English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule. In Australia, the United States, and Canada, they may be settlements too small to be considered urban. In the Scottish Highlands the term describes a very small agrarian community, usually a local rural or semi-rural government within a county. Australia In Australia the designation of "township" traditionally refers to a small town—a small community in a rural district: such a place in Britain...

Cerberus

I knew you'd read it like that.

Township makes me think of SA.

Vitaly

I was responding to Reg's placeship

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus yeah I got stumped for a moment because I was trying to translate Wissenschaft and the like, which in English have strange foreign names like science etc.

Cerberus

9:09 PM

The townships are the black communities, I believe?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Puns make the world go round

Cerberus

@Vitaly Yeah I know.

Vitaly

@Mitch hm, I'm reading the Wiki article about it now, it doesn't seem to fit

Robusto

I M O U T C U

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I know! Though scio = know.

Matt Эллен

9:09 PM

CU

Cerberus

Bai.

Mitch

Township makes me think of the technical/legal term for something smaller than a county in New York State (the meronym for county)

Vitaly

CU.

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 We also have wiskunde, evenaar, and more.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Mitch I'm with Cerberus on this one. Township makes me think of Soweto. Or South Africa in general.

Mitch

9:10 PM

@Vitaly about population center? it seems to cover anything from 2 people on up.

well. me too, but I was just giving an alternate that does exist somewhere.

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 That's a first.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Me agreeing with you? Yeah sorry won't happen again.

Cerberus

Good.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Mitch now that you mention county, that's what -schaft can mean, too.

Grafschaft.

Cerberus

What will the neighbours think?

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Mind your spelling: graafschap.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:12 PM

@Cerberus you are a schaf.

Vitaly

@Mitch well, it seems to be a point that is somehow related to population density and the populated area, not a specific settlement, e.g. Wiki says the population center of the U.S. is located in Texas County, Missouri

Mitch

but county... it means what it means...In Europe surely some place that has a count/graf.

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 *schaap

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus no u

Mitch

but in the US, kind of smaller than a state or colony

Cerberus

9:12 PM

Bèèèèèhhhhh....

Matt Эллен

you are a sheep?

Cerberus

@Mitch Yes, but not in England, I believe. That is, I think it is used for arbitrary districts too in England.

Mitch

@Vitaly Ohhhh....yes..that is a reasonable understanding (sort of the mean geographic point of population).

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yes. And I'm having terrible chat lag—another reason to bleat. Bèèèhhh.

Matt Эллен

our counties are political areas mainly

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:14 PM

Ortschaften are purely administrative methinks.

Matt Эллен

ways of dividing up the resoures

Cerberus

But do you still use county for the domain of a count?

Matt Эллен

no

Cerberus

We do for graafschap.

Matt Эллен

I don't think we have counts

I see

Cerberus

9:15 PM

@MattЭллен Ohh wait, that's it! You have earls.

yeah

and dukes

We have dukes too.

Dukes of Hazard.

9:16 PM

Well, all the old duchies have been inherited by the King.

Matt Эллен

yeah, our dukes are all princes as far as I can tell

Cerberus

So we have no real dukes any more: the King has "Duke of Limburg" as one of his many titles.

Matt Эллен

Duke of Cornwall - Prince Charles

Cerberus

Hmm really?

Mitch

US... state is comprised of counties. In some states, counties are comprised of townships, and city boundaries just happen to overlap within the county. In others, the county is the smallest division, and 'incorporated cities' are subtracted from that.

Cerberus

9:17 PM

I thought you had some independent dukes left.

Matt Эллен

Duke of Edinburgh - Prince Philip

Mitch

Count Dooku...that counts for both.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Ein Duke kommt selten allein

Ein Duke kommt selten allein (Originaltitel: The Dukes of Hazzard) ist eine Fernsehserie aus den USA, die von 1979 bis 1985 produziert und erfolgreich ausgestrahlt wurde. Sie zog bis heute neben zahlreichen Merchandise-Artikeln eine Spin-off-Serie, eine Zeichentrickserie, zwei Fernsehfilme, vier Videospiele und zwei Kinofilme nach sich. Handlung Die Cousins Bo und Luke Duke befinden sich in ständigen Auseinandersetzungen mit Boss Hogg, dem Landrat und Patriarchen ihrer Heimat Hazzard County, eines gemütlichen kleinen Südstaaten-County in unmittelbarer Nähe der Millionenmetropole Atla...

Cerberus

List of dukes in the peerages of the British Isles

This is a list of present dukes in the peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. For a more complete historical listing, including extinct, dormant, abeyant, forfeit dukedoms in addition to these extant ones, see List of dukedoms in the peerages of the British Isles. Order of precedence The general order of precedence among dukes is: #Dukes in the Peerage of England, in order of creation #Dukes in the Peerage of Scotland, in order of creation #Dukes in the Peerage of Great Britain, in order of creation #Dukes in the Peerage of Ireland, in order of cr...

