User:Peter Grey/scratch

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This page contains rough notes which are intended to eventually become parts of proper articles, but which presently should not be considered encyclopedic content.

Contents

[edit] Linguistics

[edit] Roots of Language

Notes based on Bickerton, Derek (1981). Roots of Language. Karoma Publishers. ISBN 0-89720-044-6. 

pidgin versus creole language
  • language origin: three cases: new languages created without input - creoles closest example; child language acquisition; acquisition of second language and pidgins by adults
  • superstrate and substrate: superstrate - prestige dialect, typically of ethnic group of elite; substrate - indigenous language(s) being displaced
  • consider case of children learning language where adults speak a pidgin and not a fully developed language
  • Bickerton, comparative study of HPE (Hawaiian Pidgin English) and HCE (Hawaiian Creole English); creole developed 1910-1920
  • missing from HPE: marking tense/aspect/modality; relative clauses; movement rules, embedded complements, infinitive constructions; articles || where occurring based on first language grammar (therefore inconsistent across pidgin-speaking community)
    • Also limited vocabulary
  • children of HPE speakers speak HCE - HCE is homogeneous, no distinction indicating bias of parents in terms of grammar or vocabulary
Syntactic distinction HPE - HCE
  • movement rules (deviation from SVO for emphasis)
    • object-fronting: OSV for contrast, correct listener's inference
    • predicate-fronting: new information for identified subject
    • SVO - basic order S VP NP
    • VS, VOS - predicate fronting VP (NP) S
    • OSV - object fronting NP S VP
    • OVS - object fronting and predicate fronting NP VP S
    • deas leitli dis pain chri 'They recent these pine trees'.
  • articles (presence/use of definite and indefinite articles)
    • definite article (definite): all and only specific-reference noun phrases known to listener
    • indefinite article (non-definite): all and only specific-reference noun phrases unknown to listener
    • zero article (non-specific): all and only non-specific noun phrases
  • verbal auxiliaries: TMA=tense-modality-aspect, in order of decreasing proximity to verb
    • aspect marker - stei marks non-punctual aspect (punctual aspect meaning single non-durative actions or events)
    • modality maker - go marks irrealis mode
    • tense marker - bin marks anterior tense
  • for-to complementization (realized/unrealized)
    • go for infinitive construction of realized action
      • ai gata go haia wan kapinta go fiks da fom I had to hire a carpenter to fix the form
    • fo for infinitive construction of unrealized (or not necessarily realizezd) action
      • mo beta a bin go hanalulu fo bai maiself It would have been better if I'd gon to Honolulu to buy it myself
  • relativization and pronoun-copying
    • full noun-phrase contrastive (including first mention) subjects employ pronoun with verb; note indefinite reference inherently first mention; means of 'fronting' subject for contrast with SOV basic order
    • pronoun-copying linked with movement rules
    • presence of relative clause marked with pronoun outside of clause: sambadi goin ova dea dei gon hia nau - Anybody who is going over there will hear [it] now.
creole language
  • features more or less common accross creoles (HCE and GC (Guyanese Creole) the main examples)
  • movement rules: focused constituents moved to sentence-initial position
    • GC assumes NP and V fundamental constituents, but not VP: if VP moved, copy of verb left behind to recover meaning
    • HCE exhibits VP moving as unit
    • GC exhibits equative copula, HCE had greater superstrate influence
  • articles - strongly uniform accross creoles
  • TMA
    • anterior+irrealis = counterfactual conditions
    • anterior+nonpunctual = past-before-past durative/habitual
    • irrealis+nonpunctual = durative/habitual unrealized actions
    • anterior+irrealis+nonpunctual = counterfactual of duration/habituality
    • impact of completives on TMA system (p.94)
  • realized and unrealized complements
    • complementization (p.99): factive, nonfactive, serial verbs
    • complements of verbs of perception
    • non-finite sentence with zero subject, finite clauses delete subject only under identity
  • relativization and subject-copying
  • (!)negation
  • existential and possessive
  • copula
  • adjectives as verbs
  • questions
  • (!)question words
  • passive equivalents
    • N V N => actor-action-patient
    • N V => patient-action


child language acquisition
questions in language origins

[edit] Language and Species

  • Notes based on Bickerton, Derek (1990). Language and Species. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-04610-9. 

[edit] History of Canada, Demographics of Canada, the French Canadian Nation, the English Canadian Nation

[edit] Solitude Nation - Pays des Solitudes

[edit] Regionalisms

Regions of Canada (based on demographics, not politics)

  • EF Canada Heartland (Ottawa-Montreal-Sherbrooke)
  • E- Ontario South
  • -F Laurentia Centre - Greater Saguenay
  • EF Temiskaming
  • EF Acadia
  • E- Newfoundland and Labrador
  • E- Assiniboine
  • E- Alberta
  • E- British Columbia
  • EF Hudson
  • E- Arctic

[edit] History

A Non-encyclopedic History of Canada

  • The Year of Our Lord 1453
  • The Age of Discoveries 1453-1517.
  • The Age of Religious Conflict 1517-1598
  • Colonization 1583-
  • Transitions
  • France and Absolutism 1685, -1714
  • England and Revolution 1604-1707
  • The Age of Great Empires 1714-1763
  • The Victorian Era
  • World War I: 1914-1918
  • Our Finest Hour: 1939-1945
  • The Quiet Revolution: 1960-1982
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