ELL's Cabin

Anonymous

00:00

Again I bolded where she's referred to in the third person

Damkerng T.

Hmm... So lines 10, 11, and 12 are about the feeling of Kazuko but through the voice of the author?

Anonymous

At this point in the story I'm not sure whether you can distinguish between tight third and third person omniscient

Anonymous

Tight third person is when you write your story from a third person point of view, but keep your perspective basically very close to the lead character

Anonymous

Grammatically, these sentences are all third person. They don't feature any first person pronouns (hers is わたし)

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

00:03

So the rest is a matter of how you want to interpret the writer's style :-)

Anonymous

Rather than a matter of grammar per se.

Anonymous

@Catija Yes, particularly children

Anonymous

It's more common in fiction than real life for older characters, but not unheard of. It's just kind of a childish / cutesy mannerism that I think most people abandon at some point

Anonymous

Using their names instead of saying watashi or the like

Catija

Ah, that makes sense... we do similar things in fiction, too.

Anonymous

00:05

Japanese linguists call certain types of language yakuwari-go (lit. "role language"), stereotyped patterns of language used in fiction by specific types of character that are seldom or practically never used in real life

Anonymous

That could count among them :-)

Anonymous

Another example: girls ending their sentences with wa all the time with rising intonation. In real life practically nobody does this, but it's common in fiction

Anonymous

(There is, though, a gender neutral wa with level or falling intonation that is used fairly commonly, especially but not exclusively in the west)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wonder if they do that on TV shows. :P

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. All the time! :-)

Damkerng T.

00:14

A-ha!

So it's another thing I should keep in mind when watching TV shows. (Though I suspect that it's like that anyway. :-)

Anonymous

Woo hoo! I managed to be the first to write an easy answer :-)

Damkerng T.

Eh?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, watching TV will never be the same as talking to a real person.

Anonymous

But it's still a type of real life language exposure and can be helpful in its own way :-)

Anonymous

And, heck, it can be fun!

Damkerng T.

00:16

It's indeed fun!

Anonymous

1

A: Why are the verb groups in Japanese called "consonant-stem" and "vowel-stem"?

You'll understand if you just look at them romanized: Vowel-stem verbs (一段動詞) 　食べない　tabe-nai 　食べます　tabe-masu 　食べる　　tabe-ru 　食べれば　tabe-reba 　食べよう　tabe-yoo The stem is tabe-, which ends with /e/, a vowel. Consonant-stem verbs (五段動詞) 　泳がない　oyog-anai 　泳ぎます　oyog-imasu 　泳ぐ　　　oyog-u 　泳げば　　oyog...

Anonymous

I wrote that in between our chat messages.

Anonymous

I got in just 30 seconds before Earthliŋ :-)

Damkerng T.

tabemonohagobimasu (or something sounds like that; I can't really remember now.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm not familiar with the verb gobu

Damkerng T.

00:18

checking...

Anonymous

But that is in fact how you would say that you gobu food, assuming ha is meant to be wa :-)

Anonymous

Whatever gobuing is

Damkerng T.

Oh, found it! -- typing...

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

By the way, when people romanize Japanese, they tend to use spaces. It's easy to see word boundaries in mixed kana-kanji writing, but not very easy in rōmaji without spaces

Damkerng T.

00:20

> ありは食べ物を運びます。

あり is supposed to be in katakana.

Anonymous

Oh, hakobu! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hee

Anonymous

Does your system have problems typing katakana?

Anonymous

Try typing ari then hit F7

Damkerng T.

I have no Japanese input on this PC.

Anonymous

00:20

Oh! Okay.

Damkerng T.

(I type all that on Google Translate. :-)

Anonymous

Wow!

Anonymous

google.co.jp/ime ← free Japanese input method

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Anonymous

About my を woes: for a while I was thinking I should consider them separate words spelled を, for example accusative and perlative

Anonymous

00:23

Which is tempting because, hey, who doesn't like to say "perlative"?

