Scott Nelson
@esseeohteetee.bsky.social
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
· Aug 12
The blueprint model of production | Phonology | Cambridge Core
The blueprint model of production - Volume 42
www.cambridge.org
I’m happy to share that my paper with Jeff Heinz on “the blueprint model of production” is finally published online in Phonology: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
I had a roommate that pronounced “skeleton” as [skɛləʔn̩] and have heard it a few other times since (including Tim Heidecker at around 6:00 in this video). I’m happy to share that David Duchovny as Fox Mulder also pronounced it that way in episode 16 of Season 7 of the X-Files.
February 6, 2026 at 1:16 AM
I had a roommate that pronounced “skeleton” as [skɛləʔn̩] and have heard it a few other times since (including Tim Heidecker at around 6:00 in this video). I’m happy to share that David Duchovny as Fox Mulder also pronounced it that way in episode 16 of Season 7 of the X-Files.
There's a Longmont Potion Castle call where he's pretending to be a man called Steadman Slick and talking to a man named Rick. At one point, Rick says, "Steadman, if you want to talk normal we'll do it now," and he responds as Steadman, "I'm ready to talk regular, Rick."
January 30, 2026 at 7:51 PM
There's a Longmont Potion Castle call where he's pretending to be a man called Steadman Slick and talking to a man named Rick. At one point, Rick says, "Steadman, if you want to talk normal we'll do it now," and he responds as Steadman, "I'm ready to talk regular, Rick."
Teaching a stats class this semester and a student today asked, “what really are regular expressions,” with no idea what they were getting themselves into.
January 29, 2026 at 3:03 AM
Teaching a stats class this semester and a student today asked, “what really are regular expressions,” with no idea what they were getting themselves into.
This year's Mayfest at Maryland was just announced where the topic will be "Representation in Language Production". Looks to be an incredible weekend and I'm quite grateful to have been asked to speak, especially after finding out who the rest of the speakers are: linguistics.umd.edu/mayfest2026
Mayfest 2026: Representation in Language Production | Department of Linguistics
linguistics.umd.edu
January 26, 2026 at 2:18 AM
This year's Mayfest at Maryland was just announced where the topic will be "Representation in Language Production". Looks to be an incredible weekend and I'm quite grateful to have been asked to speak, especially after finding out who the rest of the speakers are: linguistics.umd.edu/mayfest2026
Threading the needle of the winter storm by flying between Chicago and NY today/tomorrow for the workshop on logical phonology. Two weeks of travel/conferences right before my semester started wasn’t chaotic enough so I had to include this trip to really feel something. wellformedness.com/wolp/
[Workshop on Logical Phonology @ CUNY Graduate Center]
wellformedness.com
January 23, 2026 at 11:46 AM
Threading the needle of the winter storm by flying between Chicago and NY today/tomorrow for the workshop on logical phonology. Two weeks of travel/conferences right before my semester started wasn’t chaotic enough so I had to include this trip to really feel something. wellformedness.com/wolp/
Was nice getting to see him give this talk and speak with him a little more about it! I’ve long felt a similar way. Simplicity arguments are so often missing hidden complex assumptions in addition to everything else. Looking forward to seeing where Rory’s work goes!
The slides from my #OCP23 presentation, "Against Occam's razor", can be found here: roryturnbull.github.io/Presentation...
roryturnbull.github.io
January 17, 2026 at 10:38 PM
Was nice getting to see him give this talk and speak with him a little more about it! I’ve long felt a similar way. Simplicity arguments are so often missing hidden complex assumptions in addition to everything else. Looking forward to seeing where Rory’s work goes!
My flights to/from London have both played an instrumental Muzak version of “Clint Eastwood” by The Gorillaz that is extremely off putting.
January 17, 2026 at 12:32 PM
My flights to/from London have both played an instrumental Muzak version of “Clint Eastwood” by The Gorillaz that is extremely off putting.
Really having a nice time in Cambridge for OCP. Tomorrow ends probably the most insane string of presentations I will do in my career: 12/10 (talk + poster); 12/11 (talk); 12/12 (international travel day); 12/13 (talk); 12/14 (talk); 12/15 (poster). The material covered 5 different projects/papers!
January 14, 2026 at 9:35 PM
Really having a nice time in Cambridge for OCP. Tomorrow ends probably the most insane string of presentations I will do in my career: 12/10 (talk + poster); 12/11 (talk); 12/12 (international travel day); 12/13 (talk); 12/14 (talk); 12/15 (poster). The material covered 5 different projects/papers!
Forcing every linguist ever to write on the blackboard like Bart Simpson, “I will not confuse the object language with the meta language.”
January 13, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Forcing every linguist ever to write on the blackboard like Bart Simpson, “I will not confuse the object language with the meta language.”
~One week ago I got to do my favorite thing (play music with friends). Today I get to do my other favorite thing (talk about phonological representations with my friends). Here's a pic of me deciding to wear a winter jacket doing the former during an hour long set of scream-singing (a stupid choice)
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 AM
~One week ago I got to do my favorite thing (play music with friends). Today I get to do my other favorite thing (talk about phonological representations with my friends). Here's a pic of me deciding to wear a winter jacket doing the former during an hour long set of scream-singing (a stupid choice)
Red eye to London for OCP directly after LSA whooooooooo boy. 10 days of conferencing directly before the semester, is my body ready. 🙂
January 12, 2026 at 12:58 AM
Red eye to London for OCP directly after LSA whooooooooo boy. 10 days of conferencing directly before the semester, is my body ready. 🙂
January 12, 2026 at 12:58 AM
Red eye to London for OCP directly after LSA whooooooooo boy. 10 days of conferencing directly before the semester, is my body ready. 🙂
Presenting in the only room at the New Orleans Marriott that doesn’t have working AC
January 10, 2026 at 2:28 PM
Presenting in the only room at the New Orleans Marriott that doesn’t have working AC
Wow! This looks great. Hoping I can find time to dig into it this semester.
