English Language Learners

Cerberus

1:01 AM

@StoneyB Hmm what was this about?

Now I am curious.

StoneyB

1:20 AM

@Cerberus Snailboat's last preceding post, expressing unhappiness with the notion of "adjective clause".

Cerberus

@StoneyB Oh, I saw that, but so that isn't about a specific example where someone calls something an adjective clause?

I think it is a pretty clear term?

An alternative is attributive clause.

In linguistics, I would rather reserve apposed for things related to apposition, but, as you say, in theory that would work.

But why supplement?

StoneyB

Yeah, it's about this answer, I think. The tendency these days is to reserve terms like "noun phrase", "preposition phrase" and so forth to phrases &c which are headed by a word of the named category, and to find a different term for phrases &c which perform the role of a word of the named category.

Supplement because it's a common technical term for constituents which do not play a required formal role: things like non-restrictive relative clauses and absolute constructions.

And I'm glad you're here - I was wondering even as I wrote that whimsical comment why Romans threw adjective nouns at substantive nouns instead of just placing them there?

(Likewise why adjacent?)

Cerberus

1:40 AM

@StoneyB Hm but why? I have always focused more on the external function of the clause, although in most cases they overlap.

@StoneyB Akin to satellites and adjuncts?

But I think only absolute constructions can be those, not attributive clauses / apposed supplements.

Those are part of the larger constituent, so they are not constituents themselves, right?

@StoneyB Oh, hmm. I remember pondering this too. I shall reponder it.

@StoneyB What about adjacent? That is from iaceo, "to lie".

Note, by the way, that iacio "throw" is the causative of iaceo "lie, having been thrown". Or the other way around, supply a fitting alternative for causative.

Adicio already meant to place or put near in Latin, in addition to to throw at or near.

StoneyB

@Cerberus The clause in question is this: "I spend a lot of time making sure that everything is clean, that everything is as it should be. The Answerer describes it as a " non-essential adjective clause", and I think the non-essential part is at least rhetorically correct. But it's tricky.

Cerberus

Hmm yes. You might interpret it as non-essential. But isn't it still elliptical, then? I would want to repeat the main clause: I spend a lot of time making sure that everything is clean, [I spend a lot of time making sure] that everything is as it should be.

StoneyB

@Cerberus Ah! So much for my 7th grade Latin. ... I think the (?inverse/?obverse) of causative is resultative.

Cerberus

Hmm but...don't those mean the same thing?

A causative verb is a verb that causes x to be such and so.

Isn't it?

The dictionary says "iaceo is the intransitive [form?] of iacio".

StoneyB

Yes. And a resultative perfect construction is one which expresses a present state as the outcome of a prior action.

Cerberus

1:51 AM

But I don't like using the word intransitive as being in relation to something else: all it means is that a verb has no direct object. I wouldn't say a verb can be the intransitive of some other verb.

@StoneyB Right, exactly.

StoneyB

Yeah, terminology around these things is in flux. Cook has transitive, intransitive, and 'middle' meanings. But then you have things like kill/die ...

Which dictionary says iaceo is the intransitive of iacio? When was it written? What terms were available to the writer at the time?

OED 1 used the term dative infinitive a lot, but English hasn't declined its infinitives for eight or nine hundred years.

Cerberus

@StoneyB Lewis and Short, probably a few decades ago.

@StoneyB What is that, a to infinitive?

StoneyB

@Cerberus 1879, says Wikipedia.

Cerberus

Umm.

It is not the first edition.

I looked at the one used by the Archimedes project at Harvard.

I forgot which edition they used.

StoneyB

@Cerberus It's part of the origin of the to infinitive. But it shows up in other constructions I now forget. (I'm gonna have to learn all this stuff now my wife is taking OE.)

Cerberus

2:02 AM

It may be an old edition, though...

@StoneyB Great!

StoneyB

I consult the one at the Perseus project at Tufts.

I'm afraid I'm going to find out I'm too old to learn a new language. I'm finding it hard enough to learn what's happened to PDE grammar.

Cerberus

Hmm I see that one is indeed the edition from 1879.

PDE?

You're not too old!

Only memorising long lists becomes harder; understanding in general becomes easier as we age.

