Search results for 'tag:Nominative tag:Vowels' matching tags 'Nominative' and 'Vowels'

Re: The reform of linguistics

Forbes — Tue, 16 May 2006 14:44:13 GMT

Imagine a language in which:

âThe man hit the table with a stickâ is

âCopoloteko tipadela tisadure asutariki bu.â

In this sentence

co = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something animate

polo = man

te = a nominative case marker

ko = the speaker wishes to emphasise the word âmanâ

ti = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something inanimate

pade = table

la = accusative marker

ti = as above

sadu = stick

re = an instrumental case marker

a = a prefix indicating that the event took place in the recent past

suta = hit

ri = a suffix indicating that the subject of the sentence is animate

ki = a suffix indicating that the object of the sentence is inanimate

bu = a particle showing respect to the person addressed

If we substitute a completely different set of phonemes throughout, so that for example âcopolotekoâ becomes âdasazaviwuâ, the morphology and syntax have not been changed. We can go a step further and make all the syllables closed so that we have âdansaszarvitwunâ, or again go further still and introduce some consonant clusters to produce âdranspaszarvlistwunâ. In each case the phonology of the language is different, but the morphology and syntax are identical.

Now of course changes in the phonology of a language go hand in hand with changes in its morphology: a classic case is where case endings for nouns are weakened and eventually dropped. But what you seem to be saying, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you can predict the morphology and syntax of a language from its phonology. In particular, you seem to be suggesting that if a language has a small inventory of phonemes and a simple phonology (that is all syllables must be of the form V or CV or CVC where the final C is restricted to, say, /m/ /n/ and /Å/) the language must be analytic, isolating, monosyllabic and have significant tonality.

If we take Spanish, it is a language with a comparatively simple phonology. It has only five vowels and the total number of phonemes is about the same as in Mandarin Chinese. The range of consonant clusters is restricted to initial C1C2 where C2 has to be /l/ or /r/. Syllables may only end in a vowel or /Ã°/, /l/, /n/, /r/, /s/ and /Î¸/ and even then the /Ã°/, /r/, and /s/ are weak and even disappear in some speakers/varieties with /Î¸/ becoming /s/. Whilst Spanish is less synthetic than Latin, from which it derives, it is not isolating, certainly not monosyllabic and does not have significant tonality, at least not at the lexical level, though the difference between statements and questions is often marked only by intonation. Thus we have Spanish and Chinese with broadly similar phonologies (except of course that the phoneme inventories are different) but which are otherwise completely different from each other. It may also be noted that whilst French has a far greater number of phonemes and a more complex phonology than Spanish, Spanish and French have a similar morphology and syntax (at least compared to other non-Romance languages).

Unless I have completely misunderstood what you are saying, what seems to be the sum of your argument is that simple phonology equals simple language equals simple mind, which is a contention I cannot possibly accept.

Re: Singular & plural words

JoeTotale — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:44:16 GMT

It's been said before, but here's the fully-detailed (too-much-detailed) explanation of octopus. Don't worry if you get confused; this is more for the English-speakers who are confused about the whole matter:

"Octopus" comes from the Greek roots "okto" (eight) and "pous" (foot). It's a Latinized spelling, which is why the "ou" got changed to a "u" (see also "Constantinople" for "Konstantinoupolis"). The "-us" ending leads many people to believe that it's a second-declension Latin noun, but it's not. It's Greek third-declension, the root of which is "pod-":

The singular nominative was originally "pods", but the language evolved so that "ts", "ds", and "ths" all became "s". To compensate for the lost consonant, the preceding short vowel was lengthened (so "pods" > "poos", or "pous"). The rest of the declension -- "podos", "podi", and "poda" in the singular -- was unchanged, because there was no S to take away the D. The plural goes "podes", "podon", "pousi" (from "podsi"), and "podas". Therefore, going by Greek standards, the plural of "oktopous" would be "oktopodes" (or "octopus" > "octopodes").

The reason you don't see more "pus"/"pous" spellings is that, during the Renaissance, words tended to be derived from the undeclined roots themselves and not from the declined nominatives. A camera therefore rests on a tripod, not a tripodes.

Incidentally, "cactus" is another word that people assume to be Latin and make "cacti" the plural. The original word is "kaktos", the plural of which is "kaktoi".

So you can be pedantic and insist on "octopodes" and "cactoi"; you can be foolish and insist on "octopi" and "cacti"; or you can take a much preferable middle ground and just say "octopuses" and "cactuses" and leave all the silly etymological stuff for the people who care way too much about it.

Interestingly enough, the only areas where people do apparently care about Greek plurals is in dental-stem neuter nouns of the third declension. Take the root "dogmat-", for example. To form the singular, you add nothing to the stem (dogmat), and since Greek words can end only in N, S, or a vowel, the T disappears (dogma). To form the plural, you add an A to the stem (dogmata). (Stigma/stigmata is another example) There are few of these words but oddly enough, it comes off as uneducated not to know them. (if you're really interested, the "dogmat-" stem holds through the rest of the declension: dogmatos, dogmati, etc.)

Re: English is a crazy language

pemmican — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 02:54:21 GMT

Deepa, I totally agree with you!

