Speculative Grammarian Podcast

Texan for Linguists; by Katy Jo Parker and Truman ‘Tex’ Beauregard; From Volume CLXI, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, April 2011 — This article is not about the descriptively interesting linguistic features of Texan dialects of English (such as incipient “fixin’”, singular “they”, modal stacking, second person plural “y’all”, “ain’t” and “cain’t”, “bidness”, “coke” for “soda”, etc.) nor is it about any of the interesting Spanish-related linguistic phenomena in Texas (such as “Spanglish”, Chicano and Tejano English, code-switching, or Pachuco slang). (Read by Trey Jones.)

Video: Verner’s Law, Parts 1-3; by Ari Hoptman. Part 1 deals with the “discovery” of the first consonant shift, which, in effect, gave birth to the Germanic languages. Part 2 deals with Verner’s Law itself, an exception to the first consonant shift. Part 3 discusses some problems scholars have encountered with Verner’s Law. Used by permission.

Adaptive Heuristic Caching in Name Recall; by Trey Jones; From Volume CXLIX, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, January 2004 — This paper will present a brief case study and provide data pertaining to an apparently inconsistent linguistic behavior concerning name recall. This inconsistency will be resolved by means of a novel computational explanation for the phenomenon. (Read by Trey Jones.)

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone once again. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss some problems with (the) French, and reveal their least favorite subdisciplines of linguistics.

Linguistics and Television; by C Robson; From Volume CLXVI, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2013 — It occurred to me the other day that despite a great range of educational channels available to the modern television viewer, it appears that linguistics has been somewhat ignored. Try as you might, but your cable or satellite provider will sadly not feature “Channel Schwa”, for it does not exist. (Read by Veronika Reeve.)

Obituary for Simon M. Tating; From Volume CLXVI, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2012 — Prof. Simon M. Tating, 63, of Farborough, passed away 19th November 2012 attempting to learn the pronunciation of certain Bantu words involving various voiceless implosive phonemes. (Read by Trey Jones.)

On the Quantum Nature of Linguistic Fame—A Reply to Slater; by Cadwallader Colden; From Volume CLXVII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, June 2013 — Dear Sirs: / Your a̶u̶g̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶e̶r̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶o̶n̶o̶u̶r̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶e̶s̶t̶i̶m̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶d̶i̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶u̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶c̶c̶a̶s̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ journal recently published a sketch of a mathematical model for the fame of a linguistic theory. While it deserves some small credit for broaching the topic, perhaps brief mention in a footnote forty years down the line in a little-read and oft-forgotten book of quaint and curious lore for the entertainment of amateurs, fanboys, and other innumerate juvenile delinquents, it is itself muddled and befuddled and would only serve to muddle the issue and befuddle others were it published where genuine scholars might actually read it. (Read by Cathal Peelo.)

Fifty Grades of A; by i ɛl dʒemz; From Volume CLXV, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, July 2012 — Get the book that everyone’s talking about... (Read by Trey Jones, Cathal Peelo, Claude Searsplainpockets, Veronika Reeve, and Brianne Hughes.)

Optimality Theory Was a Hoax—Prince and Smolensky finally come clean; by SpecGram Wire Services; From Volume CLXVI Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2013 — At a tearful news conference during the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Allen Prince confessed that Optimality Theory was a hoax. “I just can’t live with the lies any longer,” he said. (Read by Brianne Hughes.)

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXVII — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone this time. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the grammaticalization of "slash" and review some Comprehensive Exam questions and answers.

The Mandarin Informant; by Scott Belden and Shadrack M. Kakui;

A Student’s Guide to the History of Linguistics Based on Example Sentences; by Franz Neumayer; From Volume CLXII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, August 2011 — The following sentences exemplify important concepts in linguistics, and relate them to the linguists whose names are most associated with their development. They are provided as a service to MA students reviewing for comprehensive exams. (Read by Trey Jones.)

Linguist Sues Language Community; by SpecGram Wire Services; From Volume CLXVI, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, January 2013 — Graduate student Simon Ticks, of University of Minnesota Department of Linguistics, is suing a White Hmong village in Northern Thailand for failing to provide the evidence needed for his dissertation project. (Read by Veronika Reeve.)

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Computational Linguist, Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill, Chomsky—A New Game for Every Linguist; by Phlange Kadigan; From Volume CLVII, Number 3, Speculative Grammarian, November 2009 — We are almost all quite familiar with the game commonly known as Rock-Paper-Scissors (also known in some circles as Rochambeau), in which two opponents face off, simultaneously choosing a hand shape to represent one of the three eponymous “weapons”. The interest in the game stems from the non-transitivity of the superiority of the weapons. (Read by Trey Jones.)

Strings and Things: A Unificational Meta-Theory for All Linguistics; by Trent Slater; From Volume CLXVII, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, May 2013 — Despite the best efforts in those sciences that ignore the importance of morphological historiography, it has so far proved impossible to provide one theory to rule them all. Thus, as head of the largest group of linguistic meta-theoreticians in the Whole World, I feel that it falls to me to propose and prove a Grand Theory of Everything Linguistic. (Read by Cathal Peelo.)