The Truly “Dark Side of the Subjunctive”

Oct 17, 2014 by

The Truly “Dark Side of the Subjunctive”

[Many thanks to Stephane Goyette, Olaf Koeneman, and Seth Johnston for helpful discussions related to this post!] In his TED video, Phuc Tran explores a Whorfian idea that English having a subjunctive and Vietnamese lacking it leads...

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On tone genesis in Vietnamese

Dec 8, 2011 by

BY NIKHIL RAGHURAM (“Languages of the World”) Even though there is a fairly well accepted model for the development of tones in Vietnamese, linguists still have questions about Vietnamese tonogenesis. One of the major...

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Is "linguistic relativism" always about language?

Jan 20, 2011 by

As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, linguistic relativism (that is, the view that the language one speaks affects how one thinks) is gaining popularity in both scientific quarters and among the general public. But some...

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Heritage Languages

Jul 21, 2010 by

Over 180 languages, from Adamawa Fulfulde (a Niger-Congo language from Cameroon) to Zoogocho Zapotec (an Oto-Manguean language from Mexico), are spoken in the U.S., most of them by immigrants from other lands. Naturally, immigrant...

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