English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

MrHen

22:00

@Martha Sure, but "it" is still referring to something and could be replaced with another word and not break the sentence

Cerberus

In "it's raining", there is nothing that "it" could conceivably be a substitute for; in "it was Rachel who did it", "it" is clearly a substitute for "Rachel".

MrHen

@Cerberus Or any other word that ends up pointing to Rachel. Such as "she."

Which... actually sounds horrid: She was Rachel who did it

nohat

@Cerberus but you can't put any other word besides 'it' in "it was Rachel who did it". Any other word in place of the first 'it' would make an ungrammatical sentence.

Cerberus

Interestingly, in Greek, you could say "rains" to indicate "it is raining"; as an alternative, you could say "Zeus rains"; so you could say that "he" is implicit in Greek "rains". Note that in Greek personal pronouns can be left out at any time if they are subjects.

Martha

Hey sis!

Cerberus

22:02

@Nohat: True. But do you disagree that "it" serves as some kind of substitute?

MrHen

@nohat Yeah, I guess I get to back peddle on that.

It looks like you are right.

nohat

It's a dummy pronoun. It doesn't stand for anything. It just takes up a slot in the syntax that can't be empty.

Martha

@JPmiaou, Can you explain why it's "it is they who lied" rather than "it is them who lied"?

Cerberus

I suppose a case could be made for saying that "it" is identical in function to "there" in "there's nothing here".

MrHen

But that does explain one of the problems Reg and I were having way back when

Okay, that makes sense now

Cerberus

22:04

@Nohat: That would be the most accurate description in a purely functionalist approach.

MrHen

Okay, to pop up the question stack:

It is he who has come to save us.

John is he who has come to save us.

That still seems to work.

Cerberus

Yes.

MrHen

But that "it" is the same as "It is Rachel who did it."

Cerberus

But "John is him who has come to save us" would also work, if it weren't an odd mix of formal and informal registers.

MrHen

It is John who has come to save us.

Cerberus

22:06

Yes.

MrHen

"Him who did it" sounds wrong to me

Why does "It is" change that?

Cerberus

That is not a complete sentence.

Oh, I see.

The reason is that "him" is much more frequent as a subject complement than as a subject.

The same applies to them, her, etc.

nohat

@MrHen as I was saying before because phrases of the form "<personal pronoun> who <verb phrase>" are very formal

RegDwight

Aha, another linguist. Welcome, @JSBangs. You're still not too late to the party.

MrHen

@nohat Okay. I don't know why that affects things here. Does it just sound funny because I don't hear it often?

Cerberus

22:09

Him that did it is over there: sounds like very informal dialect, probably rural or something; it's him that did it: sounds somewhat informal but very frequent, you will hear this a lot.

RegDwight

I think this is officially the longest thread any question on any site of the network has ever generated.

MrHen

@RegDwight "Officially"? Isn't that sort of like misusing "literally"? ;)

JPmiaou

@Martha I don't remember the terminology, so probably not. (Syntax was my least-favorite linguistics class.)

Cerberus

@MrHen: No, Reg is an official here.

RegDwight

@MrHen No, "officially" means "according to RegDwight".

Jinx!

MrHen

22:11

Ah, I see.

Cerberus

Hehe.

RegDwight

Feb 17 at 19:07, by RegDwight

I'm on all sites 24/7.

That makes me totally official, you know.

Cerberus

You get the difference between subject and subject complement, @Mrhen?

MrHen

@RegDwight I completely agree.

Cerberus

Frequency = officialdom.

MrHen

22:11

@Cerberus Actually no. I was about to ask.

Cerberus

I am a teacher: I = subject; a teacher = subject complement.

MrHen

I figured I'd let the conversation take a breath first :)

Cerberus

"Him" as subject is rare; "him" as subject complement is very common.

MrHen

How about "A teacher am I"? Same labels?

JPmiaou

(Quickly skimming chat...) In "It is Rachel who did it", the (first) "it" can't be replaced with any other word. Test it: try putting "Rachel" in its place. "Rachel is Rachel..."?

Cerberus

22:13

There you have inversion: I is still subject, teacher still complement.

MrHen

@JPmiaou What about "John is he who did it?"

RegDwight

@MrHen Just don't mention girls. That will make Cerberus go berserk and forget all his subjects and their complements in one fell swoop.

Cerberus

Or "that is he who did it".

@Reg: Nooo don't do this to me...

RegDwight

For those who feel they are a bit late to the party, here's a handy link to the beginning of the discussion:

1 hour ago, by RegDwight

This is another question that just won't stop popping up:

MrHen

@RegDwight I could mention my wife.

