Questions tagged [grammar]
A body of rules, features, or generalizations which reliably differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical constructions.
426
questions
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2answers
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Could the at symbol '@' be considered a vocative marker?
Specifically, the at-symbol as used e.g. on Twitter or Github (or many other sites besides), e.g. '@somename, what do you think about this?' or '@foobar, I'm waiting!' Comparing it with English/German ...
0
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1answer
73 views
Does grammar allow two questions in one sentence? [closed]
This is not an English-specific question. In Japanese, you might also ask "何時から何時までですか。" Or "nan ji kare nan ji made desu ka", "From what time to what time?" (from Google)...
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2answers
77 views
Is there a name for the idea of having grammatical rules for the purpose of easy pronunciation?
For instance, in German you'll have Der Mann singular, Die Männer plural, instead of, say, Die Männen. It seems this is because you don't want to over-expose the speaker to the "n" sound.
...
4
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1answer
107 views
What's a grammatical feature?
This is not a naif question asked by a layman just out of curiosity. I am presently editing a book by a colleague which is devoted to the notion of grammatical feature (with a special focus on ...
3
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1answer
52 views
Combinatory categorial grammar for English
I am working on theoretical NLP things, in particular to do with combinatory categorial grammar (CCG). I don't have much knowledge of CCG, or of grammar in general.
I was wondering how much of English ...
4
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2answers
107 views
Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle?
Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle applicable to all languages despite the differences between them?
7
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2answers
1k views
I have my hair cut - “my hair” a Direct Object?
I am confused about the following sentence:
I have my hair cut.
Now here I am not sure whether "my hair" is the Direct Object (DO) of the verb "have", or if it is just the ...
1
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4answers
131 views
What are some reasons why grammar is often more complex than needed for communication purposes?
It shouldn't be controversial to say that the grammar of certain languages is more complex than what communication calls for. For instance, some languages have gendered nouns, and it is often unclear ...
2
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2answers
72 views
What is terminology for the difference between, for instance, “see” and “sees”?
To clarify, I'm referring to the terminology for the difference between just a the word "see" as a verb, and the word in a statement like "Alice sees Bob". What is the correct ...
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2answers
111 views
Grammatical function vs. Semantic role
What is the difference between grammatical functions and semantic roles? Are they the same?
9
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2answers
969 views
Can one sentence have two or multiple possible phrase structure grammars? And what is this called?
After reading about syntactic structure and phrase structure grammar in Wikipedia and on the internet, I was wondering if there are any sentences with more than one possible phrase structure grammar? ...
1
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1answer
97 views
How do you tell a spelling mistake from a grammar mistake?
How do you tell a spelling mistake from a grammar mistake? For example:
Your the best.
This iz the end.
I likes music.
She preatend to be asleep.
One method is to read the erroneous sentence aloud (...
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1answer
66 views
Question about a specific grammatical feature
In one Conlang I am developing there is a feature where owned items are treated as the subject of a verb, and the owner as the Object.
So, for example:
Car sohi Amelia
Would mean Amelia's Car, with ...
0
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1answer
234 views
Is 'clothes' countable or uncountable? [closed]
I can't decide if the word 'clothes' is countable or uncountable. The dictionary only writes - plural.
2
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1answer
49 views
Past Simple vs Present Perfect Continuous in questions [closed]
It is my first ask in this forum. I am not sure about proper grammar usage, so I want to ask someone who knows it well.
If I want to ask a person for a duration of time he has worked at the specific ...
3
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0answers
40 views
Interleaving (Cross serial dependency) using context sensitive grammars
I saw from different sources that Context Free Grammars are insufficient to generate cross serial dependencies (interleaving) in languages and it would require mildly context sensitive grammars to do ...
0
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0answers
30 views
Automating the identification of a language grammar based on samples — is this something that is done, and what is it called?
I'm trying (not very successfully) to find research papers to help with a project.
Suppose you had a relatively small sample of a target language (e.g. a bible translation) and you would like to write ...
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0answers
33 views
What are some more examples of doubly centre embedded clauses?
