Function and Content
Last week we spent some time thinking about the little Slovak word “no,” which turns out to have a very far-reaching and subtle range of significance. Words can be broken down into what linguists call “function words” and “content words.” Now this is a simplification, but the significance of function words is to organize the flow of information of the expressions in which they occur. Consider the following sentence pair:
(i) John was fond of Mary
(ii) John was found by Mary
If we try to explain the significance of the words “of” and “by,” we might have some problems, especially if we think only of dictionary definitions. It would be far easier to reflect on how they function rather than what they mean, and much more productive, practically speaking! In the first sentence, “of” functions to link “Mary” to “fond” as its object. That is, the relationship between “fond” and “Mary” and “John” is identical to what we have in the following sentence:
(iii) John likes Mary
In comparison, “by” in (ii) tells us that “Mary” is linked to “found” as its subject, and that “John” should be interpreted as the object of the action of the verb, just as in (iv):
(iv) Mary found John
Returning to Slovak “no,” we can see that it works on a variety of functional planes. Signifying either affirmation or negation, it has an almost mathematical formulation: it is an ‘operator,’ specifically, a “polarity item” (+/-) which tells how the associated expression is to be taken. We also saw Slovak “no” signify something close to ‘but,’ another organizational concept, linking two grammatically identical but semantically variant expressions into a compound structure.
Other instances of Slovak “no,” where the English translation would be something like “well,” showcase the “modal function” of the word, where ‘modality’ can be summarized as reflecting the speakers’ feelings about the associated expression.
Contrasting with function words, content words carry the lion’s share of the specific information in expressions in which they occur. But what exactly is their “content”? As we attribute definitions to the content words of our language, how do we account for relationships that exist among them? Why are “hot” and “cold” opposites, but not “lollipop” and “diagonal”? How are “cause” and “coerce” related? And do “boy” and “lad” really mean the same thing?
At the top of this essay is a photo of a t-shirt that I’ve been wearing around Slovakia. What is it that caused someone—the creator of this t-shirt—to select these words in particular? Why do Slovaks often laugh at me when they notice what is printed there? What can we glean about the nature of ‘meaning’ by thinking about other words that would be appropriate for this shirt. I suspect that these might be candidates: “burčiak,” “žinčica” . . . . Can you think of others?
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:50 pm
great t-shirt
)) I have some nice words for you (odľud, priečelie, kľúčiar, čeľadník, baštrngovať, črievička) but when we take into consideration that you live in Nitra now, it is very important for you to know some charakteristic Nitra’s expressions and the one of the most famous is this one: ‘Pallo myllo vella umyvalla’ – it is very important to pronounce both ‘l’ in each word 
October 6th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Hi!
When I was thinking about the word ‘no’, I was surprised how often I use it. And also when I observe my classmates or family members, I can say: they use it very often. And you are right that it has many meaning and my opinion is that it depends on how we say it. I think of intonation. It can mean ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘well’, it can force somebody and can express that somebody is stressed, I think. I use it in these situations.
I wish you nice weekend.
Timea
October 6th, 2006 at 10:12 am
All the words on your T-shirt are funny:
1) for a foreigner – because of their weird and complicated pronunciation.
2) for a native Slovak speaker – because of their meaning.
Those and many other similar words belong to such a province of our wonderful and rich language, which tries to represent the “pure Slovak” elements and phenomenons. A foreigner can understand the laughing of the Slovaks seeing the T-shirt just when absolved a long-time excurse into their history and learned about culture and politics. It is the matter of traditions. Nobody uses such expressions in everyday speech. Although correct and great representatives of the typical Slovak pronunciation and carying winged meanings, such words are practically invalid. I do not know how to say it properly – they are marked (euphemisms, archaisms, swearwords, derivated forms…) A Slovak uses them just to demonstrate that he is a master in using his mother tongue (if he/she is able to).
October 6th, 2006 at 10:27 am
After our lesson on Wednesday I was not quite sure whether I would agree that the Slovak ‘no’ could be used in both positive and negative meaning, and I had to think about it for quite a long time. Now, I would like to express my opinion on the matter. I don’t really think that ‘no’ can be used to mean ‘nie’, at least I only know one person who would use it like that, and it is my dad. When we’re talking, or better to say, when I’m talking about something that he does not really agree with, he would say ‘Noooo!’, meaning ‘Oh, come on, now you’re exaggerating!’ or ‘Stop for a while and think about it.’ However, what he wants to convey is rather a desire to calm me down combined with disagreement. Therefore, I as a native speaker of Slovak wouldn’t say that ‘no’ is used to mean ‘nie’.
To answer your question, why do Slovaks laugh when they see you in your t-shirt, well, I think it’s because many of those words are quite old-fashioned, if not archaic, and I personally don’t remember the last time I called someone’s girlfriend frajeročka or fiflena :> So don’t worry, they’re not laughing at you, they’re only being sentimental.
