(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[WeepingElf]

Are most of the names of the Greek Islands of Pre-Greek origin? Is there a database somewhere with etymologies of the island names? I guess this field would be called "nesonymy".

Not “insulanomy”?

Terms like toponymy or hydronymy are good Greek, so is nesonymy. Your insulanomy is bad Latin.

[KaiTheHomoSapien]

Haha. To be clear, I didn't know that "nesonymy" was a real word, but it seems it has some usage. I thought maybe I'd coined it.

[WeepingElf]

Indeed, I haven't ever met that word before this thread.

[eldin raigmore]

Are most of the names of the Greek Islands of Pre-Greek origin? Is there a database somewhere with etymologies of the island names? I guess this field would be called "nesonymy".

Not “insulanomy”?

Terms like toponymy or hydronymy are good Greek, so is nesonymy. Your insulanomy is bad Latin.

So it’s a barbarism!
Yes, I thought so!
My question was meant to be humorous! I don’t know what happened to the I thought I typed in!

[eldin raigmore]

Haha. To be clear, I didn't know that "nesonymy" was a real word, but it seems it has some usage. I thought maybe I'd coined it.

Look at page 76 of this

[KaiTheHomoSapien]

Haha. To be clear, I didn't know that "nesonymy" was a real word, but it seems it has some usage. I thought maybe I'd coined it.

Look at page 76 of this

Oh cool. I do seem to be interested in onomastics.

[LinguoFranco]

So, I read that in Ancient Greek, the pitch accent fell on one of the last three syllables in a word. Did Ancient Greek allow the tone to spread on to other syllables beyond that three syllable window?

[Creyeditor]

AFAIK, it did not allow this. I'm not an expert, I just recently heard a talk on Ancient Greek pitch accent. I don't know about intonation though, which often interacts with stress or pitch accent in surprising ways.

[WeepingElf]

Indeed, Greek moved the accent rightward where PIE (and Vedic) had the accent anywhere before the antepenultimate syllable. Otherwise, AFAIK Greek retained the PIE accent.

[Creyeditor]

I was recently wondering about the semantics of nominalizations in languages that mark definiteness and number in noun phrases. Is there a difference in meaning between the following English phrases? Are these even acceptable? And what are the differences exactly?

Fights of the Titans
A fight of the Titans
The fights of the Titans
The fight of the Titans

Fighting of the Titans
A fighting of the Titans
The fighting of the Titans
The fightings of the Titans

[Salmoneus]

I was recently wondering about the semantics of nominalizations in languages that mark definiteness and number in noun phrases. Is there a difference in meaning between the following English phrases? Are these even acceptable? And what are the differences exactly?

Fights of the Titans
A fight of the Titans
The fights of the Titans
The fight of the Titans

Fighting of the Titans
A fighting of the Titans
The fighting of the Titans
The fightings of the Titans

Yes, these all mean different things. And yes, if you're writing literature, or trying to sound like you're quoting the Bible or Dryden, these ae all grammatically acceptible. However, 6 and 8 are archaic and will sound anywhere between 'ungrammatical' and 'old-fashioned' to modern speakers; the same is true in many contexts of 5, although there are probably contexts where it could be used. If you change the nouns out, I could just about imagine it being in technical instructions ("Balancing of the counter-pressure should only be attempted when..."). And similarly 7, although again with some licit contexts (this time more in poetry and fiction, I think - eg the chorus of "The Holly and the Ivy": O the rising of the sun / And the running of the deer; / The playing of the merry organ / and sweet singing in the choir )

In general, the problem with the verbal nouns in -ing is that they tend to be disprefered to other constructions, including Latinate verbal nouns where possible ("operating" avoided in favour of "operation"), zero-marked verbal nouns where possible ("fighting" avoided in favour of "fight", although the complication there is that these zero-marked noun are more aspectually restricted, and sometimes more specialised in meaning, than the Latinate forms usually are), and often gerund constructions also ("me fighting the Titans..."). When the -ing constructions are available, gerundive phrases are often disprefered to more idiomatic constructions involving other prepositions - eg "the fighting of the Titans" sounds old-fashioned in large part because these days we'd say "the fighting BETWEEN the Titans" instead (or 'among', sometimes). [eg going back the Holly and the Ivy: in earlier accounts the line was "singing OF the choir", later replaced by singing IN the choir].This can also be true of the zero-marked nouns as well - a lot of these 'of the Titans' phrases would be disprefered to among or between phrases.

