Unanswered Questions
149 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
8
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Which languages have zero markers of comparative degree that coexist with non-zero comparative markers?
The zero comparative marker and the non-zero one should be more or less interchangeable. (The etymology of the non-zero marker doesn't matter.)
(A message asking to list such languages was originally ...
6
votes
0
answers
109
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Are there any languages with second-person pronouns marked for a proximal/distal distinction?
I am curious if there are any natural languages where the personal pronoun used to refer to the addressee varies in some way depending on their distance to the speaker. For instance, one form might be ...
- 161
6
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0
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139
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How common are languages with different word orders in matrix and non-matrix clauses
How common is it cross-linguistically for a language to have a different word order in various types of embedded clauses such as relative clauses?
WALS appears to collect information on word order in ...
- 31.1k
6
votes
0
answers
288
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What languages use grammaticalized spoonerisms?
Here I define a "spoonerism" as the exchange of onset sounds between initially accented words in a phrase:
"sh(oving l)eopard" instead of "loving shepherd"
"f(ighting a l)iar" instead of "lighting a ...
- 718
6
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0
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Comparative markers coming from low degree markers ("attenuatives")? (List such languages.)
Which languages have a marker of the comparative degree of adjectives that coincides with a marker of a low degree? ...or which has evolved from such a low degree marker?
(A message asking for the ...
5
votes
0
answers
216
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Genitive forms (German)
Do you know any rule how I can decide (formally), wheter a German sentence contains a Genitivus subjectivus or a Genitivus objectivus?
Example: "der Besuch des Botschafters". Here, the ambassador ...
- 51
4
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0
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108
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Any examples of any language bifurcating the past into past before one's life and past during one's life?
It can be either from a conlang or a natlang but I wasn't able to find any examples.
- 31.1k
4
votes
0
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198
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Why French Adjectives Uses BAGS
In French, most adjectives are positioned behind the noun e.g.
vache bleue
médecin étrange
orange énevrant
But sometimes you have an adjective following BAGS -- the adjective describes beauty, age,
...
- 31.1k
4
votes
0
answers
534
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Measuring lexical similarity between two arbitrary languages
Pardon me if this question is naive, but I am wondering if there is a way to quantify lexical similarity between two corpora of text, each written in different languages whose alphabets differ greatly....
4
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0
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76
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Cross-linguistic cases of German 'trennbare' Verbs
How many languages have verbs where you can detach a prefix and put it at the end? That's like the German 'trennbare' Verbs.
For example, in German, for depart/leave ('abfahren') you say:
Der Zug is ...
4
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0
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284
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Is there a purely singulative-collective language?
I wanted to ask "Is there a language that marks singular?" but found this. So instead, I'm asking: Are there any purely singulative-collective languages?
The (admittedly abstract) idea behind this is ...
- 504
4
votes
0
answers
182
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'Literally' non-literally
There has been a recent popularization over the questionable use of the word 'literally' as an intensifier rather than as a marker of non-figurative, especially since it seems to be used non-literally ...
- 4,495
4
votes
0
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247
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The expressive power of languages : Information content in a sentence : How do we measure it
What is your name
Isme shoma chi e
Two sentences - same content.
My question is about the way to measure information content in a language. How do we do this? Because quite evidently count of the ...
- 1,265
4
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0
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136
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Is there count/mass distinction in European Portuguese as it is in English?
It is said that European Portuguese has count/mass distinction as many Indo-European languages. However I noticed out that all products/items at stores in Portugal are labeled in singular form. In ...
3
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0
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159
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Languages with very small "modal inventories"
I'm interested in frameworks for describing how languages encode mood. For example, I'm curious whether something similar to a case hierarchy or color hierarchy exists for moods. Or if there are ...
- 1,366