Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 April 28

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April 28

Follow up: Gendered languages

Following user:40bus's second question (in a previous thread) about gendered languages, and keeping in mind the existence of many languages that distinguish between Masculine and Feminine in some additional pronouns besides the third person pronoun (e.g. Japanese which is gendered in all pronouns: both in Modern Japanese: おれ, てまえ, かれ, and Archaic Japanese: よ, けい, かれ, as well as the Semitic languages that are gendered in the second and third person pronouns), I now wonder if there are languages that are only gendered in the first and/or second person pronoun, yet not in the other pronoun/s (or the less reasonable option: languages that are only gendered in both the first and third person pronouns, yet not in the second pesron pronoun). 147.236.152.145 (talk) 07:15, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Gendered 1st person pronouns are quite rare in languages with an ordinary "closed" pronoun system (where there's basically only one form for each combination of person/gender/number/case categories) -- such as English, many modern European languages, older Indo-European languages, Semitic languages, etc. In such languages, pronoun forms often go back thousands of years, as far back as we can trace the language (as is the case for English "I" and "me", which derive directly from Proto-Indo-European). Japanese has a very different system, where there's perpetual pronoun churn, with new forms coming into use and old forms dropping out of use, with a timescale of a few centuries, and with multiple forms often allowed for a specific person/gender/number combination at any moment, but with various social differentiations between the forms. This is accompanied by a complete lack of any grammatical agreement between subject and verb, of course... AnonMoos (talk) 09:19, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

According to https://wals.info/chapter/44, there are languages that have grammatical gender in first or (more commonly) second person pronouns, but not in third. It mentions Macá (some native South American language), Iraqw, Burunge, Kofyar and Minangkabau. Such languages are rare though; most that have gender in first or second person also have it in third, even more languages only have gender in third person and most languages have no gender marked on pronouns at all. Also note that there may be differences between singular, plural and other numbers, if such exist, and between inclusive and exclusive for first person plural. Gender is more commonly marked in singular than in plural, which has the obvious problem of having to deal with mixed groups. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:52, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't mention Kofyar and Minangkabau, does it? It doesn't mention Macá either, but rather Makah - as a language with "no gender distinction". Japnases is classified as a language with a gender distinction in third person only, so I'm qiute confused now. 147.236.152.145 (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

In the text, scroll down to the paragraph starting with "Value four represents languages" and the paragraph after that. Use the search function of your browser. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

147.236.152.145 -- Japanese has "kare" as a third person form with masculine reference and "kanojo" as a third person form with feminine reference, but Japanese has relatively many words which can serve as third person pronouns, and it would be a bit simplistic to equate "kare" and "kanojo" with third person masculine and feminine forms in a language with an ordinary "closed" pronoun system, such as "he" and "she" in English. (By all accounts, "kare" and "kanojo" are used much less often in natural Japanese narrative prose than "he" and "she" are in natural English narrative prose.) Other than that, Japanese doesn't really have grammatical gender at all in any familiar sense -- rather, it has many alternative pronoun forms which have various social conditions on their use. For example, the closest thing that Japanese has to an ordinary neutral 1st. person singular pronoun has four forms: Watakushi, Watashi, Atakushi, and Atashi. Watakushi and Atakushi are formal, Watashi and Atashi are basic, and the forms without a W- (i.e. Atakushi and Atashi) are ordinarily only recommended for use by women (though women also use the W-initial forms). Then there's Boku, which was traditionally used by boys and young men, but is now also being used by some young women, a phenomenon which has received much media coverage. It doesn't have much to do with grammatical gender in its traditional sense... AnonMoos (talk) 22:22, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

There's also 1st person "ore", which is even more male and unrefined, if I remember correctly... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:40, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Not in pronouns but in conjugation, Basque_verbs#Familiar_forms_and_allocutive_indices_(hika) have allocutive agreement. Basque pronouns are genderless. --Error (talk) 11:22, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I have already referred to your point (but with regard to Hindi rather than to Basque), in user:40bus's thread followed up in the current thread. 147.236.152.145 (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

You're Who You Say You're

I've never seen anyone contract 'you are' as it is in the question title; when I read it, the first contraction feels fine (though less usual for the phrase), but the second feels wrong in some manner. Is there an actual error here or does it just read unusually? If there is an error, are there any other similar cases where a contraction doesn't work even though the contracted words appear in the correct sequence?2601:547:1:4EE0:10D:B4C8:36FD:21D8 (talk) 08:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

