There are 23 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Should we have a relay-queue?
From: taliesin the storyteller
2a. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
From: caeruleancentaur
2b. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
From: Lars Finsen
2c. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
From: Herman Miller
3a. Re: Book on constructive linguistics
From: Jim Henry
3b. Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
From: David J. Peterson
3c. Re: Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
From: Roger Mills
3d. Double verbs and topic marking
From: Kalle Bergman
3e. Re: Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
From: David J. Peterson
4a. Re: Stress placement systems
From: Rob Haden
4b. Re: Stress placement systems
From: R A Brown
4c. Re: Stress placement systems
From: Rob Haden
5. PIE Accent (was Re: Stress placement systems)
From: Rob Haden
6. Re: Accusative or not accusative; that is the question
From: Lars Finsen
7. [OT] Long Tail
From: Jim Henry
8a. Fwd: Transcription exercise
From: Carsten Becker
8b. Re: Transcription exercise
From: Philip Newton
9. Re: Disfluency and repair mechanisms
From: Doug Barr
10. Re: THEORY: Ergative, word order, and predicates
From: Patrick Littell
11. Translation challenge
From: taliesin the storyteller
12a. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: daniel prohaska
12b. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: Lars Finsen
13. Re: Transcription exercise
From: Isaac Penzev
Messages
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1. Should we have a relay-queue?
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:31 am (PDT)
Notice that the to-field goes to two different places and remove one of
them on reply please.
I've just finished a text that would do well for starting a relay and it
got me to thinking: should we have a queue of unused relay-starters?
That way, if anyone felt like running a relay he, she or it could pick
the topmost text and make a relay out of it, leaving the original author
out of the loop if need be. The entries in the queue would be like a
finished link in the chain: original, mini-dictionary, grammar notes,
smooth translation and an interlinear (that if necessary could be
snipped away before publishing).
This might however mean that the chain might not be closed, if the
starter-author doesn't translate the last link in the chain back to the
starter language.
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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2a. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:10 am (PDT)
> In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> 2. ferret
>Hmm, don't have the necessary sources available right now. (What's
>IE for ferret?)
The word "ferret" is used for two different animals. Originally, I
believe, it was applied to a domesticated polecat, Mustela putorius,
an Old World animal trained to hunt rats and rabbits. (The origin
of "pole-" is unknown). Because of this animal's odor, the
word "polecat" was also applied to the New World skunk. The
word "ferret" has its origin in the Latin "fur," thief.
The word was applied to the New World animal known as the black-
footed
ferret, Mustela nigripes, which is the one used as a pet. I assume
that the "Conan" movies took place in Europe, so the presence of
ferrets is not correct, rather like seeing Indian elephants in the
old
Tarzan movies.
Pokorny gives several roots for weasel-type animals, the mustelids.
(I use geminate consonants to indicate the velars.)
kek = Wiesel, the common weasel (M. vulgaris); Iltis, polecat,
fitchet
(M. putorius)
ker-, kker-, a color-root for dark, grayish colors > kkormen =
Hermelin, stoat (synonym for ermine in its brown phase), ermine (M.
ermineus); Wiesel
ggheggh, ggegg = Iltis
wer (Pokorny: in den sicher Zugehörigen mit redupl.) > werwer,
wewer,
wâwer, etc. = Eichhorn, squirrel; Iltis; Marder, pine marten (M.
martes)
bhel-, white > bhelewo-, Marder
Those fluent in languages other than English can tell us what these
PIE roots have become in their L1's.
The translation of the animals' names is from "The New Cassell's
German Dictionary" with binomials updated.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (6)
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2b. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:20 pm (PDT)
Den 25. sep. 2006 kl. 14.46 skrev caeruleancentaur:
>
> kek = Wiesel, the common weasel (M. vulgaris); Iltis, polecat,
> fitchet (M. putorius)
>
> ker-, kker-, a color-root for dark, grayish colors > kkormen =
> Hermelin, stoat (synonym for ermine in its brown phase), ermine (M.
> ermineus); Wiesel
>
> ggheggh, ggegg = Iltis
>
> wer (Pokorny: in den sicher Zugehörigen mit redupl.) > werwer,
> wewer,
> wâwer, etc. = Eichhorn, squirrel; Iltis; Marder, pine marten (M.
> martes)
>
> bhel-, white > bhelewo-, Marder
Thanks. Well, my concultures would know of a few of these weasel-
related animals. They will not know the polecat (M. putorius), but
they know the weasels (M. martes and M. nivalis), the ermine (M.
erminea), and will have the tame ferret (M. furo). M. martes is easy
in Urianian: merd. And M. erminea is garm. M. furo is fret, a
loanword. For nivalis I think 'um', but maybe unt- in oblique cases,
have to work that out. For Gaajan I don't have all I need of
caucasian references, but I think I can use a compound luskaga for M.
martes and ukapsa for M. erminea. I think they will know the ferret
too, and have a native word, kuwin. Literally the compounds are 'long
mouse', 'stone hunter' and 'hole runner' respectively.
Then the sentences are: U: Gi e ma fret. G: Kuwinek mabe ju. (This is
my ferret.)
