User talk:AndrewCarnie

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Hey Andrew, welcome to Wikipedia! Irish syntax is waiting for you! ;-) User:Angr 10:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC) (Tonio)

Contents 1 Transformational grammar 2 Caron 3 Thematic Relations and Theta Roles 4 WPTL todo 5 Thanks for the warning about Syntax

[edit] Transformational grammar

Hi, I agree that the Transformational grammar article is a bit of a mess, and some of it needs to go over to Generative grammar/Generative linguistics. I was wondering what you thought on a terminological question. Do you think that anything post-LGB is not properly called transformational grammar and should be kept off the article, or do you think it can be used as a cover term for Chomskian syntax from the 50s to the present? Thanks Cadr 11:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caron

There is an ongoing dispute on the talk page about whether it should be called caron or háček/hacek. It has been suggested that professional linguists' advice would be beneficial. Would you please consider participating in the vote?--85.70.5.66 23:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thematic Relations and Theta Roles

I found myself on the Thematic "Role" article a week ago, sighing with frustration at the lack of clarity, confusion, and insistence from probably well meaning people who nonetheless obviously didn't know quite what they were talking about that Theta Role and Thematic Relation should be combined in one article. At the time I wrote a few comments in the hopes of clarifying the issue, actually drawing from your Syntax text. I was quite pleasantly surprised when I checked out the Theta Roles discussion and noticed that you had yourself already advised against the merger. However, sadly, they have disregarded both our comments and gone ahead with the merger. I don't know what good it will do, but I figured I'd let you know that it had been done nonetheless. You speak with a good deal more authority than I, but a lowly Linguistics BA, though whether said authority will be respected or even recognized is another matter. I think a solution might be to make a new article for Thematic Relations, as that currently does not have an article which it redirects to, and, upon having the boundaries completed established, invite the theta roles article to reform accordingly. 128.239.219.107 01:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC) Edris Qarghah

I checked up on the Theta Role situation just now and was very pleasantly surprised that you had indeed interceded and cleared up that mess. Thanks a lot! Edris Qarghah 02:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WPTL todo

I recently constructed an attempt at a more organized WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics open tasks template, but I haven't received any responses on the project talk page. If you could take a look at the test: User:Mitchoyoshitaka/WPTL todo and comment on it, I'd greatly appreciate any feedback or criticism! mitcho/芳貴 02:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the warning about Syntax

I had just rephrased the entire first paragraph for the Syntax article when I became uncomfortable with how the very first sentence was then beginning to sound to me — so I decided to look through previous versions of the article entry in order to try to at least begin to figure out exactly what that first paragraph was originally supposed to say (of course, if it had always read like gibberish, I was still hoping to ascertain the original intent of that first sentence). Fortunately, I was able to discover the original meaning of the opening sentence — but, unfortunately, I also discovered that I had accidentally tampered with the intent of the sentence by stupidly assuming that the version which I had at that time was an accurate description of the subject matter that was being described in the sentence. Most assuredly, the version of the sentence which I was editing was not faithful to the original intent of that sentence.

When I came back to the article in order to correct my mistake, I found that you had detected what was now wrong with the lead sentence, and that you had caught my mistake for me by reverting back to the gibberish that was there beforehand. I noticed that you have been handling this entry since Christmas 2007 — but I did not see (I only gave a cursory glance at this archival data) any attempts by you to edit this lead paragraph so at least it would come out reading in a grammatically correct way. You're a linguistics professor — so why haven't you made these grammatical corrections yourself? Why have you been comfortable with the bad syntax in the lead paragraph for all of this time?

Instead of reverting to gibberish, you should have rewritten the paragraph yourself so that it would actually make grammatical sense, while at the same time still relaying correct information to the reader. Even though you were wrong to leave this paragraph as it was for almost half a year, you were right to object to the inaccuracy which was the result of my editing of the first sentence, as I had inadvertently tampered with the meaning of the sentence. However, none of the other changes to the paragraph changed the original intent of any of the information which was being described, so this time I will revert and edit accordingly. Now, instead of having me do this rewrite all by myself, why don't we rewrite this paragraph together? Come back to it whenever you can — 198.252.8.202 _TalkHistory 19:15, Friday May 30, 2008 (UTC)

I've gone in and done some work on the paragraph. It still isn't perfect. Why didn't I do it earlier? Well, I only wikipedia when I can, the rest of the time I have to work! AndrewCarnie (talk) 08:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)