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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: newbie: have alphabet, will conlang
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. "lookit!" (was Re: "I'm after ..." (Re: Maybe Spam? "Sorunsuz YathamanÃn
Kefyi .. ."))
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Perfect aspect (was: "I'm after ..." )
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Novel ConGrammar
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Inventing names
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?
From: David H <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: S9: sketch of yet another unnamed conlang
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: 1st, 2nd, 3rd - 4th person POV??
From: takatunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
From: takatunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Novel ConGrammar
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Another Arabic Question
From: Adam Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: newbie: have alphabet, will conlang
From: Ben Poplawski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Celtic languages?
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:14:14 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
So, as I soldier on on Latinesque, I need help. Where did
Diphthonisation occur in the Romance languages, when, and how?
I'm trying to research the history of the language deeply before
looking at the surface, so I can describe it accurately, you see.
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:32:39 +0100
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)
Rodlox wrote:
> what happened to drive Manx [and Cornish] into the long night of linguistic
> history? *curious*
English, just like all the other insular languages.
--
Keith Gaughan, Developer
Digital Crew Ltd., Pembroke House, Pembroke Street, Cork, Ireland
http://www.digital-crew.com/
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:54:45 -0600
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: newbie: have alphabet, will conlang
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 01:44:48 +1000, Glenn Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> It's strange
>> that you have a single sign for h and schwa. You have few
>> back consonants, only /g/. Me as a German speaking would
>> consider the distinction between [x] and [h] to be bigger
>> than any distinction of th and s or of s and sh.
>
> I feel I can get away with the h/shwa symbol because a h can never
> appear where a shwa would and vice versa (at least in the way I speak
> -- I'd be interested in objections).
Sanskritic -bhya- vs. -baya- etc.? (Sk. |a| is /@/.)
> ie: I would never begin a syllable with a shwa or have a 'h' anywherebut at the
> start of a syllable.
What about words like Eng. |ahead| /@hEd/ (starting a syllable with a schwa)?
Incidentally final -h shows up pronounced in slang a lot, such as in |teh|, or |-eh|
for adjectival |-y|. (It's not pronounced by all folk, but it does happen.)
*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: 4
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:53:21 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: "lookit!" (was Re: "I'm after ..." (Re: Maybe Spam? "Sorunsuz YathamanÃn
Kefyi .. ."))
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 07:07:31 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Talking about dialectisms - the most prominent one I remember in Leitrim
> (dunno about the rest of Ireland) is the use of 'lookit!' instead of
> 'look at that!'.
AIUI, that's /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ and not /lU:kIt/ (barring mis-hearing), and IIRC
it's pan-Irish.
Paul
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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:06:52 -0400
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
Joe wrote:
> So, as I soldier on on Latinesque, I need help. Where did
> Diphthonisation occur in the Romance languages, when, and how?
>
> I'm trying to research the history of the language deeply before
> looking at the surface, so I can describe it accurately, you see.
>
Depends on a number of factors-- (1) the area-- whether it's an Eastern
(Romanian and IIRC Italian and some small relatives) or Western
(Franco-Provencal/Iberian). (2) whether the VL vowel system goes to 5
/ieauo/ (maybe with length), or 7 /ieEauoO/ (or more, like French, but it's
another matter).
But almost everywhere, IIRC, VL stressed short e and o diphthongize-- Span.
"ie", "ue" in every environment, Ital. "ie" "uo" in open syllables but /E O/
in closed, and with exceptions of course. Romanian has "ea" and "oa" _I
think_ for these vowels, but I'm not sure.
OTOH it might be interesting instead to have the _long_ vowels diphthongize,
which strikes me as a more natural thing to happen. (More Germanic too)
You should hunt up one of the books on the Romance languages; I use W. D.
