HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Devanagari: Syllabary or Alphabet?
Date: 14 Apr 92 22:30:42 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK


Rahul, I want to make a few observations.

_pratham_: I see that your understanding of the notion "basic unit of
representation", on the basis of which a writing system is called an
alphabet or a syllabary, is quite different from Scott's and from
mine.  For him and for me, a basic unit is a grapheme which has a
phonetic content.  Thus, <hu> consists of two basic units, /h/ (the
main part) and /u/ (the cup underneath).  Compare this to the katakana
(or hiragana) character for /hu/, which is really a primitive
character with nothing in common with the rest of the /h-/s or the
/-u/s, and you'll see what I mean.

_dvitiy_: You say that you can't linearise /hu/ or otherwise separate
the two components.  Well, if you write, say, /b-h-/ in Arabic, you
can't use the final form of /b/ either.  The two letters _must_ be
written together, and neither of them looks as it does in isolation.
So how many "basic units" does the Arabic script have?  As to the
diacritic for, say, <e>: It doesn't have to look like the full letter
<e> in order for the two to be allographs of the same grapheme.

_trtiy_: I'm having a problem with your referring to the "basic units"
as syllables.  It is true that each of them contains exactly one
vowel, but that's about all that is syllable-like about them.  If a
word contains the sequence /VrCV/, how would you divide it into
syllables?  My guess is /Vr/-/CV/, not /V/-/rCV/, yet what happens is
that the /r/ is written as a reph over the following "unit".  Or how
is /hindi:/ broken into syllables, (1) /hin/-/di:/ or (2) /hi/-/ndi:/?
I've seen (and written) the /n/ on different occasions as an anuswar
(suggesting (1)) or in a ligature with the <d> (suggesting (2)).

_caturth_: The idea of a "null grapheme" is not that strange.  Many
alphabets omit some vowels, especially schwas (Armenian and Yiddish
come to mind).  If we decide that the vowel diacritics are not
letters, how far is Devana^gari^ from being a consonantal alphabet,
such as the one Urdu uses?

_pancam_: Do Hindi-speaking kids really learn hundreds of syllabic
"basic units"?  Why are foreigners only taught forty-odd letters plus
a few diacritics and ligatures?
-- 
---- --- -- -  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: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: feminine as the generic case
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:36:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: noiro.29EB5042.28533
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <1992Apr14.211412.761@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>In article <29E9CDE8.21272@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cortese@hepxvt (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>>
>>Speaking of odd genders (I *had* to mention this), it always struck me
>>as really perverse that the words "verga" and "barba" were feminine in
>>Spanish.  Anybody know why?
>
>Because virga "rod" and barba are feminines in Latin?
>
>(Latin terms were mentula "erect penis" and verpa "flaccid penis."  Doe Spanish
>verga ever get used for other than an erect penis?  Does French vierge?)

But that just shunts the question back to Latin.  Why the HELL would
ANYONE with two brain cells to rub together call a penis and a beard,
two things that pretty much mark one as a man, FEMININE?  THAT'S what
I meant by asking this question.  What possible reason could people
have to call these things feminine?

A lot of things do have some kind of order to them; gender is not
assigned COMPLETELY randomly, and this is so jarring that it begs
an explanation.

Regards,
Janis C.
From: brandon@husc8.harvard.edu (Joshua "Mr._Do" Brandon)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: cinq
Date: 13 Apr 92 15:36:49 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <ARA.92Apr11134612@camelot.ai.mit.edu> ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler) writes:
>Thanks for reminding me of the other example, coq. Why not chaq instead of
>chaque ?

It should be noted that the "e" at the end would have been pronounced at
one point, and still can be in poetry and singing.  (That took some getting
used to when I was learning French and listening to pop songs....)

I don't know whether the "e" was dropped from the spelling of cinq and coq
before or after it was lost from pronunciation, but at least today it would
be pronounced differently in metrical contexts if it hadn't been.  Perhaps
this explains "chaque"?

Joshua Brandon	    Harvard/Radcliffe College	  brandon@husc.harvard.edu
   "It's hard to eat a carrot with a bit in your mouth." --- Emily Bryant
YAZ/mycroft
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: ... befuddled GB/PSG semantic content query
Date: 11 Apr 92 14:21:28 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

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).

Did you mean GPSG and HPSG?

