Bringing verbs into the language of economics

In the last 50 years, economic theory has come to be based almost solely on mathematics. This brings logical precision, but according to a new paper by SFI economist Brian Arthur, it restricts what economics can easily talk ...

Nouns slow down our speech

Speakers hesitate or make brief pauses filled with sounds like "uh" or "uhm" mostly before nouns. Such slow-down effects are far less frequent before verbs, as UZH researchers working together with an international team have ...

A revolution in cross-linguistic research

In his new book, "The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research" (University of Chicago Press), Associate Professor of Linguistics Clifton Pye introduces a revolutionary method for crosslinguistic research.

Chance plays a role in how language evolves, study finds

Read a few lines of Chaucer or Shakespeare and you'll get a sense of how the English language has changed during the past millennium. Linguists catalogue these changes and work to discern why they happened. Meanwhile, evolutionary ...

Researchers develop grammar-aware password cracker

When writing or speaking, good grammar helps people make themselves be understood. But when used to concoct a long computer password, grammar—good or bad—provides crucial hints that can help someone crack that password, ...

Word choices on political issues reveal ways of thinking

(Phys.org)—Communication and information science researches have developed a free online tool that offers a new way of looking at the news. "Reflext" provides a glimpse into how political events are being covered and discussed.

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