Mits Ota

Professor of Language Development at the University of Edinburgh. He/him

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Another attempt at summarizing this study with @vkempe and @TweetSchaeffler: Outside phonetics & phonology, there hasn't been enough work done to support the conclusion that child-directed speech has specific features that facilitate language development. https://t.co/i5Fjiozt8o

[Simon Kirby @SimonKirby]

New paper with @inbalarnon! Using methods from statistical learning we show how two key properties of language - statistically coherent recombinable units, and Zipfian distributions - arise from cultural evolution experiments with non-linguistic sequences. https://t.co/OaC8je2id6

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

@vkempe @STVNews I prefer Vera! But they just made it up, didn't they? It has no resemblance to your real name 😆

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

We are hiring a lecturer (= U.S. tenure-track assistant professor) in theoretical syntax. Please apply (Deadline: 20 March)! https://t.co/Q0Y8PkWyCk

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

@cogscidude The original C/V hypothesis attributed the effect to intrinsic differences between consonants and vowels (e.g., perceptibility), but recent findings suggest the possibility that it may be due to inventory asymmetries, as you say.

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Which of these made-up words is the easiest to learn: 'lali', 'lapa', or 'lapi'? And why? Read our new paper to find out. https://t.co/9558c9BzF4

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

@kennysmithed and I are looking for a postdoc for our ESRC project titled "Language learning, communication and the emergence of phonotactic constraints" (32 months; see link for details). Come work with us! https://t.co/psIyNujwyl

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

The reconstructed piece itself is beautiful music. https://t.co/xHj3ghQT4H

[Michael C. Frank @mcxfrank]

Developmentalists: have you been wondering if online experiments with young children are comparable to in-lab studies? Here's our new meta-analysis suggesting that overall they are!

https://t.co/BP852k1j9J - work by Aaron Chuey, @veroboyce and @anjie_cao

[-Rui Qi- Choo ruiqi26.bsky.social @ruiqi26]

Wheee it's OUT - this girl's first (open access too!) article w/ her wondyful supervisors Marilyn Vihman and Tamar Keren-Portnoy (and @mits_ota and Shanshan Lou)! Clearly, they know my life motto, always saving the best for the last 😏. (I jest, obvs.) https://t.co/7YKB8FkNZc

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Or just plain disturbing.

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Interesting and somewhat disturbing.
https://t.co/jqJpuzCZjg

[Simon Kirby @SimonKirby]

I am excited to announce we’re hiring a permanent lecturer in Sign Language Linguistics! Research in development, acquisition, bimodal bilingualism or BSL, desirable. Applicants with a lived experience of deafness particularly encouraged. Please RT widely! https://t.co/zrr52R1jMI

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

They were accused of assisting the anti-Nazi resistance movement. This was only 20 days before Germany’s surrender. I think about the senselessness of war.

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Today I visited Ploština, a village in the Czech Rep, where 4 of my wife’s grandfather’s family members (the Zicha/Zichovas) were among those burnt alive by an SS unit on April 19, 1945.

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

Our response to Kidd & Garcia.

[Language Acquisition Journal @LangAcqJournal]

We agree with Kidd and Garcia's call for more diversity in language acquisition research. These are some of the steps we're taking at Language Acquisition: https://t.co/YYuF4W71GV

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

What a way to celebrate Marilyn's career! It was totally worth waiting for two years.

[Virve Vihman @VirveA]

Building Linguistic Systems, a conference last week in honour of my mom Marilyn Vihman’s career, 2x pandemic-postponed. Thanks organisers, ⁦@cathelaing24⁩, Tamar Keren-Portnoy, Ghada Khattab, ⁦@UoYLangLing⁩. Perfect mix of stimulating debate & nostalgic retrospecting

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

She was such an inspirational person. This is a big loss.

[Language Log @LanguageLog]

Anne Cutler 1945-2022: Anne Cutler, our beloved colleague, recently became ill with an opportunistic lung infection shortly after traveling to London for her official induction as a 2020 Fellow of the British Academy. From there she traveled to Nijemgen,… https://t.co/FajuOiRHUW

[Mits Ota @mits_ota]

I know that businesses are struggling to deal with rising cost, but ...