LINGUIST List 6.954

Tue Jul 11 1995

Qs: Morphological process, Chinese, Etymology, Email address

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. Steven Schaufele, A (formerly) productive morphological process?
2. "Robin Sackmann", Qs: Parts-of-Speech in Chinese
3. , Etymology
4. Bertinetto, Tenny

All my life i have been aware of a process of forming compounds (often
referring to geographical entities, ethnic groups, etc.) by means of a
`combining form', typically ending in -o, of the first member of the
compound, e.g., Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asiatic, Dano-Norwegian.

Of late years, at least in `official' circles, i seem to be seeing a repu-
diation of this combining form. Whereas back in the 60's we occasionally
used the expression `Afro-American', this has been recently repudiated by
the community it refers to in favour of `African American'. And while i
have been accustomed quite happily to refer to myself as a `Euro-American',
i have just this past week come across the (to my mind) much more cumber-
some usage `European American'.

Can anybody tell me anything about the history of this process? Does it,
as i suspect, derive from the -o combining form so common in Greek-derived
words (e.g., morphology)? And is it really dying out as a productive pro-
cess in English?

Thanks
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL 61801
217-344-8240
fcoswsprairienet.org

**** O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum! ***
*** Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis! ***

Dear linguists,

I am currently working on a paper about syntactic categories ('parts of
speech') in modern standard Chinese (putonghua resp. guoyu).
Therefore, I would be very grateful to users of LINGUIST for any references
to books and (recent) papers on this matter.
A bibliographical summary will be posted.

Many thanks in advance,

Robin Sackmann
FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN
Germany

X-Personal_name: Craig Carroll

Does anyone know of a discussion list for etymology? Also, where are
some resources on the internet for searching for the history of certain
words? Please respond directly. If there is enough interest, I will post
to the list. thank you.

Craig Carroll
Abilene Texas
cec74480acuvax.acu.edu

Does anybody know the e-mail address of Carol Tenny?
The "Linguists" server in Amsterdam provides an MIT address, which is
apparently an old one.
Please answer to me directly: bertinetsns.it
Thanks.
Pier Marco Bertinetto
Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore