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Linguistics

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Many linguistic articles are written exclusively or largely from an Indo-European point of view. In some cases this becomes apparent in the examples provided (Onomatopoeia seems an irredeemable example), while others treat grammatical categories and linguistic terms as if they pertain to English or other well-known Indo-European languages only. This is something that needs to be remedied in an encyclopedia of international scope.

Requested articles

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Requests for expansion

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(The most common request is to correct a limited (usually Indo-European) point of view.)

A–J

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  • Closed class. English-based. Cross-linguistically, there are interesting differences here. In many African languages for example, the class of adjectives is a closed class. On a sidenote, cognitive linguistic views of reasons for the distinction between closed and open classes (e.g. Talmy 2000:413, Langacker) are also worth mentioning.
This is very interesting. I would love to see some references of how adj's are in the closed class. While the open-closed distinction forms the basis for Talmy's model of form (grammatical) vs content, I am not sure where Langacker refers to this. Certainly it is not very prominent in his 1987/1991 texts. mukerjee (talk) 07:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I will make some additions here, the Sanskrit tradition had a lot to say on this which remains germane today. mukerjee (talk) 07:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Determiner (linguistics). Really should be renamed to 'Determiner (English)' or something like that. Interesting things could be said about determiners and definiteness cross-linguistically.
    • Reworded a bit, less LPOV, de-emphasized English. Desperately needs contrasting examples (please not plain ol' Western IE languages isomorphic with English). --Pablo D. Flores 15:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Diminutive. Oh boy, look at the structure. First, English is treated, and then a few other languages (predominantly European) are lumped together under a heading "non-English languages". This needs quite some work. — mark ✎ 16:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The headings are now appropriate, since there are headings based on language families and English is now grouped with other Germanic languages. However, non-Indo-European languages are grouped together. Johnny Au 19:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Function word. English only. It should be noted that the term 'function word' is per definition largely restricted to isolating languages (and as such is inevitably LPOV, like many Indo-European-inspired linguistic terms).
  • Grammatical tense. Only about the English tense system, only English examples. Should be renamed Grammatical tense (English) or something like that. There is also some overlap with English grammar. Steverapaport fixed this, but it still needs non-English examples. The table of tenses and their uses is a bit unwieldy and hopelessly LPOV. Useful examples: periphrastic/idiomatic "tenses" in Eurolangs; lack of distinction in Chinese; aspect emphasized over tense ibidem. --Pablo D. Flores 15:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See also its talk page. Additionally, cross-linguistic data collection and some brainstorming is going on at Grammatical tense/multilingual sources — mark ✎ 21:58, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Grammatical aspect. Although the term is based on the work of Indo-European grammarians, it has been used in linguistics worldwide. At present, the article contains mainly English examples and some Serbian ones. Nothing is said about application of the term in linguistics outside the Indo-European language family.
  • Grammatical particle. English-only. Contains a list of English parts of speech considered 'grammatical particles'. I gave it a start by toning down the misleadingly strict definition a bit, but it still needs lots of work. — mark ✎ 23:35, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I just made a start on this one - please review it and suggest improvements on its talk page! — mark ✎ 22:05, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

