LINGUIST List 8.742

Fri May 16 1997

Qs: Perfect, Practical Phonetics

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Stuart Robinson, Special Treatment for the Perfect
2. Mark Janse, Practical Phonetics

 [Editor's Note: The query below is reposted as per
 author's request since the symbols for 'equal' and 'not
 equal' were not displayed legibly in the previous message] 

I am investigating case-marking splits by tense/aspect and have
learned of splits which treat clauses in the perfect (as defined
by Comrie, 1976) quite differently than clauses in other
tense/aspect categories. In particular, I am looking for
languages where either O is equal to S or S is not equal to A in
the perfect but either S is equal to A or O is not equal to S
holds elsewhere. Apparently, Classical Armenian is such a
language: A is equal to S in the aorist (past perfective) and imperfective
but not in the perfect, where A is not equal to S.

Any leads would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Stuart Robinson
- --------------------------

Stuart Robinson <Stuart.Robinsonanu.edu.au>
Linguistics Department
Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

I am looking for reference works in practical phonetics
describing phonetic aspects of sound changes such as, e.g.,
palatalization. The reason is that I want to provide evidence
from contemporary languages and their dialects to illustrate the
reality of various phonetic processes students have to come to
grips with in a course on historical linguistics. I don't know
if anything like a database of phonetic processes is available,
but that would certainly be a desideratum.

Mark Janse