Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[zompist]

Take the English phrase "the tree in front of the house".
"In front of" is by all means a prepositional phrase missing a noun at the end. But is it possible to analyze it as being a single preposition "in-front-of" at some deeper level, and a nested prepositional phrase at a surface level?
Representing a prepositional phrase as (preposition) [noun]:

Surface: the tree (in) [front (of) [the house] ]
Underlying: the tree (in front of) [the house]

Prepositions piling up and merging is a thing in IE at least. As a random example, French au-dehors de la ville, literally "at the of out of the city", i.e. "outside the city.". Prepositions like "before, behind, beside" are much like "in front of", but further along in the process.

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it, or extract or any part of it. (*The car is in obviously front of the house. *It's front that the car is in of the house. *What is the car in of the house?")

The one point I can think of against this analysis is that there's an obvious relationship to "in front": "I parked the car in front." So an alternative analysis is the tree (in front) of the house.

Also, I wouldn't use "surface" and "underlying" that way. The derivation process will not turn a single word into the three words it's etymologically composed of. If "in front of" is a preposition, then it just is one, and the spelling is just out of date.

[hwhatting]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it

So something like "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front of the house" would be ungrammatical?

[Linguoboy]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it

So something like "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front of the house" would be ungrammatical?

I think this shifts the meaning from "before the house" to "the forward portion of the house". Compare idiomatic "front of the house" for "the service area of a restaurant" (and, by extensions, serving as opposed to preparing food, e.g. "He works front of the house".).

[Travis B.]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it

So something like "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front of the house" would be ungrammatical?

That really does not sound right to me at least.

[Travis B.]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it

So something like "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front of the house" would be ungrammatical?

Note that I here would say "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front yard of the house" myself, by the way.

[abahot]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it, or extract or any part of it.

The example that came to my mind for this specifically was the mandatory lack of an article -- one would probably expect "in the front of ..." if this were ungrammaticalized.

The one point I can think of against this analysis is that there's an obvious relationship to "in front": "I parked the car in front." So an alternative analysis is the tree (in front) of the house.

That's fair. However, you might be able to make this same argument for some other prepositions like "inside".

Also, I wouldn't use "surface" and "underlying" that way

Alright. What terminology would be better? My question was more about this point, whether it's even possible to posit some syntactic structure which is reflected differently at some two different "levels" of representation, whatever they're called.

[zompist]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it

So something like "the car in the unspoiled / beautiful / damaged front of the house" would be ungrammatical?

That really does not sound right to me at least.

Nor to me, because "in front of" doesn't mean or work the same as "in the front of."

"The man is in front of the shop" = he's outside it, specifically before its main entrance (its metaphorical face)
"The man is in the front of the shop" = he's inside it, in the front part (as opposed to any back rooms or private area)

Your sentence can't be used for the car being out front, and it's weird to have cars in the house. I think you can get away with adding adjectives to the 2nd construction: "The bomb went off in the back, but the man was in the undamaged front of the shop."

[zompist]

You could make a good case that "in front of" has moved from syntax to morphology by pointing out that you can't insert any material within it, or extract or any part of it.

The example that came to my mind for this specifically was the mandatory lack of an article -- one would probably expect "in the front of ..." if this were ungrammaticalized.

Yes, this is a good clue, though not complete in itself. "The" can be pretty tricky in English! See Space60's question about "the autumn".

The one point I can think of against this analysis is that there's an obvious relationship to "in front": "I parked the car in front." So an alternative analysis is the tree (in front) of the house.

That's fair. However, you might be able to make this same argument for some other prepositions like "inside".

Sure: there's a lot of "prepositions" that can appear without their objects. If this is theoretically bothersome we can call them particles instead, but if we say that we have to say it's a very common process for prepositions to become particles.

Also, I wouldn't use "surface" and "underlying" that way

Alright. What terminology would be better? My question was more about this point, whether it's even possible to posit some syntactic structure which is reflected differently at some two different "levels" of representation, whatever they're called.

As I said, I think your claim amounts to moving "in front of" from syntax to morphology. But both deep and surface structure are syntactic. So "in-front-of" is generated as one low-level syntactic unit and stays that way in surface structure. It's only the spelling that makes it look like three words, and spelling does not determine present-day syntactic structure. If we spelled it "imfrunna", this would be clearer!

(Personally I'm still tempted to divide it as "in-front / of", like "inside of", but I'd want to think about that more closely.)

[Travis B.]

It's only the spelling that makes it look like three words, and spelling does not determine present-day syntactic structure. If we spelled it "imfrunna", this would be clearer!

It feels very, well, careful to pronounce in front of as if it were three separate words; to me it's normally just [ɘ̃ˈfʁˤʌ̃ːə̯̃].

[abahot]

It feels very, well, careful to pronounce in front of as if it were three separate words; to me it's normally just [ɘ̃ˈfʁˤʌ̃ːə̯̃].

