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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: CXS Help
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: |dy| or [dz\] ? (bars or brackets?) Re: the sound of "DJ" (was Re new
Unnamed Conlang)
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Guarani info request
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: |dy| or [dz\] ? (bars or brackets?) Re: the sound of "DJ" (was Re new
Unnamed Conlang)
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Revised Unnamed Conlang
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Conlang IRC server
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Numbers from conlangs by Yan Kiraly.
From: janko gorenc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Anti-Chomsky Insults
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Conlang IRC server
From: Robert Hill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Basque Gender Marking (was Re: Further language development Q's)
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. I'm back!
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: THEORY: transitivity
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Further language development Q's
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: CHAT: reign names
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: THEORY: transitivity
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: I'm back!
From: "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: I'm back!
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Imperatives in split-S languages (was ...)
From: J�rg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Spanish-related question ((q)SVO ?)
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Trigger languages� �� Re: Further language development Q's
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Trigger languages� �� Re: Fur ther language development Q's
From: Dan Saunders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 07:32:11 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)
Wesley Parish scripsit:
> Future generations of historians will say there was an Anglo-German
> Queen with the Corgi as her standard, and they will go slowly mad trying
> to connect her and the corgis - the sacred animal of the British Isles,
> apparently - with the English Lion and the Welsh Dragon. Perhaps some
> of them will connect the British Throne with the creature known in
> its Australian Commonwealth as the Drongo, and argue that "Dragon"
> is a misspelling. :-)
/me laughs out loud, a rare thing at this hour of the morning.
For the etymology of "drongo", see http://www.anu.edu.au/ANDC/Austwords/drongo .
> (I don't propose to precede them into madness. ;)
"To many, perhaps to most people outside the small company of the
great scholars, past and present, 'Celtic' of any sort is, nonetheless,
a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which almost
anything may come. Thus I read recently a review of a book by Sir Gavin
de Beer, and, in what appeared to be a citation from the original*, I
noted the following opinion on the river-name _Arar_ (Livy) and _Araros_
(Polybius): 'Now Arar derives from the Celtic root meaning running
water which occurs also in many English river-names like Avon.' It is
a strange world in which _Avon_ and _Araros_ can have the same 'root'
(a vegetable analogy still much loved by the non-philological when being
wise about words). Catching the lunatic infection, one's mind runs on
to the River Arrow, and even to arrowroot, to Ararat, and the descent
into Avernus. Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason."
--JRRT, "English and Welsh"
The footnote reads:
"*For my purpose it does not matter at all whether Sir Gavin or his
reviewer was the author of the remark: both were posing as scholars."
--
I am expressing my opinion. When my John Cowan
honorable and gallant friend is called, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
he will express his opinion. This is http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
the process which we call Debate. --Winston Churchill
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 07:08:34 -0600
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CXS Help
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:43:02 -0400, Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:04:44 -0400, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 06:41:17PM +0000, Jeremy Kleier wrote:
>>> Can anyone provide the X-Sampa for the Japanese word 'tsunami'?
>>
>> Isn't it [ts)M.na.mi]?
>
> I would be rather tempted to notate the Japanese |a| as /V/ rather than
> either /a/ or /A/. That's what I've been taught by three different sources.
>
> NB that I can barely say "Nihongo ga wakarimasen", but I *have* studied
> two different books and a Pimsleur course. The books both said to use the
> |u| in the British English word |cut|, and the Pimsleur sounds to my ear
> like it agrees. The dribs and drabs of Japanese TV and radio I've
> witnessed kinda give me the same impression.
Isn't the British sound more generally something like [6] now? I don't hear British
much, but the Japanese can sound like that...
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:43:09 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: |dy| or [dz\] ? (bars or brackets?) Re: the sound of "DJ" (was Re new
Unnamed Conlang)
> You must decide whether diacritical |-y| in your notations |jy|,
> |sy|, |zy| is systematical or not. If it is not, |jy| can be [J\].
> But if it is, I propose either changing the orthography to |dy| or
> the pronuncuation to [J\j\] or better [dz\].
if I might ask, what is the difference between the vertical bars || and the
brackets [] ?
thank you.
>
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:53:02 +0200
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Guarani info request
On 21 Sep 2004 15:39:57 "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Not that I'd know much about it, but I doubt that the initial alternation
> between t-r-h (as in _tape_ 'way', _xe rape_, 'my way',
> _hape_ 'his/her/their way') can be explained with _ha'e_.
According to my source |t| > |h| change is due to a contraction
of |ha'e t...|. But initial |t| > |r| alternation is a personal
marking in 1st and 2nd persons in some paradigmatic classes (and
there is also another |h| > |r| person-dependent initial change).
