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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Origin of "igitur"
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Fifth person? (was Re: (No Subject))
From: william drewery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: Carol Anne Buckley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Another Arabic Question
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Help with Conlang Website,
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Celtic languages?
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Hollow Syria (was: Contemporaneous protolanguages)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Greek hy & "movable-s" (was: Celtic languages?)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Revised Novel ConGrammar
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: (wincing) Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. FWD: HELP!?
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Hollow Syria (was: Contemporaneous protolanguages)
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: More Arabic Questions
From: Adam Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Another Arabic Question
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:00:02 -0700
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
--- 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.
Bronx supposedly comes from Jonas Bronck the first
settler of the area. He arrived in 1639 with the Dutch
West India company. He settled between what is now the
Bronx and Harlem rivers. He gave his name to the
river, "Bronck's river", and then later it transferred
to the whole area. It seems likely that this is a
possessive morpheme, not a plural.
Yonkers was settled by Adriaen Van Der Donck, he was
given the land by the New England Company in the
1640's. He was a Jonker (or something like Jonk Heer
"Young Nobleman" I guess) from the Netherlands. And
people would refer to his land as Jonker's Land or
Jonker's and so forth. We just change the "J" to a
more English like Y".
So, in conclusion, I'd suspect that both of these are
possessive -s morphemes, not plural.
Elliott
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 19:34:56 -0400
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Origin of "igitur"
This came up on my Latin study list - what is the origin of the Latin
word "igitur"? Does it actually come from the passive of ago, or is
the similarity a coincidence?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:07:07 -0700
From: william drewery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Fifth person? (was Re: (No Subject))
Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Muke �rta: "If you mean examples of languages that have that many person
distinctions... I don't know of any natlangs offhand that use such a term."
There are a few natlangs that mark for fifth person, I'm not sure which one's but I'll
include some info on them in my next post.
Travis
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[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:24:40 EDT
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
Pete wrote:
<< Khanga��yagon verbs are marked for number of the subject (singular/plural).
The plural form is marked with a suffix in the last position, both for
nouns and for verbs. Wagoragon, as I have previously mentioned, has
developed a third number, the multiple, used when the quantity of things
referred to is, at least in principle, known. This is formed by
reduplication. It occurs to me that a new form of the verb should arise to
agree with subjects in the multiple. Any ideas what form it should take?>>
I don't think I understand the number. So, when the number (greater than
one, I presume?) is known (that is, there are lots of blades of grass
outside,
but I know that there are exactly three blades of grass inside, because I
brought
that many in), then you reduplicate the NP? Why, just out of curiosity?
Anyway, if reduplication didn't exist as a normal pluralization process
before, I'd predict one of two things:
(1) The verb is marked as singular, because a plural marker hasn't been
attached to the noun;
(2) The verb is marked as plural, because there are more than one of
whatever's being discussed.
I can't see a third type of marking arising unless you also, say,
reduplicated
the verb.
-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: 5
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:07:08 -0400
From: Carol Anne Buckley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
There are several instances of apparently possessive -s names of streets in
Rhode Island: Thurbers Avenue, Allens Avenue. (I guess this is common some
places but I never noticed it anywhere else I lived.)
On the other hand... For some reason, even though Italian explorer Giovanni
da Verrazzano thought Aquidneck Island (where Newport is located) looked
like the island of Rhodes, that /s/, whatever it is morphologically, didn't
make the cut and the state is officially named "Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations." Go figure.
( N.B., an alternative explanation holds that the name is a corruption of
Roodt Eylandt (Red Island; you tell me, is it Dutch?) because of the red
clay on its shore. See http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000802.html But: In
1643-44, Aquidneck was officially renamed "the Isle of Rhodes or Rhode
Island" http://www.rootsweb.com/~rigenweb/history.html)
C.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elliott Lash" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
> --- 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.
>
> Bronx supposedly comes from Jonas Bronck the first
> settler of the area. He arrived in 1639 with the Dutch
> West India company. He settled between what is now the
> Bronx and Harlem rivers. He gave his name to the
> river, "Bronck's river", and then later it transferred
> to the whole area. It seems likely that this is a
> possessive morpheme, not a plural.
