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Questions tagged [sentences]

A sentence is a grammatical unit that is composed of one or more clauses or of written texts delimited by upper case letters and markers such as . , ? and ! .

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16 votes
4 answers
3k views

Do all languages have sentences?

This is a pretty basic question I guess, but anyway. Do all (human) languages have sentences? Most linguistic articles I read assume so, but can we take this as an assumption?
Karel Bílek's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
1k views

Tools to annotate (categorise) sentences from a sentence corpus

I have a corpus consisting of sentences that are to be categorised in order to train a text categorisation algorithm. I am looking for a (preferably web-based) tool that: Allows me to input a list ...
Hbf's user avatar
  • 231
7 votes
0 answers
424 views

Why were written sentences longer in the past?

These ELU answers affirm, but do not explain, the decrease in written sentence length. So why? To allow for comparison with modern dialects, I restrict this question to: writing in European ...
user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
546 views

Name for seemingly incomplete sentences

I remember reading about sentences that naturally seem incomplete (ending in the middle as if the second half were missing), but are actually grammatically correct. The listener/reader just wrongly ...
Ordoshsen's user avatar
  • 153
5 votes
4 answers
270 views

Is there a definition of "sentence" that applies to all languages?

Is there a definition of "sentence" that is applicable to all languages?
Michael Hardy's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
397 views

Ranking sentences

I have a list of 15000 sentences for a new language I wish to learn. I also have the English translation of each of these sentences. Additionally, I have a 30 million word corpus for the new language. ...
Dott's user avatar
  • 51
4 votes
1 answer
164 views

Peculiarities of English as spoken/written by Norwegians [closed]

I'm writing a fiction book. Some of its characters are Norwegians who exchange emails in English. I'd like to lightly stylise their texts. What mistakes / peculiarities / word choice / sentence ...
Alexander's user avatar
  • 141
4 votes
1 answer
100 views

Does the function of a clause belong to semantics or syntax?

In linguistics, is it correct that a clause is classified according to its function into declarative/statement, interrogative/question (yes-no, or content one), and imperative/request/command? Does ...
Tim's user avatar
  • 913
4 votes
1 answer
4k views

What metrics can be used to rate the complexity of an english sentence?

I want to rate a sentence by its complexity in the sense of: Rating of 1: A very simple sentence which is just S+V+O, example: "I eat bananas." Rating of 10: An uterly complex sentence with lots of ...
Gregor Müllegger's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to identify context independent (self-consistent) sentences?

There are questions that are self consistent in the sense that they can be understood without a context. In other words, the sentence itself provide a clear information. An example of such a sentence ...
Roman's user avatar
  • 95
3 votes
4 answers
8k views

Complex sentence without a subordinating conjunction?

Here's the sentence that's been confusing me: Compared to dogs, cats showed more enthusiasm. I feel this should be a complex sentence because there's one independent clause and one dependent ...
Chthonic Project's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Split a sentence using nltk and python

I am working on a task which involves information extraction, for which I require splitting a complex sentence into a bunch of simple sentences. For instance, In optics a ray is an idealized model ...
Riken Shah's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

What are the best NLP sentence alignment tools?

Which tools are worthwhile for aligning sentences from pairs of paragraphs of source and target languages.
Erik Chan's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
149 views

Are there languages with discontinued subordinate clauses?

As for the languages I know I think to believe, that a subordinated clause comes in a chunk and not scattered throughout the main clause. For instance: I LIKE TO SING, while i slave away while I ...
Abdul Al Hazred's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
73 views

Said tags in Sentence detection

I am trying to apply NLP to fiction but I don't know how split dialog into sentences. Specifically how to split said tags. ex. "Awake? How long have been asleep?" asked teenagers at the same time. ...
Steven Owens's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Cohesion within a sentence?

I know the definition of cohesion (which was described deeply in Halliday and Hasan's famous book, "Cohesion in English", or shortly summarized in wiki). If I understand correctly, the aim of ...
Ali Khalili's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
124 views

In English, what rules govern the optimal order of nouns in a list?

