Norwescon 34 Links

John Lawler

1. Who I am.
   I am a recently retired linguistics professor from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a lifelong interest in F/SF.
   I live now in Bellingham, WA. My regular Web site is linked to my name above, and I'm on Facebook, too, as "John Lawler ... Michigan".
   Here's some credentials:
   • My business card
   • My Short Bio and Resumé
   • The Chomskybot
     (for my role in creating which, according to my Wikipedia listing,
     I am "perhaps best known to the wider public")
   • A list of things I said in a Semantics class one term, posted by a student
     The paper this was part of, on codeswitching and context.
   • My Publications, on various topics (all available online)
   • An article from my grammar column for a newsletter for professional editors, about "Singular they".
   • My Grammar pages, postings about English Grammar, etc.
   • A 24-page list from Haj Ross of The Major Rules of English Syntax.
   • Two Introductions for college grammar classes.
     1. A 14-page list of what everybody needs to know about logic and why
        (remedial pre-grammar, to be followed by)
     2. A 15-page introduction to the English Verb Phrase.

2. What I'm doing at the con.
   Now that I'm retired, I'm trying to pick up my fanac where I originally left it at Torcon II in 1973.
   I did a couple panels on linguistics (as I like to say, the best-kept secret in America) at Norwescon 33 last year.
   This year the con committee want me to do it again in a bigger room, during Prime Time.

3. Post-Con notes
   So, I gave two talks at Norwescon 34; clicking on the link below gives you a (6-page) handout.
   1. Fictional Linguistics Friday 4/22 9 pm Cascade 10
      About weird language phenomena suitable for aliens
   2. Language Fossils Saturday 4/23 3 pm Cascase 10
      About language change and Proto-Indo-European

   3. In the event, we talked about quite a few topics, on and off the handouts.
      After I got home, I realized that in the talks I was telling many of the stories summarized in this (oddly enough) 6-page handout,
      from a talk based on this paper, "Style Stands Still". If you still want to see how those stories all fit together, try the paper,
      which is an essay produced for a special issue on metaphor of an scademic literary journal (Style).

      I should also point out especially some links relevant to various questions from people:

      • the Phonetic Alphaber that's so simple only a child can understand it;
      • The short course on how to read Greek
      • How to Figure out a Sentence, a manual for readers
      • Grimm's Law in action
      • Mouseover the xkcd cartoon (after reading it, of course)