LINGUIST List 7.1677

Wed Nov 27 1996

Qs: English rel clauses, Sign Language, German synonyms

Editor for this issue: Susan Robinson <robinsonemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Kim Jong-Bok, English Free Relative Clauses
2. "Jorge Ernesto Lemus", Sign Language
3. oliver boettcher, synonyms, idioms

Dear "Linguist" subscribers,

I, a non-native speaker of English, am seeking English native
speakers' intutions and comments on some English free relative clause
sentences. Literature accepts the preposition drop in free relative
clauses if the dropped preposition is locative or directional and if
the preposition in the main matrix matches with the dropped
preposition in the relative clause:

(1) a. I'll live in whatever town you live in.
 b. I'll live in whatever town you live.
(2) a. I'll move to whatever town you move to.
 b. I'll move to whatever town you move.

Even cases where the matrix verb is different from the verb
in the relative clause are also possible, according to
previous literature.

(3) a. I'll work in whatever town you live.
 b. I'll live in whatever town you work.

But most of the native speakers teaching English here and
I consulted with didn't accept the proposition dropped
exampls in (1b), (2b), and (c).

My question is what you subscribers think about examples like (1b),
(1c), and (3). If you accept these (b) examples, can you give
me other examples? If you can tell me any pattern
in acceptable examples, it will be of great help, of course.

Please directly reply to jongboknms.kyunghee.ac.kr.
I will post a summary if there are enough responses.

Thanks a million in advance.

Jong-Bok Kim
Seoul, Korea

Dear colleagues,

 I'm currently preparing a project to analyze the syntactic
structure of Salvadorean Sign Language. This language has never
been systematically studied before. A picture dictionary of about
500 signs was published this year. This is the only literature
available about the language. As a linguist, I have
studied amerindian languages (all of them oral) but I have no
experience studying sign languages. Is there anybody out there who
has experience doing this kind of research? I would like to know how
have you managed informants, videocameras, photographs, etc. If you
know of any bibliography available on the topic I'll appreciate it if
you share it with me. I would also like to establish contact with
deaf linguists and non-deaf linguists working on any sign language of
the world. Needless to say that this research is of great
importance to the deaf community of El Salvador who have been
historically ignored as a linguistic community (and as social
group, as well). Thanks in advance.

Please, reply to

Jorge Ernesto Lemus
Departamento de Idiomas
Universidad de El Salvador
e-mail: jlemusbiblio.ues.edu.sv
FAX: (503) 222-3250

Hello,

I'm desperately looking for dictionaries/downloadable lists of german
synonyms and idioms. Does anything like this exist?

Thanks,
Oliver from Germany