Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 6

= January 6 =

A N P
Is there a mythological figure (a god/goddess, hero, creature...) from any source (Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Roman, Slavic, Norse...) whose name contains the lettes A, N and P in this order? Something like Hercules contains H, C and U, or Anubis contains N, B, S. The only one I was able to find is Anput, but she is too obscure. Thanks. --151.51.26.64 (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, Antiope is one, as is the other Antiope. Is this for a crossword puzzle? How many letters? In what positions do the letters in question occur? What's the exact wording of the clue? Deor (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that's a very good and fast suggestion! Thanks! It's actually for a game/riddle I'm creating. The number and position of the letters doesn't really matter. In order to create it, I had to find mythological figures with ANP (Antiope!), OUN and IAS. For OUN I found Jötunn and for IAS Pietas and Felicitas. If you have any other, probably better, suggestion for any of these trigraphs, feel free to post it! --151.51.26.64 (talk) 01:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Our articles List of deities, List of Greek mythological figures, and List of legendary creatures by type may be of help. -- KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Things you might consider for A N P: Aganippe, Aladdin's lamp, Amenhotep, Annapurna, Antiope, Brahmanaspati, Canopus, Castor and Pollux, Damon and Pythias, Daphnephoria, Ganapati, Melanippe, Melanippus, Parthenopeus, Parthenope, Pierian Spring, Sancho Panza, Xanthippe. —Bkell (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * OUN: Ouranos, Jormungand
 * IAS: There are too many to count, but my favorites are Iaso, Icarus, Iapetos/Iapetus, Pleiades, Naiades, Priapus, and Midas. --Kjoonlee 03:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, if I found Jötunn was the answer to the OUN puzzle, I'd grumble about ö not being the same as o. (Ö is kind of like a tweety oo sound, and comes at the end of the alphabet.) 213.122.26.117 (talk) 13:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Do everything before the Shang Dynasty in China count?  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil HI AGAIN 05:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Mandarin
are [v] and [w] allophones in mandarin? What is the difference between the slashes (/v/) and brackets ([v]). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.70.160 (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Traditionally [...] indicates a phonetic transcription, while /.../ indicates a phonemic analysis, but they're not really used consistently... AnonMoos (talk) 01:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They can be allophones depending on the exact dialect of Mandarin spoken. Standard Mandarin always uses [w], but native speakers of some Mandarin dialects alternate between [v] and [w]. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Some dialects even distinguish between /v/ and /w/, but there is no Pinyin standard for this. Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) uses w but the native Beijing accent that Putonghua is modeled on uses a bilabial fricative /β/ for [w] (not dissimilar to the sound present in Standard Japanese, if that helps). Interestingly, Beijing uses /f/ for the sound spelled [f], and not a bilabial.  Ogress  smash!  21:44, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Use of 'besides' at the beginning of a sentence
In my science and computer literacy textbooks, 'besides' is often used at the beginning of a sentence, as in 'To avoid overloading, we should not connect too many appliances to one mains socket. Besides, some electrical appliances, such as electric heaters, hair dryers and electric irons, draw a large circuit'. I think it sounds funny. I checked the CALD, the OALD and Wiktionary but was unable to find out why, although none of the example sentences (unless you count #2 and extra #5 of CALD, which look similar) seem to be used in the same way. Can a Wikipedian demystify the use of 'besides' for me?  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil HI AGAIN 05:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Besides, in this usage, is idiomatic and usually reserved for spoken English in most dialects where it appears. I find it somewhat odd to see that usage in any book for formal publication, which had been presumably proofread.  It is a synonym for "In addition".  So one may say something like "I'm too tired to go to that party.  Besides, I'm not really friends with anyone else that's going".  Meaning, not only am I too tired, but in addition to that, I don't have any friends that are going.  In spoken English, it usually means you are adding additional reasons to justify an earlier statement.  However, as I said, I rarely see the usage in formal, written language this way... -- Jayron  32  05:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) In the cases I saw, the use of 'besides' is not to justify an earlier sentence, but used to add information to it. I'm not surprised that the English in our textbooks may not be standard... I've spotted typos, grammatical mistakes, comma splices, and logical errors.)  Kayau  Voting   IS   evil HI AGAIN 06:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This "besides" is an adverb. See these dictionaries., , and . Oda Mari (talk) 06:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jayron32, and am writing merely to add that in more formal English besides may be used as a preposition where it's used as an adverb in informal English, by adding the foregoing or which.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 08:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the replies. :)  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil HI AGAIN 12:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with the instances of besides that you cite. That usage is somewhat informal and conversational, but not necessarily a usage that a copy editor or proofreader would want to change.  These textbooks often aim for an informal, conversational tone so that they are accessible to native English speakers who lack a good formal education. Marco polo (talk) 14:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * All my textbooks but maths tend to adapt a formal tone.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil HI AGAIN 05:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Copulae and predicates
The first sentence of the article Copula (linguistics) states that "In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulae) is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement)." Ordinarily, the thing that links is not part of the things that are being linked, so this would, taken at face value, imply that the copula is not part of the predicate. Which, according to my understanding (and the article predicate (grammar)), is false.

