Questions tagged [reference-request]
Questions seeking books, websites, articles, papers, research, or downloadable content on any linguistic topic.
273
questions
2
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0answers
34 views
Book suggestions for a compelling introduction to linguistics for younger readers?
In particular, I'm looking for English texts which try to give some sense of the vast diversity of human languages through examples of unusual linguistic features exhibited in only one or in a small ...
0
votes
0answers
35 views
Can you share authors (papers) that give a percentage of active and passive vocabulary?
I’m looking for a scholarly source that gives an approximate ratio of speakers' active vs. passive vocabularies.
Where, roughly speaking, active vocabulary relates to the vocabulary a speaker uses ...
4
votes
0answers
39 views
Dataset for distribution of different systems for 'yes' and 'no' cross-linguistically?
The Wikipedia article for 'Yes and no' lists various distinct, common, systems for expressing the affirmative and the negative, ranging from no explicit terms (instead relying on echo responses) to ...
1
vote
1answer
51 views
Havlík's law, 3, & 4 in Czech
According to Wiktionary, the words for 3 and 4 in Proto-Slavic are *trьmi and *četyrьmi, respectively, in the instrumental case. In (current) Czech, they evolved into třemi and čtyřmi. But if you ...
4
votes
1answer
191 views
Historical explanations for soft/hard declensions in Czech
Declension patterns in Czech is traditionally categorized into hard and soft ones based on the final consonant of the stem. Materials for learners, e.g., Lída's Czech Step by Step or Michael's ...
3
votes
0answers
27 views
Syntax as error-correction-code
I vaguely recall from my academic studies that a professor mentioned that the syntax of sentence could be seen as error-correction-code in signal processing.
In other words, from a pragmatic view - ...
3
votes
1answer
39 views
What are good references on Eblaite cuneiform?
According to Wikipedia's article on the Eblaite language:
Studying the usage context for the symbols I, I2, A, ʾA, ḪA, etc. with regard to the writing conventions of Akkadian scribes enabled the ...
1
vote
3answers
104 views
Is there a word for the opposite of jargon? [closed]
I've noticed this phenomenon in language which I've come to think of as "the opposite of jargon", but which I'm hoping there's a better name for. I don't know anything about linguistics, ...
5
votes
1answer
354 views
Is there a document to summarize characteristics of various languages?
I have a question on languages and their respective characteristics.
Different languages are good at expressing certain things. For example,
Japanese is good for expressing sublime images very ...
5
votes
1answer
64 views
Where can I find a modern overview of Luvian hieroglyphs?
According to Melchert, the reading of Hieroglyphic Luvian (HLuvian, HLuwian) was completely revolutionized in 1974 by Hawkins, Morpurgo-Davies, and Neumann.
However, I haven't been able to find an ...
3
votes
0answers
44 views
Is there a grammar of Middle Tamil?
I am studying the Thiruppavai, a Middle Tamil poem, as a linguist and I wondered if any of you by any chance know of resources pertaining the grammar of Middle Tamil. Overviews of the history of Tamil ...
3
votes
1answer
45 views
Looking for a theoretical treatment of closed- and open-classes
The concept of open-class (e.g. English nouns) and closed-class (e.g. English prepositions) word categories seems to be taken as a given in a lot of papers and textbooks. I'm looking for a treatment ...
0
votes
1answer
101 views
What does this hieroglyph mean? (appear in Gödel Escher, Bach book by Douglas R. Hofstadter) [closed]
I found these hieroglyphs:
at the end of the prologue of the book in Spanish, so I do not know if they appear in the original or another versions. It is on page XVII of this specific edition: https:/...
0
votes
0answers
47 views
Can Studying Generative Grammar Help Someone Understand the Word Order of a Language?
Let's say for example that someone wanted to learn French. Would studying French's generative grammar help this person learn French word order?
Also, have there been any studies that teach L2 ...
4
votes
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 ...
11
votes
1answer
136 views
Is there a standardized graphical encoding for cuneiform?
If I want to describe the Hittite version of the DIŊIR cuneiform glyph, I could say "a double-headed horizontal, crossing a vertical". In other words:
This one's fairly straightforward, and ...
5
votes
0answers
117 views
Is there evidence that English speakers associate black with bad and/or white with good
Prompted by the recent move towards replacing the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist", I wonder if there is research around the topic of how people feel about the words "black&...
