#adverbial clauses

[trolledu]

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Editorial Vocabulary

definitions of terms during the writing, editing and publishing process

Acknowledgements: Text in which the author thanks those who’ve supported them.

Action beat: Short description that comes before, between or just after dialogue.

Adjective: A word that describes a noun.

Adverb: A word that describes a verb.

Adverbial phrase: A group of words that describe a verb.

Afterword: A concluding section, often reflecting on the book’s creation or providing additional context.

Anaphora: The deliberate repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses for artistic effect.

Antagonist: An adversary. The character who creates obstacles and challenges for the protagonist, or behaves in a hostile fashion towards the protagonist.

Anti-protagonist: A protagonist whose own actions create opposition and conflict, often within themselves or against their own goals.

Apostrophe: A punctuation mark used to indicate possession, omission and, occasionally, a plural.

Appendix: Space in a book for material that doesn’t fit comfortably in the main text.

Asyndeton: Literary device through which a sentence’s structure follows the following pattern: A, B, C.

B-C

Back matter: Also end matter. Elements reserved for the back of a book, including appendix, glossary, endnotes, bibliography and index.

Beta reader: Test-reader who provides feedback on book.

Bibliography: List of all works cited in book, and any other work of interest to the reader.

Chapter drop: The space above and below the chapter title.

Character arc: Narrative that shows how a character changes and develops.

Characterization: The process of revealing a character's personality, traits and motives through actions and dialogue.

Colon: Punctuation mark that introduces additional/qualifying information about the clause it follows.

Comma splice: Two independent clauses joined by a comma rather than a conjunction or an alternative punctuation mark.

Conjunction: A word that connects clauses or sentences (e.g. ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘if’, ‘then’)

Copyediting: A review of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, ensuring consistency and accuracy in the manuscript's language.

Critique: Also manuscript evaluation. Report analysing a book’s strengths and weaknesses.

D

Denouement: The final part of the book in which all the plot strands are brought together and resolved.

Deuteragonist: A sidekick or confidante character who has the most influence on the protagonist, often helping them solve problems and overcome obstacles. Can be critical to driving the plot.

Developmental editing: Also structural editing. The improvement of a manuscript's structure, content, and overall narrative, focusing on big-picture elements. Attends to plot, characterisation, narration and pacing.

Dialogue tag: Also speech tag. Words that indicate which character is speaking (e.g. John said).

Dialogue: The lines characters speak in a book.

Diversity reader: Also sensitivity reader. Test-reader who checks for misrepresentation in books.

Double-page spread: Also DPS. The view of a printed book or PDF when opened so that the left- and right-hand pages are both visible.

Drama: The conflicts, emotional intensity, and impactful events that drive the plot and engage readers emotionally. The focus is on character relationships, motivations, and the consequences of their actions.

Dropped capital: Decorative first letter of the first word on the first line in a chapter. Larger than the rest of the text and drops down two lines or more.

E-F

Ellipsis: Punctuation mark that indicates a trailing-off or a pause.

End matter: Also back matter. Elements reserved for the back of a book, including appendix, glossary, endnotes, bibliography and index.

Endnote: Additional useful information at the end of a chapter or book.

Filter word: Verb that tells rather than shows (e.g. ‘noticed’, ‘seemed’, ‘spotted’, ‘saw’).

Folio: Somewhat old-fashioned term for page number. Also used to refer to a page.

Footnote: Additional useful information at the bottom of a page.

Foreword: A recommendation of the work written by someone other than the author.

Fourth wall: In books, the conceptual space between the characters and the readers.

Free indirect speech: Also free indirect style and free indirect discourse. Third-person narrative that holds the essence of first person thought or dialogue.

Front matter: Also prelims. Includes part title and title pages, foreword, preface and acknowledgements.

Full point: Period or full stop.

Full stop: Period or full point.

G-L

Glossary: Alphabetical list of important terms with explanations or definitions.

Habitual past tense: Uses ‘would’ or ‘used to’ with a verb to indicate events that happened routinely in a time past.

Half-title page: The first page of a book with any text on it; in a printed book, always a right-hand page. Contains only the main title of the book.

Head-hopping: Jumping from one character’s thoughts and internal experiences to another’s. Indicates viewpoint has been dropped.

Imprint: Publisher’s name.

Independent clause: A group of words that contains a subject and a predicate.

Index: Alphabetical list of all topics, themes, key terms and cited author names covered in the book, and the corresponding page numbers.

