English Language Learners

Anonymous

17:00

@DamkerngT. I would say it's infelicitous rather than ungrammatical

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. That's a better word. Thanks!

Good morning @snailboat!

Anonymous

Good morning, Damkerng!

Damkerng T.

I got your local time right this time! :D

Anonymous

You did! I was so happy!

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Anonymous

17:02

Maybe I should have greeted you relative to your local time

Man_From_India

Good morning @snailboat

Anonymous

Good midnight, Damkerng!

Anonymous

Morning, Man from India!

Damkerng T.

lol!

Anonymous

I don't know the proper English greeting for two minutes past midnight.

Damkerng T.

17:02

I was about to say that my local time was tricky at that moment. :D

Anonymous

"Good evening", maybe. Or maybe "good morning".

Man_From_India

@snailboat It's 22:32 here in India :-D

Anonymous

Good evening, Man from India!

Anonymous

India's one of those fun places with a half-hour time zone.

Damkerng T.

nods :-)

Man_From_India

17:03

ha ha...yea..the same thing @DamkerngT. mentioned the other day :-)

Freddy

Good evening

Damkerng T.

Good evening, @Freddy!

Man_From_India

Good evening @Freddy

Anonymous

ELL chat: all greetings, all the time

Damkerng T.

Oh, I think I know this word, but can't recall it (in any languages I know). This word is a word for the place that the Central Business District is situated upon in the figures Ilan linked to: i.sstatic.net/N5Vl7.jpg.

It's something protruded outwardly because of the shape of the river. It's part of the bank. What is it?

CopperKettle

17:14

I recall the word "meander"

Man_From_India

A spit?

CopperKettle

A promontory?

Damkerng T.

Hehe! I think I was thinking of bend.

Thanks for those nice words, guys.

Man_From_India

:-O

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I think a promontory is raised, like

CopperKettle

17:16

@DamkerngT. Yes, bend is good. And "spit" is the second closest candidate

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

CopperKettle

@snailboat I know, I was just spitballing (0:

Damkerng T.

It's spinning... and spinning...

Ahh... A promontory.

Anonymous

I didn't know the word promontory until I learned it as a translation for Japanese 岬

CopperKettle

17:18

"..if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

Anonymous

But I think everyone knows the word cape

Damkerng T.

raising hand! (for that ^, and that v, and that V, too)

Anonymous

And peninsula

Anonymous

And point

Man_From_India

I was waiting for the picture...but it's spinning and spinning :-D

CopperKettle

17:20

@Man_From_India It shows here. Strange.

Anonymous

Oh no!

Damkerng T.

It's a rather big image file, I think. It kept spinning on my screen for a while.

Anonymous

It's just the picture from ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E5%A8%81%E5%B2%AC

Freddy

Same here spinning and spinning

Anonymous

Sorry, I have a fast connection so I don't notice if files are large sometimes

Anonymous

17:21

I just got it upgraded! :-)

Man_From_India

No problem @snailboat...clicked on the link and it opened :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, that one on Wikipedia is fast!

@snailboat eyes turning green... :-)

Anonymous

I bet the page there has a scaled-down version

Anonymous

(wrong link)

Damkerng T.

Oh, no! That's 7 times as fast as mine!

Anonymous

17:22

I just pulled that image from my history―I wonder if I pulled the right one

CopperKettle

there's also foreland

Anonymous

Oh, no, that's the wrong one

Anonymous

speedtest.net/my-result/4098331875

CopperKettle

and headland

Anonymous

That's the right one!

Man_From_India

17:22

@snailboat oh my god!!! anyone has gbps speed range? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, no! That's almost 10 times as fast!

Ilan

see you guys! thanks for the help!!

Freddy

I have got 1 Mbps plan and that second highest plan available in my town lol

CopperKettle

@Ilan Goodbye, Ilan!

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle I didn't know foreland and headland, but they seem easy to guess.

Man_From_India

17:24

@Freddy In India the fastest wired internet for home users is 16mbps...

Damkerng T.

Happy learning @Ilan!

Ilan

:))

Anonymous

Hmm, headland sounds like something I've heard before, but I wouldn't be able to define it off the top of my head

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I got two 6 Mbps lines.

