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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
linguistics' LiveJournal:
| Friday, July 2nd, 2004 | |
| 11:54 am [tanukisuit] |
Hey, I made a new community: ![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040703023318im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} apostrophe_nowBasically it's kind of like this one, but with more of a focus on english grammar and pronounciation. I thought it would be helpful for people who are having problems with a specific sentence. I also thought it might be a good place for the discussion of english grammar, pronounciation, and where to put those commas and apostrophes. If you know anyone who would like a community such as this, be sure to pass the information on to them. |
| Tuesday, June 29th, 2004 | |
| 5:37 pm [anjuutsu] |
what do you think? There's a Kool-aid commercial that's been running on tv for a while where a boy sets up a kool-aid stand across the street from a girl who had already set up her own kool-aid stand. Both of the children, and I think most or all of the customers, are African-American. When she sees that he's competing for her customers, she says "Oh no he didn't," but the "didn't" is pronounced like "di_en" (the second "d" and final "t" are dropped, with a stop between the two syllables). However, the commercial has recently been altered to where her pronunciation of "didn't" sounds more like the standard English pronunciation, enunciating more of the consonants. My guess as to the reason behind this slight change is that "di_en" is a stereotypical African-American pronunciation of "didn't," perhaps provoking some letters from offended viewers. I'm curious how other people feel about the original pronunciation and the fact that it was changed. What do you think? (x-posted to learn_languages, linguaphiles, linguistics, oral_sects, and terra_linguarum) |
| Sunday, June 27th, 2004 | |
| 5:33 pm [anjuutsu] |
question regarding english... I was shucking some corn today and thought about the fact that in english we call one piece of corn like that an "ear of corn." This exists with many nouns in english, such as "blade of grass," "flock of sheep," "pride of lions," etc.. and I arrived at two questions, hoping someone here would have an answer! :) 1) Is there a grammatical term for this construct? 2) How frequent is it across different languages? It doesn't seem to exist in the other languages I've studied. Thanks in advance! (x-posted to several language communities) |
| 2:51 pm [djado] |
alphabet problem Short and sweet: I designed some PHP programs to count the frequency of letters in various languages: named it Project Vyx. I'm running into some problems. 1) Some languages have letters that are actually two letters in English. Hungarian has Cs, Dz, Dzs, Gy, Ly, Sz, Ty, and Zs! How am I supposed to count these? I can't just count all occurances of the letter Z, because the results would be skewed by having other letters use Z... Other problem languages are Czech and Welsh (the Welsh link explains these double letters). 2) Alphabets that have characters I'm not familiar with. Main examples being Russian and Arabic. My major problem is capitalization... how do I know that character Y is simply not the capitalized version of character X and therefore the same letter? This one is easier to solve, I just need someone who is proficient in a Cyrillic / Arabic language. Anyway, thanks for the help in advance. Current Mood:  confused |
| Friday, June 25th, 2004 | |
| 12:16 pm [smar] |
Googly cricket! BBC News >The world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" >from the Tshiluba language spoken in south eastern Congo. > >It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists. > >Ilunga means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, >to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time". > ( Rest o' article ) Current Mood:  restlessCurrent Music: Inundations (galway bay mix cd) |
| Friday, June 18th, 2004 | |
| 4:40 pm [smar] |
Au secours! Hi! I need to know French linguistic terms! Specifically, language acquisition terms. I know of these two sites: http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/dic http://www.sil.org/linguistics/glossary I've also googled "glossaire linguistique", which came up with a surprisingly high amount of hits, but nothing specific enough. Does anyone know other sites? Also, if anyone knows the terms for: -Bootstrapping(!!) -Universal Grammar (I'm assuming it's grammaire universelle) -Nominal (the noun, not the adjective) Current Mood: working Current Music: tragically hip |
| Sunday, June 13th, 2004 | |
| 10:37 pm [cosmicpluto] |
More on Argument Structure Another question: how would one determine the argument structure of "to/for" in: "The girl is reading the book to/for the boy."? Thanks - I'm really not getting this whole argument structure thing. |
| Saturday, June 12th, 2004 | |
| 11:00 pm [cosmicpluto] |
