HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: salter_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Tenses
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:09:25 +0900

In article <29E9FCF4.26162@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> In article <1992Apr13.160412.1838@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>Conversely, two-tense lan-
>>guages are fairly common (Japanese, Dyirbal; English is one, if only
>>simple verbs are analyzed), and languages such as Chinese supposedly
>>have no tense at all (one verb form fits all times).  Surely no one
>>would maintain that Chinese, Japanese, or Americans have no conception
>>of time!
>>
> 
> I've heard this before and it makes me revenously curious.  Supposedly
> Japanese has something like past and non-past.  How are sentences like
> "Jane walked the dog", "Jane walks/is walking the dog", and "Jane will
> walk to dog" translated into Japanese so that these distinctions are
> preserved?
> 
> I'd love to see this one.  

Can't help with Japanese: I hope Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea will do.

In Tok Piin, tenses are optional.  The "default" has no tense marker

mi go = I go / am going / went / will go etc.

You can add a tense marker for past and future action if you need to

Me don go = I went / I have gone / I used to go etc.

Bai mi go = I am going to go / I shall go etc.

I think that "bai" is wobbling around a bit: some people use it
as an adverbial (bai mi go = soon I go), while others use it as an
auxiliary verb, comparable to "don" (mi bai go).\

There's also a transitive marker on verbs, but you don't really want
to know about that, do you?

Linden


-- 
Linden Salter-Duke		email: SALTER_DUKE@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU
Northern Territory University
Darwin, Australia		Snail: Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811
Organization: Valencia University - Computer Center
Date: Tuesday, 14 Apr 1992 14:03:36 EST
From: Werenfried Spit <SPIT@EVALUN11.BITNET>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Numbers and language
 <204854@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <29E9ED82.24577@noiro.acs.uci.edu>

In article <29E9ED82.24577@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis
Maria Cortese) says:
>
>
>Why is this?  It seems almost like numbers are kept separate from words
>in a brain.  And I'm not talking about not knowing the word for 1,000
>either.  I can say dix-neuf cent blah blah blah, but damn it, when I see
>1992, my brain goes "nineteen ninety two" right off the bat.  When I see

One of the reasons might be that numbers are written the same no
matter the language (sticking to latin and cyrillic alphabets for
a moment). That makes it just too easy to regard them half consciously
as words from your own language. It also depends on what you use a
language for: I have no problem with numbers in english; maybe partly
due to the fact that almost all physics reading and discussing I do
is in english -- I see and use the numbers so frequently that I have
also mastered them, finally.
Maybe there is a neurologist around who can tell us something about
locations of speech and calculating centres in the brain. As far as
arithmetic is concerned I can imagine that it is performed independent
from speech, but I don't know.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Werenfried Spit
  Departamento de Fisica Teorica        tel: +34-6-386 4551
  Universidad de Valencia
  c/ dr Moliner, 50                     spit@vm.ci.uv.es
  E-46100 Burjasot                      spit@evalun11.bitnet
  Valencia
  Spain
-------------------------------------------------------------------------






Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Latin self-study
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 02:21:52 GMT
X-Bytes: 

I'm glad to hear someone pushing Waldo Sweet's Latin materials.  These
were designed (and well designed) back in the heyday of Audio Lingulism,
when Linguists were making a respectable living teaching language teachers
what an how to teach -- hanging on as they now do primarily in ESL programs.

Waldo also spent some time in a wheel chair as a result of having severed
his achilles tendon while chasing a burglar!  Not only a classical sort
of accident for a classics professor, but one remembers that one of the
hard worked examples in his text book was the sentence, "Fur furem
cognoscit."  (I didn't want to get into a quibble on where to hyphenate
'cognoscit'!

For learning languages that one wants to read only (as is the case for
many of us dealing with earlier languages such as Gothic) it can be
helpful to read a quite familiar text:  the Bible works well (for those
who know it), or perhaps _Alice in Wonderland_, _Winnie ille Pooh_, etc.

