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> I've never understood the need for noun genders As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE tabl

by zvrba 8y ago

> I've never understood the need for noun genders As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE table" and "A table". It's useless and clear from the context what is meant (note that both are different from "THIS/THAT table", which I do NOT deem useless.) For English and Norwegian, I've learned grammatical rules that cover ca 80% of use-cases, the rest is guessing and I still get it wrong sometimes.

peterlk 8y ago
I am fascinated by how little syntax is required to actually communicate with each other. You can remove gender from language entirely and still understand what people mean. We can even get rid of time-based tenses and instead say something like "I go to the store yesterday". This is incorrect English, but the point is still communicated. As you say "the" and "a" could be condensed. You could go even further and combine these words with "one". Having traveled to a lot of places where I had to speak languages that I don't speak or understand, the amount of language built on top of the tiny "required" subset is marvelous and interesting. Other questions that make language fun. Any ideas where eenie meanie miney moe comes from? Why does flat (low) German exist, and how far is it from Dutch (or English)? How many dialects of various languages are spoken in the Alps? Why do we call different Chinese dialects "dialects" and not "languages"? Which language has the most diverse set of conjugation rules? But I digress.
- pantalaimon 8y ago
  I think all this unnecessary 'clutter' serves as error correction when spoken. Even if you don't fully understand a word, you can piece together from the context what was said.
  - ur-whale 8y ago
    That's a common sophism that completely ignores the cost/benefit trade-off of those supposedly useful error correction mechanisms. In German for example, they're IMO total overkill (as in cost far outweighs benefit). But then, you have to take into account that over-engineering things is a national hobby in Germany. The question becomes chicken-and-egg: did the language induce the cultural trait or did the cultural trait structure the language.
- type0 8y ago
  > Why does flat (low) German exist, and how far is it from Dutch (or English)? I'm not a linguist by any means but as I understand it's a separate language with its' own dialects. Lower saxon nowadays might have a gradual dialect continuum in the West into the Netherlands but in a days of Hanse it was a widespread language around the Baltic sea and had a huge influence on other languages and cultures. Even today part of it's dialects are closer to Swedish than high German (specially Pommern which was part of Sweden for quite some time).
klodolph 8y ago
For me, "the" and "a" are critical for understanding whether you are introducing something new or assuming that I know what you are talking about from context. If I use "the" then it's something clear from context, if I use "a" it's something new. The languages I know make a big fuss about this so I'm curious how you can figure out from context whether you can figure out something from context.
- zvrba 8y ago
  > I'm curious how you can figure out from context whether you can figure out something from context. Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not. Take a hypothetical phone conversation, an example that nobody has managed to explain to me satisfactorily: A: "Where are you?" B: "I'm in [the/a/(nothing)] shower." People tell me that "the" is the correct thing to use. But A is none the wiser; B could be at home, in a gym, at work... A is none the wiser about _which_ shower B is in and the shower has not been introduced previously in the conversation. It's tautological "the", B is in that shower that he's currently using, so he could just as well say "I'm in shower". Or, similarly: A: "Where's my food?" B: "I've put it in fridge." If A is at work, he'd go looking into fridge at office. If at home, he'd go look into fridge in kitchen. If there are two fridges nearby, he'd ask "Which one?" Even though I deliberately omitted "the/a" in the previous paragraph, I don't think you got confused about _which_ office or _which_ kitchen fridge A would go looking in. And personally I cannot imagine that A, upon hearing "it's in fridge" while being in the office, would go home and look into the fridge at home. Or that he'd even have to ask "which fridge?" if there only were one at office. So there's an attempted answer. EDIT: one of my rules of thumb is: if I can put "some" in front of a noun without changing the meaning, then it's most probably appropriate to use "a".
  - klodolph 8y ago
    > Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not. This doesn't work in English, because both speakers are not assumed to have the same knowledge of context. The "the"/"a" distinguishes between something that describes and something that also determines. Alice: Did you see any of those movies? Bob: I saw the good one. In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" can be figured out from context. In other words, Bob is saying that there is only one good movie in "those movies". Alice may or may not be aware of this from context, but she has learned that Bob thinks that there is only one good movie in "those movies". Bob: I saw a good one. In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" describes the movie he saw, but he is not saying that this determines which one he saw. He is not making claims about context.
coldtea 8y ago
>"THE table" and "A table". It's useless and clear from the context what is meant "Bring the table", "Bring a table". Do I ask you to bring some table we've already talked about or I can expect you to remember the reference to, or do I ask you to bring any table because any table will do? "Clear from the context" is a low bar. In languages, as in parsers, we should avoid it if we can.
- FabHK 8y ago
