A Walk in the WoRds

Linguistics Christmas Humor

2009-12-21T05:41:00.003-05:00

What do you call Santa's helpers?

V
V

Subordinate Clauses.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Diagramming Sentences

2009-12-18T06:51:00.002-05:00

Why no one diagrams sentences anymore.

Where Was the Girl? - Sentence Ambiguity Diagrammed

2009-12-16T06:45:00.001-05:00

Harry ordered a drink for the girl at the bar.

The girl at the bar is the one Harry ordered the drink for.

Harry ordered a drink, at the bar, for the girl (the girl sitting at a table? the girl in the bathroom? the girl across the street?).

Syntax really can be fun.

The Glenlivit Syntax Tree

2009-12-14T05:27:00.001-05:00

Instead of the traditional Christmas tree for the holidays, it looks to me like Glenlivit is giving away syntax trees in their new ad campaign.

While it is not an accurate syntax tree, can you see why this ad immediately brought to mind syntax trees?

Apostrophe Errors Part 2 - Ladie's Room

2009-12-12T17:43:00.000-05:00

The sign for the women's restroom at one of our local taverns is a plaque that reads "women", unfortunately, a holiday wreath is covering the regular sign so the sign pictured below has been placed on the door temporarily. I have stopped having a beer with my burger during the holidays.

For more on restroom apostrophe errors click here.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Dependent Clauses

2009-12-11T06:18:00.000-05:00

A Portmanteau-Titled Word Book

2009-12-09T17:02:00.009-05:00

As a word lover, I have always enjoyed reading books about words and I have just heard about a new word book that I plan on purchasing based solely on the one-word name of the book. The name of the book is an outstanding portmanteau word that was created by the author. I love the word for two reasons: it is the perfect portmanteau to describe what the book is about and it is just plain fun to say.

Anonyponymous

Anonyponymous, as its subtitle reveals, is about, "the forgotten people behind everyday words." The author, John Bemelmans Marciano, has written about eponymous words including cardigan, crapper, and frisbee and about the people for whom these words were named.

In talking about John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, Marciano states the following:

"He is a man who is almost anonymous despite the eponymous use of his name in everyday language."

For the record, here are the definitions that lend themselves to the success of the portmanteau word: (from http://www.thefreedictionary.com)

e·pon·y·mous
adj. Of, relating to, or constituting an eponym.

ep·o·nym
n. A word or name derived from the name of a person.

a·non·y·mous
adj. Having an unknown or unacknowledged name

It really is a fun word to say. Give it a try...anonyponymous

More Movement with Subordination

2009-12-09T07:04:00.002-05:00

In a previous post that explained the difference between subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, I mentioned that there are different types of dependent clauses that are attached to independent clauses with subordinating conjunctions; I also mentioned that these clauses deserved their own post. So here it is -

The types of dependent clauses include: nominal, adverbial and adjectival clauses.
(Blogger didn't like the program I created this chart in so I had to copy it as a screen print)

Semantically, nominal clauses answer the question "what?", and adverbial clauses answer the questions "how, when, where or why?". Adjectival clauses also answer the question "what?", but they require the movement of the preceding noun phrase along with the subordinating conjunction to answer the question.

As with determining whether a conjunction is subordinating or coordinating, the method of determining whether a dependent clause is nominal, adverbial or adjectival involves movement. Try moving the subordinating conjunction and the dependent clause to the front of the independent clause. Depending on how the clause moves, you will be able to determine the clause type. When I say "how the clause moves", I mean, does it require any additional words to form a grammatical sentence.

Adverbial clauses are the easiest to move in a sentence because they require no extra words to help them move.

Before movement: I haven't been back to Ipanema since I was a kid.

After movement: Since I was a kid, I haven't been back to Ipanema.

Nominal clauses require the addition of a "'to be' what" phrase (is what or are what).

Before movement: We were told that we couldn't cross the street without looking both ways.

After movement: That we couldn't cross the street without looking both ways is what we were told.

Adjectival clauses require the addition of a "'to be' what" phrase and require the noun phrase that precedes the subordinating conjunction to move with the subordinating conjunction and the dependent clause.

Before movement: I remember the ocean that smelled so salty.
After movement: The ocean that smelled so salty is what I remember.

Now, for the fun of it, let's take another look at the first sentence in this post:

In a previous post that explained the difference between subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, I mentioned that there are different types of dependent clauses that are attached to independent clauses with subordinating conjunctions (that there are different types of dependent clauses...is what I mentioned. NOMINAL) (different types of dependent clauses that are attached to independent clauses...is what there are. ADJECTIVAL).

Gnos a Gnis

2009-12-07T06:59:00.000-05:00

Thank you to Language Log for bringing this awesome video to my attention.

