200. "Though the Tough Cough ..."
Phonetic spelling to help but not replace (Sep 08)
Anyone who has learned to read and write English knows that the spelling system is not truly phonetic. Devising a phonetic transcription to help those who learn to read and write English is simpler than you might imagine.
199. Cram, Drizzle, Scatter, Twist, ...
It's a very physical world we talk about (Aug 08)
Concepts such as substance, space, time and force are composed in our minds in a sort of conceptual infrastructure. We get a glimpse of this when we observe the large number of verbs that describe the handling of physical objects.
198. It Takes 2 to Tango
Singular, dual and plural number (Jul 08)
In most languages, forms of nouns, pronouns or verbs make a clear distinction between singular and plural. Some also have special forms for when just two of something are being referred to. This is what we call the dual number.
197. This is Worth a Red Cent
Those curious 'negative-only' expressions (Jun 08)
That comically odd title is like a number of expressions in English that only sound right if used with a negative 'not'. Here we're taking a look at these, and also words with the negating prefix 'un-' like unwieldy that, similarly, lack a counterpart without it.
196. A Tricky Shell Game in English
Moving that verbal pea to the right spot (Jun 08)
Imagine the simple English sentence My brother brings something good. We can ask a question about this in either of two ways: Who brings something good? or What does my brother bring? The verb bring has moved to a different place in the second, and that's the trick.
195. A Fingertip Dictionary
What's that foreign word mean? Just click on it (May 08)
Today as much as a fifth of all the pages on the web are in a language other than English. There is an increasing need to be able to read this ever-expanding material, and a website called WordChamp offers some quick aids to the reader.
194. "He knows who took it"
He said that, but are you guaranteeing its truth? (May 08)
The grammatical strategy of many languages obliges the speaker to specify the reliability of what is said, such as whether facts are based on personal observation or hearsay. These evidential forms may seem exotic but we also find them in the closely related German and Dutch.
193. Asking and Axing
Speech sounds doing a dance around each other (Apr 08)
Speech sounds in sequence influence each other in a variety of ways, one of which is metathesis, the seemingly random switching of the order of - usually two - consonants or vowels. There are some languages in which this process is regularized.
192. An International 'English-Lite'
How Globish attempts to fill this need (Mar 08)
Around the world millions of people with little or no formal education in English need to rely on it the best they can for rudimentary communication. Here we look at a simplified and standardized way their needs can be met.
191. Accomplishing and Achieving
Maybe these aren't as synonymous as we thought (Feb 08)
For most of us speakers of English, 'to accomplish' and 'to achieve' have essentially the same meaning. By means of a number of examples, we show here that in ordinary usage we are in fact making a rather clear distinction between them.
190. The Origin Question Again
Not only how, but why we acquired language (Jan 08)
We consider again the age-old question of the origins of language. We take up the crucial question of what adaptive advantages the possession of language could have conferred on the human species.
189. This Essay Reads in Three Minutes
But that's an odd thing to say, isn't it? (Dec 07)
When we say a sentence like This shirt washes in cold water, where the grammatical subject (this shirt) is receiving rather than performing the action, we are using what is known as the middle voice. It is not the same as active or passive.
188. A two-dimensional alphabet
The elegant Korean writing system (Nov 07)
In writing Korean, each 'character' in the Hangul script is a syllable block composed of two or more consonant and vowel letters. They obey prescribed arrangements, and we look at what some of the rules are.
187. "Well" She Said
And was communicating a lot with that word (Oct 07)
We all hear and use that little introductory word well more frequently than we're aware. We ask just what it means, and suggest that it serves an important social function in a conversation.
186. Multilingualism in Wikipedia
A genuinely international enterprise (Sep 07)
By now nearly everyone who uses the Internet hashad occasion to consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, currently consisting of over eight million articles. Here we take a look at the distribution of the over 250 languages in which Wikipedia artricles are written.
185. The Concrete Present
Here's a language that never leaves it (Aug 07)
The Pirahã language spoken in the Amazon has recently been the subject of some notoriety. It shows some simplicities of structure that appear to set it apart from the universal design features of human language. There are possible cultural reasons for this.
184. That's the Object
Look what happens when you have two of them (Jul 07)
We can say either 'Alice gave money to the organization' or 'Alice gave the organization money'. If this is hardly different from 'Alice donated money to the organization', then why does 'Alice donated the organization money' sound so wrong?
183. Going to the Dogs
Language change perceived as decay (Jul 07)
We regularly welcome new developments in science and medicine as improvements over the past, but not innovations in our language. Why IS change in a language almost invariably condemned as some kind of 'degeneration'?
182. No Mirrors and Smoke Here
Does that sound all right? (Jun 07)
We all know large numbers of set expressions that consist of two words joined by and (apples and oranges, day and night, black and blue, by and large). Some of them sound just as good with the order reversed, but many do not. Why could this be?
181. The Linguistic Wheel Turns
Language change viewed as a cycle (May 07)
The grammatical strategies of languages differ widely:while some depend on arrangements of isolated words, others rely on inflections and derivations of varying complexity.It is possible that these rough categories evolve into each other.
180. Ponder your Way into this One
What is that word way communicating here? (Apr 07)
When we say something like "he elbowed his way through the crowd", that little word way is working harder for us than we might be aware. Often we're implying some kind of barrier and some means of overcoming it.
179. Here's Mohammed
And now for the rest of his name (Mar 07)
Arab names are usually puzzling, and often misunderstood, because they do not follow our familiar pattern of 'first-middle-last.' Here is a brief summary of how the Arabs most commonly put their names together.
