All Questions
10,541
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In Croatia, the first two consonants in river names are often 'k' and 'r', respectively. How to estimate the probability of that happening by chance?
In Croatia, the first two consonants in many river names are 'k' and 'r', respectively: Karašica (two rivers with the same name), Krka, Korana, Krbavica, Krapina and Kravarščica. Mainstream ...
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votes
2
answers
5k
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Is J. R. R. Tolkien's "translation" scheme found in real life?
A summary of J. R. R. Tolkien's "translation" methodology:
J. R. R. Tolkien was best known for his fantasy world - Middle-earth. He almost always presented his works as translated from ...
- 103
1
vote
2
answers
42
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Does knowing separately phonetic features X,Y,... imply that a speaker will know a phoneme characterized solely and completely by X,Y,...?
In The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker claims that when babies learn to talk, if they have learned in certain phonemes a set of features, then they automatically learn other phonemes characterized ...
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1
answer
58
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how do you call the linguistic effect of 1 speaker understanding another related language but not vice versa? and whats the reason behind? [duplicate]
2 languages(a and b) are related yet the speaker of a can understand better what the other says(b), but when the b speaker hears A -
he gets less information?
Does it mean language A is more ancient ...
- 510
6
votes
1
answer
1k
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Subtypes of Standard Average European
I was looking at a sprachbund called Standard Average European, which seems to include Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages. I will not list all the features here since they can be found on ...
- 4,430
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votes
4
answers
73
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Do some languages use lexical stress to differentiate words with unrelated meanings?
In English, lexical stress is occasionally used to differentiate words with the same consonant and vowel phonemes and that have related meanings. (Please forgive the incomplete definitions.)
re ˈpeat ...
- 60.2k
-1
votes
1
answer
72
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Linguistics and ChatGPT [closed]
To which (neuro-, psycho- or general) linguistic models and theories of human language recognition and production does ChatGPT (GANs) come closest?
Or why isn't this a valid question?
- 76.8k
7
votes
6
answers
696
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Would an extended alphabet have been a hindrance to inventing computer technology?
One time in a conversation, a person who is very knowledgeable about computers off hand mentioned that it would have been difficult, maybe even impossible, to have developed computational technology ...
- 101
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2
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343
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Are there traces of Old Turkish in ancient Germanic languages?
The question is quite clear and understandable as in the title. Are there traces of Old Turkish in ancient Germanic languages? Or traces of Germanic in Old Turkish?
- 1,439
2
votes
1
answer
154
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Why did the ancient people use different languages for speaking and writing and why don't we?
Why did the ancient people use different languages for speaking and writing? For example, in my country in 10-13th centuries people used for speaking colloquial Slavic language which evolved into ...
- 9,828
2
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1
answer
543
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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 ...
- 29k
1
vote
1
answer
84
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Auxilary verb alternation in analytic perfect for French/Italian and German languages [duplicate]
French/Italian and German have a composite past tense (passé composé/passato prossimo/Perfekt) that is formed using either auxiliary verb to be (être/essere/sein) or auxiliary verb to have (avoir/...
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3
votes
3
answers
105
views
Corpus with sentences translated to English
Does anyone know of a corpus I could use in my research?, for any language, where each sentence is translated correctly into English. In particular, the corpus should contain primarily everyday spoken ...
- 11
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4
answers
778
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How good ChatGPT is at answering questions?
I am looking for evaluations of ChatGPT on some question-answering dataset.
I'm especially interested in how good (or bad) ChatGPT is at answering questions posted on Stack Exchange, specifically in ...
- 924
1
vote
1
answer
50
views
/t/ /n/ /d/ /l/ assimilation before post-alveolar /r/
Does syllabic /n/ and /l/ in English undergo post-alveolarsation before /r/? If yes, how can I mark it on my allophonic transcription? Ex. “Didn’t try”
- 3,593
-2
votes
0
answers
16
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Is there a name for a question and answer pair where the answer can be interpreted to mean all possible answers to the question?
I'm no linguist myself, but I have an interest in question answer pairs of this kind:
"Do you know what sarcasm is?" "No."
"Do you believe in free will?" "I have no ...
3
votes
2
answers
360
views
Phonemes that rarely have voiceless/voiced distinctions cross-linguistically
There are some voiceless/voiced pairs of phonemes that seem to be far rarer than other pairs. For example, /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes in a majority* of the world's languages (and especially ...
