grammaticality - “They shook their heads” or “They shook their head”?

Should one say they shook their heads in disbelief or they shook their head in disbelief? The first kind of conjures up many-headed people? Similarly should one say they referred the question to their husbands/husband?

pronunciation - On the velar nasal /ŋ/ sound followed by /k/

I'm a non-native speaker and I have always pronounced all words with syllables ending in 'n' followed by a /k/ sound with the velar nasal /ŋ/. For example:

think / increase (v+n) / income / incomplete.

This was just acquired naturally without any intentional training.
(I understand that words ending with 'nk' like 'think' do get the velar /ŋ/ sound, and that's something that gets explained to ESL learners).

I was surprised when I recently found out that many of these words are transcribed as /nk/ rather than /ŋk/ in the dictionaries (Oxford, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster for example), and I have a few questions about it:

1. Do all of you native speakers follow these dictionary patterns, or are there some among you who follow a pattern similar to mine?


2. What's the difference or the rule that makes a word like 'inkling' get an /ŋ/ while a word like 'include' get an /n/? And generally is there rules for which words with 'nk'/'nc' sequences get an /n/ sound and which get an /ŋ/ sound?


3. I played the word 'conclude' repeatedly on different dictionaries, and they all sound as having an /ŋ/ to my ear. Are these dictionary transcriptions universally accurate!? Do you hear it as an /n/ when you listen to it? Can native speakers normally distinguish the two sounds in all contexts?


4. When I say a word like 'conclude' I find it much easier to pronounce it with an /ŋ/, because with an /n/sound it's switching from a velar to an alveolar and back to velar, while with an /ŋ/ sound it's all velar. Do you native speakers pronounce it with an /n/ sound?!


5. For people with ESL teaching experience among you, do you bring up this topic with your students?

(And thanks for your patience!)

Answer

As mentioned in the comments, this previous question has overlap with yours: Why do dictionaries transcribe the nasal in 'think' and 'language' with /ŋ/, yet 'input' and 'inbox' with /n/, not /m/? I don't want to copy my answer there, so please go to the linked page to read it.

To address your numbered questions:

1. According to many accounts, English speakers may optionally pronounce coda /n/ as [ŋ] before any syllable starting with velar plosive, even when there is a word boundary. So in this way, [ŋ] would be possible not only in words like income, but even in phrases like "in ten cars".

   
   
   

   However, I've read that the "[ŋ]" produced from /n/ by a process of "gestural overlap" like this may actually be different, either acoustically or maybe just articulatorily, from the [ŋ] sound used for the phoneme /ŋ/.

   
   
   

   This kind of gestural overlap across syllable boundaries does not affect the phonemic status of /n/. For example, I have /n/ and not /ŋ/ in the word nightingale, which is detectible from my pronunciation of the /t/: it's a voiceless stop for me, as in the word lighten, rather than being lenited and voiced as in the word lighting.

   
   
   
   

   The same kind of gestural overlap is supposed to cause /n/ to be pronounced like [m] before labial stops or the labial nasal, /t/ to be pronounced like [p] before labials and like [k] before velars, and /d/ to be pronounced like [b] before labials and like [g] before velars.

   
   
   

   I don't think information about these kinds of gestural overlap is useful to ESL students.




2. For derived words, refer to the pronunciation of the original word. For example, clinking, banker, linkage have /ŋ/ just as clink, bank, link have /ŋ/.

   
   
   

   It's probably also true to say that /nk/ is impossible as a syllable-final cluster (that is to say, /n.k/ only occurs with an intervening syllable boundary), but the problem is that English syllable boundaries are difficult to place and people disagree about where they fall.

   
   
   

   For non-derived words, intervocalic "nk" is probably /ŋk/, although there might be exceptions.

   
   
   

   I don't know the actual etymology of the word inkling, but it looks like it ends in either a diminutive ending -ling or a frequentive suffix -le followed by the suffix -ing. Removing -ling gets you ink, which would have to have /ŋk/ because, as you mentioned, /nk/ is not possible word-finally.





3. (also 4) The distinction between /n/ and /ŋ/ at the end of the prefixes in- or con- before a velar consonant, as in the word conclude, is not too important to native speakers. I don't know the figures about how well people can distinguish the sounds in this context.

