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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: rhotic miscellany (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Japanese Long Consonants
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: USAGE: pronunciation mimicry (was: rhotics)
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: rhotic miscellany, and a usage note
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: USAGE: rhotics (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Who made CXS?
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Japanese Long Consonants
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: rhotic miscellany, and a usage note
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. First thoughts on Ayeri calendar system
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Calendar systems?
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Calendar systems?
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: rhotic miscellany (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Who made CXS?
From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Japanese Long Consonants
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Calendar systems?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Japanese Long Consonants
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Calendar systems?
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 20:41:34 -0600
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: rhotic miscellany (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
Ray Brown wrote:
> Exactly! Both French & English spellings basically reflect how the
> language was spoken some 7 or 800 hundred years ago. But the preservation
> of older spellings has in its turn affected pronunciation. For example, in
> English "waistcoat" had become pronounced 'weskit', but the Victorian
> bourgeoisie that this too vulgar so the spelling pronunciation no prevails.
> When I was young (chronologically) everyone called a _tortoise_ a "tortus"
> - now I often hear ['tO:tOjz} - ach!
All this talk of waistcoats and tortoises reminds me of Lewis Carroll
for some reason :-).
> I imagine in fact that if a sound is at all humanly possible some language
> somewhere in the world will have it.
Any langs with voiced or voiceless whistles?
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 23:06:01 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Japanese Long Consonants
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Richard Clarkstone" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: November 5, 2004 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: Japanese Long Consonants
> Chris Bates wrote:
> > THat's what I was thinking, but to be honest I'm not sure I want to do
> > long vowels + glottal stops. My brain keeps trying to cut them off
> > early and make them short.
>
> That, of course provides a nice method for introducing realistic-seeming
> apparently-historical irregularities into your language. Or, you could
> have a 3-way system (to what use, I don't know):
> * long vowel
> * short vowel
> * short vowel + glottal stop
>
> --
> Simon Richard Clarkstone
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 20:41:47 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: pronunciation mimicry (was: rhotics)
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:47:18 -0500, J. 'Mach' Wust <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> That's what I'm talking about. I'm also thinking of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
> of the Kwik-E-Mart or of Rainier Wolfcastle (the first time I heard Arnold
> Schwarzenegger I was surprised he talked exactly like him!).
I have a friend who emigrated to the United States when she was about
12 or 14 from Mexico. Her first language was of course Spanish, but
she speaks English so fluently that you cannot hear a Mexican accent
at all unless she gets drunk, whereby it all comes out!
--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show
Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 23:50:33 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: rhotic miscellany, and a usage note
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Hitler was Austrian IIRC and began his political rise in Bavaria. Is the
> > trilled r possibly a southern feature?
>
> I don't know how the /r/ is realized in Bavarian dialects. Hitler, however,
> didn't have no Bavarian in his speech. He spoke just the standard media
> accent of his time.
Really? I could swear I've heard recordings of him where he used
the alveolar tap or trill rather than the uvular trill for <r> --
especially in "das deutsche [rrrr]eich".
==========================================================================
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: 5
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 23:49:16 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Quoting John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Sally Caves scripsit:
> > especially among my dissertationers,
>
> What a great word! Apparently it's a coinage: searching Google shows no
> hits for "dissertationer" except in Swedish text (pl. of "dissertation",
> I suppose).
I've heard <dissertators> in common (albeit obviously restricted)
use.
==========================================================================
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: 6
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:49:19 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: rhotics (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:23:32 +0100 (CET), Steven Williams
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> [r\OUt_?]:
> > /x/'s that are realised as [x] or [C]
> > depending on the environment. (If, indeed, they
> > are one phoneme, which is, I believe,
> > still a question debated by Germanists.)
>
> That doesn't make sense, that they're debating whether
> [x] and [C] are one phoneme or not; the two sounds are
> in complementary distribution.
*nods* Just about. The main sticky bit is the productive diminutive
suffix -chen, which always has [C] (for those who have both allophones
-- some have only [x], for example), and while it *usually* triggers
umlaut in the final syllable (thus conforming to the rule that /x/ is
[C] after a front vowel), apparently there are lects where this is not
true or, at least, not universal, and even in the standard language
there's the one anomalous word "Frauchen" (female master, from the
point of view of a dog), which should in theory be *Fr�uchen.
