LINGUIST List 9.698

Tue May 12 1998

Qs: Austronesian,Arabic/Berber,Yuman,Pronunciation

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

Directory

1. Anna Shnukal, Austronesian Words
2. zouhir gabsi, Feminine Marker in Arabic/Berber
3. Paul Millar, Yuman Langs
4. Kaisa Hirvinen, Foreign Language Pronunciation Skills

Dear LINGUIST list subscribers,

Can anybody please identify the following words (possibly from an
Austronesian language)? They are in a manuscript in Kala Lagaw Ya (a
traditional Torres Strait language) and are used for the months, but
nobody I've asked knows them or knows where they came from.

The words are: Nume, Sata, Waidosia, Buke, Zime, Meu, Keu, Ulu, Sia,
Naia, Waidomi, Lubarere. A couple are boat names in Torres Strait but
not all. It's a puzzle.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

I am currently working on my PhD thesis on Tunisian Berber. I have
noticed numerous Berberists surmise that the feminine marker (t) in
Arabic harks back to Berber morphology. What is the evidence? Is it
historical?

Regards,
Zouhir Gabsi

40, 17th avenue east
Hoxton Park
NSW 2171
Australia
Tel. (02) 96077992
email. z.gabsiuws.edu.au

I am studying the syntactic structure of pronouns and I am needing
grammaticality judegments from native speakers of the following
languages: Acehnese, Albanian and any of the Yuman languages. If any
one of you speaks any of these langugages, I would certainly
appreciate a few minutes of your time over the email. Thank you for
your time. Valerie Baggaley

I read once that foreign language learner would reach his maximum
pronunciation skills during the first six months of stay in the
foreign language environment and that these pronunciation skills would
not reamrkably improve after that if not specially trained. I have
lost my source of research, can you help me to suggest for example
where to seek and with what search terms?

Kaisa.HirvinenHelsinki.fi