Request: informants for linguistic research

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cataphor
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Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby cataphor » 2013-04-30, 7:18

Hello everyone,

for a monograph he's writing, my professor (Gisbert Fanselow, http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/cgi-fans ... ite=a_home) needs some judgements from native speakers of Latvian. It won't be much. So if you are a native speaker of Latvian and even have some linguistic background, I would be very glad if you would PM me. If you like, I would also be glad if you would judge whether the example (1) below is grammatical, regardless of whether there are better ways to express the same meaning.

(1) Bērni ir visi izlasījuši visas grāmatas.

Best regards,
Andreas

Sol Invictus
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Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby Sol Invictus » 2013-04-30, 11:38

No, it should be Visi bērni ir izlasījuši visas grāmatas, because according to this it seems any word describing something comes before what is being described. If you need anything else just ask

cataphor
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Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby cataphor » 2013-04-30, 12:32

But I really ask for your intuitions. And I even found an example, in which someone used a structure as in (1) productively. Is that example (2) not grammatical to your gut-feeling?

(2) tie bērni ir visi tā ļoti kļūdaini sarakstīti bijuši

from http://www.calis.lv/forums/tema/10555124-kukulis/1/

Sol Invictus
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Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby Sol Invictus » 2013-04-30, 13:41

It was my intuition, I just added explanation since you were talking about grammar and I was curious and managed to find it

The phrase you now have pulled is passive and the author is trying to put emphasis on "visi", hence it is right. I didn't say that the phrase "bērni ir visi" is wrong in all other contexts, though it is a bit unusual and rubs me the wrong way - I did a web search and only got 11 results back of which one you mentioned, one is not a phrase, one is result of messing with Google translate, five are definitions and three seem to be emphasizing "visi".

The first sentence, if you were to translate it in English is something like "Children are all have read all books"

cataphor
Posts:53
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Real Name:Andreas
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Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)

Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby cataphor » 2013-04-30, 14:07

I'm sorry for having misunderstood you! And thank you a lot for your efforts of finding further examples!

Was it okay if I asked you for further intuitions later on?

Sol Invictus
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Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby Sol Invictus » 2013-04-30, 14:31

Sure

mak
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Re: Request: informants for linguistic research

Postby mak » 2013-04-30, 15:50

Both sentences sound grammatically correct to my ears.


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