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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 17
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 17
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February 11, 1993
The Courses & Degrees Committee has been meeting to evaluate and
offer suggestions for improvement to the current course offerings.
The 'Quip's ear on the committee reports the following possibilities
for next year:
ISSUES IN GOVERNMENT AND BINDING. This course will look at the issue
of whether any administration should be involved in the
printing/publishing business. Is it ethical? Does it violate the
ECP, subjacency, or the First Amendment?
GENERAL PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR. The analysis of the speech patterns
of senior military officers. How do foot features operate when
encumbered by army boots?
TOPICS IN SUB CATEGORIZATION. This course will first treat the basic
identification of underwater vessels. All surface vessels must obey
island constraints, but the deeper question of underwater mountain
constraints for submersibles is a new field. The course will close
with the question of who is really in charge down there, or Sea
Command. FILMS: Hunt for Red October, Das Boot.
FUNOLOGY. No course description provided, but this class should prove
instrumental in drawing new majors.
PHRENOLOGY. The study of head movements against a hard object (or Hard
Object Movement, HOM, against a head). This course pays special
attention to the resulting structure.
AUTO SEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY. The primary topic will be what car parts
have to do with speech sounds. Fine motor control will be one of the
topics addressed.
LESS-PHOLOGY. Prerequisite: Morphology. The main topic of discussion
will be, 'What happens if Occam's Razor is applied to the field of
phology?' Find out if less is really mor!
HYSTERICAL LINGUISTICS. Covers the antics and bloopers of past and
current greats in the field. Hear how Jim Scobbie once tried
nu-extraction at the Edinburgh Zoo (was it intensional?). Find out
about the time Tom Veatch violated the OCP on purpose. Hear how K.P.
Mohanan temporarily lost his ability to retroflex his obstruents, thus
offending his editor who prevented Mohanan's great opus from appearing
in paperback!
SOME ANTICS. Prerequisite: Hysterical Linguistics. This class will
allow the advanced graduate student to introduce his or her own
material into the field.
SOCIAL LINGUISTICS. Not for credit. Those enrolled in this class will
have the opportunity to organize the quarter's department parties.
(Eric Bakovic)
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-
Once again, our speakers at the BLS (This weekend! February 12-15, UC
Berkeley) are:
Yookyung Kim: 'Verbal Compounding in Korean'
Elizabeth Traugott: 'The Conflict Promises/Threatens to Erupt into
War: An Example of Incipient Grammaticalization?'
Young-Mee Yu Cho: 'Phonology and Phonetics of "Voiceless" Vowels'
Bonnie McElhinny (with Peter Patrick): 'Speakin' and Spokin' in
Jamaica: Conflict and Consensus in Sociolinguistics'
Miriam Butt: 'A Reanalysis of Long Distance Agreement in Urdu'
And also former Stanford-ites:
Greg Guy: 'Lexical Phonology and the Problem of Variation'
William Croft: 'A Noun Is a Noun Is a Noun-- Or Is It?'
-- UNITY AND DIVERSITY CONFERENCE AT STANFORD: The Department of
German Studies announces a symposium entitled '(Pluri-)Nationalism and
Multiculturalism in the German-speaking Countries - An Issue or a
Non-Issue?' (April 29-30, Stanford University). Stanford speakers
will include Ruth Wodak (Austrian Chair), Britt-Louise Gunnarsson,
Joshua Fishman, Charles Ferguson, Michael Boeler, and Magda Mueller.
More details to follow.
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
-- 2nd Annual Workshop: Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (May
15-16, 1993, MIT, Cambridge MA). Guest Speaker: MORRIS HALLE.
Abstracts are invited for 30-minute papers on topics dealing with
formal aspects of Slavic syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology and
psycholinguistics. Send three copies of a one-page anonymous abstract
and enclose a seperate card with your name, address, and title of the
paper. Abstracts must be received by March 31. Address abstracts to
Sergey Avrutin
Dept. of Brain and Computer Sciences
E10-106, MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139
email: sergey@psyche.mit.edu
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
This Friday, the one, the only Ed Keenan (UCLA) presents the following
talk at Cordura 100, 3.30 (Usual gruff about happy hour to follow):
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH ANAPHORA SYSTEM
1. We present an Anaphora Profile of Old English, showing that it
lacks both anaphors and pronominals in the Binding Theory sense.
