There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Lisa Weißbach
2a. Re: Beautiful vowel diagrams using LaTeX
From: Daniel Bowman
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Lisa Weißbach" purereasonrevoluz...@web.de
Date: Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:46 am ((PDT))
2013/7/25 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 09:53:02PM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
> > 2013/7/24 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
> [...]
> > > Haha, yeah. There are almost no native Russian speakers among my
> > > acquiantances, so most of my learning was actually from reading
> > > Russian books. I bought a Russian New Testament and read through it:
> > > when I started out, I could barely understand 5% of it (I did take
> > > the time to learn Cyrillic so that I can at least pronounce the
> > > words); by the time I finished, I daresay my comprehension level was
> > > around 70%. (Being well-versed with the English NT helped a lot, of
> > > course.) Currently, my reading comprehension is probably around 85%
> > > or so.
> > >
> > > However, my listening comprehension is not good, and my speaking
> > > skills are worse. I Skype'd with a native speaker from Moscow every
> > > Saturday for about a year or so, which dramatically improved my
> > > listening/speaking skills, but we've had a hard time keeping it up
> > > so recently I haven't had much practice at all. I do still try to
> > > read every now and then so that I don't start losing my grasp of the
> > > language, but it's hard to keep up without a Russian-speaking
> > > environment to be immersed in.
> > >
> >
> > Tell me about it... And it's even worse with conlangs because there
> > are so much fewer potential speakers! I'll have to converse with my
> > future cats when my conlang has reached a speaking level...
>
> Well, my current number of potential speakers of my conlangs is 1, which
> kinda makes it hard to develop conversational skills. :-P
>
I don't suppose the cats will ever answer either ;)
>
>
> [...]
> > Teoh:
> > > [...]
> > > > > 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.
> [...]
> > > Right, with that example I was trying to get at the underlying
> > > thought of this construction, which is that the agent doesn't care /
> > > doesn't have to worry / is indifferent to the (potential) action. I
> > > suppose the "doesn't have to worry" bit might be stretching the
> > > concept of inconsequentiality a little.
> >
> > Padraic:
> >
> > > This is because kings don't think in ordinary ways. He knows that
> > > envoys are expendable (and because of example three, knows that a
> > > loyal envoy -- i.e., one that's been brainwashed to do his
> > > potentate's bidding even at the cost of his own life -- will go
> > > regardless of the danger); and he also knows that he's got any
> > > number of them. So, either way, the king wins: if the envoy makes
> > > it, he gets a nice trade package. If the envoy is attacked, he gets
> > > a flimsy pretense to destroy an enemy (and take slaves, booty,
> > > hostages, etc); and he will stìll have the opportunity to send
> > > another envoy once the war is winding down. Either way, his
> > > exchequer grows a bit fatter, and he gets to consolidate his hold on
> > > power as the guy that brings prosperity and security to the land.
> > >
> >
> > Exactly, that's why I thought of it as a win-win situation, since he
> > can use the situation to his advantage either way. This is an
> > interesting and possibly unforeseen addition to the inconsequential
> > aspect, although it may really stretch the concept. Maybe we do need a
> > new name for a concept including both meanings, after all.
>
> I would say that what I had in mind with the indicative-imperative
> construction was basically a "come what may" kind of expression. What is
> included at the outer fringes of this basic concept may stretch the
> category a bit. :)
>
That's another (valid) way of looking at it :)
>
>
> [...]
> > > I suppose one could say that the indicative/imperative construction
> > > encompasses both aspects of the inconsequential, and perhaps a
> > > little more (as in the first example)?
> > >
> >
> > Yes, definitely, if you choose to use this construction in your
> > conlang in all these cases in the end. What about lose-lose
> > situations, then?
>
> That's a very interesting question indeed!
>
>
> > Say, the king is losing the war against the Ahripf and at the same
> > time, the monarchy as an institution is about to collapse because its
> > opponents are legion and quite powerful.
>
> (Tangential aside: I chose the name _Ahripf_ [AxR\Ipf] as a kind of
> inside joke: _ahr_ means "two", and _ipf_ means "eye", so _Ahripf_
> literally means "two-eyed". The native speakers of this conlang are
> stereotypical one-eyed green round-bodied aliens, so to them anything
> with more than one eye is monstrous and not worthy to be treated on par
> with a respectable 1-eyed sentient being. An apt appellation for one's
> hated enemies. :-P It could very well refer to that troublesome human
> settlement in the disputed region of the galaxy that the king wishes to
> claim for his own kingdom, say.)
>
(And a very cool name it is! I've always been partial to the affricate
"pf", even though, ironically, I don't always clearly pronounce it in my
L1. And this sort of "body part racism" is certainly an interesting and yet
plausible idea. After all, beings with more than one eye must be inferior
to those to whom one eye is sufficient.)
