Activity for Eric Isaac
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edit | Post #291126 |
Post edited: Grammar correction |
— | about 2 months ago |
| Comment | Post #291126 |
I do want to say it seems like an interesting project! And it seems at a glance possible to model what you are hoping to model, I just don’t know how much luck you’ll have chasing down Semantics research to find the answers you are looking for.
It also seems like it’ll be important to communicate ... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
| Edit | Post #291126 | Initial revision | — | about 2 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What underlying principle is at play for how objective or subjective a natural language instruction is? It seems like what you are hinting at is the degree to which an instruction contains the context required to understand it, answer it, and evaluate the answer. Moreover, the question hints at an objective instruction being one that is almost completely self-contained in these aspects. In the examp... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290460 |
Post edited: network hiccup on my end - correct draft of last edit |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290460 |
Post edited: grammar nit |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290460 |
Post edited: grammar nit |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290460 |
Post edited: Address humor as activity more directly |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290456 |
Ok! I’ll leave the question up - I appreciate your input Jirka! (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290460 |
The theory of humours was in vogue well into the later part of the 19th century. This is why I specifically called out the 20th century, since the question wished to avoid going too in depth into the theory of humours. The 20th century represents the opportunity for humor to evolve without undue infl... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290460 | Initial revision | — | 5 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Has the word "humor" shifted meaning? Definitions Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the usage of the word humor has expanded to several distinct meanings that are all still in active use. 1. Humor as mood, as shown in good humor. Bad humor is also still in use, as demonstrated in the question, suggesting that this usage isn’t s... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290456 |
I see - thank you for clarifying, the link is helpful. Would it make sense for me to close / delete this question?
Asking since it seems like I made some poor assumptions in forming the question (and it may not really be answerable as a result).
I can probably follow up with a more specific (an... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290041 |
Inspired by questions here on English speakers inserting an ‘r’ into various words. While trying to answer these questions, I realized that I didn’t have a particularly rigorous way to choose between several plausible causes, and was curious what a better method may look like. (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290456 |
That makes sense! And I’m happy to constrain the question if it makes it more appropriate / answerable.
I think the root of what I’m curious about here could still be addressed by considering 2 languages with a single shared alphabet, both of which have phonetic writing systems, and considering ho... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290456 | Initial revision | — | 5 months ago |
| Question | — |
How does phonology-orthography correspondence affect second language acquisition? One difficulty I’ve seen in learning languages is matching orthography to pronunciation - especially vowels. English has several distinct sounds that a native speaker will describe as the vowel ‘e’, for example, while a language like French would use a wider variety of symbols to represent the sam... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290356 |
Post edited: grammar correction (remove a) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290356 | Initial revision | — | 5 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Vowel insertion phenomenon The closest term I’ve found is anaptyxis, the form of epenthesis that refers to inserting a vowel, but this is still fairly vague. A similar phenomenon is mentioned in this paper, regarding the pronunciation of words ending in -ed, -ly, and -ness. Specifically, the tendency for English speakers to... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290207 |
Post edited: grammar correction |
— | 6 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290207 | Initial revision | — | 6 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Does humor always spring from surprise? Some believe humor springs from Benign Violations. Basically, that something defies my expectations but I consider it harmless. This is more specific than surprise in that the social context is also considered to be equally important. To your examples, wordplay communicates a number is socially de... (more) |
— | 6 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290118 |
Post edited: Grammar, mostly -> most |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290118 |
Post edited: Grammar correction |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290118 |
Post edited: headers to break up wall of text |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290118 |
Post edited: Add word, felt ungrammatical |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290118 | Initial revision | — | 7 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Possessive vs accusative case for nominalized clauses verbal nouns and gerunds This may be a case where the differences between verbal nouns and gerunds are causing some confusion. In most cases, they are somewhat interchangeable but it should be easier to differentiate in the following sentences. Grammatical 1. She was against his sudden joining o... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Comment | Post #289957 |
FWIW, I’ve also encountered this technique amongst individuals self studying a language. I have been asked by L2 English speakers for simple translations or definitions for words that aren’t generally covered in standard courses. Just another way of getting feedback, especially for someone who may no... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290074 |
Post edited: Typo correction, grammatical reformatting, small correction |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290074 | Initial revision | — | 7 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Why do some people say "idea-r", "draw-r-ing" and "china-r"? Focusing on native English speakers from the UK, inserting an r between words is a hyper correction of a phonetic rule in British English; the final r in a word is silent unless followed by a vowel. It doesn’t appear to be considered standard, judging by the teaching material that the UK government p... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290072 | Initial revision | — | 7 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Should translation questions be considered off-topic? Questions about translations could be interesting or useful. For instance, asking about translations that are contested, or wouldn’t be easy to understand by using translation software (perhaps requiring additional cultural input). In this case, the asker should bring both the original text and the t... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: Add source (needed double to check) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: grammar correction |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: Correct incorrect info about erhua semantics |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290041 |
Post edited: Correct typo, add clarifying comment |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290041 | Initial revision | — | 7 months ago |
| Question | — |
How do linguists identify the origins of verbal habits that originate from other languages? When an observed verbal habit has more than one potential source, and that source is likely to be a different language or dialect, how do linguists determine the most likely origin? For example, if some speakers of Language A add an extra vowel to certain words, in a way that seems to resemble bot... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: capitalize Chinese |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: Address confusion re following consonants, remove parts of answer that don't directly answer the specific question |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 |
Post edited: Clarify that Mandarin Chinese is the dialect refered to |
— | 7 months ago |
| Edit | Post #290037 | Initial revision | — | 7 months ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Why do Chinese people say "idear"? The speakers you have encoutered may be adding Erhua which is common in the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The '-er' that is added serves various semantic purposes (e.g. diminutive suffix) and is considered standard in PRC issued education and examination guidelines for the Standard Chinese (Mandari... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |