ESL Linguistics Discussion Forum

List of suffixes and prefixes for English base words

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:22:18 GMT

I need a list of English words and their different forms.

ie:

loan    loan
loan    loanable
loan    loaned
loan    loaner
loan    loaners
loan    loaning
loan    loans

busy    busied
busy    busier
busy    busies
busy    busiest
busy    busyness
busy    busy
busy    busying

Does anyone know where I can find such a list? I am a programmer, so it can be in any format as long as I can determine which forms are associated with which base word. The larger the list the better. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

urgent

Anonymous — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:40:07 GMT

hi all nice and kind pals

really I have such a confusing Q in linguistics and I hope U all can help me ..

what's the difference between hyponymy and prototype

I know that hyponymy is a word that contains the meaning of another word

and prototype is typical member of the extension of a referring expression

my Q is about this example:

oak tree,,oak could be both a hyponym and a prototype ...

how it could be both ...??

is there any difference ?

it's a little ambigious ..so please help me to clarify the difference?

thanx

Verb complementation

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:34:47 GMT

Can anyone explain to me the verb complement structure of "John tends to get hungry." My guess is that "to get hungry" is a direct object, but I am not sure.

prestige forms

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:42:19 GMT

Are the vernacular forms of English seen as a prestige forms by some speakers? If so, which forms and by whom?

Legitimising dialect discrimination

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:39:55 GMT

Why is dialect discrimination (unlike sexual or ethnic discrimination) still openly legitimised in the workplace?

W is a vowel

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:48:33 GMT

I was recently thinking to myself, though I cant remember why, about the letter 'w' and its sound both alone and in conjunstion with other letters. It was then that I came to the conclusion that w is infact a vowel, or at least a semi-vowel or sub-vowel (and I do notmean in refference to the word 'cwm'). A vowel is defined as any sound produed with an open vocal tract, and when pronouncing lower case 'w' I could concience of no other sound being created than a "oo-uh" A combination of two vowels.

I then moved on to thinking about words containing 'w':

Why - oo-ie

When - oo-eh-n

well- oo-e-ll

(the oo as created by a 'w' is a fast sound and is not held as would be expected by looking at the phoenetic words.)

Hence I concluded that 'w' is not infact a conssonant but is a vowel along with AEIO and U. I have similar thought on the letter 'y'.

Tell me what you think

Chris Ovenden

Transformational Rules and Subject-Verb Agreement

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:15:00 GMT

My question may be a little strange...but I appreciate any help I can get.

Given a passive sentence: "The subjects have been captured by the officer"...

...and applying transformational rules to the underlying structure...

Underlying Structure: The officer past have en capture the suspect.
Passive Transformation: The suspect past have en be en capture by the officer.
Affix-Hopping: The suspect have+past be+en capture+en by the officer.

How does subject-verb agreement come into play? As a native english speaker I would say "The officer has captured the suspect" or "The suspects have been captured by the officer." It is unclear to me wether subject-verb agreement must be taken into account before or after the passive transformation. Regardless if the sentence is passive or active "the officer" is the subject of the sentence but the verb "have" seems to change depending on wether the sentence is active or passive. If "the officer" is always the subject how come the the verb "have" changes? I am just really confused about how subject-verb agreement comes into play here. Would I use it before or after the passive rule? Perhaps it doesn't matter at all?

- Thanks

I wish I was/were there

Guest — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:42:46 GMT

Which is grammatically correct and why:

I wish I were there.

OR

I wish I was there.

Discussing semantic prosody/ies

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:26:03 GMT

Are the the concept and the arguments for semantic prosody/ies unconvincing?

Background:

"The concept of semantic prosody was introduced to the public by Bill Louw in 1993, and has become one of the more important concepts in corpus linguistics. However, while other concepts such as collocation, colligation and semantic preference are relatively unproblematic, one cannot say the same for semantic prosody. At present, it is defined in at least three, distinctly different ways, and more significantly, these differences remain largely undiscussed. This article offers a detailed analysis of Louw's concept of semantic prosody (in Sections 1 through 3), and hopes to demonstrate that the concept and the arguments for it are unconvincing."

(source)

Which language is most difficult language for people to learn?

Diego SimÃ£o — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:32:36 GMT

I think it is russian. My father has a friend who learns russian. He's perspective is: russian is the most difficult language for him to learn. And he has learnt german and espanhol.

can L2 culture motivate?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:16:34 GMT

Hello!

Can foreign language culture motivate?

how one can motivate one's own learners in the ELT classroom? or in any other foreign language classroom?

I'm working on my BA thesis and to have the job done I need teachers of foreign languages to fill in a questionnaire..

Who's interested please download the questionnaire and send it back to me to [removed by a mod. No personal contact please.Add it in your profile only.]

thx in advance

P.S.

If anyone is interested in some foreign language culture discussion esp when it concerns motivation..just go ahead and write..

Racial identity from speech

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:43:38 GMT

Regarding English, can one detect racial identity from speech?

What's in a word?

milky — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:47:33 GMT

"There are five questions that linguists (and learners) need to ask about any word. These are:

1 What does the word mean?
2 What words does it associate with?
3 What meanings does it associate with?
4 What grammatical functions does it associate with?
5 What positions in the text does the word favour? "

Michael Hoey

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-Magazine/August2003/10-Feature-Whats-in-a-word.htm

But do students and teachers ask all those questions when confronted with learning or teaching a new word? If not, why not?

No condition

milky — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:16:16 GMT

Is it true that this has no conditional meaning?

"If she will eat so many chocolates, it's hardly surprising she has a spotty face."

"Wok long rot..."

