LINGUIST List 6.240

Sat 18 Feb 1995

Qs: Gender marking, Yakut, Phonetic dictionaries, Kyrgyz

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Directory

1. Maik Gibson, Loss of gender marking
2. Nadezhda I. Vinokurova, the Yakut(Sakha) language
3. Jean DeMerit, phonetic dictionaries
4. Ricky Jacobs, Kyrgyz

When a language loses gender marking in some aspect of its system
(verbal/ adjectival inflections, pronouns etc.), how common is it that
the originally feminine form is generalised, rather than the masculine?
Would it be correct to assume that the masculine form is generally
treated as unmarked, in contrast to the feminine, and so will normally be
used in a resulting system without the gender marking?

Thoughts, data and references please!

Maik Gibson
University of Reading

Dear linguists,

 I would like some information about the Yakut(Sakha) language - a
Turkic language of the Uralo-Altaic family which is spoken in Yakutia,
Siberia, Russia. I want to find out whether it is being taught somewhere
besides Russia or maybe, there are some people who are interested in it.

nvinokurovapolar.bowdoin.edu

Hi-

I've asked around a little without much luck, and am interested in
a speedy response. I'm looking for a phonetic dictionary of English,
preferably an online source but paper would do as well. Something
where I can easily compile lists of say CVC words for any given vowel.
The more sophisticated searching capabilities the better.

I'm only interested in (for the moment) high frequency words. Which
brings up another question. Are there online wd frequency databases
around/Kucera & Francis, others? Or better, combined phonetic dictionary
and word frequency?

Any help anyone can provide in tracking down these resources will be
greatly appreciated, and I apologize if this request is overly common.

Thanks,

Jean L. DeMerit
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
demeritmacc.wisc.edu

Can anyone tell me of material on the Kyrgyz language apart from Hebert
and Poppe (1963) and the minimal sketch in Creissels (1977)? I may be
going in that direction and would like to be able to ask where I can park
my yak. Unfortunately I do not read Russian.

 Roderick A. Jacobs
 Depts. of Linguistics & ESL
 University of Hawai'i at Manoa
 1890 East-West Road
 Honolulu, HI 96822
 USA