Anonymous

But right now I'm thinking that doesn't actually make any sense, because I want to distinguish the form from the function, and there's only one form to give a label like "accusative"

Damkerng T.

> Perlative case (abbreviated PER) "expresses that something moved 'through', 'across', or 'along' the referent of the noun that is marked."

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlative_case

Anonymous

Yes! So, hashi o wataru "cross the bridge", kōen o sanpo suru "walk through the park"

Damkerng T.

Makes sense!

Anonymous

The semantics in these examples depend on whether the action is telic. The former is telic, so it implies crossing all the way across; the latter is atelic, so it simply implies walking through the park, but not to any particular point or destination or in any particular direction

Anonymous

00:26

But there's not really much sense in claiming Japanese has a perlative case :-)

Anonymous

Especially one that has the same form as its accusative case

Anonymous

But I do need to distinguish the types of accusative-marked phrase, because they behave differently in terms of syntax and semantics

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hey, you can go with something simple like accusative-marked phrase type I, accusative-marked phrase type II, etc. :P

Anonymous

And there is the double-o constraint which acts on both types of phrase

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, if we just number everything, we don't have to actually come up with descriptive names for anything! :-)

Damkerng T.

00:29

See, English grammar books also do that with conditionals. :-)

Anonymous

Martin considers the "emotional" accusatives to be, well, objects.

Anonymous

(Martin's grammar was also written 40 years ago!)

Anonymous

He lists six types of を-marked phrase

Anonymous

And he calls them all "objects"

Damkerng T.

Neat!

Anonymous

00:32

He doesn't distinguish form from function

Anonymous

Besides the ones I've mentioned already, there's another, what Martin calls a temporal object

Damkerng T.

Maybe he's a splittable-lumper like me. :-)

Anonymous

Martin was eclectic

Anonymous

He grabbed everything he wanted from every theory of the day

Anonymous

Starting with structuralism. He was a student of the structuralist Bernard Bloch

Anonymous

00:33

But he'd take bits of theory from any place he could. He didn't care, as long as it helped him describe stuff

Anonymous

So he's got this kind of quasi-generative quasi-structuralist quasi-whatever-kinda-seeming grammar.

Anonymous

It's really detailed

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

But theoretically, it's, well, kind of like a plate of spaghetti.

Anonymous

With every little thing he could find in the kitchen tossed in the sauce

Damkerng T.

00:34

Mr. アリさん. :-)

Anonymous

And historically, there was another function. を could be used exclamatively!

Damkerng T.

(I imagine he collected knowledge like ants collect food. :-)

Like "を!"?

Anonymous

Oh, he did. He collected lots of it :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, not as an interjection!

Anonymous

It attached to stuff and marked the whole thing as an exclamation :-)

Damkerng T.

00:37

Ahh

Anonymous

There are syntactic grounds for considering some of these things not to be objects.

Anonymous

For example, the "perlative" arguments I described appear as arguments of intransitive verbs!

Anonymous

Verbs of motion. In many cases they're marked morphologically for transitivity, and we can see whether they're transitive or intransitive.

Anonymous

Japanese is full of pairs of verbs, one transitive, one intransitive, that have the same root.

Damkerng T.

Oh! But sometimes it's really difficult to decide whether a verb is transitive or not. (Particularly the most basic ones.)

Anonymous

00:41

Yes, but

Anonymous

Let's say you find a transitive-intransitive pair.

Anonymous

Say, wataru and watasu.

Anonymous

They both mean 'cross', as in our earlier example hashi o wataru 'cross a bridge'

Anonymous

Wataru is intransitive, and watasu is transitive.

Anonymous

Watasu can take a direct object, the thing which you're causing to cross. For example, if you're going to put a rope across a ditch

Anonymous

00:44

You would mark rōpu 'rope' with o

Anonymous

Wataru can't.

Anonymous

Only watasu can take this sort of object. There's a clear difference in transitivity by this test, but

Anonymous

Both verbs can take the other sort of o-marked phrase.

