Most Popular
1500 questions
9
votes
3 answers
Do central language regulation bodies accelerate or inhibit orthography changes?
In some discussions about the latest reform of the German orthography, it was claimed that a central language regulation body prevents people from writing as they like and thus prevents “natural” changes of orthography.
In contrast to this, I would…
ˈvʀ̩ʦl̩ˌpʀm̩ft
- 519
- 1
- 4
- 15
9
votes
2 answers
What is the origin of the "hierarchy of projections", the language system or (some) conceptual system?
All languages display some form of the hierarchy of projections, to the extent we understand what this is: in a given clause, roughly, complementizers are higher than inflectional heads are higher than verbal heads, etc, modulo various kinds of…
Alexis Wellwood
- 1,966
- 10
- 20
9
votes
6 answers
Is there a branch of linguistics using Calculus as a mathematical tool?
Is there a branch of linguistics using Calculus as a mathematical tool? I mean, can we use differential or integrate in linguistic study?
Ave Maleficum
- 271
- 2
- 11
9
votes
3 answers
What is the status of Modern Standard Arabic?
According to Wikipedia, Modern Standard Arabic is different from Classical Arabic.
As a native speaker of North African Arabic, I don't see the difference between the two, except for some inevitable changes in vocabulary (due to technology,…
Alex Kinman
- 513
- 1
- 3
- 12
9
votes
3 answers
Mathematical preparation for postgraduate studies in Linguistics
I posted this question in https://math.stackexchange.com/ and it was suggested to me that it would be a good idea to submit the question here, too, as there might be more specialists on the matter.
I am an undergraduate student in Mathematics and I…
Orest Xherija
- 243
- 2
- 9
9
votes
5 answers
Linguistic or etymological relationship between the words "Sabbath" and "seven"
The words for "Sabbath" and "seven" seem similar in both Hebrew and Aramaic. Is there an etymological relationship between them?
Sabbath (Shabbat), שַׁבָּת, is Strong's H7676. It is spelled shin-bet-taf.
Seven, שֶׁבַע, is Strong's H7651. It is…
Sarah
- 349
- 2
- 11
9
votes
2 answers
What defines a language?
I'm reading around multimodal text and many of the readings I have come across (Kress, Halliday) seem to define language as spoken or written communication. That seems to exclude sign language and places it as a form of high level gesture (though…
Tyler Rinker
- 586
- 2
- 4
- 17
9
votes
2 answers
The Cyrillic script among the Slavic people
Today the Cyrillic script is used by the East Slavs, such as the Russians and the Bulgarians, but the West Slavs (e.g. the Czechs, the Poles) and some South Slavs (e.g. the Croats, the Slovenes) use the Latin script.
I know that the Croats, for…
lmc
- 939
- 1
- 9
- 18
9
votes
2 answers
Is there a term for the theory that languages move from one morphological typology to the next in a fixed cycle?
There is a well known theory, widely accepted that as languages evolve their morphological typology changes through the same usual steps.
The major steps are I think isolating or analytic, inflected, and agglutinating, but I forget the exact order…
hippietrail
- 14,687
- 7
- 61
- 146
9
votes
3 answers
Do languages with high use of grammatical aspect generally lack grammatical tense?
From my understanding of Chinese, the language lacks any sort of grammatical tense but is instead very aspect driven when describing actions.
Is this a reoccurring pattern among languages with a high use of grammatical aspect?
user1750
9
votes
2 answers
Did Classical Hebrew and/or Aramaic have allophonic continuant length?
It's well-known that Classical Hebrew had phonemic length distinctions in the stops, since geminated stops didn't turn into fricatives: compare רַב raβ "rabbi" against רַבִּי rabbī "my rabbi".
But I've noticed a curious pattern with Hebrew and…
Draconis
- 65,972
- 3
- 141
- 215
9
votes
1 answer
Are there languages that can speak of continous things without discretizing them?
All languages I know of discretize qualities when trying to describe them. For example, languages generally sample a few words for describing a range of continous things like feelings ('terrible', 'bad', 'neutral', 'good', 'wonderful') or colors…
lvr
- 93
- 4
9
votes
2 answers
Which indigenous languages have marked Ancestral/Mythological Past in grammars?
I have found a mention on such a system among some South American native languages in Adam Jacot de Boinod's book I Never Knew There's A Word For It.
Non-academic reading, which doesn't make it less interesting. Yet the fact of it being…
Manjusri
- 2,781
- 1
- 19
- 27
9
votes
1 answer
Do other languages have an "irreversible aspect"?
Like many languages, Lingála combines tense, aspect, and mood into a single TAM marking. Three of these TAMs pertain to the past:
a-kɛnd-ákí "he left earlier today" (hodiernal/recent past)
a-kɛnd-áká "he left a long time ago" (distant…
Draconis
- 65,972
- 3
- 141
- 215
9
votes
3 answers
Tools to annotate (categorise) sentences from a sentence corpus
I have a corpus consisting of sentences that are to be categorised in order to train a text categorisation algorithm.
I am looking for a (preferably web-based) tool that:
Allows me to input a list of sentences;
Define a set of categories, for…
Hbf
- 231
- 1
- 6