All Questions
10,793
questions
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Why do so many loan words have a different pronunciations of letters like X and Q (among others)?
I have been thinking about the following question quite a bit recently: why do other languages, which often do not even use the Latin alphabet, seemingly get to decide on the way their words get ...
- 101
2
votes
2
answers
31
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Voice Onset Time, Onsets, Codas, and Pre- & Post-Aspiration
Whilst we're all familiar with voicing on an intuitive and/or phonological level, the actual acoustic phonetics are somewhat less intuitive to many of us.
The main way of formalising this intuitive ...
- 6,387
4
votes
1
answer
59
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Why do I intuitively seem to know the gender of inanimate objects?
Note to the Responder: This curiosity behind this question arose because of my (relative) proficiency in the Hindi language, but the answers need not be necessarily limited to it.
I am a complete noob ...
- 41
6
votes
1
answer
407
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Why did the consonant clusters /ks/ and /ps/ merit their own designated letters in Ancient Greek?
Ancient Greek had many consonant clusters, like /pn/ in pneuma, /bd/ in bdellion, and /pt/ in pteron. But for some reason, /ks/ (ξ) and /ps/ (ψ) received special real estate in the 24-letter Greek ...
- 301
1
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1
answer
44
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Most and least common places of articulation across world's languages
Which place of articulation is most common for oral pulmonic stops in the world's languages?
In order, which places of articulation are the LEAST common in the world's languages?
In order, which ...
- 11
1
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0
answers
65
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Information Selection with Because
I'm having difficulty with the extraction of information from sentences containing the word "because."
I was analyzing a text about the advantages and disadvantages of open-plan offices. ...
- 141
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0
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19
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Dealing with words having token-frequency 1 when calculating Phonotactic Probability
NOTE
This is a repost of a question on the Mathematics StackExchange Board. It has been modified to fit this board :)
I am open to suggestions
Explanation
I am trying to calculate phonotactic ...
- 101
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30
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What is the meaning of 'gana' in the first line of India's national anthem? [closed]
The first line of India's national anthem is:
Jana-gaṇa-mana-adhināẏaka jaẏa hē,
the translation of which is:
Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people.
I want to know the exact meaning of the ...
- 1
1
vote
0
answers
22
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Phonotactic Parallels to Pyysalo's Laryngeal and Schwa
Jouna Pyysalo has a rather unique reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, that he calls System PIE (documented here, amongst other places) and describes as a new form of monolaryngealism.
This ...
- 6,387
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1
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22
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Is it possible to calculate the slope of F0 for a bidirectional tone?
Background:
I'm running a project to look at which auditory features predict people's reactions to contour tones. I used both unidirectional tones (e.g., a rising tone starts at 100hz and ends at ...
- 1
2
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0
answers
40
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Are the highest language levels (eg: CEFR C1+) unnatural?
I am learning German, and I find many of the concepts taught in C1 very unnatural. For example Participle Satz, Konnsekutiv Konnektoren (folglich, infolgedessen etc) seem to be almost never used in ...
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0
answers
17
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How certain is the Latin origin of Albanian ”gënjej” (to lie) from Latin (ingannō<ganniō)?
Albanian word gënjej ("to lie") is considered to be of Latin origin — from Vulgar Latin ingannō, from Latin ganniō... These are the only details I could find. Wiktionary gives no scholarly ...
- 586
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0
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9
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How much are the pronunciations of 'è' and 'é' distinguished in modern French? [migrated]
There's a similar pair of pronunciations in Korean, ㅐ and ㅔ; their pronunciations are not exactly the same as é and è but very similar. And the modern Korean has lost the distinguishment between these ...
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29
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Could the Romanian gând/gândi (thought/think) be ultimately of Latin and/or Albanian origin?
A gândi is in modern Romanian the common/main form of the verb "to think", based on the noun gând ("thought"). It is considered of Hungarian origin, from "gond".
I don't ...
- 586
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2
answers
462
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Representation of /o/ phoneme in Cuneiform
I was reading Wikipedia's introduction into the Elamite language, where it says that it had a vowel inventory of /a/, /e/, /i/ and /u/. “What a coincidence,” I thought, “just like Akkadian!” Now, ...
