Language Overflow

Catija

12:01 AM

@snailplane Dunno... I have noticed that they do tend to ask a lot of questions.

Anonymous

Well, it could be a better question, but three downvotes seems like a bit much to me.

Abcd

12:22 AM

When to use nevertheless instead of However?

Anonymous

1:02 AM

Wow, lots of downvotes today on ELL.

ColleenV

@snailplane And a ton of questions in the review queue

Abcd

1:28 AM

I had worked hard. I built this house. (JOIN)

I had worked hard to built this house?

Q2) Because he had broken the window, his mother forbade him to go out and play. (Begin: Having)

(Having broken the window, he was forbidden by his mother from going out to play.)

Abcd

2:18 AM

The aeroplane flew _____ (above?) the clouds.

But longman dictionary says over (restricted place):

ldoceonline.com/dictionary/fly

Anonymous

To build. I don't know why they want you to use the past perfect, though. I worked hard to build this house sounds more likely.

Abcd

@snailplane Haha. That was a typo

CowperKettle

3:42 AM

Good morning

Good morning, my interstitial gamines

Anonymous

4:25 AM

Good morning :-)

Anonymous

I'd like to talk a bit about a question.

Anonymous

1

Q: Which is correct: "Only a little money did I have" or "Only a little money I have"

That sentences which start with negative words other than subjects are inverted for example: Little did I dream it. But how about only a little/few? Do they work like little or few?

negative-inversion

Anonymous

There's a phenomenon called "negative inversion" where initial (fronted) negative constituents trigger subject–auxiliary inversion in the main clause.

Anonymous

> He found not one of them useful. (no inversion)

Anonymous

> Not one of them did he find useful. (inversion)

Anonymous

4:26 AM

In the second example, the negative constituent not one of them has been "fronted" (moved to the front of the sentence).

Anonymous

This triggers subject–auxiliary inversion, which I've highlighted in italics (did he).

Anonymous

Of course, because the original sentence has no auxiliary (just the lexical verb found), we have to add the dummy (meaningless) auxiliary do, turning found into did find.

Anonymous

That makes it possible for the subject he to swap places with an auxiliary: did he rather than he did.

Anonymous

This is sometimes called "negative inversion", but what's interesting about it, something that has come up several times recently on ELL, is that we find similar inversion with fronted constituents that aren't technically negative.

Anonymous

Initial constituents with only, for example, are similar both semantically and grammatically. In terms of grammar, they're similar in that they also trigger inversion:

Anonymous

4:28 AM

> He has seen her only once. (no inversion)

Anonymous

> Only once has he seen her. (inversion)

Anonymous

In this example, we didn't add auxiliary do because it already has an auxiliary, have (in the finite form has). He changes places with has.

Anonymous

In terms of semantics (meaning), it's similar to negation because it implies that he hasn't seen her more than once. So as we discussed briefly before, I've been grouping these examples under the negative-inversion tag.

Anonymous

Now that we've talked a bit about negative inversion, let's get back to the OP's question.

Anonymous

The OP appears to know that little/few are approximate negators and trigger negative inversion when they're moved to the front of the sentence. They've come up with an interesting pair of examples that contain both initial only and a little / a few (which are, by the way, grammatically distinct from little/few without a), and they'd like to know if they work the same way.

Anonymous

4:31 AM

This is clear because of two things:

Anonymous

1. The question body makes it clear they're talking about negative inversion. They don't even mention the difference between little and few.

Anonymous

2. The question title gives one example with inversion, and one example without.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, one of their examples used few and the other little, so people jumped on that and wrote about the count / non-count distinction, ignoring the actual question the OP asked.

Anonymous

That's understandable because the question title wasn't clear as written, although if they read the question body they should have understood that they weren't addressing the OP's main point.

Anonymous

So I've gone ahead and edited the title to remove the few/little distinction, after some thought.

