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Grammar & translation


https://support.genopro.com/Topic8382.aspx
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By Rjn - Tuesday, September 13, 2005
I decided to add a new topic for this matter since I believe some grammar issues that aren't an issue in English have to be dealt with in another languages.

(For example, sentences "He is..." and "He has..." are translated in Finnish "Hän on..." and "Hänellä on", i.e. the personal pronoun is inflected while "is" and "has" are both translated "on").
By Rjn - Tuesday, September 13, 2005
I made some examples of three verbs in the present tense and the past tense, positive and negative. These examples very much show that inflection for pronouns and verbs "be", "have" and "be married" (we say "mennä naimisiin" that's why the "go" verb) is really necessary, both in positive and negative sentences (in the following, > is English, >> is Finnish):

1. Verbs
1.1. Tenses
1.1.1. The present
1.1.1.1. Examples of positive sentences
> I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you are, they are
>> minä olen, sinä olet, hän/se on, me olemme, te olette, he/ne ovat
> I go, you go, he/she/it goes, we go, you go, they go
>> minä menen, sinä menet, hän/se menee, me menemme, te menette, he menevät
> I have, you have, he/she/it has, we have, they have, they have
>> minulla on, sinulla on, hänellä/sillä on, meillä on, teillä on, heillä on
Notice in the last example (Have verb) that pronoun is inflected because here it's not "the subject that does something".
1.1.1.2. Examples of negative sentences
> I am not, you are not, he/she/it is not, we are not, you are not, they are not
>> minä en ole, sinä et ole, hän/se ei ole, me emme ole, te ette ole, he/ne eivät ole
> I do not go, you do not go, he/she/it does not go, we do not go, you do not go, they do not go
>> minä en mene, sinä et mene, hän/se ei mene, me emme mene, te ette mene, he/ne eivät mene
> I do not have, you do not have, he/she/it does not have, we do not have, they do not have, they do not have
>> minulla ei ole, sinulla ei ole, hänellä/sillä ei ole, meillä ei ole, teillä ei ole, heillä/niillä ei ole
1.1.2. The past
1.1.2.1. Examples of positive sentences:
> I was, you were, he/she/it was, we were, you were, they were
>> minä olin, sinä olit, hän/se oli, me olimme, te olitte, he/ne olivat
> I went, you went, he/she/it went, we went, you went, they went
>> minä menin, sinä menit, hän/se meni, me menimme, te menitte, he/ne menivät
> I had, you had, he/she/it had, we had, you had, they had
>> minulla oli, sinulla oli, hänellä/sillä oli, meillä oli, teillä oli, heillä/niillä oli
1.1.2.2. Examples of negative sentences:
> I was not, you were not, he/she/it was not, we were not, you were not, they were not
>> minä en ollut, sinä et ollut, hän/se ei ollut, me emme olleet, te ette olleet, he/ne eivät olleet
> I did not go, you did not go, he/she/it did not go, we did not go, you did not go, they did not go
>> minä en mennyt, sinä et mennyt, hän/se ei mennyt, me emme menneet, te ette menneet, he/ne eivät menneet
> I did not have, you did not have, he/she/it did not have, we did not have, you did not have, they did not have
>> minulla ei ollut, sinulla ei ollut, hänellä/sillä ei ollut, meillä ei ollut, teillä ei ollut, heillä/niillä ei ollut
By maru-san - Friday, October 21, 2005
Another issue with regard to translation is the following:
EN: his son or her son, his sons or her sons
DE: sein Sohn or ihr Sohn, seine Söhne or ihre Söhne

Also: the possessive pronoun in Japanese is "no" or as a suffix, this should be transferred to the dictionairy, since the lang.vbs file does not accept japanese characters.
By maru-san - Monday, October 24, 2005
Another issue with regard to grammar:
Can the following routine
Sub WriteNarrativeMFU(i, coll, strDicPrefix) be transferred from lang.vbs to the dictionary, since I have to include japanese charcaters.
Please also note that the nominative form includes a suffix "は”、pronounced "wa" in this context, although it is "ha".
If this can be included in the dictionary, it will also makes things easy later on.
Sample:
EN: he was born on (date) in (place)
JA: he "wa" (place) "de" (date) "ni" born was.
By genome - Wednesday, November 15, 2006
I confess I have focused primarily on maintaining and enhancing the English Narrative Report without paying much attention to the issues of other language translations. However I have recently been reviewing the posts in this section of the forum.

