Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 March 20

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March 20

Russian "Да иду" (vs. "Да я иду"), as opposed to French "Oui je vais" (vs. "Oui vais"), and to English "Yes I am" (vs. "Yes am").

As opposed to Russian speakers, who (I think) may sometimes say "Да иду !!!" - even though "Да я иду !!!" is more common, French speakers - normally say "Oui je vais !!!" - and almost never (if at all) say: "Oui vais !!!", and the same is true for English speakers who - normally say "Yes I am !!!" - and almost never (if at all) say: "Yes am !!!".

I wonder if this difference between those languages is by chance, or Russian has a more general syntactic property (what is it?) that allows its speakers to delete the pronoun. HOTmag (talk) 11:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

It's because verbs in Slavic languages are subject to grammatical conjugation. For example in present tense, indicative mood:

I go / I am going — я иду

you (sing.) go — ты идёшь

he/she/it goes – он/она/оно идёт

we go — мы идём

you (pl.) go — вы идёте

they go — они идут

so the form of the verb suffices for identifying the grammatical person and the pronoun is not necessary. However, the pronoun may be required, depending on the form of the sentence, or sometimes if more than one person exists in a compound statemnt ('I go this way and you that one.') or for emphasis and in other cases. --CiaPan (talk) 12:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Please notice that also the examples I've provided for French ("je vais") and English ("I am"), are of forms subject to the pronoun. HOTmag (talk) 12:29, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

(ec) Verbs in French are also subject to conjugation, unfortunately, too many forms sound the same, so the pronoun is mandatory to be sure which person is 'going' whereever or 'doing'whatever. for example "tu vas" and "il va" sound exactly the same. "je parle", "tu parles", "il parle" also.

In Italian where the forms of the verb are significantly different between the various conjugations, the pronoun is still optional. "vado", "vai", "va". "Parlo", "parli", "parla". --Lgriot (talk) 12:32, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

But I've asked, about the French "(je) vais", and about and the English "(I) am". HOTmag (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I am confused about what confuses you, HOTmag: In Indo-European languages, if the verb ending is sufficient to determine the person, the language tends to allow pronoun drops (e.g. Russian, Italian, Spanish). If the verb ending is not sufficient to determine the person, the language tends to not allow pronoun drops: e.g. French and English. From this general rule, you can understand why Russian allows "Да иду (куда-то)" but French does not allow "Oui vais (quelque part)". Do you have a follow up question?--Lgriot (talk) 12:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Following your general rule (being also mine): "if the verb ending is sufficient to determine the person the language tends to allow pronoun drops", I've wondered why the pseudo-grammatical French sentence "Oui vais (quelque part)", as well as the pseudo-grammatical English sentence "Yes am (tired)", couldn't have been sufficient to determine the pronoun (being first person singular), and that's why I've wondered why those sentences aren't useful. HOTmag (talk) 13:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I see the confusion, HOTmag, that is because the rule is not per verb, but per language. Once it is established for a language, it applies to all verbs, even those that are irregular like 'to be'. I guess it would be too complicated a system to learn, if you had a different rule for each verb. --Lgriot (talk) 13:17, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I see now, thank you. HOTmag (talk) 16:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

In French, you would never use "Vais" by itself. It's missing a subject an an object. Even "je vais" is incomplete, although it can be understood in certain contexts; it normally needs a complement of some type, as in "je vais à Paris", where je vais means "I am undertaking a move towards", or "je vais partir", where it is a modal form for the future ("I will be leaving"). By itself, it's just ambiguous and incomplete. --Xuxl (talk) 13:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I know. I've been racking my brains since about lunchtime (slight hyperbole) trying to come up with a case where one would use: "Oui, je vais". I couldn't. I was able to come up with "Je vais": "Tu vas bien?" "Ben, je vais..." (but this is still not "Oui, je vais"). In all other (usual) cases you've got to supply a complement: "Tu vas à la fac?" (meaning "Are you a student? Do you attend university?") "Oui, je vais à la fac", "Tu vas à la fac?" (meaning "Are you going to the university (campus, building, etc.)") "Oui, j'y vais", and so on. The cases seem to be distributed between those where you have to supply "y" ("j'y vais") and those where you have to supply a more explicit complement. These seem to be cases where "aller à" is a phrase that means "to attend (usually)" w/ no physical motion being implied. Basemetal 15:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I've got one (I think): "Alors comme ça tu te balades?" "Ben. Oui, je vais, je viens." Basemetal 17:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Please notice that I've never claimed that "vais" is followed by nothing. I've only made it clear (by adding "oui" before "vais") that "vais" I was talking about didn't follow "je". Hadn't I added "oui" before "vais", one could've searched "vais" on Google and could've received hundreds of millions of hits of "vais". Haven't you asked yourself why I added "oui"? HOTmag (talk) 16:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello? You didn't need to claim anything. You wrote as opposed to French "Oui je vais !!!" (that's cut and pasted from your title). With your three very own exclamation marks. That, fairly clearly, shows "Oui je vais!!!" was intended by you as a complete utterance. The utterance "Oui je vais!!!" is impossible in French under normal circumstances. That's what Xux1 was trying to tell you. But watch out, we're going on another round of trademark HOTmag finessing. Basemetal 17:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I've never claimed that "vais" was followed by a period (nor that it was followed by nothing).

Another round? I don't know what you're talking about. HOTmag (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The general typological property is usually discussed under the heading of "null-subject language" or "pro-drop language". Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

WHAAOE: Pro-drop language. --ColinFine (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Naming patterns among half-Han families

Does anybody know how half-Han families tend to name their children? The gender of the parent may be significant, because that determines which family name the child will inherit. The external environment may also be important, because that determines how the child will be recognized by society. So, let’s say an ethnic Han mother and an ethnic Korean father marry, and they have a child in China. The father is Korean, so he may borrow his Hanja family name to give to his child. For the given name, is the Hanja name a phonetic transliteration of the Hangul name or an independent Han name? What about half-Han, half-Japanese people and their polysyllabic names? What if the father’s family name is outside the Sinitic sphere of influence (English, Spanish, Indian)? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 15:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The Half-Chinese in the Philippines are a good example of cross-linguistic naming. Chinese Filipino#Name format →Σσς. (Sigma) 22:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Being a European father married to a Chinese Woman, our children have Western names and Chinese names, in particular first name. Our children were born in China and I believe on the official Chinese documents they used a Chinese "family name" that was given to me during my stay (which is really just of informal nature for myself) and bears, as is typical, a little phonetic resemblance to my real family name. However, in this case, I think the mother's family name could have been used too, as long as the local officer writes it down. I do not think rules are very firm when the father comes from a country that does not use originally Chinese characters with family names. -- 149.14.152.210 (talk) 14:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)