There have been many linguistic manifestos over the course of the many centuries since man uttered his first schwa. But never, in the entire history of the universe, according to my private research, has there ever been a linguistics manifesto
In this linguistics manifesto, I shall endeavor to reveal the hidden mysteries of linguistics in the style of a traditional manifesto. While I do not intend for this linguistics manifesto to be the be-all and end-
Please take your time to read the following linguistics manifesto.
According to Wikipedia, linguistics is “narrowly defined”. But why is it? There are many linguistics, and we should try to learn and understand all of them. It is a truth widely known that every science has a linguistics associated with it. It is much like the parable of the Heron and the Nut, which I will describe to you now.
Once there was a nut that was coveted by many animals, but Heron wanted it most. And, as a consequence, Jackal grew very angry at Heron, and smashed the nut into six thousand pieces. And when mighty Badger Bear heard about this, he went to wise old Vulture and told him of it. And when the three hyena cubs told their mother about what Vulture had said, Uncle Ferret responded in his characteristic way:
“Ro, ko, ko! Heron wanted the nut, and then it got mashed up good. Ri, ki, ki! From one, there are many, tee-kee- lee- tee!”
And so were born the many linguistics.
And so by assembling the many linguistics (math linguistics, basketball linguistics, dating linguistics, orange linguistics, etc.) into one manifesto (not many menifesto), it can be seen that this single linguistics manifesto can cover a wide range of phenomena. For example:
1 a. I have reassembled a fighter plane. b. * I have reassembled a fighter planes.
Under filter linguistics, the data in (1) have no explanation. In language linguistics, though, the data are easily explained (i.e. a mismatch in the expected number of the NP and the number of the article).
In short, it is possible to say something very powerful about language and thought. Many linguists have tried, but I have studied all of their texts, and found something lacking in them. I think the problem would vanish if linguists would read each other’s works, and discover that a single linguistics manifesto is achievable, as I have achieved it here today.
I have over thirteen thousand pages of data. I have also created a sophisticated data management system that stores every piece of data in its own file (called an o-file), so that no data mix or are lost. This enables the creation of larger data from smaller data. By combining data, true understanding is achievable. And that’s what I’ve endeavored to uncover in this linguistics manifesto.
And so the overall problem with linguistics is not one of quality or quantity, but opacity. This can be seen with the large number of linguistics departments, of which only one is necessary. In fact, the others are mislabeled, as there is only one linguistics department, and the others are simply sublinguistics departments (counter linguistics, foam linguistics, shirt and collar linguistics, etc.).
Finally, it would appear that a vertical genealogical structure is, therefore, impossible (or, at the very least, so impractical as to be useless). With a horizontal teleological structure, not only is diversification a natural outcome (an intrinsic end), but other problems (extrinsic) are snapped into focus, allowing for greater solvability.
The end result is the collection of many linguistics data
This ends my linguistics manifesto.
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Bonus Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know |
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The Meadian Median |
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SpecGram Vol CLXI, No 2 Contents |