Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 18

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August 18

Epenthetic /g/ in Spanish

If my observation is correct, it seems that in Spanish, if the [w] sound occurred at the beginning of a word or immediately after a vowel, an epenthetic /g/ is inserted before the w. For example, in the version of Detective Conan broadcasted in Spain, the name "Miwako" is pronounced like "Migwako." Am I accurately describing what's going on? 98.116.90.160 (talk) 07:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably. The change of /w/ to /gw/, especially in word-initial position, is moderately common. The Spanish words Guadalupe, Guadalquivir, and guacamole (for example) all come from words that originally had /w/. The Spanish, French, and Italian words for "war" (guerra, guerre, and guerra respectively) all originally had /gw/ (now only the Italian word does) and derive from a Germanic word that had /w/ (cognate with English war). In Welsh, /w/ > /gw/ at the beginning of a word is a regular sound change. +Angr 14:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Angr's pretty much explained it. I can only add that the Real Academia Española's various usage guides (e.g. the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas over the years invariably suggest approximating w in English loanwords as "gu" (rather than "u" or word-initially "hu"). Many Spanish ESOL books recommend the same (with words in English itself). This may be through a misunderstanding of English pronunciation (English j is often approximated as Spanish y in loanwords, even in non-Rioplatense Spanish), or, perhaps more likely, rather a sort of allophone inherent to Spanish itself (as Angr touched on and as the Diccionario hints at in its entry for "u"). -- the Great Gavini 19:08, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Totally OR here, but if the /w/+vowel is preceded within the same prosodic unit by a consonant, there's no /g/ inserted, even if it's word-initial. "Sin huevos" is [sinˠweβos/, while "sin guisqui" is [siŋgwiski]. I might be slightly off and the first one should be [siŋweβos] and/or the second one [siŋgʷiski].--Atemperman (talk) 08:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Unclear Ending to Short Story

Hello, and sorry for writing a long and boring question. I've written a short story basically about a Vietnam veteran who has a traumatic experience. The story is set after with him being on drugs in the setting of a concert. The traumatic experience is when his friend (Jesse) tells him to run and as a result dies before him while the main character (Mark) survives. Another character (Reggie) gives him drugs and while on an acid trip, Mark hallucinates he is back in the situation where his friend dies and he is given a chance to save him (and does so) all the while mistaking Reggie as his friend. Throughout the story there is a theme of Mark escaping using the drugs, so what I need in an ending is some ideas or a fix of what I have. My current ending results in Mark thanking Jesse for saving his life and then passing away thus finding the 'ultimate' escape from his trauma. So this is what I have for the end so far -

Struggling beneath the screaming, delusional man, Reggie yelled out to the onlookers for help. Those few that heard over the thunderous music grabbed Mark’s arms and legs and pulled up the frantic figure, allowing Reggie to stand. Mark’s unfocused gaze wept bitter tears as he hysterically cried out into the night. As Reggie approached, a quiet calm came over him. “Thank you for everything, Jesse.” he murmured softly as his eyes closed. Mark had found his final escape.

If anyone really would like to help and needs to read the whole story, I'll put it up here. Any contributions used will be referenced! Sorry about the confusing nature of it all Thank-you! Viskadaik (talk) 09:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend putting the story up here as it would take away space from other people who need to ask questions. You should configure your account to where people can contact you via email. Just go to the "my preferences" button, scroll down to "email options" and check the "Enable e-mail from other users" box. People who want to help can then contact you by going to Special:EmailUser/Viskadaik.

Your story sounds interesting by the way. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 09:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank-you very much. I've put it up for anyone who'd like to help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Viskadaik (talk • contribs) 08:29, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Merely as a stylistic remark, I'd alter the language somewhat. Mark can weep. Mark's eyes can even weep. But to write of a gaze weeping induces a kind of conceptual dissonance in a reader. Moreover, acid trips rarely result in flashbacks. I would change the drug to something more nondescript. The Rhymesmith (talk) 01:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Translation

Can anyone tell me what is the meaning of Ipsos Mori? This is the name of a well known organisation which conducts surveys. It must mean something, but probably not "By the dead themselves" which is as far as my rusty Latin gets me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sing7along (talk • contribs) 17:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

According to our article Ipsos MORI, the second part is an acronym and stands for "Market & Opinion Research International" and they're a subsidiary of Ipsos. (I don't know how Ipsos's name got picked). ---Sluzzelin talk 18:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

If interpreted as Latin words, it could be a subordinate ACI clause which would mean something like "themselves to die" (exact meaning dependent on the main clause). AnonMoos (talk) 19:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I find this unusually macabre for corporate identity the more I think about it (not that I don't appreciate it - I love it!), but I seriously wonder if and when the organization became aware of what associations "mori" might evoke when following a Latin word. (qv Memento mori). Ipsos MORI's own history makes zero mention of it. This thread at wordreference.com's forum comes to similar conclusions as AnonMoos, and the original poster says that "Ipsos" too was an acronym. I couldn't find anything else on its origin, but it doesn't change the grave sound of this organization's name one bit! ---Sluzzelin talk 08:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

What is the word that means "parent of a deceased child or offspring"?

