Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: bogy23 on 12/10/2014 07:46:03
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Hello,
How do you find phonological ambiguities in other languages like italian hungarian romanian.Are they only homonymous or is there a more complex thinking process behind them?
thank you
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I would have to ask a native speaker.
Italian is much more phonetic than English, so words that sound alike are also likely to be written alike.
Phonetic spelling turns a homonym (two different words which sound alike) into a word with two distinct dictionary meanings.
Or you could try downloading an Italian dictionary, and look for words with multiple distinct definitions.
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Just came across one in German: Flugel (aber mit umlaut - can't find one on this font). Means a grand piano or a wing, which makes Hannah Reisch's famous comment on an experimental aircraft ("it flies like a piano") twice as funny.
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grand piano or a wing
I guess the open lid of a grand piano does look a bit like a wing?
So perhaps the grand piano was named after the wing?
This might be a case of adding a second meaning to an existing word (by analogy)?
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Here's one I just remembered from my youth.
C'est assez, dit la baleine, que je cache a l'eau mon dos fin.
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Here's one I just remembered from my youth.
C'est assez, dit la baleine, que je cache a l'eau mon dos fin.
That looks like a good way to make French more fun to learn. I can see three cetacians in it - hope I haven't missed any more.
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I would have to ask a native speaker.
Italian is much more phonetic than English, so words that sound alike are also likely to be written alike.
Or, you could ask a first year student. They are often quite good at making a mess out of things.
Italian is quite phonetic. But there are a few homophones that are not homographs. Since the H is silent in Italian, it can be used to differentiate between homophones. Italian also uses a lot of single and double constants, which a native speaker can generally hear, but they can be confusing to students of the language, and perhaps could be used for word play.
For example Hanno and Anno are quite different. (not to be confused with Ano). Fortunately the distinction is generally clear from the context.
Also, in Italian, if you're talking about figs and fig leaves, just make sure your discussion is really what you think it is about.
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I`m romanian native speaker yet i can not find phonological ambiguitie how do i find them isn`t there a pattern a strategy to identify them?
Thank yu
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Just look carefully at text and try to see if any part of it can be twisted to mean something different. It may be that it's harder to do that with Romanian than with other languages. There is no shortcut to finding them, unless you just look up lists like this one: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=10949.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=10949.0). If you try using Google to search for "phonological ambiguity" in Romanian you might find similar lists. In English, you just happen upon phonological ambiguities from time to time, so "wouldn't it" may suddenly be heard as "wooden tit" instead. Wooden tit bee nigh sieve it cooed bee dun buy you zing a cyst, em... (would't it be nice if it could be done using a system). I would have thought something of that kind could be found in Romanian, or any other language for that matter. In this case there is only one way to make sense of the sentence, but in some cases it will by chance have an alternative interpretation which may be fully valid: I was doing some gardening, just removing a few dandelions, and a giant hogweed on my lawn.
(Giant hogweed is a plant, but it can be misinterpreted as "giant hog urinated".)
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How do you find phonological ambiguities ...
Try googling "mondegreen" ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
e.g. [:)]
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I used to do medical transcription and generally it was not medical or anatomical terms that gave me trouble, but common every day words run together, or an unexpected pause between syllables that would cause me to misunderstand what was said. It was surprising how often groups of words could sound exactly alike (stuffy nose / stuff he knows) And once you hear something wrong, it's hard to hear it differently, even when you know it makes no sense. Some times I'd have to take a break and come back and listen to it later. Phonological ambiguity is one of the biggest turtles in transcription.