Cool Breeze — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:27:12 GMT

I read an article dealing with Pidgin English in a book. There is an illustration, a picture of a sign that says: "WOK LONG ROT OL KAR MAS STOP SAPOS YU LUKIM RED PELA MAK." It is supposed to mean: Work on road! All cars must stop when you see the red sign.

Long may mean on or along. What I don't know is what sapos and pela mean. Mak is probably mark? I assume that lukim has something to do with looking unless someone can come up with a better explanation.

Cheers, CB

Extraposition and existential clauses

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:06:26 GMT

Hi!

I'm doing an exercise on extraposition and existential clauses just now and would like to know if my answers are correct.

The task is as follows:

a) For each underlined clause, give an extraposed counterpart if one is available, or if none is available, explain briefly why.

Why you put up with it is incomprehensible. - It is incomprehensible why you put up with it.
The fact that they are married should make no difference. - no extraposed counterpart, because "It should make no difference the fact that they are married" is inadmissable - I just can't explain the grammatical reason why it is inadmissable
I appreciate that you returned it sincerely. - I appreciate it sincerely that you returned it.
It feels good to be back in my home town - For me, this sentence is already extraposed, so I don't know what to do here...

b) Give an existential counterpart of the following clause if available. If none is available, explain briefly why: His wife was very rich.
Here, there's no counterpart available, I just cannot explain why....

c) Give a non-existential counterpart of the following clause if available. If none is available, explain briefly why: There's nothing to worry about - no counterpart because "Nothing is to worry about" is inadmissable...again I cannot state the grammatical reason.

As you see I've problems explaining the rules. Can anyone help me please?

craving respect

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:07:28 GMT

Regarding language use, whose respect do you crave?

For example, a few weeks ago, I wrote the word "fora", as the plural for "forum", and a couple of native-speaking members here took me to task over it, and a couple more even made fun of me for using it. They said I should use "forums". Well, I'm still using "fora", so I guess I'm not so interested in gaining the respect, linguistically and socially, of said members. But, did I make the right choice? Should I have taken on the usage of said members? Should I have tried to to gain their respect?

And should someone who feels comfortable using a double-negative, or is happy using "if I have chance" (over "if I have the/a chance") in the spoken form - to take just two examples - give up their way of speaking, of using the language, and instead try to gain the respect of those who prescribe against such forms? Should someone who never uses "ain't", as another example, suddenly begin using it when coming into contact with those who do use it?

So, regarding language use, do you try or wish to gain the respect of a certain sector of society? If so, which sector and why?

Who possesses "correct"?

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:02:19 GMT

Does the word "correct" have any relevance beyond the context of standard forms of English?

whomever or whoever?

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 23:14:10 GMT

Which one is the right choice in this sentence?

Whoever/Whomever wishes to donate crafts should sign up today.

Do men use standard forms less that women do?

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:32:32 GMT

Do men use standard forms less that women do?

It has been suggested that men prefer vernacular forms because "they carry macho connotations of masculinity an toughness" (Holmes 2001).

It has also been suggested that vernacular forms "have 'covert prestige' by contrast with the overt prestige of the standard forms" (Holmes 2001).

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: Second Edition. By Janet Holmes.

3 questions

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:44:40 GMT

Three interesting questions from Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts (eds), Standard English: the widening debate. London: Routledge. 1999

Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be opposed?

Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be acquired?

Does access to standard language give people greater social and economic mobility, or is this another myth associated with standard languages?

How would you tackle them?

Corpora: Native discovery

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:50:37 GMT

Let's say that for years, based on you native intuition, you had been telling students that an certain item was not used in a certain registers/text-types/genres. What if, by searching many corpora, you found out that the item in question was actually used and very frequently in such registers/text-types/genres? What would you do? What would be your reaction?

Dialect 2

milky — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:51:53 GMT

Can dialect be defined without explaining, comparing to or having some firm idea of the Standard?

Learning "plummy" accent ???

J4mes_bond25 — Tue, 02 May 2006 19:58:52 GMT

Around a year or so back, I came across a rather intrigued survey on BBC News about "Nation's Favourite Accent".

According to the survey, Scottish accent were more acceptable for holding management position, along with nation's strong penchant for "plummy" as of Hugh Grant.

Sean Connery was voted to be nation's favourite accent followed by Hugh Grant.

American accent were also liked, especially as of George Clooney.

Accent that people often disliked were Brummie (Birmingham), some Northern accent along with to my huge disappointment, VERY STRONG regional accent like Midlands having its own setbacks in working life.

This made me delved into ways of losing my rather strong East Midland accent. Once I looked into it, I realised the way to do so, is by having good knowledge of Phonetics & once we get to know the sounds & the way it's produced in particular accent, could be the key to learn that particular accent.

After around a year since then, I seem to losen my original Midland accent & have achieved neutral accent now.

However, this one year has got me addicted to Phonetics & now, I seem to have strong penchant for a very neutral accent as of RP, something that I'm still working on.

I, however, seem to have developed a rather keen interest in "plummy" accent, as of Hugh Grant.

Now, the problem is, the easy availability of loads of books & materials on Internet had helped me work towards RP (neutral) accent, however, getting to know more about "plummy" accent & it's sound & the way it's produced has VERY LITTLE availability & hence I'm stuck in my research towards it.

I wonder if anyone could possibly point me in the right direction in working towards gaining my much loved Home Counties' "plummy" accent. Perhaps, someone could tell me more about such accent & share their knowledge about it. At the same time, someone might have some resource they could possibly share with me that could help me enlightening myself further.

Lastly, some linguistic (if there's anyone around) would have precise idea about how do I go about achiving this much desired accent.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

oral versus written syntax

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:43:21 GMT

Intuitively, which would you say is more complex, oral syntax or written syntax?