Greetings Wikipedia-ers--

What is the word that means "parent of a deceased child or offspring"?--Or is there one? We have orphan, widow, widower, to describe the surviving member of these 'paired direct relationships'... but what is the word for the parent of a deceased child, children or offspring? Surely a word or phrase exists, especially given higher infant mortality rates in previous eras (and regions) prior to medical advancements, but I have not found it anywhere online nor by calling those in funerary services. It was suggested by one I spoke to that the above terms were perhaps more terms of entitlement (inherit-ability, as it were)than terms defining a survivor-hood state of being.

It's one thing when you can't think of a word you know... it's another thing altogether when you cannot think of a word, and NO ONE seems to know it. It's a "puzzlement"!

Thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhon23 (talk • contribs) 18:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This was asked a while ago. We found no definite answer, but "The reverse of orphan" might interest you anyway. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The previous discussion asked for a word in any language, so I'll continue that request here, especially as the OP here didn't mention English specifically (though that seems to have been his intent). In Hebrew, there's a verb, שכל (in paal), which means "to lose a child to death"; I believe the related piel verb means "to kill a child of [direct object]". The way Hebrew works, it would be easy then to create a noun מְשֻׁכָּל ("father who's lost a child to death") and have people understand you; whether such a noun has ever been used, though, I don't know.—msh210℠ 20:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Bereaved parent. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

In our language punjabi we have a word ਔਤਰਾ . It means one who has no son  Jon Ascton  (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Am I right that that word is transliterated autarā? And does it mean specifically "one whose son has died", or can it be used for someone who's never had a son? +Angr 21:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Spanish

Hey, I'm started a beginning Spanish course today. My teacher (a non-native speaker, sadly) says that in Spanish "V" and "B" are pronounced the same. I have inferred that she is teaching us Latin-American Spanish (what particular brand, I'm not sure yet), since she didn't mention anything about lisping the s's or z's. I (a linguistics enthusiast [read: amateur]) thought there might be something wrong with that, but I'm none too familiar with the different varieties of Spanish. In Latin American Spanish, is the "V" pronounced like the IPA character β? 76.229.234.175 (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Different texts will tell you different specifics, but generally B and V have come to be pronounced the same way, but the oddity is that there are two different pronunciations. It's like a hard B at the beginning of a word, more like a soft V when in the middle of a word. Or that's how they taught in my school, anyway. A Mexican born friend told me that was "lazy" pronunciation, but it's how languages evolve. That "lazy" approach is kind of like why we now pronounce "knight" as "nite" instead of "kuh-nicht", as we once did. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Your IP address indicates you're in the U.S., so it's not surprising if you're being taught Latin American Spanish. That's usual in the U.S. Your teacher is right that "b" and "v" are pronounced the same in Spanish. Both of them are [β] after a vowel, r, or l, and both of them are [b] after m or n (both pronounced [m] in this environment) as well as at the beginning of an utterance. So v is pronounced [b] in words like enviar [embiar] and phrases like con Velázquez [kombelaskes], as well as at the beginning of a sentence like ¿Vienes conmigo? [bjenes konmiɣo]; and it's pronounced [β] in words like cava [kaβa] and cuervo [kwerβo] and in phrases like la vaca [la βaka]. +Angr 22:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The phenomenon is called Betacism. I am English/Portuguese bilingual and when I speak Spanish (not well enough to call myself trilingual), I do distinguish B and V. I am not so consistent in distinguishing LL from Y (Yeísmo).

Linguistics question

What is the name of the linguistics phenomenon when after word X enters language A from language B, if language A already has a word "Y" for what "X" signifies, then X changes in meaning slightly to a closely related meaning which may or may not be an alternate meaning in language "B", not retaining its original significance of Y. This might not happen immediately but over time. Here's a concrete example: French raisin means "grape" but presumably "grape" entered English first (oddly enough, also from French), so raisin means dried grape, and no longer means grape. If this example is incorrect, consider the French word crayon. It means pencil in French but a wax piece used for coloring in English, presumably becasue pencil entered English first. 76.229.234.175 (talk) 22:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a term for it, but keep in mind it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes it's the new loanword that takes over the primary meaning and the old native word whose meaning gets shifted. For example, doom (a native word of Old English origin) originally meant "judgment", but when judgment entered the language from French, doom shifted in meaning first to God's judgment specifically and then to its modern meaning of "deadly fate". +Angr 22:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