2. We trace the development of the current system through Middle
English, showing:
-- 'Himself' is cobbled together (1100-1250) to become a DO
anaphor;
-- Middle English still lacks pronominals.
3. (1500-1600) Loss of pleonastic object pronouns -=> the default
creation of object pronominals & Principle B.
-- Mammals vs. Dinosaurs: self forms come to dominate local
binding as the competition dies out.
4. Moral: Gould's kiwi.
-/-/-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-/-/-
(yes, you saw this announcement last week)
*** PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP DOUBLEHEADER: ***
Paul Smolensky, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
Doug Pulleyblank, Univ. of British Columbia
Phonology Workshop is pleased to present another Doubleheader! An
evening of phonology and pizza at a special time and place:
-=> Thursday, Feb. 11, 6:30 p.m., Cordura 100 <=-
Paul Smolensky will kick off the event by presenting his joint work
with Alan Prince on Optimality Theory. After a break for pizza,
drinks, and discussion, we'll continue with a related talk by Doug
Pulleyblank on Tradeoffs in ATR Harmony. All are invited to
participate; however, we request that those who wish to share in pizza
and drinks donate $3-$5 to help defray our costs.
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Typological Explanation through Optimality Theory
Alan Prince Paul Smolensky
Department of Linguistics & Department of Computer Science &
Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science Institute of Cognitive Science
Rutgers University University of Colorado at Boulder
(Presented by Smolensky)
We have developed a grammatical framework, Optimality Theory, in
which a grammar assigns to an input that structural description which
is optimal, as measured by a set of well-formedness constraints.
These constraints are highly conflicting, and frequently violated in
surface forms. Conflicts between constraints are resolved in the
determination of optimality by a ranking of constraints in a dominance
hierarchy, each constraint having absolute priority over lower-ranked
constraints. Universal Grammar provides (many of) the constraints,
but their rankings in dominance hierarchies is language-particular.
The theory can be viewed as a formalization of a kind of markedness
theory, one in which the markedness conditions, ranked, simply ARE the
grammar.
Typology within Optimality Theory consists primarily in deducing
the consequences of ranking a common set of universal constraints in
all possible dominance hierarchies. The same set of constraints when
differently ranked give rise to very different surface patterns. Yet
the space of possible patterns is strongly delimited by the universal
constraint set; e.g., strong implicational universals can usually be
deduced.
The talk will present this formal approach to typological
explanation, and its application to syllable structure and its
relation to inventories of segments licensed by structural positions.
One result is that the universal markedness of coda position logically
entails that codas are weak licensers.
I will also discuss the relation of Optimality Theory to
connectionism, as mediated by Harmonic Grammar, a grammatical
formalism which is derived from general principles of connectionist
computation.
now showing with
TRADE-OFF IN ATR HARMONY SYSTEMS
Diana Archangeli & Douglas Pulleyblank
University of Arizona University of British Columbia
Phonological rules define systematic relations between
phonological representations, with definable relations requiring at
least three types of information. First, certain types of formal
relations are permissible while others are not; second, certain types
of substantive feature combinations are licit while other feature
combinations are not; third, relations may be defined at one
morpho-syntactic level and not another.
Without limits on the way these three components combine in
the definition of different rules, even a restrictive theory of formal
rules and cooccurrence conditions risks losing all of its explanatory
power. For example, if the individual rules themselves are
well-formed, is there any imaginable set of rules that could not
combine to form a grammar? Could three or five or seven rules be
posited in a single language's grammar, each affecting a single
feature? Does any principle even prevent the positing of identical
rules more than once in a grammar? -- posited more than once to obtain
particular ordering relationships for example.
This paper examines this question in several cases of harmony
involving tongue root advancement/retraction, "ATR" harmony systems.
We argue that the interaction of formal and substantive factors in
Maasai, Pulaar and Kinande show evidence of optimization in the sense
of recent work by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky. Specifically, we
suggest that formal properties of harmonic systems are ranked such
that certain rule-governed relations are defined as more highly valued
than others. In addition, the substantive combinations of features
produced by rules are similarly ranked, with certain feature
combinations defined in a principled fashion as optimal, others as
nonoptimal. Viewed in this way, rules in ATR systems that we have
examined can be shown to exhibit a trade-off relation between formal
and substantive rankings: as the formal value of a rule deteriorates,
only offsetting such a value with substantive goodness can license
rule application.
