Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 27

= November 27 =

Forming negative clauses with copulative verbs
Hello, again. I was wondering how one would form a negative clause with most copulative verbs.

In the olden days, negatives in English clauses were formed much as in Latin or French; to wit, one would place the negative adverb immediately following the verb.

eg. "I know not where she went." or "She loves me not."

Over the years, this usage fell out of favor, and using finite forms of "to do"—as an auxilliary verb—became the preferred way to form negative statements with action-verb clauses.

eg. "I do not know where she went." or "She does not love me."

Curiously, however, the old usage persists in clauses formed with "to be."

eg. "I am not that happy to see you." or "It truly is not a sacrifice to help you."

(Not even the most progressive English speaker would write "I do not be that happy to see you." or "It truly does not be a sacrifice to help you.")

I'm curious, however, as to whether "to be" is unique among English verbs in this sense, or this applies to other copulative (non-action) verbs. Pine (talk) 21:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

eg.
 * "I don't feel that good." or "I feel not that good."
 * "He doesn't seem right for the job." or "He seems not right for the job."
 * "It doesn't sound very appetizing." or "It sounds not very appetizing."
 * "She doesn't look pretty in that dress." or "She looks not pretty in that dress."
 * "This place didn't smell so bad, yesterday." or "This place smelled not so bad, yesterday."
 * "The candy doesn't taste too sweet." or "The candy tastes not too sweet."
 * "You didn't become a doctor, did you?" or "You became not a doctor, did you."

I'll admit, that last one at least sounds pretty awkward to 21st-century ears, but what about some of the others? In formal settings, may some of these still be useful? Or is the modern rule for copulative verbs (except "to be") identical to that of action verbs? Pine (talk) 07:17, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Some of your usages sound close to litotes, which is the use of the negative as an understatement, and feature a word order similar to what you are suggesting above. -- Jayron  32  07:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Note also that whereas it is indeed true that the negative of "is" is "is not", not "does not be", the imperative negative form is "do not be", not "be not", as it probably used to be. J I P  &#124; Talk 07:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Much of Twinpinesmall's question seems to be about do support, and the rest of it about negative quantifier float (which we don't seem to have anything about, but which you can read a little about here)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I would say that, in all of your suggest examples without the "do", the "not" reads as negating the object phrase, not the verb. For example, "this place smelled not so bad" seems to me to be saying that the way the place smelled was "not so bad". --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's how I would read them all, though I would be puzzled about the process of becoming "not a doctor" (perhaps being struck off?) It is very rare in modern English for the negation to follow verbs other than to do and to be.  The construction was common at the time of the King James Bible, but modern readers "wist not" (sorry, wrong tense) .    D b f i r s   22:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I cannot say that I find the discussion so far particularly clear in that it had not what I consider the appropriate focus on a certain grammatical category. I dare not go so far as to say that one must not present the case without this information, but I will not suppress mention of the fact that one should not have omitted it. To wit: Might it not be the case that we need not make up our own list when lists of auxiliary verbs are readily available and ought not to be ignored?
 * Granted, all the above examples but one are of auxiliary verbs in their function as such. The one exception is have, which can also be used as a full verb while negating it as an auxiliary, provided one somehow hides the fact that it functions as a full verb. Or one can hide the fact that one is negating auxiliary-style by doing something less common, as in "Yes, we have no bananas" or "make no mistake". I think these are all examples of the old grammar having escaped regularisation because in all these cases it's slightly less obvious that they even fall under the new rule. Hans Adler 11:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, we should have thought more deeply about auxiliary verbs, but I'm not an expert. Idioms with "no" are probably left over from the old grammar, but I don't think that "no" is a normal negative.  Any verb can be followed by "no", for example "I see no ships(/signals)" meant the same as "I don't see any" in Nelson's time, but can also refer to the number seen.  English is a language that has changed a lot in its lifetime, and rules are not as clear-cut as prescriptivist grammarians would like them to be.  Some of us still use older forms just for effect and heed not modern "rules".    D b f i r s   21:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the responses!

Perhaps one simply must ensure that the copulative verbs in question are inchoate if he wishes to avoid using the supporting "do." The "became not a doctor" clause clearly does not work since the "becoming" is understood as already having happened.

At any rate, I must admit to not having realized that one now always forms the negative imperative (some call it jussive) mood in English with the "do not" auxiliary. Thank you for sharing that, JIP!

———The construction was common at the time of the King James Bible, but modern readers "wist not" (sorry, wrong tense) .———I believe that the correct form (back in Jacobian times) would have been "wite not." ("do not wit," nowadays.) Pine (talk) 21:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

————Yes, or "wit not" or "witt not". I retained the joking "wist not" in the wrong tense because "wist not" occurs nine times in the KJV, so has entered the language of those familiar with that version, and is often used (wrongly) in the present. The old conjugation is not commonly known except the form retained in "to wit".  D b f i r s   07:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Use of the word "welcome" when referring to childbirth
This always sounds like a very forced and clunky construction when I see it used "Person X welcomed a new baby last week". Where does this come from? It almost sounds like a bad translation to me! QmunkE (talk) 10:08, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I usually see this in "personality journalism" (which I don't particularly seek out, just to be clear, but every now and then I do see a link that interests me on CNN's front page) &mdash; the "welcomer" is generally a celebrity of some sort. I don't think it's "forced" so much as "precious" or "twee".  How does CNN (or whoever it's linking to, say People) know how the interested parties actually thought about the event? --Trovatore (talk) 10:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This is similar to the overuse of the word 'enjoy'. For example, 'UK citizens to enjoy lower tax rate' - how can anyone actually enjoy any tax rate? 'Country X in Africa enjoys the sun all the year round' - I'm pretty sure the people there have more pressing things in life. This, and other words, are just journalists' attempts to grab your attention by flowering up the facts a bit. Even the BBC has resorted to reporting on news stories that it calls 'dramatic', amongst other unnecessary subjectively emotive descriptions.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  11:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where you come from?" the Gnat inquired. Angr (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think this comes from journalism exactly. When the new parents write their own birth announcements for a newspaper, or when they are announcing it to friends and family (like on Facebook for example), they often use "welcome" in this way. Or other odd constructions like the baby has "arrived". Adam Bishop (talk) 12:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You can find something of the kind as far back as Robert Burns' "Welcome to a Bastart Wean", or if you prefer to follow his Victorian editors "A Poet's Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter":
 * Welcome! my bonie, sweet, wee dochter,
 * Tho' ye come here a wee unsought for,
 * And tho' your comin' I hae fought for,
 * Baith kirk and queir.
 * --Antiquary (talk) 15:41, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The original meaning of "welcome" is a greeting ("Welcome, from “well +‎ come” - “May you have fared well in coming here!”) That is, when a guest or relative arrives at your house, you "bid them welcome" or you "welcome them". A baby is nothing if not a relative coming to your house for long visit, so by analogy it makes some sense to welcome them like one would welcome a relative that traveled to stay with you for a while. If it sounds clunky, it's likely because the usage is slightly archaic. Though they're all related, I believe the "welcome" in "they welcomed a baby" does not really mean the same as the "welcome" in "You are welcome to some pie" or "Thank you. - You're welcome." or really even "We welcome suggestions for improvement." -- 71.35.113.131 (talk) 17:18, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

KageTora, I don't agree with the comments about "enjoy." This word meant "to have for one's use, benefit or lot: experience" before it meant "to take pleasure or satisfaction in." (Definitions from the Merriam-Webster, which gives "enjoyed great success" as an example.) The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins with "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..." 96.46.201.210 (talk) 07:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The term is explored in a popular song "With Arms Wide Open". There may be a philosophical or religious aspect to this, in the sense that a baby can be viewed as originating in situ and as not travelling very far during childbirth, or else as a spirit coming to Earth from some mysterious spiritual realm or divine origin.  Nonetheless, it is typical to welcome a person after they've come through the door, and outside of prisons and castle sieges there are few gates more difficult to pass! ;) Wnt (talk) 14:30, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Nominalisation of verbs
hello,

English language is sometimes confusing, especially for German-speakers. In German grammar it is very easy to nominalise verbs; you just need to put the article ahead verb. In English grammar you sometimes use prefixes, for example -dom or -ness (boredom, laziness, etc). But sometimes I can't do it for other words. I want to translate the following sentence:


 * 1) Das Erlebte hatte hier das Gehörte überlagert

I would translate it as follows:


 * 1) Here, experience overlays the things heard

Is this correct? Is there any other synonym for "das Gehörte", "the heard" maybe? -- ♫GoP♫ T C N 12:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely not "the heard". Your translation sounds okay (though it should be "overlaid" in the past tense or "had overlaid" in the pluperfect since the German has a pluperfect); another possibility would be "what has been heard". If it's clear from the context who has been doing the experience and the hearing, then complete clauses might sound more idiomatic, e.g. "What he had experienced overshadowed what he had heard". Angr (talk) 14:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Finnish also has the same easy way of nominalisating verbs as German. The example sentence would be:


 * 1) Tässä koettu peittää alleen kuullun

Where both "koettu" and "kuultu" (here shown in the accusative case "kuullun") are nominalised verbs, meaning exactly the same as "das Erlebte" and "das Gehörte" in German. I find it strange that English does not have this easy construction. J I P &#124; Talk 19:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks everyone for help!-- ♫GoP♫ T C N 19:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know it sounds long-winded to foreigners who want to nominalise everything but Angr's translation "What he had experienced overshadowed what he had heard" really does sound much more natural.