Anonymous

4:33 AM

The question still talks about few and little, and the answers can still address that.

Anonymous

But the main point is the negative inversion, and the answers need to address that to be valid. They already needed to address that point before my edit, so I don't believe my edit invalidates the existing answers.

Anonymous

To the extent that they are now invalid, they were already invalid.

Anonymous

I thought I'd explain a bit about that because I thought it might be a somewhat controversial edit, and I also thought it was a good chance to discuss the topic of negative inversion.

Anonymous

I'm going to link to this portion of the chat transcript from the question now, in case anyone would like to discuss it.

Damkerng T.

4:46 AM

Anonymous

What are we looking at?

Damkerng T.

It's mind-boggling to see the balance sheet of a $22 billion worth company!

It's the balance sheet of Snapchat.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. If you want to see something even more mind-boggling, check this out: nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/…

Damkerng T.

Whoa!

Anonymous

Part of a series.

Damkerng T.

4:51 AM

Uber arrived here recently, too. :)

Anonymous

I'm sorry to hear it!

Damkerng T.

I wonder if Enron looked similar before it happened.

In balance sheets, I mean.

Anonymous

My newest snail is awake, but is just hanging out inside her plastic house.

Anonymous

Sometimes I wonder how snails decide what to do.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hey, that's not right, hanging out by hanging in! :P

Anonymous

4:53 AM

I've never been able to predict their actions very well.

Anonymous

Oh, by the way, the examples I gave above were borrowed from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, although I might have used slightly different terminology.

Anonymous

I forgot to credit them.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Considering technologies nowadays, you could try using a neural network to predict their actions. Even every AMD processor has one! (^_^)

Anonymous

Snails actually have a fairly small number of neurons.

Anonymous

They could be among the first uploaded beings to exist purely in cyberspace :-)

Anonymous

4:55 AM

← reads too much singularity fic

Damkerng T.

That could happen!

CowperKettle

> What requirements should the data processing software comply with?

Is this okay, I wonder

Anonymous

Seems fine.

Damkerng T.

nods

CowperKettle

thanks!

@snailplane They must have hundreds of thousands of neurons

because even cockroaches have that many

Damkerng T.

4:56 AM

Hah!

No wonder they're very good at avoiding our traps!

Anonymous

@CowperKettle No, they're simpler than cockroaches.

Anonymous

Snails are very simple animals :-)

Anonymous

And yet, their behavior is surprisingly complex!

Anonymous

Also, snails have very large neurons.

Anonymous

Some snails have neurons that are large enough to be visible to the naked eye!

CowperKettle

5:03 AM

Good!

Damkerng T.

Hah!

CowperKettle

That's probably because they have no insulation

Anonymous

Aplysia

Aplysia (/əˈpliʒiːə/ or /əˈpliʒə/) is a genus of medium-sized to extremely large sea slugs, specifically sea hares, which are one clade of large sea slugs, marine gastropod mollusks. The general description of sea hares can be found in the article on the superfamily Aplysioidea. These benthic herbivorous creatures can become rather large compared with most other mollusks. They graze in tidal and subtidal zones of tropical waters, mostly in the Indo-Pacific Ocean (23 species); but they can also be found in the Atlantic Ocean (12 species), with a few species occurring in the Mediterranean. Aplysia...

Anonymous

These sea slugs, according to Wikipedia, have "only about 20,000 neurons, making [them] a favorite subject for investigation by neuroscientists."

CowperKettle

They must be lacking the myelin layer

Anonymous

5:05 AM

I'm not sure. Do snails even have oligodendrocytes?

Anonymous

Nope, no myelin.

Anonymous

Someday I'd like to study that stuff more :-)

Anonymous

Sadly, I have other priorities.

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

In the meantime, I'll have to rely on Google-sensei.

Damkerng T.

5:16 AM

@snailplane Ah, I thought it was the question Araucaria posted an answer to yesterday.

But this question is not that question.

