LINGUIST List 6.637

Thu 04 May 1995

Qs: Maltese, Fonts, Morphological uniformity, Statistics

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1. caroline-lauise moss, RE: THE MALTESE LANGUAGE.
2. (aroline-lauise moss, help
3. Yan Huang, Query: Morphological uniformity hypothesis
4. "R.Y.L. TANG", Q: Applying Statistical Methods to Linguistic Data

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Dear List Members,
 Can anybody give me linguistic information regarding the
Maltese language?
 From
 Caroline.
 The University of Liverpool.

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Friends,
 I come to you for help. I would like to know how I can get all
the different, or at least as many as possible, phonetic symbols with
the computer. I use Word for Windows 6.0 and that does give me some
symbols, like accented vowels in Spanish. But as my wife is about to
start her thesis in phonology, she needs to be able to type ohters
like long and short vowels, velar n, and the rest.
 Anybody knows what I have to do, or what add-on program to
buy? Thanks a lot fo the info.
 ==============================================================================
 Juan Antonio Pena
 Assistant Professor ******
 Hispanic Literature & Linguistics * * - *
 Modern Languages & Intercultural Studies * * * - *
 Western Kentucky University * * * * - *
 Bowling Green KY 42101 * * * - *
 (502) 745-2401; dept. fax (502) 745 6859 * * - *
 penajawkuvx1.wku.edu ******
 =============================================================================

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Jaeggli & Safir (1989) propose a morphological uniformity hypothesis as
the licensing condition for null subjects. The central claim is that null
subjects are permitted in all and only languages with morphologically
uniform infectional paradigms; such paradigms being either those which
have all derived forms or those which have all underived forms.
Relatively well-known counterexamples are Mainland Scandinavian languages
on the one hand, and Old French on the other. Mainland Scandinavians are
morphologically uniform, yet they do not allow null subjects of any kind;
Old French is not morphologically uniform, yet it allows null subjects at
least in some contexts (see Chapter 2 of my 1994 book 'The Syntax and
Pragmatics of Anaphora' Cambridge University Press for further
discussion). Now I have two questions:
(a) are there any new developments of the hypothesis itself, and
(b) are there any other languages which behave like Mainland
 Scandinavians on the one hand, and Old French on the other?
I'll post a summary if there is sufficient interest. Please send your
replies directly to me at my Reading e-mail address. Thanks!

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Dear _Linguist_ readers:

I often come across studies which apply statistical methods (e.g.
chi-square test, correlation test, significance test, etc.) to linguistic
data collected in a statistically *NON-RANDOM* way (e.g. texts of
various styles collected in a judgemental fashion to form a corpus).
Since statistical tests are meant to be applied to random data, are such
studies in any way justified? If not, can there be any way for a linguist
to apply such tests to his/her data, given the difficulties in obtaining
a *truly* random sample of linguistic data in so many situations (
e.g. tape-recording conversations from non-randomly selected subjects,
obtaining texts of various genres from everyday life in a non-random
fashion, etc.)?

I gained this thought on the difficulty of obtaining truly random
linguistic samples from Lesley Milroy's _Observing and Analysing Natural
Language_ (Blackwell, 1987[?]).

I look forward to suggestions and comments. Thank you.

Regards,

Raymond Y.L. Tang
PhD candidate
Dept. of English
University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

Email: h9290030 hkuxa.hku.hk or h9290030hkusub.hku.hk