a wolf angel is not a good angel

Guess there’s a different rule about Halloween here. I always thought that if the place didn’t have anything Halloweenie (pumpkins, pumpkin cutouts, fake spider webs) it meant there was no candy, and to leave the poor people alone.

Especially since we have “trick-or-treating at the mall” at every single mall. Um. Not my plan.

My favourite halloween costume ever was when I went as a butterfly. I had huge blue wings and I couldn’t get through most of the doors, so I had to walk sideways. Two years ago, my much younger sister, A, went as a monarch butterfly, with smaller but far more accurate wings.

As many people don’t know, there aren’t all that many Eskimo (choose any appropriate language to fill in here) words for snow. But today we learned that Eskimo does have lots of different words for fear: there’s fear of the future, fear for family’s safety . . . all different roots.

Someone in my class later mentioned that when his wife was learning English, she had trouble with all the different words we have for all the subtle shades of being pissed off.

Please note, before we start, that I think syntax is primarily about word order. I’m just explaining what some people think.

The point in syntax, more or less, is that some word orders are okay, and some aren’t. (Even in so-called free word order languages, they’re never entirely free.) In English declaratives, for instance, it has to be subject first, then the verb, then the object(s). So we call English an SVO language. Japanese is SOV, Irish is VSO, and Malagasy is VOS. SVO and SOV have around 45% of the languages each, VSO 5% and VOS also 5%. There are, I believe, OVS and OSV languages, but they’re rare (and often debated about). (I’m pretty sure my numbers are wrong here, but I don’t remember the right ones, exactly — SOV is probably more common than SVO, and VSO than VOS. I’m more or less right, though.)
So let’s use English, because we all know English, and at this level, we can describe pretty much what we need with just English.[1]

Some theories of syntax involve movement. GB (government binding) and its latest incarnation, MP (the minimalist program) are crucially about movement. Movement is involved (in these theories; there are also movement-free theories) in things like questions.

Let’s look at a basic obligatory transitive verb. I’ll stick with tradition and use hit. I’ll break with tradition a little bit, though, and not use John and Mary — I’ll use Jaime and Lee. An asterisk at the beginning ofa sentence means it’s ungrammatical.

(1) a. Jaime hit Lee.
b. *Jaime hit.
c. *Jaime hit Lee Pat.

You need the object, and you need just one object.
What happens when we make it into a question?

(2) a. Who did Jaime hit?
b. *Who did Jaime hit Lee?

We can’t have an object anymore. But the who (I don’t say whom except directly after prepositions) is clearly meant to be the object of the verb — if you have case there, it is accusative, and not nominative. So the argument is that who started, at some level, where the object would have been, and moved to the place where we see it.

Now there’s tonnes more movement than this in GB/MP syntax. Some is, I think, useful, but much just seems like movement for movement’s sake. However, my reservations about these aside, I do like the idea of movement (or anything to the same effect) in syntax.

The other part that matters here is that we have two parts to sentences — the sound part (PF) and the meaning part (LF). The names don’t matter so much. But we need those two, on some level: sentences sound like something, we say them out loud (or can), and they mean something, because that’s sort of the whole point.

The idea is that sometimes, the words are in a different order in the sound part and the meaning part. So you can say something like Everyone didn’t eat cake and that could mean that every single person ate food that wasn’t cake or it can mean that not every single person ate cake. (Trust me. People use it to mean the second a lot. I listen for it.) So in PF, everyone comes before not; at LF, it might be a different order.

The theory then says that there’s something like quantifier raising, but it happens only at LF, not at PF. Fine; we have a fairly decent idea of the restrictions for movement at LF, inasmuch as there ever is. We want PF to mostly involve expletive insertion, and all of phonology, and possibly also morphology. But — importantly — not syntax. (Now, you might not like this theory. That’s fine. Lots of people don’t. I haven’t explained it well, either.)

When I was writing my honours thesis back at Canada U, I went to a professor, S (not my advisor!), to ask about something, because at that poitn I could get either the scope facts or the word order facts, but not both. (I eventually got things to work out okay, mostly by changing my topic.) And her response — a syntactician, mind you — was “don’t worry about word order, you can always move it around at PF.” No. No you can’t. You really can’t.

Not that she isn’t in good company: Chomsky’s Minimalist Program suggests that “[t]he best answer would be that the order is really (205a) throughout the . . . computation. . . . We thus take the output to be really (205a), irrespective of what is observed at the PFoutput.”(from Ora Matushansky’s site)

[1] At this level. I don’t care what Chomsky and MIT grads say, English — or any language — does not exemplify every single interesting structure in language, and we can’t figure everything out from it, no matter how smart we might be.

A bad night, tonight (listening to Leonard Cohen on top of this? Not so wise). I am considering going away next weekend (after Halloween). I just need a vaguely inexpensive hotel somewhere. I was thikning the Catskills, but I don’t want to be spending 70 plus taxes a night. Maybe I just can’t find the right affordable hotel. It doesn’t need much, I just think I need to go away for a bit, before I self-destruct. I sort of see it coming, and I’m not sure what to do but ride it out. Only that doesn’t work so well.