Elcock's, but there are more recent ones; and I think someone on the List
has cited an on-line source
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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:45:15 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Perfect aspect (was: "I'm after ..." )
On Monday, September 27, 2004, at 11:04 , Keith Gaughan wrote:
> Joe wrote:
>
>> Keith Gaughan wrote:
[snip]
>>> The meaning comes from the use of the phrase 'tar eis' (these days
>>> written by some as 'tareis', but that looks terrible and Irish is rarely
>>> their first language when they do), meaning... no, guess! Yup, 'after'.
>>> The Hiberno-English usage is identical to the one in Gaelic, all forms.
>>
>> Welsh, too. 'Rydw i wedi gwneud' - 'I have done' - 'Am I after doing'.
>
> All down to a lack of a direct equivalent to 'to have'.
But why should you use the verb "to have" to express the perfect aspect?
What, for example, does 'he' actually possess in "He has gone"? What is a
"gone"?
It has always seemed to me, in fact, that the Cambro-Gaelic use of 'after'
is more logical. If someone has gone somwhere, it has already happened
and it is behind us. "He is after [his] going" seems logical enough.
Some languages, of course, use a perfect active participle like Esperanto:
li estas irita - he is having-gone/after-going.
Indeed, this seems to have been the norm for intransitive verbs in Vulgar
Latin. In Classical Latin, with few exceptions, the perfect participle has
a passive meaning. An intransitive verb, like "to come", could use te
participle only in the 'impersonal passive' construction: ventum est - 'on
est arrivÃ; they have come/people have come/we have come' etc according to
context. But in Vulgar Latin we have new forms, *ven'utus (in Gaul & Italy)
, *ven'itus (in the Iberian peninsular) = 'having gone', so:
je suis venu <-- *ego sujo venutus
Forms like "j'ai les vus" derive from */eGo ajo los ved'utos/ = CL (ego)
illos visos habeo. That construction _is_ attested in the Classical
language. Forms like:
multa bona bene parta habemus = we have many well produced goods (Plautus)
abstrusam habebam = I kept her hidden (Plautus)
But already as early as Plautus (2nd cent. BC) we find such phrases
sometimes amount to no more than a periphrastic perfect, e.g.
hasce aedis conductas habebam = I have rented this house (note: _aedi:s_
acc. plural of plurale_tantum noun_aede;s_ "house")
So in VL the perfect was expressed:
- if verb is intransitive, use perfect (active) participle, agreeing with
subject, + verb "to be".
- if verb is intransitive, use perfect (passive) participle, agreeing with
object, + verb "to have".
That was the system in the proto-romance system, but modern romance
languages have modified it. Spanish uses _haber_ only, but the verb has
become a 'perfect auxiliary', the actual meaning 'to own', 'to keep' being
denoted by _tener_.
Some conlangs use a special auxiliary for the perfect, cf. Novial
me veni = I'm coming me have = I have/ I've got
me ha veni = I've come me ha have = I've had/ I had got
The Germanic languages appear to have imitated the VL system. But English
now uses only 'have' - forms like "he is come" are now regarded as archaic.
But to return to where we started. Yes, the Cambro-Gaelic method is to use
"after", but Breton has developed a verb "to have" by fusing possessive
particles with "to be", thus:
am eus (I have) hon eus (we have)
az peus (thou hast, you have) ho peus (ye have, you have)
en deus (he has) o deus (they have)
he deus (she has)
Unlike its sister languages, Breton expresses the perfect in the same way
as Vulgar Latin did, e.g.
Mammig he deus prenet traou e Brest
Mum has bought (some) things in Brest
Tadig a zo chomet er gÃr
Dad is having-stayed at home = Dad has stayed at home (_a_ is a
preverbal particle denoting a positive verb)
A few ideas for conlangs here :)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
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" ]
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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:46:02 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Novel ConGrammar
On Monday, September 27, 2004, at 10:36 , Rodlox wrote:
> hopefully, this isn't #6.
>
>
>>> inspired by an actual archeological object.
>>>
>>> This language appears to be SVOn (subject-verb-object-number), in which
>>> the
>>> number can be an actual number, or simply "possession of (#)".
