This post is the 9h instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 8 of Teach Yourself Irish. For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/ It covers: adjectives forming adverbs from some adjectives lenition after masculine plural nouns preposition: le (‘with’) preposition de (‘of’, ‘from’) expressing quantity words and phrases Mutation…… Continue reading Irish challenge (9)
Tag: Quantifier
Welsh challenge (7)
This post is the 7th instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 6 of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany I’ve used bold type below to highlight words affected by mutations and an asterisk * to mark words followed by mutation. Numbers I show below…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (7)
All of which
A sentence like (1) contains a relative clause which seems stilted and unnecessarily clumsy. (1) The Apollo spaceships, all of which returned safely, …. Sentence (1a) is perhaps slightly better, but still a little clumsy. (1a) The Apollo spaceships, of which all returned safely, …. A cleaner version is (2). (2) The Apollo spaceships, which…… Continue reading All of which
C-command
Linguists often refer to a relation called c-command. Some types of syntactic operation are often analysed as being possible only if one item c-commands another item. Examples of such operations include relations between quantifiers (such as all and some) and the items they qualify. What is c-command? C-command is a relation between some of the…… Continue reading C-command
When ‘not’ met ‘any’
A headline in The Times on 19 October 2024 reminded me of something I have written about before. The headline said: Labour’s ambition to boost trade with China must not be achieved at any cost. The intended meaning was something like (1): (1) To boost trade with China, Labour [the UK government] should incur only…… Continue reading When ‘not’ met ‘any’
Schock prize for linguists
The 2024 Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy has been awarded jointly to Hans Kamp (University of Stuttgart, Germany) and Irene Heim (MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). It as awarded ‘for (mutually independent) conception and early development of dynamic semantics for natural language.’ The laureates are selected by collaboration between three Swedish royal academies: the Royal…… Continue reading Schock prize for linguists
Addicted to ‘right node raising’
In this post, I look at a construction that I often saw in drafts of documents I was reviewing. Although the construction is grammatical and concise, readers find it difficult to process. I explain what this construction is and why it is difficult. I also summarise a published review of some of the vast linguistics…… Continue reading Addicted to ‘right node raising’