A couple of years ago, I wrote a post describing my objections to the traditional definitions of possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns. At the time, I still favoured calling what is called the possessive pronoun a "possessive adjective" (eg. "it is mine"), and calling the possessive adjective a "possessive pronoun" (eg "my car"0 for English... in theory.
However, practicality is another thing entirely, because there is nothing more confusing than using the same words as someone else to mean entirely the opposite thing, so I have never used the terms that way for students. In fact, I actively avoid using either term if I can possibly avoid it, as it doesn't seem helpful.
So recently I've been working on trying to find ways to better categorise grammar, and I've settled on what actually seems like a reasonable compromise.
For the possessive "adjective" of traditional grammar, I'm going with the alternative from the previous post -- the possessive determiner. It aligns with this, that, a and the, so it naturally falls into the class of determiners. This doesn't mean it isn't a pronominal form -- it actually means that forms like "John's" have to be considered determiners themselves... which is entirely logical, as "John's car" is "the car that belongs to John", but "John's" has replaced the definite article; hence "John's" must be a determiner anyway.
For the possessive "pronoun", I'm going with the possessive predicate. I decided on this when I was thinking about it as a predicative adjective in sentences like "It is mine," or "that's yours." Of course, that's not the only situation it occurs in, which is something I overlooked a little when blogging from the unbearable heat of Corsica in the summer. There is no predicate in "I'll give you mine," or "She didn't have hers, so she took yours." But at least it gets away from the counter-intuitive implication that the other form is not a pronoun.
I will continue to think about this, but if I do ever come up with a better term, I can just do a search-and-replace on what I've already got without any problems....
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
19 February 2015
05 November 2012
New languages, and new views on old ones....
I had a bit of a realisation this morning about English, and it's all thanks to Corsican. Corsican tends to weaken certain vowels when they're unstressed. So marking the stressed vowel with bold type, "accende" (the infinitive to light or enflame) becomes "accindite" (present, 2nd person plural). And this happens with almost all Es. Almost. Note the unstressed E at the end of both accende and accindite. But these unstressed Es only seem to occur where they have a specific grammatical purpose -- as far as I can tell any other E becomes I.
Now in certain parts these vowel "mutations" don't occur, but the majority dialects tend to do it. The odd thing, then, is that vowel mutation happens even though speakers of the language are evidently capable of saying the "forbidden" sound. Why not say it if you can?
Well, somewhere along the line, I started thinking about English, and in particular the prefixes pre- and re-.
There's two pronunciations for each: one with schwa and one with /i/. The schwa occurs wherever the syllable has no stress, normally adjacent to the primary stressed syllable -- eg "report", "reply" -- and the /ri/ pronunciation when it has secondary stress. So that's an "ee" sound, like a Corsican "I". It never seems to have an "eh" sound, like a Corsican "E".
And no matter how much I try to, I can't think of a single word in English with the "eh" of "pedal" and "petal" anywhere but in the position of primary stress.
Unless your American, in which case it occurs everywhere.
And that's what I'd never noticed before -- I always thought of the US "reh"-produce as though it was something specific to the re- prefix, but it's a bit more fundamental than that, isn't it...?
Now in certain parts these vowel "mutations" don't occur, but the majority dialects tend to do it. The odd thing, then, is that vowel mutation happens even though speakers of the language are evidently capable of saying the "forbidden" sound. Why not say it if you can?
Well, somewhere along the line, I started thinking about English, and in particular the prefixes pre- and re-.
There's two pronunciations for each: one with schwa and one with /i/. The schwa occurs wherever the syllable has no stress, normally adjacent to the primary stressed syllable -- eg "report", "reply" -- and the /ri/ pronunciation when it has secondary stress. So that's an "ee" sound, like a Corsican "I". It never seems to have an "eh" sound, like a Corsican "E".
And no matter how much I try to, I can't think of a single word in English with the "eh" of "pedal" and "petal" anywhere but in the position of primary stress.
Unless your American, in which case it occurs everywhere.
And that's what I'd never noticed before -- I always thought of the US "reh"-produce as though it was something specific to the re- prefix, but it's a bit more fundamental than that, isn't it...?
09 June 2012
The Names.... language change in action.
I just read an article on the BBC website about the use of the definite article in the name Ukraine/The Ukraine.
It was quite interesting and raised several interesting points. (Although it listed a lot of "the" places that have recently lost the article in common speech.)
One thing that did bug me, though, was a little S-shaped oversight, because they completely missed the point that all explicitly plural proper nouns need "the". "The Netherlands", "The Phillipines", "The Bahamas".
Consider how you would refer to someone by his surname only... for example the western Alias Smith and Jones. Now if you want to use the family name in the plural, you need the definite article, eg. "keeping up with the Joneses".
