ELL's Cabin - 2015-10-04 (page 1 of 2)

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9:32 AM

"The introduced gene could not be detected in faeces from human volunteers with intact digestive tracts following the consumption of a meal containing GM soya, indicating that the introduced gene is normally completely degraded in the large intestine."

(A great sentence from a scientific article)

What kind of other volunteers could there be?

"Rat volunteers"?

"Monkey volunteers"?

"Bacterial volunteers"?

OMG (0:

@CopperKettle I wonder whether the volunteers volunteered!

I see nothing dangerous in consuming a bowl of soya, so why not?

How would a bacterial volunteer indicate their agreement to participate?

Good day, @snailboat!

Anonymous

I think human volunteer is perfectly fine.

That's true. I meant the rats and the monkeys. :D

Anonymous

But it's very interesting, since I think you can make a strong argument that (in this context) volunteer implies human!

9:38 AM

@snailboat If I translate it in Russian word for word, it would sound outlandish.

Anonymous

And I would never have noticed it was interesting if you hadn't pointed it out.

It's very strange that (the?) English language allows this kind of construction.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Yes, you want the

Anonymous

More commonly, just English instead of the English language, but both seem fine.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I have a few notes.

Anonymous

9:40 AM

One is about tag questions and question tags, which I think are different.

@snailboat I always use question tags, but our tag says "tag questions"!

Why exactly is it okay in English but not in Russian? A good question for Linguistic SE

Anonymous

See, tag question and question tag are both examples of a modifier-head relationship.

(Because I mean the tag, not the tagged question.)

Anonymous

The word on the left, a noun in attributive function, is a modifier.

Anonymous

9:41 AM

The word on the right, a noun in head function, is a head.

Anonymous

So what does it mean to be a modifier or head?

I use 'question tag' to mean the tag.

Anonymous

And what is the tag?

hasn't he, for example.

Anonymous

Right, so tag refers to that thingy, and question tag is the specific name for it.

Anonymous

9:42 AM

A question tag is a tag.

Anonymous

What is a tag question?

That should be the question itself, but!

Anonymous

But!

There were two reasons that I decided to add the parenthesized (or tag question).

One is our tag is called "tag-questions".

The other is Wikipedia says they both mean the same thing!

(It's only that one is used in BrE, and the other is used in AmE.)

I'm more comfortable with "question tag", really.

But our tag made me feel somewhat awkward to write "question tag".

Anonymous

I see!

Anonymous

9:45 AM

I understand why you chose to say that, then.

user116848

Morning.

Anonymous

It sounds like we're in agreement about what question tag and tag question 'should' mean.

Yes, I think so. I just hope that I don't confuse our readers! :D

Anonymous

Well, I'm a reader, and I'm confused! ;-)

Anonymous

But here's how I think it goes:

Anonymous

9:48 AM

A tag question is a question that contains a tag.

Anonymous

The tag question can be divided into two parts: anchor and tag.

Anonymous

[You like pizza] (anchor), [don't you?] (tag)

So, it's not quite like what Wikipedia suggests!

0

Q: Why "human volunteers" is felicitous in English but not in Russian?

From "Risks from GMOs due to Horizontal Gene Transfer", by Paul Keese: "The introduced gene could not be detected in faeces from human volunteers with intact digestive tracts following the consumption of a meal containing GM soya, indicating that the introduced gene is normally completely deg...

Hmm... I wonder how many places I used "tag question". Perhaps just one.

Anonymous

9:49 AM

And typically the tag and anchor have opposite polarity (affirmative and negative, or negative and affirmative)

Yes, just one! -- I could fix it by removing "tag questions". :D

Anonymous

Well, I don't mean to imply that you need to 'fix' the answer. You explained why you wrote it that way, and I understand. It doesn't quite accord with my understanding of the topic, is all.

I should try to make it easy to read the best I can, anyway. :-)

My opening sentence in the second paragraph is a little clumsy, but I couldn't come up with anything better.

Anonymous

It looks like Quirk et al divided these utterances into [statement, tag question]

Oh!

Anonymous

9:55 AM

And they refer to the 'tag question' portion (such as isn't it?) as both 'tag' and 'question' for short!

Anonymous

So to Quirk et al, I suppose a tag question is a tag and a question.

Perhaps that's why the Wikipedia writers say they're the same.

