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This is a question concerning linguistics (I guess), so if you are one of those people who
>not real science,
please move on.
Now I've noticed a certain quirkiness of language that I've thought to be specific only to my own native language (Serbian) but I've just realized that it's something prevalent in English too.
>I ate an apple.
Now in this sentence, people would say that the word "an" is FOLLOWED by "apple" or that "apple" FOLLOWS "an". In my head, I can't realize how is that true because for "an" to follow "apple" would require that the part of the sentence be "apple an".
This is the same in Serbian, we would say that "an" is in front of "apple".
But consider the following. Sentences in European languages are read from left to right, as illustrated by the poorly-drawn image I made in paint just now. If you imagine yourself standing on point A of the axis, and you are heading in the "normal reading direction", towards point B, wouldn't anything that you have yet to encounter be IN FRONT OF YOU ? English and Serbian speakers read left to right, but yet they use terms for the imagined spacial distribution of elements in a sentence, as if they read right to left and I was wondering why is that.
Or am I just overthinking this ?
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If you say "an apple" (aloud or in your mind), the following happens:
1. You first say "an".
2. You then say "apple".
So the state 2 follows the state 1. Therefore "apple" follows "an".
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>>8309543
Serb here.
Words that come earlier(Are to the left) than another word, 'lead' so to speak.
While words that come later(Are to the right) than another word, 'follow'.
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>>8309589
Also, you can compare this to mathematics concept of leading zeros and trailing zeros.
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>>8309581
I understand, but why does 2 follow 1 and not the opposite ? Isn't it more logical to assume that 1 follows 2 since 1 is behind 2 ?
In my head, behind and in front of are defined as terms that are relative to direction, and since the direction is 1 and then 2 - "an" and then "apple" - I naturally assume that 2 is followed by 1.
My head hurts.
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>>8309589
Anglo here
your not white, your dumb XD
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>>8309598
Think of it in terms of first place, second place, third place in a race for example.
Which follows and which leads?
Ili ti mozda treba objasnjenje na Srpskom?
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>>8309607
Nikada nisam o tome razmisljao na taj nacin. Meni je bilo logicnije da se drzim pravca citanja recenice i da na osnovu toga definisem "ispred" i "iza".
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>>8309609
I mene je mucilo to pre nekih 5-6 godina.
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>>8309656
Hvala na odgovoru, sve najbolje.
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>>8309562
linguistics (linguist here) at the university level in well-ranked departments is largely studied as a natural science; the main overlaps are psychology, neuro, computational modeling, and physiology/motor control; linguistic theory itself is mainly semi-mathematical models of sentence structure, meaning, and pronunciation systems.
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