LINGUIST List 3.860

Thu 05 Nov 1992

Disc: Compounds, Pronouns, WH-Movement

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Directory

1. Mark H Aronoff, English Compounds!
2. , Re: 3.826 Japanese
3. , WH-Movement in Afrikaans

English Compounds!

In this morning's mail was a brochure from Apple that was so full of wonderful
English compounds that I just had to tell the world (or as we say in
Kindergarten, share). Here goes.
First, the brochure is called "Enterprise Computing in Higher Education
Conference Series Overview", with a full NP containing a PP as the first
constituent of a compound which itself seems to be embedded inside two others,
at least on one reading (Conference and Series could be separate heads, too):
[[[[Enterprise Computing]N [in Higher Education]PP]NP] [Conference Series]N]N
Overview]N.
But it gets better: "mission critical Macintosh systems integrations
challenges" in the first paragraph has a compound adjective modifying a
multiple compound that contains TWO internal plurals (so much for the
no-plurals in compound constraint!)!
Next is "the November and December timeframes". Since the head is plural, we
can't be dealing with any kind of simple deletion here and the first element
must be a conjunction, but conjoined first elements usually don't make the head
plural: mom and pop store. I don't have an analysis off-hand. Any takers?
An old standby follows: "Virtually Integrated Technology Architecture
Lifecycle". Here I presume that VIT is a NP first element of a compound with
Architecture and that this compound is the first element of a compound whose
head is the orthographic single word Lifecycle. Piece of cake!
In the same sentence we have "desktop integration, database access and
front-ending". The first two are innocent enough, but the last is a gerund of
a verb formed from a phrase: [[[front end]NP]V]ing]N!
On we go to "Client/Server application development tools". This one has me
puzzled. Is "development tools" a compound or not. Does it matter?
There's more, but mostly run-of-the-mill stuff.

Does anyone have a parser that will handle all this?

Enjoy!
Mark

Message 2: Re: 3.826 Japanese

Kevin R. Gregg D00712sinet.ad.jp writes;

>>child acquiring the language. So far as I know, BOKU, ANATA, KARE, etc.
>>have reference only, and no more sense than ME, YOU, etc. [Well, almost;
>>KARE can mean boyfriend]. Japnese pronouns certainly look like pronouns,
>>anyway; I'd be curious to know specifically what arguments, other than
>>historical ones, there are for excluding them from that class.

I'm supposed to read a paper at some conference this Saturday,
and I haven't finished writing it yet. I'm panicing, but I guess
I'm responsible for this question. Sorry, all I can write is
just a short note.

1) Just talking about the expressions which might be equivalent
to the first person singular personal pronoun in English, the
Japanese language has BOKU, WATASHI, WATAKUSHI, WASHI, TEMAE,
ORE, OIDON, WACHIKI, UCHI, WATAI, SOREGASHI, MIDOMO, ATAI, OI,
WASSHI, WATACHI, SESSHA, SHOUSEI, and many more. Personally,
I wouldn't like to call them all personal pronouns.

2) Kevin points out another meaning of KARE is boyfriend,
but it can mean the hearer, too.

Chotto, soko-no kare, yotte ikanai?
Hey, you there, wanna drop in?

If you are a frequent visitor to Kabuki-cho, which I doubt,
you would hear the above expression.

3) As far as I know, when you modify the English personal
pronouns with adjectives, you'll get highly marked
expressions such as;

	?the beautiful I

But in Japanese, the equivalent is totally unmarked;

	utsukushii watashi

4) The so-called Japanese personal pronouns show a
syntactic/morphological similarity to nominals;

	watashi-wa watashi-ga watashi-o watashi-no watashi-ni etc.

	kuruma-wa kuruma-ga kuruma-o kuruma-no kuruma-ni etc.

You might think I'm jumping to the conclusion, but my
impression is we need not regard the so-called Japanese
personal pronouns as pronouns. I would like to categorize
them as nominals.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Makoto SHIMIZU
Kyushu Institute of Technology
shimizuhakobera.isct.kyutech.ac.jp
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
What do cannibals play at parties?
 Swallow the leader.

As one of the few South African linguists currently linked to LINGUIST I
saw Avery Andrews's query about WH-Movement in Afrikaans. Yes, prof. Hans du
Plessis followed his 1977 squib up by publishing a booklet in a publication
series by the Rand Afrikaans University (in Johannesburg) with the title (in
Afrikaans): "Wat is WAT? 'n Inleidende ondersoek na WAT-verskuiwing in Afri-
kaans" (1979). There was also a very well researched Ph.D. by prof. P. H.
Swanepoel in 1982 - it is titled: "WH-konstruksies in Afrikaans: 'n genera-
tiewe benadering" (in English: "WH-constructions in Afrikaans: a generative
approach") - at the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

I am willing to supply more details if anyone is interested.

Wannie Carstens
Dept. of Afrikaans & Nederlands
Potchefstroom University for CHE
Potchefstroom 2520
South Africa
e-mail: AFNWAMCPUKVM1.PUK.AC.ZA