Re: Word class marking in the wild...

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Lars Mathiesen skrev:
>> This article describes how even English seems to allow heuristic
>> discrimination of nouns and verbs (with a low success rate, it seems,
>> but better than random):
>>
>> http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060809_word_sounds.html
>>
>> --
>> Lars
>>
>
> So what **is** the difference? one wonders! Intonation?
Yep - I read:
{quote}
However, if you are mouthing a whole bunch of nouns or verbs and
listening for a similar sound in each group, you're out of luck.

"It's not a particular sound," Christiansen said. "It's much more subtle
than that."
{/quote}

OK - So if it's more subtle than a particular sound, what is it? Why
can't we be told? If it's so elusive that it can't be explained, does it
really exist?

--
Ray
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