Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 21

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October 21

Spatial timeline

In Chinese, in some expressions, time is perceived as going from 'up' to 'down' rather than from 'left' to 'right' (for instance, 上个月 and 下个月, "last month" and "next month", are literally "above month" and "below month"; same thing for "last week" and "next week" and some other expressions). I'm just wondering, is this also the case in any other languages of the Sinosphere (particularly Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), or any other languages anywhere? rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Not in Japanese. Last month is 先月 or 前月/previous month and next month is 来月/coming month. But 先 is also used when you talk about future. So it might be difficult for non-native speakers to understand the usage. [1] Oda Mari (talk) 09:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It makes sense in Chinese. In Chinese, 先 means "earlier" or "earliest" or "past". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I remember 上 and 下 examples in Japanese. 上半期/above half period and 下半期/below half period. It would be the first/second or latter half (of the fiscal year) in English. Oda Mari (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't quite fit, but in some Swiss German dialects (unlike in Standard German), "über" ("over") is used for certain times of day. Example: 8:25h would be "foif über halbi nüüni" ("five over/above half nine"). The minute hand is actually "five" above its lowest point on the clock face at X:30h, of course. Still, I don't think I've heard this usage in English.

In Standard German there also exists "übermorgen" ("over tomorrow") for the day after tomorrow, but the day before yesterday uses "vor" ("before") too: "vorgestern". Similarly, "the next but one ..." or "the ... after next" is "der/die/das übernächste ..." ("the over next") while "the penultimate ..." (or perhaps better here: "the ... before last") is simply "der/die/das vorletzte ..." ("the before last") too. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I correctly translated "über" with its cognate English word "over, instead of "above". The image that comes to my mind with "übermorgen" or "der übernächste" is that of leapfrogging over "tomorrow", or over "the next one", not an image of a static location "above" something. (The preposition "über" can take both meanings; the difference lies in the grammatical case following the preposition : dative for static above, accusative for dynamic over). Which all amounts to one reason it doesn't quite fit your question, sorry :-| ---Sluzzelin talk 16:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The OED does in fact have overmorrow (obs. rare.) with quotations from 1535 and 1577. 128.232.241.211 (talk) 22:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"If" means, both: "provided that", and: "whether".

Is this semantic connection between "provided that" and "whether" recognized / unrecognized in other languages? Eliko (talk) 10:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't work in German, where ob – which I believe is actually cognate with "if" – means "whether", but not "if". OK, They are indeed cognate. Lfh (talk) 11:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In Chinese "if" (如果 rúguǒ or 要是 yàoshi) only means "providing", not "whether". A common error learners often make is overextending these terms into the wrong domain. For instance:

*Wǒ bù zhīdào rúguǒ tā lái le

I not know if he came PERF

Intended: "I don't know if he came"

(early learners of Chinese often say the above sentence instead of the correct one, which is below:)

Wǒ bù zhīdào tā yǒu méiyǒu lái

I not know he did didn't come

"I don't know if he came" (lit: "I don't know he come-not-come")

rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As User:Lfh said, it doesn't work in German: Wenn er kam "If he came", but Ich weiss nicht, ob er kam "I don't know if he came". It doesn't work in Finnish either: Jos hän tuli "If he came", but En tiedä, tuliko hän "I don't know if he came". Here the "whether" meaning isn't even a word, it's a suffix. AFAIK it does work in Swedish though, om is used for both meanings. JIP | Talk 12:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

as a data point, it doesn't work in Hungarian (ha megy vs. hogy megy-e) but it does work in Russian (yesli for both). In French it does work: Si tu peux... demande-lui si il 85.181.49.255 (talk) 12:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

So let's sum up:

List of languages having a word that means both "provided that" and "whether":

• Galician (se), English (if), French (si), Italian (se), Portuguese (se), Romanian (dacă), Spanish (si), Swedish (om).

List of languages having no word that means both "provided that" and "whether":

• Chinese, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Uyghur (other Turkic languages?)

Any more languages?

