English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Robusto

9:03 PM

@Fx — But you caved! You caved!

ANYWAY ... gtg ttyl cyaz &c.

MrHen

@Robusto What if I stole the generic Twitter graphic? Would that be better?

Odd; I think someone just went through and targeted a bunch of my answers with upvotes. Positive bias? Don't mind if I do!

F'x

If it's too many, the automatic Biased Vote Pattern Detector®™ might get rid of that rep for you soon!

MrHen

9:18 PM

Yeah. I cannot complain because the BVPD (?) whacked a bunch of downvotes from some user I disgruntled.

Cerberus

9:33 PM

So does anyone have any idea about the transformation of bringeth into brings?

F'x

9:46 PM

@Cerberus specifically in the case of bring, or for the Old English -eth third person in general?

Cerberus

@F'x: In general; I was still pondering JSBang's unanswered question...

F'x

@Cerberus which question?

Cerberus

The answer is pretty much ungooglable, unless perhaps you know where to look... oh let me link it:

Q: Ordering of English sound changes in verbal morphology

As we all know, the Early Modern English 3sg verbal ending -eth has become -s in Modern English. This presumably happened in two steps: Elision of the unstressed e in the final syllable Changing final -th to -s. But do we know what order these changes happen in? Do we find intermediate forms ...

F'x

I thought it was a competition between the midland -eth and the northern -s, with the second gaining traction around the 13th century

Cerberus

I have provided my vague intuitions in a comment, but I don't know the precise sequence of developments.

But what about -es and -th, which also existed?

F'x

9:49 PM

“ In the northern dialect, this -th had, in the tenth century, already begun to give way to -s; and northern writings of about 1300 show -es both in the third singular and in the plural as the universal ending.”

Cerberus

Or have those always been mere allomorphs?

F'x

bartleby.com/211/1905.html

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance

Cerberus

Okay, but that doesn't explain the e or no e.

Oh, thanks for that link; reading...

@Fx Hmm that link either assumes them as allomorphs or ignores the issue...

Kosmonaut

My guess would be, if there was a transition: -eth -> -es -> -s

That seems more likely.

We don't really have [kθ] clusters at the end of words.

Cerberus

Well, I do think -th and -eth also existed at the same time?

Kosmonaut

9:55 PM

We did have speakth?

Cerberus

Oh, you are talking about speaks specifically. Yes, then speakth would seem impossible.

My gut feeling is that -th and -eth were allomorphs, as were/are -s -es, and that it is just that the circumstances that force the e have changed several times.

I think these "circumstances" are sometimes called "environment"?

Kosmonaut

The other thing about it is that the way the -s suffix works is that it assimilates in voicing with the final consonant cluster of the word

Cerberus

True.

Kosmonaut

So to have -th for a word like "brag", it would have to be [bragð], I guess

Cerberus

That, or the assimilation could have been in the other direction.

Kosmonaut

9:58 PM

That is really doubtful because surely that would have affected spelling

[brakθ]

You would probably have ended up with final-devoicing, like in German

Cerberus

@Kosmonaut Yes probably... and the assimilation would have had to work contrary to the way it works now.

Kosmonaut

I dunno though. It is an interesting question.

Cerberus

PLL also suggested that the e might have been part of the stem of many verbs, or perhaps a theme vocal.

In any case, I believe both -th and -es existed for some words at one point or another, so that there is no universal -eth => -es => -s development.

(Nor -eth => -th => -s.)

Kosmonaut

The interesting thing is the way that the plural marker and that verb agreement suffix are identical now.

Even their allophonic variation.

Cerberus

10:18 PM

Yes, another piece of evidence that you Anglo-Saxons are basically crazy!

1 hour later…

kiamlaluno

11:19 PM

A: Sentence starting with "please kindly"

Both the adverbs are used in polite requests, and one of the meanings of kindly is please. In a sentence like "please kindly send me a copy of your paperwork," please and kindly are redundant. In a sentence like "will you kindly sign the enclosed copy of this letter," kindly is often used ironi...

The comment on that answer is spam; it contains a link to a Google search for Bioshock.

I guess the user is aiming to make others access the first link shown in the search page.

Billare

11:51 PM

@Robusto
"Very often the outliers in our vote tallies involve stupid questions and or answers." What about the feminine version of "guys" question? 40+ upvotes for saying "gals" -- I mean, Caleb gave a perfectly fine answer, but tha'ts just ridiculous.

@RegDwight O Great Moderator, now that you have access to analytic tools, could you tell us what keywords are driving traffic towards the site?

kiamlaluno

Are there any analytical tools?

Billare

@kiamlaluno Yes, they've been added for moderators -- see Jeff's response to this meta thread: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/62563/…

kiamlaluno

@Billare: Thank you. It's a shame Jeff doesn't say from where it is accessible. :-)

Billare

@kiamlaluno: He said something about a pane...I have no idea how the moderation window looks like at all, so I wouldn't know.