Can the following routine Sub WriteNarrativeMFU(i, coll, strDicPrefix) be transferred from lang.vbs to the dictionary, since I have to include japanese characters.

Does this simply mean you would like the statement
 Report.WritePhrase "{  }{\U}{!0} {!1} {2h}.", PnP(i), ToHave(i, coll), StrHtmlCollectionMFU(coll, strDicPrefix, StrHtmlNarrativeNamesShort(coll))
replaced by say
 Report.WritePhraseDic "PhNarrativeMFU", PnP(i), ToHave(i, coll), StrHtmlCollectionMFU(coll, strDicPrefix, StrHtmlNarrativeNamesShort(coll))
with PhNarrativeMFU translating to "{  }{\U}{!0} {!1} {2h}." in the Dictionary?

Please also note that the nominative form includes a suffix "は”、pronounced "wa" in this context, although it is "ha".
If this can be included in the dictionary, it will also makes things easy later on.

I must admit I am unclear what you mean here. I am not a linguist and had to look up what was meant by 'nominative form'! Is it not possible to simply add this "は” suffix to the 'T' attribute of the Dictionary phrases PnP_M, PnP_F & PnP_ ? Perhaps you could elaborate on this.
By Rjn - Sunday, January 7, 2007
You can find information on nominative and various other cases at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case




I've been working on the Finnish translation and I have suggestions for the following set:

<PnP_M T="he" />
<PnP_F T="she" />
<PnP_ T="he/she" />

<PnR_M T="his" />
<PnR_F T="her" />
<PnR_ T="his/her" />

<PnO_M T="him" />
<PnO_F T="her" />
<PnO_ T="him/her" />


1. First of all, just to make sure, isn't it so that PnP, PnR and PnO stand for Possessive, Relative and Objective Pronoun, respectively? If so, we really need the Nominative form also, PnN, which is grammatically the base form or stem, with no inflection. (in English it's the same and PnP, but in Finnish PnN_ T="hän", PnP_ T="hänen"... this is because we inflect the pronoun -not the verb- when we say "he has" or "they have")

2. Is Objective form used somewhere in the current report?

3. In Finnish we don't use separate pronoun for male and female. Can PnX_X be discarded?

4. Since narrative report uses only 3rd person of both singular and plural, how about having the plural form (They, Their, Them) in the same way it is used in other places, using P=""?

All this put together (EN):

<PnN_M T="he" />
<PnN_F T="she" />
<PnN_ T="he/she" P="they"
/>

<PnP_M T="he" />
<PnP_F T="she" />
<PnP_ T="he/she" P="they"/>

<PnR_M T="his" />
<PnR_F T="her" />
<PnR_ T="his/her" P="their"/>

<PnO_M T="him" />
<PnO_F T="her" />
<PnO_ T="him/her" P="them"/>


and (FI):

<PnN_ T="hän" P="he"/>
<PnP_ T="hänellä" P="heillä"/>
<PnR_ T="hänen" P="heidän"/>
<PnO_ T="häntä" P="heitä"/>
By maru-san - Sunday, January 7, 2007
Does this simply mean you would like the statement
Report.WritePhrase "{ }{\U}{!0} {!1} {2h}.", PnP(i), ToHave(i, coll), StrHtmlCollectionMFU(coll, strDicPrefix, StrHtmlNarrativeNamesShort(coll))
replaced by say
Report.WritePhraseDic "PhNarrativeMFU", PnP(i), ToHave(i, coll), StrHtmlCollectionMFU(coll, strDicPrefix, StrHtmlNarrativeNamesShort(coll))
with PhNarrativeMFU translating to "{ }{\U}{!0} {!1} {2h}." in the Dictionary?