Information dump: Also word dump. Information that’s necessary to the story but isn’t artfully delivered, or weaved creatively into the narrative and dialogue.

Line editing: Also stylistic editing. The refining of a manuscript's language, focusing on consistency, clarity, flow and style at sentence level.

M-O

Maid-and-butler dialogue: Dialogue in which one character tells another something they already know so the reader can access backstory.

Manuscript evaluation: Also critique. Report analysing a book’s strengths and weaknesses.

Narrative arc: Also story arc. The structure and shape of a story.

Narrative authenticity: The believability and truthfulness of a story so that the characters and events feel real within the framework of the novel’s world.

Narrative distance: Also psychic distance. How close the reader feels to a character’s thoughts, emotions and experiences within a story.

Narrative: Story. The part of the book that’s narrated, excluding the dialogue.

Narrative style: The author's unique manner of storytelling, encompassing language, tone, viewpoint and other structural choices.

Narrative voice: The style, tone, and personality through which a narrator or character tells a story to readers.

Numerals, Arabic: 1, 2, 3 etc.

Numerals, Roman: i, ii, iii etc.

Omniscient: All-knowing. Refers to a viewpoint style in fiction writing.

Overwriting: Using too many words on the page. Often characterized by repetition and redundancy.

P

Page proofs: A file that’s reached a stage in the publishing process where the text and images of a manuscript have been laid out in their final format.

Pantser: A writer who doesn’t outline or plan story structure, but flies by the seat of their pants.

Period: Full stop or full point.

Perspective character: Also viewpoint character. The character through whose eyes the story is primarily told. The narrative lens through which readers experience events, thoughts, and emotions within the story.

Plot: The sequence of events in a novel.

Point of view: Also viewpoint and POV. Describes whose head we’re in when we read a book, or whose perspective we experience the story from.

Polysyndeton: Literary device through which a sentence’s structure follows the following pattern: A and B and C.

Predicate: The part of a sentence that contains a verb and that tells us something about what the subject’s doing or what they are.

Preface: An explanation of the purpose, scope and content of a book, and written by the author.

Prelims: Also front matter. Includes part title and title pages, foreword, preface and acknowledgements.

Pronoun: A word that replaces a noun (e.g. I, you, he, she, we, me, it, this, that, them those, myself, who, whom). Pronouns can act and be acted upon like any noun.

Proofreading: The final pre-publication quality-control stage of editing where any final literal errors and layout problems are flagged up. Comes after developmental editing, stylistic line editing and copyediting.

Proper noun: A named person, place or organization. Always takes an initial capital letter.

Protagonist: The leading character in a novel, often facing central conflicts and driving action.

Psychic distance: Also narrative distance. How close the reader feels to a character’s thoughts, emotions and experiences within a story.

Purple prose: Overblown, poorly structured writing with strings of extraneous and often multisyllabic adjectives and adverbs.

Q-R

Quotation mark: Also speech mark. Punctuation that indicates the spoken word. Singles or doubles are acceptable.

Recto: The right-hand page of a book.

References: List of all the works cited in your book.

Roman typeface: Not italic.

Running head: Text that runs across the top of a page (e.g. title of the book, chapter title, author’s name).

S

Scene: a distinct segment or building block where specific actions and events unfold in a setting.

Scene technique: The use of dialogue, action, setting, and tension to craft compelling moments in the story.

Semi-colon: A punctuation mark that indicates a stronger pause than a comma between two main clauses.

Sensitivity reader: Also diversity reader. Test-reader who checks for misrepresentation in books.

Speech mark: Also quotation mark. Punctuation that indicates the spoken word. Singles or doubles are acceptable.

Speech tag: Also dialogue tag. Words that indicate which character is speaking (e.g. John said).

Story arc: Also narrative arc. The structure and shape of a story.

Structural editing: Also developmental editing. The improvement of a manuscript's structure, content, and overall narrative, focusing on big-picture elements. Attends to plot, characterisation, narration and pacing.

Style sheet: In which an author or editor records stylistic and language preferences, and tracks who’s who, what’s where, and when X, Y and Z happens.

Stylistic editing: Also line editing. The refining of a manuscript's language, focusing on consistency, clarity, flow and style at sentence level.

Subject: The thing in a sentence that’s doing or being something.

Subplot: A secondary storyline that supports and enhances the main plot of a narrative.