Anonymous

Internet is pretty fast here, but I hear in some countries they have faster internet

CopperKettle

17:25

@Freddy Wow. I've got a 5 Mbit plan, and its the cheapest here. (0:

Anonymous

So they might consider my internet slow :-)

Damkerng T.

Well, I should've said have, but I already said got. :-)

Man_From_India

Mine is slowest :(

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Cheap has its own virtue!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's true either way, though! You got it at some point, and you still have it :-)

CopperKettle

17:27

speedtest.net/my-result/4116341779

Damkerng T.

I remember that in The Blind Side, Sandra Bullock warned the young athlete to say have rather than got. :D

@CopperKettle Wait, that's not a 5 Mbps for sure!

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. I'm amused myself! Probably our provider tweaks the connection for faster tests somehow. Maybe it allows maximum speeds for testing sites.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Haha!

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. If Sandra says something like that before me, for sure nothing will make sense :-) I will visualise something else :-)

Damkerng T.

They sure know how to do the trick!

@Man_From_India lol

Anonymous

17:29

Well, I can download around 6.8MB/s, which works out to about 54Mbit/s, so I think mine is accurate

Anonymous

We have a business internet plan here

Anonymous

The one downside is that they force you to use the equipment they choose for a business plan

CopperKettle

When I download, it keeps at about 1 to 2 megabytes per second.

Man_From_India

Okay g2g...good night :-)

Damkerng T.

Have a good sleep!

CopperKettle

17:30

Good night, @Man_From_India!

Freddy

@Man_From_India good night.

Anonymous

But on the bright side, the business plan has a much higher quota than the residential plans

Anonymous

I think right now we get 7TB/month

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, so it's something like a 12-month or 24-month plan, I guess?

Anonymous

But we use a lot less than that, so it feels unlimited :-)

Damkerng T.

17:32

speedtest.net/my-result/4116352781

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, it's on a contract

Anonymous

Triple T!

Damkerng T.

Oh, I should get the speed only around 6, but it's 11.

Yes!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Triple T?

Damkerng T.

My ISP.

Anonymous

17:33

My internet company is Comcast. I don't really like Comcast, but we don't have many options here, and it's definitely better than it used to be.

Anonymous

When I started using Comcast, it was because they bought the company I was doing business with …

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

You're pretty much stuck with Big Company A or Big Company B

Damkerng T.

Hehe, I like it when you say Big Company A or B. :D

Anonymous

3

Q: Which of these two sentences is correct? and why?

Which of these two sentences is correct? * A) We can't play tennis if it will be rainy tomorrow. B) We can't play tennis if it is rainy tomorrow. *

verb-forms

Anonymous

17:35

I don't think either of these sentences is ungrammatical.

Anonymous

I think the first one is quite strange semantically, so it's not something people would normally say.

Anonymous

I think the second one is totally normal, assuming you contrast it is to it's

Damkerng T.

I think I like sentence B better.

Anonymous

I expect most people would

Anonymous

It makes more sense

Anonymous

17:36

I think that "_We can't play tennis if it rains tommorrow_" is correct. — Pyraminx 17 mins ago

Anonymous

Pyraminx's alternative is also okay

Anonymous

Although I don't see any need to change sentence B

Damkerng T.

That would be a common way to say it (spelling aside).

CopperKettle

But are we allowed to use will in the condition clause? The protasis, I mean. (0:

Damkerng T.

I know that it's possible in some dialects, but it's probably non-standard. It's not safe for learners, I think.

CopperKettle

17:40

Does "we can't play tennis" necessarily implies "today", I wonder.

The first one isn't ungrammatical - it just doesn't mean what OP thinks it means. I have to mow the lawn either today or tomorrow, but the lawn has to be dry to mow. I want to play tennis with you today, but I can't play tennis if it will be rainy tomorrow . — Adam 2 mins ago

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Nope.

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Oh, now that makes sense.

CopperKettle

@snailboat Thanks, so I thought!

There are some very inquisitive people at Stack Exchange:

3

Q: How fast does poop fall?

