Most frequent regular verbs ( ed )

Nahum 3

2023.12.11 02:38 bikingfencer Nahum 3

NAHUM
Chapter Three

-1. “Woe, city [of] bloods,
all of her [with] deceit, plunder [פרק, PeReQ] filled;
[does] not withdraw [ימיש, YahMeeSh] preying [טרף, TahRehPh].”

“The extreme cruelty of Assyria to conquered nations is epic. Not only violence but deceitful diplomacy was part of Nineveh’s stock-in-trade (Isa [Isaiah] 36:16-17).” (Irene Nowell, TNJBC 1990, p. 260)

-2. “Voice [of] whip [שוט, ShOT], and voice [of] noise [רעש [of] wheel [אופן, ’OPhahN],
and horse galloping [דהר, DoHayR] and chariot [ומרכבה, OoMehRKahBaH] bounding [מרקדה, MeRahQayDaH].

“The topsy-turvy confusion of the battle is not unlike that described in another classic of Hebrew poetry, the Song of Deborah (Judg. [Judges] 5:20-22) … By the absence of verbs and juxtaposition of generic nouns the poet paints with maximum effectiveness the strokes of the picture. For this brilliant effect the staccato of the rhythm, two accents balanced by two in each half line, is perfect.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 965)

-3. “Cavalry [פרש, PahRahSh] ascends [מעלה, Mah`ahLeH],
and flame sword,
and lightning spear,
and multitudinous wounded [חלל, HahLahL],
and heavy [וכבד, VeKhoBehD] corpse [פגר, PahGahR],
and has no end to carcass [לגויה, LahGVeeYaH],
and they stumble [וכשלו, OoKhSheLOo] in their carcasses.
-4. From multitudinous whoring [of a] whore,
goodness of charm,
mistress of enchantments [כשפים, KeShahPheeYM],
the seller [of] nations in her whoring,
and families in her enchantments.

“Nineveh, for all her wealth, is rotten at the core; her charms, like those of a harlot, are ephemeral, and the day of her exposure has come.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 965)

-5. “‘Behold, I am unto you’, saith YHVH Armies,
‘and I revealed [וגליתי, VeGeeLaYTheeY] your skirts [שוליך, ShOoLahYeeKh] upon your face,
and I showed [והראתי, VeHahR’ayTheeY] nations your pudenda [מעריך, Mah`eRayKh],
and kingdoms your shame [קלונך, QLONayKh].
-6. And I sent forth [והשלכתי, VeHeeShLahKhTheeY] upon you abominations [שקצים, SheeQooTseeYM], and despised you [ונבלתיך VeNeeBahLTheeYKh],
and set you as excrement [כראי, *KeRo’eeY(].

“It was an ancient, though not a laudable custom, to strip prostitutes naked, or throw their clothes over their heads, and expose them to public view, and public execration. This verse alludes to such a custom.” (Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 465)
“As in chs. [chapters] 1-2, so in ch. [chapter] 3. The statement of what this Deity does is poles removed from the N.T. [New Testament] account of God’s character, e.g. [for example], in I John.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 966)

-7. “‘And it was [that] all seeing you [ראיך, Ro’ahYeeKh] will move on [ידוד, YeeDOD] from you and say,
“Robbed [שדדה, ShahDeDaH] is Nineveh; who will mourn [ינוד, YahNOoD] to her?”
From where will I request [אבקש, ’ahBahQaySh] comforters to you?
-8. Are you better [התטיבי, HahTheeTeeYBeeY] than [מ-, Mee] No’-’ahMON [No-Amon],
the sitter in rivers [ביארים, BahYe’oReeYM]?
Waters surround to her,
whose [אשר, ’ahShehR] rampart [חיל, HaYL] [is] sea,
waters her wall.

“Nineveh is compared to Thebes, called No-Amon, ‘city of [the god] Amon… It was conquered by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 663.” (Irene Nowell, TNJBC 1990, p. 260)
“For over fourteen hundred years it had been one of the world’s leading cities, as modern excavations at Luxor and Karnak abundantly testify… there may have been far more extensive moats and canals guarding Thebes than we know of… The reference to this historical event gives a date after which the poem must have been written.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, pp. VI 966-967)

-9. ‘“‘KOoSh flourished [עצמה, `ahTsMaH], and Egypt, and there was no end;
POoT and LOoBeeYM were in your help.

“‘Cush’ is the term regularly used for Ethiopia, which ruled Egypt at the time Ashurbanipal took Thebes. Help was therefore available from this large country to the south, and from the Libyans on the west… Put is associated with Cush… and may refer to Somaliland on the Red Sea.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

-10. ‘Also she to exile went in captivity,
also her sucklings [עלליה, `oLahLehYHah] were torn apart [יראטשו, YeRah’TeShOo] in head [of] all courtyards,
and upon her honored ones [נכבדיה, NeeKhBahDehYHah] handed lot,
and all her great [ones] bound [רתקו, RooThQOo] in chains [בזקים, BahZeeQeeM].
-11. Also you will be drunk [תשכרי, TheeShKeReeY], will be disappeared [נעלמה, Nah`ahLahMaH],
also you will seek refuge [מעוז, Mah`OZ, “strength, fastness”] from enemy.

“Now comes the tu quoque¹⁰ … For the metaphor of a drunken man to describe one who has drunk of the Lord’s punishment cf. [compare with] Ps. [Psalm] 60:3; Jer. [Jeremiah] 25:16, 27.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

-12. “All your fortifications [מבצריך, MeeBTsahRahYeeKh] [are] fig trees with first fruits [בכורים, BeeKOoReeYM],
if shaken [ינועו, YeeNO`Oo] and fall upon mouth [of] consumer.”

“Contrast the short, swift phrases of the long poem with this prose of a scribe who writes his leisurely general proposition as a comment on the following verses… Nahum does not stop for conditional propositions.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

-13. “Behold, your people are women within you [בקרבך, BeQeeRBayKh],
to your enemies open;
open [are] gates of your land,
consumed fire your bolts. [בריחיך, BeReeYHahYeeKh]

““O veré Phrygiœ, neque enim Phryges. – ‘Verily, ye are Phrygian women, not Phrygian men.’ So said Numanus¹¹ to the Trojans. Virg. [Virgil] Æn. [The Aeneid] ix.” (Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 466)
“The fact that Nineveh’s defenders actually put up a good fight, and were not at all like a ‘pack of women,’ is evidence that this poem was not written post eventum [“after the event”].” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

…
-19. “There is no healing [כהה, KayHaH] to your breaks [לשברך, LeSheeBRehKhah],
soothing [נחלה, NahHeLaH] your blows [מכתך, MahKahThehKhah].
All hearers hearing [of] you [שמעך, SheeM’ahKhah] clap [תקעו, ThahQ`Oo] palm [כף, KahPh] upon you;
for upon whom did not cross over your evil always?”

“So closes the long poem, the meter of which, with… two exceptions… is regular throughout... we can be grateful that despite the difficulties due to the addition of the acrostic and other extraneous material at the beginning, the poem has been so wonderfully preserved. It stands as one of the great landmarks of Hebrew literature…” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 969)
“Bp. [Bishop] Newton¹² makes some good remarks on the fall and total ruin of Nineveh.

‘…From that time no mention is made of Nineveh by any of the Sacred writers; and the most ancient of the Heathen authors, who have occasion to say any thing about it, speak of it as a city that was once great and flourishing, but now destroyed and desolate. Great as it was formerly, so little of it is remaining, that authors are not agreed even about its situation.’”(Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 467)

FOOTNOTES
⁷ William Newcome (1729–1800) was an Englishman and cleric of the Church of Ireland who was appointed to the bishoprics of Dromore (1766–1775), Ossory (1775–1779), Waterford and Lismore (1779–1795), and lastly to the Primatial See of Armagh (1795–1800) … As an interpreter of the prophets, Newcome followed Robert Lowth. His ‘Attempt towards an Improved Version, a Metrical Arrangement, and an Explanation of the Twelve Minor Prophets,’ &c., 1785 was reissued, with additions from Samuel Horsley and Benjamin Blayney, Pontefract, 1809. In his version he claims to give ‘the critical sense … and not the opinions of any denomination.’ In his notes he makes frequent use of the manuscripts of Thomas Secker. - Wikipedia
⁸ Diodorus Siculus … (Ancient Greek: Διόδωρος Σικελιώτης) or Diodorus of Sicily was a Greek historian, who wrote works of history between 60 and 30 BC. … Diodorus' universal history, which he named Bibliotheca historica ("Historical Library"), was immense and consisted of 40 books, of which 1–5 and 11–20 survive: fragments of the lost books are preserved in Photius and the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. - Wikipedia
^9] tu quoque - Latin “you too” - a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what he criticizes in others - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tu%20quoque
¹⁰ Numanus steps forward and taunts the Trojans, calling them women. Ascanius prays to Jupiter, who thunders on the left side of the sky. Then he shoots Numanus through the head. - a summary of The Aeneid, by Virgil http://www.shmoop.com/aeneid/book-9-summary.html
¹² Thomas Newton (1704-1782, was an English cleric, biblical scholar and author. He served as the Bishop of Bristol from 1761 to 1782… His more remembered works include his annotated edition of Paradise Lost, including a biography of John Milton, published in 1749. In 1754 he published a large scholarly analysis of the prophecies of the Bible, titled Dissertations on the Prophecies. - wikipedia
Bibliography
Adam Clarke, L. F. (1831). The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testament... with Commentary and Critical Notes (first ed., Vols. IV JER-MAL). New York: J. Emory and B. Waugh
Irene Nowell, O. (1990). The New Jerome Biblical Commentary TNJBC (first ed.). (S. J. Raymond E. Brown, Ed.) Englewood Cliffs,, New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Taylor, C. L.-I. (1956). The Interpreters' Bible TIB first ed., Vol. VI Lamentations through Malachi). (S. T. George Arthur Buttrick, Ed.) Nashville: Abingdon Press.
STUDY AIDS
ספר הבריתות, תורה נביאים כתובים והברית החדשה [ÇehPheR HahBReeYThOTh, ThORaH NehBeeY'eeM KeThOoBeeYM VeHahBReeYTh HehHahDahShaH] – “The Book of the Covenants: Instruction, Prophets, Writings, and the New Covenant”] The Bible Society in Israel, Jerusalem, Israel, 1991. Will survive anything short of untrained puppies, but the back is broken now. Easy to read “Arial” type font. A gift from Joy; the one I read and annotate.
The New Bantam-Megiddo Hebrew & English Dictionary, by Dr. Reuven Sivan and Dr. Edward A. Levenston, New York, 1975. I had misunderstood my brother to say that he got through seminary Hebrew with just this (plus his fluency). I update it from the other dictionaries. It pages have fallen away from the glue that bound them. I’ve only lost one page so far; this is my third copy. Part of my original plan had been to be able to go into Sunday School armed only with my annotated Hebrew Bible and a pocket dictionary.
Hebrew-English, English-Hebrew Dictionary in three volumes, by Israel Efros, Ph.D., Judah Ibn-Shmuel Kaufman Ph.D, Benjamin Silk, B.C.L., edited by Judah Ibn-Shmuel Kaufman, Ph.D., The Dvir Publishing Co. Tel-Aviv, 1950. The Megiddo pocket dictionary is basically a copy of this, but often leaves out cultic terms, so this one is often useful. The back of the Hebrew-English volume is gone, and it has fallen in half, but the pages are sewn; one might say that it is doing about as well as I am. Had I this to do over yet again I would ditch the pocket dictionary and use this one instead.
The Comprehensive Concordance of the Bible: Together With Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, With References to the English, by James Strong, Mendenhall Sales, Inc. Also a gift (or appropriation) from my parents. Also essential, although, according to Lenore Lindsey Mulligan, the current standard reference in English is the third edition of Koehler and Baumgartner's Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Excellent binding. A most curious introduction. Lacks perfection; when the number is wrong, you’re really stuck. There is one word in II Chronicles for which I never did find a definition.
The Interlinear Bible, Hebrew, Greek, English, With Strong’s Concordance Numbers Above Each Word, Jay. Green, Sr., Hendrickson Publishers. A gift from my parents. Essential, but even the pocket dictionary has a better binding.
An Amateur’s Journey Through the Bible

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2023.12.11 02:35 bikingfencer Nahum 3 - updated

NAHUM
Chapter Three (https://esv.literalword.com/?q=Nahum+3)
-1. “Woe, city [of] bloods,
all of her [with] deceit, plunder [פרק, PeReQ] filled;
[does] not withdraw [ימיש, YahMeeSh] preying [טרף, TahRehPh].”

“The extreme cruelty of Assyria to conquered nations is epic. Not only violence but deceitful diplomacy was part of Nineveh’s stock-in-trade (Isa [Isaiah] 36:16-17).” (Irene Nowell, TNJBC 1990, p. 260)

“The topsy-turvy confusion of the battle is not unlike that described in another classic of Hebrew poetry, the Song of Deborah (Judg. [Judges] 5:20-22) … By the absence of verbs and juxtaposition of generic nouns the poet paints with maximum effectiveness the strokes of the picture. For this brilliant effect the staccato of the rhythm, two accents balanced by two in each half line, is perfect.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 965)

“Nineveh, for all her wealth, is rotten at the core; her charms, like those of a harlot, are ephemeral, and the day of her exposure has come.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 965)

“It was an ancient, though not a laudable custom, to strip prostitutes naked, or throw their clothes over their heads, and expose them to public view, and public execration. This verse alludes to such a custom.” (Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 465)
“As in chs. [chapters] 1-2, so in ch. [chapter] 3. The statement of what this Deity does is poles removed from the N.T. [New Testament] account of God’s character, e.g. [for example], in I John.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 966)

“Nineveh is compared to Thebes, called No-Amon, ‘city of [the god] Amon… It was conquered by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 663.” (Irene Nowell, TNJBC 1990, p. 260)
“For over fourteen hundred years it had been one of the world’s leading cities, as modern excavations at Luxor and Karnak abundantly testify… there may have been far more extensive moats and canals guarding Thebes than we know of… The reference to this historical event gives a date after which the poem must have been written.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, pp. VI 966-967)

-9. ‘“‘KOoSh flourished [עצמה, `ahTsMaH], and Egypt, and there was no end;
POoT and LOoBeeYM were in your help.

“‘Cush’ is the term regularly used for Ethiopia, which ruled Egypt at the time Ashurbanipal took Thebes. Help was therefore available from this large country to the south, and from the Libyans on the west… Put is associated with Cush… and may refer to Somaliland on the Red Sea.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

“Now comes the tu quoque¹⁰ … For the metaphor of a drunken man to describe one who has drunk of the Lord’s punishment cf. [compare with] Ps. [Psalm] 60:3; Jer. [Jeremiah] 25:16, 27.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

“Contrast the short, swift phrases of the long poem with this prose of a scribe who writes his leisurely general proposition as a comment on the following verses… Nahum does not stop for conditional propositions.” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

-13. “Behold, your people are women within you [בקרבך, BeQeeRBayKh],
to your enemies open;
open [are] gates of your land,
consumed fire your bolts. [בריחיך, BeReeYHahYeeKh]

““O veré Phrygiœ, neque enim Phryges. – ‘Verily, ye are Phrygian women, not Phrygian men.’ So said Numanus¹¹ to the Trojans. Virg. [Virgil] Æn. [The Aeneid] ix.” (Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 466)
“The fact that Nineveh’s defenders actually put up a good fight, and were not at all like a ‘pack of women,’ is evidence that this poem was not written post eventum [“after the event”].” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 967)

“So closes the long poem, the meter of which, with… two exceptions… is regular throughout... we can be grateful that despite the difficulties due to the addition of the acrostic and other extraneous material at the beginning, the poem has been so wonderfully preserved. It stands as one of the great landmarks of Hebrew literature…” (Taylor, TIB 1956, p. VI 969)
“Bp. [Bishop] Newton¹² makes some good remarks on the fall and total ruin of Nineveh.

‘…From that time no mention is made of Nineveh by any of the Sacred writers; and the most ancient of the Heathen authors, who have occasion to say any thing about it, speak of it as a city that was once great and flourishing, but now destroyed and desolate. Great as it was formerly, so little of it is remaining, that authors are not agreed even about its situation.’”(Adam Clarke, 1831, p. IV 467)

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2023.07.05 16:36 Raiste1901 Verbal morphology in Galician Karaim

This section of the Karaim grammar is by far the most complex and lengthy, but I hope, I'll manage to explain it in simple ways.
A verb is a word that indicates an action (e.g., kietme “to drive, travel in a vehicle”), or a state of being (bołma “to exist, to happen”). They describe events on their own, or explain, what the nouns are doing. In Galician Karaim, verbs conjugate according to their subject's person and number, as well as for tense, aspect and mood. Verbs can have both synthetic (made of suffixes) and analytic (made of auxiliaries) forms, depending on their grammatical function. The verb category in Galician Karaim contains the following verb forms: finite verbs, infinitive and two kinds of participles, described below.

Person:

The person suffixes must agree with the subject of the sentence, to which a verb belongs. If the subject is the first or second person, it can be omitted from a sentence, while the suffixes cannot. There are two types of personal suffixes, depending on the tense, hence both will be discussed at the same time.
The first type is used with the present and future indicative and present subjunctive tenses. I will describe the differences between indicative and subjunctive later. Here are the first type endings:

	singular	plural
I	-men/-m	-byz/-biz
You	-sen/-s	-śiz
He, She, It	-d/-t	-dy-ła-di-łer

The particular form of the suffix changes depending on the preceding vowel and consonant. The present subjunctive and future forms look identical to the indicative forms above, but without the third person suffixes (in that case the third person plural suffix will be just -ła-łer).
The first and second singular person suffixes may often contract to -m and -s. These contracted forms are fully synonymous with the full forms -men and -sen, but they are typically used with longer verbs or auxiliaries.
The second type is used with the optative mood (only the first person), the past indicative and present conditional tenses.

	singular	plural
I	-m	-k
You	-n	-nyz/-niz/-nuz
He, She, It	—	-ła-łer

The person suffixes may be attached directly to the root, if no other suffixes are present, or after the verb-modifying suffixes that belong to the verb stem. The optative forms, however, have a high vowel between the first person and the stem, for example: kiel-ej-i-k “let's go”, ajt-aj-y-m “may I say”.

Negative and potential forms:

All verbs can be affirmative, negative, potential and negative potential (“to be”, “not to be”, “may be”, “may not be” respectively). Often called "aspects", these forms indicate grammatical polarity instead.
The affirmative is the basic form, it indicates that the statement is true and has no additional morphology. All other forms are created from it. Examples of this form are kielemen “I'm going”, ajtasen “you say”.
Negation in Galician Karaim is do by means of the negative suffix, and shows that a statement is false. The suffix is -ma/-me, attached to the stem and shifting the stress to it: kielmejm “I'm not going”, ajtmajs “you don't say”.
Probability or ability are indicated with a potential suffix -ał/-eł, for example: kielełmen “I can go”, ajtałsen “you might say”. If the stem ends in a vowel, the consonant -j- appears between it and the potential suffix: anła-j-ał-t “he/she can understand”.
Improbability, or inability to perform an action, are indicated by the negative potential form, which is a combination of the previous two forms. In this case, however, the negative suffix comes after the potential suffix: kielełmejm “I can't go”, ajtałmajs “you can't say”, anłajałmajd “he/she can't understand”.

Tense-Aspect-Mood:

Verbal mood allows speakers to express their attitude toward the action, for example: a statement of fact, desire, command or condition. There are four main moods: indicative, optative-imperative, subjunctive and conditional. Aspect expresses how an action, event, or state extends over time, while tense clarifies, whether said action or event happens in the present, past or future. Although the three categories are separate, it makes more sense to describe them as a single concept in Karaim, that's why I will not divide this section.
The indicative mood is the base of the verb, it expresses the fact, that the statement is real. It has the most tenses and aspects of all the moods: present, past and future. Combined with two aspects – imperfective and perfective – it has five possible forms.
The present tense in Karaim has only the imperfective form, made by attaching the suffix -a/-e to the stem before a final consonant or -j before a final vowel, followed by a person suffix of the first type: kel-e-men “I'm going”, kara-j-men “I'm watching”. One can also use the contracted form of the personal suffixes with verbs that end in a consonant, especially the long ones: kel-e-m “I'm going”. The negative form almost always has contracted suffixes and the -j- consonant after the negative suffix: kel-mej-m/kel-mej-men “I'm not going”. The present tense indicates an ongoing action, or a general statement that is true: Jer ajłanat ciwre Kujasny “the Earth orbits the Sun”.
A similar construction to denote an ongoing action is conveyed with the suffix -ad/-ed/-jd. It was known as the present continuous tense, and had a durative or iterative meaning: kajtaradmen “I'm giving back”. This tense has fallen out of use in modern Galician Karaim, being completely supplanted by the regular present.
The past perfective tense is formed with the suffixes -dy/-di/-du/-ty/-ti/-tu, depending on the preceding vowel and consonant, followed by the person suffix of the second type, for example: kiel-di “he went”, boł-du-łar “they were”, ajt-ty-n “you said”. It describes an action that happened in the past without a reference to its duration.
The past imperfective tense is formed with the suffix -r and its variants and an auxiliary verb ed(i), which can be attached to the main verb. The person suffixes belong to the second type. Here are some examples: karar edim “I was watching”, ajtared “she used to say”, jiredłer “they were walking” (both "karar edim" and "kararedim" are equally correct, they mean the same thing). This tense has two functions: a past incomplete action which may or may not still occur, and a past action occurring during a certain period, or with another action that happened at the same time: Kajtty Małunia, tawukłar yukuha jystyrynyr edłer “As Malunia came back, the hens were going to sleep”. The negative suffix changes the final -r into -s: juwukłan-ma-s-ed “it wasn't approaching”.
The pluperfect tense is formed with the suffixes -han/-kan/-kien/-gien and the auxiliary verb edi. Unlike the past imperfective, edi is always separate from the main verb in the pluperfect and can be placed either before or after it: ałhan edim “I had taken”, ediniz kielgien “you had gone”, but the former is slightly more common. This tense indicates events that happened prior to other actions. It provides no information about the duration of said event or action.
A rare and somewhat obscure construction, typically called the second pluperfect is formed with the suffix -b and a fused auxiliary edi: kałybedi “had ceased”, bekłebedi “had closed”, ajtybedi “had said”. This tense refers to the past events that had concluded by the time another event took place. For example, barybedim means “I had gone and then returned after a while”, unlike the previous pluperfect, which does not imply completion: barhan “had gone (and may still be gone)”. It can be used as a habitual distant past: barybedim mamaba saharha “I used to go to the town with my mom”. This tense is slowly disappearing in favour of the -han suffix construction, but it's still being used occasionally.
The future tense is formed by adding a variant of the suffix -r to the stem, followed by the person suffix of the first type, except for the third person: ajt-ar “she will say”, kel-er-sen “you will go”. In verbs will two or more syllables, only the high vowel variants are possible: kajtaryr “he will return”. If used with contracted suffixes, the final -r disappears, leaving only the vowel, which becomes high: kel-i-s “you will go”. The meaning does not change, and both forms can be used a synonyms, however, the future contracted forms are rare, unlike the present ones, and are mostly restricted to poetry. The negative suffix changes the final -r to -s, except in the first person singular, where -r changes to -m: ał-ma-m-men “I won't take”. The third person regains its ending and adds -r in the singular at the end: ał-ma-s-ty-r “he won't take”, ał-ma-s-ty-łar “they won't take” ( but ał-ar “he will take”, ał-ał-łar “they will take”).
The optative-imperative mood indicates wishes, directives and orders. It has no specific affix, but instead it is fused with the person suffixes, thus creating a variety of verb forms. In the first person the stress shifts to the stem, while in the second and third persons it remains on the suffix. The suffixes are represented in the table below:

	singular	plural
I	-(a)jym/-(e)jim	-(a)jyk/-(e)jik
You (without a suffix)	—	-(y)nyz/-(i)niz/-(u)nuz/
You (with the *-h-/-k-* suffix)	-kyn/-kin/-kun/-hyn/-gin/-hun	—
He, She, It	-syn/-sin/-sun	-syn-ła-sin-łe-sun-łar

If a verb stem ends with -t, it assimilates to the third person suffix: ajccyn “may she say”.
The second person has two forms: the bare stem form, which is used for commands, and the suffixed form, used for suggestions, in proverbs, but it can also indicate a direct order (this meaning is mostly found in the Bible translation). Optative-imperative has no potential form, while its negative potential is used only in the third person: ałmasyn ajta “may he not be able to speak”; its usage is extremely limited. But it can be negated in the second, third and first plural persons: ajt-ma-hyn “don't say”.
A special form in -ny/-ńi, indicating a polite request, can be found: kielńi “please, go”. When a verb stem ends with a -n, the suffix becomes -ty/-ti: bahynty “sit down, please”. It is rarely used.
The subjunctive mood is formed with the suffixes -haj/-giej/-kaj/-kiej, followed by person suffixes. It has two tenses: present and past, and is used to mark intentions or opinions. it also occurs in the subordinate clauses.
The present subjunctive has the person suffixes of the first type after its own suffix, except for the tird person: etkiejmen “that I do”, ackaj “that he open”. It can be used with the contracted suffixes: etkiejm “that I do”, men kielgiejs “I'd like you to go”. It is often used together with "ki" “in order to”: Kuj iwreni tepsigie, ki suwuhaj “Pour the porridge into a bowl for it to cool down”.
The past subjunctive has the same suffix, followed by the auxiliary verb (e)di, attached to the main verb. The suffix vowel becomes raises to either "y" or "i". Its person prefixes are of the second type: kielgijdim “I would have gone”. Its potential form can only be formed analytically: bułar sezłer bołałhyjdłar jazma oł “these words would have described it”.
The conditional mood is formed by adding the suffix -sa/-se to the stem. It has two tenses: present and past; and it indicates events that occur or would have occured under a certain condition. Both tenses have the person suffixes of the second type. The present conditional is used, when an event is related to the present or future: kersen “if you see”, ajccałar “if they say”. The verb can be used on its own, or with a conjunction egier “if”. The past conditional is used, when the event could have occured in the past. It has an auxiliary verb (e)di, attached after the conditional suffix: barsyjdym “if I had gone”, bersijd “had he given”.
A special continuous conditional form was used until the end of the 19th century, formed by -ade/-ede/-jde followed by the suffix -sa/-se: artyradesek “if we continue”, kilejmedesen “if you're refusing”. Just as present continuous, this form has fallen out of use completely, but I included it, since it can be found in the Bible.
Another mood is the approximative, formed with the suffix: -ajez/-ejez. It has two tenses: present and past, although the present tense is functionally the future with the meaning “intend to do something”, while the past approximative conveys the meaning of “almost did something”. The present uses the person suffixes of the first type, while the past uses the second type: keltirejezsen “you're about to bring”, barajezdim “I almost went”.

