Language Overflow

Færd

01:31

@Araucaria I said that because I used to teach Farsi literature at high school. It wasn't my major in college though. I wasn't strict or anything, but I might have given such minuses. :-)

@Araucaria In Farsi, the ideas of possibility, doubt, conditionality, etc. are expressed through a special verb form (a mood called التزامی (read X)), sometimes plus special conjunctions, markers and stuff.

If you translate "I don't know if it is sunny today." into Farsi, the idea of doubt finds its way into the translation of is: it'll be in the X mood, so if won't have a corresponding equivalent word in the translation:

1: نمی‌دانم (که) امروز آفتابی باشد.

or better, 2: مطمئن نیستم (که) امروز آفتابی باشد.

But of course there are other possible ways to play with this. For example, "I don't know if it is sunny today or not." can have two translations: one† featuring the X mood form, and one‡ featuring a simple form. Still, if doesn't translate into a conditional word:

† 3: نمی‌دانم (که) امروز آفتابی باشد یا نه.

‡ 4: نمی‌دانم (که) امروز آفتابی است یا نه.

(There's a nuance, bet not very important right now.)

In 4, the idea of doubt is expressed solely through the translation of I don't know, and doesn't affect the subordinate clause.

Q: is there a conjunction in 1-4 that links the main and subordinate clauses?

A: Yes, it's "که" (translates best into that). But in 1-4 I put it in parentheses to indicate that it's omittable.

Please feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

Damkerng T.

That's quite similar to the case of ว่า in Thai. I kept thinking about it since Araucaria post the "antecedents" question. It wasn't unclear to me whether ว่า (which is normally translated as that, and its usage is very, very similar to that) heads a subordinate clause or not.

My latest idea about it is that even though ว่า (read "waa") can be used very much like that, it's not truly identical to that. I think it can be thought of as a conjunction, but because Thai syntax isn't very rigid (think "sponges", versus "bricks"), I don't think we should really think that it's the head of its subordinate clause. (I think that it just acts like an optional linker to link the main clause and the subordinate clause together.)

My reason was something like:

- ฉันรู้ว่าเขาเป็นคนดี (lit.) I know that he's a good man.

We can omit ว่า (ฉันรู้เขาเป็นคนดี (lit.) I know he's a good man), but there are several other ways to phrase the same thought, e.g., using นะ (read "na") in the place of ว่า (ฉันรู้นะเป็นคนดี (lit.) I know, he's a good man); using นะว่า (ฉันรู้นะว่าเป็นคนดี (lit.) I know, that he's a good man); using ว่านะ (ฉันรู้ว่านะเป็นคนดี (lit.) I know that, he's a good man) -- I tried to simulate the particle นะ with commas.

Then we have a few more variations, e.g., แบบว่า (read "baepwaa") นะแบบว่า (read "na-baepwaa") แบบว่านะ (read "baepwaa-na"). แบบว่า is usually translated as sort of or like (though it's not necessarily so). So, ฉันรู้แบบว่าเป็นคนดี ~ (lit.) I know like he's a good man.

So it's a bit complicated, and that's why I think it's best to avoid thinking of ว่า as the head of a subordinate clause, even though I won't object to such an idea.

Oh, Dreamworks is making anime, too, now!

cheatsheet.com/entertainment/…

I remember a similar anime from my childhood. In this genre, the gigantic robot would need five drivers, one for the left arm, one for the right arm, and the same for the left leg, the right leg, and the head. Me and my brother used to pick to choose (to pretend) who was going to drive which part. :P

It's amazing that these themes can stand through decades. (Just like superheroes, like Batman and Superman!)

Damkerng T.

02:16

@toha Hi! Welcome to the room!

toha

Hello..

Damkerng T.

How is your ELL day going? :-)

toha

what is ELL stands for?

Damkerng T.

It's the name of our main site. ELL = English Language Learners!

toha

Oh I see. English is not my primary language. And I am not so sure with what you mean..

Damkerng T.

02:21

That's all right! It's not my first language, either. :D

toha

But, You are awesome in english

Damkerng T.

Thanks! My English is not that perfect, though.

Yours is not bad either.

CowperKettle

Morning!

Damkerng T.

Morning!

I wonder if there is any Firefox plugin that will tell me when I open the same page in more than one tab...

(I'm pretty sure that I've opened several pages more than once, and they stick around...)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hello!

toha

02:33

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duplicate-tabs-closer

@DamkerngT. try it

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hello! Glad to see you drop in!

@toha Oh, that looks like a good solution! Thank you!

toha

I wonder if there is any >>> Is it ok? Why If there is any, instead of If there are any?

Damkerng T.

Ugh! My Firefox is too old for it!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. The more the merrier.

Anonymous

@toha Informally, many English speakers now say "there's" whether the following thing is singular or plural:

Anonymous

02:36

> There's twelve eggs in the basket. [informal]

Anonymous

Most of these speakers would not accept the uncontracted version:

Anonymous

> *There is twelve eggs in the basket. [ungrammatical]

toha

oh.. I see..

Thank You

Damkerng T.

In my case, it's a bit different. I had no idea whether such a plugin existed or not.

Anonymous

Oh! I'm sorry, I missed the context.

Anonymous

02:38

I need to say something else, then.

Damkerng T.

I think, generally, we use the singular by default when we don't know the answer.

(E.g., Who wants to be a millionaire?)

(Even though, naturally, we can expect that more than one person would want that!)

toha

so, "any" will be singular in this caase?

Damkerng T.

