Language and Linguistics

Sredni Vashtar

Gentlemen, it has been said that I like language...

No, I'm not going to do the whole speech; I'm far too lazy for that. But yes, I love language, and so I've decided to create a topic devoted to the discussion of all things language-related, from how languages evolve to the definitions of words, from sounds to symbols to semantics. All of the languages, all of the words, and all of the ways to transcribe and dissect them.

Welcome to the linguistics topic. Hope that you enjoy it here.

Imipolex G

Sredni Vashtar

That's the spirit!

Sredni Vashtar

Another thread that should LIVE AGAIN.

Imipolex G

this thread never went anywhere, now did it?

Sredni Vashtar

Maybe not, but linguistics is a cool subject that should not be ignored.

PatchAwful

Linguistics is cool!

And I... can't think of anything more to say on the subject right now

Imipolex G

PatchAwful

I cannot examine these linguistically

Sredni Vashtar

Gendered plurals are a pretty weird phenomenon: Cannolo/cannoli vs. lasagna/lasagne, for example.

Also, the former is apparently cannolu/cannola in Sicilian, which is actually a different language from Standard Italian - or more specifically, a dialect of Neapolitan.

Sredni Vashtar

So, apparently there's a Brazilian dialect of Venetian. Not Italian, Venetian.

SF_Sorrow

whoever from whatever centuries ago thought that we needed to have a long s

and who made the rule that we use it throughout a word and use the short s at the end, when the other way around seems more sensible

SF_Sorrow

also I'm starting to think bringing back thou/thee/thy/thine and ye would be rad and I need to get a crash course on Early Modern English grammar

Sredni Vashtar

Because in very old forms of cursive, the long s was actually the default, and was easier to distinguish and write quickly within a word than short s, which kind of looks like an e in a lot of ancient handwriting. The exception came when a double s or an f and an s occurred together, in which case the short s was used to clarify things. I assume that the word-ending thing, which originally not the case—apparently late Roman scribes ended with long s all the time—came into fashion as a reflexive imitation of Greek, where the only final consonants are nu and sigma, and final sigma is shaped quite differently.

^ They still use them in parts of the North and Cornwall.

Sredni Vashtar

Cool thing I just learned: Until the mid-1840s, the Slovene alphabet used long and short s to indicate different sounds.

SF_Sorrow

my Aesthetic

Sredni Vashtar

Latin shorthand?

SF_Sorrow

shorthand in general is kinda fascinating

just taken by itself there's something Aesthetic about dissembling a script and replacing it with obscure marks

Crystal

I've tried to learn and use various shorthands, but the latter's rarely panned out in the past due to various issues. >_> I'm also super down for it, though. 

SF_Sorrow

TIL: "shall" and "should" are supposed to be strictly used for the first-person, while "will" and "would" are for second- and third-persons

and the casual usage of "should" ought to really be for "ought to"

Klinotaxis

i shall forget that immediately

Sredni Vashtar

the devil said:

TIL: "shall" and "should" are supposed to be strictly used for the first-person, while "will" and "would" are for second- and third-persons

and the casual usage of "should" ought to really be for "ought to"

If I'm not mistaken, it's a bit more complex than that, because shall, will, can and ought all have distinct roots and English is a tortuous beast in general.

Sredni Vashtar

OK, consulting with Oxford, I am informed that the formal use of shall in the first and will in the second and third as a simple indication of future intent is the standard. However, shall in the second and third is often used to convey a command or translate the jussive mood (the Ten Commandments, etc.), while we are all well aware of should as an indicator of the subjunctive case in general; whereas will in the first denotes fulfilling another's want, and would is self-explanatory. Ought is what it is, although it has an interesting pedigree and some curious auxiliary uses.

SF_Sorrow

from a casual browse at Twitter search, it seems that there's a good amount of people with various degrees of smarminess that use the term 'Oxford spelling' as synonymous with 'any kind of minor/American variant spelling that's been enforced against popular British use' :/

Sredni Vashtar

There's actually a Wikipedia article on the subject. The main difference between standard British spelling and the standards which Oxford uses is that the former is more internally consistent whereas the latter is more etymologically consistent—for instance, using -ize rather than -ise in words where it's a z in the Greek root: Both use hypothesise, but Oxford prioritises organize over organise.

glennmagusharvey

I was recently introduced to Inuktitut and this shorthand seems to vaguely resemble how Inuktitut compresses more information into one symbol.