Anonymous

Nope, that was one of the other times the topic came up recently :-)

Damkerng T.

Maybe we should close it as a duplicate to that one?

Anonymous

Oh, no, I don't think so.

Damkerng T.

Oh, okay

Anonymous

They are clearly very closely related questions.

Anonymous

5:18 AM

But the reason I don't think so is because the initial constituent here has little and few in it, and the OP thinks that might be significant – something Araucaria's answer to the other question doesn't address, IIRC.

Anonymous

However, I think an answer to this question could very easily link to @Araucaria's answer.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I remember that that question focused more on the only part.

Anonymous

Actually, the only part is important here too! :-)

Damkerng T.

Two million recordings of families imperiled by cloud-connected toys' crappy MongoDB

In case you have one at home.

CowperKettle

Sadly, I have none

Damkerng T.

5:33 AM

(^_^)

Anonymous

5:45 AM

I'm IoTless.

Anonymous

By design :-)

CowperKettle

6:05 AM

> Should a comparative report contain information on the calibration of the equipment unit, or this information may be omitted from the Dossier? (Can I invert it to or may this information be omitted?)

Anonymous

Not can, must.

CowperKettle

ah!

thank you!

Anonymous

Or at least, a very strong should :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

My snail is eating lettuce now.

CowperKettle

6:09 AM

Bon appetite!

My cat has eaten and is sleeping

Anonymous

That will describe me too, shortly :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

> When the analysis is performed by a third-party organization, how should the storage of the raw data be organized? (MS Word suggests I change it to is)

M.A.R.

6:36 AM

Goooood morning

CowperKettle

\o

It's almost noon

M.A.R.

It's almost 10 a.m. here

CowperKettle

ah!

46.18 E

Yekaterinburg is 60.35 E

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: what to say when internet is very fast/slow? by illegallyfab on ell.SE

M.A.R.

7:20 AM

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 33 mins ago, by Telkitty

Anonymous

@CowperKettle MS Word isn't very smart.

M.A.R.

7:40 AM

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 1 min ago, by Telkitty

"Don't hug me in front of the camera, dammit. It's awkward."

Anonymous

🐌

CowperKettle

(0:

I wonder if a pulse of 44 is okay.

Anonymous

Sure. Depends.

Anonymous

Mine gets that low. Why do you ask?

CowperKettle

I've been having spells of weakness

M.A.R.

7:50 AM

@CowperKettle 44 per second? :P

CowperKettle

And did a couple of cardiograms this week

And they both have "bradycardia" in the results section

Anonymous

Below 60 is considered bradycardia, but mine is usually more like in the 50s.

CowperKettle

My pulse ranges from 45 to 50, and now I'm feeling very weak and dizzy, and the pulse is 44

But I know that when you jog a lot, your pulse may reach that low

M.A.R.

!!!

CowperKettle

So maybe it's unrelated to pulse

Anonymous

7:51 AM

Yes, my brother's is even lower than yours and he's quite athletic.

Anonymous

But a low pulse isn't necessarily good. You have those symptoms too. How's your blood pressure?

CowperKettle

120 by 80

Judging by BP, I can enroll as an astronaut

Anonymous

So that's pretty much perfect….

CowperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

Haha! My bp is quite low, to go with my bradycardia :-)

CowperKettle

7:53 AM

That's too bad

Anonymous

Was your pulse always slow?

Anonymous

What does your doctor think about it?

CowperKettle

I was not tracking it (0: I remember that it used to be slow when doctors checked. I usually replied "I jog a lot". But I did not have such bouts of weakness then.

Anonymous

My doctors aren't concerned with my pulse. They only care about my blood pressure. Sometimes they make me eat something before they let me leave.

CowperKettle

My doctor says "go to a cardiologist if you like, and ask for 24hr Holter heart monitoring"

Anonymous

7:55 AM

That sounds good.

Anonymous

Is it expensive?

