Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 March 9

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[edit] March 9

[edit] A few terms: passive subjectivism, taboo, shifting temporal frame

Hello,

I've searched far and wide in the universe of language on the internet, but I can't come up with definitions to these words. Could you help me?

  • Passive subjectivism
  • Taboo--the metalanguage concept
  • Shifting temporal frame--grammatical sense

thx The Updater would like to talk to you! 01:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


for passive subjectivism i'd say, "the subconscience worldview that knowledge and value are dependent on and limited by your unique personal experiances"

Do you mean 'shifting temporal frame' in the grammatical sense? And what is the 'literary' sense of 'taboo' - sacred? — kwami (talk) 06:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay. I don't recall if I've ever heard the exact phrase "shifting temporal frame", but I can take a guess. I assume that it refers to the referents of a grammar with relative tense. In relative tense, past, present, and future (or whichever tenses the language has) of subordinate clauses are not defined in terms of now, the moment of speaking, but relative to the time under discussion, that is, relative to the tense of the main verb. So, for example, in English we say that "he decided that he would go yesterday" - 'will go' has to be in the past ('would go') because his departure is in the past. (In contrast, we'd say "he decided that he will go tomorrow." This is called 'absolute tense'.) If English had relative tense, we'd say "he decided that he will go yesterday", because at the time he made his decision, his departure was still in the future. That is, the tense of the first verb is relative to now, but for the second verb the temporal frame shifts to the time of that first verb.
It would be a lot easier if you gave the contexts of those phrases. — kwami (talk) 09:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] shaft in spanish

How do you say shaft in Spanish, specifically penis shaft? But other uses of the word also. And moreover how do you say stem, as in a flower? Carritotito (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

try an english-spanish dictionary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.218.26 (talk) 08:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Or you might try following interwiki links. Plant stem links to es:Tallo, and if you read es:Pene, you will find that 'tronco' is used. --NorwegianBlue talk 20:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

graciasCarritotito (talk) 21:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] phrase structure

please help me...... How to write five individual rules from the phrase structure below.

           T
AUX        M        (pm)        (perf)  (prog)
        -imper

and how to draw a tree diagram to account the phrase structure of this sentence:

The rowdy boys shouted when the teacher had left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Larince2829 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to criticize your teacher, but the first problem sounds like it comes from a rather old version of transformational linguistics dating from the first half of the 1960's ("affix hopping" and such). AnonMoos (talk) 10:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More than disapproval

I am struggling to find the single word that implies very great disapproval, especially as that disapproval which relates to a religious attitude. I suspect it begins with "in .... Any ideas please ?--Artjo (talk) 11:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

taboo, condemnation...that's all I have. User:WikiHaquinatorWould like to talk to you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.218.26 (talk) 11:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Add damnation, excommunication, censure, denunciation, anathema[tisation], proscription, and many others. But do you mean that the word itself begins with in-? [Placing on the] index, incrimination, inculpation, indictment, impeachment...? Take your pick. What's the need? What's the context?
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 11:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC).
Yes I believe that it does begin with 'In..." but I could be wrong. Context?, difficult to describe but I am an atheist and am invited to a family wedding between two parties of different races and religions. The word I want describes my feeling on the matter and will be my excuse for a reluctance to attend.--Artjo (talk) 12:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Show us the complete sentence you want to make, with the word itself missing. (Inquisition???)
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 12:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Intolerance is a word which describes disapproval of other races and religions, including the creed of fundamentalist atheists. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
So, do you want to say that you won't go to the wedding because you disapprove strongly of religion? Or because you disapprove of mixed marriages? SaundersW (talk) 19:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, and Yes, in the case of MY family--Artjo (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I think I have got it, 'UNETHICAL'. I just knew it began with 'in' !! Thanks for all your thoughts and trouble.--Artjo (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

(resetting indent) Maybe that's the word you were searching for, but it doesn't really relate to the question you originally posed. You may consider it unethical or hypocritical for you to attend because you disapprove of mixed marriages, or marriage at all, and I'd support that principled stance (while not pretending to understand the reasons for your disapproval). But it's not true to say that unethical implies very great disapproval. What's ethical for one person may be unethical for another, because each person has their own unique set of principles and values. Just because a person does something that you disapprove of, that does not make their action "unethical". What the parties who are marrying are doing is probably ethical for them, otherwise why would they do it? If it's a free choice, they're the only ones who can make it. If you believe that they're being forced into an unwanted marriage by their parents or whatever, or there's some illegality involved, that's a different matter, and depending on the circumstances you might be duty bound to report it to the relevant authorities, not just choose to stay away. But if it's just a case of "mixed marriages are fine in general, but not in MY family", there's no principle involved there. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Mixed sex marriages ?
Disgusting !
--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

