Help With Grammar

[Olowkow]

French subjunctive has much less weight in the language. And English subjunctive is which qualifies as a historical remnant, not Spanish subjunctive. ....

The historical remnant I was referring to is the syntactic difference between positive vs. negative imperatives in Spanish, not the subjunctive. ¡Vete! ¡No te vayas!

 

[aleCcowaN]

The historical remnant I was referring to is the syntactic difference between positive vs. negative imperatives in Spanish, not the subjunctive. ¡Vete! ¡No te vayas!

That difference is what indeed CREATES Spanish subjunctive, so it hardly could be a remnant.

 

[Olowkow]

The question in the OP has already been addressed correctly as an example of hyper-correctness.

There are some deeper issues, such as "me" being the base form for the 1P singular, as when occurring in isolation. "Who is it?" "Me." (cf. moi in French, possibly a borrowed feature).

More likely just a case based rule in English. French has a class of emphatic and prepositional object pronouns: moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles, some of which happen to be the same as subject pronouns.

Yet since English adopted word order to overcome the ambiguities from the declining value of case markers in word suffixes (Old English was as inflected as modern German), to a more strict S-V-O order usually, the interplay between case markings (I/me/my/myself) and word order has been slightly weird.

[This process of the destruction of case markings is normally attributed to retrogressive stress in germanic languages. To see it in action over time, compare the word "garage" in BE and AE. American usage favors conserving the word as borrowed, British usage has yielded to pressure from within the language and made it more native, with stress on the beginning.]

Good example and very likely true. Plenty of counterexamples, but that's often the nature of language borrowings. "Paris" could have been [par-ee] easily enough through borrowing, and it seems few Americans can ever get the pronunciation of "coup de grâce" [kood-grahs] right.

When the "me" gets nearer the verb, "I" sounds better, when it is far away, save for hypercorrectness, it sounds better.

Given that "me" can under some analyses be considered the base form, sentences starting with "Me and my friends..." are grammatical in linguistic terms, ungrammatical in prescribed standard speech.

This is the kind of stuff that drives linguists nuts.

While on the topic: "It is I" is often suggested as more proper, based on a meta-criteria of equating subject and object. This is an imposition of logic external to language. "It is me" is linguistically proper English.

Caveat: Ain't done no linguistics since 1984, my own self.

Well, "it is I" is proper use of nominative "I" with the verb "be". The set of object pronouns is considered to be proper "one word answers" as in "Who is it?" "Me!"
The response *"I" would be considered non standard. I suspect that the more informal "It's me!" may be accepted as an intensified form of "Me!!", not sure though.

Evidence for an intensified form may be the fact that it gets a little tricky with certain constructions such as the following:

• It's (it is) I who am paying for this microphone.
• *It's me who am paying for this microphone.
• It's me who's paying for this microphone.

Compare Spanish /soy yo/ and French /c'est moi/.

 

[Olowkow]

That difference is what indeed CREATES Spanish subjunctive, so it hardly could be a remnant.

Are you saying that Spanish subjunctive derives from second person singular negative imperatives? I would argue the other way around.

Again, I don't study historical linguistics, but my guess would be that somewhere along the line, subjunctive mood was taken to somehow be more powerful in certain classes of imperatives (negatives). Remember, in French except for a few exceptions, apparently historical remnants, the indicative or infinitive is used in commands. Arrêtez! N'arrêtez pas. Ne pas se pencher dehors.

 

[Olowkow]

If I remember correctly, which is possible if not likely, "Ich bin kalt" is not wrong, but it would idiomatically be "Mir ist kalt" (me is cold).

ETA: to respond to your edit, "mir" is dative, so "to me" is about right.

I don't have a a feel for the German meaning of "ich bin kalt", but "Mir ist kalt" is what is accepted to mean "I'm cold". I do know that in French, "Elle a froid" (she's cold) should not be confused with "Elle est froide", which is a description of her personality, "...une femme froide".

