LINGUIST List 5.113

Wed 02 Feb 1994

Qs: Comitatives, Fuzzy grammar, Corpora of non-native speakers

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. BROADWELL GEORGE AARON, Comitatives in the head
2. , fuzzy grammar
3. , corpora of non-native speakers of English

 In Choctaw, the marker of the comitative (i.e. 'with' in the
sense of accompaniment) looks as if it is etymologically related to
the word for 'head'. I can't think of why this should be.

 Does anyone out there know of languages with a similar
connection between 'with' and 'head'?

 Reply to me personally, and I'll summarize if there's an
interest.

******************************************************************************
Aaron Broadwell | `To anyone who finds that grammar is a
Dept. of Anthropology | worthless finicking with trifles, I
Dept. of Linguistics and | would reply that life consists of
 Cognitive Science | little things; the important matter is
Albany, NY 12222 | to see them largely' -- Jespersen, 1925
gb661thor.albany.edu |
******************************************************************************

I am interested in nondiscrete or "fuzzy" grammar, which sees grammatical
categories and rules as having fuzzy boundaries and domains. I've come across
an article by Ross on "category squishes" (1970's), suggesting that instead of
discrete categories we talk about degrees of "nouniness" and "verbiness", etc.,
and an article by Lakoff arguing that the border between "competence" and
"performance" is fuzzy, and that no such distinction should be made at all.
Does anyone know of any developments on this notion after that, i.e., work done
on fuzzy or continuous linguistics in the 80's or 90's?

Wenchao Li
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

I am looking for a corpus of spoken American English that includes
interaction between native and non-native speakers. At this point,
the only source I know about is the European Science Foundation
Second Language Database. Is anyone aware of any other electronic
corpora of this sort?

If folks are interested, I'll post a summary of sources I receive.

Vincent Cangiano
Dept. of Linguistics
Georgetown University
Home: (202) 337-4039
cangianvguvax.georgetown.edu