2369: Abessive Case Jun 13, 2021
Finnish is known for its many grammatical cases: an amount that would put Latin to shame. Still, not all of these are as common as others, such as the abbessive case, a.k.a. caritive or privative case. This expresses a lack of something, and would be roughly comparable to the English '-less', for instance in:
raha (money)
rahatta (without money)
but this is increasingly being replaced with other words like 'ilman' meaning 'without' and is already fairly rare to find in normal speech, though still used to some extent in writing. Hungarian also has suffixes and postpositions for this purpose, but the postposition is not considered a suffix and won't have vowel harmony. Other languages, even related languages like Estonian and many Turkic languages use this case fairly productively, so it's not disappearing universally by any means.
2314: psycho-: psychotic vs. psychopomp Apr 18, 2021
Words like 'psychopath', or 'psychotic', could give an impression that the combining form 'psycho-' related to problems in mental health, but as can be seen in the word 'psychopomp', this is not the case. A psychopomp is the name for a guide through the underworld, as might be said of Anubis in Egyptian mythology, Mercury in Greek mythology, Valkyries in Norse mythology and even the Grim Reaper. The origin of this word is Greek ψυχοπομπός (psychopompós) with 'psycho (psūkhḗ) meaning 'soul', and 'pompós' here meaning 'sender; conductor'. Thus in its purest sense, 'psycho-' as a combining form means 'soul' or 'mind'.
2294: Disfix Mar 28, 2021
There are many types of affixes, including ones which are not only additive, whether in the middle or on the ends [1]. One more for instance is the so-called 'disfix' which is a type of affix (such as in French a suffix) which is subtractive, meaning is causes a loss to the stem. Usually, this happens to the final segment of the stem, just before the disfix. For instance, with this pluralization from French:
bœuf (cow) as [bœf] --> bœufs (cows/cattle) as [bø]
such that the [f] is deleted in the plural. This also happens with adjectives such as
fausse (wrong (fem.)) as [fos] --> faux (wrong (masc.)) as [fo].
This process is common in certain North American native languages like Alabama, Choctaw, or other Muskogee languages.
2290: Simulfix and Transfix Mar 24, 2021
While suprasegmental patterns exist in order to distinguish between certain English nouns and verbs—e.g.rébel (n) - rebél (v)—this is not the only sort of suprasegmental morphology. For instance, these same patterns exist of course with strong verbs and strong nouns, like 'ring-rang-rung' or 'tooth-teeth' wherein the change is internal and is not only additional, unlike for instance the '-ing' suffix which removes no part of the root-word. This affix is known as a simulfix. Something similar exists within Semitic languages known as a transfix wherein a series of regular, patterned vowels (and at times, other consonants) are effectively inserted into meaningful templates of 2-4 (usually 3) consonants. Unlike with simulfix, the transfix is is attached to roots which cannot be used on their own, whereas the roots in languages that take a simulfix rely on existing phonemes that are usually but not always vowels.
2289: Suprafix Mar 23, 2021
If one wanted to make 'like' past-tense, all that's needed is a suffix: a term for a concept which is fairly well understood. For other matters though, there are processes that are more complicated to observe and are certainly less well known. For instance, in structural linguistics, the idea of the so-called 'suprafix' developed, which is a suprasegmental element added from a pattern such as with tone or stress, such as in English with the difference between
ímport (noun) - impórt (verb)
2286: wrath + -th = wroth...? Mar 20, 2021
'Wrath' and 'wroth' are obviously related, both in meaning and spelling, but not in the way one might assume upon first glance. Rather than being variants in the way 'swim-swam-swum' or 'raise-rise' are with internal vowel change, the Old English for 'wrath' was 'wrǣþþu', equivalent to 'wroth' plus '-th': the same suffix in 'warm-warmth'. 'Wroth' therefore was originally an adjective (Old English: wrāþ; Middle English: wrað), roughly synonymous with 'cruel'. These two are not immediately related to 'wreath', 'writhe', or 'wry' (each related to the others) though many like to connect the sense of twisting to that of anger, in a similar way to what happened with 'wrong' and 'worry'.
