All Questions
10,551
questions
2
votes
1
answer
63
views
What Sound Does Each of These Middle High German Diacritics Make?
I recently came across this article on the inclusion of certain superscript combining characters for use with representing Middle High German in Unicode. From what I understand, scribes and early ...
- 29.1k
-2
votes
1
answer
64
views
Study of the English language
In the United Kingdom, the study of the English language (insofar as it extends to secondary and sixth-form education) entails what many might refer to as "analytical reading". In other ...
- 76.9k
-2
votes
0
answers
35
views
How does the word "rana" work as a term of endearment in this Lepa Lukić song? [closed]
Dala mi je od sveg srca
cvet iz bašte vaše -
"Uzmi, uzmi, rano moja
ti si zlato naše"
Translation:
She offered me, from the bottom of her heart,
A flower from your [pl.] garden
"Accept ...
2
votes
1
answer
153
views
Acceptability and grammaticality
My understanding of acceptability and grammaticality is this: As someone who is able to communicate in a given language I find given sentences that I hear or read more or less acceptable (in terms of ...
- 76.9k
10
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Can English syntax alone tell apart a person's background?
I was wondering if English syntax alone can tell apart a person's background? For example, if two strangers are exchanging texts - without looking at their spelling, word choices etc, just by the ...
- 4,765
-2
votes
0
answers
28
views
What is the most complex Chinese character? [migrated]
Several years ago, I worked for a firm where I needed to show Chinese characters, and apparently the more complex ones were not clearly displayed. While solving that problem, I needed a test character ...
- 309
3
votes
2
answers
225
views
Proto-Indo-European transcription: <u̯, i̯> vs. <w, j> & <k̑> vs. <ḱ>, etc
I’m working through a language book that uses an idiosyncratic (& confusing) transcription, so as I go I’m making my own copy with more standard symbols. I’ve just got to a section referencing PIE ...
- 7
0
votes
1
answer
30
views
Is it possible to have a determiner without a complement?
Is it possible to have a determiner without a complement in any language?
- 60.2k
0
votes
1
answer
51
views
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/...
- 7
2
votes
1
answer
79
views
The pronunciation of nasalized cardinal vowels
I hope to find the standard pronunciations of nasalized cardinal vowels and English vowels. Where can these pronunciations be found? I looked for them in many places. But they can’t be found in IPA’s ...
- 29.1k
-1
votes
0
answers
22
views
What is model-theoretic syntax?
https://www.scss.tcd.ie/conferences/esslli2007/content/CD_Contents/content/id53/id53.pdf#page=9
What are the features and what do formulations in model-theoretic syntax look like?
(Do they attempt to ...
- 913
-2
votes
1
answer
55
views
Perplexity of a model on charatcer and word level [closed]
Consider a LM in which each word has 6 letters in average. Can one rightfully assume that perplexity of the model on character level is 6 times the perplexity of the model on word level?
- 913
0
votes
1
answer
32
views
What does it mean to say that a component of grammar is "interpretive"?
I have a good grasp on the idea of a generative component---clearly syntax is generative in this sense. But what is an "interpretative component" supposed to mean? Like, when a line is drawn ...
- 76.9k
3
votes
1
answer
210
views
Why "a liter of water" but not "a 100ºC of water"?
Imagine a volume of water, 100 ml in size, with a temperature of 100ºC. Interestingly, you can refer to the water as "100ml of water" but you cannot call it "100ºC of water". That ...
- 8,604
-4
votes
0
answers
49
views
Could it be true to state that both German and Irish are equally hard? [closed]
According to internet, Irish and German are bot indo-European lanuages so they may have certain similarities. However, could it be true to say that, both are equally difficult. Because Irish is more ...
- 141
0
votes
0
answers
12
views
X-Bar tree diagram help [closed]
Can someone please draw an X-Bar tree diagram for the following sentence:
Someday, those people will know how to manage their life.
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
55
views
Why do some Vietnamese words have the tone marking on the last letter?
In my Vietnamese class at uni we learned that Vietnamese words have their tone marking on the second to last sound. However I've repeatedly run across cases where it appears on the last letter even if ...
- 2,968
1
vote
2
answers
79
views
Is there a database out there for mapping verb tense to its base form?
Obviously, almost all the online dictionaries could map some verb forms like "spoke, spoken, speaking, speaks" to its base form "speak".
