There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Conlang punctuation.
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1b. Re: Conlang punctuation.
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: Conlang punctuation.
From: Leonardo Castro
1d. Re: Conlang punctuation.
From: Padraic Brown
1e. Re: Conlang punctuation.
From: Padraic Brown
2a. Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Mustafa Umut Sarac
2b. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Jim Henry
2c. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Jim Henry
2d. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Mustafa Umut Sarac
2e. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Alex Fink
2f. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Jim Henry
2g. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
From: Mustafa Umut Sarac
3a. conditioned vowel breaking
From: neo gu
3b. Re: conditioned vowel breaking
From: Alex Fink
4a. Re: adposition cases
From: neo gu
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Conlang punctuation.
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 9:53 am ((PDT))
It also looks like the course material from a Punctuation course I took some
years back will come in handy, too. Would the punctuation information go in the
Morpho-syntax section of this file I'm creating, or do I need to create a
separate section?
Also, I copied those translations to the section where I'll need to do
translating, so thanks to the poster of those items. I also copied those sample
sentences I posted to the list awhile back.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf
Of R A Brown
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2013 12:14 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Conlang punctuation.
On 01/07/2013 17:06, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> Are there rules governing conlang punctuation?
No.
> Can I invent my own punctuation?
Certainly - many conlangers do :)
--
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 (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Conlang punctuation.
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 10:37 am ((PDT))
> From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Cc:
> Sent: Monday, 1 July 2013, 12:06
> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] Conlang punctuation.
>
> Are there rules governing conlang punctuation?
Only the rules you define for your conlang!
> I think mine uses a period as a coma.
In other words, the symbol they use to do the work of a short pause is
in the shape of a dot. That is, it's not a "period" -- it's still a comma,
but their language gives it a different form than ours.
> Can I invent my own punctuation?
Looks like you already have!
> I wanted to use the thorn letter, but can't copy it, even though Jaws reads
> it right. I can't even re-create it, any suggestions?
I'm not sure why you can't copy it. It's a standard letter that can be produced
with an alt-code or some similar means in just about any word processor or
text editor. You might need to delve into Jaws's technical manual to sort out
why it won't let you use multinational characters.
Padraic
>
> Mellissa Green
>
>
> @GreenNovelist
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On
> Behalf
> Of Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
> Sent: Monday, July 1, 2013 11:34 AM
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Subject: Re: Conlang punctuation.
>
> On 8 June 2013 16:23, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Do your conlangs have any punctuation peculiarities?
>>
>> For contextualization:
>> www.quicksilvertranslate.com/570/some-punctuation-peculiarities
>>
>>
> Nice that it mentioned non-breaking spaces *before* two-part punctuation in
> French :) . I've always felt the absence of space in English made signs
> like ! and ? too close to the preceding word for comfort. Note however that
> in good French typography the size of the space *before* the punctuation is
> not the same as the size of the space *after* it. The space after
> punctuation is a normal space (similar to the one between words), while the
> space before punctuation should be a thin space, about a fifth to a sixth
> of an em-width. Unfortunately, web typography usually doesn't allow an easy
> way to type in non-breaking thin spaces...
>
> Another peculiar punctuation is that of Modern Greek, which uses the
> semi-colon as a question mark, while the role of the semi-colon is taken
> over by the raised dot. In principle, the role of the colon should also be
> taken by the raised dot, but in practice most Greek speakers now simply use
> the colon.
>
> My own Moten doesn't really have an orthography, just a romanisation, so I
> just use the punctuation standard of the language I'm writing in, usually
> English. On the other hand I have a language for which I created a peculiar
> punctuation on purpose: my Chasmäöcho is written using Latin letters and
> existing punctuation, but it uses it all differently, just for the sake of
> being different (I was in a bit of a contrary mood at that time :P). The
> Listserv archives have quite a lot of material on Chasmäöcho (not all easy
> to find), but the relevant post can be found here:
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006A&L=CONLANG&P=R6166&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Conlang punctuation.
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 1:17 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/1 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>:
> On 8 June 2013 16:23, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Do your conlangs have any punctuation peculiarities?
>>
>> For contextualization:
>> www.quicksilvertranslate.com/570/some-punctuation-peculiarities
>>
>>
> Nice that it mentioned non-breaking spaces *before* two-part punctuation in
> French :) . I've always felt the absence of space in English made signs
> like ! and ? too close to the preceding word for comfort. Note however that
I have already noted that a common mistake of people who are learning
to type is to put a space both before and after commas and periods.
