DCblog: On `boilt’

Yesterday, I was discussing aspect in Catalan with my supervisor. It’s all very complicated - more so than you might think. More so than my brain get comprehend, anyway.

So it is with interest that I come across what appears to be a distinction in aspect in synthetic forms (i.e. ‘one word’, not ‘made up, invented’) in certain verbs in British English. The -t form (e.g. burnt) is more focused on a completed action, that only happened the once and it’s over and done with (The house burnt down, to give Crystal’s example) and the -ed form is for more continuous actions, perhaps it’s more describing a state: The house burned for hours (again using Crystal’s example). Anyway, the point is that the -t form appears to correspond to the Catalan preterite tense and the -ed form, only where there is an alternative -t form, corresponds to the Catalan imperfect tense. Yet another complication to add to the list provided by Wheeler, Yates and Dols (1999). It’s possibly reasonably safe to say that this would also to apply to other Romance languages.

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Wheeler, M. W., Yates, A. & Dols, N. (1999). Catalan: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge Grammars, Routledge, London.

I have discovered I can tell the time better on an analogue clock if it goes anti-clockwise instead of clockwise: what you might call a backwards clock. But there can’t be numbers on it, otherwise it just confuses me.

The Hubster says I’m a freak.

So does my supervisor.

What do you think?

I had a supervision today. It made up for the one I missed last week because of Henry breaking down. My supervisor was in Cambridge today anyway, so he came to my house. That was weird, and I tidied up specially!

He said last time we actually had a supervision, I was a particularly funny colour- because of having been ill - and clearly still being a bit ill! At least it shows I wasn’t making being ill up, anyway.

I’ve been to the pub this evening because it was John’s birthday. There was only me, the Hubster and Spider out, but there was good crack. Aye, lots of it.

I believe it’s now past my bedtime.

I had my first ever supervisory board meeting today. It was to mark the end of the year and to see if I should be recommended to proceed to the next year or not. I was told I’d have to do a 5 minute presentation, but I didn’t give myself much time to prepare one. Luckily, I wangled my way out of it: my board chair asked if I wanted to do one, and I said I’d rather not if I didn’t have to, so he said that because my supervisor, my board advisor and himself have all seen me present before, I needn’t, so I said I wouldn’t. The meeting finished on time - my advisor concluded it was the lack of presentation that did it. The chair went through the form me and my supervisor had had to fill in (separately, of course!), and all went well, so he filled in his bit and said the board recommend I proceed.

Same as last time, different audience. Me doing the whole thing. Luckily, Andrew answered the questions for me, despite having said he wasn’t going to, which was evil of him. I told him that as well, and he said that was one of a PhD supervisor’s perks, to be cruel to vulnerable people like me. I told him he was sadistic. The next step is to be able to answer the questions myself. I need to be able to pre-empt the questions, and prepare answers for them. Next talk’s in February.

On Friday, I got up very early (5 a.m.) and drove to Guildford, Surrey in order to attend the University of Surrey’s Morphology Meeting that was being held that day. The guest speaker, Miriam Butt, spoke about case in South Asian languages. We’d been given a reading list, but it made much more sense with someone going through it, rather than just reading from the page about stuff I didn’t really understand, like ergativity. I’m a lot happier about it now.

Andrew, my supervisor, did his latest on Hungarian case, which involved a wee bit of GPFM, which I understood having done something similar with Spanish at the LAGB, which was nice. There was a talk by someone else, that I didn’t really understand, then Grev Corbett, a proper linguist - and famous to boot! - did a bit on canonical case. He really looked like he was enjoying himself when he was talking, which made it an enjoyable talk.

One of the things I like about these conferences is that the students, especially the new ones, ask the other students who all the proper linguists are. You discover that you’re in the same room as some famous linguist or other, and that said famous linguist isn’t anything like you thought they’d be like.

One person I did meet was very interesting to me - Andrew’s other supervisee! He divides his time between Perth (Australia), Boston (USA) and London, so even though I live in Cambridge, I’m still Andrew’s nearest student. He’s doing something similar to me but on Ancient Greek, it would seem, and part time at that. I’ll know more on Thursday, when we all meet at Essex to discuss our theses.

I also discovered that the organiser of the meeting lives in Cambridge, so I gave her a lift home as she’d come by train. It was nice to have someone to talk to on the journey back. I’ve also now got another linguist in Cambridge to talk linguistics to, so it can’t be bad.

1. Posted the signed form to AS along with a self-addressed, stamped postcard to be attached to the front of the whole form.
2. Emailed AS my super-duper adjectives essay (that was something I was supposed to do today - I just missed it off the list).
3. Was visited by Ex-Flatmate-Colleen on her way back up. We drank friendship tea and had a good natter. Hopefully she’ll miss the worst of the problems caused by the immense amount of roadworks that seem to be everywhere at the moment. There are three ways she could have gone, and there are roadworks on all three routes. Can you believe that?
4. Made lambsagne with courgettes.
5. Made what was supposed to be a fruit salad (with apples, plums, cherries and kiwi fruits), but it seems to have turned into stewed fruit instead. Oh, well.
6. Made humous (that was also supposed to be on the list of things to do today).
7. Put the washing in.
8. Been disturbed by phone calls about going to the pub. So much for my Domestic Goddessicity for today.

I’m hungry. There’s lambsagne and nachos and homemade dips (humous, salsa and guacamole) just sitting there in what is now a messy kitchen. But I have to go to the pub now. The washing will no doubt stink by the time we get back. If only it would magic itself onto the airer when it’s finished. *Sigh*