MyWiki:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 November 22

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November 22

Russian "возвращение"

Hello! I'm from the Thai Wikipedia and I have a problem concerning the translation of the name of a Russian medal, Medal "For the Return of Crimea". My question is: what does the term "возвращение" (or "return") in the name of this medal actually mean?

1. Coming/going back (as in "the return to innocence", "the return of Jafar", "the return of Godzilla", etc)?
2. Giving/bringing/delivering/sending back (as in "the return of property")?
3. Or else?

Thanks a million! --หมวดซาโต้ (talk) 12:34, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

I think since it's "for" something, the second meaning (i.e. actively bringing Crimea back) is more likely. Cf. "за освобождение ..." ("for the liberation of ...") etc 78.53.241.150 (talk) 12:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

It may be of interest that the de: version of the article uses the transitive (="bringing back", as opposed to the intransitive "coming back") meaning. --194.213.3.4 (talk) 13:20, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Meaning number 2 above is closest. Thai ฟื้น, คืน and กลับคืน all have a similar sense to how "return" is used there.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Linguistic term to describe possessives, dependent clauses, and adverbial inflexions as one collective entity?

I don’t know a good way to describe 的得地. In informal writing, 的 does the job. In formal writing (literature), strict rules are held in place, each having a separate function. Is there a word to describe everything? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 19:55, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure exactly what you're asking (and I can't read the Chinese characters), but there's Adjunct (grammar)... -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:42, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

I suppose the OP is referring to the homophone particles 的, 得 and 地 in Mandarin Chinese, all of them pronounced de, each of which marks a different type of grammatical adjunct/modifier, and whether there might be a plausible linguistic analysis of these items as fundamentally the same, i.e. some kind of universal adjunct-marking particle. I haven't got an answer to the question, but it seems like an interesting one to consider. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:52, 22 November 2017 (UTC)