Language Overflow

Fantasier

14:00

@DamkerngT. Reading without spaces, I mean. Maybe chunk-based lang processing too, but the difference is not as big.

--chunch--... chunk!; chunch would be a cool word though.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Oh, you will be used to reading English without spaces within just a few tries.

It looked very odd to me at first.

Fantasier

nods

Anonymous

It's just less efficient.

Anonymous

The main reason it's less efficient is because we're not used to doing it.

Anonymous

Reading is a highly overlearned skill.

Anonymous

14:02

We're used to reading things written the normal way. Deviate from that, and it's harder.

Anonymous

That doesn't mean that both methods are equally efficient after you get used to them, though. Spaces are nice. :-)

Fantasier

nods I would find it difficult if I had to read Thai with spaces between words (in the first tries anyway).

Damkerng T.

nods -- In Thai, spaces are less important because we write some vowels above or below our lines.

Anonymous

Yeah, Japanese looks really strange if you put spaces at every word boundary.

Anonymous

In Japanese, the spaces aren't that important because of kanji.

Damkerng T.

14:04

I think it's like the alternation between kanji and hiragana in Japanese. It's already enough aid in reading.

nods

Anonymous

That may be why spaces tend to be used when Japanese is written in kana only, and tend not to be used otherwise.

Damkerng T.

Makes sense.

Anonymous

Although that's not absolute. I have plenty of examples saved of kana-kanji-majiri-bun with spaces mixed in :-)

Anonymous

Also, there are other times spaces are used in Japanese. In particular, in subtitles on TV and in lyrics booklets, spaces tend to be used in place of punctuation.

Anonymous

And in comic books people occasionally add spaces to separate words if they think it would make it easier to read.

Anonymous

14:06

So it's kind of complicated. Ultimately, spacing is just a convention and it's up to the author to decide what to do.

Damkerng T.

I kinda like the quotation marks in Japanese/Chinese.

Those small "corners".

Anonymous

Oh, 「these」? :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

I don't know what they're called in English. Let's see.

Anonymous

LEFT CORNER BRACKET and RIGHT CORNER BRACKET

Anonymous

14:10

I guess those are the official names in Unicode.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

I didn't think that "corner" would be the right word!

Anonymous

In Japanese, they're called かぎ括弧 kagi-kakko 'hook bracket'

Anonymous

Or just 括弧 kakko

Anonymous

I think かぎ in other contexts aren't always at right angles. They can be curvy.

Anonymous

As you can see from this Google image search for the word: google.co.jp/…

Damkerng T.

14:11

"hook" in Japanese makes me think of "tengu".

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, why is that?

Damkerng T.

I think it's because of a character in a comic.

Anonymous

Oh, I see! I don't think I'm familiar with that comic.

Damkerng T.

Iirc, it's a character in Gunnm

(I'm still not sure how to pronounce the title even now.)

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Judging from the drawing style, that is quite old...

Damkerng T.

14:14

He was a cyborg in the shape of a tengu and his feet were equipped with sickles, which looked like hooks.

@Fantasier It was a long-running manga! (Not sure if it's still going on.)

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. It was first published five years before I was born...

> Battle Angel Alita, known in Japan as Gunnm (銃夢 Ganmu?, literally "gun dream")

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes! Maybe the tengu character appeared in: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita:_Last_Order

Fantasier

^ There you go, the pronunciation.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Ahh

Anonymous

Oh, I've heard of that one.

Damkerng T.

14:17

> Ganmu Rasuto Ōdā

And we were talking about /l/ - /r/ only yesterday.

Anonymous

Of course, Japanese has only one phonemic bucket to put liquids into.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

If I spend enough time using Japanese, then occasionally I find myself making l-r errors in English afterwards. Probably still < 0.1%, but . . .

Damkerng T.

YouTube switched the ads to Japanese as soon as I searched for Gunnm!

current track: Better Back Off (ถอยดีกว่า)

Anonymous

I notice various ways that using one language sometimes influences my use of another from time to time.

Fantasier

14:20

@DamkerngT. That's some fun vintage (?) song you've got there!

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Yep!

Anonymous

I wonder sometimes what influences I'm not noticing.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wonder that myself too.

Fantasier

@snailboat I notice my Thai syntax has been heavily influenced by English... I hear myself talking more and more like a translation every day...

Anonymous

@Fantasier Sometimes I think my English sounds a bit like Japanese, and I worry, because my Japanese isn't even very good! :-)

Damkerng T.

14:23

I usually try to compartmentalize the two, and let it flow between at phrase level or above.

@snailboat Nani?! Sodesuka, iie... <-- my broken Japanese. :D

Anonymous

Hee.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Just remember it's そう with a long vowel :-)

Damkerng T.

Haai!

