singular they (Re: Textfyre Games)
Autymn D. C.
> On Nov 14, 9:29 am, Jim Aikin <midigur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Fair enough. I personally draw the line at "it's" for "its," but each of
> > us has his or her pet peeves. I'm cheerfully willing to accept "their"
> > as a singular pronoun of indeterminate gender, for instance ("Each
> > student should get out their book"), but that totally freaks some people
> > out.
Did I not already say, "a person -> one; the person -> who"?
Therefore, "each should do whose" yet "every should do one's". No
more His or Her, His/Her, Hir, Xer, or Their giibberish from
wanEnglish illiterates.
> Yeah, people stuck with pre-Shakespearean English!
Yet "pre-" isn't English, and English was long dead:
http://google.com/groups?q=Einglish+Dohiwtsch.
On Nov 13, 10:28 pm, Jim Aikin <midigur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Benjamin Caplan wrote:
> > Dannii wrote:
> >> Yeah, people stuck with pre-Shakespearean English!
>
> > Not even. The singular "they" is traditional; the "rule" that it's
> > invalid was invented in the 18th century by Latin fans who thought the
> > existing rules of English were "incorrect" because they behaved like the
> > rules of English rather than like the rules of Latin.
Miht makes not wriht. Traditions are bullshit liges and shams. If
"they" was singular, what was the plural? None, as it wasn't
singular, you cretin. E. They < N. Their, plural of Sa, our Se/The,
whose plural was Tha, in the early paradigm He/Se/Thes for this/that/
such: http://etymonline.com/index.php?search=the. Feminine and
obliqve cases switchd hands.
> I wasn't aware of the English tradition, but I remember vaguely from
> college that in German, "sie" (literal translation: "they") is the
> polite form of "du" ("you"). So when the waiter says, in German, "What
> would you like to order?", if he's being polite, which of course he
> would always be, what he's literally going to say is, "What would _they_
> like to order?"
Sie is literally the third-person whose plural and feminine/obliqve
endings seem to hav melded. One would expect sien, whennes ihnen.*
> What this says to me is that there is a tradition of using the plural
> form of pronouns to get around awkward social problems. And in the
> modern world, third-person singular gendered pronouns have become
> awkward, for obvious reasons.
No, it means third-person is kinder than next-person; instead of "you"
they call you a "that" (as obliqve, not neuter) or a "the". The ≠
They. I wouldn't mind The as a common-gender pronoun again instead of
One, where Who above is epicoin: http://google.com/search?q=%22five+persons+of+grammar%22.
About my old chart, switch -'s and -r, and hr- should be har-.
> Likewise, in English, "ye/you" was originally plural and also the polite
> form of the second-person singular. The familiar form was, of course,
> "thou/thee". The plural was used when politeness was required.
>
> BTW, English is now acquiring a new polite form of the second-person
> singular pronoun -- "yourself". Go to a restaurant and watch the
> waitress go around the table, taking orders. She will come to you and
> say, "And for yourself?" She's doing it for a precise psycho-social
> reason, namely that "And for you?" would feel too familiar. This is how
> language evolves in response to social needs.
third-person again, nothing new
> So "they" for "he or she" would not be weird at all, even if it were a
> neologism.
It would not be fateful? Good.
*What Would Google Say?
Translation:
I, me, to me, mine, my,: Ich, ich, mich, mein, meine,
we, us, to us, ours, our,: wir uns, um uns, unsere, unser,
thou, thee, to thee, thine, thy,: du, dich, um dich, deine, dein,
you, ye, to you or to ye, yours, your,: euch, ihr, an Sie oder ihr,
Ihr, Ihre,
he, him, to him, his, his,: er ihm, um ihn, seine, sein,
they, them, to them, theirs, their,: sie sie, um sie, ihre, ihre,
she, her, to her, hers, her,: ̌sie, ihr, zu ihr, ihr, sie,
any, any, to any, any's, any's,: alle, alle, alle, die bei jeder
anderen ist,
it, it, to it, its, its,: es, sie, es, sein, ihr,
some, some, to some, some's, some's: einige, manche bis zu einem
gewissen an, some, some's
one, one, to one, one's, one's,: ein, ein, um eins, eins ist, ist ein,
who, whom, to whom, whose, whose,: wer, wen, wem, dessen, deren,
I; me; to me; mine; my;: Ich, mich für mich, mein, meine;
we; us; to us; ours; our;: wir, uns, zu uns, uns, unser;
thou; thee; to thee; thine; thy;: du, dir, zu dir, dein, dein;
you; ye; to you or to ye; yours; your;: Sie, ihr, euch oder ihr;
verkaufen; Ihre;
he; him; to him; his; his;: er, ihn, um ihn, seine, sein;
they; them; to them; theirs; their;: sie, sie, zu ihnen, ihnen, ihr;
she; her; to her; hers; her;: sie, ihr, zu ihr, ihre, ihr;
any; any; to any; any's; any's;: jeder, jede, jede, jede ist, jede
ist;
it; it; to it; its; its;: er, sie, es, sein, ihr;
some; some; to some; some's; some's;: einige, manche, einige,
manche's, einige ist;
one; one; to one; one's; one's;: ein; ein, zu einem, man's, man's;
who; whom; to whom; whose; whose;: who; wem zu wem dessen, deren;
I. me. to me. mine. my.: I. mich. zu mir. mein. mein
we. us. to us. ours. our.: wir. uns. zu uns. unsrige. unser.
thou. thee. to thee. thine. thy.: Du. dir. zu dir. dein. thy.
you. ye. to you or to ye. yours. your.: Sie. ye. Sie oder ihr zu.
verkaufen. dein.
he. him. to him. his. his.: er. ihn. zu ihm. sein. sein.
they. them. to them. theirs. their.: sie. sie. zu ihnen. ihrigen. ihr.
she. her. to her. hers. her.: sie. ihr. zu ihr. ihrigen. ihr.
any. any. to any. any's. any's.: beliebig. beliebig. auf alle. jeder
ist. jeder ist.
it. it. to it. its. its.: es. es. zu. its. its.
some. some. to some. some's. some's.: einige. einige. zu einigen.
einigen Freunden. einigen Freunden.
one. one. to one. one's. one's.: eins. eins. zu eins. one's. one's.
who. whom. to whom. whose. whose.: wer. wem. an wen. deren. deren.
Dictionary:
I me to_me mine my: ich mich|mir|ich mir mein|meine meiner|meine|
meines|meins
we us to_us ours our: wir uns|mich|mir|wir uns unser|unsere unsere|
unserer|unseres
thou thee to_thee thine thy: du dich|euch dir der_deine|die_deine|
das_deine dein|deine|euer|eure
you ye to_you/to_ye yours your: du|dich|dir|ihr|euch|Sie|ihnen|einer|
eine|man Ihr|euch dir|ihnen|euch/zu_ihr deiner|deine|deins|deines|
euer|eure|eures|eurer|Ihrer|Ihres|Ihre dein|deine|euer|eure|ihr|ihre|
sein|das|die
he him to_him his his: er|der|derjenige|wer ihn|ihm|sich|er|den ihm|
dem sein|seine dessen|seiner|seines|seins
they them to_them theirs their: sie|man sie|ihnen denen|ihnen ihre|
ihrer|ihres ihr|ihre|deren
she her to_her hers her: sie|die ̌sie|die ihr ihre|ihrer|ihres ihre|
ihr
any any to_any any's any's: ein|etwas|irgendein|welche|irgendwelcher|
jeder|jeglicher|was " keine jeder_ist "
it it to_it its its: er|es|ihn|sie|ihm|das " es sein|seine|seiner
seines|seins|dessen
some some to_some some's some's: einige|manche|etwas|was|welche|
irgendwelcher|irgendein " bis_zu_einem_gewissen einige_der "
one one to_one one's one's: ̌man|eine|einer|eines|eins|
nach_dem_anderen|nach_der_anderen " zu_einem sein "
who whom to_whom whose whose: wer|wen|wem|der|die|das|welche wem
an_wen wes|wessen|dessen|deren "
-Aut
Conrad
>
> Did I not already say, "a person -> one; the person -> who"?
