Language Overflow

Anonymous

00:24

Can you give an example?

SmokeDetector

01:39

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, email in answer: Is it correct to say "There are 5 hepatitis B viruses in his liver"? by joyce steven on ell.SE

CowperKettle

04:42

Millay of the Day: Sonnet 161

> Tranquility at length when autumn comes,
Will lie upon the spirit like that haze
Touching far islands on fine autumn days
With tenderest blue, like bloom on purple plums;
Harvest will ring, but not as summer hums,
With noisy enterprise — to broaden, raise,
Proceed, proclaim, establish: autumn stays
The marching year one moment; stills the drums.

> Then sits the insistent cricket in the grass;
But on the gravel crawls the chilly bee;
And all is over that could come to pass
Last year; excepting this: the mind is free
One moment, to compute, refute, amass,
Catalogue, question, contemplate, and see.

userr2684291

09:35

@snailplane Do you like me(?( –)/,) because I don't like you.

Maybe I should split it into two sentences, but it is one thought...

I don't remember the original sentence, so I made that one up now.

@yubraj Hello.

Word of the day: bracing

2

"...offered a bracing insight."

CowperKettle

09:52

breathtakingly beautiful sonnet written 10 hours ago

I was stunned.

Anonymous

10:35

Yep, I'd write it as two orthographic sentences.

userr2684291

Alright then, thanks.

userr2684291

10:49

Oh, so English borrowed maladroit from French.

I was wondering how Baudelaire's Albatross sounded in French. You can recognize some words immediately.

> Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

This is basically English.

Or maybe vice versa.

CowperKettle

A poet resembles a prince of the night
Who hunts in the tempest like an archer on a horse
Who runs from the sun with its million hues
And marches across a gigantic peach

Voila!

I translated it.

userr2684291

Haha.

@CowperKettle You're actually close. But l'empechent is obviously impeach, which is literally "prevent".

And the penultimate line mentions them being exiled, sol should be "soil", and milieu is actually an English word.

Kirill

11:05

I want to contact someone and tell them to contact me if they will need that. What would be the right usage of the Conditional 2?
"Let me know, if you would need...?" or
"You could let me know, if you would need...? or
else?

userr2684291

And that was an extemporaneous translation. Imagine what you could do with the 100 most frequent words in French, like prepositions and basic verbs.

I know I'm sort of downplaying French and there's certainly more to it, but I was quite amazed how I could understand most of that.

Anonymous

I don't use the Three Conditionals analysis, so I can't remember what the second one is, but I'd say "Let me know if you need anything."

userr2684291

@Kirill What's wrong with Let me know if you need it / anything.?

Anonymous

Your versions with would both sound off.

Kirill

hi guys

Anonymous

11:11

@userr2684291 Yep, cognates are handy that way :-)

userr2684291

@snailplane The first one is for the real present/future, the second is the unreal present/future, and the third is for the unreal past.

Anonymous

Good morning! Or afternoon or whatnot.

userr2684291

It starts from real, across unreal, to very unreal.

Anonymous

But it's a set of three formulas, when actual English conditionals are much more varied and versatile.

userr2684291

That's why there're mixed conditionals.

Anonymous

11:13

So for advanced students it's probably not too useful.

Anonymous

Yeah, even so.

userr2684291

Which cover all the possibilities, basically.

Anonymous

Erm.

Anonymous

Convince me of that and I'll concede the point :-)

Kirill

the theory points on the probability of an action. In this case it is highly unlikely that they will need me :) That's why I am thinking about past or past perfect grammatically. @snailplane

userr2684291

11:16

@snailplane Right after the break! (I have to go queue up again for some document.)

Kirill

I personally find the phrase "let me know, if you want" ok, but decided to ask it here, as I am not a master of official or formal English :)

Anonymous

What number conditional is "Let me know if you need anything" or "Convince me of that and I'll concede the point", I wonder?

Kirill

@snailplane I think the number depends on the education system you are in

e.g. in my school they were sorted like this: ego4u.de/de/cram-up/grammar/conditional-sentences, @snailplane

Anonymous

It's a trick question, because the number system doesn't adequately describe either of these examples. Linguists don't really use the system.

