English Language Learners

Anonymous

12:36 AM

I'm having trouble imagining a situation where #2 would be better than #1

Anonymous

Almost certainly such a situation exists, but I can't think of it

12:48 AM

I think "Grammarians are in the room" is possible at a linguist meeting. Like, "Phoneticians are in room 312A; syntacticians are in room 314B; we're here in front of room 316C. Grammarians are in the room."

StoneyB

1:49 AM

@DamkerngT. Or: "Watch your tongue! Grammarians are in the room, armed with weaponized CGELs."

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB A must-have weapon!

Freddy

3:07 AM

hello guys

Damkerng T.

3:20 AM

@Freddy Hello!

Freddy

after a long time i got computer to chat!!

Damkerng T.

Oh! You got a computer problem with the chat?

Freddy

Nope, i am here in a conference where all programmers and electric guys get together and have different workshop, talks, fun etc. So there are too many laptops over here but none of them are free.

Damkerng T.

@Freddy Ahh

Sounds like a neat conference. :D

Freddy

I am only high school guy over here :)

Damkerng T.

3:34 AM

That's even neater!

Damkerng T.

5:33 AM

I got this message while writing up an answer! This question has been deleted - no more answers will be accepted.

Anonymous

6:45 AM

@DamkerngT. Where at?

Anonymous

Do you have the question's URL still?

Damkerng T.

6:58 AM

@snailboat Umm... It's not that important, but I guess I still can find it in my history.

Anonymous

Because you can always repost the question yourself :-)

Anonymous

I got Listenever to undelete a question once so I could post an answer

Anonymous

But other times, I just discarded my answer

Damkerng T.

I couldn't find it, but it was a question from user1917217 asking about how to "cut in a sentence" (their words). Basically, it was about parsing relative clauses in a sentence.

My computer is really in bad shape right now. Some click will take a few minutes before I can get the response.

This has happened since I started visiting CBC this morning.

I guess they use a lot of either Flash or HTML5. Maybe both!

Anonymous

Ah! I saw that question!

Anonymous

7:07 AM

I wasn't home, but I was checking ELL on my phone.

Anonymous

I formed an answer mentally

Anonymous

The nice thing about Flash is that it's neatly encapsulated so it's easy to bypass and disable it everywhere except the places you want to selectively allow it

Anonymous

Javascript + HTML5, on the other hand, is not neatly encapsulated and it's difficult to pull its tendrils out of pages without breaking them

Damkerng T.

I'm almost done with the site (to get what I want), which are basically podcasts and video clips, but this will take a while, I guess.

Wow, it took me about half a minute after I typed "this will take a while, I guess." blindly before I could see it. Then, another half a minute before I could click Send, and almost another minute to see it appear up there.

Anonymous

I was thinking about explaining that sentences are made of constituents. I thought I'd draw a syntax tree

Damkerng T.

7:14 AM

I used brackets; I hoped it would be good enough. But they might have been able to parse that themselves by now.

Anonymous

I like brackets a lot.

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/questions/37547/…

Damkerng T.

You found it!

Anonymous

Hehe, I'm going to get a "Serial upvoting reversed" soon :-)

Damkerng T.

7:23 AM

I'm not sure what that is!

Anonymous

It's when a user goes through your profile and upvotes post after post

Anonymous

The system detects it automatically and reverses it

Anonymous

Right now I'm getting lots of green +10s on Japanese.SE!

Anonymous

japanese.stackexchange.com/users/1478/snailboat?tab=reputation

Anonymous

Those precious, precious reputations are going to vanish, though!

Damkerng T.

7:25 AM

Maybe not. Let's hope not. :-)

hi

Hi!

how are tyou doing

I'm okay, thanks! How are you?

happenask

good

Damkerng T.

10:30 AM

As a North American speaker, I've never heard come off used that way. — 200_success 1 hour ago

Very interesting!

Anonymous

11:20 AM

@DamkerngT. What time does the party come off? What, was the party stuck to something...?

