Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

17:21

0

SUPPLEMENTAL to CopperKettle's answer In the comments to this answer, Bart-leby asks whether as they went along should be cast in the progressive, as they were going along. GO, by itself, is what linguists call an 'activity' verb: it is atelic, having no 'endpoint' built in to its sense. Cons...

Several interesting points in there.

> GO, by itself, is what linguists call an 'activity' verb: it is atelic, having no 'endpoint' built in to its sense.

> Consequently, in contexts like as they went along, it is inherently continuous; casting it in the progressive is superfluous.

> [...] For example:

> - If you say They went to Walsingham, the simple past went has a 'perfective'† sense: we understand that the journey was completed, "accomplished"

> In older English, and in literary registers, that recategorization is rolled back in contexts where an imperfective sense is clearly intended—for instance, with as in the Elizabethan ballad As I went to Walsingham [I met a jolly palmer], which speaks of something that happened during the journey.

Somehow the combination as, went and along is enough to suggest something ongoing.

Which is exactly how Thai works, concerning tense (which Thai doesn't have) and aspects (which Thai may have).

Simulating Thai,

> พวกนั้นเคยมาที่นี่หรือเปล่า [they-did/have-be-here-or-not] -- Were they here? (or Have they been here?)

> พวกนั้นน่ะเหรอ เคยซิ [them-yes? did-sure] -- They? Of course.

If we always use did for the past tense, and think of -ing as another word, then Thai and English tenses and aspects are pretty much similar.

With different marked-unmarked emphasis.

กำลัง อยู่ เคย ยัง แล้ว are the keywords in Thai for the tense-and-aspects thing.

โดน ได้ ถูก รับ are the keywords for the passive in Thai

จะ ได้ มั้ง น่า ควร are the keywords for modality in Thai.

The list could use some revisions, but it should be a good starting point.

So, the two languages are not very far from each other in this respect.

But the marked vs. unmarked usage are so different.

Different enough that I guess virtually everyone cannot see the similarities.

Also, their most natural utterances for each specific occasion are not aligned to each other very well.

> Where have you been? -- ไปอยู่ไหนมา [go-be-where-come]

The gloss sounds funny, doesn't it? :-)

But that's how Thai works.

ไป ([go]) and มา ([come]) can be used together to suggest the perfective sense.

(If you went to do something and came back, it's implied that you've done that thing.)

1

Q: Should I use present or present perfect in this case

Should I say If you haven't recovered the payment within 6 days, paypal will cancel it. or If you don't recover the payment within 6 days, paypal will cancel it. I think the first one is the best because within 6 days is a period of time.

> a) If you haven't recovered the payment within 6 days, paypal will cancel it.

> b) If you don't recover the payment within 6 days, paypal will cancel it.

Frankly, I like b) better. It makes the instruction very clear.

It could be a bit direct, but if they didn't want to be direct, they should've used the passive voice.

The compatibility of the perfect aspect and within is also interesting.

Probably worth looking further into it.

Inspired by How to inform other people of your real name?

Macmillan: full name: your whole name, including your first name, middle name, and last name

So I think, for Donald Knuth, Donald Ervin Knuth would be his full name.

What is "Donald Knuth" for him, then?

Language is always ambiguous.

1

A: how to distinguish "cost" from "price"

A. the cost of moving a house B. the price of moving a house They both can be used interchangeably. Both cost and price here mean the same thing. But, generally we use cost with the services/activities. In your example moving a house is a particular service, not an object. So in that c...

Probably fits learners the best.

No 0-answer question on the main page. Yippie!

(But why is the stat still at 97%?)

Anonymous

18:20

@DamkerngT. I think they have to have upvoted answers to count

Damkerng T.

Ah! Oh!

How was it going?

Anonymous

How was what going?

Damkerng T.

Ah, sorry for not being clear. I meant your day.

Anonymous

Oh! I think that question only works in the present tense

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's still early there! :-)

Anonymous

18:22

I slept a lot, probably to make up for the lack of sleep I've been getting lately

Anonymous

I just woke up

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I think that question only ever works in the present tense

Anonymous

"How's it going?" "How's it been going?"

Anonymous

Those are okay.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I see. In the past tense, "How was your day?" is better?

