HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: scc@rlgvax.Reston.ICL.COM (Stephen Carlson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: 8I8
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:17:29 GMT
Reply-To: scc@rlgvax.Reston.ICL.COM (Stephen Carlson)
Organization: International Computers Limited, Reston, Virginia, USA

In article <1992Apr10.043626.6036@news.Hawaii.Edu> jmu@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (James M. Unger) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.165110.14160@rlgvax.Reston.ICL.COM> scc@rlgvax.Reston.ICL.COM (Stephen Carlson) writes:
>>I've researched this using Gao Benhan's _Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and
>>Sino-Japanese_, and this description is based on his work.

>The author's name is Bernhard Karlgren.  Using a pirated Taiwanese edition,
>eh?

I doubt that a pirated Taiwanese edition would list him as "Gao Benhan."
Don't you think so, Yako?
-- 
Stephen Carlson           | ICL OFFICEPOWER Center    | In theory, theory and
scc@rlgvax.reston.icl.com | 11490 Commerce Park Drive | practice are the same.
..!uunet!rlgvax!scc       | Reston, VA  22091         |    (703) 648-3300
From: daj@reef.cis.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: ... befuddled GB/PSG semantic content query
Date: 16 Apr 92 15:27:24 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <1992Apr11.142128.14883@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:

# Not sure what you mean by "PSG."  Normally, "PSG"
# ("phrase-structure grammar") denotes a type of formal device,
# whereas GB (government- binding theory) is a theory of language
# (which PSG is not).

Hmmm...  I could have sworn it was established here just a couple of
weeks ago that far from being a theory of language, GB isn't even a
theory of grammar.

David Johns


Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter)
Subject: Re: cinq
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 08:06:49 GMT

In article <ARA.92Apr11013944@camelot.ai.mit.edu>, ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
|> Why is there no u following the q?

My guess is that at the end of a word, the 'u' could easily disappear when it
is scrawled.  This supposes that the [e] sound was already dropped from
"quinque" and the 'e' had been dropped from the end.  The 'u' in 'qu' would be
more easily visible in the middle of a word.

Another interesting question would be how the "quin" part got changed to [san].


--Rich Wingerter
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:33:36 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <5321@prles2.prl.philips.nl> dacosta@prl.philips.nl (Paulo da Costa) writes:
>In Portuguese you can make a perfect with the auxiliary "ter":
>
>_Tenho trabalhado muito_, I've been working a lot.

Looks like a perfect, not a progressive perfect, to me, since it uses a
past participle.  Does it mean the same as the Spanish _He trabajado mucho_?

>It looks like the English present perfect, but it isn't. "I've worked a
>lot" uses the "preterito perfeito", _Trabalhei muito_.

>Portuguese is also the language of the future subjunctive and the
>personal infinitive, which are not found in Spanish either.

E o um e o outro sao uma misteria para mim.  Mais a forma do futuro
onde ha um "final" pessoal na media da palavra, esa e o mais extranho
(mais acho que nao se fala agora).
From: churchh@ut-emx.uucp (Henry Churchyard)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Etymology question
Summary: 'Ashkenaz = Biblical Hebrew `Scythian'
Keywords: Asia, Ashkenazi, Aryan
Date: 16 Apr 92 05:52:45 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

In article <Apr.8.20.12.18.1992.12564@pilot.njin.net> hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) writes:
>
>Can someone please either post or email the known or accepted
>etmyologies of the words: Asia, Ashkenazi & Aryan.
>When where these words first used in print, if known ?

  'Ashkenaz was first used in Genesis 10:3, 1 Chronicles 1:6, and
Jeremiah 51:27, where the term certainly does not refer to
Northeastern Europe, but rather to some tribe living in the Black Sea
area.  Modern commentaries suggest that 'Ashkenaz refers to the tribe
of Scythians, prominent in the Near East in the 7th and 6th centuries
B.C.E. (cf. Herodotus).  In addition to making forays into the Near
East area, the Scyths did occupy the Ukraine, so that the Medieval and
modern use of 'Ashkenaz is not totally contradictory to the Biblical
use.

