Language Overflow

Anonymous

21:00

@DamkerngT. Oh really?

Anonymous

That should be a relative clause, by the way:

Damkerng T.

Yes. I'm not sure if I read it right, even!

Anonymous

> Thai words [ which/that/∅ a speaker may or may not be able to deduce the pronunciation of ＿＿ ]

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

Anonymous

I learned how to pronounce quinoa yesterday!

Anonymous

21:01

The way I always pronounced it in my head was wrong.

Damkerng T.

"kwin-now"?

LOL

My guess was just a mile away. :P

Anonymous

In English, everyone learns lots of words from speech, just like with any language. But since English spelling is somewhat opaque, people who learn words from writing tend to pronounce lots of things 'wrong' until they finally encounter it in speech :-)

Anonymous

So I, being someone who didn't talk much at a young age but read a lot, had this problem in spades―and occasionally, I still do! :-)

Damkerng T.

สุพรหมัณยัน is problematic in Thai. I think maybe สุพราหมัณยัน would be a little easier to read, and both would be the same word (i.e. having the same meaning).

Anonymous

I didn't guess anything like /kɪnˈwɑː/

Damkerng T.

21:03

สุพราหมัณยัน would be unambiguous (that it reads Subrahmanyan).

Anonymous

Oh!

Damkerng T.

พรหม (Brahm) is a tricky word. It has no vowel in its spelling. :D

I just found another rare word in Thai: สุพรหมัณยศาสตรี (in the context of กามนิต-วาสิฏฐี, which mentioned สุพรหมัณยศาสตรีแห่งราชบัณฑิตยสภา).

Oh, what's the English name of กามนิต-วาสิฏฐี?

It's Der Pilger Kamanita.

Anonymous

The Pilgrim Kāmanīta

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Thanks!

If a Thai says that Thai spelling is always unambiguous, you can throw this word at them: สุพรหมัณยศาสตรีแห่งราชบัณฑิตยสภา. :-)

Anonymous

Haha!

Anonymous

21:09

I'll write that down... :-)

Anonymous

Also, that looks rather long for a Thai word!

Damkerng T.

It could be counted in several ways!

Anonymous

Could it be analyzed as a phrase?

Damkerng T.

Rough division: สุพรหมัณยศาสตรี-แห่ง-ราชบัณฑิตยสภา

= สุพรหมัณยศาสตรี-of-officeOfTheRoyalSociety

ศาสตร์ = science, ศาสตรี = ? (the feminine word for "science"?)

สุพรหมัณย = Subrahmanya (i.e. Subrahmanyan without the last n)

Anonymous

Oh, what's the relationship between the feminine word for 'science' and the other word(s) for 'science'?

Damkerng T.

21:14

@snailboat Frankly, I don't know! :-)

I mean, Thai has no such concept for non-living things.

So, I guess, they did that to preserve the word in the original.

There are some words in Thai that come in masculine-faminine pairs. All of them are foreign or borrowed words, afaict.

Anonymous

Oh, having this corpus is so handy!

Anonymous

Seeing six orders of magnitude difference between two alternatives is pretty informative :-)

Damkerng T.

From 3DS?

Anonymous

Oh, it doesn't contain corpora.

Anonymous

Sometimes when I see a sentence I wonder about the underlying structure and get curious about what sorts of alternatives people say or don't say.

Anonymous

21:21

I was looking at this sentence:

Anonymous

> バングルのロックは、建物を出るか、または心臓が停止することによって解除される。

Damkerng T.

I think the latter part means, you either leave or die. :-)

Anonymous

Well, the middle part.

Damkerng T.

Oh! I see!

Anonymous

[
　[　　　　　建物を出る　　　]-か、
　[（または）心臓が停止する　]
]-こと

Anonymous

21:24

There's a coordination of two clauses. The first alternative is marked with か 'or', and the second is marked with または 'or'

Anonymous

Yes, I realize that my glosses leave something to be desired... :-)

Anonymous

You can kind of think of it as 'either leaving the building or heart stopping'

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

The こと is kind of like applying -ing to both of them.

Anonymous

Um. I honestly have no idea how to gloss こと. English doesn't even have the same grammatical function.

Anonymous

21:25

It's a clausal nominalizer.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat As KOTO? :-)

Anonymous

-KOTO!

Anonymous

It turns the entire thing into a noun phrase.

Anonymous

That's mainly what it does grammatically.

Anonymous

Sometimes it's glossed 'the fact that', but that doesn't work here at all...

Anonymous

21:28

Anyway, take that whole thing, and the phrasal postposition によって 'by way of'

Anonymous

That indicates that the entire thing is the method for the main predicate.

