Semantic Features of Nouns

Semantics is the branch of linguistics which focusses on the study of meaning. All nouns can be analyzed with semantic features. The features +/-- animate, +/-- human, +/-- , +/-- adult and +/--male can be used to differentiate the meaning of words.

The following diagram uses basic features to distinguish the meanings of six English words:

               book     horse     girl     woman     boy     man

animate     --            --          +            +            +        +

human       --            --          +            +            +        +

male          --            --          --            --           +        +

adult          --            --          --            +            --       +

The diagram  illustrates the properties of six nouns. It does so with four basic features. The number of features can be increased to make more precises distinctions in the meaning of nouns.

 

Countries Without Articles in Portuguese

In Portuguese most countries require a definite article. This is the case with countries such as o Brasil (Brazil) and a Alemanha (Germany). However, a few countries do not use an article.

Here is a list of a few countries that do not use an article:

Andorra

Angola

Cape Verde

Cuba

Israel

Luxembourg

Monaco

Mozambique

Portugal

Sao Tome and Principe

The names of most countries are used with an article in Portuguese. However, a few countries do not use a definite article. The list shows countries that do not use one.

Danish Affricated Voiceless Alveolar Plosive

Danish is a language with strong aspiration. Unlike in Norwegian and Swedish, it has an affricated voiceless alveolar plosive. It occurs before stressed vowels and also stressed vowels preceded by a voiceless labiodental fricative and a palatal approximant. Affrication does not occur when the plosive is followed by a uvular fricative.

The following words have an affricated voiceless alveolar plosive:

tand (tooth)

tanke (thought)

te (tea)

tid (time)

time (hour)

tjeneste (service)

tog (train)

tunge (tongue)

tvilling (twin)

tyve (twenty)

Many of the Danish words with an affricated voiceless alveolar plosive have a voiceless alveolar affricate in German. Compare tand/Zahn, tid/Zeit, and tog/Zug. In certain Danish dialects such as those of northern and western Jutland, a voiceless alveolar plosive is used instead of an affricated one.

Raised Non-Sonorant Alveolar Trill of Czech

The raised-non sonorant alveolar trill of Czech is a rare consonant sound. It is produced by simultaneously rolling the tongue and creating a fricative without vocal fold vibration. In Czech it is represented by the letter ř.

Many Czech words have the consonant. It occurs in words such as  řeka (river), dveře (door), tři (three) and lékař (doctor). The raised non-sonorant alveolar trill of Czech can occur in all word positions: initial, medial and final.

The raised non-sonorant alveolar trill no longer occurs in Polish, but it once did. Though Slovak is closely related to Czech, it does not occur in Slovak. The raised non-sonorant alveolar trill of Czech is a rare consonant that is both a fricative and a trill.

One Sentence in Four Norwegian Dialects

Norwegian can be classified into four main dialects. They are the eastern, western, central and northern. To illustrate the differences, let us look at one sentence in the four languages. It is important to mention that the sentences can vary within the dialects themselves because they also exhibit variation.

The English sentence is I don't know what they want. Here it is in the four main dialects:

Jeg vet ikke hva de vil. (eastern)

Eg veit ikkje kva dei vil. (western)

Æ veit itj ka dæm vil. (central)

Æ veit ikkje ka dei vil. (northern)

The four sentences are similar, but they are clearly different. Only the eastern dialect uses the word hva for what. The sentences reveal a few differences with respect to Norwegian dialects.

Centering Diphthongs in Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation has centering diphthongs. They are found in words with post-vocalic r. The centering diphthongs of Received Pronunciation consist of a high lax vowel and schwa.

Examples of words in Received Pronunciation that have centering diphthongs include beer, cure, here, tour and you're. The result is that words such as be and beer sound quite different.

The word bee has a high front unrounded tense vowel. However, in beer there is a diphthong. The first component of the diphthong is a high front unrounded lax vowel and the second is a schwa

In rhotic accents of English, centering diphthongs do not occur. However, in Received Pronunciation, they do. They consist of a high vowel followed by a schwa. The lax high vowel is either front unrounded or back rounded.

Variation in the Swedish of Stockholm

The Swedish spoken in Stockholm is considered the variety that is closest to standard Swedish. It is the variety of Swedish that is often heard on radio and TV. However, it is not complely uniform. There is variation in the Stockholm dialect.

