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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 4
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 4
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October 22, 1992
WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THOSE LITTLE HOTEL SOAPS-- Part 2 of 2
Picking up where we left off, here is the conclusion to the soap saga,
to welcome you all back from the past week's flurry of conferences.
If anyone has any surplus bars of hotel soaps, you can leave them off
at my office for disposal.
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Dear Mr. Berman,
Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your
room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance,
please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.
Elaine Carmen, Housekeeper
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Dear Mr. Kensedder,
My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my
room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and
had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,
I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem.
I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids
are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room.
The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my
apologies for the inconvenience.
Martin L. Kentsedder, Assistant Manager
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Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last
night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don't want 54 little bars
of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I
have 54 bars of soap here. All I want is my bath-size Dial. Please
give me back my bath-size Dial.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,
You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed.
Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so
I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and
the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily. I don't know anything
about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not
know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the
3 daily Camays. I don't know where you got the idea this hotel issues
bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I
left in your room.
Elaine Carmen, Housekeeper
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Dear Mrs. Carmen,
Just a short note to bring you up to date on my latest soap inventory.
As of today I possess: On shelf under medicine cabinet, 18 Camay in 4
stacks of 4 and one stack of 2; on Kleenex dispenser, 11 Camay in 2
stacks of 4 and one stack of 3; on bedroom dresser, 1 stack of 3
Cashmere Bouquet, 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2
stacks of 4; inside medicine cabinet, 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and
one stack of 2; in shower soap dish, 6 Camay (very moist); on
northeast corner of tub, 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used; on
northwest corner of tub, 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.
Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure that the
stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that
stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my
bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for
future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar
of bath-size Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to
avoid further misunderstandings.
S. Berman
-/-/-/ JOAN BRESNAN HONORED /-/-/-
Professor Joan Bresnan has been named the Howard H. and Jessie T.
Watkins University Professor, effective September 1, 1992, to August
31, 1997. This professorship is unique in permitting the university's
chief academic officer the opportunity to reward faculty distinction
anywhere in the university, irrespective of school or department. All
congratulations are in order.
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S WRITING /-/-/-
-- Congratulations to Makoto Kanazawa on the publication of his
article, 'The Lambek calculus enriched with additional connectives,"
in the current issue of the JOURNAL OF LOGIC, LANGUAGE AND
INFORMATION.
-- The November issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is on the stands,
featuring the article 'Linguistic Origins of Native Americans,' by
Joseph H. Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen. Joseph Greenberg is Professor
Emeritus of Anthropology and Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Social
Science Emeritus at Stanford, and Merritt Ruhlen is an independent
researcher based in Palo Alto, who received his doctorate in
linguistics from Stanford in 1973.
-/-/-/ ERRATA /-/-/-
Last week the Sesquipedalian misreported the title of the paper Bonnie
McElhinny presented at NWAV. The correct title was, 'Gender at Work:
The Use of Phonological Variables by Male and Female Police Officers
in Pittsburgh.' In addition, the editorial staff somehow failed to
notice that Penny Eckert also presented at NWAV. Her paper,
co-authored with Sally McConnell-Ginet, was entitled 'Gender in
Sociolinguistic Research: Time for a Paradigm Shift.'
Stanford's presenters at NELS went similarly unrecognized in last
week's issue: Aaron Halpern, Gail Mauner & Michael K. Tanenhaus,
'Priming of structural and conceptual verb phrase anaphora'; Chris
Pin~o'n, 'Nominal reference and the imperfective in Polish and
English'; and Gillian Ramchand, 'Aspect Phrase in Modern Scottish
Gaelic.'
It has further been brought to our attention that in the Sharks'
season opener against Winnipeg, it was Kisio (#11), not Skriko (#26),
who scored the winning goal.
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
LANGUAGE VARIETY IN THE SOUTH: A conference on Language Variety in the
South (LAVIS II), sponsored by the American Dialect Society, will be
held at Auburn University, April 1-3, 1993. November 15 is the
deadline for abstracts of 20-minute papers treating any aspect of
language in the American South: lexical, phonological, morphological,
syntactic, and discourse features; regional and social varieties and
their origins; effects of language contact; methods of data collection
and analysis. Address abstracts or inquiries to
Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnally, or Robin Sabino
LAVIS II Committee
Department of English
Auburn University, AL 36849-5203
phone: 205/844-4620
fax: 205/844-2378
e-mail: lavis@ducvax.auburn.edu
E-mail submission of abstracts is encouraged. LAVIS II will result in
a published volume of essays (see Michael Montgomery and Guy Bailey,
eds., 1986, _Language Variety in the South_, University of Alabama
Press). The conference will be held in conjunction with the spring
meeting of the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL). SECOL
abstracts not directly concerned with Southern varieties should be
sent by December 5 to Greta Little and Michael Montgomery, Linguistics
Program, USC-Columbia, Columbia SC 29208.
