LINGUIST List 8.474

Mon Apr 7 1997

Qs: Lexicon, Grammar checker, African lgs

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <annlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. L. Snow, size of lexicon
2. Steven Pang, Grammar Checkers for ESL Students
3. Steven Schaufele, ref search on various glossogenetic affiliations in Africa

Does anyone know of work done to estimate the actual size of the
English lexicon or the lexicons of any other languages? We are
interested in determining the relative sizes of lexicons
cross-linguistically and whether this has a psychological impact, in
terms of word-recognition and retrieval times (as a function of
frequency, which may be affected by size of encountered lexicon). In
addition to estimates of total size of lexicon for a given language,
we would like to discover what subset of the lexicon speakers actually
encounter. This subset will then be compared cross-linguistically and
intraculturally. Thus, we are also looking for estimates of vocab
size and word frequency counts for language encountered in
publications (New York Times vs People, for example), in primary and
secondary school texts, etc. If you know of anything at all related
to these issues, please send sources to the following address. Thank
you!

 Laura Snow
lsnowu.washington.edu

I'm a graduate assistant for a professor in Written Business
Communication. She is interested in finding out if there are any
grammar checkers for students whose first language isn't English.
Grammatik is fine but that's for students whose first language is
English. Some of the students in her class have an Asian language for
their first language. We would appreciate any help that you could
give.

yours truly,

Steven-spangcsulb.edu
Dr. J.W. Gilsdorf-gilsdorfcsulb.edu

Dear Colleagues,

Recent browsing in some general texts has made me aware that there are
or have been recently some questions raised about certain putative
affiliations amongst certain languages on the African continent. Not
being an Africanist, this is in no way an area i am particularly
knowledgeable about, but i have hopes someday of teaching a seminar in
which students are called upon to examine critically the literature
arguing pro & con certain hypotheses in the field of historical
linguistics, and i would therefore like some references to good
discussions in the literature on the following topics:

1. There is presumably no question that all the so-called `Cushitic'
languages are members of the Afro-Asiatic family. But do they
constitute a well-defined sub-family, or are they merely a
`miscellaneous' category?

2. Are the so-called `Nilo-Saharan' languages a well-defined glosso-
genetic family or merely a geographically-defined group?

3. Ditto the `Khoisan' languages.

Thanks for any suggestions wrt literature on these issues. If there is
sufficient interest, i'll post a summary on LINGUIST.

Best,
Steven
- -------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL 61801
217-344-8240
fcoswsprairienet.org
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html

**** O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum! ***
*** Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis! ***