On the trail of polypersonalism

A report on an exchange between me and my UNC-Chapel Hill colleague Bruno Estigarribia about polypersonalism (explanation to follow). As it unfolded in e-mail between us, presented here with BE’s permission. This is one in a series of reports on linguists musing about stuff and groping with ideas — showing people something of what we do professionally (before actual publication, if that eventually comes) and something of our passion for and commitment to this work. About BE. Some notes to convince you that BE is not an ignorant mook off the street with some goofy inspired speculation about language. It’s important that he is, first of all, both multilingual and multicultural; and then, also, a Stanford PhD in linguistics (2007, with a dissertation on language acquisition by children) and now a distinguished professor of linguistics at an elite university, someone for whom I have considerable respect. Not to be disregarded. I say this — and am about to unload a pile of BE’s…