What do you call ...

[jal]

Those examples also work in German, but it may be English influence - the examples of können plus verbs of perception I can find with a quick googling that are not clearly about ability are recent and frequently translations of English texts.

In Dutch, I'd associate "kunnen" here with more litteral ability, but perhaps, like German, it's similarly influenced by English.


JAL

[elgis]

What do you call a phrase that has a verb and all but one of its arguments?

"Predicate" seems close enough, but I think it only refers to expressions with a missing subject. I also need a term for a phrase that has, for example, a subject and a transitive verb, but has a missing object.

[bradrn]

What do you call a phrase that has a verb and all but one of its arguments?

"Predicate" seems close enough, but I think it only refers to expressions with a missing subject. I also need a term for a phrase that has, for example, a subject and a transitive verb, but has a missing object.

Does any language even exist where a subject+verb with missing object is a valid constituent? The reason ‘predicate’ (or ‘verb phrase’) has been used for V+O is that there do seem to be languages where it behaves as a single grouping.

[elgis]

Perhaps "missing" was the wrong word. What I had in mind was something like

"the book that I'm reading"

The object argument to "I'm reading" is external to the phrase.

---

And I found the term I was looking for. It was just "relative clause."

[hwhatting]

Does any language even exist where a subject+verb with missing object is a valid constituent? The reason ‘predicate’ (or ‘verb phrase’) has been used for V+O is that there do seem to be languages where it behaves as a single grouping.

The constituent structure is a tool of analysis that can be applied to any language. Modern approaches in principle still follow the analysis of classical grammar that saw subject and predicate as the basic constituents, even if they call them NP and VP. Other analyses are possible (In the grammar tradition of my Tautisca conculture, the verb is seen as the center of the sentence, with all other constituents treated as sentence extensions.)
As for you question, one could propose an analysis "Subject Phrase" vs. "Everything else". The question is not whether things cannot be analysed that way, but whether it would be useful; maybe there are situations and languages where it allows for better explanations than the classical analysis.
(Just for throwing that out here, you could use that node in pro-drop NOM-ACC languages, working with the bare verb as SP node and treating sentences with overt subjects as extensions, instead of working with null subjects.)

[bradrn]

Does any language even exist where a subject+verb with missing object is a valid constituent? The reason ‘predicate’ (or ‘verb phrase’) has been used for V+O is that there do seem to be languages where it behaves as a single grouping.

The question is not whether things cannot be analysed that way, but whether it would be useful; maybe there are situations and languages where it allows for better explanations than the classical analysis.

Yes, exactly. My initial question (not wholly rhetorical) was asking if any language exists where it’s useful to treat S+V as a constituent, since I don’t know of one.

(By the way, you need two newlines for a paragraph in BBCode. I couldn’t see your paragraph breaks until I quoted your post.)

[hwhatting]

Yes, exactly. My initial question (not wholly rhetorical) was asking if any language exists where it’s useful to treat S+V as a constituent, since I don’t know of one.

Neither do I, but all languages I know well enough have Nom-Acc alignment, where objectless sentences are much more frequent than subjectless sentences, and you can treat the latter cases as dropped subject situations (although, as I said above, you don't have to).

(By the way, you need two newlines for a paragraph in BBCode. I couldn’t see your paragraph breaks until I quoted your post.)

Strange. I can see them normally on my screen.

[Raphael]

What do you call a completely flat (not even a slightly raised rim) piece of wood or plastic, usually rectangular or rectangular with rounded corners, which is used for eating cold meals?

brett.jpg (225.56 KiB) Viewed 34649 times

[keenir]

What do you call a completely flat (not even a slightly raised rim) piece of wood or plastic, usually rectangular or rectangular with rounded corners, which is used for eating cold meals?

a tray.
sometimes a platter (particularly when its full of foods)

[Travis B.]

What do you call a completely flat (not even a slightly raised rim) piece of wood or plastic, usually rectangular or rectangular with rounded corners, which is used for eating cold meals?

a tray.
sometimes a platter (particularly when its full of foods)

Agreed.

[Raphael]

Thank you. Interesting. I would have thought that a "tray" was a larger thing, with a raised rim, and usually something else between the food and the surface of the tray itself.

[WeepingElf]

I'd call it a "breakfast platter", but I'm no native speaker of English.

[hwhatting]

To my knowledge, the use of these things (Brettchen) to eat food from them is mostly unknown outside of the German-speaking world; people just use normal plates for cold foods. My Russian-speaking wife calls them doshéchka, which is a loan translation (diminutive of doská "board") and which she would also use for e.g. a small cutting board. She never encountered them before coming to Germany,

[elgis]

A cutting board that's been repurposed as a serving tray. Or a charcuterie board.

[Raphael]

To my knowledge, the use of these things (Brettchen) to eat food from them is mostly unknown outside of the German-speaking world; people just use normal plates for cold foods.

Thank you; I had suspected something like that, but wasn't sure. For what it's worth, I usually call it simply a Brett.

[keenir]

Thank you. Interesting. I would have thought that a "tray" was a larger thing, with a raised rim, and usually something else between the food and the surface of the tray itself.

Trays usually have a raised rim, but its not mandatory -- particularly when you're putting books on the tray, or you have food on plates (and the plates are what are on the tray)

[alynnidalar]

Truthfully, I am completely unfamiliar with such an object. If I had to pick a word for it, I would probably describe it as a tray, but I agree that it's not at all a prototypical tray. It's just not something we have in the US, generally. (also not entirely certain of the purpose of it! Is it just a style of plate that's used for specific types of food?)

[zyxw59]

I am also not familiar with this object, but the first word that came to my mind was ‘slate’

[KathTheDragon]

I'm likewise unfamiliar with it. How is it actually used in practice?

[foxcatdog]

I'm likewise unfamiliar with it. How is it actually used in practice?

You put things on it and don't tip it too much to one side so they fall off. It's usually used for serving a smorgasboard of things.