Dream Deep

Bibliography for Haj Ross and/or John Robert Ross

1. A Partial Grammar of English Superlatives. Unpublished University of Pennsylvania M.A. thesis, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (1964)

2. (with Thomas G. Bever) “Underlying structures in discourse?” Unpublished paper, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (1966a)

3. “A proposed rule of tree-pruning.” Progress Report of the Harvard Computation Laboratory to the National Science Foundation, Number 17, October 1966. Republished in same reference as #11, pp. 286-299. (1966b)

4. “A problem which evidence is presented that help is needed to solve.” Progress Report of the Harvard Computation Laboratory to the National Science Foundation, Number 17, October 1966. (1966c)

5. (with George Lakoff) “A criterion for verb-phrase constituency.” Progress Report of the Harvard Computation Laboratory to the National Science Foundation, Number 17, October 1966. Republished and retitled as #55. (1966d)

6. “On the cyclic nature of English pronominalization.” In Festschrift for Roman Jakobson, Mouton and Company, ’s Gravenhage, Holland, pp. 1669-1682. Republished in the reference in #10. pp. 187-200. (1967a)

7. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. M.I.T. doctoral dissertation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September, 1967. Republished and retitled as #86. (1967b)

8. “Der Ablaut bei den starken Verben im Deutschen.” In Studia Grammatika VII, Akademie Verlag, East Berlin, German Democratic Republic, pp. 47-118. (1968)

9. “Auxiliaries as main verbs.” In William Todd (ed.), Studies in Philosophical Linguistics, Series 1, Great Expectations Press, Carbondale, Illinois, pp. 77-102. (1969a)

10. “Adjectives as noun phrases.” In David A. Reibel and Sanford A. Schane (eds.), Modern Studies in English, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, pp. 352-360. (1969b)

11. “Guess who?” In Robert I. Binnick, Alice Davison, Georgia M. Green, Jerry L. Morgan et. al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 252-286. (1969c)

12. (with George Lakoff) “Comparatives and (n)ever.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.1, p. 126. (1970a)

13. (with David M. Perlmutter) “A non-source for comparatives.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.1, p. 127. (1970b)

14. “Two types of idioms.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.1, p. 144. (1970c)

15. (with Paul M. Postal) “A problem of adverb preposing.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.1, p. 145. (1970d)

16. “Whether-Deletion.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.1, p. 146. (1970e)

17. “Chance.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.2, p. 261. (1970f)

18. (with James Bruce Fraser) “Idioms and Unspecified NP Deletion.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.2, p. 264. (1970g)

19. (with George Lakoff) “A derived nominal requiring a sentential source.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.2, p. 265. (1970h)

20. (with George Lakoff) “Two kinds of and.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.2,
p. 271. (1970i)

21. “Metalinguistic anaphora.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.2, p. 273. (1970j)

22. (with David M. Perlmutter) “Relative clauses with split antecedents.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.3, p. 350. (1970k)

23. “A note on implicit comparatives.” Linguistic Inquiry, 1.3, p. 363-366. (1970l)

24. “On declarative sentences.” In Roderick A.Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.), Readings in English Transformational Grammar, Blaisdell Publishing Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, pp. 222-272, (1971). Republished in Donna Jo Napoli and Emily Norwood Rando (eds.), Syntactic Argumentation, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 30-90, (1979).

25. “Gapping and the order of constituents.” In Manfred Bierwisch and Karl-Erich Heidolph (eds.), Progress in Linguistics, Mouton and Company, ’s Gravenhage, Holland, pp. 249-259. (1971b)

26. (with Paul M. Postal) “¡Tough-Movement Si, Tough-Deletion No!” Linguistic Inquiry, 2.4, pp. 544-546. (1971c)

27. “Mirror-image rules and VSO order.” Linguistic Inquiry, 2.4, pp. 569-572. (1971d)

28. “The superficial nature of anaphoric island constraints.” Linguistic Inquiry, 2.4, pp. 599-600. (1971e)

29. “Doubl-ing.” Linguistic Inquiry, 3.1, pp. 61-86. (1972a)

30. (with George Lakoff) “A note on anaphoric islands and causatives.” Linguistic Inquiry, 3.1, pp. 121-125. (1972b)

31. “Act.” In Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Languages, D. Reidel and Company, Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 70-126. (1972c)

32. “A reanalysis of English word stress.” In Michael Brame (ed.), Contributions to Generative Phonology, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, pp. 229-323. (1972d)

33. “Squishing.” Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 17.2, pp. 180-184, (1972). Republished in Edward Burstinsky (ed.), Festschrift for Martin Joos, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (1972e)

34. “The category squish: Endstation Hauptwort.” In Paul M. Peranteau, Judith N. Levi, Gloria C. Phares, et. al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 316-338. (1972f)

35. “Alphabet soups and name-calling.” Foundations of Language 9, p. 113. (1972g)

36. “Parentage.” Foundations of Language 9, (1972h)

37. “More on begin.” Foundations of Language 9, pp. 574-577. (1972i)

38. “Leftward Ho!” Language Research Report Number 3, Language Research Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp.12-28 (1971). Republished in Stephen R. Anderson and R. Paul V. Kiparsky (eds.), Festschrift for Morris Halle, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., New York, New York, pp. 166-173. (1973a)

39. “Slifting.” In Maurice Gross and Marcel Schützenberger (eds), The
Formal Analysis of Natural Languages, Mouton and Company,
’s Gravenhage, Holland, pp. 133-172. (1973b)

40. “On edge, in part.” Foundations of Language 10, p. 329. (1973c)

41. “Q-binding and conjunctive questions.” Foundations of Language 10, pp. 331-332. (1973d)

42. “The same side filter.” In Claudia Corum et. al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 549-559. (1973e)

43. “The Penthouse Principle and the order of constituents.” In Claudia Corum et. al. (eds.), You Take the High Node and I’ll Take the Low Node, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 397-422. (1973f)

44. “A fake NP squish.” In Charles-James Bailey and Roger Shuy (eds.), New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 96-140 (1973g)

45. “Nouniness.” In Osamu Fujimura (ed.), Three Dimensions of Linguistic Theory, The TEC Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 137-257 (1973h)

46. “Some cyclically ordered transformations in German syntax.” In Johannes Bechert et. al. (eds.), Papiere zur Linguistik 7, Scriptor Verlag, Kronberg, German Federal Republic, pp. 50-79. (1974a)

47. “More on -er- globality.” Foundations of Language 12, pp. 269-270. (1974b)

48. “Three batons for cognitive psychology.” In David Palermo and Walter Weimer (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 63-124, (1974c)

49. “There, there, (there, (there,…)).” In Michael LaGaly, Robert Fox, Anthony Bruck, et. al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 569-587. (1974c)

50. “Where to do things with words.” In Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics III: Speech Acts, Academic Press, New York, New York, pp. 233-256. (1975a)

51. “Parallels in phonological and semantactic organization.” In James F. Kavanagh and James E. Cutting (eds.), The Role of Speech in Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 283-304. (1975b)

52. (with William E. Cooper) “World order.” In Robin E. Grossman et. al. (eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Functionalism, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 63-111. (1975c)

53. “To have have and to not have have.” In M. Jazayery, Edgar Polomé and Werner Winter (eds.), Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honor of Archibald Hill, de Ridder, Lisse, Holland, pp. 263-270. (1976a)

