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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: New Language - Examples
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: English word order and bumper stickers
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: English word order and bumper stickers
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. ? how would you classify this language ?
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. btw
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: A few phonetics-related q's
From: Dirk Elzinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Babel text... Long
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: English word order and bumper stickers
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: tongue twisters
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Further language development Q's
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Further language development Q's
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: CONLANG Digest - 12 Sep 2004 to 13 Sep 2004 (#2004-256)
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: A few phonetics-development-related q's
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. MG voiced plosives (was: A few phonetics-related q's)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Further language development Q's
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Further language development Q's
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: OT Caution!! IRA funding (was: English word order and bumper stickers
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Further language development Q's
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. ducking out
From: "Mark P. Line" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. German word order (was Re: ? how would you classify this language ?)
From: J�rg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:11:01 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: New Language - Examples
I forgot to mention that cr = /kx/ is an affricate also. :) Although it
sounds a little like I'm trying to clear a blockage from my throat lol.....
> Right... I guess I ought to describe how to pronounce everything first
> (hopefully all the X-SAMPA is right :) ).
> � /T/ � /D/
> t /t/ d /d/ n /n/ s /s/ z /z/ l /l/ ts /ts/ dz /dz/ (affricates)
> x /S/ j /Z/ tx /tS/ dj /dZ/ (affricates)
> tt /c/ dd /J\/ � /J/ ry /j\/ y /j/ ll /L/
> c /k/ g /g/ q /N/ r /x/ w /M\/
> h /h/
> ' /?/ (also used to show contractions like in french)
> Vowels:
> i /i/ e /e/ a /a/ o /o/ u /@/
> � /i:/ � /e:/ � /i:/ � /o:/
> Stress: Mainly tonal, falls on second syllable of word unless marked
> otherwise by an acute accent. Stressed vowels are always long.
> Now, the examples Roldox asked for (I might have made a mistake or
> two... and I don't think my translation of elvis is very good... it
> didn't really go well into what I've got so far).
>
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 00:08:42 +0930
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: English word order and bumper stickers
Ray Brown wrote:
> I see both LeftPondians & RightPondians use the name of country,
> region etc when the mean the people :)
I think there are some differences in usage. I remember a few years
ago (no prizes for guessing which year) there was an argument on a
newsgroup when someone made a claim about the total amount of
terrorism (e.g. IRA) that is funded by America. The word "America", in
this context, was almost universally taken by Americans to mean "the
American government", whereas it was almost universally taken by
non-Americans to mean "the American populace".
Adrian.
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 10:43:42 -0400
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: English word order and bumper stickers
On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 07:11:42AM +0100, Ray Brown wrote:
> The verb used in the Greek text is 'eulogein' which is rendered in the
> Vulgate by 'benedicere' - both verbs literally mean 'to speak well of' 'to
> praise'. The verb is used both of God speaking well of or praising people
> or, indeed, anything created, and of people speaking well of and praising
> God. I don't see any problem with that.
Nor do I, but I would render that meaning as "praise" in English,
because to me "bless" has quite strong connotations of conveying
mystical benefits.
> While certainly some of these meanings would be inapplicable in 'AMERICA
> BLESS GOD', the 2nd and 6th meanings are surely possible: AMERICA EXTOL
> GOD AS HOLY/ AMERICA GLORIFY GOD.
Indeed. And that is what I inferred as the intent when I saw the sticker,
but it is not what the message conveyed to me at first glance.
> Also I note the verb is subjunctive (as in 'Britannia rule the waves!') -
> so it's only an exhortation which one is free to follow or ignore.
It could also be construed as a mispunctuated imperative. :)
-Marcos
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:35:48 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ? how would you classify this language ?
Please bear with me for a moment, as your reply to this will greatly expand
my understanding of language groups & language evolution...
Assume that, tomorrow or the next day, you either encounter or create a
(con)language which has the following features:
* Indo-European word order.
* Semitic grammatical rules.
* Sino-Altaic phenomes.
into which group would you classify it, however tenatively?
also, which of those (rules/phenomes/order/other) is most prone to change
through time? which is least prone to change?
thank you.
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:42:44 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: btw
now that the "school"/"education[al system]" debates are ending/winding
down, I've decided to stay on...at least for a while longer.
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:47:18 -0600
From: Dirk Elzinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A few phonetics-related q's
On Sep 13, 2004, at 5:30 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> Trebor wrote:
>
>> In a word like /anta/, would it be more likely that it's pronounced
>> [anda]
>> or [an_0ta]?