  Careful what you wish for. Many languages are much more specific than English, but you don't think that English has a problem there, do you? For example, why not introduce gendered nouns - they often help to clarify references? "The door and the window are open." - "Well, close es (=das window)" vs "Well, close sie (=die door)". Other languages indicate evidentiality (that is, how a speaker learned about something) by a verb suffix, eg Eastern Pomo: * -ink’e (nonvisual sensory), * -ine (inferential), * -·le (hearsay), * -ya (direct knowledge) Now, I might say, in English that is clear from context, or expressed in some other way, but according to you, "we should avoid it if we can". Thus, better learn Eastern Pomo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Careful what you wish for. Many languages are much more specific than English, but you don't think that English has a problem there, do you? I might do. But I don't wish to add my static preconceptions upon an evolutionary evolving thing like language and its linguistic community. That said, I speak a language with gendered nouns, and they're fine.
mh-cx 8y ago
I'm a German learning czech and have the opposite problem: the czech (and probably other slavic languages) still have those articles but mostly leave them away. I'm never really sure, when you still need to use them: * ten/ta/to = der/die/das (the) * nějaký/nějaká/nějaké = (irgend-)ein/eine/ein (a, some) In my course there's the example “nějaká paní se ptá na cestu" (A woman asks for the way). Not sure what is different if the nějaká is left out.
- zvrba 8y ago
  My native language is Croatian, but... > ten/ta/to are you sure it's not "that" (dies(e,es,er)) instead of "the"? > Not sure what is different if the nějaká is left out. I'd interpret it as "The woman asks for the way.", i.e., a particular person is contextually implied. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. EDIT: alternately, it describes an abstract event of woman asking for directions. Putting it as "paní se ptá na cestu" would make perfect sense in, say, a movie script. Say a friend observed you from the other side of the street talking with her, approached you and asked what was that about. You could say "[nějaká] paní se ptá na cestu" both with and without "nějaká". WITH "nějaká" you'd be emphasizing it was a random woman. WITHOUT "nějaká" it'd be that particular woman he saw you talking with. though, I'd use "she" for describing the event, i.e., "she asked for the way".
  - mh-cx 8y ago
    Makes sense - still it feels odd, coming from the “other side“. I wonder when this split happened. About dieser/diese/dieses, that would be tento/tato/toto (this/that here).
    - 0ld 8y ago
      Articles usually appear in the languages which (are starting to) lose inflection. Say, there is a Slavic language which had lost its cases and does have the articles now - Bulgarian It's all a kind of ouroboros of languages - if something gets simplified, something else appears there
- vsl 8y ago
davidgh 8y ago
> As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE table" and "A table" This was a common sentiment I heard from Russian students when teaching them English. The concept of articles is absolutely maddening, I think, when your native language does not have it. I recall trying to teach it with a simple explanation. “I heard a dog walking outside. The dog pushed the door open and entered.” By switching from “a dog” to “the dog”, I expressed that the dog I heard was the same dog that entered. We translated the same sentences into Russian and they expressed that it was natural to assume, without the articles it was the same dog. I then asked them “but what if was a different dog that entered?” and they indicated the speaker would likely add a clarifying clause to the statement to ensure that there are two different dogs in scope. It caused me to ponder and I came to the realization that some of these elements of language while seemingly “useless” (meaning, you could clearly make a language work without them) are what add subtle richness to a language. Just as I can do without a ternary in JavaScript, I enjoy its succinctness even if it might be a bit confusing for a new learner. I recall comparing some of my own difficulties learning Russian as a native English speaker. My head literally exploded when I realized for every verb I had to learn a perfective and imperfective aspects. Something simple like “I did it.” What on earth is the difference between the two aspects, I often asked. To Russians it was clear - it addeded subtle richness. I guess what I learned is that in language “not needed” does not mean “useless”. I learned to love the richness of the Russian language and began to better appreciate some of richness of my own language that I previously took for granted.
- zvrba 8y ago
  > “I heard a dog walking outside. The dog pushed the door open and entered.” "THE door"? Which door? Why is "the" there? Seems as yet another case of "tautological article", as the answer is "that exact door that was opened by the dog", so why not just write "[The] dog pushed door open and entered."? No extra information is conveyed by "the". Of course it's maddening since no explanation makes full sense. > I then asked them “but what if was a different dog that entered?” Indeed, what would you say in English if it were a different dog? "I heard a dog walking outside. [Another] dog pushed the door open end entered." Writing the second sentence as "A dog pushed the door.." if there were another makes absolutely no sense to me (because: which dog? -- another one or the same one?), so when writing "Dog pushed door.." it's very natural to assume that it's the same dog. > What on earth is the difference between the two aspects, I often asked. To Russians it was clear - it addeded subtle richness. Ah, but aspect is more than just subtle richness: it's a tool that it makes it possible to succinctly express complex temporal relationships.
vram22 8y ago
>As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE table" and "A table". It's useless and clear from the context what is meant (note that both are different from "THIS/THAT table", which I do NOT deem useless.) One differentiating example could be: One person says to another: 1) Put it on the table. vs. saying: 2) Put it on a table. (Where, in both cases, by "it", they mean some object, say a book or any other thing). 1) would imply there is only one table in the room, so "the" was used. 2) would imply there is more than one table in the room, so "a" was used, meaning put it on any table you wish, it doesn't matter which one.
type0 8y ago
Grammar articles ("a" and "the") often times function as a type of glue for your words so that sentences can keep a certain pace, they also provide a lot of meaningful information on how sure you are about the thing that you are talking about.

