HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky)
Subject: Re: Prototypes
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:52:34 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.155223.3739@ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler) writes:
>
>I admitted as much in the text you omitted.  I can't point to strong
>empirical evidence of inseparability during the judgement process.  The
>deciding issue for me, though, is that once distance knowledge becomes
>salient to the judgement, and the result of that judgement is stored
>as part of the category, we have to say that distance knowledge is now
>part of the category structure and can be responsible for future prototype
>effects.
>

But why suppose that the "judgement is stored as part of the category"?
Maybe it's not stored, maybe a new category is invoked, but I see no
reason to reach your conclusion.

>The counterarguments I was actually referring to were (1) the challenge
>to explain how the pragmatics of categorization questions predictably skew
>responses in one direction rather than the other,

Do they?  You mean from subset to superset?  Suppose we were talking
about New York.  Perfectly aware though I am that Staten Island (the
"Borough of Richmond", officially) is part of New York, I suspect I
would not include a Staten Island restaurant in a list of "New York
restaurants" if the pragmatics were as they usually are for me --
Manhattan-centered.  Indeed, my Brookline example, while plausible, had
the opposite skewing from the ostrich example (a point I think I made in
one of these postings). Or am I misunderstanding what you have in mind?


>2) my explanation of why a multiple-senses account is indistinguishable
> from a prototype account when there is gradedness,

This isn't a counterargument, but it is sensible.  I merely hoped that
some clever experiment (didn't you mention priming?) could pry these apart.

>and (3) if the Brookline restaurant is a member
>of the category after your assertion that it is, doesn't that mean that
>at least in this case the prototype effect becomes part of the category
>structure?

But I deny that the Brookline restaurant ever becomes a Boston
restaurant.  I merely suggest that people may mention a Brookline
restaurant when Boston restaurants are being discussed, simply because
they recognize that "Boston" can be shorthand for "Boston-area", just as
"New York" can be shorthand for "Manhattan", in the right context.
"Bachelor" may be shorthand for "unmarried man who's on the prowl for
women", excluding Popes and many others, even those these in another
context gays and Popes might perfectly well be considered bachelors with
no hesitation.

>If you prefer to just drop this thread, I'm ready also.

I've learned something from it, but we may be reaching diminishing
returns.  If you reply, I'll let that be the last word.

-David Pesetsky
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter)
Subject: Re: no-self-talk
Keywords: thinking gone wwrong
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 04:43:26 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.043303.12798@phillip.edu.au>, t9114148@phillip.edu.au writes:
|> 	I have this problem. I know people that do not think
|> using words at all except when you talk with them. They think
|> using images and inspiration so I am not surprised that they
|> are quite impulsive, emotional, illogical and unorganised.
...
|> 	In particular, I know a person who has spent 20 years of
|> his life not uttering a word to himself in the back of his mind
|> and now has realised that he is different to most people. 
|> Apart from not having had the chance to learn to internalise
|> his speech for general thinking like decision making and
|> analysing the world, rather preferring dreaming and waiting
|> for instant ideas to come from other people, he has
|> somehow managed to survive - he is intelligent.
|>      He is having a hard time dealing with it now and wishes to
|> attempt the transition to using words as his primary thought
|> process to see if it will make him more aware of things and
|> even increase his present intelligence. At present he is
|> struggling with acquiring silent verbalisation. 

As I understand it, silencing this internal dialog is one of the
goals of mediation.  It is referred to in many books on mediation,
and it is also mentioned in most of Carlos Castenada's books as
a technique by which he enters a hightened state of consciousness.

If your friend is in a permanent meditative state, he might not
want to learn to reverse it.

Ask him if his little voice has started talking.  If he says,
"What little voice?" you can say "the one that just said: 'What
little voice?'"  (I don't take any credit for this technique.)

Your friend is probably blessed.  There are a lot of people who's
little voice just talks to them all the time.  And sometimes,
whatever it says just comes out of their mouth....


--Rich Wingerter
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: [pronouns] Re: Other properties of pronoun usage
Followup-To: alt.usage.english
Keywords: FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 17:50:57 GMT

Matt Rosenblatt writes:

>How come people are not as comfortable using "themself" as they
>are using "yourself"?  Is "themself" really an English word?

Obviously, if nobody is saying it, it's not an English word.

>If singular "they" is as much a part of the language as singular "you,"
>how come English has not developed its third-person singular reflexive
>counterpart as English developed the second-person singular reflexive
>"yourself"?

It does have a singular reflexive.  It is "themselves."  What is your
point?  That the singular usage of "they" must give rise to a purely
morphologically singular reflexive pronoun parallel to "yourself"?