As to why languages express these matters differently, it's difficult to say. I would imagine that there is a story behind each one, and that there exists some sort of common thread for the semantics of the set of expressions. In French: "I am hungry=I have hunger", "I am ashamed=I have shame", "I am afraid=I have fear", etc. As a result, "I am very hungry, etc." becomes "I have great hunger..."

I studied a few African languages, as well as some American Indian languages. In light of some of the hijinks these languages use with extensive morphology, prefixes, affixes, infixes or Swahili with dozens of noun genders, such minor idiomatic oddity pales in comparison.

 

[DallasDad]

French has an interesting usage, which I believe is called "emphatic." For example, they sometimes add "me" at the beginning of a sentence, much as in English we might add the phrase, "as for me."

Moi, je ne suis pas feu, literally is, "Me, "I'm not crazy," but should be translated as "I'm not crazy!"

It's also used in the middle of sentences, especially with normally reflexive verbs. For example, Parce que moi je rêve, je serai heureux instead of Je serai heureux parce que je me rêve. The first says, "Because I dream, I will be happy." The second says, "I will be happy because I dream." I've even seen constructions like moi, je me rêve, which is the proper reflexive with (I guess) an intensifier.

If anyone is a native French speaker and could clarify this usage for me, I'd appreciate it. It's something I see in writing, and hear (especially in movie dialog), but was never taught in school.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Are you saying that Spanish subjunctive derives from second person singular negative imperatives? I would argue the other way around.

French works like English -and almost all languages-

About the paragraph quoted it's exactly the other way around: Spanish imperative only includes second person singular -and plural in Spain-. Spanish subjunctive includes all persons. And there are no remnants there. Spanish imperative only works when you directly address the person receiving a command. If you haven't the person/s in front of you, you have to give the order using subjunctive, because it's not the real order, and Spanish subjunctive deals with no-actions. Usually English use infinitives where a no-action is required: I want you to come /Quiero que vengas, rather than allow two actions to clash: *I want you come / *Quiero que vienes. [By the way, and just preventively, I want to say that that of "Spanish subjunctive has to do with wishes, emotions, yada, yada" is utter and complete BS]

Spanish subjunctive implies no-action, then negative orders or orders given indirectly are its natural realm.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Mir/Uns ist kalt (I am/We are cold) has the same structure that Spanish "me/nos gusta eso" (I/We like that). You could say "Ich bin kalt" or "Yo gusto eso", but it would be difficult to parse. In fact "Ich bin kalt" looks right like a declaration of cold-heartedness.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Well, "it is I" is proper use of nominative "I" with the verb "be".

In Latin grammar, not modern English. (IIRC nor Old English.) This is a famous example used in Syntax 101 to illustrate the difference between the discipline of linguistics and grammar as taught in school.

The set of object pronouns is considered to be proper "one word answers" as in "Who is it?" "Me!" The response *"I" would be considered non standard. I suspect that the more informal "It's me!" may be accepted as an intensified form of "Me!!", not sure though.

In this case, "me" is the focused constituent in answer ellipsis, corresponding to the verb phrase you cite. This is the first time I have heard of it called an "intensified form."

Evidence for an intensified form may be the fact that it gets a little tricky with certain constructions such as the following:

• It's (it is) I who am paying for this microphone.
• *It's me who am paying for this microphone.
• It's me who's paying for this microphone.

Linguistics relies on description, grammar prescription. My statement regarding "me" as the default form speaks to its intimate connection with self. It is the preferred pronoun for core identity.

As evidence, I offer you the thread in Bayesian Statistics & Immortality in the Religion & Philosophy section; see any of the posts by the OP and his use of "me."

Evidence, in linguistics, always comes from the field. Textbook thought experiments count, but only to hash out permutations.

Because linguistics is descriptive and not prescriptive like grammar in school (which should be taught, as it defines standard usage and promotes a common base), if we find in the field that there are speakers using the phrase "Me and my friends" followed by a verb, then it goes right into the handbook.

As the English primer written by an Italian teacher for his students so cutely put it in its title, it's all about "English as She Is Spoke."

This is the kind of stuff that drives linguists nuts.

I suppose that's why one of my students asked if she could do her linguistics thesis on it, given I had brought it up in a session.

