HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dchung@efi.com (Daniel Chung)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: [prounoun] sex-neutral pronoun in Chinese (resend attempt)
Date: 10 Sep 92 18:37:14 GMT
Reply-To: chungdan@leland.stanford.edu
Followup-To: soc.culture.china
Organization: Electronics For Imaging, Inc.


     The sex-neutral pronoun question is not to *change* anything, or
be "politically correct".  In fact, I hate formalistic calls like
"political correctness" (I completely do not understand what it means).
I look for suitability.  Now, if we do not know/care someone's sex,
what do we write?  Note that we always say <below>.
 -+- \ /    
  /   |     
 --|  |     
So, what do we write this word?  From context, we know whether it is
an inanimate, a person, an animal, or a/the god, but sex does not matter.
What is the motivation for using the "person-also" character when
the typists use "person-also" for all sexes in some televion subtitles?
					
				 ||| \ /  /       /   |  \/   |  / / /  
				 |+|  X  /       <    |       |  \/     
				 --- / \ ---      \   |       |  --|    
(Follow-ups go to: soc.culture.china.)
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language
Date: 12 Sep 92 03:10:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Sep12.031038.9185
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Sep9.203301.26992@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen) writes:
>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.

I know what you mean.  I once taught English composition at the University
of Southern California.  There, I had a student who _thought_ he spoke
perfect American English, but was actually speaking English noticeably
influenced by Chinese (with virtually no inflection).  I found it surprisingly
difficult to convince him that other English speakers always _care_
whether a word has an -s suffix, even if he doesn't.  A morphosyntactic
equivalent of the principle "If you can't pronounce it, you can't hear it."


-- 
+ Michael Covington - Artificial Intelligence Programs - U of Georgia - USA 
+ Unless otherwise noted, these are private opinions, not official statements.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:02:17 GMT

In article <ANDERSON.92Sep11124138@sapir.cog.jhu.edu> anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu (Steve Anderson) writes:
}...
}..., phonological rules don't have to have access to
}word-internal morphological structure. 
}...

The following is not a clear counterexample, but at least illustrates
what one might look like.  Yawelmani lowers /i:/ /u:/ to [e:] [o:].
This is due to a process/postlexical rule, since [e:] is not a phoneme.
There is a class of verbs, ending in the morpheme /wiy/, whose vowels
exceptionally fail to lower.  Thus, "after" the word is already formed,
Lowering has to look inside it to see if it contains /wiy/, to find out
whether it is permitted to apply.  That ought not to be possible.

However, some verbs in /wiy/ do permit Lowering, so the exceptionality
is not unambiguously associated with the /wiy/.  Also, some of the verbs
are onomatopoetic, which implicates the root parts of the word in the
special behavior.  /wiy/ occurring independently means "do"; the facts
are described by Stanley Newman in _Yokuts Language of California_,
where the verbs are called "wiyi-verbs".

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 16:45:45 GMT

In article <81918@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
}In article 28370@midway.uchicago.edu, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
}>...  Natural phon-
}>ology, to me at least, seems to divide phonological behavior into a set of
}>innate tendencies, and a set of actual behaviors that come to the fore via
}>interaction with a living speech community. ...
}...
}No, there is no bifurcation between innate tendencies and actual behaviors in
}NP, if I understand your general import here. ...

Innate tendencies described by universal processes; actual behaviors described
by learned contraints on those processes.  Bifurcation.  Did natural phonology
change when I wasn't looking?

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Xref: sparky sci.lang:7039 alt.usage.english:7199
From: djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 6 Sep 92 17:02:14 GMT
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: University of Florida, Gainesville

In article <1992Aug31.075821.13520@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:

# And it is definitely not up to you say: "OK, I'm using this
# expression in this text which is to be read by non-native speakers,
# although this is a text where understanding is crucial, and I know
# that this expression will be confusing for them, because I think
# they should learn it in school."

It seems to me that you're saying here that the singular "they" should
not be taught because it would be confusing to people learning
English as a second language.