Hey guys I am a uni student doing psycholinguistics and currently studying doubly centre embedded clauses for a study on comprehension.
For example a phrase such as: "The man the boy the cat ...
2
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1answer
170 views
What makes “can't get any” a double-negative, according to Steven Pinker?
The Rolling Stones famously sang "I can't get no satisfaction", which is a double-negative. "I can't get any satisfaction" is seen as more grammatical in modern English.
In his ...
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2answers
95 views
For English, is there a finite set of patterns for constructing sentences?
I am wondering about conlangs and thinking about English currently. I'm wondering does English have a finite set of patterns for constructing sentences? That is, could you build a computer program ...
7
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3answers
214 views
Why is the subject outside the VP in most theories of syntax?
I'm trying to understand why in most theories of syntax, the subject of a sentence is the sister of the verb, and not the child eg:
S -> NP VP instead of
VP -> NP V (NP...)
The latter feels more ...
1
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0answers
80 views
Verb-ing after this phrase or clause “this is my first time”
Is the verb with '-ing' in the phrase or clause "this is my first time eating this" a gerund or a present participle verb?
I think now I see that "this" probably is or means "...
4
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0answers
39 views
Where can I find a table/list of all/many languages' plural/singular forms for hours/time?
Even though I'm natively Swedish, I'm seriously unsure if it's "1,1 timme" or "1,1 timmar". That is, what in English would be "1.1 hour" or "1.1 hours".
Even as ...
2
votes
1answer
180 views
Arabic grammar: The difference between the terms raf` and marfu'
I have begun to learn Arabic, and the difference between following terms confuse me.
There is this topic of ʾirāb—the science which deals with how the Arabic noun inflects with respect to its ...
2
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0answers
214 views
What exactly is the Structure-Dependency Principle
Could someone explain what structure-dependency is in layman terms, and why it's so important?
Resources I've found on the internet weren't of much help so I'm asking on here.
Thanks!
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4answers
131 views
What can explain the appearance of “self-made” language features if neither of languages a person speaks or learns have similar features?
I know a woman, whose native language is Kyrgyz (Turkic family) and who learned Russian as an adult (mostly, maybe she was somewhat exposed to it before as well).
What striked me is that she invented ...
2
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0answers
43 views
Adjunct vs complement with intransitive verb
Tony came from outside the traditional media
Am I right in thinking because came is intransitive that "outside the traditional media" is an adjunct rather than a subject complement?
3
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0answers
85 views
Where did English get its perfect tense(s) from?
Apologies if this is too basic, but I know very little about linguistics and figured this would be a good place to ask.
English seems like it draws from several other langiuages, notably the romance ...
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1answer
56 views
What is the name of the formulation where you specify sentence parts
Say I have the sentence:
The cat sat on the mat
What's the name of the formulation:
The-DET. cat-NOUN. sat-VERB. on-PREP. the-DET. mat-NOUN
Or this example from Wikipedia
Kin á-ø-sh-łééh
make-3....
4
votes
1answer
122 views
Is English grammar teaching tradition rooted in Latin?
I heard once that the way English grammar was taught as school was rooted in Latin and it wasn't a correct approach for a number of reason ?
This was a long time ago, so I cannot remember the details.
...
1
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1answer
70 views
What do the numbers 206.835, 1.015, 84.6, 0.39, 11.8, 15.59 mean in the Flesch reading ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade level formulas?
I am looking to understand what do these numbers mean in the formulas, and how do they affect results, and why they were specifically chosen. Here are the formulas:
Flesh reading Ease = 206.835 - 1....
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2answers
460 views
Is it possible in Sanskrit to distinguish between the names Rāma and Rām i.e. राम and राम् when used in a sentence?
Consider this sentence:
रामो लेखन्या लिखति
Is रामो in that sentence always referring to someone named राम (Rāma) or could it be equally possible that the person's name was राम् (Rām)? Are names like ...
0
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3answers
429 views
Subconscious grammar knowledge
I am reading the textbook Contemporary Linguistic Analysis by William O'Grady ninth edition. The text makes the claim that "grammatical knowledge is subconscious". They submit that most ...
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1answer
171 views
Is there evidence of a disposition for certain races to learn certain languages? [closed]
For example would those of Chinese descent have a disposition to learn Chinese? Chinese is a quite different language being logographic then say English which is alphabetic.
Another example would be ...
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0answers
130 views
How does syntax of our language affect our thoughts?
Our language affects the way we perceive the world. I know it is not only because the words that don’t exist in one of the languages may exist in the other ones, but also because of the grammar. We ...
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8answers
7k views
Are there languages that don't have this kind of ambiguity?
In the sentence "John told James that he's happy.", the pronoun "he" is ambiguous, since it could refer to either John or James.
Are there any languages which try to solve this ...
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0answers
38 views
How can I compare the grammatical complexity between two texts using their sentences dependency length?
This is a continuation to the following thread.
I have two texts, common English texts such as news articles and informative texts versus a technical textbook. I want to compare the grammatical ...
0
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1answer
93 views
How to differenciate the long vowels from the actual letters in arabic?
I'm learning beginner in arabic and I can't find a proper grammar rule to figure it out.
There is a lot of lessons on long vowels but they are totally disjointed from the question "How to ...
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1answer
97 views
How to determine grammatical complexity using quantitative features?
I'm doing a research on defining the complexity of language used in technical documentations for technologies (libraries and modules) used in data science and machine learning engineering. And I'm ...
1
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2answers
70 views
Are there approaches to/theories of grammar that do not deal with the acceptability problem?
As I understand, grammars boil down to the acceptability problem: Is an utterance acceptable to the users of some language X? How to differentiate acceptable from non-acceptable utterances? Those who ...
1
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1answer
72 views
The semantics of grammatical transformations? [closed]
Please see the following:
We start with a sentence/clause like -
Mr Wilkins is the oldest person in the village.
It seems like we can "transform" the clause using certain "grammatical rules":
Mr ...
0
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0answers
43 views
Do nouns in simple apposition semantically unpack to predicate nominatives in English?
A Koine Greek grammar states that nouns in simple apposition are semantically understood as predicate nominatives.
So, "Paul the apostle" unpacks to "Paul is the apostle" and "the apostle is Paul" ...
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3answers
520 views
Why is Spanish SVO and not VSO?
I understand that Spanish sentences have an SVO sentence structure.
(S)(Yo) (V)compro (O)los zapatos.
What confuses me is the fact that when the subject is a pronoun, it is omitted so often that you ...
1
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0answers
59 views
How can one differentiate syntax and morphology for ESL students?
Do morphological and syntactical approaches to grammar instruction co-exist? I am writing a paper on the importance of clause structure in lexicogrammatical approaches to grammar instruction at the ...
2
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2answers
237 views
What is the difference between compound words and derivational words?
I know that compound words are made up with two small words, but is "tax-free" or "timeless" compound word? How about "thought-free"?
1
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1answer
94 views
Is there a term for how English replaces the preposition “of” by putting the word that comes after “of” before the word that comes before “of”?
EG,
Apple Juice --> (The) Juice of Apple(s)
Gold Castle --> (The) Castle of Gold
Liver Disease --> Disease of (the) Liver
Et Al.
2
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1answer
94 views
Non-projective tree sentences
I'm trying to generate the non-projective tree of the sentence:
"A hearing is scheduled on the issue today."
But with the Stanford Core NLP tool (https://corenlp.run/), I obtain a projective ...
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0answers
64 views
What does this quote by Chomsky mean?
“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.”
3
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1answer
156 views
Why are constructions such as ‘AN historian’ commonly pronounced with a non-silent H?
It is well-known that the determiner a is substituted with an when the following word begins with a vowel (letter or sound). In some cases, however, an has been used preceding words beginning with (as ...
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0answers
43 views
Determining the semantic “complexity” of a grammar computationally from text
I'm working on a computational text analysis project which uses ngram data from journal articles, and I'm trying to find a way to measure some aspect of the semantic "complexity" of the grammar in one ...
