Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 December 21

= December 21 =

range of French y
Can the French object pronoun y stand for à [noun phrase] in senses other than locative? For example:
 * Vois-tu un homme à barbe rousse? — Oui, j'y vois un homme.

I do not recall ever encountering such a usage, and my instinct says no (je vois un tel homme feels more natural), but that proves little. —Tamfang (talk) 04:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * y as indirect object: J'y pense souvent. [Je pense souvent à ça], Je n'y crois pas. [Je ne crois pas au Père Noël], Je n'y suis pas encore habitué. [Je ne suis pas encore habitué à manier la faux]. My reference Le_Bon_Usage, 12th edition. AldoSyrt (talk) 08:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The example by the OP is not a good one as the verb (voir) is direct transitive. Better: Penses-tu à un homme avec une barbe rousse ? — Oui, j'y pense. AldoSyrt (talk) 08:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Or Vois-tu un homme à barbe rousse dans  ce  cette photographie? — Oui, j'en y vois même deux. Here y refers to the location identified in the preceding sentence. The rule as I learned it for not literally locative uses is that y is used for prepositional phrases starting with à and its variations (as used in songer à quelque chose: Oui, j'y ai songé profondément = "Yes, I have considered it deeply"), while en is used for phrases starting with de (as in songer de quelque chose: Oui, j'en ai songé ce nuit = "Yes, I dreamt about it last night"). --Lambiam 09:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Typo "dans cette photographie ?". - AldoSyrt (talk) 11:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As usual in French, there are exceptions to the rule: in some cases the "y" is not mandatory. As-tu réussi à changer de pneu ? — Oui, j'ai réussi., but As-tu réussi à l'université ? — Oui, j'y ai réussi. - AldoSyrt (talk) 11:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I suppose the original poster's example Vois-tu un homme à barbe rousse? — Oui, j'y vois un homme. doesn't work mainly because à barbe rousse is not really a constituent of the clause, i.e. not an argument of the verb, but a post-modifier of the object noun phrase. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. Vois-tu un homme ? — Oui, j'y vois un homme. doesnt' work because "y" refers to a location (because "voir" is not followed by "à"). But the context can be implicit: — Regarde sur la plage. Vois-tu un homme ? — Oui, j'y vois un homme is correct. One could also say (better French): Y vois-tu un homme ?- AldoSyrt (talk) 16:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I don't really see how that relates to the point I was making. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What I want to show is whether there is an attibute to the noun ("à la barbe rouge") or not doesn't matter. If the attribute is removed, the problem remains the same. As a French native speaker, when I hear "j'y vois..." I expect a reference to a location, explicitly (in the previous sentence) or implicitly. Whithout a location reference, the sentence is weird (but the syntax is correct). Why I did not expect à location reference when I hear "J'y pense"? Because the verb is "penser à" and in this case "y" refers to "l'homme [à la barbe rouge]".- AldoSyrt (talk) 09:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think there was some misunderstanding of what the original poster was asking about. The way I understood them, he was specifically asking whether there could be a reading of his example sentence where the "y" actually referred to "à barbe rousse", or why there couldn't. I suppose with your native-speaker intuition this never crossed your mind as a conceivable reading, and that's precisely for the reason I stated, because it's post-modifier internal to the noun phrase. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I read carefully the OP's question: Can the French object pronoun y stand for à [noun phrase] in senses other than locative. From his/her example [noun phrase] = "un homme à la barbe rousse". But it fails to exemplify the question because in this case "y" can only be a location reference. I understand your point, you are right. In this example the "à" doesn't follows the pattern "à [noun phrase]", the "à" is part of the noun phrase. "Je vois à un homme à la barbe rouge" is not syntaxicaly correct, whereas "Je pense à un homme à la barbe rouge" is, and matches the pattern. Hence my proposal and my answers.  - AldoSyrt (talk) 10:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The crucial point is that learners often use rules of thumbs like "y replaces à [noun phrase]", which fails with our example because it is Vois-tu [un homme [à barbe rousse]modifier]? and not *Vois-tu [un homme] [à barbe rousse]adjunct? Just like you can ask "What did you tie the dog with?", but not "Who did you see the dog of?" –Austronesier (talk) 11:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec)This lead me to reread the question, and I think I now understand it. Compare:
 * As-tu vu un spectacle à New York ? — Oui, j' y ai vu plusieurs spectacles.
 * As-tu vu un spectacle à la fois effrayant et enchanteur ? —  * Oui, j' y ai vu plusieurs spectacles.
 * The reason these are grammatically different is that the adverbial phrase à New York modifies the verb voire, while the phrase à la fois effrayant et enchanteur modifies the noun spectacle. The adverbial y, which modifies a verb, can only refer to an à phrase when the latter too modifies a verb – which can be because it identifies a location, like here, or because it is one of these French verbs followed by à. In Vois-tu un homme à barbe rousse?, it is neither; there it modifies the noun. --Lambiam 11:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Je vois un homme à barbe rousse chaque jour au miroir. —Tamfang (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I like FutPerf's point, but how about this: Je me promène à pied &rarr; Je m'y promène. Here the à phrase clearly belongs to the verb, not to any object noun!  But I'd expect the replacement to be Je me promène ainsi. — I'm reminded of the jocular zeugma She left in a huff and a taxi. —Tamfang (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2020 (UTC)


