Language Overflow

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

6:00 PM

Liken?

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ I vote-capped on 39. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

Anonymous

@Nihilist_Frost That is a very good question.

Anonymous

And I do believe John Wells has answered it online somewhere.

Nihilist_Frost

Why do people corrupt Japanese loanwords to have their final E's corrupted to /i/, and Italian final E's become /eɪ/?

Anonymous

But the short of it is, /ʌɪ/ isn't really a suitable transcription.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. [cookies] :-)

Anonymous

6:08 PM

@Nihilist_Frost He mentions it briefly here: phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english-uni.htm

Nihilist_Frost

The /e/ shift in Japanese loans got so widespread that Pokémon had to put an acute accent on its E to get people to pay attention.

and it doesn't work.

Anonymous

I usually avoid the term 'corruption' because it implies a (negative) value judgment, and I think sounds changing in loans are just another natural phenomenon, so I want to take a neutral attitude toward them.

Anonymous

I can't explain this particular change.

Anonymous

But I think it's pretty well-established, so maybe it happens in new words by analogy. Kamikaze ends in /i/ in English.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

6:13 PM

At least for most speakers. Some people might try to pronounce it like Japanese, the same way some people might pronounce the /t/ in tsunami.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Does it end in /e/ in Japanese?

Anonymous

Yes.

Nihilist_Frost

The only similar shift I can remember is that all etas from Ancient Greek were converted to /i/.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I just learned its pronunciation in English!

I think Pokémon is spelled that way to avoid people reading it as "poke-mon".

Anonymous

Of course, the pronunciation of just about everything in kamikaze is different, except maybe the /m/ :-)

Nihilist_Frost

6:15 PM

Influence from the eta shift might have influenced that /e/ shift

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. In my English speech, the second vowel is reduced to schwa. I don't pronounce it /i/.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. Yet I read it that way.

CopperKettle

It's камикадзе in Russian, kamikadze (0:

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. LOL

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

(removed)

Damkerng T.

6:17 PM

@snailboat I always call it "poh-kay-mon".

Nihilist_Frost

A lot of people around me pronounce "Pokemon" with a schwa E

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. So a little bit like the Japanese pronunciation?

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Ah, is "kad" one syllable?

@snailboat I think so. I was a big hit back then.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Yes, probably. How to tell?

Damkerng T.

It must be either "kad-ze" or "ka-dze", but I don't know Russian phonology

CopperKettle

6:20 PM

@DamkerngT. Is there a difference between the two? O_o

I'm being dense today.

Damkerng T.

I don't know! I thought "dz" could be a phoneme in Russian.

(Japanese has "ts" sound.)

Anonymous

Like in Japanese, where [dz] is an allophone of /z/.

CopperKettle

Russian Wikipedia lists 43 phonemes for Russian, but no [dz].. (0:

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see. :-)

CopperKettle

I recall we were forced to learn about phonemes in elementary school..

..on a basic level

Wikipedia does say something about "sonant allophone [ʣ] "

Damkerng T.

6:25 PM

It wasn't clear in my school days. We called the consonants "sounds", and the vowels "mothers".

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. "mothers"? Nice!

Damkerng T.

Wait, I'm sorry. The "mothers" aren't really about vowels. They're for final consonants!

CopperKettle

(the?) Russian letter z looks a lot like the numeral 3 -- "з"

Anonymous

I say ˌpʰoʊ.kəˈmɑ̃n in English and po̞ke̞mõ̞ɴ in Japanese.

Anonymous

I should write pʰ in the Japanese transcription but it's really very weak aspiration compared to the English pʰ.

Damkerng T.

6:28 PM

@CopperKettle A forward (or backward) ɛ!

Anonymous

Japanese does have more aspiration than a language like Spanish, though.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. I remember coming into First Grade and the classroom had a big sign over the blackboard "Russian language has зз letters" (I thought "what the hell? zz letters?")

2

Damkerng T.

