Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 September 24

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September 24

India in Himachali

how do we write the word "india" in himachali language? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.64.197.8 (talk) 11:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Himachal Pradesh#Demographics lists some two dozen languages spoken in that state, but none called "Himachali". Which language do you mean? (Not that I'll be able to answer your question when I know, but maybe someone else will.) It's also unclear whether you're asking what the "Himachali" word for India is or whether you're asking how to transliterate the English word India into the writing system used for "Himachali". Angr (talk) 11:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

passive to be?

Am I able to write in a passive tense with the verb to be?Exx8 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

Yes. ("I want my question to be answered.") rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:50, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

To be is used to form the passives of other verbs, as in Rjanag's example above, but it doesn't form a passive itself. So while The question is answered is grammatical, *The question is been is not. Angr (talk) 16:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Further, "to be" does not take a direct object (in traditional grammar, that is, although we sometimes find it useful to pretend otherwise). You can't "be" something, in the sense of doing something to that something, like eat or hit or fold or destroy it. Hence, a something cannot be "beed". Any verb that doesn't take a direct object has no passive form: "go" is another example. ("The bus is gone" is not an example of passive, despite appearances.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Not "beed" - but rather: "been":)

Note that, just as:

"I have done my homework" - means that: "my homework was done by me" (and that's why we use the same word - "done" - in both sentences),

and:

"I have shown the picture to you" - means that" "the picture was shown to you by me" (and that's why we use the same word - "shown" - in both sentences),

so:

"I have been Hamlet in the show" - means that: "Hamlet was been by me in the show" (and that's why we should use the same word - "been" - in both sentences).

Yes, the last sentence - is not grammatical, but it's according to the rules, much more than saying: "Hamlet was beed by me in the show".

HOOTmag (talk) 23:08, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

To be is the most irregular verb in English, and also the most important. It is the only verb with more than two forms in the present (I am, you are, he is, we are, they are) and the only verb with more than one form in the past tense (I was, you were, he was, we were, they were). Interchangeable|talk to me 23:29, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

No, HOOTmag, it is precisely not according to the rules. It is according to an analogy you have chosen to apply, which happens to be counter to the rules (the real, innate ones) of English. The question of what the relevant rule is, and why, is the subject of this question.--ColinFine (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant by "according to the rules", i.e. according the rules one can extract (or "invent" by analogy) from passive forms like "done", "shown", and likewise. HOOTmag (talk) 10:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I know some children who use be as a regular transitive verb meaning "to play the part of." I have heard "He bees Luke" as in Skywalker. I'll have to see if I can elicit "Darth Vader was beed by him." μηδείς (talk) 01:01, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The matter is of philosophical interest. Although the orthodoxy is that be is not transitive (cannot take an object, has no passive form or use), the folk talk and think as if it did, as the children of Μηδείς do. Consider Arnold Schoenberg's response in this exchange (as it is reported in our article):

A superior officer demanded to know if he was "this notorious Schoenberg, then"; Schoenberg replied: "Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me."

As if "being" someone could be an act, consequent upon some deliberate choice. The children might dispute as follows, before play begins in earnest: "I don't want to be Roger Ramjet. I want to be Astroboy. You be Roger Ramjet." It would be fair to ask who, if anyone, Roger Ramjet gets to be been by, yes?

Luminaries are, by and large, persuaded that this is all a big mistake. But some have been led far up the populist path of Volksdenken, notably with thought experiments of the type What is it like to be a bat? A fine survey of the issues is to be found in Dennett and Hofstadter's The mind's I. Hofstadter's analysis of Thomas Nagel's piece bearing that question as its title is thorough, but leaves to the end the observation that there may, after all, be no "beable things" (BATs, Hofstadter ingeniously calls them: things it is like something to be). That should have come first. It is not like anything for anything to be anything, ever. Things are: and as a consequence of that elementary fact, they are what they are and how they are. Only by a thing's being something it is not (per impossibile) could there be any notional prospect of that thing acquiring a quality sheerly by being that other thing. None of that makes any sense for the ordinary run of things. (What would it be like for my umbrella to be my iPad?) Only when we entertain such nonsense for ourselves – a rather special class of things, from our point of view at least – is there the illusion of sense here. What would it be like for me to be Roger Ramjet (or for Roger Ramjet to be been by me ☺)? Nothing at all, say I. What is it like for me to be me (sc. I)? Nothing at all! (What is it like for Μηδείς to be Μηδείς? Especially nothing at all, in that case.)