Anonymous

Let me switch to a computer so I can type faster.

Kirill

11:19

@snailplane understood. Numbers are only about the typisation. Basically, they say every conditional is of one of these three types.

Anonymous

Yeah, you can try to cram them all into one of the five types in the number system.

Anonymous

But then you're going to end up with a bunch of subtypes and other stuff you Didn't Think Of anyway.

Anonymous

For example:

Kirill

@snailplane agree

Anonymous

> If you'd like some, I have some cake.

Anonymous

11:21

I have some cake is not a consequence of whether you'd like some is true or not. I have some cake in either case.

Anonymous

> She goes, I go.

Kirill

so, what would be the consequence of this? I have to analyse the logical structure of the sentence, is that the point?

CowperKettle

@snailplane Interesting

Kirill

So, I am writing someone like Google now. How would you justify, how the sentence should be built in my case? Surely, they do need programmers. But it is highly unlikely that they need especially me. @snailplane

Anonymous

Adding would doesn't really convey that meaning. It just sounds unnatural.

Anonymous

11:34

The most natural way to express it might depend a bit on the context.

Kirill

Or, more specific: we have spoken about one manual that is no more up-to-date. They said they will update it. I want to say: let me know, if you need a translation in (to) Russian.

Anonymous

My default inclination would just be not to emphasize how unlikely it is that they'd need my help. The polite thing to do is to offer help if needed, even if you think it's unlikely, I would think. You can emphasize that it's unlikely in a number of ways: "On the off chance that you do need something, let me know."

Anonymous

But without some linguistic context (not just a description of the situation, but what else you've communicated and in what words) I can't really come up with the most natural way to express the idea.

Kirill

@snailplane oukei! Thanks for the new expression I haven't known so far!

userr2684291

12:25

@snailplane This is the first conditional. If you do that, I'll do that. The fact that you used an imperative doesn't change anything. Do that and I'll do that.

grammaring.com/imperatives-in-the-first-conditional

Just so you don't think that's some special case as presented on that website: civilservicereview.com/2015/04/first-conditional.

@snailplane This is an ellipted zeroth or first conditional, depending on whether you consider the zeroth conditional a separate type.

Ellipted is just an adjective there; it doesn't denote a special subtype. It's not the classification's fault people don't speak in complete sentences.

Anonymous

12:47

Oh good, so each of the conditionals now has a bunch of subtypes with different grammar, different semantics, and so forth.

Anonymous

'Sides, the ellipsis explanation is lacking.

userr2684291

@snailplane How so?

Anonymous

It has no advantage over allowing multiple clause types. We already allow imperatives, right? Those can't be explained by ellipsis.

userr2684291

@snailplane We don't have to explain those away by ellipsis.

But I'm pretty sure you could some: Convince me of that and I'll concede the point -> If you convince me of that, I'll concede the point.

Anonymous

Sure. It's a bad idea, but you can do it.

userr2684291

12:51

Yeah, we don't have to, though. It's a standard way to form the first conditional.

Anonymous

It's a bad idea because it works sometimes, but not always, so it doesn't really work as a generalization.

Anonymous

What you really did is paraphrase my example.

Anonymous

One example cannot be an ellipted form of the other. You had to remove a word to make it work.

userr2684291

Why're you focussing on explaining the imperative by ellipsis, anyway?

I never claimed such a thing.

Anonymous

You were analyzing She goes, I go by ellipsis. Why? It's just asyndetic coordination of two declarative clauses with a consequential implication.

Anonymous

12:55

Ellipsis is shoehorning.

userr2684291

I see it as a simple ellipsis, I don't see why anyone would analyze it as a special case of coordination.

Anonymous

What do you think about If you'd like some, I have some cake?

Anonymous

Well, that's the point. It's not a special case. Coordination tends to imply consequence.

userr2684291

I just don't believe in such ellipsis; it's not a special case of anything, it's just colloquial speech.

Adding if doesn't really add anything to the meaning.

Anonymous

If I don't see you before you go, have a nice trip!

Anonymous

13:04

Examples like these, where the condition expressed by the protasis is relevance rather than truth value, where do they fit in, I wonder?

userr2684291

Not sure.