KANSAS WORKING PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS: The editors of Kansas Working
Papers in Linguistics will produce two numbers of Volume 18, 1993. We
welcome submissions of papers on all topics in the field of
linguistics and closely related disciplines for Number 1 (General
Linguistics). Papers dealing with native languages of the Americas
will be selected for Number 2 (Studies in Native American Languages).
Since we are a working paper, publication in KWPL does not preclude
later publication elsewhere of revised versions of papers.
Submissions should be in good readable form (double or 1.5 spaced),
not necessarily final copies. Student papers are encouraged. Please
send papers to
Editors, KWPL
Linguistics Department
427 Blake Hall
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045
Deadline: January 29, 1993
WCCFL XII: Twelfth Annual Meeting of the West Coast Conference on
Formal Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz, April 2-4
1993. Abstracts are invited for 20-minute talks in all areas of
theoretical linguistics. Abstracts must be received by December 10,
1992. A maximum of one individual and one joint abstract per author
may be submitted. Abstracts should be on one standard single-spaced
page, in unreduced type. Ten copies of the abstract should be
submitted, suitable for reproduction. Abstracts should be anonymous;
authors should identify themselves on a separate 3x5 index card.
Address abstracts to
WCCFL XII Committee
Cowell College
Linguistics Research Center
UCSC
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
A preliminary conference schedule and further announcements will be
issued later. Inquiries may be addressed via e-mail to
wccfl@ling.ucsc.edu.
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
Janet Fodor presents this week's colloquium, on parameter setting:
SOME PROBLEMS OF PARAMATER SETTING
Parameter setting has many advantages over hypothesis
formation and testing, but it is vulnerable to ambiguity in the
constructions that trigger the parametric 'switches.' Robin Clark
(1989) illustrated this with a case assignment ambiguity, where
learners couldn't know which of two parameters to reset. Despite the
best intentions, they would violate the Subset Principle and acquire
an overgenerating grammar.
My research makes a similar point for core/periphery
ambiguities, in which an exceptional construction may be mistaken for
a core trigger. This is illustrated with binding-theoretic idioms
such as (some dialects) "I'm gonna fix me a sandwitch." Why doesn't
this sentence trigger inactivation of Principle B, and lead to
overgeneration of non-sentences such as "I'm gonna teach me Latin,"
"Please control you," etc.?
I argue that none of the standard solutions to subset problems
can protect learners from these core/periphery indeterminacies. The
only possible conclusion is that in fact they never arise: the set of
peripheral constructions and the set of core triggers must be
universally disjoint. Though this seems patently false, I show how it
could be true in a learning model where most of the work is done by
highly restricted UG-designated triggers.
DON'T FORGET: The next Phonology Workshop will take place Thursday,
October 29, in Ventura 17. Chris Golston will speak. Abstract under
construction.
-/-/-/ WORD OF THE WEEK /-/-/-
This week the department word is a loanword from Czech. It's only on
loan until next Friday, so please use it as much as possible before we
have to return it. The word is 'osvobozeni,' meaning 'liberation.'
Let's all try to experience that a little over the next week... I know
I will...
-/-/-/ GRANTS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-/-/-
-- Applications are invited from Computer Science, Experimental
Psychology, or Linguistics graduate students for a 1/4-time RAship
during the 1992-93 academic year. The research project will
investigate people's spoken and handwritten input to interactive
computer systems, with an aim toward designing successful interfaces
for future portable devices. This work is being sponsored by the
National Science Foundation, and is being conducted in the new
Computer Dialogue Laboratory at SRI International in Menlo Park.
Applicants with an interest in the following areas are preferred:
human-computer interaction, human communication and behavior, natural
language processing, pen and speech technology. Programming
experience in C and X-windows environments, OR research experience
with human subjects (including scoring of language-oriented behaviors
and statistical analysis of data) preferred. For further information,
contact Dr. Sharon Oviatt (859-3446; oviatt@ai.sri.com) or Dr. Phil
Cohen (859-4840; pcohen@ai.sri.com).
