My New (w)Home

You may find the newly-constructed webpages on http://moreno.zxq.net/.

Linguistic Security

As I was passing through the security check at Stansted the other day, I over-heard the following conversation at customs:

Police Officer: Excuse me sir. May I see your passport and boarding pass?
Customer/Smartly dressed business man: Of course [gives the officer his documents]
Police Officer: Swedish. Are you Swedish sir?
Smartly dressed business man: Yes, I’m Swedish.
Police Officer: What is the purpose of your visit?
Smartly dressed business man: Business.
Police Officer: Do you speak Swedish, sir?

Interesting linguistic security check-point at Stansted.

Onomastic Structures

 

Names and Structure of names. Europe and Africa. Linguistic Archaeology.

Read On.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© ”Foot Map” by Ben Couvillion.

The Interesting Thing about च in Sanskrit

Sanskrit coordination (i.e. conjoining)  is asymmetrical. Its syntax is very peculiar.

Read On.

Blasphemous Syntax: Nominal Case Synthesis & Maximalist Program

The distinction between Synthetic and Analytic Case does not really reflect the Slavonic linguistic behaviour as it does refract into a blasphemous Maxmalist Program.

Read on.

Blasphemous Semantics: Movement into Argument Position

Nominalised APs seem to λ-skip a step when it comes to functional application (FA) . Normal Adjuncts – that APs are esentially identified with – encounter a paradigmatic functional application. However, I am not not confident in distinguishing the FA mode with (i) specifiers, (ii) adjuncts, and (iii) complements. Walking to from University into town, I usually pass a shop with a big sign, saying, “Your Local Needs you.” It made think for a while, and this is what I came up with.  Read On.

Finding a Bin in London Town: A Global Challenge

It a know fact there is only one bin in London Town and even the one has probably been removed in the last few moment, naturally, due to security reasons. I have just been chasing a kind man with the official bin liner across St Pancras to put the Lion chocolate bar remainders into its rightful place. I also had tea to take-away and was immediately sorry for taking it away as no-one would take the cup away from me afterwards.

… talk to the world with a concise anthropological theory explaining this (Darwinian!) phenomenon as soon as I get rid of this tea cup, legally.

A Letter Concerning Elliding Economy & Functionality: Evidence From Slovene

Inducing Hypothesis

I propose some evidence in favour of economical ellipsis and syntactic functionality that is reflected in Slovene greeting phrases—presupposing other languages share the feature.

The “headed-gradation” in Slovene for “hello,” or “good day” can be said to be as represented in (1):

(1) a dan → b dober dan → c želim dober dan → d želim Vam dober dan

aday (n; msc, sg) → b good (adj; msc, sg) day (n; msc, sg) → c wish (v; 1st prs, sg) good (adj, msc, sg) day (n; msc, sg) → d wish (v; 1st prs, sg) you (pro; 3rd prs, emphatic-polite, sg, dative case) good (adj, msc, sg) day (n; msc, sg)

Applying constituency tests, an interesting observation is in place after seeing (1a—d). Theoretical assumption for (1d) constituents would be:

(2) Želim Vam dober dan
wish (verb;1st sg) you (pro; 3rd prs, emphatic-polite, sg, dative case)) good (adj;msc sg) day (n;msc sg)
“I wish you a good day”

(3) ♣(IP) /…/♣(VP) Želim ♣(NP) ♣(N’) Vam♣ ♣(NP) ♣(N’)♣(AP) dober ♣(NP) dan ♣♣♣♣

The Syntax of a “Hello”

In case of headed-gradation shown in (1), we can see that (1c) grading into (1d) allows pro-drop. The latter, then, can be regarded as a pro-emphatic form as personal properties in Slovene language are embedded within verbal features. Let us now see the structural parse of (1) shown in (4)

(4)

The number of red brackets show the probability of the constituent being elided (more the brackets, greater the probability).

As seen in (4), the constituent heading the entire phrase is the lowest N. Herefrom follows (or may follow!) the generalisation that the local head of a phrase, heading the “supraphrase,” may project its headedness from minimal to maximal projection. The principle is generalised in (5).

(5)

X (local) ♣local phrase → X (global) ♣supra-local phrase

A counterargument could be the spec-fronting, only denoting an emphatic form of (1d), for instance. (6) shows the structural movement of spec-fronting.

(6)

A Darwinian N-climbing

The generality of this evidence from Slovene greetings is the formality language performs in an economical and thoroughly functional way, diminishing the unnecessary, herein proven as periphery, constituents and solely projecting its local head onto a maximal level.

Res Celtica: A “Fort” Onomastic Account, Vol. I

• Dùn Èideann
• London
• Dresden
• Donegal < Dùn na nGall
• Dunaj (?<? Vienna < Vindobona < “white”)
• Dunav / Donava / Danube
• Amsterdam (?)
• Denmark (??)
• et multa cetera

Join us next week when we look at the amazingly scary distribution of Celtic root stem √*drn across a hydronymic Europe!

Bukowski: Poetry & Motion