> Therefore, "each should do whose" yet "every should do one's". No
> more His or Her, His/Her, Hir, Xer, or Their giibberish from
> wanEnglish illiterates.
Dunno if you did say it already, lady, but, "Each should do whose" and
"Every should do one's" sound like broken English to me.
I say, if you don't like using "they" then pick "he" or "she" and
stick with it. Then use the other one to disambig complex thoughts.
Personally, I address the reader as "you," and impersonality be
damned: I'm fine with writing with personality.
Conrad.
Autymn D. C.
> On Nov 16, 6:49 am, "Autymn D. C." <lysde...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Did I not already say, "a person -> one; the person -> who"?
> > Therefore, "each should do whose" yet "every should do one's". No
> > more His or Her, His/Her, Hir, Xer, or Their giibberish from
> > wanEnglish illiterates.
>
> Dunno if you did say it already, lady, but, "Each should do whose" and
> "Every should do one's" sound like broken English to me.
English was broken 1000 years ago so I'm not startled by your
opinion. Broken English is Standard today, and the world is twisted
daft. (twisted daft = twistedly daft and twisted daftly) Never mined
your mind; Who is still a pronoun and we need to wit so.
> I say, if you don't like using "they" then pick "he" or "she" and
> stick with it. Then use the other one to disambig complex thoughts.
> Personally, I address the reader as "you," and impersonality be
> damned: I'm fine with writing with personality.
I'm not sexist, blind, or deaf. Each or every is often neither lone
pronoun. Would you call your mother a he, your brother a she?.
-Aut
James Jolley
No but we'd call you a fucking troll!
Conrad
> English was broken 1000 years ago so I'm not startled by your
I wasn't notified. But as I dispute the brokenness of my mother
tongue, I resist your efforts to have the poor thing neutered -- err,
fixed.
> I'm not sexist, blind, or deaf. Each or every is often neither lone
> pronoun. Would you call your mother a he, your brother a she?.
Maybe you're not, Aut; but you are in equal parts colorful and cold.
C.
Adam Thornton
Autymn D. C. <lysd...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>I'm not sexist, blind, or deaf. Each or every is often neither lone
>pronoun. Would you call your mother a he, your brother a she?.
*Your* mother and *your* brother, sure.
Adam
Autymn D. C.
> > I'm not sexist, blind, or deaf. Each or every is often neither lone
> > pronoun. Would you call your mother a he, your brother a she?.
>
Ye would not; you would, and I'd call you a deluded liar who can't con
the dictionary.
Autymn D. C.
> On Nov 17, 5:39 am, "Autymn D. C." <lysde...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > English was broken 1000 years ago so I'm not startled by your
>
> I wasn't notified. But as I dispute the brokenness of my mother
> tongue, I resist your efforts to have the poor thing neutered -- err,
> fixed.
You were here 1000 years ago? You would easily fail:
dispute
tongue
resist
effort
neuter
That's no way to talk English.
> > I'm not sexist, blind, or deaf. Each or every is often neither lone
> > pronoun. Would you call your mother a he, your brother a she?.
>
> Maybe you're not, Aut; but you are in equal parts colorful and cold.
and bleak and hot, thanks.
-Aut
Christian Weisgerber
> You were here 1000 years ago? You would easily fail:
>
> dispute
> tongue
> resist
> effort
> neuter
>
> That's no way to talk English.
Tsk-tsk. "Tongue" is not a loan word.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Conrad
> Autymn D. C. <lysde...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > You were here 1000 years ago? You would easily fail:
>
> > dispute
> > tongue
> > resist
> > effort
> > neuter
>
> > That's no way to talk English.
>
> Tsk-tsk. "Tongue" is not a loan word.
I <3 loan words. And I'm against efforts to purify the language,
which originate in creepy racist sentiments.
Lately you don't hear much against the Latin and French influences,
but more against the confluence of Hispanic Spanish and English.
Language rules; rules don't language.
Conrad.
Peter Moylan
> I <3 loan words. And I'm against efforts to purify the language,
> which originate in creepy racist sentiments.
Just when we thought smileys had been eliminated from the newsgroup. I
struggled mightily to understand the above. Finally it made sense when I
realised that '<3' is a symbol meaning "I dropped my ice cream".
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Conrad
>
> Just when we thought smileys had been eliminated from the newsgroup. I
> struggled mightily to understand the above. Finally it made sense when I
> realised that '<3' is a symbol meaning "I dropped my ice cream".
!-)
Steve Hayes
>Lately you don't hear much against the Latin and French influences,
>but more against the confluence of Hispanic Spanish and English.
I wondered a bit about "Hispanic Spanish", but I suppose it's a bit like
"British English", and we could abbreviate it HiS, as opposed to say LAS
(Latin-American Spanish).
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:01:57 -0800 (PST), Conrad <conra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Lately you don't hear much against the Latin and French influences,
>> but more against the confluence of Hispanic Spanish and English.
>
> I wondered a bit about "Hispanic Spanish", but I suppose it's a bit like
> "British English",
No, it isn't, because whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
"Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
_not_ include people rom Spain (unless they are from "Hispanic"
origins). For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
Spanish". I think Conrad probably meant the opposite of what you're
assuming, but who knows?
> and we could abbreviate it HiS, as opposed to say LAS
> (Latin-American Spanish).
--
athel
Benjamin Caplan
> I <3 loan words. And I'm against efforts to purify the language,
> which originate in creepy racist sentiments.
Really? I assumed they originated in a desire to make the language rules
more consistent and the language therefore easier to learn as a second
language.
Steve Hayes
<acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote:
>On 2009-11-23 07:10:08 +0100, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> said:
>
>> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:01:57 -0800 (PST), Conrad <conra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Lately you don't hear much against the Latin and French influences,
>>> but more against the confluence of Hispanic Spanish and English.
>>
>> I wondered a bit about "Hispanic Spanish", but I suppose it's a bit like
>> "British English",
>
>No, it isn't, because whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
>"Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
>_not_ include people rom Spain (unless they are from "Hispanic"
>origins). For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
>Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
>Spanish". I think Conrad probably meant the opposite of what you're
>assuming, but who knows?
Castellano?
vaporware
Someone put a cigarette out in your eye?
vw
Cora Fuchs
<haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Castellano?
That's what they claim to speak in Argentina. For some reason, they
don't seem to want the rest of the world to think they speak Latin
American Spanish.
(As if there could be only one Latin American Spanish, anyway.)
Ruud Harmsen
<acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>: in sci.lang:
>> I wondered a bit about "Hispanic Spanish", but I suppose it's a bit like
>> "British English",
>
>No, it isn't, because whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
>"Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
>_not_ include people rom Spain (unless they are from "Hispanic"
>origins). For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
>Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
>Spanish".
Iberic? European?
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
Panu
> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:19:34 +0100: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>
> >> I wondered a bit about "Hispanic Spanish", but I suppose it's a bit like
> >> "British English",
>
> >No, it isn't, because whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
> >"Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
> >_not_ include people rom Spain (unless they are from "Hispanic"
> >origins). For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
> >Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
> >Spanish".
>
> Iberic? European?
Peninsular Spanish is the usual technical term.
Steve Hayes
But that raises the question of east or west Iberia (well, I suppose in east
Iberia they never spoke Spanish).
Steve Hayes
Yes, about as likely as one English English, never mind one British English.
Conrad
No, they're generally based on the idea of status. People decided
that we weren't supposed to, intentionally or otherwise, split
infinitives because you can't split infinitives in Latin, which had
more cultural cache at the time than did English. Later, the pendulum
swung the other way and some argued for "good Anglo-Saxon words,"
sometimes digging up absurdities like "yclept" (for "named"). It
centered around racial pride. Certainly it had nothing to do with
making foreigners' lives easier -- although there *was* a movement
with that motive. See "Basic English." I believe the creator was
named Ogden.
Conrad.
ps - Vapor -- I'm sorry you are so blind.
the Omrud
You're including AUE, so I'm going to query "cache". I've never seen
this - it's "cachet" in BrE.
--
David
John Atkinson
> Conrad wrote:
[c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural cache
could be, in the context.