>
> It might depend on other tendencies in the language. Does
> assimilation in
> general tend to be progressive-- i.e are there clusters of the sort
> /-bk-/ >
> [-bg-]-- or regressive, i.e. the cluster /-bk-/ > [-pk-].
>
> Nasal clusters however tend not to behave like stop clusters; the
> voicing
> predominates, so I'd say [anda] is a more likely outcome.
>
> But there are cases where nasals are lost or changed before voiceless
> sounds, so even your [an_0ta] is not impossible. It would more likely
> lead
> over time to something like [ahta] or [a?ta] or [at:a].
I think that [an_0ta] is highly unlikely. Cross-linguistically,
clusters of nasal+voiceless stop seem to be dispreferred. Phonetically
this can be understood as resistance to a vocal fold opening gesture so
close on the heels of the modal voicing found in nasals. There are
several strategies for resolving these clusters:
1. voice the stop
2. make a geminate by denasalizing the nasal (or if the cluster does
not share place of articulation, making a two-stop cluster: i.e., /mt/
-> /pt/
3. make a geminate by nasalizing the stop
4. delete the nasal
5. strengthen the stop by aspirating it; this doesn't resolve the NC
cluster, but it makes it emphatically an NC cluster
A couple of things don't seem to happen:
1. delete the stop
2. devoice the nasal
Of course, these are all *tendencies*, rather than necessary (or
prohibited) courses of action. My own project, Miapimoquitch, voices
the stop in all NC clusters; I grabbed the rule from Shoshoni, which
has the same process.
>> If a language has a rule (a) /s/ is [S] before /i/ and (b) /s/ is [z]
>> intervocalically, would it be more likely that a word like /asi/ be
>> pronounced [azi] or [aZi] or even [aSi]?
>
> Let's see if I can get this right.... It depends on the ordering of the
> rules (that is, of the events).
>
> Order A: Rule l. s > S before i
> Rule 2. s > z between vowels
> OK: Vsi will > VSi, while Vsa, Vsu, etc. will > Vza, Vzu etc. (The
> first
> rule removes -si from the possible environments of rule 2). [S] and
> [s]
> will presumably be in complementary distribution and so non-phonemic.
>
> Order B. Rule 1. s > z between vowels
> In this case a rule "s > S before i" is impossible, since all instances
> of -VsV have been changed to -VzV; if you still want the fricative
> pronunciation to occur, then Rule2 will have to be "z > Z before i"
> (This
> all looks neater if you use distinctive feature notation)
When you get down to distinctive features, you might find that the
relevant palatalization rule is:
[+continuant, +coronal, +anterior] -> [-anterior] / __ [+vocalic,
+high, -back]
which may follow the voicing rule without disqualifying Palatalization,
since both [z] and [s] share the features [+continuant, +coronal,
+anterior]. To restrict the palatalization rule to [-voice] segments
seems unlikely (but of course not impossible). For that matter, the
voicing rule may apply to all fricatives and not just [s]. So I think
that [VZi] is a plausible outcome for underlying /Vsi/.
>> French nasal vowels can differ from their oral counterparts, cf. [i] ~
>> [e~].
>> Is there an articulatory/acoustic precedence for this? What are some
>> oral-nasal correspondances for /i/, /e/, /A/, etc.?
>>
> I think that's a purely French phenomenon-- nasalized vowels all are
> lowered
> i > E~, y > (the rounded version of E~), o > O~, some merge (e/a both
> > a~),
> etc. My French is limited and I can't think of an instance of
> nasalized
> /u/, are there any???
>
> In Portuguese, the nasalized vowels are simply that: i :: i~, u :: u~
> etc.
>
> The motivation in French might have been that since nasalized vowels
> derive
> from closed syllables ...VN# or ...VNC..., the lowering could be due to
> generalized allophonic lowering of vowels in closed syllables.
No, I think that there is good acoustic phonetic motivation for
lowering nasalized vowels; see my earlier post.
Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:58:45 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Babel text... Long
And there's a rough babel text... I might change things but I've done
enough for today I think. :)
1a. we�en � ddera zole'l yaizod lluqu.
du-��-n � ddera zole al yaiz-od lluqu
ind.pres-3rd.sing-intrans def.abs world whole def.obl tongue-com one
The world had one tongue.
