LINGUIST List 4.307

Sun 25 Apr 1993

Qs: Modals, Genie, Chambers/Trudgill

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. pintzuks, Not modals
2. Mark Seidenberg, "The Event"
3. Janet Holmes, query re e-mail addresses

Some students who do not have access to the Linguist List are looking for
studies of contraction of "not", modals, and auxiliaries in the history of
English, particularly from about 1700 on. Please respond directly to me,
and I will pass the responses on. If there is enough interest, I will post
a summary to the Linguist List.

Susan Pintzuk
pintzukbabel.ling.upenn.edu

I see in the NY Times today that there is a review of the book about Genie
that was excerpted in the New Yorker some time ago. I don't want to
rehash the discussion that occurred on linguist.list when the articles
originally appeared. I have a question, however. The NY Times review
repeats the author's assertion that the publication of _Syntactic Structures_
is known among linguists as "The Event." This was news to me. My
question is whether indeed there is a part of the linguistic universe in
which the statement is true. I mean, there must be at least one person
(the individual who talked to the writer) for whom it is true, but are
there others? Have I failed to spend enough time at MIT or what?

Mark Seidenberg

F\Does anyone know whether Jack Chambers at Univerisy of Toronto has an e-mail
address and if so what it is??

Ditto Peter Trudgill.
Please reply to Holmesjmatai.vuw.ac.nz