Ron House says that "Farsi" is too
atypical as a language name because
the -i ending is not normal in Eng-
lish. Well, there are a number of
other languages I can think of that
are known in English only by names
ending in -i: Bengali and Gujarati,
as well as Swahili (though the latter
-i is not really an ending!)
30
Nov
Language names
posted by admin in Uncategorized and have Comments (11)
In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) writes:
>The following is a complete article recently posted in a sci.math.*
>newsgroup. All I have done is insert the `:’ characters and removed the
>person’s name.
>: Told there was a note from Cleve Moler about MATLAB. Interested in old
>: version (have FORTRAN source and 1984 version for PC). Like a lot
>: and serves pedagogic purposes better than Math Works version; need info
>: about anyone else updating a little – and distribution restrictions.
>: Thanks. <name given>
>1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all common in the USA?
>2) What, actually, does it mean? :-)
Looks like you’re on to something here Bill. Don’t know whether is
prevalent or not, but seems like some people think can make English
into a pro-drop language. Of course, not only is it subject drop, but
the above example shows that can drop objects as well provided you can
recover from the context. Shouln’t be too surprised about details
like lack of verb agreement to trigger the drop, since many languages
are pro-drop without having agreement.
But seriously, this is actually a case of almost primarily object drop
speech, except that it 
)
rather than subject drop as your subject (object?) line suggests.
As is ususal in these cases, the object must be recoverable from the
context, and in this case it’s pretty rich – all dropped objects
corrspond to MATLAB and all dropped subjects to ‘I’. No, I don’t
think this is prevalent in non-mathematical
does occur regularly in ‘recipe language’ (followups to rec.food
as pointed out in a recent Linguistic Inquiry squib by Diane Massam
and Yves Roberge. Thus you regularly say things like ‘Take three
eggs. Break into a bowl. Beat well.’ etc.
Massam and Roberge claim that the null object is only licensed when
there is a null subject also (i.e. the imperative subject), and
specifically one which shows agreement, rather than the subject of the
infinitive, thus the following paradigm: (Where [e] is the null object
and PRO is the (null) subject of the infinitive (Please, no flames
about inifinitive having subjects or not etc. (although if they don’t,
(4) becomes a bit more puzzling…))
(1) First take 3 eggs. Beat [e] well until frothy.
(2) First you take 3 eggs. You must beat them well, until frothy.
(3) First you take 3 eggs. *You must beat [e] well, until frothy.
(4) First take 3 eggs. *Try PRO to beat [e] well until frothy.
The text you give does not fit very well into this pattern, since the
null subject is not the imperative subject, but then again, it sounds
terribly UNidiomatic English to me, while the recipe language sounds
fine.
Well, this was probably more than you wanted to know about null
objects in English. As for your mystery writer, either s/he’s not a
native speaker of English or s/he’s been *far* too long ensconced in
symbolic logic or category theory (name your favourite) and has
forgotten how to talk!
Obviously statisticians don’t have this problem…
>–
> Bill Venables, Dept. of Statistics, | Email: venab…@spam.adelaide.edu.au
> Univ. of Adelaide, South Australia. | Phone: +61 8 228 5412
Alan
<am…@umd5.umd.edu>
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
In article <8…@umd5.umd.edu> am…@umd5.umd.edu (Alan Munn) writes:
>In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) reposts an article he saw:
>>: Told there was a note from Cleve Moler about MATLAB. Interested in old
>>: version (have FORTRAN source and 1984 version for PC). Like a lot
>>: and serves pedagogic purposes better than Math Works version; need info
>>: about anyone else updating a little – and distribution restrictions.
>>: Thanks. <name given>
>>1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all common in the USA?
>>2) What, actually, does it mean? :-)
>But seriously, this is actually a case of almost primarily object drop
>rather than subject drop as your subject (object?) line suggests.
>As is ususal in these cases, the object must be recoverable from the
>context, and in this case it’s pretty rich – all dropped objects
>corrspond to MATLAB and all dropped subjects to ‘I’. No, I don’t
Primarily object drop? None of those sentences has a subject and
you call it primarily object drop? I find the subject drop much
more interesting, because there was no previously-stated subject to
use for context, whereas MATLAB is actually mentioned in the
passage.
