There are 7 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: James Kane
1.2. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: And Rosta
2a. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music
From: James Kane
2b. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music
From: Leonardo Castro
3a. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour
From: R A Brown
3b. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour
From: Leonardo Castro
4.1. Re: Melin's Swedish Shorthand -- for English! (was: Re: Gateway to c
From: BPJ
Messages
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1.1. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 2:44 pm ((PDT))
Accidentally sent to Padraic
James
Begin forwarded message:
> From: James Kane <kane...@gmail.com>
> Date: 4 October 2013 10:41:17 am NZDT
> To: Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Something for we to discuss!
>
> I'm agreeing with Padraic. Although Alex has a valid point that the
> subjunctive has been eroded, but I think it's valid to call this construction
> so as it can explain where it shows up. Otherwise it's just a weird
> construction that shows up almost randomly where one might expect other
> constructions.
>
> And's analysis is just plain wrong; it's based neither on the historical
> aspect nor on the actual system that's in place presently and furthermore
> doesn't even fit.
>
> In my head I have this particularly construction separate from 'he made me do
> this' or 'he wants me to do this'. I think the subjunctive is just a relic
> that is only going to disappear if it's replaced wholesale by the normal
> forms (ie indicative).
>
> James
>
>> On 4/10/2013, at 4:54 am, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> It may not be, but it does work, and it does continue to adequately describe
>> what's going
>> on. Unless "be", or any other verb, in this situation is actually doing
>> something other than
>> advertised, then I see no good reason to give it a new name.
>>
>> As a counter example, take the verb "I have drank that brand of tea and it
>> was horrible".
>> Here we have the very common instance of the preterite being used as a past
>> participle.
>> I would not hesitate to just call this a dialect form of the past
>> participle, because what
>> was once a preterite is now functioning in a new way. But with the examples
>> given, there
>> has been no change in function and no real change in anything else about
>> them. Just my
>> penny-hapenny, and I do remain open to convincement.
>>
>> Padraic
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com>
>>> To: Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, 3 October 2013, 7:52
>>> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] Something for we to discuss!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On the other hand, would you propose calling the -s on "dogs" ZEE, simply
>>>> because the reality is that the sound is [z] even though it's shape belies
>>>> the name
>>>> ESS? Historically, it's an ESS, but...
>>>>
>>>> Just asking how far we might have to go in rearranging deck chairs...
>>>
>>> We keep on rearranging until we find the simplest arrangement. The
>>> traditionalness of an analysis is not criterial for simplicity.
>>>
>>> --And.
>>>
>>>
Messages in this topic (49)
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1.2. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 5:55 pm ((PDT))
[Replying to Eric and (mostly) Ray together:]
R A Brown, On 03/10/2013 15:10:
> On 03/10/2013 13:48, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>> On Oct 3, 2013, at 6:48 AM, And Rosta wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 6:50 PM, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>>
>>>> "It is necessary that I be there on time." Is this
>>>> verb "be" in "bare infinitive"? It looks that it has
>>>> a subject!
>>>
>>> It is an infinitive, yes. (That is, I know of no
>>> reasons for not analysing it as an infinitive.)
>
> So the traditional one of analyzing it as subjunctive holds
> no weight?
There's a prevalent attitude, which I don't mean to impute to you, that to name
something is to analyse and understand it. Calling it a subjunctive doesn't
really amount to an analysis. I don't myself currently see any need for
positing an inflectional category "subjunctive", but even if such a need could
be demonstrated (maybe as a way of generalizing over "present" and "past"
"subjunctives"), it wouldn't necessarily constitute an argument against taking
that "be" to be an infinitive. (More on that below.)
>>> All verbs have subjects, I think, so it's not
>>> surprising that this one does.
>
> All _finite_ verbs generally have a subject (there are
> languages that have special impersonal forms for finite
> verbs as well). It is, however, not the the norm for
> infinitives to have subjects or, if they do, the subject is
> often in some oblique form, e.g. Latin accusative and
> infinitive construction.
I meant: "In English, all verbs have subjects". I'm skeptical about our
ability, given our current state of knowledge, to generalize intelligently
across languages on matter to do with their actual syntactic mechanisms. (That
is, we don't even understand the rules that define individual languages, so it
is nonsensical to try to generalize across languages' defining rules. That
doesn't preclude generalizing across language's surface behaviour, as
linguistic typology does.)