Xref: sparky sci.lang:4106 talk.politics.misc:18402
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: Dixie
Date: 16 Apr 92 00:24:04 GMT
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: Stanford University LOTS Computer Facility
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU

In article <1992Apr15.071136.9262@cs.yale.edu>, horne-scott@CS (Scott Horne) writes:

>You can't expect good English from rednecks who wrap themselves in the
>Confederate flag.

Just remember that "Dixie" was written by a damn Yankee, and had the same
official standing in the Confederacy as "Yankee Doodle" during the War of 1812:
None.  Adopted in defiance by those who were scorned by it.

(NB:  I personally think it's a stupid song, don't like it, will not stand when
it is played in any context.)

Nor was the Stars and Bars the Confederate flag:  It was a battle ensign.

Neither the Union nor the Confederacy had an official anthem; "The Star-
Spangled Banner" was officially adopted in the *20th* century, and had *hot*
competition from "Hail, Columbia."

You frequently complain about those who bring politics to this group.  Glass
houses, black kettles, and all that, my friend.

I've directed follow-ups to talk.politics.misc; everyone, *please* leave them
there.
-- 
Rich Alderson   'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
                                                        --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_
From: lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 11 Apr 92 23:36:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.fgvj#ca
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Apr11.142755.15203@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
>Animal communication _has_ been, and _is_, studied.  (See Akmajian et al.'s
>linguistics text, published by your own MIT Press.)  And the study reveals
>huge differences between animal communication and human language.

Who, among the authors of Akmajian et al., knows *anything* semi-first-
hand about animal communication research? [that's a rhettorical question].

A lot of what linguists pass on as established fact about non-human
communication is either pure speculation or myths like the "Eskimo snow
words" stuff Geoff Pullam wrote about in a _Natural Language & Linguistic
Theory_ column.  I get *real* annoyed at linguists passing on this 
nonsense while wearing their professional hats (what we do at
cocktail parties is another matter :-) )

I agree that animal communication has been and is being studied.  I 
think most of us already knew *that*.  What results have been obtained
is a quite different question.  I *suspect* that the folks doing it best,
psychologists, and linguists have, in that order, decreasing degrees of 
skepticism about the confidence merited by a lot of claims being freely
tossed around and allegedly based on that research.
From: daj@reef.cis.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin self-study
Date: 10 Apr 92 12:35:28 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <1992Apr3.201836.24281@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:

# <I enjoyed Frederick M. Wheelock's Latin: An Introductory Course Based On
# <Ancient Authors, published by Barnes & Noble in paper back for a very
# <reasonable price, as I recall.
#
# This is the book I recommended earlier.  I think the price is about
# US$12 now. (Was half that when I bought it many years ago.  Blasted
# capitalists.)

No votes for Waldo E. Sweet, _Latin: A Structural Approach_ (1957)?
Surely the only serious audio-lingual Latin text ever written.
Actually, I like it.  The grammar explanations are good, most of the
text is from classical authors, summaries of difficult readings
(usually poetry) are given *in Latin*, vowel lengths are marked so
that you can develop a native accent ... :)

How about some pattern practice?

Priest                          Congregation
======                          ============

Vestis virum facit.             Dico vestem virum facere.
Nemo in amore videt             Dico neminem in amore videre.
Prudens cum cura vivit          Dico prudentem cum cura vivere.
Stultus sine cura vivit.        Dico stultum sine cura vivere.
Vulpes vult fraudem.            Dico vulpen velle fraudem.

        .
        .
        .

