovach
kovachaustin.cogsci.uiuc.edu

I have an MA student ( actualy my first!) doing a
project rather than a thesis on small talk.
She already has a huge and well recorded corpus of
party talk.
Can anyone ot there recommend some apt reading?
Thanking you
John Wheatley

Two questions on feature structures:
1) In most of the work I know, unification of two disjunctive feature
structures involves unfactoring the two features structures to their
disjunctive normal form. In that case, it seems that there is no way to assign
a particular disjunctive format to the resulting feature structure: it has to
be in disjunctive normal form too.
However, it seems to me that in many cases, the result of the unification has a
possible disjunctive format. For example, it seems reasonable to think that the
unification of the two following feature structures
+-- --+ +-- --+
| A: a1 | | A: a1 |
| | | E: e1 |
| / \ | | |
| | +- -+ | | | / \ |
| | | B: b1 | | | | | +- -+ | |
| | | C: c1 | | | | | | B: b1 | | |
| / +- -+ \ | | | | D: d1 | | |
| \ +- -+ / | | / +- -+ \ |
| | | B: b2 | | | | \ +- -+ / |
| | | C: c2 | | | | | | B: b2 | | |
| | +- -+ | | | | | D: d2 | | |
| \ / | | | +- -+ | |
+-- --+ | \ / |
 +-- --+
will yield a feature structure formatted in the following way:
+-- --+
| A: a1 |
| E: e1 |
| |
| / \ |
| | +- -+ | |
| | | B: b1 | | |
| | | C: c1 | | |
| | | D: d1 | | |
| / +- -+ \ |
| \ +- -+ / |
| | | B: b2 | | |
| | | C: c2 | | |
| | | D: d2 | | |
| | +- -+ | |
| \ / |
+-- --+
Of course, this is a simple case where the two feature structures have very
similar formats. In the general case, it is more difficult to define what the
resulting format should be. Does anybody know a definition a unification for
disjunctive feature structures that would assign a disjunctive format to the
result? Any reference?
2) Does anybody know any attempt to use feature structures as a data model in
general-purpose database systems?
Thanks,
Jean Veronis
ps: please reply to LN.

	In 1989-90 my English-speaking daughter attended kindergarten in Israel
and became a near-native speaker of Hebrew. She still speaks Hebrew, though
she has lost some fluency and vocabulary in the year since we returned to the
US from Israel. Yesterday she told me, in English, a story she had seen in a
video, in Hebrew, in her kindergarten. She had never retold the story before,
and it was unfamiliar to me and my wife. When I asked her to tell it in
Hebrew she said she couldn't because she had forgotten some of the words.
	What does this suggest about the mental storage of information by
bilinguals? That the story exists in memory somehow apart from its embodiment
in language? That she was translating from a latent remembered verbal script
which is otherwise not accessible, at least not easily or fully? Since my
daughter can still speak Hebrew moderately well, I can't prove that she's
incapable of telling the story in Hebrew, but what if I could -- say, if she
were no longer speaking Hebrew at all. Has anyone examined data of this kind?
Bob Hoberman