Language Overflow

Nihilist_Frost

16:00

Some of my redditing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/badlinguistics/comments/4adydr/ks_is_a_voiceless_velar_fricative/

Anonymous

@CowperKettle This species can survive temperatures below freezing, but they're best suited to around 14°C or so.

John Clifford

I really wish I could understand linguistics even a little bit.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Aww... living in the wild for so long. :-)

@Nihilist_Frost Ahh... it's about that /x/ and friends.

Anonymous

Hard and soft in reference to palatalization is not the grade school meaning, but the way the terms are used in Russian linguistics.

John Clifford

0

Q: Usage of "can't help it"

I am wondering how can we use "can't help it" in a sentence. I want you to explain me it's grammer definition and I would appreciate if you could provide some examples of this expression for me

grammar

CowperKettle

16:05

@snailboat Wow. Surviving below freezing is cool. They must be burrowing into the ground or something.

John Clifford

Anyone have any issues with my answer on this one?

Anonymous

Using /y/ for [j] isn't the usual practice in English linguistics, but it's widespread in certain circles and there's nothing really wrong with it. It's also used that way in transcriptions of certain other languages.

Anonymous

Remember that IPA is well defined only for phonetic transcriptions, and even then linguists let language specificity creep in (for example wedge in English).

Anonymous

For phonemic transcriptions, use whatever conventions communicate best and tell people what conventions you're using.

Anonymous

I recommend following the conventions of the best pronunciation dictionaries, in particular the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.

Anonymous

16:10

Then at least we have some kind of standard.

CowperKettle

> Poor little thing is ravenous!

Interesting omission of "the"

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Left-edge deletion mainly of function words, commonly referred to around these parts as conversational deletion.

2

CowperKettle

> I will argue that left-edge ellipsis is a prosodic phenomenon, resulting from the satisfaction of the STRONGSTART constraint (Selkirk 2011, also Elfner 2012, Bennett et al. to appear), penalizing ‘weak’ starts to utterances (building on work in Weir 2012).

Fard

Hi everyone!

CowperKettle

Good evening, @Fard!

Fard

16:16

@snailboat I want the rest of this too! chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/28250554#28250554

Is this a link?! chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/28250572#28250572

Anonymous

It's a regular expression.

Anonymous

You can understand it as a search-and-replace operation on the message being replied to.

Fard

Still didn't get it. :/

Anonymous

Implying that what I wrote is more generally true, not just in linguistics.

Damkerng T.

I think Fard is not familiar with vi.

CowperKettle

16:21

@snailboat I found it mentioned in a great answer by John Lawler, although I guess folks usually ask about it when they see a pronoun deleted.

Anonymous

Pronouns and articles are both function words.

Damkerng T.

It's a string substitution operation. s/hi/hello/ will replace the first hi in the text with hello.

CowperKettle

Quirk et al. should've included a mention of this deletion in their chapter on articles.

Fard

@DamkerngT. Now I'm starting to get a slight clue.

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. ah! life -> linguistics. Smart.

Fard

16:23

Right. It's a true fact about life.

Such a challenge, talking to some people!

Anonymous

@CowperKettle It's a phonological stripping of material from the left edge of the sentence, and the article can be considered to still be there as far as the basic grammar is concerned. It's not really what Quirk et al would call a zero article.

Damkerng T.

:D

CowperKettle

@snailboat I agree, but just to make that chapter more exhaustive, they might've included that.

Anonymous

No argument there :-)

Anonymous

Quirk et al really is pretty comprehensive, though. Even though H&P 2002 is theoretically much neater, sometimes Quirk et al 1985 is still worth going back to.

CowperKettle

16:27

Yes, they cover articles much more nitpickingly

Anonymous

I think serious students of English grammar should have both.

Anonymous

Biber et al 1999 is a good companion to Quirk et al 1985.

CowperKettle

Even frivolous ones should have both, methinks.

Damkerng T.