2a. du�en e�acroa ai re�en, duzcadjai'x tsilina ryidallena
du-�en-n e�a-cro-a ai re�-en, duzca-djai ex tsilina ryid-allena-a
ind.pres-3rd.plur-intrans go-eastward-perf def.nom person.plur,
find-conseq. indef.abs plain live-there-perf
The men went eastwards, and found a plain, and lived there.
3a. dullans gahuddea �go�oti egineqi'x wendatx �egoqi ganli�
du-llan-s gahu-dde-a �go-�o-ti egin-eqi ex wenda-tx �ego-qi gan-li
pres.ind-4th.plur-3rd.plur say-trans-perf �pres.subj-1st.plur-3rd.plur
make-prog indef.abs brick-plur cook-prog good-adv
They said �let us make some bricks and cook them well�.
4A. dullansodjai gahuddea �go�os egineqi'x �iuda, o siralayod
e�asudiqi'l �yallura, xodetsewe�a dae�aseyua rocua'l ddera�
du-llan-s-odjai gahu-dde-a �go-�o-t egin-eqi ex �iuda, o sirala-yod
e�a-sudi al �yallu-ra, xode-ts-ewe�a da-e�a-seyu-a rocu al ddera�
pres.ind-4th.plur-3rd.sing-conseq. speak-trans-perf
�pres.subj-1st.plur-3rd.sing make-prog indef.abs city, indef.obl
tower-with go-upward-stat def.obl sky-to, know-pass-purp.
not-go-over-perf cover def.obl earth�
And thus they said �let us make a city, with a tower which goes up to
the sky, in order to be known and not be gone (dispersed) covering the
earth.�
5a. gero du�en e�adara'� alai icuwe�a � �iuda � sirala eginatseqi'l
re�otxaz.
gero du-�e-n e�a-dara-a �� alai icu-we�a � �iuda � sirala egin-ats-eqi
al re�-otx-az.
But/Then pres.ind-3rd.sing-intrans go-down-perf def.nom lord see-purp
def.abs city def.abs tower make-pass-prog def.obl person-plur-ins.
But then the lord went down to see the city (and) the tower that were
being built by the men.
6a. dullas gahuddea �du�ensgosi egineqi � axe te'x �eqce lluqu, gero
da'ai'x coza danei�eqce eginatsa henez.�
du-lla-s gahu-dde-a �du-�en-s-gosi egin-eqi � axe te ex �eqce lluqu,
gero da-ai ex coza da-nei-�e-n-ce egin-ats-a hene-z.�
He said �if they are doing this being one people, then there isn't
anything that cannot be done by them�
7a. �e�on e�adaraqi alduneqi � yaiz�en nei�enewe�a gahuqi�
�go-�o-n e�a-dara-qi aldun-eqi � yaiz-�en nei-�en-n-ewe�a gahu-y��
pres.subj-1st.plur-intrans go-down-prog change-prog def.abs tongue-their
pres.poss-3rd.plur-intrans-purp. talk-hab.
�Let us go down and change their language, so that it is not possible
for them to talk�
8a. dullasidjai e�aganacy�a rocu'l ddera, du�ans ces� egineqi � �iuda.
du-lla-si-djai e�a-gana-cy�-a rocu al ddera, du-�an-s ces�-a egin-eqi �
�iuda.
pres.ind-4th.sing-3rd.plur-conseq. go-away/all.over-cause-perf cover
def.obl earth, pres.ind-3rd.plur-3rd.sing stop-perf make-prog def.abs city
So the lord scattered them over the earth, (and) they stopped building
the city.
9a. du�enodjai lla�ats Babel, llenadora du�es alduna'� alai � yaiz al
ddera zole.
du-�e-n-odjai lla�-ats Babel, llena-dora du-�e-s aldun-a �� alai � yaiz
al ddera zole.
pres.ind-3rd.sing-intrans-conseq. call-pass-stat Babel, there-reason
pres.ind-3rd.sing-3rd.sing change-perf def.nom lord def.abs tongue
def.obl world whole
Consequently it is called Babel, because there the lord changed the
tongue of the whole world.
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:18:52 -0400
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
Rodlox wrote:
> Please bear with me for a moment, as your reply to this will greatly
> expand
> my understanding of language groups & language evolution...
>
> Assume that, tomorrow or the next day, you either encounter or create a
> (con)language which has the following features:
> * Indo-European word order.
> * Semitic grammatical rules.
> * Sino-Altaic phenomes.
>
> into which group would you classify it, however tenatively?