So, I guess that the two-close marks is a common feeling.
> in good French typography the size of the space *before* the punctuation is
> not the same as the size of the space *after* it. The space after
> punctuation is a normal space (similar to the one between words), while the
> space before punctuation should be a thin space, about a fifth to a sixth
> of an em-width. Unfortunately, web typography usually doesn't allow an easy
> way to type in non-breaking thin spaces...
>
> Another peculiar punctuation is that of Modern Greek, which uses the
> semi-colon as a question mark, while the role of the semi-colon is taken
> over by the raised dot. In principle, the role of the colon should also be
> taken by the raised dot, but in practice most Greek speakers now simply use
> the colon.
>
> My own Moten doesn't really have an orthography, just a romanisation, so I
> just use the punctuation standard of the language I'm writing in, usually
> English. On the other hand I have a language for which I created a peculiar
> punctuation on purpose: my Chasmäöcho is written using Latin letters and
> existing punctuation, but it uses it all differently, just for the sake of
> being different (I was in a bit of a contrary mood at that time :P). The
> Listserv archives have quite a lot of material on Chasmäöcho (not all easy
> to find), but the relevant post can be found here:
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006A&L=CONLANG&P=R6166&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Conlang punctuation.
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 1:50 pm ((PDT))
> From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
>
> Would the punctuation information go in the Morpho-syntax section of this
> file I'm creating,
No. I am not at all understanding how or why you'd place these two things
together...
> or do I need to create a separate section?
This is like writing an essay on oranges while asking whether or not to add a
section on
playing cards.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Conlang punctuation.
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 3:37 pm ((PDT))
> From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
>
>Nice that it mentioned non-breaking spaces *before* two-part punctuation in
>French :) . I've always felt the absence of space in English made signs
>like ! and ? too close to the preceding word for comfort.
I never really noticed this before, but I do think you are on to something. I
will
have to look at some Real French Books some time to compare with the usual
English practice.
> Note however that
>in good French typography the size of the space *before* the punctuation is
>not the same as the size of the space *after* it. The space after
>punctuation is a normal space (similar to the one between words), while the
>space before punctuation should be a thin space, about a fifth to a sixth
>of an em-width. Unfortunately, web typography usually doesn't allow an easy
>way to type in non-breaking thin spaces...
That makes sense. I've found that, at least in Word Perfect, one can easily do
some manual kerning. Either 1/12 or 1/6 em is about right, though. Then it's
just a matter of globally replacing the nonspace before ! and ? by the kerning
code.
It's pretty general hereabouts to place a double space after a sentence final
punctuation mark (though in less formal contexts, this practice tends to be
entirely disregarded).
>Another peculiar punctuation is that of Modern Greek, which uses the
>semi-colon as a question mark, while the role of the semi-colon is taken
>over by the raised dot. In principle, the role of the colon should also be
>taken by the raised dot, but in practice most Greek speakers now simply use
>the colon.
>
>My own Moten doesn't really have an orthography, just a romanisation, so I
>just use the punctuation standard of the language I'm writing in, usually
>English. On the other hand I have a language for which I created a peculiar
>punctuation on purpose: my Chasmäöcho is written using Latin letters and
>existing punctuation, but it uses it all differently, just for the sake of
>being different (I was in a bit of a contrary mood at that time :P).
Only at that time!? ;))))
> The
>Listserv archives have quite a lot of material on Chasmäöcho (not all easy
>to find), but the relevant post can be found here:
>http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006A&L=CONLANG&P=R6166&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches
You wòuld have to throw in one normal set of punctuation marks, just to confuse
matters: "_and the quotes "" are used for
quoting_" :)
Padraic
>--
>Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
>
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Mustafa Umut Sarac" mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 10:21 am ((PDT))
Hello there,
This is my first post to the List and I want to present my best.
I am from Istanbul and no linguistic background but one year Hittite course
at Archaeology.
I am interested in Syldavian and I want to ask is there any software to
analysis the known dictionary from Tintin books and generate new words. I
think there are many programs at web but I dont know the general situation
of artificial intelligence and capable programs to do my job.
Thank you,
Mustafa Umut Sarac
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 2:22 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Mustafa Umut Sarac
<mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am interested in Syldavian and I want to ask is there any software to
> analysis the known dictionary from Tintin books and generate new words. I
> think there are many programs at web but I dont know the general situation
> of artificial intelligence and capable programs to do my job.
I have several times used custom Perl or Awk scripts to analyze the
recurrent letter/phoneme sequences in the vocabulary of
under-documented conlangs and describe their phonotactics and the
frequencies of various phonemes in various positions. However, I
don't know of any off-the-shelf software that will do this for any
arbitrary language.
For example, below is an Awk script I used to analyze the phonotactic
patterns in the lexicon of Rex May's Ceqli. If you aren't familiar
with Awk, the things you need to know to re-implement a similar
program for a particular conlang in another language are these:
1. the main loop in { } is applied on every line of the input file.
2. The $1 variable is the first (space-delimited) field of the current
line of the input file - i.e. the first word on the line.
3. The gsub function is a global search and replace, and the
two-argument ersion defaults to operating on the current input line.
4. You'll also need to change all the lines which have a specific list
of letters as a regular expression character class, to match the
particular language you're analyzing; digraphs will need special
handling, especially if they can be ambiguous. Here I'm replacing any
character of a given class with a higher-level symbol such as V for
vowel, S for semivowel, F for fricative and so on. I'd then put the
output through further analysis, with other scripts, to see how often
each overall pattern occurred.
{
orig = $1;
# first fix diphthongs
gsub ( /ai/, "ay" );
gsub ( /ia/, "ya" );
gsub ( /au/, "aw" );
gsub ( /ua/, "wa" );
gsub ( /ue/, "we" );
gsub ( /oi/, "oy" );
gsub ( /io/, "yo" );
gsub ( /ei/, "ey" );
gsub ( /ie/, "ye" );
gsub ( /ui/, "wi" );
gsub ( /iu/, "yu" );
# now replace various letters with type-symbols
gsub( /[aeiou]/, "V" );
gsub( /[yw]/, "S" );
gsub( /[lr]/, "L" );
gsub( /[nmq]/, "N" );
gsub( /[sxhfvz]/, "F" );
gsub( /[pbtdkg]/, "P" );
gsub( /[cj]/, "A" );
print $1, "\t", orig;
# print $1;
pattern=$1;
gsub ( /[PFANL]/, "C", pattern );
print pattern "\t" $1 "\t" orig;
}
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 2:24 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 5:21 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Mustafa Umut Sarac
> <mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am interested in Syldavian and I want to ask is there any software to
>> analysis the known dictionary from Tintin books and generate new words. I
I talked in my last message about how to analyze a conlang's corpus or
lexicon. Once you've got your analysis done, there are a variety of
tools available for generating new vocabulary; that's the easy part.
See here:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Software_tools_for_conlanging
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Mustafa Umut Sarac" mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 3:06 pm ((PDT))
Jim and all,
I think your method is about creating an understanding and preparement
before attemping to analysis an conlang dictionary. I dont know programming
except my 15 days basic course 27 years ago. But I think its needed to
download a compiler and let the program work on it. Before giving you a
dictionary , I want to ask also is there any neural networks or
evolutionary AI software to make an analysis.
Jim , I am hereby giving you a syldavian dictionary and asking your
calibrated dictionary. There is more at www.zompist.com. Owner talks about
the words origins are german and there is mixed slav ortography.
Can you or anybody calibrate the above program.
Any idea is very very welcome. This is one of the most interesting thing I
have ever attemped.
Here is the dictionary :
*adwicza* - *n*. notice [probably from French *avis*]
*Almazout* - *n*. Syldavian noble, crowned as Ottokar I
*alpû* - *adv*. thus, next, even [Du. *aldus*]
*amaïh!* - *v*. Hail! [borrowed from Bordurian]
*bätczer* - *adv*. better [cf. Du. *beter*]
*ben* - *v*. am
*bíck* - *n*. villain, beast [Fr. *bique* 'nanny-goat']
*birûzn* - *n*. baron [from the original version of the medieval manuscript]
*blavn* (*bleven*) - *v*. stay [cf. Du. *blijven*]
*bûthsz* - *n*.*n* boat [cf. Ger. *Boot*]
*champ.* - abbreviation for 'mushrooms'. (The restaurateur may simply have
written down the order in French; but since he was Syldavian, it's also
possible that *champignons* has been borrowed as a culinary term.)
