mental lexicon

Lexical Gaps Across Languages

Ever wonder why German has a word for taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune (*Schadenfreude*), but English doesn't? This post…

6 days ago

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

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 Speech of Sleep: Is Somniloquy a Language?

Ever wondered if the mumbles and groans of a sleep-talker are just random noise? We take a linguistic deep dive…

1 month ago

Your Brain’s Internal Fact-Checker

When you hear a false statement like "The sky is green", your brain reacts in milliseconds, long before you consciously…

1 month ago

Kitchen-Table Creole: A Child’s Private Language

Ever heard a bilingual child say something that isn't quite one language or the other? This isn't a mistake, but…

1 month ago

5 Tips to Beat Writer’s Block

Stuck staring at a blank screen? Writer's block isn't a failure of imagination—it's a linguistic puzzle waiting to be solved.…

1 month ago

Linguistic Landmines: The World of Contronyms

Have you ever noticed that a single word can mean its own opposite? These linguistic curiosities, called contronyms, are words…

1 month ago

Metonymy: The Brain’s Ultimate Linguistic Shortcut

Metonymy, where we use a related concept to stand in for the whole (e.g., "The White House announced..."), isn't just…

1 month ago

You’re Already Speaking Japanese! 15 Loanwords

** Did you know that when you talk about a business 'tycoon' or ask for 'just a skosh' more, you're…

1 month ago

This website uses cookies.