 * What you expect is right. I think that the probleme all over this discussion is the ignorance of different uses of "à" in French. If you can read French have a look to the CNTL. For the above example see "* VI", for homme à la barbe see "*IV * 3", for penser à see "*IX *3". "y" cannot be used in all cases even if "à" belongs to a verb. I am not sure that one can craft a simple rule for "y" usage. - AldoSyrt (talk) 08:37, 24 December 2020 (UTC)


 * @Austronesier. You are right my French education in grammar is a bias. The way I analyse the syntax is different than the one you shows. I was taught that "un homme à barbe rousse" is a whole and is a called a nominal syntagm. . - AldoSyrt (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * @Lambiam. You are close, but the second example is wrong. We say As-tu vu un spectacle à la fois effrayant et enchanteur ? — Oui, j' en ai vu plusieurs. [un spectacle...] is a direct object for voir, therefore you must use "en" not "y". And as "en" refers to "spectacle" you don't have to repeat it. You can mix. As-tu vu un spectacle à la fois effrayant et enchanteur à New York ? — Oui, j' y en ai vu plusieurs. "y" refers to "New York" and "en" refers to "[spectacle...]". Note for advanced learners. "J'en ai vu des spectacles [à New York] !" means "I attended a lot of shows [in New York]!" (another use for "en"). The uses of "y" and "en" take 12 pages in my French grammar book - AldoSyrt (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Quoting the section : "In most areas of linguistics, but especially in syntax, an asterisk in front of a word or phrase indicates that the word or phrase is not used because it is ungrammatical." The asterisk, à la fois effrayant et enchanteur, that you can see in front of the response in the second exchange is an application of this standard convention in linguistics to signal that the response is ungrammatical. --Lambiam 20:23, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I totally missed the point. My French grammar use the symbol "°" for ungrammatical phrases. Apologies - AldoSyrt (talk) 14:13, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * @Lambiam. I have to be more precise. The phrases do not modifiy anything, neither "y". In this case you have to answser the questions (it is the way French children are taught)" What do you see? Un spectacle or Un spectacle à la fois effrayant et enchanteur, these are direct objects. Where do you see it? à New York, it is the adverbial phrase of place. - AldoSyrt (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I used standard linguistic terminology. Quoting from our article Adverb: "An adverb is a word or an expression that modifies  a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence." Or from Adjective: "In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that  modifies  a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent."  --Lambiam 20:23, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry again. I am neither a linguist nor a grammarian, therefore I do not kow anything about "standard linguistic terminology". I did not know the meaning of modifier in this context. As I wrote above to Austronesier, my French education in grammar (and others topics) is a bias when I formulate something on the Englih Wikipedia. Quoting from the French Wikipedia, "l’adverbe est défini traditionnellement comme une partie du discours dont la fonction syntaxique est de complément, le plus souvent d’un verbe ou, plus rarement, d’un adjectif ou d’un autre adverbe",  "on appelle adjectif (anciennement nom adjectif) une nature de mot qui s'adjoint au nom au sein d'un syntagme nominal pour exprimer une qualité (adjectif qualificatif), une relation (adjectif relationnel) ou pour permettre à celui-ci d'être actualisé au sein d'une phrase (adjectif déterminatif). (my emphasis) – AldoSyrt (talk) 14:40, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