A Volt of Color and a Wonderful Name

2009-12-05T16:59:00.000-05:00

A good friend who works for GM sent me this article from a company newsletter that came out this week:

Consumers Choose ‘Viridian Joule’ as Winning Color Name for Volt Paint Contest. David Thomas, 40, of Sanford, Fla., has won Chevrolet’s national contest to name the Volt’s lead paint color and the opportunity to be the first consumer to test-drive a pre-production Volt. Nearly 3,000 people cast their votes at chevroletvoltage.com for Thomas’ “Viridian Joule.” Voting ended yesterday, and Chevrolet announced the winner in Los Angeles.“I looked at the photo of the Volt on the contest web site and thought it looked emerald in color, which led to jewel and then to an alternate yet appropriate play on that word – joule (a unit of electrical energy),” said Thomas.

To read the press release click here.

Following are definitions for the words that make up the color name and the car model from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/.

Volt: The International System unit of electric potential and electromotive force, equal to the difference of electric potential between two points on a conducting wire carrying a constant current of one ampere when the power dissipated between the points is one watt.

Viridian: A durable bluish-green pigment.
[From Latin viridis, green; see virid.]

Joule: 1. The International System unit of electrical, mechanical, and thermal energy.
2. a. A unit of electrical energy equal to the work done when a current of one ampere is passed through a resistance of one ohm for one second.
b. A unit of energy equal to the work done when a force of one newton acts through a distance of one meter.

and of course -

Jewel: A precious stone; a gem.

What an outstandingly appropriate homophone; I can see why Thomas’ "Viridian Joule" was chosen. Congratulations.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Facebook's Functional Shift

2009-12-04T06:46:00.001-05:00

Linguistics Humor - Pull Over Versus Pullover

2009-12-02T06:36:00.008-05:00

A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway. Glancing at the car, he was astounded to see that the woman behind the wheel was knitting.

The trooper cranked down his window and yelled to the driver, "PULL OVER".

"NO", the woman yelled back, "SCARF".

Morphophonology Rules (Actually, I Prefer Syntax and Semantics)

2009-11-30T07:03:00.001-05:00

Following is a reader's comment on a recent post about paraprosdokians.

I've always loved gags like this -- "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my father, not screaming and terrified like his passengers." — Bob Monkhouse

I never knew they had a name, so I did a Google search to find the proper pronunciation. Forvo.com says it's pronounced "para pros DOK ian," which is what I expected to find. However, the droll Brit at howjsay.com seems to have added a vowel where none exists in the spelling: "PARA pros(o) dokian."Is that an example of metathesis ?

And here is my response:

That would actually be an example of the morphophonological rule of insertion. Insertion is when a sound is inserted between two morphemes either for ease of articulation (to make the word easier to pronounce), or for ease of perception (to make it easier to hear every sound in a word), or both. British English speakers must not like having the morpheme /pras/ followed by the morpheme /dok/. I would guess that they insert the /o/ more for ease of perception than ease of articulation because the /s/ is in a syllable coda (end of the syllable) and the following /d/ is in a syllable onset (start of the syllable). Because the sounds in question are in two separate syllables, pronunciation should not be an issue. Are there any British English speakers who care to comment? I would love to hear from you.

I thought I would reprint this comment exchange because I always enjoy it when a post of mine piques a reader's curiosity and because I truly would love to hear what other readers think.

Fun with Semiotics - Assicons

2009-11-27T06:32:00.001-05:00

From an e-mail I received (talk about having fun with semiotics).

We all know those cute little computer symbols called 'emoticons' where
:) means a smile and :( is a frown.

Well, how about some 'ASSICONS?'

Here goes:

(_!_) a regular ass

(__!__) a fat ass

(!) a tight ass

(_*_) an ass hole

{_!_} a swishy ass

(_o_) an ass that's been around

(_x_) kiss my ass

(_X_) leave my ass alone

(_zzz_) a tired ass

(_13_) an unlucky ass

(_E=mc2_) a smart ass

(_$_) money coming out of his ass

(_?_) dumb ass

(_~_) a latin ass

(_/_) an Asian ass

(_+_) a French ass

As for me, I am feeling like a (__!__) and a (_zzz_) after yesterday's Thanksgiving feast.

Click here for more about semiotics.

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T06:42:00.000-05:00

I Have Been Moved to Explain the Difference Between Coordinating and Subordinating Conjunctions

2009-11-23T06:48:00.002-05:00

When it comes to determining whether a conjunction that joins clauses is a coordinating conjunction or a subordinating conjunction, there is a simple syntactic movement test that will reveal the answer.

To start with, coordinating conjunctions join independent clauses and the conjunction doing the joining is not attached to either clause. (The above "and" is a coordinating conjunction)

Subordinating conjunctions join dependent clauses to independent clauses and the conjunction doing the joining is attached to the dependent clause. (The above "and" is also a coordinating conjunction)

So, what does movement have to do with this?

Look at the examples below:

1. Joe loves snowboarding and Jack loves skiing.

2. Jack loves skiing because Joe loves snowboarding.

To determine which type of conjunction each sentence has, try moving the conjunction and its following clause to the front of each sentence.

