Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 October 15

< October 14	<<Sep \| October \| Nov>>	October 16 >

Humanities

Science

Mathematics

Computing/IT

Language

Miscellaneous

Archives

The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions at one of the pages linked to above.

Compound words

Firstly, is the term "compound words" the right one when referring to words made of a prefix (or suffix) and another bit? Secondly, I came across the word "pseudohypoparathyroidism" and noted that it's made of 5 different "bits". What's the term for these bits and what's the record for most of them in a word?

Cheers,

Aaadddaaammm 01:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A compound can be defined as "a word composed of more than one free morpheme." In English, pseudo-, hypo-, and para- are all prefixes, unable to be used on their own. So your word may not qualify as an English compound. However, the word is basically neo-Greek, so it's worth considering the status of each element from the point of view of Greek. Hypo- and para- in Greek are prepositions in addition to prefixes. Compare the discussion of Compound verbs with prepositions as the first morpheme (like "overrun") in the English compound article. Pseudo- modifies the hypothyroidism by simply giving it the attribute "false." So the principle according to which pseudo- and "hypoparathyroidism" are compounded is that of the karmadharaya compound. Wareh 02:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you didn't run across pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism? It is just as legitimate a disease, but lacks the hypocalcemia. alteripse 02:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! What are the odds, I actually found the word pseudohypoparathyroidism in some notes from a biochem lecture. I had no idea it was almost one of the longest words. Aaadddaaammm 07:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so it's not a compound word. What is it though? And is there a generic word for prefix, suffix and root word? Aaadddaaammm 07:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The bits are called morphemes. It's late and the only thing I can think of for a word with multiple morphemes is polymorphemic. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In-com-pre-hen-si-bil-ity has six bits added onto the "hen" root. EamonnPKeane 19:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's six bits added on to the 'bile root. The e is just deleted. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So "incomprehend" and "laugh" are derived from "incomprehensible" and "laughable"? Tesseran 08:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about antidisestablishmentarianism anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism. It's 6 so maybe not the most, but maybe the longest.

Cry or call of a rabbit

Would you kindly let me know what cry or call of a rabbit called? Thanks.

Leaving aside the blood-curdling cry of a hungry were-rabbit, from my (limited) experience with rabbits I'd say the sounds they produce are a far cry from being able to be called a call. Rabbits kind of whimper, and even when obviously in distress it isn't very loud, only more pitiful. --Lambiam ^Talk 12:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are a large number of rabbit species across seven genera, so I don't know whether this applies to all of them, but for the European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) which is also the domesticated species across the world, they really don't make much of a noise. Some snuffling, a noise that's sometimes called a "purr" (but which unlike a feline purr is produced by the teeth), that sort of thing. However, in extreme distress they can scream. Some people say that this scream is reminiscent of a small child's, and having heard it once or twice (from wild rabbits in the distance, so I couldn't go and check) I think that while that might be pushing it, it does have something of the same timbre. It's not all that loud, but coming from a usually near-silent species it is startling. Loganberry (Talk) 21:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I were to call it something I'd call it a "squeak" or a "chirp", not unlike the sound you'd expect a mouse or a small bird to make. I can't say I've ever heard a rabbit scream though, and it sounds pretty freaky if you ask me. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 10:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, the scream is only uttered in extreme distress, but it's well authenticated (and not just because I've heard it myself!) Rabbit hunters sometimes have a decoy whistle made to make a similar noise (see here for example). D. H. Lawrence also referred to it in his poem Tortoise Shout: "I remember the scream of a rabbit as I went through a wood at midnight". Loganberry (Talk) 14:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I didn't believe you. It sounds credible, I guess I've just never squeezed a rabbit hard enough! freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 10:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did mention the possibility that what goes for the European Rabbit might not go for other species. Wild American cottontails are not just different species, but a different genus from the European variety, so I really don't know whether they scream or not. (As an aside, cottontails don't live in large burrow systems either, so don't go looking for a Watership Down in the US!) Loganberry (Talk) 01:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You never played squeezy squeezy rabbit when you were a child??? Vespine 00:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I said I just didn't squeeze it hard enough! freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 03:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard my rabbit make this sound many times. It is loud, sharp, blood-curdling...but only when it's really frightened, like when I try to bath it

Game name

What is the name of the game in which you try to guess what someone is thinking about or to derive theie status such as whether they are married? Is this 20 Questions or is there some other game that does this? 71.100.6.152 14:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The rules of Twenty Questions are rather specific – although with variations. What are the rules of the guessing game you have in mind? (Or should we ask only yes–no questions to find out?) You can have a look at Category:Guessing games to see if you recognize anything. --Lambiam ^Talk 17:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was an old TV show in the US called "What's My Line", which involved contestants asking either a set number of yes-no questions, or as many yes-no questions as possible until time ran out (I can't remember which) in order to guess a person's job. Useful for teaching present tenses to foreigners. Hope this helps CCLemon 19:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The to de or ze