Any theory of grammar is going to have to account for the relation
between actives and passives somehow.  The only question is whether to
do this by means of movement rules (GB), metarules (GPSG), or the
lexicon.  No matter how you do it, you'll need theta-roles or something
very like 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.
==========================================================================
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Tenses
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:28:20 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.160412.1838@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>Conversely, two-tense lan-
>guages are fairly common (Japanese, Dyirbal; English is one, if only
>simple verbs are analyzed), and languages such as Chinese supposedly
>have no tense at all (one verb form fits all times).  Surely no one
>would maintain that Chinese, Japanese, or Americans have no conception
>of time!
>

I've heard this before and it makes me revenously curious.  Supposedly
Japanese has something like past and non-past.  How are sentences like
"Jane walked the dog", "Jane walks/is walking the dog", and "Jane will
walk to dog" translated into Japanese so that these distinctions are
preserved?

I'd love to see this one.  If you know this, give me the romanized
version of Japanese, too.  I know a pinch of it, and can probably look
it up.

Regards,
Janis C.
From: bon6@quads.uchicago.edu (rahul  bonner)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Devanagari: Syllabary or Alphabet?
Date: 12 Apr 92 22:58:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Apr12.225857.21555
Reply-To: bon6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Apr9.192400.1837@midway.uchicago.edu> bon6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.044135.4640@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne) writes:
> 
>>Someone claimed in e-mail that Devana^gari^ is not an alphabet.  Is there
>>need to refute this statement on the net, or should I just handle it in
>>e-mail?
>>
>>					--Scott
>
>Please make your case in public.
>
>                                               -- Rahul

It has been three days, and we still have not heard from young
Scott.  Unusual timidity on his part--or has he finally learned
the virtue of discretion?

The fact is that Devanagari is neither purely syllabic nor purely
alphabetic.  It is not a pure alphabet because the basic unit of
representation is the syllable, usually one or more consonants
with a vowel sign above, below, to the right or to the left.

But Devanagari differs from a pure syllabary in that it does not
present a completely unique symbol for each syllable.  You can
analyze the syllables of Devanagari into consonant and vowel
components, which are more or less constant in form across the
entire inventory of syllabic symbols.

In other words, the <e>-component of the syllable <ke> is the
same as the <e>-component in <ge>, <te>, <re> etc., and the
<k>-component of the syllable <ke> is the same as the <k>-
component in <ki>, <ku>, <kai> etc.  But the <e>-component
of <ke> can not occur independently, unattached to a consonant
sign.

The advantage of such a syllabic-segmental script over a pure
syllabary is obvious: fewer symbols to memorize.  All the
Brahmi derived scripts of South Asia are of this type, as well
as some elsewhere, such as Ethiopic.  (Question: Have the
Southeast Asian scripts derived from Brahmi, such as Burmese,
Khmer, Thai, etc. retained this feature?)

                               -- Rahul
From: mnu@INEL.GOV (Rick Morneau)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Albanian Resources
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:41:48 GMT


My old catalog (1989) from the US Defense Language Institute lists
an Albanian Basic Course with about a dozen texts and 55 cassette
tapes for $150. I'm sure the price has gone up, but I doubt if it's
gone up by much. I've purchased several language courses from them.
The quality is not always great, but the overall bang for the buck
is awesome. For the latest prices, call or write to:

     Commandant
     DLIFLC
     ATTN: ATFL-TDN
     Presidio of Monterey, CA  93944-5006
     (408) 647-5112/5319

The complete catalog costs about $6.
     

Regards,

Rick

--
*=*= Disclaimer: The INEL does not speak for me and vice versa =*=*
=  Rick Morneau            Idaho National Engineering Laboratory  =
*  mnu@inel.gov            Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA          *
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= NeXT Mail accepted here! *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
From: dleblanc@kub.nl (David Leblanc)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 15 Apr 92 14:17:51 GMT
Organization: Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

In article <rqyj+db@lynx.unm.edu> lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY) writes:
#In article <1992Apr14.184221.29573@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
#>  That's exactly the point.  We're not saying animals are stupid; only
#>  that the structure of _human_ language is not found in them.
#
#*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"?  

Well, let's see. I would assume that this newsgroup is dominated by
linguists and linguist wanna-bes (it being SCI.lang). In linguistics
there are a number of differing theories, but I think everyone would
have to agree that the GB-like (GB, LFG, HPSG) and cognitive theories
overwhelmingly dominate the field. Since all of these theories
postulate some inate langauge faculty, I would have to say you're
incorrect. 

