Suboptimist

I’m too tired to think of a title…

A couple of business matters. I would like to congratulate the following people for the following reasons: Emily for getting accepted to veterinary school, and Noah for getting engaged. I also want to promise that I will update more like I used to. I am over the hump of this semester, save for the papers I have to complete for the end of the semester. That sounds counter intuitive. Anyway, what’s important is that I am on spring break, I got a haircut, and despite how painful my left lateral tooth feels, the dentist says my teeth are in ship shape.

I’ve decided that the class I looked forward to most, the class I appear to be doing the best in, is the class I hate with all my soul: structure of Arabic. Three hours going through data set by data set isn’t very challenging or all that rewarding. Unfortunately, it is the one class I can never afford to miss. Once a week…I miss one class I miss an entire week of class. Also, the instructor doesn’t email our assignments until a) the night before class, or b) the morning before class. I have class non-stop on Tuesdays, so that isn’t very helpful.

The other day in historical linguistics w discussed grammaticalization with us. Grammaticalization is pretty ill defined, and like all things ill defined, it is controversial. A few definitions stand out from the rest.

Christian Lehman (1995[1982]:v): “[Grammaticalization is a process which turns lexemes into grammatical formatives…”

So, basically, it turns words like ‘will’ as a verb of wanting into a future tense marker.

Elizabeth Closs Traugot (1991: 2, 5): “Grammaticalization refers tho the dynamic unidirectional historical process whereby lexical items in the course of time accquire a new status as grammatical and morphosyntactic forms. “

So, now it’s a fancier process. Anyway, the next one is the best

Paul Hopper (1998:147-8): “Grammaticalization can be thought of as a salvation narrative. It is the tragedy of lexical items young and pure in heart but carrying with them the fatal flaw of original sin; their inexorable weakening as they encounter the corrupt world of Discourse; their fall into the Slough of Grammar; and their eventual redemption the cleansing waters of Pragmatics.”

Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.

I’m looking forward to summer. I can work on Hebrew, Syriac, and I decided that I want to learn some Anglo-Saxon. Why not, since I do plenty of useless stuff anyway. I also intend to do some more reading into historical linguistics and phonology on my own time. When is summer, anyway?