There are 12 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: BPJ
1.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: H. S. Teoh
1.3. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Roger Mills
1.4. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Alex Fink
1.5. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: H. S. Teoh
1.6. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: And Rosta
1.7. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Padraic Brown
1.8. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1.9. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Michael Everson
1.10. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Jyri Lehtinen
2a. Re: Mood and author opinion
From: Leonardo Castro
2b. Re: Mood and author opinion
From: George Corley
Messages
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1.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 1:54 pm ((PDT))
2013-07-03 21:38, H. S. Teoh skrev:
> On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 01:53:41PM -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
>> On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 20:17:52 -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, is there something similar to the Great Vowel Shift and this
>>> short-monophthong-long-diphthong association in any other languages?
>>
>> A similar thing to the Great Vowel Shift has happened in many Germanic
>> languages that by some kind of coincidence happened to have similar
>> vowel changes at around the same time (late Middle Ages).
> [...]
>
> Is there something about Germanic languages at the time that would make
> them more prone to vowel shifts? A gap in the vowel system leading to a
> chain shift, perhaps? I'm curious why that would be common then, but
> less common now (or is it still just as common, we just don't notice
> it?).
Most Swedish speakers pronounce long vowels as centering
diphthongs either everywhere or only in closed syllables, but
most people of either group don't notice it at all, nor perceive
any difference between their own pronunciation and the other
group's, which is funny as people are usually very sensitive to
the quality of the stressed part of those vowels. The really
funny thing is that although I do hear the diphthongization due
to phonetics training tend to hear /iː/ as [iːe]ˌ /eː/ as [eːɛ]
and /ɛː/ as [ɛːe] in spite of the fact that I can plainly see on
spectrograms of my own and others' pronunciation that the nucleus
is short and the offglide is [ə] in all of them!
/bpj
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 1:59 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 03:41:20PM -0500, Aodhán Aannestad wrote:
> On 7/3/2013 2:49 PM, Amanda Babcock Furrow wrote:
> >On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 12:38:59PM -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >
> >>Is there something about Germanic languages at the time that would
> >>make them more prone to vowel shifts? A gap in the vowel system
> >>leading to a chain shift, perhaps? I'm curious why that would be
> >>common then, but less common now (or is it still just as common, we
> >>just don't notice it?).
> >There are still vowel shifts going on today - one operating in the
> >northern American region is the Northern Cities Vowel Shift
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cities_vowel_shift .
> >
> >tylakèhlpë'fö,
> >Amanda
> >
> I wonder if English might have locked itself into a chain shift
> cycle, where each rotation overcorrects for the last rotation's
> overcorrection. Most dialects only seem to be on step 2 of the
> cycle, though (the Great Vowel Shift being step 1, and a lot of
> dialects have innovated their own disparate chain shifts), so it
> remains to be seen.
Hmm. Would the following hypothetical system be possible?
Say we have conlang X, with vowels [i], [æ], [A], [o], [M], [u], [@].
Then the gap in [e] causes a chain shift:
[i] -> [e]
[M] -> [i]
[u] -> [M]
[o] -> [u]
[A] -> [o]
[æ] -> [A]
But since this now leaves a gap in [æ], in the *following* generation,
we have:
[e] -> [æ]
which leaves a gap in [e] again, so the previous chain shift happens
again, in a cyclical way. The [@] sort acts as a "repellent" to push the
other vowels to the extremities (by preventing them from centralizing
and breaking the cycle), and so keeps the chain shift cycle going.
So each vowel (other than [@]) would rotate anticlockwise around the
vowel chart, and every 6 generations, they will reset back to the
original pronunciation, except that by then, nobody would remember
that's what the original values were. A perpetual chain shift?? :-P
T
--
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and
those who can't.
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.3. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 2:11 pm ((PDT))
From: BPJ <b...@melroch.se>
AFAIK its [ɪʊ] anymore only in parts of/for some speakers in Wales,
otherwise it's /ju/ and behaves as consonant initial.
