LINGUIST List 4.1090

Thu 23 Dec 1993

Qs: Chinook Jargon, Pluralization, Arigato, Semantic Change

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1. Margaret Anderson, Chinook Jargon
2. "Bruce Downing", English pluralization; Amer. & Brit. spellings
3. mark, Arigato < obrigado ?
4. , Query: polysemy/semantic change -meat/fish

I would appreciate it if you would post a query on the list asking if
anyone knows how the following phrase might be expressed in Chinook
Jargon.

"Shaping a Northern Destingy"

Replies may be sent directly to the following mailbox. Thanks,

Andersonunbc.edu

I am passing on two inquiries on behalf of Paul Fraser, who works for a
Minneapolis company called Teltech and who does not currently have e-mail
access. Replies should be sent directly to me so I can forward them to Paul.

> I am interested in resources on English language pluralization rules and
> exceptions. I already have resources on basic English pluralization.
> I am looking for an _exhaustive_ treatment of pluralization suffixes.
> Examples: -ch, -sh, -x, and -ss require -es; -ium requires -ia; -lf
> requiresVes; -sis requires -ses; -ex may require -ices; -y may require
> -ies, etc.

> I am also interested in resources that exhaustively document spelling or
> word variants between American English and British English. The resource
> should address suffix and stem changes, such as -er to -re (fiber, fibre),
> -or to -our (color, colour), -zation to -sation (organization, organisation),
> a to ae (hematology, haematology), aging to ageing, etc.

I recall reading that the Japanese word "arigato" 'thank you' was
borrowed from the Portuguese "obrigado" soon after the first
Western contact. Is there any truth (or at least respectability)
to this derivation, or is it just another folk etymology?

 Mark A. Mandel
 Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : markdragonsys.com

P.S.: This document was dictated with DragonDictate v2.0.

In Australia it appears words meaning fish have changed to mean meat, and
more rarely in the opposite direction; polysemy between generic fish or
a common fish species and meat/animal is also known in a couple of languages.
I am looking for parallel or related examples elsewhere in the world,
and possible explanations in terms of local human ecology. For instance
I have seen a passing reference to a group in the Pacific North West of
North America where "salmon" is polysemous with "food" in general, which
strikes me could be related to the local diet.

Patrick McConvell
Anthropology
Northern Territory University
PO Box 40146
Casuarina NT 0811
Australia