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In English, we traditionally learn there are eight parts of speech. That about does it for us. Are there any language that categorize words differently or use different / additional parts of speech?
Are there any that use fewer?
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Lexical categories ( link) differ from language to language and within a language. It's a matter of linguistic analysis not some actual property of the words. The trad eight for English are adapted from the Graeco-Roman grammatical tradition, which tended to categorize by endings, e.g., nouns substantive and adjective share the same set of endings. Modern English grammatical theory has a slightly different take, e.g., the articles not being their own category but subsumed under determiners, etc. Reading the Wikipedia article linked to above is a good start, and there are further references at the bottom of the page there. Modern grammatical theory tends to classify words by what slots they fill in a sentence, i.e., by syntactic function. As for other languages, I don't know much about Chinese grammatical theory and its history, but I would hazard to say it is different from Indo-European traditions. A word in Chinese can be used as a noun, adjective, verb, what have you. It's more about where it occurs in the sentence, Chinese not having much inflectional morphology, if any at all.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Seems odd. Pick an English word with multiple meanings or uses like say, "bounce." It can be a verb or a noun depending on context. In fact, it may not even be possible to discern the intended semantics from a normal usage. For example, the sentence, "Did you see that bounce?" Nevertheless, we would say that it was a noun in one context (or interpretation) and a verb in the other.
Not disputing it. Just noting that it seems odd to me.
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"Duck" can be the bird in the water or flying over head, or
it could mean "be careful" that volley ball is going to hit
your head.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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"Did you see that bounce?"
Yes, these ambiguities are almost always resolved by context. As English got rid of more and more of its derivational morphology, one could verb nouns and noun verbs without anything in the way of suffixes.
Most grammars of English would call what a pronoun, but what is it in the following:
A. I went to see the Oracle at Delphi.
B. The what you say?
But this sort of thing even happens in languages like Latin: e.g., quid 'what' > quidditas 'whatness'.
Many folks don't know a noun from an adverb, but they can speak and understand others speaking. Having names for things like demonstrative pronouns and quotative like gives you a vocabulary to discuss linguistic phenomena, but are not necessary to speak or write a language.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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The what you say? Noun.
And she wins a Kewpie doll. But, now I am confused. I thought you believed in rules and such and were a prescriptivo ... So, verbing does not weird the language for thee?
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When it's cute. 
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When it's cute. Gee, that was post 192192: some kind of record.
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Oh my gosh, it was, wasn't it?! [preen e] Gee, and it's not even 8/9/10 yet...
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Maybe we need a numerology thread (yawn)
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Pooh-Bah
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that is the other board, ANAD
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Learned a new word today, for me: cruciverbalist (lover of
crosswords). Has nothing to do with numerology, but I liked
it, thought I would share it for those who have never heard it.
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I wrote a stupid poem once called "The Cruciverbalist's Curse." I thought I had lost it when geocities dropped their free sites, but I just found it in some cranny of the ether. http://womencht.reocities.com/Athens/8994/cross1.htmlWhen I used the word "erudition," I had thought it was my own contrivance, but it seems already to have been coined.
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Erudition, hasn't that been there since a very long time? So you prefered being a cryptocruciverbalist. I'd prefer that too, but I'm very bad at cryptos.
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An acrostic! And then there is the double acrostic where both the beginnings and ends of lines create words. Lewis caroll was a whiz at acrostics.
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I wrote a stupid poem once called "The Cruciverbalist's Curse." I thought I had lost it when geocities dropped their free sites, but I just found it in some cranny of the ether. http://womencht.reocities.com/Athens/8994/cross1.htmlWhen I used the word "erudition," I had thought it was my own contrivance, but it seems already to have been coined. I don't think of it as stupid: I sort of liked it. thanks.
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I think your poem is very clever, FF: it is a visual AND verbal play on words!
===========================================================
Okay--I see where cruciform and cruciverbalist are related, but what about crucible? They aren't cross-shaped, are they?
(I expect that explanation's been either here or in A.W.A.D. somewhere, but I do not have an eidetic memory; sorry.)
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http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=crucible says: early 15c., from M.L. crucibulum "melting pot for metals," originally "night lamp." First element might be M.H.G. kruse "earthen pot." Or perhaps from L. crux on some fancied resemblance to a cross. Used of any severe test or trial since 1640s. But maybe it's not a physical "fancied resemblance" so much as a vague metaphorical resemblance.
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what about crucible?
Its etymology is uncertain. It's a Medieval Latin word, crucibulum or crucibolum 'a night-lamp; later a pot for melting metal in'.