--
         --Henry Churchyard     churchh@emx.cc.utexas.edu
From: daj@reef.cis.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Method of learning 17 languages
Date: 7 Apr 92 12:34:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: uflorida.35012
Distribution: sci
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <2786@sersun1.essex.ac.uk> tysoj@essex.ac.uk (Tyson J R) writes:

# As to the questions of linguistic theory and ethnocentricity I
# differ again from the judgement I am imputing to Scott: I am afraid
# that I agree with Chomsky on the relative value of the narrow but
# insightful versus the broad but superficial.  I wish that we saw
# more work like Jelinkek's recent studies of Salish and recent
# studies by Evans in Mayali, but there is also little doubt that
# Universal Grammar proceeds best from people delving deeper and
# deeper into what they know well (language wise).

I have trouble grasping how this could possibly be true.  Unless you
believe some specially gifted researchers have access to their own
underlying abilities independently of the language they speak, there
is no way for a specialist to distinguish what is universal from what
is peculiar to his own language, is there?

I'm reminded of Ivan Derzhansky's remark about a theory of biology
based on an exhaustive study of bees, with the results cross-checked
against wasps and hornets.

David Johns
From: hlin@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (hua.t.lin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Hindu-Arabic digits (Re: inventing a writing system?)
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:48:21 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Apr10.234600.9008@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <1992Apr10.182652.14911@cbnewsi.cb.att.com>, hlin@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (hua.t.lin) writes:
><In article <1992Apr10.173113.5044@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
><
><>The digits we use are not *Arabic*, but *Hindu-Arabic*.
><
><To be more precise, the 10 symbols we use today for the digits
><(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) were of arabic origin.

The decimal number system were first commonly used by Indians.
[ This was part of my original post ]

>And the Arabic numerals (not the same as the ones you see on your computer
>screen right now) are of Indian origin.

The Hindu digits are represented by the symbols below:

   1           2         3          4          5  
   _         ___        ___                        
  / \           \          \      (    /    |     |
  \__|           |          |      \  /     |     |
     |       __  |      ___/         X       \___/|
     |      (__\/          \        / \           |
     |          \       ___ |      |   |       ___|
     |           \     (___/\       \_/       (__/ \
                                                    
   6           7         8          9          0 
   ___                             __            
  /                               /  \          
 |             _      _______    |    |       ___
  \___    \   (_)\     /          \  /       /   \
  /        \      |   |             \       |     |
 | ___      \ ___/     \_____        \       \___/
 /\___)                               |            

- Lin
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: jmu@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (James M. Unger)
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 06:00:04 GMT

In article <204875@unix.cis.pitt.edu> djbpitt@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David J Birnbaum) writes:
>In article <29E9FBDD.26027@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu 
>(Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>
>>You are adhering to the "letter of the definition" on this one.  As far
>>as I'm concerned, ASL is as much a spoken language as any mouth-ear
>>language is.  It is real-time, interactive, and immediate.
>
>Fair enough.  I was concentrating on "spoken" as depending on phonation,
>but the real-time, interactive, and immediate aspects certainly connect
>ASL more with spoken than with written languages.
>
But this is not a stand-off:  ASL and other forms of sign are not
counterexamples to the proposition that speech is primary even if one
allows that sign and speech are distinct varieties of language.  The key point
is that the problem of reducing sign to writing is entirely analogous to
the problem of reducing speech to writing.  See Oliver Sacks, _Seeing
Voices_ and John DeFrancis _Visible Speech_, both 1989.