J.
Mike Lyle
> the Omrud wrote:
>> Conrad wrote:
[...]
>>>
>>> No, they're generally based on the idea of status. People decided
>>> that we weren't supposed to, intentionally or otherwise, split
>>> infinitives because you can't split infinitives in Latin, which had
>>> more cultural cache at the time than did English. Later, the
>>> pendulum swung the other way and some argued for "good Anglo-Saxon
>>> words," sometimes digging up absurdities like "yclept" (for
>>> "named"). It centered around racial pride. Certainly it had
>>> nothing to do with making foreigners' lives easier -- although
>>> there *was* a movement with that motive. See "Basic English." I
>>> believe the creator was named Ogden.
>>
>> You're including AUE, so I'm going to query "cache". I've never seen
>> this - it's "cachet" in BrE.
>>
> Yeah. In AmE too I'm sure. I thought he meant <cache> (pronounced
> [c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural
> cache could be, in the context.
>
It may be safe to summarily ignore the views of anybody who thinks both
that Latin periphrastic infinitives can't be "split"*, and that it's the
reason for a rigid disapproval of doing it in English. The reason (isn't
it?) is a misplaced sense of style; that, in turn, I suppose, arose from
an uncritical awareness that the position of an adverb may affect the
meaning of the sentence, and a reasonable fear of crowding too long a
phrase between the "to" and the infinitive proper.
*I've mentioned this before, but was unable to think of an example from
literature: I still can't, so help wanted, please.
--
Mike.
Roland Hutchinson
Stretching a point, it could be "cultural cash" -- an informal innovation
for "cultural currency" -- if that made any sense in context (there would
have had to have been a _lot_ of Latin speakers in England, but I suppose
among the educated classes there were, so what-the-hey).
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
James Silverton
In passing, there were considerable differences in even French and
British pronuciations of Latin in the time just before the vernaculars
supplanted it in universities. I seem to remember that Dr Johnson was
disappointed to be unable to communicate with a French savant. Even in
my high school days there were pronunciation differences among different
teachers of Latin, especially in the letter "v": "weeny, weedy, weeky"
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
What's a Latin periphrastic infinitive? Why would it be taken as
licensing the splitting of English "infinitives"?
But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you can't
do it in Latin or Greek.
Mike Lyle
> On Nov 23, 9:03 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>>
>> It may be safe to summarily ignore the views of anybody who thinks
>> both that Latin periphrastic infinitives can't be "split"*, and that
>> it's the reason for a rigid disapproval of doing it in English. The
>> reason (isn't it?) is a misplaced sense of style; that, in turn, I
>> suppose, arose from an uncritical awareness that the position of an
>> adverb may affect the meaning of the sentence, and a reasonable fear
>> of crowding too long a phrase between the "to" and the infinitive
>> proper.
>>
>> *I've mentioned this before, but was unable to think of an example
>> from literature: I still can't, so help wanted, please.
>
> What's a Latin periphrastic infinitive?
Would you not call, for example, the perfect passive infinitive of _amo_
"periphrastic"? I'll gladly accept any better name you care to proffer
for it.
> Why would it be taken as
> licensing the splitting of English "infinitives"?
I don't see, or say, that it would. My point is that it would be wrong
to claim that Latin infinitives can't be split, so an English rule based
on Latin practice would be misconceived as well as irrelevant; so I
doubt that this is the actual origin of the "prohibition".
>
> But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you can't
> do it in Latin or Greek.
OK. Can you direct me to the evidence for that, please?
--
Mike.
Nathan
wrote:
> whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
> "Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
> origins).
Never encountered either of these claims before; maybe it's
because I usually see/hear the term "Hispanic" in official
government use, which is based on self-identification.
I've never found a Brazilian who self-identifies as
Hispanic, nor a Spaniard who doesn't.
If the subject is "race", then the US government doesn't
recognize a separate racial category for such
identifications, but informally I mostly hear "Latino". That
one includes all of the above.
James Hogg
This will be fun. How can someone direct you to something that doesn't
exist?
To narrow the search and make life somewhat easier for Peter, I think
we should specify that his task is not to find just any writer who
cites the one-word Latin infinitive as a basis for the argument against
the English split infinitive. We all know that some writers have done
so, but that was long after the ban had first been pronounced.
What Peter has to find is the Latin argument cited as the ORIGIN of the
prohibition of the split infinitive in English.
--
James
Adam Funk
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Nov 23, 9:03 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
>> wrote:
> [...]
>>>
>>> It may be safe to summarily ignore the views of anybody who thinks
>>> both that Latin periphrastic infinitives can't be "split"*, and that
>>> it's the reason for a rigid disapproval of doing it in English. The
>>> reason (isn't it?) is a misplaced sense of style; that, in turn, I
>>> suppose, arose from an uncritical awareness that the position of an
>>> adverb may affect the meaning of the sentence, and a reasonable fear
>>> of crowding too long a phrase between the "to" and the infinitive
>>> proper.
>>>
>>> *I've mentioned this before, but was unable to think of an example
>>> from literature: I still can't, so help wanted, please.
>>
>> What's a Latin periphrastic infinitive?
>
> Would you not call, for example, the perfect passive infinitive of _amo_
> "periphrastic"? I'll gladly accept any better name you care to proffer
> for it.
By periphrastic, do you mean "multi-word" infinitives?
According to Fowler, "to really understand" is a split infinitive but
"to be really understood" and "to have really understood" are not. If
the dodgy rule is based on Latin, it makes sense (within the dubious
logic) that "to understand" is analogous with "comprehendere", which
you can't split because it's one word.
But I wonder if grammarians have been justified in calling "to
understand" rather than "understand" the infinitive in English. In
English, as in French and German and some other European languages,
you need something that looks like a preposition before the infinitive
in some but not all situations. (And like general preposition use,
you have to learn it with practice in a second language.)
I want to understand.
I cannot understand.
I'm beginning to understand.
I ask you to understand.
Je veux comprendre.
Je ne peux pas comprendre.
Je commence à/de comprendre. Je me mets à comprendre.
Je vous demande de comprendre.
(I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare infinitive
and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
--
In the 1970s, people began receiving utility bills for
-£999,999,996.32 and it became harder to sustain the
myth of the infallible electronic brain. (Stob 2001)
Peter T. Daniels
Well, since you _know_ about the "first pronunciation" of the ban, why
don't you cite it for us?
> What Peter has to find is the Latin argument cited as the ORIGIN of the
> prohibition of the split infinitive in English.
What James has to find is a first enunciation of the ban and show that
it doesn't cite it.
Richard Chambers
> Je commence �/de comprendre. Je me mets � comprendre.
> Je vous demande de comprendre.
>
> (I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare infinitive
> and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that French, a language more heavily
based on Latin than is English, seems to have no objection to a split
infinitive (if � is part of the infinitive).
Je commence � le comprendre.
I am no expert in French, but I believe that your last example should
(possibly) have had "que" + subjunctive, not an infinitive.
Je vous demande que vous comprennez.
Is that right, or is my memory playing tricks on me again?
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.
James Hogg
Time travel is not yet possible. Will you settle for the earliest known
surviving recorded enunciation of the ban?
Discussions of this issue are full of unsupported statements. Here's
one example: Richard Lederer, in "A Man of My Words: Reflections on the
English Language" (St. Martin's Press, 2003), p. 248: writes: "The
prohibition of that practice was created in 1762 by one Robert Lowth, an
Anglican bishop and self-appointed grammarian."
Now Lowth's grammar from 1762 happens to be online. You will search in
vain for the prohibition:
http://books.google.com/books?id=xYcSAAAAIAAJ
I don't think anybody has found any real citation earlier than this one
from 1834, in an article entitled "Inaccuracies of Diction: Grammar"
in The New-England Magazine 7 (6): 467�470. here the author specifically
states that he has never before seen the prohibition in print:
'The practice of separating the prefix of the infinitive mode from the
verb, by the intervention of an adverb, is not infrequent among
uneducated persons; as, "To fully understand it," instead of "to
understand it fully," or, "fully to understand it." This fault is not
often found in print, except in some newspapers, where the editors have
not had the advantage of a good education, I am not conscious, that any
role has been heretofore given in relation to this point: no treatise on
grammar or rhetoric, within my knowledge, alludes to it. The practice,
however, of not separating the particle from its verb, is so general and
uniform among good authors, and the exceptions are so rare, that the
rule which I am about to propose will, I believe, prove to be as
accurate as most rules, and may be found beneficial to inexperienced
writers. It is this: -- The particle, to, which comes before the verb in
the infinitive mode, must not be separated from it by the intervention
of an adverb or any other word or phrase; but the adverb should
immediately precede the particle, or immediately follow the verb.'
