(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]

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LinguistCat
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguistCat »

shimobaatar wrote: 20 Mar 2018 14:08
Omzinesý wrote: 20 Mar 2018 11:10 How are constructions like "I saw him sitting on a bench." analysed?

Is it "I saw him [sitting on the bench]" [sitting on the bench] modifying "him"
or "I saw [him sitting on the bench]" [him sitting on the bench] being the complement/object of "to see"
?
And why so?
"I saw him sitting on a bench" is an ambiguous sentence. You seem to mean "I saw him, while he was sitting on a bench". For that interpretation of the sentence, "(sitting) on a bench" modifies "him", which is the direct object of "saw/to see". It modifies "him" because it describes something about this person. More specifically, it describes where he was when he was seen.

However, if you interpret the sentence as "I saw him, while I was sitting on a bench", then "(sitting) on a bench" modifies the verb "saw/to see", because it is thought of as describing something about the verb. In this case, it describes where the action of seeing took place.
From Omzinesý's examples, I would go with your first version. So the proper disambiguation in English isn't so much the two phrases you suggested but more like:

"I saw [that he was sitting on the bench]." vs "I saw him, [and he was sitting on the bench]."

As for the actual question, I'm certainly no expert on this, but I'd think it would depend on the language whether "sitting on the bench" would modify "him", or if the entire phrase "he/him sitting on the bench" was the object of "I saw".
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 From Omzinesý's examples, I would go with your first version.
I figured. Hence:
shimobaatar wrote: 20 Mar 2018 14:08 "I saw him sitting on a bench" is an ambiguous sentence. You seem to mean "I saw him, while he was sitting on a bench".
LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 So the proper disambiguation in English isn't so much the two phrases you suggested but more like:

"I saw [that he was sitting on the bench]." vs "I saw him, [and he was sitting on the bench]."
I don't know what you mean by "proper" here. I still think that the disambiguation of the original sentence would be what I suggested, and I don't think there's any need to further disambiguate the interpretation that Omzinesý intended. Maybe it's different for you, but "I saw that he was sitting on the bench" and "I saw him, and he was sitting on the bench" mean essentially the same thing to me.
LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 As for the actual question, I'm certainly no expert on this, but I'd think it would depend on the language whether "sitting on the bench" would modify "him", or if the entire phrase "he/him sitting on the bench" was the object of "I saw".
I don't think it has to be one or the other, necessarily. Because "him" is the object of "saw", and "(sitting) on a bench" modifies "him", couldn't you say that "him (sitting) on a bench" is, in a way, the object of "saw"?

Like you said, though, the syntax of different languages might be analyzed differently. I only really know about English.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by cedh »

Omzinesý wrote:How are constructions like "I saw him sitting on a bench." analysed?
Here are a couple of Wikipedia articles on related topics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptional_case-marking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_(linguistics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_clause
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

shimobaatar wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:36
LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 From Omzinesý's examples, I would go with your first version.
I figured. Hence:
shimobaatar wrote: 20 Mar 2018 14:08 "I saw him sitting on a bench" is an ambiguous sentence. You seem to mean "I saw him, while he was sitting on a bench".
LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 So the proper disambiguation in English isn't so much the two phrases you suggested but more like:

"I saw [that he was sitting on the bench]." vs "I saw him, [and he was sitting on the bench]."
I don't know what you mean by "proper" here. I still think that the disambiguation of the original sentence would be what I suggested, and I don't think there's any need to further disambiguate the interpretation that Omzinesý intended. Maybe it's different for you, but "I saw that he was sitting on the bench" and "I saw him, and he was sitting on the bench" mean essentially the same thing to me.
LinguistCat wrote: 20 Mar 2018 15:17 As for the actual question, I'm certainly no expert on this, but I'd think it would depend on the language whether "sitting on the bench" would modify "him", or if the entire phrase "he/him sitting on the bench" was the object of "I saw".
I don't think it has to be one or the other, necessarily. Because "him" is the object of "saw", and "(sitting) on a bench" modifies "him", couldn't you say that "him (sitting) on a bench" is, in a way, the object of "saw"?