*czaïgan* (*czaïda*) - *v*. say [Du. *zeggen*; cf. *cegan* in the first
version of the medieval manuscript.]
*czei* - *pron, adj*. this [Fr. *ce*]
*czeilla* - *pron*. that one [cf. Fr. *celui-là*]
*czesztot* - *phrase* it is [*czei eszt tot* cf. Fr. *c'est*]
*da* - *pron*. thee (acc.)
*dan* - *pron*. then, therefore [Du. *dan*]
*daren* - *pron*. there
*dascz* - *art*. the; see *dze*
*Dbrnouk* - *n*. town in the south part of Syldavia
*dejn* - *pron*. thy, thine
*döszt* - *n, adj*. thirst, thirsty [cf. Du. *dorst*]
*Douma* - *n*. chief port of Syldavia
*dûs* - *pron*. thou [cf. Ger. *du*]
*dze* - *art*. the. Common nom/dat *dze*, acc *dzem*; neuter nom/acc *dascz*,
dat *dza*; plural nom/acc *dzoe*, dat *dzem*. Genitive, invariant *doscz*.
*ebb* - *adj*. open; *ebb touhn* *verbal phrase* open [lit. 'do open'; cf.
Du. *opendaan*]
*ek* - *pron*. I
*eih* - *pron*. he, *archaic* here
*eihn* - *pron*. here [from *eih ihn* 'herein', expression which replaced
the earlier *eih* 'here' once it had inconveniently merged with *eih* 'he']
*eltkar* - *pron*. another, the other one [Du. *elkaar*]
*en* - *conj*. and [Not directly attested, but recoverable from *
endzoekhoszd*. Du.*en*]
*endzoekhoszd* - *adv*. later on [cf. Bruxellois Dutch *en de kost*]
*er* - *pron*. him, them (*form appearing before a preposition*)
*fällen* - *v*. fall
*fläsz* - *n*. bottle [cf. Ger. *Flasche*]
*forwitzen* (*forwotzen*) - forbid
*forwotzen* - *part*. forbidden
*gendarmaskaïa* - *n*. police station
*ghounh* - go [cf. Du. *gaan*]
*güdd* - *adj*. good
*Hält*! - *v*. stop!
*hamaïh!* - *v*. hail! [cf. Antwerp Du. *amai*, used as an expression of
surprise - *hamaïh* can be used this way in Syldavian as well]
*heben* - *v* have [cf. Du. *hebben*]. 3s present indic. *het* tends to be
lost after a subject ending in a vowel, e.g. *eih*.
*Hveghi* - *n*. Slav chief, rebelled against Turks, crowned as Muskar I
*ihn* - *prep*. in
*irz* - *pron*. her [Du. *haar*, Ger. *ihr*]
*Istow* - *n*. Syldavian town (56 km from Klow)
*itd* - *pron*. him
*kar* - *n*. king
*karrö* - *n*. floor [Fr. *carreau*]
*khon* - *pron*. them, their [Du. *hun*]
*khôr* - *n*. Syldavian currency
*khoujchz* - *n*.*f*. car [cf. Du. *koets* 'coach'].
*klebcz* - *n*. dog [cf. Fr. *clebs*, Arabic *kalb*]
*kloho* - *n*. conquest
*klöppen* - *v*. knock, hit
*Klow* - *n*. capital of Syldavia, at the confluence of the Wladir and the
Moltus [*kloho* + *ow*]
*Klowaswa* - *adj*. of Klow; *as n*. Klow water
*komitzät* - *n*. committee
*könikstz* - *n*. king [Du. *koning*, Ger. *k*ö*nig*]
*kontrzoll* - *n*. check, checkpoint, control
*Kragoniedin* - *n*. town known for its thermal springs
*Kropow* - *n*. castle near Klow, where the Royal Treasure is guarded
*Kursaal* - *n*. concert hall
*kzou* - *n*. cow [Du. *koe*, appearing as *coe* in the B/W version of the
medieval text, but modified in light of the later handling of 'come' and
'car'.]
