I just have to ask a quick question.. what's the difference between "eating while watching" and "watching while eating". Does it suggest that whatever the "main thing" i.e. on which you are more focused on (eating or watching) should come before while?

@cpx Congratulations! Good choice.

@cpx In this particular case, I would say that the difference is simply in what the speaker wants to emphasize (the linguistic term is focus, I believe); but more generally, clauses like these set up a kind of foreground–background relationship. For example, the sentence “He dreamed while he slept” is appropriate, but the sentence *“He slept while he dreamed” would be pragmatically infelicitous because dreaming is contingent on sleeping.

(The asterisk is commonly used to mark ungrammatical or unfelicitous sentences in linguistics.)

In “eating while watching” the watching is what happens in the background.

In the first sentence, the reading event occurs against the background of the dancing event (an asymmetrical relationship); in the second sentence, those events co-occur independently of each other (the relationship is symmetrical).

In above examples, it seems that the event that happens in background comes after the 'while' or can it also depend on the context?

The event that happens in the background comes after the while, yes. That is why *“He slept while he dreamed” is a bad sentence. The dreaming cannot happen in the background because you have to be asleep in order to dream in the first place.

Sorry, I have to leave the computer for a while. CU.

I am turning into you guys.

Now I am correcting people left and right.

And they rage afterwards.

Lol.

Greetings!

@SonicTheHedgehog Good.

@Vitaly How do you mean "after"?

I'd rather see it as one activity encompassing the period of time during which the other takes place.

@Cerberus “Eating while watching”. Note that the “watching” comes after the “while”. And not before the “while”. And isn't compassed by the “while” like this: “whiwatchingile”. Good morning.

I think he meant after as in grammatical context.

@Vitaly Why "after"? I would definitely say one takes place during the other, not after.

Are you perhaps referring to the start of the action rather than the duration?

@Cerberus Have you perhaps missed it that both of those messages refer to the word order?

I agree with your background-foreground analysis.

Not sure I would not equate that to focus v. topic.

Probably not. It doesn't feel right.

@Vitaly Word order hmm...

I'm currently under the influence of alcohol, and I'm afraid I don't understand that at the moment.

Phew. I thought you were screwing with me on purpose.

Oh wait, I understand what you mean.

Let me consider it.

I forgot to look at that particular line.

Or I just didn't.

[Foreground] while [background]. The [background] is placed after the while in a sentence.

grammar syntax.

Ah OK, it makes sense now. It truly did not occur to me that you might be referring to position rather than time. Not even when you said so, somehow.

To put it simply, the content of the while clause is background to the main clause.

Yeah.

But don't forget while inversion. Or at least I think it exists. My intuition is a bit handicapped at the moment.

As is my memory.

Hmm or perhaps only when inversion exists.

> They were preparing the ship for battle, when suddenly arrows pierced the air and batches of burning tar were cast upon them.

@Vitaly: If you want to test the cognitive biases that affect a drunkard, now is your chance.

@Cerberus OK. Is philosophy useful?

No teasing.

:D

I'm not that cognitively impaired, you know.

Is that all you've got?

I'm bored. Entertain me.

@Vitaly You're boring.

Perform a trick at least!

prods you for attention

Oh shit.

I have just realized that my phone was completely out of synch.

I skipped going to a club because I thought it was already 5 am and it would close.

But my spare phone is 1.38 hours forward!

shakes fist

So it was only 3.22!

shakes other fist

@Cerberus How can you let that happen?!

evening, @Mitch

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I know!!

I rarely use that phone.

doesn't it just get the time from the cellular network?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 hey

I could go back, it's 4.46 now...

Nope.

I think all my phones ever have done that

Really?

so @Cerberus when do you sleep? I thought you were trying to approximate normal human daytime/nighttime cycles

My "newest" phone won't even do that.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Uh yes, but it hasn't been working out of late.

@Cerberus really?!

It doesn't have a setting for "use network time" or some such?

or "Gebruik netwerk tijd"

Hahaha.

I appreciate your Dutch, but 'netwerk tijd' is a horrible instance of what we call the "Engelse ziekte".

it's not my dutch

it's Google Translate's

Compound nouns should be written attached, as in German: netwerktijd.

Oh.

