------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers.
At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/GSaulB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Absolute constructions
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Picto & Dil
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Brithenig misunderstood
From: damien perrotin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text generation
From: Tony Jebson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Conlang Wikis (was Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?)
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: past tense imperative
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: My conlang: opinions welcome
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: [HUMOR] How many Lojbanist...
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Picto & Dil
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: A conlang challenge
From: Gregory Gadow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Absolute constructions
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:07:51 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 23:15:36 -0400, # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Just a question for my personal knowledge:
>
> How many dialects of English can y'all "percieve" as English speakers?
>
> Personnally I can only distinct 4 of them: North of the US, South of the
> US,
> England, and Australia
Here's a non-exhaustive list of the subtypes of English I can usually
distinguish from hearing a sentence or two:
Boston
Upper Midwest
Midwest
New York Jewish
New York
South East USA
USA Deep South
Rural North Carolinan
Urban North Carolinan
Hoity-toity North Carolinan
South West USA
Californian
General American
AAVE
Scottish
Glaswegian
Educated and/or Edinburgh Scottish
Northern English (non-uvular R)
Northern English (uvular R)
Geordie
Scouse
Brummie
Mancunian
Rural British
Southwest British
Home Counties
Indian Subcontinent British
Urban London and Parts East
London Upper Class
London Non-upper Class
General Educated British
General British
Black British
Upper Class ANZ
Non-upper Class ANZ
Southern Hemisphere Non-ANZ
Plus a handful of accents belonging to non-native speakers.
Paul
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:04:23 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Absolute constructions
On Friday, April 15, 2005, at 04:00 , caeruleancentaur wrote:
> In the most recent issue of "The Journal of Indo-European Studies" is
> an article entitled "Absolute Constructions in Slavic: Case Diversity
> and Orginality" by Daniela S. Hristova.
>
> It was fascinating to learn that different IE languages use different
> cases for their absolutes. Slavic uses the dative, Latin uses the
> ablative, Sanskrit uses the locative, and Greek the genitive.
Ancient Greek also used the accusative case, particularly - tho not
exclusively - with impersonal verbs.
[snip]
> With this in mind, I want to add absolute constructions to Senyecan.
> And since these constructions occur in different cases in the
> daughter languages, I feel I can have several different forms of the
> absolute construction to express nuances.
I think this is absolutely correct :)
It would seem that these were not originally 'absolute' phrases, but
participle phrases where the participle agreed with some noun or pronoun
in the sentence; when that noun or pronoun was not the subject, the
participle phrase would often function adverbially and hence more like an
absolute phrase. Different IE langs obviously regularized absolute phrases
in different ways (the Greeks being undecided :)
> I have three pairs of parameters with which to work: present and past
> tenses, perfective and imperfective aspects, and stative and motive
> cases.
I am not sure that tense in its strict sense, i.e. denoting time
distinction, really makes sense with anything except the indicative mood.
The trouble is that, as Trask observed: "Note: traditional grammar often
uses the term 'tense' in a very loose manner that covers not only
distinction of tense but also those of aspect and sometimes even further
distinctions..."
> Any suggestions on how to realize these in my conlang would
> be greatly appreciated. For example, an imperfective participle in
> the construction could indicate that the action is going on at the
> same time as the verb in the main clause, while the perfective would
> indicate that it was completed before the time of the main verb.
Which is precisely what I would understand also. These two are often
called present participle and past or perfect participle respectively in
traditional grammar. This is, for example, precisely what the so-called
present and perfect particples of Latin do (with the restriction that the
'present' is always active and the 'perfect' is usually, tho not always,
passive). The so-called present and past participles of Esperanto express
such meanings also.
I note that Trask has the entry:
"*present participle* _n_ In english and some other languages, the
traditional name for what is more properly called the 8imperfective
participle*, such as _writing_ in _Lisa is/was writing letters_."
The Latin and Esperanto 'future' participles also IMO express aspect, that
the action has not started at the time of the main verb but is expected to
start in the near future:
Lisa epistulas scriptura est/erat
Lisa leterojn skribonta estas/estis
Lisa is/was going to write letters/ Lisa is/was about to write letters
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: 3
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:30:44 EDT
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
In a message dated 4/16/2005 11:04:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Holger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Are they [Wikipedia] really biased against conlangs?
