LINGUIST List 6.480

Fri 31 Mar 1995

Qs: Schwa, Hendricks, Classical Greek/Mycenean, Forensic lg

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1. Petur Knutsson, Q: hesitation words and schwa
2. "Diane M. Sharon", query re William O. Hendricks
3. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Q: Specialists in Classical Greek/Mycenean
4. "Mr A.P. Berber Sardinha", Analysis of OJ Trial

Two queries, both arising from teaching.
Firstly:
IUm looking for examples of/references for the orthographical
representation of schwa or a long central vowel in Standard English. IUm
thinking of rhotic/non-rhotic alternations such as hesitation-words:

 er / uh
 erm / uhm (?)
or
yer (=you) / yuh etc.

More specifically, IUm looking for orthographic examples of _stressed_
schwa in English, which for obvious reasons is rare. My only example to
date is staunchly non-rhotic: from the first page of of MilneUs
Winnie-the-Pooh, where the question arises as to whether the name 'Winnie'
isn't really a girl's name. Christopher Robin replies:

'HeUs Winnie-_ther_-Pooh. DonUt you know what _ther_ means?'

with the form 'ther' italicised. (The point here being that normally the
italicised form of the article would indicate the strong form with a close
front vowel, 'thee'; but this would then mean 'the great Pooh', which is
not what Christopher Robin wants to say.)

Any other examples, rhotic and non-r, springing to mind out there?

Second query.

What is the vowel in hesitation words in other languages? And what is its
orthographic form?
If schwa occurs in the language, is the hesitation vowel always schwa?
In some Scottish varieties I've heard [e].
Icelandic has no schwa; the hesitation vowel tends to be [e] or [I] (but
never as close as [i]) or the rounded varieties of these vowels (all have
separate phonemic status.) My impression is that the closer vowels are
associated with educated and/or female registers in Icelandic.

Thanks. I'll post a summary.

Petur Knutsson
University of Iceland
peturkrhi.hi.is

I am a student of ancient texts, and new to this list; I have read some
work by William O. Hendricks on the intersection of folklore,
linguistics, and literary criticism, and I find his thinking fascinating;
I can't find anything by him since the mid 1970's. I have been looking
in the MLA and humanities indexes, but am unfamiliar with resources in
'pure' linguistics. Can anyone give me a lead to his later work or what
happended to him? Please answer off-list; many thanks!

******************************************************************************
Diane M. Sharon
Jewish Theological Seminary, NYC
DISHARONJTSA.EDU
******************************************************************************

Are there any such folks (who also know Indo-European) who are on
the list who would be willing to answer some etymological/phonological
questions?

Alexis Manaster Ramer

Hello,

I wonder if there's anyone who has written anything
about any linguistic aspect of the OJ Simpson trial?
In the published literature in Forensic Linguistics
there isn't anything. If you could, please let me
have any references of research papers, tech reports,
articles, etc, published or not on the OJ Simpson
trial (and net address, if it applies).

Additionally, if anyone could let me have references
about the Jake Baker case, I'd be very grateful.

I'll post a summary to the list.

Tony

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