Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 22

= February 22 =

Article with possessives in Portuguese
What are the rules for using the definite article with possessives in Portuguese? --Lazar Taxon 04:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * According to our article on Portuguese pronouns, the definite article is obligatory when the possessives are used pronominally and optional when they are used adjectivally. Whether the article is used adjectivally depends on dialect and/or degree of formality. (edited)  Marco polo 16:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Rake" in railway terminology
Hi, For a few days, the main page's "In the news" section has included "Sixty-eight people are killed in bombings on the Samjhauta Express train ...", with, amongst others, a link to Samjhauta Express. That article uses the term "rake" - meaning, apparently, the whole train, or the train minus the loco. The term puzzled a number of readers, me included. It is also used here and here in the Rail transport in India article. A google for 'rake "indian railway"' gets 'about 651 results'. (Though it may be the fault of my search terms, I would have expected more, if it was standard subcontinental English.) Does anyone know what the term means, how widespread its use is, and its origin? --Shirt58 10:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC) ps: How do (my second new railway term of the day) Multiple units fit into rakes?
 * AFAIK you are right - a rake is the whole train, or (perhaps more accurately) the carriages in the middle, not including the locos at either end. In other words, it's a series of carriages coupled together in the right order.  It's not restricted to India - the term is also used in British railway parlance, although I'm not sure it's used elsewhere.  As for multiple units, these do not of course have locos, so you probably wouldn't hear the word rake used in relation to them.  You'd just talk about a multiple unit. --Richardrj talkemail 10:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, the train minus the loco is a rake in British railway usage, but I don't think, though I'm not certain, that you can get rakes of multiple-unit stock. An example of the usage of "rake" can be found in our own British Rail Class 43 (HST) article, also here (reprint of a 1978 leaflet). The French-language equivalent of a "rake" is a "râme". -- Arwel (talk) 17:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

english
in what ways does the catholic church of Frank McCourt's ireland hurt its members and limit their experience ? how does the church protect and nuture its followers? what is frank's attitude toward the church? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.238.22.33 (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC).


 * Please do your own homework. —Angr 19:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

English Translation
Could you please direct me to, or tell me the English translation for "Tráthnóna Beag Aréir", (gaelic) it's track #7, from the 1996 Clannad "Lore" CD. 63.215.29.147 21:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It means "Late yesterday evening". —Angr 22:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Akkadian [af]fricatives
Is there any consensus on what Akkadian, <š>, and <ṣ> sounds were? I notice the German wikipedia entry lists them as affricates, while the English lists them as fricatives. I'm under the impression that most work in Sumerology and Assyriology have been in German, so I'm tempted to take their word, but am not sure. What are the arguments in favor of affricates? Proto-Semitic reflexes? 206.176.113.70 21:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Often they are simply refered to as sibilants to avoid making this distinction. You might want to have a read of Alice Faber's article on JSTOR. As far as I can tell, and this is not my area of Semitic linguistics, evidence for affricates in Akkadian sibilants is made by comparison with the phonetic cuneiform signs borrowed from Akkadian by non-Semitic languages. This is in addition to the way that suffixes with sibilant onset mutuate on contact — a manner that strongly suggests that they were mutating to smooth the pronunciation of awkward affricates. — Gareth Hughes 22:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It's only Proto-Semitic "s", "z", and the emphatic fricatives which have been reconstructed as affricates in Proto-Semitic and some early semitic languages; proto-Semitic "š" is not generally reconstructed as affricated (though it can be reconstructed as an ordinary [s] sound). The character ṣ displays as an empty rectangular box in my browser, so I don't know what it's intended to mean.
 * Also, it's very noticeable that (based on external evidence, such as late loanwords into Aramaic and Hebrew etc.) that the pronunciations of Assyrian and/or Babylonian s and š seem to have more or less reversed in the first millennium B.C. (compared to what they were traditionally claimed to be in the second millennium BC), so Šarru-kin becomes Sargon, Ištar Esther, etc. AnonMoos 03:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The character displaying as an empty box in your browser is s with a dot under it. Does this help: ṣ? —Angr 05:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)