Do fusional languages have any advantages over agglutinative languages?
>>24681637All languages have advantages and disadvantages. As always, the answer is "depends on what you're trying to do."
>>24681672Name ONE advantage fusional languages have over agglutinative languages.
>>24681637Languages cannot really be said to be objectively better or worse than each other.
>>24681672>>24681861Fucking worthless replies. I got way more out of typing this question into chatgpt. You know jack shit.
>>24681918I (>>24681861) literally have a degree in linguistics. This is the overwhelming consensus of linguists.
>>24681922>"males are females and vice versa">I have a college degreeWe know.
I like both but Japanese is the only agglutinative language I will ever study
>>24682070"Better" is ill-defined in the first place. Better for what?
>>24681682A given paradigm is either smaller or more accurate.
>>24682109For anything. Literally any fucking example in any context. Your degree is worthless. I already got the answer but I'm not telling you, fuckface.
>>24682113What?
>>24682119I mean "better" by what criterion? And why that criterion?
>>24682121The very point of a fusional language is that an inflection can express more than one grammatical feature. For example, let's assume a language whose nominal paradigm express two genders, two numbers and two syntactic functions (e.g. Old French, a subject-case and a regime-case), a ‘perfect’ agglutinative language would show 16 inflections (G1N1F1, G1N1F2, G2N1F1 and so on) while a fusional language can merge them to reduce down the number of inflections.The alternative, as in Japanese, is to lose accuracy. The Japanese verbal system has ~20 main inflections versus ~125 for Spanish because Japanese doesn't express gender, number, plural, has no subjunctive, no future and no perfect. This is an approximation for the purpose of the discussion, of course (Japanese makes it up with a lot of affixes to express various meanings while part of Spanish conjugation is composed, e.g. he/has/ha orado) but you get the main idea.By the way the example given by AI is crap, the ending ‑ó doesn't express the meaning of the word. No inflectional language do.
>>24682146Languages tend towards a similar overall information density, though. They just reach it using different strategies.
>>24682165I know. All languages can *more or less* equally express anything (I'm not as radical as many linguists, there's a growing literature in neurlinguistics invalidating universalism) and any attempt at hierarchy is biased.
>>24682191I'd ask what you mean by "universalism". Like, on the one hand, translation is in some sense impossible- you can't say the same thing in a different language. On the other hand, I don't know of any instance where a given concept is known to be completely impossible to explain in a given language no matter how many words you use.
>>24682146Why would merging them reduce the number? It only reduces the number if multiple inflections in the fusional language are the same and then you have ambiguity.>affixesLiterally what most of inflections are. Don't know what you're talking about in the entire second half of your post. Try being clearer, you are using various shorthand expressions, you are talking to another person here, not taking lecture notes.
>>24682204Universalism is the hypothesis that language and thought are wholly disconnected, and the former has no incident on the way speakers think. It's been the dominant paradigm in linguistics for decades and it's still what most linguists believe, in a watered down formulation. While we can't claim that two speakers inhabit two different mental “worlds”, since at least the 2000s studies show that language does weight cognition by biasing perception and memory through attentional and categorisation mechanisms that leave measurable traces. Pinker is typically a hard-line univeralist that keeps claiming stuff not supported any longer by science.>>24682210>why would merging them reduce the number?So there are less distinctive inflections? I don't understand the question. In the Latin fifth declension, the paradigm has 6 cases as opposed to 12 if it were agglutinative, due to such mergers (‑ēs, ‑eī, ‑ēbus).>it only reduces the number if multiple inflections in the fusional language are the sameSo merging, that's what I'm saying. The number of inflections is always theoritcally F ≤ A.>then you have ambiguityYes.>literally what most of inflections areAffixation in the case of Japanese does not refer in my message to the expression of grammatical categories but a separate mechanism through which Japanese add syntactic structures, e.g. 話し·た (expression of the past in the verbal paradigm, note that it's partly fusional) as opposed to, say, 話さ·なければならない (expression of obligation/necessity in the sentence). This is irrelevant to the argument however, so you can ignore this part if you don't understand. The user above asked to name an advantage of fusional languages, and the answer is that they have a smaller paradigm or are more accurate. Indeed, it comes at the cost of ambiguity.
