Birds’ Words

I’ve posted a draft of my MA thesis, Aspects of Yaghnobi Grammar, on the Yaghnobi blog. I welcome any comments or suggestions. I will be submitting a final draft to the University of Oregon graduate school in a week and a half.

Draft of Aspects of Yaghnobi Grammar « The Yaghnobi

Academic papers in the field of linguistics are often written folowing LSA style, which is the style used in Language, the journal of the Language Society of America. One of the aspects of style that is fairly unique to linguistics writing is the way linguistic data is presented. The following quatation is from the Language style sheet:

7. NUMBERED EXAMPLES, RULES, AND FORMULAS
a. Type each numbered item on a separate indented line with the number in parentheses; indent after the number; use lowercase letters to group sets of related items:

(2)  a.  Down the hill rolled the baby carriage.
      b.  Out of the house strolled my mother’s best friend.

b. In the text, refer to numbered items as 2, 2a, 2a,b, 2(a- c).

The Problem

One of the problems I run into when writing long papers, is keeping the numbered examples synchronized with my references to them in the text of the paper. If I add an example, remove an example, or change their order, then I have to go through the whole paper and update the references.

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A new free, peer-reviewed linguistics journal was announced in this post on Living Languages:

The e-journal Language Documentation & Conservation (LD&C) was launched last month by the University of Hawai‘i Press to journal endangered language issues.

Persian complex predicates are of particular interest because their semantics are often idiosyncratic and their structure frequently deviates from general rules of Persian syntax. In spite of these peculiarities, Persian complex predicates are not a marginal part of the language. They form an open, productive class, and are more common than simple verbs.  Keep reading →

I just read an announcement for a new book: What Counts as Evidence in Linguistics,  Edited by Martina Penke and Anette Rosenbach, and published this year by John Benjamins.  According to the description of the book on the LingusitList, this book focuses on the innateness debate and shows how formal and functional approaches to linguistics have different perspectives on linguistic evidence. The three guiding questions for this volume are: What type of evidence can be used for innateness claims (or UG)?; What is the content of such innate features (or UG)?; and, How can UG be used as a theory guiding empirical research?

This book will be on my list of books to read after I finish my MA Thesis.

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The NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) Endangered Language Research Programme (ELP) will hold its 2nd International Workshop September 7, 2007,  at the University of Amsterdam. The theme of the workshop is Language Description and Linguistic Typology. The  keynote speakers will be Dr Peter Austin (SOAS, London), and Dr Claire Moyse-Faurie (CNRS-LACITO, Paris). Read more at:  NWO - Invitation to the 2nd International ELP Workshop, September 7, 2007 .

Birds’ Books just posted a review of Monica Whitlock’s Land Beyond the River,

An informative journalistic description of the social and political developments in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan during the 20th century.

The book gives accounts of the turbulent, and unfortunately often violent, recent events in the region such as:

unrest and revolution in Bukhara in the second decade of the 20th century, the Tajik civil war and its resolution in the 1990s, and ongoing displacement of Tajiks due to war, forced migration, and other hardships.

Read the review at: Land Beyond the River, by Monica Whitlock « Birds’ Books

I posted a copy of my handout on Yaghnobi grammar on The Yaghnobi blog. Read it here: Overview of Yaghnobi grammar « The Yaghnobi

Since I started posting about the Yahgnobi language three months ago, I have been delighted to discover others who are also interested in the Yahgnobi people and their language. Today, I decided it was time to create a new blog dedicated just to Yaghnobi and invite everyone who is interested in the Yaghnobi people, their language, history, and culture to contribute as authors. You will find this blog at: http://yaghnobi.wordpress.com

The University of Oregon Department of Linguistics and the Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI) announce the 2007 session in Language Documentation June 25 - July 20 2007, Eugene, Oregon

As documenting languages takes on greater importance, there is a growing need for well-trained fieldworkers who are prepared to collaborate with community members. There are few places where students can gain practical, hands-on experience. The UO Linguistics Department focuses on lesser-known languages and empirical work. NILI has a ten-year history of working with tribes, communities and endangered languages. We look forward to having you join us! Keep reading →