LINGUIST List 4.142

Tue 02 Mar 1993

Qs: Italian, Etymologies, RC's, Scones

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Elina Savino, request of bibliography
2. Michael Sikillian/Annotext, Query: etymologies
3. "Ellen F. Prince", query: relative clauses
4. , Query: scones

Dear networkers,

 I am interested in the phonology and phonetics of Italian language with
 special emphasis on prosody, and I would be grateful to anybody that
 could help me in collecting a bibliography (in Italian/English) on the
 subject. Please answer directly to me. I will post a summary for the list.
 Thank you in advance.

 Elina Savino
 University of Bari - Italy

I am reviewing a book where the following statement is made:

"But concepts have a way of carrying their etymologies around with them
forever. The elements out of which a term is originally built usually, and
probably always linger in subsequent meanings, perhaps obscurely"
(Walter Ong in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word)

Would anyone know whether there is any empirical evidence that historical
word meanings can be correlated with subsequent word meanings? Is there, in
some sense, an archaeology of word meanings, or is this yet another example
of the "etymological fallacy"?

Michael Sikillian
Annotext

i'd very much appreciate any bibliographic references on the distribution of
and/or variation among wh-/that/0 in relative clauses in english and on
any analogous stuff in other languages. thanks very much. (please send them
to me and i'll post a list of what i get.)

I am trying to find out how the word "scone" came to have the particular
meaning and pronunciation it does here in Utah. For most Utahns I have
surveyed, scones are small pieces of fried bread dough (that's right,
yeast-leavened bread dough); you eat them hot, usually with honey butter.
They are available at some fast-food--and a few other--restaurants.
"Scones" rhymes with "bones" here. Linguist friends have suggested that
Utah scones may be the result of Mormon pioneers' contact with something
like Navaho fry bread or sopapillas, a Mexican fried bread eaten with honey
or sugar.

Merriam-Webster's dictionary (3rd ed.) gives two spellings ("scone" or
"scon") and three possible pronunciations (long "o," short "o" or schwa).
They list as definitions: "1a: a quick bread made of oatmeal or barley
flour, rolled into a round shape, cut into quarters, and baked on a griddle
 b: a quick bread made of a baking powder dough sometimes enriched with
eggs, sugar, and currants, cut into various shapes (as rounds, diamonds,
wedges) and usu. baked in an oven." (My Australian colleague tells me that
real scones are baked, not fried, and pronounced with a short 'o.') I have
not been able to find any information on the geographical distribution of
the term in the U.S and I haven't looked yet to see if there is information
on scones in the dialect atlases of England, Wales or Scotland.

Does anyone else, outside of Utah, know scones as I have described them? If
so, please let me know. For those of you who are familiar with the term, I
would appreciate your returning the following form. Any other information
would be appreciated. If more than a few express interest, I'll be happy
to post a summary. Thanks in advance for your help.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Scones Survey

Where are you from (or where did you become familiar with scones)?
 _______________________________________________________________

Are they common there?
 yes ____
 somewhat ____
 no ____

I am accustomed to the following pronunciation:
 with long "o" ____
 with short "o" ____
 with short schwa ____

I am accustomed to the following spelling:
 "scone"____
 "scon" ____

Scones are (check all that apply):
 baked ____
 fried ____
 "a quick bread made of a baking powder dough" ____
 "a quick bread made of oatmeal or barley flour" ____
 made from bread dough leavened with yeast" ____
 other: ____________________________________________________________

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kirk Belnap
4062 JKHB
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah 84601
(801) 378-6531
belnapkyvax.byu.edu