Here are the resulting sentences:

1. *And Jack loves skiing, Joe loves snowboarding.

2. Because Joe loves snowboarding, Jack loves skiing.

The ungrammaticality of sentence 1 is marked with the asterisk.

The fact that the conjunction in sentence 2 can move with the clause that follows it, indicates that the conjunction is attached to the clause and thus the clause is dependent; in other words, the clause is subordinate to the main clause in the sentence and is linked by a subordinating conjunction.

By the way...There are different types of dependent clauses, but I will save talking about them for another day, because they deserve special attention. (The above "but" is a coordinating conjunction and the "because" is a subordinating conjunction)

*But I will save them for another day, there are different types of subordinating conjunctions.

Because they deserve special attention, I will save talking about them for another day.

2010 Winter Olympics-Bound U.S. Ski Team - Ad Agency Wipes-Out on Word Choice

2009-11-20T14:22:00.014-05:00

Just spotted this verb subcatagorization blunder in a magazine ad for the 2010 Winter Olympics-bound U.S. Ski Team.

"Some gates bend, and some just lay down in fear."

To refresh your memory, transitive verbs take objects, intransitive verbs don't. "Lay" is a transitive verb and there is not a direct object following "lay" in this sentence.

In other words, the framework of this sentence, minus the second verb, requires an intransitive verb.

I sure hope the U.S. Ski Team doesn't lay an egg at the Olympics. If they do, I will lie down and cry.

Click here for more on "lay vs. lie".

P.S. In my punctuationally-challenged mind, I think "Vancouver" and "Bound" should be hyphenated.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Syntax Errors

2009-11-20T06:56:00.001-05:00

Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Nonsensical Semantics

2009-11-18T07:11:00.000-05:00

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

-Noam Chomsky

Syntactically sound but semantically senseless sentence created by Noam Chomsky in 1957 to demonstrate the need for more structured models of grammar.

The First in a Series of Occasional Linguistics Quizzes

2009-11-16T06:39:00.001-05:00

The fact that native Spanish speakers have difficulty pronouncing the English word "skate" indicates that English and Spanish______

a. are prescriptive languages.
b. have different phonotactic constraints.
c. are nearly impossible to learn.
d. are not rule governed.

For answer click here.

Victor Borge's Phonetic Punctuation

2009-11-14T07:29:00.000-05:00

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Schwas

2009-11-13T07:06:00.000-05:00

susanohanian.org

Phonemetry - The Schwa

2009-11-11T06:49:00.000-05:00

Phoneme + Poetry = poetry about phonemes

A curvaceous young phoneme called schwa
Said "I never feel strong. It's bizarre!
I'm retiring and meek
And I always sound weak
But in frequency counts - I'm the star!"

from One Stop English

I saw this poem while looking for additional IPA resources for my students. I immediately fell in love with it and thought I would share it with my readers.

P.S. The portmanteau is my creation.

The First in a Series of Occasional Linguistics Quizzes - Answer

2009-11-10T16:03:00.001-05:00

The correct answer to the First in a Series of Occasional Linguistics Quizzes is b.

English and Spanish have different phonotactic constraints.

While the /sk/ consonant cluster is perfectly acceptable to English speakers and is not usually even given a second thought, the cluster is not a psychological reality to Spanish speakers. Because Spanish speakers do not recognize the cluster, their phonotactic constraints do not allow the /sk/ cluster to appear in the same syllable. The result is Spanish speakers will insert the vowel /e/ before the cluster which forms another syllable and breaks apart the /sk/cluster.

English
/sket/

Spanish
/es ket/

Restaurant Reduplication

2009-11-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

Food Network has a fun show called Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The show visits restaurants that fall under the aforementioned category and shares some of the restaurants' recipes.

A recent episode was titled "You Can Say That Again", and included visits to the following restaurants:

Tap Tap Restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida
Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon
Niko Niko's in Houston, Texas

While the food looked very tasty at each of the restaurants, I had more fun with the reduplicative restaurant names.

Linguistically speaking, "reduplication" is a morphological process that occurs in many languages to different degrees and for different purposes. Basically, it is the repetition of all or part of a word. In some languages reduplication has a grammatical function (inflecting for plurality or intensifying) and in others it is used primarily for phonological word play (rhyming, baby talk, etc.).

For more about reduplication check out this Wikipedia article.

On a side note: Does anyone else find the word "reduplication" to be slightly redundant?

If you are duplicating something you are essentially re-doing what has already been done; hence, reduplicating is akin to re-re-doing. I know it is possible to re-re-do things but there has to be a limit. Additionally, linguistic reduplication generally only repeats the word or word part one time so the word "duplication" should suffice.

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And on a completely separate note (for those who cannot tolerate apostrophe abuse): What the heck is that at the top right corner of the "s" at the end of "drive-ins" on the publicity photo for the show?

I hope it is just the funky font and it is really supposed to be a part of the "s", but on a quick glance it look like an apostrophe.