Questions tagged [reference-request]
Questions seeking books, websites, articles, papers, research, or downloadable content on any linguistic topic.
338
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F0 as a distinguishing factor in certain sibilants?
I am currently planning a research paper about pitch's role in distinguishing [s̪], [s̻], [s̺], [ʂ], and [ɕ], and I don't know if there already exists literature about this. The closest I was able to ...
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Impact of modern media (radio, television, internet) on language evolution
Language change has traditionally been driven by the geographic and social barriers separating populations. However, the rise of mass media (radio, television) and the internet in the 20th century has ...
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A book for a beginner on cartographic syntax
Can you suggest a book for a beginner on cartographic syntax? The question has been asked before, but has gone unanswered (for almost a year). I am looking for a book for a beginner,
i.e. someone ...
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Exploiting commonalities to learn multiple languages (eg Indo-Aryan languages)
In India, in several states, three languages are taught compulsorily in schools, from classes 1 (6 year olds) to 8 (14 year olds): English, Hindi and another Indian language.
Optional personal ...
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Where can I find more about inked cuneiform?
A recent question asked about cuneiform painted or drawn on a surface instead of being inscribed or engraved, and it seems there are three tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal that had colophons ...
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What is the distribution of the French uvular trill vs uvular fricative?
In French, the most common realizations of the phoneme /r/ are [ʀ] (uvular trill) and [ʁ] (voiced uvular fricative). I am able to consistently distinguish them and produce either, and I'm interested ...
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Request for research papers on the definite article systems of French and Italian
Extrapolating from this survey of article systems throughout world languages, the only languages which brought the article system which originated in Ancient Greek to its fullest logical generality ...
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Examples of ‘kangaroo etymologies’ that actually happened
There’s an urban legend that the word kangaroo is from an Aboriginal phrase that means, “I don’t know.” This is not true: the word is actually from a Guugu Yimithirr word for a particular species of ...
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Looking for a resource about internet language
I am looking for scholarly resources from the past decade (a little wiggle room there) that discuss the language which is used on the internet. Specifically, I would like this source to cover informal ...
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What is the survey of definite article systems throughout the world?
Different languages have different ways of implementing articles.
English has a very simple system, of simply "the" and "a". However, there is some irregularities regarding when ...
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Orthography changes in Italian
How has the orthography of Italian changed in the 19th century? I’m trying to find an in-depth guide but I haven’t found any resources. Maybe it just hasn’t changed except for a few technical words?
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What is the "principle of uniformity" in historical linguistics?
I feel hopeless asking this. The word in question as I understand it describes that a theory has to account for all observables under discussion without exception.
In historical linguistics it is ...
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Rules for inflecting Tibetan nouns and verbs?
The internet is scarce in Tibetan grammar, this being the best I can find. It says there are 6 noun cases, and gives the pattern for inflecting the base noun, it seems. Is that all that is required ...
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How does one discern between atomic, relational, and intentional adjectives?
Some adjectives are atomic. They're just there and they presuppose nothing. Jolly is an example of this. "Bobby is a jolly boy" tells you everything you need to know about Bobby.
Other ...
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Which papers exemplify the attrition of the L1 in the interface of language modules?
I’m intending to write my BA thesis on language attrition and I have a problem finding info. So I’m looking for papers that exemplify the attrition of the L1 in the interface of language modules (...
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An Overview of Mathematical-Logical Approaches in Formalizing Natural Languages
I am an undergraduate mathematics student with a keen interest in pursuing research in the formalization of natural languages (from a more mathematical-logical approach), yet there aren't many ...
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List of grammaticalization pathways?
In On the Evolution of Grammatical Forms, Heine and Kuteva show this page, without citing any sources that I could find:
They give a small sample of examples of how this might work, such as the verb &...
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Reference text on Reichenbach's or Klein's work on the formal semantics of tense
I'm looking for a decent reference text on either Reicehnbach's or, more ideally, Klein's work on the formal semantics of tense with regards to topic time, event time, etc.
Klein's initial text on the ...
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Is there a Mid-Atlantic pronouncing dictionary?
I’m someone who speaks what I would describe as “a conservative American accent”. I sound like General American from a couple decades ago. I distinguish between the vowels in Mary, marry, and merry, ...
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Book suggestions for a basic introduction to Syntactic Cartography?
I am interested in learning more about Syntactic Cartography and its basic concepts. Can anyone recommend a book or resource that provides a solid introduction to this topic? I have a background in ...
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Is there online database of vocabulary of proto-languages, like Starling but more accurate?
Starling is notorious for its inaccuracy. Is there something similar but based on more solid sources, like Brill dictionaries?
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Try to recall a book that describes the connection between languages, logic and mathematical foundation
I remember there is a book published a few decades ago, which is probably hundreds of pages thick and describes the connection between languages (nor sure formal or natural languages, probably latter)...
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Emphasis through capitalizing the first letters of words
I've begun to see this style of emphasis used more frequently, like in the following passage:
People whose careers depend on the great stuff working as advertised may decide instead that they Simply ...
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Diminutive bias from minority language code switching?
Code switching satisfies two criteria, which benefit the creation of diminutives.
Substrate languages (more generly addstratum) are more likely to be spoken between familiar speakers.
They are more ...
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When is the telegraphic stage in English?
