HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Subjectless verbs; was: Re: SVO / VSO
Date: 4 Oct 92 14:21:42 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Oct3.074936.3503@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>In article <2ACD2B6C.12513@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>> A case can be made that in Spanish, for example, the pronoun is actually
>> part of the morpheme that gets stuck on the end in the conjugation.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean.  I hope you're not trying to say that Spanish
>_llover_ acquires an empty subject pronoun as we do and then attaches
>the thing to the verb.

Why not?  If the inflected verb form in Spanish is treated as a
verb-subject complex, and the person/number ending is a pronominal
element, then this is just a case of an empty pronoun.

>That would be a lot of work to accomplish exactly nothing!

Depends on what you mean by nothing.

>But it can hardly be coincidental that a language with zero
>subject anaphora will precisely permit zero-subject, as in _llueve_.

Is that correlation universal, though?  (I wish I hadn't forgotten
all of my Icelandic, but it seems I have.)

>By the way: if 3.sg. pronouns are suffixed to the verb, as you say,
>where do they appear?  The 3.sg. ending in most tenses is Null!

Which is as good a morpheme as any other, given that it is in opposition
with morphemes with phonetic content.

In any case, if a null morpheme is not a morpheme, then why is Spanish
not substantially different from, say, Latin, where the 3Sg ending is
_-t_?  The two are pro-drop to the same degree; the nullhood of the
Spanish ending doesn't appear to make a difference.

-- 
 `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
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:43:40 GMT

In article <ARILD.92Oct2092721@milan.ims.uni-stuttgart.de> arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de writes:
}In article <1992Oct1.142411.490@news.Hawaii.Edu> lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes:
}
}     The arguments from subcategorization (verbs are supposed not
}   to subcategorize with respect to subjects) I think are factually wrong.
}
}What are the data?

1. subjectless verbs: "It rained."  I don't know whether there are such
verbs in any language that never permit a subject, as opposed to allowing
at most a dummy.

2. idioms including subjects: "The cat is out of the bag."  This supposes
that the parts of idiomatic expressions are bound together by
subcategorization constraints.

3a. verbs with PP subjects: "mu-N-gaanda muu-suma." (Bemba, 'in-CL-house
AGR-good', "In the house it is good", from Givon, _Syntax_, p. 142.) This
supposes the distinction PP vs. NP is properly a matter of subcategorization.
A verb requiring a patient, dative, or agent complement, according to Givon,
would not allow such a locative subject.

3b. verbs permitting various non-nominative subjects in various languages;
many instances are cited in Givon -- most clearly dative subjects ("me thinks").
This supposes that case distinctions are properly matters of subcategorization.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.cognitive
From: peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters)
Subject: cognitive linguistics summary
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 05:18:57 GMT

Six or seven weeks ago I asked via sci.lang (and possibly, I have forgotten)
via sci.cognitive as well, what the difference was between linguistics at
large and so-called "cognitive linguistics". I also raised the issue on
LINGUIST-L. I have now worked the essentials of all replies I got into a
document that I will be happy to make available via e-mail as a textfile
to anyone who wishes to get a copy. I have decided against posting the
lot via the News as it may be rather lengthy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Bert Peeters                         Tel: +61 02 202344
Department of Modern Languages               002 202344
University of Tasmania at Hobart        Fax: 002 207813
GPO Box 252C                            Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au
Hobart TAS 7001
Australia
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 14:20:16 GMT

Bert Peeters writes:

>>... it wasn't until
>>the fairly recent work of people like Steven Harlow, Richard Sproat, Jim
>>McCloskey and Sandra Chung ("Chomskyans" all) that VSO languages had any
>>special interest for the syntactician beyond the fact that they were
>>VSO.  What these researchers discovered was evidence that VSO languages
>>are essentially SVO in structure, with the subject asymmetrically
>>commanding the object...
>
>Does this not show how anglocentric the entire generative enterprise really
>is?

Given the already extremely anglocentric nature of generative grammar, it
is a bit suspicious, isn't it?  Given the logical unity of predicate (V-O) and
subject (S), isn't it clear why order-happy linguists would want them to
be discrete and non-interleaved?  I hate to hear bad stuff said of Richard
Sproat, though.  He's done some very interesting computational morphological
work for Arabic.  Anybody who thinks systematically enough to actually come
up with an algorithm to test all of our jibberish deserves a bit of respect....

