marginaling

There was a lot going on this day. Clockwise from top left: common note to self; design for dimensions, top surface, and innards of a tap dance floor; marked out stupid puns involving “tap;” phonetic transcription; notes on binding theory.

Shakira happened to be the subject of most of our examples when discussing A-movement.

…”a position that is not a thematically marked position”…I’m *really* understanding this stuff…

That seems more like it.

Poor Shakira!!

She IS??? I thought we’d only have to listen to her for like the next 3 years, maybe 4 and maybe again in 2017 for the inevitable Comeback Attempt, or something.

Oh, and I thought it was just because she felt the beat rumbling through her bones.

Yyyyeah, we got that already.

Clarity!

I don’t want to know what else goes on up there.

…four days later…

Annnd she’s finally got her theta-role assignment and her Case. Relief at last.

For the longest time (ok, three days) I had *no* idea what this meant, but I think it refers to the three criteria necessary for an adequate theory of grammar, one of them going under the heading of “simplicity.”

One more for now, just to get the ball rolling.

They are insidious! They are everywhere! Also, the VOT for vowels following [k] is much longer than the VOT for vowels following [p]! Aspiration!

I am going to post my silly notes, drawrings, and marginalia to this site. I am a grad student in linguistics, hence the name (get it? get it?) and the tendency for the notes to be about…linguistics.

Let’s start with something I apparently learned one day recently in syntax: ternary branching is not good. This is a very important lesson in X-bar theory.