Some building are really tall, if you flush the toilet and the contents go into a pipe and straight down, there could be a lot of energy, potentially enough to cause harm to the sewer pipe at the end of the fall. I know that in my home, the pipe goes straight down and then there is just a 90 deg...

building-physics

Damkerng T.

Oh!

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

17:48

Ahh... civil engineers would find that knowledge useful. :-)

Anonymous

Lately I'm in the habit of saying argument when discussing Japanese and complement when discussing English, mainly because I try to follow some terminological conventions established by people discussing a particular language

Anonymous

I'm afraid I still end up using terms in ways people might not expect sometimes

Anonymous

Like, for example, in my mind, a clause is a type of phrase

Anonymous

Some people consider clauses and phrases to be disjoint categories

Damkerng T.

I think it's fair that people don't always share the same framework.

Anonymous

17:52

So I try to catch myself and say things like "to-infinitival clause", but I don't always

Anonymous

Sometimes I say to-infinitival phrase :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

In generative linguistics, people often talk about things like an inflectional phrase

Damkerng T.

Oh, that sounds like a fancy term. (It's fancy because I don't know what it is.)

Anonymous

Ah, well, it's probably not worth learning most of the stuff down that path

Anonymous

17:57

Unless you want to read papers written with that sort of framework in mind

Damkerng T.

I could try reading the glossary, though. :D

Anonymous

A paper with a glossary? Wow! What an idea!

Damkerng T.

Sometimes it happens! (Very, very rarely)

Anonymous

Yeah, I kid, but I rarely see people define their terms in that sort of paper

Damkerng T.

Most of them usually leave some clues.

Anonymous

17:58

They assume you're as far down the rabbit hole as they are

2

Damkerng T.

Some papers are very way deep down the hole!

Anonymous

Slightly relevant: languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=276

Damkerng T.

Oh, but I usually found out that the first paper on the subject is usually much easier to read.

Anonymous

That is often the case.

Anonymous

But not always.

Anonymous

18:01

Consider the DP hypothesis

Anonymous

Abney 1987 isn't ... well, you can read it yourself and decide :-)

Damkerng T.

The DP hypothesis?

Oh, determiner phrase.

I was thinking of "digital processing something".

Anonymous

Traditionally, we say the noun is the head of a noun phrase.

Anonymous

But some folks these days run with the idea that the determiner is the real head, so it's a determiner phrase instead

Damkerng T.

So, it's "THIS dog", rather than "this DOG".

Anonymous

18:03

ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/theses/abney87.pdf

Damkerng T.

The first paper must've tried its best being a contrarian.

CopperKettle

If the draft federal law fails to get the required number of deputy votes - or of deputies' votes.. "deputy votes" reads easier

Damkerng T.

I guess both are possible, but because it's legalese, I guess they would use the latter. My guess could be wrong, though.

For one thing, using deputies' votes will make one less definitions.

CopperKettle

yes, probably both are possible.. I just was browsing a translators' forum

Damkerng T.

If it's legalese, chances are they will need to define what "deputy" is, and thus what "deputy votes" is, as well.

CopperKettle

18:10

could be so

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. See also lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/grammar/detv_sli.pdf

Damkerng T.

A nice recap by Pullum!

Oh, so CGEL adopts the DP hypothesis as well.

Anonymous

It does not

Damkerng T.

Eh?

Anonymous

From your message, it sounds like you read pages 6 and 7 of the PDF, but not 8 or later

Damkerng T.

18:16

Yes. I skimmed to the top of page 7.

Ah, I can see page 8 now.

Anonymous

This PDF gives a number of arguments against the DP hypothesis

Anonymous

(The number is four!)

Damkerng T.

Oh! I love exact numbers!

Anonymous

Hee

Damkerng T.

It could be Schrodinger's cat.

I mean, it could be both, until we analyze it. :-)

Anonymous

18:21

Well, the DP hypothesis is just that―a hypothesis

Anonymous

It's not a fact that was waiting to be discovered

Anonymous

And there isn't really any empirical motivation for it

Anonymous

Hence:

Anonymous

Note though that the Wikipedia link is about a very different kind of DP, one with no empirical motivation. — snailboat Aug 12 '14 at 5:54

Damkerng T.

In Thai, when I think of the phrase"this person", it's very hard to tell which word I think of first, between this and person.

Anonymous

18:23

Well, the head isn't the word you think of first

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods

@snailboat That's why I think the arguments for DP is relatively weak.

Anonymous

The head is the word that licenses complements, first of all

Damkerng T.

Still, if the grammar is cognitive, it could be argued for, perhaps.

Anonymous

The head is usually non-omissible

Anonymous

The head usually determines the range of syntactic functions available for the phrase

Damkerng T.

18:24

The problem is in those cases like "this person", either word can be omitted.

Oh, probably not the case in English.

In English, we can drop "person" and just say "this", but we can't drop "this" and just say "person".

Anonymous

CGEL has a fused determiner-head function

Anonymous

You might also take a look at page 17 of the PDF

Damkerng T.

I think it's a bit complicated because they tried to put articles and this, that, all, every, and the like, into the same class.

I don't know.

Coming from a language that has no articles, I think I might have a different mindset.

Anonymous

They break down the determinatives into 14 categories

Anonymous

Articles are one of those categories

CopperKettle

18:30

Is there any practical outcome, say, for a language teacher, in knowing whether clauses are headed by determiners or not, I wonder.

Damkerng T.

nods -- And probably articles are the group that behaves most differently from the rest.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. In what sense?

Anonymous

They seem like pretty normal determinatives to me.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat In that, "this person" and "a person", or "people" are syntactically different. (I think)

Anonymous

Their central function is filling the determiner slot.

Anonymous

18:31

@DamkerngT. In what sense?

Damkerng T.

Like, we can say "this" to mean "this person" in a proper context, but we can never say "a" to mean "a person".

Anonymous

You mean when this is a pronoun rather than a determinative?

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Yes! Like in a basketball team selection: "I choose this and this and this" but not "I chose a and a and a before yesterday's match"

Damkerng T.

@snailboat In any case, aren't all of them just labels?

Anonymous

Well, yes, but the labels tell you how the grammar works.

CopperKettle

18:33

@snailboat Ah, it's a pronoun then. Indeed.

Anonymous

In this person, this is not a pronoun, so it doesn't differ syntactically from a person

Damkerng T.

Yes, but we're crafting grammar.

(Or at least that's what the hypothesis and those arguments do.)

Anonymous

In this is a hamster, this is a pronoun, so it does differ syntactically from a person

Anonymous

Well, we have multiple sets of behavior. We can talk about them without any labels whatsoever.

Anonymous

The labels just make it easier.

Anonymous

18:35

The DP hypothesis doesn't describe the behavior of words usefully.

CopperKettle

"This homicidal hamster harmed my habiliment!"

Damkerng T.

Yes, but it looks like Pullum analyzes DP-h in terms of another frame of reference. (Or it would be the case that DP-h tries to bend the existing frames of reference a little.)

Anonymous

This stuff isn't language-universal, by the way.

Anonymous

Japanese has no determiners of any kind.

Damkerng T.

> The stuff impressed me. \*The impressed me.
An alligator attacked me. \*An attacked me.

This is his argument.

CopperKettle

18:36

@snailboat Even "this"?

Anonymous

@CopperKettle This functions the same way as an adjective in Japanese.

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Yes, that surprises me a little.

Anonymous

You can say "my red this apple"

Anonymous

There's no determiner slot.

CopperKettle

@snailboat I see. Interesting.

Damkerng T.

18:37

Oh, then Thai has no determiners as well.

Anonymous

Or "This red my apple"

Damkerng T.

"apple red my this", "apple red this my"

CopperKettle

@snailboat Does "this" have a preterite form in Japanese, like other adjectives?

Anonymous

@CopperKettle It is not an adjective. It functions the same way as an adjective.

Anonymous

It's a rentai-si, what Martin calls an "adnoun" in English

Anonymous

18:39

On Wikipedia, someone calls them "attributives"

CopperKettle

adnoun! nice!

Anonymous

The literal translation of rentai-si is "adnominal word"

Damkerng T.

I think that's about syntax, but preterite is about semantic, isn't it?