Auxiliaries:

Galician Karaim has few auxiliary verbs with different functions. The edi verb has already been mentioned above, but there are a few more.
If standalone, the verb edme is a past tense copula: edim “I was”, edłer “they were” etc. If used in its conditional form, it loses its final consonant: esem “if I am”.
Necessity is conveyed with an adjective kierek “needed”, while negative necessity is formed through the verb kierekmes “it isn't needed”: kerekmes turma “no need to get up”.
The verbs: bołma “to be”, etme “to do” and berme “to give”, ałma “to take” often form compound verbs: cyrymetme “to nap”, hecetme “to destroy”, jemberme “to feed”, tamasabołma “be interesting”, edirekbołma “improve”, tyncałma “to rest” etc.
The verb basła “to start”, used with infinitives conveys inchoative aspect: basłajm ajtma “I start saying”, basłajs karama “you start looking”.
The verb kilejme “to want” has a desiderative function – wishes and desires. It can be attached directly to the verb in a similar fashion to edi to form a separate mood: ajtaklejm “I want to say”. In this case the first syllable loses its vowel. Otherwise, this verb can be used separately: kilejt bilme “he wants to know” (saying bileklejt is also possible).
The verb kołma “to ask” is used with verbs separately and means “to ask to do something”: kołamyz kelme “we ask [you] to come”, which can also be translated as “please, visit us”. It's rarely used with other verbs.
The verb jarajt is in the third person, but is most often used yo form suggestions, such “may I do?”, for example: Jarajt enme? “may I enter?”, sana jarajt asama “you may eat”.

Non-finite verb forms:

The non-finite verb forms in Galician Karaim are infinitive, and participles. The do not conjugate for person, mood or tense, and they cannot be used on their own in a sentence, unlike finite verbs, apart from proverbs, which often use standalone infinitives.
Infinitive is formed with the suffix -ma/-me. It's most often used with various auxiliaries, such as jarajt, kilejt basłajt etc. They can be used on their own in subordinate clauses: ajt ne isłeme “tell what to do”. In proverbs they can be used without any finite verbs: Teńrini kołma jeńgiłdi, dostnu – awurdu “It's easy to ask God, but not a friend”. There is a special case, when both the finite verb and its infinitive are used in the same sentence for emphasis: Jyłama jyłajdy ińgirłerbe “She cries and cries in the evenings”. The negative infinitive has the suffix -maska/-meskie: acmaska “not to open”.
There are five suffixes, forming adverbial participles:

The suffix -p/-yp/-up/-ip creates past participles that express event before the event conveyed by the main verb: ajtyp “having said”, kiertip “having seen”, karap “having watched”. It can sometimes be used with the plural suffix, but this usage can only be found in the Bible.
The suffix -a/-e/-j creates present participles, that express an ongoing event: ajta “while saying”, kile “while laughing”, sezlej “while speaking”.
The suffix -adohon/-edohon/-jdohon can form present participles. Unlike the former, it has adjectival meaning: boładohon bunda, ałsam “being here, I recall”. Unlike the previous form, this participle can decline for number and case: Kierdim cyh-adohon-łar-ny gierabdan – “I saw those, coming out of the train”. Sometimes it can have a different form with final -ac instead of -on, which marks simultaneity: ojattym ajtadohac “I woke you up by speaking”, tanłanadohac isne sałdy kiezin dostu “he looked at his friend, being surprised”. It roughly corresponds to Ukrainian impersonal participle in its syntactic behaviour.
The suffixes -hacok/-kacok/-kiecok/-giecok mark a consecutive actions – an event that occurs preceding the action of the main verb: esitkecok “as soon as he heard”, cykkacok “just as she left”.
The suffixes -hynca/-gince/-kinca/kince mark terminative – end or cessation of an action: sen cykkinca “till you leave”, kielgince “till he comes”. The *negative** participle is formed with the suffix -majyn/-mejin, and has no aspectual distiction; it negates all participles: teźmejin “not waiting”, ajtmajyn “not saying”. When followed by the affix -ca/-ce, it gets an abessive meaning: kajtmajynca “inevitably (without returning)”, teźmejince “impatiently (without waiting)”.

Adjectival participles modify nouns, similarly to adjectives, they have to agree with their nouns in case and number. They are created from verbs by means of the following suffixes:

The suffixes -han/-gien/-kan/-kien creates past participles. They from active participles from intransitive verbs (barhan “gone”), and passive participles from the transitive ones (bergien “given”), however, Galician Karaim makes no distinction between the two. It has a negative form: kielmegien “one that has come”. It can form its own subordinate clause: men oł kisi, kiergien tisłini “I am such a person, who has seen various things.” It can sometimes be used with person suffixes: sezłegienimden sortun, ekiłedi “after I had said it, he repeated it”.
The suffix -uwcu/-iwci creates present adjectival participles, characterising human activities: Kietiwci jołłarba, oł kiergized dostuna jerkierimin “The one, driving along the road, is showing the landscape to his friend.”

Voice:

Valency or valence describes the relation between a verb and its arguments (subject and object). Verbs with different valency treat their arguments differently. Some can take only the subject (intransitive), while others can take both (transitive), same have the same word for both subject and object (reflexive), etc. Their corresponding arguments have to decline for different cases (usually nominative for the subject and accusative for the object). Different suffixes are used to change the inherent valency of different verbs, which is known as the category of voice:
The reflexive suffix -n/-yn/-in/-un turn transitive verbs into intransitive by making their object the same as their subject. This corresponds to the English pronoun "oneself". Although called reflexive, it's probably more accurate to call it the middle voice: kipłenme “to strengthen” from kipłeme “to strengthen something”, tartynma “to spread” from tartyma “to stretch something”, kapłanma “to become covered” from kapłama “to cover something”. Many verbs for feelings and senses have this suffix: bijenme “to be happy”, kisienme “to feel nostalgic”. Some middle verbs have diverged in their meaning from their original stems: tutunma “to promise” from tutma “to keep”. Some verbs have become transitive once again despite their suffix: bilinme “to find out”, kazynma “to dig”.
The reciprocal suffix -s/-ys/-is/-us forms verbs that correspond to the English pronoun "each other". This action is performed by two or more similar or identical subjects: kierisme “see each other” from kierme “to see”. Some verbs change their original meaning: bołusma “to help” from bołma “to be”, ałysma “to change” from ałma “to take”. Some of these verbs have comminative meaning instead: icisme “to drink together”, kilisme “to laugh together”.
The causative suffixes -ty-dy-tu-du-ti-dir turn intransitive verbs into transitive, so that they can take a direct object. Some old verbs have this suffix with -a- instead of a high vowel: jomdarma “to collect” from jomma “to come together”, kondarma “to place, to recreate” from konma “to stay overnight”. Many new verbs are formed by this suffix: bołdurma “create”, tołturma “to fill up” from tołma “to become full”, ełtirme “to kill” from ełme “to die”. This suffix, when attached to a transitive verb, creates ditransitive verbs, which take two objects (called direct and indirect). For example, ałdyrma “to make someone bring something”, bildirme “to inform someone”, utturma “let someone win”. In this case, only the direct object in in the accusative case, while the indirect object is in the dative case instead.
The suffix -t also has a causative function, but its usage is more limited, restricted to intransitive verbs that end in a vowel or "-j", "-ł" and "-r": kałtratma “to shake”, kurutma “to make something dry”, kynhyrajtma “to warp”, ujałtma “to shame”.
Another causative suffix is -r with a high vowel before it: bisirme “cook by boiling” from bisme “to boil”, kajyrma “to turn something around” from kajma “to return”. The verbs with a low vowel are rarer, but not absent: kieterme “to delete” from kierme “to go away”, cyharma “to carry out, to take out” from cykma “to exit”. It has a variant with "-h", and "-g" in front, used with some verbs ending in "-r": kiergizme “to show”, turhuzma “to lift up”, barhyzma “to help someone walk”.
The suffix -yz/-iz has identical function, but it's no longer productive. Few verbs still contain it: ahyzma “to pour out” from akma “to flow”, emizme “to breastfeed” from emme “to suck”.
Sometimes two or more verb forms are used as synonyms: azhyrma/azdyrma “to confuse”, or have very subtle differences kajttyrma “to make it come back” and kajtarma “to return something”.
The passive voice is formed with the suffix -ł/-ył/-ił/-uł. This suffix promotes object to the status of subject, but eliminates the previous subject, for example: atałma “to be named” from atama “to name”, beriłme “to be given” from berme “to give”. Several verbs have no passive meaning, but are instead active intransitive: jancyłma “to have a heartbeat”. If a verb already contains "-ł" or "-l", the final consonant of this suffix becomes "-n", making it identical to the reflexive suffix: basłanma means both “to begin” and “to be started”; this usually doesn't create confusion, however.
Sometimes two valency suffixes can be added to the verb. The first suffix is the reciprocal, then reflexive, causative, and finally passive. Here are some examples of every combination:

Reciprocal+reflexive: ałysynma “to change, metamorphose”, kielisinme “to mutually agree”, bołusunma “to help each other”.
Reciprocal+causative: ałystyrma “to substitute”, istyr “to collect together (into a pile)”.
Reflexive+causative: cesindirme “take off someone's clothes”, syjyndyrme “to fit into a place”.
Reflexive+passive: kieriniłme “to show up, appear”.
Causative+reflexive is only possible with the suffix -giz: kiergizinme “to show”.
Causative+passive: azastyryłma “to become confused”, ełtiriłme “to be killed”, ołturhuzułma “to be planted, placed”.

Verb-forming suffixes:

The suffix -hała/-kała/-giele/-kiele forms frequentative verbs: tutkałama “to be catching out” from tutma “to catch”, kieskieleme “cut into pieces” from kiesme “to cut”.
The suffix -ła/-łe creates verbs from instrumental and resultative nouns: belgiłeme “to mark”, tuzakłama “to tie a knot”, isłeme “to work”, ciwrełeme “encircle”. It can also form verbs from adjectives and numerals with the meaning “to make something”: birłeme “to unify (make one)”, itiłeme “to make sharp”, hadirłeme “to prepare”. After the final "-r" and "-ł" this suffix becomes -da/-de: jyrdama “to sing”, gieriłde “to hum”.
The suffix -łan/-łen makes verbs from nouns with the meanings "to get", "to transform", "to become": jiwłenme “to get a house”, bałcykłanma “to get dirty”, aruwłanma “to become clean”, jarykłanma “to become lit”.
The suffix -łas/-łes forms intransitive and reciprocal verbs from nouns: dostłasma “to become friends”, birłesme “to join”.
The suffix -łat/-łet creates transitive verbs from nouns: satyrłatma “to make happy”, karanhyłatma “to obfuscate”, aruwłatma “to purify”.
The suffix -a/-e can make verbs from one-syllable nouns that end in a consonant. Its function is similar to the -ła suffix: isteme “to add” from ist “up, surface”, asama “to eat” from as “food”. Some verbs can form from nouns with a suffix -n or -r, in which case the stem becomes monosyllabic: uc-u-r “event” → ucr-a-ma “to meet”, tit-i-r “vibration” → titr-e-me “vibrate” (jertitremek “earthquake” is formed from this verb). High-vowel variants of this suffix are rare: tatyma “to taste” from “tat” “taste”, awruma “to be ill” from awur “heavy”.
The suffix -ha/-ka/-kie/-gie creates some progressive verbs: tergeme “explore”, onhama “to start feeling better” (onhałma “to recover”), cergie “to cover in a layer”.
The suffix -aj/-ej has a stative or adjectival meaning: munajma “to be sad”, kierkiej “become beautiful”.
It's similar in function to -a-er, which forms intransitive verbs with the meaning “to acquire a quality”: aharma “to whiten”, kickerme “to decrease, to become smaller”, kiezarma “to blush, to redden” from kiez “red”. It has a variant -ha-kar, used with a few old nouns: suwharma “to water, to irrigate”, kutkarma “to save”. Another variant with a high vowel is used only with words for making sounds: kieckirme “to shout”, syzhyrma “to whistle”.
The suffix -yk/-ik/-uk creates intransitive verbs, similar to -a-er, but from one-syllable nouns: tutukma “to rust”, cynykma “to get used to”. It also creates verbs from adjectives: sawukma “to become healthy”, acykma “to starve”.
The suffix -an and its variants forms few verbs of various meaning: sahynma “to recall”, bijenme “to be happy”, seśkienme “to be scared”.
The suffix -na/-ne creates few verbs, mostly from nouns for making sounds: kisneme “to neigh”, cajnama “to chew”.
The suffix -sa and its variants creates verbs for wishing: suwsama “to crave”, umsuma “to have hope” (the reflexive umsunma “to hope” is more common). It can also form abstract verbs: uksama “be similar” from uk “similar”, jimsama “soften” from jim “feather”. This suffix is found in few verbs with valency suffixes: kopsałma “to fluctuate”, from kopma “to rise up”, ałhasanma “to be anxious” and ałhasatma “to spook” from ałhama “to fear”.
The suffix -rhan/-yrhan/-urhan is no longer productive and is preserved in a few verbs: acyrhanma “to be angry”, busurhan “to disobey”.
The suffix -ha/-ka/-gie creates transitive verbs from other verbs: bułhama “to mix” from bulma “to find”, tołhama “to rotate” from tołma “to fill”, cajkama “to swing” from cajma “to rinse”.
The suffix -k/-yk forms completive verbs from other verbs: synykma “to break down” from synma “to break”, jułkma “to tear down” from jułma “to tear”.
The suffix -as/-ys is no longer productive and forms a few verbs: azasma “to be wrong”, cyzysma “to scratch”.

submitted by Raiste1901 to PureTurkic [link] [comments]

2023.03.27 14:19 CaoimhinOg Kolúral: a thorough Introduction, Part 2

Hello again everyone! I apologise in advance for the length of the post, but verbs are a meaty topic. You can check out the first part here: Kolúral Part 1. That's where you'll find the phonology and such, just in case you want an idea of how everything would sound. Without further ado . . .

Verbs

Verb roots are mostly defined by their transitivity and number of syllables, as per this table:

verb roots	monosyllabic	polysyllabic
transitive	tuk (stop)	oklum(o) drink
intransitive	múdh(o) (walk)	kjakjam(e) (laugh)

The vowels in brackets are grace vowels, only appearing under certain circumstances. Although most root verbs are disyllabic or less, not counting grace vowels, some derived verbs can be trisyllabic or more, hence polysyllabic.
It is usually the verb root that is modified by operations of lenition, voicing and/or gemination. In cases where a suffix or prefix is effected, they are usually stem forming, treated as a whole new root. These stem forming affixes are usually derivational, rather than inflectional.

Verbal concord / Person markers

Intransitive verbs only receive one person marker, and almost always surface with their grace vowel:
*"Múdhom"
*I walk
These person markers are disjunctive, they do not harmonise in secondary articulation.
*"Múdhotj"
*You walk
Transitive verbs always take two person markers, or either of the reflexive or reciprocal markers. The grace vowel, if any, usually does not appear:
*"Tuknotj"
*We stop you(sg)
*"Tuktunj"
*You(sg) stop us
*"Tukturj"
*You(sg) stop yourself
*"Tuksorj"
*You(pl) stop yourselves
*"Tuksov"
*You(pl) stop one-another
You may see here that transitive subject marking does harmonise in secondary articulation, but object markers generally do not. The reciprocal is an exception:
*"Takjsjivj"
*You(pl) chop/split eachother
Both transitive and intransitive verbs can take the unspecified or impersonal agent marker, which always harmonizes, it is a conjunct suffix:
*"Múdhor"
*One walks, someone walks
*"Oklumrápj"
*One drinks it, it is drunk (by someone)
Although the English translation may require a passive, as far as grammatical roles are concerned, the object is still marked by the accusative, it is not raised to subject position.
The impersonal agent itself is unmarked for number, and could take either the reflexive or reciprocal marker

Voice

Changes in transitivity are mostly accomplished with either a passive or causative suffix. Neither trigger grace vowels by default, only if necessary to break disallowed clusters. Intransitive verbs can not be directly passivised, though either class can be made causative. These voice markers have slightly different forms when applied to monosyllabic verbs compared to polysyllabic verbs.

Causative

*"Múdhghorkámj"
*They(sg) make me walk
*"Kjakjamerjkjamj"
*They(sg) make me laugh
In transitive verbs, the demoted direct object is retained as a clitic directly after the verb, before indirect object clitics.
*"Tukghortul-mos"
*You(sg) make them(pl) hit me
*"Tukghortul-pjá-mol"
*You(sg) made them(pl) hit it(sg) for me (benefactive)
*"Oklumormok-fúx"
*I make them(sg.an) drink them(pl.inan)
*"Oklumormok-fú-tjil"
*I make them(sg.an) drink them(pl.inan) for you(sg)
As you can see here, the final consonant of the enclitic agreeing with the demoted direct object is retained when final, dropped when followed by a further enclitic.

Passive

The verb root is lenited by the passive suffix:
*"Thukpútonj(-pjáfj)"
*We are stopped (by them(pl.inan)
*"hOklumútof(-sjéghj)"
*They(inan) are drank (-by you(pl)
Here, you can see that the now intransitive passive verb takes the same type of object agreement suffix, that is, one that does not agree in secondary articulation. You can also see the convention of not capitalizing "h".

Tense

So far, you have probably noticed that the translations are some sort of plain present/gnomic/declarative. This unmarked present tense is the default, often used in answering simple questions and making general, "tenseless" statements. They aren't necessarily habitual, even if that impression may be given in translation, they can be and are used in statements regarding a single even.
Kolúral does have a simple past suffix and a simple future suffix, but tense is also indicated by inital lenition, for past, and initial voicing, for future. The suffixes are generally used when a setting is being introduced, and can be committed in connected speech and narratives once it has been set, and continues to be indicated by lenition or voicing as appropriate. The suffixes are also used for emphasis when asserting contrast. In casual speech, the suffixes can usually be omitted, but are retained if necessary for disambiguation, such as when some other source of lenition or voicing is also in effect.
These suffixes also distinguish between monosyllabic verbs and polysyllabic verbs, however they appear after the agent person marker in transitive verbs, before the object marker in either type.

Past

*"Mhúdhlódhum"
*I walked
*"Thukmolódhul"
*I stopped them(pl.inan)
*"Khjakjamédhjisj"
*You(pl) laughed
*"hOklummódhuf"
*I drank them(inan)
Here, you can see a geminate formed by morpheme collision, rather than grammatical operations, in "~oklum-m-ódhu-f".
Aside
As has now been established, the object person marker is disjunctive, the consonant(s) involved do not have to agree in secondary articulation with the rest of the verb, so I have been picking ones that just happen to agree anyway, in their underlying form, for no reason other than I feel they are more euphonious. For example:
*"Khjakjamédhjil"
*They(pl) laughed
I think this is a little less euphonious than "Khjakjamédhjisj", it's a case of:
*"/ˈxʲä.kʲä.mˠe.ðʲɪsʲ/ [ˈçæ.k̟ʲaə̆.mɰe.ðʲɪʃ]"
vs
*"/ˈxʲä.kʲä.mˠe.ðʲɪlˠ/ [ˈçæ.k̟ʲaə̆.mɰe.ðʲɪə̆ɫ]"
Here, the narrow transcription shows the diphongization of vowels when adjacent to an incompatible consonant (here it is front vowels next to a velarised consonant , but the effect occurs in the reverse case as well, i.e. back vowels around palatalized consonants). You can also see that root internal consonants don't control the secondary articulations of harmonius consonants, the harmony, palatal or velar, is "carried" by the vowels. Sometimes I do like the diphongization, that's what it's in the language, but I know it can seem "clunky" or "thick" if you aren't used to it.
Onwards

Future

The future suffix triggers root initial voicing:
*"Mwúdhxúghok"
*They will walk
*"dTukkaxúghok"
*They(sg¹.an) will stop them(sg².an)
*"mOklumlúghof"
*They(pl) will drink them(sg.inan)
*"gKjakjamíghjetj"
*You(sg) will laugh
Here, you can see the convention of not capitalizing consonants that are being used to indicate changes in voicing when they occur before the base consonant. You can also see another geminate caused by morpheme collision in "~tuk-ka-xúgho-k".

Aspect

The aspectual suffixes include some that are mostly derivational. They occur after the object marker of transitive verbs, separated from the tense suffixes, but before the object marker of intransitive verbs, following the tense suffixes directly. They are disjunctive, their consonants do not change in secondary articulation, but they do still obey vowel harmony.

Habitual

The habitual suffix is mostly inflectional. It triggers root internal voicing, the medial consonant of the verb root is voiced. It is usually used in the sense of "regularly/daily", but it is quite vague and modifying it to express less or more frequent (but regular) repetitions would not be infelicitous. The past and future forms usually indicate that the habituality is not occuring in the present, or at least that any present habituality is irrelevant, but do not exclude that explicitly. The past form can often be translated as "used to".
*"Múwdhúvúm / Mhúwdhlódhúvúm / Mwúwdhxúghúvúm"
*I walk regularly / I walked regularly / I will walk regularly
*"Tugkmolúv / Thugkmolódhlúv / dTugkmoxúghlúv"
*I regularly stop them(pl.an) / I regularly stopped them / I will regularly stop them
*"Kjagkjamívínj / Khjagkjamédhjívínj / gKjagkjamíghívínj"
*We laugh regularly / We laughed regularly / We will laugh regularly
*"Ogklumlófúv / hOgklumlódhfúv / mOgklumlúghfúv"
*You(pl) drink them(pl.inan) regularly / You drank them regularly / You will drink them regularly
Above, the laugh example, and some other verbs, could be translated as "tend to" or "easily".

Durative

The durative triggers root internal gemination. It can often be translated as "still (be)", "continue to" or "really", sometimes functioning as a verbal augmentative or approbative. It often has some shades of imperfectivity, but this is not essential.
*"Múdhdhadhóm / Mhúdhdholódhadhóm / Mwúdhdhoxúghadhóm"
*I('m) still walk(ing) / I continued to walk / I will still (be) walk(ing)
*Okklumlófadh / Okklumlódhufadh / Okklumlúghofadh
*You(pl) really(/keep) drink(ing) them(inan) / You(pl) really(/kept) drank(/drinking) them(inan) / You(pl) will really(/still be) drink(ing) them(inan)
I won't be as exhaustive with the forms from now, we know where the person markers go in relation to the tense on different types of verbs, and it's tricky to translate some of them succinctly as they don't line up to just one possible translation all the time.

Iterative

The iterative indicates that the action takes places multiple repeated times, usually in a short timeframe, though this is subjective and relative. It triggers internal voicing, like the habitual. In some cases it is more derivational, creating a meaning that may not be easily predictable from the root.
*"Tagkjsjepjetj"
*You(pl) chop/split it up

Reversative

The reversative indicates the reverse of an action, sometimes the undoing of an action.
*"Bjrjedhjmjepjeghés / Bjrjedhjmjepj"
*I unsheath it / I sheath/stow it
*"Rálhmorjoghós"
*I un-sit myself (get myself up and going)
Note that the word sit, "rálh(ú)" is normally an intransitive verb, this being one of the more commonly lexicalized aspectual suffixes, but still semi-productive at least.

Repetitive

The repetitive indicates a repeated action, usually just one repetition unless also iterative or otherwise indicated, not concurrent with the first but following it by some unspecified duration. It can often be translated by the "re-" prefix.
*"Tuktupjul"
*You(sg) re-stop it / stop it again
*"Múdhmulaf"
*I re-walk them(inan) / I double check them (of paths, roads, lines, etc,)
Walk is another intransitive-becoming-transitive, something needs to share the load of that one causative suffix . . .

Mood

Initial mood

Breaking away from the long tail of the verb paradigm to some pro-clitics, a small set of preverbal mood markers. They are clitics, so they don't "steal" the root initial stress, and usually don't agree in vowel harmony.
The interrogative marker is "á" and it triggers root initial voicing:
*"Á-dtuktul?"
*Do you(sg) hit them(an)?
*"Á-moklumnúf?"
*Do we drink them?
The standard response to these simple interrogatives is to repeat the verb as appropriate. The affirmative response is the simple verb, I'll deal with negating the verb shortly.
There is also a negative interrogative, which works in a very similar way:
*"Na-dtuktul?"
*Don't you(sg) hit them(an)?
*"Na-noklumnúf?"
*Do we not drink them?
Responding to a negative interrogative with an affirmative verb shows disagreement, where as a negated response would signal agreement with the negative proposition.
The last proclitic is the emphatic, which obeys vowel harmony and has an allomorph for vowel initial roots. It is of course used for emphasis, often for contrast, clarification or in protest:
*"Do-múdhom"
*I (do) walk!
*"De-kjakjamenj"
*We (do) laugh!
*"D-oklumkáf"
*You (do) drink them(inan)!

Final mood

Appearing after the aspectual suffixes are a series of mood suffixes. They appear before the object marker of intransitive verbs, at the very end of transitive verbs. They serve a diverse range of functions, but occur in the same positions and could all be called moods of some type.
The imperative suffix is one of the simplest. It adds imperative force and causes root internal gemination. It is technically only an imperative in 2nd person, but works as a jussive, hortative, etc, in other persons:
*"Múdhdhotukjú!"
*(You.sg) Walk!
*"Takjkjrjapjákjí"
*May one split it! May it be split (by someone)
In that last one, there is the same trouble with the impersonal agent person marker. The English requires a passive and (to me at least) seems "future-y". I think just saying "may it snap in twain!" carries more of the imperative force, but again, inanimate subjects are dispreferred, and "split (in half/apart/off)" are all possible depending on context.
The hypothetical or propositional causes no root internal changes. It essentially marks that the verb and its clause may or may not be true. It is often used for guesses or hypotheses, indirect or polite questions and in rhetorical devices.
*"Dolmopjákó (guxxa) (pját gkúttupjávja?)"
*Say/Given that I like(ed) it (tea) . . . (what then/what is that that you (would) do?)
*"Á-dholmopjákó?"
*Perhaps you like tea?(would you like a tea?)
The bracketed portion of the hypothetical example above is marked with the conditional case. The conditional case causes root initial voicing. It generally appears in contrafactuals or conditions that may not necessarily be realized:
*"Súl dholnúfúvja, dhúghmofúvja njárgho"
*If you want them(inan), I would give them to you
You don't always need bith clauses in the conditional, or the if-word "súl". The above is ambiguous as to whether or not it is a question.
*"Dhúghmoxúghfú, súl dholnúfúvja?"
*I will give them(inan) to you, if you would like them(inan)?
*"Thjíghlólódhupj, (súl) dhollópjávja"
*They(pl) would have taken it, had they(pl) wanted to.
*"dTjíghlóxúghopj, dhollópjávja"
*They will(would) take it, if they wanted to take it (but they don't)
*"dTjíghlóxúghopj, súl dhollópjávja"
*They(pl) will take it, if they(pl) want to (which they may, or may not)
Moving on to the subjunctive, which may be termed a dependent mood, generally restricted to subordinate clauses, it often appears as the verb in relative clauses. It also causing root intial voicing:
*"Dolmopj mwúdhlhánj"
*I want you to walk / that you walk
*"Dolmok emj-khúnndhurná (kaxxán) mwúdhoklhá"
*I want the dog which walks
In that last example, the relativising particle can be ommitted, as "the dog" is the only overt argument and the subordinate verb is marked in a way that agrees with "the dog". It helps that the verbs bith technically agree with an object dog marker, even though dog is relativised from object position.
*"Dolmok emj-khúnndhurná kaxxán noklumkáflhá"
*I want the dog which drinks them(inan)
Here the relativising particle would at least be expected in formal speech, as "the dog" fills neither the same syntactic role nor verb marker position, despite these markers behaving differently with regards the aspectual and mood suffixes. However, this particle could still be elided in casual speech in this context.
*"Dolmok emj-khúnndhurná kaxxánrá (emj-mwjíkjkja) bhjólkáklhá" vs "Dolmok emj-khúnndhurná kaxxán (emj-mwjíkjkjaná) bhjólkáklhá"
*I want the dog which (the cat) hit vs I want the dog which hit (the cat)
No relativising particles are being dropped here, even in casual speech (except maybe sometimes when sufficient context allows, maybe). There is too much possibility for ambiguity.

