HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cases vs. Adverbs (was: -ze and -the in Attic Greek)
Date: 7 Apr 92 19:55:06 GMT
	<1992Apr7.085402.1754@memstvx1.memst.edu> <p9pjg7c@lynx.unm.edu>
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.

I find the direction of the present discussion interesting, particularly
the generalization of the context to non-IE languages. However, at the
same time it is not clear to me that there is any basis for a unified 
discussion of IE and non-IE languages.

Even in the context of IE languages, it has been pointed out (e.g. by Rahul
Bonner) that identifying a form or construction of Greek with one in
Sanskrit is incorrect and superficial. How do we know that one can identify
the constructions of non-IE languages with the constructions of IE 
languages or with constructions of other non-IE languages ? For example,
reference has been made to the Inessive case of the Yuman languages and
is this really identifiable with the Inessive case of Finnish ?

If I confine myself to IE languages, then I imagine that I know what a
case is and what an adverb is. If I consider languages in general, then
I can't assume that words like case and adverb have any meaning at all.

I have heard rumors of Chomsky's general approach to languages and perhaps
that is what people have in mind in their various postings. I haven't
read Chomsky but my impression is that he has an unproved hypothesis about
languages and a lot of work is being done to show that all natural languages
can be formulated in a manner consistent with his hypothesis. I like to
use music as an example, since as Piston points out in his book on 
counterpoint, music is notorious for lending itself to preconceived modes
of interpretation. I expect it is the same with language, so success in
carrying out analyses of languages along the lines rumored to be Chomsky's
would still not convince me that it is pertinent.

Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com (K. Rogers)
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Reply-To: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:19:47 GMT

rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:

>(stuff deleted>
>>Look you Yoyos.  I live in Utah.  You guys don't have a clue what a
>>real redneck is.  It's a well known fact that there aren't any
>>rednecks east of the Mississippi river.  Sheez, trying to tell me that
>>people in Eastern Maryland are rednecks...
>
>I think you are confusing semantic rednecks with morphological rednecks
>---RIch Rath

Hummm, now that you mention it I may be confusing semantic rednecks with
behavioral rednecks but I don't think I'm confusing morphological ones
as the rednecks of the West (US) looks the same as non-rednecks of Maryland
save perhaps a few minor clothing differences and lack of the chewing
tobacco stain on the lips...

Then again, I'll bet Western rednecks are at least as bad in the semantic
department as any supposed Eastern ones, too.

[As before, insert ;^)]
-- 
Keith Rogers
Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
krogers@javelin.sim.es.com
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Devanagari: Syllabary or Alphabet?
Date: 14 Apr 92 22:52:18 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Apr14.091401.25202@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.071936.18672@midway.uchicago.edu>, bon6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
[simile]
>[About the Devana^gari^ letter _e_:]
><>No.  The top stroke is the same; it just has a little extra baggage
><>down below.
><
><Now I see the source of your error.  You are confusing the graphs
><<e> and <ai>.
>
>No, I'm not, I'm just not paying attention.  :-)
>
><<e> has no top stroke.
>
>Correct.
>
><How well do you know
><Devanagari?
>
>As well as you do, I'm sure.

Aargh!  Scott, this was just a wee bit too much.

No one who knows Devana^gari^ anywhere well would talk of the top
stroke of the letter <e>, or (for that matter) suggest that the
stand-alone vowel letters and their respective diacritics are
graphically related.

No one can claim to know Devana^gari^ well, short of being able to
tell what each letter looks like without having to "pay attention".

Now all of this doesn't affect the validity of your initial claim
(although I don't agree with all you said during the discussion).
But... may I suggest that you have a quiet glass of Chugdush?

(I've always thought that you and I should share Asia.  You take
China, Japan and Korea; I take India, Iran and the Semitic and Turkic
world.  I may even trust you with Mongolia some day.  :-))
-- 
---- --- -- -  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: aeb@cwi.nl (Andries Brouwer)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: feminine as the generic case
Date: 11 Apr 92 15:17:15 GMT

sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:

>By the way, is not "m{nniska" not feminine in Danish?

No, Danish says "mennisket" - it is neuter.
Moreover, Danish does not have a feminine gender.
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Summary: ...is not linguistics...
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:42:21 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <29EB1A80.22713@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>
>Of course, I understand that dogs aren't capable of speech!  Not
>anywhere near it.  But I think that animals are maybe a bit smarter,
>less utterly reliant on instinct, and more able to learn from their
>environment than we think.
>
  That's exactly the point.  We're not saying animals are stupid; only
  that the structure of _human_ language is not found in them.

