Unanswered Questions
142 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 ...
8
votes
1
answer
2k
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Agglutination in Proto-Indo-European
Based on numerous sources, it seems clear that Proto-Indo-European was
Productively agglutinative with non-root morphemes (and perhaps some specific roots that are also able to act like bound ...
7
votes
0
answers
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 ...
6
votes
0
answers
157
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What historical change(s) shortened vowels in Old and Middle English?
In a 1968 paper by Kiparsky ("Linguistic universals and linguistic change"), a historical-change argument is made for the brace notation of SPE, based on the history of vowel shortening. The premise ...
5
votes
0
answers
226
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How does syntax of our language affect our thoughts?
Our language affects the way we perceive the world. I know it is not only because the words that don’t exist in one of the languages may exist in the other ones, but also because of the grammar. We ...
5
votes
0
answers
130
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Is there evidence that English speakers associate black with bad and/or white with good
Prompted by the recent move towards replacing the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist", I wonder if there is research around the topic of how people feel about the words "black&...
5
votes
0
answers
145
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Research on development of language of modality in children 8-12?
Let me quickly introduce myself to provide a context for my questions. My PhD research focuses on ways that we can teach primary school children (9-12) ways of handling complex, contradictory and ...
5
votes
0
answers
61
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What to reference for grammatical features being more reliable than lexical features for diachronic research?
I often hear people mention in passing that grammatical features are more reliable than lexical features in diachronic research, specifically when detecting pseudepigraphs, because it is relatively ...
5
votes
0
answers
484
views
OCR program for IPA?
Is there a program that can convert a scan/image of IPA into any digital encoding? UTF-8 Unicode preferred, and low-cost preferred (open source would be especially nice).
5
votes
0
answers
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.
...
4
votes
0
answers
48
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Dataset for distribution of different systems for 'yes' and 'no' cross-linguistically?
The Wikipedia article for 'Yes and no' lists various distinct, common, systems for expressing the affirmative and the negative, ranging from no explicit terms (instead relying on echo responses) to ...
4
votes
0
answers
128
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Formal, mathematically-minded introduction to generative grammar?
I'm looking for a formal, mathematically-minded introduction to contemporary generative grammar theory, where all the concepts, such as dominance, c-command, government, etc. are defined formally in ...
4
votes
0
answers
99
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Does California vowel shift occur in bilingual Spanish speakers?
I know that recently there has been a lot of research done on the California vowel shift being a key part of a California accent for younger kids who have grown up there.
Knowing that there is a ...
4
votes
0
answers
132
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When did speakers of Semitic languages reach northern Levant and Syria?
Is there an approximate date when speakers of semitic languages reached northern Levant and Syria? I understand that from the linguistic material this can be difficult, but I look for litterature (if ...
4
votes
0
answers
109
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Where can I find a list of English words that contain a rare combination of phonemes
I am looking for a wake up word for a digital product that would be easily detected with a voice recognition engine.
This calls for a word that has a rare combination of phonemes so the product is ...