===========================================
And as far as I can determine, [ju] is seen almost exclusively in words of ult.
French origin with "u" i.e. [y] though who knows how it was pronounced in the
middle ages..........?
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.4. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 2:33 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 12:38:59 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 01:53:41PM -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
>> A similar thing to the Great Vowel Shift has happened in many Germanic
>> languages that by some kind of coincidence happened to have similar
>> vowel changes at around the same time (late Middle Ages).
>
>Is there something about Germanic languages at the time that would make
>them more prone to vowel shifts? A gap in the vowel system leading to a
>chain shift, perhaps? I'm curious why that would be common then, but
>less common now (or is it still just as common, we just don't notice
>it?).
Well, it's possible that the seeds of the change were sown earlier, i.e. that
already late West Germanic began to have slightly rising realisations of its
high vowels or something. But what I'd assume to be the most important effect
would be geographic proximity and language contact effects. In neither case,
anyway, would it be a "coincidence" at all. (Proviso: I'm guessing; lots of
people round here know way more about the minutiae of Germanic than I do.)
Certainly someone on the list (Benct maybe? or John Vertical?) has spoken
within the last few years about another vowel breaking which seemed to take
effect areally in Northern Europe at least in the swath from Finnic and Baltic
to continental West Germanic, early in the second millennium IIRC, namely [e:
o: (2:)] > [ie uo (y2)].
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 13:58:17 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>Hmm. Would the following hypothetical system be possible?
>
>Say we have conlang X, with vowels [i], [e], [A], [o], [M], [u], [@].
>Then the gap in [e] causes a chain shift:
>
>[i] -> [e]
>[M] -> [i]
>[u] -> [M]
>[o] -> [u]
>[A] -> [o]
>[e] -> [A]
>
>But since this now leaves a gap in [&], in the *following* generation,
>we have:
>
>[e] -> [&]
>
>which leaves a gap in [e] again, so the previous chain shift happens
>again, in a cyclical way. The [@] sort acts as a "repellent" to push the
>other vowels to the extremities (by preventing them from centralizing
>and breaking the cycle), and so keeps the chain shift cycle going.
Possible I won't rule out, but IME that wouldn't be a likely kind of cyclic
chain shift. The fishiest step is [i] > [e]; I can't actually think of a
language with a front-back symmetric system in which [i] but not [u] has
lowered. Among unconditioned shifts of (strong) vowels, the usual tendencies
seem to be that peripheral vowels like to rise, and to a lesser degree that
central ones like to fall. So I'd imagine using, as it were, two convection
cells rather than one: for instance, in closest imitation to English,
[&: Q:] > [e: o:]
[e: o:] > [i: u:]
[i: u:] > [ei ou] > [&i Au] > [&: Q:]
and by the time the monophthongisations in the last row are done, you're ready
for another cycle. Or, if you really want one six-cycle rather than two
three-cycles, throw in a twist and instead use e.g.
[i: u:] > [@i @u] > [ai au] > [Ai &u] > [A: &:]
And I'd guess that your timing of one revolution per *generation* is a little
too brisk, as well...
Alex
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.5. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 2:57 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 05:33:16PM -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 12:38:59 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 01:53:41PM -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
> >> A similar thing to the Great Vowel Shift has happened in many
> >> Germanic languages that by some kind of coincidence happened to
> >> have similar vowel changes at around the same time (late Middle
> >> Ages).
> >
> >Is there something about Germanic languages at the time that would
> >make them more prone to vowel shifts? A gap in the vowel system
> >leading to a chain shift, perhaps? I'm curious why that would be
> >common then, but less common now (or is it still just as common, we
> >just don't notice it?).
>
> Well, it's possible that the seeds of the change were sown earlier,
> i.e. that already late West Germanic began to have slightly rising
> realisations of its high vowels or something. But what I'd assume to
> be the most important effect would be geographic proximity and
> language contact effects. In neither case, anyway, would it be a
> "coincidence" at all. (Proviso: I'm guessing; lots of people round
> here know way more about the minutiae of Germanic than I do.)
