All Questions
10,893
questions
2
votes
2
answers
26
views
Do the qualities of a vowel determine its semivowel’s place of articulation?
[j] (the semivowel of [i]) is palatal.
[w] (the semivowel of [u]) is labial–velar.
[ɥ] (the semivowel of [y]) is labio-palatal.
Does the position of the vowel in the mouth play a part in determining ...
- 81.9k
2
votes
1
answer
91
views
What is closer to 16th century Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese or Portuguese from Portugal?
Shouldn't Brazilian Portuguese sound closer to it, as they pronounce more syllables?
- 7,263
2
votes
3
answers
383
views
Could have inflected Proto-Slavic really 'been created' as a lingua franca among some Slavs and many agglutinative, Turkic languages-speaking peoples?
In my experience, it seems to be that people learning as a second language one that is significantly more inflected that their mother tongue(s) experience serious difficulties and tend to avoid ...
- 121
1
vote
1
answer
38
views
What is the origin of alpha in the mediopassive indicative?
In greek, the indicative mediopassive in the 3rd person singular and plural are -εται and -ονται, however in PIE, the alpha was originally an o. Additionally, in the imperfect, the endings also have o ...
- 6,547
-1
votes
1
answer
51
views
Are the Croatian word "struna" (string of a musical instrument) and the English word "string" related? [closed]
So, are the Croatian word "struna" (string of a musical instrument) and the English word "string" related? And, if so, why does the English word contain -ng, while the Croatian ...
- 6,547
3
votes
1
answer
89
views
Is "non-existent" a privative adjective?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privative_adjective
Is "non-existent" a privative adjective like "imaginary", "fictional", "hypothetical", etc.?
- 695
2
votes
2
answers
51
views
Vowel quality: tongue position vs formant frequencies
I stumbled upon the claim that vowel quality model based on tongue height and frontness has been known to be incorrect – and the so called openess and frontness are actually two formant frequencies.
...
- 414
-2
votes
0
answers
34
views
Is the pitch value language of music regular? [closed]
Let the pitch value alphabet on musical instruments be A = 0, 1, 2, … N.
The language of pitch values includes all sequences of pitch values in the infinite free language of music. To avoid confusion ...
- 3,953
0
votes
1
answer
159
views
Is < eu > an element in Greek?
I am pondering the morphological structure of < therapeutic > and < pharmaceutical >. When looking at the Greek roots I can analyze the spelling with the exception of < eu >. I see ...
CommunityBot
- 1
-4
votes
0
answers
65
views
What happened to English dialects and why you never hear of them? Did most english people speak english before WW1? [closed]
Compared to other countries like Germany,France,Italy,Spain, you never hear about English dialects. Did most English people not speak their national language before WW1 like it was the case in those ...
- 1
10
votes
7
answers
7k
views
Is the sound "ř" unique to Czech?
Czech has special sound which to me seems to be a voiced trilled r. It is written as "ř".
Wikipedia describes it a different way: A raised alveolar trill, and uses the IPA notation [r̝].
Czech ...
- 17
3
votes
1
answer
152
views
What are the open-source tools available for Czech text normalization (for spoken transcription)?
I am looking to perform following normalization for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. Let's look at the examples:
V její dlouhé historii bychom našli celou řadu důležitých dat a jedním z nich je ...
- 17
-2
votes
0
answers
35
views
Does Python use any particular metasyntax?
Of course, I found many pages on the web explaining Python syntax. One such example is the English Wikipedia article that explains it specifically and compares it to other programming languages. ...
- 17
0
votes
0
answers
10
views
Metastasizing attributes of a member of a class to a class, in cognitive grammar
I would like to know if there is a theoretical analysis regarding how people cognitively process information about, and form judgments about, a class of things, based on knowledge of specific members ...
- 371
1
vote
0
answers
30
views
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 ...
- 453
8
votes
8
answers
5k
views
Is American Sign Language phonetic?
In every spoken language I'm aware of, if you read a word you are unfamiliar with, you can generally work out how to pronounce the word from how it's written. You can sound it out.
Is this kind of ...
- 141
4
votes
2
answers
201
views
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 ...
- 4,440
1
vote
1
answer
75
views
One can learn faster if he listens to his own voice speaking in target language?
