Linguistic puzzles#

This page contains linguistic puzzles grouped by topic. I am not the author of these puzzles! I use them in the ‘Linguistics for Language Technology’ course as a tool for practicing linguistic analysis: inferring underlying rules and structures from linguistic data.

Puzzle 1: Stress in Muscogee#

This puzzle is linked to the topic of weeks 2 and 3 ‘Transmitting and capturing language’. Here, you will be given (limited) linguistic data, and your task is to uncover a rule that explains these data. Moreover, the data is unlocked in three portions, each new portion of data challenging your previous generalization. The language this puzzle focusses on is the Muscogee language, a language that has roughly 5000 speakers and belongs to the Muskogean language family in North America. Presumably, this is a language you don’t know much or anything about. That’s the whole point! Existing Large Language Models also don’t have any knowledge about Muscogee and actually weren’t able to solve this puzzle last time I checked. Enjoy!

Problem 1#

Look at the following several words in the Muscogee language with stress marked:

cokó ‘house’

yanása ‘bison’

iyanawá ‘his/her cheek’

imahicíta ‘to look out for’

lafotaháya ‘melon’

itiwanayipíta ‘to tie each other down’

Mark stress on the following words:

ifa ‘dog’

ifoci ‘puppy’

wanayita ‘to knit’

awanayita ‘to tie’

Problem 2#

Here are more Muscogee words with stress marked:

sókca ‘bag’

pocóswa ‘axe’

aktopá ‘bridge’

akkopánka ‘game’

inkosapitá ‘to beg’

acahankatíta ‘to consider me’

pokkałakkoaopankacóko ‘basketball gym’

Mark stress on the following words:

hoktaki ‘women’

isiskitoci ‘small glass’

ilitohtałita ‘to cross legs’

Did you have to revise the stress rules you found in Problem 1 in order to finish the task?

Problem 3#

Here are even more Muscogee words with stress marked:

cá:lo ‘trout’

wa:kocí ‘calf’

famí:ca ‘pumpkin’

hî:spákwa ‘American robin’

aklowahí ‘mud’

tapassó:la ‘cellar spider’

tokna:photí ‘wallet’

co:kakiłłitá ‘study’

cokpilâ:pilá ‘nightjar’

Mark stress on the following words:

nâ:naki ‘things’

sâ:sakwa ‘goose’

a:tamihoma ‘hood’

homanta:ki ‘men’

Did you have to revise the stress rules you found in Problem 2 in order to finish the task?

Note: ł is a consonant; the hat over a vowel (e.g. â) marks falling tone; vowel length is marked with a colon (e.g. a:).