Language Overflow - 2015-11-06 (page 1 of 3)

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4:59 AM

I wonder if my answer is correct

0

A: attend or attended

The result was that Philip had nowhere to go, and he spent Christmas Day in his lodgings. Under Hayward's influence he had persuaded himself that the festivities that attend this season were vulgar and barbaric, and he made up his mind that he would take no notice of the day; but when it came,...

5:10 AM

It's an interesting use of attend.

I think I'd prefer attended there.

4 hours later…

9:35 AM

@Dam I just decided I wanna write a [good] post on what tense, aspect and mood are and how they differ.

> The four labels tense, aspect, mood, and evidentiality
(abbreviated TAME) stand for sentence or clause level
grammatical phenomena manifested either inflectionally
on verbs or periphrastically by constructions usually
involving auxiliaries or particles.

With all the similarities, I think one of the biggest differences between Turkish and English is that English verb inflections are very limited.

10:01 AM

> Bybee and Dahl (1989) argue that tense, mood, and
aspect are most appropriately seen as broad domains
representing possible semantic content of grammatical
entities…
● …and that cross-linguistic generalizations are to be
looked for at the level of ”gram types” such as past,
future, progressive etc.
● … which would be manifested as ”grams” in individual
languages

> Paradigms are systematically skewed: there
tends to be no aspectual distinction in the
present and (to a somewhat lesser extent) no
aspectual distinction in the future

> keel.ut.ee/sites/default/files/www_ut/lectures_on_tame.pdf

3 hours later…

12:54 PM

> either inflectionally on verbs or periphrastically by constructions usually involving auxiliaries or particles.

I think some people prefer to associate TAME with only inflections (and not constructions).

For example, some may say that Thai has no tense (i.e. the inflection to signify the time of the event); it only has time markers. Likewise, it has no moods, only modality markers and so on.

1:22 PM

@Fantasier That's just terminology, there isn't any scientific conflict here.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I'm not saying there is. I'm just saying that maybe you should include that, too, if you're writing a post on it.

Hmm.

I wonder if I should include exceptions and stuff.

People tend to be confused by different uses of different terms when looking at many sources.

Old grammarians seem to have been preferring to call aspect + tense as tense.

Certain languages also don't distinguish between the two.

I thought Persian didn't, but now I know it certainly does.

@Fanta my biggest obstacle now is finding a good analogy to something tangible IRL.

tangle?

tangible?

1:29 PM

O.o I somehow typo'd it.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yea... That's the difficult part. StoneyB did a great job using the film thingy.

I loved that.

I was distracted.

@Fantasier What film thingy?

Hmm, actually, that's a good idea.

I might go with a story.

11

A: Canonical Post #2: What is the perfect, and how should I use it?

4. How and when should I use the perfect? SHORT ANSWER: ☛ Use perfect constructions to introduce prior eventualities as context for the current discussion. LONG ANSWER: In the survey of perfect meaning we encountered several rules about when and how not to use the perfect (not with the ...

Under "Cinematic analogy"

Btw, perhaps you've already known, but Stoney already wrote the tag wiki for aspect ell.stackexchange.com/tags/aspect/info

Oh... and tense too... ell.stackexchange.com/tags/tense/info

Oh boy. I also have to dig in telicity a bit.

Depending on how comprehensive you want your post to be... It might take longer than you expected.

1:41 PM

Well, elaborating to a degree contradicts simplicity. I'm writing something so that the normal ELLer understands, and that's the reason this post is gonna be written in the first place.

Well, if you ask me, I wouldn't even introduce the concepts of mood and evidentiality to normal ELLers.

I don't think they are needed.

Maybe I should also consult master @Stoney.

But people learn things differently, so I dunno.

@Fantasier In a way, studying grammar isn't needed for a portion of ELLers.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yea. Well, at least the way I learnt it, I didn't need many technical terms.

Most of them I know because it's my area of interest.

1:46 PM

Some ELLers think learning grammar will magically teach them communication.

Ah, that's just flat wrong.

Hmm.

HAHA I'm gonna be an expert on cooking instant noodles!

> The study of a language is basically the academic pursuit of fluency in that tongue. It’s basically just learning the language for the purpose of being able to communicate with speakers of that language. The study of languages as a social science is more one of anthropological curiosity – of comparing the ways in which various peoples and cultures communicate and how they blend the aspects of their culture and character with that communication.
> The field of linguistics takes this study of languages to a new level, that of the study of language as a whole – the human ability to create sy…

I have mastered cooking it the normal way. Now it's time for the stir-fried version!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yes '^'

1:52 PM

@Fantasier Is that like, hardcore mode?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Somewhat

> In linguistics, "knowledge of individual languages is far less important than knowledge of language itself"

(twitter.com/stancarey/status/654709064409059330)

Hmm, @Fanta what do you think I first post the question, then let the answers flow?