I've heard the following statement about foreign language acquisition for a few times:
One can learn a foreign language faster if he can listen to his voice uttering the foreign language.
For example, ...
- 141
12
votes
7
answers
5k
views
Why doesn’t a language modernization initiative adopt pure phonetic spelling?
Given that there are language associations that work to standardize languages’ orthography, vocabulary, grammar, etc., why is it not more common to use phonetically accurate spelling?
- 141
-2
votes
3
answers
125
views
To say of something, must it exist at least as a concept?
To refer to x, must x exist at least as a concept? Is there any sense in which a nonsense term can refer to anything?
For example,
If "Round square" doesn't refer to anything, is "I ...
- 141
0
votes
0
answers
16
views
Case endings in arabic [closed]
I am learning arabic
I have a question
In the sentence "my cat is on the computer" (Kitatai Ala alhasoob)
The subject is my cat (nominative) and because computer is after the preposition it ...
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
83
views
Pronunciation of ‘hₐ’ in PIE
I have tried to find the sound hₐ-, for example "hₐeust(e)ro" engl. 'east', or hₐel, 'burn' , but also example hₐner, 'man' pronunciation, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet, ...
- 3,953
2
votes
1
answer
132
views
Source of Greek long alpha
I'm reading about the Greek first declension on wikipedia, which mentions that the origin of the first declension originally had long alpha, which then shifted to eta, except when after rho, iota, and ...
- 63.9k
1
vote
1
answer
81
views
Can one word form a phrase?
Can one word form a phrase?
For example:
Man is mortal.
There is no modifier. So, here is there any phrase?
- 3,962
1
vote
0
answers
36
views
What is Double Zero Grade?
The double zero grade *ǵʰi-m- is preserved in the compounds with numerals.
(de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin 2013: hiems)
E.g. *dwi-ǵʰim-os “two years old”, literally “of two winters” (en....
- 1,449
0
votes
1
answer
38
views
What are the general word order trends of VO languages
I’ve heard that some scholars collapse SVO, VSO, and VOS into one general category of VO.
From what I understand, these VO languages allegedly exhibit strong and weak common word order trends.
If this ...
- 695
1
vote
0
answers
53
views
Old English weak noun 'Sweora'
I've been reading about diphthongization and i umlaut of diphthongs and I came across the example of the OE word for 'neck'.
I have been led to understand that:
the original vowel is 'i'.
-rh- ...
- 11
0
votes
0
answers
24
views
WordSmith or Antcoc?
[Corpus linguistics] [Software recommendation] Hi guys, I have a small corpus I wish to analyze using a frequency list I have in order to extract vocabulary. What I want to do is:
Compare the words ...
6
votes
7
answers
27k
views
How many different distinctive sounds can an average human make? [closed]
If we wanted to create an all new alphabet composed of as much letters as possible, with each letter corresponding to one distinctive sound. What's the maximum amount of letters we could have?
Oh and ...
- 6,622
10
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Are the vast majority of Ukrainians more proficient in Russian than Ukrainian?
An answer to a different question pointed out that the vast majority of search engine queries coming from Ukraine, before the invasion, seemed to be in Russian. That was despite the fact that the ...
- 1,102
9
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why are voiceless plosives (p, t, k) unaspirated after /s/?
Take for example English voiceless plosives such as /p t k/ which are aspirated at the start of a stressed syllable and before a vowel as in kill, tar, pie:
[kʰɪl]
[tʰɑː(r)]
[pʰaɪ]
But after a ...
- 29.8k
-4
votes
0
answers
46
views
Suppose that, as a historical linguist, you happen to excavate a language that has this phonological inventory. How would you transcribe it? [closed]
The phonological inventory in question:
Vowels
i y u iː yː uː
e ø o eː øː oː
ɛ ɔ ɛː ɔː
æ a æː aː
Consonants
p t t͡ʃ k
b d d͡ʒ g
pʰ tʰ ...
- 453
5
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Aspiration of Voiceless Affricate in English
My question is about the voiceless affricate /tʃ/ ( CHair, maTCH, baTCH, strucTure) as it is used in ENGLISH:
English has two affricates: the /tʃ/ in "chair" and the /dʒ/ in "jar".
...
- 143
9
votes
3
answers
3k
views
In which situations or societies do people not take turns to speak in conversations?