Suspense: The tension, uncertainty and anticipation created by withholding information, raising stakes or placing characters in imminent danger. Readers are kept guessing or forced to ask questions.

Syndeton: Literary device through which a sentence’s structure follows the following pattern: A, B and C (or A, B, and C).

T

Talking-heads syndrome: Dialogue that isn’t grounded in the environment or the characters’ responses to that environment.

Tense: The form a verb takes to indicate when an action happened in relation to the telling of it.

Tension: The emotional strain or suspense created by unresolved conflicts, stakes or uncertainties that keep readers engaged.

Tertiary character: A functional character who gives the story realism and depth, but doesn’t significantly impact on or influence the plot or the development of the other characters.

Theme: The novel’s central idea or message about life, society, or human nature.

Title page: Includes full title (and subtitle if there is one), author’s name, publisher’s name, logo, volume number, and edition.

Transgressor: A character who commits morally, socially, or legally questionable acts.

Tritagonist: Third most important character, who often provide regular emotional or physical support, but don’t determine how the story develops.

U-W

Unreliable dialogue: Dialogue that doesn’t match a character’s true voice, mood or intent.

Unreliable narrator: A character whose telling of the story cannot be taken at face value. They may be naïve, confused, or deliberately manipulative.

Verb, intransitive: A verb that doesn’t have a direct object (e.g. ‘I giggled’).

Verb, transitive: A verb that has a direct object (e.g. ‘wrote’ in ‘I wrote a book’).

Verb: A word that describes doing. Can refer to a physical action (e.g. to dig), a mental action (e.g. to wonder) or a state of being (e.g. to be).

Verso: The left-hand page of a book.

Viewpoint: Also point of view or POV. Describes whose head we’re in when we read a book.

Viewpoint character: Also perspective character. The character through whose eyes the story is primarily told, and the narrative lens through which readers experience events, thoughts, and emotions within the story.

Vocative: The form of address for a character directly referred to in dialogue.

Word dump: Also information dump. Information that’s necessary to the story but isn’t artfully delivered, or weaved creatively into the narrative and dialogue.

Source More: On Editing ⚜ Word Lists

[sumerianlanguage]

Hi, how i say " i love you too "

Hello! I've previously answered about "I love you", which is ki murangen. I don't know of a great word for "too" in this context.

The typical way to say "also" about a verbal clause in Sumerian is to use the prefix inga-, but this only works for the second (or third, etc.) verb in a sentence with the same speaker. Enigin, ki ingamurangen "I see you, and also I love you." But it doesn't work for "too" as a response to a sentence uttered by someone else.

A similar problem faces adverbial phrases like an'gaam "in addition, moreover, as well, consequently." You can't just say an'gaam ki murangen without context, it would have to be in a sentence like Enigin, an'gaam ki murangen "I see you, and moreover I love you" or Ki murangen, an'gaam ki murangen "I love you (person A) and I love you (person B) as well."

You could maybe use u "and", in an exchange like "Ki murangen." "U ki murangen." = "I love you." "And I love you." But I'm not sure how natural this is in Sumerian.

So to me, the most normal way to reply to Ki murangen would just be to say Ki murangen back!

[spanishskulduggery]

I've been on and off learning Spanish for a long time. Now that I'm studying linguistics and trying again, I think I'm noticing some things.

On the topic of imperfect vs preterit, which I found one of your older posts on, is one or the other more common in the context of adverbial clauses? And is there a preference between them for forming the past perfect (había sido vs hube sido)?

I feel like the imperfect makes sense for adverbial clauses, since it's kind of thinking about the progression or volume of an action. Then the preterit is used as the main action. Like maybe Cuando estaba cansado, olvidé que debía hacer algo muy importante.

And besides that are there verbs that generally prefer one aspect over the other? Like I would guess that some verbs would be more likely to be 'instantaneous' and lend themselves more often to the preterit, like "golpear" where normally there isn't much of a span or volume of time for the progression. Unless maybe then there's the feeling of continuous hitting over and over?

I think it depends on the adverbial clause in question and your verbs. The general issue is that the imperfect is more common for narration and description or possibly continuous actions, while preterite more discusses concrete actions

Imperfect often comes across as "was (doing something)" while preterite often reads as "did (do something)"

I'll explain more below this is just going to be long I can already tell, so as always just send more messages if you need more explanations of things

-

In general estar cansado for example typically takes the imperfect, not because of a clause but because it's a description. You CAN have it be preterite, but it sounds more like "got tired" or "was tired at that moment", rather than "was feeling tired" as a general description

As an example:

Ella dormía cuando sonaba el teléfono. = She was sleeping while the phone was ringing. Ella dormía cuando sonó el teléfono. = She was sleeping when the phone rang.

