English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

00:00

Which is still very different from Russian, mind. But very close, too.

@Cerberus I am talking pronunciation, not meaning.

Cerberus

Yes, Dutch tj is quite different from German tj.

RegDwigнt

You pronounce all your consonants like you have a hot potato in your mouth.

Cerberus

The Dutch does indeed sound a bit Slavic.

Like English cha.

RegDwigнt

Right so anyway. For the fourth time I'm trying to finish up this one simple example.

Cerberus

Heh.

RegDwigнt

00:01

11 mins ago, by RegDwigнt

You have the root for "drive", езд, and you have the prefix for "in", and you want to combine them.

Cerberus

So you want to keep the y- sound.

But do you want the n to be soft or hard?

RegDwigнt

And so if you simply did в + езд, "v" + "yezd", you'd get везд, "vezd" rather than "vyezd".

So you need something in-between.

Cerberus

(But the v would be soft.)

RegDwigнt

That can be either the soft sign or the hard sign. Either would do the job. But one would keep the consonant hard, and the other make it soft.

Cerberus

I understand that.

RegDwigнt

00:03

In this case you have a hard consonant, and you just want to keep that, and so you use the hard sign.

Cerberus

OK.

RegDwigнt

And so you get въезд

Now.

Back to our original original question.

How do we transliterate that into English.

Cerberus

And when would you want to keep a soft consonant but add /j/ from the vowel?

Right.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus basically same situation. When you already have the consonant be soft, and already have the J in the vowel because they occur at the borders of their respective morphemes.

Anyway.

Actually in Russian there used to be no hard sign, only the soft sign, and for the hard sign you'd use the apostrophe.

в'езд.

They still do that in Ukrainian to this day.

But again, why not have more letters.

So now you have all those letters that in English just map to a y. The ы, the й, the ь and the ъ.

So въезд would be vyezd? Or vyyezd, even?

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt (So a word or morpheme can end on a soft vowel?)

RegDwigнt

00:07

Problem is, now you could also read that as выезд, say.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Good to know.

So weird apostrophes mean it's Ukrainian.

RegDwigнt

Stop interrupting. I want to go to bed!

Cerberus

(So why translitterate the hard sign as y?)

OK OK.

RegDwigнt

Problem is, выезд actually is a word in Russian, and it means the opposite thing. Exit. Drive-out.

@Cerberus you have to transliterate it as something. And since it makes the consonant soft, and that is a superscript /j/ in IPA, that's what people use. The y.

Again, Tanya, Sonya.

There is no /j/ sound there.

The y represents not a glide but a palatalization.

But when you write it out, people read it back all wrong.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt The hard sign makes a consonant soft?

RegDwigнt

00:10

No.

I can't keep up with the minutiae of your zwischenfragen.

Cerberus

3 mins ago, by RegDwigнt

So now you have all those letters that in English just map to a y. The ы, the й, the ь and the ъ.

RegDwigнt

But you get the general drift, I am hoping.

Cerberus

The hard sign maps to y?

RegDwigнt

In some standards, yes.

Cerberus

Yes, I get it.

But why?

RegDwigнt

00:11

As I said, in mine I just generally drop everything.

Cerberus

Y sounds like the opposite of hard.

RegDwigнt

Who cares how Rus is pronounced in Russian. It's just a label for a thing.

And so I just write Rus.

As indeed do many others.

Cerberus

Right.

RegDwigнt

And now I have to run.

Cerberus

One needs to strike a balance between precision and practicality.

RegDwigнt

00:12

I forgot my laundry in the cellar like five hours ago.

And my bro will be at the door in a matter of hours. It needs to get dry until then.

Cerberus

(Still confused why some people would render the hard sign as y, but, oh, well.)

Bai!

RegDwigнt

Not to mention the salad.

Cerberus

Good luck.

RegDwigнt

Actually I will mention the salad.

Cerberus

So I've noticed.

RegDwigнt

00:13

Because the name of the salad is оливье.

Cerberus

Hah.

RegDwigнt

And there you have it again.

Cerberus

Olive?

RegDwigнt

NOOOOOOO

Cerberus

I mean, the meaning.