178. The Language Machine
It wears out words and 'recycles' them (Feb 07)
All languages are undergoing change all the time. This often results in the shortening of a word or a fading of its meaning. Yet languages never 'decay away' but are constantly renewing themselves by means of a process known as grammaticalization.
177. This Road is Remacadamized
The impartial give-and-take of languages (Jan 07)
When societies are in intensive cultural contact with each other, many aspects of the languages get borrowed back and forth. In English we find many examples of words made up of contributions from two or more other languages.
175. Language and Thought
Inventing the one to shape the other (Dec 06)
As a way of expolring the complex relations between language, thought and behavior, for many centuries imaginary languages have been constructed. Some of the most imaginative have appeared as science fiction.
174. A Think About it Essay
Another way we put words together (Dec 06)
In English we can readily form an infinite number of compounds using various parts of speech. In the colloquial language we broaden this considerably by forming compounds in which the first member is a whole phrase.
173. Language Online
Finding your needle in a linguistic haystack (Nov 06)
A thumbnail exploration of the language information on the 2000-page LINGUIST List website that rightly announces itself as "The world’s largest online linguistic resource."
172. The World through Other Eyes
Making distinctions we might not think of (Oct 06)
"A ... way in which languages differ is in the distinctions ... they require speakers to observe in order to speak grammatically". We find often radically different ways of seeing and talking about the world in the languages of Native America.
171. Animals Can’t Use Words
But are some able to name themselves? (Sep 06)
Each of us has not only a recognizable voice but also a name, which we use to identify ourselves. We can also address and refer to an unlimited number of others by name. This seemed a uniquely human characteristic until it was established that dolphins seem to be doing something similar.
170. A Preposition
Is a comfortable word to end a sentence with (Aug 06)
We are all told by the guardians of correctness that the subtitle is an example of a 'dangling preposition' and therefore something to be avoided. But the preposition's object is not missing, in perfectly correct syntax it regularly stands elsewhere in the sentence.
169. This is a Suffixy Essay
A popular way of deriving an adjective (Jul 06)
The adjective suffix -y has been part of the English language for millennia, but in recent years its use has expanded explosively, and today we can say things like a stiff-upper-lippy Britishness.
168. The World Speaks English
So are other languages destined to disappear? (Jun 06)
English is becoming universally used as a means of communication, and around a third of the total world population is now estimated to have serviceable competence. In coming years this will increase to about half, but this dominance is probably not permanent.
167. The Orangutan Makes Batik
Looking deeper than words into another language (May 06)
Indonesian verb forms make a sharp distinction between whether a person or thing is affected by the action (transitive) or not (intransitive). Pairs of verbs sometimes reveal distinctions we might not have thought of.
166. Your own Bootstraps
Making use of the resources you already have (Apr 06)
Linguistics makes use of the term bootstrapping to study the way in which language learners, especially children acquiring their native language, learn at successively more complex levels by building on more fundamental knowledge already available.
165. A Rock, a Fish, and Lee
Grammar and degrees of consciousness (Mar 06)
Often in English we unconsciously observe grammatical distinctions depending on whether what we are talking about is animate or inanimate. This distinction is found in the grammars of languages throughout the world.
164. You Might Could Read This
Some expressiveness in regional speech (Feb 06)
In standard English we normally use one modal auxiliary at a time, but in many forms of regional speech, combinations of them are used, resulting in a large variety of subtle shades of meaning.
163. CamelCase
Or, a case of recent spelling inventiveness (Feb 06)
Upper case or CAPITAL letters have long had many uses, such as beginning a proper name or a sentence. A spelling convention that has been developing in recent time is the use of a capital in the middle of a word.
162. Language has its Powers
There are some words we often avoid saying (Jan 06)
A common feature of the way all of us speak is the use of euphemisms, words that deliberately avoid some less pleasant or 'stronger' word. We ask what impels us to use euphemisms, and look at examples from the area of religion.
161. We Ask that YOU BE Alert
Imagining what we think should happen (Dec 05)
Most verbs have the function of describing something ('I was there'). But on the occasions when we want to express a wish or imagined happening ('If I were there'), we use the subjunctive.
160. Talking about Beliefs
The Alaskan Tlingit language today (Nov 05)
Since November is Native American Heritage Month,
we might pause a moment to consider a language spoken in the Alaska 'panhandle' by a shrinking number of people. What is the future of Tlingit language and their traditional culture?
159. Ear-only Conversations
The telephone and social interaction (Nov 05)
A telephone conversation between two people is divorced from most of the normal complexities of social interaction. So it is about as basic as spoken communication can get. In the opening seconds the partners quickly establish their interaction.
158. A hotto doggu or a hanbaaga?
English words clothed in foreign sounds (Oct 05)
When English words are borrowed into another language, normally we expect pronunciation to be modified. Just in what ways depends on pronunciation habits in the borrowing language. Japanese provides some striking examples.
157. Some Weighty Arguments
But how can something abstract be heavy? (Sep 05)
We find it hard to talk about time without reaching for space metaphors. The way we think of time as stretched out in a long line can conceal some tricks in interpretation.
156. From Gaeilge to English
The Irish language in Ireland (Aug 05)
Irish Gaelic has recently been recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. The language is the vehicle of an ancient culture rish in story and song. How is Irish Gaelic faring under the current pressure from English?
155. A Chaise Longue
is for lounging, right? (July 05)
Some words, often from another language, seem to have no connection to any familiar words. Occasionally we - largely unconsciously - reshape their pronunciation or spelling to make them seem to relate to words we already know.
