language and thought

The Color of a Consonant: Grapheme-Color Synesthesia

For people with grapheme-color synesthesia, letters and numbers aren't just black marks on a page—they have their own inherent, vivid…

2 weeks ago

The Sentence That Attacks Itself: Center-Embedding

The sentence "The rat the cat the dog chased ate died" is perfectly grammatical, yet it feels like a cognitive…

2 weeks ago

The Language of Loss: Linguistic Patterns in Dementia

Dementia does more than steal memories; it systematically unravels the very fabric of language. This post explores the specific linguistic…

2 weeks ago

The Limits of Truth: What Are Vague Predicates?

When does a 'heap' of sand stop being a heap after you remove one grain at a time? This is…

2 weeks ago

Linguistic Implicature: What We Mean, Not What We Say

Have you ever understood someone's "no" even when they didn't say the word? This is linguistic implicature, the art of…

2 weeks ago

The Logic of ‘Doch’: Germany’s Magic Word

German learners are often baffled by tiny words like 'doch'. This post unpacks the world of German modal particles, the…

2 weeks ago

Can AI Detect Irony? The Sarcasm Problem

Teaching a machine that "Oh, great" can mean the exact opposite is one of the toughest challenges in artificial intelligence.…

2 weeks ago

The Data Drought: Why Some Languages Are Invisible to AI

Why can AI translate French perfectly but struggles with Navajo or Swahili? The answer lies in the "data drought", a…

2 weeks ago

The Shape of a Word: Intro to Word Embeddings

How does a computer understand that "king" is to "queen" as "man" is to "woman"? We dive into the magic…

2 weeks ago

The Brain’s Filing Cabinet: What is a Lemma?

Ever had a word on the tip of your tongue? This frustrating moment is a perfect window into the brain's…

2 weeks ago

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