LINGUIST List 2.739

Fri 01 Nov 1991

Misc: Lexical Borrowing, Goats, Tones, Motion, Washing...

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Re: 2.702 Queries
2. "M. Sokolik", Re: 2.713 Names
3. Jacob Hoeksema, Re: 2.714 Is Language Finite? Motion Verbs
4. Herb Stahlke, Needs -ed
5. Tom Lai, The four tones

Message 1: Re: 2.702 Queries

Re. lexical borrowing in Chinese: Cantonese in Hong Kong naturally
borrows heavily from English. An interesting theoretical question her
is how to distinguish borrowing from the ubiquitous code-mixing.
Two relevant books produced here at HKU are:
 A Study of Lexical Borrowing from English in Hong Kong Chinese
by Helen Kwok and Mimi Chan, 1982;
 Code Mixing and Code Choice: a Hong Kong Study, by John Gibbons, 1987
 Stephen Matthews, U. of Hong Kong

Message 2: Re: 2.713 Names

Re: Gets My Goat
Putting P.C. aside, according to Mencken (1945, American Language)
it originated in a practice among certain trainers of horses of
calming a nervous horse by putting a goat into the stall with it.
If someone wanted to throw a race, s/he (probably he) would come
and take the goat away. Then, of course, the horse would be overcome
by a case of the jitters, I guess, and lose the race.
First print recording: C. Mathewson's Pitching in a Pinch (1912)
"Then Lobert...stopped at third with a mocking smile which would
have gotten the late Job's goat."
Timely, no?

Message 3: Re: 2.714 Is Language Finite? Motion Verbs

Re: Bring and Come
check out the squib in the CLS book of squibs (1977) -- I forget
who by -- but certainly entertaining!

Going back a few weeks to the "needs washed" discussion, I just heard
a colleague who grew up in central Ohio say, "That list needs a lot of
cleaned up." When I asked her about it, about two sentences later,
to get her permission to exhibit her speech here, she thought that
she had said "needs to be cleaned up." She didn't. I won't even try
to parse this one, unless anyone is willing to consider "cleaned up" a
nominal.
Herb Stahlke
Ball State University

The four characters John Cowan asked for may be (in Pinyin) _tian zi
sheng zhe_. Tom Lai.