*kzömmen* - *v*. come [Du. *komen*]
*löwn* - *v*. love
*lapzâda* - *n*. sceptre
*lozktekh* - pleasant [cf. Ger. *lustig*]
*mädjek* - girl, girlfriend
*Mazedonia* - *n*. Macedonia
*ma* - *pron*. me
*mejn* - *pron*. my
*micz* - *prep*. with [Ger. *mit*]
-*mo* - *particle* just, only, more: *Zrädjzmo*! Drive on! Keep driving!
[Du. *maar*]
*Moltus* - *n*. second major river of Syldavia
*Muskar* - *n*. name of several kings of Syldavia, including the first
[muskh + kar]
*muskh* - *n*. valor
*Niedzdrow* - *n*. town on the Wladir
*nietz* - *adv*. not [cf. Dutch *niet* 'not']
*noh* - *prep*. to [cf. Ger. *nach*, Du. *naar*]
*o* - *prep*. at, about [archaic *ön*; Du. *om*]
*omhz* - *pron*. us, our [cf. Ger. acc/dat *uns* (Ger. uses dat. after *mit*);
Du. objective and possessive form *ons*]
*on* - *art*. a, one [cf. Du. *een*]
*onegh* - *art*. some [Du. *enige*]
*öpp* - *prep*. up, off, at
*Ottokar* - *n*. name of several kings of Syldavia
*ow* - *n*. town
*pakken* - *v*. seize [Du. *pakken*]
*peih* - *n.*. person, guy [Brussels Du. *pee* < Fr. *père*. Note that this
same French word was previously borrowed in medieval times as *Pir.*]
*pir* - *n*. father [Fr. *père*]
*politzs* - *n*. police
*pollsz* - *adj*. false, wrong [Du. *vals*, Ger. *falsch*]
*rapp* - *adj*. quick, fast [Belgian Du. *rap*]
*revolutzionär* - *adj*. revolutionary
*Sbrodj* - *n*. Syldavian town, site of the atomic research institution
from which the first expedition to the Moon was launched
*Staszrvich* - *n*. rebellious Syldavian noble in the time of Ottokar IV
*szcht* - *n*. silence!
*szlaszeck* - *n*. type of meat, said (probably jocularly) to be dog
*szprädj* - *n*. red wine [Fr. *rouge*?]
*sztoumpekh* - ?? [Du. *stomen* 'smoke, steam' or *stoemp* 'butt'?]
*szûbel* - *n*. head
*Tesznik* - *n*. Syldavian town
*teuïh* - *n*. door [Du. *deur*]
*touhn* - *v*. do [cf. Du. *doen*]
*tot* - *pron*. *adj*. that [Du. *dat*; Russian *tot*]
*tronn* - *n*. throne [Du. *troon*, Fr. *trône*]
*vazs* - *pron*. what [Du. *was*. Appears as *wazs* in the B/W version of
the medieval text, but I've modified the first letter to match Syldavian's
orthographic w/v reversal.]
*vei* - *pron*. we
*verkhwen* - *n*. works (pl.) [cf. Ger. *Werken*]
*vüh* - *prep*. for [archaic *pho*, surely pronounced *fo*; cf. Du. *voor*]
*waghabontz* - *n*. vagabond, tramp
*werkopen* - v. sell [Du. *verkopen*]
*werlagh* - *v*. want, desire [Du. *verlangen*]
*wertzragh* - *v*. slow down [cf. Du. *vertragen*]
*Wladimir* - *n*. patron saint of Syldavia
*Wladir* - *n*. principal river of Syldavia
*wzryzkar* - *adj*. sure; *adv*. surely [cf. Du. *voor zeker* 'for sure']
*yhzer* - *poss*. *pron*. his, her [cf. Ger. *ihrer*]
*zekrett* - *adj*. secret
*zentral* - *adj*. central
*Zepo* - Zekrett Politzs - *n*. Secret Police
*zigarettes* - *n*.*pl*. cigarettes
*Zileheroum* - *n*. Turkish capital of Syldavie, on the Moltus; now Klow
*Zlip* - *n*. town
*Zmyhlpathes* - *n*. a mountain range in Syldavia [mixture of 'Carpathian'
and Fr. *mille-pattes* 'centipede']
*zona* - *n*. zone
*zrälùkzen* - *v*. look (irregular imperative *Zrälùkz*) [Fr. *reluquer*, a
combination of *regarder* and middle Dutch *locken*, both meaning 'look']
*zrädjzen* - *v*. drive, ride [cf. Du. *rijden*]
*zsálu* - *interj*. hello [Fr. *salut*]
*zsoe* - *pron*. she, they [Du. *zij*]
*zsoen* - *v*. be; irregular verb: ben, ez, eszt... [cf. Du. *zijn*]
*Zstopnohle* - *n*. name of a mountain near Sbrodj
*Zyldav Zentral Revolutzionär Komitzät* - *n*. prewar Fascist organization
*Zyldav* - *adj*. Syldavian
*Zyldavja* - *n*. Syldavia
On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 12:24 AM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 5:21 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Mustafa Umut Sarac
> > <mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I am interested in Syldavian and I want to ask is there any software to
> >> analysis the known dictionary from Tintin books and generate new words.
