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Anonymous
00:00
I think for some of the uses of the past tense, we have something similar in English
Anonymous
And for some of them, we don't
Anonymous
But there's a lot of English tense stuff that isn't relevant in Japanese (thankfully), like backshifting or modal remoteness :-)
Oh, so there are no modals in Japanese?
Anonymous
I think the English system of tenses is more complicated overall
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. The tense system is usually not used to express modality
Anonymous
00:01
Japanese has a number of modal thingies.
Anonymous
But it does not have a class of modal auxiliary verbs like English does
Anonymous
It does have a lot of modal adverbs, just like English
Anonymous
tabun 'probably'
Anonymous
kitto 'surely'
Anonymous
00:02
And it has a lot of modal expressions of various sorts
Anonymous
Most of them are simpler to understand than in English
Anonymous
Japanese modal expressions are very rarely polysemous between deontic and epistemic modality
Ah, that makes Thai a bit more complicated in this respect!
Anonymous
With the exception of kanarazu, which has both deontic and epistemic interpretations depending on context
00:04
nods
Anonymous
And they very often harmonize (go together with another expression with the same type of meaning), which usually makes it easy to tell what is meant :-)
Anonymous
I don't know anything about Thai modality
Wouldn't that make it difficult to translate English modals into Japanese?
Anonymous
Well, they correspond very poorly in most cases
Anonymous
(Which is one reason I only gave two examples :-)
Anonymous
00:06
But if you understand what an English expression of modality means in context, and you know how to express that meaning in Japanese, they aren't very difficult to translate
@snailboat I don't know if words we have are qualified as modals, but there are more that a handful of words that can work together to help suggest things in many possible slots in a sentence.
Anonymous
Sorta like:
Anonymous
[ English expression → meaning → Japanese expression ]   This is how you do it
Anonymous
[ English expression → Japanese expression ]         This fails miserably :-)
Anonymous
00:08
Hopefully that made sense
It did!
Anonymous
That's sort of why I think translation is harder the shorter it is
nods -- I think our translators in the past bent our language so that it would become closer to English (and thus easier to translate most work). And that makes me think literal translation is usually more than viable in Thai.
Anonymous
There's definitely a fair bit of stuff that does correspond between English and Japanese due to language contact
Anonymous
For one thing, there's a large number of loans and calques
Anonymous
00:15
Some "translation-ese" grammar, too
Anonymous
Or expressions
Anonymous
But I don't always know how natural that stuff is
Anonymous
Like, you can say a lot of things in Japanese kind of like you'd say them in English, but it might not be the same thing a native speaker of Japanese would say :-)
Anonymous
If that makes sense.
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. Are you familiar with Haruki Murakami?
00:17
nods -- I think that makes perfect sense. Literal translation always sounds forced, but usually understandable. Loanwords are easy to spot, but loaned grammar is much harder.
@snailboat I'm afraid I'm not.
Anonymous
He's a very famous author in Japan
Anonymous
Actually, internationally. His work has been widely translated
Maybe I know some of his work?
Anonymous
And besides writing his own fiction, he translated dozens of English books into Japanese
Anonymous
He developed what some people call a "translation-ese" style
00:20
Oh!
Anonymous
His work as a translator influenced the way he writes Japanese
Oh, what an interesting title!
> 'Strange things happen in this world," Haruki Murakami says. "You don't know why, but they happen."
Anonymous
1Q84 was very popular recently
That sounds as if he were saying that in Japanese to me!
Anonymous
00:22
(Q = 9)
Anonymous
きゅう
A-ha!
Maybe his work is in the same genre as Tomorrowland (the movie which our puzzle was from).
Anonymous
I'm not familiar with Tomorrowland
@snailboat Touching the pin will take you to the alternate reality in Tomorrowland.
Hmm... I thought I'd typed Touching...
Anonymous
-2
A: one each -- is this grammatically an okay phrase?

the dark wandererIt is correct. "Each of the primitive data types" indicates that they are all primitives but not that that all primitive types are represented exactly once. "one each" indicates that you have one of each primitive type. In general "one each" may be replaced by "one of each" with only stylistic ...

