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9:35 AM
@snailboat: I did not get notified with your messages in this chat room. Luckily I visit this room. :-) Regarding your comment above, yes I am wrong.
 
Anonymous
You seem like a fast learner, @FriendlyGhost :-)
 
@snailboat Thank you. :-)
 
 
6 hours later…
3:19 PM
@snailboat Thanks for the recommendations. I think what I'm looking for is a "fun" book... something not too hard to follow, and the sort of book that makes you keep on reading even if you should really stop. I honestly haven't read enough even in English to really figure out what sort of book does this for me, but well, usually it's some sort of light SF or fantasy sort of thing.
The current book I'm reading is pretty good in terms of the flow of the text, but there's so much business and law lingo that it sort of negates that.
I saw レベル7 by 宮部みゆき when I was browsing 紀伊国屋 the other day, but I ended up not buying it.
Though I did buy an anthology of SF stories. I think it was like the top X of some decade picked by 日本SF作家クラブ. Haven't started reading it yet.
@snailboat What stopped me from posting it was that I couldn't figure out how to word it in order to make it non-subjective.
 
4:07 PM
Huh... I just wrote this sentence: 「もっと遅いかと思った」... and now I don't understand why it sounds right to have a か there.
 
 
3 hours later…
6:46 PM
I'm super thankful for his edit but
> I believe this is mostly for historical reasons, but I've also seen a phonetician say in his book that phonetics should be its own discipline, independent from linguistics.
Is this sentence grammatically correct?
I imagine I'd say "I've also seen a phonetician says" or "said"
 
6:58 PM
@DariusJahandarie I feel it sounds like "might" or "would" in English
@snailboat I agree with him that 誰はハンバーガーが欲しい? is sometimes acceptable
at least in some situations like
well, I hope you could get my point...
like English "I met Justin Bieber yesterday." - "You met who?" kind of question word use
@Schoko 無助詞形も現れましたね…
 
@broccoliforest "say" is in fact correct.
 
「へ」が使えて「に」が使えない場面なんて実質的にないのでは?
@DariusJahandarie can you explain it? it's revealed that my English is too poor :D
おにさんこちら、てのなるほうへ
これは絶対に「てのなるほうに」とは言わないですが
 
7:17 PM
Hmm... I'm generally not good at explaining English grammar, so take this with a grain of salt, but the verb under "to see" is always either in that form or the -ing form regardless of how "see" is conjugated. "I saw him eat(ing) a cat." "I had seen him forget to eat so many times." "I'm sure I'll see him mess up later tonight."
(The difference between the non-ing and -ing versions is that if you use -ing, it suggests that you only saw part of the process of them doing something rather than the entire thing.)
 
@DariusJahandarie ah! it seems I was too confused
2
Q: Farewell message - 悔しさをバネに

paullbOn my last day my co-worker told me this. I'm not sure what バネに means. I tried looking it up but didn't get anywhere. ここでの悔しさをバネに、次のとこでもがんばってくださいね

 
(In those examples, forgetting to do something is pretty instantaneous so I don't think "to see someone forgetting" would really working -- "to see someone messing up" is possible but that seems like a less likely thing to happen than "to see someone mess up".)
 
> 失敗をばねにする
> use failure as a springboard
> 「彼は試合で負けた。それ以降、彼はくやしさをバネに頑張っている。」
> He lost the game. After that, he has been working very hard bouncing back his frustration.
何かそういうidiomはないんでしょうかね…
 
I feel like I make more grammar mistakes in English than I do in Japanese... just typoed "work" to "working" there for some reason. sigh.
Accidental ones, anyways.
(As opposed to ones where I really just don't know what the correct grammar is, which I'm sure happens considerably more often in Japanese :-)
 
 
1 hour later…
Anonymous
8:51 PM
@broccoliforest Verbs of perception take bare infinitival clauses as complements
 
Anonymous
Most of them, anyway.
 
Anonymous
Most verbs that can take infinitival clauses as complements take to-infinitival, but there are a few exceptions, like all the auxiliaries, verbs of perception, verbs of causation
 
Anonymous
Help exceptionally takes either kind of infinitive
 
Anonymous
9:06 PM
@broccoliforest I found it in dictionaries under バネ
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest English Echo questions have a very strong tendency to use who rather than whom regardless of position, but who is the default form today anyway
 
Anonymous
Unlike with other pronouns, where the accusative form is the default
 
Anonymous
> I would [like/*likes some ice cream]. ← auxiliaries
 
Anonymous
> I had/made/let/helped Bob [cross/*crosses the street]. ← causatives
 
Anonymous
> I saw/watched/heard Bob [say/*says his cat was evil]. ← verbs of perception
 
Anonymous
9:12 PM
(Actually, "I heard Bob says his cat was evil" is okay, but the grammar is different: it's "I heard [that Bob says his cat was evil]".)
 
Anonymous
Also, note that if we replace Bob with a pronoun, it has accusative form: "I made him/*he cross the street." and "I saw him/*he [say his cat was evil]."
 
Anonymous
@DariusJahandarie I have that book! :-)
 
@snailboat thank you, it's good to know the word "echo question"
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest Yes, there are multiple types:
 
Anonymous
Reclamatory echo questions: "I went to Chicago last summer―" "You went where?" "Chicago." "Sorry, go on."
 
Anonymous
9:17 PM
The person asking the echo question is trying to get them to repeat themselves because they didn't hear very well.
 
Anonymous
Incredulity echo questions: "I dated the pope last summer―" "Wait, you dated who??"
 
Anonymous
The person asking the echo question is expressing disbelief.
 
Anonymous
In echo questions, the wh-phrase is never fronted, and who(m) almost always takes the form who if present.
 
Anonymous
Also, echo questions tend to have question intonation. But normal wh-questions don't:
 
Anonymous
> Where did you go last summer?↘
 
Anonymous
9:19 PM
> Wait, you went where?↗
 
Anonymous
Echo questions can also be multiple-wh:
 
Anonymous
> Wait, you saw who where??↗
 
4
Q: Are sentences that have multiple "WH Question" words considered grammatical?

PacerierAre sentences that have multiple "WH Question" words considered grammatical ? For example, is the following sentence grammatical: Tomorrow, where are we meeting at what time to do what ?

 
Anonymous
Yes.
 
Anonymous
9:21 PM
English has plenty of multiple-wh questions. That doesn't mean every sentence with more than one wh-word is grammatical, but . . .
 
Anonymous
I would say:
 
Anonymous
> When are we meeting tomorrow, and where, and to do what?
 
Anonymous
Other people might phrase it differently.
 
Anonymous
I think it's easier to do multiple-wh in Japanese.
 
Anonymous
In part because Japanese doesn't have any wh-movement
 
9:23 PM
actually I can't live without multiple-question sentences :D
 
Anonymous
In English we move wh-phrases to the front of interrogative clauses, but we can only do that with one wh-phrase per clause.
 
Anonymous
> Okay. Start from the beginning. Who did what?
 
Anonymous
> Alice bought a lollipop. Bob petted a cat. [ . . . ]
 
Anonymous
Here the question had two variables, and the answer comes in the form of a list
 
Anonymous
X1 did Y1, X2 did Y2,  . . .
 
Anonymous
9:25 PM
So that's possible in English, even in non-echo questions, even without coordination
 
Anonymous
But I think it's easier in Japanese overall :-)
 
this kind of situation has much affinity with question-は, I feel
 
Anonymous
I was curious what connection exactly you saw
 
> その時誰はどうするべきだったか
but on second thought, it's not real question because of suffixing か
generally it's not a real question demanding an answer when you use wh-は
I guess
 
Anonymous
Echo questions have some other characteristics normal questions don't
 
Anonymous
9:35 PM
You can replace non-constituents with what
 
Anonymous
> "I'm studying malacology at school." "Wait, you're studying what-ology?"
 