Damkerng T.

11:33 AM

I finally found the page on TFD, and two hits on Google Books for "what time * come off", and it looks like come off could indeed mean take place, but I don't think it's widely used.

Anonymous

I'm a native speaker of American English. I see it in dictionaries including Macmillan sense 5 to happen "Another competition is coming off in the summer.", so I guess it's a real thing, but I'm not familiar with it. It looks like it might be an older phrase...? — snailboat just now

Anonymous

That's my little contribution

Anonymous

That's all I know :-)

Anonymous

It was difficult to find examples online because come off is commonly used with a couple unrelated meanings ("the lid came off of the jar") but I did find some examples, mostly around a hundred years ago

Damkerng T.

Hooray! Thanks from me and on the OP's behalf.

Anonymous

11:35 AM

books.google.com/…

Damkerng T.

Oh, why didn't I check Macmillan first?!

Anonymous

It's fast becoming my go-to dictionary :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Umm... Oh, I see--the text falls off!

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It fell off? :-O

Anonymous

Like, off the monitor onto your desk? Can you get it back onto the screen somehow? :-)

Damkerng T.

11:39 AM

I don't know where it fell off, but I can see only the upper-half of the last line, ending with is.

That is what I can only see.

Anonymous

books.google.com/…

Anonymous

Is that the same?

Damkerng T.

Yes. It's the same. :(

I guess they let us see things differently!

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

Maybe BrE. My guts say so.

Oh, thanks for the image, btw.

Anonymous

11:43 AM

The examples I was able to find were mostly old, maybe from around 100-150 years ago: here on Google Books, for example. I'll also include a screen shot because my Google Books link didn't work for Damkerng in chat: i.stack.imgur.com/vuaiZ.png — snailboat 29 secs ago

Damkerng T.

Wow, 1879!

Anonymous

12:14 PM

Aww, I stepped on a spider by accident

Anonymous

Sorry, spider!

Anonymous

@StoneyB Do you know this come off phrase?

Anonymous

I find myself upvoting our new friend tunny quite often

StoneyB

Yes, indeed. Parties come off, shows come off - people come off: "I didn't win, but I think I came off pretty well." Happen, occur, succeed.

But my lexicon is sort of mid-Atlantic, with heavy early influence from British fiction.

Anonymous

@StoneyB Dictionaries I checked listed the "succeed" definition separately from the "happen" definition

StoneyB

12:21 PM

@snailboat Yes, indeed; tunny is an important acquisition. I hope 'a sticks around.

Anonymous

The "succeed" one seems vaguely familiar, like I might have heard it before, but I didn't know what to make of "When does the party come off?"

Anonymous

I went through a bunch of dictionaries :-)

Anonymous

Some of them only listed the "succeed" meaning

StoneyB

@snailboat Well, it's iffy. "Did the party come off as planned?" I think it's a question of whether it's prospective (His recital is coming off next Tuesday = 'is scheduled to occur') or retrospective (His recital duly came off last Tuesday = 'actually occurred' = 'succeeded in conforming to the schedule').

Anonymous

I can't read German.

Anonymous

12:27 PM

> Dieser Typ des konditionalen Satzes wird in der japanischen Grammatik "guzen kakutei joken hyogen" (zufälliger faktischer konditionaler Ausdruck) genannt (vgl. Honda 2005: 190ff.).

Anonymous

I find myself wondering how they described kakutei jōken hyōgen

Anonymous

It would be so much easier if I could just read every language :-)

StoneyB

I think your opening quote must be misplaced: This type of conditional sentence is called "guzen kakutei joken hyogen" (accidental? factive conditonal expression) in Japanese grammar.

Ooops Hafta run ... I should have been on the road twenty minutes ago. Bye all.

Anonymous

@StoneyB Oops, yes, when I cut and pasted the quotes got mixed up so I typed them back in, but in the wrong spot!

Damkerng T.

Through online you can find a one, but in stores i dont know. — Emmanuel Angelo.R 3 hours ago

Now I'm curious where that site is?

There are a lot of dictionaries, but I don't know one that explains the nuances of "concern", "relate to", "be about" in the related sense or tries to distinguish them.

Anonymous

12:45 PM

Dunno!

Anonymous

I like factive conditional as a translation for kakutei jōken. I'm going to save that somewhere in my brain :-)

user116848

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Hello!

@snailboat Koolkwhip!

The /h/ before /w/ sounds really like a /k/ to my ear.

user116848

So, I didn't know Mitch in ELU was PhD! :D

user116848

in English Language & Usage, 12 mins ago, by Mitch

PhD CS

user116848

12:48 PM

in English Language & Usage, 3 mins ago, by Arrowfar

@Mitch I didn't know you were PhD. Nice Doc! :-)

user116848

So, recently there was a talk at some chat room that higher education is directly proportional to Atheism. Do you guys believe that? I do.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. According to the PIE reconstructions, the Proto-Germanic *hw came from Proto-Indo European *kw

Anonymous

I don't know exactly how those would have been articulated

Anonymous

But it's easy to imagine k becoming h

user116848

I have noticed that the more difficult it gets to clear any exams the less I care about any divine superpower.

Anonymous

12:54 PM

I am not religious.

user116848

Yeah, me too.

Anonymous

Too is a positive polarity item

user116848

I mean: "Me neither"

user116848

:D

Anonymous

There you go :-)

Damkerng T.

12:55 PM

@snailboat That's really interesting!

user116848

So saying: "Me too" refers to me being 'religious'?

Anonymous

@Arrowfar No, it just doesn't make sense in response to what I said

Anonymous

I mean, it did make sense, but only because I assumed you meant "Me neither" :-)

user116848

Oh, I see.

user116848

Yeah :-)

Anonymous

12:56 PM

So it's not like I failed to understand what you meant.

user116848

I know :)

Anonymous

Because too and (n)either are two sides of the same coin

user116848

I see

user116848

Yeah, two sides. Same coin!

Anonymous

There are some polarity items that, if misused, can cause you to fail to communicate entirely

Anonymous

12:58 PM

"I like you at all." ← What does this mean? :-)

user116848

Like?

Anonymous

"I'll pay you a red cent." ← What?

user116848

Yeah, very ambiguous.

Anonymous

Sometimes polarity items vary by dialect.

Anonymous

Positive anymore isn't part of Standard English, but it's common in dialects across North America

Anonymous

12:59 PM

"Gas prices are so high anymore."

Anonymous

A native speaker could fail to understand this, but another native speaker might say it.

Anonymous

Here, anymore means something like "these days"

user116848

@snailboat So, I speak American English. I don't follow any particular dialect because I don't live there. So, I don't know which dialect of American English I speak. Is that okay? Or it looks backwards?

Anonymous

@Arrowfar It's fine. People are very often unaware of fine-grained dialectal distinctions.

user116848

I see

Anonymous

1:01 PM

People just have vague ideas about dialects and accents.

user116848

yeah

Anonymous

Which is fine.

Anonymous

You could spend a lifetime learning about dialects.

Anonymous

There's just a huge amount of variation in English dialects.

Anonymous

Much more than a lot of people imagine there is.

user116848

1:02 PM

nods

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Polarity items can be pretty weird and subtle.

Anonymous

Till is a polarity item in clauses with a punctual interpretation.

Anonymous

> 1. We won't leave till six o'clock.
> 2. ??We will leave till six o'clock.

Anonymous

The first one makes sense. We think of leave as something that happens at a single point in time (it's "punctual").

Anonymous

Till works with punctual predicates, but only if they're negative.

Anonymous

1:04 PM

When you put it in a positive predicate, till prevents us from interpreting it as punctual

Anonymous

So we're forced to interpret 2 as something like "We'll continuously leave for hours until six o'clock", which is nonsense

Damkerng T.

In super slow-mo!