I wonder if there will be another edition of CGEL in 2019.

Anonymous

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Biber et al 1999 ← a corpus-based grammar that complements Quirk et al 1985

Fard

16:31

@snailboat There's a student's book for that. I read some of it, but I didn't feel like I'm learning grammar.

CowperKettle

I'll try to find Biber's book

Fard

Not that it's a bad book. It just doesn't address the grammar problems learners seek to learn.

CowperKettle

I like the easier style in which Quirk et al. is written. H&P's style is a bit dry.

Anonymous

Yeah, avoid the student's version, and don't use it as a primary resource for grammar, either.

Damkerng T.

@Fard nods -- PEU is still the best choice for learners, IMHO.

Anonymous

16:33

It's better to think of it as a secondary resource, one with extra discussion, particularly of spoken language, and with frequency information.

Fard

What do you guys think about this answer?

1

A: Why do we say "It's time we ate" and not "It's time we eat"?

For all three examples, the present sounds perfectly fine: Don't you think it's time we go a little further? It's time we eat. Don't you think it's time we go home? and they have pretty much the same meaning as your given sentences. The future is not allowed: *It's time we wil...

Damkerng T.

Ah, snailboat looked into this topic once.

Fard

In this chat room?

Damkerng T.

Yes. I wish I could search for starred messages!

Fard

Please don't bother. I will search for it. Thanks.

Damkerng T.

16:39

Found it!

Oct 5 '15 at 9:53, by snailboat

9   it [be] high time (no complement)
12  it [be] high time + for-PP
71  it [be] high time + to-infinitival clause (39% with for-subject)
190 it [be] high time + declarative content clause (31% with 'that')

The last category can be broken down by the form of the following verb:

        122 (18% that) (              PAST  form)
        39  (49% that) (PLAIN/PRESENT       form - ambiguous whether it would agree with 3rd sg)
        15  (87% that) (PLAIN               form - does not agree with 3rd sg)

Fard

Thanks you :)

Damkerng T.

My pleasure. :-)

CowperKettle

Past form prevails.

Fard

I know, but I've encountered the present subjunctive in AmE.

Damkerng T.

nods -- but it's not the only possibility.

Anonymous

16:43

My conclusion is that the construction is, while not rare, uncommon enough that, given the overlap in form, different speakers acquire it differently.

Anonymous

Certainly people use it in ways I wouldn't have expected given the way I personally acquired it.

Fard

I guess nobody would prefer the present tense over the past tense.

Anonymous

Well, those aren't even the only two options.

Fard

The so-called should subjunctive?

Anonymous

Hmm, let me get to a computer so I can type faster.

Fard

16:47

Maybe we should pick up the rest of this discussion later.

I have to go to dinner right now!

Anonymous

> It is high time that Congress be held accountable to the laws it is sworn to protect. American voters must demand meaningful campaign-finance reform.

Fard

Are you looking for results in a corpus?

Anonymous

> Just as parents struggle to teach their children to think ahead, to choose a future and not just drift through life, it is high time that human society as a whole learns to do the same.

Anonymous

No, I already catalogued all the results.

Anonymous

But yes, these are from COCA.

Fard

16:52

So many possibilities! And grammars only mention the past form.

Well, some grammars.

Anonymous

> "It's high time that Atlanta sat up and listened to the downstream communities - those south of the city who have had to suffer from a polluted river due to Atlanta's growth," said Wade Milam, former state representative from LaGrange.

Anonymous

So here we have three forms. While I was cataloging forms, I labeled these "plain", "present", and "past", as theory-neutral labels.

Anonymous

But in many cases, I couldn't put a form into only one category.

Fard

I just searched for "It's high time" in British National Corpus.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, the BNC is smaller than COCA.

Fard

16:55

36 hits, all of them in past tense.

Still, none in 36 tells us something.

Anonymous

You should search for [be] high time. You'll find 108 results.

Fard

Right. I don't know these tricks very well yet.

