Language Overflow

Anonymous

12:00 AM

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I agree with you about that part. It's definitely an imperative clause. The bit at the end is the tag.

Anonymous

It's an interesting answer, though!

Anonymous

> Will you run away from me?

Anonymous

> Run away from me, will you?

Anonymous

I think the problem with the analysis is that it isn't generalizable enough.

Damkerng T.

Another point I was wondering was the use of the word censure. I think it could suggest that she was implying that the person has already started thinking about running away from the speaker, which I think isn't always true.

Anonymous

12:03 AM

There are lots of tags that can't be turned around like that.

Anonymous

Let's see.

Anonymous

Maybe I shouldn't commit to an analysis so fast.

Anonymous

CGEL makes the point (starting on p.892) that we can't treat tags in general as reduced versions of full clauses.

Anonymous

This construction is definitely atypical, but it does seem to pattern like a tag question, doesn't it?

Damkerng T.

I usually think of it as two sentences. Maybe two chunks. Related, but separated from each other.

Anonymous

12:09 AM

Can you turn to page 891?

Damkerng T.

Um, not right now. I'm away from my desk.

Anonymous

Oh! Okay.

Anonymous

CGEL considers this a type of tag question.

Anonymous

I guess we can ask why we might consider it a tag question, or why we might not.

Anonymous

But the two halves (the anchor and the tag) are definitely their own clauses, like you say: related, but separated from each other.

Anonymous

12:12 AM

Ah!

Anonymous

I found it :-) Page 942 is where imperatives with interrogative tags are discussed.

3

Anonymous

Their examples are a bit different in illocutionary force, though.

Anonymous

I'm looking through corpus results for a minute.

Anonymous

There are a lot of imperatives with tags that clearly have directive force. When I say 'directive', I mean they're telling the listener what to do. That's the main thing imperatives do, but they can also do various other things.

Anonymous

> Show up to work drunk and you might find yourself out of a job!

Anonymous

12:21 AM

I just made this example up. It's a coordination of two clauses, and the first is imperative in form.

Anonymous

But it doesn't have directive force.

Anonymous

> Could you pass me the salt?

Anonymous

This is a classic example of a clause that's in interrogative form but does have directive force.

Anonymous

These sorts of examples show that we have to distinguish the concept of the grammatical form the sentence takes from the type of meaning the speaker is trying to communicate.

Damkerng T.

nods -- which was why I thought of those lines in Hancock.

Reminds me of this scene from Hancock: Call me crazy... one more time. :-) — Damkerng T. yesterday

Anonymous

12:24 AM

So we don't necessarily want to avoid classifying something as an imperative clause (a clause which is imperative in form) just because it doesn't have the meaning we most commonly associate with that type of clause.

Damkerng T.

There is another similar scene, but that one is perhaps a little too strong for ELL.

Yes.

Anonymous

Oh, yeah, that's an interesting type of imperative.

Anonymous

Japanese has them, too! 嘘つけ！ (lit. 'Tell a lie!')

Anonymous

Said in response to a lie :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh! Not before?

Anonymous

12:27 AM

Yeah, you might expect something like 嘘をつくな (lit. 'Don't tell lies!')

Anonymous

But for whatever reason, 嘘つけ really means 嘘をつくな in this context!

Anonymous

So the question of the imperative plus tag OR inverted declarative... Which is it? At first glance, it looks like you could start with either one and turn it into the OP's sentence. How can we choose?

Anonymous

And I think that the strongest evidence is probably that we have tag questions which attach to imperatives which do have the prototypical meaning all the time, and it seems to pattern with these, but we don't have the sort of inversion the answerer suggests in widespread use.

Anonymous

One reason to prefer the latter might be that the speaker's meaning (the illocutionary force) seems different, but we've already seen that imperatives don't always have directive force.

Anonymous

Once we make the distinction between clause type and illocutionary force, that reason seems somewhat weak, I think.

Anonymous

12:32 AM

On the other hand, we have lots of imperatives plus tags which unambiguously cannot be analyzed as inversion.

Anonymous

> Don't tell anyone, will you?

Anonymous

> *Will you don't tell anyone?

Damkerng T.

A nice example!

jimsug

Is don't tell anyone, will you? a little weird?

