Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

00:59

Phrase of the Day: run like the clappers

> If you see the enemy, shoot him. If you cannot see the enemy, shoot intervening objects until you can see him. Then shoot him.

> --The Cabbages of Doom

(Good conditional examples, I think. :-)

CowperKettle

03:41

Today's Google Doodle

I believe @snailboat will like it. (0:

Damkerng T.

Nice one!

Let's drink to that. Here's mud in your eye!

CowperKettle

04:29

@DamkerngT. Yes. There's a snail along the left margin. (0:

Damkerng T.

06:06

5

A: What methods are there to learn the ancient languages (Aramaic as an example)?

In order to learn an ancient language, scholars usually rely on one (or several) of the following: Knowledge of related extant languages. In case of Egyptian, Koptic was the clue. Bilingual texts where one of the two languages is already well known. In case of Egyptian, the famous Rosetta stone...

Hmm... that doesn't sound like "learn" a language to me. It's more like "study" or "learn about" an ancient language.

johnchae

Afternoon @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

Good afternoon!

johnchae

I just came across this sentence: "By the time the magazine article on home security devices appeared on the newsstands, the pricing information was already outdated" It doesn't sound good to my ears, as I think it should be "By the time the magazine article on home security devices appeared on the newsstands, the pricing information had already been outdated". So what do you think? @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

06:22

@johnchae Me? Both are fine.

Anonymous

I like the simple past better.

johnchae

Oh

I ask because I always thought , by the time was "used for saying what has already happened at the time that something else happens"

Anonymous

Well, the perfect is optional there, as Damkerng points out.

johnchae

I'm thinking about it...

Damkerng T.

> The ferry was bustling with people everywhere, and by the time we reached the restaurant it was already full ...

> A Walk of Faith: A Walk for Tim to the World Cup

lekon chekon

06:28

hey, guys. :)

Damkerng T.

Hey, there!

lekon chekon

I have a few questions, and they're not on tenses.
Care to help me out? :p

johnchae

Actually, I'm still confused, in your instance, @DamkerngT., the act of "the restaurant was already full" has happened before "we reached" so, imo, I think the better phrase should be "the restaurant had already been full"

:/

Damkerng T.

@lekonchekon The first rule of chat rooms is don't ask to ask. ;-)

johnchae

@lekonchekon Ask away, ppl here are very friendly, it's not like they will bite you or anything :p

lekon chekon

06:31

:') okay, thanks. :P

Damkerng T.

@johnchae It should be like that, logically, right? I guess it's just not the way our languages work. :-)

For me, the simple past works a little better (I think my English is about 75% American English, BTW) because it allows us to think of that point in time directly.

johnchae

So I assume "by the time" in those contexts basically means "before", right?

Damkerng T.

I think dictionaries would define it that way, but when it's used like this, it implies "when".

> by the time

> used for saying what has already happened at the time that something else happens. By the time we arrived, the other guests were already there.

LOL -- The example is also in the simple past. :D

johnchae

I see, but then, if we use the past perfect here, it will emphasize the state of the latter phrase, right? I mean "It has already happened before something"...

?

Damkerng T.

I think British English speakers may tend to use the past perfect in this kind of sentence more often than American English speakers.

@johnchae Yes, I think so.

johnchae

06:38

Too bad I'm following AmE too :p

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

lekon chekon

Now, the sentences i'm about to use might not come across as idiomatic.

I was in a cab, getting back home, and i was asleep the entire ride.

I was asleep in a cab the entire ride back home.

Do both the sentences mean the same?

Damkerng T.

Roughly, yes

Anonymous

The perfect is used only slightly more often in BrE than AmE.

Anonymous

But!

lekon chekon

06:40

Can both of them be deemed grammatically correct? @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

They both look grammatical to me.

Anonymous

You can see the perfect used significantly more often in the news in BrE than AmE.

Damkerng T.

That's a very good point!

lekon chekon

thanks. :3

Anonymous

In regular conversation, the difference is much smaller.

Anonymous

06:42

(Source: Biber et al. 1999 p.462)

Damkerng T.

johnchae

Thanks guys @DamkerngT., @snailboat. I'm still a bit confused since I always used the past perfect tense when it comes to a sentence consists of "by the time", I think it'd take some time to get the hang of that :/

Damkerng T.

