Anil Dash: Cats Can Has Grammar The core behavior has existed for some time; "Image macro" is a generic term for this kind of folk art, and cats have always featured heavily in these types of Internet in-jokes. But a few distinct categories have sprung up that have helped amplify and popularize the phenomenon.

Two things are happening here. First, the very thing Anil Dash is describing. A “grammar” of LOLCats is emerging. However, this is a cognitive construction grammar rather than a traditional grammar in that it doesn’t provide generative (in the broad sense) but rather an inventory of conventionalized units have both highly schematic form and meaning (actually the distance between the semantic and formal poles is very narrow). Anil Dash’s descriptions of the grammar of LOL are actually very close to what a construction grammar would look like. Actually, construction grammar could probably take some lessons from him:

• I'M IN UR X Ying your Z.
• Invisible Item.
• Kitty Pidgin

These are three descriptions of rules a reader might recognize a lolcat utterance. (And it is possible, as Anil Dash notes, to get them wrong.) The interesting thing about it is that he uses a different format for each of the lolcat grammar constructions. And always the one that is most appropriate for recognition and storage. So, wonder I, should construction grammarians adopt the same approach (and run the risk of being accused of not being scientific enough) or should we even consider the fact that these rules may be "stored" in our brains differently? Some as paradigmatic constructions, some imagistic or scriptic, and yet others as schematic formulae such as those applied to the recognition or application of a genre or even a foreign tongue. Another thing, we could probably study how these rules are acquired, spread and developed.

Which brings us to the second point. The act of Mr Dash himself.

I was having a conversation with Ben and Ben a few weeks ago where I suggested this consistent grammar for lolcats could be a "cweeole". Knowing a bit more about such things now, I realize this isn't a creole but more likely a pidgin language, used to help cats talk to humans. And since "pidgin" is already a cutesy spelling of a mispronunciation, there doesn't seem to be any really cute way to rename it to reflect its uniqueness. "Kitty pidgin" might be the closest thing we have to a name for this new language.

There's a consistent visual vocabulary to the construct, as well. If it ain't Impact or Arial Black or some other nondescript sans serif font, it ain't lolcat. White letters with a black outline are a must. But codifying a design guide for lolcats is well beyond my abilities.

Anil Dash is engaging in frame negotiation and acting as an agent similar to those described by Labov (and Asch) who is a significant vector in the spread  of a symbolic system. He is doing the same job linguists do but unlike many linguists, his work is intended to interact with the system itself (and it no doubt does). I've described something similar in the arena of fanfiction where along some incredible creative writing there also emerged a considerable body of critical opinion which contributed to the solidification of subgenres and offered a feedback loop to the spontaneously emerging classifications (Uberfic, Slash, etc.). Construction linguists need to investigate what role this kind of behavior plays in the functioning of "natural" languages where the tendency has generally been to neglect the human agency and imply an agency of the "system". This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does ignore something I'm finding more and more evidence for. Next, I'd like to determine how frequent that evidence is and what persistence and salience it has (since frequency isn't necessarily the only determining factor).