SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

The Symptoms and Warning Signs of Framework Psychosis. By Dr. Pill, M.D.. Framework Psychosis, a new and dangerous affliction sweeping through academia like wildfire, is the unhealthy (and unfounded) belief that one’s framework, whatever it may be, is the one true framework. As a public service, I have written up a set of guidelines that will allow concerned individuals to identify those suffering from Framework Psychosis. If you are an academic, I encourage you to post this list in your lounges, labs, lecture halls, and latrines. With your help, we may yet be able to eradicate FP in our lifetime. There is no such thing as a framework free of complications. If you believe you subscribe to one, you may be a ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part ז—Synchronic vs. Diachronic. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. If you have fallen behind, try to catch up. For those who are caught up, a simple explanation of the difference between synchronic contrast and diachronic contrast, illustrated with examples from a couple of the beautiful Romance languages—Spanish and its ancestor, Latin: Synchronic ... Diachronic ... Up next: The Trouble with NLP. References, Barðdal, Jóhanna H. (2001). Case in Icelandic: A Synchronic, Diachronic and Comparative Approach. Blevins, Juliette. (2004). Evolutionary Phonology: The Emergence of Sound ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CXCI, Number 1 Editor-in-Chief, Trey Jones, Executive Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editors, Mikael Thompson, Jonathan Downie, Contributing Editor;s, Pete Bleackley, Deak Kirkham; Associate Editors: Vincent Fish, Mark Mandel; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Luca Dinu, Yuval Wigderson, Editorial Associate, Reed Steiner, Comptroller General, Joey Whitford, More for Phonology Than Morphophonology; September 2021 ... [ more ]

Seeing Double. Chuck Lloyd & Julius Earle. Part of our mission here at SpecGram is to educate as well as ~~mock those who~~ inform. The linguistics community is notorious for using words in ways that may be unfamiliar to people outside the field. This puzzle provides two sets of definitions for some of these words: one as intended by linguists, and one for what their non-linguist friends may hear when they blather on about work at the pub. All of the answer words share a common property that can be used to find a bonus word. The puzzle creators may provide a clue, even if not asked to do so. Morpheme indicating a grammatical function, Felt-tipped pen (6) Tense/aspect for a completed action, ... [ more ]

Hyperglot Derivatives. Polly and Paul E. Glōttidēs, X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies. As new varieties of multilingualism continue to arise, simplistic terms such as polyglot and hyperglot cannot be expected to represent the full diversity of human linguistic competence. Unfortunately, English vocabulary (unlike Eskimo vocabulary), hasn’t even made a pretense of keeping up. Each and every day a new form of super-duper-multilingualism arises, and yet English-speaking linguists have just the one term to describe it. As a public service, we at SpecGram are pleased to offer a small sampling of terms, which may serve to describe some of ... [ more ]

It. Grahmbles Gr’Grah. [Deedles D’Dee is still off on his travels for another few months gathering new material for lingua-verse in the Maldives and the Turks and Caicos Islands. While he’s beavering away for SpecGram in various beachfront hotels, we got his business partner, zebra co-breeder and house-sitter Grahmbles Gr’Grah to pen us a quick rhymin’ verse on some random aspect of grahmmah. Ever one for a two-segment lexeme, Grahmbles has not only gone for it, but gone for it, the lexeme designated 27th most poetrisable by the Poeticisation of Linguistics Society of Swansea in 1927. Let’s get on with it. —Eds.] A rather silly word ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian. Volume CXLVIII, Number 2. January 1998. Speculative Grammarian, Vol CXLVIII, No 2 EDITOR, Tim Pulju ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Trey Jones, Aya Katz, Sérgio Meira, Don Reindl, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATE, John Newell, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. ... [ more ]

How Linguistic Structures Affect the Outcomes of Civilizations. Annie Connie Myst & G. Stuart Dent. Introduction. Charles Darwin thought that languages encapsulated everything a society knew, which is why none of our immigrant grandparents ever figured out how to set the clock on their VCR. If a society hasn’t progressed enough to have a word for eight, they’ll go to bed at 7:00, like Benjamin Franklin’s archetype of a hale, rich, and sage gentleman.¹ Language thus also encodes the sum of the ignorance of all our forefathers, probably because they wouldn’t listen to our foremothers. Some care must be taken before making expansive claims about language. In one well-known ... [ more ]

SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part E—Phonetics vs. Phonology. Hilário Parenchyma, C.Phil. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. We will skip the introduction, as we have been there, done that. Once more into the breach! For this installment in our series on Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, we will turn our attention to Phonetics and Phonology and the difference between the two: Phonetics:, ... Phonology:, ... Thanks to Professor Phlogiston, of the Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn, for the opportunity of a lifetime, as a student, to, on this occasion, share with so many of my fellow linguisticians my views, as illustrated above, concerning matters, which are of such immeasurable import ... [ more ]

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