Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 September 8

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September 8

List of words that have lost an un-suffixed form

I know there are words that start with "un", where un was originally just a prefix tacked onto a word in common use, but now the "un-suffixed" form is not longer extant. I'm trying to think of even one, but can't right now. An example of what I mean would be "unbound", where "bound" is no longer a used word. Anyone know a list of those and if there is a specific name for this?--108.46.110.208 (talk) 00:32, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Unpaired word is our relevant article, which lists (inter alia) "couth", "gainly", "kempt" and "ruly". Tevildo (talk) 01:01, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks so much Tevildo. That's a great list and I've bookmarked the page.--108.46.110.208 (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, ion is the antonym of union, and to ite is to separate, as in "This'll ite the men from the boys". Probably. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:09, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

What's a Hoople Head?

What is the meaning of the derogatory term "Hoople Head" heard in Deadwood? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

There is an entry on this at urban dictionary. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hoople%20head I know, I know, Urban Dictionary's not exactly the pinnacle of scholarly sites, but it has a pretty expansive discussion and cites to and quotes some more reliable authorities--108.46.110.208 (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I suppose I should have said I already looked at Urban Dictionary. I am hoping we have some comments either from a reliable source or the producers. μηδείς (talk) 02:28, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

According to my Google Books query, the Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says it means "an idiot".[1] Gabbe (talk) 11:41, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

As does The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English. There is, however, no entry for the expression in the Dictionary of American Regional English. Deor (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, I understood the sense of "idiot" from the context. What I meant was, what is a hoople--what's the etymology. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 17:27, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Have you looked up the source mentioned in Urban Dictionary, that is, page 148 of Jonathan E. Lighter's Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang: H-O (ISBN 978-0-679-43464-1)? Gabbe (talk) 18:17, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Can't access that page. I saw the speculation it might have had to do with the town of Hoople. But one gets the feeling a word like hoople with its use of peripheral consonants is intended as humorous from the get go. μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The dictionary I linked above, in the entry immediately preceding the one for "hoople head", has hoople dated 1928, which at least puts it at roughly the same period as Gene Ahern's Major Hoople (introduced 1922), which may have been a source. Perhaps Ahern just thought it a funny word to use as a name. (DARE has an entry for hoople meaning a hoop such as children used to roll about, from the Dutch word for the thing.) Mott the Hoople seems to use the word in a sense closely related to the "idiot" sense. Deor (talk) 21:40, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't know those hoop things were called hooples. Sounds likely. μηδείς (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Won't a contraction of will not?

How can won't be a contraction of will not? How did that o get there? Where's the apostrophe for the missing letters i, l and l? --89.241.237.164 (talk) 07:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The "o" is due to the fact that it was originally a contraction of "woll not", with "woll" being a dialectal variant of "will" in Middle and Early Modern English, based on a different ablaut form of the same stem. The contraction "won't" is attested since the 16th century, initially competing with several alternatives such as "wynnot", "wonnot", "woonnot", "wo'not" etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:00, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Scotsmen still say willna(e)/winna(e).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:06, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

See also [2],[3]. And to your 3rd question: the apostrophe in all the -n't forms stands for the missing "o".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

But what about the missing ls? Why not wo'n't? 89.241.237.164 (talk) 10:03, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it's just another spelling convention/tradition in English. I also wonder whether -ll in woll had already been vocalized before it later contracted with n't or they both were firstly contracted and then the vowel was lengthened?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

A parallel contraction is shan't for "shall not". Despite the still-occasionally-seen fo'c's'le and bo's'n, English doesn't really like multiple apostrophes in a word. Lewis Carroll's defense of his nonstandard use of forms like wo'n't, ca'n't, and sha'n't (which he also used in the Alice books) can be read in his preface to Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. Deor (talk) 13:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of fo'c's'le, I've just been visiting my brother in Newcastle. Every time I referred to it as "Newc-səl", he looked at me strangely. Can't imagine why. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Now if you'd have been in the UK and visiting one of the Newcastles, and called it "Newkie" you may have got a bottle of beer for your troubles! --TammyMoet (talk) 11:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

... and that Newcastle puts the stress on the middle syllable: "newCAStle" locally, though it is usually NEWcastle elsewhere in the UK (but always three syllables). Dbfirs 07:34, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I just wanna know about the so called conversational participants

I just wanna ask about conversational participants. I have found it very hard to find the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.198.232.178 (talk) 10:11, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

What do you want to know about conversational participants? What the words mean? Gabbe (talk) 11:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Conversation has something about, well, conversation, but also about conversents (didn't know this word existed, but that should be your conversation participants). OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:10, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

It appears that there is no such word as "conversent(s)". In any case, participants in conversations talk and/or listen. What else would you like to know? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

If the word 'conversent' doesn't exist, then the article Conversation has to be corrected. I am not sure it is not a linguistic technical term, even if I'd agree that it is not used colloquially. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The word exists, but not in English.[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct English spelling would be "conversants", though it doesn't seem to be a common word... AnonMoos (talk) 21:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

