English Pet Peeves

[dicemanx]

Like mixing up genitive/accusative/nominative?

It's more dative/accusitive, but yeah.

Most case mistakes are accusative/nominative IMHO

Some examples please? I wasn't formally taught grammar in high school.

[Dr. Sylvan]

They're talking about German. AFAIK, English doesn't have cases. I don't know German, but I don't think it's a fully inflected language---someone who knows it should correct me. In Russian and Latin, word order is virtually irrelevant because every part of the sentence is in a case that distinguishes its function: nominative for the subject, accusative for the direct object, genitive for possession, etc. Each case has distinct endings for singular/plural and for the gender of the word being declined (in Russian, most of those combinations have two possible endings depending on whether the word needs a hard or soft vowel). Russian was only systematized in, IIRC, the early 1900s by the commies, so it's actually a pretty organized language, and now that I'm taking Latin I can see the glaring similarities.

For each of them, memorizing a big table of word endings and reasons to use a certain case is probably the most important element of learning the basics of the language. This probably accounts for my doing well studying them. :)

[rvs]

For each of them, memorizing a big table of word endings and reasons to use a certain case is probably the most important element of learning the basics of the language. This probably accounts for my doing well studying them.

It only matters in written language though. In spoken language nobody gives a shit about conjegations of words. (at the very least, they don't care _much_)

[Bram]

In spoken language nobody gives a shit about conjegations of words.

Erm...have you ever *been* to a country where they use 'naamvallen' (as these cases are called in dutch)? They use them intuitively, but no less correctly because of it.

Take Latin for example. Granted, you have a dead language there, but in the past spoken Latin very much so used the cases Dr. Sylvan mentioned. Because of the absence of 'lidwoorden' (words like 'the'....the english terminology for these eludes me) and the absence of any formal order in their sentence structure* the language would be absolutely unintelligible if it weren't for those very cases. Latin is one hardcore formal language with virtually no weird exceptions (unlike Dutch, where there are so many, that's it's almost an exception if you stumble across something that actually goes by the rules). It's all logic, much like, say, tlhIngan Hol.

Example: "Asswhooping Phil Rudy gave." Who gave who the asswhooping? Without cases, there's no way of knowing in Latin.


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* ofcourse people didn't just mix words together randomly. While you could still discern the appropriate meaning had they in fact done so, ofcourse certian informal, 'unwritten' rules emerged about placement of words. The absence of formal rules regarding this meant that poets had a great deal of liberty, which accounts for some of the more astounding poetry written in ancient times.

[jpmeyer]

They're talking about German. AFAIK, English doesn't have cases. I don't know German, but I don't think it's a fully inflected language---someone who knows it should correct me. In Russian and Latin, word order is virtually irrelevant because every part of the sentence is in a case that distinguishes its function: nominative for the subject, accusative for the direct object, genitive for possession, etc. Each case has distinct endings for singular/plural and for the gender of the word being declined (in Russian, most of those combinations have two possible endings depending on whether the word needs a hard or soft vowel). Russian was only systematized in, IIRC, the early 1900s by the commies, so it's actually a pretty organized language, and now that I'm taking Latin I can see the glaring similarities.

For each of them, memorizing a big table of word endings and reasons to use a certain case is probably the most important element of learning the basics of the language. This probably accounts for my doing well studying them.

I always thought that the term was "agglutinative" for languages where you stick stuff on the end of words to indicate what their relationship to the sentence is.  Or I might be thinking of something slightly different.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Yeah, Bram has it right. I can tell you right now the only way my Russian teacher made any sense is by hearing both the root of the word for definition reasons, and the ending of the word so I could know who was doing what. Sometimes the fastest way to think through it was to listen for prepositions that you know are directly followed by their objects (e.g., "vuh obshehjheeti'i" would be "in the dormitory" and I swear that's the best Romanization of the Cyrillic I can manage), but for things like the direct object and indirect object, you really have to hear the accusative and dative endings to get the message.

Oh and it doesn't help that in Russian, all present tense "to be" verbs are implied. ALL. Try looking at a sentence without a verb, where the subject comes last. It is the nuttiest thing after a lifetime of subject-verb-predicate-no-exceptions-unless-you're-Yoda.

Edit: Agglutinative is a word I have never heard before in my life but the dictionary says "Linguistics. The formation of words from morphemes that retain their original forms and meanings with little change during the combination process." I have no idea whether that is the same thing as inflected language, but inflected language is what my classical civ doctoral student Latin TA calls it, and she's so hardcore she actually deciphered Elvish herself when she read LotR in junior high, right before she skipped all four years of high school. So I'm voting with her until I get compelling evidence to the contrary. :-P

[rvs]

No, Bram is not totally correct, since using Latin as an example for spoken language is flawed by nature, since there are no precise records how it was spoken exactly. Also, spoken language has more ways of adding meaning to a sentence than just conjegations.

