LINGUIST List 6.975

Mon Jul 17 1995

Qs: Semantics textbook, Alternative Q, Bilingualism, Walloon

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

Directory

1. "TAO, LIANG", Semantics textbook
2. Milan Mihaljevic, Alternative Q
3. , Are most people bilingual?
4. "Larry Trask", Query: Walloon

I remember there was once a summary of discussion of semantics textbooks on
the net. I couldn't find it now but would really like to have the list of
recommended books. I'm teachhing an intro. semantics course. Could someone
out there help me locate the list? My sincerely thanks to any help or
suggestions.

Liang Tao
LTaoClipr.Colorado.edu

Dear linguists,
I am looking for references dealing with the structure of alternative questions
.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am specially interested in the
structure of WH-alternatives in Slavic languages.

Milan Mihaljevic
Hrvatski filoloski institut
Demetrova 11
Zagreb, Croatia
e-mail: mihaljfilolog.hfi.hr

 I seem to remember reading somewhere a principled estimate
of what percent of all human beings are fluent in two or more languages.
Does anyone know of something like this in the literature?
- ---------------------------------
Lee Hartman ga5123siucvmb.siu.edu
Department of Foreign Languages
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4521 U.S.A.

I have a short passage written in Walloon, the local French of
Belgium, specifically in the variety used in the Belgian province of
Luxembourg, around Bastogne. There are parts of it I can't read.
Even a French-speaker from Belgium can't understand all of it (she
doesn't speak Walloon). Can anybody give me a translation of the
passage, preferably into standard French?

Orthography: An acute accent following a consonant is part of the
orthography and represents an elided vowel. A comma following a <c>
represents a cedilla. Any diacritic following a vowel should be on
top of that vowel. A period between two <n>s indicates that the first
<n> nasalizes the preceding vowel while the second is pronounced. I
have no idea what the hyphens mean.

Here it is. Best of luck.

I-gn-e` a po^ pre`s kinze ans du d' ci, dj' asto amon Albe^rt
Le`yona^rd e`t dj' rawa^rdo pace k' on m' avot dit k' ou profe`sseu^r
do Se'mine^re vlot nos ve`y po pa^rler do walon. Dju m' sovin co k'
dj' e^ dmande' a c,' momint la: <<Kin-a^dje k' il e`, don c,' cure'
la ?>> Dj' e^ vite avou compris k' i n' astot nin pus cure' k' mi,
surtout cand dj' l' e^ ve`you avou oune be`le djon.ne bwe^ce`le ki n'
compurdot we^re lu walon, me^s k' astot bin de`cide' a l' aprinde
avou de`s profe`sseu^rs come Pierrot, come Jeannot, come Roger, ou
come mi, di-st-i l' fou.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk