English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

1:46 AM

Is there a soul here with a clue what this question is trying to ask?

0

Q: Why does has, had, or have validate the use of past participles such as, "taken," "given," etc

What is so special about has, had, or have that past participles can only be used with them? Why don't we say "I taken the test"? Instead, we use the simple past tense "took" and say "I took the test." Why does has, had, or have validate the use of a past participle?

Do we really have to go into Indo-European strong verbs and morphologies? There's no "why" here that I can imagine.

Like why don't we add -en for plural nouns, or why do we have a past tense in the first place?

How in the world do you answer any of this without laying bare the whole expanse of diachronic evolution over thousands of years? And how even then do you answer a "why" with a "because"?

> The have-perfect in English apparently arose as a reanalysis of uses such as I have my work done ‘I have my work in a done or finished condition’ (see sense 7b); the complement done was reinterpreted as part of the verb phrase, a process which was reinforced by a lack of fixed word order and the possible transposition of object and participle, i.e. I have done my work. This development appears to have largely taken place before the written record. Even in early Old English, in the majority of examples with transitive verbs the past participle is not inflected to agree with the object. Des…

Is that what he doesn't understand? Is that "why"?

That doesn't seem enough. It's like he doesn't understand verbs. But he's a native speaker, pretty sure, so I am baffled.

Cerberus

2:08 AM

@tchrist Yes, that is exactly what he seems to want to know.

He does understand how to use the verbs, that is clear.

He just worded his question in a way that people here are allergic to.

@tchrist Yes, why can indicate a cause rather than a reason. That's ordinary English, I should think.

So you should reopen the question and answer it using that quotation.

tchrist

@Cerberus Thanks.

Cerberus

This is the kind of question which, eight years ago, we would have called a seemingly simple or weird question that can actually result in a great answer.

I also feel that you and especially Billy were unnecessarily impolite towards the poster.

Admittedly, his capitals were also LESS THAN CIVIL.

tchrist

@Cerberus Deleted.

You want another job? :)

The OED's entry on have is incredibly voluminous before it even gets to the first sense. You cannot possibly imagine it.

> Use as auxiliary.

The development of the periphrastic constructions with past participle (the antecedents of the modern present and past perfect) to some extent parallels developments in other Germanic and Romance languages, but appears at least partly to reflect development within English (compare note at branch VI.). Although frequently attested in similar contexts to the later present and past perfect, in early use the periphrastic constructions are variants of the simple past tense and their use is not fully grammaticalized. With transitive verbs in Old English, they are sometimes no…

Cerberus

@tchrist I am trying!

tchrist

That's another bit.

Cerberus

2:18 AM

I have edited the question in shape.

tchrist

I'm going to delete the following:

Cerberus

Do you think it could be reopened now?

tchrist

Didn't I do that already?

I'm going to delete that.

But it should help your imagination.

Cerberus

Ah, you did.

@tchrist Yeah, the commonest verbs make for the longest entries in the dictionary.

In addition to some conjunctions.

tchrist

Just look at the Forms alone!

Cerberus

2:21 AM

In an ordinary high-school Greek dictionary, the word hôs will have 10 or 20 pages.

Indeed, verbs have so many forms!

tchrist

I pasted only down to the first couple of lines of the very firstmost sense. It's surely immense.

> In early use this word often translates the superficially similar classical Latin habēre (see habit n.) and its reflex Anglo-Norman and Old French aver (see aver n.). While the Indo-European bases of the Latin and Germanic words are apparently unrelated etymologically, it is likely that there was semantic influence from an early date.

I thought you might find that snippet interesting.

Cerberus

@tchrist I noticed.

@tchrist I vaguely remembered they were unrelated.

But contaminated.

> Traditioneel houdt men deze twee wortels strikt gescheiden, maar suggereert men wel contaminatie van beide in de latere afzonderlijke talen.

tchrist

Cute choice of words.

