LINGUIST List 6.1291

Thu Sep 21 1995

Qs: Biblical Hebrew, Lg & dialect, Psych V, Evolution, Yankee

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. , Q: Valency / Case Frame Lexicons for Biblical Hebrew
2. Dag Gundersen, Q: 6.1277 Language and dialect
3. "B. Yuan", Q: Psych verbs in Chinese and English
4. Simon Kirby, Q: Biological evolution of language - anyone?
5. "Larry Trask", "Yankeeism"

Doing research on the binyanim in Biblical Hebrew,
I am looking for (a) machine-readable lexicon(s)
that would contain information on verb valency in
this language.
Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance.

Arian Verheij

Dr Arian J.C. Verheij | email arianth.vu.nl
VU, Dpt. Biblical Studies & Computer Science | phone +31 20 444 6625/7
De Boelelaan 1105, kr. 14A-38 | fax +31 20 444 6635
NL 1081 HV Amsterdam

I have been hunting for the origin (who said it) of the sentence "A
language is a dialect with an army and a fleet behind it", often quoted,
but never with a source. Can anyone help?
Dag

Could anyone there provide me references on the difference between English
and Chinese psychological verbs, such as excite, please, interest, etc.? I
would like to know why Chinese only allows the bimorphemic form of psych
verbs while English allows both the bimorphemic form and monomorphemic
form of psych verbs. More specifically, why are structures in both (1)
and (2) below are possible in English whereas only (2) is possible in
Chinese but not (1)?

(1) The news pleased him.

(2) The news made him pleased

I'll appreciate any suggestions and advice.

Please reply directly to me. (by10001cus.cam.ac.uk)

Many thanks and sorry to disturb those not interested.


Boping Yuan
Faculty of Oriental Studies
University of Cambridge

I am just coming to the end of a PhD in linguistics, and am currently
applying for research grants to look at computational simulations
(e.g. hybrid GA/ANNs) of the evolutionary emergence of linguistic
communication. This is clearly an area that is intrinsically
multi-disciplinary and I'd like to get some idea of who is interested
in this line of work. So, I'd appreciate any names of people
(particularly in Europe) working on or interested in:

	Biological evolution of language,
	"artificial life" models of (linguistic) communication,
	computer simulations in linguistics,
	theoretical neurobiology of language,
	or anything else that might be relevant!

If there is anywhere I should look for names then pointers would be
welcome. I have carried out a small review of the literature (eg the
Santa Fe ALIFE volumes etc.) and I was surprised not to find anybody
working this side of the water, though I'm sure I'm missing people!

Thanks in advance for your time,

Simon

-
Simon Kirby -- Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh
simonling.ed.ac.uk ------------ http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~simon/

The 19th-century British anthropologist and eugenicist Francis Galton
uses the term `Yankeeism' to denote what is obviously some kind of
supposedly distinctive physical appearance. He asserts that it is
particularly common in the USA and in Australia, but rare in Britain,
and he explicitly contrasts it with the "English type". Does anybody
have any idea what exactly this term is supposed to mean?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk