sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: The ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists and philologists, particularly among Spanish ones, such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal.

Question: To what branch of Gallo-Romance languages is Catalan attributed?

Question: Who disagrees with putting Catalan in the Occitano-Romance branch?

Question: What kind of linguists do not like placing Catalan in the Occitano-Romance category?
Passage: Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to the linguistic varieties subsumed under the cover term Occitan language (see also differences between Occitan and Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages). Thus, as it should be expected from closely related languages, Catalan today shares many traits with other Romance languages.

Question: What is Catalan a variety of?

Question: What are the degrees of similarity with Occitan and Gallo-Romance languages?

Question: What are there besides degrees of similarity with Occitan?

Question: What does Catalan share with other Romance languages?

Question: Why does Catalan share many traits with other Romance languages?
Passage: Catalan shares many traits with the other neighboring Romance languages (Italian, Sardinian, Occitan, and Spanish). However, despite being mostly situated in the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Ibero-Romance group (Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; showing instead its closest affinity with Occitan and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance (French, Franco-Provençal, Gallo-Italian).

Question: What does Catalan share with nearby Romance languages?

Question: Where is the Catalan language mostly located?

Question: In pronunciation what is Catalan different from?

Question: What are examples of Ibero-Romance languages?

Question: To what group is Catalan most closely related?
Passage: According to Ethnologue, the lexical similarity between Catalan and other Romance languages is: 87% with Italian; 85% with Portuguese; 80% with Spanish; 76% with Ladin; 75% with Sardinian; and 73% with Romanian.

Question: What is the similarity between Catalan and Italian?

Question: Hoe similar is Catalan to Portuguese?

Question: What is the percent relationship of Catalan to Spanish?

Question: What is the relationship similarity to Ladin?

Question: How related is Sardinian to Catalan?
Passage: During much of its history, and especially during the Francoist dictatorship (1939–1975), the Catalan language has often been degraded as a mere dialect of Spanish. This view, based on political and ideological considerations, has no linguistic validity. Spanish and Catalan have important differences in their sound systems, lexicon, and grammatical features, placing the language in a number of respects closer to Occitan (and French).

Question: What has Catalan often been considered?

Question: During what dictatorship was Catalan considered a dialect?
Passage: There is evidence that, at least from the a.d. 2nd century, the vocabulary and phonology of Roman Tarraconensis was different from the rest of Roman Hispania. Differentiation has arisen generally because Spanish, Asturian, and Galician-Portuguese share certain peripheral archaisms (Spanish hervir, Asturian/Portuguese ferver vs. Catalan bullir, Occitan bolir "to boil") and innovatory regionalisms (Sp novillo, Ast nuviellu vs. Cat torell, Oc taurèl "bullock"), while Catalan has a shared history with the Western Romance innovative core, especially Occitan.

Question: What area was Roman Tarraconensis language different from?

Question: What language branch did Catalan share a history with?

Question: What is Occitan a branch of?
Passage: The Germanic superstrate has had different outcomes in Spanish and Catalan. For example, Catalan fang "mud" and rostir "to roast", of Germanic origin, contrast with Spanish lodo and asar, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan filosa "spinning wheel" and pols "temple", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish rueca and sien, of Germanic origin.

Question: What is the origin of language elements found in Catalan and not in Spanish?

Question: What is the origin of some Spanish words?

Question: What has different results in Spanish and Catalan?
Passage: The same happens with Arabic loanwords. Thus, Catalan alfàbia "large earthenware jar" and rajola "tile", of Arabic origin, contrast with Spanish tinaja and teja, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan oli "oil" and oliva "olive", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish aceite and aceituna. However, the Arabic element in Spanish is generally much more prevalent.

Question: What element in Spanish is more prominent than in Catalan?

Question: What language loanwords are found in both Spanish and Catalan?

Question: In which language is the Arabic element stand out more?

Question: Where does the Catalan word alfabia come from?

Question: What is the origin of the Spanish word teja?
Passage: Situated between two large linguistic blocks (Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance), Catalan has many unique lexical choices, such as enyorar "to miss somebody", apaivagar "to calm down somebody", or rebutjar "reject".

Question: What are the linguistic blocks Catalan lies between?

Question: What kind of linguistic choices does Catalan have?

Question: What type of unique choices does Catalan have?

Question: What is the Catalan to miss somebody?
Passage: These territories are sometimes referred to as the Països Catalans (Catalan Countries), a denomination based on cultural affinity and common heritage, that has also had a subsequent political interpretation but no official status. Various interpretations of the term may include some or all of these regions.