This is why form |hape| does not require personal pronoun (it is
encoded in initial |h-|) but they -- |xe| 'I, my', |nde| 'you(r)'
etc. -- cannot be omitted in 1st and 2nd persons.
>> If this verb has no imperative, how can English sentence 'Do
not
>>be ill!' is translated into Guarani?
>>
> I doubt that the available grammars would answer whether this is
> grammatical in Guarani.
Unfortunately, I have no such grammars. And my source is a
synopsis on few pages not detailing imperative.
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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 10:03:30 -0400
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: |dy| or [dz\] ? (bars or brackets?) Re: the sound of "DJ" (was Re new
Unnamed Conlang)
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:43:09 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> You must decide whether diacritical |-y| in your notations |jy|,
>> |sy|, |zy| is systematical or not. If it is not, |jy| can be [J\].
>> But if it is, I propose either changing the orthography to |dy| or
>> the pronuncuation to [J\j\] or better [dz\].
>
> if I might ask, what is the difference between the vertical bars || and
> the brackets [] ?
The vertical bars are used when one refers to a spelling (some'd use < >
instead -- a German habit?).
The square brackets are used when one refers to pronunciation (phonetics).
Like this, you can say |know| is [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There's also a possibility to distinguish between phonemic and phonetic
notation, phonemic notation being represented with slashes / /. However,
not all linguistic theories recognize phonemes.
Like this, you can say the /t/ in |stone| is [t] but the /t/ in |tone| is
[t_h].
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:]
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:07:37 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Revised Unnamed Conlang
I thank you all for your help (and more thanks for those who helped more).
revised unnamed language.
concept: narration-based [all Implied First Person]
phoneme pronounciation:
gh
kh [X]
o (like "cOt" & "Octopus")
u (like "tUt & "bUnk") [U\] ?
I [I] or [I\]
ii (like "sIght" and "strIve")
a (like "bAt" & "cAn")
b [b]
d [d] (? [d'] or [d_<] ?)
dy [dz\]
n [n] or [N\]
m [m]
sy [s\]
zy [z\]
s [s]
s' [S]
h [h] (?) [h\] or [H\] ?)
rules:
no double vowels.
no triple consanants.
'dy' can not be used to prefix or start a word; nor can 'sy' 'zy' or (_).
'gh' can not be used to suffix or end a word; nor can ('kh')* or (_).
suffixes can not be used as prefixes.
prefixes can not be used as suffixes.
* = I'm of two minds about that one.
vocabulary:
ghere = narrate, narration
ghore = he narrates [thusly]
ghure = she narrates [thusly]
ghoure = it was relayed [to me] that it was narrated [thusly]
*for the ending of a narration, replace GH with KH;
khore = [and so] he narrated
s'aih = you
s'aoh = they
s'aeh = other
sobe = to
sabe = from
sebe = with
sibe = by
siibe = of
throw = ghekh
hit = ghedh
kick = ghadh
butting = ghakh
but = dusu
and = sudu
as well (as) = susudu
and then = sudusudu
so, therefore = dususu
because = susu
however = dusudu
dyen = man
dyon = woman
dyiin = anon.
dyiinaum = unknown
(so...what function does the -aum serve? how does it go from Anonymous ->
Unknown ?).
dyaen = person, people [abstract concept]
postfixes:
past tense:
-(a)zye
-(a)sye
ie, "dyenazye" = "man got"
present tense:
-(a)zy = recipient
-(a)sy = bestower
-aum = (?)
ie, "dyenasy" = "man is given"
future tense:
-(a)zya = recipient
-(a)sya = bestower
ie, "dyenasya" = "man will get"
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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:35:49 -0400
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang IRC server
So Talesin and Robert, what are the addresses so that I can put them to my
bookmarks and have a look there from time to time?
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Message: 8
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 09:21:55 -0700
From: janko gorenc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Numbers from conlangs by Yan Kiraly.
Hi,
I'm collecting numbers from various systems in different languages.
I politely ask you send me numbers from 1 to 10 in your conlangs.
Thank you for your help!
You can find my web page:
www.ataltane.net/jg/
Janko Gorenc.
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:22:13 +0200
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anti-Chomsky Insults
Steg Belsky wrote:
> Maybe everyone is actually saying
> Noam's name the way you and are, [no(w)@m], and it just sounds like
> /no:m/ to me because i'm used to "Noam" being pronounced [noam] with
> two full non-schwa vowels.
Note that [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a possible NYC realization of the THOUGHT
vowel! Maybe that is why you hear [EMAIL PROTECTED] as /no:m/.
--
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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Message: 10
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:32:00 +0000
From: Robert Hill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang IRC server
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Hash: SHA1
On Tuesday 21 September 2004 15:35, Carsten Becker wrote:
> So Talesin and Robert, what are the addresses so that I can put them to my
> bookmarks and have a look there from time to time?
