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Scott Nelson

@esseeohteetee.bsky.social
243 followers 190 following 292 posts

Assistant Professor @ University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | computational phonology, phonetics-phonology interface, representations, logic/model theory, philosophy of science. Fan of sound in general (synthesizers, field recordings, natural reverb,…)

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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 14h
Reading Myers (1997) and Shona high-tone spread is so cool. It's non-iterative in the sense that it only spreads from one TBU to an adjacent TBU and no further within a morpheme but iterative in the sense that it can spread across multiple morpheme boundaries if each morpheme only has one TBU. Cool.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Planning my conference schedule for the fall. Anyone have any tips?
Screenshot of a Reddit post to r/academia asking “is it a bad look to use the pool at a conference?”
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
if you believe the computational theory of mind, the artificial minds debate is like 'what if a *computer* could be.............. a computer'
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Party Down not being on the list at all is embarrassing.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Today is the day. Feeling very lucky to be able to witness such beauty in person.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Playing the Ken Stevens x-ray video in Phonetics class today which means I get to introduce a new set of students to the insane sentence, "I have put blood on her two clean yellow shoes." linguistics.berkeley.edu/acip/appendi...
linguistics.berkeley.edu
xraypage
A Course in Phonetics
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Me showing up to the functional phonology talk: “wait, where are all the functions?”
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Back on my bullshit and I really love doing phonology.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Saw a guy at the gym the morning with a gigantic shin tattoo of Timmy from South Park and it has shook me to my core.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Saw a (shit)post that said Johnny Rzeznik from the Goo Goo Dolls was a Maoist and I've never wanted anything to be more true.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A student getting to 1 hert through backformation from hertz is the greatest thing that I’ve ever experienced in a classroom.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Last two minutes or so of “Secret of the Easy Yoke” by Pedro the Lion is the platonic ideal of electric guitar tone.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Oh, you think this phenomena must be accounted for by a specific theoretical construct? Here's an infinite number of different ways to account for it.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Reading in the UIUC Humanities Research Institute newsletter that musical acts such as "Ratboys" are performing in CU this fall. I can't find it, but there's a clip of Bernie Sanders saying, "I'd like to thank the Ratboys for their, uh, music," after they opened up one of his rallies back in the day
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Looking forward to reading this (especially the discussion!). Kyle sent me an abstract version earlier in the summer and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since it relates to my 2022 SCiL paper. I also have my own response in something Eric Baković and I are currently working on!
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Aaron Braver 🐧 @abraver.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
My article with @wmgbennett.bsky.social is finally out! We show that Xhosa speakers generalize the alternation of certain noun class prefixes to novel words based on root length—suggesting a synchronic pattern, rather than the fossilized remnants of a historical process. #linguistics
doi.org
On the productivity of length-based alternations in Xhosa noun class prefixes
Noun classes in isiXhosa are each associated with specific prefixes on the noun stem. Some of these noun class prefixes exhibit length-based allomorphy: they take one form before multisyllabic stem...
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
At our beginning of semester department event yesterday, I overheard an undergrad who I have never met say, “A fact about Scott Nelson is…” before quickly scurrying away. Starting my third year here which I guess means I have reached “the undergrads have their own lore about you” status.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The ability to "react" to emails is a feature for babies and one of the reasons that I'm annoyed with Outlook today.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Starting off my computational phonology class today by asking the hard hitting questions: what is phonology? what is computation?
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Watching someone I cared about get sucked deeper into the LessWrong/Bay Area rationalist expanded universe broke my heart but I had a huge jokerfying moment down the line when I found out about HPMOR.
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Sophie Slaats @sophieslaats.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
yes
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The production on “Bobby” by Phoebe Bridgers makes it sound like a pop country/contemporary christian song in the worst way imaginable.
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Open until filled (🚨🚨apply now!🚨🚨): Postdoc, speech acoustics and major depressive disorder, with me!, Northwestern Linguistics (working with folks in Psychology and Psychiatry). faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/matt-goldric...
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Some people are really just not born to post
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I know the lyrics to multiple Earth Crisis songs and wear a swatch X watch which means I am in fact the most substance free phonologist.
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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
An editor from the economist telling @olivia.science that nobody confidently understands the difference between the human cognitive capacity for language and a corpus. Idk about you, but to me (as a linguist and cognitive scientist) this is absolutely hilarious
Olivia Guest, quoting Dr Katie Twomey: exactly 💯 on LLMs: they simulate the output we call language, not the cognitive capacity we call language!

