IMMIGRATION thread

[Gilrandir]

"Ms." is not the same reference as either "Merkel" or "Ms. Merkel" unless used as a vocative. However, "Ms. Merkel" does have the same referent as "Merkel", either alone or attached to any other title...

What you are saying would have "the poet" as an appositive phrase in which "the" identifies the person by their - something - and "poet" identifies status of poet . And this way, you would overload "the" with so much meaning as to denote literally everything real simultaneously. In the same vein, "That stupid Merkel says wir schaffen das" would then involve apposition between "stupid" [the stupidity of Merkel] and "Merkel" [the Merkel of Merkel].

Apposition is not always a phrase (it usually is when it is detached).
From https://vk.com/doc8069473_229802203?...890754f556bc39 (p. 305-306):

§ 31. An apposition is a special kind of attribute which is expressed by a noun (with or without accompanying words) which characterizes or explains the word modified by giving the person or thing another name. There are two kinds of apposition, the close apposition and the loose or detached apposition.

§ 32. The close apposition.
A close apposition is not separated by commas and stands in close connection with the word modified. These word-groups generally consist either of the name of a person and a noun denoting a title, rank, profession, or the name of a person and a noun denoting relationship, or a geographical name and some common noun, e. g. Professor Brown, Captain Marryat, Aunt Polly, President Roosevelt, etc.

Even Aunt Ann was there. (Galsworthy)
Professor Sommerville practised what he preached. (Carter)

In these word-groups the noun modified is the name of a person or a geographical name, the first component is a common noun in apposition.

N o t e. — In case the common noun is preceded by a possessive or a
demonstrative pronoun, it becomes more important and acquires a stronger
stress. Consequently the relation between the components of the word group
is reversed. The first component is modified by the name of a person or a
geographical name which is an apposition:

That boy Peter has a literary turn of mind. He is sure to become a writer.

Sometimes the apposition consists of the preposition of + noun, e. g. the town of Daventry, the city of London.

§ 33. The loose or detached apposition.
A loose apposition is not so closely connected with the noun. It is always separated by commas and has a stress of its own.

Dr. Winchcliffe, my predecessor, was a classmate of my father’s. (Sanborn)
With her elder and younger sisters she lived now in the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother, on the Bayswater Road. (Galsworthy)


And from http://www.alleng.ru/d/engl/engl159.htm (p. 264-265):
Types of connection between an apposition and its headword

§ 91. From the point of view of their relation to the headword, appositions, like attributes, are subdivided into non-detached (close) and detached (loose) ones.

Non-detached appositions

§ 92. Non-detached appositions form one sense group with their headword and very often enter into such close relation with it that the two words form one whole. This is especially true in the case of titles, military ranks, professions, kinship terms, geographical denotations, etc., used as apposition.

Sir Peter, Mr Brown, Doctor Watson, Colonel Davidson, Uncle Podger, Mount Everest, the River Thames.

Being very closely connected with each other such appositions and their headwords may be treated as indivisible word-groups.

Detached appositions

§ 93. Detached, or loose appositions form separate sense groups and are wider in their meaning than close appositions: they may give identification, explanation, etc., especially when referring to pronouns. They may follow the headword immediately or be separated from it.

He actually envied Jolyon the reputation of succeeding where he, Soames, had failed.
Cooper was three inches taller than Mr Warburton, a strong, muscular young man.

An apposition may also refer to a clause or a sentence, usually as an explanatory remark.

The night was muggy, a bit drizzly, windless, and very dark - the ideal conditions for a gas bombardment.

I think the logical conclusion of this discussion is that you are an extraterrestrial and have failed in your mission to surveil hoomans by making a telltale slip.

I see.

There is a famous (in the former USSR) satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky (from Odesa). In one of his monologues he said: "The behavior of our (i.e. Soviet) person in a dispute is not countering the arguments of your opponent, but looking him up and down. When you are done with it you go: How can a bald man with such a nose express any opinion on the ingenious skills of Herbert von Karajan? He must correct his nose, grow some hair and only then have his say".

I doubt you have heard this piece, but your ingenuity is in inadvertantly (or intentionally) following the same tactics. Carry on dude.

Actually in the west their has been a feminist initiative to use Ms as equivalent as Mr. So it is used regardless of marital status in a lot of social interactions.

According to PFH, in the UK the said status determines the way the woman is addressed (especially when you are aware of this status, as was the case with Merkel).

By and large, if you wore a toga and could speak and read Latin you were Roman. culture and loyalty to the state were more important than place of birth and the colour of your skin/hair/eyes. Remember, from a Roman perspective red hair was "Gaulish" so a black man from Africa was less of a difference to them than it was to us - they were used to categorising people into tribes and then larger groups but they didn't see these homogeneous nation-states we pretend to see, they had greater variety and ad-mixing.

I find it hard to believe that the inhabitants of newly conquered lands received the same treatment as those of the core Roman provinces, still less that slaves of all races were treated equally (bad). Generally, earlier civilizations were xenophobic (even the enlightened Greeks scornfully called the ousiders Barbarians). Thus, the idea of the golden epoch of racial equality seems highly doubtful to me.

