There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
From: Roger Mills
1b. Semi-phonemes?
From: Matthew A. Gurevitch
1c. Re: Semi-phonemes?
From: Matthew Boutilier
1d. Re: Semi-phonemes?
From: Js Bangs
1e. Re: Semi-phonemes?
From: BPJ
1f. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
From: Jyri Lehtinen
1g. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
From: Eric Christopherson
2a. Re: Early draft for 'nym' URI
From: Ralph DeCarli
3.1. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Padraic Brown
3.2. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: George Corley
4a. adposition cases
From: neo gu
4b. Re: adposition cases
From: Douglas Koller
4c. Re: adposition cases
From: neo gu
5.1. Re: Sold here / for sale / on sale / on sale here
From: Douglas Koller
5.2. Re: Sold here / for sale / on sale / on sale here
From: Ph. D.
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 9:17 am ((PDT))
Sorta OT, but this has been plaguing my mind for the past week or so--
(speaking of faccio < fare)--
Italian sapere 'to know': the grammar-book 1st sing. is _(io) so_, but
dialectally one hears _saccio_, and the grammar-book present subjunctive is
_saccia_ IIRC. How did this happen?? How did it get from VL sapio, sapiam to
sacci-??????
--- On Sun, 6/9/13, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
From: R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com>
Subject: Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Sunday, June 9, 2013, 9:27 AM
On 09/06/2013 14:02, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> I'm interested on how verb conjugation was originated.
> Any comments or references?
>
> Studying Old Tupi, I guess that they possibly originated
> from verb-subject agglutination.
This does seem to be the origin. If ancient Greek is
anything to go by, it would seem that this was the case for
past active tenses (though most verbs have a thematic vowel
o~e between verb base and the personal ending. The personal
endings were suffixed to show non-past and medio-passive voice.
In Latin this is modified, and a system of tense markers
developed to go between the verb base and the personal
ending; also Latin ditched the inherited medio-passive
endings and developed its own passive personal endings
which, however, did not survive into Vulgar Latin or Romance.
> Verbs like Italian "faccio" looks like "do I" (verb
> "facc" + pronoun "io"),
Pure coincidence!
> but I guess this analysis should be done in
> proto-Indo-European.
Yes, it should :)
In fact _faccio_ is from Latin _faciō_ = faci-ō, where -ō
IIRC is from an earlier -ōm, which was originally a
subjunctive form (the indicative being -om, which survives
in some ancient Greek past tenses as -on). The final -m was
the original 1st person marker and -ō- was a lengthened
thematic vowel.
So, yes, although certainly verb-subject agglutination is
involved, there is a lot more besides.
It would take rather more than an email to do the subject
justice. ;)
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language … began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Semi-phonemes?
Posted by: "Matthew A. Gurevitch" mag122...@aol.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 10:08 am ((PDT))
Hello CONLANG-L,
I have a question that I thought I saw answered here, but I could not find with
some quick searches in the archives. What does one call phonemes that are only
contrastive in certain contexts, but not contrastive in others?
For example, in my conlang, voicing is semi-contrastive, with the pairs /p b/,
/t d/, /k g/, /f v/, /s z/, /ʂ ʐ/, /x ɣ/, /ts dz/,/ʈʂ ɖʐ/, and /kx gɣ/ being
distinct word initially, in non-geminated intervocalic position, and certain
clusters, while syllable finally or geminated there is no distinction between
voicing.
/pap/ and /bap/ are a minimal pair, but /pappap/ and /pabbab/ are seen as
variants of the same word (albeit seen as having a strange accent).
Would you say that the voiced consonants are semi-phonemic, or contrastive in
certain environments, or something else entirely?
