LINGUIST List 2.99

Thursday, 28 Mar 1991

Disc: Albanian, Subject-verb, Transfixation, and more

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Barbara Levergood, Albanian
2. Y knot, Re: Queries
3. John Coleman, RE: Transfixation
4. bert peeters, Middle voice
5. , Re: Kikongo
6. Tim Montler, Phonetics Fonts for Word Perfect and Laserjet
7. , Re: Dissertations
8. "NORVAL SMITH, RE: SIL, Phonetic Fonts, LINGUISTS Nameserver
9. Thomas E Payne, Re: Word Perfect
10. Harriet Ottenheimer, Re: IT

RE: Albanian

Leonard Newmark works on Albanian. you can contact him at

newmarkbend.ucsd.edu

With regard to Alison Henry's query on subject-verb agreement, here's an
example in English. Existential sentences permit violations of subject-verb
agreement in favor of the singular only if "be" is contracted:

 (1) There's/There're lots of solutions to that problem.

cf: (2) *There is lots of solutions to that problem.

Susan Fischer

Re: transfixation

English: woman (w[u]m[]n) women (w[i]m[i]n) and other VH examples?

Singhalese: I have some transcriptions showing long-domain VH-type
oppositions that might be interpreted as transfixation:

Rough reproductions of my transcriptions are: (sorry I don't
know what bits of these correspond to what morphemes):

It's a cock: eikakukule(k)
It's a hen: eikikikilia

They are cockerels: ungkukulo
They are hens: ungkikiljo

It's a boy: ejakulle(k)
It's a girl: ejakelle(k)


It's a dog: eikabalek
It's a bitch: eikibelja(k)

It's a (m.) bird: eikakurulle(k)
It's a (f.) bird: eikikirilja

These reproductions are so rough that I wouldn't like them to
be used as they are for analysis. If these data are useful to 
anyone I could send the transcriptions by post.

--- John Coleman

To Scott C. Browne:
I'm not a specialist of English, but I remember having read something about
the English middle voice, with some biblio, in 

Jan van Voorst, Event Structure (Current issues in linguistic theory, 59),
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1988.

Hope this information, limited though it may be, is useful.
Bert Peeters (University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia)

Re: Kikongo.
A former student of mine, has a good knowledge of Kikongo. He's not a specialist in Bantu linguistics, but is a native speaker, and knows the language well
enough to transcribe from tapes and to analyse morphologically. His name and 
address are: Mr. Yeno Matuka
 Ball State University
 Department of English
 Muncie, IN 47306, tel. (317) 285-8580
Willem J. de Reuse, Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721

 I have developed a set of downloadable phonetics soft fonts in various
typefaces, sizes, and styles for the HP Laserjet series II (IIP, IID, III).
We are using the fonts to typeset the Southwest Journal of Linguistics, which
is done mainly in 12 point then reduced to around 84% producing a type quality
comparable to any linguistics journal. The phonetics symbols occupy
characters 128-245 and follow closely the order and recommendations of Pullum
and Ladusaw's Phonetic Symbol Guide.
 For phonetics on the screen we are using a Hercules Plus Card Ramfont. I
also have EGA and VGA phonetics fonts that work with the printer fonts. You
don't need Hercules Plus, EGA, or VGA if you have some other way of getting
special characters on the screen or if you don't mind seeing something on the
screen that is different from what prints.
 The printer and screen fonts are coordinated through Word Perfect 5.1
there is also a 5.0 version). Word Perfect works well with the fonts because
it allows an inventory of over 1500 in its special character sets. You don't
need Word Perfect to make use of the printer fonts, but you'd have to set up
character and proportional spacing tables yourself for any other word processor.
 I'll send the fonts and WP drivers to anyone who sends a letter of request,
a self-addressed, stamped disk mailer, and one 3.5" or two 5.25" disks.

Timothy Montler
P.O Box 13827
University of North Texas
Denton TX 76203
(817)565-2147
montleruntvax.bitnet
montlervaxb.acs.unt.edu

I don't know anything about on-line dissertations, but Jim Huang's
thesis is distributed by:

MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
Room 20D-219 MIT
Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

All thesis and working papers are $12 each plus postage.
Postage is $2. per thesis in the US, and $3. per thesis elsewhere.

Prepayment is required on all orders and can be a cheque (US Funds),
Money Order, or Electronic Transfer of funds (contact me by e-mail and
I can send you the relevant numbers).

I'm working on getting our publications / price list on-line, and will
send it to anyone when it's available. In the meantime, contact me at
the e-mail address below and I can send our list by (regular) mail, or
answer specific requests on-line.

--Jonathan Bobaljik
--MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
--jdbobaljathena.mit.edu

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On IT (or ITP) (reply to Belmore)

This software from the SIL which was developed for processing fieldnotes
is being used by a couple of people at the Institute for General Linguistics
at the University of Amsterdam. The person who has used it most is Silvia
Kouwenberg - KOUWENBERGALF.LET.UVA.NL.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Phonetic Fonts for the HP LaserJet (reply to Manaster Ramer)

A set of IPA fonts for the LaserJet has been developed by Timothy Montler
of UNT. These come with a screen driver, I understand.
Timothy Montler's address is MONTLERVAXB.ACS.UNT.EDU.
Snail mail: PO Box 13827
 Dept. of English
 University of North Texas
 Denton TX 76203-3827
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Norval Smith

In response to Alexis_Manaster_RamerMTS.cc.Wayne.edu.
Word Perfect 5.0 and newer allows the user to produce just about any special
character imaginable for the screen. The catch is you have to have a "program-
able" video card such as Hercules + (plain Hercules won't do) or EGA. For
the Laserjet printer, I recommend the SIL Premier fonts. For about $200 per
type face (e.g. Dutch, Courier, etc.), you get ALL phonetic characters (even
more than WP can produce for the screen), from 6 point to about 48 pt. You
more than WP can produce for the screen), from 6 point to about 48 pt. Since
there are so many characters possible, you have to select the specific characters
you need from a library of characters and diacritics. Good software is pro-
vided to make this selection. There is a book available from SIL called
"Laptop Publishing for the Field Linguist" that describes this phonetic/
special character system based on Microsoft Word. Some of it will be useful to
those who use WP. As with most MS-DOS applications, getting special characters
for the screen and the printer is two quite seperate operations, and both
inevitably require some tinkering. If you find the perfect solution, please
let us all know.
Tom Payne, Oregon.

I have used "IT" (Interlinear Text Processor) a bit but found it to be
rather restrictive in what it can do. It requires reformatting your data
and it only can make use of very short texts (forty lines or so, if I
remember correctly). The version I tried was 1.0 for PC. Although I got it
to work, in the end it seemed too time-consuming for what I was trying to do.

Harriet Ottenheimer (MAHAFANKSUVM)

[End Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 99]