>>> I suspect that this construction involves a silent
>>> auxiliary:
>>>
>>> "It is necessary that [do] I be there on time"
>>
>> What is your reason for putting [do] before the subject
>> -- rather than "It is necessary that I [do] be there on
>> time"?
It's not vital to the point at issue. In my view, "I do verb" involves raising
"I" from a structure "do [I verb]" (where the small clause "I verb" is object
of "do"). Thus "I do verb" is more complex than "do I verb". Occam's razor
favours the less complex analysis.
>Indeed "It is necessary that do I
> be there on time" sounds to me distinctly _ungrammatical_.
That's unsurprising, since the auxiliary is not silent. I called the auxiliary
"do" only because it seems to me that DO is the lexeme used by default for an
auxiliary with a verbal complement (i.e. with a predicational object headed by
a verb). So my calling it "do" is not meant to imply that it is actually
pronounceable as "do".
>>> I don't have a worked-out story about the semantics at
>>> present,
>
> I see problems in labeling it as an infinitive since, among
> other things, whether you like it or not, the past form of
> 'be" is "were", cf.
> "If it be true that ....., then surely Chris would tell us."
>
> "If it were true that ...., then surely Chris would have
> told us."
>
> If, as you argue, "If it be true .." is short for "If do it
> be true ....", then are we to assume that 'were' is a past
> infinitive and that "If it were true ..." is short for "If
> did it were true ...."?
Any analysis must of course state (explicitly or implicitly) which dialect it
is an analysis of. I was assuming that we were discussing contemporary English
and that "if it be true" does not occur in contemporary E; and analyses are
based not only on what does occur but also on what does not occur. However,
even if it doesn't occur in contemporary E, one might well ask (a) what
analysis do contemporary E speakers assign to it when they encounter it (in
texts written in an older dialect), and (b) what analysis should be given to
the dialect in which it does occur.
In the dialect that allows "If it be true", alongside "If it were true", I
agree that there is no warrant to posit a silent auxiliary in "if it be". Note
that here the negation follows the aux: "If it be not true", "If it were not
true". That leaves the question of whether in that dialect, "that it be"
involved the same construction. If negation was "that it be not", rather than
contemp E "that it not be", then I would take that as evidence of it being the
same construction (as the one in "if it be").
So I'd agree that in "if it be", the only auxiliary/verb present is _be_. On
the assumption that it is the presence of a syntactic element "Tense" that
triggers the inflectional form _is_, I would conclude that Tense is absent,
perhaps replaced by Subjunctivity, which when in combination with the presence
of the syntactic element Preterite triggers the inflectional form _were_, As
for whether that means "be" is not an infinitive, I think that's a
terminological issue of no real substance: in the analysis of English we need
the notion "a verb's inflectional form consisting of only the bare stem", for
which we may elect to use the term 'infinitive' (in which case, "if it be"
contains an infinitive), or for which we may elect not to use the term
'infinitive', so as not to sow confusion by using the term in a broader way
than it is traditionally applied; but I don't think we need to label the notion
traditionally expressed by the term 'infinitive'.
>>> but merely labelling the verb or the construction
>>> "subjunctive" will not suffice as a worked-out story.
>
> Except, of course, that we know diachronically it was
> evolved from earlier subjunctive forms. It is not exactly
> uncommon for relics of earlier constructions to survive in
> languages.
As you of course know, diachronic analysis and synchronic analysis are both
interesting and important objects of study, but they're completely different in
their purposes and in their nature. I do only synchronic analysis, and I agree
that for a diachronic analysis it is likely to be insightful to identify a
subjunctive construction that continues into contemporary English.
--And.
Messages in this topic (49)
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2a. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 2:49 pm ((PDT))
I had never heard of them! Which is a shame. Maybe they do and I just haven't
heard of them; I mainly listen to rock, classic rock or (unwillingly) pop radio
stations. I might see if any of my friends have heard of them.
Sent from my iPhone
> On 4/10/2013, at 3:51 am, "Krista D. Casada" <kcas...@uark.edu> wrote:
>
> Does Te Vaka get much airtime in New Zealand?
>
> Krista Casada
> ________________________________________
> From: Constructed Languages List [conl...@listserv.brown.edu] on behalf of
> James Kane [kane...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 3:16 AM
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Subject: Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music
>
> The [ɨ] is very distinctive in song!
