LINGUIST List 9.1792

Wed Dec 16 1998

Qs: Language/dialect, Consonant cluster, Light verb

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Alison Henry, The difference between a language and a dialect
2. ghazali salem, Consonant clusters
3. chen liang, Light verb

Of course, we all know that there is no clear linguistic way to define
whether something is a language or a dialect of another language, and
that these terms are simply convenient descriptive fictions. However,
in the real world, it is becoming important to be able to make this
distinction. For example, the European Union's 'European Charter for
Regional or Minority Languages' requires national governments to
declare, on signing the charter, what are the minority languages
spoken in their territories; dialects of the national language(s) are
explicitly excluded. Similarly, some European Union funding is
restricted to minority languages, to the exclusion of dialects. Has
anyone any views on how to decide, for real world purposes, whether
something is a language? I'd be particularly interested to hear from
anyone who has been involved in discussions on the status of a
language variety, in an EU context or outside.

Alison Henry

A graduate student of mine is investigating the duration of
middle-position consonant clusters in Standard Arabic. We appreciate
any information on research and publications in the area of consonant
clusters of any language, and in any position. 
I will make a summary of responses.

Thank you for your help,
Salem Ghazali

Dear Linguists,
I posted my project on Chinese resultative a fortnight ago (LINGUIST 9.1710). 
I am going to treat DE morpheme in Chinese Resultative as a light verb.

(1) "John da DE Tom hen tong"
 John beat DE Tom very painful/
 Lit. "John beat Tom and so Tom suffers from pain)

(2) "John qi DE hen lei"
 John rode DE very tired
 Lit. John rode and got tired

Now I was wondering whether you could provide me with more information
about "light verb" in recent generative linguistic research, e.g. its
motivation, syntactic and/or semantic features and etc. I am grateful
to you for any assistance rendered on me.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Yours sincerely,
Chen Liang

<vanechen163.net>