There is no translation for "das Gehörte" because you cant nominalise a perfecr passive participle and I'm not sure "experience" is really quite the same as "das Erlebte". Better to stick to a verbal construction with "what..." (=that which) and paraphrase it as best you can.-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.172.239.226 (talk) 01:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Tiny correction: I think that the proposed translation ignores the "hier" and the pluperfect in the German original, implying that a change had just taken place in a narrative set in the past. I would propose something like "What he had experienced now overshadowed what he had heard", where now provides the information about aspect that hier and the pluperfect provided in the German original.  Marco polo (talk) 16:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Help needed updating pl:Tab Two
Hi everyone, are there any Polish native speakers reading along here that could update pl:Tab Two so it matches the information from Tab Two or de:Tab Two? Kind regards and thanks in advance, 188.105.123.98 (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Another useful place to post this would be the Polish Wikipedia's embassy pl:Wikipedia:Kawiarenka/Babel. ~ Alison C. (Crazytales) 19:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, pasting it there. -- 88.67.159.167 (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Latin texts in need of translation
Does anyone know if there are any significant Latin texts available online that have yet to be translated? I'm keen to start just as an exercise (and of course I would make my work available for others to use/ improve on). Also (extra question while I'm here), in relation to a previous question that popped up here a few weeks/months ago, when the Vatican etc. has to coin a new Latin word, why don't they just use the modern Italian? IBE (talk) 16:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess it depends on what you mean by "significant"...occasionally I, and others, translate medieval papal letters for Wikisource, but I don't know generally significant those would be. Relatively minor and specialized texts like that sometimes haven't been translated. There are plenty of texts that haven't been translated in a long time, so there are only stilted 19th century translations. If you want to translate just for fun, even if there are already published translations, a good place to start is The Latin Library. As for the Vatican, why would they use the Italian word? It wouldn't be a Latin word then... Adam Bishop (talk) 16:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * See Category:Articles needing translation from Latin Wikipedia.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 17:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow. And it's not even empty. Hans Adler 22:56, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Translated to what? All languages of the world?  &#x2013; b_jonas 14:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * yes, every language in the world except Hungarian... just kidding, of course, IBE (talk) 10:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * We're discussing in English on the English-language Wikipedia, so I think we can assume "into English" is meant. As far as I know the Annales Ecclesiastici remains untranslated, which probably explains why cranks and pseudohistorians like to cite it. It runs to twelve large volumes, though, so it might be a bit big for an excercise. And you can't just use modern Italian words as Latin, because Italian lacks the inflectional endings that carry the grammar in Latin. --Nicknack009 (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the use of Italian, I don't know much about it, but declensions can always be added. Computer, computri etc. Since there is no Latin word for such things, creating one would not be Latin any more than borrowing from Italian would. And even Arabic borrows from English, yet there is scarcely a language so well formed for creating new vocabulary. Still, if there is such a reaction against nova latina italianata (?), even here on Wikipedia, I dread to think what the Vatican would say. As for the suggestions, much appreciated, but I can't find any medieval papal letters by googling - Adam, are they available online? It's not entirely for fun, as I want to contribute (in my humble way) to something of lasting use, but also I want to build my own writing fluency through the exercise. I could do a page at a time of that long one, but I'd rather take the shortest medieval papal letter I can find, and do it in full. IBE (talk) 10:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, the Vatican is not the only body which creates new Latin words, although they do have an online lexicon which is, indeed, glossed into Italian. Latin has its own methods for creating new words, and often a new concept can be explained by a Latin phrase made of up pre-existing words (rather than a single new word). The Latin Wikipedia has its own policies about creating new words, and the process is often discussed at the la:Vicipaedia:Taberna (the Village Pump/Reference Desk). The English article New Latin has some info about new vocabulary. For papal letters, I don't think they are usually online, but if you are looking to translate untranslated medieval documents, there are certainly many thousands of them (at the very least). The Patrologia Latina is online, but for a subscription fee, unless you can find complete versions on Google Books. The Latin Library that I linked to above has a lot of medieval texts taken from the PL editions. Just between the PL and the Corpus Christianorum alone, you could be busy for the rest of your life translating stuff! Adam Bishop (talk) 11:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)