Oh . . . but then people won't see the updates to the post as soon as it vanishes from the first page.

Anonymous

A lot of linguists spend 99% of their time on one or two languages, though.

OK, maybe I should write a simple version, and elaborate version.

Anonymous

2:07 PM

Terminology is always secondary. But the reason there's a distinction in terminology is to reflect a conceptual distinction, and that distinction matters.

Yes, but nitpicking in terminology isn't always helpful.

Anonymous

Aspect and mood are challenging topics. You may want to spend more time learning about them before you write anything.

Actually, I'm studying about them.

@snailboat Actually, I wonder if I should post the question, or the question and an answer in my first posting.

And actually, I'm reading some thing which I need to digest.

@Stoney has devoted much time to something few ELLers read.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. The answers unfortunately aren't going to come up easily...

It's something that needs a lot of research, so many won't bother.

That stir-fried instant noodles turned out well and I'm full. Although my mom ~~did all the cooking~~ helped me out a little.

How do I make strikethrough text again?

Anonymous

2:23 PM

Hee

Anonymous

It's different in chat. Put three dashes before and after the text you want to strike out.

Phew

Anonymous

Just in time! :-)

Anonymous

Books for learners tend to identify certain combinations of modal, tense, and aspect markers the authors feel are useful to learn, giving them names as "tenses"

Anonymous

Like the future perfect continuous tense, which is properly not a tense but a combination of all three kinds of marking

2:28 PM

nods

Anonymous

But for practical reasons it's not presented that way

Anonymous

Evidentiality is quite commonly lumped under modality

Hmm. People tend to call it TAM rather than TAME.

Anonymous

Right

Anonymous

In which case evidential modality is generally considered a subtype of epistemic modality

2:44 PM

Hullo @SalvoF! Welcome to LO!

Well, @Snail, expect some questions from me in my way to writing an answer to that post.

Hmm, I don't get this.

@Stoney are you saying that 'will' doesn't mark future?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. As you will.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Which one of his posts are you reading?

I will, I'm writing a post on it.

Anonymous

Will does often indicate future time meaning.

Anonymous

But it's primarily a modal auxiliary.

2:57 PM

Most often will is a modal verb.

Ha, you're always quicker than me :-P

Anonymous

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=897

Anonymous

That's funny because I'm typing on my phone with one finger :-)

> Specifically, I will concede that the auxiliary will marks future reference. That’s not even approximately true; but it’s a universal convention in English teaching, because it makes explaining tense a lot easier to pretend that it’s true—in fact, most English teachers and students believe it is true.

> Furthermore, a closer look at the meanings of will suggests that it doesn't really express future time, but rather has the same sort of relationship to time-meanings that (for example) may does.

Anonymous

Will can be used without future time meaning, and future time meaning can be expressed without will.

I think there is no clear-cut distinction between present and future time in English?

Anonymous

3:01 PM

I leave for Phoenix tomorrow.

@snailboat That's an amazing speed. Really, I'm a bad smartphone typist.

Anonymous

cs.sfu.ca/~anoop/papers/pdf/pwpl-final.pdf

> Dept. of Computer and Information Science

Caught my eyes right away!

3:31 PM

Reading... This is the first time I've seen the name Reichenbach

My feeling right now:

user image

@Fantasier Been feeling that since this morning.

0

Q: Does 'will' *really* mark future reference?

I just heard that will doesn't mark future reference, even though in teaching English it's highly comfortable to think of it as so. I will find a way to neutralize the bomb. I'm going to speak to my instructor before doing anything else. He will have gotten a hang of himself already. ...

modal-verbs future-tense

Question posted \CC @Fanta @Snail @Stoney

I think you might get better responses on ELU.

Upvoted, anyway.

@Fantasier We'll see what comes up . . . I meant ELLers to find out and learn about this though. Not sure how many native speakers will need to know it.

@Dam I think you may be interested too. ^

Anonymous

3:52 PM

Haha, who downvoted your question? That's silly.

I upvoted it, . (0:

4:08 PM

@snailboat Dunno, maybe J.R.?

Anonymous

Sorry, that was a rhetorical question. I don't actually want to single out the downvoter.

