LINGUIST List 8.979

Tue Jul 1 1997

Qs: AAV, wh- Movement, Lx and lg teaching

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

Directory

1. James Jenkins (PSY), African-American Vernacular
2. Gisbert Fanselow, Partial wh- Movement and scope marking
3. Alysse or Dan Rasmussen, Q: Linguistics in the FL Classroom

African-American Vernacular (or Ebonics): One of my students, Sonja
Trent, is doing a dissertation that involves experimental work
(similar to Berko-Gleason's) on the acquisition of syntactic and
morphological rules by native speakers of AAV. We would appreciate
any references to grammars (or pieces of grammars) of AAV, especially
concerning pluralizations, tense markers, mass nouns vs count nouns,
or any morpho-phonemic rules that differ from "standard" American
English. We will be happy to do a summary if there is interest in
such. Please reply to Jenkinsluna.cas.usf.edu Thanks for your help.

James J. Jenkins
Psychology Department
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL 33620-8200
(813) 974-0486

I. FACTS

Partial wh-movement, that is, wh-movement to a position that
is below the one corresponding to the scope of the wh-phrase
can be found in various forms in natural languages:

1. Without a scope marker, as in BahasaIndonesia

Bill	tahu	siapa	yang	Tom	cintai
Bill	knows	who	FOC	Tom	loves
"who does Bill know that Tom loves"?
(from Saddy 1992)


2. In a construction in which the scope of the partially moved
wh-phrase is determined by another wh-phrase, as in Romani:

ko 	vakerja kaj 	o Demiri 	khelja
who 	said	where	the Demir	danced
"who said that Demir danced where"
(from McDaniel 1989)

3. In a construction in which scope is marked by the insertion of
a scope marker meaning "what" in other constructions, as in German:

was 	glaubst 	Du 	wen 	sie 	liebt
what	believe	you	who	she 	loves
"who do you believe that she loves?"

4. In a language employing the wh-in-situ strategy, scope marking by
WHAT may be found in the absense of partial movement, as in Hindi

Siitaa-ne	kyaa	socaa	ki	ravii-ne	kis-ko	dekhaa
Sita-erg	what	thought	that	Ravi-erg	who	saw
"who did Sita think that Ravi saw?"
(from Mahajan 1995)

II. QUERY

Which languages allow "partial movement" in the sense implicitly
defined above, i.e. which languages have one of the construction
types 1-4.

Here is what I know

1. Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Kikuyu
2. Romani, perhaps German
3. German, Hungarian, Frisian, Iraqi Arabic
4. Hindi, Iraqi Arabic

Please respond to:

fanselowrz.uni-potsdam.de
(Gisbert Fanselow, Lx, University of Potsdam)

I have a query regarding linguistics in the foreign language
classroom.

Which key elements of linguistics seem to be the most useful for
foreign language students in entry level language classes?

I don't mean linguistics instead of practice in the target language
... nor having to memorize linguistic terminology for the sake of a
grade. But on a practical note, which elements in the field of
linguistics (when synopsized) would actually benefit students the
most?

Have any of you seen any studies in this area?

Thanks,

Alysse Rasmussen
Instructor, LSCC