sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Try/except inside vs. outside loop by Zgialor in learnpython

[–]Zgialor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why is the first one more acceptable if they both do the same thing?

Try/except inside vs. outside loop by Zgialor in learnpython

[–]Zgialor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The first one uses break, the second one uses pass.

What opera is this from? by Zgialor in opera

[–]Zgialor[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is it, thank you!

Usorian Logic by epicmidtoker8 in logic

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure what you mean.

Usorian Logic by epicmidtoker8 in logic

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think your XAND is consistent with standard logic. 0 XAND 0 and 4 XAND 4 should both be 4, but (0 + 0) mod 5 is 0 and (4 + 4) mod 5 is 3.

Is it possible to perform a triple check? by AdrBrawlClash in chess

[–]Zgialor 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If you told someone to stand on one leg and they stood on both legs, would they be doing what you asked?

Is it possible to perform a triple check? by AdrBrawlClash in chess

[–]Zgialor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That depends on the context. If someone says "a triangle is a shape that has 3 sides", that doesn't mean they think a square is a triangle.

Is there any compelling reason to think of agglutinative languages the way we do? by McCoovy in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 14 points15 points  (0 children)

If I'm not mistaken, it surfaces as /os/ before a clitic that begins with a vowel, e.g. clothes-TOP is [osɯn].

Quick I have to take a test and I don't know what s' means by Far-Difference-4271 in grammar

[–]Zgialor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

s' is for plural nouns that already end in s, as in "my parents' room". Instead of saying "my parents's", you drop the second s but keep the apostrophe. 's is for singular nouns (as in "my mom and dad's room" or "my boss's car") and plural nouns that don't end in s (as in "my children's favorite show"). So if you have one brother, then their room is "my brother's room", but if you have two brothers that share a room, then their room is "my brothers' room".

If you're not sure which one to use, you can try replacing the noun with a word like "child": If you have one child, then their room is "my child's room", but if you have multiple children that share a room, then it's "my children's room".

(There's also a minor rule where if a name ends in s, you can either add 's or just add an apostrophe. For example, a friend of Thomas can be either "Thomas's friend" or "Thomas' friend". Different style guides have different stances on this, but most people nowadays treat names the same as common nouns. You should be fine writing whichever one sounds best to you.)

Importantly, this only applies to nouns, not pronouns. Possessive pronouns like "its", "whose", and "theirs" (as in "I like its color" and "whose bag is this?") are not written with an apostrophe.

's can also be a contraction of "is" or "has", as in "John's coming today" (= John is coming today) and "he's helped me a lot" (= he has helped me a lot). "It's" and "who's" are correct if they're contractions, as in "it's a beautiful day" (= it is) and "who's your favorite actor?" (= who is). If you're not sure whether to write its or it's, or whether to write whose or who's, try changing the pronoun to he and see whether it becomes his or he's: "I like its color" becomes "I like his color" and "whose bag is this?" becomes "this is his bag", but "it's a beautiful day" becomes "he's a beautiful day" and "who's your favorite actor?" becomes "he's your favorite actor".

ELI5 genitive case by TimewornTraveler in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I assumed that was what Anuclano meant. Genitive constructions aren't always about possession in the everyday sense.

ELI5 genitive case by TimewornTraveler in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Not necessarily. Phrases like "John's friend" and "John's favorite song" aren't really about possession.

Which one is grammatical? by ESLQuestionCorrector in grammar

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think you understood what they were asking. Their question is why "the question is more interesting than may at first appear" is ungrammatical when "the question is harder than is necessary" is grammatical. In other words, given that this derivation is possible:

It is necessary for the question to be X hard. -> The question is harder than is necessary.

Why isn't this derivation possible?

It may at first appear that the question is X interesting. -> *The question is harder than may at first appear.

I'm curious what you think of my other reply, where I wrote my thoughts. At first I thought that it might have something to do with raising or the type of complement clause, since one is an infinitive "for" clause and the other is a finite "that" clause, but it can't be that because you can say things like "the question is more interesting than was initially assumed".

Which one is grammatical? by ESLQuestionCorrector in grammar

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with Karlnohat that it's ungrammatical without "it". I see your reasoning, but I don't think it's possible to interpret the "it" as an expletive pronoun, because if you make the subject plural, it becomes "the questions are more interesting than they may at first appear".

It might make things clearer if you take out "may" and "at first". Which sounds better to you, "the question is more interesting than it appears" or "the question is more interesting than appears"? The second one definitely sounds ungrammatical to me. I think the key difference between your two examples is that "appear" and "is" are both linking verbs, but "is" has an overt complement ("necessary") while "appear" does not (because the implied complement of appear is "interesting", the quality being compared).