K–Z

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  • Metathesis (linguistics). Universal phenomenon. Mainly covers some English sound changes. Could use cross-linguistical examples.
    • Provided examples from Navajo (Athabaskan) and Saanich (Salishan). The Klallam example is not just phonological but grammatical (I dont explain the phono part since it would be complicated). — ishwar  (SPEAK) 03:36, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)
  • Palatalization. Not bad, but could be more outspoken on occurences of palatalization troughout the world (Berber, Bantu, to name a few). Especially in Bantu, interesting morphophonological things happen involving (among other processes) palatalization.
  • Pleonasm. There was actually an edit warrior who wanted to remove the non-English examples from this article. Fortunately he is gone, but in the aftermath of the battle, this article is in pretty lousy shape, and still needs some non-Indo-European examples.
  • Possessive case. This is actually a fairly good article, even including non-Indo-European concepts like alienable/inalienable possession. The problem is its context and naming. Case is defined as a feature of inflecting languages. Indeed, many languages do not express possession by inflecting the noun (like the case article would suggest). It would be better to merge much of the content of the Possessive case article to something like Possession (linguistics) and to reserve the Possessive case article for languages that actually do show a possessive case. Additionally, all those articles could do with more cross-linguistic examples.
  • Prefix. Indo-European perspective.
  • Reflexive pronoun. Mostly English, mentions three other Indo-European languages and one constructed language. Nothing on non-IE languages, no typological perspective (Schladt (1999)'s 'The typology and grammaticalization of reflexives' would be a good source).
  • Rhetoric. Nothing on rhetoric in (say) Sanksrit, or other Indian languages, or for that matter any non-European (e.g. Chinese) culture. The talk page mentions this.
  • Root (linguistics). Corrected and added examples, though a few more would be nice. Someone with more than amateur knowledge of linguistics, please correct me. Added a hook to word stem -- which BTW is not a synonym for root and needs a formal definition. -- Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Tone (linguistics). Universal phenomenon. In desperate need of a good definition. Is too Mandarin/Chinese minded. Check the 'what links here' of that page and see why.
    • Improved it by adding a section on different notational systems. Still needs much work. — mark ✎ 16:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Question. The paragraph on grammar seems OK, albeit fairly short. However, the mentioning of just the Indo-European intonation pattern and the English-only examples narrow the scope.
    • Fleshed it up a bit, though examples are still welcome. --Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Relative pronoun could use some information on non-Germanic languages. The long English section is justified as these really are tricky in English, especially for foreign learners, but it's not meant to be an article just on English grammar. --Doric Loon 18:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • It's severely skewed towards IE-style relativisation in general. I turned "Relative pronoun" into a stub, and kept the original Relative clause that "Relative pronoun" redirected to, which however, and rather unfortunately, treats the whole subject mostly focusing on relative pronouns. I think the whole topic should be addressed abstractly, and English should be treated along with other languages, of which more variety should be present. Hebrew was already there, and I added Japanese (which is important as a contrast because the relative clause goes before the noun it modifies, without a relative pronoun, or conjunctions, or any marks of relativisation other than word order). Chinese, I think, does the same, but it should be there too. --Pablo D. Flores 15:58, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Me again: Relative pronoun filled up, Relative clause cleaner (theory only), created English relative clauses for specific English usage. Some more theory, examples and illustrating trivia needed.

Requests for review/attention

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Satisfactory

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  • Inflection. Quote from the article: 'Various major languages, including English, German, Russian, Spanish, French, and Hindi - all Indo-European languages - are inflected to a greater or lesser extent. Other languages [sic!] use almost no inflection, Chinese and Vietnamese among them.' The definition used in the article is part of the problem. More historical background should be given and current, cross-linguistical use of the term should be covered. Fixed by Steverapaport 15:39, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC), probably could be removed from this list. --Pablo D. Flores 15:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Mama. Currently a dab, but surely we should have an article about the striking cross-linguistical similarities in the basic word for mother (cf. Jakobson 1962 etc.). It currently reads that 'mama' is a slang word for 'mother' - speaking about LPOV! See Mama and papa --Pablo D. Flores 14:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Papa. Currently a dab, but surely we should have an article about the striking cross-linguistical similarities in the basic word for father (cf. Jakobson 1962 etc.) See Mama and papa.
  • Reduplication. Universal phenomenon. Needs a better definition, a more logical structure and more examples. Note the phrase 'most notably in Malayo-Polynesian' (other language-families or areas are not even mentioned).
    • Cleaned it up a little -- Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Provided biblio. The linked OT papers have many examples from unrelated langs. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 03:39, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)
    • exanded (with organization). kind of a redupl. typological survey. now includes langs from all continents (i.e. N. America, Central America, S. America, NE Africa, Siberia, E. Asia, SE Asia, Papua New Guinea, & Australia) & a few major lang families (i.e. Salishan, Siouan, Tibeto-Burman, Tupí, Pama-Nyungan, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Austro-Asiatic, Mayan, Cushitic, & Uto-Aztecan). is this enough? peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 15:18, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
  • Spatial tense. This article should be written from a Lojban grammar perspective, and certainly should not start with the sentence: Spatial tenses are a category of tenses not found in English. See its talk for an extensive discussion.
    • Done from a Lojban perspective, still needs natural language examples (if Hopi does indeed have spatial tense). --Pablo D. Flores 14:38, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You've done great work. I don't think natural languages have it and I think I made a clear case on why not at its talk page. I think this one can be moved to 'Satisfactory'. — mark ✎ 15:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Onomatopoeia. Universal phenomenon. Very stubby, needs cleanup. What is worse, at present it only includes English examples (mainly sounds of animals).
    • Not anymore, since it includes many non-English examples, as well as popular cultural references, which are mainly from Western and Japanese comic books, comic strips, animated television programs, and manga. Johnny Au (talk) 22:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pronoun. English only.
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