(lehnwepo.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/6/2/38627723/…, via: ENC 3416 WEPO Fall 2015)

@johnchae No problem!

The four levels are very interesting. I think I tend to think of proofreading at the level of copyediting or substantive editing while people usually think of proofreading as the standard proofreading or the editorial proofreading.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Be (usually with a locative PP complement) has a special meaning in the perfect: I've already been there = 'I've had the experience of going there [and leaving] already.'

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, right! I think I missed that!

Anonymous

06:52

4

A: Present Perfect Tense Asking

Motional be In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p.113-4), this is called "motional be", and it has a requirement that's very unusual. In this meaning, be appears only in perfect constructions: (present perfect)　　We have been to Paris twice. (past perfect)　　　 By 2008, we had ...

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

I think I read have already been there the same, but had already been there can be ambiguous to me.

Anonymous

So if the other guests "had already been there", maybe they had stopped by and left :-)

Damkerng T.

nods -- Quite possibly!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It probably is ambiguous.

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's clear in this one that he was still there:

> When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

> biblehub.com/john/5-6.htm

Anonymous

06:58

Ah! A long time fixes the interpretation there.

Anonymous

> 1. I've been here before.　　　　　(speaker came here before and left; motional 'be')
> 2. I've been here for a long time.　 (speaker is still here now)
> 3. I've been here.　　　　　　　　 (ambiguous)

Anonymous

Something like that?

Damkerng T.

I think so!

But without a context, I'd read 3 as 1.

Anonymous

I edited my answer to include those examples:

Anonymous

5

A: Present Perfect Tense Asking

Motional be In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p.113-4), this is called "motional be", and it has a requirement that's very unusual. In this meaning, be appears only in perfect constructions: (present perfect)　　We have been to Paris twice. (past perfect)　　　 By 2008, we had...

Anonymous

07:11

Can you tell me if the columns line up on your computer?

Anonymous

Phew, they almost line up on both Ubuntu and my iPhone :-)

Damkerng T.

It looks like this on my computer. :-)

Anonymous

Aww.

Damkerng T.

Good enough, in my opinion. :D

Anonymous

Well, they intentionally try not to support lining things up vertically.

Damkerng T.

07:15

I think some variants of Markdown support tables.

Anonymous

Good thing we never do Leipzig glossing here on ELL.

Anonymous

Poor Linguistics.SE, though, suffering from arbitrary design decisions like that.

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes! It could be more problematic over there!

PhMgBr

\o

Damkerng T.

o/

Anonymous

07:17

Well, you can always fake it with monospace, at least as long as you don't need to use wide characters.

Anonymous

Linguists tend to transcribe everything in Latin letters anyway.

Anonymous

That way other linguists can read what's written, even if they don't know the language in question.

Anonymous

So it's probably not as big of a problem as I made it sound like

Anonymous

Hi, @PhMgBr!

PhMgBr

Hullo

Anonymous

07:20

How are things in LetterletterLetterletterLetterletterland?

Damkerng T.

LOL

PhMgBr

They're reacting

As usual

Anonymous

Today I sat next to a native speaker of Japanese named Takazō for a while.

Damkerng T.

I guess you must've had a good time speaking Japanese. :D

Anonymous

You run into all sorts of languages around here. When I was at the train station, I saw an ad in sextuplicate, each copy in a different language.

Damkerng T.

07:29

Hah! 6!?

What are they? English, Spanish, Portuguese, I think, and what else?

Anonymous

Yep, laid out two by three :-)

Anonymous

No Portuguese.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

Vietnamese, Tagalog, Mandarin

Damkerng T.

Hah! Tagalog, too?!

Wait, that's only 5.

Anonymous

07:31

Hmm, what was the sixth? I forget.

Anonymous

This area has a sizeable Asian population.

Damkerng T.

I'm not even sure about the Tagalog alphabet. I guess it's pretty much like English, but I don't know if it has special marks like in Vietnamese.

