HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ingria@bbn.com (Bob Ingria)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: English as World Language (Was: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.)
Date: 10 Sep 1992 20:08:09 GMT
Reply-To: ingria@BBN.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com
In-reply-to: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk's message of 31 Aug 92 10:23:05 GMT

In article <10570@scott.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:

						   textbook English, if
   somewhat different from what native speakers use, is perfectly fit for
   serving the world at large - in any case much more so than Esperanto.
   I can easily imagine that one day it will become _the_ language of
   international communication, spoken as a second language by a little
   more than four thousand million people, and it will be interesting
   what features of the language will help us recognise the minority of
   native speakers, "those who had the language before us", in the crowd.

Richard Prior, in one of his concert films (_Here and Now_, I
believe), recounts a trip to Zimbabwe during which one of his hosts
asked him: ``What language do you speak at home?'' ``English.''
``Everybody speaks English; what language do you speak at home?''

-30-
Bob
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: rte@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (ralph.t.edwards)
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 20:30:22 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.093216.42859@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>SPEAKERS WITHOUT A NATIVE COMPETENCE
>
>Many human beings have apparently managed to reach adulthood
>without acquiring a native competence in a single language.  For a
>quick example, a friend of my youth: he was born in Yugoslavia and

I also know such a person, he was born in the US, left for the country
of his parents somewhere between age 5 and 7, and returned to the US
at age 16.  His English is heavily accented and ungrammatical (but
perfectly comprehensible).  Native speakers of the language of his
parents report his other language is about similarly imperfect.
He says of himself that he has no native language.  While embarrasing,
it appears not to have held him back too much; he is a Nobel prize winner.
From: matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: [pronouns] Re: Other properties of pronoun usage
Keywords: substandard
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:23:14 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Material Systems Analysis Activity, APG MD

In article <1685B1210A.JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU> JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:

>In article <36974@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu>
>djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:

>>In article <8775@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil> matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil 
>>(Matt Rosenblatt) writes:

>># how come English has not developed its third-person singular
>># reflexive counterpart as English developed the second-person
>># singular reflexive "yourself"?  [Matt Rosenblatt]

>>It has.  "Themself" simply hasn't achieved the acceptance that
>>"yourself" has -- yet.  [David Johns]

>And let us not forget "theirselves" and "theirself", the latter of which I
>have heard as both a plural and a singular indefinite: "If some English
>teacher (singular) doesn't like it, they should get theirself a new
>grammar book."  I have heard the "their-" form of the reflexive (as well 
>as the form "hisself") on both sides of the Atlantic.

By all means, let's not forget these forms.  Although as I wrote
earlier, _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ does not list
"themself," it does list both "theirselves" and "hisself":

     theirselves . . . _pron_ [_obs._ E _theirself_ themselves] 
      _substand_ : THEMSELVES

     hisself _pron_ . . .  _substand_ : HIMSELF <when he come 
      to ~ they told him it was a Union hospital -- Helen Eustis>

So, "theirself" is obsolete, and "theirselves" and "hisself" are
substandard.

     8.2.2 The stylistic label _substand_ for "substandard"
     indicates status conforming to a pattern of linguistic
     usage that exists throughout the American language
     community but differs in choice of word or form from
     that of the prestige group in that community:

        drown . . . _vb_ . . . _substand_ drownded
        hisself . . . _also_ hissel . . . _pron_ . . . _substand_

So, not only is "hisself" substandard, it is one of the two substandard
words that _Webster's_ picked to illustrate the meaning of "substandard."

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
					(matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil)
From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Date: 10 Sep 92 16:37:33 GMT
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology

In article 18308@news.Hawaii.Edu, lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes:
>In article <82269@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
>}...  Generative linguistic theory defines the data in terms
>}of well-formedness judgments.  ...
>
>This is a caricature.  Generative linguistic theory doesn't prescribe
>any method at all for discovering grammars.  Because generative
>linguists may often find it convenient to test their theories by
>asking people whether their constructed examples sound ok, it doesn't
>follow at all that they think children learn language by asking
>around to find out what is judged acceptable.

I don't regard my description of how generative theory defines data as a 
caricature, but I'm quite open to alternative views.  What counts as data,
if not intuitive judgments of well-formedness?  Are we back to pondering
the significance of burps in the speech stream?  I have no doubt that my
few paragraphs oversimplify what generative grammar has to tell us about
language learning.  I am not attempting a review of the literature here.
But I don't think that most generative linguists are as agnostic about the
subject as you think.  If they are uninterested in how children discover
grammars, then why do they talk about it so much?  If "flipping parameter
switches" has nothing to do with discovering the correct grammar for a
language, then I must confess my ignorance as to what such discussions are
about.

