A sentence does not only tell us what happened. Sometimes its grammar prepares us for who will carry the story forward. Consider two tiny stories. I opened the door and walked outside. I opened the door and Peter walked inside. English handles them easily. In the first sentence, the person who opens the door is […]
Tymur Levitin“Knowing what a word means is knowledge. Knowing why you need this word here — and not another one you also know — is language.” — Tymur Levitin A student reads a sentence and understands every word. Then I remove one word and ask: What would you put here? Suddenly, the answer is not obvious. […]
Tymur LevitinSeven apples can exist without the word “seven.” The harder question is whether seven can remain seven after the apples disappear. Imagine seven apples on a table. You can see them. You can touch them. You can move them. You can eat one. Now there are six. For speakers of languages with developed numeral systems, […]
Tymur LevitinBefore language tells us where something is, it has to decide what “where” is measured from. Put a cup on a table. The cup is on your left. Now turn around. Where is the cup? If we continue describing its position relative to your body, something remarkable has happened. The cup did not move. The […]
Tymur Levitin“Past” looks like one place only until a language asks how far into it you have travelled. He died. I saw him. I went there. I was born. For an English speaker, all four sentences have something obvious in common. They are about the past. Of course, the events may belong to radically different periods. […]
Tymur LevitinWhat is difficult to name in one language may be an ordinary distinction in another. Look at something red. Now name its color. Red. You do not need to say: the color of blood. You do not normally search your memory for a red object and then describe the color through that object. English gives […]
Tymur LevitinA language can draw a boundary differently without making the reality on either side disappear. Imagine pointing to your hand and asking someone: What is this? For an English speaker, the answer seems almost embarrassingly obvious. A hand. The category feels natural because the anatomy feels natural. The wrist seems to provide a visible boundary. […]
Tymur LevitinSometimes grammar does not begin by asking who is the subject. It begins by asking who stands higher in the conversation. English gives us two extremely ordinary sentences: You see me. I see you. Nothing mysterious seems to be happening. The verb see stays see. The participants change places around it. you → see → […]
Tymur LevitinWhen Objects Become Too Prominent to Stay Unmarked Grammar does not only tell us who did what to whom. Sometimes it also tells us what kind of “whom” we are dealing with. Category: Language as a Way of Thinking Consider two Spanish sentences: Veo la casa.I see the house. Veo a María.I see María. At […]
Tymur LevitinHow Language Marks the Moment Reality Changes for the Speaker Imagine opening a door. Your friend is standing behind it. He has been there for ten minutes. Nothing has just happened to him. He has not suddenly arrived. He has not suddenly become your friend. The physical reality on the other side of the door […]
Tymur Levitin