Is it a compound noun? or a noun serving as an adjective? do you mush your adjectives into your nouns?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Sadly, no. I need to install some separate program to synchronize over the internet.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 A noun "serving as an adjective" is not possible in Dutch/German.

@Cerberus no... seriously, there must be a way to get the time from the cell network itself

The two nouns together form a compound noun.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I'm sure it is technically possible, but...

@Cerberus I'm not too clear on whether linguists would call "network" a noun or an adjective in that phrase.

@Cerberus what model phone is it

@MrShinyandNew安宇 It is usually called a noun adjective in English.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 HTC Tytn II.

@Cerberus this one? htc.com/europe/help/htc-tytn-II

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yup!

It is the phone my brother used three phones ago.

Got it in 2007 I think.

it has wifi! impressive, for such an old phone

so according to the manual, when you synchronize it with your PC it gets the time from the PC

@MrShinyandNew安宇 It has everything! Multi-tasking, Youtube, Opera Mini, stuff...

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hmm I see. But I never do that.

I synchronize it with Google's servers online.

I also had a program that made the phone into a Wifi hotspot, so that I could tether to it wirelessly.

But I messed it up, and now I'm too lazy to hard-reset it.

Is there any constructed language that has the singular, dual, trial, quadral, paucal, and plural simultaneously?

Please don't ask that on Ling.

Very off topic.

OK. Is there any attested natural language that has all of them? Perhaps some obscure Austronesian one?

@Vitaly I'm curious why you want to know this

Now you are the prototypical Ling SWR equivalent.

I.e. the kind of question I don't even look at.

Sorry.

@Cerberus No way...what about....

Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft

all except 'haupt' and 'unter' are nouns.

Haha I can even understand that.

But that is just a single noun.

It may be a tad long, but that is immaterial!

long for lots of examples of nouns modifying nouns.

it's a tehnicality that that is considered a single 'word'

It matters.

Spaces constitute faux pas.

@Cerberus when speaking do you say that "word" in just one breath?

I'm writing my congressman then.

@Cerberus Damn. Is there a typology of number systems for natural languages that incorporates the fact that we must account for the paucal to be an option in the number hierarchy at more than one point, since the standard straightforward singular > dual > trial > plural hierarchy wouldn't work?

my german congressman

in charge of word-ness

wth is 'the paucal'? 'few' in number?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes, there is no other option. Even those who would incorrectly write spaces there (the majority) would say it in one breath. Of course such long words would be ugly and bad style, and frankly absurd, so you will not see those ever.

@Mitch Yeah, a small number of distinct entities.

@Mitch Yes. "A few", I believe.

@Vitaly Sounds way too convoluted to be a real, good question. More like some kind of peeving à la Ron. Sorry.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Just an itch I have the urge to scratch.

It presupposes a problem that isn't there.

@Cerberus That's cognitive biases talking, sorry.

Asking for something too specific is usually a sign of hiding something.

Why don't you ask "are the paucal and dual numbers generally considered to be compatible in a single language?"?

@Cerberus Why wouldn't they? The dual and paucal are found in Yimas IIRC. They just redefine the paucal to exclude two, just like they “redefine” the plural to exclude two in languages that lack the dual like English.

asked that way there's no reason not to be.

but vitaly if ou're asking about constructed languages...anything goes...even illogic.

or overlapping concerns...or whatever...just like real language, just on purpose.

@Cerberus Wait, the majority would incorrectly write spaces there? uhoh. Guess the "rules" might be wrong :)

@Vitaly I don't know, it may be what you're actually after. Or replace dual with trial or whatever.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 See, this silly egalitarianism is just not the way we do things.

We look down on the masses.

There, I've said it.

Yes, you look down on the hoi polloi

Ahhhh!

But seriously, I think educating people in the way things are done "properly" helps them far more than pretending that all ways are equal.

Because they are not.

@Cerberus I'm not saying that all ways are equal. But you must admit that putting in spaces (or not) is a functional feature that aids or hinders readability (and writeability) and the rules that have emerged (yes, emerged) are arbitrary and sometimes absurd.

They sound fine to me, those rules.

They help to indicate that the words should be taken together as one noun.

and if a rule says "you must always do X" and nobody ever does X, does the rule even matter? At some point you must concede defeat.