Question: What are the Paisos Catalans

Question: What is that determination based on?

Question: What status does Catalan Countries have?

Question: What is the interpretation of the term?

Question: What is the term for Catalan Countries?
Passage: In contrast with other Romance languages, Catalan has many monosyllabic words; and those ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters. Also, Catalan has final obstruent devoicing, thus featuring many couplets like amic "(male friend") vs. amiga ("female friend").

Question: How is Catalan different from other Romance languages?

Question: What other type of endings do Catalan words have?

Question: What kind of final devoicing does the language have?

Question: What do many words feature?
Passage: Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language. The descriptions below are mostly for this variety. For the differences in pronunciation of the different dialects, see the section pronunciation of dialects in this article.

Question: What is the standard pronunciation of Catalan?

Question: What is Central Catalan?

Question: What are the descriptions for?

Question: Where do you look for the pronunciation of different dialects?
Passage: Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes: /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed /ə/. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair /ɛ e/.

Question: Where does Catalan get its vowel system?

Question: How many stressed phenoms are there?

Question: Where is this a common feature?

Question: What is the exception to this common characteristic?

Question: What differs in vowel reduction?
Passage: In Central Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to three: /a e ɛ/ > [ə]; /o ɔ u/ > [u]; /i/ remains distinct. The other dialects have different vowel reduction processes (see the section pronunciation of dialects in this article).

Question: How many reduced unstressed are vowels are there in Central Catalan?

Question: What vowel stays distinct?

Question: What kind of vowel processes do other dialects have?

Question: Where do unstressed vowels reduce to three?

Question: Where do you find dialectic vowel reductions?
Passage: Catalan sociolinguistics studies the situation of Catalan in the world and the different varieties that this language presents. It is a subdiscipline of Catalan philology and other affine studies and has as an objective to analyse the relation between the Catalan language, the speakers and the close reality (including the one of other languages in contact).

Question: What field studies the placement of Catalan in the world?

Question: What is the study of the differenet varieties of Catalan?

Question: What is this a subdiscipline of?

Question: What does it want to do with the language, the speakers, and reality?

Question: What outside affects does this study include?
Passage: The dialects of the Catalan language feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between dialects is very high, estimates ranging from 90% to 95%. The only exception is the isolated idiosyncratic Alguerese dialect.

Question: What do the dialects of Catalan feature?

Question: In comparison to what are the dialects uniform?

Question: What is high among dialects?

Question: What is the percentage of intelligibility between dialects?

Question: What dialect is the exception to intelligibility?
Passage: Catalan is split in two major dialectal blocks: Eastern Catalan, and Western Catalan. The main difference lies in the treatment of unstressed a and e; which have merged to /ə/ in Eastern dialects, but which remain distinct as /a/ and /e/ in Western dialects. There are a few other differences in pronunciation, verbal morphology, and vocabulary.

Question: What is the major difference between the two blocks?

Question: How are a and e in western dialects?

Question: What have a and e done in eastern dialects?
Passage: Western Catalan comprises the two dialects of Northwestern Catalan and Valencian; the Eastern block comprises four dialects: Central Catalan, Balearic, Rossellonese, and Alguerese. Each dialect can be further subdivided in several subdialects.

Question: What two dialects does Western Catalan include?

Question: How many dialects are in the eastern group?

Question: To what division does Central Catalan belong?

Question: What other divisions can be made of dialects?

Question: What block does Northwestern Catalan and Valencian belong to?
Passage: Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language and has the highest number of speakers. It is spoken in the densely populated regions of the Barcelona province, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona, and most of the province of Girona.

Question: What comprises the standard pronunciation of Catalan?

Question: Where are the most speakers found?

Question: In what densely populated area is it spoken?

Question: What part of the province of Tarragona is Central Catalan spoken?
Passage: Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes: /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed /ə/. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair /ɛ e/.

Question: What is the vowel system of Catalan?

Question: How many stressed phonemes are there in Catalan?

Question: Where is this system common?

Question: What language is the exception?

Question: What language form differs in the amount of vowel reduction?
Passage: In Eastern Catalan (except Majorcan), unstressed vowels reduce to three: /a e ɛ/ > [ə]; /o ɔ u/ > [u]; /i/ remains distinct. There are a few instances of unreduced [e], [o] in some words. Alguerese has lowered [ə] to [a].

Question: Where do unstressed vowels reduce to three?

Question: What is the exception to this reduction?

Question: Which vowel remains distinct?
Passage: In Majorcan, unstressed vowels reduce to four: /a e ɛ/ follow the Eastern Catalan reduction pattern; however /o ɔ/ reduce to [o], with /u/ remaining distinct, as in Western Catalan.