   
   
   

   I think every native speaker would agree that /n/ and not /ŋ/ is the phoneme that shows up in compound words like pancake or pincushion.

grammar - To infinitive used after adjective

This question is relatively simple. I don't understand why we never use passive form of to infinitive after the adjective unless the subject is "it".

For example:

He is difficult to please.

People consider the example above a correct sentence. But:

He is difficult to be pleased.

People, for example, my teacher, said it sounds wrong and told me not to write this type of sentence. Is it grammatically flawed, or is it just a stylistic choice?

Answer

Adjectives which take infinitival phrases as complement fall into three camps.

1. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the subject of the infinitival clause.




2. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the object of the infinitival clause.




3. Some adjectives don't determine our interpretation of either the subject or the object of the infinitival clause.

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Group 1

Adjectives in the first group are often called control adjectives. Generative linguists would say they involve Equi deletion. For our purposes it isn't important what we call them. Let's look at an example:

• Bob was keen to finish his book.

The adjective phrase headed by keen is the complement of the verb BE. Within the phrase, keen is taking an infinitival clause:

• to finish his book

This infinitival clause has an understood subject. The subject must be the same as the subject of the main verb, BE. The sentence means:

• Bob was keen [for Bob to finish his book]

So when we use the adjective keen like this, the subject of the main clause controls our interpretation of the subject of the infinitival clause. Some other adjectives like this are anxious, delighted, eager.

Notice that these adjectives only work this way if we don't overtly mention the subject of the infinitival clause. If we actually mention a different subject, the sentence will still be fine:

• Bob is keen for Mary to finish her book.

The adjective keen only determines our interpretation of the subject if we don't state who the subject actually is.

Lastly notice that we can easily use passive infinitivals with adjectives like keen. Passive infinitivals still have an empty subject slot which can be filled:

• Bob was keen to be kissed by Mary.


• Bob was keen [for Bob to be kissed by Mary].

There's no problem using passive infinitival clauses with adjectives like keen

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Group 2

Some linguists who talk about these adjectives, talk about adjectives which take hollow clauses. Others talk about adjectives that involve tough movement. Again, it doesn't matter what we call these adjectives here.

Let's look at an example:

• The orangutans are difficult to please.

Again we see an adjective phrase functioning as the complement of the verb BE. Again this adjective is taking an infinitival clause as its own complement. This infinitival clause has a vaguely understood subject. The subject of the infinitival clause isn't determined by the grammar. The listener can just mentally fill in the subject with whoever they think is suitable. In the sentence above the subject of the verb please is just people in general. We can reconstruct it like this:

• The orangutans were difficult [for people to please]

If we change the sentence we will get a different understanding of the subject:

• I found the orangutans difficult to please.

This sentence probably means:

• I found the orangutans difficult [for me to please].

It doesn't have to mean that though. It could mean that I found that zookeepers generally found the orangutans difficult to please. The subject of the clause is just determined by our interpretation of the context.

However! I haven't given the complete picture here. The verb please usually takes an object. But the object of the infinitives in the examples above is missing. I should have modelled our interpretation of the example above like this:

• The orangutans are difficult [for people to please ___ ]

Here our interpretation of the object slot there is strictly determined. It's determined by the subject of the matrix verb, the subject of the main clause. So we understand the sentence like this:

• The orangutans are difficult [for people to please them]

Here, our interpretation of the object of the infinitive is determined by the subject of the main verb.

Now notice that if we make the infinitival into a passive, the object slot will disappear. Passive clauses don't have an object slot, usually, because the object of the active version of the clause has been turned into the subject of the passive one. There is no object slot to fill. This means that if we use a verb like difficult with a passive infinitival in a sentence like this, the sentence will be badly formed:

• *The orangutans were difficult to be pleased.

If a native speaker reads this sentence it will hurt their language brain. The speaker obviously wants the orangutans to fill the subject slot of be pleased. The grammar won't let this happen. Our brains are already trying to fill in some kind of object slot after the verb please with the orangutans. This results in a car crash:

• *The orangutans were difficult [for someone to be pleased the orangutans]

Other adjectives like difficult are dangerous, strange, good, bad, impossible.