by zvrba 8y ago

peterlk 8y ago

I am fascinated by how little syntax is required to actually communicate with each other. You can remove gender from language entirely and still understand what people mean. We can even get rid of time-based tenses and instead say something like "I go to the store yesterday". This is incorrect English, but the point is still communicated. As you say "the" and "a" could be condensed. You could go even further and combine these words with "one". Having traveled to a lot of places where I had to speak languages that I don't speak or understand, the amount of language built on top of the tiny "required" subset is marvelous and interesting. Other questions that make language fun. Any ideas where eenie meanie miney moe comes from? Why does flat (low) German exist, and how far is it from Dutch (or English)? How many dialects of various languages are spoken in the Alps? Why do we call different Chinese dialects "dialects" and not "languages"? Which language has the most diverse set of conjugation rules? But I digress.

pantalaimon 8y ago
I think all this unnecessary 'clutter' serves as error correction when spoken. Even if you don't fully understand a word, you can piece together from the context what was said.
- ur-whale 8y ago
  That's a common sophism that completely ignores the cost/benefit trade-off of those supposedly useful error correction mechanisms. In German for example, they're IMO total overkill (as in cost far outweighs benefit). But then, you have to take into account that over-engineering things is a national hobby in Germany. The question becomes chicken-and-egg: did the language induce the cultural trait or did the cultural trait structure the language.
type0 8y ago
> Why does flat (low) German exist, and how far is it from Dutch (or English)? I'm not a linguist by any means but as I understand it's a separate language with its' own dialects. Lower saxon nowadays might have a gradual dialect continuum in the West into the Netherlands but in a days of Hanse it was a widespread language around the Baltic sea and had a huge influence on other languages and cultures. Even today part of it's dialects are closer to Swedish than high German (specially Pommern which was part of Sweden for quite some time).

