Syntax

The Double Negatives of Afrikaans

Ever heard an Afrikaans speaker say "Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie" and wondered about that extra "nie"? This seemingly redundant…

3 months ago

The Case of the Missing ‘Is’ in Russian

In Russian, "My brother is a doctor" becomes "Мой брат – врач" (My brother – doctor). This isn't a mistake…

3 months ago

Forgetting the Subject: The Case of Pro-Drop in Italian

Ever wonder why an Italian speaker says "Vado al cinema" instead of "Io vado al cinema"? This linguistic magic trick…

3 months ago

Why Do Some Languages Use Postpositions?

Ever wondered why Japanese speakers say "box in" instead of "in the box"? This seemingly small difference is no accident;…

3 months ago

Who Did What? Case vs. Word Order

Ever wonder why you can't scramble an English sentence, but you can in languages like Latin or Russian? This analysis…

3 months ago

Building Sentences Backwards: The Verb-Final World

Ever felt like you're waiting for the punchline of a sentence? In languages like Japanese, German, and Hindi, that's the…

3 months ago

The Grammar of Nothing: Null Subjects

Ever wonder why you can say "Piove" in Italian for "It's raining", but "Is raining" is wrong in English? This…

3 months ago

How to Own Without ‘Have’: The Be-Languages

In languages like English, you 'have' a book. But in Russian, Irish, or Turkish, you would say "to me there…

3 months ago

The Sentence Tree: How AI Parses Grammar

Ever wonder how your smart assistant untangles a complex question or how machine translation works so well? It's not magic;…

3 months ago

The Ghost in the Object: Spain’s Personal ‘a’

Ever wonder why Spanish speakers say "Veo a María" but "Veo la mesa"? This grammatical quirk, known as the "personal…

3 months ago

This website uses cookies.