JPmiaou

22:14

@MrHen That just sounds wrong. Why not just "John did it?"

Cerberus

I am supposed to meet people in a bar in 5 minutes!

MrHen

@JPmiaou It doesn't sound "wrong" to me, just odd or old.

I'm not disagreeing though. I think it would make sense if it were wrong.

JPmiaou

Is there a version of "semantic satiation" that applies to entire sentences?

'Cause I think I've got it.

RegDwight

@JPmiaou Semantic sentensation? Sentantic satiation?

MrHen

@JPmiaou Considering I have no idea what side I am on anymore...

I started out disagreeing with Reg and now I think we are agreeing

Same with Cerberus

But I have always disagreed with @Martha ;)

(Not really. I don't actually have a strong opinion about this.)

Just really curious and apparently very wrong.

Cerberus

22:17

@JPM: It is called Sentential Semantic Satiation. Stare at THAT!

RegDwight

►

Martha

@MrHen pbbbbblll!

Cerberus

@MrHen: I still don't see any real problem! There are just different options. Perhaps a real example with real context could be commented on in a more practical manner.

MrHen

I don't think I could actually learn anything at this point anyway

3

RegDwight

@MrHen Welcome to the club!

Cerberus

22:19

Said one of the gods, probably a minor diety, who was omniscient, but still a lowly servant.

MrHen

@Cerberus Well, there was a point buried in here somewhere. I no longer have any idea what it was.

Cerberus

Stick to that feeling! It becomes you.

RegDwight

Feb 17 at 18:51, by RegDwight

►

MrHen

Okay, I'm out. See you guys later.

Cerberus

Hey, why was my "fuck" changed to f*ck" in the starred lines? Is that policy? How very American...

MrHen

22:21

Thanks for the "help" everyone

JPmiaou

I'm pretty sure that the "it" in "It is John who lied" is exactly like the one in "It rained": it's a placeholder, because English doesn't allow a verb to stand without a subject.

Cerberus

Bye Mr!

RegDwight

@MrHen Nice talking to ya. Laterz.

MrHen

@JPmiaou I think that was the consensus with a few odd examples left unexplained or ignored

JPmiaou

Gotta go figure out what's for dinner...

Cerberus

22:23

@JPM: Yeah it is a placeholder all right... but with "it is she" an antecedent can be conceived of, as opposed to "it rained".

Unless you follow the Greeks, who considered it a placeholder for Zeus there.

I must be off too, later!

Martha

@JPmiaou, courtesy of the Frying Pan (aka Cooking chat): try this

JPmiaou

@Cerberus I can conceive of an antecedent for "it rained": the weather, a cloud, the outdoors...

Cerberus

@JPM: "The weather rained"? That doesn't sound as OK as "this person here is Rachel" for "it is Rachel"...

RegDwight

@Cerberus Not American, Russian. Pre-emptive measures.

Feb 18 at 17:31, by Michael Myers

Let's make things more clear: Don't use such words here unless you're actually discussing language. Same policy as on the main site.

I wouldn't have touched it, but it got starred and featured prominently. I don't want that to be the first thing new users get to see.

Cerberus

@Reg: Russian as in communist censorship? Or is this site owned by Russians?

Yeah I don't mind. I think it is a bit silly to censor in a way that it is still quite clear what the word is, but it doesn't matter.

RegDwight

22:30

@Cerberus Yes, I tried to walk a fine line there. I may have succeeded or failed, whatever.

Cerberus

@Reg: Yeah don't worry. I just feel obliged to point out such things whenever I see them, an OCD thing.

Okay now I'm really gone. Bye!

Billare

0

Q: What are the principles that make certain lists sound euphonious?

Has this ever happened to you: You write a question, include a list or two in the discussion, and then come back to edit that list because the order doesn't sound "right"? Off the top of my head, I can remember it happening to me twice here on English L&U: I changed God, man, and nature to r...

HAWT new question.

Must answer, Cerebus.

URgh!

Cerberus.

RegDwight

@Billare D'oh, the answer is so obvious that I don't even want to get the points for it. I'll post it as a comment.

Go me!

Billare

lol

JSBangs

so i just read through the backlog, at least partly

looked like i missed most of the action

RegDwight

22:48

@JSBangs You can still say, "you're all totally wrong, here's how it really works".

JSBangs

you're all totally wrong, here's how it really works

RegDwight

Thank you.

See? Wasn't that hard.

JSBangs

much easier than disentangling the subtleties of English case marking, that's for sure

RegDwight

When oh when will we drop cases altogether? Zero should be enough for everybody.