>>24682229>since at least the 2000s studies show that language does weight cognition by biasing perception and memory through attentional and categorisation mechanisms that leave measurable tracesTo my understanding, there is empirical evidence for some weaker forms of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but not much for any stronger version.
>>24682236That's right, hence my ‘more or less’. There's no more case for universalism, we know today for example that category-sensitive lexicon (the canonical example being colours or numbers) does affect perception.
>>24682243It subtly affects moment-to-moment cognition (and even there it's hard to fully separate the influence of language and culture) but it's not as if there are any thoughts it makes you incapable of having or understanding.
>>24682191>there's a growing literature in neurlinguistics invalidating universalismCould you post some? I'd be actually quite interested in reading that.
>>24682251I agree.>>24682255https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19240215/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24068814/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17470790/First two are neuro proper, the last one is the well-known study on blue perception in Russian, not neurolinguistics but interesting read.
>>24682287Thank you.Color does make sense, considering the usual case of the stroop effect, and given the relative nature of delineating colors in and of itself.I do wonder how you could possibly test properly for differences caused by grammar, like which form of syntax speakers gravitate towards. Something like Japs looking at eyes more than the mouth isn't going to be caused by は vs も, that's for sure.
>>24682229What do you mean by "more accurate", and how can something be more accurate and more ambiguous at the same time?>The very point of a fusional language is that an inflection can express more than one grammatical feature.Point? It's what defines a fusional language. And the question is "do fusional languages have any advantages over agglutinated languages?". "An inflection can express more than one grammatical feature" is not an answer to that question, it's just rephrasing "fusional languages".I don't know what you mean by merging. If you mean the act of putting multiple grammatical features in one morpheme, then that doesn't reduce the number of inflections as I said, again, the number is only reduced if multiple inflections are the same, which you seem to agree with, but if you look at Latin, like this random inflection chart in the picrel, the number of identical inflections is small.So I don't see what your point is.>the paradigm has 6 cases as opposed to 12 if it were agglutinative, due to such mergers (‑ēs, ‑eī, ‑ēbus)what? I just started studying Latin. I looked up a word in the 5th declension, here is the chart:glaciēs glaciēsglaciēī glaciērumglaciēī glaciēbusglaciem glaciēsglaciē glaciēbusglaciēs glaciēsI don't know why it would have 12 cases if it were agglutinative, but I count 5 -ies, 2 -iei, 2 -iebus, when it looks like that then there is a smaller number of inflections compared to what it would be if it were agglutinated. But how is this an advantage? And how is it more accurate? It's not more accurate, it's literally the opposite, more ambiguous. And what do you mean by "smaller paradigm"?
why the fuck can't I use chatgpt? fuck that shit site, now I can't even use it
>>24681637With fusional languages having both Latin and Sanskrit I think its superiority is obvious.
>>24682393What a total non-argument. Why? You probably don't know anything about agglutinative languages.
>>246822292 hours and still no reply?
>>24682449Please, tell me what great literary tradition in an agglutinative language can rival Hindu and Roman culture.
>>24682515That's not what this thread is about. This thread is about the language itself. Watch this at the timestamp for a quick rundown of the difference between fusional and agglutinative. I'm studying Latin but agglutinative languages seem like the superior type of language, I can't really see anything that's better with fusional. The genders in Latin might be an advantage over Finnish and Turkish which are genderless, but that's a separate issue, there are agglutinative languages with gender, just not the biggest ones.https://youtu.be/qxOJ4p8e7NQ&t=567
>>24682528A language's literary tradition is representative of the strengths of the language. Can you seriously not think of any advantages Latin has over Turkish?