David Johns
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet (was: Inventing a writing system?)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:23:21 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.213159.33940@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.193823.14562@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu
>(Michael A. Covington) writes:
>>In Spain, ll/y and c/z/s are perfectly predictable.  (C and Z are the same
>>sound; C is used before e and i, Z elsewhere, if memory serves me right.)
>
>Which is fine for (most of) Spain, but these letters cause plenty of
>confusion in Latin America.  A few weeks ago there was a tongue-in-cheek
>proposal for a "reforma ortografica" in soc.culture.latin-america.
>
>>G and J are no problem.  G before i or e is the same sound as J elsewhere.
>
>J can occur before i or e.  (Come to think of it, so can Z.)
>
>>X is quite rare and formerly denoted a 'sh' sound (Don Quixote is known in
>>French as Don Quichotte; Mexico used to be called Meshico and our word
>>'chicano' is probably short for 'meshicano' -- here I use 'sh' to denote
>>the sound that is written in English with those letters, since Spanish has
>>no way to write it.)
>
>Sure it does-- it uses sh.  (Or at least it does in Peru, where it occurs
>in some words borrowed from Indian languages.)
>
>Mexico is now pronounced Mejico, of course, and in Spain it's spelled that
>way, much to the annoyance of the Mexicans.  X provides a few other
>exciting moments in the spelling of Mexican place names, e.g. Xochimilco.

From what I understand, the "x" pops up sounding like a "j" in really
old native american words like those.  The "x" is still "ks" or
soemthing really similar in most words.

On a related note, a teacher of mine once said that he saw whiskey
spelled "guisqui," or something similar.  I've only ever seen "wiski,"
and I assume that, like Italian, Spanish uses letters like "w" and "k"
when it writes foreign words.  Anyone else ever seen "guisqui?"

Regards,
Janis C.
From: hlin@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (hua.t.lin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:18:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsi.1992Apr10.201842.17968
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Apr10.171313.4684@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <204689@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, djbpitt@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David J Birnbaum) writes:
>
><If we can speak of morphology
><in medieval Latin (synchronically), why can we not speak of morphology
><in written Chinese?
>
>We can.

But choose not to.

- Lin
PS: I AM OUT OF HERE. WILL BE BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Subject: Re: 8I8 (was Re: Chinese question)
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 20:49:58 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.060939.20913@news.Hawaii.Edu>, jmu@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (James M. Unger) writes:
<In article <514@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
<>
<>The fact that the same writing system can be used for about 6 or 8 different
<>languages is the great strength of the chinese writing system, and a great
<>source of unity amoung the chinese people.  But is is *not*, and will
<>never be primary.
<>
<Slight correction:  the _same_ writing system is not used for the different
<languages that, mostly for political reasons, are called dialects of
<Chinese.

Slight addendum to slight correction:  The fact that speakers of all the
various Chinese "dialects" usually write in the same way does *not* mean
that they share a writing system.  What they share is a written language
taught in school.

This can be likened to the (almost exclusive) use of Latin as a written
language in much of Europe before Italian, French, &c, were commonly written.

					--Scott

-- 
Scott Horne                               ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
horne@cs.Yale.edu      SnailMail:  Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT   06520
203 436-1848                Residence:  Rm 1848 Silliman College, New Haven, CT
ZANG4 HAN4 YI4 JIA1 / GONG4 JIAN4 ZHONG1HUA2!
Organization: Valencia University - Computer Center
Date: Wednesday, 15 Apr 1992 10:39:40 EST
From: Werenfried Spit <SPIT@EVALUN11.BITNET>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Numbers and language
 <204854@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <29E9ED82.24577@noiro.acs.uci.edu>
 <92105.140336SPIT@EVALUN11.BITNET> <mylene.703304399@swanee>

In article <mylene.703304399@swanee>, mylene@swanee.ee.uwa.oz.au (Mylene
Pijpers) says:
>
>Maybe you can see numbers and counting as a different language
>altogether. The way you can see 'mathematics' as a language you learn.
>OOPS! I speak even more languages than I thought I did! (But my
>'mathematics' is definitely quite basic)

Which reminds me: when I read german/french/russian/whatever and
formulas occur I almost always read those formulas in dutch (now
and then in english).