> I
>
> I talked in my last message about how to analyze a conlang's corpus or
> lexicon. Once you've got your analysis done, there are a variety of
> tools available for generating new vocabulary; that's the easy part.
> See here:
>
> http://www.frathwiki.com/Software_tools_for_conlanging
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
> http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 4:18 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 01:05:45 +0300, Mustafa Umut Sarac
<mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Jim , I am hereby giving you a syldavian dictionary and asking your
>calibrated dictionary. There is more at www.zompist.com. Owner talks about
>the words origins are german and there is mixed slav ortography.
Essentially, it seems to me, you want to reverse-engineer the sound and
spelling changes and whatnot that are being used to convert known Germanic (and
Slavic, etc.) words into Syldavian.
There might, one day, be programs which are capable of this kind of thing, but
that day remains on the distant horizon. About the nearest work here I know of
is <http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/02/05/1204678110.abstract>, which
took advantage of data sets much ampler and better for the task to begin with:
many more languages, many more words, and (more crucially than either of
those!) the cognate sets were aligned in advance, so the program didn't have to
know anything about semantics. In fact, it didn't know anything about
phonology, either, and got by; a program running on the meager data set we have
here probably couldn't afford this. The paper cites earlier work which tried
to proceed more deterministically and small-scalewise, but these ran into
troubles as well.
My advice to you would be to attack this problem by human and not by computer!
Indeed, the lexicon you linked was compiled by Mark Rosenfelder, who has
already tried his hand at this and made up a few Syldavian words of his own:
for instance, this word _löwn_ "love" is 100% a Rosenfelder invention, with no
attestation in Hergé. Have you tried writing Mark and asking him, or posting
on his fora <http://www.incatena.org/>? He's a good guy, I imagine he'd be
glad to give you pointers.
Alex
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 5:03 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Mustafa Umut Sarac
<mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jim , I am hereby giving you a syldavian dictionary and asking your
> calibrated dictionary. There is more at www.zompist.com. Owner talks about
> the words origins are german and there is mixed slav ortography.
The method I talked about would work for an a priori conlang. But it
wouldn't give satisfactory results for an a posteriori conlang like
Syldavian. If you still want me to, I'll try to find time to hack up
a script to figure out what phoneme sequences occur and how frequent
they are, but I think Alex's suggestion is more useful: to match the
existing Syldavian material you'll need to borrow words from French,
German, and Slavic languages, and adapt them to the spirit of the
language, not randomly generate vocabulary based merely on statistical
properties of the Syldavian lexicon.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Syldavian - Any Artificial Intelligence for generate new words
Posted by: "Mustafa Umut Sarac" mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 5:42 pm ((PDT))
Jim and Alex,
Thank you very much for your all lessons. Let me answer your posts one by
one.
Alex, That pdf file and its extras are the most exciting and useful one I
have ever seen. I was silently thinking about proto turkish and modern
turkish dialects relation idea and I had been left it to future when I
visit turkish nations in asia and learning their dialects.
I had been found many dictionaries from these countries and I had no idea
about what to do. I researched that Monte Carlo, expectation maximization
and others on fractals but I totally left them to corner. Now I can do
something.
Jim , I am leaving Syldavian research and starting Prototurkish research.
Thank you all.
Umut
On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 3:02 AM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Mustafa Umut Sarac
> <mustafaumutsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Jim , I am hereby giving you a syldavian dictionary and asking your
> > calibrated dictionary. There is more at www.zompist.com. Owner talks
> about
> > the words origins are german and there is mixed slav ortography.