@snailboat Oh, oh! Is it Korean?

user206384

Hello all

Anonymous

I don't remember now. I was a little bit out of it since they took more blood and I needed to go eat :-)

Damkerng T.

Aww

Anonymous

07:36

I go to that station all the time, though, so I'll take a look again later.

Damkerng T.

Maybe it's Thai. :P

user206384

are both these correct "what time it is?" and "what time is it?"

user206384

sometimes I use the first one.

Damkerng T.

Only the latter (What time is it?) is correct.

user206384

ok

user206384

07:39

ty

Damkerng T.

np!

Anonymous

I probably would have remembered Thai writing!

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

PhMgBr

โอ้ละหนอดวงเดือนเอ่ย พี่มาเว้ารักเจ้าสาวคำดวง
โอ้ว่าดึกแล้วหนอพี่ขอลาล่วง อกพี่เป็นห่วงรักเจ้าดวงเดือนเอย
ขอลาแล้วเจ้าแก้วโกสุม(เอื้อน) พี่นี้รักเจ้าหนอขวัญต

Anonymous

Do you suppose this counts as spam? japanese.stackexchange.com/q/33797/1478

Damkerng T.

07:42

@PhMgBr Haha!

user206384

why is your name in blue?

PhMgBr

@snailboat Surveys sometimes count as spam.

user206384

ok nvm

Anonymous

Because I can use moderator powers on chat.

PhMgBr

@salman Blue means they're a moderator.

She is that is.

I've gotten crazy with singular they.

Damkerng T.

07:43

I wonder if ENGLIME is real.

Anonymous

If it is, the OP is dragging their name through the mud.

user206384

there is less people here but this place is more active, Elu chat has many people but no talk there now.

user206384

see you later sirs I have to go back to my working.

Damkerng T.

@salman See you around!

user206384

Bye robo!

user206384

07:52

Can I call you robo?

user206384

:)

Damkerng T.

Well, I guess it's okay. :-)

user206384

ty sir

user206384

bye

Damkerng T.

o/

PhMgBr

07:54

Robobobo

Damkerng T.

Tuyệt đỉnh Kungfu full Châu Tinh Trì Thuyết minh tiếng việt

►

A funny scene from an old movie that you probably have already watched.

Sometimes I think English is like that kung fu master.

The minute you think you get him, he slips away!

@PhMgBr Robobobo sounds cute!

It's somewhat like Bilbo!

PhMgBr

4

Q: Remove VLQ as a flag option

The Very Low Quality flag option sucks. prepares for controversy I'd like to see it removed totally as a flag option. Its original purpose was as a response to contentless or meaningless posts; posts that aren't answers, aren't coherent, aren't even made up of words. It was intended for cases w...

@Dam @Snail ^

Damkerng T.

I can't remember I've used VLQ as the reason. I'm not sure. Maybe I have.

PhMgBr

in Charcoal HQ, 4 mins ago, by SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: How should I understand this line from Pulp Fiction? by Patrick Bahne on ell.stackexchange.com (@PhMgBr) …

@Dam @Snail pls flag

Damkerng T.

08:11

It's actually not a bad answer, imo.

PhMgBr

No, it's a chance to troll.

Damkerng T.

Could be, but it's not that clear to me. The question is in that direction, too, anyway.

(Funny) Word of the Day: Theyocracy

johnchae

09:35

@DamkerngT. The video you posted above is dubbed in Vietnamese. For a second, it made me really surprised ^^ I'm a huge fan of Stephen Chow, I think it's safe to say that I have watched every single movies he took part in, and for many times with each one :D

Araucaria

10:44

@snailboat Hi .Was wondering if you could help me? Do you know what the "nucleus" of a clause is in terms of syntax? (as used when talking about left dislocations and so forth)

PhMgBr

11:28

@Araucaria Whoa, linguists got nuclei too?

Araucaria

@PhMgBr Yes, I think everything's got a nucleus nowadays!

PhMgBr

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

PhMgBr

12:27

@johnchae *many times each

johnchae

13:27

@PhMgBr so it should be "and for many times each"? Can you be more specific?

PhMgBr

> I'm a huge fan of Stephen Chow, I think it's safe to say that I have watched every single movies he took part in, many times each.

johnchae

14:01

Thank you @PhMgBr. Note took! (speaking of which, is "Note took" used correct here, or should I say "Noted"?)

