Spathology? Two-Handed Saber?

[Gene Tausk]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "base grammar?" I see a connection between necessary building blocks (subject, verb, modifiers) but things get a little funny after that (inverted word order, transposed word order, extended attrinute clauses (which I love)).
Languages and fun, sometimes I think those two words only go together in my dreams...

-Jeremiah

Language is sooo fun. For me at least.

You've already identified a lot of that "base grammar" in those connections between building blocks. Grammer is the blueprint or the glue that allows a string of words to mean something other than their individual definitions. German and English work on the same base, although the English base has deteriorated horribly over the last 1000 years. If you look at Old English--think Beowulf--you'll find it completely unintelligible...unless you (a) learn the differences in the alphabet and then (b) pretend that it's German. Now you'll be able to read quite a bit of it. More than an English-only speaker, at least.

If you look at middle English--this is Chaucer--already you'll understand a lot more. Between German and French you'll understand lots.

Then get to George Silver or Shakespeare, and you have what's called Early Modern English. You understand almost all of it.

This shows a few things. First, you see how Germanic English was. Second you'll see that while the Vocabulary changes wildly, the grammar--or structure that the vocab fits in--hasn't changed all that much. Oh, sure, it's gotten blander and simultaneously more complicated (through a host of exceptions), but it's still the same.

In fact, almost anything you learn in school nowadays as an "exception" is actually a leftover Germanic rule. Examples:

Plural of Ox -> Oxes? nope...Oxen
Spelling of Laugh, Cough, Through, Knight, etc.? All mirror the middle or old english pronunciation...which you'll recognize in german as well:
Through -> Durch (Th-> D, gh -> ch)
Knight -> knecht
Sword -> Swert (again, t-> d)

All of your "grammar" words--that is Pronouns, articles, etc., are derived from German. Compare

English / German
through / durch
the / der, die, das
under / unter
over / ober, uber
to / zu
on / an
she / sie
they / sie
thou (early modern english) / du
we / wir
me / mich
this / das, dies
is / ist

You also see the base grammar relation in our morphology, mostly in our verbs. Other examples are covered above, in some plurals (oxen, brethren, mouse/mice, etc), and pronouns (she/sie, etc). This is more obvious when you use older, Shakespearean versions of English verbs, which were less "lazy."

(to) have / (zu) haben
I have / Ich habe
thou hast / Du hast (mich gefragt...Rammstein fans, anyone?)
he has / Er hat
we have / wir haben
you,ye have / ihr haben
they have / sie haben

A couple of observations.
First, the infinitive is formed the same way.
Second, the obvious connections in pronouns. Ich and I are obvious, as are thou and du, we and wir, you and ihr, and they and sie.
Third, the "thou" version of the verbs are identical
Fourth, the "he" version of the verb is similar in that it is the shortest of the lot, is created using a dental consonant (bear with me here), and is an exception to the spelling/structure of the infinitive of the verb
Fifth, the we, you, and they forms of the verb are the same, and come directly from the infinitive.

English lost the "thou hast" form when we went to referring to everyone by the formal second-person plural "you," or "ye," as you see it in the Bible. There is, gramatically, no longer a "familiar" form of address in English pronouns. Because of that there's no longer a distinct difference between you (one person) and you (plural), hence the commonality of constructs like "you guys" or "y'all" to refer to multiple "you's." English, as recently as the 1600s, didn't have that problem. But I digress.

I hope that serves as a decent primer.

Jake

Agree with Jake that language is fun. Kenneth Katzner, a Slavic linguist, once said that a person who speaks only one language is like a rich person who lives in a mansion but stays in only one room.

It is beyond argument that English is a Germanic language and Jake's primer gives excellent examples of this. Because of many factors, not the least of which was the Norman invasion of England in 1066, much of our vocabulary can be traced to Latin/French roots. It also gave English a bifurcated vocabulary between consumers and producers (producers - Saxons, consumers - Normans) which does not exist in many other languages.

Ex: Sheep/mutton
Swine/pork
Cow/beef

Jeremiah, regarding your comment on plattdeutch and hochdeutch - my dad and uncle are fluent German speakers but they learned hochdeutch. In Switzerland, they had such a hard time understanding the Schweitzerdeutch (form of plattdeutch) they asked the speakers to switch to English or French! They could, of course, read a newspaper with no problems.

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

Gene,
Thank you for the term "plattdeutsch" I couldn't remember the proper German way of saying it, thanks.

