There are 14 messages totalling 252 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. th/dh (4)

 2. Half Past the Hour (2)

 3. noon and points around it

 4. Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS

 5. dialect diversity

 6. pen/hail/half past (3)

 7. half past (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 00:14:24 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



I hear [hawsIs] from all sorts of people. When I first noticed it in my

Texas nephews' speech I thought it might have been from Chicano influence,

but I've since decided that's not the case at all. The same people who

have /s/ in the plural of house also tend to keep the voiceless fricative

in the plural of bath. I think the pattern is being lost. It's not just

spelling pronunciation. Many of my students say they say the -t- in

soften as well as often, but not after other vowels. They might say the

-t- in glisten but not in listen, so in this case spelling is a culprit.



What's being said about th/dh, I think, explains why so many students have so

much trouble transcribing these words. Make up any new word and you'll find

that the Old English pattern still exerts some influence on the system.

Thuke would have to have a voiceless consonant, but voother could analogize to

either or to ether. I ask my students to make up words when we're discussing

this matter. Often someone will make up a word like thuke and say it with the

voiced consonant. I don't repeat the word but immediately ask the class to

repeat the word. Only those sitting next to the neologizer will say the

word with the voiced fricative. For the final -th/dh, of course, spelling

isn't a culprit that causes bad things but is an aid--for verbs, that is, but

not for plurals of nouns. And have y'all come across the technical term in

nursing -- to bath a baby -- in which the voiceless fricative is used?

                         DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 00:29:45 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



As a former Texan (Nay -- once a Texan always a Texan), I assure you that

'half past' in various forms is not uncommon. I have echoes of my father

using it; he was born in sw Ark and lived in "Indian Territory" south of

Okie City from age 2 to age 15. And I use it regularly, even in Missouri,

with no indication that anyone thinks it's strange.

                          DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 00:39:12 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: noon and points around it



Quarter to noon, half past noon. Sure. Noon thirty? No.

But dark thirty was often when my father went to bed. Sometimes we had to

work in the fields till dark thirty to get things finished. We said so, but

it didn't really happen.

Dawn thirty? No. 'Half past break time' would work for me. Now, of course,

I'm into extended uses.

            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 07:28:08 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Mail Order / Pin-Pen / LAGS



I think I once heard an unvoiced medial /s/ appear in my own pronunciation of

"houses" --- a feature that irritates. Has anyone charted the (apparently)

progressive replacement of houZes by houSSes? I hear it more and more in

new college students.



If this feature is on the march, it seems a more radical change than the

gradual assimilation of front vowels of the pen/pin sort--- though the s/z

difference does not have any American isogloss to support it. It seems,

in other words, a floating feature. Does anyone have any references on

this matter?



RK



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 07:38:29 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: th/dh



tressure/treasure is an exact pair



rk



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 07:45:39 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I never heard any other expression for

the middle of the hour except half-past /h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]p.p[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]st/ (where [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] is digraph). Three

thirty was radio talk, we said half-past. Some Britons I know pronounce

three thirty as "half four."



rk



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 09:39:53 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: th/dh



I realize from Donald Lance's posting that another minimal pair for the above

in the relevant dialect(s) would be bath's (voiceless) vs. baths or baths'

(voiced). Again, not a particularly high functional load, as we used to say.

Thanks for the suggestions on sh/zh, folks, but I'm afraid my _fission_ is as

voiceless as my _fishin'_ and my _tressure_ is non-existent (except in the

context "I know _treasure_ but not _tressure_"); it's apparently something to

do with hair-dressing.

  As for houses, my favorite datum comes from a linguist colleague whose

identity will be shielded here. She claims to have always distinguished

_housewife_ ([HAWSwayf] as for everyone else) from _housewives_ (which she

pronounces [HAWZwayvz], with all fricatives voiced). Some form of voicing

harmony or regressive assimilation, but limited to this lexical item. (She's

in her 40's and grew up in southern New England.)    --Larry Horn



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 13:42:08 +22305606

From:  "Ellen Johnson Faq. Filosofia y Hdes." <ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ABELLO.SECI.UCHILE.CL>

Subject: dialect diversity



I'm back with the statistics I promised last week. The following is a list of

the percentages of words/variants linked to each of the non-linguistic

variables I studied in both the LAMSAS data and my own. These are just the

words that were analyzed statistically: 488 of them in the first sample and

484 in the second one.

            1930s          1990

region         6.35         1.45

rurality        4.51         2.89

education        4.10         2.89

race          2.66         2.89

age           2.05         2.69

sex           1.43         1.65



total assoc. w/any above  19%       13%



If you look at all of the words collected in response to 150 questions to 39

informants in each set, the vocabulary increased by 40%, though more words in

the new corpus were too infrequent to be tested statistically.





1930s 1007 words, 1990 1402 words



As noted previously, Lowman and I collected about the same average number of

responses per informant, so this is not more words in each person's vocabulary

or differences in methodology, but a diff. in the total number of words in use.



Although TV is probably a factor in some of these new words (the most likely

prospect is giddy-up to get a horse to go), it is difficult to know what

changes to attribute to the media and which to education and wider reading, for

example. Also, it is not likely to lead to homogeneity, if only due to

different audiences for different shows. There are bound to be generational

differences in those influenced by MTV and Lawrence Welk reruns (rock n roll!),

and those who might pick up terms from certain sports shows (e.g. stock car

races) would remain limited to some extent by gender and social class.



I thought the following quote might be appropriate to this discussion:

"Mass communications technology is a powerful cultural agent. Linguists cannot

afford to disregard it simply because of misguided statements by popular

writers that exaggerate its importance as a linguistic influence."



Ellen Johnson

ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]abello.seci.uchile.cl



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 13:52:43 +22305606

From:  "Ellen Johnson Faq. Filosofia y Hdes." <ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ABELLO.SECI.UCHILE.CL>

Subject: pen/hail/half past



If 'half past' disappears, what will you say if you're not wearing a watch and

someone asks you the time? Not "half past a freckle", I guess.



I'm seeing something of a trend here in regard to pin/pen. Coincidentally

enough, I noticed the vowel /E/ in just such a context in my own speech about a

week before this topic came up. I attributed it to an influence from Spanish,

since neither 'tingo' nor 'tango' will pass for 'tengo' here. If others are

using it too, could it be a change from above passed on from more prestigious

regional dialects? By the way, the only native speakers I regularly talk to

here are from Syracuse.



At least my Southern accent is not going away altogether. I am reminded by

another posting that, for me, 'hail' has two syllables and 'hell' only one

because of the strongly diphthongized /e/ before /l/.



Ellen Johnson

ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]abello.seci.uchile.cl



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 15:12:39 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: pen/hail/half past



Ellen reminded me of something we used to say when we were young and foolish.



What time is it?



Looking at wrist -- Well, quarter past a freckle and half past a hair.



                        DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 22:13:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: pen/hail/half past



Don Lance grew up in a better area than us old Louisvillians. When people

plagued us about the time (or we just felt sassy). we said:

Half past a monkey's ass

Quarter up the hole.

(Variants - his/its hole.

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 21:14:12 -0600

From:  Tim Frazer <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: half past



I have only this on {half past}

Which, I admit, is {half assed}:

To wit: Up in Sterling, Illinois, we kids said "two hairs past the

monkey's tail."

-Tim



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 22:29:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: half past



Nights must have been long up in Sterling. I just got Tim's Heartland English

and except for my own miserable contribution it looks really first-rate. Y'all

rush out to your U. of Alabama bookseller and buy one, you hear.

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 21:56:03 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



    Since the voicing of <th> in function words was presumably a late

Southern (Kentish) development, the question is, are they still voiceless

anywhere today (Scotland, Pitcairn Island, Prince Edward Island)?

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Nov 1993 to 1 Dec 1993

***********************************************





There are 6 messages totalling 91 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Diversity of accents

 2. th/dh

 3. half past

 4. noon and points around it

 5. Dialect Diversity?

 6. Half Past the Hour



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 2 Dec 1993 00:11:18 EST

From:  "Nancy C. Elliott" <ELLIOTTN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCS.INDIANA.EDU>

Subject: Re: Diversity of accents



The voiceless 's' in 'houses' is all over the place here in Oregon (Ory-gun);

I've heard it all the way from Kansas to the Pacific Northwest.

Nancy Elliott

ELLIOTTN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ucs.indiana.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 1 Dec 1993 23:11:41 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



    On Larry Horn's /hawzwayvs/ example, it's worth remembering that

<hussy>, with /s/ and /z/, though I don't know anything about the distribution

of the difference, came from OE <huswif>. When and where the voicing

developed would be hard to determine. His example seems to be idiosyncratic,

since no one has responded to it, but it is suggestive of how change starts.

    --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 2 Dec 1993 10:42:53 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: half past



In New York City even back when I was growing up if someone asked

you the time you either ran away or shot them.



Dennis



--



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 2 Dec 1993 10:57:51 -0800

From:  "Thomas L. Clark" <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: Re: noon and points around it



Your message dated: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 00:39:12 CST

--------

> Quarter to noon, half past noon. Sure. Noon thirty? No.

> But dark thirty was often when my father went to bed. Sometimes we had to

> work in the fields till dark thirty to get things finished. We said so, but

> it didn't really happen.

>            DMLance



Wow! I thought "dark-thirty" was something my father (b. Mason City, IA)

made up and used. I'd never heard of anyone else using it until you

just did.

-------------------------------------------------------

Thomas L. Clark English Department UNLV 89154

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 2 Dec 1993 18:09:31 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1 <dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Re: Dialect Diversity?



On Wed, 24 Nov 1993, ALICE FABER wrote:

> When the New York Times article on the loss of the traditional NYC accent

> (e.g., toidy-toid street) was printed last year, I had the same reaction that

> others on the list have expressed to the comments attributed to Stewart. But

> we should bear in mind that the few sentences printed were probably distilled

> out of a longer interview, and many qualifications expressed would have been

> edited out in the name of pithiness.



Am I the only one here who's noticed that the New York Times isn't exactly

accentless? It uses such words as "stringbeans" rather than "green

beans". And it uses Yiddish words such as "chotchkes" without bothering

to translate them.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 2 Dec 1993 19:01:34 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1 <dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



Radio announcers seem to usually say things like "fifteen minutes in front

of the hour." I'd guess this to be a way of not offending listeners by

not using someone else's usual form.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Dec 1993 to 2 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 25 messages totalling 555 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Half Past the Hour (6)

 2. (Fwd) Re: quarter of

 3. (Fwd) Re: half past

 4. th/dh (5)

 5. Eth and thorn - why did they vanish? (4)

 6. pen/hail/half past (2)

 7. Dark-thirty, quarter to dawn (2)

 8. ADS-L Digest - 1 Dec 1993 to 2 Dec 1993

 9. eth/thorn

 10. Sounding Northern

 11. NYTimes and disappearing Newyawkese



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 08:49:42 +0100

From:  Jean LEDU <ledu[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CASSIS-GW.UNIV-BREST.FR>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



As a complete outsider - being a Frenchman - I HAVE

discovered Twenty after three and twenty of three

in Stephen King's novel.What is the actual US norm?

Do twenty past and twenty to sound English to an American

ear.

Jean Le Du, Un. of Brest, France



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:16:25 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



Charles M. Rosenberg, University of Notre Dame said:

>I was born and raised in and near Chicago and went to college

>near Philadelphia. To my ear three-thirty is the norm, though

>I have heard half-past three as well.

>Charles M. Rosenberg, University of Notre Dame



DMLance wrote:

>As a former Texan (Nay -- once a Texan always a Texan), I assure you that

>'half past' in various forms is not uncommon. I have echoes of my father

>using it; he was born in sw Ark and lived in "Indian Territory" south of

>Okie City from age 2 to age 15. And I use it regularly, even in Missouri,

>with no indication that anyone thinks it's strange.

>                          DMLance



"Half past" is the term I learned when I learned English at school (in

Sweden), and also the overwhelmingly common one I've heard used by Brits. I

always assumed that "half past three" was the standard expression, "three

thirty" being an American (USian?) variant. That is, if you don't mean 3.30

sharp, as when answering a query like "When does your train leave, sir?"

"[at] three thirty".

I would use hafl past three almost exclusively, and nothing else.

This is not to say that the expressions cited on this list aren't usable or

correct. Of course they are, but I don't use them.



>

>

 Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu> writes:

>

>`A quarter of' is `a quarter to/till' ie, `before,' the hour. `A quarter

>of 7' is not `1 3/4,' as one misguided usage "expert" once insisted. Nor

>is `a quarter to' `15 minutes toward the next hour,' as another one

>maintained.



This must be an Americanism. "Quarter to three" is the same as 1445 (or

0245) hrs. When in doubt, I always try to use the British forms. This may

be due to the fact that I'm not a native speaker (I hope that doesn't mean

I can't hvae opinions on ADS-L. Also, it may stem from the fact that I live

east of the Atlantic :-)



Dennis Baron continues:



>The one I've always had trouble remembering was `half seven' -- is

>that 6:30 or 7:30 (or is it really 3.5 after all)?

>

>Dennis (that's d/E/nnis)

>--

>



That's invariably 6:30 - I'll come to that (see below).



 Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]levy.bard.edu> wrote:

>

>Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I never heard any other expression for

>the middle of the hour except half-past /h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]p.p[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]st/ (where [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] is digraph). Three

>thirty was radio talk, we said half-past.



Good to see that at least some USians use "half past" ;-)



> Some Britons I know pronounce

>three thirty as "half four."

>

>rk



You're right, Robert - I've also heard this when I was traveling in

Scotland in 1987:

ScottishAccent on

- What's the time? /Wots D[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] tEim/ - It's half six [5.30] /hA:f siks/

ScottishAccent off

It sounded really nice to my ears, because this is the norm in Swedish,

Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, German and Finnish, and I thought English

didn't have that form. For example:

Swedish "halv tre", meaning 'half three', i e two-thirty. It's never used

in the sense 'three-thirty'. Similar variants in the other langs, except

Finnish, where it's translated: puoli kolme 'half three'.



Thus, "half three" and "half past three" are completely different

expressions, the difference between them being one hour.



Jean Le Du wrote:

>

>As a complete outsider - being a Frenchman - I HAVE

>discovered Twenty after three and twenty of three

>in Stephen King's novel.What is the actual US norm?

>Do twenty past and twenty to sound English to an American

>ear.

>Jean Le Du, Un. of Brest, France



At least, "twenty to" and "twenty of" sound awfully unBritish to me, i e I

assume they're transatlantic (i e USian) usages, until proven otherwise.



//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Compunting Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 04:27:51 -0500

From:  "E.W. Schneider" <EWSCHNEI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALF4.NGATE.UNI-REGENSBURG.D400.DE>

Subject: (Fwd) Re: quarter of



------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

From:     Self <ALF4/EWSCHNEI>

To:      debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu

Subject:    Re: quarter of

Date:     Thu, 2 Dec 1993 09:38:37



Any typologists out there? I cannot join the discussion on English

quarter of`s and half past`s, but it might be interesting to popint out we

have exactly the same variation in German: 6.15 is "viertel nach

6/quarter past 6" to some but "viertel 7 / quarter seven" to others, and

6.45 is "viertel vor 7" to my wife but "3/4 7/three quarters seven" to me

- it is clearly regionally distributed, but don`t ask me how (we grew up

some 50 miles apart).

However, 6.30 is always "halb 7", if I see that correctly, never

something like "halb nach 6".

Incidentally, there is a conventional way of avoiding an overly exact

time reference or temporal commtiment by leaving out the hour -

something like "When will you be back?" - "Half past". Does this sound

familiar?

Having written this at half past, while you folks in the western

hemisphere are proably sleeping, or whatever,

Edgar

Edgar W. Schneider

ewschnei[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]alf4.ngate.uni-regensburg.de

University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany

phone (int. line)-49-941-9433470

fax  (int. line)-49-941-9434992



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 04:52:48 -0600

From:  Tim Frazer <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



Twenty to and twenty past sound OK to me. But we also have twenty after,

and twenty to alternates with twenty till along regional lines. In

my part of the contry (Illinois) we have both of the later, since we live

in a transitional area. So I, at least, would be reluctant to say there's

a U.S. norm.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 05:00:40 -0600

From:  Tim Frazer <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: half past



All humor aside this time. My wife and I represent different parts of

U.S. (n. Florida and n Illinois, respectively). We are both familiar with

half past seven, but would be morelikely to say seven-thirty. Half-past

seems slightly bookish and less normal to me; her feelings are somewhat

the same though more qualified.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 05:17:03 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor <maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



> As a complete outsider - being a Frenchman - I HAVE

> discovered Twenty after three and twenty of three

> in Stephen King's novel.What is the actual US norm?



That's a good question. I've reached the conclusion that I'm wrong

in thinking that "half past" is uncommon in the US since almost everybody

I've asked, both on and off this list, has said that it's quite common.

Interestingly, I still haven't heard anybody use it -- I've just heard

people SAY that they use it and then a little while later say X-thirty

in a different conversation. My informal research has been going on for

only a few days, however.



> Do twenty past and twenty to sound English to an American

> ear.



They sound like ordinary US usage to me, although I would say "twenty

after" and "twenty till" or possibly "twenty of."

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 05:21:39 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor <maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



> "Half past" is the term I learned when I learned English at school (in

> Sweden), and also the overwhelmingly common one I've heard used by Brits. I

> always assumed that "half past three" was the standard expression, "three

> thirty" being an American (USian?) variant. That is, if you don't mean 3.30



That was my assumption until I raised the question a few days ago --

except that I assumed that "three thirty" was the standard expression,

with "half past three" being a British variant. ;-)

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 16:43:37 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: Re: th/dh



If the Brits had had enough common sense/guts/respect for

traditions/whatever to have kept the letters eth and thorn, it might have

been easier to conclude how words which are now spelt with th should be

pronounced.



Had eth/thorn been kept, the following spellings could/would have been used.

think = <thorn> <i> <n> <k>

this = <eth> <i> <s>

three = <thorn> <r> <e> <e>

with = <w> <i> <eth>

And so on.

Of course, the Americans would have scrapped these spellings as being a

British way of complicating things, and simplified them, just like in these

examples: colour-color, transferring-transfering, night-nite,

catalogue-catalog, cheque-check, etc. etc. ad infinitum :-)



//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden



=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)





=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 16:46:51 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: Eth and thorn - why did they vanish?



Can anyone tell me why the letters eth and thorn were discarded and

expelled from the language. I heard somewhere that the reasons had

something to do with these letters being pagan runes (?).

Thorn, as you may know, was the third letter of the futhark - the

16-character one as well as the one with 24 characters. Of course, you

couldn't use such things when writing in (then) Catholic England, so they

were discarded. Was this actually the case?

As I wrote in my earlier posting, they would have been useful even today.



//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:43:21 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: pen/hail/half past



Speaking of scatalogical time-telling, in 1950's New York, Dennis Preston's

Louisville monkey appeared in bovine garb:



    Half past a cow's ass and a quarter to its/his balls.



