LINGUIST List 4.73

Sat 06 Feb 1993

Qs: Transcrip. Program, Children's Spelling, Idioms, Latinateness

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1. "Norval Smith, Transcription Program Question
2. , Children's Spelling in Polish, Dutch, Russian, German or Catalan
3. , Query: Idioms as Tests of Grammatical Theories
4. Deborah Berkley, Latinateness

Has anyone any experience of using software called the "Logical International
Phonetic Program"? If so, can they share their experiences with me, please?

Norval Smith

I would like any references to studies of children's (mis)spelling
of final obstruents in Polish, Dutch, Russian, German, and/or Catalan.
I know from personal experience that Polish and Dutch children use
the symbols for voiceless obstruents in final position even in cases
where the standard orthography calls for the symbols for voiced
obstruents, until, that is, they learn better. But a major journal
won't take my word for it, so I am desperately looking for citable
references. And, since I have no direct knowledge of the situation
in the other three languages named, I would be curious to hear
whether my prediction that the same is true in these languages is
borne out (and, of course, again citable studies would be nice).

Following on an earlier query, I am wondering if anybody out there
knows who first thought of using the distribution of idioms as
a test for grammatical theories, and in particular for constituency.
Obviously, no one today believes that idioms have to correspond
to constituents, but I certainly was taught something like this
in the late 1970's, and, of course, originally the idea that
there cannot be any SV idioms excluding the rest of the VP
was based precisely on this spurious connection between constituents
and possible idioms. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am interested in a precise characterization of the notion of
"latinateness." I would like to use this notion in analyzing data for a
morphological paper I am working on. An exact definition of what it means
for an English word to be latinate (in terms of synchronic grammar) is
surprisingly elusive in the literature. If anyone knows of such a
definition, I would appreciate the reference. My e-mail address is below.

Thank you very much.

Deborah Milam Berkley
Northwestern University

d-m-berkleynwu.edu