this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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Star Wars Memes

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Hello there. Somehow, Star Wars memes have returned. It's not a trap, this is where the fun begins.

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Other universes to visit:

!lotrmemes@midwest.social

!tenforward@lemmy.world

Separatist systems:

!prequelmemes@lemmy.world

Oh hey some real SW content for a change (perhaps):

!star_wars@lemmy.world

!starwars@lemmy.ml

!starwarstelevision@lemmy.world

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IMPORTANT

Please do not post the "good friend" or similar copypasta

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Our galactic citizens have requested more specific rules, so here are a few.

The general idea is, if you're looking here for rules, you're probably someone who doesn't need to have them spelled out. You're fine. But anyway:

  1. This is a community for Star Wars memes. This means typically screenshots of Star Wars media with some text or context that's meant to be funny and/or thoughtful. All SW media is welcome: movies, games, comic books, fanart... Other kinds of content, like video links or meta memes (about this community, or Lemmy), are fine as well, just keep it on topic.

  2. We are all friends here, and love (sometimes love to hate) Star Wars. Be nice to each other.

  3. As fans of fictional media, we can be passionate. If you very strongly disagree with something or someone, take a deep breath before reacting. Anger leads to the dark side!

  4. Everything in Star Wars has happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, and it's a rich universe of millions of words and millions of years of history. So current Earthly matters really shouldn't concern us here. In other words, leave politics, philosophies and convictions behind the door. This applies even if it's about something related to Star Wars.

  5. Original content is preferred. Reposts are fine, just please limit to a maximum of 3 per day, per citizen. It is recommended, but not required, to mark original memes as (OC) and reposts as (repost).

  6. Local mods are the Jedi council. They may take actions that are necessary to maintain peace and stability of the Republic, even beyond the rules outlined here. Follow their guidance.

  7. Regular rules of the Lemmy.world instance apply.

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[–] hakase@lemmy.zip 39 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (4 children)

This grammatical line and the completely nonsensical line "Around the survivors, a perimeter, create" can both be explained by the fact that these are both imperative (command) sentences, and that doesn't work for the syntax they tried to give Yoda in the prequels.

In the OT, Yoda's syntax (word order/sentence structure) was all over the place, with varying degrees of grammaticality, but in the prequels for some reason they decided to standardize his nonstandardness to "move the main verb and anything that follows to the beginning of the sentence, adding 'do/does' if necessary" (VP-fronting with dummy-do support where necessary, in linguistic terms). This is at least marginally grammatical for most speakers, but heavily marked, making this way of speaking stand out.

In the vast majority of English sentences, this leaves the subject and any modals/auxiliaries ("helping verbs") stranded at the end of the sentence. Give (most of) Yoda's (prequel) sentences their idiosyncratic flair, this does.

Imperatives in English, however, are characterized by the fact that they have implicit (unstated) subjects and no modals/auxiliaries. This means that there's no way to tell if the VP has been fronted, because the verb would occur at the beginning of the sentence anyway.

There are a few ways to fix this: 1) Just have Yoda say the sentence normally, as happened here, 2) Come up with something that is completely ungrammatical in English, as in the second example above, or 3) Never have Yoda use an imperative, and instead only have him use exhortative constructions like "We must...", which they often do throughout the prequels.

Basically, because of how they standardized Yoda's syntax in the prequels, there is effectively no way of getting a true imperative in English that both a) shows a nonstandard word order and b) is not complete word salad.

Source: I wrote a paper on Yoda's syntax in grad school.

[–] BoosBeau@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago

I like your funny words magic man

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I would like to read that paper.

[–] hakase@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

It was just an introductory syntax class paper, so definitely not that interesting theoretically. It started with an exploration of the data, showing that Yoda in the OT uses both significantly more "normal" sentences, and also significantly more varied word order patterns than in the PT, and then proceeded to the (generative, pre-Minimalist) syntactic analysis of the PT syntax (since that was the only data that was sensically analyzable).

That analysis was straightforward, and effectively what I've written here: VP-fronting, leaving TP/IP, NegP, and any AuxP stranded, and inserting and inflecting "do" when necessary so that the phi-features in T/I are expressed.

The paper concluded with some interesting/weird data and edge cases, such as the difficulty of creating imperatives in this system, and the oddness of questions for much the same reason as the imperatives ("More to say, have you?", "Trained as a Jedi, you request for him?").

Like I said, not too interesting theoretically, but a fun paper for a first-year grad student to write. :)

[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 minutes ago* (last edited 6 minutes ago)

I don't know what the most prestigious journal is in linguistics is (and I eill be disappointed if it is not called The Tongue), but I feel this paper deserves to be there.

Edit: apparently they are called: Linguistics Syntax and Journal of Linguistics

Imaginative bunch, this is.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I love that idea. Props to your teachers for running with it.

[–] hakase@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 hours ago

I had an amazing prof for that class.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 hours ago

This one grammars! 😘👌🏼

very purposefully fronting

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 hours ago

Right up until they showed him talking a little weird in the prequels I’d always assumed it was meant to be an eccentricity brought on by living alone for decades.

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 12 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

"...misheard, you, must have."

[–] backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 7 points 3 hours ago

“Yourself, go fuck.”

[–] Trex202@lemmy.world 13 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm sure he's wise enough to use straight forward language when in battle

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 hours ago

"Not if anything to say about it, I have"

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 10 points 6 hours ago

It's his stress reaction

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 17 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] snooggums@piefed.world 9 points 6 hours ago (2 children)
[–] warbond@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago
[–] reddfugee@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

My stick is better than bacoooon!

[–] 7uWqKj@lemmy.world 16 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yawn. Watch TESB again. Yoda talks normally most of the time.

[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 6 hours ago

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/characters/nm0000568/#quotes

I'd say it's about 50/50 talking normally / speaking oddly.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Did, I did not.

[–] teft@piefed.social 8 points 7 hours ago

Yaddle also talks normally so Yoda’s speech is for sure an affectation.

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 points 6 minutes ago

never seen again, that clone was.