October 7th, 2006 at 8:07 am
At first, I’d like to go back to the meaning and usage of slovak “no”. I agree with Samo (to remind you – he said, it could be used as a filler) and I myslelf use it sometimes as a filler. When saying goodbye to a friend, I as a speaker don’t make any difference by saying
a) No tak ahoj. and
b) Tak ahoj.
Both of them are informal and “no” doesn’t fulfill any stylistic, morphological, syntactic or any other function. At least, I as a speaker, don’t have in mind any of them when saying it.
As for the words on your T-shirt, I’d agree with Lenka. These words include sounds that are typically Slovak (“rýdzo slovenské”:)), such as ľ or ô, but at the same time, they’re archaic, so not often used anymore.
Another (and probably the most important) thing I want to write is that the words on your T-shirt don’t give any sense together. They are content words, archaic and sound nice and this is, in my opinion, all that they have in common. Though the reader can find a particular concept behind each of them, it’s necessary to use also function words to communicate meaning. Though function words seem to be neglected in people’s minds as for the importance in communication, in fact their importance is high. It’s impossible for us to speak without using them; sometimes they even change the meaning:
a) a book by Dahl
b) a book about Dahl.
And, in my opinion, this is why people laugh at you when seeing your T-shirt. It simply doesn’t communicate anything, it’s just a collection of interesting words.
October 7th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Hi!
When I was reading the materials for our last lesson “What is a word?” I found this definition:”word is a minimum meaningful unit”. A Slovac word “myšlienka”(idea, thought)came into my mind. You can divide it into two words: myš(mouse)&lienka(lady-bug). So would “myšlienka”be a word according to this definition?!:)
To answear you “Why do Slovac laugh…”Well, because these words are funny for Slovacs – because of their pronunciation and meaning. But we do not use them in every day speech. I think that the author of this T-shirt choose them because it might be difficult for a foreign speaker to pronounce them. Some other funny words for you: guľôčka, jamôčka, fijalôčka, šmátrať, čungy.
October 7th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Do not worry that Slovaks often laugh at you when you were wearing this t – shirt. It is a nice t-shirt. I feel similar as you when I am wearing t–shirt with my favourite artist, and I do not know why it is so funny to wear it?!
May be that in your t-shirt are words that there are not usually used in everyday communication, like: orašpľovať, džugať, žartial, blšinec, brýzgať etc. There are used only in some regions in Slovakia. I was thinking about some words, and if I could add, I would like to add these words: guľôčka, jamôčka, sopeľ, žubrienka, fagan, scupkať, hegnúť, škĺbaň, ogrgeň, totčička, cmiter, firhang, živôtik, jeľšava, čungy zbrýzgané, zafŕknuť, šľak, pačrev.
Have a nice weekend. Michaela
October 7th, 2006 at 9:16 am
I forgot something to add, if you want to know some “strange” words, you can read the poem from P.O.Hviezdoslav – Zuzanka Hraškuľča. I think that this poem it hardly understandable even to Slovaks (my own research).
Michaela
October 7th, 2006 at 9:23 am
These words are so unique
in Slovak language and many of
them are even unknown to Slovaks who live in other parts of Slovakia.For the people who learn Slovak language as their second language it is quite difficult to pronounce them and there is no way to find them in other languages.
When Slovaks see the words like these, they immediately start laughing and it is because of the words themselves. They make them laugh as in the case of šidzemdzešat, bandurka, krepľa….
Looking forward to the next class.
October 7th, 2006 at 10:48 am
As for your T-shirt Mark, it’s great, the idea of its creator in general was fantastic!
In your essay, there is one sentence saying “As we attribute definitions to the content words of our language…” I might be wrong, but isn’t it happening in a language the other way round? I mean, do we really add the meaning to words or we just name the things/objects/events/etc. according to their appearance, characteristics, functions, etc. Then it’s clear what do they mean. Therefore, if we want to name something, we have to know its characteristics (the reason for naming it), and if we do so, we do not need to search its meaning though…?!
October 7th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
When we think about the diffrence between function and content word, we can say, that function words are something like helping words (to those words belong: prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, modal verbs, auxiliary verbs, particles.). They usually try to help the content words to express the relationship among them. We can say about them, that they have a grammatical function, but only a little identifiable meaning, we cannot certainly express their meanings. On the other hand, content words, are words to which we can assign certain independent meaning.(nouns, adjectives, full verbs, adverbs, numerals, interjections, yes-no answers). For exaple, when I say…I went around him… and
I went with him….. it’s a certain difference. It means, than in this situation, the function verbs had certain influence on the meaning of the whole expressions. The meaning of these words is based on certain convention, because the words are arbitrary. And what’s nice in language, that there also exist synonyms, homonyms, polysemy. That’s why certain words can have similar meaning, but another form, the others the same form, but another meaning…like this, we can also feel some relationship between words.
