Unanswered Questions
66 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
8
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Historical pronunciation of Hindi यह and वह
The Hindi 3rd person singular proximal and distal pronouns यह and वह are commonly pronounced [jeː] and [ʋoː], in contrast to the [hyper-correct?] pronunciations [jəɦ(ə)] and [ʋəɦ(ə)] one might expect ...
- 3,132
7
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160
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“Reconstruction” of an attested and well studied language
I wonder has anyone ever tried to reconstruct Latin language via data on modern Romance languages as if we know nothing about what Latin actually was.
Both as a fun exercise and as a method to test ...
- 31.1k
7
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204
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Northumbrian pronunciation of ge-/gi- prefix and -g suffix
I'm working on a musical setting of Cædmon's Hymn, and I'd like to have the primary setting be in the Northumbrian dialect of its earliest written example (the 737 "Moore" Bede manuscript). I'm ...
- 87
6
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Has the development of double consonants in Latin been studied?
When one studies both Latin and Greek, one of the most prominent differences between the two is the much greater number of double consonants in Latin. While Greek does have some instances of them, ...
- 129
5
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Why the E- in Etruscan?
The Etruscans had several names in antiquity: the Greeks called them Tyrsenoi or Tyrrhenoi, the Roman Tusci or Etrusci (and their country Etruria). All these names seem to be related, ultimately ...
- 11k
5
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Are L. arvix and L. aries cognates?
arvix
sacrificial ram
aries
From a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "jump, spring," cognate with Old High German irah (“ram”), Old Irish heirp (“kid”), Ancient Greek ἔριφος, Armienian ...
CommunityBot
- 1
5
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448
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Cellar door and Indo-European languages
Where I grew up (UK) there was a pub called The Drysalters. I always liked this name without having any idea what a drysalter was, or having any association or emotional connection to the pub itself.
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- 31.1k
5
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1
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What is the origin of the Latin suffix -alis/-alia?
What is the origin of the Latin suffix -alis/-alia? Can it be an Etruscan borrowing? Is Russian adjectival suffix -аль- a borrowing from Latin?
CommunityBot
- 1
4
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202
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V-Bar Syntax in Latin
I am reading Devine and Stephens Latin Word Order, but without the requisite grounding in formal linguistics. They use the term V-bar syntax, and I am not sure what they mean by this and would like ...
- 922
4
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294
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Origin of Italian plurals
Some sources say that italian plurals come from the nominative case, so "italiano" has the plural "italiani", and "italiana" has the plural "italiane".
However ...
- 31.1k
4
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0
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368
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Usage of the implicit objective subordinate clause in English
I'm not a fluent english speaker. While speaking this language, we usually prefer the implicit objective subordinate clauses (with subject in the accusative case, if it exists) to the corresponding ...
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3
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122
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How did latin "de post" become Romanian "după"?
Wouldn't the expected result be: "dopă"? I understand that the short "e" was assimilated by the long "o" from the next word, and then /o/ -> /ə/, but why o -> u ?
...
- 189
3
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answers
261
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Did Classical Latin lack tenseness contrast in long and short vowels?
Contrary to the traditional supposition of /ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ/ vs /iː uː eː oː/, the idea that Classical Latin contrasted the short and long versions of high and mid (or just mid) vowels only quantitatively, ...
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3
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123
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Can a trill be creaky?
Or in other words, is it possible to pronounce [ʙ̰], [r̰], [ʀ̰], or [ʢ̰]?
I tried to pronounce these phones by myself, and I always failed. It seems the airstream from the constricted glottis cannot ...
- 337
3
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0
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84
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Is there any IPA TTS software that also considers tone
I want to create audio files for a conlect of Chinese I am studying, and therefore tone is one aspect I have to consider. Many of the IPA to speech software I've seen so far don't consider tone (or ...
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