>
> Certainly someone on the list (Benct maybe? or John Vertical?) has
> spoken within the last few years about another vowel breaking which
> seemed to take effect areally in Northern Europe at least in the swath
> from Finnic and Baltic to continental West Germanic, early in the
> second millennium IIRC, namely [e: o: (2:)] > [ie uo (y2)].
Interesting.
Now I'm starting to think about Tatari Faran vowel shifts... :-P
> On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 13:58:17 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> >Hmm. Would the following hypothetical system be possible?
> >
> >Say we have conlang X, with vowels [i], [e], [A], [o], [M], [u], [@].
> >Then the gap in [e] causes a chain shift:
> >
> >[i] -> [e]
> >[M] -> [i]
> >[u] -> [M]
> >[o] -> [u]
> >[A] -> [o]
> >[e] -> [A]
> >
> >But since this now leaves a gap in [&], in the *following*
> >generation, we have:
> >
> >[e] -> [&]
> >
> >which leaves a gap in [e] again, so the previous chain shift happens
> >again, in a cyclical way. The [@] sort acts as a "repellent" to push
> >the other vowels to the extremities (by preventing them from
> >centralizing and breaking the cycle), and so keeps the chain shift
> >cycle going.
>
> Possible I won't rule out, but IME that wouldn't be a likely kind of
> cyclic chain shift. The fishiest step is [i] > [e]; I can't actually
> think of a language with a front-back symmetric system in which [i]
> but not [u] has lowered.
You're right, [i] > [e] is a bit of a stretch. I was actually thinking
that [e] > [i] is far more likely (or at least, [e:] > [ej] > [i]), but
I have a hard time finding a path for [i] > [u].
> Among unconditioned shifts of (strong) vowels, the usual tendencies
> seem to be that peripheral vowels like to rise, and to a lesser degree
> that central ones like to fall. So I'd imagine using, as it were, two
> convection cells rather than one: for instance, in closest imitation
> to English,
>
> [&: Q:] > [e: o:]
> [e: o:] > [i: u:]
> [i: u:] > [ei ou] > [&i Au] > [&: Q:]
> and by the time the monophthongisations in the last row are done,
> you're ready for another cycle.
I like this, it sounds a lot more plausible. :)
Though the term "convection cells" makes me think about boiling vowels
in a pot. :-P Which makes one ask what's cooking -- maybe consonants are
being "cooked" in various ways while the chain shift is happening.
> Or, if you really want one six-cycle rather than two three-cycles,
> throw in a twist and instead use e.g.
> [i: u:] > [@i @u] > [ai au] > [Ai &u] > [A: &:]
Ooh, a Möbius-strip chain shift! I like!
> And I'd guess that your timing of one revolution per *generation* is a
> little too brisk, as well...
[...]
Well, "generation" was the wrong word. I meant it as in a single step in
the cycle, not as in a generation of native speakers. :) That *would* be
way too fast. Your grandkids' vowel values would be diametrically
opposite your own, a rather unlikely situation, one might say.
Given the distance covered in terms of difference between vowel values,
I'd say for a single vowel to come full-circle would probably be at
least 2000 years or so, probably longer. By then, the language would've
changed so much I wonder if the cyclic vowel system would even survive
much further past a single full cycle.
T
--
Give me some fresh salted fish, please.
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.6. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 3:19 pm ((PDT))
George Corley, On 03/07/2013 14:29:
> On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 7:02 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> In some old e-mail conversations with Justin B. Rye, I could get some
>> details of what he imagined for an English spelling reform.
>> Apparently, most English words *look* as if they ended in consonant,
>> because all long vowels would get a final <y>, <w> or <h> :
>>
>> be -> biy
>> shampoo -> shampuw
>> law -> loh
>> Ra -> Rah
>>
>
> Keep in mind that "law" varies a lot by dialect, and to me "loh" doesn't in
> any way suggest the correct pronunciation.