CowperKettle

I hope it would be free if I go to the municipal cardiologist (0:

Anonymous

I need to use weights more. My bones aren't bonelike enough.

Anonymous

I've been pretty lazy about lifting weights :-)

CowperKettle

You should start a log, in a paper copybook

That helped me

Anonymous

7:57 AM

Oh, good idea

CowperKettle

I used to have a low chinup count in school

Anonymous

I don't think I can do a chin-up.

CowperKettle

Then I started a log in a copy-book.

@snailplane You are prohibited on medical grounds?

Anonymous

No, I think I'm too weak!

CowperKettle

Ah! It's a good exercise (I think)

It's cheap. You can do it at home (0:

Anonymous

7:59 AM

I don't have much arm strength.

CowperKettle

I have a set of dumbbells, that helps (0:

Anonymous

Mine would help me if I lifted them! :-)

CowperKettle

But when I try chin-ups, my eye hurts (on the next day), because of the two operations on the cornea. And my vision blurs for a day or two. So I don't do chin-ups.

Anonymous

Oh I see.

CowperKettle

I wish I could. It's a pleasurable feeling to have muscles (0:

You can paint some words you're trying to memorize on a big sheet (on big screen?) and recite them while you're lifting weights (if you feel too bored to just lift weights)

My friend in Moscow does heavy weight lifting, which seems crazy to me.

He buys special gear to avoid a trauma. Some special wide belts and stuff

Фитоняшка Анжела Бьюти-блог - Как завоевать сердце мужчины by Oreshek

►

> "How to win a man's heart" (weightlifter humor)

A weightlifter guy has a blog in drag. "Angela's Beauty Blog" (0:

> There is some evidence suggesting that exercise-related bradycardia can become permanent and potentially problematic in lifetime endurance athletes, but I would not quit exercise based on the current data.

runnersworld.com/ask-the-sports-doc/…

> A heart rate of 38 beats per minute (bpm) can be normal in a well-trained endurance runner at age 60.

It's interesting. How does the organism decide to increase or decrease the rate.

It turns out that women have a faster heart rate due to lower ventricle capacity

user62015

8:48 AM

The view of the manufacturing and (a)/ tourist industries is that (b)/ the economy is improving. (c)/ No Error (d) @DamkerngT. @snailplane @M.A.R.

I think, it should be the economy has been improving.

M.A.R.

9:08 AM

@user62015 Nah, it's fine

user62015

Thanks.

Are you sure?

Because answer key says C

M.A.R.

The answer key is wrong

user62015

Thanks. ahahahaha I agree.

The economist (a)/ was hesitated (b)/ to comment on the government policy. (c)/ No Error (d)

B

was must be removed, right?

M.A.R.

Yep

user62015

Thanks.

Will you help me with some more questions (3-5) or busy?

M.A.R.

9:16 AM

I can help

user62015

Thanks,

Having to stay (a)/ in the jungle that night, (b)/ they had nothing to feed at. (c)/ No error (d)
I think at must be removed section c

M.A.R.

''feed themselves with'' or ''feed'', yeah

user62015

Thanks.

The court has asked the authorities (a)/ to take appropriate steps to restore natural water resources (b)/ so that the water shortage problem in the state can be solved. (c)/ No error (d)

I think D

M.A.R.

I see no problems

user62015

Thanks.

The poor experience in neighboring countries which have implemented (a)/ food stamp programs should serve as (b)/ a deterrent on our country. (c)/ No error (d)

I think C

deterrent to

M.A.R.

9:20 AM

Hmm.

user62015

Thanks.

The right to adequate food (a) / and clean drinking water should be regarded as a (b)/ basic right of all citizens of India.(c)/ No error (d) ----- D

I meant to say D

M.A.R.

D

user62015

Thanks. Could we move forward if you want because I am preparing for a government job so I have so many questions to discuss?

If you want then only

If you free now or some other time

you are*

M.A.R.

