Coffee and Brainz
Reason why I’m not a syntactician #87
Can I dance my syntax paper on verb movement in Scandinavian languages in the light of the synchronic/diacronic dichotomy (yeah, that’s a mouthful, I need something catchier and shorter)?
Because sincerely, I feel that it would be a lot clearer than anything I could ever write! I’ve been listening to the same song (from the We don’t live here anymore soundtrack) over and over again while working on this, and I swear my thoughts are perfectly in sync with the tune! My syntax professor is sort of eccentric, maybe she would go for it!
Enrollment issues
I swore to myself that I wasn’t gonna take as many classes next semester, since I’ll have to concentrate more on my research (and trying to keep up with 5 grad courses and a research project is exhausting)! That was until the course offering for Fall 2012 was out! Here’s what I have to choose from:
- Structure of Old English
- Old Church Slavonic
- History of the Romance Languages
- Language Typology
- Yiddish Linguistics
- Old Norse
Except maybe for History of Romance Languages, none of these are particularly relevant for my current research, but I still have to come up with an idea for a second A-paper (Cornell’s idea of quals, more or less) and although I have a few very very general areas of interest in mind, I’d still like to try new things.
I already know that I have to take Semantics I and the Indo-European Workshop, and that I’m teaching beginner French four times a week. Given that, the question is, how many classes is too many classes? Can I take four and get away with it, or should I painfully restrict myself to three + teaching + research?
Do you have ideas? Opinions? Commentaries?
The program for NAPhC7 is out!
The program for the seventh North American Phonology Conference is out! Hoping to see you all in Montreal in May for a festive two days of phonology! :)
Languages are in some sense alive. They’re born, they reproduce and evolve, and some ultimately die. As major languages such as English, Spanish, and Chinese increasingly dominate our interconnected world, many other languages face the threat of going extinct.
At a AAAS symposium on Friday, 17 February, researchers will discuss how social media, online audio dictionaries, and other tools are revitalizing some endangered languages, helping to preserve this important part of human culture. Join us at a special time, 3 p.m. EST Friday 17, February, when several of the speakers will be with us on ScienceLive to take readers’ questions on the past, present, and future of languages. You can leave your questions beforehand in the comments section on this page.