Negation, Perfectivity and more

You may have noticed that, as well as leaving polarity for now, so far all the verbs have been in a vague habitual/perfect/perfective sort of aspect. The progressive or continous, as well as many other aspects, and plain negation, are all handled in a similar way, with a supporting auxillary verb and a deverbal form. Some examples may help:
*"Pém múdháx"
*I am walking
This is more literally "I am walk-at". This copula is the eventive or "action" copula, as distinct from the stative copula:
*"Ósúm kjétj"
*I am a person / I am human/sentient
This is also distinct from the dynamic copula, which is used as an auxillary verb as well as a generic "do" verb:
*"Kútmof oklumáx"
*I am drinking them(inan)
These positive copulae are further distinct from the negative copula, one of the few verbs than can be inflected transitively or intransitively without some other derivational operation occuring. Some verbs can be inflected either way, but often with opaque semantic differences, whereas the negative copula is totally semantically bleached. It forces the verb into a connegitive form, which involves both a suffix and root internal gemination, usually forcing the root final echo vowel to appear:
*"Ném múdhdhonó"
*I do not walk
*"Némjepj okklumnó"
*I do not drink it
*"Ném kjakjkjamenóáx"
*I am not laughing
Here we see two vowels in hiatus, which can occur, but it is rare, particularly in roots, even transmorphemically it is uncommon. The negative copula has a long form used when conjugated for tense or voice:
*"Nérjerjnjédhjitj-pjáfj okklumnó"
*We didn't make them(an) drink it
This means that the negative copula, despite appearing short, always takes polysyllabic voice and tense suffixes. It also negates states:
*"Ném kjétj"
*I am not a person / not human/sentient
The various copular supports allow for more than just a progressive, they also support various other aspects or other meanings, using various repurposed locative markers:
*"Pém múdhfok"
*I am beginning to walk / I am starting to walk
*"Pém múdhopjalj"
*I am ceasing to walk / I coming to a stop from walking
*"Pém múdhdhon"
*I have (just) walked / I am from walking
These repurposed locative suffixes can be used with verbs that do not normally function as copulae:
*"Ánjalódhum múdhosják"
*I will go by walking / by foot
*"Ánjalódhum múdhútjúghj"
*I will go to walk / I will go in order to walk
The eventive and dynamic copulae have suppletive forms for certain tenses and moods, the dynamic, as well as both suppletive roots, have long forms for tense and voice, just like the negative:
*"Pékíghjemj múdháx"
*I will be walking
*"Túnódhum múdháx"
*I was walking
*"Súl dtúvjam múdháx . . ."
*If I am walking . . .
*"hÓslódhum kjétj"
*I was a person
*"Bhíljíghjem kjétj"
*I will be a person
*"Á-bhík kjétj?"
*Are they(sg) human?
I won't exhaustively go through the variations and exceptions of these irregular verbs.

Deverbalisation

We have already sent the infinitive suffix and connegitive suffix, both of which are true deverbals. The repurposed locative suffixes used for aspectual purposes may be considered deverbalising as well. Here is the infinitive of some verbs, rather than the verbalized adjectives shown earlier:
*"Múdhjot"
*To walk
*"Kjakjamjetj"
*To laugh
As you can see, there is an alternation in the secondary articulation of the root final consonant.
*"Dolmopj múdhjdhjoton"
*I like to walk
*"Kálom múdhjot"
*I must walk / I have to walk
These modal verbs may or may not force the infinitive to decline for core cases, depending on whether or not the infinitive is person marked on the verb. Infinitives decline as inanimate nouns, usually singular. Modal verbs can be the predicate of a clause or they can modify the main predicate by taking a special modal suffix:
*"Dolmopj kháloghuk múdhjdhjoton"
*I like having to walk
*"Kálom lhjéfjighik múdhjot"
*I like (being able)/having the ability to walk
*"Pém lhjéfjighik múdhot káláx"
*I like being able to (be) walk(ing)
The participle forms of verbs can differentiate agentive and patientive as well as past or future. The default participle is usually interpreted as present. Here are some patientive participle examples:
*"Golud takjikj"
*Chop-wood
This could be "wood that one chops" or "wood which gets chopped".
*"Golud dtakjikj"
*Wood that will be chopped / wood for chopping
*"Golud thakjikj"
*Chopped wood / wood which has been chopped
The above examples with overt tense are a little be clearer. The agentive participle works similarly:
*"Kjétj takjilj"
*Chopper, person who chops
*"Kjétj dtakjilj"
*Person who will chop
*"Kjétj thakjilj"
*Person who chopped
The eventive deverbal nominalizes the act itself:
*"Dolmopj múdhdhodhú"
*I like walking
*"Dolmopj okklumú"
*I like drinking
The eventive captures the distinction between "I like to walk (myself)" vs "I like walking (as a spectator sport or mode of transport). A further form, which distinguishes between long and short forms, is used for modifying nouns in an imperfect aspect.
*"Kjétj tagkjitjim"
*A person chopping
This modifying form generally assumes a subject like modificand, requiring passivisation of the verb other wise:
*"Golud thakjipjítjtjim"
*Wood being chopped
Here, having an inanimate "subject" is fine, as the verb is deverbalized and the noun isn't case marked. This modifying form may be termed adjectival or a gerund/gerundive of some sort. Some other forms more like traditional adjectives can be made:
*"Kjétj núlhátúx"
*A jumpy person, someone likely to jump
More strictly nominal deverbals can be formed as agents, patients or locations. Many of these suffixes also fluctuate between long and short forms based on the verb root:
*"Póruváron"
*Teacher
*"Pórórú"
*Teachee, student
*"Pórángor"
*Classroom

Numbers

Of course, numbers get their own special section. Kolúral is vigesimal with a decimal sub-base and has two sets of numeral words, an inanimate set and an animate set. Kolúral numbers are generally agglutinative, with suffixes to differentiate cardinal, ordinal, groups and other usages.

	animate	inanimate
0	énj (zeroth/ego)	fat(e) (zero/origin)
1	tinj(e)	kán(u)
2	pre	tán
3	fot	pjimj
4	rjenj	kjemj
5	puk	pál
6	gjitj	dák
7	kret	bjat
8	njevj	djexj
9	múl	góp
10(A)	tjísj	tépj
11(B)	tjétj	kát
12(C)	prétj	tát
13(D)	fót	pjétj
14(E)	rjétj	két
15(F)	pót	pálót
16(G)	gjétj	dáxót
17(H)	krétj	bjétj
18(I)	njétj	djétj
19(J)	mút	gót
20(10)	dó(gh)	fjixj

Separate forms are retained for groups:

	animate	inanimate
pair	preghin	támon
trio	foghun	pjimjen
quartet	rjenjighin	kjemjen
quintet	pukghun	pálmon

However, the other forms generally use inanimate roots regardless:

ordinal
first	gjendh
second	tándh
third	pjimjdhj
fourth	kjemjdhj
fifth	páldh

And here are some more:
(in) twain: "tánún" twice: "tánalj" half: "tánuv" double: "tánóx"
(in) trine: "pjimjínj" thrice: "pjimjalj" third: "pjimjiv" triple: "pjimjéx"
These derivations are productive for all inanimate numbers.

End

That's pretty much it for now. I touched on relative clauses a little and I'm sure you can see some more of the multi clause structure in the dependant mood sections. There are plenty of odd constructions and rules regarding the argument animacy preferences, but I think I'll leave them for another time.
I might stick any further exhaustive detailing in documents or on a website, and then link that in an overview post that's shorter than this two part beast.
Again, let me know what you think, what you like or don't like and why, any questions you may have or bits you want me to expand on. Meta-critiques are also welcome, about formatting, layout, order, whatever you may wish to note or comment on.

Happy conlanging, and thank you so much for reading.

submitted by CaoimhinOg to conlangs [link] [comments]

2022.12.05 07:43 mermaidpaint Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book.

Original post: Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book. Posted on October 18, 2019
My story starts off as mundane as anybody’s: Five years into working for an enormous corporation, my group was “reorg’ed”. This particular reorg was, like most efforts, a half-baked idea ginned up by a suit in a corner office, questionably planned, poorly executed and terribly communicated. Nonetheless, I was sent from my old group to a brand new (to me) group managed by Jim. Jim seemed an okay fellow, with a dry sense of humor and a British accent that lulled me into thinking he was a decent guy.
Working for Jim was … okay. He was never available and when we did meet maybe once a month he’d bark off a list of things for me to do, then say he had a conflict and had to go to another call. I was floundering a little, but felt I had a handle on things.
During my first annual review via phone, Jim offered up vanilla platitudes about how things were going well, while I heard him distractedly typing away at IM’s from people pinging him. He paused when he got to my salary and hedged, a bit.
“Ahhh… so I got you a small increase, I couldn’t get you much. To be frank, I’m not going to question how anyone arrives at their salary level, but you make way more than the other people on my team.”
It was awkward, but not the first time I’ve had such a pointed salary discussion with a male manager. It’s never been a talking point with any of the women who managed me, and I wondered if he would have made those comments to me if I were a man. I’ve managed teams over the years and noticed the women on my teams seemed to make less than their male counterparts, so I get I’m an anomaly. But, I’m a high performer in a 25-year uninterrupted career, as I never chose to have children. I’ve worked hard for my salary and I’m proud of it. I could get hired elsewhere at this salary in my market easily given my experience, qualifications and certifications.
Shortly after our review, Jim moved on to work with my primary group of business partners, leaving me with no manager, just a 2-up manager I’d never met or spoken to.
And that’s when the shit hit the fan.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my salary was brought up in a discussion with his new team, the fine ladies who were managers of the teams I worked with in my business partner group.
As it's been relayed to me, Jim didn’t blurt out the specific details of course, but when one of the women complained about something I'd done, Jim said he was surprised there were issues because I was the highest paid person on his (now former) team. He poisoned the well quite nicely for me.
Going back through my emails I could pinpoint the date and time the remark was said, because the tone of EVERY SINGLE ONE of those managers changed as if on a dime. If I asked a question, I was berated because, “You’re our most senior analyst! You should know that!” Documentation that had sufficed before was suddenly “all wrong”.
There were two particularly hostile culprits: Pat, who managed reporting on the systems we were migrating and her underling PM, Wanda.
Pat came at me quick, fangs bared, with a demand that I put together a plan to get us to the next-generation of reporting which wasn’t due to be released until 2021. The 2021 plan Wanda, her PM had put together, looked like notes on a greasy cocktail napkin, so Pat decided that since I was the SME, I should do Wanda's work for her instead.
Pat wanted a plan from today, in 2019 through to the date of release in May 2021. According to her it had to include ALL the tasks needed for delivery right from the start, which is not how planning works. I can’t predict the future, so my plans usually start out detailed in the near term, with increasingly wider swaths of more generalized tasks to be elaborated in detail as we get further along. This is an industry standard approach, and was never a problem, right up until it was.
Pat started hounding me relentlessly to get this full plan done for her in 5 days, which would have been an impossible task under the best of circumstances. Nonetheless, I put together a 2000-line long plan, working evenings and over the weekend, because my arms had been in pain for several months from typing at my home office and I had to take frequent breaks from the pain.
Note: I had been made a remote employee against my will, and when I was reorg'ed I started asking for a desk back at work. Jim always dismissed my request, saying there was “no space”, so I spent over $1500 on an ergonomic chair and desk for my home to make typing easier, but my arms still hurt anytime I sat at the keyboard for more than a half hour.
I had to back-burner my more immediate, pressing work for upcoming releases in the next couple of months, because Pat told me I had to prioritize her work over everything else. I had no manager to help redirect my priorities back to my other work and when I tried to say it would have to wait until I finished my more pressing work, Pat sighed and bitterly said in front of a half-dozen people including Wanda, “So you’re our most SENIOR SME and you’re telling me you can’t do the work?”
Pat then decided to up the ante by insisting I run every element of the plan I was creating FOR Wanda BY Wanda, a junior level PM who not only didn’t understand the systems we were using - I had to tell her how to create her own status reports - but wrote at a third grade level. Even subject/verb agreement is out of Wanda’s grasp. But she had a chip on her shoulder and now she believed she could tell me what to do and how to do it. It was like a teacup poodle trying to guide a Rottweiler.
Wanda was immediately and clearly out of her element, and obviously so. As a result, every single time she was caught fucking up, she threw me right under the bus. She’d preemptively throw me under the bus too. Wanda’s only talent was deflecting blame and painting herself as the victim.
I didn’t know what to do, I was having anxiety attacks. My heart would start racing to 145bpm on the couch at night when I started thinking about work. I was overwhelmed and my arms were killing me and then the unthinkable happened… My mom suddenly died.
When I told the team, they were not only completely unsympathetic. They were pissed. I had to take a week of bereavement and this, too, pissed them off as I was leaving the day before the deadline Pat had given me to finish Wanda’s plan for the 2021 project. Instead of packing for the funeral or connecting with my family, I spent the 3 days before my leave working late nights trying to finish the plan. We met at 5PM the day before I was to go on leave, where Pat and Wanda ripped into my plan, and said they would work with another team member to fix all of my “mistakes” in the week I was gone.
Finally free of the evil twins, I went on leave. And while on leave, my arms stopped hurting. After 6 weeks of physical therapy for my arm problems, just not typing for awhile helped immensely.
I had two days left before I had to go back to the hellhole, and I was dreading it. When the heart palpitations started up again, I knew I couldn’t go back.
At first, I decided I would just quit the day I was supposed to return. I didn’t want to even give them two weeks notice, I hated them so much. They had been so cruel about me taking bereavement leave. I wanted to fuck them over, good and proper. No two weeks notice meant I’d leave them hanging for their near-term releases that I’d not been allowed to finish up my work for, as well as for the 2021 plan.
And if I burned a bridge or my reputation, so what? I’m nearing the age where people usually retire or have a major career change. I don’t need to keep that bridge any longer. I have saved up enough, and dammit my health was more important to me than these toxic people OR my paycheck. The night I decided to quit I went to sleep relieved and not anxious, for the first time in six months. I felt the anxiety leaving me, knowing I wouldn’t have to work with those people ever again.
It felt like a solid plan.
Then the next morning I woke up with a plan even more brilliant. It checked ALL my boxes:
• I wouldn’t have to go back to work
• I wouldn’t have to give two weeks notice, so they’d still be fucked
• I would still get paid
• AND I would be able to take care of my arms that had been in pain for so long! AND while I’m at it, manage the anxiety that had spiraled out of control because of my hostile coworkers
My new and improved plan was simple: Take medical leave.
I needed protected medical leave in the form of FMLA, which for those not in the US, provides up to 12 weeks of leave where my specific job role and salary must be protected and available to me upon my return.
And because it was medical leave, I was automatically enrolled in Short Term Disability, for which my company will pay 100% of my salary for 8 weeks and then 65% of my salary for the remaining weeks I’m out.
The best part of this plan is it fucks over all the people I want to fuck over AND IT’S ALL 100% LEGIT! I had been having problems keeping up at work because of all the doctors visits I had for my arms, physical therapy, regular therapy for my anxiety that had gotten out of control, and a psychiatrist. My health issues were eating into my workday, causing me to have to work early mornings, nights and weekends more than ever, and no doubt pissing off these people who thought I was making too much money to be deserving of any time off for doctor’s appointments.
My team got a new manager after 6 weeks, coincidentally just the day before I was to come back from bereavement. I was sneakily logged onto work every day to catch his name and I stealthily dialed into the conference call where he was introduced to the team. My 2-up manager that I’ve never spoken to even said at the outset: “I think we have everyone on the bridge. Thisjobisgonnakillme won’t be here, she’s on bereavement.”
I called up the administrators of our FMLA and Short Term Disability plans to file my claim. I got the forms and figured out which of my half-dozen doctors had to fill what out. My orthopedist signed me off for 12 weeks of absence straight away because she noted I’d been in pain since May so it would likely take awhile to heal. After talking with her, my PT and my psychiatrist, I will likely do physical therapy for 6 weeks and then enroll in a program for anxiety and stress management for the remaining 6 weeks before returning. All covered by my insurance and all FREE because I met my out of pocket maximum halfway through the year due to a hospital stay for a different medical issue.
The night before I was due back, I sat there grinning while looking at the next morning’s 8:00AM calendar invite from Wanda. In her illiterate fashion she had written, “It is IMPOTANT all crucial partners makes every effort to attend this call!!”
Like most of Wanda's obnoxiously illiterate declarations, it was a dig at me because I’d said in my last call with her and Pat that I might not be able to log on until 9AM on the day I returned from leave.
I opened a new window and typed out to my new manager, “Dear Phil, I hate that this is our first introduction to each other, but while I was attending my mother’s funeral an ongoing medical issue resurfaced and I need to take medical leave immediately.”
I went on to inform him I’d been hospitalized a couple months back and there were other issues that were preventing me from returning to work, and he could get the details from my prior manager Jim. Not that Jim paid a damn bit of attention to the emails I sent him detailing my doctor’s visits, etc. even as he had moved on from being my manager, because I still had to let him know about all my absences until I got a new manager. As things got worse at work, I became more clear in my details about my pain with typing getting worse, hoping it might make Jim realize the situation was getting worse, but he never listened.
So here I sit on a beautiful fall Friday morning, getting paid 100% of my salary to write this. Jim wasn’t happy about my salary when I was working for him. I wonder how happy he is about my salary knowing I’m not having to work for it right now.
When I return, I won’t be on the two projects with upcoming releases. One will have already released. The other will release less than 4 weeks after I come back. So they’re fucked on that. I wonder if they’ve figured out the test documents for November haven’t been signed off yet. I was supposed to finalize them for signoff, but Pat forced me to prioritize Wanda’s 2021 project over the November work, so the test documents are still sitting locally on my work desktop, untouched.
I will also be returning with a requirement for “accommodations”, which I am now entitled to as I’ve learned I qualify for them under the ADA. No more telling me I have to work from home or hunch over a table in the breakroom if I want to be in the office. I’m working with an occupational therapist to draft up what those accommodations will be, but a height-adjustable desk, two large monitors, and a “distraction-free workspace” are the top line requirements.
Meanwhile, my treatment plans include exercise, trail walks, both regular therapy and physical therapy, and a weekly massage as well! I’ve added in long visits to the library to read all the books I’ve been wanting to catch up on, and nice lunches a couple times a week to the mix.
Several times throughout the day I’ll look at my watch while walking the trails with my dog, or just relaxing, and I smile broadly thinking about Pat and Wanda and Wanda’s “IMPOTANT” project plan for 2021. Wonder what poor sod they’ve roped in to help her finish it now.
I still may just quit right after I return, or they can just fire me, I’d be indifferent about that. But at least this way I’ll have milked 12 more weeks of pay out of these assholes, while benefiting from all the free medical and emotional assistance my insurance plan can buy. They say living well is the best revenge, and I can’t think of a company or a group of people who deserve my pro revenge more.
tl;dr: Asshole boss moves to new role, poisons the well with my business partners by telling them I was the highest paid person on his prior team. They set out to make my life so miserable I almost quit. I decide instead to fuck them over "by the book", taking a much-needed extended medical leave, leaving them hanging for their upcoming releases, all the while still collecting that "highest paid" salary for a good, long while.
Update : Update: Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book Posted on Jan 8, 2020
I left one minor detail out of my first post: My mother was incredibly abusive and we hadn't spoken for 5 years. My "bereavement" leave was a week of chilling out trying to figure out what to do about work because I didn't even go to her funeral. No one at work knew this, my "official story" was I was grieving such a devastating loss, and that's what you'll read in the original post.
I think that's enough to catch everyone up. Here's how everything's gone down since...
First, the leave could not have come at a better time. The day I made my last post, my sweet cat Ray was "not himself". In fact, that's the last video I took of him. I took him to the emergency vet, where we found out he had lymphoma in his liver and pancreas. We had to let him go a couple of days later. There was no way I could have worked and grieved for him at the same time, and going on medical leave right after your cat dies is not nearly as socially acceptable as taking leave after your mom dies. Rest in peace, my sweet boy.
I was spinning for a good couple of weeks after that. My arms still hurt a lot and I wasn't able to type for more than 20-30 minutes, and even that hurt. I continued physical therapy, and was frustrated at how slow the progress was. My therapist asked me to video myself typing at home. He took one look at it and saw the problem immediately: My desk and chair were fine, the horizontal and vertical parts of my workspace were fine. The problem was that my keyboard was too narrow so my arms were constantly at an angle which caused stress on all the joints. At his recommendation, I bought an ergonomic split keyboard
and immediately noticed a difference. By the end of the year I was pain-free, although I still can't type for as long as I used to.
Because my out-of-pocket maximum had been reached with my health insurance, I took the opportunity to get everything checked out "under the hood". I'm 48 so I had a colonoscopy & endoscopy (fun!); the doc says my "colon is perfect" so if I ever need a Tinder bio, I know what to lead with. I went to the dermatologist, gynecologist, every 'ologist' in the book and except for my shitty arms, I'm pretty healthy.
I also went into an IOP (intensive outpatient program) for therapy the last six weeks of the year where I spent 3 hours, 3 days a week in group therapy with other people. I made some amazing and fascinating new friends, including a paramedic and firefighter both coping with PTSD, an Afghanistan veteran and several others. I also learned about "complex trauma" from childhood abuse, and came to realize that my anxiety, depression and ADHD were not necessarily three separate diagnoses, but instead were symptoms of "complex PTSD" (CPTSD) likely related to my mother's continual abuse and a few other traumatic childhood events.
Because of IOP, I'm now working with a "trauma therapist" and left my general therapist. After decades of regular therapy barely helping, I have someone to work with to help me truly put my past in the past so I can heal emotionally.
My mother's death and this leave was the best thing that could have happened for my physical and emotional health. When I made my last post, I resented the hell out of Jim, Pat and Wanda for being so cruel to me at work. I still don't like them, but I've moved past resentment and I'm now grateful for the situation, because their hostility was the catalyst that got me the treatment I've needed for ~~years~~ decades.
My husband and I also met with our financial adviser who, after running the numbers, made it clear that for both of us, work should be considered as more of a "want to" thing than a "need to" activity. (Turns out dual-income, no kids and saving throughout my 25 year career was a good decision!)
So I decided I don't "want to" work for this company anymore.
My leave ended and I returned to work two days ago. As soon as I returned I sat down with my new manager and told him about Jim, Pat and Wanda. Of course, no one had filled him in on their behavior. I gave him some hard copies of emails documenting their stunts. He was shocked by that, but was not surprised when I ended my 5 minute summary with, "So unfortunately I'm going to have to resign." I handed over my letter with my two-weeks notice.
He asked me if I truly wanted to work those two weeks and I said, "Not particularly, no, but I do want to get some things off my work computer so I need to get it back online." He agreed it would be a waste for me to try to really pick up anything. I jumped through the hoops of getting my computer online to get those docs. I blocked Jim, Pat and Wanda, along with three other people who were toxic but not QUITE as nasty as those three, as soon as I pulled up MS Communicator. I'm not attending any meetings. I have just one meeting on my calendar next week - the one where my new manager will announce my departure to the team. Meanwhile, I'm getting paid full salary for these two weeks as well, AND I'll get all my 2020 vacation days paid out when I leave!
So, the final tally of just how much Jim's asshole move cost my company and benefited me:

1 week of bereavement leave at 100% of my salary
8 weeks of FMLA paid at 100% "
4 weeks of FMLA paid at 65% "
1.5 weeks of extended "certified medical leave" paid at 65% "
2 weeks of salary at 100%
4 weeks of PTO payout at 100% "

For a grand total of 20.5 weeks or 5 months of salary (at varying rates) for doing nothing but taking care of my own damn self. And I'm not including the thousands of dollars I didn't have to pay while getting checkups, medical procedures, physical therapy and group therapy as it was all covered by my company's medical insurance.
I'm also not including what they all had to go through to put a new person on these releases, and all the stress I DIDN'T have because I didn't end up delivering on these projects. The weekend in November when my project was set to go live, I was in another town for an old friend's memorial, seeing people I hadn't seen in 20 years. I wouldn't have been able to attend if I hadn't gone on leave.
I'm not going to reveal my salary, but I will say that the last several months have cost the company tens of thousands of dollars, for my salary alone. The other benefits I've reaped, on top of the salary, have been immeasurable.
They say living well is the best revenge and it's true. Jim, Pat and Wanda are still their ugly-ass selves, chained to their desks, bitter and making sure everyone around them knows it.
As for me, I'm free of the chains of a 9-5 job. I don't think I'm going to look for another job for quite some time and when I do it's going to have to be something I want to do, not something I need to do. Now I just need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
TL;DR: Prior manager and business partners were assholes to me because they were jealous of my salary. I had a minor breakdown and took medical leave, grieved for the loss of my pet, the loss of an old friend, got healthier and got the therapy I really need to heal emotionally from some major shit in my life - all while still collecting that salary they were so jealous of.And now I'm leaving them behind to go fuck themselves while I figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life

Reminder - I'm not OOP and do not comment on the original posts.

submitted by mermaidpaint to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

