twoth
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Jan 24 21:31:12 UTC 2008
At 3:50 PM -0500 1/24/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Thanks, Larry. Strange. I often say, "I've [V-ed (NP)] for the
>I-don't-know-how-many-eth time." But I can't ask, "For the
>how-many-eth time has this been done?" Though I may begin to, now that
>I've thought of it. It seems grammatical enough for government work.
>It'll freak out most people that I know.
>
>Unfortunately, the French examples aren't much help for me. I've never
>seen anything like those, before. Most foreign languages that I know I
>can read only in linguistics. Once past the words borrowed directly
>from Latin, Greek, and English, I get lost. But I appreciate the
>effort.
>
They work like this [accents have been removed]:
c'est ton combienieme match?
it's your how-manyth match?
Si le cinema est le 7eme art le cirque est le combientieme?
if the cinema is the 7th art the circus is the how-manyth?
[i.e. ...whichth art is the circus?
one answer is: "it's the first lol"; another: "the eighth"]
This one also from Yahoo! questions:
Le combientieme soir couchez-vous en général?
the how-manyth night do you go to bed in general
to which the "Best answer, as chosen by the voters" is
je viole pas, mais j'espère toujours y arriver sans aller si loin, lol
'I don't rape, but I always hope to get there without going too long, lol'
Those French!
LH
>On 1/24/08, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the
>>mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: twoth
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 11:21 AM -0500 1/24/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> >So, in Esperanto, one asks "how many-th?"? Why? How is the answer
>> >constructed? I don't get it. Am I being stupid, here? Or do i merely
>> >lack sufficient background - any - in Esperanto?
>>
>> It would presumably be the same as "combien(t)ieme" in the French
>> examples below: that's the 9th subject, he was the 42nd president,
>> etc. etc. Presumably also you can get the same kind of embedded
>> ordinal question in Esp-o as in the French example ("for the
>> I-don't-know-how-manyth time").
>>
>> LH
>>
>> >
>> >And, WRT "ki," you mean "Romance," not "I-E," right?
>> >
>> >-Wilson
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On 1/24/08, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> >>-----------------------
>> >> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster: Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Subject: Re: twoth
>> >>
>> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> The Esp-o word needs no specific
>>analogical etymology. There's a whole grid
>> >> of function words, generalizing from patterns like English
>> >> "here/there/where", "__/then/when", "__/that/what":
>> >>
>> >> - begin with 'ki' for relative or interrogative (definite I-E bias
>> >> there), 'ti' for demonstrative, 'i' for
>>indefinite, 'neni' for negative,
>> >> 'c^i' for universal (c-circumflex, [tS], English "ch")
>> >> - add 'u' for individual, 'e' for place, 'a' for quality, 'om' for
>> >> quantity, ... nine in all
>> >>
>> >> So kiom 'how many/much', nenie 'nowhere',
>>c^iu 'everyone, every one' (+/-
>> >> animate), tia 'that kind (of), such' and so on. And since you can
>> >> productively add the appropriate POS ending to any stem, kiom + the
>> >> adjective ending -a -> kioma 'how many-th'.
>> >>
>> >> m a m
>> >>
>> >> On Jan 24, 2008 9:47 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > At 9:28 AM -0500 1/24/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
>> >> > >How common is it in natural languages
>>to have an ordinal interrogative
>> >> > word?
>> >> > >Esperanto has "kioma", derived by
>>adjectivizing "kiom" 'how much/many"?
>> >> > >
>> >> > >m a m
>> >> >
>> >> > Presumably this arose by analogy with French and
> > >> > other Romance languages (the main source for
>> >> > Esperanto). I note 106 google hits for
>> >> > _combieni=E8me_ with this meaning and derivation,
>> >> > as in
>> >> >
>> >> > Ca fait le combienieme sujet sur le genre?
>> >> >
>> >> > Mettons, que pour la j'sais pas combieni=E8me fois,
>> >> > j'ai utilis=E9 le bouton "=E9diter ce message" au
>> >> > lieu de "r=E9pondre =E0 ce message"
>> >> >
> > >> > c'est ton combienieme match?
>> >> >
>> >> > And the "less logical" but "more correct" form,
>> >> > _combienti=E8me_ (with epenthetic -t-) gets 2250
>> >> > hits (e.g. "Bill Clinton est le combienti=E8me
>> >> > pr=E9sident des =C9tats-Unis?" and an appearance in
>> >> > this blog on the topic:
>> >> > http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-418730.html
>> >> > (Respondents to this blog contribute
>> >> > interrogative ordinals in Swedish, German,
>> >> > Finnish, Turkish, Tagalog, etc.)
>> >> >
>> >> > LH
>> >> >
>> >> > >
>> >> > >On Jan 17, 2008 8:48 PM, Bill Le May <blemay0 at mchsi.com> wrote:
>> >> > >
>> >> > >> > -----Original Message-----
>> >> > >> > From: American Dialect Society
>>[mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> >> > Behalf
>> >> > >> > Of Joel S. Berson
>> >> > >> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:42 AM
>> >> > >> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> >> > >> > Subject: Re: twoth
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> > Thank heaven this is not likely to
>>lead to oneth and thirdth. (If =
>> >> I
>> >> > >> > come across speakers of these, I won't stand too close.)
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> In childhood I remember saying "what-th". Wondering the day of the
>> >> > month,
>> >> > >> I
>> >> > >> would ask a parent "what day is it"
>>and inevitably get an answer like
>> >> > >> "Wednesday". Frustrated, I'd reply,
>>"No, I mean today is that what-th
>> >> > of
>> >> > >> January?"
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> No virus found in this outgoing message.
>> >> > >> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>> >> > >> Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.6/1229 - Release Date:
>> >> > 1/17/2008
>> >> > >> 11:12 AM
>> >> > >>
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>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> >-----
>> > -Sam'l Clemens
>> >
>> >------------------------------------------------------------
>> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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