>
> Yonkers was settled by Adriaen Van Der Donck, he was
> given the land by the New England Company in the
> 1640's. He was a Jonker (or something like Jonk Heer
> "Young Nobleman" I guess) from the Netherlands. And
> people would refer to his land as Jonker's Land or
> Jonker's and so forth. We just change the "J" to a
> more English like Y".
>
> So, in conclusion, I'd suspect that both of these are
> possessive -s morphemes, not plural.
>
> Elliott
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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> Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now.
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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:59:44 -0700
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Another Arabic Question
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:40:33 EDT, Adam
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Constructed Languages List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Poster: Adam Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Another Arabic Question
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> --part1_1da.2bbf3e4e.2e8b1831_boundary
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> 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
On that, can anyone tell me how different the various (well, well
known dialects) are? Egyptian Arabic seems to confuse those who learn
the standard (like all of the Defense Language Institute students I
know here). I hear Lebanese Arabic has it's own distinct accent.
--
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: 7
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 22:07:08 -0400
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
Steg Belsky scripsit:
> What're the etymologies, then? I thought the Bronx is named after the
> Bronx River, a singular noun.
Yes, "the Bronx" is short for "the Annexed District of the Bronx [River]".
But if you dig down behind that, you find that the Bronx River is named
for the family that held land on it in colonial times: the Broncks.
> No idea about Yonkers though, but then
> again i don't think i've ever been there.
It's the land of the Jonkheer (Dutch for "nobleman"), and it was
"the Yonkers" formerly. Same basic story. Here the -s is
possessive rather than plural, but that's a detail.
At any rate, it's definitely "The Bronx is part of New York City,
but Yonkers is a separate city", with "is" in both cases.
--
John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on
uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with
which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely
observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting
only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 8
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:31:43 -0700
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Help with Conlang Website,
I'd like to add a page to my site on Silindion, but I
lack the experience necessary to do so. The site as it
is was placed on line courtesy of Christophe, so, I'm
in the dark as to how that happens.
If anyone would like to tell me how (in a private
mailing) that would be wonderful.
If anyone would like to do it for me if they have
time, that would be great too, but I dont expect that
much.
Thanks,
Elliott
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:13:02 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Celtic languages?
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 11:04 , Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
[snip]
>> If all the languages are related, the Q versions surely represents the
>> oldest forms; P is an innovation. It could well be that Brittonic &
>> Gaulish changed to P, and that proto-Irish remained Q, and other
>> continental forms also remained Q. But without far more evidence than we
>> have, I fail to see how we can certain.
>
> Sounds rather "satemic" to me - the central members switch *q>*p, the
> outlayers
> retain *q.
>
> I was once taught (well, I read in a textbook) that shared innovations,
> never
> shared retensions, make genetic groups.
Yes.
> Labels such as Q-Celtic or Q-Italic
> would thus be meaningless
I agree.
> (which is not to say that the groups so called might
> not be valid genetic groupings due to shared innovations in other areas).
I haven't seen any evidence of these.
> [snip]
[snip]
> FWIW, my encyclopaedia says that the Balkanic and Minor Asiatic Celts
> probably
> consisted of a warrior elite of Western or Central European extraction
> ruling
> over peoples speaking non-Celtic languages.
_probably_ is, I think, an important word. It is making the assumptions:
(a) that Galatai = Keltai
(b) that Celts were essentially a western warror people.
There are IMO far too many assumptions made concerning 'Celts' (both
ancient & modern) and too little actual evidence.
> It doesn't say anything about
> whether these aristocrats retained a Celtic language for any considerable
> length of time.
I believe there is anecdotal evidence from the ancients that the Galatai
of Asia Minor retained their language till about the 4th or 5th cent CE -
at least some of them. St Paul chose to write to them in Greek. But I have
not been able to discover any concrete evidence what the language was.
> Is Gaulish, BTW, a monolithic entity? Its range seems very large for an
> Ancient
> language spoken by a settled population without a central political
> authority -
> cf the umpteen languages of Italy before Latin took over.
Absolutely! I'm darn sure there was no such thing as 'common Gaulish' from
the Channel (La Manche) to northern Italy. One of the 'three divisions' of
Gaul, Aquitania, spoke a language related to Basque & there were
Greek-speaking enclaves in southern Gaul. Caesar names different peoples
inhabiting Gaul; it is very likely IMO that that there were similarly
umpteen languages of Gaul just as there were in Italy.
The Celtae, according to Caesar, were one of the peoples making up the
Galli.
> Livius.org claims that Celtic languages were spoken on the east bank of
> the
> Rhine well into the Christian Era. No details beyond that they used
> clusters,
> such as /gb/, ill tolerated by Latin phonology.
Again, one would like to know the _evidence_ used by Livius.org
==========================================================================
=======
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 04:58 , Joe wrote:
> Ray Brown wrote:
>
>>
>>> The Celtiberian language is fairly sparse, it's true, but it
>>> also has a few larger texts.
>>
>>
>> Where are they published? What do they show?
>
> http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/kelt/keltibbs.htm
>
>
> That's one of them - the biggest known one.
>
Right - thanks. I'll follow that up.
[snip]
>> The loss of IE /p/ is common to both Q and P 'Celts'. If _uer_ is cognate
>> with Latin _super_ we also have a loss of /s/.
>> That's very slight evidence.
>
>
> Well, okay. Those are just a few examples. I'm sure wiser people than
> I have done it in more detail.
I'd would like to discover them :)
> But the thing showing it as Q-celtic was
> the '-cue' ending. Gaulish, AFAIK, has '-pe'.
Only if there is sufficient evidence to link it with the IE languages of
Gaul, Britain & Ireland. It could, for example, be cognate with the
Etruscan -c (and) and, despite the efforts of many, that languages resists
all credible attempts to connect with IE or, indeed, any other known
linguistic group.
But I will follow up the URL above.
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" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 10
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:12:59 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Romance Diphthongisation
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 06:06 , Roger Mills wrote:
> 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),
I think that's attested only in Sardinia.
> or 7 /ieEauoO/ (or more, like French, but it's
> another matter).
That's certainly the common western proto-Romance.
> But almost everywhere, IIRC, VL stressed short e and o diphthongize--
That would also have included the Classical diphthong _ae_ which became
pronounce /E/ just stressed short e did.
> 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.
Yes, Romanian does. It seem that the proto-Romance pronunciation was [wO]
and [jE] in unblocked syllables. [jE] remained, but [wO] became [w9] in
Gaul and [we] in Iberia. The other difference was that some areas, e.g.
Iberia, the diphthongized pronunciation was used in blocked stressed
syllables also. (Later, in Portuguese, the diphthongs were
're-monophthongized'!)
This seems to be the extent of common proto-Romance dipthongization. The
Classical /au/ BTW appears to have remained in proto-Romance. Where it has
subsequently monophthongized seem to be independent developments.
>
> 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)
Well, stressed long o and long e did diphthongize in Gaul, becoming
originally [ow] and [ej] respectively. eventually in Old French they
became [2w] and [oj]. Indeed, if you really want a lot of diphthongization,
the Gallic Romance is the model; but it's not typical of the others.
> 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
I'm sure there must be on-line stuff.
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" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 11
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:12:53 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Hollow Syria (was: Contemporaneous protolanguages)
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 09:50 , Steg Belsky wrote:
> On Sep 28, 2004, at 12:23 PM, Rodlox wrote:
[snip]
>>>> The spit of land you're thinking of is probably the Sinai peninsula.
>
>>> my Egyptology teacher said that that was Cole-Syria...at least
>>> during the time of Ramses.
>
> Weird... which Rameses?
> I just read a website that said that both of us are wrong, and
> Coele-Syria is the Mediterranean coastline north of the Litani river.
Ancient usage is quite clear about_Coele Syria_ (Greek: koile: Syria =
"hollow Syria"). It was that hollow (or valley)
in ancient Syria (forget the modern political boundaries) which lay
between Libanus (Gk. Libanos) "Mt. Lebanon"/ "Jebel Liban" and
Antilibanus (Gk. Antilibanos) "Jebel esh-Sharqi".
The position of the "Syrian hollow" remained the same irrespective of any
Egyptian pharoah. They may have thought themselves gods - but they weren't
:)
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" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 12
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:13:06 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Greek hy & "movable-s" (was: Celtic languages?)
On Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 02:54 , Muke Tever wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 03:11:52 -0700, Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
[snip]
> Actually Greek |hyper| isn't necessarily from *super, given that all
> initial y- (save the name of the letter itself)
No - not even that. It's ancient name was [hy:] or [hu:] in the dialects
that retained [h], as is clearly shown by the adjective _hyoeide:s_ (-->
Eng. 'hyoid') "shaped like the letter Y". The name _y psilon_ is a later
Alexandrian invention, to distinguish Y from _y diphthongos_ OI, when both
|o| and |oi| were pronounced [y].
(Before some writes in that [y] is not a diphthong - I *know*. But in
ancient Greek _diphthongos_ meant a digraph of two vowels, not 'diphthong'
as used in modern linguistics)
> comes out to hy- in any case, whether there was an *s or not. Given that
> Italic is apparently the only one with an *s there (which it also has in
> |sub|, which again isn't attested in other families) the Italic s- is
> probably an innovation.
A very valid point - thanks for drawing our attention to it.
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" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 13
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:51:30 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Revised Novel ConGrammar
----- Original Message -----
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Constructed Languages List <>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 12:42 AM
Subject: Revised Novel ConGrammar
>
> This language appears to be SVOn (subject-verb-object-number), in which
the
> number can be an actual number, or simply "possession of (#)".
>
> note: After skimming through the X-SAMPA site
> (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/x-sampa.htm), I realize I haven't a
> clue as to what the sounds (via that site) of this conlang would be...so
I'm
> going to continue using the (false) X-SAMPA
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA) instead, and I hope you can forgive
> me for such a terrible crime.
>
>
> consanants:
> -sk- [s][k]
> -pth- [pT]
> -pt- [(-)t] (ie, "pterosaur"; the "p" is soft, almost silent).
> -y- [y]
> -t- [t]
> -n- [J]
> vowels:
> (optional do not change the word by their presence or absense in the
written
> word's meaning; obligatory do change the word's meaning by their presence
> or absense).
> optional:
> -au- [2]
> -ou- [O]
> -a- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> obligatory:
> -e- [E]
> -ee- [i]
> -hi- [h][I]
> -hu- [X\][U]
> -u- [3]
>
> --
> banned pairs:
> in this language, it is more frequently a matter of what cannot be
> pronounced. For example, "pt-hu" cannot be pronounced as "pth-u" (see
> below).
> however, there are still groups like "pth-u" which are forbidden.
>
> --
> tenses:
> past 1 (recent past)
> past 2 (past about which there is some dispute regarding what did/ didn't
> happen)
> present (?)
> future 1 (event that may/may not occur)
> future 2 (event that *will* occur)
>
> --
> genders:
> man
> woman
> child
> "neteru"
> (the fourth category I am calling "neteru" at least until I determine what
> the people of this conculture call it -- it denotes what is seen as
singlely
> and plurally - rituals, events, gods).
>
> --
> glossary:
> (apostrophes are inserted to denote where the phonemes begin & end, so the
> reader may understand).
>
> yaupt = harvestland (catch-all term, place for the catching of
> wild/semi-tame animals & plants; also means "marsh")
> pthapt = grainfield
> ptapt = house, residence
> skaupt = recycling the house
> yayapt = (+/-) "a century", unit of time (used for when to recycle the
> house)
> hupt = raised floor
> yahupt = thatch
> skahut = ladder
> skahit = fire
> skahitu = fireplace
> aptet = storeroom
> eptet = votive, place of worship
> ept'hu = community, city, village, collection
>
>
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Message: 14
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:52:26 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: (wincing) Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
resending...
> now I know how kindling* feels.
>
> > > But the question is not so simple,
> >
> > {sigh - strikes head against wall}
> > Good grief!! Let us recapitulate, shall we?
>
> * = a mite larger than splinters; shreds of wood, used for starting a
fire,
> until the fire's big enough for logs.
>
>
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Message: 15
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:51:08 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
> thank you.
>
> (please scroll).
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> >From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >To: <>
> >> Rodlox wrote:
> >
> > > based on ideas in this list...
> > >
> > >Possible Glossary for a Conlang...
> > >
> > >Pronouns:
> > > | male | female
> > >plains | ien | ine
>
> > When would you refer to a mountain as male and when would you refer to
it
> as
> > female? Same with desert, caves, etc...
>
> why do western European languages refer to ships and the ocean (for
> example) as being gendered?