All my best,
Matthew Gurevitch
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Semi-phonemes?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" bvticvlar...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 10:34 am ((PDT))
what you are describing sounds a lot like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicing
with some extra concessions for geminate position.
it sounds like /pappap/ and /pabbab/ are phonetically identical (and may be
pronounced differently, as you say, according to "accent," but nonetheless
the same as each other). so i am envisioning it like this:
/pappap/ and /pabbab/ both = [pappap]
OR
both = [pabbab]
maybe instead of final devoicing you have final *voicing* - either way, the
phonemic contrast is NEUTRALIZED, which is the word you are looking for.
you can still say they are different *phonemes* - no need to invoke
'semi-phonemes' - that happen to emerge as the same sound ("phone") in
certain environments.
just like, at least in English as she is spoke by me,
"badder" is /'bædər/
"batter" is /'bætəɾ/
but i pronounce both of them as ['bæɾɚ], neutralizing the difference
between /t/ and /d/ (if you know German or Turkish or Russian i can give
you better examples).
matt
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Matthew A. Gurevitch <mag122...@aol.com>wrote:
> Hello CONLANG-L,
>
> I have a question that I thought I saw answered here, but I could not find
> with some quick searches in the archives. What does one call phonemes that
> are only contrastive in certain contexts, but not contrastive in others?
>
> For example, in my conlang, voicing is semi-contrastive, with the pairs /p
> b/, /t d/, /k g/, /f v/, /s z/, /ʂ ʐ/, /x ɣ/, /ts dz/,/ʈʂ ɖʐ/, and /kx gɣ/
> being distinct word initially, in non-geminated intervocalic position, and
> certain clusters, while syllable finally or geminated there is no
> distinction between voicing.
>
> /pap/ and /bap/ are a minimal pair, but /pappap/ and /pabbab/ are seen as
> variants of the same word (albeit seen as having a strange accent).
>
> Would you say that the voiced consonants are semi-phonemic, or contrastive
> in certain environments, or something else entirely?
>
> All my best,
> Matthew Gurevitch
>
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Semi-phonemes?
Posted by: "Js Bangs" jas...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 11:20 am ((PDT))
I'd say they're just phonemes, straight up.
The definition of "phoneme" does not require that the phonemes contrast at
every position in the word or utterance, nor that there are never
ambiguities in phonemic representation. You can describe this using more or
less he language you mentioned in your post: "The voiced and voiceless
phonemes are contrastive only under the following conditions...".
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Matthew A. Gurevitch <mag122...@aol.com>wrote:
> Hello CONLANG-L,
>
> I have a question that I thought I saw answered here, but I could not find
> with some quick searches in the archives. What does one call phonemes that
> are only contrastive in certain contexts, but not contrastive in others?
>
> For example, in my conlang, voicing is semi-contrastive, with the pairs /p
> b/, /t d/, /k g/, /f v/, /s z/, /ʂ ʐ/, /x ɣ/, /ts dz/,/ʈʂ ɖʐ/, and /kx gɣ/
> being distinct word initially, in non-geminated intervocalic position, and
> certain clusters, while syllable finally or geminated there is no
> distinction between voicing.
>
> /pap/ and /bap/ are a minimal pair, but /pappap/ and /pabbab/ are seen as
> variants of the same word (albeit seen as having a strange accent).
>
> Would you say that the voiced consonants are semi-phonemic, or contrastive
> in certain environments, or something else entirely?
>
> All my best,
> Matthew Gurevitch
>
>
>
>
--
JS Bangs
jas...@gmail.com
http://jsbangs.wordpress.com
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle" -Philo of
Alexandria
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Semi-phonemes?
Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 1:52 pm ((PDT))
Trubetzkoy coined a term for the neutralization product though:
_archiphoneme_.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archiphoneme#Neutralization>
2013-06-09 20:19, Js Bangs skrev:
> I'd say they're just phonemes, straight up.
>
> The definition of "phoneme" does not require that the phonemes contrast at
> every position in the word or utterance, nor that there are never
> ambiguities in phonemic representation. You can describe this using more or
> less he language you mentioned in your post: "The voiced and voiceless
> phonemes are contrastive only under the following conditions...".
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Matthew A. Gurevitch
> <mag122...@aol.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello CONLANG-L,
>>
>> I have a question that I thought I saw answered here, but I could not find
>> with some quick searches in the archives. What does one call phonemes that
>> are only contrastive in certain contexts, but not contrastive in others?
>>
>> For example, in my conlang, voicing is semi-contrastive, with the pairs /p
>> b/, /t d/, /k g/, /f v/, /s z/, /ʂ ʐ/, /x ɣ/, /ts dz/,/ʈʂ ɖʐ/, and /kx gɣ/
>> being distinct word initially, in non-geminated intervocalic position, and
>> certain clusters, while syllable finally or geminated there is no
>> distinction between voicing.