Followups to alt.usage.english.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: siobhan@microsoft.com (Siobhan Harper)
Subject: Agglutinative languages
Date: 24 Aug 92 19:11:42 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

(if the terminology I'm using is dated, well, you'll know how long
it's been since I studied linguistics ;)

I'm interested in knowing specifically whether Basque is an agglutinative
language in the sense that Turkish is, and more generally, what other
languages are. I know about Finnish, Hungarian, and their cousins, but
what other languages are truly agglutinative?

Thanks!

--Siobhan
From: lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM ("Bruce Lucas")
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: compounds
Date: 31 Aug 92 20:46:41 GMT

> Shudder. It makes me think of some of the trends in current
> Swedish which I don't like. For instance dividing compounds
> in two when they should be one word. Often it is harmless

Interesting.  In English, the opposite seems to be happening:
for example, "alot" seems on the verge of becoming a word, at least
in the Netland dialect of English.  But then English seems to have
a long history of forming new compounds, and I suppose this is
fairly analogous to for example "another".

Bruce Lucas
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6740 alt.usage.english:6947 soc.culture.usa:6897
From: sampson@nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english,soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:10:44 GMT
Organization: Computer Sciences Corporation

In article <1992Aug26.183558.5583@Princeton.EDU> roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>At any rate, we only gender-inflect to describe sexed things: humans,
>animals.

     And ships?

				Charlie
From: peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Nasalisation
Date: 30 Aug 92 06:08:11 GMT
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.

amunn@gibbs.oit.unc.edu (Alan Munn) writes:

>In article <715141056@tasman> peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au writes:

>>Whatever the case may be, it should be pointed
>>out that nasalisation is not phonemic in English, whereas it is in French
>>(I don't like the generative account which analyses [a~] as [a] + [n]). 

>How do you propose to account for the alternation between [bo~livr]
>'bon livre' and [bonami] 'bon ami' then?  Just curious.

Traditionally, the masculine form of the French adjective has been viewed as
unmarked, and the feminine (because it is longer?) as marked. A few scholars
have argued that it may be better to reverse this view and to identify the
feminine as unmarked. It would then be enough to rule that the unmarked form
loses its final consonant if the noun which follows starts with a consonant.
The nasal feature of the final consonant does leave a trace: it nasalises
the preceding vowel.
I haven't thought this through and I am sure there would be cases where extra
mechanisms would have to be postulated, but I do remember putting the gener-
ative mechanism to the test and finding it had its problems too. As my 
interest in phonology is waining, I prefer not to take part in any further
discussion on this topic. I should have kept quiet in the first place. :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Bert Peeters                         Tel: +61 02 202344
Department of Modern Languages               002 202344
University of Tasmania at Hobart        Fax: 002 207813
GPO Box 252C                            Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au
Hobart TAS 7001
Australia
From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cognitive Linguistics & History
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:52:16 GMT
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology

In article 42585@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu () writes:
>A reason for doubting the claims of so-called cognitive linguistics
>that the insightful David Pesetsky hasn't mentioned: the elementary
>fact that languages develop through time.
>
>A language at any point is a palimpsest; you can find layer upon
>layer of structural and "cognitive" debris from many generations of
>speakers.  It doesn't reflect anything mental about *any* single
>generation, let alone the present one.

Is there any other kind of David Pesetsky?  Does the demotion of the
proper noun to common status affect the category we place him in, or 
just way we categorize him?  Sorry for the digression.  :-)

Perhaps the "insightful David Pesetsky" didn't mention that reason because
he is a generative linguist.  Generative and cognitive linguists may
disagree on the nature of grammar, but they both agree that it is
grounded in human psychology.  Ideed, some generative linguists take 
offense at the rubric "cognitive linguistics", since it seems to imply
that opponents of the theory don't believe in a cognitive approach to
linguistics.

I agree with the view that natural language can be construed as a social
object and, given that interpretation, its description would be somewhat
different than the description of a cognitive object.  But I disagree with
the view that language must be studied only as a social object or only as
a cognitive object.  Why are the two perspectives incompatible with each
other?

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com)   Seattle, WA
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Subject: Re: Prototypes
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 15:52:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.001911.20064@athena.mit.edu>, pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:
> In article <1992Sep2.170847.19803@ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler) writes:
> >In article <1992Sep1.235218.10576@athena.mit.edu>, pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:
> > [burthen omitted]
> > [...]
> >> >I think I've shown that the commonly given alternatives to the prototype
> >> >account, like those David Pesetsky has given, can't account for the difference
> >> >in categorizations.
> >> 
> >> I don't see where you've done that, frankly.
> >
> >I suspected you felt that way, and I've been waiting for you to address my
> >counterarguments.
> >
> You have presented a counter-scenario (a plausible one, perhaps), but
> (as far as I can tell) no counterargument.  Saying that one has a
> feeling that judgments about inclusion in Boston city limits and
> judgments about distance from Boston are somehow inseparable is not an
> argument, merely a statement of your hunch.