LEF
.....home pages www.ortygia.no.....some things not yet moved from
home.ringnett.no/lars.finsen.....
Messages in this topic (6)
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2c. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.4 (repost #1)
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:14 pm (PDT)
caeruleancentaur wrote:
> The word was applied to the New World animal known as the black-
> footed
> ferret, Mustela nigripes, which is the one used as a pet. I assume
> that the "Conan" movies took place in Europe, so the presence of
> ferrets is not correct, rather like seeing Indian elephants in the
> old
> Tarzan movies.
Actually the black-footed ferret is an endangered species, not the kind
kept as pets. I'm not quite as familiar with European mammals or the
Conan movies, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're not quite
historically accurate.
Fortunately I kept my old Tirelat translation of this exercise from when
it was originally posted.
Nja jtuhnen lnezhahka. Jshoblan my vestiri!
["nja j@"tu:nEn [EMAIL PROTECTED]"Za:ka j@"SOblan m1 "v\EstI4I]
nja j -tuh -ne-n l -nezhahka
this 3s-copula- -PF 1s-ferret
j -shobla-n my vesti-ri
3s-enjoy -PF ACC dance-ing
In a more up to date version of Tirelat, it ends up as:
Nia ituunen lenezaka. Isoblan my vestiri!
But I don't have a specific word for "ferret" in any of my recent
languages. The closest I have is Lindiga "chasilu" / Minza "xazilu"
(weasel), both pronounced ["xAZilu]. I need to work on the small furry
mammal vocabulary!
Messages in this topic (6)
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3a. Re: Book on constructive linguistics
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:32 am (PDT)
On 9/25/06, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Inspired by http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?p=424493 and my
> previous musing on the subject...
>
> Who here would be willing to contribute to a book on this subject?
>
> The basic idea:
>
> Teach language - all aspects of it - from a constructive POV, rather
> than descriptive or prescriptive. Every chapter should read like a
> pallette, a huge number of seed ideas that try to give the reader an
> idea of what language is or may be capable of, and give them the tools
> with which to create their own.
Something similar is already under way:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Conlang
It teaches basic linguistics from a conlang perspective, assuming
no prior knowledge, with both natlang and conlang
examples. Parts of it are pretty good, parts of it need a lot
of revision, and several important parts aren't written yet.
I like your idea of developing three different example
conlangs throughout the course of the text.
Maybe one isolating, one agglutinating, and one fusional (or even
polysynthetic); one naturalistic artlang, one engelang/loglang,
and one IAL; one with a fairly minimal phonology,
one roughly on the scale of German, and one
phonologically baroque language like Ithkuil. Two would
have different basic word orders and another would
have a fair number of cases with very free word order...
I've been only intermittently involved in the Conlang wikibook
lately, but if you get involved with it seriously, I'll probably
get involved again too.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
Messages in this topic (6)
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3b. Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:44 am (PDT)
I decided to take a look at the conlang wikibook, and came across
an article about trigger systems. I wrote a post on the discussion
page about how I don't believe they actually exist in natural
languages--
at least, not as they exist in people's conlangs (such as my own, X).
This is the post:
Not meaning to rock the boat, but trigger systems, as they're
explained here, don't actually exist in natural languages. I think
they only exist as conlangs, actually (I have one too). The trigger
systems of Austronesia don't actually seem to be anything more than
languages with multiple passive formation and applicativization
strategies. The "trigger" isn't actually unmarked, it's simply in the
case that the subject of an intransitive verb is put into. The
morphology doesn't mark the role of the verb, per se, but merely
marks what role the new subject played in the "underived" sentence.
It would be something like the following:
English:
Direct Object Passive: I ate a hamburger. -> A hamburger eat-PASS1 by
me.
Indirect Object Passive: I gave you a flower. -> You give-PASS2 a
flower by me.
Prepositional Object Passive: I walked into a store. -> A store walk-
PASS3 by me. (Prepositional information lost.)
As it so happens, the form of the passive is the same for all three
in English. They could very well be different, to give the hearer
more information about the role of the subject (since its case is
invariant). If you add in applicatives, which English doesn't have,
you have a wealth of verbal morphology that tells what the role of
the subject is.
So, the "trigger" actually is the syntactic subject--just the way the
raised patient of a passive is the subject of the sentence. And these
languages do have passive morphology--extensive passive morphology.
The notion of the "trigger" language, then, is something exclusive to
conlangs.
For example, one could create a language like the following:
Verb: maka "eat"
Subject Trigger: makana
Object Trigger: makasi
Indirect Object Trigger: makalo
Genitive Trigger: makava
Adessive Trigger: makawe
Allative Trigger: makatu
Abessive Trigger: makaje
Ablative Trigger: makazo
Inessive Trigger: makapi
Illative Trigger: makaha
Etc.
In other words, a language with a whole bunch of cases that are
simply marked on the verb, and in order to use one of these cases,
the case must be used with the subject of the verb. This kind of
language doesn't exist in the wild, but, given the idea of "trigger
languages", there's no reason why it shouldn't.
The point of this post is the following:
To suggest that trigger languages, as they're described, do not exist
naturally.
To suggest that such trigger languages exist as conlangs only.