- 153
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31
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Conas a déarfá, as Gaeilge, 'like the god Lú' [closed]
Táim ag scríobh agus tá gá agam le cur in iúl an gníomh a bhfuil an aidiacht aige 'de nó cosúil leis an dia Lú.' Conas a athraíonn tú an t-ainmfhocal ‘Lú’ ina aidiacht?
Mar shampla, as Béarla, ...
-1
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0
answers
21
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Looking for a large context free grammar [duplicate]
I've lost hope looking for a large context free grammar file resource. It could be either German or English and should cover a somewhat large variety of sentence structures.
The only thing I found ...
1
vote
1
answer
70
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How to type IPA quickly on Mac?
I want shortcuts (pre-existing or customised) for IPA symbols.
I've installed IPA Unicode keyboard, which works fine on notes/ google docs but not on pages. I don't have ms word.
Keyman does not come ...
- 11
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1
answer
79
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What script is this, and what does it mean? [closed]
A girl in the gym has this printed down her trousers but has no idea what the text means or where the trousers even were bought from.
My two guesses are either Amharic or Oghams. Who knows?
- 111
2
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0
answers
45
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How do I identify constituents and clause boundaries?
I'm going through some practice exercises for an upcoming exam and trying to do syntax trees is really tripping me up. Could anyone please walk me through how they would break them down and how to ...
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0
answers
28
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Reading suggestions for Dutch language games (okki-taal, p-taal, Panovese Kal)?
Do you know of relevant readings on the languages of okki-taal, p-taal, and Panovese Kal?
- 17
2
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2
answers
231
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About phrasal verbs, separable verb and verbs with adverbs
I was wondering about the concepts listed in the title. In one side we have the separable verbs in German, like mitkommen:
Ich komme mit.
On the other hand we have phrasal verbs such as think over ...
- 1,416
5
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0
answers
88
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Do the "gibberish lines" in the Charition farce reflect a Dravidian language?
The Charition farce (P.Oxy. III, 413) is a Greek theatre play which tells the story of a girl, Χαριτίων Charitíōn, who is held captive in a coastal kingdom of India. The only manuscript of this ...
- 660
1
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1
answer
64
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Determining the number of phonemes from set of phones
For this exercise, I'm to determine the number of phonemes from a set of phones and then write their allophonic rules for each phoneme
phones: [b], [ɣ], [β], [l], [t], [d], [g]
However, I think I'm ...
- 11
-1
votes
2
answers
129
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Half-letters in American English
I'm an American spending some time in Japan, and notice that even though most people know some English words, they have a hard time understanding and pronouncing a word like "left" because ...
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0
answers
18
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Jeevem Sharadah shatam is in first person plural What will be second person for the same sentence [closed]
In Sanskrit
Jeevem Sharadah Shatam is first person singular. What will the sentence be in second person singular
-2
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0
answers
40
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What comes to you when you hear "wizzhub". Generally is it something bad? [closed]
First of all I would say I'm not native English guy.
For some reason I have to choose decent web name. I think an opinion from native Englishmen it's what I need to consult to. If I'm googling the ...
-2
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0
answers
67
views
Explain why this sentence is non-equative or equative sentence [closed]
Why this sentence “Cairo is not the largest city in Africa” is a non-equative sentence.
- 1
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0
answers
33
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The acceptability of verbal phrase ellipsis and subject-auxiliary inversion in triple modal sentences
I have been researching on multiple modal constructions, which is a feature used in the Southern United States. Unlike Standard English, this dialect allows more than one modal auxiliary per clause.
...
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2
votes
1
answer
59
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How exactly are vowel qualities plotted on a neat quadrilateral chart?
How exactly are vowel qualities of a particular speaker, or average qualities of the speakers of an accent, plotted on a neat quadrilateral chart like these (from the Wikipedia articles for Received ...
- 340
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0
answers
35
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What is "SUBCAT<>" in HPSG Framework?
When I tried to read articles that are related to HPSG theory, I encountered the following picture. It seems that the tree in HPSG is very complicated and hard to understand. So, in this forum, does ...
- 183
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0
answers
26
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Distance between languages [duplicate]
This question is similar to this one; the difference is that I'd like to find out about quantitative measurements that are not based solely on the vocabulary.
Are there any such objective quantitative ...
- 101
4
votes
1
answer
50
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Clarifications on exophora
An exophora is an expression referring back to something outside the text. Specifically, wikipedia states "not in the immediate text".
Does “not in the immediate text” mean not within the ...
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-1
votes
1
answer
99
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How and when was the name of Somalia written with س in Iran?
In Arab world Somalia is written with ص. They call it صومال.
But in Iran where people use so many Arabic words in a daily basis without misspelling them, write Somalia with س. They write it سومالی.
...
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0
votes
1
answer
99
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Why do Spanish words change meaning when put in a sentence? [closed]
The word "ponga" means "I put" but when put in this sentence: Que solo la mire de lejito y se ponga asi" is "That he only looks at her from afar and gets like this" &...
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1
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1
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70
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In PIE, what was the function of the suffix *-(ō)l?
For example, in the word:
*H₃nóbʰ-ōl / *H₃ómbʰ-l̥ "navel" (Wiktionary: Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₃nóbʰōl)
- 11
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2
answers
61
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How can we represent a stressed monosyllabic word?
According to Wiktionary, in Chinese, the word 是 means "truly; indeed" when it is stressed. However, according to Wikipedia, it appears that the concept of word stress is not applicable to a ...
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1
vote
1
answer
91
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Closeness between written words and spoken words over different languages
In my understanding, the different languages exist in spoken form and (mostly) in written forms (what about sign languages?).
Some languages have developed a close relationship between the written ...
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-1
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1
answer
64
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Standard representation of dialects across cultures?
If you expand the "Dialectal data" link here on the Chinese Wiktionary, you see like ~40+ what I'll call "varieties". They are grouped under 2 categories:
Variety (parent group, ...
- 4,130
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0
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15
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Is there any type of app that trains my english skills?
I like to write some more in english and for that I want to improve my vocabulary (and overall grammar skills). Is there an app that focuses on teaching new words and explains their meaning? I know ...
3
votes
1
answer
88
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Possessive reflexive pronouns (himself's, herself's, myself's, etc.)
"He looked out the window and saw his car."
Does "his" mean the same person initially called "he", or someone else? In English, it could be either one.
If the English ...
- 645
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0
answers
45
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Syntax of proto language entries?
I saw the asterisk * in proto-lang words like *ŋgo means it is not observed (i.e. hypothetical). However, what is the full syntax for these proto sort of words? I am looking at the links here and ...
- 4,130
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32
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Is this syntactic tree correct so far? [closed]
*Not homework
I have been doing practice problems, but I am really struggling with syntax trees.
I think I have the first part of the tree, but I'm not sure about the rest.
Here is the practice ...
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9
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3
answers
6k
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Are the vast majority of Ukrainians more proficient in Russian than Ukrainian?
An answer to a different question pointed out that the vast majority of search engine queries coming from Ukraine, before the invasion, seemed to be in Russian. That was despite the fact that the ...
- 1,010
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1
answer
45
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Can complementisers be glossed as "C"
I have been glossing complementisers as "C" for years and I could have sworn that I got this from the Leipzig Glossing Rules list of standard abbreviations, however, recently, when I looked, ...
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0
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56
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How should this English sentence be parsed linguistically? [closed]
On p173 of Section "Subjective Truth and the Problem of Relativism" of The Big Questions by Solomon:
Rationality is tying our knowledge and our lives together in the most coherent and ...
- 829
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50
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Did the discovery of Akkadian texts written in Ugaritic script affect our knowledge of Akkadian?
Besides Ugaritic, Hurrian and Akkadian texts, written in Ugaritic alphabetic script, were also discovered at Ras Shamra.1
My question is straightforward: did the discovery of Akkadian texts written ...
- 969
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0
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11
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Historical pronunciations [migrated]
Is there a unified resource that gives the pronunciation of an English word according to how those most responsible for establishing its current spelling would have pronounced it?
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46
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Is there a name for a word that includes two or more words that overlap on one more or more letters?
I'm wondering if there's a name of a word that is either fully or partially formed of multiple potentially overlapping words?
A couple of examples of what I'm thinking of is something like:
static
...
9
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2
answers
3k
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Is there a list of word meanings that are universally represented in all languages?
I am looking for a comprehensive list of words/concepts that are represented in most if not all known languages - presumably the category would include human body parts (hand, foot, mouth, eye), ...
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