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by santeewelding

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I had occasion to use the word, "all", in a sentence. The prompt, of course, was singular third-person, "is", as in, "all is". Trouble being, "all" can't be, "is". It might with argument be, "are", explicitly or implicitly, the latter of which I chose in the sentence in order to get the job done.

"All" can't be "is" because "all" can't be tidied up into singular with boundary.

Do you ken?

42 replies

by ansugisalas

Sort of like "We am", you mean?
On the other hand, if we apply "all" without boundaries, how can we claim that word to be in the plural (are)? If there be an all unbounded, that all - being unbounded - can't be but singular.
Which of course means that there can't be an "all" unbounded.

by charliespencer

Why use different forms of the same verb dependent on who does the action? It's the same action either way.

I be, you be, he / she / it be, we be, they be.

It sounds ignorant only because we've been taught differently. But what purpose does subject / verb agreement fulfill? What advantages does the accepted construction have over the simpler one?

Does anyone know if Esperanto has conjugation? Creating a language from scratch seems like a fine way to eliminate this outmoded construction.

by ansugisalas

jeg er (*I are)
du er (*thou are)
han er (*he are)
vi er (we are)
I er (you are)
de er (they are)

The purpose of agreement is to allow more flexibility in word order. English has a pretty locked down word order, so could do without the agreement.

It also provides a form of multiple redundancy (seeing as how a sentence can often be understood even if only half-heard).

My training commands that I say that all languages are equally sound, only different. But you can judge for yourself ;)

by charliespencer

I occasionally wonder how different English speaking cultures (well, English writing ones) would be if, instead of capitalizing the first-person singular 'I', we left it lower case and instead capitalized the second person singular / plural, 'You'.

"What can i do for You?"

Maybe it would relieve some of our self-emphasis.

by gsg

and all are well. Hmmm.. I'll stick with is as are doesn't sound right.

by santeewelding

Implies you reason only about the plurals you meet "inside" the unbounded, which has no "outside". Singular "is" says you bound "all", which defeats the word and leaves you with some gnarly explaining to do.

by ansugisalas

the noun plural doesn't relate at all to the potential real or imagined multiplicity of the referents of the word.
In other words, agreement deals only with the property of the word, not with the properties of entities it is used to refer to.
Compare: The committee has decided to postpone ruling on the matter, due to a lack of pink-glazed donuts.
The committee is a word in it's singular, so it takes singular agreement.
Of course, unlike all, committee can be pluralized.
All can't very well be... unless you have a license to kill, like you and I.
School grammar teachers are less endowed, and may not - barring in their spare time, on an amateur license.

Returning to bounding, which is very interesting.
Try exposing a bounded all to "catastrofic unbounding" ... for example:
"God knew he'd be in trouble when Ma woke up... what a mess he'd made - there was All all over the living room - in fact, there was All all over most of the front lawn as well... He caught himself wondering if Hell really was as bad as everybody said... maybe he could run away and hide there?"

by ansugisalas

plural agreement also favors a distributive interpretation : each entity referred to with "all" is well, individually and independently.
Singular agreement favors a collective interpretation : the whole mess of entities, seen as a unit or conglomerate entity - is well.
This corresponds roughly to the verbal number found in some languages - they discern whether there is a singular action (of a singular actor or a collective of actors) or plural actions (performed singularly by many actors).
"We all went to the beach together" is collective - there is only one going, but one going with many participants.
"We all came to this conclusion sooner or later" - this is most likely distributive - each comes to the conclusion, but not together and not at the same time.

by tonythetiger

is singular when it refers to a singular entity.

"All of the city was under water after the storm."

All is plural when it refers to plural entities.

"All of the people were drowned."

Sometimes the reference is not specifically stated.

"When the boat sank, all were lost."

by ansugisalas

In those two first cases all is just a quantifier, looksee:
"[s]All of[/s] the people were drowned"
"[s]All of[/s] the city was under water after the storm"
The last one is interesting, but I guess some boring people will say it's simply a case of ellipsis...

by gsg

Santeewelding has stumped us again. I would like to get him and Mrs. Fleming, my 9th and 10th grade english teacher, together in a room. I think she would thoroughly enjoy the way his mind works and his turn of phrase.

by ansugisalas

Almost as if people haven't received your "What to find interesting, and what not to" directives...

by jck

whatever I earn is mine to do with as I like.

I'll buy whatever i like... B-)

by seanferd

All of this stuff are? Wait, no: All your base are belong to us. ;)

i think it is a bit like the way we deal with amounts. Some things can be definitely quantified, other nouns do not lend themselves to such. (How much vs. how many.)

by santeewelding

Means, All; shorthand for, Absolute, capitalized. The only way you get away with this is to set "all" equal to "is"; not, subject to verb.

[b]Boxfiddler[/b] played with it above. Only, there can be no alternative to absolute "is" -- not even, "is not". Unsurprising, since [i]both[/i] something and nothing comprise "is".

Thou art that. Both. Holds for all that is.

by ansugisalas

the problem is with "stuff", not with "all... are".
"Stuff" can't never "are", because it's a mass noun.

Foodstuffs are a different matter, on account of pluralization making it into a sort noun. Like this wine is nice, those wines are horrible - wine is a mass noun in singular, but a sort noun in the plural. With a classifier the mass noun word becomes quantifiable without turning it into a sort noun : "These bottles of wine are spoiled"... in this case it could all be the same sort of wine, or it could be different sorts or any combination of the two - it's a singular object noun (a different type than the other two).

There are also set nouns which denote a set of entities, these often stay singular even with numeric quantification (in languages where set nouns are the norm, most nouns behave like english "sheep" - one sheep, two sheep, etc.
More accurately they can be seen as having a finite, definite set of entities to choose from and the numeric quantifier works similarly to the english sentences "three of sheep" or "three of the (relevant) population of X".

Sorry if I got lectury, I just thought I'd share some strange trivia.

Have I mentioned that there are languages where numerals (and colors) are handled like verbs?
"The sheep was threeing on the lawn, eating"
"My uncle was the sheep blacking of the family" :D

by seanferd

Statement:

Sorry if I got lectury, I just thought I'd share some strange trivia.

Reply:

No, I find it all to be quite interesting.

So, no, not All, alone, but all the content of the post. But perhaps I have missed your angle entirely, in which case, mea culpa in advance.

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