You can read that here:
http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nwen;cc=nwen;rgn=full%20text;idno=nwen0007-6;didno=nwen0007-6;view=image;seq=00479;node=nwen0007-6%3A1
http://tinyurl.com/yzz7wwg
Now you know what you're looking for, Peter. A quotation earlier than
1834 which prohibits the split infinitive in English and explicitly
justifies it by stating that Latin infinitives can't be split. In other
words, something to back up what you said above:
"But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you can't
do it in Latin or Greek."
--
James
Mike Lyle
> On 2009-11-23, Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>>>> and a reasonable fear of crowding too long a phrase between the
>>>> "to" and the infinitive proper.
>>>>
>
> But I wonder if grammarians have been justified in calling "to
But they don't. The general opinion is that "understand" is the "bare
infinitive" (what I called "the infinitive proper" above), with, IIUC,
"to" tacked on from time to time as a necessary convenience. For my
part, I prefer to think that English has two forms of the present
infinitive, one with, and one without, "to". That's because of those
cases in which an infinitive is needed, but the one without "to" doesn't
work. But, when all's said and done, the names probably don't matter
much.
--
Mike.
Jerry Friedman
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 23, 2:25 pm, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
> >> Mike Lyle wrote:
> >>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>>> But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you
> >>>> can't do it in Latin or Greek.
> >>> OK. Can you direct me to the evidence for that, please?
> >> This will be fun. How can someone direct you to something that
> >> doesn't exist?
I'm not sure it doesn't exist. People really could have gone through
that thought process--thinking that "to love" is "logically" one word
because _amare_ is one word--and someone could even have written it
down. And Peter could be the one who discovers the evidence for it!
[snip interesting information that I put in the Wikipedia article a
few years ago]
> Now you know what you're looking for, Peter. A quotation earlier than
> 1834
I must mention Richard Bailey at Michigan, who found the 1834
prescription or publicized it.
http://www.umich.edu/NewsE/06_06/words.html
> which prohibits the split infinitive in English and explicitly
> justifies it by stating that Latin infinitives can't be split. In other
> words, something to back up what you said above:
>
> "But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you can't
> do it in Latin or Greek."
Heck, I'd even be interested in such examples before 1941, though they
wouldn't back up Peter's assertion. Not "The ban on split infinitives
came from a false analogy with Latin." There are plenty of examples
of that. What I'm hoping for is something meaning "You shouldn't
split infinitives because you can't do it in Latin."
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
> On Nov 23, 10:46 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>
> > Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:19:34 +0100: Athel Cornish-Bowden
> > <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>: in sci.lang:
> > >For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
> > >Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
> > >Spanish".
>
> > Iberic? European?
>
> Peninsular Spanish is the usual technical term.
Giving Mexicans an opportunity to inquire, with feigned ignorance,
whether the Yucatan peninsula is meant. If I had opinions on Spanish
usage, I'd wish the usual technical term were "Spanish Spanish" or
"European Spanish".
--
Jerry Friedman
John W Kennedy
> On Nov 23, 4:25 am, Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 23, 10:46 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>>
>>> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:19:34 +0100: Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>> <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>: in sci.lang:
>
>>>> For the meaning you have in mind I usually say "Spanish
>>>> Spanish", but if you don't like that there's always "peninsular
>>>> Spanish".
>>> Iberic? European?
>> Peninsular Spanish is the usual technical term.
>
> Giving Mexicans an opportunity to inquire, with feigned ignorance,
> whether the Yucatan peninsula is meant. If I had opinions on Spanish
> usage, I'd wish the usual technical term were "Spanish Spanish" or
> "European Spanish".
In my experience, "Castilian", however technically inadequate, is the
usual expression.
--
John W. Kennedy
A proud member of the reality-based community.
Steve Hayes
>On Nov 22, 11:19 pm, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>
>wrote:
>> whatever logic or etymology might suggest,
>> "Hispanic" as used in the US includes people from Brazil, it does
>> _not_ include people from Spain (unless they are from "Hispanic"
>> origins).
>
>Never encountered either of these claims before; maybe it's
>because I usually see/hear the term "Hispanic" in official
>government use, which is based on self-identification.
>I've never found a Brazilian who self-identifies as
>Hispanic, nor a Spaniard who doesn't.
My dictionary gives "Hispanic" as:
1.,Relating to, characteristic of or derived from Spain or the Spanish.
2. US. A US citizen of Spanish or Latin-American descent.
Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means Spanish as
spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish spoken in other
Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really a citizen.
Of course my dictionary could have got it wrong.
R H Draney
How about "Old World Spanish"?...r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Adam Thornton
John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>Yeah. In AmE too I'm sure. I thought he meant <cache> (pronounced
>[c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural cache
>could be, in the context.
A cultural cache would be a time capsule, no?
Adam
Conrad
> In article <NnvOm.56954$ze1.48...@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
> John Atkinson <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> >Yeah. In AmE too I'm sure. I thought he meant <cache> (pronounced
> >[c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural cache
> >could be, in the context.
>
> A cultural cache would be a time capsule, no?
I *like* loan words, but spelling them isn't always my cup of -t.
C.
Peter Moylan
> the Omrud wrote:
>> You're including AUE, so I'm going to query "cache". I've never
>> seen this - it's "cachet" in BrE.
>>
> Yeah. In AmE too I'm sure. I thought he meant <cache> (pronounced
> [c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural
> cache could be, in the context.
It's that part of your culture that you keep in memory, as distinct from
the parts you have to go and look up.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
R H Draney
Or that gold record of Chuck Berry we put in the Voyager probe....r
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means Spanish as
> spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish spoken in other
> Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really a citizen.
Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
--
Bertel, Denmark
Roland Hutchinson
Because it's a word commonly used in western-hemisphere varieties of
Spanish to mean the Spanish language wherever and however spoken -- and
to distinguish it from other Spanish languages, i.e., languages spoken in
Spain, such as Catalan, Gallician, and Basque.
Evan Kirshenbaum
The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
(Probably among others.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |You cannot solve problems with the
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |same type of thinking that created
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |them.
| Albert Einstein
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
James Hogg
> Bertel Lund Hansen <splittemi...@lundhansen.dk> writes:
>
>> Steve Hayes skrev:
>>
>>> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means
>>> Spanish as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish
>>> spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't
>>> really a citizen.
>> Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
>
> The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
> (Probably among others.)
Wiki has a map:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol%C3%A9mica_en_torno_a_espa%C3%B1ol_o_castellano
There's a warning (probably justified) that a cite is needed. The map
claims to show "uso mayoritaria", not official terminology.
--
James
Peter T. Daniels
> Bertel Lund Hansen <splitteminebrams...@lundhansen.dk> writes:
>
> > Steve Hayes skrev:
>
> >> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means
> >> Spanish as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish
> >> spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really
> >> a citizen.
>
> > Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
>
> The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
> (Probably among others.)
Why not use the term used by scholars, Peninsular Spanish? (Is the
assumption warranted that Iberian Spanish comprises a single node on
the tree of Spanish dialect development? If settlement patterns around
the world were as they were for English in the US, it might not be.)
António Marques
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:10:32 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes skrev:
>>
>>> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means Spanish
>>> as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish spoken in other
>>> Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really a citizen.
>>
>> Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
>
> Because it's a word commonly used in western-hemisphere varieties of
> Spanish to mean the Spanish language wherever and however spoken -- and
> to distinguish it from other Spanish languages, i.e., languages spoken in
> Spain, such as Catalan, Gallician, and Basque.