I know, I know, but this was New York City--what did we know from cows?



                         Larry Horn



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 09:55:25 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



Don't overlook the fact that there is regional variation in voiceless/voiced

<th>, at least in American English

        Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 13:10:25 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: th/dh



In Message Fri, 3 Dec 1993 09:55:25 -0700,

 Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]arizvms.bitnet> writes:



>Don't overlook the fact that there is regional variation in voiceless/voiced

><th>, at least in American English

>        Rudy Troike



Not to mention in the representation of these sounds in OE and ME

texts.



Dennis

--



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 10:58:33 -0800

From:  Roger Vanderveen <rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM>

Subject: Eth and thorn - why did they vanish?



This is an idea of mine, and I'd like to get some opinions on it.



I believe that the letter thorn didn't die out all that early, but was still in

use up until the 18th century, and we still see its occasional use today. I am

referring to the way that the word "the" was spelled as "ye". In old scripts

the letter "y" in "ye" looks like a thorn, and eventually the "y" replaced the

thorn.



Pronunciation could have been consistent with either spelling. The thorn sound

may not have been pronounced (compare modern English dialects which pronounce

"thee" as "ee"). But as the spelling using "y"/thorn died out in favor of

"th" (which was there all along), the "th" became no longer silent.





What think ye?



Roger



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 15:00:37 EST

From:  Bruce Southard <ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Eth and thorn - why did they vanish?



Thomas Pyles' _The Origins and Development of the English Language_ has

a section on "The Later Fate of Thorn, Eth, and Wynn" (pp. 30-31). Pyles

wrote that the thorn"continued in use until the very end of the Middle

Ages." There follows a discussion of _y_ being used as a representation

of thorn in "such pseudoantique absurdities as 'Ye Olde Choppe Suey

Shoppe." As best I can tell, this section was removed from the

Pyles/Algeo 3rd edition of _Origins_.



Regards, Ye Olde Scribe



Bruce Southard, English Department

East Carolina University

Greenville, NC 27858   (919)757-6041



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 13:05:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: pen/hail/half past



Thanks to Larry Horn (and New York English) us old timers can stop taking

about hen's lips and the hair on a frog's leg and substitute the cow's balls.

I'll do what I can for it.

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 13:02:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



Worse yet, thoseof us who have a voiceless interdental in final position in

<with> would have been badly represented in the spelling <w - i - eth>. Let's

not forget what a boon to variation English spelling often is. What variety

would we select if we really wanted to phonemicize (since I assume nobody

wants to phoneticise) English spelling.

Yawl woodn wunt tuh use mahn, wood yuh?

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 15:12:04 -0800

From:  "Thomas L. Clark" <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: Dark-thirty, quarter to dawn



After Don Lance shocked me by mentioning "dark-thirty," I got to

racking my brain to recall if I'd heard it from others. Nope.

To me it was a family item only. Then I realized we were also

taught at the old man's fishing knee about "quarter to dawn,"

when we headed for the river. Maybe these WEREN'T family items.

He was born in Mason City, IA and grew up in Fergus Falls, MN.



Do any of you have them?

Note: It was "quarter TO dawn."



Tom Clark

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 18:42:39 EST

From:  "C. Leslie Carpenter" <lesc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USCSUMTER.USCSU.SCAROLINA.EDU>

Subject: Re: Dark-thirty, quarter to dawn



Thanks to Don Lance and Tom Clark for "dark-thirty." I hadn't heard

it in years, and then only from my dad. He was born in Humble, TX,

and grew up in Racoon Bend, TX, the son of an oil (say ALL) field

worker. He, too, was a lifelong employee of the oil industry, which

run their drilling rigs 24 hours a day. He also used "dawn-thirty,"

though I do not recall hearing "quarter to dawn."



Les Carpenter

lesc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uscsumter.uscsu.scarolina.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 19:10:32 -0500

From:  ALICE FABER <FABER%LENNY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 1 Dec 1993 to 2 Dec 1993



>> Am I the only one here who's noticed that the New York Times isn't exactly

>> accentless? It uses such words as "stringbeans" rather than "green

>> beans". And it uses Yiddish words such as "chotchkes" without bothering

>> to translate them.



>> Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



Of course the NY Times uses expressions that aren't stereotypical of current

NY speech. The whole point of most of our objections to the Times article on

NY dialects was that they erroneously treated loss of stereotypical NY

features as equivalent to loss of a distinctly NY dialect. I suspect the

dialect features most people are aware of are stereotypical. After years

living into the south, I somehow acquired a lexical distinction between bags

and sacks: the brown paper things in the grocery store are sacks, and the

plastic things with handles are bags. I have maintained this distinction after

moving back to the Northeast 6 years ago. It's very rare that a clerk comments

on my use of sack in this context, although this is clearly a bag area.



With regard to Yiddish, funny you should mention this. Today's NY Times has an

article on the law page based on a paper in Yale Law Review about the use of

Yiddish terms in legal decisions. The earliest citation they could find for

chutzpa was from Georgia in the early 70's, applied to an individual who broke

into a sheriff's office to steal guns! In the Times article, brief glosses are

provided for chutzpa, tsoris 'trouble', etc.



Alice Faber



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 17:09:31 -0800

From:  Donald Livingston <deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: Half Past the Hour



For those interested, the Russian version of 3:30 is 'polovina

chetvyortovo', literally "half of the fourth". And 12:30 is 'polovina

pervovo', literally "half of the first". In my teaching experience, most

American students of Russian must make a fairly serious mental effort to

learn this formulation, so I have been much surprised to hear of the

Scottish English equivalent noted by Hans Vappula.



All the best, Don.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Livingston             (Graduate Student)

4500 Whitman Ave. North #2       Dept. Slav. Lang. & Lit., DP-32

Seattle, WA 98103            University of Washington

Phone/Fax (206) 634-1539        Seattle, WA 98195



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 17:42:35 -0800

From:  Donald Livingston <deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>

Subject: eth/thorn



A local undergraduate told me that one normally didn't find eth and thorn

in the same manuscript, but that in some one found the one, and in

others -- the other. Can anyone confirm or deny that for me?



All the best, Don.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 19:59:23 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1 <dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Sounding Northern



Someone I know whose native accent is "hillbilly" (a southern/Appalachian

migrant enclave in a northern industrial city) has found a way to sound

"normal" to most Northerners. He imitates a Canadian accent.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 20:48:11 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1 <dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: NYTimes and disappearing Newyawkese



On Fri, 3 Dec 1993, ALICE FABER wrote:



> Of course the NY Times uses expressions that aren't stereotypical of current

> NY speech. The whole point of most of our objections to the Times article on

> NY dialects was that they erroneously treated loss of stereotypical NY

> features as equivalent to loss of a distinctly NY dialect.



I realized that -- I just wanted to point out a bit of irony.



My dialect is either Upstate New York or Hudson Valley. To me, New York

City speech sounds odder than the way English-speaking Montrealers talk.

(My mother grew up in NYC and has that accent, but that's not the dialect

I picked up.) Relatively young people from New York City -- and from

Jersey and the Island -- may not have accents as strong as workingclass

and lowerclass New Yorkers who grew up before WWII -- but they still don't

sound exactly accentless to me.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



"Deealict? We don't ain't got no deealict, maister!"



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 22:47:48 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Eth and thorn - why did they vanish?



one problem: the Y as grapheme equivalent of thorn lasted only in words

where eth was the sound wanted: Ye Olde Teashoppe, etc. As an earlier

respondent noted, in Middle English texts these letters are (I think) hope-

lessly interchangeable. Recall that thorn was still "productive" (as it

still is, i.e., show someone a made-up word with th- in it and they'll

pronounce it with a theta) and eth restricted to a very small lexicon, mostly

deictic words. I'm guessing that the obsolescence of the sound eth made the

graphemic distinction less important. Then too, the snazzy new typefaces

coming in from Italy in the Renaissance had no eths and thorns, and we all

wanted to look like Aldus in those days. (Personally, I miss the yog letter, looked like 3 you remember, and lingers as the z in Mackenzie and Dalziell, as

the gh in laugh, the w in law, etc. A good sound we have to cross the Channel

to Holland to hear still. Even the Scots have lost it!



rk.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 20:47:51 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



Dinnis'ez iz ez good ez inny. Sownz jes lahk mee.

        Rudy Troike

P.S. That's why English spelling is on the way to being like Chinese characters

, many of which are also semi-phonemic. That is what has kept the Chinese

polity together for so many centuries, since everyone (literate) could read

the written language, even though their pronunciations might be as different

as English and German. Wouldn't it be nice if in order to read Swedish,

German, French, Russian, English, etc., all European-derived languages used

a character system like Chinese? Then we would be able to read everything

directly, without having to study the language separately in each case.

P.P.S. How do you say the quarter and half hour times in Swedish again?

I wonder if it is native or a calque on German?



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Dec 1993 to 3 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 8 messages totalling 199 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Help with Russian accents

 2. Sounding Northern (3)

 3. th/dh

 4. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms? (3)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 3 Dec 1993 22:16:07 -0800

From:  Donald Livingston <deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: Help with Russian accents



Dear Mr Paine,



  There are quite a few works that deal with the details of Russian

stress in phenomenal detail. Check your library for Udarenie_v_

sovremennom_russkom_jazyke by N. A. Fedjanina (Izdatel'stvo "Russikij

jazyk"). Said book notes not only pretty well all the stress patterns of

the Russian noun, but also notes the number of nouns that fall into those

patterns.

  For some of us aspiring linguists out here, your question about how to

represent stress information in a computer program immediately brings to

mind the question of how that information is stored in the Lexicon of the

human brain. There are number of articles available that attempt to

break down the complex pattern of Russian nominal stress into a few

simple principles. If you're interested in references, drop me a line.

Two of them I can think of might lend themselves to codable algorithms.



All the best, Don.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Livingston             (Graduate Student)

4500 Whitman Ave. North #2       Dept. Slav. Lang. & Lit., DP-32

Seattle, WA 98103            University of Washington

Phone/Fax (206) 634-1539        Seattle, WA 98195



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 11:29:04 -0500

From:  "J. Chambers" <chambers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPAS.UTORONTO.CA>

Subject: Re: Sounding Northern



Daniel S. Goodman's 'hillbilly' friend who discovered that he sounds

unmarked when he puts on a Canadian accent corroborates a contention

of mine. Once when I lectured in England I made the outrageous claim

that my CE accent pretty well preserved English as it was intended to

be spoken. (Instead of objecting, the students dutifully wrote that

down, and I had to tell them I was kidding.) The serious side was to

point out that the ME vowels had kept their features in CE: the tense

vowels are all diphthongs, and the lax vowels are all lax, and all but

one of the spaces in the vowel triangle are still filled. (The CAUGHT,

PAW, AWFUL vowel has merged with COT, OFFAL.) In "The three dialects

of English," Bill Labov seems to regard this kind of neatness

suspiciously. CE belongs to the third dialect, and Bill writes,

"Neutralized speakers of English, whose local patterns are blurred or

hypercorrected, might be considered a 'third dialect'....They are

effectively isolated from the mainstream of the history of English and

have little influence on future developments" (p. 30). So Daniel S.

Goodman's friend is paying a price--in Bill's metaphor, spaying himself.

                    Jack Chambers



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 01:41:25 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: th/dh



At the time of the demise of eth and thorn, were pronunciation patterns

stable enough for scribes to make firm decisions? E.g., did that

handful of function words vocalize initial "th" over a short enough time

for scribes to be able to establish a clear pattern? My guess is that

the "silent e" would have helped retain the eth. And medial thorn

next to voiceless consonants would have had a strong influence operating on

it. But then why didn't our predecessors do something about those

ambiguous s's when the zed/zee came into common use? Neither Brits nor

USians have seemed to want to zedify, though f and v were negotiable.

Interesting questions.            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 19:10:01 -0600

From:  Tim Frazer <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



Query 1: In west central Illinois, I hear the following use

of progressive aspect with "want" which seems unusual:

I've been wantin' one of those for a long time.

Are you wantin' an appointment next Friday?

----------------------------

I would expect to hear "I've wanted" and "Do you want."

Are these regionalisms? Have you heard anything like it/them,

and if so, where? (People who use these forms are likely to use

other well-known "Midland" markers, including warsh/warshington.



Query 2. Somewhere is a paper in which Kurath's attribution to

elliptical structures like "the cat wants in" to Pa. German infl.

is challenged. The author suggests Gaelic (demographically, Scotch-

Irish) influence instead. Where did I see this?



Query 3. The distribution of constructions like "the car needs washed"

or "the grass needs mowed" seem to originate in areas Kurath called

"Midland." In Illinois the areas where this from is accepted seem

to recall the old Northern-Midland division. Has anyone sen evidence that

NEEDS + V + -ED is associated with the Scotch-Irish?



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 20:06:10 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Sounding Northern



Re Goodman's hillbilly Canadian-speaking friend and Chambers' outrageous

claim. It's not hard to fool some people. Because I grew up in an area

where there is a wide mix of dialects, I don't have a particularly strong

regional accent. This was in the southern tip of Texas. In junior high and

high school I had friends who had moved down there from Iowa, New York, Ohio,

and other non-Texas places, so I sort of struck a compromise in my vowels.

The base is Arkansas-North Texas but without as much di- and triphthongization

as is heard elsewhere in Texas. Sort of like Rudy Troike's speech, developed

60 miles down-river from mine in Brownsville.

Here in Missouri I play a little game with my students. After a couple of

weeks I stop in the middle of whatever I'm talking about and tell them that

they've been listening to me long enough to figure out where I'm from. They

guess Ohio, Minnesota, or other places. Occasionally someone will guess

Texas or Arkansas and I'll ask the rest of the class if they think that could

be right. The insist it couldn't be. (Nobody with Texas or Arkansas

dialects could have PhDs, I suppose.) After they've given up, I draw an

outline of the Lower 48 and place an X where Mission, Texas would be.

I also tease that I speak standard English, never dreaming that they'll

believe me after I've told 'em I'm from Texas. But I've also told them that

I don't have a strong regional accent because I made some changes. And many

of them have tried to worsh the r out of wash without much luck, so if I've man

aged not to sound like Lyndon Johnson I must have achieved the standard. Or

something like that.

I really thought they understood that I was joking in what I said about

standard language, and didn't think Missourians would think any Texas accent

would be standard. Well, a colleague asked her class on a test where standard

English is spoken, and one of my former students dutifully wrote "Mission,

Texas."

So now you have a choice: You can go Canadian and fool people, or you can

use the prestige South Texas "Valley" dialect (Rio Grande Valley, not San

Joachin).                      DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 20:58:15 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



I use the two wanting progressives that Tim Frazer asked about. They seem

to me to be simply appropriate aspect. That is, I'd use both 'I have

wanted...' and 'I have been wanting...' for different aspectual focus.

'Are you wanting...' may have a politeness factor in it too. But the

fact that I use these doesn't negate Midlandness or any other regionality.

And those who fully digested my previous posting will henceforth regard

these uses as standard. With South Midland cultural regards,

                        DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 20:52:34 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



Tim--

    I'm responding on the net for convenience, re your queries.

    1. "I've been wanting one for a long time" (with or without velar)

sounds perfectly normal and standard for me, and tends to emphasize the

presentness a bit more, such as when a gift is presented. "I've wanted one

for a long time" might be followed by "but I know I'll never get it." I think

either would be possible and standard in Texas.

    "Are you wanting an appointment next Friday" may remind of the Irish or

Scottish "Is it an appointment next Friday you'll be wanting?", but I would

take it as a not unusual informal usage carrying a bit more of politeness than

the rather blunter "Do you want an appointment next Friday?".

    2. Sorry, I don't know the paper, but "The cat wants in/out" would be

perfectly normal to this South Texan; our cat, however, never goes out, and

hence cannot ever want in.

    3. "The car needs washed" indeed sounds more German to me; I don't know

of any Scotch-Irish evidence. In Texas, I think one would ordinarily say "The

car needs washING" -- maybe this is the general norm. However, I could say

"This car needs TO BE washED", perhaps more as a directive than an observation.

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 4 Dec 1993 21:07:48 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Sounding Northern



    Us Valleyites (not San Fernando) stick together. One of my major

sociolinguistic handicaps at the University of Texas (in those days it was

The University, no nonsense about "at Austin") was not "sounding like a Texan".

Don Lance actually sounds a bit more Texan than I do (maybe something that

gets in the water in the river between Mission and Brownsville; I know the

boron level is higher). While I was at UT, I regularly asked classes where

they thought I was from, and uniformly got answers like Ohio, Illinois, Iowa.

However, they were greatly reassured when I told them I pronounced <pin> and

<pen> alike, and regularly used <you-all>. But it was still embarrassing to

my Texan nationalism not to be recognized as a native. Nevertheless, I concur

that Valley English is a good candidate for a standard prestige variety.

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 3 Dec 1993 to 4 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 9 messages totalling 162 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms? (4)

 2. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms (3)

 3. Sounding Northern

 4. NYTimes and disappearing Newyawkese



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 00:04:30 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



To this NYC ear,

I've been wanting... seems unnoticeably normal

but

Are you wanting... seems stage-Irish, odd.



rk



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 03:34:59 -0800

From:  Donald Livingston <deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



The first times I heard the phrase "I'm wanting to ..." it sounded

quite unnatural to my Arizona-bred ear. Almost all emotion verbs and

desire verbs sounded wrong that way. But I really think there has been a

shift toward using them in the progressive. It no longer sounds odd to

me to hear something like, "I'm hating what's going on at the office" or

more to the point "I'm hating staying up to three o'clock in the morning

writing essays on vowel reduction". I might even expect to hear nowadays

something like "I'm gonna be hatin' stayin' up till three o'clock

tomorrow morning writing a critique of Hayes analysis of voice

assimilation." And now "I'm fearing my end-of-the-quarter grade" sounds

OK, too, though I don't think I would have used the progressive twenty

years ago. "I'm loving it" sounds normal now, but once again, I don't

think I would have said it twenty years ago. Is anyone else out there

thinking that they are noticing the progressive forms becoming more common?



All the best, Don.



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 09:19:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



As a decided South Midlander (Indiana suburbs of Louisville) I can say with

little hesitation that Tim Frazer's sentences are split for me. <I've been

wantin' one of them for a long time> is OK, but <Are you wantin' an

appointment> is not.

Dennis Preston

<22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 09:24:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Sounding Northern



Ho-ho-ho. Don Lance may fool them show-me students into believing that Stanard

US English has its omphalos in Mission TX, but replications of the 'where do

they speak the most correct English' studies of the early 1980's still show

that MI speakers are as convinced now (as they were then) that MI English is

the very best. (Suprising new data: young MI college students are not nearly

as harsh in their judgments of the correctness and friendliness of US Southern

states English as they were a decade, and (most surprising), California has

become a tertiary area of incorrectness and unpleasantness.

Dennis Preston

<22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 09:40:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



I am now conducting an interview with myself after acting as a respondent to

the progressive form matters sent out to us earlier.

