English drives me batty!!!

[kisstheson]

Incense
presence
sense

What's the rule of English here?

 

[Sphinx777]

English is a West Germanic language that originated in England and is the first language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the Anglophone Caribbean. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language throughout the world, especially in Commonwealth countries and in many international organisations.

Historically English originated from the dialects, now called Old English, which were brought to England by Anglo-Saxon settlers, beginning in the 5th century. The language was heavily influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders. The Norman conquest brought a stage called Middle English with heavy borrowing of vocabulary from Norman French and modernization of spelling conventions. Modern English continues to adopt foreign words, especially from Latin and Greek.

 

[Lady Bug]

Sphinx why do you always respond in an encyclopedia-like manner?

 

[Sphinx777]

Sphinx why do you always respond in an encyclopedia-like manner?

I am the Master of all Wiki's... fear my awesome might...

 

[Lady Bug]

good to know you can actually have a conversation lol(ducking for cover)

 

[Sphinx777]

We Are Brainiac 7, we control your television...



Now give us your cheese nachos!!!

​

 

[Globalnomad]

Incense
presence
sense

What's the rule of English here?

The problem is, it's not a rule of English, it's rules of Latin. All three words are derived from Latin - incensum, praesentia, sensuum - and in Latin, their pronunciations are perfectly regular and distinguisahble: eenchensoom, praysentsiah, saynsoom. When the words were taken over in English, the pronunciation of all those different sounds gradually evolved towards the same sound "s", but the spellings keep the memory of the old Latin words.


P.S. Correction before a Latinist catches me: sensus, pronounced saynsoos. Sensuum is the genitive plural, my brain mis-clicked on "sensuum defectui" in Tantum Ergo.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Wow - thanks for all the info.
I wont remember it - i dont think....but its interesting.

And Sphinx - you will NOT have my nachos...cos basically i pigged em down last night.

 

[2Cosmic2Charlie]

The problem is the English alphabet was influences by two differing sources:

Germanic and Latin - The Germinic alphabet (such as it was) contains only one letter per unique sound. The latin alphabet contained letters that had differing sounds depending on usage and some of the Latin letters had the same sound as Germanic letters:

Hence:

C can sound like a K or an S and has no unique sound of its own.

This is complicated by the fact that English spelling has been influenced greatly by a number of sources primarily Latin, Germanic and Greek, but with some substancial galic influence as well.

Hence:

oo can sound like a u and u, while it has a unique sound take on many others depending on the influence of the spelling.

This is further complecated by the greek influence, which, for some reason has a limited amount of letters using frictive sounds which meant that a combination of letters has to be used to create them and this spell convention has continued to influence English, despite the fact that English has several letters with frictive sounds

Example:

Ph sounds like an f in words of Greek origin, like, Telephone.

English, being a relavtively modern language (I beleive Modern High German, currently spoken in by almost all German speaker in the world may be the only language that is newer then English) is a mutt.

Influenced by every Indo-European language from Arabic to Yiddish with inconsistent spelling rules and a sentence structure that was obviously created by drunken Saxon warriors with a bad sense of humor its just a lovable, little household puppy that is constantly urinating on your carpet.

Its a pain, but it yours and you have to love it.

 

[Amylisa]

I shore iz larning a bunch on this here thraid!

Seriously, I am.

 

[Globalnomad]

English, being a relavtively modern language (I beleive Modern High German, currently spoken in by almost all German speaker in the world may be the only language that is newer then English) is a mutt.

Influenced by every Indo-European language from Arabic to Yiddish with inconsistent spelling rules and a sentence structure that was obviously created by drunken Saxon warriors with a bad sense of humor its just a lovable, little household puppy that is constantly urinating on your carpet.

Its a pain, but it yours and you have to love it.

Aw, Charlie, I loved that description!!.... and it's seriously true - except for what you say about sentence structure. I think it's perfectly clear and logical! What's your problem with it?

Now can SOMEBODY explain the "gh" = "f" sound? That one really beats me.

 

[isabella1]

Sphinx why do you always respond in an encyclopedia-like manner?

That was to funny! After seeing his post, in my mind I asked the same question. Then the nest post was yours. Glad he answered you. If he would of given another encyclopedia description for his answer, I probably would of spit my coffee out laughing.

 

[2Cosmic2Charlie]

Aw, Charlie, I loved that description!!.... and it's seriously true - except for what you say about sentence structure. I think it's perfectly clear and logical! What's your problem with it?

To most native English speakers it probably does make sense because your brain has been hardwired to undersand the language.

I will give example:

I have written a letter.

I have a letter written.


Explain what happened to the meaning of that sentence the verbal phrase was split.

Why was it split ?

Now, here's the problem: English grammar texts will tell you that English specifcally DOES NOT split verbs nor change verb position to change the tense of the of the sentence.

But ....
.... the tense of this sentence was changed for past tense (it most definitely happened in the past) to past tense infinitive (It has been going on in the past and may still be going on) by changing the position of the verb.

