Levi's Questions

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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Levike » 2014-10-15, 21:40

"I'm sure there's rules."

Why does he use the verb is if rules is in plural?

I saw this in the Random Language Thread
and my question would be if this is correct or not or simply dialectal?

Ciarán12

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-10-15, 22:41

Levike wrote:"I'm sure there's rules."

Why does he use the verb is if rules is in plural?

I saw this in the Random Language Thread
and my question would be if this is correct or not or simply dialectal?


[Personal Opinion] I think there is an amalgamation occurring between "there is" and "there are" where both get abbreviated to "there's" (possibly due to the phonetic clunkiness of "there're"), at least on the colloquial level. Formally, this "should" be "I'm sure there're rules". [/Personal Opinion]

Koko

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Koko » 2014-10-15, 22:54

Haha! It's perfectly acceptable in casual speech. Of course, if careful, I would have said "there are" because this is the more proper form. Don't worry, if you are comfortable with only using "there's" in exclusively singular contexts, you are free to do so and won't sound foreign aside from any accent you may have ^^

Personally, I consider the "there's" of mine to be the contracted form of "there are" because I never once said "there is cats," but always "there are cats." (I assume this to be true for most)

Koko

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Koko » 2014-10-15, 22:55

I've never said "there're" because I might as well just say "there are" :P

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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby OldBoring » 2014-10-16, 1:25

How do you pronounce "there're"?

Koko

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Koko » 2014-10-16, 5:33

[ðɛəɹː]? This is why I never use it: like Ciaran said, it's quite clunky and better off just be "there's."

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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby dEhiN » 2014-10-18, 17:30

Youngfun wrote:How do you pronounce "there're"?

I would say it like "there are" but quickly together. I guess the IPA would be [ðɛəɹɑɹ], though I might sometimes say it like Koko. But yeah it's a really weird word. I think it used to be more common, but then people started using "there's" for both.
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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby OldBoring » 2014-10-18, 17:45

But pronounced in "Koko's way", doesn't it become indistinguishable from "there"?

Ciarán12

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-10-18, 17:56

Youngfun wrote:But pronounced in "Koko's way", doesn't it become indistinguishable from "there"?


The "r" sound is held for longer. For me it is actually two syllables with the second one being a syllabic [ɹ].

Koko

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Koko » 2014-10-19, 1:07

dEhiN wrote:
Youngfun wrote:How do you pronounce "there're"?

I would say it like "there are" but quickly together. I guess the IPA would be [ðɛəɹɑɹ], though I might sometimes say it like Koko. But yeah it's a really weird word. I think it used to be more common, but then people started using "there's" for both.

I have a theory where the contracted 'r is essicated[*] (made /s/), and this is why we say "there's" for plurals as well. Of course, this is completely bizarre and unlikely.


[*]from esse (name of the letter) + (ic)ate (a verbal suffix for "making __")… I wonder if this is an actual word, auto-correct didn't try to correct it.

Ciarán12

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-10-19, 1:18

Koko wrote:
dEhiN wrote:
Youngfun wrote:How do you pronounce "there're"?

I would say it like "there are" but quickly together. I guess the IPA would be [ðɛəɹɑɹ], though I might sometimes say it like Koko. But yeah it's a really weird word. I think it used to be more common, but then people started using "there's" for both.

I have a theory where the contracted 'r is essicated[*] (made /s/), and this is why we say "there's" for plurals as well. Of course, this is completely bizarre and unlikely.


[*]from esse (name of the letter) + (ic)ate (a verbal suffix for "making __")… I wonder if this is an actual word, auto-correct didn't try to correct it.


I'm pretty sure it's just the application of the singular form to both singular and plural subjects. I don't think this sort of change is unprecedented cross-linguistically.

EDIT: As I thought, Spanish hay is used with singular and plural subjects ("Hay una cosa" - "Hay muchas cosas") and comes from Old Spanish ha i - "(it) has there", where we don't find a corresponding form coming from *han i, the same is true of Catalan "hi ha" and French "il y a" (where we don't see *ils y ont, at least not with that meaning)

Koko

Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Koko » 2014-10-19, 1:58

But then the subject isn't plural: the subject is "it." I don't think "there" is a subject in this case.

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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby linguoboy » 2014-10-19, 14:02

Koko wrote:But then the subject isn't plural: the subject is "it." I don't think "there" is a subject in this case.