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
An anonymous Stanford linguist writes: 'I think they should boil down
the 24 bars of soap into one or more superbars and add perfume,
because those hotel bars are too tiny, and they stink.'
These predictions were found in 'The Village Idiom,' the UCSC
Linguistics Newsletter:
'In 200 years, spoken French will have evolved into one sound, a
vowel. All other vowels and consonants will have disappeared
entirely, leaving only an extended 'Eauuuuuuu...' sound. Meaning will
be inferred from facial expression. Written French will remain
exactly the same. (Their consonants will not be forgotten, however;
they will have migrated into Czech, which will by then have no need for
vowels.)'
'In 200 years, the Cyrillic alphabet will have evolved to be exactly
like the Roman alphabet, but backwards. A mirror will suffice for
translating Russian into Polish.'
'In the future, entire books in German will be one word (with a verb
at the end, of course).'
-/-/-/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /-/-/-
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-- The Department of Linguistics at Stanford University solicits
applications for a tenure-track appointment in Linguistics at the rank
of Assistant Professor beginning September 1, 1993. Applicants should
have a research and teaching specialization in some area that both
interacts with and complements the research interests of the present
faculty. Research of applicants should be theoretically informed and
should strengthen work currently done in the department in one or more
of the following areas: Language in society, language variation and
change, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. Applicants with breadth
and demonstrated versatility will be preferred, as will applicants
with demonstrated excellence in teaching, especially at the
undergraduate level. A developed record of research in some language
or language family is desirable. To apply, please send vita,
representative publications, three letters of recommendation, and a
statement of research interests to
Search Committee, Stanford University
Department of Linguistics, Bldg. 100
Stanford, CA 94305-2150
Deadline for application is February 1, 1993. Applications from
minority and women candidates are especially welcome. EOE/AA
-- The English Education Department of the Faculty of Education, Chiba
University (Chiba City, Japan), is currently seeking candidates for
a full-time position in teaching linguistics and English. The
position is for a foreign lecturer/professor, beginning on April 1,
1993. All lectures to be given in English. Qualifications: A native
speaker of English, below the age of 50, with Ph.D. or equivalent, and
basic knowledge of Japanese language and culture. Submit CV with
current personal photo, a certified copy of highest academic degree,
list of research publications, a three-page summary in English of
current research activities (A-4, double-spaced), health
certification, and two letters of recommendation by November 11 to
Professor Masao Uchida, Dean
Faculty of Education
Chiba University
Yayoi-cho 1-33, Inage-ku
Chiba City, JAPAN 263
fax: (43) 255-4969
-- The Department of Linguistics at State University of New York at
Stony Brook invites applications for a position in
phonetics/phonology, to begin September 19, 1993. We seek applicants
with active research interests in phonetics and phonology and interest
in the applications of linguistic theory. Appointment will be made at
the rank of assistant professor, tenure-track. Please send CV, copies
of recent publications, and names of three references by December 15 to
Ellen Broselow
Linguistics, SUNY
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4376
EOE/AA
-- The University of North Texas Department of English is accepting
applications for a tenure-track position in Linguistics at the
Assistant Professor level. Applicants must have a research interest
in the linguistic analysis of literature or stylistics and must be
willing and able to teach graduate level courses in at least two of
the following areas: phonology, syntax, field methods, second language
acquisition. The Ph.D. in linguistics is required. Send a letter of
application and CV by February 1, 1993 to
Linguistics Search Committee
Department of English
University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203-3827
EOE/AA
-- The Program in Linguistics and Department of Psychology at
Swarthmore College announce a tenure-track position at the assistant
professor level in Psycholinguistics. Applications should include a
vita, three letters of recommendation, a detailed statement of
research and teaching interests, and selected preprints or reprints.
Consideration of candidates will begin in mid-January. Please address
correspondence to
Linguistics and Psychology Search Committee
Papazian Hall
Swarthmore College
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397
fax: 215/328-8673
-- The Mary Washington College Department of English, Linguistics, and
Speech announces a tenure-track position in Sociolinguistics.
Teaching responsibilities will include upper- and lower-level
linguistics courses, lower level literature courses, and composition.
