Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 September 15

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September 15

Definite article before words as words

Consider:

(1) The English word dime comes from the Latin word decima.

(2) The English dime comes from the Latin decima.

(3) English dime comes from Latin decima.

Intuitively I understand why the article is needed in (1), though I cannot explain it verbally. I've been seeing (2) from time to time, but (3) seems to be a little bit more correct. Despite this I cannot understand what the difference is between the two.

Also:

(4) The word dime comes from the word decima.

(5) *Word dime comes from word decima.

(6) The dime comes from the decima.

(7) Dime comes from decima.

(4) is not entirely clear (the words of what languages?), though correct, and (5) looks like incorrect.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:23, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

The difference between "1" and "2" has to do with the Use–mention distinction. --Jayron32 11:29, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't really understand the relevance of that article. The normal rule when talking about a specific thing is to put the definite article in front of it e.g. "I read the book", not "I read book". In (2) you mentally supply "word" between "English" and "dime" and between Latin and decima. (4) is the same as (1) omitting the reference to the relevant languages. (5) is wrong as per the rule cited. 92.8.176.91 (talk) 11:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we can in theory deduce the word word from the context, but that word is not there still. So the article must have defined the word dime directly. Consider other examples: (6) The dime comes from the decima, and (7) Dime comes from decima.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure I would consider 3 to be grammatical. It certainly sounds odd when you speak the sentence aloud, like if you are short-handing your speech. --72.80.156.247 (talk) 15:42, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

If you were discussing English words and listing them along with the Latin words from which they were derived it would be superfluous to keep repeating "the" and "word" over and over again. 92.8.216.51 (talk) 16:13, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

IMO, 3 is certainly grammatical; however, as a sentence in isolation with no context it would require a little more effort than usual to extract the meaning. jnestorius^(talk) 18:40, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

"I cannot understand what the difference is between the two" -- Which two out of (1) (2) and (3) ? Your comment presupposes there is some difference; do you mean a difference in meaning? Are you saying you feel vaguely there is a difference in meaning but you can't put your finger on what it is? Or are you saying you know what the difference in meaning is but can't see what aspect of the syntax relates to it? In any case the article apposition is relevant. jnestorius^(talk) 18:40, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jnestorius: The difference between (2) and (3). I've been seeing the latter article-less usage in the etymology sections in dictionaries, but the former is also seen in other texts. See also two other examples (6) and (7).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:03, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary simply gives (inside square brackets) an abbreviation for the language from which the word is derived followed by the word in the language concerned. Chambers' is a little more detailed - it says "from" then gives the language in full. Even with abbreviations the Oxford English Dictionary is about 25 volumes long. The need for conciseness is also seen in the Shipping Forecast, which presents only the bare data in a formulaic sequence. 82.14.24.95 (talk) 12:18, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I had checked myself several dictionaries (ODE, SOED, Collins, Chambers, MW, AHD) before, and all of them use the full name for languages, with or without the word from, but none uses the definite article before the etymons. As for the OED, it is quite expected they use abbreviations to safe the space on paper. The SOED, however, writes the language names and from in full. But the question is rather about the definite article. Why is there a need or no need of it in (2) and (3)? What is the grammatical explanation?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:38, 17 September 2017 (UTC)