It's the classic Trager/Bloch/Smith phonemic analysis, motivated by
phonological arguments rather than being merely an impressionistic method of
suggesting the correct pronunciation. I agree with the general thrust of that
analysis, but for those American dialects that have a phonologically
unpredictable distribution of COT/LOT and CAUGHT/THOUGHT in environments only
inherently-checked vowels can occupy, I'd say that CAUGHT/THOUGHT is an
inherently-checked phoneme /6/ [that is a six, not CXS], in which case _law_
could be /l6h/ and Ra /roh/. For my own (phonologically fundamentally
Australian) dialect, /loh/ is perfect for _law_ (with the added proviso that in
nonrhotic dialects, /h/ and /r/ are essentially the same phoneme).
--And.
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.7. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 6:42 pm ((PDT))
> From: Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
>>> In some old e-mail conversations with Justin B. Rye, I could get some
>>> details of what he imagined for an English spelling reform.
>>> Apparently, most English words *look* as if they ended in consonant,
>>> because all long vowels would get a final <y>, <w> or <h> :
>>>
>>> be -> biy
>>> shampoo -> shampuw
>>> law -> loh
>>> Ra -> Rah
For me, at least, schemes like this render the language all but unreadable. One
thing I think such "reformers" don't take into account is that I don't think we
read letter by letter so much as by overall word and phrase shape. In other
words, "caught" is a shape; "laugh" is a shape. And it's the shape of the word
that we read more than the letters contained in the word, which, in all honesty,
have very little to do with what is actually pronounced. So the reformers are
all gung-ho to solve a real problem -- but the problem they want to solve is
an irrelevant one! "kot" and "laef" end up being stumbling blocks rather than
helps to quick reading and sure understanding.
(Sorry, just had to rant about the inanity of English spelling "reform"!)
>> Keep in mind that "law" varies a lot by dialect, and to me "loh" doesn't in
>> any way suggest the correct pronunciation.
Nor me. Some of the weirder ones hardly involve an A or a W so much as Os
and Rs...
> If i understand anglophone perception, you perceive "loh" as [low] ,
I read it as /lo:/. Or, I suppose, the obvious /lo:h/. ;))
> but "oh" would represent [ɔː] in his scheme. I remember that we talked
> about the coincidence that the interjection "Oh!" is pronounced as
> [ɔː] in pt-BR, so, to me, it was completely natural to have "oh" as
> [ɔ]
Interesting. I think that's closer (at least in sound) to our "ah!".
Padraic
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.8. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Jul 3, 2013 11:24 pm ((PDT))
On 3 July 2013 19:53, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_w...@shared-files.de> wrote:
>
> Middle Dutch [ti:d] --> Modern Dutch [tɛid] ⟨tijd⟩ Middle English [ti:m]
> -->
> Modern English [taim] ⟨time⟩ Middle High German [tsi:t] --> Modern High
> German [tsait] ⟨Zeit⟩
>
>
Yep. It also explains the strange _ij_ letter for /ei/: it used to be
written _ii_, but the second _i_ was lengthened in order not to confuse the
digraph with _ü_, until it becomes undistinguishable from _j_.
> I think English is the only of these languages where the original pairs of
> long and short vowels are still perceived to be pairs of long and short
> vowels.
>
>
Correct. Dutch people don't feel any special connection between _i_ and
_ij_, especially since Dutch has kept an actual long-short distinction
(well, phonemically more like tense-lax, but the tense versions are often
phonetically longer than the lax ones) among vowels, one that is actually
marked in the orthography (as in _poot_ [po(ː)t]: "leg, paw, hoof" vs.
_pot_ [pɔt]: "pot, jar"). In that case, the connection is between _ie_
/i(ː)/ and _i_ /ɪ/. The only connection they feel is between _ij_ and _ei_,
which both mark the same diphthong (indeed, it's one of issues of Dutch
orthography to know which one to use in which word). Those two are even
called similarly: _ij_ is called "lange /ei/" (long /ei/), while _ei_ is
called "korte /ei/" (short /ei/).