>
> In New Zealand, Māori is unfortunately poorly represented in pop
> music, with the last big hit that I can think of in 1984:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQLUygS0IAQ. Before the 60s, when
> people became more interested in music that would be received well
> overseas, music in Māori was quite common. Although there have been
> hordes of very talented Māori musicians over the years with maybe a
> song or two in Māori, most music is solely in English.
>
>
> James
>
>> On 10/3/13, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think that songs in Guarani are not only "folk music" in Paraguay,
>> but "popular music", because they are in the music industry of that
>> country, with professional production, video clips, etc. There's even
>> a music genre called "guarania".
>>
>> E.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_So2t21pms0
>>
>> Are there other similar examples? Or is it part of the unique history
>> of Guarani among all native languages of the Americas? (Isn't really
>> there a gentilic for "the Americas" in English? Can I use "American"?)
>>
>> BTW, I remember having heard an explanation for the difference in the
>> fates of American and African languages: the Americas were "new
>> Europes" while Africa environment was much more hostile to Europeans ;
>> European diseases killed native Americans while African diseases
>> killed Europeans. I don't if it's the preferred explanation nowadays.
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
>
>
> --
> (This is my signature.)
Messages in this topic (8)
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2b. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Oct 4, 2013 5:58 am ((PDT))
2013/10/2 Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>:
>>> The instrumental and general músical influence in both is clearly Iberian;
>
>>
>> They resemble Portuguese style "Fado" in a bit of melancholy, although
>> fados are clearly more melancholic.
>
> And naturally, that particular "Iberian" sound I'm hearing as Spanish and
> you're
> hearing as Portuguese really stems from North African Moorish music! ---
>
> Awesome Spanish guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2Fyjk0GGM
>
> now some Portuguese guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vat6Y0Vua0
>
> and now some Moroccan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmlzEEKbfXU
Based on these examples, I still find Guarania style more similar to
Portuguese music. The same for the Brazilian style "Choro", as you can
verify in this beautiful song composed by João Pernambuco, son of
Portuguese father and Indigenous mother:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KO0rkOAiig
[...]
>>
>> A proof that Paraguayan music has some songs worth knowing is that it
>> has alrady called the attention even of Japanese people on the other
>> side of the globe:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIkKB1w_9hc
>
> Nice indeed! Though for harp, I still prefer O'Carolan:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOVRZdKRrwg
I would never identify an harp there if you didn't tell it. Maybe an
harpsichord...
[...]
>> You probably know or recognize the melodies of the songs "El condor
>> pasa"
>
> Sure famous tune. Probably one of the prettiest ever constructed. Simon and
> Garfunkel seem to have popularised that one in the US.
Yes. And now, Jennifer Lopez has the melody of "Llorando se fue" in
the beginning song "On the floor".
>> However, I was looking for songs sung in Native American *languages*.
>
> Not sure if something like this would count:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2TrGD7INY
>
> I guess this would: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrLL8n4fIe8
Interesting! Which language is that?
> Some Anglo-Inuit fusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtNuELl5he0
>
> Take a look here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Native_American_musicians#New_age_and_world_music
Wow! I'll have a hard time finding which of them really sing in native
languages (I guess it's not the case of Ben Harper and Jimi Hendrix).
>
>> In this song performed by the Carlos Santana band, they start with
>> some text that is presumably in some Mexican language, but I have no
>> idea of which one:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNxznQ2ubZQ
>
> Looks like Spanish mixed with something. I've seen hints that it may be
> African of some
> kind.
I've found this transcription:
"Deja ja ya mig sin ella no somona
Deja ya migo sin ella no somona
Tika n'gai wa yo
Simba n'gai wa yo yaya"
http://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/carlos-santana-da-le-yaleo-tab-g-s18476
I could interpret the sentence in the lines 1-2 as "deja ya, amigo,
sin ella no somos nada" (?!?!), but the lines 3-4 are clearly not
Spanish, and I don't think that that "simba" is "lion" in Swahili.
[...]
2013/10/3 James Kane <kane...@gmail.com>:
> The [ɨ] is very distinctive in song!
Indeed!
And, if one wants to know Guarani orthography and phonology, that "Che
pykasumi" videoke is the best practical guide I've seen so far.
>
> In New Zealand, Māori is unfortunately poorly represented in pop
> music, with the last big hit that I can think of in 1984:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQLUygS0IAQ. Before the 60s, when
This video clip has something of Village People and Michael Jackson in it.
