# Language and linguistics

Canonical page: https://dominiklukes.net/topics/language-and-linguistics

How language works: grammar, meaning, language change, and what linguistics can and cannot tell us.

104 items, newest first.

- [Language without structure? How can LLMs speak all the languages without knowing any of the rules?](https://dominiklukes.net/speaking/language-without-structure-how-can-llms-speak-all-the-langua-2026) (Talks, 2026)
- [How LLMs Understand Text: Context and Meaning in the AI Age](https://dominiklukes.net/speaking/llms-understand-text) (Talks, 2025)
- [What have Large Language Models actually learned about language](https://dominiklukes.net/speaking/what-have-large-language-models-actually-learned-about-langu-2024) (Talks, 2024)
- [Semantic Machines](https://dominiklukes.net/speaking/semantic-machines-2024) (Talks, 2024)
- [3 fundamental problems of translating metaphor (or anything else)](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2022-03-06-3-fundamental-problems-of-translating-metaphor-or-anything-else) (Writing, 2022)
- [Úvod do analýzy textov](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/uvod-do-analyzy-textov) (Writing, 2020)
- [What would make linguistics a better science? Science as a metaphor](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2019-04-28-what-would-make-linguistics-a-better-science-science-as-a-metaphor) (Writing, 2019)
- [Therapy for Frege: A brief outline of the theory of everything](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2018-05-16-therapy-for-frege-a-brief-outline-of-the-theory-of-everything) (Writing, 2018)
- [10 ways in which music is like language and 8 (more important) ways in which it is not](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2018-03-19-10-ways-in-which-music-is-like-language-and-8-more-important-ways-in-) (Writing, 2018)
- [17 Things Everyone Should Know About Language But Doesn’t Even Know to Ask](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2018-03-11-17-things-everyone-should-know-about-language-but-doesnt-even-know-to) (Writing, 2018)
- [Jazyk, svoboda a řeč jazykovědné moci](https://dominiklukes.net/research/jazyk-svoboda-a-rec-jazykovedne-moci) (Research, 2018)
- [There are too many words for scavenger in Czech but none of them was good enough for Star Wars…](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2015-12-22-there-are-too-many-words-for-scavenger-in-czech-but-none-of-them-was-) (Writing, 2015)
- [What language looks like: Dictionary and grammar are to language what standing on one foot is to running](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2014-11-05-what-language-looks-like-dictionary-and-grammar-are-to-language-what-) (Writing, 2014)
- [Anthropologists' metaphorical shenanigans: Or how (not) to research metaphor](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2014-08-03-anthropologists-metaphorical-shenanigans-or-how-not-to-research-metap) (Writing, 2014)
- [What does it mean when words 'really' mean something: Dismiss the Miss](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2014-05-17-what-does-it-mean-when-texts-really-mean-something) (Writing, 2014)
- [Linguistics according to Fillmore](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2014-02-15-linguistics-according-to-fillmore) (Writing, 2014)
- [5 things everybody should know about language: Outline of linguistics' contribution to the liberal arts curriculum](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2014-01-01-5-things-everybody-should-know-about-language-outline-of-linguistics-) (Writing, 2014)
- [Binders full of women with mighty pens: What is metonymy](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2013-12-14-binders-full-of-women-with-mighty-pens-what-is-metonymy) (Writing, 2013)
- [Three books of the year 2013 and some books of the century 1900-2013](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2013-11-17-three-books-of-the-year-2013-and-some-books-of-the-century-1900-2013) (Writing, 2013)
- [Sunsets, horizons and the language/mind/culture distinction](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2013-08-24-sunsets-horizons-and-the-languagemindculture-distinction) (Writing, 2013)
- [Framing and constructions as a bridge between cognition and culture: Two Abstracts for Cognitive Futures](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2013-01-26-framing-constructions-as-a-bridge-between-cognition-and-culture-two-a) (Writing, 2013)