Fantasier

I wonder how many languages have contrastive vowel length, like Thai. Hmmm.

None in the languages that I've seen so far (or that I can remember)

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Short vs. long? I think many.

Fantasier

14:37

@DamkerngT. Example?

Damkerng T.

Hindi, I suppose.

Fantasier

Let's have a look...

Damkerng T.

(I guessed that because of Pali/Sanskrit.)

Anonymous

There are a lot.

Fantasier

Oh, I'm stupid. -_-

Japanese?

Anonymous

14:38

Yes, Japanese

Fantasier

Yeah, I'm losing it. lol. Thinking again, a lot

Anonymous

Some languages have a three-way distinction, but this is much less common.

Anonymous

Estonian is one example. Mixe is another.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That could make exaggeration a little harder.

How could they say something like "Noooooooo!" without losing the meaning?

Anonymous

Kikamba has been described as having a four-way contrast.

Fantasier

14:40

!

Anonymous

Yavapai may also have a three-way length contrast.

Fantasier

Indigenous languages. Always interesting :-)

Three-way contrast I can picture. Four-way contrast is beyond my imagination...

Anonymous

Calling it a four-way length contrast may not be the most parsimonious description. People argue over this stuff.

Fantasier

nods

Anonymous

See Vowel coalescence and hiatus in Kikamba (Roberts-Kohno 1995)

Fantasier

14:46

jolts down

Damkerng T.

current track: Pleased A Little Bit (ถูกใจนิด ๆ)

CopperKettle

@Fantasier "jots down"?

Fantasier

@CopperKettle Yeap. My bad. Always got that wrong :-)

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

That was quick! I couldn't even say hello!

current track: Batman (มนุษย์ค้างคาว)

Fantasier

14:52

55555 That song.

Damkerng T.

Hee :D

Ah, Kikamba is a language in Africa.

Translation Challenge of the Day: what would โจ๊ะพรึม ๆ be in English?

(inspired by ออกมาเต้น 'Let's Dance')

Fantasier

It seems to be onomatopoeic.

โจ๊ะ is likely to be from the sound of folk drums (as people in the past heard it), high-pitched, as in โจ๊ะ ทิง ทิง; ทิง ทิง โจ๊ะ.

Damkerng T.

nods -- But there is no such sound in English, I think.

Fantasier

พรึม I have no idea.

Damkerng T.

I think it's from a similar kind of drum.

It can also have a slang meaning. :P

Fantasier

15:00

Yeah... I thought you were talking about that until you sent the message in brackets.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier So the slang meaning is now more common, perhaps? :D

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. It was featured (?) in a song about one or two years ago, so maybe...

Damkerng T.

Ah, right. Music can influence the use of language.

Fantasier

Interesting thing I found in Indonesian: its preposition antara "between" is a direct loanword from Sanskrit (อนฺตร).

Is it considered unusual for a language to have a preposition that's a loanword?

Damkerng T.

Interesting. I wonder if Indonesian has another word for "between".

Fantasier

15:15

I would think "between" is a basic word, but I dunno. Even ผัว "husband" is not Tai, so I'm no longer sure of anything anymore lol.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier That's really interesting! What is a Tai word for 'husband'?

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Don't know. But I think I'd find that in Pittayaporn's thesis. I believe I told you before that ผัว was likely a loanword from Late Middle Chinese.

Damkerng T.

Yes, I remember that.

I think Tai would have a word for it too. I wonder how similar (sounds) they are.

BTW, this is an interesting pronunciation. Can you catch what he sings right the first time? youtube.com/…

Fantasier

เปิดประเดิมชอแรกดูแปลกตา?

What

Damkerng T.

Right?!

Fantasier

15:19

That's what I heard, but I'm not sure what it means.

Damkerng T.

I wonder whether he sang ช่อ or โชว์.

Fantasier

Ahh

โชว์ fits.

Damkerng T.

It's a strange โชว์ in any case.

Damkerng T.

15:31

Hmm... I was writing this:

> Making a Yes/No question is quite straightforward. We move the auxiliary verb

Then I stopped.

Sometimes we move something else! (Like will/would/can/could/...)

Sometimes we have more than one such verbs!

(Not to mention the Do-support, which I was about to mention after that sentence.)

(Here is the question: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/70787/…)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Those are auxiliary verbs, not something else.

Damkerng T.

Ah, will/would/etc are auxiliary verbs too?

Anonymous

Yes.

Fantasier

Modal auxiliary verbs

Damkerng T.

Ah, the terminology got me this time!

Fantasier

15:36

^?

Anonymous

The English auxiliaries have two main groups, modal and non-modal.

Anonymous

The non-modal auxiliaries are do, be, and have.

Damkerng T.

Thanks for the clarification!