The first dormía makes more sense in imperfect because it sets up the action and it shows narration.

The difference with sonaba and sonó here is more the understanding of the action itself... while sonaba implies there was no interruption, and that the action could have been going on for some time; and sonó is like a little snapshot of "and THEN it rang"

That's what I mean by "continuous" vs a "concrete action"

Another example, you can say something like cuando me di cuenta, me levanté de inmediato "when I realized, I got up immediately", or cuando descubrí la verdad, no sabía qué decir "when I discovered the truth, I didn't know what to say"

It's not usually the clause itself, it's the "mood" for lack of a better word of the verbs - how they're meant to be understood as possibly continuous actions or "used to" or just plain narration, or if they describe a specific action

I have found that imperfect often introduces background description while preterite shows the actual action of the thing

More on clauses: You could in some cases have that first clause be preterite...

You could have something like se me dormían las piernas mientras hablaban "my legs were falling asleep on me while they spoke", or se me durmieron las piernas mientras hablaban "my legs fell asleep on me while they spoke". And you could potentially write it in preterite hablaron but I feel like you'd have to use cuando

~

...I think mientras as a preposition often implies imperfect tense, because "while" implies an uninterrupted action - so it's often a verb that has no defined end

And cuando could be "when (it happened)" as preterite, or "when (it was happening)" as imperfect

~

[Note: don't worry if you've never seen the dormirse + indirect object; it's a bit more advanced grammar, something you probably don't even see in textbooks - just understand for this example that dormirse is "to fall asleep", while the indirect object (a me) in this case, is used to show who is being affected... so it's literally "the legs fell themselves asleep to me" as a more passive expression to imply that the numbness was involuntary or unexpected]

-

As for your question on past perfect, it is almost always going to be the imperfect + past participle [known as "pluperfect", or sometimes pluscuamperfecto which just means "more than past", or "past-er than past"]

The use of preterite + past participle is known as el pretérito anterior "the previous preterite", and for most of Spanish it's considered obsolete

You do see pretérito anterior used in some situations and some regions, but the pluperfect is infinitely more common in most places at least in my experience

So for your purposes, (yo) había sido "I had been" is much more common

I think in general you see hubo by itself used for very specific situations rather than seeing it with past perfect

Again, not always, but most of the time... except if you're going into some historical writing, but that's before some aspects of grammar had changed

I should also note - and this is going to be a bit beyond you I think but I do need to say it - that in some situations you will also see people saying fuera instead of había sido for "had been".

The fuera is technically imperfect subjunctive now sort of like "would be"... If you look at imperfect subjunctive, you'll see two distinct forms and zero context, it will tell you fuera or fuese

In older Spanish, the imperfect subjunctive conjugations ending in -ra were also pluperfect, so in some cases fuera could be understood as "had been". Meanwhile fuese was imperfect subjunctive "would be" for indefinites and hypotheticals which is frequently for "if/then" statements.

Today Latin America tends towards the -ra conjugations for the actual imperfect subjunctive, while the -se conjugations of it are more common in Spain. So you might see si fuera rico/a "if I were rich" in one region vs. si fuese rico/a "if I were rich" in another

I say this because in journalism, they still sometimes use the imperfect subjunctive -ra forms for pluperfect - depending on what you're reading you might see nació or naciera to mean "was born"... but you'd never see naciese used for that

Again, please ignore this if it's very much beyond you, I just didn't want you to come across it somehow while you deal with pluperfect and get confused like I was

...Because I said it's for older Spanish, but for books that are set in medieval times or that kind of era, they often use that form to give it a historical feel. Lord of the Rings does that for example, and it's a bit like tossing a "thou" into English, it just gives it a historical feel. Certain tenses in Spanish have changed a lot over the centuries and it can catch you off guard

-

And as for your question on verbs that often go for preterite or imperfect... yes and no, but more no than yes?

No because golpear is "to hit" and because the imperfect has distinct uses in imperfect:

Mi padre no nos golpeaba. = My father didn't hit us. [as in, "my father didn't used to hit us"] Mi padre no nos golpeó. = My father didn't hit us. [as in, "my father did not hit us right at that time"]

Imperfect can be used to describe patterns of behavior, and it can be used similarly to soler where soler is "to do often" or "to frequent" in present tense, but is "used to" in imperfect as a helping verb - it does not exist in preterite:

Viajábamos a España. = We would travel to Spain. Solíamos viajar a España. = We used to travel to Spain. Viajamos a España. = We traveled to Spain.