Usually a language is grouped according to where the bulk of the
_vocabulary_ comes from. If the con-vocabulary is completely a priori
(invented) then you'd just have to say it's "a priori, with X word order, Y
grammar, Z phonemes" (note spelling!).
I'm not sure there's a typical Indo-European word order-- Proto IE is
assumed to have been SOV, most of the descendants vary between SOV and SVO.
>
> also, which of those (rules/phenomes/order/other) is most prone to change
> through time? which is least prone to change?
Most likely: sounds/phonemes, but in fact _everything_ can change, often as
the result of sound changes. Slowest change probably in vocabulary.
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:35:02 -0400
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: English word order and bumper stickers
"Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Saw a bumper sticker this morning that gave me pause:
> AMERICA BLESS GOD
>Now, this is not the appropriate forum to discuss my feelings on the
>USA's recent theocratic tendencies, nor do I wish to do so. No, what
>we have here is a striking example of the importance of word order in
>English. Sure, we have subject becoming object and vice-versa, but
>that's old hat; "dog bites man", etc. But in the same swell foop
....
>Of course, I assume that we have a simple mistake in intent, where the
>author hasn't quite twigged onto the unidirectionality of mortal/deity
>interaction verbs in English, i.e. gods do the blessing, while worshippers
>are limited to praise/cursing, supplication, etc.
That's the most common usage for "bless", but not the only one. "Bless"
can also be used as more or less a synonym of "praise",
and in this sense is typically used with a human as the subject and God
as object.
Luke 2:28:
"Then took he [Simeon] him [Jesus] up in his arms, and blessed God,
and said: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace......"
Then there is the Litany of the Sacred Heart, which begins
"Blessed be God"; the passive participle implies that "bless" is
being used in the sense it's used in Luke 2:28 in most English
translations.
The author of the bumper sticker is therefore strongly suggesting that
Americans should praise God, in a manner elliptical, but not
ungrammatical.
- Jim Henry
http://www.mindspring.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:20:30 -0400
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: tongue twisters
On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 02:30:10AM -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
> Perhaps you have not tongue twisters in a narrow sense but just sentences
> that are particularly difficult to pronounce, e.g. the following in my
> natlang:
Huh. There is a word |z| in your 'lect of German? I thought vowelless words
were a peculiarity of Slavic and Semitic languages.
-Marcos
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:07:33 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
> I'm not sure there's a typical Indo-European word order-- Proto IE is
> assumed to have been SOV, most of the descendants vary between SOV and
SVO.
'vary between'? what's between them?
:)
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 10:29:20 -0700
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
I believe he meant that most of the descendents have
either "SOV" or "SVO" orders.
The Celtic Languages can have SVO or VSO orders, with
VSO order being the theoretically more prominent
order....although, it mostly occurs in Main
Clauses..many types of Subordinate clauses or
Infinitival clauses have SVO order.
I think it's safe to say that SOV seems a little more
prominent in the Older Languages, with SVO gaining
ground in the last thousand or so years.
(Although, you have things like Spanish and Italian
where the subject can sometimes be after the verb, and
of course all of this is just tendencies anyways)
Elliott lash
--- Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 6:18 PM
> Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language
> ?
>
> > I'm not sure there's a typical Indo-European word
> order-- Proto IE is
> > assumed to have been SOV, most of the descendants
> vary between SOV and
> SVO.
>
> 'vary between'? what's between them?
> :)
>
__________________________________
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Message: 13
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:28:48 -0400
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
RM> I'm not sure there's a typical Indo-European word order-- Proto IE is
RM> assumed to have been SOV, most of the descendants vary between SOV and
RM> SVO.
Red> 'vary between'? what's between them? :)
Spanish, for one. If the O is a pronoun, it's SOV; if the O is a noun,
it's SVO. :)
-Marcos
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Message: 14
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:31:48 +0200
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Further language development Q's
Hey!
I still don't get the hang of developing Ayeri into (a)
daughter language(s), but if I should ever do this, there
are two things that I'm wondering about:
1) How can I get from [4] to /R/, i.e. [X, R]? [4] is
alveolar, and /R/ uvular, so at the opposite end of
the mouth. Are there any steps in between that justify
this change? OTOH, I've heard dialects that use [4]
instead of [R]. I've learnt that it's always dialects
that develop into another daughter languages.
2) Ayeri is a trigger language, that means fluid-S AFAIK.
The topic of a sentence can be any argument of a verb.