154. My Wife-to-be, Ex-husband
But calling a person past or future?? (July 05)
In most languages, an expression of time (past, present or future) is the function of the verb using the grammatical mechanism of tense. But in some languages the noun or pronoun functions as the bearer of tense indication.
153. Rx: Words worth a lb of Au
or, Prescription: words worth a pound of gold (June 05)
Most letters suggest the pronunciation of a word, but occasionally letters stand for a word without indicating its pronunciation. Examples are the italicized words in the title. Like the numerals, they ease international communication.
152. Going to Read this?
Sign languages and that rise in the voice (June 05)
Signed languages are not mutually intelligible across languages. Yet they show a few surprising similarities around the world. The most striking example is the ways questions are asked.
151. "I'm parked out back"
Things are not always what they seem (May 05)
We have a somewhat amusing way of occasionally referring to someone or something by means of an expression that relates to rather than directly denoting. Like saying "I'm parked" when we're really referring to "my car".
150. Orphans with no Families
Languages missing genetic relationships (Apr 05)
Nearly all the 6000 languages around the world can be grouped into language families
(such as our own Indo-European family), but there are a few dozen languages that cannot be related to any family.
149. A Fivesome of Numerals
Evidence for counting in the distant past (Apr 05)
The names of the numbers we use every day give a few suggestive insights into some stages in which our early ancestors may have started counting objects.
148. Do WE Agree with This?
We find a world of possibilities in that 'we' (Mar 05)
The pronoun 'we' is another of those little words like 'the', 'and', 'here', 'now' where the meaning we understand is almost entirely dependent on the context.
147. 200 Now Learning Samoan
Americans and foreign languages (Mar 05)
A national survey of U.S. enrollments in foreign languages in 2002 showed a dramatic increase when compared to the results of a 1998 survey. What this might mean in the 2005 'Year of Language Study'.
146. CA's LAX Gets an A
The alphabet and unique designation (Feb 05)
Today we more and more have need to assign unique labels, often using 2 or 3 letters of the alphabet. But they are usually not random, taking account of our human need to recognize and remember what is being labeled.
145. Getting interested
How we talk about becoming some way (Feb 05)
In English we commonly say things like become aware or get well when we want to indicate the beginning of some condition we're describing. The interesting side of this is that not any verb can be used with any adjective.
144. An Hacienda in Colorado
Spanish is still alive (and well?) in the U.S. (Jan 05)
We take a look at Spanish in the U.S., not from a geographical or numerical point of view but asking the question: how is the language faring embedded in an English-language environment?
143. No Hocus-Pocus Here!
Repeating a word or syllable (Dec 04)
That process of repeating (for example so-so or heebie-jeebies) is called reduplication, and it is very common in languages throughout the world to convey a variety of meanings.
142. Breaking New Ground
A sentence nobody has ever said before! (Nov 04)
The subconscious rules and patterns we use in forming sentences allow us to routinely create an infinite number of sentences. Any sentence we hear or see may in fact have never been used before.
141. Slips of the Tongue
What errors in speech reveal (Nov 04)
Errors we all make in speech are usually promptly corrected or go entirely unnoticed. But a look at some typical ones can tell us a great deal about how we go about processing language in our minds.
140. Reinventing Language?
Deaf children gesturing do it routinely (Oct 04)
Those who are born without hearing into families in which sign language is not used will invent their own gesturing systems. Remarkably, these are not just gestures to make wishes known but systems with all the main characteristics of true language.
139. The Case for THE
The definite article around the world (Sept 04)
We compare our English the with the ways the definite article behaves in several other languages, and find similarities but also some striking differences. We also ask the question whether all languages have something like a definite article, and give some examples.
138. Explaining an Idea TO you
Acts like Telling an idea TO you. Or does it? (Aug 04)
Verbs like give, show, tell, hand, send imply giving (etc.) something TO somebody. We say I tell the story to you and also I tell you the story. But other verbs that look similar can't do this: we can say I explain the story to you, so why not I explain you the story?
137. Armenian in Montana
The colorful new interactive language map (July 04)
The Modern Language Association now has on their website a map displaying - for the country as a whole down to a particular county - where 37 of the languages most commonly used in the U.S. are spoken. The number of speakers of each of these can be seen in colors on the map or in the census figures.
136. THink THese THings THrough
The TH-spelling, sound and symbol (July 04)
This spelling is ambiguous in more than one way: two letters spell a single sound, but at the same time there are two distinctly different th-sounds, the voiceless one in think and bath, and the voiced one in these and bathe.
135. How Humans Learn Words
Can apes, dolphins, even dogs do it too? (June 04)
A recent article in Science magazine described a dog learning words in a way that resembled the 'fast-mapping' that a human child does, and this was widely featured in the press. A critical look at what is behind it.
134. The Orange Juice Seat
Or, the role of context in making sense
(June 04)
A phrase like the title or a whole sentence may be grammatically correct and yet sound like nonsense. But as users of the language, we're very skilled at finding ways of endowing it with sense.
133.
A Little Close Harmony
Sounds of a language 'echoing' each other (May 04)
'Echoing' of
neighboring consonants or vowels is something that occurs in all languages.
In Turkish
we find a particularly striking system in which vowels influence each other's
color all through the word.
132.
Talking and the Mists of Time
Future
generations hearing how we sound (Apr
04)
Digital technology
offers increasingly diverse technologies for preserving records of our languages
and what they sound like. But they are only as good as their continued accessibility.