And to say something about your T-shirt…it’s really nice:) People are smiling, because there are written words, which are not used in everyday speech and they are written one by one, without certain relation to the other words around. I really like your invention of this T-shirt..and like this, it can be easier for you to remember these words. To add some, I would say, for example: agáčina, hrvoľ, čepček, karimatka
October 8th, 2006 at 4:52 am
At first I confess that there are few words that I saw for the first time. And it proves that Slovak language is very rich on vocabulary. Why do Slovaks laugh on it? It´s very simple. Yes, they have something in common:
Most of these words are not used nowadyas, maybe some of them very very rarely. We could find them in some old Slovak films.
The author (creator) of this T-shirt chose the most difficult words to pronounce with our typical č, ť, dž, ľ, ä, ô, and our diminutives which we use very often (frajerôčka, fujarôčka or for example: domček, domčúrik)
It is a nice irony wih the title „ Slovak for beginners“ and those words. As I mentioned they are mostly archaic and are very difficult to pronounce. If we start to teach our language some foreigners with those words I think that they will finish very quickly.
At the end you mentioned words like „žinčica“ and „burčiak“ – they are also difficult to pronounce, but we use them nowadays and I think they are not so funny for us like words on that T-shirt.
October 8th, 2006 at 7:31 am
In an attempt to clarify your essay, I am trying to summarize and add some questions concerning the text. You have mentioned that there are two kinds of words: 1. function, 2. content words. Function words „organize flow of information of the expressions in which they occur.“ According to the given examples, such as ´John was fond of Mary.´, is the definition of function words saying that function words have impact on other words with which they occur in a sentence and thus they define the meaning of whole sentence? If I do understand, function of a word relates to the meaning of a word, i. e. a word has more functions, it has different meanings according to different contexts. As an example I would come back to Slovak ´no´ which has more functions: it can function once as affirmation, the other time it has modal function, etc. The meaning of ´no´ is thus different according to the situation in which this word ´no´ is used.
You also mentioned content words but I have not noticed any answer to your question ´What is their content?´. I would suggest and equal content with information which content words carry. Am I right????
October 8th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Well, if we try to define the meaning of the so called content words we should distinguish two cathegories of meanings:
1. The dictionary meaning
2. The personal meaning
The definition of dictionary is the following: ‘A dictionary is a list of words with their definitions.’ These definitions are always universal, clear and simple. But in human communication we don’t operate with these meanings. They are just one level of what we are intended to say. For example when I say ‘capital’ I think by that Bratislava, but you are probably thinking of Washington. Of course we both know what capital is, but our ‘personal capital’ is different. That is why I think that the dictionary meaning is never adequate. For that reason, the content of the words is not given, but variable, and we can’t separate it from the speaker and from the context.
October 8th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Once again, your thinking out loud rises many interesting questions, but I find the “do boy and lad really mean the same?” to be the most interesting one. I have been already commenting on a topic “Is there absolute synonymy?”, and this piece of writing reminded me of it.
In my opinion, every word has as many meanings as there are people who use it. If Ivan and Jovan talk about something and use a word girl in a sentence, both of them will know what this word means, and what the speaker intended to say, but they will both have different mental representation (understanding) of this specific word; different feelings and associations to this very word.
These differences may seem not to be of any great importance, but they help us understand the uniqueness of every word on several levels. Except for the one already mentioned, we can talk of synonyms. Even though synonyms are defined as two or more words of same meaning, each of them will be used in different contexts, different situations; and only one of them will be used in a certain phrase (it would not be a phrase, if its elements were to be modified and replaced with some others just like that). Even though there are some examples in dictionaries and literature concerning synonymy, that talk of two words existing as replacement for one another, there are still cases when these two words cannot be viewed as equal. As long as there are exceptions and minor, yet detectable differences between two words (or sentences when one of these words used) present, we cannot talk of absolute or ideal, because these terms do not allow them.
Finally, but not lastly, words are part of language, which is not dead, passive and final, but changes as the reality where its users live, changes. Words are not absolutely stabile and “untouchable”. Their point might remain the same, but their position in language may go through some modifications (even the slightest ones), and this is what makes word active in their existence.
As for the T-Shirt, certain words evoke certain emotions. It often happens that their pronunciation is associated with some activity, object, place that reminds one of something funny, pleasant or unusual. Often, these words (like the ones on your T-Shirt) are not so commonly used; they are rarely heard and are not as easy to pronounce. That is why, unlike the words such are matka/mother, skola/school, kvet/flower, the T-Shirt words function as a trigger saying “React on this, this is not an everyday thing”.
