Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 October 16

= October 16 =

To reverse or to not reverse
I have encountered mass editing of myriad articles by. Most changes involved a reversal of the proper order of two words, often "not" and "to", or "never" and "to". I reverted them as quickly as I could. It is possible I may have missed some or gotten a few wrong in the process. I left two messages on their talk page and they have responded. We need more eyes on this as the English language does have variations. Since the changes were to existing content, I have assumed the status quo version was correct. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 03:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like he's trying to fix split infinitives. His changes reflect what I was taught in school, even though in colloquial speech it's more like the way you're recommending. Here's some discussion on this question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:53, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I have sought to preserve the status quo. We do indeed need more eyes on this. I have reported this at ANI (Mass editing/vandalism?). Please comment there. Maybe I'm wrong. Also, look at the IP's talk page. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 04:06, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You eventually made that argument, but your initial argument to the IP was "You reversed the proper order of 'not' and 'to'." That's your opinion, not absolute fact. You repeated that at WP:AN. It will be interesting to see what they tell you there. They might argue it's a content dispute. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:12, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * For greater clarity as to what's been done: Valjean posted that item here at WP:AN as Bugs says, not at WP:ANI as Valjean says.
 * That's now archived here. --142.112.221.156 (talk) 21:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * For greater clarity as to English usage: there is no such thing as "correct" or "proper" usage, only accepted usage.  The split infinitive is a widely accepted usage and not something that needs to be "fixed", although, of course, some people have disagreed with that. --142.112.221.114 (talk) 04:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Mistakingly "fixing" what is not broken is not vandalism, also not if perpetrated on a large scale. --Lambiam 09:44, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The idea of split infinitives being wrong in English is totally artificial and wrong-headed, it comes from there having been no multi-word infinitives in Latin, and the norms of Latin grammar being shoehorned into English style. In aggregate, I would say it degrades the quality of the prose, and shouldn't be done en masse. Remsense  聊  18:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

This is apparently an area where reasonable editors may disagree. The age of the editor may also play into this, as what was taught and accepted has changed over time. This has become clear at the Administrators' noticeboard discussion.

Lambiam wrote this: "Please take note of the section . Changing the grammar in standing versions to accommodate one's personal predilections based on an outdated prescriptivist viewpoint is IMO a no-no. This is not essentially different from the MOS:RETAIN rule. Mass editing to accommodate such an outdated prescription is disruptive."

So there are language rules and retain issues involved, and they are two very different things. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 15:23, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinking of the start of Hamlet's famous speech: "To be or to not be..." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

A small quantity of questions
1: Does a genitive noun (or noun modifier in languages where the modifier goes before the noun) have to be preceded by another noun or noun modifier (excepting instances where the technical genitive case is not serving a genitive function, like how it merged with and adopted the functions of the ablative in Ancient Greek)?

2: How do I know when to use each Chinese negation word (不、没、别、无、非、etc)?

3: What are the situations and rules for when I can, must, or must not omit the Chinese character 的? Primal Groudon (talk) 04:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what your first question means... AnonMoos (talk) 04:51, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Simple. It’s “Does a genitive noun* have to be preceded by another noun or noun modifier”, but with the genitive case serving non-genitive functions (like how it takes on ablative functions in Ancient Greek) as a stated exception.
 * The above asterisk* after the phrase “genitive noun” means “or noun modifier in languages where the modifier comes first”. For example, if an English noun has an adjective directly describing it, the noun would be preceded with the adjective, so my initial question made it transferable to the noun modifier in such cases. Primal Groudon (talk) 05:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Latin grammar lists cases such as oblīvīscar noctis "I will forget the night", where a genitive noun is not preceded by any noun or noun modifier. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 07:44, 16 October 2023 (UTC)