>>
>> /pap/ and /bap/ are a minimal pair, but /pappap/ and /pabbab/ are seen as
>> variants of the same word (albeit seen as having a strange accent).
>>
>> Would you say that the voiced consonants are semi-phonemic, or contrastive
>> in certain environments, or something else entirely?
>>
>> All my best,
>> Matthew Gurevitch
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" lehtinen.j...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 1:54 pm ((PDT))
I'd like to see some statistics worked out of this, but agglutination of
pronouns definitely seems to be the major source of personal conjugation,
be it conjugation of verbs or possessive affixes of nouns. You just don't
always see direct evidence for the actual agglutination process even when
it clearly has to have happened.
For example, the original personal material of Uralic languages, when it
has survived later restructuring, goes straight back to Proto Uralic (e.g.
verbal person suffixes SG1 *-m, SG2 *-t, possessive suffixes SG1 *-mV, SG2
*-tV, SG3 *-sV, personal pronouns SG1 *mV, SG2 *tV, SG3 *sV). The link
between the free pronouns and the bound suffixes seems irrefutable. But on
the other hand there is no evidence that the bound suffixes would have been
any less bound at the stage of the reconstructed proto language some
5000-8000 years ago than what they are in the modern daughter languages.
Thus it's entirely possible that the agglutination process, which must have
happened at some point, had happened many millennia before the Proto Uralic
stage and lies far beyond the reconstructible limit.
There are still other sources and my favourite has to be the restructuring
of the Saamic present tense conjugation. This is a system that is based
mostly on nominalised verb forms and has only vestiges of old personal
material. The modern conjugation of the verb mannat "to go" is:
SG1 manan
SG2 manat
SG3 manná
DL1 manne
DL2 mannabeahtti
DL3 mannaba
PL1 mannat
PL2 mannabehtet
PL3 mannet
Following Sammallahti's reconstruction these come from common Finno-Saamic
or Pre Proto Smaamic forms:
SG1 meni-m
SG2 meni-t
SG3 meni-jä
DL1 meni-jä-n
DL2 meni-pä-ti-n
DL3 meni-pä-n
PL1 meni-pä-t
PL2 meni-pä-tä-t
PL3 meni-jä-t
The only original verbal person material here are the SG1 and SG2 suffixes
-m and -t. Apart from them the only strictly personal material are the
suffixes -ti and -tä which appear to have been 2nd person possessive
suffixes applied to clarify person on the nominalised verb forms. The rest
of the paradigm consists of nominal predicates and is built by juggling
around with the participle markers or action nominalisers -jä and -pä and
the dual and plural endings -n and -t. If anything is a strange paradigm
then this is.
Another example of a conjugation paradigm that mixes material from all over
is the 2nd preterite in Udmurt which is used for inferential past tense.
The morphemic breakdown of the paradigm for the verb mïnïnï "to go" is
(using lazy UPA for transcription):
SG1 mïn-iśk-em
SG2 mïn-em-ed
SG3 mïn-em
PL1 mïn-iśk-em-mï
PL2 mïn-il'l'a-m-dï
PL3 mïn-il'l'a-m(-zï)
This is also a paradigm that is built on top of verb nominalisations that
were used as nominal predicates. The nominalisation used here is the
participle suffix -em. This is supplied with an incomplete system of
possessive suffixes (SG2 -ed, PL1 -mï, PL2 -dï, PL3 -zï). On top of this
there are two additional suffixes -iśk and -il'l'a that act to
differentiate the person in the rest of the paradigm. These are both
related to aspectual markers found in the language (e.g. frequentatives in
-l'l'a) and the -iśk suffix also appears in the 1st and 2nd persons of the
present tense conjugation. Why these are used here and what originally
governed the choice of them, I have no idea.
-Jyri
2013/6/9 Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
> I'm interested on how verb conjugation was originated. Any comments or
> references?
>
> Studying Old Tupi, I guess that they possibly originated from
> verb-subject agglutination. Verbs like Italian "faccio" looks like "do
> I" (verb "facc" + pronoun "io"), but I guess this analysis should be
> done in proto-Indo-European.
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: THEORY: Conjugogenesis.