> There are no minimal pairs (that I can think of).
"Frauchen" forms a near-minimal pair with "fauchen" (to hiss or roar,
e.g. like a dragon), though there's no completely minimal pair I'm
aware of, either.
Occasionally, the pair "Kuhchen" / "Kuchen" (little cow / cake) is
brought up, for those for whom -chen doesn't invariably trigger umlaut
(it'd be "K�hchen" or, more likely, "K�hlein" in my lect), but it's a
bit constructed.
I've heard that some one-phoneme people explain this by saying that
"/x/ is [C] after a front vowel or morpheme-initially", though this
brings in the concept of "morpheme boundary" as a valid phonemic
environment.
> Therefore, the distinction is not phonetic, only allophonic.
Probably. But, I believe, this is not a complete consensus.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To
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Message: 7
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:50:12 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Who made CXS?
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:28:41 +0000, Jan van Steenbergen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- Philip Newton skrzypszy:
>
> > Though the j\-J\ thing occasionally comes up...
>
> Agreed, it's a flaw.
Though not one that's the fault of the group as such; it was inherited
from X-SAMPA. (Though I can't find J\ on their page, but it does have
the C-j\ opposition.)
> But since CXS is essentially the work of this
> group, I wonder if we couldn't democratically decide to change that.
I'd be inclined to be in favour of this particular change.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 06:36:00 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
(I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already partly
answered.)
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> > Like our
>>> "lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the US.
>>
>> The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if prescriptivists
>> had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would have
>> become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_, reserving
>> _lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be common to
>> colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
>
>It's an old confusion. In early ME, or in the transition from OE to ME, I
>believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive alternatives to the
>intransitives "lie" and "sit."
No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in German:
"liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen", also
e.g. "trinken" 'drink' vs. "tr�nken" (older "trenken") 'make drink' (cognate
to "drench"), "sinken" 'sink (intr.)' vs. "senken" 'sink (tr.)', "h�ngen"
(older "hangen") 'hang (intr.)' vs. "henken" 'hang (tr.)'.
> But the confusion has abounded since then;
>you see it in Renaissance English and later, and the 18th-century
>grammarians made it a "rule" for standard English. In formal writing,
>especially among my dissertationers, I insist on it, and I hope that
>doesn't stir John Cowan's sense of elitist prescriptivism. :), especially
>since even I am slipping into this tendency, but orally, never literarily.
>Because it is so prevalent, I believe the distinction will die, and "lay"
>will cover the intransitive meaning as well. Interestingly, the same thing
>is not happening with "set" in educated writing. This may be due to the
>fact that "lie" (sustain a prostrate or prone position) shares a meaning
>with its homonym "lie" (prevaricate), as you suggest, whereas "sit" has no
>prominent alternative meaning.
This may be helped by the many English verbs like "sink" or "hang" that
already combine an intransitive meaning as in "lie" and a transitive meaning
as in "lay".
>I still find it difficult to see much
>difference between [x] and [X]. My [X] comes out as a voiceless uvular
>trill. If I say Bach, however, I find the fricative issuing from the soft
>palate and NOT the uvula, though, sans trill.
I also have troubles to tell [x] and [X] apart, since they're not very well
distinguished in German. I can produce them with a clear difference, making
the [X] almost trill and the [x] as close to [�] as possible, but only in a
very artificial effort.
>What I need help with is understanding "rhotic" and especially
>"approximant." Is rhotacized the same as rhotic? Does rhotacized mean a
>pulling back of the tongue to form the whisper of a retroflex "r"? (whereas
>"rhotic" means "having to do with r's and their differences)? Somebody
>else told me that my American "r" (in "American" and "car") was probably
>an approximant, and he distinguished it from a "retroflex." Have I
>misunderstood him? (Can't remember who it was; I'm trying to consolidate my
>responses into one big one here.) If I REALLY retroflex my "approximant" r,
>I sound like some midwesterners I know. You refer to the uvular
>"approximant" above, with [R]. What's an approximant? A sound made where
>the point of articulation is almost reached but isn't?
