HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: TSOS@uni-duesseldorf.de (Detlef Lannert)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Article before name in Spanish
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 16:51:31 GMT
Organization: Universitaetsrechenzentrum, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet, Duesseldorf
NNTP-Posting-Host: lannert.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de
Summary: Better no article in German.

In article <1992Sep14.143441.11947@cs.tu-berlin.de> net@cs.tu-berlin.de (Oliver Laumann) writes:

>komives@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Robert Komives) writes:
>> My daughter just reported that she hears people refer to others by name in
>> Ecuador placing an the article before there name.
>> 	La Josefina no esta'. The Josefina is not here.
>
>In Germany, this form is quite common in circles for which I don't have
>a better description than `leftist/alternative living communities'
>(`links-alternative Wohngemeinschaften' in German; I don't think this
>is a wide-spread phenomenon in the US).
>
> [example deleted]

But it's by far not restricted to this context. Using the first name
or "Herr"/"Frau" + family name only is more polite and respectful than
(definite) article + first name, article + family name or article +
"Herr"/"Frau" + last name.

Examples:

     "Der Fabian haut mich immer."

is typical `childspeak' ("Fabian keeps beating me"); probably its
popularity in `green/alternative' circles relates to the intimacy,
openness, and child-like innocence which it is felt to convey.

     "Ich hab' heute die Frau Schmidt getroffen."

("I met Mrs Schmidt today") is very common colloquial usage but
would be inappropriate in Mrs Schmidt's presence.

     "Wo ist denn der Meier schon wieder?"

might be a question asked by an angry boss (article + family name
without any title is rather derogatory; I guess it's best translated
into something like "Where is this Meier again?").

My theory, based on a superficial interpretation of very few 
examples: The use of an article (or, even worse, a demonstrative
pronoun) before a person's name is quite natural, but considered
impolite; using a name without an article gives the impression
that the name - and with it the person - is `unique', and this
is supposed to please him or her.

Does the usage in Spanish follow the same lines? What about other
languages? Perhaps there is some prehistoric mythology involved
about a person's name and its magic powers ... If you don't
agree, please don't call me names (with articles)...!
--
Detlef Lannert      DC3EK      E-Mail: tsos@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de
"Gedanken sind nicht stets parat,
man schreibt auch, wenn man keine hat."             Wilhelm Busch
From: djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Ships and countries
Date: 7 Sep 92 09:21:30 GMT
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: University of Florida, Gainesville

In article <1992Sep1.004314.18499@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:

# | :Anthromorphization: -------------------- Semantically, one rich
# | source of jargon constructions is the hackish tendency to
# | anthropomorphize hardware and software.  This isn't done in a na"ive
# | way; hackers don't personalize their stuff in the sense of feeling
# | empathy with it, nor do they mystically believe that the things they
# | work on every day are `alive'.  What *is* common is to hear hardware
# | or software talked about as though it has homunculi talking to each
# | other inside it, with intentions and desires.  Thus, one hears "The
# | protocol handler got confused", or that programs "are trying" to do
# | things, or one may say of a routine that "its goal in life is to X".
# | One even hears explanations like "...  and its poor little brain
# | couldn't understand X, and it died."  Sometimes modelling things this
# | way actually seems to make them easier to understand, perhaps because
# | it's instinctively natural to think of anything with a really complex
# | behavioral repertoire as `like a person' rather than `like a thing'.
#
# I suspect that the tendency of the homunculi to be referred to in the
# masculine simply reflects the masculine majority in programming.

Sorry to quote so much, but I thought it was pretty significant that
in the passage above from the Jargon File, none of the "humunculi"
were referred to with masculine (or feminine) pronouns.  In fact, all
of the verbs that indicate anthropomophization still have "it" as the
subject.

By the way, one situation in which I regularly hear feminine pronouns
used for inanimate objects is with machinery.  Imagine two men trying
to start a car that's been sitting a while -- "OK, feed her a little
gas now ... OK, I think she's caught now ... There, she's really
purring."  What strikes me about this is that it really doesn't feel
like anthropomorphizing at all.  The characteristics are those of
machines, not people.  Compare this use with that of people who say
things like "My car is punishing me for leaving it out in the rain
last night."