Kirill

If I saw you before you went, you would have a nice trip.

If I have seen you before you have been gone, you would have had a nice trip.

Anonymous

@Kirill The tricky thing is, when I say If I don't see you before you go, what I really mean is "I want to wish you a nice trip now, because I might not have a chance to wish you a nice trip later if I don't see you again."

Anonymous

Likewise, with If you'd like some, I have some cake, I actually have the cake whether or not you'd like to have some. It's not a matter of whether "I have some cake" is true or false; the condition is whether it's relevant to you. If you'd like the cake, then my having it is relevant to you. Otherwise, it's not.

Kirill

I've just suplemented the idea with two other conditionals, @snailplane

With the 1. and 2. of mine I mean: "Have I seen you before, you trip would not be so awful"

saw you $\Rightarrow$ you've got a nice trip

anyway, see you

Anonymous

13:14

It's difficult for me to come up with the right words to address those two examples.

Anonymous

Have a good day, Kirill!

userr2684291

@snailplane Coordination doesn't necessarily imply consequence, so that's definitely a subtype of coordination. I'd say ellipsis and conditionals explain it better in that case.

Could you give me another example of such coordination in which an addition of if doesn't transform the whole thing into one of the main conditional types?

Anonymous

Some conditionals use other words:

Anonymous

> Assuming everyone agrees, the project will begin next month.

Anonymous

A lot of them can be treated as paraphrases of if.

Anonymous

13:22

In case, etc.

Anonymous

Some conditions might be analyzed as being expressed at the phrase level rather than the clause level: I'm a good tennis player, if not a great one.

userr2684291

@snailplane Yep. But they're nevertheless taught separately as other words that can stand in place of 'if' in conditional sentences.

@snailplane If in this and the cake example is closer to in case or if ... is true, so if true is ellipted, haha, and everything can be explained by the first conditional.

Anonymous

She was interested in the discussion, if for no other reason than to remind herself that there were other plausible points of view.

userr2684291

The would in If you'd like is just a tentative would.

Anonymous

Either you agree to my terms or the deal is off.

userr2684291

13:26

That sounds like the Convince ... and example.

Anonymous

You can coordinate various clause types with one another and get a consequential meaning.

Anonymous

Imperative and declarative, declarative and imperative.

Anonymous

Syndetic or asyndetic.

userr2684291

@snailplane Is this actually a conditional sentence?

Anonymous

@userr2684291 No, I don't think so. I think it's a conditional phrase.

Anonymous

13:29

Supposing it was a conditional clause, how would you analyze it?

Anonymous

I'm going to analyze this example as a conditional no matter what.

Jasper

This room is overflowing with linguistics!

Anonymous

Just having some fun.

Jasper

The title of the room is cool.

Anonymous

That's thanks to Damkerng.

Jasper

13:36

Oh, I thought it was you, lol.

Anonymous

Nope. I like it too, though.

Jasper

Many of the stars are thanks to me, lol. I star many things.

Anonymous

You can also approach conditionals by looking at their illocutionary force.

Anonymous

Just as Could you pass the salt? is really a polite way to say "Pass the salt to me", rather than a question of your salt-passing capabilities, If you could pass the salt is a polite directive, rather than a literal expression of conditional meaning.

Jasper

Pass the salt, you ~!@#$%^&* is the extreme opposite of polite.

Anonymous

13:43

Yes, quite rude, until you find yourself talking to someone whose name consists of the word you and a bunch of punctuation.

Jasper

I think @snailplane and @userr2684291 are very similar in a way. They both like to write very well in this chat room.

Anonymous

Well, I'd like to write very well in this chat room, but I have to settle with the words I actually come up with.

Jasper

My sentences, on the other hand, consist mostly of lol.

Anonymous

Lol.

Anonymous

My, that was uncharacteristic.

Anonymous

13:46

It was refreshing.

Anonymous

By the way, I keep using examples like:

Jasper

Yes, I was shocked you said lol, lol.

Anonymous

I can come up with more examples like this if you want.

Jasper

Ah, once you understand the required structure, it's easy to come up with examples.

