The Midterm

• You’ll walk in, sit down, and begin the test

• 40 Scantron-based Multiple Choice questions, 1 short answer, one long answer

• Plan to write 1/2 page (or less) for the long answer

• You’ll have until 11:54 to complete the exam

• Bring a Number 2 pencil!

• If you miss the exam, you’ve either got a doctor’s note or a zero

Your Friend!

Things you will need to do

• Match languages to families

• Match features to language families

• Understand linguistic concepts

• Analyze a very basic dataset

• Bring a Number 2 pencil!

Things you will not need to do

• Repeat language-specific details

  • No “What is the Ergative case marker in Nepali?”

• Remember how many people speak a given language

• Remember sub-families outside of Indo-European

The Long Answer

• Plan on half a page maximum.

• Concise and complete answers are very possible to some of the questions.

• Remember, you’re showing your knowledge of the material, not trying to sell me anything.

• Please skip the “Fusional Morphology is a really important part of language, and is perhaps the greatest phenomenon ever…” niceties :)

• You’ve had the questions for almost two weeks. Make sure your thoughts are in order before you come in.

Multiple Choice Tips

• Eliminate the obviously wrong answers first

  • I can’t resist the occasional joke answer. It’ll usually be “E”.

• If you don’t have the answer, circle the contenders on your test sheet and come back.

• Choose the best answer

Let’s talk about that

Which of the below features is not commonly associated with Caucasian languages?

1. Agglutinative Morphology

2. Ejective consonants

3. Scarcity of vowels

4. Ergative/Absolutive Case Systems

5. Templatic Morphology

All rules have exceptions

• Ewe has no Noun Classes, but Niger-Congo usually does

• English has no grammatical gender, but Germanic usually does.

• Chechen and Ingush have a bunch of vowels, but Caucasian languages usually don’t.

  • (There’s vowel-sparseness in many widely-spoken NE Caucasian languages (e.g. Lezgin, Avar, Lak))

• Few of these generalizations about families are always true.

“Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!”

… but we don’t even need to worry about these exceptions

Which of the below features is not commonly associated with Caucasian languages?

1. Agglutinative Morphology

2. Ejective consonants

3. Scarcity of vowels

4. Ergative/Absolutive Case Systems

5. Templatic Morphology

Which of the below features is not commonly associated with Caucasian languages?

1. Agglutinative Morphology

2. Ejective consonants

3. Scarcity of vowels

4. Ergative/Absolutive Case Systems

e. Templatic Morphology

Even if “Scarcity of vowels” has some exceptions, “Templatic morphology” is not remotely associated with Caucasian.

“Scarcity of vowels” is not the answer you’re looking for.

On exams, as in life, choose the best answer.

• We try to always give one great answer, even if some of the others seem iffy.

  • … and if you think there really are two very right answers, please do ask (tactfully)!

Any Midterm questions?

Oh English, you so crazy

LING 1020 - Will Styler

“Why can’t these immigrants just learn English?!?”

“Uh, have you looked at English lately??”

Nearly every part of this language is completely bizarre.

• Non-Native Speakers: You know the deal.

Let’s look at this from an outsider’s perspective

???
???:??? - ???

Adriano Celetano - Prisencolinensinainciusol

The Sound System

/ɹ/eally?

• Very few languages use /ɹ/

  • Mandarin Chinese shares this crazy

• We’ve got a bunch of ways to make it

/ð/ and /θ/

• Interdental sounds are fairly rare, too

• They’re considered rude in many cultures

Our vowel system

• / i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, ə, ʌ, ɑ, ɔ, ʊ, u /

• /aj, oj, ej, ow, aw/

• Few languages have us beat

  • (Rub it in, Danish)

Date vs. Debt

Date

Debt

?

??

???

Let’s do an experiment!

????

So yeah, our vowel system is crazy

All of this crazy is concealed by…

The Writing System

Ghoti

Ghoti

• “gh” from “rough”

• “o” from “women”

• “ti” from “action”

• Pronounced like “Fish”

Knight

Then, we use these sounds to do silly things in the rest of the language

Prepositions

I’ve got a conference [at/in] Hellems

• *I’ve got a conference at Indiana

• ?I’ve got a conference at Indianapolis

• I’ve got a conference at the Marriott in Indianapolis

WTF?

I’ve got a meeting on Friday

• I’ve got a meeting in August

• I’ve got a meeting at 3pm

• I’ve got a meeting during lunch

• I’ve got a meeting ø next week

Am I getting my point to/through/by/across to you?

• I’m no good at/when/for explaining these things in/at/through lectures.

Plurality

Fish.

Fish.

Fishes.