David Johns
Date: Monday, 14 Sep 1992 14:19:27 EST
From: <RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Persons without a native language

someone asked something like, "do we think verbally or not?"  richard feynman,
a famous physicist, once did an experiment in college on himself.  he found
that, with a little practice, he was able to tell when a minute had passed by
counting in his head.  (he wouldn't count by seconds; he would count by some
internal pace, and when he got to 48, say, he would know that a minute had
passed).  anyway, he tried this out while doing nothing else, while excer-
cising, while taking out the garbage, while reading, and so on.  he found
that his internal clock was accurate in every case except when he was talking.
he related this to one of his friends, who didn't believe him.  the friend
maintained that HE could talk and count for a minute at the same time, and
then (after practice to get his timing down), he proceeded with, "blah blah
blah, i'm talking, yup, what do you want me to talk about, blah blah blah,
time's up."  sure enough, one minute had passed.  it turns out that feynman
counted in his head by "speaking" numbers, and the friend counted in his
head by "watching" numbers go by.  sure enough, the friend was unable to
read and count to one minute at the same time.

so, in answer to, "do we think verbally," feynman concluded, "some do, some
don't."  he also pointed out that no one thinks verbally ALL the time...
for example, think of the drive shaft in your car spinning.  did you think,
"drive shaft in my car spinning," or did you "see" a picture of your car
with the drive shaft spinning?

if all this is old hat to all of you, sorry.  i thought it was interesting.
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Persons without a native language
Date: 9 Sep 92 09:32:12 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

SPEAKERS WITHOUT A NATIVE COMPETENCE

Many human beings have apparently managed to reach adulthood
without acquiring a native competence in a single language.  For a
quick example, a friend of my youth: he was born in Yugoslavia and
spoke Croatian through elementary school; his family moved to
Germany and he did his secondary education there; he then came to
the US and earned a graduate degree here.

His Croatian was negligible; neither his German nor his English was
perfect; he spoke both languages with an accent.  He himself often
commented on his situation, adding that English was his best
language although imperfect.

A recent student of mine, born in Java, spoke Sundanese,
Indonesian, and English, all imperfectly relative to native
competence.  He too was aware of and commented on his situation. 
And so on.  There have to be many such people in Indonesia, Israel,
and Africa; in past periods there must have been many American
Indians in this situation; in fact Leonard Bloomfield commented on
it among the Menominee in the twenties.

Some theoretical approaches to language (e.g., that of Chomsky)
seem heavily reliant on the concepts "native speaker" and
"linguistic competence."  Indeed, when I broached this subject at
a professional meeting, the response was almost hostile, as if I
had violated some principle of political correctness.  Apparently
many linguists are assuming that every speaker has "a competence,"
since I have frequently heard, in response to my queries, the
expression "composite competence" but never with any elaboration.

Does anyone (a) have thoughts on this, and/or (b) know of any work
on it by linguists?  Specifically, I wonder whether it is or should
be a problem for current theories, especially those calling
themselves "cognitivist."

********************************** +.............................+
*- 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,alt.usage.english
From: hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld)
Subject: Re: die  Palatschinke
Reply-To: hau4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 17:31:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.234839.3167@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.204243.28379@leland.Stanford.EDU>, mrmu@leland.Stanford.EDU (Marianne Mueller) writes:
>> According to the Wahrig Deutsches Woerterbuch, 
>> 
>> Palatschinke (feminine) (Oesterreichisch) 
>>                         (auf Deutsch, gefuellter Eierkuchen)
>> 
>>    comes from the Romanian: placinta
>> 
>> 
>> ----------------------------
>> 
>> this is in reference to some debate that was going on a hundred
>> million years ago about the origins of Palatschinke.  Which by
>> the way are totally great to eat!  And recommended! 
>
>Indeed they are.  But as I pointed out in that debate, although the
>*ultimate* source is Rumanian, Hungarian and Slavic mediation must
>be assumed.  Hungarian inserted the _a_ to break the "illegal"
>initial pl- cluster, and some Slavic tongue replaced original _nt_
                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                          Croatian / Serbian 