[Sorry, FF, I did not read your reply until doing my own.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 08/06/2010 1:12 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Back in that time, I presume that a night lamp would either have been a candle or an oil lamp, perhaps something like these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_lampor these http://www.romulus2.com/lamps/lampcat/lampcat1.shtmlHere's a nice blow up of how this works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diya.jpg There's also a kind of fungus called crucibulum that has a pretty clear resemblance to these lamps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrucibulumThere's a kind of gastropod called crucibulum: http://www.gastropods.com/0/Shell_430.shtmlSee the resemblance there. The resemblance of the modern crucible, of the fungal crucibulum, and of the animal crucibulum is obvious - it's just that leap back from lamp to cross seems flimsy to me - unless we think of the metaphorical connection of "great trial." In this sense the crucible was the part where the metal collected, after it was extracted from (melted out of) the ore. This is a kind of purification. Maybe there's some connection with Jesus on the cross, leaving the scoria of his human form to become fully a god. The problem with this hypothetical connection is that use of crucible as a melting pot for metals came after and was derived from its use as a lamp - and it's the lamp that bears less resemblance to a cross. OTOH, there's a different potential metaphor there in John 8:12 "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life." Maybe makes more sense, but it's still flimsy. Can't help thinking that maybe there's some lost Latin word that has coincidentally similar spelling.
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John 8:12 is probably the connection, if there is one. It doesn't even seem flimsy to me. Look for a link between "light" and "cross" in Latin, and it pretty much jumps out at you.
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John 8:12 is probably the connection, if there is one. It doesn't even seem flimsy to me. I dunno. When you have a perfectly good MHG word Ego sum lux mundi sounds pretty iffy to me.
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I see your point. When was the MHG in use? And for us laymen, whence came MHG?
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When was the MHG in use?
Middle High German covers the years 1050 to 1350 CE.
And for us laymen, whence came MHG?
MHG came from OHG (Old High German) which in turn is a West Germanic language (along with English, Dutch, etc.). East Germanic (Gothic) and North Germanic (Danish, Icelandic, Faroese, etc.) come from a hypothetically (reconstructed) Proto-Germanic, which in turn came from Proto-Indo-European.
I haven't quite caught the connection of crucible with ego sum lux mundi (Koine Greek ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου· / egŏ eimi to phŏs tou kosmou). The composition of the Fourth Gospel is usually thought to be around 100 CE and the word crucible comes from the Middle Ages, perhaps a thousand years later. Are you saying that crux (Greek σταυρός stauros) as an instrument of capital punishment and a symbol of Christianity inspired the word crucible?
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With the crux as the symbol of He who is believed to be the Light of the world, it may not matter that "crucible," derived from a lamp, has roots other than Latin. To the just-plain-folks of the day (as ignorant as I of the etymology of "crucible,") a "little cross" providing light seems to me a straightforward link.
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To the just-plain-folks of the day (as ignorant as I of the etymology of "crucible,") a "little cross" providing light seems to me a straightforward link.Fair enough. As a fellow seeker after knowledge, I'm sure we can have a fine discussion about the four elements, unless of course you are one of those heretical modernists who posit a quintessence. Just-plain-folks don't seem to coin words like that. It seems a stretch that they would know the Latin word for cross, let alone know how to decline it ( crux > combining form cruci-). And where di they get that - bolum/- bulum end-bit? There is a Middle English word cresset used to gloss the Latin Crucibolum in one of OE vocabularies. It is not a small cross, but from Old French craisset 'grease' < Late Latin crassa 'grease'. There are Latin words crassipulum and crassipularium, which are pots for holding grease or oil for use with lamps. French gras 'fat', as in pâté foie gras, is related, as is grasset 'a kind of teal, a garganey'. I think that grease or oil has more to do with lamps (at least the wicked kind) than crosses and learned metaphors, but I'm just a simple guy. [Addendum: just found a great folk-etymology that derives crucible from chrysoble from Greek χρυσός khrusos 'gold'.]
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Funny that the crassulaceae or fat plants are not really fat but succulent. The result of their capacity to store a lot of water. They look fat but it's just water.
'gold'chrysoble from Greek χρυσός khrusos
Isn't khrusos also related to cruzeiros ?
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They look fat but it's just water.
Does this crucible make me look fat?
Isn't khrusos also related to cruzeiros?
Nope, it's Portuguese for 'little cross'. Bringing us full circle.
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Please choose the one you like best, this crucible has more than one meaning.
1.A vessel made of a refractory substance such as graphite or porcelain, used for melting and calcining materials at high temperatures.
2.A severe test, as of patience or belief; a trial. See Synonyms at trial.
3.A place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces: "Macroeconomics . . . was cast in the crucible of the Depression" (Peter Passell).
Last edited by BranShea; 08/07/2010 6:37 PM.
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"There are Latin words crassipulum and crassipularium, which are pots for holding grease or oil for use with lamps. "
That's gotta be it!
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I thought maybe the just-plain-folks heard Latin, including words meaning "cross," all their lives in church. Maybe they didn't all hear "Dominick: go frisk 'em," instead of dominus vobiscum, and were able to make some sense of it.
Weren't "The Four Elements" a doo-wop group from Philadelphia? Or was it Tobolsk?
Last edited by beck123; 08/08/2010 9:21 PM.
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I don't think anybody who didn't know Latin made any sense of any of the individual sounds that came from the priests lips. It was all just ritual that they were comfortable with and they trusted the priest who told them what to do when they confessed so they would be all clean again.
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