>And garage bands, and micronations. Hobby-scale things like that are
>deemed non-encyclopedic.
Didn't someone on this list set up a wiki-style thing just for conlangs a
while back?
Doug
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:38:00 EDT
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Picto & Dil
In a message dated 4/16/2005 11:54:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
writes:
>Sounds a cool language. But Dil was only developed and did not spread as a
>spoken language? (Question is self-answering).
The only place I'd heard of Dil (before you mentioned it) was in Libert's
book, so apparently Dil, like many other modifications of Volapuk, never got
very
far.
>How does the tradition come that all conlangers give info on the first
>numbers? 1-9?
Someone whose name escapes me writes to this list now & then asking everyone
to supply the numbers 1-10 in their conlangs. That's what prompted me to
include the numbers in my list of Dil facts. (1-9 happened to be in a handy
table, so I quoted those. For the record, ten is "unez", and twenty is
"tunez", &
presumably this pattern runs through ninety.)
Doug
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:01:23 +0200
From: damien perrotin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Brithenig misunderstood
Skrivet gant Ray Brown:
>
> The situation with Brithenig is very different. Latin was _not_ the
> substrate language. Also Brithenig starts from a real situation that
> actually existed in our world: the almost four centuries of Roman
> occupation of Britain (from the Claudian invasion in 43 CE till
> Constantine III withdrew the legions in 406).
>
> There is no doubt that in the urban centers of Roman Britain, Vulgar
> Latin
> had replaced native languages, just as it had in Gaul, the Iberian
> peninsular & elsewhere. If the Saxons and other Germanic settlers had not
> displaced the Romano-British population but had either been halted or, as
> elsewhere, been absorbed into the Romance speaking milieu, then English
> would not have taken root, the Brittonic langs would've disappeared as
> did
> the Celtic langs in Gaul, and Britain would now be another Romance
> speaking area. Brithenig is a serious attempt to reconstruct what such a
> Romance language might now be like (I know this from private
> correspondence with Andrew).
>
just as an aside, the titles of the post-roman leaders before or just
after Hengist's revolt were celtic (vortigern, riothamus) so it is not
so sure that vulgar Latin has replaced British, even among the
aristocracy (and riothamus is generally thought to have been rather
pro-roman).
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 6
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:21:17 -0500
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
It would appear that my Very Short History was so short that it caused
a lot of confusion. Let me clarify: The idea is that Koine, after
wiping out previous dialects and establishing itself as the lingua
franca across the Eastern Roman Empire, began to split up into its own
regional dialects after a short while, much like Vulgar Latin *here*.
The dialects in mainland Greece took more or less the same development
as Greek here, while those in Asia Minor went in a completely
different direction that no real-world dialects took. The fall of
Constantinople in 1453 was the event that sent the refugees packing
off to Spain, but by that time they already spoke a language that was
quite different from *here*s Medieval Greek, and already similar to
Spanish in several important ways. In fact, I know very little about
Byzantine Greek and only a little more about Modern Greek, but my
starting point doesn't lie there--it lies in the Koine of the New
Testament and Church Fathers.
In contemporary IB, Greece speaks a language more or less the same as
*here*s Greek, but with pockets of Costanice-like dialect. The
Costanico enclave in Spain has been assimilated, leaving Nea Illenicia
as the main outpost of the formerly Asian dialects.
Some aspects of Costanice development before the relocation to Spain
may seem unlikely because they too-coincidentally resemble Spanish
changes, but that's okay with me.