That's exactly what an approximant is. Common approximants are also [w] and
[j]. I think the laterals count also as approximants. Acoustically,
approximants are not different from vowels (so [w] is the same as [u], [j]
the same as [i]). Theoretically, the difference between an approximant and a
voiced fricative is the friction, but actually, the [i] has friction
(whisper it and you'll hear a weak [�]). English /r/ is an approximant in
almost every dialect, but it may be either an alveolar approximant [r\] or a
retroflex approximant [r\`].
"Rhoticity" (CXS [`]) is a property of other sound, which means that these
other sounds are articulated with the tongue tip pulled back. I think it
could as well be called "retroflexity", but it isn't (note that CXS uses the
same sign for rhoticity and for the marking of retroflex consonants, whereas
IPA has seperate signs for the latter!). Normally, the rhoticized sounds are
vowels, but I could imagine rhoticized consonants as well in analogy to the
pharyngalized consonants of Arabic (maybe English /pr/ could be unorthodoxly
considered [p`] as in [p`_hej] 'pray' vs. [p_hej] 'pay'). Theoretically, the
tongue tip doesn't move in a rhoticized vowel, so that a rhoticized vowel
(e.g. [A`]) is different from the sequence of a plain vowel + retroflex
approximant (e.g. [Ar\`]), though I think that practically, it's almost
impossible to distinguish between the two due to the dynamics of articulation.
"Rhotics" is the general term for all the r-sounds (including the bilabial
trill, I guess). This class is discussed, since it's made up of very
different sounds and I doubt that there's an agreement on whether this class
corresponds has a common articulatory or auditory or neurological basis.
However, this term is at least very handy when talking about the different
sounds written with |r| in the western European languages.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 9
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 06:40:37 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Japanese Long Consonants
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 00:31:32 +0000, Simon Richard Clarkstone
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Chris Bates wrote:
>> THat's what I was thinking, but to be honest I'm not sure I want to do
>> long vowels + glottal stops. My brain keeps trying to cut them off
>> early and make them short.
>
>That, of course provides a nice method for introducing realistic-seeming
>apparently-historical irregularities into your language. Or, you could
>have a 3-way system (to what use, I don't know):
>* long vowel
>* short vowel
>* short vowel + glottal stop
I hypthesize that Chris' brain has rather a 2-way system:
* long (free) vowel
* short (checked) vowel + consonant (e.g. glottal stop)
This is essentially the English vowel system of stressed syllables (shared
by most of the modern Germanic languages, and by Italian, and I'm sure that
there are many more languages).
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 06:46:34 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: rhotic miscellany, and a usage note
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 23:50:33 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> > Hitler was Austrian IIRC and began his political rise in Bavaria. Is
>> > the trilled r possibly a southern feature?
>>
>> I don't know how the /r/ is realized in Bavarian dialects. Hitler,
>> however, didn't have no Bavarian in his speech. He spoke just the
>> standard media accent of his time.
>
>Really? I could swear I've heard recordings of him where he used
>the alveolar tap or trill rather than the uvular trill for <r> --
>especially in "das deutsche [rrrr]eich".
So you're affirming that the alveolar tap-trill is a feature of
Bavarian-Austrian. However, the alveolar trill is also demanded by the
standard pronunciation, which was much more important by that time than it
is today, so it's occurrence doesn't prove anything.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 11
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:13:21 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> (I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already partly
> answered.)
>
> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >> > Like our
> >>> "lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the US.
> >>
> >> The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if prescriptivists
> >> had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would have
> >> become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_, reserving
> >> _lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be common to
> >> colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
> >
> >It's an old confusion. In early ME, or in the transition from OE to ME, I
> >believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive alternatives to the
> >intransitives "lie" and "sit."
>
> No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in German:
> "liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen",
I s'pose it's Common Germanic; Swedish has _ligga_ vs _l�gga_, _sitta_ vs
_s�tta_.
Andreas
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Message: 12
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:40:56 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>
>>(I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already partly
>>answered.)
>>
>>On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Like our
>>>>>"lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the US.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if prescriptivists
>>>>had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would have
>>>>become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_, reserving
>>>>_lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be common to
>>>>colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>It's an old confusion. In early ME, or in the transition from OE to ME, I
>>>believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive alternatives to the
>>>intransitives "lie" and "sit."
