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There are 7 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: CHAT: reign names
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: new Unnamed Conlang
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Spanish-related question ((q)SVO ?)
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. English sounds `v' and `w'
From: Shanthanu Bhardwaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: new conlang - " *aiinodbus' "
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Inventing names
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:06:03 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
Quoting Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Fortunately we anglophones don't have examine mice closely before we talk
> about the little critters.
FYI, in my idiolect of Swedish, a male cat can be masculine, feminine or
neuter*. Feminine and neuter, because the word _katt_ "cat" itself is unstable
between these two, masculine because there is an optional rule allowing the
biological gender of gendered beings to override the grammatical. Female cats
will have to do with only feminine or neuter (I'm sure feline feminists** are
most annoyed by this!).
* I'm here operating on the assumption that that Swedish n-gender words can be
subdivided into masculines, feminines and neuters based on which personal
pronoun is used to refer to them. The fact that masculines demand partly
different adjective agreement would seem to support this view.
** Felinists?
Andreas
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:20:25 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT: reign names
Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > 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.
Yep - I found him the day before yesterday*, but didn't get to a computer with
'Net access till today.
> 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.
I don't know either, altho they must have had _some_ means of distinguishing
kings of the same way, since their dating system was based on royal reigns.
While two Sargons with a millennium in between may not have been much of a
problem in this regard, four Shamshi-Adads withing a couple centuries must've
been.
In the abscence of anything more concrete, it seems to be most likely that the
'II' refers to the earlier Sargon of Assyria, whether or not the name was
chosen to recall Sargon of Akkad.
* It's always annoyed me that English hasn't got a single word for "the day
before yesterday", nor "the day after tomorrow". It still happens, as it did
when I wrote this mail, that I get stuck trying to find the word before
recalling it simply does not exist.
Andreas
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:26:02 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: new Unnamed Conlang
Quoting Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On 19 Sep 2004 Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > I believe I've indicated a lack of faith in the utility of such
> > specifications at all.
>
> In my interpretation, this issue is about to help Rodlox to find
> a correct phonetical representation for his/her specifications.
> Unfortunately, we got involved with each other's argumentation
> instead.
Indeed. We're basically wasting listspace here.
Still, a couple of points I'd like to address.
> > The question, however, was whether the voiceless uvular fricative
> > occurs in more well-known languages, which it certainly does.
>
> For me, this is not exactly the question. The question is what
> extent of the populace is aware of a given phonetical
> characteristic. In this respect, some features of well-known
> languages can be less evident than other features of less-known
> languages.
But someone _did_ ask whether [X] occurs in some more well-known language. If
the answer to that is of little help it doesn't mean it's not still the answer.
> > Some books give [X] as the value of /x/ after back vowels in
> > Modern Standard High German
>
> I do not bring into question of your information of standard High
> German [X], but popular works as Duden's Aussprachew�rterbuch do
> not mention this feature. My Ausprachew�rterbuch (3rd edition,
> 1990) conveys |ach!| as [ax] and not [aX] despite of the fact that
> it gives detailed allophone inventory for other phonemes, e.g.
> enumerates four representations of syllable-initial /r/.
>
> Therefore a German example for [X] could be informative of
> experts of High German phonology, but it could be misleading for
> others, e.g. for those who are informed from Duden.
Again, the purpose of giving that particular information wasn't to help anyone
understand what [X] is, only pointing out that it does, infact, occur in better
known languages.
> > I originally asked specifically about _Latin_ orthographies, but
> > good to know anyway.
>
> I do not want to contradict you but I do not remember explicit
> narrowing for Latin script. After browsing postings I found still
> general questions as e.g. 18/09: "Since you appear to be familiar
> with EEan languages, do you know any that uses the digraphs 'sy'
> and 'zy'?"
I guess the "Latin" may have been lost in a rewrite. I distinctly recall typing
it down.
Andreas
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 03:42:16 -0700
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spanish-related question ((q)SVO ?)
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 09:46:24 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> =20
> okay, sorry for not being too clear...."what is" is a =
> statement..."that which is" basically.
I may be misunderstanding your post but....
In Spanish, if you're saying "That which" you use "lo que". By itself
"que" is a question word:
"�Qu� es el nombre de usuario y la contrase�a?" - What is the username
and the password?