Anonymous

18:23

"How was it going?" "How had it been going?" I don't think either of these can be used to ask how someone's day was so far.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sure! "How was your day?" works toward the end of the day

Damkerng T.

I thought the day was over! :P

See, it's the timezone thing. :D

Anonymous

I don't think "How was it going?" can be used to ask someone about their day at the end of the day

Damkerng T.

nods

What if it is a meeting?

Anonymous

In the idiom "How's it going?", it has no meaning

Anonymous

18:26

I didn't think your question was a version of that idiom, which is why I asked "How was what going?" :-)

Damkerng T.

I didn't of that idiom at all.

Anonymous

I got confused :-)

Damkerng T.

I remember that it's today, the visit. So I asked about it. But failed, grammatically. :-)

Anonymous

Oh! My father arrived yesterday afternoon

Damkerng T.

Oh, time is very confusing!

Anonymous

18:28

Word of the day: codicology

Damkerng T.

^I dropped an entire word (think) up there!

Anonymous

Haha, somehow I didn't notice! :-)

Damkerng T.

Typing slowly on a sluggish browser could get such a result. :-)

@snailboat I wasn't aware of it at all while typing! :D

Before you came in, I was trying to think about this answer:

0

A: Bare verb vs gerund : watching them play or playing

The first option is correct. The reason for that is the second sentence is actually two gerunds nested inside of each other. Let me show you what I mean. I love watching them play in the park. The bolded text is the direct object of the sentence. "Watching them play" is a gerund phrase. "I...

Anonymous

o_O

Damkerng T.

> "I love watching them playing in the park."

"Playing in the park" (or I suppose more technically just "playing") is a gerund phrase on its own, apart from "watching them". So what you are effectively saying is "I love watching them [noun]." As you probably know, nouns cannot be used as verbs.

Anonymous

18:36

I think that answer is several kinds of incorrect

Damkerng T.

nods -- If I'm not mistaken, they're from Singapore.

Probably Hong Kong.

But I'm not very sure.

Still, I think I agree that between:

> a) I love watching them play in the park.

> b) I love watching them playing in the park.

a) is probably likelier.

Damkerng T.

19:00

ell.stackexchange.com/a/62448/3281

Wait, what!

Good thing he deleted it.

CopperKettle

19:11

An interesting question. It (has?) baffled me.

@snailboat Another option is "Went the day well?" (0:

Went the Day Well?

Went the Day Well? is a 1942 British war film adapted from a story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort. It tells of how an English village is taken over by Nazi paratroopers. It reflects the greatest potential nightmare of many Britons of the time, although the threat of German invasion had largely receded by that point. (Germany's planned invasion, Operation Sea Lion, had been indefinitely postponed.) It includes the first major role of Thora Hird, and one of the last of...

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Oh, archaic!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Yes, Germanic!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The went well day?

Well went day the?

Anonymous

Well, Present-Day English is Germanic

CopperKettle

nods

"Went the day well" is nathless too Germanic for Present-Day English.

Anonymous

19:18

Well, English lost its V2.

Anonymous

Is nathless an obsolete spelling of a pronunciation of nonetheless?

CopperKettle

@snailboat yep (0:

A nice word!

Anonymous

The other Germanic languages retain their V2.

Anonymous

And subject-verb inversion is generally a property of V2 languages.

Anonymous

English has still got it, but in the much restricted form of subject-auxiliary inversion.

Anonymous

19:20

English is pretty unusual for a Germanic language.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat See, it's becoming more and more Thai-like. :P

CopperKettle

nods

Damkerng T.

Through simplification. :-)

CopperKettle

(0:

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, English has been losing its inflectional morphology for over a thousand years

CopperKettle

19:26

There must be an opposing trend in action, or else all languages would've been ubersimple by now.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Though the loss of subject-verb inversion is a somewhat different topic

Anonymous

In Old English, all sorts of verbs could invert.

Anonymous

In Middle English, subject-verb inversion started the long process of being lost.

Anonymous

In Early Modern English, it was mostly restricted to auxiliaries and unaccusatives.

Anonymous

19:28

In Present-Day English, it's pretty much just auxiliaries, outside of fossilized expressions.

