Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics

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[edit] Notes & Queries

This user is a member of WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics, which seeks to expand information about theoretical linguistics and theories of language. Please feel free to join us.

JA: De gustibus ...? Check the spelling of Lingustics on the project template. Jon Awbrey 00:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Done :) - FrancisTyers 01:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Perhaps someone here would like to have a look at Government phonology. Pissant 01:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried, but it looks suspiciously like it's been cut and pasted from somewhere else. (Reference to a nonexistent "Figure 1", the phrase "hot features as previously referred to" when they weren't previously referred to.) The article needs more than just Wikification, it needs a complete rewrite. Angr/talk 06:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be from anything on the Internet (I googled for several strings from the article). I agree, though, it needs to be completely rewritten. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 16:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Production? Production rule? Production (grammar)? Rewrite rule?

JA: I am trying to disambiguate the various occurrences of the word Rule throughout WP that are used in the sense of grammar productions, though usually in an extended sense, for example, in the article on Emergence. Some of my theory textbooks call them "productions" when being formal, others use "rewrite rules". We have an article Rewrite rule — not currently accurate, as it describes only context-free phrase structure rules — but folks seeking the extended sense may be confused by that, thinking it's a purely stringy matter. Other choices are "Production rule", "Production (grammar)", or some other modifier in parentheses. Any preferences? Jon Awbrey 15:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Production rule or Grammatical production rule or Production rule (grammar) would all be fine by me :) - FrancisTyers 15:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

JA: I tried a move to Production rule, but it's blocked by a previous redirect with page history, so I will put in an admin-assisted move request for that, pending further feedback. Jon Awbrey 15:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguities

I'd like to join this project, and probably will in the near future (too busy with other wiki business to really contribute at the moment). I am an undergraduate linguistics major with a bone to pick: I have noticed a glaring problem in almost all linguistics related articles. There is this ambiguity in the word 'linguistics' and it's derivatives. It refers to the scientific field of formal linguistics, but is also frequently used, even within the same article, to refer more loosely to any sort of discipline relating to language (including, but not limited to: translation, style guides, prescriptivism, pedagogical grammars, etc). It gets really confusing and misleading.

I'd invite you to please drop by my user page real quick, where you'll find a full explication of my intent to remedy this. I'm asking for help or advice from (scientific) linguists on how to proceed. If anyone agrees that this is a worthwhile endeavor, should I perhaps propose that my efforts be undertaken by this WikiProject? Or do you think it would be a good idea to make a new WikiProject, parented by the Linguistics Project? I'd appreciate your help. Thanks --Torgo 10:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll check it out, I agree there is an issue and I think it would be reasonable to tackle it under the auspices of this project. - FrancisTyers 20:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IRC Channel

Hey all, just to let you know, in case anyone uses internet relay chat and was looking for a channel to discuss linguistics-y topics, check out #linguistics on irc.freenode.net. I guess if I wasn't a project member this might look like an advert, but I'd be interested in knowing if other people have any places they hang out to discuss linguistics stuff :) - FrancisTyers 20:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Analogical Modeling

Does anybody else think we need some coverage of Analogical Modeling somewhere? I've been reading in (2002) in Royal Skousen, Deryle Lonsdale, Dilworth B. Parkinson: Analogical Modeling: An exemplar-based approach to language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. and it seems that the field has been developing since Skousen's paper in 1989. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RockRockOn (talk • contribs) 00:01, 8 June 2006

Sounds good to me! Be bold, write it up! Angr (talk) 07:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry I forgot to sign my comment. Yeah, I'll see if I can do a writeup - I'll put it at Analogical Modeling. Please, anybody who is familiar with the field, help check my work since I'm just barely learning about it. Thanks! --RockRockOn 18:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. I renamed it Analogical modeling since Wikipedia style is to use lower case in article titles (except proper names, obviously). It's also a good idea to find related articles and link to it from there so it's findable. Angr (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the case, I forgot about that. I was in the middle of a big edit when you did so, so take a look now, it's a bit more fleshed out. Thanks, Angr. --RockRockOn 19:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cheshirisation?

