LINGUIST List 5.1110

Wed 12 Oct 1994

Qs: English lexicon, Spanish, Hellenistic Gr, "in other words"

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , categories in English lexicons
2. Gabriel Amores, Query: Spanish
3. "Dan G. McCartney, Westminster Semin", Hellenistic Greek (patristics)
4. , "In other words" again

I am looking for information concerning the relative proportion of
syntactic and semantic categories in the lexicons of adult speakers of
English. The sorts of questions that I am interested in are: What
percentage of the words that English speakers know are nouns?
What percentage are verbs? Of the nouns, how many refer to
material whole objects? And so on. Any references would be very
welcome.

Thanks in advance,

Paul Bloom
Department of Psychology
University of Arizona
(bloomrvax.ccit.arizona.edu)

Could someone point me to relevant references
on 'gustar, carecer, faltar' type verbs in Spanish?
I am particularly interested on the issue of whether
these verbs may be said to have dative subjects.
Please, reply to

gabyfing.us.es

Thanks in advance,

Gabriel Amores
Departamento de Lengua Inglesa
Universidad de Sevilla

I noticed that at least some people on this LISTSERV are interested in
Hellenistic Greek. I am attempting to translate some material by Origen not
previously translated into English, but from time to time find myself uncertain
what Origen meant.

Does anyone have a thorough enough knowledge of patristic Greek along with the
time to help me out with a couple conundrums?

Many thanks.

Please reply to me directly -- I am not a subscriber to the LINGUIST listserv.

******************************************************************************
** Dan G. McCartney | I'net: DMCCARTNEYHSLC.ORG **
** Assoc. Prof. of NT | WTS: 215 887 5511 **
** Westminster Theol Seminary | Office: 215 572 3818 **
** Box 27009, Chestnut Hill | Fax: 215 887 5404 **
** Philadelphia, PA 19090 | Home: 215 659 7854 **
******************************************************************************

 I have posed two queries on the phrase "in other words" several weeks
ago, and sevral linguists answered me politely. While I am trying to
write a summary for this Discussion List and paper for my presentation,
a problem arises.

 I have asked netters to invent some examples expressing inferential
process like the example below from Ball (1986)
 (1) A: I'm afraid there isn't much I can help you with.
 B: In other words, you don't want to be bothered.
I want to conclude that B's statement is not directly derived from A.
There must be intermediate assumption or implication such as B's thought
that A is busy now, and A doesn't like me, etc. Let me call this
implication C, then the inferential process is the following: "A-->C; in
other words C=B.(--> means implies or implicates)."

 The same hold for somewhat complicated (2) and (3). ((2) is from Dr.
Patrikis and (3) from Dr. Spackman. I really aprreciate their help.)
 (2) A: I love Schubert's late piano sonatas.
 B: In other words, you don't like the Beethoven sonatas.
 (3) A: I'm going to kill you.
 B: In other words, you'd like it if I moved my car.
In (2), in order for B to use IOW, B must already have shown apprecia-
tion for Beethoven sonatas. Unfortunately, A expresses love for Schubert
against B's expectation that A will also like Beethoven. Here, B's
assumption that A unexpectedly dislikes Beethoven becomes the implica-
tion C above. In (3), A's real intent is that he will be damned if B
interferes with moving A's car, which also becomes the implication C. In
both cases, B tries to interpret A's real intent, i.e. implication or
implicature.

 However, a collegue of mine argues agianst my conclusion saying that
such process does not exist, i.e. intermediate C is not processed in the
hearer's mind. S/he processes the procedure the moment s/he hears the
speaker's words, in other words simultaniously.
 Can implication/implicature not be interpreted/processed by a hearer?
Does "It's hot in here" not imply "Open the window", in which case some
inferential process by a hearer is involved?

 I only know Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson (1986) and other
Relevance Theoretic papers) about what I call "inferential process".
Does anyone know information about "inference"?

 If you don't understand what I have in mind, please don't hesitate
to ask me by e-mail.

 Thanks in advance.

Hiroaki Tanaka
Associate Professor
Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Tokushima University, Japan
e-mail: GCA01363niftyserve.or.jp