- [The complexities of simple: What simple language proponents should know about linguistics \[updated\]](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2012-09-28-the-complexities-of-simple-what-simple-language-proponents-should-kno) (Writing, 2012)
- [Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2012-08-09-pseudo-education-as-a-weapon-beyond-the-ridiculous-in-linguistic-pres) (Writing, 2012)
- [Online Corpora for Literacy Teachers — Part I](https://dominiklukes.net/research/online-corpora-for-literacy-teachers-part) (Research, 2012)
- [Online Corpora for Literacy Teachers — Part II](https://dominiklukes.net/research/online-corpora-for-literacy-teachers-part-2) (Research, 2012)
- [Ou tú brúte: Aneb jak nám Kodák narost](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/ou-tu-brute-aneb-jak-nam-kodak-narost) (Writing, 2012)
- [Životy v olympijských pravdách: O jazykovém soukromí](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/zivoty-v-olympijskych-pravdach-o-jazykovem-soukromi) (Writing, 2012)
- [Comedian identifies a critical flaw in structuralism: Are distinctive features like leather sleeves](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2011-03-24-comedian-identifies-a-critical-flaw-in-structuralism-are-distinctive-) (Writing, 2011)
- [The brain is a bad metaphor for language](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2011-03-11-the-brain-is-a-bad-metaphor-for-language) (Writing, 2011)
- [Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2011-02-23-literally-triumph-of-pet-peeve-over-matter) (Writing, 2011)
- [Mezi rohlíkem a Masarykem: O sémiotické nicotnosti a stavitelích významů](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/mezi-rohlikem-a-masarykem-o-semioticke-nicotnosti-a-stavitelich-vyznamu) (Writing, 2011)
- [What Should Literacy Teachers Know about Language and Linguistics?](https://dominiklukes.net/research/what-should-literacy-teachers-know-about) (Research, 2011)
- [Why Chomsky doesn't count as a gifted linguist](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2010-08-01-why-chomsky-doesnt-count-as-a-gifted-linguist) (Writing, 2010)
- [I write like… a new more sophisticated stripper name?](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2010-07-22-i-write-like-a-new-more-sophisticated-stripper-name) (Writing, 2010)
- [Floskule](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/floskule) (Writing, 2010)
- [O sémiotické nicotnosti](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/o-semioticke-nicotnosti) (Writing, 2010)
- [Vládci významu a formy I.: Význam](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/vladci-vyznamu-a-formy-i-vyznam) (Writing, 2010)
- [If a word falls in the woods...The interactional nature of meaning](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2009-02-01-if-a-word-falls-in-the-woods) (Writing, 2009)
- [No fair in Bulgarian: Universals of language and particulars of culture](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2009-01-30-no-fair-in-bulgarian) (Writing, 2009)
- [Anaphoric islands, the free world and folk theories of language](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2009-01-11-anaphoric-islands-the-free-world-and-folk-theories-of-language) (Writing, 2009)
- [7 Common Myths About Language and Learning](https://dominiklukes.net/research/seven-myths) (Research, 2009)
- [s/z: British/American approaches to personali(s/z)ed learning](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2008-01-12-british-and-american-approaches-to-personalised-learning) (Writing, 2008)
- [Říše slova: Zamarovský dějin řeči](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/rise-slova-zamarovsky-dejin-reci) (Writing, 2008)
- [Negotiating radial categories: Some mothers do have them](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-11-04-negotiating-radial-categories-some-mothers-do-have-them) (Writing, 2007)
- [Convention over logic: Limits of implicature](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-10-14-convention-over-logic-limits-of-implicature) (Writing, 2007)
- [Changes in word meaning and folk theories of reasonable mappings](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-09-02-changes-in-word-meaning-and-folk-theories-of-reasonable-mappings) (Writing, 2007)
- [Lol cats and conventionalization of semiotic systems](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-09-02-lol-cats-and-conventionalization-of-semiotic-systems) (Writing, 2007)