Anonymous

@Fard It definitely does. It seems like there's less variation in BrE.

Anonymous

There is some variation, though.

Anonymous

There are at least a few examples of BE high time + to-infinitival clause.

Fard

17:00

Yes. I was just typing that.

So, what do you think about it personally? How do you say it?

Anonymous

> I am not alone, I feel, in believing it to be high time boxing is recognised for what it really is, a sordid and revolting spectacle of the baser human urges, demeaning alike to those who support or take part in it.

Anonymous

This is in the BNC.

Anonymous

Well, let's see. I wrote down my thoughts before I did any research, so I can see what they were like before I had any chance to be influenced by going through corpus results.

Anonymous

Looks like I had the same impression I do now.

Anonymous

Declarative content clauses with present and past form verbs both sound fine to me. I originally felt the examples with plain form verbs were unexpected, but in context they sounded okay. So I suppose I'm willing to go along with just about anything :-)

Anonymous

17:05

I do tend to be more permissive than a lot of people in my judgments, though.

Fard

I wish English grammar rules were all so relaxed and permissive.

May I come back a bit later? My mom's awaiting me at the dinner table...

Anonymous

You may leave at any time without permission from me.

Anonymous

Please, if you need to eat, go :-)

Anonymous

Chat messages can always wait until later.

Fard

I started this discussion with you, and I didn't want to be rude.

You're right. Bye for now:)

Anonymous

17:19

I never wrote an answer about that because, although I did go through the corpus results, I wasn't entirely sure how to interpret them after I was done cataloging forms.

Damkerng T.

19:35

4

A: "How good do you think it is?" or "How good do you think is it?"

Think of it like this. Work backward from the answer: You think it is X good. ... replace X with interrogative 'how' You think it is how good. ... invert the subject with auxiliary 'do' Do you think it is how good? ... move the interrogative phras...

Ah, StoneyB is still around!

but on EL&U

I'm glad to see his answer anyway.

IͶΔ

Yay!

Good some-time-before-noon @Snail

How's the new one doing?

Anonymous

He posted an answer on ELL only two days ago, too :-)

IͶΔ

Hullo @Bernard! Welcome to LO!

Anonymous

My new snail went to sleep after eating a very large amount of food.

Bernard Meurer

Oh, hello there!

IͶΔ

19:45

OK, so now that you guys are around, could we discuss that idea thingy of me @Dam @Snail?

@BernardMeurer Hullo here!

Gee, we've been chatting a lot today.

9 hours ago, by IͶΔ

So @Dam, in an attempt to get meta.ELL to finally do some action, should we make a "help & improvement chatroom"?

scroll scroll scroll

@Dam @Snail ^^

Anonymous

I'm staying out of meta.ELL for a while.

IͶΔ

@snailboat No, I'm just looking for your feedback on the idea.

And replace "chatroom" with "chat event".

Echo echo echo

Well, I should give this more thoughts myself.

It seems it's best not to talk meta here for a while.

Also I'm a masochist

This is the part where I post something and then get annoyed at the world and myself and meta.ELL and rant about stuff

Bernard Meurer

20:03

"Is any of you folks familiar with assembly" or "Are any of you folks familiar with assembly"?

Had to say this just now and I froze for a while

IͶΔ

@BernardMeurer The latter

Catija

@snailboat I'm thinking about asking a question on ELU about the use of "actuate" as a noun... is this something you've ever seen? The dictionaries I use only list it as a verb.

IͶΔ

O_O

Bernard Meurer

@IͶΔ Thanks!

Damkerng T.

@IͶΔ I'm sorry. I was supposed to be in bed half an hour ago.

Catija

20:08

@IͶΔ Unless you're in the NE of the US... they'd likely say "Is any of you'se folks"... because they're weird.

IͶΔ

@Catija I should say nite to youses

G'night y'all

Bernard Meurer

@Catija I'm weird, does that mean I should be in NE-US?

