tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65458032008-05-02T19:38:04.819-07:00jasonBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-79517384871408178072008-05-02T19:10:00.000-07:002008-05-02T19:38:04.849-07:00

A few days ago a friend of mine twittered that he had just had lunch with the folks at viewzi. With lots of friends in the internet biz, it's not uncommon to see this sort of thing fall into my twitterstream, but something caught my eye. The -zi on the end of the word looked really odd. Not just odd, but ominous. Viewzi is a new search engine. It is alleged to be different from other search

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-79349200164001734642008-04-11T13:31:00.000-07:002008-04-11T13:44:23.103-07:00

Well, finished with all the necessary course work to get my MA in linguistics. I was supposed to be writing my papers this semester, but things just didn't work out. I'm going to try to get some work done over the summer and hopefully finish in the fall. I'm doing a wee bit of contract work for a company called ordinate. They do English language assessment testing. Aside form that I'm

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-46492749616846778442007-03-23T11:38:00.000-07:002007-03-23T12:09:27.649-07:00

I have recently been reading some articles arguing various positions on functionalist explanations of language versus generativist explanations. These articles (Joan Bybee, Martin Haspelmath, Frederick Newmeyer) have renewed my interest in language evolution in general and in one book in particular. I bought Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy's "The Origins of Complex Language" some time last year but

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1143425478382952172006-03-26T18:06:00.000-08:002006-10-14T18:04:46.143-07:00

We have a mid-term on Tuesday in my History of English class. One of the things we need to know, is how chain shifts work. I figured I'd write about it as a way to test my recall. We'll see how it goes... I’m sure that many of you have wondered, what the hell is a chain shift? Is it like a swing shift? Maybe time spent on a chain gang? Nope. A chain shift is a process by which sounds in a

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1141102597573552932006-02-27T20:41:00.001-08:002006-02-27T20:56:37.573-08:00

OK. I know it's been a long time. What can I say. I've been busy. In any case, the Mexico trip was great. Teotitlan del Valle is a beautiful place, with wonderful people, and Zapotec is a really interesting language. It was a great opportunity to do real field work, and I'm going back again this summer to continue with the project. There are pictures here. I'm taking a basic syntax class

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1116459461567082972005-05-18T16:37:00.000-07:002006-02-27T20:40:10.266-08:00

For those interested in Aymara, here are some resources: textbook (scroll down and click on the "go" labels.) complement agreement Aymara home page Ethnologue rosetta project textbook index quechua contact article

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1113005967626949802005-04-08T16:23:00.000-07:002005-04-08T17:19:27.630-07:00

Things are going very well with our Aymara speaker. The elicitation is moving along faster, and is getting more and more targetted. there are times during the elicitation when people get little flashes of intuition/inspiration. You can see it on their faces as they raise their hands eagerly hoping to ask the next question. This has led me to rediscover the importance of memory. Everybody

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1112246928223016872005-03-30T21:26:00.000-08:002005-03-30T21:28:48.223-08:00

I think I have the comment thing worked out. Thanks for your patience. A new update on the Aymara elicitation sessions will be up soon.

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1111269712303935382005-03-19T14:00:00.000-08:002005-03-19T14:01:52.303-08:00

Forgive me. I'm having serious technical difficulties with the implementation of Blogger Comments. It works great on my other blog. Not so good on Freemorpheme. I'll try and have it up and running soon.

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1111037709604500602005-03-16T20:03:00.000-08:002005-03-17T07:42:28.673-08:00

Last week was our first session with our Aymara consultant. In just over two hours we only managed to get 34 words. In a class of 15 people this isn't so surprising. We went back and forth on certain sounds several times: "I thought that was a voiceless lateral fricative." "No, it was more like a postalveolar fricative, but pulled back in a funny way. Not retroflex, maybe laminal?" Lots of

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1110686777797470672005-03-12T19:26:00.000-08:002005-03-12T20:06:17.800-08:00

One of my professors asked me to figure out how to type Unicode IPA into Toolbox, a morpho-syntactic analysis program from SIL. Learning to use Toolbox was easy and fun. They have created a full set of tutorials to help you discover all the features. It's pretty impressive software. The problem comes in trying to use IPA. Toolbox claims you can do it by using Keyman, keyboard overlay

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1110581781446203622005-03-11T14:53:00.000-08:002005-03-11T15:05:53.576-08:00

I have been disappointed with Haloscan, so I have converted the site over to Blogger Comments. I don't know if old comments will be lost. If they are, I'm sorry. Please know that I appreciated them and will continue to enjoy your input.