--
J. M. Unger, Chairman
Department of E. Asian Languages & Literatures
University of Hawaii
From: bon6@quads.uchicago.edu (rahul  bonner)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: 14 Apr 92 20:41:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Apr14.204153.19129
Reply-To: bon6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Apr13.010330.4298@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:

>Actually, the Hindu-Arabic numerals are derived from the initial letters of
>the names of the numerals in Sanskrit.
>
>					--Scott

You are wrong.  The earliest ancestors of our numerals are symbols
found in the Brahmi inscriptions of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
In these inscriptions, 1 is one vertical line, 2 is two vertical
lines, and 3 is three vertical lines.  For the numbers higher than
three, some of the numeral symbols resemble (or in some cases, are
identical to) Brahmi symbols that represent syllables, but many
do not.  Furthermore, where there is a resemblance, the syllable
in question is not the first syllable of the word for the number.

For example, the symbol for 4 (a simple cross) is also the Brahmi
<ka>, but the word for four in the language of the inscriptions
begins with a /ca/.  Similarly, the symbol for 7 looks like the
Brahmi <ga>, but the word for seven would have surely begun with
/sa/.

Therefore, while it is likely that the forms of the Brahmi numerals
were inspired by, and in some cases borrowed from, Brahmi syllables,
there is no relation between these numerals and words of a spoken
language.

And Sanskrit doesn't come into the picture at all.  The language
of the Brahmi inscriptions is Prakrit.

By the way, it's time we did away with the term "Hindu-Arabic."
Numerals have no religion, and using "Hindu" as a generic term
for "Indian" went out a hundred years ago.

                                     -- Rahul
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet (was: Inventing a writing system?)
Date: 8 Apr 92 02:27:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Apr8.022731.17009
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University

In article <167C212DA7.JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU>, JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
<
<Scott suggests that, "combinations of Cyrillic....letters can be used to
<represent....English" (or any other language).  True, but

True, but nothing.  It's true, period.

<even so it is
<of historic interest to note that Russian Cyrillic (Scott will know at
<least 2 reasons I must use the limitation)

Oh?  Only one comes to mind.  Good enough, though.

<formerly had a character that
<was the equivalent of Greek 'theta', which would have been handy for
<representing the interdental fricative (as was the 'thorn' in earlier
<English) without need for "digraphs".

Would've, shmould've.  It's gone.  But I'll give you a crying-towel if you'd
like.

<Unfortunately they discarded this
<(probably during some cruel Stalinist purge),

Need I remind you to keep politics off `sci.lang'?  Anyway, you're simply
wrong.  That letter was gone before anyone had heard of Stalin.

<and names that are the
<equivalent of 'Theodore' and 'Thomas' end up like 'Fyodor' and 'Foma' with
<a character the equivalent of Greek 'phi' instead of 'theta'.

Presumably because the sound [0] (that's supposed to be a theta) disappeared
from Russian.

<I have often
<speculated as to whether this might eventually lead to the abandonment of
<the dissertation requirement for the doctorate requirement in Russia on the
<basis that it has become more difficult to distinguish between 'theses' and
<'feces'.

Hey, speak for your own thesis.  :-)  (Anyway, the correct spelling is
`faeces'.)

(?And is the plural of _la `s'_ [`the letter `s''] in Spanish _las heces_?)

					--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!
From: arild@milan.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar (and human grammar)
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:24:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: milan.ARILD.92Apr15182547
	<ARILD.92Apr15095937@milan.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de>
	<_5yj73+@lynx.unm.edu>
Reply-To: arild@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany

lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY) writes:
   >   *The* structure of human language?  I don't think you or maybe any of
   >   us reading this newsgroup think human language has some single,
   >   unifying (abstract) structure -- isn't this a belief shared among
   >   G-B types and folks who call themselves "cognitive linguists"?  

Depends on what you mean. "G-B types" do indeed share the belief that human
language has a single, unifying abstract structure, namely what's called UG
in the technical jargon: The innate, preset state of the language
competence system (before acquisition and development of a particular
language, which consists of setting of a limited number of variables). 