Anonymous
00:27
Why is this at -2?
Hmm...
Anonymous
I'm looking for things to criticize
Anonymous
I don't really think the comma is that bad, for example. But a colon would work fine :-)
Maybe it doesn't say that "one each" is ungrammatical.
Anonymous
Let's look at COCA!
00:29
Hmm... maybe it's grammatical!
Anonymous
> All-in-one packs include the Dry Erase Set, which come with five fine-tipped markers (one each of red, blue, and green, and two black), whiteboard cleaner spray, and eraser.
Anonymous
> Each column displayed two large photographs, one each of two chair types, one on each side, front and back.
Anonymous
> The histological type of breast cancer comprised 137 infiltrating ductal carcinoma (not otherwise specified), 4 invasive lobular carcinoma, 3 papillary, 2 mucinous, one each of medullary, tubular and inflammatory carcinoma, 27 ductal carcinoma in situ and 1 Non Hodgkin lymphoma.
Anonymous
> What would be more impressive than to have the master begin pacing the floor holding an ice bag to his jaw -- and then waking his dear wife at midnight for an emergency run to the all-night drugstore for one each of every, toothache cure in stock? ← I'm hoping that comma is an OCR error :-)
A-ha! I think the answerer misread the meaning of the sentence.
> To demonstrate this, I have declared eight variables, one each of the primitive data types, character, Boolean, byte and so on.
Anonymous
00:32
There's one variable of each primitive type. There are eight primitive types, so there are eight variables.
The -2 answer reads this "one each" as "one of each".
The 0 answer reads this "one each" as "one for each".
Anonymous
But aren't of and for both okay?
Anonymous
Hmm.
Anonymous
I dunno.
Anonymous
Oh hey, the "one for each" answer has a downvote, too.
Anonymous
00:34
Maybe it was a downvote war.
I think "one each" in our sentence sounds wrong.
Anonymous
No. It's one OF each, not one For each. One for each has to be explicit one of each permits omission. — the dark wanderer Apr 5 at 17:52
Could be that, too.
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. Hmm, it sounded fine to me, but I'm not prepared to defend it to the death :-)
Hehe!
> To demonstrate this, I have declared eight variables, one for each of the primitive data types, character, Boolean, byte and so on.
LOL!
Anonymous
00:35
Chat is duplicating messages!
Anonymous
I honestly think one each, one of each, and one for each all sound okay, and I don't really think it matters which one we have there
Anonymous
I don't think one each is the result of ellipsis, though
Anonymous
Although the for and of alternatives don't mean the same thing, the difference isn't relevant in this example as far as I can tell
trying to understand 'one each' the way 'one another' is used...
Anonymous
00:38
In my mind those are different
Anonymous
One another and each other are reciprocal pronouns
Anonymous
They're fossilized and don't really function syntactically anymore, more like single words
Anonymous
One each I think is syntactic
One each is unfamiliar to me. I think it works for me to read one each of as "one for each of".
> Sixteen ounces of meal-powder, one each of saltpetre and sulphur, and five of filings of steel.
Sixteen ounces of meal-powder, one [for] each of saltpetre and sulphur, and five of filings of steel.
Hmm... actually, I think this "one each of" is "one each of"!
> Sixteen ounces of meal-powder, one of saltpetre and [one of] sulphur [each], and five of filings of steel.
Hmm... maybe "one [of] each of" works better...
Oh, I think I get it now.
Yes, I think you're right, right from the start.
Anonymous
Ah, well, it's one of those tricky things, isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if other people disagreed with me :-)
00:53
@snailboat It is. I think it's because it's rare. I'm so glad that you brought it up.
I like this feeling when I can't no clue to understand what I'm looking at.
Anonymous
I'm not really interested in the debate over whether the ellipsis is for for or of since I don't think it's ellipsis in the first place, but I think that's more of a detail than anything
(It helps me to understand the feeling beginners have better.)
Anonymous
The main thing is getting the meaning right, I think
nods
Oh, talking about the right meaning, I think the OP of this question misunderstands the verb search:
0
Q: "Searched on" vs "searched about"

alexchencoWhen to use the former and when to use the latter? Example: I went to the Internet and searched every I could on animal behavior. I went to the Internet and searched every I could about animal behavior.