Anonymous

The rise of do-support, the reanalysis of -n't as an inflectional affix, the restriction of inversion to auxiliaries―I wonder if these can reasonably be called simplification or not

Anonymous

I think languages do simplify over time, but I think new complexity pops up in different areas as they do.

Damkerng T.

It could be if we think of -n't as a unit, not a word.

Anonymous

Well, it's an affix, not a word.

Damkerng T.

2 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

If we always use did for the past tense, and think of -ing as another word, then Thai and English tenses and aspects are pretty much similar.

Anonymous

19:31

(Unless you consider affixes to be words, I guess. :-)

Damkerng T.

Yep! :D

Thai also has a similar contraction ผม-ไม่-ได้-ทำ [me-not-did-do] (I didn't do it), ไม่ (pronounced "mai") can be reduced to มะ (pronounced "ma", could be a very short "a" vowel) in casual speech.

But no one writes ผม-มะ-ได้-ทำ.

Anonymous

Well, -n't isn't simply a phonologically reduced form of the independent word not...

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Wow!

Anonymous

> She does not like ice cream.
> Does she not like ice cream?　←　inversion
> *Does shen't like ice cream?　←　contraction
>
> She does not like ice cream.
> She doesn't like ice cream.　←　contraction
> Doesn't she like ice cream?　←　inversion

CopperKettle

Such conciseness. (0: "a"

Damkerng T.

19:36

@CopperKettle Yes. I blame it on Sanskrit. :P

In Sanskrit, there is something we call "half an /a/".

Anonymous

It's demonstrably part of the auxiliary.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods -- Syntactically, English is still more precise.

I think the inversion of full and contracted alternatives in English is another gotcha for a lot of learners.

Anonymous

Well, more precisely, we could say

Damkerng T.

If someone writes "Does not she like it?", chances are their first language is an Asian one.

Anonymous

do has negative forms: do, does, don't, doesn't

Anonymous

19:42

@DamkerngT. Chances are they've been taught that doesn't is the contracted form of does not, and therefore they think the two are interchangeable. Sadly, this is false.

Anonymous

I've met speakers of a number of non-Asian L1s who make the same mistake.

Anonymous

Italian, for example.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm not sure, but I think I haven't seen many-- oh!

Anonymous

It's an understandable mistake if you're taught that it's just the contracted form.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

19:43

You might think that you can "uncontract" it.

Anonymous

But if you're taught that do has negative forms:

Anonymous

> She does not like it.
> Does she not like it?
>
> She does not like it.
> She doesn't like it.
> Doesn't she like it?

Anonymous

Then you understand that doesn't is a single word, an auxiliary, which changes places with she

Anonymous

It's a negative auxiliary.

Damkerng T.

I wonder if cannot can be fronted like that.

> Cannot she do it?

Anonymous

19:47

That's actually a great question!

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

CGEL says cannot "is hardly possible in pre-subject position: Can't/?Cannot we stay a little longer?; Not only can't/*cannot he find the key, he's not even sure the papers are in the office anyway!"

Anonymous

(p.1611)

Anonymous

That first question mark is supposed to be superscripted, but I can't do that in chat.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

19:52

I typed up the cannot section

Anonymous

> The form cannot

Anonymous

> Can has an additional variant form cannot, unique in that not (the etymological source of the /nt/ suffix), complete with its vowel, is attached to the lexical base.

Anonymous

> This form is more common in the written language than in speech, though the distinction in writing between the single word cannot and the word sequence can is not matched by that between /ˈkænɒt/ (one /n/ and stress on the first syllable) and /kən ˈnɒt/ (two /n/'s and stress on the second syllable). In cannot, as in can't, the negative is invariably external, having scope over the modality, whereas this is not so with the analytic negative can not; see Ch. 3, §9.10.

Anonymous

> Cannot is more formal in style than can't. It is hardly possible in pre-subject position: Can't / ?Cannot we stay a little longer?; Not only can't / *cannot he find the key, he's not even sure the papers are in the office anyway!

Anonymous

That's the whole section.

Anonymous

19:54

Several auxiliaries are somewhat irregular when it comes to inversion.

Damkerng T.

I think cannot is the only one in English that works like that.

