Jason Tysl

LING 2001

Self-Reflection 2

1. I’ve learned a lot about how the way we speak (in English) is not as much “rules” as it is more
“patterns.” I didn’t know anything about negative polarity items, but now they’re an interesting
puzzle. I’ve also been able to identify different instances of inference in everyday conversation,
much to the dismay of my roommates.
2. I’m excited to go more into the math side of linguistics. I look forward to the conversations with
classmates about what we learn and had a lot of fun with the jeopardy game. I want to learn
more about finding ways to make sentences into equations.
3. I’d like to learn more about implicatures. I don’t know what exactly about them interests me,
but I’ve always found if funny when things are implied differently than how they’re supposed to
be. I’d like to know if there’s a consistent way of making an implicature to form it in a humorous
way.
4. I think the most challenging topic so far has been the entailment exercises. I can’t quite grasp
how to think of them in a way that makes sense in my mind. Is there some visualization trick
that I’m missing?
5. I think I’ve done well with propositional logic. It’s not totally fair since I have done it before. It
also I think just makes a lot of sense because it’s very clearcut in the right and wrong.
6. I’d like to participate in class a bit more. I think I do alright but I’m sometimes on my phone or
just sort of zoning out. I think just answering questions right away instead of waiting for
someone else to answer is the best way to achieve that.
7. I’d give myself a B+, I think I could definitely do a bit more
8. I think I’ve missed 3 class sessions, 1 for being sick, and the others were just bad mental health
days.
9. N/A
10. I think you’re doing a good job, but it seemed like everyone was much more engaged when we
did jeopardy, so maybe add more games? Kind of cheesy but if it works it works. It was helpful
to get a bunch of possible questions at varying difficulty levels.