I'm actually playing games here

user62015

Oh

M.A.R.

9:25 AM

I do have work, but I'm procrastinating

Lemme grab something to eat, and we'll continue

user62015

So I will only ask if I have any serious issue and not sure about the answer

Does it make sense?

M.A.R.

Yep

user62015

Thanks.

I will let you know when I need help.

Thank you so much.

Abcd

10:35 AM

Write a letter to your friend, informing him or her about your short visit to his/her place and what you propose to do there.
Dear XYZ,
Hasn’t it been ages since I have called on you? I am missing you immensely. Therefore, I plan to visit you next Sunday at around 4 o’ clock so that we can enjoy together after a long time.
XYZ, recently I developed an amazing ‘Curriculum Update’ App on Java and received the first prize in Inter School App Development Competition. I am sure you would love to see it, wouldn’t you? Besides, you too are an adroit Programmer indeed! I am yearning to meet Aunt! H…

Please bear with me. Just 5 days more.

Anonymous

11:55 AM

You might want to look for sites where proofreading is explicitly on-topic, such as Lang-8. This site isn't really intended for proofreading, and that's true of our chat room as well.

userr2684291

12:10 PM

What's the idiom that means "return the favor" with the word "chip", or similar in it?

Anonymous

Umm, the chip idioms I can think of don't have that meaning. Chip off the old block and chip on their shoulder came to mind. There's also when the chips are down, which I just found looking in the LDOCE, but I don't see the idiom you're asking about and I can't think of it.

Anonymous

I don't see an idiom like that in Oxford Idioms either.:

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 "chip in" meaning "contribute" is the closest my mind gets

Anonymous

Oops, that colon was a typo.

userr2684291

This one ended with "chip", or something like that. I don't know if it was really "chip", but it sounded like that, starting with the /tŠ-ee/ sound.

I'll go look for it in the transcript.

Thanks for trying, by the way.

Anonymous

12:16 PM

Ooh, it's been a while since I saw someone use š for ʃ.

userr2684291

It's a standard letter in Croatian.

We also have Č (which is actually the "ch" sound, but a bit tougher), and Ć, which is softer.

Anonymous

Some linguists use it in phonemic transcriptions, although I wasn't able to guess what you meant by ee.

userr2684291

I mean the phoneme that follows /tŠ/.

In "chip".

Anonymous

In chip? It looks like it should be the vowel in cheap instead.

userr2684291

/ɪ/, apparently.

I'm not sure how to denote its being short (vs. /i:/).

Anonymous

12:21 PM

Well, it's also a different sound, length aside.

userr2684291

Oh, okay.

Anonymous

In an ad hoc transcription, I think ee might be understood as iː and maybe ih would be understood as ɪ. But that's the trouble with ad hoc transcriptions – they aren't standardized, so you have to do a little bit of guesswork.

Anonymous

IPA makes things easier :-)

Anonymous

By the way, in phonemic transcriptions of Japanese, /č/ is [cɕ] and /š/ is [ɕ].

userr2684291

Is there an idiom with "chit" matching the meaning above?

Anonymous

12:27 PM

In other words, the ch and sh sounds of Japanese.

Anonymous

Hmm, I don't know one.

Anonymous

There's tit-for-tat.

userr2684291

dictionary.com/browse/call-in-one-s-chits

That's the one.

Anonymous

That link didn't work for me.

Anonymous

Maybe because I'm on my phone.

userr2684291

12:31 PM

Hm.

It's "call in one's chits".

Or "calling in a chit".

"Are you asking as a friend, or are you calling in a chit? I'm calling in a chit."

Anonymous

I see! Yeah, I don't know that idiom.

Araucaria

@snailplane We need a better title for that question. I'm struggling to fin one. Problem at the moment is that the fronted phrase is a Complement, not an Adjunct, which makes it a little unnatural. We need a sentence with a fronted "Only a few/little" Adjunct.

