LINGUIST List 6.1030

Mon Jul 31 1995

Qs: Lab equipment, Parsing v2 lgs, Etymology

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. Francisco Mira Espada, Lab equipment
2. Beatrice Santorini, parsing preference in v2 languages
3. George Huttar 709 2400, multiple etymological sources in one domain

At the University of EVORA (PORTUGAL) we are trying to establish a
laboratory of linguistics. We wonder if anyone could give information
about useful material for such a laboratory:equipment, hardware and
software.
Thanks in advance.

Francisco de Assis Mira Espada
Universidade de Evora
Departamento de Linguistica e Literaturas
Apartado 94
7001 Evora Codex
e mail : fmeevunix.uevora.pt

It has been claimed (incorrectly) that a German sentence with
nominative/accusative case syncretism like (1) is unambiguous, with the
clause-initial noun phrase construed as the subject.

(1) Die Tochter hat die Mutter gek"usst.
 the-nom/acc daughter has the-nom/acc mother kissed
 allegedly only SVO: The daughter kissed the mother.
 allegedly not OVS: The mother kissed the daughter.

Although (1) is in fact ambiguous, the SVO interpretation does seem to be
preferred over the OVS interpretation, at least in out-of-the-blue
contexts. Can anyone steer me to a discussion of such examples (in German
or any other verb-second language) in the parsing literature?

Many thanks,
Beatrice Santorini
b-santorininwu.edu

 I'm looking for examples of languages in which, within one lexical
 domain, some lexemes come from one language source and some from
 another. For example, in English kin terms, almost all the lexemes are
 from a Germanic source --e.g., mother, father, sister, brother; but the
 grand in grandmother and grandfather is from Romance. Another example
 would be English's Germanic lexemes for domestic animals "on the hoof",
 but French-derived ones for their meat (pork, veal, beef).

 Thanks. If there is sufficient interest, I'll post a summary.

 George L. Huttar 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd.
 Dallas, TX 75236
 huttarsil.org U. S. A.

 1-214-709-2400 ext. 2250 FAX 1-214-709-3380