> would that be a good analogy? a bad analogy?
>
>
> > >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"?
>
> yep...basically "the ground's heading downhill [in a landslide] !!"
(aka,
> "LANDSLIDE!").
>
> > Or
> > something else?
> > Does "smooth" as a verb mean "to be smooth" or "to make sthg. smooth"?
>
> generally, to make smooth.
>
> > And what about the forms simply given as "word"... if they aren't a noun
> or
> > a verb, when are these forms used?
>
> mostly to shape the sentance's enviroment.
>
> well, for example, the word for "land"...when combined with
> "smooth"...makes "plain" (smooth/smoothed land).
>
> I hope this helps.
>
>
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Message: 16
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:53:22 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: FWD: HELP!?
> I was asked to relay this for a friend:
>
> does anybody think they can help?
>
> ====message as follows:
>
> You are not authorized to send mail to the CONLANG list from
> your
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] account. You might be authorized to send to the
> list
> from another of your accounts, or perhaps when using another mail program
> which
> generates slightly different addresses, but LISTSERV has no way to
> associate
> this other account or address with yours. If you need assistance or if you
> have
> any question regarding the policy of the CONLANG list, please contact the
> list
> owners: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ------------------------ Rejected message (54
> lines) --------------------------
> Received: from n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com (n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com [66.218.66.91])
> by listserv.brown.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.9.3) with SMTP id i8NMLPO05170
> for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 18:21:25 -0400 (EDT)
> Received: from [66.218.67.251] by n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 Sep
> 2004 22:21:25 -0000
> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:21:24 -0000
> From: "caeruleancentaur" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: Constructed Languages List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Testing 1 2 3
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster
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> X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by listserv.brown.edu
id
> i8NMLQO05172
>
> Please forgive the intrusion. I've been trying to post a message for
> weeks. Couldn't get the hang of it. Let's see if this works.
>
> C. Brickner
>
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: H. S. Teoh <
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:42 PM
> > Subject: Re: I'm back!
> >
> >
> > > On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 03:00:30PM +0100, Jan van Steenbergen
> wrote:
> > > > --- H. S. Teoh skrzypszy:
> > > >
> > > > > I've decided to return to the list after several months of
> nomail,
> > > >
> > > > Welcome back! I've already been wondering where you had gone...
> We've
> > > > just finished a relay, and you most certainly were missed.
> Although
> > > > it is now officially proven that we don't need Ebisedian to
> > > > thoroughly f... eh, mangle a relay text!
> > >
> > > Darn, just when I thought Ebis�dian was the cause of all
> mischief. :-P
> > > :-P
> >
> > there's a new compeditor to Ebis(e)dian....and that's Metes.
> > :)
>
>
>
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Message: 17
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:04:18 -0500
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 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.
Yeah, I think this is a problem. Just the other day, after I sent
off that response to your email, I was doing some casual reading
in Dandamaev's massive _Slavery in Babylonia_, wherein I noticed
the following sentence:
"The overwhelming majority of slaves was of local origin, i.e.,
Babylonian" (103).
I realized when reading this that my dialect would greatly prefer
plural agreement with majority: "the majority of slaves were",
where singular agreement sounds rather stilted and formal. Thus,
the LFG notion of agreement, without a particular controller, would
have problems with this unless you read "majority of" as a lexicalized
quantifier of some kind. Attraction phenomena like this (or case in
Greek) would still be awkward.
> 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.
Yeah. Although I am increasingly skeptical about the mechanisms
behind optimality theory, perhaps some kind of stochastic OT (or
something like it) would work best. This would shift some of the
weight back onto grammar.
==========================================================================
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: 18
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:09:28 -0500
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: what makes a con-script a Con-Script?
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Sep 28, 2004, at 9:11 AM, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> > But the question is not so simple, as the magazine
> > "Science et Vie" (october 2004) tells us, about the
> > "Voynich Manuscript". Specialists have been working 4
> > centuries on it and they couldn't yet decide what it
> > might mean, and does it mean something at all (or is
> > it simply a forgery, a hoax).