This is sometimes a problem in English.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes, at some point.

But the word "toilet" will not become acceptable in the next 50 years to the upper classes, I predict.

It is frowned upon more strongly than ever.

In all languages.

@Cerberus Sure, sometimes it's hard to tell if a word modifies one word or another. But that doesn't mean that having spaces doesn't do more good than harm.

@Cerberus So what? Now you're talking about register and before I was talking about spelling/grammar.

anyway: I must reboot my machine, because the software for my Harmony remote only runs in Windows and I find I must change a setting.

brb

define 'word' without a specific language...then apply without considerations for orthography. Done and done.

german gots lots of nouns acting as modifiers.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Perhaps not. But it is an advantage. And we are free to add hyphens in longer compound nouns.

or is 'modifier' moving the goal post?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 There is no qualitative difference.

@Mitch Granted.

@Mitch No, I agree.

I heard that nobody in Germany is following the spelling reform, even some newspapers reverted.

Oh, yes.

I don't follow some Dutch spelling reforms either.

Some are just silly.

and with that..I'm off. later.

@Cerberus Just go with good ol' cuneiform. What can be clearer than 𒊕?

Surely you can see the advantage of such graphic concept representation.

@Mitch Adios!

@Vitaly Yay!

It is very beautiful.

And I am almost serious. That is a head right there.

Nice.

@Cerberus There is a big difference between word choice and word spelling

or word punctuation, even

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Big in what sense?

All those things are used to express certain aesthetic ideas.

@JSBձոգչ We don't lack Sumerian anymore.

word choice is complicated based on what ideas you are trying to express and how you want to express them. Spelling is just a convention. It is far more standardized. punctuation (including word spacing) is like spelling in that it's only visible in written language. There is flexibility or actual disagreement about how punctuation should or shouldn't be used.

@Vitaly I've posted cuneiform here before.

@Cerberus Are you sure you posted Sumerian cuneiform and not Akkadian cuneiform? :P

So if some people write networktime or network-time or network time it's just a matter of taste. It isn't, eg, considered impolite to use the Oxford comma.

Besides, take it up with JSB. He's the one who said we lacked Old Sumerian and Nahuatl.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Word choice may be quiet simple: certain words are clearly preferable in certain contexts. But what is your central point exactly?

@Vitaly Eh well I...

@MrShinyandNew安宇 What does it have to do with politeness?

@Cerberus my point was that when I said "the rules must change" I was talking about the rules for putting spaces in dutch nouns, because as you stated nobody follows that rule.

@Vitaly slays JSB with the mighty sword of ehm something I haven't thought of yet

Then you said "polite society won't accept the word 'toilet'" and I said that word-choice is different than spelling/grammar in this regard.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Nobody? Literate people do.

@Cerberus for your snobbish definition of the word "literate", perhaps

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Different needs a point of reference.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes.

anyway I'm not going to go any further down this road.

It is taught in schools that one should not write "netwerk tijd". And it is advisable to write netwerktijd if you don't want to look like someone who doesn't care or know anything about aesthetics and literary tradition.

@Cerberus Or maybe you just want to reject arbitrary aesthetics or traditions.

How do you mean?

Look, just because it is taught in schools doesn't make it right. That's an appeal to authority.

And aesthetics are highly subjective. If someone writes in a style that is aesthetically displeasing, their readers will reject it. Or maybe the readers won't care and that style will become pleasing over time as people get used to it.

Yes, and?

Who says anything about unchanging objectivity?

I certainly don't. Do you take me for a fool? I know how language works better than anyone.

@Cerberus So if "the majority" of dutch people would not spell some or all dutch compound nouns as single words, preferring to use spaces, I claim that the so-called "rule" of "no spaces in compound nouns" is no longer a rule.

Despite what the schoolteachers are saying.

And what does "is a rule" mean?

schoolteachers? school teachers?

Haha.

You seem to be having some objective essence in mind, which does not exist in language.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

There is no truth. It does not exist.

@Cerberus I cannot believe that YOU are accusing ME of that.

And, even if it did, we could not know it at all.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I am, because you are talking about "is a rule" as if such a thing were ever something objective.