The argument in the article about the fact that "the Netherlands" is made up of readily-understandable elements doesn't really hold up; there are many English-language placenames in the UK that are made of generic elements but don't take the article, like the multiple places called "Bridgend", places like "Holyhead". The archetype, though, has to be "Land's End". It is the single most meaningful placename in the whole of the archipelago -- it's iconic and valuable because of its meaning is abundantly clear. Yet we do not use the article. We used to, certainly (see the Wikipedia entry for Land's End for evidence). The historical origins are interesting, definitely, and certain classes of placenames do preserve old patterns, but language change is a subtle beast, and sometimes it isn't the form that changes, but the reasons speakers have internally for using that form.
Also, looking at the Bahamas and the Phillipines, it should also be noted that historically we didn't always name island groups in the plural, particularly in Scotland. Conservative natives of Uist, Orkney and Shetland will still refer to their homes as such, whether outsiders are likely to call them the Uists, the Orkneys and the Shetlands. (I would personally be very surprised if the English kings bent on conquering Scotland and Ireland said they wanted complete control of "the Britains" rather than simply "Britain", because this looks like a pretty new feature to me, and I suspect that it may be to do with the borrowing of French and Spanish names for new island groups in colonial times.)
The modern speaker of a modern language has no internal knowledge of the language change -- if a language encoded all its history, languages would be so "big" that they would be impossible to learn. Instead, every generation observes what the generation before says and tries to work out for themselves why they say it.
Now I know someone's going to mention shops and companies as a counter-example, because the supermarket chain is Morrisons, but that's actually a possessive. It's Morrison's supermarket, after all. Heck, when I was a child, I used to append 's to practically every single-word shop name, as did my parents. Tesco's, Bejam's, M&M's, etc. Somehow Comet got an exception, and Fine Fayre was left as-is because it was two words. Oh, and look at that: a two word generic with no definite article -- another disproof of the BBC's claim.
But you're right that Morrisons has no apostrophe these days, and neither does Greggs. This is another example of language change, because as more and more shops drop the apostrophe in order to have their brand match their website domain name (Sainsbury's are a rare case of defiance -- how long that'll last now that the Sainsbury family aren't the main shareholders is anyone's guess), and as we get more exposed to Tesco as the official name rather than Tesco's, the next generation will grow up without the cues that it's a possessive name, and even though I will hear "Greggs" as "Gregg's", they won't -- in fact, it's entirely possible that everyone under 16 already doesn't recognise it as a possessive form... and yet we speak the "same" language.
When that generation reaches their thirties and are editing and delivering our daily news, then things might change, because a generation that is entirely comfortable and happy with S at the end of their proper nouns will happily say "Netherlands" instead of "the Netherlands".
It was quite interesting and raised several interesting points. (Although it listed a lot of "the" places that have recently lost the article in common speech.)
One thing that did bug me, though, was a little S-shaped oversight, because they completely missed the point that all explicitly plural proper nouns need "the". "The Netherlands", "The Phillipines", "The Bahamas".
Consider how you would refer to someone by his surname only... for example the western Alias Smith and Jones. Now if you want to use the family name in the plural, you need the definite article, eg. "keeping up with the Joneses".
The argument in the article about the fact that "the Netherlands" is made up of readily-understandable elements doesn't really hold up; there are many English-language placenames in the UK that are made of generic elements but don't take the article, like the multiple places called "Bridgend", places like "Holyhead". The archetype, though, has to be "Land's End". It is the single most meaningful placename in the whole of the archipelago -- it's iconic and valuable because of its meaning is abundantly clear. Yet we do not use the article. We used to, certainly (see the Wikipedia entry for Land's End for evidence). The historical origins are interesting, definitely, and certain classes of placenames do preserve old patterns, but language change is a subtle beast, and sometimes it isn't the form that changes, but the reasons speakers have internally for using that form.
Also, looking at the Bahamas and the Phillipines, it should also be noted that historically we didn't always name island groups in the plural, particularly in Scotland. Conservative natives of Uist, Orkney and Shetland will still refer to their homes as such, whether outsiders are likely to call them the Uists, the Orkneys and the Shetlands. (I would personally be very surprised if the English kings bent on conquering Scotland and Ireland said they wanted complete control of "the Britains" rather than simply "Britain", because this looks like a pretty new feature to me, and I suspect that it may be to do with the borrowing of French and Spanish names for new island groups in colonial times.)
The modern speaker of a modern language has no internal knowledge of the language change -- if a language encoded all its history, languages would be so "big" that they would be impossible to learn. Instead, every generation observes what the generation before says and tries to work out for themselves why they say it.
Now I know someone's going to mention shops and companies as a counter-example, because the supermarket chain is Morrisons, but that's actually a possessive. It's Morrison's supermarket, after all. Heck, when I was a child, I used to append 's to practically every single-word shop name, as did my parents. Tesco's, Bejam's, M&M's, etc. Somehow Comet got an exception, and Fine Fayre was left as-is because it was two words. Oh, and look at that: a two word generic with no definite article -- another disproof of the BBC's claim.