October 8th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Slovak for beginners…great idea to buy a T-shirt like that. Do you know that many of that words do not belong to standard Slovak:-)? Many of them you can find only as a dialect and very specific words. I would like to add one, well, it´s not a single word but it is a tongue twister(I hope I spelled it right). So here you are:´Strč prst skrz krk.´ And after all, as one of my English teacher always said ´don´t worry´ about laughing at your T-shirt because I think many people do not understand at least few words on your list for beginners.
October 8th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
I want to start with this T-shirt. For me as a non- native speaker these words are not funny. I don´t have problem with the pronunciation but with the meaning. As my colleagues mentioned above these are archaic words, words used in dialects (many of them are not used in everyday situations).These words for a native speaker always have different denotations and especially connotations as for a non-native speaker.
October 8th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
“As we attribute definitions to the content words of our language, how do we account for relationships that exist among them? Why are “hot” and “cold” opposites, but not “lollipop” and “diagonal”? How are “cause” and “coerce” related? And do “boy” and “lad” really mean the same thing?”
Dear Mark!
From your last comment the above part is the one I mostly liked. Why? Because I’m like you and if I can, I like to have inteligent and deep conversations or debates about everything. So that’s why I would like to add something to this part, which I don’t really agree with. I mean mainly the last sentence. If we want to talk about the relationship among 2 words I think there are no 2 words that mean exactly the same thing. There is no evidence of this and not even a need for this phenomena in any language. Why would we have 2 words having exactly the same meaning if 1 would be perfectly enough. Absolute synonyms, as the linguists call it, doesn’t exist in any language. If there would be 2 such words the “language” would push one of them out of itself because it would be unnecessary. The other solution is that one of the words starts to carry a plus meaning or additional information for the listener, given by the speaker. After a while this additional meaning causes the one word to be a synonym to the second but with a slight difference in meaning or tone or in usage. I think it’s a perfectly logical and normal thing in a language and that’s why boy and lad doesnt’ mean the same thing and are not mutually interchangable in every existing situation.
You know those words on your “Slovak” shirt were also pushed out from the Slovak language…that’s because a new generation came, found a new ‘more fashionable’ word for those and as I wrote 2 words meaning the same could not stay in the same language…the older one had to go…:)
October 8th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I liked very much Tatiana´s “analysis” of a word “myšlienka” – I ´ve never think about it like that. How can it be possible that two animal nouns create a third , totally different, “not-animal” noun? Sure it is connected with Etymology, but as Lenka mentioned:“… do we really add the meaning to words or we just name the things/objects/events/etc. according to their appearance, characteristics, functions, etc. …” it´s on us to “give” the meaning to the word, because it´s a man who name the things, I would even dare to say that when creating word we “create” at the same time also a meaning. If the word has its content it has also its function, don´t you think? Of course in different situations the function is different, but there it still exists.
I´ve known “your” T-shirt for a long time, we bought it to my cousin-in-law from South Africa 10 years ago and as I can see it´still popular among the foreigners;) Really it´s some kind of making jokes from you (I mean foreigners:) As it was mentioned before there is a lot of words not widely used, some of them even used only in some regions (so called “dialectisms”). I would be very glad to see some kind of T-shirt like this with “English for beginners”, it could be really interesting to see which words do you consider as e.g. “hard-pronounced” or with some special transcription and at the same time funny for natives but not for foreigners:)
October 8th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Good question what were the real intentions of the t-shirt´s creator that led him to use just those words? This t-shirt shows the most charasterictic features of our language – combination of certain sounds and letters. What´s interesting, these words are absolutely out of use, also certain sounds like „ô“ occur in nowadays words very rarely. So to answer the question about the creator´s intentions…partly, it had to be about fun, slovak for beginners…no one would begin with these words, partly, didn´t he want to show that with new words, our language is also losing something? Isn´t slovak language so wonderful and colorful especially because of these words?
October 8th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
It is interesting to see how many strange words there are in Slovak language. I spent some time thinking about such words in English and I realized that they are not easy to find, maybe because Im not beginner in English, or, another reason may be that English simply does not contain such words.
But what is it that makes words such as ´cucoriedka´
or ohreblo´ so strange? I think that it is not only their pronunciation but also their meaning. In terms of categorization into functional/content words they all can be defined as content words, all having a stable meaning. However, when
learning foreign language, one usually has many more problem with functional words. If we think of it like that, words like ´no´are more worth to be on your t-shirt, arent they?
October 9th, 2006 at 3:08 am
That T-shirt is great, but I have to confess that some of the words I saw for the first time. These words are archaic and used in some regions of Slovakia. All of them are content listems and are written word by word without certain relation. Some of these content listems are hard to define, others are easy. I checked their meaning at http://www.forma.sk/onlines/slex/. All of them are nouns, except 3 verbs – brýzgať, orašpľovať and džugať. Actually these 3 verbs are written one by one in one line and they don’t effect each other. We need interaction between function and content words to see how they effect each other. According to your example: “1. John was fond of Mary. 2. John was found by Mary.” we can see that is very important to use function wors=to communicate meaning.