[Dr. Sylvan]

But Russian, as a spoken language, is a 100% good example, and it's the same as Latin: nonsense without accurate endings. This:

It only matters in written language though. In spoken language nobody gives a shit about conjegations of words. (at the very least, they don't care _much_)

makes no sense after trying to talk in Russian classes for two years. When a classmate heard a different case ending from what the teacher said (there are about five different "ee" sounds in Russian, IIRC, and they are scattered through a couple of cases), the sentence made no sense. I'm obviously no native speaker, but my Russian teacher lived in Russia for years, and his wife is a native speaker, so this is hardly ivory tower, manuscript-only Latin here.

[Bram]

No, Bram is not totally correct, since using Latin as an example for spoken language is flawed by nature, since there are no precise records how it was spoken exactly.

BEEEEEEP! Wrong.

For one thing, there ARE precise records of how it was spoken. The very poems I mentioned (thousands upon thousands of them) have been analysed by cunning linguists (so to speak ;-). A lot, if not everything, can be discerned from these. The most obvious example is when a word with a slightly different-looking ending (so that questions may arise as to the correct pronounciation) appears at the end of a sentence which is meant to rhyme with the sentence above er below it, we suddenly know how they said the word. Infiniteley more subtle examples exists (pertaining to alliteration, metrum and assonance, for example).

But, MUCH more importantly: it doesn't even matter if we knew NOTHING about how they pronounced it. Logically, they HAD to use cases because as a result of the very structure of their language, they couldn't make themselves understandable to others otherwise. Heck, if they were to go around omitting endings of words, nobody could figure out what anybody was saying at all. Cultures with this problem tend to beomce extinct before they conquer virtually all of the known world like the Romans did ;-)

[MuzzonoAmi]

Actually, AFIK, English does indeed have cases, but since there are no endings associted with these other than ('s in the Genative) no one really notices.

So I'm going to assume that I do have to perfect these case endings.

[Matt]

English does have cases, the same ones as German, from which they inherited them. But they also had the good sense to drop the nasty endings, so it can be hard to tell the cases apart.

'lidwoorden' (words like 'the'....the english terminology for these eludes me)

Definite article(s).

[TracerBullet]

English has only three of the cases remaining- The Dative and Accusative have merged into one.


Funny part is, English did away with the inflexion system of German over a thousand years ago, and instead went with the use of prepositional phrases to convey meaning.


Consider- The nominative case of "stone" in Old English was "Sa", with a line above the a, pronounced "se", as in "say".

The accusative was "stan", as in "schtawn",  the Genetive was "Schtawnes", and the Dative was "schtawne".


In old english, to say "the stone hit the king", you would be able to say "stan [hit] kinga[pronounced kuniga]", or "kinga [hit] stan", as the inflexion would indicate who was hitting and who was being hit.  We replaced those inflexions with "The stone hit theking", with noun order becoming important.

If you had wanted to say "The king hit the stone" in OE, it would be "King [hit] stan" or "stan [hit] king".  Once again, order doesn't matter because the meaning is conveyed in the inflexions, not the order.

Modern English actually still has the cases, but they're conveyed through prepositional phrases now rather than inflexions on the ends of words.  Additionally, as I said earlier, the Accusative and the Dative [the direct object and indirect object] cases have merged.

Consider- "I bought the present for Zherbus" could also be "I bought Zherbus for the present" although in this case it'd be slightly non-sensical.

And to think, I dropped my History and Structure of the English Language class...

[jpmeyer]

Edit: Agglutinative is a word I have never heard before in my life but the dictionary says "Linguistics. The formation of words from morphemes that retain their original forms and meanings with little change during the combination process." I have no idea whether that is the same thing as inflected language, but inflected language is what my classical civ doctoral student Latin TA calls it, and she's so hardcore she actually deciphered Elvish herself when she read LotR in junior high, right before she skipped all four years of high school. So I'm voting with her until I get compelling evidence to the contrary.

After doing some more research, they both relate to totally different parts of the language.  Agglutinative is about word creation than word differentiation, like how in German they make up tons of crazy words like "Rheinschiffbootfahrt".  Inflection is the stuff like mein/meine/meinen/meiner/meinem/usw.

[Bram]

"Rheinschiffbootfahrt".