(the two terms)

Anonymous

I guess so. I was unaware!

@CopperKettle Oh, "human volunteers" is infelicitous in Russian. That's interesting!

Anonymous

I guess it makes sense―if you consider the tag to be the 'question' rather than considering the entire sentence to be the 'question'

9:57 AM

Ah, I thought he was still in the room. I should've avoided pinging him.

Anonymous

I bet @CopperKettle likes being pinged! :-)

Anonymous

In Biber et al 1999, they talk about three kinds of tags: noun phrase tags, question tags (also called interrogative tags), and declarative tags.

Anonymous

> "Tags are short structures which can be added at the end of the clause in conversation or in written representations of speech. They take either the form of a noun phrase or of an interrogative or declarative clause." (p.139)

Anonymous

That's a nice short definition :-)

Anonymous

Their "noun phrase tags" are examples of right dislocation: "It makes you wonder, you know, all this unemployment."

10:01 AM

@snailboat PEU covers other kinds of tags as well, but his definition could throw me out of the scope of the question.

Anonymous

I think right location can be treated separately rather than as a "tag".

Anonymous

They say "noun phrase tags and question tags frequently combine", though all their examples sound like spoken BrE to me. It's a corpus-based grammar, so the examples are all from real speech, but I'm not sure how likely they'd be in AmE:

Anonymous

> It looks lovely though that one, doesn't it?

@snailboat Yes!

I wonder about write-wrote here: "I've been translating this article and realized that if I write human volunteers word-for-word in Russian - человеческие добровольцы - this would sound outlandish."

On a second glance, I think it should be wrote.

Anonymous

> That's marvellous that, isn't it yes? ← I'm aware that this is a real sentence from a real corpus of spontaneous speech, but it looks really weird written down like this.

10:04 AM

@snailboat I feel like I want another comma!

Anonymous

Or maybe even two more commas! :-)

@CopperKettle I'm trying to think in Thai...

user116848

@CopperKettle "wrote" sounds okay to me.

"That's marvellous, that, isn't it, yes? "

Anonymous

Their declarative tag examples sound British to me too: "He's alright he is." "Yeah I thoroughly enjoyed it I did."

10:05 AM

I think it sounds a little awkward in Thai, too.

@Arrowfar and write is not that okay?

Anonymous

I like wrote better.

I too.

user116848

Yeah backshifting and all that.

and "modal distance"

(0:

Anonymous

10:06 AM

@DamkerngT. So I guess the intended meaning of "tag question" is "question that is a tag"!

user116848

@CopperKettle You guys use difficult grammar words :-)

Anonymous

@CopperKettle "Modal remoteness"?

@snailboat That's it, thankee!

@snailboat Zen-ish!

@Arrowfar Yes we do!

Anonymous

10:07 AM

@DamkerngT. I'm one of your readers, and I certainly got confused, but I think now I understand.

To avoid any confusion, I removed the part "tag questions" from my answer. :D

BTW, can a mod retract their own downvotes without having to wait for the answer they downvoted earlier being edited first?

Anonymous

Mods have no special vote-retracting powers.

I see.

Thanks for the info!

user116848

What does it mean when people say xyz stole my answer?

Anonymous

I'm still reading about question tags.

Anonymous

10:18 AM

Okay, I'm satisfied, though now I'm slightly unhappy because I'm aware of yet another place where I thought terminology lined up between descriptions, but it doesn't always.

Anonymous

I'm also happy because I learned something! :-)

Anonymous

I do feel, though, like I spend a lot of time navigating a terminological maze learning this stuff.

@snailboat English grammar (or even grammars) has so vast terminology!

Ah, thanks for the edit! (and the vote. :-)

@DamkerngT. such a vast terminology!

(0:

Wait, do we count terminology?

10:23 AM

@DamkerngT. oops..

I don't know

"such vast terminology"?

BBL (0:

Hmm... let's see. How about a simpler example?

TTYL!

This is so huge space <-- grammatical?

Anonymous

such a

Anonymous

In descriptions of Japanese, I think tag question tends to be used a little bit differently.

Oh, right! I mixed up room and space again!

Anonymous

This is such a huge space [that ...]

Anonymous

10:27 AM

This is so huge a space [that ...]

Anonymous

Informally, so is used as an intensifier without that clause at the end: "This is so tasty!"