Anonymous

The main predicate is 解除される '[will] be unlocked'

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

So the whole thing means: The bangle locks will only come undone if you either leave the building, or your heart stops.

Anonymous

I put the または in parentheses because it's not strictly necessary, but it's often given between a pair of alternatives like that.

Anonymous

21:31

It's listed as a conjunction in Japanese dictionaries, but I wanted to recategorize it as a conjunctive adverb...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's quite nifty.

Anonymous

I like または！

Anonymous

I don't know why :-)

Damkerng T.

Maybe because of its sound? :-)

Anonymous

It does sound nice! または and あるいは are both fun to say

Damkerng T.

21:36

Oh, I found something.

I was looking for the last word the Japanese hero of a Thai drama said to his lover (a young Thai lady in the story).

It was 私はあなたを愛します.

But the article says no Japanese will ever say that sentence! :D

Anonymous

I'm back!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The most common way 愛する is used in Japanese fiction is 愛して(い)る, although I think 好き(だ) is a more common sentiment to express in Japanese in general

Anonymous

I've been told the 愛する sentiment is something that is not originally part of Japanese culture, and that it often shows up due to Western influences, often in fiction

Anonymous

I'm no expert on that sort of thing, so I'm sort of passing on what Japanese people have told me :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's fun collecting sentences!

Anonymous

21:49

I pay a lot of attention to coordination.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh! That's new to me!

Anonymous

My example earlier was of a clausal (alternative) coordination subordinated under こと

Anonymous

【〜〜するか（あるいは）〜〜する】こと

Damkerng T.

ฮิเดโกะ(Hideko)2013คู่กรรม(ณเดช)

►

It's from that Thai drama/novel (which could be considered a classic nowadays).

(Probably has been remade over 7 times already.)

Anonymous

And I've already found another fun example: もう見たよね？　例の【赤・青・緑】３枚の扉がそれだ。 'You've already seen them, right? Those red/blue/green doors from earlier.'

Anonymous

21:52

I've got an asyndetic coordination as pre-head modifier in a noun phrase!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A-ha! Give me one moment :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat At 3:29, I think he said 私はあなたを愛します.

@snailboat Another 【...】 block. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, yes! That's an orthographic convention used quite a bit in this video game :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I can't read those lips!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Maybe because he's not a real Japanese. :-)

Anonymous

21:59

The bit I loosely translated from earlier, by the way, is the premodifier 例の (which Google amusingly translated 'examples of'...)

Damkerng T.

(I think he's half-Thai half-Austrian.)

Anonymous

Oh!

Anonymous

The dictionary translation for 例の is like 'the aforementioned 〜〜'

Anonymous

Although that's actually a pretty weird translation...

Damkerng T.

(Google really likes to translate 例 as "example". :-)

Anonymous

22:01

Well, 例 as a noun on its own means 'example'

Anonymous

Of course, ＡのＢ corresponds to English B of A (in cases where の can be reasonably translated to of)

Anonymous

So translating it 'examples of' is almost never right.

Damkerng T.

Hee :D

Anonymous

Here is a 例

Anonymous

> これが例の人間型ロボットですか。

Anonymous

22:03

> Is this the humanoid robot you told me about the other day?

Anonymous

I think I would describe it as referring back like an anaphoric demonstrative, but to a previous (completed) conversation or discourse context.

Anonymous

I wonder if I can find a better description...

Anonymous

例の should really be parsed as a single word (a 連体詞 'adnoun')

Damkerng T.

nods

I wonder how many examples Google Translate would need before it could translate 例の correctly.

Anonymous

I dunno. How many examples of 例の do I need before I can come up with an adequate description as a human? :-)

Anonymous

22:06

「例の」の例

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Probably not very many, 'cause we humans are smarter. ;-)

Talking about machine translation...

Anonymous

I've noticed that native speakers vary in how much they pause before items in asyndetic coordinations (or more simply "listings")

Damkerng T.

Annals of LID

Anonymous

金・銀・銅（きん・ぎん・どう） 'Gold, Silver, Bronze'　←　I've heard this pronounced without any pauses

Anonymous

水色・紫色・黄色（みずいろ・むらさきいろ・きいろ） 'cyan, magenta, yellow'　←　I just heard this pronounced with pauses between each coordinate

Anonymous

22:08

@DamkerngT. Oh! Portuguese, eh? :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

I can identify a lot of languages pretty well.

Anonymous

Even though I can't understand much of anything.

Damkerng T.

Oh, some people are very good at imitating accents in other languages without saying any real words.

There must be a word for that kind of talent.

Anonymous

Oh, yes! My housemate is a natural mimic. She can mimic things she hears in foreign languages, even though she doesn't know those languages and never learned their phonetics or phonology.