This somehow looks like a repeat of what I said. What I'm asking is "does will innately refer to a future time?" — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 2 mins ago

@CopperKettle (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

@snailboat Me neither. And I don't care.

Anonymous

People can downvote what they like. I just think it's a good question personally, so I wanted to express that I think it's worthy of upvotes instead :-)

Do we have a specific punctuation mark for rhetorical questions?

Perhaps something rarely used?

@Fantasier Is that a rhetorical question?

Anonymous

4:10 PM

There's no standard way to indicate that.

@snailboat Yes. Thank you!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Nah

Anonymous

Irony punctuation

Irony punctuation is any proposed form of notation used to denote irony or sarcasm in text. Written English lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and most frequently attested are the percontation point proposed by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s, and the irony mark, used by Marcellin Jobard and French poet Alcanter de Brahm during the 19th century. Both marks take the form of a reversed question mark, "⸮". Irony punctuation is primarily used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level. A bracketed...

I think I know why I got the downvote, and that's all that matters. Someone might have thought there's no point in asking my question, since, well, it doesn't look like a normal ELL question.

@snailboat Cute rectangle.

Anonymous

This isn't quite the same thing, but it's an interesting article.

Anonymous

4:12 PM

> The sports blog Card Chronicle has a standardized means to show the preceding text is intended sarcastically: inserting a tilde (~) after the period at the end of the sentence.[16]

Anonymous

I've run into a few people who use ~ this way, but it's very confusing.

But there's no fun in finding out the irony after the tilde.

Anonymous

I've run into more people who use ~ differently.

@snailboat Yeah, some people use it to express a long vowel.

Like,

Anonymous

So it doesn't have any consistent meaning, even among the few people who use it.

Anonymous

4:13 PM

Well, it's like the Japanese ～

Anonymous

かわいい～

Anonymous

kawaii~

> Woo~hoo~!

Anonymous

You find people who are into Japanese stuff typing that sort of thing.

@snailboat What does it indicate?

Anonymous

4:14 PM

What you said.

Yea... but I actually did it before I was influenced by any Japanese stuffs~

Ahh

Anonymous

Yeah, see, some English speakers do that.

Anonymous

I think it's cute.

I feel it makes my statements softer~

4:15 PM

And Thai speakers.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Not so much after my generation.

Anonymous

Well, Fantasier is an English speaker. :-)

@Fantasier It makes me feel cody.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Cody?

~ is space in TeX.

4:15 PM

O

It forces a space in the document.

I see

Anonymous

I think the 'sarcasm' meaning is less likely to be understood.

The space isn't a non-break space though.

Anonymous

So I encourage people never to use it for that.

4:16 PM

@snailboat Hmm.

@snailboat Tell people to use HTML tags instead.

Anonymous

You said it: "possible oversimplification." Oversimplifications are fine, so long as every is aware that we're oversimplifying, and not stating immutable laws. — J.R. ♦ 23 mins ago

At least on the Net.

Anonymous

If a simplification is fine, then isn't the appropriate word simplification without over-?

Anonymous

Since over- adds the meaning 'to excess'

There seems to be a similar debate in Thai too: people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kmj21/srioutai2004.pdf

I'd wager it's the same with many languages

Anonymous

4:18 PM

Japanese だろう is a little bit like will, although non-stative main clause predicates in Japanese with the nonpast marking -(r)u tend to have futurive interpretations.

Anonymous

But if you're making a prediction, you tend to add modal markers like だろう.

Anonymous

So if you're giving a weather forecast, you'll probably add a bunch of でしょうs to the end of your nonpast predicates.

Anonymous

If you're stating what you're about to do, you probably won't.

Well, I deliberately kept it simple in deference to the thousands of English Language Learners who use this site. For a view contrary to the link you posted, see the answer at ELU. — User1 3 mins ago

That's . . . disappointing.

I should've listened to @Fanta.

Should I flag for migration to The Dark Side?

Well, it's not like it doesn't belong here. It just fits there better.

4:23 PM

But does his answer really answer my question?

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. No

Anonymous

Don't flag for migration to ELU

@snailboat K.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. No, I don't think so.

Anonymous

It's true that not all learners will be interested in the details you're asking about. And that's okay.

Anonymous

4:24 PM

It's also true of many other questions on ELL.

Anonymous

People show up and ask about the parts of the language they're interested in.

Anonymous

Honestly, I think this question is probably more directly relevant to learners than native speakers.

@snailboat My feelings too.

But the answer is disappointing.