Some things that are being done about this
131. Tempt you Into Pausing?
Persuasion
leading 'into' its results (Mar
04)
The word into
has meanings beyond the concrete 'to the inside of something'. It sometimes
links two verbs together in interesting and very specific ways
130.
My Language is my Identity
But just what is "my language"?
(15 Feb 04)
A look at what it might feel like when you're a citizen of Finland but
your native language is Swedish
129.
Our Indo-European Ancestors
The peoples who migrated from somewhere else (1 Feb 04)
A brief analysis of the article in Nature
proposing that our IE-speaking ancestors migrated westward from Anatolia
128. Hands-on Language
A museum for the very young (15 Jan 04)
Today we have many kinds of 'hands-on' museums for children.
What would a museum like this devoted to language look like?
127.
Languages Without Subtitles
Understanding speakers 'not from here' (1 Jan 04)
The 'mutual intelligibility' of any two languages is a measure
of how well speakers of each can understand each other without special study.
But it is an inexact measure.
126.
STOP TO SMELL the Roses
But don't STOP SMELLING the roses (15 Dec 03)
When a verb is introduced
by another verb, as in They ordered me to
go and They appreciated working with me,
how do we know whether to use to - or -ing?
125. A Tough Nut to Crack
Machine translation on the Web (1 Dec 03)
Instant mechanical translation is easily available to
everyone via the Web, and it does an intelligible but still rather crude job
124.
Are Y'all Enjoying this One?
A 'southernism' we all know (15 Nov 03)
The most famous 'southernism' by far is y'all for
you (plural), and today its use is speading far beyond the South.
123.
Language is Human Behavior
Using sounds and grammar to communicate (1 Nov 03)
How a precise and useful
dictionary definition is put together
122. This Miniature's Interest
The ways we use the possessive (15 Oct 03)
The 'possessive' 's in English has quite a few
meanings beyond simple possession
121.
Are you Reading This?
Imperfective and Perfective Aspect (1 Oct 03)
Many languages emphasize not only when an action
takes place (tense) but how it is done (aspect). A look at
the interaction of the two aspects of Russian
120. The Words and the Message
Do you always mean just what you say? (15 Sep 03)
A brief exploration
of what we mean by pragmatics in the study of language: the
relation between what we mean and what we actually say
119. Latin and its Children
Language change creating many from one (1 Sep 03)
The Romance languages of today, all
descended from Latin, offer a unique opportunity to observe how languages diverge
over time
118. THROWING OUT a New Idea
But without throwing the new idea out (15 Aug 03)
In
English many verbs have another little word associated with them, such as turn
off or give up. Some
meaning differences depending on where that little adverb belongs
117. Mummified Language
Concreteness in evaporated speech (1 Aug 03)
A great deal has been learned about the
life of that mummified body found frozen in the Alps a few years ago. But is
there any way to guess what language he spoke?
116. A Good Essay if not the Best
Maybe the best? Clearly not the best?
(15 Jul 03)
All
languages have a measure of ambiguity built into them, and it may be of a number
of different types
115. Our Language Symphony
Many Americans speak not only English
(1 Jul 03)
A
quick survey of the many languages spoken by U.S. citizens. Nearly all these
speakers are bilingual and this is a national resource that should be treasured
114. Hidden Treasures
Languages in (East) Central Asia
(15 Jun 03)
Several
major language families exist side by side in this vast region
113. Language, Grammar, Verb, Noun
Word meanings do a lot of networking
(1 Jun 03)
The vocabulary of any
language forms complex, fine-grained networks relating the words of related
meanings in a variety of ways. One of them is known as the lexical field.
112. IN the Woods, ON the Lakes
Expressing motion in location (15
May 03)
The case system of the
Finnish language makes many elaborate distinctions in talking about movement
as it relates to space
111. Point-and-Click English
Translation in the palm of your hand
(1 May 03)
The
recently developed (but still expensive) hand-held pocket PC contains a camera
coupled to a translation device that offers instantaneous translation of signs
110. False Friends
Looking the same isn't always meaning the same
(15 Apr 03)
Words
in any two languages that look alike but mean different things are called false
friends and they easily betray the learner
109. A Visionary
Language
Where the sole reality lies in the future
(1 Apr 03)
This tongue-in-cheek
Miniature imagines a language that has only future tense and what some
results of that might be
108. As You Read this Essay
will slip in some new thoughts (15 Mar 03)
Sentences
that momentarily
mislead the reader by implying a certain construction and then ending up differently
(like the title and subtitle) are called garden path sentences
107. Speech Made Visible
The writing palette of the world's languages (1 Mar
03)
The
many scripts the languages of the world are written in derive from a very small
number of writing systems
106. It Takes Two to Tango
The delicate balance between some and any
(15 Feb 03)
We
use these two words all the time, for instance in the same sentence whether
positive or negative, but our internalized knowledge that allows such effortless
use is complex
105. Speech and Written Image
Visualizing the first but without the second (1 Feb 03)
There
is evidence that illiterate persons perceive the relationship between ideas
in a strikingly different way. Some questions about how writing guides our thinking
104. A Far-Removed Relative
The Indo-European family tree revisited (15 Jan 03)
Hittite
was an IE language spoken long ago in what is now central Turkey. Thousands
of cuneiform tablets have been deciphered
103. "Pippil widda Eksent"
People with an Accent, but how come? (1 Jan 03)
What
does a 'foreign accent' actually consist of? Some analysis of its various components
102. "That Literally Killed me"
The elusiveness of word meanings (15 Dec 02)
In
many people's usage, the word literally is shifting its meaning from
'not figuratively' to 'I really mean it'.
