zompist bboard

My syntax teacher finally taught us trees yesterday. She does weird things with various phrases like instead of using just NPs she'll use "DPs", for "determiner phrases", which dominate NPs... :| I challenged her about it yesterday and she said that it was the "correct" way and that some guy had wr...

But what about when they DO cross? Surely you can't claim that they actually used a different sentence just to avoid having evidence that conflicts with the arbitrary 'straight lines are good' theory of linguistics? Lines aren't present in people's speech. They're drawn by syntacticians. "You can't...

Junes wrote:My problem with most of the traditional approaches to syntax I know of (granted: not that many) is that they ignore the fact that the information is coming in incrementally, rather than in whole sentences.

No they don't. Are you familiar with the term "to be garden-pathed"? If not, I'll explain.

I quite distinctly remember - and I have the notes to back it, at least - that I've been taught that TP does enclose the VP, but not the subject. OTOH, I can see a case be made for TP being further out, so ... Subjects are generated in Spec-VP, and in many languages raises to Spec-TP. When it doesn...

The "Aux" shouldn't be in there. There is no auxiliary for this. There is if you're an X-bar-ist. It's just that it moves down to V and suffixes itself to the verb (affix lowering). At my current level of understanding, I'd be inclined to believe that the tense actually is outside the VP, and there...

finlay wrote:The "Aux" shouldn't be in there. There is no auxiliary for this.

There is if you're an X-bar-ist. It's just that it moves down to V and suffixes itself to the verb (affix lowering).

Miekko wrote:What's worse, though?
Ternary branching or crossing lines?

Crossing lines, because then you might as well not have a theory.

Echobeats wrote:Ternary branching! Heretic!
_________________
Linguistics will become a science when linguists begin standing on one another's shoulders instead of on one another's toes.
?Stephen R. Anderson

I just realised that my post and my signature contradict each other brilliantly.

Ternary branching! Heretic!

And, of course, there's the english "To Go West" meaning "To Die", which I've found ascirbed to a Native American folktale, a thirteenth-century poem, and 19th century English thieve's cant, relating it to hangings at Tyneburn Prison. Well, I've never heard that, but my guess is that it'd be someth...

Harple wrote:I suspect it has something to do with the animated smiley in Khang's sig.

It's always Khang's fault...

Euskera wrote:Um. What happened to this page!?

Seconded.

EDIT: But page two is fine. Very weird. Has someone got some bizarre code in their sig?

() ? brackets [] ? square brackets <> ? angle brackets {} ? curly brackets. Pretty much what I say, except I would usually call "<>" angled brackets. Perhaps that what it's supposed to be and I just never heard the /d/. After all, when writing you generally just write the things themselves rather t...

Trebor wrote:[quote="In the Ephemera thread entitled "Cheney: "Can we torture them? Pretty please?"" started by Feijuada in response to this article, bi"][A lot of stuff]

[/quote]
That was quality!

Except that ( and ) are parentheses. [ and ] are brackets. () ? brackets [] ? square brackets <> ? angle brackets {} ? curly brackets. The only thing I would call a parenthesis is a part of a sentence (such as this) that is enclosed in brackets. But I know this whole thing is a British/American dif...

Nuntar wrote:http://www.kutjara.com/wiki/index.php?title=Word_of_Ren

Ahahahahaha, ahahaha, hah!

I'd almost forgotten about that. Didn't he claim he got an A for it? The "Works Cited" is just too good!

Tim.

I don't live in USA though. That's why I said state instead of State. "state" is short for nation-state, and State refers to one of the American States. Did you figure that out after you realized that an unemotional phoneme must be calculative and ultra blue in scale? I don't geddit :cry:. Am I bei...

What?s to stop me from taking your grammar and having it form the plot of a porno movie? Well, actually, I can think of a few reasons......... :roll: Not least among them the fact that porno movies don't have plots. Then again... "Ooh yeah, embed that extended projection deep inside my VP shell! Ra...

Eddy the Great wrote:Indeed, almost all languages that are widely spoken have some blood on their phonemes.

I thought that was brilliant.

Tim.

I have the given name I do because the exploits of the man who first bore it 2,600 years ago were recorded in a text which became the foundation for a religion that was carried to all corners of the globe. Your name is Zoroaster? Seriously though, what is his name? Presuming the text he's talking a...

installer_swan wrote:It's highly addictive to sit for hours doing nothing, once you learn the art. I wonder if there's a blank-wall-starers Anonymous, that I could join.

Meetings are from 3pm-10pm.

Cro Magnon wrote:

Harple wrote:Try explaining US foriegn policy to an insect.

You sting me, I squash you!

That is fantastic! :mrgreen::mrgreen:

Ingolemo wrote:Someone here so needs to develop a Daoist theory of Phonology.

And then send it in to Speculative Grammarian.

Yours, Tim.

Dazi wrote:if an ephemera page has a great quote we shoudl immediately save the page and upload it to our own website and link to that.

Or just quote what was said, along with some context. E.g.:

Winston Churchill wrote:

Lady Astor wrote:If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee.

If you were my wife, I'd drink it.

Tim.

The only problem with this is that some of the quotes come from Ephemera topics that may be pruned, resulting in broken links. At least we'll be able to find the context for a few days afterwards ? which, let's face it, is when most of us are going to want to. And it's better than there being no li...