In terms of definiteness and number marking, these just... mark definiteness and number, straightforwardly.

Fights of the Titans - plural, indefinite
A fight of the Titans - singular, indefinite
The fights of the Titans - plural, definite
The fight of the Titans - singular, definite

The indefinite forms are more likely than the definites to be replaced by other prepositions, and I think also the plurals more likely than the singulars.

[Creyeditor]

Thank you for your detailed response. So, IIUUC, there's is more of a register difference between -ing-derived nouns and other deverbal nouns and less of a semantic difference. Is that correct?
You mention zero-derived nouns being nore aspectually restricted. Could you elaborate? Are all zero-derived nouns restricted to a certain aspectual category or is this lexically specific?
I had the feeling that the number marking somehow interacted with the number marking. So if plural marking of a nominalized verb indicates that there was more than one event, this probably has to have some habitual or iterative aspectual information right?
Re preposition: this really wasn't so central to my question and I would be happy with any preposition that makes the sentence more acceptable.
Sorry for all the follow-up questions.

[All4Ɇn]

Does anyone know why the English words starting with <kn> such as knight or knave switched from writing them with <cn>? Given that k is typically only used before front vowels, in <ck>, and in loans, I’m surprised they wouldn’t have left <c> as the silent letter

[Nel Fie]

Does anyone know why the English words starting with <kn> such as knight or knave switched from writing them with <cn>? Given that k is typically only used before front vowels, in <ck>, and in loans, I’m surprised they wouldn’t have left <c> as the silent letter

I'm no expert and Wikipedia might not be the best source, but according to their page, it's a consequence of the Norman Conquest, where Old English words were re-spelled according to Norman rules.
Here's the relevant passage quoted from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C#Later_use

In addition, Norman used the letter ⟨k⟩ so that the sound /k/ could be represented by either ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩, the latter of which could represent either /k/ or /ts/ depending on whether it preceded a front vowel letter or not. The convention of using both ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ was applied to the writing of English after the Norman Conquest, causing a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. Thus while Old English candel, clif, corn, crop, cú, remained unchanged, Cent, cǣᵹ (cēᵹ), cyng, brece, sēoce, were now (without any change of sound) spelled Kent, keȝ, kyng, breke, and seoke; even cniht ('knight') was subsequently changed to kniht and þic ('thick') changed to thik or thikk.

[Salmoneus]

Thank you for your detailed response. So, IIUUC, there's is more of a register difference between -ing-derived nouns and other deverbal nouns and less of a semantic difference. Is that correct?

I would say: hmm.

Overall, no. -ing nouns are used in every register. However, -ing nouns are often more restricted in the constructions they can be used in, and that restiction is often greater in certain registers. So in many constructions, swapping a different (particularly a Latinate) deverbal noun out and replacing it with an -ing noun will make a phrase sound more old-fashioned and literary, but also at the same time often less formal. "The eating of beans is an ancient Christmas tradition" is grammatical, but sound like it's from before WWII, and also paradoxically sounds a bit... not informal, but not business-like. "The consumption of beans" sounds more official, and also more up-to-date. ["Bean consumption" sounds even better in that respect, but may be TOO business-like for casual use]. Meanwhile, the construction with the gerund is still modern, but is definitely informal ("eating beans is...").

I think the -ing nouns are maybe kind of tied to, and an outgrowth of (synchronically albeit not diachronically) the gerund. They often feel odd when you try to make them more definite with articles and possessive phrases and the like.

However, in other constructions they're completely normal.

In terms of semantics... I think the systematic semantic difference is minimal, and probably just aspectual. However, there can be considerable semantic differences between individual pairs of nouns; usually, the -ing noun, being more tied to the (inflectional rather than derivational) gerund, remains more general and more in touch with the verbal meaning, whereas other deverbals can drift more. When a deverbal develops a jargon meaning in a field, for instance, it's usually not the -ing noun that receives this meaning. That said, there are counter-examples. In particular, names of sports and pastimes (hunting, shooting, fishing!) often take -ing.