Looking forward to the next class.
October 9th, 2006 at 7:08 am
To answer a question why some pairs of words can be called as antonyms and some probably not is not an easy one. But from a linguistic point of view what makes two words antonyms is that they are equal in range of application and yet are opposed in meaning. In the case of “lollipop” and “diagonal” this can contrast in meaning yet still not be antonyms, because they differ in their range of application. Hot and cold are two words which share a semantic dimension, In this case the dimension of TEMPERATURE, but they occupy opposite poles along this dimension. They are both gradable; for example, we can say “A is hotter than B,” “C is fairly cold,” “D is very hot,” and so on. Between the opposite poles named by hot and cold, there is a mid interval, so that if something is neither hot nor cold, it might be warm, cool, etc. “Hot” and “cold” therefore belong to the group of gradable antonyms.
Knowing the fact that there are no absolute synonyms, it would seem unlikely that there are any antonyms that contrast perfectly. It also depends on the context we use them, as auto-antonyms are the same words that can mean the opposite of themselves depending on context: “fast” (moving quickly; fixed firmly in place)
Some t-shirt word suggestions: “fígeľ” – joke, “brinčok” – small bell, “findža” – big cup and an interesting one: rok “meruôsmy” – referred to revolutionary 1848 (“meru” meant forty).
October 9th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
At first I am very sorry for writing just now but I have come from Prague recetly. I will explain it to you later dear professor Lencho.
Actually I became very interested in a Slovak word “no”. I have not realized how many meanings it has. As you sad it is a functional word. I would like to give some examples:
1.”no” in a positive way= “no dobre môžme ísť…= well we can go…
2.”no” in a negative way= no to nemyslíš vážne!= don´t tell me.. you aren´t serious, are you!
3.”no”= as an conjunction= …no tak šli aj s deťmi= so they went with children…
4″no”=…no veď ty si povedal…= but you told…
These are only a few instances of “no”. I am one-hundred percent sure that “no” has much more meanings that´s why it is clearly functional word.
Concerning the words in the T-shirt, all of them are in Slovak “nespisovné”, it means that it is just dialect not standard words/language. Some people do not have to undertand all of them just few of them. It depends on area they live in. For example the word “čučoriedky” is in my dialect “jafury” and mostly the people living in Martin understand the word “jafury” but some of them do not understand the word “čučoriedky”. It is very interesting because both of them are Slovak words but come from different dialects. I know other words such as: kuka nádoba=bin, pôjda, kapurkova, štangľa and so on. There are many of them.
October 10th, 2006 at 5:17 am
I really like the funny T-shirt for the beginners of Slovak. First of all, I would like to add that most of the words were new for me, too, even though I live in Slovakia. The reason is that, these words are typical for a certain location and region in Slovakia. But all of them are funny. For the non- native speakers because of their “special” and difficult pronounciation. For the native speakers because of their meaning.
I haven´t expressed my point of view about the one syllable word “no”, yet. So here is my contribution. I know that we had already discussed this topic in our class but I´ve just recalled my holidays in Bulgaria. It is clear, that “no” can have many meanings. It differs from nation to nation, from culture to culture. We can emphasize the meaning (either negative or positive) by non-verbal communication – for examples mimics, gestures, hands etc.Here in Slovakia, we reinforce:
1. the positive meaning of “no” (yes) by moving our heads up&down,
2. the negative meaning of “no” (no) right&left.
In Bulgarian it is the right opposite. Does anybody know why?
P.S. So be careful while you are shopping there…
October 10th, 2006 at 5:57 am
Wednesday`s class made me think about the word “no” because I’ve never thought about before how we use it. Yes, it’s really interesting, I mean it’s controversial usage-in lots of languages “no” is connected with negative or denying meaning but in the Slovak we don’t really deny with it. I would agree with Dasa, I think it doesn’t have negative meaning, however we can use it but just figuratively or ironically e.g.: Did you like the film? –Noo, sci-fi is my favorite!-means that it is obvious that I hate sci-fi, so that’s why I say yes/ =noo/.
Also according to my oppinion „no“can be also a filler and also can have lots of other function which depends on the context where appears and on the speaker`s intention what he/she wants to express with it.
The T-shirt is cool, nice collection of words. People might find it funny because they don`t see them seperatly as words but as a group of word where they try to find some connections between them and because they are so far from each other-their meaning- the absurdity and the suprise that „Gosh, really, these words are exist!“ make them smile. As they realise or rediscover the uniqness of their language.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:02 am
Hello,the words on the tshirt are funny because they are old fashioned, and maybe it reminds people of they previous lifes, I mean the elder ones, also people usually lough at words used only in different dialects, because they sound funny etc., the word no is used in the hungarian language as well with the same reason or purpose as it is used in slovak, meaning yes or no. best wishez m
October 10th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Before my comments on the T-shirt, little note to “no” discussion. I don’t really agree with “no” having a negative meaning. In my opinion, you still need help of other words to expreess negation. “No” by itself won’t do it – no matter the intonation.