I admitted as much in the text you omitted.  I can't point to strong
empirical evidence of inseparability during the judgement process.  The
deciding issue for me, though, is that once distance knowledge becomes
salient to the judgement, and the result of that judgement is stored
as part of the category, we have to say that distance knowledge is now
part of the category structure and can be responsible for future prototype
effects.

The counterarguments I was actually referring to were (1) the challenge
to explain how the pragmatics of categorization questions predictably skew
responses in one direction rather than the other, (2) my explanation of why
a multiple-senses account is indistinguishable from a prototype account
when there is gradedness, and (3) if the Brookline restaurant is a member
of the category after your assertion that it is, doesn't that mean that
at least in this case the prototype effect becomes part of the category
structure?

If you prefer to just drop this thread, I'm ready also.

	-dp-
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Nasalisation
    <1992Aug30.032914.7656@samba.oit.unc.edu> <peeters.715154891@tasman>
Organization: University of Kentucky
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 01:27:45 GMT

In article <peeters.715154891@tasman>
peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters) writes:
 
>
>. As my
>interest in phonology is waining, I prefer not to take part in any further
                          ^^^^^^^
>discussion on this topic. I should have kept quiet in the first place. :-)
 
     Time to circle the wagons, boys!
 
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: avlb@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (A V Louis Biggie)
Subject: Re: What for?
Reply-To: avlb@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (A V Louis Biggie)
Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Laboratory
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:29:31 GMT

In article <Bu07oA.87H@netnews.jhuapl.edu>, avlb@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (A V 
Louis Biggie) writes:
> Newsgroups: sci.lang
> Path: netnews!news
> From: avlb@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (A V Louis Biggie)
> Subject: Re: What for?
> Message-ID: <Bu07oA.87H@netnews.jhuapl.edu>
> Sender: usenet@netnews.jhuapl.edu
> Reply-To: avlb@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (A V Louis Biggie)
> Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Laboratory
> References: <1992Sep3.011921.13585@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu>
> Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 13:19:22 GMT
> 
> I think it has something to do with the fact that "why" is used in two 
> different ways.  Sometimes it means "for what reason" and sometimes is 
means 
> "for what purpose."
> 
> For example: 
> 
> Why did you go to the supermarket?
> (This means what was your purpose in going to the supermarket.)
> 
> Why does hot air rise?
> (Provide an explanation for hot air rising.)
> 
> The first can be paraphrased as:
> 
> What did you go to the supermarket for?
> 
> But,
> 
> * What does hot air rise for?
> 
> is (at least to me) not a paraphrase of "Why does hot air rise?"
> 
> I concede that sometimes reasons and purposes are sometimes pretty close, 
but 
> scientific phenomena tend to demand reasons rather than purposes.  Humans 
> tend to have (or think they have) rational purposes for doing things.
> 
> What am I writing all this for?
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Louis.
> 
> 
> 
Sorry to follow up on myself, but, as an afterthought, the Spanish 
distinction between _Por_qu and _Para_qu illustrates the distinction well.

Louis.
From: matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Keywords: prescriptive, proscriptive
Date: 25 Aug 92 16:35:32 GMT
Organization: U.S. ARMY MATERIEL SYSTEMS ANALYSIS ACTIVITY (AMSAA), APG, MD.

In article <baron.29.714679455@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu 
(Dennis Baron) writes:

>As for prescriptive grammatical rules, the "rule" of the masculine
>being the most worthy gender (that's the term that was used) derives
>from the Latin convention of dealing with conjoint nouns of mixed gender
>by setting up a hierarchy: masculine is chosen if the group has m,f, or
>n nouns.  Feminine if f. and n., neuter if the group has only neuter
>nouns.  [Dennis Baron]

If "prescriptive" means, "telling people how they *should* speak 
and write," the convention that Mr. Baron describes was indeed a 
prescriptive rule.

>Texts with generic masculines today are glaringly old-fashioned or
>strident in their flying in the face of today's stylistic conventions
>and social expectations.  They leave a bad taste in the mouth.  Every
>time I or my colleagues assign a reading that uses generic masculines
>the class discussion bogs down in resentment over the usage and 
>the content is backgrounded.      ^^^^^^^^^^

>My advice?  Give it up, folks.   [Dennis Baron; emphasis added]

To "proscribe" means to "condemn or forbid as harmful," and "proscriptive"
means "given to proscribing or serving to proscribe." [_Webster's Third
New Intenational Dictionary_].  So the advice that Mr. Baron gives looks
like a "proscriptive rule."  Just as the 18th century prescriptive rule
will be disregarded by those like Mr. Baron for whom generic masculine 
pronouns "leave bad taste in the mouth," his own 20th century "proscriptive
rule" will be disregarded by those like Professor Michael Levin of the
City College of New York, who writes, "Because the hidden lesson is
unrelated to the official one, the child must process an irrelevancy
every time his book calls the electrician 'he or she'."  [M. Levin,
_Feminism and Freedom_ (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1987), p. 169].

