English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Ted E

12:44

Hi there. I would like to find a textbook that contains explanations for concepts like: Propositions; predicates; prepositions; clauses; transitive, and intransitive verbs; objects; agents; valency; et cetera....

Unfortunately I don't know what word categorises these notions, and whenever I try to search, I find textbooks that don't really fit what I want. I'm a native English speaker, but I have very little knowledge about the theory of language, or whatever you would call the field in which these notions are studied.

M.A.R.

@TedE Does CamGEL not cover those?

@Robusto 🎆

Ted E

13:01

I googled camGEL english language and got nothing.

Oh, I've found it now.

Yes, this looks excellent, thank you :).

M.A.R.

@TedE Oh, sorry, I thought you were acquainted with it. Cambridge Grammar of English Language, G. K. Pullum, R. Huddleston et al.

@TedE Great!

@TedE The first two chapters are very good, BTW.

Must-read

Ted E

13:21

I find it slightly surprising that they would write "English is the single most important language in the world". (Not to say that it bothers me)

Kit Z. Fox

13:41

@Mitch Ah yes, Imbolc. A lovely celebration.

Mitch

15:29

@KitZ.Fox Hm...never heard of it. Nice to know it exists. I've been looking for a celebration somewhere in those long hard months of January/February, because xmas is wasted being at the beginning of the awfulness. We need a party when it's at its darkest, just to split it up instead of having it last for effing forever.

But I'm guessing Spring starts earlier in Ireland than here. March is so disappointing. It says 'Spring' on the calendar, but it's still awful outside. Maybe not frigid, but c'mon.

@TedE That does sound a bit... arrogant, but it's not wrong. Given a list of languages, and a list of languages people know, and the country you're in, then of all those combinations, English more often comes in at the top, and no other comes at the top as often.

Not exactly the best characterization, but of people who use Duolingo, the only one that's not English at the top is Swedish in Sweden (presumably by immigrants trying to learn Swedish). I'm sure there's a chart somewhere.

Ooh...my memory is still working...Most popular languages being studied

Ted E

I've heard people say 'I guess it really just comes down to semantics at that point', could one use the same sentence, with the word pragmatics in place of semantics?

Mitch

Of course all sorts of bias. That's just duolingo, it's people -learning- languages, it doesn't show the relative amount to 2nd place, etc etc etc.

maybe another etc.

@TedE Sure, but it would mean something slightly different.

since the two words mean something slightly different

Ted E

Sure, I just meant was it grammatically correct.

@Mitch I guess it really just comes down to pragmatics. Depending on how they are defining 'importance' in this context.

Mitch

The whole idea of parts of speech is to allow you to replace one word with another of the same part of speech and have it still be grammatical. Could be nonsense but at least grammatical.

@TedE 'context' might be the better word than semantics or pragmatics.

Ted E

In the sense that the 'importance' of English presently comes from its dominance, not from any overt superiority. I.e. if a god were to remove the English language form existence, but endow all of its speakers with an equal ability to talk Spanish or some other language, we'd be fine. (I'm assuming they make all corresponding changes to written text, signs etc)

Mitch

15:43

because 'important is vaguer and needs specifying by context.

@TedE oh sure.

I don't think there's any implication of inherent superiority of communication. The authors are linguists and they know that that's meaningless.

Because of it's importance for so many years in this and the past century, during which a lot of science and technology was produced, English has a bigger vocabulary in those fields that others tend not to (and they tend to borrow from English).

Except Chinese and Japanese, they tend to make up their own.

@M.A.R. You look different.

New glasses?

Haircut?

Ted E

Well in regard to choosing to use the word pragmatics, or semantics, I'm really saying that I think I have some other idea of what is signified by the word 'importance' than they do.

M.A.R.

@Mitch No it's the haircut

Mitch

Oh

Me too

M.A.R.

@TedE Isn't the cover-all layman term "semantics"?

Ted E

That being said, I haven't got up to the part of the text where they define these notions - I'm just running with what they've mentioned in the introduction.

M.A.R.

15:48

There are a myriad of scientific distinctions that don't take place in ordinary conversation, esp. figures of speech

Ted E

@M.A.R. Sure, but the text you recommended seems to select pragmatics out as being within semantics.

