Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

[clawgrip]

I've noticed that click consonants are most likely to appear in languages spoken in regions that are extremely African.

[Herr Dunkel]

Oh my. You must publish those findings

[linguoboy]

Someone in a different forum asked for feedback on this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pnb0ufeks66ex ... ncoids.pdf.

I'm not even sure where to begin. Classifying sentences according to how many orthographic words they contain? Yeah, that's hella useful.

[Whimemsz]

A first level sentence from this subgroup often cooccurs with one or more exclamation points. All letters are often written in capital letters. Consider the following examples:

Discount !; ATTENTION !!!; WARNING !

haha, what

[clawgrip]

Does this person explain anywhere what a sentencoid is actually supposed to be? Just sentences with any number of words?

[KathTheDragon]

A sentencoid is a fragment of a sentence that usually consists of maximum 4 words.

Page 9, section 1.7

[Drydic]

[sEntENkojd]

[clawgrip]

A sentencoid is a fragment of a sentence that usually consists of maximum 4 words.

Page 9, section 1.7

Oh, of course, page 9 section 1.7, the normal place to put the main idea of your entire work.

I guess his theory is correct then...? Since sentence fragments of 4 words or fewer do occur.

[KathTheDragon]

I find it amusing how he classifies his 'sentencoids' as 'sentences', yet I would define an English sentence as requiring at least one active verb, and many of his examples do not have any.

[hwhatting]

I find it amusing how he classifies his 'sentencoids' as 'sentences', yet I would define an English sentence as requiring at least one active verb, and many of his examples do not have any.

Well, most grammars recognize verbless sentences - e.g., "Bullshit!" would be seen as a perfectly acceptable sentence by most grammr theories I know.

[KathTheDragon]

Ok, interjections count as sentences. "Free food" on the other hand, simply cannot count as a sentence, can it?

[hwhatting]

Ok, interjections count as sentences. "Free food" on the other hand, simply cannot count as a sentence, can it?

But of course. All exclamations count. Indicating sentences (someone pointing out a banana and saying "Banana!") also count in many theoretical frameworks. There are strands of traditional grammar that would analyse these kind of things as truncated sentences, where a verb has been removed - "(*Look, there is) free food!" ; "(*This is a) banana!" - but many modern and some traditional treatments I've seen treat these things as full sentences.

[KathTheDragon]

I shall give up trying to think of the people who decide these things as anything other than extremely bizarre.

[Whimemsz]

why?

[KathTheDragon]

Because I do not understand why they would see 'Free food' as a short form of 'Here/there is free food'. I'd probably call it a pseudo-sentence, 'cause it's understood as a sentence, but it's not an actual sentence.

[Hallow XIII]

Because you can analyze this sort of sentence as having a null verb of existence which "free food" is the argument of. Zero copula, you know.

[finlay]

I don't think they're "sentences", but I also think that people don't talk in sentences. A sentence is like an idealised form of language. Linguists tend to talk about "utterances" because it doesn't bother with trivial distinctions like what is a sentence and what isn't.

[Morrígan]

I don't think they're "sentences", but I also think that people don't talk in sentences. A sentence is like an idealised form of language. Linguists tend to talk about "utterances" because it doesn't bother with trivial distinctions like what is a sentence and what isn't.

Exactly right - I'm not aware of a context in which the 'sentence' is a useful concept, and it's definitely not a well-defined one. You still see S nodes in syntax, but ultimately what is being designated is a clause.

The "traditional grammar" definition of "sentence" usually sounds a lot like a well-formed clause.

[Drydic]

We should start using superclause and megaclause for paragraph and chapter, respectively.

[Thry]

semome

[linguoboy]

We should start using superclause and megaclause for paragraph and chapter, respectively.

Or you could just designate them different orders of textoid.

[Drydic]

We should start using superclause and megaclause for paragraph and chapter, respectively.

Or you could just designate them different orders of textoid.

a murder of letters

[KathTheDragon]

Do we also grade speakers by the average number of letters per word that they say?

[Whimemsz]

Thanks to pthag for bringing this gem to my attention: http://originofalphabet.quora.com/Femal ... r-language

"Prostitute" has the word "tit" in it ... Words that begin with "pro" are all active. A "proton" is positive: it is the unit that signifies position on the periodic table. "Proto" is the beginning, and prostitutes often bear a lot of children.

Why does "embarazada" mean "pregnant" in Spanish when it looks like "embarrassed" in English? Because young girls often don't know how they got pregnant, and they are embarrassed when their stomachs start protruding.

Linguists tell us our letter "B" comes from house, but house is a euphemism, a 委婉语 wei3wan3yu3, for "female." "House" is where you put your "B/Vs" (breast/vagina) because "B" and "V" swap sounds in at least seven different languages (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Russian, Spanish, English, and Bengali). The ancient scripts all depicted body parts, but we have put them at different ends of the alphabet so as not to recognize their relationship.

And it goes on and on like that.

I think my favorite line, though, is:

Keep in mind that all of the words with "*" are fiction: they are proto-words proposed by linguists that are not attested for in the literature—a clear sign that linguists differ greatly from scientists. No legitimate scientist would post fiction without making it clear that this is a hypothesis.

There are also plenty of other equally *thought-provoking articles on her website but I haven't read through them.

[WeepingElf]

Hilarious. Thank you!