LINGUIST List 4.89

Fri 12 Feb 1993

Qs: Tannen, Light Verb, Morphology, Russian/Polish

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Directory

1. , Re: 4.84 Qs: Technical English, Intersentential syntax,
2. robert ralph westmoreland, "Light Verb" reference
3. Avery Andrews, Inflectional Morphology Query
4. "Amy Uhrbach", Russian, Polish request

Message 1: Re: 4.84 Qs: Technical English, Intersentential syntax,

I have a related question- I've tried to get D. Tannen's show on tape,
but no one seems to have it. I spoke with her agent last year, who
said the show was so popular they were putting out a commercial tape,
but I haven't seen anything. (The show schedule was changed here so
I was unable to tape it myself.)

If anyone knows a source, please let me know!
Thanks.
Leslie Morgan (MORGANLOYVAX.BITNET or MORGANLOYOLA.EDU)

I am told that the expression "light verb" was first used by Jespersen
in his voluminous Grammar of English on HIstorical Principles, but I
could not find the term listed in any of the indices. Does anyone know a
volume and page number?

I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who knows of cases where
two inflectional formatives or processes are mutually exclusive,
and in addition:

 a) they clearly appear in different slots (e.g. one is a prefix
 and the other a suffix, or one an affix and the other an
 ablaut process, or both are suffixes, but one appears after
 and the other before some third element)

 b) they are logically compatible (e.g. one is a first person singular
 subject marker and the other a second person object marker)

 c) neither logically subsumes the other (so English strong-verb
 formation vs. -ed suffixation doesn't count).

One example of the sort I'm interested in is Hebrew imperfective
verb conjugations, where -u and -a look like masculine and feminine
plural markers, na- like a 1PL marker, but when na- appears,
-u and -a cannot. Even more interesting, though, would be cases
where the mutually exclusive formatives or processes have no
semantic overlap.

Avery.Andrewsanu.edu.au

I'm looking for decent grammars of Russian and Polish, written in English
please. I expecially need sections on ortho- and phonotactics, or possible
combinations of sounds/letters, but I'm willing to slog through grammars to
get them. Any help would be appreciated! Email replies to
amy.uhrbachoffice.wang.com. Thanks!