--
Listen Johnny;
You're like a mother to the girl you've fallen for,
And you're still falling,
And if they come tonight
You'll roll up tight and take whatever's coming to you next.
Slow Graffitti - Belle and Sebastian
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:57:16 -0400
From: Shanthanu Bhardwaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: English sounds `v' and `w'
Hi all,
I don't know if this is silly but I wanted to confirm the exact
difference betwwen the sound `v' and `w' in the English language and their
IPA representation in ASCII. I think that both the sounds `v' and `w' ar
not aspirated in English and the only difference is that `v'(isn't it the
same as the hindi `v'?) is labio-dental and `w' is bilabial. Is this right?
Also is there any difference in the articulation of these two sounds
between US and British English? Also, is there any online resource for
proper pronounciation of the IPA symbols(ie. audio files)? There are some
audios at the IPA site, but they're too noisy to be of much help.
Shanth
``Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur''
http://home.iitk.ac.in/student/shanth
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 13:00:29 +0200
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: new conlang - " *aiinodbus' "
On 22 Sep 2004 Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> phoneme pronounciation:
> gh
Your original specification for |gh| was >>like "GHent" in
Holland<<. AFAIK it is phonetically /G/, i.e. voiced velar
fricative. However in this case, your phoneme inventory is slighly
unbalanced, since |kh| is defined as /X/, that is unvoiced _uvular_
fricative. If balancedness matters, you may consider all-uvular
solution (|gh| = /R/ and [kh| = /X/) or all-velar one (|gh| = /G/
and [kh| = /x/).
> o (like "cOt" & "Octopus")
Every time I make a statement on English phonology, I burn my
fingers because of the confutations of various English 'lects :))
I do not know whether I dare to assign a phonetical value /Q/.
> u (like "tUt & "bUnk") [U\] ?
See previous comment. It is usually transcribed as /V/ but I was
told that it is rather a historical notation than phonetically
correct one. I suppose it is near /6/. ([U\] is much more close
and rounded.)
> I [I] or [I\]
Your orginal definition >>like "tIn" & "pIn"<< implies /I/. /I\/
has back characteristics in a binary classification. The symmetry
says that /I/ is a better choice because in this case you have two
front vowels |i| and |a| for two back ones |o| and |u|.
> ii (like "sIght" and "strIve")
/aI/, I presume.
> a (like "bAt" & "cAn")
Its usual transcription is /{/ in X-SAMPA or /&/ in CXS. But I
was told that some pronounce it a bit closer as it were /E/.
> d [d] (? [d'] or [d_<] ?)
Implosive /d_</ would be an off-system sound (since |b| is not
/b_</). IMHO [d'] could be a possible (dialectal) allophone for
|dy| /dz\/. To reach a maximum phonematical contrast, I would
prefer /d/ (even in dental [d_d] variation).
> n [n] or [N\]
IMHO if a dento-alveolar stop /d/ exists, there should be also a
dento-alveolar nasal /n/ in the system.
> h [h] (?) [h\] or [H\] ?)
It could be a solution to enable allophonic representations for
/h/, e.g. [h\] intervocalically, [H\] at the end of the words (to
avoid omission) and
[h] otherwise.
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 13:17:20 +0200
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Inventing names
Manisu! [ Be greeted!
Sira ilt�yang nelnoin vaena! [ I need your help!
Before I'm starting to work on a conworld I need names, I
thought & decided. But how to come up with names? Shall I
just make up (at least for now) random, meaningless names,
or should I make up typical words that can appear in names
(e.g. animals' names, gods' names, war, battle, rich, poor,
nice, good, bad etc.)? Or shoudl I even mix both?! The
problem with descriptive names, such as "Stormcloud" is
that they're mostly at least trisyllabic and that way don't
fit what I'm used to -- European names are rather short,
only one or two syllables mostly. OTOH, when you're looking
at Indian or generally SE-Asian names, three syllables are
very short!
Then there are the place names .. The same problem, the same
question ... But descriptinve names are IMO normal, and
many place names are polysyllabic, so this shouldn't be a
that big problem. At last I could force my self to call the
biggest ocean of the map of my conworld I've drawn some
time ago "Rad�m Anana", which is Dal�ian for "The big
ocean" (Ocean big.3sg), Ayeri would be sth like "Caron
Nuc�rya" (Sea AGT.big).
Cutanoea Caivo! [ With thanks!
Carsten
--
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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