New study shows that nouns and verbs are phonetically different

[Christine]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207602,00.html

Linguistic Surprise: Nouns, Verbs Phonetically Different

Linguists have long believed that the sound of a word reveals nothing about its meaning, except for a few words such as "buzz" or "beep," which are part of a phenomenon known as onomatopoeia.

But a new study analyzing the sounds of nouns and verbs challenges that view.

"What we have shown is that the sound of a word can tell us something about how it is used," said Morten Christiansen, associate professor of psychology at Cornell University. "Specifically, it tells us whether the word is used as a noun or as a verb, and this relationship affects how we process such words."

..."This affects how you interpret a sentence, something that can help you in reading and practicing faster," Christiansen said, adding that this information can also be used in language acquisition.

The researchers performed the analysis English only, but suspect that there are cues in words of other languages as well.

[IIrina]

E male sospettano! Infinocchiatori di riviste scientifiche..... è il contesto che mdifica il significato. Poi una cosa è la scritta un'altra è la parlata. La fonetica si riferisce alla lingua parlata che è ovviamente piena di verbi e sostantivi foneticamente confondibili! Ma che significa in inglese? In italiano significa puzza ma in foggiano stretto. E poi non capisco che perché cavolo hanno studiato le differeneze inglese visto che basta aggiuntere "to" per l'infinito e "ed" per il passato prossimo senza declinare. La lingua più inflessibile dell'universo.

[Christine]

E male sospettano! Infinocchiatori di riviste scientifiche..... è il contesto che mdifica il significato. Poi una cosa è la scritta un'altra è la parlata. La fonetica si riferisce alla lingua parlata che è ovviamente piena di verbi e sostantivi foneticamente confondibili! Ma che significa in inglese? In italiano significa puzza ma in foggiano stretto. E poi non capisco che perché cavolo hanno studiato le differeneze inglese visto che basta aggiuntere "to" per l'infinito e "ed" per il passato prossimo senza declinare. La lingua più inflessibile dell'universo.

Mi sembra che non hai capito, e non so spiegarlo in italiano.

[Mitteleuropeo]

Mi sembra che non hai capito, e non so spiegarlo in italiano.

* If I correctly understand IIrina, she is pointing out that in English the difference between nouns and verbs is almost not-existing.
Take "beat": "To beat" is a verb and "the beat" is a noun. It is hard to understand, how the sound of the word "beat" could significantly change between these two ways of using it.

I share IIrina's perplexity

[IIrina]

Thau art cleaver Middleuropean!

[Christine]

* If I correctly understand IIrina, she is pointing out that in English the difference between nouns and verbs is almost not-existing.
Take "beat": "To beat" is a verb and "the beat" is a noun. It is hard to understand, how the sound of the word "beat" could significantly change between these two ways of using it.

I share IIrina's perplexity

Did you read the whole article, or just the part I posted?

[Mitteleuropeo]

When I pposted my reply, I had read only the part posted by Christine. Now, I have read it completely and feel that the key to its understanding is:

The researchers found that volunteers had an easier time processing verbs that sound more like the typical sounding verbs, such as "amuse," than they did with non-typical verbs.

Therefore, there must be something, perhaps derived from inconscious impressions from everyday's life, leading to the perception of the root of a word as "verb" or "noun". It would be interesting, indeed, to show whether this conception applies also to other languages and the results are comparable with the English-language study.

For e.g. I wonder if "fatto" and "stato" would be perceived by an Italian speaking volunteer as nouns or as forms of verbs.

[Mitteleuropeo]

Siamo in Italia e si parla in italiano!!

E mi te parlo in Veneto: mona de un padan, no te ga leto come che se ciama sto forum? Ancora el sol dele Alpi te te ga meso in tel avatar! Te ga capio tuto, picio!

[IIrina]

World Wide Forum? Allora parna in Talian!