>>>
>>>
>>No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in German:
>>"liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen",
>>
>>
>
>I s'pose it's Common Germanic; Swedish has _ligga_ vs _l�gga_, _sitta_ vs
>_s�tta_.
>
>
Looks like an i-mutation (umlaut) to me.
'legjan' vs. 'leggan', and 'setjan' vs 'settan', perhaps?
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Message: 13
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:42:45 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: First thoughts on Ayeri calendar system
Hey!
Please also see "Calendar systems". I divided my thoughts
and questions into two mails this time, because they're IMO
not so directly related.
Here are my first thoughts. Turn on a monospaced font to see
some things correctly, please!
As I already have said for the Dal�ian calendar, one Arecan
year has about 455.75 days. That means all four years, one
day must be dropped because you usually count with 456
days/year: each year +0.25 days.
What I did not think about last time was what can be done
with observing the moon. For the Dal�ian calendar, I had 18
months with an average of 25.333 days in 456d years
(actually 25.3194444 when counting with leap and solar (?)
years). So for the time being, I thought it would be quite
interesting to have two moons -- though I haven't done my
homework about how long the moons' cycles must be and how
far they are away from the planet etc. etc. Without any
scientific justification, I assumed Moon A to have 24-day
cycles and Moon B to have 60-day cylcles. Furthermore, I
assumed that the moons both have irregular orbits, like
when drawing something with the Spirograph if you know that
thingy. So Moon A needs ~1/4 year (455.75/4 = 113.9375
days) to be at the same position where it started and Moon
B needs ~1/2 year (455.75/2 = 227.875 days) for that. These
second cycles s/would be best called "big cycles" I guess,
the month cycles "small cylces".
Distinctive points then would then be (S = sun; P = planet;
A = moon A; B = moon B; yrs = years; ds = days):
[B] [B]
[A] |
| |
(P) [A]-(P) [B][A]-(P) [B]----(P)
| | | |
| | | [A]
| | | |
| | | |
((S)) ((S)) ((S)) ((S))
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 yrs
0 113.9375 227.875 341.8125 ds
[A]
|
(P) (P)-[A] (P)-[A][B] (P)----[B]
| | | |
[A] | | |
[B] [B] | |
| | | |
((S)) ((S)) ((S)) ((S))
1 1.25 1.5 1.75 yrs
455.75 569.6875 638.625 797.5625 ds
That would mean there'd be a lunar and/or solar eclipse
every quarter year? Is that much or is it the same with the
Earth? But at the same place at the same time?! Would it be
better to grow the "big cycles" rather to years than
months? However, looking at this picture above, you could
extremely well divide the year into 4 months, and have
another period of 2 years. Maybe the standard period could
be 2 years as well, because there are as I assumed no such
seasons as on the northern/southern hemisphere?
I hope you enjoyed.
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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Message: 14
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 15:03:37 +0100
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)
Ray skrifa�i:
>
> It seems to me a slightly odd mentality to claim that pronouncing English
> or modern Greek _properly_ is something to be ashamed of. When the reason
> given is that [T] is a mark of 'speech defect', it seems to me just a
> little insulting to those members of this list who do have various
> physical disfunctions.
Indeed I would have felt ashamed not to have pronounced /T/ properly
when speaking Icelandic or English, esp. as the substitytion of [t]
for Icelandic /T/ is seen as the carachteristic of onetime Danish
colonial administrators who didn't care to acquire a good command of
Icelandic! This doesn't mean that I never slip -- I do quite frequently
at least in English! --, but the occasional slip is IMO another thing
than refusing to attempt a correct pronunciation based on whatever
prejudice. I don't speak Modern Greek, but when reading Ancient Greek
I make an effort to use [T] for theta, even though most Swedish
Graecist don't bother after their initial training.
--
/BP 8^)
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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Message: 15
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:51:27 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Joe wrote:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
>> Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>
>>
>>
>>> (I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already
>>> partly
>>> answered.)
>>>
>>> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> Like our
>>>>>> "lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the US.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if
>>>>> prescriptivists
>>>>> had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would have
>>>>> become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_,
>>>>> reserving
>>>>> _lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be
>>>>> common to
>>>>> colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It's an old confusion. In early ME, or in the transition from OE
>>>> to ME, I
>>>> believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive
>>>> alternatives to the
>>>> intransitives "lie" and "sit."
