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Relationship between SOV word order and osV prefixes

I've been reading about the Native American language isolate Washo, and looking at the Universals Archive. If an ergative language is SOV, the object and subject affixes will be prefixes and the main or only alternative order will be OSV. But why is…
Anthony Miles
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Why are negative verbs/sentences commonly used in invitations and suggestions?

I realized that in that some of the languages I speak or learn, negative verbs or sentences are used when inviting someone or suggesting something. While this sounds correct and I'm definitely used to it, I want to know if there's something about…
anon
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How do we know that Sumerian determinatives were not pronounced?

I've read the following in Edzard's "Sumerian Grammar" from 2003: Determinatives: these are signs which precede or follow words or names in order to specify them as belonging to semantic groups. Determinatives can be proven not to have been…
OriginalOldMan
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Was the "a" glyph ever used for ajV in Hittite?

As fdb mentioned in a comment: The sequence a-a is a scribal convention for ajV [in Akkadian]. Some Assyriologists treat it as a single sign with the “Lautwert” aju, aji, aja In Hittite, Kloekhorst postulates a sound change *aiV > āV, to explain…
Draconis
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Etymology of some Romance languages' verbs meaning "to sleep"

Portuguese, Spanish and French dormir, Italian dormire etc. come from the Latin verb dormīo. Wiktionary's entry says that its etymology is: From Latin dormīre, present active infinitive of dormiō, from Proto-Italic **dormiō*, from…
Ergative Man
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What are the subjective and objective genitives?

I have recently come across the terms subjective genitive and objective genitive, but I don't fully understand them. From what I have read, an example might be 'the love of God', as in 'the love of God will see you through dark times'. In this…
Au101
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Do languages with cases frequently have verbs which use particular cases for their objects?

Turkish, German, Russian, Greek and Latin are examples of languages with declension. They also have lists of verbs for which the verb's single object takes a particular case apart from the "normal" object case (accusative, say). E.g., when I mention…
Vir
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Is there a difference between a preterite and an aorist?

I am reading about aorist and preterite verb forms. It seems that they are both forms which express perfective aspect and past tense. Is the difference between them simply in differing terminology or are there semantic differences as well?
Daniel Wolfe
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What does 6 represent in Medieval Welsh?

In both A Glossary of Mediaeval Welsh Law (1913, Timothy Lewis) and Early Welsh Gnomic Poems (1935 ed. Kenneth Jackson) you can find the numeral 6 used (apparently) to represent a vowel. Can anyone explain this? I’m guessing it might be representing…
Moilleadóir
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Tree diagrams in CGEL

I have a question about this tree diagram in The Cambridge Grammar of The English Language (by Huddleston and Pullum): Please see the tree diagram in the red box of the nominal preposterous salary from Lloyds. (In CGEL, a nominal corresponds to N'…
JK2
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Is there a package for formatting phonological rules in LaTeX?

The following is a phonological rule, taken from this Wikipedia page: Is there a package or some other convenient way to format this in LaTeX?
Danger Fourpence
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Machine translation - Rule-Based and Statistics-Based approaches

My question is about the current situation in machine translation. I am aware about two main approaches to machine translation. One which is based in a strong way on linguistic theory and another which is mainly statistical. Is this distinction…
Gil Kalai
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Is the difference between a labialized consonant [ʷ] and a consonant followed by a [w] audible?

Labio-velarization is a feature of accents of Kabyle in some area(s). For example, the word aseggas could be both pronounced [asəɡɡas] or [asəɡɡʷas]. I think there is a difference between hearing [ʷ] and a consonant followed by [w]. I mean,…
Amessihel
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Term for conversation where each person speaks a different language, while understanding each other

I would like to know if there is a technical (or common) term for the type of bilingual (or multilingual) conversation described in the title. For example, one person could be speaking French, while the other is speaking English, while understanding…
Igor Khavkine
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What are some of the disadvantages of learning a language through book-study as opposed to immersion?

I have been told that the best way to learn a new language is through immersion, i.e. placing oneself in an environment in which only the target language is spoken and making constant use of the target language. I do not know what would supplement…
James Grossmann
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