Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 12

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 12

Gruppenflexion

How come that the Tibetan case suffixes are not simply analysed as enclitic postpositions instead? Gruppenflexion, a phenomenon also encountered in various other languages, describes the behaviour that defines clitics, as far as my understanding goes.

Compare Russian prepositions, which could be described the exact same way, except that they are, of course, preposed – hence proclitic. Or compare the English case suffix 's, which is really a clitic, as in the classic example the king of England's daughter: this behaviour could be described as Gruppenflexion as well.

Does anybody else have an impression that there is a bias among linguists to describe postposed markers as affixes (clitics essentially being affixes that attach to entire phrases) and preposed markers as independent words, even when they do not behave like independent words prosodically? Admittedly, true case prefixes, as opposed to proclitics, appear to be rare in the languages of the world, while case suffixes are common. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke -- I know nothing about Tibetan (except that its spelling system is said to be even more convoluted than English's), but in general a language is more likely to be analyzed with postpositions if things are cleanly "compositional" -- i.e. there's very little or no irregularity in the occurence of such morphemes with different types of nouns, and little phonological integration of such morphemes into the preceding word (with the possible exception of ordinary low-level sandhi or assimilations which also affect other word classes in connected speech). If such a morpheme only appears with certain types of nouns, or only appears with singulars or with plurals, or takes on different irregular shapes which cannot be predicted by the ordinary phrasal sandhi rules of a language, then it's more likely to be analyzed as an inflectional suffix than a postposition... AnonMoos (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The point about clitics, however, is that – according to our article – they are also generally very regular, like independent words, and in agglutinative languages, any irregularity found in affixes will be much more limited anyway. For all intents and purposes, the English possessive suffix behaves exactly like an independent word in this way.

So you could argue that clitics are actually more akin to words than affixes, because they do not tend to fuse with their hosts like affixes do. This is, I suppose, why the distinction between words and clitics is even trickier than that between clitics and affixes.

The difficulty of the Tibetan spelling system, like in English, is, of course, almost completely due to the fact that it is extremely historical and more than 1000 years out of date, although there are some peripheral so-called dialects that are much more conservative phonetically than Central Tibetan. Even a notoriously conservative language like Icelandic or Sardinian is not pronounced the same as it was 1200 years ago, so any system of this age is going to screw up at some point ...

Yet this has a bearing on the present issue as well. Historical spelling does have a tendency to obscure processes of grammaticalisation, like when a morpheme moves up or (occasionally) down the word → clitic → affix ladder, which is why the usual reliance on orthography is highly problematical to say the least. I feel the problems inherent in word-division analysis are far underrated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Russian is a very synthetic language; irregular, inflected for number, gender and case, and has plenty of prepositions like vo which mean in or into depending on the case used. The phrasal ess posessive of English serves only to mark one case regardless of number or gender. I don't think there's any sort of conspiracy, except for the fact that Greek, German, Russian and Latin at least, all of different primary branches of PIE, basically use the same preposition with dative to mark position with and accusative to mark movement into. (Of course I vastly over simplify, but the point is made.)

Look at Zulu which has almost only nouns and verbs, with actual prepositions, adjectives and adverbs being closed classes, and almost all predicates being verbs conjugated to match the relative nominal class. There are dozens of indicative and possessive forms to deal with this concord between possessor/possessee. WE tend to think Arabic and Japanese are terribly exotic, but they're about ass different as marigolds and mums. And the truth is, things like the rise of the trilateral root, and the noun classes of the Niger-Congo languages have been shown to arise historically via analogy--because people imagine patterns where before they didn't exist. 04:47, 12 October 2014 (UTC) User:Medeis

"Trilateral root" is a redlink because it's triliteral root... AnonMoos (talk) 11:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

To think I have been wondering why they call them tri-lateral for four decades! Never took a course in a Semitic language, so I never heard the term said. μηδείς (talk) 16:29, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

But then, why is the English possessive suffix not analysed as an independent word? It's just like Russian s, v or k, except for the position. Both actually do have at least one irregularity, namely allomorphy (/z/ vs. /s/ vs. /ɪz/ and – in the case of v – /v/ vs. /f/ vs. /vo/ vs. /vn/)! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