 * @Fut.Perf. Why did you revert the example "Honi soit qui mal y pense"? It is a good example for a "non-locative" y. (Sorry I am not allowed to write on your talk page) - AldoSyrt (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That posting was by a banned user. Nothing special about it otherwise, other than that it was also rather off-topic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:03, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Garth-king
Where this word (garth) has come from in the title of the Byzantine emperor? Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 05:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Maybe from Micklegarth, one of the names of Istanbul? Clarityfiend (talk) 06:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, that's it. Thank you. Omidinist (talk) 06:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Garth in this case cognate with "guard" and meaning "wall", likely referring to the Theodosian Walls. -- Jayron 32 14:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's actually cognate with "yard"... AnonMoos (talk) 15:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, you're correct. There's a confusing mix of similar meanings and etymologies of the Germanic "gar-" words (i.e. Asgard) which became English "yard" and the Latinate "gar-" words (i.e. garderobe) which became the English word "ward" (the former meaning enclosure and the latter meaning to watch).  Etymonline makes such clear distinctions   that I confused when trying to remember which derivation we were using here.  It's clear the Viking word would have been the gar/yar version. Mea culpa.  -- Jayron 32 15:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There's no need to feel excessive shame, but words related to English "yard" had an original initial g- in Germanic, while words related to "guard" had an original initial w- in Germanic, which was only changed to gw- (later g-) when borrowed into Medieval French (so in English we have doublets like guard / ward, guardian / warden, guarantee / warranty etc., where the first word of each pair was borrowed back into English from French -- see also the contrast between English war and French guerre).... AnonMoos (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In either case they probably weren't thinking of the ultimate Proto-Germanic derivation..."Mikelgard" just means "big city", which is what Constantinople was. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The article linked by Clarityfiend at the outset has: "...Varangians used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr (from mikill 'big' and garðr 'wall' or 'stronghold'), later Miklagard and Micklegarth. This name lives on in the modern Icelandic name Mikligarður and Faroese Miklagarður". Alansplodge (talk) 16:32, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * So it does, but the references in that article and in any other book I can find about it say that it means "great city". Adam Bishop (talk) 01:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, see garðr where definition 5 agrees with you. Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Noticed something odd about the way British English seems to be omitting pronouns for agents or actors in clauses preceded by "so"
I just saw it again in the article about Katalin Kariko. I've seen it in a number of edits over the past five years by editors who appear to be based in Europe, and I've also noticed it several times over the same timeframe in published articles in The Economist and The Guardian. I'm curious as to whether this is a regular usage in British English or if these works are authored by people who weren't trained properly in formal written English.

The sentence that irritated me as ungrammatical in the Karikó article (in computer science terms, triggered exception handling) is as follows: "Karikó realized she would not get a chance to apply her experience with mRNA at the University of Pennsylvania, so took a role as Senior Vice President at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals."

A native speaker of American English would use a pronoun in that second clause after the "so" to expressly refer back to the agent or actor who is the subject of the first clause. For example:

"Karikó realized she would not get a chance to apply her experience with mRNA at the University of Pennsylvania, so she took a role as Senior Vice President at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals."

