In a post labelled "For linguists only," Mark Liberman quotes a couple of examples of linguistic filk. (Nota bene: The title of this post is a backronym; the word filk is, of course, a much more general term, and its true origin was as a typo that crawled out of the primordial soup and grew legs.) I thought I'd post a few more here; these are all classics of the genre which I learned from Susan Fischer, of RIT. In most cases, their authorship is unknown to me; such is the nature of the filk process, but I welcome comments from anyone with better information.

And here's one by John Goldsmith that just so happens to mention Mark Liberman himself. (I could pretend that it mentions me, too, because it does mention a well-known linguist who has the same last name as me, but I won't.)

Linguists on Parade
by John Goldsmith

(to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern major general,"
or perhaps I should say to the tune of Tom Lehrer's "The Elements")

I am the very model of the gen'rative grammarian,
I read Linguistic Inquiry, and I'm rarely too sectarian,
I know the dates of conferences and who is who and published where
And Chomsky's latest paper, with the footnotes, and who's mentioned there.
I'm very well acquainted too with matters not so practical,
Like issues of the generalized pragmatico-syntactical
And Bresnan's view of syntax and the very latest plan of hers
       (plan of hers… plan of hers…)
And Chomsky's current stand on Case-assignment and parameters!

[Spoken:] And who are these linguists of whom we sing? Their names are legion:

There's Kenstowicz and Kisseberth, Clements, Kean and Anderson,
Chomsky, Halle, Leben, Dinnsen, Donegan and Jacobson,
There's Zellig Harris, Hockett, Hooper, Schane and Mrs. Diver's son,
Hyman, Hudson, Ross, and Joos, and Houlihand and Iverson.
There's Klausenberger, Schutzenberger, Langendoen and Mandelbaum,
Jacobovitz and Redenbarger, Robinson and Rosenbaum.
And Venneman and Wittgenstein and Wunderlich and Aronoff
Lees Katz Fodor Keenan Kiefer Keyser Kayne and Jackendoff.

There's Liberman and Lieberman, Lieberman and Liberman
Mark and Phil and Anatoly, Jespersen and James A. Foley,
Carlson and Carlton, White and Black and Willard Quine
Bell and Ringern, Teeter, Tottie, Brown and Blau and Flora Klein.
There's Schachter, Sanders, Schmerling, Siegal, Johnson, Jensen, and James Harris
Horn and Larry Hutchinson, Hall and Haas and H. Contreras
Panini and Napoli, Charles Li and James Paul Gee
Martinet and Fauconnier and Paul and also Jonny Kaye.

B.L. Whorf and Benveniste and Trubetzkoy and Winfred Lehmann
Alan Prince and Robert King and Janet Bing and Michael Brame 'n'
Marcel Cohen and Langendoen, John R. Ross and Stan Starosta
Annie Zaenen, Richie Kayne 'n' Ivan Sag and Rachel Costa
C.C. Fries and Robert Lees, Russell Schuh and Mary Haas
Robert Frieden, Charles Reid 'n' Ellen Kaisse and Franz Boas
Kurylowicz, Ladefoged, Casagrande, and Eric Hamp
Fromkin, Rodman, Klima, Stockwell, Bolinger, and Postal, Stampe.

Now, if I were a truly dutiful blogger, I would go and link every last one of those names to a page about its referent. But I'm not. :-P

For the non-linguists in the audience, here's the only thing behind the cut that's likely to be of interest: a link to a Flash animation of "The Elements."