Stockholm Swedish is known for its approximant r. The approximant is especially common in syllable-final position. However, it is not used by all speakers. Those who do not use the approximant use an alveolar flap instead.

The palatovelar fricative is common in words such as sju (seven) and stjärna (star). It is used not only in Stockholm but in much of Sweden. However, there are speakers of Stockholm Swedish who do not use it. They use a retroflex alveopalatal fricative. In fact, the use of the retroflex alveopalatal fricative is associated with wealthy speakers.

The vowels i and y can be pronounced with retracted pronunciation. Though this pronunciation can be considered marked, many speakers use it, and it is often associated with Stockholm. Many of those who use it are wealthy speakers.

The vowel ä in words such as näsa (nose) and räka (shrimp) is pronounced with a mid front unrounded lax vowel in most of Sweden. However, in Stockholm, there are speakers who use a mid front unrounded tense vowel. The use of the tense vowel is associated with the Swedish of Stockholm.

The Swedish of Stockholm forms the basis of standard Swedish. It is the variety that is usually taught to learners of the language. However, the dialect is not uniform. There is variety in the dialect of Stockholm.

French Tongue Twisters

Tongue twisters can be challenging, especially if they are said quickly. Here are ten French tongue twisters.

1. Seize chaises sèchent.

2. Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien.

3. Le plat plein ploie sous le poids ou ne ploie point?

4. Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cent six scies scient six cent six cyprès!

5. Suis-je bien chez ce cher Serge?

6. Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches?

7. Seize jacinthes sèches dans seize sachets secs.

8. Je troque trente trucs turcs contre treize textes tchèques.

9. Quarante carottes crues croient que croquer crée des crampes.

10. Cinq chiens chassent six chats.

1. Sixteen chairs dry.

2. A hunter knowing how to hunt must know how to hunt without his dog.

3. Does the full plate bend under the weight or does it not bend?

4. If six saws saw six cypresses, six hundred and six saws saw six hundred and six cypresses.

5. Am I indeed at dear Serge's place?

6. Are the socks of the archduchess dry?

7. Sixteen dry hyacinths in sixteen dry bags.

8. I'm trading thirty Turkish things for thirteen Czech texts.

9. Forty raw carrots believe that crunching causes cramps.

10. Five dogs chase six cats.

Boundary Gemination in Finnish

Boundary gemination is a common feature in standard Finnish. In boundary gemination, the final consonant of a word causes the first consonant of the following word to be lengthened. Finnish has many examples of boundary gemination. Let us explore a few. 

The following Finnish words exemplify boundary gemination:

hernekeitto (pea soup)

itsepäinen (stubborn)

jätesäkki (garbage bag)

kasvihuone (greenhouse)

liikevaihto (revenue)

osoitekirja (address book)

pesukone (washing machine)

puhetaito (speaking skills)

rannekello (wristwatch)

taidekoulu (art school)

In the compound words, gemination occurs between word boundaries. The word hernekeitto consists of herne (pea) and keitto (soup). The k of keitto is geminated. This is also the case for osoitekirja, pesukone, rannekello and taidekoulu.

In itsepäinen, the p is geminated, in jätesäkki the s, in kasvihuone the h, in liikevaihto the v and in puhetaito the p. Despite the spelling, they are lengthened. Though boundary gemination often occurs with voiceless consonants, it can also occur with voiced as in liikevaihto.

Finnish has the phenomenon of boundary gemination. It is not indicated in the spelling of the language, but it is part of the spoken language. Certain dialects do not have boundary gemination, but it is definitely a feature of standard Finnish.

The Danish/Norwegian Word Ikke

The word ikke means not in both Danish and Norwegian. Though the word is identical in both languages, it is pronounced quite differently. Let us compare the pronunciation in the two languages.

In Norwegian the word ikke is pronounced with a high front unrounded lax vowel, a long voiceless velar plosive and a schwa. In Danish, the first vowel is a mid front unrounded tense vowel and the plosive is a voiced velar. Unlike in Norwegian, the Danish plosive is not long. The final vowel is also a schwa.

Danish has another possible pronunciation. The word-final vowel can be deleted. In this case, the word has only one syllable and not two. The monosyllabic pronunciation is considered less formal.

Danish and Norwegian share many words in common. The word ikke means not in both languages. However, the word is pronounced quite differently in the two languages. In fact, Danish and Norwegian are not so similar with respect to pronunciation.