Mitch

I have no idea. CGEL seems like a very heavy thing to try to read.

Not necessarily heavy intellectually.

I'm saying it is physically heavy.

Many many pages.

Ted E

(Or maybe they partitioned them - I'd have to look again)

Mitch

Useful for pressing flowers

Ted E

@Mitch lol

M.A.R.

15:49

@TedE Heh, I'm not remotely knowledgeable enough to meaningfully "recommend" texts. It's just that it's the most comprehensive analysis of the English language

And the bread and butter of every linguist in English

@Mitch Well computers solve that problem

Except they're heavy too, hmm

Ted E

Oh sure, I'll try to read 10 pages a day until it's done, hopefully I'll know something then.

brb

Mitch

@TedE Huh. That may be their organization. In the classic linguistics curriculum there's: Phonology (for mouth sounds), syntax (and morhpology) for putting words together, Semantics for meaning (whatever that means) and pragmatics (for implications of utterances).

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch Well, climate was different back when the holidays were widely celebrated.

M.A.R.

What are the properties of two-headed people that live on an island beyond the ocean? — Ivan Neretin 7 hours ago

Mitch

But really, there might be a class on pragmatics but it's likely to be squeezed into maybe a class or two of a broader semantics class, because really who cares except high school debate teams and lawyers.

M.A.R.

15:52

High school lawyers

Pragmatics is classy

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox There should be more animal totem days. Convert all the saints days into animal days.

@M.A.R. I don't know. What are the properties of those two headed people?

M.A.R.

They have two heads

Mitch

Huh.

I wouldn't have figured it was that simple.

M.A.R.

I know it's a shock

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch convert them back to that?

Mitch

15:55

@KitZ.Fox But pagans... so superstitious

Kit Z. Fox

I gotta eat some food if I'm going to interact with humans.

Mitch

Same here.

Oh... you mean now.

That's pragmatics!

@TedE Or pragmatics comes out more in a sociolinguistics concentration.

Kit Z. Fox

well, I was assuming you were human. That's not proper, but I haven't eaten yet.

Mitch

It seems kinda weird that pragmatics gets it's own.

@KitZ.Fox Thanks, I think.

Kit Z. Fox

yeah probably

Mitch

15:58

You seem to be doing OK so far though.

CowperKettle

Interesting. The francofone part of Africa studies English, the anglofone part studies French

Mitch

Hm...interesting.

And the balkans tend toward German.

CowperKettle

And a little bit of Africa studies German

I don't even know the name of that country

Mitch

going back to look at the map

CowperKettle

Namibia

Mitch

16:00

Oh... that's South West Africa/Namibia

which used to be a German colony

(not Dutch?)

CowperKettle

It has a huge territory but it's population is like two Yekaterinburgs

It has three types of climate, which are all subtypes of desert.

Mitch

@CowperKettle That sounds like splitting hairs.

CowperKettle

Weather in Windhoek: +32°C

Mitch

On a bald guy.

CowperKettle

In Yekaterinburg, it reached +32°C this year - for a couple of days.

Mitch

16:04

@CowperKettle Is Yekaterinburg higher up in the mountains, or is it in the plains/steppe/flatter part nearby?

CowperKettle

@Mitch There are hills all over Yekaterinburg

Mitch

Nice.

CowperKettle

Because it's in the Ural Mountains, which are really hills.

Konzhakovsky Kamen reaches 1550 meters, but that's several hundred km to the north

Mitch

Or not. Depending on how much you like hills

CowperKettle

The highest mountain in our region

I climbed it twice

Mitch

16:07

How long did it take?

Does it have trees on the very top?

CowperKettle

A good runner can run up there and back in a day, there is a marathon event held each summer, with visitors from all other the world

No, the trees end at about 1200 meters I'd say

When you descend from the top, the wind is very lound, and it ceases only when you reach the first "arctic" trees, which are quite low and stumped and twisted.