-- 
==========================================================================
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: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University LOTS Computer Facility
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 17:14:28 GMT

In article <204854@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, dtate@unix (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.  

Actually, linguistics *does* study that sort of language, as a precursor to
more powerful generative tools such as phrase-structure grammars.  Although our
colleagues in the field can probably provide more recent citations, I rather
like Gross' 1972 book _Mathematical Models in Linguistics_.

(This is almost certain to draw flames from New Haven, so I'm donning my flame-
retardant knickers. :)

>>and I do not believe that the spoken words in any of the languages involved
>>had much to do with the characters.
>
>Scott Horne has already claimed that the number shapes come from the shapes
>of their initial letters in a written version of some language, but I couldn't
>say one way or the other.  (I was taught that they are stylized version of
>pictograms of n sticks for n=1 through 4, and of a hand for n=5; this may be
>the semiotic equivalent of folk etymology...).

That sounds more like Roman numerals.

As for the other claim, I can see some resemblance for 2 & 3, but the others
don't work for me (at least not in Devanagari).  Is there a reference showing
the development of the numerals from one of the Brahmi variants that is
particularly cogent, Scott?

>At any rate, this is irrelevant, since these are just a set of signs with
>conventional meanings, like UPC bar codes or international traffic signs.
>Do red, amber, and green traffic lights constitute a "language"?

In the sense discussed above, I think the answer is a resounding "Maybe?"
-- 
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: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 11 Apr 92 21:24:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.22548
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ



Michael A. Covington writes:
>Even a superficial examination of animal communication reveals that, unlike
>human language, animal communication is almost always stimulus-bound

Cats are good at irony.  Better than scientists.
``Don't use cats.  They'll screw up the data.''  Good advice.

>Animal communication _has_ been, and _is_, studied.  (See Akmajian et al.'s
>linguistics text, published by your own MIT Press.)  And the study reveals
>huge differences between animal communication and human language.


For a _trainer's_ study of animal language, with opposite conclusions,
see  `Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name' by Vicki Hearne (Knopf 1986).

Her question is, what effect does doing a _study of communication_
have on _communication_?  Quite a considerable one.

She is not unsympathetic to science, but sorting things out.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Subject: Ampersand (Re: inventing a writing system?)
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 06:11:28 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.050324.9598@leland.Stanford.EDU>, richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter) writes:
<In article <1992Apr2.171953.4945@Csli.Stanford.EDU>, scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) writes:
<
<|> Absolutely the worst thing about the writing system I am using at the moment
<|> is that it provides 6 symbols people are comfortable using as vowel sound
<|> representers aeiouy. If we could incorporate a few more from the ipa chart
<|> like epsilon, small I, schwa then maybe life would be easier. 

Give me a turned `c' and a turned `m', too.

<In this regard, I would criticize the current roman letterforms for the
<following ambiguities: {'1', 'l', 'I'}, {'O','0'}, {'2','Z'}, {'8','B'}
<(already noted elsewhere), {'5','S'} (noted elsewhere) and {'1','7'}.  (People
<who draw dashes through the 'Z' and the '7' may not feel quite this way.)

I'm one of the dash-drawers.  None of those ambiguities exists in my
handwriting.  Anyway, only one of them involves any "letterforms".

<I'd also like to ask some pointed questions of whoever invented the '&', for
<starting it on the right, &c.  :-)

OK, shoot.  I invented it.  :-)

Just kidding.  It's a stylised Latin `et' (meaning `a kind of pretzel favoured
by Caesar'--also `and' in a few dialects).

					--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: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV (Retransmission)
Summary: Tonight's Top Tunes...
Keywords: :-)
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:49:28 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <8971@scott.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>10:30  SPELLING BEE--Cartoon
>>       Superhero demonstrates animal grammar as well as orthoepy.
>
>William Marslen-Wilson introduces the star on the Linguist List:
>
>   "Er was een bij te's-Gravenhage
>    Die antwoord wist op alle vragen..."

Nonsense.  "Ob er aber unter Oberammergau,
            Oder aber ueber Unterammergau,
            Oder ueberhaupt nicht kommt..."