>>
>> SVO i understand. But what does 'number' relate to?
>
> the number of something - it automatically is shunted to the end of the
> sentance, regardless of which category it otherwise would have been in).
>
>> By position it would
>> seem to imply it relates to the object. Does this mean that only the
>> object can be singular or plural and/or can be possessed?
>
> yep. (unless the subject is a group of people who possess eight carrots)
> .
Sorry - I am still unclear how this 'number' category works. Could you
give actual examples?
[snip]
>>> )
>>
>> I don't understand the third one: present (definite & indefinite?). Could
>> you explain?
>
> I wasn't sure if there'd be one Present tense (both of them), or two
> Present tenses.
Yes - but what I am not clear about is what you understand the difference
is between "present indefinite" & 'present definite".
>>> indefinate future (farther than one can think)
>>> definate future (fore-sight & planning)
>>
>> I fail to see how the future can ever be definite. Foresight & planning
>> can do much to increase the likelihood of a situation - but it can never
>> be definite.
>
> the heat death of the universe, is an example of a definite future event.
In that case "farther than one can think" has very little meaning :)
But nope - it's a future _possibility_ according to one theory (or maybe
several theories). I have seen it also argued that the universe is
indefinitely expanding; and I am sure there are other scientific theories.
Who knows what other theories will emerge as our understanding grows?
But in any case, it would seem perverse to build a tense into a language
so that you can refer to the death of the Universe.
You seem to be having a three-way tense system with definite & indefinite
aspects. However, with regard future, I think you have think in terms of
probabilities, i.e. relatively high probability ~ unknown probability.
But many languages, including English, do not have a future tense (in the
proper sense of 'tense'), but use a mood expressing prediction, intention,
volition etc. In English we commonly used the _modal_ auxiliaries _will_
(preterite _would_) and _shall_ (preterite _should_). I am not suggesting
that you do this, merely suggesting something else to think about ;)
>> Exactly what is this archaeological fragment?
>
> a block from Chatalhoyuk.
>
>> It seems to be very scant on
>> some features, for example the consonant inventory,
>
> WIP.
>
>> but can apparently
>> give use complete picture of the tense system. How can this be?
>
> because I'm basing a conlang on an otherwise unknown language. :)
Right - so let me get this right. You are using an actual fragment from a
block at Ãatal HÃyÃk in Asia Minor. Then from the fragmentary inscription
you will construct a conlang? Interesting.
If I've got it right, it would be helpful to know what the fragment is and
to distinguish between what is based on the fragment and what is invention.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
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" ]
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Message: 8
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:45:53 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 07:11 , Philippe Caquant wrote:
> --- Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skrev:
[snip]
>> Nope - it does not confirm that you have writing.
>> Symbols are certainly
>> repeated on the Phaistos Disk and certain groupings
>> have been noted, i.e.
>> some symbols do come back in a similar context. But
>> as more than one
>> person has plausibly shown, the disk might be a
>> board for a game, and not
>> writing at all.
>
> OK, but the original question was about distinguishing
> between something meaningful and something totally
> natural or at random.
The original question was *NOT* about distinguishing between something
meaningful and something totally natural or at random.
Before criticizing - which you seem to delight in doing - please check
sources. The original question posed by Rodlox was:
"if you had five or fewer tablet (each the size of your palm), which had
symbols etched in them...how would you know that it was a written
language?...as opposed to random slashes in the
rock...or something else?
just wondering."
"A written language" means - wait for it! - W-R-I-T-I-N-G.
> A game is meaningful, even if it's not "writing".
I did *not* say a game is not meaningful. Believe it or not, in my 65+
years on this planet I have actually noticed that games are meaningful.
That is why they have rules. Duh!
Nor do I understand why you put "writing" in quotes. A game is "something
else" than writing. Rodlox specifically asked "or something else".
