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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 31
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 31
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May 20, 1993
This week, in the first part of our most ambitious installment
yet, the Sesquipedaliators take on nothing less than the history of
the world itself. The following has been compiled from actual papers
turned in in history classes from primary school up through
(regrettably) high school.
GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY
Compiled by Richard Lederer
Part One
The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They
lived in the Sarah Dessert and travelled by Camelot. The climate of
the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so
certain areas of the dessert have are cultivated by irritation. The
Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.
The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first
book of the Bible, Guinnesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple
tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, 'Am I my brother's
son?' God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma.
Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a
patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partriarchs, but they
did not take it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the
Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw.
Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which
is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards Moses went up on
Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king
skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists.
Soloman, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks
invented three kinds of columns-- Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They
also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the
mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became
intolerable. Achilles appears in the Iliad, by Homer. Homer also
wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses
endured on his journey. Actually Homer was not written by Homer but
by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who
went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died
from an overdose of wedlock.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the
biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral
wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took
the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the
mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their
neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians the Greeks
were outnumbered, because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramones conquered the Greeks. History calls
people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius
Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of
March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king.
Nero was a cruel tyrrany who would torture his subjects by playing the
fiddle to them.
(NEXT WEEK: The Middle Ages.)
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-
-- Due to copyright control, the title of the paper that Chris Pin~o'n
presented at the Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics Conference at
MIT last weekend could not be reported until now. It was 'Aspectual
composition and the "pofective" in Polish.'
-- AFRICA TABLE: The African Studies Center at Stanford will be
featuring John Rickford next Wednesday at noon in the Bechtel
International Center presenting: 'American Fruit with African Roots:
The South Carolina Sea Islands' as part of their Africa Table lecture
series.
-- Martha Swearingen will give a slide-illustrated lecture on 'A
Maroon Community in Northern Columbia: The Palenqueros and Their
Language' at noon on Wednesday, May 26, in Bolivar House, 582.
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
-- COLING 94: Conference dates: August 5(Fri) -- 9(Tue), 1994.
Conference place: Miyako Hotel, Kyoto, Japan. The International
Committee on Computational Linguistics invites the submission of
papers for COLING 94, the 15th International Conference on
Computational Linguistics, in Kyoto, Japan. Papers are invited on
substantial, original, and unpublished research on all aspects of
computational linguistics, including, but not limited to, the following:
- syntax - parsing
- semantics - generation
- phonetics - language understanding
- phonology - speech analysis/synthesis
- morphology - computational lexicons
- discourse - electronic dictionaries
- pragmatics - terminology
- quantitative/qualitative linguistics - text database and retrieval
- mathematical linguistics - documentation
- contrastive linguistics - machine translation
- cognitive linguistics - machine aids for translation
- large text corpora - natural language interface
- text processing - dialogue systems
- hardware/software for NLP - multimedia systems
Papers should be either topical papers (maximum six pages in final
format) or project notes with demonstration (maximum four pages),
preferably in English. Both should describe original work. The
project note should specify the computer platform that will be used.
They should emphasize completed work rather than intended work, and
they should indicate clearly the state of completion of the reported
results. A paper accepted for presentation at the COLING Conference
cannot be presented at another conference. Authors should submit
four copies of preliminary versions of their papers with the page
limits above, on A4 paper with the title, author(s), addresses
(including email if possible), affiliation across the page top, a
short (five line) summary, the words: topical paper or project note,
and a specification of the topic area preferably drawn from the list
above. As well, authors are strongly urged to email the title page
information by the deadline date. Send the papers and emails to:
COLING 94
Department of Computer Science
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2UH, England
Email: coling@dcs.sheffield.ac.uk
Preliminary paper submission due: 6 January, 1994. Acceptance
notification: 15 March, 1994.
-- The 6th Biennial Conference on Grammatical Relations (Vancouver,
British Columbia) Sept. 17- 19, 1993. Abstracts are invited for
20-minute talks on all topics relevant to the study of grammatical
relations in any theoretical framework. Five anonymous copies of a one
page abstract (data and references may be on a separate page),
accompanied by a 3" x 5" card containing your name, paper title,
affiliation, address, e-mail address, and phone number, should be sent to:
GR Conference
Department of Linguistics
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6 CANADA
Abstracts due: June 1, 1993 Tentative arrangements have been made to
publish selected papers from the conference. Manuscripts are due
November 15, l993. For further information, contact Donna Gerdts
(gerdts@sfu.ca).