>with _nk_.  But since all of Central Europe eats the things, why
>shouldn't they all get credit?  It's only fair!
>
>--Leo Connolly (my information comes from Kluge)

Sven (my information comes from my kitchen :-)

Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.hongkong
From: chungdan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Zhong Qi Iao (Daniel))
Subject: Re: [pronouns] gender-neutral pronoun?
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 04:25:00 GMT


     So far, I have not seen responses of using:
 / ||
/|-++-+
 | || |
 | |
 | +---
for the sex-neutral pronoun.  Some Taiwan television series using this
in the subtitle no matter the mentionee's sex.  Well, in speech, we have
only one:
 -+- \ /    
  /   |     
 --|  |     
     However, although the character above *is* the sole pronounce for people
and things before the split, it now can mean male only.  I don't know how
females think if we use that for all sexes of people.  I want to use:
 /  \
/|+---+
 ||   |
 | | /
 | |/
 | +---
which is the archaic form of the first character, but which I have not seen
used today.  So, we can revive it to be the sex-neutral pronoun.

					ZHONG Qi-Iao
[follow-up to: sci.lang]
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 06:06:52 GMT

anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu (Steve Anderson) writes:
>
>I've tried to argue (in chapter 10 of _A-Morphous Morphology_, C.U.P.
>1992, and elsewhere) that given cyclicity and an appropriate
>formulation of a constraint that (some) rules apply only in "derived
>environments", phonological rules don't have to have access to
>word-internal morphological structure. 

No offense meant, but this is so vaguely worded that it hardly serves
as more than a pointer to things you've written elsewhere.  Linguistics
is a very broad field, encompassing theoreticians from several different
schools, psychologists, anthropologists, philologists, etc.  It's not
always useful to simply cite articles.  When I cite phenomena in lang-
uages from my sub-field, I've tried simply citing standard grammars and/
or articles I've written.  Naturally I've been blasted for this (as for
many other things).  Rightly so.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: thorinn@diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:48:58 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

reinpost@wsinis02.info.win.tue.nl (Reinier Post) writes:

>  John called. You know what he said?
>  Mary called. You know what she said?
>  Somebody called. You know what [?] said?		['they'?]

>Could you provide Danish translations?

One small problem with your last sample sequence is that the speaker
presumably knows whether it was a man or a woman who called, and will
use the appropriate pronoun if no _unstrained_ generic alternative is
available. This is what will happen in Danish.

We can fix the sequence to something like
	Somebody left a note.
	[I can't read the name, but] ?they will be back later.

In spoken Danish, this poses a real problem. I would probably use
"vedkommende" myself, since I feel fairly free to jump into a slightly
formal register with the people I'm usually with. I have been thinking
so much about this that I can't say what people would use otherwise,
but I think it would be along the lines of 'This person would be back
later' or 'It was someone who would be back later.'

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)
Xref: sparky sci.lang:7070 alt.usage.english:7250 soc.culture.usa:7178
From: preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english,soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Problem with 'they' (etc) as 3p singular common gender pron.
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:39:50 GMT
 <pel.32.715218520@resntl.bhp.com.au><1992Sep2.160536.28325@nosc.mil> <1992Sep2.180317.6477@Princeton.EDU>
Organization: Motorola MCG, Urbana Design Center

In article <1992Sep2.180317.6477@Princeton.EDU> roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

|
|   Gender-inflected languages make it conceptually easy to separate the
|   idea of gender from that of sex.  As I said, nobody thinks of genitalia
|   when hearing "der Tisch" or "la table."  
|
|   This separation does *not* happen in English.  Accordingly, there is
|   confusion when one  gender or the other is used to denote the generic.
|   In gender-inflected languages, the generic does not cause confusion
|   because the separation of the gender idea from the sex idea is sufficient.
---
Also, in at least some gendered languages, the possessive forms ("his"
or "her", in English) match gender with the thing possessed, rather
than with the possessor, eliminating some of the generic cases.
--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
uucp:	uunet!uiucuxc!udc!preece,	 arpa:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: RFC: ASCII representation of IPA (technical draft)
Date: 5 Sep 92 15:59:28 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

Herein is my first reaction to E Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA proposal.

