language science
@priap.bsky.social
phonologist in search of new frameworks in syntax
Reposted by language science
A new typology database: Areal Typology of Languages of the Americas (ATLAs).
atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch
Take a look at the article on apprehensional morphology for an example: atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch/contribution...
#linguistics #typology
atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch
Take a look at the article on apprehensional morphology for an example: atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch/contribution...
#linguistics #typology
June 6, 2025 at 1:34 PM
A new typology database: Areal Typology of Languages of the Americas (ATLAs).
atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch
Take a look at the article on apprehensional morphology for an example: atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch/contribution...
#linguistics #typology
atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch
Take a look at the article on apprehensional morphology for an example: atlas.evolvinglanguage.ch/contribution...
#linguistics #typology
Reposted by language science
Official English in the US will have life and death consequences. This is not an exaggeration.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
March 1, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Official English in the US will have life and death consequences. This is not an exaggeration.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Reposted by language science
A great new resource for language revitalization and promotion! 🤩
Happy #MotherLanguageDay, a celebration of linguistic diversity championed by @unesco.org! Since today's a fun day to launch a new #language project:
languagestarbook.com
"You Are a Language Star" is a free children's book where you can fill in the blanks with words in any language 📖 1/11 #langsky
languagestarbook.com
"You Are a Language Star" is a free children's book where you can fill in the blanks with words in any language 📖 1/11 #langsky
February 24, 2025 at 5:03 PM
A great new resource for language revitalization and promotion! 🤩
Reposted by language science
🚨 🚨 Last call for abstracts: Usage-based Approaches to Phonology welcomes papers using diverse methods to explore the emergence of phonological patterns from language use. Plenary by Joan Bybee (U of New Mexico). Come hang with us at U. of Oregon, July 12 & 13. sites.google.com/view/usage-b... 🐦🐦
February 23, 2025 at 2:10 PM
🚨 🚨 Last call for abstracts: Usage-based Approaches to Phonology welcomes papers using diverse methods to explore the emergence of phonological patterns from language use. Plenary by Joan Bybee (U of New Mexico). Come hang with us at U. of Oregon, July 12 & 13. sites.google.com/view/usage-b... 🐦🐦
Reposted by language science
Humans, and sadly most other species on the planet, are totally f&%ked.
There. I said it.
There. I said it.
February 20, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Humans, and sadly most other species on the planet, are totally f&%ked.
There. I said it.
There. I said it.
Reposted by language science
A quick reminder that we are witnessing the beginning of simultaneous cascading global catastrophes.
It's a good day for a long walk.
It's a good day for a long walk.
February 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM
A quick reminder that we are witnessing the beginning of simultaneous cascading global catastrophes.
It's a good day for a long walk.
It's a good day for a long walk.
Paraphrasing the follow abstract:
Science must be systematic or methodological in order to be rational. But equally, we must recognise our inherent tendency to lose our object if out work becomes excessively instrumental. Hence, we must constantly radicalise our methods.
Science must be systematic or methodological in order to be rational. But equally, we must recognise our inherent tendency to lose our object if out work becomes excessively instrumental. Hence, we must constantly radicalise our methods.
February 24, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Paraphrasing the follow abstract:
Science must be systematic or methodological in order to be rational. But equally, we must recognise our inherent tendency to lose our object if out work becomes excessively instrumental. Hence, we must constantly radicalise our methods.
Science must be systematic or methodological in order to be rational. But equally, we must recognise our inherent tendency to lose our object if out work becomes excessively instrumental. Hence, we must constantly radicalise our methods.
Reposted by language science
'Curators should closely study animal remains for any links with Indigenous nations or communities, and researchers should involve those groups when remains are culturally significant' 🧪🏺🦴
Better care urged for animal remains tied to Indigenous peoples
New recommendations stress tracing and respecting links between communities and animal bones, pelts and other remains
www.science.org
January 2, 2025 at 8:13 PM
'Curators should closely study animal remains for any links with Indigenous nations or communities, and researchers should involve those groups when remains are culturally significant' 🧪🏺🦴
'Forms, Mechanisms & Roles of Iconicity in Spoken Language (review)'
Argues:
— Multimodal bihemispheric comm. system has phylogenetic + ontogenetic advantages
— Aids lang learning + processing
— Iconicity as integral, not a marginal phenomenon
(Open access: doi.org/10.1177/00332941241310119) 🐦🐦
Argues:
— Multimodal bihemispheric comm. system has phylogenetic + ontogenetic advantages
— Aids lang learning + processing
— Iconicity as integral, not a marginal phenomenon
(Open access: doi.org/10.1177/00332941241310119) 🐦🐦
December 22, 2024 at 5:34 PM
'Forms, Mechanisms & Roles of Iconicity in Spoken Language (review)'
Argues:
— Multimodal bihemispheric comm. system has phylogenetic + ontogenetic advantages
— Aids lang learning + processing
— Iconicity as integral, not a marginal phenomenon
(Open access: doi.org/10.1177/00332941241310119) 🐦🐦
Argues:
— Multimodal bihemispheric comm. system has phylogenetic + ontogenetic advantages
— Aids lang learning + processing
— Iconicity as integral, not a marginal phenomenon
(Open access: doi.org/10.1177/00332941241310119) 🐦🐦
Reposted by language science
I think we can state clearly what our theoretical perspective is, what hypotheses we're testing, and what the data/results demonstrate. We can speculate about what the results mean for all of "language" I suppose, but linguists almost uniformly ignore language sampling bias.
December 21, 2024 at 6:25 PM
I think we can state clearly what our theoretical perspective is, what hypotheses we're testing, and what the data/results demonstrate. We can speculate about what the results mean for all of "language" I suppose, but linguists almost uniformly ignore language sampling bias.
Reposted by language science
the primary purpose of all social media is to amass data. if BlueSky isn’t taking down what’s supposed to be horrifying or offensive content such as revenge porn, then it’s because they see collecting related user data and interaction metrics as useful to whatever they’re building
We do not currently take action on accounts that share Bluesky screenshots with commentary, unless that commentary violates our Guidelines. We will take action when someone's private information is shared without their consent, but only when it is personally identifiable and verifiable in-app.
December 13, 2024 at 7:39 PM
the primary purpose of all social media is to amass data. if BlueSky isn’t taking down what’s supposed to be horrifying or offensive content such as revenge porn, then it’s because they see collecting related user data and interaction metrics as useful to whatever they’re building
A great quote for the linguistic anthropologists among us:
"We anthropologists [...] must re-examine basic premises and realize that English language patterns of thought are not a necessary model for the whole of human society."
— Leach, E. R. (1961). Rethinking Anthropology. p. 27. 🐦🐦
"We anthropologists [...] must re-examine basic premises and realize that English language patterns of thought are not a necessary model for the whole of human society."
— Leach, E. R. (1961). Rethinking Anthropology. p. 27. 🐦🐦
Overreliance on English hinders cognitive science
– premature claims of universality (due to over-sampling of English speakers)
– limited cognitive constructs being examined (due to the use of English as a meta-language)
(doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.015) 🐦🐦
– premature claims of universality (due to over-sampling of English speakers)
– limited cognitive constructs being examined (due to the use of English as a meta-language)
(doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.015) 🐦🐦
December 21, 2024 at 6:35 PM
A great quote for the linguistic anthropologists among us:
"We anthropologists [...] must re-examine basic premises and realize that English language patterns of thought are not a necessary model for the whole of human society."
— Leach, E. R. (1961). Rethinking Anthropology. p. 27. 🐦🐦
"We anthropologists [...] must re-examine basic premises and realize that English language patterns of thought are not a necessary model for the whole of human society."
— Leach, E. R. (1961). Rethinking Anthropology. p. 27. 🐦🐦
Reposted by language science
LSA president Tony Woodbury on Sapir's idea that each language has its own "genius", and that each language should be described with its own framework, rather than through a general ("theoretical") framework. muse.jhu.edu/article/948426
December 21, 2024 at 2:47 PM
LSA president Tony Woodbury on Sapir's idea that each language has its own "genius", and that each language should be described with its own framework, rather than through a general ("theoretical") framework. muse.jhu.edu/article/948426
Shared widely elsewhere:
"I have resisted the term 'sociolinguistics' for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.”
— William Labov, 1927-2024 🐦🐦
"I have resisted the term 'sociolinguistics' for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.”
— William Labov, 1927-2024 🐦🐦
December 21, 2024 at 6:21 PM
Shared widely elsewhere:
"I have resisted the term 'sociolinguistics' for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.”
— William Labov, 1927-2024 🐦🐦
"I have resisted the term 'sociolinguistics' for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.”
— William Labov, 1927-2024 🐦🐦
Reposted by language science
One thing that has stuck with me from my reading this fall is a point that Jeff Mielke makes in his 2008 book: "linguists often confuse their shared assumptions with linguistic universals." Since I care about features, I thought I should read Jeff's book in more detail. A thread.
1/n
#linguistics
1/n
#linguistics
December 21, 2024 at 2:18 PM
One thing that has stuck with me from my reading this fall is a point that Jeff Mielke makes in his 2008 book: "linguists often confuse their shared assumptions with linguistic universals." Since I care about features, I thought I should read Jeff's book in more detail. A thread.
1/n
#linguistics
1/n
#linguistics
One nontrivial measure of a given framework is its direct utility or benefit to language description.
We should consider more gravely the pros and cons of precision contra jargon.
We should consider more gravely the pros and cons of precision contra jargon.
December 14, 2024 at 10:44 PM
One nontrivial measure of a given framework is its direct utility or benefit to language description.
We should consider more gravely the pros and cons of precision contra jargon.
We should consider more gravely the pros and cons of precision contra jargon.
I've heard so many faculty blithely make statements to the effect of "X isn't linguistics". Yet inevitably, it is.
December 14, 2024 at 10:34 PM
I've heard so many faculty blithely make statements to the effect of "X isn't linguistics". Yet inevitably, it is.
Reposted by language science
Do we have any linguist here who is actively documenting iconicity in spoken language? I would love to connect with them. Most of the people I know working on iconicity focus on their he experimental sides of things.
November 19, 2024 at 7:09 PM
Do we have any linguist here who is actively documenting iconicity in spoken language? I would love to connect with them. Most of the people I know working on iconicity focus on their he experimental sides of things.
Reposted by language science
The first that comes to mind is Hall (2013) on intermediate phonological relationships that as relegated as exceptional and rarely addressed despite their ubiquity (doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2013-0008)
A typology of intermediate phonological relationships
This paper presents an overview of phonological relationships that are “intermediate” between contrast and allophony. As has been observed for many years, such intermediate relationships occur widely ...
doi.org
November 14, 2024 at 4:03 PM
The first that comes to mind is Hall (2013) on intermediate phonological relationships that as relegated as exceptional and rarely addressed despite their ubiquity (doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2013-0008)
Reposted by language science
A nice article on pronouns in a Grassfields Bantu language - no gender, but fine-grained distinctions in grouping event participants incl some "compound pronouns" #linguistics
The Babanki pronoun system
Pronominal systems of Grassfields Bantu languages stand out in a cross-linguistic perspective by their high degree of referential precision when it comes to specifying the internal composition of grou...
www.degruyter.com
December 5, 2024 at 4:16 PM
A nice article on pronouns in a Grassfields Bantu language - no gender, but fine-grained distinctions in grouping event participants incl some "compound pronouns" #linguistics
Thinking about the systematicity of fast, slow, casual, and careful speech alternations but also what syntactic 'errors' reveal.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. †22. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 125, 13-34.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. †22. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 125, 13-34.
![“Harvey Sacks often spoke of the possibility of ‘order at all points’, and in one of his lectures (Sacks, 1966 [1992:I:238]) tells us that 'we’re dealing with something real and powerful. And not just grossly powerful, like, it provides for the rate of industrial development, but it provides for little tiny things that God might have overlooked, perhaps’ … (I have a feeling that Sacks’ specifically formulating this sort of material as something he found 'enormously amusing’, or had 'a fascination’ with, was dealing with their on-the-face-of-it utter trivialness, even for the sort of mundane stuff he was known to work with. These 'little tiny things’ were perhaps beginning to be just a bit too tiny for comfort.)”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6htgft4zebgllfmetmz7hvr/bafkreidxe2rkzhucdwomzgcnlghivsct736fyvrmy5mjefkgddhbgp73wq@jpeg)
December 7, 2024 at 1:33 AM
Thinking about the systematicity of fast, slow, casual, and careful speech alternations but also what syntactic 'errors' reveal.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. †22. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 125, 13-34.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. †22. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 125, 13-34.
The de facto government sanctioning of nuclear power for AI and the pivot towards multimodality means society is about to become very scary. Dark times ahead.
December 5, 2024 at 6:00 PM
The de facto government sanctioning of nuclear power for AI and the pivot towards multimodality means society is about to become very scary. Dark times ahead.
SOV languages tend to show fewer overt arguments in the clause
– Example of communicative efficiency (as maximisation of accessibility)
– SOV means longer sum dependencies than SVO, so fewer arguments = reduced memory
(CogLing Antwerp abstract: benecla.com/wp-content/u...) 🐦🐦
– Example of communicative efficiency (as maximisation of accessibility)
– SOV means longer sum dependencies than SVO, so fewer arguments = reduced memory
(CogLing Antwerp abstract: benecla.com/wp-content/u...) 🐦🐦
December 5, 2024 at 5:06 AM
SOV languages tend to show fewer overt arguments in the clause
– Example of communicative efficiency (as maximisation of accessibility)
– SOV means longer sum dependencies than SVO, so fewer arguments = reduced memory
(CogLing Antwerp abstract: benecla.com/wp-content/u...) 🐦🐦
– Example of communicative efficiency (as maximisation of accessibility)
– SOV means longer sum dependencies than SVO, so fewer arguments = reduced memory
(CogLing Antwerp abstract: benecla.com/wp-content/u...) 🐦🐦
I'm surprised more phonologists and syntacticians aren't working together. We all agree there are minimal units in each domain (phone, morph, etc), but what about a program to identify cross-domain equivalents to phenomena?
December 5, 2024 at 1:46 AM
I'm surprised more phonologists and syntacticians aren't working together. We all agree there are minimal units in each domain (phone, morph, etc), but what about a program to identify cross-domain equivalents to phenomena?
Made modified ยำส้มโอ since as I'm allergic to nuts and shellfish.
Turned out delicious and I definitely wanted to add shredded chicken.
Turned out delicious and I definitely wanted to add shredded chicken.
December 4, 2024 at 4:48 PM
Made modified ยำส้มโอ since as I'm allergic to nuts and shellfish.
Turned out delicious and I definitely wanted to add shredded chicken.
Turned out delicious and I definitely wanted to add shredded chicken.