Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 November 1

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk 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 on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 1

Decimal terminology in Spanish

In most Spanish-speaking countries (Europe, South America), the comma is used as the standard decimal marker. However, in Central America, the point is the standard decimal marker. Yet, if I were to enter a number with a decimal point on Google translate, that website will still pronounce it with "coma" rather than "punto" (e.g. it pronounces 12.3 as "doce coma tres" rather than "doce punto tres"). In real life, are both of these terms correct depending on the region, or is only one of them correct? TML (talk) 06:06, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

This is an interesting question, since I have never seen 12.3 used in native written Spanish anywhere, although my experience is only with Mexican, Caribbean and Iberian usage. Also, in the US, this would normally be written and pronounced doce punto tres, given most such documents will be bilingual, and implicitly following the lead of American usage. I will ask around. μηδείς (talk) 00:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Not much help, sorry. My informant, who is Caribbean and has no idea about Central American usage, says they always write "12,3" and mostly say that as coma, but that punto is sometimes heard even when a coma is written. As for Google Translate, you can read about its algorithms and see how they are not always the best choice for certain circumstances. μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Grammar

Which of the following is correct (regarding is/are)?

The problem are file access permissions.

The problem is file access permissions.

Secondary: should it be file-access permissions?

--Mortense (talk) 09:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The second sentence is correct. In English, the copula agrees with its subject, not with the predicate complement, when those differ in number. (Secondary: I would certainly hyphentate file-access, but one can find plenty of cases in which such things aren't hyphenated.) Deor (talk) 11:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

On hyphenation, "file-access permissions" implies that the problem is with the user's permission to access files (in general). If the problem is with the access permissions set for a particular file (or group of files), the unhyphenated form (or "file access-permissions") would be better. Tevildo (talk) 11:35, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Are there any (human) languages in which the copula must agree with the predicate complement, even if the predicate complement and the subject differ in number? I'll be surprised if there is such a language. HOOTmag (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The conjugation of the verb in French takes its cue from the object rather than the subject, as with ce. mgSH 16:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Well...only in "ce sont". But that is the one exception, otherwise it follows the subject. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

And even so, the sentence Le problème, ce sont les permissions feels wrong to me. It might be better to say that ce, standing for an unstated subject, can be singular or plural. —Tamfang (talk) 22:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

True, although you can sometimes hear Le problème, ce sont les permissions, the most natural and widespread way to say it in French is Le problème, c'est les permissions. Akseli9 (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Copula (linguistics)#Grammatical function ends with this paragraph.

• Inverse copular constructions, in which the positions of the predicative expression and the subject are reversed, are found in various languages. (See Everaert et al. 2006.) These have been the subject of much theoretical analysis, particularly in regard to the difficulty of maintaining, in the case of such sentences, the usual division into a subject noun phrase and a predicate verb phrase. Another issue is verb agreement when both subject and predicative expression are noun phrases (and differ in number or person): in English the copula normally agrees with the preceding phrase, even if it is not logically the subject, as in the cause of the riot is (not are) these pictures of the wall. Compare Italian la causa della rivolta sono ("are", not è "is") queste foto del muro.

See "Sono stato io" and "SONOIO", and listen to Domenico Modugno singing "Io" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1NwP97VZAI.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:29, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

But that is singular...it just happens that "sono" is the same spelling for "I am", "we are", and "they are". Adam Bishop (talk) 17:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

English uses the third person in the subject: "It is I." (Italian for "we are" is "siamo".)

—Wavelength (talk) 17:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh I see...I missed the comment above that. (And my mistake, about siamo!) Adam Bishop (talk) 17:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

See also "Eres tú" and http://lyricstranslate.com/en/eres-tu-it-you.html.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)