A few unrelated questions

[conuly]

(Some of which I may have asked before, in which case, forgive me.)

1. People often do say that the English subjunctive is in decline. However, literally nobody I've ever heard say this has provided any sort of evidence. Is there any data on this other than "yeah, feels that way to me"?

1a. I've also heard that the subjunctive, or at least some forms of the subjunctive, is more common in USA English than UK English, from somewhat more authoritative sources but with roughly the same amount of evidence.

2. I got into it with somebody on the subject of "flammable/inflammable". I am aware that there are signs that warn about inflammable materials, and also signs warning about flammable materials. Is it actually the case that anybody has ever been confused and thought they were being warned that something could not catch on fire? Or is that just an urban legend / just-so story to explain why the two words mean the same thing and can be found on the same sorts of signs?

3. Not a language question! I've recently found one of the Myth Adventures books in my house. Gosh, I haven't re-read these in 20 years. Worth a re-read, or oh god no, save it for the recycle bin?

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Comments

[hudebnik]

I've been told that the use of the "do" helper verb, particularly in turning a declaration into a question, is inherited from Welsh. I've studied some Welsh, and it does have a common helper verb "dw" but it's used almost everywhere, not only in questions.

German has a verb "tun" that sounds like a cognate for "do", but is much more narrowly applied: IIRC it's used as a "real" verb but not so much as a helper.

[highlyeccentric]

My take on the "do" structure is, I have to admit, at least 50% that which I learned from Nick Reimer, at USyd,and one may note that he is not a linguist. I think I recall him mentioning the possible Welsh origin, but not being convinced.

I later worked in a European English lang/lit dept which had both premodern lit types and hist-ling types many of whom were native German speakers, and while "tun" was used as COMPARISON in teaching, it was not posed as an origin.

As an A1-2 lvl student of German (online) I had teachers asking me if I was a native francophone, and I believe that a key factor in that was that I NEVER default to "tun". While French being my L2 helps, I also had early modernists drill into me that the English "do" is _weird_, was weird in Shakespeares day and got weirder. There are two French words which might translate to make/do but I reckon I throw "tun" in LESS than an average francophone might if I was trying to get the same idea across. I would, in fact, be MORE likely to grope for the subjunctive which I have not yet mastered.

[hudebnik]

I don't think I've ever defaulted to "tun" either -- I didn't even see it until a second or third semester of German, so I would default to "machen", by analogy with Spanish "hacer".

I studied French in second grade, Spanish in high school, and German in grad school (I had picked up a smattering of it, but needed more in order to pass a reading test required for my graduate program. One of my math teachers handed me a textbook written in German, and said "pick a chapter, produce a written translation, and come back when you're done. By the end of the year, please.") While taking German, I often found myself floundering for a vocabulary word and coming out with a Spanish word in German word-order.

[conuly]

I've heard the suggested Celtic-influence-hypothesis for do-support - which is always at *least* 50% the creole hypothesis. The creole hypothesis is not as robustly supported as its various boosters might claim, but I'll grant that it's possible that this is something we borrowed from one Celtic language or another through normal language contact.