2022.11.01 19:37 OmarTheFabulous notes for English A2

[01/11, 8:08 pm] otf: Language and self - Hockett describes arbitrary, displacement, semanticity, creativity as features of human language - LRH by Sapir-Whorf has strong and weak - Hunt and Agnoli's cognitive approach
Strong LRH: - Boroditsky points out untranslatability, and culture may also affect thought - Inuits have words for snow, Hopi are timeless and regard less as objects - Carroll and Casagrande study Navajo - Lenneberg and Roberts see it as circular, Garnham and Oakhill point out translation error and environmental needs - "she's a ship"
Weak LRH: - Carmichael et al. study memory - Lenneberg and Roberts study Zuni - Berlin and Kay study universal colours, Heider studied Dani - Davies and Corbett studied Setswana, Russian, and English - Davidoff studied the Berinmo - Hunt and Agnoli see it as vague
Cognitive approach: - Hunt and Agnoli describe arithmetic differences - Computational cost - Hoffman et al studied Chinese - Language affected spatial and time thinking, and development - Eysenck and Keane see it as unquantified - Culture still may affect thought
Thought determines language: - By Piaget - Object permanence - Egocentric speech - Tomasello and Farrar study relational words - Sinclair-de-Zwart studied conservation - Harley studies impairment - Yamanda studies Laura - Underestimates role of lang in cognitive development (see Luria and Yudovich)
Thought intertwines with language: - By Vygotsky - Language is external and internal, children can't separate it - Supported by Luria and Yudovich - Difficult to assess [01/11, 8:08 pm] otf: - Bernstein theorised restricted and elaborated code - Gave off LRH vibes - Labov criticised its supremacy and usage of formality - Differences in scores show cultural bias - Language is varied - Labov dignifies AAVE - Labov shows substandard = poor education, there were court cases - Oakland controversy - Haas: children have genderlects, Owens: bc they got it from parents - Fathers are more commanding and insulting (Berko Gleason and Greif), should account for culture (Tannen) - Lakoff: men use expletives and blunter qs, reflects inequality - Cameron criticises mischaracterisation - Burke et al. criticise outdatedness - Tannen's cultural differences model - Women're more consensual (Tannen), more emotional (Owens & Tannen), causing misunderstandings (Tannen) - Cameron criticises it as overgeneralisation - Spender argues language is sexist [01/11, 8:08 pm] otf: History of English - Murray's criteria of modern English (1611 and 1688) - /kn gn/ > /n/ - /iʊ/ > /jʊ/ > /juː/ (16th cent) - /eʊ/ > /iʊ/ (16th cent) > /juː/ (18th~19th cent) - BrE bans /Clj/ not /lj/, AmE bans /Tj/ in addition - write/wrote/written, sing/sang/sung go back to IE ablaut - mice; geese; oxen goes back to Germanic inflection class - Modern Eng is base-invariant, word-based - -s is /z s ɪz/ (before it was /ɪs s/) - -ed is /d t ɪd/ - Irregular: variable or invariable base, regular or irregular inflectional allomorph - keep vs kept, deal vs dealt, leaf vs leaves, child vs children have word-based and stem-based. Alternation is irrelevant - write vs wrote vs written, mouse vs mice have replacive morph. Alternation is relevant - bleed vs bled goes back to Late Old English - blēdde vs geblēd, scytte vs gescyt lost ending and gemination - Number is primary, Genitive is secondary and cliticised - Germanic preterit presens > modal verbs, lexical verbs have agreement morpheme - Rise in verbal compounds - first member expressing its semantic-syntactic relation to the second member - Stem compounds - Bleaching, grammaticalisation, secretion - Zero-derivation after loss of endings - Blending is from Latin and Greek, irregular ones are more recent. Comparable to Austro-Hungary - Non-native is usually stem-based (Latin and Greek) - defrost, disarm, may be zero-derived too - Loss of v2 word order, see Indian English - Modals don't take object and are finite and have deontic and epistemic modality - Anderson proposes coalescence of morpho and syntax subject - 3S -th/-s/-∅ and spread of do-support caused by dialectal contact

Parametric theory (reanalysis), e.g. grammaticalisation. See Roberts and Roussou. Uses functional heads to explain word order VARIATION
Grammar competition has Constant Rate Effect
Pintzuk and Taylor
Actualisation of change is gradual, and is systemic, spatial, social, or stylistic [01/11, 8:09 pm] otf: - Grammar is the cognitive organisation of experience w/language (Bybee)
Form-function reanalysis, see Hollmann
Change is gradual
Fischer and van der Wurff: little change in nouns in contradistinction to Denison
one > a, DEM > the, usage of "sum > some"
Old English had strong/weak
be going to becomes auxiliary
exempler vs non-exemplar by Kiparsky
degree modifiers and cleft constructions
Phraseological units
Intensify or emphasise
Idiomaticity: full, partial, collocate
Different formal fixedness
May be modified
Gläser: nominations, propositions, reduced propositions
modern parallel expression, betrays routine formula, alliterated, based of earlier units, idiomatic and opaque, high freq, similar to collocations, identified by "literally" or "proverbial" or inverted commas
Some originate from collocations, are coined, are literary, are borrowed
Hudson model
Units can change: order, number, exchange, syntax, meaning, death (Burger and Linke, Friedrich)
in hand vs on hand
Sinclair's def of collocation
Maaybe a look at Shakp and Chaucer
Word-boundary liaison may've caused GVS
Chaucer's usage of you/thy
Pragmatics studies usage, discourse product
European vs Anglo-American system
Anglo-America: pragmatics explain language change, restricted to non-truth-conditional, invited inferencing
"as long as"
Biber et al refer to inserts: interjections, greetings, discourse markers, attention signals, response elicitors, hesitators, response forms, expletives
Early Modern English exclamations were in comedy, fiction, trials according to Helsinki Corpus. They were also more varied
Speech acts can be performative, e.g. sorry, pardon, excuse me
ye became used for 2S cuz of French
T-V cuz of power and solidarity semantics (Chaucer disproves this) (Brown and Gilman disproved by Mazzon, Honegger, Jucker)

[01/11, 8:09 pm] otf: - Discourse is totality of linguistic practices that pertain to a field - Courtroom discourse (Archer) - Science discourse (Taatsavainen) - News discourse

Structuralism (Saussure, Bloomfield, Hockett, Sapir, Aristotle) vs Autonomism (Venezky, McIntosh, McLaughlin, Hume, John Wallis)
McIntosh introduces graphology
Logographic/Morphographic vs Phonographic: moraic, phonemic/alphabetic, syllabic
Writing systems becomes eventually mixed (Egyptian, Maya, Sumerian, Chinese, HJap=anaesee)
Orthographic depth
Morph(ophon)emic systems break the alphabetic principle
grapheme introduced by Jan Baudoin de Courtenay, differs in autonomism vs struc
Allograph
Naive spelling
No standard (1400) > Grammarians, reformists, printers > 1700 (standard). Still variation
Non-standard is in trade names, TV commercials, internet
OE legal language has subordination, embedding and had no precision or repetition, English stopped being a language, Law Latin then French then mix then English (1500). Has aforesaid and theretofore from Early Modern English
Increasing complexity
Latin died off in science in 1600 and 1700. Split into learned and popular during late ME. Come from 1300 and from Greco-Roman and as translations. Taavitsainen mentions question and answer format. Halliday emphasises importance of nouns.
Registers had impact on Standard
hypotactic and embedded structure, use of topicalisation, use of prepositions fostered by Latin. More impersonal, formal. Found in Lydgate and Shakp, since 1400
Biber: Invovled vs Information Production, Situation Dependent vs Elaborate Reference, Non-abstract vs Abstract
Becomes more non-oral, peak at 1700. McIntosh's gentrified
From 1800, medical/legal become more literal, popular become more oral
Plain style of 1600 is reactionary, see Taavitsainen. Found in John Wilkins, John Webster. Fish: 1570, Warner: Bible, Adolph: utilitarianism. New needs, religious diversity, middle class [01/11, 8:09 pm] otf: - Inductive topic-delay to Deductive topic-first in 1500, Okulska
Wårvik describes grounding markers
Deixis in official letters, law, and documents become more frequent from 1350
Kohnen investigates connective profiles and argues for the effect of text on language change [01/11, 8:26 pm] otf: - pre-ling stage, one word stage, development of grammar
pre-ling stage: till 12 mo, distinguish sounds from 1 mo, they cry until 2 mo then they coo until 6 mo then they babble (universal), after 10 mo they use sound they hear (de Boysson-Bardies et al. 1984) with echolalia reflects linguist intonation (Bee 2000), Bee 2000 also understanding >>> making sound, 9 mo babies use gesture
one-word stage: approximations, Scollon (1976) Brenda used nene to any feeding bottle, 3-4 mo for 10 words Nelson 1973, 16-18 it's much faster 18 mo: 50 words, 24 mo: 300 words, Nelson 1973 finds 6 categories for words: general nominals (>50%, a trend in Japanese German Turkish), specific, action words, holophrases
two-word stage: development of syntax after 18 mo, 2 years: 300 words 6 years: 13000 words
Early grammar: telegraphs. Owens 2001 suggests experiment. 18 to 30 mo
Later grammar: -ing then articles then -s then negatives/questions approximation, overregularisation, Berko (1958) wug proves that children learn grammar, after 5 yo they learn most grammar except passive
Meaning: Owens (2001) suggests three principles: mutual exclusivity, extendability, whole-object. They are actively engaged.
Turn-taking, motherese [01/11, 8:28 pm] otf: - Skinner (1957) has environmental theory by conditioning, echoic responses, and mands. Chomsky 1959 points out is slow and not universal and not creative. Parents ignore grammatical errors eg Brown and Hanlon 1979. No effect in correcting Harley 2001. It is used in speech therapy Owens 2001.
Werker et al. 1994 children prefer motherese in Cantonese or English. Saxton 1997 contrast theory. Motherese in most cultures e.g. Pye (1986) and it varies (Lieven 1994). Bee 2000 concludes it maybe useful but not necessary.
Chomsky's nativist theory LAD, deep and surface structure, government and binding theory (bilingualism debunks it). Lenneberg 1967 has critical period hypothesis. Genie. Motor corresponds to language by Lenneberg. Goldin-Meadow & Feldman (1977) four deaf children communicate same. Chomsky ignores interaction. Owens 2001 sentences communicate meaning. No rules, only words (Tomasello 1992, Pine and Lieven 1997). Tomasello suggests verb islands.
social interactionist theory: need to communicate is the drive. Bruner 1983 proposes LASS. Turn-taking (social interaction) before speech Harley 2001. But it is not universal, and is vague (Harley 2001)
Sachs et al. 1981 and Jim

English as a Global Language - Global language develops a special role recognised by each country - Language can be made official (special status in Vanuatu, Nigeria, India, Singapore) - Language can be in foreign-language teaching (in Algeria in 1996) - Language can be semi-official - Foreign does not mean less fluent (see Netherlands and Scandinavia) - English is spoken by 1.5 bil ppl - Latin was spoken by the more powerful - English is easy, no: Latin and French, children learn the same, Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language >1800 pages, has shit spelling - "familiarity of English", unlike French - Military might guarantees spread, Economic might guarantees maintenance - Global economic development like telegraph, telephone, radio; international market advertising; power of press; movies and records, all centered around English. - British imperialism made it the biggest trader, US imperialism made it the fastest growing - Historically translation was useful (bi- or trilingual didn't need, multi- need lingua franca): Pidgin languages in West Africa, indigenous language in China, mostly colonial languages. Geographical extent governed by political factors. - Lingua franca for world came from UN, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, (1945~1946) - Half the budget can be used for translation, but country doesn't like its language being shafted. Automatic usage of lingua franca = working language - Lingua franca is appreciated in the Internet, boardrooms, bolstered by air tech and modern communication - UN started with 51 members to 190 members in 2002 - Lingua franca: a mothertongue people complacent, rich and poor (solved by education), other langs are unnecessary (one language - Esparanto against that is Switzerland, Belgium, American Civil War, North Ireland, Vietnam War) - Foreign investments and exports and tourism necessitate foreign langs - 90% of Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg businesses have another lang, 38% to 29% in Britain (EBS by Grant Thornton) - UK and US teach Spanish - Language death, i.e. 50% of 6000 will die in next century - Movements for language rights (Maori, Celtic, ) show the need for identity and intelligibility (Yugoslavia and Scandinavia) solved by bilingualism - French fought against influence of English (high streets and TV) - Linguistic imperialism (countered by strong countries) - Interdependence, voice in world affairs, and trade make English useful as a france, while local lang expresses identity. Thus English empowers the subjugated and the maligned - Automatic translation may elim need for Egnglish, not very adavcned tho
Geo-historical context - 400 Angles spread, 1066 of the Normals nobles fled to Scotland, 1100 Ireland fell under England - Elizabeth I of 1603 - 5~7 mil, Elizabeth II of 1952 - 250 mil - Roanoke Island of 1584 by Walter Raleigh (FAIL) - Chesapeake Bay (1601) (East English) moved through the midlands - Puritan settlers, the Pilgrim Fathers in Cape Cod Bay (1620) (West English) moved along the Gulf Coasts - Pennsylvania settled by Quakers - North Irish moved in 1720 - Spanish occupied west and southwest, French around St Lawrence River and Gulf of Mexico, Dutch were in New Amsterdam, Germans in Pennsylvania at end of 1600, Africans in south - Germans, Italians, and Jews fled Europe to America. 1900 was 75 mil, 1950 it doubled - 1990 was 198 mil English speakers, 2000 was 215 mil

1497 John Cabot with Canada, English came to fur-trade, fish, in 1600s in conflict with the French of Jacques Cartier in 1520s
Following 1776 US Independence, United Empire Loyalists moved to Nova Scotia then New Brunswick. Late Loyalists settled in cheap Upper Canada. In 50 years, it reached 100000
Carribbean settled by Africans in 1600 in favour of molasses/sugarum. 1619 had 20 slaves on Dutch ship in Virginia, by US Civil War 4 mil. It was diverse to prevent rebellion, prestige langs were English
Australia visited by James Cook in 1770, relieve pressure of 130000 prisoners in 1788. In 1850 400,000 Australians, 1900 4 mil, 2002 19 mil. Prisoners were Irish and British (Cockney), then origin, then influence became American and immigrant
Cook charted islands in 1770, whalers and traders moved in 1790, missionaries in 1814, Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 (2000 NZ), 1850 had 25000 NZ residents, 2002 3.8 mil. NZ is more loving of the Br*tish. Maori are 10% of NZ
Dutch settled in the Cape in 1652, BEF in 1795 following Napoleon, settlement in 1820 when 5000 ppl were given Eastern Cape, English was made official in 1822, 1840s and 50s followed in Natal, Europeans settled in the gold and diamond rich areas of Witwatersrand. 500,000 immigrants arrived in 1875~1900.
Cape had London speech, Natal had midlands and North English but they've assimilated. Dutch spoke it as second lang and Great Trekked in 1836 to escape the Brutish
Increasing no. of Africans adopted influenced English (by way of mission schools) and coloureds. Indians too by 1860
English is spoken by 3.7 mil of 43.5 mil, Afrikaans by 1925 was the majority. Thus English was the language of liberation, shown by survey of 1993
Continuum between Afrikaans-English
A third of India can converse in English (30~300 mil)
South Asian English is from the British Trading Company in Surat in 1612, then Madras/Bombay/Calcutta
In 1765, Company took over Bengal, 1784 India Act established Board of Control after indiscipline, 1858 handed it to the Crown after Indian Mutiny (English became official)
Lord William Betinck accepted a Minute by Thomas Macaulay in 1835 to introduce english as education
Bombay, Calcutta, Madras had unis in English
Bitter conflict in 1960s led to "three language formula"
English is official in Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, 8 Union Territories, Nagaland
Preferred in Dravidia, varying in Naarth, associated in Pakistan, not official otherwise but used, seen as modernity
Most Africans achieved independence after 1960s, OAU maintains borders
English on West Africa in 1500, 1800's commerce and anti-slave-trade created pidgins alongside standard of officials, traders, soldiers, missionaries
Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia
East Africa was explored in 1500 but East African Company founded in 1888, John Speke/Richard Burton/David Livingstone exploring in 1850. All gave English an official lang. Adopted in Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda
British settled in East Africa producing expatriates and African-born whites, unlike the hostile West Africa
British schools introduced (English closer to Aus and SA)
US received Guam, Philippines, Hawaii after 1898 Spanish-American War
After 1940s US had United Nation Trust Territories, Philippines gained independence in 1946
Philippines has largest no. of English speakers in Asia (80 mil)
Captain Cook and others explored in 1770
London Missionary Society sent its workers to South Pacific after 50 yrs
Stamford Raffles of East India Company established Penang (1786), Singapore (1819) grew to 5000 , Malacca (1824), all brought under Crown Colony in 1867. English was used, e.g. Strait Times in 1845
Treaty of Nanking in 1842 gave Hong Kong to Britain, Kowloon in 1860 (The New Territories leased in 1898 for 90 yrs)
Some lands were taken over by Australia and NZ.
Education began in Penang in 1816 (teachers were from Britain). Increased in 1800 by the Chinese and Indians
Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea
US has 70% of all L1 speakers
Inner, outer (total 75 countries), expanding circle by Braj Kachru
Creoles are in continuum
expanding circle may use more than outer (thus L2 and foreign not that distinct)
329 mil L1 speakers is conservative, 400 mil most common (incl creole), 450 mil by Ethnologue.
430 L2, many have no estimate, India/Nigeria/Pak/Ghana small percent would effect
as foreign varies depending on fluency. British Council says 1 bil (based off no. of attendants and exam and English 2000). Medium would count 750 mil
Avg says 750 mil L1 and L2, 750 mil otherwise. So 1 in 4 speak English. Population growth in L2 areas is 2.5 more than L1. David Graddol suggests less than 5% in 2050
John Wallis 1765, Richard Mulcaster 1582, Richard Flecknoe, Earl of Chesterfield 1750, David Hume 1767, John Adams 1780, Jakob Grimm 1851, people excitedly predicted linguistic futures
Triumphalist attitudes, unifying attitudes
Britain was growing at 2 percent in 1700~1800, 5 mil to 10 mil, harnessing of coal water and transportation. "workshop of the world"
Impacted english's lexicon and learnability
It was the same in America
Steam made printing, transportation revolutionised, energy, news, banking, economic imperialism
English was taken for then questioned (sometimes perceived to be neutral)
Bismarck
Official only when language is threatened
USA: 1995 bills Bill Emerson's HR 123, Toby Roth's HR 739, Pete King's HR 1005. HR 123 only reached House of Representatives
28 million Hispanishes, 18 million non-speakers of Eng or Spa,
For: e pluriblus unum, expensive and arbitrary and unbeneficial, low quality, swung too far
Against: no need, unwanted intrusion, expensive and arbitrary and less formalised and harmful, better skills, contradicts Meyer v Nebraska, promotes greater understanding
Serrano bill made no progress in 1996
No one owns English, language is a democratising institution
Noah Webster wanted to develop an American standard
International varieties express identity
English was seen as neutral instead of the 500 langs in Nigeria
Apparently grammar is same, been focused on standard and written
British National Corpus has only 10% spoken
Spoken is becoming more important
Biber et al., absence of statistics
Features can be localised or global or not real
Alsagoff, Bao, Wee
Few Amerindian loans
Borrowing depends on status of language and sociology (loans, calques, hybridforms) e.g. South Afrika
Pakistani English
Standard words have new meanings
Dictionary is growing, words may be used a lot
Collocations prove distinctiveness most
Codeswitching in a continuum, see McArthur
Tex-Mex gutter speak
Nigerian, Zambi-Ghanaian discourse
Syllable rhythm affected by weight, sonority, stress. Varies in one language and can influence comprehension
See Singaporean,
Syllable timing visible in rap chanting, increased availability in sattellite may fuck this in India
Foreign usages may become prestigious
Goh Chok Tong
Standard English coexists
Englishes could be unintelligible, predicted by Henry Sweet
Language to be made: single mind and clout, Ebonics failed, Scots succeeded
ELT

submitted by OmarTheFabulous to alevel [link] [comments]

2022.03.14 19:40 Bamboo_the_plant My tips for anyone looking to start reading the Bookworm light novels directly in Japanese, having completed one volume a week of another isekai series for two months

This is a crosspost of my original thread about using Mushoku Tensei for reading practice, however, the method is equally applicable to Bookworm, which indeed I've also read a fair bit of (though nowadays am using purely as audio books when jogging instead). Would be interested to hear from anyone practicing to read Bookworm!
A screenshot of nine books of Mushoku Tensei read, as (very limited) proof of success:
https://i.imgur.com/b6iYoEd.jpg
Jump straight to the "How to do this for yourself" section if you just want to skip to a summary of the method.

My journey to literacy

My reading ability to begin with

For a concrete reference point, I took the JLPT N2 exam in 2015 and failed by one point, and since then, hadn't practised reading at all until a few months ago. I did keep up with speaking and listening over the years through language exchanges to prevent my Japanese from completely stagnating, but my vocabulary had basically been on ice since then.
Last year, I began attempting to read various isekai web novels using the Rikai (mouseover dictionary) browser extension, and although I could understand the sentences, I kept losing my position in the story each time I left the web page and, in any case, the vocabulary didn't really stick. It was slow going, taking several evenings to finish just a chapter, and so wasn't very motivating.
I think a lot of people are stuck at a similar plateau to this (advancing from textbook study to native materials), so hopefully this method can help out. To be clear, it'll be gruelling at first, and there's no escaping having to look up an untold number of words, but I can assure that it's very rewarding to tackle the books directly!

Turning point 1: using an e-book reader

I came to see the advantage of a proper e-book reader over just reading in a web browser. It has several features for preventing you losing your position in the story (thus preventing you re-reading whole paragraphs the moment a vacuum cleaner or doorbell ringing or something else interrupts your train of thought). For one thing, it obviously saves your reading progress and syncs it between devices so that you can keep on reading wherever you are; but most importantly, I found that if you scale up the text nice and big, you can never lose more than a few lines of progress to a distraction.
e-book readers generally have tap-to-define dictionaries, and my Kindle even had a Japanese->Japanese one. I did try with that for the full immersion experience, but it was honestly slow going, so eventually I turned to a Japanese->English dictionary instead. I was getting through about 1-2% of a book per evening (in usually a 2 hour sitting), having to look up generally around one or two words per sentence. So it was quite gruelling.

Turning point 2: accompanying the light novel with an audio book

I happened to meet up with a professional Japanese->English translator three months ago. I asked him how he practices reading, and he introduced me to the method of listening to audio books whilst simultaneously following the text of the light novel. That is to say, to use the light novel as subtitles to the audio book. I can't overstate how much this helped. It does a few things:

for words where you can deduce the meaning but don't know the reading (quite a common case), it saves you a lookup;
it subconsciously improves your pronunciation (you get exposed to the proper pitch accent for the word);
if you understand the whole sentence currently being read, you can search ahead to look up any difficult words in the following sentence in advance;
the voicing gives some grounding as to what's going on (e.g. which character is talking now? What mood are they in?);
it sets a definite pace. If the audio book is 9 hours long, you can expect to be done with it in not much longer than that;
it forces you to focus. It's harder for your attention to drift when there's a constant stream of input that you need to keep up with, rather than an optional one that you can look away from.

By reducing the amount of time I had to spend looking up words, I was able to read far faster. I was suddenly covering 10-20% of a book in a two-hour sitting.

Turning point 3: JMdict

I frequently found that the Kindle's Japanese-Japanese dictionary was too hard to understand (without a second dictionary), and the Japanese-English dictionary simply didn't recognise words. I finally waved the flag on learning via a Japanese-Japanese dictionary and tried out jmdict-kindle. It's way better! It recognises generally more words than either of the two dictionaries from before, displays the pitch accent (I cannot overstate how valuable this is for your speaking), and shows some handy example sentences.
With a reliable dictionary, I was now able to read even faster, leaning more towards the upper range of my previous rate. By budgeting about ten hours a week (generally 1h30m each night before bed), I could reliably clear a book each week. And so I did! I read one book a week for eight weeks, taking me from volume 7-14 (I started at volume 7 because the anime left off at the end of volume 6).

Turning point 4: audio books exhausted

Sadly, the last audio book available was for volume 14, and they haven't released another since 2019. So I was forced to remove my training wheels and take on volume 15 without audio assistance. Fortunately, it was a very interesting book, which gave me some wind behind my sails, but it was definitely far slower going now that I had to look up words for pronunciation as well as meaning.
I'm not really clear what my pace was for this one, as a lot of life got in the way and prevented me reading on a regular schedule, but I finished it within 4 weeks of purchase, probably only reading on half of those days. The vocabulary I picked up from the preceding eight novels helped immensely with my comprehension, and I can't imagine having completed the book without that starting point.
So with volume 15, I finally finished my long-held goal of reading a light novel volume entirely in Japanese! My current plan is to keep going until I've finished the entire story, and my ultimate goal is to one day be able to read without a dictionary at all, but for now, I'm still looking up perhaps a word every couple of sentences (if only for pronunciation rather than meaning), depending on the page.
A note, upon reflection: I didn't use Anki flashcards at all. By grinding the books directly, the words naturally reappear in context at a sensible repetition interval, and so they do just kinda stick in your head after a while.

How to do this for yourself

In summary: get a Kindle Oasis, load it up with the JMdict dictionary, register it with an Amazon JP account, buy a Mushoku Tensei light novel and its accompanying audio book. Now play the audio book via your phone, and read along with the audio. If you budget 10 hours a week, you can clear a light novel each week.
This of course predicates on having a fair grounding in Japanese to begin with. I believe there is a large chasm between textbook study and reading native materials, and hopefully this method bridges the gap once you're done with textbook study.

Which e-book reader to get

I say Kindle all the way. But not a Kindle Fire, nor the Kindle app on iOS/Android, because all of those can only look up Japanese words that are in dictionary form. I repeat, their dictionaries cannot deinflect verbs and adjectives. That goes for both the J->E and J->J dictionaries. I've only found it to be the proper Kindles (in my case, a Kindle Oasis) to have a fully-functioning dictionary. As an app developer working on study tools, I have investigated this quite thoroughly.

How to set up a Kindle to read books from Amazon Japan

I wrote a guide on this subject on GitHub Gist. It covers both how to set up an account on Amazon JP and how to switch your Kindle from an existing account to that Amazon JP account (and, if necessary, how to switch it back).
A tip: the samples for light novels are actually pretty generous in length! I got plenty of hours of reading practice just by downloading samples for various different series of interest.

How to get audio books from Audible Japan

I can't remember whether you can simply re-use your Amazon JP account on Audible JP, but I certainly used the same email address. I personally use the Audible app via my iPhone. Until recently, Audible had a system where the best value (when reading one book a week) was to buy the audio books individually (and get one free book a month), but now that their whole catalogue is free (and all-you-can-eat) for subscribers, it's cheapest to just get a subscription as long as you're sure you can finish the book within a month.

Other series you could try this with

I'm a bit saddened by how few isekai-genre light novels have accompanying audio books, and especially by how far behind the latest light novel releases they are, but some potential ones:

Zero no Tsukaima (there's only one audio book, corresponding to one volume);
KonoSuba (there are a few, but none beyond what the anime has covered);
Shield Hero (there are plenty of these, and they go past the anime, though the anime does continue in April);
Ascendance of a Bookworm (there are plenty of these, and they do go past the anime, but again, more is coming out in April);
That time I got Reincarnated as a Slime (there's a good number of these; not sure how they line up with the anime, but likely to go past it);

Sadly, there's no Re:Zero, nor "So I'm a Spider, So What?", nor Bofuri.
Happy to help with any questions!

submitted by Bamboo_the_plant to HonzukiNoGekokujou [link] [comments]

2022.03.13 20:30 Bamboo_the_plant My tips for using Mushoku Tensei as Japanese light novel reading practice, having completed one volume a week for two months

A screenshot of nine books read, as (very limited) proof:
https://i.imgur.com/b6iYoEd.jpg
Jump straight to the "How to do this for yourself" section if you just want to skip to a summary of the method.

My journey to literacy

My reading ability to begin with

Turning point 1: using an e-book reader

I came to see the advantage of a proper e-book reader over just reading in a web browser. It has several features for preventing you losing your position in the story (thus preventing you re-reading whole paragraphs the moment a vacuum cleaner interrupts your train of thought). For one thing, it obviously saves your reading progress and syncs it between devices so that you can keep on reading wherever you are; but most importantly, I found that if you scale up the text nice and big, you can never lose more than a few lines of progress.
I also found that my Kindle had a built-in Japanese-Japanese dictionary (in addition to a Japanese-English one), and tried my best to use it, but it was honestly a slog. I was reading 1-2% of a book per evening (a 1-2 hour sitting).

