# Icelandic: Words with multiple meanings in English



## ShakeyX

I am not fussed on delving deep into this just wondered if anyone had ever thought or read up on this. I was just wondering if words in Icelandic such as verbs, "verða", would be described in Icelandic as having two meanings.

By this I mean we can say

Ég verð heima á morgun (I will be home tomorrow)
Ég verð að taka próf á morgun (I have to take a test tomorrow)

Now I'm struggling to explain this, but I'll try... this word has two meanings in English, as in we apply two sentences with different verbs in english onto these two icelandic sentences, but it's the same verb in icelandic. Now that got me thinking, is it taught in icelandic school like okay.. here is the verb verða and it has two meanings, or does is it, here is the verb verða, and it means this, which in icelandic crosses between the two english uses.

Basically do icelanders feel a difference when using verða in these two different ways or does it feel like one word to them.


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## Tjahzi

According to the Sapir-Worph hypothesis, a speaker of a particular language only recognizes distinctions made in that language. That is, speakers generally do interpret one word as denoting one "concept".

Considering the reversed situation, has it occurred to you that _you, you, you, you, you, you, you _and _you_ are semantically different?


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## ShakeyX

So does that mean, ofcourse upon translating we have mapped two words onto one, and normally if a word doesn't exist in a target language we have to use more than one word to describe it as we don't have a matching counterpart. But as this word takes 2, does that mean it's meaning isn't really that, however just works for the two cases. Would it be possible to describe verða in english using a longer sentence?

EDIT: You do have to explain what you meant by you you you you you you you... only thing I could think of is the fact UK English doesn't have You and Y'all.. but I have a feeling you had something deeper to share


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## Tjahzi

Well, if you are asking how general Icelandic speakers interpret _verða_,  the answer is probably that it's considered a single word and the very  idea that its semantic field could be covered by two separate words  hasn't occurred to anyone. However, if you sat them down and analysed  it, they would probably agree that it does indeed have different  meaning/functions in different contexts. I'm not really sure


ShakeyX said:


> But as this word takes 2, does that mean it's meaning isn't really that, however just works for the two cases. Would it be possible to describe verða in english using a longer sentence?


I'm not really sure what you mean with the first part. Surely you could "describe _verða_ using a longer sentence", but it would probably be better to describe its different usages with separate sentences. 

The last part was a reference to the eight Icelandic forms of the second personal pronoun that all translate to _you_.


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## ShakeyX

What you said about sitting them down and analysing the semantic meaning, that is what I was getting at. Would an icelander, regardless of whether he evaluates at one word, feel that it was a different semantic meaning when using it in the 2 examples I stated, or is it just one thing for them. I suppose this needs a natives opinion.

What I meant by the longer sentence is for example afturbatapíka - we don't have any word in english to describe this, just "a woman who had a baby which has since been forgotten about resulting in her being considered a virgin". So my point was is the real meaning of verða either "have to" and "will" or is it its own meaning which we just can't really type out in english with one word so two have been mapped for it's uses in English but really it's one word with one icelandic definition.


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## Tjahzi

Well, I believe an Icelandic speaker views the phrase _Ég verð að __verða betri _similarly to how an English speaker views _I'm going to be going somewhere._ Some languages make distinctions that other don't and virtually all words have more or less broad usages. The "real meaning" of _verða _is that it covers both the semantic fields of English _have to_ and _will_, similarly to how English _you_ covers the semantic fields of both Icelandic _þú_ and _þig_ and some East Asian languages use a single word for colours which we would refer to as either blue or green. The distinction is made in our mind.

On a side note, I think compound words of non-analythic languages are slightly overrated. They are generally just more or less the same morphemes tucked together in a single word rather than spread out in a sentence. It might raise your eyebrows when I tell you that Swedish has separate words for paternal and maternal grandparents (in addition to distinguishing their own gender, like most languages do). However, they are essentially no more spectacular than _"mothermother", "motherfather", "fathermother" _and _"fatherfather"_.


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## Daniel20

This is the bit I find most interesting about languages. You obviously struggle with trying to get an English explanation for things in Icelandic - and that's not a bad thing. It's entirely normal. Our language shapes what and how we think and the distinctions we make, as Tjahzi said - such as the fact that Icelandic doesn't make a distinction between male relatives.  Just do a bit of reading on linguistic determinism or something:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity


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## NoMoreMrIceGuy

Daniel20 said:


> ... such as the fact that Icelandic doesn't make a distinction between male relatives.