Jake,
Thank you for the very thorough explanation. I hadn't associated the connection of the third person singular between both German and English. I can now better understand the connection between the two. I was thinking along the lines of a case based language (which German is (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative)), and a purely word order based language (which English is, and also Hebrew interestingly enough (another influence?)). But I wasn't looking as closely as you were, hence my not seeing it, so thank you (I was thinking of sentence structure and grammar, not the individual words).
I wholeheartedly agree with you that English has become blander and blander as it continues and get more complicated. I think all things would have been easier understood if we had just stuck with the German. It certainly would make studying the manuals easier...

I find language work to be tedious, but that might just be the Exegetical side of it. I do enjoy being able to speak in different languages, I only wish more people did so that it would be easier to use and learn. But I am reminded of a joke:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?

a Poly-glot.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

Bi-lingual.

What do yo call someone who speaks one language?

an American.

Not entirely true, but as a linguist, I found it amusing.

Anyway, thanks for the pointers and eye openers, much appreciated.

-Jeremiah

[Jake_Norwood]

English is a case-based language too...it's just blanded-out to pronouns only. Compare He to him, she to her, I to me, etc.

Jake

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

To be more accurate in what I was saying (I should spend more time thinking than writing...).

Yes, Pronouns do retain a limited case identification. What I was trying to show was that nouns do not have an inflected case identification for the most part, of course there are exceptions (it is a language so there cannot be hard and fast rules). But not being an inflected language in large part the identification of the cases such as they are in other languages (German, French, Italian, etc.) are not identified (read: inflected), and the role that the word plays in a sentence is mostly dictated by word positioning (and prepositions). I have heard it said that "Subject, Object, etc." are modern English cases. I suppose I can see that (in relation to how other languages use inflected cases) but I am more prone to say that word order is governing in English rather than cases (such as in relation to other language inflection). I would say that those are jobs being filled by the words depending on their position.

The essence of a case based is that the form of the word can vary based on how it is being used in a sentence. In English the form is the same but the role it plays is determined by word order (and prepositions).

From your comparisons, is it notable that we never use only “him, her,” or “me.” We will say “to him, for her,” and “with me.” The preposition holds the power. A vestige of case(inflection) may be “who” and “whom.”

[Jake_Norwood]

We have two very active cases in English still, actually: the Nominitive (obviously), and the Genitive.

Jake, Jake's. Dog, dog's, cheese, cheese's, me-my-mine. All possessive pronouns are also technically just a regular pronoun in the genitive, though this is more obvious in the "mine" and "theirs" free-standing forms.

Who and whom are excellent examples of residual case inflection (case is there, whether the inflection is apparent or not), but they fall under pronouns, which I already covered.

Also, case inflected pronouns such as "him, her," do exist without prepositions when in any case other than Nominative (Subject), not just with prepositions. Example: He lovers her, but she hates him.

I agree that English, which is a Syntax-heavy agglutinizing (inflected) language, is on it's way to become word order (sytax) only. If not for writing we probably would already have gone there.

The catch, of course, is that all languages do that, as they drift from Morphology-heavy to Syntax-heavy and back again over centuries. Writing slows the process dramatically, as it codifies the language over periods of time.

None of this makes English any less Germanic...just less obviously so.

[david welch]

Jeremiah, regarding your comment on plattdeutch and hochdeutch - my dad and uncle are fluent German speakers but they learned hochdeutch. In Switzerland, they had such a hard time understanding the Schweitzerdeutch (form of plattdeutch) they asked the speakers to switch to English or French! They could, of course, read a newspaper with no problems.

When I lived in Bremen, I found it amusing that if you bought an album from Southern Germany, it included a translation.

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

Jake,
I think that we might be tlaking past each other, I would really like to know what your definition of a "case-based" language is. This might help for a more fruitful discussion.

-Jeremiah

[Jake_Norwood]

Jeremiah,

What I think you're referring to with "cased based languages" are those which have a readily apparent case-morphology structure. Languages like Latin, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Hungarian, and (to a lesser extent) German. We're not talking past each other, I think. I'm just trying to show that English is also a readily apparent case-based language by your definition as well--you just have to look a little harder (okay, so maybe not as "readily apparent" then...LOL).

I may have misspoken as well when I said that "all" languages are case-based, since Chinese, for example, which exhibits essentially zero morphology, could be argued as a no-case language. Then again, Chinese uses seperate words to denote case, which is only one step away from Finno-Ulgaric style morphology (they just haven't compounded the words yet)...so I may not have. Depends on a viewpoint that is probably more granular than we need to go here.