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 6:47 pm ((PDT))
On Jun 9, 2013, at 3:54 PM, Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are still other sources and my favourite has to be the restructuring
> of the Saamic present tense conjugation. This is a system that is based
> mostly on nominalised verb forms and has only vestiges of old personal
> material. [...]
>
[snip]
Fascinating! For a long time I've been at least dimly aware of this like that
happening in paradigms, and I'd love to do this in a conlang, but I've never
felt confident that I had a good command of what sorts of morphemes could
appear where within the paradigm.
I do remember a hypothesis that the -nt in Latin 3pl (not sure if it occurs
elsewhere in PIE) is related to the -nt- of participial markers. Just the other
day I learned that _îre_ has at least two active participial stems we know of
-- _îent-_ and _eunt-_ -- the latter of which matches the 3pl present
indicative _eunt_; I've been wondering if this could be construed as evidence
that the 3pl finite form is related to the participial stem, but I haven't
investigated enough to find out yet.
> The only original verbal person material here are the SG1 and SG2 suffixes
> -m and -t. Apart from them the only strictly personal material are the
> suffixes -ti and -tä which appear to have been 2nd person possessive
> suffixes applied to clarify person on the nominalised verb forms. The rest
> of the paradigm consists of nominal predicates and is built by juggling
> around with the participle markers or action nominalisers -jä and -pä and
> the dual and plural endings -n and -t. If anything is a strange paradigm
> then this is.
>
> Another example of a conjugation paradigm that mixes material from all over
> is the 2nd preterite in Udmurt which is used for inferential past tense.
> The morphemic breakdown of the paradigm for the verb mïnïnï "to go" is
> (using lazy UPA for transcription):
>
> SG1 mïn-iśk-em
> SG2 mïn-em-ed
> SG3 mïn-em
> PL1 mïn-iśk-em-mï
> PL2 mïn-il'l'a-m-dï
> PL3 mïn-il'l'a-m(-zï)
>
> This is also a paradigm that is built on top of verb nominalisations that
> were used as nominal predicates. The nominalisation used here is the
> participle suffix -em. This is supplied with an incomplete system of
> possessive suffixes (SG2 -ed, PL1 -mï, PL2 -dï, PL3 -zï). On top of this
> there are two additional suffixes -iśk and -il'l'a that act to
> differentiate the person in the rest of the paradigm. These are both
> related to aspectual markers found in the language (e.g. frequentatives in
> -l'l'a) and the -iśk suffix also appears in the 1st and 2nd persons of the
> present tense conjugation. Why these are used here and what originally
> governed the choice of them, I have no idea.
This _-iśk-_ reminds me again of Latin and Romance, viz. the (originally
inchoative) _-esc-_ affix which underwent semantic bleaching and came to be
obligatory in many verb forms. In the Vulgar Latins leading to Italian and
French, it occurred (and took the accent, which would otherwise have fallen on
the root) in all the present tense verb forms *except* the ones that already
had accent after the root (in the present tense at least; I don't recall if it
happened elsewhere). So:
*pár-o -> *par-ésc-o
*pár-es -> *par-ésc-es
*pár-e -> *par-ésc-e
*par-émos -> *par-émos (no change)
*par-étes -> *par-étes (no change)
*pár-unt -> *par-ésc-unt
(here "->" means the former either remained the same or was replaced by the
latter but not via regular sound changes).
In Spanish, its reflex is an invariant part of some verbs and appears in all
forms in the paradigm, e.g.
parézco
paréces
paréce
parecémos
parecéis
parécen
(accent marked for clarity and contrast with the above; it's only written in
_parecéis_).
>
> -Jyri
>
>
>
>
> 2013/6/9 Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
>
>> I'm interested on how verb conjugation was originated. Any comments or
>> references?
>>
>> Studying Old Tupi, I guess that they possibly originated from
>> verb-subject agglutination. Verbs like Italian "faccio" looks like "do
>> I" (verb "facc" + pronoun "io"), but I guess this analysis should be
>> done in proto-Indo-European.
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
>>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Early draft for 'nym' URI
Posted by: "Ralph DeCarli" omniv...@sysmatrix.net
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 3:24 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 15:01:23 -0400
DataPacRat <datapac...@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't have any comments on the overall format, but I'm curious
about the sanctity of the 'Authority' field. If someone can spoof a
nym tag they might be able to 'borrow' a reputation. Is this
protected by some dual key encryption somehow?
