Have you ever wondered what exactly it is that a linguist works on from day to day?

Probably not, I’ll grant. But in case you have, here you can see one of the diagrams that I’ve spent a good deal of time working on for the last week or two:

What this is, is a representation of a portion of the grammar of Samala Chumash. More specifically, it shows the ranking of relevant constraints for a particular pattern of reduplication in the language.

Breaking that down a little more — one of the most productive and exciting theories in linguistics in the last fifteen years is Optimality Theory. This theory (OT for short) holds that phonological systems of the world are all built out of the same basic rules or restrictions (called constraints). These constraints come into conflict with one another all the time; languages differ from one another (in their phonology) only in their decisions about which constraints are more essential to obey, and which ones can be violated in case of such a contradiction.

This doubtless sounds entirely too vague (I may return to this with some specific illustrations later). But it’s clear enough, I think, that you can see what’s exciting about this theory. If it works, then we can reconcile the incredible differences (both large-scale and very minute) between the languages of the world with the basic Chomskyan insight that a good deal of our language faculty is innate and inborn (or congenital, I guess you might say).

So, here we have a partial constraint ranking for Samala. So far so good — a small set of constraints (attested from many other languages of the world) — is able to correctly describe the very interesting and unusual facts of reduplication in this language. Plus, it makes a pretty picture!

(I would be an even bigger fan of this theory if our ultimate analyses correlated to the prettiest pictures. Unfortunately, though, we have some ignorance on display here; a complete and final analysis of the language would be represented in a single vertical line, each constraint directly dominating just the one constraint beneath it. C’est la vie, I supose.)

Anyway, hopefully that’s enough linguistics for you for the day, since I have to run off to campus now. If not …

Heed the kitty as she delivers you a linguistics lecture!

November 19th, 2008 | Category: linguistics, photos | Leave a comment

More photos up at my new flickr. [sic]

November 15th, 2008 | Category: photos, politics | Leave a comment

I haven’t had a chance to cohere my own thoughts about Proposition 8 and 102, and whatever the props in Florida and Arkansas were called — beyond the initial WTF, America, WTF?

But on the way to coherence, I’m collecting useful or thought-provoking articles I’ve come across online. Some of these I now share with you.

So far, there’s disappointingly little response from the revolutionary left. Which, of course, what do you expect, given the state of it? The only organizational response I’ve found so far is a piece posted online by Freedom Road Socialist Organization:

Eric See: “Marriage Inequality: Painful Lessons for the Queer Community and the Road Ahead“

Much ink (e-ink?) has been spilled about the racial dynamics of Prop 8. Here are a couple of the more thougthful pieces:

Jasmyne A. Cannick: “No-on-8’s white bias“

Pam Spaulding: “The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 protests“

(Photo via the SF Chronicle)

Lessons learned and strategies going forward — and here is where revolutionary voices would be especially helpful — but absent that, here are some other thoughts and proposals:

Andrew Hicklin: “Gay marriage: an electoral liability“

Glenn Greenwald: “An Answer to Proposition 8: Repealing DOMA“

Statistics to debunk some of the lies and misconceptions about why Prop 8 passed:

Nate Silver: “Prop 8 Myths“

shanikka: “Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8“

These are just a few of the issues and topics that are worth looking into. Some other topics that I haven’t looked into enough or haven’t seen enough good reportage on:

• Daily protests have occurred across CA since Nov. 4, involving lots of people and some arrests. Would like to see a summary and analysis of these.
• More about Prop 102 and the Florida and Arkansas propositions.
• What will happen with the legal challenges to Prop 8?
• Will the New York state legislature make NY the next state to legalize gay marriage? (By the way, it became legal in Connecticut today, per their state Supreme Court’s ruling)
• Organizational lessons to be learned from the terrible campaign run against Prop 8

And of course — since, in the words of comrade Lenin (and comrade Goethe), “all theory is grey, my friend, but green is the tree of life” — everyone should get involved with the national day of protest taking place on Saturday.

Check out list of local protests taking place on Saturday at “Join the Impact” — or see the Facebook page, for those so inclined.

November 12th, 2008 | Category: photos, politics | Comments (1)

This past Sunday, Laur and I took a little bike ride around our local little bit of Santa Cruz county (mostly the unincorporated area of Live Oak, where we live, and next-door Capitola). We happened to take our new digital camera with us and, thus, photoessay! Or some random photos, whatever…

Lauren with a “Viva Live Oak” banner filled up with photos taken by her and other people in the Live Oak Photovoice project. That makes this a metaphotograph!

Empty lot on 17th Ave.

And the “Green Church” coming soon to that same lot. It seems to me that if you wanted to minimize your environmental impact, you might leave the empty lot instead of building a church at all. But then again, I’m the kind of guy who thinks we already have enough churches in Santa Cruz.

Construction signs stacked up on Soquel (Dr? Ave? St?)

And then the nadir of our afternoon…

I would mention that Sunday was the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, if there was any way to do it without sounding hyperventilate-y. Obviously the outright racist position is pretty marginal around here, not least because Obama got something like 77% of the vote in Santa Cruz county.

Still, I prefer to spend my Sundays not running into swastikas painted around my neighborhood. And if you run into anyone who says that there’s no racism in America since Obama won, you can tell them about the dude who painted this.

Anyway, in happier news, pretty flowers!!!

These are ads for two different offices, I think. (Even if military recruiting is harder than it used to be.)

Our neighborhood coffee shop. Photo by Lauren!

November 11th, 2008 | Category: photos, politics | Leave a comment

Our semi-adopted feline has a name. Say hello to Javelina Bagel, the changeling kitty!

And if you think that’s a ridiculous name, well, be glad we got it out of our system before we decided to have any kids.

November 6th, 2008 | Category: photos | Comments (7)

This seemed like an opportunity to add another sign:

And here’s a photo at sunset last night. Definitely a memorable evening…

November 5th, 2008 | Category: photos, politics | Leave a comment

So, the L.A. Times is now reporting that Proposition 8 (colloquially known as the Fuck You, Queers, Fuck You Act of 2008) has passed.

There are some things that sound really nice about the ballot proposition systems we have out West; they should allow popular majorities to pass laws that are bottlenecked by corrupt or self-interested representatives. But — as we see with this vote — they also allow majorities to vote on the rights of majorities. And now, as so often in American history, when given that choice the majority fucks it up.

As heartbreaking as this is for me, how much more so for all the folks who got married this summer, or planned to after today. One of my professors married his partner of two or three decades a few months ago — now will they have to wait twenty or thirty years for their marriage to be recognized again?

(And of course, queer marriage bans passed easily in Florida and, goddammit, Arizona. Gah…)

If you want to look for hopeful signs in the mess, though, there are at least two: Young people here voted against 8 by something like a two-to-one margin. And, it looks like Democrats won control of the New York Senate, which means that a gay marriage law may pass there — I believe a bill already passed the state assembly and the Governor said he would sign it. And I think New York doesn’t have propositions like we do. So maybe the least-grim thing we can say is we can hope for some progress now and in the future, even after this setback.

Also, the Onion has the best article summary about the presedential race: “Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress“

November 5th, 2008 | Category: politics | Leave a comment

Bill Ayers for Secretary of Defense?

November 5th, 2008 | Category: politics | Leave a comment

Too busy to write, perhaps, but not too busy to toss up some pictures.

Here is Amanda Jones:

Some things to know about Amanda Jones: at 109 years old, she may be the oldest living voter in Texas. She is the daughter of slaves and is herself old enough to have been doubly denied the vote (for her race and her sex) before the women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution. This woman has lived through almost the entire span of Jim Crow, and enough decades beyond that to cast a vote for an African-American president, which she recently did.

You can read more of her story in an article here.

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Via MRZine and Wordle, here’s another word cloud. This one is for the first volume of Capital:

As always, the best part is looking through the smaller words for the oddballs in the bunch. My favorite: “linen”. (Follow the MRZine link for a larger version where you can actually read the small words.)

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And for any and all ailurophiles, more photos of the Changeling Kitty.

Camoflauge kitty:

Kitty vs. the raccoons:

Kitty meets the Grim Reaper (and is nonplussed):

October 29th, 2008 | Category: photos, politics | Comments (2)