PhMgBr

@johnchae "Noted" is correct. If you want to use the verb "take", say "note taken", but it's less common than "noted".

johnchae

Noted! Thank you @PhMgBr

PhMgBr

Anytime! (ﾉ＾◡＾)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

johnchae

:D

And one more question, I just came across this "Malaysia extended its ban on bauxite mining by another three months", which make me confused why they're using "another" with plural noun "three months" here? My guess is "three months" used here somewhat similar with their construction in this "Three months is not a long time for someone like him"?

PhMgBr

Well, @Snail explains this stuff better than any of us, but you can think of it as 'making three months a single object'.

Think of it as referring to a period of time.

CowperKettle

14:13

@johnchae By another [period of] three months.

"By other three months" would sound like we are looking at each of the three months separately.

johnchae

I see @PhMgBr, @CowperKettle! So if I'm not mistaken, the same thing applies to "sums of money", as in "3 millions Dolars is the price for that car"?

PhMgBr

Yep

johnchae

Thank you guys! @PhMgBr and @CowperKettle

Anonymous

No, three million dollars, not *three millions dollars.

PhMgBr

Oh, right!

I totally not caught that!

Anonymous

14:25

Will respond more later.

PhMgBr

Stay tuned!

CowperKettle

(0:

> Six  carbons  once  formed  in  a  ring,
with  sp2  hybridization.
The  strain  was  relieved,
and  all  six  achieved
electron  delocalization

PhMgBr

(ﾉ＾◡＾)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

CowperKettle

That's from a UCLA tutorial

(0:

on aromaticity

johnchae

@snailboat Thank you! It seems that I can not form a sentence without making a problem :( But no, I'm not that sad, I'm happy that I have you guys fix them for me. There is a big room for improvements before I'm able to master English! So thank you guys! I appreciate your help a lot!

PhMgBr

14:29

@CowperKettle I've read that one. It's nice.

@johnchae In my first days in this chat I made a lot of mistakes. They all vanished away eventually.

Just chat and speak and write, and language will build itself up.

2

johnchae

@PhMgBr Yeah, actually I'm trying to do so, every time I have some free time, I try to jump in here and chat with you guys. Hopefully someday, I will have a breakthrough in English! Thank you for cheering me up! ^^

CowperKettle

> Therefore when selecting the appropriate hybridization for an atom,
first ask, "Does the molecular structure show the atom in question as part of
pi bond?"

Shouldn't it be "as part of a pi bond"?

Top o' the evening, Snails!

PhMgBr

@CowperKettle Hmm, or "the pi bond".

The zero article makes me uneasy.

CowperKettle

14:50

@PhMgBr Non-existent things make you uneasy!

(0:

Damkerng T.

15:18

@Færd I just watched this and, for some obvious reasons, I find it relating to your recent question!

You Have To Make Whoopie To Your Hands

►

(Disclaimer: viewer discretion advised, and oh, it should be exercised appropriately :P)

@johnchae I looked for that scene on YouTube. The only clip I was able to find that scene in just happened to be in Vietnamese. :-)

johnchae

^^! I see now.

Anonymous

15:50

Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod

Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod (German: The Dative is to the Genitive its death) is a series of books by Bastian Sick which deal in an entertaining manner with areas of contention in grammar, orthography, and punctuation, and unappealing and clumsy uses of the German language. == Origins == The books are collections of the author’s column 'Zwiebelfisch' which has appeared since May 2003 in the Spiegel Online. Since February 2005 it has also appeared in print in Der Spiegel's monthly culture supplement. The column's title originates from a printers' term, literally meaning 'onion fish', which...

Damkerng T.

I wonder if Bastian Sick is a real name. It doesn't sound very much like one. :P

Oh, it's a real German name!

Anonymous

Another is etymologically an + other, but it's not the same thing anymore.

Anonymous

Another appears with a singular head or a quantified plural head.

Anonymous

> Another three bodies have/*has been discovered.

Anonymous

Here, @johnchae, the * symbol marks has as ungrammatical; you must use have in this example.