I'll take any following replies offline unless anyone else is
interested in this sort of arcana.
Ralph
> I'm currently looking into proposing a new URI, loosely based on
> 'tag:' ( http://www.taguri.org/ ,
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4151 ), to use for peer-to-peer
> distributed reputation systems. It occurs to me that what I've put
> together so far is sufficiently language-like that I may be able
> to get some useful commentary, criticism, and suggestions from
> experienced conlangers; so I'm posting this here, in hopes of
> evoking constructive feedback.
>
> What I am aiming for is a common protocol that can easily express
> this idea: "Authority A asserts that X and Y refer to the same
> entity" (with a certain amount of certainty) (with an optional
> comment field) (with an optional authentication hash).
>
>
> Early draft for 'nym' URI
>
>
> In math, '0.999...' and '1' are different representations of the
> same underlying concept. Multiple social media profiles and
> contact methods can represent the same underlying person. Books
> can be referred to by their author and title, or their ISBN. The
> 'nym' URI announces that a given authority asserts that two or
> more representations both refer, at least in a general sense, to
> the same thing; that is, they describe the same entity in
> different formats.
>
>
> Preliminary formatting structure idea:
>
> nym:Authority[,date]:(Identity1)[,date];(Identity2)[,date][;(Identity3)[,date]][?comment1[&comment2][#authenticationHash]
>
>
> The 'date' fields can be any valid ISO 8601 date or time-and-date.
> If present, they should contain at least a four-digit year. The
> date for the authority field may indicate any time when the
> authority field referred to the authority making the assertion, in
> the same fashion as the "tag:" URI. The date for the authority
> field should refer to a date reasonably closely correlated with
> when the authority is making the assertion. The dates for the
> identity fields, if present, should refer to a point in time when
> that identity is connected to the underlying entity.
>
>
> The Authority and Identity fields can be any relevant string. In
> descending order of preference, these should be:
> * Well-formed URIs (eg,
> "http://www.example.com/SocialMediaProfile";)
> * Email addresses lacking the "mailto:"; header (which should be
> assumed to be identical to a field containing that header)
> * Domain names
> * Valid vCard property types (such as "key:" to indicate a public
> encryption key)
> * Valid FOAF property labels (such as "openid:")
> * Some other field of the form "generalLabel:particularEntity" (eg,
> "LibraryCard:23043001054082")
> * Any other string
>
> The Authority and Identity fields may have characters escaped. If
> they contain characters which would allow for misinterpretation of
> the overall nym statement, they must be escaped. They fields may be
> enclosed in quotation marks.
>
>
> The comment fields may contain additional information, which is
> peripheral to the relationship being asserted between the
> Identities. Possible uses may include trustcloud whuffie scores,
> or how the authority knows the individual being identified.
>
> If a comment field is a number, that number is assumed to be how
> confident the authority is that all the listed identifiers all
> refer to the same entity, measured in decibans. (Decibans are
> logarithmic, with 0 decibans being equivalent to 1:1 odds, or
> being 50% confident; 10 decibans to 10:1 odds, or ~90% confident;
> 20 decibans to 100:1 odds, or ~99% confident; and so on.) It is
> recommended that these numbers be integers, unless there is a
> specific reason to be able to specify confidence to greater
> accuracy; and with a magnitude under 128, as it requires
> extraordinary effort to have 100 decibans of confidence for even
> the most fundamental facts. If no specific confidence field is
> entered, the confidence value of the overall nym statement should
> only be assumed to be 'greater than zero'.
>
> While people tend to be very bad at assigning accurate confidence
> levels (eg, when people claim to be 90% sure of something, they're
> often wrong 50% of the time), their initial estimates of their
> confidence levels can be used as the inputs for more sophisticated
> Bayesian algorithms. Until such time as more accurate estimates are
> available, here are some possible sample confidence levels:
> 0 decibans: 50%: You're not sure whether the last digit of the
> phone number is a 3 or a 5.
> 1 decibans: 55% Just slightly more likely than not; a business card
> handed to you by a stranger.