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was Cognitive Linguistics...)
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:25:11 GMT
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology

In article 25284@midway.uchicago.edu, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
>Perhaps.  But don't underestimate Chomsky himself.  His view of grammar
>has had a major impact on of all things programming languages.  Computer
>sciences owe much more to him than meets the eye.  Linguistics only owes
>a lot to him a) because he's done brilliant and original work, and b)
>because he had every scholar's dream of being at the right place at the
>right time, and being there with enough money and students to create a
>virtual army.

I don't really agree with (b).  Jim McCawley has made much about the fact that
generative grammar came in when the federal government was pumping lots of money
into education.  That was true and, no doubt, contributed greatly to the rapid
growth of generativism.  But Chomsky and his students introduced an entirely
new way of looking at language.  They provided us with a ways of exploring and
thinking about syntactic complexity that were unprecedented.  Structuralists
produced a lot of work in phonology and morphology, but syntactic theory had
a very low profile in their work.  If you like the "army" metaphor, then I'd
say that Chomsky invented dynamite and linguistic armies started using it.  He
also got linguists back into the business of viewing language from a psychological
perspective.  But, as you know, I have very mixed feelings about the way that
he did that.  He imposed a kind of tunnel vision on what kind of linguistic
behavior could be considered directly relevant to analyses--intuitions of 
well-formedness.

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com)   Seattle, WA
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was Cognitive Linguistics...)
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 06:17:43 GMT

In article <83984@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:

>>Linguistics only owes a lot to 
>>[Chomsky] a) because he's done brilliant and original work, and b)
>>because he had every scholar's dream of being at the right place at the
>>right time, and being there with enough money and students to create a
>>virtual army.
>
>I don't really agree with (b).  But Chomsky and his students introduced
>an entirely new way of looking at language....

That was meant to be covered by (a).  I wasn't there, but it seems to me
that linguistics was ripe for change at that time, and that Chomsky was
right there to bring it about.  If you look closely at the thank-yous for
his early articles, they (as well as Halle's) often show heavy support
from defense department sources.  I'm under the impression that there was
no lack of funding at MIT during that period.  Reason (b) above wasn't
meant to take away from (a).  Just to enhance it.


-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
Newsgroups: comp.font,sci.lang,comp.os.misc
From: cathy@techbook.com (Cathy Gaupo)
Subject: Newsgroups for teaching english
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 04:39:13 GMT

I am an ESL teacher and am curious to learn if there are any news
groups related to TESOL or something similiar.

If there's any such thing, I can be reached at cathy@techbook.com

Thanks

Cathy

-- 
cathy@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with InterCom
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-0636 (1200/2400, N81)
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO  --> NP-movement
Organization: LLNL
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 18:52:04 GMT

	I wonder how the SOV order fits into this scheme.

	And I wonder what Chomsky would have thought "natural" if he
had been a speaker of Turkish or Japanese or some other language with
SOV order. I guess I suspect Anglocentrism also.
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Date: 6 Oct 92 13:14:31 GMT
Organization: University of Hawaii

In article <1992Oct4.120743.6842@athena.mit.edu> pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:
}
}...  Lying behind your remarks, I suspect, is
}the assumption that the VP has to be a purely structural notion with no
}semantic underpinnings or consequences.  ...

No, you misunderstand.  The "VP" of the "functional structure" in my
handout has _only_ semantic underpinnings or consequences.  The
syntax is a context free phrase structure grammar with no VPs.
Sentences are generated or not, as the case may be, with no reference
to VP.  Trees constructed in the ordinary way have no VPs.  By some
notational tricks, other trees _may_ be constructed with VP-like
constituents, for your viewing pleasure.  The whole bit was an
exercise in distinguishing appearance (semantics) from reality
(syntax).

