Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 May 31

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May 31

Little does foo know...

In English grammar how do you call the word order like "Little does he know that..." (as compared to, e.g., He doesn't know much, he knows nothing, etc)? Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 17:13, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Negative inversion, I think.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:22, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

It seems that article "negative inversion" and the section "With topic adverbs and adverbial phrases" of article "V2 word order" both lay claim to it. AnonMoos (talk) 07:35, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Order of vowels in Thai Script

Vowels in Thai Script can be written above (including above and between a consonant and the consonant after the vowel), below, after, before, and before and after the consonant they follow. I can understand how we get vowels after, above, below and the combinations thereof, but how did they end up going before the consonants they sound after? I notice that one has to type แ-ท-น rather than ท-แ-น to get แทน which I guess is an indication that a native reader reads แท as a single unit (akin to. e.g, נְ in Hebrew rather than, e.g., do in English). The article on Thai Script gives some tantalizing hints about the vowels placed above and below (ขี) perhaps once having been in the same line, but doesn’t offer much detail or examples of the appearance. D A Hosek (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I guess you should interpret it as the vowel quality being "to the left of" the consonant, rather than "before" it. It seems to be rather common in all Brahmic scripts, and could likely be a way to save space and simplify things. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:24, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The vowel of a syllable always follows the consonant, so there is no point in indicating the order in the notation. The modifications overriding the default vowel are just that, modifications. In the Latin script, it has no significance that the háček in ⟨č⟩ is placed over the basic letter grapheme, while the cedilla in ⟨ç⟩ is under it.  --Lambiam 21:41, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

In Devanāgarī the most obvious example of this is that short /i/ loops around its consonant to the left. I don't know but I suspect that it once resembled a grave accent, whose upper end was extended down and around to distinguish it from some other thing that also resembled a grave accent. —Tamfang (talk) 03:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Seems that even in Old Brahmi, three out of ten diacritic vowel markings are placed primarily on the left side of the base consonant, whereas in Middle Brahmi, four out of twelve diacritic vowel markings are based primarily on the left. It wouldn't be surprising if the system continued into the daughter scripts. [1], [2] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Forming nouns from adjectives ending in the /i/ sound, using the -ness suffix.

Hello, again!

As far as I've always been taught, I figured that most English adjectives ending the /i/ sound can become nouns when the -ness suffix is added—but said adjectives' stem must change from "-y" or "-ie" to "-iness."

e.g.

Root Adjective	Suffix	Derivative Noun
happy	+ ness	happiness
eerie	+ ness	eeriness

Lately, though, I've encountered words that don't fit so neatly into that pattern. For instance, when it comes to adjectives ending in "-ey," the OED says that most (but not all) of them form nouns using the -ness suffix without changing the stem.

-ey to -eyness derivations
Root Adjective Suffix Derivative Noun clayey + ness clayeyness gluey + ness glueyness ikey + ness ikeyness matey + ness mateyness motley + ness motleyness waney + ness waneyness

But >

Root Adjective	Suffix	Derivative Noun
wheyey	+ ness	wheyiness
		(with a single citation from 1662)

Also, when it comes to hyphenated adjectives, Oxford also prescribes against changing the stem in some, but not most examples.

e.g.

-y to -iness derivations (HYPHENATED)
Root Adjective Suffix Derivative Noun free-and-easy + ness free-and-easiness itsy-bitsy + ness itsy-bitsiness itty-bitty + ness itty-bittiness namby-pamby + ness namby-pambiness niminy-piminy + ness niminy-pimininess slap-happy + ness slap-happiness wishy-washy + ness wishy-washiness

But >

-y to -yness derivations (HYPHENATED)
Root Adjective Suffix Derivative Noun goody-goody + ness goody-goodyness higgledy-piggledy + ness higgledy-piggledyness hotsy-totsy + ness hotsy-totsyness

At first, I reasoned that most—or all—of these inconsistencies resulted from them being coined before the language got standardized, i.e., before Johnson, Jameson, and Webster began recording and cataloging English, Scottish, and American spellings respectively. I have this nagging feeling, however, that there may be another cause escaping me.

When it comes to the "-ey" adjectives, wouldn't it behoove one never to change the stem—especially to distinguish homophones?

e.g.

Root Adjective	Suffix	Derivative Noun
holy	+ ness	holiness

But >

Root Adjective	Suffix	Derivative Noun
holey	+ ness	holeyness

Also, in 21st-Century English, may one get away with writing "hotsy-totsiness" instead of "hotsy-totsyness"? And, if not, then what exactly is the rule when it comes to hyphenated adjectives? Is it (like so much else in the English language) lexically specified?

--Thank you for your time.

Pine (talk) 22:35, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@Pine:, there are no rules. You write to communicate; if readers understand you, then you have succeeded. I don't think any of the alternatives you have explored make it harder to understand the words, so do whatever feels best for you. That's how the English language became the amazing, confusing, glorious flexible mess that it is.

Example: The OED has a 'rule' (for it's own behaviour) that if a word ends in '-ise' or '-ize' because it is derived from a particular Greek formation, then it should always be spelled '-ize'. Which leads, in some cases, to a headword spelled '-ize' when every single quotation in the definition illustrating that word spells it '-ise'.

Sorry if this feels unhelpful, but to be honest, nobody is going to give you a definitive answer because it doesn't exist. It never did when English was spoken just in the southern half of a small island, and it certainly doesn't now it is written around the world.

You seem to have a good understanding of the issue and the options available. Now go and have fun writing with them!

(Here's a rule: In any given Wikipedia article, be consistent.)

-- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Theory: the i vowel in happiness is shorter (optionally shorter, at least) than the y vowel at the end of happy. Some words have had their internal vowels de-emphasised in this way through common use, so that we can spit them out faster. This also affects the uncommon word slap-happiness because it contains happiness. The equally uncommon word higgledy-piggledyness is unaffected, and has a vowel which is always pronounced with emphasis (relatively). This might explain the whole mess of inconsistency, but I can't find anything to cite. (There are also some individual considerations, like the matter of wheyey containing a duplication of ey which is less confusing to read when reduced to eyi.) Oh, and this theory still falls down in places, such as namby-pambiness.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:21, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess that wheyiness is more pleasing to the eye than wheyeyness, since the former—rightly or wrongly—resembles a typographical error.

By that same logic, I figure that we write paralleled instead of parallelled even though the stem has a stress on the last syllable.

And when it comes to the "y" in hotsy-totsyness, it may very well indicate that one pronounces the last phoneme as /iː/ and not as /i/ (the "i" in namby-pambiness).

Resolved

And a special thanks to both of you who answered!

Pine (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

/iː/ as in wheel? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:28, 7 June 2022 (UTC)