We don't do this when speaking, either. Something to do with prosody?  Card Zero  (talk) 08:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

2601:547:1:4EE0:10D:B4C8:36FD:21D8 -- In your example, the second word "are" is not only stressed, but is also the main location of the intonation for that sentence (see Pitch accent (intonation)#Pitch accent in English), so that contraction can't happen. AnonMoos (talk) 09:01, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

How about They wouldn't let's do it.?  Card Zero  (talk) 09:04, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Contraction of "Let us" to "Let's" only occurs when there's an injunction or effective 1st-person plural imperative form, which is not the case in that sentence. AnonMoos (talk) 09:19, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Everyone's's a clitic.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:25, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm waiting for another word which is not going to arrive. Looks like an error to me. Bazza (talk) 09:23, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

• You can't contract every occurance of "you are" or "let us" in English. It's rather complicated to explain, but native speakers seem to know the rules intuitively. You can say "I said you're going to do it" but you can't say "I said you're". The contraction seems to depend on whether the "are" is acting as a connecting verb or as a stand alone verb. If one says "You are <something else here>", then you can contract it. If one just says "You are" with no predicate phrase following "are", you can't contract. --Jayron32 11:18, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Since this is the Language desk, I can't let "occurance" go. It's occurrence, dear friend. Related to current. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Unless it's an Irish berry. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

occurance obviously means taking up the office of a curate. —Tamfang (talk) 01:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

In ebonics (African-American Vernacular English), the rule should basically be that copula that's contracted in regular English can be dropped, so it'd be "You who you say you are" (although in the given sentence, maybe "are" would be stressed both initially and finally, when I think about it)... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:00, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

@Jayron32 In the first "you're" the "are" is acting as a transitive verb, but the final "are" is intransitive. I'm not sure but it might be significant. I'm not familiar with the concept of a "connecting verb". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no such concept. I forgot the correct terminology, which you have helpfully provided. Thank you. --Jayron32 12:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

We seem to have gotten off the track here. I believe that the term Jayron was searching for was "linking verb" rather than "connecting verb". But neither instance of are in the sentence in question is transitive; both are copulae (linking verbs). The first links the first you with the clause(s) "who you think you are", which serves as a subject complement; the second links the third you with the complement "who". I think the distinction here is that the the second are can't idiomatically be contracted because it follows, rather than precedes, its complement. We don't seem to contract "subject + copula" combinations in such cases, or in cases where there is no complement in the sentence, especially when the verb is syntactically stressed (as in "It is what it is" and "Is he coming. Yes, we think he is"). Deor (talk) 12:55, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for correcting my correction. It should also be noted that not all contractions obey these principles, just ones involving the copula (is, was, are, etc.) "Can you do it?" "No, I can't" is perfectly cromulent. --Jayron32 16:37, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure copula vs other is the relevant distinction here. "Is it possible?" "No, it isn't" or "No, it's not". --Amble (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English#Weak_and_strong_forms_of_words looks relevant. Elision#Contractions says they are usually weak form words, so not stressed, like AnonMoos said.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

My mother sometimes said, upon reaching a destination, "Here we're!" —Tamfang (talk) 01:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

But I'm bidin' my time /'Cause that's the kinda guy I'm /While other folks grow dizzy /I keep busy/ Bidin' my time --ColinFine (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Poets often take liberties with the language. The Gershwins also wrote "'S Wonderful". Have you ever heard anyone say that in real life? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Dendrograph

What is a dendrograph? Wikipedia seems to have nothing about this. Thanks. 86.188.121.125 (talk) 19:37, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiktionary has a definition. Deor (talk) 19:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

As an aside, the name matches the Wiktionary definition almost exactly. "Dendro-" almost always refers to trees, either actual trees or a tree-like shape, and "-graph" usually refers to some kind of device. C.F. telegraph, polygraph, etc. --Jayron32 11:14, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Dendrometry has a picture of a dendrometer. According to A Dictionary of Plant Sciences, these are used to measure height and diameter, while the dendrograph is "an instrument that provides a continuous record of the circumference of a tree stem". Somehow this is more complicated than a tape measure? The word is also sometimes used for a dendrogram plot, which is only superficially tree-related.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)