JSBangs

is there a meaningful difference between one case and zero cases?

also, don't you speak Russian? cases galore, there

RegDwight

22:52

Sure. Cases all over the place. Six if you ask school teachers, a few more if you look closer.

Vocative, locative, partitive...

JSBangs

and the russians seem to like it fine

now if we could get some finns or hungarians in here we'd really have a party

RegDwight

Yup. I like myself some cases early in the morning.

JSBangs

(of case-marking)

Martha

I keep telling people, Hungarian doesn't have an unusual number of cases.

RegDwight

Mar 16 at 1:23, by Martha

Hungarian doesn't have 15 cases either. People just count wrong.

JSBangs

22:54

who said that 15 was unusual?

btw, i hold that English has 4 cases

Martha

Just because we attach the preposition to the noun doesn't magically turn it into a case marking.

JSBangs

are they really more like enclitics?

RegDwight

@Martha The same argument could be made about English.

Martha

What are enclitics?

(Have I mentioned I'm not the linguist in the family?)

RegDwight

Clitic

In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase.[http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsACliticGrammar.htm SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is a clitic?] It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level. Clitics may belong to any grammatical category, though they are commonly pronouns, determiners, or adpositions. Note that orthography is not a good guide for identifying clitics: clitics may be written as independent words, bound affixes, or separated by ...

JSBangs

22:57

yes, that'd be the one

RegDwight

@JSBangs BTW, four? Not five? No love for the vocative?

JSBangs

i find it hard to justify counting the vocative

but if you don't care, we can throw it in for five:
I punch rabbits.
Rabbits bite me.
She punched me a rabbit.
She bit my rabbit.
Bite me, o rabbit!

RegDwight

I count accusative two, genitive zero.

JSBangs

that's nom, acc, dat, gen, and voc, in order, of the 1sg pron (except that for the voc example i used rabbit)

RegDwight

Ugh. I would say nom and acc are reversed, and the only thing that is gen in the fourth example is the my.

JSBangs

23:02

er, right

i can't edit now, so let me repost

**I** punch rabbits. (nom)
Rabbits bite **me**. (acc)
She punched **me** a rabbit. (dat)
She bit **my** rabbit. (gen)
Bite me, **o rabbit**! (voc)

RegDwight

Ah. Me feels stoopid now. Me thought yours was talking about them rabbits!

JSBangs

isn't this bold ?

don't know why that didn't show up in my post

RegDwight

yesterday, by Martha

@RegDwight It's the line break in that post: putting in a line break turns a post into preformatted text, essentially.

No formatting love for preformatted text.

Anyhow, if you were talking about the I rather than the rabbits, I take everything back.

JSBangs

waaaah!

yeah. the acc and the dat have the same morphology everywhere in modern English, but they have distinctive syntactic distributions and don't require prepositions, so i think it's justifiable to call them separate cases

Martha

Ok, having read (well, skimmed) the article on Clitics, I guess Hungarian prepositions (which come after the noun, but I digress) are not quite enclitics - they can't function grammatically without a noun to attach to. So by a strict definition, they can sorta be called case markings. But that just makes it sound so alien and hard, when it really isn't.

JSBangs

23:07

do you mean after the noun?

btw, if they follow the thing they cliticize to then they're called proclitics

(clitic: yet another opportunity for dirty linguistic puns)

Martha

Verb, noun, what difference does it make? :)

RegDwight

@JSBangs Wait, what? Wasn't it like the other way round? My head hurts.

And I haven't even read a single line of The Language Instinct today.

JSBangs

@RegDwight wait, you're right. never mind

well, at least you've got that going for you

Martha

@RegDwight I think that's because of the marathon they/them discussion we just had.

RegDwight

@Martha Absolutely.

Seriously folks, I think I'll go watch Will & Grace.

Have fun. I'm out!

JSBangs

23:13

night

@Martha, are you hungarian?

Martha

@JSBangs Uh, yes? I thought everybody knew that by now?

F'x

-1

A: What is a female ass called?

it is call "beautass" from www.assparadase.com

but do not click on that link

JSBangs

sorry, i'm really bad with bios on here

i have no idea where any of y'all are from

Martha

(Well, ok, so I was born and raised in Southern California, and currently live in PA, but my first language was Hungarian.)

By the way, T-Rex is also Hungarian. Unfortunately.

@Fx It's already gone.

(And the gravatar randomizer needs some help or something. All of the newer images are shades of green and more-or-less square.)

@RegDwight, the new data is actually up now:

0

A: Stack Exchange Data Explorer was not really updated

All data should be up to date now ... my import process runs in 2 phases: I export all public data to the current db (separate db per exported set) I detach all the dbs that were exported and attach them to a sandboxed db. Step 2 did not run.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…