After this I’m back to blogging about word order in syntax. Enough diarising. Diaryising? Whatever.

No construction of any sort — power tools or hammers — until 8 in the morning. Certainly not at 6:30.

This rule better go into effect as soon as I call my landlords (at 9, I figure, though I’m tempted as hell to call them now — hello, we’re trying to LIVE here, and paying quite a bit for the privilege).

I had a relatively decent meeting today, and a possible topic for a paper in one of my courses. It won’t be a particularly brilliant paper, but she’s fine with that — it’s all about getting an idea of where and how to go about finding an appropriately sized topic and write about it in semantics. I can do it in syntax, and I can do it (though I choose not to) in phonology. But semantics!

So this will be fine, and it might or might not turn out interesting, but it will at least be something new. And it will be good for me. (It will just be about quantifier and wh interactions, along the ever so overstudied lines of “Who loves everyone?” vs. “Who does everyone love?” — but crosslinguistic!)

And still I am somewhat sad, tonight. I’m not sure why, exactly. But so it goes. Tomorrow will perhaps be better. Ladusaw will be around, which should be neat. Also it’s warm here, it’s supposed to be 16 tomorrow, and warming up all week.

It’s an adverb and a flower!

We played two games, which lasted about 90 minutes each. There were 5 of us for a 4 person game (max, but you can play with 3), so I paired up with the other new player. We did poorly, but I have a much better grasp of the strategy now.

It’s pretty easy to pick up, actually. You want to get to 10 points first (everyone starts with 2, which you can’t lose). There are a number of ways to get those points — you can build settlements, upgrade them to cities, have the longest road, have the biggest army, andcolleect “victory points”. There’s no money, just 5 different kinds of resources. Building different things takes different resources. At the beginning, it’s pretty crucial to build up your territory, otherwise you’ll never win. (I gather tehre are other strategies, but you still need some territory.) We had very badly laid out boards both times, and we always seemed to be heavy on the sheep. However, that’s just luck. That and our CONSTANT rolling of 3s and lack of 7s.

Anyhow.

It’s a fun game, and it’s probably fine if you’re all around the same level; it’s so heavily skill-based that if someone has played more, they’re almost guaranteed to win. (The only luck is in the initial setup of the board, and the rolls of the dice. Not much.) It’s very easy to learn, though it’s one of those games that’s best to pick up as you play. But perhaps that’s just the way I prefer things, I’m not sure. Regular game players like it too; there are also a lot of ways to increase the strategy required (something called “towns and cities”, I believe), but we vetoed that option.

We all intend to play again — hopefully next time I will lose by a little bit less.It’s replayable, and because there is some luck to it, both games were very different. The games aren’t too long. I really don’t know what else to say. It was fun, and if it’s not a particularly pricy game, it’s probably worthwhile.

I don’t play anything else regularly — I’ve played a few games (Quattro, mostly) with a friend back home, but nothing here (except Set). This was our first time trying to play something as a group. It was great fun — but I would be all for a game where I am not the only person who has never played before. (I lost both games. I am trying not to practice on the online Java version becauseI should be doing work, but I have been playing there. Only the interface is shitty so half the time my trades go through twice, which is bad. I think it’s probably easier to start playing it for real before you play it there, though.)
So other suggestions would be nice.

I made lovely Kahlua brownies. They’re rather more Kahlua than brownie, but that’s also fine.
Melt together and cool:
1/2 c butter
3 oz unsweetened chocolate

Beat together:
1 1/2c sugar
3 eggs

To sugar & eggs, add butter-chocolate mixture, as well as:
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/3 c Kahlua (yes, really)

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

The recipe said to brush with a bit more Kahlua, but I elected just to put on some icing sugar. It’s plenty alcoholic. And tasty!

I’m taking it to our brand new gaming night. This should be exciting. We’re playing “Settlers of Catan”, and I just hope I’m not the only one to have never played it before.

To come: why word order doesn’t matter a bit in syntax (to some people), and anything else I can think of that’s not work.

Sometimes, good luck just finds you. Often not, of course. But sometimes. I need to take the joy while I can.

I have been having trouble finding people who speak the language I’ve been primarily concentrating on. In other words, it’s not spoken anywhere in Europe or Asia. Which means that I need to beg my main informant in Canada City to either give me data by email (not even vaguely optimal, for various reasons, especially her limited email availability — and not because I am doing anythign particularly tricky) or pray she has time on my brief weekends home.

But suddenly I get an email from someone who speaks this language, studying in Switzerland, and who is writing a paper on things I’ve done a fair amount of work on. A co-author of mine sent her to me. I figure that she’ll be willing to help me out with data, especially if I help her out with . . . well, I have no idea what. But whatever it is, I’m happy to help. Even if she doesn’t help me with what I’m looking for.
In other news, something dripped in my oven into some place I couldn’t dream of reaching. I’m hoping that I’ve burnt it out, but I’ll likely try again tomorrow. I want to make a cake, and smoke is not so much good for cakes. Pizza is less fragile. Though it tastes odd. Oh well.