To give a clearer idea of how Costanice evolved, here are the major
changes (leaving out a lot of detail):
BY 500 AD
* Early vowel changes: ai > e, oi > y, ei > e:,
* Voiced stops spirantized
* Probably also y > i
* (*Here* we must add E: > i, but see discussion below)
BY 1000 AD
* Tonal accent gives way to stress accent (unsure on timing, but must
precede the next change)
* Syncope of unstressed syllables where syllable structure permits
* In unstressed syllables, intervocalic voiced spirants lost and
intervocalic voiceless stops voiced
* Final stress shifts to penult stress except in verb conjugation
BY 1453 AD
* Palatalization of /k G x/ to [tS Z S] before front vowels
* e, o > i, u in pre-tonic unstressed syllables; conversely i, u > e,
o in post-tonic unstressed syllables
* Loss of long vowels in stressed syllables: e: > i, E: > ie, o > uo
(and later uo > ue)
* Monophtongization of eu, au > o in closed syllables
TO PRESENT DAY
These changes mimic changes in Spanish
* Voice contrast lost on coronal spirants, so z, Z > s, S
* S > x
* Voiced stops spirantized intervocalically
* lj > j` (orthographic |ll|)
Specific responses:
>> and set up a
>> community in Barcelona. From this point on the language was heavily
>> influence by Spanish.
>
>But isn't this a _Catalonian_ speaking area?
Er, good point. Have to change that.
> > Pronunciation is basically as in Spanish. Voiced stops are spirantized
> > between vowels, /r/ is a trill, etc. /v/ is marginal--it only occurs
> > intervocalically, and for most speakers is [B], i.e. identical to
> > intervocalic /b/.
>
> How do the /b/, /d/, /g/ series fit in? What is their origin? From the
> example of _zruebo_ below it, it suggests they developed from the voicing
> earlier /p/, /t/ and /k/ in certain environments. I notice /v/ is there,
> but what has happened to Byzantine /D/ and /G/ (from ancient delta & gamma)
> ? And what has happened to /z/ which has been part of the Greek phonemic
> inventory for more two thousand years?
In environments were voiceless stops were voiced, the voiced spirants
were lost. /z/ was merged with /s/, as in Spanish.
> > /k/ and /g/ before front vowels become [tS] and [x] respectively.
>
> I understand the palatalization of /k/ before front vowels; it occurs in
> some modern dialects *here*. But why does /g/ apparently become a
> fricative instead of being palatalized? What happens *here* in those
> dialects that do palatalize is AFAIK:
> /k/ --> [tS]
> /x/ --> [S]
> /G/ --> [j]
> (The last is common to all dialects)
This is more or less the state of affairs in Costanice before the move
to Spain; after that [Z] (palatalized /G/) merges with /S/, and both
of them shift to /x/. So now /g/ alternates with [x], while /x/
doesn't alternate at all.
> > Unlike in Spanish, this actually creates alternations within a
> > paradigm: /igo/ > [iGo], /ige/ > [ixe]. (That's "house" in the
> > nominative and dative, respectively.)
>
> So, Constanice has revived the ancient _oikos_ for "house" which *here*
Retained, not revived. Although my Greek dictionary does still contain
_oikos_, though it may not be the most usual word.
> Sorry - I'm puzzled. Are you saying that in IB the ancient distinction
> between long and short vowels , which had disappeared *here* at least by
> the 4th cent CE, actually remained in Byzantine Greek till the 15th
> century? *Here* also |ei| had become a _monophthong_ before the 5th cen
> BCE, being, as far as we can tell, simple [e:] in Classical (Attic) Greek
Yes, the long vowel distinction does need to survive longer in
pre-Costanice, something that I consider plausible. It doesn't survive
to the 15th century, but it does survive a few centuries more... the
chart I have above says "by 1000 AD", which should be plausible.
> (where eta was [E:]) before giving way sometime between the 4th & 3rd
> cents BCE to [i:].
Now *this* is new information. I knew that /E:/ eventually turned into
/i/, but I believed this to be a later change. This requires me to
revise. Let me think... if eta was /i:/ by the time of Koine, it will
need to remain so. But i: > ie is still a plausible change, so that
can remain, and all /i/'s, short and long, were lowered to /e/ in
post-tonic syllables. So the only real change we need to make is to
say that pre-tonic eta becomes /i/, not /e/. Which is fine with
me--it's not all that common anyway. This can actually be explained,
then, as a chain shift. Before the change, the long vowel system in
Middle Costanice would be /i: e: o:/. /e:/ began to shift to /i:/,
causing /i:/ to become /ie/. /o:/ then became /uo/ by analogy.