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Haha how fitting.

Matt Эллен

9:18 PM

@Cerberus yeah, I've just found it too :D

Cerberus

Doekoe is dough (money) in Dutch-Caribbean street slang.

Matt Эллен

didn't know we had so many dukes

I've only got two myself

Cerberus

You are truly blessed.

We do have some princes.

Do you have independent princes?

Matt Эллен

not that I'm aware of

Cerberus

Their principalities are all in foreign countries, though.

Just as the Dutch stadholders/kings have always been Princes of Orange, the town in France.

And they call themselves after that to the present day.

Matt Эллен

9:21 PM

all our living princes are related to QEII

Cerberus

"Beatrix van Oranje".

@MattЭллен The ship?

Matt Эллен

I knew you'd read it like that

Cerberus

Is it a lord-ship?

Matt Эллен

Yes.

LOL

Cerberus

Hehe.

It's too easy.

The fact that the son of a king is now called a prince is just because prince is the highest noble rank below king: kings wanted to give their sons the highest ranks, so a king either gave them some principalities (that he was prince of himself), or created semi-fake principalities for them.

Vitaly

9:25 PM

So @Cerberus, would you agree with CGEL's approach with regard to relative constructions: you'd determine whether to use a wh or non-wh relative (and whether they are interchangeable), and only then choose between a that relative and a bare relative if it turns out that non-wh is preferred or equivalent to wh?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Then I name myself King of right here!

time for bed

Cerberus

@Vitaly Hmm that is a bit complicated, especially the "and whether they are interchangeable" and "if it turns out that non-wh is preferred or equivalent to wh".

So I'm not sure I understand; and I'd have to think about it anyway, probably.

Vitaly

(that and bare relatives are two types of non-wh relatives, while wh relatives use words like which)

Cerberus

Yeah I got that.

I am inclined to say that leaving out the relative pronoun is even possible where who is normally strongly preferred in writing.

> The princes I saw at the ball

I would not usually write that there.

It is possible; but I'd sooner write whom, or who.

So I am inclined to say that the zero relative should be considered a third category.

Otherwise, how come we would rather replace the zero relative in this sentence with who(m) than with that?

@Vitaly So I think the CGEL description works OK, as a slightly simplified description; but in reality a somewhat more complex model would probably explain things a bit better.

Vitaly

> With personal antecedents, there is a preference for who when the relativised element is subject, … and for the non-wh type elsewhere …

Cerberus

9:34 PM

There is also a significant difference between speech and writing.

Vitaly

that's an extragrammatical issue

as long as "The boy that ran there" is fully grammatical

Cerberus

Oh, but the princes that I saw is perfectly grammatical too.

But the CGEL quote was speculating about the order of when we apply which condition.

Besides, what is grammaticality? According to Alex (a linguist whom I talked to here), it is defined as "fitting the model as constructed by linguists".

So it is even further from reality than assessments about acceptability, which he considered an entirely different property.

Vitaly

now, now, CGEL is a descriptive grammar

Cerberus

And?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I think I'm logging off for today. Sleepy.

Cerberus

9:40 PM

Night!

Vitaly

never mind, I'm not going into philosophy anyway, not now :P

CU.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah, night.

Cerberus

Calling the CGEL a descriptive grammar is philosophical? Hmm...

Vitaly

In any case, @Cerberus, I'm annoyed by the model that the authors of CGEL had chosen, too.

Cerberus

Hmm why so?

Vitaly

9:42 PM

It doesn't let me determine explicitly whether wh words are omissible or not.

Cerberus

Oh, yes.

That is a bit vague.

There are soft criteria.

Not sure how good CGEL is at those.

Much of language is about soft criteria.

Vitaly

The criteria seem OK. Suffice to say that there are 3 pages of fine print of preferential criteria for wh over non-wh and vice versa. And then another 2 pages about that-omissibility.

user19161

@Cerberus Have you read the entire book?

Cerberus

@Vitaly ? You said there were no good criteria, "it doesn't let me determine..."?

@JasperLoy Not at all.

@Vitaly But?

Vitaly

@Cerberus But the model is useless. Well, not useless, but I'd rather they included bare relatives in the wh part of the model as well.

Cerberus

9:46 PM

By "the model", do you mean only the paraphrase you gave, or also the fine print?

Vitaly

I believe my paraphrase is adequate.

Cerberus

So only the paraphrase?

Vitaly

Okay… What do you mean by criteria?

I understood that as something like this:

14 mins ago, by Vitaly

> With personal antecedents, there is a preference for who when the relativised element is subject, … and for the non-wh type elsewhere …

Cerberus

Yes.

Vitaly

But what do they have to do with the model, in this case?

Cerberus

9:49 PM

You haven't answered me yet about what you mean by "the model" so I couldn't tell you.

Vitaly

Oh. I didn't?

Cerberus

I asked twice.