If you Google "telegraphic speech," many lay articles (1, 2, and the APA dictionary) mention an approximate age range of 18-24/30 months for the production of telegraphic speech.
However, I ...
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Research on Preposition semantics
Is there any literature on preposition semantics available online?
Much of it is centered around spatial prepositions but what I want to know is more general approaches to the subject matter.
Thank ...
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What is the name for this phenomenon, and what are some other examples of it?
Sorry if this is a duplicate, but I couldn't figure out how to search for this, especially since my only example involves two function words.
In English, we can say "I have not eaten." "...
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Energy to convey an amount of information in different languages
I am fluent in Assamese, Hindi and English, having learned all three of these since I was about 1 year old. I can speak Bengali with a little bit of effort.
I have developed this feeling that it takes ...
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What measures are there of similarity between languages? And where can I find data on such measurements?
Perhaps the most natural measure of similarity between two close languages is the ease with which a native speaker of one can understand the other. (This might not be symmetrical in some cases, ...
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What are the basic linguistic characteristics of the Maltese language?
I've been looking for a website or something helpful for my presentation about the Maltese language and I didn't find something that offers good explanation of the Phonological, morphological, ...
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What is a standard encyclopedia article about clauses?
I would like to get a deep, multifaceted, modern overview of the concept of a “clause”; its nature, characteristics, properties, definition, where it came from, how it came to be, and so on.
What is a ...
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Classification of kinship system by languages
I'm looking for a way to compare "closeness" of languages based on their kinship systems.
The only thing I found is this classification, which classifies kin systems to: Eskimo, Hawaiian, ...
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The sequence of parts of speech in English
Considering the main eight parts of speech, every two adjacent words in a sentence can be one of the possible 64 pairs. The probability of these pairs significantly varies, as some might even be ...
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What are the tenets of Relevance Theory?
What are the elements upon which one can base to process a speech with relevance theory?
I've been reading but I couldn't find an answer to this question.
I take the example of the Speech act Theory ...
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Speed listening
I have just heard that there are people out there (mostly blind people) using screen readers at overspeed, achieving speech rates twice as high as usual, and even higher.
What I want to know is: Are ...
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Complete list of possible tone sequences across languages?
Wikipedia has all the tones for 3 languages listed on the Tone numerals page.
Do we have anything more robust, including at least the possible tones for other popular languages such as Thai, Tibetan, ...
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Could Cimmerian be a transitional language between Iranian and Slavic?
After a period of reflection, I am currently no longer considering a direct kinship between Iranian and Slavic languages, but rather turning to the existence of another transitional language between ...
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Can someone share with me an article in which the author claims that the get passive is not a passive (or at least a true passive)?
Can someone share with me an article in which the author claims that the get passive is not a passive (or at least a true passive)?
I need an article in which the author says that he or she doesn't ...
user36925
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What is linguistics?
I would like to read a book similar to "What is mathematics?", but about linguistics.
In other words, I would like to see a text that touches different branches of linguistics in an ...
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Is there a list of common English verbs with all of the inflectional "principal parts"?
I am looking for a list of common English verbs (1000 to 2000 most-frequent) which gives the distinct inflectional forms (spelled: pronunciation is irrelevant). For example, "sits, sit, sat, sat, ...
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Request for Texts Giving an Overview of the Evolution of the Indo-Iranian Laguages
Does anyone know of any good accounts of the evolution of the Modern Indo-Iranian languages?
I'm especially interested in comparative overviews of either the entire family's historical phonology, or ...
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Good book to learn the empirical aspects of linguistics, and language families in particular
I wanted to know about how empirical works are done in Linguistics. I have very little idea about this field, but I am interested to know.
I know many empirical "facts" about languages and ...
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Can someone share with me an article that studies the decline of by-phrases in the passive?
Can someone share with me an article that studies the decline of by-phrases in the passive? Preferably a corpus-based study, but this is not that relevant
user36925
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Native English speakers: worse understanding of other accents?
In this video, Lily Tomlin (an American) doesn't really understand what Kevin Bridges is saying at all with his Scottish accent. She also says she doesn't fully understand what Chris Hemswoth (an ...
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How much (or little) will living in solitude affect the language ability of a grown up?
For example, is the fictional case of Robinson Crusoe realistic? He's still able to speak after being alone on an island for more than twenty years.
I read that people would lose their ability to ...
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A timeline of schools and theories
Is there an academic source for a timeline of schools and theories of linguistics? I can’t find any good source.
This is sort of what I’m looking for (https://prezi.com/d2261rzsz3ah/history-of-...
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How is Urkesh spelled in cuneiform?
I can only find two cuneiform inscriptions mentioning "Urkesh", here. It seems to be spelled differently in the two tablets. Is it 𒌨𒄊? Is the second grapheme of "Urkesh" in ...
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What happened to this isolate language of China?
This is a rather complicated and vague question because I have forgotten a lot about the circumstances where I learned about the language in question, specifically I have neither the reference book ...
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Series of textbooks to learn semantics from beginners' to advanced level
I am not a student of linguistics, but my interest in mathematics, philosophy and computer science inevitably leads me to many terms and concepts used in linguistics, particularly semantics. I have ...
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Up-to-date performance comparison of speech recognition over time
I am looking for an up-to-date (as of 2022) figure or table which displays the improvement in speech recognition on benchmarks for read and spontaneous speech over time, ideally in terms of word error ...
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