Catija

@BernardMeurer Well... I'm weird, too... so, no.

Anonymous

20:41

@Catija I have never seen that.

Catija

@snailboat What? The weirdness on my part, the "you'se folks" or the "actuate" as a noun?

Anonymous

Actuate as a noun.

Catija

I'm starting to think that it's some sort of crazy "find and replace" error... I found an older version of the document that I'm looking at and every time it says "actuate" it used to say "will" in the prior version.

So, it used to say "this will include" and now it says "this actuate include"... and even if it were being used as a noun, it would be "this actuate includes"...

Anonymous

Ooh, they did their search-and-replace actuatey-nilly.

Catija

That's so odd...

Anonymous

20:45

I can't imagine what the original motivation was.

Catija

Don't know... this is a 40 page document and there are certainly other instances of the word "will", so I'm not sure why only these three were changed.

John Clifford

0

Q: "In the dignitaries"

What does "in the dignitaries" mean when it's used in sentences like "in the dignitaries of the cathedral" or "in the dignitaries of the counterculture". Is my abridged dictionary failing me, as far as the definition of dignitary? Am I wrong in assuming that "in" is a preposition here?

meaning

And here I thought I'd seen it all.

Catija

Wow... can you VTC for "crappy attitude"?

John Clifford

I went with off-topic instead.

I also love how he misspelled choster when we have freaking USERNAME AUTOCOMPLETE.

Catija

I can't CV there anyway, so I went with "rude".

John Clifford

20:49

Like, who even does that?

Anonymous

I close voted.

Catija

You've only been around for 2 months? I'm surprised it took this long :P

John Clifford

That's like going to a soup kitchen because you're starving, but only because you didn't eat the delicious subway sandwich that you had at home, and then pissing all over the staff for pointing out that you had the sandwich there.

I've actually been a semi-lurker on SO for ages, but I only made my account 2 months ago and didn't even realise there were any sites other than StackOverflow until I saw the list up the top.

As soon as I found out there was one for English language enthusiasts it was like Christmas and my birthday combined.

Catija

"up the top"... so cute

Anonymous

I like the natural language sites :-)

Anonymous

20:53

I occasionally venture elsewhere.

John Clifford

You have no idea how relieving it is to finally be surrounded by people who are either just as smart as me or infinitely smarter. XD We don't have much of that where I'm from.

I live in the only country where people type in their regional accent, and it's a nightmare to read.

Catija

As long as I don't have to try and read Welsh English, I think we're ok.

John Clifford

Welsh is a language with altogether too many consonants.

Anonymous

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=787

Catija

I'm pretty sure they treat half of those "consonants" as vowels.

... like w

John Clifford

20:56

rofl

To be fair I did once, when working in a call centre, have a customer from Llanelli who was absolutely delighted that I knew how to pronounce it.

Catija

And that weather guy who said that crazy town name perfectly...

John Clifford

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch you mean?

I can actually pronounce about 75% of it but I sometimes trip up in the middle somewhere.

Catija

Also, it's depressing that you have 3K after 2 months and I don't have 2 K after a year... though I haven't been on the site in... 7 months or so.

John Clifford

To be fair since I discovered EL&U I have pretty much lived there. I even brought a sleeping bag.

Catija

Oooh, what color? Is it one of those mummy bags?

John Clifford

21:05

It's blue.

Anonymous

@JohnClifford Ooh, you have more posts than I do already.

John Clifford

I do?

Anonymous

On EL&U.

John Clifford

I think that may be an indication that I post too much.

Ah well, I have way more green events than red ones, and that's how I determine whether I've won the internet.

John Clifford

21:52

I'm starting to wonder if my slightly passive-aggressive approach to clearly unresearched questions of posting a comment asking if they can kindly share with us what research they did may be slightly crueller and not as funny as I'd originally intended.

But hey, if it embarrasses enough people into researching their own question so we're not doing the work for them, so much the better.

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