Questions tagged [reference-request]
Questions seeking books, websites, articles, papers, research, or downloadable content on any linguistic topic.
264
questions
3
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0answers
36 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
43 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
77 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
43 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
113 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
121 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 ...
4
votes
0answers
110 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
73 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
106 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
35 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 ...
3
votes
0answers
84 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 sound, ...
0
votes
0answers
57 views
diglossia - negative attitude towards the L variety
I'm writing my thesis on diglossia-language attitude. I am at a part when I'm writing about the case when a speaker of the Low variety has bad attitude towards their own dialect and believe they are ...
1
vote
2answers
73 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
95 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
48 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
36 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
65 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
151 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
69 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
181 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
83 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
82 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
247 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
55 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
120 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
108 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
65 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 ...
2
votes
0answers
112 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
93 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
145 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
70 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
250 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
53 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",...
0
votes
1answer
79 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
159 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
123 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
66 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
1answer
89 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
39 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
213 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 ...
3
votes
2answers
83 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
48 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 ...