Anonymous

15:57

The phrase takes plural agreement.

johnchae

Oh yes, I'm here.

Anonymous

Another is a word with its own special grammar.

Anonymous

In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), this is covered on page 353, and CGEL gives three other exceptions:

Anonymous

> another
> an additional
> a further
> a good

Anonymous

Each of these has its own special grammar that permits it to appear (under some circumstances) with a quantified plural head.

Anonymous

16:01

Basically, they can appear with a plural head as long as you have either a number like three or the word few.

johnchae

I see, but I still feel a bit confused about why they don't use "other" here: "Malaysia extended its ban on bauxite mining by another three months"?

Anonymous

Well, you can't use other there because it's an adjective, not a determiner.

Anonymous

> *Malaysia extended its ban on bauxite mining by other three months.　←　ungrammatical

Anonymous

The sequence three other months is grammatical (plural determiner + adjective + plural noun), but it doesn't have the right meaning.

Anonymous

In this case, the meaning given by another is closer to 'additional' or 'more'.

Damkerng T.

16:05

nods -- by three more months would work, too.

johnchae

Yeah, "another 3 months" reads a bit odd to my ears, though I understand what you've explained perfectly, I still find it a little difficult to apply it to other examples.

Is this example correct: "You want to borrow me another 100 dollars"?

Damkerng T.

Oh, I remember we have a question that has an example of this use of another.

@johnchae Sure.

johnchae

Or should it be "other 100 dollars"?

Anonymous

@johnchae Another is fine there. You need to use lend, though.

Damkerng T.

No, it's never other in this pattern.

Anonymous

16:09

Borrow in the meaning 'lend' there is non-standard.

Anonymous

@johnchae Other isn't a determiner, so it's ungrammatical there.

Anonymous

Despite recent threads on ELL claiming otherwise . . .

Damkerng T.

@snailboat nods -- This is a strong piece of evidence that it's an adjective!

johnchae

@DamkerngT. Can you give me the link to that question?

Damkerng T.

2

Q: How is it, Kirby?

I'm watching an old TV show on youtube: COMBAT! s.2 ep.3: "Masquerade" (1963) I wonder what they are exactly and literally saying from 0:26 to 0:48. All I can hear and comprehend is that: 0:26 How is it, Kirby? 0:48 OK, OK, that's a deal.

listening

Færd

16:11

@DamkerngT. Heh!

:)

Damkerng T.

@Færd Hee

Færd

Now I'll think of this every time I want to wash my hands.

Damkerng T.

Haha!

Færd

For some time at least.

Anonymous

Oh, I'm glad I didn't watch it then.

Færd

16:12

:)

Damkerng T.

@johnchae Here is the sentence in that question: "Another lousy three inches I'd've been sent to Battalion Aid."

johnchae

Hmm, I'm thinking about it, can you guys give me some other examples? Actually I'm 'googling' what exactly "Determiners" are...

:/

CowperKettle

@johnchae Determiners are articles and words like "both", "these" etc

Damkerng T.

@johnchae At this level of English, you'd automatically use a determiner when you use a singular countable noun.

> It's a book. It's his book. Which book? That book.

Anonymous

You can bold which there too :-)

Damkerng T.

16:19

I wasn't sure about that one! :D

johnchae

Thanks @CowperKettle, @DamkerngT.

Anonymous

That's an interrogative determiner.

Anonymous

(I typed determinative, tried to edit it to determiner, and somehow ended up with determinater! When grammar gets scary . . . )

CowperKettle

(0:

I need your A's, your THE's and your motorcycle.

Damkerng T.

Determinet just sent back a determinatrix to fight determinater!

Who would win in a fight? #FridayNightFights

Tweeted by StephenAtHome on April 22, 2016 at 9:32 PM

Adam

16:23

Question for the group: There's a suggested edit to this post: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/88425/… I skipped approving it, because the original wording reveals that the OP has very weak skills. What would you all recommend?

Damkerng T.

Oh, no! Dumbledore is gonna lose!

reading ...

Anonymous

@Adam There doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus in the community about those sorts of edits.

Anonymous

Some users feel we should leave them alone because they, as you said, make the OP's English ability very clear.

