LINGUIST List 6.876

Mon 26 Jun 1995

Qs: Innateness, Translation, Romance lgs, Antipassive/reflexive

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "R.Hudson", innateness
2. Marilyn Goodrich, Translation
3. "Xulio C. Sousa Fernandez", Modal Verbs in Romance Languages
4. Jeffrey L Lidz, Antipassive and Reflexive

Content-Length: 1453

Can anyone help me to understand where innateness fits into Chomsky's current
theorizing, where the aim is to explain all of UG in terms of Bare Conceptual
Necessity as applied to the Bare Output Conditions - in other words, to show
that UG is as it is because it couldn't have been otherwise, given the meanings
that have to be expressed (LF) and the demands of phonology (PF) and the need
for the simplest possible system. If UG can be explained like that (as Chomsky
thinks it can), then there's no need for a second explanation in terms of
genetics, is there? Or am I missing something obvious?

Dick Hudson
Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
uclyrahucl.ac.uk

Content-Length: 1875

My name is Alexi Goodrich. I am a graduate at Carnegie Mellon
University, Masters of Fine Arts program, and am involved with a
translation project with the MIT Linguistics Department. I am
interested in a translation of this single phrase into approximately 120
languages:

 "When my love are you coming here? I miss you so much."

Please feel free to translate with as much freedom as you like given the
constraints of translation of any one language to another. If you could
translate this phrase into the languages that you work on, it would help
my project. If you could please send your translation in the format
below it would help my project greatly and better serve the languages
involved in the translation.

Example: Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Central Australia)
Nyangurla kapinpaju pinarni yani, wiyarrpa. Wajampajarrimi karnangku
wiyarrpaku.

Replies can be sent to mgoodrimit.edu, or if email cannot support
fonts, please feel free to send a fax to Marilyn Goodrich, Department of
Linguistics, Fax (617) 253-5017. Your support for this project is
greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking your valuable time.

Alexi Goodrich

Content-Length: 1063

Dear colleagues:
 I am looking for bibliography/references for "modal verbs" in Romance
languages (classification, properties, etc.). I'll post a summary of
reponses if it seems appropiate.

 Thanks in advance.

Xulio Sousa
Departamento de Filoloxia Galega
Facultade de Filoloxia
15705 Santiago de Compostela
e-mail: fgxsousausc.es

Content-Length: 2168

Dear linguist subscribers,

I've found in quite a few languages that the morpheme used to indicate
antipassive is the same as the morpheme used to indicate reflexive.
Does anyone know of languages that have a distinct form for each of
these constructions (i.e., one for antipassive and one for reflexive)?

To illustrate, in Diyari (Austin 1981) the morpheme -tadi- is used in
both of these constructions:

(a) reflexive:
 ngani muduwa-tadi-yi
 1sgs scratch-refl-pres
 'I scratch myself'

(b) antipassive:
 ngani kalka-tadi-yi nangkangu wila-ni
 1sgs wait.for-antipass-pres 3sgf.loc woman-loc
 'I wait for the woman'

the sentence in (b) contrasts with a simple transitive in that (b) has
the 'object' in locative case as opposed to absolutive as it would in
a simple transitive clause.

The language I'm looking for would use a different verbal affix in (a)
and (b). I am aware of languages like West Greenlandic which have one
morpheme for antipassive and no (affixal) morpheme for reflexive, but
that's not what I'm looking for.

thanks for you help,

Jeff

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Jeff Lidz
University of Delaware Office: (302) 831-6489
Department of Linguistics Home: (302) 656-1902
46 E. Delaware Ave. Email: jlidzbrahms.udel.edu
Newark, DE 19716

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*