A Computer Learns ‘Amo, Amas, Amat’
Long before AI could write a poem, the pioneers of computational linguistics took on a monumental task: teaching a room-sized computer grammar. This is the story of their work in…
Morphology
When Grammar Breaks Free: A Look at Excorporation
Excorporation is a rare linguistic process where a grammatical piece, once bound inside a larger word, "escapes" to become an independent word itself. We explore this fascinating phenomenon, using the…
Allomorphy: The Chameleon Word
What do the 's' in 'cats', the 'en' in 'oxen', and the vowel change in 'feet' have in common? They are all allomorphs—different forms of the same unit of meaning,…
Case Syncretism: When Grammar Gets Efficient
Ever wondered why 'you' is the same whether you're doing the action or receiving it, unlike "I" and "me"? This phenomenon, called case syncretism, is a fascinating story of grammatical…
The Case for Compounding
Behold the German word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. Far from being a chaotic jumble of letters, this linguistic titan is a masterclass in precision and efficiency. In this post, we deconstruct this "monster…
Loanwords vs. Calques
Ever wondered why your French friend says "email" but calls a skyscraper a "gratte-ciel"? Languages borrow from each other in two fascinating ways: by taking the word itself (a loanword)…
Grammatical Evaporation
Have you ever wondered why English grammar seems simpler than Latin or German? This phenomenon, known as grammatical evaporation, is a natural process where languages shed complex features like cases…
The Logic of Back-Formation: From ‘Editor’ to ‘Edit’
Which came first: the editor or the edit? The answer reveals a fascinating linguistic process called back-formation, where we reverse-engineer new words into existence by removing parts of older ones.…
The Lexicon of the Lab: Inside Scientific Latin
Ever wonder why scientists use a "dead" language to name living things? Scientific Latin is more than just a tradition; it's a precise, universal, and surprisingly creative grammatical system that…
Grammatical Viruses: The Spread of ‘-gate’
The suffix '-gate' has become a linguistic shorthand for scandal, but where did it come from? We trace its journey from a specific Washington D.C. hotel to a 'grammatical virus'…
The Sound of Size: Consonant Gradation in Finnish
Ever notice how Finnish words seem to change their consonants for no reason? This isn't random linguistic magic; it's a core feature of Finnish grammar known as consonant gradation, a…
The One-Word Language Myth: Yaghan
The viral myth claims *mamihlapinatapai* is an untranslatable Yaghan word for a romantic, unspoken look. The truth, however, is far more interesting: it's a perfect example of a polysynthetic language's…
The Birth of Grammatical Gender in PIE
Why is a table feminine in French? The answer is thousands of years old and has little to do with sex. This article traces the origins of grammatical gender back…
The Ghost in the AI: Rediscovering Linguistics
We think of AI models as magical black boxes, but what if they're simply rediscovering the rules of language that humans have known for centuries? This post explores how a…
Finland’s “Possessive Suffixes”
In English, we say 'my house', but Finnish takes a more intimate approach. Instead of a separate word for 'my', ownership is baked directly into the noun as a suffix,…
The Georgian Consonant Clusters
Georgian is famous for jaw-dropping consonant clusters like `gvprtskvni` ("you peel us"), which seem to defy the rules of pronunciation. But these words are not as chaotic as they appear.…
The Three Genders of Dyirbal
Ever heard of a language that groups women, fire, and dangerous things into a single grammatical category? Dive into the fascinating world of Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language whose unique…
The ‘We’ of Two vs. The ‘We’ of All
Most languages count one and many, but what about a number for precisely two? Discover the "grammatical dual", a lost feature of Old English that survives in languages like Slovene…
The Syntax of Your File System
Did you know that every time you save a file, you're using a form of language? Your computer's folder structure is a surprisingly complex grammatical system, complete with its own…
The Inuktitut “Word-Sentences”
Imagine a language where "I don't hear very well" isn't a sentence, but a single, perfectly grammatical word. Welcome to the fascinating world of Inuktitut, a polysynthetic language that challenges…