> But the question is not so simple,
{sigh - strikes head against wall}
Good grief!! Let us recapitulate, shall we?
1. Rodlox asked the question which I quoted above.
2. _You_ replied with a _simple_ suggestion on how to determine if the
marks were writing.
3. _I_ pointed out that your criteria apply to the Phaistos Disk but that
did not mean that everyone considers the symbols on the disk are writing,
i.e. *it is not so simple*
I KNOW IT IS FAR FROM SIMPLE. I once spent many years in research that
involved considering such fragments. Nowhere in my reply did I imply it
was simple - quite the contrary.
I suspect you will not believe it - but I was actually trying to be
*helpful* in my reply to Rodlox.
Please could you check your sources before writing and actually read what
I and others write. It would make life pleasanter.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
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" ]
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:53:17 +0200
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Inventing names
John Leland wrote:
> In a message dated 9/22/04 1:10:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> << The first thing I did was learn
> what some of the names used in _our_ world mean. For example: according
> to www.behindthename.com (the first site I found) Michael comes from the
> Hebrew _Miyka'el_ meaning "who is like God?". Carsten (or Karsten) is
> listed as a Low German form of Christian, which has a rather obvious
> meaning.
>
> I translated some of these names into Suvile, according to their
> etymologies. >>
> I have often used the same system in creating names in Rihana-ye, e.g.
> Vejofaki "Horselover" for "Philip" (phil+hippos, I understand, in Greek).
> John Leland
Sure. Guess what _Melroch 'Aestan_ is supposed to mean in Sindarin!
_mel-_ "friend", _roch-_ "horse", _gaestan-_ "blessed"
(Tolkien first glossed *GAYAS- as "dread", then as "bless", so make your
pick! Actually I triangulate this to mean "taboo" as the original
meaning of Latin _sacer_.)
My son Philip William is called _Melroch Merthol_ (_mer-_ "desire"
_thol-_ "helmet".)
--
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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Message: 10
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:42:47 -0400
From: David H <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?
Well, I don't really have an immediate goal, but I'm not going to Israel
any time soon. I did start learning Modern Hebrew but I didn't get very
far, and the book I was using didn't use vowels, can you recommend any
good books? If I learn Biblical hebrew, would this give me a good
grounding for the grammar (and vocabulary) of Modern Hebrew? And also,
which type of Hebrew was the Talmud written in?
Thanks
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Message: 11
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:17:25 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: S9: sketch of yet another unnamed conlang
Hi!
Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Staving Henrik Theiling:
> >...
> > Ufta do vialt hat gip de ma uine lang un iuni huva. Na di fone si
> > hat stat, hat fin di de pais "`Sina"' un nali setel di. Un di meka
> > hat zat: "`Lat os meotke brin!"' Un da brin zine meotke hat is de
> > brik, un ne ta hat is ne meat.
>
> First few lines of the Babel text.
Yes!
> Apparently Germanic, with a bit of
> French influence. I reckon its meant to be a fairly close relative of
> English, maybe an alternative history English. How close am I?
Quite good, but no alternative history: more like future fiction.
My idea is the following: take a lot of Germans, some South Africans,
Chinese, speakers of Westfalian Low German, Dutch, French, English,
Japanese, Spanish and a few others of which my cupboard happens to
contain dictionaries of, put them in an isolated place and wait for,
say, 300 years.
With this in mind, I want to reconstruct a language from examining
some texts I find in, errrm, a crashed spaceship.
(Because it is constructed, after the intuition phase, I want to apply
the found grammar and phonotactics to correct some very unlikely and
unrealistic things.)
The above is a first try:
- prepositions have merged with articles, involving some non-productive
umlaut traces
- articles are mandatory and carry case and number information
- two cases are left:
- core (from German nominative and accusative) and
- oblique (from German dative)
- relative clauses like Chinese ('de'-equivalent derives from 'sein'/'zijn')
- word order mainly like German, but a bit different
- some features of Afrikaans, but starting with German, not Dutch:
- verb forms from 3p. sg. ind. pres.