Anonymous
> "I pharmacologized his brain." "You what-ed his brain?"
 
9:53 PM
@snailboat I didn't expect to see such a wording in English indeed :)
it's more than frequent in Japanese though...
"what-ed" seems to be impossible in Japanese too
> 42. 最近、人に褒められることはしましたか?
> 人に何られる?読めない
あった
 
Anonymous
Haha, 何られる!
 
but when I searched them, the predominant majority were OCR misrecognition of 得られる
 
Anonymous
10:12 PM
Ahh
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I've noticed that OCR errors tend to be considerably more frequent in Japanese
 
Anonymous
But OCR errors are already pretty bad in English
 
Anonymous
For some inexplicable reason, OCR folks don't want to use language models . . .
 
they believe in brute force I think
[[counter-words]] [[counters]]
how to type tags?
 
Anonymous
[tag:blahblahblah]
 
Anonymous
I didn't realize we had two tags for counters. We can make one into a synonym of the other.
 
Anonymous
Which should be the master tag?
 
Anonymous
seems nice and simple.
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest There's a problem with definitions there
 
Anonymous
10:17 PM
Colloquial language is usually spoken, but it can be written. Formal language is often written, but it can be spoken.
 
Anonymous
But . . .
 
Anonymous
Specifically in the case of Japanese
 
@snailboat I have no idea, I think it'll more precise to say "counter words"
do you mean the 口語 term?
 
Anonymous
Well, there is the old 文語 'written language' vs 口語 'spoken language' distinction
 
Anonymous
But after 言文一致
 
Anonymous
10:19 PM
文語 is more like 'Classical Japanese' or 'literary Japanese' and 口語 is more like 'modern Japanese' or 'colloquial Japanese'
 
Anonymous
People use 'literary' and 'colloquial' to reflect those terms
 
Anonymous
So there's 話し言葉 and 書き言葉
 
Anonymous
I don't know how much people distinguish 話し言葉・書き言葉 from 口語・文語
 
Anonymous
Or how confusing that is . . .
 
10:20 PM
totally contextual :)
 
Anonymous
It seems that way
 
Anonymous
One other problem is that people who are tagging stuff often don't know all this stuff
 
but generally, classical 文語 is more restricted in technical terms
 
Anonymous
So they might just be confused
 
Anonymous
If they see our tags the way they are right now
 
10:21 PM
among Japanese linguistic folks
we only see such 文語/口語 in high school subjects
 
Anonymous
When we were adding translations recently I added 文語 to and felt good about that choice, but
 
namely 口語文法 and 文語文法
 
Anonymous
Yeah.
 
Anonymous
That's the context I originally learned those terms in
 
in everyday language 文語 = 書き言葉 and 口語 = 話し言葉
 
Anonymous
10:23 PM
But I've seen people online using them simply to mean "spoken language" and "written language"
 
Anonymous
I'm not sure how people here are using the tag
 
Anonymous
I've seen linguists use "colloquial language" to mean "not Classical Japanese"
 
Anonymous
But
 
I've also found
 
Anonymous
I don't think that's how people on this site are using it
 
Anonymous
10:25 PM
@broccoliforest Argh :-)
 
the tag wiki just says

> 口語. Words, forms and expressions used only in non-formal spoken language.
 
Anonymous
The tag wikis need lots of work . . . :-(
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest In English, many linguists use tense to refer to a morphological system whose main purpose is to locate situations in time. So they'd say in English, we have exactly two tenses (present and past), Japanese has two (past and nonpast), etc.
 
oh, I can't get it formatted...
 
