HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:05:33 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

ritley@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu writes:

> ... infinitives in English are referred to with the word 'to',...

>Might anyone know why this is so, or whether there are
>other languages which refer to their infinitives as English does?

Yes, the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian). E.g. in
Danish 'at se' (to see) or (are there any better examples, when
explaining Danish infinitives in English :-) ): 'at vaere eller ikke
vaere' (to be or not to be).

Soren Harder,
Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh
E-mail: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 11 Apr 92 01:28:44 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.062713.27446@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <ARA.92Apr9210542@camelot.ai.mit.edu>, ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
><
><In view of the interest in this newsgroup in comparative linguistics, I
><am surprised that almost nothing has been posted on the subject of 
><comparative animal linguistics.
>
>You have to have some animal languages before you start talking about
>animal linguistics.
>
><In the face of this, isn't it a little arbitrary to concentrate on 
><defining merely human languages ?
>
>Conflating non-human animal "languages" and human languages is not useful.
>

I can't say that this is valid reasoning.  You sometimes don't know
whether something is useful or not until you do it.

Animal languages *are* analyzed a lot.  However, the analysis in terms
of human languages will probably be limited until people learn how to
communicate back and forth.  Studying Berber, f'rinstance, is only neat
to do for a speaker of Dyirbal because, by studying it, s/he can learn
to communicate with that other speaker.  Animals have, so far, not shown
TOO much initiative on communicating with us.

Regards,
Janis C.
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:14:31 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Apr16.145737.10539@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> hlin@cbnewsi.cb.att.com 
(hua.t.lin) writes:
>No real argument with any of this. 

Great!  sci.lang is becoming a hotbed of concord.

>Let me put this question to you: Why is it that spoken chinese
>dialects (or languages as some prefer here) differ only little bit from
>each other, as compared to classical chinese which sticks out like a sore
>thumb from all other chinese dialects/languages? 

Because classical Chinese is basically a prolongation of the written Chinese
of the classical period.  All the modern dialects are separated from it
by a period of 2500 years or so, time for plenty of linguistic change.
As for why they're more like each other than like their ancestor, 
I believe the separation into the modern dialects is considered to be
much more recent-- perhaps only 1000 to 1500 years old.

(Just to forestall objections, the written language certainly changed
over this period too; but as the corpus of the ancient classics was the
constant model, extreme changes were discouraged.)

>Your Latin analogy does not apply to my question because French do not
>resemble English, like Madarin to Cantonese! 

No, it still applies pretty well.  English does not derive from Latin.
If you look at the languages which do derive from it (French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, etc.), in many ways they do look
like each other more than they look like Latin.  For instance, they've
all abandoned the Latin declension of nouns, the Latin passive voice,
the Latin system of vowel lengths, and more.
From: ma@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de (Martin Ameskamp)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Numbers and language
Date: 16 Apr 92 13:57:14 GMT

Hi there

I just came across this thread (sorry to barge in like this) and I'd like
to add another thought (I am a native speaker of German and fairly fluent in 
English):
I find that in doing mental arithmetic or memorizing phone numbers or things
like that, I actually _see_ the figures before me, so that the language
becomes secondary (same with foreign languages - I have to see a word before I
can remember and use it). Also, I don't find that I convert numbers I read
in an English text into German (in French, I do, though).
An experiment that comes to mind is doing arithmetic, either mentally or
with pen and paper, while singing or reciting poetry.
I find this much easier than doing mental arithmetic while reading something.
This seems to confirm the view that arithmetic _is_ a function seperate from
language - but it also seems to indicate that these things vary widely
between individuals.

Martin
--
Martin Ameskamp, Kiel University, Germany
Fax: ++49 431 8804054, Voice: ++49 431 8804474, 
email: ma@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de
-- 
--
Martin Ameskamp, Kiel University, Germany
Fax: ++49 431 8804054, Voice: ++49 431 8804474, 
email: ma@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: epstein@sunc2.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Reply-To: epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 06:19:56 GMT

In <1992Apr5.190053.12271@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ritley@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu () writes:

>It has always perplexed me that the
>infinitives in English are referred to with the word 'to',
>such as 'to be', 'to make', etc., but that the infinitives
>in some other languages are often referred to as single words
>(sein, machen; ser, hacer; etc.).
>
>Might anyone know why this is so, or whether there are
>other languages which refer to their infinitives as English does?