Question: In what language do unstressed vowels reduce to four?

Question: What reduction pattern do some vowels follow?

Question: What other pattern do other vowels follow?

Question: What letter remains distinct?

Question: /u/ remaining distinct is like what form of Catalan?
Passage: In Western Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to five: /e ɛ/ > [e]; /o ɔ/ > [o]; /a u i/ remain distinct. This reduction pattern, inherited from Proto-Romance, is also found in Italian and Portuguese. Some Western dialects present further reduction or vowel harmony in some cases.

Question: What do unstressed vowels reduce to in Western Catalan?

Question: Which letters remain distinct?

Question: Where did this pattern come from?

Question: In what other languages is this pattern found?

Question: What do other Western dialects sometimes offer?
Passage: Central, Western, and Balearic differ in the lexical incidence of stressed /e/ and /ɛ/. Usually, words with /ɛ/ in Central Catalan correspond to /ə/ in Balearic and /e/ in Western Catalan. Words with /e/ in Balearic almost always have /e/ in Central and Western Catalan as well.[vague] As a result, Central Catalan has a much higher incidence of /e/.

Question: What form has the same /e/ as Central and Western?

Question: What vowel does Central have a larger occurrence of?

Question: What is the result of /e/ being the same in Central, Western and Belearic?
Passage: In verbs, 1st person present indicative desinence is -e (∅ in verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugation), or -o. E.g. parle, tem, sent (Valencian); parlo, temo, sento (Northwestern). In verbs, 1st person present indicative desinence is -o, -i or ∅ in all conjugations. E.g. parlo (Central), parl (Balearic), parli (Northern), ('I speak').

Question: What language is parle or tem ?

Question: What language is parlo or temo ?

Question: What language is parl?

Question: What language form is parli?
Passage: In nouns and adjectives, maintenance of /n/ of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words. E.g. hòmens 'men', jóvens 'youth'. In nouns and adjectives, loss of /n/ of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words. E.g. homes 'men', joves 'youth'.

Question: Where do you find medieval plurals?

Question: What letter is lost in some words?

Question: When homens loses /n/, it becomes what word?

Question: The medieval jovens becomes what what word?

Question: What kind of plural words lose /n/?
Passage: Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Question: What do the two blocks of Catalan display differences in?

Question: How can you explain differences in the language groups?

Question: What form is innovative?

Question: What are the two blocks of Catalan?

Question: What does an archaism explain?
Passage: Standard Catalan, virtually accepted by all speakers, is mostly based on Eastern Catalan, which is the most widely used dialect. Nevertheless, the standards of Valencia and the Balearics admit alternative forms, mostly traditional ones, which are not current in eastern Catalonia.

Question: What is Standard based on?

Question: What form is excepted by most speakers?

Question: What language forms are not now used in eastern Catalonia?
Passage: The most notable difference between both standards is some tonic ⟨e⟩ accentuation, for instance: francès, anglès (IEC) – francés, anglés (AVL). Nevertheless, AVL's standard keeps the grave accent ⟨è⟩, without pronouncing this ⟨e⟩ as /ɛ/, in some words like: què ('what'), or València. Other divergences include the use of ⟨tl⟩ (AVL) in some words instead of ⟨tll⟩ like in ametla/ametlla ('almond'), espatla/espatlla ('back'), the use of elided demonstratives (este 'this', eixe 'that') in the same level as reinforced ones (aquest, aqueix) or the use of many verbal forms common in Valencian, and some of these common in the rest of Western Catalan too, like subjunctive mood or inchoative conjugation in -ix- at the same level as -eix- or the priority use of -e morpheme in 1st person singular in present indicative (-ar verbs): jo compre instead of jo compro ('I buy').

Question: What is jo compro changed to ?

Question: What common Valencian forms are used?

Question: What forms are also common in the rest of Western Catalan?
Passage: In the Balearic Islands, IEC's standard is used but adapted for the Balearic dialect by the University of the Balearic Islands's philological section. In this way, for instance, IEC says it is correct writing cantam as much as cantem ('we sing') but the University says that the priority form in the Balearic Islands must be "cantam" in all fields. Another feature of the Balearic standard is the non-ending in the 1st person singular present indicative: jo compr ('I buy'), jo tem ('I fear'), jo dorm ('I sleep').

Question: Where is IEC's standard used?

Question: How is the standard used there?