To suggest that this should be noted on this page.
I don't mean to suggest that the trigger conlang is a bad thing (as I
said, I have one myself), only that it isn't necessarily a
representation of something that's naturally occurring.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (6)
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3c. Re: Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:15 pm (PDT)
David Peterson wrote:
> I decided to take a look at the conlang wikibook, and came across
> an article about trigger systems. I wrote a post on the discussion
> page about how I don't believe they actually exist in natural
> languages--
> at least, not as they exist in people's conlangs (such as my own, X).
> This is the post: *(with snips)*
>
> Not meaning to rock the boat, but trigger systems, as they're
> explained here, don't actually exist in natural languages. I think
> they only exist as conlangs, actually (I have one too). The trigger
> systems of Austronesia don't actually seem to be anything more than
> languages with multiple passive formation and applicativization
> strategies.
As you may recall from past discussions, this is pretty much my view. Or
call them "focus systems" -- after all, the English (or other) passive is
simply a way of shifting focus from Agent/etc. to Patient, and Philippine
langs. merely go several steps further, being able to "passivize" many of
the constituents in a sentence (as you do in your English examples)--
> It would be something like the following:
>
> English:
>
> Direct Object Passive: I ate a hamburger. -> A hamburger eat-PASS1 by
> me.
> Indirect Object Passive: I gave you a flower. -> You give-PASS2 a
> flower by me.
> Prepositional Object Passive: I walked into a store. -> A store walk-
> PASS3 by me. (Prepositional information lost.)
>>
-------------------------
> To suggest that trigger languages, as they're described, do not exist
> naturally.
I often suspect it's simply a terminological dispute-- Passives, Focus,
Trigger-- sama-sama. Use of the "trigger" term in AN/Philippine linguistics
is of rather recent origin, I think, and not widely used.
Messages in this topic (6)
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3d. Double verbs and topic marking
Posted by: "Kalle Bergman" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:46 pm (PDT)
Howdy!
After having been somewhat of a lurker here for a
while, I've decided to make my first post about a
design issue.
Trollish (The idea is that it's spoken by the trolls
of scandinavian folklore) is a SOV language with
morphological topic marking, similar to japanese. For
instance:
Mi -ön zö ruuka
1sg-TOP 2sg See
"(As for me,) I see you"
There is a type of sentence in which a complement
clause preceedes a head clause, called double verb
constructions. The causative construction is an
example of this:
Zö töru-sti mi ka -sti
2sg Die -PAST 1sg Make-PAST
"I killed you" (lit. "I made you die")
Now, if the first subject in the construction recieves
the topic-marker "-ön", this gives the sentence a
sense of passiveness:
Zö -n töru-sti mi ka-sti
2sg-TOP Die -PAST 1sg Make-PAST
"(As for you,) you were killed by me"
If you want to topicalize the subject of the second
clause, you simply move it to the front, leaving a
zero-subject behind.
Mi -ön zö töru-sti 0 ka-sti
1sg-TOP 2sg Die -PAST 0 Make-PAST
"(As for me,) I killed you"
Does this seem like a construction that could appear
in a natural language? I figure it makes sense for
the head clause to follow the subordinate clause in a
head-last language, but I really wouldn't know, and my
understanding of how morphological topic-marking works
i sketchy to say the least.
/Kalle B
Messages in this topic (6)
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3e. Re: Trigger Systems (was Re: Book on constructive linguistics)
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:23 pm (PDT)
Roger wrote:
<<
I often suspect it's simply a terminological dispute-- Passives, Focus,
Trigger-- sama-sama. Use of the "trigger" term in AN/Philippine
linguistics
is of rather recent origin, I think, and not widely used.
>>
I think the problem is how it affects conlang construction. A
language of the Philippine type (as its called in Sandra Chung's
old, old paper) can be derived so that you get what looks like
a trigger system. If you go the other way, then it looks like
an absence of passive/applicative morphology and a plethora
of, essentially, case marking that goes on the verb. Two conlangs
created from either end will end up looking very different--and
I actually have two that began at either end.
In one, every NP begins with a preposition. This preposition can
precede the verb, leaving the subject unmarked, which is the trigger.
All other NP's (or PP's) can be dropped. There are 20+ prepositions,
and they all work the same.
In the other language, I started out with an SOV language
with passive and applicative morphology and two different
genitival strategies. From this I derived a VSO language, where
the subject is the topic/focus, and the appropriate verbal morphology
is used to ensure that the topic/focus is the subject, regardless of
its role. As a result, the form of the verb changed, I derived
verbal agreement from pronouns, and obliques get marked in
a way that's similar to a fronted NP in English ("His eating of the
pie disturbed me"). Now, I can't claim that the latter is naturalistic,
but it's more natural than the first, and I'm much more pleased
with the result.
The main point for bringing it up was how the understanding
of a system, and how it's derived, affects the creation of a language.
I'm not saying that one or the other is better, but rather that it'd
be better to understand both, so as to be able to take advantage
of what each has to offer. For example, if you go from the top-
down method, there's no reason that the subject has to be the
trigger. It could be a really bizarre language where the direct
object is the trigger, so that in every sentence a direct object was
required (so all intransitive verbs would have to be causativized,
the subject being, perhaps, identical to the object--maybe a pronoun).
