Author Topic: New column-type thingy (Read 107774 times)

Ela · « **Reply #925 on:** January 13, 2019, 12:16:39 PM »

Interesting article.

Jonathon · « **Reply #926 on:** January 18, 2019, 10:17:02 AM »

And here's something I wrote for Grammar Girl about the origin of methinks.

rivka · « **Reply #927 on:** January 20, 2019, 08:41:23 AM »

In Hebrew you don't say "I am 25"; you say "I have 25 years". And you also don't say "I'm cold" (like your German example), you say "I have cold[ness]". Oh, and "I like it/that" is "It finds favor in my eyes". So would those be dative constructions as well?

Jonathon · « **Reply #928 on:** January 20, 2019, 03:11:41 PM »

That depends on whether Hebrew actually has a dative case and whether those constructions use it or something else. The dative is a distinct case usually used for indirect objects, some objects of preposition, and some other oblique objects. Also, in a dative construction, the dative usually takes the place of the subject.

If the literal translations are "I have 25 years" and "I have cold", then those don't sound like datives. If they were something like "There is 25 years to me" or "To me is 25 years", then that would be a dative construction. So the real question is, does Hebrew have a dative case, and does it use it for those constructions?

rivka · « **Reply #929 on:** January 20, 2019, 10:19:29 PM »

They are definitely "I have", and phrased exactly the same way as "I have an apple". The sources I can find in English (the ones in Hebrew are definitely outside my vocabulary, as I have no idea to say "dative" in Hebrew, let alone any related words!) seem to imply Hebrew does not have a dative case.

http://www.lingvozone.com/Hebrew

Quote

Hebrew grammar is mostly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases.

Jonathon · « **Reply #930 on:** January 21, 2019, 08:01:03 AM »

I wasn't really finding a lot of information on cases in Hebrew either, but it looks like it might not have them at all. If it does, it's most likely to have them on personal pronouns (like English and French), but this chart of personal pronouns doesn't list any variant case forms.

rivka · « **Reply #931 on:** January 21, 2019, 09:01:08 AM »

I'm not quite grasping what pronouns have to do with the question, but I don't know of any pronouns in Hebrew other than those.

Jonathon · « **Reply #932 on:** January 21, 2019, 10:56:50 AM »

I mean that some languages have case marking on all nouns and pronouns (and sometimes on articles and adjectives too), but some languages just mark case on pronouns, as in I vs. me vs. my. So for those things to be dative constructions, you'd have to have a dative pronoun in there. But if Hebrew doesn't have dative pronouns, then they can't be dative constructions.

rivka · « **Reply #933 on:** January 21, 2019, 01:15:41 PM »

In Hebrew both "me" and "my" (and the equivalents for other persons) are almost always suffixes, not separate words. The article you linked has better examples than anything I can come up with.

But there are distinct ways to say I vs. me vs. my.

Jonathon · « **Reply #934 on:** January 21, 2019, 01:56:04 PM »

Does it also have different forms for direct and indirect objects, or is there basically just a "me" (whether it's a suffix or a separate word) for both? For instance, I don't remember if you know any Yiddish, but some pronouns have distinct forms for direct and indirect objects, like "mikh" versus "mir".

By the way, I had no idea that Hebrew often used suffixes for personal pronouns. But then again, I don't really know a lot about Hebrew beyond a few things like verb-subject-object order and the fact that it has that weird triconsonantal root morphology.

rivka · « **Reply #935 on:** January 21, 2019, 10:33:07 PM »

My knowledge of Yiddish is very limited, and includes essentially no grammar. I know "mir", but not "mikh", let alone what distinguishes the two.

But if you are asking whether there is a different word for "me" in the two phrases: "Give it to me" and "give me to him", then yes.

"To me" is li- (to) + -ee (me): lee. (Full phrase: Ten lee.)
"Me" in the second phrase is et (untranslatable preposition; see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%AA#Hebrew) + -ee (me): oh-tee. (Full phrase: Ten oh-tee loh.)

Jonathon · « **Reply #936 on:** January 22, 2019, 08:59:02 AM »

And of course I don't actually know enough Yiddish to know how mir and mikh are used, but in German, mir is used for indirect objects (Gib mir das Buch 'give me the book'), while mich is used for direct objects (du hasst mich 'you hate me').

But since it looks like the Hebrew words are compounds of some sort of base form of the pronoun plus a preposition, I'm not sure those are technically cases. Cases are often semantically equivalent to some sort of preposition, and they probably evolved from them (well, technically from postpositions, since they attach at the end), but I think these would be considered something different. I'm not sure what the right term for them would be, though.

So it sounds like Hebrew probably doesn't have real dative constructions. Maybe there's some sort of umbrella term that would describe the constructions you listed, but again, I'm not sure what it would be.

rivka · « **Reply #937 on:** January 22, 2019, 07:37:42 PM »

Ok, thanks.

Jonathon · « **Reply #938 on:** January 22, 2019, 08:17:10 PM »

No problem! And this discussion almost made me want to learn Hebrew, as if I don't already have enough going on in my life.

rivka · « **Reply #939 on:** January 22, 2019, 10:35:38 PM »

There are some online resources for that, should that desire crystallize.

Jonathon · « **Reply #940 on:** January 23, 2019, 08:35:45 AM »

Don't tempt me, Rivka!

rivka · « **Reply #941 on:** January 23, 2019, 10:14:38 AM »

Meanwhile, Netflix recently added Shtisel. I watched it just before my trip to Israel, and it helped wake up my dormant Hebrew. Well, maybe a little.

It's also a great show.

Jonathon · « **Reply #942 on:** January 24, 2019, 11:46:12 AM »

Science and Shit

rivka · « **Reply #943 on:** January 24, 2019, 08:19:42 PM »

Interesting!

What about scat? In the animal droppings sense, not the go-away sense.

Jonathon · « **Reply #944 on:** January 25, 2019, 10:31:17 AM »

It appears there's some disagreement about that one. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate says that it's perhaps from the Greek skat- as in scatalogical, and the OED and Etymonline simply say that that's the source. The American Heritage Dictionary says "origin unknown", and Wiktionary also says "origin uncertain", though it notes the M-W and OED etymologies. But it also notes that The Random House Dictionary says that the Greek origin seems unlikely, given the popular character of the word (that is, it's not exactly a scientific or technical term, and it only dates from about the 1950s). But Wiktionary says that it may be from a dialectal word scat meaning 'scatter, bespatter' or from an alteration of shit.

So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

rivka · « **Reply #945 on:** January 25, 2019, 10:45:49 AM »

Huh. Go figure.

Jonathon · « **Reply #946 on:** April 24, 2019, 12:00:38 PM »

That's my name; please wear it out

rivka · « **Reply #947 on:** April 24, 2019, 01:06:49 PM »

I didn't know John was derived from Yochanan, rather than Yonatan!

Jonathon · « **Reply #948 on:** April 24, 2019, 01:32:14 PM »

Hooray for learning new things!

And by the way, I just copied the Hebrew from Wiktionary, so I can't vouch for it. It looks like it's at least going right-to-left, though.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #949 on:** April 24, 2019, 03:21:30 PM »

When I first came to know you, I remembered your spelling by recognizing how it corresponded to Yonaton. By now, the more popular spelling looks wrong to me, so I suppose you've ruined me for it a little.