Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 August 25

= August 25 =

French without subjects
Are there native Francophones who write or speak French without subject pronouns? The 1st person and 2nd person plural tenses alone could survive without subjects, since they are pronounced unlike others, and in writing the subjects referenced are surely more evident. Irregular verbs could also be written without subject pronouns. It seems odd to me that subjects would always be obligatory.

Are there at least sayings without subject pronouns, like English thank you? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * 1st plural and 2nd plural are person/number combined categories (which apply to pronouns as well as verbs), not "tenses". And "thank you" is kind of a traditional fixed phrase (along the lines of "so be it" etc.), and so doesn't necessarily have that much to say about contemporary English.  My impression of French is that at least a kind of injunctive use of subjectless 1st plural verbs is possible ("Marchons!"), but I'm not sure how colloquial/productive this is... AnonMoos (talk) 01:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I understand now that I misused the word ‘tense,’ but I think that you know what I meant. Verbs that are 1st or 2nd person plurals are pronounced differently. Are you referring to the imperative mood? I know that that’s written without subjects, but I do not know of any languages that require subjects in imperative clauses to begin with. --66.190.69.246 (talk) 02:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the concept in other languages, see "Valency (linguistics)", "Avalency", "Null-subject language", "Pro-drop language" and "Subject (grammar)". Gabbe (talk) 07:36, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The pro-drop article mentions the following examples for French: [Je ne] sais pas ("[I] don’t know"), [Je] t’appellerai demain ("[I] will call you tomorrow"), [Il ne] comprend rien, machin ("That guy don’t understand a thing"). It does note that those are considered colloquial. Gabbe (talk) 07:41, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It happens in writing, but it has the same effect that it has in English, like you're writing a telegram. It's very stilted and it sounds weird. Doctors seem to write like that a lot. And as AnonMoos said, without the pronoun, a 1st person plural verb is (grammatically speaking) an imperative. "Marchons" means "let's walk", while "nous marchons" means "we are walking". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:50, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * See Telegram style. Alansplodge (talk) 17:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

beat the expert - origin
what is the origin of the idiom: "beat the expert" in the meaning of ask or try to ask to the expert? 176.13.1.78 (talk) 12:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That isn't what the term means, in any usage that I have seen. It means competing with an expert and winning. Looie496 (talk) 15:37, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * But one of the ways you might compete with an expert is by asking them questions they can't answer. I doubt if you'll find a specific origin to the phrase. --ColinFine (talk) 17:24, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "It means competing with an expert and winning.". I mean about too (It's the same meaning of the questioner). what is the origin for that? where or how or when does it begin? 95.35.201.241 (talk) 18:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, this is not an "idiom" as such, it is simply an English phrase that means what it says. It sounds as if it could have been the name of a quiz show or something, so maybe something like that popularised it, but probably it is too generic to talk of its "origin"; anyone could have produced that word combination at any time. 86.167.19.165 (talk) 21:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)