# Complete sentences comprised of only a noun



## Mauricet

In Malay/Indonesian a single noun such as _hujan_ (rain) may be a full sentence, a predicate of existence of the thing represented by the noun: _It is raining_. Similarly, a noun phrase such as _Bukan pasar malam_ (title of a novel by Pramoedya Ananta Toer), literally _Not a night market_, was translated in French as _La vie n'est pas une foire nocturne_ ("Life is not a night market"), i.e. a complete sentence again. Probably another of Pram's novels, _Korupsi_, is understood as "There is corruption" rather than just "About corruption" or "A story of corruption".

Which other languages have this feature ? Other types of one-word-sentences exist very generally, but this one ?


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## jazyk

I can only thing of Fire! and its translation in other languages (Portuguese fogo, Spanish fuego, Italian fuoco, French feu, etc.) to mean there is a fire somewhere.


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## sakvaka

jazyk said:


> I can only thing of Fire! and its translation in other languages (Portuguese fogo, Spanish fuego, Italian fuoco, French feu, etc.) to mean there is a fire somewhere.



...well, not in *Finnish*. _Tulta!_ is a command to shoot, but if you want to tell that the house is burning, you say _tuli on irti_ ("the fire is loose").

The grammar doesn't usually allow one-word sentences that don't include a verb (_happy birthday_). Titles of books are exceptions, because they're not _complete sentences_. I can't explain why they were translated differently in your case. Perhaps the translators wanted to make them more informative.


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## Maroseika

sakvaka said:


> ...well, not in *Finnish*. _Tulta!_ is a command to shoot,


Same in Russian.


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## Mauricet

In French, _Feu !_ is a command to shoot. When there is a fire, you shout _Au feu !_

Yes, *usually* grammars do not allow one word sentences without a verb, because they would not be complete sentences, usually. But Indonesian (or Malay, essentially the same language) does have such complete sentences: translators of novels know that and translate _Bukan pasar malam_ with a complete French or English sentence because it _is_ a complete sentence in the original ! I guess some Asian languages might allow such sentences too, but which ones ?


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## Encolpius

Mauricet said:


> ...Which other languages have this feature ? Other types of one-word-sentences exist very generally, but this one ?



How about East-Asian languages?


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## Ghabi

In Japanese you need です to complete a noun-type sentence: 火事だ! ("It's a fire!"). In Cantonese, we say "火燭呀!" (fire+particle). In Arabic you can just shout out حريق  "fire!"

But honestly I don't think it's easy to define what a "one-noun sentence" is, even we exclude "emergency shouting".

-What do you want? Apple or orange?
- Apple. (Do you count this as a sentence?)


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## Mauricet

Ghabi said:


> I don't think it's easy to define what a "one-noun sentence" is.
> 
> -What do you want? Apple or orange?
> -Apple. (Do you count this as a sentence?)


It is a sentence, but not of the kind I'm talking about, because it assumes a context. The Malay sentence made of one noun (or noun phrase) makes sense in isolation, as a complete utterance, meaning the concrete existence of the thing named: a _predicate of existence_ (?).


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## Ghabi

Mauricet said:


> ... because it assumes a context.


Yes, you're right, that assumes a "verbal context" (to answer a question etc) (forgive my nitpicking, but every utterence has a context after all, though not necessarily verbal).

It has been suggested that in *Nahuatl* a noun can function as a full predicative sentence. You may want to check out relevant information.


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## Mauricet

Thank you Ghabi, Nahuatl seems to be a good example: it is said that any noun or verb may be a full predicative sentence ("omnipredicativity"), a property shared by few languages. The French wikipedia article on Nahuatl even argues that nouns and verbs are not clearly characterised: this is a difference with Indonesian, where nouns are negated with _bukan_ while verbs and adjectives are with _tidak_.


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## Ghabi

I'm glad that interested you.

Since I've the book by hand, I might as well quote from James Lockhart's _Nahuatl as Written_:



> Nahuatl nouns have subjects. Each noun in an utterence is at least potentially a complete equative sentence in itself. The word for "house" in its dictionary form, _calli_, has a third person subject and by itself means "it's a house", or since in many cases no distinction exists between singular and plural, "they are houses".


Is it the same in Malay?


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## Mauricet

Maybe I misunderstood what I read about Nahuatl. "Equative sentences" comprised of only a noun in Nahuatl mean "this is X", while in Indonesian the noun X alone may mean "there is X", which can be said also using a copula: _Ada korupsi_ = "there is corruption". The copula _ada_ is available but not required.