Anonymous

So we have to admit imperatives with tags into our analysis, but we don't really have any evidence for the kind of inversion in the answer occurring systematically―at least, no one's provided it.

jimsug

12:34 AM

I don't know, seems a little... off to me.

Anonymous

@jimsug Dunno. Seems normal enough to me.

jimsug

I don't know, maybe I'm reading into it too much.

Anonymous

google.com/…

Anonymous

Does it seem weird to you in context?

Anonymous

So at this point it seems to me like it's simplest to suggest the OP's example patterns with imperative + tags.

Anonymous

12:36 AM

We could try to show that it doesn't.

jimsug

@snailboat Yeah, I guess not.

Anonymous

Can we think of a way to come up with an example like the OP's that would be explained by the inversion analysis but not the imperative + tag analysis?

Anonymous

Something that would be different if it were an imperative.

Anonymous

@jimsug In case you missed the beginning of the discussion, the OP's example is "Run away from me, will you?"

jimsug

Inversion fails only with negation, doesn't it?

Ah, they say that.

Damkerng T.

12:42 AM

@snailboat "Hiding from me, huh? I know you are. [*] Where are you?"

Anonymous

Can you imagine Homer Simpson getting angry at Bart and shouting out "Don't buy anything but the best, will you!?" after Bart refuses to buy anything but the best? :-)

Anonymous

I'd really like to come up with a corpus example along these lines, but I'm having trouble finding one.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Somehow it sounds a bit more like BrE to me.

jimsug

@DamkerngT. I think excessive hedging is more like BrE :P

Even with an imperative ;)

Damkerng T.

Oh! :-)

Anonymous

12:45 AM

I'm a fan of hedging.

Anonymous

I wish you could have pet hedgehogs in California.

Anonymous

My intuition is that if you make an example like the OP's but negated, it should have don't at the beginning, so my intuition says it patterns with negative imperatives.

Anonymous

The last argument I can think of is that the answer's inversion analysis has its own problem of meaning.

CopperKettle

Look who is answering questions:

0

A: Should we need to repeat on the pronoun after "because"?

Yes, the pronoun needs to be repeated because it is part of a clause, which means that there needs to be a subject. The pronoun would only be omitted if it were part of a compound verb in one clause, such as "The bone is also called the 'tail' and is in the end of the body."

Anonymous

It doesn't line up with the typical meaning we'd expect from the supposed uninverted source.

CopperKettle

12:50 AM

(0:

Anonymous

So there doesn't seem to me to be any advantage to the inversion analysis. I think the answer is just wrong.

Damkerng T.

:-) I wonder if he blanked the question. :P

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Wow! :-)

jimsug

@CopperKettle I guess he's just Putin his two cents in ;)

Anonymous

@jimsug Boo-urns :-)

CopperKettle

12:51 AM

@jimsug (0:

Anonymous

Fare well, O Copper Kettle!

Damkerng T.

2:38 AM

2

A: What's the meaning of "Before the world fell at our feet"?

Adele is talking about a time before she became successful and admired. have the world at your feet British English to be extremely successful and admired by a large number of people http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/have-the-world-at-your-feet It's a metap...

I doubt the answer.

Not to mention that I find the photo in the answer disturbing being used that way.

2

Q: To be content or contented? When to use them correctly?

If I have a million dollar I will be content or contented?Which is appropriate?

This pair is interesting!

content, contented. Inside-out, outside-in?

Damkerng T.

3:42 AM

1

Q: the meaning of "as of"

But this close relation between revolutionary sentiments and the needs of the Jewish striving for emancipation hasn’t escaped the attention of the Russian, as of some other governments. It therefore hates and persecutes the Jews as much as the revolutionary tendencies, and does everything in its ...

meaning

Hmm... I think I don't quite agree, but neither German nor English is my first language.

> Dieser enge Zusammenhang zwischen dem revolutionären Empfinden und den Bedürfnissen des jüdischen Emanzipationsstrebens ist aber, wie so mancher anderen Regierung, auch der russischen nicht entgangen.

> But this close relation between revolutionary sentiments and the needs of the Jewish striving for emancipation hasn’t escaped the attention of the Russian, as of some other governments.

I think the translation is correct, more or less, though it shifts the emphasis.

"ist aber, wie so mancher anderen Regierung, auch der russischen nicht entgangen" ~ "But, like many other government, even the Russian did not escape" (Google Translate)

So its meaning should be more or less: hasn't escaped the attention of the Russian (government), as (it has escaped the attention) of some other governments.

Note that I think it's as (it has escaped the attention) of some other governments rather than as (it hasn't escaped the attention) of some other governments.

So I think, this the article's translation (which was probably done by the author herself) intends to mean:

> But this close relation between revolutionary sentiments and the needs of the Jewish striving for emancipation hasn’t escaped the attention of the Russian (government), as (it has escaped the attention) of some other governments. (In other words, it hasn't escaped the attention of many other governments, just like the Russian goverment.)

Anonymous

4:12 AM

@DamkerngT. Oh, interesting! I wouldn't have been able to figure that out.

Anonymous

I don't feel like that ellipsis is possible in English.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm still thinking if it'd be possible even if it were as that of instead of just as of.

Anonymous

Well, at any rate it seems unusual the way it is.

Anonymous

I wonder what some other people might think.

Anonymous

5:12 AM

I'm always curious to get more opinions when something sounds unusual to me.

Anonymous

It's interesting to me to see how people's mental models of English differ!

Anonymous

People tend to agree about a lot of stuff, but then there are always edge cases where people disagree―and are surprised they disagree! :-)

Anonymous

@Nihilist_Frost Proper names are often distinguished from proper nouns in linguistics today.

Anonymous

The United States of America is a proper name, but America is a proper noun.

Anonymous

In reference to this question: ell.stackexchange.com/a/72244/230

Anonymous

5:25 AM

> First of all, a common noun is any noun that isn't a (proper) name.

Anonymous

I would change that to:

Anonymous

> First of all, a common noun is any noun that isn't a (proper) noun.

Anonymous

The only snag then would be that some linguists consider pronouns a third kind of noun, but I won't quibble about that bit :-)

Man_From_India

1:49 PM

> But this close relation between revolutionary sentiments and the needs of the Jewish striving for emancipation hasn’t escaped the attention of the Russian, as of some other governments.

I see it this way -

> But this close relation between revolutionary sentiments and the needs of the Jewish striving for emancipation hasn’t escaped the attention of the Russian, as (the attention) of some other governments.

I think there are similar constructions.

Man_From_India

4:17 PM

I was reading this question -

0

Q: It is + adjective + wh clause

It is funny how you say that. It is amazing what you did. It is terrible why it happened. Those sentences have same structure: It is + adjective + wh clause. My question is, is it always possible to use this sentence structure with ANY adjective? I sometimes find this sentence hard ...

grammar

It says we can't form it-cleft sentences with the adjective - happy - at it's focus place.

But is the following sentence correct -

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

No.

Man_From_India

> It's happy that the family finally became.

Hi @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

How r u doing?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

\o

Fine, I mean great.

Man_From_India

:D

Good morning @StoneyB

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

\o @Stoney

Man_From_India

4:20 PM

Oh btw happy halloween

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Trick or candy.

@DamkerngT. The smiley's still weird on the star board.

StoneyB

@Man_From_India,@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Good morning/evening guys ... But it's no longer Hallowe'en, here, it's All Hallows Day.

Man_From_India

Oh I see...the party is over :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

It wasn't Halloween here in the first place @Stoney -- We don't need excuses to eat excess candy.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. :-)

Hello everyone!

StoneyB

4:23 PM

@DamkerngT. Hullo, DT

Man_From_India

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Neither here...but it's there :-)

hi @DamkerngT.

StoneyB

I always have to stop and think whether you guys are hours in front of me or behind me!

And then I have to stop and think which direction "in front of" and "behind" are.

Man_From_India

In front ....

StoneyB

I'm very chronocentric for timeframes less than about a decade.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@StoneyB We're above you.

StoneyB

4:27 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Responding to that is beneath me.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Not the first time . . .

Damkerng T.

I feel weird that I can watch an NFL game right now.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

You mean you couldn't earlier?

Damkerng T.

I remember that I had to watch Sunday Night games live on Monday early in the morning.

Now they have Sunday Morning games. (There is one going on right now: Detroit Lions vs. Kansas City Chiefs.)