Eliko (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd speculate that most languages using conditional affixes to express "providing" probably fall into the second group. For instance, Uyghur patterns with Chinese, Finnish, German, Hungarian; I assume the rest of the Turkic languages do as well. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"If"/もし/moshi only means "providing" in Japanse. "Whether" is かどうか and it cannot be a substitute for "if". Oda Mari (talk) 16:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

According to the dictionary, Italian se can be used in both senses, like the presumably cognate French si. Lfh (talk) 16:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

French has been mentioned; it works the same way with Spanish si (Si él no viene pronto - If he doesn't arrive soon, and No sé si viene - I don't know if he's coming), and I would guess, other Romance languages (although my knowledge of them is considerably less). Lexicografía (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Re the other Romance languages: Unnecessarily. Just as the Germanic languages are not similar: Check Swedish (along with English), as opposed to German. Eliko (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, indeed; however, the Romance languages are (much?) more similar to each other than the various Germanic languages (and since Swedish is North Germanic and English is West Germanic, those particular two are farther apart than say, English and German. Not to nitpick or anything.) Google Translate is not to be trusted completely, but I translated the two sentences "If he comes, we will go" and "I don't know if he is coming" into all the Romance languages there (Catalan, French, Galician, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish) and they all used the same word in each sentence. Lexicografía (talk) 17:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

So, do you claim that English is more similar to German than to Swedish? But English (like Swedish) does have one word for both meanings, while German doesn't! So maybe you had better claimed that the Romance languages are more similar to each other than English is similar to German, hadn't you?

Yes, Google can't be trusted here, since my question is semantic, rather than grammatical, whereas Google may be wrong as far as semantic issues are concerned. When you used Google translator, You had better tried: "I don't know whether he is coming", as opposed to: "if he is coming than I'll be glad", hadn't you?

Eliko (talk) 17:43, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Afrikaans, which is closer related to English than any of the other languages mentioned here so far, has different words for the two meanings:

"If he comes, we will go" translates to "As hy kom, sal ons gaan" or "Indien hy kom, sal ons gaan" while

"I don't know if he is coming" translates to "Ek weet nie of hy kom nie." Roger (talk) 21:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Is that true about Russian? My Russian is lousy, but I was taught to use ли for if in the sense of whether and если for if in the sense of "in case"/"provided that". See also here. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak Russian, but maybe ли means whether only, while если behaves like the English if, i.e. it has both meanings. Again, I don't speak Russian, but maybe. Anyways, 85.181.49.255 has claimed above that "yesly [is] for both [meanings]". Eliko (talk) 17:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope, "если" only means "if". "Whether" always must be translated as "ли". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.18.23.2 (talk) 10:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So it's a dispute between you and 85.181.49.255. Who of you is a native Russian speaker? Eliko (talk) 12:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I honestly don't think 85.181 is a native speaker (I don't know whether 217.18 is, and I already pointed out that I'm not). Anyway, I provided references distinguishing the two as not interchangeable. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I apologize, you're right, so I move Russian from the first list to the second list. Eliko (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Latin has "si" for "if" and "utrum" for "whether", and they are not interchangeable. The Romance languages, as far as I am aware, completely lost "utrum" and use "si" for both meanings. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Google translates whether as "se" (=if), in both Galician and Portuguese, and translates "dacă" as both "whether" and "provided that" in Romanian. Eliko (talk) 18:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

See also wikt:if#Translations, distinguishing the meanings of the conjunction in the sense of "supposing that" and "whether" (and "(computing)"). I haven't looked at all the examples, but there might be some more there. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Summary proofreading

Greatings fellow wikipedians,

I'm not sure if such requests are welcome or not, so feel free to let me know if it is not the case. I would like some native English speaker to proofread my PhD summary, which I have copied on this page (feel free to edit it directly). My request concerns mostly grammatical issues, false friends and weird wording.

Thanks in advance. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 12:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Skippy, I've edited your summary, though I should caution you that I lack a background in physics, so I wasn't sure about some of the terminology. In particular, I have never heard the term "walk effect" and didn't find many instances of that term searching in Google. Have you seen the term "walk effect" used in English-language texts in your field, or is that your attempt to translate a French term? If it is your translation, you might check to see if a different term is used in English. Marco polo (talk) 13:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Marco, and thank you. Don't worry about the quoted term, it is indeed the English one. May I just ask for your reasons for correcting "ocean bottoms" to "the seafloor" ?

