LINGUIST List 5.1291

Sun 13 Nov 1994

Misc: Political correctness, Syntax, Canadian raising

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Directory

1. Dennis Baron, Re: 5.1281 Political correctness
2. Richard Ingham, Re: 5.1250 Language Acquisition/Analogy/Pragmatics
3. , Re: 5.1251 Sum: "typewriter" and Canadian raising

Message 1: Re: 5.1281 Political correctness

The term `politically correct' together with political correctness
and PC are being used with increasing frequency. I did a Nexis search
a couple of weeks ago in connection with a presentation I'm doing at
NCTE next week on the shift in meaning of the term. While pc still
retains its negative/left-wing ironic slant, it is coming to be used
more broadly to attack party-line extremists of any stripe, and more
broadly still (and often without apparent negative or ironic connotation,
to refer to `doing the right thing' or the expected thing or the appro-
priate thing in any context. So for example it appears in Business Week
and Info world in nonpolitical contexts, in articles about the salary
levels of corporate CEOS and the appropriate values to return when
writing a line of computer programming code. One nice cite noted
that while it was now as easy to send email to your boss as to a clerk
in the mailroom, it was not necessarily politically correct to do so (I
wonder how often people send email to mailroom clerks).

Dennis

debaronuiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392
 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron \'\ __________
Department of English / '| ()_________)
Univ. of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~ \
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Urbana IL 61801 ==). \__________\
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Message 2: Re: 5.1250 Language Acquisition/Analogy/Pragmatics

Re Analogy:
Benji Wald asks syntax teachers to comment on his contribution.
 I think his characterisation of syntax teaching is a little harsh. I
for one do not expect students (at any level) to accept my (or anyone else's)
grammaticality judgements unquestioningly. I'm sure there are many syntAx
teachers who would prefer to get students to give their own judgements of
e.g.:

1) I saw the grass brown when I was on holiday in Spain
2) If you see the tower hazy, it means it'll rain tomorrow
3) Only Sherlock saw the man lame

One might then ask for a comparison with the acceptability status of:

4) I saw the grass wilting...
5) If you see the tower leaning.....
6) Only Sherlock saw the man limping.

I'm sure there are plenty of syntax teachers who would find it important to
explore reasons why 1-3) might be less acceptable than 1-6) ON THE BASIS
OF THE STUDENTS' OWN JUDGEMENTS.

Richard Ingham

Message 3: Re: 5.1251 Sum: "typewriter" and Canadian raising

Raising of /ai/ before voiceless stops is not that uncommon in various
parts of the eastern US and Canada. Simply because someone can't hear
the difference doesn't mean it isn't there, as in Don/Dawn. Seed
J. K. Chamber's "Canadian Raising" in Canadian Journal of Linguistics
18 (1973) or better yet Timothy Vance's "Canadian Raising in Some Dialects
of the Northern US" in American Speech 62 (1987). I do this and can tell
generally when someone else is. Word boundaries come into play. For me,
"ice scream" and "I scream" are quite different at normal speed. And
"quite" without raising sounds like "quiet" though different. This is
 more of an issue for the dialect groups. (NOTE that I did not say eh?)