The only place where the origin of _ij_ as a mark for /iː/ is still apparent
is in the word _bijzonder_: "special", which exceptionally is still
pronounced with /i/ rather than /ei/: /biˈzɔndər/ rather than */beiˈzonder/.
> As for Dutch, I do not know for sure, but I guess that "ij" is not
> perceived
> to be a "long i", but an independent letter. Or is it? I wonder.
>
>
It is indeed an independent letter. It's actually a true letter, by the
way, not a digraph (although it's often typed as such as it's not easily
reached in normal keyboards), and it shares the 25th place in the alphabet
with _y_ (and in handwriting, is often written in a way that looks like
_ÿ_). That's why it's always capitalised as _IJ_ rather than _Ij_. Notice,
by the way, that in Dutch the letter _ij_ actually contrasts with the
digraph _ij_: while _bijenkorf_ (beehive) is written with the letter _ij_,
_bijectie_ (bijection) is written with the digraph _ij_. This shows up in
both pronunciation ([ˈbɛɪənkɔrf] vs. [biˈjɛktsi]) and hyphenation
(_bij-en-korf_ vs _bi-jec-tie_).
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.9. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Thu Jul 4, 2013 3:45 am ((PDT))
On 3 Jul 2013, at 22:56, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> Well, "generation" was the wrong word. I meant it as in a single step in the
> cycle, not as in a generation of native speakers. :) That *would* be
> way too fast. Your grandkids' vowel values would be diametrically opposite
> your own, a rather unlikely situation, one might say.
That's what happened during the Great Vowel Shift. A man might not be able to
understand his own grandfather.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.10. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" lehtinen.j...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jul 4, 2013 6:46 am ((PDT))
2013/7/4 Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com>
> Certainly someone on the list (Benct maybe? or John Vertical?) has spoken
> within the last few years about another vowel breaking which seemed to take
> effect areally in Northern Europe at least in the swath from Finnic and
> Baltic to continental West Germanic, early in the second millennium IIRC,
> namely [e: o: (2:)] > [ie uo (y2)].
>
That would be interesting to read, especially how the Baltic /ie/ and /uo/
come to the picture. I'll have to do some digging on that.
Already in the Finnic and Saamic area the diphthongisation of long vowels
is a complicated matter. There is a common Saamic breaking of */o: ɔ: e:
ɜ:/ into /uo oa ie ea/ which has to be dated back to the Proto Saamic
period. In Finnic the diphthongisation is less universal and only appears
in part of the family. It's thus not possible to push the Finnic vowel
breaking back into Proto Finnic. The northern Finnic diphthongisation /e:
o: ø:/ > /ie uo yø/ found in Finnish, Karelian and Ludian is often
explained as a contact feature originating from Saamic. Support to this
might be seen from the fact that in Karelian and eastern Finnish dialects,
which being spoken furthest to the inland have had the most contact and
coexistence with Saamic varieties during their history, have further
diphthongisation of long low vowels /a: æ:/ > /oa eæ/ ~ /ua iæ/. They have
also dialectally diphthongisation of secondary long vowels arising from
dropped intervocalic consonants (*kasteγen > kastien, "dew-GEN", cf.
standard Fi kasteen) indicating that the vowel breaking process either
started there later or continued the longest.
The fact that there's diphthongisation also in certain Estonian dialects as
well as in Livonian cannot be explained realistically by any Saamic
substratum no matter how hard you try. Certainly the same holds even more
firmly with whatever is going on in the adjoining Indo European areas. It's
still possible that the whole thing can be explained as a unified areal
feature, but the explanation has to deal with some complicated spreading
patterns as well as assume realistic relative epochs for the various proto
languages.
