Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 September 5

= September 5 =

French grammar: "He thought you'd come". is it "Il pensait que vous viendriez", or "Il pensait que vous étiez venus" ?
My father is Belgian and my mother is American, so Im good at speaking both languages (not at writing though), and as far as I feel, both options ("viendriez" and "étiez venus") seems fine, but Im sure one of them must be wrong, because I feel and know theirs a clear difference between "viendriez" and "étiez venus". Ive always been told French grammar is very complicated to learn, but Ive always thought Im a lucky boy because I speak both languages at home, but today I became totally puzzled by the new excercise our teacher gave us at school. Who will save me? SOS... 147.236.152.145 (talk) 08:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It depends what you'd means. It can be a contraction of both "you would" and "you had". "He thought you would come" is "viendriez", and "he thought you had come" is "étiez venus". —Mahāgaja · talk 08:34, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * What you'd means? what you'd mean? what you'd meant? The two original options became three... HOTmag (talk) 17:54, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If there's no "use-mention" distinction, then only one of those sentences is grammatical in English... AnonMoos (talk)
 * If there's no use-mention distinction, then all of the three options are grammatical. I guess you mean : "if there is a use-mention distinction, but then two options are grammatical. HOTmag (talk) 06:44, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * "What you'd means?" is highly ungrammatical if there's nothing other than ordinary English words there (i.e. no use-mention distinction). "What you'd meant?" as ordinary English words (i.e. no use-mention distinction) would be grammatical as a relative clause (if "-d" = "had", not if "-d" = "would"), but it's rather meaningless as a stand-alone independent question (as punctuated by you).  The third ("What you'd mean?") could also be considered dubious as a stand-alone independent question, but it's possible to imagine contexts where might be appropriate, and it's quite close to "What d'you mean?", so I gave it a pass. AnonMoos (talk) 22:31, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If there's no use-mention distinction, then you'd and "you'd" are not not distinguished i.e are interchangeable, so "what you'd means" is a grammatical clause.
 * As for the other options: They display grammatical clauses anyway, beacsue the question mark I'd added at the end of each option is not a part of the clause, but rather is intended to signify a question addressed to user:Mahagaja who had written "What you'd means", so I'd asked them: "What you'd means"?, i.e. Are you sure you wanted to write "what you'd mean"? Are you sure you didn't want to write "what you'd mean"? or "what you'd meant"? Anyway, if there's no use-mention distinction then all of the three options display grammatical clauses: "what you'd means", "what you'd mean", "what you'd meant". HOTmag (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Whatever -- when a word is discussed, and its meaning does not contribute to the overall sentence meaning, that's mention: The word "capsized" has two syllables.  When its meaning does contribute to the overall sentence meaning, that's use: The ship capsized.   With no use-mention distinction (i.e. all words simply used), #1 is simply ungrammatical, #3 is grammatical under one interpretation as a relative clause (not as a standalone question), and #2 is also grammatical as a relative clause, and marginally as a standalone question.  With a use-mention distinction (the word "you'd mentioned but not used), then #1 and #3 are grammatical as relative clauses, while #2 is not grammatical as a relative clause. AnonMoos (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems we disagre over what the term "use-mention distinction" means. To me, it means that Capsized and "Capsized" are distinguished from each other. On the other hand, "no use-mention distinction" means that you can write: Capsized - meaning "Capsized", and it's still ok, beacsue Capsized and "Capsized" are not distinguished from each other. Just as "no capital-small letters distinction" means that you can write i meaning I, and it's still ok.
 * Anyway, it doesn't really matter what the term "use-mention distinction" means. Whatever it means, I still insist on the grammaticality of all three options - if one is allowed to write You'd meaning "You'd" (what I call "no use-mention distinction is made"). However, if You'd cannot mean "You'd" (what I call "a use-mention distinction is made") then the clause: "What you'd means" is really ungrammatical, but I can't see why the other options ("what you'd mean" and "what you'd meant") display ungrammatical clauses. HOTmag (talk) 20:36, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, change 'come' to 'go', and it becomes clearer: "he thought you'd go" vs "he thought you'd gone". — kwami (talk) 19:49, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Aside here &mdash; I find it interesting that both French and English use the conditional mood here, whereas Italian uses the conditional perfect:  Non pensava che sareste venuti.  (Here I'm assuming that the original vous is a genuine plural rather than formal address.)  I'm curious how this difference might have arisen.  --Trovatore (talk) 20:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * What do you say in Italian without "non", as in the original?--Espoo (talk) 07:21, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, hmm, not sure where I got the non part. That would be just pensava che sareste venuti.  Italian is a pro-drop language so you don't really need the "he" part, unless it's unclear whom you're talking about.  But you could put lui (or in a more formal register, egli) as the subject if you wanted to. --Trovatore (talk) 23:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * the s at the end of venus in OP's example shows that vous is indeed plural (without distinction as to polite vs. familiar). In Italian, is Lui pensava che verreste ungrammatical/unidiomatic? —Mahāgaja · talk 12:58, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, good point. Hmm.  I think it's ungrammatical.  It's certainly not what I was taught.  My intuitions aren't good enough anymore to be sure a native speaker would completely reject it, but I expect they would.--Trovatore (talk) 16:37, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Pronounce and pronunciation - removal of "o" in pronunciation
Pronounce, and pronunciation. Why is the "o" dropped in pronunciation? It appears that it also happens in renounce and renunciation. A diehard editor (talk | edits) 12:53, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * They come from a Latin verb nuntiare meaning "to announce". The word "pronounce" has the vowel suitable for a word that was borrowed from medieval French into medieval English, while "pronunciation" is a little bit more of a direct Latin borrowing... AnonMoos (talk) 13:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. You can see more about the general phenomenon at Doublet (linguistics) (though pronounce/pronunciation is a rather minor example). AnonMoos (talk) 13:31, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Trisyllabic laxing has an alternate explanation, though I'm not sure if this is accurate. Nardog (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * One might actually wonder why an ⟨o⟩ was added in the spelling of the Middle English verb pronounce(n), which existed next to an alternative spelling pronunce(n). At the time, the vowel was pronounced as a monophthong . It is not clear (to me) whether the ⟨ou⟩ spelling was retained because of the later pronunciation as the diphthong, or whether the latter arose as a spelling pronunciation. --Lambiam 10:11, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The French convention was that the "ou" spelling means a [u] vowel, while a simple "u" spelling means a front rounded vowel like German "ü". That's how the "ou" spelling came to mean [uː] in Middle English.  As the Great Vowel Shift occurred, the pronunciation of the spelling changed accordingly (with some leftover relics such as "you" and "wound", where diphthongization was blocked). AnonMoos (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC)