Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 April 5

= April 5 =

anecdotally
"Anecdotally, I can tell you people are just as likely to click on negative stories as they are to click on positive ones." How can "anecdotally" be understood in the above sentence? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.176.239 (talk) 13:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This smells of homework, but I'm happy to refer you to our article that explains what an anecdote is.--Shantavira|feed me 14:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Provisionally, I'd describe it as an adverb in apposition, but that's only my opinion. Hopefully, a grammarian will clarify.  Meanwhile, you might like to read the article on Disjunct (linguistics).   D b f i r s   20:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In case the querent (whose IP geolocates to China), is merely asking for the sense of anectotally in the sentence, it means that the person speaking or writing the sentence is basing the statement on personal experience, of either their own or others' actions, and not on scientific studies or the like. Deor (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Language with only three verbs
I remember hearing about a language that only has three verbs (do, go and something) but I can't remember what it is called. I think it was an Australian aboriginal language. (A google search suggested Jingulu but our article Jingulu language says nothing about this. There was also something about Igbo not using verbs as we think of them but again nothing at Igbo language). Anyone remember the name of this language so I can read up on it? RJFJR (talk) 23:35, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Our article on Kalam languages in general, and on Kobon language in particular, mention that they are among the languages with the smallest number of lexical verbs, but give ranges of 100-120 and 90-120.
 * Where have all the verbs gone? Remarks on the organisation of languages with small, closed verb classes (2006) by Andrew Pawley has more on the verbs and "paucity of verb roots", for Jingulu Jaminjung and Kalam. ---Sluzzelin talk  23:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC) (Note added later: Apologies, my very bad, I misread crudely. That paper is discussing Jaminjung, not Jingulu. ---Sluzzelin  talk  18:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Aha, here is perhaps what you read:
 * "Jingulu spoken in Australia has only three verbs: do, go, and come. Igbo (Ibo), a language of approximately 18 million speakers in Nigeria, does not have verbs at all. Instead, Igbo uses clusters termed ‘inherent complement verbs’ (ICV) that have the structure –gbá plus a noun."
 * See On the Nature of Syntax (2008) by Alona Soschen. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Mark Baker writes that Jingulu is the "most serious candidate" for a "verbless language" he has found. "Jingulu has exactly three verbal items that can inflect for agreement and (suppletively) for tense; [Robert J.] Pensalfini glosses them as 'come', 'go', and 'do/be'. [...] If one wants to say anything other than 'come', 'go', or do', one must combine a bare root that has lexical semantic content with one of these three items, which then functions as an auxiliary, bearing the tense and agreement of the clause [...]." (Baker, Mark; Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives; Cambridge University Press; 2003; p 90; ISBN 9780521001106) ---Sluzzelin talk  19:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Basque verbs come in a closed class of a dozen or so that are actually conjugated, including be, go, come, know, take, have, and bring. The remainder of "verbs" are participles that form periphrastic phrases with to be.  Examples are eat, drink, buy, fall, open, learn.  In English this would be as if one could say he comes and he has, but not he drinks or he buys, just he is drinking, or he is buying. μηδείς (talk) 21:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

On a related note, Kēlen is a constructed language designed to have no verbs at all. --Theurgist (talk) 17:37, 10 April 2014 (UTC)