Questions tagged [spanish]
For linguistic questions about Spanish, one of the most widely spoken Romance languages, also known as Castilian. For non-linguistic questions about the Spanish language, visit our sister site Spanish Language Stack Exchange.
120 questions
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Why do Spanish and other Romance Languages use the preposition "a" for culinary styles?
I've looked in the Real Academia Española dictionary and I can't find any information regarding why Spanish uses the preposition a for cooking styles, and I've noticed French and Italian do it too. I ...
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Predication in X-Bar theory
Where do predicatives (predicative adjectives and nominals) over the subject or over the object fit into an X-bar-tree?
For instance:
Pedro pintó a María sentada.
Peter painted Mary seated. (=...
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Teaching children Spanish and Esperanto at home from non-native speakers
A question has already been asked on teaching a child a foreign language if you aren't a native speaker, but the answers are mixed - the 'right' answer says languages can be taught by a non-native ...
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Why is it correct to say "Honey, I'm home", but "Miel, soy casa" is not?
Inspired by the picture below (thanks to brainlesstaless), when I got home I called to my wife: "Miel, soy casa". After a short pause, she started laughing.
I know in Spanish this sentence makes no ...
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Origin of silent 's' in some Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries?
In Cuba and perhaps to a lesser extent the Dominican Republic (and perhaps other countries), the 's' is often silent.
How and why did this come to be?
A layperson's guess (and I am a layperson) is ...
user3222
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What are expressions like «The Dutch have taken Holland» called in linguistics? [closed]
And does anyone by chance know any expressions of this kind in Spanish?
Some others are:
Queen Ann is dead.
It rains a lot in England.
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Software to form a word frequency list for a Spanish book
I've actually found one called "textstat", but it doesn't recognize different word forms of one word.
So are there programs that do detect comía, come, cómelo, comiera as forms of comer?
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From Italian to Spanish, consonant + "i" goes to consonant + "l"?
Why is it, that in words like plaza / piazza, or blanca / bianca, the "l" in Spanish corresponds to an "i" in Italian? Is there a preference for this kind of sound in Italian, or ...
user2146
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The double ⟨l⟩ in Spanish
In Spanish, some words start with the double consonant graphemes ⟨ll⟩ - that have indeed the value of /ʎ/.
Is there any language that have a similar pattern (starting with double consonants)? What is ...
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Why do stem-changing verbs have a vowel change in Spanish?
It may just be that I'm demonstrating my gross ignorance, but I can't seem to find a 'why' for stem-changing verbs in Spanish. I understand that there is some sort of perceived weakness in the vowel ...
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Do you have a vowel trapezoid for Spanish?
I am trying to contrast the vowel systems of English and Spanish, and showing two vowel trapezoids seems like a good approach. I've not yet found one yet. Any ideas?
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How did 'cocodrilo' originate from 'crocodile'?
The English word crocodile seems to originate from the Latin crocodīlus and Ancient Greek κροκόδιλος. Indeed it has ended up very similar in several modern languages: German (Krokodile), Russian (...
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Vowel harmony in Spanish?
Some irregular Spanish verbs with infinite in "-ir" seem to have an interesting pattern in their conjugation:
For some verbs with "o" as last vowel in the infinite stem (e.g. dormir, morir), the form ...
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Is redundancy in language really impossible? (Case of the Spanish imperfect subjunctive)
I have heard time and again that languages will reject words and structures that are redundant. That is, for example, if though two words may seem like they are perfect synonyms (e.g., rotund and ...
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Searching for a Spanish word list for statistical analysis [closed]
I need a Spanish word list, as simple as that.
The more complete it is, the better, it should contain as many words as to be a statistically relevant sample.
It can be in any format: XML, MS Excel, ....
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Aramaic compared to Spanish
Is it possible to compare Aramaic to Spanish? If so, what are the differences and what are common? I have Spanish at school, and when I saw Passion of the Christ, I recognized lots of words (I don't ...
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Do Spanish speakers prefer certain words for certain aspects, like in Russian?
In an effort to clearly delineate durar and tardar to my Spanish students, I have been searching for some usage notes and I was not satisfied with anything I found.
Instead, I was wondering if these ...
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Why does Spanish have so many diphthongs compared to other Romance languages?
I have studied and known Spanish my whole life, and got a job at a University where I am allowed to take some free classes. Over the past three years, I have taken all the Italian classes offered, all ...
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Focus-marking in different varieties of Spanish
Spanish is often described as putting focused constituents at the end of the sentence, leading for instance to VOS word order in sentences with a focused subject. (For instance, Maria Zubizarreta's ...
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Where did Spanish get its /x/? Arabic influence?
Most Romance languages don't have /x/ (like the j in hijo), nor did Latin. Where did Spanish /x/ come from? Internal development, Arabic influence, or something else? Since Moroccan Arabic also has /x/...
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