li8 structure of english language games and microvariation mur-diddly- urdler!
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Li8 Structure of EnglishLi8 Structure of English Language games and microvariation
Mur-diddly-Mur-diddly-urdler!urdler!
Today’s topicsToday’s topics
What are language games?usestypes
What games can show us about linguistic structure and cognition
What are language games?What are language games?
Also called ludlings, secret languages, language disguises, play languages…
not technically separate languages rather, they consist of 1-2 simple phonological
rules appended to the grammar of an existing languagethey normally manipulate phonological elements
such as phonemes and syllables
Uses of language gamesUses of language games Artificial language games Natural language games
For fun (“language games”) To deceive others (“language disguises”, “secret languages”) To imitate groups or languages:
From the talk show Cooking with Krusty in the Simpsons episode Ustykray the Ownklay, The Front
I just got Krusty's mother's recipe for matzoh brie! I don't do the Jewish
stuff on the air! Ixnay on the Oojay!
Some other English gamesSome other English games Cockney rhyming slang Ubbi Dubbi/Ob/Oppen Gloppen/Pig Greek
Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube The Name Game Pig Elvish
Ovemë heten irstfë étterlé óten héten ndëen; hentë, fïén ódingca äen ordwë fóén 3 ëttërslá róen esslë, ddaén näën "en" ndíngeth; fïen odingcá äén órdwí fóén 4 ëtterslú roën órema, ddäën äen "th" ndïngeth fién hëten óvedmï etterlá sién aen ówelvú, lsëeth ddáen äën ándomrí ówëlvë. Héntï, hangëcí lläen "k" ótén "c". Ástlylú, ddáën ándómrú ccéntsáth nóen óptën fóen hëten etterslï.
The Gibberish familyThe Gibberish family characterized by inserting a prespecified sequence (normally VC or VCVC) before each
nucleus in each word. Apparently there is variation regarding whether or not to insert the sequence before word-
initial vowels Some believe Gibberish involves [IdIg] (another calls this “Doublespeak”) Ob [ab]
• Hobellobo, Thobomobas.• “My father and his cousins and siblings are the most likely to use it. Last summer a youngster
wondered how to say 'Neosporin' in Ob. My father left the room and came back several minutes later, announcing triumphantly, "nobeobospoborobin". I think everyone just refers to it with that name, now.”
Ubbi Dubbi [] or []• perhaps introduced on the PBS show ZOOM, or alternately, as a joke in a sketch by Bill Cosby
(the Dentist sketch)• "To be or not to be" → "Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube“• Used by Mushmouth on Fat Albert; cf. Partridge Family skit on SNL
Double Dutch [g] (spelled <ag> or <eg> (the latter also called Egg Latin))• Heggow eggare yeggou deggoegging?• Or “replace every C with a syllable starting and ending with that consonant suso wuworordodzuz
cucouldud gogetut popruretutty lolongung” Op, Oppish, Oppen Gloppen [ap] Slov [av] [name unknown] <ubbagg> [combines Ubbi Dubbi and Double Dutch]
• Yubbaggou dubbaggon't wubbaggant tubbaggo knubbaggow.
Other English examplesOther English examples Bicycle ([s] after each non-final consonant [or is it C-cluster?…]) Pig Greek (<ob> after each consonant) Dong
Spelling out words, using:• V: unaltered
• C → C + <ong>
• Let's go → Long ee tong song gong oh
Chinese Pig Latin ([an] after C, [gan] after V) various Simpsons games
Ned Flanders: -(d)iddly-, skerdəlider = scare, okəlidokəli = okeedokee, murdidliurdler = murder, pred-iddly-ictable
Zambuda “English pronounced wrong in every possible way. Long vowels became short, c pronounced s when usually pronounced k, silent letters pronounced, and so on. So a sentence like "knock before entering" would become "kE-nOsk beh-faw-ree een-tee-rynj." (E=schwa, O=long o) Being high school students, we mostly used it for words like "mOt-heer-foo-skeer," but some guys got to the point where they could converse fluently in it”
Identity avoidanceIdentity avoidance
Name Game “But if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them
both and say the name. Like Bob, Bob drop the B like ob Or Fred, Fred drop the F go red Mary, Mary drop the M so ary That's the only rule that is contrary.”
Fee fie mo Ichael (not *Michael) w-, y-, and h-dialects of Pig Latin
W: way vs. a Y: you vs. ooh/eww H: who vs. ooh/eww
Phonemes vs. graphemesPhonemes vs. graphemes Talking backwards (Cowan, Leavitt, Massaro & Kent 1982)
31-year-old philosophy professor• negotiating for peace [negošietiŋ fOr pis] [gniteIšogen rOf sip]
half of backward talkers reverse a phonological representation of each word; the other half reverse orthographic representation.
