LINGUIST List 8.1131

Sun Aug 3 1997

Qs: Polarity, Portuguese, Computational

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Michael Israel, Polarity Items around the World
2. mgdorey, NON-SEXIST LANGUAGE GUIDELINES - PORTUGUESE
3. EL-KAREH/THARWAT, ssearch for material

It has come to my attention that different, and sometimes entirely
unrelated languages sometimes have strikingly similar idiomatic
expressions.

The example I have been most struck by is the polarity sensitive
expression "to lift a finger" as in

 1. She wouldn't lift a finger to help her own sister.

I am aware of parallel idiomatic expressions with roughly the same
meaning and the same polarity sensitivity in French, Catalan, Dutch,
German, Norwegian and Korean.

Can anyone out there supply me with examples from other languages
(particularly non-European languages) of similar expressions. Note
that in order for an expression to qualify, it has to be both
idiomatic and polarity sensitive. In other words, the equivalent of
sentence 2 has to sound either ungrammatical or distinctly jocular:

 2. *She would lift a finger to help her own sister.

If you're really nice, could you provide translations and glosses of
each of the sentences along with the example?

And if you're really nice and find it interesting, maybe you'll know other
languages with polarity sensitive idioms like

"bat an eyelash" as in

 3. He didn't bat an eyelash.
 4. *He batted an eyelash.

or "breathe a word" (or something similar) as in

 5. I won't breathe a word about this to the students.
 6. *I will breathe a word about this to the students.

Many thanks in advance for the many responses I'm sure will be pouring
in. Naturally, I will post a summary of all I receive.

Michael Israel
misraelucsd.edu

Hi / ola!

I am interested in information on 1) existing non-sexist language
guidelines for Portuguese 2) the whole debate on grammatical gender as
applicable to Portuguese. Can anyone help me with references?

Thank you!

Maria d'Orey

<mgdoreyibm.net>

Dear Sirs,

I am looking for easy teaching material for computational linguistics
("frames" and other) and generative grammar for undergraduate students
that could be sent by e-mail. 

Thanks,

Seham 
Prof of Linguistics