
Our editor Ivan Sag is in the UK, where he just gave lectures at the University of Essex and
the University of Manchester, where he was brilliantly hosted by Andrew Koontz-Garboden, who sends his best regards to all.
Lauren Hall-Lew will be talking this next Monday in Berkeley's Phonetics and Phonology Phorum about Asian Ethnicity and San Francisco English.
Itamar Francez will enlighten his audience about Existentials and possessives: Two cases of second order predication in natural language at the Non-Canonical Predication Workshop 2009 at the University of Western Ontario.
Congratulations to Ida Toivonen and Ash
Asudeh on the birth of their fourth progeny: Harald Lillebror
Asudeh, born at 13:19 EST on April 17. The New Sesquipedalian hereby
awards Ida and Ash the
Alumni Productivity Award (They keep producing
research, too!)
The contest continues with our fourth mystery spectrogram. If you want candy, e-mail Meghan with the name behind this one:
The Donkey Story
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a
well. The animal cried piteously for hours as
the farmer tried to figure out what to do.
Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the
well needed to be covered up anyway;
it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.
He invited all his neighbors to come over and
help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began
to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the
donkey realized what was happening and cried
horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he
quieted down.
A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally
looked down the well. He was astonished at what
he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his
back, the donkey was doing something amazing.
He would shake it off and take a step up.
As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel
dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it
off and take a step up.
Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey
stepped up over the edge of the well and
happily trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds
of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well
is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of
our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out
of the deepest wells just by not stopping,
never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hatred - Forgive..
Free your mind from worries - Most never happen.
Live simply and appreciate what you have.
Give more.
Expect less
NOW ............
Enough of that crap . . . The donkey later came back, and bit the
farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected
and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON:
When you do something wrong, and try to cover
your ass, it always comes back to bite you.
For events farther in the future consult the
Upcoming Events Page.
FRIDAY, 24 APRIL
MONDAY, 27 APRIL
-
12-1:00pm, MJH 126
Speech Lunch
John Chowning (CCRMA)
The Synthesis of Sung Vowels
12:00pm, ExL lab
Workshop on the Amazon Mechanical Turk
The AMT is a tool for collecting and generating (psycho)linguistic experimental data. Presentations by Tyler Schnoebelen, Rob Munro and Robin Melnick will cover:
- the design and implementation of web-based experiments using the AMT,
- generation of annotation corpora via AMT, and
- comparison of results obtained from AMT workers and traditional populations of participants.
3:45-5:15pm, Building 160 Room 328
Berkeley Linguistics Colloquium
Mariam Mithun (UCSB)
Converging methodologies: Making bigger sense out of the smaller stuff
4-5:30pm, Dwinelle 182, UC Berkeley
WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL
-
Michael Ramscar (Stanford Psychology)
"Language is Uncertain"
4:15pm, Cordura 100
FRIDAY, 1 MAY
-
Fritz Newmeyer (University of Washington)
What conversational English tells us about the
nature of grammar
3:30pm, MJH 126
Department Social
5:00pm, lounge
Mark your calendars! On Saturday, May 9th Stanford will be hosting Trilateral Linguistics Weekend (TREND) 2009, this year combining Syntax and Phonology in one conference. Word has it there will be gripping talks and an outstanding social afterwards.
The 33rd Stanford Child Language Research Forum,
on 'Experience and Variation in Learning a First Language'
will be held on July 10-12, 2009, as one of the Institute
Conferences during the LSA Summer Institute at
UC Berkeley. The two invited speakers are William
Croft (UNM) and Tom Griffith (UC Berkeley). The Program
and general information on lodgings, etc., is available online.
UPCOMING EVENTS (always under construction)
LINGUISTIC DEPARTMENT EVENTS PAGE
Got broader interests? The New Sesquipedalian recommends reading, or even
subscribing, to the CSLI Calendar, available HERE.
WHAT'S HAPPENING AT UC SANTA CRUZ?
WHAT'S GOING ON AT UC BERKELEY?
Blood needed!
The
Stanford Blood Center is reporting a shortage of types O- and A-. For
an appointment, visit
http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call 650-723-7831.
It only takes an hour of your time and you get free cookies. And the Blood Center recently got a new bloodmobile. Check it out
HERE
Want to contribute information? Want to be a reporter? Want to see
something appear here regularly? Want to be a regular columnist? Want
to take over running the entire operation? Write directly to
sesquip@gmail.com.
24 April 2009
Vol. 5, Issue 22
IN THIS ISSUE
Sesquipedalian Staff
Editor in Chief:
Ivan A. Sag
Assistant Editor:
Richard Futrell
Reporters:
Beth Levin
Lauren Hall-Lew
Photographers:
Laura Staum Casasanto
Humor Consultant:
Susan D. Fischer
Inspiration:
Melanie Levin
Kyle Wohlmut