Some
reflections on how words mean
101. TWO for the Price of ONE
Do some languages make superfluous distinctions? (1 Dec 02)
Other
languages will often make a distinction not familiar to us, having two words
where we have one. But the opposite also happens
100. A Reflective Interlude
What is 'the study of language' anyway? (15 Nov 02)
A
survey of the wide variety of ways to study language, all of which we group
in the field we call linguistics. A look at how many of these
have been the subject of the first 99 Miniatures
99. Borrowers and Lenders
Languages enriching each other
(1 Nov 02)
The
ways languages are constantly borrowing from each other is illuatrated by the
way for many centuries English has borrowed extensively from Latin and French
98. Herr Weissgerber meets Ms. Wisecarver
German names in America (15 Oct 02)
The four main ways in which German surnames are derived. Families brought
these names fo America, where many of them have been anglicized
97. Ask a Simple Question...
Though how you ask it is anything but
(1 Oct 02)
The many complexities we subconsciously follow in asking various types of
questions in English
96. Harmony or Cacophony
The Global Language System (15
Sep 02)
Some
commentary on the Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan's book Words
of the World: The Global Language System
95. Your Mouse Just Went "CLICK"
Speech sounds imitating natural ones
(1 Sep 02)
How
languages around the world hear and imitate common sounds by means of speech
sounds. A cross-linguistic exploration of onomatopoeia
94. A Linguistic Jigsaw Puzzle
Languages in the Caucasus (15
Aug 02)
The
Caucasus is home to a complex mix of languages belonging to three major language
families. The Caucasian family is a dense network of related languages in a
small area
93. What Part of the U.S. Are you From?
Your speech is giving that away
(1 Aug 02)
The
geographical distribution of dialect speech in the U.S. - especially the East
and South - has been intensively studied for many years
92. Hot Coffee and Hot Air
"The coffee is hot", so why not " ... ?
(15 Jul 02)
The
combination adjective plus noun can be either endocentric (hot
coffee) or exocentric (hot air). An explanation
of what we mean by this important distinction
91. Machines and Human Language
Why do they still translate so clumsily?
(1 Jul 02)
Mechanical
or machine translation (MT) has been intensively developed
for years, but in spite of advances and the many practical applications today,
it remains inexact. Do we know why?
90. Brea en Griene Tsiis
English really does have a "kissin' cousin"
(15 Jun 02)
The
closest relative of the English language is Frisian, spoken
mainly along the North Sea coast. Though many similarities are familiar-looking,
a text in Frisian can look unintelligible to us
89. A Chat about THIS and THAT
What people around the world point to
(1 Jun 02)
Demonstratives
(this-that, these-those) exist in every language, but the distinctions
made in pointing things out varyt widely
88. Read this with Bated ---
The cons and pros of clichés
(15 May 02)
It
is good advice to avoid clichés, at least the more shopworn of them.
But although cliches have a rather bad press, they are indispensable
and have their place in our usage
87. YOULLMIXUPEVERYDAYWORDS
How many words in the title? (1
May 02)
Here
we tackle one of the most elusive questions in linguistics: what is a word?
Does what we write between spaces have a connection to what we know of its meaning?
86. Eddies in the Speech Stream
Exotic language sounds (15 Apr
02)
Many
languages have speech sounds that strike our ear as very unfamiliar. Among the
most exotic are the click sounds in some of the Bantu languages
in Africa. A new words about how they are produced
85. A Verbal Time Machine
Listening in to the echoes of the past
(1 Apr 02)
Another
tongue-in-cheek one: Analyzing long-dissipated sound waves to recover speech
from the distant past
84. Web Site Language Miniature Thoughts
Understanding long noun compounds
(15 Mar 02)
We
have explored two-member compounds (Miniature No. 1), and now we go
on to noun compounds made up of three to six members
83. That 'American English' Sound
What we're doing with our pronunciation
(1 Mar 02)
Even
though there is no official 'standard American English', we all follow a surprisingly
similar standard of pronunciation usage. How does it originate and how is it
propagated? What changes are going on now?
82.
Voices from the Past
Inferring pronunciations of long ago
(15 Feb 02)
There
are no recordings of speech of more than a century ago, yet through a series
of inferences from written sources we can get a reasonably good idea what it
sounded like
81.
Pull Enough to Pull it off
The 'core meaning' we sense in a word
(1 Feb 02)
How
a word can have a wide variety of meanings that are all somehow related is illustrated
by the many meanings of the German word Zug
80.
Does This Contrast Contrast?
It matters which syllable gets the punch
(15 Jan 02)
Many
2-syllable words in English that can be either a noun or a verb have a predictable
stress pattern: stress on the first syllable if noun, stress on second syllable
if verb
79.
The Language of Paradise
Myths of the confusion of tongues
(1 Jan 02)
Myths
around the world, of which the Tower of Babel myth is one, attempt to account
for how come there are so many different languages
78.
"My Genes Made me Do it!"
Genetic pathways in language (15 Dec 01)
A
severe language disorder running genetically through a family has led investigators
closer to identifying a gene that seems to play an important role in language
77.
Distance versus Solidarity
The word 'you' and society's status lines
(1 Dec 01)
Many
language, including most of the European languages except English, have two
different words for you depending on some form of a 'polite' vs. 'familiar'
distinction
76.
Your Language Escapes
Aphasia and what it reveals
(15 Nov 01)
Different
types of aphasia resulting from injury or medical malfunction reveal two clearly
distinct language centers in the brain, and two main types of language impairment
result
75.
Chinese Writing
What they see in those characters
(1 Nov 01)
Chinese
characters may look like random scratches to us, but they are based on an ingenious
system. Some analysis of how they are composed
74.
TAKE a Look Here
Lightweights in the verbal world (15 Oct
01)
A
small number of verbs function as what is known as light verbs,
having little specific meaning of their own but mainly serving to support a
neighboring noun or other verb
73.
From CHINESE to IQUITO
Giant languages (and tiny ones too) (1
Oct 01)
The
languages of the world are of vastly differing size, from Mandarin Chinese with
many millions of speakers down to those spoken by fewer than a hundred people
72.
All of This is True
But you'll have to take my word for it (15
Sep 01)
Evidentials are
grammatical devices in many languages by which the speaker is obliged to specify
the source and reliability of something said. Some examples from Native American
languages
71.
"Jeet Jet?"
How we think we talk and how we really talk
(1 Sep 01)
When
we write, we normally spell out individual words fully and clearly, but when
we speak, if we don't want to sound artificial the result is often quite different
70.
Odder, maybe the Oddest
The many ways languages compare things
(15 Aug 01)
All
languages have ways of comparing, but the ways they do it and the distinctions
they choose to make vary widely
69.
W8, dont UC?
The 'Text Messaging' script (1 Aug
01)
Among
many cell phone users, a new form of written English
is emerging: the 'text messaging' code. A few examples
68.
This Might Back you Down
Those tricky 'change of state' verbs (15
July 01)
There
are some verbs in English that are often used in ways that seem to 'push the
envelope'. Are we making grammatical mistakes or broadening the resources of
the language?
67. Reading and Writing Books
The ancient beech tree in our lives (1
July 01)
Some
exploration of the words for book, read, write shows that the
beech tree once played an important role in the development of this aspect of
the culture
66.
Speech, Script, State
The colorful language garden of India
(15 Jun 01)
In
India it is constitutionally provided that each constituent state is to declare
its own official language. There are 18 of these, and mopst of them use a script
unique to that language
65.
Human Language as a Virus
Are we infected with the need to symbolize?
(1 June 01)
A
discussion of Terence Deacon's book The Symbolic
Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
64.
Appearances can be Deceiving
Why we call two languages 'related' (15
May 01)
The
important concept of relatedness of languages is illustrated with some examples
from Welsh, an Indo-European language related to English but
unintelligible to us
63.
EU Language Year 2001
Celebrating diversity but with a hangover
(1 May 01)
As
the number of languages of the countries accepted into the European Union increases
rapidly, the problems of translating between all these languages expand explosively
62.
Notions about Language
A quick quiz on your thoughts (15 Apr
01)
The
reader is asked what the answer would be to seven questions on common assumptions
about language. Widespread responses to all seven are called into question
61. The Tower of Babel
Is there a reality behind the story? (1
Apr 01)
Another
tongue-in-cheek one: archeological finds show that the Tower of Babel myth about
the diversity of languages in the world is based on reality, an early form of
computer technology
60.
Me Tarzan, you Jane
Are there primitive languages around?
(15 Mar 01)
The
assumption one occasionally hears to the effect that somewhere there still exist
languages in a primitive state of development is based on a confusion of "primitive
linguistic structure" and "pre-technological/pre-literate culture"
59.
At a Loss for Words
The bilingual dictionary: which meaning?
(1 Mar 01)
Pitfalls
in using a bilingual dictionary in translating from one language into another.
How do we tell which of several equivalent meanings to choose?
58.
Signposts in Languages
Showing us what's where in the sentence
(15 Feb 01)
The
Japanese language has an elegant and 'learner-friendly'
system of particles that act as signposts signaling which
is the subject, which the object, and others
57.
"X Beats Y"
Synonyms on the sports pages (1
Feb 01)
Newspaper
stories about sports competitions offer an astonishing variety of ways of reporting
that a given team beat another, showing once
again the expressive resources our language offers us
56.
This is Where it's At
But it's not that big of a deal (15 Jan
01)
Why
do so many people so regularly throw in extra words such as that 'at'
and 'of' in the title and subtitle? Some insight into this is gained
when we consider the rhythms of speech
55.
Want to Read This?
Things there and yet not there (1
Jan 01)
Sometimes
as we speak an important word is omitted and merely implied, and often there
are grammatical circumstances where a word must necessarily be omitted
54.
From Denim to Gauze
Words from everywhere on our tongues
(15 Dec 00)
Thanks to millennia of trade, our words for many
kinds of cloth have come to us along with the product from all corners of the
globe
53.
As to this Topic,
All that follows is comment (1 Dec 00)
A
grammatical device in many languages called topic and comment
labels the topic about to be said something about. Some examples from Chinese
52. A POX on Them All!
Diseases can make good cursing (15
Nov 00)
Cursing
someone by wishing some disease or disorder on them (as in "a plague on
them all!") used to be common in European languages, but today the Dutch
are the only ones who still do this on a significant scale
51.
"In the Beginning was the VERB"
Actors and their roles in the sentence (1
Nov 00)
In a real sense, the verb is the nucleus
of the sentence, and each one requires its own set of other parts of speech
along with it to form a grammatical sentence
50.
Input for your Database
The human mind as just another computer (15 Oct 00)
For a very long time, metaphors have helped
us grasp some of the complexity of the human mind. In recent time it is the
computer that has been providing most of the metaphors.
49.
This Essay is Redundant
The predictability in all languages (1 Oct 00)
Redundancy plays a very important role in language. Stylistic
redundancy should no doubt be avoided, but all languages necessarily employ
a high degree of grammatical redundancy.
48.