My biggest complaint is that I see no mention of affricates.  My
Slavic ear and tongue insist on the articulatory and acoustic
distinction between an affricate and a stop followed by a fricative.
I know that the distinction is not relevant for English, but English
is not the only language discussed here.  _Proposal:_ Include a
diacritic (/+/, say) to turn a fricative into a homorganic affricate.

>pla     paleto-alveolar
>pal     paletal

What is going on here?  I thought the word was "palatal".

>ejc     ejective

I seem to recall that this is the same as "glottalised" (as in the
Caucasian languages) or "emphatic" (as in Arabic) -- which one, and
do we write the other one in the same way?  But in either case,
glottalised/emphatic consonants are fairly frequent, so /<'>/ seems
too long to me.  How about /"/ or /;/?

>B    -- Unused --

I suggest that {vcd,blb,frc} (Greek small letter beta, currently /V/)
be moved here.  Reason: It looks like it.

>F {vls,blb,frc}         U+03A6 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI

Actually, Greek small letter phi.

>M {pal,nas}         ??  U+0272 LATIN SMALL LETTER N HOOK
>  {lbd,nas}         ??  U+0271 LATIN SMALL LETTER M HOOK

The second, I'd say; the letter doesn't _look_ like an enya.

>Q   -- Unused --

This might be used for, say, {vcd,vel,frc} (Greek small letter gamma,
currently /X/).

>V {vcd,blb,frc}         U+03B2 GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA

I'd rather have {lmd,bck,unr,vwl} (turned v, currently /^/) or some
other vowel here.

>X {vcd,vel,frc}         U+0263 LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA

Visual similarity suggests {vls,uvl,frc} (Greek small letter chi).

>^ {lmd,bck,unr,vwl}     U+028C LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED V
>* {vcd,alv,flp}         U+027E LATIN SMALL LETTER FISHHOOK R

Both of these look more like diacritics than letters; wouldn't it be
better for them to be used as such?

Looking at my keyboard, I see /$/, /%/, and /&/, all of which are not
currently used as letters, but could be.

On the other hand, /\/, /=/, /"/, /+/, and /;/ could serve as diacritics.

>{dnt,nas}       /n<d>/
>{vls,dnt,stp}   /t<d>/
>{vcd,dnt,stp}   /d<d>/

We'll have to agree to be able to omit the /<d>/.

>{dnt,ejc}       /b<',d>/

That's /d<',d>/, which I think may be written /d'<d>/.

-- 
 `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: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Article before name in Spanish
Summary: Und auch im Deutschen
Date: 14 Sep 92 05:27:14 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Sep14.004739.1@sol.yorku.ca> lbianchi@sol.yorku.ca (Luigi M. Bianchi) writes:

[The article before a proper name]
>is certainly common in colloquial and dialectal Italian and German (at least
>around the Stuttgart area, to my knowledge).  In Italian it seems to be more
>commonnly used with female names.

As in the old German tongue-twister/song:

    Heut' kommt der Hans nach Hause,
    Freut sich die Lies'.
    Ob er aber unter Oberammergau
    Oder aber ueber Unterammergau
    Oder ueberhaupt nicht kommt
    Ist nicht gewiss.


-- 
+ Michael Covington - Artificial Intelligence Programs - U of Georgia - USA 
+ Unless otherwise noted, these are private opinions, not official statements.
Xref: sparky sci.lang:7117 alt.usage.english:7317
From: djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Androgyny and pronouns in a genderless language
Date: 7 Sep 92 09:46:28 GMT
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: University of Florida, Gainesville

In article <1992Sep1.004001.28199@midway.uchicago.edu> gal2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

# It seems to me that the problem must lie in how we conceptualize
# about people in general. [...]  Sex seems to be one of the most
# important characteristics of a person, and a conceptual commitment
# must be made as soon as possible as to a person's sex.
#
# Does this theory account for the awkwardness of 'they' referring to
# some unsexed third person singular antecedents? Any holes here?