>>24682537>A language's literary tradition is representative of the strengths of the language.Could be, but that's just an indirect indication. You have to present the actual features of the languages to have an argument.>Can you seriously not think of any advantages Latin has over Turkish?I said gender is most likely an advantage Latin has over Turkish, but that's a separate issue, as it's not a defining characteristic of being agglutinative, it just so happens that all the biggest agglutinative languages are genderless.
I guess that guy doesn't want to elaborate on why having fewer inflections is a good thing...
Alright fuck these pseud faggots. Bumping for anyone else to discuss.
>Just merge all the inflections dude! It's an ADVANTAGE dude, trust me dude! The 5th declension is going in the right direction dude.Spoken like a true Englishman.
>>24683738>See, here's the 5th declension, see how it's starting to look like ENGLISH dude? Everything that's more similar to English is by definition closer to perfection dude! You're just not getting it dude.
>>24683740>I'm a linguistics student so I know what ADVANTAGE over agglutinative languages means. Since I'm a college student I took it upon myself to improve Latin. See, I FIXED Latin dude, now we're talking, btfo'd those agglutinaters, a work of PERFECTION! The more similar to English the greater the advantage is the rule always, OF COURSE. God I love using the phrase "of course".
>>24683738Elegance vs idiocyIt's funny that English is a bastard language that in each incarnation loses its Germanic roots more and more and becomes more Latinized. Probably because Germanism (much like Asian languages) is just single words which rely on bullshit context clues which half the time are misinterpreted, whereas Latin is clear and concise. This is how you get "bow" meaning thirty different things with barely any difference in pronunciation
>>24683773>Now this is ACCURACY! All the advantages of agglutinative languages, none of the drawbacks, dude.
>>24683779Then why don't we continue this exchange in Latin if you're so opposed to it?
>>24683779No, English has gotten less and less like Latin over time, ie it has gone from a synthetic language to an analytic language. Also analytic languages make up for having no inflections to some extent through word order, prepositions etc. It might surprise you that Lojban, which is a constructed language designed to have no syntactic ambiguity, is an analytic language.https://youtu.be/qxOJ4p8e7NQ
>>24683805Because the website is English you mong. It's basic courtesy to speak the common language regardless of opinion. Though tbf Englishmen tend to not follow this considering how they go to other countries and force foreigners to speak English
Are there really only pseuds and retards on this board? Fuck you all.
>>24682146On the slim chance you are still around. Can you recommend a good work on linguistics that is more pragmatic and less academic? Something good for the writer who just wants to understand language a bit better?
>>24684178That guy is clearly a retard, he can't construct a coherent sentence. Also notice how he can't distinguish between singular and plural in English.
>>24684178Or maybe I should be more pragmatic about my question. What should a writer study about linguistics? >>24684190You already made an entire thread to seethe about him, what more do you need? Also, notice how you can't distinguish between what was said and the superfiscial, and can't into punctuation.
>>24684196Then learn to read retard. I said "also". Fuck off homo.>can't into punctuationlol says the fucking retard who wrote "superfiscial"
>>24684205>ignores what was said to be pedanticDon't expect me to explain the Samsung/Android autocorrect, but as far as I can tell it seems to consider your common drunken typos as intentional and autocorrect to those typos. But the Samsug/Andriod autocorrect is just an algorithm and i am drunk, what is your excuse?
>>24684212Nothing wrong with my punctuation. I think you should fuck off. Nothing but retards in this thread. Not a single fucking thing was learned from this thread. kys homo
>>24684226>Nothing wrong with my punctuation.>Also noticeI corrected your error when I followed your form and you still missed it.
>>24684236fuck off, or say something about the actual topic of the thread you fucking retarded homo
>>24684252>ignores point and seethesPoint taken.
>>24684236>>24684252>>24684262>or say something about the actual topic of the thread you fucking retarded homoActually don't, and you know nothing about it anyway. Just fuck off and kill yourself. You're defending an absolute retard. And you yourself are a fucking retard. Kill yourself.
