Questions tagged [reference-request]
Questions seeking books, websites, articles, papers, research, or downloadable content on any linguistic topic.
242
questions
4
votes
2answers
174 views
*h₁éḱwos > ἵππος, (Aeolian) ἴκκος
(in short) What's the epigraphical support to the Aeolian word ἴκκος ? I can't find it in the (very limited) data I can consult.
(full story) The history of the Greek word ἵππος ("horse") can be ...
6
votes
1answer
81 views
Does a scientific methodology exist for evaluating bilingual dictionaries?
I recently reread What's the difference between the various context dictionaries available for Spanish (e.g., Tatoeba, Reverso, Linguee, …)?. The accepted answer is excellent. But it got me ...
1
vote
1answer
43 views
Is there a high-quality academic reference resource for an extensive overview of a language?
If I wanted a general introduction to for example the Turkish language, I can look up articles on Turkish in Encyclopedia Britannica, the Routledge Compendium of the World's Languages, the ...
0
votes
2answers
61 views
Conventions on sorting phrases with whitespace and punctuation (for an index)
I'm sorry if this is not the correct community to ask this question, if not please suggest a transfer.
I'm compiling an index of sorts for a large songbook where all the titles and first lines of the ...
-4
votes
2answers
76 views
Where can you find a list of all nouns and verbs “forms” in each language? [closed]
The only languages for which I have found a book (not even a webpage) is for Hebrew and Arabic. Are there books or webpages that contain all the noun declensions and verb "conjugations" (or noun and ...
1
vote
1answer
57 views
“Indifferent” reference of specific indefinites?
There is a class of indefinites sometimes called "specific indefinites" that refer to one individual. For example:
A man walked into a bar followed by two others. He ordered a drink.
With this ...
2
votes
0answers
29 views
Terminology/resources for descriptions like “…the other one…”
Suppose, e.g., that there are two brothers, Bob and Bill, that must do two things but it doesn't much matter which brother does which task. I am interested in constructions like the following:
One ...
3
votes
0answers
85 views
Is language “necessarily underspecified”?
I've read an exam question given in a class on Semantics, that was asking
Why is language necessarily underspecified
I did not find much about this at the time, which is surprising because it ...
4
votes
2answers
73 views
Where can one find reconstructed vocalizations for (any stage of) Egyptian?
When looking up a Middle Egyptian word, it's usually not too hard to find the consonants: for example, if I look up U2 Aa11 D36 X1 C10 in Dickson's or Gardiner's dictionary, they tell me it means "...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
Semantics of a focus particle and Epistemic/Alethic Modality
I've been working on a paper which focuses on interaction of focus particle and epistemic/alethic modality in Turkish.
Focus particle "de/da" in Turkish is a clitic and comes right after the word, ...
1
vote
1answer
128 views
Is there a tendency to name money after other things?
Back in Spanish.StackExchange there was a question about the use of the word plata (literally "silver") in American dialects of Spanish instead of the proper word, dinero. European Spanish also avoids ...
0
votes
2answers
63 views
Source on approximant fortition
I'm starting a project that examines the phonetics of palatal approximant fortition (with a variety of outcomes) in several dialects of Spanish.
There's a great deal of existing Spanish linguistics ...
-1
votes
1answer
38 views
Reference request on sociolinguistical matters [closed]
I am not linguist, but I am looking for reference on the following matter:
1. Social function of language and relation of the function with other functions of language.
2. Variability of language on ...
2
votes
3answers
217 views
good references for old indo-European languages
what enjoy the most is to trace back the words right to their origin.
i had little study on Mazandarani(tabari\tapuri) dialect spoken is Mazandaran province of Iran. traced back some words to their ...
0
votes
1answer
52 views
Finding roots and cognates online
I'm studying linguistics and I want to know if there's an option for having several translations at once?
For example, I enter "word" as an English entry and I get the below output:
German: word1 ...
0
votes
1answer
41 views
Terms to Indicate Rules
In software languages, we have a small set of terms to indicate a rule: if, then, else, upon, while, otherwise, case, etc.
In specification writing, we use terms like: "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",...
0
votes
1answer
68 views
Linguistic journal that allows blind referee
I'd like to know which journals in linguistics allow papers without author's information to be reviewed by referees. The only one that can do it to my knowledge is Linguistic Inquiry from the MIT ...
4
votes
1answer
148 views
Charles Hockett - 'F' article?
In the Guardian, there is an article on cultural determinants of phonological feature choice. A recent article in Science supposedly supports the hypothesis that the existence of labiodental ...
5
votes
1answer
113 views
What is 'OE Gloss.'?
I'm not a linguistics student, so my bad if this is actually very obvious/can be found online (I tried. Really.), but what is, exactly, the OE Gloss.?
All I could find is that it means Old English ...
0
votes
0answers
41 views
Reference request: formal semantics of “(((there) is) a) cat”
I remember having read that, in (some schools of) formal semantics, there is no difference between the semantics of (a) cat and (there) is a cat. Is this true, and can you provide a reference to the ...
1
vote
1answer
47 views
What informative and yet easy-to-read introductory books in English are there for Spanish Phonology?
I had my eyes on The Phonology of Spanish by Iggy Roca but I can't find the book in any store, neither it's ISBN or even it's cover! Evidence indicates that it wasn't even published but it pertained ...
0
votes
0answers
46 views
Introductory texts in Computational Linguistics [duplicate]
I am looking for good introductory texts in Computational Linguistics involving NLP.
0
votes
1answer
87 views
In need of a simple book on English phonology - recommendations? [closed]
SPE of Chomsky and Halle entails far more than I can handle.
0
votes
0answers
37 views
Data on how people really talk in, for example, West Texas?