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1109463179439733442005-02-26T15:48:00.000-08:002005-02-26T16:12:59.443-08:00

In preparation for going to Mexico this summer to work with Zapotec speakers in Teotitlan, I’m taking a Linguistics Field Methods course. The course deals largely with how to document a language. We will be working with a speaker of Aymara (from Bolivia) and practicing elicitation methods, phonological transcription, morphological analysis, etc. The goal is to produce a small lexicon and a

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1100978512011726852004-11-20T10:33:00.000-08:002004-11-20T11:26:36.950-08:00

As it gets to crunch time in the semester, I'm discovering that there's nothing quite like money for solving problems. I attempted to renew Brown and Levinson's Politeness this morning, I found that it was on hold for someone else. This puts a bit of a kink in my plans to read the book (and write my paper) while I'm in Minneapolis for Thanksgiving. So I'll return the book before I leave and

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1099506060865855802004-11-03T10:09:00.000-08:002004-11-03T10:21:00.866-08:00

You must have stopped yourself at some point and asked: "What the hell is Critical Discourse Analysis anyway?" Everybody does at some point. It's ok, you don't have to be embarrassed. And in any case, you'll have a better idea after you've read this: Defining Characteristics of Critical Discourse Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis came out of Continental Europe in the 1990’s as an

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1098215596879034482004-10-19T13:20:00.000-07:002004-10-19T18:31:51.806-07:00

Discourse Markers This week in Discourse Analysis, we've been working on Discourse Markers. A Discourse Marker typically serves to show the relationship between the statement that follows it with something that precedes it. A DM can function on the local level, linking two statements that are adjacent, or on a more global level, either linking to something that was said earlier in the

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1097127679407130092004-10-06T22:27:00.000-07:002004-10-06T22:41:19.406-07:00

After moving, having pneumonia, sustaining an incredibly painful injury to the ribs (from coughing), and being without the internet for two weeks (from moving), I'm back. Moving on in discourse analysis theories, I will present my thoughts on Conversation Analysis: Defining Characteristics of Conversation Analysis Harvey Sacks founded Conversation Analysis in the mid 1960’s, as a means to

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1095219854587244692004-09-14T20:33:00.000-07:002004-09-14T20:44:14.586-07:00

This semester I'm taking Discourse Analysis, Phonology/Morphology, and Spanish. Those, along with buying and renovating a house, introducing my son to full time care, and still trying to enjoy some semblance of a married life has been keeping me pretty busy. Here's a little critical review I wrote up on Interactional Sociolinguistics. It is not comprehensive. Just some thoughts really.

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1093379037533818482004-08-24T13:45:00.000-07:002004-10-19T20:03:55.446-07:00

I'm sure many of you have wondered, "What is the perfect job for someone with an undergrad degree in Germanic Linguistics?" I finally found the answer: Student. Sure, it doesn't pay very well, but you already have so much good experience. When I graduated nine years ago, I sent out dozens of resumes. The worst part was finding jobs that even I thought I was qualified for (there weren't

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1092972560663939232004-08-19T19:10:00.000-07:002004-08-19T20:33:07.560-07:00

At last, I have attended the first class of the fall season. I'm taking Conversational Spanish at CCSF in hopes of being able to deal with logistics in Southern Mexico next summer. The Profesora is great. She's from Spain, and is very active and engaging. I opted to go the "conversational" route this time based on my experiences with Brown's class last semester. I realized that I am nervous

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1091677941162211482004-08-04T20:19:00.000-07:002004-08-04T20:54:22.236-07:00

I needed to buy a new notebook. I couldn't use my school notebook, which I've already pressganged into use for this contract gig I'm doing. I was at Target anyway, so I decided to have a look around and see if I could find something to suit my needs. I needed something small and light. I have to carry a Kung Fu uniform, a towel, a water bottle, and a pair of shoes in the bag. Hmmm. The

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1090534898229453832004-07-22T15:02:00.000-07:002004-10-19T20:07:27.426-07:00

Such grand plans.  I had amazing plans for the summer, filled with internships and independent research, papers and book reviews and blogs.  Such grand plans. Instead I went to Ohio.  Then I went to Rhode Island.  When I got back I read every book I could find as long as it was fiction (preferably of the "science" type).  I half heartedly pursued a couple of internships and almost started

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1086067220099251942004-05-31T21:03:00.000-07:002004-05-31T22:20:20.100-07:00

The Germans are so right. Nouns in a German sentence are always capitalized, thus making them easy to identify. I haven't been able to find out why they do this (after studying German for nine years you'd think I might know), but my hypothesis would be something like this: In a highly inflected language like German, where word order is not so rigid as it is in English, it is easier to parse if

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1085725694247414962004-05-27T23:04:00.000-07:002004-05-27T23:28:14.246-07:00

In doing some online research for an upcoming project, I found this site. It has some great links, and an ungodly amount of information on writing systems. There's a bit of a navigation problem in that if you really want to get to the good stuff, you have to click on the writing systems link, then scroll all the way down to the taxonomies at the bottom of the page. Click one of those to find a

jasontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545803.post-1085608359374592872004-05-26T14:34:00.000-07:002004-05-26T14:52:39.373-07:00

I finally finished my final final. I was a bit sad on my way in to the test, as I’m going to have to drop Japanese now in favor of Spanish so that I can work on a Zapotec project in Oaxaca next summer. However, on leaving the test, Spanish didn’t look so bad. I woke up this morning trying to decide which would be a better analogy: Pearl Harbor, or the Bataan Death March. But after looking up

jason