LINGUIST List 3.167

Fri 21 Feb 1992

Qs: Data, Texts

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1. , ish, almost, sort of, about
2. Jacques Guy, Query: month names
3. Warren Brewer, Help with linguistics primers
4. Patrick Maun, Looking for online American Indian databanks.
5. BROADWELL GEORGE AARON, burps
6. , Subcategorization for subjects
7. Michael Earl Darnell, query: textbooks
8. Clergeau Stephanie,
9. Edson Francozo, IPA

I need some help finding papers concerning analyses of
-ish, almost, sort of, about, completely, and words/affixes
of that sort.

The difference between "almost" and "sort of", I claim, is that,
in a phrase of the form "almost phi" (where phi can be a
constituent of any category), "almost" selects for a phi
which describes a goal and direction toward that goal, while in
"sort of phi" phi lacks this notion of direction. If I say
"X is sort of phi", I'm saying that X is a peripheral member of
the category described by phi. This analysis explains the general
tendency for "almost" to be acceptable with ungradable adjs but
not gradable ones, and for "sort of" to be acceptable with the
gradable (or "fuzzier") ones:

 Martha is ?almost/sort of tall.
 Your goldfish is almost/?sort of dead.

I also claim, contra Atlas '84 and
Sadock '81, that almost(phi) entails not(phi)-- They argue instead
that it's conversational implicature.

Anyway, the only papers I can find that address these issues are
Atlas '84 and Sadock '81. Does anyone know of papers on this topic,
discussing similar words or affixes?

Thanks,
 Janet Hitzeman

These month names are taken from the Voynich manuscript:

mars, abril, may, yony, jollet, augst, septe[m]b[r], octe[m]bre,
nove[m]bre.

December is illegible, the folios where you would expect
January and February are missing.

[m] is represented by a macron over the preceding letter,
[r] is a superscript r. I am no palaeographer, but the script
looks very much like that of many French manuscripts of around
the 15th century (give or take a century).

Do those month names ring a bell with anyone?

Thank you in advance.

Dear LINGUIST list colleagues,

 A non-subscribing colleague in West Virginia has asked me to post
several queries on his behalf regarding introductory texts, which I
merely summarize below and relay to the list for comment.
Please send replies directly to Juris G. Lidaka, LIDAKAWVNWVSC.

(1) Upper division grammar class, survey of traditional, structural,
& transformational grammars. The class is typically half English majors
and half education majors preparing for a standardized test before
student teaching. Juris is familiar with the following texts, but
would like further input before deciding.
 (A) Jeanne H. Herndon's _Survey_of_Modern_Grammars_(1976): What he
has been using, but wants to get something more detailed for the
students' actual needs.
 (B) Kolln's _Understanding_English_Grammar_: Likes this text, but
too short for a semester, too expensive if two books are to be ordered.
 (C) Greenbaum & Quirk's _Student's_Grammar_of_the_English_Language_
looks good, but may be too hard for his students; but maybe not; no
exercises.
 (D) Max Morenberg's _Doing_Grammar_(Oxford UP, 1991): Short, but
with exercises.
 (E) Jesperson's _Essentials_: Available, but old.
 (F) Mark Lester's _Grammar_in_the_Classroom_.

(2) Introduction to general linguistics:
 He has been using _Contemporary_Linguistics:_An_Introduction_, by
Wm. O'Grady, M. Dobrovolsky, & M. Aronoff, but his students have
threatened to defenestrate him; there seems to be problems with the
exercises and their answers in the accompanying manual; sales rep
promised corrected versions, but nothing has arrived thus far. "So
what's the scuttlebut about this textbook and manual? Have people
compiled and made available their own answers?"

Hello, I was wondering if there are any Amerindian databases out there
somewhere (similar to the Australian Aboriginal one)? I am also looking
for online Navajo verb lists. Anyone?

Patrick Maun
R5321GABAWIUNI11 bitnet
Hochschule fuer Angewandte Kunst
Universitaet Wien
Vienna, Austria

What produces the sound in a burp? Is it the epiglottis? If not, what
is vibrating?

(#2 in my series of dumb questions about phonetics)
******************************************************************************
Aaron Broadwell, Dept. of Linguistics, University at Albany -- SUNY,
Albany, NY 12222 gb661thor.albany.edu
******************************************************************************

This query has to do with subcategorization. I am interested in hearing
from people who know of languages in which a verb may place a categorial
restriction on its subject, for example a verb that must have a sentential
subject or a prepositional phrase subject. I know of no such verbs in
English; most cases where only an NP subject is permitted can probably be
semantically explained. If anyone has an example that possibly involves
some form of syntactic selection other than for category, I'd like to see
that too.

Possible examples or references may be sent directly to me, at
petersmack.uit.no; I will post a summary to the list.

Thanks,
	Peter Svenonius

=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=
Peter Svenonius, UC Santa Cruz Linguistics and
ISL, Univ. i Tromsoe, 9000 Tromsoe, Norway +47 (83) 44228

I'm going to be teaching a course entitled 'Introduction to ENGLISH Linguistics'
in the future. Essentially, it's an intro course with an emphasis on English.
I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for an appropriate text. While
I've used various introductory texts for strictly general linguistics classes,
I haven't run across anything that would seem apropriate for what is essentially
a group of future secondary level English teachers. Others around here who
have taught the course before have generally created their own texts, in a
sense, by using handouts. I'd appreciate any suggestions and comments and will
post the results. Please reply directly to darnellcsd4.csd.uwm.edu

Thanks in advance,

Mike Darnell

Bonjour

 Je fais un MscA (maitrise) dans le domaine de la reconnaissance
d'ecriture et mon projet est d'ameliorer la reconnaissance en integrant
des connaissances linguistiques (lexicales, syntaxiques et semantiques).
Pour cela, je d)sire utiliser un analyseur syntaxique du francais en
Prolog (entre 50 et 100 r[gles) et un lexique des mots courants
(environs 1000 formes canoniques).
Je suis en train de le faire moi meme, mais +a n'est pas la finalite
de mon projet et le temps risque de me manquer.
Si vous disposez de tels produits, merci de m'en informer

 A Bientot
 Stephanie

Does anybody know whether IPA can be reached through e-mail?