I admit that my harsh judgment against 'Are you wanting an appointment?' was

too hasty. Although 'Do you want an appointment?' is definitely the unmarked

for m for me (and not at all rude, as I think Rudy [no pun] suggested), I can

get "Are you wanting...?' in such cases as the following: A recpetionsist has

not seen a person sitting in an office; a person appears to want an

appointment at a place where they are not normally given; a receptionsist has

misunderstood what a person wants.

I'm glad I did this interview with myself after my initial responses, but I

still don't know whnat it means about the aspect problems raised here. Perhaps

it fits some such generalization as emotional highlighting. If past+emotion

equals present (He picked up a rock and BANG he hits up the side of the head)

then maybe present+emotion equals progress (He goes fishing there all the time

then WOW he's catching fish there like crazy). This does a little damage to

the notion that progressives are usually background elements in narrative, but

perhaps this helps explain some exceptions to that usually handy

generalization.

I'm sorry not to be able resisting the remark that the new variety given the

network is 'Valley Boy' and that Professors Lance and Troike (with subtle

internal differences, of course) are prime examples.

I fear my own Ohio River Valley will never be able to make such an impact.

Dennis Preston

<22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 09:16:55 -0700

From:  Daniel Brink <Dan.Brink[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ASU.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



I agree with many commentators to this list as to the strangeness

of "Are you wanting . . "; however, I hear frequently "Will you be

wanting . . ." as part of a service dialog.



=========================================

Daniel Brink, Professor of English

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

BOX 870302

TEMPE AZ 85287-0302

602/965-4182o 602/965-3168m 602/965-3451f 602/965-2679hcf

Internet: ATDXB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 16:17:07 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



The strangeness of this form in Arizona does suggest some regional

variation (2 responses; Don & Dan) ditto for NY. That's interesting since a

couple of

hundred student surveys I have done doesn't suggest any Northern-Midland

contrast, unlike the results for NEEDS WASHED. But those of you who report

some familiarity would suggest a Midland or a South-and-Midland distribution

(Rudy, Dennis P, Don Lance). Maybe it IS Irish.



On NEEDS WASHED: I agree with Rudy it could be German. The settlement

history of this (ILL) area was heavily Pa & European German as well as

Ohio. Tom Murray's Ohio maps in KQ (199o.4)

suggest the form is spreading from Appalachia. My daughter (age 27) has

lived in c. Ill. all o

f her life and uses this form regularly -- she has done so at least since

leaving high school & home & begun dating a local farmer. And then in

this morning's (Dec 5) MACOMB JOURNAL, I read this headline: "Zoning

changes need stopped." That's the second time this year the JOURNAL has

printed this construction as part of a headline.



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 16:32:13 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



Bob, cf. Rudy message about "Irish." Thanks.



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 5 Dec 1993 16:38:18 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: NYTimes and disappearing Newyawkese



I forgot Dan Goodman's earlier message where he identifies himself

as Upstate NewYork. So he becomes another Yankee who finds the use of

the progressive I cited to be marked. Hm.



I'm wondering how other Yankees would respond.



tcf



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 4 Dec 1993 to 5 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 4 messages totalling 117 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms? (2)

 2. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 6 Dec 1993 08:36:00 CDT

From:  JOAN H HALL <JOANHALL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



>From:  IN%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET"  "American Dialect Society"

>To:   Multiple recipients of list ADS-L <ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET>

>Subject: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?

>

>Received: from MACC.WISC.EDU by wigate.nic.wisc.edu; Sat, 04 Dec 93 23:01 CDT

>Received: from uafsysb.uark.edu by wigate.nic.wisc.edu;

>     Sat, 04 Dec 93 23:00 CDT

>Received: from UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU by UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)

>     with BSMTP id 8023; Sat, 04 Dec 93 22:59:18 CST

>Received: from UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UAFSYSB)

>     by UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4504;

>     Sat, 4 Dec 1993 22:59:16 -0600

>Message-Id: <23120423005548[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]wigate.nic.wisc.edu>

>Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1993 19:10:01 -0600

>From: Tim Frazer <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET>

>Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET>

>Subject: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?

>To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L <ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET>

>Comments: To: ads-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.bitnet

>

>Query 1: In west central Illinois, I hear the following use

>of progressive aspect with "want" which seems unusual:

>I've been wantin' one of those for a long time.

>Are you wantin' an appointment next Friday?

>----------------------------

>I would expect to hear "I've wanted" and "Do you want."

>Are these regionalisms? Have you heard anything like it/them,

>and if so, where? (People who use these forms are likely to use

>other well-known "Midland" markers, including warsh/warshington.

>

>Query 2. Somewhere is a paper in which Kurath's attribution to

>elliptical structures like "the cat wants in" to Pa. German infl.

>is challenged. The author suggests Gaelic (demographically, Scotch-

>Irish) influence instead. Where did I see this?

>

>Query 3. The distribution of constructions like "the car needs washed"

>or "the grass needs mowed" seem to originate in areas Kurath called

>"Midland." In Illinois the areas where this from is accepted seem

>to recall the old Northern-Midland division. Has anyone sen evidence that

>NEEDS + V + -ED is associated with the Scotch-Irish?

>

>Tim Frazer

Tim,

The Scottish National Dictionary, at _need_ v. 4 says "Used with _pa.p._

instead of _vbl.n_ as in Eng. Gen. Sc." and gives these examples:

"This lock needs sortit." "The hail house needs guttit." "The first

driver on the list really did not need wakened."



DARE has found numerous examples of the construction "I've been knowing him

for twenty years," most of them coming from the Gulf States.

Joan Hall, DARE



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 6 Dec 1993 09:44:36 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



It's been very informative following your native postings on stative verbs

inflected in the progressive. In the early 1980s, while writing a short

monograph "Stativity and the progressive" (Indiana U. Linguistics Club, 1984) I

disputed the common claim that stative verbs are not used in the progressive

and argued that with the exception of a handful of verbs such as "consist,"

most stative verbs have progressive uses. Not only verbs such as "feel,"

which are presented as exceptions, but also verbs such as "believe, trust,

hate, love, like," which are commonly not discussed at all. I then faced the

problem of how to define the meaning of the progressive, zealously

questioning that it meant 'activity in process'. I tried to convince myself

then that it means 'transient duration'. Recently, I have been toying with a

disjunctive characterization (being more skeptical of "significant

generalizations!") in terms of 'process' or 'transient duration', assuming

that the unmarked condition for most stative verbs is unspecified duration.

I'm still not sure how close I am to being accurate, but it seems to me that

for verbs that stand high on the scale of stativity the progressive

expresses some marked interpretation. There is variation among the verbs

themselves regarding the distance between the unamarked and the marked

interpretations, e.g., "I'm trusting Paul (more and more)" vs. "Ed was loving

Mary (last summer)" vs. "Carla is feeling wonderful." I didn't suspect as

much variation among speakers regarding which marked constructions where

(un)acceptable to whom and when. It's so much more informative when some go

beyond data-producing and conjecture an explanation.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 6 Dec 1993 10:54:00 CST

From:  Cynthia Bernstein <BERN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DUCVAX.AUBURN.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



My husband (native New York--Long Island--, 20 years in Texas, 5 in

Alabama), pointing to a pile of bills I had just paid: "Are these

needing stamps."

--Cindy Bernstein



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 6 Dec 1993 11:00:57 CST

From:  Mike Picone <MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



Constructions of the type "the car needs washed" were used by friends of

mine who were from Northern Ireland.



Mike Picone

U Alabama



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Dec 1993 to 6 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 5 messages totalling 231 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. More on Eth and thorn (3)

 2. How to say quarter to/past and half past in Swedish

 3. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 7 Dec 1993 10:03:00 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: More on Eth and thorn



>From the keyboard of

 Roger Vanderveen <rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ichips.intel.com>



>This is an idea of mine, and I'd like to get some opinions on it.

>

>I believe that the letter thorn didn't die out all that early, but was still in

>use up until the 18th century, and we still see its occasional use today. I am

>referring to the way that the word "the" was spelled as "ye". In old scripts

>the letter "y" in "ye" looks like a thorn, and eventually the "y" replaced the

>thorn.



Right. Do you actually mean thorn and not eth? Compare: Below is a

lowercase thorn, hex FE, 254 decimal in ISO 8859-1.

*

*

***

* *

***

*

*



Below is a lowercase Faroese-Icelandic lowercase eth, hex F0, 240 decimal

in ISO 8859-1:



*

 *

****

 *

* *

* *

 **



Below is an attempt at a script y of the type you probably are referring to

above (admittedly not a good one, but you can't expect miracles from 7-bit

ASCII):



*  *

 * *

 *

* *

* *

**



Looks more like eth than thorn to me...





>

>Pronunciation could have been consistent with either spelling. The thorn sound

>may not have been pronounced (compare modern English dialects which pronounce

>"thee" as "ee"). But as the spelling using "y"/thorn died out in favor of

>"th" (which was there all along), the "th" became no longer silent.

>

>

>What think ye?

>

>Roger



Aye, what think ye?



Dennis Preston states:

>Worse yet, thoseof us who have a voiceless interdental in final position in

><with> would have been badly represented in the spelling <w - i - eth>.



The why not use <w-i-thorn> as a variant, just like colour-color etc.

(admittedly somewhat hypothetical, but since you mentioned it I couldn't

resist...)



>Let's

>not forget what a boon to variation English spelling often is. What variety

>would we select if we really wanted to phonemicize (since I assume nobody

>wants to phoneticise) English spelling.

>Yawl woodn wunt tuh use mahn, wood yuh?

>Dennis Preston



YorkshireAccent on:

Naw, Uh'spawze nouhtt...

YorkshireAccent off





Robert Kelly (kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]levy.bard.edu) points out:

>one problem: the Y as grapheme equivalent of thorn lasted only in words

>where eth was the sound wanted: Ye Olde Teashoppe, etc. As an earlier

>respondent noted, in Middle English texts these letters are (I think) hope-

>lessly interchangeable. Recall that thorn was still "productive" (as it

>still is, i.e., show someone a made-up word with th- in it and they'll

>pronounce it with a theta) and eth restricted to a very small lexicon, mostly

>deictic words.



A small but very common lexicon, I'd say. The, this, that, they, their,

them are among the most common words in English (all variants), aren't

they?



>I'm guessing that the obsolescence of the sound eth made the

>graphemic distinction less important.



Obsolescence??? See above. Nevertheless (never<eth>eless), the said

distinction must have been *considered to be* less important.



>Then too, the snazzy new typefaces

>coming in from Italy in the Renaissance had no eths and thorns, and we all

>wanted to look like Aldus in those days. (Personally, I miss the yog letter,

>>looked like 3 you remember, and lingers as the z in Mackenzie and Dalziell,

>as

>the gh in laugh, the w in law, etc. A good sound we have to cross the Channel

>to Holland to hear still. Even the Scots have lost it!

>

>rk.



If you mean the initial sound in Groningen has been lost in Scots, how do

you then pronounce Loch Ness? Or maybe the sound was reintroduced by Gaelic

influence... Also, you could cross the Atlantic in a nor<eth>erly direction

and find it as an optional and alternative pronunciation to final hard G in

spoken Icelandic.







//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 7 Dec 1993 11:57:15 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: How to say quarter to/past and half past in Swedish



At 20.47 (GMT-7) on 3.12.93 Rudy Troike wrote to ADS-L:

>P.P.S. How do you say the quarter and half hour times in Swedish again?



I've been unable to send to Rudy's bitnet address and do not have an

Internet address for him, so I'll have to post here.



Half past two = halv tre

quarter to three = kvart i tre

quarter past three = kvart |ver tre (| = o with umlaut/diaeresis)



"I" of course translates as "in", and "|ver" as "over".





>I wonder if it is native or a calque on German?



I don't really know. It may be a Germanism, but I'd rather say it's of

common Germanic origin, since Icelandic also has "half thrir" for "half

past two".

(Put acute accents over the a and the i and replace th with thorn here.)

As for Icelandic equivs. of quarter to/past, I can't remember off the top

of my head if they follow the pattern of the other Nordic languages and

Finnish, but I could find out, if you are interested.



//Hans

//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 7 Dec 1993 11:27:58 -0800

From:  Roger Vanderveen <rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM>

Subject: More on Eth and thorn



  Right. Do you actually mean thorn and not eth? Compare: Below is a

  lowercase thorn, hex FE, 254 decimal in ISO 8859-1.



I was thinking of a thorn, and a y more in this shape:



  * *

  * *

  * *

  ***

  *

 * *

 *



Unfortunately I don't have any manuscripts at hand that contain that character,

but the top of the thorn has been opened up and the bottom has been given a

serif.



-- Roger



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 7 Dec 1993 21:17:17 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: More on Eth and thorn



sound lost in initial position in Scots, to be clearer.

the g's in Dutch geen and Dutch gracht



and to my ear in Scotland, the loch is less affricated.



But we hear what we want to hear.



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 7 Dec 1993 22:01:21 EST

From:  Michael Montgomery <N270053[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNIVSCVM.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms?



There is a great deal of evidence that "the car needs washed" is a

Scotch-Irish usage. Joan Hall has cited the SCOTTISH NATIONAL DICTIONARY;

other Scottish sources could be mentioned as well. As far as Ulster is

concerned, there are scattered references in the linguistic literature.

For example, Philip Robinson, in "The Scots Language in Seventeenth-

Century Ulster" (published in ULSTER FOLKLIFE Vol 35, 1989) refers to "

Modern Ulster-Scottish idioms such as 'the car needs washed' . . ."

(p. 95) and offers a possible derivation of the construction. In informal

elicitations in Northern Ireland I have found near universal acceptance of

the pattern.



As far as the progressive is concerned, Peter Trudgill once told me that

its use with 'want' and similar verbs becomes progressively more common in

Britain the farther one went north. Scattered comments in the literature

on both Scots and Hiberno-English attribute the pattern to a Gaelic

substratum. Trudgill made the same comment about contrac-

tion with subjects rather than with 'not' (He's not coming vs. He isn't

coming). The progressive 'wanting' and the 'he's not' contraction are

quite common in my native East Tennessee. They might would be interesting

to test in the Midwest, since their geographical distribution in Britain

suggests something of a Scotch-Irish influence.



Does anyone know of a quantitative study of either the progressive or

contraction variation?



Michael Montgomery, Dept of English, U of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Dec 1993 to 7 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 8 messages totalling 172 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch (6)

 2. Hello and help!

 3. reply to Williams



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 08:26:27 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



Robert Kelly says, on the /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch:

>sound lost in initial position in Scots, to be clearer.

>the g's in Dutch geen and Dutch gracht

>

>and to my ear in Scotland, the loch is less affricated.

>

>But we hear what we want to hear.



Robert,

You're right, there _is_ a difference, even to my ear.

I'm not exactly a fluent speaker of Dutch :-), so I can't say how big it is.

But it's there - though I find the ch in loch and g in geen to be pretty

close to each other, but, as you point out, they're not quite the same.

Although they of course could be for _some_ bilingual speakers of

Scots/Dutch (an analogy to the earlier pin/pen debate here).

//H.



//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 01:18:08 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



Calling all phoneticians--

    The [x] (NOT /x/) in <loch> and <geen> SHOULDN'T be the same, given

the difference in phonetic environment, even if they were in the same language.

Cf. the [k]'s in <lock> and <keep> (ignoring the aspiration), both /k/.

    --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 09:16:00 GMT

From:  ENG0997[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX2.QUEENS-BELFAST.AC.UK

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



Hans Vappula talks about [x] in INITIAL position in Scots. Could he

give us some examples, please?



John KIRK

The Queen's University of Belfast



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:42:03 +0100

From:  Hans Vappula <guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GD.CHALMERS.SE>

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



Rudy Troike wrote:

>Calling all phoneticians--

>    The [x] (NOT /x/) in <loch> and <geen> SHOULDN'T be the same, given

>the difference in phonetic environment, even if they were in the same language.

>Cf. the [k]'s in <lock> and <keep> (ignoring the aspiration), both /k/.

>    --Rudy Troike



You're right. I stand corrected on that one.

As for using slashes instead brackets, I did that only because the ASCII

positions of these brackets are used for two of the letters of the Swedish

alphabet and show up as these letters on my screen. I am aware that I

should use brackets, and that not doing so is culturally arrogant in this

context. Sorry...



John Kirk asks:

>Hans Vappula talks about [x] in INITIAL position in Scots. Could he

>give us some examples, please?

>

>John KIRK

>The Queen's University of Belfast



No, I'm afraid I can't. As has been pointed out to me by Rudy, see above,

the two sounds aren't even the same. Until proven otherwise, I assume there

are no such examples. Please accept my apologies for having confused

things...

//Hans

//Hans Vappula, Gothenburg Universities' Computing Centre, G|teborg, Sweden

=========================================================================

Hans Vappula * guchw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.chalmers.se * hans.vappula[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gd.gu.se ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] = at sign)



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 16:52:36 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams <gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH>

Subject: Hello and help!



Hello everyone,



 I have just joined this group from Thailand. I am a New Zealander by

upbringing. I teach linguistics in Thailand. My present interest in this

group arises from the fact that I am teaching a linguistics course

"Varieties of English". We have started with a look at the history of the

English language from old to modern and will soon be looking at particular

varieties. Anything of relevance and interest will end up in folder for my

students.



 You may see one of my major problems (um, challenges) is that I am

attempting to teach about English varieties to non-native speakers of low

competence. I wonder if anyone has any ideas that may make things less

tedious for them and for me. I intend to cover dialect, accent (probably

mostly this), style, native and non-native varieties (World Englishes).



 One thing I would love to get hold of are word lists or sentences that

illustrate various dialects or accent differences. Do such exist in this

group? I'd appreciate anything. I could use them to send students out to

interview hapless tourists in the locality :-) I have access to several

texts, eg., by Trudgill, etc. Of limited use to us: to much reading, too

few examples :-(



Many thanks



(Mr.) Gwyn Williams

Department of Linguistics

Thammasat University

Bangkok

Thailand

<gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th>



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 13:49:30 +0100

From:  Jean LEDU <ledu[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CASSIS-GW.UNIV-BREST.FR>

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



Isn't the sound in geen voiced, or at least weak?

It is voiced in Belgium. It would be better to take a Dutch

word like hoog 'high', but then the preceding vowel is long.

Jean Le Du



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 07:26:45 -0700

From:  Daniel Brink <Dan.Brink[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ASU.EDU>

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



The /g/ in Dutch varies from area to area, and from position to

position. First of all, voicing is present, except in predictable

positions (syllable finally, before -t, etc.), at least in the

south (read: Belgium); A'dam is really the only place with clearly

voiceless initial g. Second, sandhi is very strong in Dutch,

especially for initial voiced fricatives, so you have to take

care with the environment.



