Today, I stumbled over the French phrase "le désormais ex-ministre
de l’Education nationale"... and then realized that the same
construction also exists in German and English, e.g., "the soon ex-president".
What part of speech is "soon" and its equivalents here?
It looks like an adjective modifying the following noun. However, dictionaries insist that "soon" or "désormais" can only be adverbs,
and in German ("der bald Ex-Minister"), "bald" is also an adverb
and notably fails to inflect like an adjective.
What does "soon" modify? Lodged between determiner and noun, it
can hardly be a sentence adverb.
Can anybody make grammatical sense of this construction?
Today, I stumbled over the French phrase "le désormais ex-ministre
de l’Education nationale"... and then realized that the same
construction also exists in German and English, e.g., "the soon >ex-president".
What part of speech is "soon" and its equivalents here?
It looks like an adjective modifying the following noun. However, >dictionaries insist that "soon" or "désormais" can only be adverbs,
and in German ("der bald Ex-Minister"), "bald" is also an adverb
and notably fails to inflect like an adjective.
What does "soon" modify?
Lodged between determiner and noun, it
can hardly be a sentence adverb.
Can anybody make grammatical sense of this construction?
I'd say it's an adverb attached to the adjective that is the “ex-” prefix.
I'd say it's an adverb attached to the adjective that is the “ex-” prefix.
Today, I stumbled over the French phrase "le désormais ex-ministre
de l’Education nationale"... and then realized that the same
construction also exists in German and English, e.g., "the soon ex-president".
What part of speech is "soon" and its equivalents here?
It looks like an adjective modifying the following noun. However, dictionaries insist that "soon" or "désormais" can only be adverbs,
and in German ("der bald Ex-Minister"), "bald" is also an adverb
and notably fails to inflect like an adjective.
What does "soon" modify? Lodged between determiner and noun, it
can hardly be a sentence adverb.
Can anybody make grammatical sense of this construction?
Op 10/01/2024 om 0:37 schreef Blue-Maned_Hawk:
I'd say it's an adverb attached to the adjective that is the “ex-”
prefix.
No, because there is also
"The then Minister" or alike.
But see Tilde's suggestion.
Even read in Spanish: things like
El entonces ministro
Los demás clientes
...
German adjectivises here(!):
Der hiesigen Minister
and then, soon, ...(?)
Today, I stumbled over the French phrase "le désormais ex-ministre
de l’Education nationale"... and then realized that the same
construction also exists in German and English, e.g., "the soon ex-president".
What part of speech is "soon" and its equivalents here?
It looks like an adjective modifying the following noun. However, dictionaries insist that "soon" or "désormais" can only be adverbs,
and in German ("der bald Ex-Minister"), "bald" is also an adverb
and notably fails to inflect like an adjective.
What does "soon" modify? Lodged between determiner and noun, it
can hardly be a sentence adverb.
Can anybody make grammatical sense of this construction?
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père". Does the equivalent of feu/late in
other languages behave like that? Spanish "tu difunto padre" follows
the English style.
Fri, 12 Jan 2024 14:56:58 +0100: Athel Cornish-Bowden <[email protected]> scribeva:
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père". Does the equivalent of feu/late in
other languages behave like that? Spanish "tu difunto padre" follows
the English style.
Wijlen je vader. Dutch.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wijlen
Same with French "feu" Mr/Mme X.
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père".
Does the equivalent of feu/late in other languages behave like that?
To go to your actual question, I think the usual expression in English
would be "the soon-to-be ex-president" rather than "the soon
ex-president". Naked "soon" sounds odd to me.
German adjectivises here(!):
Just seen:
Der gestrigen Unfall.
Others? Ah, from my pocket dico:
baldig
Der morgige Tag...
Couldn't find dannig (der dannige Minister) though...
German adjectivises here(!):
Der hiesigen Minister
and then, soon, ...(?)
I'd say it's an adverb attached to the adjective that is the “ex-” prefix.
Op 14/01/2024 om 21:48 schreef Christian Weisgerber:
I think "dann" is strictly for sequencing events.
On 2024-01-10, wugi <[email protected]d> wrote:
German adjectivises here(!):
Just seen:
Der gestrigen Unfall.
Others? Ah, from my pocket dico:
baldig
Der morgige Tag...
Couldn't find dannig (der dannige Minister) though...
"der damalige Minister" < "damals"
I think "dann" is strictly for sequencing events.
Of course my hypothesis that this can be analyzed the same way
across those languages may be wrong. ;-)
Op 12/01/2024 om 23:34 schreef wugi:
Same with French "feu" Mr/Mme X.
Er, rather
feu(e) Mr (Mme) X.
feu/e Mr/Mme X.
or alike (:/
Don't know about whilom, but the Dutch cognate 'wijlen' is strictly
only used in a fixed expression. No, not there is also "hij is wijlen"
= he is dead (or: it is dead, jocularly said about a device).
And is "kassiewijlen" connected to it? >https://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/kassiewijle
That's what I hate about this kind of etymologies, saying it is >Yiddish-Hebrew, but NOT saying what the form in those languages is. >https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kassiewijle also has no etymology.
