HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:54:04 GMT

 A good friend of mine emigrated from Russia at age 14. As of now he is 
completely fluent in English (he is 32 now). He claims that English was so
easy for him to learn that he was able to surpass his ~14 year experience
with Russian in about 3 years of living in the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. Army
immediately made him a translator upon his enlistment at 18. He speaks
English with zero accent (except a bit of New York twang) and perfect fluency.

I think this debate should consider the fact that some person's 'second' 
languages may be so easy for them after learning the complexity of their
'native' grammar, that their second or third language may actually surpass
their 'native' fluency.

FYI, the Army rated him at Level 5 (highest) in Russian (14 years experience)
_and_ at Level 5 in English (3 years experience).

I do know Russian myself, and can understand why he would consider English
easier.
From: v187ef4y@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Patrick J Crowe)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Persons with several native languages
Date: 15 Sep 92 21:44:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep15.083451.43001@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
 writes...
> 
[deletions]
>I raised, but I don't think the issue of multilingualism poses the
>same question for competence theorists as does the apparent existence
>of large numbers of people who -- just to consider phonological
>competence, since it's probably easiest to deal with -- speak all
>their languages with an accent.
>-- 

This reminds me of Jimmy Carter's quip when he became President: "Isn't it
great to have a President without an accent?"  I'd have to say that only the
mute 'speak' their language without an accent, so 'native language' has to 
be defined in some other manner.  Or perhaps it's not a linguisticly meaningful
concept?

Pat Crowe
_Spreading Evil, Pat Crowe's Autobiography_  New York (1927)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: arild@adler.ims.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Reply-To: arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 08:53:16 GMT

In article <82462@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake) writes:
   ....
   Generative theory, unless it has evolved beyond any similarity 
   with its past, takes the grammar to be an intuition-generating device.  How
   that relates to the noises the child makes when it attempts to speak isn't
   entirely clear.

This is a rather narrow (and uninteresting) conception of what the grammar
is which I don't think are shared by many workers. The grammar is a system
for generating representations used in comprehension/production.
Acquisition is the process of fixing certain variable properties of the
innate grammar, based on information on the environment-language. The
intutions themselves are just a reflection of these representation and how
they  are used. The grammar itself does not generate intuitions, the
performance system does.   
-Arild Hestvik
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: rchao@well.sf.ca.us (Robert Chao)
Subject: looking for books describing various Amer. English accents
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 03:02:03 GMT


I am looking for books that describe characteristics of the various
variations on American English, that is, features that you find in
different parts of the country. A while ago I started a discussion
on the way Chicago natives tend to raise their ae's (like in
"back" being pronounced as "bih-ack"). Most of the responses never
reached me for some reason but that's another story.
One of the reasons I seek such books is that it would be nice to be
able to detect a person's background from their speech patterns.
This skill would be useful because:
 (1) I would make some use out of my linguistics degree; and,
 (2) I could impress peoeple at parties.
But seriously, I'm just interested, and I never even knew about the
Chicago ae-thing which apparently is part of something called the
Northern Cities Vowel Raising.
I no one knows of books of lists that breakdown these features, can
anyone tell me if one could tell whether a speaker is from Chicago,
as opposed to, say, Philadelphia?
-- 
Robert Chao
Oakland, California
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:47:37 GMT

In article <82337@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
>
>p.s.  Definition of a Rule:  A Rule is a substitution of one phonemic string
>      by another in a word or word class, where "phonemic string" can also
>      be taken as null.

Fine, but what ordering relationships obtain?  Can a rule follow a process?
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.  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.

This goes back to the old criticism of Natural Phonology as being too absolute.
Phonology is not natural, so some early critics said, pointing to the fact that
so-called "rules" may apply after "processes" and vice-versa.  How do we know
which is which, except by highly arbitrary means?  Sure, we can check to see
what is hard to say and what is not.  But again "hardness" may be a measure of
custom as well as innate capacity.  We cannot distinguish the two without a
monumental series of linguistic-universal works (say Patricia Donegan's work
multiplied by about a hundred :-)).