Nothing "is" anything in any active sense, pace children and folk. It follows that nothing is "been" by anything, except trivially and therefore dismissably by itself. (The attempted passive construction counterintuitively suggests action – on something's or someone's part, usually someone or something other than the referent of the grammatical subject.) So even if the folk are mistaken, the folk's language has somehow had it right all along.

But it's the children I'm worried about.

Noetica^Tea? 06:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a bit off-topic for the language desk, but personally I think Dennett and his ilk must surely know they're wrong. They essentially attempt to deny the existence of subjective experience, even though they (presumably, assuming they're not p-zombies) do in fact experience things subjectively. They are very very clever in trying to explain this away, but in the end it can't be explained away. --Trovatore (talk) 06:15, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The children clearly use the word in the sense of to play, portray or enact, each of which (Macbeth was played by McKellan) uncontroversially takes the passive. Left to their own devices, a la Lord of the Flies, their vocabulary would be stunted and words would have to take on new roles, such as the transitive be, in order to express concepts for which we have different specialized words. I am minded of the term ens which was coined in Mediaeval Latin to provide a form of the word esse need in philosophical discourse which did not exist in the classical language. μηδείς (talk) 17:15, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Noetica, your comments are sound and your wordplay enjoyable. Trovatore, you are correct, Dennett is too clever by half, but a stimulating read. Much of Dennett's problem lies in his using words as if they were just there, and as if concepts didn't have any developmental history. Concepts such as doubt, proof, and objectivity are all learned when we come painfully to realize that our ideas may contradict each other or reality. Weren't our awareness of reality and our awareness that we are aware prior, there would be no background from which to differentiate the ideas of falseness, fallacy, unconsciousness, and so forth. If the difference between dreaming and wakefulness weren't already known we could not even formulate the sophomoric question as to whether this is all a dream. One cannot know what doubt means without already knowing even more certainly what certainty is. μηδείς (talk) 17:31, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I know some children who use be as a regular transitive verb meaning "to play the part of." I have heard "He bees Luke" as in Skywalker. Does this mean, then, that these children are fully capable of explaining:

Yes, I know he is not Luke Skywalker. He merely bees him.? JIP | Talk 18:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I noted quite acutely over the summer that they used is in the normal sense and bees as the third person singular present meaning "to play the part of". (They also say such things as doed and goed. The younger one, advising the rest of the family that Mom had said in the car that they would dine at the burger chain Fuddruckers ran in the front door and announced "We're going to Bloodsuckers!") I am afraid that if I were to question them directly I would get a self-conscious answer. Given that school has begun I may not get a chance to observe them in the proper conditions soon, and the development in their speech skills is rapid and noticeably different over a period of a month or so. μηδείς (talk) 19:33, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Wrong and right on languages

How do Linguist know which speaking or writing is right, and which isn't? I mean, languages are born usually by some groups which split from their main group and begin to speak differently. Exx8 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:50, 24 September 2011 (UTC).