I've posted a minimal answer along the lines you've suggested. Thank you for your advice and edits.

If you need to go back to that long paste, I didn't delete it from the database, just from public view.

If you were fascinated, I could even mail you a one-time link to the actual entry good for three days' access.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh?

tchrist

"Contamination"

Cerberus

2:36 AM

Well, it's the same in English!

tchrist

Contact always causes exchange.

Cerberus

@tchrist Excellent!

@tchrist Thanks.

I have the OED on my computer in two versions.

Though it's not the latest edition.

tchrist

I only have v2+smidgen on my own box. The v3 is greatly expanded in some things, not in others.

Last update was March 2015 for have.

Cerberus

Mine has about 5 screens of morphology for have.

tchrist

Cerberus

2:39 AM

You could auto-text-compare the two versions, see what's changed.

tchrist

yeah

There's in disparate formats, so it would take fiddlework.

> OE Blickling Homilies 107 Þonne magon we us God ælmihtigne mildne habban.

I don't know what mildne means there.

Not sure on magon even.

The Lindisfarne Gospels might be older.

> OE (Northumbrian) Lindisf. Gospels: Matt. vi. 24 Habebit : he hæfeð uel he scile habba.

I wonder why vel is set in italic.

Because it's Latin?

Cerberus

@tchrist Alas.

tchrist

It gets a little easier once the years start having four digits to them: Alle þa. Þatt shulenn habbenn blisse.

Cerberus

All ... that should have bliss?

tchrist

They write "?OE" for some of the Middle English like Hi sculen habe þat brad. and Me brekeð þe nute for to habbene þene curnel.

@Cerberus Maybe þa. is they.

I don't know why it has a dot.

And I don't know if it's shall or should. But it feels plural.

Decoding 13th century Spanish is TRIVIAL in comparison to decoding 13th century English.

Even 11th century Spanish, ditto.

I don't mean to say it's easy, and wouldn't be to someone "learning" Spanish. But to a fluent and educated speaker, yes, it is very very simple.

It doesn't feel like truly a different language the way Old and even Middle English both do.

(on phone)

Cerberus

2:58 AM

@tchrist Probably present?

I would rather except a vowel change than a disappearing d.

@tchrist Yes, I suppose they have been civilised for far longer than we!

tchrist

3:10 AM

@Cerberus Interesting observation!

Cerberus

Well, it is true.

tchrist

They weren't occupied by a foreign power with a different language for a thousand years.

Cerberus

The Romans did much of the work.

tchrist

Well, I wasn't counting them.

Cerberus

That, too, but that isn't the cause.

The Germans weren't occupied.

And yet they can't read what their ancestors wrote.

tchrist

3:12 AM

Well, the English were, by the French.

@Cerberus Funny thing that.

Cerberus

It's just that the Romans were civilised, say, 2100 years ago, at which time they established their written language.

And it has been kept alive ever since.

We only established our written language a few hundred years ago.

tchrist

yes

I imagine Shakespeare could read Chaucer.

Even though reading S. isn't hard for us 400 years later, and C. was 200 years before S.

Cerberus

Quite probably!

tchrist

5:42 AM

> Plural fungi Brit. /ˈfʌŋɡʌɪ/, /ˈfʌndʒʌɪ/, /ˈfʌŋɡi/, U.S. /ˈfənˌdʒaɪ/, /ˈfəŋˌɡaɪ/, /ˈfəŋɡi/

Wonder how /ˈfʌŋɡəs/ could have so many possible plural pronunciations.

The ones with /d/ are so weird.

Fund gyrations.

That's how many mushrooms you get to eat a day.

In round numbers.

Feeds

7:56 AM

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Q: English word for minimal passing performance in examination

In Dutch there is a specialist term used in education, ''cesuur'', to designate the minimal performance that should translate to a passing grade. For example in a multiple choice exam with 40 questions, the ''cesuur'' might be at 27 questions, meaning that you need at least 27 correct answers to ...

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