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Chuma wrote:

Risla Amahendir wrote:I forgot to mention this before, but I went through an "amn't" phase.

I say that too. It makes sense.

It's common in Scotland – I didn't realise that it wasn't generally used elsewhere until I was made fun of for it by some Welsh kids.

Yesterday I asked a friend if he disdained of risotto pans. My neologising knows no bounds!

Today I heard a city employee refer to a corrupt politician[*] as "skunky". Previously I'd only heard this term used to describe rancid beer, and it took me a moment to parse it in this context.


[*] I know, a redundant expression here in Illinois.

A few times in the past, I've heard people use a verb "to verse" meaning "compete against". As in, Do you want to verse me?

It's a back-formation from "versus", with the Latin-derived "-us" /-əz/ being reanalyzed as a 3s verb ending.

Some dude versus some other dude → "Some dude vers-es some other dude"

I haven't heard it recently, but I distinctly remember it being used on a few occasions. Can't cite specific quotes, though.

Bedelato wrote:A few times in the past, I've heard people talking about "versing" each other (e.g. in a competition).

It's a back-formation from "versus", with the "-us" being reanalyzed as a 3s verb ending.

I haven't heard it recently, but I distinctly remember it being used on a few occasions. Can't cite specific quotes, though.

I've heard this enough (although never from anyone over the age of 13 or so) that I'd guess it's relatively widespread.

I've heard it frequently too. Concur on widespread.

I have some sort of strange (well, it may well be widespread) animacy or pronoun/noun contrast thing going on with word order in dative-shifts. A noun may be dative shifted:

'I gave the man the box'

And pronouns may be dative shifted:

'I gave him the box'

'I gave him it'

But a noun, when the recipient, cannot take a pronominal theme without the word order switching:

*'I gave the man it' > 'I gave it the man'.

The phpBB FAQ wrote:» Why isn’t X feature available?

Looks like we've got a new determiner...

Bedelato wrote:

The phpBB FAQ wrote:» Why isn’t X feature available?

Looks like we've got a new determiner...

widespread

Also, following a discussion on another thread: can you guys dative-shift in the passive?

'It was given the boy by his mum' - it was given to the boy by his mum

To be fair this sentence would also allow exactly the same placings with 'to', and it's possible to analyse my weird dative shiftings as dropping of 'to' LIKE a dative shift but with standard syntax, which would explain this sentence just as well.

I can't, but I don't think I can dative shift with pronouns at all.

In a meeting on Thursday morning, the House Democratic caucus rejected the president's proposed deal on the Bush tax cuts but did not fully submarine the possibility of its passage, multiple sources tell The Huffington Post.

"Submarine"? According to Wiktionary, the meaning is "torpedo", but this usage is completely new to me and I wouldn't've gotten it from context.

I'm not going to go into how much mickeymouse I've had to deal with trying to get my DSL connection up and running.

Heard it as an adjective and a verb before, but not as a noun. Inevitable, I guess.

linguoboy wrote:

I'm not going to go into how much mickeymouse I've had to deal with trying to get my DSL connection up and running.

Heard it as an adjective and a verb before, but not as a noun. Inevitable, I guess.

Never heard it as a verb, only as an adjective or noun, oddly. Most frequently as an adjective, of course.

Does anyone else find themselves using 'hard' as a adverb generally meaning 'vigourously, a lot, strongly' for any verb? It's common with certain verbs (like 'work hard') but I use it (and I think I remember hearing it used) more liberally, like in 'running hard' or 'I care really hard about this' or 'she grabbed it hard'.

And the other day I said 'elsewhere' to change a subject, like one would say (in my area at least) 'anyways' or 'okay'. Not sure why I chose that word, but it seemed to fit.

äreo wrote:Does anyone else find themselves using 'hard' as a adverb generally meaning 'vigourously, a lot, strongly' for any verb? It's common with certain verbs (like 'work hard') but I use it (and I think I remember hearing it used) more liberally, like in 'running hard' or 'I care really hard about this' or 'she grabbed it hard'.

"run hard" yes; "grab hard" yes; "care hard" no.

äreo wrote:And the other day I said 'elsewhere' to change a subject, like one would say (in my area at least) 'anyways' or 'okay'. Not sure why I chose that word, but it seemed to fit.

"In other action".

More dative-shifting fun.

