meta user
network profile
| bio | website | languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll |
|---|---|---|
| location | New York, NY | |
| age | 33 | |
| visits | member for | 1 year, 11 months |
| seen | Jul 12 '11 at 3:25 | |
| stats | profile views | 13 |
I am a linguist working on my dissertation. I specialize in morphology and phonology. I studied computer science as an undergrad.
I am from the United States and speak English as my first language; I have lived in the Midwest and both coasts of the US.
|
Aug 2 |
awarded | Good Answer |
|
May 24 |
awarded | Yearling |
|
Jun 8 |
awarded | Commentator |
|
Jun 8 |
comment |
Can you invert sentence structure without sounding like Yoda? These sentences are examples of syntactic focus. German happens to use syntactic focus more often than English, where speakers employ more prosodic focus. English can use syntactic focus ("John I saw, but I didn't see anyone else"), but it is more restricted than German. |
|
Jun 8 |
comment |
Milch? Milsh? Why the pronunciation difference? /x/ is incorrect actually. /mɪlç/ is the correct transcription. |
|
Jun 4 |
revised |
When is the last sound of a syllable unvoiced? deleted 49 characters in body; added 1 characters in body |
|
Jun 3 |
awarded | Nice Answer |
|
Jun 3 |
comment |
When is the last sound of a syllable unvoiced? So whether there is a "real" schwa (or was historically) may be a matter of articulatory timing. When pronouncing "en", at what point does the vowel start to nasalize? At what point is the oral cavity totally closed off? This timing is probably different among different speakers, and probably has variation within speakers as well. |
|
Jun 3 |
comment |
When is the last sound of a syllable unvoiced? @Cerberus: Really good observation, and you are absolutely right. The consonants you are talking about are sonorants. Notice that sonorants include the consonants as well as vowels. Since liquids and nasals are more similar to vowels than other consonants, sometimes the line between them can be blurred — sonorant consonants can be arguably syllabic (depending on the language and theoretical framework you are using). |
|
Jun 3 |
awarded | Editor |
|
Jun 3 |
revised |
When is the last sound of a syllable unvoiced? added 1 characters in body |
|
Jun 3 |
answered | When is the last sound of a syllable unvoiced? |
|
May 25 |
awarded | Nice Answer |
|
May 25 |
comment |
What do we have to take care of when trying to learn grammar from spoken conversations? Does german.SE really want questions like this? This is essentially just a complaint about nonstandard German. These are people's systematic ways of speaking in day-to-day life that don't happen to be Hochdeutsch; these aren't speech errors. Many times, knowing at least some of the local/informal constructions is beneficial to communication. When I first was in Germany, I used the genitive (e.g. "während des...") all the time and it stuck out to people. Isn't the way to avoid all things nonstandard just to keep your nose in a German language textbook and not interact with people? |
|
May 25 |
awarded | Critic |
|
May 25 |
comment |
How can I learn noun genders better? @ogerard: I am talking about what you will hear and see as you go around using German. You won't only encounter things in the nominative case. Of course Pekka's suggestion is a good method; it's how I was taught German. |
|
May 24 |
comment |
How can I learn noun genders better? The frustrating thing about German is that the articles look like other articles depending on the case, so you lose that 1:1 coherence. In French, I will always hear and see "la lune" no matter what the structure of the sentence is. In German, I will hear "die Rose" sometimes and "der Rose" other times (dative/genitive case). |
|
May 24 |
comment |
How can I learn noun genders better? Other "e" exceptions: der Löwe, der Beamte, usw. |
|
May 24 |
awarded | Supporter |
|
May 24 |
awarded | Teacher |
