LINGUIST List 4.43

Fri 29 Jan 1993

Qs: Terminology, addresses, Pospesel, Subject-Object

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Terminology courses
2. Susan Herring, seeking two South Asian linguists
3. , Howard Pospesel
4. , Subject-Object Asymmetry and Idioms (A Query)

Dear listmembers,

This spring our Institute is giving one semester (about 15 weeks) courses
in 1) EC terminology for English-Swedish translators; and 2) legal terminology
for Finnish-Swedish translators and interpreters.

The content of the courses is roughly 1/3 terminology, including contrastive
realia (e.g. comparing legal systems in Sweden and EC/England/USA or
Finland, respectively), 1/3 translation "exercises", i.e. translating
authentic legal texts, and 1/3 "practical" terminology work, i.e. compiling
terminology databases on the computer.

Questions:

1. What are your experiences of teaching or attending terminology courses
of this kind? I will be teaching theory & methodology including computer
aids, but I am interested in all aspects of terminoogy teaching.

 2. Do you have any suggestions for literature on a) the theory of terminology
and methods of terminological work; b) contrastive study of legal systems
and legal terminology; c) computer tools and terminology database managers;
d) mono- or bi-/multilingual dictionaries.

3. Other comments, suggestions?

Helge Niska Internet: Helge.Niskadafa.se
Institute for Interpretation niska_htolk.su.se
and Translation Studies Bitnet: HNISKASEUMDC51
Stockholm University Compuserve: 72410,132
S-106 91 Stockholm Tel. +46 8 162927
Sweden FAX: +46 8 161396

I am having difficulty contacting two South Asian linguists, Indira
Junghare (U.Minn) and Indira Ayyar (SUNY Stony Brook Ph.D, currently
teaching somewhere in Connecticut?). Does anyone have a current e-mail
address for either of these linguists?

Thanks,

Susan Herring
susanutafll.uta.edu

Is there anyone out there who has used Howard Pospesel's two books,
PREDICATE LOGIC and PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC to teach undergraduate
semantics? If you have, and can tell me how well they worked and
whether or not you recommend them, please reply to:
 Carol Georgopoulos, Linguistics, University of Utah
 carolgcc.utah.edu

The latest issue of US News and World Report has a nice example
of an apparent subject-verb idiom:

The vultures appear to be circling FBI Director Wm Sessions.

Another such idiom is:

The spirit move- NP (where move- means you can have different tenses).

What I am wondering is

(a) whether anybody still believes the subject-object asymmetry
thesis in connection with idioms (Chomsky, Marantz) or any of
the other theories about idioms which would prevent such idioms
from being possible, and

(b) whether anybody has noted other such examples (N.B. we want
idioms consisting of just subject+verb, not subject+verb+other
stuff).

Also, I have a small number of examples of subject-verb idioms
in Polish, Hindi, and German, and in all three languages it
appears that the idiomatic subject cannot normally come first
and the non-idiomatic must precede it, e.g.,

 Ihn reitet der Teufel (lit. Him rides the devil)
 'He is going bonkers'

Now, I think that these word order facts probably fall out
of the normal rules for "topic" fronting in these languages,
but I am wondering if some people would argue that the
idiomatic subject is not really a subject in such cases.