I was amazed to learn that in Scotland the mountains are also very low, not exceeding Konzhakovsky Kamen in height

Конжак (марафон)

Марафон «Конжак» — российское соревнование по скайраннингу. До 2013 года квалифицировался как горный бег. В 2013 году получил статус всероссийского спортивного соревнования по альпинизму (скайраннингу).Проводится ежегодно в первую субботу июля на горе Конжаковский Камень (высота 1569 м), наивысшей точке Свердловской области. Дистанция — 35-37 км, разность высот — 1225 м. То есть в строгом смысле слова забег марафоном не является. Первый забег прошёл в 1996 году, в нём приняли участие 14 человек. В 2013 г. финишировало 1304 человека. В 2001 году Михаил Сумочкин (Казань) пробежал дистанцию за 2 часа...

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox oh weird...doing the dive into wikipedia, it ooks like the big 4 Gaelic festivals Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain— were all midway between the equinoxes/solstices.

CowperKettle

Here's the page about the marathon event on that mountain.

The distance is from 35 to 37 kilometers, up the summit and back

The record is 2 hours 55 minutes

Or 3 hours 35 minutes (women)

But the majority of participants do it quite slowly

Because there are stone runs there

Stone run

A stone run (called also stone river, stone stream or stone sea) is a rock landform resulting from the erosion of particular rock varieties caused by freezing-thawing cycles in periglacial conditions during the last Ice Age.The actual formation of stone runs involved five processes: weathering, solifluction, frost heaving, frost sorting, and washing. The stone runs are essentially different from moraines, rock glaciers, and rock flows or other rock phenomena involving the actual flow of rock blocks under stress that is sufficient to break down the cement or to cause crushing of the angularities...

You can easily break a leg there

So there are medical teams on the watch during the marathon

Mitch

Hm...I think maybe I'd walk.

CowperKettle

@Mitch You can travel to Yekaterinburg and take a walk, find the website and enroll

There are some foreighers taking part very often

Mitch

16:29

I think I could do a marathon if it were walking and downhill. And I could take a lunch in the middle.

There's a mountain not too far from here that I've been up a few times, not too much smaller than ... well, 3000 ft ~ 1000M ? and you walk through tall forest that slowly gets shorter and more stumpy as you get higher and then it's barren at the top. But somehow going down is a lot harder (depends on different trails), because the main trial going down is all rock boulders. and by the time you get to the bottom you're all shaken up from slamming down your feet and knees and hips on the boulders.

Kit Z. Fox

16:52

@Mitch Yes, there are eight spokes on the wheel -- four quarter days and four half-quarter days.

The quarter days being the ... high holy days? on the equinoxes and solstices. iirc. I might have that backwards.

The wheel representing the year and the turning of time in general.

The Goddess is constant although she waxes and wanes because moon. The God dies and is reborn every year because sun.

Mitch

I think we need a third thing just to add variety.

Like maybe random comets?

Kit Z. Fox

shrugs OK

Mitch

"Oh there's a comet coming. Let's party"?

Kit Z. Fox

Makes sense to me.

Mitch

We need more comets.

We should get our scientists to work on that.

Did you eat?

It takes me a couple hours after getting up to be presentable to people.

well, in my own estimation. Others may have other ideas.

> The first thing a teenager wants when they first arrive in the kitchen in the morning is a thorough evaluation and questioning of how they slept. Really press them on this.

Kit Z. Fox

17:09

I did eat.

CowperKettle

I'm waiting for fox-and-bull stories

Mitch

Are there any?

CowperKettle

I dunno, but since there's a bull and a fox in the chat, there might be

Mitch

I think you should offer tea then

CowperKettle

offers tea

Mitch

17:13

takes tea

So, there was once a bull...

wait... do you want a new Aesop's fable or maybe some Alice in Wonderland?

If A-in-W, then it would seem more natural for you to participate.

Nice, then it's decided, A-in-W.

So, there was once a bull.

Your turn.

Kit Z. Fox

takes tea

are ... are there biscuits?

CowperKettle

offers biscuits

Kit Z. Fox

thank you

tucks tail around feet

So once there was a bull. Its name was Harold, but everyone called him Mitch and he was too polite to correct them.

Harold had a friend named Jakob who was a fox with a splendid fluffy tail.