But the fact is that "they" with a singular antecedent is virtually
never confusing to a native speaker.  Certain constraints operate on
the production of pronouns to minimize ambiguity, as in a situation
where two females are interacting, so that "she" can't be used as much
as normal.  Whatever these constraints are, they operate on "they"
just as well, so that the reference is almost always clear.

I think it's even safe to claim that people who would never use the
singular "they" can always understand its reference.  Even a pedant
who asks "who are the people who own that wallet?" is not really
confused about the referent, but is using sarcasm to call attention to
a prescriptive rule.

# The fact that it is not taught, maybe gives a clue that the usage
# is not so spread as you like to imagine, by the way.

You might as well say that stranded prepositions or passives formed on
indirect objects are not widespread.  But then again, constructions
like these are confusing to learners too, aren't they.

David Johns
From: e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: deep and surface anaphora
Keywords: anaphora, ellipsis, sag
Date: 15 Sep 1992 20:22:26 GMT
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station

In article <10733@scott.ed.ac.uk> Holger Hank writes:
 > English distinguishes between two types of anaphors...: ``deep'' and 
 > ``surface''.  While deep anaphors can be controlled pragmatically, 
 > surface anaphora depends on an linguistic antecedent for its interpretation.

While we're on this topic, I (once again) could use some help.

(1)  Q.  I know that it will rain, don't you?
     A.  Yes, I know it too.
                     ^^
(2)  Q.  I think that it will rain, don't you?
     A.  Yeah, I think so too.
                       ^^
Note that "so" instead of "it" in (1)A would be odd, while "it" instead 
of "so" in (2)A would be odd, too.  Is this a deep/surface anaphor 
distinction?  How does it work here?  If not, what *is* going on?  
(I have my own idea, but I don't want to influence anyone's responses.  
Not that anyone would be influenced, anyway. :-]   )
Thanks.
B-o} Michael
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hand                     phone (409)845-5660, fax (409)845-0458
Dept of Philosophy, Texas A&M Univ, College Station TX 77843-4237 U.S.A.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle (Gainfully Unemployed))
Subject: General language translation software? (Re: Translate Latin Phrase)
Followup-To: poster
Summary: Does any such software exist?
Keywords: Translate
Organization: Gainfully unemployed
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 09:19:42 GMT

In a sci.lang article oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil) wrote:
>>Could someone translate the following phrase:
>>
>>	Timor Mortis conturbat me
>       The fear of death disturbs me.

On a more general note, has anyone anywhere made an attempt at general
language translation software?

To give you an idea: my wife is in a band which has toured Europe this past
summer (Northern Hemisphere variety (-: ), and has had records/CD's released
in Europe.  As a result, she has many clippings which contain reviews of her
band's records and the recent live shows.  The problem is that we don't know
any other language besides English, and most of these reviews are in other
European languages, e.g. Swedish, German, even Portuguese and one that looks
like it's a Slovenian dialect (from a Yugoslavian publication).  So, we have
no idea what all these clippings say (hopefully good things (-: ) and would
love to have some of them translated, even if it's just the most common
languages - German, French, Italian, etc.

I'd give anything to know if any software exists out there whereby a person
can type in a sentence or a paragraph and get some sort of rudimentary
translation (even literal would be OK) back into English, specifying the input
language of course.  Surely someone's thought of this before, so I assume
that it either exists somewhere and I've never heard of it, or else it was
decided that it was too Herculean a task and abandoned ...

Please address any replies to "earle@mahendo.JPL.NASA.GOV" as I don't read
sci.lang.  Thanks in advance!

	- Greg
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Organization: University of Kentucky
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 01:32:22 GMT

 
     embedded sex...
       ^^^
     Best place!
From: djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: [pronouns] Re: Other properties of pronoun usage
Keywords: FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST
Date: 7 Sep 92 22:28:38 GMT
Organization: University of Florida, Gainesville

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

# Everyone is comfortable with the singular reflexive, "yourself."

True.

# Yet, those who use the singular "they" will use a plural reflexive
# pronoun in a sentence like, "Whoever wants dressing with their
# salad will have to add it themselves."