Now, let’s focus on that lovely T-shirt. To be honest, I am not completely familiar with all of the word and can only guess their meaning. The reason for choosing them for this T-shirt is probably because of their sound. They combine and create difficult syllabus to pronounce. Therefore, they sound unussually (and maybe seems to be impossible to pronounce)to the foreigner and sound beautifully “slovak” to us. No wonder Slovaks laugh at this T-shirt. Most of the word are dialects but still typically Slovak. Other words I could think of are:
krompel, rojtla, šmariť.
October 10th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Hi Mark,
first of all, I would like to start with your cool T-shirt.Whose idea was to create such a funny staff?Why people are laughting at you?that was your question, wasn´t it? it´s not because of you, Mark, you can trust me,they just wonder that we still have such strange words in Slovak and we actually do not use them every day, actually never:-).Nowadys, we are able to see them only in the books or in some special kinds of literatue but not in everyday speech, so for them, as for me, was funny to see them face to face at your T-shirt. I know some other words that usually make a problem with pronunciation to foreign people,as for example: hmla(especially for Czech people), and of course our longest word:najnevypocitavatelnejsi:-)
I noticed one interesting question When I was reading the document of Lexical Semantics: The Structure of Meaning, the Meaning of Structure,exactly What is your own judgment about (6)d and (6)f? In my opinion, the interpretations can be different according to the situation in which they are used.When I say: I saw and liked this model, AND as a conjunct in this sentence evokes me some kind of addition.On the other hand, when I want to emphasize something and react on the previous one, e.g:somebody asked if I saw the new model, I say: I saw but hated the new model.So, maybe these sentences are grammatically wrong but according to the intonation and discourse, are fine.
The similar thing is with the sentence: I saw the athletic but short boy. Maybe the author of that sentence wanted to emhasize that even the boy is athletic(what is great), he is short and the author(probably woman) doesn´t like such a type of man.
October 10th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
other suggestions:
“guľôčka v jamôčke”
“strč prst skrz krk” – and if you know the author personally you can suggest him these collocations for T-shirt : Slovak For Intermediate
October 11th, 2006 at 5:05 am
Hi!
I really liked the idea about the T-shirt! I think that the person who had the idea of this kind of T-shirt wanted people either to make laugh or he wanted people to realize how many words are there that we do not know even if these are words of our mother language. If he was succesful in both ways, I mean if the people were laughing and also thinking about the meaning of the words, he did a great job! I must say that some of the words written on this T-shirt are not known to me and I want to find their meaning. So I am going to ask my grandma ….what they mean because some of the words are archaic and used in only some of the regions of Slovakia so I will not find their meanings in any of the dictionaries. And if she does not know, I am going to find the person who has given you this T-shirt and ask him about the meanings of some words on the T-shirt:)Anyway, it was really a great and interesting idea to make presentation about this T-shirt, I really liked it and I am looking forward to the next one. I want to apologize to you that I was late with my comment, next time I will do my best not to be so late. Thank you very much.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Hi,
)
my opinion about your T-shirt is that people laugh at it because they see its irony!It has got direct ironical purpose to write such words for bigenners!I am not native Slovak speaker (I am Hungarian),and if I would have had to start the Slovak language with these words,it would be more than funny!
I think people consider to wear this T-shirt a great joke!:)
October 11th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
No wonder, that Slovaks laughed when reading your T-shirt. I did as well. As it has been already mentioned, these words must sound very strange for every Slovak (except for our grand-mothers:)). They are not a part of our active vocabulary for a very long time. We don’t use them, we don’t even know the meanings of some of these words. Can somebody explain me what does it mean ‘spakručie’?:)
And despite this fact or suddenly there appears somebody who wants the poor beginners(!) to learn, pronunce or maybe even remember these words:)…The one who hit upon this T-shirt-language-course-idea must be really very gloating man:))
October 11th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Hi there..
I’d love to have such one in my wardrobe.. But, on the other side, it would by quite a challenge for the people around me. Nevertheless, if they would’t forget my name by reading it, than it would be a good day showing a success in my friends-gathering process. 
But back to reality and to my suggestions-so here they are: “ovaliť”, “dievočka”, “bača”, “írečito”, “otŕčať”.. And I wonder, why no one suggested “táčky”.. It’s because of its regional usage? It doesn’t matter. In fact these words are something that we as Slovaks can be proud of – it’s our heritage, but still, mostly these words are really “out” and really hard to understand .. 
hey thats realy SOME T-shirt..