Anonymous

And we find this in every case. Verbs of motion which are otherwise intransitive can always take these directional o-phrases as arguments.

Anonymous

In Japanese transitivity is actually usually fairly clear cut because it's marked morphologically

Anonymous

00:46

It's not always.

Anonymous

But there's usually a fairly straightforward relationship between transitive verbal morphology and syntactically taking an object as an argument

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hmm... interesting.

Anonymous

What we find is that the two o-marked phrases have very different sorts of distribution.

Anonymous

Watasu can take both sorts. Wataru can take only one.

Anonymous

And we can find rare examples in which transitive verbs take both types of argument at the same time

Anonymous

00:48

Which implies that they have different syntactic functions

Damkerng T.

It's interesting that Google Translate translates watasu as "pass" and wataru as "over". ;-)

Anonymous

Watasu has a number of other meanings and you may get the wrong meaning if you look it up in a dictionary without looking for the right sense

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods

Anonymous

I would say the primary sense of watasu is actually 'hand X over to Y; give X to Y'

Anonymous

That's a figurative extension of what was historically its primary meaning, though.

Anonymous

00:50

Historically, it was a causative verb meaning "cause to cross over [a river or body of water]"

Anonymous

Most verbs in Japanese ending with su are originally causatives, by the way :-)

Anonymous

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of good syntactic tests for objecthood in Japanese.

Anonymous

One of them is more or less inapplicable here, which is appearing with no koto

Anonymous

*kōen no koto o sanpo suru is more or less nonsense :-)

Anonymous

So it's difficult to say conclusively that they are or aren't a kind of object

Anonymous

00:53

If I start by saying that there's only one form, and therefore only one label ("accusative") is appropriate for the form

Anonymous

Then I can add modifiers to that label: directional accusative, for example.

Anonymous

Directional is probably better at communicating with people than perlative anyway.

Damkerng T.

That sounds good enough to me.

Anonymous

The idea behind calling the form "accusative" in the first place is that its central purpose is to mark objects

Anonymous

It's okay if not every use of the form is to mark an object.

Anonymous

00:59

Likewise, I feel comfortable referring to the -(r)u / -ta contrast as nonpast and past tenses, because their central purpose is to locate situations in time

Damkerng T.

The safest way is probably to call it the wo marker. :-)

Anonymous

But they clearly have uses that are modal or aspectual in nature

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I try to remember to type o, but from typing を so often it can be hard to remember sometimes :-)

Anonymous

Since I type in Japanese writing more often than I type in rōmaji

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You can do that. And I understand why someone might.

Anonymous

01:00

Imagine if CGEL called the -ing form the -ing form instead of the gerund-participial form.

Anonymous

It's a lot shorter.

Anonymous

Call it what it is. Some people like that. It's popular to call the て-form, the, well, て-form :-)

Anonymous

Linguists typically call it either a gerund or participle form, usually the former

Anonymous

But books for students usually say -te form or the like.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

01:03

So, the Nihongo Bunpō Handbook books, which are written by linguists but for Japanese-speaking teachers of Japanese as a second language, do in fact go with ヲ格

Anonymous

Which literally means 'o-case'

Anonymous

ガ格 'ga-case'

Anonymous

Most Japanese linguists write 主格 'nominative case' instead

Anonymous

So that's definitely a thing people do. People do just call it the "o marker" :-)

Damkerng T.

Ahh...

They katakananized it!

Anonymous

01:04

Oh, sure. Use-mention distinction, and all that.

Anonymous

It's like writing ga-case in English.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Or -ing form

Anonymous

I italicize the form. Same thing with the katakana.

Anonymous

Katakana has probably a couple dozen uses, and one of them is the use-mention distinction

Anonymous

01:08

These things do get a lot shorter if you don't give them names.

Anonymous

Like, instead of nominative-genitive conversion, you can talk about ga-no conversion

Anonymous

But you throw away a little bit of information.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I should look out for such a conversion!

