Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 May 22

= May 22 =

Pronouns with 2 possible referents
Let's examine this statement:

Mary hugged Sally after she came home from school.

Who do you think is the referent of the word she?? It would be nice if we could re-word this statement so there are no pronouns with unclear referents. Here it can be:

Mary hugged Sally after Sally came home from school.

This is clearly unambiguous.

Does Wikipedia have an article that talks about using pronouns with unclear referents?? (That is, it is unclear who the referent of the pronoun is.) Georgia guy (talk) 01:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It could also be "Mary hugged Sally after Mary came home from school". The original sentence as stated lacks a context. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Georgia_guy -- We have articles Antecedent (grammar), Anaphora (linguistics), and Coreference... AnonMoos (talk) 03:51, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The statement can be made unambiguous by using the former / the latter, but this makes it sound rather bookish. Without context my first guess would be Sally. Here we have "she did say that Lily seemed really troubled after she came home from the youth group retreat." While not unequivocally unambiguous, any reader will interpret this as she referring to Lily. --Lambiam 10:15, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has an article on ambiguous grammar (which frankly I find rather unhelpful). The best solution to this type of problem is usually to start again by re-parsing the sentence, e.g. separating it into two unambiguous phrases: Sally arrived home from school and Mary gave her a hug. Shantavira|feed me 10:25, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Maybe syntactic ambiguity is a better fit (I only found this after looking up Eats, Shoots & Leaves). Alansplodge (talk) 20:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Shantavira -- That article is about the mathematics of computer parsing, not human language at all. However, as soon as computers could begin to parse human languages, they discovered that many English sentences have a large number of theoretically-possible parsings which humans would usually not even notice.  This is summed up by the slogan, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a bana na na"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Are you channelling Nanny Ogg? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I never heard of that character. However, the aphorism "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a bana na na" originated in the context of early 1960s machine translation research. AnonMoos (talk) 20:27, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Read slowly and carefully what you wrote. --Lambiam 14:51, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * If you and 90.199.210.77 wanted to offer a trivial spelling correction in the most obnoxious manner, you've certainly succeeded. AnonMoos (talk) 18:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Could a Norwegian speaker please translate eMMa's newest music video into English? Title: Over Deg
I can't find a translation for Emma Gunnarsen's newest music video "Over Deg." She's a singer who is the little sister of Marcus and Martinus.

Can someone here please translate it? Tusen takk.

Over Deg --E.N.G. (talk) 06:28, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, even though my father is Norwegian, I find her Eastern Elverum dialect a bit difficult to parse. I'll probably need a written source of the original Norwegian to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:58, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Since nobody else here is coming up with a translation, can you send the video link to your father and ask him to send back a translation? --E.N.G. (talk) 22:09, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, he's too busy for that. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Translation of Latin text
Can somebody please give (or find elsewhere) a translation of the medieval English coronation oath as reported by Henry de Bracton. Not a machine translation please, I can manage that myself.

Imprimis se esse precepturum et pro viribus opem impensurum ut ecclesie Dei et omni populo christiano vera pax omni suo tempore observetur. Secundo, ut rapacitates et omnes iniquitates omnibus gradibus interdicat. Tertio, ut in omnibus iudiciis equitatem precipiat misericordiam, ut indulgeat ei sua misericordia clemens et misericors Deus, et ut per iustitiam suam firma pace gaudeant universi.

Thank you. Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * First of all it is going to be mutually foreseen and through his powers the power to that help is going to be taught and weighed out for men that in the church of God and in all Christian people true peace in all its time may be observed. Secondly, that he forbids rapacities and all inequalities in all degrees.   Thirdly, that in all judicial proceedings he may teach equity and mercy so that clement and merciful God may indulge him in his mercy and so that through his firm justice they may rejoice in universal peace.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C3:9900:9401:E8AF:39ED:B3E4:5A73 (talk) 18:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a 19th-century translation by Sir Travers Twiss here, pp. 171, 173. --Antiquary (talk) 19:06, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you both most kindly. I may amalgamate the two. Alansplodge (talk) 20:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

