LINGUIST List 7.1084

Wed Jul 31 1996

Qs: Origins, Resultatives, Sign Lg, Dictionary

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Luis Alberto Gonzalez, Origin of expressions
2. Michael Gamon, resultatives
3. AVG Project, Query on Sign Language Descriptions
4. Kirk Belnap, dictionary how-to's

Can anybody answer if they know the origin of any of the following:
 a) Gordon Bennet
 b) Jack the lad
 c) The Big Apple (for New York)
Thanks.

I was asked to forward the following message to you for posting on the
LINGUISTLIST.

Please direct replies to the address mentioned at the end.

Sincerely,

Michael Gamon.

(text)------------

Subject: resultatives

It has been repeatedly observed in the literature
that a resultative phrase can only be predicated of an
(underlying) object (cf. Levin & Rappaport-Hovav 1995, Chapter 2).
This is clearly true for English. But there are languages like
Finnish and Korean, where a resultative can also be predicated of
the subject of a transitive verb, as illustrated by the following
sentences (where the resultative phrases contain APs, not finite
verbs as in the English translations):

Finnish (M. Vilkuna (p.c.)):

 Maria katseli olympialaisia silm"ans"a kipeiksi.
 Maria watched olympic-games-PAR eye-PL:ACC-3Px sore-PL-TRA
 'Maria watched the Olympic Games till her eyes ached.'

Korean (S. Kim (p.c.)):

 Moksanim-un chim-i malukey wuli-eykey selkyohasi-ess-ta.
 pastor-TOP tongue-NOM dry we-DAT preach-HON-PAST-DEC
 'The pastor preached [to] us [till his] tongue [became] dry.'

Does anyone know of other languages that behave like Finnish
or Korean? If I get sufficient response, I will post the result on the
LINGUIST net. Please respond directly to: malingvolen.brandeis.edu

Appreciatively,

Joan Maling

Dear linguists,

this is a query to all linguists working in the area of sign
languages: What are your favorite descriptions of sign languages
(partial or comprehensive)? Since we, the AVG project Munich,
are developing a framework which should enable the linguist to
describe any kind of human language, we are interested in all
pointers to good descriptions of sign languages. (If you want
more information about our project, please visit our WWW pages.
The URL is http://www.cip.fak14.uni-muenchen.de/~avg/)

So if you have pertinent information on sign language descriptions,
please mail it to

 avgcip.fak14.uni-muenchen.de

If there is enough interest, we will post a summary.

Thanks a lot for your help!

the Munich AVG team
Ellen Brandner
Roman Pichler
Christian Stroemsdoerfer
Tsuyoshi Takizawa
Dietmar Zaefferer

While I'm in Jerusalem for the 96/7 academic year I plan to start work on a
modest English-to-Arabic dictionary (5-10,000 entries) of
Palestinian/Jordanian. I'll be working with a colleague in Amman. Not
being a lexicographer, I did a little reading--enough to know that I'd
better get some good advice. I'm especially interested in what I can
reasonably do to give good collocational/context information in such a
work. I would appreciate information on the following:
1) I ran across reference to "skeleton English dictionaries," word lists of
basic English vocabulary designed for bilingual dictionaries. Where can I
find such lists, preferably in electronic format? Are they for sale? Are
there good lists in the public domain?
2) Practical advice, including references to articles or books that would
be helpful. Especially useful, I think, would be recommendations on
smaller bilingual dictionaries (in any language, not just Arabic) you feel
are good models to emulate.
3) Recommendations regarding helpful software (data base and other). I
will be taking a Macintosh but feel free to pass on your PC
recommendations. I will probably have access to a PC, and it would be nice
to pass such information on in my summary to the list.


 --------------------------------------------
 Kirk Belnap
 4062 JKHB
 Brigham Young University
 Provo, Utah 84602
 801/378-6531
 FAX: 801-378-5866
 kirk_belnapbyu.edu
 --------------------------------------------