The article Cheshirisation has been nominated for deletion; please contribute to the discussion here. User:Angr 14:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

While I may not be able to contribute to this project for a while, I would like to make a suggestion. Many projects find it useful to add a new article template/format in their objectives. This comes in handy in case new terms should ever need defining. I love the idea though. When I've completed more study in this area, I'll come back and try to accomplish more. - Flyer27 21:38, 10 July 2006

[edit] Input requested

At the following AfD discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The English name of the Persian Language (second nomination). - FrancisTyers · 01:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article to work on

Would anyone here be able to work on this article: algebraic syntax? What's there makes sense to me, but it seems incomplete. Thanks! :) --Galaxiaad 00:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Algebraic syntax, but from what's written there it looks like it is a variant of Categorial grammar. Perhaps some pointers are in order Andrew Carnie

There's no article on categorical grammar. The algebraic syntax article is still very incomplete. I put up a list of questions/to-do items on the talk page. linas (talk) 16:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It's called categorial grammar, not "categorical grammar". ;-) —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Underspecification

I just saved Underspecification from being a really bad stub about "fuzziness" in language to being a decent stub about underspecification in phonological theory. It would be great if someone could discuss underspecification in syntax and semantics, too; I don't know enough about it to do so myself. Angr 21:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New TODO list

Jealous of todo templates that can be easily put on my user page (see, for example, Template:WikiProjectSeattleTasks) I've constructed a very similar list in my user space: WPTL todo. I had the following goals in mind when constructing this:

Grouped topics: helps someone see quickly what topics in their specialty needs attention
More items: the list in this format lets us list more items at a time
Types of articles: a number of types of articles, from overarching important ones to specific issues
Requested articles: requested articles coming from Requested Linguistics articles

With general WPTL member approval, I'd like to replace the todo list on the WPTL page with a page like this one, moved to a space like Template:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics Todo List. In addition, I have noticed the current todo list has not been updated aggressively enough. I would volunteer to help clean up such a todo list. I'd love to hear all your comments and criticisms. mitcho/芳貴 05:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me man, feel free to move it to WP space. - Francis Tyers · 10:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I received a couple supportive comments so I've moved it to Template:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics Tasks List (Tasks List capitalized), and also made the redirect Template:WPTL tasks (lowercase tasks). If you'd like to put the tasks list on your user page, just copy-paste {{WPTL tasks}}!

If anyone makes significant contributions to one of the listed pages (and so the page can be taken off the list) or has a recommendation for something to put on the list, please use the template talk page. Thanks! mitcho/芳貴 00:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello from LINGUIST List!

This message was posted on the Wikipedia Talk: WikiProject Linguistics discussion page, but I wanted to make sure it was seen here as well:

I hope you have all had a chance to read about LINGUIST List’s new effort to recruit linguists for updating Wikipedia pages (see links on Wikipedia Talk: WikiProject Linguistics discussion. It is good to see that there is an active group of editors already working away. For those of you who haven’t already heard, The LINGUIST List was nominated by Dr. Partee (in Russia) to coordinate academic linguists in an update of the linguistics and language pages. In April, our online linguistics community confirmed this with an overwhelming vote, and as promised, I am the graduate research assistant working to recruit linguistics editors. For the past few weeks, I have been reading about WikiProject Linguistics, familiarizing myself with all the subprojects, and trying to get a handle on the many activities you’ve already started. Here at The LINGUIST List, we’ve decided to place our focus on any areas is not being actively worked on yet. This might be tackling the “to do” lists of a few subprojects, adding to those lists, or whatever else is appropriate. Feel free to make suggestions on this page, or shoot me an email at hannah@linguistlist.org (my name is Hannah Morales).

Looking forward to working with everyone,
--Linguistlist 16:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC) Hannah, LINGUIST List

[edit] Bertrand Russell GA/R

I have nominated Bertrand Russell for WP:GA/R due to inadequate referencing. I hope the article gets the attention it deserves during this process to retain its quality rating. Please see discussions at Wikipedia:Good_article_review#Bertrand_Russell. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ungrammaticality star

Hi all--I believe there should be an article on the "ungrammaticality star" (of course, if there's a more common name for it, using that), showing a few examples and tracing its roots from .

