Friday, February 17, 2012

Word of the day is plout.

This word is in my Czech learning diary for 3.2.1992. It's not a word I really need at the moment, but I seem to remember that there are certain things about it which I've forgotten :-)

My first question is what things plout? The Word Sketch produced by the CZES corpus tells us:
vessels on water: loď, trajekt, parník, člun
creature on water: labuť
in the sky: balon, mrak, měsíc
vessel in water: ponorka
creature in water: ryba

The first three categories may well float and sail - I don't have time to look them up in an English corpus at the moment, but native speaker intuition tells me this is the case. But things in water do not float or sail, so plout has different fields of reference - an obvious error trap. Vessels on water more typically come and go in English. And creatures on water typically glide.

A formal matter concerns its conjugation and aspect.







As a verb of motion, I would not expect to form its future with budu, and there are only seven examples in CZES. And I can't remember now how the future is formed. More study required.

The significant prepositions that follow it can be seen in this extract from the Word Sketch. Because plout is a verb of motion, the prepositions which can take more than one case (na, pod, nad, mezi) could be expected to take accusative. But this is not the case (no pun intended). The prepositions expressing where plout takes place, quite logically, take locative. For example, plout na:

Pes s námi pluje na člunu (interesting 3rd pers sing, not 1st pers pl.)
Vladimir Putin  pluje na vlně popularity (metaphorical use of wave)
Mostecký kostel pluje na vodě
zbytek rostliny plul na hladině. 
Nakonec všichni plujeme na jedné lodi. 
Balon plul na západ (rare example of accusative.)

Even though there is no case alternation with po, it's significance is worth noting. Some examples:

Měsíc pluje  po hladině rybníka. 
Bez pití a jídla pluli po Indickém oceánu čtyři indonéští rybáři 
Adéla Stodolová se svým bříškem pyšně pluje po jevišti,
Docela v předu pluje po jezeře loďka. 
Plout po moři je snem mnoha Čechů,
a měsíc, jak skvostně pluje po obloze.


If, dear readers, you have any comments, please post them here. Click "Links to this post" or the envelope icon.



7 comments:

  1. Creatures in water such as fish?! The only kind of fish I can imagine that "pluje" is a dead one... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ivona. There are about 20 hits for this. Here are some examples.
    Hejna ryb plula mezi troskami,
    a ryby plují volně v moři.
    kolem nichž plují hejna těch nejroztodivnějších ryb
    Plují tu dlouhoocasé ryby
    Po proudu plují jen mrtvé ryby

    I hope you like the last one:-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. James, I liked it a lot indeed! Can you also see the tendency, that "plout" is used when talking about "a rather large object", here represented by a group of fish? I would like you to follow up on this and tell me if there was a single "ryba" among the hits you found. When I say "ryba pluje ve vodě" to myself, it does sound right after all, even though quite formal. I would naturally say "ryba plave ve vodě". Also note the preposition, this time "ve", as opposed to my dead fish example, which would require "po" :-) - (PO proudu in your last sentence does not count, that is simply the opposite of PROTI proudu).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So Ivona, here are all the examples of singular ryba pluje:

      V tomto případě o žádný výrazný odpor nejde, protože ryba už stejně pluje s olovem.

      Pokud ryba zabere a pluje pryč, může bez problému odvíjet vlasec z cívky navijáku.
      Choreograf překračuje meze reality, pohrává si s absurdními představami - vidíme těhotnou Prostitute s průhledným břichem-akváriem, ve kterém pluje ryba.

      Zdravá ryba pluje proti proudu, neboť chce žít a nenechá sebou vláčet tím silnějším." A mohl by si pan Lux vážit sám sebe a mít radost ze života, kdyby se nechal unášet silnějším (ODS), a tak se zpronevěřil svým ideálům?

