There are 4 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: TheSilent Race
From: Padraic Brown
2a. A question about relative clause placement
From: M Forster
2b. Re: A question about relative clause placement
From: Adam Walker
2c. Re: A question about relative clause placement
From: Jim T
Messages
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1a. Re: TheSilent Race
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2013 7:30 am ((PDT))
> From: Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org>
>> It might make more sense to make this phenomenon more of a commonplace
> among an otherwise ordinary race. For example, among the Daine, this
>> kind of intense inter-twin behavior is not at all unheard of. The magnitude
> of the behavior described in the book is perhaps beyond the behavior of Daine
>> twins -- they will generally communicate with people and interact with the
> outside world, but they almost always share their own inner world as well.
> They
>> often times share a secret language, rarely can they stand to be parted
> from each other, almost never marry or engage in a serious relationship (or
> when
>> they do, it's with each other).
>>
> Just to add another possible path to this, it would also work if the
> race (species) in question were either asexual or hermaphrodite, such
> that individuals had very little interaction with one another beyond
> simple territorial dispute resolution. Isaac Asimov touches this in, I
> believe, "Foundation and Earth" (or at least one of the Foundation
> novels that came well after the original trilogy), where he has one
> character who is from a world of hermaphrodites where everyone lives in
> virtual isolation, served by robots. That race, which is human, did
> not, of course, evolve that way, but rather evolved into that state.
Yes. And I can see something like this happening -- at least for some segment of
the population. Consider the last two decades or so with the evolution of H.
sapiens
ludens -- the common basement variety of gamer. Regardless of his subspecies
(e.g. H. sap. lud. mudens, H. sap. lud. d-n-dens, etc), here is a kind of human
that
lives in real isolation, only interacting within a virtual world, and is served
by (proto-)
robots (servers, microwave ovens, etc). Now they've got all sorts of other
modalities
of connectivity only very rarely have to even see another human being. Such a
creature
teleworks, orders groceries online, pays all bills online, connects with
"friends" via
social media.
Such a social mesotopia -- neither ideal nor entirely dysfunctional -- would be
interesting
fodder for a story. The directions such people could take, the choices they
might have to
make who have quite forgotten how to work together in the non-virtual world.
> Whether a race could start off that way, asexual/hermaphrodite and
> introverted/isolationist to the point of not really interacting with
> each other, and still develop anything resembling a society or
> civilization, i.e. not be just living in the wild, in an animal-like
> state, and operating on pure instinct without conscious thought as we
> know/envision it, would in my mind still be a question. But one well
> worth exploring in a conworld or novel.
Agreed. I don't think such a race could start out this way and become anything
other
than some kind of animal.
What might be interesting to explore in a story is some scion of a normal race
-- perhaps
some kind of post-pocyclyptic genetic mutation -- that gets left behind when
the remnants
of normal humanity have exeunted planet left. There would already be plenty of
cultural
remnants left lying around -- abandoned ruins and so forth -- plus language and
social
behaviour would have already evolved. The story would thus be set amid a sort
of unevolution
of these essentially human characteristics as the race is becoming something
else. Some of
these strange behaviors become ever more common. Perhaps the ever unevolving
Degenerates
can be set against the almost relatively normal Left-overs.
You know, struggle to survive in a Worlde Gonne Madde! (With a 1000 oliphants!)
What a spectacle that would be!
> As an aside on this, I replied first and realized (after hitting send)
> that the Reply-To was set to be directly to Patrick, not to the whole
> list. That seems odd to me, as the norm has been that you just hit
> Reply and it goes to the list, not the sender. But that seems only to
> apply to Patrick's message, as others still work as expected. Interesting
This is apparently a quirk of Yahoo mail that I have no control over and can
not change. Joerg
has already complained about this (and rightly so). The time may well be come
to find a better
email service.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (4)
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2a. A question about relative clause placement
Posted by: "M Forster" m...@plasmatix.com
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2013 2:24 pm ((PDT))
Hello conlangers,
I'm currently working on relative clauses and considering different
placements. My language is mostly VSO and head-first and my current
model for relative clauses works like this (simplified):
head-noun verb subject object REL
"the man go he the bar who"
"The man who went to the bar"
Now my question is: Do you know of any natlang that does this? I'd be
very interested to know.
Thanks in advance!
-M
Messages in this topic (3)
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2b. Re: A question about relative clause placement
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2013 2:42 pm ((PDT))
I don't have a natlang example to offer, but Carrajina is also VSO.
However, it stuctures relative clauses differently:
ul omu fin viud dil chervezoji
the man who go.3past to.the bar
Adam
On 8/7/13, M Forster <m...@plasmatix.com> wrote:
> Hello conlangers,
>
> I'm currently working on relative clauses and considering different
> placements. My language is mostly VSO and head-first and my current
> model for relative clauses works like this (simplified):
>
> head-noun verb subject object REL
> "the man go he the bar who"
> "The man who went to the bar"
>
> Now my question is: Do you know of any natlang that does this? I'd be
> very interested to know.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> -M
>
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: A question about relative clause placement
Posted by: "Jim T" clanrubyl...@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2013 4:12 pm ((PDT))
Hello,
Here is a natlang example from Scottish Gaelic in three months
Antecedent+ Relative Pronoun+ Relative Clause
na balaich aChluch
The boyswhoplayed
It says further the antecedent may be the object or subject of a preceding verb
e. g.
Verb+Subject+Object = Antecedent+Relative Clause
ChunnaicIainna balaicha chluich
sawJohnthe boyswho played
John saw the boys who played
Verb+Subject = Antecedent +Relative Clause
dh'fhalbhna balaicha chluich
leftthe boyswho played
The boys who played left.
The book goes on to say that the relative pronoun is an independent particle
and because of this is followed by independent verbal forms
I hope this is helpful & and if I or the book are wrong I hope someone here
will catch it.
I am off to work now, but since the lang. I'm trying to work on is VSO I will
be watching this thread with interest.
Jim
________________________________
From: Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 2:42:47 PM
Subject: Re: A question about relative clause placement
I don't have a natlang example to offer, but Carrajina is also VSO.
However, it stuctures relative clauses differently:
ul omu fin viud dil chervezoji
the man who go.3past to.the bar
Adam
On 8/7/13, M Forster <m...@plasmatix.com> wrote:
> Hello conlangers,
>
> I'm currently working on relative clauses and considering different
> placements. My language is mostly VSO and head-first and my current
> model for relative clauses works like this (simplified):
>
> head-noun verb subject object REL
> "the man go he the bar who"
> "The man who went to the bar"
>
> Now my question is: Do you know of any natlang that does this? I'd be
> very interested to know.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> -M
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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