# прилегать



## pimlicodude

From Solzhenitsyn:


> Этот аргумент – что нужна сильная страна для защиты евреев на новом месте, особенно *прилегал* сторонникам краткосрочного создания отдельного государства с массовым переселением, что предлагал и тогда и позже Макс Нордау, то есть «невзирая на экономическую неподготовленность страны [Палестины] к их приёму»


Прилегать should mean "to adjoin". What could it mean in this context?


----------



## Sobakus

Скорее всего «был свойственен»; если нет, то «был по душе, улыбался». Понятия не имею откуда он такое употребление взял.


----------



## pimlicodude

Thank you. An oddity.


----------



## Maroseika

Curiously, he used this word long before in quite different and also unusual sense (припадать):

Он прилегал на правую ногу после пережитой ещё до войны аварии с мотоциклом. [В круге первом]


----------



## pimlicodude

Maroseika said:


> Curiously, he used this word long before in quite different and also unusual sense (припадать):
> 
> Он прилегал на правую ногу после пережитой ещё до войны аварии с мотоциклом. [В круге первом]


Maroseika, does that mean "he pressed more heavily on his right leg after a motorbike accident before the war", referring to an odd gait?


----------



## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> Скорее всего «был свойственен»; если нет, то «был по душе, улыбался». Понятия не имею откуда он такое употребление взял.


По-моему, самый подходящий перевод в этом контексте - это "to appeal to" (<улыбаться). Спасибо за помощь.


----------



## Alabarna

Здесь просится "был близок". "Прилегать" означает "находиться рядом", а когда что-то рядом, оно близко.


----------



## Maroseika

pimlicodude said:


> Maroseika, does that mean "he pressed more heavily on his right leg after a motorbike accident before the war", referring to an odd gait?


Yes, this is what's called припадать на ногу (на левую ногу, на одну ногу, на больную ногу etc.).


----------



## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> Maroseika, does that mean "he pressed more heavily on his right leg after a motorbike accident before the war", referring to an odd gait?


припада́ть на́ ногу means 'to have a limp <right> leg'.


----------



## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> припада́ть на́ ногу means 'to have a limp <right> leg'.


I meant to write "walked with a limp in his right leg" (the correct phrasing in English), but was focusing on literally translating прилегать.


----------



## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> По-моему, самый подходящий перевод в этом контексте - это "to appeal to" (<улыбаться). Спасибо за помощь.


Yes, this sounds like the meaning he was going for. Taken together with the use that @Maroseika  mentions, this might be a calque on something like German _gefallen _and BCS допадати.


----------



## pimlicodude

Alabarna said:


> Здесь просится "был близок". "Прилегать" означает "находиться рядом", а когда что-то рядом, оно близко.


I see - not "appeal to", but "as close to the position of".


----------



## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> I see - not "appeal to", but "as close to the position of".


«Был близок» is also an excellent guess, only it doesn't refer to static metaphorical position in an argument. It's more or less the same as «был по душе», but in a more of a fixed sense, as in 'close to someone's nature', and 'appealed' is the closest translation I can think of. Cf. a similar metaphor in 'it was far from him to think that', which isn't the same as but close enough to «ему такие мысли были далеки».


----------



## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> «Был близок» is also an excellent guess, only it doesn't refer to static metaphorical position in an argument. It's more or less the same as «был по душе», but in a more of a fixed sense, as in 'close to someone's nature', and 'appealed' is the closest translation I can think of. Cf. a similar metaphor in 'it was far from him to think that', which isn't the same as but close enough to «ему такие мысли были далеки».


I see, yes. In fact, both translations would work, especially seeing as Solzhenitsyn appears to have come up with this wording himself.


----------



## Sobakus

pimlicodude said:


> I see, yes. In fact, both translations would work, especially seeing as Solzhenitsyn appears to have come up with this wording himself.


Well, I think that in the European scientific language, people are conceived as being close or far away from other people's theoretical position, but arguments are not. Arguments are conceived of as tools or leverage, and as weapons or ammunition (also as buildings, but you can't ”build an argument next to someone's position”, these two are _incoherent _metaphors in Lakoff's terms). «этот аргумент близок сторонникам...» cannot mean anything other than 'appeals to', just like if you replace «аргумент» with «сентимент, мысль».


----------



## pimlicodude

Sobakus said:


> Well, I think that in the European scientific language, people are conceived as being close or far away from other people's theoretical position, but arguments are not. Arguments are conceived of as tools or leverage, and as weapons or ammunition (also as buildings, but you can't ”build an argument next to someone's position”, these two are _incoherent _metaphors in Lakoff's terms). «этот аргумент близок сторонникам...» cannot mean anything other than 'appeals to', just like if you replace «аргумент» with «сентимент, мысль».


Yes - if you're being precise with your language. It is possible to be "looser" in your constructions. For example, in English, you can read sentences like:


> the male burden in England was still 23% higher than Spain and the female burden was 43% higher than France -- taken from gov . uk


and


> It comes as ministers refused to rule out Spain, which has case rates around five times higher than France -- from inews . co . uk



These should have read "than that of France" or "than in France" and not "than France".
Things like this are normally picked up on by copy-editors, but in fact they are idiomatically accepted (in spoken English, at least), and I think English is more amenable to loose construction than, e.g., case languages, where more exact relationships between words are expected.


----------



## Sobakus

The thing is, these are straighforward cases of ellipsis and I see nothing unusual about them from either language's point of view - Russian likewise has cases of optional preposition ellipsis.

The question with our example is two meanings that are completely different, and only one of them seems possible here. “this argument is close to someone's position” means that the argument resembles the arguments offered by a certain person, or here, a group of people. It would mean the same as saying “he sounds like a Zionist” for example - *argument* stands for *position in an argument* and the two positions are being directly compared, and hence two mindsets.

«Этот аргумент ... прилегал сторонникам» cannot express that meaning, no positions are being compared. It probably does stand for «был близок», so 'appealed'. It refers to argument as a sentiment that fits the agenda of a certain party, appeals to them. My other suggestion was «был свойственен», 'was characteristic of', with a metaphor of being physically attached, but this seems less likely to me now.


----------

