A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts on neighborhoods for languages with contrastive segment length. The issue is that calculating the number of neighbors for a given item presumably would net different results based on how you conceive a geminate: is it a pair of segments, or is it a single segment? I had thought that the geminate-as-single-segment approach would generally provide a higher neighbor count, which preliminarily is supported by an artificial trial.
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If you’ve taught (or taken!) an introductory linguistics course lately, and spent any time discussing onomatopoeia and the arbitrariness of the sign, then you’ve probably talked about how speakers of different languages make different animal sounds. And, if you bothered to do a quick Google search for “animal sounds” or “animal noises“, then one of your first few hits will have probably been Cathy Ball’s really fun and excellent Sounds of the World’s Animals website. This site is constantly under development, accepting contributions from readers, and has been up (and recognized with various awards and such) since 1996 1995.
Which is why I was surprised to hear this story on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday this morning.
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