Anonymous

Sure. It appears in relative clauses. Basically, the idea is that in a relative clause, a subject can be marked with no instead of ga.

Anonymous

And it often is. It's optional, though.

Anonymous

01:10

If there's more than one ga in the relative clause, either, both, or neither can be marked with no instead.

Anonymous

You may have heard of the television show, Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo

Anonymous

"The Japanese [that Japanese People Don't Know]"　⇔　[ nihonjin ga/no shiranai ] nihongo

Anonymous

Nihonjin 'Japanese people' is the subject of shiranai 'know (negative)'

Anonymous

Since it appears in a relative clause modifying the head noun nihongo 'Japanese language', ga can optionally be replaced with no

Anonymous

This is called ga-no conversion.

Damkerng T.

01:12

Nice!

Anonymous

One caveat: it doesn't work if the relative clause contains a direct object.

Anonymous

In that case, you can't use no.

Anonymous

> 田中が本を買った店 Tanaka ga hon o katta mise 'the store where Tanaka bought the book'

Anonymous

> ＊田中の本を買った店 *Tanaka no hon o katta mise

Anonymous

Anyway, that's pretty much it. There are some other minor details I won't bore you with right now

Anonymous

01:15

The main thing you need to recognize is that の can be a subject marker in relative clauses.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

It's quite common, too.

Damkerng T.

Sounds a bit like that-which in English.

Anonymous

Interestingly, Japanese has no relative pronouns nor any subordinator for relative clauses.

Anonymous

You just stick relative clauses right before the nouns they modify :-)

Anonymous

01:18

> 　私がボールを蹴った　　　　　"I kicked the ball"
> 　　【ボールを蹴った】私　　　"I, (who) kicked the ball"
> 【私が　　　　蹴った】ボール　"the ball (that) I kicked"

Anonymous

We just pull out an argument like 私が watashi=ga or ボールを bōru=o, drop the case marker, and put it after the clause

Anonymous

Since we get rid of the case marker, there's no indication of what role the head noun plays inside the relative clause

Anonymous

Or in other words, no indication of where the gap might be

Anonymous

We can just tell that the gap isn't in subject position in [ watashi=ga ketta ] bōru, because there's already a ga-marked argument

Anonymous

So we figure it's the object by elimination :-)

Damkerng T.

01:21

I think it shows how important を is.

Anonymous

Uh-huh? I agree, but why do you think so?

Damkerng T.

Because it tells us how we should understand 私が ...

Anonymous

Sometimes there's no indication of how you should understand a constituent.

Anonymous

For example, we might just write 蹴ったボール ketta bōru 'kicked ball'

Damkerng T.

Let's say... will this be understandable? 私がボール蹴った

Anonymous

01:24

@DamkerngT. Actually, yes, because it's right before the verb in the position the direct object is most often in

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's interesting...

Anonymous

That が stands out a lot in your sentence, though

Damkerng T.

:-)

Anonymous

I think the sentence might be better if you add in を

Anonymous

We've never discussed the way が focuses the subject

Anonymous

01:25

So there's something there that's probably not apparent to you

Damkerng T.

nods -- Though it normally is watashiwa...

Anonymous

In my example of 蹴ったボール, I wanted to point out that there is no syntactic indication of the relationship between the verb and the following head noun

Anonymous

We can tell that semantically, the head noun is like the object of the verb

Anonymous

Syntactically, it could also be the subject. But balls don't kick things very often, so we jump to the obvious conclusion :-)

Anonymous

Since you can drop any argument in Japanese, you can easily make an ambiguous relative clause with multiple interpretations

Anonymous

01:28

If it is ambiguous and you don't want it to be, you can use a little trick to fix it:

Anonymous

Just add in the missing arguments you dropped :-)

Anonymous

Because if you add an explicit subject, then people know the gap can't be in subject position

Anonymous

And so on.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes!

Anonymous

But in Japanese, topicalization is a main clause phenomenon

Anonymous

01:29

You do not get topics in relative clauses, for example.