> Up to 10 decibans: to 90%: Someone you've chatted to for an
> evening. Up to 20 decibans: to 99%: A distant acquaintance, who
> you talk to once a year. Up to 30 decibans: to 99.9%: A co-worker
> who might have been re-organized into a new email since you last
> heard from them. Up to 40 decibans: to 99.99%: A family member,
> who you might accidentally have mis-spelled the email address of.
> Around 100 decibans: Your own personal information, closely
> checked. (There's still a theoretical chance that you're wrong,
> just as there's a theoretical chance that you're the star of
> something like the Truman Show.)
> 127 decibans: Data which relies on yourself alone, thoroughly
> re-checked and confirmed by others.
>
>
> The authentication hash is to provide strong evidence that the
> listed authority is actually the one making the assertion. By
> default, it is assumed to be based on whatever public
> cryptographic key (eg, PGP/GnuPG or X.509) is linked to the listed
> authority ID; and that what is being signed is the string of text
> before the hashmark.
>
>
> Some examples:
>
> nym:example.com:(datapac...@datapacrat.com),2013-06-05;(http://twitter.com/DataPacRat),2013-06-05;(Daniel
> Eliot Boese)?100&TrustCloud,774&Klout,29#randomhashofletters
>
> ... to indicate that as of that particular date, I indicate with
> extremely high confidence that my name, email address, and Twitter
> account all point to me, and that I have two social media scores.
>
>
> nym:example.com:(example.com);(KEY;PGP:http://example.com/key.pgp)
>
> Example.com asserts that its public key can be found at a
> particular URL.
>
> nym:example.com:(ID1),2000;(ID1),2001
>
> Example.com asserts that that the same identity referred to the
> same individual on two different dates. Unless some other nym
> statement is made, it may be assumed that what is being asserted
> is that the identity referred to the same individual during the
> entire period between those dates.
>
> nym:example.com:(ID1),2000-12-31;(ID1),2001-01-01?-100
>
> Example.com asserts with strong confidence that ID1 referred to an
> entity on one day, but did not refer to it on another day. This
> can be used to revoke an identity, such as if example.com shut
> down a social media account. (Note that a nym statement with a
> positive confidence level asserts that /all/ the identities refer
> to the same entity; while a nym statement with a negative
> confidence level assrts that /at least one/ of the identities does
> not refer to the same entity as the others. Thus, in order to make
> what identity is being revoked clear, the revocation statement
> should only contain two identity fields.)
>
>
>
>
> Thank you for your time,
> --
> DataPacRat
> "Then again, I could be wrong."
--
omniv...@sysmatrix.net ==> Ralph L. De Carli
Have you heard of the new post-neo-modern art style?
They haven't decided what it looks like yet.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 3:48 pm ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 6/5/13, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
> > To be perfectly honest, I don't really see the
> > theoretical importance of deciding where Esperanto or
> > Modern Hebrew really fit into modern language families at
> > all. We already *know* the origins of these languages,
>
> Yep - and, as Jörg has reminded us, as regards conlangs and
> language families, this was discussed on this list at some
> length last year.
>
> IIRC the general feeling was that it is not generally not
> helpful to classify conlangs in natlang language families
> and, indeed, it is fairly meaningless and can be
> misleading. I really do not see why the same old
> arguments have to be rehearsed again so soon.
All agreed, as already stated when this thread first appeared. The only
thing I would say is that, perhaps, the OP did now know about the earlier
(and I think rather fully hashed-out) discussion. That's why I pointed it
out and why Joerg took the time to review in more detail.
> There are odd exceptions, perhaps, like Brithenig. But
> IMO even to classify that as IE without qualification is
> misleading. It is a _fictional_ Romancelang.
Here, if I may, you're stepping very close to the very barm you wish to
avoid lower down. I would not make an exception for any conlang whatsoever,
and for reasons already stated. They are *constructed* languages, and
don't really enter into the scheme. Even P.I.E. itself I'd be hard
pressed to fit into the scheme (obviously, P.I.E. can not be "an IE
language", because itself is the progenitor from which the IE languages
evolve) -- itself is a conlang! A reconstruction, and therefore nothing
more than a prolanguage that we use to fill a space in the scheme because
we really can't know and don't have access to the language actually
spoken some thousands of years ago.