And if you think that's weird, try to look at it from our side when we're confused that in English, cousin is used for both females and males. 

As to the original post, the verb _verða_ simply has a wider meaning. For an equally narrow meaning as in English, try substituting it with _er (mun vera)_ in the former example and _þarf _in the latter.


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## myšlenka

Is it the case that "_að verða"_ expresses a future state while "að [verða að]" expresses an obligation? If that is so, then I don't see what this has to do with linguistic determinism (which is a fascinating idea, but still just a theory which is very hard to test).


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## ShakeyX

myšlenka said:


> Is it the case that "_að verða"_ expresses a future state while "að [verða að]" expresses an obligation? If that is so, then I don't see what this has to do with linguistic determinism (which is a fascinating idea, but still just a theory which is very hard to test).




I think this is closer to my original point.. exactly what you said.

Now what I'm asking is, is að verða taught in school as a verb which can express future and also obligation, or does it have meaning X which implies both in icelandic.

As in (purely an example for demonstrative purposes) verða means "it will be" so you could say it will be that I am home, or it will be as in it must happen. Does it have sort of a middle meaning which we don't have in english, that expresses both, OR is it a verb with two options. I am fine with both outcomes juts a curious thought 

Do Icelanders go, oo this is verða 1 and this is verða 2, or does it have one meaning which stretches around both that we dont have a word for, so instead break it down into two meanings... otherwize we'd have to write a longer sentence to depict it.. as in "it will be" (again disclaimer, just for example purposes)

EDIT: I think the "you you you" thing is abit different seeing as þú þig þér þín all do mean the same person and are just grammatical "things". I'm talking about like the verb að nenna, where we attach several words to it "to be bothered" "to be in the mood" as we don't have a one to one match, now has the same happened with verða but instead of mapping a sentence they just split the outcomes to have two easier to use english meanings, OR does the verb actually carry these two meanings. Again not that this matters it's just interesting.


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## Alxmrphi

> Now what I'm asking is, is að verða taught in school as a verb which can express future and also obligation, or does it have meaning X which implies both in icelandic.


Icelanders aren't taught this. They know this already.
When you have classes in your own native language, you learn about parts of speech, maybe some typically systematic problems that cause new learners to make some mistakes, easy tips on grammar and how to use punctuation. You're thinking of this like how non-natives go to language lessons and learn about things. Did anyone ever explicitly explain what the meaning of _have to _is_?_ Did anyone ever explicitly tell you adjectives have to go before nouns? Exactly. 

Non native learners of English virtually universally know what Type I, II and III conditional sentences are, but natives without any training in their own language (that happens way, way beyond normal schooling age) have never heard of it before, nor have ever had any need to learn it because it's internalised via exposure. There's no reason to think such distinctions are necessary in schools for people to pick up.


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## ShakeyX

Yes that's all well and good, but regardless of how icelanders learn it (that was just to try and get my point across) is it the case that this verb has ONE definition in icelandic that we split down the middle to map our language onto, or does it actually possess IN ITS OWN LANGUAGE, (pre-english interference) two meanings. Yes it has two meanings in our language but is that cause we mapped them or because they were there.

This is more of a question if the dictionary with definitions 1) 2) and 3) is our mapping as the original meaning was a long sentence which we broke down into segments for all the available uses in our language OR the verb just was made with optional usage in mind (which i doubt, i like the first idea more but that was just a guess from something that popped into my head).


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## Alxmrphi

ShakeyX said:


> Yes that's all well and good, but regardless of how icelanders learn it (that was just to try and get my point across) is it the case that this verb has ONE definition in icelandic that we split down the middle to map our language onto, or does it actually possess IN ITS OWN LANGUAGE, (pre-english interference) two meanings. Yes it has two meanings in our language but is that cause we mapped them or because they were there.
> 
> This is more of a question if the dictionary with definitions 1) 2) and 3) is our mapping as the original meaning was a long sentence which we broke down into segments for all the available uses in our language OR the verb just was made with optional usage in mind (which i doubt, i like the first idea more but that was just a guess from something that popped into my head).