Many languages drop the subject "I" from sentences as a matter of
course; Chinese and Japanese come to mind from my own study – and
apparently English can, too. Gotta admit that understanding isn’t
compromised, so one might ask just what the "I" is really good for
anyway. In both Chinese and Japanese, the pronoun is dropped only
(or generally) when it’s "I", so the subject of the sentence is
always clear. As is pointed out, the math posting is following this
rule, even if it’s not an explicit "English" rule.
>think this is prevalent in non-mathematical
speech, except that it 
)
>does occur regularly in ‘recipe language’ (followups to rec.food
>as pointed out in a recent Linguistic Inquiry squib by Diane Massam
>and Yves Roberge. Thus you regularly say things like ‘Take three
>eggs. Break into a bowl. Beat well.’ etc.
Long (and somewhat confusing but nevertheless accurate) description of
imperative case deleted…..
>The text you give does not fit very well into this pattern, since the
>null subject is not the imperative subject, but then again, it sounds
>terribly UNidiomatic English to me, while the recipe language sounds
>fine.
…but translated into an Asian language it would be perfectly fine,
whereas if all the "I"’s were stuck back in it would sound foolish
and redundant.
>Well, this was probably more than you wanted to know about null
>objects in English. As for your mystery writer, either s/he’s not a
>native speaker of English or s/he’s been *far* too long ensconced in
>symbolic logic or category theory (name your favourite) and has
>forgotten how to talk!
Or has simply realized how redundant the English language is and is
trying to save a bit of bandwidth. :) :) :)
Enough wastage for me,
-Ann
ann…@milton.u.washington.edu
I think I’ve heard (unheard?) dropped pronouns of all kinds in Japanese.
I think I would as a matter of course drop any unnecessary pronoun too.
Which by the way I would never pressure anyone into calling Nihongo.
And I would never tell a Japanese speaker not to call "English" Eigo or
Beikokugo.
I find the AL discussions interesting and informative. I see all sorts
of unscientific stuff float by on other topics too. Let’s not divide
this group and make it less spicy.
—
-ken rich -=!=- k…@cc.rochester.edu
In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au
(Bill Venables) reposted an article he saw:
BILL> :Told there was a note from Cleve Moler about MATLAB. Interested in old
BILL> :version (have FORTRAN source and 1984 version for PC). Like a lot
BILL> :and serves pedagogic purposes better than Math Works version; need info
BILL> :about anyone else updating a little – and distribution restrictions.
BILL> :Thanks. <name given>
BILL>1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all
BILL> common in the USA?
BILL>2) What, actually, does it mean? :-)
In article <8…@umd5.umd.edu> am…@umd5.umd.edu (Alan Munn) I wrote:
ALAN>But seriously, this is actually a case of almost primarily object drop
ALAN>rather than subject drop as your subject (object?) line suggests.
ALAN>As is ususal in these cases, the object must be recoverable from the
ALAN>context, and in this case it’s pretty rich – all dropped objects
ALAN>corrspond to MATLAB and all dropped subjects to ‘I’.
In article <18…@milton.u.washington.edu> ann…@milton.u.washington.edu (Ann
Shilling) writes:
ANN>Primarily object drop? None of those sentences has a subject and
ANN>you call it primarily object drop?
Ok, it’s about half half. I realised after I had posted that some
subjects were dropped too.
ANN>I find the subject drop much
ANN>more interesting, because there was no previously-stated subject to
ANN>use for context, whereas MATLAB is actually mentioned in the passage.
ANN>Many languages drop the subject "I" from sentences as a matter of
ANN>course; Chinese and Japanese come to mind from my own study – and
ANN>apparently English can, too.
First of all, the ‘subject’ drop is probably not that, but rather
something else which you might call ‘truncation’, which is somewhat
common in English, but is not the same as subject drop. The first two
sentences of Bill’s mystery poster show that what has been dropped is
not merely the subject, but the subject and the auxilliary verb
(probably ‘be’), since both of those sentences are ungrammatical if
you just include the subject. This means you can’t really say that
the other cases of apparent subject drop are in fact that, rather than
truncation. One big difference between the two is that truncation can
only happen in main clauses, not embedded clauses, thus you can say
(1) but not (2).