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: schiller@whorf(Eric Schiller)
Subject: Re: cyclical grammars
Reply-To: schiller@sapir.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 19:08:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.174547.23919@midway.uchicago.edu>  
goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
> schiller@sapir.uchicago.edu writes (regarding my question about cycles):
> > 
> >Well, Richard, did you attend last year's CLS meetings, with a  
Parasession  
> >on the Cycle in Linguistic Theory? If so, you would have heard many  
> >discussions of these points. If not, you will have to wait another 6  
> >months or more until the printed proceedings come out!
> 
> Is this meant to be a helpful suggestion, a recrimination, or both?
> Thanks, though, for the pointer.  I most certainly will take a look
> at the proceedings.
> 
> If given a choice between an analysis where the postlexical component
> of a grammar feeds lexical phonological rules, and one in which the
> supposed postlexical rules are moved back into the lexicon, which would
> you prefer?
> 
It was meant as a gentle wrist-slap, for skipping CLS, which obviously had
some papers that would interest you. Hope you won't make the same
mistake this year! (No, we haven't chosen the parasession. typology was
running strong until BLS grabbed it.)

As for the relationship between phonology and morphology, we have
been agonizing about it here for a while, and still aren't sure how
to fit it into our modular scheme. Speaking only for myself, it
seems that what are called post-lexical rules in derivational theories
would probably be handled by a direct phonology-syntax interface.
The only work I know of in this area is a paper by Shobbhana Chelliah
to appear in my forthocming Mouton volume Autolexical Syntax: ideas
and methods. Which is (honestly) almost ready to go to press. We
won't make our self-imposed deadline of Wednesday but by the end of the
weekend it should be ready to go to Berlin, and since we are providing
camera-copy it should not be too long before it finally sees the
light of day.

Those interested in this subject might also consult the 1973 CLS
Parasession volume on the Interplay of Phonology, Morphology and 
Syntax. (cls@sapir.uchicago.edu).
***** ** *** **** ***** ** *** **** ***** ** *** **** ***** ** *** ****
Eric Schiller                              schiller@sapir.uchicago.edu
Dept of Linguistics, Univ. of Chicago      schiller@whorf.uchicago.edu
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: question for budding linguists of ALL age groups.
Date: 28 Sep 92 03:52:22 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <92269.192342RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu> RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu writes:
>we all know that "a sermon" is correct, while "an sermon" is not.
>we all know that "an evangelical sermon" is correct, while "a evangelical
>sermon" is not.
>
>my question is this: which is correct, "a (evangelical) sermon" or
>"an (evangelical) sermon" ?

No one knows, but if you ask in alt.usage.english someone will surely tell you.

What you're asking about isn't exactly English -- it's a device for abbre-
viating two different English utterances into one.  I vaguely prefer your
second example (with "an") because on first pass, I can't avoid reading
"evangelical" immediately after "an".

-- 
+ Michael Covington - Artificial Intelligence Programs - U of Georgia - USA 
+ Unless otherwise noted, these are private opinions, not official statements.
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: question for budding linguists of ALL age groups.
Date: 26 Sep 92 18:13:12 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <92269.192342RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu> RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu writes:
>which is correct, "a (evangelical) sermon" or "an (evangelical) sermon" ?

I would use "a(n evangelical) sermon".

-- 
 `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
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters)
Subject: Re: subjects of pluit & brechei
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:53:03 GMT

bthurman@uncavx.unca.edu writes:

>Can one find other kinds of subjects with pluere than (1) material that comes
>down, e.g. saxa pluunt 'it's raining rocks' or (2) the source of the rain, e.g.
>caelum pluisse 'that the sky had let go its load'?  Should one not ask, when in
>Greek one can document synchronically with brechei 'it's raining' such godly
>phraseology as ho Zeus brechei 'Jove is wetting [his britches?]'?

This is very much an area of research the French linguist Nicolas Ruwet has
been interested in for years. A recent translation of some of his writings
may be of interest: *Syntax and human experience* (1991, The University of
Chicago Press).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Bert Peeters                         Tel: +61 02 202344
Department of Modern Languages               002 202344
University of Tasmania at Hobart        Fax: 002 207813
GPO Box 252C                            Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au
Hobart TAS 7001
Australia
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.os.misc
From: tedr@aix00.csd.unsw.OZ.AU (Ted Rofe)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Publically available parsers and English grammars
Date: 2 Oct 92 08:24:51 GMT
Organization: University of New South Wales

In article <1992Sep25.192924.23356@sei.cmu.edu> im@sei.cmu.edu (Ira Monarch) writes:
>
>I've been following the Prolog for NLP discussion.  I was hoping the
>discussion would expand to cover the functionality and public
>availability of parsers and other nlp tools written in various
>langauages.  
>

Some time ago I downloaded a copy of a 1st edition draft 
dated February 1991 of the _Natural Language Software Registry_
It was edited by Elizabeth Hinkelman of the Center for Information
and Language Studies, University of Chicago

Unfortunately I have lost the internet address I downloaded
it from.

