LINGUIST List 4.798

Wed 06 Oct 1993

Qs: Switch reference, Papers, Wh-If, Arabic

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , switch reference
2. , Looking for papers
3. , Wh-If
4. Eric Sellin, arabic lang and lit

A student in my Structure of Austronesian course this quarter is
interested in working on switch reference in an/some Austronesian
language(s). Please reply with references or suggestions for
sources to
 Carol Georgopoulos, Linguistics Program, University of Utah
 carolgcc.utah.edu
Thank you.

I'm trying to build a corpus of papers or articles in the fields of syntax
or morphology. The corpus will hopefully be used to build a linguistics
term bank.

If anyone knows where I can find relevant papers by anonymous-FTP, or if
anybody has a relevant paper which they would not object to being included
in the corpus, could they mail it to me? I would be very grateful for
any papers or articles, regardless of the specific area (generative,
systemic, functional or whatever)!

Thanks...

JOHNNY WRIGHT <J.Wrightmcs.surrey.ac.uk> | Tel (daytime):
 | (0483) 300800 x3161
Artificial Intelligence Group (Room 13AA20) |
Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences |
University of Surrey | Tel (evening):
GUILDFORD GU2 5XH | (0483) 893337
United Kingdom |

Many thanks for the responses to my query about question-words
corresponding to conditional 'if'. However, most respondents
misunderstood my intent (which is entirely my fault for being too
terse in my original post). Here is a more elaborate way of asking the
question.

Consider a range of adverbial modifiers and corresponding questions:

(1) Jane fixed the car on Sunday.
 Jane fixed the car when she had a day off.

 When did Jane fix the car?

(2) Tom made the dessert with his new food processor.

 How did Tom make the dessert?

(3) Kim left early because she was sick.

 Why did Kim leave early?

(4) I would play soccer on a sunny day.
 I would play soccer if it was sunny.

 When/Under what condition would you play soccer?

English can sometimes use 'when' (borrowed from the temporal domain)
to ask questions about conditions, or has to resort to more complex
expressions like 'under what conditions'.

Are there languages that have a lexicalized (two-morphemic) question
word 'wh+if' that is used to ask direct questions to be answered by a
conditional clause?

Please send your replies directly to me: fintelmit.edu. I will post a
summary if requested.

Thanks again.

--
Kai von Fintel fintelmit.edu
Dept. of Linguistics & Philosophy
Room 20E-225B, MIT
Cambridge, MA 02139

Dear linguist,
A colleague sent on to me some mail clips which sugggsted that there is
an Arabic linguistics, language and literature e-mail network. I would
appreciate learning more about it, if such a net exists. Can you put me
in touch with the right people.
I personally am pursuing my Arabic studies, but also recently chaired an ad hoc
committee which is trying to set up a mechanism for "Less Commonly Taught
Languages" at Tulane University (unfortunately Arabic fall in that category
here, although there are about a dozen people in an informal study group I
created while waiting for the mechanism to be installed.
Thanks in advance for any information you can give me.
Eric Sellin (sellinmailhost.tcs.tulane.edu)

D
apprei