Ron, sorry I have overlooked this response completely. I actually solved this by putting the {!1} behind {2h}, but still I had to touch the file lang.vbs, which should not be done in any case. So the simple answer to your question is :YES
By Rjn - Sunday, January 7, 2007
My notes and suggestions for the next set in the dictionary:

<Is T="is" P="are"/>
<Was T="was" P="were"/>
<Are T="are"/>
<Were T="were"/>
<Has T="has"/>
<Had T="had"/>
<Have T="have"/>
<They T="they"/>
<TheyAlso T="they also"/>
<Also T="also"/>
<Known T="known"/>


1. More tenses are needed, see my previous post. There are differences between languages how you form, for example the past tense, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenses.

2. As we know, in English "have" is an auxiliary verb (like in past tense, "have been") but also has it's own meaning in "to
have" ("have got") i.e. possession. In Finnish verb "olla" is translation to both "to be" and "to have". But as like I mention
in my previous post, inflecting the pronoun or noun distinquishes the meaning - for example: "he is" - "hän on" but "he has" -
"hänellä on". Therefore, it is useless to have separate Is,Was,Has,Had... we will need all tenses (or all tenses we use in the
report, for example future tense is probably useless... and what do you think of past perfect ("had been", "had had")?) for
"to be" and "to have".

3. To make things even more complicated, the negative forms cannot be built the same way as in English by using simple "not", because word for negative ("ei") acts pretty much like a verb and inflects also.

4. Again, using P="" we get rid of separate 'Are', 'Were' and 'Have' since narrative uses only singular and plural 3rd person. 'They' was already handled in my previous post.

5. For the 'Also' and 'Known', I don't know where in the report they are used. Could you give me an example?

Put together in EN (past perfects included):

<Is T="is" P="are"/>
<Was T="was" P="were"/>
<HasBeen T="has been" P="have been"/>
<HadBeen T="had been" P="had been"/>
<IsNot T="is not" P="are not"/>
<WasNot T="was not" P="were not"/>
<HasNotBeen T="has not been" P="have not been"/>
<HadNotBeen T="had not been" P="had not been"/>

<Has T="has" P="have"/>
<Had T="had" P="had"/>
<HasHad T="has had" P="have had"/>
<HadHad T="had had" P="had had"/>
<HasNot T="has not" P="have not"/>
<HadNot T="had not" P="had not"/>
<HasNotHad T="has not had" P="have not had"/>
<HadNotHad T="had not had" P="had not had"/>

<Also T="also"/>
<Known T="known"/>


and in FI (past perfects included):

<Is T="on" P="ovat"/>
<Was T="oli" P="olivat"/>
<HasBeen T="on ollut" P="ovat olleet"/>
<HadBeen T="oli ollut" P="olivat olleet"/>
<IsNot T="ei ole" P="eivät ole"/>
<WasNot T="ei ollut" P="eivät olleet"/>
<HasNotBeen T="ei ole ollut" P="eivät ole olleet"/>
<HadNotBeen T="ei ollut ollut" P="eivät olleet olleet"/>

<Has T="on" P="on"/>
<Had T="oli" P="oli"/>
<HasHad T="on ollut" P="on ollut"/>
<HadHad T="oli ollut" P="oli ollut"/>
<HasNot T="ei ole" P="ei ole"/>
<HadNot T="ei ollut" P="ei ollut"/>
<HasNotHad T="ei ole ollut" P="ei ole ollut"/>
<HadNotHad T="ei ollut ollut" P="ei ollut ollut"/>