Somewhere over there is close enough

Let’s say you’re planning something with your friend on the phone. You are going to her place later. You say “I’ll be there soon”. She says “I’ll be here waiting”. Even though you are both referring to the same location (her house), one person called it “there” and the other person called it “here”. Why?

It’s because the words here and there don’t have fixed reference. The location they refer to depends on the location of the person who is speaking. Things that are nearby the speaker are ‘here’ and things that are far away from the speaker are ‘there’. That can cover a lot of distance, from the table in the next room (“I left my keys there”) to the surface of Pluto (“What knows what’s there?”).

Words like here and there are called “spatial deictics” in linguistics. They give a sense of where something is located, relative to a reference point. The simple system of English, which divides up space between close to the speaker vs. not close to the speaker, is actually pretty common, but it is certainly not the only way to do things.

Gwynne’s Grammar

I noticed a few references to this book recently on Twitter, so I had to check it out. The “Gwynne” in the title is a Mr. Nevile Martin Gwynne. He is apparently somewhat well-known already for writing in the Sunday Times, and because he teaches children Latin through Skype. He also has a website over at http://www.nmgwynne.net.

This review focusses mainly on the preface and first two chapters of Gwynne’s Grammar, because that’s where he lays out his philosophy of language, and that is the interesting part. The second part of the book is basically just a reprinting of Elements of Style. Part three has appendices.

The IPA: The Vowel Chart

This is part of a series on the International Phonetic Alphabet. The series so far is over here. You can get your copy of the IPA here. You’ll probably want one to follow along.

In this post, I’ll cover the vowel chart. The IPA divides up sounds based on their articulations, and vowels and consonants have fundamentally different kinds of articulation. In particular, consonants are sounds produced with obstruction in the vocal tract, while vowels are sound produced without any obstruction.

The IPA: Consonants Part II – Manner of Articulation

This is part of a series. The other posts are here. You can get your copy of the IPA here. It is helpful for following along.

In the last post I covered voicing and place of articulation for consonants. In this one, I’ll go over the other major feature: manner of articulation.

Not everything is grammatical

This is a follow-up on my last post about grammatical rules. There I argued that we should figure out the grammar of a language by observing how native speakers use that language. One of the replies to that post argued back that this approach seems to dispense with grammar all together. If grammar can be inferred from usage, then whatever anyone says is correct. In other words, anything goes and grammar becomes a free-for-all.

I can see how someone might draw that conclusion, and in fact this is probably the most common response I get to this idea. But adopting a usage-based approach doesn’t mean that a sentence is correct just because someone said it.

The IPA: Consonants Part I – Place of Articulation

This is part of a series. The other posts are here. You can get your copy of the IPA here. It is helpful for following along.

As I mentioned in the first post, consonants are characterized by obstruction of airflow, and the consonant chart is organized around this. Each row in the chart represents to what degree the airflow is being obstructed, and this is technically known as “manner of articulation”. The top row, “plosives”, are consonants produced with a brief period of silence where no air escapes at all. As we move down the rows, the constriction widens and more air flows, and the final row represents approximants which have the minimum degree of obstruction possible to still be a consonant.

The IPA: Introduction

This is part of a series. The other posts are here. You can get your copy of the IPA here. It is helpful for following along.

This is the International Phonetic Alphabet (you can get your own copy here).

Linguistic Symbols

Linguists have a whole mess of symbols that they use, but it’s difficult to find a full list of them anywhere, so I started compiling one here. If I’m missing something, please let me know in the comments.