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SpareSymbol · Joined:Fri 14 Aug 2009 7:31 am Posts:7

The following questions apply to natural human languages, living and extinct only.

What parts of speech are universal?

What grammatical categories(tense, case, aspect, et cetera) are universal?

What sounds are universal?

Thanks in advance.

rickardspaghetti · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 2:28 pm Posts:204 Location: Sweden

SpareSymbol wrote:

The following questions apply to natural human languages, living and extinct only.

What parts of speech are universal?

What grammatical categories(tense, case, aspect, et cetera) are universal?

What sounds are universal?

Thanks in advance.

Oh god. This cannot end well.

SpareSymbol · Joined:Fri 14 Aug 2009 7:31 am Posts:7

rickardspaghetti wrote:

SpareSymbol wrote:

The following questions apply to natural human languages, living and extinct only.

What parts of speech are universal?

What grammatical categories(tense, case, aspect, et cetera) are universal?

What sounds are universal?

Thanks in advance.

Oh god. This cannot end well.

Why will it not end well?

rickardspaghetti · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 2:28 pm Posts:204 Location: Sweden

Cuz I don't know the universals. :cry:

Joking dude(about it not ending well. I still don't know the universals).

It's not a bad question, but it is an often asked question. As far as I know there are not many universals since all languages are different. One thing I'm quite certain of though is that there are no universal sounds. More than that I cannot help you.

SpareSymbol · Joined:Fri 14 Aug 2009 7:31 am Posts:7

rickardspaghetti wrote:

Cuz I don't know the universals. :cry:

Joking dude(about it not ending well. I still don't know the universals).

It's not a bad question, but it is an often asked question. As far as I know there are not many universals since all languages are different. One thing I'm quite certain of though is that there are no universal sounds. More than that I cannot help you.

No universal sounds?

I thought surely there would be a few vowel sounds that are universal. Huh.

By the way I have read French does not have a progressive aspect, is this true? How does a Francophone express the idea of an ongoing action?

(I am for the most part a monolingual Anglophone at this time.)

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

You're terribly misinformed, my friend - there are plenty of linguistic universals as a cursory search of Google will tell you.

rickardspaghetti · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 2:28 pm Posts:204 Location: Sweden

SpareSymbol wrote:

No universal sounds?

I thought surely there would be a few vowel sounds that are universal. Huh.

There are some that are very usual to find in a language. i and velar consonants are the best examples, but there are languages that don't have them. a is a letter used in every natlang orthography, but the realization of a is often different from language to language. It can be /a/, /A/, /Q/, /@/, /{/, /6/ or /V/, but never the same for every language.

rickardspaghetti · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 2:28 pm Posts:204 Location: Sweden

Talib wrote:

You're terribly misinformed, my friend - there are plenty of linguistic universals as a cursory search of Google will tell you.

Well, at least I'm not misinformed by choice. :roll:

rickardspaghetti · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 2:28 pm Posts:204 Location: Sweden

SpareSymbol wrote:

By the way I have read French does not have a progressive aspect, is this true? How does a Francophone express the idea of an ongoing action?

There are many languages lacking a progressive aspect. Swedish has none for example and we use the aorist regardless of the action being progressive or not. "I eat" and "I'm eating" translate the same in Swedish. As for French lacking progressive aspect, I don't know.

dtp883 · **Posted:** Sat 12 Sep 2009 12:10 am

rickardspaghetti wrote:

SpareSymbol wrote:

By the way I have read French does not have a progressive aspect, is this true? How does a Francophone express the idea of an ongoing action?

There are many languages lacking a progressive aspect. Swedish has none for example and we use the aorist regardless of the action being progressive or not. "I eat" and "I'm eating" translate the same in Swedish. As for French lacking progressive aspect, I don't know.

That's pretty much the same as in French.

Je mange.
I eat.
I'm eating.

Spanish has a present progressive tense but it's not used as much as in English.
Hablo.
I talk.
I'm talking.
EDIT:
Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that Early Modern English did not use the progressive tense.

"Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."
"Father forgive them because they don't know what they are doing."