Two letters as one?

Anonymous

Some people have used a reversed apostrophe to indicate weak aspiration (Pullum's Phonetic Symbol Guide p.250), but I'm afraid if I did figure out how to type it I'd just have to explain what it meant, so I didn't bother :-)

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. No, thirty-three letters. (0:

Damkerng T.

6:31 PM

LOL

Nice one!

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

So to my ear, all the vowels in pokemon are different in English.

Damkerng T.

I think the "p" in "pokemon" is an aspirated sound in Japanese, but everybody pronounces it "poːkeːmɔn" over here (with the unaspirated "p").

Anonymous

Interesting! Well, the dividing line between "aspirated" and "unaspirated" is different in Thai and Japanese.

Nihilist_Frost

幼い手につつんだ　ふるえてるその光を
ここまでたどってきた　時間のふちをさまよい

さがしつづけてきたよ　名前さえ知らないけれど
ただひとつの想いを　あなたに手渡したくて

歴史は愛も痛みも　深く抱きとめ
消してゆくけど　わたしは　おぼえている
ずっと…

わたしの胸のおくに　いつからか響いていた…
夜露のしずくよりも　かすかなささやきだけど

凍てつく星の闇へ　紡ぐ祈りが
遠いあなたのそらに　届くように…

some video game OST song

Damkerng T.

6:40 PM

@Nihilist_Frost Now my YouTube Up Next list is full of Appleseed (アップルシード)!

Anonymous

I should note that since aspiration is fairly weak and isn't phonemic in Japanese, speakers don't tend to notice it like they do in Thai, so when I talk about a "dividing line" I mean in terms of production more than perception.

Damkerng T.

Ah, right! Sometimes I confuse the aspiration in Japanese with the aspiration in Chinese/Mandarin.

I should say "I confuse myself" less often, it can confuse my confuse/confused usage sometimes.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost How much Japanese do you know?

Nihilist_Frost

noob-level

just really started

I asked my mom to buy a book about it and she told me to wait until summer.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh, so it can at least fit in some level. :)

@Nihilist_Frost Mind if I ask, how old are you?

Nihilist_Frost

6:50 PM

14

really

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh. :)

Nice.

Nihilist_Frost

came across StackExchange when looking for answers to questions on Google

Anonymous

Can you take a class, like say at a local community college? Find native speakers to talk to?

Anonymous

Books are great (I have a lot of books on Japanese), but you'll learn slower from a textbook. Sound is primary, and communication is what language is about.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost You're the third teen I met in SE that looked older than they were.

And in a good way.

Anonymous

6:53 PM

If nothing else, you can supplement your self study with "language exchanges", finding native speakers to talk to on Skype in 50% English, 50% Japanese, so you can both practice :-)

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat I didn't even graduate high school.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yeah, I saw a guy somewhere on Meta complain about a "teenage moderator"

ROFL

Anonymous

I wasn't out of high school when I started learning Japanese either.

Anonymous

For that matter, I wasn't out of high school when I started taking college classes :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost Boltclock is 21 now.

Nihilist_Frost

roflmao

Anonymous

6:55 PM

I am freezing, by the way. It's 16°C in here.

Nihilist_Frost

turn off the A/C!

or is it school?

Anonymous

Haha! I don't know how this house gets so cold!

Nihilist_Frost

or maybe turn on the furnace

Anonymous

Yeah, I'll do that tonight.

Nihilist_Frost

or the insulation is crap

Anonymous

6:56 PM

(Where I live: the heater)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I'm already shivering here.

Anonymous

I don't like using the heating a lot, since this house is preternaturally cold, so it has to run a lot and tends to dry out the air.

Anonymous

'Sides, cold exposure is hormetic.

Nihilist_Frost

Do you know that I'm typing this in the middle of class right now?

gonna be home at 3 pm EST

Anonymous

Haha! サボるなよ

Damkerng T.

