In morphology – as elsewhere – the questions we ask our theory to answer make assumptions about the form of the theory itself. Sometimes, the questions lock us in to a theory which we know to be inadequate, because we have data which contradicts a basic assumption of the theory. For example, we know that […]
Most morphological theories are concerned with possible words, just the way (generative) syntactic theories focus on possible sentence structures. This talk takes a different perspective and discusses *existing* words, in particular those that – for some reason or another – fall outside the active generative capacity. These are words like English hapless or laughter, whose […]
Over the past few years an animated debate has been ongoing on the role played by evolutionary perspectives opened on language and in particular on language change (cf. Croft 2000, Ritt 2004, McMahon and McMahon 2013, Norde and Van de Felde 2016, among many others). In this light, concepts and methods developed in evolutionary biology […]
This talk – grounded in Saldanha’s (2006) claim that race cannot be transcended, only understood and rearranged (p. 9) – launches from Bion’s (1979) provocative statement that, “When two personalities meet, an emotional storm is created” (p. 321). Drawing from data collected through intensive ethnographic research in an antiracist intervention conducted at a large US […]
Línguas codificam experiências no mundo por diferentes caminhos, incluindo relações de poder. Na representação de gênero, as línguas do mundo tendem a estabelecer uma relação com sexo, assumindo em geral como padrão o masculino. A partir do entendimento de que essa categoria é construída socialmente, movimentos pela representatividade de outros gêneros sociais vêm, contudo, sugerindo […]
As línguas dos povos originários se transfiguram em artes da palavra, artes verbais ou, melhor, verbo-musicais, que devem ser ouvidas, vistas, dançadas, antes e independentemente da sua captura pela escrita (alfabética), congelante, unilinear, monodimensional. São artes do ritmo e das tonalidades que se apropriam da musicalidade da fala, são artes dos paralelismos e suas micro-variações. […]
En esta presentación se pretende abordar el caso de la institucionalización de la lengua maya de la Península de Yucatán como un ejemplo de Política lingüística en México, pero también como un paradigma del ejercicio de los derechos lingüísticos de los pueblos indígenas. Para ello se mostrará la importancia de la lengua maya en la […]
Human languages are extraordinarily diverse, and yet there are also systematic commonalities among them. Some of these commonalities can be considered design features of language. These are definitional properties, like regularity and compositionality (the ability to re-use and recombine linguistic units to create new meanings), that all languages share. Other commonalities are perhaps more surprising. […]
Gender systems are endlessly fascinating, from those where meaning determines gender (Tamil), those where it is dominant but leaves intriguing loopholes (Mian) to those where form has an important role (Russian). Now it is time to integrate these systems into a fuller typology of nominal classification, taking in classifier systems as well as gender. Rethinking […]
How can we make academia a more climate-aware, ecologically and socially ethical place? How can we ensure a more sustainable future? It is now scientifically established that the current state of the earth, and its evolution, represent a threat to human lives, and ultimately to the human race. Climate change scholars link this climate emergency […]