Anonymous

I'm sure you'll recognize aren't as another example: Aren't I, but *I aren't

Anonymous

Yes, cannot is unique!

Anonymous

The negative form mayn't disappeared in the last hundred years.

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/coha/?c=coha&q=40625140

Damkerng T.

19:57

Oh, it looks odd to me right now!

Anonymous

Me too. The English I speak has no mayn't.

Anonymous

But you'll find it in older English textbooks!

Damkerng T.

Maybe Emmett Brown might've used it in the third sequel. :P

Anonymous

books.google.com/books?id=HYMZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA144#v=onepage

Anonymous

books.google.com/books?id=NxHuNOvwt7wC&pg=PA197#v=onepage

Damkerng T.

20:00

Correct English: Simplified Grammar and Drill Book

Special Edition (with its companion): Correct English: Simplified Grammar and Drill Bit Book

Huh? Durs(t)n't!

Oh, yesterday English had a lot more words for dare. :-)

(and daren't)

Anonymous

The history of English is something I've been studying in little bits, but it's still not a focus of mine

Anonymous

I do think it's a really fun topic, though :-)

Anonymous

I got my new book on Japanese grammar! :-)

Anonymous

The one I ordered a couple weeks ago.

Anonymous

It's in great shape, too! Only a few pencil marks.

Anonymous

20:04

Even though it looks like it's been checked out of the library dozens of times.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

I love old library books.

Damkerng T.

I've got two copies of MLA Handbook!

Anonymous

Oh! How did that come about?

Damkerng T.

(Still haven't told Amazon about it. :P)

I'm not sure what happened, but I ordered one and got two!

From the same seller!

Anonymous

20:05

When I was little, they told us in school that if we ever got something in the mail we didn't order, we had no obligation to return it!

Anonymous

They told us lots of weird things in grade school, though.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hehe!

Anonymous

Even at my age, I knew some of the things they taught us were false :-)

Damkerng T.

It could be a bit easier if the seller were a local store.

@snailboat Some of my second-handed books came with red marks all over some pages. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I always get the feeling people in Japan treat books better than people in the US.

Anonymous

20:09

When I get used Japanese books, they're usually in better shape :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, that one was from the US. :D

Anonymous

Hah!

Damkerng T.

Incidentally!

Anonymous

Actually, I think the pencil marks were from an English speaker.

Anonymous

Because they seem to be noting bits of grammar that are difficult for English speakers in the writing itself, not making notes about the subject the author is writing about...

Anonymous

20:10

Although they're just underlines.

Anonymous

Anyway, I can erase them :-)

Damkerng T.

Some of my elementary school teachers also told us to write and mark things in our books.

I couldn't do it. :D

Anonymous

Haha!

Anonymous

Books are sacred!

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

20:11

Actually, I view books as things to be used. But I do try not to abuse them :-)

Anonymous

3

Q: まあいいじゃん meaning

それじゃ遅い。遅すぎるよ、小夜子ねーちゃん。喩えるなら…そう、後で買えばいいと思っていたものが、いざ欲しい時に売り切れていた…みたいな？分かるような分からないような… あはは、まあいいじゃん。 In this case the speaker was trying to tell the listener why they want do this as fast as they can, they tried to liken it using the example and the listener didn't quite get it. They th...

meaning spoken-language

Anonymous

The culture on Japanese.SE is a bit different than on ELL.SE

Anonymous

For one thing, on Japanese.SE, no one ever tells us what they're quoting...

Anonymous

And strangely, we get lots of dialogues that don't bother to mark the speakers, even as Speaker A and Speaker B

Anonymous

So the dialogue above is just sorta mashed together.

Anonymous

20:13

And that's pretty common.

Anonymous

I can write another meta post about it and it'll get ignored again... :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh! And yet everyone understands what's going on in the question?

1

A: まあいいじゃん meaning

I'm by no means anything more than a beginner, but I've both used (and had the skit script I wrote it in scrutinized for grammar and spelling) and heard 「まあいいじゃん」 used to say "it doesn't matter", "whatever then, it's okay if you're not clear on it", which are just slightly different words for "ne...

> I'm by no means anything more than a beginner, ...

Hmm...

nothing?

Oh, I thought まあいいじゃん was just a name!