Who needs proscriptive rules?  Especially rules based on "resentment"?

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
					(matt@amsaa.brl.mil)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de (Julia Simon)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Rechtschreibereform
Date: 26 Aug 92 12:43:56 GMT
Organization: Fachschaft Computerlinguistik, U of Saarland, FRG

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
> 
> 	Hauptwoerter sollen nunmehr klein geschrieben werden.
> 
> 	Das unnuetze "V" wird abgeschafft.
> 
> 	Ebenfalls unnuetzes Es-zet.
> 
> Ja, so ein Bloedsinn (pardon: "bloedsinn").  Auch wenn man einige eben-
> falls unnuetze "h" entfernen wollte, wozu denn eigentlich?  Und das mit
> den "hauptwoertern" ist for allem fuer auslaender sinnlos, denn wir sind
> daran gewohnt, die hauptwoerter eben an den grossen lettern zu erkennen.
> 
Das war doch vor ein paar Jahren schon mal im Gespraech... damals hat der
"Spiegel" einen kurzen Text in normaler und in reformierter Orthographie
abgedruckt. Der reformierte war kaum zu lesen. Das war das erste Mal, dass ich
meine Muttersprache fast noch schlechter lesen konnte als Fremdsprachen!

Mir fallen auch immer wieder wissenschaftliche Aufsaetze u.ae. aus dem vorigen
Jahrhundert, d.h. aus der Zeit, bevor Herr Duden seine Rechtschreibregeln
veroeffentlicht hat, in die Haende. Damals scheint es auch mal Mode gewesen zu
sein, alle Substantive klein zu schreiben. Mit ss und /3 (es-zett) nahmen sie
es damals auch noch nicht so genau. Folge: einige Saetze waren erst nach
laengerem Ueberlegen und Syntaxbaeumchen-Malen zu verstehen. Am schlimmsten
war's in dem 150 Jahre alten Aufsatz ueber Zahlwoerter, in dem das Wort
"einer" (gen./dat. fem. von "ein") nur schwer vom Wort "einer" (im Gegensatz
zu "zehner", "hunderter", "tausender") unterschieden werden konnte.

Was soll denn uebrigens das "unnuetze v" sein? Ist damit gemeint, dass man in
Zukunft da, wo f gesprochen wird, auch f schreiben soll, auch wenn man mal
gelernt hat, dass da ein v hinkommt (mit w analog)?

Oweia.

			Julia 8-)


 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Julia Simon

 Fachschaftsrat Computerlinguistik	DIaLOGIKa GmbH
 Fachbereich 8.7, Bau 17, Zi. 201
 Universita"t des Saarlandes		Albertstr., Pascalschacht
 D-W-6600 Saarbru"cken, Germany		D-W-6602 Dudweiler, Germany

			email: simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de
			       sileas@coli.uni-sb.de
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Categorization junk
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:59:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: ils.1992Sep3.155949.6368
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences

In article <1992Sep2.203918.1917@midway.uchicago.edu>, gal2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Jacob Galley) writes:
> In article <2AA40FA3.1118@orion.oac.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> >There's something I think people are missing when they talk about
> >language catagories and junk like that.
>                          ^^^^ 		Huh?? Can you elaborate?
> 
> >The category depends on the context in which it was developed; in other
> >words, whether or not you put two or more things in a common category
> >depends on what you want to use them for.
> 
> Isn't this obvious?

No, it's not.  For example, I doubt I categorize apples and stop signs
as "red things" because of what I want to use them for.  Utility is sure
to play a role sometimes, but not always.

	-dp-
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 31 Aug 92 08:04:13 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB

Margaret Mikulska (mikulska@astro.Princeton.EDU) writes:
>>Yes, recasting to all plural is often a good idea. However, consider
>>an instruction: "When the operator sees the red light blink he must
>>press the blue button." We can probably make some good recasting,
>>but not to "all".
>
>"When the red light blinks, press the blue button."  Is there any
>information lost in this rephrasing?  I find the longer sentence almost
>awkward; without "the operator sees" and "he must", this simple
>instruction seems easier to follow.

Of course, as I said the sentence can probably be recast. Particularly
it is very easy when we don't have the context. (The instruction may
not necessarily be directed directly to the operator, but say his
manager.)

Such sentences occur quite often, and I used one as an example. But
you are very right, if one is sensitive for such usage it is better
to recast the sentence  -or if necessary the entire text - to get 
rid of it all together, than putting in "they" instead of "he".
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
F|rst till kvarn f}r f|rst vankiva
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6922 alt.usage.english:7090