LINGUIST List 8.213

Sat Feb 15 1997

Qs: Lx credit, Nine yard, Romanian, L1 film

Editor for this issue: Susan Robinson <suelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Ruth Lanouette, General Ed Credit for Linguistics Courses
2. Margaret O'Malley, The whole nine yards
3. Tina Kraskow, Native speaker-Romanian
4. Alex HOUSEN, L1 acquisition

I teach at Lawrence University, a four-year liberal arts college in
Appleton, WI. We have no Linguistics Department, but we do have a
Linguistics Program in which faculty from several departments (German,
Classics, Chinese, Anthro, Psych) participate. The problem is, at the
moment students cannot fulfill any of the core requirements by taking
courses which only have the LING prefix. (Others are cross-listed
through the various departments.) In the hope of attracting more
students to the program, a colleague and I are planning to propose
that the LING courses fulfill general ed requirements. The courses in
question are Introduction to Language, Introduction to Linguistics,
Syntax, and Phonology. The question we now have is, which divisional
requirement should these courses fulfill? We have three divisions:
Humanities, Logic and Observation, and Fine Arts. Our current
thinking is that Introduction to Language, which is less "technical"
than the others, should fulfill a Humanities requirement, while
Introduction to Linguistics, Syntax, and Phonology would fulfill Logic
and Observation requirements. There is a precedent for the latter,
since some Philosophy courses (logic, mostly) fulfill Logic and
Observation requirements.

Before we take our proposal to the curriculum committee, and then to the 
faculty, we would like to find out how other schools have handled this.
What kinds of requirements do your courses fulfill, and what is the
justification for putting them in one division or the other? 

If there are enough responses I'll post a summary to the list.

Thanks!

Ruth Lanouette
German Department
Lawrence University
Appleton, WI 54912
e.mail: Ruth.M.Lanouettelawrence.edu

Can anyone account for the derivation of the term, "the whole nine yards?"

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you-
Margaret O'Malley

I am working on multiple questions in languages with multiple
wh-fronting, in particular, Romanian and Slavic. I am interested in
some extraction facts at the moment, and I would greatly appreciate if
anyone who is a native speaker of Romanian could tell me how you would
say the sentences below in Romanian.

(1) What do you think that John bought?

(2) For whom do you think that John bought a gift?

(3) Who do you think that __ bought a gift? (ungrammatical in English)

(4) Who do you think that John saw?

Thank you very much.

Tina Kraskow
kraskowbabel.ling.upenn.edu

Does anyone know of a video or audiotape illustrating the various
stages in the process of first language acquisition (i.e. vocal play,
reduplicated babbling, variegated babbling, melodic utterances,
one-word/two-word/multiple-word utterances, etc.)? I'd like to use it
in my course on language acquisition (I've found it hard to
convincingly imitate child language myself). I'll post a summary.

-Alex Housen


====================================
Alex HOUSEN
Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research
Department of Germanic Languages
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: 32+2+629 26 64
Fax: 32+2+629 36 84
Email: ahousenvnet3.vub.ac.be
====================================