Can anyone supply the address or suggest another, similar, source
of information?
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: arild@adler.ims.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO --> NP-Movement
Reply-To: arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 08:34:52 GMT

In article <andaling.717972531@durras> andaling@durras.anu.edu.au (Avery Andrews) writes:

   In Icelandic, NP's in passives & unaccusatives move optionally into
   subject position, regardless of whether they have structural nominative
   or some kind of quirky case.  The movement seems to be subject to a
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   definiteness effect, however.
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This, I think, is a misinterpretation of the data, or a mis-description of
what's going on. The relevant definiteness effect is nothing other than the
familiar definiteness effect known since Milsark's work, i.e. just the same
thing you have in English: 

(i)  There arrived a train at the station
(ii) *There arrived the train at the station

Of course you can say that the movement in (iii) is caused by the
definiteness effect:

(iii) The train arrived at the station

But another way to look at it is to say that the two forms (i) and (iii)
are *syntactically* optional forms. In addition, a semantic constraint
prohibits a definite NP which is a direct argument of the verb to be
associated with an expletive, which then rules out (ii). There is then no
*causal* relation between the NP-movement in (iii) and the definiteness
effect - there are just interacting effects. Note that (iv) is also possible:

(iv) A train arrived at the station

If the definiteness effect "causes" the NP in (iii) to move, then what
"causes" the NP in (iv) to move?

-Arild Hestvik



Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:07:21 GMT

In article <peeters.717657429@tasman> peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters) writes:
>Would Chomsky, had he been a native speaker of a VSO language, not
>have concluded that SVO languages are essentially VSO in structure, with
>etc. etc. 

Would it undermine your argument to find a native speaker of an SVO
language arguing that his own SVO language is VSO at remote structure?
See the old McCawley paper "English as a VSO language".  (Other
Generative Semanticists who were native English speakers also adopted
this idea.)
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: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:03:10 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.190454.21865@midway.uchicago.edu> schiller@sapir.uchicago.edu writes:
}
}Ah, Greg, you seem to be a closet Autolexicalist! <grin>. ...

What is an autolexicalist?  I don't know whether to come out.

}The Autolexical $.02 (from my dissertation, I think) is that VSO languages  
}all have a syntax/semantics discrepancy. ...

If autolexicalists believe that there are VPs just when verb and object
happen to be contiguous, I doubt that I am one.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
From: evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum)
Subject: Re: ASCII representation of IPA (second draft) and call for examples
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:22:18 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

In article <10930@hogg.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <1992Oct2.160732.3418@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum) writes:
>>(how many languages have both ejectives and implosives?).
>
>Quite a few.  But I don't think any language distinguishes between an
>ejective and an implosive version of the same segment.  I'll check.

Thanks.

>>Perhaps we should use "~"
>>only for velarization on consonants and mark pharyngealization with <H>.
>
>This is certainly possible.
>
>>Why do the two have the same IPA diacritic?
>
>They actually don't.  In the books I checked the tilde goes beneath
>the letter for /<fsd>/, across it for /<vsd>/, and above it for /<nsd>/.
>It is a great pity that we only have one tilde here, a pretty high one
>at that.

That's the problem with being a computer scientist here at work: all
of my linguistics books are at home.  The Unicode book agrees with
what I thought I remembered, however: top for nasalized, middle for
pharyngealized or velarized, and bottom for creaky voice.

>
>>And can you velarize vowels?
>
>No, but you can have vowels "with velar structure".  Maddieson says so.
>He also says that there are "retroflexed" vowels.  (The double quotes
>indicate that I have no idea what these sound like.)

Yeah, but does he mark them with tildes and dots?  If neither of us
can imagine the segments (and I've never seen them written down), I
don't think we have to worry about their being easy to write. :-)

My current inclination is to use "~" for velarized consonants and
nasalized vowelsm "<H>" for pharyngealized segments, and "<?>" for
glottalized (murmured) segments.  People should, of course, feel free
to use "~" for "general secondary articulation", but should provide a
key for nonstandard use.

How's that?

Evan Kirshenbaum
    HP Laboratories
    3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U
    Palo Alto, CA  94304

    kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
    (415)857-7572

Newsgroups: sci.lang