LINGUIST List 5.1394

Mon 05 Dec 1994

Qs: Penultimate stress, WHmovement, Tense-aspect, Peccavi

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Directory

1. CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA, Penultimate Stress in India
2. Vincent DeCaen, WHmovement
3. Vincent DeCaen, Q: Australian tense-aspect
4. Rob Stainton, Peccavi?

Hello Linguists:

I have two questions, the first one is important, the second one is just idle
curiosity.

1. Regarding the languages Marathi (Maharashtra, Maharathi, Malhatee, Marthi,
 or Muruthu) and Hindi (Khari Boli) as spoken in India, do words usually
 get penultimate stress? I am studying the speech patterns of a man who
 speaks Marathi as L1, Hindi as L2, and English as L3. Unfortunately,
 he can't answer my question even though I've tried to explain it to him.
 Virtually every English word he uses gets penultimate stress -- I'm
 wondering if this is a carry-over from the L1 or L2. Can anybody out there
 offer any insight?

2. Just idle curiosity here, does English have any infixes other than
 fuckin'? I hear students say things such as in-fuckin'-credible (= more
 than just ordinary incredible). I couldn't think of any other examples
 in English.

Thanks,
Chuck Coker
CJCokerCSUPomona.Edu

 ==============================================================================
There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.
I could have coped with the dragons.
 -- Anonymous (but wise)
 ==============================================================================

If we're assuming that subjects are generated at spec-VP, why is it
that WH movement must be all the way to spec-CP? why not all movement
to spec-IP? why movement to spec-CP for the V2 languages? I realize
that a lot of theory might get trashed, but at an empirical level, is
there any difference between WH movement to spec-CP vs spec-IP? In
Biblical Hebrew, a V2 system contrary to received wisdom, there is no
difference: in fact all movement could be unified at spec-IP, and we
can get a unified treatment of resumptive pros in the bargain. Just curious.

In the Handbook of Australian Languages, vol. 3, Crowley sketches
Uradhi, a language from the Cape York region. In the sketch he gives
the following example (78), p. 363:

ula utaga awunya "The dogs are barking/Dogs bark."

Now, from the 10 or 15 Australian languages I have looked at, I would
have judged this wildly atypical. Generally the simple inflected
forms exclude the progressive, and there is some periphrastic or
derivational way to encode the progressive. Can anyone tell me
whether Uradhi is isolated in this respect, or whether it is part of a
larger class of Australian languages operating on the different
aspectual principle. Outside of Europe, I have only the following
examples that pattern with Uradhi: Mofu-Gudur (Chadic), Trique
(Mixtecan), Kammu (Mon-Khmer). I would love to find others. Thanx.

I can't recall where I read about the following example. It might have
been Sperber and Wilson. Does anyone know the exact reference off hand?

A military man, in WWII, having been told not to occupy an Italian town
called Sind (sp?), sends a telegram to his commanders saying:

Peccavi (double sp!!)

Translated: "I have sinned". Speaker's meaning: I have captured Sind
*and* I have committed a sin.

Thanks in advance.
 --
Robert Stainton -- Philosophy -- Carleton University
rstaintoccs.carleton.ca