See signature :)
- --
- -----------------------------------------------
The CONLANG-IRC Server: priscilla.ath.cx #conlang
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Message: 11
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:29:32 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Basque Gender Marking (was Re: Further language development Q's)
Talking about the Basque verbal system has reminded me... if the person
being talked to is close or intimate (and also singular... this doesn't
happen when addressing many people) basques can use special auxilliary
verb forms which also reflect the gender of the addressee! This seems
similar to the "dative of interest" in Romance languages, but it seems
strange to me since Basque does not exhibit any gender agreement or
gender marking in the noun system, or in any other part of the verbal
system. This seems to be just about the only grammaticised gender
marking in basque.
Anyway, I was talking about it because its yet more agreement in the
basque verbal system on top of what I've already mentioned, so the list
is now: the auxilliary verb agrees with the Actor, Patient, Recipient,
and the Gender of the addressee (if that addressee is familiar or
intimate). I don't think even Inuit can beat this level of agreement
lol... and it just goes to show that some of the systems I've scrapped
as exhibiting excessive agreement (and producing verb forms that were
too long) weren't really that bad after all.
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Message: 12
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:34:46 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
On Monday, September 20, 2004, at 08:15 , Chris Bates wrote:
> Philippe Caquant wrote:
[snip]
>> - I don't think "maleness" can be an archetype for all
>> men, because it doesn't refer to mankind.
It depends what is meant by 'archetype'. I understood that it was reading
a section on Plato that set off Chris' chain of thoughts. In the Platonic
sense - i.e. what Plato termed _ideai_ which use to be somewhat
misleadingly translated "ideas" and is now more commonly translated "forms"
- maleness is certainly _an_ archetype for all men & boys (that is 'male
humans'). Plato talks about the objects we see around us as "partaking"
(metekhein) in the Archetype or Form. Thus in the Platonic sense, all men
partake in the Archetypes of Maleness as well as of Human-ness. Woman also
partake in the Archetype of Human-ness but not, of course, Maleness. They
partake in the Archetype of Femaleness.
>> Animals and
>> plants can be male or female too.
Indeed, these partake in the Archetypes or Forms of Maleness & Femaleness
(according to Plato - not me :)
So a male elephant partakes in the Archetypes of Maleness & Elephanthood
(among other things).
>> Perhaps
>> "male-mankind" ?
>>
>>
> I guess so.... :)
But "male-mankind' implies _two_ attributes or two sets in what in which a
male human participates.
>
>> - there is a difference between "the set of all men"
>> and "the characteristics common to all men".
In modern programming terms, the first is the set of all instances or
_objects_; the second is presumasbly the _class_ definition. Certainly in
Platonic terms they are distinct. The first is the set of all individuals
who participate in the various Forms (or Archetypes) that make up "the
characteristics common to all men". Also, in Platonic terms, many other
objects will also participate in some of those Archetypal Forms in the
second set.
>> Strangely, in French we use the same word,
>> "humanite'": "L'humanite' court a sa perte" = mankind
>> is running toward its ruin", vs: "Il n'y avait pas
>> trace d'humanite' dans son regard" = there was nothing
>> human in his gaze"
>>
>>
> Surely this difference is reflected in the list I gave? Or perhaps
> not... I was considering the architype itself to be a list of the
> necessary and sufficient criteria for any object to be said to belong to
> that architype: for instance "the characteristics common to men" =
> "human-maleness". Maybe not? I don't know....
Whether it is or not depends IMO on how you define "archetype". In the
Platonic sense, nothing _belongs_ to an Archetype. The things of this
world (which to Plato were less than real - shadows of shadows)
'participate' in or share in an Archetype and, indeed, will share in more
than one Archetype.
>> - a group can be considered as an entity, for ex an
>> army is composed of soldiers, officers, horses etc,
>> but it is also a thing on its own; so is a forest. In
>> French, there is an hesitation in some cases, one may
>> say "une foule de gens se rassembla" or "une foule de
>> gens se rassemblerent" (a crowd [of people] gathered).
>>> From a purely syntactic standpoint one should say "se
>> rassembla", but both are admitted.
English is also hesitant. This side of the Pond we tend treat collective
nouns as plural while the American tend to use the singular. We would say
"The committee are all agreed" the Americans, I believe, would say
something like "the committee is entirely agreed".
> If I ever designed a logical language, I guess I would need a way to
> effectively make a set into an entity itself....
Ah - that's something that never AFAIK exercised Plato's mind. I'm not
even that the idea of sets fits too well with his ideas. Again I suppose
it depends on how one defines _entity_. The set of all conlangers is a
different sort of entity from the enitity that is Philippe Caquant or the
one that is Chris Bates or Ray Brown etc.