Anonymous

I think the way will is taught tends to work most of the time, but causes certain problems down the road in less common situations

Anonymous

I think the same thing of the perfect.

Anonymous

4:27 PM

But in both cases, actual usage is quite complicated.

You didn't keep it simple, you didn't answer my question. This looks more like an ELL question, hence I'm not flagging for migration to ELU. But what you have written here is more like an elaboration on the background of the question. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 21 secs ago

Grabs popcorn

I'm usually an advocate for simple answers. But in this case I think it's quite obvious that you do want technically accurate answers.

So I'd say that that answer is not a good answer to your question. :-)

Anonymous

Oh, my. A user today wrote "And to avoid further quibbling, I suggest you consult a textbook on linguistics."

@snailboat Oh?

...

4:33 PM

You didn't keep it simple, you didn't answer my question. This looks more like an ELL question, hence I'm not flagging for migration to ELU. But what you have written here is more like an elaboration on the background of the question. (What I'm trying to say is that I want to get technical. Being on ELL doesn't always equate keeping stuff simple. There are a bunch of more advanced learners here, even though I'm not one of them.) — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 6 mins ago

I edited the comment, I hope the guy acts like an adult.

Read the link I provided for a contrarian view that approaches the technical. — User1 24 secs ago

I'm waiting for your flip-the-table emoticon.

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I'm trying to resist commenting further. :-)

Anonymous

It's hard, though.

Anonymous

But we should probably all try to Be Nice here in chat.

There's a reason I asked this question, and did it here. I want technical answers, I could've dug up a thousand links. And that question is by StoneyB, the person who wrote the tag wiki for "tense" on ELL. But I want the garden here, for others to use; and I'm not asking for an address. — Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. 18 secs ago

@Fantasier (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

4:37 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. No, not this one. The one with the mad face.

@Fantasier No. (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. NO

Nitrogen oxide is unstable.

No hablo Química.

I have edited my answer to my satisfaction so that it answers your question in what I believe id the most helpful way for the mass of both learners and teachers on this site. You are free to wait for other answers. Meanwhile to insist that the topic be discussed on ELU when it is already under discussion in ELL may be seen as misplaced determinatuiy. — User1 50 secs ago

Anonymous

4:39 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Simplification aside, the answer you got is wrong.

@snailboat Oh? (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

> Meanwhile to insist that the topic be discussed on ELU when it is already under discussion in ELL may be seen as misplaced determinatuiy

Anonymous

> Now, it so happens that one can teach that will as used to refer to the future stresses one's current resolve to carry out a stated action, but this is gravy.

I think he misplaced ELU and ELL.

Anonymous

What about "Do you think it'll rain tomorrow?" Is this stressing the speaker's current resolve to carry out a stated action?

4:42 PM

@Fantasier Yes, hablo chemica.

@snailboat No. Hah.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That wasn't a question lol

@Fantasier I know, I was disagreeing with your statement.

GTranslate knows some broken Spanish you know.

Anonymous

I'd downvote, but I don't want to downvote the same user too many times. It feels mean.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ahh, then you should conjugate hablar accordingly. It shoulda been hablas, I think. My Spanish is worse than rusty.

@Fantasier I'm stuck with one language already. Don't throw me Spanish.

Anonymous

4:45 PM

I took Spanish starting when I was 12 or so for a few years.

Anonymous

It's been a long time :-)

-6

A: Requests for native speakers to answer questions

I do not see it as a problem if a poster requests answers from native speakers. In my short time on this site, I have seen many answers by a non-native speaker that have just been downright wrong. The two comments below suffer from a lack of logic.

NS's can't possibly be wrong. :O

Anonymous

Unfortunately, I've seen many answers from native speakers that are just downright wrong. :-(

Well, they are almost never wrong about their judgments of what is acceptable. But the explanations... Let's just say I've seen a lot wrong answers from them.

Anonymous

Err.

Anonymous

4:48 PM

Native speaker judgments don't always successfully approximate Standard English.

Anonymous

We all make different judgments.

Ah, yes :-) I should've written it clearer.

Anonymous

Some people are particularly bad at contextualizing utterances, too.

Anonymous

So they judge things that are clearly standard as defective.

Anonymous

Another reason they might do this is because they aren't especially literate, and they have trouble turning written sentences into sentences that sound right in their heads.

Anonymous

4:49 PM

They might also have problems with utterances that are usually spoken and not written.

O_O

Anonymous

Other people just aren't familiar with certain ways the language is legitimately used.

