1. Li8 Structure of English
Mur-diddly-urdler!
Li8 Structure of English
Language games and microvariation

2. Today’s topics What are language games?
uses
types
What games can show us about linguistic structure and cognition

3. What are language games?
Also called ludlings, secret languages, language disguises, play languages…
not technically separate languages
rather, they consist of 1-2 simple phonological rules appended to the grammar of an existing language
they normally manipulate phonological elements such as phonemes and syllables

4. Uses of language games Artificial language games
Natural language games
For fun (“language games”)
To deceive others (“language disguises”, “secret languages”)
To imitate groups or languages:
I just got Krusty's mother's recipe for matzoh brie!
I don't do the Jewish stuff on the air! Ixnay on the Oojay!
From the talk show Cooking with Krusty in the Simpsons episode Ustykray the Ownklay, The Front

5. Some other English games
Cockney rhyming slang
Ubbi Dubbi/Ob/Oppen Gloppen/Pig Greek
Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube
The Name Game
Pig Elvish
Ovemë heten irstfë étterlé óten héten ndëen; hentë, fïén ódingca äen ordwë fóén 3 ëttërslá róen esslë, ddaén näën "en" ndíngeth; fïen odingcá äén órdwí fóén 4 ëtterslú roën órema, ddäën äen "th" ndïngeth fién hëten óvedmï etterlá sién aen ówelvú, lsëeth ddáen äën ándomrí ówëlvë. Héntï, hangëcí lläen "k" ótén "c". Ástlylú, ddáën ándómrú ccéntsáth nóen óptën fóen hëten etterslï.

6. The Gibberish family
characterized by inserting a prespecified sequence (normally VC or VCVC) before each nucleus in each word.
Apparently there is variation regarding whether or not to insert the sequence before word-initial vowels
Some believe Gibberish involves [IdIg] (another calls this “Doublespeak”)
Ob [ab]
Hobellobo, Thobomobas.
“My father and his cousins and siblings are the most likely to use it. Last summer a youngster wondered how to say 'Neosporin' in Ob. My father left the room and came back several minutes later, announcing triumphantly, "nobeobospoborobin". I think everyone just refers to it with that name, now.”
Ubbi Dubbi [] or []
perhaps introduced on the PBS show ZOOM, or alternately, as a joke in a sketch by Bill Cosby (the Dentist sketch)
"To be or not to be" → "Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube“
Used by Mushmouth on Fat Albert; cf. Partridge Family skit on SNL
Double Dutch [g] (spelled <ag> or <eg> (the latter also called Egg Latin))
Heggow eggare yeggou deggoegging?
Or “replace every C with a syllable starting and ending with that consonant suso wuworordodzuz cucouldud gogetut popruretutty lolongung”
Op, Oppish, Oppen Gloppen [ap]
Slov [av]
[name unknown] <ubbagg> [combines Ubbi Dubbi and Double Dutch]
Yubbaggou dubbaggon't wubbaggant tubbaggo knubbaggow.

7. Other English examples
Bicycle ([s] after each non-final consonant [or is it C-cluster?…])
Pig Greek (<ob> after each consonant)
Dong
Spelling out words, using:
V: unaltered
C → C + <ong>
Let's go → Long ee tong song gong oh
Chinese Pig Latin ([an] after C, [gan] after V)
various Simpsons games
Ned Flanders: -(d)iddly-, skerdəlider = scare, okəlidokəli = okeedokee, murdidliurdler = murder, pred-iddly-ictable
Zambuda “English pronounced wrong in every possible way. Long vowels became short, c pronounced s when usually pronounced k, silent letters pronounced, and so on. So a sentence like "knock before entering" would become "kE-nOsk beh-faw-ree een-tee-rynj." (E=schwa, O=long o) Being high school students, we mostly used it for words like "mOt-heer-foo-skeer," but some guys got to the point where they could converse fluently in it”
McCarthy 1991 French article mentions Goat Latin

8. Identity avoidance Name Game w-, y-, and h-dialects of Pig Latin
“But if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them both and say the name. Like Bob, Bob drop the B like ob Or Fred, Fred drop the F go red Mary, Mary drop the M so ary That's the only rule that is contrary.”
Fee fie mo Ichael (not *Michael)
w-, y-, and h-dialects of Pig Latin
W: way vs. a
Y: you vs. ooh/eww
H: who vs. ooh/eww

