LINGUIST List 7.1139

Tue Aug 13 1996

Qs: Relative pronoun, Iconicity in spoken lgs, Bunny Bread ad

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

Directory

1. Luis Alberto Gonzalez, Relative Pronoun
2. Linda Flack, Iconicity in Spoken Languages
3. Lee Hartman, Bunny Bread

In the sentence:
 The U.N.O. was founded in 1945 which grew out of an idea
 led by President ...
Q.1 Is the use of the relative pronoun "which " correct ? i.e. Is it
 grammatically appropriate ?
Q.2 If yes, what is the explanation ? #
 Thank you.

In many sign languages, because they are visual you get a noticeable
degree of iconicity - signs which look similar to the object or idea
that they represent. In spoken languages the nearest property to this
 that I can think of is onomatopoeia - words that sound like the
object or idea they represent. I was just wondering are there spoken
languages which have a higher than average onomatopoeic quality?
English has quite a few onomatopoeic words whoosh, bang, pop. Are
there other spoken languages which use onomatopoeia more?

 I am curious about a song and written advertising slogan that
I suspect of changing its spelling according to local dialect
variations in American English. Can you help me gather data? The
product is a bread whose brand name is Bunny. I'm not sure how large
the marketing area is: it may be limited to the central and southern
U.S. The slogan is painted on the sides of rectangular, yellow
delivery trucks. Where I live, in southern Illinois, the slogan
appears as follows:
 "That's what Ah said -- Bunny Bread" "Ah" is the
first-person-singular pronoun. I use this in phonetics classes as
evidence that the "diphthong" /ai/ is monophthongized in some
dialects. Now the interesting part: Years ago on a trip north to
Iowa, I thought I saw one of the trucks with the same slogan, except
that the pronoun was spelled "I".
 My request is that, if you see these trucks, please send me a
note telling (1) how the pronoun is spelled and (2) the location where
it was observed.
 I will summarize any results for the list.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Hartman
Dept. of Foreign Languages
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4521
U.S.A.