Funny you should mention that, because ever since the 'Ringel-S' (that 'double s' character that looked like a B) was officially dropped from the language mere years ago, 'Flussschifffahrt' became one of the weirdest looking words (and possibly the only one with a DOUBLE occurrance of a triple consonant) in existence.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Tracer, what do you mean we use prepositional phrases instead of inflection? Russian and Latin both use prepositional phrases a lot, they're just followed by the case appropriate to their purpose (accusative or ablative AFAIK in Latin, accusative, dative, prepositional, or instrumental in Russian).

JP, does agglutination also cover things like when I just add suffixes and prefixes to words? "That post was so Smmenenesque", "I am impressed with your Smmenenosity", and "That metagame was in the anteParagons period" would be examples.

[jpmeyer]

Yes.  Those are considered morphemes.

[kl0wn]

Speaking of Old English, I really hate malt liquor.

[jpmeyer]

"Rheinschiffbootfahrt".

Funny you should mention that, because ever since the 'Ringel-S' (that 'double s' character that looked like a B) was officially dropped from the language mere years ago, 'Flussschifffahrt' became one of the weirdest looking words (and possibly the only one with a DOUBLE occurrance of a triple consonant) in existence.

"Imbissstube" also looks weird, because of the symmetry.  Four letters in front, four in the back, and three s's in the middle.

[dandan]

Actually, AFIK, English does indeed have cases, but since there are no endings associted with these other than ('s in the Genative) no one really notices.

So I'm going to assume that I do have to perfect these case endings.

English still has I - me, he - him, she - her, we - us, they - them (there is another one but my brain isn't working yet). Most accusative/nominative mistakes involve misuse of 'me'. Genative and possessive 's is a long story but regular genative exist (That is the Lotus of Dandan as opposed to That is Dandan's Lotus).

Slovak has cases and I promise you nobody will understand you if you don't use them. For example if you see Peter you have to say 'Vidim Petra' (it is unnecessary to say 'Ja' - 'I') despite the fact that there is no Petra around. It is important to known your peters from your Petras especially after a few drinks when you are looking for a hot Slovak girl to fornicate with.

[Bram]

(accusative or ablative AFAIK in Latin, accusative, dative, prepositional, or instrumental in Russian).

Latin has six cases:
-nominativus
-accusativus
-genitivus
-dativus
-ablativus
-vocativus
...and the endings for those are determined my the gender of the word (male typically ending in -us, female typically ending in -a, neutral typically ending in -um). Oh yeah, and the cases obv. also have different endings depending on whether or not the word is plural.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Oh I know the six cases (I'm in Latin 101 right now), I was only listing those that could follow prepositions, and ablative/accusative are the only two I've seen so far. In Russian the Latin ablative has been turned into prepositional and instrumental cases for different purposes, because the ablative communicated too many different things.

[Komatteru]

Latin has six cases:
-nominativus
-accusativus
-genitivus
-dativus
-ablativus
-vocativus
...and the endings for those are determined my the gender of the word (male typically ending in -us, female typically ending in -a, neutral typically ending in -um). Oh yeah, and the cases obv. also have different endings depending on whether or not the word is plural.

Don't forget the declensions--there's 5 of them.  Not that many words end in -us or -a.  The 3rd declension is the largest by quite a bit, and its words end in pretty much anything (never -us or -a though).  The declension of a noun is determined by its genitive case: -ae for 1st, -i for 2nd, -is for 3rd, -us for 4th, -es for 5th.  There's also a I-stem in the 3rd declension.  Examples of a noun in each declension are puella (girl, 1st), animus (spirit, 2nd), ager -> agris (field, 2nd), puer -> pueris (boy, 2nd), mater -> matris (mother, 3rd), manus -> manus (hand, 4th), res -> res (thing, 5th).  Latin also has neuter nouns, and they appear in the second and third declensions (I can't remember if there are any 4th or 5th, but I can't think of any).  Declining puella in full with plurals gives:
Nom. puella / puellae
Gen. puellae / puellarum
Dat. puellae / puellis
Acc. puellam / puellas
Abl. puella (long a) / puellis
Voc. puella / puellae

The Vocative case is not always counted as a real case, since it is always the same except for 2nd declension nouns that end in -us.  In my example above, animus has vocative form anime.  We used to have to include it when we had to decline in full, but by the 3rd year, we didn't have to bother anymore.

All the cases had a bunch of uses.  Ablative has about 10000 uses, the most basic of which was object of a preposition (some prepositions take accusative instead).  There were other advanced constructions such as ablative absolute and a bunch of others I don't remember.

Man, I miss that language.  

[dandan]

Anyone genuinely interested in Latin can find useful information on its use in a practical context in Monty Python's Life of Brian.