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BrettC, Ph.D.

@brettc.bsky.social

230 followers 220 following 1K posts

http://en.pronouns.page/@brettcnelson Linguisticking in Mohkinstsis (51° N, 114° W) Born settler from Bulbancha (30° N, 90° W) Latest publication: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/469 (Book chapter; Open Access)

en.pronouns.page

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BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 4d

Deydies and gentledem, da weekend!

An orange tabby cat lying down and a black kitten sitting up on a green blanket with yellow and green pillows behind them as well as a red pillow with two illustrated lucky cats on it.

An orange cat sleeping in a tight ball shape with a smaller black kitten lying behind them on a yellow upholstered chair.

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 4d

Both of these things seem like properties that all trains should have!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 4d

[flashbacks to hours upon hours spent playing team fortress 2 in high school and university wow]

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 4d

I love how many hats linguistics lets me wear.

There's the social sciences hat, the humanities hat, the data science hat, and even the physics and biology hats!

If only I had more heads to wear all hats at once!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 4d

Visual advertising just won't cut it.
You gotta give me a good zap. The one-two punch of n400 and p600!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 5d

Either nothing or everything or both simultaneously

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

Also it's even better when Indigenous users of Indigenous languages can do the linguistics on their own language(s) in their own language(s)!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

2/2:
It may be better to let languages describe themselves using their own terms which can better capture the details of morphological (or syntactic or phonological, etc.) rules and processes. This is something I learned from my MA adviser at Tulane University, Dr. Judith M. Maxwell. :)

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

If you're curious:
We were talking about the various grammatical concepts and categories marked in Indigenous languages and how the field often applies latinate or greek terminology to these things, but those terms often fall short of describing what actually happens in these languages. so... 1/2

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

But idk if that's just my perception or something that's phonologically "real"!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

It's either lengthened, moraified or syllabified. I think I expect the lyric to be "this is what it soundED like" but we get the present tense suffix instead. Thematically the present tense makes sense, but musically I really expect those two beats to be emphatic with another syllable!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

I was also intrigued by something in another song from this soundtrack "What it Sounds Like". The refrain gives the song its title: "This is what it sounds like" but every time I hear it, something about the music or the way they sing the line makes the -s of sounds pop out to me.

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

This one shows that despite being lower frequency "born to" -> "borna" can occur especially with musical and analogical pressures from the from the rhyme scheme!
But it's not frequent enough that transcribers represent it!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

I've been listening to this album all summer after seeing the film in June! I'm fascinated by just about all of the contractions and other shortening and how they're variably represented in lyrics website and apps.

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

D is for derivational because d is also for dictionary
I is for inflectional because I is also for "in your mind"

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

On the inside of the toilet stall door, there's a note that reads "you are capable of beautiful things" which is nice to read while sitting on the toilet I guess

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

Someone or a group of someones is posting these sticky notes with words of affirmation all over campus and the one on my office door has a funny case of misaligned pronoun reference that turns the message into a bit of a humble brag:
"YOU deserve what opportunities are coming MY way!"

A square green sticky note posted to a brown woodgrain door.
The note reads, in red ink: "you deserve what opportunities are coming my way!"
There is also a printed watermark on the bottom of the note, in blue: "Mount Royal University Healthy Campus".

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

Here's a photo of the Las Vegas geese, but not while they were mating.

Two black, white, and brown Canada geese floating in a pool of rippled water. Rocks are visible under the water and there is a brown cliff in the background behind the pool with rocks, plants, and lights on top of the cliff.

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

then there was this one time in las vegas we spotted a couple of canada geese and they were actually mating in the fountain of one of the resorts on the strip, so that was fun

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

I always stop to take a gander at the wild canada geese, not because they're exceptionally uncommon, but because they're cool to look at and when you spot one, you know their mate is near, so then it becomes a game of where's waldo if the second one isn't immediately visible

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

time flies when you're having fun
(by fun, I mean talking about grammar in our Indigenous languages in North America class and using it to launch into a discussion about decolonizing linguistics)

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

(as "people" not "wild turkeys", just to be clear)

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 8d

does that include you?

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 11d

Gotta rescue them from Schrodinger!

BrettC, Ph.D. @brettc.bsky.social · 11d

Cats