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1500 questions
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Indo-European prepositions: whence did they come?
What manner of theories are there on the origin of Indo-European case-like prepositions (usually; they were originally postpositions, and a handful of languages still have postpositions)? They seem like a rather unusual breed of word,…
Justin Olbrantz
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What is the current understanding of the classification of indigenous American languages?
Inspired by this recent question on Greenberg's classification of African languages, I wonder about the current state of classification of the American languages. (By "American" I mean the indigenous pre-Columbian languages and their descendants).…
Mark Beadles
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Is it possible for a non-native version of a language to be classed as a dialect?
I know pretty much what constitutes a dialect for native speakers of a language, but I wonder if countries that don't speak it as a primary language, but have a large segment of the population that is required to speak it for one reason or another —…
Robusto
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When you think one word, but write another, similar sounding word?
If you are writing or typing and you are thinking of one word, but then type another word made of the same phonemes, what is that called and what are the linguistic and /or psychological phenomena behind it?
I'm actually having trouble coming up…
Nick Anderegg
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Is a language possible without verbs or without nouns?
Is a language without nouns possible? And another one without verbs?
And other ones without adjectives or adverbs?
Is there some real examples? (In preference: non-constructed languages, because everything is possible with constructed languages, but…
Quidam
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Why hasn't functional grammar been more popular?
It’s nearly 30 years since Michael Halliday first published ‘An Introduction to Functional Grammar’ and yet, at least in Britain and in the United States, functional grammar seems not to have entered the linguistics mainstream. I should be grateful…
Barrie England
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Are there any languages where the genitive case changes according to its object?
In forms like Claudio's house or Claudio's dogs, are there languages in which the Claudio's would change depending on gender and number of the houses or dogs?
cbrandolino
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Are there any "simple" languages?
In all the languages I know, at least one of the following aspects is complex/difficult:
Alphabet: Complex meaning a large alphabet like in Chinese.
Pronunciation: Complex meaning that, for example, small differences in pronunciation can lead to…
Florian Brucker
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Do "only if..." and "if... only then..." have the same LF representation?
I'm currently writing a term paper where I am comparing if... then..., only if..., and if... only then... statements.
I've noticed that only if p q and if p, only then q have the same truth conditions (namely q implies p). Additionally, unlike if...…
acattle
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What is the reasoning behind the selection of the IPA symbols?
There are many weird characters in IPA, like Glottal Stop symbol ʔ for example.
Why these characters? Is there any reason for selecting them, or was their selection just arbitrary?
Saeed Neamati
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12
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The current status of Irish Gaelic in Ireland
In addition to all the usual phonology, grammar, and vocabulary one has to learn for a new language there is the social situation, among many things when is it appropriate to speak in one register or another. And every language/variety has its own…
Mitch
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4 answers
Why is Korean considered a language isolate?
According to the Wikipedia article on Koreanic languages:
Among extant languages, Korean is considered by most linguists to be a language isolate and by others as part of the widely rejected Altaic family or the Dravido-Korean languages.
And the…
Alex Kinman
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Are there studies of difficulty to learn particular language depending on learner's native language?
Do you know if any studies were made to classify the difficulty to learn a particular language depending on learner's native language?
There are a lot of discussions about what is the easiest or the hardest language to learn, but they are mostly…
Stepan Vihor
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How would someone begin translating an unknown language?
Excuse my ignorance. I'm writing a work of fiction wherein an archeologist finds a tomb that contains not only the bodies of an unknown/unstudied society, but also samples of writing in that society's language. My question is how would that language…
Megan.D
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Latin stress rules: exceptions
Do the Latin stress rules (antepenultimate if penultimate is light, penultimate if heavy) have any known exceptions? Also, sometimes the rule assigns antepenultimate stress to a syllable belonging to a prefix — does the rule apply regardless?
jogloran
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