@snailboat I'm looking for an uncountable noun, with "huge" or "so/very huge", if possible.

Anonymous

So has been used that way for over a thousand years, so it's a well-established part of the language. But it's looked down upon and called wrong by prescriptive folks, so it's more or less restricted to colloquial language.

@snailboat It's strange that I had never thought of question tags (in Thai) as anything special until I learned about them in English.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm having trouble coming up with an example for you.

Anonymous

10:29 AM

So huge and very huge have different grammar, by the way.

Isn't that interesting!?

Anonymous

> This is a very huge space. (very huge actually feels slightly awkward, but let's ignore that and focus on what's grammatical or not...)

Anonymous

> This is so huge a space (that...)

Anonymous

> This is such a huge space (that...)

Anonymous

I think this pre-determiner adjective phrase so ADJ only occurs when the determiner is a(n)

10:32 AM

Ah, we have one good example: so much time

Anonymous

@Arrowfar "Modal remoteness" is a useful term, but I've always felt that it was one of the clunkier-sounding terms in CGEL...

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's different grammatically. So much isn't in predeterminer position in that example.

user116848

@snailboat okay, thanks.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. He gave me [so much sugar]. and *He gave me [so hard work]. (CGEL p.540)

Much/many/very are special, I think, after so.

Anonymous

10:41 AM

Very is different.

> I've never seen so much beautiful jewellery.

> *The jewellery is so much beautiful.

Anonymous

> I've never seen so much jewellery.
> *I've never seen so very jewellery.

user116848

@snailboat Do you listen to Kings of Leon?

user116848

I thought I'd ask.

very is an intensifier; much and many are... numeratives?

Post-determiners, I think they're called.

user116848

10:46 AM

Hi Jim.

Anonymous

Depends on what framework you're working in, I suppose.

Yes.

What would be a good, quick fix for *He gave me so hard work?

> such hard work

> *so very hard work

nods -- Thanks!

10:51 AM

Actually.

> such very hard work

Hmm.

I know that we can turn it around: The work he gave me was so hard! -- But we can't do that if we've already said part of it, like, "He gave me ..."

1

A: Why "human volunteers" is felicitous in English but not in Russian?

I agree that “human volunteers” is at best pleonastic, and at worst ridiculous. It is certainly not felicitous in any language.

Interesting!

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Well, that's just wrong.

Hmm.

It seems a bit weird, I'd say.

Is it in the data?

Anonymous

10:53 AM

By the way, "Why is 'human volunteers' felicitous in English but not in Russian?"

Anonymous

You forgot to invert, looks like.

Anonymous

@jimsug Sure, it's dead common.

Anonymous

It probably just seems weird because you're thinking about it.

I think so.

@snailboat Thank you! I vacillated about this point and somewhy picked a wrong position for is.

Anonymous

10:55 AM

scholar.google.com/…

Anonymous

Somewhy is (essentially) not ever used. I want to say it's archaic, but it was never particularly popular.

Seems incredibly rare, though: corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=41837728 corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/?c=glowbe&q=41837726

Anonymous

You can find it in dictionaries and very rare examples of actual use, but it's not part of the vocabularies of most native speakers.

@snailboat I wonder whether it is more common in academic writing than in ordinary discourse.

Anonymous

@jimsug Oh, I just assumed it was. That's why I choose to search Google Scholar

10:58 AM

@snailboat I know, I just like it somewhy, probably because it's shorter to type than "for some reason".

Right, perhaps that's why it seems unusual, then?

Anonymous

Well, it doesn't seem unusual to me! :-)

Interesting.

Anonymous

32 results in COCA isn't that rare.

googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=us&q=41837758 (US)

googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=uk&q=41837769 (UK)

Seems to be far more common in US English than UK English, though.

Anonymous

11:01 AM

You should set those to per mil.

Perhaps that's the reason for my misgivings.

Anonymous

When you set it to per mil, it doesn't seem to be particularly less common in the UK corpus.

per mil
http://googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=uk&q=41837806 (UK)
http://googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=uk&q=41837804 (US)

Yeah, you're right.

Hmmmmm.

Anonymous

The reason to compare per mil being that the subcorpora are different sizes.

Maybe it is just thinking about it.

Yeah, I forgot just how much larger the US corpus was.