#And
#we certainly don't think its biological underpinnings have a single
#origin (creationism anyone?).  Any more than other body parts of any
#complexity do.  It's also true that the (entire) structure of human
#digestion, locomotion, etc. are not found in any other animal.  There's
#no coherent argument I've seen that the evolutionary bases of human
#language are unique. So it is at least not something that we can
#rule out a priori that we can learn something about human language by
#comparing it with other communication (and cognitive) systems used by
#non-humans. Not every human medical researcher cares about non-human
#homologues, but that does not bear on the validity of those comparing
#non-human systems.

Hey, anything is possible, and nothing can be truely ruled out. But,
one can make judgements about the work that's been done so far and one
can appeal to their own intuitions. So far, my intuition's telling me
that the observed differences in human language and animal
communication are so vast that they occupy different levels of
comprehension. Of course, if you'd like to show me an animal that
can discuss an abstract concept, I'm more than willing to be
convinced :-).

David LeBlanc



--
From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Tenses
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:04:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: memstvx1.1992Apr13.160412.1838
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <1992Apr13.045238.1143@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu>, cctimar@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Cary Timar) writes:
> In article <66@steiny.UUCP> steiny@steiny.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes:
>> is paraphrased.     There really cannot be more than three tenses because
>> there is only now, the future, and the past.  Maybe some languages use
>> a different metaphor for time, but not Latin.  I think you are confusing 
> 
> I beg to differ.  "Now" is not always well defined.  A problem one runs into
> periodically with written media, or with taped messages, is that there are
> two "now"s - the writer's and the reader's.  This suggests a 5 tense
> system - writer's past, writer's present, interval, reader's present, and
> reader's future.  In practice, the last three may be difficult for the
> writer to distinguish, as future events are less predictable than past.
> (I deliberately exclude all the science-fiction possibilities.)
> 
> This has, to the best of my knowledge, never arisen, because most
> linguistic evolution occurs in oral communication, that is, face-to-face.
> For anything more than three tenses to arise requires delayed
> communication.

I can't agree with either of you guys.  You're not talking *tense*,
you're talking *time*, which is not at all the same thing.  *Tense*
refers to the name of some specific verb form, and I know of no way
to limit the number of possible time-related tenses.  Time is, well,
time.  Because tense commonly includes both time and "Aktionsart",
multiple tenses for present, past, future, and timeless (forgot that
one, didn't you?) are certainly possible.  Conversely, two-tense lan-
guages are fairly common (Japanese, Dyirbal; English is one, if only
simple verbs are analyzed), and languages such as Chinese supposedly
have no tense at all (one verb form fits all times).  Surely no one
would maintain that Chinese, Japanese, or Americans have no conception
of time!

--Leo Connolly
all.  Yet
From: alderson@elaine36.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Subject: Re: -ze and -the in Attic Greek
Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: alderson@elaine36.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson)
Organization: Stanford University LOTS Computer Facility
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 18:59:24 GMT

In article <1992Apr5.004232.12133@Csli.Stanford.EDU>, andrews@Csli (Avery Andrews) writes:
>What about:
>
> noste:sai Oduse:a     poluphrona    hon(A)-de domo-nde
> to-return Odysseus(A) manywhiled(A) his-to    home(A)-to
>
>(Od,1, beginning of Athena's reply to Zeus)
>
>I haven't noticed this sort of `distribution effect', or
>any other kind of phrasal application, with `then' (from) or
>`thi' (at).  Of course, this example is Homeric, not Attic.

As it happens, this example is cited in Smyth in the discussion of the use of
-de.  I haven't gone through an inverse dictionary of Homer, but I suspect that
this may be the only 'distributive' use attested.  We might then want to appeal
to metrics.
-- 
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_
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com (K. Rogers)
Subject: Re: Linguistics TV Schedule
Keywords: Dixie
Reply-To: krogers@javelin.sim.es.com
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 20:15:54 GMT

dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:

>In article <7059@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil> matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt) writes:
>>
>> nor are citizens of Maryland
>>(except for the Eastern Shore) commonly referred to as "rednecks."  
>
>Of course not.  After all, Maryland is for crabs, not rednecks :-).

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...

