Linguimericks—Book ९५ SpecGram Vol CXCIII, No 1 Contents Trapezity: a modest proposal for a new typological category—Nathan W. Hill

Overheard* in the Linguistics Student Lounge

Chesterton “Chez Moi” Wilburfors Gilchrist, IV
Grad Student Union Steward, United Linguistics Workers**
Second-Year Grad Student, Dept. of Lexicology and Glottometrics
Devonshire-upon-Glencullen University, Southampton

All names have been changed to protect the guilty innocent.

Preterite: The Latin word for “person” and the Greek word for “same” sound alike. It’s a homophone.
Doublespeak: They’re (probably) not homophonous as the former (homō) has initial syllable stress and a long second vowel while the latter (ὁμός) has second syllable stress and a short vowel. Further, do we know that Latin and the Greek rough breathing were both [h]? I don’t know whether they were or weren’t but I know I don’t know that they were.
Doublespeak: So actually, anti- and ante- (while both Latin) are better examples of (near) homophonous yet semantically distinct classical prefixes. This allows the following paraphrase of “I was somewhat against Formicidae before I knew my mother’s sister” as “I was anti-anty, ante Auntie.”

More to come...


* My Grandpapá—Chesterton Wilburfors Gilchrist, Jr., of “Reanalysis of Spanish by Naïve Linguists” fame—impressed upon me from an early age the potentially career-making value of eavesdropping serendipitous fieldwork. As I am not—yet!—the eavesdropper serendipitous fieldworker my Grandpapá is, and I don’t—yet!—have his ear for finding meaningfully meaningful meaning in overheard conversations, I will keep publishing the data of my informants until I, too, make an important contribution to linguistics!

** This Research is gratefully sponsored by the ULŋW Local #1729.

Linguimericks—Book ९५
Trapezity: a modest proposal for a new typological category—Nathan W. Hill
SpecGram Vol CXCIII, No 1 Contents