*Note in pluperfect it would be habíamos viajado "we had traveled"

As far as other situations it's a bit like sonaba el teléfono "the phone was ringing" vs. sonó el teléfono "the phone rang". Is it description, is it action?

Leaving all that aside, there are verbs that change meaning depending on preterite and imperfect. They are very specific circumstances for the most part but let me just quickly say what they are:

querer + imperfect -> wanted to [usually what you want] querer + preterite -> attempted to, tried to / didn't want to (at the time)

no querer + imperfect -> didn't want to [usually what you want] no querer + preterite -> refused to, failed to / didn't want to (at the time)

poder + imperfect -> could, had the ability to poder + preterite -> succeeded in, was able to, was successful in doing, managed to

no poder + imperfect -> couldn't, didn't have the ability no poder + preterite -> failed to, was not able to, was not successfully able to

saber + imperfect -> knew, had the knowledge of [usually what you want] saber + preterite -> found out, learned, knew (right at that moment), came to a realization

conocer + imperfect -> knew of (someone/something), had an awareness of (someone/something) conocer + preterite -> met, became acquainted with

Usually the imperfect is a kind of feeling or something that doesn't require any real action to do... like "knowing" in the sense of having that knowledge involuntarily; while preterite represents a crystallized concrete form of it... so instead of "knowing" it becomes "finding out" as an action of "knowing", or "knowing someone" becomes "meeting someone" or "becoming acquainted with someone"

So for example no quería hablar is "I didn't want to talk", while no quise hablar "I refused to talk" because the "not wanting" became an action at that point

The other one that is more an anomaly is tener

With tener expressions, it's usually more up in the air... tenían hambre "they were hungry" vs. tuvieron hambre "they were hungry (at the time) / they got hungry"

Where it's more cut and dry is that tener as "to have" is more commonly "to have" in one's possession almost involuntarily, while tener in preterite is often understood as "to obtain" or "had at that moment"

As an example tenía el teléfono "I had the phone" means it's kind of in your possesion, while tuve el teléfono "I had the phone" feels more like you had it right in your hand at that moment

...

That being said, always be careful of ser and estar

In general, ser and estar are more commonly used in imperfect because they often mean description; but they can be used for talking about very specific moments... like fui maestro/a "I was a teacher" is potentially valid, though in general era maestro/a "I used to be a teacher" is more common

And for estar, you could say estaba en la oficina "I was in the office" or you can say estuve en la oficina "I was in the office (at that time)". With emotions, estaba triste "he/she was sad" is more common, while estuvo triste "he/she was sad" or "he/she got sad" makes sense when talking about a specific moment

Other times with location, it has to do with static (unmoving) states of being vs. movement. Verbs like levantarse "to stand up" or sentarse "to sit down" are more common as preterite because you imagine a motion with it... but aside from "getting up" or "sitting down" as continuous motion, you would often see estábamos sentados "we were seated/sitting" or estábamos de pie "we were standing" or "we were on our feet"

~Important Note: When telling time it is ALWAYS imperfect ser... era la una, eran las dos, eran las tres etc for talking about time; it's just always imperfect since it is a description

[nonprojectspecific]

Relative Clauses

Linguists of Tumblr, please give me a sanity check, I'm looking at relative clauses in Qamonté and what feels right is to make the relative clause an adverbial phrase on the modified noun.

For a simple phrase like Shezhángchi pe shishfyúíḥchi qepíshchi taṭwúdlu zhonús transform in the relative clause persons that holds the net in net holding person feels really intuitive, for a language that uses the NOUN pe MODIFIER construction all the time, and clean but I'm not convinced it extends to more complex phrases like:

[natteryaktoad]

Gavigan Prime, Day 85, Part 2

On reflection, Harleigh probably should've done her homework before going on vacation.

Keturah: Will there be enough burgers for me?

Isaiah: Of course. Are Sapphira and Theo staying, do you know?

Keturah: No, they just left. Theo has an early class and Sapphira has a date with Sam.

Harleigh: I have to re-write each sentence, starting with a fronted adverbial.

Phoebe: Right... what's a fronted adverbial?

