Linguistics Commons^™

Vowel Length In Seri Possessed Nouns, Stephen A. Marlett, Mary B. Moser

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

Texmelucan Zapotec Verbs, Charles H. Speck

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

The Tapir: A Yanomami Text, Irma Thiele, Pierrette Ziegler-Birraux, Sandy Cue

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

A traditional Yanomami story is presented with interlinear glosses and free translation. The text relates the characteristics of three animals: the tapir, the squirrel, and the sloth.

Dr-Link: A System Update For Trec-2, Elizabeth D. Liddy, Sung H. Myaeng

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

The theoretical goal underlying the DR-LINK System is to represent and match documents and queries at the various linguistic levels at which human language conveys meaning. Accordingly, we have developed a modular system which processes and represents text at the lexical, syntactic, semantic, and discourse levels of language. In concert, these levels of processing permit DR-LINK to achieve a level of intelligent retrieval beyond more traditional approaches. In addition, the rich annotations to text produced by DR-LINK are replete with much of the semantics necessary for document extraction. The system was planned and developed in a modular fashion and functional …

Quotative Tense Shift In American English Authority-Encounter Narratives, Anna Marie Guthrie

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Using Non-Sentences: An Application Of Relevance Theory, Robert Stainton

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 43, No. 2, Susan Kalcik, Hilda Adam Kring, Regina Bendix, Mindy Brandt, Thomas E. Gallagher Jr., Patricia Irvin Cooper, John I. Schwarz Jr., Willard Wetzel

Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine

• The America's Industrial Heritage Project: A Model for Cultural Tourism
• The Harmonists are Waiting for You
• The Quest for Authenticity in Tourism and Folklife Studies
• Tourism and the Old Order Amish
• The Log Cabin: Notes on its Structure and Dissemination
• On the Making of Die Union Choral Harmonie (1833): Evidence from Henry C. Eyer's Working Papers
• In Memoriam: Paul R. Wieand, a True Artist

Prosody Drives The Syntax: O'Odham Rhythm, Colleen M. Fitzgerald

Linguistics & TESOL Faculty Publications & Presentations - Archive

No abstract provided.

Discourse-Based Evidence For An Ergative Analysis Of Cebuano, Dennis Walters

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

The case-marking systems of Philippine languages have been difficult to classify as either nominative-accusative (NOM-ACC) or ergative-absolutive (ERG-ABS). The question hinges on the status of the “object-focus” clause type. Is it a passive voice clause as traditional analyses (beginning with Bloomfield 1917) suggest? Or is it active voice — the basic transitive clause type — as an ergative analysis would conclude? While purely structural clues at clause-level cannot tell us unambiguously which analysis is appropriate for this group of languages, a discourse-functional approach offers an escape from this dilemma. Cebuano is spoken as a first language by about seventeen million …

Diphthongization And Underspecification In Kɔnni, Mike Cahill

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

The problems of analyzing vowels of Gur languages are well-known to those who work among them. The bulk of the difficulty in K?nni comes in the analysis of the mid vowels, which manifest themselves in diverse and initially confusing ways. In this paper, I demonstrate that phonetic vowel sequences in K?nni can be analyzed as a diphthongization of long mid vowels. Evidence from phonetics, phonological rules, and tone is cited to support this conclusion. In the remainder of Section 1, I present the vowel harmony system of K?nni. In Section 2, I introduce the question of how putative vowel sequences …

The Variable (Th) In Dallas African American Vernacular English, Virginia C. Vinton

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

It is well-known that African American Vernacular English (hereafter AAVE) displays regional variation. In the case of the (th) variable, Wolfram (1969) found that AAVE speakers in Detroit used the nonstandard variants [f], [t], and Ø. In New York City, Labov (1972a) observed the use of [t] and [t?] as the nonstandard variants. In both of these studies conducted in the northern U.S. the variants used by speakers were stratified differently with regard to social factors. Given regional variation of this sort, we might well expect further interesting differences in southern cities of the U.S. The present study, conducted in …

Predicting Near-Native Pronunciation In Spanish As A Foreign Language, A. Raymond Elliott

