I’ve been talking about “chunking” in children’s speech lately. By chunking, I mean when a child misparses a sentence such that multiple word that occur together frequently (i.e., collocations) become sort of glued together. Just like in collocations in adults (like throw up, a lot, went out), the group of words together take on a meaning that is beyond just the sum of the individual components. For example, white wine means something different than wine that is white.

When I’m explaining children’s use of chunks to someone for the first time, I’m always prompted to provide an example, and for weeks, I’ve been blanking. But today, when I flipped open the Erika Hoff Language Development textbook being used in BCS 259, I happened to open to the dedication page… a page I hadn’t read before. And there, on the page, was the following transcribed interaction between the author and her daughter:

At the dinner table–

Kirsten (aged 7 years): Are we having for dessert ice cream?

Author: Kirsten, Are we having for dessert ice cream? What kind of a sentence is that?

(A reflective pause)

Kirsten: You should write it down for your book.

A perfect example of a chunk! Having for dessert! Thank you Erika Hoff, and thank you Kirsten! I’ll blank no more.

I’m going to NELS next week with Peter Graff and cohort, and I need to find a place to stay. Petie doesn’t like the idea of me sleeping in his car. So, know of free floor/couch/chair/bed space in Ottawa Oct. 26-28?

Update: I have a lot of work, no money, and the corpus group meeting was scheduled for Friday. I’ve decided the universe does not want me to go to Ottawa. So home I stay. But BU next week, so I’ll see Peter then.

Actually, it’s 21, not one million. Also actually, most of these are from San Francisco, not Palo Alto. But since I was up there for the institute, I thought the title appropriate nonetheless. In a semi-random order.

I believe the party’s falling on Bastille Day was a happy accident, but yes. A great party. Thanks, Hal, Inbal and Lis! I’m very tardy in posting these, but you forgive me.

I spent the Tuesday evening boozing with Lars Hinrichs who pointed out to me that a couple New Orleans dialectical constructions also occur in Jamaican English. (Lars’ professional site is here; blog here.)

For example, the use of for in place of at in reference to time:

Celeste:	I have to be at class for 8.
Emma:	For 8 what?
Celeste:	For 8 o’clock.
Emma:	Wait, why are you saying for instead of at? You mean you have to be at class at 8.

Also, the use of by to mean at in the following context:

My Mom:	Honey, can I stay by you or should I get a hotel room?
Celeste:	Stay by me! We have a guest room now.

I’m told by Emma & Mikeh that Californians can stop by a house. If, however, the stay is extended, you stay with a person or at a person’s house—not by a person or by a person’s house. Sound right, native Californians?

I wonder if there are any other overlaps between New Orleans and Jamaican English. Further investigation over further wine is obviously required in the name of scientific inquiry.

The Linguistic Society of America 2007 Summer Institute started yesterday at Stanford. Emma & I drove up Saturday to get settled in for our Sunday classes. So far, awesomeness. A lot more blogging soon.

I graduated Friday from USC with a B.A. in Linguistics from the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences and one in Print Journalism from the Annenberg School for Communication. Yay!

Ted Koppel delivered an amazing address at the main commencement ceremony. He talked about the immorality of an administration that engages in war to protect the nation’s freedoms while simultaneously trampling upon them. It was gutsy. It would have been gutsier had he delivered that same sort of address via the national platform to which he’s had access for more than 40 years instead of at a college graduation, but it was a good speech nonetheless.

Clint Eastwood was also in attendance, as he was being awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. He’s one of my grandmother’s “heartthrobs,” as she calls them, so she was delighted when he came walking through Alumni Park. Nobel laureate Arvid Carlsson and California Supreme Court justice Joyce Kennard also received honorary degrees.

Approximately 40,000 guests attended the commencement. I posted pictures of some of my favorite guests here. I particularly like the photo of me and my baby sister Elena. (She was evidently not impressed by Ted Koppel’s speech, but, like most babies, she tends to lean right.)