- [Searching for coherence in high-stakes utterances](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-09-01-searching-for-coherence-in-high-stakes-utterances) (Writing, 2007)
- [Paradox of the evolutionary metaphor in language death](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-08-24-the-paradoxical-evolutionary-scenarios-and-language-death) (Writing, 2007)
- [Blurring the lines of folk and expert theory](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-08-23-blurring-the-lines-of-folk-and-expert-theory) (Writing, 2007)
- [Walking robots and local grammars](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-14-walking-robots-and-local-grammars) (Writing, 2007)
- [Sources of usage consensus in language change](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-12-sources-of-usage-consensus-in-language-change) (Writing, 2007)
- [Conservatism as part fo language competence](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-11-conservatism-as-part-fo-language-competence) (Writing, 2007)
- [Language Log: The Supreme Court Fails Semantics](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-08-language-log-the-supreme-court-fails-semantics) (Writing, 2007)
- [Professional linguists and folk theory of language](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-08-professional-linguists-and-folk-theory-of-language) (Writing, 2007)
- [Wittgenstein and folk theories of language and intelligence](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-07-01-wittgenstein-and-folk-theories-of-language-and-intelligence) (Writing, 2007)
- [Havel on intertextuality](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-06-14-havel-on-intertextuality) (Writing, 2007)
- [Mis-entrenchment of codified blendings](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-06-06-mis-entrenchment-of-codified-blendings) (Writing, 2007)
- [Negotiating 'lie'](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-05-10-negotiating-lie) (Writing, 2007)
- [Folk theory of meaning has hypostasis of reference in the Imus controversy](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-04-12-folk-theory-of-meaning-has-hypostasis-of-reference-in-the-imus-contro) (Writing, 2007)
- [Text worlds, anaphora and syntactic structures as spandrels](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-03-23-text-worlds-anaphora-and-syntactic-structures-as-spandrels) (Writing, 2007)
- [McJobs, the Dictionary Wars and Folk Theories of Meaning](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-03-22-mcjobs-the-dictionary-wars-and-folk-theories-of-meaning) (Writing, 2007)
- [Images of language and learning in mavenry](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2007-01-08-images-of-language-and-learning-in-mavenry) (Writing, 2007)
- [Čeština bez vidu (angličtina bez časů)](https://dominiklukes.net/research/cestina-bez-vidu-anglictina-bez-casu) (Research, 2007)
- [Podněty a plody Pražského lingvistického kroužku: ruská emigrace, česká sláva a 80té narozeniny](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/podnety-a-plody-prazskeho-lingvistickeho-krouzku-ruska-emigrace-ceska-slava-a-80) (Writing, 2007)
- [What does it mean when texts ‘really’ mean something?: Types of evidence for conceptual patterns in discourse](https://dominiklukes.net/research/types-of-evidence) (Research, 2007)
- [Tom Waits and the surface of text](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-10-29-tom-waits-and-the-surface-of-text) (Writing, 2006)
- [Localized textual performance in everyday narrative](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-10-21-localized-textual-performance-in-everyday-narrative) (Writing, 2006)
- [Local grammars and space exploration](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-10-06-local-grammars-and-space-exploration) (Writing, 2006)
- [Language awareness as part of linguistic competence](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-07-09-language-awareness-as-part-of-linguistic-competence) (Writing, 2006)
- [Rationality and immigration](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-05-23-rationality-and-immigration) (Writing, 2006)
- [Linguistic nationalism and the USA](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-05-20-linguistic-nationalism-and-the-usa) (Writing, 2006)
- [Prejudice, shared meanings, local grammars and Google as a resource for research](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-01-16-prejudice-shared-meanings-local-grammars-and-google-as-a-resource-for) (Writing, 2006)