SF_Sorrow

^^ yeah, I'm well aware, and in the sense of it being possibly the closest we'll have to a 'standardized' international English I honestly do prefer it

there's just a bunch of people who are apparently low-key to high-key hostile to it, either saying that it's a tainted Americanism or making some shitty joke about any misspelling they could think of being the 'Oxford spelling'

(like, if they bothered to have a little more accuracy at things, they could've made something about 'connexion' or 'gaol')

glennmagusharvey

honestly it's sorta shitty that we're all stuck with western alphabet orthography and we don't have standard typing systems that do more interesting things with language (and could potentially have other uses such as artistry)

SF_Sorrow

traditional conjugation of the verb wit (if I'm getting this right)

​	Present	Past	Future	Present continuous	Present perfect
I	wot	wist	shall wot	am witting	have wist
Thou	wost	wist	wilt wot	art witting	hast wist
He/She/It	wot	wist	will wot	is witting	has wist
We	wit	wist	shall wit	are witting	have wist
Ye	wit	wist	will wit	are witting	have wist
They	wit	wist	will wit	are witting	have wist

Calica

wot wost wot wit wit wit

SF_Sorrow

if I'm getting this right as well: 

when a pronoun is after a form of be, traditionally it is in the subjective form (e.g. 'It is I', 'I'm she', 'That wasn't they', 'Is this we?')

the subjective form is also traditionally preferred when the pronoun is by itself and after than (as a conjunction) when it applies to the clause it's standing in for (e.g. 'He is younger than she (is)')

SF_Sorrow

and I just realized that rule connects to why it is indeed correct to say 'who art thou' instead of 'whom art thou' if thou'rt unaware of it

glennmagusharvey

SF_Sorrow said:

if I'm getting this right as well: 

when a pronoun is after a form of be, traditionally it is in the subjective form (e.g. 'It is I', 'I'm she', 'That wasn't they', 'Is this we?')

the subjective form is also traditionally preferred when the pronoun is by itself and after than (as a conjunction) when it applies to the clause it's standing in for (e.g. 'He is younger than she (is)')

it's meant to be in the subjective form because the predicate of "be" and similar linking verbs is the subject

but some people/sentences/usages treat the predicate as an object and use "it's me"

SF_Sorrow

thinking about how to reincorporate be in the perfect aspect for a while now, figuring out what exact verbs to use with it …

OED on 'Have' said:

In early ME the usage [of auxiliary have] is found with verbs of action without an object, whence it was extended to intransitive verbs, especially, at an early date, to the verb to be (as in French and other Romantic languages, and in opposition to continental Germanic use) … Verbs of motion and position long retained the earlier use of the auxiliary be; and he is gone is still used to express resulting state, while he has gone expresses action.

OED on 'Be' said:

[Be, with past participle] in intransitive verbs, forming perfect tenses, in which use it is now largely displaced by have after the pattern of transitive verbs: be being retained only with come, go, rise, set, fall, arrive, depart, grow, and the like, when we express the condition or state now attained, rather than the action of reaching it, as 'the sun is set', 'our guests are gone', 'Babylon is fallen', 'the children are all grown up'.

Wikipedia on 'Unaccusative verb' said:

The most well-known test [for identifying unaccusative verbs] is auxiliary selection in languages that use two different temporal auxiliaries (have and be) for analytic past/perfect verb forms (e.g. German, Dutch, French, Italian; even Early Modern English). In these languages, unaccusative verbs combine with be, while unergative verbs combine with have. … From one language to another, however, synonymous verbs do not always select the same auxiliary, and even within one language, a single verb may combine with either auxiliary (either depending on the meaning/context, or with no observable semantic motivation, sometimes depending on regional variation of the language).

SF_Sorrow

SF_Sorrow said:

/x/ and /ʍ/ are Good Consonants, Actually