>>24684264I never defended anyone. That anon provided enough context regarding their views that I would be able to weigh their recommendations to my query against their views and what they recommended. This is what the effort poster provides which the shitposter does not. Once again I ask, I am drunk and and drunkenly accept autocorrect, what is you excuse?
>>24684178Not him, but in my experience the issue with asking for a general linguistics text is that those tend to be about theoretical frameworks and postulate a number of basic "operations" that are intended to be applicable to all languages in one way or another, and so get really autistic and technical. Pic is from Ray Jackendoff's Foundations of Language, for example.Those that are more on the popsci side of things, like Guy Deutscher's The Unfolding of Language, can be much more accessible, but it's very different from reading debates over whether syllables exist in Japanese or a plain old grammar textbook. (I did have fun reading Sansom's An Historical Grammar of Japanese, though mostly because it's a book from 1928 by a smug British aristocrat.) If you're looking for inspiration, maybe something by George Lakoff would be a good choice, like Metaphors We Live By. (I haven't read that one, but I do like the guy.)
>>24684279Fuck off, he's not an effortposter, he made a shit argument, and doesn't elaborate. And you're not only a fucking retard but also a fucking degenerate. Fuck off and kill yourself.
>>24684316You're replying to a retard. That makes you a retard. Fuck off and kill yourself.
>>24684328The only retard I'm replying to is (You), roadrage-kun.
>>24684316I asked for what should a writer know about linguistics, not a text on linguistics. >>24684325he put more effort into his posts than you did. Most importantly he put enough effort into his posts to provide me useful context, he did not just drool on himself and use that as proof that it is raining.
>>24684344>he did not just drool on himself and use that as proof that it is raining.kek.
>>24684339fuck off and kill yourself>>24684344>he put more effort into his posts than you did.You can't fucking read. If you actually read what he said he didn't say much at all, was incoherent, made a really fucking lame argument, and when prompted to elaborate just vanished. You're a fucking retard, kill yourself.>>24684352You haven't said anything relevant to the topic. Fuck off retard.
>>24684344>I asked for what should a writer knowthis is the retard telling you about your grammar mistakes
>>24684344>I asked for what should a writer know about linguistics, not a text on linguistics.That always depends on what you're aiming for, Tolkien-tier conlanging is on the far end of things. But for basic ideas, The Unfolding of Language should suffice.
>merging inflections is an ADVANTAGE, and ACCURATE, just becauseWhat an effortposter! So smart!Nothing but fucking retards on this board.
>>24684367>one person said something I disagree with and didn't reply back>I shall proceed to rage about it for six (6) hours
>>24684356The responses he did not reply to were after he left, fairly certain he left after that because he has a life outside of 4chan, hence my starting my initial post with "On the slim chance you are still around." 4chan is not the place to go for anything but shitposts, but occasionally we get more. >>24684358You failed to quote my typo, sort of kills your "point.">>24684361What I am aiming for is what that anon think a writer should know. As I already said, he gave enough context that I can weigh his response against something more than autism. I think he proved his initial claim of studying linguistics at a level higher than 4chan autist, and his subsequent posts provided a great deal of context regarding his own views on the topic of linguistics which gives me a fair amount to work off of regarding his response to my query. What is so difficult about this for you?
>>24684379I didn't bump this thread for that retard fuckface. Tell me what was so fucking great about his posts. There was jack shit in them, you can't read. His only point was that Latin merges multiple meanings into the same morpheme, and this is an advantage, just because it is, and it's accurate, just because it is. That's the literal fucking definition of a fusional language, he didn't even say a fucking thing, and gullible retards like you fell for it. Picrel has rarely felt more appropriate.
>>24684404You seem to be missing that he is a linguist and not an autist.
>>24684409>muh linguistFucking retard. His only argument was that Latin sometimes does picrel. He couldn't explain why this is an advantage over agglutinative languages, or why it's "more accurate" than agglutinative languages. And when I showed that Latin doesn't always have multiple identical morphemes like that, here >>24682322, then he had nothing to say about that. I don't give a fuck if he's a linguist, he made a hollow shit argument, and you're the dumbest most gullible person I've met, just read your posts, fucking empty of content, learn how to fucking convey information and how to fucking take in information, you're severely lacking in both areas, kill yourself.