>>>>
>>>>
>>> No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in German:
>>> "liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen",
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I s'pose it's Common Germanic; Swedish has _ligga_ vs _l�gga_,
>> _sitta_ vs
>> _s�tta_.
>>
>>
>
> Looks like an i-mutation (umlaut) to me.
>
> 'legjan' vs. 'leggan', and 'setjan' vs 'settan', perhaps?
>
>
Correction: There is umlaut involved, but it's that 'set' comes from
'satjan'(and lay from 'lagjan'), as can be found from Gothic (which is
the only Germanic language, I believe, that does not have umlaut).
Which, of course, means that it's a very, very old distinction.
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Message: 16
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:42:13 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Calendar systems?
Hey all!
So, if I got that right, lunar calendars base on cycles of
the moon (ca. 29,5 days for our moon). Solar calendars base
on how long the earth needs to get one time around the sun
(ca. 365,25 days?). So, a lunisolar calendar bases on both
rhythms? Is our calendar a lunisolar calendar since we have
months that approximately fit the moon's cycle and the year
that approximately fits how long the earth needs to get
around the sun one time? And how did the Mayas came to use
their cycles?
ObCon: Is it true that it rains everyday at the same time in
the equatorial regions of the Earth? That'd be interesting
for when I come to make up a calendar and the related words
for Ayeri ... Another important question is whether the
moon(s) occurs each year at the same time at the same
position in the sky? I've heard the moon's orbit is to some
extent irregular. But how can you tell then when the moon
occurs at which time? Or has the moon, say, cycles of some
days/months/years where it is at the same position again
where it started? That way you could very well base a
calendar on the moon's orbit with easy tools I guess (cf.
Stonehenge, but this one is based on the sun AFAIK).
Please also see "First thoughts on Ayeri calendar".
Cheers,
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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Message: 17
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:24:47 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Calendar systems?
On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 02:42:13PM +0100, Carsten Becker wrote:
> So, if I got that right, lunar calendars base on cycles of
> the moon (ca. 29,5 days for our moon). Solar calendars base
> on how long the earth needs to get one time around the sun
> (ca. 365,25 days?). So, a lunisolar calendar bases on both
> rhythms?
Right. Bearing in mind that the exact length of a year depends on what
you're measuring against and where in the orbit you start measuring.
Most (luni)solar calendars use the "tropical" year, which is what
determines the seasons - but even then, the year from spring to spring
has a slightly different length than the year from fall to fall, etc.
> Is our calendar a lunisolar calendar since we have
> months that approximately fit the moon's cycle and the year
> that approximately fits how long the earth needs to get
> around the sun one time?
Nope; our calendar is purely solar. The idea of "month" is inherited
from lunar systems, but our months' durations are in no way tied to the
moon; all of them except February are far too long. In lunar/lunisolar
calendars, the correlation between month and phase is precise - the
month starts on the new moon, has a midpoint at the full moon, and ends
at the next new moon. Even in arithmetic calendars like the Jewish -
that is, which are based on average durations and not precise astronomical
calculations - the calendar month hews very closely to the lunar month.
Lunisolar calendars (e.g. the Jewish and Chinese) have common years of
12 lunar months (about 354 days); every 2 or 3 years there is a leap
year of 13 lunar months (about 384 days), so on average the year stays
in synch with the tropical year.
The Islamic calendar, by contrast, is purely lunar and ignores the
seasons; every year is only 12 lunar months, which means that a given
month (such as Ramadan) moves backwards through the seasons. This year
Ramadan fell in fall, but in a few years it'll be in summer, then
spring, then winter, then back to fall again - the full cycle takes
about 33 years.
> And how did the Mayas came to use their cycles?
That's a rather different type of question; I'm not sure the answer is
even known to any degree of certainty.
> ObCon: Is it true that it rains everyday at the same time in
> the equatorial regions of the Earth?
As with most generalizations, it's not completely true, but it is a good
approximation to the truth. I remember the daily rain in Guam when I
was there one summer . . . I think it was at 3PM.
> position in the sky? I've heard the moon's orbit is to some
> extent irregular. But how can you tell then when the moon
> occurs at which time? Or has the moon, say, cycles of some
> days/months/years where it is at the same position again
> where it started? That way you could very well base a
> calendar on the moon's orbit with easy tools I guess (cf.
> Stonehenge, but this one is based on the sun AFAIK).
All astronomical cycles are irregular to some degree. Precise
calculations require adding up hundreds, in some case thousands, of
terms that factor in the time, the square of the time, the cube of the
time, etc etc etc. Some of the irregularities are periodic, while
others are the result of constant change. The length of the solar day
is very slowly decreasing, for instance - but the length of the year is
also changing, so the net effect on the number of days in the year is
not obvious...
-Marcos
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Message: 18
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 15:40:37 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"
Joe wrote:
> Joe wrote:
>
>> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>>
>>> Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> (I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already
>>>> partly
>>>> answered.)
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves
>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> From: "Ray Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Like our
>>>>>>> "lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the
>>>>>>> US.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if
>>>>>> prescriptivists
>>>>>> had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_,
>>>>>> reserving
>>>>>> _lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be
>>>>>> common to
>>>>>> colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> It's an old confusion. In early ME, or in the transition from OE
>>>>> to ME, I
>>>>> believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive
>>>>> alternatives to the
>>>>> intransitives "lie" and "sit."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in
>>>> German:
>>>> "liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen",
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I s'pose it's Common Germanic; Swedish has _ligga_ vs _l�gga_,
>>> _sitta_ vs
>>> _s�tta_.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Looks like an i-mutation (umlaut) to me.
>>
>> 'legjan' vs. 'leggan', and 'setjan' vs 'settan', perhaps?
>>
>>
> Correction: There is umlaut involved, but it's that 'set' comes from
> 'satjan'(and lay from 'lagjan'), as can be found from Gothic (which is
> the only Germanic language, I believe, that does not have umlaut).
> Which, of course, means that it's a very, very old distinction.
>
>
Okay, I've looked into it. 'Sit' and 'Set' both come from the IE root
*sed. 'Sit' comes from a simple y-stem PG *sitjan>OE sittan > MnE sit.
However, 'set' comes from the same root, plus the IE causative suffix
'*-eyo'(cf. Sanskrit '-aya'). This suffix caused ablaut, creating the
PIE stem *sodeyo-. In Germanic, *ei~*ey>*i ~*j was a sound shift, so
we got PG *satjan, which, in West and North germanic, caused umlaut, so
NWG *settan>OE settan>set. Roughly.
The same goes for 'lie'. It comes, evidently enough, from the IE root
'*legh', undergoing the same sound shifts:
*leghyo->*ligjan>licgan>lie
*logheyo->*lagjan>lecgan>lay
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Message: 19
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:34:43 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)
Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I don't speak Modern Greek, but when reading Ancient Greek
> I make an effort to use [T] for theta, even though most Swedish
> Graecist don't bother after their initial training.
I'm not a Graecist, but I read theta as [T], since that leaves [t_h] free for
tau!
Andreas
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Message: 20
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:45:48 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: rhotic miscellany (was: Advanced English + Babel text)
On Nov 6, 2004, at 4:41 AM, Herman Miller wrote:
>> I imagine in fact that if a sound is at all humanly possible some
>> language somewhere in the world will have it.
> Any langs with voiced or voiceless whistles?
My Semiticonlang.
...oh wait, you weren't just looking for natlangs were you? ;-)
-Stephen (Steg)
"Enthrone your pasts:
this done, fire and old blood
will find you again:
better hearts' breaking
than worlds'."
"Dethrone the past:
this done, day comes up new
though empty-hearted:
O the long silence,
my son!"
~ from _the romulan way_ by diane duane & peter morwood
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Message: 21
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:09:51 +0200
From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Who made CXS?
Philip Newton wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:28:41 +0000, Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
> > > Though the j\-J\ thing occasionally comes up...
> > But since CXS is essentially the work of this
> > group, I wonder if we couldn't democratically decide to change that.
>
> I'd be inclined to be in favour of this particular change.
