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Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-01-31, 13:54
by dEhiN
vijayjohn wrote:
Vi har dock ett villkor för att genomföra köpet. Det är att vi, Charlottendals Mc, kör motorcykeln till den närmaste tull station för oss och vi, du och oss, tillsammans deklarerar motorcykeln.

But is that a subjective phrase? It seems to me to be more an objective phrase. Although I guess the point is it's still a mix of subjective and objective pronoun.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-01-31, 15:27
by linguoboy
dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Vi har dock ett villkor för att genomföra köpet. Det är att vi, Charlottendals Mc, kör motorcykeln till den närmaste tull station för oss och vi, du och oss, tillsammans deklarerar motorcykeln.

But is that a subjective phrase? It seems to me to be more an objective phrase.

How do you figure? "Du och oss" stands in apposition with "vi", which is the subject of "deklarerar".

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-17, 14:40
by Johanna
linguoboy wrote:
dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Vi har dock ett villkor för att genomföra köpet. Det är att vi, Charlottendals Mc, kör motorcykeln till den närmaste tull station för oss och vi, du och oss, tillsammans deklarerar motorcykeln.

But is that a subjective phrase? It seems to me to be more an objective phrase.

How do you figure? "Du och oss" stands in apposition with "vi", which is the subject of "deklarerar".

The entire thing is weird and doesn't even look like it's written by a native speaker, it may even have been created by running some other language through a machine translator.

In more natural Swedish it would be something like

Vi har dock ett villkor för att genomföra köpet. Det är att vi, Charlottendals MC, kör motorcyklen till tullstationen närmast oss* och att vi tillsammans med dig deklarerar motorcykeln.

* den tullstation som ligger närmast oss is another possible version of that part.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-17, 17:08
by vijayjohn
Does "du och oss" sound weird or impossible to you in Swedish? I.e. is it impossible for you to think of a context where you or another native speaker might say that? (I'm just asking out of curiosity :)).

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 0:57
by Johanna
vijayjohn wrote:Does "du och oss" sound weird or impossible to you in Swedish? I.e. is it impossible for you to think of a context where you or another native speaker might say that? (I'm just asking out of curiosity :)).

Hmmm...

I'm on the verge of over thinking it, so I'm not sure I can trust myself completely any more. But in short, I wouldn't say that it's impossible, but if it does exist it's definitely on the weird side. So I would say that it may be grammatical in certain circumstances for a few speakers, but I don't think even those people would find it truly idiomatic.

In other words, it's something you might hear spoken in the heat of the moment, but that's about it.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 5:47
by vijayjohn
I just found a poem in German called "Ich und Dich."

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 8:41
by kevin
vijayjohn wrote:I just found a poem in German called "Ich und Dich."

This is poetic license at best, but not correct grammar.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 8:57
by dEhiN
kevin and Johanna can correct me if I'm wrong (as well as speakers of any other Germanic languages), but from those I'm talking to, it seems like English might be the only modern Germanic language that allows a subjective phrase that includes the oblique case. Of course this allowance seems to be dialectal or even idiolectal specific.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 9:14
by kevin
That was my impression, too, but I can't really speak with certainty for much more than German - or maybe I should say Standard German and the Southern varieties, who knows what Low German dialects do...

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-18, 15:54
by vijayjohn
Well, it's certainly possible for subjects to just be in the oblique case - e.g. Icelandic dative experiencer subjects, or perhaps constructions like mir ist kalt for 'I'm cold' in German, which would technically be "including the oblique case" (though I'm not sure whether mir counts as a subject here or not). But you mean to ask about mixed-case subjects, right? (I think you could also get a clause with a nominative case subject conjoined with another that has a dative case subject in Icelandic).

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-19, 5:35
by dEhiN
vijayjohn wrote:But you mean to ask about mixed-case subjects, right?

Yes because originally I believe I posted about a mixed-case subject like "him and I", and how my friend and her partner thought it should be "he and I". (Actually they didn't just think that; they were sure of it and argued I was wrong.) For me a mixed-case subject involving two agents, one in the nominative case and one in the oblique case, is perfectly correct grammatically.

I then brought this question up in the UL Skype group and there were two members on there who argued that my version was wrong. One of the members brought up about how no other Germanic language allows for this. When I posted that here, linguoboy used a Swedish example to show that there is at least one other Germanic language which allows for it. Except now Johanna basically said that his example doesn't sound natural, and a more natural sounding example wouldn't allow for a mixed case.

Coming back to English though, my impression is that there are a sufficient amount of dialects that accept a mixed-case subject that I think even a prescriptive grammarian or English teacher needs to accept that both mixed and non-mixed subjects are acceptable in English. Meaning, I think that my friend's view is an older view used by English teachers in the past, and nowadays that view is no longer the case.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-19, 5:37
by dEhiN
Separate topic: I saw on Quora this question
Could Proto-Afro-Asiatic be Proto-Canaanite?
The Out-of-the-Levant hypothesis


I have no way of even beginning to answer that since I've never heard of the Out-of-the-Levant hypothesis. Have any of you ever heard of this? What are you immediate thoughts on this questions? I always thought Canaanite was a branch of Afro-Asiatic, making Proto-Canaanite a daughter language of Proto-Afro-Asiatic?