Harleigh: Mummy, you're a grown up - you know what a fronted adverbial is!

Phoebe: I really don't!

Harleigh: It goes at the front of the setence and tells you when, where or how something happened. Like 'suddenly' or 'last Tuesday' or 'in the kitchen'. The first sentence is 'I ate chips'.

Phoebe: How about... 'Because I was hungry, I ate chips.'?

Harleigh: Mummy. That's a subordinate clause, not a fronted adverbial. I think I'll write... 'On vacation, I ate chips'.

Phoebe: It honestly doesn't sound like you need my help, baby.

Harleigh: No, but I need your company.

Phoebe: Okay, fair enough.

Keturah: Do you think Robbie will go to prison?

Isaiah: If he's convicted of stealing the phones, definitely. He - or whoever it was, if it wasn't actually him - threatened the courier with a rock. That counts as a weapon, so that's a minimum of a year. I'm hoping it'll be toward the higher end of the sentencing category - could be up to maybe eight years, taking into account everything he's done to Harls. If he doesn't get convicted of the robbery, it's less clear cut. It could be argued that what he's done to Harleigh isn't an offence in itself, so he might get off completely.

These two had leftover woohoo wants from a date yesterday.

Isaiah came back from vacation with wants for body points, and Mary had been to Edward's sporting goods shop and come home with an exercise machine, so it was duly installed in the garage.

Thursday evening was filled with homework, cooking, working out and woohoo.

[hewhohatches]

"Al poner la mano en el tirador de la puerta, Winston reparó en que había dejado el diario abierto sobre la mesa, con «Abajo el Hermano Mayor» escrito en letra tan grande que casi era legible desde el otro lado de la habitación."

The two things I'm not understanding immediately are 1: Al poner la mano... de la puerta and 2: reparó en que había

So looking up some words and breaking this down:

(Al poner la mano en el tirador de la puerta) Adverbial clause -- Putting his hand on the doorknob,

(Winston reparó) Main verb -- Winston realized

(en que había dejado el diario abierto sobre la mesa) Main predicate -- that he had left the journal open on the table

(con «Abajo el Hermano Mayor» escrito) Adverbial -- with "Down with Big Brother" written

(en letra tan grande que casi era legible desde el otro lado de la habitación.) Adverbial -- in writing so big that it was almost legible from the other side of the room.

Some lessons:

Al [infinitive] ~ "when [verb]ing"

Reparar en que ~ realize that

Dejar algo [adj] = leave something [adj]

con "..." escrito = with "..." written

casi can come between que and verb

Almost false friend of letra, since it's being used as singular

Questions:

Use of tenses -- reparó is preterite, but había and era are imperfect. Era makes sense, but había is a bit weird to me. I guess because it's weird to me to use imperfect había for the perfect construction though maybe that's more common?

[mwebber]

✎ how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

oooh.... that's a good one, i dunno! genuinely don't think my writing has any real distinct markers. maybe my grammar is consistent enough throughout my works to clock that it might be me? or at least i try to keep/break the rules consistently anyway, like some things i'm conscious of are when i break up dialogue in a line and use a period instead of a comma bc i feel like mentally reading it makes for better pacing:

"incomplete sentence," blah blah. "rest of sentence." instead of "incomplete sentence," blah blah, "rest of sentence."

or when i start sentences with a conjunction bc it's an easy way of sprinkling in fake sentence variety so people don't notice i'm just doing simple sentences most of the time. i try so hard to keep things interesting with adjective/adverbial/gerund clauses as introductory clauses i feel like they stick out 💀

rambling. anyway i communed with my fellow seb body parts and this is what they had to say, so

>i don’t know that i’d be able to clock u per se but you have a specific style >making Mark an actual complicated character sure does help >i’m not the best person to ask bc you are always the first person i think of when i see anything martian so >your paragraph structure and word choice is very You >I was idly considering "postmodern" and "very fast paced" >you have a very good like grasp on the internal voices

thanks for sending this in! <333

ask me about my fics!

