There are 6 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: H. S. Teoh
2.1. Re: Rolling your R's
From: H. S. Teoh
2.2. Re: Rolling your R's
From: Leonardo Castro
2.3. Re: Rolling your R's
From: Roger Mills
3. Jul17 inflections
From: neo gu
Messages
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1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:07 am ((PDT))
> From: H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
>
>> > The way I perceive it, it's sorta like the equivalent of the English
>> > "Come what may, I'm still going to do this". It's as though the
>> > speaker issuing a challenge -- I'm going to do X, let all those who
>> > oppose me come try to stop me, 'cos I'm gonna do it anyway! It's a
>> > kind of disregard for the consequences of one's actions.
>
>> >> This reminds me of this: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it
>> >> again in three days."
>> >
>> > Yes, this is the kind of construction I'm thinking of. What's the term
>> > for it?
>>
>> Not exactly the same thing! This example is a straight "if you do X, I
>> will make Y will happen". And that is the way it happens. You seem to
>> be heading more for the "if you do X, even though I know I don't have
>> a snowball's chance on a warm day in Hell, I'm going to go ahead with
>> doing Y"!
>
> Well, that's just one end of the spectrum. :)
Sure!
> With such a commonplace structure (indicative+imperative) it would be
> surprising if it's only used when someone is hell-bent on doing X. The rest
> of the spectrum does include milder expressions like "let's go out and talk
> to him, even if he will start yelling at us".
Indeed.
>> >> Maybe an emphatic adversative conjunctive adjunct.
>> >
>> > Whoa. That's quite a mouthful. Mind unpacking that a bit for me? :)
>>
>> Careful! These kinds of boxes can explode all over the place, spewing
>> their contents to every corner of the room. Ever try to pry adjunct
>> goo off the wallpaper? :/ Not fun!
>
> I don't mind exploding boxes.
Alright, but you've been warned! Don't come complaining back to me
when you get a 5000 quatloo bill for goo scrapage and shrapnel removal.
Or when the Society magistrates come around with their little yellow notice
saying that this region is simply not zoned for highly explosive languages! :P
> My conlangs tend to explode boxes every
> now and then. They just refuse to be boxed in by well-known,
> nicely-behaved linguistic boxes, no matter how hard I try. Tatari Faran
> refuses to behave like any language with "normal" case systems; then
> when I started on the alien conlang, I actually started using normal
> cases like nominatives, datives, ablatives, and patientives (which, so
> far, behave essentially like accusatives), only to have the *rest* of
> the language explode in my face by refusing to attest any verbs, and
> refusing to have standalone pronouns.
>
> I'm still holding out hope for "real" verbs in the alien conlang, though
> the weight of evidence seems to be pointing the other way right now.
> I've given up hope on the pronouns, though.
Hm. In all honesty, I think you're just going to have to give up all pretense of
your actually constructing this language. Clearly, it exceeded critical mass
within
moments of reaching the tolkien constant, and now, my friend, you're just
hanging on for the wild ride! Such languages tend to go their own way and
resist all attempts on the part of the conlanger to be tamed, housebroken or
otherwise wrangled into any shape the conlanger desires. These maverick
conlangs, as they call them, have wills and agendas of their own. Sorry, but
I'm afraid you are quite stuck with it now!
> They only exist as
> possessives, and what should normally be unmarked pronouns are actually
> possessives of various body parts -- "my body" instead of
> "I", "my hands
> handle" instead of "I handle", "my feet walk" instead
> of "I walk", "your
> tongue speaks to my ear" instead of "you speak to me", etc..
> These
> conlang things have a life of their own, and simply refuse to be tamed!
Indeed!
By the way, my-mind likes the way the pronoun-conjuncts turned out.
> (Well, actually, it's even worse than "your tongue speaks to my
> ear" and
> "my feet walk"; it's actually "your-tongueing my-ear"
> and "my-feet-ing".
Ones-mind-boggling.