From what you said above, it looks more like you find it "inexcusable", indefensible, inappropriate (for you to be there), intolerable (as in the line from Ian Paisley: I will nutt tarh-leh-ray-ar-tett!). Wouldn't it be enough to say, you're busy? Julia Rossi (talk) 21:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It would certainly lead to less drama, and sounds like very good advice. But I have a feeling that drama is perhaps the goal here. - Nunh-huh 03:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Drama is far from the goal, and I don't tell lies!--Artjo (talk) 12:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
"Hello, thanks for the invitation, but I will be unable to attend." HYENASTE 13:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Hyenaste beat me to it, but yes, if drama is "far from the goal" then one simply extends regrets with no further explanation. Attempting to shift the focus of the invitation to one's self is what is intolerable, unethical, and inexcusable, inappropriate . . . . --LarryMac | Talk 13:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] England and Wales

Is there an easier way to refer to the region consisting of England and Wales than "England and Wales"? 67.201.161.119 (talk) 15:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

In previous eras "England" often meant England and Wales, while "England proper" meant England without Wales, but some might now find that objectionable... AnonMoos (talk) 15:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't believe that there is. You may also get some useful responses on the Humanities reference desk. Carom (talk) 20:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
If you live in Scotland, of course, you can refer to it dismissively as "down south". Gwinva (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Although, now that I think about it, in the later period of the Roman occupation, the Romans referred to everything south of Hadrian's Wall (meaning England and Wales) as "Britannia" and everything north of the wall as "Caledonia." In more recent times, "Britannia" has taken on a broader meaning, so I wouldn't recommend using it to describe England and Wales in a modern setting. Carom (talk) 20:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that there is no better way than "England and Wales". When the news talks about new laws, etc they use the phrase "England and Wales", e.g. [1]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Q Chris (talk • contribs) 12:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course, "The Southern United Kindom" may prove to be a bit too long. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 02:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Words ending "LT"

Resolved.

How can I come up with a list of words ending with "lt"?--86.146.241.92 (talk) 18:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Check http://www.morewords.com/ends-with/lt/. This gives a list of 144 entries. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
That's what I'm after - thanks!--86.146.241.92 (talk) 18:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
You are welcome. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of extinct languages

How do we know how Old English or Latin were pronounced? --Taraborn (talk) 20:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

As we don´t really know how the tetragrammaton was (or is) pronounced, linguists are mainly reverse engineering with the aid of many educated guesses. A few archaic dialects, which may not have changed much in x centuries are useful, as well.
Old English has the added advantage that it is spelled as it was pronounced.
Latin would seem more difficult as Classical Latin was a written language, whilst normal communication took place using vulgar Latin.
Try communicating for a full day in iambic pentameters and you may seriously consider the carrer of a Trappist monk quoting Wittgenstein´s tractatus. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
There are various works of scholarship on the pronunciation of dead languages, such as this one and Vox Latina by William Sidney Allen. They base their research on poetry, which indicates how one word would sound in relation to another, on transliterations into other languages, which show how the words sounded to foreigners, and on various guides to pronunciation written contemporaneously. SaundersW (talk) 22:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
You're not quite right about Old English, Cockatoo. To the best of our knowledge, orthographic c and g, for two examples, represented multiple phonemes, depending on phonetic environment, whereas the two graphemes ð and þ were used indiscriminately to represent the same pair of phonemes. While not incorrect, it's also a bit misleading to say (to someone familiar with MnE spelling conventions) that words containing such digraphs as sc (= [ʃ]) and cg (= [dʒ]) were spelled as they were pronounced. Deor (talk) 02:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Also try reading [comparative method] to see how we can make good guesses as to how languages have changed in the past and work out how they might have been pronounced. Steewi (talk) 01:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't spelling variants also used as clues to determine pronunciation? --213.114.217.80 (talk) 07:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] [2] from Marathi language, alphabet and pronunciation

"Marathi first appeared in writing during the 11th century in the form of inscriptions on stones and copper plates. From the 13th century until the mid 20th century, it was written with the Modi alphabet. Since 1950 it has been written with the Devanāgarī alphabet."

What was the script Marathi first appeared in "...during the 11th century in the form of inscriptions on stones and copper plates."? Thanks.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 22:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably Brahmi. The World's Writing Systems, p. 373, says "Brāhmī was used in all parts of India except the north-western regions ... by around 1000 C.E., the situation approximated the modern picture in which the Brāhmī-derived scripts have developed to the point that they are in effect independent scripts." --ColinFine (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)