[daily-klingon]

Verb Suffix: -chugh

-chugh Type 9 if

The suffix -chugh turns a sentence into an if clause. Often, the adverbial vaj then, so is inserted after the -chugh bearing clause to separate out the if part and the then part.

pa’ DajaHchugh If you go there ... nepwI’ DaDachugh If you behave like a liar ... nuH rurchugh If it looks like a weapon ...

nuH rurchugh vaj yIlo’ If it looks like a weapon, then use it nepwI’ DaDachugh vaj chaq batlhHa’ bIHegh If you behave like a liar, you may die without honour pa’ DajaHchugh vaj qaQanlaHbe’ If you go there, I cannot protect you

[commander-minkowski]

hear me out cake: verb-controlled nominal clauses. dummy it. adverbial subordination. embedded reported speech

[trolledu]

[artylo]

I feel terrible whenever I am inwardly reminded that a paragraph is supposed to be the signifier for you having moved on to a different thought. I feel compelled to press Enter and put in a line break every once in a while, not out of a natural need for it, but because I am urged to do so by the invisible hovering hand of "good practices" looming above my head.

If nothing else has become apparent to me over the last ten or so years of attempting to write as equal parts plea for employment and sado-masochistic self-therapy, it is the fact that my psychosomatic idea of what a thought is often comes out as one singularly large unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic. It's really quite hypnotic.

Cultural reference aside, my brain has always worked off of the premise that there will be absolutely no thoughts for extended periods of time, with that blase tranquility being briefly, yet violently interrupted by a outburst of several blocks of justified 10pt font text, all at once—no breaks in-between—usually featuring at least one run-on sentence, which by no feat of syntax could be split apart into non-dependent clauses, and constitutes a paragraph in and of itself, as it gets slaughtered by the kind of stylistic interjections that only an em dash could possibly resolve, if bent to the point of architectural instablity.

That and the adverbial participle — the thing literally every single person who has ever tried to systematically teach how writing and translation is done, has failed to convince me is such a bad thing; the gerund; the verbal adverb. Subjectively, passionately, and regretfully, I will continue to reject its omission from the common tongue, mockingly abusing it, having no ounce of remorse.

I say all of this as a kind of rebellion from a kind of traumatized self-censorship. I am a firm believer that as long as what you write is accurate to the inner voice that exists within the creature that types it out, then formal stylistics and punctuation only stand as a challenge of self discovery. If you can find the rules of language and the necessary punctuation to transcribe the buzzing nest of agitated hornets that is your possibly non-existent internal monologue into the written word, and that it at some later date be possible to read it in much a similar fashion to what it sounded like in your head, then you have in fact succeeded in discovering a style of writing that is uniquely yours - something that you will likely be as scolded for as you will be praised.

[linguistlist-blog]

Support: Semitic; Hebrew; Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics: PhD/MA, University of Haifa

Ph.D./M.A. Scholarships in an International Research Project Between Conjunction and Discourse Marker: The Emergent Grammar of Hebrew Adverbial Clauses in a Multimodal Cross-Linguistic Perspective An Interactional Linguistics project funded by the Israel Science Foundation focusing on the multimodal study of adverbial structures in spoken discourse will begin October 1, 2024, headed by Professor Yael Maschler. This four-year project will take place at the Department of Hebrew, University of Hai http://dlvr.it/TBtCTd

[spanishskulduggery]

I see a several translations with two adjectives using commas and not "y" like English does. Is this something that is becoming more common or accepted in Spanish?

I think it would depend on context

I'm not entirely sure I've seen what you're talking about (though if it helps, Spanish also doesn't usually use the Oxford comma so in a case of three adjectives you typically see something like fuerte, grande y listo)

If you want, you can send me some screenshots or links via submissions and I can sort of take a look at it

If it helps I have also noticed that Spanish tries to steer away from overusing adverbs using -mente, so it is possible you're seeing an adverbial use of the adjective but I couldn't tell you without seeing it myself

The issue with y is that Spanish doesn't like to overuse it when you have multiple sentences like that as a stylistic choice. I've seen translations where they reformat the thing to add a clause or an adverb that will communicate the same adjectives just not in a line, especially when it's over and over because it can read as a bit juvenile

My instinct tells me you're seeing a stylistic choice for translation, trying to make something less clunky, rather than a trend for Spanish

[There are also times where I have restructured a sentence so I didn't have to deal with y vs. e or I've broken up clauses into smaller sentences because it was a run-on sentence]

[ijosijen]

the strictest feature of my word order seems to be the level of privilege that constituents get when it comes to being able to remain attached to their root during movements. higher privilege means more relevancy to the root, but is punished by high rigidness in syntax.

it generally seems to be based on how "large" the constituent is, on average? i know that big constituent = looser sounds tautological, but i'm talking more about average size of that constituent type than pure size as in morpheme count.