[...]
2013/10/3 Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com>:
> I guess you should also consider the musical scene when assessing the
> vitality of a language. At least music is often used in language
> revitalisation projects.
>
> Around here you can find really varying music in Saami (mostly North
> Saami), e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiQ9pQGQKWE. There's also this
> guy who does rap in Inari Saami, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-56xy7NhAm4.
This one is also nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46WW3D5a_TU
[...]
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (8)
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3a. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Fri Oct 4, 2013 1:06 am ((PDT))
On 03/10/2013 20:29, A. da Mek wrote:
>>> If there is a spoken language or dialect without a
>>> written form and somebody will create some written
>>> form, it will be a-posteriory conlang.
>
>> No it will not.
[snip]
>> I think most of us here will agree that the *primary*
>> form of any natlang is the spoken form. The written
>> form is secondary and derived from the spoken
>
> In the same way as a language is derived from its mother
> language - at first as a dialect with minor deviatons,
> but gradually it will become mutually incomprehensible
> with its sister languages.
No, this is not at all the same. We can see how dialect
develops into a separate language through the problems
encountered by scribes in dealing with the earliest French
texts; how they hesitated between traditional Latinate
spellings and those reflecting a contemporary pronunciation;
i.e. we know about this particular process through written
sources.
> A spoken language and its phonemically written form are
> in the same relation as a language and its *rephon (a
> term coined analogically to "relex"); and an orthography
> which cannot be traslated to phonemic form only with a
> set of rules, without a dictionary, is essentially
> relex.
No, this is just playing around with words. In any case,
the proposal was to create an orthography for Spoken French
which would translate to phonemic form. If it doesn't, then
what is the point? Why not stick with normal French orthography?
>
>> Whether I write English in standard British, standard
>> American, some reformed system such Anglic, or in
>> Pittman or Gregg shorthand, or in Arabic script,
>> Devanagari, Linear B or whatever you chose, I am *not*
>> creating different conlangs! I'm writing the _same_
>> language in different scripts.
>
> But Written English and Spoken English are different
> languages. It is hidden by the fact that who knows one
> of them knows usually also the other, but remember
> Tarzan!
No - English has, indeed, different levels of speech, but
you will find writing reflecting everything from very formal
to very colloquial. Believe it not, I speak the way I write
and vice_versa I write the way I speak. Tarzan speak is an
artificial creation.
If Christophe is to be believed - and I have no reason to
disbelieve him - the the difference between Written French
and Spoken French (note the capitals) is of a _different
order_ from the difference between written and spoken English.
> BTW, imagine a future world in which English will follow
> the fate of Latin: dead but still used as an
> international language. There will be probably several
> traditions how to pronounce it, likewise for example the
> German scholars pronounced Greek "Zeus" as [tsojs].
I think modern mass media will militate against this. In
any case so much English has been recorded over the past
century that the idea of several different traditions as
with, e.g. ancient Greek, is IMO risible. There may,
however, be - as indeed there is to some extent - a question
whether General American or southern British is the
"correct" pronunciation :)
========================================================
On 03/10/2013 22:34, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
[snip]
>
> On Thu, 3 Oct 2013 17:36:33 +0100, R A Brown wrote:
>
>> I think most of us here will agree that the *primary*
>> form of any natlang is the spoken form. The written
>> form is secondary and derived from the spoken; indeed,
>> the same language can have more than one written form.
>
> I disagree. Affirming the primate of either the written
> or the spoken forms seem like extremist positions to me.
Oh? Then what about those poor souls who were speaking to
one another for millennia before writing was developed? It
seems self-evident to me that speech came first - that's
what _primary_ means!
I find it a little offensive to be called an extremist
simply because I hold that for millennia people had language
and spoke it, and that writing developed later.
> The primate of the written form used to be affirmed for
> most of the 19th century;
I assume you mean *primacy* - that may have been the case
among many pedagogues, but even in the 19th century there
were linguists who realized that spoken language came first
and that written form developed afterwards, i.e. spoken is
primary and the written is secondary.
In any case, I am not talking about _primacy_, I said
_primary_. The two words are not synonymous.
[snip]
> Many language do not have a written form.
EXACTLY! Spoken language came first.
> Some do not have a spoken form, or not any more.
"Not any more" are the important words. Such languages were
once spoken and the written form we have were developed from
the spoken language, i.e. it was a secondary development.