 

[Olowkow]

French has an interesting usage, which I believe is called "emphatic." For example, they sometimes add "me" at the beginning of a sentence, much as in English we might add the phrase, "as for me."

Moi, je ne suis pas feu, fou, literally is, "Me, "I'm not crazy," but should be translated as "I'm not crazy!"

Right. Those are the emphatic pronouns, moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles.

So it is correct to say:

• Vous, vous êtes en train de détruire tout ce que nous, nous voulons comme gouvernement!
• English: YOU are in the process of destroying everything that WE want as government!

Read the upper case words in English as emphatic, loud. In French, one cannot stress the subject pronoun with pitch or volume to accomplish the effect that English uses. This stress is accomplished through the use of the extra pronoun.

It's also used in the middle of sentences, especially with normally reflexive verbs. For example, Parce que moi je rêve, je serai heureux instead of Je serai heureux parce que je me rêve. The first says, "Because I dream, I will be happy." The second says, "I will be happy because I dream." I've even seen constructions like moi, je me rêve, which is the proper reflexive with (I guess) an intensifier.

If anyone is a native French speaker and could clarify this usage for me, I'd appreciate it. It's something I see in writing, and hear (especially in movie dialog), but was never taught in school.

Not a native speaker, but I taught French and Spanish, and I (emphatic ) taught the emphatic pronouns. Incidentally, *"je me rêve" would be /I dream myself/. Better: "Puisque (or) parce que moi je rêve, je serai heureux."
Or even "Etant donné que je peux rêver, moi, je serai heureux."

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I have the permanent feeling that English is sort of a pidgin language. That the clash of Anglo-Saxon with Nordic, and lately the clash of that mix with Norman French made almost all grammar to fall apart in shards,...

Colloquially expressed, however, essentially correct. Indeed some 60% of the vocabulary is Norman, iirc around < 10% Latin, with some Greek and Arabic thrown in. In terms of syntax, anglo-saxon words gain more frequency.

... and English speakers got used to travel light in grammar issues for ever after, moving the accent on specialization of vocabulary instead of using simple vocabulary and grammatical means to express an endless variety of complex notions, like most of the other Western languages do.

I do not dispute that that is how it might be perceived by a non-native speaker. Of course, syntax is what syntax does, and complexity is often in the eye of the beholder.

That's why even the succinct English verbal system poses me a lot of questions. Just yesterday I heard in movies two verbal structures that I found very strange: "would that were true" with the clash of conditional and subjunctive,

This is an archaic form based on the use of "will" as a synonym of "wish" or "want." Offhand I cannot remember whether the use of the "would" form is the subjunctive or not; don't want to wiki, but at any rate, it is not the conditional "would." It's use is restricted and formal, far from immigrant talk.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I had a working definition of "grammar" that was just not consistent with what professional generative grammarians meant by the word. I actually remember that eureka moment of finally understanding that we were actually studying and explaining human behavior, noting it in mathematical terms and calling it syntax; we were describing, neither proscribing nor prescribing linguistic behavior. We were really looking for the elusive "linguistic universals" which are supposedly true of any language.

We were scientists behaving like anthropologists or psychologists in a field whose only data, at the end of the day, were human opinions and native speakers' linguistic intuitions. For someone who considered himself a believer in the scientific method, the awareness that our data were so ephemeral made for a very scary scientific pursuit, I must admit. In the final analysis, it didn't work. Chomsky et al tried but failed to crack the code. Now, linguists throw massive computing power at the problem, and we have what passes for progress.

I would be interested in hearing more about your objections. Were your preferences along the line of alternate theories?

I do fail to see any problems with finding an objective corpus of data, however. I certainly do know there are as many opinions on an issue as there may be words to describe it, but the raw data is not the problem.
Perhaps I am missing something?

 

[Olowkow]

In Latin grammar, not modern English. (IIRC nor Old English.) This is a famous example used in Syntax 101 to illustrate the difference between the discipline of linguistics and grammar as taught in school.

Well, I was stating a fact. Whether or not one takes this usage into his dialect is another sociolinguistic matter.