For example, is noun word-order governed by a universal ranking of semantic fields, as with adjectives, or do other considerations in general English word choice and order (well-formedness of ...
Dragonsheep's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
210 views

Is it possible to write complex sentence without subordinate (or dependent) clause? [closed]

My first language is NOT english. Currently I am preparing for IELTS exam at the moment. Today I saw a youtube video about IELTS writing task. In this video, the teacher gave an example of complex ...
Moris's user avatar
  • 31
2 votes
3 answers
834 views

How did verb conjugation by person, number and gender appear? Why do we still use it?

I'm Russian native,learning German and English. I'm interested in teaching myself some linguistics. Russian verb inflects for person, number in present and future tense; for gender in past tense. ...
Alexander Korotkov's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
530 views

Do sentences have primary and secondary stresses?

I know that stress can shift in an English phrase or sentence to emphasize the words that mean more specifically what the speaker wishes to express, however I'm talking about the general stress where ...
Zoltan King's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

What sort of sentence is a request?

Wikipedia describes five broad types of sentences, classified by purpose. They are: declarations, questions, commands, instructions, and exclamations. Under this classification scheme, where would a ...
extremeaxe5's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
98 views

Is either of these meanings of the word "sentence" more conventional?

The Wikipedia article on Generative Grammar states: Generative grammar is a linguistic theory that regards grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that ...
hippietrail's user avatar
  • 14.8k
2 votes
0 answers
77 views

Why do so many grammars divide a clause into Subject and Verb instead of Subject and Predicative?

I used to start learning a few languages, admittingly my interest ,stamina and brain force didn't last for more than a couple of days each. Nethertheless, I noticed , that the different grammars ...
Abdul Al Hazred's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
179 views

Do subject-object-verb language users perceive the world differently than SVO or VSO users?

So based on linguistic relativity, I'm wondering if there are any ways that people perceive the world differently based on sentence order, or rather, if this has even been studied at all?
NobleUplift's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
1k views

How to analyze this sentence in a tree diagram?

I tried to draw a tree diagram of this sentence In 1816 they were purchased by the British government and from then on displayed in the British Museum. but it leads nowhere. I think I'm fine ...
Deb's user avatar
  • 21
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

Looking for tool to split german text into sentences

I want to train a german embedding and need to split text into sentences. That is not easy since "z. B." and "Dr." are not endings of a sentence. Does anybody know a tool to do that for german texts? ...
Dieshe's user avatar
  • 121
1 vote
1 answer
120 views

Does this sentence have two meanings?

The sentence is Some employee must leave. I was told that it is actually ambiguous and has two meanings. But I can only see one. What are the two meanings?
user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
235 views

Subordination. Chinese vs English

Linguists claim that subordination is universal across the world languages. Subordination in English looks can be understood by looking into these examples: I know a person who has a dog I know a ...
GA1's user avatar
  • 1,189
1 vote
2 answers
62 views

Does it belong to the same or a separate sentence when adding some more words after the sentence was actually finished?

I have seen some scenarios where someone says a sentence like, "I'm sorry" to some of his/her co-workers and then after three or four seconds he/she says, "That you guys are idiots". For a slightly ...
GFD1998's user avatar
  • 89
1 vote
1 answer
66 views

English sentence patterns or verbs in the order of the degree of introduction

I've been wondering if there is any classification, academically established or researched, of verbs or sentence forms that introduce new referents, with the forms/verbs enumerated in the order of the ...
Sssamy's user avatar
  • 271
1 vote
0 answers
81 views

Is "because" always a subordinating conjunction introducing a subordinate clause?

My grammar book says that a word like "because" is a subordinating conjunction, meaning that it is a word that can introduce a dependent clause. I know that a dependent clause contains its ...
Elisa's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
0 answers
266 views

How can I identify whether it is local or global ambiguity?

I am currently learning about local and global ambiguity and we had the following example in of the texts explaining what the topic is about: Paul sent the note to Elena. Paul sent the books, a record,...
Leonard's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
0 answers
73 views

Could certain languages encourage different models of sentence processing?

