LINGUIST List 3.386

Wed 06 May 1992

Disc: Chomsky, MAC Concordance

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Jacques Guy, Chomsky's citations
2. John S. Coleman, 3.372 Chomsky
3. Henry Kucera, Re: 3.370 Queries: Computer Resources, Dialect Maps
4. , WHERE IS MACCONCORDANCE, ETC

There was one time when you could hardly find one linguistic article
that did not contains several references to Chomsky in its
bibliography, whether or not the author made any reference at all to
him in the body of the article. I have a book somewhere entitled "The
Generative Interpretation of Dialect" by I forgot whom. It has
absolutely nothing to do with generative grammar: it is a diachronic
phonology of Modern Greek dialects done along very traditional methods
(and very good and interesting it is, too). The author decided on a
title fashionable at the time that would catch the attention. Methinks
those beside-the-point references were much akin to those you would
find to Comrade Stalin's and Chairman Mao's thoughts in articles about
growing bigger tomatoes or whether trimming you nose hairs was good or
bad for your health (I kid you not, there was once an article on that
very topic in the Renmin Ribao, in 1965 or thereabouts, and it did call
upon Chairman Mao's thoughts and the principles of Makese-Lieningzhuyi
to solve that terrible dilemma).

A *possible*, impressionistic and speculative explanation
for the large number of Chomsky citations
despite general ignorance of linguistic theory
may be the following. First of all, citation is a peculiar
human activity performed by a very small proportion of the
population, mainly academics (?) Academics are strongly
divided by disciplines. But Chomsky is cited by people
in several disciplines (Linguistics, Psychology, Computer
Science, Philosophy and of course Politics at least,
sometimes Sociology ...). Which means that if more academics
cite him at an equal rate to single-discipline citees, he will
end up being cited proportionately more.

--- John Coleman

Message 3: Re: 3.370 Queries: Computer Resources, Dialect Maps

 A Mac concordance (beta-test version) was available (and, I think, still is)
by anonymous FTP from clr.nmsu.edu by accessing /pub/tools/concordances/conc
It comes with a longish manual and the program . H. Kucera

In response to L. Jake Jacobson's query regarding MacConcordance. I recall that
it is available via FTP, but I do not recall just where. However, the question
of where such a program is easy to answer, provided that one knows the filename
(or a distinctive part of the name). Many members of this list will probably
already know the network service called ARCHIE, but for those who don't:

If you are searching for a particlar file (say MacConcordance.hqx) send a mail
message to the nearest ARCHIE server.

 Canada ARCHIEARCHIE.MCGILL.CA

 US ARCHIEARCHIE.SURA.NET
 ARCHIEARCHIE.ANS.NET
 ARCHIEARCHIE.UNL.EDU

 EUROPE ARCHIEARCHIE.FUNET.FI
 ARCHIEARCHIE.DOC.IC.AC.UK

 AUSTRALIA ARCHIEARCHIE.AU

Use the following format in your message:

 PROG MacConcordance.hqx

Wild cards are also available as well as a number of other functions. For brief
instructions on how to use these functions, login to one of the ARCHIE servers
with the username: archie and then type HELP.

I trust that this will be of some help to LINGUIST list members.




Michael Cheney
Teologiska Institutionen
Lunds Universitet
Lund, Sverige
+ 46 46 10 47 52

Internet: Michael.cheneyteol.lu.se
or Internet: cheneygemini.ldc.lu.se
EARN/Bitnet cheneyseldc52
Fax: +46 46 10 44 26