Today I heard:

'Have you got anyone presents?'
'I've got Jess, but not Laura. You?'
'Well, I've bought Laura, but I don't know what to get Jess.'

I've never noticed this before - dative-shifting without a first direct object present. I suppose it would be better to analyse this as being the creation of a new monotransitive use of these verbs by analogy with 'tell' ('tell him', 'tell (him) the story (/to him)', where the monotransitive use treats the object as the recipient and the ditransitive shifts the recipient to indirect object (I'm not quite sure what this is called - it seems a bit like ergative verbs but with a different situation).

I'll have to look out to see if this is generally applicable to all verbs.

Does anyone else find themselves using 'hard' as a adverb generally meaning 'vigourously, a lot, strongly' for any verb? It's common with certain verbs (like 'work hard') but I use it (and I think I remember hearing it used) more liberally, like in 'running hard' or 'I care really hard about this' or 'she grabbed it hard'.

With some verbs. 'Think hard', 'run hard', 'work hard', 'try hard'. But I think these are all reasonably standard.

Agh! Every time I try and make this post someone else replies.

YngNghymru wrote:Also, following a discussion on another thread: can you guys dative-shift in the passive?

'It was given the boy by his mum' - it was given to the boy by his mum

To be fair this sentence would also allow exactly the same placings with 'to', and it's possible to analyse my weird dative shiftings as dropping of 'to' LIKE a dative shift but with standard syntax, which would explain this sentence just as well.

No, because in the first sentence, you aren't switching the right things. Dative shift, at least IMD, switches the "givee" with the "given" (sorry, can't remember thematic roles, just finished a class on HPSG, so that's the roles we always assigned ). There is no rule such that you can switch the "giver" and the "givee," so it doesn't work.

How is "amn't" pronounced?

Hmm... It seems that the use of "en de que" (some extension of good ol' dequeísmo) is not so Salvadorian as I thought. Apparently there's a song by this Cuban-Spaniard singer called Elsa Baeza with the title "En de que te vi".

Renaçido wrote:How is "amn't" pronounced?

how do you think it's pronounced?

finlay wrote:

Renaçido wrote:How is "amn't" pronounced?

how do you think it's pronounced?

I'm betting it's either got a schwa between the m and the n, or the n is dropped, personally. it's an awkward contraction of 'am not' after all. (what becomes of 'I'm not' when you drop the pronoun, i guess)

finlay wrote:

Renaçido wrote:How is "amn't" pronounced?

how do you think it's pronounced?

I cannot help but pronounce it [ɛmpt]*, as one syllable; I really cannot get myself to put an [n] in there, one way or another.

* Yes, [ɛ]; I have decided that the open diacritic really is not needed here, from paying to attention to people I know back in Wisconsin, many of whom seem, in everyday speech, to have an even closer vowel than I have here. (But then, I might confuse people who do not realize I mean historical /æ/ with it, which is the main reason why I even had that diacritic there in the first place.)

finlay wrote:

Renaçido wrote:How is "amn't" pronounced?

how do you think it's pronounced?

I suppose that maybe there's a schwa between the /m/ and the /n/ (like Chargone says), or that maybe there's no /n/ so it ends up as [-m(p)t], (like Travis says), so that's why I asked. I've never heard it myself.

I noticed tonight how funny the word "claustrophobic" is in my dialect, namely that it can be used to describe a person affected by claustrophobia ("I am claustrophobic") as in standard, but it can also be used to describe a situation that induces claustrophobia ("That room is so claustrophobic"). Interesting, and I'm fairly certain this is quite widespread, or at the very least, doesn't sound strange because I have definitely heard it from others before.

*edit* Also I discussed earlier with a suitemate pluralizing "fruit leather"...he went with "10 fruit leathers" (I had just bought 10...go ahead and judge ), while I went with "10 strips of fruit leather". "Fruit leathers" feels wrong to me because I'm fairly certain you can't pluralize "leather" (is it a collective noun? I don't think it is...)...what are the thoughts of the ZBB with regards to this?

Renaçido wrote:

finlay wrote:

Renaçido wrote:How is "amn't" pronounced?

how do you think it's pronounced?

I suppose that maybe there's a schwa between the /m/ and the /n/ (like Chargone says), or that maybe there's no /n/ so it ends up as [-m(p)t], (like Travis says), so that's why I asked. I've never heard it myself.

I should note that amn't is not a native word in my dialect; I just stated how I would pronounce it upon reading it.