   [...]  I'm claiming that *SOME*
   aspects of (human) language structure are shared with some aspects of the
   communication systems structures of other animals.  This is, of course,
   trivially true for phonetics and probably phonology (which *are* part of
   human lg. structure).  Oops, just to be explicit and save some bandwidth:
   I mean that some of phonetic...structure is shared.

What then is it non-trivially true for?

   I don't think *anyone* can make a case compelling to everyone for more
   abstract aspects of structure, simply because (a) there is limited
   agreement about the *structure* of human language (amply demonstrated 
   almost daily here); 

On the contrary, there is widespread agreement as to the structure of human
language: That it has categories of certain types, that there are relations
between sentences that are captured by a limited number of specific
processes, that there is a binding theory, certain conditions on question
formation, etc. etc. 

(By the way, do you take the discourse in sci.lang to reflect on the
current state of the art of linguistic science?? Come on. This is Usenet.) 
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 15:54:19 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1069@csinn.capsogeti.fr> grossi@capsogeti.fr (Thomas Grossi) writes:
>Spanish and the other Romance languages have no equivalent of the progessive
>tenses, except in the past (the imperfect).  This always causes a lot of
>problems for my French colleagues, who never quite understand the situations in
>which one would say "I have been eating...".

True for French, false for Spanish and Portuguese.

_Maria esta afinando el carro_, Maria is tuning up the car.

Such expressions are very common.  However, I don't think you can have
a progressive perfect in these languages.
From: michele@catnix.UUCP (Michele A. Simond)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: cinq
Date: 12 Apr 92 04:55:35 GMT
Organization: Rhinoceros, chargez!

ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>Why is there no u following the q?

My guess would be it comes from evolution.  The number five,
comes from the popular (lower?) latin "cinque" and the latin
quinque.

The "u" is still present in its derivatives (cinquante, cinquie`me,
cinquantaine, cinquantenaire, cinquantie`me, cinquie`mement. Also in
words formed with the prefix quinqua (quinquage'aire...)

Another French word endin with "q", is coq.

>Allan Adler


--
Michele Simond ...... Traductrice ......  B.P.: michele@catnix.UUCP
(514) 671-8820				   OU :	michele%catnix@cam.org
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 92 05:12:53 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

The posts so far on this question make it seem very much a weird Indo-
European (or even just Germanic) aberration, but if my memory is right, 
there is at least one parallel in a non-Indo-European family. 

In Chinyanja (the national language of Malawi), I believe infinitives are 
formed by attaching the prefix ku- to the verb stem (e.g. kuphunzitsa 
'to teach'). This prefix when attached to noun stems forms a kind of 
"locative noun" (e.g. kumidzi 'in/to the village'). Actually, I think 
it's a noun class prefix, as argued for by the fact that modifiers
agree with it (e.g. kumidzi kwabwino 'in/to the good village'). But in
any case, the marking of infinitives is like that of GOAL nominals.

This accords with the observation that _to_ was used in English back in 
the days when infinitives has a morphological infinitive suffix _an_ 
(and some others? I forget), and then really *was* a preposition.
From: salter_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:59:02 +0900


If this point's been raised before in this thread, sorry: I haven't been
following it from the start.

If one's looking at writing as a system, there's something to be said
for getting away from the arbitrary symbols of the alphabet I'm
using at the moment, and having one where similar sounds have
similar symbols.  Two alphabets I can think of which do this are
Pitman's Shorthand, which has identical curves for pairs of sounds
like "s" and "z", but differentiate them by making the voiced one
of the pair a different thickness.  

An even more logical alphabet is the one used for Korean (sorry, can't 
remember its name).  It starts with a few basic shapes, according to the 
position of the lips & tongue, then adds markers to the basic shapes, 
systematically, to show the way they are sounded.  If we were to do this 
for English, for example, we might have a basic shape for all sounds where 
the lips are together, another for all the sounds which are made at the back 
of the throat, and so on.  Then we'd add to the basic shapes one marker 
for all nasals, one to show all voiced, another to show all fricatives, and 
so on.  We could distinguish between /f/,/v/,/b/,/p/,/m/ etc. by markers 
added to the basic bilabial sign.