Well, no one has mentioned Hebrew in this thread, so let me add that
it sort of follows the English pattern for infinitives.  Infinitives
in Hebrew are one word typically formed by attaching a leh- prefix to
the three letters making up the root of the verb.  The leh- prefex is
also used for the preposition "to" (prepositional phrases in Hebrew
are typically formed by adding a prefix corresponding to the
preposition to the noun) -- I am not sure whether this is just a
coincidence.

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
From: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Numbers and language
Date: 15 Apr 92 10:32:21 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <92105.140336SPIT@EVALUN11.BITNET> Werenfried Spit <SPIT@EVALUN11.BITNET> writes:

>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. 

I have seen arabic people (oops, that should be singular; but it is
still counterevidence) switching from Danish to Arabic, as soon as
they need to do calculation. I am sure this 'hey, this is my
language'-factor may play a role when you are a learner, or primarily
read (not speak) a language, but when you are using the language
everry day I don't think it makes a difference.

I believe more in the theory saying, that arithmatic is somehow
functionally encapsulated from language. Another thing is that
language is normally not involved when we are doing arithmatic, so we
do it in the easiest way, in our mother tongue. And when we need to do
it aloud in a foreign language we can't.

Soren Harder

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Soren Harder, (MSc student)
Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh
E-mail: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 15 Apr 92 01:17:23 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ



>Nothing of what I said, at least, implied that animals are stupid. All I
>said was that animal communication tells us NOTHING about human language!

Not to this poster in particular, but in general: on the contrary.

In particular an animal trainer learns a great deal about human language,
how it blocks, creates double binds, blackmails, threatens, and beats.

How the borderline schizophrenic, trained to train a dog, one day
``says Joe, Fetch! and Joe does a real retrieve, a retrieve that could
go through fire. This may be the first time in the handler's life that
language has proved - probed - the world and drawn a full, meaningful
and serious response from another being.  He steps, for the moment at
least, out of schizophrenia and into position next to his dog, a whole
human being in that moment, though not necessarily from that moment on.
He also, incidentally, steps out of the schizophrenia of American myths
of the splendors of isolation. Blocked, frustrating, enraging, and
covertly murderous actions simply lose interest at this point.  And if
he happens to be around people who don't have their own schizophrenic
interest in blocking language, he will learn to talk to them...'' -Vicki Hearne

Or how a great dog will insist on a correct grammar.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: bon6@quads.uchicago.edu (rahul  bonner)
Subject: Re: Devanagari: Syllabary or Alphabet?
Reply-To: bon6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 02:10:08 GMT



As I have to check out of this discussion for a few days, let me
take this opportunity to summarize what we've come up with so far.

1.  Scott says that Devanagari can be either an alphabet or a
    syllabary.  I say it's a little bit of both.

2.  We both agree that the analysis of Devanagari must recognize
    both a syllabic unit, and a smaller segmental unit.  I lay
    greater stress on the former, he on the latter.

3.  We both agree that the taxonomy of writing systems must be
    sufficiently nuanced to reflect points 1 and 2 above.

4.  Scott is not hesitant to posit a "null grapheme" when looking
    at Devanagari as an alphabet.  I am reluctant to do this, and
    would prefer a theoretical framework that did not force me to.

5.  I have introduced evidence of how the script is handled on a
    day to day basis (vertical writing, children's textbooks).
    Scott feels these matters are irrelevant.

6.  We disagree on terminology.


                                      -- Rahul
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet (was: Inventing a writing system?)
Date: 12 Apr 92 23:17:57 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Apr12.083733.27386@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <8940@scott.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
><
><My first exposure to English was more than twenty years ago,
>
>That long, eh?  Interesting.

Not much more than that.  You had already had your first exposure to
English by that time.  :-)

>I wish I hadn't learned to write it natively.  Had English been my second
>language, I could've impressed native speakers with my perfect spelling.  :-)

No.  They wouldn't be able to recognise your spelling as perfect.  :-)
Then again, it is not _my_ second language either.

><Bulgarian kids take it for granted that once they have learned all the
><letters, they can read and (albeit not always correctly) write any
><word they may come across.
>
>Indeed, not always correctly.  

No, but the point is that they at least can make a reasonable attempt
to write any word, and they won't be too far off.

This feature of Bulgarian vs English spelling is a source of great
problems for translators.  Authors writing in English sometimes
intentionally present their characters as awful spellers in order to
achieve a certain effect.  (_Winnie the Pooh_ comes to mind.)  This
kind of effect gets lost in the translation, because in Bulgarian you
simply _can't_ make spelling errors as grave as you can in English.

