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1500 questions
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Jespersen's Cycle - why is it defined cycle?
In his excellent work, Negation in English and Other Languages (1917), Otto Jespersen has discovered a pattern that describes how linguistic negation shifts between several stages:
Negation is expressed by a single negative marker (NEG1);
Negation…
Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
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German Dependency Parsing - question about dependencies between "sich ____ lassen"
I'm working on project regarding German dependency parsing, and came across something I'm a bit unsure about.
Using a parser, when given an input (whether it be in a sentence or just the verbs) which contains "sich ___ lassen" (for example "sich…
roughosing
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How do languages distinguish proper nouns from common nouns?
This is something I was just thinking about. In English, we seem to rely mostly on articles to tell proper nouns and common nouns apart. Proper nouns are always singular, and lack an article. While common nouns can only lack an article in the…
user19639
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Are there dictionaries like Collins COBUILD for other languages than English?
Let me explain what I'm after:
monolingual
all examples are taken from a large corpus of contemporary text (the COBUILD series is now using Bank of English)
the senses for each entry are sorted by frequency, most frequent first
the senses are based…
kaleissin
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How much time does it take to create/fork a new language?
I wonder if there exists any summary or paper analysing the time it takes for the creation of a new language (with all reservations concerning definitions of languages et dialects etc.)?
Take, for example, the Romance languages, which are derived…
ts.
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Plural "you" in different language families connoting respect
I recently found out that French has two different words for "you."
From here:
Tu is the familiar "you," which demonstrates a certain closeness and informality. ... Vous is the formal "you." It is used to show respect or maintain a certain distance…
b a
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7
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What came first: «starboard» or «estribor»?
In English, the right side of a ship (and everything beyond said side) is called «starboard». I know enough about sailing and about stars to know that stars can't have anything to do with that name, and thus I got to wonder: maybe «starboard» came…
walen
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7
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What is the difference between syllable-timing and stress-timing?
From what I've heard, syllable-timed languages have syllables of equal length throughout each breath-group (i.e. bit of spoken discourse said in one breath), and stress-timed languages have breath-groups of equal length. By this account, the…
James Grossmann
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How is Nigerian Standard English categorized?
From what I can tell, the only nontrivial difference between Nigerian Standard English and the catalog of commonly referenced dialects of English is that Nigerian Standard English has a different prosody, as it is syllable-timed as opposed to…
Andy
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Combinatory Categorial Grammar (комбинаторная категориальная грамматика) developments and lexicon for Russian language?
I am trying to apply Cornell Semantic Parsing framwork https://github.com/cornell-lic/spf (implementation of Combinatory Categorial Grammars CCG) to Russian language. This framework takes natural language texts, learns grammar and translates those…
TomR
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2 answers
Does your brain make a distinction between vocal and non-vocal language?
Language noob here. Just curious; does are body, while learning a language, make a distinction between spoken language and sign language? Or are they all just inputs and outputs to your brain? Each just as able to be incorporated in the language…
Tirous
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7
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2 answers
Who said "The difference between a language and a dialect is in who has the army"
I remember this from a linguistics professor I had in graduate school about 30 years ago. He named the source, but I can't remember.
Vekzhivi
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7
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Why are definite articles generally used for learning gendered languages?
I'll take spanish for my example, but it's also true for French an Italian.
In order to remember the gender of nouns, they are almost always found with an article. It's often a definite article. I've even heard things like this :
"la rata" is a…
Teleporting Goat
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What are some of the most prefixing languages?
Turkish is commonly cited as an example of a language which is, with only one or two quirky exceptions, exclusively suffixing. Cross-linguistically, suffixing is much commoner than prefixing and I have heard that no language is as prefixing to the…
Miztli
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What is the definition of "complementary distribution"?
Allophones are defined by means of complementary distribution. As I understand it, a complementary distribution is a "mutually exclusive" relationship between two phones, with regard to a certain phonetic environment. That is, one of the phones will…
Otavio Macedo
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