Part of what I'm saying is tongue-in-cheek, as I have found that ideas derived
from NP are very useful to me in my work.  The criticisms, though, are real.
Perhaps I am just not a very good phonologist, or am misunderstanding what
the NP advocates here are saying.  In either case, I'd appreciate it if some-
one would jump in and clarify matters.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 14:15:29 GMT

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.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: arild@adler.ims.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Reply-To: arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 08:52:41 GMT

In article <82462@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake) writes:
   ....
   Generative theory, unless it has evolved beyond any similarity 
   with its past, takes the grammar to be an intuition-generating device.  How
   that relates to the noises the child makes when it attempts to speak isn't
   entirely clear.

This is a rather narrow (and uninteresting) conception of what the grammar
is which I don't think are shared by many workers. The grammar is a system
for generating representations used in comprehension/production.
Acquisition is the process of fixing certain variable properties of the
innate grammar, based on information on the environment-language. The
intutions themselves are just a reflection of these representation and how
they  are used. The grammar itself does not generate intuitions, the
performance system does.   
-Arild Hestvik
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: schiller@tira.uchicago.edu (Eric Schiller)
Subject: Re: compounding
Organization: Center for Information and Language Studies / University of
	Chicago
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 22:48:52 GMT

All the languages Rick Harrison knows (posting of 4 Sep) that permit
compounding are AN. He clearly hasn't looked at Southeast Asian
languages, most of which are NA and allow compounding, e.g. Thai and
Khmer.

Eric Schiller
University of Chicago
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Date: 5 Sep 92 22:19:12 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <9209051457.AA00897@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM ("Bruce Lucas") writes:
>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

These processes are by no means mutually exclusive.  They all operate on
every language in the world, successively and even simultaneously.
You find borrowings occurring as languages become more frequently heard
by native speakers of other languages, and these are subjected to the
constraints of the native language; e.g. many people pronounce french
French borrowings in an English fashion.  "Croissant" is /kr@sant/.
"Tijuana" is /ti@wan@/.  However, as more people are exposed to more
languages, their mental store of "possible sounds" is expanded.  This
then causes the constraints that were applied to shift slightly.  Sounds
like a uvular fricative and a velar fricative are becoming more "normal"
to English speakers.

And so it goes . . .  

Regards,
Janis C.
From: thorinn@diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Ships and countries
Keywords: animate, neuter
Date: 5 Sep 92 16:29:42 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane) writes:
>P.S.  I used singular `they' a lot (which is my normal speech style) to
>confuse you non-native readers :-).

This non-native reader did not notice until he read your P.S., and I
don't think that I ever have until it first came up on sci.lang---I've
just absorbed/assimilated the usage somehow. But then, I started to
read American fiction before I had been taught enough to do so.

Just a data point.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: On the /bt/ cluster in English
Date: 5 Sep 92 08:17:04 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

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.)
 
********************************** +.............................+
*- Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>* :All opinions expressed herein:
*There is no privileged position.* :are my own and are not to be :
*	-God, Derrida, others    * : attributed to my employer   :
********************************** +.............................+

Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 21:44:11 GMT

In article <10682@scott.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.194517.21824@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum) writes:
>>Yup.  I'd like to find a good single-character diacritic for dentals,
>>though.
>
>No, we don't need that, since dental and alveolar consonants are
>unlikely to coo"ccur.  What I meant was that one should be warned
>that, say, all /n/s in a certain language may actually be /n<d>/s.

They co-occur in several Dravidian languages.  We *do* need something to let us
distinguish them.  (I rather liked the suggestion of "["--it does bring the IPA
diacritic to mind....)
-- 
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_
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: rte@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (ralph.t.edwards)
Subject: Re: Nasalisation
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 15:32:14 GMT

In article <AA06627.199208281001.ttyrf@turing.ncl.ac.uk> R.S.Hunt@newcastle.ac.uk (R.S. Hunt) writes:
>
>I am told that nasalised vowels also occur in modern Afrikaans, and they
>are not unknown in some dialects of English, though not widely recognised.
>Get an Australian to say the word "sandy" and you'll probably hear one!

