LINGUIST List 5.95

Thu 27 Jan 1995

Qs: Gay men's speech, Uvulars, Tag statements

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1. dbritain, Query: Gay men's conversation; Dundee English
2. Nick Reid, Uvulars
3. James M Scobbie, tag statements

I have two rather different queries. I have two students who are having
difficulty in digging up research on two topics:

One is researching the relationship (if there is one) between language and
sexual orientation. She is particularly interested in any research done on
gay men's conversation.

The second is trying to find references to any academic research carried out
on the English of the Scottish city of Dundee (and environs).

If anyone has any useful references, please mail them to me direct.
I will pass them on and post a summary in due course.

Thanks,

Dave Britain
Language and Linguistics, Univ of Essex, Colchester, UK
dbritainessex.ac.uk

I'm looking for examples of words with uvular nasals [N] and voiced uvular
stops [G] for an interactive phonetics program that I'm developing. I need
the language name, a word containing the sound, and its meaning. I've
checked a few suggested sources (Eskimo, Lak, Persian, Somali, etc) but
found mostly voiceless uvular stops, or voiced uvular stops only as very
minor allophones. For instance, in Japanese I often hear the 'velar nasal'
in "boku ga .." as uvular. However I'd prefer examples where [N] and [G]
are primary allophones. Can anyone help?

Thanks
Nicholas Reid

Can anyone provide a reference for discussion of tag statements like:

(1) He's coming next week so he is.
(2) I dropped my tea so I did.
(3) You've given me the wrong one so you have.
(4) Sara is taller than Anne so she is. [co-reference to Sara]

Unlike tag questions they are declarative they don't have an opposite
polarity of positive/negative, and it doesn't seem so easy to use them
after a negative clause.

(5) You'll not be very happy about that then so you won't.

After an imperative/request they I think they're impossible

(6) Give me that, won't you?
(7) *Give me that, so you will.

Jim Scobbie