Questions tagged [grammar]
A body of rules, features, or generalizations which reliably differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical constructions.
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0answers
33 views
Difference between make it and did it when they used to mean success [on hold]
My colleague in America fixed his computer after having a lot of conversations with IT guy in Korea. He skyped and told me It's finally fixed and I replied "you finally made it!!!. I'm sure he ...
3
votes
1answer
84 views
What exactly is “level shift” in translation theory by Catford?
Catford (1978) divides the shift in translation into two major types, level/rank shift and category shift. Level/rank shift refers to a source language item at one linguistic level that has a target ...
2
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0answers
39 views
Markers that affect intensity of the imperative mood
I'm working on a project that explores how imperative mood varies in 'intensity'.
For example, one can 'soften' the tone of a directive by including the speaker in the command:
"Let's go to school"...
0
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0answers
3 views
Whats the difference between stance and position in terms of expressing opinion? [migrated]
My customer requested big scheduel change (postponing a lot from the agreed upon date) and It is not acceptable for me.
so I worte email today like
"MY position about your request is as below bla bla ...
5
votes
1answer
106 views
'm' of predication vs. nominal sentence in Middle Egyptian
Consider the sentence: "I am a scribe, skillful of fingers."
This is typically stated in Middle Egyptian using the 'm' of predication:
iw=i m sš iqr n(y) ḏbaw
I think this is correct, and 'm' of ...
0
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0answers
42 views
Question about Macedonian Grammer
I'm trying to learn Macedonian and one if the resources out there was paraphrased as saying the following about the Macedonian language:
Belamaric-Wilsey says that the majority of Macedonian-...
0
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2answers
52 views
What is the proper terminology for “I touch” in this sentence?
I am trying to diagram this sentence for a personal project:
Everything I touch with tenderness pricks like a bramble.
From what I understand, Everything is the subject, and pricks is the ...
1
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0answers
67 views
“Peter sang a song to Julie”, Is “to Julie” is an adjunct or complement?
Peter sang a song to Julie.
It seems that the verb "sang" selects the preposition, but to Julie is optional. And if we apply it to an X' Schema, how shall we do it? To Julie is the dependent of sang ...
1
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1answer
65 views
How to construct a grammar given a text and a dictionary
So I would like to learn how to construct a grammar from scratch. In order to do this the first step is collecting data, primarily texts, and compiling a dictionary. I think this can be simulated for ...
0
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1answer
98 views
Why Do We Say “The Same”?
Generally, sentences are constructed like this:
Compared to Joe, he looks similar.
Compared to Joe, he looks different.
Compared to Joe, he looks handsome.
Compared to Joe, he looks ugly.
Yet, when ...
1
vote
1answer
121 views
Why Creole languages aren't the default
I am new to exploring Creole languages, after seeing them compared to "Riau Indonesian":
The dialect of Malay spoken in Riau Province is considered by linguists to have one of the least complex ...
2
votes
1answer
76 views
Explaining Grammatical “Mood” for the Laymen
I have seen "mood" a lot in linguistics articles, have read about it a few times, but it never seems to click.
Wikipedia links to Linguistic modality. I have come across Modal Logic which basically ...
0
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1answer
62 views
Complete guide to cross-language grammar [closed]
Wondering what the best (free) resources are for learning about grammar generically across languages. I have seen a lot of "Guide to the X grammar", but not "Guide to grammar in general". Would like ...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
The languages with the most complicated grammars [closed]
It looks like Navajo has a very difficult-to-tease-apart verb morphology, as seen here:
Unusually for a natively North American language, Navajo is sometimes described as fusional due to its ...
6
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0answers
78 views
Does anyone know if there are plans for a 'successor' to Huddleston and Pullum (CamGEL or CGEL)?
Huddleston and Pullum's The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CamGEL or CGEL) is widely considered a 'successor' to a previous 'great English grammar': Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik's ...
3
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1answer
118 views
Why is sign language different from spoken language?
I have read a bit about sign language, and apparently they have different grammar from the local spoken language. Why would they need this? Doesn't it complicate things to have to learn 2 languages ...
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2answers
48 views
Why was 'grammar' chosen to signify the model of linguistic competence, when 'grammar' was already strikingly polysemous?
Page 5 of (R.L. Trask, Robert McColl Millar's) Why Do Languages Change? (2010 Rev. ed), expounds that 'grammar' originally didn't mean its linguistical meaning (quoted at the bottom): no surprise, as ...
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2answers
53 views
Latest research on the meaning of prepositions
Trying to understand what a preposition is. Wikipedia gives some hints (adpositions are the general case of preposition/postposition/circumposition):
...Adpositions are classed as syntactic ...
1
vote
1answer
48 views
Is there a grammatical case indicating displacement?
As part of a constructed language experiment I am trying to write phrases with clause structure of [noun supersedes noun] as just two words. For example, “death before dishonor” or “freedom over ...
5
votes
4answers
166 views
Example of a tenseless sentence
I just learned about Tenseless languages, such as Chinese. But I'm interested to see what this looks like and/or means.
For example, wondering if one could write a tenseless sentence in English and ...
1
vote
1answer
46 views
How can I identify Grammatical Categories in a sentence?
Please excuse the fact that I'm not an academically trained Linguist.
I am working on a computer program with example sentences and their equivalents in different languages.
The idea I am trying to ...
2
votes
2answers
89 views
Does it make any sense when saying someone's grammar was wrong?
This is a followup question of this question that I asked 3 and a half year ago. So based on what I could gather there, "descriptive" grammar comes after a language, hoping the rules are best ...
0
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1answer
33 views
What part of speech is “group” when used in a construct like “people group,” or “product group”
Given a class C, we may append it with the literal "group" to obtain a class of sets whose elements are instances of C, and which are related in some way.
If you're not super familiar with object ...
2
votes
3answers
148 views
How can you know that a word in a sentence is a verb?
I am wondering what it takes to parse a sentence with incomplete knowledge. That is, take a sentence like this:
If I use timeout I have to call again my function at the end of the execution of the ...
1
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0answers
50 views
Pattern to Prefixes and Suffixes in English
I've come across a list of English prefixes and remember learning in school about Latin and Greek being helpful for learning words in English based on prefixes/suffixes. I'm wondering though if there ...
1
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1answer
40 views
Do the WALS chapters cover the core grammatical structure of Spanish?
How complete is their description for the Spanish language? Is it missing something out? Here is the description http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_spa
Thank You
4
votes
1answer
90 views
Instrumental - nominative inversion in Polish
While scrolling through a course in Polish, I saw the following sentence:
Wynikiem wyrażenia jest nowa relacja.
This is not the first time I notice this pattern, where the instrumental is used for ...
2
votes
0answers
44 views
This/that: a determiner or pronoun? [duplicate]
Is there commonly accepted opinion on what lexemes this/that are, determiners or pronouns?
E.g. in the following phrase:
... can help you work these out
these seem to show some properties of ...
2
votes
1answer
282 views
Python list to Parse tree
In Python, I have an input of list like following:
[('S', ['NP', 'VP']),
('A', ['V', 'NP']),
('VP', ['V', 'NP']),
('NP', ['DET', 'NP']),
('N', "'mouse'"),
('NP', "'mouse'"),
('DET', "'the'"),
('V', "'...
0
votes
0answers
52 views
Are there languages which have ways to distinguish between an adjunct noun and an adjective?
(Take some example). Do other languages (than English) have means distinguish between their adjunct nouns and adjectives or is it a very complex/grammatical structure that cannot possibly be ...
0
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3answers
106 views
One usage of infinitive clause
My question is about the sentence
A few opportunities exist to get a better education in the U.S.(1)
Some people said: "It is a correct sentence."
However, I don't think so and will explain why.
...
1
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1answer
73 views
Is there any theoretical explanation of putting infinitive clause at the beginning?
There is a sentence which my Canadian professor today talked about.
1-) I see no reason to do these stupid things.
The Canadian English professor at the university said that we could put the part "...
2
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0answers
78 views
Which friend did he find to study with?
The question is about what happens to phrases during the time of making them questions.
We know that the following sentence is a normal English sentence which is correct grammatically.
He found a ...
2
votes
0answers
24 views
What do introductory non-finite clauses modify?
The introductory non-finite clauses below (in bold)
Speeding down the road, Peter ran a red light.
Discouraged by his losing record, the boxer quit boxing
what, if anything, do they modify?
Do ...
4
votes
0answers
39 views
How broad should the corpora be to describe the grammar of a proficient speaker?
What's the minimum size of a corpus that you need to cover substantially the grammar of a language?
I know that the limits of 'substantial' might be open to speculation. But imagine you wanted to ...
-1
votes
2answers
90 views
Doesn't Sanskrit use adpositions of any kind?
For some reason, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of any adpositions of any kind. I find it highly unbelievable that the language makes no use of such. It has a case system, but there's only 8 ...
1
vote
2answers
170 views
“Den” or “det” in Swedish
I am native Swedish speaker and I have a problem that the language seems to have no grammar in some cases. For instance there is both "en lag" and "ett lag" meaning completely different things but the ...
1
vote
1answer
92 views
direct object and indirect object [closed]
Which is the direct object and which is the indirect object in the following sentence?
The school has given David's proposal serious consideration.
I think that "David's proposal" is the indirect ...
1
vote
1answer
62 views
To what extent do different languages allow different understanding of reality?
I know that some languages have more or less tenses, have a more or less complete vocabulary, and in these ways it seems they would allow a native speaker a more or less accurate understanding of ...
0
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0answers
36 views
(How) Can one create a language in a classroom setting?
My wife questioned me if there's a subject that I cannot teach effectively (per my standards of making the students salivate for more). I mentioned my weakness at teaching languages, English for ...
1
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0answers
111 views
What are the main features of an agglutinative language?
As I was beginning to study some Esperanto, it immediately became clear that the language used the same morphemes without significant modification. Therefore, on further research, concluded that it ...
0
votes
1answer
288 views
What is the difference between syntax and grammar? [duplicate]
I think syntax is concerning with the theories of syntax like structuralism, behaviorism, traditional, and informational since each school has it's own rules and theories while Grammar is in regard to ...
0
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0answers
31 views
General theory of acceptability criteria for the sentence to be the “valid sentence” and their use for grammar/lexicon induction?
I am reading the article https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10988-017-9220-0.pdf "The division of labor in explanations of verb phrase ellipsis". Technically it considers the sentences ...
6
votes
3answers
434 views
What prevents certain grammatical forms to be analysed as one word?
When analysing a language, when do we analyse certain morphemes as one word as opposed to multiple, or is this arbitrary?
For instance, I could make the claim that (in certain cases) 'a/an' is a ...
2
votes
1answer
46 views
What is the term for the formation of word groups with single meaning/function (e.g. “in relation to which”) in lingustics
Clearly - pharases "in relation to which" (subordinating conjunction) function as one word. How such process is named in linguistics. It would also be interesting to know how such formation is ...
4
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0answers
41 views
Looking for a thorough comparison of French and Spanish
Either in English, Spanish or French.
I haven't found a comparative grammar but I got pretty excited with this monograph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Portuguese_and_Spanish
I'm ...
6
votes
1answer
957 views
Are there languages where the tense depends on time elapsed between events?
In all the languages I am familiar with (mostly English and my native German as well as some rudimentary Italian and French, so all somewhat related.), the tense of a verb only indicates the time of ...
5
votes
2answers
241 views
Why do we censor vowels, rather than consonants?
My first question on this site, so please be somewhat lenient :))
My question, put succinctly: Why do we asterisk the vowels in profane words, rather than the consonants?
Now, just a disclaimer, ...
1
vote
1answer
40 views
Comprehensive phonological sketches post-SPE
Is anyone aware of a comprehensive phonological grammar of a language, along the lines of SPE, Sound Pattern of Russian or Chomsky's thesis on Hebrew, written in a framework that postdates SPE? I ...
4
votes
0answers
80 views
Are there any languages where the first person cannot be an object?
In some languages, nouns low on the animacy hierarchy, particularly inanimates cannot surface as A, and if a situation arises where they are underlyingly A, some reparative strategy such as a passive ...