False.  Not all do.  I hear "themself" several times a day around
undergraduates and even from "educated" people.

# How come people are not as comfortable using "themself" as they are
# using "yourself"?

Maybe because there are so many people insisting that it's wrong?

# Is "themself" really an English word?

For some people it is.

# _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ lists "yourselves,"
# "yourself," and "themselves," but not "themself."

This is not intended to be an exhaustive dictionary, is it?

# If singular "they" is as much a part of the language as singular
# "you,"

Is anyone claiming the "as much as" part?

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

It has.  "Themself" simply hasn't achieved the acceptance that
"yourself" has -- yet.

David Johns
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Date: 11 Sep 92 08:47:16 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Sep10.214226.29782@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>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:
>>>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?

We are trying to agree on a method to represent the sounds of any
language via sequences of symbols taken from the ASCII character set.
Encoding the IPA is a good basis for this, but whenever it does its
job less then perfectly, there is no reason to follow suit.
When I want to quote an Archi word, my goal is to tell the reader what
it sounds like, not what it looks like when written in Standard IPA,
especially given that Archi is only ever written in Extended IPA
(with special symbols for affricates).

(So how many consonants does the Georgian word _gvpr{ts}kvnis_
`he peels us' start with?  All my books say eight, not nine.)

>>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.
>
>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.

Right.  I didn't mean to imply that pharyngealisation and glottalisation
are similar, but for some reason I was under the impression that the two
never occurred in the same language, and if that were so, we could still
use the same notation for them.  Then I rechecked, and behold, Ubykh has
both of them, as orthogonal features, so we can't write them in the same
way.  So the question doesn't arise any more.

>>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?

Because in my books (on Quechua, Caucasian languages, and so on) the
backquote stands for aspiration, which in a way is the opposite of
glottalisation -- the two exclude one another.

>Got something else in mind for it?

No.  Is "<h>" short enough for aspiration?

-- 
 `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: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Persons with several native languages
Date: 15 Sep 92 08:34:51 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Sep14.212658.5238@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen) writes:

[deletions]

Interesting case!

> So has he seven native languages (Russian, Arabic, Macedonian, Hebrew,
> Bulgarian, French, and English)?  Two (R, A)?  One (English, since he now
> lives in and almost exclusively communicates in English)?  None (since
> 'native' implies 'from birth')?

The question of just what "native language" means has gotten attention
from linguists and it's an important one.  (It pretty clearly can't
mean "from birth.")  And no doubt this question is related to the one
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.
-- 
********************************** +.............................+
*- 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: phonology question
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University Academic Information Resources
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 18:03:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.161813.3225@memstvx1.memst.edu>, connolly@memstvx1 writes:
>miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu 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.)
>
>An interesting development, to say the least.  Someone else has noted
>that _Babdist_ also occurs.  Perhaps the constraint is weakening.

I think that [bAbdIst], where it occurs, is better analyzed as the result of
intervocalic voicing of the entire cluster, don't you?
-- 
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: hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Article before name in Spanish
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:55:59 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but it is believed that the
Spanish got the use of this atricle "a" from the Arabic "yaa" which is
used in a very similar fashion.

Link Hudson.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: fintel@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Kai von Fintel)
Subject: Re: deep and surface anaphora
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:07:08 GMT

Michael Hand writes:
>
>While we're on this topic, I (once again) could use some help.
>
>(1)  Q.  I know that it will rain, don't you?
>     A.  Yes, I know it too.
>                     ^^
>(2)  Q.  I think that it will rain, don't you?
>     A.  Yeah, I think so too.
>                       ^^
>Note that "so" instead of "it" in (1)A would be odd, while "it" instead 
>of "so" in (2)A would be odd, too.  Is this a deep/surface anaphor 
>distinction?  How does it work here?  If not, what *is* going on?  
>
>Thanks.

