Quotes About Linguistics

Because you cannot study the acquisition or use of language in an intelligent manner without having some idea about this language which is acquired or utilized.

For example, the difference between Pierre believes he is intelligent and He believes Pierre is intelligent is due to what are called relations of "command": co-reference is impossible if the pronoun is located "higher" in the phrase structure than its nonpronominal antecedent. Now in the second case Pierre is found in a subordinated position, thus "lower" than he, so that they cannot be co-referential in the relevant sense.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

essential differences between generative grammar and structural linguistics.

Morris Halle was already working on a generative phonology of Russian in the 1950s, and we also worked together on the generative phonology of English, at first jointly with Fred Lukoff.

Syntactic Structures and LSLT.

the autonomy of syntax;

It is, indeed, virtual dogma that the function of language is communication.

You don't want to get in the habit of overusing the word "fuck" as an adjective. You'll miss the vast variety of its uses.

The Inuit language has no difference between he or she, or between mankind and animal," she adds. "They're all equal."5

There was a message there, if he could teach himself the language.

He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out.

Lolita, luce della mia vita, fuoco dei miei lombi. Mio peccato, anima mia. Lo-li-ta: la punta della lingua compie un percorso di tre passi sul palato per battere, al terzo, contro i denti. Lo. Li. Ta.

Tropes are the dreams of speech.

Don't utilize utilize. Use use.

The only stupid thing about words is the spelling of them.

No one uses words correctly and if you call them on it, they claim that words are fungible, that it's oppressive and prissy not to let words mean whatever the speaker wishes them to mean.

Ah, Christ, this is the place with the messed-up sizes, isn't it? Like, 'grande' instead of 'large?' He stretched it out all stupid and fake-French, and Christina and I shared a look. "Why can't you just call it a large?" he asked. "You could except grande is a medium." Christina said, "Venti is large." "Venti. Right. For the love of God, can't I order in plain English?

The hypothetical past perfect, the tense of missed chances.

To have another language is to possess a second soul.?

When did swearing become so easy? You still would never swear in front of your parents or most adults, but when you're with your friends it's like every fifth word. Why couldn't learning Spanish be that easy?

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism, are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism.

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

Language aren't created in a day; some have evolved over hundreds, even thousands of years, and are still evolving. The user of any language must constantly invent to adapt to fresh circumstances, and when invention flags they must borrow.