Been working on Romance languages lately; trying to pin down the right name for the language of the expelled Spanish Jews, which has been called at least all of the following names: español; españolit; español ladino; franco español; romance español; sefardí; sefaradí; leshon sefaradim; lingua sefaradit; judezmo; judio; jidio. Anyway, while reading up on this [...]
Hilarious/bizarre intro paragraph Edelman and Christiansen, “How seriously should we take Minimalist syntax?”: Lasnik?s review of the Minimalist program in syntax [1] offers cognitive scientists help in navigating some of the arcana of the current theoretical thinking in transformational generative grammar. One might observe, however, that this journey is more like a taxi ride gone [...]
Or a stone’s throw away, anyway. Much to my surprise, I just got shortlisted for an academic job at a university near Ramallah. Skype interview to follow next week. Still in the “WTF WTF WTF?” phase at the moment, but we shall see how this unfolds.
Right up there, anyway. From Nevins & Wagner 2001, “Can Correspondence Fix Fixed Segmentism?” M&P claim that avoidance phenomena are metalinguistic. As Bert Vaux has mentioned, this is quite unsatisfying: any phenomena that manipulates phonological elements in a systematic manner should be accounted for in a theory of phonology. In fact, OT enthusiasts could even [...]
Distribution of fixed consonants in echo word formations in the languages of India. Green indicates velar consonants; yellow/red indicates labials; blue languages use coronal consonants; and purple indicates that both labial and coronal consonants are used. Map from G. M. Trivedi’s chapter on Echo Words in Krishan 1990. Coloring by me.
From the website of the astonishing “To the Left for Independence,” a “Communist and pro-Sardinian Independence Political Organization.” Thanks to Paul for the link, if that doesn’t go without saying.
Here’s an image I just made for this morning’s lecture on writing systems of the world (and specifically why we know so little about the Mayan writing system):
Checking in from Purdue, home of the Boilermakers and awesomely garish Halloween colors. Lots of talks today about evidentiality. Not really my thing, but very interesting stuff. I’m doing my presentation first thing tomorrow, and then the relaxation will begin!
Crazy day — I’m now getting ready for two conferences, instead of one, since WAIL just emailed to let me know that my alternate status has been upgraded to full conference presenter. So, yay! But also making travel plans for two trips this month, including auxiliary travel with both conferences to visit friends and family. [...]
pətstot — (verb) “pay damages for bite of cannibal dancer“