@Cerberus YOU'RE the one who claims that it is "wrong" for people to put spaces in any compound nouns in dutch. Doesn't that claim stand as a rule?

I'M the one saying "if nobody does it, there must not be a rule that says you have to do it"

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You know me. Do you really think I mean that in any objective sense?

@Cerberus Honestly I feel like every argument I have with you has you changing your position half-way through the argument then claiming that THAT was your position all along.

ok, windows has finished updating. Time to reboot.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You seem to think I am some kind of half-wit who doesn't know the least thing about language. I don't mean this in an insulted way: I'm not annoyed at all. Just don't interpret what I say in some naïve way.

In fact I'm still waayyy too drunk to be annoyed or dislike people.

I love everyone.

You first of all!

@Cerberus I know you know lots about language. I don't know why you think I think you're a half-wit.

Well, if you think that I think there exists some objective rule...

@Cerberus I know you don't truly believe there exists a pure objective rule. But you talk as if there is.

i.e. by claiming that nearly everyone who writes in dutch is actually wrong about their own language.

And what do I mean by "wrong"?

@Cerberus in violation of the rule! what else could it mean

And what does that entail?

It's mainly about aesthetic perception.

Whatever aesthetics are based on.

aesthetics are arbitrary and if almost everyone's aesthetics do not align with your own, maybe yours are "wrong"

@MrShinyandNew安宇 All right. As long as you don't think I hold some naïve views on language.

dammit I said I wasn't going any further. ok no more from me.

@Cerberus naive? no. snobbish? elitist? impractical? yes :)

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Now you're trying to objectify "wrong" again. All "wrong" means is "it is unaesthetic to certain people".

@MrShinyandNew安宇 OK then we're good.

@Cerberus Wait, so it can be wrong to you to put spaces in words, but right to everyone else?

or they're still wrong, because their aesthetic judgments don't count?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Absolutely and certainly.

Using spaces is like wearing ugly trousers.

It feels exactly the same to me, and it works the same way.

@Cerberus mmkay

I might call the trousers "wrong".

In fact, "fout" is a commonly used word to describe clothing.

I used to object the same way you are doing now when I was young.

@Cerberus Then you invested so much time and effort into learning the "right" way that your brain set up an elaborate rationalization as to why your way is better.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Why rationalisation?

At least I realize that it's all subjective and relative. As to your refusal to spell "the're book", however...

I bet you would call that "wrong" without thinking twice.

@Cerberus As if I don't realize that it's subjective and relative. But it's arbitrary. and when stuff is subjective and arbitrary it annoys me.

@Cerberus I do call it "wrong". And I have several reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetics.

Some of those reasons boil down to arbitrary conventions, though, but they are well established and don't have much opposing view.

#1: it's wrong because pretty much everyone calls it wrong.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Understandable. It annoys me too when I don't experience the aesthetic aspect about a certain "rule" myself.

#2: It's wrong because "they're" is the way a contraction is spelled.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Everyone? I bet the majority of people use "they're" like that.

@Cerberus No. I would not say the majority.

And of those who do, when they notice it they realize that they are making a mistake. It's never used that way as an intentional usage.

Unlike, say, the word "irregardless", which over-negates, and is used unthinkingly because people use it as a whole word and don't analyze it as "not regard not"

"they're" is a spelling mistake. It's not an incorrect word choice. The spelling rules are arbitrary but they are agreed-upon.

The spelling rules follow a convention. "They + are = they're". That convention is arbitrary. But it is agreed-upon: I don't know of anyone who advocates or uses the common contractions differently.

Don't you see how this distinction you're trying to make is entirely arbitrary?

@Cerberus language is completely arbitrary, that's why there're so many different ones.

Exactly.

So your preference for "their" is not qualitatively different from my rejection of spaces.

It's the same mental process, the same social process too.

Conventions are established. Those popular amongst our peers we follow.

Hi.

Other conventions we ridicule.

Hi!

I went out for pizza with friends.

It was very nice.

How have your days been, folks?

Oh yes, the above-average pizza!!

Great!!

Yeah! it was really delicious, and not too expensive either.

There were seven of us, and we picked the 3 appetizers and 5 pizzas deal for $104.

So that was all good and fun.

@Mahnax Very good.

@Cerberus Quite.

