The Italian Language Today, by Anna Laura Lepschy and Giulio Lepschy (2nd edition, 1988) is a useful guide for anyone who has been through a basic to intermediate Italian course. The book has 2 parts: part one The Linguistic Situation in Italy has 4 sections: Italian today; a historical view; Italian dialects; varieties of…… Continue reading The Italian Language Today
Tag: Conditional
We may be losing might
On BBC 4 radio’s Today programme on 12 February, the newsreader talked about reports that ‘55 babies may have survived if they had received better treatment’. The story is shocking, but the use of the modal verb may is also not ideal. To my ear, using may here conveys the idea of possibility: it is…… Continue reading We may be losing might
Names for some Portuguese tenses differ between Portugal and Brazil
Portuguese grammars in Brazil and in Portugal have different names for some tenses (table 1). Table 1. Names for some Portuguese tenses In PortugalIn BrazilEnglishIndicativo futuroIndicativo future do presentoFuture (indicative)CondicionalIndicativo future do préteritoConditionalConjuntivoSubjuntivoSubjunctiveInfinitivo flexiandoInfinitivo pessoalInflected (or personal) infinitiveInfinitivo não flexiandoInfinitivo impessoalInfinitive The English labels given in the right-hand column are from Willis (1971). Willis (1971)…… Continue reading Names for some Portuguese tenses differ between Portugal and Brazil
Greenberg’s list of universals
How much do languages differ and how similar are languages? An early attempt to consider these questions was a conference on language universals held in New York in 1961. Papers based on those prepared for the conference were published in 1963 in Universals of Language, edited by Joseph H Greenberg. (a 2nd, paperback, edition, appeared…… Continue reading Greenberg’s list of universals
Borrowing verb forms from another verb
Sometimes, an inflected form of a verb was originally an inflected form of another verb. For example, went, the past tense form of the English verb go was originally the past tense of the now obsolescent verb wend. This phenomenon is called suppletion. One striking example of suppletion occurs in the verb meaning ‘go’ in…… Continue reading Borrowing verb forms from another verb
Language sketch: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
Here is a summary of some things I learnt about the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) a couple of years ago, when I was carrying out a self-imposed language challenge. http://languagemiscellany.com/2021/09/scandinavian-challenge-how-did-it-go/ I am commenting here only on those 3 languages, not their relatives, the insular Scandinavian Languages (Icelandic and Faroese). For an…… Continue reading Language sketch: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
If, and only if…
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) sometimes writes requirements in the form ‘if A is the case, an entity shall do B’. But in other places it writes such requirements in the form ‘if, and only if, A is the case, an entity shall do B’. Are those two forms intended to have different meanings?…… Continue reading If, and only if…
Negating a verb using an auxiliary verb
English, like many other verbs, uses an invariable particle or adverb (not) to turn a positive verb into a negative verb. But Finnish does this differently, using an auxiliary verb for this task. Present tense In the present tense: a positive verb ends in a suffix showing the number (singular / plural) and person (1st…… Continue reading Negating a verb using an auxiliary verb
Scandinavian language challenge day 30
Today I worked through chapter 9 of Norwegian in three months, covering: more about conjunctionsmore about word orderconditional that clausesother words More about conjunctions Conjunctions—time: da (when)når (when)idet (As)mens (while) før (before)etterat (after)siden (since)inntil (until) Da expresses what happen once in the past (den gang: da). Når expresses what usually happens, what used to happen or…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 30
Scandinavian language challenge day 23
Today I worked through chapter 7 of Swedish in three months, covering: present participlepossessive pronoun: reflexivefuture tenseconditionalother words Present participle The present participle is formed by adding the suffix -ende (-nde for verbs with an infinitive ending in -a). Used as an adjective or adverb, the present participle is indeclinable. en fängslande film (a fascinating film)en…… Continue reading Scandinavian language challenge day 23