Anonymous

Yeah, interpreting leave as durative, especially with a long duration, is extremely marginal

Anonymous

But I marked it with question marks because it's not strictly ungrammatical

Anonymous

Just very strange

Anonymous

1:06 PM

Japanese has stuff like that too, where it's possible to interpret something as durative if you can imagine something happening muuuuuch slooooower thaaaaaaan norrrrrrmallllll

Anonymous

But it's marginal and strange :-)

Anonymous

It's funny what sorts of sentences people can come up with interpretations for

Anonymous

There's a lot of sentences where you'd like to say "That's wrong", but people can come up with a possible interpretation that makes sense, however unlikely

Damkerng T.

Perhaps that happens a lot in fiction.

Anonymous

Well, it's kind of brain-bending. Forcing someone to interpret a sentence in a way they don't expect is something a good author usually avoids

Anonymous

1:08 PM

You don't want to shock your reader out of following the story by forcing them to consciously think through your words :-)

Damkerng T.

nods -- Perhaps only just a few in each novel.

Anonymous

On the other hand, clever wordplay does appear quite a bit in fiction :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I don't know, there might be things like that, but I'm having trouble imagining it

Anonymous

Sometimes it's hard to jump from hypotheticals like that to reality, so I'll try to avoid saying anything certain

Anonymous

I might just be thinking about it differently than you

Damkerng T.

1:12 PM

I got one recently from Beauty and the Beast. "It's express forensics." "Express forensics?" "He'd been dissected into little bits." "What?!"

user116848

@DamkerngT. You watch Beauty and the Beast series? Or the movie?

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar It's a series, and I only watched its promo trailers.

user116848

I did. I liked it. But then left it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh! I wasn't thinking about dialogue

Anonymous

Now I'm having an easier time imagining it

Damkerng T.

1:14 PM

@snailboat Hooray for the easier time!

user116848

I am watching "Arrow" these days :-)

user116848

It's a very cool tv show.

Damkerng T.

I remember that bill!

user116848

bill? :)

Damkerng T.

In other dialects, they might call it "poster".

user116848

1:15 PM

Yeah, poster. They also call it bill?

Damkerng T.

Where do you think billboard came from? ;-)

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Are you going to change your icon to the Arrow guy?

user116848

@DamkerngT. Oh, that. haha

user116848

@snailboat haha Maybe

Anonymous

In my dialect it's a poster

user116848

1:17 PM

Yeah, same here.

user116848

:)

user116848

But...um...not 'my dialect'. I don't know my American English dialect :D

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Doesn't matter. You can have a dialect anyway.

Anonymous

You can't not have a lect.

Anonymous

If you prefer, you can say your idiolect.

user116848

1:22 PM

@snailboat 'Idiolect' sounds nice! :D

Anonymous

@Arrowfar It's a nice word.

user116848

@snailboat Yeah, like 'Individuality'

user116848

:)

Anonymous

I used to like the word idiocrasy, but it was ruined when the film Idiocracy came out

Anonymous

I've never forgiven that film

user116848

1:23 PM

hah :)

Anonymous

I couldn't figure out why the idiom make a mess doesn't work in passive questions.

Anonymous

It works in passives: "This mess was made by a very large squirrel."

Anonymous

It works in questions: "Who made this mess?"

Anonymous

But not in passive questions: "Who was this mess made by?" (only works with the compositional sense of make, not the idiomatic sense)

Anonymous

== "Who is the creator of this mess?"

Damkerng T.

1:24 PM

Syntactically, it should mean that.

Anonymous

Well, make a mess is an idiom.

Anonymous

It's close to compositional.

Anonymous

But it's not quite

Anonymous

For me at least, the idiom simply doesn't work in passive questions, so I have to interpret it with its literal meaning in "Who was this mess made by?"

Anonymous

Which is strange.

Damkerng T.

1:26 PM

But you are fine with "This mess was made by a very large squirrel," which is passive. Isn't that strange?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes!

Anonymous

I'm also fine with the question "Who made this mess?"

