Language Overflow

Anonymous

01:05

@DamkerngT. I think that's basically correct.

Anonymous

That's why, when people memorize words from vocabulary lists and using flash cards, they tend to learn them rather poorly.

Anonymous

Every time you see a word used in an actual sentence in an actual context―not just the words that come before and after, but everything, who's talking, what you're hearing, and so on―you form a set of connections to that word

Anonymous

There's an interesting phenomenon some Anki users have reported

Damkerng T.

@snailboat curious!

Anonymous

Some Japanese learners practice for hours and hours, memorize thousands of flash cards, and they're doing just great on their kanji.

Anonymous

01:08

(Some learners try to memorize thousands of kanji before they ever learn any Japanese, by the way.)

Anonymous

And they get to the point where they have thousands of flash cards, and they can get them right like, 95%+ of the time in Anki.

Anonymous

But then when they encounter the same kanji in a real context, they blank out and can't remember it.

Damkerng T.

That's very weird!

Anonymous

Practice in an artificial context is not necessarily interchangeable with practice in a real context.

Anonymous

I do believe psychologists have studied that sort of phenomenon.

Anonymous

01:13

But it's been years now and I can no longer remember much about it . . .

Anonymous

By the way, I signed up for 74 sites today using the new "join this community" button.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

So I'm a member of almost all the SE communities now. Maybe 10 or 15 exceptions.

Anonymous

Now I've got a green 【+7400】 on my top bar.

Anonymous

So my challenge is to see how long I can go without clicking it.

Damkerng T.

01:19

LOL

I can see that it's quite something. :-)

Note to self: Some example sentences are better than others, but how and why?

Anonymous

Anki, by the way, is a free clone of SuperMemo, which is based on this set of ideas: supermemo.com/english/contents.htm#Articles

Anonymous

There's some good information there, though I don't think all of it should be taken as gospel

Anonymous

supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

Anonymous

-1

A: Sentence ending with でもあった

でもあった　is the past present form "to also be" if you are familiar with the phrase: なんでもいい what ever is good or " what ever you choose is good" でもあったfollows suit.

Anonymous

The "past present form"

Anonymous

01:32

That's a new one!

Anonymous

If a language actually had a past-present form, would you call it the "nonfuture tense"?

Anonymous

I'm not going to make it very long without clicking on the green thingy . . .

Damkerng T.

@snailboat An oxymoron!

Anonymous

01:49

I'm about to post something really dumb to meta.stackexchange

Anonymous

To be honest, I don't expect upvotes :-)

Anonymous

0

Q: Highlight for reputation notifications in top bar is too small

When I move my mouse over the little inbox icon, it gets highlighted pretty well: 　 Sure, it's half a pixel off-center, but it's pretty good. But when I move my mouse over my reputation notification: 　 The grey is the wrong size! It looks weird. Not only is it not centered, it's too thin. ...

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Now it says 7405!

Damkerng T.

:D

I think there must be an article on the SuperMemo page saying how great SuperMemo can help English speakers learn new words in a foreign language.

Oh, they include "SuperMemo is useless!" on the page. Seems fair enough.

But is it? ...

> Point 1 - Memorization is not needed

[Is it true that we do not need memorization? With constant improvement in access to knowledge, we can obtain answers to important questions with ever increasing easiness]

False!

Eh?

Why didn't they phrase it like "Memorization is not needed for language learning"?

Oh, because it's on SuperMemo's site, perhaps.

A-ha! It's not only about language learning, it's about everything!

Basically, it's a flashcard tool.

Anonymous

02:03

Yeah, SuperMemo is what Anki is, more or less.

Anonymous

SuperMemo came first.

Anonymous

There's definitely some good information there, though.

Damkerng T.

I know one thing that beats Anki easily.

in ELL's Cabin, Jun 13 at 19:36, by Damkerng T.

that the best way to learn a second language is to be a significant someone of a native speaker. :P

Must be more effective than the spaced repetition. :D

Anonymous

That's been something people have said for years.

Anonymous

Though the usual term is significant other

Damkerng T.