Lack of Vowel Reduction in Southern Brazilian Portuguese

In parts of southern Brazil, the unstressed mid vowels retain their full value. In other words, they are neither raised nor reduced. This is especially true of rural areas with significant immigration from Germany, Italy and Slavic countries.

The words importante (important) and carro (car) are pronounced with word-final high vowels in most of Brazil. This is also true in Portugal. However, in parts of southern Brazil, they are mid vowels. 

This phonetic characteristic is considered conservative. There may be two factors to explain it. Southern Brazil received many immigrants who spoke German, Italian and Slavic languages. The phonetic structure of their languages reinforced the articulation of unreduced vowels. Another is the geographical proximity to Spanish. The south has borders with Uruguay and Argentina. Constant historical contact with Spanish, a language that completely lacks vowel reduction, further stabilized the preservation of unstressed mid vowels in the region.

Vowel reduction, also known as vowel raising, is common in Portuguese. However, it is often resisted in the dialects of southern Brazil. This may be explained by the arrival of immigrants whose languages did not have vowel reduction and by the geographic proximity to Spanish.

Languages of Indonesia

The official language of Indonesia is Indonesian. It is similar to Malay, and in fact, Indonesian and Malay are mutually intelligible. In addition to Indonesia, many other languages are spoken in the country.

Javanese has many speakers, and most of them are on the island of Java. Sundanese also has many speakers, and many of them are found in the western part of Java. Madurese is primarily spoken on the island of Madura. In western Sumatra, there are many speakers of Minangkabau. Two other prominent languages are Balinese and Acehnese.

Though most Indonesians can speak Indonesian, many other languages are spoken in the country. After Indonesian, the most widely-spoken languages of Indonesia are Javanese and Sundanese. Indonesia is a  country of great linguistic diversity.

Words Used By Conservative Norwegian Speakers

Norwegian has many dialects. However, there are two official written languages. Though there are two written languages, the number of dialects is far greater. A number of Norwegian words are not official, but they are used by a minority of Norwegian speakers. They tend to be elderly and wealthy speakers.

Here is a small list of words used by conservative speakers. The word to the right is the official form.

ben bein (leg)

efter etter (after)

farve farge (colour)

frem fram (forward)

nu nå (now)

røk røyk (smoke)

selv sjøl (self)

sne snø (snow)

sort svart (black)

sten stein (stone)

The words used by conservative speakers are definitely in the minority. Words such as efter, farge and nu are definitely only used by a few. However, other words such as frem, sort and sten are more widely-used, but nevertheless by a minority of Norwegians.

Alternative Pronunciation of My

The word my can be pronounced the same as the word me. In England, the pronunciation is most common in northern England, the Midlands and working-class London speech such as Cockney. However, the pronunciation is also heard in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and parts of Australia and New Zealand.

The pronunciation of my with the same pronunciation of me only occurs when the possessive adjective is unstressed. In the question, Where's my phone?, the pronunciation of me is possible. However, this is not the case in the sentence It's my phone, not yours. The reason is that in this sentence the word my is stressed.

In England, the alternative pronunciation of my is common in the north, the Midlands and working-class London speech. It is common in all of the United Kingdom, Ireland and parts of Australia and New Zealand. However, the alternative pronunciation of my is only used when the word is unstressed. It is associated with casual speech.

The Spanish Pronoun Vos

In Spanish the second person singular subject pronoun can be tú or vos. In Spain only tú is used, but in Argentina the pronoun is vos. The pronoun vos is also used in Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. In most of Mexico, speakers use tú.

The two pronouns have different conjugations. For example, the sentence You are my neighbour can be Tú eres mi vecino or Vos sos mi vecino. The subject pronoun is not absolutely necessary and can thus be dropped. Also possible are Eres mi vecino and Sos mi vecino.

Spanish has two pronouns to express the second person singular subject pronoun. In many countries, the pronoun tú is used, but in other countries vos is popular. In Colombia, the pronoun tú is used in Bogota, but vos is used in Medellin. The use of the pronouns can even vary in one country.

Months in Asturian

Asturian is a Romance language spoken in northwestern Spain. To illustrate the vocabulary of Asturian, here are the days of the months along with the months in Spanish.