RegDwigнt

00:13

or are you trolling me on purpose now.

Cerberus

Not the translitteration.

RegDwigнt

Olivier.

Cerberus

Ahh.

RegDwigнt

Not Olive, not Oliver. Olivier. French once again.

Cerberus

I see a soft consonant and a ye sound.

RegDwigнt

00:14

Just like the "-vier" is pronounced in French.

Not how it's pronounced in German, though.

Cerberus

I gathered.

RegDwigнt

But that'S a subject for another night.

ПУФ!

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt So without the soft sign, it would be soft v + e, without the required /j/ sound.

Bai!

Robusto

01:19

@Cerberus No phi in po-russki, only ef.

Cerberus

I know.

Robusto

Jul 18 '11 at 20:29, by Robusto

I once drove through Kansas, north to south, at night. There was a full moon and I was in a convertible, and eventually to keep from falling asleep I switched off the headlights and drove by moonlight. True story.

So obviously I've been there.

@Cerberus Are there any double-phi words in Greek?

Jul 18 '11 at 20:28, by Robusto

Nobody really lives in Kansas, either. Not really.

I mean, you don't call that living, per se.

On the plus side, Kansas just elected a woman Democrat governor. So maybe they're on the road to recovery.

@cornbread has to be kind of stoked about that.

Even though she lives in the next state over, which went stupid.

Cerberus

@Robusto No, I don't believe that would be possible.

They would probably write pi phi if the phi had to be doubled.

Robusto

@Cerberus Why would it "have" to be doubled?

Cerberus

I think it is a spelling rule that one cannot write the same aspirated letter twice in a row.

I'm not sure why.

Because one can write two different aspirated letters in a row, like phi theta.

Sappho

Sappho (; Aeolic Greek Ψαπφώ Psapphô; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by a lyre. Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has survived only in fragmentary form, except for one complete poem: the "Ode to Aphrodite". As well as lyric poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Sappho wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Three epigrams attributed to Sappho are extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style. Little is known of Sappho's life. She was from...

Robusto

01:29

Was the phi aspirated more than English f?

Cerberus

I think pi phi just indicated a "lengthened" phi, but it isn't phi phi.

@Robusto Yes: I would say English f is not aspirated at all, while phi is /pʰ/.

So a p with an attached h sound.

Robusto

So the lips come together with phi, like a plosive?

Cerberus

Just as theta was /tʰ/ and chi /kʰ/.

@Robusto Exactly.

Robusto

So how would Sappho's name lengthen that? More air?

Cerberus

In later (postclassical?) Greek, phi came to be pronounced like f.

@Robusto Good question: I'm not entirely sure whether we are certain, but I believe it's more like a short pause between the preceding vowel and the plosive.

Robusto

01:32

Sounds difficult to produce in ordinary speech.

Cerberus

The pause lengthens the syllable (though a plosive can indeed not be literally lengthened).

@Robusto Well, Italian also has double plosives that don't change the quality of the preceding vowel.

Robusto

I wonder if all "difficult" sounds in languages eventually erode to slacker diction.

Cerberus

I once did an experiment with an Italian friend, where he would say the ga- bit of gato and gatto, and I was supposed to tell which word it was the beginning of. And I think we believed the difference was that tt just indicated that there was to be a short pause before the /t/ sound.

@Robusto That is a common tendency.

But what is considered difficult changes: for those 'difficult' sounds must have once been new and hence not difficult.

Assuming people don't naturally introduce new sounds that are considered difficult in the language.

Difficult sounds can come from foreign languages, though.

Or they can be the result of morpheme boundaries touching, probably.

Robusto

@Cerberus That's kinda what happens in Japanese. kata vs. -katta, the first t in the latter represents an empty syllable. In 食べなかった ("did not eat") that hole is indicated by the small tsu.

Cerberus

Right!

Robusto

01:42

Interesting.

Cerberus

In Dutch (and to some degree in English), double consonants only indicate a qualitative change in the preceding vowel—the consonant itself doesn't sound longer.

A pot is a pot; a paw is a poot.

Robusto

@Cerberus I was just about to say that.