(1) Interested in old version (meaning I am interested)
(2) *(I) think (that) interested in old version (I think I am interested)
Since truncation is pretty normal in English, but object drop is not,
that’s why I focussed on the object drop. I’m not sure whether either
is more interesting.
ANN>Gotta admit that understanding isn’t compromised, so one might
ANN> ask just what the "I" is really good for anyway.
Is this ‘I’ gotta admit or ‘You’ gotta admit? It was clear to you
when you wrote it, but it’s not so clear now….
ANN>In both Chinese and Japanese, the pronoun is dropped only
ANN>(or generally) when it’s "I", so the subject of the sentence is
ANN>always clear.
ANN>As is pointed out, the math posting is following this
ANN>rule, even if it’s not an explicit "English" rule.
As far as I know, 3rd person pronouns can also be dropped in Chinese
and Japanese, so the rule is not so clear. Again, English just can’t
do the same things, so I don’t know why Chinese and Japanese are
particularly relevant.
ALAN>I don’t think this is prevalent in non-mathematical
speech, except that 
)
ALAN>it does occur regularly in ‘recipe language’ (followups to rec.food
ALAN>as pointed out in a recent Linguistic Inquiry squib by Diane Massam
ALAN>and Yves Roberge. Thus you regularly say things like ‘Take three
ALAN>eggs. Break into a bowl. Beat well.’ etc.
ANN>Long (and somewhat confusing but nevertheless accurate) description of
ANN>imperative case deleted…..
Sorry if I was confusing, but the point was that you can productively
drop objects in English only if the subject is also dropped and
imperative. I wasn’t trying to describe the imperative.
ALAN>The text [Bill] gave does not fit very well into this pattern, since the
ALAN>null subject is not the imperative subject, but then again, it sounds
ALAN>terribly UNidiomatic English to me, while the recipe language sounds
ALAN>fine.
ANN>…but translated into an Asian language it would be perfectly fine,
ANN>whereas if all the "I"’s were stuck back in it would sound foolish
ANN>and redundant.
But this is irrelevant. The fact that some dropped objects or
subjects in English *are* idiomatic, but some most definitely *aren’t*
is what’s important. We surely can’t figure out anything about the
rules of English by examining Chinese. (Which is not to say that data
from other languages can’t help us study English. They can. But we
can’t say ‘S’ is grammatical in language X, therefore it should be in
English is not the way to do it. Lots of languages have SOV word
order, but I would bet that most English speakers it unintelligible
pretty find would.)
The fact is, the truncation is idiomatic, but the object drop in
Bill’s poster’s case is not, especially when we compare it to the
recipe speech I gave examples of. The syntax of object drop in
languages like Chinese, Japanese or Portugese is far from trivial. We
probably know less about it than we do about subject drop, which, at
least in many languages (not Asian ones though) is related to
agreement on the verb. Whatever’s going on, it’s not just as easy as
‘pick a discourse referent, any referent’, for either subject or
object drop.
ALAN>As for [Bill's] mystery writer, either s/he’s not a
ALAN>native speaker of English or s/he’s been *far* too long ensconced in
ALAN>symbolic logic or category theory (name your favourite) and has
ALAN>forgotten how to talk!
Given that the sentences were truncated and not pro-dropped I now bet
on the latter!
ANN>Or has simply realized how redundant the English language is and is
ANN>trying to save a bit of bandwidth. :) :) :)
That too.
ANN>Enough wastage for me,
ANN>-Ann
ANN>ann…@milton.u.washington.edu
Sorry this if this too is wasted bandwidth. I was trying to inject a
little ‘natural’ into sci.lang.artificial…
Alan
<am…@umd5.umd.edu>
On the subject of "what to call ‘English’", I do not feel
bothered by different names in other languages, such as "anglais",
"ingle’s", "inglese", "englisch", "engelsk", "engleski", "angliskii",
"anglika", etc.
So what’s the big deal?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: lo…@sunlight.llnl.gov
Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:
loren%sunlight.llnl….@star.stanford.edu
[Alan: it seems to me that you have painstakingly done by hand what
GNUS + SuperCite can do automatically: put peoples names in citation
strings. more info can be had by reading newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus .]