> Indeed, the same written language can have more than one
> spoken form.
I assume you are thinking about Chinese. But the writing
came after people were speaking early Chinese, not before
it. Also we have to remember that Classical Chinese was a
conscious secondary development to create an artificial
written medium for official purposes. Modern Standard
Chinese writing is somewhat different from Classical Chinese
because its characters reflect the actual _spoken_ forms,
i.e. are secondary.
> In a language such as modern standard German, the
> written form arguably existed before the spoken form.
[snip]
I am aware of the process by which modern standard German
evolved. It is the way written standards tend to evolve.
But people were speaking Germanic dialects long before
Luther and others committed the language to writing.
It is true that once a written form evolved then that
written form often became a written standard that influenced
subsequent development of the spoken language. This
happened more markedly where, as in France, for example, one
had a body (the French Academy) that laid down "laws" for
the written language. Thankfully English was by and large
spared this ;)
But while in certain circumstances and in certain places a
written form exerted a _primacy_, that does not mean that it
is also primary. The two concepts should not be confused.
--
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 (20)
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3b. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Oct 4, 2013 5:05 am ((PDT))
2013/10/3 BPJ <b...@melroch.se>:
> 2013-10-03 17:05, Leonardo Castro skrev:
>
>> Unless you want something completely phonemic (and then it's not a
>> matter of creating an orthography for Spoken French but of reforming
>> the spelling of French),
>
>
> Why? Spoken French has a phonology, surely?
I was considering that y'all were taking into account the practical
viability of the proposal, so there would be a different propaganda
strategy adequate to each case.
If you want to create an orthography for Spoken French that French
people will have some familiarity with, you must create something
similar to what already exists.
OTOH, if you want a phonemic script, you need first to convince people
that it's worth changing from what they are used to to something that
is more logical.
But, as you are creating this conscript as an exercise, the polytical
aspect may be neglected. Naturally, it might be not impossible that
people will change their mentality adhere to it in a few centuries.
Nonetheless, AFAIK, one of the main reasons to do a spelling reforms
is the acceptance that the present orthography no more represent the
living language. If people accept that the "Spoken French" is the real
living language and that it's the variety that is worth studying in
primary school, I see little reason for not to declare the "Written
French" as archaic and adopt the Spoken French orthography as the
official orthography of Modern French.
Naturally I'm more familiar with the debate of adapting
writing/grammar to oral speech in Brazilian Portuguese, whose most
iconic "debatentes" in the two sides are, in my opinion, Marcos Bagno
and Olavo de Carvalho.
I have commented something about Marcos Bagno's book "Preconceito
Linguístico" in another thread. The opinions if Olavo de Carvalho are
something suchlike what I write in the following lines (from the links
further below):
- Written language gives a formal unity to a language. It's a mistake
to try to grammaticize the language you learned in your
child-/neighbour-hood.
- It's impossible for the written language to follow the oral
language, because of the natural entropy of the oral language. If we
want written language to follow oral language, we must have a
different language for every neighbourhood.
- Spelling reforms make everything that was published before it
illegible, so it destroys culture.
- [criticizing Marcos Bagno] Brazil is the only country where we can
find someone "idiot enough" to think that the accelerated change of
the language represents a progress: in the USA, every kid reads
Dickens; in Hispanic America, people read Spanish classics as if they
had been written yesterday; the last spelling reform of French was in
~1600; but in Brazil people loves spelling reform and so Brazilians
hardly can read books written in the 1920's.
http://www.recantodasletras.com.br/cronicas/4013626
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDSygoCbe0M
>
> NB 1: I'm not in the least (seriously) interested in reforming the
> orthography of French or [insert natlang of choice].
> Conscripts and conorthographies for various languages nat
> and con are another matter, and AFAIK on topic here.
>
> NB 2: I don't care a brass farthing if anybody uses what
> I come up with -- I just like coming up with it!
>
> NB 3: If anyone should succeed in reforming the orthography
> of any language with an entrenched orthography I would
> congratulate them, but I wouldn't lose any sleep either
> way.
>
> NB 4: I do indeed believe that an orthography for a
> a non-standard variety or an L variety would have a slight
> chance of getting any interest at all by non-conscripters,
> but only an excedingly tiny one!
