Books and papers on linguistics often contain examples in a foreign language. To aid understanding, examples typically provide both: an interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme gloss, giving information about the meanings and grammatical properties of individual words and parts of words. an idiomatic translation of the foreign language text. A useful set of standardised conventions for writing glosses…… Continue reading Leipzig glossing rules
Tag: Reduplication
Mainland Southeast Asian languages
Mainland Southeast Asia is home to speakers of around 280 languages spread across 5 families: the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic (including Vietnamese and Khmer) Sino-Tibetan (including Mandarin and other Sinitic languages, and Burmese and other Tibeto-Burman languages) Tai-Kadai (including Thai and Lao) Hmong-Mien (languages of southwest China) Austronesian (languages spoken mainly in Oceania, but represented…… Continue reading Mainland Southeast Asian languages
Sounds of Vietnamese
Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) is in the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken as a first language by around 85 million people, mainly in Vietnam, where it is the official language. It has several times as many native speakers as all other Austroasiatic languages combined. This post covers: syllable structure word structure consonants vowels reduplication…… Continue reading Sounds of Vietnamese
Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds
Maori is the language of the Māori people of New Zealand. It is known in Maori as te reo Māori (‘the language Maori’) or simply te reo (‘the language’) for short. Te reo Māori was made an official language in New Zealand in 1987, along with New Zealand Sign Language. There is a useful short…… Continue reading Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds
Are Mandarin adjectives just a type of verb?
In Mandarin, adjectives behave like verbs in some respects. As a result, some analysts suggest that adjectives are just a subset of verbs in Mandarin. This post summarises evidence that adjectives are in fact separate from verbs. The evidence comes from Chinese Syntax, by C-T James Huang, Y-H Audrey Li and Yafei Li (2009). The…… Continue reading Are Mandarin adjectives just a type of verb?