Just GIVE me a Minute
Expressing 'giving' in human societies (15 Sep 00)
The word give is particularly interesting, since languages
around the world treat the fundamental 3-way concept of someone giving
something to someone in so many different ways.
47.
Cold Cuts Crowd in Deli
Presenting grammatical personalities (1 Sep 00)
The Arabic language provides some particularly clear
examples of how a given grammatical function can be expressed unambiguously
in the forms of words.
46.
Bilinguals and the Brain
Storing our language knowledge
(15 Aug 00)
Present-day
scanning technology has made it increasingly clearer that one’s native
language is stored in a different area of the brain than any language learned
after the age of 8 or so.
45.
Visible and Invisible
Words and what gives them life
(1 Aug 00)
When we think about language, the first thing in our thoughts are words.
The grammar that ties them together is invisible to us, but it is there in all
its marvelous complexity.
44.
My Dog Died on me
Pronouns of 'caring' (15 Jul 00)
A regular feature of many languages is the ethical dative,
a pronoun indicating that someone - most often the speaker - is directly affected
by what is said.
43.
Driving Along, the House Appeared
Participles that 'dangle' (1 Jul
00)
Here we take a look at the infamous dangling participle
and a bit about why we so easily fall into them. Are some worse than others?
42.
The Riot Mushrooms
Is "The Mushrooms Riot" the same thing? (15 Jun 00)
Latin is used as an example of a language that expresses grammatical
relations with a rich set of inflections, doing the same job we do in modern
English with many more words.
41.
Do you Speak Logic?
An invented language with an attitude
(1 Jun 00)
Any natural language such as English often underspecifies or overspecifies
the ‘logic’ of a situation, which for centuries has led to the invention
of logical languages. A recent example is the one called Lojban.
40.
The HERE and the NOW
But when is 'now', and where is 'here'?
(15 May 00)
The words here and now reflect a
very primitive level of human understanding. Their reference depends entirely
on context, what is being talked about.
39.
Female Grammar
Men's speech and women's speech (1 May
00)
In some languages, the style of speaking and even the grammar (that
is, not just vocabulary) is distinctly different for women than for men.
38.
Siblings, Cousins, Ancestors ...
Language families and the mists of time
(15 Apr 00)
The concept of a family of languages is illustrated
by comparing some words in related Indo-European languages. Other well-investigated
language families are also listed.
37.
Catty Remarks
New evidence for animal speech (1 Apr
00)
This spoof elaborates on the ‘claim’ that cats - especially
black ones - are more able to understand human speech than we were aware of.
36.
"Computer: Go do it!"
Speech recognition by machine (15
Mar 00)
Computer speech recognition programs are constantly improving in reliability,
but that last few percent of reliability is elusive, being dependant on social
understanding that is uniquely human.
35.
So Fah, Dahling, it's a Boah!
What we communicate with(out) R after vowel (1 Mar 00)
A recent study shows that the dropping of r
after vowel - which most of us associate with coastal New England - can have
a whole series of social implications.
34.
Language as a 'Lens'
A kaleidoscope of different worlds? (15
Feb 00)
One of the oldest philosophical questions about language, debated at
least since the time of Plato, is whether the structure of a person’s
language constrains or influences how that person thinks.
33.
Understand You Not These Words?
What 400 years can do in a language (1
Feb 00)
Today we have to use the auxiliary verb do in negative and
interrogative sentences (She walks the dog but She does
not walk the dog and Does she walk the dog?) but
it was not always this way.
32.
A Tower of Babel
How many languages are there in the world? (15 Jan 00)
The subtitle reports one of the most frequently asked questions about
language. Though defining ‘a language’ is not as straightforward
as it may seem, some totals are given.
31.
Do you Like this Cyberessay?
New words for the new century (1 Jan 00)
Just as any other language - especially those of advanced technological
societies - English is constant expanding the meanings of words and inventing
new ones. Some examples.
30.
The Eskimos' 100 Words for Snow
Why everybody seems to know this 'fact'
(15 Dec 99)
The assurance that “The Eskimos have 100 words for snow”
has become an ineradicable part of the English language. Few are troubled by
the fact that it is not based on any factual reality.
29.
A Verbal Seesaw
Our daily socialization in conversations (1 Dec 99)
Probably the most common use of the language is the many casual one-on-one
exchanges that we all participate in every day. Some analysis and a few details
about this unique form of collaboration.
28.
Nothing is Indispensable
Why all languages have their way of saying 'not' (15 Nov
99)
Some provision, in whatever grammatical form, for being able to say
that something is NOT the case (negation) is fundamental to
all languages, and is an essential human attribute.
27.
Speaking is 'Body Language'
Punctuating sentences with the eyebrows
(1 Nov 99)
Speaking is not just the articulation of a series of vowels and consonants,
but is accompanied by an elaborate set of gestures and facial expressions.
26.
Let me Write that Down
A technological marvel we take for granted
(15 Oct 99)
We are scarcely to conceive of ‘language’ without its written
form being in the forefront of our consciousness. Yet in the history of spoken
language, writing is a relatively recent invention.
25.
Why, That's Child's Play
Learning a language without even trying (1 Oct 99)
Children perform the feat of learning their native language in an astonishingly
short time. This acquisition proceeds everywhere, in all languages, according
to a definite and predictable sequence.
24.
'Lie' and 'Lay' are Fraternal Twins
The causative relation between pairs of words (15 Sep
99)
English has a number of pairs of verbs related along a causative
dimension (lie and lay=’cause to lie’), and many
languages have a highly developed system of forming causatives. An example is
Arabic.