It all seems to point to the fact that mathematics is a different
language with two important characteristics
 * notation is independant of the surrounding `normal' language
 * interpretation (understanding) of the symbols is probably done
   in another place in the brain than where language is interpreted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Werenfried Spit
  Departamento de Fisica Teorica        tel: +34-6-386 4551
  Universidad de Valencia
  c/ dr Moliner, 50                     spit@vm.ci.uv.es
  E-46100 Burjasot                      spit@evalun11.bitnet
  Valencia
  Spain
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 03:07:36 GMT
X-Bytes: 

As Alderson has brought in history in the message he both posted to me and
to the net, and which I replied to to him only, but will repost to the net
so even Scott can flame the two of us, I shall allude to history here, as
no less inappropriate to writing systems than it is to case systems, what-
ever the definitions of case systems may be that lets us fire over each
other's heads.
   Scott asked, correctly (I regret to admit since he flames me when I am
trying to be cute, as I had hoped was clear on the Fyodor / feces (M.
Webster's preferred spelling, even though it is not mine nor Scott's)
post))  'wht does geography have to do with writing systems," citing
Bulgarian, Mongolian and Yugoslavian using Cyrillic even though they have
never been part of the Soviet Union.  (I could quibble about "Yugoslavian"
(all of it?  what is "Yugoslavian"?, but I won't)).
     What's _historically_ interesting here is that one of the major
ingredients (often overriding geography) in the selection of a writing
system (many of us distinguish between "alphabets" like those used for
Greek, Russian, English, etc., from "syllabaries" such as devanagari
(substiture your favorite spelling) Cherokee, kana, etc.) is religion.
     Thus many "Orthodox" countries chose, say, the Greek based Cyrillic,
while their "Roman Catholic" counterparts chose the "Roman" alphabet, and
Muslim ones Arabic script.  Thus Farsi uses Arabic script, Burmese uses
nagari (I may err here), Turkish used to use Arabic (switching for "political
reasons"), and Yugoslavia splits between Cyrillic and Roman along lines
that are more religious (Serbo-Croatian flames will be ignored) as does
Hindi-Urdu (same type flames ignored).
   Alluding to another post of Scott's in which he wreote that Old French
had (a) reasonable orthograph(y) -- I'm not sure which manuscript he is
referring to, which dialect of Old French (there was not a standard one)
nor which century.  Anglo-Norman of the late thirteenth century? Picart
of the early thirteenth? Lorrain of the mid twelfth?  I keep wishing that
the scribe of Digby 23 had at least had the courtesy to use diacritics
in order to distinguish the three different accented vowels symbolized
with the letter "e" but contrasting with each other, and hopefully a different
one for "schwa", which at least the manuscripts written in Hebrew characters
in Old French distinguished from the "e" vowels, if I may use the term.
From: mathias@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B. Mathias)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Tenses
Date: 15 Apr 92 18:16:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Apr15.181623.26546
Organization: University of Hawaii

In article <1992Apr14.085238.1845@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>
>My point is simply this: that if morphology is being discussed, it is
>essential to distinguish the logical category of time from its morpho-
>logical representation (or lack thereof).  I think morphology is impor-
>tant; if I restrict "tense" to the realm of morphology, I'm not trying
>to abandon the word or make it a mere curiosity: I'm simply trying not
>to confuse the reader, which is all too easy if "tense" is used for
>both time and its morphological representation.  Similarly, the reason
>I said "Aktionsart" above is that this is a logical category, which in
>many languages receives morphological expression as "aspect".
>
>A further complication is that time and tense need not agree.
>Consider:
>
>	He's going home now.  (present time, present tense)
>	He's going home tomorrow.  (future time, present tense)

Maybe that complication could partly be avoided by renaming tenses so that
they don't sound like they refer to times.  What's the rationale for
referring to the above as "_present_ tense" if it's not a matter of time?
But certainly distinguishing semantic time from morphological tense is an
important step.