You mention zero-derived nouns being nore aspectually restricted. Could you elaborate? Are all zero-derived nouns restricted to a certain aspectual category or is this lexically specific?

Hmm, what did I mean?

I think I meant not that what aspects they can have is restricted, but that the aspect they have is more restricted (less expansive).

In general, zero-marked deverbals (I'll just say 'zeros') tend to be highly perfective. Fundamentally, they're more concrete. They refer to specific events, moments, completed processes, that are treated as highly noun-like. "The fight lasted until dawn" makes it sound as though this is a discrete, known, compartmentalisable event. It often sort of connotes a degree of order and control, if not on the part of the participants than on the part of the narrator. By contrast, "the fighting lasted until dawn" sounds a lot more chaotic, a lot less neat and clear-cut. Perhaps there's a suggestion of plurality (the fighting is more likely to have many people fighting for different reasons or none at all; the fight may just have two people, but very probably at least has two clear sides! Also, the fighting is more likely to have pauses in it, whereas the fight... theoretically could have, but the impression is more of a continuous combat). Perhaps there's a suggestion of interruption - you're more likely to tell us about something happening during the fighting than during the fight (you may even be tempted in the latter case to say that it happened at the same time as the fight, rather than during it?).

Sometimes, depending on the verb, they refer specifically to individual instances. "The throw" is usually a single hurl of a projectile; "the throwing" is a period of such hurling. Although it's not always that clear: "the throw" could sometimes be a single ROUND of throwing, as in a sporting event. A better example: a flash is instantaneous, whereas flashing goes on for a while and is made of many flashes. Except, you know, we've also randomly specialised 'flashing' as a very concrete noun for exposing one's body to an unwilling viewer, and that can be either an instance OR a period. The zero is also more likely to be used of a specific part of a larger process - the triple jump is composed of a hop, a skip and a jump, not a hopping, a skipping and a jumping. Even if there were two skips (and a quadruple jump!) I'd say "the skips" rather than "the skipping", because I'm identifying a part of the process, rather than referring to a period of time in its own right.

"The X-ing" can very often be interpreted as "the period of X-ing".

Zeros can also often have implications of telicity. If I'm supervising a group of kids having fun on a climbing wall for an hour, I'm going to talk about "the climbing". But if I'm talking to someone who just climbed the Eiger, I'm going to talk about "the climb" - the climb is from the bottom to the top. You could even probably do two consecutive climbs, if they're in some way recognised as distinct events, whereas a consecutive period of climbing is all climbing. Likewise, running aimlessly for exercise is more likely to be "running", whereas a race from A to B is more likely to be "a run".


However, alongside these count-zeros, there are also entirely different mass-zeros, as it were. These can't... urgh. OK, they CAN take articles, and often do, but don't have to, whereas count-zeros have to. Mass-zeros (this isn't a great name I've invented but it'll do for now) are almost the opposite of count-zeros, because they're completely abstract, more abstract than -ing nouns. They can refer to processes, but they very often refer to faculties or properties. For instance, although "the fight" is usually super-concrete, we can also say that someone "has no more fight left in him", where "fight" refers NOT to a concrete event, but to an ability or property of the individual (the ABILITY to fight). And confusingly this 'mass-zero' can actually sometimes take the definite article, as in "the fight had gone out of him" (the whole of the ability). These mass-zeros are used a lot in scientific contexts. Or perhaps more accurately 'engineering'. I'm pretty sure that there's some field where people will talk about "the throw" of a device, for instance.

[zeros also often apply to the place or route of an action, or accompanying physical features - a climb is a route up a mountain, a run (or race) is the route of river over a wheel, etc]

Meanwhile, -ing nouns often have no article. In fact, they're frequently indistinguishable from gerunds. When they take 'the' it means... I don't know, but maybe it's often, as with abstract zeros, to indicate the whole of something? "Fighting continued..." is non-exlcusive (there could be more fighting elsewhere or at another time), whereas "the fighting continued..." at least implies that this is all the fighting we need to worry about?