[snip]
>
>> (BTW, another interesting question: when I say: "The
>> Americans elected a President named Bush", "The
>> Americans walked on the Moon", and "The Americans
>> fought against each other during Secession War"), what
>> does "the Americans" mean in each case ? Seems they
>> are different sets, or subsets).
Yes, they are certainly different sets. The set of Americans that walked
on the moon has two members only. The set of Americans that fought one
another in the Civil War is most (tho all - Quakers, for example, took no
part in the fighting) of the total set of adult male Americans. The set of
those who elected Bush is, I suppose strictly speaking, just a subset of
the set of members of the Electoral College. But even if we take the
election to refer to the popular election the set is still rather less
than half the adult population. All indeed different sets.
>>
> The problem of plurality seems more difficult than I thought at first.
Yep :)
[snip]
> The more I think about this, the more I realize that things I take for
> granted in language (that every language I've ever studied treats in
> roughly similar ways... I haven't just learned Indo-European languages,
> and I'm working on learning Basque at the moment, but I've never learned
> Hopi ;) ) don't need to work that way. *sigh* I'm going to go away now
> and create some looney language, or just go quietly insane myself lol....
Keep your sanity - at least till after you've created the looney language
;)
BTW I should make it clear that I don't agree with Plato, so don't you
guys out there start telling _me_ that the idea of a human participating
in different Archetypes is foolish. I'm merely reporting what I remember
from reading Plato.
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: 13
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:06:49 -0700
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: I'm back!
Hi all...
I've decided to return to the list after several months of nomail,
during which I relocated to the other side of the continent, found a
new job, acquired new interests, and, guess what ... crossed paths
with a fellow conlanger at an unexpected place. (Isn't it a small
world?)
During my absence, in which I discovered huge resources of free time
not spent checking CONLANG mails, ;-) I acquired an acute interest in
speculating on a world with 4 spatial dimensions (not 3 spatial + 1
time like most would think when you say "4D"). While browsing online
for more information on this topic, I chanced upon a wonderful website
devoted to it, written by none other than Garrett Jones, whom I
believe is (or was) on the list.
Anyway, to make this not-so-ontopic post short, I think the
Ferochromon, the world of the Ebis�di, has just acquired a whole new
dimension... literally!! :-) I shall re-work my con-world to be a 4D
universe (not that it wasn't already in its previous incarnation, but
not the part which the Ebis�di inhabit), and rebuild Ebis�dian from
scratch to go with it. Or perhaps I should discard the current conlang
and start from scratch. I have unfortunately lost interest in many of
the little details I integrated into Ebis�dian, and I think I'd rather
let it remain as it is, and start a new independent project.
What think ye of this idea? What kind of terms might a language spoken
in a 4D world have, which we do not have? At least one curious mind
thirsts to know. :-)
Now I've also learned from browsing the list archives of the
unfortunate departure of some valued conlang members... they have my
condolences. Consider this then my (admittedly rather poor) ObConlang
attempt to inject more conlang-related discussion into the list to
counterbalance the inevitable trend toward the off-topic.
T
--
There's light at the end of the tunnel. It's the oncoming train.
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Message: 14
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:15:26 -0500
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: THEORY: transitivity
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Paul Hopper and Sandra Thompson wrote an excellent article in the early
> > 80s (Language, Vol. 56, no. 2) entitled "Transitivity in Grammar
> > and Discourse". Therein they list 10 (!) different criteria that
> > languages use to encode transitivity, and they show that transitivity
> > is really more of a cline than a discrete proposition.
[...]
> > So, if we've decided to lump things as transitive or intransitive,
> > I would say 'folgen' is transitive.
>
> So you prefer underlying structure to morphology, semantic transitivity to
> overtly encoded transitivity?
The point is that it is not clear what a 'transitive' construction
really is outside of such criteria. The fact that a verb has two arguments
does not automatically imply that one is a subject and one an object,
since in some languages various kinds of tests (passivization, e.g.)
show the second one to be some kind of oblique. Georgian has a whole
class of verbs which are syntactically and morphologically intransitive,
but they obligatorily take an oblique dative-marked argument (the
verb for 'to hit' it like this).
> I like better sticking to the surface,
> because otherwise I'm getting the feeling that the analysis of all those
> funny forms and their functions becomes very pointless and that I'd better
> study Logics than Linguistics.
The problem is the surface can be deceiving. How would you handle
so-called pro-drop languages? In a language like Georgian, one need not
have any overt noun phrase at all, ever. This, despite the fact that
there are no overt markers of transitivity at all. A surface-based
analysis would say these are zero-place predicates like weather
verbs. The only reason we know they are not is that the mapping to
semantics is different. One simply cannot have a wholly syntactocentric
view in linguistics; it becomes incoherent very quickly.