Thanks again. I'll just wait for Rjanag to read it also, since he already proposed himself to do so. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I started editing at the same time as Marco polo, so I just put my version separately. "Ocean bottom" is acceptable English, but "seafloor" (or "ocean floor") is more formal. I'm also not a physicist, so I didn't make as bold of corrections for fear that I would change your intended meaning. Tdslk (talk) 13:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"Walk effect" sounds odd to me as well. Do you mean "imprecision", perhaps? Tdslk (talk) 14:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC) [Nevermind. I see from Google Scholar that "walk effect" or "time-walk effect" is a specific term in physics.] Tdslk (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I changed "ocean bottoms" to "the seafloor" because, based on my own research, I discovered that there is only one ANTARES telescope, therefore the term needs to be singular, not plural. (It is on only one ocean bottom, not several ocean bottoms.) You can't say "it is on ocean bottom", you need the definite article in this case, so it becomes "on the ocean bottom". However, "bottom" is not the standard word for the bottom of the ocean. The standard term is "ocean floor" or "seafloor". Finally, my research revealed that ANTARES sits at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. So, this is definitely a seafloor and not an ocean floor. (The term seafloor can be used to describe the bottoms of both oceans and seas, but ocean floor implies the floor of a body of water named X Ocean in English.) (For what it's worth, I am a native speaker of American English and have been employed as a professional editor for 14 years.) Marco polo (talk) 14:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The word "bottom" tends to be avoided in formal English contexts because it means - er - bottom, not to mention Bottom.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Not in British English, it doesn't. Bazza (talk) 15:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There is also bottom, which does occur in British English. And I think, while present-day British English may use bum instead of bottom, as recently as the 1950s or so, bottom meant "buttocks" in British English as well. (Even in American English, bottom has largely been displaced by butt or—more vulgarly—ass.) Marco polo (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

What?? I think you're mitaken Bazza. The meaning of "bottom" equals "buttocks" IS in current use, at least in the south of England. A bit twee maybe, but used when trying to be polite, or talking to children, or in jokes such as; "If the bottom's falling out of your world, try a Vindaloo and the world will fall out of your bottom". Alansplodge (talk) 18:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

... and in the north! I don't know where Bazza lives, but I agree with Shantavira that the word is sometimes (but not always) avoided in formal English. Dbfirs 21:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

His talk page says Windsor. He must have missed every episode of Blackadder! Alansplodge (talk) 21:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

... and the Pampers adverts "Tops for bottoms". Also see our articles such as Bottom feeder. Dbfirs 07:55, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I wouldn't have bet that this topic would bring references to Blackadder… I thought "ocean bottoms" sounded more literary, but according to this discussion it was probably a non-nativeness artefact. I have not compared Marco's and Tdslk's suggestions yet, will do so tomorrow morning. Thanks everyone. PS : Tdslk, the PhD has already been defended with success. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 22:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, especially Marco and Tdslk. I've mixed your suggestions for the final version. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Italian "ne" -- what is it, grammatically?

What is the grammatical name for the Italian word ne, not directly translatable in English but expressing the idea of "some of that" or "some of those"? Examples:

Hai una macchina? Ne ho due. — "Do you have a car? I have two."

Vuoi del caffe'? Ne prendero' un pochino — "Do you want some coffee? I'll have a little."

Lo pensi veramente? Ne sono sicuro. — "Do you really think so? I'm sure of it."

It's some sort of a pronoun, I guess, but I can't find anything under partitive pronoun, which was the best thing I could think of.

Also, is there an equivalent in any other language? The closest thing I can think of is French en, but I'm not sure it's really the same. --Trovatore (talk) 18:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

(Wiktionary entry) The sense of "ne" you are using here means "of it" or "of them", and it is a pronoun. Lexicografía (talk) 18:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language&action=edit&section=21

More specifically, I've seen it called a partitive pronoun (see here, for example). I think French "en" is more or less equivalent. "En" also exists in Catalan. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

if you know French, it's the EXACT mirror of the French word: en. 85.181.49.255 (talk) 21:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

ie: Avez-vous une voiture? J'en ai deux. Est-ce que tu veux ... j'en veux un peu (iffy) De vrai?? J'en suis sur 85.181.49.255 (talk) 21:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually my Italian is much better than my French. I wasn't really asking for advice on how to use ne; more about its grammatical classification. But as long as we're on the subject, how about en? When speaking of a grammatically feminine object, can you say, for example,

J'ai en prises deux.

with the prises agreeing in gender and number with the objects referred to? --Trovatore (talk) 05:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I think I mean J'en ai prises deux. --Trovatore (talk) 05:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No, it would still be j'en ai pris deux. The only time you get gender agreement on avoir past participles is in relative clauses headed by que, as far as I know. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? Granted my French is rusty, but I'm pretty sure "I saw her" is je l'ai vue, not je l'ai vu. --Trovatore (talk) 18:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Trovatore, according to http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=13&reversed=True&action=define&homonym=-1&text=ne, the Italian word ne is used sometimes as a pronoun and sometimes as an adverb. In your three examples, it is used as a pronoun: in the first and second examples, with a partitive value ("con valore partitivo") (section 6), and in the third example, with the meaning "about it" (section 4).

