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Features of the TL that you can’t stand | ||
Tags: "Louche" Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4029 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 33 of 63 06 May 2014 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why did it get so complex? How was it that your ancestors could do russian numerals fine but people trip up these
days? Some say their native language is so hard that they have trouble speaking it (bullpoo of course), but why would something be so complex that it has to be taught to natives in a classroom environment if it couldn't be learned by picking up from one's parents? Of course the opposite is equally mysterious to me where so little exists. "Head this I hurt can buy bandaid come come nah?" or something like that in Vietnamese. Edited by Stolan on 06 May 2014 at 10:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 63 06 May 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
It normally gives a more peaceful and calm discussion if people cut down on their their opinions and instead quote the concrete facts that lead them to have those opinions. And now Serpent has mentioned the Russian numbers: there are certain situations in Russian where a number is combined with different forms of an adjective and a noun. I can live with the fact that different numbers are combined with different cases and numbers, but it has always puzzled me that adjectives and nouns don't follow the same rule - just some rule, but please the same one. But all languages have quirks like that, and it is up to the Russians themselves to decide whether they want to keep this particular oddity or not. Edited by Iversen on 06 May 2014 at 10:55pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 35 of 63 06 May 2014 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Because prescriptivism. Also, at school we all learn an at least slightly more formal register than what we use at home. We gain full strength as native speakers. @Iversen, I didn't mean the agreement, which is weird but consistent. It was mostly about the fact that most of the time we leave big numbers unchanged instead of saying for example двадцатью девятью тысячами четырьмястами шестьюдесятью пятью (more examples here) Edited by Serpent on 06 May 2014 at 11:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 63 07 May 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was thinking about the situation where a number (2-4) in the nominative/accusative is followed by an adjective in the genitive plural, even though the following substantive in accordance with the rule valid for these numbers is put into the genitive singular (I chose to understand this by equating the construction with a partitive formula 'x of something', but it may in reality may a late reflex of a long dead dual form). According to the same grammar it is even possible to have an adjective in the nominative plural in this situation with feminines.
два русских романа (two(♂nom/acc.sing) of-Russian (♂gen.plur.) of-book (♂gen.sing)) Три новые пластинки (Three (♀nom.sing) new (♀nom.plur.) of-record (♀gen.sing. (or nom.plur.?))) For me as a learner this is more weird than consistent, but maybe it's one of the rules which will wither away within the next hundred years - although it will be too late for me then. Edited by Iversen on 07 May 2014 at 2:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4029 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 37 of 63 07 May 2014 at 1:02am | IP Logged | |||||
So number inflection was a variable feature that was perhaps optionally dialectal once but was made mandatory through prescription? Some bits of adjective inflection and V2. word order were somewhat variable in older German and common features I suppose (such as contractions in English), it was hammered in as not variable later on I believe, I notice in set phrases such as "Gut ding will weile haben" that "gut" is uninflected. To add to that supposedly if modern Icelandic speakers have to be reminded on how to decline certain words, why didn't their ancestors have that trouble? I still feel confused as to why they maintained that unless prescriptivism supposedly kept the language the way it was for centuries from proto Germanic, if they didn't, what changed for modern native speakers? Edited by Stolan on 07 May 2014 at 2:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 38 of 63 07 May 2014 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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No, I don't think it was an optionally dialectal feature. It's just that ordinary folks used to need those numbers very rarely. Previously the prices were different and 100 roubles were a lot of money, now you need at least 500-1000 roubles for one decent night out :-)
(In dates, ordinal numbers are used, and they are much more simple, with only the last part changing) @Iversen, yes it's possible to say три новые пластинки, and that would definitely be the nominative plural. I'd say that in this case три kinda behaves like an adjective and agrees with the rest of the noun phrase. It's like ein or um can be an actual number or simply an article. Edited by Serpent on 07 May 2014 at 3:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4029 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 39 of 63 07 May 2014 at 5:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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What exactly are the rules for the adjective following a numeral in Russian? Or does it require several pages?
I know after nom/acc it is 2-4=gen singular, 5-20=gen plural, but what of the adjectives? I also read it changes based on stress too and more exceptions. Well that isn't helping the image I have of Russian (and kith such as Lithuanian) being an overflowing melting pot/kitchen sink. Edited by Stolan on 07 May 2014 at 5:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4704 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 40 of 63 07 May 2014 at 7:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes they are all secret geniuses
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