Anyways, as a science that presumes to be both descriptive and explanatory,
you cannot posit theoretical phenomena (e.g., transitivity) on the basis
of other theoretical phenomena (e.g., phrase structure) until you've
actually grounded that theoretical phenomenon in something unaxiomatic,
something descriptive like such criteria.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 15
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:18:15 -0500
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:21:44 +0200
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Further language development Q's
El Tedashan 19 Sep.an 2004 21:19 enin, Th. Wier meshen�:
> > So, you may want to consider keeping
> > vestiges of the trigger system around. (Ask me about
> > Mingrelian sometime, which is a really neat example of
> > vestiges like this.)
>
> You are asked herewith.
So, in Georgian you have this wacky Split-S case-assignment
system like the following:
First Conj. 2nd 3rd. 4th
Present series: Nom-Dat-(Dat) Nom Nom Dat-Nom
Aorist series: Erg-Nom-(Dat) Nom Erg Dat-Nom
Perfect series: Dat-Nom-(-tvis) Nom Dat Dat-Nom
(where order represents the notional agent/experiencer-
patient-goal)
You thus have two classes of intransitives (the 2nd and 3rd
conjugations, one (the 3rd) that behaves like the subjects
of 1st conj. in the aorist, and one (the 2nd) that behaves like
the object of the 1st conj. Now, Mingrelian is about as closely
related to Georgian as Spanish is to, say, Romanian, so they
look largely the same. However, Mingrelian made one crucial
change that alters the whole alignment of the system: it
extended the ergative marker -k (which is by accident the
same as that of Basque) to be the subject marker of both
second and third conjugation series. Thus, in effect, you
have:
First Conj. 2nd 3rd. (4th)
Present series: Nom-Dat-(Dat) Nom Nom Dat-Nom
Aorist series: Erg-Nom-(Dat) Erg Erg Dat-Erg
(I use parentheses around the fourth conjugation, mostly psych
verbs like 'love' and 'hate', since in Mingrelian there is reason
to believe these are just special kinds of second conjugation
verbs.)
Thus, by extending the ergative marker to intransitives, but
only in the past, a former split-S system like Georgian has become
essentially recognizable as an nominative-accusative system, even
if still somewhat bizarre. This is the closest thing I've seen to
tense being marked on nouns in a Real Language.
> > > I mean like in the
> > > example I gave, "to invent" -> "being invented", where
> > > "being invented" is "invent.CAU".
> >
> > This sounds more like a passive to me than a causative.
>
> Yeah, actually you're right. Nevertheless I don't see why I
> should not form stative passives with the causative. IMO,
> something is "caused to be done" after all.
This is a plausible diachronic change, but you probably shouldn't
call it a causative. Or: just make the regular causative homophonous
with the stative-passive, but syntactically distinct.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 16
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:18:06 -0500
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT: reign names
> Thomas Wier wrote:
> > Heck, if Sargon II of Assyria (r. 722-705 BC) can be called
> > thus because of Sargon I the Great of Akkad (r. 2371-2315 BC), I
> > suppose anything can happen.
>
> Hm? I seem recall recently to've read words to the effect that Sargon
> of Akkad reached such fame that _two_ Assyrian kings adopted his name.
> There was no Sargon III of Assyria, so I've assumed there was a Sargon
> I of Assyria sometime between Sargon of Akkad and Sargon II.
There is indeed a Sargon I of Assyria, but he belongs to a period when
Assyria was a vassal of Babylon, and it is not even known
how long he reigned; it was around the time of Hamurabi. I was
given to understand (and this may be wrong) that by the time of Sargon II
of Assyria, over a thousand years later, it was the first Sargon that
was really salient, and that Sargon II conscientiously took that throne
name to echo the Great One's martial glory. But I suppose the question
is ambiguous; I'm not even sure the Assyrians used regnal numbers.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 17
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 20:14:06 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: THEORY: transitivity
Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>>>Paul Hopper and Sandra Thompson wrote an excellent article in the early
>>>80s (Language, Vol. 56, no. 2) entitled "Transitivity in Grammar
>>>and Discourse". Therein they list 10 (!) different criteria that
>>>languages use to encode transitivity, and they show that transitivity
>>>is really more of a cline than a discrete proposition.
>>>
>>>
>[...]
>
>
>>>So, if we've decided to lump things as transitive or intransitive,
>>>I would say 'folgen' is transitive.
>>>
>>>
>>So you prefer underlying structure to morphology, semantic transitivity to
>>overtly encoded transitivity?
>>
>>
>
>The point is that it is not clear what a 'transitive' construction
>really is outside of such criteria. The fact that a verb has two arguments
>does not automatically imply that one is a subject and one an object,
>since in some languages various kinds of tests (passivization, e.g.)