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## Ghabi

Great to know that. Hopefully a Nahuatl expert will drop by.

So how do you say "it is corruption" in Indonesian?


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## Mauricet

Ghabi said:


> So how do you say "it is corruption" in Indonesian?


_Ini (adalah) korupsi_, with _adalah_ also a copula, available, nor required. But of course _What is this ? -- It is corruption !_ could be said _Apa ini ? -- Korupsi !_


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## Ghabi

I've re-read the original question, and got some new questions:



Mauricet said:


> In Malay/Indonesian a single noun such as _hujan_ (rain) may be a full sentence, a predicate of existence of the thing represented by the noun: _It is raining_.


I've checked an Indonesian dictionary, where _hujan_ is glossed as both "rain (noun)" and "to rain (noun)". So could we take _hujan_ as a one-verb sentence, instead of a one-noun sentence? Could we have some examples of one-word sentence which is undoubtedly a noun?



> ... another of Pram's novels, _Korupsi_, is understood as "There is corruption" rather than just "About corruption" or "A story of corruption".


Must we understand it as "there's corruption"? That is, grammatically we must understand it as so, and it's not an interpretation according to the content of the novel?

Following are four ways of expressing "it's raining" in different languages, for a comparision:

1. with "rain" as the subject
Japanese: 雨が降ってます ame (rain) ga (subject marker) futtemasu (is falling)

2. with "the world" as the subject
Egyptian Arabic: الدنيا بتمطّر id-dunya (the world [feminine], usually omitted, but understood) bitmaTTar (is raining, 3rd-person feminine conjugation, agreeing with the suject)

3. with impersonal pronoun as the subject
French: il pleut

4. with no suject at all
Cantonese: 落雨呀 lok2 jy13 (raining) aː3 (affirmative particle), when I say this, there's no subject/agent at all in my mind, just an action


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## Mauricet

_Hujan_ is categorised as a noun only, in each of three dictionaries: Labrousse's "dictionnaire de poche indonésien français", the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, and a free online Indonesian-English dictionary. So I guess it is the one-word sentence we are discussing which gets some other dictionaries classify it as possibly a verb. I am not sure how they say _It does not rain_. I believe it should be _Tidak ada hujan_, not _*Tidak hujan_.

For _Korupsi_, as a novel title it is not _necessarily_ understood as a full sentence, but it _may_ be, which I believe produces an effect. The fact that the title _Bukan pasar malam_ is translated _This is not a night market_ or _La vie n'est pas une foire nocturne_ ("Life is not a night fair/market") points to the same direction, I think.


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## Ghabi

Mauricet said:


> So I guess it is the one-word sentence we are discussing which gets some other dictionaries classify it as possibly a verb.


Yes, I guess so.



> I am not sure how they say _It does not rain_. I believe it should be _Tidak ada hujan_, not _*Tidak hujan_.


um um, but you said in a previous post that a noun is negated by _bukan. _Have I missed something?


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## Mauricet

Good point. _Bukan hujan_ could be an answer to "is it rain or snow ?": _not rain_. But _It does not rain_ negates _(Ada) hujan_ and the copula _ada_ is negated using _tidak_: so I think they would say _Tiada hujan_ (_tiada_ is contraction of _tidak ada_): literally _there-is-not rain_. What makes things not so clear is that _tiada_ is sometimes used instead of _tidak_ ! One more reason why some nouns would sometimes be classified as verbs !

To sum up, my question could be rephrased as follows: which langages have a copula meaning _there is_, that can be omitted when stating the existence of something ?


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## Pierre Simon

Hallo Mauricet,

The opening sentence of _Bleak House_ by Charles Dickens : "London."


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## Ghabi

Pierre Simon said:


> The opening sentence of _Bleak House_ by Charles Dickens : "London."


The original question seems to concern "x (noun)"="there is  x", not  "x (noun)"="it is/was  x".


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## Drakonica

Polish verbs:
pada - [it's] raining
słychać - [it] can be heard
widać - [it] can be seen
czuć - [it] can be felt

Polish adverbs:
zimno - [it's] cold
gorąco - [it's] hot


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## elroy

Arabic:
النجدة! (literally, “the rescue”) = Help!