So, even though I'd accept P.I.E., or Primitive Germanic or reconstructed
Gaulish or what-have-you into the scheme without any kind of qualifying
adjectives, conlangs really don't have a place in the scheme at all. I'm
not sure why you'd make an exception for Brithenig -- it no more belongs
on the list of IE languages than do my old socks. It's a conlang, and was
never intended to be anything other than. There was never a pretense that
it is a natural language or anything other than a constructed language, a
thought experiment. It doesn't fill a gap the way Primitive Germanic or
P.I.E. do -- there was never a gap for it to fill!
> But Zamenhof was not intending to produce a "fictional natlang" (if you
> see what I mean), but a _real auxlang_.
> To argue about whether E-o is IE or not is IMNHO to miss the
> whole point of what E-o was meant to be.
Exactly.
> > Since historical linguistics theory is designed to serve
> > the purpose of determining historical relationships
> > between languages and reconstruction of more ancient
> > forms, do they really need to classify languages that do
> > not evolve through normal language change?
>
> Well, no!
Quite. This was rather the point. Both this time and last time!
> Otherwise we get into the barmy position of reconstructing
> the protolanguage of Esperanto & Ido (clearly related)
> and
> wonder if Novial belongs to the same IE sub-family or is it
> the remnant of another? And how are Esperanto/Ido, Novial
> and Idiom Neutral related - are they all descended from the
> same protolanguage??
>
> IMO the whole notion of classifying conlangs in natlang
> language families is to miss the point both of what
> conlangs
> are about and why historical linguistics theory classifies
> languages in language families - that's not always easy.
Padraic
> For more information, look in the
> archives ;)
>
> -- Ray
Messages in this topic (55)
________________________________________________________________________
3.2. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 4:52 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Wed, 6/5/13, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
> > There are odd exceptions, perhaps, like Brithenig. But
> > IMO even to classify that as IE without qualification is
> > misleading. It is a _fictional_ Romancelang.
>
> Here, if I may, you're stepping very close to the very barm you wish to
> avoid lower down. I would not make an exception for any conlang whatsoever,
> and for reasons already stated. They are *constructed* languages, and
> don't really enter into the scheme. Even P.I.E. itself I'd be hard
> pressed to fit into the scheme (obviously, P.I.E. can not be "an IE
> language", because itself is the progenitor from which the IE languages
> evolve) -- itself is a conlang! A reconstruction, and therefore nothing
> more than a prolanguage that we use to fill a space in the scheme because
> we really can't know and don't have access to the language actually
> spoken some thousands of years ago.
>
> So, even though I'd accept P.I.E., or Primitive Germanic or reconstructed
> Gaulish or what-have-you into the scheme without any kind of qualifying
> adjectives, conlangs really don't have a place in the scheme at all. I'm
> not sure why you'd make an exception for Brithenig -- it no more belongs
> on the list of IE languages than do my old socks. It's a conlang, and was
> never intended to be anything other than. There was never a pretense that
> it is a natural language or anything other than a constructed language, a
> thought experiment. It doesn't fill a gap the way Primitive Germanic or
> P.I.E. do -- there was never a gap for it to fill!
That strikes me as far too black-and-white. Yes, no conlang can be
considered part of a language family for _research purposes_ -- to do so
would be silly and meaningless to historical theory. But I see no reason
not to recognize that Brithenig is _intended_ to fit into a _fictional_
alternate-history scenario that puts it in it's alternate-world equivalent
of the Romance language family. There is nothing about calling something a
"fictional Indo-European language" that anyone here would misconstrue as
some claim of _really_ having relevance in the real-world Indo-European
language family. I think all of us can distinguish between what is true in
a fictional world and what is true in the real world.
To draw an example (I think someone made a similar analogy before, but I'll
do it this way), consider the statement, "Red Matter implodes and forms a
large black hole when exposed to heat." In the real world, that isn't just
false, it's meaningless, since Red Matter does not exist, and therefore a
presupposition of the sentence is false. However, within the fictional
world created by the recent reboot of the Star Trek film franchise, it's a
true statement about the physical properties of Red Matter. Of course it
doesn't affect real-world physics -- it's completely bizarre and ridiculous
by real-world theories. That's not the point.
In the same way, Brithenig is, within its own fictional world, a Romance
language. That has no bearing on real-world historical linguistics, and
indeed one could criticize the method of creating Brithenig as somewhat
unfounded in historical linguistics, but that doesn't change the facts that
its author invented within his own fictional world. Preventing people from
describing fictional realities because of facts of the real world just
prevents people from properly discussing art.