In this case, "me" is the focused constituent in answer ellipsis, corresponding to the verb phrase you cite. This is the first time I have heard of it called an "intensified form."

Linguistics relies on description, grammar prescription. My statement regarding "me" as the default form speaks to its intimate connection with self. It is the preferred pronoun for core identity.

Generative syntax, or grammar, uses the ill formed (*) sentence as data. Intensifiers take on all kinds of forms in surface structure. In order to find them, tests of the type that I posted are used as a tool. If you studied linguistics in the 80s, you would recognize my point in this example:

• It's (it is) I who am paying for this microphone.
• *It's me who am paying for this microphone.
• It's me who's paying for this microphone.

Linguists use the fact that the second sentence is ill-formed to provide evidence that "It's me/it's I" may not be being used syntactically as it is in other well formed utterances. I don't claim to have proven anything, just that it is an example of how one might proceed scientifically to prove such a point.

As evidence, I offer you the thread in Bayesian Statistics & Immortality in the Religion & Philosophy section; see any of the posts by the OP and his use of "me."

Thanks, but no thanks.

Evidence, in linguistics, always comes from the field. Textbook thought experiments count, but only to hash out permutations.

Not sure what that means. Data in linguistics is usually in the form of native speaker intuitions, highly variable and unreliable stuff. Evidence is obtained by cleverly observing the data.

Because linguistics is descriptive and not prescriptive like grammar in school (which should be taught, as it defines standard usage and promotes a common base), if we find in the field that there are speakers using the phrase "Me and my friends" followed by a verb, then it goes right into the handbook.

As the English primer written by an Italian teacher for his students so cutely put it in its title, it's all about "English as She Is Spoke."

I suppose that's why one of my students asked if she could do her linguistics thesis on it, given I had brought it up in a session.

Of course, but at some level we need to know what types of changes, whether historical or synchronic, these rules (sorry but the word is used by linguists) or perhaps "principles" of syntax may undergo in order to produce the stylistic variants which are observed in the data.

The old saw about language research or grammar as descriptive vs. prescriptive is thread bare and tiresome to anyone who has taken the time to ponder the grammars of natural languages in a scientific way.

 

[aleCcowaN]

This is an archaic form based on the use of "will" as a synonym of "wish" or "want." Offhand I cannot remember whether the use of the "would" form is the subjunctive or not; don't want to wiki, but at any rate, it is not the conditional "would." It's use is restricted and formal, far from immigrant talk.

Excellent! Thank you for that. Very informative. Now it makes sense.

Now and then I find uses of English modal auxiliary verbs that puzzle me. The last one was a conditional-like use of could in The Beatles' song If I Fell: «'cause I couldn't stand the pain and I would be sad if our new love was in vain.»

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Well, I was stating a fact. Whether or not one takes this usage into his dialect is another sociolinguistic matter.

That is a fact in logic, but not a description in linguistics. The use of "It is I" normally is a sociolinguistic marker of class, as it is a learned expression. This is precisely why hyper-correction is such a good term for it.

Generative syntax, or grammar, uses the ill formed (*) sentence as data. Intensifiers take on all kinds of forms in surface structure. In order to find them, tests of the type that I posted are used as a tool. If you studied linguistics in the 80s, you would recognize my point in this example:

• It's (it is) I who am paying for this microphone.
• *It's me who am paying for this microphone.
• It's me who's paying for this microphone.

Linguists use the fact that the second sentence is ill-formed to provide evidence that "It's me/it's I" may not be being used syntactically as it is in other well formed utterances. I don't claim to have proven anything, just that it is an example of how one might proceed scientifically to prove such a point.

This is characteristic of analyses done in generative syntax, agreed.

Not sure what that means. Data in linguistics is usually in the form of native speaker intuitions, highly variable and unreliable stuff.

Data is obtained by recording natural human speech, with written language being a secondary source with some issues. Native speaker intuitions are what the theory tries to describe in the form of possible intermediate cognitive events.

Evidence is obtained by cleverly observing the data.
Of course, but at some level we need to know what types of changes, whether historical or synchronic, these rules (sorry but the word is used by linguists) or perhaps "principles" of syntax may undergo in order to produce the stylistic variants which are observed in the data.

I do not dispute the existence of rules, else there is no code for native speakers to use in a mutually intelligible manner. They are simply not the rules as taught in grammar school or logic class. They evolve in a community via consensus, and have no relation to what a theorist might prefer.

The old saw about language research or grammar as descriptive vs. prescriptive is thread bare and tiresome to anyone who has taken the time to ponder the grammars of natural languages in a scientific way.

The age of a truth does not speak to its value. Science is descriptive and based on empirical data. Pick the discipline you like, scientists in that field will agree.

 

[Olowkow]

I would be interested in hearing more about your objections. Were your preferences along the line of alternate theories?

I do fail to see any problems with finding an objective corpus of data, however. I certainly do know there are as many opinions on an issue as there may be words to describe it, but the raw data is not the problem.
Perhaps I am missing something?

The data is ephemeral in the sense that often native speakers are not sure of which utterance they think sounds correct. Many factors enter into the judgements of grammaticality by informants who are not familiar with the problems of descriptive grammars. Some obstacles are purely sociological or anthropological while others are purely logical.

The data are not similar in nature to physics data which are hard measurements or the product of calibrated instruments.

Here are some interesting nuggets to ponder:
John "Haj" Ross:

Ross's 1967 MIT dissertation is a landmark in syntactic theory and documents in great detail Ross's discovery of islands. Ross is also well known for his onomastic fecundity; he has coined many new terms describing syntactic phenomena that are well-known to this day, including copula switch, Do-Gobbling, freeze(s), gapping, heavy NP shift, (inner) islands, myopia, the penthouse principle, pied piping, pruning, scrambling, siamese sentences. sluicing, slifting, sloppy identity, sounding,[clarification needed] squib, squishes, viability,[clarification needed] and syntactic islands. Relating to syntactic islands, he also coined the terms "left-branch condition", "complex-np constraint", "coordinate structure constraint", and "sentential subject constraint". In phonology, he suggested the term conspiracy to Charles Kisseberth.

Just one simple example from the above, sloppy identity:

1) John scratched his arm and Bob did too.

How do we predict ambiguity?

2) John scratched his arm, and Carol did too.

3) John scratched her arm, and Carol did too.

Can informants easily and reliably tell us which sentences are acceptable for them, and analyze the ambiguities?

 

[yomero]

French works like English -and almost all languages-

About the paragraph quoted it's exactly the other way around: Spanish imperative only includes second person singular -and plural in Spain-. Spanish subjunctive includes all persons. And there are no remnants there. Spanish imperative only works when you directly address the person receiving a command. If you haven't the person/s in front of you, you have to give the order using subjunctive, because it's not the real order, and Spanish subjunctive deals with no-actions. Usually English use infinitives where a no-action is required: I want you to come /Quiero que vengas, rather than allow two actions to clash: *I want you come / *Quiero que vienes. [By the way, and just preventively, I want to say that that of "Spanish subjunctive has to do with wishes, emotions, yada, yada" is utter and complete BS]

Spanish subjunctive implies no-action, then negative orders or orders given indirectly are its natural realm.

It can be difficult for non-native speakers of Spanish to understand the difference between the subjunctive* and the indicative moods. My son once told me about a co-worker who was from The Netherlands. The man needed a large machine in his office to start his work, so he asked my son to help him to move it. My son was pushing from the back and the Dutchman was pulling from the front as they maneuvered trying to go through a door. "!No empujas!", (You are not pushing!) yelled the man repeatedly. My son pushed harder, but the machine wouldn't budge. He went around to the front to see what was the problem and found the co-worker plastered against the wall by the machine. The Dutchman never understood why he should have said "!No empujes!". ( Don't push.)

*I'm not really sure if !No empujes! is subjunctive or negative imperative mood.

 

[Blue Bubble]

So who can tell me why "I am cold", for example, is not what I would expect it to be in German?

Rat, good that you didn't use "warm" instead of "kalt" "Ich bin warm" has a very different meaning (especially for males) from what you'd expect.

As to why "mir is kalt": German still has datives, whereas English has largely lost the dative (but not completely: "give me the book").

Now genitives are a completely different issue in German:

Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod^WP

for some fun (I know you like the German language - I am a fluent speaker)

 

[Hlafordlaes]

The data is ephemeral in the sense that often native speakers are not sure of which utterance they think sounds correct. Many factors enter into the judgements of grammaticality by informants who are not familiar with the problems of descriptive grammars. Some obstacles are purely sociological or anthropological while others are purely logical.

The data are not similar in nature to physics data which are hard measurements or the product of calibrated instruments.

Here are some interesting nuggets to ponder:
John "Haj" Ross:

Just one simple example from the above, sloppy identity:

1) John scratched his arm and Bob did too.

How do we predict ambiguity?

2) John scratched his arm, and Carol did too.

3) John scratched her arm, and Carol did too.

Can informants easily and reliably tell us which sentences are acceptable for them, and analyze the ambiguities?

Very good example for discussion. No, I do not expect informants to be able to out-perform practitioners in applying analysis or taxonomy. They just go about their business communicating in the code under scrutiny. The rest is our problem.

This example highlights ambiguities in the code, which happen from syntax through phonetics. Different forms of ellipsis like this may be often ambiguous in textbook example, with rapid disambiguation provided by context in real use.

When context does not resolve the ambiguity, we see requests for clarification in real discourse, or even riffs in jest regarding what was just said. Common source for comedians.
...
In my original query, I was wondering if it was case grammar or similar that attracted you more than generative syntax, or if the fact that linguistics as a discipline must face the "horrors" of meaning, and so get lost easily in philosophical discussion was what put you off. There is no question, however, that linguistics is merely a specialization within cognitive psychology and like it, increasingly also looks for hard neurological evidence for some observations.

That this can be fraught with woo, on the one hand, and is so in its infancy that it is therefore seemingly very tentative and unsure, on the other, is why many find the discipline not to provide the answers they expected, nor* allow for the levels of certainty sought.

[*Por cierto, eso del doble negativo que se viene comentando en la conversación hasta ahora me afecta a mí un montón, ya que desde finales de los setenta, me desenvuelvo a diario en castellano, no inglés. Ya nunca me "suena" bien si no aplico el negativo sobre todos los elementos en la frase, y en inglés me encuentro acosado por duda cada vez que intento escribir algo.]

 

[aleCcowaN]

*I'm not really sure if !No empujes! is subjunctive or negative imperative mood.

I get that frequently from people who is proficient in English or other languages, but among native grammarians there's no doubt -almost-

It can be difficult for non-native speakers of Spanish to understand the difference between the subjunctive* and the indicative moods. My son once told me about a co-worker who was from The Netherlands. The man needed a large machine in his office to start his work, so he asked my son to help him to move it. My son was pushing from the back and the Dutchman was pulling from the front as they maneuvered trying to go through a door. "!No empujas!", (You are not pushing!) yelled the man repeatedly. My son pushed harder, but the machine wouldn't budge. He went around to the front to see what was the problem and found the co-worker plastered against the wall by the machine. The Dutchman never understood why he should have said "!No empujes!". ( Don't push.)

And your example -an excellent example that, with your permission, I will use extensively to illustrate this notion- is excellent to show the essence of Spanish subjunctive. I was asked once, if subjunctive is no-action, why does it require a no in negative commands. Well, I mean subjunctive is no-action, not that it means don't-carry-out-an-action. Yours is a living example of that, because "!No empujas!" is not a standard and expected way to say "You are not pushing!"-"¡No estás empujando!" would be the way- but it has no other possible interpretation that "You are not pushing!" because of the use of indicative -Spanish indicative-. If the Dutchman had known much less Spanish and chosen a tarzanesque approach by saying "¡No empujar!" -"Not to push!", he would have been correctly understood.

Against the Spanish subjunctive way, which teachers and students of Spanish who are native English speakers have made unsurmountable because of the approach chosen and the crave for immediate success, we have the more remnant-like English subjunctive with its "If I were you" and "If I was you" conveying subtle differences or no difference at all.