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

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com)   Seattle, WA
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: phonology question
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 04:27:26 GMT

anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu (Steve Anderson) writes:
>
>        >[...]  In recently revived terminology, is
>        >the change "anthropomorphic" or "natural"; is it a 
>        >"process"?
>
>	RW> You have been reading Stephen Anderson's writings on
>	RW> Baudouin de Courtenay.  Baudouin later abandonned that
>	RW> terminology in favor of "physiophonetic"
>	RW> (=anthropomorphic) and "psychophonetic" (=traditional).
>
>I'd stay out of this, except that I'm somehow being blamed for leading
>Richard Goerwitz into talk about "anthropomorphic" alternations.

In fact, the term I was reaching for was "anthropophonic."  My "anthro-
pomorphic" was a mistake, and not an attempt at yet another neologism.

I wonder if someone in the Natural Phonology camp would comment on
Steve Anderson's question:  Are "processes" equivalent to anthropophonic
alternations?  How might either of these differ from phonotactic rules
and constraints (using yet another terminology)?

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:33:01 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

A guy who works with me is from Malaysia.  I call his native language
'Chinese English.'  His family background is Cantonese, but he spoke mainly
English at home.  One of his parents was an English teacher.  He is
concerned to improve his English.  He speaks Cantonese but feels that his
native language is English.  But definitely Chinese English.

jj

John Thayer Jensen                      64 9 373 7599 ext. 7543
Commerce Computer Services              64 9 373 7437 (FAX)
Auckland University                     jt.jensen@aukuni.ac.nz
Private Bag 92019
AUCKLAND
New Zealand
From: lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM ("Bruce Lucas")
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: phonological constraints
Date: 5 Sep 92 14:57:02 GMT

How is one meant to interpret statements of the form "there is a
constraint in English phonology that ...": is this meant to imply
1) an ongoing process in each speaker's (subconscious) mind as he is
(sorry, they are :-) speaking, or 2) the result of a historical
change in sound patterns that is now simply learned without
analysis, or 3) something else.  I would have originally thought
the former, but the second explanation or something like it would
seem to be required to explain the exceptions allowed for foreign
borrowings, which by now are hardly noted as foreign by the
average speaker.

Curious in New York
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:37:46 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.144737.347@midway.uchicago.edu> goer@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
}...
}Can a process know about higher level structures, as they exist before certain
}"rules" apply?  We all know about "morphologization," I take it.  When a pro-
}cess (as you call it) is becoming a "rule," it starts showing sensitivity to
}its morphological (and not purely phonetic) environment.  ...

I have a strong interest in the answers to these questions, but if anyone can
say, I hope they take some care with the precise meaning of "higher level
structures" and "morphologization".  Does "higher level" refer to the inner
structures of words, or to their syntactic environments?  And does
"morphologization" refer to an acquired sensitvity to morpheme identity/class,
or to word identity/class?  It is important to make the distinction for those
theories, like lexical phonology, in which the domains of rule application are
hierarchical and local.  For instance, a post-lexical rule (_roughly_ comparable
to a NP process) could be conditioned by word class or (I think) syntactic
environment, but not by morphological structure, while a lexical rule could
be conditioned by morphological structure or (I think) word class, but not
by syntactic environment.

}During this inter-
}mediate stage, it still shows many of the features of a "process."  Yet it
}also knows about higher-level categories and structures.  It may even continue
}to apply "late," but do so only in a restricted group of forms.

If "forms" means words, that's ok (so far as I'm concerned), but if it means
morphemes smaller than words, then some of us are in trouble.

}This goes back to the old criticism of Natural Phonology as being too absolute.
}...

Better risk being wrong than be wishy-washy and dull.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: phonology question
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:29:19 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <W5[Am-XD-@engin.umich.edu>, rcj@engin.umich.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:
> In article <1992Sep4.120207.3208@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Sep4.032626.8708@midway.uchicago.edu>, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
>>> Why does it seem awkward for an English-speaker to say "ibpag"?