1
vote
0answers
82 views
Which grammars are written with TeX?
I have an enduring interest in TeX, and was pleasantly surprised that Schiffman's Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil (1999) namechecks Knuth in the foreword. I would like to ask for other examples of ...
3
votes
0answers
111 views
Formal, mathematically-minded introduction to generative grammar?
I'm looking for a formal, mathematically-minded introduction to contemporary generative grammar theory, where all the concepts, such as dominance, c-command, government, etc. are defined formally in ...
1
vote
0answers
43 views
What are the differences between Radford's various introductory texts to Generative Syntax?
In looking for a good introductory textbook on Generative Syntax, I came across this StackExchange comment, which mentions, among others, Radford's "Transformational Grammar, A First Course". I ...
1
vote
0answers
43 views
What are some good resources on the study of word order?
I've already read the Wikipedia article on the subject, and I was wondering if any resources exist that go more into detail.
4
votes
3answers
2k views
Does an affinity between languages necessitate that the speakers be ethnically related?
It is generally assumed that semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic are similar because the speakers of those languages are ethnically related and share a common ancestry. In other words, A Hebrew ...
4
votes
1answer
131 views
Linguistic overview/critique of the Tomatis method
Some advertisements for language training material (like this and this) have a dubious claim that each language has its own frequency range of sounds, or a "pass band", so that listening to ...
1
vote
2answers
77 views
Any good book recommendations on the relationship between language and thought? [closed]
Title says it all, I really want to explore this relationship between language and thought.
1
vote
1answer
107 views
How did these first person plural pronouns come to be in Catalán?
I recently saw this image comparing different first person plural masc. pronouns to Pokémon. For reference the pronouns listed are
Nosaltres (Cat. Central)
Natros (Tortosí)
Moatros (Val. Central)
...
0
votes
1answer
71 views
What percentage of words or queries are misspelled in search queries?
What percentage of words or queries are misspelled in search queries?
I couldn't find any decently recent study. {3} states:
Dalianis measured that 10% of web search engine queries were misspelled ...
3
votes
0answers
37 views
vocabulary and notation for syntactic changes
As a layman I have picked up the terminology and notation for changes in phonology. But I know very little about diachronic changes in syntax other than that they happen: things like shift from SOV ...
0
votes
0answers
81 views
Frequency of phonemes in Indian languages
I would like to know the relative frequency of phonemes in Indian languages whose sript is basically very close to Devanagiri. We need this data to make a pronunciation based keyboard layout for ...
1
vote
1answer
182 views
Is there an aggregation of Oracle Bone Script glyphs?
I am looking for something that might take a raw resource like this and instead provide a list of the discovered oracle bone script glyphs, like you would find for the CJK Unicode block for example. ...
0
votes
1answer
69 views
What are linguistics foundations of how a message can be on topic?
What I am looking for
Is there a linguistics perspective on a message being "on topic" or "off topic" in some context and/or something inbetween?
Is there even a linguistics definition and research ...
0
votes
2answers
70 views
How to cite an edited book [closed]
I want to cite some articles directly in Semantics, Volume 2 by de Gruyter (2011). I wonder if each article in it is a journal or conference paper that can be cited directly. Otherwise, I should cite ...
2
votes
3answers
196 views
Bibliography for a beginner in philosophy of language
In my main time, I am a mathematician working in logic and category theory. As a logician, I am familiar with some bits of philosophy of language.
Stuff I have read:
Word and object, Quine.
Naming ...
2
votes
0answers
62 views
Syntactic models than span across multiple sentences
I hope this question is not too broad.
I've been reading quite a lot about grammars, and it seem that all of the models I encountered focus on a single sentence level syntax.
It seems pretty obvious ...
1
vote
2answers
86 views
Definite descriptions and essentially indistinguishable participants
In the analysis of definite descriptions there is a problem called "The Problem of Indistinguishable Participants", exemplified by the so-called bishop sentences:
If a bishop meets a bishop, the ...
3
votes
0answers
85 views
How do children learn to identify different languages?
A child can be raised in a sufficiently bilingual context that they learn two languages simultaneously, e.g. English & Spanish, Norwegian and Saami. The end product is that they have two ...
4
votes
3answers
261 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
91 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
61 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
187 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
132 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
69 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
30 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 ...
1
vote
0answers
164 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
126 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 "...
1
vote
1answer
149 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
74 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
39 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
271 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
57 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
42 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",...