Anonymous

11:05 AM

Or maybe you don't read many psych or nutrition papers.

Anonymous

Or other sorts of papers where the phrase is common.

This is true, I don't read many psych or nutrition papers.

I don't think the linguistics papers I've read use that phrase.

Typically they've been called informants, I think.

Anonymous

Off the top of my head, I can't recall having read human volunteers in any linguistics paper. But I don't know if I'd remember that phrase specifically.

IMHO, I think people can think that human volunteers is awkward because they expect all volunteers to be human beings.

Anonymous

That makes sense.

11:06 AM

I tend to agree with this.

It's about consent; how could other "volunteers" express that?

Anonymous

I really don't think that would have ever occurred to me without Copper Kettle pointing it out, though :-)

See, that's where we differ. I found that odd from the get-go.

Anonymous

Sure, I don't mean to speak for anyone but myself.

0

A: Why is "human volunteers" felicitous in English but not in Russian?

Human volunteers fits well into that passage. Human means that the faeces were of human, not animal origin, and volunteers means those humans deliberately agreed to take part in the experiment, to eat GM soya, and give their faeces to the scholars, that is, the faeces wew not collected in some pu...

(A Ukrainian-Russian guy wrote an answer)

He proposes to translate it as "Human faeces from volunteers".

Which for some reason sounds hilarious to me, when written in Russian.

"Human faeces accepted from volunteers" would sound more natural in Russian.

Or perhaps obtained, if I think in my L1.

11:10 AM

@CopperKettle Is it because that phrasing leaves open the possibility that the faeces aren't necessarily those of the volunteers?

Which I find a little funny.

@DamkerngT. Yes, that hits the nail, thank you!

@CopperKettle Yay! I'm helpful!

Donors

"A faecie donor" (0:

I think the prototypical donor or volunteer is human.

11:12 AM

"We accept faecie donations from 8 AM - 4 PM"

And that's why calling them human volunteers/donors could be a little weird to some.

Two-legged bird, for instance.

Oh, that reminds me of one writing example (by a learner): This old woman is old.

It's perfectly grammatical, I'd say.

nods

Mi viejo es viejo.

My old man is old.

11:16 AM

How do people feel about true fact?

> This is a true fact.

googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=us&q=41837905 (US) googlebooks.byu.edu/?c=uk&q=41837908 (UK)

@jimsug We have a lot of that!

Apparently, we have so many facts that aren't true.

"unknown unknowns"

@CopperKettle Yeah, but that doesn't seem as ... wrong to me as "true fact"

I think there was an EL&U question about this some time ago.

Maybe "true" just works as an intensifier

Russian has the combination реальный факт - real fact

From the Kommersant newspaper: "«Десятки процентов экономии на светодиодах — реальный факт» "

25

A: Does a "fact" have to be true?

A fact does, in fact, have to be the truth at the time you're using the word. By 'truth', I mean something you believe to be true (due to any of several possible reasons).¹ Consider: "The number of planets in the solar system is eight." A few years ago, this was not a fact. It is now. (Just an ...

11:21 AM

"Savings measured in dozens of per cents owing to the use of LED lighting is a real fact"

Hmm.. talking about true fact and real fact makes me think of syndicate, falsified, fabricated.

@DamkerngT. why?

Because it makes me think that some facts are not true!

I went looking for anyhow at SE and wound up reading a strange verse..

Off-topic: trying to keep my answer:nice-answer ratio on Travel high :) travel.stackexchange.com/users/3328/jamessug?tab=summary

11:23 AM

Bye, @Snails!

@jimsug Ah, you're on Travel.SE, too!

nice!

Only 4:3, but still :P

"anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did."

(I don't understand the bulk of this)

@jimsug Does 4:3 mean "sometimes"? (I don't know it.)

E. E. Cummings!

(or should it be e. e. cummings?)

11:27 AM

Yes, it's him, but the verse is hard to understand.

Not sure what the 'bells' means. The whole poem sounds quite abstract to me, but it's all about life, I'm sure.

Robo-translate (pretty sure it's off, but it's my interpretation):

> Anyone who lived in how pretty a town,

> (would go through up and down)

> through spring summer autumn winter.

> He sang his (songs), didn’t he? (He) danced his (dances), did he?

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Oct '154

ELL's Cabin

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