>
> The method I talked about would work for an a priori conlang. But it
> wouldn't give satisfactory results for an a posteriori conlang like
> Syldavian. If you still want me to, I'll try to find time to hack up
> a script to figure out what phoneme sequences occur and how frequent
> they are, but I think Alex's suggestion is more useful: to match the
> existing Syldavian material you'll need to borrow words from French,
> German, and Slavic languages, and adapt them to the spirit of the
> language, not randomly generate vocabulary based merely on statistical
> properties of the Syldavian lexicon.
>
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
> http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. conditioned vowel breaking
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 12:27 pm ((PDT))
In the latest version (Jun26), I'm using a scheme where stressed vowels in the
protolanguage are diphthongized according to the vowel in the next syllable,
e.g. "ku.pA > "kuA.pA (Diphthongs can also arise from suffixing). The
diphthongs are then reduced to simple vowels, with an on-glide in some cases.
There are a bunch of subsequent sound changes, such as deletion of unstressed
originally simple vowels in some circumstances. Suffixes already present in the
protolanguage may shift the stress prior to diphthongization.
Sample Resulting Verb Forms
Active - Passive
"ju.bu - li"bor
"tak' - te"kar
"gaS - ga"Sar
"dzi.mi - du"mjor
"fes - fa"Sor
"bjaSt' - biS"tar
"mjun - mi"nor
"kwetS - pu"tSar
I'm concerned that the diphthongization is unnatural and/or that the resulting
stem differences are too major.
Diphthong Changes
Ai > e
AE > a
Au > o
EA > a
Ei > e
Eu > o
iA > jo
iE > ja
iu > ju
uA > o
uE > we
ui > wi
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: conditioned vowel breaking
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 6:47 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013 15:27:50 -0400, neo gu <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
>In the latest version (Jun26), I'm using a scheme where stressed vowels in the
>protolanguage are diphthongized according to the vowel in the next syllable,
>e.g. "ku.pA > "kuA.pA (Diphthongs can also arise from suffixing). The
>diphthongs are then reduced to simple vowels, with an on-glide in some cases.
>There are a bunch of subsequent sound changes, such as deletion of unstressed
>originally simple vowels in some circumstances. Suffixes already present in
>the protolanguage may shift the stress prior to diphthongization.
>
>Sample Resulting Verb Forms
>
>Active - Passive
>"ju.bu - li"bor
>"tak' - te"kar
>"gaS - ga"Sar
>"dzi.mi - du"mjor
>"fes - fa"Sor
>"bjaSt' - biS"tar
>"mjun - mi"nor
>"kwetS - pu"tSar
What is final apostrophe? (Unreleased?)
>I'm concerned that the diphthongization is unnatural and/or that the resulting
>stem differences are too major.
The diphthongisation is probably fine, as long as there was no phonemic
palatalisation or labialisation or whatnot on consonants at that stage. A very
similar thing, e.g., happened in Northern Vanuatu (Alexandre François,
_Unraveling the History of the Vowels of Seventeen Northern Vanuatu
Languages_). Indeed, your balance between retention of final vowels and
reduction of the diphthong contrasts also strikes me as reasonable, i.e. so
that the resulting system isn't too lossy but also retains a sensible number of
minimal pairs.
It's interesting that final *iu survive but final *EA fall, since normally high
vowels are weaker. But I suppose this actually makes perfect sense if one
imagines old final *iu left the preceding consonants strongly palatalised /
labialised respectively in the diphthongisation process, and then one had
something like
CA CE Ci Cu >
CA CE C_ji C_wu >
C@ C@ C_j@ C_w@ >
C C Ci Cu.
... But, wait, that's not the whole story of the development, is it? In
particular the difference between /"jubu/ and /"mjun/ doesn't look explainable
on the grounds of vowels alone, so the consonants must have some role here...
As for the stem differences, well, if the change leading to them was realistic,
then a fortiori the outcome is realistic ... for a limited time. But I do
suspect that analogy would quickly start acting on these and smoothing out a
few things in the system.