=========================================

Daniel Brink, Professor of English

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

BOX 870302

TEMPE AZ 85287-0302

602/965-4182o 602/965-3168m 602/965-3451f 602/965-2679hcf

Internet: ATDXB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:11:30 EST

From:  "Betty S. Phillips" <EJPHILL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ROOT.INDSTATE.EDU>

Subject: Re: reply to Williams



If you have access to VCR equipment, the _Story of English_ is an

excellent source of dialect differences in World English. Of course

there is a book and workbook (which is particularly helpful in

outlining phonetic differences) to that series as well.

 J.C. Wells' _Accents of English_ is "too much reading," but it has

accompanying tapes (if I remember correctly) that may be useful to

you.



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Dec 1993 to 8 Dec 1993

**********************************************





There are 2 messages totalling 150 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch

 2. response to gwyn



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 9 Dec 1993 12:48:35 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: The /x/ sounds in Scots and Dutch



the slight voicing I hear in [gamma] in geen, in Amsterdam, is the sound

I mourned the lack of in English. Just to be clear what this geen/zaak started

with.



RK



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 9 Dec 1993 22:30:56 EST

From:  David Bergdahl <bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>

Subject: response to gwyn



Dear Gwyn,

    About 10-12 years ago a Public Broadcasting Series on language entitled

"The Story of English" was produced with popular PBS presenter Robert MacNeil as

"host" as we say. These tapes might be interesting to your students because

they included the speech of a number of varieties of English [their preferred

term over dialect] both here in the US as well as GB, Aus & NZ, India &c.

There's also a companion text.



David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia"

BERGDAHL [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU



Received: 08-Dec-1993 09:15am

------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 8 Dec 1993 to 9 Dec 1993

**********************************************



There are 2 messages totalling 35 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms

 2. some U.S. "Midland" regional



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 11 Dec 1993 15:50:01 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



I'm thinking that, rather than Sali's suggestion of 'transient duration',

the feature that gives us seemingly unexpected progressives of stative

verbs is a feature that might -- and I'm hoping you'll agree, as I'm trusting

my intuitions and judgments and believing, at least for now, that what I'm

liking about my decision and feeling about it is perhaps sorta on a right

track -- be called 'tentativity'. I'm always hating myself after I breach

my coccoon of personal tentativity and propose an idea that others seem to

be loving to shoot down.

Many of the progressive statives are of 'transient duration' as Sali

suggests, such as 'Carla is feeling wonderful'.

The tentativity feature suggested here may play a part in what I suggested

earlier as a politness feature in 'Are you wanting to make an appointment?'

Any reactions?

       DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 11 Dec 1993 20:18:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regional



I believe what Don Lance calls 'tentativity' as a feature of some progressives

(e.g., 'Are you wanting to make an appointment') is essentially the same thing

I expressed in an earlier reaction to this query. I still believe, however,

that negative expectation has greater generalization for the feature we are

trying (or should I say wanting) to tease out.

Dennis Preston

<22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Dec 1993 to 11 Dec 1993

***********************************************





There are 8 messages totalling 182 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms (2)

 2. name that decade (5)

 3. some U.S. "Midland" regional



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 11:35:55 EST

From:  BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783          <BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>

To:   NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" <MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>



Another way of thinking about Don Lance's "tentativity" is that it's a hedge.

Robin Lakoff suggested that hedges were more apt to be produced by women, but

rather than gender I think age is now involved. I remember 25 yrs. ago when I

first came to Ohio that progressives were being used on verbs I'd never heard on

before, but now I hardly ever hear them with eastern ears. Dopes anyone else

think of them as 'a generational thing'?



David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens

BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 11:18:25 -0600

From:  Dennis Baron <baron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>

Subject: name that decade



Last night at an end of term party someone asked me what

the name for the next decade will be. What, in other words,

will come after the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties?

The zeroes? I allowed as how this was an interesting question,

another in the long list of questions I get for which I have

no answer. Aside from speculating and innovating (I've seen

suggestions for "the oughties, the singletons, the ohs, and

the naughties," does anyone know if there was a term for the

first decade of the 1900s? I'm talking historical, attested

forms here.



Dennis

--





debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu        (\          217-333-2392

                \'\       fax: 217-333-4321

Dennis Baron          \'\      __________

Department of English      / '|     ()_________)

Univ. of Illinois        \ '/     \ ~~~~~~~~ \

608 S. Wright St.         \       \ ~~~~~~  \

Urbana IL 61801          ==).      \__________\

                 (__)       ()__________)



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 12:54:56 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: name that decade



Dennis et all,



    As I recall, William Safire has discussed the future naming of the 00's

but in past reference, afterh "the Gay Nineties", I don't recall a contemporary

dacade term until "the Roaring Twenties". The period of the 00's seems to be

covered primarily by reference to "the Edwardian era," which, albeit British,

tends to extend to the contemporary U.S. as well. The question applies to the

1910-19 period as well. Did that have a decade label at the time? Or even in

retrospect? My impression is that references to the 1880's as "the eighties",

while rare, are retrospective and recent.

    Ringing in my verbal memory, though I do not know from where, are

personal references by speakers to experiences in specific years, as "ought-8",

etc.

  --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 13:04:04 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: name that decade



(Message continued):



    Dar



    DARE or one of the major dictionaries may have dated files on when

the 30s, 40s, and 50s began seriously being referred to as such. When I was

growing up, it was commonplace to hear of "the Roaring Twenties", to the extent

they they took on an almost mythical dimension, perhaps the way ex-hippies

remember the 60s, but the (always Roaring) Twenties were followed by "the

(Great) Depression" and "the Depression years", the "the Thirties", and then

in turn by "the War" and "the war years", which were followed by "the post-war

era".

    I remember being belatedly shocked into the sensibility that "the

Fifties" had even been a characterizable decade only after constant references

 to "the 60s" began to arise, and only much later to find nostalgic references

to movies and radion programs "back in the 40s". So while scattered uses of

decade numbers for the 30s, 40s, and 50s may come earlier, the wider popular

use I would think is more recent, a product, like many things, of "the 60s".

They, an dthe (Roaring) Twenties, are likely to be the only decades remembered

as such in this century.

    --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 13:57:50 -0800

From:  "Thomas L. Clark" <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regional



Dennis,

    "Tentativity" intrigues me. What would you do with:



1)  I am trying to get a grant.

2)  I want to get a grant.

3)  I am wanting to get a grant.

4)  I try to get a grant.



Suddenly, # 4 seems more "tentative." The subtext is "No matter how

often I apply, I seem not to succeed."

  #3 seems less "tentative," subtext being, "I am not applying to enough

places."



tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



Your message dated: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 20:18:00 EST

--------

> I believe what Don Lance calls 'tentativity' as a feature of some progressive

    ***s

> (e.g., 'Are you wanting to make an appointment') is essentially the same thin

    ***g

> I expressed in an earlier reaction to this query. I still believe, however,

> that negative expectation has greater generalization for the feature we are

> trying (or should I say wanting) to tease out.

> Dennis Preston

> <22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>

-------------------------------------------------------

Thomas L. Clark English Department UNLV 89154

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 19:22:16 -0800

From:  Donald Livingston <deljr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: name that decade



My vote goes for "the twenty-oughts".



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 22:12:58 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



Rather than a generational thing, maybe tentativity in oral language is

a post-sixties thing, not necessarily related to sixties stuff. Popular

trends in psychologizing may in fact have contributed 'tentativity' to

the way we think of what we do, know, understand,....

I'd think social-class or occupational orientation might have more influence

than generation per se. How does one define 'generation'? Those born

during a particular decade, or those in a current age group?

To respond directly to David Bergdahl's query, I haven't particularly

noticed generational differences -- i.e., younger and older people in

the same socio-occupational group behaving differently linguistically. Maybe

it's there but I haven't noticed.* Does the generation thing mean that as

today's twentysomethings age by a score of years they will use the language

now used by fortysomethings? I'd like to see dialectologists make more

references to year/decade of birth along with observations about generation.

*I.e. vis-a-vis progressive statives.     DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 12 Dec 1993 22:25:16 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: name that decade



I think it was in TIME Magazine that I saw a question that is related to

DEnnis' query about the aughties. How will we abbreviate the date?

1-1-00? 01/01/00? TIME editors pointed out that they had already used

the double-aught.

 Do your university students understand 'aught' and 'naught'? I've come

across convenience-story clerks (Caucasian) who don't know how much

four bits would be.

 Ah, the old language! The younger generation!

                        DMLance



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Dec 1993 to 12 Dec 1993

************************************************





There are 13 messages totalling 347 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. name that decade (5)

 2. Name that Decade

 3. some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms

 4. correction

 5. Ages and Centuries (3)

 6. progressive statives

 7. John Henry/Hancock



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:05:42 EST

From:  Emory Waters <EWW02[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALBNYDH2.BITNET>

Subject: Re: name that decade



Re names for the 1900's decade:



Many years ago somebody who had lived through that decade said that the

racy young set referred to it as the "Naughty-noughts."



Emory Waters



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:03:11 -0600

From:  Joan Livingston-Webber <webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

Subject: Re: Name that Decade



In the mid-70's, I worked as a dorm cook with a woman in her

60's who had, she said, been out of North Dakota for only one

week-end in her life--for a visit to Mpls. She always referred

to the "Dirty Thirties"--i.e. the dust storms. She told lots

of stories from the dirty thirties and, as I recall, her use

of the term was constant and consistent.

--

Joan Livingston-Webber  webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unomaha.edu

"It's hard to work with a group when you're omnipotent." -Q, TNG



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:14:34 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: name that decade



In Message Sun, 12 Dec 1993 11:18:25 -0600,

 Dennis Baron <baron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> writes:



>Last night at an end of term party someone asked me what

>the name for the next decade will be. What, in other words,

>will come after the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties?

>The zeroes? I allowed as how this was an interesting question,

>another in the long list of questions I get for which I have

>no answer. Aside from speculating and innovating (I've seen

>suggestions for "the oughties, the singletons, the ohs, and

>the naughties," does anyone know if there was a term for the

>first decade of the 1900s? I'm talking historical, attested

>forms here.

>

>Dennis

>--

This is an interesting question that could have been asked in the first

decade of every century. The phrases "the eighties," "the nineties" and the

like seem to presuppose a specific century (and millenium?). They also seem

to be used deictically, it that one can speak of the "nineties" with

reference to the 1990's but not to the 1890's, unless some time machine

moved us back to the 1800's, I guess... I need native intuitions on this.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 10:18:51 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: name that decade



In response to Sali's query, I wouldn't say you needed a time machine to refer

to the 1890's as "the nineties" today; there is a deictic element, to be sure,

but it just sets up a preference. As Zipf noted sometime back, the value of a

truncation or other least-effort abbreviation, including acronyms, will tend

to be interpreted in the most efficient way for a particular shared context.

So "OSU" is (the) Ohio/Oklahoma/Oregon State University depending on where you

are or to whom you're talking, "PC" is personal computer/political

correctness/personal communication depending on the context, etc. So if we

set up a context in which we're talking about the turn of the century (! --of

course, in THIS context, I mean the 19th-->20th century), the nineties

(whether or not qualified as Gay) will be the 1890's.

  With a true deictic, on the other hand, no shift of this sort is

possible, short of "style indirect libre". 'Three days AGO', 'today', or 'now'

are always be interpreted with reference to the utterance time.

  As for the coming decade, I like the suggestion of whoever it was (quoted,

inter alia, by Safire) of calling them the Naughty Aughties (or Oughties?).

Sounds like fun, especially after the Gray Nineties.



Larry Horn



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:49:03 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: some U.S. "Midland" regionalisms



In Message Sat, 11 Dec 1993 15:50:01 CST,

 "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL%MIZZOU1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vma.cc.nd.edu> writes:



>I'm thinking that, rather than Sali's suggestion of 'transient duration',

>the feature that gives us seemingly unexpected progressives of stative

>verbs is a feature that might -- and I'm hoping you'll agree, as I'm trusting

>my intuitions and judgments and believing, at least for now, that what I'm

>liking about my decision and feeling about it is perhaps sorta on a right

>track -- be called 'tentativity'. I'm always hating myself after I breach

>my coccoon of personal tentativity and propose an idea that others seem to

>be loving to shoot down.

>Many of the progressive statives are of 'transient duration' as Sali

>suggests, such as 'Carla is feeling wonderful'.

>The tentativity feature suggested here may play a part in what I suggested

>earlier as a politness feature in 'Are you wanting to make an appointment?'

>Any reactions?

>       DMLance



Don:

 What is tentative: the state of wanting itself or the object of wanting?

May we interpret what you suggest as "implicated meaning/interpretation"

following from not selecting the umarked option without the progressive?

What you suggest seem to follow from what I think is still basically

'short/transient duration', assuming that the unmarked condition for WANT

is of unspecified duration. Your interesting uses of "believe, trust, like,

hate," and even "hope" are still in line with my analysis, although one must

remember that membership in the class of stative verbs is scalar... some

verbs are more stative than others. Some verbs, such as "want," which are

high on the scale of stativity, implicate more when used in the progressive.

Verbs such as "try," brought to bear by Thomas Clark are rather low on this

scale and have unmarked use in the progressive for reference to the present.

So I can see the reversal of implicature in his observation. On the other

hand, I see in his "I try to get a grant" some kinship with dramatic uses of

the simple present tense with activity verbs (not quite a synonym of

"nonstative"), which are very low on the putative scale of stativity.

 I'm also inclined to interpret Dennis Preston's "negative expectation"

pragmatically, though this time as a presupposition.

 Indeed, selecting some marked options often conveys more messages than may

be suspected, as I see your interventions enriching each other.

 Thanks,

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 10:06:22 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: name that decade



Thanks, Larry.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 13:53:05 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: name that decade



Thanks for all your responses to my query. I decided to do my radio

commentary on the subject and have silently included some of your

suggestions. Herewith follows, if you care to read on, the commentary:







          2001: The Next Decade





We're used to dividing our lives according to the decimal

system, into millennia, centuries, and decades. All three

of these categories will come together soon in a kind of

triple witching hour when on the stroke of midnight at the

end of December, in a few short years, we simultaneously

enter the 21st century, the third millennium, and the next

decade.

   These units of time are arbitrary and not always very

precisely defined. The 21st century, for example, will not

technically begin until January 1, 2001--which is why Arthur

Koestler didn't simply name his novel "2000." When the

1800s ended on Dec. 31, 1899, the London Times published a

small notice warning its readers that the 20th century

wouldn't begin for another year, while its front page banner

headline announced that the new millennium was at hand and

reported the various festivities that accompanied it.

   Even if purists and the public disagree over when to

start the party, we like to think of these chronological

dividing points as significant in the historical scheme of

things. A new millennium predisposes the pessimists among

us to focus on the destruction of the world. They climb

into trees and wait patiently for the end. For such

activities it's important to determine exactly when the next

thousand years is to begin. Otherwise you could be spending

a lot of unneccessary time in a tree.

   We like to label past centuries on the assumption that

every hundred years has a focus or agenda or theme: the 17th

century brought us the Renaissance; the 18th was the age of

enlightenment; with the 19th came the industrial revolution;

and of course the 20th century brought modern times. The

coming of a new century forces us to think modern

thoughts--or maybe "postmodern" ones, since the word modern

seems to have lost much of its up-to-dateness.

   We may very well wind up calling the 21st century the

age of virtual reality. We will have gone from the Age of

Aquarius to the Age of Nintendo. Already futurologists

cheerfully see a society tied together by electronic bonds

and information superhighways that will allow people to

work, play, love, shop, drive, and have their teeth cleaned

by computer. Macintosh has just come out with a

revolutionary new product that will even let you watch

television on a computer. Instead of waking up everyday,

we'll just log in; the microchip will do the rest.

   We characterize decades as well as centuries. The 50s

were a time of conformity, family values, and bad hair. The

60s brought nonconformity, the disintegration of the family,

and worse hair. We spent the 70s studying the 50s and 60s,

and the 80s, the "me" decade, looking for perfect hair. In

the 90s half of us lost our hair worrying about what comes

next.

   Which brings me to the question for today. What do we

call the first decade of the next century? If this is the

90s, will it be the 0s? The 0-0s? The zeros? The

oughties? The singletons? The naughties?

   The first years of the 20th century, following the gay

90s, didn't call themselves anything, so they're no help.

World War I interrupted things, and decade-naming didn't

return until the roaring 20s, which was followed in some

people's lingo by the dirty 30s, a reference to the Dust

Bowl. The 40s were given over to the War, and of course

black and white movies. If computers really take over our

lives by 2001 I suppose we might call the next decade the

digits. In the spirit of the roaring 20s we could call it

the digital 0's, but that sounds too much like a brand of

cereal. So does the post-90s decade, for that matter.

  Most time periods are named in retrospect, so perhaps it

would be best to let time pass and see what happens. If

we're lucky enough, the next decade will be totally dull and

boring, and it will wind up with no name at all.



-----



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 15:01:34 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: correction



Yes, I know. Arthur C. Clarke, with an e. Not Koestler. Which is

what happens when I write for a tight deadline. Fortunately it's only

a local show. Thanks for all the corrections. Serves me right for

hating science fiction.



Dennis

--



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 15:05:00 CST

From:  Larry Davis <DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU>

Subject: Ages and Centuries



I do agree with Dennis Baron that the 17th cent. was the Renaissance; the 18th

was the Age of Enlightenment; the 19th brought the Industrial Revolution. My

problem is with his characterization of the 20th cent. as having brought us

"modern times." Personally, I prefer more parallelism to the 17th and the

18th, so why not "the pepsi generation"?



Happy holidays, y'all.



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 16:41:08 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: progressive statives



Response to Sali Mufwene's comments on my 'wanting' posting.

Yes. Aspect is a temporal matter. Your term 'transient duration' is temporal,

whereas my 'tentative' has a non-temporal dimension that motivates the

selection of a verb form indicating 'transient duration'.

And Dennis Preston's "negative expectation" likewise is non-temporal.



Tom Clark's "I try to get a grant" seems to me to be iterative aspect of an

event verb.

             DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 16:58:04 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Ages and Centuries



Is/was the 20th century more modern for now than the 19th was for then?

Eventually our century will not be considered modern.

Aside: A family friend from long ago (1940s) was given to hypercorrection.

When she was waxing wise about all the good things of our era she intoned

m-o-d-r-e-n will full confidence. Given other things she said, I'd say

this wasn't metathesis. Has anyone else heard this form?

            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 19:06:32 EST

From:  David Bergdahl <bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>

Subject: John Henry/Hancock



          Ohio University Electronic Communication





  Date: 13-Dec-1993 07:06pm EST



   To: Remote Addressee           ( _MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU )



  From: David Bergdahl               Dept: English

     BERGDAHL                 Tel No: (614) 593-2783



Subject: John Henry/Hancock





    Dear Abby had a column in which she commented on the use of "John Henry"

where I would put "John Hancock": Put your J---- H------ there! Two of my lunch

buddies with W Penn roots said John Henry; one traveled in the west on

sabbatical and said he also heard it there. Is the name used in place of your

signature' regionally distributed? I'm from NY-LI area and have lived in

Boston, Syracuse, & SE Ohio and have never heard John Henry.