The reason for this distribution quite simply seems to be that "know" is a
transitive verb that can take noun phrase complements while "think" is 
intransitive. Of course, that is in a way only a re-phrasing of Michael's
observation. We would need to investigate whether this is an arbitrary
fact of English or whether "know" and "think" reliably show this behavior
in other languages. I suspect so/it (I guess it's either way with "suspect",
eh?). The most interesting aspect here, to me at least, is how an adverb like
"so" can take on this object-like meaning. 

Kai.

--
Kai von Fintel                     fintel@linguist.umass.edu   [to expire soon]
Dept. of Linguistics               fintel@titan.ucc.umass.edu
South College
University of Massachusetts
Amherst  MA 01003

Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: k and s
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 15:31:50 GMT

In article <998@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
}...
}At least in my speech it is both.  That is, the 'y' becomes an obstruent,
}*and* the preceding stop is palatalized, to yield an alveopalatal affricate.
}(I pronounce an "isolated" 'd' as a voiced alveodental stop - the 'd'
}in "didja" is an alveopalatal "stop").

I suppose one might refer to regressive position assimilation of the
d to the following alveo-palatal as "palatalization".  (This assimilation
happens not to occur in my speech, though d assimilates to other
positions.)  When people refer to the dy>dzh change by that term,
however, I think what is usually meant is that the d palatalizes to
an alveo-palatal affricate under influence of the y, and the y is
subsequently absorbed by the preceding affricate.  It is that analysis
with which I was taking issue.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
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: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 18:47:09 GMT

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

>>>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.
>>
>>C'mon.  Are you seriously arguing that the words I've listed above are
>>compounds.  Do I productively add "tad" and "pole" together to arrive
>>at "tadpole"?  Try the "ob-" in "obtain."  Do you even know what the
>>element "ob-" means on its own?
>
>I am maintaining that _tadpole_ is a compound, even though neither
>_tad_ nor _pole_ exists as a free morpheme (I assume they are not
>identical with our normal _tad_ and _pole_).  Its phonology gives it
>away: a full vowel with some degree of stress in the second syllable,
>contiguous voiced and voiceless stops.

I've heard this argument before, but have always wondered how we can
claim that a word is compounded out of two morphemes when one, if not
both ("obtain") of the purported constituents does not occur in iso-
lation.  If they don't exist in isolation, how can you call them a com-
pound except by circular argument?

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language
Date: 14 Sep 92 17:05:19 GMT

In <1992Sep14.013450.1@sol.yorku.ca> lbianchi@sol.yorku.ca (Luigi M. Bianchi) writes:

>I would like to expand this thread to include both some qualifications to
>the word 'without', and the case of 'partial loss' of one's native language.
...
>(often of a mathematical nature), I am not aware of thinking 'in words'.  But
>the words are right there, immediately, without premeditation, if I tell some-
>body what I have been 'thinking' about.  In other words, the 'lacunae' or
>'losses' I mentioned above, are absolutely absent when I think.
>	Luigi Bianchi

Let's say you were working on a problem and were talking to two other
researchers. One speaks only Italian and the other speaks only English. 
Would you have any preference as to whom to talk to about any particular 
problem? Would you feel more comfortable with either of them a a purely
scientific discussion level? Which would you naturally talk to first? 
Remember, in this situation you would probably also end up being the
translator between the two of them.

I think the answers to this may also start a new thread...


Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was Cognitive Linguistics...)
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:56:18 GMT

In article <82761@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
}...  Since you think that
}"generative theory" tries to discover what the grammar is (Say, Greg, does
}this sounds familiar? ;-) using intuitions, then you must believe that grammars
}play some role vis a vis intuitions.  ...

Vaguely.  I said that generative theory prescribed no method of discovery.

I think one should distinguish what the theory says from what the theorists
say.  Think of a generative grammar as having a specific form -- as being all
written out.  Would any rule, constraint, or whatever, mention "acceptability
judgment" or "intuition"?  No.  The _theory_ doesn't say anything about such
matters.  Theor_ists_ can and do, but the tradition and practice of doing
grammar is of no intrinsic interest for the theory of language.  A theorist
can declare that a grammar is a chapter in sociology, or psychology, or
mathematics; a formalist will examine the grammar to see whether there is
any truth to such declarations.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang