(64420) Course Mailing List Archive : 2 linguistic songs to ease the pain


Hey, all.  No pain, no gain.  But there are ways to ease the pain.  Below
are two lyrics by Charles Ulrich.  The first one, "Please Mr. Postal", is
to be sung on the tune of "Please, Mr. Postman!".  (Mr. Postal refers to
Professor Paul Postal (now at NYU), whose books contain examples that are
quoted in the song.)  The second one, "It's a Constrained World" can be
sung with "It's a Small World".  Copyright by Charles Ulrich, etc.    If
you can sing these oldies, you can sing them:

PLEASE MR. POSTAL.

Wait!
Oh yes, wait a minute, Mr. Postal.
Wa-a-a-ait, Mr. Postal.

Please, Mr. Postal, explain to me
Your notions of grammaticality.
I've been wondering for such a long time
Why they so rarely coincide with mine.

Under him, John wanted a pillow.    (CP p. 196)
Faster than that train I cannot run.    (CP p. 197)
It is simple to find him sometimes in Chicago.    (CP p. 29)
Myself, I made a bet on.    (CP p. 144)

Mary is difficult for John to give the book to.    (CP p. 28)
More beautiful than Louise, you are not.    (CP p. 196)
You were expected to be believed
To have been kissed by Josephine.    (CP p. 161)

Repeat chorus

More intelligent than I,
No one will believe I said you were.    (CP p. 197)
Headway has begun to be made on that problem.    (OR p. 29)
Joan was believed to have been famous by Jack.    (OR p. 40)

I believe to have been tortured by Brazilians
The priests who are going to speak today.    (OR p. 84)
I regard Jack as being unlikely
To himself visit that commune.    (OR p. 243)

Repeat chorus

You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute, oh yeah, etc.
Joan believes the shit to be about to hit the fan.    (OR p. 39)
Joan believes the jig to be up.    (OR p. 243)

(Hot fiddle solo by Paul Smith, now recording for Flying Fish Records)

Holland, B., Gorman, and R. Bateman.  (1961)  "Please Mr. Postman".
           Recorded by the Marvelettes.  Detroit:  Motown Records
Postal, P. M.  (1971)  Crossover Phenomena.  New York:  Holt,
           Rinehart and Winston.
Postal, P. M.  (1974)  On Raising.  Cambridge, Mass.:  MIT Press.
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"It's a Constrained World"

It's a world of structure, a world of words,
Of principles and parameters.
There's so much that we share,
That it's time we're aware
It's a constrained world for all.

We've all got the ECP,
Analyzability;
We've all got the CSC.
It's a constrained world.

It's a world of functions, a world of forms.
It's a world of grammars, a world of norms.
There's so much that we share,
That it's time we're aware
It's a constrained world for all.

We've all got subjacency,
Metrical phonology;
We've all got complacency.
It's a constrained world.

Based on the song "It's a Small World."  Arranged and adapted 1983
with additional lyrics by Charles Ulrich and Susanna Cumming.
>From an idea by Geoff Lindsay.

___________________________________________
C.-T. James Huang, Professor of Linguistics, UC Irvine
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/ling/personnel/jhuang.html
For journal business, please write: jeal@uci.edu
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/ling/jeal/jeal0.html