>>24684427He had given up on 4chan by that point. Again, why I prefaced my post with "On the slim chance you are still around." And again, his posts give enough to context to weigh his response against. Does not matter if if he is right or wrong, he offered more than just seethe. Is context really this difficult for you? Offer something more than seethe and I will ask you the same question despite your already having demonstrated being a seething retard.
>>24684381>What is so difficult about this for you?It's like asking "what do I need to know about biology." The answer to both is, "what do you want to write?" That's what determines the scope of your investigation. If you don't know where to begin, then it'd just be simple popsci.>>24684404OP, the answer to your question is simply >>24681672 and >>24681861. That's the answer any linguist will give you. Archetypal typology is a horoscope, a shorthand, and not even consistent within a single language. Japanese is agglutinative verb-wise, but totally analytical in terms of nouns, which don't inflect at all, and it may be trending towards gaining more fusional characteristics if you look at how auxiliary verbs regularly fuse with the て that comes before them, which is precisely what happened previously with て+ある -> -た/たら/たり and i-onbin affecting te-forms. It's just a phonetic treadmill causing paradigms to collapse and be remade as time passes.The advantage of a fusional paradigm is that a single inflection can specify multiple things with a single shorter morpheme, but this is prone to collapsing due to said treadmill, like Latin and Old English both losing inflections due to erosion of their endings caused by phonetic change. That's it, that's all that can be said.
>>24684439>his posts give enough to context to weigh his response againstYou keep saying this. Learn English. What the fuck are you even trying to say?>Does not matter if if he is right or wrongWhat? The topic of the thread is do fusional languages have any advantages over agglutinative languages? He said yes, because they sometimes have multiple identical inflections, which reduces the number of inflections. He did not have an answer to why this is an advantage. He also said it's more accurate and could not answer why it's more accurate or what he means by "accurate". He didn't provide shit. I already fucking knew Latin sometimes has different inflections that are identical. The fucking topic, again, is what is the advantage of fusional over agglutinative.>he offered more than just seetheHe offered jack shit, not everyone who came into this thread didn't know a fucking thing like you, good if you learned something, I didn't, and he didn't make an argument, at all.
>>24684444Not at all like asking what I need to know about biology, I added in a context that makes the question far less vague. And again, I would weigh his response against his posts. I would also weigh it against my interests and goals, which I assumed was obvious but I am beginning to think you are a retard who thinks everyone but you and those who tell you are right, is a retard. >>24684452If you can not see that my initial post is only marginally related to OP, you are beyond hope.
>>24684466Just go with The Unfolding of Language.
>>24684444>the answer to your question is simply >>24681672 and >>24681861I already addressed that. I said I'm not asking which type of language is superior overall, I'm asking for any EXAMPLE of an advantage in a certain context. Is this difficult for you to understand?>The advantage of a fusional paradigm is that a single inflection can specify multiple things with a single shorter morphemeNo, as I already said, this is just the definition of a fusional language.>but this is prone to collapsing due to said treadmill, like Latin and Old English both losing inflections due to erosion of their endings caused by phonetic change.That's just a hypothesis, and anyway when I say advantage I'm not talking about that kind of thing, whether a language will last over centuries etc, I'm talking about here and now. Another guy talked about the amount of literature, same thing, I'm not talking about the indirect consequences of the language but the language itself.Again, the thing that was brought up earlier is that a fusional language can have multiple identical inflections within a paradigm, known as syncretism, such as in picrel where there are 12 cases but only 6 words to express them, because there are 5 glacies, 2 glaciei and 2 glaciebus. Agglutinative languages can't do this. I'm asking again, how is this an advantage? I also posted a picture which shows that Latin doesn't always do this:https://i.4cdn.org/lit/1756542532099874.pngIt does it sometimes. Again, what is the advantage of the fact fusional languages SOMETIMES do this?