I suppose in such a language a subject and object would always
be required... I don't know. Anyway, that was the point in
bringing it up.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (6)
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4a. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "Rob Haden" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:16 am (PDT)
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:34:43 +0100, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>On Classical Greek we read the primary *stress* is: "12/2R". I
>understand this to mean "on last syllable if heavy, else on next to last
>if heavy, else next to last".
>
>To put it politely, this is rubbish - because:
>1. Ancient Greek did not, as far as we know, have word stress; there
>possibly was phrasal stress, but we can merely guess how that might have
>worked.
Quite right. In fact, I would argue that Ancient Greek lacked even
lexical pitch -- i.e. the pitch was phrasal in nature. My main piece of
evidence for this is the use of the grave accent. It indicates that,
where a high pitch would be pronounced in isolation, it is not pronounced
in the given phrase. As a result, it's no surprise that the grave is
typically used for prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, and genitive
nouns. Basically, these kinds of words tended to be treated as clitics,
at least on the prosodic level. I think this echoes the situation of
latest PIE.
- Rob
Messages in this topic (17)
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4b. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:27 am (PDT)
Rob Haden wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:34:43 +0100, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>
>>On Classical Greek we read the primary *stress* is: "12/2R". I
>>understand this to mean "on last syllable if heavy, else on next to last
>>if heavy, else next to last".
>>
>>To put it politely, this is rubbish - because:
>>1. Ancient Greek did not, as far as we know, have word stress; there
>>possibly was phrasal stress, but we can merely guess how that might have
>>worked.
>
>
> Quite right.
Thanks :)
> In fact, I would argue that Ancient Greek lacked even
> lexical pitch -- i.e. the pitch was phrasal in nature. My main piece of
> evidence for this is the use of the grave accent. It indicates that,
> where a high pitch would be pronounced in isolation, it is not pronounced
> in the given phrase.
The recessive accent on verbs, neuter nouns, exocentric compounds 7 one
or two other categories can be defined phonologically. But on other
groups, where the accent can be so defined, whether the word is
proparoxytone, paroxytone, properisomenon or perispomenon must surely be
a matter of lexis. It seems odd to me if _in these groups_ oxytones are
then not lexical but phrasal; these words do have final stress in modern
Greek.
> As a result, it's no surprise that the grave is
> typically used for prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, and genitive
> nouns. Basically, these kinds of words tended to be treated as clitics,
> at least on the prosodic level. I think this echoes the situation of
> latest PIE.
Do we, in fact, know what a final grave means? I have heard/read it
suggested that it indicated that the vowel was not raised as much as one
would expect.
I think the case for prepositions is certainly strong (the enclitic
pronouns are in any case enclitic - accents occur only on the
non-enclitic forms). Presumably the graves on the definite article would
be regarded in the same way - it makes sense, though the final
circumflexes, where they occur on pronouns & the definite article cannot
be considered this way.
Certainly the situation is phrasal in that enclitics affect the pitch
accentuation of the whole phrase - but should enclitics be considered as
separate words?
The final grave business is certainly an interesting one. If only we had
time travel ........ ;)
BTW as far as I can understand it, Hayes (1995) got his info on ancient
Greek stress from Sauzet (1989) & Golston (1990). It seems that in their
approach:
The accent consists of a HL _pair_, the H being the high pitch (marked
by the familiar accents of Greek texts) and L being the following low
tone; and it is, according to them, the L part of the pair that attracts
stress.
As the the recessive accent is concerned, according to their approach:
- Final consonants [not consonant clusters, but just the final consonant
itself] are extrametrical;
- A moraic trochee is constructed at the final three morae of a word;
- thus if the final syllable is light, the rise in pitch is the
antepenultimate syllable & the stress on the penultimate; if, on the
other hand, the final syllable is heavy, then the stress is on the last
syllable & the rise tone on the penultimate.
Even if this analysis were true (and I do not think it is), the 'Stress
System Database' would still be faulty in that it still does not account
for the *very* large number of words that do not have recessive accent.
However, I do not know why Sauzet & Golston think that stressed syllable
is the one _following_ the syllable with the (written) pitch accent. I
guess it is something to do with a supposed analysis of Greek meter. I
find it, however, very difficult to accept their analysis. If there was
this word stress in ancient Greek, why the heck did that not prevail as
pitch accent died out in the late Hellenistic period?
The modern Greek stress system is clearly derived from the ancient pitch
accent system!!!!!
I do not understand Sauzet & Golston's approach (assuming that I've
basically got it right above), not why the 'Stress System Database' puts
such heavy reliance on Hayes after the warning Hayes himself gave about
checking the sources.
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}
Messages in this topic (17)
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4c. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "Rob Haden" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:18 am (PDT)
On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:01:08 +0100, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>> Quite right.
>
>Thanks :)
No problem. :)
>> In fact, I would argue that Ancient Greek lacked even
>> lexical pitch -- i.e. the pitch was phrasal in nature. My main piece of
>> evidence for this is the use of the grave accent. It indicates that,
>> where a high pitch would be pronounced in isolation, it is not
>> pronounced in the given phrase.