02:07

Ah! Thanks!

Oh, I think maybe I tried to extend that to cover adoption as well.

Not sure if I really thought of that, though.

Anonymous

And I'm certain it helps a lot. I think sometimes people who marry native speakers of the language they're learning are people who are already in an environment where they're exposed to that language all the time, though.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, I'm afraid I understood "significant someone" as meaning "significant other" (it seems like a single term to me, not like, an other who is significant)

Anonymous

So it didn't occur to me the meaning might be different

Anonymous

I don't know how I would express what you just said

Damkerng T.

It was over a month now, so I can't really remember it.

Anonymous

02:09

Heck, I can't remember half the stuff I said yesterday.

Damkerng T.

But I have both ideas in mind. A significant other, or someone really, really close, like a close friend, or a family.

I remember that a friend of mine back in my university days had been an exchange student in the US for probably only half a year to a year or so.

When he came back, his English was really superb.

Anonymous

Neat!

Damkerng T.

(I think he had to stay with a family over there, and went to school, made friends, and such.)

Anonymous

I read statistics about learners who go to study abroad for a year or more in England.

Anonymous

But, well, I forgot all those statistics.

Anonymous

02:12

I remember they were good! ;-)

Damkerng T.

nods!

Anonymous

I do know it's possible to stay in a country where your L2 is spoken without learning much.

Anonymous

A lot of English speakers go to Japan and form networks of friends with other English speakers (often English teachers on the JET program and the like)

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. That also happened to a lot of Thais in the US.

Anonymous

Or they go online all the time and talk to their friends back home in America or wherever

Damkerng T.

04:24

bbc.com/news/world-asia-28755509

> India's new government focus on Sanskrit has sparked a fresh debate over the role language plays in the lives of the country's religious and linguistic minorities.

Damkerng T.

11:00

Some books:

in ELL's Cabin, 1 hour ago, by snailboat

Persian Relative Clauses in HPSG: An Analysis of Persian Relative Clause Constructions in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Mehran A Taghvaipour

LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing

This book explores relative clauses (RCs) in Persian and provides an account for these constructions in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Persian RCs are unbounded dependency constructions, all containing the invariant complementizer 'ke'. They also have gaps or resumptive pronouns (RPs), licensed by a higher structure. In some positions only gaps are allowed and in some position only RPs. There are also some positions where both gaps and RPs are allowed. The proposed analysis shows that despite distributional differences between gaps and RPs in Persian RCs, the two show striking similarities. Examples from coordinate structures, parasitic gaps, island constraints, and crossover phenomena provide support in respect of this similarity. Some existing transformational analyses of Persian RCs are reviewed and their shortcomings highlighted. Then, in the constraint-based framework of HPSG, an analysis is proposed that can handle the dependency and the pattern of distribution of gaps and RPs in Persian RCs with a single mechanism which is easily extendable to other types of Persian UDCs, e.g., wh-interrogatives and free relatives.

in ELL's Cabin, 1 hour ago, by Damkerng T.

> Persian RCs are unbounded dependency constructions, all containing the invariant complementizer 'ke'. They also have gaps or resumptive pronouns (RPs), licensed by a higher structure.

in ELL's Cabin, 53 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference and Other Problems (Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers)

Michael Swan

Cambridge University Press

This updated edition is a practical reference guide which compares the relevant features of a student's own language with English, helping teachers to predict and understand the problems their students have. Learner English has chapters focusing on major problems of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and other errors as well as new chapters covering Korean, Malay/Indonesian and Polish language backgrounds.

in ELL's Cabin, 39 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> translit.: Sadhaa saal ast ke mardome Farsizabaan hamvare divane Haafez raa mikhaanand va az aan lezzat mibarand va in iaadegaare geraanbaghaaie lesanalgheib raa aziz va geraami mishemaarand.

in ELL's Cabin, 39 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> word-by-word: Hundreds year is that people Farsi language always anthology Hafez read and from that enjoy and this heritage precious fortune teller love and respect ...

in ELL's Cabin, 39 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

> idiomatic: For hundreds of year Farsi speakers have enjoyed reading Hafez's anthology, respecting and loving the precious heritage of this 'fortune teller' ...

