LINGUIST List 9.347

Tue Mar 10 1998

Qs: Verb/Particle,Russian,Japanese Loans,Ethics

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Andrew McMichael, How did the Verb + particle construction originate?
2. NANCYENG, russian vowels
3. Yoshi, Japanese Loan Words
4. Joseph P. Stemberger, request for materials on ethics

I have been recently doing some research into the origin of the verb
and particle (adverbial and prepositional) construction in English. I
have pushed back to Old English and found that they are attested there
mainly as pre-verbial particles but with some freedom to swing after
the verb. I am tempted to go further back in time as I believe that
Old Greek also had free particles. Does anybody know more about this
troublesome origin, or have any suggestions to where to look? If I
don't get snowed under by your replies on this very open topic, I will
post a summary.

Many thanks,
Dr Andrew McMichael
Languages
Ecole des Mines d'Albi, France

If any one has information or knows of sources for acoustical
properties of Russian vowels, I would appreciate this information. I
am working on acoustical measurements of these vowels for a student
project.

I am a postgraduate student on the master scheme of sociolinguistics
at Univ. of Essex. I am wondering if someone can respond to my
inguiry of my small research. I am currently looking through how
English speakers assimilate loanwords into their phonological feature
especially in the case of Japanese loanwords. I have conducted around
20 interviews, which is done by asking the informants to read the word
list. The list consist of diffrent number of syllables (moras). Then,
I would like to pick up either three or four syllable (mora) word to
see how they shift the intonation of the word (or accentuation of the
word) from Japanese ways to English ones in order to see their
linguistic assimilation. Fortunately, I could get one group for those
who have good proficiency of Japanese language and another group for
those who do not. I would like to see the difference between them
especially from the point I raised. then, I am wondering if there is
a good literature for this specific area of study or if I can get any
advice or opinions from those who are acquainted with this area.

The graduate school at the University of Minnesota has decided that
all programs here should have an explicit set of procedures teaching
students about ethics within the field. A wide variety of methods will
be acceptable to them, but they want all programs to have a set of
recommended readings for students. They give a sample set of readings,
which are heavily weighted towards medical ethics and addressing the
fabrication of results in medical research. It would be nice to have
readings that are tailored to the field of linguistics, or at least to
closely related fields.

Have other linguists out there been asked to write down what they do
to teach their students about ethics, and to come up with a set of
readings on the subject? If so, would you be willing to share those
materials?

Thanks.

- -Joe Stemberger
 University of Minnesota