In addition, I feel like such stars in examples (as in Singular they, Movement paradox,...) should either be links to such an article on the symbol, or such articles should have a little template box (akin to the IPA box) which links to the article.

The bottom line is that someone randomly coming up to the Singular they article, for example, may have no idea what that asterisk is there for, and be confused at the ungrammatical example. What do others think?? mitcho/芳貴 19:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

There's a sentence explaining it at Asterisk#Generativist tradition in linguistics, which could probably be linked to more often than it is. —An gr 20:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed for Deletion - Intervocalic

The article Intervocalic, tagged as included in the scope of this WikiProject, has been proposed for deletion via WP:PROD. See Category:Proposed deletion as of 11 August 2007. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement Drive?

I suggest we start a project-level article improvement drive for the WPTL. The list of topics we have is great, and with concerted effort from just a few of us, we could start knocking off topics from it. Perhaps the drive could coincide with a LinguistList posting in the particular area of the article. Thoughts, comments? Try my talk page also Peter 20:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures of wugs

The article wug test doesn't have the little birdy things which are commonly used as pictures of wugs. Is there any reason it shouldn't? Marnanel 04:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the drawings are probably copyrighted, and this is a free content encyclopedia. —An gr 14:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I should have phrased the question as something more like "Does anyone know the copyright status of the wug bird pictures?" to avoid people thinking I might not know the fundamental reason why Wikipedia exists. Marnanel 12:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Set phrases

I left a comment on the page Talk:Set phrase some time ago and have not yet received any responses. Thus, I am posting here in the hopes that it'll be more visible and engender some sort of response.

The article on set phrases uses exclusively as its English-language examples two-word compound nouns. "Only child", "examining room", and "ceiling fan" are all used as examples. But it seems to me from my experience in learning languages (I've studied Japanese pretty extensively, along with more basic experience in a number of other languages) that a proper set phrase ought to include far more than just two nouns, a gerund (verb) and noun, or an adjective and noun.

When the term "set phrase" (決まり文句, kimari monku, "a chosen phrase") is applied in Japanese, it usually tends to refer to a full phrase which, even if not expressing a complete thought, contains enough parts of speech to give the appearance of a full clause. Some of the best examples of this are set phrases involving the word ki (気), usually rendered in English as qi or chi as per the Chinese reading:

気にする　Ki ni suru (noun particle verb) - lit. "to do chi"; "to mind, to worry about, to take notice of, to pay attention"
気に入れる　Ki ni ireru ("") - lit. "to insert chi"; "to grow to like"
気になる　Ki ni naru ("") - lit. "to become (filled with) chi"; "to be worrying, to weigh on one's mind"
気につく　Ki ni tsuku ("") - lit. "to have chi be used"; "to notice, to realize"
気をつける　Ki o tsukeru ("") - lit. "to use chi"; "to pay attention"

These function as verbs which are not fully "set" in the sense that they can be conjugated into different forms, but they cannot be pulled apart without the meaning changing entirely (suru, ireru, naru, tsuku, tsukeru are all verbs with different meanings when the object is something other than ki). Yet, as these are quite normal everyday phrases, and not metaphors like "pulling your leg", they're not really idioms. I apologize that as a native English speaker, I have trouble applying these sorts of linguistics concepts to my own language, and can only provide foreign examples. Thoughts? Thanks. LordAmeth 23:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I just looked the term up in a few places independent of Wikipedia: word net defines it as an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up. Based on other definitions, I think the "set"ness refers to the combination of words, not its declension or conjugation.

It does seem that this article is very much in need of a dose of comparative linguistics. In both the wiki article and other definitions on the web, the term sounds an awful lot like the concept of "smichut" in Hebrew (which BTW also conjugates its two word phrases). Example: beit sefer = a school, batei sefer = schools.

Another question I have is the article's focus on noun-noun combination. English is rampant with verb-preposition combinations that would fit the word-net definition. He put up with me does not have the same meaning as "put", "up" or "with" nor can the meaning be deduced from their stand alone meanings.

The claim that a "set phrase" is an early stage in the creation of compound nouns also bothers me. It seems like someone is confusing semantic development with orthographic development. In Hebrew set phrases are almost never written as one word at any point in the language development. The few compound nouns that exist are almost always loan words. In other languages (like German), the use of one word or two depends on sentence structure. Kanst du ausgehen? (Can you go out?) vs. Du gehst aus (You are going out).