Cerberus

Two pots is potten, paws is poten.

Which is kind of a consequence of how we pronounce the vowel differently when it's an open syllable.

It's pot-ten, but po-ten.

Robusto

Is a potten all rotten
Or just misbegotten?
Or is it because
Your poten is paws?

Cerberus

And po (open syllable) has an o with a different sound than the o in pot (closed syllable). The open o sounds the same as oo (which, by the way, is different from English o).

Hah.

Though the numbers do look weird in your little poem!

Robusto

01:46

Dutch seems like what happened when English and German had a baby.

@Cerberus What numbers?

Cerberus

"A potten".

Robusto

It's still only a single word.

Yes. Ironically, English is now the lingua franca! — Robusto 52 secs ago

Cerberus

All the Robusto are right.

Robusto

As always.

@Cerberus Actually, the plural of Robusto is Robusteaux.

So it all works out. Phonetically, anyway.

Gary

haven't logged in for a long time.. but just saw this:

ibb.co/j0NCxq

best thing since sliced bread I love it, that's the spirit!

ibb.co/j0NCxq

Robusto

02:02

GOP Jesus:

GOP Jesus

►

Gary

haha

Cerberus

@Robusto Ah, so each one of your multiple personalities is a Robustel or Robustal?

@Gary I agree!

Robusto

@Cerberus Mais oui !

Cerberus

@Robusto Hah.

Robusto

03:15

-1

A: Use of "Some" when referring to quantities

No, it is not a good style at all. In fact, the two clauses do not logically belong together (is the sentence that they form about sources of protein or the fishing industry?), unless that sentence happens to be the only text contained in whatever it is you read.

This answer is insane and should be burned with fire.

Cerberus

-1

Robusto

@Cerberus Look at the comments too.

When confronted with facts, he doubles down on his delusion.

Cerberus

03:36

I noticed.

hbtpoprock

04:25

@KannE Thanks :)

@KannE Thanks

KannE

04:47

@Robusto I reluctantly put in an answer to 'fix' that. Will it be downvoted for being GR...or something else (IYO)? Thank you.

@hbtpoprock You're welcome. Enjoy your weekend.

hbtpoprock

05:14

@KannE Btw, is "What's the name of the girl who won the tennis tournament?" = "What's the name of the girl won the tennis tournament?" please?

But somehow I don't think it is correct. Hahaha

Cerberus

No, that is not correct indeed.

hbtpoprock

Can you help me review my post? I wonder whether I need to add something more to it?

1

Q: Omitting relative pronoun?

We can omit relative pronoun when: The relative clause is non-defining clause, and the pronoun is the subject of the relative clause with the verb "be" (NOT verb to be). My mother, who is an excellent cook, is thinking of opening a restaurant. My mother, an excellent cook, is t...

By the way, it's on ELL.

@Cerberus ..

SmokeDetector

07:29

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Url in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +2 more (492): amazonhealthstore.com/where-to-buy-praltrix-za/ by jharleschen on english.SE

hbtpoprock

09:06

Can anyone tell me whether we can omit this sentence please?
"Clare, **who is** working with me, is doing the London marathon this year."
Could it be "Clare, working with me, is doing the London marathon this year." instead?

KannE

13:26

@hbtpoprock No, they're not the same. The first one is correct. You can't omit who in this case because the verb is won (not winning). Review Reducing Relative Clauses again, and if it's still unclear to you, I will do my best to explain it in clearer detail. Have a good day.

In case you can't find our prior messages, here is the link again: writingcenter.unc.edu/relative-clauses.

Mitch

13:51

@hbtpoprock There's always nuance.

"Clare, working with me, is doing the London marathon this year." There is a problem with this but i don't think it is grammatical.

"Clare, working with me, is training for the London marathon this year." sounds perfetly fine to me.

KannE

@hbtpoprock I know, it gets more and more complicated, doesn't it? While the following statement (found in the source linked above) is true (Subject pronouns with “be” verbs can be deleted in non-restrictive clauses.), in this case the verb--is working--is not just a "be" verb (such as is), so to speak. I hope that makes sense. I will search for a source that states that more accurately or explicitly.

Dan Bron