[stuff omitted]

>>[ibpag] violates a constraint in English that adjacent stops within
>>a word must agree in voicing. 
> 
> Really?  Five minutes' dinking around with /usr/dict/words turns up
> the following:
> 
>  --BP--          --BT--           --BK--
>                 subterfuge       Babcock 
>                 subterranean	 bobcat  
>                 subtrahend	 mobcap  
>                 obtain
>                 obtrude
>                 obtrusive
> 
> 
>  --DP--           --DT--         --DK--
> godparent        hardtack       Adkins        
> redpoll		 redtop     	godkin       
> baldpate	 hardtop    	madcap       
> bedpost		 bedtime    	woodcarver   
> codpiece	 swordtail  	Radcliffe    
> midpoint			woodcock     
> swordplay      			handclasp    
> tadpole        			redcoat      
> woodpeck[er]   			woodcut[ter] 
>                 		handcuff     
>                 		wildcat[ter] 
>                 		broadcast    
>                 
> 
>  --GP--          --GT--          --GK--
> eggplant        pigtail
> flagpole        dogtooth
> pigpen          dogtrot
> bagpipe
> magpie
> ...
> ...  I bet you
> could say "subpolar" too, now that I think of it.)

Sure I could say "subpolar", though I doubt it would contain [bp] with
voiced [b] (try a voiceless lenis for size).  But I digress.  Most of
your examples are totally irrelevant because they are compounds formed
within English, and the voicing adjustment rule simply does not apply
to such compounds, most of which, by the way, are written with a word
space between the elements.  With or without a space, intraword
phonetic rules do not apply to such cases, which is why the second
p in _pisspot_ is aspirated, while the p in _spot_ is not (no aspira-
tion after /s/ within the word).

The -bt- group is a different situation: your examples are all of
Latin derivation.  Without exception I do apply the voicing adjust-
ment rule to these, pronouncing the /b/ (if such it be) as a voiceless
lenis.

The trouble with _ibpag_ is this: since it is short, and the
two syllables are not recognizable as separate words in any language
known to me or to most English speakers (by the way, what language
was that word supposed to be???), there is no reason to analyze it 
as a compound, and in simple compounds (as in Latinate compounds)
English has voicing adjustment.  As always, when learning a foreign
language, we have trouble turning off our English phonological rules.

--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: On the /bt/ cluster in English
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 17:05:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.081704.42795@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, miner@kuhub writes:

>There has been quite a lot of discussion about the /bt/ cluster in English.
>Consider this: every speaker of Coastal Southern I know pronounces "Baptist"
>as "Babtist."  If this is an innovation--or especially if it's an innovation
>--it certainly militates against the idea that the cluster is unnatural.
>(Strangely, these speakers don't seem to voice the /p/ in "baptize,"
>"baptism," etc. -- I could be wrong on this.)

I'm not too certain about [bAbtIzm], but [bAbtAiz] is certainly as common among
my relatives as [bAbtIst].  This is NE Texan, rather than Coastal Southern;
I've also heard it in Jackson, Mississippi.  Does the latter fall under your
"Coastal Southern"?
-- 
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_
Xref: sparky sci.lang:7027 alt.usage.english:7188 soc.culture.usa:7140
From: arild@milan.ims.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Subject: Re: Halcion
Reply-To: arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 12:10:13 GMT

(forwarded from alt.politics.bush)

In article <1992Sep11.015502.23778@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald) writes:

   Is George Bush still taking halcion? What are the effects of this drug?
   Can his odd syntax been attributed to it?
               ^^^^^^
   Please e-mail,
   fred.ringwald@dartmouth.edu
From: lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM ("Bruce Lucas")
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: discourse and pragmatics
Date: 15 Sep 92 04:01:58 GMT

I'm interested in learning more about theories of pragmatics
and discourse.  Can anyone suggest where to start?  I'm particularly
interested in theories of these subjects as they relate to "artificial"
languages such as human-computer interaction, although presumably
knowledge of universals in natural language can help
in the design and analysis of human-computer languages.

(I'm also somewhat hazy on the exact meaning of "pragmatics" and
"discourse" and their relationship.  Anyone kind enough to fill
me in?)

Thanks,
Bruce Lucas
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lbianchi@sol.yorku.ca (Luigi M. Bianchi)
Subject: Re: Article before name in Spanish
Organization: York University
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 05:47:39 GMT

In article <Sep13.153848.28042@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>, komives@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Robert Komives) writes:
> A question about Spanish if that is appropriate.
> 
> My daughter just reported that she hears people refer to others by name in
> Ecuador placing an the article before there name.
> 	La Josefina no esta'. The Josefina is not here.
> 
> I found the same to be true among farmers in Guatemala but was told by
> college educated people there that this custom is "bad" Spanish. The closest
> expressions I can think of in English are pejorative. "That Josefina isn't here
> ". Meaning there is some fault in her that causes her not to be here. 
> Is this form common in Spanish (or elsewhere)?

Is is certainly common in colloquial and dialectal Italian and German (at least
around the Stuttgart area, to my knowledge).  In Italian it seems to be more
commonnly used with female names.