Mitch

Now that everyone's comfortable, I'd just like to bring up the somewhat serious matter of this name stuff.

leaves room to get more biscuits

Kit Z. Fox

waits politely for more biscuits

Mitch

17:21

ah... well, are toll house cookies OK?

Kit Z. Fox

Yes, thank you.

Mitch

Great. So Teapot... um... if I may address you like that... well, have a cookie. they're pretty good.

CowperKettle

takes a cookie

Mitch

I don't mean to be rude, if that's the right word, but I'm having an onion.

Not an entire one, that would be too much. Just a quarter.

Kit Z. Fox

oh please, not at all, be comfortable

it is your turn for the story though

Mitch

17:25

Thanks. Hopefully the cookies will eliminate any untoward scents.

@KitZ.Fox What?

I brought up the name thing.

No one has responded to that.

Kit Z. Fox

oh

Mitch

Aired their issues so to speak.

Kit Z. Fox

I didn't know that was part of the story.

Mitch

or maybe it's just me.

Oh. Hold on.

Yes, you're right.

But it could also be the teapot's turn.

Um...

Kit Z. Fox

are we telling the story or are we being the story?

Mitch

17:27

The field that bull was standing in was particularly muddy. But the bull didn't care. Only his hooves got messy. But for the fox... that was a situation.

@KitZ.Fox Yes?

Oh. Telling.

But sometimes we interrupt ourselves.

So as not to get too messy.

In the muddy field

I'm sure there's something in the muddy field.

Kit Z. Fox

The fox was muddy to their chin, and quite concerned about the rather bedraggled state of their tail.

So concerned that they didn't notice the thing in the field.

Until the bull pointed it out.

Mitch

A dirty fox.

Kit Z. Fox

Quite.

Mitch

Well, it's not a teapot in the field, that would be weird.

Kit Z. Fox

What about a kettle then?

or is that too obvious?

Mitch

17:30

Oh.

Um.

Sure.

Kit Z. Fox

It's shiny.

Mitch

Wait...

pots are black

kettles are not

Kit Z. Fox

...

Mitch

I sense the world falling apart before my eyes.

Kit Z. Fox

This is too much.

I need more tea.

Mitch

17:32

@Malavika Feel free to jump in any time with anything whatsoever.

Kit Z. Fox

We're making up a story.

Mitch

What is that thing in the field?

It doesn't look like it belongs there.

My natural inclination would be to take a nap to avoid having to think it over.

I suppose you wouldn't expect that of a bull. More like a bear.

Oh. OMG. Now I get it. Bullish and bearish. I get it now. Is that where it all came from?

Kit Z. Fox

Yes.

I mean, probably.

Mitch

I need to meet some more bulls and bears.

Well, maybe not really meet them.

But the pot and kettle thing. I don't know how to process that now.

So there's this thing in the field I don't want to deal with, the fox is all muddy, and we're all out of tea.

Kit Z. Fox

It's a shiny thing. Maybe we can make more tea in it.

Mitch

17:37

It's probably muddy though.

You know.

Given all the mud?

Kit Z. Fox

well we would need water for tea anyway

and water can be used for washing

then I could do something about my tail

Mitch

Good point.

Kit Z. Fox

sulks

Mitch

I know where there's a stream.

Kit Z. Fox

OK. I will follow you.

Mitch

17:38

There's quite often one nearby a field.

But sure, I know where there's a stream nearby.

Did you want to come with? It might look a little strange for a bull, a fox, and a kettle, walking through a field together.

Maybe I'm overthinking this.

let's just go.

(I'm still wondering how that kettle got to the middle of the field without me noticing, it's not like I'm not hardly ever not there. Bulls, fields, you get it I'm sure)

Yeah, at the edge of the field, down a bit, where the line of trees is separating us from the next field over, there's a winding stream.

there's a short rickety bridge where the tractors go over, and the kids avoid altogether because someone told them there's a troll under the bridge and they don't even know what a troll is and anyway it's barely big enough under there for the woodchuck who really does live there.

Kit Z. Fox

I'll run ahead and scrub my face a bit.

I'll meet you at Roger the woodchuck's then?

Mitch

Woodchucks look like squirrels that are just really jolly.

I'm just adding that for local color.

