sharing

Language rules that people don't know they know

 

不知道你有沒有發覺，英文名詞前面總可以加上一大串形容詞，跟中文大不相同。近日英語世界瘋傳一篇文章，便發現一個連以英文為母語的人士也不知道的「英語潛規則」，究竟是什麼？

Mark Forsyth tasted internet fame this week when a passage from a book he wrote went viral. He explains more language secrets that native speakers know without knowing. [BBC]

 

go viral 像病毒般蔓延 ／爆紅

例子：This video has gone viral on social media.
這個影片在社交媒體上爆紅。

 

文章有一段是這樣的：

“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.

But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.”

(From The Elements of Eloquence, by Mark Forsyth)

 

eloquence 雄辯, （語言等的）說服力
(noun 名詞)

► eloquent 傳神達意的 (adjective 形容詞)
例子：an eloquent smile 意味深長的微笑
例子：He made a very eloquent speech yesterday.

maniac

  1. 狂熱分子 (noun 名詞)
    例子：a computer maniac   電腦發燒友

2. 瘋子= lunatic (adjective 形容詞)

 

簡而言之，Mark Forsyth認為，形容詞的排序大概可歸納為以下法則：

 

opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun
意見─大小─年紀─形狀─顏色─來源─物料─用途 + 名詞

例子：Little Red Riding Hood (size-colour Noun)

 

但凡事也有例外，譬如Big Bad Wolf (size-opinion Noun)，為什麼？原來跟發音有關！試看第二法則：

Ding dong, King Kong

hip-hop 嘻哈音樂 (NOT hop-hip)

crisscross 十字記號

zig-zag 「之」字形

flip-flop 拖鞋

chit-chat 閒聊

ping pong 乒乓

 

語言學上，這叫做 rhyming reduplication（重疊式）：

 

Reduplication in linguistics is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong. If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O. If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O.

 

English is largely made up of the rules we don’t know that we know. And actually the rules we know we know are a rarity. We can cling to a few of them at least. At least we all know that we know that adjectives have comparatives and superlatives. Big, bigger, biggest. Hot, hotter, hottest. Easy, easier, easiest. It’s comforting. It’s reliable. It’s something we know that we know.

 

rarity 珍品
(noun 名詞)

例子：The product costs a fortune due to its rarity.

 

Kevin’s classroom

Language learning 語言學習  vs.  learning acquisition 語言習得

學習新語言有兩大流派，怎樣才學得好、記得牢？對大人和小孩最有效的學習模式，未必相同。聽聽Kevin詳細介紹吧！

   
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