2277: Optative Voice Mar 11, 2021
In certain languages, there is another mood along with indicative, subjunctive, imperative and the like known as the optative expressing a wish, as might be covered in English by 'if only...'. This was common verbal mood across Indo-European languages historically but these have usually been lost in a gradual process of morphological and syntactic simplification, reducing many distinct specific features for less precise periphrastic constructions. Some languages like Sanskrit and Ancient Greek are well known for this, but it is retained in Albanian, Armenian, and Kurdish, as well as non-Indo-European languages like Navajo, Yupik, Turkish and Georgian. English cannot neatly express this, but modal verbs like 'may' in "may you have good health" convey a similar intent, though this is also possible even with the present tense as in "G-d help us". In Albanian this is known as "mënyra dëshirore" or literally "wishing mood".
2256: Pro-, Far, Portable, and Porous Feb 18, 2021
'Fare', 'far', and 'ferry' are all related to each other and are obviously connected semantically (the sense of 'fare' also as money initially in reference to paying for travel) but the connection spans across many Indo-European languages. For instance, all the words related to 'pro-' and 'fore-' as a prefix, as well as other words like the Latin 'per' (through). Moreover, words like the Latin 'portare' (to carry) and Greek (peran) meaning 'pass through. Indeed, that root would as well connect this to the English 'pour' and by extension 'porous'. There are many more words in this family, but even here it goes to show that there is the possibility for far-reaching roots to develop into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and even prefixes at once.
2255: Hebrew Contronyms Feb 17, 2021
Hebrew has a causative form for verbs which effectively reverses the meaning of the word, so הוא לומד means 'he learns' and הוא מלמד means 'he teaches', from the same root. It also has a number of contronyms that don't need to change form at all. For instance ללכת usually means 'to go' and לבוא usually means 'to come' but in certain cases that can effectively switch, such as in בא השמש (literally: the sun is coming) referring to a Sunset.
2254: Time & Space in Preposition Feb 16, 2021
There is a strong correlation between a forward direction physically as well as in time; the reverse is true with a backwards direction and the past. There are some exceptions as with in Aymara, but otherwise this is a (near-)universal rule. In Indo-European languages, this manifests not only in prepositions and adverbs (e.g. 'ahead'; 'forward'; 'backward'; toward; behind), but in prefixes. Many are indeed related to those examples before such as in 'fore-' from Old English and ultimately related to 'fare' from 'faran' (to go), along with other prepositions now like the Latin and Greek 'pro-', found in English. 'Before' is also related, and can relate to both time and space. More on this at a later point.
2240: The Transformation of 'Hide' pt. 2 Feb 1, 2021
Previously, it was discussed how 'hide' (verb) has a vast array of related words; many closer related than 'hide' as a noun. These may seem surprising on the surface, like 'sky' and 'shoe', but also consider that 'hide' has changed a lot over time too. Take for instance that the verb used to be weak, which is to say it would have conjugated like
hide-hided-hided rather than
hide-hid-hidden
In general, the tendency is to expect that as time goes on, the creation and productivity of these so-called strong verbs—verbs that indicate tense with changing the internal vowel—to decline.
2216: Hebrew Causative Jan 8, 2020
In English, there are intensive adverbs or other adjuncts like 'very', 'well' and in the UK, 'bloody' all merely adding emphasis. In other languages, the intensive usually distinguishes the root meaning of a word, effectively the causative changes the intransitivity. For instance, the phrase הוא בא means "he comes" but in the causative form הוא מביא means "he brings" (i.e. he caused something else to 'come'). Hebrew uses many morphosyntactic systems in order to create meaning in verb stems and other prefixes are added for other tenses/aspects.