Please note, I am not a professional linguist--I just happen to be familiar
with these lenaguages.

-- 


	Luigi Bianchi

Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.europe
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Info on Celtic languages from Cambridge Encyclopedia of language
Organization: University of Kentucky
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 00:22:47 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.210236.2626@rdg.dec.com>
cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:
 
>Here's the corrected version, from the Cambridge encyclopedia of language.
>
>Goidelic (Q-Celtic)
>Scots Gaelic
>Irish Gaelic
>Manx
>(this branch entered the British Isles when a wave of Celts left the
>Bordeaux area of France in the 4th century BC. These three languages
>descend from "Common Gaelic" and started to become distinct around
>the 10th century AD)
>
>Brythonic (P-Celtic)
>Cumbrian (extinct)
>Welsh
>Cornish
>Breton (descended mainly from Cornish)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.     Suas
 
I have been under the impression that Scots Gaelic was "descended mainly from
Irish Gaelic" as Breton is from Cornish, the territory it extended to having
been populated (before the Germanic invasions) by speakers of Brythonic and
of non-Brythonic Pictish.  Have I been accepting an error all these years?
From: adamo@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Russian Tutor
Date: 15 Sep 92 21:01:24 GMT

Russian Tutor!
Language, Literature, Culture.   All levels.
NATIVE SPEAKER.
M.A. in Russian Language, Literature and Education 
from Leningrad University (Russia).
Wortington area. Call 885-3061 (the best time to call - after 8pm)
Please, don't respond to this account. Thanks.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: phonology question
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 03:52:50 GMT

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

>> Why does it seem awkward for an English-speaker to say "ibpag"?
>> 
>> Is it hard to say because of some problem with the physical mechanisms
>> involved in articulating the sequence?  Or do we English speakers just
>> not hear words structured in this way, and tend to reinterpret and/or
>> repronounce "ibpag"?  I.e. is it a natural mechanism that dictates its
>> awkwardness, or a simple matter of well-formedness judgments?  Or is
>> it some mixture of both?
>
>[ibpag] violates a constraint in English that adjacent stops within
>a word must agree in voicing.

Interesting.  What constraint?  If it's synchronically productive (if we
can call a "constraint" productive), then why can we say "bedtime" and
"hardtack"?  "Midterm"?  Even if such words are relatively uncommon, they
are not hard to say.  "Ibpag," by all objective evidence, is quite awk-
ward to say.  Furthermore, most people I say it in front of ask me to
repeat it at least once (even if I warn them it's nonsense).  I had to
repeat it twice, for instance, for my wife.  My son didn't ask for any
repeats, but promptly repeated it back to me "mispronounced" each of the
times he tried.

I just want to know if the difficulty is the result of some natural con-
nection with the organs of speech and the physical constraints they operate
under.  Or is it just a question of what we are accustomed to hearing, and
thus (by implication) of what sequences we view as possible English words.
In recently revived terminology, is the change "anthropomorphic" or "nat-
ural"; is it a "process"?  Or is it a matter of "tradition," i.e. "rule"?
Or is it possible that tradition, once internalized, cannot always be dis-
tinguished from natural "processes"?

>Furthermore, there is a synchronic rule adjusting
>the voicing of all such sequences which arise through inflection,
>which is why -ed is realized as [t] or [d], -s as [s] or [z], depending
>on the environment.

See above re "productive."

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: thorinn@diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 15 Sep 92 04:21:59 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>Other sentences to play with:
>...
>Just suggesting that you try other cases, possessive forms, etc. as well.

My intuition is shot to hell, as I wrote, and I have no test subjects
handy. But I very strongly suspect that the strict equivalents of your
sentences would not be produced in casual speech. Often, sentences
about unknown persons will be cast in the plural; if the singular-ness
of the referent is established, people can either avoid the personal
pronoun, plunge ahead with the most likely sex-specific pronoun, or
succumb to 'he or she'. If another party in the conversation knows
that the sex-specific pronoun is wrong, they are likely to correct it,
so the usage cannot be called generic.

>It is not quite clear to me to what extent Danish _vedkommende_ is a real
>pronoun in the register to which it belongs, rather than a pseudo-pronoun
>of some sort (such as the counterparts of `Your Majesty' or `your [most
>obedient] servant' in a number of languages).

Give me a test for pronoun-ness, and I'll apply it. "Vedkommende" can
certainly be used anywhere that 'he'/'him' and 'she'/'her' can; also,
it is [+definite] --- it does not need a determiner, unlike other noun
phrases that can be used to specify a person (e.g., 'the guilty one').

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)