Christian Weisgerber <[email protected]> wrote:
Of course my hypothesis that this can be analyzed the same way
across those languages may be wrong. ;-)
I’ve been thinking that portuguese is somewhat flexible in that regard.
- o ainda ministro ‘the still minister’
- o então ministro ‘ the then minister’
- o não tarda nada ex-ministro ‘the won’t take long ex-minister’
(tardar = to take longer than expected,
não tarda nada = will happen very soon,
não tarda muito = will happen soon)
(I don’t know the applicability of any of this outside post-1950 Portugal)
English whilom seems to be specifically meant for the ‘damalig’ usage, >where other languages reuse more flexible words.
On 2024-01-12, Athel Cornish-Bowden <[email protected]> wrote:
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père".
That is indeed very odd.
(I wasn't even aware of this until now.)
The English use of "late" in this context is highly idiomatic, too.
Does the equivalent of feu/late in other languages behave like that?
Not in German, where we use unremarkable past participles as
adjectives for this purpose:
Ihr verstorbener Vater
also: verblichener, verschiedener, von uns gegangener
To go to your actual question, I think the usual expression in English
would be "the soon-to-be ex-president" rather than "the soon
ex-president". Naked "soon" sounds odd to me.
It's possible that naked "soon", to the degree that it is acceptable
for some speakers, is a clipping of "soon-to-be".
On 1/14/2024 1:16 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-01-12, Athel Cornish-Bowden <[email protected]> wrote:
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père".
That is indeed very odd.
(I wasn't even aware of this until now.)
The English use of "late" in this context is highly idiomatic, too.
Does the equivalent of feu/late in other languages behave like that?
Not in German, where we use unremarkable past participles as
adjectives for this purpose:
Ihr verstorbener Vater
also: verblichener, verschiedener, von uns gegangener
To go to your actual question, I think the usual expression in English
would be "the soon-to-be ex-president" rather than "the soon
ex-president". Naked "soon" sounds odd to me.
It's possible that naked "soon", to the degree that it is acceptable
for some speakers, is a clipping of "soon-to-be".
feu in "feu votre père"
where else would the [feu] go?
_____________________ Didn't HenryV say "happy few" ?
King Henry V does indeed say "we happy few" in his famous Saint
Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare's play "Henry V".
The word feu in the phrase "feu votre père" is an adjective that means "late" or "deceased". It is used to refer to someone who has died.
The word feu is derived from the Latin word felix, which means "happy" or "fortunate". This may seem like an odd connection,
but it is thought that the word felix was originally used to describe
someone who had died a good death, and that it later came to be used
more generally to refer to anyone who had died.
The use of feu before a noun to indicate that the person referred to
is deceased is a common feature of French. For example, you might say
"feu le président" to refer to the late president. This usage is
similar to the English use of the word "the late" before a name.
Here are some examples of how the word feu is used in French:
Le feu Président de la République (The late President of the Republic)
Ma feue grand-mère (My late grandmother)
Feu mon ami (My late friend)
Op 12/07/2024 om 12:06 schreef HenHanna:
On 1/14/2024 1:16 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-01-12, Athel Cornish-Bowden <[email protected]> wrote:
Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for >>>> "feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père".
That is indeed very odd.
(I wasn't even aware of this until now.)
The English use of "late" in this context is highly idiomatic, too.
Does the equivalent of feu/late in other languages behave like that?
Not in German, where we use unremarkable past participles as
adjectives for this purpose:
Ihr verstorbener Vater
also: verblichener, verschiedener, von uns gegangener
To go to your actual question, I think the usual expression in English >>>> would be "the soon-to-be ex-president" rather than "the soon
ex-president". Naked "soon" sounds odd to me.
It's possible that naked "soon", to the degree that it is acceptable
for some speakers, is a clipping of "soon-to-be".
feu in "feu votre père"
where else would the [feu] go?
_____________________ Didn't HenryV say "happy few" ?
King Henry V does indeed say "we happy few" in his famous Saint
Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare's play "Henry V".
The word feu in the phrase "feu votre père" is an adjective that means
"late" or "deceased". It is used to refer to someone who has died.
The word feu is derived from the Latin word felix, which >> means "happy" or "fortunate". This may seem like an odd connection,
but it is thought that the word felix was originally used to describe
someone who had died a good death, and that it later came to be used
more generally to refer to anyone who had died.
Where did you get that from? Its origin is pop. Lat. *fatudus, "fated", fate-accomplished, from fatum, fate.
The use of feu before a noun to indicate that the person referred to
is deceased is a common feature of French. For example, you might say
"feu le président" to refer to the late president. This usage is
similar to the English use of the word "the late" before a name.
Here are some examples of how the word feu is used in French:
Le feu Président de la République (The late President of the Republic)
Ma feue grand-mère (My late grandmother)
Feu mon ami (My late friend)
Feu la reine.
La feue reine.
In Dutch:
"wijlen", from "een wijl", a while,
an unchanging adj. preceding its noun and article/pronoun:
Wijlen de koningin.
Wijlen mijn moeder.
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