Damkerng T.

11:21

@ultrasawblade. Yes, the past tense does not sound unnatural in the context you mention. The problem on this site is that we are often asked, as here, to comment on the acceptability of decontextualised sentences without any knowledge of the speaker's communicative intent. As Lewis in The English Verb (p83) states: " ... any attempt to describe certain grammatical choices objectively is doomed to failure. Account needs to be taken of the centrality of the speaker." — Shoe 5 hours ago

So true. So true.

Something to think about...

> It would be X if you could Y when/before/after I/he/she/they/this/that Z.

Should Z be in the present or in the past tense?

> 1a. It would be nice if you could book a flight for me before I arrive.
1b. It would be nice if you could book a flight for me before I arrived.

^It could be more fun if we escalated that to something even more complex, like: 'It would be nice if you could do this before he could do that when he came back in case you allowed that to happen.'

Damkerng T.

12:12

An interesting script rewrite:

Prometheus (original draft, dubbed 'Engineers'):

> THREE FIGURES walk out of the shadow.

They are men - and yet not men. Their skin is snow-white.
Their features heavy and classical - as if Rodinis Thinker
had risen from his seat. Their smooth heads are earless and
hairless. Their glittering eyes entirely black.

Against the stark land their height is impossible to judge.

They are ENGINEERS.

Prometheus (final, dubbed 'Paradise'):

> THREE FIGURES move into the foreground.

We are BEHIND them -- Moving WITH them as they walk down the
gangplank. Theyire BIG, TWELVE FEET TALL at least. SANDALED
feet SPLISH into the shallow water as we finally REVEAL --

THEY ARE MEN.

And yet... not men. Their skin is clear and WHITE... dressed
in modest clothing -- Their features CLASSICAL --
Michelangelois David come to LIFE. They are otherworldly yet
FAMILIAR. Beautiful yet DANGEROUS.

These are THE ENGINEERS.

The last lines of the two versions deserve a closer look.

One is: They are ENGINEERS.

The other is: These are THE ENGINEERS.

From an ELLer's point-of-view, there two important changes:

One is They was changed to These.

The other is the addition of the article THE.

Maybe they matter, maybe they don't.

How do we choose between they and these?

How do we choose between Engineers and the Engineers?

Damkerng T.

12:33

To preserve the sequence of information "man, tall, name, John, grandfather, died, two years ago", I may write That man, who is tall, is named John. His grandfather died two years ago. — Damkerng T. 6 mins ago

Very translationese sounding!

Damkerng T.

12:59

Hmm... This internet provider uses this slogan: Faster is Better.

To emphasize that Faster Is Better in an ad, they have a teen using her phone to find the name of the 59th element (Praseodymium), and the friends are impressed by her quick search.

Her phone can also load the clip that their teacher assigned them to find faster.

That's how they demonstrate Faster Is Better.

I wonder whether "faster" will bring information equality or information inequality.

Damkerng T.

14:48

in ELL's Cabin, 1 hour ago, by Damkerng T.

A name is a name is a name, I think.

An unparseable sentence?

We may try to group it like:

> 1. [ A name is a name ] is a name.

> 2. A name is [ a name is a name ].

But I think neither really works.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

15:11

It doesn't work.

But I reckon such thing is possible in archaic English.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh, it's a common pattern, but I think people don't parse it.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hush I'm reviewing something.

Damkerng T.

18:20

A Latin Phrase a Day: littera scripta manet

(The written word remains.)

archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.02/1.2_saffo_pr.html

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Aside from manet, I could've guessed what it means.

Of course, after some silly talk.

Damkerng T.

18:46

Thank you, to repeat my sentence in the other question, can I say The students who were absent--which I don't like mention their name-- should do more practice. — Ahmad 1 min ago

Hmm... English relative pronouns and subordinate clauses may not be that easy.

Damkerng T.

19:13

I just realize that a tonal language that doesn't have intonation could be useful in creative writing, because we can deliver thoughts like this:

> Where is my dream?