Maybe it’s just a feature of my accent (Western American English), but mine is less reduced than this. For example, I tried it out and even in rapid speech I make an alveolar contact before the /f/, and preserve [ɾ] from the end of “front” (can’t easily type the nasalization diacritic apparently, but it should be there). Doesn’t change the point much, just found it interesting.

[hwhatting]

Sure: there's a lot of "prepositions" that can appear without their objects. If this is theoretically bothersome we can call them particles instead, but if we say that we have to say it's a very common process for prepositions to become particles.

That's one of the differences between German and English; in German, there are typically different forms for corresponding prepositions and local adverbs (unter / unterhalb - unten "below", über / oberhalb - oben "above", in / innerhalb - innen "inside", außerhalb -außen "outside" etc.).

[zompist]

Someone shared a screenshot of a multilingual "I voted" sticker, and it said 我已票投 (Wǒ yǐ piàotóu). I was a bit surprised to see no 了, and indeed Google Translate supplies 我投票了 (Wǒ tóupiào le) instead. On the other hand, Google does recognize 我已票投 but translates "I have voted." So, questions:

* Is 已 an alternative marker of perfect aspect? It's not in Li & Thompson.
* Why the change in order from 投票 to 票投?
* Is one of these a better translation?
* Is the sticker's version perhaps more Cantonese?

[Kuchigakatai]

Someone shared a screenshot of a multilingual "I voted" sticker, and it said 我已票投 (Wǒ yǐ piàotóu). I was a bit surprised to see no 了, and indeed Google Translate supplies 我投票了 (Wǒ tóupiào le) instead. On the other hand, Google does recognize 我已票投 but translates "I have voted." So, questions:

* Is 已 an alternative marker of perfect aspect? It's not in Li & Thompson.
* Why the change in order from 投票 to 票投?
* Is one of these a better translation?
* Is the sticker's version perhaps more Cantonese?

I asked a native speaker from Taiwan, and she didn't find 我已票投 grammatical at all. "It sounds like a song's lyrics, when they don't care about grammar", she said.

She said she would accept:
我票投了 (if we want to use a similar wording; note 我票 is an NP 'my vote', an argument of 投)
我投票了 (as you said)
我已(經)投票
我已(經)投票了

And when I asked her how she'd prefer to translate the phrase for a sticker, she gave a further translation, using the resultative 好:
我已(經)投好
我投好了
我已(經)投好了

Looks like if you have 已(經) you don't really need to say 了, but you can add the 了 anyway.

[keenir]

In the acrophonic principle, we use the first consonant or vowel of a word or sign; such as taking "duck" in English, and using a duck's picture as a sign for [d].

Do any natlangs use the opposite of acrophonics,* wherein we would take the duck's picture to be the sign for [k] ?

thank you.


* = another instance of my having forgotten the word for this; but I never came across any natlang examples of its use.
(at least, none i can remember)

[Man in Space]

Could it be argued that Mandarin phonetic radicals work kind of like this? They go by the rimes.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Could it be argued that Mandarin phonetic radicals work kind of like this? They go by the rimes.

I had thought they just went by similar sounds; I'm more familiar with the Japanese on'yomi than the Middle and Old Chinese readings, though.

[zompist]

[Mandarin stuff]

Thanks much!

Could it be argued that Mandarin phonetic radicals work kind of like this? They go by the rimes.

Not quite: they go by place of articulation of the initial + rhyme. Both resemblances can be spoiled by 2500 years of sound change.

[Travis B.]

I hear people here who sporadically have [ɪɘ] for /ɪ/ where I personally have [ɘ] - has anyone else noticed this in any other English varieties?

[Estav]

In the acrophonic principle, we use the first consonant or vowel of a word or sign; such as taking "duck" in English, and using a duck's picture as a sign for [d].

Do any natlangs use the opposite of acrophonics,* wherein we would take the duck's picture to be the sign for [k] ?

thank you.


* = another instance of my having forgotten the word for this; but I never came across any natlang examples of its use.
(at least, none i can remember)

It is not an example of the opposite, but many Egyptian hieroglyphs represent multiple consonants, with the unwritten vowels able to be whatever and wherever is needed for the particular word; Wikipedia gives the example of the pintail duck hieroglyphic reading sꜣ. Like if duck represented [d][k]

[Ryusenshi]

I hear people here who sporadically have [ɪɘ] for /ɪ/ where I personally have [ɘ] - has anyone else noticed this in any other English varieties?

I've heard some Americans who have a diphthong like [ɪə] for KIT in certain environments, especially before voiced plosives. I'm not sure where it's from, though.

In the acrophonic principle, we use the first consonant or vowel of a word or sign; such as taking "duck" in English, and using a duck's picture as a sign for [d].

If I understand correctly, this is the origin of the alphabet, right? Proto-Sinaitic used a picture of an ox, 'alp, for the glottal stop; a house, bet, for /b/; and the letters A, B derive from this.