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

The objective of the present study is to examine the acquisition of pronunciation by 66 undergraduate students enrolled in three sections of an intermediate Spanish course. The data were collected during the Fall semester of the 91-92 academic year at Indiana University, Bloomington. Thirty-two males and thirty-four females served as the subjects. Using a control and two experimental groups, three separate regression analyses examined: 1) variables related to the subjects’ accuracy of pronunciation, 2) the effect of formal instruction in pronunciation, and 3) the relationship between “production” or pronunciation and the subjects’ knowledge of formal pronunciation rules, termed “metalinguistic awareness.” …

The Variable Elision Of Unstressed Vowels In European Portuguese: A Case Study, David J. Silva

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

European varieties of Portuguese exhibit a process whereby unstressed vowels, particularly schwa, optionally undergo elision: an item such as idade ‘idea’ can be realized as [ida'd] and para Maria ‘for Maria’ may surface as [pr?m?rí'?]. While previous research in the study of phonological variation of this sort has typically focused on syntactic, morphological, functional, and segmental factors as the primary linguistic conditions for accurately characterizing variable processes (Guy 1980; Poplack & Walter 1986, among many others), less work has been done investigating the role of prosodic factors in this respect. Yet if one believes (along with Nespor and Vogel 1986, …

Anaphora, Pragmatics And Style In German, Helga H. Delisle

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

German uses two sets of anaphoric pronouns, the personal pronoun set (PP) er, sie, es and the demonstrative pronoun set (DP) der, die, das. The latter set has been largely neglected in the literature, possibly because it mainly occurs in informal conversations. In this paper, I will investigate how a basic concept like the deictic one is exploited for various functions, and to what extent these functions are integrated into the different styles of spoken and written German. It will be shown that the DP is used by the speaker to signal to the hearer not only referential but also …

Conflict In Russian Genitive Plural Assignment: A Solution Represented In Datr, Dunstan Brown, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Inflectional endings are assigned in languages by general principles, but these can come into conflict. We address the question of how such conflict is resolved. A particularly complex example is the Russian genitive plural, where we find that with soft-stem nouns there is a conflict between exponent assignment according to declension class and a default exponent assignment for soft-stem nouns. What is specially interesting is that the conflict here can be resolved by reference to subsystems over and above the paradigm, such as stress. We present an explicit account of the conflict and its mediation by basing our study on …

The Distribution And Properties Of Babole Prenasalized Segments, Myles Leitch

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

Babole, a Bantu language of Congo, has both voiced and voiceless prenasalized consonants. While the consonants of the voiced series have free distribution as segments, those of the voiceless series occur only stem-initially following a prefix. In the case of unprefixed imperatives, stem-initial voiceless prenasals drop the prenasalization. Adopting the ranked-constraint approach of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993), the paper shows that both the skewed distribution of voiced and voiceless prenasals, and the phenomenon of nasal-dropping follow from the intersection of three constraints. One constraint, ClusterVoi, reflects the grammar's preference for voiced prenasals. A second, ALIGN, insists that prefixes …

Vowel Features In Madija, Patsy Adams Liclán, Stephen A. Marlett

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

Switch Reference In Seri, Stephen A. Marlett, Mary B. Moser

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

Nasalization In Huajuapan Mixtec, Stephen A. Marlett

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

Seri Vowels And The Obligatory Contour Principle, Stephen A. Marlett, Mary B. Moser

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

No abstract provided.

Writing, Teacher Training, And Grammar, Jim Meyer

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

In many English syntax courses aimed at future middle and high school teachers of English, we perpetuate grammar separated from any meaningful context. We ought instead to use the students' own writing as the basis for the syntactic analysis of English; this allows them to break out of the workbook mode of teaching and learning and encourages them to see syntax as a dynamic field of research.

The Paragraph: Towards A Richer Understanding, Jim Meyer, Brendan Cooney

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

Paragraph analysis has typically proceeded by doing autopsies on polished final texts. In a fuller analysis, however, we must consider the choices the writer made before arriving at the final text. In this paper we examine a college student's paper, first examining an analysis based on vocabulary changes (Vocabulary Management Profile) and second referring to an interview with the writer about her paragraphing choices.

Dakota Sioux Objects, Thomas M. Pinson

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

This article is a study of certain syntactic and morphological processes in Dakota Sioux within the Relational Grammar framework. There are three main topics dealt with as they relate to verb agreement: advancements to direct object, Possessor Ascensions, and Clause Union. All three of these topics distinguish between direct objects, indirect objects and obliques.

