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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 21



The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD			Volume III, Number 21
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                                                        March 11, 1993

	SESQUIPEDALIAN EXCLUSIVE: The World's Largest Palindrome

A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop,
a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax,
a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a
car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit,
a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall,
a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a
trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball,
a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut,
an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a
dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room,
a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a
plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a
pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a
nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel,
a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola,
a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a
bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a
tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a
keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a
ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a
keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a
tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an
atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a
cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a
minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a
mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a
zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a
waterfall, a patina, a nut, a a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a
draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an
ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a
plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a
canal-- Panama.

Author (justifiably) unknown

		   -/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-

-- Bonnie McElhinny presented a paper entitled 'Sociolinguistic Theory
and Fieldwork Practice: Investigating Vernacular Language, Race &
Gender on the Pittsburgh Police Force' in a GURT pre-session entitled
'City Voices: Sociolinguistic Reports from the Field' on March 9th.
She also participated in a panel discussion on fieldwork methodology
and ethical questions in doing fieldwork.

                    -/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-

-- LANGUAGE FORUM: Language Forum is a new journal established by the
Centre for Research in Linguistics and in Language LEarning at the
University of East Anglia, Norwich, England.  Its objective is to be a
vehicle for the publication of contributions to the whole research
fields of language learning and of linguistics in all its forms, with
particular encouragement to interdisciplinary studies.  It replaces
the occasional publication UEA Papers in Linguistics.  Manuscripts
should be sent to the managing editor at the address below.  Articles
may be of any length up to a maximum of 25,000 words, and should
include a short abstract of no more than 200 words.  They will be sent
to appropriate referees as soon as they are received, and it is
intended that any decision on publication should be available within
two months of receipt.  For more information regarding style and
presentation, please write to the Managing Editor
	Mr. W.J. Hutchins
	Language Forum
	c/o The Library
	University of East Anglia
	Norwich NR4 7TJ, ENGLAND
	fax: 44.603-259490
	email: L101@uk.ac.uea

-- FICCYE: The Fourth International Conference on Cantonese and Other
Yue Dialects (December 17-19, 1993, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong):
Papers are invited on all theoretical and applied aspects related to
Cantonese and other Yue dialects.  Send abstracts of 300-500
characters in Chinese, or 200-300 words in English, by April 30, 1993.
Notification of acceptance before June 30, 1993.  Full paper deadline
OCTOBER 31, 1993.  Registration fee: HK$500 or US$70 (lunches
included) before October 31, HK$600 or US$85 (lunches included) after
October 31.  Official languages of the conference are Cantonese,
Putonghua, and English.  Contact
	Suen Caesar Lun, Conference secretary
	Department of Chinese, Translation & Linguistics
	City Polytechnic of Hong Kong
	83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, HONG KONG
	phone: 852/788-8791
	fax: 852/788-8706
	email: CTSLUN@CPHKVX.BITNET

		 -/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-

Mats Rooth will be the speaker this Friday (March 12) at the Stanford
Linguistics Colloquium.  The talk will be in Cordura 100, at 3:30pm,
and the usual Happy Hour will follow.  Around 6/6:30, there will be a
dinner outing with the speaker, which all are welcome to join.

          ELLIPSIS REDUNDANCY AND REDUCTION REDUNDANCY
                          Mats Rooth
                    University of Stuttgart

According to a folkloric maxim, ellipsis is a very extreme form of
anaphoric prosodic reduction, where all phonetic content is totally
reduced.  A more moderate hypothesis is that ellipsis and prosodic
reduction are licensed by the same kind of redundancy in a linguistic
representation.  I will first argue against the simplest form of the
hypothesis, and then motivate a sophisticated version of it, with
reference to examples where sloppy readings for ellipsis appear to
require reference to a domain of redundancy wider than the antecedent
or elided predicates.  As a background account of prosodic reduction,
I use an extended version of the semantically mediated theory of
contrastive focus I have proposed in previous work.

   		  -/-/-/ SOCIOLINGUISTICS RAP /-/-/-

Joint Historical/Socio Workshop (Ventura 17, at CSLI, Thursday, March
11, 7:30 PM): GEORGE HUTTAR of the University of Texas at Arlington
and the Summer Institute of Linguistics will speak on 'Semantic
Restructuring and Diachronic Layering in Creolization.'