Nihilist_Frost

sorry, I messed up my post.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

4:35 PM

@Nihilist (removed) ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

Nihilist_Frost

In French these words all take the same IPA:

au, aux, o, ô, os (plural), eau, eaux, haut, hauts, oh

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Well, that's . . . French.

Nihilist_Frost

/o/

they mean "at/to (m.sing.), at/to (plural), O, O (vocative), bones, water, waters, high (m. sing.), high (m. plural), oh", respectively.

funny homophones

Damkerng T.

@Nihilist_Frost Oui

Nihilist_Frost

4:50 PM

Je suis en train de faire mes devoirs maintenant

lol

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost In Persian, "Earth", "currency", "complaint" and "presentation" are homophones.

"Backyard" and "life" are homophones too.

@Dam tell us some interesting homophones in Thai.

Nihilist_Frost

oops

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Spoo

Damkerng T.

kettle, crow, check and in some dialects brand are all pronounced "ka" (กา).

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

"Caw" and "cave" are homophones.

(Caw as in crow's sound)

Nihilist_Frost

4:57 PM

Ma mère est très fâchée parce que mon frère joue trop de jeux vidéos.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

NO SWEARING HERE. ಠ_ಠ

:P

Nihilist_Frost

Translation: "My mom is very angry because my brother plays too much video games."

Damkerng T.

0

Q: How to pronounce "friends"?

So I can pronounce friend just fine. But when you add an s to it how do you transition from the d sound to the s sound? Do you just ignore the d altogether?

pronunciation

I feel like I want to write a comment but I'm afraid that it could be misleading.

I think /fren(d)z/ would be the common pronunciation for "friends".

StoneyB

That's sorta two common pronunciations.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I dunno why I tend to pronounce that /d/.

StoneyB

5:10 PM

Because it's there? . . . There's nothing wrong with pronouncing the /d/, and nobody will notice either way.

Damkerng T.

5:30 PM

0

Q: Can "help me do something" mean "do something for me"?

Several people I know use sentences of the form: Can you help me [do something]? to mean what I would phrase as "can you [do something] for me?", i.e. they request that I do the entirety of the work on their behalf, while in my understanding "to help" means that they would do the work while I'...

word-usage

Interesting. I thought "no" before reading the question.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. That's not an English question.

I mean, not a question about English language.

Damkerng T.

Before reading the question, I thought it was about "Can you help me do my homework?"

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Huh? Why is it not about English?

"Can you help me open this bottle?" turns the question into another question.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

"Help me do something" isn't equal to "do something for me", but if I want you to do some labor for my sake I'll go with the former, not the latter.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That's right, but "Can you help me open this bottle?" has roughly the same meaning as "Can you open this bottle for me?".

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Notice roughly.

Nihilist_Frost

5:39 PM

List etymological doublets of "be".

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

6:23 PM

@TCh you there?

Nihilist_Frost

7:02 PM

0

A: Which one is correct ? Problem Areas or Problems Areas or Problems Area

Adjectives generally do not inflect to agree with number in English. In this case, "problem" acts as an adjective, and "area" is the noun that is modified by that adjective. "Problem area" is the singular form, "Problem areas" is the plural.

lol

such an ELL question ended up on ELU

decided to give a shot after I flagged the question

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost Not really surprising . . .

24 hours ago, by Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

I should add a comment to every question on ELU saying that ELL exists . . .

StoneyB

@Nihilist_Frost physics, phylum, future

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@StoneyB Wha? What are etymological doublets?

Nihilist_Frost

@StoneyB Nailed them

StoneyB

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Two words in the same language descended by different pathways from the same distant root.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

7:06 PM

@StoneyB Yeah I thought that too, but how are those doublets of "be"?

Nihilist_Frost

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

All of them come from the same Proto-Indo-European root *bhuH

StoneyB

They're descended from the same PIE root, one of the three verbs which collapsed into the ModE verb to be.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Nihilist_Frost Multiline messages are on my nerves. And they would get on yours too, after you realize markdown doesn't work.

Nihilist_Frost

The other two verbs making up the conjugations of "be" were h1es and h2wes

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

The word "conjugation" gives me a headache now.

Nihilist_Frost

7:15 PM

"light" has lots of doublets

lunar, lynx, luminous, lucid, and related words

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Luminescence.