>
>
> > The king knows that the envoy will either be defeated by his enemies,
> > which will symbolically seal his dethronement by showing that he's no
> > longer capable of taking meaningful action, or that the envoy, even if
> > he arrives, will probably double-cross his king, taking this
> > opportunity to gain supporters for a new democracy. (I'm not a
> > historian, so no guarantees that this is a plausible scenario; but you
> > get where I'm going with this.) Here, the situation is quite similar
> > to the old king scenario: the king knows that - no matter which of the
> > two situations takes place - the consequence will be of the same
> > valence to him (old scenario: both positive; new scenario: both
> > negative), so he can just go ahead with his action. However, I suppose
> > that more natlangs have a distinct "resignative" construction for this
> > kind of scenario (lumping the old king scenario and more purely
> > inconsequential meanings together into the same construction(s)) than
> > the other way round (having a distinct construction for the old king
> > scenario, but lumping the new king scenario and more purely
> > inconsequential meanings together into the same construction(s)), but
> > this is just a hunch and not based on any empirical research but on
> > the feeling that overcoming expected consequences - what the
> > inconsequential is all about - is often perceived as something
> > positive.
>
> Hmm. Initially I was going to say that the indicative/imperative
> construction could be used in this scenario as well, but on second
> thought, I think it wouldn't be, because an imperative is too forceful
> for a resignative utterance. It would seem, as you suggest, that a
> different construction would be used. But I'm not 100% certain on this
> yet.
>
True, in a real lose-lose situation, one might not be able or willing to
muster up the energy necessary to formulate a command, for what is
essentially a lost cause. Sounds plausible. I like it when there are
psychological explanations for linguistic structures. Not sure I always
manage to come up with one, but it always makes me very happy when I do :)
>
>
> [...]
> > > Hmm. I guess another aspect of what the brother said is that the use
> > > of the indicative/imperative construction indicates the overriding
> > > of the reluctance to eat vegetables by the desired longer-term goal
> > > of obtaining the candy. The idea of overriding seems to explain
> > > (2)-(4), though (1) seems to be an odd one out from this viewpoint.
> > > Though one way of looking at it might be, that there is an implicit
> > > expectation of the king's attendants that the news of the enemy's
> > > move should cause him to hesitate sending the envoy, so his use of
> > > the indicative-imperative construction is to emphasize the
> > > overriding/overturning of this expectation.
> > >
> >
> > This idea of overriding is a useful one - I'd certainly be willing to
> > accept it even with regard to the kind scenario. Maybe this is
> > actually what holds these similar, but not quite identical concepts
> > together.
>
> I wonder how this analysis would hold in light of the lose-lose
> scenario. Could one say, perhaps, that in the case of a resignative
> utterance, there is no overriding, and hence the indicative/imperative
> construct isn't used?
>
Another good point! There is some sort of overriding process going on: the
king is acting - or making other people act, which is the same thing in
this case - even though he knows it's no good, so his decision to act sort
of overrides the negative valence of the expected consequences. But you
could argue that this kind of overriding is a negative one, based on the
expectation of *not* acting instead of just acting differently (as in the
other scenarios), which puts a psychological minus sign in front of the
equation and turns it into a scenario which differs significantly from the
others, psychologically speaking, requiring a different construction.
(And of course, I meant "king scenario", not "kind scenario"...)
>
>
> [...]
> > > Actually, it's a rare little boy that can think so far ahead as to
> > > understand how to get the candy ánd be willing to sacrifice for it!
> > > Most will be stuck in the "don't want yucky vegetables ~ frustration
> > > over withheld candy" stage and never make the leap.
> >
> >
> > Haha, you're right - but I don't think we've established just how old
> > or young those boys are. They may still hate their vegetables at the
> > age of twelve, but by then they should have figured out how to
> > negotiate their way to the candy. Also, it's just possible that I may
> > have given him more credit than he deserves ;)
> [...]
>
> Most college-age males still hate vegetables. Though at that age they're
> less likely to be swayed by candy alone. :)
>
Well, we could assume that eating the vegetables would not just get him
candy, but also a crate of beer and a date with that nice girl he really
likes but who is, unfortunately, a militant vegan ;)
Lisa
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Beautiful vowel diagrams using LaTeX
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jul 26, 2013 6:21 am ((PDT))
Nice, thanks for sharing this. I've been wanting to render my phonology in
LaTeX for a while.
2013/7/26 Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com>
> That's some nice automation there. I think I'm still going to use plain
> tabular for my needs because rectangular grids work perfectly fine for a
> phonemic feature based grouping, but this doesn't take away the niceness of
> this package. Maybe it could be possible to use this a a basis for showing
> free variation in small vowel systems by drawing the allowed vowel areas as
> an overlay on top of the diagram. Proper alignment of the two layers could
> be a problem though.
>
> -Jyri
>
>
> 2013/7/26 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
>
> > Just found this today:
> >
> > http://www.ctan.org/pkg/vowel
> >
> > It's a package that lets you draw print-quality vowel diagrams in LaTeX.
> > Apparently, it's been around for a while, even packaged as part of the
> > IPA fonts package TIPA which I have installed, yet I've never noticed it
> > until now.
> >
> > I'm duly impressed... and going off to typeset my conlang grammars in
> > LaTeX now. :)
> >
> >
> > T
> >
> > --
> > Freedom of speech: the whole world has no right *not* to hear my spouting
> > off!
> >
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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