Comments on Moppety Blog: French they never taught me in school, part deux

Hello,I think "tout" can't be used with every adje...

2008-09-21T07:05:00.000+02:00

Hello,

I think "tout" can't be used with every adjectives. And it don't always work the same.

"toute verte" means completly green
which isn't the same as "très verte" which means very green.

As for toute petite vs très petite, I fell that "toute petite" as some positive meaning.

If I say "elle est toute petite" wether I talk about either a small car or a little girl, it would carry the meaning than it/she is small and cute.

On the otherhand if I say "ta voiture est très petite". It's more a fact that would be followed by something like "our luggage won't fit in it" or "we shouldn't have problem to park".

For a girl "elle est très petite" is more "she's very small... for her age".

I don't know if that helps.

I could say "il est tout mort" but that would be really colloquial, but maybe not for a dead human being. For a dead animal or maybe with "mort" as for "really tired".

On the other subjects

"pas grand monde" is more used than "peu de monde" at least in spoken language.
Yet you can say "il n'y avait pas grand monde" (there weren't a lot of people) but I wouldn't say "il y avait grand monde" sounds too formal...

I think I'll end up confusing myself.

Ah, langue vs. langage... not to mention parole! Y...

2008-09-02T02:03:00.000+02:00

Ah, langue vs. langage... not to mention parole! Yes, I don't know how we get along without having that distinction lexicalized. When I used to teach, I had a lecture called "What is language?" and another one called "What is a language?" But French does it better.

As far as rules... well, I see we pretty much agree on that, and so then it's worth figuring out whether the tout/très thing is idiosyncratic or not.

My hunch at first was that it might be a difference between adjectives that are essentially yes-or-no or "categorical" (you are it or you aren't) and adjectives that are "gradable" (you can be a little bit of it). The idea would be that only gradable adjectives are happy with très 'very'.

Petit would have to be categorical (unlike in English). And it would have to be possible to coerce normally categorical adjectives into being gradable (cf. having something be "very red" for instance in English), whence très petit.

I think the subjective/objective intuition you mentioned could be made to work here too. Making an adjective gradable means making it available to variation with context. So you can have a small elephant and a small dog and they aren't the same size even though they're both small: the small elephant is "small for an elephant" and the dog is "small for a dog". So the appeal to general context that comes with gradability could be responsible for your intuition that très petit is more objective.

So, that's my hunch.

One trouble with my hunch is that I bet you can't say someone is "tout mort"... (literally 'all dead')... can you?

Another trouble is that I have trouble believing that petit is not gradable at heart, that it has to be nudged a little to be gradable.

Another issue is that we'd really need to look at a larger set of adjectives... for example, my examples of petit and mignonne are sort of in the same semantic area, and it's not wise on my part to generalize based on these two examples.

I see what you mean about the rules that govern th...

2008-09-01T23:49:00.000+02:00

I see what you mean about the rules that govern the use.
Thing is, I'm really not sure there are any rules here. I think it's quite random, some expressions went to standard language (as "tout petit") some didn't (as "toute mignonne"). The only things I can think of would be either that some uses of tout + adj are more common than others, and the more common ones have more chances to go into the standard language. But why are those ones more common than these ones? No idea. Latin could help... or not...

Concerning the "universality" of language, I tend to agree with you.
But I meant the universality of languages...
I don't know how you English speaking linguists deal with this lack of difference between "langue" and "langage"...
;-)

Thanks David!>No rules, here, just use of language...

2008-09-01T00:23:00.000+02:00

Thanks David!

>No rules, here, just use of language.

Well, as a linguist I'm interested in figuring out the rules that govern the use. :) So thanks!

>(be careful with finding "universal"
>things with languages though, I >don't think there are any)

There are, actually. In fact, it's one of the goals of linguistics to find out what is universal about language and what is particular to specific languages.

For example, did you know that there are only a handful of different ways to make yes-no questions out of statements? In all the languages of the world. You either move the verb (or a helping verb of some kind) to the front, use rising intonation, or use a special little question particle that is either at the beginning or end of the sentence (possibly in the second position slot, too, I forget). Or you can use some combination of these. But that's it. Pretty remarkable, huh? And semanticists have an idea about what these three things have in common, so that there really does seem to be something universal going on.

So that's one example, of the form "meaning X is universally expressed by forms Y1, Y2, Y3..., where Y1, Y2, Y3 are a natural class". That's the kind of thing I had in mind with the exclamative/question marking issue in number 4. There are other kinds of universals... those of the kind "If a language has X, it has Y" for instance. Also there are universals that have to do with sounds, with structure, you name it.

Which is not to say that everything can be shoehorned into a universal... some things really are just idiosyncratic!

OK, this time I can say it: your teachers were not...

2008-08-21T12:44:00.000+02:00

OK, this time I can say it: your teachers were not good.
It's a shame you haven't learned these in school, especially "tout à fait", "plein de" et "beaucoup de monde".

1. "tout à fait", you're right on the meanings, but it's not colloquial, it's standard French (both written and oral).

2. "[adjective] comme tout, 'totally [adjective]"
You got the meaning...
This one is kinda old-fashioned in my opinion (but maybe not, not sure... thing is I have the feeling that only old people use it)

Concerning "tout" vs "très", I'd say it depends.
For example "toute mignonne" (you have to agree 'tout' by the way) is somewhat colloquial, "tout petit" is much less and closer to standard French. No rules, here, just use of language.
Concerning the difference between "tout" and "très", as just said, "tout" can be familiar language, but it's definitely subjective whereas "très" is more objective.
If I say "c'est très petit" (and you definitely can say it), I imply that it's a fact, it is very small indeed (regardless whether it's actually very small or not).
If I say "c'est tout petit", I imply that I think it's very small, but you might disagree... Also, here "tout" also implies that it's not only very small, but also too small.
3. "plein de [plural noun], 'lots of [noun]s'"
Yeah, it's definitely related to "plenty".

4. Qu'est-ce que c'est [adjective], 'How [adjective] it is!'
This one is definitely oral and colloquial.

(be careful with finding "universal" things with languages though, I don't think there are any)

"Comment c'est [adjective]!"

It's "Comme c'est" + adj, which is less colloquial, but much less used too.

5. "beaucoup de monde"
The first meaning of "monde" is still "world", and the secondary one is -as you mentioned- "people", and yep, you can use it in a bunch of expressions.

:-)