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"Holes" in languages | ||
Tags: Multilingual | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 1 of 26 26 October 2010 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What's the infinitive of "can"? How do you form the future tense of it? I can, I could I … will be able to? There seems to be a hole here.
In Swedish, there are similar holes. The adjective "rädd" (afraid) can only be used with "den"-gendered words (I always forget which is Neuter and which is Utrum). So you can say "en rädd person" (a scared person), but if you want to apply the adjective to a "det" noun like "barn" (child), it doesn't work. "ett rätt barn", the logical construction, sounds ridiculous. (Also, why can't you say "an afraid child"?) There's a similar thing with the adjective "få" (few). Few, fewer, the fewest: "få, färre … ?". The simply isn't a superlative form of this adjective; you need to switch to "minst antal". There are some people who enjoy using "färst" (by analogy of "värre–värst"), but many recoil in horror and you won't find it in books or newspapers. Have you seen these things in other languages? Why do they occur? The "rädd" one seems to occur because of a collision with the word "rätt", meaning "correct", so "ett rätt barn" sounds like "a correct child". But I can find no obvious reason why there's no infinitive of "can" or superlative of "få". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5527 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 2 of 26 26 October 2010 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think someone mentioned that there's no equivalent for the Finnish "mones" in English; there isn't any good way to ask the question that leads to the response "Andrew Jackson was the seventh president".
The most I can come up with is "Which number president was Andrew Jackson?" but that sounds kind of wrong. Some people suggest "How manyeth?". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5673 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 26 26 October 2010 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
It isn't so much a hole as a property. Can isn't a normal verb. Along with several others, such as shall, must, and may, it is a modal verb. These don't behave like other verbs, since their purpose is to change sentence modality rather than described action. One of the main distinguishing characteristics of modal verbs is that they don't need, and don't have, infinitives. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 26 27 October 2010 at 3:15am | IP Logged | |||||
Why don't they need infinitives? It seems to me it would be practical to be able to use them in the future tense. "I will can go" is a lot more concise than the roundabout "I will be able to go". Is it because the future tense in English is also made with a modal verb and you can't pile them up on top of each other? The Swedish equivalent "att kunna" has an infinitive and it can be used in the future tense without a problem ("Jag kommer att kunna"). Although, come to think of it, the Swedish equivalent of "must" ("måste") also lacks an infinitive. In the future tense you have to switch to "att behöva". 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5836 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 5 of 26 27 October 2010 at 7:37am | IP Logged | |||||
But these same modal verbs have infinitives in most European languages, as you know yourself from your knowledge of Czech. It would seem that they were not origianally defective in English. (See link below) Edited by stelingo on 27 October 2010 at 7:47am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5836 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 6 of 26 27 October 2010 at 7:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here is a list of defective verbs in different languages. A very varied list too, as already mentioned the modal verbs in English as well as the verb beware, to colour in Portuguese (colorir, no first person sing), to abolish in Spanish (no 1st pers sing abuelo, for obvious reasons), to win in Russian (победить again no 1st person sing) plus many more.
How would you say in Russian: I will win? defective verbs Edited by stelingo on 27 October 2010 at 7:51am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 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 7 of 26 27 October 2010 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Defective verbs abound in many languages. In Danish there is for instance an old poetic word for "to kill" which only is used in the past tense: "Niels Ebbesen vog den kullede greve", referring to an incident in 1340 where a patriotic Danish nobleman named Niels Ebbesen killed the bald duke Gerhard III of Holstein aka count Gerhard I of Southern Jutland. The preceding Danish kings had pawned almost the whole country, and one of the main creditors was this count Gerhard. So with him out of the picture the successful reestablishment of the kingdom under Valdemar Atterdag (Valdemar Again-a-day) could begin.
But now I wanted to use the present tense, and I found a reference that indicated the infinitive form as "veje" - which clearly isn't the same verb as "veje" in the sense of "weigh". I had never seen this form nor the corresponding "(jeg) vejer", and it would be more logical to spell it with a g: at *vege, jeg *veger, jeg vog, jeg har *voget (?). Luckily we have got a lot of other ways to indicate the killing of a fellow human being. Or a creditor. Picture of the noble murderer and the vile ugly creditor: 
Edited by Iversen on 28 October 2010 at 12:02am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 26 27 October 2010 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Cool! Lots of defective verbs. But what about my "få" example in Swedish? That's a defective adjective. Do other languages also have those? I can't think of any in English off the top of my head.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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