In several dialects and foreign accents of English, "the" becomes de. I find that in rapid speech, the same transformation will happen in some contexts in my speech. So why then do the Germans notoriously use ze? To make it more bizzare, de/die is a German word meaning the. So what decides what a particular group of language speakers will turn "the" into if the phoneme is hard for them to pronounce?--Prosfilaes 14:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not just Germans, but the French too... :-o The reason is that the "z" sound, the voiced alveolar fricative, is probably the closest in their language to the "th" sound, or voiced dental fricative. If you say "zuh", you might notice it sounds closer to the than saying "duh". BTW, de is not a German word, but a Dutch definite article. -- the GREAT Gavini 15:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is not so much a case of the speaker replacing a difficult-to-pronounce sound by an easy-to-pronounce one, but of their hearing the (to them) foreign phoneme as a funny version of a familiar phoneme. And that will be the one that is in some phonetic sense the closest. They just repeat the sound as they heard it, but can't get the "funniness" right. At least, that is my zeory. --Lambiam ^Talk 18:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Speakers of many languages do it. When I was teaching Japanese kids, I used to first teach them the 'th' sound as it is pronounced in Standard English, and then if they couldn't get it right, teach them the 'd' variation of it, as it's prevalent in my scouse dialect. I got them saying 'Dat duz my ed in' far faster than 'That does my head in'! Worked wonders! CCLemon 19:39, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dental fricatives ([θ] and [ð]) are difficult to perceive/produce for speakers of languages that don't have them. There are three common techniques:

/θ/ → [s] since they are both fricatives and coronal. In a number of languages, /s/ is dental.
/θ/ → [t] since they are both coronal and nonsibilant (/s/ is pretty loud). In a number of languages, /t/ is dental.
/θ/ → [f] since they are both dental. They also share acoustic properties ([f] is a slightly lower pitch).

In the case of Ebonics, 2 is used at the beginning of words and 3 is used elsewhere. As in dat is yo bruva Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And voiceless fricatives in Ebonics? Something like "Ah'm takin' a baff..."? (Geez, I don't know good Ebonics, and that example looks very bad...) 惑乱分からん 21:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your example looks right to me. If you've ever heard Herbs, Good Hygiene & Socks by Lovage you hear a man say "Well, wash your ass every day/Wash your whole body every day/And brush your breff at least 2 or 3 times a day/Widja teef and den you know, wash dat face." Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They do it for the same reasons anyone speaks with an accent. Which is the same reason as why most people can't repeat a fancy dance move after seeing it: Coordination! Because 1) They're not quite sure what the exact move is. 2) They don't have the coordination to do it 3) They don't have the muscular strength and agility to do it 4) They haven't practiced enough to be able do it quickly and gracefully. Now, most languages don't have the "th" (thorn) sound, so most of their speakers will not be able to do it, for the said reasons. Likewise, you can't reproduce their specific phonemes well either. As with dancing you get better with practice, although some people seem to be born with talent for it. Also, you don't keep trained, you're going to lose your ability. Which is why people's accents get worse if they don't speak for a while. You can even start speaking your native language with an accent if you don't speak it for long enough. But just like with a former dancer who's been out of it for a while, you'll quickly lose that accent once you start using it again, since the coordination part is still there. This is also why people tend to have much less of an accent if they learn a language when they're young - that's when coordination is best trained. (You're pretty unlikely to become a pro gymnast if you start practicing when you're 20, as well) Anyway, the reason why you switch to "ze" or "de" when speaking fast is simply that those sounds are faster to pronounce. In the same way that it's pretty hard to walk really fast without starting to run. But it's not quite the same thing as the accent, which is more like not knowing how to walk. Or not being able to do it well enough to keep doing it for a long time. --BluePlatypus 05:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I always assumed that that was a result of English teachers usually not being English and before the mid 20th century having had little contact with native English speakers. So they had to learn English from books and made up the pronunciation themselves (much like I did when I learned Spanish and Indonesian). The closest thing they could come up with that they knew was a 'z' sound. And then it stuck. Teachers tend to teach what they themselves were taught in school, irrespective of what experience has taught them. Sort of an urban myth thing. DirkvdM 05:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In some cases, it's not because they can't do it, but because they were taught at an early age that poking one's tongue out is rude, and would be punished. English speaking children are also taught that rule, but the requirement to say "th" words overrides it. Where a language has no "th" words, the child gets virtually no practice in pronouncing "th", which is reinforced by the prohibition on doing so under any circumstances. Even when the child grows up and learns many other languages quite fluently, the "th" typically remains a stumbling block. JackofOz 06:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's like saying that people from some parts of the UK have difficulty learning/perceiving the ASL letter V because it's identical to a rude gesture in their culture. No, wait, it's even more outlandish. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to poke your tongue out as in the rude gesture. For many speakers, it's dental, not interdental, and even when it's interdental, it's hardly sticking your tongue out. The issue is more as others earlier have said. It's a specific case of the general problem of producing a fiarly unusual sound in a second language. It's just like producing the Spanish [r] for English speakers. mnewmanqc 14:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit of a tangent, but since British Sign Language uses two hands to spell out letters [1], the whole "two fingers" issue is moot, while American Sign Language spells V (and K) with the palm facing 'towards' the audience, which means 'peace' or 'victory' in Britain. La ï ka 21:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did preface my post with "in some cases". I suppose this could mean as few as two people. And I suppose it would count as original research, since I based it on what my ex-mother-in-law has told me. She was born in Yugoslavia in 1920. She went to a monastery school where she learnt 6 languages and could speak all of them at least well enough to get by without much help. She came to Australia in 1950, and she speaks English very well. She told me the story about how poking one's tongue out was strictly forbidden in her culture, so much so that it still gets in the way of pronouncing "th". She can definitely make the sound when she tries, but she just gets embarrassed so she has always preferred to get by without it. I'm sure she can't be the only person in the world for whom this is true. JackofOz 23:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Part participants

Some subjects of an experiment were 'full participants', and are referred to as either 'participants' or 'full participants'. Some others only took part in half the experiment, so if they are full participants, they are? What would be the word or label or term or phrase to call them? Thanks if you can help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.98.238.113 (talk • contribs) .

I'd use "partial participants" – while perhaps explaining once, in an introduction, what is meant by that. There are plenty of Google hits for "partial participants"[2], so you won't be the only one using this terminology. --Lambiam ^Talk 17:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]