So now we have:
PRE TONIC POST
/i:/ i ie e (eta)
/e:/ e i e (epsilon-iota)
/e/ i e e (epsilon)
/o/ u o o (omicron)
/o:/ o ue o (omega)
The text will need to be updated, but not by too much.
> _zreubo_ is presumbly from Byzantine (and modern) /'anTropos/ - but why
> the shift in stress from the initial syllable? The diphthongization of
> stressed _Vulgar Latin_ /O/ had happened quite a few centuries before the
> 15th.
I discuss this together with the question of stress below.
> > But some words add a different, lexically determined consonant, such
> > as _huesga(r)_ which adds an /r/:
>
> Why /r/?
Etymology. Huesga(r) < ho:s gar.
> > Other forms drop the vowel. The 2pl verbal conjugation is among these:
> > poyide tudo you (pl) do this
> > poyíd arte? you (pl) do what?
> > Note that the stress remains on the same syllable, so an accent mark
> > has to be written in the forms lacking final /e/.
>
> I see the ancient _touto_ has survived - but what is origin of _arte_?
arte < a:ra ti.
> I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Constanice is basically
> sound changes that happened to Vulgar Latin in Castilian Spanish to
> ancient (not Byzantine) Greek pronounced (largely) in the Erasmian manner
> (which would IMO give a very attractive result).
This is exactly what I set out to do. My starting point was Koine
Greek, not ancient Attic, but otherwise this accurate. With some of
this new information about Koine pronunciation I may have to revise
some things.
> There were Greek colonies in Spain at a very early date - certainly by the
> 6th cent BCE and possibly even earlier. Why not have Greeks moving from
> the coast and setting up an enclave somewhere in the interior of the
> Iberian peninsular (maybe, to flee from the growing power of the
> Carthaginians) who would then have become isolated from developments over
> in the Aegean area? This would account for a more conservative form of
> Greek, preserving ancient forms which disappeared elsewhere. It would also
> allow the changes similar to those that affected Vulgar Latin to affect
> the development of Greek as spoken by these people.
This is an interesting idea, but it causes some problems in
non-linguistic areas. Most importantly, if the Costanicos were in
Spain they would certainly be Catholic, but I very much want them to
be Greek Orthodox. Furthermore, the writing that I have done in IB
regarding the Costanicos almost all presupposes that they fled from
Byzantium. These could be adapted, but it risks upsetting the rule of
QSS (quid scripsit scripsit).
This is food for thought.
> However - one point I feel I must mention. The form _zruebo_ seems to
> derive fom the ghastly Henninian stress accentuation of ancient Greek (a
> system *never* used by Greeks, either ancient or modern). It is due to a
> 17th cent Dutch doctor of medicine, Heinrich Christian Henning (who
> Latinized himself as 'Henninius'), who put forward the remarkable theory
> that the accents printed on Greek texts had nothing to do with ancient
> pronunciation and that ancient Greek was pronounced with the same stress
> rules as Classical Latin.
Perish the thought! This is definitely *not* the motivation for
_zruebo_. The reasons are much saner: the nominative was lost in favor
of the accusative early on, and among the remaining members of the
paradigm of /'anTro:pos/ all would have penult stress except the
accusative singular. Thus, stress was leveled to the penult syllable,
and thereafter the initial syllable was lost. Similar things happened
with other nouns, which is why almost no nouns retain antepenult
stress in Costanice--syncope or analogy has made them all
penult-stressed. (More examples survive in the verbs, where stress was
and is morphologically important.)
Thanks, Ray, for your detailed comments. You have given me much to
think about, although a lot of it needs to be worked out with the IB
crowd. Still, it is much appreciated!
--
JS Bangs
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://jaspax.com
"I could buy you a drink
I could tell you all about it
I could tell you why I doubted
And why I still believe."
- Pedro the Lion
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 7
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:22:41 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
Paul Bennett wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 23:15:36 -0400, # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>> Just a question for my personal knowledge:
>>
>> How many dialects of English can y'all "percieve" as English speakers?