At a guess, actives will be more frequent than passives for most verbs, so (in
such verbs) one's likely to begin to see remodelling of the passive to make it
more predictable from the active. The single pair which screams at me
strongestly for this treatment is the last one. If I'm right to think that the
active shows [kw] < earlier [pw], so that there would be lots of /"CwV/ ~ /Cu"/
verbs including even /"kwV/ ~ /ku"/ plus a couple weirdoes doing /"kwV/ ~
/pu"/, then I wouldn't expect that /p/ to hold out long, > /ku"tSar/. The
consonant alternations in lines 1 and 4 would probably (at a guess without
seeing the inventory) be less immediately susceptible to this: if /dz/ is
purely a secondary consonant then there's no "unmutated" pattern for it to fall
in with, so it's more interpretable; as for line 1 I suppose the prospective
development is passive /i"bor/, but how compelling this is depends on how
permitted V-initial verb stems are.
The vowel alternations I suspect would remain tolerated for a longer time,
partly because this seems to be the case crosslinguistically. But for
instance, in the first syllable, the patterns active /jV/ > passive /i/,
active /wV/ > passive /u/ seem to remain readable enough and so may survive
awhile, whereas any active nonhigh vowel can turn into either passive /a/ or
/e/ and so that's likely to start re-sorting first. In the appended syllable,
again, the patterns active /i/ > passive /jor/, active /u/ > passive /or/ are
readable, whereas when the active is closed by a consonant predicting is harder
again, and so etc.
Of course, if there are other forms in the paradigm with yet different
alternants that suggest different modes of simplification, all my predictions
above may be nonsense.
Alex
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: adposition cases
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 1, 2013 12:36 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 14:22:30 +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
<tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 10 June 2013 03:29, neo gu <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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?).
>
>Basque is a typical example of what you're looking for.
Thanks. I should have remembered about Basque -- but having those examples
handy is good too.
>In Basque, there is a series of nouns (with the exception of _kontra_:
>"against", a loanword that may be the only true postposition in the
>language) that is used where English would use prepositions. They are nouns
>like _aurre_: "frontside", _atze_: "backside" or _arte_: "gap, interval",
>that usually indicate locations. Give them a complement (in the genitive
>case) and a locative case ending, and they turn into postpositions:
>_etxe zuriaren aurrean_: "in front of the white house"
>_eliza handiaren atzean_: "behind the big church"
>_tenplearen eta aldarearen artean_: "between the temple and the altar"
>(examples stolen from _Standard Basque: a Progressive Grammar_)
>
>Unlike normal nouns, in some conditions (basically, when it is inanimate
>and isn't completed by an adjective) the governed noun doesn't need to be
>in the genitive case but can appear without ending, which makes these nouns
>look even more postposition-like:
>_etxe aurrean_: "in front of the house" (the alternative with the genitive
>case _etxearen aurrean_ is still valid, just less common)
>Those constructions are in fact usually analysed as compounds (and indeed
>are pronounced as such in the spoken language), but written with a space.
>
>And while so far I've only used those location nouns with the inessive
>case, they can be used with any locative case:
>_mendi atzean_: "behind the mountain" (inessive -an)
>_mendi atzetik_: "from behind the mountain" (elative -tik)
>_mendi atzera_: "(to) behind the mountain" (allative -ra)
>_mendi atzeraino_: "all the way to behind the mountain" (terminal -raino)
>_mendi atzerantz_: "towards behind the mountain" (tendential -rantz)
>
>While those are kind of like what you're looking for, they are still
>nominal in nature (_etxe zuriaren aurrea_: "the front of the white house"
>is a perfectly normal expression and used as such). But as I mentioned
>above, Basque also has the loanword _kontra_: "against". It's *not* a noun,
>and is never used as such. Instead, it's used strictly as a postposition
>(governing the genitive case or uninflected nouns like other location
>nouns) that has both the oppositional and the spatial sense of its English
>translation:
>_hotzaren kontra_: "against the cold"
>_hormaren kontra_: "against the wall"
>Interestingly though, when used with a spatial meaning, _kontra_ *can* take
>locative case endings, making it exactly what you were looking for: a true
>adposition (rather than a noun used as one) that takes spatial cases rather
>than the noun it governs:
>_hormaren kontran_: "against the wall" (inessive, rather uncommon)
>_hormaren kontrara_: "(to) against the wall" (allative)
>_mendi kontratik_: "from against the mountain" (elative, an example I
>actually found in the wild on the Internet :) )
>--
>Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (15)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com
conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
