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"Holes" in languages | ||
Tags: Multilingual | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 9 of 26 27 October 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The only way an adjective can be defective in English is when it lacks comparation (synthetic and analytic). But in a language where you can be more square than square it is difficult to keep comparation down.
A French defective 'adjective': "feu" (meaning dead). But of course it is just a substantive that has been used in the slot assigned to adjectives. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 26 27 October 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
What if it only exists in comparative and superlative, and not in plain adjective? Does that count as defective or not? Least, less, ...? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| simonov Senior Member Portugal Joined 5590 days ago 222 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English | Message 11 of 26 27 October 2010 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Little? Little money, less money, least money. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 12 of 26 28 October 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Maybe some participles might qualify as defective adjectives - at least I have never seen the comparative and superlative of "missing" (a missing soldier, but not a *missinger or *more missing soldier, the *missingest or *most missing soldier). On the other hand a mountain slope can be more or less eroded, and some questions are definitely more interesting than others.
One more Danish example: normal Danes can only have "bukser" (trousers) and "briller" (glasses) in the plural. But those who sell those items have no qualms about selling "en buks" or "en brille". So sometimes defectiveness is dependent on your job. Edited by Iversen on 28 October 2010 at 12:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 26 28 October 2010 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Nope. There was a TV series called The littlest hobo. And besides, little is very rarely used in phrases like "he has little money" in modern speech. We would say "he doesn't have much money". This is another "defective" feature of English -- there are ideas we tend to only express in the negative. We like to express undesirable situations using "not". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5848 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 26 28 October 2010 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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DEFECTIVE VERBS IN TURKISH
The Turkish language has two defective verbs: "to be" and "to have". The infinitive of "to be" is olmak, but this verb doesn't exist in the Present Tense. Instead the forms of "imek" are used for eample in the yor-tense (= simdiki zaman). mutlu = happy ben mutluyum - I am happy sen mutlusun - you are happy o mutlu - he, she, it is happy biz mutluyuz - we are happy siz mutlusunuz - you (polite form) are happy onlar mutlu - they are happy "to have" has no infinitive in Turkish and can only be expressed by using "var = there is" or "yok = there isn't". I have a pen. - (Benim) kalemim var. (My pen there is.) He doesn't have a flat. - (Onun) dairesi yok. (His flat there isn't.) Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 28 October 2010 at 3:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 15 of 26 29 October 2010 at 11:56am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
But less and least are the comparative and superlative respectively of the adverb little, regardless of whether little is much used or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| simonov Senior Member Portugal Joined 5590 days ago 222 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English | Message 16 of 26 29 October 2010 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Nope. 1. Try googling "little understanding" for instance: About 138,000,000 results! That's not what I'd call rare. If something is used, it does exist. And therefore isn't defective (missing, a hole). 2. A tendency is not a general rule of conduct. Take words like bad, rotten, dumb, thick, crappy, idiotic, incompetent etc. I've rarely heard them replaced by a "not somehing" construction. Except on kids' report cards! And certainly no such "defective" feature of English noticeable in British politic shows! 3. "littlest" is the superlative of "little" in the sense of "small", not of "not much". I would have qualified little in this sense as "defective", except that apparently the form "littler" does exist. Like in: a child hobo is a little hobo, a smaller child would then be a "littler" hobo, while the dog is the "littlest" hobo of all. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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