It's a bit unambiguous, because he doesn't say what he wanted to search or search for.
But if we squeezed him a bit, I guess his reply would reveal that he misunderstood the verb.
> I went to the Internet and searched every I could on animal behavior.
I think he actually wanted something like:
> I got on the Internet and searched for everything I could think of about animal behavior.
Anonymous
I think the each is what H&P call a quantificational adjunct
2
Anonymous
01:00
How about search for, as in "searched for everything I could think of related to animal behavior"?
@snailboat That words fine too! But I think he didn't mean "every website" by his "every".
(So it should be search for.)
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. I didn't either. I imagined he was talking about every search term
Anonymous
Every search term he could (think of?)
Anonymous
That's why I made my suggestion
nods -- Our suggestions are almost the same!
Anonymous
01:06
My suggestion is basically to use search for :-)
Me too! :-)
Our answer also has the same misunderstanding (I think).
(How could someone who knew it have looked over it?)
Anonymous
I'm not sure I buy user3169's answer
I do not.
Breaking time... (for the 2nd line :-)
Anonymous
Ignoring that every is usually a determiner and not an adjective,
Anonymous
> I went to the Internet and searched everything I could about/on animal behavior.
Anonymous
01:10
So they're loading up a bunch of web pages and then using the search feature to search within each page...? :-)
Anonymous
That's what it sounds like to me.
Anonymous
(Though I would buy a computer illiterate user using search that way)
Yep, a very unlikely scenario!
Anonymous
Still, in 2015, you'd think pretty much everyone would know search for
Anonymous
Well, that's probably not a 100% safe assumption
Anonymous
01:13
I'm so used to assuming everyone around me knows about computers :-) I forget there are still people who still don't even have computers
Anonymous
I live my little sheltered life assuming other people have experiences like me, when it's probably false... :-)
Anonymous
I guess sometimes I find it challenging to remember just how different everyone really is from one another
Hmm... but it's the same when we search for a person or a thing in a place.
Anonymous
Yeah, not really
Anonymous
Though I think it comes from that same expression
Anonymous
01:15
It probably needs its own dictionary entry, or sub-entry perhaps
Anonymous
(I haven't checked a dictionary)
Anonymous
The grammar is a little different, too
Anonymous
> I searched on Google for pictures of snails.
Anonymous
> I searched my house for pictures of snails.
Anonymous
01:20
This etymological project of yours will be a complete waste of time, yours and ours, unless you stop being so literal-minded and exercise a little imagination. — StoneyB 39 mins ago
Anonymous
Poor Law Area!
Anonymous
But it's probably fair.
Anonymous
I've already given up on answering any of Law Area's questions
Oh, I thought that was for another user!
Anonymous
Unfortunately, Law Area can spread his(?) questions across ELL, ELU, and Ling indiscriminately
Anonymous
01:23
So it makes any potential problem seem smaller than it is to users of individual sites
Anonymous
I look at all three so I notice...
Math.SE too.
listening...
Anonymous
Oh, yes.
Anonymous
Law Area uses other sites, but I don't go on those sites
Anonymous
So I have no idea what goes on there :-)
Anonymous
01:25
I look at ELL, ELU, Ling.SE, and of course Japanese.SE
Anonymous
Occasionally Chinese, Spanish, French, never Italian
Anonymous
Basically never German or Russian
Anonymous
But basically I look at the language sites :-)
Anonymous
I do go to other sites once in a while, like Music.SE
I saw a question about how to intuit "if" (^P or Q) on Math.SE.
Anonymous
01:27
Is that actually a math question?
It's a logic question "if P then Q == not P or Q".
The problem was he asked about how to intuit it.
Anonymous
But how is the "intuition" part related?
Anonymous
(For that matter, what does the "intuition" part mean?)
Indeed!
Anonymous
2
Q: Intuition: "If P then Q" = 'Not P or Q'

