LINGUIST List 7.563

Tue Apr 16 1996

Qs: Frequency, Editing, Informant, Syllables, Lithuanian

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

Directory

1. "L. HILLMAN", word frequency list for Am. English
2. Glenn Gilbert, how to count editing
3. Ken Nakatani, Informant Exchange
4. Fumiko Kumashiro, Help Sought on Syllable-Final Devoicing in German
5. Ruth Herold, Lithuanian vowel phonemes

Dear Linguists,

Does anyone know of a list of the most common 20 000 American English
words, sorted by frequency? I have searched the LINGUIST network
datasources at the Web site, but have not found anything.

A list in standard ASCII, which includes the frequency per whatever
the size of the corpus, would preferable to a paper list. If it is
free or very low cost, that would be even better. And if it is also
available over the Internet, that would be best of all.

As usual, I will post a summary if respondents would like one.

Professor Louis B. Hillman lbhndprit.edu

Applied Computer Technology Department	| English Department
Rochester Institute of Technology	| SUNY College at Brockport
Rochester, NY				| Brockport, NY

For purposes of merit salary increases, promotion, and tenure, our
department is grappling with the question of just how to count editing
of journals, as opposed to authoring peer-reviewed original articles
and books. In our department in the past, the editing and co-editing
of books, as well as of book series, has traditionally counted as
research, whereas the editing of journals has counted as service.
Since, in our system, research counts three times as much as service,
the editing of a journal is very disadvantageous professionally,
whereas the editing of books has the opposite effect. I'm wondering
how other linguistics departments handle this question. ---Glenn
Gilbert, Department of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, IL 62901 ggilbertsiu.edu

Glenn Gilbert
office telephone 618-453-3414
home telephone 618-529-1250
home fax 618-457-2436

Hello linguists,

Need a Japanese informant?
Well, I need an English informant.
Why don't we exchange?

I am a graduate student in linguistics (syntax) and a native
speaker of Japanese. Studying linguistic theories developed
in US, I sometimes need judgements by native speakers of English.
As you know, most non-linguists are not suitable as an informant
for syntacticians, since they often reject sentences for
stylistic and/or pragmatic reasons. So I think it would be
wonderful to have informant partners here on-line. I will answer
any question on Japanese (as long as I've got time). I would
like to ask English native speakers for judgements on English
sentences.

I look forward to your reply! Thank you.

-ken-
knakatanhusc.harvard.edu

Hello,

I'm writing a paper on syllable-final devoicing in German and would like to
seek help from native speakers on judgments. I would aprreciate it very much if
you can tell me how you would pronounce the words listed below (a period stands
for a syllable boundary, and a double quote for umlaut):

 --A-- --B-- --C--
1. Handlung 'act' han[d].lung han.[d]lung han[t].lung
2. Ordnung 'order' or[d].nung or.[d]nung or[t].nung
3. Begegnung 'meeting' be.ge[g].nung be.ge.[g]nung be.ge[k].nung
4. Radler 'bicyclist' ra[d].ler ra.[d]ler ra[t].ler
5. Schuldner 'debtor' schul[d].ner schul.[d]ner schul[t].ner
6. Sta"bler 'vaulter' sta[b].ler sta.[b]ler sta[p].ler
7. neblig 'foggy' ne[b].lig ne.[b]lig ne[p].lig
8. schmuddlig 'dirty' schmu[d].lig schmu.[d]lig schmu[t].lig
9. hu"glig 'hilly' hu[g].lig hu.[g]lig hu[k].lig
10. ebnen 'to flatten' e[b].nen e.[b]nen e[p].nen
11. eignen 'be suitable' ei[g].nen ei.[g]nen ei[k].nen

I would like to know specifically if your pronounciation is afffected by the
rate of speech, i.e. fast vs. normal speech.

Thank you very much.

Fumiko Kumashiro
fkumashiroucsd.edu
Department of Lingustics
University of California, San Diego

I would very much appreciate it if anyone could send me answers to the 
following two questions:
(1) how many vowel phonemes are there in Lithuanian ?
(2) what kind of lower or lower-mid back vowel phonemes are there?
 I'm particularly interested in knowing whether there's anything similar to the
English cot/caught distinction. University libraries here in Toulouse will be
closed until the end of April for vacation, and the municipal library doesn't
have the information. I need an answer as soon as possible! Thanks very much
for your help.
Please respond directly to me, as I'm not currently on the Linglist.
Ruth Herold, Toulouse, France
INTERNET ADDRESS: 101476.2356compuserve.com