What do you want us to say? Jesus's is often interpreted as Jesus', rather than Jesus's. Come back in a few hundred years, and your wish will probably be granted, but no promises. And Ya govoryu vo fransuskom izikye and Ya idu vdom (I hope that's right, pomoskovsky and my dialect differ on this) are entirely unrelated grammatically, so there's no reason to interpret vo as a gruppenenflexion. μηδείς (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I am pointing out that v is no less irregular than 's, in fact even more. They behave identically, except that one is preposed and one is postposed. Both mark case. So why are they analysed differently, one as an independent word and one as a clitic or even affix? That makes no freaking sense.

The spelling Jesus' has no bearing on this, as it follows the pronunciation: classical (Latin/Latinised or Greek/Hellenised) names are traditionally treated like plurals. You say [ˈdʒiːzəs], not [dʒiːzəsɪz], don't you? See Apostrophe#Possessive apostrophe. Of course, that's actually an additional irregularity, so the English possessive marker has four allomorphs in fact: [z], [s], [ɪz] and zero (also in the plural).

What do you mean by "grammatically unrelated"? Case uses are often very unpredictable and irregular, that's one of the hallmarks of case (but also adpositions), in fact. If anything, that is a point in favour of the analysis I am proposing, rather than against. You're digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole: every counter-argument you propose is either irrelevant or not a counter-argument at all, but a pro-argument.

To remind you: My argument is that both English 's and Russian s/v/k are not actually independent words, but better analysed as clitics or even affixes. But if one is treated as an independent word, treating the other as anything else is inconsistent, illogical and unacceptable, because, as I am arguing, they behave identically in all relevant respects (orthographic tradition emphatically not being one of them).

As for the Tibetan case markers, I do not know their exact behaviour (I'll try to find out more), but from the information given at Modern Standard Tibetan grammar#Nouns and case, one does get the impression that they show as much or even less irregularity than the English or Russian morphemes in question, rendering them effectively clitics. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Vo has two different meanings and governs two different cases with the added complexity that adjectival case endings don't match nominal case endings. Possessive ess governs only the genitive and is identical in all instances. And yes, of course I do say "[dʒiːzəsɪz]", I am not a barbarian or a miser, User:Florian Blaschke. Just where are you from that you don't say [dʒiːzəsɪz]? μηδείς (talk) 16:56, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

To make it clearerer, you can't argue vo is a clitic when v dom and v dome have entirely different meanings. μηδείς (talk) 21:03, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm from Germany (where are you from, actually?), but that isn't relevant. Let me read out Apostrophe#Possessive apostrophe to you, which I have already linked: If the singular possessive is difficult or awkward to pronounce with an added sibilant, do not add an extra s; these exceptions are supported by The Guardian, Yahoo! Style Guide, The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Such sources permit possessive singulars like these: Socrates' later suggestion; or Achilles' heel if that is how the pronunciation is intended. Classical, biblical, and similar names ending in a sibilant, especially if they are polysyllabic, do not take an added s in the possessive; among sources giving exceptions of this kind are The Times and The Elements of Style, which make general stipulations, and Vanderbilt University, which mentions only Moses and Jesus. As a particular case, Jesus' is very commonly written instead of Jesus's – even by people who would otherwise add 's in, for example, James's or Chris’s. Jesus' is referred to as "an accepted liturgical archaism" in Hart's Rules. So it could easily be your pronunciation that is a hypercorrect, pedantic barbarism.

Non sequitur. That v has more than one meaning has nothing to do with its analysis as a clitic or not, as clitic is defined phonologically per the definition given by our article Clitic at the very beginning. Alternatively, you could even conceive of v as two homonymous clitics here, or clitic-affix combinations, or even circumfixes. Or take s, which lacks this added complexity – but has the same allomorphy /s/ ~ /so/ ~ /sn/. This could definitely be analysed as a circumfix as well. Or if you've got trouble with the case government complication, take Bulgarian /s/ ~ /sɤs/ (two allomorphs), /v/ ~ /f/ ~ /vɤf/ (three allomorphs). Even if they may not be irregular enough to be considered affixes (but then, in an agglutinative language affixes are not expected to be irregular as in behaving unpredictably, either, as I have already pointed out), I'm still waiting for an argument against the analysis of Slavic prepositions as clitic. Either our definition is wrong (a vowelless, syllable-core-less morpheme can hardly be phonologically/prosodically independent, after all), or you are. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:59, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

See also English possessive#Nouns and noun phrases. Barbarism my arse, the joke's on you. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:49, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, see, you've just used another made up word, "arse". I was born speaking English, and I have never heard anyone say Jesus' as the possessive who wasn't a furriner or on the BBC (I.e., a furriner). To pretend Jesus' is the original form, and Jesus's is an innovation is just plain silly. But seriously, I have never ever heard anyone say "Jesus'" (with a silent ') in actual speech as the possessive form. Perhaps's it's Lutheran, or from West Virginia? My grandad converted to the true Catholic faith on his deathbead, so maybe he used to say Jesus' before I remember, but I don't. I am sure a poll of users will show native Americans agree with me, but let's not go there. μηδείς (talk) 03:34, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• Here's an excellent essay that supports Jesus's, advises it's the natural pronunciation of most users, and quotes various reliable and prestigious sources, including the Oxford writers guide: http://www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/ab0possessive.php μηδείς (talk) 17:15, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Medeis, just for you to know, we speak a similar way outside of Moscow as well! :) (Though rather Ya govoryu na frantsuskom yazyke, thus it is not a good example for the topic). Po-moskovski sounds a little bit like Londonish, even though I understand, why you, Rusyns, say this.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Любослов. I say po-moskovski because that's how my grandmother wih whom I spoke Rusyn for about a decade differentiated her speech from "proper" Russian. (We both took Russian-Russian lessons, she in grade school and I in college.) It was either po-naszomu, or po-moskovski. She could pretty much understand anything Slavonic you threw at her. μηδείς (talk) 19:47, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

German translation needed urgently

made up German words by blocked user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I need a translation for: Gesalzenegetrocknetelimetten und Östlichländernakreideersatzstoffe? I am having trouble translating these compound words. Thank you. --Askinghall (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC) Since you just made those words up yourself, you can make them mean anything you like. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2014 (UTC) Excuse me? Are you German and qualified to say that? --Askinghall (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC) I'm fluent in German and qualified to say that. German doesn't form compounds by sticking inflected adjectives directly on nouns. Gesalzene, getrocknete Limetten means "salted, dried limes", but Gesalzenegetrocknetelimetten isn't a possible word of German. Östliche Länder means "eastern countries" and Kreideersatzstoffe means "chalk replacements", but Östlichländernakreideersatzstoffe isn't a possible word of German. The only German word in your question that you didn't just make up is und. It means "and". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:45, 12 October 2014 (UTC) The OP's question certainly bears an eerie similarity to this one and this one asked here more than a year ago. Deor (talk) 18:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC) Thank you for your answer , Aɴɢʀ. I appreciate your help, as I was confused with the compound word situation too. --Askinghall (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC) Hatting, would support outright deletion.μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there a word for this kind of pathology? Apparently this person, for some time, under various guises, has been getting a kick out of posting translation requests for caricaturally complicated and long but fake "German" words of his own concoction. I'm not asking for a medical diagnosis sensu stricto. Just if people could give an idea of the spectrum of pathologies this sort of behavior could be indicative of. What does the patient precisely get out of such activity? Contact Basemetal here 13:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

He gets attention. He may also get pleasure from seeing that something he does has an effect on other people, which is something you see in very small children. Have you ever noticed how little children absolutely love pressing elevator buttons? It's because it makes them feel powerful to know that the elevator is moving because they told it to. I think that feeling of power, that feeling of knowing that something you've done has altered someone else's behavior, is what motivates Internet trolls like our friend above. We always say not to feed trolls around here, but ignoring him would have been like pressing the elevator button before the little kid gets a chance to, which is just mean. If someone has the mental age of 3, why not humor him for a little while before blocking him for being disruptive? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:16, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