In my native area (Illinois, Michigan) words like sentance, Benton, etc.
(Vntn.) regularly become /sE~?n.s/, /bE~?n./.  (?=glottal stop).
Daniel Jones uses sentance as an example of one of many words which are
"difficult for a British hearer to recognize" when pronounced by an
American.
From: jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Ships and countries
Summary: Use `it'.
Keywords: animate, neuter
Date: 3 Sep 92 07:43:28 GMT
Reply-To: Joe Keane <jgk@osc.com>
Organization: Versant Object Technology, Menlo Park, CA
Weather: sunny, high 73, low 57
Moon-Phase: waxing crescent (44% of full)

In article <1992Aug30.185048.26292@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
writes:
>But is the use of "she" as a pronoun for any country common among native
>speakers in every-day language?

This native speaker thinks that in his dialect only `it' is appropriate for
inanimate objects.  The borderline case is animals, which can be refered to
using either `it' or `he'/`she', with seemingly little pattern in which is
used.  (But why is it that often dogs are `he' and cats are `she'?)  I'm
mostly thinking about speech, but i think this is true for writing as well.

If someone uses `she' for an inanimate object (including ships and countries),
it suggests to me that they have some strange dialect (Scottish?) or they're
not a native speaker.  If they seem normal otherwise, it sounds affected.  I
think the most common case is using `she' for ships but it still sounds
affected to me, like they're imitating sailors or something.

Of course, one thing to keep under consideration is that the speaker may be
deliberately using the `wrong' pronoun to imply personification of whatever
they're referring to.  For example, if someone's playing a game with a
computer as an adversary, it's somewhat likely that they'll use `he' to refer
to the computer.  Conversely, using `it' for people is insulting.

--
Joe Keane, amateur linguist
jgk@osc.com (uunet!amdcad!osc!jgk)

P.S.  I used singular `they' a lot (which is my normal speech style) to
confuse you non-native readers :-).
Xref: sparky sci.lang:7121 alt.usage.english:7318
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Date: 10 Sep 92 09:34:06 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Sep9.175004.23398@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>1. /I<rnd>/ should be written /I./, for consistency's sake.  

Surely the two are equivalent (just a longer and a shorter way to
write the same thing).  /y<smh>/ denotes the same sound.

This full stop for rounding notation isn't exactly intuitive.  Btw,
what kind of feature is `half-long' (I've seen it written as a centred
dot, or just the upper dot of a triangular colon)?

>3. How about using " for centralized vowels?

Seconded.

>4. Why not just use ' for ejectives?  There should be no confusion with the 
>   stress mark, because the latter is written at the beginning of a syllable
>   and syllables should be separated by spaces.  

Er, should they really?  IPA is used in two different ways: (1) to
show the exact pronounciation of English etc. words (in which case
it is good for syllables to be separated, two stress marks are needed,
etc.); and (2) to write words or phrases in languages which either use
a non-Roman (and not easily romanised) script or none at all (in which
case syllables are better not separated, but it may be all right to
use only /,/ as a stress mark, if one is needed, and to free /'/).

>   By the way, is there any reason you specify ejectives as /b<'>/, /d<'>/
>   etc., when IPA uses p', t', etc.?  How do you voice an ejective?

Probably /<'>/ (or /'/ if no ambiguity can arise) can be used for both
ejectives and implosives,  seeing that the first are always voiceless
and the second always voiced.

>5. How about using [ instead of <d> for dentals?

Seconded.

>   Perhaps the simplest solution is to use /ae/, /a/, and /A/ for the
>   low unrounded vowels.  A true /a/ + /e/ diphthong could be written /a<>e/.

No.  No digraphs, please.  We shouldn't have to remember when "<>"
must be put between two adjacent letters.  Might as well write /ng/
for the velar nasal.

>   Better yet, why not use /&/ for the fronted A?

Seconded.

