LINGUIST List 6.423

Fri 24 Mar 1995

Qs: 'Kind of'/'sort of', Dictionary, Palindromes, NETPHON

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1. Christof Vanden Eynde, meaning of 'sort of', 'kind of' etc.
2. "THUMA Orsolya", Request for dictionary
3. , Palindromes
4. Sandra Whiteside, NETPHON

to the list :
In several European languages I know of (Dutch, English, German and
French), the ordinary language word for 'category' has undergone a
meaning change, so that the same word can now also be used in an
'approximative sense'. 'Kind of' and 'sort of' (like Dutch 'soort
van', French 'sorte de' and German 'Art von') can be used in sentences
like (1)"A zebra is a kind of horse". "Kind of" does not imply (full)
category membership in this instance, as is shown by the fact that
informants are willing to assert (1) while denying the truth of (2)
"A zebra is a horse".
Moreover, the 'approximative' meaning of 'kind of' can (in English at least) be
 used with verbs and adjectives (cfr. "He's kinda weird").
I would like to know whether in non-Standard Average European languages
the ordinary language word for 'category' has undergone the same meaning
change.

Christof Vanden Eynde
Department of Dutch Linguistics
University of Gent (Belgium)
Christof.VandenEynderug.ac.be

Dear Sirs,

I would be very grateful if you could send me a copy of an English
Word Frequency Dictionary because in Hungary they are not available
and I desperately need one to set up my psycholinguistic experiment.

Thank you for your arrangements in advance.

 Thuma Orsolya

Request for Information:
Hi! I was interested in the recent post asking for words who mean
their opposite. It occurred to me that there must be languages in
which the palindrome of a given word means its opposite. Does anyone
know of anything like this (besides the old artificial language
Solresol by Jean-Franc,ois Sudre of 17th-Century France). I'm almost
certain it wouldn't happen as a regular thing in any natural language,
but it seems there might be a few accidental occurences of it. Thanks,
David Harris, harrisdguvax.georgetown.edu

PLEASE POST THIS ON TO LINGUIST

MANY THANKS

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NETPHON: Network for Education and Training in Phonetics

Dear Colleague

NETPHON is a one-year project which is being funded by the Department of
Employment in the UK. It is a consortium of higher education departments
which teach theoretical, practical and acoustic phonetics to student of
speech and language therapy (SLT). The network also includes members from
the College of Speech and Language Therapy. Students are also represented
in the network.

The network aims to provide a means for the development of good practice in
teaching and assessment of phonetics in the context of speech and language
therapy. It also aims to promote the development of innovative teaching
methods and materials that will encourage student-centred learning. Through
its activities the network aims to forge closer links between colleagues
both in academic and professional establishments.

Within the framework of NETPHON a working party has been set up to promote
the sharing and development of teaching materials for phonetics. The aims of
this working party are to:

i) collate information on what teaching materials have been developed at
different establishments for teaching phonetics (theoretical, practical,
acoustic);
ii) establish whether the materials could be made available to other colleagues;
iii) collate and disseminate information received from colleagues and
iv) identify any gaps in teaching materials with a view to further
promoting the development of teaching materials.

As a first stage in setting about these tasks the working party is carrying out
an international survey of colleagues involved in the teaching of phonetics
(in all contexts, not just that of speech and language therapy programmes),
with a view to constructing a database of available materials.

We would be most grateful if teachers of phonetics who have developed teaching
materials which they think may be of interest to colleagues would take the
short time required to answer the following questions.

i) Please give brief outline description of the materials which you have
developed.

ii) What level are the teaching materials aimed at (i.e. beginners, more
advanced etc.)?

iii) What part of the phonetics curriculum are the teaching materials aimed
at (i.e. practical articulatory and auditory phonetics and/or acoustic
phonetics)?

iv) What form do the teaching materials take (i.e. audio cassettes, video
cassettes, computer software)? If you use software please state what
computers platforms they can be mounted on.

v) Is there any material to support the teaching materials (e.g.
workbooks, manuals, other documentation etc.)?

vi) Are you willing to share the teaching materials with colleagues at
other establishments? If so, what would the cost be ?

viii) The name of a contact person who would be responsible for
distributing the teaching materials, their postal address, telephone
number, fax number and email address

ix) Finally, what sort of teaching materials would you like but don't have ?

Any information you can give us will be gratefully received. Please send
replies by e-mail to s.whitesidesheffield.ac.uk

We plan to make our materials database available on the internet, in
the form of a WWW page. We will make a further announcement about this when it
is available.

A workshop on teaching materials is due to be held in mid September 1995.

Sincerely

Sandra Whiteside
Helen Pandeli
Gerry Docherty
Martin Duckworth
(NETPHON Working Party on Teaching Materials).