LINGUIST List 6.793

Fri 09 Jun 1995

Qs: Mohawk, Russian, Banning of German I. Mel'cuk

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Directory

1. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Q: Mohawk
2. , Russian references
3. , Q: German banned in Iowa
4. Jerome Serme, References needed : I. Mel'cuk

Is there anybody out there who knows Mohawk and could
answer a couple of questions about the syntax of the
same?

Alexis MR

Dear Linguist List Subscribers,

I am looking for references on Russian syntax (specifically Case-assignment/
Case-checking) which follow the Principles and Parameters or Minimalist
Programs. I am especially interested in the use of Genitive with negation.

Thanks!
Brian Lindsey
Southern Illinois University
blindseysiucvmb.siu.edu

I've recently received a message from a man who claims that during World War
I, the use of German and other languages was made "illegal" in the state of
Iowa by decree of the governor. This is very interesting to me, since my own
family's stories of anti-German discrimination in Michigan at that time are
limited to a snide remark or two about our surname. Below is the relevant
part of the man's message. Can anyone vouch for the veracity of what he
says?

James Kirchner

)Here in Iowa where I grew up most household language was a >foreign
language the early part of this century. The public
)schools were English of course. My uncle went to a local
)"German" school which was a parochial school. It was
)necessary because all the German Lutheran Church liturgy and >Bibles were in
Luther's German so the Plattdeutsch speaking
)people had to go to school to learn it. World War I ended that. >The Iowa
governor issued a proclamation banning the speaking)of any foreign language
in public places. Phone operators were)instructed to pull the plug on any
non English telephone
)conversations. Party line patrons were to hold the telephone
)receiver up to the mouth piece so the resulting whistling
)would interfere with non English speech. All modern language >instruction
was dropped from school curriculums. A blow
)from which the school system never really recovered.
)Newspapers published reports of people arrested on the
)street for speaking German. This was a real hardship on older >immigrants.
All German language newspapers were
)suppressed. Our rural county had German papers at one time.
)In fact the editor of one was once elected the county
)treasurer. This day and age it is all somewhat embarrassing. I >stumbled on
to the fact that the State of Iowa organized what)amounted to a secret
police agency. The state formed an
)agency whose purpose was to investigate acts of disloyalty.
)They were given the power to levy fines and imprison people
)for the duration of the war without benefit of trial. America's >active
participation was relatively short lived so the agency)was not around long.
It would make an interesting research
)paper sometime if any records still exist.

In his 1981 thesis, 'Towards a Theory of Semantic Change', David Wilkins
 follows the analysis of the linguistic sign in three components
 (signifiant, signifie , and syntactic properties) developed by I. Melc'uk.
 He refers to a 1976 article; unfortunately, the complete references do not
 appear in the final bibliography. Wilkins also fails to give them in his
 1993 article 'From Part to person: natural tendencies of semantic change
 and the search for cognates' (CARG Working Paper no 23). Can anyone correct
 this mistake and give me the full references? Thanks in advance.

_________________________________________
Jerome Serme
Dynamique du Langage
Maison Rhone-Alpes des Sciences de l'Homme
14, avenue Berthelot
69363 Lyon Cedex - FRANCE
Phone: +33 72 72 64 12
=46ax: +33 72 80 00 08
E-Mail: Jerome.Sermemrash.fr
_________________________________________