I think that's correct. But reanalysing it as one leads directly to the generalisation of there's.
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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby Levike » 2014-12-24, 0:08

"The person below me will tell us one of the words that he or she has problems spelling."

Does the above sentence make any sense?
I just didn't know how to formulate my thoughts, neither in Hungarian nor in Romanian.

I just wanted to say that the person below me is uncertain about how to write some words down.

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Re: Levi's Questions

Postby Dormouse559 » 2014-12-24, 0:33

That sentence is flawless.
N'hésite pas à corriger mes erreurs.

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Re: Levike's Questions

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-26, 20:51

Levike wrote:"The person below me will tell us one of the words that he or she has problems spelling."

Yeah as Dormouse559 said, that sentence is fine. Nowadays it's becoming more common for people to use the 3rd person plural pronoun (they) as a 3rd person singular gender-neutral pronoun. In this case you would use they with the plural conjugation, even though it's standing in for a singular subject:

The person below me will tell us one of the words that they have problems spelling.

Alternately, if you want to shorten that sentence, you could replace one of the words with a word:

The person below me will tell us a word that they have problems spelling.
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Re: Levi's Questions

Postby Levike » 2015-01-25, 2:18

What is the difference between /ʌ/ and /ɒ/.

I've been listening to some pronunciation tutorials on YouTube and seemingly I'm kind of deaf.

When it comes to /æ/ and /ɛ/, even more.

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Re: Levi's Questions

Postby NickPR » 2015-01-25, 3:11

Are you talking about the RP or GA? I'll cover both in my post.

Front vowels
[flag=]en-uk[/flag] /æ/ - pronounced with unrounded lips, open, front - phonetically [a]. More front (i.e. fully front) than Standard Romanian and Standard Polish /a/, which is central.
[flag=]en-us[/flag] /æ/ - similar to the UK /æ/, but somewhat higher - phonetically [æ]. According to some sources, this is how /ɛ/ is pronounced in Standard Hungarian.

[flag=]en-uk[/flag][flag=]en-us[/flag] /ɛ/ - use Standard Polish or Standard German /ɛ/, Standard Romanian /e/ (which is mid) is also fine.

Central and back vowels
[flag=]en-uk[/flag][flag=]en-us[/flag] /ʌ/ - pronounced with unrounded lips, near-open, central - phonetically [ɐ]. Similar to Standard Romanian and Standard Polish /a/, but somewhat less open. In the US, usually somewhat more closer, sometimes also more back.

[flag=]en-uk[/flag] /ɒ/ - pronounced with rounded lips, open-mid, back - phonetically [ɔ]. The same as Polish and German /ɔ/, more open than Romanian and Spanish /o/, which is mid. I think you could use the Standard Hungarian /ɒ/ for this, as opener-than-open-mid versions of /ɒ/ are still quite common in the UK.
[flag=]en-us[/flag] /ɒ/ mergers with /ɑː/ in all environments, save for several non-standard accents. Phonetically it's [äː ~ ɑː], i.e. like Standard Hungarian /aː/, or somewhat more back.

I'm not sure how else I could explain that.

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Re: Levi's Questions

Postby linguoboy » 2015-01-25, 6:20

NickPR wrote:Central and back vowels
[flag=]en-uk[/flag][flag=]en-us[/flag] /ʌ/ - pronounced with unrounded lips, near-open, central - phonetically [ɐ]. Similar to Standard Romanian and Standard Polish /a/, but somewhat less open. In the US, usually somewhat more closer, sometimes also more back.
Definitely higher/closer in my English. I learned to pronounce [ɐ] in Germany because it's the most common realisation of coda /ər/ and that is definitely not the same sound as my /ʌ/. (Inability to nail /ʌ/ is, in fact, one of the most widespread tells of a German accent. They always seem to substitute [a].)

As part of the Northern Cities Shift, it's being backed and rounded. In some people's speech, it's practically [ɔ], which might be adding to Levike's confusion.
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Re: Levi's Questions

Postby Levike » 2015-01-25, 11:20

Thanks guys.

My problem is that I cannot hear the difference between those certain pairs when spoken.
If I could then I would probably pronounce them correctly.

Until now I think I've been pronouncing both /æ/ and /ɛ/ as /ɛ/ and both /ʌ/ and /ɒ/ as /ɒ/.

Probably because those are the sounds that Hungarian has.


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