Re: OT: Semi-OT: Several Questions

From:    Carsten Becker <post@...>
> 1. Lithuanianness
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
> In the threads about Happy (Gay/Straight) Conlang Day, people said they were
> (not) cleanshaven, (not) straight, and (not) Lithuanian. What does having no
> beard and not being Lithuanian to do with being hetero- or homosexual? Why
> Lithuanian? Is this due to some stereotype picture?
Some years ago, we did one of our periodic surveys of the list
and there were a number of interesting correlations to these
effects, but I don't know if anyone ever bothered to determine
whether the numbers were statistically significant.

> 2. Consonant Harmony
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
> Someone suggested to google for Gunnar Ó. Hansson's recent dissertation
> about this topic to get information about this phenomenom.
That would be me. :)

>  I found his site
> at Chicago University where there is a table of contents. Heck, that
> dissertation has 400+ pages! I thought it would be just some brief
> information with examples, coming as a brochure! However, Hansson says
> there, if you're interested in obtaining his 'book' as PDF, you should send
> him an email. I did so, because I wanted to know more than just the headings
> of the chapters. He still did not answer, there was no reply in my spam
> filter either. I checked it every day, except yesterday because my server
> was down (explanation see under 3).
That would be because he no longer teaches at the University of
Chicago; he's now at UBC, and I don't know if the UoC has deleted
his old address yet.  Most likely he simply never received your
email.

> Anyone already has got this PDF file and
> can tell us more about consonant harmony? It seems to be quite an
> interesting feature.
I'd give you my copy of the PDF, but I seem to have misplaced it at
some point.  I've emailed him at his new address, and when he replies
to me, I'll send anyone interested a copy.  In answer to the second
part of your question, I'm by no means an expert in consonant harmony,
but I am given to understand that probably the most common forms of
consonant harmony are coronal and sibilant harmony; the latter is
IIRC relevant in Navaho verbal morphology.  Here are some papers on
the subject:

  Shaw, Patricia A. "Consonant harmony systems: the special status
    of coronal harmony" _Phonetics and Phonology_ 2: 125-157.  Academic
    Press Inc.
  Walker, Rachel. 2000.  "A Cross-linguistic typology of Nasal Harmony"
    Ch. 2 in _Nasalization, neutralization, and opacity effects_.  PhD
    Dissertation, U. of Santa Cruz.
  Suomi, Kari.  1983.  "Palatal Vowel Harmony: A perceptually motivated
    phenomenon?" In:  _Nordic Journal of Linguistics_ 6: 1-35.
  Gerfen, Chip.  1993.  "Trigger Conditions and Nasal Harmony in Terena."
    Proceedings of B[erkeley] L[inguistic] S[ociety] 19.

(Copying the citations from a bibliography I have.)

> Maybe I shouldn't have written Mr Hansson that I'm no
> linguist but "only" a conlanger, I don't know. Although there were some
> typos, it was clear what I wanted. Is "Dear Mr Hansson" offensive in any
> way? AFAIK it shouldn't be. I didn't know his degree, so I wrote "Mr". I
> could also have written "Dear Sir", maybe this would have been better anyway.
Worry not.  Gunnar is one of the most profoundly unconceited
people I've ever met, and has no hangups about modes of address
like this.  (He is "Doctor", BTW.  Generally, the English term
"dissertation" applies only to a doctoral thesis;  Masters' and
Bachelor's works are termed simply "thesis".)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637