So is it possible, that one daugher language can
develop an nom/acc system and another one an abs/erg
system? I haven't found a tendency in Ayeri to one
of both ends yet, though. But I think because at least
the one standard version I have until now has no real
passive construction, it would tend to be accusative,
although there is a causative that makes some kind of
passive constructions possible: man�o -> manaisa
(to invent, v. -> invented, adj.)
3) OFF-TOPIC as for the topic of this thread, but ON-TOPIC
as for languages: What does "deictic" mean? I haven't
found it in my dictionary.
Thanks,
Carsten
NB: I have started reading _Describing Morphosyntax_, and I
have immediately discovered some interesting things
that still have to be done.
It will take a while until I start the back-translation
of the Ayeri grammar into English.
--
Eri silvev�ng aibannama padangin.
Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoiev�ng caparei.
- Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry, Le Petit Prince
-> http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri
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Message: 15
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:38:37 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
Rodlox wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 6:18 PM
>Subject: Re: ? how would you classify this language ?
>
>
>
>>I'm not sure there's a typical Indo-European word order-- Proto IE is
>>assumed to have been SOV, most of the descendants vary between SOV and
>>
>>
>SVO.
>
> 'vary between'? what's between them?
>
>
German, I suppose. SOV, SVO, and VSO are all possible, in various
clauses (Always SVO or VSO in main clauses, though, I think). That's
called a V2 language, because, as I learnt it, the verb is always the
second concept(except after certain conjunctions, in which case it goes
to the end of the clause).
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Message: 16
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:45:59 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
Carsten Becker wrote:
> Hey!
>
> I still don't get the hang of developing Ayeri into (a)
> daughter language(s), but if I should ever do this, there
> are two things that I'm wondering about:
>
> 1) How can I get from [4] to /R/, i.e. [X, R]? [4] is
> alveolar, and /R/ uvular, so at the opposite end of
> the mouth. Are there any steps in between that justify
> this change? OTOH, I've heard dialects that use [4]
> instead of [R]. I've learnt that it's always dialects
> that develop into another daughter languages.
Happened in a Natlang (r>R), anyway. What more justification is needed?
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Message: 17
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:47:44 -0400
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest - 12 Sep 2004 to 13 Sep 2004 (#2004-256)
Tamara Woodcock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm working on my first conlang. I write sci-fi as a hobby, and I
> decided that my xeno civilizations simply must have languages to go
> with the cultures. So this will be the first of a few languages for
How humanlike are these aliens? Are they distant kin to us,
like the various humanoid aliens in Ursula Le Guin's future history,
or completely unrelated? If the latter, you probably want to violate
some human language universals in your alien languages. If the former,
you should probably stick to human universals, at least mostly.
> symbolized as h, k, l, m, n, p, w, v, and a stop symbolized as `
> that acts as a consonant in syllable formation. These are
I suppose your ` is probably glottal stop, symbolized as
/?/ in IPA X-SAMPA. It is a stop in the same position as the
fricative consonant /h/, and occurs in some English dialects in
a few positions (between vowels) where other dialects have /t/.
> The stop and v can never start a word, but can start a syllable.
> Basic syllable formation is (C)V.
By "The stop and v" do you mean any stop consonant (/k/, /p/, /?/
in your language) plus any vowel, or the glottal stop plus /v/?
By either interpretation, a word can't begin with /?/.
Can a word begin with /k/ or /p/? What about /kv/ or /pv/?
> What I need to learn to create is the rest of the grammar structure.
> Would it make sense to have verbs to be also simply compounds of the
> roots?
Several conlangs have all verbs derived from noun roots by adding
one or more affixes. I don't know offhand of a natural language
that does that, though (I mean, consistently deriving ALL verbs
from noun roots; obviously many languages derive SOME verbs from
nouns).
>Is it necessary to have pronouns or indicators for
> adjective/adverb, tense, etc.
Tense is certainly not necessary; lots of human languages get by
without it. Such languages typically indicate relative time
of action with optional adverbs or adverbial phrases.
You could make your language more alien by marking tense
on the subject noun or pronoun _instead of_ the verb.
I am not sure if pronouns are generally thought a
human language universal or not. In any case, if they were,
that has been challenged recently by Daniel Everett's suggestion
that Piraha~ may have recently borrowed all its pronouns
from another language, and previously had none. Certainly,
a language with no pronouns would be fairly unusual even
if it did not actually violate a universal.
If your language has no true pronouns, would its speakers use some kind of
abbreviation (ad-hoc pronouns, perhaps) to refer back to
previously mentioned things, or always repeat the name of the referent
in full?