Adam

Yeah - I searched Meta, and didn't find a definitive yes or no answer with overwhelming support.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I usually don't initiate this kind of edit myself, but I'm not really against it.

Anonymous

16:25

Other users feel that we should edit these questions because we're trying to make a library of useful information for future users coming in from Google, and so the question and answers should both be as easy to read and understand as possible.

Anonymous

I fall in the latter camp, but I've more or less given up on editing because there are a few vocal people who are against it. So, um, shrug? :-)

Adam

I can just keep skipping them :-)

Anonymous

I'm inclined to approve it personally. I think I may go do just that . . .

johnchae

Guys, I'm off for a while, and will probably spending the night for that topic "another vs other" (actually I'm still really confused but can't find an appropriate question to ask you guys). So see you guys tomorrow! Thank you for your time!

Adam

Good - that'll get it out of my queue.

Damkerng T.

16:28

@johnchae See you tomorrow! Good night!

johnchae

Actually, right now, I'm doing some searches on "lend vs borrow" as @snailboat has pointed out :p

Night night @DamkerngT.

Anonymous

@Araucaria Well, there's nucleus in Role and Reference Grammar, but that doesn't seem like it could possibly be relevant . . .

johnchae

See you soon!

Thank you!

Anonymous

@Araucaria I assume you're referring to Huddleston's term nucleus, which I think goes back to Introduction to the Grammar of English (Huddleston 1984).

Anonymous

Do you have a specific context for your question?

Damkerng T.

16:34

@Færd An answer that relates folded hands to books gave me an idea. I image-searched for "closed hands" and found the Añjali Mudrā gesture in several results!

If our hands can be thought of as a book, we should be able to close them, and apparently, we could!

And not in the way I'd think if I hadn't read the question.

Anonymous

Huddleston's nucleus is basically the subject + predicate of the clause, not including anything that's been moved out of it.

Anonymous

Wow, ELL reviewers have started rejecting all sorts of edits that I'm sure would have gotten approved a year or two ago.

Anonymous

Look at all these rejections (well, assuming you have enough rep to see other users' reviews): ell.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/history

Anonymous

Personally, I think it's kind of hostile to visitors coming in from Google to intentionally reject edits that make questions easier to read and understand.

Anonymous

It goes against the entire idea behind Stack Exchange, really.

Anonymous

16:45

Creating a library of knowledge for future users to find and refer to.

Anonymous

Choosing to intentionally waste future users' time and cognitive resources because you think it might give a prospective answerer a hint as to the proficiency of the asker . . . I just don't get it.

Anonymous

But that's exactly what several prominent users think we should do.

CowperKettle

@snailboat Neither do I

Anonymous

Besides, it gives people the impression that they don't need to bother with formatting their questions nicely.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Back then, I wasn't very familiar with the site. I didn't know that all the clues are still there, but in the revision history.

Anonymous

16:50

I think it just contributes to the general low quality of the site.

CowperKettle

The bane of all volunteer mass projects on the web is the lack of staff who would do the pesky work of making all things tidy.

Policing, proofreading, etc.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle I like making things tidy, but people don't want me to.

Anonymous

You know, fifteen years ago, I moved into a house with some roommates, and I was the one who cleaned everything because my roommates didn't want to.

CowperKettle

nods

Anonymous

And one of them actually asked me not to clean everything because they felt bad about not contributing. Like, rather than volunteer to help out, they asked me to let things get messy.

Anonymous

16:53

Of course, I moved out :-)

CowperKettle

You did right. (0:

Well, of course some people are not tidy, but are a nice company.

Anonymous

Sure. I don't mean everyone has to be a neat freak.

CowperKettle

nods

Anonymous

Actually, I'm happy to do a lot of tasks related to cleaning. I like cleaning :-)

CowperKettle

(0:

> All-endearing Cleanliness,
Virtue next to Godliness,
Easiest, cheapest, needful'st duty,
To the body health and beauty,
Who that's human would refuse it,
When a little water does it?

Curious use of "does it".

I wish Lamb wrote better.

Færd

17:05

@DamkerngT. Well, as powerful a tool as it is, Google is a bit risky too. In unclear situations like this the captions of the images or their context should also be checked.