I tried to replace "predicate" with "predicative" to correct this, but the change was reverted. Also, I checked the corresponding German articles, and they have exactly the same problem. Based on that, the most likely explanation I can think of is that one or more of the terms are ambiguous enough to reconcile the apparent contradiction (but I don't know which or why). Or I'm still missing something, and the contradiction exists only in my head.

Help? - 212.23.105.178 (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you read the article Predicate (grammar) you would observe the following:
 * A predicate nominal is a noun phrase that functions as the main predicate of a sentence, such as "George III is the king of England", the king of England being the predicate nominal. The subject and predicate nominal must be connected by a linking verb, also called a copula.


 * A predicate adjective is an adjective that functions as a predicate, such as "Jessica is attractive", attractive being the predicate adjective. The subject and predicate adjective must be connected by a linking verb, also called copula.
 * Hopefully this should clear up your confusion, but if you have further problems with the article Predicate (grammar), this should be discussed at Talk:Predicate (grammar). --Colapeninsula (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that doesn't help. As the word order suggests (a "cart horse" is a type of horse, not a type of cart), a predicate adjective is an adjective, not a predicate. Note the requirement that a "predicate must contain a verb" earlier in the article, and compare the article on predicatives, which I suggested as an alternative above.
 * I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this discussion, but my confusion does not arise from any one article, but from what looks like a contradiction between articles. - (new IP) 212.23.105.179 (talk) 18:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not the world's greatest expert, but my understanding is that the predicate includes the copula, and that the opening sentence of Copula (linguistics) is therefore, as you say, technically incorrect. 86.184.236.91 (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC).


 * Not an expert here, either, but it's clear that there's a confusion going there on predicate. A way of solving the confusion is to understand that predicate nominal implies the predicate less the verb (just covering the predicative). For what it's worth, the example She is in the park makes it clear that the verb belongs in the predicate. Pallida  Mors  19:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The term predicate is used differently by different authorities and in different contexts. As far as I'm aware, both the usage that applies the term to the whole syntactic verb phrase consisting of the copula and the nominal/adjectival complement, and the usage that applies it to the NP/AdjP alone, can be found in the literature, but I'd have to dig for references. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Right, that's the sort of ambiguity I suspected might be at the root of the matter. But if that ambiguity exists, the term has no place in a sentence which constitutes the primary definition of another term, surely. - 212.23.105.179 (talk) 22:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * According to that usage, would "I caught a fish" and "I am a fish" have the same predicate, then? That doesn't seem right ... ? 86.184.236.91 (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In my personal terminology, I would call fish in "I am a fish" a predicative, but fish in "I caught a fish" a direct object. In Latin, they would be PISCIS SUM and PISCEM CEPI (note the difference between nominative and accusative case endings). AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That's the terminology I'd use, too. The article Predicate (grammar) distinguishes between objects, predicatives, and adverbs, as the "sentence elements [which] complete the predicate". And one would hope that the ambiguity described by Fut.Perf. is limited to predicates of the form copular verb + predicative (like "is a fish"), for which most of the meaning rests in the predicative, and does not extend to other types of predicates (like "caught a fish"), for which omitting the verb would seriously cripple the meaning.
 * Which raises the question if copulae are always followed by predicatives, or if they, too, can be followed by objects or adverbs. If the latter is true, then my suggested change wouldn't work. - 212.23.105.179 (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Don's Plum's meaning
What does that mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.169.188.37 (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd say it is the name of a diner (ps: I corrected your title, since I thought you wanted to link to the film). Quest09 (talk) 23:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps inspired by Maxwell's Plum? Or is "___'s Plum" a common name for a diner? Are there Peaches too?---Sluzzelin talk  23:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I plum don' know. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a good name for a film or a restaurant in the UK where "plum" is slang for "testicle". Alansplodge (talk) 18:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Not a back-formation?
In the 1960s there was a folk-rock band, Eclection, who were given their name by Joni Mitchell to describe the "eclectic" nature of their music. I would have termed the formation of the word "eclection" as a back-formation from "eclectic", but it seems from that article that that would be incorrect, as a back-formation refers to a shortening, not a lengthening, of a word. Is there an alternative, correct, term for the process of word formation in this case? Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether it applies completely to "eclection", but it follows the pattern of "normal" derivation. In back-formation, the new word looks like the root word (thus it is usually shorter, though see ideologue from ideology and injure from ''injury}, even though it was invented later. Back-formation is sometimes called "inverse derivation" too. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Some might say that it's a portmanteau ("eclectic collection")... AnonMoos (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It's still a case of back-formation. The back-formation gives you the stem or hypothetical word "eclect", and then you add the suffix -(t)ion to make "eclection".  (Gee, that's hard to type.) --Anonymous, 04:36 UTC, January 7, 2011.


 * Thanks, that makes sense. (Someone might want to go and modify the first sentence of the article on Back-formation.)  Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)