- isolating
- suffixed 'nie' in negative sentences
- vowels /aeiou/, no length, but maybe /y/ and /2/ as well
- simplified phonotactics (but not decided yet)
- many loans, finally probably many more than in the ad-hoc text above
- maybe: pro-drop
- maybe: optional tense instead of mandatory
**Henrik
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Message: 12
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:22:33 +0200
From: takatunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 1st, 2nd, 3rd - 4th person POV??
[EMAIL PROTECTED] asita tibinai u:
<< 2d Pers. is the hardest, rather weird, and uncommon in Engl. prose
probably for
good reason. >>
Another French 2d pers. book: "Un homme qui dort" by Georges Perec.
I read it three years ago yet am still in shock.
Â
The new Tunu language is @
http://conlang.free.fr
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Message: 13
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:34:54 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
Roger Mills scripsit:
> Depends on a number of factors-- (1) the area-- whether it's an Eastern
> (Romanian and IIRC Italian and some small relatives) or Western
> (Franco-Provencal/Iberian). (2) whether the VL vowel system goes to 5
> /ieauo/ (maybe with length), or 7 /ieEauoO/ (or more, like French, but it's
> another matter).
French actually descends from the Western Romance 7-vowel system -- it's
just that all seven vowels except /i/ became diphthongs and then were
resolved to monophthongs later.
As for the original Latin diphthongs, ae and oe went to /E:/ and /E/
(or is it the other way around?) long ago; au went to /o/ much later
and quite sporadically (Spanish and French yes, Portuguese no).
A new source of diphthongs was non-stressed i before another vowel.
--
"May the hair on your toes never fall out!" John Cowan
--Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 14
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:56:49 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?
On Sep 28, 2004, at 8:42 PM, David H wrote:
> Well, I don't really have an immediate goal, but I'm not going to
> Israel
> any time soon. I did start learning Modern Hebrew but I didn't get very
> far, and the book I was using didn't use vowels, can you recommend any
> good books? If I learn Biblical hebrew, would this give me a good
> grounding for the grammar (and vocabulary) of Modern Hebrew? And also,
> which type of Hebrew was the Talmud written in?
> Thanks
Well, the Mishna part of the Talmud was written in Mishnaic Hebrew :) ,
which is a bit like both Modern and Biblical, but closer to Modern.
The Gemara part of the Talmud was written in Aramaic, so don't worry
about that :) .
-Stephen (Steg)
"the main purpose of the pyramid is to say
'my unique pyramid is sky high and made of white marble.
i do not share it with anyone'."
~ andrew nowicki
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Message: 15
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:33:29 +0200
From: takatunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
The French magazine Science & Vie features an article on the Voynich
manuscript this month---but it does not mention the Michelangelo hypothesis.
I have a Codex Seraphinianus home. It's insanely completely nonsensical as a
whole and makes me kind of sick when I thumb it through. I have no doubt
that the "texts" are nothing but maniac, compulsive, meaningless squiggles.
Â
The new Tunu language is @
http://conlang.free.fr
David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asita tibinai u:
<<<
Responding to the original question, it's very difficult. (Well,
actually I might be misunderstanding the question--we'll see.)
The Codex Seraphinianvs is a book written in 3 invented scripts
(one for the numbers, one for the regular text, and one for the
titles--well, and there's also a made-up hieroglyphic text on one
page). It looks very much like a real script that can be used to
write a real language. Nevertheless, I've tried my hardest to
decipher it, and I just can't believe that there's actually a language
behind it. Some of the combinations of letters are just too
random. Maybe each page encodes a different language; I don't
know. All I know is that when I see something I've identified
as a character show in different words once, twice in a row,
three times in a row, four times in a row, five times in a row,
six times in a row, seven times in a row, eight times and a row,
*and* nine times in a row, it simply strikes me as highly unlikely
that the script is recording anything real. [Not that a letter *couldn't*
do that and stand for a real language, but I somehow doubt
that Luigi Serafini was a good enough conlanger to do that.]