David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia"

BERGDAHL [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU









Received: 13-Dec-1993 07:06pm



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 19:29:50 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Ages and Centuries



I assume modren is a hypercorrection, based on the (in the old days) much-

to-be-avoided pronunciation childern. Especially since your remembered

informant was a hypercorrecter. (I throw out my first guess, that she was

hearing French moderne ---once a common label and title--- as an iamb, and

giving it the salon/saloon treatment, with smoothing.)



rk



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 12 Dec 1993 to 13 Dec 1993

************************************************





There are 10 messages totalling 170 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. name that decade

 2. John Henry/Hancock (2)

 3. No one (3)

 4. Ages and Centuries (2)

 5. m-o-d-r-e-n (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 22:36:44 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: name that decade



I don't know if any of you caught the last episode of Brisco County, Jr.,

in which he came up with the nice pun of referring to a female as "a woman

of the nineties", meaning of course, the 1890's. So there is your time machine.

    Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 13 Dec 1993 22:48:29 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: John Henry/Hancock



Both John Hancock and John Henry live in Texas, as I recall.

    Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 01:53:05 -0500

From:  "Aaron E. Drews" <DREWSA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET>

Subject: No one



Hi y'all,

    I have a question about orthography. This probably isn't the

right network to ask, but I'm sure someone will have an answer.

    A couple of friends of mine that are amature writers spell the

word(s) meaning "not anyone" as <noone>, which my mind pronounces

/nun/ every time I come across it. I learned that it was supposed to

be spelled <no   one>.

    Although this is dealing with the written lg and not dialects,

per se, it still is a choice of linguistic expression. So, is it

supposed to be spelled <noone> or <no one>? Any prescriptive answers

out there?



--Aaron Drews

--Georgetown University

--SLL '96



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 08:48:12 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: No one



I've always assumed that the "correct" spelling was the one above, for the

reason cited (i.e. to avoid misparsing it as the feminine of 'noon'). Of

course, other such misparsings take place all the time without protection

(misled, beribboned,...), but there does seem to be a tendency to break up

non-tautosyllabic 'oo' sequences, either by diaeresis, hyphen, or when

possible separating with word boundary. The former two options are both used

for 'co-operate', the latter two for 'no(-)one'. In fact, the message that

arrived in my mailer right after yours (from a different net) contained

several instances of 'no-one'. I've also seen 'noone', but it's always

confused me at the first pass for the obvious reason.

   One nice dialectal divergence resulting from the diaeresis-less occurrence

of 'oo' is that between the Yale Co-op and the Harvard Coop, where the latter

(but of course not the former) sounds as if it should house chickens.

Spelling pronunciation, one presumes.

                           Larry



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:34:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Ages and Centuries



Everyone who has heard the musical Oklahoma has heard the pronunciation

'modren' for 'modern.' Why doesn't Don Lance believe this is metathesis?

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 10:14:10 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Ages and Centuries



Don,



I've heard modren in NYC and out here in central IL. I myself use it

ironically, as do others, so I assume there is a wide enough base out

there to support the irony. Btw, the Renaissance, whatever century

it occurred in, named itself, or so I am led to believe. I know that

modern is relative, and my designation of the 20c as modern should

convey a sense of irony: we call ourselves modern to separate ourselves

from what came before. Or postmodern, as is more and more common.

Modern in the sense modern art may indeed become frozen, attached to

20c art thru the 50s or 60s. The use of modern, postmodern, and

contemporary is an interesting one. As is the distinction (if any)

between MnEnglish and Present-Day English. Is there postmodern English?

Will we define our own period, as the Renaissance did (may have done?)

or will it be defined for us next century? Sorry to be so philosophical.

I'm trying not to grade papers.



Dennis

--



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 10:24:45 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: John Henry/Hancock



In Message Mon, 13 Dec 1993 22:48:29 -0700,

 Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]arizvms.bitnet> writes:



>Both John Hancock and John Henry live in Texas, as I recall.

>    Rudy Troike



But does John Henry sell life insurance? From a building whose

windows keep falling out?



Dennis

--



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 09:34:13 -0600

From:  Alan Slotkin <ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TNTECH.BITNET>

Subject: Re: No one



No one, no-one (suggested as an alternate by American Heritage Dictionary

among others), and noone all seem to be current around here (central

Tennessee) among students and faculty alike.



Alan Slotkin

ars7590[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 10:40:35 -0800

From:  "Thomas L. Clark" <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: m-o-d-r-e-n



Your message dated: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 16:58:04 CST

--------

> Aside: A family friend from long ago (1940s) was given to hypercorrection.

> When she was waxing wise about all the good things of our era she intoned

> m-o-d-r-e-n will full confidence. Given other things she said, I'd say

> this wasn't metathesis. Has anyone else heard this form?

>            DMLance



A friend and colleague who became a DJ for a folk-music program on local

Public Radio intoned very formally the call letters for the station,

as he was required to do, and added "the news source for all of

s-o-u-t-h-r-e-n Nevada." I could tell he was using his best H. V.

Kaltenborn announcer's voice and wanted it to sound Official. After

he had done this for a few weeks, I called his attention to it.

He stopped using the metathesised form and went back to his regular

pronunciation of southern.

-------------------------------------------------------

Thomas L. Clark English Department UNLV 89154

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 14:22:25 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: m-o-d-r-e-n



>s-o-u-t-h-r-e-n Nevada."



Idn't southren good Middle English, too?



Dennis.

--



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Dec 1993 to 14 Dec 1993

************************************************





There are 10 messages totalling 179 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Modren

 2. No one

 3. Ages and Centuries

 4. m-o-d-r-e-n

 5. Obit

 6. delays

 7. modren metathesis (4)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 14 Dec 1993 23:52:33 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Modren



The lady who said 'modren' wouldn't have known French. When I said her

pronunciation "wasn't methasis" I shoulda said "wasn't just metathesis."

I can't recall her other hypercorrections, but that one has really stuck

with me. She also wrote unctious poetry in which other metasteses abounded.



An old pronunciation of my mother's family that has a lasting echo in my head

(but a positive one) is 'juberous' for 'dubious'. I particularly like this

assibilation, with a sort-of dissimilative intrusive [r]. They also said

"Hit don' matter none," with emphasis on 'hit' and spoken so as to indicate

that they knew they were violating schoolbook rules. They were from

Arkansas << northern Alabama << North Carolina (paternal) and

Arkansas << Missouri (maternal).            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 00:22:56 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: No one



For whatever it's worth:

     Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

              e. e. cummings

    anyone lived in a pretty how town

    (with up so floating many bells down)

    spring summer autumn winter

    he sang his didn't he danced his did.



    .....



    children guessed (but only a few

    and down they forgot as up they grew

    autumn winter spring summer)

    that noone loved him more by more



    ....



    one day anyone died i guess

    (and noone stooped to kiss his face)

    busy folk buried them side by side

    little by little and was by was



    all by all and deep by deep

    and more and more they dream their sleep

    noone and anyone earth by april

    wish by spirit and if by yes



    Woman and men (both dong and ding)

    summer autumn winter spring

    reaped their sowing and went their came

    sun moon stars rain

                          1940



DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 00:34:06 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Ages and Centuries



Thanks, Dennis. I'd forgotten Oklahoma. See my other posting, where I

emended my comment with 'just'. Sure it's metathesis.

                           DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 00:40:15 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: m-o-d-r-e-n



Winnie and Quillar owned mules and horses that my father would borrow, so

they were better than we were. And Winnie wrote poetry, so she tried to

sound soooo modren when she talked about certain topics. We all thought

it was ironic and humorous. Her metathesized pronunciation was like

Tom Clark's radio-announcer friend's hyper pronunciation.

                           DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 01:06:17 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Obit



I've recently learned that Gordon Wood died of an aneurysm on October 4.



                   DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 13:03:14 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: delays



Don, I'm using your address to hit everyone. I'm having a lot of trouble

with my net, so it mnay take me a few days to answer everyone's messages.



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 17:06:38 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: modren metathesis



If Winnie always said 'modren' and would have written it that way, did she

commit/use/succumb-to methasis? What did she metathesize? She thought

the -r- came first. And if she learned it that way and never noticed others

saying the "unmetathesized" form, did she metathesize? Did she metathesize

the incoming auditory signal when she failed to notice the Lance family's

pronunciation?

Sorry to keep beating this stubborn mule.    DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 19:37:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: modren metathesis



Don Lance's question about his local hypercorrector's performance is a very

interesting one - perhpas the most interesting in the context of variation

studies and the so-called dominant paradigm. Historical metathesis (we wake up

some morning and 'bridd' has become 'bird' ignores 'individual metathesis.' -

that horrible moment in history when there must have been bridd-bird speakers.

According to Chomsky et al. those speakers simply (sic!) had two grammars, one

being preferred over the other for 'uninteresting' reasons (status, style,

gender).

I suppose I continue to find it odd that those who are interested in (and know

a lot, about) variation engage the essential psycholinguistic questions which

lie behind a genrative grammar so infrequently.

Chomsky's assumption (which is explicit in any number of places) assumes, for

example, that the compound-ccordinate questions of bilingualism is completely

resolved in monolinguals, and this assumption goes unchallenged by

variationists who seem to be happy with more and more data (and less and less

impact on the modern study of language).

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 21:12:04 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don--

    Interesting question re what was going on in Winnie's head re "modren".

I wonder if the case is not unlike those anachronistic speakers who persist

in pronouncing <pretty> with a pre-vocalic /r/ rather than the syllabic (or

post-vocalic) version. (With respect to the direction of the future, note

earlier <thretti> and <brid>.) While hers was somewhat (though obviously not

entirely) individualistic, it does raise the question, how much attention do

/prEtiy/ speakers pay to /pUrdiy/ (or [prdi]) speakers, or attempt to correct

in their direction? History says, in the case of <thirty> and <bird>, they

must, but a lot of items bet

ween get ignored for some reason or another. We

don't really know until after the fact, and then it's too late to find out.

    --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 1993 21:25:14 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis--

    I responded to Don's last note before I saw yours. I could not agree

more with your point, but I would add, per my examples, that variation can

exist in a society without coexisting in the PRODUCTIVE competence of indivi-

duals, though clearly coexisting in their RECEPTIVE competence (an old distinc-

tion I made back in '68, which has had little attention in the psycholinguistic

literature). Like the lady in the Wausau commercial with the postvocalic /r/,

I can hear a different form without ever producing it, or sometimes without

even being conscious that it is different from mine.

    --Rudy



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Dec 1993 to 15 Dec 1993

************************************************





There are 8 messages totalling 190 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (4)

 2. name that decade

 3. productive competence (2)

 4. HELP! Bob Marley Lyrics



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 10:21:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Rudy -

Your point about prductive and receptive competencies is an excellent example

of some of the psycholinguistic boats we are missing as variationists. How one

processes input from radically different underlying systems is another

challenge to the monolithic (or actually absurdly polylithic) notion of the

classic notion of linguistic competence.

Dennis Preston <22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet>



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 12:01:45 EST

From:  BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: name that decade



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783          <BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>

To:   NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" <MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX>



What about "the null decade" on the model of "the null hypothesis"?



David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia"

BERGDAHL [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 12:23:14 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis:

 I welcome Rudy's and your interventions in reply to Don's question on

metathesis, especially the ideas that speakers from the same language

community need not operate on the same active systems and that grammatical

systems need not be monolythic. Having been toying with the same assumptions

for some years now, it occurs to me that I have not come across any

discussion of polylythic competence. Did I get you wrong here? Would you

mind explaining? I could assign more than one interpretation to "polylythic

competence" but do not know which you intend. Before speculating, perhaps it

is charitable enough to invite you to explain.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 15:45:14 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: productive competence



And how is it that so many ESL students make pen/pin distinctions when

taught by pin/pin teachers? Perhaps even cot/caught?

And kids who keep the home phonology rather than shifting to the teacher's

model, or vice versa.

And why young speakers from St. Louis manifested a lot of ae-raising twenty

years ago but current ones don't.

                 DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 17:00:37 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: productive competence



In Message Thu, 16 Dec 1993 15:45:14 CST,

 "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL%MIZZOU1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vma.cc.nd.edu> writes:



>And how is it that so many ESL students make pen/pin distinctions when

>taught by pin/pin teachers? Perhaps even cot/caught?

>And kids who keep the home phonology rather than shifting to the teacher's

>model, or vice versa.

>And why young speakers from St. Louis manifested a lot of ae-raising twenty

>years ago but current ones don't.

>                 DMLance



As a person that learned English the same way, ESL students pay a lot of

attention to spelling, which often works as a source of interference,

and perceive/assume distinctions which are nor made. By the way, are there

any pronunciation dictionaries which assume the "pen/pin" merger system or

are consistent in representing variation in pronunciation?

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 18:34:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



I am sorry to introduce the term 'polylithic.' I mean simply to refer to the

claim (explicitly made by Chomsky) that variation even in the individual is a

switching between grammars (and, hence, uninteresting to general theoretical

investigation.) Here is a representative quote: '...every human being speaks a

variety of languages. We sometimes call them different styles or dialects, but

they are really differnet languages, and somehow we know when to use them....

Now each of these languages invovles a different switch setting. IN the case

of [different lanaguges] it is a rather dramatically different switch setting,

more so than in the different styles of [one language] (Language and problmes

of knowledge: the Managua lectures,1988, MIT Press, p. 188.

Perhaps my 'polylithic' was confusable with C-J's 'panlectal,' but that is

rather obviously not at all what I had in mind.

I promise to stop term-mongering.

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 20:05:14 PST

From:  John Baugh <John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



REPLY TO 12/16/93 15:55 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society": Re:

modren metathesis



Dennis:



I, for one, have always known you to be a polylithic pan-lectal

term-mongerer -- in the very best sense of the term(s).



Best, JB



To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 11:21:13 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams <gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH>

Subject: HELP! Bob Marley Lyrics



 I am teaching a course "Varieties of English" in the Linguistics

Department in a university in Thailand. I have major problems with

getting samples of different accents and dialects of English. One I do

have is a tape of Bob Marley songs. The songs contain a few examples

of non-Standard English and what I assume are some features of Creole.

I am not sure of just how much of it is Creole, given that it is popular

music.



 I have one tape with Bob Marley and the Wailers, titled "Rebel Music".

My problem is that I do not understand some of the words of his songs.

I wonder if someone would be able to fill in the lyrics of parts of his

songs. I do not need all the lyrics, only those parts that are

non-Standard.



The songs I am particularly interested in are:



1) "Them Belly Full, But We Hungry"



 This song would be a great sample, unfortunately the refrain is almost

totally unintelligible to me. And the lyrics seem to change each time :-(



  Them/Our belly full but we hungry

  A hungry mouth is a hungry/angry(?) mouth(?)

  I gotta food(?) but it ????     [ain't enough?/tough?]

  I wert(?) ???, but it yern't(?) enough

  We're gonna dance to the music

  ...

  We gonna chuck(?) to the music   [chuck=dance?]

  ...



2) "Roots"



  Roots ??? roots, ???? been betrayed(?)

  I and I(?) ????? roots

  Some are leaves, some are branches

  I and I ????? roots

  Some are dry wood(?) for the fire

  Well, y'all look at that(?)

  They need the dry wood to cook their raw food(?)

  I and I ????? roots

  You got to survive in this man-made ????

  ....





 Any help will be truly appreciated.



Gwyn Williams

Thammasat University

Bangkok

<gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th>



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Dec 1993 to 16 Dec 1993

************************************************





There are 11 messages totalling 230 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (9)

 2. productive competence (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 22:09:59 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis,

    As a belated retort from a "Valley Boy", let me offer a definition of

<polylithism> [a nice word, by the way]: "Having rocks in one's head".

    --Rudy



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 16 Dec 1993 22:26:16 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis,

    Thanks for your quote from Chomsky. I've just finished an interesting

seminar on [intrasentential] code-switching, a topic in which Don Lance pio-

neered. It is easier to detect and analyze switching between completely

different codes, but the subject does have potential relevance for re-examining

language-internal switching, whether between different styles, regional

varieties, or social varieties. Unfortunately the basis for constraints on

switching is still not fully understood, and the evolution of Chomsky's model

makes it a moving target for explanations. Nevertheless, code-switching is

an exciting area to look at, since it offers one of the clearest windows into

real-time language processing in the brain.

    Just as a side-note: some of those in the field unfortunately use

"code-mixing" to refer to intrasentential code-switching, perpetuating the old

stereotype that it is "mixed-up" language reflecting incompetence in both

languages. I welcome volunteers in trying to resist that unfortunate usage.

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 06:58:34 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: productive competence



On Thu, 16 Dec 1993, Donald M. Lance wrote:



> And how is it that so many ESL students make pen/pin distinctions when

> taught by pin/pin teachers? Perhaps even cot/caught?

> And kids who keep the home phonology rather than shifting to the teacher's

> model, or vice versa.

> And why young speakers from St. Louis manifested a lot of ae-raising twenty

> years ago but current ones don't.

>                 DMLance

>

On ae-rasing in St.Louis: Not an answer, but an observation: Remember Ed

Callary's article on ae-raising in n. Ill? That was 20 years ago. If

classical wave and/or continuum models represented any form of reality,

ae-rasing should be very salient in n. Ill. towns outside Chicago and in

previously lagging groups (i.e., males). I should behearing a lot more

/E[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ for ae among my Chicago students than I did 2 decades ago. ([AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]=schwa

is the convention here?) I know casual observations are suspect, but I

haven't noticed any evidence that this sound change is advancing as Ed's

or lots of other data would have predicted 20 and more years ago. Are my

observations right, I wonder? Ed, are you out there? What do you hear at

NIU?

    Anyway, my point is that whatever is going on St.L. may be going

in in and around Chicago. Perhaps one factor is demographic: with the

white diaspora to the suburbs, the very urban neighborhodds which nurtured

this sound change have vanished. Mall culture is not a neighborhood.

Cities like many of us grew up knowing are self-destructing, cf. the

recent Chicago

Trib series on white flight.



Tim



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 09:30:15 -0500

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." <billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



In all this talk about monolithic vs. polylithic systems, we do we have

to make the initial assumption that we are talking about "systems", or

that what we mean by "system" should be the same (assuming that we can

determine what "same" means given the slippery source) as what Chomsky

means by it. Why not ask the same psycholinguistic (I would prefer

the term "cognitive", or even "perceptual") questions without the

Procrustean cot [kawt].



******************************************************************************

Bill Kretzschmar         Phone:  706-542-2246

Dept. of English         FAX:   706-542-2181

University of Georgia      Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu

Athens, GA 30602-6205      Bitnet:  wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:33:52 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Rudy:

 You can enlist the support of Carol Myers-Scotton, who published two books

on the subject matter recently. She uses "code-switching" the way you do.