There are problems with making this international, however: it's based
on the phonemic system of a language, which will be different in another
language.

Geoffrey Sampson has a good discussion of the topic in his book called
something like "Systems of Writing". 

Linden

-- 
Linden Salter-Duke		email: SALTER_DUKE@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU
Northern Territory University
Darwin, Australia		Snail: Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:30:49 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <204861@unix.cis.pitt.edu> djbpitt@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David J Birnbaum) 
writes (quoting me):
>>All language are spoken. 
>
>ASL is not spoken. 

Oh, I should have known someone would bring up ASL.  Well, that's a *damn*
good proof that written language is primary over spoken language.

>>You learn a spoken language before learning a written one.
>
>Monolingual ASL users do not learn a spoken language at all.
>
>Additionally, whether people learn a spoken language first
>is irrelevant in determining whether there are any languages
>that are primarily written; bilingual or diglossic lin-
>guistic cultures where people speak one language and write
>another are not unknown. 

In all of these cases, so far as I know, the written language derives
from the spoken language of an earlier time.

>>Writing loses much of what goes on in speech.
>
>And speech loses much of what is recorded in writing.

The wealth of information conveyed by tone of voice, tempo, inflection,
emphasis, pitch, vocal quality, accent (to say nothing of gesture and
facial expression), is almost entirely lost in writing.  What, by contrast,
is lost when you read a text aloud?  

>>More speaking is done than writing.
>
>This is true, but irrelevant.  More Chinese is spoken than Bulgarian,
>but Bulgarian is not dependent on or secondary to Chinese.

It's quite relevant when answering the question, "What is the typical
or prototypical example of language use?", or "What behaviors does
linguistics need to explain?"  This particular argument does not seek
to establish whether writing is dependent on speech.

>>Writing is heavily influenced by speech.
>
>And speech by writing.

Less so, in my opinion, but naturally there is a two-way traffic.
 
>>Writing is more prestigious so speech needs a little theoretical
>>boost.
>
>I have no idea what the second clause here is supposed to mean.

For centuries linguists, back when they were called grammarians, concentrated
on the written language, which was considered more important and more
worthy of scholarly attention than the spoken (the "vulgar") language.
Because of this the spoken language was much neglected, and linguistic
theory distorted as a result.

Remnants of this attitude persist; and the linguist very likely belongs
to that atypical portion of the population that spends more time with the
written word.  For both reasons it is unnecessary to remind ourselves
that written language is important, and necessary to emphasize the
theoretical primacy of speech.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 16:39:13 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <204957@unix.cis.pitt.edu> djbpitt@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David J Birnbaum) writes:
>I think I was the original author of the remarks attributed to Herman
>Rubin above [...]

You're right, and I apologize to both of you for the misattribution.

>What I meant was that for _certain_ linguistic behavior, at least syn-
>chronically (and, as I mentioned in an earlier posting, perhaps also
>diachronically), writing is primary.  But my doubting "the primacy
>of the spoken language" was not intended to suggest that "written
>language [should be considered] primary" on a global or prototypical
>scale.  I agree completely that _most_ written language is best
>viewed as a secondary representation of spoken language.  But I have
>also provided some evidence that _certain_ written languages are
>primarily written, i.e., that they are not merely written representa-
>tions of speech. 

I don't have any problem with this.  Another promising flamefest degenerates
into banal agreement...
From: ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:59:12 GMT
Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S

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?

Danish follows the same principle as English, prepending the
word 'at' to infinitives when they are mentioned individually:

English      Danish
to be        at vaere
to make      at lave
etc.

I believe the same is true for Norwegian and Swedish.

-- 
Claus Tondering
Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
E-mail: ct@dde.dk