All Questions
Tagged with grammar historical-linguistics
14 questions
4
votes
2
answers
317
views
Why do languages seem to lose the dual number in particular?
Proto-Indo-European is reconstructed as having a dual number; Ancient Greek and Sanskrit both had one, yet modern Greek and all Indo-Aryan languages have lost it; similar patterns can be observed in ...
- 419
2
votes
2
answers
196
views
Examples of languages that lost auxiliary verbs [duplicate]
I've been looking around and haven't found any examples of languages that at one point in the past had auxiliary verbs but then later lost them. I know that both the Germanic and Romance languages ...
- 21
0
votes
1
answer
129
views
How to do Practice Problem for Basque
Link to Problem(both Problems and Answers[but no explanations])
https://sites.google.com/site/paninilinguisticsolympiad/Resources/sample-problems-and-solutions
My question is about the problem titled &...
12
votes
5
answers
5k
views
Which language is more complex, English or French? Is it even possible to objectively measure a language's complexity?
OK, so I'm a native English speaker who learned French as a teenager and I have a friend who is French and learned English as a teenager (so the opposite).
The other day he was telling me how easy ...
- 169
0
votes
3
answers
242
views
Why did auxiliary verbs in Kazakh got completely merged into one word in Turkish?
Kazakh and Turkish belong to same language group.
But Kazakh is more archaic, Turkish is more modern.
In Kazakh, there are auxiliary verbs otur, jur , and jatir that become part of the word in Turkish:...
- 139
0
votes
0
answers
56
views
Why is "woman" in "the woman teacher" an adjunct while "literature" in "the literature teacher" a complement?
Is it because we cannot say "teacher of woman" but we can say "teacher of literature"?
user27687
11
votes
1
answer
332
views
What is the origin of the "redundant" pronouns in the Venetian language?
From the examples taken from Wikipedia:
• Venetian: (Ti) te jèra onto or even Ti te jèri/xeri onto (lit. "(You) you were dirty").
• Venetian: El can el jèra onto (lit. "The dog he was dirty").
It ...
- 1,456
3
votes
0
answers
81
views
How is "In we go" syntactically valid?
Various simple sentences occur in English that I can't explain precisely.
"In we went!"
"Off he goes!"
Is this an arcane idiom from an earlier grammar, or is there a general rule that can be ...
- 131
9
votes
1
answer
439
views
Etymology of Latin infinitive verb endings
I was wondering, what the etymology of Latin infinitive verb endings -are, -ere and -ire was. I assume they are Indo-European, but I haven't found any information about it.
- 911
2
votes
0
answers
82
views
Subjective pronouns in English copulas: gradual loss of objective case, or emphatic construction taking over?
I'm interested in the historical linguistics of constructions like "that's me" versus "this is she" when answering the phone. Searching online led to a Google Books peephole view ...
user12663
5
votes
2
answers
193
views
Is there a name for the tense some Romance languages used to use for stories?
I've seen it before, but I don't know what it would be called. I know that some of the Romance languages used to have a specific tense used only for stories (at least, fictional ones). They're no ...
user19661
1
vote
2
answers
210
views
Has it been argued that linguistics could only have arisen after exposure to foreign languages?
Would concepts like grammar have even been understood/discussed until other languages with different grammars were encountered?
- 119
6
votes
0
answers
133
views
Are Rhyming, Alliterative Verse etc. forms of linguistic Error Detection/Correction Schemes?
Rhyme (Wikipedia)
Alliterative verse (Wikipedia)
Metre - Poetry (Wikipedia)
Mechanisms such as these appear to help lower information corruption during long range communication, especially during pre-...
- 161
3
votes
3
answers
268
views
What are good linguistic arguments for keeping heterographic homophones?
While having a discussion with a friend who oft malapropriates their/there/they're, and to/too/two, he maintains the position that he has a:
"disbelief that the current system is the best one"
He ...
- 131