-Jyri
Messages in this topic (28)
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2a. Re: Mood and author opinion
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jul 4, 2013 5:47 am ((PDT))
2013/7/3 Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>:
>
>> On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 09:11:18 -0300, Leonardo Castro
>> <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's very succinct, so it looks like a "conjugation" associated with the
>> the person being deictically referred to by the first person singular.
>> But "afirma-se que" (it's affirmed that) and "nega-se
>> que" (it's denied that) have the additional idea of "but I don't guarantee
>> what
>> is being told", while using "sim" (yes) and "não" (not)
>> gives us the idea of undoubtful information, although we know that we are
>> simply
>> trusting the person who says that.
>
>
> Right. I don't see any "conjugation" here that specifically refers to the
> speaker.
It occurs to me that if there was a "narrator pronoun" in some
language, it could unify "not" and "deny", "yes" and "affirm", "may"
and "guess", but it would sound very unnatural or philosophically
sophisticated.
Isn't "narrator" a better word than "speaker" for the person we're
talking about?
2013/7/3 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 10:10:07AM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> [...]
>> Ordinarily, the "speaker" is, well, the one "speaking"! In this
>> present paragraph, *I* am the speaker. In the paragraph I'm responding
>> to, *you* are the speaker. In the paragraph you were responding to,
>> *Alex* is the speaker. Things only gets a little wonkier in fiction:
>> the author is always the underlying speaker, because the words and
>> their context are his. (Unless it's a direct quote belonging to
>> someone else, in which case *that* is the speaker and the author is
>> merely quoting.) Above the level of author, the character to whom the
>> author has given words to say is the in-story speaker.
>>
>> "The speaker" isn't always the first person, though. Even a story told
>> in the first person might still record speech of other people. Those
>> other people would still be the speakers of their own words. Of
>> course, any story narrated in second person has *you* as the speaker,
>> even though you never had anything to do with the actual writing of
>> the story.
>
> This reminds me of a funny anecdote... when I was back in 13th grade
> (back in those days when Ontario had such a thing), my English teacher
> once stated in class that while a story could be written in the 3rd
> person or the 1st person, it was impossible to write a story in the 2nd
> person.
That's how choose-the-ending kids books are written. Take a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure
Messages in this topic (13)
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2b. Re: Mood and author opinion
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jul 4, 2013 7:59 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 7:47 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote:
> 2013/7/3 Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>:
> >
> >> On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 09:11:18 -0300, Leonardo Castro
> >> <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> It's very succinct, so it looks like a "conjugation" associated with the
> >> the person being deictically referred to by the first person singular.
> >> But "afirma-se que" (it's affirmed that) and "nega-se
> >> que" (it's denied that) have the additional idea of "but I don't
> guarantee what
> >> is being told", while using "sim" (yes) and "não" (not)
> >> gives us the idea of undoubtful information, although we know that we
> are simply
> >> trusting the person who says that.
> >
> >
> > Right. I don't see any "conjugation" here that specifically refers to
> the speaker.
>
> It occurs to me that if there was a "narrator pronoun" in some
> language, it could unify "not" and "deny", "yes" and "affirm", "may"
> and "guess", but it would sound very unnatural or philosophically
> sophisticated.
>
I don't fully understand how a "narrator pronoun" would be any different in
use than a normal first person pronoun.
> Isn't "narrator" a better word than "speaker" for the person we're
> talking about?
>
As I said upthread, it's just a convention. It's possible that it's not
inclusive enough (sign language "speakers" don't actually speak, for
instance), or has other issues, but it's what people tend to use.
> 2013/7/3 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> >
> > This reminds me of a funny anecdote... when I was back in 13th grade
> > (back in those days when Ontario had such a thing), my English teacher
> > once stated in class that while a story could be written in the 3rd
> > person or the 1st person, it was impossible to write a story in the 2nd
> > person.
>
> That's how choose-the-ending kids books are written. Take a look:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure
>
Yeah, Choose Your Own Adventure books are the only genre I know that
regularly uses second person narration. When other genres use it, it's
usually as a gimmick in some small section.
Messages in this topic (13)
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