Anonymous

The modal auxiliaries are the rest, and they lack secondary forms―the non-finite forms that would allow them to enter into construction with other auxiliaries or appear on their own in non-finite clauses.

Damkerng T.

(But I'm on my break, so if anyone wants to write an answer to that question within an hour or two, please feel free to do so.)

Anonymous

15:38

That's why modal auxiliaries always have to appear first.

Damkerng T.

I think we don't have to mention modal verbs in that question. I just didn't want to write something misleading.

Anonymous

Sure. I don't intend my chat messages to be an answer to the question.

Anonymous

The OP also asks about making a wh-question, but there are all sorts of ways you could do that.

Anonymous

It's not clear to me what sort of sentence they want to make.

Anonymous

> Why hasn't the mail arrived yet?

Anonymous

15:41

> What hasn't arrived yet?

Anonymous

> When will the mail arrive?

Anonymous

A-ha!

Damkerng T.

Yes! My idea was to point out that none of the Wh- Qs make any sense in that question, unless the we treat it as a "block".

Anonymous

I see now.

Anonymous

Their sentence is supposed to be the answer.

Fantasier

15:41

It's the answer?

Yeah. :-)

Anonymous

I didn't read it carefully enough earlier.

Fantasier

So there's even more possibilities.

Anonymous

Though I admit I'm still not sure what wh-question it's supposed to be the answer to.

Anonymous

It sounds like the answer to a polar question.

Damkerng T.

"Where is the mail?" is also a very good answer. :D

Anonymous

15:43

> Q: What did the mail say?
> A: The mail hasn't arrived yet. I don't know.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

But that's not actually an answer, it's a response.

Anonymous

In the linguistic sense, anyway.

Fantasier

> Is the mail here?
> The mail hasn't arrived yet.

Does that work?

Damkerng T.

Argh! This is a little confusing. They want a question as an answer! :D

Anonymous

15:45

@Fantasier Sure.

Fantasier

:0)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I wonder why the UI dropped my 'y'!

Ahh... I have too many windows again.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But I do think this is basically correct. You swap the subject and the (first) auxiliary. If you don't have one, then you add the meaningless ("dummy") auxiliary do.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

The Wh-question part is trickier.

Anonymous

I don't know if their question is about how to form questions grammatically. It might just be about what's appropriate.

Anonymous

15:49

Though more realistically, it's probably "Here's my homework. What's the answer?"

Damkerng T.

:D

Fantasier

Maybe we could try to give them a lesson by telling them how to form questions, but not the questions for the answer?

That seems a little too cruel to me, though.

Damkerng T.

I think perhaps if someone thinks hard enough they may be able to come up with Wh-questions with all the Wh-words. :-)

"What did you say?" "The mail hasn’t arrived yet."

Fantasier

That's a good one. :-P

Damkerng T.

"Where is the mail?" "The mail hasn’t arrived yet."

"When will you reply to them?" "The mail hasn’t arrived yet."

:P

"How come haven't you replied to him?" "The mail hasn’t arrived yet."

Maybe I'm thinking too much. :D

Anonymous

15:55

Replied to him

Damkerng T.

Oops!

Anonymous

Replied to them

Damkerng T.

"Why are you sitting around?" "The mail hasn’t arrived yet."

Fantasier

Do we have to do the subject-auxiliary inversion when using how come?

I always thought it was "how come A did B?"

Damkerng T.

That's interesting. I always do.

Fantasier

15:57

Huhhh ?_?

Damkerng T.

(Unless it's an in-situ one.)

Anonymous

That's not a polar question.

Damkerng T.

I guess I don't use "how come" very often!

Fantasier

Ehhh....

Anonymous

It's idiomatic and has its own grammar. It's much like Why, but it doesn't trigger SAI.

Anonymous

15:59

So you have to describe how come questions separately.

Damkerng T.

I think that's why I use how come incorrectly.

Oh, "How does it come to be that ..."

Now it's easy for me to handle it.

Thanks for pointing it out for me @Fantasier, @snailboat.

Fantasier

I wasn't sure either... orz

Damkerng T.

@GaryBotnovcan Even in your example, it to refers to time - instead of a short glance, have a longer look — Izkata 2 hours ago

I've noticed good (I think) posts by Gary Botnovcan, but they're usually long.

And I have a feeling that not many of us understand him.

Anonymous

We don't usually agree. I think he approaches things from a more traditional point of view.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I remember I felt a bit like that reading his answer to the "comma" question.

Anonymous

16:23

I think the answer you linked to is good, though.

Anonymous

Oh, Jasper wrote it.

Damkerng T.

Yes! I'm glad that short answers are received well sometimes.

Anonymous

18:03

@DamkerngT. Sometimes short answers are better.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Short answers to questions that don't require a long answer are the way to go.

Unfortunately, I always make it excessively long in my answers.

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