Damkerng T.

That's right!

Araucaria

@snailboat Maybe. Yes, it's at the bottom of this Q here

@snailboat So if something has a negative adverbial at the front of it, would that material be occurring before the nucleus?

Anonymous

Oh, Huddleston 1984 actually says "for the concept of nucleus, see Lyons 1968:§8.1.1" in the Further reading section. So I guess the concept and term are older than that.

Anonymous

He doesn't seem to give a really clear definition of nucleus in Huddleston 1984 or Huddleston & Pullum 2002 . . .

Anonymous

Lyons 1968 would be Introduction to theoretical linguistics (Lyons, J. 1968)

Araucaria

17:14

@snailboat Thanks was just trying to find it ...

Anonymous

Page 334

Araucaria

@snailboat It's online at CUP website ...

@snailboat Ok, so it says that adjuncts at the beginning and end of clauses are occur outside of the nucleus.

... in case that's of any interest!

Anonymous

It's actually surprising that Huddleston doesn't give a clear definition of nucleus in CGEL, though. I mean, sure, subject + predicate, but it seems like you have to infer the precise definition by reading the whole grammar and looking for things that are mentioned as being inside or outside the nucleus.

Anonymous

It seems like an important concept!

Anonymous

And when you look up nucleus in CGEL's index, there are only two page numbers.

Anonymous

17:29

Well, I know it's not intended as a 'formal' grammar as such, but still.

Araucaria

@snailboat Yes, quite!

@snailboat I want to say that inversion in needed in sentences with preposed negative adjuncts in order to undo the positive assertion of truth that would otherwise exist in the nucleus of the clause: "Never before I have been to Paris"

and that it isn't required when that assertion is still meant to hold "With no help at all, I managed to climb the stairs", for example.

Damkerng T.

It looks like the term "nucleus" is only meaningful in the context of formal generative grammar.

(Which I don't really know what's going on in there.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. As far as I'm aware, nucleus is not used in generative grammar.

Araucaria

"For no money, I would do your cleaning for you" versus "For no money would I do your cleaning for you"

Anonymous

But it might be used in a way I'm just not aware of.

Damkerng T.

17:39

Hmm... interesting. I saw the trees, I thought generative grammar!

Araucaria

@snailboat Do you reckon I can present my point like that though?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Trees are useful outside generative grammar :-)

Anonymous

@Araucaria I need a few minutes before I read those messages, I'll be right back

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Where are the trees?

@snailboat Sure, thanks :)

Damkerng T.

Footnote, page 48.

Araucaria

17:42

@DamkerngT. CaGEL?

Damkerng T.

Yes

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. Oh right, don't have that with me. Am in the pub trying to write!

Damkerng T.

I'm yoga-ing. :P

Araucaria

@DamkerngT. You can yoga and type at the same time?!

Damkerng T.

Apparently!

(child pose, at the moment)

Araucaria

17:47

@DamkerngT. Don't know very much about yoga. Apart from it sounds suspiciously like it's got an exercise component ...

:-)

Damkerng T.

I do it mainly as an exercise. :-)

CowperKettle

I do jog-a as an exercise. Unluckily, I can't type while doing it.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

18:01

@Araucaria Yeah, actually, that's a pretty good observation! :-) It's something I'd never thought about before, but I think it makes sense.

Araucaria

19:15

@snailboat Shucks, got locked out of SE chat for a bit! Thanks for that! :-)

PhMgBr

@Araucaria Locked out? O_o

Araucaria

@PhMgBr Wouldn't load my comments etc

PhMgBr

Oh, bad websockets and stuff.

It sucks

Araucaria

@PhMgBr Indeed!

Anonymous

19:42

ell.stackexchange.com/posts/87649/timeline ← I tried twice to get this reopened and both times failed, but it looks like some other users reopened it just now :-)

Damkerng T.

Hey, I'm one of the reopeners!

<-- a can-reopener, a cousin of can openers. :P

Anonymous

The other copy of the definiteness question got closed.

Anonymous

So we don't have an open copy anymore.

Anonymous

I did vote to reopen the ELL one, though.

Damkerng T.

Yay!

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