23.
The Commonest Word in the Language
The social role of the word 'the' (1 Sep
99)
The word the is so ubiquitous that we hardly notice it. But
it has some surprisingly expressive syntactic and even social functions.
22.
Chinese, English, Navajo, Zulu ...
Is there anything they have in common?
(15 Aug 99)
Languages around the globe seem to differ from each other in an almost
infinite number of ways. This looks at some things that all languages everywhere
have in common.
21.
There are Rules and 'Rules'
An idea to always fix your sights on (1 Aug 99)
Here we are dealing with a question about which many people hold strong
opinions. What do we mean by ‘rules’ of language? A distinction
is made between grammatical rules and social
ones that happen to be about language.
20.
How Different can Languages be?
The grammatical mosaic of Navajo (15 Jul
99)
Some languages see the world in terms of categories that are totally
different from English. This is illustrated by means of the Navajo
verbs for handling objects of various consistencies.
19.
British Left Waffles on Falklands
Why do some headlines sound so funny?
(1 Jul 99)
In headlines, in the interest of brevity many
key function words (prepositions, articles, pronouns) are left out. Occasionally
this results in an unintended comical ambiguity.
18.
Curiouser and Curiouser
The language world Alice blunders into
(15 Jun 99)
In Alice in Wonderland and Through
the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll created a dream world partly by using the
English language in ways that are weirdly at odds with our ‘logical’
everyday English.
17.
It Really IS Time you Thought
Of the present, the past and the future
(1 Jun 99)
We explore what we mean by the tense
forms of a verb (such as past, present, and future), and demonstrate that there
is little match between these tense forms and the time meanings they supposedly
convey.
16.
"We Call that Symbol '@' ", She Said
What do you think she called it?
(15 May 99)
We take a tour through the names by which the
familiar symbol @ is known around the world. Its shape
suggests a variety of names in different languages.
15.
"It ain't no cat can't get in no coop"
The rich language of the inner city (1
May 99)
The special language spoken by many African Americans, particularly
in urban areas, is not ‘poor English’ but an expressive language
with grammatical rules of its own.
14.
When he Gazes at her, is she the Gazee?
A simple suffix, but we communicate a lot with it
(15 Apr 99)
At first sight it looks as if the common and increasingly popular suffix
-ee as in amputee, muggee means something like ‘the
recipient of an action’, but we find that it has many more dimensions
than this.
13.
Politically Incorrect English
A neutral language for the Internet (1
Apr 99)
This was the first ‘April Fool’ Miniature, announcing
that an imaginary language called Rolo-Pifla (an anagram!)
was about to be declared the official politically neutral language of the Internet.
12.
Silent Eloquence
The sophistication of American Sign Language (15
Mar 99)
ASL is a fully expressive language with a grammar
of its own. By ingenious use of complex expressions and gestures in space, it
is able to do many things beyond the capabilities of standard spoken English.
11.
And What's All This?
'What a word means' is not all that simple
(1 Mar 99)
The function of the word and is to couple two 'somethings'
together, but it has many meanings well beyond that. In what sense does a word
‘mean’ something?
10.
The Dodo's Fate
How languages become extinct (15 Feb 99)
When a language is no longer spoken by anyone, we might say that it
has ‘become extinct’. Today many of the world’s languages
are ‘endangered’ and will disappear by the end of this century.
A look at how this happens.
9.
Unpronounceable Sounds
Every language has them - except English of course (1 Feb 99)
Nearly all languages have speech sounds that are unfamiliar to us as
English speakers. A look at some consonant combinations that seem oddly unpronounceable
to us.
8.
Is Silence Being Golden?
Our English progressive is difficult (15
Jan 99)
We use the progressive (as in You’re
reading now) effortlessly practically any time we speak, and we
are unaware of the many subtle distinctions that make it very difficult for
learners of English to catch on to.
7.
Finnegans Wake English
James Joyce's double focus (1 Jan
99)
In his long novel Finnegans Wake, James Joyce plays with the
English language in seemingly endless ways. He is constantly creating puns that
awaken unexpected associations.
6.
I Hereby Warn you ...
Or, doing things with words (15 Dec 98)
Sometimes when we use language we don’t only describe something
(as in I hear you’re the winner) but intend the sentence itself
as performing an action (as in I declare you the winner).
We do this in multiple ways.
5.
The Evolution of Language
From communicating to imagining (1 Dec
98)
No one knows how or when language first evolved because past language
did not leave us any evidence to trace. But we can make some surmises about
how this might have proceeded.
4.
If someone wants to disagree, they can
Can we really all be using wrong grammar? (15 Nov 98)
Many people object to the use of a plural pronoun
to refer to a singular, as in the title. But they fail to recognize
that English has evolved here a useful non-specific - and therefore also gender-free
- pronoun.
3.
Whistling a Language
Communication by speech melody alone (1
Nov 98)
There are languages in the world in which speech melody plays such
an important role (tone languages) that a significant proportion
of a message can be communicated merely by whistling sentences. Some examples.
2.
Is 'Pidgin English' Just a Makeshift?
A sophisticated bridge between languages
(15 Oct 98)
A pidgin is a modified form of
a language used for communication by speakers of other languages who could otherwise
not understand each other. Many languages have served as the basis for a pidgin.
1.
A Bonehead's Headbone
Noun compounds give a lot of bang for the buck
(1 Oct. 98)
Two-member noun compounds (as in race car,
cat food) are a very common feature of English. Normally the first member
limits the scope of the second, but the two members may stand in any of a variety
of relations to each other.