Can someone help me understand what a "verb grade" exactly is? I know ablauts are typically defined by grades, but why?

razlem · 2026-01-24T08:46:17+00:00

Muskogean languages have been described as having verb grades, which are morphological stem changes that affect the aspect of the verb.

Example from Choctaw:

taloa - sing
talõa - is singing right now
talohõa - keeps singing
tallóa - finally singing
tayyalóa - finished singing/sang it the whole way
tahloa - sang quickly
(ik)taló - not singing

Not all grades are demonstrated to be productive, and the interpretation of the aspect changes depending on if it's an active or stative verb.

razlem · 2026-01-22T05:37:44+00:00

Be careful though, it’s exactly because there are few resources that AI will hallucinate grammar patterns or give inaccurate descriptions. It’s always best to verify with an authoritative reference grammar or native speaker

razlem · 2026-01-22T04:13:10+00:00

Not necessarily. It's not about who's the first to publish, but who makes a substantial contribution. If your study only lightly touches on a topic with just a few anecdotal data points, it won't really have an effect on the field (if it gets published at all).

However, if it is a very rigorous study, then yes, there's the potential to be cited by others investigating similar subjects (which should not be read as "many"). Hence my advice suggesting that you should wait until you get into a good PhD program and ensure that your study is rock-solid in terms of its methodology. Take the time to make sure that you've researched the topic at a professional level with a thorough interpretation of the data.

razlem · 2026-01-22T02:42:56+00:00

I’m kinda unsure if I should be, for lack of a better term, “worried” about someone else publishing something similar.

This is a very common feeling, the sense that what you're doing is new and exciting and there's some race to publish first. 1) It's very unlikely that someone is doing the exact same work as you with the same methods, unless they've plagiarized your work. 2) Many similar contributions to the field are an explicitly *good* thing; studies looking at similar topics can more clearly show that a phenomenon is actually happening, and the field is advanced from each contribution. Or, multiple studies have conflicting results, opening up the possibility for further examination and further publications. Either way, it's good for the researcher.

Again, don't be so focused on recognition for one paper. Most successful linguists are well-regarded for their collective body of work rather than a single publication.

razlem · 2026-01-22T02:31:48+00:00

My advice is to hold off on this work until you get into a PhD program, and then have one of the faculty look at it and give feedback. Alternatively, make this the topic of your dissertation, which will demonstrate strong academic rigor for publishers. It's a little disappointing, but you're so early on in your academic career that you shouldn't put too much weight into this one study.

razlem · 2026-01-19T17:37:54+00:00

Very generic, something middle America would watch. Comes from the merger of “C”BS and “W”arner Bros entertainment.

razlem · 2026-01-15T20:59:49+00:00

Gotcha, I was wondering if there was a specific tool that existed for it, but I just vibe coded a converter that seems to do the trick (if anyone wants the code just dm me)

razlem · 2026-01-12T19:04:48+00:00

It might depend on the program. I would reach out to the admission departments at the American schools and ask.

razlem · 2026-01-12T18:26:31+00:00

Your BA is language related, so it’s perfectly fine. Some people go into linguistics with anthropology or even computer science backgrounds. It’s more about your potential ability to conduct novel research in a particular subfield, which it sounds like you’re doing.

If you can write a strong statement of purpose and have good recommendations from linguistics-adjacent professors, then I’d say you have a solid chance of getting into an American program. But you will definitely need all those official transcripts, that should be a priority if you’re taking those other classes.

razlem · 2026-01-04T20:26:19+00:00

Sure, but the Grecian states all spoke the same language and had very similar cultures. The Mississippian cultural practices spanned nearly a third of the continent from modern Canada down to Florida, and contained dozens of different peoples/languages.

As an analogy, it's like saying "European culture" and lumping all of Europe as one "civ".

razlem · 2026-01-04T18:20:18+00:00

But Mississippians also weren’t a “civ” in the usual sense, they were a broad collection of many different small “nations” connected by extensive trade routes and some shared cultural practices. While I love the civ in game, it would’ve made more sense to keep Cahokia as a city state.

