Linguistics

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), founding father of the United States and general polymath, included language among his many interests as a scientist, educator, and publisher. A particularly significant work in this area is his phonetic alphabet for English, which he proposed in 1768 for a “reformed mode of spelling”. The basic principles upon which he based this alphabet are familiar to linguists, but his descriptions show a deeper understanding of the sounds of language and how they may be grouped according to articulatory principles. We report on this alphabet and his comments thereon, including his correspondence with Mary Stevenson and later with Noah Webster, and discuss other obse..

This article discusses the phonological status of diphthongs and their role in the melodic and rhythmic organization of vowel and consonant sequences. We examine the nature of rising diphthongs and th - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The paper discusses the uses of conditional and interrogative complementizers in Old High German (section 2) and Saurian (section 3). Based on empirical evidence from these varieties, we will go into - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In this work, I argue that the natural language item part (and its translational equivalents) is the same as the mereological notion of PROPER PART, full stop. While this seems trivially true, state-o - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of surface form converg - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

> > > > > > > > > > This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Predicates such as 'are extinct' or 'are widespread' have long been assumed to apply only to kinds. I present evidence that the class of predicates typically described as kind-level are 'numerous'-typ - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Much work has shown that wh-movement is subject to several kinds of locality restrictions cross-linguistically. I propose that these restrictions arise when [wh] projects past the maximal projection t - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of surface form converg - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The diminishing effect, a kind of norm-sensitivity, is observed in many natural language constructions: negative comparatives (e.g., He is no taller than I am), only-sentences (e.g., he is only 49 yea - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Among the foundational questions for cognition is whether perceptual systems encode sensory input as continuous values or transform it into discrete mental representations. Speech—long a model system - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In this paper, we discuss three languages of the Americas--Ch'ol (Mayan, Mexico), Mi'gmaq (Algonquian, Canada) and Maihiki (Tukanoan, Peru)--in light of their classifier and plural marking systems. Cr - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The theory of semantic prosody posits that words acquire evaluative coloring through repeated collocation with positively or negatively charged contexts. While this usage-based framework effectively d - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper analyzes the two-place comitative in Ch’ol, a Mayan language of Chiapas, Mexico. This construction behaves like a transitive verb in some respects: it licenses two arguments, exhibits varia - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This thesis develops a structural model of argument licensing in German Sign Language (DGS) based on the formal projection of R-Loci. I introduce Locus-Checking as a licensing operation that is inform - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This thesis examines multimodal (im)politeness in telecinematic discourse and its subtitling. It brings together research in (im)politeness, audiovisual translation (AVT), multimodality and the pragmatics of fiction to provide concrete analytical frameworks to study how situated (im)politeness is expressed multimodally in an unfolding interaction and how multimodal (im)politeness is rendered in subtitling, which have received scarce attention in each of the mentioned research field. Using the

Metaphorization is a robust semantic process that underpins the development of grammatical categories and associated language variation and change. This study adopts a process-based approach to invest - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper focuses on the peripheral hierarchy of Mandarin interrogatives. Based on question markers’ embeddability profiles in a series of nonquotational subordinating contexts, this paper argues for - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Typological universals often dissolve because analysts collapse language-internal categories with the cross-linguistic comparanda they are meant to instantiate. When English noun or Hebrew subject is - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The frequency of the preferred order for a noun phrase formed by demonstrative, numeral, adjective and noun has received significant attention over the last two decades. We investigate the actual dist - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In some discourses, a given inference would be natural at one point, but impossible at the next. We focus here on such cases with inferences of temporal and causal order usually described as ambiguit - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive