By Constructions, Pronunciation

Milky wrote: CalifJim wrote:A native tells me that it does occur in such as the second example. The native must have misunderstood the question. Does it No., and if it does, why? And is it widespread? No."gonna" has to be followed by a verb. London isn't a verb!I'm gonna London is totally...

Hoey's extension: I would suggest that to know a word such as consequence is, at the very least, to know the answers to the following nine questions about the word: 1 What does consequence mean? (meaning) 2 How is consequence used grammatically? (grammar) 3 How is...

Francesca wrote:For example: the word 'plus' is Latin, so it must be pronounced as 'pl-oo-s', at least in Italy! Most people pronounce it in the English way, because they really think it's an English word or simply that the English pronounciation is better Hi FrancescaMost interesting! As I am...

Well, it is not a lexical 'construction', if I take your meaning. It is simply a way to spell the casual pronunciation, and could be used to represent the words, want to, in transcribing any spoken dialect that pronounces it that way. That pronunciation is certainly common in the US.

Randy_Tam wrote:I am only taking Mandarin as a complusory second language credit course, my L1 being Cantonese Chinese, now considered a 'dialect' for no justifiable reasons, as there has never been a clear distinction drawn between a 'dialect' and a 'language': do the 2 not share the very...

O, I thought you were, as your quote is in Chinese. Yes, L(x) is a function indicating whether a language is 'native' or 'foreign' to a person. It is not restricted to Language Acquisition though, as it is widely used in such topics as Language Teaching (see for example, Eric Hawkin's...

Hypercorrection is -a construction or pronunciation produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage out of a desire to be correct, as in the substitution of I for me in on behalf of my parents and I. -the production of such a construction or pronunciation. - a grammatical, usage or...

From Merriam Webster's: AIN'T Etymology: contraction of are not 1 : am not : are not : is not 2 : have not : has not 3 : do not : does not : did not -- used in some varieties of Black English Usage: Although widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the habitual speech of the less...

I'd like to expand the topic of the ability to mimic another language. As said, people with "strong" native language like russian are noted for their "bad" pronunciation. That's because the vowels are all long and strongly pronunced. I am happy to boast that my native language - lithuanian -...

Hi iverness, the site you linked to deals actually with foreign-language-accents. What I was talking about is rather special dialects, regional variants of a language within the language. Standard German is more or less a constructed language which is based on some middle-east German accents,...