>>24684444What is the picture saying? Very interesting picture but I don't speak Japanese.
>>24684444>paradigms to collapse and be remadeWhat do you mean by that? By paradigm do you mean the total collection of inflections of a word? What do you mean by a paradigm collapsing? And what do you mean by a paradigm being remade?
>>24684444>Archetypal typology is a horoscope, a shorthandWhat are you talking about? Are you making up words and phrases? "Achetypal topology" doesn't even get any hits on google.
>>24684444>Japanese is agglutinative verb-wise, but totally analytical in terms of nounsYeah, most languages are not 100% fusional, agglutinative or analytic, but rather a mix. So? How is that relevant to the topic of the thread? What's your point? The topic is about the agglutinative aspects of a language vs the fusional aspects of a language. Why are you so afraid of putting the finger on one thing, and then on another, and say A is better than B in this and that respect, in this and that context? Are you too afraid to insult someone? Your posts have no substance, just fucking beating around the bush, being too fucking vague because hey everything is just as good as everything else bla bla fucking bla. I don't know if you even understand the topic. Tell me what the fuck is the advantage of having this:https://i.4cdn.org/lit/1756616782525900.pngAnd tell me what the fuck "more accurate" means, and how the fuck fusional languages are "more accurate" than agglutinative languages.
English is a great, maybe the best "technical" language. It is possibly the least latently poetic language, and therefore, lends itself the least readily to considerations of ideals. The world is as gruesome with materialism and misanthropy today because English is the dominant language, and American English has been infilitrated by Marxist dialectic.Picrel
>>24684495>That's just a hypothesisWhat do you mean by that?
>>24684559Really, that's all you're going to respond to of all I wrote? Then fuck you, you're not worthy of a response.
>>24684526Nah English fucking sucks ass. Too much ambiguity.
>>24684570You have strange fixations that don't make any sense. Yes, the thing that defines fusional languages is also its advantage, its disadvantage is that the systems are usually quite irregular due to historical change. Somehow you can't accept this, so I asked specifically about "it's just a hypothesis" because it's a suspicious thing to say about something so basic.
>>24684593The only way you can have too much ambiguity is if it is to the point you can't say what you mean in a way others understand. This obviously excludes retards.
>>24684595fuck off brainlet
>>24684600K.
>>24684595The thing that defines fusional languages is putting multiple grammatical features into one morpheme. This thing https://i.4cdn.org/lit/1756616782525900.png, merging, syncretism, is the thing that guy said was the advantage, this is something fusional languages sometimes do but it's not the definition of a fusional language. We have to distinguish these two things.>about something so basicWhat is basic, retard?Also if you think "the thing that defines it is its advantage" is an argument then you're a fucking retard. It's pretty fucking clear you need to fucking elaborate on WHY that thing, which is already fucking known, is an advantage. How fucking low is your IQ?
>>24681637You wouldn't happen to be Turkish, would you?
>>24685608No, my native language is analytic, just like English. Totally irrelevant though. Learn how to argue.
>>24681637Bump.
So as far as I can tell syncretism could have the possible advantage of making the language easier to learn/remember. However then we're in the realm of comparing fusional languages vs analytic languages, or fusional languages with syncretism vs fusional languages without syncretism, and this thread is about fusional vs agglutinative, and this argument doesn't hold in that discussion.>>24682146>a ‘perfect’ agglutinative language would show 16 inflections (G1N1F1, G1N1F2, G2N1F1 and so on) while a fusional language can merge them to reduce down the number of inflections.This is a bad point because the whole thing with agglutinative languages is that unlike a fusional language where you need to memorize the whole inflection paradigm, you don't need to memorize G1N1F1, G1N1F2, G2N1F1 and so on in an agglutinative language, you just need to know G1, G2, etc, N1, N2, etc, F1, F2, etc. If you have a paradigm, such as picrel, in a fusional language you need to know the words in the white boxes, in an agglutinate language you have a word for every turquoise box instead and simply need to know these words and then you just glue them on in a string after the word, combine them, this is the whole thing that defines agglutinative vs fusional, it's literally in the words "agglutinative", from: united by or as by glue, to unite or cause to adhere, as with glue; "fusional", from: melted, poured, cast. So the argument that syncretism makes fusional languages easier to learn and memorize is moot, since agglutinative languages by their nature are much easier to learn and memorize than fusional languages.