> A verbalising suffix is tacked onto the noun+possessive, and that turns
> it into a kind of pseudo-verb. I say pseudo-verb because if you then
> stick in a nominative NP, the "pseudo-verb" turns into an instrumental
> NP!
>
> voluŋtekmi aiherltu.
> voluŋ-tek-mi aiherl-tu.
> spaceship-2SG.POSS-??? distant_skies-DAT
> You fly by spaceship to the distant skies.
> [Lit. Your-spaceshipping to the distant skies]
>
> voluŋtekmi gruŋgen aiherltu.
> voluŋ-tek-mi gruŋ-en-0 aiherl-tu.
> spaceship-2SG.POSS-??? hands-1SG.POSS-NOM distant_skies-DAT
> I fly your spaceship to the distant skies.
> [Lit. ??! I don't even know how to transliterate this one.
> By-your-spaceshipping my-hands to the distant skies?!]
>
> I glossed -mi as ??? because sometimes it acts like a verbalizer, and
> sometimes like an instrumental case marker. Crazy things.)
Just call it a "relational particle"! Magic words, them. They describe anything
and nothing at all, and have the added benefit of at least feigning actual
linguisticitude!
Padraic
> T
Messages in this topic (10)
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1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 11:35 am ((PDT))
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 04:47:38PM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
> 2013/7/19 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
> > On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:34:09AM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
[...]
> > > Russian seems to have a similar category usually referred to as
> > > the "unsuccessful conative" where a verb in the imperfect is
> > > contrasted with the same verb in a negated perfect form:
> > > V.IMPERFECT but not V.PERFECT 'I tried to V but in the end I
> > > didn't V'. This contrast highlights the counterfactual modality of
> > > the imperfect, which chimes with your choice of an imperative
> > > morphology since the imperative also has a counterfactual feel to
> > > it.
> >
> > Interesting. So you're saying it's like V.IMPERFECT is in the
> > process of being accomplished, but ultimately stopped short, hence
> > "didn't V.PERFECT"?
> >
>
> Yes, that's the idea; although I should warn you that appearently, the
> use of 'but not' is essential here and the intended meaning wouldn't
> come across without it. Mind you, I don't speak Russian, so I don't
> know first-hand if this is really happening, but Tania Kuteva comes
> from Bulgaria so I assume that she - as a linguist from a
> Slavic-speaking area - also has some understanding of Russian. Oh, and
> in the seminar where we discussed the topics for our exams there was a
> girl who does speak Russian and who confirmed that this kind of
> construction can be used. I'd say you can be pretty sure of it (I seem
> to remember that you've learnt Russian?).
I've been learning (imperf) Russian, but I can't really say I've learnt
(perf) it. ;-) I still feel like a beginner even after 7 years. Granted,
I was learning on my own free time, so the actual amount of time I spent
learning Russian during these past 7 years may be significantly less
than it would appear at first.
> The example Kuteva gives in the manuscript is the following:
>
> On ubeždal menja, no ne ubedil.
> He convince.IMPERFECTIVE.PAST me, but not convince.PERFECTIVE.PAST
> 'He tried to convince me, but he couldn't.'*
Nice. I can see the meaning here, though only after the fact... as I
said, my mastery of Russian is still rather rudimentary.
[...]
> > The way I perceive it, it's sorta like the equivalent of the English
> > "Come what may, I'm still going to do this". It's as though the
> > speaker issuing a challenge -- I'm going to do X, let all those who
> > oppose me come try to stop me, 'cos I'm gonna do it anyway! It's a
> > kind of disregard for the consequences of one's actions.