>>>>> On 13 Mar 91 18:47:09 GMT, am…@umd5.umd.edu (Alan Munn) said:
Alan> In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au
Alan> (Bill Venables) reposted an article he saw:
BILL> :Told there was a note from Cleve Moler about MATLAB. Interested in old
ALAN>But seriously, this is actually a case of almost primarily object drop
ALAN>rather than subject drop as your subject (object?) line suggests.
ANN>Primarily object drop? None of those sentences has a subject and
ANN>you call it primarily object drop?
—
Dan_Jacob…@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364
<>
<>
> In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) writes:
>The following is a complete article recently posted in a sci.math.*
>newsgroup. All I have done is insert the `:’ characters and removed the
>person’s name.
>: Told there was a note from Cleve Moler about MATLAB. Interested in old
>: version (have FORTRAN source and 1984 version for PC). Like a lot
>: and serves pedagogic purposes better than Math Works version; need info
>: about anyone else updating a little – and distribution restrictions.
>: Thanks. <name given>
>1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all common in the USA?
>2) What, actually, does it mean? :-)
1) Interesting. Reminds me of newspaper ads or telegrams where one
pays by the word. Common in USA, especially among folks who don’t
mind or even desire appearing quite busy or in a hurry. Brevity
also valued by Ham radio buffs and email enthusiasts.
Additional reasons for abruptness – dislike of self-reference,
desire to appear non-egotistical, desire to not clutter up peoples’
time with unnecessary verbiage, shyness, taking _The Elements of Style_
too seriously. :-)
2) Take a look at the painting "American Gothic" sometime. There’s
an element of austerity in the USA. The passage is not only
understandable, but no-nonsense. Whether or not it’s English is
debatable. :-)
—
Krista A.
HONOR Our Neighbors’ Origins and Rights!
It’s worth noting that subject use varies considerably from language to
language, so that our discussion of English is irrelevant to other
languages — especially those which conjugate verbs more completely.
In such languages, the form of the verb more cklearly implies the
subject: for example, "khochoo" (Gesundheit! :-) in Russian means, "I
want," even though the subject "Ya" is never explicitly stated.
Quite a few languages are this — I would make an educated guess that
the majority are.
Interestingly, the "subject" (as we know it) in Russian is not always stated
in the nominative. An example of this is in impersonal constructions,
in which the dative case is used: "Mne povezlo" means "I’m lucky," in
the following way:
Mne = dative of "Ya" (I)
povezlo = adjectival (?) form
So it’s transliterated as [It] [is] to me lucky (or luckily).
Nu — interesno mne. :-)
Tom
gel…@ucunix.san.uc.edu
t_gel…@usite-next.uchicago.edu
——————————————————————————
T. (Thomas) Geller Biases: Bisexual, feminist-supportive,
P.O. Box 20092 open-border, free-information civil
Cincinnati, Ohio 45220 libertarian Esperantist with explosives.
"polyglot" on IRC You’d _better_ be scared!
In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au> wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) writes:
…
>1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all common in the USA?
…
In a more serious vein than my last, this sort of rampant pro-drop occurs in
telegraphic correspondence, i.e., heavily abbreviated letters. I don’t think
it is as common as it once was. You might also find it in diaries or notes.
In article <WVENABLE.91Mar12104…@spam.ua.oz.au>, wvena…@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) writes:
> 1) Is this kind of subject-free, pronoun-free speech at all common in the USA?
Might be.
In article <7…@alpha.cam.nist.gov> koo…@cam.nist.gov (John E. Koontz
X5180) writes:
> In a more serious vein than my last, this sort of rampant pro-drop
occurs in
> telegraphic correspondence, i.e., heavily abbreviated letters. I don’t
think
> it is as common as it once was. You might also find it in diaries or
notes.
It also occurs frequently in software error messages. Maybe this is
because of the strangeness of using a computer or program as the agent in
a sentence, or maybe it is just convention. In any event, I find that I
have to force myself to use complete sentences when writing error messages.
Eric Pepke INTERNET: pe…@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu
Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu
Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.