The claim that using a synonym for a set phrase is marked (less natural) also seems problematic. Within a language there may be several synonyms for a concept, not all of which are set phrases. The appropriate choice of synonym depends on a lot of factors: regional dialects, educational background, status of audience, status of speaker, current level of discourse (street vs. academic lecture), intended connotation, or literary and stylistic concerns. In one context a set phrase might be appropriate. In another a latinate synonym might be preferred. Example: "Way out" is the preferred way to mark a path of egress in the UK. "Exit" is the preferred way in the United States. I passed my comps is a slang way of saying I passed my comprehensive exams last month. The first would be sound out of place (e.g. marked) in a job interview. The second would sound stilted over beers at the pub.

Seems to me this article needs a lot of work, Egfrank 13:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I agree completely. I think that "Beit Sefer", meaning "House of Books", does imply its meaning as an educational institution. But "to put up with" is precisely the kind of thing I was going for - as you point out, this phrase in its entirely has no direct relation to the meanings of "put", "up", or "with" independently, and thus forms a new phrase, with its own meaning, whose parts are set. Just to be clear, my point about 気 wasn't having to do with conjugation, but with creating new meanings from a concept, a word, that most languages wouldn't even be using at all in the first place. Phrases such as "to use chi", "to become chi", "to apply chi", all have new meanings independent of the literal meanings of their parts. LordAmeth 23:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minimalism, principles and parameters, and government-binding theory

It seems like the pages on minimalism (syntax), principles and parameters, and government and binding theory need a different organization. Could we merge the principles and parameters page with the government-binding page? My understanding is that GB is a name for an early stage of what later came to be called P&P, but a reader of these pages wouldn't understand that. G.broadwell (talk) 23:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

my suggestion is Be Bold. Noone else is as likely to improve those article as you are.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Spoken languages"

I have noticed that a lot of articles on special sounds begin with a statement to the effect that "X is a sound used in some spoken languages" - e.g. in the article on Voiceless dental fricative. This to me is a very infelicitous wording since firstly only spoken languages apply sounds, and secondly because the modifier "spoken" seems to indicate that a spoken language is somehow different from other languages which is of course the opposite of what is true: a language is by default a spoken language, only non-spoken languages need a modifier to explain what kind of language they are e.g. sign language, written language, dead language etc. Maybe the participants in this project might take the discussion of whether this should be remedied?·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

... as opposed to "written languages"? Even with state-of-the-art computer NL parsers, there is no heed given to how the language may have been pronounced by humans. Thus, as a computer geek, I safely ignore articles about fricatives, and this little catch-phrase helps me make the decision to ignore the article.

Now, you would be right in claiming that "sound...spoken" is redundant, if humans were logical and machine-like. But they aren't; there's a certain warm-fuzzy one gets from reading such a redundant connection. The level of cognitive attention that the reader has to maintain is lowered when there are multiple redundant phrasings. In other words, an appropriate level of redundancy makes understanding easier. So, not to be redundant, I say, "let it be". linas (talk) 17:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Would you prefer "the X-sound is a spoken sound spoken in some spoken languages that use sounds"? Alas, unclear and redundancy-ridden language should be avoided in encyclopedias where possible. You make a number of false arguments: (1) Written language doesn't exist. Writing is a representation of language, not a language in itself, just like Magritte's painting of a pipe is not a pipe. (2) Redundancies obscure meaning and add input load without adding content, this does not in any way reduce cognitive processing loads. Do you not perhaps think you can figure out how to ignore articles with "fricative" in the namespace without catchphrases?--AkselGerner (talk) 20:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Project merge?

I can't help noticing that there are two linguistics projects: this one and Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics. Both seem to be sleepy and almost completely inactive; would it not be better to just consolidate them? Please discuss further on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics page. Thanks! linas (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Determiners at English Wiktionary

Over at the English Wiktionary, it appears that we may be facing a vote regarding whether to allow determiner as a "part of speech heading" for English words. Anyone willing to make arguments for or against should make themselves heard here.--Brett (talk) 14:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)