October 12th, 2006 at 4:02 am
When speaking about the significance of function words – such as in your examples: of and by, there are really only slight differences which completely change the meaning of sentences. And often the function of words decides whether the sentence/text will be understood or not.
Returning to Slovak “no” – yes, it has different functions in different situations or with diffreent intonation. But I also have to note that I have never before thought and realized it. I think that we use it somehow subconsciously.
About your T-shirt: People laugh at words which are really very nice – especially for their beautiful and unique pronunciation, but we do not use them very often…
They laugh at the paradox of these beautifully sounding words and a foreigner wearing them, because for foreigner it has to be very difficult to pronounce these typical Slovak/Slavonic sounds. And there is also another paradox – it is called “Slovak for beginners”- as if it was a base of our language, but as I said: we do not use it very often. Or- have you heard someone to use them in normal situation/dialogue?
People are usually very proud of our language as a part of our culture and tradition, but nowadays these words are substituted with more modern (up-to-date)ones.
Finally, I have two more nice Slovak words for you: črpák, chrastie.
October 13th, 2006 at 5:14 am
Hi,
I like this chapter about function and content words. It is about their importance. Although each of these two groups of words has its own significance, they are equally important because we need both of them to speak, to use the language.
Maybe someone would say that content words are more important because they carry the meaning and the meaning is the most important thing when we want the other people to understand us. But I think that it is not true. There is a nice sentence in the book,”Function listemes restrict and organize those meanings[ i.e. the meanings which are carried by the content listemes] providing the structure that lets us communicate better than Tarzan”. It is funny, I mean this comparison to Tarzan, but it is true. Without function words or function listemes would be our language strange. Although content words carry the meaning, they need function words to express that meaning in communication.
e.g. I have bought a ball and I want to tell someone that I have bought it. But if there were no function words and I said ” ball buy”, what would it mean?
So the function words are also very important because our communication would not be meaningful even though content words carry the meaning. So I think that content words and function words can not exist one without another. They are perfectly completing themselves. Content words are there to carry the meaning and function words to make this meaning “meaningful” in communication.
There is a question in the book what is our own judgement about some sentences. The sentence, “I [saw] but [hated] the new model” is in my opinion correct because “but” may conjoin verbs and the meaning seems to be all right. I can see something, but I do not necessarily have to like it.
e.g. It is like when someone is going to buy a new model of an expensive car and he is speaking in superlatives about it, how it is perfect and also how expensive it is [just to make you envy him]. You want to make this person angry, so you say: I saw but hated the new model.
Best wishes.
October 15th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
You were right, your T-shirt made me laugh..
I think it was the intention of the creator to make it in the other way than we would suppose. When we read ´Slovak for beginners´, we would expect words like: dobrý deň, dovidenia, ako sa voláš, ďakujem, škola, dievča, chlapec, dom, strom,.. etc. However, to our surprise, there are words which a stranger will hardly ever need to speak, because most of them are obsolent and not used much these days or can be substituted by newer equivalents. What is more, the creator had chosen words which are very hard to pronounce and if a foreigner started to speak these words as his first he could possibly break his tongue and become scared of such difficult and terrible language. Most of the words contain diacritic marks (as mäkčene a dĺžne), which are typical for Slovak language but not typical for other languages as for example English.
It is as if I wanted to start to learn English and someone showed me old English words, for example Shakespeare´s English.
I can add some more words like that: DOJNICA (cow), DOMŔZAŤ (to bother sb.), DRŽGROŠ (greedy person), CVENDŽAŤ (to make sound like with bells), FIŠKUS (sophisticated person), GEBUĽA (head), CHVASTÚŇ (sb.who praises himself), ÍREČITÝ (well-spoken), JAZYČNICA (talkative and gossiping woman), KRPÁŇ (small person), MäKKÝŠ ( type of animal, for ex. snail), NôŽKA (little foot), SŔKAŤ (slowly drink sth. hot), TĹCŤ (to bounce hard), VRÁTA (door), ŽELIEŤ (to miss sth.)
Try to read them, but don´t bother to learn them..
PS: Your Slovak is very good, it is very different from English language and I think more difficult compared to English.
Miroslava Vojtkova
October 17th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Hi Mark.
I would like to add my comments
Function and Content
Function and content words are like a head and a neck, you can’t turn your head without neck or a skeleton- content words are bones and function words are joints. Function words help to express their relationship, connection. Content words can stand on its own, but with function words they create a meaningful sentence- base of our communication. Content words can have more meanings depending on the certain context and it has even it’s own special meaning for every single person- what kind of association and experience we have in connection, evokation with a word.