- [Self-organization of iconic linguistic items](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-01-10-self-organization-of-iconic-linguistic-items) (Writing, 2006)
- [Social hypostasis of linguistic items](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2006-01-09-the-gif-pronunciation-page) (Writing, 2006)
- [Towards a cognitive morphology of the folktale](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2005-12-29-towards-a-cognitive-morphology-of-the-folktale) (Writing, 2005)
- [Creation of meaning and music analogies](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/2005-12-25-creation-of-meaning-and-music-analogies) (Writing, 2005)
- [Purizmus, předsudky a pitominy](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/purizmus-predsudky-a-pitominy) (Writing, 2005)
- [Jak psát a nepsat česky](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/jak-psat-a-nepsat-cesky) (Writing, 2005)
- [Language and Knowledge: Against Modularity as a Viable Theory of Language and Mind](https://dominiklukes.net/research/language-knowledge) (Research, 2005)
- [Nové myšlení o myšlení a o jazyce](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/nove-mysleni-o-mysleni-a-o-jazyce) (Writing, 2005)
- [English–Czech parallel corpus for the comparative study of cohesion](https://dominiklukes.net/research/cohesion-corpus) (Research, 2002)
- [Hledání univerzálního porozumění](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/hledani-univerzalniho-porozumeni) (Writing, 2002)
- [It's a challenge!](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/its-a-challenge) (Writing, 2002)
- [Příklady politické korektnosti](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/priklady-politicke-korektnosti) (Writing, 2002)
- [Čeština na internetu: Více než možnosti, které čekají](https://dominiklukes.net/research/cestina-na-internetu-vice-nez-moznosti) (Research, 2001)
- [Setkání s češtinou](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/setkani-s-cestinou) (Writing, 2001)
- [Terminologie a platonický svět gramatických idejí](https://dominiklukes.net/research/terminologie) (Research, 2001)
- [Dva jazyky jedna hlava: Dětství, jinošství a tak dále](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/dva-jazyky-jedna-hlava-detstvi-jinosstvi-a-tak-dale) (Writing, 2000)
- [How do you think you're going?](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/how-do-you-think-youre-going) (Writing, 2000)
- [It is necessary!](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/it-is-necessary) (Writing, 2000)
- [Nobody's perfect](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/nobodys-perfect) (Writing, 2000)
- [The Story of Czech](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/the-story-of-czech) (Writing, 2000)
- [Czech: Frequently Asked Questions](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/czech-frequently-asked-questions) (Writing, 1999)
- [V moci jazyka: Nad knihou ‘Řeč komunistické moci’](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/v-moci-jazyka-nad-knihou-rec-komunisticke-moci) (Writing, 1998)
- [Unification Categorial Grammar as a Type of Notation for Computer Analysis of Ancient Egyptian](https://dominiklukes.net/research/ucg-egyptian) (Research, 1993)
- [Čistí a špinaví](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/cisti-a-spinavi) (Writing, undated)
- [corpus-tools-skill](https://dominiklukes.net/agents/skills/corpus-tools-skill) (Agent skills, undated)
- [Moc perspektivy](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/moc-perspektivy) (Writing, undated)
- [Našinec, vašinec nebo jejichnec: Pohled ze za...](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/nasinec-vasinec-nebo-jejichnec-pohled-ze-za) (Writing, undated)
- [sketchengine-skill](https://dominiklukes.net/agents/skills/sketchengine-skill) (Agent skills, undated)
- [Testing the Semantic Baseline](https://dominiklukes.net/teaching/testing-the-semantic-baseline) (Teaching, undated)
- [Totalita v anarchii: aneb k čertu s mateřštinou](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/totalita-v-anarchii-aneb-k-certu-s-materstinou) (Writing, undated)
- [Války o pravopis: Česká pravopisná reforma z anglosaské perspektivy](https://dominiklukes.net/writing/valky-o-pravopis-ceska-pravopisna-reforma-z-anglosaske-perspektivy) (Writing, undated)

All topics: [Topics](https://dominiklukes.net/topics)