>>>
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Message: 16
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:00:16 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
> Okay, so then how do you account for the count/mass noun distinction,
> or pluralia tanta? In English, there is no way to predict why, e.g.,
> "lettuce" is a mass noun and "scissors" are pluralia tantum, but
> something like "army" is countable and has both singular and plural
> forms.
Plainly so. (BTW, "pluralia tantum" is not inflectable.)
> The "United States is" is just part of a larger phenomenon,
> and happens to be proper as well.
My point was that names can take inflectional morphology, but can also
have things inside the name that look like inflectional morphology
(and perhaps once were) but aren't, synchronically. Historically,
"the Bronx" and "Yonkers" contain plural morphemes, but now they
always take singular agreement, e.g.
It's also not clear what to do about "news" other than to treat it as
a lexical exception. It has a historical plural, it looks like pluralia
tantum, but it takes singular agreement.
> So, if all nouns are lexically marked for number,
> singular or plural, and are not actually assigned such by the syntax,
> then agreement is reduced to insisting on "coherence" (to use an LFG
> turn of phrase). As the tree-structure is built up from the lexical
> entries, at each node a unification of features occurs, which percolates
> up to a yet higher node. Grammaticality (or the lack thereof) depends
> on whether clashes occur at any level.
That's clear enough, but ...
> So, getting back to the "United States is", a view of grammar such as
> that which I outlined above would unify English dialects. The difference
> of dialect between British English and American English would be localized
> in the lexicon, which would have a different rule mapping the properties
> of formal semantic or conceptual structures with morphological structure
> that produces new lexical items.
I think the problem is that BE can have "the jury is agreed" and
"the jury are disagreed", so unless you want to say that "jury" is two
different lexical items in such a case, you have to allow for the effects
of semantics. As And says, plural verb agreement appears when the noun
is felt *in that particular context* to be plural, regardless of its form.
You can always solve grammatical problems by introducing more and more
homonymous lexical items, but eventually old William will start looking
at you, er, sharply.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Be yourself. Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where
no such knowledge exists. Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup,
James Clark is as perennial as the grass. --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath
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Message: 17
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:02:01 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Novel ConGrammar
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:46:02 +0100, Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Yes - but what I am not clear about is what you understand the difference
> is between "present indefinite" & 'present definite".
Absent evidence, I'd posit irrealis and realis respectively. Likewise a(n)
(ir)realis distinction for the other tenses.
What Rodlox needs to do is stop inventing terminology willy-nilly (or
borrowing terms from one domain to use in another), and describe features
in detailed, careful prose, with copious clear examples, and hopefully the
throng can supply the correct terminology.
Paul
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Message: 18
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:40:33 EDT
From: Adam Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Another Arabic Question
I've noticed that some of you have studied Arabic, and maybe some have
learned quite a bit of it. What dialect(s) have you learned? Where did you learn
it? Are any of you who might know the Eastern dialect to tutor me? lol
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 19
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:46:31 -0400
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
Rodlox wrote:
> based on ideas in this list...
>
>Possible Glossary for a Conlang...
>
>Pronouns:
> | male | female
>plains | ien | ine
>mountain | iÃa | iÃ
>scrub | ioÃe | oÃe
>desert | nià | Ãin
>caves | oeà | oen
>coast | ayoà | ayÃ
>lake | aà | aÃea
>sea | ana | aÃa
When would you refer to a mountain as male and when would you refer to it as
female? Same with desert, caves, etc...
>Wordlist:
> | word | word-as-noun | word-as-verb
>landslide | aka-ebe | akayebe | akanebe
>smooth | oa-eb |oayneb | oaneb |{note: when the
>word ends in a consonant, insert an |n| following the |y|}.
Would "landslide" as a verb mean "a landslide happens/happened"? Or
something else?