Like you said, though, the syntax of different languages might be analyzed differently. I only really know about English.
Of course this is a matter of analyses, and there is no "right" answer. I just wanted to know if there is some kind of consensus, like "It's usually analysed this way". It seems there isn't.
My question was about syntactic analyses, where meaning only plays a secondary role. It didn't even come to my mind that the seer could also be the antecedent. Thank you for pointing it out.
I guess the analyses doesn't affect the meaning, because the analyses is instrumental anyway. Grammaticalization is an on going process, so the structure is probably changing from a participial phrase to an infinitive (with accusative).
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Axiem »

In IPA, what's the difference between ⟨t͡s⟩ and ⟨ts⟩, if there even is a significant difference in pronunciation?
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Post by gestaltist »

Axiem wrote: 23 Mar 2018 02:51 In IPA, what's the difference between ⟨t͡s⟩ and ⟨ts⟩, if there even is a significant difference in pronunciation?
It somewhat depends on the language but generally it's the difference between an affricate and a consonant cluster. English doesn't have /t͡s/ and I've seen some English-speaking linguists claim that the two are equivalent but I can assure you that as a speaker of a language that has /t͡s/ I can hear a clear difference. For me, /t͡s/ is clearly shorter (roughly the same length as [t]) and unequivocally one sound. /ts/ is a cluster, although I have the tendency to assimilate the [t] to the so it ends up being more like [t͡ss].
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Post by Axiem »

That makes sense, I think, even if I can't hear it well.

Okay, another question.

Do languages that are SOV word order typically have case marking or particles or some way of more clearly differentiating the subject and the object (such as in Latin or Japanese), or do a lot of them just rely purely on word order?
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Post by Pabappa »

I came up with an isolating language where normal sentences were SOV, and passive sentences were VO. Thus word order marked the voice. I'm not sure there's any significant correlation between SOV and degree of inflection, though ... I can't really see an advantage to my old idea that would lead me to believe SOV langs are more likely to drop inflections than other types of languages are.
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Post by Xonen »

gestaltist wrote: 23 Mar 2018 11:21
Axiem wrote: 23 Mar 2018 02:51 In IPA, what's the difference between ⟨t͡s⟩ and ⟨ts⟩, if there even is a significant difference in pronunciation?
It somewhat depends on the language but generally it's the difference between an affricate and a consonant cluster. English doesn't have /t͡s/ and I've seen some English-speaking linguists claim that the two are equivalent but I can assure you that as a speaker of a language that has /t͡s/ I can hear a clear difference. For me, /t͡s/ is clearly shorter (roughly the same length as [t]) and unequivocally one sound. /ts/ is a cluster
Yeah, length is probably the most clearly distinguishing feature. As a native speaker of Finnish (which has /ts/ as a cluster) and with quite a lot of experience in Saami languages (which distinguish short and long affricates), I'd say /ts/ is very clearly different from a short /t͡s/, but fairly close to long /t͡s:/ (or /tt͡s/, if you prefer). It's not exactly the same; an affricate is technically a stop with a fricative release, and the release is very short even in a long affricate (phonetically something like [t̚ts]), while the /s/ is close to equal length to the /t/ in the cluster. But both are clearly the length of two consonants, while the short affricate is just one.

Another subtle difference is that /t/ and /s/ may have somewhat different points of articulation in many languages, so the tongue tip can actually move slightly (probably backwards) from the release of the /t/ to the POA of the /s/. By contrast, it's probably impossible to have the tongue form a(n audible) closure at one POA and then milliseconds later the release at another, so the affricate tends to have just one POA for both parts.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by cedh »

German does have a distinction between a phonemic affricate /t͡s/ and a cluster [t.s] that occurs across syllable boundaries, but the latter is best analysed phonemically as /t.z/ since /s/ normally doesn't occur in onset position in native words. Accordingly, the phonetic distinction is mostly a fortis/lenis one, with phonemic /t͡s/ (as in Katze /ˈkʰat͡sə/ 'cat') fully voiceless and sometimes slightly aspirated, and also often a bit shorter than the cluster /t.z/ (as in Wattsand /ˈvat.zant/ 'the sand in the tidal zone of the coast'), in which the fricative component is never aspirated and may become voiced halfway through.