Argument Structure and Noun Incorporation Hi all, I'm fairly new to linguistics, currently taking my second university course (intro to morphology) at the University of Toronto. I'm having a lot of trouble with a few concepts right now, so I was wondering if any wonderful people out there would be able to help me. ( little help? ) |
| Tuesday, June 8th, 2004 | |
| 4:58 am [this_ill] |
druthers I've looked all over the place, because I can't access the Oxford English Dictionary, for an answer to the question of how the old and rare (now idiomatic) southern american English word 'druther' just magically went from being a reduced form of 'I'd rather' to a plural noun. Or is that even the case? It just doesn't seem likely that such a thing would be possible without some major intervention, like, I dunno, a line from a famous song that just sticks in the pysche of the public enough to introduce the new word into the language. Once I get my hands on the OED, I'm sure I'll get a interesting answer. Could it be that 'druther' in A comes from the same source as 'druthers' in B? A) I druther go to sleep right now than continue reading this dull textbook. B) If I had my druthers, I'd have a bottle in front of me rather than a frontal lobotomy. Perhaps, but there needs to be an interesting story behind that, because an adverbial doesn't pluralize... only nouns do, and, well, that would mean that there must have been a singular noun, 'druther', at some point. I dunno, any feeback would be appreciated. thanks |
| 2:02 pm [cherkez] |
Help me to find articles People, I need your help!!! Slips of the tongue --> onset rhyme dichotomy Do you know any articles about it??? Thank you for your support! Current Mood:  thankful |
| Monday, June 7th, 2004 | |
| 1:46 pm [smar] |
Fashionably linguistic Hi! I just wanted to direct you this online store of linguistics clothing/merchandise. Yes, the stuff was designed by a friend of mine, but she doesn't make any profit, and it was for an event at Concordia. Apologies for not putting a nicer link, but I'm on a French keyboard and don't feel like finding the double quotation marks. http://www.cafeshops.com/lingstore |
| Monday, May 24th, 2004 | |
| 9:17 pm [cherkez] |
Russian Phonology Hi! If somebody can help me.... I'm taking a seminar Phonological acquisition and I need to write a paper (ressearch) about Russian Phonological acquisition. I choose a topic Optimality Theory. Does anyone know any ressourses where I can find smth about Russian phonology, 'cause it's REALLY hard to find. THANK YOU! Current Mood: grateful |
| Sunday, May 23rd, 2004 | |
| 11:29 am [tsukikage85] |
Can you forgive someone something? As in "I forgave him his execution"? What theta role would that be? Current Mood: curiousCurrent Music: Cowboy Bebop - Too Good Too Bad |
| Friday, May 14th, 2004 | |
| 2:29 pm [radiobread] |
Optative what is the Optative? how is it different from just the Subjunctive? i can't find a simple definition... thanks xx xx Current Mood: confused |
| Wednesday, May 12th, 2004 | |
| 2:55 am [tsukikage85] |
As much as I love linguistics, linguistics homework SUCKS! At least if you're insanely behind on the reading and have six assignments and a project due tomorrow... |
| Monday, May 10th, 2004 | |
| 3:47 pm [andtheafterglow] |
A friend of mine said this, and I'm wondering if anyone here knows anything about it: The hardest word to define briefly is thought to be the word "mamihlapinatopai" from the Fuegian language. Its simplest definition is "two people looking at each other without speaking hoping that the other will offer to do something which both parties desire but neither are willing to do." Current Mood: curiousCurrent Music: new order, "true faith" |
| Sunday, May 9th, 2004 | |
| 11:56 am [alcarilinque] |
Short question I've been doing a bunch of syntax lately, and thus drawing lots of trees. Are there any utilities in existance for making nice pretty trees on the computer, or are there any programs that seem to work nicely for just the same? Thanks! :) (A crosspost! Ack! :P) |
| Monday, May 3rd, 2004 | |
| 6:07 pm [signor_giuseppe] |
New quirky English/linguistics journal My new linguistics journal is goïng to talk pretty much entirely about quirks of th'English language. Since most of my friends aren't into that sort of thing, I'd welcome some commentary. Come and see! |
| Tuesday, April 20th, 2004 | |
| 10:50 pm [tsukikage85] |
You've probably already seen this... McGurk effect Current Mood: amusedCurrent Music: Da Da *closes eyes* Ba Ba *opens eyes* Da Da |
| Thursday, April 15th, 2004 | |
| 6:16 pm [watermelonlife] |
Does anyone know the "technical" linguistic term for this usage of "what" or more specifically, "what with" Wh-movement or something along those lines? It seems unnecessary in the sentence, and works fine if it's removed. However, I hear people using this all the time. Example: It's a good time to plant your flowers, what with all the sun we've been having. Just curious, a friend and I were mulling over it the other day :o) |