54. “Clausematiness.” In Edward Keenan (ed.), Formal Semantics of Natural Languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. (1976b)

55. (with George Lakoff) “Why you can’t do so into the sink.” In James D. McCawley (ed.), Syntax and Semantics VII: Notes from the Linguistic Underground, Academic Press, New York, New York, pp. 101-111. (1977a)

56. (with George Lakoff) “Is deep structure necessary?” In James D. McCawley (ed.), Syntax and Semantics VII: Notes from the Linguistic Underground, Academic Press, New York, New York, pp. 159-164. (1977b)

57. “Guess.” In Samuel E. Fox, Woodford H. Beach, and Shulamith Philosoph (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirteenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 215-244. (1977c)

58. “Remnants.” Studies in Language, 1.1, pp. 127-135. (1977d)

59. (with George Lakoff) “Squib I, Squib II and Squib VI.” In Samuel E. Fox, Woodford H. Beach, and Shulamith Philosoph (eds.), The Chicago Linguistic Society Book of Squibs, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 2-6. (1977e)

60. “Goodbye to whom, hello who to.” In Samuel E. Fox, Woodford H. Beach, and Shulamith Philosoph (eds.), The Chicago Linguistic Society Book of Squibs, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 88-90. (1977f)

61. (with William E. Cooper) “Like syntax.” In William E. Cooper and Edward C. T. Walker (eds.), Sentence Processing: Psycholinguistic Studies Presented to Merrill Garrett, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 343-418. (1979a)

62. “Where’s English?” In Charles Fillmore and William S.-Y. Wang(eds.), Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior, Academic Press, New York, New York, pp. 127-163. (1979b)

63. “Wem der Kasus schlägt.” Linguistische Berichte, No. 63, pp. 26-32. (1979c)

64. “Summer.” In Donna Jo Napoli and Emily Norwood Rando (eds.) Linguistic Muse, Linguistic Research Incorporated, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, p. 75. (1979d)

65. “When the be’s go, the frost comes.” In George Bedell, Eichi Kobayashi, and Masatake Muraki (eds.), Explorations in Linguistics: Papers in Honor of Kazuko Inoue, Kenkyusha, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 464-470. (1980a)

66. “No negatives in than-clauses, more often than not.” Studies in Language, 4.1. (1980b)

67. “Why I don’t invert in why-questions, Mommy and Daddy?” In Henrietta Cedergren and Gillian Sankoff (eds.), Proceedings of New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English VIII: Recherches Linguistiques à Montreal. (1980c)

68. “Here now!” Studies in Language, 5.1, pp. 287-292. (1980d)

69. “Mannerly.” Australian Journal of Linguistics, 1.1, pp. 113-116. (1981a)

70. (with James Bruce Fraser) “Untitled No. 14.” Studies in Language, 5.2, pp. 269-271. (1981b)

71. “Idioms(?) and contrastive stress.” Studies in Language, 5.2, pp. 273-277. (1981c)

72. “Robert Frost’s ‘Out, Out – ’ : : A way in.” In Wolfgang Klein and Willem J.M. Levelt (eds.), Crossing the Boundaries in Linguistics, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 265-282. (1981d)

73. “The sound of meaning.” In Linguistics in the Morning Calm, edited by
the Linguistic Society of Korea, Hanshin Publishing Company,
Seoul, Korea, pp. 275-290. (1982a)

74. “Hologramming in a Robert Frost poem: the still point.” In Linguistics in the Morning Calm, edited by the Linguistic Society of Korea, Hanshin Publishing Company, Seoul, Korea, pp. 685-691. (1982b)

75. “Poems as holograms.” Poetics Journal, Number 2, pp. 3-11. (1982c)

76. “Human linguistics.” In Heidi Byrnes (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1982. Contemporary Perceptions of Language: Interdisciplinary Dimensions, Georgetown University Press, Georgetown, Washington, D.C., pp. 1-30. (1982d)

77. “Human linguistics.“ Forum Linguisticum, 7.3, pp. 211-230. (1983a)

78. Eight poems [“A Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” “Last Crop,” “It’s Hard Being Friends,” “Me Fire” “In a Sunset of My Life,” “Deer,” “Spätblüte,” and “Languagestunde”]. In Emily Norwood Rando and Donna Jo Napoli (eds.), Meliglossa, Linguistic Research Incorporated, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, pp. 140-147 (1983b)

79. “Speaking the unspeakable.” In Jennifer Leaning and Langley C. Keyes (eds.), The Counterfeit Ark: Crisis Relocation for Nuclear War, Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 48-53. (1984a)

80. “Inner islands.” In Claudia Brugman and Monica Macauley et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley Linguistics Society, University of California, Berkeley (1984b), pp. 258 – ¬265.

81. “A hierarchy in conceptual space.” In Adam Makkai and Alan K. Melby (eds.), Linguistics and Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Rulon S. Wells, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 45-54. (1985a)

82. “Poems as holograms.” In Thomas T. Ballmer and Roland Posner (eds.), Nach-Chomskysche Linguistik: Neuere Arbeiten von Berliner Linguisten, Walter de Gruyter, West Berlin, pp. 433-443. [A republication of #74] (1985b)

83. “The source of verbal music in poetry.” In Language and Literature: Proceedings of the Fifth National Symposium on English Language Teaching in Egypt, Centre for Development of English Language Teaching, Ain Shams University, Cairo, pp. 23-36. (1986a)

84. “Poems as holograms.” In Peter C. Bjarkman and Viktor Raskin (eds.), The Real-World Linguist: Applications in the 1980’s, Ablex Publishing Company, Norwood, New Jersey. [A republication of #74] (1986b)

85. “Languages as poems.” In Deborah Tannen (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1985: Languages and Linguistics – The Interdependence of Theory, Data, and Application, Georgetown University Press, Georgetown, Washington, D.C., pp. 180-204. (1986c)

86. Infinite Syntax! Ablex Publishing Company, Norwood, New Jersey. [A republication of #8] (1986d)

87. “Islands and syntactic prototypes.” In Anna Bosch, Barbara Need, and Eric Schiller et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty -Third Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. pp. 309-320 (1987)

88. (with Bruce Fraser and Polly Ulichny) “Repeat performances.” Journal of Pragmatics, 1.3, pp. 651-653 (1989a)

89. “The boy whose feet were pricked by these pine needles.” In Donna Jo Napoli and Emily Norwood Rando (eds.), Lingua Franca, Jupiter Press, Lake Bluff, Illinois, p 131. (1989b)

90. “The curve of love.” In Kimihiro Yoshimura et. al. (eds.), Linguistic Fiesta – Festschrift for Professor Hisao Kakehi’s Sixtieth Birthday, Kuroshio Publishers, Tokyo, pp. 151-182. (1990)

91. “What’s the use?” Unpublished paper, Departamento de Lingüística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil. (1990a)

92. “Towards a ¬¬¬¬¬¬________ linguistics.” Unpublished paper, Departamento de Lingüística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil. (1990b)

93. “FOG
CAT
FOG.” In Robert Hoffman and David Palermo (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes – Applied and Ecological Perspectives, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 187 – 205 (1991).

94. “A circle of friends.” Unpublished paper, Departamento de Lingüística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil. (1991b)

95. “Verbiness and the size of niches in the English auxiliary.” In Carol Georgopoulos and Roberta Ishihara (eds.), Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language: Essays in Honor of S.-Y. Kuroda. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 459-499. (1991c)

96. The Boy and The River. (English translation of O Menino e o Rio, by Angelo Machado, Editora Lê, Belo Horizonte). Unpublished manuscript, Departamento de Lingüística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil. (1992a)

97. (with Rosália Dutra) “Because it is there.” Unpublished paper, Departamento de Lingüística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil. (1992b)

98. “The worm of Ouroboros.” Unpublished paper, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, Singapore. (1992d)

99. “Our December.” In Dale Koike and Donaldo Macedo (eds.), Romance Linguistics – The Portuguese Context, Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Connecticut, pp. 161-193. (1992e)

100. “Paths, points, and proforms.” Unpublished paper, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, Singapore. (1993)

101. “Two from’s?” In Susanne Gahl, Andy Dolbey, and Christopher Johnson (eds.), Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley Linguistics Society, University of California, Berkeley, pp.447-460. (1994)

102. “Conversation with John Robert Ross.” In Geoffrey Huck and John A. Goldsmith, Ideology and Linguistic Theory – Noam Chomsky and the Deep Structure Debates, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 120-125. (1995a)

103. “Defective noun phrases.” In Audra Dainora, Rachel Hemphill, Barbara Lukas, Barbara Need and Sheri Pargman (eds.) (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-First Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 398-440. (1995b)

104. “A first crosslinguistic look at paths – the difference between end-legs and medial ones.” In Lynn Eubank, Larry Selinker and Michael Sharwood Smith (eds.) The Current State of Interlanguage Studies in Honor of William E. Rutherford, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, pp. 273-285. (1995c)

105. “Network learning.” Diversity, Volume 3, Summer 1995, pp. 27-38 (1995d)

106. “The fat PP constraint.” Unpublished paper, English Department, University of North Texas. (1996)

107. “There, there: strong and weak path-linked proforms.” In Kora Singer, Randall Eggert, and Gregory Anderson (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 351-363. (1997)

108. “Beauty – how Hopkins pied it.” Language Sciences 21, pp. 237-250 (1999a)

109. “For Jim.” (poem) Glot International, Volume 4, Issue 5, May 1999, p. 16
(1999b)

110. “Syntactic symbiosis.” In Sabrina J. Billings, John Boyle and Aaron M. Griffith (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 293-308. (1999c)

111. “May nouns and verbs interbe.” In Ralph Fasold, Peg Griffin, Joy Kreeft Peyton and Walt Wolfram (eds.), Language in Action: New Studies of Language in Society, Hampton Press, Cresskill, New Jersey, pp. 177-186 (2000a)

112. “Because it is not there. ” In Denis Le Pesant D. and M. Mathieu-Colas (eds.), Syntaxe, sémantique et lexique. Mélanges offerts à Gaston Gross à l’occasion de son soixantième anniversaire. Buvet P.-A., Bulletin de Linguistique Appliquée et Générale de l’Université de Franche-Comté, special issue, Université de Besançon, Besançon, France, pp. 257-271.(2000b)

113. “The taoing of a sound – phonetic drama in William Blake’s The Tyger.” In Patrizia Violi (ed.), Phonosymbolism and Poetic Language, Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium, pp. 99-145. (2000c)

114. “The frozenness of pseudoclefts – towards an inequality-based syntax.” In Arika Okrent and John P. Boyle (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 385-426. (2000d)

115. “Inversion and coreference in pseudoclefts.” In Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. (eds) Mary Andronis, Christopher Ball, Heidi Elston and Sylvain Neuvel. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. 481-499. (2001)

116. “The Man of All Tribes.” (poem) Linguistic Typology 6.2 p.137 (2002)

117. “An Omnilingual Demonstration.” (poem) In Mary Ruth Wise and Tom Headland (eds.) Language and Life:Essays in Memory of Kenneth L. Pike. SIL International and the University of Texas at Arlington, pp. xi-xii (2003)

118. “The syntax of emphasis – a base camp.” In Lexique, Syntaxe et Lexique-Grammaire (Syntax, Lexis & Lexicon-Grammar): Hommage à Maurice Gross. Christian Leclère, Eric Laporte, Mireille Piot et Max Silberztein (eds.). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 547-559 (2004a)

119. “Siamese sentences – a first look at a parallel construction.” In Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Mary Andronis, Erin Debenport, Anne Pycha, and Keiko Yoshimura (eds). Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. pp. 569-584. (2004b)

120. “Nouniness.” In Bas Aarts, David Denison, Evelien Keizer and Gergana Popova (eds.) Fuzzy Grammar: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 351-422. [A republication of #45] (2004c)

121. “Far” (poem) 32 Poems, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2005, p. 21

122. “Guess Who?” In Robert Freidin and Howard Lasnik (eds.) Syntax:
Critical Concepts in Linguistics, Volumes 1-6. Routledge: London and New York, Volume III, Part 8, pp. 231-260 [A republication of #11] (2006a)

123. “Excerpts from Constraints on Variables in Syntax.” In Robert Freidin and Howard Lasnik (eds.) Syntax Critical Concepts in Linguistics, Volumes 1-6. Routledge: London and New York, Volume IV, Part 9, pp. 17-46 [A republication of #47] (2006b)

124. “The art of fusion,” in Kristin Hanson and Sharon Inkelas (eds.) The Nature of the Word: Studies in Honor of Paul Kiparsky. MIT Press (2009)
125. “Structural prosody.” Cognitive Semiotics #2 (Spring 2008) pp. 65-82.

126. (with Paul Postal) “Inverse reflexives.” In William D. Lewis, Simin Karimi, Heidi Harley and Scott O. Farrar (eds.) Time and Again: Theoretical Perspectives on Formal Linguistics – In Honor of D. Terence Langendoen. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. 5-36, (2009).

127. Here Dwell Tygers (in preparation)

Curriculum Vitae

John Robert Ross / Haj Ross

Place and Date of Birth: Boston, Massachusetts, USA;
May 7, 1938.
Citizenship: USA

Professional Address: Home Address:

Department of Linguistics 1919 Mistywood Lane,
and Technical Communication Denton,
University of North Texas, Texas, USA. 76209-2267.
115 Union Circle, #305298,
Denton, Texas, USA. 76203.