Law Area 51 Proposal - CommitI already understand, and so ask NOT about, the Conditional Law: $P \Rightarrow Q \; \equiv \;\lnot P \vee Q$. But what's the intuition? Because I ask only for intuition, please do NOT prove formally or use truth tables. I've already consulted Cameron Buie's and Prof Scott's Answer.

Anonymous
01:29
"But what's the intuition?" I don't know. What is it?
Anonymous
I don't understand what they could be asking if they "already understand"
I guess it's supposed to mean being able to understand it without thinking.
Anonymous
Well, if they'd like to convert it from declarative knowledge to procedural, they just have to practice until the task is automaticized
Anonymous
There's no explanation that will help with that
It's like asking how to answer "what is 123*765?" without having to think, IMHO.
> ときどきどこかの教 室のとびらのあけしめされる音がだれもいない廊下にうつろにひびく。
> Hollow it resonates to sometimes somewhere in the classroom door opened staked corridor the sound is not everyone is.
Yay!
Anonymous
01:35
You have a space in the middle of 教室(きょうしつ) 'classroom', but it looks like it translated it anyway :-)
Oh! indeed!
> Hollow it resonates to sometimes somewhere in the corridor the sound is not anyone shown opened the door of the classroom. (after the space removed)
Hmm... I think I like the previous one better!
Anonymous
That's a tough sentence right now. You probably won't be able to divide it into constituents on your own just yet
Indeed!
Anonymous
> ときどき [ どこか-の 教室-の とびら-の あけしめ-される 音 ]-が [ だれも いない 廊下 ]-に うつろ-に ひびく。
But I guess it could mean something like "A hollow sound resonated faintly around the corridor through the open door, though no one was there."
@snailboat Ah, thank you!
Anonymous
01:40
Sometimes the sound of a classroom door somewhere opening or closing echoed hollowly through the vacant halls
Anonymous
I'll make a few notes
Anonymous
教室-の とびら "classroom door"
Anonymous
Note that the most natural translation in English is simply to put both nouns next to each other
Anonymous
の connects two nouns (or noun equivalents) in Japanese
Anonymous
01:42
In English, we connect them without any word in between, just by putting them next to each other :-)
Anonymous
But you could also say the door of a classroom or a classroom's door (both less natural)
nods -- I guess Japanese beginners of English will tend to use X of Y of Z of ... :-)
Anonymous
Usually in Japanese, everything connects to either a following noun or following predicator (e.g. verb)
Anonymous
So in this case, you have ときどき, and that's an adverb, so it naturally connects to the verb at the end of the sentence, ひびく
Anonymous
The big ol' noun phrase [ どこか-の 教室-の とびら-の あけしめ-される 音 ]-が is all marked as a subject with が, and that connects to the verb ひびく too
Anonymous
01:45
And the noun phrase [ だれも いない 廊下 ]-に is marked as a location with に
Anonymous
And finally you've got うつろ, which is marked as adverbial with に, also connecting to the verb ひびく
Anonymous
So you've got four things connecting to the verb
Anonymous
That's your overall structure :-)
digesting...
Anonymous
Note that adverbs don't get particles telling you what they do
Anonymous
01:47
At least, this kind doesn't :-) It's just ときどき, no particle!
Anonymous
The noun phrases are just really big because they contain lots of modifiers
Anonymous
(Each one has a relative clause!)
Anonymous
Sorry, I know that was a lot of info :-)
Anonymous
Hmm... I don't know which word is for "hall".
@snailboat It looks like a picture of a snail on a piece of tofu and a couple of sausages!
Anonymous
01:59
@DamkerngT. 廊下(ろうか)
Anonymous
Where I grew up, schools have "halls", not "corridors"
Anonymous
"Don't run in the hall!" "Don't run in the ??corridor!"
A-ha! thanks!
 