6:59 PM

Wow, I wonder what class you're in. :D

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Hehe.

It must be history.

Nihilist_Frost

no

Math class

lol

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

So you have a boring teacher?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, that's a new word for me!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. And what does it mean? If I open another tab . . .

Damkerng T.

7:02 PM

~~Google~~ Wikipedia says "In toxicology, hormesis is a dose response phenomenon characterized by a low dose stimulation, high dose inhibition, resulting in either a J-shaped or an inverted U-shaped dose response."

Anonymous

At the top of the article, Wikipedia sez: "Hormesis (from Greek hórmēsis "rapid motion, eagerness," from ancient Greek hormáein "to set in motion, impel, urge on") is the term for generally favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors."

Nihilist_Frost

@snailboat Transliteration and translation please? that katakana

Is it one word?

Damkerng T.

I think she meant "Skip it!" (the class)

Nihilist_Frost

them verbs

Damkerng T.

LOL, I misread a word in this sentence. I'm sure you can guess which word: When their infant son is not allowed entry to the country without them, the couple place him in a model sailboat named "City of Justice," in which the baby floats to the New York City shoreline.

Nihilist_Frost

7:08 PM

@DamkerngT. "country"? "without"? "model sailboat"?

Anonymous

Saboru na = don't goof off / skip class / not do the work you're supposed to

Anonymous

The negative imperative particle na follows the dictionary form of the verb

Damkerng T.

Oh, this na is nai, not ne!

Nihilist_Frost

The katakana threw me off, lol

Anonymous

It's neither

Damkerng T.

7:09 PM

@Nihilist_Frost I read a model snailboat. :P

Nihilist_Frost

The snailboat left lots of slime in the water. ;)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@snailboat Ahh.

@DamkerngT. You misread "sailboat" as . . . StoneyB.

Nihilist_Frost

French is my first-priority foreign language.

Damkerng T.

@Nihilist_Frost That makes sense. It's another official language, right?

Nihilist_Frost

Yep

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

7:13 PM

It's the official language of romance.

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. French sounds kinda romantic.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

German is the official language of chemistry. O.o If I learn a fifth, it should/must be German.

Nihilist_Frost

In my lifetime I should learn a non IE language.

lol

Maybe Japanese, maybe Chinese, dunno

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost Internet Explorer has only so many languages.

Nihilist_Frost

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I mean Indo-European

acronym fails uh oh

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

7:17 PM

@Nihilist_Frost I know.

Nihilist_Frost

search "you died" into Google

tell me what you see

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

google.nl/…

Nihilist_Frost

Yup.

I play that game

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Hmm.

I never played any game more graphical than angry birds. :P

Guess nerds are nerds.

Nihilist_Frost

simple phrases give nerd results, lol

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

7:23 PM

BTW how is it that this teacher doesn't catch you?

Nihilist_Frost

It's is a course where laptops are used extensively.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

And what is (s)he doing right now?

Nihilist_Frost

Instructing on the board

peelschools.org/parents/programs/regional/ibt/Pages/…

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

So are you so good at math that don't need them?

Peel school? Scary name.

Nihilist_Frost

Simply a geographical name.

It was named after a guy with the surname Peel.

ancestry.ca/name-origin?surname=peel

names.mooseroots.com/l/7386/Peel

How is it scary?

Anonymous

7:31 PM

Mmm, caffeine.

Anonymous

@Nihilist_Frost I'm back at a computer, so I can respond to that now. (I was typing on my phone earlier.)

Anonymous

サボる is derived from a loanword from French, サボタージュ sabotage

Anonymous

But now it basically means slacking off, neglecting the work you're supposed to do. It's used of school as well as work.

Anonymous

Actually, it often means not showing up at all.

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I get so confused when people refer to StoneyB as SB! :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

7:43 PM

@Nihilist_Frost Use your imagination.

@snailboat SB yeah, when people refer to SB as SB the other SB could be confused by the other SB being talked about.