Turning point 2: accompanying the light novel with an audio book

for words where you can deduce the meaning but don't know the reading (quite a common case), it saves you a lookup;
it subconsciously improves your pronunciation (you get exposed to the proper pitch accent for the word);
if you understand the whole sentence currently being read, you can search ahead to look up any difficult words in the following sentence in advance;
the voicing gives some grounding as to what's going on (e.g. which character is talking now? What mood are they in?);
it sets a definite pace. If the audio book is 9 hours long, you can expect to be done with it in not much longer than that.

Turning point 3: JMdict

I frequently found that the Kindle's Japanese-Japanese dictionary was too hard to understand (without a second dictionary), and the Japanese-English dictionary simply didn't recognise words. I finally waved the flag on learning via a Japanese-Japanese dictionary and tried out jmdict-kindle. It's way better! It recognises generally more words than either of the two dictionaries from before, displays the pitch accent (I cannot overstate how valuable this is for your speaking), and shows some handy example sentences.
With a reliable dictionary, I was now able to read even faster. By budgeting about ten hours a week (generally 1h30m each night before bed), I could reliably clear a book each week. And so I did! I read one book a week for eight weeks, taking me from volume 7-14 (I started at volume 7 because the anime left off at the end of volume 6).

Turning point 4: audio books exhausted

How to do this for yourself

Which e-book reader to get

How to set up a Kindle to read books from Amazon Japan

How to get audio books from Audible Japan

Other series you could try this with

I'm a bit saddened by how few isekai-genre light novels have accompanying audio books, and especially by how far behind the latest light novel releases they are, but some potential ones:

Zero no Tsukaima (there's only one audio book, corresponding to one volume);
KonoSuba (there are a few, but none beyond what the anime has covered);
Shield Hero (there are plenty of these, and they go past the anime, though the anime does continue in April);
Ascendance of a Bookworm (there are plenty of these, and they do go past the anime, but again, more is coming out in April);
That time I got Reincarnated as a Slime (there's a good number of these; not sure how they line up with the anime, but likely to go past it);

Sadly, there's no Re:Zero, nor "So I'm a Spider, So What?", nor Bofuri.
Happy to help with any questions!

submitted by Bamboo_the_plant to mushokutensei [link] [comments]

2021.05.31 12:18 almostselfrealised Revenge is a dish best served calmly and by the book: Escaping a hostile work environment. /r/prorevenge

Original: Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book. Posted in /prorevenge
My story starts off as mundane as anybody’s: Five years into working for an enormous corporation, my group was “reorg’ed”. This particular reorg was, like most efforts, a half-baked idea ginned up by a suit in a corner office, questionably planned, poorly executed and terribly communicated. Nonetheless, I was sent from my old group to a brand new (to me) group managed by Jim. Jim seemed an okay fellow, with a dry sense of humor and a British accent that lulled me into thinking he was a decent guy.
Working for Jim was … okay. He was never available and when we did meet maybe once a month he’d bark off a list of things for me to do, then say he had a conflict and had to go to another call. I was floundering a little, but felt I had a handle on things.
During my first annual review via phone, Jim offered up vanilla platitudes about how things were going well, while I heard him distractedly typing away at IM’s from people pinging him. He paused when he got to my salary and hedged, a bit.
“Ahhh… so I got you a small increase, I couldn’t get you much. To be frank, I’m not going to question how anyone arrives at their salary level, but you make way more than the other people on my team.”
It was awkward, but not the first time I’ve had such a pointed salary discussion with a male manager. It’s never been a talking point with any of the women who managed me, and I wondered if he would have made those comments to me if I were a man. I’ve managed teams over the years and noticed the women on my teams seemed to make less than their male counterparts, so I get I’m an anomaly. But, I’m a high performer in a 25-year uninterrupted career, as I never chose to have children. I’ve worked hard for my salary and I’m proud of it. I could get hired elsewhere at this salary in my market easily given my experience, qualifications and certifications.
Shortly after our review, Jim moved on to work with my primary group of business partners, leaving me with no manager, just a 2-up manager I’d never met or spoken to.
And that’s when the shit hit the fan.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my salary was brought up in a discussion with his new team, the fine ladies who were managers of the teams I worked with in my business partner group.
As it's been relayed to me, Jim didn’t blurt out the specific details of course, but when one of the women complained about something I'd done, Jim said he was surprised there were issues because I was the highest paid person on his (now former) team. He poisoned the well quite nicely for me.
Going back through my emails I could pinpoint the date and time the remark was said, because the tone of EVERY SINGLE ONE of those managers changed as if on a dime. If I asked a question, I was berated because, “You’re our most senior analyst! You should know that!” Documentation that had sufficed before was suddenly “all wrong”.
There were two particularly hostile culprits: Pat, who managed reporting on the systems we were migrating and her underling PM, Wanda.
Pat came at me quick, fangs bared, with a demand that I put together a plan to get us to the next-generation of reporting which wasn’t due to be released until 2021. The 2021 plan Wanda, her PM had put together, looked like notes on a greasy cocktail napkin, so Pat decided that since I was the SME, I should do Wanda's work for her instead.
Pat wanted a plan from today, in 2019 through to the date of release in May 2021. According to her it had to include ALL the tasks needed for delivery right from the start, which is not how planning works. I can’t predict the future, so my plans usually start out detailed in the near term, with increasingly wider swaths of more generalized tasks to be elaborated in detail as we get further along. This is an industry standard approach, and was never a problem, right up until it was.
Pat started hounding me relentlessly to get this full plan done for her in 5 days, which would have been an impossible task under the best of circumstances. Nonetheless, I put together a 2000-line long plan, working evenings and over the weekend, because my arms had been in pain for several months from typing at my home office and I had to take frequent breaks from the pain.
Note: I had been made a remote employee against my will, and when I was reorg'ed I started asking for a desk back at work. Jim always dismissed my request, saying there was “no space”, so I spent over $1500 on an ergonomic chair and desk for my home to make typing easier, but my arms still hurt anytime I sat at the keyboard for more than a half hour.
I had to back-burner my more immediate, pressing work for upcoming releases in the next couple of months, because Pat told me I had to prioritize her work over everything else. I had no manager to help redirect my priorities back to my other work and when I tried to say it would have to wait until I finished my more pressing work, Pat sighed and bitterly said in front of a half-dozen people including Wanda, “So you’re our most SENIOR SME and you’re telling me you can’t do the work?”
Pat then decided to up the ante by insisting I run every element of the plan I was creating FOR Wanda BY Wanda, a junior level PM who not only didn’t understand the systems we were using - I had to tell her how to create her own status reports - but wrote at a third grade level. Even subject/verb agreement is out of Wanda’s grasp. But she had a chip on her shoulder and now she believed she could tell me what to do and how to do it. It was like a teacup poodle trying to guide a Rottweiler.
Wanda was immediately and clearly out of her element, and obviously so. As a result, every single time she was caught fucking up, she threw me right under the bus. She’d preemptively throw me under the bus too. Wanda’s only talent was deflecting blame and painting herself as the victim.
I didn’t know what to do, I was having anxiety attacks. My heart would start racing to 145bpm on the couch at night when I started thinking about work. I was overwhelmed and my arms were killing me and then the unthinkable happened… My mom suddenly died.
When I told the team, they were not only completely unsympathetic. They were pissed. I had to take a week of bereavement and this, too, pissed them off as I was leaving the day before the deadline Pat had given me to finish Wanda’s plan for the 2021 project. Instead of packing for the funeral or connecting with my family, I spent the 3 days before my leave working late nights trying to finish the plan. We met at 5PM the day before I was to go on leave, where Pat and Wanda ripped into my plan, and said they would work with another team member to fix all of my “mistakes” in the week I was gone.
Finally free of the evil twins, I went on leave. And while on leave, my arms stopped hurting. After 6 weeks of physical therapy for my arm problems, just not typing for awhile helped immensely.
I had two days left before I had to go back to the hellhole, and I was dreading it. When the heart palpitations started up again, I knew I couldn’t go back.
At first, I decided I would just quit the day I was supposed to return. I didn’t want to even give them two weeks notice, I hated them so much. They had been so cruel about me taking bereavement leave. I wanted to fuck them over, good and proper. No two weeks notice meant I’d leave them hanging for their near-term releases that I’d not been allowed to finish up my work for, as well as for the 2021 plan.
And if I burned a bridge or my reputation, so what? I’m nearing the age where people usually retire or have a major career change. I don’t need to keep that bridge any longer. I have saved up enough, and dammit my health was more important to me than these toxic people OR my paycheck. The night I decided to quit I went to sleep relieved and not anxious, for the first time in six months. I felt the anxiety leaving me, knowing I wouldn’t have to work with those people ever again.
It felt like a solid plan.
Then the next morning I woke up with a plan even more brilliant. It checked ALL my boxes:
• I wouldn’t have to go back to work
• I wouldn’t have to give two weeks notice, so they’d still be fucked
• I would still get paid
• AND I would be able to take care of my arms that had been in pain for so long! AND while I’m at it, manage the anxiety that had spiraled out of control because of my hostile coworkers
My new and improved plan was simple: Take medical leave.
I needed protected medical leave in the form of FMLA, which for those not in the US, provides up to 12 weeks of leave where my specific job role and salary must be protected and available to me upon my return.
And because it was medical leave, I was automatically enrolled in Short Term Disability, for which my company will pay 100% of my salary for 8 weeks and then 65% of my salary for the remaining weeks I’m out.
The best part of this plan is it fucks over all the people I want to fuck over AND IT’S ALL 100% LEGIT! I had been having problems keeping up at work because of all the doctors visits I had for my arms, physical therapy, regular therapy for my anxiety that had gotten out of control, and a psychiatrist. My health issues were eating into my workday, causing me to have to work early mornings, nights and weekends more than ever, and no doubt pissing off these people who thought I was making too much money to be deserving of any time off for doctor’s appointments.
My team got a new manager after 6 weeks, coincidentally just the day before I was to come back from bereavement. I was sneakily logged onto work every day to catch his name and I stealthily dialed into the conference call where he was introduced to the team. My 2-up manager that I’ve never spoken to even said at the outset: “I think we have everyone on the bridge. Thisjobisgonnakillme won’t be here, she’s on bereavement.”
I called up the administrators of our FMLA and Short Term Disability plans to file my claim. I got the forms and figured out which of my half-dozen doctors had to fill what out. My orthopedist signed me off for 12 weeks of absence straight away because she noted I’d been in pain since May so it would likely take awhile to heal. After talking with her, my PT and my psychiatrist, I will likely do physical therapy for 6 weeks and then enroll in a program for anxiety and stress management for the remaining 6 weeks before returning. All covered by my insurance and all FREE because I met my out of pocket maximum halfway through the year due to a hospital stay for a different medical issue.
The night before I was due back, I sat there grinning while looking at the next morning’s 8:00AM calendar invite from Wanda. In her illiterate fashion she had written, “It is IMPOTANT all crucial partners makes every effort to attend this call!!”
Like most of Wanda's obnoxiously illiterate declarations, it was a dig at me because I’d said in my last call with her and Pat that I might not be able to log on until 9AM on the day I returned from leave.
I opened a new window and typed out to my new manager, “Dear Phil, I hate that this is our first introduction to each other, but while I was attending my mother’s funeral an ongoing medical issue resurfaced and I need to take medical leave immediately.”
I went on to inform him I’d been hospitalized a couple months back and there were other issues that were preventing me from returning to work, and he could get the details from my prior manager Jim. Not that Jim paid a damn bit of attention to the emails I sent him detailing my doctor’s visits, etc. even as he had moved on from being my manager, because I still had to let him know about all my absences until I got a new manager. As things got worse at work, I became more clear in my details about my pain with typing getting worse, hoping it might make Jim realize the situation was getting worse, but he never listened.
So here I sit on a beautiful fall Friday morning, getting paid 100% of my salary to write this. Jim wasn’t happy about my salary when I was working for him. I wonder how happy he is about my salary knowing I’m not having to work for it right now.
When I return, I won’t be on the two projects with upcoming releases. One will have already released. The other will release less than 4 weeks after I come back. So they’re fucked on that. I wonder if they’ve figured out the test documents for November haven’t been signed off yet. I was supposed to finalize them for signoff, but Pat forced me to prioritize Wanda’s 2021 project over the November work, so the test documents are still sitting locally on my work desktop, untouched.
I will also be returning with a requirement for “accommodations”, which I am now entitled to as I’ve learned I qualify for them under the ADA. No more telling me I have to work from home or hunch over a table in the breakroom if I want to be in the office. I’m working with an occupational therapist to draft up what those accommodations will be, but a height-adjustable desk, two large monitors, and a “distraction-free workspace” are the top line requirements.
Meanwhile, my treatment plans include exercise, trail walks, both regular therapy and physical therapy, and a weekly massage as well! I’ve added in long visits to the library to read all the books I’ve been wanting to catch up on, and nice lunches a couple times a week to the mix.
Several times throughout the day I’ll look at my watch while walking the trails with my dog, or just relaxing, and I smile broadly thinking about Pat and Wanda and Wanda’s “IMPOTANT” project plan for 2021. Wonder what poor sod they’ve roped in to help her finish it now.
I still may just quit right after I return, or they can just fire me, I’d be indifferent about that. But at least this way I’ll have milked 12 more weeks of pay out of these assholes, while benefiting from all the free medical and emotional assistance my insurance plan can buy. They say living well is the best revenge, and I can’t think of a company or a group of people who deserve my pro revenge more.
tl;dr: Asshole boss moves to new role, poisons the well with my business partners by telling them I was the highest paid person on his prior team. They set out to make my life so miserable I almost quit. I decide instead to fuck them over "by the book", taking a much-needed extended medical leave, leaving them hanging for their upcoming releases, all the while still collecting that "highest paid" salary for a good, long while.
Update, 1 year later: Update: Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book
I left one minor detail out of my first post: My mother was incredibly abusive and we hadn't spoken for 5 years. My "bereavement" leave was a week of chilling out trying to figure out what to do about work because I didn't even go to her funeral. No one at work knew this, my "official story" was I was grieving such a devastating loss, and that's what you'll read in the original post.
I think that's enough to catch everyone up. Here's how everything's gone down since...
First, the leave could not have come at a better time. The day I made my last post, my sweet cat Ray was "not himself". In fact, that's the last video I took of him. I took him to the emergency vet, where we found out he had lymphoma in his liver and pancreas. We had to let him go a couple of days later. There was no way I could have worked and grieved for him at the same time, and going on medical leave right after your cat dies is not nearly as socially acceptable as taking leave after your mom dies. Rest in peace, my sweet boy.
I was spinning for a good couple of weeks after that. My arms still hurt a lot and I wasn't able to type for more than 20-30 minutes, and even that hurt. I continued physical therapy, and was frustrated at how slow the progress was. My therapist asked me to video myself typing at home. He took one look at it and saw the problem immediately: My desk and chair were fine, the horizontal and vertical parts of my workspace were fine. The problem was that my keyboard was too narrow so my arms were constantly at an angle which caused stress on all the joints. At his recommendation, I bought an ergonomic split keyboard and immediately noticed a difference. By the end of the year I was pain-free, although I still can't type for as long as I used to.
Because my out-of-pocket maximum had been reached with my health insurance, I took the opportunity to get everything checked out "under the hood". I'm 48 so I had a colonoscopy & endoscopy (fun!); the doc says my "colon is perfect" so if I ever need a Tinder bio, I know what to lead with. I went to the dermatologist, gynecologist, every 'ologist' in the book and except for my shitty arms, I'm pretty healthy.
I also went into an IOP (intensive outpatient program) for therapy the last six weeks of the year where I spent 3 hours, 3 days a week in group therapy with other people. I made some amazing and fascinating new friends, including a paramedic and firefighter both coping with PTSD, an Afghanistan veteran and several others. I also learned about "complex trauma" from childhood abuse, and came to realize that my anxiety, depression and ADHD were not necessarily three separate diagnoses, but instead were symptoms of "complex PTSD" (CPTSD) likely related to my mother's continual abuse and a few other traumatic childhood events.
Because of IOP, I'm now working with a "trauma therapist" and left my general therapist. After decades of regular therapy barely helping, I have someone to work with to help me truly put my past in the past so I can heal emotionally.
My mother's death and this leave was the best thing that could have happened for my physical and emotional health. When I made my last post, I resented the hell out of Jim, Pat and Wanda for being so cruel to me at work. I still don't like them, but I've moved past resentment and I'm now grateful for the situation, because their hostility was the catalyst that got me the treatment I've needed for ~~years~~ decades.
My husband and I also met with our financial adviser who, after running the numbers, made it clear that for both of us, work should be considered as more of a "want to" thing than a "need to" activity. (Turns out dual-income, no kids and saving throughout my 25 year career was a good decision!)
So I decided I don't "want to" work for this company anymore.
My leave ended and I returned to work two days ago. As soon as I returned I sat down with my new manager and told him about Jim, Pat and Wanda. Of course, no one had filled him in on their behavior. I gave him some hard copies of emails documenting their stunts. He was shocked by that, but was not surprised when I ended my 5 minute summary with, "So unfortunately I'm going to have to resign." I handed over my letter with my two-weeks notice.
He asked me if I truly wanted to work those two weeks and I said, "Not particularly, no, but I do want to get some things off my work computer so I need to get it back online." He agreed it would be a waste for me to try to really pick up anything. I jumped through the hoops of getting my computer online to get those docs. I blocked Jim, Pat and Wanda, along with three other people who were toxic but not QUITE as nasty as those three, as soon as I pulled up MS Communicator. I'm not attending any meetings. I have just one meeting on my calendar next week - the one where my new manager will announce my departure to the team. Meanwhile, I'm getting paid full salary for these two weeks as well, AND I'll get all my 2020 vacation days paid out when I leave!
So, the final tally of just how much Jim's asshole move cost my company and benefited me:

1 week of bereavement leave at 100% of my salary
8 weeks of FMLA paid at 100% "
4 weeks of FMLA paid at 65% "
1.5 weeks of extended "certified medical leave" paid at 65% "
2 weeks of salary at 100%
4 weeks of PTO payout at 100% "

submitted by almostselfrealised to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

2020.11.16 03:26 Phalanx-Spear Ærsk: The Nouns of a Nordic West Germanic Language

Urden welder fár nýfœd't til ad skríke.
[ˈʊrːð̞n̩ ˈɣ̞ɛl̪ːd̪ɐ ˈɸɔʊ̯ːɾ ˌnyʉ̯ːˈɸœʏ̯ːs̪t̪ t̪il ɑl ˈskɾ̥iːt͡ʃə]order-def.m.sg.dir world-def.f.sg.obl get-ind.prs.sg new=bear-ptcp.pst.n.sg.dir to inf scream-inf
The world's true nature makes the newborn scream.
- From the Writings of Thule Æthulf (1237), translated by S. Gunnerson (1947)

Erish (ærsked) is an a posteriori West Germanic artlang, canonically influenced by the North Germanic languages beginning at the end of the Proto-West Germanic stage. First introduced on this subreddit in a post about its phonology and orthography here, it constitutes its own branch of West Germanic, with important phonological developments of its own including limited rhotacization of *z, the assibilation of *þ, and extensive palatalization of velars and, to a lesser extent, coronals.
In this post, an account of Erish noun morphology will be given, starting with a general overview of inflectional categories, followed by an examination of the Erish declensions. Similar to the goals of the phonology of Erish, the noun morphology of Erish is one striving for an aesthetic of older Germanic languages within a "modern" framework that has, to some degree, transitioned away from their complexity.

Though the case system continues the functions of the old four-case system, it does so in a way more akin to certain "dative dialects" of Norwegian and Swedish than Icelandic or Faroese.
The declensions of old, under pressure of simplification and phonological reduction, have generally transitioned into a more regular, predictable system based on gender and phonology.
Although the gender system is intact, neuter nouns have become a class of nouns that form their plural by, more or less, changing to a feminine singular collective noun.
- This is a parallel of the origins of the feminine itself, which according to several theories about Proto-Indo-European, originated through a collective suffix used to form neuter plurals.

Inflectional categories

Case and definiteness
Both first and foreign language students of Erish are usually taught that it has a "four-in-two" case system of nominative/accusative-dative/genitive, primarily for continuity with Old Erish texts. From a synchronic perspective, though, all nominals other than personal pronouns can be seen as having a direct-oblique case system.
The direct case (namefalled "name-case") is the default, unmarked case. It merges the functions of the nominative and accusative cases, and generally derives its form from the Old Erish accusative. Its major functions include:

Subject - indicating the performer of the verb's action
- Example: Borno skrev namen sín "The girl wrote her name"
Direct object - indicating the noun the verb's action is done to
- Example: Katto eter fisken "The she-cat eats the fish"
- Personal direct objects are preceded by the preposition pá ("(up)on")
  - Example: Wis hœze pá skríveren "We hear the writer"
Prepositional object - indicating the object of certain prepositions, often with a motion meaning
- Example: Zú gár í húsed "You walk into the house"

The oblique case (sídefalled "side-case") is the marked case in Erish. It is essentially a continuation of the Old Erish dative case, from which it takes its form, but derives a possessive function from the Old Erish genitive. Its major functions include:

Indirect object - indicating the beneficiary or recipient of the action of a verb
- Example: Mannen gav barnem hunden. "The man gave the boy the dog."
- Many verbs which have lost their dative function in other Germanic languages are still dative in Erish.
  - Example: Quinner líker bóko. "The woman likes the book" (lit. "To the woman is pleasing the book")
- In most cases, an indirect object is indicated by the oblique case alone only if it follows the verb and precedes the direct object, similar to English. Otherwise, the preposition til ("to; of") is used.
  - Example: Mannen gav hunden til barnem*.* "The man gave the dog to the boy."
Possession - indicating the possessor of a noun
- Example: Ig seher húsed lækem*.* "I see the house of the doctor."
- The bare possessive oblique only occurs in the written language if it immediately follows the possessed noun. If the possessor is emphasized, the possessor precedes the possessed and the possessive determiner sín ("his/heits/their own") is placed between them (sín inflecting for the possessed noun).
  - Example: hundem sítt bened "the dog's bone"
- The bare possessive, especially with an inanimate possessor, is mostly absent in common speech. Instead, possession is indicated by the preposition til ("to; of") or av ("off of; of").
  - Example: stenen til bærgem "the stone of the mountain"
Prepositional object - indicating the object of certain prepositions, often with a locative meaning
- Example: Zú gár í húsem "You walk in(side) the house"
Adjective - certain adjectives cause a noun to be in the oblique
- Example: Jochem er kaldt "The horse is cold" (lit. "To the horse is (it) cold")

Since the transition to Modern Erish, case is only directly marked on nouns when they are in the definite state, which attaches a definite article suffix to the end of the noun stem, similar to North Germanic languages. In contrast to related languages, which have formed the definite article from words for "that" or "yon", the Erish definite article is derived from the definite pronoun gen "he; the", the reflex of Proto-Germanic *hiz "this", making it related to English "he, she, it".
The definite article is mostly consistent across declensions, with there being only a certain degree of variation. The definite article's forms are summarized below:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
SG DIR	-en, -ne	-o	-ed
SG OBL	-em, -me	-er, -ze	-em, -me
PL/COL DIR	-es	-os	-o
PL/COL OBL	-om	-om	-om

Similar to the unstressed d in words like hoved ("head"), the neuter singular direct definite article suffix -ed is pronounced in most Erish dialects as /ɛl/.
Proper names and nouns are often in definite state, but use the definite pronoun gen instead of the definite article suffix.
- A common phenomenon in speech is to use the definite pronoun for multi-syllabic nouns instead of the definite article suffix.
  - For example, instead of saying singeren ("the singer"), one says gen singer.

Gender and number
Much to the chagrin of second-language learners, Erish is actually more conservative in terms of gender than it is in case, as displayed in the above table. Not only are there three distinct genders in the singular direct, but those genders are also still present in the plural direct as well.
Whereas masculine and feminine nouns have a straightforward singular-plural number system, however, neuter nouns don't actually have a plural number anymore. Instead, using a reduced form of the Old Erish feminine suffix -þa ("-th"), which could form collective nouns, Middle Erish speakers generalized what is now -e as a part of neuter nouns' declension to such a degree that all neuter nouns' plurals are treated somewhat like collective nouns. This has a few consequences for Erish neuter "plurals":

When they are the subject, plural neuter nouns are treated by verbs as singular.
- Example: Ged er falle pá ærskem. "There are cases in Erish" (lit. "It is a-group-of-cases on Erish")
Above the number ett ("one"), the number of individual neuter nouns is generally expressed through a construction neuter plural + av ("of") + number
- Example: lande av tvom "two countries" (lit. "a-group-of-countries of two")
A number greater than ett that precedes a neuter noun does not indicate "[X number] [neuter nouns]", but "[X number] [groups of neuter nouns]"
- Example: tvo lande "two groups of countries"

Declensions

Despite being a fairly conservative language in terms of the inflectional categories of nouns, Erish has drastically simplified its declension paradigms. Most nouns now follow regular declensions that can be guessed if one knows the gender and form of a noun, with there being relatively few (but commonly used) nouns that follow irregular patterns. For historical purposes, some Old Erish declensions will be provided for comparison with the first few Modern Erish declensions.
First declension
The first declension is the regular declension for masculine nouns, and is basically derived from the Old Erish strong masculine, though many masculine nouns from other declensions have joined this declension through the reduction of unstressed vowels, regularization, or a combination of the two.
In the following table, the basic inflection patterns of the Old Erish strong masculine and Modern Erish first declension are compared:

Old Erish	Indefinite	Definite	Modern Erish	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG NOM	-	-is	SG DIR	-(e)	-en
SG ACC	-	-ina	SG DIR	-(e)	-en
SG DAT	-i	-imi	SG OBL	-(e)	-em
SG GEN	-s	-sis	SG OBL	-(e)	-em
PL NOM	-az	-azis	PL DIR	-er	-es
PL ACC	-az	-azis	PL DIR	-er	-es
PL DAT	-um	-umim	PL OBL	-er	-om
PL GEN	-a	-aza	PL OBL	-er	-om

Similar to Old East Norse, Old Erish preserved Proto-Germanic *z as /ʐ/.
- Instances of word-final *z in Proto-West Germanic, however, were devoiced to /s/, as seen in the nominative -is ending, derived from PWGmc *hiz (whence OldEr gis).
- After Old Erish, /ʐ/ generally devoiced to /ʂ/, eventually in many Erish dialects merging with Old Erish [ɕ] into /ʃ/. After unstressed or weakly stressed vowels, however, it rhotacized to /.
The -az ending in Old Erish is a direct continuation of a Proto-West Germanic -ōzi plural ending related to the -s ending in Modern English.
- The -s in -azis is not expected from PWGmc *hijai "these (m.)". It arose through the analogical extension of the *-z in PWGmc *þą̄z "those (m. acc.)" to the masculine plural nominative forms of monosyllabic pronouns.
Most Erish masculine nouns tend to end in a consonant, but some do end in -e, a stereotypically feminine ending, including some Latin loanwords ending in -us. This is a remnant of the weak masculine declension, which otherwise completely merged with the strong declension.