Well, from the tone of this thread I would guess that our obsession
with number is even stronger than our obsession with the sex of the
referent.  But anyone who has worked with people whose native language
does not grammaticalize number (mainly Oriental languages in my
experience) knows that this trait is not universal.

David Johns

Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.archaeology
From: karttu@mits.mdata.fi (Antti Karttunen)
Subject: Wanted: Dead or Alive! (information about ancient/not-so-common scripts)
Followup-To: sci.lang,sci.archaeology,comp.std.internat
Reply-To: Rick_McGowan@next.com
Organization: MITS, Helsinki, Finland
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 02:50:16 GMT

I found this one from comp.fonts and comp.std.internat and thought
that readers of sci.lang and sci.archaeology might know something
about the subject. Follow-ups are set to last three groups, but if you
want to comment something about these scripts not related to their
inclusion to Unicode, then please leave the comp.std.internat out.
Reply-to address is set to Rick McGowan's address, so replies go to him,
not to me.

In article <27548@life.ai.mit.edu> glenn@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu (Glenn A. Adams) writes:
>I am posting the following request from Rick McGowan, the Chair of the
>Unicode New Scripts Subcommittee, who is seeking information on a
>variety of scripts for potential inclusion in a future version of
>Unicode.
>
>Glenn Adams
>
>*** INCLUDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS ***
>
>  From: Rick_McGowan@next.com (Rick McGowan)
>  Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 17:25:19 -0700
>  To: unicode@sun.com
>  Subject: Wanted!  (Advertisement)
>
>  WANTED.  Dead or Alive.  Information concerning any of the following
>  scripts.  Prefer information in the form of repertoire listings,
>  explanatory material, or bibliographic references to significant sources
>  of information easily obtainable by mere mortals within the boundaries of
>  the continental US.  Please contact me if you have sighted any of these.
>  Allow 10-14 working days for reply.  Void where prohibited.  Post in plain
>  sight.
>
>	  Rick_McGowan@NeXT.COM
>
>  Ahom
>  Albanian (Buthakukye)
>  Assyrian cuneiform
>  Avesta (Pazand)
>  Aymara script
>  Aztec pictograms
>  Babylonian cuneiform
>  Bamum (Cameroon)
>  Buhid
>  Chakma
>  Cham
>  Chieng Mai
>  Chola
>  Ge'ez script (not modern Ethiopic)
>  Hittite hieroglyphics (not the syllabic set)
>  Iberian
>  Indus Valley script
>  Kaithi (original writing for Bihari)
>  Kauder script (Micmac Indians)
>  Khitan characters
>  Khotanese
>  Kok Turki runes (Orkhon script)
>  Kuoyu
>  Lahnda (original writing for Punjabi)
>  Lolo script
>  Maghreb
>  Manchu (Mongolian form)
>  Mandaean
>  Mangyan
>  Manichaean
>  Mayan hieroglyphics
>  Modi
>  Moso (Nasi) ideograms
>  Moso phonetic script
>  Nuchen characters
>  Osmanya script (new script for Somalian)
>  Pahlavik (Cursive Pahlavi)
>  Parthian
>  Paucartambo script
>  Phaistos disk script
>  Pollard phonetic script
>  Proto-Byblic
>  Proto-Elamic
>  Pyu
>  Rejang (on Sumatra)
>  Rongo-rongo (Easter Island script)
>  Samaritan
>  Satavahana
>  Sogdian (Uzbekistan)
>  Sumerian pictograms
>  Tai Lu script
>  Tai Nua script
>  Tankri
>  Vai (Liberia)
>  Woleai (Caroline)
>  Xixia


-- 
Antti Karttunen       --  $B%"%s%C%F%#!!%+%k%C%H%%%M%s(J  (et{ty|t|n)
karttu@mits.mdata.fi  --  Apatheist, although not particularly proud of it.
Newsgroups: sci.lang