(There is also theoretically a distinction word-finally between a lexeme-internal phonemic affricate /t͡s/ (as in Pelz /pʰɛlt͡s/ 'pelt, fur') and a morphological cluster /t-s/ (as in hält's /hɛlts/ '(s/he) holds it', with a cliticized object pronoun), but these are phonetically the same for me.)
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

(I may have asked this in the wrong thread.)
What is/are the correct English nominalization/s of the English adjective “tremendous”?
Is it “tremendousness”?
And/or is it “tremendosity”?
And/or is it something else?

And why?
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Post by alynnidalar »

Tremendousness, I believe. I couldn't begin to explain why, other than -ness is significantly more common for nominalization that -osity.
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Post by Dormouse559 »

I'd wager it's because "-osity" nominalizes adjectives derived from Latin adjectives ending in -osus. "Tremendous" comes from Latin tremendus, not *tremendosus, so a noun form in "-osity" isn't the first choice.
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Post by Lambuzhao »

Since it's a gerundive ADJ in :lat:, I'd venture tremendity.

Similarly, (*) horrendity, (*) stupendity. (Cf. :esp: tremendidad, horrendidad; & :ita: tremendità, orrendità, stupendità).

These are related to similar :lat: gerundive ADJs in /undus/ which nominalize to /unditas/

Q.V.
http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Wo ... me=perfect

:wat:

PS:

Nonetheless, looks like tremendosity has a life of its own on the 'Net, tho.

:wat: :wat:
Last edited by Lambuzhao on 29 Mar 2018 02:26, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote:Nonetheless, looks like tremendosity has a life of its own on the 'Net, tho.

:wat: :wat:
Ya. Alyssa Milano says that it (tremendosity) "needs to be invented".

Sorry girl, Henry James beat you to it!
"But that is just what does not happen in the case of Mr.
James's people. They are merged in the background so that you
never can get behind them, and fairly feel and see them all
round. Europe doesn't detach them; nothing does. 'There they
are,' as he keeps making his people say in all his late books, when
they are not calling one another dear lady, and dear man, and
prodigious and magnificent, and of a vagueness or a richness,
or a sympathy, or an opacity. No, he is of a tremendosity, but
he worries me to death; he kills me; he really gives me a head-
ache. He fascinates me, but I have no patience with him."
I'd say either tremendosity or tremendousness would be okay. The former perhaps a tad more tongue in cheek. Or perhaps not. There is also stupendosity, equally rare, perhaps, but in the literature and also having just a touch of the hyperbolic.
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Post by Lambuzhao »

stupendosity
:wat: :wat: :wat:

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you crazy diamond

[xP]
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Post by Lambuzhao »

elemtilas wrote: 29 Mar 2018 02:18

Ya. Alyssa Milano
Long-dormant heart-strings pluckèd.
*sigh* [B)]
Sorry girl, Henry James beat you to it!
Ah yes. Portrait of a Tremendosity. James' finest work. [:P]
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Post by Lambuzhao »

esoanem wrote: 09 Mar 2018 02:12
Lambuzhao wrote: 08 Mar 2018 17:26
:lat:[->] :esp:
periculum [->] peligro
miraculum [->] milagro
parabola [->] palabra
crocodilus [->] cocodrilo
There's a pretty regular pattern to most of these that (after voicing and some vowel reduction/elision) you have metathesis in rVDl. Cocodrilo doesn't really seem to be a metathesis so much as just a movement of the r (the l stays in its original location).

Also a couple of your lamdaisation examples seem not to be examples? Or at least not the same route as suggested by your post (etymologies I'm working from are from wiktionary)
Lambuzhao wrote: 08 Mar 2018 17:26 aratrum [->] aladro [this is the aragonese reflex, Spanish just loses the second r and has arado]
rosarium [->] rosarium [no change here, the only form I can find is rosario with both r's preserved]
rosarium [->] rosal

Sorry about the typo.
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Post by Omzinesý »

Swedish has a distinction between -ar verbs and -er verbs. Where does it derive from?
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Post by ixals »

Omzinesý wrote: 01 Apr 2018 22:51 Swedish has a distinction between -ar verbs and -er verbs. Where does it derive from?
I don't know for sure but I checked a couple of Swedish verbs and it looks like verbs in -ar come from Germanic verbs ending in -ōną whereas -er verbs come from -aną, -ijaną, etc.
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