The following table gives some examples of first declension nouns, specifically hærj ("army"), state ("status"), and syquel ("bicycle"). Note that many multisyllabic first declension nouns ending in unstressed -el, -en, or -er drop the e in their inflectional forms.

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	hærj /ˈʃærːʃ/	hærjen /ˈʃærːʝɛn/	state /ˈstɑːtɛ/	staten /ˈstɑːtɛn/	syquel /ˈsyːkɛl/	syqu'len /ˈsyːklɛn/
SG OBL	hærj /ˈʃærːʃ/	hærjem /ˈʃærːʝɛm/	state /ˈstɑːtɛ/	statem /ˈstɑːtɛm/	syquel /ˈsyːkɛl/	syqu'lem /ˈsyːklɛm/
PL DIR	hærjer /ˈʃærːʝɛ	hærjes /ˈʃærːʝɛ/	stater /ˈstɑːtɛ	states /ˈstɑːtɛs/	syqu'ler /ˈsyːklɛ	syqu'les /ˈsyːklɛs/
PL OBL	hærjer /ˈʃærːʝɛ	hærjom /ˈʃærːʝɔm/	stater /ˈstɑːtɛ	statom /ˈstɑːtɔm/	syqu'ler /ˈsyːklɛ	syqu'lom /ˈsyːklɔm/

As the noun hærj ("army") demonstrates, many ja-stems, jō-stems, and wa-stems had their oblique forms generalized during the Middle Erish period.

Second declension
The second declension is the regular declension for feminine nouns, and is derived from a merger of the Old Erish strong and weak feminine declensions rooted in the grammaticalization of the definite article as a part of the noun. Again, members of other declensions have joined this declension through regularization.
A comparison of the Old Erish strong and weak feminine, and the Modern Erish second declension:

Old Erish Strong	INDF	DEF	Old Erish Weak	INDF	DEF	Modern Erish	INDF-SPFC	DEF
SG NOM	-(a)	-u/-ǫ(ju)	SG NOM	-a	-ǫ(ju)	SG DIR	-(e)	-o
SG ACC	-a	-ǫ(jǫ)	SG ACC	-u	-u(jǫ)	SG DIR	-(e)	-o
SG DAT	-i	-izi	SG DAT	-u	-uzi	SG OBL	-(e)	-er
SG GEN	-a	-aza	SG GEN	-u	-uza	SG OBL	-(e)	-er
PL NOM	-az/(-uz)	-ǫzǫs/(-uzǫs)	PL NOM	-uz	-uzǫs	PL DIR	-or	-os
PL ACC	-az/(-uz)	-ǫzǫs/(-uzǫs)	PL ACC	-uz	-uzǫs	PL DIR	-or	-os
PL DAT	-um	-umim	PL DAT	-um	-umim	PL OBL	-or	-om
PL GEN	-a	-aza	PL GEN	-na	-naza	PL OBL	-or	-om

In earlier texts of Old Erish, the strong feminine indefinite singular nominative lacked an ending, but the accusative ending -a gradually spread to the nominative.
Early Old Erish texts use a full -ju/-jǫ suffix, but by the end of the Old Erish period, it had been dropped; the u-umlaut they caused, however, remained.
- During the Middle Erish period, the -u ending in weak feminine nouns' indefinite-specific forms, which had become -o, were systematically reinterpreted as definite articles of an underlying \-a* (whence ModEr -e).
The z in the Old Erish -az/-uz endings arose from the generalization of the strong masculine ending's z to most masculine and feminine nouns under Old Norse influence.
- Although at the beginning of the Old Erish period, the -az ending was consistently used for feminine nouns, the -uz ending became increasingly frequent. During the Middle Erish period, it became generalized for regular feminine nouns.
Some dialects still have an -or definite oblique suffix for singular weak feminine nouns, but most dialects have just replaced it with a less ambiguous -er ending derived from the strong declension.
Feminine nouns generally end in a -e ending, but some grammatical suffixes and words end in a consonant.

The following table gives some examples of regular feminine nouns, specifically kynge ("queen") and weld ("world"):

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	kynge /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɛ/	kyngo /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɔ/	weld /ˈɣɛlːd/	weldo /ˈɣɛlːdɔ/
SG OBL	kynge /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɛ/	kynger /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɛ	weld /ˈɣɛlːd/	welder /ˈɣɛlːdɛ
PL DIR	kyngor /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɔ	kyngos /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɔs/	weldor /ˈɣɛlːdɔ	weldos /ˈɣɛlːdɔs/
PL OBL	kyngor /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɔ	kyngom /ˈt͡ʃʏŋːɔm/	weldor /ˈɣɛlːdɔ	weldom /ˈɣɛlːdɔm/

Third declension
The third declension is the regular declension for neuter nouns, and derives from the Old Erish strong neuter declension. Similar to the previous declensions, many nouns have been regularized into this declension.
A comparison of the Old Erish strong neuter declension, and the Modern Erish third declension:

Old Erish	Indefinite	Definite	Modern Erish	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG NOM	-	-it	SG DIR	-	-ed
SG ACC	-	-it	SG DIR	-	-ed
SG DAT	-i	-imi	SG OBL	-	-em
SG GEN	-s	-sis	SG OBL	-	-em
PL NOM	-	-ǫ	COL DIR	-e	-o
PL ACC	-	-ǫ	COL DIR	-e	-o
PL DAT	-um	-umim	COL OBL	-e	-om
PL GEN	-a	-aza	COL OBL	-e	-om

The following table displays the declension of reht ("right"), a typical third declension noun.

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	reht /ˈrɛʃːt/	rehted /ˈrɛʃːtɛl/
SG OBL	reht /ˈrɛʃːt/	rehtem /ˈrɛʃːtɛm/
COL DIR	rehte /ˈrɛʃːtɛ/	rehto /ˈrɛʃːtɔ/
COL OBL	rehte /ˈrɛʃːtɛ/	rehtom /ˈrɛʃːtɔm/

Fourth declension
The fourth declension consists exclusively of neuter nouns which end in an unstressed -e, deriving from the Old Erish weak neuter declension; the distinguishing feature of the declension is that the indefinite/specific plural is identical to the definite direct plural. Whilst few neuter nouns fell into this declension in Old Erish, many Latin loans ending in -um have been naturalized into it; the original Latin endings are considered more learned, and fall into the third declension.

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	-e	-ed
SG OBL	-e	-em
PL DIR	-o	-o
PL OBL	-o	-om

The following table shows the declension of musee ("museum"):

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	musee /mʊˈseːʝɛ/	museed /mʊˈseːʝɛl/
SG OBL	musee /mʊˈseːʝɛ/	museem /mʊˈseːʝɛm/
COL DIR	museo /mʊˈseːʝɔ/	museo /mʊˈseːʝɔ/
COL OBL	museo /mʊˈseːʝɔ/	museom /mʊˈseːʝɔm/

Fifth declension
The fifth declension is the last regular declension, and consists of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns that end in a stressed vowel. Due to the phonological context, these nouns preserve an unrhotacized reflex of Old Erish /ʐ/, and also the reflex of the original second syllables of gen ("he; him"), gem ("(to/of) him/it"), and ger ("(to/of) her").

	Masculine Indefinite-Specific	Masculine Definite	Feminine Indefinite-Specific	Feminine Definite	Neuter Indefinite-Specific	Neuter Definite
SG DIR	-	-ne	-	-o	-	-ed
SG OBL	-	-me	-	-ze	-	-me
PL/COL DIR	-z	-zes	-z	-zos	-e	-o
PL/COL OBL	-z	-om	-z	-om	-e	-om

The following table displays the declension patterns of dó ("dew (m.)"), kló ("claw (f.)"), and bý ("barley (n.)"), which are typical fifth declension nouns.

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	dó /ˈduː/	dóne /ˈduːnɛ/	kló /ˈkluː/	klóo /ˈkluːɣɔ/	bý /ˈbyː/	býed /ˈbyːʝɛl/
SG OBL	dó /ˈduː/	dóme /ˈduːmɛ/	kló /ˈkluː/	klóze /ˈkluːʃɛ/	bý /ˈbyː/	býme /ˈbyːmɛ/
PL/COL DIR	dóz /ˈduːʃ/	dózes /ˈduːʃɛs/	klóz /ˈkluːʃ/	klózos /ˈkluːʃɔs/	býe /ˈbyːʝɛ/	býo /ˈbyːʝɔ/
PL/COL OBL	dóz /ˈduːʃ/	dóom /ˈduːɣɔm/	klóz /ˈkluːʃ/	klóom /ˈkluːɣɔm/	býe /ˈbyːʝɛ/	býom /ˈbyːʝɔm/

Sixth declension
Sixth declension nouns are the first of two irregular declensions, and consist of masculine and feminine nouns that were members of the Old Erish i-stem and u-stem declensions. The sixth declension follows the regular inflection patterns of the first and second declensions, except that feminine nouns take the indefinite/specific plural suffix -er, and both masculine and feminine nouns can undergo i-umlaut in the plural.
The following table demonstrates three sixth declension nouns, son ("son"), húd ("skin (f.)"), and hand ("hand"):

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	son /ˈsoːn/	sonen /ˈsoːnɛn/	húd /ˈxuːs/	húdo /ˈxuːdɔ/	hand /ˈxɑnːd/	hando /ˈxɑnːdɔ/
SG OBL	son /ˈsoːn/	sonem /ˈsoːnɛm/	húd /ˈxuːs/	húder /ˈxuːdɛ	hand /ˈxɑnːd/	hander /ˈxɑnːdɛ
PL DIR	sœner /ˈsøːnɛ	sœnes /ˈsøːnɛs/	húder /ˈxuːdɛ	húdes /ˈxuːdɛs/	hænder /ˈʃænːdɛ	hændes /ˈʃænːdɛs/
PL OBL	sœner /ˈsøːnɛ	sœnom /ˈsøːnɔm/	húder /ˈxuːdɛ	húdom /ˈxuːdɔm/	hænder /ˈʃænːdɛ	hændom /ˈʃænːdɔm/

I-umlaut, in brief, causes the following changes:
- a, á > æ
- o, ó > œ
- u > y
- ú > ý
As demonstrated by hand ("hand"), i-umlaut in the sixth declension (as well as the seventh) triggers palatalization.
Sixth declension masculine nouns always undergo i-umlaut, but feminine nouns may or may not.

Seventh declension
The seventh and last declension consists of masculine and feminine nouns derived from the r-stem and consonant-stem declensions of Old Erish. Seventh declension nouns follow regular inflection patterns, but their plural is formed through i-umlaut of the stressed vowel, and they lack a plural suffix in the indefinite/specific states. The following table provides the examples of fót ("foot (m.)") and gás ("goose (f.)"):

	Indefinite-Specific	Definite	Indefinite-Specific	Definite
SG DIR	fót /ˈfuːt/	fóten /ˈfuːtɛn/	gás /ˈɣoːs/	gáso /ˈɣoːsɔ/
SG OBL	fót /ˈfuːt/	fótem /ˈfuːtɛm/	gás /ˈɣoːs/	gáser /ˈɣoːsɛ
PL DIR	fœt /ˈføːt/	fœtes /ˈføːtɛs/	gæs /ˈʝæːs/	gæsos /ˈʝæːsɔs/
PL OBL	fœt /ˈføːt/	fœtom /ˈføːtɔm/	gæs /ˈʝæːs/	gæsom /ˈʝæːsɔm/

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English grammar From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
English grammar is the way in which meanings are encoded into wordings in the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences, right up to the structure of whole texts.
There are historical, social, cultural and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some dialects. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English – a form of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers from formal to informal. There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are more minor than differences in vocabulary and pronunciation.
Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive Germanic case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the "Saxon genitive or English possessive" (-'s).[1]
Eight "word classes" or "parts of speech" are commonly distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Nouns form the largest word class, and verbs the second-largest. Unlike many Indo-European languages, English nouns do not have grammatical gender.
Contents 1 Word classes and phrases 1.1 Nouns 1.1.1 Phrases 1.1.2 Gender 1.2 Determiners 1.3 Pronouns 1.3.1 Personal 1.3.2 Demonstrative and interrogative 1.3.3 Relative 1.3.4 "There" 1.3.5 Other 1.4 Verbs 1.4.1 Phrases 1.5 Adjectives 1.5.1 Comparison 1.5.2 Phrases 1.6 Adverbs 1.6.1 Phrases 1.7 Prepositions 1.8 Conjunctions 1.9 Case 1.10 Declension 2 Negation 3 Clause and sentence structure 3.1 Word order 3.2 Questions 3.3 Dependent clauses 3.4 Other uses of inversion 3.5 Imperatives 3.6 Elliptical constructions 4 History of English grammars 5 See also 6 Notes and references 7 Further reading 7.1 Grammar books 7.2 Monographs 8 External links Word classes and phrases Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs form open classes – word classes that readily accept new members, such as the noun celebutante (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles), and other similar relatively new words.[2] The others are considered to be closed classes. For example, it is rare for a new pronoun to enter the language. Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech. Interjections are another word class, but these are not described here as they do not form part of the clause and sentence structure of the language.[2]
Linguists generally accept nine English word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and exclamations. English words are not generally marked for word class. It is not usually possible to tell from the form of a word which class it belongs to except, to some extent, in the case of words with inflectional endings or derivational suffixes. On the other hand, most words belong to more than one word class. For example, run can serve as either a verb or a noun (these are regarded as two different lexemes).[3] Lexemes may be inflected to express different grammatical categories. The lexeme run has the forms runs, ran, runny, runner, and running.[3] Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another. This has the potential to give rise to new words. The noun aerobics has recently given rise to the adjective aerobicized.[3]
Words combine to form phrases. A phrase typically serves the same function as a word from some particular word class.[3] For example, my very good friend Peter is a phrase that can be used in a sentence as if it were a noun, and is therefore called a noun phrase. Similarly, adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases function as if they were adjectives or adverbs, but with other types of phrases the terminology has different implications. For example, a verb phrase consists of a verb together with any objects and other dependents; a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and its complement (and is therefore usually a type of adverbial phrase); and a determiner phrase is a type of noun phrase containing a determiner.
Nouns Many common suffixes form nouns from other nouns or from other types of words, such as -age (as in shrinkage), -hood (as in sisterhood), and so on,[3] although many nouns are base forms not containing any such suffix (such as cat, grass, France). Nouns are also often created by conversion of verbs or adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading).
Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper nouns and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs. frog, milk) or as concrete nouns and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs. embarrassment, prejudice).[4] A grammatical distinction is often made between count (countable) nouns such as clock and city, and non-count (uncountable) nouns such as milk and decor.[5] Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as the word "wine" (This is a good wine, I prefer red wine).
Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms.[4] In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding -[e]s (as in dogs, bushes), although there are also irregular forms (woman/women, foot/feet, etc.), including cases where the two forms are identical (sheep, series). For more details, see English plural. Certain nouns can be used with plural verbs even though they are singular in form, as in The government were ... (where the government is considered to refer to the people constituting the government). This is a form of synesis; it is more common in British than American English. See English plural § Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural.
English nouns are not marked for case as they are in some languages, but they have possessive forms, through the addition of -'s (as in John's, children's) or just an apostrophe (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of -[e]s plurals and sometimes other words ending with -s (the dogs' owners, Jesus' love). More generally, the ending can be applied to noun phrases (as in the man you saw yesterday's sister); see below. The possessive form can be used either as a determiner (John's cat) or as a noun phrase (John's is the one next to Jane's).
The status of the possessive as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate.[6][7] It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an "enclitic postposition"[8]) or as an inflection[9][10] of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection").
Phrases Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences, for example as the subject or object of a verb. Most noun phrases have a noun as their head.[5]
An English noun phrase typically takes the following form (not all elements need be present):
Determiner + Pre-modifiers + NOUN + Postmodifiers/Complement In this structure:
the determiner may be an article (the, a[n]) or other equivalent word, as described in the following section. In many contexts it is required for a noun phrase to include some determiner. pre-modifiers include adjectives and some adjective phrases (such as red, really lovely), and noun adjuncts (such as college in the phrase the college student). Adjectival modifiers usually come before noun adjuncts. a complement or postmodifier[5] may be a prepositional phrase (... of London), a relative clause (like ...which we saw yesterday), certain adjective or participial phrases (... sitting on the beach), or a dependent clause or infinitive phrase appropriate to the noun (like ... that the world is round after a noun such as fact or statement, or ... to travel widely after a noun such as desire). An example of a noun phrase that includes all of the above-mentioned elements is that rather attractive young college student to whom you were talking. Here that is the determiner, rather attractive and young are adjectival pre-modifiers, college is a noun adjunct, student is the noun serving as the head of the phrase, and to whom you were talking is a post-modifier (a relative clause in this case). Notice the order of the pre-modifiers; the determiner that must come first and the noun adjunct college must come after the adjectival modifiers.
Coordinating conjunctions such as and, or, and but can be used at various levels in noun phrases, as in John, Paul, and Mary; the matching green coat and hat; a dangerous but exciting ride; a person sitting down or standing up. See § Conjunctions below for more explanation.
Noun phrases can also be placed in apposition (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in that president, Abraham Lincoln, ... (where that president and Abraham Lincoln are in apposition). In some contexts the same can be expressed by a prepositional phrase, as in the twin curses of famine and pestilence (meaning "the twin curses" that are "famine and pestilence").
Particular forms of noun phrases include:
phrases formed by the determiner the with an adjective, as in the homeless, the English (these are plural phrases referring to homeless people or English people in general); phrases with a pronoun rather than a noun as the head (see below); phrases consisting just of a possessive; infinitive and gerund phrases, in certain positions; certain clauses, such as that clauses and relative clauses like what he said, in certain positions. Gender Main article: Gender in English A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period. Modern English retains features relating to natural gender, namely the use of certain nouns and pronouns (such as he and she) to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other genders and certain others (such as it) for sexless objects – although feminine pronouns are sometimes used when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery) and nation states.
Some aspects of gender usage in English have been influenced by the movement towards a preference for gender-neutral language. Animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns.[11] Generally there is no difference between male and female in English nouns. However, gender is occasionally exposed by different shapes or dissimilar words when referring to people or animals.[12]
Masculine Feminine Gender neutral man woman adult boy girl child husband wife spouse actor actress performer rooster hen chicken Many nouns that mention people's roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance "cousin", "teenager", "teacher", "doctor", "student", "friend", and "colleague".[12]
Jane is my friend. She is a dentist. Paul is my cousin. He is a dentist. Often the gender distinction for these neutral nouns is established by inserting the words "male" or "female".[12]
Sam is a female doctor. No, he is not my boyfriend; he is just a male friend. I have three female cousins and two male cousins. Rarely, nouns illustrating things with no gender are referred to with a gendered pronoun to convey familiarity. It is also standard to use the gender-neutral pronoun (it).[12]
I love my car. She (the car) is my greatest passion. France is popular with her (France's) neighbors at the moment. I travelled from England to New York on the Queen Elizabeth; she (the Queen Elizabeth) is a great ship. Determiners Main articles: English determiners and English articles English determiners constitute a relatively small class of words. They include the articles the and a[n]; certain demonstrative and interrogative words such as this, that, and which; possessives such as my and whose (the role of determiner can also be played by noun possessive forms such as John's and the girl's); various quantifying words like all, some, many, various; and numerals (one, two, etc.). There are also many phrases (such as a couple of) that can play the role of determiners.
Determiners are used in the formation of noun phrases (see above). Many words that serve as determiners can also be used as pronouns (this, that, many, etc.).
Determiners can be used in certain combinations, such as all the water and the many problems.
In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to be completed with an article or some other determiner. It is not grammatical to say just cat sat on table; one must say my cat sat on the table. The most common situations in which a complete noun phrase can be formed without a determiner are when it refers generally to a whole class or concept (as in dogs are dangerous and beauty is subjective) and when it is a name (Jane, Spain, etc.). This is discussed in more detail at English articles and Zero article in English.
Pronouns Pronouns are a relatively small, closed class of words that function in the place of nouns or noun phrases. They include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and some others, mainly indefinite pronouns.
Personal Main article: English personal pronouns The personal pronouns of modern standard English, and the corresponding possessive forms, are as follows:
Nominative Oblique Reflexive Possessive determiner Possessive pronoun 1st pers. sing. I me myself my mine 2nd pers. sing./pl. you you yourself/yourselves your yours 3rd pers. sing. she, he, they, it her, him, them, it herself, himself, themself, itself her, his, their, its hers, his, theirs, its 1st pers. pl. we us ourselves our ours 3rd pers. pl. they them themselves their theirs The second-person forms such as you are used with both singular and plural reference. In the Southern United States, y'all (you all) is used as a plural form, and various other phrases such as you guys are used in other places. An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's—in such texts, the you set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal V-form. You can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, referring to a person in general (see generic you), compared to the more formal alternative, one (reflexive oneself, possessive one's).
The third-person singular forms are differentiated according to the sex of the referent. For example, she is used to refer to a female person, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which female characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country. A male person, and sometimes a male animal, is referred to using he. In other cases it can be used. (See Gender in English.) The word it can also be used as a dummy subject, in sentences like It is going to be sunny this afternoon.
The third-person plural forms such as they are sometimes used with singular reference, as a gender-neutral pronoun, as in each employee should ensure they tidy their desk. Despite its long history, this usage is sometimes considered ungrammatical. (See singular they.)
The possessive determiners such as my are used as determiners together with nouns, as in my old man, some of his friends. The second possessive forms like mine are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in mine is bigger than yours, and as predicates, as in this one is mine. Note also the construction a friend of mine (meaning "someone who is my friend"). See English possessive for more details.
Demonstrative and interrogative The demonstrative pronouns of English are this (plural these), and that (plural those), as in these are good, I like that. Note that all four words can also be used as determiners (followed by a noun), as in those cars. They can also form the alternative pronominal expressions this/that one, these/those ones.
The interrogative pronouns are who, what, and which (all of them can take the suffix -ever for emphasis). The pronoun who refers to a person or people; it has an oblique form whom (though in informal contexts this is usually replaced by who), and a possessive form (pronoun or determiner) whose. The pronoun what refers to things or abstracts. The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the books) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which book?; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.) Which, who, and what can be either singular or plural, although who and what often take a singular verb regardless of any supposed number. For more information see who.
All the interrogative pronouns can also be used as relative pronouns; see below for more details.
Relative Main article: English relative clauses For "who/whom" and related forms, see Who (pronoun). The main relative pronouns in English are who (with its derived forms whom and whose), which, and that.[13]
The relative pronoun which refers to things rather than persons, as in the shirt, which used to be red, is faded. For persons, who is used (the man who saw me was tall). The oblique case form of who is whom, as in the man whom I saw was tall, although in informal registers who is commonly used in place of whom.
The possessive form of who is whose (the man whose car is missing ...); however the use of whose is not restricted to persons (one can say an idea whose time has come).
The word that as a relative pronoun is normally found only in restrictive relative clauses (unlike which and who, which can be used in both restrictive and unrestrictive clauses). It can refer to either persons or things, and cannot follow a preposition. For example, one can say the song that [or which] I listened to yesterday, but the song to which [not to that] I listened yesterday. The relative pronoun that is usually pronounced with a reduced vowel (schwa), and hence differently from the demonstrative that (see Weak and strong forms in English). If that is not the subject of the relative clause, it can be omitted (the song I listened to yesterday).
The word what can be used to form a free relative clause – one that has no antecedent and that serves as a complete noun phrase in itself, as in I like what he likes. The words whatever and whichever can be used similarly, in the role of either pronouns (whatever he likes) or determiners (whatever book he likes). When referring to persons, who(ever) (and whom(ever)) can be used in a similar way (but not as determiners).
"There" The word there is used as a pronoun in some sentences, playing the role of a dummy subject, normally of an intransitive verb. The "logical subject" of the verb then appears as a complement after the verb.
This use of there occurs most commonly with forms of the verb be in existential clauses, to refer to the presence or existence of something. For example: There is a heaven; There are two cups on the table; There have been a lot of problems lately. It can also be used with other verbs: There exist two major variants; There occurred a very strange incident.
The dummy subject takes the number (singular or plural) of the logical subject (complement), hence it takes a plural verb if the complement is plural. In informal English, however, the contraction there's is often used for both singular and plural.[14]
The dummy subject can undergo inversion, Is there a test today? and Never has there been a man such as this. It can also appear without a corresponding logical subject, in short sentences and question tags: There wasn't a discussion, was there? There was.
The word there in such sentences has sometimes been analyzed as an adverb, or as a dummy predicate, rather than as a pronoun.[15] However, its identification as a pronoun is most consistent with its behavior in inverted sentences and question tags as described above.
Because the word there can also be a deictic adverb (meaning "at/to that place"), a sentence like There is a river could have either of two meanings: "a river exists" (with there as a pronoun), and "a river is in that place" (with there as an adverb). In speech, the adverbial there would be given stress, while the pronoun would not – in fact the pronoun is often pronounced as a weak form, /ðə(r)/.
Other Other pronouns in English are often identical in form to determiners (especially quantifiers), such as many, a little, etc. Sometimes, the pronoun form is different, as with none (corresponding to the determiner no), nothing, everyone, somebody, etc. Many examples are listed as indefinite pronouns. Another indefinite (or impersonal) pronoun is one (with its reflexive form oneself and possessive one's), which is a more formal alternative to generic you.[16]
Verbs Main article: English verbs The basic form of an English verb is not generally marked by any ending, although there are certain suffixes that are frequently used to form verbs, such as -ate (formulate), -fy (electrify), and -ise/ize (realise/realize).[17] Many verbs also contain prefixes, such un- (unmask), out- (outlast), over- (overtake), and under- (undervalue).[17] Verbs can also be formed from nouns and adjectives by zero derivation, as with the verbs snare, nose, dry, and calm.
Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in -(e)s (writes, botches), a present participle and gerund form in -ing (writing), a past tense (wrote), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (written). Regular verbs have identical past tense and past participle forms in -ed, but there are 100 or so irregular English verbs with different forms (see list). The verbs have, do and say also have irregular third-person present tense forms (has, does /dʌz/, says /sɛz/). The verb be has the largest number of irregular forms (am, is, are in the present tense, was, were in the past tense, been for the past participle).
Most of what are often referred to as verb tenses (or sometimes aspects) in English are formed using auxiliary verbs. Apart from what are called the simple present (write, writes) and simple past (wrote), there are also continuous (progressive) forms (am/is/are/was/were writing), perfect forms (have/has/had written, and the perfect continuous have/has/had been writing), future forms (will write, will be writing, will have written, will have been writing), and conditionals (also called "future in the past") with would in place of will. The auxiliaries shall and should sometimes replace will and would in the first person. For the uses of these various verb forms, see English verbs and English clause syntax.
The basic form of the verb (be, write, play) is used as the infinitive, although there is also a "to-infinitive" (to be, to write, to play) used in many syntactical constructions. There are also infinitives corresponding to other aspects: (to) have written, (to) be writing, (to) have been writing. The second-person imperative is identical to the (basic) infinitive; other imperative forms may be made with let (let us go, or let's go; let them eat cake).
A form identical to the infinitive can be used as a present subjunctive in certain contexts: It is important that he follow them or ... that he be committed to the cause. There is also a past subjunctive (distinct from the simple past only in the possible use of were instead of was), used in some conditional sentences and similar: if I were (or was) rich ...; were he to arrive now ...; I wish she were (or was) here. For details see English subjunctive.
The passive voice is formed using the verb be (in the appropriate tense or form) with the past participle of the verb in question: cars are driven, he was killed, I am being tickled, it is nice to be pampered, etc. The performer of the action may be introduced in a prepositional phrase with by (as in they were killed by the invaders).
The English modal verbs consist of the core modals can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, as well as ought (to), had better, and in some uses dare and need.[18] These do not inflect for person or number,[18] and do not have infinitive or participle forms (except synonyms, as with be/being/been able (to) for the modals can/could). The modals are used with the basic infinitive form of a verb (I can swim, he may be killed, we dare not move, need they go?), except for ought, which takes to (you ought to go).
The copula be, along with the modal verbs and the other auxiliaries, form a distinct class, sometimes called "special verbs" or simply "auxiliaries".[19] These have different syntax from ordinary lexical verbs, especially in that they make their interrogative forms by plain inversion with the subject, and their negative forms by adding not after the verb (could I ...? I could not ...). Apart from those already mentioned, this class may also include used to (although the forms did he use to? and he didn't use to are also found), and sometimes have even when not an auxiliary (forms like have you a sister? and he hadn't a clue are possible, though becoming less common). It also includes the auxiliary do (does, did); this is used with the basic infinitive of other verbs (those not belonging to the "special verbs" class) to make their question and negation forms, as well as emphatic forms (do I like you?; he doesn't speak English; we did close the fridge). For more details of this, see do-support.
Some forms of the copula and auxiliaries often appear as contractions, as in I'm for I am, you'd for you would or you had, and John's for John is. Their negated forms with following not are also often contracted (see § Negation below). For detail see English auxiliaries and contractions.
Phrases A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammar[20]). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects, complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases). In English, objects and complements nearly always come after the verb; a direct object precedes other complements such as prepositional phrases, but if there is an indirect object as well, expressed without a preposition, then that precedes the direct object: give me the book, but give the book to me. Adverbial modifiers generally follow objects, although other positions are possible (see under § Adverbs below). Certain verb–modifier combinations, particularly when they have independent meaning (such as take on and get up), are known as "phrasal verbs".
For details of possible patterns, see English clause syntax. See the Non-finite clauses section of that article for verb phrases headed by non-finite verb forms, such as infinitives and participles.
Adjectives English adjectives, as with other word classes, cannot in general be identified as such by their form,[21] although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix, such as -al (habitual), -ful (blissful), -ic (atomic), -ish (impish, youngish), -ous (hazardous), etc.; or from other adjectives using a prefix: disloyal, irredeemable, unforeseen, overtired.
Adjectives may be used attributively, as part of a noun phrase (nearly always preceding the noun they modify; for exceptions see postpositive adjective), as in the big house, or predicatively, as in the house is big. Certain adjectives are restricted to one or other use; for example, drunken is attributive (a drunken sailor), while drunk is usually predicative (the sailor was drunk).
Comparison Many adjectives have comparative and superlative forms in -er and -est,[22] such as faster and fastest (from the positive form fast). Spelling rules which maintain pronunciation apply to suffixing adjectives just as they do for similar treatment of regular past tense formation; these cover consonant doubling (as in bigger and biggest, from big) and the change of y to i after consonants (as in happier and happiest, from happy).
The adjectives good and bad have the irregular forms better, best and worse, worst; also far becomes farther, farthest or further, furthest. The adjective old (for which the regular older and oldest are usual) also has the irregular forms elder and eldest, these generally being restricted to use in comparing siblings and in certain independent uses. For the comparison of adverbs, see Adverbs below.
Many adjectives, however, particularly those that are longer and less common, do not have inflected comparative and superlative forms. Instead, they can be qualified with more and most, as in beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful (this construction is also sometimes used even for adjectives for which inflected forms do exist).
Certain adjectives are classed as ungradable.[22] These represent properties that cannot be compared on a scale; they simply apply or do not, as with pregnant, dead, unique. Consequently, comparative and superlative forms of such adjectives are not normally used, except in a figurative, humorous or imprecise context. Similarly, such adjectives are not normally qualified with modifiers of degree such as very and fairly, although with some of them it is idiomatic to use adverbs such as completely. Another type of adjectives sometimes considered ungradable is those that represent an extreme degree of some property, such as delicious and terrified.
Phrases An adjective phrase is a group of words that plays the role of an adjective in a sentence. It usually has a single adjective as its head, to which modifiers and complements may be added.[23]
Adjectives can be modified by a preceding adverb or adverb phrase, as in very warm, truly imposing, more than a little excited. Some can also be preceded by a noun or quantitative phrase, as in fat-free, two-metre-long.
Complements following the adjective may include:
prepositional phrases: proud of him, angry at the screen, keen on breeding toads; infinitive phrases: anxious to solve the problem, easy to pick up; content clauses, i.e. that clauses and certain others: certain that he was right, unsure where they are; after comparatives, phrases or clauses with than: better than you, smaller than I had imagined. An adjective phrase may include both modifiers before the adjective and a complement after it, as in very difficult to put away.
Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives before a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun, as in a woman proud of being a midwife (where they may be converted into relative clauses: a woman who is proud of being a midwife), but it is wrong to say *a proud of being a midwife woman. Exceptions include very brief and often established phrases such as easy-to-use. (Certain complements can be moved to after the noun, leaving the adjective before the noun, as in a better man than you, a hard nut to crack.)
Certain attributive adjective phrases are formed from other parts of speech, without any adjective as their head, as in a two-bedroom house, a no-jeans policy.
Adverbs Adverbs perform a wide range of functions. They typically modify verbs (or verb phrases), adjectives (or adjectival phrases), or other adverbs (or adverbial phrases).[24] However, adverbs also sometimes qualify noun phrases (only the boss; quite a lovely place), pronouns and determiners (almost all), prepositional phrases (halfway through the movie), or whole sentences, to provide contextual comment or indicate an attitude (Frankly, I don't believe you).[25] They can also indicate a relationship between clauses or sentences (He died, and consequently I inherited the estate).[25]
Many English adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the ending -ly, as in hopefully, widely, theoretically (for details of spelling and etymology, see -ly). Certain words can be used as both adjectives and adverbs, such as fast, straight, and hard; these are flat adverbs. In earlier usage more flat adverbs were accepted in formal usage; many of these survive in idioms and colloquially. (That's just plain ugly.) Some adjectives can also be used as flat adverbs when they actually describe the subject. (The streaker ran naked, not **The streaker ran nakedly.) The adverb corresponding to the adjective good is well (note that bad forms the regular badly, although ill is occasionally used in some phrases).
There are also many adverbs that are not derived from adjectives,[24] including adverbs of time, of frequency, of place, of degree and with other meanings. Some suffixes that are commonly used to form adverbs from nouns are -ward[s] (as in homeward[s]) and -wise (as in lengthwise).
Most adverbs form comparatives and superlatives by modification with more and most: often, more often, most often; smoothly, more smoothly, most smoothly (see also comparison of adjectives, above). However, a few adverbs retain irregular inflection for comparative and superlative forms:[24] much, more, most; a little, less, least; well, better, best; badly, worse, worst; far, further (farther), furthest (farthest); or follow the regular adjectival inflection: fast, faster, fastest; soon, sooner, soonest; etc.
Adverbs indicating the manner of an action are generally placed after the verb and its objects (We considered the proposal carefully), although other positions are often possible (We carefully considered the proposal). Many adverbs of frequency, degree, certainty, etc. (such as often, always, almost, probably, and various others such as just) tend to be placed before the verb (they usually have chips), although if there is an auxiliary or other "special verb" (see § Verbs above), then the normal position for such adverbs is after that special verb (or after the first of them, if there is more than one): I have just finished the crossword; She can usually manage a pint; We are never late; You might possibly have been unconscious. Adverbs that provide a connection with previous information (such as next, then, however), and those that provide the context (such as time or place) for a sentence, are typically placed at the start of the sentence: Yesterday we went on a shopping expedition.[26]
A special type of adverb is the adverbial particle used to form phrasal verbs (such as up in pick up, on in get on, etc.) If such a verb also has an object, then the particle may precede or follow the object, although it will normally follow the object if the object is a pronoun (pick the pen up or pick up the pen, but pick it up).
Phrases An adverb phrase is a phrase that acts as an adverb within a sentence.[27] An adverb phrase may have an adverb as its head, together with any modifiers (other adverbs or adverb phrases) and complements, analogously to the adjective phrases described above. For example: very sleepily; all too suddenly; oddly enough; perhaps shockingly for us.
Another very common type of adverb phrase is the prepositional phrase, which consists of a preposition and its object: in the pool; after two years; for the sake of harmony.
Prepositions Prepositions form a closed word class,[25] although there are also certain phrases that serve as prepositions, such as in front of. A single preposition may have a variety of meanings, often including temporal, spatial and abstract. Many words that are prepositions can also serve as adverbs. Examples of common English prepositions (including phrasal instances) are of, in, on, over, under, to, from, with, in front of, behind, opposite, by, before, after, during, through, in spite of or despite, between, among, etc.
A preposition is usually used with a noun phrase as its complement. A preposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase.[28] Examples are in England, under the table, after six pleasant weeks, between the land and the sea. A prepositional phrase can be used as a complement or post-modifier of a noun in a noun phrase, as in the man in the car, the start of the fight; as a complement of a verb or adjective, as in deal with the problem, proud of oneself; or generally as an adverb phrase (see above).
English allows the use of "stranded" prepositions. This can occur in interrogative and relative clauses, where the interrogative or relative pronoun that is the preposition's complement is moved to the start (fronted), leaving the preposition in place. This kind of structure is avoided in some kinds of formal English. For example:
What are you talking about? (Possible alternative version: About what are you talking?) The song that you were listening to ... (more formal: The song to which you were listening ...) Notice that in the second example the relative pronoun that could be omitted.
Stranded prepositions can also arise in passive voice constructions and other uses of passive past participial phrases, where the complement in a prepositional phrase can become zero in the same way that a verb's direct object would: it was looked at; I will be operated on; get your teeth seen to. The same can happen in certain uses of infinitive phrases: he is nice to talk to; this is the page to make copies of.
Conjunctions Conjunctions express a variety of logical relations between items, phrases, clauses and sentences.[29] The principal coordinating conjunctions in English are: and, or, but, nor, so, yet, and for. These can be used in many grammatical contexts to link two or more items of equal grammatical status,[29] for example:
Noun phrases combined into a longer noun phrase, such as John, Eric, and Jill, the red coat or the blue one. When and is used, the resulting noun phrase is plural. A determiner does not need to be repeated with the individual elements: the cat, the dog, and the mouse and the cat, dog, and mouse are both correct. The same applies to other modifiers. (The word but can be used here in the sense of "except": nobody but you.) Adjective or adverb phrases combined into a longer adjective or adverb phrase: tired but happy, over the fields and far away. Verbs or verb phrases combined as in he washed, peeled, and diced the turnips (verbs conjoined, object shared); he washed the turnips, peeled them, and diced them (full verb phrases, including objects, conjoined). Other equivalent items linked, such as prefixes linked in pre- and post-test counselling,[30] numerals as in two or three buildings, etc. Clauses or sentences linked, as in We came, but they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't let us in, nor would they explain what we had done wrong. There are also correlative conjunctions, where as well as the basic conjunction, an additional element appears before the first of the items being linked.[29] The common correlatives in English are:
either ... or (either a man or a woman); neither ... nor (neither clever nor funny); both ... and (they both punished and rewarded them); not ... but, particularly in not only ... but also (not exhausted but exhilarated, not only football but also many other sports).