[Gilrandir]

Perhaps, Canada has more common sense in its refugees policy:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...lies-1.3330185

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I find it hard to believe that the inhabitants of newly conquered lands received the same treatment as those of the core Roman provinces, still less that slaves of all races were treated equally (bad). Generally, earlier civilizations were xenophobic (even the enlightened Greeks scornfully called the ousiders Barbarians). Thus, the idea of the golden epoch of racial equality seems highly doubtful to me.

The Romans were not without prejudice, but it was not racial prejudice as we understand it.

It's important to understand that, for people in ages past, physical appearance was not understood as it is now.

[Montmorency]

Non-detached appositions

§ 92. Non-detached appositions form one sense group with their headword and very often enter into such close relation with it that the two words form one whole. This is especially true in the case of titles, military ranks, professions, kinship terms, geographical denotations, etc., used as apposition.

Sir Peter, Mr Brown, Doctor Watson, Colonel Davidson, Uncle Podger, Mount Everest, the River Thames.

This is what you seem to base your understanding on for the context of the disagreement here, but as it turns out contemporary English-language treatments take apposition rather differently (in terminology and substance) from Soviet general grammar texts.

the gradient between apposition and premodification
is a complex gradient: while the extremes of this gradient are
easy to identify, intermediate cases have "fluid boundaries" (Bell
1988:330). At the modification end of the gradient are "institutionalized"
titles (Quirk et al. 1985:1319), expressions such as President or Professor
which precede a proper noun. Titles are typical premodifiers because they
are structurally dependent on a head: they cannot stand alone (example
136c) or follow the head noun that they modify (example i36d).

(136a) The board of regents of Paris Junior College has named Dr. Clarence Charles Clark of Hays, Kan. as the school's new president. (Brown A02 1530-50)
(136b) ...has named Charles Clark...
(136c) *... has named Dr
(i36d) #...has named Charles Clark, Dr

As the examples in this section illustrate, the main difference between
apposition and premodification is the extent to which the first unit of the
construction is structurally dependent on the second unit. If the units are
in apposition, they will be structurally independent; if one unit modifies the
other, only the head (and not the modifier) can stand alone and reversal of
the units is not possible.

Ambiguities between apposition and coordination result because it is
sometimes difficult to distinguish between apposition and asyndetic
coordination. In examples 126 and 127, the juxtaposed constructions are
syntactically quite similar because each satisfies criteria 1—3:

(126a) But the head of department is a little bit idiosyncratic, an awfully nice chap. (LLC s.1.6 218-21)
(126b) But the head of department is an awfully nice chap.
(126c) But the head of department is a little bit idiosyncratic.
(i26d) But the head of department is an awfully nice chap, a little bit idiosyncratic.

(127a) The address was in the Holborn district; it sounded shabby, dismal. (SEU w.16.1.19-1)
(127b) ...it sounded dismal.
(127c) ...it sounded shabby.
(i27d) ...it sounded dismal, shabby.

Semantically, however, the units are quite different. In example 127, shabby
and dismal are in apposition because they are synonymous, a semantic
relationship existing in other kinds of appositions (3.1.2.1). In example 126,
on the other hand, an awfully nice chap and a little bit idiosyncratic are not
synonymous. Consequently, in this construction, we have asyndetic
coordination rather than apposition.

[Gilrandir]

This is what you seem to base your understanding on for the context of the disagreement here, but as it turns out contemporary English-language treatments take apposition rather differently (in terminology and substance) from Soviet general grammar texts.

The sources cited deal with RELATIONS between certain parts of the sentence (admitting apposition as one of them). By the way, an attempt to differentiate between apposition and premodification as relations is very inadequate. Premodification means any type of relations in which the dependent element comes before the head-word. So it is the criterion of FORM. Apposition (as a relation) and coordination as defined in the sources you cite deal with MEANING.

But whatever the drawbacks of those definitions might be, we here spoke not of RELATIONS, but of GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION or even a single part of the sentence (similar to attribute) the definition of which you referred to in the wikipedia article and which is described in the sources I cited.

[Montmorency]

Apposition (as a relation) and coordination as defined in the sources you cite deal with MEANING.

But whatever the drawbacks of those definitions might be, we here spoke not of RELATIONS, but of GRAMMATUCAL CONSTRUCTION the definition of which you referred to in the wikipedia article and which is described in the sources I cited.

So you still don't see how you are contradicting yourself and the cited materials?

Modification is not a subset of apposition, nor are they synonymous.

[Gilrandir]

So you still don't see how you are contradicting yourself and the cited materials?

Modification is not a subset of apposition, nor are they synonymous.

The sources you cite try to draw the line between apposition and (pre)modification. It is nonsense. Apposition (as a grammatical construction) may stand in pre-position (premodifying the antecedent) and post-position (post-modifying the antecedent). But it doesn't change its NATURE.
The classification that your sources offer reminds me the classification of animals in one old Chinese "encyclopaedia". According to it all animals are divided into embalmed ones, suckling piglets and those that belong to the emperor.