Followed by Economist Editor Matt Steinglass saying "I am not sure that I or anyone else confidently understands the difference between those."
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Listen to Brian Eno’s Ambient 4 with headphones in a dark room without getting scared challenge
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Levelt wrote an intro to formal language theory book???
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Deadline Dec 1: Asst prof (tenure track), open area, ‼️NU Linguistics‼️ "an integrated approach to the scientific study of language, utilizing experimental, computational, and/or data-intensive approaches to inform linguistic theory and its applications" linguistics.northwestern.edu/about/open-p...
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Darin Flynn @phono-logical.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Apologies but good phonology
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The Illinois train routes are so stupid. I shouldn't have to go to Chicago to take a train from Champaign to St. Louis or Indianapolis.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I’ve been in San Diego all week which has been lovely. I’m flying back home today and get to see my favorite band play a free outdoor show tonight three blocks down the street from my apartment so I guess I won’t complain about the inevitable corn sweat.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I (re)submitted two papers to journals today [please clap].
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
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ʤan~ʤɑn~ʤɔn @languagedoodad.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
if you're gonna call something an "emergent property" instead of "epiphenomenonal", I'm gonna ask you what the primitive operations are at gun point
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
This is what my personalized heaven sounds like: thiswilldestroyyou.bandcamp.com/track/freedo...
thiswilldestroyyou.bandcamp.com
Freedom Blade, by This Will Destroy You
from the album Field Studies
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
To paraphrase another Rawski & Heinz paper, “ignorance of bias is not the same as absence of bias.” Likewise, failure to accept there is a (hard) bias is not the same as proving there is no bias. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
You can’t be neutral on a moving train | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
You can’t be neutral on a moving train - Volume 49
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Federico Adolfi @fedeadolfi.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Scientists using ‘philosophical’ pejoratively are telling you 1. They don’t have any actual arguments 2. They are happy to insult their colleagues / an entire discipline 3. They don’t understand what science is or how it works
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I started listening to Andrew Hickey’s “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” podcast last week and I can’t stop thinking about how he says boogie woogie and also how good the “riffs” are in ‘Flying Home’ by the Benny Goodman Sextet.
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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
The Knicks only lost one game in the last two months and it was the one Trump went to lmao
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
In the Cleveland area for a friend's wedding. Here's a song from his band where I play a synth lead and howl like a wolf: runawaybrother.bandcamp.com/track/pillow
runawaybrother.bandcamp.com
Pillow, by runaway brother
from the album New Pocket
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Jen Nycz @jennycz.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
The LSA First Gen Access & Equity (FGAE) Committee is awarding $500 for travel assistance to a first-generation student in #linguistics to attend the 2027 LSA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Learn more and apply at this link by July 31st! docs.google.com/forms/d/1Qza...
Flyer with the following text: First Gen Access and Equity Travel Assistance $500  Submissions open until July 31. The LSA First Gen Access and Equity (FGAE) Committee is awarding
$500 for travel assistance to a first-generation student in linguistics
to attend the 2027 LSA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. This annual award is intended to increase the participation of first-gen students in the LSA and FGAE committee.
The recipient will have the opportunity to explore linguistics topics or pursue their own areas of interest further by
connecting with peers and scholars at the Annual Meeting. Eligibility: Applicants must:
◦ Be a first-generation graduate or undergraduate student.
◦ Be a first-time attendee at LSA 2027.
◦ LSA member at time of receipt of award.
Applicants do not need to be US citizens to apply. Applicants do not
need to have an accepted abstract to the Annual Meeting.
Apply by July 31:
Scan the QR code to submit your personal statement and resume/CV.
The instagram handle for the committee is las_firstgen.
A QR code for the application form is also included
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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Alex John London used this quote from 1976 at a conference I was at yesterday, and with minimal updating of the examples, this remains one of the main problems with the AI hype cycle
A quote from McDermott's "Artificial intelligence meets natural stupidity" which points out that, if you call your model "UNDERSTANDER," people will think it understands, when actually that's what you have to prove
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
BUFIA is cool. This paper is good!
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Deadline 11 July: 2-year temporary asst. prof position, phonology and child language acquisition, Ling.+Langs, McMaster Univ. careers.mcmaster.ca/psp/prcsprd/...
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Canaan Breiss @canaan.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Hi language science bluesky! If you have 20 minutes, PhD student Dhanya Charan (dhanya.humspace.ucla.edu) and I are recruiting volunteer participants for a 20-minute speech production study! Link here: www.labvanced.com/player.html?... Please re-skeet / share widely! Thank you!
dhanya.humspace.ucla.edu
DHANYA CHARAN – [d̪an.jaː t͡ʃa.ɾan]
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Just found out she’s coming back to Urbana in September, this time with Julianna Barwick. The world is a beautiful place. marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/tragic...
marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com
Tragic Magic, by Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick
7 track album
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Backrooms was good to very good at almost everything but great at nothing. Really didn’t stick the landing, but I’m glad something kinda slow and weird is doing well at the box office. Extra points for the Everywhere at the End of Time needle drop.
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Scott Nelson @esseeohteetee.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
In addition to the "Bigfoot Linguist" who shares my name, I have just been informed of Scott Nelson, author of "GRINGOS AND FLAMINGOS : A Fat Bastard’s Guide to Trekking in Northern South America". Just got a quite long email from someone wanting to help it "break through the visibility barrier"
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