-- 
==========================================================================
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.
==========================================================================
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 11 Apr 92 00:31:41 GMT

In article <1992Apr4.191401.5450@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
><The topic began with discussion of an
><appropriate orthography for a hitherto unwritten language of Taiwan.  
><Cyrillic is simply not an option: it has no status there.
>
>All the more reason to adopt it.
>
><Finally, I reject -- indeed, resent -- the insinuation that my proposal of the
><Latin alphabet makes me unforgivably Eurocentric.  The Latin alphabet is simply
><the most commonly recognized writing system world-wide.  Sure, imperialism has
><made it such -- but then, how did Cyrillic spread throughout northern Asia, or
><Chinese into Eastern Asia?
>
>Not through imperialism.  Japan, Korea, the Ryu^kyu^ Islands, and Vietnam
>gladly adopted Chinese characters, as they had no writing systems of their
>own.  Imperialism had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
>

I'm not being sarcastic, I just want some hard facts about this.
Japanese is VERY ill-suited to Chinese characters; kanji just doesn't
fit it.  This is not only MY opinion, but the opinion of a native
speaker of Japanese that I'm friends with.  Japanese structure is VERY
different from Chinese; I can't imagine that the speakers would freely
adopt a system of writing for a language so different structurally.

Regards,
Janis C.

Janis Cortese           ||   "The United States is the only country to  
U. C. Irvine            ||    have gone from barbarism to decadence  
cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu ||    without passing through civilization."            
========================||                 -- H. L. Mencken 

Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie)
Subject: Re: Devanagari: Syllabary or Alphabet?
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:05:17 GMT

In <1992Apr13.161748.17993@athena.mit.edu> pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:


> [Bill Poser?]

Yes, hey Bill, haven't you something to say about this topic :-)


>taking a token of a word like /slIt/ and placing silence between the /s/
>and the /l/ produces, when the silence reaches a critical length, the
>perception of /splIt/, even with no other phonetic cues for /p/.  A real
>phonetic instance of this sort of phenomenon.                       ^^^^


Yes, I introduce a few milliseconds of non-articulatory silence into
my speech every now and then just for fun.              :-)
-- 
James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150, USA
                  scobbie@csli.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami)
Subject: Re: feminine as the generic case
Organization: Technion, Israel Inst. of Technology
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:03:15 GMT

In article <506@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <17612@sbsvax.cs.uni-sb.de> simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de (Julia Simon) writes:
>|kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) writes:
>|> What languages use the feminine as the unmarked or generic case?
>|> How sexist do the speakers of these languages appear to be?
>|> Please reply directly to me, I may miss posted replies.  Thanks in advance!
>|
>|Could you please post your replies as well? I'm sure I'm not the only one
>|interested in this subject here in Netland!
>
>Actually, I doubt if there will be much.
>
>As far as I know, only Indoeuropean languages have a three-way, gender-based
>noun classification system.  Most other noun classification systems involve
>more categories, and often treat gender as a very minor factor (if at all).
>[though the classification system may still be just as arbitrary as in I.E.].
>--
>---------------
>uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)

Stanley,

    Hebrew and Arabic are certainly not Indo-European and they have a
  very rigorous gender distinctions. although it is a 2-way distinction
  it is still prevalent in all layers of language and is much more
  important than in English or even German. The classification is usually
  quite logical , almost no incidents like: Das Maedchen or das Maennlein
  as in German. 

    Hebrew has some nouns that can be feminine and masculine like: Sun,
  Water, Roadm, Fire etc.

    However the unmarked gender is the male one so I'll have to disppoint
  the original poster :-)


David Ben-Ami.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
=============================================================================
   __                       __                __
  /  )              /      /  )              /  )
 /  / __. , __o  __/      /--<  _  ____ --- /--/ ______  o
/__/_(_/|_\/ <__(_/__    /___/_</_/ / <__  /  (_/ / / <_<__

  David Ben-Ami (irc: bigdav)      |   "I can resist anything but Temptation"
  s2780369@Techst02.Technion.Ac.Il |       Oscar Wilde
  davidba@Carmel.Technion.Ac.Il    |
  davidba@Moav.Techniona.Ac.Il     |   "Heisenberg MAY have slept here".
=============================================================================
-- 
=============================================================================
  David Ben-Ami (irc: bigdav)      |   "I can resist anything but Temptation"
  s2780369@Techst02.Technion.Ac.Il |       Oscar Wilde
  davidba@Carmel.Technion.Ac.Il  davidba@Moav.Techniona.Ac.Il
From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Summary: Clever Hans
Date: 13 Apr 92 12:14:08 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ



In article <ONEIL.92Apr13001646@husc10.harvard.edu>, oneil@husc10.harvard.edu (John O'Neil) writes:
> In article <22546@alice.att.com> rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin) writes:
> 
>    My Doberman knows over a hundred words
> 
>    Among them names for a couple dozen toys.
> 
>    All her toys have names, chosen for my convenience, that I use
>    consistently;  I always use the names in phrases.
> 
>    I notice, when she's standing amid the clutter of toys, I can
>    say ``Get your tiny ball,'' and she's alert, what is it I'm saying?
> 
>    I repeat it, and then on the third time I change the verb
> 
>    ``Susie, get your tiny ball. (ears up) Get your tiny ball. (about to act,
>    but undecided)  Where's your tiny ball? (grabs tiny ball and we go out)''
> 
>    I think I have probably always done this verb change trick for her.
> 
>    Incidentally, I don't test her vocabulary, or set up tricks. So she's
>    quite motivated to listen, it's always about something interesting.
> 
> Have you ever heard of "Clever Hans", by any chance?

Why yes, I have!  The horse who could answer any question, but only,
it turned out, if he could see the questioner!

He could always find out the answer, no matter how still and impassive
the questioner tried to remain.

So it's the fallacy of supposing that the animal is really understanding
when it is really reading body language.  It also shows the believer as
credulous or stupid, does it not?  If I understand your communication.

Another response might be, isn't that interesting, that the humans
couldn't conceal from Hans what would count as a correct answer.

Some people do find it interesting.
-----

I posted what seemed to me to be relevant to grammar, that Susie
seems to parse, to find a boundary between two things, when I
change one of them but not the other.

This done under normal conditions.  If you wanted to test it, you'd
have to consider first of all what effect doing a test has on the
communication, if an animal can read minute changes in breathing
and so forth, and might well detect that it's being toyed with.

Scientists are so amusing.
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: : -)
Date: 14 Apr 92 22:37:52 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

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:
<<
<<10:30  SPELLING BEE--Cartoon
<<       Superhero demonstrates animal grammar as well as orthoepy.
<
<You mean *orthoe"py*.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

You won't get away with it this time, Scott.  I _must_ issue you a ticket.

<	Soyuz nerushimij

_[N]erushimyj_.

< respublik svobodnik....

_[S]vobodnix_.

This is not SCC, where you can fool the audience...  :-)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist either.)
-- 
---- --- -- -  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: cowan@snark.thyrsus.com (John Cowan)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet (was: Inventing a writing system?)
Summary: "S" and "s" could be glyphic variants
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:13:29 GMT
Back-References: <204620@unix.cis.pitt.edu>

Scott Horne asks why "S" is not a glyphic variant of "s".  I don't have
access to the Unicode documentation, but its predecessor-in-spirit,
the (internal) Xerox Character Code Standard, states that it would be
very reasonable for a text processing system to treat "S" and "s" as just
such glyphic ("looks" in Xerox jargon) variants.  The XCCS, however,
provides separate codes for "S" and "s" primarily for backward compatibility.
There is no requirement that actual text processing systems use both codes.

Likewise, the XCCS has separate codes for katakana and hiragana because
JIS does, but similarly suggests that the difference is really one of
"looks".

Separately, S.H. mentions the cyrillicization of English.  It always has
seemed to me that the really logical language (no pun intended!) for
cyrillicization would be Irish/Scots Gaelic.  The romanization conventions
used for representing palatalized vs. non-palatalized consonants in these
languages (this language?) are painful in the extreme; doubling the number
of vowel letters would do the job much more nicely.

Anyone interested?
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: Dixie
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 07:09:08 GMT

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:
<
<>	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 . . ."?

I suppose that counts as a national anthem in some perverted sense.
But you'll never hear me sing it.  Oh, by the way, "the land of cotton"
here is a farm in Ohio.  :-)  So much for your Southern "nationalism".

I also forgot to include

	En la mondon venis nova sento....

which is the national anthem of Esperantlando.  :-)  Ivan, what about
Lojbanistan?

<_Nerushimij_, fiddlestick!

Say what you will.

					--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!
Newsgroups: sci.lang