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Date: 8 Sep 92 21:43:03 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Sep8.174406.23168@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>In article <10642@spark.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>Herein is my first reaction to E Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA proposal.
<...>
>>_Proposal:_ Include a diacritic (/+/, say) to turn a fricative into a
>>homorganic affricate.
>
>The IPA doesn't have symbols for affricates.

Tant pis pour elle.  True, Standard IPA supports no symbols for
affricates, which is part of the reason it is not used by people
working on languages such as Polish, Abkhaz, Avar, or Navaho.  All
such work includes symbols for affricates, obviously added on top of
Standard IPA, and more or less standardised themselves.  Else, before
one writes /tl/ for the unvoiced lateral affricate (barred lambda in
most books), one should read the entire dictionary of the relevant
language and satisfy himself that /t/+/l/ never occurs as a cluster.

_Updated Proposal_: Include "%" as a pseudo-stop, standing for `first
half of an affricate; voicing and place of articulation as of the
following fricative'.  Thus /%l/ is the voiced lateral affricate
(lambda, "dl"), /%s/ is Russian _c_, /%s<'>/ is its glottalised
countepart, common in all Caucasian languages, and so on.

>>>ejc     ejective
>>
>>I seem to recall that this is the same as "glottalised" (as in the Caucasian
>>languages) or "emphatic" (as in Arabic) -- which one, and do we write the
>>other one in the same way?
>
>It is the same as "glottalized"; Arabic "emphatics" are pharyngealized in the
>dialects I have been exposed to, although *historically* they are hypothesized
>to have arisen from ejectives.

Actually, I think it is more than likely that the exact articulatory/
acoustic nature of this feature varies from one Caucasian language to
the other, and from one Arabic dialect to the other, as it surely does
from one Semitic language to the other; but a language can only have
one of the possible realisations -- Did you say "pharyngealised"?
There is no such feature mentioned in the draft; just "pharyngeal".
But we'll consider it the same thing as "ejective" and the rest.  (The
common term in the literature on Caucasian languages is "abruptive".)

And we want a short way to write it.  (Hell, clicks only take a /!/,
and ejectives are certainly more common across languages than clicks.)

The backquote is still free....  (No, I'm not contemplating using it
for _this_ purpose.)

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 21:42:26 GMT

In article <10675@spark.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.174406.23168@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>>In article <10642@spark.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>>Herein is my first reaction to E Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA proposal.
><...>
>>>_Proposal:_ Include a diacritic (/+/, say) to turn a fricative into a
>>>homorganic affricate.
>>
>>The IPA doesn't have symbols for affricates.
>
>Tant pis pour elle.

D'accord.  But are we trying to establish an encoding for the IPA, or something
with which to supplant it?

>>>>ejc     ejective
>>>
>>>I seem to recall that this is the same as "glottalised" (as in the Caucasian
>>>languages) or "emphatic" (as in Arabic) -- which one, and do we write the
>>>other one in the same way?
>>
>>It is the same as "glottalized"; Arabic "emphatics" are pharyngealized in the
>>dialects I have been exposed to, although *historically* they are
>>hypothesized to have arisen from ejectives.
>
>Actually, I think it is more than likely that the exact articulatory/
>acoustic nature of this feature varies from one Caucasian language to
>the other, and from one Arabic dialect to the other, as it surely does
>from one Semitic language to the other; but a language can only have
>one of the possible realisations -- Did you say "pharyngealised"?
>There is no such feature mentioned in the draft; just "pharyngeal".
>But we'll consider it the same thing as "ejective" and the rest.  (The
>common term in the literature on Caucasian languages is "abruptive".)

I did say "pharyngealized," and we'll only consider it the same as "ejective"
in some other universe of discourse.  Not even close to the same thing.

>And we want a short way to write it.  (Hell, clicks only take a /!/,
>and ejectives are certainly more common across languages than clicks.)
>
>The backquote is still free....  (No, I'm not contemplating using it
>for _this_ purpose.)

Hmm.  Why not?  Got something else in mind for it?
-- 
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_