Telephone: (940) 565 4458 Telephone: (940) 383 0224
FAX: (940) 369 8976 FAX: (940) 383 0224
e-mail: haj@unt.edu Cell phone: (940) 735 2502
Blog: Dream Deep haj.nadamelhor.com

Education

Poughkeepsie Day School 1948 – 1952
Poughkeepsie, New York
Phillips Academy 1952 – 1956
Andover, Massachusetts
Yale University 1956 – 1960 A. B. in Linguistics
New Haven, Connecticut
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität 1960 – 1961 studies in linguistics,
Bonn, Germany communication theory,
language, and music
Freie Universität, 1961 – 1962 general studies
West Berlin, Germany
Technische Universität 1961 – 1962 general studies
West Berlin, Germany

University of Pennsylvania 1962 – 1964 A. M. in Linguistics
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Master’s Thesis: A Partial Grammar of English Superlatives
Supervisor: Zellig Harris

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1964 – 1967 Ph. D. in Linguistics
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Doctoral Dissertation: Constraints on Variables in Syntax
Supervisor: Noam Chomsky

Fellowships and Grants

DAAD (German Academic Exchange) Fellow 1960 – 1962
Woodrow Wilson Fellow 1962 – 1963
National Science Foundation Grant #G53202 1970 – 1971
to the Language Research Foundation
Guggenheim Fellow 1977 – 1978
Grant from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Summer 1983
Foundation
Grant from the Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa 1990 – 1992
[National Research Council of Brasil]

Professional Experience

Research Assistant, The MITRE Corporation Summer 1963
Bedford, Massachusetts
Research Assistant, Transformations and Discourse 1963 – 1964
Analysis Project, University of Pennsylvania
Research Assistant, System Development Corporation, Summer 1965
Santa Monica, California
Research Assistant, Harvard Computation Laboratory, 1964 – 1966
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Research Assistant, Research Laboratory of 1964 – 1966
Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Massachusetts 1966 – 1970
Institute of Technology
Associate Professor of Linguistics, Massachusetts 1970 – 1973
Institute of Technology
Professor of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute 1973 – 1985
of Technology
Visiting Professor, Linguistic Society of America Summer 1968
Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
Visiting Professor, Brown University, Fall 1968; Providence, Rhode Island 1971 – 1972
Acting Chairperson, Linguistics Department, 1969 – 1970
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Visiting Professor, First Scandinavian Summer August 1969
School of Linguistics, Stockholm, Sweden
Visiting Professor, Second Scandinavian Summer August 1970
School of Linguistics, Stockholm, Sweden
Visiting Professor, Tokyo Seminar on Formal September 1970
Linguistics, Tokyo, Japan
Visiting Professor, American Philosophical August 1971
Association Conference on the Philosophy
of Language, University of California, Irvine,
California
Visiting Professor, Linguistic Society of America Summer 1972
Institute, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Visiting Professor, State University of New York, 1973 – 1974
Buffalo, New York
Visiting Professor, First and Third Middle East June 1973,
Institutes of Linguistics, Cairo, Egypt June 1975
Visiting Professor, Linguistic Society of America June 1974
Institute, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts
Visiting Professor, Barnard College, 1975 – 1976
New York, New York
Research Associate, Rockefeller Institute, 1975 – 1976
New York, New York
Visiting Professor, Institut de Linguistique Summer 1976,
International, Bourguiba Institute, Summer 1977, Tunis, Tunisia Summer 1978
Visiting Professor, Science Program, August 1979,
Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado August 1980
Visiting Professor, School of Continuing Education, 1979 – 1980
Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg,
Massachusetts
Visiting Professor, Harvard Extension, Spring 1980, 1984
Cambridge, Massachusetts Fall 1983, 1985
Consultant, Language Awareness Project, 1980 – 1985
Rhode Island School for the Deaf,
Providence, Rhode Island
Visiting Professor, Technische Universität, January 1980,
West Berlin, Germany January – February 1981
Visiting Professor, Universität Konstanz, May 1980
Konstanz, Germany
Research Associate, Max-Planck Instituut voor June 1980 Psycholinguistiek, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Sloan Fellow, Cognitive Sciences Program, Spring 1981
University of California, Berkeley
Seminar Leader, National Endowment for the Summer 1981
Humanities Summer Seminar Program
Fulbright Professor, Universidade Federal de May – June 1982
Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brasil
Visiting Professor, TESOL Institute, June – July 1982
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Visiting Professor, Japan Association of College August 1982
English Teachers Seminar, Hachioji,
Tokyo, Japan
Visiting Lecturer in Art and Science, Art Institute 1982 – 1986
of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts
Visiting Professor, State University of New York, Spring 1983
College at Old Westbury, Old Westbury, New York
Visiting Professor, Bilingual Program, University 1984 – 1988
of Massachusetts at Columbia Point,
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Visiting Professor, Linguistic Society of America Summer 1985
Institute, Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C.
Circle – Noetic Services – co-founder and arc 1985 – present
Academic Specialist, United States Information Service: 1985 – 1987
Egypt, Yugoslavia, the Sudan
Project Director, LEX America, Cambridge, 1986 – 1987
Massachusetts
Visiting Professor, Universidade Federal March 1988 –
de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brasil April 1992
Visiting Professor, Boston University Summer School, June 1989
Boston, Massachusetts
Visiting Professor of Linguistics, PREPES Programa July 1989,
da Pós-Graduação “latu sensu,” Pontifícia January 1990,
Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo July 1990
Horizonte, Brasil
Visiting Professor, Department of English Language May 1992 –
and Literature, National University of Singapore May 1993
Visiting Professor, Department of First Nations Studies, September 1993 –
University of Northern British Columbia April 1994
Professor, Department of English, University of September 1994 – North Texas August 2008
Director, Doctoral Program in Poetics, Department 2003-August 2008
of English, University of North Texas
Professor, Department of Linguistics and Technical September 2008 –
Communication, University of North Texas present

Editorships and Professional Societies

(with David M. Perlmutter) co-editor of squibs, 1970 – 1972
Linguistic Inquiry
Member, Executive Committee, 1971 – 1973
Linguistic Society of America
Chairperson, Program Committee, 1972 – 1974
Linguistic Society of America
Member, Manpower Committee, 1972 – 1974
Linguistic Society of America
Consulting Editor, Foundations of Language 1975 – 1977
Consulting Editor, Studies in Language 1977 – 1983
Editorial Board, Studies in Language 1984 – 1990
(with George Lakoff) co-editor of the Language 1980 – 1986
and Being series, Ablex Publishing Company,
Norwood, New Jersey
(with George Lakoff) co-editor of squibs, 1980 – 1985
Studies in Language
Consulting Editor, D.E.L.T.A. 1992 – 1995
[Revista de Documentação de Estudos
em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada]

Knowledge of other languages and cultures

German – Oral: near-native fluency and comprehension (can use for
lectures); limited knowledge of, and ability to imitate, some regional dialects
Written: close to total comprehension of various genres; good basic writing skills, though many errors remain
Culture: three semesters of graduate study in Germany; many trips to and within Germany

Brasilian – Oral: good comprehension; fair fluency; limited Portuguese
understanding of some regional dialects
Written: good comprehension, though inadequate for literary Portuguese; writing – adequate at a basic level
Culture: Have lived and taught in Brasil for four years, though with little opportunity to travel widely. Basic understanding of some aspects of the Brasilian way of life

French – Oral: once known almost to the level of German; has
suffered much interference from my four years in Brasil
Written: good comprehension of non-literary texts; ability to write in halting French, about simple topics
Culture: only a few visits to Paris

Italian – Oral: adequate comprehension, poor expression
Written: good comprehension of non-literary texts
Culture: three visits to Italy, limited travel

Spanish – Oral: ability to understand basic Spanish, spoken slowly;
very poor verbal expression
Written: fair comprehension of non-literary texts; no ability to write

Dutch – Oral: poor comprehension, halting expression
Written: some ability to understand simple texts; no writing
Culture: three visits to Holland; some travel

Danish – poor speaking, almost no understanding; basic
Swedish reading, no writing. One visit to Denmark, three to Sweden.

Russian – minimal traces remain from courses in 1956– 1957.
No writing or reading.

Japanese – fragmentary oral skills, remnants from an
intensive course in 1957. No reading or writing; some knowledge of Japan from five working visits

Arabic – smatterings of Egyptian and Tunisian Arabic, from
four teaching visits in Egypt, and three in Tunisia

Fieldwork experience

Xitxangani (a Bantu language of Southern Mozambique) – co-principal investigator in a three-year research project; Armenian – one-year course in field methods; Japanese and Welsh – one semester of a field methods course in each; taught one semester each of Ekegusii (Kenya), Laguna (New Mexico), and American Sign Language

Courses taught

Syntax (all levels); Phonology; Semantics; Pragmatics; Universal Grammar; Logic and Language; The Structure of English; English Phonology; The Structure of German; Field Methods (Xitxangani, Ekegusii, Laguna, American Sign Language); Psycholinguistics; Sociolinguistics; Language and Culture; Poetics; Art and Science; the Music of Poetry and vice versa, Metaphor

Areas of current interest

Universal grammar; prototype theory and viability; the syntax and semantics of spatial expressions, and their centrality as a source of metaphor; defective phrasal categories; pseudo-cleft sentences and the syntax of emphasis; conjunctive and disjunctive wh-clauses; the interaction of islands and intensifiers (even, also, only); the structure of German and Brasilian; category space; iconicity; metaphor; poetics; language and world view, poetics “and” music; humor; deep learning; intuition and creativity.

Current Research

Haj Ross
Department of Linguistics and Technical Communication
haj@unt.edu

There are three interpenetrating facets in my work: syntax, poetics, and the nature of insight. I will briefly characterize each in turn.

My major focus in the area of semantics/syntax is the grammar of paths – the large macroconstituents which specify where themes move. [From LA ] [along the coast] [past San Simeon] [to San Francisco] is a typical path, consisting of a Source, two Trajectories, and a Goal. All of these are optional; Trajectories can be repeated in a path as many times as one wants. These legs of paths all have a common structure, and all can be modified by adverbs like right and straight. All of the prepositions in this path can be followed by there, which turns out to be restricted to occurring in paths and locatives. Where, however, often thought to correspond closely to there, has in fact a more limited distribution: it can only occur after the two end-prepositions from and to. [As we see from who jumped from where / *along where / *past where / to where?] There are many surprising restrictions on proforms like there: they cannot advance (cf. I cleared the snow from there but not *I cleared there of the snow); only in some contexts can they be preposed (cf. There I would never jump from / *along / *past); and only in certain contexts can they be modified by right (cf. We’re going to fly from (right) there / along (*right) there, and also We’re going to leave from (right) there at noon vs. We’re going to leave (*right) there at noon.
These are not isolated facts; the function of spatial proforms like here, there, and where is to background the subconstituents of the paths in which they can occur, by contrast with constituents which can be pronominalized with definite pronouns like she, he, it, and they or with deictics like this and that. Constituents that are linked to the former type of proforms cannot be what sentences are “about,” while those linked to the latter type can be: What Mort said about the tower was [that that was what he would leap from ≥ ?*that there was where he would leap from].
My goal in this work is to use the details of the syntax of paths to arrive at a deeper understanding of the spatial basis of the semantics of many prepositions, as well as verbs and nouns. For instance, whether an NP is pronominalized with it or there affects whether it can be taken as a patient: What they did to the sidewalk was to clear the snow [from it ≥ ?from there]. And while it feels correct to treat many uses of from as being metaphorically extended Sources, I believe that the microsyntax of paths can tell us something about exactly how this extension takes place. The further away a path goes from its spatial roots, the less can its legs be modified by right: cf. I am clearing the snow (right) from the driveway vs. I am learning calc [(right) from the book / (?right) from Professor Dudsworth] vs. I am benefitting (*right) from your advice vs. I stopped him (**right) from publishing the book.
Metaphorical extension lies at the heart of semantactic change, and thus of grammaticalization. Terms taken from the spatial vocabulary of languages are used again and again as a basis for talking about time (on Tuesday), aspect (in the course of studying), grammatical role and case (surprising to me); about quality (under par), quantity (a high number), emotions (in love, on edge), and too many others to mention. It may even be the case that in any language, space is the basis for the most metaphors. Whether or not this proves to be right, it is my hope that the greater the understanding we have of the literal spatial system, the greater clarity we will be able to bring to bear on the ways in which this system can be extended to provide the foundations for the conceptual architecture of a language.

Syntax has its own agendas, and cannot be assumed to be isomorphic to semantic structure. Nonetheless, it provides the best window on semantics we have. Ultimately, whatever merit may lie in the book – Paths – which I plan to write in this area will depend on the extent to which the tools which emerge from the network of distinctions and restrictions which are called for in the syntax provide for revealing resolutions of semantic issues.

In this context, let me mention my work on what I call defective noun phrases (DNP’s). Normal noun phrases (which I call purebreds) undergo / partici-pate in all of the following morphosemantactic processes:

Pronominalization (both inbound and outbound); Definitization; pluralization, modification by various determiners and by full or reduced relative clauses, both restrictive and appositive; various movement rules, whether local and governed, like Passive, Tough Movement, Middle, etc., or long-distance, like Topicalization, Relative Clause Formation, Heavy NP Shift, etc.

By contrast, DNP’s, which are also headed by nouns and look a lot like purebred NP’s, fail to exhibit some or all of these behaviors. There are various type of DNP’s; in (1) – (4) below, I give a partial listing of these types, in each case showing a selection of various behaviors which we would expect to find but do not:

(1) Measure phrases (MP’s)

a. Jed gave me $20, but the motor will cost more than $20 / *them.
b. We will be in Dallas for two hours, but I don’t want to explore the city
[*for the hours / ??for the two hours / ?for those hours].
c. *Two hours is tough for me to imagine the concert lasting.
d. But Topicalization is OK: Two hours this concert will never last.

(2) Articleless nouns

a. *Jan is in bedi and I will go to iti. I bought a bedi and then went to iti.
[*if trying to mean “went to bed”]
bi. Maxine went to the bed. The bed Maxine went to.
bii. Maxine went to bed. *Bed Maxine went to.
c. Oil was on the (shiny) top(s) of the cars / on (*shiny) top(*s) of the cars.

(3) Predicate nominals

a. *My cousins are not yet drunkards but will soon be them.
b. A good student is tough for me to imagine Hankins biting / ?being.

(4) Various types of chômeurs (boldfaced in the following
examples)

a. [Oil / My oil / That oil / It] was leaking from Tap 5. fi Tap 5 was
leaking oil / ?my oil / ?that oil / **it].
b. The price(s) of Macintosh and IBM rose. Macintosh and IBM rose [in
price(*s) / *in it / *in them].

