Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Fukn linguists gonna be fukn linguists
Linked vis RCS:
As usual with linguists, an interesting and astute observation with a dubious explanation.
Observation:
Speakers hesitate or make brief pauses filled with sounds like “uh” or “uhm” mostly before nouns. Such slow-down effects are far less frequent before verbs,
Makes sense. If the authors had included cusswords as pausemakers, the effect would have been even stronger. For instance, in dialects that use fukn as a pausemaker, fukn almost always precedes a noun or a predicate, never a verb or pronoun.
Trying it with the previous sentence:
If the fukn authors had included fukn cusswords as fukn pausemakers, the fukn effect would have been even stronger.
You'll never hear:
Fukn if the authors had fukn included cusswords as pausemakers, fukn the effect fukn would have been fukn even stronger.
Purely ungrammatical!
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Explanation:
The reason is that nouns are more difficult to plan because they’re usually only used when they represent new information.” Otherwise they are replaced with pronouns (e.g., “she”) or omitted, as in the following example: “My friend came back. She (my friend) took a seat” or “My friend came back and took a seat”. No such replacement principles apply to verbs – they are generally used regardless of whether they represent new or old information.
Close but no fukn cigar. Nouns aren't NEW information, they're just MORE VARIED information, which requires more scanning time in the file cabinet. In ordinary speech the vast majority of verbs are is or do. In English do is a proverb, substituting for all other verbs in the same way that a pronoun substitutes for nouns.
Choosing precise verbs is a difficult literary skill. Good authors know how to pack the sentence meaning into the verb, avoiding unnecessary adjectives.
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Note for clarity: Fucking as a meaningful CURSE is not the same word as the grammatical filler particle fukn. Fucking has different syntax.
Labels: Language update
¶ 11:04 PM
