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1500 questions
12
votes
3 answers
Is whispering transcribed in IPA?
When a language is being transcribed to IPA, is the whispering included in the transcription? If so, how?
I saw the Wikipedia mention about not being anything for whispering, but I was wondering if this has ever been analysed in some paper or…
Alenanno
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Why does ISO 639-3 have many language codes for Arabic but only one for English?
ISO 639-3 has many language codes for Arabic, but only one for English.
I'm an Arab who is familiar with multiple Arabic dialects. We do not call it anything but "لهجات" which is translated to "dialects".
We also call it "عامية" which is translated…
uak
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12
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Gender of mixed groups defaulting to masculine – how common?
French has that rule that whenever a masculine entity is part of a group, the whole NP will default to masculine as far as agreement goes. My native language, German, also defaults gender to masculine, whose forms are usually the least marked,…
Jipí
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12
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Is it realistic for the Grounders' language as depicted in "The 100" to have developed within 97 years?
In the show "The 100", the Grounders speak a language called "Trigedasleng". This language is intended to be a descendant of modern English, and we are to understand that it arose through natural linguistic drift.
Over the course of 97 years…
The Giant of Lannister
12
votes
2 answers
Does Chinese have proper nouns and are they distinguished morphosyntactically or only lexically and or semantically?
In an earlier question I wanted to learn about the nature of proper nouns in a language-neutral way, but the comments and answers to that question so far state that this is not possible, that only languages have word categories and that concepts of…
hippietrail
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How do linguists tell areal features and genetic relations apart?
Languages belonging to the same family obviously share many features, most of which were inherited from their common ancestor. But, considering that languages of the same family also are usually spoken in the same geographical region, some shared…
Otavio Macedo
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12
votes
1 answer
Are there any alternatives to Source-Filter theory?
The linear source-filter theory of speech production ( Fant, G. (1970) Acoustic Theory of Speech Production; Stevens and House (1961)) is very useful for understanding speech synthesis and a foundation for acoustic analysis. I don't know if this is…
Vielle
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12
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2 answers
How are English spellings determined for words from eastern languages
How are English spellings determined for words from languages with logographic writing systems. Since these don't have an alphabetic script the words in the original language don't have a "spelling." So when originally writing these words in English…
Tom
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12
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1 answer
Why do onsets not count for syllable weight in phonological processes?
Whether a syllable has a heavy or light rime is often important in whether it will participate in phonological processes, and whether it will receive stress. For example, in Latin, stress is on the penult if it is long in traditional terminology,…
user325
12
votes
3 answers
What exactly is diglossia?
Any language has a formal variety, primarily (although not exclusively) used in writing, and one or more informal varieties, used in everyday speech. Yet, for some languages, like Norwegian and Arabic, these two varieties lie so far apart that they…
Otavio Macedo
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4 answers
How common is it for languages to use the plural for zero?
In English, when you use "no" or "zero" to indicate a lack of something, the noun is plural:
I have no horses. There are no houses for sale. This costs zero dollars.
How common is this across the world's languages?
In English, we're basically…
Joe
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What's the evidence for and against isochrony?
The question
What evidence is currently known that favors or disfavors the hypothesis that a regular beat of some kind—that is, an “isochrony”—plays some important role in languages?
I've run across some claims that there are three main ways that…
Ben Kovitz
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12
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1 answer
Where did the discussion of the language faculty between Fitch, Hauser, Chomsky and Pinker and Jackendoff terminate?
Many of you may be familiar with the debate between FHC and PJ on the language faculty. The "discussion", which became quite heated, first appeared as PJ's response to an article in Science that was entitled "The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who…
mncz
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12
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8 answers
Why do we call sound pitches "low" and "high"?
We use "low" and "high" in everyday speech when talking about sound, pitch or even frequency. However, if you think of it, the sound of a bassoon is no way closer to the ground ("lower") than the sound a flute.
I guess that most European languages…
g.kertesz
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12
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5 answers
What is the difference between a diphthong and a glide?
It's easy for me to imagine the difference, but hard for me to conceptualize it. I guess one involves two vowels and the other involves a consonant, right? Am I on the right track, or is there a more precise definition?
magnetar
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