@KitZ.Fox Sure.

Wait, that's his name?

Thanks for telling me before we got there. I'm always forgetting names.

Don't eat the woodchuck. That's uncool man.

Kit Z. Fox

Bulls don't eat woodchuck!

Mitch

Uh. Roger.

@KitZ.Fox Yeah, that's right.

Kit Z. Fox

And my name is Jakob.

for the purposes of this story.

Mitch

17:47

I think... never mind.

So Jakob, how long have you been a fox?

I've been a bull as long as I can remember.

At least since before the beginning of this story.

I'm glad that thing in the field wasn't a monolith.

That story didn't end so well for everybody.

I mean, as a lifelong bull, I don't see many movies, but that one...OMG.

Kit Z. Fox

I think I've been a fox all my life.

Mitch

Cool cool cool.

Kit Z. Fox

I read the triology and I remember that I enjoyed them very much.

Mitch

I read the Dune trilogy, loved the first one and third one, but I don't know what it was about the 2nd one but it made me... I don't know... really depressed? Or just felt really bad but not depressed, where bad != depressed? Do you know what I mean?

I mean, I finished the book, so it can't have been that awful.

Kit Z. Fox

Like dread?

Broody?

Mitch

17:54

or maybe it was that awful and a I felt a compulsion to end it, whatever I felt.

more dread than broodiness.

Kit Z. Fox

I thought there were more than three books in that series.

Mitch

but it wasn't anxiety about something

Kit Z. Fox

I loved the first one. I know I at least read the second, but I don't remember if I finished it or read another.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox Uh...yeah, I think it kept going. But at the time I stopped at 3. So in my head I remember it as a trilogy.

also, all the classics are trilogies.

Kit Z. Fox

I see. Makes sense

Mitch

17:55

Foundation

LotR

Kit Z. Fox

Rama

Robots

Mitch

CSLewis... whatever his Venus and Mars thing was

pretty much everything else I read as a kid.

Kit Z. Fox

I never read anything other than the Narnia books.

Mitch

Not the Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe

Kit Z. Fox

of his

Mitch

17:56

that was 7

like the Little House on the Prairie series.

Kit Z. Fox

Mirror Has Two Faces? That title popped into my head

Pern books were in trilogies, I think, and all the Dragonlance books.

Mitch

Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandia (?), The something Something of Something?

There was one about the not too distant future where these aliens had colonized earth and the aliens had biology based on threes and lived in domes and sometimes the took humans to be house slaves and they had to wear weird breathing apparati inside the domes and eventually some escaped and rode balloons with explosives to wreck the domes and make the aliens go away.

Kit Z. Fox

hmm, that sounds interesting

and unfamiliar

Mitch

The Space Trilogy

The Space Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third. == Contents == === Summary === The books in the trilogy are: Out of the Silent Planet (1938), set mostly on Mars (Malacandra). In this book, Elwin Ransom voyages to Mars and discovers that Earth is exiled from the rest of the Solar System. Far back in Earth's past, it fell to an angelic being known as the Bent Oyarsa, and now, to preve...

that's not the aliens one

ah... googling found it very quickly. because obvious:

The Tripods

The Tripods is a series of young adult novels written by John Christopher, beginning in 1967. The first two were the basis of a science fiction TV series, produced in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. == Synopsis == The story of The Tripods is a variation on post-apocalyptic literature, wherein humanity has been enslaved by "Tripods" — gigantic three-legged walking machines, piloted by unseen alien entities (later identified as "Masters"). Human society is largely pastoral, with few habitations larger than villages, and what little industry exists is conducted under the watchful presence of the...

faintly reminiscent of Watership Down somehow.

Kit Z. Fox

Oh I'm late! I must go. Thank you for sharing it. I will catch up again sometime.

Mitch

18:03

Later!

M.A.R.

19:42

@Mitch Is that one the story about the tripods?

Mitch

21:02

@M.A.R. Yeah, you can tell because there are tripods in it, and they mention 'Tripods' in the title and in the wikpedia page.

M.A.R.

@Mitch Pfft, talk about subtlety

Mitch

23:20

@M.A.R. There's a lot of nuance there.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…