2204: -ite Dec 27, 2020
In Biblical translations, it is very common to come across tribal demonyms ending in -ite, such as:
"...Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites..." (Deuteronomy 20:17) but this has little relation to the text itself. Indeed, just compare the modern 'Israeli' and Biblical 'Israelite' and the linguistic discrepancy is perhaps more noticeable. In Hebrew, these are all pluralized with the same ending:
החתי והאמרי הכנעני והפרזי החוי והיבוסי
but this ending is pronounced [i] with no hint of a final [t]. In fact that's a function of Greek and not of Hebrew. Moreover, many place-names around areas with no contact to Greek such as Southeast Asia still take -ite like Bandung-Bandungite (Indonesia), Kuala Lumpur-KLite (Malaysia), Kuching-Kuchingite (Malaysia), Vizag-Vizagite (India), and Seoul-Seoulite (Korea). The -ite ending is found from English names for places around the world.
2197: Biblical Hebrew has No Tenses Dec 20, 2020
Biblical Hebrew contains no verb tenses, a fact which is often misunderstood. Hebrew did of course have a way of expressing the action—just not time—in verbs through aspect. Unlike, in English however wherein aspect only can express Perfect (i.e. that the action is completed) and the Imperfect (i.e. that the action is incomplete), using the prefix וְ (v-) known as 'vav', other verbs could signal sequence. In other words, there is morphology to indicate that the action came in sequence (after) another whether that is in actual time or simply conceptual.
Somewhat counterintuitively sounding, the Sequential Perfect expresses similar meaning to the Imperfect and vice versa, but this is because if a Perfect verb is followed by a verb in the Sequential Perfect, it would have to have the sense of ongoing action. For instance”I read a book and I ate an apple” (both Perfect) does not actually show the sequence of time how “I read a book and I am eating an apple“ would and hence the Sequential Perfect looks almost the same but acts like an Imperfect.
Of course, there were ways of expressing the concepts that English uses tense to describe using other words and structures, but it is technically wrong to use the term 'tense'. This use of the וְ prefix is known as the Vav Consecutive form. This is distinct from the Vav Conjunctive, which merely expresses the same meaning as the English 'and'. This is why often Biblical translations will often write 'and' even at the beginning of sentences or indeed chapters. Modern Hebrew and even Mishnaic Hebrew does employ tenses, but these developed closer to the Indo-European system.
2191: Languages without Plural Dec 14, 2020
While languages have multiple different types of pluralization in their morphology, some have none. Indeed, across the Austronesian languages there is a great deal of diversity in this matter, with Sursurunga having 5 and Indonesian having ostensibly 0. This is not to say languages like this, especially common around East Asia and the Pacific, have no way of expressing plural obviously, but that it will either be done through a certain amount of context as with the English 'sheep-sheep', with specific determiners as with the Maori
te ngeru (the cat)
ngā ngeru (the cats)
where the nouns stay the same, but the determiners are different. In other cases, as in Indonesian, there will be some of these markers but if not, there will be reduplication,
Kucing (cat)
Kucing-kucing (cats). This is certainly a syntactic way to express the plural, but lacks a specific morpheme.
2187: Hebrew and Arabic Dual Dec 10, 2020
The dual—a distinct plural for 2 of something—is common around many languages of the world, but there are differences in how its used. In Hebrew and Arabic, especially in the older forms of those languages, use of the dual seems compulsory, but this is not universally so. In Arabic it is simpler that any word, regardless of gender, will simply take ان (-ān) or the more modern ين (-ain) but this is being lost in some dialects. In Hebrew this is more complicated, with several different factors like gender and semantics factoring in. Often this is distinguished between the masculine plural ־ים (-im) and the dual ־יים (ayim), such as
יום / יומיים / ימים
(yōm / yomạyim / yāmīm) for 'day', ‘two days', and 'days' but often there is no written distinction, especially for masculine nouns, as with עין / עיניים (ayin / ʿēnạyim) for 'eye(s)'. Indeed, in Modern Hebrew, there is no productive use of the dual, but words for time and body parts often still retain it. Notably, in Hebrew, only nouns can have dual, so adjectives, verbs, etc. that need to correspond with a dual will usually use the standard plural.