Anonymous

I see what I consider to be poor judgments by native speakers all the time.

Wow, that's new to me.

Anonymous

People say "We don't say such-and-such" when in fact we do, but they haven't come up with the right context in their heads.

Anonymous

4:52 PM

It's difficult because any time we evaluate an utterance we have to do so in some sort of context.

nods

Anonymous

It happens to me, too.

Anonymous

I remember declaring something wrong quite confidently, then F.E. coming up with a scenario where it could be used :-)

Anonymous

Anyway, native speaker intuition is a great source of information.

Anonymous

I don't think we should necessarily privilege it over the data, though.

Anonymous

4:55 PM

In Japanese, there's a construction called the head-internal relative clause (HIRC or sometimes IHRC) which is somewhat uncommon but is well-established in professional writing (novels, etc.)

Anonymous

If you actually ask native speakers about it, though, they tend to reject it.

Anonymous

So what is the status of this construction?

Anonymous

It scores fairly low on acceptability surveys.

:O

Anonymous

> An informal survey I conducted with 81 college students of Japanese native speakers showed that IHRC is regarded as far less than authoritative expressions of Japanese. The mean rating (from 0 to 5) of the grammaticality of EHRC was 4.7, while that of IHRC was as low as 1.7. In view of the near “ungrammatical” judgment of IHRC by the informants, is IHRC a “fiction” of Japanese grammar created by linguists, then?

Anonymous

4:56 PM

> However, that does not seem to be the case. Odani (1998), for instance, takes a large part of its data from actual literary works. The novels are the major source of data. Journalism, particularly the auditory media such as news broadcast on TV or on radio, is also a good source of data of IHRC. It is evident that IHRC is actually used by Japanese speakers both in written and spoken forms of the language, more than simply performance errors.

Anonymous

> The data of IHRC provide no solution to the controversy. The data are documented in novels and in other publications, and yet they are far from being unanimously accepted. Some find them awkward at best, some regard them as cases of sloppy wording, and some reject the data across the board.

Wow

That's interesting.

How do we deal with such cases properly?

I mean, both the data and judgments do come from native speakers?

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

This construction is basically never taught to non-native speakers, at any rate.

Anonymous

Descriptive linguists acknowledge the construction, but language teachers tend not to.

Anonymous

5:00 PM

The quotes above are by Chiharu Uda Kikuta from a couple different publications

I heard you had a math test next week that you haven't studied for seems okay to my version of English @Don Bron. As does I heard you had Mr Stewart next week for Chem class. — User1 3 mins ago

?

Shouldn't it be "have"?

I think it got backshifted.

Anonymous

That's tricky.

@Fantasier But does it work that way?

I'm again saying yes and no twice every second.

Anonymous

@Fantasier I don't have an answer to your question. But I think it's more complicated than we might want it to be.

Anonymous

5:02 PM

Native speaker judgments aren't infallible.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yea. It's tricky. "I heard you had a math test next week" prolly works, I think. But "I heard you had a math test next week that you haven't studied for," I'm not so sure.

Anonymous

What's interesting is that we can be uncertain about our judgments, or an utterance might shift from seeming fine to seeming bad, and back and forth, like what @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. is saying here.

Anonymous

Although @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. isn't a native speaker, native speakers certainly experience that sort of uncertainty.

Anonymous

I think linguists in general tend to find their judgments becoming more permissive over time as they concentrate on the edge cases of a language.

@snailboat Yes! Happens to me a lot (although I'm not claiming I'm a linguist). I find my judgment very, very generous.

Anonymous

5:06 PM

@Fantasier It happens to me, too.

Anonymous

Wow! A question where all five answers are correct! :-) — snailboat Oct 21 at 3:42

Anonymous

@snailboat: Not all. Which was also offered, but it isn't correct for people. — Hans Adler Oct 21 at 9:11

@Fantasier I think I'm one of those people. (So English has only TAM, but no E.)

0

A: Does 'will' *really* mark future reference?

"will + infinitive" expresses future (normally). But there are several possibilities to express the future in English, eg to be going to do. And the modal verb will that originally is connected with volition also has other uses beside the future. All this is explained in the grammar chapter moda...

Hello, everyone!

5:07 PM

@DamkerngT. \o

Anonymous

But to my ear, which is fine with animate reference. It's true that it's now fallen to less than 1%, and people now usually say who.

I think I must flip the table @Fanta ordered now. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ （ノT＿T)ノ＾┻━┻

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Did Fanta just order a new table?

