LINGUIST List 5.1103

Sun 09 Oct 1994

Qs: "Invisible hand", Greek, Predicative Adj, Charlemagne

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Directory

1. "Suzanne Fleischman", Fw: the invisible hand
2. Micheal Palmes, Hellenistic Greek Reference Grammar
3. Richard Hudson UCL, Predicative Adjectives
4. , Charlemagne, at home...

Could someone out there enighten me (briefly) about, and provide key
references to, the theory of the "invisible hand"?
--Thanks,

Suzanne Fleischman
French, UC Berkeley
suzannegarnet.berkeley.edu

For the past several years a small group of scholars has been involved in
redesigning the Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek grammar (University of
Chicago Press, 1961) under the direction of Daryl Schmidt and Robert
Funk. We propose to produce a synchronic reference grammar informed as
far as possible by recent research in linguistics. There are serious
gaps in the published research on Hellenistic Greek, however, and we face
the enormous task of producing new analyses to address a vast array of
issues.

For this reason I would like to be in touch with anyone conducting current
work on Hellenistic Greek, as long as it is informed by recent research
in linguistics. If you are conducting such research or have a graduate
student working on a dissertation in this area, please let me know. We
would like to read your (or your student's) research and if it
contributes useful information, cite it in the new grammar. After all, a
reference grammar should refer the reader to the best available research.

We also need people who are willing to conduct research. If you know of a
grad student in need of suggestions for a good dissertation topic, I can
provide you with plenty. I may also be able to suggest avenues for
publication.

Can anyone help with data from a language (e.g. Latin) where predicative
adjectives or nouns have morphological case? The question is what case is
found in predicatives dependent on infinitives in control structures, e.g.
after `persuade'. E.g. do you get nominative or accusative on `good'
in `She persuaded him to be good'?

I assume that the answer is relevant to the question of the syntactic
status of "him", as subject or mere controller of subject.

Dick Hudson
Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
uclyrahucl.ac.uk

Can any historical linguists answer a query for a colleague not on the
net? Charlemagne ruled over an empire spanning the Romance-Germanic
divide of the 9th century. While I recall that Latin was used for most
official communication, what language would have been Charlemagne's
mother tongue: early French or German? or, of course, both? In other
words, at home was he chez lui or zu hause?
Martin Ball, University of Ulster