Language desk
< November 15	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 17 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 16

English infinitives

Why did English lost the infinitive ending -en, which is still present in Dutch and German? For example, why there are verbs such as be, have, go, do, open, help, walk, like, catch, begin, eat and not been, haven, goen, doen, openen, helpen, walken, liken, catchen, beginnen, eaten? Why this happened? --40bus (talk) 10:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It just got worn away as an unstressed syllable without any important grammatical function. Although the ending is still spelled -en in Dutch and German, it's pronounced just /ə/ in Dutch and in several southern dialects of German. In the Scandinavian languages, Old Frisian, and West Frisian, the n disappeared so early it isn't even spelled anymore, and in many varieties of North Frisian the whole ending has disappeared, just like in English, e.g. drank 'to drink', kem 'to come', iit 'to eat'. The whole ending disappeared in Afrikaans as well, e.g. drink 'to drink', kom 'to come', eet 'to eat'. Asking "why did a sound change happen?" doesn't usually get very useful answers beyond "That happens sometimes". —Mahāgaja · talk 10:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- Modern English has semi-minimal inflection, but still manages to distinguish infinitives from finite verb forms in many cases. The infinitive is different from finite past tense verb forms in all verbs except for a handful of defective "three-form" verbs: hit, cut, hurt etc. And the infinitive is different from finite present tense verb forms where it counts most, in the third person singular indicative (this ends in -s in all verbs except the modal auxiliaries, which don't have infinitives anyway). AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Position referencing

Imagine I have a photo of several people left to right in the order A,B,C,D,E etc. Obviously "A" is "on the left". Who is "two from the left", is it "B" or "C"? -- SGBailey (talk) 12:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Probably depends on the person as to how they would interpret it. I would say "C" was; but as language is kinda fuzzy, a case could be made for "B". This discussion notes some of the ambiguity. --Jayron 32 13:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Second from the left" is probably more common. AnonMoos (talk) 13:24, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thx -- SGBailey (talk) 13:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how you interpret "one from the left", which unless you think is A, must be B, and "two from the left" or "second from left" must be C. It's a bit like the "first floor" or "first storey" in the US which is the ground floor in the UK. MinorProphet (talk) 12:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC

"Two from the left" is possibly unclear; "second from the left" can only be B, as it's referring to the left side of the photo. It's a bit like "ground floor" in the US, which is the ground floor in the UK. --174.89.144.126 (talk) 19:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it can be unclear as to whether it is from the viewer's left or from the left of the people in the photo. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:54, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See right. For objects without hands, we almost always are referring to the viewer's perspective. "Which building is second from the left", I would say "The Yellow One". --Jayron 32 14:22, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32 I make "second from the left" the pale pink one (behind the tree). Bazza (talk) 16:57, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation agrees with that of Bazza 7. Deor (talk) 17:36, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And that's why language can never be anything but ambiguous. There is no way to make language not be. Thus endeth the lesson. --Jayron 32 18:08, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But people in a picture do have hands, and thus a right-left orientation intrinsic to themselves. If you asked person A where he had stood in the lineup for the photo, he would tell you that had stood to the right of person B, not the left. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:45, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And that's why language can never be anything but ambiguous. There is no way to make language not be. Thus endeth the lesson. --Jayron 32 16:28, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]