Stack Exchange

4

Q: "Only a little money I have", "Only a little money do I have"

Those sentences which start with negative words other than subjects are inverted. For example: Little did I dream it. But how about only a little/few? Do they work like little or few?

negative-inversion

Abcd

@userr2684291 you aren't willing to read it?

Anonymous

@Araucaria Oh! Good point :-)

Abcd

12:40 PM

@snailplane not even for merely 5 days?

Anonymous

@Abcd Sorry.

Anonymous

There are other sites that focus more on proofreading, as you know.

Abcd

@snailplane lang8 is not a trust worthy site

Anonymous

People are willing to help once in a while with proofreading around here in chat, but if you just keep posting we're going to get a bit burned out on it. Proofreading takes a lot of mental energy, and it's not really what this site is for.

Anonymous

You've posted a large number of things to be proofread recently, so if no one's helping anymore, we might have hit our limit.

Anonymous

12:49 PM

I made a metalinguistic-comparison tag.

Kinzle B

Hi, @snailplane long time no talk :)

userr2684291

@snailplane In the IPA for Serbo-Croatian, they transcribe "č" as /t͡ʃ/; they do the same for the English sound in the English IPA. However, I think this isn't precise. I don't know if I'm crazy, but our "č" is a bit different. Is it possible that /t͡ʃ/ denotes two different phones?

hr.forvo.com/word/%C4%8Dizma/#hr Here, Markoni's pronunciation begins with our "č" ("čizma"). Can you hear the difference between that sound and the one in, say, "church"?

M.A.R.

1:10 PM

WOTD: Vide Supra

2

Kinzle B

@Araucaria Are you available now?

Anonymous

1:25 PM

Hello!

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Yes. In fact, the Japanese [c̟ɕ] might be less closely transcribed as tʃ. The symbols aren't written in stone, and some linguists prefer to use simpler symbols when transcribing if there's no distinction that needs to be made with more precise symbols.

Anonymous

So you will find, for example, people transcribing the Japanese "sh" sound with ʃ, even though Japanese doesn't have a [ʃ] phone like English does.

Anonymous

Particularly in phonemic transcriptions, it's often unnecessary to use a phonetically accurate symbol.

Anonymous

In English, we usually write /r/ in phonemic transcriptions, even though we have no [r] phone in the majority of accents.

userr2684291

I need phonetic transcriptions, then.

Damkerng T.

1:30 PM

@userr2684291 The male speaker's example sounds like English "ch" to my ear, but the female's example makes me think of a Thai sound (which probably can be thought of as half "ch" half "j").

Hello again, everyone!

Anonymous

In the IPA, [r] suggests a trill, so in phonetic transcriptions it would usually be a mistake to write r down.

Anonymous

But we often use /r/ in phonemic transcriptions by the principle that it's a simpler symbol, and we have no phonemic distinction between [r] and [ɹ] (etc.) to be made in English.

userr2684291

I understand that.

Anonymous

So what /t͡ʃ/ indicates would be entirely language-dependent, and to some extent dependent on who's transcribing it.

Anonymous

Even in phonetic transcriptions you have a choice of how much detail you want to include.

userr2684291

1:34 PM

Yeah, I know what you mean, like those little h's denoting aspiration or something like that.

Anonymous

Yeah, that'd be an example, although that can be a very important detail in some languages! :-)

userr2684291

@DamkerngT. Hey. The female version is somewhat emphatic to my ear, as if she's saying "look, it's easy: <pronunciation>", or as if she's talking to a small child, cutely, etc.

Anonymous

@userr2684291 Is the tongue slightly more advanced than in the English sound, at least in the female example?

Damkerng T.

@userr2684291 Ah, I see!

Anonymous

I just plugged my earbuds into the laptop to listen.

Anonymous

1:40 PM

Just a moment.

userr2684291

@snailplane Yes.

Damkerng T.