Does "smooth" as a verb mean "to be smooth" or "to make sthg. smooth"?
And what about the forms simply given as "word"... if they aren't a noun or
a verb, when are these forms used?
M
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Message: 20
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:05:54 -0400
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
TRW> Okay, so then how do you account for the count/mass noun distinction,
TRW> or pluralia tanta?
JWC> (BTW, "pluralia tantum" is not inflectable.)
Sure it is. Thomas just did it, so clearly it can be done. :)
JWC> It's also not clear what to do about "news" other than to treat it as
JWC> a lexical exception. It has a historical plural, it looks like pluralia
JWC> tantum, but it takes singular agreement.
Er? The word "news" has a historical plural? "newses"?
I thought "news" *was* historically plural . . .
-Marcos
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Message: 21
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:25:32 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
Mark J. Reed scripsit:
> JWC> It's also not clear what to do about "news" other than to treat it as
> JWC> a lexical exception. It has a historical plural, it looks like pluralia
> JWC> tantum, but it takes singular agreement.
>
> Er? The word "news" has a historical plural? "newses"?
> I thought "news" *was* historically plural . . .
Editing glitch. I meant to write "It has a historical plural *morpheme*",
i.e. embedded in it.
--
Real FORTRAN programmers can program FORTRAN John Cowan
in any language. --Allen Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 22
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:29:31 -0400
From: Ben Poplawski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: newbie: have alphabet, will conlang
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:45:41 +1000, Glenn Alexander
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hello conlangers,
>
>my name is Glenn Alexander. Details about me are at my personal pages
>at (funnily enough):
<snip>
>regards,
>Glenn
Hello, glenalec! I'm bassplayer on User Friendly, though I haven't posted
there recently. I think it's cool that you've found way over here.
Viva la conlenguacion!
Ben
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Message: 23
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:46:40 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
On Sep 28, 2004, at 10:00 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> My point was that names can take inflectional morphology, but can also
> have things inside the name that look like inflectional morphology
> (and perhaps once were) but aren't, synchronically. Historically,
> "the Bronx" and "Yonkers" contain plural morphemes, but now they
> always take singular agreement, e.g.
>
What're the etymologies, then? I thought the Bronx is named after the
Bronx River, a singular noun. No idea about Yonkers though, but then
again i don't think i've ever been there.
-Stephen (Steg)
"http://www.xenafan.com/fiction/content/forant.html";
~ best linguistics geek xena fanfic ever
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Message: 24
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:10:15 EDT
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Celtic languages?
In a message dated 9/27/2004 2:19:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Galatian - are there any inscriptions? It seems that around 280 BCE a
>group of Galatai made their way from the Balkans into Asia Minor. In 230
>BCE King Attalos of Pergamon settled them among the Phrygians in the area
>of modern Ankara. They appear to have remained a separate group until the
>5th cent. CE. But I do not know how much direct evidence we have about
>their language.
The book I cited before* tells me that known Galatian material "consists
exclusively of glosses recorded by classical writers and onomastic materials."
In spite of this limited evidence, the author says "Galatian tends to share
the developments that are attested in Gaulish."
*_The Celtic Languages_ ed. by Martin J. Ball.
Doug
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Message: 25
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:03:15 -0600
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:46:40 +0200, Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sep 28, 2004, at 10:00 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>> My point was that names can take inflectional morphology, but can also
>> have things inside the name that look like inflectional morphology
>> (and perhaps once were) but aren't, synchronically. Historically,
>> "the Bronx" and "Yonkers" contain plural morphemes, but now they
>> always take singular agreement, e.g.
>
> What're the etymologies, then? I thought the Bronx is named after the
> Bronx River, a singular noun. No idea about Yonkers though, but then
> again i don't think i've ever been there.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx Bronx is for "Bronck's farms".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonkers hasn't got details but it does appear to be
named after a Jonkheer.
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
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http://wiki.frath.net/
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