Anonymous

Oh, no, it's まあ＋いい＋じゃん :-)

Anonymous

まあ is an interjection, いい is an adjective, じゃん is a colloquial grammaticalized ending reduced from the question tag じゃない used rhetorically (not to express a real question)

Anonymous

So the literal meaning is close to "Well, that's fine then, isn't it?" although that's probably not actually a good translation, since the English sounds more like a question than the Japanese

Anonymous

20:22

Actually, it's kind of a terrible translation... :-)

Anonymous

You probably have to look at the whole thing in terms of its discourse function, and then pick something that serves a similar function in English, like "Oh, well, don't worry about it" or something :-)

Damkerng T.

I think it's a good gloss. Glosses are better for beginners, imho.

Anonymous

Instead of trying to translate the individual words

Anonymous

As long as you understand that it's not an actual question and understand what いい is doing, I think it'll be okay :-)

Anonymous

Learners are often confused by いい (lit. "good")

Damkerng T.

20:24

I was thinking that it could've been translated into Thai as ยังงั้นก็ดีแล้วล่ะ or ดีแล้วล่ะนะ.

Anonymous

Ah, I don't know anything about that! :-)

Damkerng T.

trying to see what Google Translate would say about the two phrases...

LOL

"So what is it", "Well, then do it"

GT is a great source of funny translations!

@snailboat The two phrases (ยังงั้นก็ดีแล้วล่ะ, ดีแล้วล่ะนะ) are quite typical in Japanese dorama and anime.

It sounds quite Japanese, even when it's said in Thai!

Damkerng T.

20:56

Phrase of the Day: by the by

Anonymous

21:25

@DamkerngT. I think of that as a significantly less common version of by the way

Anonymous

corpus.byu.edu/coha/?c=coha&q=40625883

Damkerng T.

By the way wins hands down!

Anonymous

And I think it was always more popular.

Anonymous

Keeping in mind that the data before 1800 isn't considered particularly reliable: books.google.com/ngrams/…

Anonymous

It looks like it might have already been on its way out by 1800...?

Damkerng T.

22:14

1

Q: "My other" or "My another"

Which of these two sentences are correct? a) My other sister is taller than me b) My another sister is taller than me

grammar word-choice

There should be a better way to explain why my other sister (actually my other X) works but my another sister doesn't really work.

Anonymous

23:08

@DamkerngT. I posted an answer.

Damkerng T.

Yay! -- reading...

Hmm... but isn't other a determiner as well?

Anonymous

It's an adjective in this example.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hmm...

Anonymous

Notice how it doesn't fill the determiner slot: the other day, my other sister

Anonymous

In each case you have a determiner.

Anonymous

23:12

But the compounded form another blocks *an other in Present-Day English:

Anonymous

> another day, *an other day

Damkerng T.

I think we found an error in Macmillan!

macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/other_1

> Other can be used in the following ways:
as a determiner (followed by a plural noun): He doesn’t like other people interfering. (after “the” or a possessive word and followed by a singular or plural noun): ♦ the other side of the street ♦ She invited all her other friends. The determiner another is used instead of “an” + “other.”
...

Anonymous

If it's a determiner in the other side of the street, then it's very strange that not only do we have two determiners, but they have to go in a specific order: *other the side of the street And it would be difficult to explain why sentences like *I went to other side of the street are ungrammatical (I'd say the noun phrase is missing its determiner!)

Damkerng T.

nods -- That's why I think it's indeed an error.

The dictionary also seems to overlook other possessive pronouns.

2

A: were having to make everything up

My guess is that the progressive aspect is used due to the presence of one phrase. I will mark it in bold: When he talks of "enemies of the people", the analogies with Stalinist Russia and other 20th-century regimes are so glaring that you have to keep reminding yourself that the French Revol...

> When he talks of "enemies of the people", the analogies with Stalinist Russia and other 20th-century regimes are so glaring that you have to keep reminding yourself that the French Revolutionaries were having to make everything up as they went along, against a very different background from that of the 20th-century tyrannies.

My first impression (several hours ago) was that "were having to" is probably used more often in BrE.

Anyway, I noticed an exchange under CopperKettle's answer, but I'm too tired to get involved now.

Both have their own reasons, though.

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