>show the second one to be some kind of oblique. Georgian has a whole
>class of verbs which are syntactically and morphologically intransitive,
>but they obligatorily take an oblique dative-marked argument (the
>verb for 'to hit' it like this).
>
>
I keep mentioning basque, but basque does this (in a weird way). In some
dialects, the progressive construction (with "ari") involves always
using an intransitive auxilliary even when the main verb form itself is
transitive, with both the principal arguments occuring in the absolutive
case for a transitive verb. In some of the dialects though (according to
what I was reading), this is changing... I suspect "ari" was originally
a verb form which was treated intransitively, but is being transformed
into a grammatical particle, but I know nothing about the evolution of
the basque language, so I could be wrong.
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 18
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:19:47 -0400
From: "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I'm back!
H.S. writes
>Hi all...
>
>I've decided to return to the list after several months of nomail,
A Di! (A Ge?)
Huanying ni huilai! Zuijin ruhe?
Kou
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 19
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:28:59 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
Ray Brown scripsit:
> English is also hesitant. This side of the Pond we tend treat collective
> nouns as plural while the American tend to use the singular. We would say
> "The committee are all agreed" the Americans, I believe, would say
> something like "the committee is entirely agreed".
In American English, nouns singular in form take singular agreement
only, without regard to their semantics. The only exception is *some*
but not all pluralia tantum nouns (ones which do not have a syntactic
singular form): the news is, the scissors are, the pants are, e.g.
Statistics, mathematics, and so on take singular agreement, although
"statistics" meaning "more than one statistic" takes plural agreement.
Note that our abbreviation for "mathematics" is "math", which of course
takes singular agreement.
"I am a human being, not just a statistic!"
"True, you are not a statistic; you are a datum."
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please leave your values Check your assumptions. In fact,
at the front desk. check your assumptions at the door.
--sign in Paris hotel --Cordelia Vorkosigan
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 20
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:56:24 -0700
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I'm back!
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:19:47PM -0400, Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:
> H.S. writes
>
> >Hi all...
> >
> >I've decided to return to the list after several months of nomail,
>
> A Di! (A Ge?)
>
> Huanying ni huilai! Zuijin ruhe?
Heh, interesting mixture of dialects (or did I misread again?) ;-) So,
if I may:
chikin cin cia ho!
Or, in Ebis�dian, uro 3kyro� 3Tal33'n eb�.
;-)
T
--
Be in denial for long enough, and one day you'll deny yourself of things you
wish you hadn't.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 21
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:27:33 +0200
From: J�rg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Imperatives in split-S languages (was ...)
Hallo!
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:36:07 +0100,
Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 19 Sep 2004 J?rg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Quality verbs (used for adjectives) take S_o
> > >
> > > "Transitive and Intransitive verbs may be placed in the imperative. Quality
> > > verbs cannot."
> > >
> > > This sounds pretty cool!
> >
> > And it makes sense, as the quality verbs are not about actually *doing*
> > something. It is the same way in my conlang Old Albic (a fluid-S
> > language).
>
> AFAIK |tasy| 'be-ill' is a quality verb in Guarani: |xe rasy| 'I
> am-ill', |nde rasy| 'you are-ill', |hasy| < *|ha'e tasy| 'he/she is-
> ill', |nda.ore.rasy.i| 'we-are-not-ill'.
>
> If this verb has no imperative, how can English sentence 'Do not
> be ill!' is translated into Guarani? Or in Old Albic?
I cannot speak for Guarani, but in Old Albic one would use
a circumlocution `Don't make that you are ill' or `Make that
you are not ill':
Na cara am gramascha.
not make-IMP that ill-be-2SG.P
Cara am na gramascha.
make-IMP that not ill-be-2SG.P
Greetings,
J�rg.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 22
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:24:02 EDT
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spanish-related question ((q)SVO ?)
Rodlox wrote:
<<"Que wot be thee."
" ? / what is / state-of-being / you "
"What are you?">>
I still see two question words: "que" and "wot". I mean, right in
the translation you translate "wot" as "what is". That's about as
much of a question word as you can get.
<<that would probably have an interlinear more like "state-of-being / teacher
/ you"...though I may be wrong.>>
So, in essence, you have a VOS language, like Malagasy. And
what you have are two question words: "que" and "wot". If I
were to conjecture as to how this system works, it'd be this:
(1) Taking a standard GB root, let's say that there's a Q feature
somewhere that causes WH words to move in front of the verb.
So, in "wot be thee", the "wot" comes from the direct object position
and moves in front of the verb.
(2) Unlike GB, the Q feature is actually extent, and that Q feature
is "que".
(3) Further conjecturing: If you wanted to say "Are you a teacher?",
you'd have the following: "Que be teacher thee?"