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1
vote
0
answers
219
views
What is the evidence that pre-Islamic Arabic had a plural of majesty?
I'm starting to read the Quran and I've found many theologians argue about God referring to himself in the plural, mainly claiming it is a plural of majesty (example: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's ...
4
votes
1
answer
117
views
What is the origin of ⟨c⟩ for /ts/?
In several languages' romanizations or orthographies, the letter C is used to represent the /ts/ sound. Where does this come from? Wikipedia notes that ⟨c⟩ is used for Cyrillic ⟨ц⟩ in the ...
- 6,743
2
votes
0
answers
47
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Is there a term for mixed gender in plural pronouns (as opposed to masculine, feminine, or neuter)?
In English, there is only one third person plural pronoun to refer to groups of any gender or genders. Multiple "he"s becomes they, multiple "she"s becomes they, multiple "it&...
- 29k
18
votes
3
answers
4k
views
Why was "zh" picked to represent /ʒ/, and where does it come from?
As a native French speakers I used to be puzzled by Zh being used for /ʒ/. At first because I didn't understand the need for it, since in French j is /ʒ/, and dj is /dʒ/. Then I understood why English ...
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1
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1
answer
124
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Japanese is in its own lingustic family, but it sure seems to have a lot in common with Turkish
I speak Japanese, and recently, I've been exposed to Turkish. There's a good deal of overlap between structure, and some words. An example is "good", where it's "iidesu" in ...
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0
answers
36
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Meaning of the zero article for a plural noun phrase in English? [migrated]
Please consider this example of sentence :
“ Schools allocate places to the pupils who score highest. “
Here are two first questions :
Could you confirm that “schools” here means “all schools” ?
...
- 4,745
-1
votes
0
answers
9
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In Latin, is there a difference between C and Q? [migrated]
In Latin, what is the difference of sounds made by C and Q? The almost sound the same to me. Is there something, I'm missing here
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0
answers
62
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Measuring the ambiguity of a word using entropy?
I'm currently working on a project where I need to measure the ambiguity of words in a text corpus. I came across a method suggested by ChatGPT, which involves calculating the entropy of the frequency ...
4
votes
4
answers
464
views
Is there any neurological/biological evidence of Merge?
To my understanding, there are some linguists that would claim Merge is a cognitive mechanism which came about suddenly at some point in our evolutionary history. Is there any neurological evidence to ...
2
votes
0
answers
60
views
Are there any languages where the dependent agrees with the head's intrinsic property?
In head-marking languages, the head usually takes the marking based on the dependent's intrinsic properties. For example, every English noun/pronoun has an intrinsic property of person: "bear&...
- 119
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votes
1
answer
506
views
Are there languages without non-finite verb forms at all?
This is inspired by the comments to this answer: Are there languages without any non-finite verb forms, or almost without any non-finite verb forms?
Examples of such languages are welcome!
- 2,935
4
votes
1
answer
120
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Should λ-terms all be easily translated back into natural language syntax?
We have encountered this question when we try to read Heim and Kratzer's book. This following picture is taken from Heim & Kratzer (1998: 40).
Our answers are simply based on the subscripts:
(a) ...
- 3,526
4
votes
1
answer
141
views
Does Lakhota contrast voicing in stops?
WALS Online lists Lakhota as only having a voicing contrast in fricatives (referencing a study by Richard Carter in 1974). However, its Wikipedia article says that it has phonemic voiced bilabial and ...
- 76.8k
4
votes
4
answers
394
views
Could you provide examples of free word order languages that use word order to express grammatical categories?
In another question someone pointed out, that at least some slavic languages use word order to express the grammatical category of definitiveness.
For instance in Polish:
This example has been ...
- 6,299
2
votes
1
answer
161
views
Questions about the "Hand of Irulegi"
The Hand of Irulegi is a recently found artifact from Navarra, Spain. It is dated in 1st c. BCE and carries an inscription touted as the oldest attestation of the Basque language.
The text can be ...
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votes
0
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7
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Translating "I came, I saw, I cried" in Latin for a yearbook quote [migrated]
I am searching for a yearbook quote, and had the idea of modifying the quote
"Veni vidi vici", by replacing the last verb with "I cried". Having searched, online, I have found the ...