Alternatively, perhaps you could make the language alien and exotic
by giving it a much _more_ complex pronoun system than the typical
human language (though some human languages have a large set of
pronouns for different uses).
Adjectives/adverbs: certainly you don't have to have two
different word classes for these. German gets by with a single
modifier class. You could have nouns modifying nouns (following
or preceding, as you prefer) and not have a separate modifier
word class at all.
Many languages express things English uses "to be" + adjective
for with stative verbs.
>How would a langauge that is context
> driven (without these written indicators) evolve to be used by a
> high-tech society, with a rich written history? I'm familiar only
If the language has neither pronouns nor other abbreviation/
anaphora methods for shortening references to previously
mentioned entities, it suggests the speakers have a lot
of time on their hands and care more about precision than
concision. (Think of Tolkien's Ents.) That's not inconsistent
with writing or high technology, but it might take them longer
to develop it than humans similarly situated would require.
Lack of tense inflection, or separate word class(es) for
adjectives/adverbs, is certainly no obstacle to writing
or high technology. Lack of any way to indicate relative
time when it's relevant, though...
If the language not only lacks tense inflection,
but also has no adverbs like "now" and "later", or prepositions like
"during" and "after", or temporal case on nouns or ... anything,
that could be a problem re: developing technology. It
might suggest the speakers experience their entire lives
simultaneously, like angels or the aliens in Ted Chiang's
"The Story of Your Life". Or it might suggest they have poor
memory and are aware of nothing but the now; I doubt such
creatures would develop any technology to speak of, and
I question whether they would really have much use for
language or abilitity to use it.
Or maybe their ancestors developed high technology,
but they have developed endemic genetic amnesia.
If you are looking for some exoticities to make your language more
alien, here's one.
Most human languages either don't mark number on nouns,
or mark it as singular/plural or singular/dual/plural.
An alien language might inflect nouns for such numbers as
integral/fractional/infinite/negative...
So in "I read a book" and "I read three books"
the word for "book" would be the same, but
in "I've only read half that book" the word
would have a different form (maybe an affix,
maybe a vowel or consonant mutation).
"I earned fifty credits" would have "credits" in
a positive number inflection, while in "I paid fifty credits"
the word would have a negative inflection.
- Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
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Message: 18
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:02:01 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A few phonetics-development-related q's
On Tuesday, September 14, 2004, at 07:23 , Joe wrote:
> Rodlox wrote:
>
>>>>>> In a word like /anta/, would it be more likely that it's pronounced
>>>>>> [anda]
>>>>>> or [an_0ta]?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> It might depend on other tendencies in the language.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> Yes, I think this is an important consideration. Phonological changes
>>> don'
>>> t develop in isolation.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> what do they *tend* to develop alongside? & what do they only rarely
>> develop alongside of?
>> *curious*
>>
>>
>>
>
> Well, sometimes all stops, say, are devoiced in certain contexts.
> Generally they follow a pattern like that. Or there's a chain mutation,
Yes, patterns and chains are the sort of thing I had in mind.
What I meant is that a single change such as /nt/ --> whatever, is not
generally the only thing going on. As some have pointed out, we will have
either regressive or progressive assimilation here and it would be very
unlikely, for example, if regressive assimilation happened here while
loads of progressive assimilation was going on elsewhere in the language.
I should maybe have expressed it more clearly: "individual phonological
changes don't happen in isolation".
But other changes in a language can set off or help phonological changes.
Did the growing use of prepositions in spoken Latin mean that case endings
were becoming redundant and so led to the reduction of syllable final
distinctions? Or was it the other way round, namely, that 'sloppy'
pronunciation of final, unstressed syllables led to the greater dependency
on prepositions to disambiguate meaning? I suspect both tendencies went
hand in hand.
The question "What do they rarely go alongside of?" does not make much
sense to me. A language is a whole system. We conveniently treat semantics,
syntax, morphology & phonology separately; but these are abstractions.
All these level inter-relate.
And just to add extra complexity, languages themselves rarely develop in
isolation. They borrow from neighboring languages (or, as in the case of
Modern Greek, from an older form of the language) and this can cause
changes. For example in Old English, both [f] and [v] were allophones of a
single phoneme /f/, and similarly [s] and [z] were allophones of /s/. The
Norman invasion and wholesale borrowing of Norman French words upset all
that; /f/ and /v/ became separate phonemes, as did /s/ and /z/. In spoken
Greek the ancient /pt/ and /p_ht_h/ both became /ft/ - [pt] and [p_ht_h]
ot [fT] did not occur. However during the past century there have been
many 'learned' borrowing and now we have /pt/ and /fT/ in the language
besides /pt/ (similar things happened with regard to /xt/, /kt/ and /xY/).