Is that what you were thinking of?
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 23
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:38:42 EDT
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Trigger languages� �� Re: Further language development Q's
Rodlox wrote:
<<what is a trigger language?� are there language groups/families in
which
> > triggers are not found?� what purpose do triggers serve?>>
There's no simple way to explain this, because there's no simple
answer. Triggers are things found in languages like Tagalog, and
other languages like Tagalog, and they don't work in a cut-and-dry
way. (In fact, Matt Pearson doesn't seem to think that there are
any triggers at all, if I understood that paper correctly [which I
probably didn't].) So, in order to explain what people *mean* when
they say "trigger language", I'm going to pretend that they're simple
to explain and work in one and only one way. This will give you an
idea for howt he real ones work, *but* it will not approximate how
any one language *actually* works (except for a visual conlang of
mine).
In English, the term "focus" doesn't play a big role (or not as big as in,
say, Japanese), because it's not overtly marked all the time. So in the
sentence, "I went to the store", I don't even know what the focus is
(is it the store?). Anyway, though, you can take a sentence and make
a focus with emphasis. Here's an example:
"Yesterday, my friend and I went to eat at Quizno's."
Now, imagine someone asked the following question:
"*Who* did you eat with?"
One might respond with:
"Yesterday, my *friend* and I went to eat at Quizno's."
With special emphasis on "friend". Thus, "friend" has
been focused. It has special emphasis. And, in fact, I
can think of a way to focus every single word in that
sentence.
The point is, focusing makes one part of the sentence
the most important--what the listener should focus on.
In trigger language, a morpheme (we'll call it a suffix)
marks what the most important part of the sentence is
in every single sentence. That suffix is called the trigger.
So here's a made-up example:
kane-ro-ta mane-lo tasa-ke felu-mi
/give-past-AGT. man-TRIG. book-ACC. woman-DAT./
"The *man* gave the book to the woman.
In theory (not in practice, as it turns out), you can mix
these words up in any order you like, and you'll still get
the same meaning.
Now, two things about this sentence. First, /-lo/ is the
trigger, and marks "man", so "man" is focused. But if it's
marked with the trigger, you don't know what the man's
doing. That's why there's an "agent" suffix on the verb.
You look for the suffix on the verb to know what the
word with the trigger suffix is doing in the sentence. So
here's that same sentence with a new focus:
kane-ro-ke mane-ta tasa-lo felu-mi
/give-past-ACC. man-AGT. book-TRIG. woman-DAT./
"The man gave *the book* to the woman.
And you can imagine what the other permutation would
look like.
Another (supposed) feature of trigger languages is that the
argument with the trigger suffix is the *only* necessary
argument. Here's an example:
kane-ro-mi felu-lo
/give-past-DAT. woman-TRIG./
"The woman was given (something by someone)."
So if you're already talking about giving, and someone wants
to know who was the one that was given something, the above
is all you'd need to say, whereas in English you'd need to say
something like, "It was the woman that someone gave something
to".
That, in a very small nutshell, is what a pristine trigger language
might look like. Again, no real trigger language works exactly
like that. A conlang trigger language just might work like this,
though.
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 24
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:55:43 EDT
From: Dan Saunders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Trigger languages� �� Re: Fur ther language development Q's
In a message dated 9/21/2004 16:42:53 Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Rodlox wrote:
<<what is a trigger language? are there language groups/families in
which
> > triggers are not found? what purpose do triggers serve?>>
There's no simple way to explain this, because there's no simple
answer. Triggers are things found in languages like Tagalog, and
other languages like Tagalog, and they don't work in a cut-and-dry
way. (In fact, Matt Pearson doesn't seem to think that there are
any triggers at all, if I understood that paper correctly [which I
probably didn't].) So, in order to explain what people *mean* when
they say "trigger language", I'm going to pretend that they're simple
to explain and work in one and only one way. This will give you an
idea for howt he real ones work, *but* it will not approximate how
any one language *actually* works (except for a visual conlang of
mine).
In English, the term "focus" doesn't play a big role (or not as big as in,
say, Japanese), because it's not overtly marked all the time. So in the
sentence, "I went to the store", I don't even know what the focus is
(is it the store?). Anyway, though, you can take a sentence and make
a focus with emphasis. Here's an example:
"Yesterday, my friend and I went to eat at Quizno's."
Now, imagine someone asked the following question:
"*Who* did you eat with?"
One might respond with:
"Yesterday, my *friend* and I went to eat at Quizno's."
With special emphasis on "friend". Thus, "friend" has
been focused. It has special emphasis. And, in fact, I
can think of a way to focus every single word in that
sentence.
The point is, focusing makes one part of the sentence
the most important--what the listener should focus on.
