Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 November 28

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November 28

为什么 vs 为神马 vs 為什麼

The first (simplified) and third (traditional) are acceptable forms. So, where in the world does the second one comes from? I don’t know why this author uses the second form and first form in the same page, http://edu.sina.com.cn/zl/oversea/blog/2014-10-14/11171786/2663829400/9ec6cf980102v3zw.shtml. I see that it’s a blog, but still, it’s weird. The use of 为神马 doesn’t seem very different from 为什么. And phonetically, they sound almost alike. Is there some sort of play on words going on to simulate dialectal speech even though it’s nonsense in writing? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 19:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

It's a Internet slang that has been popular with users from Mainland China since 2010 (see Baidu; it's similar to how Internet users from Taiwan occasionally like to substitute 這樣 with 醬). It's both a play with the phonetics, and primarily used for emphasis. Alex Shih (talk) 19:39, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

That answers my question. 140.254.70.33 (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Nicaraguan Sign Language center-embedding: is it unique?

Senghas et al 2004 describe an interesting sort of center-embedded construction in Nicaraguan Sign Language: a modifier is repeated both before and after the verb it modifies. For example, the sign sequence "roll descend roll" means "roll down (a hill)," and "waddle roll descend roll waddle" means "roll down (a hill) with a waddling motion." Does anything else like this exist in any other sign or spoken language? 169.228.98.83 (talk) 22:01, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how similar you'd consider it, but some languages have both pre-negatives and post-negatives, like French "ne...pas" and colloqial Arabic "ma...š". You can also look at circumfix. In any case, linguists would usually reserve "center embedding" for some kind of recursive structure (e.g. a clause embedded in the middle of another clause), and I'm not sure that would apply to the sign language case. AnonMoos (talk) 14:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)