I'm gonna be frank: I'm a high school student who has limited experience with linguistics. I've never studied it, I've just read a textbook and a handful of seminal studies. Recently, though, I was ...
Lysander Cox's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
83 views

Carrying a mistake in a sentence until contradiction

I am new to the field of linguistics so please forgive any ignorance or naivety, but there is something I have been thinking about recently and cannot find anything about it online. I suppose there ...
Jamie Friel's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
61 views

Sentence to Image [closed]

Does anyone know of a database or tool that can be used to produce or find images that help describe or reinforce the meaning of a given sentence? For example: "The car was going very fast." I am ...
Baz's user avatar
  • 1,072
1 vote
0 answers
290 views

Average number of independent clauses in a compound sentence

I'm working on a NLP project, where we analyze large text samples (think a novel), and produce some metrics that help us answer interesting questions about the text. One of these metrics is average ...
RuslanD's user avatar
  • 163
1 vote
0 answers
93 views

Is there a term for this use of an indirect object?

I have noticed that some Americans from the mid-South will use indirect objects in their speech where standard English would use a prepositional phrase. Is there a name for this phenomenon? Is it ...
Mike's user avatar
  • 1,014
1 vote
0 answers
71 views

Associating Sentences with Animations

Let's say you're teaching someone the sentence "I got in the car". This is a tricky sentence for beginners since they might ask: eh, what did you get in the car? Such sentences are easier to teach ...
Baz's user avatar
  • 1,072
0 votes
3 answers
120 views

Do "imperative" and "declarative" belong to the same or different categories?

As I understand: There are three moods: imperative, indicative, subjunctive. There are three types of sentences: declarative (ends with "."), interrogative (ends with "?"), ...
Loviii's user avatar
  • 125
0 votes
1 answer
243 views

Why do Spanish words change meaning when put in a sentence? [closed]

The word "ponga" means "I put" but when put in this sentence: Que solo la mire de lejito y se ponga asi" is "That he only looks at her from afar and gets like this" &...
Orionixe's user avatar
  • 109
0 votes
2 answers
50 views

Negativity score for sentences

I am working on a dataset of airline customer complaints. Since it is "complaints" the general consensus is all the sentence are "negative" sentiment. So I am think of an approach to quantize the ...
data_person's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
84 views

How to derive that a sentence is a question from parts of speech

I have recently discovered extraction of parts of speech and I'd like to see what I can get from patterns once a sentence is POS tagged. I am aware that some sentences will be difficult to categorise ...
Sebastian Zeki's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
643 views

determine if noun is person or person's name

How can I determine if a noun is the name of a person based on other words in the sentence? For example, I was able to determine that a noun is a place by it following ' to ' or ' from '. Are there ...
user123456789's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
355 views

Relation of Persian "Ke" and English "That" [closed]

First I should say I am not a linguist, but try to understand it to help my English. In my native language, Persian, we do much use "Ke" (که) which almost corresponds to "which, who, that" in ...
Ahmad's user avatar
  • 173
0 votes
1 answer
403 views

Identifying phrasal verbs

I'm helping some native English speakers to learn Swedish. I have a large list of sentences which I wish to organise by linking each sentence to its associated set of meanings. For example: Jag: ...
Baz's user avatar
  • 1,072
0 votes
0 answers
28 views

In the sentence 'he was very early', would it be correct to say that 'early' functions as both a noun and the object of the sentence?

I'm currently trying to construct my own language as an exercise, and I need to know if such a description is linguistically accurate, or if the word should be described otherwise.
sam's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
0 answers
94 views

What advantages might the Reed-Kellogg diagramming method provide over other diagramming methods?

What advantages might the Reed-Kellogg diagramming method provide over other diagramming methods, and is the R-K diagramming method English specific?
zacts's user avatar
  • 109
0 votes
0 answers
46 views

Is there a chart showing all assignments of phrases to functions within a sentence?

For practical reasons, it is obvious to assume there is chart giving an overview which phrases can be assigned to which functions in a sentence. For instance, one sentence function is called an ...
Abdul Al Hazred's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
117 views

Incomplete sentences

I am looking for studies which looks at understanding and preference of incomplete sentences. For example, is there a higher workload for (in)complete sentences or even though the sentence might be ...
Jo-'s user avatar
  • 101
-1 votes
2 answers
96 views

Are there any languages where you can put the demonstrative at the end of the sentence? [closed]

Basically, are there any languages where it's grammatically acceptable to say "blue this is" rather than "this is blue?"
Rachel's user avatar
  • 9