      Tak směrem k nim vyvíjíš svoji "politiku", o které tvrdíš, že je správna. Řekneme, že jsem ryba, která pluje do KS, ty přicházíš a cpeš mi to hlavy, že tam je agresivní cosi a nucení k podřizování se naddenominačním apoštolům či co.

      So this is the five out of the 22 hits that ryba +/-5 plout gives.

      In my original posting here, with the small table of prepositions, v is not included.

      And I realise now what you mean about dead fish floating on water - that would probably have been my reaction too, if I had come from it at that angle.

      Delete
  4. I can see the difference between "plout" and "plavat" as follows:

    plout = move on/in water efortlessly, unconsciously, freely

    Objects like a piece of wood or an ice floe obviously "plují" on water.

    In the case of fish, their movement it water is so natural and I dare say efortless (in comparison with a poor human swimmer) that "plout" is the better word to use. Especially when you think of a shoal of fish.
    (Compare: Hejna ryb plula mezi troskami. Ryby plují volně v moři.)
    However, a Christmas carp imprisoned in a bath cannot "plout" freely, it can only "plavat" in a limited way.

    And what about us, human beings?

    In my own experience, when there is a very strong current in a river, you can "plout" = move without pulling, pushing or kicking.
    (Po proudu neplují jen mrtvé ryby! :-))
    But you would rather "plavat" even "po proudu", because you like swimming and you have to breathe somehow anyway.
    In all other cases you have to only "plavat" I'm afraid. (Providing you're alive!)

    A couple of notes in the end:

    The Collins Cobuild Dictionary says: A shoal is a large group of fish swimming together.
    But in Czech, I would say "plujících" společně, ne "plavajících".

    I realized the difference between the two verbs just about two weeks ago when writing about large ice floes on the Vltava River. We tend to say: Na hladině plavaly kry.
    But that's wrong. Správně: Na hladině pluly kry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Hana. That's all very interesting. I can see that these aquatic adventures have piqued your interest - and in fact had, a few weeks ago. A nice co-incidence.

      From a corpus linguistic perspective, your comments, and Ivona's too, are very interesting. It would not be easy to find anything in the context of these words in a corpus that supports your feelings about the usage. We talk about words having their own meaning, as well as having so-called meaning potential. When a word has several meanings, it is not difficult to locate another word nearby that tells you which meaning is being realised in the current context. And similarly, when we are trying to tease out the differences between two so-called synonyms, it is often what they collocate with that helps identify what is the same and different about the pair of words.

      I am not sure how useful this is here, and this doubt is important to me. I thank you.

      I am now thinking that I would like to investigate prefixes with plout.

      Delete
  5. I can see the difference between "plout" and "plavat" as follows:

    plout = move on/in water efortlessly, unconsciously, freely

    Objects like a piece of wood or an ice floe obviously "plují" on water.

    In the case of fish, their movement it water is so natural and I dare say efortless (in comparison with a poor human swimmer) that "plout" is the better word to use. Especially when you think of a shoal of fish.
    (Compare: Hejna ryb plula mezi troskami. Ryby plují volně v moři.)
    However, a Christmas carp imprisoned in a bath cannot "plout" freely, it can only "plavat" in a limited way.

    And what about us, human beings?

    In my own experience, when there is a very strong current in a river, you can "plout" = move without pulling, pushing or kicking.
    (Po proudu neplují jen mrtvé ryby! :-))
    But you would rather "plavat" even "po proudu", because you like swimming and you have to breathe somehow anyway.
    In all other cases you have to only "plavat" I'm afraid. (Providing you're alive!)

    A couple of notes in the end:

    The Collins Cobuild Dictionary says: A shoal is a large group of fish swimming together.
    But in Czech, I would say "plujících" společně, ne "plavajících".

    I realized the difference between the two verbs just about two weeks ago when writing about large ice floes on the Vltava River. We tend to say: Na hladině plavaly kry.
    But that's wrong. Správně: Na hladině pluly kry.

    ReplyDelete