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

So in a relative clause, your basic subject marker is going to be が.

Damkerng T.

made a mental note

Anonymous

Japanese sentences very often have topics. Topics are normal things to have. But that's sentences, not clauses.

Anonymous

Subordinate clauses don't get their own topics.

Anonymous

01:30

So when you have watashi=ga at the beginning of a sentence

Anonymous

Unless you have a reason not to, you're going to replace that ga with wa, because it's probably going to be your topic.

Anonymous

And that tendency is so strong, that if you actually use watashi ga in a main clause, it focuses watashi.

Anonymous

Like, let's say someone asks: "Who ate my donut!?" 私のドーナツ、誰が食べたの？

Anonymous

And the focus is on answering who. If you answered with a complete sentence, you'd use 私が, not 私は. For example, 私が食べたんだ

Anonymous

You're throwing the spotlight on 私. You're selecting 私 out of all the people who could've eaten them.

Anonymous

01:34

But in a normal sentence, when you say 私は, you're putting 私 in the background, focusing on the rest of the sentence

Anonymous

And unless you have a special reason to use が like that in a main clause, you'll usually use は.

Damkerng T.

Very subtle. :-)

Anonymous

I used が in my examples earlier to avoid explaining why は was turning into が when we relativized :-)

Anonymous

Of course, now you know why!

Damkerng T.

LOL -- (Just realized how our translators would translate that kind of phrase.)

(It will sound almost like, "I myself ate it!" :-)

@snailboat Yay! ありがとうございます、せんせいさん！

The rhetorical function of supplementary verbless clauses such as his former sister-in-law on his arm is to stop the reader in his tracks, to wonder just how tiny that woman on his arm might be. My guess -- about the size of a parrot, or a capuchin monkey. As we can also see from the defendants who sit on the dock, their heads in their hands, such clauses usually refer to something very strange or odd. — TRomano 15 hours ago

I hadn't noticed that it's "on his arm" not "on his arms"!

Anonymous

01:51

Errrr?

Anonymous

When I hear someone is on someone else's arm, I imagine they're holding on with one hand, or the like

Anonymous

It never occurred to me to imagine that the person might be miniaturized, perhaps parrot-sized

Damkerng T.

@snailboat But how can we really hold someone else on with only one of our hands?

(Particularly, it sounds like his former sister-in-law is unconscious in the excerpt.)

The only scene I can make sense out of that "on his arm" is his hand is on her waist.

Anonymous

02:06

Well, is the sister a child? If so, he might actually be holding her up. If she's an adult, then he's probably holding out his arm and she's got a hand on it or such

Anonymous

Hand around her waist is also possible

Anonymous

That's just the range of things I picture when I hear the term

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, I see. That would mean that he's a very strong man!

(Like in those scenes from manga. I haven't seen anyone really do that in real life!)

Anonymous

Anonymous

She's on his arm.

Damkerng T.

02:08

Oh, that's different from what I thought.

Makes sense.

Anonymous

And she's on his arm.

Anonymous

The caption on the page was "Look at Sarah's Dad proud as punch strolling through the churchyard with his little girl on his arm! I just love this."

Anonymous

Anyway, that's the sort of scene that comes to mind when I hear the phrase.

Anonymous

I don't imagine any miniaturization... it had never occurred to me before

Anonymous

02:11

So I found myself rather dumbfounded reading the description earlier

Damkerng T.

I thought of something like that. :P

Anonymous

Haha! They're riding on his arms!

Damkerng T.

140

A: How can a computer/OS tell what kind of RAM is in the machine?

RAM sticks have a small chip on them called the Serial Presence Detect, which contains information such as capacity, preferred timings, manufacturer, and even a serial number. SPD information is accessible by OSes using the i2c bus (which also includes things like temperature sensors). I think...

An interesting question... some RAM sticks I bought from China don't report anything, though. :-)

Anonymous

I've been getting Corsair!

Anonymous

Okay, finally I have food!

Damkerng T.