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Group 3

Some adjectives don't fall into groups 1 or 2. We can't use them as predicate adjectives when they have an infinitival clause as complement. That is to say we can't use such adjective phrases as Predicative Complements. One of these adjectives is the word possible:

• *A Rubik's cube is possible to be done.



• *Pineapples are possible to grow here.


• *Whales are possible to swim.

These sentences are ungrammatical. They are odd because they seem to be verging on the grammatical, but just don't seem to quite work properly.

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Extrapositions using dummy it

We can use the adjectives from group three in sentences involving extrapositions. These sentences use the dummy pronoun it.

• It is possible to do a rubix cube.


• It is possible to grow pineapples here.


• It is possible for whales to swim.

Notice that if we state the subject of the infinitival clause it must be preceded by the subordinator for, as in the whales example.

We can also use adjectives from group 2 in extrapositions. When they appear in extrapositions, our interpretation of the object isn't determined, it's understood from the context. I've taken these useful examples from WS2's comments

• After my car accident it was difficult to drive.

Here we understand that I probably find it difficult to drive cars. Notice that because the interpretation of the object slot isn't grammatically determined, we can freely use passive infinitivals here:

• After my car accident it was difficult to be driven.

Note that we don't seem to be able to use adjectives from group 1 in extrapositions:

• It was keen to leave.

This only makes sense if we understand it as being an actual thing. It cannot be a dummy pronoun here.

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Notes

_{1. Adjectives phrases like those in groups 1 and 2 normally function as predicative complements. Predicative complements can describe either the subject or the object of the verb. I have oversimplified things in the story in the post above. I have said that the subject of the matrix verb determines our interpretation of the subject or object of the infinitival, but what determines this is actually the predicand of the predicative complement, not necessarily the subject. So in Bob was eager to please the adjective phrase eager ... describes Bob and therefore Bob is interpreted as the subject of please. But in Bob found Mary eager to please the adjective phrase eager ... describes Mary and so Mary is understood as the subject of the verb please.}

_{2. Yes, possible and impossible are in different groups. Crazy, isn't it.}

pronunciation - Why the does 'tu' get pronounced 'tyu' in British English?

Despite being a native Brit, I've always found it an oddity that words like "tutor", "tube", "tumour", and "duty" are pronounced as "tyutor", "tyube", "tyumour", and "duty" in British English. For me, this doesn't seem phonologically simpler/easier at all, and given that it seems to be absent in American English (possibly other forms of English too?) for these sorts of words (beginning with "tu" or "du"), I would suppose it's a somewhat recent innovation in historical linguistic terems, almost surely after the Middle English period. So that's my first question: when and where did this pronunciation originate, and as a bonus, why?

Now, there are certain words that have this "y" sound inserted even in American and other forms of English, though I can't think of any where it's inserted in the "tu" or "du" sound. e.g. "beautiful", "cute", "futile". Notably, this pronunciation seems much more natural to me in these cases, unlike in the "tu" and "du" cases. Of course, the pronunciation of these words in the original Latin (or even the intermediary French when applicable) suggests that this innovation happened within English, and most likely within England itself. (N.B. I can't think of any Anglo-Saxon words with this mode of pronunciation right now, but quite possibly there are some too.) So, my second question is: is there some clear linguistic/phonological reason why the insertion of the 'y' sound is more natural in the non-"tu"/"du" cases, and did this phenomenon originate earlier in the English language?

british english - What is the grammar of these two sentence from 'The Economist'?

1. To arrive at an answer, Mr Harris combs through what remains of our pre-internet lives, separating the things we will carry forward into the connected world from the worthy things we may leave behind. Our insatiable appetites for information, stimulation, validation will come with us. But when all those wants are met no sooner than they have been felt, the knowledge of what it is to be left unfulfilled may not.

What does the last sentence ending with 'may not' mean?

2. Only by doing this can the last generation to know a pre-internet world ensure that those who come after appreciate what has been lost.

Is 'to know' a predicate? Where is the subject after aux verb 'can'?
Where is the subject of predicate 'ensure'?

The grammar of these sentences is so tricky for me. Could any native speaker help me?