Okay, I see your point a bit better.
Yes, same word, different definitions.

Buuuuut, whether it registers consciously is a different question.
If someone said to me, "I'm going to lie in bed all weekend," and another person said, "I'm going to France next week," then I would have no problem in the interpretation of the two completely different meanings and I would probably not consciously register that the exact same sounds were used but I interpreted two different meanings. If that changes your understanding of the word 'separate definitions', then it changes the answer to your question.


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## myšlenka

My point was that if _að verða_ expresses a future state and _að verða að_ expresses a future obligation, then you probably have two different entries in the lexicon.
[_Að verða að_ + infintive] has to be analyzed as a chunk of words with its own meaning, independent from the meaning of _að verða_. You find similar examples in probably all languages. The only thing I can think of right now in English is phrasal verbs where the particle changes the meaning. You would probably not explain the concept "_to give in_" by saying it's a combination of the meaning of _give_ and _in_.


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## Silver_Biscuit

The only times we talked about what words meant in English lessons at school was when they were 'difficult' words. If we were looking at a story with the word _squalid_ or something in it, the teacher would tell us it meant _dirty_. It would have been a complete waste of time to teach us what basic words meant, even at the very beginning of school, and even when the words have more than one meaning, because children arrive at school already fluent in their native language. 

There are lots of different meanings of the word 'set' for example - think about it and you'll find it's an incredibly complicated word - but native speakers _don't_ think about it. An English kid produces sentences like "They set him free", "I set the table" "He set a world record", and knows exactly what they all mean even though no teacher ever went through the different ways to use set as a verb. Try thinking about how you feel about the word 'set' when you say those sentences. It's probably exactly the same as an Icelander feels about the word 'verða' in the sentences you began with.

You could think of a word like set as many different words, all spelt and pronounced the same. Or you could think of it as one word with many meanings. It doesn't really matter too much unless you want to get deeply into the philosophical side of linguistics.


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## Silver_Biscuit

In general this is an incredibly complicated question, Jake, one that  philosophers and linguists alike have written books and books about.  From what I can see, you are asking about the relationship between _meaning_ and _language_, _signified_ and _signifier_. You will need to do some serious reading and/or get some  higher education in the field to begin to get your head round it. I  don't think there is any satisfactory answer that anybody can give you  here, and indeed no definitive answer even exists.

If it is actually a simple question about dictionary definitions, then of couse _verða_ has far more than two definitions in Icelandic, including the two you note. Just look at any monolingual Icelandic dictionary.


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## Hjalti

ShakeyX said:


> Basically do icelanders feel a difference when using verða in these two different ways or does it feel like one word to them.


Two different words.


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## Ben Jamin

Tjahzi said:


> Well, I believe an Icelandic speaker views the phrase _Ég verð að __verða betri _similarly to how an English speaker views _I'm going to be going somewhere._ Some languages make distinctions that other don't and virtually all words have more or less broad usages. The "real meaning" of _verða _is that it covers both the semantic fields of English _have to_ and _will_, similarly to how English _you_ covers the semantic fields of both Icelandic _þú_ and _þig_ and some East Asian languages use a single word for colours which we would refer to as either blue or green. The distinction is made in our mind.


I think that the situation is much more complex than that in your picture. Actually there are three basic situations when people use words that sound alike (and often are written alike):
1. There is a  word that is spelled and pronounced the same way, for instance "trunk":
I presume that this word used in two expressions: "A trunk of a car" and "a trunk of a tree" is widely understood as denoting two different "things" (concepts).
The same will apply to "seal" used about an animal and about a mark on a letter. Any confusion of concepts is impossible.
Children that haven't learned to read yet, will understand that the words "to see" and "a sea" mean soemthing quite different.

2. The word "trunk" used in "a trunk of an elephant" and "a trunk of a tree" can represent two different concepts (meanings) for some people, and one concept for others. (One can think that the see a common feature in both.)

3. A word is used in in completely different function, and actually has a different meaning, but is still not perceived so by most people, like "going to" in "I'm going to do it" I'm going to school".

4. A word which denotes two or more concepts in one language, will denote only one concept in another, like "cousin" in English , covering both "cousine/cousin" in French or "kusine/fetter" in Norwegian. For an English speaker "cousin" means a relative that is "a child of a sibling of  one of your parents".


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