StoneyB

Wikipedia implies that L&S was never updated: From the time of its publication, many scholars have criticized the dictionary for its errors and inconsistencies. Because of various circumstances, however, no replacement was attempted until 1933, with the Oxford Latin Dictionary, which was completed in 1983.

Present-Day English. It's how the linguists say we're not in Kansas anymore without implying that we're postmodernists.

Oh, my. I've just discovered TLL - started in 1894, scheduled to be completed in 2050. Are dictionaries the modern cathedrals?

Cerberus

@StoneyB Huh, that's weird! Then why is it still one of the main dictionaries? The OLD is better, but still.

@StoneyB Huh, what, Kansas?

@StoneyB Yup!

StoneyB

2:18 AM

@Cerberus Wikipedia says because it's online.

Cerberus

I seem to remember the TLL had reached the letter R when I was doing Latin linguistics.

@StoneyB Not sure what you mean.

StoneyB

@Cerberus We no longer speak Modern English (some say), or even Late Modern English, but something that comes after Modern English: PDE. "We're not in Kansas anymore" is what Dorothy says when the tornado drops her in Oz."

@Cerberus It's more accessible and a whole lot more free than other dictionaries.

@Cerberus Wikipedia says they're working on N and R simultaneously now ...

Cerberus

@StoneyB Haha, seriously? I have to say that sounds a little bit silly. Modern is modern.

@StoneyB Well, I have the OLD, and we have all the dictionaries at university. And we still considered L&S a decent dictionary.

@StoneyB Ahh how very...orderly.

I am glad I'll probably live to see 2050!

StoneyB

@Cerberus Not in LitCrit, not by a long shot. Folks were already sniping at modernism when I was in grad school 40 years ago. My wife is now taking a course in which modernism is an 'historical' movement which the professor has difficulty getting grad students to take seriously.

Happily, she's a medievalist, so she (like you) is not swept away on these particular ideological waves.

Speaking of which: what's the standard reference for medieval Latin? She's doing a course in that next summer.

Cerberus

2:43 AM

@StoneyB Sure, modernism! But not the word modern in history.

@StoneyB Oh, hmm, to be honest, I forgot. I only took a few courses of Mediaeval Latin (because mainly it is just very simple Latin), and I forgot what dictionary we used, when we used one at all.

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources sounds good: bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25298737

StoneyB

@Cerberus 15 volumes, huh? I suspect that will not be her Christmas present this year. I'll have to hope her university's got it.

Cerberus

Haha, good luck!

Now is my bedtime.

I wish you a good evening.

StoneyB

And you.

Cerberus

3:00 AM

Adieu!

Damkerng T.

9:18 AM

I wish non-native speakers would write shorter answers, and native speakers would write longer.

Hello @Nico!

Or at least, when non-native speakers choose to write a long one, they would put more effort into it and try their best to minimize their own errors.

Nico

Hi! It's been a while!

I've been travelling and this is week here is busy too.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Ah, I see. How is everything going?

Nico

Big changes...

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Nico

We can talk about it some other time. Neext week I should've more time

Damkerng T.

9:32 AM

I see. That's fine with me. I understand that you're busy at the moment.

Anyway, it's nice to see you here again. :D

Damkerng T.

1:19 PM

Thank you for you correction. However, I still think this question fits english.stackexchange.com better than here, ELL, which is supposed to be a place for learners. And don't get me wrong. I'm the one who upvoted your question, mainly in the merit of seeing that you seemed to sincerely have a problem to understand what Barrow Elm House means, and try to answer that. But now I feel a little uneasy seeing how you graded our users in their answers. — Damkerng T. 10 mins ago

I'm rather sure that this is going to be long again.

It's easier not to care.

However, if caring means doing right things and then somehow being seen as a bad person, so be it.

I think the key of moderation is not being too strict and not too relaxed at the same time.

After this: meta.ell.stackexchange.com/questions/1160/…, I think most of our users seem to be back off from voting to close.

I mean, on anything.

Which is not quite right, imo.

If the community has agreed on something, I think we should stick with it. Giving some a pass sometimes is fine, but giving a pass on everything is probably not.

If we want to change what on-topic means on our site, that's fine with me, too. But I think we haven't changed our guidelines, insofar I've seen.

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