Anonymous
Other people (especially in traditional grammar) use tense to refer to the semantic dimension of time reference. So, they call things like "I will go to the store" future tense
 
Anonymous
10:28 PM
But:
 
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) — also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV), or Black Vernacular English (BVE) — is a variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of American English, most commonly spoken today by urban working-class and largely bi-dialectal middle-class African Americans. Non-linguists often call it Ebonics (a term that also has other meanings and connotations). It shares parts of its grammar and phonology with the dialects of the Southern United States. Several creolists, including William Stewart...
> Although AAVE does not necessarily feature the preterite marker of other English varieties (that is, the -ed of worked), it does feature an optional tense system with four past and two future tenses or (because they indicate tense in degrees) phases.
 
Anonymous
My impression is that テンス in Japanese tends to refer to the semantic dimension
 
I agree
 
Anonymous
I'm not sure how that difference affects our choice of tags
 
it's not even clear cut between tense and aspect
 
they're sharing the same た
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I wouldn't call all of those tenses
 
Anonymous
I see two morphological tenses along with some periphrastic aspectual markers (completive, inceptive, anterior, etc.)
 
Anonymous
anterior aspect = perfect aspect, but lately many people call the perfect in English a kind of tense
 
Anonymous
In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, English is claimed to have two tense systems: the primary tense system is morphological (walk vs walked), the second tense system is analytic (perfect have walked vs non-perfect)
 
Anonymous
10:33 PM
Because, they say, the main use of the perfect is actually to locate events in time (before some other events), and therefore it's better to call it a tense than an aspect
 
so it seems
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest Yes! :-)
 
the name and reality doesn't always match
(doesn't? don't?)
 
Anonymous
I would probably say don't
 
ok thanks :)
 
Anonymous
10:37 PM
The choice of singular or plural agreement with coordinate subjects often depends on whether you're thinking of the subject as a single unit or not:
 
Anonymous
> Peanut butter and jelly is my favorite type of sandwich.
 
Anonymous
Clearly a single unit
 
Anonymous
> The name and the reality don't always match with one another.
 
Anonymous
They have to be conceptualized as separate, because you're expressing a relationship between them.
 
Anonymous
There are ambiguous cases where people will say either one
 
10:39 PM
@snailboat that's a good explanation
 
Anonymous
Also, subject-verb agreement is one of the most common types of performance errors among native speakers of English
 
oh...
and ?
> About time

> Grammar or words that express temporal information. Whereas tense is always relative to the moment of utterance, time is more absolutely located on an imaginary timeline.
 
Anonymous
> *Cognitive scientists seek to model the ways in which [ the ability to perform such tasks ] are acquired, changed or impaired. ← The speaker accidentally used proximal agreement (made the verb agree with tasks because it was closer than ability)
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I wish I could see who wrote these tag excerpts
 
Anonymous
At that time the system didn't keep track, so it just says "created by Community"
 
Anonymous
10:44 PM
Right now the "tense"-"time" distinction in the tags seems very confusing!
 
Anonymous
What do you think we should do with and ?
 
Anonymous
Earthliŋ and I were trying to clean up the tags a little a few weeks ago :-)
 
Anonymous
But we can always do more cleanup!
 
vs (I'm not sure)
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I'm not sure either! :-)
 
10:48 PM
especially I have no idea at
> time is more absolutely located on an imaginary timeline.
part
do you know what it mean?
about datetime matter or something?
 
Anonymous
0
Q: Merge counter-words tag with counters

snailboatIn chat, broccoli forest noticed that counter-words and counters were duplicates: counter-words: 助数詞. Suffices attached to a number to use the number to count things, people, or events. counters: 助数詞. Often called 'classifiers' in linguistics. I can make one into a synonym of the...

 
or calendrical thingy?
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I don't know. I don't think it makes sense.
 
Anonymous
Time reference can be absolute or relative.
 
Anonymous
Relative: deictic temporal expressions like 明日
Absolute: 2015年7月31日 金曜日 15:50:59 PDT
 
Anonymous
10:52 PM
They both look like they indicate time to me.
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ Do you have any thoughts on any of this tag stuff?
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I could see having something like a tag and tag
 
Anonymous
I think the description on that tag is just wrong
 
Anonymous
It says "tense is always relative to the moment of utterance"
 
Anonymous
By the way, I think most learners are familiar with counter words or counters (I'm not sure which is more common).
 