> At my shoe.

> On the wall.

> In the room.

> Or in my heart, ...

> which was never brought out to light?

I had to wait until the end to know that actually the whole thing was just one big question!

CopperKettle

Good evening!

Damkerng T.

Because Thai has no intonation, we can tell whether it's a question or a statement until we find a question word.

Good evening!

CopperKettle

I don't get this comment:

"It would be nice to see you before you left" alone sounds weird, but with preceding context that fleshes things out a bit better, it can sound OK. "I will be gone for two weeks on vacation. It would be nice to see you before I left." That sounds fine. — ultrasawblade yesterday

How does the addition of a sentence change the comprehension, tilting the reader towards left, I wonder.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see. I think that comment meant that the leaving was unsettled, so it's quite okay for native speakers to think of everything theoretically/hypothetically.

I mean, the leaving was planned, but it wasn't absolutely certain.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Unsettled? But the sentence clearly states "I will be gone for two weeks".

I'm too dense..

Damkerng T.

19:19

I mean I think the sooner it is,

the likelier that native speaker will think of it as something definite.

It looks like two weeks was long enough for both the them (untrasawblade and the answerer).

(that something might happen during the two weeks)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hey! We haz a new meta thingy.

CopperKettle

But he says "I will be gone for two weeks", not "in two weeks"

Hi, Muhammad!

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. I misread it!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

\o

CopperKettle

But that answer got 5 upvotes, so I guess I'll have to award the award to it, nathless being none the more wiser as to its meaning

Damkerng T.

19:22

Hmm... the indefiniteness is not very clear then.

FWIW, I agree with the answer about the student/professor scenario.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

0

Q: Cheeking sentences here is acceptable?

Sometimes I'm not sure in specific sentence, can I write it here to get opinion about it? Not always I can explain what is the doubt that I have, it's more about the wording (I would like that it will sound as much as native). For example in the following sentence: "When drinking sweetened dri...

discussion questions

Damkerng T.

It's something I hadn't thought of at first.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

They mean proofreading, right?

Damkerng T.

Umm... Cheeking?

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

19:23

Oh, checking!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I just wanna confirm, and shoot my comment.

Damkerng T.

Though I'm not 100% sure either, I think J.R. would say that it's okay.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Don't they mean proofreading?

Damkerng T.

As long as the OP didn't make it sound like they just wanted a quick edit/proofreading.

CopperKettle

I'd direct them to lang-8 for proofreading

Damkerng T.

19:26

For me, everything could be cast in the light of proofreading.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

They said when I want to check if it's correct.

Damkerng T.

But every proofreading requests could be made to sound like a grammar discussion.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Burn your dubious instincts robot!

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M That's not very clear, imho.

when I want someone to do a quick check for me if it's correct.

That would make it clear that it's a proofreading request.

But I agree with CopperKettle, lang-8 looks like a better place for them.

Judging from the overall sentiment of the meta post, I think the answer is no.

In any case, ...

4

Q: Does "heaven hand" sound natural?

In Diablo 3 (PC game) there is a weapon class called "heaven hand" (other weapon class names are more ordinary like "wand", "long sword" etc). I understand, being fictitious as it is, the name can be arbitrary. However I am under the impression that "hand of heaven" is the natural way of saying i...

phrase

We welcomed that question.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I guess it's because of its title.

Damkerng T.

19:31

And somehow, even with snailboat's objection, this one got through:

1

Q: Is this sentence correct and natural?

Is this sentence grammatically correct and does it sound natural? Basement is where the wrecked useless stuff end up. P.S. this is not a part of a broader context, this is from a short story I'm trying to write in English.

grammaticality

And this:

2

Q: Is this natural English: How was it yesterday?

People say: how was your weekend? But do they say: how was it yesterday? Is this the natural way of asking about how their yesterday went?

phrase-usage phrase-choice conversation

At the extreme, a user may work around the proofreading issue by generating lots of alternatives, like this:

1

Q: Which sentence sounds natural?