Anonymous

22:10

She's also really good at imitating other accents of English besides her own.

Damkerng T.

BTW, the next video of that Thai drama YouTube gave me was an interview with the actor. He said that before the shooting, he had to learn Japanese, and Japanese-accented Thai. :P

Anonymous

That is, she can mimic words, but she doesn't try mimicking the sounds without trying to repeat actual words, usually.

Anonymous

People who attempt to mimic the sounds and melodies of a language, but without repeating words or trying to make sense, are engaging in double-talk

Anonymous

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10429

Anonymous

> The obituaries for the great comic Sid Caesar invariably mention his proficiency in "double-talk," mimicking the sounds (but not the sense) of foreign languages.

Anonymous

22:13

There are a few people who are very talented at that :-)

Anonymous

As you are no doubt aware.

Anonymous

Given you just told me so.

Damkerng T.

Nice! -- Yep, they amaze me every time!

Anonymous

But sometimes I tell people things they just told me. It's one of my um, charming? traits.

Anonymous

As are euphemisms.

Damkerng T.

22:14

@snailboat Oh, that's a great talent too!

Anonymous

It is! It's a great talent!

Damkerng T.

My lesson in a system analysis class: A system analyst is someone who, if you asked them what time is it?, they'd ask for your watch, look at your watch, tell you the time, and walk away with your watch. :P

Wow, Sid Caesar is so great in the clip! (I'm at the part he's double-talking German, and I can say that it sounds authentic!)

It sounds like he says "Toyota" in the Japanese section too!

0

Q: How to describe sand falling onto a hard surface

How would you describe sand or some other crystal-like powder like salt falling onto a hard surface? What sound does it make? What verb would you use? Scattering?

Interesting! I don't know the sound of that.

Anonymous

22:33

What sound does it make? Um.

Anonymous

I can play back the sound mentally but I don't know an onomatopoeia for it...

Anonymous

I guess it depends on how fine the granules are.

Anonymous

If it's really fine, maybe ffffffft?

Damkerng T.

I think that makes sense!

Anonymous

Coordination is my favorite part of syntax.

Damkerng T.

22:39

I don't know if I have my favorite. I should find one real quick. :-)

Anonymous

It can be difficult to rigorously define what is a coordinator and what is not.

Anonymous

CGEL admits very few actual coordinators.

Anonymous

Japanese traditional grammar has 並列助詞 'parallel particles' (also called 並立助詞)

Anonymous

For example, you can join together two items in an exhaustive list with ＡとＢと. (The last と can optionally be left out.)

Anonymous

It's often compared to English and, though it's really not the same thing.

Anonymous

22:44

In English, you can coordinate just about any two things with and, but in Japanese, the parallel marker と generally only marks nouns

Anonymous

And と implies that the set is complete, whereas the similar marker や implies that the set is incomplete

Damkerng T.

Eh?

Hmm... what if they want to join verbs?

Anonymous

You do that differently.

Anonymous

How would you like to join two verbs?

Anonymous

Ｖ１てＶ２

Anonymous

22:45

Again this 〜て is often translated 'and'

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

There was even a pair of linguists who suggested treating と and て as two allomorphs of the same morpheme (meaning 'and'), which took different forms depending on the context it appears in

Anonymous

Although this isn't a widely accepted view

Anonymous

But there are lots of other ways to coordinate things in Japanese.

Anonymous

Verbs are often joined with 〜〜たり〜〜たり（する）

Anonymous

22:47

Japanese has lots of ways to coordinate stuff, though.

Anonymous

> 誰かの恨みを買った覚えもなければ、多額の借金を背負っているわけでもなく、逆に百万ドルの身代金をポンと支払えるぐらいの裕福な家庭に育ったわけでもなかった‌。

Anonymous

Here we have three negative clauses coordinated together. Each ends with the focus particle も and ない

Anonymous

ある 'be' has no negative form あらない; instead, you use the adjective ない.

Anonymous

We can treat it as あら being deleted.

Anonymous

So we can treat these three clauses as verbal coordination, if we like.

Anonymous

22:50

And for some reason, in Japanese, when you coordinate negative clauses,

Anonymous

It's natural to mark the first one as a negative conditional

Anonymous

That's why it says なければ instead of なく

Anonymous

But it's not really conditional semantically.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Interesting!

Anonymous

It's more like "I don't remember pissing anyone off, I don't owe anyone a lot of money, and it's not like I come from a family with tons of cash to pay a million dollar ransom or anything..."

Anonymous

22:52

Just a simple coordination of three negative clauses.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You often see it with two negative clauses, but this is an example with three. I think the 〜ければ only ever applies to the first one, but that could just be because I've never seen it done differently myself.

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