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Category: Linguistics
How different is the syntax of English (in the last three centuries) from those of ancient Greek or katharevousa?
The “last three centuries” gives me pause. Syntactically, there have been changes from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek, and in fact Katharevousa is closer to Modern than Ancient Greek, though it did pick up nesting articles inside articles (“the of the meeting chairperson”). But in the big picture typologically, they’re all pretty similar: free (pragmatically […]
Can someone write in their language using it’s grammatical structure while still using English words?
https://www.quora.com/Can-someone-write-in-German-language-using-German-words-but-following-English-grammar (Modern Greek > English) If it is possible! You hear there, “It can someone to write in the language theirs using the grammar theirs but English words?” Hey not you us quit? For what you us passed, for revue? Not will I sit to you make theatre the how I speak, so you to […]
What English words appear to be derived from Latin, but aren’t?
In a roundabout way: syllabus is ultimately derived from a garbling of the obscure Greek word sittyba, which got mangled progressively in manuscripts and then print editions of Cicero, and reinterpreted from its original meaning “title slip”. The Curious and Quibbling History of “Syllabus” (part 2) Answered 2017-01-06 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-English-words-appear-to-be-derived-from-Latin-but-arent/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What is Ferdinand de Saussure’s linearity principle?
See e.g. http://personal.bgsu.edu/~dcalle… : Principle II: The Linear Nature of the Signifier The linearity principle is Saussure’s statement that, because linguistic signifiers are sounds (spoken words), they are intrinsically sequential (“linear”). They cannot be perceived simultaneously, the way visual signs are: they must be perceived one after the other, as a sequence in time. That […]
How many words does the Greek language have?
I wrote an extensive set of blog posts in 2009 under Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος (read them backwards), trying to deal with this question with a fixed(ish) corpus, that I was responsible for lemmatising: the TLG. It has a whole lot about the distinction between word tokens (individual instances of words), wordforms, and lemmata (dictionary words). It starts […]
Why do the English say “leftenant” and the Americans say “lootenant” when the spelling of “lieutenant” indicates a pronunciation like “lyewtenant”?
The American “lootenant” is easy: it’s a general rule of American English that [ju] after alveolar consonants is reduced to [u]: news, tune = nooz, toon. In British English, they are nyooz, tyoon. (And there is variation within American English.) The lack of a French pronunciation is also regular: French ieu is rendered in English […]
Is Albanian a creole language?
*tosses head back chuckling* Ah, I know where this question comes from. I did a drive-by shooting in a comment thread, saying “no, Albanian is not a creole”. Fair enough that I should be asked why. A creole in linguistics is not just a language that you think sounds mixed. It has a specific meaning. […]
Do Australians cringe when non-native English speakers attempt to learn the Australian accent?
What Christine Leigh Langtree said: Vote #1 Christine Leigh Langtree’s answer to Do Australians cringe when non-native English speakers attempt to learn the Australian accent? I’ll add that most dialect speakers dislike their accent being mimicked, not just Australians; I know I resented the hell out of 1960s Greek comedies’ bad imitation of Cretan. If […]
Ancient Greek: where is a “w” sound used in Greek?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvVWiDsPWQ OK, Nick wading in. Like James Garry and Robert Todd said: the digamma, ϝ, is an archaic letter of Greek, pronounced as /w/. It is present as a sound in Linear B, and it survived into Aeolic, but it did not survive into the other *written* dialects of Greek. We know it was there […]
Is use of diminutives that lost their diminutive meaning a common phenomenon in the development of languages?
I believe it is (add Russian, bigtime), but I’ve just gone through half a dozen historical linguistics textbooks, and it’s not discussed separately in any of them. I was even struggling to find a good term describing this phenomenon: lexicalised diminutives I guess is the best. The problem is that semantic change is massively variegated, […]