There was a regrettable error in translation - viribus relates to power, not "men" (which is a second declension noun) just as equitatem relates to equity and not "cavalry" (which is also a second declension noun) as rendered by Google Translate. 2A00:23C3:9900:9401:710D:785E:8A3F:F1E (talk) 10:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Swedish Who's Who
I have found an entry for Ulla Westermark on page 492 of Vem är hon 1988, https://books.google.com/books?id=g6wZAAAAYAAJ, which says "G 52 förf Per Westermark, 29 , d 54". I believe that means Married 1952 writer Per Westermark, born 1929, but what does "d [19]54" mean? Also what was her father's job, linjemästare? TSventon (talk) 17:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * According to SAOB linjemästare is "vid telegrafvärket l. kraftvärk: tjänsteman i underbefälsställning, anställd för tillsyn av linjearbete o. d." So, some kind of superintendent of telegraph/telephone or power lines. DuncanHill (talk) 18:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * According to Google Books, there's a listing of "Förkortningar" on page 9. Can't you look that up? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Wakuran I only have snippet view of Vem är hon and I haven't found the snippet where d is explained. TSventon (talk) 00:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Archive.org has a copy, the listed Förkortningar do not include d. They do include G for "gift med". DuncanHill (talk) 11:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * DuncanHill, thank you for your help. TSventon (talk) 13:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure d is for död; see https://billiongraves.com/grave/Per-Westermark/19722594 147.234.66.84 (talk) 07:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that's right, I can see phrases at https://tidningar.kb.se/ that look like reports of Per Westermark's death in 1954. TSventon (talk) 08:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Died very young, it seems... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * He seems to have died in a boating accident near the family's holiday villa, according to Espressen 5 October 1954. TSventon (talk) 20:45, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Possessive forms of corps
What are the singular and plural possessive forms of the noun corps?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC) (The noun corps is both singular and plural, but when singular the final s is silent and when plural it is pronounced.) Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * @Georgia guy: In Wikipedia's manual of style, it's the same as any other noun: corps's and corps' for the singular and plural versions respectively. (Other style guides and writers may prefer the corps' version for both.) Bazza (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * In terms of orthography, yes. They are both pronounced identically, as "corps" is pronounced /kɔːr/, so adding a possessive "s" sound to the end results in /kɔːrz/ for both of them.  -- Jayron 32 11:59, 23 May 2023 (UTC) Edit: I have corrected a mistyped transcription as described below.  -- Jayron 32 16:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * OED says corps (the plural of corps) is pronounced /kɔəz/ DuncanHill (talk) 12:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * In some dialects, I'm sure that is true, especially non-rhotic ones. Merriam Webster uses the pronunciation I give (Merriam Webster uses ȯ where IPA uses ɔ).  -- Jayron 32 12:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you were suggesting the "s" in the plural was silent and was pointing out it isn't. DuncanHill (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * There is a mistake in Jayron's transcription: the plural (and possessive of both numbers) is with a voiced consonant at the end (rhyming with doors), rather than  (which is the pronunciation of course). —Mahāgaja · talk 12:39, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I have corrected that. Thanks for pointing it out.  My bad.  To DuncanHill, the singular of corps, in American English, is pronounced  while the plural of corps in American english is pronounced .  In the case of the possessives, both corps's (possessive of the singular) and corps' (possessive of the plural) would be pronounced, identical to the plural pronunciation.  In all cases, General American pronounces the /r/ sound as /r/, being rhotic dialect, though non-rhotic American dialects, such as Older Southern American English, New England English, and New York English dialects, would not pronounce the /r/ sound the same as in rhotic varieties, but would do different things to it than each other, and the British version you note as well, either by adding R-colored vowels to the preceding vowel sound while dropping the R, turning the /ɔːr/ sound into various diphthongs, etc.  Despite the spelling as such, the possessive of the singular, spelled corps's, would basically never be pronounced as  or anything like that.  -- Jayron 32 16:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Old chinese
There are superscript numbers next to ipa transcriptions, eg. The page for 一 yī, and when I search it up nothing comes up. What do these numbers mean? Are they tones? 92.26.73.63 (talk) 20:48, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, they're Wade–Giles 147.234.66.84 (talk) 07:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)