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3
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0
answers
40
views
Exception to word order in quotative situations
I'm very uneducated in syntax, so I apologize if this question is something really basic that everyone already knows.
English is a subject-verb-object language, and it is known to follow that pattern ...
- 514
3
votes
1
answer
398
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Gender Identity: Empirical Studies?
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states, briefly put, that linguistic structures affect cognitive processes. I am interested in finding out how much is known about the development of gender identity from ...
CommunityBot
- 1
3
votes
1
answer
290
views
Might tones affect vowel quality?
Is there any language that has tone-based allophonic variation? For example, /e/ and /o/ might become [ɛ] and [ɔ] ─ literally being lowered ─ with low tone. Or since back vowels are inherently lower ...
- 29k
1
vote
1
answer
59
views
What are the rules for creating multiple syllable words in Tibetan without tsheg?
I was under the assumption that all Tibetan syllables were marked with a tsheg, but now after talking with someone from Tibet, I learn that there are many cases where this is not true, such as pema (...
- 445
2
votes
0
answers
57
views
How to show the difference between the opaque reading and the transparent reading via syntax?
Is there any way using any version of Generative Grammar (EST, REST, GB, MP) to show the difference between "the transparent reading" and "the opaque reading" of the same line ...
- 21
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0
answers
73
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Origin of vowel-h digraphs that English speakers use to represent phonemes
The majority of English speakers are not proficient in the International Phonetic alphabet or any other phonetic transcription system outside their own orthography. However, we often feel the need to ...
- 514
7
votes
1
answer
553
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Phase and aspect
Question
How to distinguish between phase and aspect?
From one-language point of view
To take an example from Mandarin Chinese, I don't see a difference between a phrase with (cf. the quote from (...
CommunityBot
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0
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63
views
In general Western languages, how to terminate a phrase, which starts with a question but ends with a statement?
I just entered the following comment on a StackOverflow question:
Is this a purely theoretical question, because sleep 5 without any quotes is working fine?
I have no idea if this sentence is ...
- 6,116
1
vote
2
answers
82
views
Single syllable breakdown of the word strawberry in IPA
My intro linguistics class was doing a demonstration of how to break up single syllables into their vowel trees. We came up with three different interrpretations and were looking for more opinions.
...
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1
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277
views
Does deep orthography decrease the collision entropy of a written language?
EDIT: For those of you who think this question is off-topic, I asked it on a forum about linguistics because I expected the answer to come from historical linguistics. I expected the answer to be ...
- 558
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vote
1
answer
64
views
Origin of ratchasap/ราชาศัพท์ phenomenon in Thai and/or Tai-kadai languages
I am attempting to trace the origin of "rachasap" (Thai: ราชาศัพท์; Lao: ລາດຊະຊັບ).
What is "rachasap"?
Rachasap is an entire body of words that are used with deity, royalty, or ...
- 6,743
2
votes
2
answers
46
views
How to describe stress rules
Primary stress is on the first syllable in a word, secondary stress is on every other following syllable except if that syllable is final in the word. How to write the stress rules using features.
- 569
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0
answers
27
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Which aspect is actually communicated by Supine verb form in Estonian
there is one bit of Estonian grammar that bugs me in particular for years already. Why to have 2 separate infinitive forms (so called, -ma and -da infinitives, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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3
votes
1
answer
193
views
When did people realize French has its root in Latin?
By investigating into historical documents like Oaths of Strasbourg
and applying the comparative method, modern linguists are able to know French is a Romance language. When the components of ...
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votes
1
answer
42
views
In agglutinative languages with long "sentence words", how do they conceptualize of these "words" and their parts?
I asked a similar question on languages with "small words": In languages with "small words", how do they conceptualize of these units?
How do agglutinative languages with long, &...
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1
answer
45
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In languages with "small words", how do they conceptualize of these units?
The languages I am thinking of are Vietnamese and Tibetan, but perhaps there are others. And I know that technically these two are classified on the opposite of the spectrum (analytic vs. ...
- 163
7
votes
1
answer
366
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Merger of perfect and aorist in Italic and Celtic
One of the common features of the Italic and Celtic branches is the merger of perfect and aorist. So, in the surviving "perfect" forms we find a mixture of old aorist stems and old perfect ...
CommunityBot
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