the most privileged class are adverbs. or rather the adverb? adverbs are a closed class, there's like ten of them. several adverbs are mutually exclusive with others. they always have a strict order relative to one another. they will follow their root noun or verb religiously, acting more like prefixes than modifying particles.

though there are of course exceptions. tau behaves like an adverb with verbs, and is mutually exclusive with adverbial si. Yet with nouns, that exclusivity no longer applies, and it only needs to obey looser adjectival placement rules.

adjectives on nouns are almost adverbial? they're a much freer class, in terms of being open and also their free orders relative to each other, deferring only to lexicalised compounds and focus-marking. but when it comes time to move the subject into a relative clause, they'll follow. or rather the entire RC will shift into post-position? end result is the same. the noun and adjectives did one thing, the RC the other.

once you get up into proper constituents, though, headed by clausals? there's like 3 rules. but even they're more like guidelines. and after all that? all bets are off. these things are shuffling as if party rock anthem is playing. only in strict situations, to be fair, but said "strict situations" are at this point often just as dependent on the semantics of the constituents as they are anything syntactic.

it's almost free word order! if you consider large compound constituents words, of course. high gavellian does. sometimes.

and then sentences can come in pretty much whatever order you want. as long as you're coherent, ig, but syntax no care about "coherency" of statement.

[reedreadsgreek]

1 Corinthians 4:18–19

18 ὡς μὴ ἐρχομένου δέ μου πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐφυσιώθησάν τινες· 19 ἐλεύσομαι δὲ ταχέως πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐὰν ὁ κύριος θελήσῃ, καὶ γνώσομαι οὐ τὸν λόγον τῶν πεφυσιωμένων ἀλλὰ τὴν δύναμιν·  

My translation: 

18 But as though me not coming to you some were inflated; 19 but I will come quickly to you if the Lord wills, and I will know not the word of those having been inflated but the power;

Notes:

4:18 

The postpositive δέ is unusually in the fourth position, giving special emphasis to μὴ ἐρχομένου. 

The negated present genitive participle μὴ ἐρχομένου (from ἔρχομαι) forms a genitive absolute construction with μου. The particle ὡς introduces ‘a conclusion existing only in someone’s imagination or based solely on someone’s assertion’ (BDAG); NIV, NET: “as if I were not coming to you”; NASB, HCSB: “as though ...” The participle is modified by the spatial prepositional phrase πρὸς ὑμᾶς. The clause introduced by ὡς above modifies the aorist passive ἐφυσιώθησάν (from φυσιόω “I puff up”; see note on 4:6) whose subject is the substantival indefinite pronoun τινες. The aorist is the natural tense for Paul to use, as he did not know precisely the situation at present and thus could not have used the perfect which has ongoing implications; however, the English perfect suffices (“have become arrogant”, most translations). 

4:19 

The adverb ταχέως (15x) is, “quickly”, from ταχύς (13x) “quick” (whose adverbial neuter ταχύ is often used equivalently to ταχέως). The 2nd future ἐλεύσομαι (from ἔρχομαι) is modified by the adverb ταχέως and the spatial prepositional phrase πρὸς ὑμᾶς. 

ἐὰν + subjunctive forms the protasis of a third-class conditional statement; ἐλεύσομαι ... ὑμᾶς above is the apodosis. ὁ κύριος is the subject of the aorist subjunctive θελήσῃ (from θέλω).  After the future γνώσομαι (from γινώσκω; dep. in the fut.; most translations: “I will find out”), the οὐ ... ἀλλὰ contrasts a negative and positive direct object. In the protasis of the contrast, οὐ τὸν λόγον (“the talk”, NRSV, NET, HCSB) is the negated direct object of the verb. NIV,  NET supply “only” to indicate that Paul may learn also of their words, but the focus is on their power. The articular perfect passive participle τῶν πεφυσιωμένων (from φυσιόω “I puff up”; see note on 4:6) is substantival (“those who are arrogant”, NASB; “these arrogant people”, NRSV, NIV, NET; “those who are inflated with pride”, HCSB); the genitive is subjective (NIV: “how these arrogant people are talking”). In the apodosis of the contrast, τὴν δύναμιν is the positive direct object of γινώσκω. δύναμις probably refers to the power ‘to influence the heart of man for good. Such seems to be the more usual meaning of the word δύναμις in St Paul’s Epistles’ (CGT). ‘The emphasis lies on effectiveness in life as against mere rhetoric’ (NIGTC).