There is a lot more me in this photo montage than I’d generally feel comfortable with, but because that’s sort of the nature of graduation photos, I decided to suck up my discomfort just this one time.

I’m going to miss a lot of people from USC, particularly the linguistics faculty members who have advised me over the past few years (Rachel, Toby, Dani, Elsi, and María Luisa), and the graduate students, who helped guide and encourage me through the whole admissions process (Stephen, Michal, Daylen, Michael, Janet, Jelena, Rebeka, Laura, Aaron… a lot more). I’m hoping to keep in contact with people, and I’m sure I’ll be back to visit but, you know. Not the same as seeing people everyday.

The courses I’ll be taking at the LSA Institute this summer at Stanford are set! Hooray!

Main Session:

(1) LSA.308 | Computational Psycholinguistics, Levy (T/F 10-12 PM)
(2) LSA.373 | Intro. to Morphology, Spencer (M/TH 8-10 AM)
(3) LSA.317 | Experimental Phonology, Johnson &Ohala (T/F 1:30-3:30 PM)
(4) LSA.323 | Info. Structure & Word Order Variation, Birner & Ward (T/F 3:30-5:30 PM)

Presession:

(1) LSA.106P | Intro. to Minimalist Syntax, McCloskey (3:45-5:45 PM)
(2) LSA.117P | Using Praat, Scarborough (1:30-3:30 PM)
(3) LSA.109P | Math. Refresher for Comp. Linguistics, Moscoso del Prado Martín (7-9 PM)

And if I can somehow sit in on these, too, I want to:

(4) LSA.116P | Using CHILDES, Snyder (9:30-11:30 AM)
(5) LSA.108P | Logic for Linguists, Potts (3:45-5:45 PM)

I think I have one class overlap with Emma & Austin. If only Kyle were going, it’d be perfect! (You’ll be missed, Kyle.)

The USC Undergraduate Symposium was today.

I got to see a lot of linguistics peeps who I’ve barely seen all semester. Joe, Ashley, & Michelle presented an OT analysis of cross-linguistic nickname formation, which they’d worked on under the direction of Prof. Lubowicz. Matt & Anya presented work on the use of English articles by native Russian speakers supervised by Profs. Zubizarreta & Ionin.

I was presenting work from the vowel harmony project done in Toby’s lab. That’s the project that got me hooked on ling in the first place.

Toby, Ashlee, & I attended the awards banquet post-presentation. We were eating cheesecake when they got to our category. When they announced the honorable mentions, we were all ears—I’ve won two honorable mentions before [2005, 2006], but no linguistics project has ever placed above that. But, alas, they didn’t call our names. So Ashlee and I exchanged looks and resumed cheesecake consumption.

I didn’t hear my name being called—or maybe I didn’t process?—but everyone at the table was looking at me and Ashlee and starting to clap a few moments later—so we won First Place? We stood up and walked to the front of the room and shook hands and got certificates and took a picture each. When I went back to my chair, I had to open the folder the certificate was in to confirm. And sure enough, there was my name, my category, and the words “First Place.”

Crazy! Not expected—very nice, but very unexpected. Happy to graduate on an up note.

So I spent a good chunk of the weekend preparing my very last poster for the USC Undergraduate Research Symposium. I took it as an opportunity to produce a scrapbook-like science presentation for the very last time.

It’s not quite as pretty as Emma & my valentine’s from this year, but it’s cute nonetheless. Maybe too cute.

The poster’s not quite done in that last polaroid. Names, categories, and audio speaker are all missing. I’ll have to take a picture at the event. I was planning on sneaking a peek on the poster tomorrow morning anyway before judging to make sure nothing has gone awry. (I’m so paranoid.)

This will be my last research symposium at USC! This’ll be the last time I forget sunscreen and get all pink and burned from sitting out on Trousdale! The last time I enjoy a delicious boxed lunch on Trojan grounds! The last time I present a poster this craftalicious with a straight face!

It’s been an interesting few years at USC. Oh, the memories.