In trigger language, a morpheme (we'll call it a suffix)
marks what the most important part of the sentence is
in every single sentence. That suffix is called the trigger.
So here's a made-up example:
kane-ro-ta mane-lo tasa-ke felu-mi
/give-past-AGT. man-TRIG. book-ACC. woman-DAT./
"The *man* gave the book to the woman.
In theory (not in practice, as it turns out), you can mix
these words up in any order you like, and you'll still get
the same meaning.
Now, two things about this sentence. First, /-lo/ is the
trigger, and marks "man", so "man" is focused. But if it's
marked with the trigger, you don't know what the man's
doing. That's why there's an "agent" suffix on the verb.
You look for the suffix on the verb to know what the
word with the trigger suffix is doing in the sentence. So
here's that same sentence with a new focus:
kane-ro-ke mane-ta tasa-lo felu-mi
/give-past-ACC. man-AGT. book-TRIG. woman-DAT./
"The man gave *the book* to the woman.
And you can imagine what the other permutation would
look like.
Another (supposed) feature of trigger languages is that the
argument with the trigger suffix is the *only* necessary
argument. Here's an example:
kane-ro-mi felu-lo
/give-past-DAT. woman-TRIG./
"The woman was given (something by someone)."
So if you're already talking about giving, and someone wants
to know who was the one that was given something, the above
is all you'd need to say, whereas in English you'd need to say
something like, "It was the woman that someone gave something
to".
That, in a very small nutshell, is what a pristine trigger language
might look like. Again, no real trigger language works exactly
like that. A conlang trigger language just might work like this,
though.
-David
Do you know of anyway I could get that put into a larger nutshell? a book
or a webpage or something? You have only whetted my thirst for knowledge and
my searches on the internet prove futile.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 25
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:32:37 -0700
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
--- Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> - maleness is certainly _an_ archetype for all men
> & boys (that is 'male
> humans'). Plato talks about the objects we see
> around us as "partaking"
> (metekhein) in the Archetype or Form. Thus in the
> Platonic sense, all men
> partake in the Archetypes of Maleness as well as of
> Human-ness. Woman also
> partake in the Archetype of Human-ness but not, of
> course, Maleness. They
> partake in the Archetype of Femaleness.
>
> >> Animals and
> >> plants can be male or female too.
>
> Indeed, these partake in the Archetypes or Forms of
> Maleness & Femaleness
> (according to Plato - not me :)
>
> So a male elephant partakes in the Archetypes of
> Maleness & Elephanthood
> (among other things).
Ah, but that's quite interesting, since I had the same
idea ! (only I didn't know it was an archetype). My
idea is that we have to get rid of the arborescent
representation (scientific taxonomy, etc), and the
example of the male elephant is very close to what I
fancied. I'm reading about the DOM (Document Object
Model) just now: could we imagine a DOM that wouldn't
be strictly arborescent (tree-like) ? That would be
fantastic !
> >> - there is a difference between "the set of all
> men"
> >> and "the characteristics common to all men".
>
> In modern programming terms, the first is the set of
> all instances or
> _objects_; the second is presumasbly the _class_
> definition.
Yes, looks like that; yet I was very pleased to
discover that in JavaScript, the properties of an
object belonging to a class can be in contradiction
with the general class properties (the prototype ones,
if I got it right). As I understood it, if you refer
to an object's property, Javascript will first look
for an explicit property at the very object level; if
it doesn't find it there, it will look for it at the
prototype level; if it still doesn't find there, it
will look at the global level (maybe I mix it up a
little). So it should be easy to say: a property of
the birds' class is that they can fly, but a property
of the ostrich is that it can't fly, even being a
bird.
In the
> Platonic sense, nothing _belongs_ to an Archetype.
> The things of this
> world (which to Plato were less than real - shadows
> of shadows)
> 'participate' in or share in an Archetype and,
> indeed, will share in more
> than one Archetype.
So they inherit properties from different archetypes ?
Again I suppose
> it depends on how one defines _entity_. The set of
> all conlangers is a
> different sort of entity from the enitity that is
> Philippe Caquant or the
> one that is Chris Bates or Ray Brown etc.
>
Yes, because in the set of all conlangers you can find
different instances, while Philippe Caquant is a final
leaf: you can divide him into arms, legs, head and
some more parts, but you cannot find different
instances in him, except if considering severe
schizophrenia.
>
>
The set of
> Americans that walked
> on the moon has two members only.
I'm afraid there are some more. Actually, they went
back to Moon after Apollo 11. They probably had
forgotten something there.
(snip)
=====
Philippe Caquant
Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intellegor illis (Ovidius).
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo (Horatius).
Interdum stultus opportune loquitur (Henry Fielding).
Scire leges non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem (Somebody).
Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur (Somebody else).
Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).
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