Drakonica said:


> Polish verbs:
> pada - [it's] raining
> słychać - [it] can be heard
> widać - [it] can be seen
> czuć - [it] can be felt
> 
> Polish adverbs:
> zimno - [it's] cold
> gorąco - [it's] hot


Not nouns.


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## Drakonica

elroy said:


> Arabic:
> النجدة! (literally, “the rescue”) = Help!
> 
> 
> Not nouns.


You're right.
So nouns:

*pomoc* (nominative) just help
pomocy! - (genitive) Help!

*woda* (nominative) just water
but:
Wody! - (genitive) I need water! / Give me water!
Wodą. - (instrumental) Do it with water.
Wodę. - (accusative) Water, please. Give me water. (In shop for example).

*kot* (nominative) just a cat
Kotu - (dative) For the cat. Give it to the cat.

Gennerally you can use these four cases in this way with any noun, if only it makes sense with it.

*Dupa*! - (ass, arse) It is wrong! / It doesn't work! / The final result of our actions is nothing but ass.
*Bryndza *- (a kind of cheese) I / We are in a bad situation.
*Hańba*! - (shame) Shame on you!
*Morda*! - (a mug) Shut up your mug!
*Gleba*! - (soil) Lay on the ground!


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## sound shift

All too often I look out of the window and produce the one-word sentence, "Rain!" (in English). The people present are in no doubt about the meaning.


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## elroy

sound shift said:


> All too often I look out of the window and produce the one-word sentence, "Rain!" (in English). The people present are in no doubt about the meaning.


Truth.


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## apmoy70

Drakonica said:


> You're right.
> So nouns:
> 
> *pomoc* (nominative) just water
> pomocy! - (genitive) Help!
> 
> *woda* (nominative) just water
> but:
> Wody! - (genitive) I need water! / Give me water!
> Wodą. - (instrumental) Do it with water.
> Wodę. - (accusative) Water, please. Give me water. (In shop for example).
> 
> *kot* (nominative) just a cat
> Kotu - (dative) For the cat. Give it to the cat.
> 
> Gennerally you can use these four cases in this way with any noun, if only it make sense with it.
> 
> *Dupa*! - (ass, arse) It is wrong! / It doesn't work! / The final result of our actions is nothing but ass.
> *Bryndza *- (a kind of cheese) I / We are in a bad situation.
> *Hańba*! - (shame) Shame on you!
> *Morda*! - (a mug) Shut up your mug!
> *Gleba*! - (soil) Lay on the ground!


Out of all these, in Greek one can hear *«νερό!»* [ne̞.ˈɾo̞] --> _(I want) water!_, the accusative of the neuter noun *«νερό»* [ne̞.ˈɾo̞] (idem), or *«γάτα!/σκύλος!»* [ˈɣa.t̠a] (fem.)/[ˈs̠ci.lo̞s̠] (masc.) --> _(look a) cat!/dog!_, especially when the animal suddenly crosses our way while we're walking or driving a car


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## Awwal12

The Polish list made me think that there's one or two more Russian features to exploit.
E.g. жарковато (zharkováto) - "[it's] a little bit [too] hot (somewhere)".


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## Penyafort

In Catalan, as in most other languages mentioned here, nouns for whole sentences are used when the sentence is understood from the context, but not as a grammar feature.

*Foc*! ["Fire!" - In a fire, or when a firing squad shoots]
*Aigua*! ["Water!" = Give me water, I'm thirsty!]
*Socors*!, *Auxili*!, *Ajuda*! ["Help!"]
*Cotxe*! ["Car!", as in warning someone a car is going to run over you]

Obviously, with insults, although then nouns are actually functioning as adjectives: 
*Ruc*! ("Ass!" = Idiot!),​*Gallina*! ("Hen!" = Coward!)​etc​
Generally speaking, though, they're nouns that either become adjectivized or almost interjections rather than real sentences.


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## Drakonica

Skucha! - (informally: a mistake) You've made a mistake in the game.
Rozkaz! - (an order) I understand your orders. I will execute them.
Uwaga!  - (an attention) Be careful.
Baczność! - (an attention) Stand in a basic position!
Cisza! - (a silence) Quiet!
Rączki. - (little hands) Stretch out your hands, I'll handcuff you.
Odjazd! - (a departure) Drive away!
Wypad! - (an excursion) Go away!    
Czołem! - (with a forehead) Hi! / Cheerio!
Chodu! - (of a walk) Let's run away!


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## AutumnOwl

Paraplyväder - umbrella weather, when looking out and notice that it's raining.


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