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2020.02.19 14:03 RepulsiveImportance1 Verb and it's types

English GrammaParts of Speech/Verb Hi friends, I have come with the next topic Verb. We are going to study Verb and it's different types. Verb is the most important topic in sentence formation. So, let's commence, English grammar, Parts of Speech, verb
Read these articles also pronoun and it's types Adjective and it's types
Definition of Verb:- The word which is used to indicate action in the sentence, is called Verb. Example:- 1) He plays cricket. 2) I sing a song. In above sentences, play and sing indicates the main action respectively. So they are verbs.
There are many types of verbs. We will comprehend each of them in this article English GrammaParts of Speech/Verb.
Types of verb. There are two types of Verb. 1) Auxillary/Helping verbs 2) Main verb
1) Auxillary/Helping verbs:- The verbs which are used in the sentence to help the sentence which contributes to make the sentences eligible according to tenses. Helping verbs play most important role in sentence formation according to tenses. Ex. Am, is ,are,shall, will etc.
There are two types of Auxillary Verbs. 1) Auxillary Verbs used in tenses. 2) Model Auxillary Verbs.
1) Auxillary Verbs used in tenses:- Do, Does, Did, am, is , are, was, were, have, has had, shall, will Example: 1) He is a shopkeeper. 2) We have bought a tv.
Do, Does, these verbs are used in simple present tense. Did used in simple past tense. Am, is are these verbs are used in present continuous tense. Was, were these verbs are used in past continuous tense. Have, has used in present perfect tense. Had used in past perfect tense. Shall, will used in simple future tense. Shall be, will be these verbs are used in future continuous tense,. Shall have, will have these verbs are used in future perfect continuous tense.
Am, is are, was, were shall be, will be These are kinds of to be. Have, has, had, shall have, will have These are kinds of to have.
2) Model Auxillary Verbs:- These verbs are not used in tenses. They have their own use. Ex. Can, could, may, might, would, should, ought to, must, need to, used to, dare to The above verbs have their own meaning. Let's study,
can:- this helping verb used to indicate mental, physical, financial capabilities and possibilities. Ex. 1) l can buy a car. ( Financial capability) 2) I can walk for two hours continuously.(physical capability) 3) I can solve that puzzle.(mental capability)
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Note:- Model Auxillary Verbs must be followed by main verb. It can not be used without main verb.
could:- it is past tense of can. It's uses are like can but in past tense. Example:- 1) I could buy a car.(financial capability) 2) I could walk for two hours continuously.(physical capability) 3) I could solve that puzzle.(mental capability)
May:- it is used yo seek permission. Example:- 1) May I come in sir? 2) I may go to America. (I am allowed to go)
Might:- it is past tense of may. Example:- 1) I might come in ? 2) I might go to America. (I was allowed to go)
Would:- it is the past tense of will. Example:- 1) I would love you a lot. 2) she would cook.
Ought to:- it is used to express moral duties. Example:- 1) we ought to respect senior citizen. 2) I ought to provide alms to mendicant.
Used to:- It is used to express the activities in the past that taken place frequently. Example:- 1) I used to read books in childhood. 2) she used to put on spectacles.
Must:- It's used to express extreme need, obligation, requirement. Example:- 1)we must breathe in order to live. 2) They must study to pass the exam.
Need to:- it is used to express requirement. Example:- 1) I need to take medicine. 2) we need to compensate their loss.
Dare to:- it's used to express the courage. Example:- 1) I dare to fight against the tiger. 2) they dare to copy in the exam.
Should:- it's used to express necessity. Example:- 1) I should go to school. 2) she should pardon me.
Main Verb:- The word which is used to indicate the main action in the sentence, is called as Main Verb. Example:- 1) Police arrested the thief. 2) He told a story. In above sentences, "arrested and told" are main verbs.
There are two types of Main Verb. 1) Regular Main Verb (Weak verb) 2) Irregular Main Verb (Strong Verb)
1) Regular Main Verb (Weak verb):- The verb which is suffixed by -d, -ed, -ied while making their three forms, (eg. Present tense, past tense, past participle), such verb is called as Regular Main Verb (Weak verb.)
Example:-
Play. Played Played Ask. Asked. Asked Deceive. Deceived. Deceived

The verb which has it's all three forms same, is also called Regular Main Verb.

Ex. Shut. Shut. Shut Put. Put. Put Bet. Bet. Bet
2) Irregular Main Verb:- The verb on which suffixes like "-d -ed, -ied" don't apply, all three forms are different,is called as Irregular Main Verb.(strong verb).
Ex. Make. Made. Made Write. Wrote. Written Shine. Shone. Shone
There are two more types of Main Verb. It is useful in Active and Passive voice. 1) Transitive Verb 2) Intransitive verb
1) Transitive Verb:- The verb which needs an object to complete it's meaning entirely, is called Transitive Verb. Example:- 1) He eats an apple. 2) She makes a table. In above sentences, the verb must require an object to complete the meaning of the sentence. Eg. Without object the process doesn't complete of making, and eating. If there is no apple, the process of eating can not complete. And
Eg. Without object "table" and "apple";the process doesn't complete of making, and eating. If there is no apple, the process of eating can not complete.
2) Intransitive verb:- The verb which doesn't need an object to complete it's meaning entirely, is called Intransitive Verb. Example:- 1) I swim. 2) she walks. In above, the action of swimming and walking can complete without object, so These are Intransitive verbs.

submitted by RepulsiveImportance1 to EnglishLearning [link] [comments]

2019.11.28 06:02 Rocknocker DEMOLITION DAYS, PART 55

That reminds me of a story.
Spelunk [spi-luhngk]
Etymology:

From Middle English spelunke, from Latin spelunca,
From Ancient Greek σπῆλυγξ (spêlunx), from earlier σπέος (spéos). . verb (used without object)
To explore caves, especially as a hobby.
The noise big rocks make when chucked into a newly discovered cavern.

“Rock, honey”, Esme says “You can’t just give up on your international contracts. We agreed to give this time. Until something happens, you still need to go where your jobs take you.”
“Es, dear”, I reply, “I understand that. However, I’ve already told the guys at the shop I’ve got enough work to keep me busy at home for a full year reviewing data, writing reports, and stickhandling the data reprocessing. In the interim, I can still take local contracts if they are short enough.”
“If you think that will work…” Esme replies, none too comfortable with my decisions.
The last pregnancy terminated spontaneously when I was over in the USSR. As usual, no one has any idea why this keeps recurring. Particularly when young Khris is off the charts developmentally; physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Even if she keeps trying to ride Lady like a horse. Good thing Lady loves the attention.
I suppose one might think: “Well, you idiots, cut your losses and be grateful for what you have”.
There is that, but when maternal and paternal instincts are ramped up to 11, your long term plans were for two offspring, and this sort of challenge is thrown down; logic and critical thinking tend to go out the window.
Yeah, curse us for our all-too-human foibles.
We report to Esme’s doctor on a very regular basis. I need to attend as Esme and I are valiantly trying to understand what the problem if any, might be. I can’t do that when I’m off in the middle of absolute nowhere chasing filthy lucre.
The damnable thing about all this is the lack of any concrete evidence pointing to any sort of specific problem. After each the miscarriages, Es undergoes a battery of tests. The ‘material’ from the spontaneous abortions is analyzed by some of the best genetic and pre-natal scientists the Houston medical community can offer.
The consensus so far: Bupkis.
They’re at as much of a loss as to the cause of the problem as are we.
They see no danger in our continuing, except for the psychological trauma suffered after each of these unfortunate situations.
Physically? They see no problem whatsoever with either of us. Esme is palpably capable of carrying a pregnancy to term, obviously, but no one can nail down even an idea of what have been the contributory factors in the last pregnancy’s negative results.
The other consensus it to give it a rest for a while. Six months is good, a year would be better.
We are no longer vernal Gallus’; time, tide, and travel are taking their tolls. The biological clocks are ticking and we have no idea when Zero Hour might strike.
So, we decide to just relax, treasure Khris even more, and get on with our lives.
Always forward, never back.
So it came as a bolt from the blue when I received a telegram, remember them? from my igneous petrology professor from my days back at university.
Seems he had a secured a rather large grant from several different scientific societies to conduct research at a relatively young and potentially boisterous volcano in the Pacific basin.
In Hawaii. Well, on Hawaii, to be exact.
He needed someone with drilling and blasting experience. A ‘stone-cold professional’, as he put it, to help in his data acquisition and analysis exercises at this volcano.
There would be the usual seismic data gathering exercises, which he knew from long experience was my particular bailiwick. He also needed someone who knew his/her way around a drilling rig. He had somehow procured an older self-propelled, track mounted, shallow core-drilling rig, and had planned a series of cores right from the very floor of the caldera of this volcano.
He had the help of six graduate students but wanted a seasoned professional to be his second-in-command to run the logistics and actual operations in, on, and around the volcanic vent.
His grant would allow for me, and another of my choosing, one with proper geological credentials; travel, food and lodging in Hawaii for the duration of the program; approximately 3 weeks.
The thing was, he needed an answer within three business days.
“ES!” I shouted one day after I returned home from the office, “Daddy’s home!”
“Daddy!” Khris runs out, dragging Lady with her, to surgically implant herself around my leg.
Hey, Khris. Hello, Lady” I say, “Khris, can you let Lady out, please?”
“OK!”, and she and Lady run off.
“Hello, dear”, Es replied, “So how were the salt mines today?”
“Grueling” I replied. “Dear, a quick question: what do you know of volcanic igneous petrology?”
“What an odd question”, Es mused, “I know the usual undergraduate level of information. Why?”
“Damn, its good I keep all my old textbooks”, I replied.
“Oh, dear,” Es says, brow furrowed, “Now what do you have up your sleeve?”
“Arms” I chuckle.
Esme was not amused.
“Remember that spring holiday we were planning to Glacier?” I asked. “I was thinking, there might be a slight change in destination…”
Esme’s curiosity is full alarmed now.
Continuing…
“We need a vacation. A real vacation.” I answer, “Like someplace warm, tropical, and best of all, on someone else’s nickel?”
“Rock, you’re doing that obtuse leading-question thing again. You’re scaring your dear wife” Esme frets.
“Right. I figure it’s time to go to Hawaii”, I reply, “You’ve always wanted to go and a golden opportunity just fell into my lap.”
“Rock, you know I don’t like jokes like this”, Esme grumbles.
“No joke, oh dear heart of mine” I tell her.
I lay out the contents of the telegram I had only received the previous day.
“I’ve already cleared it with Beach Petroleum.” I told her, “I said I’m working like a dog on the USSR data; but with life, the universe, and everything, we both require a well-deserved break. I said we’re going to Hawaii for a vacation. They had no objections. I did not mention it was a working vacation; however, there are obviously no conflict of interests.”
“Wait. This is for real?” Esme’s eyes grow wide.
“Oh, yes”, I replied, “That is if my darling wife would sign off as scientific adjunct on the project as well. Dr. Ingca is currently waiting on my reply, yea, or nay.”
“What’s his phone number?” Es smiles as she picks up the receiver.
So, it’s set. We’re off to Hawaii to do SCIENCE!
In a week’s time, we’ll be flying from Baja Canada to Hawaii. Why Baja Canada? Well, Oma has, ahem, ‘volunteered’ to babysit Khris for the duration of our trip, which is slated to be no more than three weeks duration. Or so.
I’ve already upgraded our flights from grant-supported steerage class to a more amenable Business Class with our not inconsiderable frequent flyer miles. Esme has been reading my igneous petrology textbooks, and even I’m boning up on all this hard-rock igneous geology.
We’ve received a thick packet of information about the area in which we’ll be working.
I find volcanic petrology refreshing as well as fascinating. It’s another facet of geology I can now add to my fields of expertise.
We are heading to the Big Island of Hawaii and the eastern rift zone of the Kīlauea volcano.
We’re going to be examining a parasitic cone called ‘Mauna Ulu’, or ‘Mauna Ula’, depending on which vintage maps and reports you’re reading. It took significant wrangling to obtain the necessary permits to work here as it falls within the bounds of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.
It’s of prime interest as Mauna Ulu was in a continuous state of eruption from May 1969 to July 1974.
Now, some years later, we’re going here to sample the lava, volcanic gasses, and geophysically image the caldera to determine if the volcano poses any possible near-future eruption risk. We’re also going to obtain cores of the caldera floor to generate a cooling and mineralogical history of the basaltic magma that forms the Hawaii’in-Emperor Seamount Chain.
Sounds all very scientific, but, everyone’s got their own ulterior motives. The grad students are wrangling for letters of reference from Dr. Ingca. The good Doctor himself is there to visit and interview with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory as he wants to obtain a direct vulconology position rather than the general earth science position he holds now at university.
Esme and I are here to work the science, increase our overall scientific knowledge, add to the universal data bank of natural science, go deep sea fishing, advance our tans, and generate a slightly stronger positive household cash flow.
Once a mercenary, always a mercenary.
Oma cheerily greets Khris when we arrive in Baja Canada. Oma, the inveterate school teacher, has determined that Khris is old enough to begin learning German. This trip will give Oma the chance to begin Khris’ training in Germanic linguistics.
We privately think she’s still a bit young, but what possible harm could come from this?
Besides it will give them something fresh and fun to do besides visit museums, cinemas, and art galleries in our absence.
Oma is all about culture.
So, we say our farewells and Esme and I are off, via airport shuttle, on another adventure of a lifetime.
Esme had always wanted to visit Hawaii. Me? Not so much. Why? I abhor crowds. However, in this case, we’re going to be well off the beaten path and up in the hills, down in the caldera. Plus, someone else is footing the bill. How could I possibly send regrets?
Our out-bound itinerary includes three stops from when we leave Baja Canada. We fly first to the Windy City and enjoy a fun FIB-filled 5-hour Chi-town layover. Then it’s onto The Golden Gate City, to enjoy a wonderful Granola-Land 4-hour layover. Finally, we’re off over the vast Pacific to our destination: Honolulu.
A scant 22 hours after our initial departure, we’ll be at our primary journey's terminus.
Even though we’re all one scientific group, we’ll be staying in different lodgings when we are physically on the Big Island.
The Grad students are booked into a relatively inexpensive hikers, backpackers, and other forms of itinerant nomad’s hostel. Primitive, austere, yet grim. We inspected it and immediately passed. We are well beyond that form of communal accommodation. We’ve done month’s long field camps, field studies, and innumerable field trips. We’ve paid our dues.
Dr. Ingca is being put up by and at the observatory. They have visiting scientist’s quarters, and even though Esme and I were offered lodging there, we weren’t thrilled with the prospect with the lack of creature comforts; restaurants, bars and such, and the ‘closeness’ with as of yet unknown colleagues.
Besides, I’ve got millions of frequent flyer miles to burn through and for Es and me. We’re treating it as a mental health break, a rejuvenation of psyche and spirit, and second honeymoon.
We secure lodging at the “Volcano House”, a very adequate billet located some mere 2.2 miles from Mount Kilauea. Volcano House is the only hotel located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and is perched on the rim of Kilauea's Halemaumau crater. Very convenient.
It’s only a four-star establishment, but we decide we can soldier on for our allotted three or so weeks. We obtain a ‘Deluxe Volcano Crater View Suite’ for essentially free because of the reciprocal agreement between Royal Dutch airlines and Aeroflot.
You see, for every air mile I fly on Aeroflot, I receive 1.75 air miles from the Netherlands-based airline. Their version of a combat bonus, I presume. These all go into my air miles-bank and on my Titanium Frequent Flyer card. The three week stay barely puts a dent in the agglomeration of miles I’ve acquired thus far.
We gently touch down and go through all the typical landing formalities. No one laughs at my “Where do we exchange US dollars for Hawaiian money?” joke.
Upon deplaning, we’re given fragrant floral leis, but I politely decline. It would clash with my black Stetson. I pass it on to Esme for her collection.
We decide to rent a car rather than rely on Dr. Ingca’s arranged transportation. We will have some time off and we’re not going to hang around when there’s fishing, shopping and scientific sightseeing to be done.
We arrive at Volcano House. We are immediately heartily aloha’ed and checked in. We venture up to our suite, give appreciative low whistles over the room’s view, tip the redcap, and unpack.
Es is road and travel weary and desiring of a nap.
“Rock. Hon, make sure you leave me the dialing directions for the bar. Just in case I need you to get ahold of you.” She says, sleepily.
My love for her grows daily.
So, I’m down in Uncle George’s Lounge, instructing the bartender the finer points of constructing an adult double potato juice and citrus beverage.
“Not bad, not bad” I say, giving my evaluation, “However, Maurice, needs more ice, and a nice lime slice.”
“That’s an odd drink” Maurice observes. “Then again, you’re sort of odd with your faux-Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, field boots, and Stetson. How about we call it “The Rocknocker” and feature it on the drinks menu. How about that?”
“I’d be honored, Maurice”, I reply.
So, if you’re ever at the Volcano House on the big island, remember to ask for your signature thirst-quencher by name.
I arrange for a travel cup, requisition a double, and go walkabout on the hotel grounds. Of course, I’m smoking a large cigar. Although I’m detracting from the natural beauty of the surrounding environment, a group of Japanese guests insist on taking their photo with me.
It’s got to be the full, white beard. They’re transfixed.
“Sir”, one of them asks, “What are you doing here in Hawaii? You vacation?”
“Who are you? The Japanese equivalent of my agency buddies Rack and Ruin back home?” I muse.
Continuing, “Yes, in a manner of speaking”, I reply, “See that smaller crater over yonder? Well, a group of us are going down into it for the next three weeks and do some serious volcano science.”
They were gobsmacked. We were actually going off-trail and into the maw of a very, living volcano?
“Yep.”, I reply, sipping my drink, “I’m going to run the drilling rig and do all the blasting.”
“Blasting!” they all shriek, “Why are you blasting a volcano? Won’t that cause it to erupt?”
The thought of proximity to an erupting volcano and consequent fires utterly terrifies them.
“Whoa. Ok, now just settle down, guys.” I calmly reply, “This satellite parasitic cone hasn’t been active for more than a decade. It’s dormant now, or what we call ‘quiescent’.”
They seem relieved, especially when I relate my academic and industrial credentials. I reassure them there is exactly zero danger.
We fervently hoped. I didn’t audibly add that, though.
“How do you know that?” they ask.
“Because I’m your average, everyday normal Motherfuckin’ Pro from Dover. Doctor Rocknocker, at your service. Call me ‘Rock’.” I chuckle.
They were initially shocked, then realized I was making light of both them and the situation.
They laughed heartily, and took more pictures when I re-lit my cigar. I’d be running into them on a semi-regular basis for the next few weeks. We all shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and wandered off our separate ways.
I wandered around the grounds for about a drink and three-quarters of a cigar. I realized I was feeling a bit road weary myself. Since all us scientific-types were all meeting at the Volcano Observatory bright and early tomorrow morning, I decided to head back to our suite.
Esme was just awake and pronounced herself famished. We gave room service a good working over that evening. Es was semi-impressed when I ordered a ‘Rocknocker’ to go with our steak and baked pompano dinner.
After our evening constitutional, Es and I decide it’s time for bed. Neither one of us remember ever turning off the room lights, we were out that fast.
We all meet the next morning at 0900 at the Volcano Observatory. There’s Dr. Ingca, Es, my own self, and the six grad students: Mark, Linus, Roger, Mary, Janet, and Edith. The manager of the observatory, Dr. Sumendi, greets us and shuttles us to the conference room for breakfast bites and briefings.
After the initial introductions, there’s the mandatory safety lectures. As the observatory is a United States Geological Survey, USGS, outpost, we need to abide by all guidelines; local, state and chiefly federal, particularly OSHA.
My blasting permits and associated documents had been forwarded previously to the observatory for vetting. I am now the proud owner of a USGS-certified Blaster’s Permit. I alone am able to obtain, charge, set, and detonate explosives within the park’s perimeter.
As such, Dr. Ingca and I thought I’d get all the pre-expedition blasting protocols out of the way. It’d be easier here than in the field. Here I’d have everyone’s 100% attention.
I greet everyone and explain my perceived part in this little project. I explain that when blasting is involved, I am the only one in charge. Not Dr. Ingca, not Dr. Sumendi, not even my wife. I’m the hookin’ bull. You will take all orders, respond immediately, and without question. When it could be a matter of life and death, we don’t have the time to spare for a formal committee meeting.
I explain my flag system and who is and is not permitted where and when the flags are out.
If you have any questions, ask them. Do not assume anything. Assumptions, suppositions, and guesses can prove to be not only wrong but dead wrong. I explain clearing the compass, the air horn, FIRE IN THE HOLE! and Hit it! protocols. I tell them that there will be a demonstration in the field before we go into active data acquisition mode, so that would be a good time to address your queries.
I segue smoothly into the handling of the drilling rig. It’s an old crawler-mounted CME 55 Track Rig. It has a top drive and carries up to 650 gallons of drilling fluids or water. It has a side mounted air compressor with a tank capable of attaining 250 bar. The high torque rotary box can provide 9,400 ft lbs and 1,665 rpm. The rig’s hydraulic feed system has 28,275 lbs of retract force and 18,650 lbs of pull-down force. It also has a feed rate of 55 ft. per minute (max). This CME 55 was equipped with GDOT certified auto-SPT hammers and can turn hollow stem coring bits sized anywhere from 2.25 to 10.25-inch interior diameter.
As it’s self-portable, diesel powered, and we will also be using an older model D-8 Caterpillar dozer to create access roads in and around the backside of the caldera, I ask if anyone has experience with handling heavy equipment.
Roger tells me he’s worked in a knacker yard and has experience with forklifts, small dozers, and other scaled-down heavy equipment. Mark says he’s got some experience as well.
“Roger, you’re now my second in command in the field”, I tell him’, “Right after a shakedown test. Mark, you’re right after. ”
“Yes, Sir, Doctor Rock!” they snap to.
“OK. Everyone here. It’s just Rock. OK? No need to stand on formality in the field”, I say.
Coming from someone decked out as I was, in my usual field garb, “formality” was obviously not an often utilized word in my vocabulary.
That seemed to lighten the mood in the room immensely. We all realized we were all approachable and don’t stand too firmly on lecture-hall decorum or stuffy propriety.
It is decided that Dr. Ingca will set up a Rota schedule so everyone gets some time in every aspect of the project. Esme asks if she is needed in the field. She would prefer to utilize her not inconsiderable skills in logistics, data QA/QC and data processing at the Observatory, as she had done in Greenland.
Drs. Ingca, Sumendi, and Rocknocker all think that’s an excellent suggestion.
So it begins. The project, like Gaul, will be divided into four sections.