-- NINTH WORKSHOP ON COMPARATIVE GERMANIC SYNTAX (Harvard University):
The 9th Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax will be held at
Harvard University on January 5-6 (immediately before the annual
meeting of the LSA). Those who wish to present a paper (30 minutes +
discussion) are hereby invited to submit an abstract no longer than 2
pages by September 15, 1993. Preference will be given to papers on
parametric (synchronic or diachronic) variation within the Germanic
languages. Abstracts on comparative Germanic phonology will also be
considered. Five copies of an abstract should be sent anonymously,
accompanied by a camera-ready original with the name and address of
the author to
9th Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax
Department of Linguistics
Grays Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138
email: epstein@husc.harvard.edu
-- BUCLD-XVIII: The 18th Annual Boston University Conference on
Language Development (January 7-8, 1994) will be held jointly with the
LSA meeting in Boston. All topics in the field of first and second
language acquisition will be considered. Requirements: (1) Original
research that has never been presented or published; (2) 450-word
summary for anonymous review; (3) short abstract to appear in the LSA
handbook. Submit one 3x5 card stating title, topic area, AV needs,
author's full name and information; six copies of the anonymous
summary, clearly titled, and two copies of the short abstract,
submited on LSA abstract form. Presentations will be 20 minutes long
with 10 minutes for questions. We will be unable to accept more than
ONE submission per author, including multiple authors. All
submissions must be received by July 31, 1993. No abstracts by fax or
e-mail, please. Send submissions to
Boston University
Conference on Language Development
138 Mountfort Street
Boston MA 02215
phone: 617/353-3085
fax: 617/353-6218
email: langconf@louis-xiv.bu.edu
Please include self-addressed stamped envelope for acknowledgement of
receipt. A schedule will be available by September 30 via e-mail;
please send requests after that date to info@louis-xiv.bu.edu.
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
Due to the Workshop on Complex Predicates this Friday at CSLI, there
will be no linguistics colloquium. The colloquia will resume next
week (28 May) with Ivan Sag speaking on extraction.
-/-/-/ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP /-/-/-
This week, Shelly Waksler from S.F.S.U., will be our speaker.
We will be back in our regular room: Ventura 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Glide/vowel patterns and the feature [consonantal]
Rachelle Waksler
San Francisco State University
The representation of glide/vowel pairs like y/i and w/u is a standing
controversy in phonology. In current sub-syllabic frameworks (i.e., CV-
or X-Theory, and moraic theory), glides and vowels are identical on
the melodic level. Phonemic high vowels are posited with underlying
syllabic or moraic structure to distinguish them from their glide
counterparts. I argue that positing exceptional structure for phonemic
high vowels but for no other consonants or vowels is both overly powerful
and unnecessary. Further, given that some high vocoids need to be
lexically marked as vowels, there is no a priori reason why there should
not be languages with lexically marked glides. Such a glide/vowel pattern,
however, would not be able to be represented in any of the present
sub-syllabic frameworks (no matter what exceptional underlying structure
were tried). Using data from Lenakel, I present just this type of
glide/vowel pattern- one necessitating lexically marked glides. I argue
for a treatment of high vocoids exploiting different values of the root
feature [consonantal] that will account for the Lenakel data and provide
a unified analysis of the underlying representations of high vocoids and
other consonants and vowels.
-/-/-/ SOCIOLINGUISTICS RAP /-/-/-
KATHRYN SHIELDS-BRODBER, Visiting Scholar from the University of the
West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, will speak on "CREOLE LANGUAGE
REINFORCEMENT AND EXPANSION IN A 'DECREOLISING' SOCIETY."
When: Monday, May 24th at 7:30 pm
Where: Greenberg Room, Bldg. 100 (Linguistics Dept.), Stanford University
The talk focusses on the current language situation in Jamaica, which is
often described as 'decreolising'. The creole language is shown to be
exercising a subtle influence on the phonotactic system of standard Jamaican
English. In addition, it is shown to be making incursions into public/formal
domains traditionally reserved for English newscasts, formal educated speech,
and serious discussion on the airwaves. In fact, far from being necessarily
restructured or replaced by English, Jamaican Creole is demonstrated to be
alive and well, and expanding its functions.
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REMINDER: The last Sociorap session of this academic year will be held
on Thursday, May 27th, 12-1 pm, in the Greenberg Room. The speaker
will be WHITNEY TABOR of Stanford University; title and abstract TBA
shortly.
-/-/-/ HISTORICAL WORKSHOP /-/-/-
Esau's In-Laws and Related Linguistic Topics
Andrew Garrett
University of Texas at Austin
7:30 PM, May 27
Ventura 17
The work (in progress) to be discussed concerns relativization and
relative clause diachrony in the Anatolian branch of Indo-European:
in effect, that is, between Proto-Indo-European and Hittite (and
within the latter); between second and first millennium (Hieroglyphic)
Luvian; and possibly, as a sort of coda, between common Luvo-Lycian
and Lycian itself insofar as its exiguous testimony rewards such work.
Among the problems raised in principle are: how does a language with
(hypotactic) correlative clauses come to have embedded relative clauses,
and is this connected with the change from verb-final to verb-medial
word order?
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
Paul Levine, 'Night Vision,' p. 99:
Judge Dixie Lee Boulton was just finishing her morning motion
calendar when I strolled into the courtroom, a bulky black briefcase
in one hand, a leash attached to a shaggy Angora coat in the other.