2 hours later…
03:47
1
A: Is 'If I die young' grammatical?

DCShannon Yes Both. Die is used as a copula. Most English sentences have a copula. 'Young' could be considered an adverb describing the way you would die, or as an adjective describing yourself at the time of death. I can see arguments both ways. 'Young' is normally an adjective, but this usage is more co...

Hmm... In what language is "die" a copula?
Anonymous
I would guess none... :-)
Anonymous
It's not very likely that they can find any reference which supports any of that analysis
Aww... I was thinking they might get confused because it is in some other languages.
Anonymous
But it's okay―most native speakers don't understand the functional range of adjectives
Anonymous
The adverb idea is out on distributional and semantic grounds, and the copula idea is out on syntactic grounds
Anonymous
03:51
But it is an adjective
Anonymous
It's what Huddleston and Pullum call a predicative adjunct
Anonymous
It's an adjunct, not a complement of die or anything else in the sentence
Anonymous
It predicates on the subject I
Anonymous
The main predicate (or "primary") predicate in the sentence is die
Anonymous
So this predicative adjunct is, in a way, a "secondary" predicate
03:53
Hmm... it's about complement vs. adjunct again!
Is "hot" in "I like my coffee hot, please" an adjunct or a complement?
Anonymous
Hmm, that's a good question
Anonymous
The last bit in the terminological pile, by the way, is that the secondary predicate is depictive
Anonymous
(Well, you could say more stuff about them if you really wanted to, but we can stop there)
Anonymous
As for "I like my coffee hot", it's actually a classic example sentence
According to CopperKettle, this hot should be depictive.
Anonymous
04:02
5
A: Is it possible to use adjectives as adverbs?

snailboatSome people call this type of construction a secondary predicate. Secondary predication is sometimes divided into two types: Resultative: I punched him silly. Depictive: I drove home drunk. In both examples, the secondary predicate describes the subject. In the former, it describes the resu...