January xineru enero

February febreru febrero

March marzu marzo

April abril abril

May mayu mayo

June xunu junio

July xunetu julio

August agostu agosto

September setiembre septiembre

October ochobre octobre

November payares noviembre

December avientu diciembre

Notice that two months are very different, November and December. The word for April is identical in both languages. Spanish uses a word-final o in seven months, but Asturian uses word-final u.

Russian High Front and Central Vowels

The Russian high front and central vowels are often in complementary distribution. The high front unrounded vowel is very common among languages, but the high central unrounded vowel is not. Russian has the five full vowels of Spanish, and it also has unreduced vowels. The high central unrounded vowel is classified as a vowel phoneme by many, but there are linguists who claim it is an allophone of the high front unrounded vowel.

The Russian high front vowel occurs after soft consonants, and the high central occurs after hard consonants. The soft consonants are palatalized, and the hard ones are not. All Russian consonants can be classified into two groups, hard and soft.

Though the two vowels are often in complementary distribution, there are instances in which their distribution is contrastive. They can contrast in word-initial position. For this reason, many linguists consider the high central vowel a phoneme.

The high central vowel is relatively rare among languages. It always follows hard consonants. On the other hand, the high front vowel always follows soft consonants. The high central vowel is a vowel that distinguishes Russian from many other languages.

Danish Consonantal and Vocalic r

The Danish r can be both vocalic and consonantal. In the word ris (rice), it is consonantal. However, in the word bur (cage), it is vocalic. 

In contrast to other languages with vocalic r, the Danish r often vocalizes between vowels. This can be illustrated with the word irriterende. The word means irritating, and it is identical in Danish and Norwegian. However, in the Norwegian dialects with a uvular r, it is always pronounced as a consonant.

In Norwegian dialects with a uvular r, the word irriterende has two uvular consonants that are syllable initial. However, this is not the case in Danish. The first syllable of irriterende is a diphthong in Danish.and the third syllable is a vowel and glottal stop. As a result, the word irriterende is syllabified differently in Danish and Norwegian.

In Danish the letter r can be realized as a vowel and a consonant. This is also true in other languages such as German and many varieties of English. However, the Danish r is unique because it can also be vocalic when it occurs between two vowels.

Future Tense with Predictions and Conditional Statements

English has different ways of expressing the future. It can be expressed with will, going to and the present continuous. However, with predictions and conditional statements, only will and going to can be used.

The following sentence can be expressed in three ways:

I'll visit my grandparents this weekend.

I'm going to visit my grandparents this weekend.

I'm visiting my grandparents this weekend.

However, with predictions only will and going to can be used. It is possible to say It will rain tomorrow and It's going to rain tomorrow. Here the present continuous is not used.

The same is true for conditional sentences. Consider the following examples:

You have to study or you won't get a good grade.

You have to study or you aren't going to get a good grade.

These two sentences are conditional sentences. The first clause states what the listener must do, and the second expresses the result if the listener does not comply. The sentences can be restated with if and then. They then become the following:

If you do not study, you won't get a good grade.

If you do not study, you aren't going to get a good grade.

English can express the future in different ways. The present continuous can be used in many cases. However, with predictions and conditional sentences, the present continuous is not used to express the future.

Internal/External Locatives with Finnish Place Names

The Finnish language uses many postpositions. With Finnish cities, both internal and external locative cases are used. They can be translated in English as in and on. The internal locative is used for the city of Helsinki, but for the city of Tampere, the external locative is used. Let us illustrate with examples.

The following cities use internal locatives:

in Helsinki Helsingissä

in Lahti Lahdessa

in Lappeenranta Lappeenrannassa

in Joensuu Joensuussa

in Jyväskylä Jyväskylässä

in Kokkola Kokkolassa

Kuopio Kuopiossa

in Oulu Oulussa

in Porvoo Porvoossa

in Turku Turussa

The following cities use external locatives:

in Hyvinkää Hyvinkäällä

in Kouvola Kouvolalla

in Lapua Lapualla

in Mäntsälä Mäntsälällä

in Pieksämäki Pieksämäellä

in Riihimäki Riihimäellä

in Rovaniemi Rovaniemellä

in Seinäjoki Seinäjoella

in Tampere Tampereella

in Vantaa Vantaalla

In contrast to many other languages, Finnish uses postpositions. For cities they can be either internal or external locative cases. In addition to the correct use of the postposition, modifications to the base can also occur.