I'm ready to support this suggestion. All we need to do now is to contact
Tristan, methinks. IIRC, he is nomail in this list, so I'm sending a copy of
this msg to him personally.
-- Isaac
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Message: 22
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 17:12:20 +0000
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Japanese Long Consonants
>
> That, of course provides a nice method for introducing realistic-seeming
> apparently-historical irregularities into your language. Or, you could
> have a 3-way system (to what use, I don't know):
> * long vowel
> * short vowel
> * short vowel + glottal stop
This was the system I was proposing... a 3-way distinction like that. :)
But I have now incorporated long vowel + glottal stop (marked by a
circumflex) also... although I have to concentrate when I speak to not
cut the long vowel short. *hums* Anyway... all the glottal stops vanish
in both the daughter languages, giving rise to long consonants in one,
and various other phonological changes in the other.
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Message: 23
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 12:49:50 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Calendar systems?
Mark J. Reed wrote:
>(someone asked:)
> > ObCon: Is it true that it rains everyday at the same time in
> > the equatorial regions of the Earth?
>
> As with most generalizations, it's not completely true, but it is a good
> approximation to the truth. I remember the daily rain in Guam when I
> was there one summer . . . I think it was at 3PM.
In the case of islands, isn't it the temperature differential? (By
mid-afternoon, the land is warmer than the surrounding ocean, or something
like that.......) OTOH of my year in Indonesia (Malang, eastern upland
[+/-700m] Java), the daily rains (never torrential) came in mid/late
afternoon starting around January. The worst I remember was a 3 week period
in Makassar (sea level) when it rained for the entire period, often
torrentially, with only occasional let-ups. Horrible, cold, clammy.
>
> All astronomical cycles are irregular to some degree. Precise
> calculations require adding up hundreds, in some case thousands, of
> terms that factor in the time, the square of the time, the cube of the
> time, etc etc etc.
Do you, or anyone, know of a book or online resource that goes into this?
I've never been able to figure out orbits for the 2 moons of Cindu.
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Message: 24
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:30:34 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Japanese Long Consonants
Chris Bates wrote:
> > * long vowel
> > * short vowel
> > * short vowel + glottal stop
>
> This was the system I was proposing... a 3-way distinction like that. :)
> But I have now incorporated long vowel + glottal stop (marked by a
> circumflex) also... although I have to concentrate when I speak to not
> cut the long vowel short. *hums* Anyway... all the glottal stops vanish
> in both the daughter languages, giving rise to long consonants in one,
> and various other phonological changes in the other.
What actually is the syllable structure of your language? (sorry if I've
missed a previous discussion). Let's say:
.VCV.. and ...V:Cv..
.VCCV... (? and ..V:CCV.. -- that might sort-of violate a sort-of
universal, but IIRC Latin, Greek and Sanskrit allowed long V before 2
consonants, but universals are there to be violated :-) )
Now, if one of the C's is /?/, there's no intrinsic reason you couldn't have
V?V and V:?V
V?CV and V:?CV
Possible sound changes:
1. Loss of /?/ after short V--
V?V > new single V combining features of both, e.g. a?i > e, u?i > y; (in my
Gwr, any sequence of i/u > 1) Like V would presumably > long, e.g. a?a > a:
Many possibilities, including diphthongs.
V?CV > compensatory length of V1: V:CV OR of the C: VC:V
2. Loss of /?/ after long V:--
V:?V > distinct V in separate syllables, a:?i > a(:).i etc. (If your
language doesn't allow vowels in hiatus, then introduce a glide of some
sort.)
V:?CV > V:CV or perhaps V:C:V ???
Another question/possibility: are the long V different in quality, or
simply lengthened versions of the short V? Perhaps /a/ = [6], /a:/ = A, /e/
= [E], /e:/ = [e]???
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Message: 25
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:32:25 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Calendar systems?
On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 12:49:50PM -0500, Roger Mills wrote:
> Do you, or anyone, know of a book or online resource that goes into this?
> I've never been able to figure out orbits for the 2 moons of Cindu.
Well, a good book for hard data on the real solar system is Meeus's
_Astronomical_Algorithms_, but it's pretty much straight up data without
much explication, certainly no derivations. I haven't found a good
resource for con-astronomy . . .
-Marcos
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