Anonymous
This is an answer I wrote two years ago...
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. Yeah.
Anonymous
It'd be weird if it were resultative.
Anonymous
I mean, the resultative interpretation is possible but semantically highly suspect :-)
Anonymous
##"I like my coffee hot(RESULTATIVE)" would mean you have the power to heat objects by liking them
04:04
Does it have to be an adjunct if it's depictive?
Anonymous
Which, while amusing, is not a common power
Anonymous
Another good question!
@snailboat Only Superman can do that, I suppose! :-)
Anonymous
> They look fantastic.
Anonymous
Here, fantastic is clearly a predicative complement (of look), predicating on the subject
04:05
nods
Anonymous
It cannot be omitted (They look is a grammatical sentence but means something rather different)
Anonymous
It is not resultative
Anonymous
Again, attempting to interpret it as resultative would be beyond silly
Anonymous
So it must be depictive, but obligatory
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. I guess you could like your coffee hot(RESULTATIVE) if you set up a Facebook page for your coffee that heated it whenever you got a like, and then you used another account to like your coffee hot
Anonymous
04:15
And that's what we call marginal :-)
Hehe!
Yes, like has been redefined recently.
Anonymous
And it's dynamic rather than stative, so if you set up the Facebook page coffee heater, then you can say things like "I like my coffee hot every day!" or "I've been liking my coffee hot on a regular basis!" with an iterative interpretation
Anonymous
I felt bad about downvoting even though the answer's wrong, so I undownvoted
Anonymous
I'm too tired to write an answer explaining again though
Anonymous
And it won't fit in a comment
04:18
nods
This seems pretty much right. I think you're missing a 'for' before 'everything'. — DCShannon 2 hours ago
Their comment also seems to be friendly enough. :D
Hmm... In Japanese, when people write their full names in kanji, which will come first between their last name and first name?
(I guess their last name comes first because it looks longer on Google Translate)
> 三年の芳山和子は、同級の深町一夫、浅倉吾朗たちと、理科教室のそうじを終えた。
> Three years Yoshiyama Kazuko, Kazuo Fukamachi of classmates, and Goro us Asakura, finished cleaning the science classroom.
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. Oh, my. Why put "us" in the middle of ASAKURA Gorō?
Anonymous
Google came up with SURNAME Givenname, Givenname SURNAME, and Givenname "us" SURNAME
Anonymous
I'm impressed.
Maybe it tried to translate たち as "us". :-)
@snailboat Thanks!
Anonymous
04:33
三年の, by the way, you can translate as "third-year"
Anonymous
A lot of the time, Nの in Japanese corresponds to an attributive modifier in English
nods -- I think that's the only way to make sense of it.
Anonymous
As is the case here
I'm not sure if Kazuko is a male or female name.
Anonymous
Most names ending in -ko are female names
04:34
Gorou is probably male.
Anonymous
Kazuko is a female name.
Ahh... Thanks!
Anonymous
Most names ending in -rō are male names
Anonymous
Think of the baseball player!
Anonymous
Ichiro Suzuki (鈴木 一朗, Suzuki Ichirō), usually known mononymously as Ichiro (イチロー, Ichirō) (born October 22, 1973), is a Japanese professional baseball right fielder for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball (MLB). Originally a player in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Ichiro moved to the United States in 2001 to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, with whom he spent 11 seasons, and later the New York Yankees. Ichiro has established a number of batting records, including MLB's single-season record for hits with 262. He had 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons...
04:37
Oh, but what grade is 3rd year in Japan? Grade 9?
Anonymous
Note that Google made it "Goro" but you need to realize that it's a long vowel in Japanese, written ろう in kana
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. They haven't said yet, but it's middle school
Anonymous
There are three years of middle school, grades 7 8 9
Anonymous
Three years of high school, grades 10 11 12
04:37
nods -- Thanks!
Anonymous
So it's Kazuko and her two male friends, Kazuo and Gorō
Anonymous
Can you picture the scene? :-)
Yes!
That was the 4th line.
So it was their duty to clean the science lab after school, and someone was playing the piano in the auditorium.
Anonymous
Yay!
The book has about 230 pages. There are about 14-15 lines a page. Assuming that I need about 2 days a page, I will finish the book in about a year and a half! Yay! :-)
However!
I'm a believer! I believe in the power of exponential growth!
Oh, this clean is more like "sweep" (掃除).
Anonymous
04:52
@DamkerngT. I think you can just think of it as "cleaning"
Anonymous
Like, トイレの掃除をする 'clean the toilet', for example, doesn't involve sweeping :-)
Anonymous
Well, uh, not normally, anyway.
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. This is the "hitting your head against a brick wall" strategy of language learning
Anonymous
Hooked on Bricked Walls worked for me!
Anonymous
04:54
But you already know I recommended graded readers and such, and I guess those got boring :-)
Anonymous
To be honest, that's exactly what I did―just sat down with dictionaries and tried to read until eventually I could
Anonymous
But I don't actually recommend doing that to anyone
Anonymous
I'm not a very good example of a language learner :-)
Anonymous
But hey, you are, you're good at English, so you can pick your own path :-)
@snailboat I still think Ari to Kirigirisu is a good idea. I mean, I can still recall her style of reading the story a bit.
Anonymous
04:55
And it's a good book.
@snailboat I think the book is qualified as a good goal for me. It's something I really, really want to read, so that helps a lot, I think. :-)
Anonymous
@DamkerngT. Motivation is a big factor!
Indeed!
Anonymous
Everyone should read what they want to read.
Totally agreed!
Anonymous
04:58
Anyway, I can read along, so ask me if you need help :-)
Thanks in advance!
But I think I will read only slowly, so it might be a bit boring for you to read at my pace. :-)

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