Linguistics Stack Exchange
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In Latin protases, what's the different between the future and future perfect tenses?

In Latin, so-called "future more vivid" conditionals can take one of two tenses in the protasis: Future: Si aedificabis, venient "If you build it, they will come." Future perfect: Si aedificaveris, venient "If you will have built it, they will…
TKR
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Are Armenian գունդ (gund) and Sanskrit गिन्दुक (ginduka) related?

I was just looking at the words for "ball" in many languages. I noticed that Armenian has a word գունդ gund and Hindustani has a word गेंद / گیند gẽnd. I didn't spot any other language with a similar word, including Greek and Persian. The etymology…
hippietrail
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Are there any linguistic toollkits for PowerShell or .NET?

In the past when I was an active Python coder I played a bit with NLTK and learned some basic linguistic terminology. But meanwhile I shifted to PowerShell and I have abandoned coding in Python. Every now and than I'm searching for linguistic…
bernd_k
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Are there tools similar Google ngram, which recognise conjugated or declined word forms?

I just found out, that with respect to the German language, where prefixes of verbs are separated from the verb and posed behind the object, I have no chance to find out, if a verb with a prefix is used more frequent than than the same verb without…
bernd_k
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When and how do children learn to distinguish languages?

At what age range are children expected to be able to distinguish languages? Are there any factors that aid children in learning this skill?
blunders
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Reference request: ways of indicating disagreement

There are lots of ways to indicate you disagree with some aspect of an utterance. I'm thinking here of the spectrum that includes "No, not-X," "Well, not-X," "Hey, wait a minute! Not-X!" "Yes, you're right about Y, but actually not-X," "Have you…
Leah Velleman
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Why does complementiser drop not occur in negative English sentences?

English that can often be dropped from a sentence. (1) I think (that) she can come. (2) I don't think (that) she can come. In some negative constructions, complementiser dropping sounds marked. A: Does Alex go to dance practice on Wednesdays? …
Raphaël
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How many different distinctive sounds can an average human make?

If we wanted to create an all new alphabet composed of as much letters as possible, with each letter corresponding to one distinctive sound. What's the maximum amount of letters we could have? Oh and please don't answer "an infinite amount".
user50746
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need to understand infinitive

What is the easiest way to understand what an infinitive is? How do I know which verb in which sentence is an infinitive? For example, let us take this website: Infinitive This is the example I am interested in: I need to run every day. (The…
user17915
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Sources for etymologies of Ancient Greek proper names and placenames?

There are good etymological dictionaries for Ancient Greek: if you're searching for the origin of a word, you'll probably find information in Frisk, Chantraine, or Beekes. But if you're looking for the etymology of the name of a mythological figure,…
TKR
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Are there tonal languages which use a rising intonation for questions?

I know that in the case of Mandarin Chinese questions do not end with any kind of rising tone unless the last morpheme in the sentence happens to have a rising tone. For questions which don't contain a question word (equivalent of English wh-words)…
hippietrail
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Arabic and Persian loans in Turkish

Both Persian and Turkish - as have other "islamic" languages - have a great deal of Arabic vocabulary. Due to an (initially) favourable vowel inventory (and maybe due to the same script being used) these loans have come to Persian in much of their…
zwiebel
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Can we choose words to avoid change?

The pronunciation and meaning of words change over time, as a result of a variety of forces. These forces are well documented and fairly well understood. Given this knowledge, is it possible to coin a word such its meaning or pronunciation changes…
Wilfred Hughes
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Formal Language theory (context free grammars, pushdown automata)

Does anyone know any good introductions to Formal Language theory and Formal Grammar, that covers the mathematical basis of Syntax and things like context free grammars and pushdown automata? In particular, I'd like to be able to…
user65526
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Structural ambiguity and 'because'

I am trying to analyze Arthur doesn't discipline his children because he loves them to show the structural ambiguity using phrase structure rules that precede X' rules, and that because is throwing me off.
Matt
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