[Surely I don't have to insert a ;^) do I?  Better do it or *someone*
will take exception; that's a given on the Net.]
-- 
Keith Rogers
Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
krogers@javelin.sim.es.com
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: -ze and -the in Attic Greek
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 01:30:22 GMT
X-Bytes: 

The distinction between case ending is not in all languages so clear cut
as is implied by Alderson in reply to a question asking for the difference.
One thinks of, on the one hand, say, some Finno-Ugric languages which have
as paradigmatic noun cases which correspond to adverbs and prepositional
phrases "used adverbially" in other languages.    (I've even felt that
'latine' in 'loquitur latine' is quite case like, and not too far off from
so called ablatives of means used with deponents that won't permit accusative,
'vescetur carne' he lived on meat -- but this is more spinal that rational.
It also accounts for why 'franc,ais' is an 'adverb' in 'Je parle franc,ais."


Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters)
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 07:31:58 GMT

brandon@husc10.harvard.edu (joshua 'yaz' brandon) writes:

>In article <peeters.702524205@tasman> peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au 
>	(bert peeters) writes:
>>I guess the answer is obvious: in English the infinitive without *to* is
>>identical in form (except in some highly irregular but also highly frequent
>>verbs) to most forms of the simple present. *To* is added to make sure
>>the infinitive rather than the present is referred to.
>>Note I said "I guess". The answer may be different.

>Hmmm.  I don't have a definitive answer, but I do know that in Old English,
>the infinitive was marked with an "-an" ending BUT was commonly used
>following the preposition "to", e.g. "to specian", meaning to speak.  The
>preposition probably made some semantic difference, but I'm not certain
>what, right now.....

Agreed. The traditional use with a preposition may have played a role also.
That there was a semantic difference, I am prepared to believe (even more
than just prepared - I am convinced, being trained in the Wierzbicka school
if such a thing exists) - but don't ask me what the difference is. As I've
said before, I'm not qualified to make judgments on substance relating to
the English language.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
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
From: hberg@polisci.pol.umn.edu (Bob Hammarberg)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: feminine as the generic case
Date: 17 Apr 92 14:23:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: polisci.hberg.108
Organization: Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota


>>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!

Hasn't most (all?) of the discussion on this subject missed the point (or am 
I missing the point?)  Isn't Kovach fishing in the muddy waters of Language 
Determines Thought And If We Had A Non-Sexist Language We'd All Be Non-
Sexists?

How about considering languages that have no genders at all, not even in the 
pronouns;  Finno-Ugric languages, for instance.  Are Finns and Hungarians 
less sexist than Swedes or Frenchmen (Frenchpersons?)
From: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Date: 15 Apr 92 10:48:46 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

arild@milan.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik) writes:

>OK, what I had in mind here is the critical period stuff that apparently
>exists for some birds learning birdsong. I.e., for some species (forget
>which), if you isolate the offspring for certain periods after hatching,
>from their auditory environment, they simply don't develop the birdsong
>they would if they had been in that environment. This, I believe is well-
>documented. It is believed that something similar is going on with humans,
>based on the findings of "wolf-children" and children who has been isolated
>from speech environments for a certain specific period (some think it is up
>to 6 years of age for humans), cf. the famous "Genie"-case from Los
>Angeles. 

>Hence, it seems valid to conclude that this is a parallel between human and
>animal language acquisition, and if not, why not?

Humans and (I believe) all higher animals have to learn from the
surroundings, and not only their verbal responses, but all kinds of
things. When you are talking about critical periods in language
learning for humans, you are actually talking about two different
things; a) a critical period for cognitive development (e.g. Genie)
and b) a critical period for (foreign) language learning. I took you
refering to this second thing, which I am critical against. 
But, yes, you are right there are parallels, but they are on a deeper
level than Chomsky's LAD (Which I am critical against also).

Gotta run, the systems down in 5 min. :-)

Soren

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Soren Harder, (MSc student)
Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh
E-mail: sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From: horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Why are English infinitives so different?
Date: 6 Apr 92 22:26:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Apr6.222605.29223
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University

In article <STEINAR.92Apr6191451@faust.solan.unit.no>, steinar@faust.solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf) writes:
<
<Norwegian does, using the infinitive marker "}".  (You probably have a curly
<brace on your screen.  The letter is an 'a' with a ring over it, the same
<as the symbol for "angstrom" from chemistry class.)  

You mean the symbol for `}ngstr|m'.  :-)

<As far as i know, Swedish and Danish also have this type of infinitive,
<with an infinitive marker and then the verb for a total of two words.

In Danish, it's `at'.  Not sure about the Swedish; most of my Swedish comes
from Danish (which in turn comes from my Norwegian :-)).

					--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!