A further complication is that time isn't all that easy to pin down.  Why
would "He's going home now" predicate present time?  It's most likely to
be said about somebody getting ready to leave.  But he won't have _done_
it--he won't have "gone home"--until he gets home, obviously future time.
So it looks like future time to me, but I suspect almost everyone would
call it present.  (A further complication is that there _is_ no present,
unless time comes in quanta.)

>And, after the doorbell rings:
>
>	That'll be the mailman.  (Isn't it already?  present time,
>				  future tense)

It still will be the mailman (if it really is "now") when we get to the
door.  (future time, `will' tense)

>And finally:
>
>	Columbus knew the earth was/is round.  (timeless; two
>						different tenses)

Why "timeless"?  It seems clearly to predicate the past, with either tense,
and to predict the future.  Wouldn't some English equivalent of omnitemporal
be more appropriate?

Bart Mathias
>That's why I think it essential to distinguish time and tense.
>
>--Leo Connolly
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:57:42 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.144913.10004@news.cs.brandeis.edu> rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>(stuff deleted>
>>Look you Yoyos.  I live in Utah.  You guys don't have a clue what a
>>real redneck is.  It's a well known fact that there aren't any
>>rednecks east of the Mississippi river.  Sheez, trying to tell me that
>>people in Eastern Maryland are rednecks...
>
>I think you are confusing semantic rednecks with morphological rednecks

I went to college at PSU for my last 2 and a half years in what we
called Happy Valley -- the main campus in Center County.  Believe you
me, we had enough right-wing, country-musci slapping, bible-toting,
ultra-conservative loonies in that place to put any Louisiana bayou to
shame.

Regards,
Janis C.


Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: arild@milan.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 14 Apr 92 14:43:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: milan.ARILD.92Apr14164413
	<29E640CC.8634@noiro.acs.uci.edu>
	<ARA.92Apr11000727@camelot.ai.mit.edu>
	<ARILD.92Apr13142959@milan.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de>
	<8961@scott.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: arild@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany


   I wrote:
   >Therefore, most linguists don't find it
   >helpful to study animal "language" if they want to find out about human
   >language. (Although there may be other parallels between human and and
   >animal language development, such as the "critical period" of language
   >acquisition).

In article <8961@scott.ed.ac.uk> sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder) writes:

   Animals don't usually aquire their communication system in the same
   sense as humans do, it is usually innate reflexes.

   Soren Harder

OK, what I had in mind here is the critical period stuff that apparently
exists for some birds learning birdsong. I.e., for some species (forget
which), if you isolate the offspring for certain periods after hatching,
from their auditory environment, they simply don't develop the birdsong
they would if they had been in that environment. This, I believe is well-
documented. It is believed that something similar is going on with humans,
based on the findings of "wolf-children" and children who has been isolated
from speech environments for a certain specific period (some think it is up
to 6 years of age for humans), cf. the famous "Genie"-case from Los
Angeles. 

Hence, it seems valid to conclude that this is a parallel between human and
animal language acquisition, and if not, why not?

-Arild Hestvik
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com (K. Rogers)
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Reply-To: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 18:27:27 GMT

horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:

><
><The obvious reason why spoken language is to be considered the chicken
><with writing the egg is to look at what humans do naturally vs. have
><to be formally instructed in.
>
>Not true.  The reason is that languages tend to be spoken before they're
>written.

I though that's what I said - at least that's what I meant.  We speak
long before we learn to write (if ever.)  We have to be specifically
taught to write whereas all normal humans plus a lot of abnormal ones
learn to speak as if by magic.

>I wonder if a baby would learn to write if its parents communicated with it
>and others only in writing.

Good question.

><Writing is definitely an invention to
><fit spoken language where as speaking is hardwired in the brain.
>
>That statement happens to be very controversial.  Don't assume that it's
>true.

Everything's controversial in linguistics.  Which part didn't you
like, the hardwired in the brain or the writing invented to fit spoken
language or both?
-- 
Keith Rogers
Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
krogers@javelin.sim.es.com