Leaf -> Leaves

• Wife -> Wives

• Staff -> ??

The plural of “staff” is…

1. Staffs (rhymes with “graphs”)

2. Staffs (rhymes with “calves”)

3. Staves (rhyme with “caves”)

4. Stife (because English.)

Staffs

Staves

Mouse -> Mice

• Louse -> Lice

• House -> Hice, right?

• Spouse -> …

Polygamy adds spice to life!

• (This is a language joke, not a political statement)

Count vs. Mass nouns

• I have a car

  • This is a “count noun”

• *I have a sand.

  • This is a “mass noun”

• * I ate an asparagus

• I ate a french fry

• ---

Count nouns can be treated like mass nouns

• I saw a raccoon on the road

• I saw some raccoons on the road

• I saw some raccoon on the road

Speaking of dead animals…

I have cow with English

What’d you have for dinner?

• ?I had cow.

  • Needs to be “beef”

• ?I had pig.

  • “Pork”

• ?I had deer

  • “Venison”

• I had chicken.

• I had lamb

Animals are count nouns, foods are mass nouns

• I hugged three pigs, *I ate three porks

• I bought some cows, I bought some beef

(Yet, Will has several beefs with Michael Bay)

• Beeves?

Affixes

English has lots of prefixes and suffixes

• i-
  • As in “iPhone”, “iPad”, “iMac”, “iDock”, “iBrator”
• -sauce
  • As in “sadsauce”, “awesomesauce”, ?“concisesauce”, ?“pedanticsauce”
• -holic/-holism
  • As in “alcoholic”, “chocoholic”, “workaholic”, “enchiladaholism”, ?“phonologoholic”

… but it has exactly one infix

Infix

A affix which is inserted into the middle of the word

Will I tell you what it is?

• Abso-fucking-lutely

“Fucking” is the only infix in the English language

• … and it has very strict rules where it can go

Add a -fucking- infix to the word “constitutional”

1. Cons-fucking-titutional

2. Consti-fucking-tutional

3. Constitu-fucking-tional

4. Constitution-fucking-al

Expletives must occur immediately prior to the stressed syllable

• “Missi-fucking-sippi”

  • *Miss-fucking-isippi

• “He’s a deon-fucking-tologist”

• “Antidisestablishmen-fucking-tarianism”

It’s about time we learned the rule for that!

It

It ate my homework

• It’s getting hot in here

• It burns when I eat Habañeros

• It sucks when Michael Bay remakes your childhood favorites

• It’s about time we fix our writing system

Shouldn’t we do something about that?

• Which means the same thing as “Should we do something about that?”

  • Go home English, you’re drunk.

    • (Shouldn’t that be “drinked”)?

I give up

• Speaking of which…

Verb particle constructions

Verb Particle Constructions

When a verb has a different meaning when coupled with a particular preposition or particle

Cut - to slice

• Cut in - To offer somebody a part of a venture

• Cut out - To stop something, or remove somebody from a venture, or lose audio

• Cut with - To adulterate a drug

• Cut off - To cease financial support, or merge leaving too little space

  • … or remove a smaller part than the whole

• Cut it - To suffice for a task

Cut continued

• Cut up - To slice into small pieces

• Cut down - To shorten something

• Cut across/through - To shorten one’s route by traversing an open space

• Cut on - To repeatedly make small cutting strokes at the periphery of an object

• Cut back - To reduce an existing option or investment, travel back in story

Sometimes, we don’t know if we want the verb particle construction, or the preposition!

Cut up the center of the fabric

Cut up the center of the fabric

These differences can have major consequences

“Jackie stole my lunchbox…”

• “… then she threw my lunch up on the roof”

• “… then she threw up my lunch on the roof”

Then there’s the really crazy stuff

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

• This is a fully grammatical sentence

  • Buffalo NY, Buffalo (the animal), and the verb “buffalo” (to bully)

• “New York bison whom other New York bison bully, themselves bully New York bison”.

It’s not just English!

English happens to be absolutely insane

• It’s filled with irregularities, weirdnesses, odd constructions, and other silliness

• … but that’s no different than any other language.

All languages are crazy!

• We’re simplifying languages left and right for this class

  • Partly because we don’t have the time

  • … and because if we didn’t, you’d run screaming

The Real Russian Case System

Spanish Verbal Hell

… and that craziness is why linguists love language so much!

Wrapping up

• English is bat-poop cray-cray, in so many ways

  • (Partly because you understood that sentence)

• … but so is every other language

• That’s why we love them

• Second language learners are fighting an uphill battle. Be kind!

In Recitation: Exam Review - Part 2!

Next time: The Joy (??) of Fieldwork with Sam Beer

No reading.

Thank you!