As examples always enlighten a lot, I'll give you some impressions of my mother tongue German:
I have to say that English in many cases is simpler than my native language. You mentioned e.g. the gender of a noun which is usually expressed by the article. In English, there are no genders, everything is "the", while in German you have three genders: der (masculine), die (feminine), das (neuter). With human beings, the grammatical gender usually agrees in the natural gender as 'the man' is 'der Mann', the woman is die Frau and the child, when you don't know whether it is a boy or a girl is das Kind. But - already here you have exceptions as e.g. the word for "girl" is neuter: das MÃ¤dchen even if it's obvious that a girl is female!

According to the gender, also the adjectives have to be inflected:
a good man is in German ein guter Mann
a good woman is eine gute Frau
and a good child is ein gutes Kind.

For all the "simple" nouns you have to learn their genders by heart as there is no rule to cling to when you need to know the noun's gender. If you have a compound word, i.e. a noun that consists of two or more own nouns, e.g. buttercup or sunshine, the word takes over the gender of the last noun -> sun is Sonne in German, feminine: die Sonne, Schein is masculine: der Schein, so sunshine is masculine, too: der Sonnenschein.

Speaking of compound words, German has an incredible ability to form new words out of already existing words. Unlike English, that takes over Latin terms to get new words, e.g. accept, surprise, German forms them this way: accept = annehmen from nehmen =take and an = on => take on; surprise = Ã¼berraschen from Ã¼ber = over and rasch =quick => overquick, etc.
Compound words can be put together out of many single words - they are written as one word then, e.g. "DampfschiffahrtskapitÃ¤nsuniformfarbe" which means "colour of the uniform of a captain of a steamboat". Farbe = colour here is the last word and has the feminine gender, so the whole compound term is feminine: "Die DampfschiffahrtskapitÃ¤nsuniformfarbe".

English, with some very few old exceptions, usually adds an -s to the noun and you have its plural form: dog-dogs, car-cars, tree-trees.
German nouns form their plural in different ways:
adding -(e)n: Frau-Frauen (woman)
adding -s: Auto-Autos (car)
adding -e: Brot-Brote (bread)
adding nothing: Teller-Teller (plate)
umlauting the stem vowel: Vater-VÃ¤ter (father)
umlauting the stem vowel and adding -er: Haus-HÃ¤user (house)
umlauting the stem vowel and adding -e: Sohn-SÃ¶hne (son)
...

Also the cases in German still have their own forms, that means instead of forming a case by taking a preposition and keeping the noun in its actual form, German nouns add endings and in addition, the article changes as well:

------------------------Singular-------Plural
Nominative case --- das Haus-------die HÃ¤user------------the house------the houses
Genitive case--------des Hauses----der HÃ¤user------------of the house---of the houses
Dative case----------dem Haus(e)--den HÃ¤usern-----------to the house---to the houses
Accusative case-----das Haus-------die HÃ¤user-------------the house------the houses

(this is only one paradigm though - other nouns follow a different pattern)

Verbs in German still keep inflecting endings for all the persons, also in past tense, sometimes an umlaut occurs in 2nd and 3rd person singular, eg: tragen (to carry)

Present--------------Past
ich trage-------------ich trug-----------I carry------------I carried
du trÃ¤gst-------------du trugst---------you carry---------you carried
er trÃ¤gt--------------er trug------------he carries---------he carried
wir tragen-----------wir trugen--------we carry----------we carried
ihr tragt-------------ihr trugt-----------you carry---------you carried
sie tragen-----------sie trugen---------they carry--------they carried

As you can see here, there are also two different forms of "you": du and ihr. You have to differenciate between whom you're adressing: If it's only one person, you use 'du', if it's 2 or more people you use 'ihr' - and additionally: If you want to address one or more person who you don't know very well, you have to use the polite form "Sie" - so all in all there are 3 pronouns for English "you".
Of course, also these pronouns have different forms when they are used in the four cases.

Ok, I'll leave it with this now - I don't wanna type a whole Grammar here *hehe*
I hope you can now see that in many parts, Grammar English is a lot easier than in other languages. BUT on the other hand I have to say that there are also things that are easier in German - tenses for example. German e.g. doesn't have progressive tenses and it's also not necessary to use future tense when referring to future happenings, usually everyone uses the present tense instead...

But *blahblah* - I hope this info might have helped you a bit. Comparing languges to each other often opens doors, you haven't seen before and it's usually very helpful to have a closer look also at Grammar of your native language when learning a foreign language.

Re: I or me

Usenet — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 19:47:31 GMT

[nq:1]In modern everyday English the form is "If you were me ..." and "If you had been me ..." - ... remarkably stilted and the historical claim that it is grammatically "correct" is dubious, to say the least. Regards, Einde O'Callaghan[/nq]
If I remember correctly, I think the German translation is:

"Als Sie wäre ich, ..."

I think that the German is more logical; why should we using the dative case in our example? Sometimes the dative is used to describe the benefactor of an action, for example, "I gave him a fiver", or laid out flat "I gave a fiver to him". This doesn't seem to be the case with our original hypothetical statement.

However, normal usage says we should use "me" in place of "I". "Hey", I tell my students, I didn't invent this language!

Other languages, like Spanish use the nominative case where English uses the dative. For example,

"Who is it?" "It's me" "¿Quien está?" "Soy Yo" or literally "Am I"

If I ramble on for a bit more... Modern linguists generally agree that English only has the remnants of the germanic case system, as a consequence of the Great Vowel shift that took place in England several centuries ago. If we accept that, then we don't have to pay much attention when people suggest that English has a case system. ;)

Iain