 * On a literal reading of your question about genitives, the answer is clearly and trivially "no" – in "Peter's dad isn't here", "Peter's" is the genitive noun, and isn't preceded by anything else. (Before somebody objects, the same would apply in any number of languages where the possessive element is expressed by a true morphological genitive rather than the English "'s", whatever its status is.) But I suspect you had something different in mind with your question, so you may want to rephrase. For the Chinese question, this wiki page offers an accessible beginner's overview on the difference between 'bù' and 'méi' in standard Mandarin. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * “Peter's dad” uses a construction type that, in English, has the genitive noun come before what it relates to. I didn’t list it as an exception in my question, so I guess it’s fair game. Primal Groudon (talk) 14:21, 16 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The rule for 不 and 没 is the former is used generally, the latter with and only with the verb 有, "have", which has a few uses in Chinese similar to English. They are the two words for "not" in Chinese. As for 的 it's normally omitted when referring to close family relations. These rules apply primarily to Standard/Mandarin Chinese, other varieties of Chinese work differently.--2A04:4A43:90AF:FAB6:D12C:EFE3:C0C2:2409 (talk) 08:24, 16 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Book 1 of Julius Caesar's Commentarii de bello Gallico contains the noun phrase regni cupiditate, in which the noun regni, the possessor of the cupidity, is in the genitive case and is not preceded but followed by a noun. This order, with the possessor preceding the possessee, is not uncommon in Latin. I bet that among the languages that have a genitive case there are many that do not require another noun to precede it. In fact, in Turkish the common order in possessor–possessee constructions is to have the possessor in the genitive case, followed by the possessee marked with a possessive suffix: trenin lokomotifi – "the locomotive of the train". --Lambiam 09:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Re: 的, in speech you'll almost always be using it. In writing it will depend on the formality of the register. News headlines will often omit particles for concision, academic writing will dip into the older genitives like 之 and 其. If things are more closely semantically linked, like pronoun + family relation term the need for 的 diminishes somewhat. If you're just starting out, use it everywhere you think it should go, for clarity until you are able to communicate in the language clearly. It's mostly a style issue. Folly Mox (talk) 18:03, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 不 is your best bet for most situations. 沒 is not really a negation word on its own: 沒有 is, equivalent to 無. This basically means "without", and is used for negating verbs, although not always: in the imperative you'll still use 不, although the written imperative will sometimes fall back on 毋.非 is used to negate adjectival terms, and is the exact opposite of 是. I rarely heard it in speech. 未 is also a negation word meaning "not yet" or "cannot", and there's a couple lects which use 甭 for "don't", whose meaning can be inferred from its composition. Folly Mox (talk) 18:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also there's 否, "nay", which is used for voting on things and only in compounds in speech. I have honestly never looked at our Chinese grammar articles so I'm not sure how thorough our own stuff is. Folly Mox (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Is 別 short for 不要, "don't"? I can't remember but that sounds not entirely inaccurate. Folly Mox (talk) 18:20, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh right I forgot in speech 沒有 is sometimes contracted to 沒, so it can be used as a negation word on its own, as in "沒事": "no problem". Folly Mox (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 沒有 is also used for negating quantities, like "沒有人", "沒有那麼多", and several other things besides. I should probably stop before I remember more undergraduate Chinese at everyone one use case at a time. Folly Mox (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of that as one other use of 有 – it is used where in English you would use the form "there is". So instead of "there is food on the table" you would say 桌子上有食物, literally "the table top has food". And 沒 negates it: 桌子上没有食物， "there is no food on the table". The other major use I know is describing completed actions in the past, i.e. things described using the perfect tense, which also uses "have" in English. --2A04:4A43:90AF:FAB6:D12C:EFE3:C0C2:2409 (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the existence or presence of something is such a common use for the verb 有 that I didn't think about it. I will clarify that the perfective aspect has its own particle, 了, which English speakers learning Chinese tend to want to be past tense, but isn't. In formal written Chinese this function is typically accomplished with 已, but it precedes the main verb rather than taking a clause-final position. Folly Mox (talk) 20:03, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I just thought of a fourth question recently. Is 是 only used when the would-be object is or at least contains a noun? I know it isn’t used with just adjectives (for example, you don’t say 他是高). Primal Groudon (talk) 14:18, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, normally; it's not ungrammatical though, when used with an adjective it makes the statement very emphatic. Also sometimes it arises when translating a phrase with an adjective as the Chinese equivalent uses a noun: "I am English" -> 我是英国人.--2A04:4A43:90AF:FAB6:D12C:EFE3:C0C2:2409 (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It's been awhile since I've had to deal with spoken modern Chinese, but it feels low key ungrammatical to me: 他是高的 feels more natural. One thing to keep in mind is that adjectives aren't substantially their own category: they can all be used as verbs, depending on the construction of the sentence. Folly Mox (talk) 18:06, 16 October 2023 (UTC)