02:20

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

I went and walked to the store while we were chatting. The miracle of phone chat!

Damkerng T.

Yay for Corsair too!

@snailboat Oh, you mean RAM sticks.

Anonymous

Yes

Damkerng T.

I got Corsair too, but it's Corsair 200R. :-)

Very sturdy, compared to other PC cases I have.

Anonymous

Oh!

Anonymous

02:23

My last computer had a Corsair case, I think.

Anonymous

I suddenly can't remember very well.

Damkerng T.

Neat!

Anonymous

I know what it looked like!

Anonymous

It was black and had a big fan in the back! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... all Corsair cases are black, afaicr. Maybe except for one model.

Most have a big fan in the back!

Anonymous

02:24

That was 2007.

Anonymous

It was my first black computer!

Damkerng T.

Does it have LEDs in the front?

user62015

Hi! @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

Hi! Long time no see!

Anonymous

It did. I don't have it anymore.

user62015

02:27

Yes. I was busy with my projects. But I have been doing the exercise.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, no!

user62015

How is going there?

Anonymous

It's been recycled. My new computer has LEDs! :-)

Damkerng T.

@user62015 Rather well, I think. :-)

@snailboat A-ha!

@user62015 I'm glad to hear that!

user62015

Sounds great! @DamkerngT. I am glad for you.

I need your help regarding the direct and indirect speech.

Damkerng T.

02:30

@user62015 I'd recommend you to try transcribing slow songs too.

@user62015 Yes?

user62015

Yes. I do.

When we ask questions in the indirect speech. Do we use 'asked' or 'said'? For example: He asked me where I was going.

Damkerng T.

Between asked and said, use asked.

He asked you a question, didn't he? ;-)

user62015

But as it is said that once you ask a question it converts into the positive statement in the indirect speech.

Damkerng T.

You could say that, grammatically.

user62015

Yes. I need as per the grammar rules.

Damkerng T.

02:35

Which is why Macmillan Dictionary notes this:

> Where can be used in the following ways:
as a question adverb (introducing a direct or indirect question): Where are you going? ♦ I wonder where she lives.

> macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/where

@user62015 I don't use grammar rules.

Or at least I try not to.

Anonymous

@user62015 Do they say that because the indirect question doesn't have subject-auxiliary inversion? Instead of "Where are you going?" it's "where I was going"

Anonymous

It's still interrogative, though.

Anonymous

The trick is that interrogatives only have inversion when they're main clause interrogatives

Anonymous

Subordinate clause interrogatives don't have inversion

Damkerng T.

Me? In a well-formed, non-quoted sentence, inversion can happen at most only once.

Anonymous

02:37

> He asked me [where I was going].　　← The main clause is declarative, but the subordinate clause is interrogative.

user62015

@DamkerngT. Thanks. Checking.

Anonymous

Because the main clause is declarative, we end it with a period. The sentence as a whole is an affirmative statement, not a question.

Anonymous

But the subordinate clause is still interrogative.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I guess that there may be some grammar books out there call this interrogative subordinate clause a "positive statement".

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ah, perhaps so! I was just making a guess. user62015 can explain what the books say, maybe :-)

Damkerng T.

02:39

Indeed!

Anonymous

Of course, I've read grammar books, but probably different ones.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat BTW, I've ordered High School English Grammar and Composition by Wren and Martin (so I can understand InE better). It's still on its way.

Anonymous

Interesting choice! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

I'm not sure it will teach you Indian English

Anonymous

02:43

But it might teach you what people are taught about grammar in India, which is a whole nother thing

user62015

@DamkerngT. @snailboat Thanks. I also need your help when we use 'explained' etc. I want to ask what are other options instead of these (asked, said, told)?

Damkerng T.

I speculate that the grammar of Indian English is based on it.