> >
>
> Yes, and the inconsequential category definitely includes meanings
> such as this one; I analysed and translated example sentences similar
> to yours in my exam so I don't have a doubt that your last sentences
> and the earlier ones are related semantically. Still, I think there is
> a small difference. The prototypical inconsequential works like this:
> something happens (action 1) - it usually has certain consequences
> (expected result) - in this specific case, the result doesn't occur or
> at least has no influence on the agent's actions (action 2). In your
> last examples, the timeline looks like it's been switched around: the
> agent acts in a particular manner (corresponds to action 2!) even
> though something bad may happen (action 1) which is expected to
> prevent the agent (expected result) - looks like putting the cart
> before the horse! But it's actually quite easy to fit the examples
> into the concept of the inconsequential because in fact, what we
> should label "action 1" is not the bad things that will happen, but
> the thought of them happening, the premonition. So the timeline should
> be: the agent thinks of the possibility of bad things happening to him
> (action 1) - this thought should prevent him from acting in a certain
> way (expected result) - the agent acts that way anyway (action 2).
Hmm. I wonder if it helps to construct more elaborate contexts in which
such constructions might used in my conlang, to help tease out the exact
meaning:
1) A king is sitting in his court, and is about to send out an envoy to
a nearby diplomatic ally in order to establish important trade
relations, when his attendants bring news that their mortal enemies, the
Ahripf tribe, are on the move, and are likely to cross the path of the
envoy. The king thinks for a while, then says: "We will send the envoy
(indicative); let the enemy cross our path (imperative/hortative)!" That
is, he decides that it would serve his goals whether the envoy manages
to evade the enemy and establish contact with the ally, or gets attacked
and thereby gives him an excuse to retaliate against the enemy.
2) A young explorer is about to set off on his spaceship to an unknown,
uncharted region of space, and his mother tells him to be careful, since
there have been rumors of monstrous 2-eyed beings inhabiting that space
who have violent inclinations. He answers, "I will still fly out there
(indicative), let dangers and 2-eyed monstrosities come (imperative)!"
That is, dangers and threats do not concern him as much as his desire to
explore the unknown.
3) A prisoner-of-war is about to be executed at the gallows. He is given
a final chance to defect to his captors' cause. But he is unshaken, and
says, "I stand for my country's cause (indicative), beat me and execute
me (imperative)!" That is, he refuses to betray his cause, even if his
captors will beat him and execute him.
4) A child is sitting at the dinner table, and is told to eat up his
vegetables otherwise he will get no candy. He says, "I won't eat them
(indicative); take the candy away (imperative)!" That is, he'd rather
not eat the vegetables even if that means he has to give up the candy.
His brother, on the other hand, says, "I want the candy (indicative),
let me eat the vegetables (imperative)!" -- that is, he wants to get the
candy, even if it means he has to eat those yucky vegetables.
[...]
> > That was helpful, thanks! I'm not sure if it's exactly an
> > inconsequential, but at least it helps me think about it in a
> > clearer way. :)
> >
>
> Great, that's all I could hope for! I would offer to send you Tania
> Kuteva's manuscript, but I'm not sure she'd be okay with it since it
> is probably copyrighted material. Would you like me to ask her?
[...]
I think the discussion on this mailing list should suffice, for now. :)
T
--
What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Messages in this topic (10)
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2.1. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 10:59 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 07:00:08PM -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
[...]
> RM Dravidian languages have 3 POAs for /t d r/ and maybe /l/ --
> dental, alveolar, retroflexed. I've heard them demonstrated by native
> speakers, and the retroflexed /r/ sounds like a stop. My tin ear.....
Whoa! So you're saying that they have 9 phonemes just from /t d r/
alone? That's pretty impressive... and here I thought my alien conlang's
[r]/[R\_0] contrast was "special". Anadewism. :)
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 04:12:36PM +0000, Beinhoff, Bettina wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> >How many different kinds of trills are there? AFAIK, there are:
> >
> >- Bilabial [B\]
> >- Apical:
> > - Alveolar [r]
> > - Retroflex (?)
> >- Uvular [R\]
>
> One of my PhD students recently introduced me to the Slovenian dental
> trill which is apparently also used in Hungarian. Now how about a
> conlang with 5 phonemic trills (or 6 for those who count the
> 'raspberry' one)? Including voiced-voiceless pairs could give enough
> consonants for a complete sound inventory.