In English, "conversant" is an adjective, not a noun.[5] It means someone who knows enough about a subject to be able to carry on a conversation about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that "conversant" is also a noun meaning "one who converses with another". Duoduoduo (talk) 16:20, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Not according to this link:[6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That link is to "conversent", not wikt:conversant... AnonMoos (talk) 04:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Well, perhaps conversation particle is what you are looking for? μηδείς (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

112.198.232.178 -- Not sure exactly what your question is about, but Discourse analysis is the main linguistic field which deals with participation in conversations... AnonMoos (talk) 21:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

From the point of view of one participant, the others are their interlocutors. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Hebrew translation, one sentence

Link (safe for work): [7] (holocaust memorial day), would be nice if someone could also translate the small print on the border. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Here you go, romanized (English orthography) and translated: yom ha-zikkaron la-shoah u-la-gvurah tasha"v = Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day 5772 (2012). -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:10, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

...and the credits across the bottom edge (LTR): Israel Ministry of Information and Diaspora Affairs; Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Authority; Doriel Riemer-Halperin (דוריאל רימר-הלפרין).-- Deborahjay (talk) 19:16, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:09, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Turkish name for Cyprus

The Turkish name for Cyprus, namely Kıbrıs /kɯbrɯs/, confuses me. If the syllable breakdown is Kıb-rıs, then it violates the rule that syllable-final stops necessarily undergo devoicing which is reflected in orthography (so it should be Kıprıs instead). If it's Kı-brıs, then it violates the rule that syllables may not commence with consonant clusters, except in recent borrowings which this clearly isn't. Could someone clarify which one the case is and what this is due to? --Theurgist (talk) 21:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Seslisözlük suggests that it is Kıb·rıs. Gabbe (talk) 05:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

"then it violates the rule that syllable-final stops necessarily undergo devoicing which is reflected in orthography" - Where did you find this rule? Don't you confuse syllable-final with word-final consonants? Quite the contrary, I think the sonorant prevents devoicing of the preceding stop, this is probably why it became Kıbrıs.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The sonorant in the plural ending -lar/-ler does not prevent the deviocing. The plural of kitap ("book", from Arab. kitāb) is kitaplar, not *kitablar, while "his book" is kitabı, not *kitapı. --Theurgist (talk) 15:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

And it shouldn't, because as I know there is no regressive assimilation before sonorants at the morpheme boundaries in Turkish. The last stop is already voiceless, so it remains such. But before the morphemes begining with a vowel it's voiced. By the way, there are many words with the last voiceless stop where such voicing before vowel-begining morphemes does not occur, and these cases are noted in dictionaries.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a morphological difference between kitaplar and Kıbrıs, though. Kıbrıs is a single morpheme, while kitaplar is a stem with a suffix. If this were 20 years ago, I would say the word-final devoicing rule applies at Level I morphology, after the possessive suffix is added but before the plural suffix is added. If this were 10 years ago, I would say kitaplar has to obey a faithfulness constraint that makes it have the same voicing as kitap has, while (for whatever reason) kitabı doesn't have to obey such a constraint (or rather, obeying such a constraint would violate some higher-ranked constraint). I don't know how theoretical phonologists would treat this nowadays, since I've been out of touch for several years, but it does look like the devoicing rule applies word-finally, not syllable-finally, and certain suffixed forms (C-initial ones?) follow their unsuffixed equivalents, while other suffixed forms (V-inital ones?) don't. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Turcologists treat it another way around: the final consonants are not devoiced but voiced at the definite morpho-phonolical environments (a morpheme with a vowel). Many words do not undergo voicing, so voiceless forms ought to be considered as basic forms. This voicing even is restrained to semantics: verbs and adjectives usually are not voiced, some examples from the grammar book: ak- "flow" - akan "flowing, ak- "white" - ağar "become white", but aki "its white (part)", but there are also exceptions like git- "go" - gidiyor "s/he is going". See all the cases.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:13, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

A citation from the above-mentioned book:

Despite the fact that the nominals which do not undergo change outnumber those that do, the standard practice adopted in dictionaries is to take the pattern of change shown above as the norm, and to mark only those nouns which retain a final ‘p’, ‘t’, ‘k’, or ‘ç’. Thus ağaç, çocuk, kitap and kağıt (all of which undergo change) will be found without annotation, whereas saç, top and millet are presented in the form saç (-çı), top (-pu), millet (-ti).

--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I am neither a Turkologist nor a phonologist nor a Turkish speaker. I happen to know that the Turkish for "handball" (the sport) is hentbol, a borrowing of the English. If there is a devoicing rule, it here applies in a syllable-final position that is not a word-final position, and I don't know whether or not it's a morpheme-final position since I don't know whether Turkish treats hentbol as a single morpheme or as a compound word, though it clearly is a compound word in the donor language (English). --Theurgist (talk) 22:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

You are trying to apply strict rules to loanwords, but strict rules usually do not work in loanwords. In Turkish some words contain -tb- as well as -db-. In English also. It is restricted to have /ʒ/ at the end of words as well as in the beginning but some loanwords like genre and beige break this rule.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:56, 12 September 2013 (UTC)