Anonymous

That could help you understand some questions asked by InE speakers on ELL

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm, I'm fairly certain that no language's grammar is actually based on any book

Anonymous

02:44

Indian English is evolving naturally

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Quasi-real ones perhaps. :-)

Anonymous

There are descriptive linguists focusing on Indian English

Anonymous

Their books are unfortunately quite expensive

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

benjamins.com/#catalog/books/veaw.g38/main

Anonymous

02:44

I don't believe that Indian English is in any way not real

Damkerng T.

@user62015 I think you're thinking about (or asking about) reporting verbs!

Anonymous

I believe it's a natural language, even though its status is quite different from a language where most of the speakers are native speakers, for example most varieties of British English

user62015

Yes. But I need to know when we use 'he explained' etc.

Damkerng T.

I listed a few of them in my recent question: say, tell, learn, discover, find, know, feel, think, etc.

@user62015 When he explained something.

user62015

@DamkerngT. Okay.

Anonymous

02:46

I've seen some descriptive work on Indian English, and the set of unique traits I read about were very unlikely to be based on any existing grammar book

Anonymous

More likely, many of them would be called incorrect by a book about grammar

Damkerng T.

It's a bit dubious answer, but I feel like that's actually the answer. Basically, you need to understand these verbs.

@snailboat I speculate that those traits could be traced back to this particular book.

Anonymous

I think the odds of that are basically zero

Anonymous

Some of the book I linked to is available on Google Books: books.google.co.jp/…

Damkerng T.

@snailboat At least I think it gave me a good clue to one oddity: a work (when standard English would use work, the uncountable one).

@snailboat Thanks!

Anonymous

02:49

@DamkerngT. Well, Indian English diverged from British English a while back, and that book is itself fairly dated, describing the language as it was over a hundred years ago

Anonymous

That is, it was already out-of-date when it was written

Anonymous

So you'll find some conventions in Indian English which have fallen out of favor in other varieties but are still around in InE

Anonymous

Perhaps the book you've ordered could help give you insight into that sort of trait :-)

Damkerng T.

It resurfaced again recently, in a different book. (It looks almost like a case of plagiarism to me.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Japanese learners of English often use work as a count noun when I expect non-count

Damkerng T.

02:51

Me too (in the past). But I didn't insist that a work was correct.

Anonymous

I highly recommend reading the introduction to the book I linked, which is mostly available on Google Books. It summarizes the history of Indian English and its spread and divergence

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Hmm, unfortunately a few pages are missing

Anonymous

I don't suppose you have a library nearby with linguistics books? :-)

Damkerng T.

Nope. :D

Anonymous

02:53

Anyway, this book is my source for most of what I know about Indian English

Anonymous

Which, to be fair, is not all that much :-)

Damkerng T.

amazon.com/Encyclopedic-Graded-Grammar-Volume-1/dp/1419686054

Anonymous

I remember talking to one Indian English speaker about it, who said something along the lines of: "But how can there be an Indian English? Aren't we all non-native speakers?"

Anonymous

But when we talked about prepone, they agreed that it was everywhere in InE :-)

Damkerng T.

That's the book I was thinking of when I mentioned "recently resurfaced".

Anonymous

02:56

Hmm, what's that book?

Anonymous

Ahh, it's a print-on-demand book

Damkerng T.

Oh, JavaScript cobbled my input!

Anonymous

A lot of POD stuff actually is directly plagiarized

Anonymous

You just give the website a PDF, and they start selling it, no review involved...

Anonymous

Certainly no editing

Anonymous

02:58

0

Q: What may seem a grammatical role of “If Calzaghe were American” and "or, dare I say it"?

If Calzaghe were American, or, dare I say it, English, he would be lauded to the skies. What would you say is the grammatical function of If Calzaghe were American? Maybe, it seems like a clause, Calzaghe, a subject?, were, a verb? American, an object? It may seem like an incomplete senten...

clauses

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think they added something to the original, but judging from the text I could see, I would say that the similarity is too stark.

Anonymous

Someone needs to tell saySay that commas, seem, and maybe are off limits

Damkerng T.

I noted this in my private journal a couple days ago (perhaps yesterday):

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