Dr. Sumendi will run the overall show from the Volcano Observatory. He will be responsible for operations, correspondence, finances, licenses, permits, transport, and logistics.
Dr. Ingca will administer the field reconnaissance. This will include primary data gathering, mapping, initial field interpretations, and acquisition of physical samples: rocks, fluids, and gasses.
Dr. Rock will manage the heavy equipment, construction, coring operations in the caldera proper, preparing, and executing blasting for the seismic along with seismic acquisition and field QA/QC.
Mrs. Esme Rock will control all QA/QC, processing, archiving, storage, and retrieval of all data generated by the team.

Each of the six graduate students will rotate, on a three-day basis, from one part of the team to the other. That way, each will have multiple exposures to myriad of different tasks associated with the project.
As the observatory has a small amount of nifty pyrotechnics on-site, I haven’t made my initial assessments nor orders yet, I thought that since it’s near noon, we will break for lunch. Afterward, we should all meet in the rear of the observatory, near the motor pool, where I can conduct my explosives demonstrations and conduct my heavy equipment check-outs.
Everyone in attendance agrees, so we break for lunch and head for the commissary.
Es tells me she’s still tired and since she won’t be needed this afternoon, she’d like my permission to depart, partake of the in-room Jacuzzi and later, bed.
I just snicker and agree, of course. I ask if she wants me to ride back with her.
“No, you stay here and do your dog and pony show. I know how you just live for live demos” she smiles.
“Are you operating at optimal functionality? You seem to be terribly tired a lot of the time. Should I have a concern?” I ask.
“No, Rock dear”, she says, “Remember, I’ve had an invasive surgical procedure just a few weeks ago. I haven’t been getting out much at all. All this travel, fresh air, exercise, new surroundings, new foods…”
“Ok, I see. Just as long as you’re not shammin’ just so you can go shopping.” I smile.
“Never entered my mind” she kisses me, “Let me go now and relax some. I promise it’s only a transitory bit of malaise. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“OK, if you insist.” I say, with a smile, “BE OFF! Go Jacuzzi! Get rest!”
She smiles back, “OK, boss person. Don’t have to tell me twice.”
After lunch, I begin an introduction to industrial detonics. I make certain everyone is familiar with all the tools of the trade.
Blasting caps. Super boosters. Dynamite. Primacord. C-4. Seismogel. Gelignite. Demolition wire. Actuators. Blasting machines, galvanometers, and so forth.
“If you’re unsure, ASK ME!” I drill it into their heads. “Safety first, last and foremost. A blasting cap looks harmless but if handled incorrectly it could blow the middle three fingers right off your left hand.”
I let that sink in for a while.
I go over flagging procedures and what they mean. They’re quick studies and taking copious notes.
I had set up a little interactive demonstration for the crowd. Even Drs. Ingca and Sumendi were paying rapt attention.
In a heavily red-flagged area, I had six identical cheap-ass hardhats set up about 75 meters distant. Each a different color and each sitting directly atop a selected portion of a particular explosive. I had a blasting board set up as well and a golf-cart battery I scrounged as the source. It was all wired to a small, hand-held blasting machine.
Audience participation time.
I asked each one of the grad students, one by one, to come forward and I’d allow them to set off the explosive downrange. I’d tell them what pyrotechnic compound was under each and asked for their ideas of what would happen when they pushed the big, shiny red button.
We started with the ladies first. Edith took the machine, which was wired to a single blasting cap. That’s it. Nothing else.
I hand her the machine and ask her to do the needful.
She goes to press the big, red, shiny button and I disconnect her immediately and hit the air horn.
“Aren’t we forgetting a few things?” I ask.
“Umm”, I obviously terrorized her, so I calmed her down and gently asked again.
“Remember this morning? Clear the compass? OK, Wait one. First, let me run a quick pre-demo demonstration, then we can proceed. It was a lot to digest on the first day.” I assuage her nervousness.
“All shooters to the control area!” I shouted.
Everyone, Doctors included, immediately came over, hard hats on, goggles in place.
“OK, here’s the deal. No notes right now, just listen and learn”. I ordered.
“Who’s the blasting boss?” I ask loudly.
“Dr. Rock”, came the feeble answers.
“OK, gang. Deep breath time. I may have put the fear of Primacord in you today, but this mousy little batch of squeaks ain’t gonna cut it in the field. Use your ‘outside voice’. I’m half-deaf anyways from all this blasting. Respond so they can hear you back home on the mainland.” I order again.
“Now, who is the blasting boss?” I ask.
“DOCTOR ROCK!” Came the replies.
“That’s better. Now, compasses out. Look north. All clear? Any faunae, winged, two, or four-legged animals anywhere near the red flag zone?”
“NO! DOCTOR ROCK!” came the reply.
“Good. ‘Rock’ is fine, though. Let’s ‘Clear the Compass’. Clear west?” I ask.
“CLEAR WEST, ROCK!” and so on through the compass.
“OK” I explain the concept of ‘green’ to everyone. I make it abundantly clear that it’s the most useful term.
“Would someone be so kind as to give me three good toots on the air horn?” I inquire.
Dr. Sumendi smilingly complies. TOOTLE x3.
“OK, nearly showtime,” I say.
I hand Edith the blasting machine. I tell her when I say, “HIT IT!” she should do so, with vigor.
I then ask for a 9-part harmony: “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
I look at Edith. “Green?”
She smiles: “Green!”
I nod, give a quick final look around, point to her, and yell “HIT IT!”
Hardhat number one went considerably airborne. It was semi-impressive.
“There you go guys and gals. That procedure happens EACH and EVERY time there’s a shot unless I say otherwise. Are we green?” I ask.
“Green as grass, Rock!” I get in reply.
“OK, since we’re in a controlled condition, I’m going to forego the pre-detonation formalities for the rest of the exercise. That’s my decision and I’m the only one legally allowed to make it. Trust me, in the field, it will never happen.” I tell them. “But, this is a special occasion.”
“Janet,” I say, “You’re up. Mary, you’re on deck.”
Janet’s cap and super-booster combination got some impressive air.
Mary’s ¼ stick of 60% Herculene Extra Fast hat was hard to find, as it was in several distant, disaggregated pieces.
“OK, gentlemen. Linus, you’re up. Mark on Deck. Roger in the bullpen” I tell them.
Linus’ Primacorded hardhat just sort of took a messily shredded spinning flight.
Mark’s C-4’ed hardhat was never seen again. It just sort of evaporated.
Roger’s gelignite hardhat jumped up several tens of feet then aggressively distributed itself over a large area.
They were impressed with their new learnings.
I had one little surprise left. I had found some solid binaries. I had obtained a piece of volcanic pumice/lava of about a half-meter cube volume sitting way out, about 200 meters distant. It was also in a heavily red, yellow, and green flagged area.
Here, I ran through the pre-detonation protocols. I primed the 3 kilos of binary solids with caps and super boosters, all actuated by 25,000 feet-per-second Primacord.
Just before I gave the big, shiny red button over to Dr. Ingca, I asked if we were green.
“All green, Rock!”
“OK, then Doctor”, I hand Dr. Ingca the blasting machine, tootle the horn, and am greeted with a spontaneous triple FIRE IN THE HOLE!
Nice.
With a smile, I look to Dr. Ingca, point and yell “HIT IT!”
Three was a most satisfying deafening report and the explosion reduced that ~350-kilo piece of volcanic rock to its component molecules.
Linus wanders over for a closer look: “Holy shit. It just fuckin’ disappeared.”
He immediately blanches thinking he might have violated some protocol.
I look to him, smile, and say,”Fuckin’-A, Bubba.”
After that, the group broke into smaller sub-groups. Mark, Roger and I hung back to do check-outs on the heavy equipment.
“Roger, go get that drilling rig and walk it over here,” I tell him.
“Yes, Sir! Doctor Rock!” he laughs.
OK, this guy’s a wiseass. I like him even more.
“Mark”, I tell him “Double time that Cat over here as well. Don’t run Roger over, if you’d be so kind.”
“Sir!” and he runs off to get the dozer.
Give them their due, they handled their ends of the metaphorical logs like professional lumberjacks.
“Gentlemen”, I say as hand them both cigars, “Welcome to Team Rock. You’re my primaries. If I need help with the equipment, you’re on call, no matter your Rota. Is that acceptable?”
“No problem, Rock,” they say.
Roger asks if I have a light.
Roger’s OK. Mark is cool as well.
To be continued.

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2019.10.18 19:22 thisjobisgonnakillme Escaping a hostile work environment, by the book

There's an update to my story!
My story starts off as mundane as anybody’s: Five years into working for an enormous corporation, my group was “reorg’ed”. This particular reorg was, like most efforts, a half-baked idea ginned up by a suit in a corner office, questionably planned, poorly executed and terribly communicated. Nonetheless, I was sent from my old group to a brand new (to me) group managed by Jim. Jim seemed an okay fellow, with a dry sense of humor and a British accent that lulled me into thinking he was a decent guy.
Working for Jim was … okay. He was never available and when we did meet maybe once a month he’d bark off a list of things for me to do, then say he had a conflict and had to go to another call. I was floundering a little, but felt I had a handle on things.
During my first annual review via phone, Jim offered up vanilla platitudes about how things were going well, while I heard him distractedly typing away at IM’s from people pinging him. He paused when he got to my salary and hedged, a bit.
“Ahhh… so I got you a small increase, I couldn’t get you much. To be frank, I’m not going to question how anyone arrives at their salary level, but you make way more than the other people on my team.”
It was awkward, but not the first time I’ve had such a pointed salary discussion with a male manager. It’s never been a talking point with any of the women who managed me, and I wondered if he would have made those comments to me if I were a man. I’ve managed teams over the years and noticed the women on my teams seemed to make less than their male counterparts, so I get I’m an anomaly. But, I’m a high performer in a 25-year uninterrupted career, as I never chose to have children. I’ve worked hard for my salary and I’m proud of it. I could get hired elsewhere at this salary in my market easily given my experience, qualifications and certifications.
Shortly after our review, Jim moved on to work with my primary group of business partners, leaving me with no manager, just a 2-up manager I’d never met or spoken to.
And that’s when the shit hit the fan.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my salary was brought up in a discussion with his new team, the fine ladies who were managers of the teams I worked with in my business partner group.
As it's been relayed to me, Jim didn’t blurt out the specific details of course, but when one of the women complained about something I'd done, Jim said he was surprised there were issues because I was the highest paid person on his (now former) team. He poisoned the well quite nicely for me.
Going back through my emails I could pinpoint the date and time the remark was said, because the tone of EVERY SINGLE ONE of those managers changed as if on a dime. If I asked a question, I was berated because, “You’re our most senior analyst! You should know that!” Documentation that had sufficed before was suddenly “all wrong”.
There were two particularly hostile culprits: Pat, who managed reporting on the systems we were migrating and her underling PM, Wanda.
Pat came at me quick, fangs bared, with a demand that I put together a plan to get us to the next-generation of reporting which wasn’t due to be released until 2021. The 2021 plan Wanda, her PM had put together, looked like notes on a greasy cocktail napkin, so Pat decided that since I was the SME, I should do Wanda's work for her instead.
Pat wanted a plan from today, in 2019 through to the date of release in May 2021. According to her it had to include ALL the tasks needed for delivery right from the start, which is not how planning works. I can’t predict the future, so my plans usually start out detailed in the near term, with increasingly wider swaths of more generalized tasks to be elaborated in detail as we get further along. This is an industry standard approach, and was never a problem, right up until it was.
Pat started hounding me relentlessly to get this full plan done for her in 5 days, which would have been an impossible task under the best of circumstances. Nonetheless, I put together a 2000-line long plan, working evenings and over the weekend, because my arms had been in pain for several months from typing at my home office and I had to take frequent breaks from the pain.
Note: I had been made a remote employee against my will, and when I was reorg'ed I started asking for a desk back at work. Jim always dismissed my request, saying there was “no space”, so I spent over $1500 on an ergonomic chair and desk for my home to make typing easier, but my arms still hurt anytime I sat at the keyboard for more than a half hour.
I had to back-burner my more immediate, pressing work for upcoming releases in the next couple of months, because Pat told me I had to prioritize her work over everything else. I had no manager to help redirect my priorities back to my other work and when I tried to say it would have to wait until I finished my more pressing work, Pat sighed and bitterly said in front of a half-dozen people including Wanda, “So you’re our most SENIOR SME and you’re telling me you can’t do the work?”
Pat then decided to up the ante by insisting I run every element of the plan I was creating FOR Wanda BY Wanda, a junior level PM who not only didn’t understand the systems we were using - I had to tell her how to create her own status reports - but wrote at a third grade level. Even subject/verb agreement is out of Wanda’s grasp. But she had a chip on her shoulder and now she believed she could tell me what to do and how to do it. It was like a teacup poodle trying to guide a Rottweiler.
Wanda was immediately and clearly out of her element, and obviously so. As a result, every single time she was caught fucking up, she threw me right under the bus. She’d preemptively throw me under the bus too. Wanda’s only talent was deflecting blame and painting herself as the victim.
I didn’t know what to do, I was having anxiety attacks. My heart would start racing to 145bpm on the couch at night when I started thinking about work. I was overwhelmed and my arms were killing me and then the unthinkable happened… My mom suddenly died.
When I told the team, they were not only completely unsympathetic. They were pissed. I had to take a week of bereavement and this, too, pissed them off as I was leaving the day before the deadline Pat had given me to finish Wanda’s plan for the 2021 project. Instead of packing for the funeral or connecting with my family, I spent the 3 days before my leave working late nights trying to finish the plan. We met at 5PM the day before I was to go on leave, where Pat and Wanda ripped into my plan, and said they would work with another team member to fix all of my “mistakes” in the week I was gone.
Finally free of the evil twins, I went on leave. And while on leave, my arms stopped hurting. After 6 weeks of physical therapy for my arm problems, just not typing for awhile helped immensely.
I had two days left before I had to go back to the hellhole, and I was dreading it. When the heart palpitations started up again, I knew I couldn’t go back.
At first, I decided I would just quit the day I was supposed to return. I didn’t want to even give them two weeks notice, I hated them so much. They had been so cruel about me taking bereavement leave. I wanted to fuck them over, good and proper. No two weeks notice meant I’d leave them hanging for their near-term releases that I’d not been allowed to finish up my work for, as well as for the 2021 plan.
And if I burned a bridge or my reputation, so what? I’m nearing the age where people usually retire or have a major career change. I don’t need to keep that bridge any longer. I have saved up enough, and dammit my health was more important to me than these toxic people OR my paycheck. The night I decided to quit I went to sleep relieved and not anxious, for the first time in six months. I felt the anxiety leaving me, knowing I wouldn’t have to work with those people ever again.
It felt like a solid plan.
Then the next morning I woke up with a plan even more brilliant. It checked ALL my boxes:
• I wouldn’t have to go back to work
• I wouldn’t have to give two weeks notice, so they’d still be fucked
• I would still get paid
• AND I would be able to take care of my arms that had been in pain for so long! AND while I’m at it, manage the anxiety that had spiraled out of control because of my hostile coworkers
My new and improved plan was simple: Take medical leave.
I needed protected medical leave in the form of FMLA, which for those not in the US, provides up to 12 weeks of leave where my specific job role and salary must be protected and available to me upon my return.
And because it was medical leave, I was automatically enrolled in Short Term Disability, for which my company will pay 100% of my salary for 8 weeks and then 65% of my salary for the remaining weeks I’m out.
The best part of this plan is it fucks over all the people I want to fuck over AND IT’S ALL 100% LEGIT! I had been having problems keeping up at work because of all the doctors visits I had for my arms, physical therapy, regular therapy for my anxiety that had gotten out of control, and a psychiatrist. My health issues were eating into my workday, causing me to have to work early mornings, nights and weekends more than ever, and no doubt pissing off these people who thought I was making too much money to be deserving of any time off for doctor’s appointments.
My team got a new manager after 6 weeks, coincidentally just the day before I was to come back from bereavement. I was sneakily logged onto work every day to catch his name and I stealthily dialed into the conference call where he was introduced to the team. My 2-up manager that I’ve never spoken to even said at the outset: “I think we have everyone on the bridge. Thisjobisgonnakillme won’t be here, she’s on bereavement.”
I called up the administrators of our FMLA and Short Term Disability plans to file my claim. I got the forms and figured out which of my half-dozen doctors had to fill what out. My orthopedist signed me off for 12 weeks of absence straight away because she noted I’d been in pain since May so it would likely take awhile to heal. After talking with her, my PT and my psychiatrist, I will likely do physical therapy for 6 weeks and then enroll in a program for anxiety and stress management for the remaining 6 weeks before returning. All covered by my insurance and all FREE because I met my out of pocket maximum halfway through the year due to a hospital stay for a different medical issue.
The night before I was due back, I sat there grinning while looking at the next morning’s 8:00AM calendar invite from Wanda. In her illiterate fashion she had written, “It is IMPOTANT all crucial partners makes every effort to attend this call!!”
Like most of Wanda's obnoxiously illiterate declarations, it was a dig at me because I’d said in my last call with her and Pat that I might not be able to log on until 9AM on the day I returned from leave.
I opened a new window and typed out to my new manager, “Dear Phil, I hate that this is our first introduction to each other, but while I was attending my mother’s funeral an ongoing medical issue resurfaced and I need to take medical leave immediately.”
I went on to inform him I’d been hospitalized a couple months back and there were other issues that were preventing me from returning to work, and he could get the details from my prior manager Jim. Not that Jim paid a damn bit of attention to the emails I sent him detailing my doctor’s visits, etc. even as he had moved on from being my manager, because I still had to let him know about all my absences until I got a new manager. As things got worse at work, I became more clear in my details about my pain with typing getting worse, hoping it might make Jim realize the situation was getting worse, but he never listened.
So here I sit on a beautiful fall Friday morning, getting paid 100% of my salary to write this. Jim wasn’t happy about my salary when I was working for him. I wonder how happy he is about my salary knowing I’m not having to work for it right now.
When I return, I won’t be on the two projects with upcoming releases. One will have already released. The other will release less than 4 weeks after I come back. So they’re fucked on that. I wonder if they’ve figured out the test documents for November haven’t been signed off yet. I was supposed to finalize them for signoff, but Pat forced me to prioritize Wanda’s 2021 project over the November work, so the test documents are still sitting locally on my work desktop, untouched.
I will also be returning with a requirement for “accommodations”, which I am now entitled to as I’ve learned I qualify for them under the ADA. No more telling me I have to work from home or hunch over a table in the breakroom if I want to be in the office. I’m working with an occupational therapist to draft up what those accommodations will be, but a height-adjustable desk, two large monitors, and a “distraction-free workspace” are the top line requirements.
Meanwhile, my treatment plans include exercise, trail walks, both regular therapy and physical therapy, and a weekly massage as well! I’ve added in long visits to the library to read all the books I’ve been wanting to catch up on, and nice lunches a couple times a week to the mix.
Several times throughout the day I’ll look at my watch while walking the trails with my dog, or just relaxing, and I smile broadly thinking about Pat and Wanda and Wanda’s “IMPOTANT” project plan for 2021. Wonder what poor sod they’ve roped in to help her finish it now.
I still may just quit right after I return, or they can just fire me, I’d be indifferent about that. But at least this way I’ll have milked 12 more weeks of pay out of these assholes, while benefiting from all the free medical and emotional assistance my insurance plan can buy. They say living well is the best revenge, and I can’t think of a company or a group of people who deserve my pro revenge more.
tl;dr: Asshole boss moves to new role, poisons the well with my business partners by telling them I was the highest paid person on his prior team. They set out to make my life so miserable I almost quit. I decide instead to fuck them over "by the book", taking a much-needed extended medical leave, leaving them hanging for their upcoming releases, all the while still collecting that "highest paid" salary for a good, long while.

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