	       -/-/-/ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-/-/-

-- POSTDOCTORAL TRAINEESHIP IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: The Departments of
Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst
anticipate the availability of one postdoctoral traineeship,
contingent upon funding. The NIH- sponsored traineeship provides
advanced training in linguistic and psychological perspectives on
psycholinguistics. Holders of the PhD degree in linguistics,
psychology, or allied disciplines may apply. Current stipend for
individuals with no post-doctoral experience is $18,600. Eligibility
is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Initial
appointment will be for one year with the possibility of a one-year
renewal. No interview is required. Send vita, statement of interests,
reprints, and three letters of recommendation to 
	Prof. Charles Clifton
	Department of Psychology
	University of Massachusetts
	Amherst, MA 01003 
The traineeship will become available after July 1, 1993.
Applications will be reviewed beginning April 1. The University of
Massachusetts is an equal opportunity employer.

-- Transcribers Wanted: Need 7 hours of interviews transcribed.  Each
interview has 2 people.  Material must be delivered in Macintosh
format either MacWrite II or MS Word.  You can work on site and use
our equipment.  Salary is $12.00 per hour.  Contact Sara Sazegari
(408/974-3895 or sara@taligent.com).

		     -/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-

The following are descriptions of linguistics faculty taken from
actual course evaluations, past and present, under 'Comment on the
instructor's performance.'  See if you can spot your favourite
teacher.

1. A sense of humour with pantomime hand gestures.
2. A sense of humour which goes beyond silly jokes.
3. Is the god of syntax.
4. A really nice guy who knows every answer to any question.
5. Devoices high vowels after voiceless obstruents.
6. He seems to be umlauting his vowels or doing something unusual with
   his glottis.
7. He's Scottish and has a cute accent.
8. He treats students like adults, albeit playful ones.
9. He kind of scurries across the front of the room and breaks the 
   chalk as he writes his mad scientist explanation and it's
   absolutely fantastic.
10. Eloquence with a friendly swear word.
11. Her tolerance is like a tube of toothpaste, never quite running
    out.

		   -/-/-/ 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.)

-- The linguistics section of the Institute of History and Philology,
Academia Sinica invites applications from citizens of the Republic of
China for a one year entry-level resesearch position with the
possibility toward tenure-track post after the term.  The area of
specialization is opent, but preference will be given to those in
acoustical phonetics, Austro-Asiatic, Kam-Thai, language acquisition,
or the biological, psychological, or neural aspects of
phonetics/phonology.  Applicants holding an MA will only be considered
for the position of research assistant.  Applicants already holding a
Ph.D. will be considered for the position of Assistant Research Fellow
(equivalent to Assistant Professor).  These are purely research
positions and no teaching is required.  Applicants should send a vita,
transcripts from graduate school, an abstract of MA thesis or
dissertation (including the title, chapter by chapter summary,
methodology, materials, and main conclusions) , and three letters of
recommendation to
	Professor Ho Dah-an, Head
	Linguistrics Department
	Institute of History and Philology
	Taipei 115 Taiwan ROC
	e-mail: hsphil@twnass886.bitnet

(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 FRUSTRATED SKIER: Cail was riding the ski lift on Mad Dog at
Northstar.  'Man, what a great day for skiing!' he said.  'I wish this
lift moved faster than 5 kilometers per hour.'

If Cail wants to raise his average speed to 10 kilometers per hour for
the round trip up and down the slope, how fast must he ski down?  Be
the first answer in to win this week's insta-prize.


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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'.

Neither Stanford University nor the Linguistics Department, nor any of
their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever, implied, or assumes
any legal liability or responsibility regarding any information,
disclosed, in this publication, or represents that its use would not
infringe privately owned rights.  No specific reference constitutes or
implies endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by Stanford
University or the Linguistics Department, or their employees.  The
views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those
of Stanford University or the Linguistics Department, or their
employees, and shall not be used for advertising or product
endorsement purposes.

This journal printed on 100% recycled electrons
Void where prohibited

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