>
> Wired magazine has an article about someone who claims to have
> deciphered the Voynich manuscript as not being language, just
> semi-random symbols
Yeah, Scientific American recently had an article whose author
claims definitively to have proven (as much as will be possible)
that the manuscript is a forgery to defraud HR Emperor Rudolf II,
who was fairly naive about his collection of antiquities:
<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0000E3AA-70E1-10CF-
AD1983414B7F0000&sc=I100322>
==========================================================================
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: 19
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:39:53 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Hollow Syria (was: Contemporaneous protolanguages)
On Sep 29, 2004, at 9:12 AM, Ray Brown wrote:
> Ancient usage is quite clear about_Coele Syria_ (Greek: koile: Syria =
> "hollow Syria"). It was that hollow (or valley)
> in ancient Syria (forget the modern political boundaries) which lay
> between Libanus (Gk. Libanos) "Mt. Lebanon"/ "Jebel Liban" and
> Antilibanus (Gk. Antilibanos) "Jebel esh-Sharqi".
> The position of the "Syrian hollow" remained the same irrespective of
> any
> Egyptian pharoah. They may have thought themselves gods - but they
> weren't
> :)
> Ray
Ah, but does the Syrian Hollow extend southwards along the
African-Asian Rift, down towards where the Libanos and Antilibanos
become the Mountains of Judea and Moab, respectively, on either side of
the Dead Sea?
Or is it just up there in the Lebanese part?
-Stephen (Steg)
"shawarma's kind of like a burrito..."
~ my friend c
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Message: 20
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 09:58:44 +0100
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
Staving David Peterson :
>Pete wrote:
>
><< Khanga�yagon verbs are marked for number of the subject (singular/plural).
>The plural form is marked with a suffix in the last position, both for
>nouns and for verbs. Wagoragon, as I have previously mentioned, has
>developed a third number, the multiple, used when the quantity of things
>referred to is, at least in principle, known. This is formed by
>reduplication. It occurs to me that a new form of the verb should arise to
>agree with subjects in the multiple. Any ideas what form it should take?>>
>
>I don't think I understand the number. So, when the number (greater than
>one, I presume?) is known (that is, there are lots of blades of grass outside,
>but I know that there are exactly three blades of grass inside, because I
>brought
>that many in), then you reduplicate the NP? Why, just out of curiosity?
Known vs unknown quantities is a culturally important distinction for the
speakers. They're semi-nomadic herdsmen, and the distinction between
domestic animals that they've counted and wild ones that you haven't is
probably at the root of it.
>Anyway, if reduplication didn't exist as a normal pluralization process
>before, I'd predict one of two things:
>
>(1) The verb is marked as singular, because a plural marker hasn't been
>attached to the noun;
>
>(2) The verb is marked as plural, because there are more than one of
>whatever's being discussed.
I've considered both of those, and didn't find them satisfactory -
>I can't see a third type of marking arising unless you also, say, reduplicated
>the verb.
>
>-David
That may be the way forward. I was just wondering if there were any other
possibilities
>(B (Jhttp://dedalvs.free.fr/(B
By the way, where are all these strange characters coming from? I've had to
edit them out of all the previous lines manually.
Pete
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Message: 21
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:12:33 EDT
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
Pete wrote:
<<Known vs unknown quantities is a culturally important distinction for the
speakers. They're semi-nomadic herdsmen, and the distinction between
domestic animals that they've counted and wild ones that you haven't is
probably at the root of it.>>
Ah, then another question. If this distinction is culturally important,
why isn't it as old as the other forms?
Pete also wrote:
<<>(B (Jhttp://dedalvs.free.fr/(B
By the way, where are all these strange characters coming from? I've had to
edit them out of all the previous lines manually.>>
I have no idea. My copy of the message doesn't have any strange
characters (well, except the strange box it put where you put a
thorn in the name of your language). Could you send me a copy
of the message you got? Maybe that'll help me figure it out.
-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: 22
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:16:47 EDT
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Grammar sketchlang - improving?
[Note to Rodlox: When adding new information, don't include it
*within* the quote marks (i.e., the >'s on the side), or else it's hard
to tell what's new and what isn't.]
You wrote (responding to someone else--I'm sorry, I forget who.):
<<When would you refer to a mountain as male and when would you refer to
it
> as
> > female? Same with desert, caves, etc...
>
>�� why do western European languages refer to ships and the ocean (for
> example) as being gendered?
