Lexicography is often reducible to cycling units of information, especially words. It is usually done, especially in what is often called commercial lexicography, with an eye on the clock. Budgets for dictionary projects are usually quite restricting. One consequence of such confinement is the headache of complying with production schedules, often imposed by a publisher. This brief presentation will focus on what such headaches entail and whether or not there is a suitable cure: (1) One of the most important challenges for present-day dictionary editors is the large numbers which accompany collections of evidence. (2) “Where do all the new words come from?” (3) Print, electronic, and Web-based, each have attractors and detractors—what to do? (4) “Doomed-ness” of unabridged dictionaries—reality or dreaming. These four problem areas are of interest but probably not of overwhelming importance to teachers and students. Their headaches include: (5) Why is it here and not there? (6) Why is it neither here nor there? (7) How do I get my students to read the “blankity-blank” front matter? These half-dozen or so issues and more will be discussed; there’s room for your headaches, too.

Note the new location! 524 West 59th Street, room L2.82!
Saturday, February 25, 2012, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Miguel A. Jiménez-Crespo, Rutgers University
International Linguistic Association Monthly Meeting
Saturday, October 22, 2011

You can also download the audio from this presentation in MP3 format, or subscribe to our audio feed as RSS or in iTunes.

Kristine Billmyer, Columbia University
International Linguistic Association Monthly Meeting
Saturday, May 14, 2011

You can also download the audio from this presentation in MP3 format, or subscribe to our audio feed as RSS or in iTunes.

Haralambos Symeonidis, University of Kentucky
International Linguistic Association Monthly Meeting
November 14, 2009

You can also download the audio from this presentation in MP3 format, or subscribe to our audio feed as RSS or in iTunes.

Martin R. Gitterman, Lehman College and The Graduate Center, CUNY
International Linguistic Association Monthly Meeting
December 12, 2009

You can also download the audio from this presentation in MP3 format, or subscribe to our audio feed as RSS or in iTunes.

More details are on our event calendar.

November 12, 2011

Judy B. Bernstein, William Paterson University
Expletives and other Displaced Pronouns in Appalachian English

Appalachian English allows subjects to be split between two positions to a greater extent than standard American English:

(1) a. There can’t nobody ride him. (Appalachian English; Montgomery & Hall 2004)
b. They can’t many people say that. (Montgomery & Hall 2004)
c. They didn’t nobody live up there. (our fieldwork)
d. We don’t nobody know how long we have. (Montgomery & Hall 2004)

The sentences in (1a,b) involve expletive pronouns (there and they) and transitive verbs, so-called transitive expletive constructions; that in (1c) an expletive (they) and an unaccusative verb; the one in (1d) a referential pronoun (we) and a transitive verb. For all these examples, the initial piece of the subject is a pronominal element and the second a quantificational noun phrase (usually negative). What explains this pattern in Appalachian English? Zanuttini and Bernstein (2011) argue that the pronoun (e.g. there) starts out as a unit with the quantificational subject (e.g. there-nobody) and raises to a position higher than the canonical position for lexical subjects. This is facilitated by movement of the modal or auxiliary. Other varieties displaying the pattern in (1) are Belfast English, Late Middle/Early Modern English, and Older Scots, an ancestor of Appalachian English (Montgomery 1989, 1997). Resembling (1) but not identical to it is so-called negative inversion, which is displayed in both Appalachian English and African American English:

(2) Didn’t nobody get hurt or nothin’. (Appalachian English; Wolfram & Christian 1976)
(3) Ain’t nothin’ went down. (African American English; Labov et al. 1968)

But unlike Appalachian English, African American English apparently does not display the pattern in (1) with overt pronouns.

Please print the PDF of this announcement and post it.  Contact Dr. Effie Cochran, ecochran@jjay.cuny.edu, for more information.

UPCOMING PRESENTATION
Dec 10: Kate Menken, Queens College, CUNY

Q & A to follow talks. All are welcome

Saturday, May 14, 2011
Kristine Billmyer, Dean, School of Continuing Education, Columbia University
Title: “Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition: Issues and Opportunities in Instructed Pragmatics”

Saturday, March 12, 2011
Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, NYU Steinhardt; Scott GoldbergAzrieli, School of Jewish Education, Yeshiva University; Tristin Klein, NYU Steinhardt.
Title: “Becoming Biliterate in a Heritage Language: Addressing the Challenges”

Saturday, February 12, 2011
John L. Locke, Lehman College, City University of New York
Title: “Walls and Whispers: Eavesdropping, Gossip, and Other Liminal Pursuits”

Saturday,  November 13, 2010
Kamal K. Sridhar and S.N. Sridhar, Stony Brook University
Title:  “Ethnicity and Language Maintenance: Marathi in Thanjavur”

Saturday, October 9, 2010
Lawrence M. Solan, Brooklyn Law School
Don Forchelli Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Title: “Construing Laws: Language or Intent?”

Saturday, May 8, 2010
Kathryn English, Université de Paris II Panthéon-Assas, Ecole Polytechnique
Title: “What They Mean by What They Don’t Say. Managing Assumptive Frameworks Across Continents”

Saturday, March 13, 2010
Clifford A. Hill, Arthur I. Gates Professor of Language and Education Emeritus,
Teachers College, Columbia University
Title: “Thinking Back on the Deixis Research: What Does it All Mean?”

Saturday, February 13, 2010
Michael Newman, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Queens College
Title: “How can you sound Asian in American English?: A dialect recognition and sociophonetic study of Korean and Chinese Americans native English”

Saturday, November 14, 2009
Haralambos Symeonidis, University of Kentucky
Title: “ALGR (Átlas Lingüístico Guaraní-Románico)”

Saturday, October 10, 2009
Charlotte Linde, NASA Ames Research Center
Title: “Working the Past: Narrative and Institutional Memory”

Saturday, May 9, 2009
Nancy Stern, City College of New York
Title: “Behave or Behave Yourself: Grammar, Meaning, and Communication”

Saturday, March 14 2009
Kathleen O’Connor-Bater, SUNY College at Old Westbury
Title: “A Cognitive Explanation of Ruben Dario’s Idealist Liberal Poems”

Saturday, February 14, 2009
Maria asparova and Mary Yepez,  Bergen Community College
Title: “Which Writing Texts Work for ESL Students?”