>>
>> Personnally I can only distinct 4 of them: North of the US, South of the
>> US,
>> England, and Australia
>
>
> Here's a non-exhaustive list of the subtypes of English I can usually
> distinguish from hearing a sentence or two:
>
> Boston
> Upper Midwest
> Midwest
> New York Jewish
> New York
> South East USA
> USA Deep South
> Rural North Carolinan
> Urban North Carolinan
> Hoity-toity North Carolinan
> South West USA
> Californian
> General American
> AAVE
> Scottish
> Glaswegian
> Educated and/or Edinburgh Scottish
> Northern English (non-uvular R)
> Northern English (uvular R)
> Geordie
> Scouse
> Brummie
> Mancunian
> Rural British
> Southwest British
> Home Counties
> Indian Subcontinent British
> Urban London and Parts East
> London Upper Class
> London Non-upper Class
> General Educated British
> General British
> Black British
> Upper Class ANZ
> Non-upper Class ANZ
> Southern Hemisphere Non-ANZ
>
> Plus a handful of accents belonging to non-native speakers.
>
>
That list looks about right for me, too. Though possibly a few less
American accents.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 8
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:32:38 +0300
From: Tony Jebson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text generation
(My first post to this list!)
A few weeks ago, I started on a naming language for some fiction and
decided I needed a bit of automation in generating syllables and words.
As is usual, I got absorbed in the technology and now have a full blown
compiler and the start of a development environment!
The syntax I'm using can be seen at
http://jebbo.home.texas.net/syntax.htm
Any comments on this gratefully accepted . . .
As for the state of things, the tool can:
- define which characters from the IPA are in the alphabet
- assign an ascii representation to each (primitive as of now!)
- generate syllables / words from rules as described in the link
- generate text from rules as described in the link
Limitations:
- no named variables yet, only $1 through $n (scope within a
rule/rewrite)
- no lexicon yet, so generated word need writing down by hand :-(
- no syntax highlighting editor yet
- no wizards for automating the initial stages, though I've almost
finished
one for generating number-systems
- the parser isn't very robust yet
- sound changes don't work yet
Anyway, in another few weeks, I'll post a binary but for now I'm just
after comments on the syntax.
--- Tony Jebson
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 9
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:43:38 -0400
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
http://kutjara.com/wiki is the ZBB-Wiki that is specifically for conlanging
and conworlding.
Aaron Morse
http://artlangs.com
On 4/16/05, Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 4/16/2005 11:04:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> >Holger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Are they [Wikipedia] really biased against conlangs?
>
> >And garage bands, and micronations. Hobby-scale things like that are
> >deemed non-encyclopedic.
>
> Didn't someone on this list set up a wiki-style thing just for conlangs a
> while back?
>
> Doug
>
--
Aaron Morse
http://artlangs.com
http://czilla.com
[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 10
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:51:45 -0400
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
Wow!
I myself am a programmer, and I look forward to see how this works out. I've
done basic word generation, but never anything on this scale. I look forward
to seeing what will happen when it is done. I hope you'll write out a more
basic tutorial, as I don't think I understood all that was said on that
syntax page.
Good luck, looks amazing :)
On 4/16/05, Tony Jebson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> (My first post to this list!)
>
> A few weeks ago, I started on a naming language for some fiction and
> decided I needed a bit of automation in generating syllables and words.
> As is usual, I got absorbed in the technology and now have a full blown
> compiler and the start of a development environment!
>
> The syntax I'm using can be seen at
> http://jebbo.home.texas.net/syntax.htm
> Any comments on this gratefully accepted . . .
>
> As for the state of things, the tool can:
> - define which characters from the IPA are in the alphabet
> - assign an ascii representation to each (primitive as of now!)
> - generate syllables / words from rules as described in the link
> - generate text from rules as described in the link
>
> Limitations:
> - no named variables yet, only $1 through $n (scope within a
> rule/rewrite)
> - no lexicon yet, so generated word need writing down by hand :-(
> - no syntax highlighting editor yet
> - no wizards for automating the initial stages, though I've almost
> finished
> one for generating number-systems
> - the parser isn't very robust yet
> - sound changes don't work yet
>
> Anyway, in another few weeks, I'll post a binary but for now I'm just
> after comments on the syntax.