I've searched this on github but didn't ...
- 3,526
3
votes
1
answer
153
views
Update: what is the structure of the copula sentence in phrase structure grammar
When it comes to the copula sentence, usually the noun phrase preceding the copula is subject.
(1)The problem is the kids.
(2)??The problem are the kids.
(3)The kids are the problem.
(4)*The kids ...
- 5,495
2
votes
0
answers
133
views
Are there natural languages with required, grammatical, emotional context markers?
Having seen some examples of ANADEW (A natlang's already dunnit, except worse) I was wondering if that statement applies to required, grammatical, emotional context markers, such as the conlangs of
...
- 139
9
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Is Russian the most diverged Slavic language? [closed]
Does the Russian language have more innovations and divergent development from other languages in the Slavic branch?
I am asking, because I always had the feeling, that the tense and pronunciation in ...
- 419
2
votes
2
answers
67
views
Does 'z' act as a coda or onset in the syllable structure for the word crazy?
I am working on drawing the syllable structure for the word crazy. So far within kreizi, ei and i are nucliet, kr is an onset, but I am stuck on the 'z'. There are many words that start with z in the ...
- 76.9k
2
votes
1
answer
138
views
A question regarding allomorphs
According to Wikipedia, two different word forms (allomorphs) can actually be different "faces" of one and the same word (morpheme). An example is the English indefinite articles a and an.
...
- 76.9k
1
vote
0
answers
26
views
What is meant by "present thinking" in Goldstein's work on aphasia?
I am writing a paper on aphasia and have come across some work by Kurt Goldstein.
Apparently, Goldstein claims that people with aphasia speak without thinking first, and that their speech is not ...
- 11
0
votes
1
answer
76
views
Oxford/Cambridge Sanskrit Book
A few years ago I came across a book on Sanskrit (not a dictionary, not a grammar book, not a book on Sanskrit literature( that belonged to the "Classical Language Series" from either Oxford ...
- 7,314
0
votes
4
answers
137
views
Human natural language metalanguage
I was thinking about how a controlled grammar of English can be used as a programming language because it’s fully parsible.
The idea of doing this for other languages, such as Sanskrit, brought me to ...
- 6,299
3
votes
1
answer
226
views
Linguistic analysis of ChatGPT's default style of writing
Even though ChatGPT can - better or worse - mimic other writers' styles, it exhibits something like a default style of writing which is not very "characteristic" (because it's the ...
13
votes
6
answers
85k
views
What is recursion?
What is recursion? I've looked at the Wikipedia's explanation (recursion and then recursion in language) but that explanation is not really clear.
- 913
9
votes
2
answers
3k
views
What's the real need for an end-symbol in n-gram models?
There's a footnote in Jurafsky & Martin (2008, p.89) pointing out that, without an end-symbol, an n-gram model would not be "a true probability distribution". Even after seeking the paper they've ...
3
votes
0
answers
21
views
Is an OBL argument in complement or adjunct position?
My syntax lecture materials on Arguementhood vs Adjuncthood explain that one difference between arguments and adjuncts lies in the participation in alternations: only arguments participate in ...
- 145
0
votes
0
answers
24
views
"come a long way" [V+OBJ/COMP/ADJUNCT]?
Can someone tell me
i) in terms of constituent tree structure, if a long way is a complement as opposed to an adjunct
ii) in terms of thematic roles, whether a long way takes on the role of location ...
- 145
2
votes
0
answers
51
views
What does information-status mean in linguistics?
The phrase information-status is used repdeatly in the article "Definiteness and Information-status in Hindi", Baldridge, 1996, but what does it mean? Could someone explain it simply/ say ...
-1
votes
0
answers
68
views
Is there any language where we say that places come to us rather than that we go to the place?
I don't know how to put my question abstractly, but it seems so on in all languages I am familiar with, we say "I am going to the store" rather than "the store comes to me".
For eg:...
0
votes
1
answer
93
views
Why are some Word Classes not Immediately Dominated by a Phrasal Category?
Source: pp 106-107, Syntax, A Generative Introduction (3 ed, 2012) by Andrew Carnie
[6.] iv) English Phrase Structure Rules
a) CP ⟶ (C) TP
b) TP ⟶ {NP/CP} (T) VP
c) VP ⟶ (AdvP+) V (NP) ({NP/...
CommunityBot
- 1
2
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Are ~simba (Bantu) and ~simha (Indic) related?
Does Swahili (and hence cognates of other Bantu languages) simba have any relation to सिंह (~singh or ~simha in Hindi and Sanskrit respectively according to Wiktionary, please correct me if I am wrong)...
- 76.9k
0
votes
0
answers
40
views
Are there any natural languages that have one or more morphemes that each stand for both "other(s)" and "more"?
I've been working on the quantifiers for a conlang of mine and noticed that the concepts "other" and "more" are each related to the notion of additional quantities. So, we have ...
- 8,651
1
vote
1
answer
56
views
Establishing criteria for sounds likely to facilitate phonological mergers around them
I know extremely little about the history of sound changes in languages other than English, so that will be the source of my examples. However, I’m asking this question for a more general, cross-...
- 76.9k
-3
votes
0
answers
70
views
How do we reconstruct the word for "palm" in Indo-Pacific languages?
I have noticed that in some Indo-Pacific (including Australian) languages the numerals for five are compound words with one part being similar to PIE numeral *penkʷe which etymologically meant "...
- 6,299
2
votes
1
answer
77
views
Phonemic transcriptions for English compound words
I have a question about the phonemic transcription for compound words in English. Is there a general rule? Specifically,
Should there be space/hyphen/no space between each element in a compound?
How ...
- 2,968
0
votes
0
answers
22
views
removing visarg in sanskrit sandhi
I have understood this example of visarg sandhi.
पुनः + रमते = पुना रमते
As per this page:
https://knowledgegallery.in/visarg-sandhi-in-sanskrit/
‘रो रि’। यदि विसर्ग (:) से पहले स्वर हो और उसके (वि...
- 101
1
vote
0
answers
36
views
What is the leipzig convention for glossing nonce words?
How do you gloss nonce words (words which are created for a single occasion and have no meaning on their own) in interlinear glossing?
- 31
-2
votes
2
answers
281
views
Can a new alphabet be created and added to the English language? [closed]
Does the English language, or any other language for that matter provide the flexibility to add or remove new alphabets?
- 6,116
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How do you draw a syntax tree for a sentence with a dummy subject?
I encounter difficulties when drawing a syntax tree for a sentence of expletive contruction. Should I mark the dummy subject "there" as a noun? Thx
0
votes
0
answers
93
views
Why are there so few Hellenic languages when there are so many Romance languages? [duplicate]
Both Greece and Rome had huge empires and Greek was even used to administer the Eastern Roman Empire. Christian scriptures are even primarily written in Greek.
So why are there so many Romance ...
- 219
0
votes
1
answer
73
views
What tools are there to measure aspects of language?
I am seeking to construct an a priori language that is optimized to provide the greatest creativity for songwriting and poetry, in addition to being extremely general and productive in neologism, ...
- 913
1
vote
1
answer
36
views
Is it possible (in terms of linguistic relativity) that maybe some cognitive processing happens later & that's why there's no relativity effect?
Title is very vague so I'll explain what I mean. Let's say an experiment was carried out involving grammatically gendered artefacts and whether or not participants will attach gendered stereotypes to ...
- 76.9k
-1
votes
0
answers
46
views
How to translate simple words/phrases into Elder Futhark runes? [closed]
I would like to find a way to translate simple words or phrases into Elder Futhark runes, ex:
chaos
fire inside me
I am hail
you will never find peace
I care about accurate and authentic ...
- 99
2
votes
1
answer
53
views
Looking for a linguistic term
I'm trying to pinpoint a linguistic concept that may or may not exist.
Let's say you have a complete set of "units" (i.e., sounds/letters/moras) in a language. This can be many things, ...
- 2,968
-2
votes
1
answer
62
views
Grammatical person and the generic you
In English, the second-person pronoun you can be used indefinitely. Wiktionary labels the generic you as an indefinite personal pronoun. Nonetheless, unlike pronouns such as one and anyone, the ...
- 60.2k
1
vote
2
answers
72
views
Wouldn't the premise of Chomsky's universal grammar theory be trivially true?
Quickly put, one could say that Chomsky's Universal grammar theory says that Humans are predisposed to language, and due to this all languages are equivalent.
But, aren't all languages equivalent by ...
- 76.9k