So, ANGR, what you're saying is you've got to pay the troll toll, if you wanna get into that boy's soul? μηδείς (talk) 23:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I read that and thought "But it's the opposite, children do absolutely love pressing elevator buttons!" Then I read it again and saw that I had parsed it wrong, it's not about how little they love it. It's supposed to be "how (little children) absolutely pressing elevator buttons", not "(how little) children absolutely love pressing elevator buttons". And yeah, my niece does that too. When I told my father (her grandfather) about it he said I was the same way when I was a child. JIP | Talk 08:46, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

"Is there a word for this kind of pathology?" Surely that's a call for some WP:RD/L provophonic interestovocalism. I suggest "Langenwortenfragenseelenkrankenheit" :-)--Shirt58 (talk) 13:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I support the motion. I couldn't make the proposal myself since that might make it look like this wasn't a serious question. Plus I was thinking more along Latinate English lines. (You can do stuff like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in English, so why not?) But if you want pseudo-German let it be pseudo-German. You can make it longer: can you try to conconct in pseudo-German the equivalent of "for-the-purpose-of-playing-a-joke-on-others-and-eliciting-attention-long-but-fake-German-words-reference-desk-posting-mental-disease"? I'm sure our troll friend is dying to make a proposal here (I suppose he can still read this) but can't because he's been blocked. Serves him right. And if our collective pseudo-German imagination fails how about real actual German. Can an honest German speaker translate the above in German? That will also have the advantage of making the title of the section "German translation needed urgently" still apply, except this time it's into German and is not that urgent. Contact Basemetal here 14:37, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

As I am not a native German speaker, I don't dare attempt the entirety of the above, so I'll submit Falschdeutschlangwortsauskunftanfrageschreibungschertzstörung, i.e. "mental disorder for writing reference desk questions about long words in fake German as a joke". There's bound to be a few spelling errors in there, but I think I got the gist. I have seen the word Banküberfallvorbereitungsüberwachungsdatenspeichergunsgesetz, i.e. "law about saving files for monitoring planning bank robberies" used in a German comic book. JIP | Talk 18:52, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

"Can an honest German speaker translate the above in German?"

Well, I am a native speaker and I can assure you that a German translation of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious does exist. Having grown up in Germany in the sixties, I remember very well Chris Howland, a British expat living in Germany, singing a song called Superkalifragilistisch Expiallegorisch. The title of the song is preceded by the heading "Dieses Wort ist wunderbar!".--91.61.107.129 (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I thought this might interest you: The same user asked the same question in the German reference desk: de:Wikipedia:Auskunft/Archiv/2014/Woche 41#German translation needed urgently. Also, we do not use those long compound nouns, even if they are grammatically right. In colloquial language we put maybe two or three words together, and also not very often. --U-Bahnfreund (talk) 10:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Back to the original question: all sorts of disclaimers included, IANAMD in particular, somebody has recently suggested that actions of Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/German reference desk troll, which might or might not be the original poster of this thread (but sure has behavioral similarities), are consistent with a person with Asperger syndrome. No such user (talk) 11:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Additional question about German

I mentioned the word Banküberfallvorbereitungsüberwachungsdatenspeichergunsgesetz above. This is copied verbatim from a comic book written in German. Why is it not Banküberfallsvorbereitungsüberwachungsdatenspeichergunsgesetz? The "s" appears pretty much everywhere else, except in datenspeicherung, which I think I understand why it doesn't appear there. JIP | Talk 19:18, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it should be "Banküberfallvorbereitungsüberwachungsdatenspeicherungsgesetz". No 's' after Banküberfall, but some jumbled characters fixed. I'm quite sure, but I have a hard time putting down a reason (because my grammar knowledge is more of the context-free, not the linguistic type). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@JIP: The simple reason is this one: It's German ;-) Btw: You know that your word means "Bank robbery preparation observation data saving law" or something like that and you said it's from a comic, so it seems to be fictional. But the grammar of the word seems to be right --U-Bahnfreund (talk) 20:55, 17 October 2014 (UTC)