Anonymous

Just not with the combination of passive + question.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Language is hard to explain.

Anonymous

Idioms can have arbitrary requirements.

Anonymous

1:28 PM

It could be that this idiom has a requirement "no passive + question!"

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Or it could be that my idiolect is strange.

Anonymous

Maybe I'm the only one with that requirement.

Damkerng T.

BRB

Anonymous

I was trying to figure it out. I tried to look it up, too, but to no avail.

Anonymous

1:31 PM

2

Q: Phrasing questions in passive voice

Which is the right way to phrase "Who made this mess?" in the passive voice? By whom were made this mess? or Who was this mess made by? How should I write questions in passive voice?

Anonymous

That's the question in question.

Anonymous

2

A: Phrasing questions in passive voice

Both This mess was made by who(m)? and your second sentence Who was this mess made by? are correct. Your first sentence is not grammatical. You can say By whom was this mess made?

Anonymous

CarSmack thinks it works in the passive. Maybe it's just me.

Damkerng T.

Even if it's acceptable I believe that it's marginal at best.

Anonymous

Yeah, I think I can agree on just calling it "marginal" and leaving it at that. I give up on trying to come up with an explanation :-)

Anonymous

1:36 PM

Someone on Linguistics.SE asked about be like

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think it's something like: "He was able to manage to going to have been being here." I guess we can make sense of it if we really want to. The problem is, I think, we don't normally use it.

Anonymous

I found a paper with an analysis that explained the weird syntax by positing an invisible something: "He was something like (quote)"

Anonymous

Which was really interesting because it accounted for the facts, but

Anonymous

On reflection I found it pretty unpersuasive

Anonymous

Because it didn't count for other colloquial quotative constructions like be all or go

Anonymous

1:38 PM

Which share some of the same properties. "He goes X / He goes like X" → "＊What did he go? / ＊What did he go like?"

Anonymous

"He was all X / He goes all like X" → "＊What was he all? / ＊What did he go all like?"

Damkerng T.

@snailboat They could try to analyze go separately.

Maybe they already have tried it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. They didn't analyze go at all. But assuming there is some explanation for go, then why is it different from the explanation for be like when the two share much of the same syntax?

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Maybe because it's a vague some, and one needs something and the other needs somehow.

Or somewhat!

In any case, I remember what you said (not in the exact words) about ellipsis.

2

Q: "...probably knew the answer judging by..." Is this grammatically correct?

Example: "What do you think about my house?" Tommy asked, who probably knew the answer judging by my open mouth. ...who probably knew the answer judging by... has only one Google result. So I wonder whether it's grammatical.

grammar

StoneyB

@snailboat I don't think they're 'quotative constructions' at all. They look to me like ordinary verbs which happen to license utterances as exemplary complements. all and like aren't parts of a construction but adjuncts: all is an adverb, 'completely', like is a discourse marker like Lo!.

Damkerng T.

1:46 PM

I guess the use of judging by depends on who judges it.

Anonymous

@StoneyB But like isn't omissible from "And then he was like blam!"

Damkerng T.

How about, "make like a tree (and leave)"?

Hmm... Now I'm confused. What is like? What exactly is its function?

Anonymous

Go is quotative on its own. Go like, go all, go all like have optional all and like, not really responsible for the quotative part of things.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Like is a hedge. When someone is like X, you're giving only an approximate representation.

Damkerng T.

It seems to me like it could be either an adverb or a discourse marker or both at the same time.

Anonymous

1:50 PM

Go is quotative on its own. Be is not: someone can be like X but not be X, if X is a quote

Anonymous

But be all and be like and be all like all work

Damkerng T.

Because like approximates the quality, I think we should be able to remove all approx-like from all sentences, and the sentences will still be grammatical.

StoneyB

@snailboat Sometimes it is. First time up you usually need the like to signal your unusual complementation, but after that you can go on wazzing without like. "So Brian was like 'No it isn't' and Kelly was right back 'Yes it is' and Brian's 'No it isn't, not never' and Pam's all 'Just drop it guys' and it went on like that like all night."

