Linguitect

Welcome to Linguitect, where we explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang! Logo designed by Matt. You can e-mail us any questions at [email protected]

Episode 13: Consonant Harmony 05/08/2020

Episode 13: Consonant Harmony You've heard of vowel harmony, now get ready for consonant harmony! In this episode, Rowan explains how consonant harmony is realized across different languages, and we take a dip into featural and autosegmental phonology. /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/14331665

Episode 12: Ergativity 03/15/2020

Episode 12: Ergativity In this episode, Matt and Rowan talk about all sorts of ergative phenomena, and how to use them for conlanging. We will cite our sources by section they are first relevant towards, and also length. /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/13554899

Episode 11: Sketches 02/05/2020

Episode 11: Sketches In this mini-episode, Matt and Rowan talk about how to explore ideas in conlanging through sketches. Resources: /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/13035701

Episode 10: Standard Average European 01/01/2020

Episode 10: Standard Average European Join Rowan and Matt as they discuss the Standard Average European sprachbund (SAE). This is a language area that is centered mostly on Western European Romance and Germanic languages (think, French and German), but some features of it extend much farther into the Caucasus Mountains, etc. Haspelmath's formulation of the sprachbund can be found in this paper: A summary of that paper, intended for conlangers: Wikipedia for the overlapping (or subset, depending on definition) Balkan Sprachbund: WALS chapter on Haspelmath's feature 12, intensive vs. reflexive pronouns: WALS chapter on comparative constructions: Paper on equative constructions: /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/12587972

Episode 9: Sandhi School 10/30/2019

Episode 9: Sandhi School Today, Matt and Rowan talk about every sort of flavor in the ice cream Sandhi bar (ow! Rowan! that hurts!) /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/11836862

Episode 8: Non-Default Case Marking 07/30/2019

Episode 8: Non-Default Case Marking This episode has Matt and Rowan talking about case marking, a way to indicate what each noun is doing in the sentence. Specifically, what Matt refers to as "non-default case marking" - parts of languages where cases behave in ways that don't fit with their canonical uses in the rest of the language. Paper mentioned: Many of the examples are from Ergativity by R.M.W. Dixon /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/10705688

Episode 7: Pitch Accent 05/31/2019

Episode 7: Pitch Accent In this episode, Rowan and Matt talk about pitch accent! We cover controversies in the definition of pitch accent and the wide variety of systems that have been called "pitch accent." References from this episode: Hulst, Harry van der, and Norval Smith. 2010. Autosegmental Studies on Pitch Accent. . Hyman, Larry M. "How (not) to do phonological typology: the case of pitch-accent." Language Sciences 31, no. 2-3 (2009): 213-238. Evans, Jonathan P. "Is there a Himalayan tone typology?." Senri Ethnological Studies (2009). Ding, Picus Sizhi. "The pitch accent system of Niuwozi Prinmi." Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 24, no. 2 (2001): 57-83. Ding, Picus Sizhi. "A typological study of tonal systems of Japanese and Prinmi: Towards a definition of pitch-accent languages." Journal of Universal Language 7, no. 2 (2006): 1-35. /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/9993374

Episode 6: Accusativity 02/27/2019

Episode 6: Accusativity In this episode, Matt and Rowan discuss "accusativity" - the organizing idea behind many languages' syntax. It's very widespread, in languages as diverse as English, Swahili, Latin, Arabic, and Korean, but in a later episode, we'll go over other organizing principles as well. Matt discusses some history, theory, and examples of phenomena that occur in these "nominative-accusative languages." Resources discussed in this episode: - - contains an overview of semantic domains and gender in Russian /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/8801762

Episode 5: Sprachbunds 01/30/2019

Episode 5: Sprachbunds Join Rowan, Matt, and Liam as they talk about sprachbunds - areas where most or all of the languages share certain features through contact. /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/8451812

Episode 4: Conceptual Metaphor 12/27/2018

Episode 4: Conceptual Metaphor Join Matt and Rowan in talking about conceptual metaphor - a framework for some really fascinating semantics References for this episode: Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, Lakoff "The semantics of gender in Bininj Gun-Wok" in by Greville G. Corbett, WALS Online /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/8055725

Episode 3: Verb Morphology Beyond TAM 10/24/2018

Episode 3: Verb Morphology Beyond TAM Rowan, Matt, and Liam discuss what you can do with verb morphology outside of person agreement and TAM (tense/aspect/mood). Resources from this episode: https://wals.info/chapter/22 /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/7294568

Episode 2: Problems with the IPA 09/11/2018

Episode 2: Problems with the IPA In this episode, Matt and Rowan (but mostly Matt) talk about issues with the International Phonetic Alphabet, and why it's not a one-size-fits-all for every language. /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/7031704

Episode 1: Honorifics 07/29/2018

Episode 1: Honorifics In this episode, we talk about honorific systems in different languages, and how to work them into your conlang! This episode is just Rowan and Matt, and Matt's introduction is of the multiple honorific systems in Korean. Wikipedia pages on Korean honorifics: Victor Mair's post on royal language in English and Nepali: /episode/index/show/linguitect/id/6862147

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