cognition

Autohyponymy: The Word Inside

Can a word be a specific type of itself? This article introduces autohyponymy, a fascinating linguistic quirk where words like…

6 days ago

How a Machine Learns to Hear

Go inside your smart speaker and discover how it turns sound into text through the lens of linguistics. Explore the…

6 days ago

The Power of the Double Letter

Why does Italian have 'pala' (shovel) but also 'palla' (ball)? This phenomenon, known as gemination or consonant doubling, isn't just…

6 days ago

Allomorphy: The Chameleon Word

What do the 's' in 'cats', the 'en' in 'oxen', and the vowel change in 'feet' have in common? They…

6 days ago

The Mass-Count Distinction

Why can you count 'chairs' but not 'furniture'? This linguistic puzzle is explained by the mass-count distinction, a fundamental rule…

6 days ago

Syntactic Priming: The Echo

Ever found yourself accidentally copying the sentence structure of the person you're talking to? This isn't a coincidence; it's a…

6 days ago

Constructing a Field Dictionary from Scratch

Imagine being the first outsider to document a language with no written form. How would you create its first-ever dictionary?…

1 month ago

The Unwritten Archive: Linguistics of Oral Traditions

Before writing, societies preserved immense libraries of knowledge within the human mind. The "unwritten archive" of oral tradition wasn't based…

1 month ago

Logophoricity: The Grammar of Point of View

How do we know who "he" is in the sentence "John said he was tired"? While English leaves it ambiguous,…

1 month ago

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…

1 month ago

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