Woman talking backward (Cowan & Leavitt 1992) Example: garage [graž] reversed as [žarg] Evidence that she reverses phonemes (rather than letters):
• 1. no silent letters pronounced in reverse forms• 2. homographs were always pronounced differently (two <g>'s in garage)
Not functioning as "reversed tape recorders":• Compound units (diphthongs and affricates) were consistently preserved as units rather
than being reversed.• choice [tšojs] was reversed as [sojtš] (rather than *[sjošt])• This reflects phonological constraints on the woman's acoustic analytic capabilities.
Underdetermination Underdetermination microvariation in Pig Latin/ microvariation in Pig Latin/ BackslangBackslang Definition of the Underdetermination
Thesis (e.g. Quine 1975)“"Given any amount of data, there are
always (infinitely) many hypotheses which fit equally well with the data.”
Underdetermination of Underdetermination of sampled waveformssampled waveforms
Digital sampling of analog waveforms yields a set of discrete points, not a continuous wave
The shape of the wave is inferred from these points by an equation that yields a curve of most likely fit
As the Underdetermination Thesis points out, there is actually an infinite number of waveforms compatible with these points
Elaboration:…
sampled points (time/amplitude
pairs)
inferred curve of best fit
excerpt from waveform of me saying [aaaa] at 91 Hz
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
00.
30.
60.
91.
21.
51.
82.
12.
42.
7 3
x
f(x)
Input Data
2x 2̂ - 6x + 6
-8x^6 + 72.8x 5̂ - 250*x 4̂ +401*x^3 - 297*x 2̂ + 79.2*x +6
Two analyses compatible with the Two analyses compatible with the datadata
Pig LatinPig Latin
Trigger typically ig-pay atin-Lay How would you formalize the rule(s)? What predictions does each rule
hypothesis make for other types of form?
ig-pay atin-lay = imple-say?ig-pay atin-lay = imple-say?
Traditional View of Pig Latin:“A jargon systematically formed by the transposition
of the initial consonant to the end of the word and the suffixation of an additional syllable” (The American Heritage Dictionary (1992:1372))
What if the word doesn’t have an initial C? What if the word has more than one initial C?
Second try at a formulation: Second try at a formulation: SPESPE
“Pig Latin…is defined by…a rule which moves the initial consonant sequence in the word, if any, to the end, and which then adds the sequence [ey] to its right” (Chomsky & Halle 1968:342)
Predictions: vowel-initial words (e.g. oven) should yield the
output oven-ay, complex onsets (e.g. tree) should yield ee-tray
Complex Onsets: Complex Onsets: dialect variation with dialect variation with trucktruck
uck-tray (transpose entire onset) (n = 449) ruck-tay (transpose initial C) (n = 112) ruck-tray (transpose entire onset, retain 2nd C) (n = 12) No productions of *tuck-ray, *tuck-tray!
77.7
19.4
2.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
uck-tr-ay ruck-t-ay ruck-tr-ay
VCV-initial words:VCV-initial words: dialect variation with dialect variation with ovenoven
oven-ay (add -ay) (n = 208)
ven-o-ay (initial transposition) (n = 90) oven-way (add w) (n = 82) oven-hay (add h) (n = 54) oven-yay (add y) (n = 47) en-ov-ay (initial transposition) (n = 44) no output (n = 36)
36
15.6 149.3 8.1 7.6 6.2
1.9 1 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.20
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
oven-ay ven-o-ay oven-way oven-hay oven-yay en-ov-ay NULL ven-ov-ay oven-v-ay h-oven-h-ay
y-oven-yay
oven-ov-ay
w-oven-w-ay
ven-ov-ay (copy max + del.) (n = 11)oven-v-ay (1st consonant copying) (n = 6)h-oven-h-ay (add h, overapplication!) (n = 4)y-oven-y-ay (add y, overapplication!) (n = 2)ven-ay (delete first V) (n = 2)oven-n-ay (add n) (n = 2)w-oven-w-ay (add w, overapplication!) (n = 1)oven-ov-ay (copy max ) (n = 1)
Appendix vs. complex onsetAppendix vs. complex onset
Many phonological processes treat clusters of rising sonority (e.g -tr-) differently than clusters of falling sonority (-rt-).
Does this surface in language games? 40/499 (8%) treat tr- and sc- differently in survey NB no evidence for this difference in trigger data
Cf. Pierrehumbert and Nair 1995: Made-up game that inserts -ət- Stimuli limited to CV- After conditioning, test CCV- words Finding: sO- and OR- clusters treated differently
ConclusionsConclusions
Psychological reality/universality of identity avoidance
Psychological reality of phonemesGames typically manipulate phonemes, not
graphemes Inventory of computations Disparity in fast vs. careful performance
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