Werid, huh ?

the tense of verbs is a serious pain in English because the structure is variable and their are no noun markers (like the varying gender indicators in German) to tie a noun to a verb and "organize" the sentense in a meaningful way.

Essentially, an English sentence is open to interpretation.

 

[kisstheson]

The problem is, it's not a rule of English, it's rules of Latin. All three words are derived from Latin - incensum, praesentia, sensuum - and in Latin, their pronunciations are perfectly regular and distinguisahble: eenchensoom, praysentsiah, saynsoom. When the words were taken over in English, the pronunciation of all those different sounds gradually evolved towards the same sound "s", but the spellings keep the memory of the old Latin words.


P.S. Correction before a Latinist catches me: sensus, pronounced saynsoos. Sensuum is the genitive plural, my brain mis-clicked on "sensuum defectui" in Tantum Ergo.

Now there's a REAL smartie.

 

[Globalnomad]

To most native English speakers it probably does make sense because your brain has been hardwired to undersand the language.

I will give example:

I have written a letter.

I have a letter written.


Explain what happened to the meaning of that sentence the verbal phrase was split.

Why was it split ?

Now, here's the problem: English grammar texts will tell you that English specifcally DOES NOT split verbs nor change verb position to change the tense of the of the sentence.

But ....
.... the tense of this sentence was changed for past tense (it most definitely happened in the past) to past tense infinitive (It has been going on in the past and may still be going on) by changing the position of the verb.

Werid, huh ?

the tense of verbs is a serious pain in English because the structure is variable and their are no noun markers (like the varying gender indicators in German) to tie a noun to a verb and "organize" the sentense in a meaningful way.

Essentially, an English sentence is open to interpretation.

I beg to differ, Charlie. The first sentence simply uses the present perfect tense, have+participle, to express an action completed in the present. The second sentence is actually quite idiomatic and condensed: it should be "I have (here) a letter (which is) written." It's not a split form of the present perfect of "to write", it's a condensed compound sentence consisting of the main clause "I have a letter" and an implicit subordinate clause "it is written".

The structure of sentences is not very variable in English, for the exact reason you state, that there are no noun markers, so the word order has to establish the relationship between the words. Contrast that to classical Latin, where you can shuffle the word order in just about any way you want, and let the declensions indicate the sentence structure....

 

[Globalnomad]

P.S. thanks, Kisstheson. Not really - just native-speaker-level Italian plus six years of Latin. It's a granite-solid base for understanding Western language structures.

 

[2Cosmic2Charlie]

I beg to differ, Charlie. The first sentence simply uses the present perfect tense, have+participle, to express an action completed in the present. The second sentence is actually quite idiomatic and condensed: it should be "I have (here) a letter (which is) written." It's not a split form of the present perfect of "to write", it's a condensed compound sentence consisting of the main clause "I have a letter" and an implicit subordinate clause "it is written".

The structure of sentences is not very variable in English, for the exact reason you state, that there are no noun markers, so the word order has to establish the relationship between the words. Contrast that to classical Latin, where you can shuffle the word order in just about any way you want, and let the declensions indicate the sentence structure....

I will differ but I'm not begging.

Your interpretation of "I have a letter written." with the attendent assumed subject is merely one of several interpretions of the sentence and it is not idiomatic as I understand idioms.

Allow me to expand the example :

Expanded example

I wrote a letter.

I have a letter that I wrote.

These to sentence convey differing meaning.

The second conveying ongoing action. The first past, completed action.

Putting a form of "to be" as a placeholder in an English sentence and moving the verb just changes the interpretation of the sentence.

Its just does.


And its not supposed to.


Which is why tense is an issue to non-native English speaker.

 

[Globalnomad]

OK, I won't beg, either. Especially as I honestly don't quite understand your point.

"I have a letter written" does not necessarily mean that I wrote it - just that it is written. I am no longer the subject of that verb, "written" is now a passive form with "letter" as its subject.

So it's not a question of ongoing versus completed action, nor of simply moving the verb. Or let me put it this way, what looks like simply moving the verb is in fact a change in the form of the verb, thus of its function, thus of the meaning of the whole sentence.

 

[Rhamiel]

That was to funny! After seeing his post, in my mind I asked the same question. Then the nest post was yours. Glad he answered you. If he would of given another encyclopedia description for his answer, I probably would of spit my coffee out laughing.

that was the most of his own POV i have ever seen

 

[MyLordIsMyLife]

Now can SOMEBODY explain the "gh" = "f" sound? That one really beats me.

must be from Gaelic or some Germanic language..otherwise I have no clue.

Now here's an example of splitting some words:

He said he loved my sister.

Only he said he loved my sister.

He only said he loved my sister.

He said only he loved my sister.

He said he only loved my sister.

He said he loved only my sister.

He said he loved my only sister.

see how the meaning changes. kinda interesting.

love and peace
Jonathan