Tuesday, May 17, 2005
On Language 5/17: Yoda’s Grammar
Out of this world Yoda’s syntax always has been
Chicago Tribune, May 17, 2005
By Nathan Bierma
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This week’s final installment of the “Star Wars” franchise is not only the end of a cinematic era. The completion of George Lucas’ second trilogy will be the last hurrah for one of the most grammatically eclectic film characters of all time: Yoda. ...
Yoda is a syntactical switch-hitter, alternating among object-initial sentences (“Rootleaf I cook”), subject-initial sentences (“A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force”), and sentence fragments (“No different! Only different in your mind.”)
Sometimes you will hear Yoda start a sentence with the kind of adjective that grammar textbooks call a subject complement, as in “Strong is Vader,” or he will separate helping verbs from main verbs, as in “Help you I can.”
Here’s Geoff Pullum‘s extended analysis of “Help you I can,” which is not for the grammatically faint of heart (much less a newspaper):
(Update: Pullum’s more formal follow-up is at LL. In another e-mail, he clarifies that in “I can help you,” “can” is actually the main verb and “help” is ‘“a nonfinite verb heading a catenative complement.” Got that?)
(Update 2: I commented on this article for Chicago Public Radio—see the 5th segment.)
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‘Divine Super-Gender’
The intro to Philip Mathias’ The Perfect Prayer is an articulate explanation of a commonly complained-about conundrum:
This book comes to the obvious conclusion that God is neither male nor female. But I have consistently referred to God as “he” or “him.” The reason is entirely linguistic. I have not found a way to use the English language to express this notion of divine super-gender without clumsiness and confusion, both of which would obscure the ideas and conclusions that I have tried to present. Alternating “he” and “she” doesn’t work because it is too arch and would force the gender issue into every single reference to God. Referring to God as “it” doesn’t work either for obvious reasons. Using no pronouns at all and referring only to “God” as “God” each time is enormously heavy-handed and would greatly belabor the text. Thus the misleading “he” seems to be the only literary solution that works.
French Homonyms
French homonyms from LanguageGuide:
auteur author / hauteur height
bout tip, end / boue mud
foie liver / fois, foi time, faith
mal harm, evil / malle trunk
manche handle / manche sleeve
International Enquirer
More from Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words.
This is a good answer to a question that’s been on my mind, but it doesn’t address a related puzzle: since the National Enquirer uses the “e” spelling and the Philadelphia Inquirer the “i,” does that make the “e” spelling sleazy?
(Earlier from WW Words: to foot the bill)
Q. In your issue of 23 April you wrote “Earnest enquirers wish to
know.” The Latin for “he said” is “inquit”. Hence it always seems
correct to me to use the English “inquired” rather than “enquired”.
How say you? [Barry Shandling, Toronto]A. As you might guess, I rather disagree.