Are there any great advanced English grammar books can be recommended?

Source

Answer

Our insatiable appetites for information, stimulation, validation will come with us. But when all those wants are met no sooner than they have been felt, the knowledge of what it is to be left unfulfilled may not.

So, this sentence is not very well-written; I don't blame you for being confused by it.

• the noun "want" normally means a deficiency or a lack; but in this case it means a desire.


• the sense of "wants are met no sooner than they have been felt" is backward; the author meant to write, "wants are no sooner felt than met", or "wants are met as soon as they are felt".


• the "may not" at the end is elliptical for "may not come with us". This would be fine, except that the sentence is pretty long and complicated, so there's too much between the "may not" and the original verb phrase that is here being elided.


• the phrasing is appropriate for a warning about the downsides of technological advance, but then it doesn't make any sort of case for why we would want to retain the knowledge of what it's like to be unfulfilled. I'm actually still not sure whether the author views it as a good thing (and chose poor phrasing) or as a bad thing (and argued it poorly). I can only hope that it's clearer in context.

The overall intended meaning of this sentence is, "When our desires for information, stimulation, validation are all instantly satisfied, we will no longer know what it's like to be unfulfilled."

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Only by doing this can the last generation to know a pre-internet world ensure that those who come after appreciate what has been lost.

Is 'to know' a predicate? Where is the subject after aux verb 'can'? Where is the subject of predicate 'ensure'?

"To know" by itself is not a predicate, since it has a direct object, namely "a pre-internet world". The whole phrase "to know a pre-internet world" is a modifier in the larger phrase "the last generation to know a pre-internet world", meaning "the last generation that knew a pre-internet world".

"The last generation to know a pre-internet world" is also the answer to your other questions: it's the subject of "can […] ensure that those who come after appreciate what has been lost".

single word requests - Syn­o­nym for a “help-seeker”

Imag­ine this sce­nario:

Some­one claims to have been blessed with un­spec­i­fied spe­cial pow­ers by
God or some­thing sim­i­lar (a self-pro­claimed prophet, a for­tune-teller,
a psy­chic) . A row of peo­ple forms be­fore their door who be­lieve that
per­son might help them. What do you call these peo­ple?

The word beg­gar, due to its con­no­ta­tions, seems un­suit­able
in this case as it wouldn't prop­erly de­scribe those who seeks
more spir­i­tual help, or peo­ple who just want a con­sul­ta­tion,

or those who are will­ing to pay for the ser­vice.

The terms help-seeker or per­son-in-need both seem too clumsy to me.

There is a sin­gle-word term in my lan­guage de­rived from the verb
prosit which is used for all ac­tions where the word ", please"
is ex­pressed or im­plied. Depend­ing on the cir­cum­stance it could
be trans­lated as to beg, to ask for some­thing, or to im­plore.

No mat­ter how I ap­proach it I'm fail­ing to strike the right chord

here.

Answer

Try supplicant

Defined by Oxford as:

A person making a humble or earnest plea to someone in power or authority.
‘we are equals and not supplicants begging for work’
‘supplicants prostrate themselves on the floor’

grammaticality - What is wrong with this headline?

"Fascist X" said a lawyer and sent to jail for insulting him.

There has been some discussion about this headline's structure. Since I intended to put the quoted speech in front of the sentence, I built it accordingly. However, too many people (especially native English speakers) objected to it by saying "that doesn't sound correct" without giving any grammatical explanations whatsoever.

So, What is wrong with that headline?

According to these resources, sentence's structure is correct:

I know there are better ways to build that sentence, but what is grammatically incorrect in it that leads native English speakers to find it incorrect?

Answer

This type of construction only works when the subject of the headline sentence does not change or invert.

Politician challenged by court, retracts statement
Cat climbs tree and can't get down

This can also be done with an inverted passive sentence.

Case dismissed, dropped by plaintiff
Park renovated and now reopened

Combining the two in the same sentence causes too many problems of understanding what the subject is. And it creates, as was pointed out by your original detractors, a construction which "doesn't sound correct."

My fix, which keeps the focus on the details that seem important to you (with whatever verb intensity you prefer):

"Fascist X" insult lands lawyer in jail