A similar example: Old or Middle English used to use hund (from German) to refer to all dogs, but then when we got dog (I don't remember from where) we started using hound to refer only to a specific kind of dog. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

If you ever remember let us know, because the last I heard, nobody knows where the word 'dog' came from :-). I think it's first known appearance (in the form 'dogca') is in a mediaeval monkish manuscript to refer to some specific kind (breed, purpose?) of Canis lupus domesticus, but just what kind isn't clear, nor why it took over as the preferred general term. (87.81 posting from . . .) 87.82.229.195 (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

As for articles, I found nothing specific under loanword, while our article on false friend has this odd sentence in its lede: "As well as complete false friends, use of loanwords often results in the use of a word in a restricted context, which may then develop new meanings not found in the original language.". ---Sluzzelin talk 22:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I've heard the general phenomenon called "one word - one meaning" or "one meaning - one word", and I know I've seen it discussed as a driving force in language change. Unfortunately, I can't find any of these discussions right now (I think I must be having a moment). I don't think I've ever heard a more formal term for it. 86.164.66.83 (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Semantic field theory deals with this... AnonMoos (talk) 07:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

And semantic change has lots of different terms for the way meaning shifts but I agree there is no one word for the entire process. I think you mistake the process of language change though, words don't so much enter the language like some invasive species and displace older words, they are more often deliberately introduced because they fill a semantic gap. It is true that the gap might simply be that the older word seems old-fashioned and the new word seems cool but once a word is introduced it works to shift about other words in the semantic field. The "one word - one meaning" idea, or perhaps "no true synonyms" means that words while appearing synonymous usually have different uses, such as signifying the class or social standing of the speaker.

The examples you gave are also more complex than a simple displacement theory would have them. Pencil entered English first but meant a fine brush originally as pencils as we know them weren't really invented until later. Crayon ultimately derives from the Latin for chalk, so it is rather the French who have the word wrong, using it to mean a constructed drawing implement with the nib encased (like a paintbrush or the Latin penicillus) rather than a simple stick of drawing medium as the English uses of crayon and chalk. Grape and raisin are first recorded in English at about the same time, grape meaning a single berry while raisin meant a bunch of them, or the dried fruit. Raisin came from the Latin racemus for a bunch while grape came from the hook or grapple used to harvest them. The French mostly lost the word grape while the English lost the word raisin for the bunch. meltBanana 17:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

"Attorneys General"

Is "Attorneys General" the correct plural of "Attorney General"? I heard a news report use it, but I'd always thought that the plural was "Attorney Generals". --70.134.48.188 (talk) 23:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Technically yes. The descriptor follows the noun in the French style, and the noun is pluralised rather than the descriptor (though in French they would also pluralise the descriptor, but keep in mind that English does not do this and "attorney" is only distantly related to any French words). "Attorneys Generals" is an example of how languages change, and this example, once considered bad English, now considered poor usage or uneducated but not blatantly wrong English, might become "correct" one day. 76.229.234.175 (talk) 23:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This same question was raised a couple of weeks ago. A similar usage is the plural of "court martial", which is "courts martial". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Then why don't they change the words to "General Attorney", "martial court", etc. and eliminate any possible confusion? --70.134.48.188 (talk) 23:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

In the U.S., there's no "they" to do this. Even in France, which has an Academy to produce an official dictionary of the language, people use all kinds of expressions that a Language Regularization Bureau would deplore. And eventually, common usage will probably overcome the inertia of current practice and we'll get "attorney generals" in the name of some official group. Though often they're lawyers, whose fondness for the obscure is legendary. --- OtherDave (talk) 02:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Citations given in the OED show that, when "Major General" was first used, three hundred years ago, the plural was "Majors General", but the original meaning has now been forgotten, and the plural has become "major generals". I agree that this will eventually happen to "attorney generals" and to ""court martials", but at present they are considered incorrect because of their origin. Dbfirs 02:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

At least based on modern-day usage, "major generals" is completely logical. A major general is a general officer, which, in plural, is "generals". --173.49.11.188 (talk) 05:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Surely the plural of "general officer" is "general officers". I agree with your plural through usage, but not with your logic. Dbfirs 08:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, the National Association of Attorneys General (in the United States) call themselves that; see also http://www.naag.org/ . So there are certainly good strong sources for that usage, although I have not the slightest doubt that you can also find some utterly-respectable sources that use "attorney generals". (I haven't bothered to Google or to consult a Corpus or newspaper archive to compare numbers for myself.) —— Shakescene (talk) 05:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat similar question raised last week,[1] and looking in the archives it seems to be a recurring question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if the poster's question is somehow related to this: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/08/21/185209/The-Story-of-Dealing-With-33-Attorneys-General -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 19:50, 21 August 2010 (UTC)