My claim is that defectivization of NP’s happens after predicates, and less frequently in subject position. What is an MP and completely unpronominalizable as the object of pay is pronominalizable as a passive subject: I paid $20 / *them to Tim vs. $20 / ?They were paid to Tim. Another indication: after pay, plural NP’s lose their normally available behavior of count nouns, and behave only like mass nouns: I paid $20, much of which was stolen/*many of which were crumpled. In subject position, the count behavior is somewhat more viable: $20, many of which were crumpled, were paid to Tim. Articlelessness (with count nouns, like bed, church, top, etc.) happens typically after prepositions, not in subjects: Jo is on (the) top of the car/ *(The) top of the car was filthy. Similar is the behavior of place nouns like Siam, which pronominalizes with it as a subject or object, but only as there in spatial contexts: I lived near Siam / there / *it. Plural place nouns, a marked subtype, show even stronger restrictions, and are generally pronominalizable with they only as subjects: The Azores / They are enchanting. Let’s visit there / ?them. Hank just got back from [there / **them. Modifiability is normal for NP’s; it is for this reason that modifying an idiom chunk ups its noun-phrasiness, making it undisregardable by Passive: Ed was taken (?*frequent) advantage of by Sam.

I believe that the fact that what can refer to humans when an object, though not when a subject [cf. What I married was a Swede / *What married me was a Swede ] is traceable back to the same general tendency: after predicates, NP’s tend to be less definite and more predicative, as we learn from discourse studies, which show clearly that nouns in a text are first mentioned after their predicates, and only subsequently move into subject position. After predicates, NP’s are half-hearted, and fickle. Subjects are virtuous and upstanding, trustworthy, loyal, and brave – the very core of purebred nominality.

This work on defectivity connects interestingly with the work on paths, since
NP’s in paths are often defective, especially if they are geographical NP’s, like proper place names (like Argentina, the Straits of Magellan, etc.), or features of landscapes (bodies of water, mountains, cliffs, etc.). Thus note the contrast between Jeff escaped [from the prison / from it] and Jeff escaped [from Argentina / *from it]] / [from the outskirts of Milwaukee / ***from them].

In another area of syntax, my interest in constraints on processes of unbounded length continues. I have recently finished a paper on the impossibility of questioning “fat” PP’s, i. e., prepositional phrases which start with an adverb which modifies the head preposition. We see the constraint in action in such ungrammaticalities as (*Far) behind what tree did you park?

Cleft and pseudocleft sentences always provide central examples for island phenomena; I am readying a book, called That Is the Question, on the architecture of emphasis. The first two chapters already exist, in a rough form. The first gives a general overview of the remote structure for pseudo-clefts and of the transforma-tions associated with them which seem to me to be most nearly adequate. The second chapter discusses an important distinction between types of questions – conjunctive and disjunctive questions. The first type is a concealed factive; it looks like a question, but its answer is known. An example would be where he stayed – at the Hilton and at the Sheraton – is amazing. Note that appositions to the wh-word can be conjoined with and. By contrast, in the more often studied type of questions, the answer is not known, and appositive phrases have to be disjoined: where he stayed – at the Hilton or at the Sheraton – is a mystery. I conclude by demonstrating that the embedded question clauses with which pseudo-clefts begin can manifest as either variety of question, under various contextual conditions.

The rest of the book is concerned in general with the syntax of emphasis, a topic that intersects with many other areas. Possibly one of the most interesting is a class of structures which are related to pseudo-clefts – sentences like That is who ordered what, Here is how long we can stay under water, etc., a class which gives the book its title. These sentences, when used as relative clauses (they can only be appositive ones, a fact of great interest in itself), seem to have the power to penetrate the structure of some phrases and lexical items, a bit like x-rays. Two examples are Milt went to bed, which is where he fell asleep [NB: which = in bed, ≠ to bed, which suggests that the directional to bed contains, in some way, the locative in bed ] and Sandra crawled into the room, which is how she wanted to go in [suggesting the lexical equation crawl into X = go into X by crawling , where the how is able to refer back to the boldface part of the semantax of crawl into, a part which is not visible superficially.]

A last syntactic focus concerns what I call “squatitives.” These are negative polarity items which are used to cast aspersion on various referents, as we see one of them, squat, doing in this sentence: Mr. Meechum doesn’t know squat about bikes. Paul Postal and I have been working on this area for the past five years or so; one of the interesting conclusions we have come to is that squatitives, which we have found not only in various Indo-European languages, but also in Tunisian Arabic, Taiwanese, and Korean, all seem to be knowledge/ability based. That is, the fundamental thing to insult about a person seems to universally be either their knowledge or their ability. For example, in English, while many people can say Frieda never stole squat from the company, it is impossible to use beans, another squatitive, with anything but verbs of knowing or achieving: I don’t know beans about Armenian, ?He didn’t do beans on the final. Thus when we study other squatitives, like squat, which have fanned out from this universal seed, we find interesting things about semantic extension and change. It appears too, that it may be possible to draw conclusions about the theory of islands from the distribution of squatitives: squat may be able to be used to determine what are the boundaries of islands.

Interestingly, my three major research foci in semantax are linked by defectiveness. We have seen how locatives are defective; and we can determine that the emphasized constituent in a pseudo-cleft sentence also is, by trying to left-dislocate it.

(5) The left dislocation of the focus of pseudo-clefts

a. What we love to devour is Cranshaw melons.
b. *Cranshaw melons, what we love to devour is them.
ci. ? Cranshaw melons, what we love to devour is that.
cii. Cranshaw melons, that is what we love to devour.

And it is abundantly clear that squatitives are highly defective. For one thing, while ordinary NPI’s can be possessivized, squatitives cannot, as we see in this contrast: Jack never computed the area of anything / anything’s area, Jack never computed the area of squat / *squat’s area.

A recurrent theme, in all my recent work, is the crucial notion of viability, which I discussed briefly in my paper at the CLS in 1986 (#85 in my bibliography), a theoretical construct which is linked in an essential manner to semantactic prototypes, entities which are proving to be of great interest in cognitive studies. There are prototypes in syntax, both prototypes for syntactic processes (like Reflexivization, Raising, Agreement, etc.), and also for syntactic constructions (like relative clauses, coordinate structures, pseudocleft structures, etc.). In my CLS paper, I suggested the necessity for the postulation of a system of viability decrementing processes, which are called into operation each time a prototype, whether of rule or construction, is deviated from. I believe that such a system is not only unavoidable, but also theoretically highly desirable, precisely because it offers a vastly more subtle and flexible way of looking at the biography of a sentence, and furthermore, because it is the kind of theoretical refinement that can be built into any syntactic theory of which I am aware. Some of these issues are taken up in some detail in my most recent paper at the Chicago Linguistic Society (#113).

I have been learning how viability intersects in complex ways with some aspects of the grammar of pseudoclefts, as well as in the other areas of my research which I have discussed above. What seems to be emerging more and more clearly in my thinking is a connection between within-language manifestations of viability differences and cross-linguistic implicational hierarchies. I am hopeful that when my research matures to the point at which I can propose in detail a formalization of a portion of the calculus of viability, this calculus may turn out to function in such a way as to link workers in two camps of thought on universal grammar – the typological thinkers, and the formalist ones.

•

Another focus of my research, for the past two decades, has been the study of poetics, in particular, of the ways in which poets “write with words,” to use an apt phrase of Mallarmé’s. Poems are not mere vehicles for the conveying of lofty thoughts, eternal poetic truths, etc., as Jakobson says very clearly:

“Textbooks tend to say that a poem can be freed of all its imagery, its tropes and figures, and can still be a great poem, thanks to its thoughts and emotions. When I began to analyze poems and to compare them with their translations, I found that the translations were always missing something. Although rhyme, meter, and composition had been preserved, something had been left out, and this omission destroyed the whole impression of the original. I realized that it was the grammatical structures of the original texts that were missing in the translations. To me, that meant that grammatical structures play a decisive role in poetry. They are the source of the grammatical tropes and figures.”