>
>The recessive accent on verbs, neuter nouns, exocentric compounds 7 one
>or two other categories can be defined phonologically. But on other
>groups, where the accent can be so defined, whether the word is
>proparoxytone, paroxytone, properisomenon or perispomenon must surely be
>a matter of lexis. It seems odd to me if _in these groups_ oxytones are
>then not lexical but phrasal; these words do have final stress in modern
>Greek.
Recessive accent on neuter nouns? That's news to me, to be honest. I
imagine, however, that this was inherited from PIE. IIRC, most neuter
nouns in the protolanguage also had recessive accent. Some did not,
however; e.g. *(H)yugóm "yoke" > Gk. _zugón_ "(ibid.)".
My point was not that the accentuation of oxytones *must* be phrasal in
origin. Quite to the contrary, PIE was full of oxytones. The point was
that, in Ancient Greek (and, I suspect, in the last stages of PIE itself),
pitch accent existed at the *phrasal* level, not the lexical. To an
extent, this is true of all languages, as words are rarely spoken in
isolation. Within any given phrase, some words are naturally more
prominent (more *marked*) than others. However, it seems to me that this
is particularly true for languages with pitch accent as opposed to stress
or tonal accent, because intonation is primarily a feature of pitch.
>> As a result, it's no surprise that the grave is
>> typically used for prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, and genitive
>> nouns. Basically, these kinds of words tended to be treated as clitics,
>> at least on the prosodic level. I think this echoes the situation of
>> latest PIE.
>
>Do we, in fact, know what a final grave means? I have heard/read it
>suggested that it indicated that the vowel was not raised as much as one
>would expect.
A grave seems to indicate a marked lowering of pitch. Cf. the graphical
form of the circumflex, which historically developed from acute plus
grave. Some ancient texts mark *all* unaccented syllables with graves,
and some even leave accented syllables *unmarked*. Normal convention,
however, came to use the grave to mark a syllable with "suppressed"
accent; i.e. it would be accented when pronounced in isolation, or in
substantive position, but not in attributive position (modifying a head
noun).
OTOH, there seems to be a strong tendency cross-linguistically to avoid
two equally-accented syllables. Generally, one will get "subsumed"
beneath the other.
>I think the case for prepositions is certainly strong (the enclitic
>pronouns are in any case enclitic - accents occur only on the
>non-enclitic forms). Presumably the graves on the definite article would
>be regarded in the same way - it makes sense, though the final
>circumflexes, where they occur on pronouns & the definite article cannot
>be considered this way.
>
>Certainly the situation is phrasal in that enclitics affect the pitch
>accentuation of the whole phrase - but should enclitics be considered as
>separate words?
Where word boundaries were indicated at all in written Ancient Greek,
clitics were written as separate words.
>The final grave business is certainly an interesting one. If only we had
>time travel ........ ;)
Heh, indeed.
As for the rest of your post, you're preaching to the choir. :)
- Rob
Messages in this topic (17)
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5. PIE Accent (was Re: Stress placement systems)
Posted by: "Rob Haden" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:36 am (PDT)
On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:18:01 +0100, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> That's very interesting. Perhaps they are relics of a pitch accent
>> system in PIE?
>
>That would seem to suggest it. But, alas, I have not kept up with the
>latest thinking on PIE. I note that 'Stress System Database' gives:
>{quote}
>Indo-European (protolanguage) 12..89/1L Halle & Vergnaud 1987:72
>Syllable "weight" determined by lexical accent
>{unquote}
>
>I note "weight" is put between quotes which suggests to me that it has
>nothing to do with syllabic quantity. But there is no reference to a
>pitch accent.
>
>Maybe others on the list are more informed regarding PIE word accent.
To answer H. S. Teoh's question, they are indeed relics of a pitch-accent
system in latest PIE.
At the latest stage of PIE, the accent system was lexically and
morphologically determined. To the best of my knowledge, there were no
productive alternations at that point. Quantitative ablaut, however,
points to an earlier state of affairs, where the accent was both 1) based
on stress rather than pitch, and 2) was "fixed" in the sense of following
a phonological pattern. Evidence in favor of this hypothesis includes the
following:
1. Forms that exhibited quantitative ablaut were a closed class.
2. Productive forms had consistent (i.e. non-alternating) full-grade
vocalism. This is especially true for the thematic paradigms and the
causative verbs.
3. Syllabic resonants, *i, and *u generally did not receive accent.
Instances in descendant languages where they do are the result of
analogical levelling and/or "re-tonicity" (accenting a previously
unaccented word).
Late PIE accent was also not true lexical accent, but phrasal accent.
Cues for this state of affairs include the Greek grave accent, Vedic
accentless substantives, and the treatment of verbal accent in both Greek
and Vedic. Given that PIE was primarily an SOV language, the unmarked
verb position was sentence/clause-final. This position also tends to be
the lowest on the "prosodic slope", at least in indicative
sentences/clauses. PIE indicative verbs, then, were treated prosodically
as proclitics.
