LINGUIST List 9.99

Thu Jan 22 1998

Qs: Jakobson, Chinese, BAAL, Pronoun "I"

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

Directory

1. Alain Dawson, Jakobson's Phonology
2. Guo Jieke, On Case Theory In Chinese
3. A L Sellami, Address of BAAL
4. Tatje, Pronoun "I"

Dear linguists,
 
I intend to use Jakobson's phonological model (as exposed for example in
JAKOBSON Roman, WAUGH Linda, The Sound Shape of Language, 1979) to build
the perceptive diasystem of a dialectal area, and describe perception
and comprehension of various patois within this area. Does anyone know
of such an approach? More generally, is this model still in use or was
it completely replaced in recent works by generative phonology and/or
acoustical phonetics?
 
Thank you in advance!
 
Alain Dawson
orfqenordnet.fr

Dear Colleagues:

I'm working on case theory as applied to Chinese and would be very
much obliged if you could send me references of studies you know
concerning this topic.

Thanking you in advance!

Sue Y. King
Foreign Languages Dept.
South China Univ. of Technology
Guangzhou, 510641
China

or: fljkguoscut.edu.cn

Dear all,

I am looking for the address of BAAL (British Association of Applied
Linguistics).

Can anyone help?

I'd be grateful for an early. Thanks.

Abdel

A friend of mine who is not on the list asked me why the English
pronoun "I" is written with a capital letter but the other pronouns
are not. I looked into what I thought were the relevant chapters of
quite a lot of language histories, books on orthography etc. but
without success. I asked my native speaker colleagues, but they,
too, could only think of the same explanations as myself, namely:

1. It is purely conventional.

2. Perhaps "I" was capitalized in order to distinguish it in
(medieval) handwriting from similar-looking i's, u's, v's etc.

Neither idea appears very satisfying to me so perhaps someone out
there could suggest a better (or even the one and only correct) answer
(if there is any) or point me to some literature. I promise to write
a summary, if the results are interesting enough.

Thanks in advance.

Rolf Tatje
FB 3 - Romanistik
Gerhard-Mercator-Universitat
D-47048 Duisburg

Phone (+49-203) 379-2605
Fax (+49-203) 379-1952