Linguistics

Some types of group inflection in Czech (and closely related languages) are often discussed, e.g., vocative Pane 'Mr.' followed by an uninflected (as opposed vocative) name, e.g., Pane Novák alongside Pane Nováku (in the second, the name IS in the vocative). This seems to be the norm for many foreign names, e.g., my name never gets inflected when Czech speakers write to me. What I have NOT found any discussion of (but there may well be some) is what looks to me like the same phenomenon in the

Hello, I am looking for data in Kashmiri script in Devanagari and Arabic scripts. Does anyone know of a site where I can find parallel data. If any one knows of a converter which transliterates Kashmiri in Arabic Script to Devanagari and vice-versa, that would be most welcome Thank you for your kind help. Please direct responses to raymond.doctor@gmail.com.

Dear colleagues: I am not clear on whether canonical flaps have bursts or not. The literature does not seem to be clear on this. In my own data (Spanish flaps), I found that many tokens I categorized as flaps (versus approximant-like flaps) do show bursts (sometimes multiple bursts). I categorize flaps as approximant sounds according to their intensity difference and presence/absence of formant structure. To respond, please email dario@us.es.

I was wondering whether there are good fictionalized descriptions of the work of linguists that you are aware of? I am just reading Pip Williams' novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, which in part describes the work on the OED by James Murray (and others, of course), but then takes an interesting feminist slant. Lexicography is not my specialty, but I found the description absolutely fascinating. Is there anything else in the world of fiction that deals with other areas of linguistics, with lingu

Harris reply to Rogers review at https://linguistlist.org/issues/33.3261/ LINGUIST list (LL) and “The Linguistics Wars” both came on the scene in the early 1990s as the Internet was slouching toward the World Wide Web but before it had yet got there. It was a fortuitous convergence. John Lawler reviewed the book in LINGUIST 4.644, quickly sparking some really interesting and occasionally contentious discussions (in issues 4.644, 4.649, 4.654, 4.658, 4.671, 4.722) of a sort that were unknown bef

How worried should a bilingual person be about language attrition if one of the languages they’re fluent in is English? Persons native language is a South Slavic language, however they started learning and using English at age 3, moved to an English speaking country at 18 and been here for over 13 years. They are fully bilingual, as their day to day interactions are in English however they speak their native language frequently enough that it’s as natural as it once was. They think and dream i

Fellow Linguists, (this is a repeated request and thank you for the responses I have had so far) I wonder if you may be able to help with a research project I am currently engaged in. I am looking for any examples of literacy mediators (Barton 2007, Street 1993 and 2001, Papen 2005a) who are able to read (decode) for someone whose language they do not know. For example, reading a letter in, say, Kikuyu by an English speaker who attempts a rough approximation of the written words in a letter wr

My public talk on Austrian German for ascina.at from August 2021, announced and recorded at https://linguistlist.org/issues/32.2852/, has triggered a public statement from some of the colleagues whose practice I criticize. In a one-page response I stress that I view the issue as entirely structural, not personal, though, of course, structural views are upheld by individual practice in German dialectology. My response can be read here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356542159_Response_

Dear all Please do not hesitate to sign and/or distribute this manifesto of commitments I have prepared, seeking to improve the situation non-native speakers currently face in analytic philosophy: https://contesi.wordpress.com/bp/ All faculty and students are most welcome to sign. Many thanks in advance, Filippo (Contesi) — F. Contesi Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellow LOGOS Research Group in Analytic Philosophy Universitat de Barcelona Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philo

Fellow Linguists, I wonder if you may be able to help with a research project I am currently engaged in. I am looking for any examples of literacy mediators (Barton 2007, Street 1993 and 2001, Papen 2005a) who are able to read (decode) for someone whose language they do not know. For example, reading a letter in, say, Kikuyu by an English speaker who attempts a rough approximation of the written words in a letter written in Kikuyu using Roman script for a recipient/listener who is a Kikuyu spea

A vibrant and friendly discussion is developing based on this paper: "Prescriptivism and national identity: history, theory and cross-linguistic analysis of non-dominant language varieties", submitted for The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Prescriptivism, edited by Joan C. Beal, Morana Lukač and Robin Straaijer The discussion will be live for another 18 days, with a possible extension by 3 weeks: https://www.academia.edu/s/6e8b5a08c5?source=link All welcome! Your feedback will be fed back in