- Rob
Messages in this topic (1)
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6. Re: Accusative or not accusative; that is the question
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:10 am (PDT)
Den 25. sep. 2006 kl. 05.19 skrev Santiago Matías Feldman:
>
> The question is, I was thinking that the accusative
> needed to be marked too, as any other case, but then I
> realized that if that was the case, the language would
> lose quite a bit of elegance as regards the way it
> should sound.
What options for marking it have you been thinking of?
> Summing up, the two options are these:
>
> 1st:
>
> NOM la om
> ACC omul
> GEN la omus
> DAT la om-???
> ADL? la omat (to the man)
> LOC la oman
> ??? la oma (from the man)
> ??? la omsun (without the man)
Perhaps you need two different cases for those two latter senses, but
I'd like to mention that you could combine them into one without
risking much ambiguity, letting the context decide the meaning. For
example with ablative as the choice, you can express 'I went without
the man' as "went-I the man-abl" and 'I went from the man' as "went-I
the man-gen house(or wherever he's at)-abl." This is done in some
natlangs. Statements such as 'I got it from the man' also would be
unambiguous because few context would make any sense of 'I got it
without the man'. I have experimented a bit with this in my Urianian,
an IE language with a postpositional trend due to substrate
influence. Just thought I'd like to mention it.
> etc (under construction!) etc
>
> 2nd:
>
> NOM omul
> ACC la om
> GEN la omus
> DAT la om-???
> ADL? la omat
> LOC la oman
> ??? la oma
> ??? la omsïn
> etc
>
> Which one would you choose?
Yes, like others I think the latter looks best. Natlangs often go for
neatness if they are given a clear choice, because it works best for
the memory. Still there are many cases where they take the odd way
out as well. So it's not necessary the option that looks best which
would be the choice of your Laturslavs. Perhaps you should ask them?
LEF
...P.S.: I had 262 unread messages when I came back from my trip, so
it will take some time before I get to reply to everything. Have to
get some work done as well...
Messages in this topic (4)
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7. [OT] Long Tail
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:18 am (PDT)
On 9/24/06, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The exact post is easily found at the address:
> http://tinyurl.com/o9jgj
.....
> BTW, John, thanks for introducing me to "The Long Tail",
> of which I hadn't heard before. Looks like a useful weapon
> for anyone wanting to market their creations on the Web.
> It gives insights into ways in which the classical 80-20 rule,
> or Pareto Principle, fails to apply in a wired world. Essentially,
> the cost of keeping product "in stock" has become almost
> negligible; Anderson claims that "the future of business is
> selling less of more".
>
> So if any conworld creator wants to sell stories about their
> created places, it makes sense to sell instalments rather than
> books. Come to think of it, this replicates the first wave of
> mass publication, that enabled the rise of Charles Dickens as
> a widely read story-teller, writing serialised novels.
>
> And the graphic novelist may soon sell individual *frames*
> at a penny a pop, rather than asking readers to plonk down
> $10 or a whole story, or $30 for a collection!
I don't think this is the same kind of thing Chris Anderson
is talking about; he's talking about retailers offering larger
numbers of titles (typically also from larger numbers of
creators) so as to attract a more diverse & larger group
of customers & sell more overall, though they sell on
average fewer copies of each title.
For an individual creator selling their works directly to
customers, selling their work in small serialized chunks might
be a good business strategy, but if so it is good strategy
for different reasons than the "Long Tail" phenomenon.
I don't think you would get the kind of diversity-synergy
leading to a large number of customers if you sell
a novel in 30 serial chapters, and I am doubtful about
the effect of switching from one long novel to 30 stand-alone
short stories (assuming you are equally able and inclined
to writer either); since a single author is involved, a larger
number of titles won't necessarily expand the number of
interested readers as much as if a publisher or online
bookstore went from offering the works of few authors
to offering those of many.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
Messages in this topic (1)
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8a. Fwd: Transcription exercise
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:24 am (PDT)
From: "Remi Villatel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:32 PM
> Amsterdam JatserhdaV [ja.tsEx.dav]
> Athinai JatiyaI [jatiHa"i]
It would be interesting to know the etymologies of these city names.
The Ayeri prefer to translate place names -- that is, now that I have
compiled that list of common place name parts I want to use it ;-)
Sounds like fun ...
Yours,
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Tingraena, Talbang 18, 2316 ya 04:20:39 pd
Messages in this topic (2)
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8b. Re: Transcription exercise
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:43 am (PDT)
On 9/25/06, Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: "Remi Villatel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:32 PM
>
> > Amsterdam JatserhdaV [ja.tsEx.dav]
> > Athinai JatiyaI [jatiHa"i]
>
> It would be interesting to know the etymologies of these city names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam says: "The damming of the river
Amstel gave it its name (in Dutch: Amstelredam "Dam in the Amstel",
turned into Amsterdam in the course of time)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens says that the city was "[n]amed
after goddess Athena," without going into details. (I note that the
accent is different, though -- the goddess is Athiná in modern Greek,
while the city is Athína. And the older name is plural: Athínai /
Athê~nai -- but also has the accent on the penult, not the ultimate.)