9. Phonemes vs. graphemes
Talking backwards (Cowan, Leavitt, Massaro & Kent 1982)
31-year-old philosophy professor
negotiating for peace [negošietiŋ fOr pis]  [gniteIšogen rOf sip]
half of backward talkers reverse a phonological representation of each word; the other half reverse orthographic representation.
Woman talking backward (Cowan & Leavitt 1992)
Example: garage [graž] reversed as [žarg]
Evidence that she reverses phonemes (rather than letters):
1. no silent letters pronounced in reverse forms
2. homographs were always pronounced differently (two <g>'s in garage)
Not functioning as "reversed tape recorders":
Compound units (diphthongs and affricates) were consistently preserved as units rather than being reversed.
choice [tšojs] was reversed as [sojtš] (rather than *[sjošt])
This reflects phonological constraints on the woman's acoustic analytic capabilities.

10. Underdetermination  microvariation in Pig Latin/ Backslang
Definition of the Underdetermination Thesis (e.g. Quine 1975)
“"Given any amount of data, there are always (infinitely) many hypotheses which fit equally well with the data.”

11. Underdetermination of sampled waveforms
Digital sampling of analog waveforms yields a set of discrete points, not a continuous wave
The shape of the wave is inferred from these points by an equation that yields a curve of most likely fit
As the Underdetermination Thesis points out, there is actually an infinite number of waveforms compatible with these points
Elaboration:…
excerpt from waveform of me saying [aaaa] at 91 Hz
sampled points (time/amplitude pairs)
inferred curve of best fit

12. Two analyses compatible with the data

13. Pig Latin Trigger typically ig-pay atin-Lay
How would you formalize the rule(s)?
What predictions does each rule hypothesis make for other types of form?

14. ig-pay atin-lay = imple-say?
Traditional View of Pig Latin:
“A jargon systematically formed by the transposition of the initial consonant to the end of the word and the suffixation of an additional syllable” (The American Heritage Dictionary (1992:1372))
What if the word doesn’t have an initial C?
What if the word has more than one initial C?

15. Second try at a formulation: SPE
“Pig Latin…is defined by…a rule which moves the initial consonant sequence in the word, if any, to the end, and which then adds the sequence [ey] to its right” (Chomsky & Halle 1968:342)
Predictions:
vowel-initial words (e.g. oven) should yield the output oven-ay,
complex onsets (e.g. tree) should yield ee-tray

16. Complex Onsets: dialect variation with truck
uck-tray (transpose entire onset) (n = 449)
ruck-tay (transpose initial C) (n = 112)
ruck-tray (transpose entire onset, retain 2nd C) (n = 12)
No productions of *tuck-ray, *tuck-tray!

17. VCV-initial words: dialect variation with oven
oven-ay (add -ay) (n = 208)
ven-o-ay (initial  transposition) (n = 90)
oven-way (add w) (n = 82)
oven-hay (add h) (n = 54)
oven-yay (add y) (n = 47)
en-ov-ay (initial  transposition) (n = 44)
no output (n = 36)
ven-ov-ay (copy max  + del.) (n = 11)
oven-v-ay (1st consonant copying) (n = 6)
h-oven-h-ay (add h, overapplication!) (n = 4)
y-oven-y-ay (add y, overapplication!) (n = 2)
ven-ay (delete first V) (n = 2)
oven-n-ay (add n) (n = 2)
w-oven-w-ay (add w, overapplication!) (n = 1)
oven-ov-ay (copy max ) (n = 1)

18. Appendix vs. complex onset
Many phonological processes treat clusters of rising sonority (e.g -tr-) differently than clusters of falling sonority (-rt-).
Does this surface in language games?
40/499 (8%) treat tr- and sc- differently in survey
NB no evidence for this difference in trigger data
Cf. Pierrehumbert and Nair 1995:
Made-up game that inserts -ət-
Stimuli limited to CV-
After conditioning, test CCV- words
Finding: sO- and OR- clusters treated differently

19. Conclusions Psychological reality/universality of identity avoidance
Psychological reality of phonemes
Games typically manipulate phonemes, not graphemes
Inventory of computations
Disparity in fast vs. careful performance