[...]
So you're saying that we can have a conlang in which there are only
trilling consonants? That would be t(h)rilling! ;-)
On a more realistic note, since there would be 12 trill phonemes, one
could imagine that some of them would have fricative / flap /
approximant allophones. /B\/ and /B\_0/ could conceivably be realized as
an underlying [bB\/] or [pB\_0] (i.e., stops with trilled release), so
they could have [b] and [p] as allophones as well. If you map out all
these allophones, you could conceivably have some semblance of a
"realistic" consonant inventory, but all of them would have trilled
allophones, so one could actually trill every consonant in this conlang
when one is feeling particularly t(h)rilled. :)
On that note, what exactly is the /ř/ sound in the Czech name Dvořak? On
Wikipedia it's described as some kind of raised alveolar non-sonorant
trill. At first I thought non-sonorant meant that it was voiceless, but
then it says it has both voiced and unvoiced allophones, so what's a
non-sonorant trill??
T
--
Your inconsistency is the only consistent thing about you! -- KD
Messages in this topic (37)
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2.2. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 11:38 am ((PDT))
2013/7/20 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>>
>> Once I noted that, while pronouncing an alveolar trill, the left
>> border of my tongue keeps immobile in contact with my left teeth, kind
>> of supported by them, and only right border actually vibrates.
>>
>> Trying to "correct" it, I found that making the whole tongue vibrate
>> requires much more effort from me.
>
> Huh, that's interesting. So you're saying your trills are ... lateral?
> Unilateral, even, if one may abuse the term. :)
I know if it's unilateral or anti-unilateral, because the left border
is the only part that does *not* vibrate but rather keeps fixed while
the rest of the language vibrates.
> Makes me wonder if any
> language has unilateral phonemes... it'd be good conlang material (for a
> freaklang, that is :-P).
>
>
> T
>
> --
> We are in class, we are supposed to be learning, we have a teacher... Is
> it too much that I expect him to teach me??? -- RL
Messages in this topic (37)
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2.3. Re: Rolling your R's
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 11:38 am ((PDT))
From: H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 07:00:08PM -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
[...]
> RM Dravidian languages have 3 POAs for /t d r/ and maybe /l/ --
> dental, alveolar, retroflexed. I've heard them demonstrated by native
> speakers, and the retroflexed /r/ sounds like a stop. My tin ear.....
Whoa! So you're saying that they have 9 phonemes just from /t d r/
alone? That's pretty impressive... and here I thought my alien conlang's
[r]/[R\_0] contrast was "special". Anadewism. :)
RM Well, I _think_ I'm right, had better re-check. At least their writing
systems distinguish those _IIRC_
(snips)
On a more realistic note, since there would be 12 trill phonemes, one
could imagine that some of them would have fricative / flap /
approximant allophones. /B\/ and /B\_0/ could conceivably be realized as
an underlying [bB\/] or [pB\_0] (i.e., stops with trilled release), so
they could have [b] and [p] as allophones as well. If you map out all
these allophones, you could conceivably have some semblance of a
"realistic" consonant inventory, but all of them would have trilled
allophones, so one could actually trill every consonant in this conlang
when one is feeling particularly t(h)rilled. :)
RM not sure some of those are phontically possible-- going from vl. /p/ to
voiced /B\/ would be difficult I think. OTOH, [bB\] sounds a little like a
"geminate/long" [B\], similar to a "geminate" [tS] which comes out sounding
like [t:S]. I suspect your [pB\_0] might actaully devolve into [p+P].
BTW, no one has pointed out that [B] is the sound horses make when they're
coming to a stop, or resting. No?
T:
On that note, what exactly is the /ř/ sound in the Czech name Dvořak? On
Wikipedia it's described as some kind of raised alveolar non-sonorant
trill. At first I thought non-sonorant meant that it was voiceless, but
then it says it has both voiced and unvoiced allophones, so what's a
non-sonorant trill??
