Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 5

= May 5 =

etimology of expression
In regard to not drinking, how was the expression "on the wagon" arrived at? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.111.70.82 (talk) 10:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-the-wagon.html --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

A belated thank-you to you all
A few months ago, I requested help on this desk in finding words derived from comics and cartoons for a series of online articles. Many useful suggestions were made, which I incorporated in the eight-part series:

http://hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/keeping-up-with-the-goonses/

My heartfelt thanks, and please point out any mistakes you may find! Rhinoracer (talk) 12:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Grammatical complexity in language
Hi. It seems to me from observation of English usage that natural changes in language use, where they affect grammatical complexity, generally tend to reduce it rather than increase it. Is this true? If so, how did any grammatical complexity beyond the minimum necessary to convey meaning arise in languages in the first place, especially in a long ago era when the average person was presumably less sophisticated and less educated than today? Are there any examples in English or other languages of recent (say last hundred years) increases in grammatical complexity? 86.179.119.184 (talk) 13:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher (linguist) is about this very topic, and is a very interesting read (and mostly non-technical), but the argument is probably too long to repeat here (even if I could remember the details well enough). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * First off morphological complexity (e.g. the number of inflectional forms and irregularities in inflections) is not the same as linguistic complexity, and it's difficult to know how to measure general overall linguistic complexity. In fact, morphological complexity seems to often cycle back and forth between "synthetic" and "analytic" over the very long term -- small "function words" become clitic particles, and clitic particles become incorporated into adjacent words as inflectional suffixes (usually) or prefixes, and then the inflectional suffixes are worn down by phonological erosion, and you end up with low morphological complexity, and the cycle can start all over again. In the most prominent Indo-European language sub-groups, the general trend during the historically-attested periods has been towards overall morphological simplification, but there's no universal law which says that languages always get morphologically simpler, never morphologically more complex... AnonMoos (talk)


 * P.S. Examples of morphological complexification of European languages since ancient times include: the definite article becoming an inflectional suffix in certain Scandinavian languages and most of the languages of the Balkan Sprachbund; formation of future and conditional verb tenses in western Romance languages by means of adding forms of the verb habere as inflectional suffixes onto the infinitive; formation of passive/reflexive verb forms in the Scandinavian languages by adding reduced forms of the reflexive pronouns as inflectional suffixes;  etc.  And some linguists claim that -n't is much more of a negative inflectional suffix in modern English than a "contraction" of not... AnonMoos (talk) 17:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it is not true or we'd all be speaking Toki Pona by now after some 40,000 years of linguistic evolution.·Maunus· ƛ · 14:14, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Modern English has a much simpler morphology than Old English, but as AnonMoos implies, morphological complexity is not the same as grammatical complexity. Modern English has a more complex grammar than a native speaker might realize.  Just ask any East Asian student learning English about how hard it is to know whether to put a/an, the, or nothing at all in front of a noun.  Ask a speaker of almost any foreign language how hard it is to know whether to use the simple present from of the verb (e.g. I look forward to) versus the present progressive form (e.g. I am looking forward to).  Then there are the English modals (may, might, would, should, etc.), which add another layer of complexity.  Just because English verbs don't have many endings, that doesn't mean that the following isn't grammatically complex:  "If had let me know he was going, I would have been waiting there for him."  Finally, it isn't true that grammatical or morphological complexity is a function of sophistication or education.  Check out some of the grammatical features of the Algonquian languages, which were spoken by preliterate tribal peoples before Europeans colonized their homelands.  Marco polo (talk) 16:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Non-native English speakers also have a difficult time knowing when to use the present perfect (I have driven) as opposed to the simple past (I drove); and the present perfect formed by a form of have + past participle is a morphological innovation that spread around Western Europe some time in the Middle Ages. So between the progressive forms and the perfect forms, Modern English has a lot more verbal tense/aspect stuff to keep track of than Old English did, even though it's barely inflected and largely formed analytically. —Angr (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I personally believe that all languages are equally complex, because people like to operate at the maximum complexity they can handle. When people have tried to introduce simplified languages such as Esperanto, children who learn them find ways to introduce complications to keep from being bored.  Similarly, when new pidgin languages arise, children who learn them turn them into more complicated creole languages. Looie496 (talk) 18:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I would agree with Looie. It is quite noticeable that people want to show-off their language skills, as it is an easy way to show off their intellectual capacity frequently. This may be because they know that other people tend to choose their mates based on intelligence more often that we think, even in primitive societies (I am also a believer that homo sapiens intelligence is a consequence of sexual selection, so all that ties-in together well). Sorry no references, though, except that I really recommend The Unfolding of Language mentioned here above. --Lgriot (talk) 07:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly - literature really would not be what it is without people constantly looking for new methods of expression. I am pretty sure the same stands for everyday speech.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Regularity is for me the main attraction about Esperanto, so I am keen to learn about irregularities being introduced into it. Can you provide examples or references or both?
 * —Wavelength (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's an interesting article: "Nativization processes in L1 Esperanto". Skip down to p. 7, which lists 5 "irregularities," though not in the sense of "irregular verbs" but rather "irregular" in that the native speakers do something different than the written rules of Esperanto (what the author calls "Standard Esperanto" or "L2 Esperanto"). Another interesting figure is in Table 5 on p. 37, in which the bilingual native Esperanto and French speaker never uses the accusative morpheme, whereas the parent (French=L1 and presumably Esperanto=L2) uses it in 97% of applicable environments.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 20:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. Multan dankon.—Wavelength (talk) 15:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

As for the question of why there is complexity in language, John McWhorter's book The Power of Babel focuses a lot on this issue and is an accessible read for non-linguists. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)