And in other context to distinguish the specific dialect of Castille
from the others in Spain.
I can't see what's wrong with 'iberian spanish'. Or 'european' even.
Completely unambiguous.
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>Adam Thornton filted:
>>
>>In article <NnvOm.56954$ze1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
>>John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>Yeah. In AmE too I'm sure. I thought he meant <cache> (pronounced
>>>[c&S]). Though I couldn't quite work out what the hell a cultural cache
>>>could be, in the context.
>>
>>A cultural cache would be a time capsule, no?
>
>Or that gold record of Chuck Berry we put in the Voyager probe....r
If our neighbouring celestial denizens don't like Chuck Berry's
singing, they can listen to the first movement of Bach's Brandenburg
Concerto No. 2 in F.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Adam Funk
The people who say "don't split infinitives" clearly think that "to
understand" is one unit of infinitive (I'm inclined to disagree) and
that you shouldn't put anything in the middle (I definitely disagree).
--
And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb
through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a
sucker you are. [Rufus T. Firefly]
Adam Funk
> On 23 Nov 2009 17:24:10 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Adam Thornton filted:
>>>A cultural cache would be a time capsule, no?
>>
>>Or that gold record of Chuck Berry we put in the Voyager probe....r
>
> If our neighbouring celestial denizens don't like Chuck Berry's
> singing, they can listen to the first movement of Bach's Brandenburg
> Concerto No. 2 in F.
"Roll over, Bach" doesn't fit the music.
--
Steve: Now, okay. I did say that monkeys could program Visual Basic.
Leo: But not that all Visual Basic programmers are monkeys.
Steve: Exactly. [Security Now 194]
Andrew Plotkin
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Adam Funk
> Adam Funk wrote
>> But I wonder if grammarians have been justified in calling "to
>> understand" rather than "understand" the infinitive in English. In
>> English, as in French and German and some other European languages,
>> you need something that looks like a preposition before the infinitive
>> in some but not all situations. (And like general preposition use,
>> you have to learn it with practice in a second language.)
>>
>> I want to understand.
>> I cannot understand.
>> I'm beginning to understand.
>> I ask you to understand.
>>
>> Je veux comprendre.
>> Je ne peux pas comprendre.
>> Je commence à/de comprendre. Je me mets à comprendre.
>> Je vous demande de comprendre.
>>
>> (I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare infinitive
>> and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
>
> Additionally, it is worth mentioning that French, a language more heavily
> based on Latin than is English, seems to have no objection to a split
> infinitive (if à is part of the infinitive).
> Je commence à le comprendre.
>
> I am no expert in French, but I believe that your last example should
> (possibly) have had "que" + subjunctive, not an infinitive.
> Je vous demande que vous comprennez.
> Is that right, or is my memory playing tricks on me again?
I'm sure "Je vous demande de comprendre" is right, but I suspect that
"Je demande que vous comprenniez" may also be right (but less
common). With vouloir, it's the other way around:
Je veux comprendre = I want to understand
Je veux que vous comprenniez = I want you to understand
I think "Je vous veux comprendre" might have been used in the past,
but with the same meaning as "Je veux vous comprendre" (I want to
understand you).
--
Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I don't think that this is a coincidence. [anonymous]
António Marques
'It does come from Latin' does not imply 'You can find people saying on
record that it should be that way because Latin is that way'. Though
you're justified in answering 'That's just unproven speculation'. But
the fact that there are plenty of examples of 'The ban on split
infinitives came from a false analogy with Latin' points (again, not
'proves') to there being something in it - why would people so
consistently say others based themselves on Latin if they hadn't? Of
course there are differing answers to that - but the matter is one of
plausibility.
Mike Lyle
How many well-informed authors do in fact offer the Latin explanation?
That some Latin infinitives _can_ be split makes more plausible the idea
that the explanation, however traditional, is simply a mistake. Add to
this that Latin grammar is often _justly_ implicated in ill-conceived
rules for English, and it becomes not very difficult to see how the idea
could have taken hold. I don't know how significant it is that Fowler,
in his long treatment of the matter, doesn't, IIRC, bring up the Latin
analogy; but I'd have expected a mention if he'd believed it was the
origin.
Of course I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
--
Mike.
Mike Lyle
> On 2009-11-23, Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>> Adam Funk wrote:
>>> On 2009-11-23, Mike Lyle wrote:
>>>
>> [...]
>>>>>> and a reasonable fear of crowding too long a phrase between the
>>>>>> "to" and the infinitive proper.
>>>>>>
>> [...].
>>>
>>> But I wonder if grammarians have been justified in calling "to
>>> understand" rather than "understand" the infinitive in English.
>>> [...]
>>
>> But they don't. The general opinion is that "understand" is the "bare
>> infinitive" (what I called "the infinitive proper" above), with,
>> IIUC, "to" tacked on from time to time as a necessary convenience.
>> For my part, I prefer to think that English has two forms of the
>> present infinitive, one with, and one without, "to". That's because
>> of those cases in which an infinitive is needed, but the one without
>> "to" doesn't work. But, when all's said and done, the names probably
>> don't matter much.
>
> The people who say "don't split infinitives" clearly think that "to
> understand" is one unit of infinitive (I'm inclined to disagree) and
> that you shouldn't put anything in the middle (I definitely disagree).
Well, yes, that is rather what we're discussing.
--
Mike.
Skitt
Maybe it's not Latin -- maybe it's Latvian. They don't split infinitives
either. There's nothing to split. An infinitive is a single word.
--
Skitt (AmE)
not entirely serious about some things
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
I think your "periphrastic infinitives" are beside the point. The
equation that English speakers make is between English "to V" and the
single-word Latin form usually ending in -re (strictly the present
active infinitive). Even if you should decide that the -re suffix
somehow corresponds to "to", there is no way it can be separated from
the rest of the word. The fact that "amatus esse" or whatever consists
of two words which can be separated means that you can separate the
counterpart of "loved" from "to be", but not "to" from the rest. And
it is the separation of "to" that is the crux of the split-infinitive
quesiton.
So I don't think it is correct to put the Latin explanation down to
ignorance of Latin grammar. This is independent of the question
whether Lowth or anyone else actually made this argument explicitly.
And even if nobody did, one could still argue that they were
influenced by the Latin model.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
> You do know that this thread was crossposted maliciously, right?
I detached a subthread from those other groups. This one appears to
have escaped my notice.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
I'm still waiting for an example of "some Latin infinitives" that
"_can_ be split."
Peter T. Daniels
According to Denison in Camb. Hist. Eng. Lang. 4: 242, "According to
Mosse' (1947: 208-9), the split infinitive was hardly widespread
before 1830." Mosse' 1947 is a French historical grammar of English. A
rule of thumb among historians is that there's no need for a
prohibition of a practice that doesn't occur, and contrariwise if
there's a prohibition, then the practice is not uncommon.
Mike Lyle
> On Nov 25, 8:31 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>>
>> How many well-informed authors do in fact offer the Latin
>> explanation? That some Latin infinitives _can_ be split makes more
>> plausible the idea that the explanation, however traditional, is
>> simply a mistake.
>
> I think your "periphrastic infinitives" are beside the point. The
> equation that English speakers make is between English "to V" and the
> single-word Latin form usually ending in -re (strictly the present
> active infinitive). Even if you should decide that the -re suffix
> somehow corresponds to "to", there is no way it can be separated from
> the rest of the word. The fact that "amatus esse" or whatever consists
> of two words which can be separated means that you can separate the
> counterpart of "loved" from "to be", but not "to" from the rest. And
> it is the separation of "to" that is the crux of the split-infinitive
> quesiton.
> So I don't think it is correct to put the Latin explanation down to
> ignorance of Latin grammar. This is independent of the question
> whether Lowth or anyone else actually made this argument explicitly.
> And even if nobody did, one could still argue that they were
> influenced by the Latin model.
But in that case it isn't at all clear to me why anybody would adduce
the lack of an impossibility as any kind of reason. It wouldn't make
much sense to say "The Romans couldn't, so you mustn't". But, on the
other hand, I must concede that Miss Thistlebottom wasn't short of
senseless notions of style.
