"Extravagance" in language change has made it into the New York Times, and John McWhorter even includes a link to my 1999 article on the irreversibility of grammaticalization (www.nytimes.com/.../gen-z-sp...). The basic idea ("Talk in such a way that you are noticed") comes from Keller's 1994 book.

Happy birthday!

Maarten Kossmann@maartenkossmann.bsky.social · last wk.

Just a reminder: by today the Netherlands has been independent for 445 years. Not that this is celebrated in any way 🤷 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_...

Maybe I have misunderstood the role of functional heads in mainstream generative syntax, but if they are intended as hypotheses, or together as a theory, then this theory should be empirically verifiable – as I discuss in this forthcoming paper: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010....

It's hard to believe that OECS has now published 200 articles!🎉 A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to OECS—our authors, reviewers, readers, and fantastic section editors, and especially @mcxfrank.bsky.social frank.bsky.social and @hbaum.bsky.social Excited for the next chapter!

Philip Laughlin@philiplaughlin.bsky.social · 2w ago

Today's #OA spotlight is extra special. Just this week, @mitpress.bsky.social published the 200th article in our OPEN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE. Congrats to @mcxfrank.bsky.social & @asifamajid.bsky.social! We've come far since the 2023 @cogscisociety.bsky.social in Rotterdam! oecs.mit.edu

Strauß, Silvie. 2026. Structural and semantic factors in the belief-intent alternation in Basque. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 11(1), 1–47. DOI: doi.org/10.16995/glo... #linguistics #DiamondOpenAccess

Structural and semantic factors in the <em>belief-intent</em> alternation in Basque

Clause-embedding predicates alternating between a complement expressing a belief and a complement expressing an intention seem to be quite widespread both inside and across languages. The two differen...

doi.org

ufal.mff.cuni.cz/grants/cross...

We have been influenced! "The purpose of our speech is ever to influence the will or the understanding of our interlocutor in such a way as the speaker deems desirable." (1885: 67, translation hiphilangsci) #Histlx #EveryoneShouldReadWegener #LinguisticQuotes

Brigitte Nerlich@bnerlich.bsky.social · 2w ago

Wegener... everyone should read Wegener

In this interview, Verkerk and Gray answer some of my questions about their amazing 2026 paper, in which they show that many of the Greenbergian universals are robustly supported by the Grambank data. Thanks to Russell and Annemarie! dlc.hypotheses.org/4383

An interview with Annemarie Verkerk and Russell Gray on “Enduring constraints on grammar” (2026)

In the following interview, Annemarie Verkerk and Russell Gray answer Martin Haspelmath's questions about their paper "Enduring constraints on grammar revealed by Bayesian spatiophylogenetic analyses"...

dlc.hypotheses.org

In September 2024, Gilles Authier organized a great workshop on the diachrony of flagging at the Collège de France in Paris. My contribution is now available on Lingbuzz: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010...

"Reconciling the Saussure brothers" – plenary talk at IMM 22 in Budapest (nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...). The presentation is here: zenodo.org/records/2076...

At #ICCG14 in Princeton (huge thanks to @adelegoldberg.bsky.social & team for a brilliant conference!) we announced our plans for the International #ConstructionGrammar Association (ICGA), to be officially founded at #ICCG15 in Kiel in 2028. See here for more information: construction-grammar.org

International Construction Grammar Association

Visit the post for more.

construction-grammar.org

"CLDF Meta" (meta.clld.org) links to data from over 800 CLDF datasets that have been released on Zenodo (e.g. WALS, APiCS and Grambank). There are links to data on over 9000 languoids, e.g. 98 entries on Ambulas (to take a random language). Great work by my colleague Johannes Englisch!

we ran the numbers-- they are bad

The academic job market in linguistics: beyond vibes

the numbers are also bad

profling.beehiiv.com

New chapter w/ @jonrbrennan.bsky.social and @andreaeyleen.bsky.social in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Linguistics. Explanation can help us integrate linguistics and neuroscience, if we exploit the diversity of directions and types of explanations available 🧵👇 books.google.no/books?hl=en&...

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Linguistics

This Handbook presents cutting edge articles on the present state-of-the-art in the philosophy of linguistics. It features prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists investigating fou...

books.google.no

direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edi...