Language is changing day to day and some words are disappearing from our common language. That’s why those words from your T-shirt are not so familiar to most of people. New generation has invented more fashionable words and those archaic and also some slang words are not used so often anymore. Maybe people living in villages might still use them as our roots and culture are more alive there. Moreover, every region has it’s special slang and dialect, so sometimes people from the west part can’t understand people from the south part of Slovakia. (e.g.: potatoes- zemiaky-that is a standard and dialect- švábka, bandúrky, arteple, krumple, grule.)
I am adding some other words to your T-shirt: ogabať,gánok, krochmáliť,bigľovať.
P.S.: Mark, do you really know meaning of all words, as I don’t understand what osuheľ, bachráň, spakručie ,ojo mean. I guess, am only beginner in Slovak language…according to your T-shirt. BTW who told you all those interesting words?
October 18th, 2006 at 3:23 am
I’ll pick up on your question regarding the boy/lad synonymy. I will not be saying anything new to anybody if I say that apart from denotative meaning of words they also carry a huge cloud of connotations. We can say that while denotation is the “what” of an utterance, connotation is the “how”. I.e., if I say “Get the f*** out of here!” it means basically the same thing as “Would you be so kind as to leave the room, please.” Both of them are operative utterances that aim to get somebody out of the presence of the speaker. Yet, they are tremendously different in the way they make it happen.
The given example, however, is very straightforward and the difference between those utterances can be described very precisely in oppositions rude/polite, colloquial/formal, etc. Yet, many times the difference in connotation can’t be put in words adequately. For example, “Boh” and “Hospodin” (rougly, “God” and “Lord”). Both the words stand for the concept of the omnipotent entity that transcends us. The first may be more general, the latter conveys the connotation of guarding, governing. Yet, if you just from now on would call God Hospodin only, everybody would understand what you mean. The difference is in how does it sound, since Hospodin is more archaic, more Bible-ish, and is used only at congregations of fellow Christians. But this is still too little to say about the connotative potential of Hospodin versus Boh. For example, you would never curse nastily using Hospodin, while Boh is used very creatively this way. (E.g. doboha, boha tvojho, božemôj, etc.)
While linguistics may never be able to work out what the connotations really can do using pure reasoning, the arts that work with language are making deliberate use of it ever since. And not just the arts, every one of us makes deliberate choices of words according to their connotative effect. The best can ponder over a word as if tasting wine.
Now, I will return to where my train of thoughts started – your T-shirt. Thinking about words I might add to your list, I remembered the word plays Lasica & Satinský, our greatest humorists, were performing. These two might have done for the development of Slovak language more than the kit and caboodle in the ivory tower of the Slovak Academy. Their art of relishing words and our language was a wonderful review of what our young and underdeveloped Slovak can do. Let me then add, citing and honoring their works, add to your list these jewels:
- bzŕkľa (a new word for a fly)
- prievidza (meaning a peephole)
- krehkáč (opposed to drsniak)
- budenbrúk
- cícící (čuovjek)
October 30th, 2006 at 3:44 am
As for the T-shirt, I’m sure it won’t be surprising if I admit that I’ve seen most of the words for the first time in my life. I was laughing at Michaela Lukacikova’s advise, to read a poem from P.O.Hviezdoslav. I remember our Slovak lessons at the high school when we had to read the „great“ works of the great Slovak writers as Kukučín, Hviezdoslav, Sládkovič, Tajovský… I was to make a presentation from Gábor Vlkolinsky by Hviezdoslav. It was one of the most challenging books I have ever read, I understood only passages from it (mainly the dialogues) so it was precisely the minimum amount from which I was able to put together the story.
I would also add a comment concerning content words., answering your question what exactly their content is. I think, content involves not only the „pure“ meaning of the word but also its connotational meanings. Words gain meaning(s) by use, so these connotational or additional meanings derive from the possible contexts in which the word can be used. By context I do not only mean situational context but also the context of other words – the meaning of the content word is influenced (or even determined) by the words that surround it. In this sense one word can have some basic meanings (denotation) and many additional meanings (connotation).
December 19th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
We may take a look on the similar Slovak sentences us you suggested in your blog.
1. John je zalubeny DO Mary.
2. *John bol najdeny OD Mary.
The word by word translation of the English- by- is the Slovak DO, even if the sentence isn’t corret. But I think that the idea of function words can be understood also on this Slovak example. Do-means IN TO and therefore even if we don’t know the meaning of a word zalubeny, we should be able to understand that: John je do (in to) Mary- and therefore, he is in love. You maybe know the song: Do teba, do teba, do teba, zalubil sa chlapec (from ELAN), or Som do teba- used to be also used when I was younger
OD- word by word translation is FROM, so then John od (from) Mary , significates that John got something from Mary, or that they belong somehow together.
So I think the definition for function words- that they organize the flow of information of the expression in which they occur, fits this term perfectly. They provide us with the little something that helps us to get the message of an utterance.