Anonymous

These are called relevance protases in CGEL, but they were first noticed in linguistics by the great philosopher of language J.L. Austin.

Anonymous

13:49

So although they're often called relevance conditionals now (the "protasis" is just the if part), they have a history of being called biscuit conditionals, after Austin's biscuit-containing example.

Anonymous

His example:

Anonymous

> There are biscuits in the cupboard if you want some.

Jasper

A--->B is a conditional statement in mathematical logic, and A<--->B is a biconditional.

Funny to call it biscuit conditional because of the biscuit example.

Anonymous

Yeah, there are linguists who prefer more descriptive, transparent names like relevance conditional.

Anonymous

But there are lots of more opaque names for stuff in linguistics.

Jasper

13:54

Linguists are strange people, lol.

Anonymous

For example, we can talk about main clause phenomena (MCP). In English, we mark some interrogative clauses with subject–auxiliary inversion:

Anonymous

> Are you a snail?

Anonymous

> I am a snail.

Anonymous

Let's use those examples.

Anonymous

In the first example, the auxiliary are has switched places with the subject you, which marks the clause as interrogative.

Anonymous

13:56

In the second example, there is no such marking because the clause is declarative.

Anonymous

This is a main clause phenomenon. It doesn't happen in subordinate clauses:

Anonymous

> I want to know [ if you are a snail ] .

Jasper

Yes, I understand the examples.

Anonymous

So the name main clause phenomenon is a straightforward description for phenomena that occur in main clauses, like topicalization or SAI.

Anonymous

But if you look at examples like these and you're Haj Ross, you're going to come up with a clever name instead.

Jasper

13:58

Someone told me MCP = Male Chauvinist Pig

Anonymous

So he came up with The Penthouse Principle.

Anonymous

> The Penthouse Principle: The rules are different if you live in the penthouse.

Jasper

Strange names, lol.

Anonymous

But to me, that's much more opaque, so I never use that term unless I'm talking to someone I know has already learned that term.

Anonymous

I like to use transparent and descriptive rather than clever names for things.

Jasper

13:59

I have never seen such silly names in other areas of study.

Maybe I have now taken over the role of Damkerng as the resident chatter, lol.

Anonymous

When Damkerng comes back you can be co-chatters.

Anonymous

Linguistics does have a lot of unfortunate terminology, I feel.

Anonymous

Theories, too. I'm mostly interested in descriptive linguistics, personally, so I view it as a tool. Gather data, find patterns in the data.

Anonymous

But there's a lot of people studying linguistics (for example in the Minimalist Program) who I feel are largely wasting time on theoretical concerns with no practical value.

Jasper

Hmm, you know a lot about linguistics.

Anonymous

14:05

I just edited which to who. I said people which, then thought better of it.

Jasper

How many snails do you have currently?

Anonymous

None. I have to catch a new snail or three.

Jasper

I don't intend to keep pets ever.

Anonymous

I set my snails free when I was occupied with medical things.

Jasper

You wake up very early, it seems.

Anonymous

14:10

By the way, people do a lot of good work in those theoretical frameworks I was just disparaging. I just view the frameworks themselves as unnecessary baggage, sometimes leading people astray for a theoretical concern with no practical value, other times making things harder to understand without adding anything useful.

Anonymous

Yeah, I do :-)

Anonymous

The sun's come up.

Anonymous

Maybe today I'll find a snail that needs a home.

Anonymous

Ooh, ooh.

Anonymous

1

A: "Like" or "unlike" a lot of people do

I think I see why you find the sentence odd. It took me a while to see it. The "unlike" seems perfectly natural to me, and the awkward "do" escaped my notice at first. Let's consider some alternatives: The cat didn't pee himself, unlike a lot of first-time jumpers. The cat didn't pee himse...

Anonymous

14:11

> So, is the real comparison between the cat and the people (which are unlike in regard to whether they took that action) or the action that the cat didn't take but many people do (which -- un-negated to simply positive -- is simply like)?

Jasper

Yeah, the like unlike confuses me too.

Anonymous

In the bolded portion, we have a coordination of noun phrases: the cat and the people

Anonymous

The cat is lower on the animacy hierarchy than the people, so the cat appears more readily with which, while people usually appears with who.