10:59 PM
@snailboat that sounds like a good idea
 
Anonymous
I don't think many learners are familiar with specifiers, numeratives, or classifiers
 
Anonymous
But those three terms are sometimes used in linguistics or in descriptions of other classifier languages (e.g. Thai)
 
I've only heard of classifier in North American languages
or sign languages
 
Anonymous
Pamela Downing wrote a book on Japanese called Numeral Classifier Systems: The Case of Japanese
 
Anonymous
Samuel Martin calls them classifiers in his Reference Grammar of Japanese
 
Anonymous
11:02 PM
So I think some linguists do use classifier in reference to Japanese
 
Anonymous
I don't know how many do
 
Anonymous
But I've seen it in other papers / books as well
 
なるほど…
 
Anonymous
Outside linguistics I've never seen anyone say classifier
 
Anonymous
It's always counter in books for learners and on web pages and so on
 
Anonymous
11:06 PM
Wikipedia says Japanese Counter Words :-)
 
Anonymous
In Japanese, counter words or counters (josūshi 助数詞) are used along with numbers to count things, actions, and events. In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves (except, in certain cases, for the numbers from one to ten; see below). For example, to express the idea "two dogs" in Japanese one could say 二匹の犬 ni-hiki no inu (literally "two small-animal-count POSSESSIVE dog"), or 犬二匹 inu ni-hiki (literally "dog two small-animal-count"), but just pasting 二 and 犬 together in either order is wrong. Here 二 ni is the number "two", 匹 hiki is the counter for small...
 
is there any other meanings counter has as linguistic jargon?
 
Anonymous
But in the article they just write "counter"
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest I don't think so . . .
 
Anonymous
11:07 PM
Although there's a lot of stuff I don't know :-)
 
Anonymous
Classifier does have at least two other meanings
 
Anonymous
You already mentioned the sign language use
 
Anonymous
And there's another meaning: a morpheme which indicates the class to which a word belongs. So, people who use classifier this way would say -ly is an 'adverb classifier'
 
Anonymous
I think "counter word" is unambiguous
 
so it literally class-ifies :)
just being curious, is it different than saying "adverb marker"?
> Which sequences of kanji and/or kana form accepted ways to write a given word, particle, or other speech sound.
> 正書法. The standard way of writing the language.
maybe the latter is for discussing the writing system itself?
 
Anonymous
11:17 PM
Well, I don't use the word "classifier" that way myself. I would say -ly1 is a derivational affix that derives an adverb from an adjective.
 
Anonymous
I'd be perfectly happy with saying it's a morphological marker of adverb class :-) But it's indistinguishable from -ly2, which derives adjectives
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest Maybe we could replace with or something?
 
Anonymous
That might be a little less jargony for the people using this site
 
Anonymous
@broccoliforest Sometimes I make new tags like that, but then no one else uses them :-)
 
Anonymous
11:20 PM
The system automatically removes old tags unless ① they have a tag wiki OR ② they have at least 5 questions
 
Anonymous
So right now is on its way to being automatically removed :-(
 
It's a tag party now =)
 
@snailboat maybe this one is suitable for it
5
Q: How to rephrase sentences with an ambiguous は to indicate the contrastive or thematic / 「主題」と「対比」の解釈の余地のある、あいまいな「は」の言い換え方

LentlbyFirst, some background. My question is kind of an extension of this previously-answered question about the difference between は and が. While I am fairly clear on the different usages of は as a contrastive marker or a thematic marker, the explanation given on the page linked above included an exam...

 
@snailboat Any thoughts on tag stuff?
Err...
 
@Earthliŋ and we're doing "tag matches"
 
11:26 PM
What's "topicalization"?
 
but I think there isn't much room for outside
 
Anonymous
Maybe it's a redundant tag
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ We've been discussing tags in chat, I thought you might have things to add to our discussion :-)
 
@snailboat Maybe...
 
