knitting with a digression into language theories

Updates:
Jayne hat: finished. Brother 1 will be getting it a couple days after Christmas.

Brown Stripy Socks: Almost to the gusset increases (this is an accomplishment, since I've felt very little motivation to knit on these socks, despite them being a Christmas gift).

Dishcloth: Not quite half-way finished. It's the "ball-band" dishcloth. I rather like the pattern, despite its ubiquity.

Lace shawl: Haven't touched it.

Slipped-stitch hat: Need to dye more yarn before I can start it. Green and dark brown.

Brother 2's hat: Begun, ribbing about half-finished (at about 1 1/2 inches). Black wool.

In everything else, well, school is busy right now. Tonight I'm working on one paper, and tomorrow I'll have to switch to another because I have a presentation due on that paper on Monday. I think I may be spending some time at the coffee shop tomorrow morning. Last week, I'd planned to go to Starbucks (it's a block away and my laptop is heavy), but it was loud and busy. I went another block down the street and ended up at a local coffee shop, which is quiet and calm and has free internet and where they are very welcoming. So I'll go there with my books and my laptop and have a pot of tea (it's cheap) and work.

Last night, I couldn't stop dreaming about the Obligatory Contour Principle (tone stuff, theory paper). Tonight it'll probably be consonant inventories of the proto-language our class has been working on.

Needless to say, my brain is tired, which is why I'm writing this at the moment. I wish had something deep and insightful to say, but the closest I can get is that I think Construction Grammar has a lot of potential, being as it's holistic, and technically generative (although the generativists would probably disagree), and rather mind-bending (can't have a good theory about language without that aspect somewhere), and has a really great way to deal with idioms and the senses of words that normal generativists would put in the lexicon (which gets cumbersome after a while), and it actually seems to have practical applications (I may be wrong about some of these--I haven't read enough yet on it--if it does all these things well, it just may be my dream theory). Suffice to say, if I'd known about it at the beginning of theory class, I might have written my paper on syntax and idiomatic expressions. Yeah. That's what's on my mind right now.

So now I must go put my shoulder to the wheel (idiom!) and get to work on those consonants.