Anonymous

Preterite is an inflectional category

Anonymous

In Japanese, only adjectives, verbs, and certain auxiliaries have preterite inflectional forms

Damkerng T.

18:40

Oh, so it doesn't mean "something we reference to"?

Anonymous

"Preterite" is an older term for "past tense"

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see. I confused myself again.

Anonymous

Japanese has a tense contrast between -(r)u and -ta, which are often called nonpast and past

Anonymous

But historically that was an aspectual difference

Anonymous

And it's undergoing a long-term change from one to the other that's not entirely complete

CopperKettle

18:41

Good evening, @Farooq!

Anonymous

So although it's often referred to as tense, it's still sometimes used for aspect instead

user116848

Good evening @CopperKettle!

user116848

And all!

Anonymous

Japanese adjectives and verbs can bear tense. Nouns cannot, so an auxiliary copula is added to bear tense

Damkerng T.

Good evening!

Hmm... it's more complicated if we're strictly talking about syntax. That has no word for "my".

Anonymous

18:43

In Japanese, you typically use a genitive noun phrase, e.g. watasi-no

Anonymous

However, historically certain genitive NPs lexicalized, and Japanese now has single words like wa-ga which mean "my"

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

(In both cases the literal gloss is "me.GENITIVE")

Damkerng T.

We have a similar word for Japanese no in Thai too, so basically "my" in Thai is "of I".

However, simply saying "I" does often imply "of I".

But this dropping is not always possible.

Anonymous

In Japanese, the genitive no is not often omissible, I think

Damkerng T.

18:45

That's why I just realized how complicated it is.

Anonymous

wa-ga contains the older genitive ga, by the way

Anonymous

It has come to mean "our" as well as "my"

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I'm always interested in pronoun number :-)

Anonymous

Like in English, we have singular you, singular they, singular us, and singular we

Damkerng T.

18:47

I think the word ของ (the "of" in "of I") in Thai (in this sense) is influenced by European languages.

Anonymous

Interesting!

Anonymous

1

A: A sentence in Present tense was understood as future tense

Please let me know when you send them to me. This is natural, normal and reasonably unambiguous to most native speakers. It is asking the person who receives this message to inform the person writing it that 'they' are being sent. The request is for this information to be sent in the future, at...

Anonymous

It's tunny! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hey!

Anonymous

That makes me happy.

Damkerng T.

18:48

He's back!? Yay!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Japanese no is also often related to English "of"

Anonymous

Sometimes that's the most natural translation, but I think people overuse it

Anonymous

I just call it GEN in glosses

Damkerng T.

Was it in Japanese before the time they met Westerners?

Anonymous

No is extremely old.

Damkerng T.

18:49

Ahh

Anonymous

I didn't mean it's related in the historical sense

Anonymous

I wonder if that's clear from what I wrote―"is often related" here means that "people often relate it to..." = "people often consider it similar to"

Anonymous

Sorry if that was poorly worded :-)

Anonymous

No is the basic way to connect two nouns or noun equivalents.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's perfectly clear to me. :-)

Anonymous

18:52

It's also how you connect postposition phrases to nouns

Anonymous

Normally postposition phrases relate to predicates in Japanese.

Anonymous

So if you said "the road to Tokyo", it would be "Tōkyō-e-no miti"

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

With the PP "Tōkyō-e", which means 'to Tokyo', attached to the following noun with no

Damkerng T.

Oh, what if I want to say, "the road of Tokyo"?

Anonymous

18:54

@DamkerngT. That would just be Tōkyō-no miti

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

I'm not sure specifically what "the road of Tokyo" means

Anonymous

But the Japanese is similarly ambiguous

Anonymous

Snailboat needs caffeine.

Damkerng T.

The most famous road of Tokyo, I guess. :-)

Anonymous

18:54

Must caffeine.

Damkerng T.

lol

Anonymous

Tea! :-)

Damkerng T.

Tea is nice!

user116848

Tea sounds good!

Damkerng T.

My ISP is Triple T!

Anonymous

18:59

When I was little, and I wanted tea, I'd tell my mom, and I'd hold my arms out sideways and make a letter T

Damkerng T.

That's cute!

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