Experiencer Subjects

Experiencer subjects are always animate. The subject is usually human. The experiencer is connected to a sensory perception or psychological state. In other words, the experience occurs through the senses or cognition. The verbs that occur with experiencer subjects relate to consciousness.

The five senses allow for an agent subject and an experiencer subject. When the agent subject engages in a sensory activity, the agent actively employs the sense. The experiencer, however, is not an active participant in the sensory perception. The agent looks and listens on purpose, but the experiencer sees and hears involuntarily.

When Peter tastes vegetable soup, he does so by putting his spoon in the bowl and then to his lips. However, when he tastes mould on bread, his taste buds register a sensation. The taste of mould is unexpected.

The following sentences have agent subjects followed by experiencer subjects:

Jack looked at the report
Jack saw some blood.

Alex listened to her explanation.
Alex overheard an argument.

Marcia smelled the tulips.
Marcia smelled smoke.

Tony tasted the brandy.
Tony could taste vinegar in the sauce.

Norma felt the sweater.
Norma felt some pain.

Without context, the sentence Petra smelled the perfume is ambiguous. The subject can be an agent or an experiencer. Context is needed to clarify the precise meaning.

The five senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. They are connected to sensory verbs such as see, smell, listen, feel and taste. The subjects used in connection with sensory verbs can be both agent subjects and experiencer subjects.

Tense and Aspect in Discourse

In natural circumstances, sentences do not occur in isolation but follow one another in discourse. Tense and aspect work together to form connections between phrases and sentences. Often a series of past tense verbs represent activities that occur in the order in which they are mentioned. In other words, the actions are temporally sequenced. This is especially true when the actions are coordinated with the conjunction and.

Here are examples

Paul tripped and fell down the stairs.
Linda sipped some herbal tea and put her cup on the table.
Alice opened the car door and got in.

In the examples, the second phrase logically follows the first. The reverse order would be strange. The sentence Linda put her cup on the table and sipped some herbal tea is possible but unlikely.  However, in cases with no predictable order of actions, we encounter the same phenomenon. Here are examples:

Mark ate lunch and took a nap.
Susan smiled and took the girl's hand.
Leonard laughed and walked to the hotel.

Although the two events in each sentence could easily occur in the reverse order, the reader assumes the order of the events is the order in which they are told. John stopped the car and got out is very different from John got out and stopped the car. There can be significant time gaps between ordered events, i.e., He got married and had six children.

When the actions of phrases continue over a long period of time, they can be interpreted as interconnected: We ate pizza and drank beer all evening; The teenagers sang and danced at the concert; I coughed and sneezed all morning. In these cases the phrases are not temporally ordered.

In discourse sentences follow one another. Tense and aspect often combine to form connections. A series of past tense verbs are often temporally sequenced, and this is especially true when the conjunction and combines the actions.

Icelandic Days of the Week

Many of the Icelandic days of the week are not as similar to English days as those of other Germanic languages. Here are the days from Monday to Sunday:

mánudagur
þriðjudagur
miðvikudagur
fimmtudagur
föstudagur
laugardagur
sunnudagur

The literal meaning of Monday is moon day. Tuesday is third day, Wednesday is midweek day and Thursday is fifth day. Friday is fasting day, Saturday is bathing day and Sunday is sun day.

The Icelandic days for Monday and Sunday are similar to those of English. However, the names of the other days are less similar. Tuesday and Thursday are literally third day and fifth day.

Slavic Languages

The Slavic languages are Indo-European languages that are spoken in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia. They descended from Proto-Slavic. The Slavic languages can be classified into three language groups.

The three groups are East, West and South. The East Group includes Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. The West Group includes Czech, Slovak and Polish and the South Group includes Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian.

The East Slavic languages are written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but the West Slavic languages are written in the Roman. In the case of the South Slavic languages, the situation is more complex. Slovenian and Croatian are written in the Roman alphabet, but Bulgarian and Macedonian are written in the Cyrillic. Serbian and Bosnian are written in both alphabets, but Serbian is officially written in Cyrillic.

The Slavic languages are known for their extensive series of palatal consonants. Russian and Belarusian have a high central vowel which does not exist in the other Slavic languages. Polish preserves two nasal vowels which the other Slavic languages do not. Unlike the other Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not devoice word-final obstruents.

Stress varies among the Slavic languages. In Russian and Ukrainian, it can occur on any syllable. In Polish, it tends to fall on the penultimate syllable and in Czech and Slovak the stress is on the first syllable of the word.

The Slavic languages share more characteristics than many other language families. The most widely-spoken of the Slavic languages is Russian. The Slavic languages tend to have many consonant clusters and relatively few vowels. They are spoken in a large area which extends from Central Europe and the Balkans to the easternmost part of Russia.

Vowel Reduction

Vowel reduction is very common in many languages. It refers to changes in the acoustic quality of vowels. These changes include duration, loudness, sonority and vowel quality. Many reduced vowels occur in unstressed position.

Vowel reduction often involves centralization of the vowel. In vowel centralization, tongue movement is reduced. The most common reduced vowel is the schwa. This vowel can be heard in the unstressed positions of the English words ago, bullet and carrot.

In addition to English, vowel reduction is common in many other languages. They include German, Dutch, Norwegian, Catalan, Russian and Portuguese. However, vowel reduction is far more common in European Portuguese than in Brazilian.

Russian is a language with significant vowel reduction. For example, the word ostrov (island) is pronounced ['ostraf]. Stress is word-initial, so the first vowel is not reduced but the unstressed vowel is. The word-final consonant is devoiced. The plural ostrova (islands) is pronounced [astrava']. The stress is word-final, so the initial vowel is now reduced to [a]. In Russian the vowel [o] can only occur in stressed position.

The process of vowel reduction occurs in many languages. English also has many examples of vowel reduction. In unstressed position, the schwa is very common in English and in many other languages.

Italian Dialects

Italian has many dialects. Though standard Italian is widely used, many regions have dialects that differ significantly from the standard variety. They can differ so much from the standard language that many Italians do not understand them.

The main dialects of Italian include Milanese, Venetian, Tuscan, Neapolitan, Romanesco and Sicilian. Milanese is spoken in northwestern Italy and Venetian in northeastern Italy. Tuscan is spoken in northern Italy and is the basis of the standard language. Neapolitan is spoken in the south and Romanesco is spoken in central Italy, particularly in Rome. Sicilian is very different from standard Italian and is spoken on the southern island of Sicily.

Standard Italian is based on the dialect of Tuscany. However, the Italian language has many regional dialects. Widely-spoken varieties include Venetian, Neapolitan, Romanesco and Sicilian.

V2 movement in English

Unlike other Germanic languages, V2 movement is not common in English. However, it was once common. It is now used in certain cases.

The following sentences have V2 movement:

Here comes the bus.
Now is time to say good-bye.
Never will he agree.
Behind the park is the school.
Down came the rain.

The examples begin with adverbs and a preposition. With most adverbs, V2 movement is not allowed as in the sentence Sometimes they can't come. The examples preserve a structure which was common in Old English and Middle English. They can be considered vestiges of V2 movement in English.