>
> --- Tony Jebson
>
--
Aaron Morse
http://artlangs.com
http://czilla.com
[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 11
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:28:42 +0200
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
Is Costanice customarily written in the Roman
alphabet, or is that merely a transcription?
FWIW I would find it sad if they don't use
Greek letters.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 12
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:37:44 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Conlang Wikis (was Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?)
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:43:38 -0400, Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> http://kutjara.com/wiki is the ZBB-Wiki that is specifically for
> conlanging
> and conworlding.
>
> Aaron Morse
> http://artlangs.com
There are at least two others, both lost to me over the course of several
reformats.
Aha! A few minutes work has dug them back up:
http://wiki.frath.net/
http://talideon.com/concultures/wiki/
Paul
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 13
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:33:24 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: past tense imperative
Hi!
René Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >...
> > Thinking again, I'd probably include an imperative in some irrealis mood
> > in past perfect in a conlang.
>
> Is that possible? The imperative is a mood by itself, right? Can the
> imperative be used together with another mood?
OK, first let me get my own nomenclature right: I meant 'irrealis
modality'. You'd normally further distinguish between 'mood' and
'modality', where 'modality' would be the conceptual category
(e.g. 'irrealis'), while 'mood' would be the implementation
(e.g. 'subjunctive') of 'modality' in a certain language. 'mood'
seems to encode a second category as well: _speech act_.
_Imperative_ would premarily implement as some kind of _speech act_,
namely a _command_ thus belonging to the same category as
_propositional_, _interrogative_ (a question), _definitional_ and
_optative_ (a wish), etc. _Modaliy_ would be considered a different
category, containing _realis_, _irrealis_, etc.
_Moods_ would be _indicative_, _subjunctive_, etc., depending on
language.
Not all (not many?) languages distinguish them clearly, I assume.
(But then, many IE langs put tense and aspect in the same pot and stir
well.)
ObConlang: in Qthyn|gai, evidence and speech act are taken to be the
same category, where evidence is simply a finer distinction of the
propositional speech act. Both have to do with how the truth value of
the sentence is to be interpreted. For the proposition, where the
clause is stated to be 'true', an evidencial is required in Qthyn|gai
to make clear how the speaker comes to state that it is true.
Take again a normal propositional speech act, which means that a
clause is stated to be true. You could still use irrealis modality:
I would've gone to the cinema (if ...).
This sentence is still stated to be true. Although it is irrealis.
Propositional speech act just means:
(It is true that) I would've gone to the cinema.
The 'would' changes the *way* the truth of the sentence is to be
proven, but does not effect the *interpretation* of the sentence's
truth value.
So if you were to prove that the above sentence is true, you would not
have to show that someone went to the cinema in *reality*, but that a
*hypothetical* situation exists. So _modality_ changes the universe
in which to evaluate the truth value (_indicative_ mood, implementing
_realis_ modality, meaning 'this' universe and reality), while _speech
act_ defines how the truth value is to be interpreted.
This is how _speech act_, _modality_ and _mood_ can be distinguished.
Another example: a question would ask for the truth value.
Independently of the modality:
Would you've gone to the cinema?
(Is it true that) you would have gone to the cinema?
An _imperative_ demands the sentence to be true:
Go to the cinema!
(I order that) you go to the cinema.
You *could* use this with a different modality (and thus a different
mood):
(I order that) you would've gone to the cinema.
Only this is stupid semantically, I think, since you cannot order
this. :-) Well -- maybe if you're God, you can. The bible has a lot
of interesting imperatives, anyway. :-)))
> > Thus in German, I'd approximate that
> > with 'Konjunktiv' ('subjunctive' in English?):
> >
> > *Hätt' das dann auch gesagt!
> > *Wär dann halt nicht gegangen!
> >
> > Of course, these are ungrammatical, but nice for a conlang, as I said.
>
> They sound quite well to my untrained-in-German ears.
It is totally ungrammatical, I can assume you! :-)))
> I may even be tempted to use these :)
Probably due to direct correspondence in Dutch? I'm often tempted in
the same way to use constructions in Dutch that Dutch people find
quite wrong for the most interesting reasons. :-)
> > Toi! Ai travaillé quand je serai revenu! = You! I want you to have
> > worked when I'll be back
>
> This makes *lots* of sense! This is rightful use of the perfective
> imperative. The Dutch example BTW was also perfective, but Dutch cannot
> use this construction.
It'd be a bit strange, and definitely not in use, but not really fully
ungrammatical in German:
Werd das fertig haben, wenn ich zurück bin!
> Another thought crossed my mind: are perfective verbs in Russian ever
> used in the imperative? What do they mean? Examples?
I'd assume they are. They'd demand the completion of an action.
(Maybe in ?'Popyl!' for 'Drink up!', but I'm not sure, my Russian is
bad.)
**Henrik
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 14
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:43:46 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:28:42 -0400, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Is Costanice customarily written in the Roman
> alphabet, or is that merely a transcription?
>
> FWIW I would find it sad if they don't use
> Greek letters.
I would find it most interesting if they wrote in a mixture of the Greek
and roman alphabets. For example, using the roman alphabet as much as
possible, but retaining a minimal number of Greek letters where needed,
for instance Xi and a few others.
Paul
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 15
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:51:24 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
Hi!
Tony Jebson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> The syntax I'm using can be seen at
> http://jebbo.home.texas.net/syntax.htm
> Any comments on this gratefully accepted . . .
Very interesting! :-)
> Anyway, in another few weeks, I'll post a binary but for now I'm just
> after comments on the syntax.
Binary will probably not be very helpful for me. I'd prefer an source
code version.
**Henrik
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 16
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:33:54 -0500
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: My conlang: opinions welcome
"Jim Henry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2005-04-11 inx, lju-txaj-zox {Gregory-ram Gadow-sqam} tu-i pqoq:
>
> >Very likely, I'm misusing the terminology. I describe them as
> >postpositions because A) the word indicating the spacial relationship
> >concludes the phrase rather than introduces it, and B) the phrase itself
> >is placed after the phrase it is modifying. I'm open to changing the way
> >this relationship is described.
>
> Your use of the word "postposition" is correct. I believe that
> "postpositional phrase" means "a noun, maybe with some adjectives,
> followed by a postposition" -- not "a phrase that is positioned
> after the word or phrase it modifies". In theory a postpositional phrase
> could go before or after the word or phrase it modifies
True. Example from English: "in car camera", referring to a
television camera positioned inside a race car.
> I was just pointing out that, based on (what I vaguely remember of)
> what I've read, postpositional phrases usually go before the word
> or phrase they modify, just as prepositional phrases usually go after
> their head word.
It's only a strong tendency, and exceptions appear in languages
that have changed through head-initial and head-final stages.
--
Damian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 17
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:44:36 -0500
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Any speakers of Bendeh?
"Joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about anti-conlang bias
in Wikipedia:
> It's not *all* conlangs, only the insignificant load that
> aren't really known by anyone. For example, Quenya, Klingon, Esperanto,
> etc. are fine topics in the encyclopedia.
Which is why when I started the Toki Pona article, I felt that I had
to ask for a more experienced en.wikipedia.org user's guidance.
--
Damian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 18
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:21:14 -0400
From: Aaron Morse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: TECH: word and syllable generation, sound changes and text
generation
I forgot to request that in my post :) Please, when you are done, consider
making this open source. It would definitely help me. . .
On 4/16/05, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> Tony Jebson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >...
> > The syntax I'm using can be seen at
> > http://jebbo.home.texas.net/syntax.htm
> > Any comments on this gratefully accepted . . .
>
> Very interesting! :-)
>
> > Anyway, in another few weeks, I'll post a binary but for now I'm just
> > after comments on the syntax.
>
> Binary will probably not be very helpful for me. I'd prefer an source
> code version.