📚 Sociophonetics: Implications for Phonological and Phonetic Theory (co-edited by me and @lhlew.bsky.social) is now available online at Oxford Academic! (print copies coming end of January) academic.oup.com/book/61815
January 9, 2026 at 1:27 AM
Wow! This looks great. Hoping I can find time to dig into it this semester.
Heading down to New Orleans tomorrow. If you're at LSA come say hey. We can talk about this stuff or whatever but I probably will end up talking your ear off about Nirvanna the Band the Show because I rewatched the webseries + tv show over break and now won't shut up about it.
See you @ LSA?
Talk (Sat): Phonological Knowledge, Weighted Logic, and the Competence/Performance Distinction
Poster w/ my student Mikhael Hayes (Sat): Poetic Rhyme as a Tier-Based Strictly Local Constraint
Talk w/ Eric Baković (Sun): A BMRS Analysis of Trojan Vowels in Hungarian Vowel Harmony
Talk (Sat): Phonological Knowledge, Weighted Logic, and the Competence/Performance Distinction
Poster w/ my student Mikhael Hayes (Sat): Poetic Rhyme as a Tier-Based Strictly Local Constraint
Talk w/ Eric Baković (Sun): A BMRS Analysis of Trojan Vowels in Hungarian Vowel Harmony
January 7, 2026 at 5:04 PM
Heading down to New Orleans tomorrow. If you're at LSA come say hey. We can talk about this stuff or whatever but I probably will end up talking your ear off about Nirvanna the Band the Show because I rewatched the webseries + tv show over break and now won't shut up about it.
Reposted by Scott Nelson
🔥 well-thought, theoretically grounded models >>>>>>> trendy uninterpretable forest killers
We wrote a thing -- showing you don't need LLMs to model language production dynamics like the tendency for speakers to reduce predictable words. All you have to do is better model how speech rate varies depending on where a word is and how long the utterance is. arxiv.org/abs/2512.23659
Less is more: Probabilistic reduction is best explained by small-scale predictability measures
The primary research questions of this paper center on defining the amount of context that is necessary and/or appropriate when investigating the relationship between language model probabilities and ...
arxiv.org
December 30, 2025 at 2:09 PM
🔥 well-thought, theoretically grounded models >>>>>>> trendy uninterpretable forest killers
Reposted by Scott Nelson
i had to drop what i was doing to make this
December 23, 2025 at 3:59 PM
i had to drop what i was doing to make this
Reposted by Scott Nelson
Just in time for the holidays, my final post is live.
This is a long-read, and likely of interest to anyone interested in the uses and limitations of computational modeling in cognitive science, with attention on less-noticed issues in the field. 🧵
vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/do-languag...
This is a long-read, and likely of interest to anyone interested in the uses and limitations of computational modeling in cognitive science, with attention on less-noticed issues in the field. 🧵
vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/do-languag...
Do Language Models Learn Like Human Children?
On a history of unwittingly lifting cognitive weight, with comments on a personal motivation for studying a very unusual topic.
vincentcarchidi.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Just in time for the holidays, my final post is live.
This is a long-read, and likely of interest to anyone interested in the uses and limitations of computational modeling in cognitive science, with attention on less-noticed issues in the field. 🧵
vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/do-languag...
This is a long-read, and likely of interest to anyone interested in the uses and limitations of computational modeling in cognitive science, with attention on less-noticed issues in the field. 🧵
vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/do-languag...
Reposted by Scott Nelson
I call this "The Lying Screen"
December 15, 2025 at 5:26 PM
I call this "The Lying Screen"
Reposted by Scott Nelson
Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ is actually a perfectly good Christmas pop song in a vein very much of its time, and it’s my firm belief that the disrespect it receives is unmerited and demonstrates a certain meanness of spirit that infects society at what should be a joyous time of year.
December 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ is actually a perfectly good Christmas pop song in a vein very much of its time, and it’s my firm belief that the disrespect it receives is unmerited and demonstrates a certain meanness of spirit that infects society at what should be a joyous time of year.
The EGG drama has hit lingbuzz.
December 12, 2025 at 6:37 PM
The EGG drama has hit lingbuzz.
I'm working on finishing up a paper with a student. I noticed they had a different style than what I'm accustomed to when it came to using em dashes. Primarily out of curiosity, I asked them if it was from a certain style guide. Their response? "That's how it's written in Lord of the Rings."
December 10, 2025 at 11:30 PM
I'm working on finishing up a paper with a student. I noticed they had a different style than what I'm accustomed to when it came to using em dashes. Primarily out of curiosity, I asked them if it was from a certain style guide. Their response? "That's how it's written in Lord of the Rings."
Reposted by Scott Nelson
can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot
December 8, 2025 at 9:29 AM
can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot
1, 4, and 5 indicate that I listen to the good type of 2.
December 3, 2025 at 11:52 PM
1, 4, and 5 indicate that I listen to the good type of 2.
I’m in Florida visiting my parents and we decided to go to Disney’s Hollywood Studios today. I just witnessed a kid run up to a Salacious B. Crumb toy, turn back to his parents, and yell, “It’s a Star Wars monkey!” I’m never gonna stop thinking about this.
November 28, 2025 at 3:45 PM
I’m in Florida visiting my parents and we decided to go to Disney’s Hollywood Studios today. I just witnessed a kid run up to a Salacious B. Crumb toy, turn back to his parents, and yell, “It’s a Star Wars monkey!” I’m never gonna stop thinking about this.