So I suggest a common working definition. A "Case based language," for purposes of our discussion, refers to a language that uses morphology, not syntax or "helping words," to denote a noun's, pronoun's or adjective's funcitonal role (subject, ablative construct, instrumental construct, object of a verb, object of a preposition, adjective modifying either, etc.) in favor of Syntax.

Under this definition, Latin, Finnish, Polish, Russian, etc. are "Strongly case-based" because the role of their morphology greatly overshadows the role of their syntax. German would be "somewhat case based," as syntax and morphology share a pretty equal load. English would be "marginally case-based" as syntax carries most of the load, however a change in morphology will still effect meaning more than a change in syntax (cue Yoda speech for an example: "Found him, you have," is a classic example of Morphology trumping speech in English--it sounds funny because it breaks syntax, but it's meaning is no less understood because it does not break morphology, here represented as "case" in the pronouns).

Are we on the same page here?

Jake

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

Jeremiah,

What I think you're referring to with "cased based languages" are those which have a readily apparent case-morphology structure. Languages like Latin, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Hungarian, and (to a lesser extent) German. We're not talking past each other, I think. I'm just trying to show that English is also a readily apparent case-based language by your definition as well--you just have to look a little harder (okay, so maybe not as "readily apparent" then...LOL).

I may have misspoken as well when I said that "all" languages are case-based, since Chinese, for example, which exhibits essentially zero morphology, could be argued as a no-case language. Then again, Chinese uses seperate words to denote case, which is only one step away from Finno-Ulgaric style morphology (they just haven't compounded the words yet)...so I may not have. Depends on a viewpoint that is probably more granular than we need to go here.

So I suggest a common working definition. A "Case based language," for purposes of our discussion, refers to a language that uses morphology, not syntax or "helping words," to denote a noun's, pronoun's or adjective's funcitonal role (subject, ablative construct, instrumental construct, object of a verb, object of a preposition, adjective modifying either, etc.) in favor of Syntax.

Under this definition, Latin, Finnish, Polish, Russian, etc. are "Strongly case-based" because the role of their morphology greatly overshadows the role of their syntax. German would be "somewhat case based," as syntax and morphology share a pretty equal load. English would be "marginally case-based" as syntax carries most of the load, however a change in morphology will still effect meaning more than a change in syntax (cue Yoda speech for an example: "Found him, you have," is a classic example of Morphology trumping speech in English--it sounds funny because it breaks syntax, but it's meaning is no less understood because it does not break morphology, here represented as "case" in the pronouns).

Are we on the same page here?

Jake

I suppose we are on the same page. Using your suggestion as our working definition I can agree, with caveat. The reason I say that English is not a case based language is because it only marginally retains case morphology. Yoda speech is an excellent example of understanding out of order syntax (but sometimes I really couldn't understand him...). I refer you to studies that show that as lnog as the frist and lsat leettrs of a wrod are in the porepr position the word will be understood. This I think shows less of a reliance in English on morphology and more on syntax.
Saying that English is moderately case based seems a hard way in my mind to say that. I think that using ancient terms (of cases) to desribe the using of a living language. I am not saying that we do not have cases in English, according to our definition that would be foolish. I think what people will look at in one language and identify as a case and usage tells us in English usage, though the case remains it is not the primary point of relation to other words in the sentence (in English). That is why I don't like to say that English is a case based language.

I must say, this is the most fun I have had with language in a long time, Thanks Jake.

-Jeremiah

[Jake_Norwood]

Yeah, this is fun. Not like that "other" thread (*wink*).

I didn't say that English was moderately case based, however. It was marginally case-based. But yes, we agree that syntax is primary in English...but it is in German, too.

In linguistics circles (at least four years ago) the difference between a language like English, with dying but present and active cases, and a language without them (like Chinese), is considered huuuge...so I would be hesitant to say that, just because it isn't up there with syntax, that cases in English aren't enough to make it "based."

But we're getting into pretty granular semantics at that point.

Jake

[mgcantrell]

According to "The Online Etymological Dictionary" the term "spade" is "probably from It. spade, pl. of spada 'sword, spade,' from L. spatha 'broad, flat weapon or tool,' from Gk. spathe 'broad blade'."

Bottom line: "Spathology" is a perfectly acceptable word, and I shall strive to use it at every opportunity.

Just my 2 cents.

[mgcantrell]

And, incidently, it's "nit pick." Nits are the eggs of body lice. They are quite tiny, and anyone who picks them out of the hair of, say, school aged children, knows how very exacting one must be to do so.

Someone who nit picks is looking at the very smallest "infractions" of rules.

OK, I'll shut up now and go back to my hole.