Ordinary people and linguist talk about words all the time, but it is surprisingly difficult to define what a word is. In a recent open access paper in the journal Word, the linguist Martin Haspelmath has had a go. The paper is Defining the word, Martin Haspelmath (2023), WORD, 69(3), 283–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2023.2237272 Proposed definition of word…… Continue reading What is a word?
Tag: Genitive
Eva can now put an apostrophe in the name of her shop
German makes much less use of the apostrophe than English does. But the latest edition of the Amtliches Regelwerk der deutschen Rechtschreibung (Official Regulations on German Orthograpy) introduces a new option. It is now possible to use the apostrophe in the names of (for example, shops, restaurants or bars) containing personal names. An example is…… Continue reading Eva can now put an apostrophe in the name of her shop
Saxon Genitive
English has two common ways of expressing possession: the ‘Saxon genitive’ form adds -’s to the end of the last word in a noun phrase referring to the possessor:the king’s wifethe King of England’s wifethe man over there’s wifeFor more on the Saxon Genitive, please see Does English really have case? – Language Miscellany the…… Continue reading Saxon Genitive
German ‘ohne’ and English ‘without’ as not-with
Does the German word ohne (‘without’) correspond to a single mental concept? A recent paper argues that it does not. Instead, it has 2 components. One component corresponds to what the paper calls the cum concept (English with). The other corresponds to a negation or antonymity concept, which the paper calls anti. The paper also…… Continue reading German ‘ohne’ and English ‘without’ as not-with
Surprised by genitive -s in Swedish
Swedish uses a morpheme -s to form genitive noun phrases and, surprisingly, uses it in much the same as English. This post looks at how this works. Much of the discussion here comes from Börjars (1998). Genitive form of unmodified nouns Like English, Swedish creates a genitive form of nouns by adding -s to the…… Continue reading Surprised by genitive -s in Swedish
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
Odd gap in the English genitive
I recently saw a statement about ‘feedback on Jane and my visit to London’. The phrase ‘Jane and my visit’ seems ungrammatical to me. This post considers why. It looks at how to form genitives of nouns, co-ordinated noun phrases and personal pronouns. It then goes on to consider whether it is possible to form…… Continue reading Odd gap in the English genitive
Some odd possessive adjectives in Slavonic
For someone who knows some Russian, the 3rd person possessive adjectives in Croatian look odd. But looking at it more closely, I’ve realised that their Russian counterparts are just as odd, though in a different way. Russian Table 1 shows some of the possessive adjectives in Russian. The adjective’s stem depends on the person (1st,…… Continue reading Some odd possessive adjectives in Slavonic
Cross-language blues’
I found this week an odd blend of English pronunciation and spelling with French pronunciation and spelling. Writing about last Saturday’s Football World Cup match between England and France, a journalist wrote the following: Philippe Auclair, the French writer, calls him Les Bleus’ “beat-giver”. The Times, 12 December 2022(‘him’ refers to the French footballer…… Continue reading Cross-language blues’
Into the 2-word stage
When I last reported on my youngest granddaughter’s progress in learning language, she was still clearly at the 1-word stage (at 20 months). She was still there a couple of months later, though maybe just starting to produce 2-word phrases or statements. https://languagemiscellany.com/2022/04/early-words She recently had her 2nd birthday and is now very definitely in…… Continue reading Into the 2-word stage