Arnie Two-Ton Tannenbaum was planted in front of the bench,
thrusting a copy of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition,
in the general direction of the bench. "Your Honor, the indictment
charges my client wil entering Cozzoli's Pizzaria 'unlawfully,
feloniously, and burglariously.' Now, you can look high, and you can
look low, but there is no such word as 'burglariously.' The
indictment must be quashed."
"On what ground?" the judge asked, scowling.
"Unconstitutional grammar."
"Is there any precedent for that?"
"No, and just as well," Two-Ton answered. "It would be a pity
for Your Honor to be deprived of the distinction of being the first to
establish the rule."
(Contributed by B. Poser. -We- don't know what it means, either.)
-/-/-/ 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.)
-- UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA: The Linguistics Program at the University of
Montana announces a Visiting Position for the 1993-94 academic year to
replace Visiting Assistant Professors Carolyn McKay and Frank Treschel
who just last week accepted tenure track positions at another
university. Our preference is for someone who can teach the following
classes: Introduction to Linguistics, Morpho-Phonology, Seminar in
Historical Linguistics and/or Ethnography of Speaking. We are
particularly interested in someone who can make a substantial
contribution to our MA in English Linguistics and our foundation
classes for an applied program in English Language teaching. We are
therefore stressing teaching competence and the ability to work well
with a small community of faculty and graduate students. Send letters
of application, CV, and three letters of recommendation to
Robert B. Hausmann, Chair
The Linguistics Program
The University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
phone: (406) 243-4751
-- MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Cambridge MA. Pending
budgetary approval, MIT will have a tenure-track opening in phonology
at the Assistant Professor level beginning 1 September 1994.
Candidates should expect to share the teaching of the year-long
graduate introduction to phonology and one additional subject each
term - one at an advanced graduate level. Candidates should be
prepared to teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Applicants should send a complete dossier (including no fewer than
three letters of recommendation) and a sample of their work by 15
November 1993 to:
Wayne O'Neil
Room 20D-213
MIT
Cambridge MA 02139
-- CUNY: The M.A./Ph.D. Program in Linguistics at the Graduate School
and University Center of the City University of New York invites
applications and nominations for a tenure-track position in
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS. Duties include graduate teaching, supervision of
student research in experimental psycholinguistics, and liaison with
other related doctoral programs in of The Graduate School.Appointment
is for Fall 1994. We anticipate making a senior appointment, but will
consider applications at all levels. Requirements: an earned
doctorate in Linguistics (or related discipline) and a substantial
record of research and publications. Assistant Professors
($40,249-50,205) must have demonstrated evidence of promise as a
teacher and interest in productive scholarship; Associate Professors
($5205-59,99496) muspossess a record of significant achievement in the
field; full Professors ($59,994-72,096) must have a record of
exceptional academic achievement, established scholarly reputation,
excellence in teaching, and a wide experience in supervision of
doctoral students. Supplement possible for a distinguished candidate
of substantial merit or accomplishment in the field with a national
reputation as a scholar. Review of applications will begin October
15, 1993. Send CV , two or three of your most recent publications,
and three letters of recommendation or the names of three referees to
Professor Richard Kayne, Chair
Search Committee, M.A./Ph.D. Program in Linguistics
CUNY Graduate School
33 West 42nd Street
New York NY 10036
-- UNIVERSITY UTRECHT OTS (Research Institute for Language and
Speech): Research Assistant in Robust Language Processing.
Applications are invited for a post of Research Assistant to work on a
collaborative project sponsored by the Commission of the European
Communities. Project partners are OTS, CWARC (Montreal) and SITE
(Paris). The title of the project is: Robustness: Combining
Linguistic and Statistical Knowledge (CLASK). Duration: May 1993 -
May 1995. Aims of the project: (a) Qualitative improvement of robust
probabilistic NLP systems by means of addition of linguistic
knowledge, and (b) the production of robust variants of grammar based
systems by means of addition of probabilistic knowledge. Provisions:
The OTS offers an inspiring research environment with a number of
ongoing NLP projects, ranging from basic to more application oriented
research. Excellent equipment provision and ample opportunity for
travel and conference visits. Requirements: Good knowledge of
statistics, MA in Computational Linguistics or equivalent, Experience
in UNIX, Prolog, C; Research experience. Applications with cv and if
possible addresses of 2 referees: By mail, fax, email to the address
below. The application period expires as soon as a suitable candidate
has been identified.
Steven Krauwer
OTS
Utrecht University
Trans 10
3512 JK UTRECHT
Nederland
email: Steven.Krauwer@let.ruu.nl
phone: +31 30 53 6050
fax: +31 30 53 6000
(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 /-/-/-
Seven liters of wine are standing next to five liters of water. 1
mililiter of the wine is dropped into the water and thoroughly shaken
(not stirred). 2 ml of the mixture is transferred to the wine and
thoroughly mixed. Then 3 ml are transferred from the new mixture
and mixed into the first mixture. Finally 2 ml are taken from there
and dropped into the other mixture. Is there now more water in the
wine, or wine in the water? First correct e-mail submission wins this
week's 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
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employees, and shall not be used for advertising or product
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Void where prohibited
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