Without the suggestion of incompetence in your discussion, I thought the

term "mixing" might be a better umbrella/cover term then "switching,"

because it covers traditional cases of both "switching" (intersentential)

and "mixing" (intrasentential). Mixing languages in a discourse may amount

to traditional code-switching. A mixed language is one in which codes

associated with different systems (without excluding variation in each of

them) are used together. Without any condemnation of what I know Scotton

does and you may be doing, I thought that between "switching" and "mixing,"

the latter would have been a more adequate terminological choice.

Technically, I see traditional cases of "code-switching" as kinds of

code-mixing.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:59:19 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Thanks, Dennis. I have no objection to what you find objectionable in what

you quote from Chomsky. Unfortunately similar assumptions underlie

variationist studies, suggesting that each grammar avails only one rule per

function and when two or more rules compete with each other there must be

external influence. Chomsky's statement may reflect an assumption well

accepted by most linguists, which he just happens to discuss.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 10:17:04 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Sali,

    It is the circle of my good friends at U of Illinois-Urbv

ana-Champaign,

including Braj Kachru and Eyamba Bokamba, along with other linguists from/in

India and Europe, who have adopted "code-MIXING" as = "intrasentential CS",

using "code-SWITCHING" for "intersentential CS", or as the generic name. As

a neutral macro-term, I prefer "code ALTERNATION". What I don't like is using

"mixing" for anything, since it reinforces popular misconceptions of "confused"

and "mixed-up", "agrammatical" language. CS in the Philippines is popularly

called "Mix-Mix". Don and I grew up with pejorative and guilt-ridden referen-

ces to "Tex-Mex", which he refuted with his research.

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 09:33:57 -0800

From:  Guadalupe Valdes <gvaldes[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LELAND.STANFORD.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Rudy:



You certainly have my support for resisting the term code-mixing.







Saludos



Guadalupe Valdes



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 19:12:07 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



I thought Dennis was "playing with words" rather than proposing/using a

technical term when he opposed 'polylithic' to 'monolithic'. As Sali

pointed out in his response to my quasi-non-question about ESL students

never picking up lack of I/E before nasals, among the many liths that get

thrown onto the learning machine are our responses to spellings and the

phonological systemsof L1, L2, interlanguage(s), etc. When we talk about

language (dialects, styles, second languages) we inevitably posit an

"idealized" form as a reference. And in literacy contexts the written

form, as well as, as Sali pointed out, dictionaries enter into our

judgments.                  DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 19:52:49 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: productive competence



The strongest ae-raising was in the speech of "West Countians" from

University City (which has experienced much white flight) and Ladue (which

hasn't). As much as I don't like to think that TV drives language change,

I suspect it may have in this case. ae-raising is a handy tool for

stereotyiping the kind of people that ae-raisers don't want to be like, so

maybe younger St Louisans consciously or subconsciously avoided the

ae-raising they heard in the speech of the (stereotyped) adults in the

neighborhood. Recently Rudy Troike mentioned that ae-retracting was strong

in Tucson. I hear some in Missouri students, but not much. It's fer shir

on MTV.          DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 17 Dec 1993 20:40:50 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



When I sent my research report to Einar Haugen in 1969, he insisted, from his

several years of working with Scandinavian-American bilingualism, that

'code-swithing' is a more apt term for two reasons: language 'codes' are

switched, and "mixing" carries evaluative (negative) connotations that

are undesirable. In the late 70s someone suggested that 'code-mixing' might

be used as the term for, say, Spanish morphology applied to a base that is

spoken with English phonology. I think I'm remembering it accurately. I

haven't continued my work on bilingualism in monolingual Missouri, but on

my trips to the Valley (which ads-lers can now locate) I have heard lots

of the code-switching that I analyzed in 1969. It's very popular on radio

stations now. Some of the deejays are really entertaining. The switching

may or may not occur at (institutionalized) sentence boundaries. I've

never heard switching that consistently occurs at sentence boundaries (i.e,

where periods might go in written form).

 Pos, si tengo una idea and I wanna make sure que me intiendes hay veces

I just go on and say what's on the tip of my tongue. It may be en ingles or

in espanish. And if we both are bilingues pos no hay problemas, porque

we can both, you know, understand. Este, pero, know what I mean?

                            DMLance



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 16 Dec 1993 to 17 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 5 messages totalling 77 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. productive competence

 2. modren metathesis (3)

 3. Rudy's comment on En/In



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 18 Dec 1993 00:16:29 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: productive competence



Linked to the ae-retraction that Don cited me on is E-retraction. We have a

female announcer on our university classical music station who pronounces

the call letters ending -FM as UHf Em.

        Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 18 Dec 1993 00:27:04 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



    Bilingual radio stations with real code-switching have apparently

become the hottest thing in the Southwest. One of my students this semester

did her term project on a local station, KOHT, which the DJs play with to

call K-Hot. It had been a monolingual Spanish station, and was losing money,

but since their switch (pardon the pun), they have zoomed in the charts and

are in the dough.

        Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 18 Dec 1993 00:36:16 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don--

    On the non-aquisition of En=In, I found that in the Valley, native

Spanish speakers generally had the contrast, suggesting an interesting non-

learning from the native English speakers one might have thought would have

been the sources of their English. Writing may have been a reason, but I

am not sure it created other differences.

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 18 Dec 1993 01:41:20 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Rudy's comment on En/In



Couldn't sleep, so I checked my e-mail. In Texas in general, Chicanos who

merge E/I before nasals also use South Midland diphthongization, along with

syllable-timing. Like Johnny Rodriguez, the country & western singer.

As John Schumann pointed out twenty years ago, cultural adaptation goes along

with (perhaps precedes) adoption of the subtleties of English phonotactics.

The really good switch-jockeys have South Midnd phonology in English much

of the time. A heavy cultural comment. Bilingual code-switching has been

popular on Valley radio stations for at least five years. Since the 1950s

a lot of the Mexican American music has come out of McAllen, Texas -- lots of

platinum and gold records that gringos down there are totally unaware of.

                      DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 18 Dec 1993 08:53:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Sali-

I think the one-rule-per-function (and hence different grammar or lect) is an

assumption of variationist studies within the implicational (or

Bailey-DeCamp-Bickerton) model, more often associated with pidgin/creole

studies. I'm not sure that the same assumption lurks beneath quantitativist

approaches to variation which find a 'richer' life for alternatives,

presumably in the same grammar.

Now to the real problem. When you say that you don't object to what I find

objectionable in the quote I gave from Chomsky, do you mean to don't object to

what Chomsky says (and disagree with me) or that you don't object to my

objection (and agree with me)? I've been parsing all night.

(No puns here; my speech is r-full.)

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Dec 1993 to 18 Dec 1993

************************************************







There is one message totalling 85 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Replies (fwd)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 19 Dec 1993 06:41:42 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Replies (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Sat, 18 Dec 93 23:54:25 EST

From: Jay Lemke <JLLBC[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CUNYVM.BITNET>

To: language-culture[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cs.uchicago.edu

Subject: Replies





Doug and others on LangCult,



I have high hopes for discussions on this list! Starting with the

easy stuff:



_Functions of Language_ is a new journal from John Benjamins pub-

lishers. It is being edited by a group in Belgium on behalf of a

consortium of various sorts of people interested in language in

use in its functional contexts, for both theoretical and practi-

cal issues. It aims to be an international journal for

functionalist approaches to the study of language in its

broadest, pre-structuralist, pre-MIT sense. I think it also aims

to help document the future of the post-structuralist, post-MIT

study of language. Names associated with the new journal which

will give an idea of its range: Michael Halliday, Frantisek

Danes, Jan Firbas, Ronald Langacker, Michael Silverstein, Anna

Wierzbicka, Robert de Beaugrande, Wolfgang Dressler, and a number

of people whose names might be less well known in this forum, but

who represent educational and computational linguistics, as well

as representatives from Japan, China, South Africa, and a good

cross-section of (mostly northern at this point) Europe.



I would imagine people on this list might find FoL a congenial

place to publish some of their work. You might also want to see

if your library has gotten in a subscription yet. Personal sub-

scriptions are being kept to a reasonable US45 per year. For info

on the journal, John Benjamins NA in Philadelphia has FAX 215-

836-1204. You can reach the editorial group through Kristin

Davidse, Dept of Linguistics, U of Leuven, Belgium; email:

KD%USERS%LW[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CC3.KULEUVEN.AC.BE



If you are on Bitnet without a reliable internet link, as some

people I know still are, try Dirk Noel in Antwerp:

NOEL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BANRUC60.bitnet



The third gateway is A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen, U of G(h)ent:

VDBERGEN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ENGLLANG.RUG.AC.BE



These people are also hosting two smallish international confer-

ences next August in Gent and Antwerp (back to back); info from

same individuals.





As to sources on the theory of complex self-organizing systems,

those of you tuned to PEIRCE-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TTUVM1.bitnet lately will have had

an earful already. My own approaches derive from readings of the

original source literature in physics, chemistry, and biology,

rather than from the interpretations of Maturana and Varela. I

can send a paper that describes my view of these issues and cites

many of these sources for anyone interested (ref. Cultural

Dynamics paper). Of the sources mentioned on PEIRCE-L, I would

particularly recommend the new Salthe book:



Stanley N. Salthe, DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION: COMPLEXITY AND

CHANGE IN BIOLOGY (MIT Press, 1993).



The well-known Prigogine and Stengers, _Order out of Chaos_ is

also useful for the less-than-biological systems of physics and

chemistry, but should be complemented with something on "Chaos"

theory (start with James Gleick, then get serious) in physics. My

paper, or Salthe, (or my new draft ref. CUNYPSY paper) will help

sort out the relations among the various perspectives.



I'll get to the issues of the transcript and its analysis in a

separate posting. JAY.





JAY LEMKE.

City University of New York.

BITNET:  JLLBC[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CUNYVM

INTERNET: JLLBC[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 18 Dec 1993 to 19 Dec 1993

************************************************







There is one message totalling 15 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 20 Dec 1993 09:26:00 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis:

 I meant I agree with you. Sorry for the inefficient communication. I will

take you up on your first comment later, when I am less in a hurry.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 19 Dec 1993 to 20 Dec 1993

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There are 5 messages totalling 78 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (4)

 2. RRe: bilingual radio stations



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 21 Dec 1993 01:01:31 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



I didn't think you disagreed. I was just adding some more thoughts.

When I posted "modren metathesis" I had no idea it would lead into all

the valuable topics that ensued.

I'm curious to know your reaction to the bilingual code-switching I sent

out. When I did my interviewing in 1969 I got a lot of data just like that.

                          DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 21 Dec 1993 01:04:13 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Woops. I misread, thinking I was corresponding with Salikoko Mufwene.

'sokay.          DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 21 Dec 1993 00:56:29 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



    Not exactly a metathesis, but more of a non-contiguous assimilation (?)

is an interesting form I have heard independently from two East Texas speakers,

but have never noted being mentioned in the literature, or in regional surveys:

"obliberate" for <obliterate>. Have any of you other Southern fieldworkers

run into this one? I'd be interested in any references. Thanks.

    Merry Christmas and "Christmas gift!" (a little early),

            Rudy Troike

            RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 21 Dec 1993 01:10:30 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don,

    Re our exchange on code-switching bilingual radio stations, I think

the growth of the phenomenon would make a subject for a great study, maybe

even a dissertation, covering the whole area from South Texas to California.

It is something that should be historically documented while information is

still fresh. Also it would be interesting in and of itself to analyze and

compare the patter of different deejays. Of the two locals my student inter-

viewed, one grew up in an insistently monolingual Spanish home, so had very

separated languages and native English pronunciation, while the other grew up

in a code-switching home and acquired a Spanish-accented English, so that the

phonological distinction usually cited between switching and borrowing does not

work for him. His biographical history messes up the nice theoretical distinc-

tion, making analysis more difficult. Another student is doing a spectro-

graphic analysis to look at switch points for clues to processing and timing.

Recently growing interest in language processing makes code-switching between

different languages an ideal window into real-time operations in processing in

a way no other intra-lingual behavior can. The prospects are exciting.

        Feliz Navidad,

        Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 21 Dec 1993 08:05:45 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: RRe: bilingual radio stations



Hola Rudy y Don,



Quiero obtener una tape de los radiostaciones bilingues--

una buena cosa por mi clase! Es posible? De donde?

De quien? (And is cintilla OK for electroinic tape? My U of C

idctionary is very limited).



Feliz navidad y felices fiestas



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 20 Dec 1993 to 21 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 2 messages totalling 58 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 22 Dec 1993 19:08:10 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



>Sali-

>I think the one-rule-per-function (and hence different grammar or lect) is an

>assumption of variationist studies within the implicational (or

>Bailey-DeCamp-Bickerton) model, more often associated with pidgin/creole

>studies. I'm not sure that the same assumption lurks beneath quantitativist

>approaches to variation which find a 'richer' life for alternatives,

>presumably in the same grammar.



Dennis:

 May I ask you where your classification system places studies of African

American English? in the category of pidgin/creole studies? Any standard

variationist analysis of aspects of this variety may be found guilty of the

monolithic assumption, starting with segment deletion rules. Yet I see this

particular research area as having played a central role in the development

of the variationist paradigm--do forgive my outsider-ignorance.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 22 Dec 1993 19:28:32 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don:

 I have already erased copies of my mail and do not remember several

details that I didn't consider relevant to my work. Despite all the

reactions in favor of "code-switching" as a cover term, I am not convinced

that it is really more adequate. I have personally not perceived the

negative connotations associated with "mixing," although my professional

concerns may have blinded me. Like Hugo Schuchardt and Louis Hjelmslev, I

see creole languages as mixed systems and have no particular negative

attitudes toward them. I go even further and consider systems of all

languages mixed in the sense of not being homogeneous. This are particular

cases where I think the term "switching" would not apply. Yet in a way, it

is just a matter of degree between what one observes on "code-mixing"

(technically speaking) and in other cases putatively involving no "mixing".

Code-switching is just an extension of the same trend, even though some

might consider it less messy to deal with than "code-mixing." I think so far

I read affective reactions to my observations and no semantic rebuttal, as

much respect as I have for people's feelings. And to be sure, these

reactions do count in our terminological choices, as long as we recognize

them as such.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Dec 1993 to 22 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 9 messages totalling 248 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (6)

 2. Aches and Pains

 3. new words at MLA

 4. your paper



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 22 Dec 1993 22:34:55 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Sali--

    Having just read your note to Don, I can't really make heads nor tails

of it because of what I find to be totally confusing uses of the terms "code-

switching" and "code-mixing". All the more reason to deep-six the term

"mixing" which IS used pejoratively among almost any population of code-

switchers and the monolinguals around them who stigmatize what they are doing.

This a SERIOUS sociolinguistic issue. Social scientists are not living in a

social vacuum, and are responsible for the consequences of their actions. If

their jargon reinforces popular negative stereotypes, they should be aware of

this and change the jargon. It is NOT socially neutral, no matter how neutral

they may imagine themselves to be. It is as if the terminology of some

sociologists led to people in need being cut off from support and dying of

hunger, and having the sociologists declare that they were innocent because

they were "scientists". Being a scientist does not absolve one of social

responsibilities.

    --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 22 Dec 1993 22:59:38 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



On code-mixing and code-switching. And Sali's comments/questions.

I respond with less than full confidence. The question is, surely, largely

a labeling matter. Labels can hurt. Uninformed popular comments about

the language behavior of bilinguals in relaxed conversation have included

statements like "She gets the two languages all mixed up," far less often

statements like "She switches from one language to another." The former,

whether commenting on the language of bachelor farmers around Lake Woebegone

or third-grade drop-out laborers in the Valley, was definitely not a clinical

comment on the nature of linguistic interaction, and the latter was less

caustic but certainly not clinical either. This is one factor in Haugen's

recommendation to me and my immediate understanding and acquiescence in

switching to the less "judgmental" term.

Another factor, I suspect, was the American structural view of language

systems. Now, after much research on style-shifting, registers, etc., my own

reaction to the term 'code-mixing' is less visceral, and younger linguists

may, as Sali indicates, not share Rudy's and my reaction to 'mixing'.

Thirty years ago, when I was teaching Spanish and English in high school in

Corpus Christi, I had a student who had difficulty participating in class

discussions. She would often bog down and say a few words in Spanish, because

she knew I understood, and then terminate her attempt to participate. She

was not stupid by any means. She claimed that she truly could not stay in one

language for extended periods of time. From her behavior (verbal performance

and embarrassment) I believed her but was puzzled. When I was invited to that

class's 25th reunion, one of the first things she said to me was that she

had had that problem throughout her adult life. What was in her head? Did

she have two separable codes between which she could switch intra- or inter-

sententially? Did she have a mix of English and Spanish phonological,

morphological, syntactic, and lexical systems? I never observed her in the

kind of social situation in which Chicanos participate in context-free

code-switching/mixing, so I have only a partial picture of her language

behavior. I suspect that she would get bogged down where her English was

temporarily "blocked" for some reason, perhaps inability to remember a word

in English, or perhaps by an "urge" to switch to Spanish that she had to abort

because code-switching/mixing is "registrally anomalous" in a classroom

setting. It was NOT the case that she didn't know the right word in one

language or the other; the topic of conversation was never so complex that

she did not know the English words, though she may not have known academic

terms in Spanish. That was in the early 60s; all discussion in Spanish classes

was in English, Spanish being appropriate for exercises and examples.

 My apologies for a long posting that does not lead to an answer. This case

has remained in my mind for some time.

 To answe Sali more directly: I too think there are language behaviors

that manifest what could be called 'mixing' as well as some that seem to be

abrupt and complete 'switching' between languages. But I haven't worked

with bilingual data much in recent years.



 Maybe related: This past summer, for an independent study, a student

analyzed several rap recordings, transcribed from recordings. I did some

transcribing myself (schwer!). Most of the rappers used a combination of

obviously intentional BVE (e.g., "Black" r-lessness alongside rhotic

pronunciations). These were New York City groups. As I was working with that

data, the question of 'mixing' versus 'switching' entered my mind, but the

project was interrupting other things I need to be finishing up (like this

unnecessary e-mail interruption in my preparation for MLA/ADS/ANS), so I

just let the thougts come up. Whether we're looking at bilingual or

"bidialectal" data, I think we should be open to Sali's suggestion:

  Code-switching is just an extension of the same trend, even

  though some might consider it less messy to deal with than

  "code-mixing".  (Salikoko Mufwne)

                                  DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 00:07:51 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Coincidence. Rudy and I were respnding to Sali at the same time. He's in

Arizona, where the issue raised by the term 'mixing' is very much alive, and

I've been in monolingual, (politically-)monocultural Missouri for nigh onto

a quarter-century. Well, Rudy told it like it is! I still have enough of

a visceral reaction to the term that I wouldn't use it in a publication,

even if I were to totally buy what I seemed to say in my note a few mintes ago.