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-19, 6:34
by vijayjohn
As someone who doesn't even believe in the unity of Afro-Asiatic since none of the Semiticists he's personally met seem to be too convinced of it, that question you quoted pretty much immediately made me want to facepalm. :P
dEhiN wrote:When I posted that here, linguoboy used a Swedish example to show that there is at least one other Germanic language which allows for it. Except now Johanna basically said that his example doesn't sound natural, and a more natural sounding example wouldn't allow for a mixed case.

Just a little correction here: I'm the one who brought up the Swedish example. ;)
I think even a prescriptive grammarian or English teacher needs to accept that both mixed and non-mixed subjects are acceptable in English.

An English teacher, sure. I don't expect prescriptive grammarians to accept pretty much anything, though, and I don't see why they should accept some things (but not others).
Meaning, I think that my friend's view is an older view used by English teachers in the past, and nowadays that view is no longer the case.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. I understand this a bit differently (though I'm not too sure how accurate all this is): I thought it was always possible in English to have certain kinds of oblique-case subjects (e.g. me and him went to the store lol why is this example so common? It's always about the fucking store. It should be something like me and him were axe murderers and partners in crime. :twisted:). Then, during the Renaissance at the earliest, a prescriptive rule was developed, based on Latin and such, that subjects must always be in nominative/subjective/whatever case, which I guess would give e.g. I and he or he and I instead of me and him or him and I. Then on top of that, there was a further rule introduced later that the word I should always come at the end of such phrases; this is the rule linguoboy was talking about.

While it may indeed have been intended to deflect attention/emphasis/whatever from the speaker, when I went to school, no one explained what the motivation for any of these rules was, only that "and I" should always come at the end, and possibly that subjects should be in subjective case and objects in oblique case. However, there was also a kind of hypercorrection that took place, motivated by the generalization that when these phrases included I in them at all, they should always end with and I regardless of their position in the sentence, leading to him and I alongside him and me and he and I. (And then from there, the story gets even more complicated, at least in part because ______ and I is more acceptable in some constructions than in others even when the constructions appear to be very similar).

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-22, 20:13
by md0
I am quite confused about how to treat CP-complements to Determiners, because we do GB almost exclusively using English.

How does this look to you?

Το 	ότι 			ήρθες 	είναι 	σημαντικό 
DET.NOM that pro.2SG came is important
What is important is that you came.


Code: Select all

[IP [DP [D' [D το ] [CP [C' [C ότι]] [IP [SpecIP pro] [I' [I ήρθες]]]]]] [I' [I είναι_1_] [VP [V' [V t_1_] [AdjP [AdjP' [Adj σημαντικό]]]]]]]

index.png


I need to get this right, because I then want to look how the CP-complement receives/agrees for Case.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-22, 22:16
by md0
And I am getting further and further distracted

Code: Select all

✓[IP [I' [Ι είναι] [VP σημαντικό]] [DP το ότι ήρθες]]
✓[IP [I'  [VP σημαντικό][Ι είναι]] [DP το ότι ήρθες]]
✓[IP [DP το ότι ήρθες] [I' [Ι είναι] [VP σημαντικό]]]
%[IP [DP το ότι ήρθες] [I'  [VP σημαντικό][Ι είναι]]]

✓[CP [C [Q] [είναι]] [IP [I' [Ι t] [VP σημαντικό]] [DP το ότι ήρθες]]]
✓[CP [C [Q] [είναι]] [IP [DP το ότι ήρθες] [I' [Ι t] [VP σημαντικό]]]]
*[CP [IP [DP το ότι ήρθες] [I' [Ι t] [VP σημαντικό]]] [C [Q] [είναι]]]
*[CP [IP [I' [Ι t] [VP σημαντικό]] [DP το ότι ήρθες]] [C [Q] [είναι]]]

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-23, 6:03
by vijayjohn
Maybe you could treat the CP as being subordinate to a headless NP or something? So something like:

Code: Select all

[DP [D' [D Το][NP [N' [N 0]][CP [C' [C ότι]][IP [DP [D pro]] [I' [I ήρθες]]]]]]]

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-25, 7:29
by Koko
Are there any languages where the basic conjugation of a verb is past tense? As in, the root of a verb is past and a morpheme has to added to indicate present (and/or future)? And this is different from how perfective and imperfective aspects work in Slavic languages.

Let's say to is the verb to go and there is the present affix mi-. So "I go" would be i mito but if you said i to it would mean "I went." Does this occur in natural languages?

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-25, 7:48
by vijayjohn
Yes, absolutely. This is how lots of creoles work (IIRC, the majority of creoles): If a verb is not accompanied by any other morphology (or any indication that the tense is something other than past), then the default interpretation is that it is in past tense, so e.g. mi go in Atlantic English-based creoles would be interpreted as 'I went' by default.

In Persian, my understanding is that if you know the infinitive form of a verb, then creating any past tense form or simple future tense form of it is very straightforward. However, if you want to create a present tense form, you have to instead use the imperative form, and figuring out the imperative form from the infinitive form is a little harder (though I guess not that much harder).

In Modern Standard Arabic, forming the past tense form of a verb is about as straightforward as it is in Persian. Forming the present or future tense forms, on the other hand, must be a nightmare because there is apparently no way to predict which vowels to use in these forms.

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-25, 16:43
by kevin
In Irish, the past is usually shorter than the present form, too: rith sé = he ran, ritheann sé = he runs. (Not using "to go" as an example because that's irregular, so the past form doesn't look anything like the present).

Re: Linguistics thread

Posted: 2017-02-25, 17:02
by vijayjohn
Is the past tense form also the citation form in Irish?