I have written two groups of similar sentences below, but I don’t know in each group which sentence is the most natural way of implying the matter in my question. I was wondering if someone could help me: A) - 1) It’s one year now that you promised me. - 2) It’s a year now that you promised me. ...

grammar sentence-construction sentences sentence-meaning sentence-usage

So, frankly, it's never been clear to me where we draw the line.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

0

A: Is checking sentences here acceptable?

No . . . Yes . . . Well, it just can't be answered in one word. Dang it! Proofreading questions are off-topic on ELL; unless you "provide a source of concern". For example, this: Is my sentence grammatical? I just wanted to know if my sentence is grammatical. Here it is: When ...

Whatever. There goes my vague answer.

meta.ell.stackexchange.com/posts/2531/revisions

>:(

Damkerng T.

19:49

Oh, that was a rather old thread!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

-1; do you know how bad I feel when I see a crappy question excluding me from the answerer list inheritedly just because I'm not a native speaker? If the comments below suffer a lack of logic, I'm very eager to hear your arguments against them. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 10 secs ago

My fist is ready.

I mean . . . Um, I'm ready for a discussion.

Damkerng T.

I guess you will get more than a discussion.

Likely, an argument.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Another fist?

Meh, I knowz Kung fu!

Damkerng T.

I hope everyone will keep it healthy.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm just a kid, but am mature enough to move outta conversation when it's going nowhere constructive.

Damkerng T.

19:53

nods

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

BTW @Dam you're awesome.

It's me that repeats the obvious.

Damkerng T.

Huh? About. what? :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Your answer to that very meta Q simply shows  . . . I'm speechless.

Robots can be amazing sometimes.

Damkerng T.

Oh, that answer. :-) Thanks!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm typically self-sustained [sic] but I admit I would've gone rant-ish in an answer to that Q.

BTW @Dam, for God's sake, simple present is a tense, right?

Damkerng T.

19:58

Yes, I think so! :-)

What happened to the good ol' simple present?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Nothiiiinnng, I used it in my meta answer. So I wanted to make sure I wouldn't get hit by a @snail ™ surprise.

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Damkerng T.

20:33

> When I lost my passport, I felt such an idiot.

It sounds unfamiliar enough that I thought it was ungrammatical at first!

Perhaps "I feel such a ..." is more common in BrE.

Anonymous

21:15

@CopperKettle I have to wonder what other sort of context one might infer for that sentence…

Anonymous

The left one, I mean.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Feel like such an idiot, maybe?

@snailboat \o|

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M nods -- Or just feel like an idiot. I mean, in AmE.

Hello, @snailboat!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But feel an idiot is so off! </rant>

Damkerng T.

Oh, I just realized! that the title of that movie is Snakes on a Plane (abbr. SOAP), not Snakes in a Plane. I guess on goes better with planes.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:25

@DamkerngT. I read that Snails on a plane

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

Well, L1 to L2 transition is going to be problematic in the long run. Even though all of the languages ultimately end up being of the same root, the later revisions to them has made them very diverse; so that even the most basic sentence constructions tend to differ. Ke is like that in some ways, yet the way English treats clauses is so different from Persian, it's just wrong to try and compare them together. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 12 hours ago

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Squinting this must be @snail's master plan. To make my eyes see everything as snail or its variations. I smell a ~~rat~~ snail.

Oh no.

OH NO!

Anonymous

It's possible that all languages go back to a single source, but there's no evidence that this is the case

Anonymous

We do know about Proto-Indo-European, though—that theory is rather well established

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:28

Well, there's no proof that literature was invented separately more than once.

Anonymous

Yes, it's possible that languages all go back to a single source. But I would never assert that that's the case without any evidence

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Wait scratches head Dang! I shouldn't have said that!

Blame 3 a.m.

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/62872/revisions

Anonymous

Why did he make my formatting ugly…?

Anonymous

Also, I often number examples things like 3a and 3b, which is impossible with the sort of formatting he likes…

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:32

As always, SE revisions are very easy to understand.

I have no idea what you changed and what he changed.

Anonymous

He moved the > signs after the numbers

Anonymous

So that it said 3. > instead of > 3.

Anonymous

That doesn't work, though

Damkerng T.

An experiment, perhaps?

Anonymous

Hello!

Anonymous

21:35

I just got your hello

Anonymous

My message inbox is flooded lately

Damkerng T.

Um... Hello! :D

@snailboat From all 74 stacks? :P

Anonymous

Mostly from MAR typing @sna ten times each time I'm away from chat :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hah!

Mission accomplished.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

21:49

@Dam hehe watch this if you're bored:

2

Q: Can't post question on freelance. Says 'this looks like spam.'

The title pretty much tells you my problem, there is no other error message. It is a lengthy question, that's the only thing I can think of. *I just posted the original since it doesn't seem to matter. This is the title: How do freelance web developers approach web security and liability?...

support spam filtering

Anonymous

I'm watching it, but it's not moving.

Anonymous

When does it start moving?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

The Earth?

Anonymous

The post! :-)

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

21:58

"Look at this if you're bored"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Huh. You make a good teacher.

But it did move when I posted it.

Damkerng T.

I think @inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M will make a comment to that post to move it or something. :P

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

How come you guys don't see it moving?! :O

It's kinda evaporating.

Moving up.

OMG it's starting to scroll off my screen.

Worried

Anonymous

I'll watch if it starts sublimating.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, it's good as gone to me now.

Wow, that's a provocative and leading title. "Should the number of times you slept with your spouse this week remain unpublished?" "remain"?! — Josh Caswell Aug 18 '13 at 19:20

Anonymous

22:04

@DamkerngT. "I don't know, who is he?" :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

It's even worse than ellipsis without spaces.

Anonymous

That's what I'd imagine if I heard those words, even uttered without a pause or question intonation.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Interesting!

Ah, yes! I just recalled that I had heard "What?" in downstep today.

Anonymous

Language is redundant, and we have lots of different features to signal structure―clause type, constituent boundaries, etc. And we don't always use all of them.

Anonymous

If the only clue I get is the word order, I might well interpret what I'm hearing based on that one clue :-)

Anonymous

22:07

@DamkerngT. I think what↗ and what↘ are two different utterances.

Damkerng T.

nods -- "What↘" sounds like "What's up? (I don't really care.)"

Anonymous

> Alice: Guess what I found today?
> Bob： What?↗
> Alice: I said "Guess what I found today"!

Anonymous

> Alice: Guess what I found today?
> Bob： What?↘
> Alice: I found a door snail!!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Is that intonation?

Anonymous

Yes.

Damkerng T.

22:09

Hmm... maybe there are more than two patterns.

Anonymous

Polar questions and reclamatory echo questions tend to have rising intonation.

Anonymous

Wh-questions tend not to have rising intonation.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Riiiiiiiight!

Anonymous

Reclamatory questions are the sort where you prompt someone to repeat what they said:

Anonymous

> Alice: I met Clinton today!
> Bob: You met _who_?↗

Anonymous

22:11

Here, Bob echoed part of what Alice said and marked the part she wanted repeated with a wh-word.

Anonymous

It's accompanied by rising intonation, which tells Alice that it's a reclamatory question.

Anonymous

If Bob said "Who did you meet?↘", a regular wh-question, it wouldn't be appropriate in context. After all, Alice just answered that question.

Anonymous

When a reclamatory question is an entire utterance:

Anonymous

> Alice: I climbed the Empire State Building today!
> Bob:  . . . what!?↗

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

That Alice is a big big liar.

Anonymous

22:13

Then the wh-word is likely to refer to the entire utterance.

Anonymous

This can be used to express disbelief,

Anonymous

in which case they can be called incredulity questions rather than reclamatory questions.

Anonymous

Because Bob's goal might be to express incredulity, not to ask Alice to repeat what she said.

Damkerng T.

Iirc, the "What↘" I heard today was extra downstep. :D

Anonymous

Since incredulity and reclamatory questions tend to have the same form, sometimes speakers don't know whether they're expected to repeat themselves:

Anonymous

22:15

> Alice: I evolved into a red-eyed tree frog!
> Bob: What!?↗
> Alice: I said "I evolved into a red-eyed tree frog!"
> Bob: No, I heard you . . . I'm just like, "What!?↗"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Was it Hagu?

Anonymous

In modern colloquial usage, extra disbelief is sometimes expressed by a flat low tone:

Damkerng T.

Hehe, a cute dialogue!

Anonymous

> Alice: I am the President of the United States!

Anonymous

> Bob: What.

Anonymous

22:16

And this is often conveyed in colloquial writing (online, in comics, etc.) with a period rather than a question mark.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I love this one.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Nope.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Who's Nope?

Anonymous

I think what starting high, downstepping, then staying low (rather than a smooth fall) expresses something more like: "What is this crap!?"

Anonymous

Like, if you come back to your car and find it's been run through the compactor at a garbage dump and turned into a small cube, which then has a parking ticket attached to it:

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

22:17

I'm somehow pronouncing them right today.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Haha! I think that's exactly right!

Anonymous

> What.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

OMG what's happening to me?

Anonymous

Those are the intonational variations of what I can describe off the top of my head.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh, I needz sleep.

Damkerng T.

22:18

In my context, it was a bit like, "(Oh!) What. (This guy again.)"

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. So, an exasperated what, not expressing any kind of question.

Damkerng T.

nods

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Was it when you saw my ELL's profile?

Anonymous

There's a lot of expressive intonation in language.

Damkerng T.

Hehe, no!

Anonymous

22:21

And it can vary from speaker to speaker.

Anonymous

Like, imagine a guy just saying a flat "what" in a very high tone

Damkerng T.

A disbelief/ridicule?

Anonymous

Although linguists have written about intonation, it's a pretty complex topic, and I wouldn't expect anything like this to be completely documented in any book

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Could be. But depending on the speaker, it could mean "That's awesome!"

Anonymous

Now imagine saying the same thing but with a smile and a high five ;-)

Damkerng T.

22:23

Oh, yes. I meant ridiculously awesome. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hey, maybe that's where it comes from.

Anonymous

Never occurred to me!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Anonymous

Haha.

Anonymous

He's trying to hard to avoid laughing while he says that, it looks like.

Damkerng T.

22:24

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I did-dnt! :P

@snailboat Probably from his show. :D

Anonymous

I'm not familiar with his show

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

He's basically playing games with celebs @snail.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I've seen his show just once or twice. Similar to Late Night show.

Anonymous

I don't have any American TV shows I'm watching at the moment.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

But he didn't invite you. What a pity.

@snailboat Heh, anime?

Damkerng T.

22:26

@snailboat Oh, the Zombies show is over?

Anonymous

I am watching some anime right now! :-)

Anonymous

I'm watching 赤髪の白雪姫 Akagami no Shirayuki-hime

Damkerng T.

I have MacArthur in the background, actually.

Anonymous

By "watching right now" I mean "I'm in the state where I will watch new episodes after they air"

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Looks like an RPG anime! :D

Anonymous

22:28

I'm not actually watching anime as we speak.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's sort of a fairytale setting!

Anonymous

The main character is named Shirayuki (lit. "White Snow"), which is the Japanese name of the fairytale character Snow White

Damkerng T.

@snailboat A-ha! With right now, I thought you're actually watching it.

Anonymous

-hime of course means Princess, which is part of the Japanese title of Snow White

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's understandable, which is why I tried to clarify what I wrote :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

22:29

I zzz away.

Anonymous

I think some people talk like this, saying they've got shows they're "watching" with the progressive indicating a habitual or iterative situation

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M zzz

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Try to do the same to my inbox @snail.

Anonymous

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Too much effort!

Anonymous

I don't always use language as precisely as I might like.

Anonymous

22:32

But that's okay. We can all clarify what we mean :-)

Anonymous

By the way, I managed not to click the green thingy all day yesterday.

Anonymous

Maybe I can use this to train myself to stop compulsively clicking the top bar :-)

Damkerng T.

22:48

The green little thing is irresistible! :D

Anonymous

22:59

Oh, it's true!

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