It’s been way, way, way too long

Wow.  It’s been so long since I’ve posted here that I almost forgot about it.  Several people have left some comments and I’m sorry I haven’t replied, but I somehow don’t get the emails when someone leaves a comment.  Sorry.

Anyway, I’d like to start posting here more often in order for me to get out some ideas (or other psycho-neurolinguistic matters).  My interests have slightly changed since my last post almost a year-and-a-half ago.  I’m much more into (English) lexical processing now.  So I now do things like masked priming studies (psycholinguistics) and EEG experiments (neuro).  My thesis will be on the decomposition of morphologically complex words in English, primarily productive and unproductive suffixes.  I’d like to post more of this soon.

I hope to get some feedback from anyone on this topic either now or when I start posting some topics.  It will help to clear out my thoughts.  

The Lady Brizendine

The mess with Dr. Louann Brizendine on LanguageLog has prompted be to accidentally fall upon this article in the New York Times Magazine, published 10 December 2006. The following quote is from a question about women using 20,000 words per day while men apparently use 7,000.

The real phraseology of that should have been that a woman has many more communication events a day — gestures, words, raising of your eyebrows.

I think it’s a pretty weak Q & A session, but that’s just me and my criticalness towards this matter. But what they hey…we’re all entitled to our opinions, whether ignorant or not. She’s very opinionated, so I, too, will be opinionated (after all, two wrongs may not make a right, but it makes you feel better). Personally, I don’t like her looks. But I sometimes judge arrogance on looks. She could be the identical twin to a philosophy professor I once knew. She, too, was arrogant. But this is not the issue at hand. I just thought I’d give my two-cents worth of opinions.

Yeah, I know him…

How do we know what words are? Do we need context? Or does the single lexical item suffice? That’s too broad of a question for this post, so I’ll just post a word and I wanna see if anyone knows about it. I can guarantee that this word, as is, in isolation will not be as quickly recognized as in context. There are other factors involved as well, but let’s just start here for today.

n*****as
n*******as
n***as
n****as

(yes, they are all the same word. The only question is which one is which?)

I am always annoyed by this. Maybe it’s a virus…

Words and/in pages

I think the strangest thing is when we think of an advanced degree program requirements in anomalous  ways. Take this, for example.

These degrees are supervised by Professor X, and result in a written research thesis of around 80,000 words.

Wow. 80,000 words? Okay, so that’s roughly 320 pp, so why couldn’t they say 320 pp? In this publications defense, it is from the UK. But then that makes me wonder about the way they perceive not just situations differently from the way we do here in the states, but the way that advanced degree programs are perceived. Personally, I think this is torture only because it’s harder to look at and absorb such a large number. Would you rather hear 80,000 or 320? I would choose 320. But that’s just me.

It is true that we have to keep in mind that although 80,000 is large, it is measured in words, as opposed to pages. There’s a difference. Conceptually, a page (or pages, whatever) is larger than, say, a word, since words are the things that fit onto a page. So something seems to happen when we say 320 pages as opposed to 80,000 words. Something in our mind neutralizes these numbers and they somehow become one-of-the-same. My guess is that it happens because since the concept itself is large and that includes a small(er) number,  it becomes of the same level with 80,000 since that large number is part of a small measuring unit (words per page).

So does this mean that concepts are scarier than the words? Or is it that they are the same? Do they play off of each other? Neutralize each other?

Weird. Maybe someone knows something about this.

The brief hiatus should be over…(very) soon

I need to apologize for the delay in posting. There have been many, many things happening in my life, both prior to school starting and as it started.

Many of you don’t know, but I started this year at a new school in the grad program. Therefore, there is a lot to get used to (the normal things). One of the biggest adjustments for me is the way linguistics is taught (the school of thought). Not a world of difference, but enough to make me rethink a few things. So, this has paused my writing here as I try to wrap my brain around a few (new) ideas.

As this progresses, I will write about a few problems. I’ve got one brewing right now in syntax, but I need a better understanding of this matter before I write about it. Just as a preview, it deals with T(ense) and V(erb) categories. The split between the two is slightly new to me (well, okay, pretty damn new, to be honest). I’m not saying anymore, because I may say something untrue or flat-out wrong.

So, again, sorry and there’s definitely more to come.

Are you for cereal?

So when I’m a little bored and restless with myself, I wander into the Urbandictionary. It’s a nifty place to find they new hippest sayings (not that I’m trying to be hip…) defined by the people saying them (I’d hope that’s the case, but I’m sure there are many poseurs posting as well). Anyway, I came across something new (for me) as I was snooping around: for cereal. Yep. That’s it. Not sure about its origin, but it’s interesting, nonetheless, to see how youngsters are processing language these days.

Guntha…the most up-to-date!

Okay, okay. I had to post this because I got a HUGE tip on this word AND its origin. Let me start at the beginning, so this story makes better sense.

Stop stressing

I recently had a conversation with someone on line about a similarly structured sentence,

John and Billy’s dog ran away last night.

Seems easy enough. No problems here. Yep. Whoa….wait. Does that dog belong to John and Billy? Or is it saying that John had a dog and Billy had a dog and they both ran away last night (yes, to shack up in Vegas!). If I had ONLY that context given to me in a survey, written that exact way, I would say the former. However, if there was another example written thusly,

John AND Billy’s dog ran away last night. (CAPS = stress)

A resolve to “yo mothas a guntha”

So I’ve finally contacted people from Myspace and got an answer to the meaning of guntha from a cooperative person. Apparently, it’s simply: fat whore. Now, the only question I am still posing is whether that word (based on the presupposition from it’s definition) can also mean “lazy.”