An interest in discourse analysis is preferred. Applicants should
send CV, letter of application, and list of graduate coursework to
Search Committee FO289 (Linguist)
Department of English, Linguistics, and Speech
Box 615
Mary Washington College
Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5358
703/899-4386
Deadline: November 16, 1992. EOE/AA
-- The Department of Linguistics & Semiotics, Rice University, is
seeking to fill a tenure-track position in linguistics at the level of
assistant professor beginning Fall, 1993. The Department of
Linguistics & Semiotics takes an integrative approach to language
which is sensitive to functional, cognitive, and non-formal aspects of
the problem, and we expect applicants generally to share this
orientation. Fieldwork on non-Indo-European languages is a plus. The
normal course load is six hours per semester, and the successful
candidate will be expected to assume responsibility for the
introductory courses in linguistics and in phonology, as well as a
graduate seminar in phonology. Interviews will be held at the winter
meeting of the LSA in Los Angeles. To be eligible for these
interviews, completed applications (including three letters of
recommendation) must be received by December 1, 1992 at
Faculty Search, Dept. of Linguistics & Semiotics
Rice University
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, TX 77251
ling@ricevm1.rice.edu
EOE/AA
-- The Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Cornell
University invites applications for two tenure track positions: one in
morphology, syntax, semantics or their interfaces; the other in one of
the following areas: sociolinguistics, discourse analysis/pragmatics,
or historical linguistics. A significant record of research in a
language group other than English is required. Send letter of
application, CV, representative publications (no more than three), and
request referees to send letters of recommendation for receipt no
later than December 4, 1992, to J. Whitman, Chair, Search Committee I
(for morphology/syntax/semantics) or J. Jasanoff, Chair, Search
Committee II (for sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, or historical
linguistics) at
Dept. of Modern Languages & Linguistics
Morrill Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-/-/-/ INSTA-PRIZE /-/-/-
Fafnir likes indigo, but not blue. She likes onions, but not turnips.
She likes forms, but not shapes. Knowing this about Fafnir, does she
like tomatoes or avocados?
First correct answer & explanation via e-mail wins the mystery prize.
Prize must be claimed before next issue of the Sesquipedalian arrives.
-/-/-/ FINAL SCORE /-/-/-
In the first of a six-game road-trip, the Sharks were devastated by
the Montreal Canadiens 8-4. For the first time this season, the
Sharks scored the opening goal, But Montreal answered by scoring eight
consecutive goals of their own in the first two periods. The third
period was all Sharks, scoring three unanswered goals-- impressive,
but not enough to save them after the brutal second period.
-/-/-/ DUBIOUS EPILOGUE /-/-/-
This excerpt from the epilogue of "An old-fashioned look at the
linguists," by Sir Gerard Clauson (1962), submitted by Jim Scobbie:
'When I was an undergraduate at Oxford before the First War, the
science concerned with language was called "philology" and its
practitioners were "philologists." "Linguists" were chaps who were
rather good at talking two or three foreign languages, often because
they were of mixed racial origin, useful to have about the place on a
continental tour, but somehow faintly non-U. I think that this mild
disdain for the linguists was largely due to the fact that they were
so insensitive to the finer points of etymology as to describe
themselves by a Latin word with a Greek suffix. We used to be rather
particular about such things.
'We were of course intolerant and a little unfair... anyhow,
time has brought its revenges... [Since then] the linguists had
succeeded in stealing nearly all the philologists' clothes, and were
busily occuped in getting the rest... My own, perhaps unduly
old-fashioned, view is that in recent years the linguists have been
getting altogether too uppity. It is bad enough in this country, but
in the United States, that home of brinksmanship, they have recently
been on, or even over, the brink of declaring that the philologists
are a bunch of out-of-date, no-good old fogies struggling in vain
against the healthy gusts of fresh air blowing the dust and cobwebs
out of the halls of learning. One young gentleman, for example,
recently took it upon himself to write what he called a "descriptive
grammar" of pre-Classical Mongolian, apparently unprejudiced by any
previous knowledge of the subject, and without reference to the
admirable work of previous scholars, living and dead, in that
field...'
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-/-/-/ CONSERVE DISK SPACE /-/-/-
So you may delete your copy after you've read it (or better yet,
before you've read it), the Sesquipedalian Weekly Herald is stored
online both at Stanford (in directory /user/linguistics/Sesquip), and
at Berkeley (in the directory /usr/pub.) The most current issue of
the Herald can be found by typing 'help quip'.
'I believe we are on an irreversible trend towards more
freedom and democracy-- but that could change.'
--Vice President Dan Quayle
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