Question: What is a first person singular feature of the Balearic standard?
Passage: In Alghero, the IEC has adapted its standard to the Alguerese dialect. In this standard one can find, among other features: the definite article lo instead of el, special possessive pronouns and determinants la mia ('mine'), lo sou/la sua ('his/her'), lo tou/la tua ('yours'), and so on, the use of -v- /v/ in the imperfect tense in all conjugations: cantava, creixiva, llegiva; the use of many archaic words, usual words in Alguerese: manco instead of menys ('less'), calqui u instead of algú ('someone'), qual/quala instead of quin/quina ('which'), and so on; and the adaptation of weak pronouns.

Question: Where has the IEC adapted its standard to the Alguerese dialect?

Question: What definite article is found rather than el?

Question: What is -v- used for?

Question: What dialect employs many archaic words?

Question: What type of pronouns has Alguerese adapted?
Passage: In 2011, the Aragonese government passed a decree for the establishment of a new language regulator of Catalan in La Franja (the so-called Catalan-speaking areas of Aragon). The new entity, designated as Acadèmia Aragonesa del Català, shall allow a facultative education in Catalan and a standardization of the Catalan language in La Franja.

Question: Where is the Catalan speaking part of Aragon?

Question: When did the government of Aragon degree the establishment of a language regulator?

Question: What language is the regulator meant to standardize?

Question: Where is the language to be regulated located?
Passage: Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the northwestern varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (provinces of Lleida and the western half of Tarragona). The various forms of Catalan and Valencian are mutually intelligible (ranging from 90% to 95%)

Question: How is Valencian classified?

Question: What kind of Valencan is spoken in Western Catalonia?

Question: Where are the provinces of Lleida and Tarragona?

Question: What forms are mutually intelligible?

Question: What is the percentage of intelligibility between Catalan and Valencian?
Passage: Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian Community, the Valencian Academy of Language (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) declares the linguistic unity between Valencian and Catalan varieties.

Question: How do linguists view Catalan and Valencian?

Question: How do Valencian scholars view Catalan and Valencian?

Question: What is the official regulating body of Valencian?

Question: Who says that there is linguistic unity between Catalan and Valencian?
Passage: The AVL, created by the Valencian parliament, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian, and its standard is based on the Norms of Castelló (Normes de Castelló). Currently, everyone who writes in Valencian uses this standard, except the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses for Valencian an independent standard.

Question: Who established the AVL?

Question: Over what does the AVL make rules governing?

Question: What is the AVL standard based on?

Question: Who uses this standard?

Question: Who is exempt from the standard and uses their own?
Passage: Despite the position of the official organizations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority of the Valencian people consider Valencian different from Catalan. This position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicates that younger generations educated in Valencian are much less likely to hold these views. A minority of Valencian scholars active in fields other than linguistics defends the position of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses for Valencian a standard independent from Catalan.

Question: What do most Valencian people think Valencian is in regards to Catalan?

Question: When was an opinion poll done concerning Valencian?

Question: Who is less likely to believe that Catalan and Valencian are different?

Question: Who uses a Valencian standard separate from Catalan?

Question: How many scholars outside of linguistics agree with the Royal Academy?
Passage: This clash of opinions has sparked much controversy. For example, during the drafting of the European Constitution in 2004, the Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Galician, Catalan, and Valencian, but the latter two were identical.

Question: What has produced a great deal of controversy?

Question: When did the EU create the European Constitution?

Question: Who gave the EU translations of the European Constitution?
Passage: Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Question: As what can divergence in the groups be shown?

Question: How does central Catalan behave with the groups?

Question: What are the two dialectical groups of Catalan?

Question: What language has a lexical unity?
Passage: Literary Catalan allows the use of words from different dialects, except those of very restricted use. However, from the 19th century onwards, there is a tendency of favoring words of Northern dialects in detriment of others, even though nowadays there is a greater freedom of choice.

Question: What can use words from different dialects?

Question: What kind of words are excepted from literary use?

Question: When did the preference of use of words from northern dialects begin?

Question: What affect did this favoring of northern dialects have on other dialects?

Question: What kind of choice is now available in word choice?
Passage: Like other languages, Catalan has a large list of learned words from Greek and Latin. This process started very early, and one can find such examples in Ramon Llull's work. On the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Catalan had a number of Greco-Latin learned words much superior to other Romance languages, as it can be attested for example in Roís de Corella's writings.

Question: Where does Catalan get a lot of its learned words?

Question: When did the process of acquiring words from Latin and Greek begin?

Question: In whose work can you find examples of acquired words?

Question: When did Catalan have a greater number of Greco-Latin words than other Romance languages?

Question: Whose writings are a good example of learned words in Catalan?