Yo man, stop being a guntha.
Wuz up, guntha-ass bitch?

Furthermore, I want to ensure that the origin is indeed New Jersey, since this is the only place it’s used in that context based on Myspace searches. I did find a street rapper who is from Brooklyn who uses that word as well, I obviously don’t know his hang-outs, so he might live and hang in NJ. Who knows? But it would be strange for guntha not to have originated in NJ and that be the only place it’s said. If that is the case, why aren’t the youngsters in other areas saying it on Myspace? That would be weird.

A few problems with the Flintstones, et al.

Recently, I’ve wondered about certain coinages that are happening or have happened in the past. For example, last night on Fresh Prince, he offered his “black book” of beauties to a professor who was going through a divorce. Will called it his chicktionary (spelling is of course probably off, but who’s actually an authority on its spelling?). But the thought didn’t come to me last night, it’s actually been bugging me for quite some time. Another great reference for such occurrences is Flintstones. Without spending a lot of time searching online for references from the Flintstones, the one example I do remember is from their flick, Viva Rock Vegas. As I was walking downtown several weeks ago I saw a sign on a local store (the exact phrasing I don’t remember) and a word on it was Kidventure. Anyway, you see the point.

Now, I ask how these coinages came to existence? I’m not saying that when the average person walks down the street and hears or reads such words they won’t know what they are in reference to (which is another excellent topic to be discussed at a later date), but how are they put together the way they are? There’s no sense to them, really. Let’s take a closer look.

When we examine the morphology of dictionary we find three morphemes: dic(t) ‘to say’; -ion- ’state of, result of’; -ary ‘pertaining to; connected with’. Dic(t), here, we can see has absolutely zero relation to gender (male, female, dude, chick, etc.). So all that aside, we can clearly see how you throw those three together to form a word like dictionary, fine. Two question come up for me, though: (i) how is it decided that dic- will be omitted and replaced with chick-, and (ii) what are the rules for such formations?

Well, what else could we try? [A * denotes not ungrammaticality, but rather awkwardness in sound]

*Dudetionary
*femaletionary
*maletionary (this has a strange hint toward missionary)
*penis(t/s)ionary
*vaginationary

At any rate, I think we can begin seeing a pattern of sound in relation to the real word. The prefix must end in a velar plosive [k], which would then be followed by a postalveolar fricative [∫]. But again, it goes beyond looking at what requirements are needed for this transformation to happen. What exactly are the constraints? Why doesn’t it go at the end, e.g. dictionchick? What is it about the two morphemes fused together, -tionary, that causes immediate thought and relation to dictionary? The same is true for the other words I’ve listed: Rock Vegas and kidventure. Where exactly in Las and the letter a do they decide that that would be a good place to replace it with words to fit some real-world description? The instance with the letter a could actually be the prefix ad- ‘to, toward’, but still, what does that seriously have to do with the word adult? I also don’t believe that the ad- in adventure has any reference to ‘adult’ or ‘kid’; it’s just there to form and complete and meaningful word without any “hidden meaning.”

I suppose what I will try is to just throw tionary into a conversation and see what people can construe of it. Language isn’t rocket science, but sometimes it seems like a close descendant of it.

Guntha..

Hey, I was wondering if anyone from the New Jersey area knows about the meaning of guntha. All I’ve seen it in was insults, as in yo motha and yo cuzin a guntha.

But if anyone can help out in terms of what exactly it means, I would be greatful.

Thanks.

LM

UPDATE: No, I still haven’t found out the meaning, but if you’ve gotten here from a Google search of guntha, or the like, I’m still the same person who has posted this question in various places. People are probably getting sick over this guntha business. But at least it’s getting out there, and who knows, maybe even into the Urbandictionary!

Kal-El — superman

i don’t follow comic or the shows that depict certain comic themes, so it’s not a surprise that i’ve never heard of superman having the birthname kal-el (or kal-L). it didn’t take me long to question the origins of the name.

a brief search of the name on google proved nothing but other sites to superman. now, although i am still clueless, i know that the creator(s) could not have randomly created the name; there’s always a reason and a structure to these kinds of things (even of made up languages).

but here’s what i did find: there also exists jor-L (jor-el) and Lora (Lara). so we have three made-up names.

1. Kal-El
2. Jor-El
3. Lora

the third one is obvious, but the other two are troubling. there is definitely something more in the morphology of that name than is apparent now. how it would be parsed i don’t know. what appears to be apparent is that el is a separate morpheme; no doubt about it. now, whether “Kal” would be k-al or ka-l, it’s hard to tell with only three (it’s really only two since lora doesn’t have the same qualities as the other two) names to go off of.

life 101

I found the following in an insert in the new yorker back in 2004, I believe. I can’t find that insert, but I had written all of these down. I know the insert must be in a box since there’s no way I’d throw it away, even on accident!

anyway, check ‘em out. not too shabby.

andy, andy, andy

IMG_0010
Originally uploaded by Cogling.

Although this has nothing to do with lexical matters, it’s cute. Therefore, cute sometimes supercedes anything related to lexical matters.

Andy, sleeping in his usual awkward positions..

Fuck

Here is an article worth reading, although the 73 pp. Might initially seem unworthy. It’s premise is that taboo language should be included in dictionaries, freely spoken and written in our schools and colleges, printed in our newspapers and magazines, and broadcast on radio and television. It makes a great argument for it. Many aspects of the word are also covered, e.g. etymology and the free speech amendment allowing one to even criticize the government (all aspects).

Worth giving a thought to.