Anonymous

I'm really reluctant to say it's wrong when native speakers still use which that way, given that it sounds fine to my ear, but it is definitely a small minority usage these days.

34 mins ago, by Fantasier

I'm waiting for your flip-the-table emoticon.

Anonymous

5:09 PM

(Originally, who couldn't be used that way.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No, we have no inflections for A or M.

@snailboat I used which that way once, (well, more than once actually), my teacher corrected me that I should use who.

Anonymous

@Fantasier Yeah, I think most books say you can't.

Anonymous

CGEL does too.

Hmm... but A is clearly marked by the -ing and the -ed, isn't it?

Anonymous

5:11 PM

@DamkerngT. Well, be V-ing, have V-ed

nods

@Fantasier I hear Thai sentences that I would never phrase them that way every day.

Let's see what I can find in my PVR.

Anonymous

The progressive auxiliary be and perfect auxiliary have mark those thingies.

@DamkerngT. Ah, it's good that you're here. Do you think "ผู้ชายคนสูง" is acceptable?

Only in some very limited contexts.

(คน there is a classifier)

Anonymous

5:13 PM

Also, animate relative which is limited to speech. It rarely appears in writing, and it's corrected when it does.

@DamkerngT. Hmmm. I can't contextualize it.

Anonymous

Even Biber et al 1999 note that the frequency is low enough in speech that it might simply be considered an error.

(In my grandma voice, Southern Thai dialect): มันมากันสี่คน ไอ้ผู้ชายคนสูงมันเข้ามาก่อน ...

@DamkerngT. Oh, yeah. That does sound fine in my Bangkok dialect as well.

@Fantasier I think so! I don't know why I had to contextualize it in my grandma voice. :-)

@snailboat Oh! -- Ah, I misread corrected as correct. :D

Anonymous

5:18 PM

@DamkerngT. Nah, it's one of those things people sometimes say without realizing it. Is it an error? Well, maybe! :-)

Anonymous

But I'm ~~being stubborn~~ reluctant to call it an error myself.

Anonymous

Anyway, it's just one of many examples where I find people around me saying something is wrong when it sounds okay to me.

> แต่ 4G ของเรา ครอบคลุมกว่า และขยายสัญญาณอย่างต่อเนื่องให้ครอบคลุมกว่า 80%

^That sentence sounds okay at first glance, right? But how can 4G expand itself? "4G ของเรา ขยายสัญญาณอย่างต่อเนื่อง"

Anonymous

If we based grammars of English on my personal judgments, we'd end up with some differences other folks might find hard to accept ;-)

@snailboat That sounds like fun.

Anonymous

5:22 PM

@DamkerngT. Haha!

@snailboat We can have a new dialect. :P

Anonymous

@Fantasier Here's one example: ell.stackexchange.com/q/13057/230

@DamkerngT. Newer than PerE?

> แต่ 4G ของเรา ครอบคลุมกว่า และขยายสัญญาณอย่างต่อเนื่องให้ครอบคลุมกว่า 80%
(Translation: But our 4G has more coverage and expands continuously to cover over 80% ...)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yes! Hmm... how about SbE? :P

Anonymous

I think the sentences in your question are all particularly difficult to contextualize.

5:24 PM

@DamkerngT. Antimony English?

Anonymous

Um.

Anonymous

People might think SbE refers to StoneyB English.

Haha!

Anonymous

I think there are times my own English is influenced somewhat by French or Japanese.

I think my Thai example above is heavily influenced by English.

Anonymous

5:25 PM

Probably just those two since I'm even worse at the other languages I've studied :-)

Oh, I found an interesting utterance in a Thai ad. Give me a few minutes.

Hey, I shot an arrow in the dark.

0

A: Is "I heard you had ..." a valid sentence?

Short answer Yes, the construction is perfectly acceptable; but your sentence isn't. Longer answer Watch that punctuation Let's break down the utterance: I heard you had Diwali next week, will you celebrate? First off, the punctuation isn't technically correct. "I heard . . . next week"...

What do you think he says (Thai)? dropbox.com/s/gjojc1d9k6pf73j/…

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ah, the fallacy of (blindingly) backshifting.

@DamkerngT. You sure it's totally unacceptable?

I'm quite sure (about 80% sure) that no native speakers would backshift this one.

5:40 PM

True that. I wouldn't for a billion years go for that construction.

I think it could be a good tag, but it's probably a little too "catch all".

Oh wait. I mixed up the rooms.

→ 5 messages moved to ELL's Cabin

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Fixed!

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Nov '156

Language Overflow

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