Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 24

= August 24 =

Económcia (Spanish spelling)
Is Económcia a typo for Económica? Context is "Fondo de Cultura Económcia", supposedly a Mexican organization. There are many search hits for this spelling but it still looks suspicious. Thanks. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 00:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It's a typo. (btw, WP:WHAAOE: Fondo de Cultura Económica)--William Thweatt TalkContribs 01:34, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I fixed my article draft and linked the WHAAOE to it. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 05:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Adjectives based on English names?
How many adjectives are there based on names? Is there a linguistic rule to follow when converting a name (proper noun) into an adjective? One example is the name John. The adjective is Johannine. Another example is the name Elizabeth. The adjective is Elizabethan. James becomes Jacobian. What about Peter, Thomas, Daniel, Adam, Paul, Martha, and et cetera? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 20:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * See "List of eponymous adjectives in English". There might be others.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 21:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * That list, if anyone's interested, contains 164 –ian, 86 –an, 37 –ic, 22 –esque, 13 –ine, 12 –ean, 10 –ist, 7 –ite, 6 –id, 5 –ist-ic, 5 –al, 2 –y, 2 –it–ic, 2 –ish, 2 –ing-ian. (I counted –ian as –an if the root had i.) —Tamfang (talk) 22:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You have there two or three adjectives derived from the Latin form of a name, using one of several Latin suffixes (which are largely interchangeable), and then anglicized. Does that pattern amount to a rule?  In Church or royal contexts the Latin root was used because of, y'know, the formal use of Latin. —Tamfang (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Is "Reaganomical" a word? I kind of hope so... Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 22:09, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure, if you like, but it's derived from a portmanteau of economics rather than directly from Reagan. —Tamfang (talk) 22:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

65.24.105.132 -- The adjective of James is usually "Jacobean" (definitely if referring to the reign of James the VIth and Ist). In religious contexts, the adjective forms of Peter and Paul are "Petrine" and "Pauline", and Adamites has been the name of several semi-obscure sects... AnonMoos (talk) 23:08, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I tried to coin the word "palpatinian" to mean essentially the same thing as "Machiavellian," but it didn't quite pan out. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 23:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a pretty sithy word. Anyway, you can't force language change. --NellieBly (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that there are generally several possible constructions for any given name: Jacobean, Jacobian, and Jacobite all have quite different connotations and meanings. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler  .☠  16:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Not to mention Jacobin. —Tamfang (talk) 06:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Voiced consonants and devoicing
The section "English" in the article Final-obstruent devoicing clarified something I have always wondered. English and French generally state that final consonants don't devoice. Now the section says there is still devoicing to some extent in English. I wonder if this is true for all languages. In other words, are initial consonants always more intense than final ones? In French where there are no aspirated consonants, do voiceless finals even get a little bit aspirated? I myself grew up with German which has final devoicing and when speaking other languages it takes a lot of effort to pronounce a voiced final stop without an additional schwa [ə]. Somehow this doesn't apply to fricatives. Is there a reason for this? Another point is Mandarin is said to have no voiced consonants except [ʐ]. So for example, pinyin b, d, g are transcribed as [p], [t], [k], but as a native speaker I find it a bit misleading. Maybe it's just me because I read that German voiced consonants are not fully voiced either and consonant pairs are rather described as fortis and lenis so that I don't have enough exposure to real voiced consonants. I still find pinyin b, d, g to be more intense than French p, t, k, but both are transcribed as [p], [t], [k]. So are pinyin b, d, g a bit voiced or French p, t, k a bit aspirated? I know IPA are just symbols and that voiced-voiceless-aspirated has no boundaries. Therefore it's always a bit different in every language. However, are there any studies comparing voiced-voiceless-aspirated of different languages like vowel charts? --2.245.192.127 (talk) 22:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Word-final consonants are generally unreleased in English (and of course unaspirated, which follows from being unreleased), but the basic voiced-voiceless contrast is not neutralized. AnonMoos (talk) 23:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

(This would be so much easier on a forum with quote tags). It not appropriate to think of English as having final devoicing, as there's a number of things going on there. In fact, the voiceless-voiced (or aspirated-deaspirated, fortis-lenis, etc) contrast in English is a mixture of at least three different things (voice onset time, glottalization, vowel lengthening, and perhaps tone), which vary depending on the position in the word. Word-initially, the /k g/ contrast is one of strong aspiration versus partial voicing, while word-finally it's voiceless glottalization (ranging from an inserted glottal stop, unreleased, glottal replacement, ejectivization, and I've heard it claimed creakiness on the vowel) versus vowel lengthening and partial voicing. It's probably safe to assume most languages are closer to this level of complexity than the simple voiced-voiceless or aspirated-unaspirated that are often claimed, though the only language I've seen with similar amounts of research done on it is Korean, as no one can figure out one, easy answer to what the hell their tense consonants are. This is some of what you're seeing in French and Mandarin – French consonants are voiced/plain, but the voiced ones I've heard can actually be slightly prenasal, while Mandarin are aspirated/plain, but the plain can become voiced, especially with certain tones (3 and 4 maybe?). As for wanting to insert a schwa after [b d g] but not [v z], that's understandable as it's easier to hold the voicing since pressure isn't building up in the mouth. One thing you might want to look at is voice onset time, which may be similar to the aspiration charts you're wanting to look at. Finally, something you brought up early as if it's true for all languages. Armenian merges two sets of stops to the aspirate word-finally I believe, many Mayan languages aspirate their plain series word-finally, and devoicing is very common cross-linguistically. Oppositely, though, I believe I've heard of a language (Salish maybe?) that has no voiceless fricatives in its suffixes, they all underwent voicing. And again there's Mayan languages that change final implosives into preglottalized fricatives, and something broadly similar happened in Danish, were the voiced series is stopped in the onset and are approximants or semivowels in the coda (this is very likely related to your issue with [b d g] versus [v z] – two different ways of dealing with final voiced consonants is to devoice them so there's not the buildup of pressure, or get rid of the stop part so that voice can continue easier). “Stronger” sounds like aspirated stops and ejectives tend to be more common in stressed, initial syllables than elsewhere in a word (English “aspirated” stops often aren't aspirated at all medially and finally, and there's evidence of ejectives voicing in non-initial syllables in various Caucasian languages), and languages that have a single voiced series often have them as stops initially and fricatives elsewhere (Spanish, Danish again, and plenty of others). So I guess I'm saying, it's complicated, but you're not wrong either. Lsfreak (talk) 05:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)