The Logic of Teaching Linguistics

Ulfheðnar ber Sarkur

Universally acclaimed, R.I.C.E.^* is an intergalactic university that prides itself on its diversity of students, faculty, and curriculum. In the Linguistics department, there are six professors teaching introductory courses this semester: ELIZA, a female artificial intelligence; Fryggyn’, a female mythical being; HAL, a male artificial intelligence; Slagathor, a female human; Θωθ, a male mythical being; and 与乙凡十巨尺, a male human. The courses they teach are Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Xeno Ling, and Comp Ling, with each professor teaching one course.

The top six linguistics undergrads are taking all six linguistics classes. The students are 01011000, a genderless artificial intelligence; Holger, a male human; Ooòoóooōoȍ, a male cetacean; Waaaããã, a female yeti; Zoë-Chloë, a female human; and ʘ̥̊ᴲβʁᴂŋ, a genderless alien being. Each professor has a favorite student among the top six, and a least favorite among the top six. All students like the class in which they are the favorite. Each student also has a favorite part of speech, one each of: adverbs, ideophones, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, and postpositions. Each student finds one of the following phonemes difficult to pronounce: s’, ǁ, ɴ̥, n, ʛ, or ʁ.

Using the information provided below—and your own vast knowledge of linguistics—you should be able to deduce for each professor what class they teach, who their most favorite and least favorite students are, their favorite students’ favorite parts of speech, and each favorite student’s most troublesome phoneme. The chart below the clues may help you work out the answers; in the chart, ↑ indicates a most favorite student and ↓ indicates a least favorite student.

Send your solution to the editors of SpecGram by December 15th, 2017 and you could win a prize. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the January issue.

Clues

• The professors who each dislike a non-human student the most do not teach Xeno Ling or Phonetics, and the professors with names written in non-Latin characters do not teach subjects ending in -ology.

• Professor ELIZA likes Holger more than ʘ̥̊ᴲβʁᴂŋ, Professor Slagathor likes 01011000 more than Ooòoóooōoȍ, and the professor who likes 01011000 the most does not like Ooòoóooōoȍ the least.

• Professor Θωθ, who teaches Syntax, has a favorite student who has trouble with ejectives.

• No student has trouble with phonemes in their own name.

• The students who favor open class parts of speech do not have trouble with non-pulmonic phonemes, while none of the students who have trouble with pulmonic sounds like subjects starting with phon-.

• No professor has a favorite student or least favorite student that is the same gender or species/lifeform type as themselves, and, of course, a student can’t be both a professor’s favorite and least favorite.

• Professor HAL’s favorite student has no trouble with clicks, and Professor 与乙凡十巨尺’s favorite student has no trouble with nasals, but cetaceans and artificial intelligences do have trouble with nasals.

• None of the biological-but-non-human students is the one who likes ideophones.

• Zoë-Chloë’s favorite part of speech is not an adposition, and the favorite student of the professor who likes Zoë-Chloë the least does not like postpositions.

• The student who likes adverbs has trouble with a voiceless phoneme.

The correct order for the rules in last issue’s puzzle, The Phonology Test, is: P, H, O, N, T, E, I, C. Each of the puzzlemeisters below will receive some moderately desirable SpecGram merch:

Bethany Annal • Harrison Chudleigh • Rory Turnbull

In addition, the following puzzlers have achieved the everlasting glory that comes with an honorable mention:

Brennan Long • Vincent Fish • Max Bonke

	Corrigendum—Teaching, a Toad, and the Perils of Linear Precedence—Gobemouche Zounderkite, Ph.D.
	SpecGram Vol CLXXX, No 2 Contents