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
A linguist writes in with what may be the oldest recorded usage of
'sesquipedalian.' It's in _Arte Poetica_ (Horatius Flaccus), verses
95-98:
'...et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri,
Telephus et Peleus cum pauper et exsul uterque
proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querella.'
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And while we're on the subject of Latin, this from the Chronicle of
Higher Education:
'A classics professor holds conversations entirely in Latin
with a colleague at Purdue University. The professor plans
to converse in Greek as soon as the network can transmit the
Cyrillic alphabet.
'Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.'
>From _Almanac_, a UPenn newsletter:
'The Big Bang theory has been the leading model to explain
the origins of the university since the 1960's.'
-/-/-/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /-/-/-
(NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: For fuller listings of these and other jobs,
don't forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the
file 'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-- FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY: The Department of Languages and
Linguistics is seeking applications for the positions of
ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PENINSULAR SPANISH AND COMPARATIVE
LITERATURE: Tenure track. Required: Ph.D. or equivalent, native or
near-native Spanish, demonstrated excellence in college teaching inc.
language, publication record or evidence of scholarly promise. Field:
Peninsular Spanish literature with strong interest in Old World-New
World relations. Competence in a second Romance language.
ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LATIN AMERICAN AND COMPARATIVE
LITERATURE: Tenure track. Required: Ph.D. or equivalent, native or
near-native Spanish, demonstrated excellence in college teaching inc.
language, publication record or evidence of scholarly promise.
Fields: Colonial Latin American Literature, with competency in
European Renaissance or 17th C.
ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF APPLIED SPANISH AND ROMANCE
LINGUISTICS: Tenure track. Required: Ph.D. or equivalent, native or
near-native Spanish, demonstrated excellence in college teaching inc.
language, publication record or evidence of scholarly promise.
Specialization in three or more of the following fields:
Sociolinguistics, pragmatics, linguistics and literature, discourse
analysis, bilingualism, ESL. Competence in a second Romance language.
ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ITALIAN AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Required: Ph.D. or equivalent, native or near-native Italian,
demonstrated excellence in college teaching inc. language, publication
record or evidence of scholarly promise. Field: Renaissance or
19th-20th C, competence in Comparative Literature. The ideal
candidate will have broad background in Italian literary and cultural
studies with competence in Italian-European literary and intellectual
relations, with teaching and scholarly interest in interdisciplinary
comparative studies and European studies.,
ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
OR HISTORY: Tenure track. Required: Ph.D. or equivalent, native or
near-native Japanese, demonstrated excellence in college teaching inc.
language, publication or evidence of scholarly promise. The ideal
candidate will have broad background in Japanese history and literary
and cultural studies with competence in East-West relations.
LECTURER IN SPANISH: Required: MA or equivalent in Spanish, native or
near-native Spanish, record of teaching excellence, 3 years college
language teaching experience at all levels, familiarity with
computer-assisted instruction and other new technologies.
Send letter of application, vita, three letters of reference,
and sample publication to
Prof. Jan Hokenson, Chair
Department of Languages and Linguistics
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton FL 33431-0991
Deadline: February 22, 1993.
(NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: For fuller listings of these and other jobs,
don't forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the
file 'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-/-/-/ INSTA-PRIZE /-/-/-
The following words have one thing in common. First person to tell me
what that is wins this week's insta-prize.
ENUMERATE, UNOCCUPIED, ONEROUS, UNUSUAL, BIRD
-/-/-/ FINAL SCORE /-/-/-
The San Jose Sharks were violated by the Calgary Flames last night in
a 13-1 loss, but did set some dubious records in the process
(franchise record for goals given up, franchise record for longest
losing streak-- 16 games-- putting them one game away from the
Washington Capitals' NHL all-time record for consecutive losses).
Honestly, what kind of game is it when Jeff Reese, the Calgary GOALIE,
scores three assists?! The Sharks came out looking good and took the
lead early (at 2:51), but completely collapsed under the colossal
Calgary crunch.
See you in Edmonton...
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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
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at Berkeley (in the directory /usr/pub.) The most current issue of
the Herald can be found by typing 'help quip'.
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