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Posts tagged "zero"
“Lauren: We tend to only talk about the absence of something when it’s relevant. This is part of why negation is an additive thing to the grammar. We think about the positive version of the utterance as somehow being more default.
Gretchen: It’s actually kind of similar to how we think about numbers. Like, “one” and “two” and “three” were invented a long time before the number “zero” was invented. Even though before you have one of something, you have zero of it, but it wasn’t being commented on in a numerical way. It might’ve been being commented on in a negative way because languages do have negation, but it wasn’t being commented on as “I have zero dinosaurs.”
Lauren: Why negation is something that’s kept mathematicians and philosophers and people doing logic and linguists entertained, and many other people entertained, for such a long time and why we’re giving it its own whole episode.
Gretchen: “We’re not NOT doing a negation episode.””
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Excerpt from Episode 56 of Lingthusiasm: Not NOT a negation episode
Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something
This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 23 show notes page.
[Music]
Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that is enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.
Gretchen: And I’m Gretchen McCulloch, and today we’re talking about how nothingness fits into language. But first: We’re very excited to announce the location for our live show, thanks to meeting our latest goal on Patreon, which we announced first in the bonus episode and now you get to find out here!
Lauren: So our last live show was in Gretchen’s hometown of Montreal and we decided it’s only fair that our next official show means that I get to repay the favour, and so we’re going to have it in my hometown of Melbourne.
Gretchen: I’m so excited to get to go to Australia. I have never been to Australia before.
Lauren: I’m so excited to show you around Melbourne when you come to visit.
Gretchen: I wanna see a kangaroo – maybe not in Melbourne, I hear they’re not super urban.
Lauren: That’s okay. We have zoos. You’ll get to see kangaroos.
Gretchen: Okay, okay. This is important, I’m also very excited to be going to the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language Summer School in Canberra and the annual Australian Linguistic Society Conference in Adelaide, where I’m going to be talking about linguistics communication, doing workshops there, and if anyone else in Australia is listening to this and wants to invite me to do an event, now’s your chance!
Lauren: We will have more details about the date and location of the live show, should be sometime in November, and, hopefully, some other events that we can do while we have Gretchen in the country.
Gretchen: I’m super excited to spend a bunch of time there. I’m sure the weather will be much nicer than Montreal in November. I’ll get all the sunshine. And, yeah, looking forward to meeting a bunch of Australian linguists.
Lauren: The live show is all thanks to our amazing patrons who support us on Patreon. Our latest bonus episode for them was an inside view into the conference circuit. Gretchen and I had caught up about what we’ve been up to over the last couple of months of conferencing. That episode is available on patreon.com/lingthusiasm.
Gretchen: So you can hear about the two different emoji conferences that I went to, and the gesture conference and the International Congress of Linguists that Lauren went to, as well as 17 previous bonus episodes, which is quite a lot of bonus material, if you go to Lingthusiasm on Patreon.
[Music]
Lauren: Today we’re gonna talk about nothing! And it’s gonna be great.
Gretchen: Actually, this whole episode is just us not saying anything. The rest of it is just silence.
Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something
When we think about language, we generally think about things that are visible or audible: letters, sounds, signs, words, symbols, sentences. We don’t often think about the lack of anything. But little bits of silence or invisibility are found surprisingly often throughout our linguistic system, from the micro level of an individual sound or bit of meaning to the macro level of sentences and conversations.
In this episode of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about four different kinds of linguistic nothings: silence in between turns, silence in between sounds, invisible units of meaning, and invisible words. (Officially known as turntaking, glottal stops, zero morphemes, and traces.)
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here
Announcements:
We also announced some details about our upcoming liveshow! Our last liveshow was in Montreal where Gretchen lives, so it’s only fair that our next official show is in Lauren’s hometown of Melbourne! It’ll be sometime in November. Stay tuned for the exact date and venue - you can sign up for Lingthusiasm email updates if you want to be sent it directly bit.ly/LingthusiasmEmailList
Gretchen will also be around for the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language Summer School in Canberra and the annual Australian Linguistics Society conference in Adelaide. If anyone else in Australia wants to invite her to anything in November or early December 2018, now’s your chance!
This month’s bonus episode was an inside view into the linguistics conference circuit which Lauren and Gretchen are recently returned from, featuring emoji, gesture, and the International Congress of Linguists! Support the show on Patreon to get access to this and all 18 bonus episodes.
Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- Of speaking and silence
- How We Talk (Nick Enfield) (Superlinguo review)
- See a glottal stop in an MRI (click the ʔ under ‘glottal) (John Esling, Dani Byrd)
- Hawaiian language (Wikipedia
- Aleph (Wikipedia)
- Hamza (Wikipedia)
- Null morpheme (Wikipedia)
- Indonesian plural
- Pāṇini and zero morphs
- Pāṇini (Wikipedia)
- Ella Minnow Pea (Superlinguo review)
- Ella Minnow Pea (All Things Linguistic post)
- Lingvids video on trace blocking
- The Ling Space video on trace effects
- Wanna Contraction (by
Prof. Yehuda N. Falk) (PDF)
You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.
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You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.
Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are Emily Gref and A.E. Prévost, our production assistants are Celine Yoon & Fabianne Anderberg, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
About Lingthusiasm
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Weird and deep conversations about the hidden language patterns that you didn't realize you were already making.
New episodes (free!) the third Thursday of the month.