Roman Jakobson, Louvain Lectures (1972)

I would go beyond what Jakobson says here, while agreeing with him on the fundamental importance of grammatical structures in poetry. I am particularly interested in the source of what might be called verbal music, that is, in the study, down to the distribution of individual phonemes, of the way the sounds of the poem are artistically deployed. I see the phonemes selected for the poem as being analogous to the instruments of a symphony orchestra, each having its own characteristic timbre and articulatory gesture. “Writing with words” is weaving musical and gestural textures which parallel conceptual similarities which exist between the important words of a poem.
To give a brief example, let us note how a seemingly innocuous modification of the word’s most famous line can totally demolish its impact:

To be or not to be – this is the question.

When we ask what has gone wrong here, we see that in this line’s two syntactic halves, each has one syllable which bears the heaviest emphasis: not in the first half, and that in the second. The line thus has an “M-shaped” emphasis contour for its five stressed syllables:

not that

be be ques-

Thus we see that not and that are linked by virtue of being the two pegs from which the line is hung. And when we look at the line’s first four syllables, namely [tu:w], [bi:y], [o:(r)], [na:t], we see that they become progressively more closed, with the [t] of not, the first post-vocalic true consonant, being geminated by the following [t] of to. I suggest that Shakespeare lets us feel here a natural phonetic metaphor: sound is life, silence is death. Thus the geminate [t:], coming, as it does, at precisely the juncture where the repeated infinitive of the first half – the second occurrence of to be – comes on the heels of the strongest negator in English – not – and thus is cancelled, annulled . . . . This micro-silence is a taste of our own mortality. And the reason that the peak of the second half of the line must end with a [t] is that without it, we are not led to feel that chill again, to take it to heart, to make Hamlet’s question ours as well.

This tiny detail of sound is the reason why there is no language in the world that I am aware of which has a translation that can come close to the greatness of this line: Sein oder nicht sein – das ist die Frage; Ser ou não ser – eis a questão – neither of these nor any other that I know of gives us the sound metaphor of death as silence – a metaphor with a reprise in the second half of the line. While the universality of Hamlet’s existential dilemma can be carried into another language, no one has yet found a music to compare with Shakespeare’s. In the greatest poetry, neither meaning nor music can be subordinate to the other. Words are the meeting places of image, concept and melody, and to write with words is to keep all of these balls (and many others as well, of course) in the air, all at once.

I am not aware of any work anywhere in the world which carries a theory of poetics to this level of detail, a fact which I regard as unfortunate, for work done above the level of the patterns made by individual sounds can only go part way towards liberating us from the “beautiful poetic truths” concept of what poetry is. I am now in the final stages of preparing for publication a collection – to be entitled Here Dwell Tygers – of around two dozen analyses of particular poems, a book which will spell out in some depth the intricacies of structure that the process of writing with words produces.

I come now, with some diffidence, to speak of the third focus of my thinking – the nature of insight. In all my work, starting with my early days in syntax, even as I was struggling with some syntactic or phonological problem, or trying to find some way in with a beautiful poem, I was also, one step back, watching myself, trying to find generalizations about when I would come up with fruitful hypotheses. I have done some reading in the literature on creativity, some written by psychologists, and some written by great artists or scientists. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no significant difference between scientists and artists, and mystics, when it comes to describing the way their minds are at the moment at which light breaks through, and the equation is found, the sonnet is completed, or the ecstasy of spiritual illumination is achieved.
For the interest of any of you who are reading this, I am always interested in statements to this effect by great souls; here are a few that I know of now. Please send me other statements like these to add to my collection.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

. . . . Beethoven, Berlioz, Mozart and Wagner are among the noted composers who have experienced these automatisms, or self-creating compositions. In some cases the simple recording of such autonomous and given imagery is the method of composition. E. T. A. Hoffman, for example, often remarked to his friends, “When I compose I sit down at the piano, shut my eyes and play what I hear.” And Mozart remarked of his compositions: “Whence and how do they come? I do not know and have nothing to do with it.” He noted some very interesting alterations of time and imagery that occurred in these states:

All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once (gleich alles zusammen). What a delight this is I cannot tell! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing lively dream. Still the actual hearing of the tout ensemble is after all the best. What has been thus produced I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for . . . . For this reason the committing to paper is done easily enough, for everything is, as I have said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination. At this occupation I can therefore suffer myself to be disturbed; for whatever may be going on around me, I write, and even talk, but only of fowls and geese, or of Greta and Barbel, or some such matters. But why my productions take from my hand that particular form and style that makes them Mozartish, and different from the work of other composers, is probably owing to the same cause which renders my nose so large or so aquiline, or in short, makes it Mozart’s, and different from those of other people. For I really do not study or aim at any originality.14

From Jean Houston, The Possible Human,
J. P. Tarcher, Los Angeles (1982), p. 161.