klodolph 8y ago

For me, "the" and "a" are critical for understanding whether you are introducing something new or assuming that I know what you are talking about from context. If I use "the" then it's something clear from context, if I use "a" it's something new. The languages I know make a big fuss about this so I'm curious how you can figure out from context whether you can figure out something from context.

zvrba 8y ago
> I'm curious how you can figure out from context whether you can figure out something from context. Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not. Take a hypothetical phone conversation, an example that nobody has managed to explain to me satisfactorily: A: "Where are you?" B: "I'm in [the/a/(nothing)] shower." People tell me that "the" is the correct thing to use. But A is none the wiser; B could be at home, in a gym, at work... A is none the wiser about _which_ shower B is in and the shower has not been introduced previously in the conversation. It's tautological "the", B is in that shower that he's currently using, so he could just as well say "I'm in shower". Or, similarly: A: "Where's my food?" B: "I've put it in fridge." If A is at work, he'd go looking into fridge at office. If at home, he'd go look into fridge in kitchen. If there are two fridges nearby, he'd ask "Which one?" Even though I deliberately omitted "the/a" in the previous paragraph, I don't think you got confused about _which_ office or _which_ kitchen fridge A would go looking in. And personally I cannot imagine that A, upon hearing "it's in fridge" while being in the office, would go home and look into the fridge at home. Or that he'd even have to ask "which fridge?" if there only were one at office. So there's an attempted answer. EDIT: one of my rules of thumb is: if I can put "some" in front of a noun without changing the meaning, then it's most probably appropriate to use "a".
- klodolph 8y ago
  > Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not. This doesn't work in English, because both speakers are not assumed to have the same knowledge of context. The "the"/"a" distinguishes between something that describes and something that also determines. Alice: Did you see any of those movies? Bob: I saw the good one. In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" can be figured out from context. In other words, Bob is saying that there is only one good movie in "those movies". Alice may or may not be aware of this from context, but she has learned that Bob thinks that there is only one good movie in "those movies". Bob: I saw a good one. In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" describes the movie he saw, but he is not saying that this determines which one he saw. He is not making claims about context.

coldtea 8y ago

>"THE table" and "A table". It's useless and clear from the context what is meant "Bring the table", "Bring a table". Do I ask you to bring some table we've already talked about or I can expect you to remember the reference to, or do I ask you to bring any table because any table will do? "Clear from the context" is a low bar. In languages, as in parsers, we should avoid it if we can.

FabHK 8y ago
Careful what you wish for. Many languages are much more specific than English, but you don't think that English has a problem there, do you? For example, why not introduce gendered nouns - they often help to clarify references? "The door and the window are open." - "Well, close es (=das window)" vs "Well, close sie (=die door)". Other languages indicate evidentiality (that is, how a speaker learned about something) by a verb suffix, eg Eastern Pomo: * -ink’e (nonvisual sensory), * -ine (inferential), * -·le (hearsay), * -ya (direct knowledge) Now, I might say, in English that is clear from context, or expressed in some other way, but according to you, "we should avoid it if we can". Thus, better learn Eastern Pomo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Careful what you wish for. Many languages are much more specific than English, but you don't think that English has a problem there, do you? I might do. But I don't wish to add my static preconceptions upon an evolutionary evolving thing like language and its linguistic community. That said, I speak a language with gendered nouns, and they're fine.

mh-cx 8y ago

I'm a German learning czech and have the opposite problem: the czech (and probably other slavic languages) still have those articles but mostly leave them away. I'm never really sure, when you still need to use them: * ten/ta/to = der/die/das (the) * nějaký/nějaká/nějaké = (irgend-)ein/eine/ein (a, some) In my course there's the example “nějaká paní se ptá na cestu" (A woman asks for the way). Not sure what is different if the nějaká is left out.