A final note: None of this should be taken to say I believe any silly New
Age, postmodernist BS that these fictional worlds are somehow "real". I
don't believe fictional worlds have any physical reality beyond synapses
firing in the brains of creators and consumers, or maybe constructed
set-pieces or whatnot. But language can and does describe fictional and
hypothetical worlds all the time -- there's no reason to restrict it from
doing so.
Messages in this topic (55)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. adposition cases
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 6:29 pm ((PDT))
Does anyone know of a natlang which marks spatial cases (locative, allative,
ablative, perlative) on the adposition rather than the noun? It seems like this
would be reasonable if the adpositions were originally nouns (although I guess
the object of the adposition would have to be marked genitive?).
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: adposition cases
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 7:16 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 21:29:02 -0400
> From: qiihos...@gmail.com
> Subject: adposition cases
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Does anyone know of a natlang which marks spatial cases (locative, allative,
> ablative, perlative) on the adposition rather than the noun? It seems like
> this would be reasonable if the adpositions were originally nouns (although I
> guess the object of the adposition would have to be marked genitive?).
Is this the kind of thing you're looking for (scroll down about half way and to
the end for loc/abl/all triplets)?
http://www.hungarianreference.com/postpositions-prepositions-personal-pronomial-before-after-between-instead-without.aspx#completelist
Kou
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: adposition cases
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 7:37 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, 9 Jun 2013 22:16:09 -0400, Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>> Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 21:29:02 -0400
>> From: qiihos...@gmail.com
>> Subject: adposition cases
>> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
>> Does anyone know of a natlang which marks spatial cases (locative, allative,
>> ablative, perlative) on the adposition rather than the noun? It seems like
>> this would be reasonable if the adpositions were originally nouns (although
>> I guess the object of the adposition would have to be marked genitive?).
>
>Is this the kind of thing you're looking for (scroll down about half way and
>to the end for loc/abl/all triplets)?
>
>http://www.hungarianreference.com/postpositions-prepositions-personal-pronomial-before-after-between-instead-without.aspx#completelist
>
>Kou
>
That page isn't loading for me. I'll have to try it on another computer
tomorrow.
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5.1. Re: Sold here / for sale / on sale / on sale here
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 7:30 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 08:59:45 -0400
> From: p...@phillipdriscoll.com
> Subject: Re: Sold here / for sale / on sale / on sale here
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Padraic Brown wrote:
> > --- On Fri, 6/7/13, G. van der Vegt <gijsstri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> The point isn't that purchase isn't a verb but that buy is not a noun.
> >> Sale is always a noun.
> > For what it's worth, "did you sale it" gets almost a quarter of a million
> > hits; "can I sale" gets more than half; "I'm going to sale" gets over a
> > million. Even the perfect ("X saled it") gets a few thousand.
> I suspect these are misspellings of "sell." In some
> varieties of American English, "sell" and "sale" can
> sound very similar.
That wouldn't explain away "X saled it." I've never heard "sell" nudging toward
weak verb status, no matter how varietal one's English gets. I could be wrong,
of course. If I am, and "selled" is gaining currency, I'll be the one over
there flailing histrionically, shrieking "o tempora, o mores", and running into
the horizon (conversely and perhaps illogically, I couldn't care less about the
use of "saled").
Kou
Messages in this topic (34)
________________________________________________________________________
5.2. Re: Sold here / for sale / on sale / on sale here
Posted by: "Ph. D." p...@phillipdriscoll.com
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2013 8:02 pm ((PDT))
>> I suspect these are misspellings of "sell." In some
>> varieties of American English, "sell" and "sale" can
>> sound very similar.
> That wouldn't explain away "X saled it." I've never heard "sell" nudging
> toward weak verb status, no matter how varietal one's English gets. I could
> be wrong, of course. If I am, and "selled" is gaining currency, I'll be the
> one over there flailing histrionically, shrieking "o tempora, o mores", and
> running into the horizon (conversely and perhaps illogically, I couldn't care
> less about the use of "saled").
>
> Kou
You haven't spent any time among African-Americans in Detroit, have you?
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (34)
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