The Open Handbook of (In)definiteness: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Interpreting Bare Arguments

A hands-on, accessible guide for investigating the meaning of noun phrases.Why do many languages have definite and indefinite articles, while many others d

direct.mit.edu

Thanks to Ryan Nefdt for inviting me to contribute to this work on "philosophy of linguistics"! global.oup.com/academic/pro... In this paper, I note that in generative as well as in other work, most of the progress seems to have been made by adding breadth, not depth: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/008...

This is a clear tendency: While the 1990s saw the peak of generative comparative syntax (or g-syntax), the last two decades have been dominated by analyses of particular phenomena in individual languages (p-syntax) – with limited repercussions on general theories. sites.google.com/view/salzbur...

Maybe one of the biggest obstacles for progress in science comes from entrenched stereotypes? In linguistics, we have, for example, (1) the word stereotype, (2) the grammar/dictionary stereotype, (3) the building-block stereotype, and (4) the speaker directionality stereotype dlc.hypotheses.org/4343

Four stereotypes that have guided morphosyntactic thinking

Thinking about language structures is made difficult not only by their incredible complexity, but also by entrenched ways of thinking about grammatical and lexical patterns. Linguists do not investiga...

dlc.hypotheses.org

Excellent piece from Tom that gave us a lot to think about in our response!

Tom McCoy@rtommccoy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🤖🧠 New commentary 🧠🤖 What role should large language models (LLMs) play in linguistics? I reflect on this question in a commentary now on arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2605.10061 To appear in BBS as a commentary on @futrell.bsky.social and @kmahowald.bsky.social's excellent piece on LLMs & Linguistics!

Human hands have partnered with tools for millions of years, allowing us to do things we otherwise could not. Is this a case of brain "plasticity"? Or perhaps "motor abstraction"? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @mattlongo.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/the-inner-li...

I'm not sure if I like this militaristic design, but the OLH's cause is a just one, I think. There's no reason why academic publishing should work like commercial publishing. www.openlibhums.org/news/932/

Just published "Apprehensional constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective" edited by Martina Faller, Marine Vuillermet & Eva Schultze-Berndt #openaccess #rcg langsci-press.org/catalog/book...

Languagehat.com is an interesting blog with much discussion worth looking at. They recently discussed my "Grammaticon", and Eddyshaw's question is a good one: languagehat.com/the-grammati... The answer is that comparative-concept definitions must be sharp, but descriptive categories are different.

Episode 60 of our podcast is out 🤩 In this instalment, James McElvenny (@jamesmcelvenny.bsky.social) talks to Penny Lee (University of Western Australia) about her research on Benjamin Lee Whorf and, more generally, linguistic relativity. 🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2026/05/01/p... #Histlx

Podcast episode 60: Penny Lee

In this interview, we talk to Penny Lee about her research into Whorf and linguistic relativity.

hiphilangsci.net

Diana Forker talks about linguistic diversity in the Caucasus www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Qo...

Podcast interview with Anna Wierzbicka (*1938), where she talks about her view of semantics, and how it all began: In Moscow in 1964, where she met Igor Mel'čuk and Yuri Apresjan. hiphilangsci.net/2026/04/15/p...

A new version (2.0) of Frank Seifart's Affix Borrowing database, now co-authored with Francesco Gardani: afbo.info

Version 1.0 of the Grammaticon is now online! This has been in the making for over eight years. Quite a few of the entries are still preliminary, but I hope to expand and improve it over the coming months and years. Comments are welcome! An intro text is here: dlc.hypotheses.org/4316

List of accepted papers at ETT (Emerging Topics in Typology), Mainz, July 2026: ett-2026.sciencesconf.org/resource/pag...

Call for Papers 🚨 Language, Norm, and Society: The Prague Linguistic Circle (1926-2026) in the Face of Contemporary Challenges Submission deadline: 1 June 2026 Conference: 10-11 December 2026 🔗 hiphilangsci.net/2026/04/17/c... #Histlx

Cfp: Language, Norm, and Society: The Prague Linguistic Circle (1926-2026) in the Face of Contemporary Challenges

Participants at the first phonological conference, organized by the CLP in December 1930 in Prague organised to celebrate the centenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (1926-2026)by the Europe-Eura…

hiphilangsci.net