linguistlist.org>
Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <annlinguistlist.org>
genmagic.com>Greetings, fellow LINGLISTers, Our company needs to resolve a marketing issue in the near future. The answers to the following sociolinguistic questions will facilitate the decision-making process. (1) Is there any statistical evidence that American men prefer to hear women's voices and that American women prefer to hear men's voices in applications such as consumer electronics products and telecommunications services? Now just for the sake of argument, let's pretend that except for gender, all else is equal as much as possible, e.g. age of speaker, perceived level of education, pleasantness/warmth, lack of regional associations, etc. (2) Contradicting the 'opposites attract' notion that women prefer men's voices in such applications, I've heard that both genders generally respond more comfortably to *women's* voices since it is women who are generally associated with the roles of caretaker and teacher in our formative years, at least here in the U.S. Any support for this claim? (3) Again assuming an information-giving context, what are the characteristics of men's or women's voices that are preferred? (I can imagine what they would be, but I'm looking for research here.) For instance, long distance carrier MCI's canned messaged are in an innocuously friendly but nonetheless professional-sounding basso voice. In sharp contrast, Rio de Janeiro's Galea~o international airport has (or used to have) an unforgettable, alluringly sexy, dark, possibly 'dangerous' older-woman-with-a-slight-case-of-smoker's-throat contralto telling passengers where to board. In case it's relevant, the typical user-profile for our product/service is North American, upper socio-economic class (sales execs and business owners, cellphone/Internet savvy). There *may* exist the possibility for users to select the gender they wish to hear. I will post a summary of responses. Thanks! James Giangola, Voice User Interface Designer jamesgMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
pgrad.arts.su.edu.au>Subject: Time: 2:10 PM OFFICE MEMO Predicate/verbal classifiers? Date: 7/5/97 I am currently investigating polymorphemic predicates of motion, location and extent in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). In research on such constructions in other signed languages (such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language), comparisions have been made between these predicate forms and those in Athabaskan languages such as Navajo. In particular, the handshape element in such signs have come to be known as a "classifier", a term that has gained widespread acceptance in the signed language literature. I am not really comfortable, however, with this term for signed languages. One of my reasons for this is that I have read a number of works by Craig (1994), Croft (1994) and Engberg-Pedersen (1993) which suggest that the so-called predicate classifiers in Athabaskan languages are not really classifiers at all, since the classificatory verb stems found in such languages actually do not contain an overt classifier morpheme. Certainly my reading of Young and Morgan (1987) on Navajo seems to confirm this. What do linguists working on Athabaskan languages feel - is the use of the term "predicate classifier" a misnomer? Is the relationship between the so-called classificatory verb stems and their nominal referents in Athabaskan more like English "drink" (ingest fluid) versus "eat" (ingest solids) or "flow" (move: liquid) versus "ooze" (move: viscous substance)? Craig (1994) claims that spoken languages such as Cayuga, Diegueno and Imonda (PNG) DO contain verbal classifiers - classifier morphemes affixed to the verb root. Has there been work on any other languages which have verbal classifiers? Please reply to me directly and I will post a summary to the list. Adam Schembri Department of Linguistics University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Email: Adam.SchembriMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
students.uiuc.edu>I was wondering if anyone has a bibliography or references of any recent (90's) work done with the null subject parameter in SLA, or any new studies on the NSP. Thanks a bunch to anyone who will contribute any info! Cassie ********************************************* Casilde A. Isabelli University of Illinois Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese isabelliMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue