All Questions
Tagged with grammar cross-linguistic
10 questions
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Tensed infinitives across languages
As the Latin language shows, infinitives can be marked for tense (amare - present, amavisse - perfect).
English also shows that: to love, to have loved.
Can anyone suggest any literature regarding the ...
- 451
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Languages that distinguish between objective vs. subjective genitives
Are there languages that grammatically distinguish between objective and subjective genitives?
- 396
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4
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When/how did "articles" like "the" first appear in language?
I am wondering this sort of cross-linguistically. I know many (most?) languages don't have a word for "the", but the English language does. First part of the question is, did Middle English ...
- 4,438
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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 ...
- 6,711
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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" ...
user27672
-5
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1
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What are all the primary variants of these languages? [closed]
In order to make the transliterator more precise, it looks like I am going to need to distinguish between different versions of a language. My question is, is this the complete list of languages and ...
- 4,438
1
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2
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How to build a robust transliteration scheme across languages?
So I am trying to imagine building a transliterator across languages that takes any language and converts it into IPA or some less-detailed equivalent (like a Romanization). I am thinking about ...
- 4,438
2
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2
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578
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When an existential verb is used existentially as the predicate to a subject, is it true in all languages that it cannot take another predicate?
When an existential is used existentially verb as the predicate to a subject, is it true in all languages that it cannot take another predicate?
In other words, when the existential to-be verb means '...
user27672
-1
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2
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208
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How many sound-to-letter sequence mapping rules does English have compared to other languages?
In English (I haven't really thought too much about English yet), there are tons of what-seem-like one-off patterns.
(the "oo" sound)
tool /tul/
two /tu/
to /tu/
through /θɹu/
blue /blu/
queue /ku/
(...
- 4,438
11
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4
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780
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Relationship between possession ("to have") and tenses ("I have seen")
In several Indo-European languages the verb that denotes possession (to have) is also used to construct verb tenses.
Some examples:
I have seen ... I have a dog. (English)
Am văzut ... Am un câine. (...
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