                        DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 00:41:53 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don--

    Thanks for your confirmation. In thinking further about the topic I

was reminded of the long-standing use of the term "primitive" in anthropology,

which, no matter how ideologically relativistic anthropologists were, still

resonated in the popular consciousness as "inferior"; we are still reaping the

consequences of that reinforcement of racism by even well-meaning anthropolo-

gists (leaving aside those who were willing agents of colonialism). Using the

term "mixing" to label any kind of multiple-code alternation is of the same

order, unless there is clear clinical evidence that a speaker genuinely is

not able to distinguish the two codes: if this were in fact true, the alter-

nation would be predictably random, which it is not, except in the earliest

stages of childhood bilingualism, in which various researchers have shown

evidence that children have merged lexicons, with synonymous lexemes. This is

normally a transient stage, however, before the codes are sorted out.

    To repeat for those recent to the discussion, most U.S. linguists use

"code-switching" as a general term embracing code-alternation BETWEEN sentences

and WITHIN sentences. The former is called INTER-SENTENTIAL code-switching,

the latter INTRA-SENTENTIAL code-switching. While these are not particularly

graceful terms, they are clear and consistent. Certain linguists, primarily

among my friends at the U of Illinois (Urbana) in the U.S. and a number of

European linguists who have either taken their lead from them or vice-versa

(I am not sure which way the etiology goes), use the following terms:

    "code-switching" = INTER-SENTENTIAL code-switching

    "code-mixing"   = INTRA-SENTENTIAL code-switching

In this usage, "code-switching" is narrowed in meaning to non-syntactic use,

and syntactic switching is called "mixing". While the awkwardness and

similarity of the INTER-/INTRA- distinction cry out for a more perceptibly

distinctive labeling, "mixing" is absolutely the wrong term to use. It is

interesting to observe that almost all of the people who use "mixing" are not

native to U.S. society and have not had the kind of experience which would

enable them to understand the pejorative social consequences of the term.

That is why the history of the term "primitive" came to mind, and suggests

the way that scholars coming from formerly colonial areas may have picked up

some of the terms and concepts of the colonizers without being aware of it,

and without being aware of the oppression underlying the terminology which

seems to be used in a "value-free" way. Just as there is no free lunch, there

is no "value-free" social research. To repeat: social scientists are socially

responsible to those they study. This includes linguists.

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 16:53:12 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams <gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH>

Subject: Aches and Pains



Hello t'all and compliments of the season. A query:



 Thai learners of English consistently pronounce the word "headache"

as [hedeetS] and "stomach ache" as [stoma:tS eetS] (these being

approximate transcriptions of the Thai pronunciations). I had always

assumed that these were spelling pronunciations. However, in a recent

article about World Englishes in a local newspaper, it was said that

Hongkong English speakers also pronounce "headache" in a similar manner.



 Is this just the coincidence of spelling pronunciations? Or does it

reflect an older or "non-standard" pronunciation of English? My

dictionary gives OE acan for "ache". I am aware that <c> represented

a velar stop in OE, but that this sound was palatalized, but only before

front vowels, eg., OE cild "child". Were "stomach" and "ache" ever

palatalized? Or does any particular accent palatalize these words?



BTW my dictionary gives only Gk stomachos as the source for "stomach".

How is the <ch> pronounced?



Regards



Mr Gwyn Williams

Thammasat University

Bangkok

<gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th>



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 16:09:36 CST

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: new words at MLA



to all you lucky ADSers going to Toronto next week, a plea from

one who stays behind: could somebody post the nominees and winners

of the new words contest? I'd like them for a local radio piece I'm doing

on Jan. 3.



Keep warm up/down/over in Troner.



Dennis

--



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 17:58:07 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



From my experience, the notion  'intersentential switching' is manufactured.

Status: RO



The phenomenon I know as code-switching does not follow sentence boundaries,

nor even terminable units (t-units). Is the use of 'code-mixing' for intra-

and 'code-switching' for inter-sentential XXing based on empirical research?

I've been doing other things in recent years and don't know whether this

distinction was "proposed" or "found". Code-switching data that I'm familiar

with suggests that the lexicon drives both morphology-in-action and syntax-in-

action, so switching would occur at word- or morpheme-boundary -- which it

does quite often.          DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 17:42:25 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don et al.,

    The terms derive from Poplack's work in the 70s and have become quite

standard. While Gumperz found that some people could switch only at discourse

or paragraph boundaries, Poplack found strong tendencies related to degree

of bilingualism as to whether people switched only between sentences (or turns)

or both between and within sentences, the latter being the more skilled form.

It had appeared that this distinction and terminology had become quite standard

when the term "mixing" began being used by the group I referred to, partly as

a way of avoiding the infelicity of two such ungainly and similar-sounding

terms. There is now a quite huge literature, which has gone through several

theoretical cycles, incorporating both GB and now post-GB theory.

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 23 Dec 1993 17:35:54 PST

From:  "J. Arthurs" <jarthurs[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OLDSOL.UVIC.CA>

Subject: Re: your paper



Dear Larry:

      Got your paper; all is well. Sorry not

to have replied earlier -- sometimes at end-of-term my

brain goes to porridge.

    All the best for the holidays! We're off to

Portugal, so don't expect to hear a peep from me!

    Ciao!

    Jimmy



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Dec 1993 to 23 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 5 messages totalling 191 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (3)

 2. new words at ads (2)



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Date:  Fri, 24 Dec 1993 18:40:21 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams <gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



 Interesting discussion. Interesting because linguists seem to spend more

time debating terminology than the phenonema that these terms label ;-)



On Thu, 23 Dec 1993 Rudy Troike <RTROIKE%ARIZVMS.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu>



>    Thanks for your confirmation. In thinking further about the topic I

>was reminded of the long-standing use of the term "primitive" in anthropology,

>which, no matter how ideologically relativistic anthropologists were, still

>resonated in the popular consciousness as "inferior"; we are still reaping the

>consequences of that reinforcement of racism by even well-meaning anthropolo-

>gists (leaving aside those who were willing agents of colonialism).



 Surely there have always been problems with how scholars use labels and

the popular use of these same labels? Terms in linguistics that spring to

mind are "linguist", "linguistics" (we've all had to explain that we _don't_

necessarily speak more than one language, right?), "language", "dialect",

"native", "grammatical" etc. I don't see any moves to replace these labels,

despite the confusion and misunderstanding that result.



> Using the

>term "mixing" to label any kind of multiple-code alternation is of the same

>order, unless there is clear clinical evidence that a speaker genuinely is

>not able to distinguish the two codes: if this were in fact true, the alter-

>nation would be predictably random, which it is not, except in the earliest

>stages of childhood bilingualism, in which various researchers have shown

>evidence that children have merged lexicons, with synonymous lexemes. This is

>normally a transient stage, however, before the codes are sorted out.



 So the term "mixing" should perhaps be retained as a tentative label until

we find out what is _actually_ going on?



 I see in postings a mixture <g> of performance and cognitive factors. My

understanding the topic is very superficial, but it seems to be more a

performance related term. Do we need to clarify what we're talking about?



>   To repeat for those recent to the discussion, most U.S. linguists use

>"code-switching" as a general term embracing code-alternation BETWEEN sentences

>and WITHIN sentences. The former is called INTER-SENTENTIAL code-switching,

>the latter INTRA-SENTENTIAL code-switching. While these are not particularly

>graceful terms, they are clear and consistent.



 Yes, thank you. They are descriptively more adequate. Intra-sentential

switching is at the lexical, phrasal, and clausal levels, right?



 But are inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching the same

phenonema? Are they simply a matter of degree, points on a spectrum? I find

the former very rare in Thai.



>.., "mixing" is absolutely the wrong term to use. It is

>interesting to observe that almost all of the people who use "mixing" are not

>native to U.S. society and have not had the kind of experience which would

>enable them to understand the pejorative social consequences of the term.



 Ah, now the truth comes out. It's an American hangup :-) So us "non-natives"

(the rest of the world) can continue to use the term, right?



Gwyn Williams

Thammasat University

Bangkok 10200

<gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th>



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 24 Dec 1993 10:44:40 -0600

From:  Dennis Baron <baron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>

Subject: new words at ads



Yes, dInIs, I meant ADS, not MLA. I never was much of a

phonologist. Or phoneticist. When I was in graduate school

in the middle ages I created an annual award, modeled on the

Oscar, for academic bests. It was called the PaMeLA, and

consisted of a cap-and-gowned critter of indeterminate sex

(yes, even then gender-neutral) holding a garbage can,

above the motto, "Put out the light, and then put out the

trash." The first and only recipient of the PaMeLA statuette

(which itself was only realized on paper, not in 3-d) was

a diss. culled from the annual MLA Bibliography entitled, "The

image of the hopping robin in the early poetry of Emily Dickinson."



Perhaps there are more awards in the offing, though I always find

the press send-ups of MLA to be genuinely unfair, and seeing the

looks of fear and over-confidence in our graduate students heading

north for interviews makes me anxious and sad. Toronto is north

of Urbana, innit?



Dennis (the other one)

--



debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu        (\          217-333-2392

                \'\       fax: 217-333-4321

Dennis Baron          \'\      __________

Department of English      / '|     ()_________)

Univ. of Illinois        \ '/     \ ~~~~~~~~ \

608 S. Wright St.         \       \ ~~~~~~  \

Urbana IL 61801          ==).      \__________\

                 (__)       ()__________)



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Date:  Fri, 24 Dec 1993 11:37:50 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



I was a bit hasty in an earlier posting saying that the code-switching I

am familiar with is rarely inter-sentential. A good source of data on

inter-sentential switching is the weekly brodcast of mass at the cathedral

in San Antonio, Texas. We get it here on VISN, cable of course, at noon cst

each Sunday. The senior priest uses much more Spanish than the younger one.

Usually the switch occurs at certain points in the service. They also will

have segments of a sermon in one language and then shift to the other, but

the content is not exactly the same in each language. The older priest shifts

languages much more frequently than the younger one.

Gwyn Williams asks whether the kind of switching that I demonstrated in a

posting last week is the same phenomenon as inter-sentential switching. What

I've seen on VISN does seem to me to be "different" in that it serves a

different purpose discoursally. The kind of switching that I recorded in my

research seemed not to be discoursally motivated. Both Sali and Gwyn have

suggested that the difference may be a matter of degree along a spectrum.

If these behaviors are different phenomena, they are not located at different

points along a spectrum.

This topic may be more appropriate for another List. It's interesting

that the interchange has continued with the topic 'modren metathesis'.

                              DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 24 Dec 1993 15:10:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: new words at ads



Dennis,

I think the send-ups of (P)MLA are mostly pretty easy on the organization (

and output) myself. I can't believe you didn't give your award to an article I

once saw as I leafed through a PMLA on a colleague's desk a few years ago. I

was not even particularly expecting to find my suspicions confirmed, but there

was 'Teeth in World Literature' (a paraphrase of the title I suspect).

Good stuff,

Happy Holidays,

{dInIs]

P.S.: On a sadder note, yes, I am also unhappy to see the trek of job-seekers

annually. On an even sadder note, now that we have imposed free-market (sic!)

economy on the rest of the world, the previously well-employed East European

academics (however reprehensible some parts of their system might have been)

are now out (at post-middle-age, something I am very sensitive to) struggling

to supplement a university income which not pay the inflated rent by hustling

translation and language teaching jobs (in the best of cases).

Sorry for unjolly images.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 24 Dec 1993 20:47:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Sali-

I beleive you are exactly right in noticing that many variationaist

publications on AAVE (or other varieties for that matter) seem to assume a

monolithic 'base' grammar. I suspect, however, that that is not the assumption

which most of the authors would hold. In most cases, a 'most acrolectal' and

'most basilectal' form is assumed, but I think that that methodological ploy

does not carry with it the idea that there are any (nondynamic) speakers of

those forms.

Your second question is more interesting to me, and I think it is directly

realted to the question which has been engaging us (although in different

guise) on this network for some time now. If the study of AAVE is within the

framework of pidgin/creole studies, does that make it a study of coordinated

cognitive meantal structures or of compounded ones. I still believe this is a

central question to variationist studies, not just to the characterization of

language switching concerns as we have been discussing here lately. I

personally suspect that it will be very difficult indeed to tell when one is

situationally alternating within one's own variety or between varities (not to

mention wh en one might be metaphorically switching within or between).

I agree with you, however, that we all too often appear to assume the

monolithicity (??? - don't trust me; remember I'm not a native speaker) of

such varieties as AAVE. In the social defense of such assumptions, however,

note that the assumption is just as often made about the so-called standard as

well (an assumption i have very often heard creolists make, particularly when

they contrast such interesting variable aspects of pidgin/creole systems as,

say, tense/aspect, with the 'invariant' standard system. Of course, we know

very little about the status of the standard tense/aspect system because the

assumption of its invariance is even more insidiously assumed.

Aren't you ashamed of my having to do all this on Christmas Eve?

Happy Holidays!

Dennis Preston



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End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Dec 1993 to 24 Dec 1993

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There are 4 messages totalling 114 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (4)



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Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 00:29:18 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



To: Gwyn Williams



From: Rudy Troike



Subject: "Mixed-up Primitives"



    It is sadly true that "linguistic scientists", who of all people should

be sensitive to the significance of language, have probably been more cavalier

than almost any other group of specialists in taking words with well-

established popular meanings and giving them technical meanings and then trying

to convince the rest of the world that they should put aside the original

meaning and embrace the new technical sense. It is not true that no one has

ever tried to change this: in the 1970's, people like Raven McDavid were trying

very hard to erase the unfortunate legacy of technical use of the term

<dialect>, and replace it with <variety>, allowing one to speak simply and

non-pejoratively of "regional variation" and "social variation". Unfortunately

this effort seems to have regressed in recent years.

    However, while it is hard, as anyone involved with language policy

knows full well, to change established usages, it should be easy to avoid the

mistakes of the past with new coinages. The handful of scholars using "mixing"

for intra-sentential code-switching have not gone so far down the road that

their neologism is irrevocable. To argue in favor of using the term is on a

par with reinstating the term "primitive" in discussions of language, usually

in contexts which placed European languages at the top of the value-heap.

    Since code-switching of whatever kind occurs in the process of speaking

or writing or signing, it is inherently a phenomenom observed in performance,

though receptive competence can be tested to some extent experimentally, with

the usual caveats. [The misspelling above being a performance error, since I

am a terrible typist.] Intra-sentential CS is to some extent psycholinguistic-

ally a different critter from Inter-sentential CS, since the latter requires

much less facility in both languages. Don Lance's Spanish is much better than

mine (he used to teach it); he can do intra-sentential CS and I can't. It

seems to be true with some populations that switching within sentences is very

rare, but generally the more fluent the speaker in both languages, the more

likely switching will occur within sentences. However, even for such groups,

the tendency is very great for switching to occur at sentence boundaries.

    If exo-sentential switching seems rare in Thai/English, it would be

valuable if you would conduct a study and publish the results. Since there

are a few studies on Chinese/English switching, the results could be compared.

[Irrelevantly here, but I knew a Thai speaker in the US who refused to speak

Thai with another native speaker who was older than she was but whom she did

not like, since she did not want to have to linguistically acknowledge

deference to her.] Given the hierarchic nature of Thai society, the relation

of CS to social relations would be interesting as well as the purely syntactic

constraints.

    One would hope that several decades of international polemic over

center/periphery, colonialism, Eurocentrism, and the like would have sensitized

almost everyone to the underlying issues involved, but people immersed in the

center often do not recognize the issues, and academicians are often too

involved in their own work to have heard of the debates. The civil rights

movement in the U.S. did, I believe, sensitize many social scientists to

conditions and consequences of (internal) colonialism more than is the case

in many other countries. To call this heightened awareness a "hangup" is

simply to trivialize it and dismiss it. Those of us who have ridden the crest

of ESL teaching have participated in the colonialist process, usually without

being aware of it. I would hope that the kind of sensitivity that anthropolo-

gists have been trying to get other social scientists to adopt internationally

would apply here.



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 00:38:08 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



P.S. In fact, there has been very little discussion of the terminology

in this field. Perhaps 2% of the discussion has been devoted to terminology

and 98% to the phenomena involved. But there is an inseparability, in that

analysis requires classification, which requires characterizable labels.

Distinguishing code-switching from borrowing becomes a major analytical and

methodological issue, with significant theoretical consequences.



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 00:55:10 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Dennis (Preston, that is):

    Merry Christmas to you and all ADS-Lers! You are right about the

insidious assumption of uniformity in AAVE, even among those who do NOT hold

to the creole hypothesis. I may be one of the few who have published on,

and argued for recognition of, REGIONAL variation in the African American

community. To this day, differences are largely ignored although they are

very obvious. Why are they so consistently ignored? Is there a conspiracy?

I'll let someone else answer.

    Enjoy your holidays.

              Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 01:07:51 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don,

    Merry Christmas (it is already, even in Arizona). I think it is

healthy for ADS folk to be exposed to discussions about code-switching,

since I think looking at CS can help clarify what is going on in style-

shifting, or other "intralanguage" kinds of shifting, including producing

forms like "modren". A lot of the same neurological mechanisms must be

involved, not to mention the social ones. And even if it might seem that the

ADS should restrict itself to examining English, Spanish/English CS is a

major speech pattern for large numbers of US bilinguals, and so even on this

ground should not be excluded. I would hope that the discussion might make

some people curious enough to look into some of the literature.

                Rudy



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End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Dec 1993 to 25 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 3 messages totalling 53 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (3)



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Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 14:43:58 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Anyone who used to listen, even occasionally, to Black radio stations before

the Motown Sound pushed older traditions aside would have heard the Black

Draught (a "tonic") ads that made use of regional variation in AAVE. The ads

began with someone saying about three sentences. Then the ad-announcer would

ask the auditors to guess where the speaker was from. Then after the spiel

extolling the virtues of Black Draught (which had a much longer life than

Hadacol), the announcer would reveal where the speaker was from. I found it

interesting that I often could place the speakers, in part by comparing their

phonology with that of Southern whites.       DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 25 Dec 1993 14:54:30 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



It seems to me that style-shifting within a language is less likely to occur

than code-switching in socially relaxed atmospheres in which the interlocutors

have a very high degree of fluency in both languages and aren't strongly

influenced by formality hang-ups. Someone with a school-marmish attitude

toward language is less likely to code-switch than someone who "hangs loose"

("monolithism" at work). Style-shifting is driven by pragmatics, as is

exo-sentential (I like Rudy's term here) code-switching, but the CS that I

recorded and the CS I've heard on South Texas radio stations is occasionally

but not always reference-driven. I've heard the CS on only a couple of

stations; most of the verbal content in broadcasts is too formal for code-

switching to be appropriate.            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 26 Dec 1993 11:02:26 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Don--

    At KOHT, Dori Peterson found that the public service announcements are

often WRITTEN with CS: "En una parte y en este dia en nuestro pais disaster

struck. In fact disaster strikes every single day. Esto quiere decir que ...."

(In some part and on this day in our country disaster struck. .This means that)

Generally one would think of PS spots as being very formal, and they are formal

enough to be written, but here interestingly they include CS. The program

director encourages the DJs to feel free to improvise, nonetheless.

