language

Mar. 4th, 2007 02:42 pm
[personal profile] thedarkproject
English is strange.

In the simple past tense, we say "I solved" but to negate it, we say "I didn't solve"? Not only do you add in the negation as you might expect, but you have to add the auxiliary verb "did" because you can't negate normal verbs (unlike French where you surround it with 'ne' and then something like 'pas' or 'jamais' to signify the type of negation), which then means the original verb gets changed to match the auxiliary, so it becomes almost a different tense entirely.

But in the future tense, you can interchange "I will solve" and "I won't solve" easily enough with no confusion. Unless you start thinking about what the hell "won't" actually stands for.

At the moment I'm trying to teach myself Old English from a book, which is actually going better than I had expected, although even back then there seem to be a lot of irregularities much like the above one in Modern English. A year or two back, I posted on here about the attempt to translate Wikipedia into Old English. Back then it was all gobbledegook to me; now I can actually get the general gist of some of the articles. Maybe it'll inspire me back into learning German eventually.

Date: 2007-03-04 03:49 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
We say 'I solved' as shorthand for 'I did solve', which is perfectly logical in relation to 'I did not solve'.

It's only the contractions that bugger everything up, kids nowadays eh...

bmxbandit rob (bored and reading friends lists...)

Date: 2007-03-04 04:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wood-elf.livejournal.com
I'm not sure 'I solved' is shorthand for 'I did solve', even if they share the same negative form. Could be that whatever the correct way of negating the simple past was has fallen out of usage, so the way of negating the emphatic tenses (I didn't) has been tacked on to serve for both of them. Not totally sure about that. But it seems like there's a gap where past tense negation should be.

Arabic negation of the past also puts the sentence into the present tense - and interestingly, negating the future also has that effect. Then again, Arabic is sensible enough to have negating words that are different for each tense so you can tell them apart (lam + present negates the past, lan + present subjunctive negates the future...)

I intend to learn Old English one day. It's never going to be useful, but hey, it's fun.

Date: 2007-03-04 04:44 pm (UTC)
ext_620: (Default)
From: [identity profile] velvetchamber.livejournal.com
It's the Gaelic looking words that confuse me in my attempts at comprehending Old English. Apart from those it looks like a weird mix of German, Icelandic and English with "C"s thrown in everywhere.

Date: 2007-03-04 10:36 pm (UTC)
ext_620: (Default)
From: [identity profile] velvetchamber.livejournal.com
It's not the "æ"s, I am quite used to those, although I am not used to the stroke above it. It's words like "nīwlicum" that look queer to me

Date: 2007-03-04 10:55 pm (UTC)
ext_620: (Default)
From: [identity profile] velvetchamber.livejournal.com
I do not think so, judging from the context I found it in. I found it in this sentence here on the page on the second world war:

Sēo Ōðru Woruldgūþ wæs blōdigosta, deorwierþosta, and hīehst gūþ on nīwlicum stǣre.

I also notice that some of the modern stuff in there seems to borrow from Icelandic, and adapt it to Old English. Like the word for radio (which I can't find again) looks like an adaptation of the Icelandic word for radio: "Útvarp". Which is neat, since it is a composite of the words "út" (out) and the verp "varpa" (to throw), essentially meaning to broadcast, and these words can both be found in Old English and hence the composite is easy and looks fairly natural to me.

Date: 2007-03-04 11:13 pm (UTC)
ext_620: (Default)
From: [identity profile] velvetchamber.livejournal.com
It does mean history, or at any rate that's the name of the category that also includes the battle of Hastings. That still leaves the mystery of where the original word comes from. In Icelandic knowledge can be any one of these words: Þekking, kunnátta, vitneskja, vitund or viska. In German I know these words for knowledge: Wissen, Ehrfahrung and Erkenntnis, none of which really match with "nīwlicum" or knowledge. Do you have any bright ideas?

Date: 2007-03-04 05:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bloggerofdeath.livejournal.com
you're one of these E-Prime people aren't you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

picky

Date: 2007-03-04 07:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lost-in-moose.livejournal.com
What I find most entertaining about all of this is that everyone thinks languages have to be logical, efficient, deterministic and non-reducible. Language; it's syntax, grammar and all of its paraphernalia associated tenses clauses/bullshit etc etc etc all started off as grunts, nose picking and some ear waggling no doubt followed by being or NOT being hit by a rock.

And you want the damned tenses to follow a decent lexical construct? OPTIMIST ALERT!

Re: picky

Date: 2007-03-04 10:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lost-in-moose.livejournal.com
In that case I think it's because people don't think of abbreviations as multiple words. Don't, Didn't, won't, can't and others are all single words in our heads. Indeed they exist so that we can collapse multiple things into simpler terms that take less effort to use and arguably to think about.

Whether these simplifications are a good thing, or even the correct ansewr, is another matter.

Re: picky

Date: 2007-03-04 10:58 pm (UTC)
ext_620: (Default)
From: [identity profile] velvetchamber.livejournal.com
"I solven't" sounds better (and more amusing) than "I not solved", in my opinion : þ

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