I think in this case, the singular choice is more natural.

Anonymous

Yes, I think the singular version makes a little bit more sense.

Anonymous

But both are okay. Any can be singular or plural.

Damkerng T.

02:40

nods

Anonymous

Good thing Damkerng was here to answer the real question :-)

toha

oh, I see. Thank You

Damkerng T.

Ah, it was because I said that sentence!

Good thing you're here to confirm my intuition (which sometimes is not quite reliable). :-)

Anonymous

I'm here! I've missed a bunch of chat.

toha

how about this, @DamkerngT. :superuser.com/questions/63364/…

Damkerng T.

02:42

We missed you too!

@toha I'm checking them out! Thanks!

Oh, nice! Closy can get rid of about 90 tabs instantly!

And no noticeable memory leak so far.

@snailplane How are your snails doing today? :-)

Anonymous

02:58

@DamkerngT. I just gave them food and water, so maybe they'll come out of their shells soon and snail around :-)

Damkerng T.

Yay!

There was a question that had snail in the text yesterday, but it turned out that the question was about a typo. (sad)

(I think it'd already been deleted.)

CowperKettle

03:47

0

Q: Meaning of "partial" in "Partial Data Report" as required by ASME

I've been translating a document and came across the phrase "partial data report". It is almost certainly used there in the sense implied by ASME. I asked on a translators' forum and one guy came up with a URL of a form for this report. Am I right to assume that the adjective "partial" here sta...

Maybe I should return to studying programming.

D'oh.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Hehe!

CowperKettle

I'm serious. Untangling this stuff, I catch myself taking fond glances on C.J.Date's "Introduction to Database Systems".

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Haha! That was the book that made me think, English is so (bleep) hard!

CowperKettle

@DamkerngT. I liked his thorough way of trying to imagine an idealized database, with tuples (?) and stuff, and an idealized language for describing operations on data.

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Yes, his thoughts founded the new era of database management systems!

Damkerng T.

05:43

0

A: Is it okay to use "wherein" more than once in a sentence?

It's OK, but why on earth do you want to use it even once? It's a very rare word, almost never found in contemporary texts. Use in which, unless you're aiming at pseudo-legalese or a tongue-in-cheek archaic effect. If you're preparing a legal filing, you need to consult a patent lawyer; that's ...

LOL!

Damkerng T.

10:39

An example by Ernest Hemingway: It's no use to walk ahead and find there's nothing coming behind you. — Damkerng T. 11 mins ago

I suppose that many teachers who follow dictionaries would think this sentence by Ernest Hemingway is bad unless we told them that it was written by Ernest Hemingway.

CowperKettle

11:01

> At this point in time, Remput, a contractor for the project, is forming the future line's trackbed with ballast and undertakes surfacing operations.

Can we mix the tenses thus, I wonder.

Progressive + simple

"is undertaking" somehow feels strange

Damkerng T.

Hmm... it's fine with me, but I'm not sure if native speakers would think the same.

CowperKettle

11:26

Thanks! Oh, native speakers will understand.

I bungled the previous translation and am now trying to catch up with my main translation work.

The previous was horrible, I barely understood the meaning of the document.

So I dropped it.

A pity. (0:

BBL, Dam!

Damkerng T.

@CowperKettle Yay!

See you later!

CowperKettle

13:38

Suggested reading answer: "I hate red color" or "I hate red". — Damkerng T. Apr 13 at 9:29

Thanks for promoting my questions, @Dam!

Damkerng T.

LOL -- That was a month ago!

CowperKettle

I know, the question must have been upped automatically by the site.

> modified 7 mins ago Community♦ 1

BBL!

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Damkerng T.

13:57

@SteveJessop What's oddest to me in this question is that all the three answerers clearly share the same interpretation of the OP's sentence, and mine's gotten zero votes. Maybe it's because my answer is too long, and I clearly admit that it's possible that my interpretation of the intended meaning of the book's authors, how unlikely it is, could be incorrect. :D — Damkerng T. 1 min ago

I wonder if there will be any new, and better, answers soon.

CowperKettle

16:43

I remember that OP. She's an English teacher from Russia.

> The preterite [i.e., the past form] is certainly possible (She has got too much work to do), but it is fairly uncommon: have got occurs predominantly in the present tense.

A typo?

> have in have got is an auxiliary verb (so She said she hadn't got any money is fine);

Probably not so fine with positive statements: (??) "She said she had got money".

CowperKettle

17:07

@DamkerngT. I've just read the back-and-forth to the end, and I guess users coming across the question don't like to read parts of grammatical treatises like CGEL, they feel okay with quick vernacular explanations.

I find it painful to read Russian books on grammar. We have them too.

They are dry.

I was recently wondering if I should have used single or double "n" in a word, and trying to read excerpts from grammar books drove me mad, I just dropped the case.

Anonymous

23:28

In terms of verb forms, "have got" is best seen as an idiomatic use of the present perfect with GET, and had got the past perfect perfect with GET. — Araucaria 23 mins ago

Anonymous

This can't be the whole story, though, because in AmE we say have got for possession but have gotten as our productive perfect construction.

Anonymous

And of course colloquially AmE has got (without have) for possession.

Anonymous

So synchronically the have got idiom seems somewhat different from a perfect construction.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I fixed the typo :-)

Anonymous

Thanks for pointing it out.

Anonymous

23:32

@CowperKettle Have got definitely behaves specially under negation.

Anonymous

Though I think that's really a matter of frequency (different in AmE and BrE) rather than whether each alternative is grammatical.

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