Ain't life complicated? ;)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
"They are evidently confusing science with technology."
UMBERTO ECO September, 2004
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Message: 19
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:01:54 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: MG voiced plosives (was: A few phonetics-related q's)
On Tuesday, September 14, 2004, at 06:54 , Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>>> And [anda] is what happens in Modern Greek, IIRC.
>>
>> Yes - tho I understand that in some dialects the nasal is lost entirely,
>> i.
>> e. /anta/ is pronounced [anda] or [ada] according to dialect.
>
> I guess this must be the origin of the use of nu-tau for /d/ in foreign
> names
> and words, then. It gives us wonderful things like "Donald" becoming
> "Ntonalnt"
> (nu-tau-omicron-nu-alpha-nu-tau).
Exactly!
> They also use mu-pi for /b/, and, IIRC, gamma-kappa for /g/.
You do recall correctly, but the use of /d/, /b/ and /g/ is controversial.
The phonemic status of voiced plosives in Modern Greek is still hotly
debated.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
"They are evidently confusing science with technology."
UMBERTO ECO September, 2004
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Message: 20
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:37:37 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
Carsten Becker scripsit:
> Hey!
>
> I still don't get the hang of developing Ayeri into (a)
> daughter language(s), but if I should ever do this, there
> are two things that I'm wondering about:
>
> 1) How can I get from [4] to /R/, i.e. [X, R]?
Because they are perceptually similar, this can happen in a single
generation. A child hears [4], produces [R], and is accepted;
the innovation spreads until everyone is doing it. There are
very few languages where [4] ~ [r] are in contrast with [R], and
using [R] for [4] may sound funny or foreign but will probably be
easily understood (not like using [x] for [s], e.g.).
--
Long-short-short, long-short-short / Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs / (Masculine rhyme): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
One sentence (two stanzas) / Hexasyllabically http://www.reutershealth.com
Challenges poets who / Don't have the time. --robison who's at texas dot net
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Message: 21
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:45:12 +0200
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:31:48 +0200, Carsten Becker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 3) OFF-TOPIC as for the topic of this thread, but ON-TOPIC
> as for languages: What does "deictic" mean? I haven't
> found it in my dictionary.
Etymologically, "pointing".
I believe it refers especially to pronouns of the type "this" and
"that", which "point" in a given direction/at a given spot (near the
speaker, near the listener, far from both, etc.).
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 22
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:43:50 -0400
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT Caution!! IRA funding (was: English word order and bumper stickers
Admittedly a sensitive topic....
Adrian wrote:
> I think there are some differences in usage. I remember a few years
> ago (no prizes for guessing which year) there was an argument on a
> newsgroup when someone made a claim about the total amount of
> terrorism (e.g. IRA) that is funded by America.
I don't know the context (newsgroup) in which the statement was made, but
certainly wrt to IRA, one must say that it was a few _Irish-American_ groups
that were doing the funding. (Whether there were "Ulster-American" groups
funding the other side, I don't know, and don't recall hearing about them.)
I think that particular fight was one that the US Govt, and the vast
majority of non-Irish Americans, quite happily, and wisely, stayed out of.
I suppose from an IRA POV, our official support of whatever regime was in
Westminster could be viewed as supporting the British response = "terrorism"
against them, but as I say, that depends on your POV.
By the same token, much of the Arab world holds that our official support of
Israel fosters Israeli "terrorism"; but OTOH I believe there is also
support, both official and corporate, going to the Palestinians-- ostensibly
for development, though some of it is surely siphoned off into terroristic
activities. At the same time, the Jewish-American community has always given
financial support to the State of Israel, mostly I'm sure from idealistic
motives; while some Arab-Americans, and many Arab/Islamic governments, give
financial support to the Palestinians with (at least from an American and
certainly Israeli POV) less than altruistic motives.