This positing relates to the discussion of the theory of pluricentricity, which was first facilitated on this list last year. For a summary, see https://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4080/ and relating postings. The theoretical and epistemological account behind that discussion, "Dollinger, Stefan. 2019. The Pluricentricity Debate: On Austrian German and Other Germanic Standard Varieties. New York: Routledge" has now been reviewed in Zeitschrift für Rezensionen der Germanistischen Sprachwissens

Code-switching, the practice of alternating between two or more languages, has become a popular topic of study and discussion, focusing mostly on spontaneous and organic instances of code-switching. However, one sub-group in this massive topic that deserves more attention is the instances when switching from one language to another is planned and intentional. This is seen specifically in music, where artists often change languages in their lyrics for specific purposes. Korean popular music, or

I received an inquiry from a colleague in psychiatry who works with immigrants. He is asking if there is a way to measure the "distance" between languages in order to generate hypotheses about cognitive effort required to learn L2 when L1 is very different (i.e. from a different language family). Can anyone recommend literature on L2 acquisition that compares the grammatical, phonological etc. features of L1 and L2 to inform this potential argument that the more different two languages are, the

There was a paper c.2001 that listed about 30 etyma. I can't find this at CLS or LSA. Can you help me find the source, a copy of the paper, or a list of the etyma?

Communication is more than just conveying contents. In our everyday conversations, we follow certain norms and manners without necessarily being completely aware of doing so. During the last few months, many of us experienced first hand how our system of verbal communication rules seems to work primarily (most efficiently) for direct face-to-face-communication. Using subtle body language, eye-contact, or minimal changes of the speech rate, we signal who is supposed to speak and when, for example

Following up on the conversation about the modelling of pluricentric languages in Germanic, with special reference to German and English, at https://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4080.html and https://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-822.html, I can now offer the conclusion of the pursuant book (which is - unfortunately - rather pricey): https://www.academia.edu/43797857/Conclusion_of_The_Pluricentricity_Debate_2019_Safeguards_in_the_Modelling_of_Standard_Varieties Critique/comments are always we

Dear All, I am interested in implicational generalizations that have consequences for the architecture of grammar. Some languages, e.g. Turkish, exhibit constructions in which a single nominal inflectional element is shared between two nouns, but many other languages, say English, do not: kedi ve köpek-ler cat and dog-PLU ''cats and dogs'' *cat and dogs Such constructions came to be called ''suspended 'affixation' ''. (1) I was wondering if there is any typological work listing languages tha

Dear All, I am conducting an online survey research about Sinophobia (fear and hate against people of Chinese descent) and Racism against Chinese and Asians in the global context due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings of this study will help disrupt the status quo of hate and fear that exists in schools, universities, and our communities in the global context. It is important to create allyship and advocacy for fighting against microaggression, discrimination, and hate for the betterment of

Dear Colleagues, You are invited to participate in a research study about the current state of language program direction in collegiate institutions in the United States. You are invited to participate because you are at least 18 years old. We are hoping to collect a wide variety of perspectives and experiences. The collected information will provide an updated understanding of the current state of the position which can be used as a base for developing resources that can support these profess

Ines Olza (University of Navarra, Spain), Elena Semino and Veronika Koller (both Lancaster University, UK) have started a crowd-sourcing project on Twitter to collect alternatives to war metaphors to talk about corona virus and Covid-19. Please join the conversation using the hashtag #ReframeCovid and add more examples in this open-access document: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TZqICUdE2CvKqZrN67LcmKspY51Kug7aU8oGvK5WEbA We are particularly interested in examples from non-European language

We've recently rolled out a new web-based experiment for collecting speech data that can be used to track neurocognitive health. Speech-based tasks have been part of standard neuropsychological test batteries for many decades, because speaking engages many psychological and neurological systems, offering many (sometimes subtle) clues about what might be going wrong. Some colleagues and I are starting a large-scale project to get speech data of this general kind: picture descriptions, ''fluency'

I lead ESL Conversation at the library. I am native English speaker and lead a mixed group. At our last group class - they told me that the words WARM and WORM sounded exactly alike to them. I wanted to make a lesson - then I realized that some English speakers say WARM like FARM, and some say WARM like FORM. Is it just the case that there are 2 different ways to pronounce WARM in English? Thank you! Diana