Verb agreement is examined and shown to consist of two distinct systems: person agreement and number agreement. These two systems give empirical evidence to the support of the multilevel relational network of Unaccusative and Reflexive clauses. It is also shown that an analysis which posits advancements …

Nontonal Floating Features As Grammatical Morphemes, James S. Roberts

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

The concept of floating tones is no longer controversial in tonal analysis; important insights into the morphology of numerous tonal languages have relied on the positing of morphemes that are composed simply of prosodically unlicensed tones. Employing data from three of Africa's four major language families, this paper builds on this notion by recognizing the existence of nontonal floating features -- morphemes composed solely of phonological features that have no segmental support. The first example, from Kanembu (Nilo-Sarahan, Chad), shows that the [+ATR] feature is the sole marker of incompletive aspect in the verb. Again, in Mafa and Podoko (Chadic, …

The Existential Use Of Positional Verbs In Texmelucan Zapotec, Charles H. Speck

Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

In Texmelucan Zapotec there is no single verb with just an existential meaning. Rather, eleven positional verbs cover the same range of meaning that one verb covers in other languages. Each of these eleven verbs may occur as predicate of the locative clause, the existential clause or the possessive clause, and none of them occur as predicate of the attributive clause or of the identifying clause. This article explores the syntax of clauses determined by these predicates and the semantic parameters by which the Zapotec speaker controls their use. The results are then compared with what is known about existential …

Variability In Negation In African American Vernacular English, Tracey L. Weldon

Faculty Publications

For quantitative sociolinguists, one of the goals of investigating variability in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is to understand better the nature of the grammar. Specifically, researchers have been interested in whether the variation observed in AAVE is inherent to a single system or the result of interaction between two separate systems of AAVE and Standard English (SE). Variability in negation is an area of the AAVE grammar that has received minimal attention, but one that may offer some interesting insights into the nature of the system or systems at work. This article provides a framework to describe the variability …

Finding The "Two" In Diglossia, John C. Paolillo

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

Sociolinguists generally agree that a diglossic situation is one in which a single speech community employs two or more varieties of language, a H(igh) variety and a L(ow) variety, for different communicative purposes. Ferguson’s (1959) classic definition also includes a structural component: the two forms of language are varieties of the same language, and hence related, but “highly divergent” from one another, more so than a dialect in relation to its standard language. However there is little agreement on this point, and different researchers give different characterizations of how divergent H and L must be. The theoretical status of intermediate …

Lexical Borrowing, Creolization And Basic Vocabulary, George L. Huttar

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

This paper is concerned with two sets of questions, one from semantics and cognitive linguistics, one from diachronic linguistics and in particular creole studies. From the cognitive-semantic side, we are dealing with issues of “basic” vocabulary: what sorts of lexical items, or, more precisely, what sorts of concepts, are, in some useful sense or other (say, psychologically more salient), more “basic” than others? From the diachronic linguistics side, the issues concern likelihood of change through contact: “For what sorts of concepts are lexical items most readily replaced by items from new sources, and which ones are more resistant to such …

Primary Stress Assignment In Brazilian Portuguese, Susan Gary Walters

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

Brazilians display a great interest in the prosody of their own language. Much classroom time is spent counting syllables, enumerating detailed rules for stress assignment and memorizing rules of diacritics used in the orthography (e.g., Cegalla 1991). Stress assignment and its rules are one of the topics covered on the vestibular, the nationwide university entrance exam (Savioli 1991:131ff). Students in elementary schools study syllable structure and division. Even by the second grade they know such words as paroxítono ‘a word whose stress falls on the next to last syllable’ and antepenúltimo ‘antepenultimate’. The problem is that many of the rules …

Phonetic Emphasis In Tamil, James E. Vinton

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

The present paper is based on a study conducted following Balasubramanian’s (1981) method: a native speaker was asked to emphasize a given item in a sentence and instrumental measurements were made as to which phonetic cues the speaker used to accomplish that task. While Balasubramanian asserted that emphasis is marked mainly by an increased length of certain segments, the findings in the present paper indicate that Tamil emphasis is marked by a combination of several phonetic correlates. Some of the confusion about Tamil stress arises from a failure by several authors to distinguish clearly between word-level stress, sentence-level emphasis, and …