Vitaly

By the “model”, I mean how they divide relative constructions into subclasses. They divide relatives into wh and non-wh relatives, and then they divide non-wh relatives into that and bare relatives. So when I say that I'm annoyed by that model, I mean that I'd rather they divided relatives into wh, that, and bare relatives, or something that would let me determine the omissibility of which more easily.

Cerberus

3 mins ago, by Cerberus

By "the model", do you mean only the paraphrase you gave, or also the fine print?

Vitaly

@Cerberus What on Earth does the fine print listing the criteria of wh-vs-non-wh and that-vs-bare preferences (starting at around page 107#) have to do with how they build the hierarchy of relative constructions (100 pages earlier)?

Cerberus

9:53 PM

Lots.

If by "the hierarchy of relative constructions" you mean your paraphrase.

Vitaly

7 mins ago, by Vitaly

I believe my paraphrase is adequate.

There are no further details that are relevant.

Cerberus

Who said it wasn't adequate?

Vitaly

…

Cerberus

I really don't understand.

Vitaly

I really don't understand what you want to say.

Jinx...

Cerberus

9:55 PM

Nobody doubted the quality of your paraphrase.

I didn't understand why you said that when you did.

Vitaly

Well, you seemed to be implying that the fine print contained a detailed model as opposed to preferential criteria, as opposed to my paraphrase of their chosen hierarchy.

Cerberus

Ehh the two "as opposed to"s are frying my brain, I can't follow that.

I have totally lost track of what we were talking about, hehe.

Vitaly

The first opposed is semantically linked to contained, the second opposed is semantically linked to detailed model.

@Cerberus You don't say?

Cerberus

Sorry, that only makes it less comprehensible. Let's start over. You said this:

13 mins ago, by Vitaly

@Cerberus But the model is useless. Well, not useless, but I'd rather they included bare relatives in the wh part of the model as well.

And I didn't quite understand what you meant.

Vitaly

> I mean that I'd rather they divided relatives into wh, that, and bare relatives, or something that would let me determine the omissibility of which more easily.

Cerberus

10:00 PM

Which thing exactly did you find useless? I was trying to figure that out.

@Vitaly I sort of agree with the first part (I think I proposed that earlier); as to the omissibility of which...I don't know.

I think "the omissibility of which" is already a problematic concept: when I try to think about it, my brain cries foul. So I think three categories would be better, if you want a more precise model than the one in your paraphrase.

Vitaly

@Cerberus Well, those preferential criteria are necessarily not strict, and going through two hoops in their hierarchy adds more vagueness than I can reasonably tolerate.

Cerberus

@Vitaly Okay, but the problem is that relative pronouns are not strict.

You can't reliably predict them with syntactic rules, at least not rules than fit in a book, I'd say.

Vitaly

@Cerberus Yes. And that extra jump from wh-vs-non-wh to that-vs-bare makes it even more imprecise. Which is my problem, as I've been saying all along.

Cerberus

Language is too big, too complex. Semantics, sentence balance, genre—all sorts of things come into play.

Vitaly

@Cerberus Applause light.

Cerberus

10:06 PM

@Vitaly More imprecise as in less accurate?

It is quite precise.

@Vitaly Is this a sign of approbation?

Ehm, I'd rather not read an entire article first.

(*It is quite precise, but I agree that it is not very accurate.)

Vitaly

@Cerberus But you have just said that there is more stuff to consider when formalizing the criteria than can fit in a book. So if I am first going through the preferential criteria for wh-vs-non-wh, and then for the criteria for that-vs-bare, more stuff that cannot have been included in the book is going to accumulate than if I just skipped straight to wh-vs-bare.

Cerberus

> more stuff that cannot have been included in the book is going to accumulate

Not sure what you mean here.

Vitaly

m nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

headkeyboard

Cerberus

If you mean that the preferential criteria assume the two-step model as in your paraphrase, and that this makes them less useful, I see where you're coming from.

Is that what you mean?

Vitaly

@Cerberus Never mind. We can't possibly make the authors of CGEL change their model and publish a second edition, so the point is moot even if we manage to understand each other.

Cerberus

10:11 PM

Perhaps so.

@Vitaly Don't hurt your back.

Vitaly

@Cerberus Well, I kind of said just that:

> 3 pages of fine print of preferential criteria for wh over non-wh and vice versa. And then another 2 pages about that-omissibility

Cerberus

I hoped you were saying that again. But I can't assent to what I don't understand, now, can I?

Vitaly

10:30 PM

> And surely he well merited this faithful testimony at her hands, for it must be owned, that the arrows of true passion, when sharpened by the sceptre of disappointment, envelope the heart with a weight of woe, and forcibly obumbrate the finest feelings of the soul.

— Modern novel writing

Cerberus

Is that an example of mixed metaphors?

Pretty funny.

Bordering on unreadable.

Vitaly

Yeah.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…