When reading the chapter about discourse analysis in George Yule's The Study of Language, I came across the following statement about conversation:
Typically, only one person speaks at a time and ...
- 3,962
2
votes
3
answers
4k
views
When should I use /ə/ or /ɪ/ and why does it seem like they're not used correctly?
So I'm trying to learn the vowel sounds of the IPA, and I'm looking at the words "temerity" and "moment" in AmE. What is especially confusing is that first word, where wiktionary lists the ...
13
votes
8
answers
4k
views
Do non-tonal languages evolve into tonal languages?
I have read that the language in China did not always use tones or was less reliant on them. Native speakers have emphasized to me how much more compactly the same idea can be expressed in Mandarin ...
- 29.8k
1
vote
0
answers
60
views
Does Uzbek have irregular verbs?
Does Uzbek language have any irregular verbs regarding conjugation?
If so could you provide these verbs or a source?
- 31
2
votes
1
answer
94
views
Why do dominant VSO languages all have SVO as an alternative word order?
According to Greenberg’s 6th universal, "All languages with dominant VSO order have SVO as an alternative or as the only alternative basic order."
Why are dominant VSO languages predisposed ...
- 63.9k
1
vote
1
answer
169
views
We typically say rates are 'hiked' and cuts are 'swingeing' - is there a term to describe this?
You never really hear of interest rates 'going up', they're always 'hiked'.. and government cuts are rarely 'deep' or 'severe',. they're 'swingeing'. Is there a word/term for either this use of ...
CommunityBot
- 1
5
votes
1
answer
118
views
What features are good for dependency parsing?
I am trying to implement a graph based dependency parser. Since I come from a computer engineering perspective, I have trouble finding the features.
Assuming that we have a (head,dependent) relation ...
CommunityBot
- 1
4
votes
1
answer
204
views
Chomsky on licensing parasitic gaps in English
Chomsky (1995: 69) says (115) that "(115b) is ruled out for independent reasons of control theory." What reasons?
(115) a. the book that you filed [without PRO reading e]
b. *the book that ...
- 3,962
9
votes
5
answers
3k
views
Latin -que suffix in romance languages
In Latin the suffix -que can be used to mean "and". For example:
Fames sitisque (Hunger and thirst)
Are there any modern Romance languages that use the suffix -que or something similar to it?
- 656
0
votes
2
answers
159
views
proto-Indo-European root for the modern 'comma' and for 'hatchet'
I am told the proto-Indo-European root for the modern 'comma' is 'kop', and that is the root for 'hatchet' or 'axe' as well. True?
- 1,449
3
votes
1
answer
119
views
Is the head function also called nucleus, or is nucleus a subtype of head?
In this visual representation of syntactic functions from Wikipedia, nucleus is given as a subtype of head.
But the Head article appears to treat the two terms as synonyms. The first sentence reads:
...
- 3,962
3
votes
4
answers
7k
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 ...
- 1
4
votes
2
answers
654
views
History of "have", "avoir", "haben", etc. as auxiliary
In Geoff Pullum's recent post Being an Auxiliary on the Lingua Franca blog, he states that the sense of "have" as an auxiliary (forming the perfect tense) evolved from the possession sense, "but the ...
- 3,953
-1
votes
0
answers
64
views
Philosophy of Language differences between Written and Oral Discourse
How do I best illustrate the differences between written and oral discourse; how can I illustrate the importance of spontaneity and direct contact, that the words spoken will not be the same if one is ...
13
votes
7
answers
1k
views
How did the same perfect-tense structure become so widespread in Europe?
In many Germanic and Romance languages, the perfect tense is formed with the verb 'to have' or 'to be' plus a past participle. It's easy to find explanations ["I have an arrow (which is) made (by me)"...
1
vote
0
answers
58
views
Relative possessive pronouns
"Whose" is the only possessive relative pronoun in English. The antecedent of "whose" can be both people and things.
( - Purdue OWL)
"Whose" is not complete as a ...
- 371
4
votes
0
answers
91
views
Are there languages where grammatical parallelism does not matter?
English has a strong preference for parallelism (Wikipedia link), even though sentences lacking parallelism are still considered grammatically correct:
Good:
She likes cooking, jogging, and reading.
...
- 1,102