>� would that be a good analogy?� a bad analogy?>>
Bad analogy. You seem to have missed the point of the question.
Grammatical gender is a diachronic relic for most IE languages. Rather
than having to do with masculinity or femininity, it has more to do with
the phonological make-up of the word (though this breaks down for
languages like German).
What you're referring to happens in English. E.g., for people who talk
that way, it's common to refer to boats and the ocean as "she". Why?
Who knows? The system you set up, on the other hand, made it so
that *every single noun* has a specifically masculine and feminine
version. Words that do this in the natural languages (or created languages)
that I know of are usually words that actually can be male or female
(e.g., animals, humans, etc.). It doesn't make any sense to me why you
would have to refer to a desert as both masculine *and* feminine.
Perhaps, though, we're just misunderstanding what the purpose of these
are in the first place. I noticed that these aren't nouns--they're
pronouns.
In other words, where there are pronouns in English, for example, that
refer specifically to third person arguments of a particular gender, does
this language have pronouns that refer only to deserts? And if so, does
the pronoun have to agree with whatever the gender of the *name* of
the desert is? Or is it for desert animals, or anything that dwells within
the desert? Give us a clue. The main problem you're having is still
explicitness. That is, many of us have no idea what anything you post
is supposed to mean, and when we ask, you post very short replies that
often only serve to add to the confusion rather than dispell it.
You replied to Ben saying:
<<well, for example, the word for "land"...when combined with
> "smooth"...makes "plain"� (smooth/smoothed land).>>
This was referencing the list you posted here:
<<Wordlist:
� � � � � � � �� | word� � � � |� word-as-noun� |� word-as-verb
landslide� �� |� aka-ebe� |� akayebe� � � � �� |� akanebe
smooth� � �� |� oa-eb� �� |oayneb� � � � � � �� |� oaneb>>
What Ben was trying to find out was what the category "word"
was meant for. Your reply would be an example of "word-as-noun",
and so we still don't know what that first column is for. My
initial hunch was that that was a kind of "interlinear". So, the
"word" column is an explanation of the etymology of a particular
word, but is not, in and of itself, an actual word. The two
columns that follow are, essentially, the nominal and verbal
forms of that stem whose derivation is described in the "word"
column. Is that right?
Again, let me say that, at least for me, some of the things that
apparently come to you intuitively are so far from what I've
ever imagined language *could* be that I can't even begin to
understand what you're posting on. This makes it immediately
interesting to me, but, in turn, makes it all the more frustrating
when you either don't explain what you're posting, or explain
it inadequately. I'm not trying to criticize *your languages* in
any way. On the contrary: I find your ideas intriguing, and am
simply trying desperately to understand them by any means
necessary--and am usually failing.
-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: 23
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:24:57 +0100
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Effect on number agreement when new numbers arise
Staving David Peterson:
>Pete wrote:
>
><<Known vs unknown quantities is a culturally important distinction for the
>speakers. They're semi-nomadic herdsmen, and the distinction between
>domestic animals that they've counted and wild ones that you haven't is
>probably at the root of it.>>
>
>Ah, then another question. If this distinction is culturally important,
>why isn't it as old as the other forms?
The original singular and plural come from Khanga�yagon, the parent
language , where the distinction didn't have the same significance. As the
cultural development of the Wavolar made the known/unknown distinction more
significant, their language developed a grammatical distinction to express it.
Pete
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Message: 24
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:34:58 EDT
From: Adam Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: More Arabic Questions
I think they mostly vary on the vowels like English dialects, but also like
English dialects, some consonants do vary. I think this is because all the
arabic dialects have the same exact written language (unpointed Classical Arabic)
so they don't have any standard for vowels to unite the dialects out of the
standard dialect (which I thought is actually almost exactly like the Egyptian
dialect with few variations).
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 25
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:27:53 -0400
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Another Arabic Question
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:59:44 -0700, B. Garcia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:40:33 EDT, Adam
>Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> 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
I once wanted to learn it but the class was so crowded that they only took
those who had enrolled even though no enrollment was required...
>On that, can anyone tell me how different the various (well, well
>known dialects) are? Egyptian Arabic seems to confuse those who learn
>the standard (like all of the Defense Language Institute students I
>know here). I hear Lebanese Arabic has it's own distinct accent.
Some differences are listed at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Arabic
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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