If the newsgroup discussion was also referring to the more recent terrorist
developments, that's another matter. Our long-standing support of the Saudis
(never mind what they do domestically, just keep that oil coming) turns out
to have been less than well-thought-out... Our support of the mujahhedin
during the Afghan war (what fun to cock a snook at the Soviets!!) turns out
to have been equally ill-considered. Likewise our support of Saddam Hussein,
up till '91 when he misbehaved... And our installation/support for years of
the Shah of Iran (like the Saudis: just keep that oil flowing). In these
cases, the results of our policies, while disastrous, were unexpected, and
contemporary critics of them were usually dismissed as alarmists or
ivory-tower intellectuals. (aargh, what else is new??)
The only deliberate Govt-sponsored terroristic activities (that I can think
of in recent years) would be Guatemala, and our Contra affair in Nicaragua.
Of the former, most Americans have been and remain blissfully unaware; the
latter was so hopelessly mis-managed and corrupt (not to say wrong) that the
people and even Congress eventually rose up in revulsion.
If a nation is going to aspire in any way to some kind of imperial hegemony,
stupid mistakes are going to occur, even with the most benign of motives.
Deliberate evil is somewhat rarer, isn't it?
The British Empire, the Russian, the French, the Spanish, the Ottoman...the
Roman...have I left anyone out?
>The word "America", in
> this context, was almost universally taken by Americans to mean "the
> American government", whereas it was almost universally taken by
> non-Americans to mean "the American populace".
>
Well, as you see, I fall into the first category; I'm truly surprised at the
second-- everything one hears, even from the Arab world nowadays, certainly
suggests to me that non-Americans are quite capable of distinguishing the
two, indeed eager to do so.
In general (and unfortunately) many Americans are ignorant of, and could
care less about, the outside world. At times that enables our leaders to
mis-lead and inflame us about this-or-that situation in the world; but
whatever popular support there may be tends to be short-lived.
To revert-- just with respect to the IRA thing, it should be mentioned that
non-Irish Americans (though we are all immigrants) seem historically to have
had a special animus toward those of Irish origin (and lots of others, too).
One still finds it in certain circles. The general attitude re the Northern
Ireland troubles-- and many similar internecine quarrels-- was, like it or
not, "a pox on both your houses".
That's enough; flame me off-list. I thought of sending this directly to
Adrian, but it's nothing to do with anything _he_ said.
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Message: 23
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:52:13 +0200
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
--- Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a �crit�:
> Carsten Becker wrote:
>
> > Hey!
> >
> > I still don't get the hang of developing Ayeri
> into (a)
> > daughter language(s), but if I should ever do
> this, there
> > are two things that I'm wondering about:
> >
> > 1) How can I get from [4] to /R/, i.e. [X, R]?
> [4] is
> > alveolar, and /R/ uvular, so at the opposite
> end of
> > the mouth. Are there any steps in between that
> justify
> > this change? OTOH, I've heard dialects that
> use [4]
> > instead of [R]. I've learnt that it's always
> dialects
> > that develop into another daughter languages.
>
>
> Happened in a Natlang (r>R), anyway. What more
> justification is needed?
It's fairly simple. German, for example, had (up to
the sixteenth century), [r]. It's still pronounced
that way in some dialects, I believe, and it's also
common in some 'old-fashioned' speech, like operas,
where [r] is seen as more 'melodic'. After about the
sixteenth century, the German [r] shifted to [R],
either because [R] is easier to articulate than [r]
(it is, at least for me), or from influence from
French (this sounds doubtful to me).
At any rate, [r] does require a bit more effort to
properly articulate than [R].
[r\I."gAr\dz]
�S. Williams
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Message: 24
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:55:25 -0500
From: "Mark P. Line" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ducking out
I'm going to have to leave the list for a while, due to my nearly complete
inability to find time to read any of the posts (much less respond to them
as I'd like).
This email account is and will remain active, and I expect to be able to
respond to direct correspondence in the foreseeable future.
Later, y'all!
-- Mark
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Message: 25
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:15:58 +0200
From: J�rg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: German word order (was Re: ? how would you classify this language ?)
Hallo!
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:38:37 +0100,
Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 'vary between'? what's between them?
> >
> >
>
> German, I suppose. SOV, SVO, and VSO are all possible, in various
> clauses (Always SVO or VSO in main clauses, though, I think). That's
> called a V2 language, because, as I learnt it, the verb is always the
> second concept(except after certain conjunctions, in which case it goes
> to the end of the clause).
German is SVO in declarative main clauses (but if there is an auxiliary
and an infinite form, the auxiliary is in second position and the
infinite form at the end of the clause), SOV in subordinate clauses,
and VSO in yes-no questions (in wh-questions, the interrogative
pronoun is in first position, followed by the verb).
Greetings,
J�rg.
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