My wife and I just watched the movie No Country for Old Men, which is set in West Texas ca. 1980, and I couldn't help feeling that the screenwriter was laying it on a little thick with the regional ...
13
votes
1answer
164 views
Is there a modern survey on the Altaic theory?
Back in 1999, there was a great paper co-authored by anti-Altaicist Stefan Georg with some Altaicists that gave the history of the Altaic theory, gathered up all of the evidence, and tried to work out ...
0
votes
0answers
45 views
Is there any bridge between cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology, beside knowledge representation?
So far I only know that knowledge representation is the bridge between cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. What about memory or problem solving, which are also important subfields in ...
3
votes
2answers
78 views
Computational/Formal Approaches to Paragraph-Level Semantics
There are several frameworks that have been built by both linguists and computer scientists to deal with the problem of semantic representation of sentences, most notably Abstract Meaning ...
0
votes
0answers
41 views
Modern authoritive textbook for morpheme analyses
I have been reading several books dealing with morpheme/semanteme, etc...But some of them are a few decades old and don't deal exclusively with the subject in the scope of Lexicology. So I would like ...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
Textbook suggestion for undergrad intro to (phonetics/phonology,) morphology and syntax course
I'll be teaching an introductory course on the morphology and syntax (and perhaps phonetics/phonology, though perhaps not) of English to undergrads in a large public, urban college in the US. I could ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
Cross-linguistic study of distribution of number of verbal arguments
I think I remember reading once that cross linguistically, at least in "normal" spoken or written language, verbs almost never take more than ~4-5 obligatory arguments. This seems to be true in my ...
3
votes
0answers
56 views
Words per minute - language list?
I have an idea on how fast a Dutch speaker speaks:
130 wpm = medium
160 wpm = fast
100 wpm = slow
I'd like to have that same knowledge about other languages.
Is there a list somewhere that ...
0
votes
3answers
800 views
List of vowel and consonant sequences across languages
Wondering if there is any sort of list either across languages or for individual languages, either complete or partial, that list the sequences of vowels and/or consonants used in that language. If no ...
3
votes
0answers
68 views
Are there written languages that commonly start direct speech without marking?
In English and many common languages nowadays, punctuation marks are used to introduce direct speech. This makes it possible to start direct speech without lexical clue, as in the second example here:
...
0
votes
0answers
103 views
What does “referentiality” mean?
I have problems with the linguistic terms. I did not find satisfactory explanation
about "referentiality". On the other hand, what are the differences between "case" and "referentiality"? If there is, ...
1
vote
0answers
16 views
Is there any detailed documentation of VerbNet's semantic representation?
In VerbNet, each frame has a semantic representation like this:
cause(Agent, E) manner(during(E), directed motion, Agent)
!contact(during(E), Agent, Patient) manner(end(E),forceful, Agent)
...
1
vote
0answers
77 views
Language aesthetics [closed]
This is my first post on this site.
My question is this: are there any theories developed (or simply thoughts put on paper) by language/linguistic theorists as to the aesthetical aspect of language?
...
4
votes
1answer
58 views
Is there a better series of sentences for observing features of a language?
I've often tried to find a few short sentences that encapsulate most of the features of a language, a sort of Learn X in Y Minutes for spoken languages, if you will.
Tim Ferriss, a Renaissance man of ...
0
votes
0answers
50 views
What book introduces sound for laypeople trying to learn phonetics, but who loathe physics?
I'm reading about sound only because I like linguistics. I loathe, and have never taken any, physics. But I can do high school math, as I like statistics (not mathematical physics).
I'm too dumb to ...
1
vote
2answers
328 views
What are the best books to study generative syntax?
I'm looking for a good book to study generative syntax from an introductory level to intermediate or advanced.
2
votes
1answer
49 views
Learning control over formants and sounds energy distributions
Using spectograms like Praat and Chrome Musiclabs Spectogram. I discovered that I can control my first formant by moving my tongue between front to back by consciously moving between the vowel [u] [ae]...
2
votes
1answer
142 views
What is the state of the art for diacritic restoration?
Diacritic restoration is a term for guessing the original form of a text, after it's been converted to ASCII in a lossy way. In Lingála, for example, writing in ASCII merges two pairs of vowels and ...
2
votes
1answer
213 views
What are the best books to study Phonology at an introductory level?
I'm looking for a good introduction to phonology book with good examples of diverse languages.
3
votes
0answers
124 views
Language where baby's first word is a swear word
I remember coming across an interesting language where the first sounds out of a baby's mouth were not considered to be "mother" and "father," but were instead considered to be a curse word. I want ...
1
vote
2answers
86 views
Zellig Harris and the alphabet
I would be very interested if someone could provide me with a useful link to read Zellig Harris's text on the origin of the alphabet. The reference is:
Harris, Zellig S. 1933. “Acrophony and ...
0
votes
0answers
41 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 ...
0
votes
0answers
40 views
davidsonian semantics
I hope everyone is fine. I was wondering if you could help me with some suggestions about which book(s) should I start with to learn the Davidsonian semantics, so that I will be able to read and write ...
4
votes
0answers
109 views
4 or 5: is thumb a finger? Distribution across languages
Researching the origins of counting systems, I came across the question I cannot seem to find an answer for: what is the typological distribution of languages that consider thumb a finger (5 fingers ...
3
votes
0answers
50 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 ...
3
votes
0answers
67 views
Is there a phrasal verb corpus somewhere online?
I'm working on a project where I have syntactic frames in the form of something like "N.agent V PP.stimulus", where each PP consists of a P and a N.
I have a set list of verbs, and a list of PPs for ...
5
votes
0answers
100 views
Research on development of language of modality in children 8-12?
Let me quickly introduce myself to provide a context for my questions. My PhD research focuses on ways that we can teach primary school children (9-12) ways of handling complex, contradictory and ...
