Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 May 5

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May 5

In the realm of the mind ...

'In the realm of the mind too προς ημας is at first φυδει.' What does this sentence mean, and what is its earliest source? Here is the context. Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 12:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That's φὑσει (physei) not φυδει (phydei) in the original text. The other greek part is πρὸς ἡμᾶς, pros emas. My greek is very rusty, but "pros" means "in the direction of" or "towards" and "mas" is usually "us", so I think "emas" is in someway related to that. No idea on physei, maybe something related to "physical"?. Also, I'm pretty sure this is not modern greek, but perhaps biblical greek? The particular phrase "πρὸς ἡμᾶς" appears in several online concordances between English passages and Greek passages for phrases like "to us" and "between us", modern greek uses epsilon and not eta in ἡμᾶς/εμάς. See Here for example of where I found that phrase. That being said, it could be a printer's error of some sort. --Jayron32 13:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, "προς ημας" is "to us" or "for us", and "φὑσει" (the dative of φὑσις 'nature') is usually translated as "by nature". Both phrases occur in Aristotle ([1]). Aristoteles distinguishes the proteron pros hemas (ratio cognoscendi, that which is 'primary for us', i.e. the reason for our understanding something) from the proteron tei physei (ratio essendi, that which is 'primary by nature', i.e. the objective cause of something). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Back to the English sentence quoted at the top, it's probably a mistranslation from the German. The German original [2] has "auch innerhalb der Provinz der Seele ist pros hêmas das letzte, was physei das erste ist". This clearly refers to the Aristotelian concepts, and a better English translation might be: "Within the realm of the mind, too, that which physei [by nature] comes first comes last pros hemas [for us]." I don't think the English translation in the book makes much sense. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for helpful comments. Omidinist (talk) 07:21, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Chinese grammar

In the article "Chinese grammar", in the section "Relative clauses", there should be an error : it is written "A relative clause usually comes after any determiner phrase, such as a numeral and classifier", there is written higher "我 给 了 她 六 本 书 Literal: I give [perfective-aspect] her six [book-classifier] books" after the "six", there is no relative clause. 2A01:CB0C:38C:9F00:A09A:6924:69FA:D164 (talk) 16:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Uhm, aren't you misreading that sentence? It obviously doesn't mean that whenever there's a determiner phrase, there should also be a relative clause. What it means is that whenever there is both a determiner phrase and a relative clause, the determiner phrase comes first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise isn't the OP's point that there should be a relative clause if this is supposed to be an example of that rule? Rojomoke (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

No, the example the OP cites is in a completely different section of the article about what happens when you have a direct and an indirect object in a sentence. The part about relative clauses is in a completely different section, but it unfortunately gives no examples of the grammatical rule he cites. bibliomaniac15 04:16, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Correct word for the suffix in an ordinal numeral

We have a list that looks like this: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, ... etc. What is the proper word for the "st" ... and the "nd" ... and the "rd" ... and the "th"? Is it simply called a suffix? Is there a more proper term? Is it even a suffix at all? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk)

The most specific term is probably "ordinal indicator". - Nunh-huh 16:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The Ordinal indicator article is about the orthographic representation of the thing in English and other languages, while morphologically it is indeed a suffix. See wikt:-th. --Theurgist (talk) 15:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't see anything in your morphology link about 1st, 2nd, and so on. Those items are abbreviations for first, second, and so on. It would be like saying the "r" in "Mr" is a suffix. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. I see them more as abbreviation remnants, but that is probably not the "correct" term. Jmar67 (talk) 20:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Abbreviation is one thing, suffixation is another. You have the cardinal numeral seven, and you add suffix -th to turn it into the ordinal numeral seventh, which you can then abbreviate in writing as 7th. --Theurgist (talk) 20:49, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, like the number one, with its suffix to become oneth or onest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

The pairs one vs first and two vs second exhibit suppletion: forms of the same lexeme derived from different roots. Other examples in English include be vs am vs was, go vs went, good vs better, and person vs people. Still, -st in first, -nd in second and -rd in third are all suffixes. --Theurgist (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

To what are those three suffixed? Fir, seco and thi, respectively? What are those things called? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

See etymologies in Wiktionary (first, second, third) and Etymonline (first, second, third).

• In first, which is originally a superlative form meaning "foremost", the -st is in fact a superlative suffix (like -est in biggest), historically.
• second ultimately comes from Latin secundus "following", formed from the verb sequor "follow" and the suffix -undus. So, it might actually be -ond that corresponds to the original suffix.
• In third, I think that the suffix is actually just -d, while thir- is an allomorph (variant) of the root three that has undergone sound changes. The same way in fifth the -th is suffixed to fif- which is an allomorph of the root five.

This is how I understand it. Morphologists, please proofread and elaborate! In any case Wiktionary identifies all -st, -nd, -rd and -th as suffixes and coordinate terms of one another. --Theurgist (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, all! @Theurgist: ... from the depth and detail of your replies, I assumed that you yourself were indeed a morphologist! Many thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)