Can anyone shed some light on this? --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm a speaker of American English. I've never even been to the UK.  I can say that both sentences sound perfectly natural, neither is marked in any way, and I would describe both versions of the sentence to be in free variation with each other.  -- Jayron 32 18:44, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Another American who has never been to the UK. The version without "she" seems a little odd to me, but would seem normal if "and" were added before "so". --Khajidha (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The addition of the "she" seems odd and unnecessary to my British eyes and ears. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was definitely wrong, but it doesn't look like something a native would write or say. DuncanHill (talk) 20:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Same here (BrEn). "she" has already been established earlier in the sentence; had it not, I'd likely add it: "Karikó did not get a chance to apply her experience with mRNA at the University of Pennsylvania, so she took a role as Senior Vice President at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals." Bazza (talk) 21:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Huh. Without "she" it looks telegraphic or informal to me.  I wouldn't object to ...and so took a role..., with "so" in the sense of "therefore".  I hadn't really had this flagged in my head as a Brit/Yank difference before now, but it looks like maybe it is. --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with the original poster: eliding the pronoun looks wrong to me, and I see it done more by British sources. But I certainly encounter it being done by North Americans.  Just one of those things some people do one way and others do another way, it seems. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As an additional note, my mental grammar has a similar rule prohibiting elision when the conjunction is "because". ("It was prohibited because [it was] too heavy".)  I'm not aware of any other conjunctions I feel that way about. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 09:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Either one works. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm baffled that anyone would find that sentence weird. In fact, if a student has sent me that with an added 'she', I'd have recommended removing it, on the principle than no sentence should have more words than required. Divided by a common language eh? Fgf10 (talk) 01:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * How would you handle this: "Going to the lunchroom. Want to come with?" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I (BrEn) would tell you to speak proper. Bazza (talk) 13:11, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This American wants to smack anyone who says "come with" like that. It's "come with me". --Khajidha (talk) 14:01, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This American understands that language variation exists, that different is not wrong, and that wanting to smack people reflects more on the person doing the wanting than on the people they wish to smack. -- Jayron 32 14:09, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Khajidha should try smacking my American daughter-in-law. She's lived in Sydney for some years and is about to become an Aussie citizen, but she still says "come with". I fully expect you'd come off second-best, but I'd love to see you try. :) --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:17, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As a Brit, it seems normal usage to me. “I missed the train, so took the bus”.  Or the same sentence with he, she, they.  MapReader (talk) 14:18, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As an American, I would always say "Come with me" as stated by User:Khajidha, and in the example provided by User:MapReader, I would say, "I missed the train, so I took the bus." Actually, unless I was speaking in a hurry, I would usually add another word to stress that the second clause is in contradistinction to the first (in this case, as an alternative course of action). For example: "I missed the train, so I took the bus instead."
 * Thank you to everyone for your candid responses. I think the AmE/BrE distinction I'm trying to flush out seems to be mostly clear at this point.  The interesting thing is that at least some Americans don't see anything wrong with the elided syntax. I suspect that may have to do with differences in how close reading and English composition are taught. My freshman English courses in college and my first-year lawyering skills course in law school were all extremely rigorous.  The instructors had no problem with covering entire pages with red marks whenever they felt it was appropriate, which was particularly painful for me as I had scored in the 99th percentile on both the verbal portion of the SAT as well as the LSAT. (I'm not that good at math, so I scored only in the 97th percentile on the math portion of the SAT.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Lawyers operate in a realm of alternate reality that most normal humans do not. It's best to treat them as a different thing from humanity entirely for the reasons you've just spelled out above.  I'm reminded of something Bill Clinton once said with a straight face (himself a career lawyer and politician, a double-whammy of double-speak) in a sworn deposition, "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is".  A person who can say that with a straight face is not someone who's mind anyone else can (or should) see the workings of.  The rest of us will continue to use language in a normal fashion.  -- Jayron 32 17:37, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As Joad would say, "It all depends on what you mean by reality". DuncanHill (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec) While I can't claim any training in close reading, I can claim to be an avid reader, and to have been one since before I started primary school over 45 years ago. I am rather under the impression that Americans tend to use more words, and more punctuation, than British writers, especially when trying to be literary or formal. DuncanHill (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the ad hominem argument by User:Jayron32 is inappropriate in this context. There are many lawyerly usages that are fair game for criticism from laypersons, like our tendency to excessively use words like "therefore," "thereby," and "forthwith." But the more I think about it, I'm certain would have recognized the elision of the pronoun in a second clause as inappropriate even before I went to college or law school. I scored 1200 on the SAT (the real thing, not the PSAT) at age 12, which is how I ended up twice attending the Center for Talented Youth summer program (the satellite program at Loyola Marymount, not the main one at Johns Hopkins).  --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * But is it elision when it had no business being there in the first place? DuncanHill (talk) 17:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Your response oddly does little service if you're trying to refute my characterization by example... -- Jayron 32 18:04, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've always assumed that "I'll come with" is related to German mitkommen / ich komme mit. I conjecture, based on essentially no evidence, that it enters English by way of Yiddish. --Trovatore (talk) 18:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have referenced the WordPress pages of Andrew Weir (Associate Professor (førsteamanuensis) of Modern English Language and Linguistics in the Department of Language and Literature of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.) before (https://awweir.files.wordpress.com) and, in the case of this question I believe this post-grad academic paper is pertinent: https://awweir.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/weir-ug-diss.pdf . Other useful research from Andrew can be found here: https://awweir.com/research/ .12:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)Francis Neary (talk)