>>24685693You're retarded. Learn to argue.
>>24685816>If you have a paradigm, such as picrel, in a fusional language you need to know the words in the white boxes, in an agglutinate language you have a word for every turquoise box instead and simply need to know these words and then you just glue them on in a string after the word, combine themIn the picture this only makes the difference 12 vs 8. But in agglutinative languages these glued on endings are the same for all words, so it's a huge difference. You might as well have glued on the words "plural", "masculine" etc.
>>24685818learn absolute basic logic
>>24682393Isolating languages have Classical Chinese, if we're talking literary traditions.
>>24686274the thread is about advantages of fusional languages over agglutinative languages
>>24686288Off the top of my head, agglutinative languages with somewhat notable literary traditions: Tamil, Turkish, Chagatai, Japanese. (But the merits of isolating languages also seem relevant to the overall topic.)
brevity, mostly
>>24686300You missed it but I said earlier that the thread is about the languages themselves, not their history, their literature, their resistance to degradation over centuries, political consequences etc etc
bump
>>24681637Bump
>>24684178>>24684196Hello! It does depend on what you want to write, but I would say that the branch most likely to interest you is stylistics. This examines the mechanisms of euphony, registers of language, and the way syntax shapes meaning (through clause structure, disjunction, conjunction and so on). In short, it analyses how a sentence produces a meaning in context, more than its literal signification. Mastering bases will allow you, in your own work, to exercise greater control over the evocative power of writing.The best work I have read on metaphor, metonymy, and simile is Silk's “Interaction in Poetic Imagery” however it relies heavily on Greek examples (I'm concerned with historical linguistics and read classics in university) so it may be off-putting to some readers. Still it's available on Z-Library so you might want to have a look. Otherwise, Richard Lanham's “Analyzing Prose” and Geoffrey Leech's “Style in Fiction” both provide excellent coverage for writers in English, especially the latter, with plenty of examples. You should read about hypotaxis and parataxis, period, some pragmatics (tone, irony, types of speech), metaphors and similes, and a few figures of speech that are important in my opinion (tricolon, synecdoche, anaphora, metonymy).Otherwise I don't see a case to learn further about linguistics. Perhaps sociolinguistics to deal with geography, gender or class in speech variation, which then likely requires some background in phonetics, but most material can be grabbed from Wikipedia.
>>24688074Nta but whats a good rec to begin learning the nature and function of language itself. Complete noob. Does it improve grammar? I think my grammar is atrocious but language itself is something im developing an interest in.
>>24688094One of the best introductions for the general reader is Lyons’ “Language and Linguistics”. It is somewhat dated and formal (expect tree diagrams), but still fresh, well written, and very comprehensive. Most of what a learned person should know about linguistics overall does fit in, and if you were to keep only one book, this should be this one. There are more recent introductions, such as Genetti's “How Languages Work”, but its content is much, much lighter and it follows the regrettable habit of modern publishers of hacking the text into self-contained chapters with individual authors (a camel is a horse designed by a committee, goes the saying). Studying a little linguistics will certainly improve your grammar, though not as much as a solid grammar book. To be honest, much of the discipline is concerned with phenomena too fine-grained (phonetics, phonology, and so on) to have any real impact on the quality of your writing. It is better to focus on a good grammar, throw in stylistics, pragmatics, and some literary criticism (good one, like Curtius, Spitzer or Auerbach).
>>24688105Thanks anon.
>>24681637I fucking hate Chinese
this is pseudo science
