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1500 questions
10
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What gave rise to the manual alphabet for Latin characters in Japanese Sign Language?
I am aware of the fact that this question is rather specific, but anyway I would like to give it a try.
Japanese Sign Language has three manual alphabets: one for representing kana-characters, and two for Latin characters. The first Latin-character…
onionics
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Can prepositional phrases with "of" ever be adjuncts to nouns, or only complements in English? If they can't be adjuncts, why?
This question came up while doing syntax homework. It seems to me that prepositional phrases with "of" can only ever be complements to nouns, not adjuncts. The basis for my conclusion was that, while you can reorder adjuncts freely (1, 2), albeit…
user325
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Are there languages which use the negation of 'odd' to denote 'even'?
This question is influenced by another one I found on the German SE, "Warum nennt man in Deutsch die Zahlen 0, 2, 4 … “gerade” Zahlen?". It asks "Why call Germans the numbers 0, 2, 2 "even".
The following languages have these pairs:
German: gerade…
bernd_k
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Why do languages have different syllable complexity from each other?
Assuming human vocal tracts are similar and equally capable of articulating different syllable structures, why is it that languages develop different syllable complexity? Why is it that it is not natural for Japanese (and Japanese-speaking people)…
Louis Rhys
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Markdown for linguistics?
Is there a Markdown dialect or other minimal markup language that is tailored to the needs of linguists (of all sorts)?
I would expect it do treat the following constructs:
An asterisk directly preceding a word *wrong doesn’t start emphasis.
A…
Crissov
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2 answers
In what situation a constituency-based tree cannot be constructed from a dependency-based tree?
I am confused regarding the distinction dependency- vs. constituency-based tree: to me they look like they encompass the same information but presented differently.
E.g. in the Wikipedia example the constituency-based tree and dependency-based tree…
user48665
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2 answers
How is the F1 score computed when assessing dependency parsing?
For example http://naacl2013.naacl.org/Documents/deep-learning-for-nlp-naacl-2013-tutorial.pdf says "+1.4% F1 Dependency Parsing". How is the F1 score computed when comparing dependency-based parse trees? (I know how to compute the F1 score when I…
user48665
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10
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4 answers
When is the end of the critical period?
At what age, approximately, is the end of the critical period for native language acquisition?
Of course, I understand that many details surrounding the critical period are up for debate. I want to know after what age is it a pretty safe bet that a…
JoFrhwld
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Is Stephen Bax' partial decoding of the Voynich Manuscript plausible?
Having browsed Stephen Bax' paper "A proposed partial decoding of the Voynich script" (available here), as a scientist in the natural sciences (physics, mathematics), I find his proposed decoding of the Voynich Manuscript plausible. However, I have…
Nemis L.
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IPA for Slender Irish /r'/ in Connemara Dialects
Edit: I would also be willing to reward the bounty if someone can partially answer the question by stating if my proposed IPA is possible based on the description or not.
I am specifically asking about the dialects of Irish spoken in Connemara that…
Robert Kaucher
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Are there examples of pidgins or creoles in sign languages? If so, which are the major ones?
The other day I was wondering, are there occurrences of pidgins or creoles in the world of Sign languages? So I made a quick search but there doesn't seem to be much.
For example, I found the Hawaii Pidgin Sign Language, but it's not an actual…
Alenanno
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Universals and emphatic pronouns
In (spoken) English, the object pronouns "me/you/her/him/us/them" are, in some sense, the "unmarked" pronouns. (I only claim native knowledge of English as it is spoken in parts of the US). By this I mean that, in novel contexts, native speakers…
hunter
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Most succinct written language
I am wondering what the most succinct written language is.
I would call one language more succinct than another if that language could communicate the same idea as another with fewer characters. I am not a linguist, so please forgive me if there is…
user93189
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Are "nine" and "new" etymologically or historically connected?
Is there a connection between the word "nine" and "new"? The two words are similar in many languages.
bernadette korndorf
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10
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6 answers
Does the P versus NP conjecture in computer science have any direct relevance to linguistics?
From Wikipedia:
The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. Informally, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified by a computer can also be quickly solved by a computer.
What I'm asking is…
EsperantoSpeaker1
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