><(<...> I was taught to read and
><write at home long before I went to school.)

My grandfather was reading a newspaper, and I came up to him and asked
which letter was which, and he told me.  This was all it took for a start.

>(I don't remember *not* being
>able to read words, with the sole exception of the name of Sioux Falls
>[a city in South Dakota], which I found on a map some years before starting
>school.  The `-ioux' was enchanting.  :-))

Yes, I like this one tioux.  :-)

><Since my English comes chiefly from reading<....>
>
>So does mine, even though I'm a native speaker.  :-)

Yes, but I had almost no English when I started reading.  I don't
think the same can be said of you.  :-)
-- 
---- --- -- -  Long Live the Rose and the Heather!  - -- --- ----
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: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: Dixie
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:37:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: noiro.29EB50AC.28579
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <7041@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil> matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.085443.25062@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU 
>(Scott Horne) writes:
>
>>In article <!nxj98_.samson@netcom.com>, samson@netcom.com (Peter Samson) 
>>writes:
>
>>< 2:00  SIGN OFF
>><       The National Anthem is sung fluently in 17 languages. [Peter Samson]
>
>>	Allons, enfants de la patrie....
>>	Qi3lai2, bu2 yuan4 zuo4 nu2li4 de ren2 men!...
>>	Kimi ga yo^ wa....
>>	Soyuz nerushimij respublik svobodnik....
>
>Wait a minute!  If this last still counts as a national anthem, why did
>Mr. Horne leave out
>
>       "I wish I was in the land of cotton . . ."?
>

The lack of the subjunctive probably gave him hives ;-).

Regards,
Janis C.
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: cinq
Date: 12 Apr 92 22:18:57 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK


In article <1992Apr12.210948.4125@cas.org> rmt51@cas.org writes:
>In article <92103.150109IO11412@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>, IO11412@MAINE.MAINE.EDU
>writes:
>|> French uses 'q' without a 'u' following it in the words below:
>|> 
>|> coq, cinq, Iraq, iraqien, iraqienne, qat, qibla, qasida
>
>All very well and good, but all but the first two are words borrowed from A---
>or derived from them, where the 'q' represents a particular Arabic letter. 
>Therefore, they don't really count as valid examples in a discussion of French
>spelling rules.

Why not?  The existence of all of these words is made possible by the
spelling rules of French.  It is a feature of French orthography that
it allows "q" without an "u" after it, be it in words borrowed from
some other language (Arabic, in this case).  It is also a feature of
French orthography that it uses "q" to represent the twenty-first
letter of the Arabic alphabet and its sound, unlike, say, Hungarian,
which uses "k" for this purpose.  (The value of "q" in French does not
suggest this in any way.)
-- 
---- --- -- -  Long Live the Rose and the Heather!  - -- --- ----
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: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Numbers and language  
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:22:26 GMT

In article <204854@unix.cis.pitt.edu> dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:
>In article <44971@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>>
>>There are also languages which are primarily written.  The Hindu-Arabic
>>numeral representation are one of them, 
>
>Now I'm *really* confused.  In what way do the Hindu-Arabic numerals comprise
>a language, except perhaps in the automota-theoretical sense?  Linguistics
>doesn't study that sort of "language", which is simply a set of "well-formed"
>symbol strings.  
>

This isn't REALLY related to the original subject, but it's something
I've noticed and though was really neat for a while.

I can't count too well in French.  Even when I was in my eighth
consecutive year of studying it, I still tripped over the numbers.  I
had an instructor in Ling 50 (the intro class) who was a speaker of
about six languages - FLUENTLY.  He learned several natively, the most
prominenent one being Swiss-German.  He can count easily in English,
but he has said during class that when he is in the supermarket or
something and is distracted and has a lot of prices to add up, he just
chucks it and starts going off in Swiss-German.  I have a friend who
speaks Spanish fluently after studying it for four years in college and
getting her degree in it; she also has a harder time "counting fluently"
than one would expect.

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
words, I have no immediate brain response that tries to shoehorn them
into English.  I have no reflex that starts going off in English AND HAS
TO BE FORCIBLY SUPPRESSED like I do with numbers, and from what I
gather, this is similar to many others who are fluent in languages.  

And, Scott, please don't post and tell us all how you can rattle off a
string of numbers in Berber, Swahili, and Tibetan without even thinking
about it and don'tknow why the rest of us can't!

Any thoughts about this?