Anonymous

In fact, the tendency is so strong to use who with people that people which is usually described as a mistake. Though it does occur.

Anonymous

But here we have which acting on both the cat and the people.

Jasper

14:13

Yes, lol.

Anonymous

Well, acting jointly.

Jasper

I think you are very smart to observe these things, lol.

Anonymous

No, I just look for patterns. :-)

Jasper

I am going to leave the room now, enjoy finding a snail today! =D

Anonymous

Thank you! Please enjoy your non-snail-finding activity of choice!

userr2684291

14:29

Apparently I'm gonna be in Germany sooner than I expected.

@snailplane As an ellipsis. ):

Okay, I suppose the simplistic model of conditional types just doesn't explain everything, so that was an overgeneralization.

Anonymous

14:47

What will you be doing in Germany?

Anonymous

To be fair, I'm not aware of any model of English conditionals which explains everything.

Anonymous

Although Araucaria is working on a Grand Unified Theory of Conditionals, I think.

2

userr2684291

@snailplane Studying.

userr2684291

15:04

I'll be doing everything in English there anyway.

Well, not everything, but my level of German will suffice for everything not accounted for by English.

Jasper

18:07

@snailplane Seriously? LOL

@userr2684291 Germany is my favourite country. In fact, I would like to be born there next life. =D

CowperKettle

18:26

I've been given a present. A person's favorite quotations from books, in English, with hand-drawn illustrations.

The best present in my life.

From a friend whom I was explaining some English grammar to

Anonymous

18:42

@Jasper Yep.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Aww

Jasper

19:17

@snailplane Did you catch any snails just now?

CowperKettle

19:42

Nice quotations there!

I never read Remarque's Arc Of Triumph

> See what has become of us. As far as I know, only the old Greeks had gods of drinking and the joy of life: Bacchus and Dionysus. Instead of that we have Freud, inferiority complexes and the psychoanalysis. We're afraid of the too great words in love and not afraid of much too great words in politics. A sorry generation!

And another one

> How beautiful it is when one lives completely and not with just a part of oneself. When one is full to the rim and calm because there is nothing more to get in.

CowperKettle

20:05

Ha:

> “Is that vodka?" Margarita asked weakly.
The cat jumped up in his seat with indignation.
"I beg pardon, my queen," he rasped, "Would I ever allow myself to offer vodka to a lady? This is pure alcohol!”

I never read Bulgakov in English (0:

Araucaria

21:23

@j.r. "Sorry for that caveat, but there's something rather fishy about this question, especially in light of Emilie's comment. If the O.P. was a newer user, I'd guess we were being trolled." <--Hi old bean. I thinkit might be better if you deleted that part of your post on Academia. OP's clearly upset anyway, and my personal experience from friends is that they are quite often put in that kind of position. You're taking one piece of anecdotal evidnece to nullify OP's serious problem.

and it is a very serious one.

Anonymous

Let me just super-ping @J.R. to make sure he sees the message, since I'm not sure he's been in Language Overflow recently.

Araucaria

@snailplane Thank you :)

10

A: I don't want to kill any more mice, but my advisor insists that I must in order to get my PhD

First of all, let me tell you that I'm sorry this happened to you. Animal experiments are a necessary evil, but this is not the way to go about them. And when you are so desperate as it comes across from your question, remember: your first duty is to yourself. Not to your PI, and not even to your...

@snailplane He he! I just saw that (haven't been aound much apart from a few couple of minute visits). Yes, I am ... Erm, probably won't go very far though :)

@snailplane Is there reason to think D will be back? (asks hopefully)

@snailplane No, it isn't!!

@snailplane Ah, but there's the interesting thing. In "If my car breaks down, I'll still make it to the party", my making it to the party isn't a consequence of my car breaking down. So it's not so simple what makes a conditional conditional or biscuity :) I've really enjoyed reading your discussion about conditionals :) Will come back and re-read tomorrow.

Ciao!

Anonymous

22:30

@Araucaria No, I just choose to believe that.

Anonymous

@Araucaria You must enjoy watching me struggle. :-)

Jasper

There are so many hurricanes the last few weeks.

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