Language desk
< August 18	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 20 >

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

August 19[edit]

Chinese request: MH370[edit]

From Commons:Search_for_Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Maps_and_graphics

Theoretical fuel range
Initial search area based on last radar contact
Corridors based on satellite data
Areas of possible debris spotting

What are these in Chinese?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 14:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar Correction[edit]

Is this sentence correct? I would suggest you call for a meeting with the vendor as we are not going to be able to resolve all these outstanding issues through emails.

Please let me know if the above sentence is grammatically correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.5.128 (talk • contribs)

Yes, it is perfectly formed, although it may sound slightly odd if your dialect doesn't use the English subjunctive. Stylistically, I would probably say email (sing), treatng it as a medium, rather than a plural, but that's a style choice and the sentence is perfectly cromulent as is. μηδείς (talk) 16:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, are there dialects of English that don't use the subjunctive? Where are these "shouldless, wouldless, couldless" speakers? SemanticMantis (talk) 16:56, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Would, should, could are not ordinarily considered subjunctive. Morphologically, they are the past tenses of will, shall, can respectively. In terms of meaning and comparative grammar, they're more similar to the "conditional mood" from Romance languages than to the subjunctive mood. --Trovatore (talk) 00:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, that's at odds with what I was taught. To my (non-linguist) reading, e.g. "could" squarely fills the role subjunctive mode, which is used "to expresss...possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity," To be specific "He could jump over that car" indicates my belief that it is possible for him to jump over that car. Likewise if I say "he should jump over that car", I'm offering my opinion on that matter. Linguistic_modality#Auxiliaries seems to make it clear that auxiliary verbs can serve to mark modality, but doesn't clearly classify which are which. I did read about conditional mood, but I don't think my examples depend clearly on some condition being met. This also gets us into difficulties assessing the nature of our modal semantics (e.g. deontic vs. epistemic modality), but I think I should stop digressing :) SemanticMantis (talk) 03:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, so generally, I don't find these vague descriptions of what moods (or for that matter, tenses or aspects) represent, to be all that helpful. They make sense after the fact, once you already know what constructions they're supposed to apply to, but not so much for distinguishing among them a priori.

First, you should be aware that there are some bomb-throwers who dispute that English has a "subjunctive mood" (or for that matter a "future tense") at all. If you look at English in isolation, they kind of have a point. But if you consider English in context as a Western European language, then it's fairly clear what the subjunctive is, and it doesn't include would, could, or should.

In the traditional view of English grammar, English has two subjunctives, a preterite subjunctive and a present subjunctive. The preterite subjunctive is used for counterfactuals ("if I were king"), and the present subjunctive is used for third-person imperatives ("God bless you") and mandative clauses ("it is important that you be prompt").

The aforementioned bomb-throwers don't think that a single word (were) is sufficient to establish a preterite subjunctive in English (all other preterite subjunctives are morphologically identical to the preterite indicative), and they claim that the be in "it is important that you be prompt" is an infinitive rather than a subjunctive. --Trovatore (talk) 08:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The habit of describing constructions in English in terms of the Latin or French grammar which they translate has a venerable history, but it is part of the unhelpful and misleading programme of pretending that English grammar is like Latin grammar. It is useless for an understanding of the actual grammar of English. --ColinFine (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of British and uneducated American dialects would feel more comfortable with "I suggest you should cal" as opposed to 'I would suggest you call". English dialectology is not an intersy of mine but I am sure others here can comment in detail. I agree with Mp below the comma is needed. μηδείς (talk) 22:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see what you mean now, thanks for clarifying. SemanticMantis (talk) 03:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's basically correct, but there really should be a comma between vendor and as marking off the dependent clause. Marco polo (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]