LINGUIST List 6.1569

Tue Nov 7 1995

Qs: Nahuatl, Fonts, N-NP, Ling programs

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

Directory

1. Jeff MacSwan, Nahuatl
2. George Childs, Linguist fonts, WordPerfect, and Word
3. Vincent DeCaen, N-NP ?
4. "Dawn M. Stringer", universities with linguistics

I'm looking for generative treatments of Nahuatl syntax. In
particular, I am interested in the variety spoken in the proximity of
Mexico City (Texcoco, precisely). Short of this, a reference to a
thorough-going descriptive grammar would be helpful as well. Thanks!

Jeff MacSwan		
macswanucla.edu
		

I'm wondering if anyone has had problems similar to mine with printing
the Linguist fonts, specifically tones, after converting a file from
WordPerfect 5.1/5.2 to Word 6.0 (all running on a PC). What's curious
is that the tones appear on the screen and in the preview but do not
print. What's even more surprising is that the problem arose with
only 11 of the nineteen files. I have found a way to circumvent the
problem (totally deformat the entries and then reformat them with the
Linguist font) but not a way to do it easily and globally. Thanks. -
Tucker

G Tucker Childs
Dept Linguistics
Univ Toronto

I always assumed that there were two kinds of languages: those with
robust case-marking and those without. I assumed that the former had
nouns that took "objects" and directly assigned genitive case, and
that the latter required help to assign case, using PPs; I assumed
that a parameter was not involved, but that this followed from more
general considerations.

so N-NP, e.g., Russian

kniga Ivana, book John(GEN)

vs N'-PP, e.g., French

livre de Jean, book of John

Grimshaw "Argument Structure" (1990), however, says explicitly
throughout that Ns are universally intransitive, fail to assign case,
fail to theta-mark, universally require Ps to "help", never govern and
so don't affect work order, etc. crucially [+N] can never assign case.

Q? I didn't see anything cited that would support this. further, the
only system cited/used was English. it just seems to hang there. did
I miss something important?? please help me out. (my impression was
that English and French were somehow odd/defective; what do we know
cross-linguistically?)

Vincent DeCaen		 decaenepas.utoronto.ca

Near Eastern Studies, University of Toronto
Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University

My name is Diane Flick, and I am currently a freshman at the University
of Dayton. I am presently studying Russian and French, and am interested
in majoring in linguistics. However, I don't know which colleges and/or
universities have linguistics departments or that offer a major in
linguistics. If anyone could send me any info. regarding this, my e-mail
address is: FLICKDIAUDAVXB.OCA.UDAYTON.EDU
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Diane Flick