Nihilist_Frost

yup

Weird that "lynx" was named after its eyes/vision

Damkerng T.

7:40 PM

@Nihilist_Frost I think perhaps about 70-80% of ELU questions are fine on ELL.

0

A: Where does "they can't lay us off if they can't find us" come from?

The movie is 127 hours, minute 39:48

Interesting.

I almost flagged it. Then I realized that it could be exactly the source.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. You should flag it.

It's something like link-only answer.

Damkerng T.

But what if it was really the answer?

Note that the OP didn't ask about the meaning. (Though I wonder whether they knew the humorous meaning before reading our first answer.)

In any case, I doubt that the movie is the real origin of the phrase. I think it just perhaps popularizes it.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:13 PM

@DamkerngT. You ask for a corn. If someone gives you the address of a corn field, it's still not a corn, whether that would lead to your finding corn or not.

Damkerng T.

Isn't that answer a corn, not an address?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

It's an address.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... how can it be an address? Does it point to anything?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Well, funny thing is, "where" here is asking for some context understanding reasoning, not the literal location.

Damkerng T.

"Where was Tendo Choi born?" "Beijing, China." -- Is that an address?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:16 PM

Exactly, that's not the answer the OP's looking for.

Damkerng T.

What was the OP looking for?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

The answer is something like

> It's because foos usually baz the bars. So . . .

Or

> Have you seen a foo bazing the bar? They were famous for their bazing abilities, and hence . . .

It's like asking about the origin of a proverb @Dam.

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻ Whatever. It's a comment anyway, so no point in discussing it.

Damkerng T.

The way the OP put their question title makes it so, imo.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Star trek?

Damkerng T.

(Star Trek what?) -- It's like, let's say, on a movie stack, someone asked "In what first movie 'I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian' was said?"

Then someone posted, "Iron Man 3". I think it would be a perfect answer.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:24 PM

Well, no point in chasing our tail here; we're just assuming what the OP meant or wanted.

> The way the OP put their question title makes it so, imo.

0

Q: "æ" vs "ə" in narration

Movie quotes from subzin.com: 00:34:12 I'm sorry, Dwight. 00:34:20 An atom bomb goes off between my leg. 00:34:24 A freight train barrows into my jaw. 00:34:30 I've taken a beating before but never like this. Sin City 2: A dame to kill for The violent scene happens when ...

pronunciation

Where can I find more about the legitimacy of the proposal? — kuromusha 59 secs ago

LOL facepalm

Anyway, for once I saw a question that sounds interesting.

Damkerng T.

An "atom bomb" is already interesting. I'm more familiar with the word atomic bomb.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Or nuclear bomb.

Damkerng T.

Mistranscription is quite common in subtitles on the web.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Hey, mixing backslash and slash again. @Dam IPA should be in slashes, right?

Damkerng T.

Yes, forward slashes.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:34 PM

BTW part of this mixing up is because of dealing with both RTL and LTR languages. \CC @Snail

Damkerng T.

> Sorry Dwight.
And then the bomb
between my legs.
I get hit hard
my jaw
had already beaten me,
but never like this
never so

> springfieldspringfield.co.uk/…

Hmm... how many cuts of the movie do we have?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

First suspicion: Is this a movie transcript, or ELU's chat's transcript?

Damkerng T.

LOL

"barrels" is another possible transcription. — Jasper 9 mins ago

I think Jasper is correct.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Indeed plausible for an American accent.

Anonymous

9:04 PM

With a vocalized /l/?

Anonymous

Is there audio somewhere?

Damkerng T.

Let me see if I can find the scene. I remember I had it taped in my PVR a couple months ago. (Still haven't watched it!) Not sure how much it was censored.

Found it!

Give me a couple minutes.

dropbox.com/s/0nq7mr7gm72ns3x/…

Sajjad Khan

9:47 PM

hi

I have been in field of web designing and development for the last couples of years and such jobs are my daily practice.
My Strong Areas are.
1- HTML5
2- CSS3
3- JAVASCRIPT
4- PHP
5- MYSQL

Is that sentence is right??

Damkerng T.

10:21 PM

@SajjadKhan "in the field", "My strong areas", "JavaScript", "MySQL". The other ELL room, chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/22937/ells-cabin, is better for this kind of quick question.

Transcript for