Linguists know what is right and wrong in language by observing how native speakers use the language. Some constructions are correct (or, to use the term preferred by linguists, grammatical) in some dialects but not in other ones. For example, some dialects in Western Pennsylvania and neighboring parts of Ohio allow the construction My car needs washed. And some dialects in England allow the construction I was sat at the table. Neither of those constructions is grammatical in my dialect of English, but they are grammatical in other people's dialects. Angr (talk) 16:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Like Angr says, linguists' business is not "knowing which speaking is right". You may be interested in reading about prescription vs. description (this is summarized in the 2nd paragraph of the 2nd link). rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I know from observation that "You want smacked?" is good Scottish. What is the implied meaning of "I was sat at the table"? Can you provide a paraphrase? It seems fine to me. μηδείς (talk) 00:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

... similar to "I was stood at the bar", and "I was laid in bed" (yes, one does really hear that in the UK when the meaning is "I was lying in bed". Correctness is in the eye of the grammarian! Dbfirs 07:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well, bed is one of the most comfortable places for that to happen, if not exactly the most adventurous. --Trovatore (talk) 07:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I still don't see what is supposedly problematic here, mostly because I am not sure what is meant. I was sat at the table could mean either I had sat at the table myself or that I had been seated by the host. The second is unproblematic and the first would come out more naturally as I was seated rather than sat, but still no real difficulty. μηδείς (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say it was problematic, I merely said it's ungrammatical in my dialect. AFAICT "I was sat at the table" means "I was sitting at the table". Angr (talk) 17:49, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't the sentence simply mean "I was seated at the table" which can be either perfect or imperfect in sense? How is this different from Ich war gesessen? μηδείς (talk) 02:09, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I think Angr was just pointing out the common "error" of using ""I was sat at the table" to mean "I was sitting at the table" rather than "I was seated (by the host) at the table". Evidently some dialects consider it "correct". Dbfirs 09:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Per Angr, "I was sat..." means "I was sitting". By contrast, "Ich war gesessen..." means "I had sat...". Marco polo (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I hasten to reiterate that I do not consider "I was sat at the table" to be an error. It's a syntactic construction that's grammatical in some but not all dialects of English. The same is true, coincidentally, of German Ich war gesessen, which is grammatical in Southern German dialects but not in Northern German ones (nor in the written standard), which use Ich hatte gesessen instead. And yes, "I was sat at the table" is a simple past, while "Ich war am Tisch gesessen" is a pluperfect. There's no significant semantic difference between "I was sat at the table" and "I was seated at the table", but because seat is a transitive verb while sit is an intransitive one, "I was seated" is probably grammatical for everyone. The only transitive use of sit I can think of is something like "I sat her down and gave her a stern talking-to", and I suppose that can be passivized to "She was sat down and given a stern talking-to", but in that sentence, "She was sat down" is not semantically identical to "She was sitting down", as it is in "She was sat down on the sofa, watching telly" (which is ungrammatical for me but not for friends of mine from England). Angr (talk) 15:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

... also considered an error by many in England, of course, as I was said. Dbfirs 22:49, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

What about written language though? Would you consider "I would of sat down at the table", rather than "would have", to be correct because it's a mistake lots of native speakers make? (and even in spoken language too in UK) - filelakeshoe 23:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Writing "I would of..." instead of "I would have..." is a mistake - spelling has clear rules and is independent of grammar, so it's no violation of the "descriptive principle" to label a misspelling as wrong. (One of my pet peeves is people confusing matters of orthography - spelling and punctuation - with matters of grammar.) But speaking it that way is not a mistake, because [əv] is the weak form of both of and have, so it's not a mistake to say [aɪ wʊd əv...]. Angr (talk) 15:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

This, with the alternate paraphrasings:There's no significant semantic difference between "I was sat at the table" and "I was seated at the table", but because seat is a transitive verb while sit is an intransitive one, "I was seated" is probably grammatical for everyone. The only transitive use of sit I can think of is something like "I sat her down and gave her a stern talking-to", and I suppose that can be passivized to "She was sat down and given a stern talking-to", but in that sentence, "She was sat down" is not semantically identical to "She was sitting down", as it is in "She was sat down on the sofa, watching telly" (which is ungrammatical for me but not for friends of mine from England). -AngrFinally clarifies the issue for me. I would not, in my east midland American dialect, bat an eye at ""She was sat (down) on the sofa, watching [TV]". (This is probably because my dialect is closest to Shakespearian English.) But were I writing formal non-fiction I would be indoctrinated enough to know to say "seated" and not "sat". μηδείς (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)