Nihilist_Frost

I don't like making acronyms from people's names

How would you refer to me in short?

Anonymous

Are you looking for something besides the obvious NF?

Nihilist_Frost

8:01 PM

Yes

I'm home.

Anonymous

Dunno. Frost? :-)

Anonymous

We aren't familiar enough for me to use hypocoristics, but if we were, maybe Frosty.

Nihilist_Frost

Not Frosty

Change subject.

Anonymous

I don't normally abbreviate people's names without asking unless they're Copper Kettle.

Anonymous

I don't like it when people shorten my name in real life very much!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:05 PM

@Nihilist_Frost The blue guy.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:27 PM

@snailboat How long is your name?

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. My name is Crystal. Seven letters.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

So people IRL call you Kristie?

Anonymous

Only if they want to be glared at. :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

BTW hydrated or anhydrous?

Anonymous

Hydrated. 水晶

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:29 PM

Molar mass?

Anonymous

Used to be higher, but then I got my wisdom teeth taken out.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

That's sad. What's the mechanism of your reaction with Grignard reagents?

Are you soluble in water?

What's your enthalpy of hydration?

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Surprise, probably. Hasn't happened yet!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh, that's more complicated than I imagined.

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Um. I think it'd take a really long time.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:32 PM

I successfully identified you! You're anhydrous gypsum.

@Snail I'm getting bored. Should we just do this TRE in chat?

\CC @Dam.

I doubt anyone from meta who isn't a chat reg will help, actually.

Damkerng T.

I've seen Jasper and Nathan do it almost every day.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Yeah, that's why I think procrastinating isn't kosher anymore.

Damkerng T.

BTW, is grammaticality really different from grammar?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:54 PM

@DamkerngT. IMO no. @Snail'd know better.

Is meaning really needed?

Anonymous

9:18 PM

@DamkerngT. Well, grammaticality is the question of whether or not a given string is grammatical. Grammar is the set of principles that describe how words fit together into larger constituents, and then those constituents into larger constituents yet.

Anonymous

So there's obviously a lot of overlap, but they aren't necessarily the same thing, no.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Then we should ask "Are "grammaticality" and "grammar" really treated differently?"

Anonymous

I'm not saying it's a useful distinction to make with tags, though.

Anonymous

Honestly, I have no idea if it's useful.

Damkerng T.

I guess we can retag most of ELL grammar questions with grammaticality.

Anonymous

9:20 PM

I suspect it's not, but I haven't really looked.

Anonymous

Lots of questions are about meaning. Semantics is a very general category, much like grammar.

Anonymous

We can divide meaning into semantics and pragmatics.

Anonymous

Mark Liberman recently wrote a really neat short description of the difference:

Anonymous

> [L]inguists like to distinguish between meaning as something that sentences have (semantics) versus meaning as something that speakers do (pragmatics). (Language Log)

Anonymous

We presumably lump semantics and pragmatics both under "meaning".

Anonymous

9:35 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I'm working on other things right now.

Anonymous

This is going to be a relatively busy month for me and I'm unlikely to contribute much to ELL.

Ahm Naim

Hi all

how is everybody?

hellloooooo

Anonymous

9:53 PM

Hello!

Damkerng T.

11:02 PM

@snailboat It looks like it's gonna be a busy month for me as well.

(Not to mention that I also have thousands of pages of CGEL to read!)

Anonymous

You should keep the chat updated on your CGEL progress. We can follow along and discuss anything that might be confusing :-)

Damkerng T.

I think this week I'm going to reread chapter 13 of Student CGEL and try to locate and read the same subject in the CGEL.

(The motive: english.stackexchange.com/questions/283665/…)

Check out "catenative construction", "catenative verbs" and "catenative complements" in my old answer here: ell.stackexchange.com/a/55672/3281. — Damkerng T. yesterday

I wrote that answer before I bought A Student's Introduction to English Grammar.

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