—Wavelength (talk) 22:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

---

I think there should be something written up at Partitive pronoun, actually. However, I'm not sure what term to use to describe "y", the French companion to "en"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Italian ne (and French en) is a clitic. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

However, "clitic" only describes the positions in which it occurs; "partitive pronoun" defines its actual grammatical function. AnonMoos (talk) 04:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

French y seems closer to Italian ci, on its face an adverb of location, but with similar uses by extension. --Trovatore (talk) 05:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Alternative "Shakespeare" theories - claimants, candidates, what?

See Talk:List of Shakespeare authorship candidates/Archive 1#Claimants? Is there a better word than ‘candidates’ or ‘claimants’?

• I believe 'claimants’ is a misuse of the word.
  • If A claims to have done something, then A is a claimant.
  • But if B makes a claim about A (which is what's happening here), the only one making any claims is B. To call B a claimant in that case is misleading as it implies B is making the claims about himself. To call A a claimant is also wrong as, again, it implies A made the claims, which was not the case (in fact, the claims were all made hundreds of years after the deaths of the various As).

• ‘candidates’ is objected to (by the author of the article, no less, who was happy to use the word in the title, but let’s not get sidetracked by that) on the grounds that there’s no contest happening.
  • It doesn’t have to imply that. We have candidates for canonisation, for example, without any sort of contest.

• There may be an even better word. Any ideas? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Jack I didn't object to its use; I just pointed out that it was a bit misleading since there's really no contest, at least not in academic circles, as the article makes clear. And comparing it to candidates for canonisation is not an apt analogy; to be elected a saint an existing one doesn't have to be proved a fraud. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Claimant does seem to be a misuse, as not all of these (apparently) claimed it themselves. Candidate is okay, but not great. "Hopeful" or "aspirant" don't work... Perhaps you could substitute a different concept and go with "claim" or a similar word, but then you run into the problem of who exactly is doing the claiming. Lexicografía (talk) 19:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't see a convenient word for it, but in any case I don't like the headlinese string of nouns and would call it "List of people claimed to have written Shakespeare's works". --ColinFine (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

We could say "List of possible Shakespeare authors".—Wavelength (talk) 23:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

One could object that to call them "possible" is to take sides. "Proposed" perhaps? But I do think "candidates" is OK.--Rallette (talk) 06:55, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

How about, "List of proposed true authors of Shakespeare's works"?--Rallette (talk) 07:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

We can say "List of supposed Shakespeare authors".—Wavelength (talk) 14:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If an expression seems to favor a position, we can look for a neutral expression at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. After looking over the page, and not finding any particular section or expression to mention, I decided to link to the whole page, where editors can look for themselves.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jack that "claimants" is a misuse of the word, but it's been used quite a bit by those who write about the topic, one book even using it in the title. The term "candidates" is universally used to denote the nominees for Shakespeare authorship ("nominee" is another word almost equivalent to candidate), so as long as it applies to all I don't see any NPOV issues. Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. Any novel term would be OR and probably not usable, so I don't know how much time you want to put into it. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"alleged" or "suspected"? Roger (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Hung Huang reading

Hi! I checked the tones for Hung Huang. According to Wiktionary:

• 洪 is hóng
• 晃 can be huǎng or huàng

Which tone is 晃? WhisperToMe (talk) 19:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

晃 is pronounced as huǎng when it means bright, dazzling; it is pronounced as huàng when it means shaking, swinging. While I haven't heard of this person, I doubt very much the character would ever be used in the second sense as a name, so I'm pretty confident it would be read as huǎng. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'll assume it is huǎng - thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I have listened to a few different videos here and have heard both pronunciations, I think. Maybe it's the tone sandhi fooling me. --Cam (talk) 13:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

PalaceGuard is right that the second reading seems very strange for a name. But in the videos Cam linked (at least the 4 that I sat through) it really does sound like huàng... rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I found this video, where at 00:40 she introduces herself: "Wǒ shì Hóng Huàng." (I am Hong Huang.) So Huàng it is (fourth tone).--Cam (talk) 23:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)