zvrba 8y ago
My native language is Croatian, but... > ten/ta/to are you sure it's not "that" (dies(e,es,er)) instead of "the"? > Not sure what is different if the nějaká is left out. I'd interpret it as "The woman asks for the way.", i.e., a particular person is contextually implied. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. EDIT: alternately, it describes an abstract event of woman asking for directions. Putting it as "paní se ptá na cestu" would make perfect sense in, say, a movie script. Say a friend observed you from the other side of the street talking with her, approached you and asked what was that about. You could say "[nějaká] paní se ptá na cestu" both with and without "nějaká". WITH "nějaká" you'd be emphasizing it was a random woman. WITHOUT "nějaká" it'd be that particular woman he saw you talking with. though, I'd use "she" for describing the event, i.e., "she asked for the way".
- mh-cx 8y ago
  Makes sense - still it feels odd, coming from the “other side“. I wonder when this split happened. About dieser/diese/dieses, that would be tento/tato/toto (this/that here).
  - 0ld 8y ago
    Articles usually appear in the languages which (are starting to) lose inflection. Say, there is a Slavic language which had lost its cases and does have the articles now - Bulgarian It's all a kind of ouroboros of languages - if something gets simplified, something else appears there
vsl 8y ago

davidgh 8y ago

> As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE table" and "A table" This was a common sentiment I heard from Russian students when teaching them English. The concept of articles is absolutely maddening, I think, when your native language does not have it. I recall trying to teach it with a simple explanation. “I heard a dog walking outside. The dog pushed the door open and entered.” By switching from “a dog” to “the dog”, I expressed that the dog I heard was the same dog that entered. We translated the same sentences into Russian and they expressed that it was natural to assume, without the articles it was the same dog. I then asked them “but what if was a different dog that entered?” and they indicated the speaker would likely add a clarifying clause to the statement to ensure that there are two different dogs in scope. It caused me to ponder and I came to the realization that some of these elements of language while seemingly “useless” (meaning, you could clearly make a language work without them) are what add subtle richness to a language. Just as I can do without a ternary in JavaScript, I enjoy its succinctness even if it might be a bit confusing for a new learner. I recall comparing some of my own difficulties learning Russian as a native English speaker. My head literally exploded when I realized for every verb I had to learn a perfective and imperfective aspects. Something simple like “I did it.” What on earth is the difference between the two aspects, I often asked. To Russians it was clear - it addeded subtle richness. I guess what I learned is that in language “not needed” does not mean “useless”. I learned to love the richness of the Russian language and began to better appreciate some of richness of my own language that I previously took for granted.

zvrba 8y ago
> “I heard a dog walking outside. The dog pushed the door open and entered.” "THE door"? Which door? Why is "the" there? Seems as yet another case of "tautological article", as the answer is "that exact door that was opened by the dog", so why not just write "[The] dog pushed door open and entered."? No extra information is conveyed by "the". Of course it's maddening since no explanation makes full sense. > I then asked them “but what if was a different dog that entered?” Indeed, what would you say in English if it were a different dog? "I heard a dog walking outside. [Another] dog pushed the door open end entered." Writing the second sentence as "A dog pushed the door.." if there were another makes absolutely no sense to me (because: which dog? -- another one or the same one?), so when writing "Dog pushed door.." it's very natural to assume that it's the same dog. > What on earth is the difference between the two aspects, I often asked. To Russians it was clear - it addeded subtle richness. Ah, but aspect is more than just subtle richness: it's a tool that it makes it possible to succinctly express complex temporal relationships.

vram22 8y ago

>As a native speaker of Slavic language, I've never understood the need for differentiating between "THE table" and "A table". It's useless and clear from the context what is meant (note that both are different from "THIS/THAT table", which I do NOT deem useless.) One differentiating example could be: One person says to another: 1) Put it on the table. vs. saying: 2) Put it on a table. (Where, in both cases, by "it", they mean some object, say a book or any other thing). 1) would imply there is only one table in the room, so "the" was used. 2) would imply there is more than one table in the room, so "a" was used, meaning put it on any table you wish, it doesn't matter which one.

type0 8y ago

Grammar articles ("a" and "the") often times function as a type of glue for your words so that sentences can keep a certain pace, they also provide a lot of meaningful information on how sure you are about the thing that you are talking about.