Nod and Smile

For those who may not know, I am in Paris for the month of July. It is a working vacation–Jay has math workshops, I have a linguistics conference, and we have about two weeks inbetween these things. We are hooked up in a nice apartment in the 2nd, after a pretty harrowing experience […]

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I wrote this song for everybody who is mad at somebody about their blessings.
Mostly for family, you know, cause that…that thing does happen.
So cousin so-and-so whoever you are out there: Heh heh.
–Jill Scott, on VH1 Soul

Yes, Jill, that thing does happen. And in my case, mostly with family (but not my cousins). Thank […]

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The thought of Bush and Chomsky in the same room together is frightening. Good thing we didn’t stay in Vietnam…

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From the UMass Linguistics group on Facebook:
“So, epenthesis means sticking things in… yeah, go ahead and write that down, sticking things where they’re not supposed to be.
… I have tenure.”

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I saw this posting for MiniJudge Software, a software that is supposed to help you create proper grammaticality judgement tasks.  Haven’t played with it yet, but it could be helpful.  And free, no excuses not to use it.
If it works, they should give it out to students before syntax classes to see how their judgements […]

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These guys at McSweeney’s really crack me up. Can I get a job with you guys?
Lesser Moments in Spanish Extra Credit
I’m also sorry for calling all Spanish people “Mexicans.” There are many types of Spanish people that aren’t Mexicans. Brazil, for instance, is a very large nation of non-Mexican Hispanics. Brazil is not, as […]

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Jean-wa nihongo-no shiekibun nitsuite paper-o kaku no ni tsuk-are-ta.
Jean-TOP Japanese-GEN causatives about paper-ACC write C DAT tired-PASS-PAST
“Jean is tired of writing papers about Japanese causatives.”

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Today, the Linguist List posted that folks at MIT have reproduced Noam Chomsky’s Original 1955-56 Thesis in PDF format.  They found the slowly deteriorating microfilm in some Harvard archive and decided to scan it and post it.
The dissertation is 919 pages long.  Nine hundred and nineteen pages.  919 pages before computers.  Before word processors.  Before […]

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