But you're right that Morrisons has no apostrophe these days, and neither does Greggs. This is another example of language change, because as more and more shops drop the apostrophe in order to have their brand match their website domain name (Sainsbury's are a rare case of defiance -- how long that'll last now that the Sainsbury family aren't the main shareholders is anyone's guess), and as we get more exposed to Tesco as the official name rather than Tesco's, the next generation will grow up without the cues that it's a possessive name, and even though I will hear "Greggs" as "Gregg's", they won't -- in fact, it's entirely possible that everyone under 16 already doesn't recognise it as a possessive form... and yet we speak the "same" language.
When that generation reaches their thirties and are editing and delivering our daily news, then things might change, because a generation that is entirely comfortable and happy with S at the end of their proper nouns will happily say "Netherlands" instead of "the Netherlands".
25 June 2011
The road to wealth: don't speak English
I've just read an interesting article on the Register (a news site for IT and science geeks). The article mostly talks about the governance of the internet internationally, so regular readers won't be particularly interested, but here's an interesting thought:
Interesting thought.
I've just read an interesting article on the Register (a news site for IT and science geeks). The article mostly talks about the governance of the internet internationally, so regular readers won't be particularly interested, but here's an interesting thought:
But the internet doesn't work like that: a country that puts in internet infrastructure is more likely to see money pouring out as local ISPs have to pay peering partners to deliver content from Europe and America to their customers.
We put this point to Dr Touré, who pointed out how wrong we were: "Forget Europe, it's America that takes the money ... the content comes from America".So while the international community is clamouring to learn English to improve international trade, English is becoming a money-sink for everyone outside the US as we continue to spend our money on American content, money which doesn't come back out.
Interesting thought.
21 September 2010
Here's an interesting article I just stumbled across when checking out a couple of details for an earlier post.
David Graddol of the OU, writing in the Guardian back in 2005, suggests that the English teacher may be on the verge of extinction. He's certainly got a point. With English continuing to become a bigger deal in primary schools the world over, more and more language instruction is becoming incidental -- English tuition is becoming the domain of subject teachers, not specialist language teachers. It'll take a while for things to really hit home, but the 21st century boom in the TEFL industry is currently not only burning the candle at both ends, but along its whole length. TEFL teachers are teaching preschool kids, primary school kids, teenagers at high school, university students, young professionals, older professionals, even the retired.
In 10 years' time, will there be a need for TEFL teachers in many parts of the world?
Certainly in the far east, but closer to home maybe not. There's already practically no need across Scandinavia and the Low Countries. Spain's throwing its weight behind English in an effort to catch up.
But all is not lost for the TEFL teacher hoping to make a living in a comfortable Western European country
Recently an OU coursemate of mine was told by her children's teachers that she had to stop speaking to them in English -- the teachers, not familiar with the literature in bilingualism, thought that speaking English was damaging their French. So in 10, 20 years time, when Spain, Italy and Germany have no need for the TEFL teacher, there will be a mass migration to France, the promised land flowing with milk, honey, and potential English students....
David Graddol of the OU, writing in the Guardian back in 2005, suggests that the English teacher may be on the verge of extinction. He's certainly got a point. With English continuing to become a bigger deal in primary schools the world over, more and more language instruction is becoming incidental -- English tuition is becoming the domain of subject teachers, not specialist language teachers. It'll take a while for things to really hit home, but the 21st century boom in the TEFL industry is currently not only burning the candle at both ends, but along its whole length. TEFL teachers are teaching preschool kids, primary school kids, teenagers at high school, university students, young professionals, older professionals, even the retired.
In 10 years' time, will there be a need for TEFL teachers in many parts of the world?
Certainly in the far east, but closer to home maybe not. There's already practically no need across Scandinavia and the Low Countries. Spain's throwing its weight behind English in an effort to catch up.
But all is not lost for the TEFL teacher hoping to make a living in a comfortable Western European country
Recently an OU coursemate of mine was told by her children's teachers that she had to stop speaking to them in English -- the teachers, not familiar with the literature in bilingualism, thought that speaking English was damaging their French. So in 10, 20 years time, when Spain, Italy and Germany have no need for the TEFL teacher, there will be a mass migration to France, the promised land flowing with milk, honey, and potential English students....
12 October 2008
You may have heard of the POOLS project, funded by the Leonardo II scheme during 2005-2007. They collected short videos on permissive and open licenses in a number of less-studied languages.
Well, now they're back with POOLS-T. The focus now is on tools, not materials; hence the T. Things are only just starting off, but there's already a lot of material from the first round of work as well as donated videos in a variety of languages.
Gordon Wells made some excellent and very professional videos under the title Scottish Island Voices. These are available in two versions, English and Gaelic, and have been included in the Pools project. You can hear an interview with him regarding the project courtesy of the Irish National Digital Learning Repository.
Finally, I've been playing with some of these videos, trying to figure out how best to use the materials. I've uploaded one of Gordon's sets of Gaelic films to YouTube, and I've been playing around with annotation and subtitling options. You can check them out on my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/NiallBeag.
The Pools project currently hosts videos in the following languages:
Basque
Danish
Dutch
English
Gaelic
German
Lithuanian
Romanian
Spanish
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