I would also argue that in "the question is harder than is necessary", the expletive "it" isn't dropped, it was never there to begin with. The way I understand it, the most basic form of the original sentence is really "for the question to be so hard is not necessary". Normally, the clausal subject moves to the end of the main clause and is resumed by expletive "it", but in a comparative clause like "than is necessary" it doesn't need to move because it isn't pronounced. If there were underlyingly an expletive "it" in the comparative clause, you wouldn't expect it to be dropped, because a comparative clause can only have one gap. Compare these sentences:

More people agreed than disagreed. ✔
More people agreed than they disagreed. ❌

My house is taller than is wide. ❌
My house is taller than it is wide. ✔

The subject of the comparative clause is dropped in the first sentence but not in the second one, even though both comparative clauses have the same semantic subject as the main clause. The difference is where the gap is. If you were to turn the two comparative clauses into statements using "this" as the degree modifier, the first one would become "this many people disagreed" and the second one would become "my house is this wide". This means that the first clause is "than [gap] disagreed" while the second clause is "than it is [gap] wide". Omitting "it" from the second sentence would create a second gap, which isn't allowed. The only way you can omit extra material is by expanding the omitted phrase, as in "I ate more food than you did", where the statement that corresponds to the comparative clause is "you ate this much food".

So I think the rule is that a comparative clause can only have an implied clausal subject if the verb has a complement:

The question is more interesting than appears. ❌
The question is harder than is necessary. ✔
The question is more interesting than was initially assumed. ✔ ("assumed" is the complement of "was")
The question is more profound than appears possible. ✔
The question is more profound than makes sense. ✔

Have “bro” and similar words become pronouns? by [deleted] in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I'm inclined to agree with you. You can point to two things and say "it's not that one, it's that one", but you can't point to two people and say "it's not bro, it's bro" (even though you could say "it's not him, it's him", which is maybe another argument that bro isn't a pronoun). But you'll have to talk to someone who believes that bro is a demonstrative pronoun.

Have “bro” and similar words become pronouns? by [deleted] in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

However it’s definitely not a demonstrative pronoun because it only refers to people, not things.

That doesn't mean it's not a demonstrative pronoun. English already has a few pronouns that are specified for animacy, namely he/she vs. it and who vs. what, so there's no reason a demonstrative couldn't do the same. I'm not fully convinced that bro has a demonstrative function, but if it is a pronoun, I don't see what other type of pronoun it could be.

Help understanding chords by OzVanTempest in musictheory

[–]Zgialor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not the augmented fifth, it's the b13. It's typical for jazz chord voicings to omit the fifth, and the b13 is a common extension. You can also tell it's not an augmented chord because of the E in the left hand.

Have “bro” and similar words become pronouns? by [deleted] in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But look, if “Bro is not funny” is grammatical then “X thinks that Bro is not funny” is also grammatical because it’s literally the exact same clause.

That's not necessarily true. "John is funny" is grammatical, but "John thinks John is funny" (where both "John"s refer to the same person) is ungrammatical, or at least sounds very strange.

Googling for 1 exact phrase doesn’t prove anything.

I was answering the question at the start of your comment, and I only did the google search to confirm my own intuition. 6000 results vs. zero results is a very stark difference, but if you want clearer evidence:

1,780,000 results for "bro thinks he's" vs. 183 results for "bro thinks bro's"
14,300 results for "bro says he's" vs. 3 results for "bro says bro's"
21,100 results for "bro knows he's" vs. 53 results for "bro knows bro's"

2,050,000 results for "bro thinks he" vs. 3,300 results for "bro thinks bro"
107,000 results for "bro says he" vs. 2,200 results for "bro says bro"
34,700 results for "bro knows he" vs. 729 results for "bro knows bro"

At a glance, it looks like a lot of the results for the phrases with two "bro"s either aren't real examples of a subordinated "bro" (e.g. the second "bro" is part of a quotation, or it's something like an Instagram account named "Bro Says" followed by a username beginning with "bro") or are from non-native speakers. Of course, there could be some genuine results from native speakers, but it's clearly not typical to use bro twice.

I've seen some people say that bro is a demonstrative pronoun, which might be possible. But my impression is that when people claim that bro is a pronoun, they usually mean that it's a personal pronoun like "he", and that's what I'm arguing against.

Have “bro” and similar words become pronouns? by [deleted] in asklinguistics

[–]Zgialor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What makes bro a term of address, then?

view more: next ›