RM it seems to be a combination of trilled [r] + [Z], not sure of the POA.
Quite often (in the provincial Argentine version) it's just a sort of (maybe)
retroflexed [Z] (I think there's an IPA symbol for that...).
During some Polish crisis back in the 80s, there was reference to a Pol.
diplomat named Rurarz-- the newreaders pronounced that ['4u4aS], so I suspect
Polish <rz> is much the same animal.....
T
--
Your inconsistency is the only consistent thing about you! -- KD
Messages in this topic (37)
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3. Jul17 inflections
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 22, 2013 11:54 am ((PDT))
To avoid confusion, I'm going to try to use a minimum of terminology.
In the latest version (Jul17), each noun or pronoun is paired with a verb and
vice-versa. The noun or pronoun precedes the verb. Example:
crumb-find cockroach-eat (inflections omitted)
A noun may have a prefix specifying definiteness and number.
A verb has 5 suffix slots. The 1st one (A) is derivational while the others are
inflectional. Slot D is for negation.
Each verb has either a single explicit argument (expressed by the preceding
noun or pronoun) or an explicit argument and an implicit one (to be identified
later). Slot B specifies the relationship between the 2 arguments:
B1. The explicit argument "acts on" the implicit one.
B2. The implicit argument "acts on" the explicit one.
B3. The explicit argument "acts on" someone or something unspecified.
B4. Someone or something unspecified "acts on" the explicit argument.
B5. The explicit argument "acts on" itself.
Slot E combines a couple semantic categories.
E1. identifies a direct command
E2. identifies a wish or an indirect command or a suggestion etc.
E3. identifies a factual statement
E4. identifies a contrafactual statement
E5. identifies a yes/no question
Each of the above appears at the end of a sentence. The next 2 terminate
subordinate constructions that act as the implicit argument for the following
word-pair.
E6. identifies an imagined, but possible, situation
E7. identifies an actual situation
E8. identifies one of 2 things:
E8a. a resulting situation
E8b. a situation in effect (before, during, or after some subsequent one)
E9. also has 2 uses:
E9a. is used only if the verb has an implicit argument; it indicates that
this word-pair modifies the following noun.
E9b. is used only if the verb lacks the implicit argument, including those
with B3, B4, or B5 marked. It indicates that the verb modifies its own explicit
argument.
Slot C is more complicated; the specific interpretation depends on the suffix
for slot E. C4 is used only on dynamic verbs.
If E3, E4, or E5 is present:
C1. the situation occurs at some future time, whether known or not
C2. the situation is occurring
C3a. if the verb is dynamic, the situation occurs at some unknown past time
C3b. if the verb is static, the situation occurs at some past time, whether
known or not
C4. the situation occurs at a known past time
If E7, E8, or E9 is present:
C1. the situation occurs at some later time
C2. the situation is in progress at the time indicated by context
C3. the situation occurs at some earlier time
C4. the situation occurs at the time indicated by context
If E1, E2, or E6 is present:
C1. the situation is ready to occur at some future time
C2. the situation is occurring at some future time
C3. the situation is complete by some future time
C4. the situation occurs at some future time
Examples:
man-give-B1-C4-E8 crumb-find-B2-C4-E8 cockroach-eat-B1-C4-E3
"The man fed the cockroach a crumb."
meat-raw-C2-E8 dog-eat-B1-C1-E3
"The dog will eat the meat raw."
cat-black-C2-E9 house-in-*-B2-C2-E8 woman-release-B1-C3-E3
"The woman has put the black cat in the house."
* I've omitted a derivational suffix here.
house-in-B2-C2-E9 cat-black-C2-E3
The cat in the house is black."
crumb-eat-B2-C4-E6 cockroach-want-B1-C2-E3
"The cockroach wants to eat the crumb."
meat-raw-C2-E8 dog-eat-B1-C3-E7 man-see-B1-C3-E3
"The man saw that the dog had eaten the meat raw."
("see" is static)
Messages in this topic (1)
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