Damkerng T.

@snailboat In ell.stackexchange.com/q/37575/3281, I think we have speakers of System A, B, C, and D!

StoneyB

Here's an example with no marker: [books.google.com/…

Anonymous

2:04 PM

@StoneyB Interesting! That's not grammatical for me

Damkerng T.

+1 on interesting! Not sure if it's grammatical. (I guess I tend to accept it.)

StoneyB

2:18 PM

@snailboat I think that's only because you're seeing it on the page instead of hearing it off the page. It seems to me that the key thing in these 'quotatives' is that they're not really 'quotes' but re-enactments, demonstrations of behavior rather than transcript of words.

Anonymous

Oh, sure. They aren't actually literal quotes.

Anonymous

I can say "He was all like" and then make a frumpy grump face with sad eyes.

Anonymous

But I can't say "He said" and do the same.

StoneyB

Perhaps H&P's two categories of copular clauses, ascriptive and specifying, need a third: mimetic.

Anonymous

We had a question recently about making cymbals go crash. It's kind of like that, isn't it?

Damkerng T.

2:32 PM

Ah, I remember the cymbals question!

user116848

2:48 PM

Any runners here?

user116848

There is a talk of running at ELU.

user116848

*has been a talk

Anonymous

I come from a long line of bad knees.

user116848

I am a runner.

user116848

Or at least I run sometimes.

user116848

2:49 PM

I like running. Maybe more than driving a nice car.

user116848

Yep!

user116848

That is true :-)

user116848

So, I like the parkour sports too. But I never try that because it is very dangerous.

Anonymous

A friend of mine does parkour.

Anonymous

Me, I do walking. That's adventure enough for me. :-)

Anonymous

2:51 PM

I like to find mollusks.

user116848

@snailboat Yeah? Wow! :D

Anonymous

Sometimes I find non-mollusks.

user116848

@snailboat haha

Anonymous

For whatever reason, Mother Nature put a lot of non-mollusks between all the mollusks.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Like, us? :-)

user116848

2:52 PM

So, parkour guys are like ninjas I hear.

user116848

I mean they are fast.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure they are different.

Anonymous

My friend who does parkour is female but also ninja-like

user116848

I am not fast though.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hello, land non-mollusk!

user116848

2:52 PM

@snailboat Awesome!

user116848

In Arrow series they show a lot of parkour moves!

Damkerng T.

It's strange that I don't think of ninja as fast.

user116848

I have watched hundreds of parkour videos.

user116848

@DamkerngT. Why Damk?

user116848

@DamkerngT. Oh, yeah. They are stealthy too!

Damkerng T.

2:54 PM

If I understand correctly, they would avoid hand to hand combat is possible.

That's right!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ninja are heavily mythologized in Japan. They're fast and use all sorts of special techniques to escape from their enemies

user116848

Yeah, they would rather use their 'stars' etc.

Damkerng T.

Shurikens.

user116848

@DamkerngT. Nice word!

user116848

:)

user116848

2:56 PM

Shuriken

A shuriken (Japanese 手裏剣; literally: "sword hidden in user's hand") is a traditional Japanese concealed weapon that was generally used for throwing, and sometimes stabbing or slashing. They are sharpened hand-held blades made from a variety of everyday items, such as needles, nails and knives, as well as coins, washers, and other flat plates of metal. Shuriken is the name given to any small-bladed object, while shaken is traditionally used to indicate the well-known "throwing star". Shuriken are commonly known in the West as throwing stars or ninja stars although they were originally designed in...

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar I don't know, but they call those things that.

user116848

Oh, it is Japanese.

user116848

@DamkerngT. You are right.

user116848

@snailboat Oh, sorry snail "land non-mollusk". Yes I hear you :D

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I've seen one documentary about a historical ninja village. And their houses are full of secret doors!

user116848

2:59 PM

Why not:

user116848

> "non-land mollusk"

Transcript for