J. Krishnamurti

From: Mary Lutyens, KRISHNAMURTI – The Years of Awakening. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1975)
Krishna [= Krishnamurti] also told Lady Emily in this same letter of June 2 {1922?] that he had received a message from the Master Kuthumi, ‘brought through’ by Leadbetter. Krishna copied it out for her:
‘Of you, too, we have the highest hopes. Steady & widen yourself, and strive more & more to bring the mind & brain into subservience to the true Self within. Be tolerant of divergences of view & of method, for each has usually a fragment of truth concealed within it, even though oftentimes it is distorted almost beyond recognition. Seek for that tiniest gleam of light amid the Stygian darkness of each ignorant mind, for by recognizing & fostering it you may help a baby brother.’ (p. 147)
Krishna’s own account follows. It was sent at the same time as Nitya’s [Krishnamurti’s brother] but the latter part was written only two days after the events described:
Ever since I left Australia I have been thinking and deliberating about the message [see above] which the Master K. H. gave me while I was there. I naturally wanted to achieve those orders as soon as I could, and I was to a certain extent uncertain as to the best method of attaining the ideals which were put before me. I do not think a day passed without spending some thought over it, but I am ashamed to say all this was done most casually and rather carelessly.
But at the back of my mind the message of the Master ever dwelt.
Well, since August 3rd,, I meditated regularly for about thirty minutes every morning. I could, to my astonishment, concentrate with considerable ease, and within a few days I began to see clearly where I had failed and where I was failing. Immediately I set about, consciously, to annihilate the wrong accumulations of the past years. With the same deliberation I set about to find out ways and means to achieve my aim. First I realized that I had to harmonize all my other bodies with the Buddhic plane [the highest plane of consciousness] and to bring about this happy combination I had to find out what my ego wanted on the Buddhic plane. To harmonize the various bodies I had to keep them vibrating at the same rate as the Buddhic, and to do this I had to find out what was the vital interest of the Buddhic. With ease which rather astonished me I found the main interest on that high plane was to serve the Lord Maitreya and the Masters. With that idea clear in my physical mind I had to direct and control the other bodies to act and to think the same as on the noble and spiritual place. During that period of less than three weeks, I concentrated to keep in mind the image of the Lord Maitreya throughout the entire day, and I found no difficulty in doing this. I found that I was getting calmer and more serene. My whole outlook on life was changed.
Then, on the 17th August, I felt acute pain at the nape of my neck and I had to cut down my meditation to fifteen minutes. The pain instead of getting better as I had hoped grew worse. The climax was reached on the 19th. I could not think, nor was I able to do anything, and I was forced by friends here to retire to bed. Then I became almost unconscious, though I was well aware of what was happening around me. I came to myself at about noon each day. On the first day, while I was in that state and more conscious of the things around me, I had the first most extraordinary experience. There was a man mending the road; that man was myself; the pickaxe he held was myself; the very stone which he was breaking up was a part of me; the tender blade of grass was my very being, and the tree beside the man was myself. I almost could feel and think like the roadmender, and I could feel the wind passing through the tree, and the little ant on the blade of grass I could feel. The birds, the dust, and the very noise were a part of me. Just then there was a car passing by at some distance; I was the driver, the engine, and the tyres; as the car went further away from me, I was going away from myself. I was in everything, or rather everything was in me, inanimate and animate, the mountain, the worm, and all breathing things. All day long I remained in this happy condition. I could not eat anything, and again at about six I began to lose my physical body, and naturally the physical elemental [the part of the body that controls its instinctive and purely physical actions when the higher consciousness is withdrawn. It is at the low stage of evolution and needs guidance] did what it liked; I was semi-conscious.
The morning of the next day (the 20th) was almost the same as the previous day, and I could not tolerate too many people in the room. I could feel them in rather a curious way and their vibrations got on my nerves. That evening at about the same hour of six I felt worse than ever. I wanted nobody near me nor anybody to touch me. I was feeling extremely tired and weak. I think I was weeping from mere exhaustion and lack of physical control. My head was pretty bad and the top part felt as though many needles were being driven in. While I was in this state I felt that the bed in which I was lying, the same one as on the previous day, was dirty and filthy beyond imagination and I could not lie in it. Suddenly I found myself sitting on the floor and Nitya and Rosalind asking me to get into bed. I asked them not to touch me and cried out that the bed was not clean. I went on like this for some time till eventually I wandered out on the verandah and sat a few moments exhausted and slightly calmer. I began to come to myself and finally Mr Warrington asked me to go under the pepper tree which is near the house. There I sat crosslegged in the meditation posture. When I had sat thus for some time, I felt myself going out of my body, I saw myself sitting down with the delicate tender leaves of the tree over me. I was facing the east. In front of me was my body and over my head I saw the Star, bright and clear. Then I could feel the vibration of the Lord Buddha; I beheld Lord Maitreya and Master K.H. I was so happy, calm and at peace. I could still see my body and I was hovering near it. There was such profound calmness both in the air and within the lake, I felt my physical body, with its mind and motions could be ruffled on the surface but nothing, nay nothing, could disturb the calmness of my soul. The Presence of the mighty Beings was with me for some time and then They were gone. I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same. I have drunk at the clear and pure waters at the source of the fountain of life and thirst was appeased. Never more could I be thirsty, never more could I be in utter darkness. I have seen the Light. I have touched compassion which heals all sorrow and suffering; it is not for myself, but for the world. I have stood on the mountain top and gazed at the mighty Beings. Never can I be in utter darkness; I have seen the glorious and healing Light. The fountain of Truth has been revealed to me and the darkness has been dispersed. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated. (pp. 157-160)

http://bernie.cncfamily.com/k_enlight_k.htm

Albert Einstein:

The most beautiful and most profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetratable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illuminable superior who reveals himself in the slightest details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction for the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

From: Relaxation, Concentration and Meditation: Ancient Skills for Modern Minds, by Joel Levey ISBN 0 86171 040 1

Rainer Maria Rilke:

Later, he remembered certain moments in which the power of this moment was already contained, as in a seed. He thought of the hour, in that other southern garden (Capri) when the call of a bird did not, so to speak, break off at the edge of his body, but was simultaneously outside and in his innermost being, uniting both into one uninterrupted space in which, mysteriously protected, only one piece of purest, deepest consciousness remained. On that occasion he had closed his eyes . . . and the Infinite passed into him from all sides, so intimately that he believed he could feel the stars which had in the meantime appeared, gently reposing within his breast.

Rainer Maria Rilke
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke,
translated by Stephen Mitchell, Random House (1982)

Quoted in David Schiller, The Little Zen Companion,
Workman Publishing, New York (1994). p. 284.

Those who have broken through use phrases like those quoted: they are united with the object of their study, they are one with the universe, time falls away, they know a great peace. While such a consensus of experience is itself revealing and significant, I am less interested in its mere existence than in discovering ways to help people, myself included, achieve it. And one of the conclusions that seems inescapable to me is that the educational establishment, as it is currently conceived and constituted, not only does not help those getting educated to realize the transcendent states of mind that the greatest creators report as the loci of their discoveries – sadly, it is an active hindrance. We achieve breakthroughs despite the system, not because of it.

Thus what is called for is new ways of learning, learning together. I am a bit hesitant to call what I do “research,” possibly because it seems so fluid, so volatile, so evanescent. I try, in any context in which I meet with others who wish to learn with me, to build a noetic environment for us all within which it will become easier for all of us to access the kind of states that the creators tell us about. I have, over the course of the past twenty-five years or so, assembled a sort of toolkit of things to try, things which have worked once, and might be relevant to try again. But there are no guarantees, often what worked miraculously before falls flat on its face in this context, there is nothing for it but to improvise, to ride the wind.

If it is right to say that in my work on syntax and poetics, what I seek is theories of structure and artistic power [I don’t like this description very much. Feels very dry, far from heart. Perhaps better, though less acceptable in anything like the academy, would be to say: I want to feel truth, live beauty, breathe ever deeper this magnificence into which I have been born] it may be somewhat right to say that the work on insight is a search for contexts and activities which further breakthrough. But this is too abstract a way of describing the goal, a goal which is specific, concrete, linked to each individual in the learning encounter. The goal is for each person to reconnect to that place of vast space, to remember that this way of being is their birthright, that this ecstasy is what they must demand of an adequate system of education.

Is a jazz solo, or an action painting research? If it is, then what I am doing is a kind of “research” of that kind. But I do not think that I understand very well at all what it is that I am doing. All I know is that I am impelled to continue it, whatever “it” may be.

I want to say one final thing concerning my thinking. It would be easy, and in fact, traditional, to separate my work on syntax and my work on poetics, to give my research a disjunctive characterization. But I know from my own experience that each of these “sides” of my work deepens the understanding of the other, and that I am exploring within a whole greater than the sum of these two “halves.” I find that the willingness to let the unitary and necessarily integral discipline of the Study of Language be separated into the camps of science and art brings with it an inevitable lessening of the range and depth of our knowledge, to say nothing of drastically limiting the number of those with whom one can interact.

And similarly with the third “part” of my work. To do syntax “and” poetics in such a way that one will be satisfied with various insights into these “two” fields, but not to try to develop some stance from which to view the nature of insight itself – that seems too unvast a project, for me. My vision is to help in the construction of fields of study in which, to use Morris Berman’s words [cf. his The Reenchantment of the World], there is a fusion of fact and value. For me, nothing less seems worth attempting.

29.XI.MM.
28.IX.MMVII.