2186: How Pluralization Can Affect Meaning: 'Oczy' vs. 'Oka' Dec 9, 2020
While pluralization may often be merely a necessary aspect of a language's grammar, sometimes it can have an impact on the semantics too. The Polish noun 'oko' means both 'eye' but also 'oil droplet' and while the plural for the first meaning is 'oczy', for the second it is 'oka'. The reason for this distinction is ostensibly due to the so-called dual number, a form of plural used specifically for things which come in pairs. That is why also even if it is more than 2 eyes, or exactly 2 oil droplets being referred to, the same plural forms are used. Indeed, while the dual is used primarily for things which are considered generally to come as pairs but in Polish and also Russian certain forms of nouns will have different forms for referring to 2, 3, or 4 of that noun, but this extension is limited to the genitive or nominative plural for Polish. Uses for the dual beyond this will be the topic tomorrow.
This post is the start of Pluralization Week, to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the blog.
2163: Germanic Plural Endings: How -R is Related to -S
In English, non-rhoticity—the loss of /r/ before a consonant or at the end of a word—initially was process that affected by [s] only, thus leading to ‘bass’ from the Old English ‘bærs’, among others, as explained in the video about English vs. American R’s. A process not so conceptually different to this also establishes the connection between the Dutch plural ending -s and the Scandinavian -r plurals, but the process went the other way around. This is to say that the most common pluralizing ending across Germanic languages today is -s but that it has become an -r in Swedish, though to be clear there have always been Germanic inflectional endings of different varieties, including commonly -en (e.g. ox-oxen; Haus-Hausen), internal vowel changes (e.g. tooth-teeth), and -er (Buch-Bücher). Indeed, the -s ending that is now the overwhelmingly dominant form in English was only used for a many masculine nouns, and not for feminine or neuter, making up less than half therefore but still a plurality. So effectively as English used -s more to to others being pushed out, Swedish used plural -s less due to the rhoticity.
2156: Canaanite Shift Nov 9, 2020
When languages split from each other, often the change comes from sound shifts. These, like the Great Vowel Shift in English, or Grimm's Law encompassing Germanic languages are quite broad in scope, but this isn't always, or even usually the case. The Canaanite Shift describes a process wherein [a] became [o] in long syllables. This affected Northwest Semitic languages like Hebrew and Aramaic, but not South Semitic like Arabic. For instance Tiberian Hebrew שלום (šalom) and the Arabic سلام (salām) share a root meaning 'complete; peace' but differ in the stressed vowel. This shift was so productive that this affected inflections, i.e. it affected the morphology and not only the roots of words, such as the plural ending [at] in Arabic or [ot] in Hebrew:
"Girls; daughters": بَنَات (banāt) versus בָּנוֹת (bānōṯ)
Or with present participles, such as
“Writer; the one writing”: كاتب (kātib) versus כותב (kōṯēḇ)
2149: Celtic Mutation, & Vowel Harmony Nov 2, 2020
Learning a language and its irregularities can be a real frustration, but some languages make this harder than others. Hungarian, Finnish, and Turkish feature so-called vowel-harmony, where the vowels near each other change regularly depending on the how affixes are attached (and there are a lot). For instance in Hungarian, -nek/-nak are the same dative suffix, but change depending on the vowel in the root word.
város város-nak 'city'
öröm öröm-nek 'joy'
On the opposite conceptual end, Celtic languages have mutations, meaning—as in the chart below—that based off of the surrounding words there is consonant mutation. For example
coeden goeden nghoeden choeden
meaning 'tree' in Welsh are all different forms of the same word, depending on what comes before it, and this process is how words are formed normally.
Celtic Vowel Mutations (imagine: public domain)