>
> **Henrik
>
--
Aaron Morse
http://artlangs.com
http://czilla.com
[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 19
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:24:02 -0500
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [HUMOR] How many Lojbanist...
"Gregory Gadow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Q: How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light bulb?
>
> A: Two. One to decide what to change it in to, and one to figure out what
> kind of bulb emits broken light.
An old and fluorescent bulb emits light that noticeably flickers.
--
Damian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 20
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:32:35 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Picto & Dil
> How does the tradition come that all conlangers give
> info on the first numbers? 1-9?
Not all do.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 21
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 01:45:27 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
> Here's a non-exhaustive list of the subtypes of
> English I can usually distinguish from hearing a
> sentence or two:
My list is much shorter:
Bostonian
Chicagan
General Midwest
New York
New York Jewish
Tennessee
Kentucky
South Carolina & North Carolina Blue Ridge
South Carolina & North Caroline Coastal
South Carolina Jewish
Georgian
Georgian Jewish
Lousianan
Texan
Arizonan
South Californian
General Pacific Northwest
Lummi
Cherokee
British Columbian
General Canadian
Scottish
General British
General Australian
Goan (India)
General Indian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 22
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:01:17 -0700
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Californian and Teen Speak
Some of these are more exact than others, even though I can tell
differences, I just can't really name them
RP English
Scottish
Irish
Welsh
Canadian
Californian
New York
Brooklyn
Jersey
New Yrok Jewish
Bostonian
Philadelphian
Michiganian
Wisconsin
Minnesotan
Central Midwest
Texan
Southern (i won't say I'm good enough to place people exactly all the time,
event hough you get a group of southerners together and I can hear
differences)
Hawaiian
Mexican-American
Cajun
Australian
New Zealand
South African
--
They'll have a big parade for every day that you stay clean
But when the trumpets fade, you'll go under like a submarine
And you won't see it coming, no you won't see it coming
You could have it made up there in San Rafael
But baby I'm afraid i'll never see you well
because i've seen the tally
you're just going through the motions, baby
[This message contained attachments]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 23
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:03:19 -0700
From: Gregory Gadow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A conlang challenge
> Try it ;) Would give Glörsa some kind of push if it is accepted after Ido,
> Interlingua and Esperanto within the list. Is this some kind of official
> site from the UN?
I don't think my conlang will ever be acknowledged by the UN as an
official language, but thanks! And yes, the list is official UN material;
if you go to the home page for the domain, you will see that it is the UN
High Commission on Human Rights.
Gregory Gadow
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 24
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 22:18:55 -0400
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Absolute constructions
Jim Henry wrote:
>Mike Ellis asked:
>
>>What's an "absolute construction"?
>
>These links explain the term with English examples.
>
>http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/001.html
>
>http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1999.4/msg00552.html
Thanks!
English seems to have a convenient way of handling these by using "with".
The first four examples on the Bartleby page can all have "with" added:
"with the paint now dry ..." etc.
Disturbing realisation: I have no way of doing this in Rhean. BIG syntactic
hole there. Problem is that the non-finite forms (infinitive, adverbial
participle, etc) cannot have an explicit subject in Rhean. There's got to be
some way around that. But what?
M
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 25
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:42:04 -0500
From: JS Bangs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Costanice Phonology Sketch
> > Is Costanice customarily written in the Roman
> > alphabet, or is that merely a transcription?
> >
> > FWIW I would find it sad if they don't use
> > Greek letters.
>
> I would find it most interesting if they wrote in a mixture of the Greek
> and roman alphabets. For example, using the roman alphabet as much as
> possible, but retaining a minimal number of Greek letters where needed,
> for instance Xi and a few others.
That would really bug me. Both Latin and Greek letters are fine by
themselves, but they look very strange when mixed. Greek letters have
never developed serifs, and the general format of the characters is
different--that's a no go.
For the most part, the language is written with Latin letters, but
there does exist a Greek orthography, which I imagine is only used in
churches.
--
JS Bangs
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://jaspax.com
"I could buy you a drink
I could tell you all about it
I could tell you why I doubted
And why I still believe."
- Pedro the Lion
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