Anonymous
If it's redundant, we can just let the system delete it . . .
 
11:28 PM
I wouldn't know how to choose between [spelling] and [orthography]
 
@Earthliŋ translation for Japanese "取り立て"?
 
Anonymous
Spelling is more specific than orthography
 
Anonymous
Orthography includes things like punctuation, which direction you're writing,  . . .
 
Anonymous
'focus'
 
@snailboat that's possible
 
Anonymous
11:29 PM
取り立て助詞 ← usually 'focus particle'
 
Anonymous
Wow! I didn't realize we had a spelling tag
 
Anonymous
I thought that was hypothetical :-)
 
Anonymous
 
Anonymous
I guess people do use English spelling to describe Japanese a lot
 
11:30 PM
We also have a spelling tag, which could also be merged into orthography. All (on-topic) questions about spelling will be about Japanese orthography, so... — Earthliŋ Jun 7 at 15:29
 
Anonymous
A-ha!
 
or it's for something like 待遇表現?
 
or [respect] → [keigo]?
maybe we should discuss one thing at a time =)
 
> honorifics × 61 keigo × 44 anon
> dec 27 '11 at 17:06 0 pending (1)
 
Anonymous
Well, all 3 questions tagged with respect are about honorifics
 
Oh, 3 questions...
 
Anonymous
So we can probably just axe that tag . . .
 
to is already proposed
 
Yes, let me retag those questions...
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ Thank you! :-)
 
Anonymous
11:34 PM
@Earthliŋ Sorry, I haven't been feeling well so I've been jumping all over the place while I chat. Having trouble focusing :-)
 
One down, a gazillion to go!
[respect] is gone
 
we really should topicalize one thing at a time
 
Anonymous
Hee
 
Anonymous
Um.
 
Anonymous
11:36 PM
> Kare wa okusan ni kusushite imasu.
 
Anonymous
くすすって
 
Anonymous
どういう意味・・・?
 
キスしています?
 
Anonymous
おお
 
(read on)
 
Anonymous
11:37 PM
Derp
 
So much for "trouble focusing" =)
 
Anonymous
Well, my mind is racing, so it keeps jumping from topic to topic
 
Anonymous
I'm feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, though! :-)
 
That's the way to go.
@broccoliforest I think [keigo] should be different from [honorifics]
Was [words] really renamed 279 times?
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ Er. Um. Whuh?
 
Anonymous
11:48 PM
That's odd . . .
 
That's a rename every few days...
Since the beginning of time, when JLSE was still JLU...
 
Anonymous
I edited the question to contain kana and kanji + furigana instead of rōmaji
 
Anonymous
(Am I the only human being alive who types rōmaji?)
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ I'm fairly certain none of us moderators ever look at this tag thingy. Or, you know, almost never.
 
@snailboat I type r­ōmaji =)
 
Anonymous
11:53 PM
@Earthliŋ I looked it up! It looks like "renames" means "People entered in 'vocabulary' 279 times, and all 279 times it was changed to 'words'"
 
But I type in neo-layout.org, so it's easy to type for me...
@snailboat I see, that makes sense
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ I added it to my input method dictionary
 
Anonymous
If I type おお I get ō :-)
 
Anonymous
I also added ' . . . ', which is an ellipsis made with Unicode non-breaking thin spaces
 
Anonymous
I use Japanese input for things other than Japanese :-)
 
Anonymous
11:55 PM
とれーどまーく → ™
 
Anonymous
@Earthliŋ So the 'renames' thing is telling you how often a synonym gets used.
 
Anonymous
Apparently people want to ask questions about 'vocabulary' all the time.
 
and we tell them to ask about "words" instead =)
hm...
Anyway, any thoughts on [spelling]?
 
Anonymous
I dunno!
 
Anonymous
Apparently "spelling" makes sense to the people using this site, because people have tagged lots of questions with it.
 

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