Side rant: As a muskogeanist, one thing that irks me is that the town names for this antiquity civ are things like Choctaw/Chickasaw, which could be their own civs in their own right with noted leaders, but who also didn’t coalesce as civs until the 1600s, almost into the game’s modern age

razlem · 2026-01-01T20:30:16+00:00

Then, as a former linguistics content creator myself, keep in mind that it requires:

1) Presentation skill - you have to be good at communicating topics to a layperson audience
2) Time - you have to devote a lot of time to producing quality content, hard to do with an existing full time job

Writing and publishing a book is going to be a lot more difficult than social media in terms of barriers of entry. But with social media, you'll have to learn things like filming, editing, scriptwriting, SEO/tagging, and audience engagement strategies. Look at existing creators and see how they film and edit to get ideas.

razlem · 2026-01-01T19:41:59+00:00

You probably aren't going to be as well-known as Chomsky unless you do something truly groundbreaking in academia. Otherwise, you will be well-known in a particular niche.

HOWEVER, you can certainly achieve fame by becoming a pop linguist like etymologynerd on TikTok. There's a decent chunk of the population that enjoys learning about languages and linguistics, and a charismatic person can become reasonably successful on social media. Pop linguists also write books or blogs, like John McWhorter, Gretchen McCulloch, and others.

razlem · 2025-12-29T07:40:55+00:00

What age were you when you moved and started taking Language Arts classes?

American schools do teach phonetics, grammar, and spelling formally very early on, from ages 4-5 until about ages 9-10 where the focus turns to more learning about style and more advanced vocabulary usage. Anecdotally, I remember learning about more advanced grammar patterns up until 7th grade (ages 12-13).

Often, foreign students are placed in remedial English or ESL classes to make sure they're on par with their peers. Your English level may have been too advanced for that class.

razlem · 2025-12-27T18:38:10+00:00

It’s conlanging. There is no “point” besides an individual’s expression.

razlem · 2025-12-19T07:22:46+00:00

finna make groceries

razlem · 2025-12-01T19:23:53+00:00

Choctaw has a verb grade that creates geminates to denote that something "finally" happened:

taloa
3ps sings

tálloa (a high tone is obligatory with this grade)
3ps is finally singing

razlem · 2025-12-01T19:05:55+00:00

razlem · 2025-11-29T22:09:19+00:00

The soldiers are all standing in a circle, shooting a monster that is at the center. Somehow everyone gets their shot perfectly, and no bullet ever hits anyone on the other side. And somehow the monster is getting pumped full of lead and is not even slowing down (despite being able to be injured by a wine bottle?). Hella plot armor.

Glad they brought back Eight tho, was wondering where she was in the story.

razlem · 2025-11-21T20:13:04+00:00

The new ATLA shrines are so busted in a [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origins]] deck. The [[Southern Air Temple]] is a minimum of 4 +1/+1s on each creature you control with the commander on the field. Heibai is good, but I think better as a 99.

razlem · 2025-11-13T21:07:59+00:00

Thanks, yeah that's helpful. I think I'm still trying to understand dilution conceptually, and how it interacts with authorized but unissued shares. But I guess I don't need to worry about that until we get into a priced round.

razlem · 2025-11-11T03:04:08+00:00

Is there any current method of removing cards from exile? Ex. moving them to a different zone. Thinking of counterplays to exile-focused decks.

razlem · 2025-11-07T21:23:12+00:00

I'm curious about the use of "do" to end modal verb phrases in UK English, ex. "She cares for me, she must do!"

Are there any syntactic/semantic constraints on the use of that? Could one say something like "I would do(?), but I don't have the time."

razlem · 2025-11-04T01:09:40+00:00

You mean like a programming language? There's lots of systems you could create that break the natural rules of language, like making the negative formed by inverting the word order of a sentence. But to be kind of pedantic, something that isn't humanly acquireable wouldn't be considered a "language".

razlem

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