Then we walked all over town looking for somewhere to get coffee.

104/7 = less than 20/p?

Yeah, it worked out to $18 each.

Ah OK.

With drinks.

Ohhh.

@Cerberus No, I think it is qualitatively different. The spelling of "their" is arbitrary, but the spelling of "they're" is not, it emerges from the conventions of contractions. If you had picked their vs there it'd be different: English uses the apostrophe only in certain ways, and none of those cases fit the "their" case.

That's not much.

And the tips were extra, I suppose.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 And the conventions of contractions are somehow objectively "true" because...?

Look, buddy, your not going to win this one, so better cut your losses.

@Cerberus Your? YOUR? YOUR????

rips out hair

@Mahnax That was on purpose, calm down!

I know its painful.

It was what our hole discusion was a boot.

Yeah, I didn't read your discussion.

@Cerberus I never said they were objectively true. I claim that the case for "they're" being incorrect in "they're books" is stronger than the case for "school teacher" being incorrect instead of "schoolteacher"

*discusion

Sorry, I dinnuh red yo discusion.

Betteh?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Stronger? However that may be, it's basically the same phenomenon.

@Mahnax Yay!

@Cerberus AyyA*

@Cerberus whatevs

@Mahnax oPso

@MrShinyandNew安宇 OK.

@Cerberus Eh?

I can't talk like that anymore.

Hehe. I know, it's hard on you.

Oops was what I meant.

I just don't get why people won't admit that everything about language rules is subjective.

They aren't all philosophers.

I suppose not!

But the world could never be composed entirely of philosophers.

Nothing would ever get done!

I suppose not.

But it would be heaps of fun.

Yes, heaps.

Heaps of words.

That, too.

:) Hi.

Though the words were mostly Mr Shiny's.

@ClarkKent Yes, but what good are those?

My position can be summarized in a single sentence.

Sorry, I feel really critical of everything right now.

That's OK. I feel the opposite.

You don't even begin to understand the situation, sorry.

@Cerberus Are you talking to Francis Crick?

@Mahnax Hi.

@cpx Hi!

How are you today?

Good! I enjoyed my evening. Yourself?

Fine. I'm reading from my grammar book.

Ah, good.

What grammar book? Have you had Cambridge Grammar of English delivered yet?

No, it's "English Grammar Understanding Basics".

Oh, I see.

amazon.co.uk/English-Grammar-Understanding-Evelyn-Altenberg/dp/…

I have decided to sit outside and drink tea.

@Mahnax “A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”

@Meysamرهادربند Well, I am currently sitting outside, drinking tea, so it's a real decision, by that definition.

@Mahnax “It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”

@Meysamرهادربند I don't think my destiny has anything to do with tea.

@Mahnax But it may! Think of chaos theory

@Meysamرهادربند I'd rather not, at this hour.

@Mahnax So what's the view in front of you now? Is it comforting?

@Meysamرهادربند It's dark.

@ClarkKent: Nice, who are $A$ and $B$?

Who are you?

Why in the world would I care that $A$ and $B$ are seeing each other in a romantic relationship?

Unless I am $A$.

Which is very unlikely, since I am $Z$.

> Problem solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

@ClarkKent here: sourcesofinsight.com/tony-robbins-quotes

@ClarkKent I drank a glass of water, if that's what you meant.

The weather is so hot that I drink a glass of water every minute or so. I can't help it.

Is it possible to merge two accounts of one user when one is deleted?

I have no idea.

@Vitaly You did not say "pragmatically infelicitous" while trying to help somebody who was struggling with their English!

@DavidWallace I actually think it's safe to use those words with English learners. There's a difference in kind between native English speakers who struggle with their own language and English learners: the latter are waaaay more likely to use a dictionary.

I hate it when Jasper thinks I don't know those simple words or I am unable to look up in the dictionary.

And being familiar with established terminology has its benefits, too.

I'm not sure that I know what it means.

Actually, I do know what it means; I just raised an internal eyebrow.

Yeah, well, you are a native speaker and not a linguist, you don't routinely consult works where such terminology is used, I imagine.

@Gigili That's his own particular brand of pineapple: wanting to show what he knows no matter how simple it is.

@Vitaly Why do you think I'm not a linguist?