It seems to me that, as I said originally, a thoughtless application of
English style is quite sufficient to explain the propagation of the
"rule" without bringing in imports from another language. And, as I said
below, there is the matter of the Fowler that didn't bark in the night.
Jerry Friedman
...
> I think your "periphrastic infinitives" are beside the point.
...
> So I don't think it is correct to put the Latin explanation down to
> ignorance of Latin grammar. This is independent of the question
> whether Lowth or anyone else actually made this argument explicitly.
There's no question about Lowth--he said nothing about the split
infinitive. (Unless somebody finds something in his grammar book that
I missed.)
> And even if nobody did, one could still argue that they were
> influenced by the Latin model.
However, I don't think one should say flatly (as some do) that those
19th-century prescriptivists were influenced by Latin in this matter,
still less that it was their only reason.
And if one does argue that they were influenced by Latin, I think some
evidence beyond "this argument would have made sense to them" would be
nice. So would something beyond the fact that many people believe in
such influence. (That's partly a reply to António Marques.) People
believe all kinds of things. Heck, I believed it too, until I started
looking for evidence.
More important, I think someone ascribing an argument from Latin to
the anti-splitters needs to address the question of why they didn't
mention Latin and why they sometimes gave other reasons. Also (and
this is partly a reply to Adam Funk), one needs to explain why some of
them didn't even see "to" plus a bare infinitive as in some sense one
word, which one might expect in an argument from Latin. The first
known objection says, "The practice, however, of not separating the
particle from its verb, is so general and uniform among good authors,
and the exceptions are so rare, that the rule which I am about to
propose will, I believe, prove to be as accurate as most rules, and
may be found beneficial to inexperienced writers. It is this :—_The
particle, TO, which comes before the verb in the infinitive mode, must
not be separated from it by the intervention of an adverb or any other
word or phrase; but the adverb should immediately precede the
particle, or immediately follow the verb._"
The first influential objection, by Henry Alford in 1864, labels the
relevant paragraph, "Adverb between 'to' and the infinitive". Thus
Alford too seems to think of "illustrate", not "to illustrate", as the
infinitive in "to scientifically illustrate". That's the example of
what he regarded as "entirely unknown to English speakers and writers"
and "flying in the face of common usage". (He was wrong about
"entirely unknown" but maybe a little closer to the truth on "common
usage".)
http://books.google.com/books?id=FqIUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA171#v=onepage&q=&f=false
In reply to Mike Lyle, both of these suggest that the original
objection was based on usage, not theories about style. Between
those, one Richard Taylor wrote, "Some writers of the present day have
the disagreeable affectation of putting an adverb between _to_ and the
infinitive." This seems to combine an objection based on taste with
one based on rarity.
The history of the split infinitive is strange. It didn't occur in
Old English; the first known example is in Layamon's _Brut_. It
became more popular--Wycliffe was especially fond of it--but then
nearly disappeared in the 16th and 17th centuries, at least in the
best writers. No one knows why, though a speculation about Latin may
be tempting. Its comeback starting in the eighteenth century, and by
1834 it was common enough (as Peter Daniels noted) to attract a
prohibition.
I realize most people here who don't trust Wikipedia won't be
impressed by my saying that I think there's a lot of good information
in the article. But I'm saying it anyway. At least it leads to some
good sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
By the way, one of my contributions to that article was taking out a
discussion of _amatus esse_, or at least suggesting that it be taken
out. That discussion got bogged down in terminological questions that
I didn't see as shedding any light on the English split infinitives.
--
Jerry Friedman
Steve Hayes
That's what I suggested, but someone pointed out that Argentinians
(Argentines?) use that as the designation of their own dialect.
And one group, I'm not sure which, pronounces it "castezhano".
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Christian Weisgerber
> (I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare infinitive
> and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
Yes, this is pretty much the same as in English and "zu" is even
cognate with "to". However, German preserves an infinitive ending
-(e)n, so nobody gets the idea that "zu" might be some kind of
infinitive marker. Presumably Old English paralleled German in
this, but the infinitive ending has been lost along with most of
the personal endings.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Patrick Karl
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
>> (I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare infinitive
>> and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
>
> Yes, this is pretty much the same as in English and "zu" is even
> cognate with "to".
In the sentence, "I saw him go into the house.", isn't "go" an infinitive?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
I was thinking along the lines of translations of Latin, which would
perhaps tend to leave the "to" next to the verb because it's a single
word and English provides other options for where to put adverbs.
There are of course lots of other "inseparables" in Latin
corresponding to English phrases, e.g. case-inflected nouns (porcorum
"of pigs"); but separation of preposition and noun is not tabooed
because English offers no other option (trium parvorum porcorum "of
three little pigs").
I admit I'm not fully convinced by this, and Latin may really have
nothing to do with it. But I'd like to see an explanation of _why_
this particular separation came to be considered bad style and then
bad grammar. Maybe I'll go back and read the earlier posts and find
one.
Ross Clark
John Atkinson
> On Nov 24, 2:01 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> Bertel Lund Hansen <splitteminebrams...@lundhansen.dk> writes:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes skrev:
>>>> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means
>>>> Spanish as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish
>>>> spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really
>>>> a citizen.
>>> Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
>> The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
>> (Probably among others.)
>
> Why not use the term used by scholars, Peninsular Spanish? (Is the
> assumption warranted that Iberian Spanish comprises a single node on
> the tree of Spanish dialect development?
>
dialects of "Iberian Spanish".
>
AIUI, all overseas Spanish varieties (except possibly Judeo-Spanish?)
are derived from the Spanish of Castile, though with strong Andalusian
influence.
António Marques
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Nov 24, 2:01 am, Evan Kirshenbaum<kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>>> Bertel Lund Hansen<splitteminebrams...@lundhansen.dk> writes:
>>>
>>>> Steve Hayes skrev:
>>>>> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means
>>>>> Spanish as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish
>>>>> spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really
>>>>> a citizen.
>>>> Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
>>> The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
>>> (Probably among others.)
>>
>> Why not use the term used by scholars, Peninsular Spanish? (Is the
>> assumption warranted that Iberian Spanish comprises a single node on
>> the tree of Spanish dialect development?
>>
> Certainly not, at least if you consider Asturian, Leonese, etc to be
> dialects of "Iberian Spanish".
Who does that?
Peter T. Daniels
There's a page of quotations in McArthur's Oxford Companion to the
English Language s.v. Usage Guidance and Criticism.
Peter T. Daniels
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 24, 2:01 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >> Bertel Lund Hansen <splitteminebrams...@lundhansen.dk> writes:
>
> >>> Steve Hayes skrev:
> >>>> Thus when applied to language, "Hispanic Spanish" surely means
> >>>> Spanish as spoken in Spain, as opposed to the kind of Spanish
> >>>> spoken in other Spanish-speaking countries. A Language isn't really
> >>>> a citizen.
> >>> Why not stick with their own designation: Castellano (Castilian)?
> >> The official language of Peru, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela?
> >> (Probably among others.)
>
> > Why not use the term used by scholars, Peninsular Spanish? (Is the
> > assumption warranted that Iberian Spanish comprises a single node on
> > the tree of Spanish dialect development?
>
> Certainly not, at least if you consider Asturian, Leonese, etc to be
> dialects of "Iberian Spanish".
So how do you group the Spanish dialects of Iberia that puts Asturian,
Leonese, etc., on a node that also includes non-Iberian dialects?
> AIUI, all overseas Spanish varieties (except possibly Judeo-Spanish?)
> are derived from the Spanish of Castile, though with strong Andalusian
> influence.
So if all overseas dialects come from Castile, then it's _not_ like
the situation of English in the US.
> > If settlement patterns around
> > the world were as they were for English in the US, it might not be.)-
Adam Funk
Yes.
--
In the 1970s, people began receiving utility bills for
-£999,999,996.32 and it became harder to sustain the
myth of the infallible electronic brain. (Stob 2001)
Adam Funk
Right, but in both modern English and modern German, the "bare"
infinitiveand the 1st and 3rd person plural forms still end up being
the same:
I can make, we make, they make
Ich kann machen, wir machen, sie machen
I wonder if this "'to make' is the infinitive of 'make'" business
comes from the verb paradigms in textbooks (of Latin, for example):
amāre to love
amō I love
amās thou lovest
amat he loves
etc.
