Language detectives Richard/Dick Hudson, Bedford School, September 2019 - PowerPoint Presentation

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Language detectives

Richard/Dick Hudson, Bedford School, September 2019

My plan

English offers

regularity

puzzles

Other languages offer the same mix, but with interesting differences.

You can explore the regularities and puzzles in the Linguistics Olympiad

which is run by Mr Dawson

Meet the English verb to be

:

I

am

you

arehe iswe arethey are

Very irregular.

Very boring

until you ask: Why?

and notice that

am

is like Latin

amab

am

‘I used to love’

And its reduced forms

I am

I’m

you are

you’re

he ishe’swe arewe’rethey arethey’re

These hardly exist in Shakespeare.

But he wrote

‘Tis

=

It is

And its negative forms

I am

I’m

I am not

you are

you’reyou are nothe ishe’she is notwe arewe’rewe are notthey arethey’rethey are not

And its reduced + negative forms

I am

I’m

I am not

I’m not

you areyou’reyou are notyou’re nothe ishe’she is nothe’s notwe arewe’rewe are notwe’re notthey arethey’rethey are notthey’re not

And its reduced-not forms

I am

I’m

I am not

I’m not

you areyou’reyou are notyou’re notyou aren’the ishe’she is nothe’s nothe isn’twe arewe’rewe are notwe’re notwe aren’tthey arethey’rethey are notthey’re notthey aren’t

I amn’t?

I aren’t

?

What’s going on?

I amI’mI am notI’m not???????you areyou’reyou are notyou’re notyou aren’the ishe’she is nothe’s nothe isn’twe arewe’rewe are notwe’re notwe aren’tthey arethey’rethey are notthey’re notthey aren’t

Maybe the problem is that two rules clash, and we can’t resolve the clash?

If so, this tells us important things about how we think.

Language is never boring ...

... if you can see the connections.

Connections inside the language.

Connections to things outside the language.

Connections to other languages.

Welcome to linguistics, the science of language, ...and the UK Linguistics Olympiad.

Take Beja, for example

My PhD language

Spoken in the north-east of the Sudan

Often by nomads like these.

The 2013 Olympiad included this problem ...

... where you would have worked out that ..

In Beja, ‘am/is/are’ is just a suffix:

I am a man = tak-u.

You are a man = tak-wa.

But to say ‘am/is/are not’ you have to use a separate negative verb:

I am not a man = tak kaaki.You are not a man = tak kittaa.But a negative present tense = ka + past tenseI am not = ka + akiI was = akiI am = akatiSo negative past doesn’t exist!

All languages are

interesting

full of surprises

challenging

the Olympiad is as hard as the Maths Challenge

important they’re our main tool for thinking and communicatingdifferent cultures have different tools.Join the Language Detectives in the Linguistics Olympiad!

Thank you

To join the Olympiad detectives, speak to Mr Dawson

and visit www.uklo.org/problems

This slideshow can be downloaded from

dickhudson.com/talks