This post is the 3rd instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapters 2a and 2b of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany Present tense of bod Table 1 shows the present tense of the verb bod (‘be’), giving the forms used in positive,…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (3)
Tag: Question
Welsh challenge (2)
This post is the 2nd instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapters 1a and 1b of Colloquial Welsh. The 1st instalment covered Welsh spelling and pronunciation, and mentioned the important process of consonant mutation. Learning Welsh and Irish – Language Miscellany In some places, I mention differences between northern…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (2)
Language in Project Hail Mary
Last week, I saw the new Ryan Gosling film Project Hail Mary. It highlights some interesting questions about how a human can learn to communicate with an extraterrestrial. The film is based on a 2021 sci-fi novel of the same name by Andy Weir. Ryan Gosling’s character Ryland Grace is a scientist on a…… Continue reading Language in Project Hail Mary
I don’t know if ‘whether’ can survive
It often irritates me when people use if when they could have used whether. What annoys me? It is the fact that using if in those cases can cause ambiguity. That is because in English if has 2 meanings: as a synonym for whether expressing a condition In many cases the context makes it clear…… Continue reading I don’t know if ‘whether’ can survive
Shaetlan—the language of Shetland
Shaetlan, the language of Shetland, has now been awarded an ISO 3-letter code: scz https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/scz For more on ISO language codes, please see Russian: an official language at the ISO – Language Miscellany Shaetlan has sometimes been regarded as ‘just a dialect’ of English or as a ‘just a dialect’ of Scots, but the awarding…… Continue reading Shaetlan—the language of Shetland
Greenberg’s list of universals
How much do languages differ and how similar are languages? An early attempt to consider these questions was a conference on language universals held in New York in 1961. Papers based on those prepared for the conference were published in 1963 in Universals of Language, edited by Joseph H Greenberg. (a 2nd, paperback, edition, appeared…… Continue reading Greenberg’s list of universals
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
Yes-no questions in headlines
I recently came across a reference to Betteridge’s Law. Not having heard of this before, I looked it up on the web. As Wikipedia explains, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines says the following: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’ Ian Betteridge, a technology journalist, explained that journalists…… Continue reading Yes-no questions in headlines
Doing work and playing roles in Italian
Several constructions in Italian use the verb fare (‘do’, ‘make’). Two of these constructions look very similar on the surface but syntactically they behave in very different ways. A short book Fare: Elementi di sintassi, by Nunzio La Fauci and Ignazio M Mirto (2003) analyses them. Here are 2 examples: (1) Adamo fa il medicoAdam…… Continue reading Doing work and playing roles in Italian
Scandinavian language challenge day 32
Today I worked through chapter 10 of Swedish in three months, covering: where in relative clausesquestion words in subordinate clauses compound verbs other words Where in relative clauses Where in question: var? (where?) / vart? (to where?) Where in relative clause: där (where) / dit (to where); Han vet en restaurang, där man kan äta fransk…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 32