--
It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by
first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste
of the nation. (David Sarnoff, CEO of RCA, 1939; in Stoll 1995)
António Marques
> I admit I'm not fully convinced by this, and Latin may really have
> nothing to do with it. But I'd like to see an explanation of _why_
> this particular separation came to be considered bad style and then
> bad grammar. Maybe I'll go back and read the earlier posts and find
> one.
If the possibility to move 'to' away from the infinitive only appeared
at a certain point in time, that's all that's needed for people not used
to it to dislike it. In time it may have become unmarked, but by then
the dislike of some for it would be universally known.
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>On 2009-11-24, Chuck Riggs wrote:
>
>> On 23 Nov 2009 17:24:10 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Adam Thornton filted:
>
>>>>A cultural cache would be a time capsule, no?
>>>
>>>Or that gold record of Chuck Berry we put in the Voyager probe....r
>>
>> If our neighbouring celestial denizens don't like Chuck Berry's
>> singing, they can listen to the first movement of Bach's Brandenburg
>> Concerto No. 2 in F.
>
>"Roll over, Bach" doesn't fit the music.
"Roll over, Sebast'an" does.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE
Christian Weisgerber
> Right, but in both modern English and modern German, the "bare"
> infinitiveand the 1st and 3rd person plural forms still end up being
> the same:
>
> I can make, we make, they make
> Ich kann machen, wir machen, sie machen
Sure, but the other person forms have other non-zero endings and
the 1./3. plural -en also shows up in the preterite, so it is quite
clear that this is an accidental resemblance and not a reuse of the
infinitive.
BTW, I don't think placing an adverb between "zu" and infinitive
is possible in German.
> I wonder if this "'to make' is the infinitive of 'make'" business
> comes from the verb paradigms in textbooks (of Latin, for example):
>
> amāre to love
Possibly. In that case the "to" isn't even an infinitive marker,
it's a _verb_ marker.
Peter Moylan
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
>> Right, but in both modern English and modern German, the "bare"
>> infinitiveand the 1st and 3rd person plural forms still end up
>> being the same:
>>
>> I can make, we make, they make Ich kann machen, wir machen, sie
>> machen
>
> Sure, but the other person forms have other non-zero endings and the
> 1./3. plural -en also shows up in the preterite, so it is quite clear
> that this is an accidental resemblance and not a reuse of the
> infinitive.
Yes, but you could say the same thing about English. There was never a
time when English speakers said "Let's use the infinitive in the first
person singular". The fact that English "I make" uses the same form as
the infinitive is the result of historical accident: the gradual
disappearance of inflectional endings. In fact the one remaining
non-zero verb ending, in the 3rd person singular, is probably also on
the road to disappearance, because our present -s ending is less
distinct than the older -eth.
The historical development is, in any case, largely irrelevant to most
native speakers. The end result is the important thing, and the end
result is that in the Germanic languages you can't hear an infinitive in
isolation and be sure that it is an infinitive. This is unlike the
Romance languages, for example, where the infinitive endings don't
overlap other inflected parts of the verb.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Mike Lyle
> On Nov 24, 2:31 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> Of course I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
>
> I'm still waiting for an example of "some Latin infinitives" that
> "_can_ be split."
My apologies: I presumed you knew Latin. There are infinitives
consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
_amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present infinitive of
_sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
Latin word order is notoriously flexible, especially in verse, so there
would, it seems, have been no difficulty in "splitting" one of these.
But, frustratingly, I can't think of an example from literature.
(Interestingly, the Latin verb for _to be_ itself actually has one of
these two-word future infinitives and an older one-word form. I don't
know when or even whether the other verbs lost single-word future
infinitives.)
--
Mike.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 24, 2:31 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> [...]
> >> Of course I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
>
> > I'm still waiting for an example of "some Latin infinitives" that
> > "_can_ be split."
>
> My apologies: I presumed you knew Latin. There are infinitives
> consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
> _amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present infinitive of
> _sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
So it's a sort of "courtesy label" to call the phrase "an infinitive."
> Latin word order is notoriously flexible, especially in verse, so there
> would, it seems, have been no difficulty in "splitting" one of these.
Except, it seems, for Latin-speakers.
> But, frustratingly, I can't think of an example from literature.
Thank you.
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
...
> It seems to me that, as I said originally, a thoughtless application of
> English style is quite sufficient to explain the propagation of the
> "rule" without bringing in imports from another language.
...
I overlooked one quotation relevant to your point, which Peter
Daniels's mention of the /Oxford Companion to the English Language/
reminded me of.
"Of the infinitive verb and its preposition _to_, some grammarians
say, that they must never be separated by an adverb. It is true, that
the
adverb is, in general, more elegantly placed before the preposition
than
after it; but, possibly, the latter position of it may sometimes
contribute
to perspicuity, which is more essential than elegance..."
Goold Brown, _The Grammar of English Grammars_ (1851)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11615/11615-8.txt
That's a later edition, but the OCttEL (searchable at Amazon) quotes
the same thing from the 1851 edition.
I wonder who those grammarians were. Just the anonymous one from 1834
and Richard Taylor from 1840? On that subject, MWDEU says but Thomas
R. Lounsbury mentioned in _The Standard of Usage in English_ a few
prohibitions that he had seen in 18th-century writings but that he
gave no citations. So maybe there are earlier prohibitions out there,
and they might even support a claim that the reason was something
other than "common usage".
--
Jerry Friedman
Christian Weisgerber
> The historical development is, in any case, largely irrelevant to most
> native speakers. The end result is the important thing, and the end
> result is that in the Germanic languages you can't hear an infinitive in
> isolation and be sure that it is an infinitive.
And this is wrong for German. In isolation, a German infinitive
is taken to be an infinitive. You can gloss "amare - lieben" and
nobody will wonder if this is a 1./3. pers. pl. present. If you
want to gloss "amamus" and "amant", you'll need to invoke a pronoun:
amamus - (wir) lieben, amant - (sie) lieben.
Strictly speaking you are right that -en is ambiguous, but its
functional load is much less than that of the English zero verb
ending, and the default interpretation is that of an infinitive
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
Wikip cites:
_The American Heritage Book of English Usage_
_Writing Science Through Critical Thinking_ (ha!) by Marilyn Moriarty
the COED
_The Language Instinct_ by Steven Pinker
_Language and Linguistics: An Introduction_ by John L. Lyons
"Pronoun Envy" by Alette Olin Hill (in Carolyn Logan [ed.].
_Counterbalance: Gendered Perspectives on Writing and Language_)
_Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach_ by Paul R. Kroeger.
Links are available at the article.
Speaking of which, here's "Ask the Experts" from AskOxford:
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/jargonbuster/s/splitinfinitive?view=uk
I do not state an opinion on which of those authors are well informed.
--
Jerry Friedman must check the wild rice. Burnt stuffing is no good.
Mike Lyle
> On Nov 26, 7:51 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Nov 24, 2:31 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>> [...]
>>>> Of course I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
>>
>>> I'm still waiting for an example of "some Latin infinitives" that
>>> "_can_ be split."
>>
>> My apologies: I presumed you knew Latin. There are infinitives
>> consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
>> _amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present infinitive
>> of _sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
>
> So it's a sort of "courtesy label" to call the phrase "an infinitive."
Well, yes; but only if you don't want to call it a real infinitive for
some reason.
>
>> Latin word order is notoriously flexible, especially in verse, so
>> there would, it seems, have been no difficulty in "splitting" one of
>> these.
>
> Except, it seems, for Latin-speakers.
>
>> But, frustratingly, I can't think of an example from literature.
>
> Thank you.
If that expression of gratitude means what I think it means, I wouldn't
base any argument on a gap in my memory.
>
>> (Interestingly, the Latin verb for _to be_ itself actually has one of
>> these two-word future infinitives and an older one-word form. I don't
>> know when or even whether the other verbs lost single-word future
>> infinitives.)