Regards,
Janis C.
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:46:30 GMT

In article <68@steiny.UUCP> steiny@steiny.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes:
>>  I wonder if you could suggest
>> a distinction made with English verbs which is not made in Spanish?
>
>	No.    I did not mean to say that Spanish was in any way less
>expressive than English.   Just that it is more infelected.   Spanish
>expresses the infinitive: "to talk" as "hablar"--it is the inflection
>that means "to"--English is just like that.
>
>	I wonder though.   I have many friends whose first language was
>Spanish that seem to have a hard time with the English prepositional system.
>Searching through dictionaries it seems to me that there are less ways
>to make case distinctions in Spanish.
>

It seems to me to be due to the dear little ambiguous prepositions that
can mean (like in many latinate languages) at, in, to, from, of, with,
like, and you mother-in-law's maiden name all at once.  I always
wondered how speakers of these languages get straight when you say "to"
and when you say "at."

Any personal anecdotes?

Regards,
Janis C.

Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Subject: Re: Ambiguity a goal of language
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 06:45:36 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.054542.7981@sunb10.cs.uiuc.edu>, epstein@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
<
<I understand that Chinese has sentence affixes that can be used to
<alter the interpretation of yes-no questions of the form of our
<examples above.

Sentence affixes?  I can't think of any.  Would you please give an
example?  (I'm assuming here that you're thinking of Mandarin.  It seems
to me that Cantonese has something of the sort; but as my Cantonese is
quite limited, I won't say anything else.)

You gave the example `Do you know what time it is?'.  In English, intonation
would probably disambiguate.  (If my watch is broken, I probably won't shout
the question at you; if you're my teen-age daughter and waltz in at three
in the morning, I probably won't be very calm.)  This particular example
wouldn't hold in Chinese; the two sentences would be different in much more
than a single sentence-final particle.

					--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!
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: cpshelle@jeeves.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: Is ambiguity functional?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 17:48:33 GMT

pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler) writes:
> Any claim that some feature of a natural language is a "design feature"
> makes me suspicious also.  Lamarckianism in biology and functionalism
> in cognitive science are suspect for nearly the same reason.  Who is the
> designer?  How likely is it that he or she would have the influence to
> institute such a change?  Perhaps Rick meant that speakers unconsciously
> tend toward preferring ambiguity, but then we disagree on the meaning of
> "design".

I think "design feature" refers to a folk metaphor on the action of
evolutionary constraints.  Certainly `design' is not the scientific
teleology.  

> Some small amount of design is sure to creep in -- the grammarians who
> shaped English to fit the Latin model succeeded to some degree.  But
> ambiguity is so basic and widespread that I doubt it was introduced or
> significantly modified through intentional action.

Language `designers' from Quintillian to Zamemhof (?) and Richards
have tried to factor out ambiguity (in Esperanto and Basic English
respectively for the latter two).  I agree that it is somewhat naive.

				Cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        | "Syllogism, n.  A logical formula consisting
cpshelle@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca |  of a major and a minor assumption and an
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     |  inconsequent."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  |				Ambrose Bierce
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: Dixie
Date: 15 Apr 92 18:24:07 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Apr15.180030.15753@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>
>Unlike the state flags of Mississippi and Georgia, which do incorporate
>the Stars and Bars (Confederate flag).  And the Stars and Bars still flies
>over the capitals of many Southern states (Mississippi, Georgia, 
>South Carolina, and perhaps others).

Only Mississippi as far as I know.  (Or was it Alabama?)
Definitely not Georgia.

>This is getting political.  Let's move it.

Agreed.


-- 
==========================================================================
Michael A. Covington, Ph.D. |  mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu  |  ham radio N4TMI
Artificial Intelligence Programs | U of Georgia | Athens, GA 30602  U.S.A.
==========================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 05:39:35 GMT

In article <ONEIL.92Apr13001646@husc10.harvard.edu>, oneil@husc10.harvard.edu (John O'Neil) writes:
<
<Have you ever heard of "Clever Hans", by any chance?

The horse that could supposedly count the numbers on a die by scraping
the ground with its hoof?  It was found that it was just watching a cue from
its owner, who, deliberately or not, was making some sort of gesture (raising
his eyebrows slightly, I think) when the horse had scraped the ground the
appropriate number of times.  When tests were run with the die out of the
owner's sight, horse and owner faded into oblivion.

					--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
Shao2shan1 sheng1 de tai4yang2 yong3 bu2 luo4!