Of course, the uncertainty principle has long been a part of linguistics. How long for? We’re uncertain. But it’s clear that most linguists exist in a superposition of states: simultaneously being experts in language and entirely bewildered at its oddness. These states spontaneously collapse when observed by funders or tenure committees. The resulting measurement is best approximated by the “many worlds” approach, viz, that most linguists live in a world of their own. Many-Worlds theory also shows how Generative linguistics can progress beyond the narrow concept of Universal Grammar to the limitless fields of Multiversal Grammar.

High-energy graduate students have also been observed bouncing off their supervisors. Extended exposure to the supervisory field leads to the graduate student accepting strange particles and aligning their behaviour with the supervisor, a process called quirk exchange.

However, despite these early successes, the field was thrown wide open when in an important paper on the putative parallels between quarks and quirks, Chichuul, Peschanka, and Rennmaus pointed out that predictions about certain classes of messoffs were not only not borne out by experiment, they violated the most basic common knowledge of the field: Messoffs comprising strange quirk and anticharm quirk were in fact massively stable, whereas in a striking violation of the standard model those comprising antistrange and charm were only observed briefly in very high-energy events,² and certainly never stuck around long enough for anyone to get a good knowledge of their characteristics. “Certainly,” they concluded, “it is a wonder that these messoffs could even be compared with D^-
_s mesons since they are usually the ones, alas, making As in our classes.”

In phonology, we can predict that heavy syllables should be prone to decay of the nucleus. This can be related to syntax via the Move-α process.

Astrophysics has contributed more than its fair share to the advancement of linguistics. The concepts of “inferior conjunction” and “superior conjunction” were just what we needed to explain why it bugs us whenever our pretentious colleague uses as where because would do just fine. Along similar lines, our feelings about if’n are perfectly well summed up by the term opposition.

General relativity can be applied to the meta-analysis of linguistic theory papers. Like black holes, it has long been debated whether or not it is possible to extract information from them.

Particle physics also has extensive linguistic applications. According to recent linguophysical theories, there may exist a class of particles known as “illocutionary force carriers.” In addition, up and down quarks are thought to play some role in tone upstep and downstep. Other particles that may be involved in linguistic and academic writing include the graviton, which produces gravitas, and the gluon, which holds theories together. Currently there is no evidence for the existence of either of these. Another postulated particle is the Higgins Boson, which lends sociolinguistic weight to dialects. Once construction of the Suprasegmental Supercollider is completed, it will at last be possible to test these conjectures empirically.

The work of Clotron, et al., still stands as the leading edge theory in nuclear linguistics. Nevertheless, linguistic physics has led to brand new discoveries, such as using the Linguistic Interference Gaussian Observer to uncover the exact shape of gaggles of graduate students around a keynote speaker: a finding that proved the existence of ego-gravitational waves.

Of course, the insights can and should flow both ways. We suggest that physicists may find great value in calquing Construction Grammar into their theoretical framework, as it may lead to the revelation that even the most fundamental facts and forces are nothing more than mere conventions that matter has adopted from the physical community in which it finds itself.³