--
Mike.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 26, 7:51 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Nov 24, 2:31 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> >>> wrote:
> >> [...]
> >>>> Of course I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
>
> >>> I'm still waiting for an example of "some Latin infinitives" that
> >>> "_can_ be split."
>
> >> My apologies: I presumed you knew Latin. There are infinitives
> >> consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
> >> _amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present infinitive
> >> of _sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
>
> > So it's a sort of "courtesy label" to call the phrase "an infinitive."
>
> Well, yes; but only if you don't want to call it a real infinitive for
> some reason.
Ok, define "infinitive."
> >> Latin word order is notoriously flexible, especially in verse, so
> >> there would, it seems, have been no difficulty in "splitting" one of
> >> these.
>
> > Except, it seems, for Latin-speakers.
>
> >> But, frustratingly, I can't think of an example from literature.
>
> > Thank you.
>
> If that expression of gratitude means what I think it means, I wouldn't
> base any argument on a gap in my memory.
Well, I assume you are not the ThLL, but I also expect that you have
had the opportunity to consult authorities on the question.
Trond Engen
> Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp@retep> wrote:
>
>> The historical development is, in any case, largely irrelevant to
>> most native speakers. The end result is the important thing, and the
>> end result is that in the Germanic languages you can't hear an
>> infinitive in isolation and be sure that it is an infinitive.
>
> And this is wrong for German. In isolation, a German infinitive
> is taken to be an infinitive. You can gloss "amare - lieben" and
> nobody will wonder if this is a 1./3. pers. pl. present.
Even wronger in Scandinavian, I think. There's homonymy between
infinitives and preterites of modal verbs in Danish and the usual brand
of Norwegian, but that's about it.
--
Trond Engen
Jerry Friedman
'In Old English, most infinitives were single words ending in -an
(compare modern German and Dutch -en), but about one quarter were "to"
followed by a verbal noun in the dative case, which ended in -anne or -
enne.[3]'
Not to keep quoting Wikipedia or anything.
The reference is to Bryant, M. M. (October 1946). "The Split
Infinitive". College English 8 (1): 39–40.
For those with access to JSTOR:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/370450
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
Speaking of which, I expect that you've had the opportunity to find
your evidence for this statement:
"But no, the prohibition does indeed come from the fact that you can't
do it in Latin or Greek."
--
Jerry Friedman
James Hogg
That led me to an article in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 29, No. 2, Feb.,
1914, pp. 41-45, entitled "Origin and Force of the Split Infinitiv", by
George Curme. It's a good brief survey of the history of the split
infinitive, explained in terms of the historical development of word
order in English, with not a single reference to Latin. Here's how he
ends the article:
"Those who love life glory in the constructiv forces that hav long been
at work in English, but littl grammarians who hav no conception of
creativ linguistic instinct and see in all change a corruption hav
always raisd their voices against these beneficent forces and ar stil
crying out against the split infinitiv and similar creations, but the
deep-seated linguistic processes go quietly on establishing themselves
in those countless minds that operate not by artificial regulations but
in accordance with simpl natural laws."
--
James
Mike Lyle
> On Nov 26, 2:12 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Nov 26, 7:51 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>> consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
>>>> _amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present
>>>> infinitive of _sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
>>
>>> So it's a sort of "courtesy label" to call the phrase "an
>>> infinitive."
>>
>> Well, yes; but only if you don't want to call it a real infinitive
>> for some reason.
>
> Ok, define "infinitive."
I'd rather not; but "a verb noun which isn't a gerund or a supine" will
still probably supply my few needs.
>
>>>> Latin word order is notoriously flexible, especially in verse, so
>>>> there would, it seems, have been no difficulty in "splitting" one
>>>> of these.
>>
>>> Except, it seems, for Latin-speakers.
>>
>>>> But, frustratingly, I can't think of an example from literature.
>>
>>> Thank you.
>>
>> If that expression of gratitude means what I think it means, I
>> wouldn't base any argument on a gap in my memory.
>
> Well, I assume you are not the ThLL, but I also expect that you have
> had the opportunity to consult authorities on the question.
Not for several decades past, I fear. But I could ask my brother and
some old mates if you like.
[...]
--
Mike.
Peter T. Daniels
I think it was you who already did so.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Nov 26, 2:12 pm, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Nov 26, 7:51 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk>
> >>> wrote:
> [...]
> >>>> consisting of separate words. For example, the future infinitive of
> >>>> _amo_ is made up of its future participle and the present
> >>>> infinitive of _sum_: thus, _amaturus esse_.
>
> >>> So it's a sort of "courtesy label" to call the phrase "an
> >>> infinitive."
>
> >> Well, yes; but only if you don't want to call it a real infinitive
> >> for some reason.
>
> > Ok, define "infinitive."
>
> I'd rather not;
Funny how people love to build arguments about what things should be
called, but then hate to put definitions on the words they're arguing
about.
> but "a verb noun which isn't a gerund or a supine" will
> still probably supply my few needs.
Ok, define "verb noun" (a new one on me), "gerund," and "supine."
Peter T. Daniels
> Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Nov 24, 3:40 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
> >> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >>> (I think in German the rule is that modal verbs take a bare
> >>> infinitive and nearly everything else takes zu + infinitive.)
> >> Yes, this is pretty much the same as in English and "zu" is even
> >> cognate with "to". However, German preserves an infinitive ending
> >> -(e)n, so nobody gets the idea that "zu" might be some kind of
> >> infinitive marker. Presumably Old English paralleled German in
> >> this, but the infinitive ending has been lost along with most of
> >> the personal endings.
>
> > 'In Old English, most infinitives were single words ending in -an
> > (compare modern German and Dutch -en), but about one quarter were
> > "to" followed by a verbal noun in the dative case, which ended in
> > -anne or - enne.[3]'
>
> > Not to keep quoting Wikipedia or anything.
>
> > The reference is to Bryant, M. M. (October 1946). "The Split
>
> > For those with access to JSTOR:
>
> >http://www.jstor.org/pss/370450
>
> That led me to an article in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 29, No. 2, Feb.,
> 1914, pp. 41-45, entitled "Origin and Force of the Split Infinitiv", by
> George Curme. It's a good brief survey of the history of the split
> infinitive, explained in terms of the historical development of word
> order in English, with not a single reference to Latin. Here's how he
> ends the article:
Well, duh. Why would an anti-prescriptivist offer a prescriptivist
rationalization?
> "Those who love life glory in the constructiv forces that hav long been
> at work in English, but littl grammarians who hav no conception of
> creativ linguistic instinct and see in all change a corruption hav
> always raisd their voices against these beneficent forces and ar stil
> crying out against the split infinitiv and similar creations, but the
> deep-seated linguistic processes go quietly on establishing themselves
> in those countless minds that operate not by artificial regulations but
> in accordance with simpl natural laws."
The multi-page discussion in his *Syntax* is rather less colorful but
very amply documented.
Christian Weisgerber
> 'In Old English, most infinitives were single words ending in -an
> (compare modern German and Dutch -en), but about one quarter were "to"
> followed by a verbal noun in the dative case, which ended in -anne or -
> enne.[3]'
I don't quite understand. Was that a morphological or a syntactical
difference?
Jerry Friedman
I cited some people who have stated the same thing you did, but
neither they nor you have provided any evidence. Unless you consider
unsupported claims to be evidence, which I don't.
--
Jerry Friedman
Ruud Harmsen
Weisgerber): in sci.lang:
>BTW, I don't think placing an adverb between "zu" and infinitive
>is possible in German.
Zu wenig machen und zu viel plaudern nutzt nichts.
(No, that's a inifinitive used as a noun.)
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
Ruud Harmsen
sci.lang:
>The historical development is, in any case, largely irrelevant to most
>native speakers. The end result is the important thing, and the end
>result is that in the Germanic languages you can't hear an infinitive in
>isolation and be sure that it is an infinitive. This is unlike the
>Romance languages, for example, where the infinitive endings don't
>overlap other inflected parts of the verb.
They do: personal infinitive and future subjunctive in Portuguese.
Same form for regular verbs, different for irregular ones.