...ah, the article goes on to claim: "In ancient Greek, the name of
Athens was á¼Î¸á¿Î½Î±Î¹-Athenai, plural of á¼Î¸Î·Î½Î¬-Athene, the Attic name
of
the Goddess Athena. The city's name may have been plural, like those
of Îá¿Î²Î±Î¹-Thebai (Thebes) and ÎÏ
κá¿Î½Î±Î¹-Mykenai (Mycenae), because it
consisted of several parts." -- but doesn't explain the shifted
accent.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (2)
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9. Re: Disfluency and repair mechanisms
Posted by: "Doug Barr" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:44 am (PDT)
I notice that my 'hesitation particles' and my exclamation for pain
both change depending on the language I'm speaking and/or thinking at
the moment.
In English it's "um" and "ow," in Gaelic it's "em" and "ach", in
French (Québec dialect), "euh" and "ayoille" (spelling?), and so on...
Gaelic "em" is from British English, I think; you'll also hear "sin
e..." "that is..." with a pause.
FWIW,
Doug
Discendo discimus; nihil ex nihilo fit. - "We learn by learning;
nothing comes from nothing."
On Sep 24, 2006, at 1:18 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> Charlie wrote:
>>> In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> Assuming that you actually speak your conlang -
>> Why do *I* have to speak it? My conculture people speak it. :-)
>>
>>> When you hesitate or stammer in your conlangs, how do you repair
>>> the error? Is it the same way you do in your L1? In L2s? Or do
>>> you use some mechanism specific to, or adapted to, the conlang
>> itself?
>
> Kash has several: e...; na..., naná..., aná..., ená...; as well as
> kaná when
> you can't immediately come up with the right word or form (like
> Indonesian
> anu, Tagalog kuan and IIRC Japanese ano). _kyati_ 'y'know' would
> also work
> there. Then there's nána 'thing, unidentifiable object' as in
> "what's this
> thing?"
>
> In Spanish, I tend to use pues..., or a...; in Indonesian na or nah
> was
> widely used, said to be from Dutch influence.
>>
>> BTW, this word we're discussing (um, este, nuu), can it be called an
>> interjection? That's how I've labeled it in my dictionary, but it
>> doesn't really sound correct.
>>
> I think "hesitation particle" works.
Messages in this topic (4)
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10. Re: THEORY: Ergative, word order, and predicates
Posted by: "Patrick Littell" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:22 pm (PDT)
On 9/25/06, Eric Christopherson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I seem to recall that typologically speaking, it is common for head-
> final languages to be SOV (or otherwise verb-last). Does this
> correlation also apply for ergative languages? I'm thinking that in
> an accusative language, SOV translates to nominative noun-accusative
> noun-verb, and since the nominative is less marked, that means it's
> less marked-more marked-verb. Thus, when speaking of an ergative
> language, in which the absolutive is the less marked case, if I
> follow the same markedness-based ordering, I end up with the order
> absolutive noun-ergative noun-verb, which in turn is OSV. I hope
> that all makes sense; if not, my main question is: is it more
> "typical" for a head-final ergative language to be SOV, or OSV?
>
SOV. OSV as a basic constituent order is vanishingly rare. But
anyway, the markedness or lack thereof of case markings doesn't really
have anything to do with the word order of a language.
The following might ease some confusion. There are three (main) ways
ergativity will show up in a language:
Your language could be ergative as regards case marking: you could
mark intransitive subjects with the same case as transitive objects.
(Not uncommon.)
Your language could be ergative as regards agreement: the verb could
use the transitive object agreement markers for intransitive subjects.
(Less common.)
Your language could be ergative as regards word order: intransitive
subjects could be put in the same position in the sentence as
transitive objects. (This last one rarely shows up, since it only
makes a difference in word-medial languages. You get SVO in
transitives and VS in intransitives, or OVS in transitives and SV in
intransitives.)
These three don't all need to agree; it's quite common to have
mismatches. Frequently your case marking will be ergative but your
agreement will be accusative. (And since most ergative languages
aren't verb-medial, the third question doesn't come up.)
Another thing to clear up some possible confusion:
Ergativity is just an answer to the question: "How do I mark the sole
argument of an intransitive sentence?" That's pretty much it. Some
languages mark it like a transitive subject, and some like a
transitive object, and others do something else. That's pretty much
it. When it comes to transitive sentences, everything's the same.
Subjects are still subjects in ergative languages, and objects are
still objects; the only thing that's different is how the speaker
marks (and the listener picks out) the sole argument of an
intransitive.
> Also, while thinking about this, I started wondering, is the
> definition of a predicate the same in an ergative language as in an
> accusative one, i.e. the verb with its object? Or would a predicate
> in an ergative language be the verb along with its subject?
The former. Ergativity doesn't mess with this sort of thing; subjects
are still subjects.
Instead of thinking of ergative languages as ones that have "mixed up"
subjects and objects, it's much better to think of them as languages
that are (for transitives) just like English. The difference is just
in intransitives, and the choice they make isn't mixed up... they've
just made a different generalization.
Take these two sentences: "Jonas ran" and "Jonas died". In the first,
Jonas is an agent, but in the second, he's a patient. A language has
to decide: "How do we mark 'Jonas'?"
