LINGUIST List 3.948

Wed 02 Dec 1992

Qs: Various Queries

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Royalties
2. David J Silva 315-443-5375, Language and the Brain
3. , Reviewer for psycholinguistics
4. Mark H Aronoff, a "Dutch" textbook
5. "Lorna H. Jarvis", deictic terms-request information
6. , Hangul Day
7. "R.Hudson", Dependency grammar
8. Ellen Broselow, roommate for lsa
9. "M. David Greenspon", This bread cuts easily
10. Ron Kuzar, Query: Sexism in Hungarian
11. Bill Bennett, French linguistics texts

 Authors of linguistics course texts and other knowledgeable parties:

What is the going rate for author's royalties and advances from major
commercial publishers for course texts in linguistics?

Please send me any information you have, anonymously if you like,
and I will summarize for the list if there is sufficient interest
(but will treat individual figures and their sources confidentially).

Please respond to one of the following:

Bitnet: BLARSWWY at UIAMVS.BITNET
Internet: robert-wachal AT uiowa.edu
Phone: 319-335-0208
S/mail: R. S. Wachal, Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City,
 IA 52240-1408

Thanks, Bob.

I'm teaching a two-day unit on "Language and Brain" in my introductory
ling course, and I'm looking for some data on conduction aphasia. (I've
found enough on Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia.) Any
suggestions? Thanks.
--David J. Silva, Syracuse Univ (djsilvasuvm.acs.syr.edu)

I am the director of a doctoral study in which the candidate compared three
hypnotic pain control procedures (traditional, direct suggestion; indirect,
permissive, Ericksionian suggestion; "semantic" procedure combining the
indirect form of Ericksonian suggestion with the concrete imagery of direct
suggestion). The subjects were native Xhosa speakers. Treatment was
administered in English and in Xhosa (language crossed with treatment).

The dissertation, which is nearing completion, includes a chapter on
psycholinguistics. As I have no expert knowledge of psycholinguistics
I would be very grateful if someone out there were willing to read the
chapter in question, comment on it, and point out any weaknesses that
need to be addressed. Please e-mail me directly.

Aubrey Immelman
Dept. of Psychology
St. John's University
Collegeville, Minnesota

Someone has asked if there is a good elementary textbook that an individual
could use to learn Dutch. Please send any suggestions directly to me. Thanks.
Mark Aronoff

Does anybody have information as to where I can find a linguistic analysis
of the Spanish verbs "ir" and "venir" (come and go). Do they function as
deictic terms? How similarly do they function to their corresponding English
forms? If you have any information I would really appreciate it.

Several responses have come in to my request for further information on
Hangul Day, some posted generally to the List and some to me personally
(and one in both categories!) The consensus seems to be that in the late
19th century Korea adopted various Western scientific concepts, including
the Gregorian calendar and the metric system, and since then most Korean
national holidays, including Hangul Day, have had their dates defined in
terms of the Gregorian calendar.

However, i am interested not only in when Hangul Day is properly celebrated
but how. What traditions are there to the observance of Hangul Day amongst
Koreans? Is there anything more to it than Jim McCawley's throwing a party
with lots of East Asian food? All suggestions welcome.
 ------
Steven Schaufele c/o Department of Linguistics
712 W. Washington Ave. University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801 4088 Foreign Languages Building
 707 S. Mathews Street
217-344-8240 Urbana, IL 61801
fcoswsux1.cso.uiuc.edu

A group of linguists working on dependency grammar is interested to
make contact with any others who might not already be known to them.
The group includes Peter Hellwig, Juergen Kunze, Henning Lobin,
Stanley Starosta and me, Dick Hudson. If you're not already in touch
with one of us, and work on dependency grammar, please send me a
message: uclyrahucl.ac.uk.


Dick Hudson
Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
(071) 387 7050 ext 3152

A SUNY Stony Brook graduate student, Su-I Chen, is looking for a female student
 or faculty member to share a hotel room at the LSA. Please respond directly
to her: Sichen at ccvm.sunysb.edu.

I am a graduate student writing my dissertation on the following type of
construction:
 This bread cuts easily. This car handles well.
 The door opens easily This water drinks like wine.
 These hotdogs sell well.
The argument structure in these sentences is passivelike ("deep" or "initial"
object corresponds to "surface" subject; an agent is present, at least
semantically), but the verb form is active (with a reflexive in some
languages). Most current researchers call this the "middle voice," although
this is not a great name, since "middle voice" is traditionally (and currently)
also used for some slightly different phenomena. Various other names--
none really all that successful--have been suggested. (For lack of a better
name, I'm sticking with "middle.")

This is a bizarre and very interesting construction. The closer you look at it
the more complex and undefinable it seems to become. It is difficult to fit
into certain syntactic theories. In any case, I have done a fair amount of
research on it, built up a fairly large bibliography, and collected a lot of
data from Russian and Dutch. What I would be interested in now is the
following:

-Data from any non-Indo-European languages. I have found no evidence of
 any regular middle-formation in the few non-IE languages I have looked at
 (Hungarian, Korean, Gitonga). Any native speakers out there who can help?
-Data from any Scandinavian language or from Yiddish. I have found no
 middles in Norwegian, which is a little surprising. Since Scandinavian
 reflexivization is so complex, it would be interesting to find middles in
 these languages.
-Any unpublished material you would be willing to share.
-Any obscure, but potentially useful, published work (here's an example:
 Hatcher, Anna Granville (1943). "Mr. Howard Amuses Easy." _Modern
 Language Notes_ (Jan. 1943), 8-17).
If anyone would like to see my bibliography or data, let me know.

Thanks in advance!

M. David Greenspon
>From BITNET: GREMICFYALEVM
>From internet: gremicfyalevm.ycc.yale.edu OR greenspminerva.ycc.yale.edu

Since Hungarian does not have any grammatical gender distinctions, I wonder
if, and how, sexism is linguistically expressed. I am interested in actual
examples, general thoughts, and references to articles you might know about
(articles in Hungarian are OK too). I will post a summary of responses sent
directly to me: soukrhujivm1.bitnet. Thanks ---- Ron Kuzar

I have a problem which might be a chimera. (For money)I teach French
linguistics. A new breed of student is not willing to sort through such
references as Bon usage, etc. While they're Ok about my explanations and
handouts reviewing the French data (which is the basis on which I planned the
courses), they are quite adamant about having (hard-bound) books on the topic
of their study. French phonetics and phonology, including assimilation of
various types, are well catered for by publications (that's the introductory
course over!).
 I am looking now for books on
(1) the verb morphology of standard French (this if possible to include
something on tense and mood); Foley is too advanced, and uses history
in explanation;
(2) non-controversial (descriptive) syntax; Ruwet is on the reading list but
raises another novel problem: in the opinion of these anxious students, the
date really has to be after 1979. Berrendonner is not suitable for
undergraduates; Eriksson, Kilani-Schoch, Olsson and Pierrard are Ok for
linguistics courses (and then perhaps too locally French in their concerns!) -
but really off course for French linguistics.
 Any suggestions? With my apologies for the bread-and-butterality of my
message.
Bill Bennett
WAB2UK.AC.CAM.PHX