-ing nouns rarely take the indefinite article, I guess because they're by defautl indefinite already. Often when they do it's because they're being used as a DIFFERENT type of -ing noun - one that's even more abstract. Sometimes referring to a TYPE of x-ing. Sometimes in some way metaphorical. In the latter instance, the "running" of a race in the sense not of moving your legs but of organising it - I could imagine reading "a fifth and final running occured in 1983", referring to some historic event. In the former instance: I can imagine an article titled "A new farming for a new century", where 'farming' refers to an entire type or culture of farming. Indefinites are even harder to attach to -ing nouns when there's no adjective between them.

Except that some -ings are so concretised that they act like normal nouns. "A painting".

So... it's complicated! It's all more about tendencies than absolute rules, even though there are definite tendencies.

[and this is off the top of my head, so I could be talking nonsense?]

I had the feeling that the number marking somehow interacted with the number marking. So if plural marking of a nominalized verb indicates that there was more than one event, this probably has to have some habitual or iterative aspectual information right?

Yes

Re preposition: this really wasn't so central to my question and I would be happy with any preposition that makes the sentence more acceptable.

FWIW, to me, it almost feels like a different word if you swap out "of" for another preposition! It's a tricky thing because the possessive phrase alters the semantics of definiteness in a way that a different prepositional phrase doesn't. Which is probably why the non-of versions usually sound better (if there's an appropriate alternative preposition available, of course) - it sidesteps the clash between the indefiniteness of the gerund (and hence the -ing form) and the definiteness of the possesive.

[Salmoneus]

Does anyone know why the English words starting with <kn> such as knight or knave switched from writing them with <cn>? Given that k is typically only used before front vowels, in <ck>, and in loans, I’m surprised they wouldn’t have left <c> as the silent letter

I don't know, but I do wonder if the old "they'd accidentally made all their letters the same" excuse can be brought out again? "N" was a nightmare letter for them, and "c" wasn't that far from a vertical line, so 'cn' could easily look like either 'm' or (if they made it less vertical) 'oi'; whereas 'k' is very different. So maybe they were just avoiding the 'cn' sequence. The same way that they avoided the 'wu' cluster?

[Creyeditor]

@Sal: thanks again, especially the aspectual stuff. I'll think about it a bit more. This is really relevant for some of my conlang projects.

[All4Ɇn]

I'm no expert and Wikipedia might not be the best source, but according to their page, it's a consequence of the Norman Conquest, where Old English words were re-spelled according to Norman rules.
Here's the relevant passage quoted from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C#Later_use

Interesting! I didn't know the Norman's used the letter K. Based on what they're saying it sounds like <kn> started with words with front vowels like knight before being regularized to all the words in this category

I don't know, but I do wonder if the old "they'd accidentally made all their letters the same" excuse can be brought out again? "N" was a nightmare letter for them, and "c" wasn't that far from a vertical line, so 'cn' could easily look like either 'm' or (if they made it less vertical) 'oi'; whereas 'k' is very different. So maybe they were just avoiding the 'cn' sequence. The same way that they avoided the 'wu' cluster?

This would also track with k's tendencies I mentioned earlier. K sticking out more would help it convey phonological information which could also explain the choice


Also, I've never heard about English avoiding <wu>. Do you know of any examples of this?

[sangi39]

I don't know, but I do wonder if the old "they'd accidentally made all their letters the same" excuse can be brought out again? "N" was a nightmare letter for them, and "c" wasn't that far from a vertical line, so 'cn' could easily look like either 'm' or (if they made it less vertical) 'oi'; whereas 'k' is very different. So maybe they were just avoiding the 'cn' sequence. The same way that they avoided the 'wu' cluster?

This would also track with k's tendencies I mentioned earlier. K sticking out more would help it convey phonological information which could also explain the choice


Also, I've never heard about English avoiding <wu>. Do you know of any examples of this?

The only two I know off the top of my head in Modern English are "wuss" and "wuther". The former is from the 1970s, I think, and the latter is dialectal. All the other ones I can think of are German borrowings (wunderkind, wurst, wulfenite)

[Salmoneus]

Examples of refusing to spell something with the sequence <wu> include "wolf", "wonder", "wool", "wood", "wound" and "wont", all of which were originally spelled with < u >.

Also "woman" and (ultimately) "won't", which phonetically had rounding of /i/ to /u/, but spelled it with <o> instead.

Also arguably "womb" - this DID originally have <o>, but it later developed a u-like vowel and spelling never altered to match.