Accusative languages say "I don't care that they're different; mark
'em both as agents. (That is, mark 'em the way we do the agent in a
transitive.)"
Ergative languages say "I don't care that they're different; mark 'em
both as patients. (That is, mark 'em the way we do the patient in a
transitive.)"
The languages that care -- those that mark the intransitive agents
like transitive agents and intransitive patients like transitive
patients -- we call "Split-S" or "Fluid-S" or "Active/Stative" or
"Active", depending on the details and our terminology.
> Bonus
> question: if a predicate is still composed of the verb and its
> object, does that mean that an intransitive predicate consists of the
> verb and its subject (since the intransitive subject patterns with
> the transitive object)?
>
No, stuff like this isn't affected by ergativity. It's partly true
that "the intransitive subject patterns with the transitive object",
but only for certain things, and it differs between languages whether
it's the case patterns or agreement patterns, etc. Some patterns,
like case marking, are immediately visible, and we make a big deal out
of them, but in most ways, the subject/object relations aren't
affected.
So we might ask -- and it's been asked here before: "Take the
incorporation of an object into a verb. In an ergative langauge, do
you incorporated the subject?" The answer is no; ergativity is
irrelevant to this. Because ergativity doesn't make subjects into
objects or objects into subjects or anything like that.
We could also ask "Say it's an intransitive sentence. Since
intransitive subjects are like transitive objects, and since
transitive objects can be incorporated, can intransitive subjects be
incorporated?" The answer is the same in an ergative language as in
an accusative language: "Sometimes, it's complicated, ask me later."
Anyway, hope this helps.
-- Pat
Messages in this topic (2)
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11. Translation challenge
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:33 pm (PDT)
In memory of John M. Ford, who wrote (among other things) a most
excellent book about Klingons before this world had discovered tlhIngan
Hol and ST:TNG.
Against Entropy
The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days-
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That´s how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
-- John M. Ford
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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12a. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "daniel prohaska" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:41 pm (PDT)
David,
Thank you for mentioning this wonderful Star Trek episode. It's been a long
time since I've seen it, but after your bringing it up I remembered
intensely how fascinated I was by this language concept. And it was nice to
see that the universal translator cannot crack every language.
Dan
From: David J. Peterson
"Regarding this, and idioms, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned that
Star Trek episode. I can't remember the famous phrase, but it's something
like "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra", and that's supposed to mean something.
As far as I can tell, the language that this alien culture has *can* be
translated by the Universal Translator, but the aliens choose to use mainly
proper names, so what gets translated has no meaning. (Of course, the UT
should be able to get something out of this, but we can ignore that for
now...)
Anyway, going along with what Teoh was saying, they can be purposely
creating phrases that mean something completely different. So, for
example...
Kosta eats with Teleno.
So, "eats with" would be translated into the language, and it would fit all
the rest of the language patterns, but it would mean the above. This, then,
could refer to an obscure historical event where, say, two philosophers that
didn't like each other came to eat together one day, and got into an
argument. Saying "Kosta eats with Teleno", then, could mean something like,
"I disagree with x (whoever the topic is), but I will put up with him for
now".
And the language could be filled with a bunch of these. And further,
whenever someone undesirable figures out what one of them means, its meaning
could be changed, or a new expression could be used to mean the same thing.
-David"
Messages in this topic (30)
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12b. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:46 pm (PDT)
David J. Peterson wrote:
> So, "eats with" would be translated into the language, and it would
> fit all the rest of the language patterns, but it would mean the
> above. This, then, could refer to an obscure historical event
> where, say, two philosophers that didn't like each other came to
> eat together one day, and got into an argument. Saying "Kosta eats
> with Teleno", then, could mean something like, "I disagree with x
> (whoever the topic is), but I will put up with him for now".
I like that. Reminds me that I need to construct a lot of metaphors
for my conlangs. They are very barren the way I have them now. I have
written a lot of poetry without using a single metaphor. Urianian and
Gaajan poets would probably sneer at me. Got to re-work them a bit.
But non-metaphoric language sure helps legibility...
LEF
.....home pages www.ortygia.no.....some things not yet moved from
home.ringnett.no/lars.finsen.....
Messages in this topic (30)
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13. Re: Transcription exercise
Posted by: "Isaac Penzev" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:45 pm (PDT)
Benct Philip Jonsson jazdy:
| I thought of the change in some Turkic languages whereby
| palatal vowel harmony is replaced by palatal consonant
| harmony -- i.e. rounded vowels in 'front' vords become
| back, but the consonants of these 'front' words remain
| palatalized before the formerly front vowels.
Exactly. This phenomenon is especially peculiar to Karaim, but the tendency
is notable in Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Nogay.
ObConlang: That reminds me to try to resume work on Project 20 (formerly
known as Kumanzha). This LLL-styled Turkic conlang is going to have the same
kind of harmony due to the influence of the East Slavic phonology.
| I don't
| know if it works the other way too so that palatal(ized)
| consonants in 'back' words lose their palatality.
There are no phonemicly palatalized conss in Turkic langs, so we cannot be
sure if it could work or no.
| --
| Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
-- Yitzik
Messages in this topic (51)
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