>
> /bpj
Messages in this topic (20)
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4.1. Re: Melin's Swedish Shorthand -- for English! (was: Re: Gateway to c
Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se
Date: Fri Oct 4, 2013 6:07 am ((PDT))
2013-10-03 23:34, J. 'Mach' Wust skrev:
> On Thu, 3 Oct 2013 13:40:13 +0200, BPJ wrote:
>
>> 2013-10-01 18:45, J. 'Mach' Wust skrev:
>
>>> The vowels' representation is different from the
>>> Faulmann system that is used in the more modern German systems (like
>>> Stolze-Schrey or deutsche Einheitskurzschrift) which operate with the
>>> script's baseline (which can be kept, raised or lowered). It yields a
>>> very similar overall aspect, though. I wonder whether Melin came up
>>> with his system independently form the Faulman system.
>>
>> He got the idea from Arends' system, but the implementation is his
>> own.
>> I've looked in vain for an illustration of Arends' system, including
>> looking through my several binders and folders of photocopies,
>> knowing that
>> I used to have something, but the general principle is well
>> _described_
>> at <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Arends>
>
> Thanks for the hint. Indeed, the similarity is obvious. Here is a
> picture:
>
> http://fotogalerie.herr-der-ringe-film.de/data/7977/arends.png
>
> There is one big difference, though: In Arends' system, the lower end
> of the consonant signs is not significative for the consonants
> themselves, but is a part of the following vowel.
>
I know. In fact I used to experiment with both schemes when
dabbling as a shorthand constructor and I must say that I prefer
Melin's solution. The clever thing about his vowel signs is that
they are not hair strokes in three different lengths and three
different angles, but inscribed in boxes of four different
heights 0--3 and three different widths 1--3, where each non-zero
height/width is more than the double of its predecessor (although
there is only one 1:1 sign: A), and two shapes -- line or
squiggle (although he used curved curved strokes as morpheme
signs. Thereby he avoided the in-between signs A, I, Ö becoming
too similar to the next sign 'above' and 'below'. He also avoided
having to use complex 'internal' curvature like Arends' Eu or
alternative forms in different positions, and he could use bowl
width differences like between Arends' TA TO TU to derive
morpheme signs from consonant signs. Also note the absence of
simple horizontal strokes in Arends, which Melin could use for
very common vowels.
I once experimented with a featural shorthand where I inverted
the logic: consonants were a combination of a ring or dot, or the
absence of one, which indicated place of articulation and a
hairstroke categorized like Melin's system which indicated manner
of articulation, while downstrokes stood for vowels, with open
counters/bowls to indicate front/central/back, closed
counters/loops to indicate laxity, width of bowls/loops to
indicate rounding and height to indicate, well, height. The idea
was a good one, but it was hard to get enough distinctions
without ambiguity, and words weren't exactly short on the paper!
It all showed me that Melin's choices were quite good:
* Consonants with similar PoA and MoA have similar signs:
- Most sonorants -- the most frequent -- are dots or rings,
- The most frequent suffix consonants are rings/dots or low
('half-grade' T and De) stems, and //g// in _-ig_ is
usually silent, and thus not written,
- All labials have a rightward bend or a rightward
bowl, or both!
- All dentals which are not rings/dots have a leftward bowl
or a leftward loop for the clusters,
- All velars have a rightward loop, and the single glottal
H, has a leftward loop,
- The two palatals have a leftward bowl *and* a leftward
loop, indicating their position between the dentals
and velars,
- All the triple-height consonants are clusters -- Ng, Sj,
Tj did at least develop from clusters, and are digraphs
in longhand!
- All S+Consonant(onsonant) clusters are triple-height
versions of the corresponding C,
* The shape of vowels indicates their articulation type:
- All horizontal straight hairs are back rounded vowels,
- All squiggly hairs are rounded front/central vowels,
- All non-horizontal straight hairs are front
unrounded vowels,
- The relative heights/widths of vowel signs are determined
by frequency in Swedish text:
+ The lower/narrower the more frequent,
+ The higher/wider the less frequent,
+ The most complex of the basic vowels, the mid-high
squiggle Ö, is the least frequent!
The only somewhat awkward assignment among the vowels is E, which
isn't really infrequent in endings, but when followed by R, N, S, T, L
the E is usually omitted without ambiguity: _säker_ > SÄKR,
_cykel_ > SYKL
and so on. Also distinguishing T and N takes too much care to be
really
comfortable.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (29)
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