Entry tags:
ego-boost
phone rang half an hour ago.
it was M, a fourth-year student from my typology class last semester (which was cross-listed for undergraduate and graduate credit, which is how we were both in it). nice kid. studying spanish linguistics. she was calling because she's writing a senior thesis; she's had a first draft back from her advisor, and she hopes to hand in a final draft tomorrow, and she's a little stumped by something in one of the articles she's reading ("by the sixteenth century, estar had completely ousted ser from aspectually compound tenses"), and she was hoping i could help her out. see, she's decided i Know Things about linguistics, and will therefore be able to explain what that means and why it matters.
now, i don't speak spanish, and i haven't read the article in question, so i don't have the context -- so all i could do was give my best guess, based on what i think i'd mean if i used the phrase "aspectually compound tenses". but, dude! baby undergrad ran into a concept she didn't understand, and decided, i know! i'll call my friend fox the smart grad student. she can help me!
[falls down]
it was M, a fourth-year student from my typology class last semester (which was cross-listed for undergraduate and graduate credit, which is how we were both in it). nice kid. studying spanish linguistics. she was calling because she's writing a senior thesis; she's had a first draft back from her advisor, and she hopes to hand in a final draft tomorrow, and she's a little stumped by something in one of the articles she's reading ("by the sixteenth century, estar had completely ousted ser from aspectually compound tenses"), and she was hoping i could help her out. see, she's decided i Know Things about linguistics, and will therefore be able to explain what that means and why it matters.
now, i don't speak spanish, and i haven't read the article in question, so i don't have the context -- so all i could do was give my best guess, based on what i think i'd mean if i used the phrase "aspectually compound tenses". but, dude! baby undergrad ran into a concept she didn't understand, and decided, i know! i'll call my friend fox the smart grad student. she can help me!
[falls down]

no subject
http://assets.cambridge.org/0521571774/sample/0521571774WS.pdf
or this
http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:kAqRnJwky1oC:www.ling.ed.ac.uk/anonftp/pub/working-papers/proc94/mrobinson.ps+aspectual+compound+spanish&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
but that's not what she's talking about. But it's kind of interesting anyway...