    Interesting information on the Black Draught ads. It would be really

fascinating if they had been tape-recorded somewhere.

    Feliz Post-Christmas,

                --Rudy



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End of ADS-L Digest - 25 Dec 1993 to 26 Dec 1993

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There are 4 messages totalling 76 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Code-Switching

 2. Regional variation in BE

 3. modren metathesis (2)



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Date:  Sun, 26 Dec 1993 13:03:55 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Code-Switching



Today I watched the entire mass from San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio TX.

The theme of the service was the family, and in the extemporaneous sermon

the priest extended his remarks to include a discussion of the tv and radio

coverage they have in the U.S., Central America, the Caribbean, and South

America. When he was reading letters from Chicago, Washington DC, and West

Virginia he introduced the letter in the language in which it was written,

always switching inter-sententially. But when he was somewhat excitedly

listing the cities where they had considerable audiences he switched intra-

sententially four times. Only with the first switch to English did he mark the

switch ("For our radio audience who listen to us in English"); each switch

except the first one was smooth, with no intonational marking. The choice of

language tended to be geographically determined, but not absolutely: greetings

 to Chicago in Spanish, to Washington DC and West Virginia in English, to

California in both languages, New Mexico in English, comments on West Virginia

and Missouri in Spanish. The intra-sentential switching seemed to be the

same phenomenon as the inter-sentential switches, but with the former made

while he was more excited and talking faster. This is a small sample, but

at least for Spanish-English code-switching n Texas the location of the

switch is not necessarily determined by content but may be determined by

something like level of formality.

Similarly, style-shifting within a language correlates with formality.

                       DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 27 Dec 1993 10:25:06 -0600

From:  Joan Livingston-Webber <webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU>

Subject: Regional variation in BE



I get ADS on digest and I think this question is directed to

Rudy, but now I'm not sure. In any case, someone referred

to publishing on regional variation in black english. Would

you post citation so I can go find it? Thanks.

--

Joan Livingston-Webber  webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unomaha.edu

"What gets better is the precision with which we vex each other."

                        -Clifford Geertz



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Date:  Mon, 27 Dec 1993 20:06:27 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



OK, Dennis. Sorry I kept you busy on Christmas eve. I plead guilty for

creolists, though I should bite my tongue. Creolists know I have hardly

given them a break on such assumptions for the past few years. I will send

you a relevant offprint, maybe two, in the mail, soon after the quarter

begins.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



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Date:  Mon, 27 Dec 1993 20:12:04 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene <mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Rudy:

 May I ask for a copy of, or bibliographical information on, your

publication on regional variation in AAVE? I'll appreciate reading it.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



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End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Dec 1993 to 27 Dec 1993

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There is one message totalling 72 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. A Painful Case (apologies to JJoyce)



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Date:  Tue, 28 Dec 1993 13:04:42 -0800

From:  "Thomas L. Clark" <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: A Painful Case (apologies to JJoyce)



  For you holiday reading pleasure or dismay, I proffer the following

longish missive from Fritz Juengling, currently of the U of Minnesota.

Most of us are aware of the shabby and despicable treatment given to

linguistics and language study at U of MN (linguistics dept murdered

two yrs ago, Scandinavian Dept goes to the gallows July 1, Harold Allen's

worked generally dissed).

  Mr Jeungling wrote to me after hearing from another of our dwindling

precious few. My dept has an infant Ph.D. program in lit, but our

library - and perhaps my colleagues, would not meet the needs of

Mr. Jeungling. He appears to have excellent credentials and interest that

match much of the readership of ADS-L folk. With his permission, I

broadcast his condition to the net in hopes that somewhere there may be

a "place." Please respond to Mr Juengling at his e-mail address AND

send a copy to me that I might keep track of developments.

Cheers,

Tom Clark

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu

------- Forwarded Message





Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1993 10:31:24 -0600 (CST)

From: Charles F Juengling-2 <juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gold.tc.umn.edu>

To: Tom Clark <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]redrock.nevada.edu>

cc: Fritz Juengling <juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gold.tc.umn.edu>



Dear Professor Clark,

    Your name and address were given me by Joan Hall at the U of WI.

She said that you had done some fieldwork for DARE and might be able to

help me. I am in the Germanic Philology at the U of MN. My primary

interests are phonetics, historical linguistics, and dialectolgy (esp.

Modern English dialects). I am looking around for another program, as the

one here at the U of MN cannot really accommodate my interests. For

example, for my dissertation, I plan to do some fieldwork in my native

state of Oregon. (In addition, I am writing the settlement history for

the Linguistic Atlas of the Pacific Northwest). However, this sort of

dissertation would not be acceptable to my advisor. Supposedly, students

in this program are to limit themselves to topics before 1500 A.D. and

preferably to a German one. So, you can see that I'm really a duck out of

water (pun intended--being an Oregonian). Therefore, I am looking around

for a school where I can be in a program in whichI can do the kind of

research in which I am most interested. Professor Hall said that since

you had been a DARE worker, you might be interested in overseeing a

dissertation such as mine.

    To give you some idea of my background, I will briefly summarize

what sorts of courses I've had-- Old English (5 courses), Old Norse,

Gothic, Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Old High German, Histories of the

English, German, Dutch, and Scan. languages, phonetics, several courses in

historical linguistics, and a course in American English. In addition, I

have been teaching German at the U of MN for several years and I have very

basic skills in Norwegian and Dutch.

    If you would take a few moments from your busy schedule to let me

know what the possibilities might be, I would be very grateful. Of

course, the question of financial support is one which always looms large

over the heads of students. I thank you for your time and look forward to

your reply.



        Merry Christmas and happy New Year,



        Fritz Juengling











------- End of Forwarded Message



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End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Dec 1993 to 28 Dec 1993

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There are 3 messages totalling 97 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis (2)

 2. Regional variation in BE



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 29 Dec 1993 16:14:13 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams <gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



On Sat, 25 Dec 1993 Rudy Troike <RTROIKE%ARIZVMS.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu> wrote:



>Distinguishing code-switching from borrowing becomes a major analytical and

>methodological issue, with significant theoretical consequences.



 How are code-switching and borrowing distinguishable? Is it borrowing when

a form is widespread within a speech community, ie, nativized, accepted as a

native word? Is it code-switching when it is restricted to an individual or

to a (bilingual) sector of a community? Is it a matter of stability? Can

foreign borrowings be widely accepted and used within a community but still

retain a foreign "flavour"? Is code-switching restricted to discourse

between bilinguals, while loan words are used by all speakers?



 I ask because of what I see occurring with English in Thailand (hardly

central to the concerns of this group, I admit ;-) ). Call it part of

"World Englishes". One speaker, more conversant with English, may be very

consciously using a word as an English word, another may be unaware that

this same word originates from English.



Gwyn Williams

Thammasat University

<gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th>



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 29 Dec 1993 10:33:46 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



Gwyn--

    I'm posting this on ADS-L since some others may be interested in the

question of distinguishing borrowing from code-switching. You have already

recognized most of the issues which go into this vexed question. One of the

most common criteria is phonology -- whether the "foreign" word or phrase is

spoken with L1 or L2 phonology. This works well where there is a detectable

difference in the L1 and L2 pronunciation of the speaker, which is often the

case. Gumperz has pointed to the difficulty of using this in analyzing CS

between Indian languages, since they often share the same phonology. Also,

the L2 learner may have learned it with L1 phonology, so in such cases the

criterion becomes moot (and obviously one would not like to stake any serious

theoretical claims on such subjects).

    Don Lance innovated an important methodological caution, which was to

insure that the L2 word was also known in the L1, so that it was not a case of

lexical gap, as may often happen with bilinguals, especially with technical

terms.

    But single word shifts are not very interesting, since they provide no

evidence that the speaker has fluent productive control over two grammatical

systems, and can interleave them. They might be very interesting sociolinguis-

tically, as your example suggests, in the same way I recall a British speaker

once (ostentatiously, to American ears) making extensive use of Latin terms

in a formal speech. I.e., the "dropping" of high-status L2 terms into one's

discourse certainly sends signals about one's social status, education, etc.

If it turns out that both in free speech and in experimental judgments of

acceptability, that no one can comfortably switch other than single content

words, one would then look at the possibility of grammatical constraints which

somehow (e.g., such as SVO vs SOV syntax) limit switching. The key is not

just taking single words as significant.

    One can argue endlessly about whether a lexical item is a borrowing or

a switch. Because I am conscious that the word <very> derives from French, am

I consciously switching to French every time I use it (not knowing French, by

the way), while everyone else who does not know this arcane fact is not? If,

when I use the Spanish word <patio> in an English utterance, I switch to

Spanish phonology, I would say I was switching, while most people using it with

altered English phonology [ae] instead of [a], etc. would be simply using it

as a borrowing. No one can ever say at what point a foreign term becomes fully

nativized.

    Probably, as Gumperz has done, you need to record speech involving

use of English in Thai conversation, and then ethnographically interview the

speakers and get judgments on what they have done. It is always important to

get biographical information on the speakers' knowledge and use of the L2, and

samples of their unmixed speech in both languages, as well as perform the

"Lance test", if I may so christen it. Whether or not it is true CS, from

your description it sounds of sociolinguistic interest.

    Happy Ano Nuevo to all,

                --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 29 Dec 1993 22:11:40 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: Regional variation in BE



Whoever you are, welcome home from MLA. I deleted the discussion on

regional variation in BE. Will anyone please post any citations they

know on this to[pic?



I have only an anecdote. I had a student last year who spolke salient BE

. She said African American kids from Chicago told hershe had a

"southern accent." (Sorry, at 300 baud it takes all nite to fix ty[pos.)

-Tim Frazer



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 28 Dec 1993 to 29 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 4 messages totalling 118 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Yiddish in NY? Heaven Forbid (3)

 2. Regional variation in BE



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 30 Dec 1993 09:05:34 EET

From:  Chana Lajcher JCT Library <lajcher[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BRACHOT.JCT.AC.IL>

Subject: Re: Yiddish in NY? Heaven Forbid



Hi Tarz:



Cute article, where did it come from? One other New Yorkism;

they distinguish between trash and garbage (trash is paper,

garbage is wet). I think it's bec they used to have to

separate it. In Israel, because so many people come from so

many countries, even grammer has picked up foreign parts. The

Hebrew Language Academy is always ranting about it, but they

can't change people, although they do have the right to ban

songs on the radio for bad vocabulary or grammer. And I mean

incorrect, not because of the meaning of the text!!



I'm going to be out for most of next week, so have a happy new

year and see you later.



Regards,

Jane



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 30 Dec 1993 09:59:29 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Regional variation in BE



Dear Joan, Sali, Tim, et al. ADS-Lers,

    The reference to regional variation in BE/AAVE that I made was the

hardly momentous and necessarily largely anecdotal paper I published ages

ago (20 years!), in which the call for research on this topic has gone

largely unheeded. Unfortunately, valuable possibilities have disappeared

in the meantime. The reference is:

    Troike, Rudolph C. "On Social, Regional, and Age Variation in Black

English," Florida FL Reporter (1973, Spring/Fall), 7-8.

    One pervasive feature which seems to have a much wider occurrence

in the East is the devoicing of final -/d/, replaced with either /t/ or glottal

stop. At the time, I had not encountered this in Texas. Another items was

evidence that older speakers in Texas had the /IN/:/EN/ distinction, but that

it had been lost among younger speakers. This evidence considerably confounds

the view that the lack of the distinction is an original diagnostic of BE.

With more research, much more could be (could have been) found.

    On Tim's interesting anecdote, I found differences between speakers in

Houston and Dallas, but his story calls to mind a student I had once who came

up after class and asked, in a strong "Brooklynese" pronunciation, if I thought

she sounded like a Southerner. I was rather astonished by the question, and

assured her that she did not, so far as I could tell on casual hearing. Then

she explained, almost in tears, that she had lived for two years in Atlanta, GA

where her husband had been stationed, and that after about a year, when she

would call home to her parents in Brooklyn, they would accuse her of "sounding

like a Southerner", evidently implying that this was somewhat treasonous to

family solidarity. As a result, she was feeling somewhat estranged from her

parents, which was very upsetting to her. The phonetic differences, whatever

they were, were clearly very subtle, but were enough to be detectable to

members of the linguistic community (her parents).

    This is a common experience, of course, for all of its being little

documented. Brits are often able to detect minute differences in regional

varieties which are unidentifiable to American ears, at least on first hearing.

Someone once gave me a tape of a young speaker from NYC who was "obviously"

Black, but when played for a colleague who was a native speaker, he expressed

doubt, though he could not put his finger on anything specific. He was in fact

right -- the speaker on tape was a Nuyorican -- New York Puerto Rican. But

again, the differences were so subtle that they would probably not have been

expressible even in narrow phonetic transcription.

    Now, the urgent need is still to document regional differences before

they change or (pace Dennis) disappear.

    Feliz Navidad, y'all,

                --Rudy



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 30 Dec 1993 14:21:03 EST

From:  Robert Kelly <kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Yiddish in NY? Heaven Forbid



Dear Jane.



growing up in Brooklyn (still part of NYC, tho who knows with Don Rodolfo)

the distinction I had to learn to make was indeed between garbage (wet) and

the dry equivalent. But in the 1940s it wasn't trash. It was rubbish.

We had a full-fledged rubbish/garbage contrast. But often both were put in

the same "garbage can" in the innocent days before waste management. And

that stood next to the ashcan (one word) in the alleyway.



RK



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 30 Dec 1993 17:36:53 -0600

From:  Dennis Baron <baron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Yiddish in NY? Heaven Forbid



I grew up in NYC (Queens) mid-late 40s, 50s. In our apartment

building everything went down the incinerator. When my parents

bought a house and moved further out in Queens we put the

gobbage in a can behind the house, where it was routinely mashed

by the sanitation trucks. Trash, rubbish, wet, dry, it was all

gobbage to me, till I moved to Mass. in early 60s and had to

separate (but I forget the terms we used there).



And a reminder for returnees from ADS (ADS) in Toronto: can someone

post the new words entries and winners?



Dennis

--



debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu        (\          217-333-2392

                \'\       fax: 217-333-4321

Dennis Baron          \'\      __________

Department of English      / '|     ()_________)

Univ. of Illinois        \ '/     \ ~~~~~~~~ \

608 S. Wright St.         \       \ ~~~~~~  \

Urbana IL 61801          ==).      \__________\

                 (__)       ()__________)



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Dec 1993 to 30 Dec 1993

************************************************







There are 5 messages totalling 120 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. modren metathesis

 2. <No subject given>

 3. SMTP message through S-Bridge gateway

 4. AAVE variation and ADS in Toronto (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 30 Dec 1993 22:58:16 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: modren metathesis



N.B. In Rudy's example of saying 'patio' with Spanish phonology, unless the

/t/ is said as an unaspirated stop -- not with "voiced t" -- the speaker has

not code-switched merely by using [a] rather than [a]. Few American can do

a good unaspirated post-dental [t], so [pathio]/[padio] vs [paedio] is similar

to the use of [a] or [ae] in 'Nevada'. The phonological shift Rudy really

means, I'm sure, will very likely have different tongue positioning for sets of

consonants and vowels as well as "adjusting the sound".

I wish I'd kept notes on discussions I had with a couple of graduate students

from northeastern Thailand a couple of years ago. I recall them commenting on

phenomena such as what Gwyn Williams mentioned -- i.e., Thais speakers

"innovating" by unwittingly giving a new pronunciation to a word that was

borrowed from English originally (if I remember the erased posting accurately).

I also wish I'd kept notes on some conversations I had with 7 Malaysian

students in a special class on contrastive analysis. As they warmed up to

the task and felt free to talk about some of the things they hear on TV as

announcers attempt to follow the "guidance" of the Academy and the government

in establishing Bahasa Malaysia baku ('standard'), they mentioned some

"re-pronunciations" that were jarring to their ears. It seems that there's

a parallel drive to maintain a distinct Bahasa Indonesia baku as well. My

knwledge on this is shaky, so basically I'm just bringing up the matter of

"funny" things happening as "standard" languages are found to be useful on

national tv stations. The Malaysians apparently slavishly follow spelling.

                             DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 31 Dec 1993 15:43:15 -0500

From:  "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" <BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUACCVMB.BITNET>

Subject: <No subject given>



Another anecdote on the same theme as Rudy Troike's--I once had a

student linger after class and ask me if she sounded like a New Yorker.

Not to my NY ears I told her after asking her to pronounce a few

diagnostic terms, e.g. bottle of beer, word choice, &c. But she was not

relieved.  From Dayton OH and Jewish, her dorm-mates said she sounded

like a New Yorker as a code-form for "she looked like a N. Y. Jew"

rather than an Ohioan.



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 31 Dec 1993 15:43:00 EST

From:  David Bergdahl <DBergdah.SMTP[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MHS.UNC.EDU>

Subject: SMTP message through S-Bridge gateway



Another anecdote on the same theme as Rudy Troike's--I once had a

student linger after class and ask me if she sounded like a New Yorker.

Not to my NY ears I told her after asking her to pronounce a few

diagnostic terms, e.g. bottle of beer, word choice, &c. But she was not

relieved.  From Dayton OH and Jewish, her dorm-mates said she sounded

like a New Yorker as a code-form for "she looked like a N. Y. Jew"

rather than an Ohioan.

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------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 31 Dec 1993 20:28:50 PST

From:  John Baugh <John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET>

Subject: AAVE variation and ADS in Toronto



REPLY TO 12/29/93 20:21 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society": Re:

Regional variation in BE



Tim - and others:



 Most of my African American informants from across the U.S. make

the greatest ethnolinguistic distinction between "urban" and "rural"

black speech. Guy Bailey did some intersting work between College

Station and Houston that looked at this "rural" vs. "urban"

contrast. Nearly all of my informants lived in cities, but they too

had strong stereotypes regarding "country talk" which was often

equated with black folk speech in the South.



On another note, thanks to all who attended the ADS functions in

Toronto. Our Canadian hosts were wonderful, as were their papers.

It was great to see ADS supporting the work of outstanding Canadian

scholars. Larry Davis and Allan Metcalf deserve special

commendation, as does Jack Chambers. I was honored to play an

active role. Best, John Baugh



To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 31 Dec 1993 22:31:44 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: AAVE variation and ADS in Toronto



There are "layers" of differences in AAVE beyond "urban" and "rural". When I

was an undergraduate at Texas A&M, many of the kitchen employees spoke

the Brazos Bottom dialect and others spoke the variety associated with the

town of Bryan. I suspect there are lots of places in the U.S. where some of

the old features of such dialects are still observable in even tenagers, in

spite of what's going on in popular culture. I'd expect old differences to be

found in Southwestern Spanish, as well as in all "ethnic" varieties of

English ('ethnic' includes 'shades' of white) -- as Mike Linn's paper at ADS

demonstrated very well.          DMLance



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End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Dec 1993 to 31 Dec 1993

************************************************





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