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There are 18 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: (La)TeX for a conlanger? Advice sought.
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: (La)TeX for a conlanger? Advice sought.
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Test for middle voice?
From: Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Test for middle voice?
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Elomi!
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:32:56 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
--- In [email protected], Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm not clear on why so few readers were clear on the idiom quoted
>as 'I'm not clear on ...'. Perhaps it came from reading too fast!
>The 'translation' into 'It isn't clear to me why ... ' is, of
course, >a metaphor. I'm unsure whether a computational linguist
would >consider metaphors to be idioms, since the allegorical use of
terms >that don't strictly apply to the objects of discussion is a
technique >common to most natlangs (I don't say it's universal), and
one
>which supplies the means for much generalisation and transfer of
>meaning.
Mr. Wier himself gave us to the two separate phrasings:
"I think it could be interesting to include a requirement like this
in one of my nonhuman languages (which is why it caught my
attention), but I'm not clear how it would work out in practice.
"(There we go with one of those weird English idioms again, I
mean "it's not clear to me" :-) And "there we go" also deserves
mention in a list of idioms....)"
Is it possible that a word can be an idiom in one phrasing and not
an idiom in another even though the meaning is the same?
"I'm not clear..." seems to be a metaphor. Perhaps a metaphor is a
subset of idiom. One can't replace it with a synonym: "I'm not
plain," "I'm not evident."
However, in "it's not clear to me," there can be
substitutions: "it's not plain to me," "it's not evident to me."
And I maintain that this is not an idiom since "clear," in this
context, is synonymous with words like "evident" or "plain." I
would imagine that the original meaning of "clear" was "not opage,
unmuddied." Other meanings would have to be connotative. But to
hold that this construction is an idiom would mean that any
connotative use of a word is an idiom. I'm not ready to accept
that. The meaning of this particular phrase is obvious from its
constituent parts.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:17:44 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
* R A Brown said on 2005-11-18 08:38:35 +0100
> * Jim Henry wrote:
> > * On 11/17/05, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Trask defines 'idiom' thus:
> > > "An expression consisting of two or more words whose meaning
> > > cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
> > > parts."
> >
> > What about a compound word whose meaning cannot be deduced from the
> > meaning of its component morphemes?
>
> You are, of course, correct. I guess we should amend Trask thus:
> "An expression consisting of two or more morphemes whose meaning
> cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
> parts."
I don't think this is wise. In English it might be so that a compound
ceases to be a compound as soon as it needs its own entry in a
dictionary, but this is not necessarily the case in other languages.
Take for instance the word/compound "redcap" (a mythological creature
IIRC). It is "something that has a red cap", and words/compounds of this
type got their own term thousands of years ago, "bahuvrihi". (Which
itself is a bahuvrihi in Sanskrit as it literally means "much rice" but
actually means "somebody who has much rice", that is: "somebody who is
rich".)
idiom != bahuvrihi
t.
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:31:44 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: (La)TeX for a conlanger? Advice sought.
I'm some messages behind, so this may already have been
answered more thoroughly than here.
On Wed, 16 Nov 2005, 03:19 CET, Kit La Touche wrote:
> strictly speaking, i think LaTeX doesn't use truetype
> fonts, but its own CM metric, which comes with a LaTeX
> installation. this is the T1 encoding that one uses
> generally. i, for conlanging, tend to use OT encoding,
> which requires some poking at to get working nicely, but
> it handles characters like edths and angmas nicely.
LaTeX can handle TTF files these days, though you need to
create tfm (?) files and such so that LaTeX knows about the
encoding. Google is your friend. I've got a tutorial
somewhere on some CD which worked nicely. I search it if
you like.
> i love LaTeX, but if you want fine-tuned control over the
> layout, it's probably not what you want. if you want
> consistent and nice layout, and really good accented
> characters, it's for you.
It's very nice for conlanging since LaTeX does not restrict
you in placing diacritics. Though I don't know whether all
diacritics from Unicode are available -- you know, the ones
from U+0300 to U+0341 called "Combining accents". I wouldn't
be surprised to hear that Unicode input is possible.
Personally, I find OpenOffice much easier when it comes to
WYSIWYG due to looking up stuff all the time in LaTeX.
But then, LaTeX for example allows you to create PDFs even
with clickable table of contents in the sidebar and other
nice stuff that you can't do neither with Word nor with
OOo. Another advantage of LaTeX is its flexibility.
However, try it and see yourself. There's MikTeX for Windows.
I however am using OOo 2.0 at the moment and am quite happy
with it -- I'm not so much a typography fetishist, except
sometimes ... Why can't one simply save at least the bodies
of texts as .tex from OOo? Should be basically possible
since OOo uses XML and XMLS to save data. A simple XSLT
should do actually.
Tristan: Have you tried 300dpi TIFF files? I've never tried
to include images into LaTeX in the one year that I used it,
but you need at least 300dpi to make pictures look not
pixeled in PDF readers. The printing industry uses 300dpi as
standard resolution for pictures. For desktop printers, 200
to 260dpi is enough. A friend who works for the local
newspaper told me most desktop printers use about 250dpi.
Carsten
--
"Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
(Calvin nay Hobbes)
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:38:43 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Taliesin wrote:
> * R A Brown said on 2005-11-18 08:38:35 +0100
> > You are, of course, correct. I guess we should amend Trask thus:
> > "An expression consisting of two or more morphemes whose meaning
> > cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
> > parts."
>
> I don't think this is wise. In English it might be so that a compound
> ceases to be a compound as soon as it needs its own entry in a
> dictionary, but this is not necessarily the case in other languages.
I'm getting the impression there is a lot of overlap between compounds
(transparent, semi-transparent, or totally obscure), metaphors, and outright
idioms (like 'pulling someone's leg', 'kick the bucket').
Indonesian has lots of phrasal compounds that need special definition
(usually under both terms), e.g. _rumah sakit_ (house+sick) 'hospital' (Kash
compounds house+health for this, a nicer combination I think).
Literally it could mean 'a sick house' (or building)-- a concept so far
limited to our "advanced" Western world I hope.
Come to think of it, I suspect Kash has more than its share of such
semi-transparent or obscure compounds and forms-- e.g. a lot of the
accidental verbs with prefix caka-, like caka/ñoni 'to nitpick, quibble'
(ñoni 'test, try'). Or ca/kanjik 'gluttonous; s.o. who'll eat anything (fig.
gullible)' (hanjik 'bite of food, mouthful'). And related ca/kacip 'picky
about one's food; (fig.) fastidious', vele ('give') hacip 'to give a small
bribe/payoff' (hacip 'a little bite/nibble of food') and many more. And you
could make nonce-forms like caka/fanu 'obsessed with the number 8' (fanu
'8').
>
> Take for instance the word/compound "redcap" (a mythological creature
> IIRC).
Mythological?? Eh? Nowadays it might as well be....;-)) Back in the days
when the US had a functional railway system, a redcap was a porter in the
station. They did wear official caps, though I don't remember if they were
red (it was a very long time ago), but at some point I suppose they did.
Now we have _skycaps_ at airports; not too long ago they actually carried
your baggage in; now they just check you in at the curb and throw your bag
onto a cart or conveyer belt. They may or may not wear a cap.......
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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 18:55:27 +0000
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: (La)TeX for a conlanger? Advice sought.
> > i love LaTeX, but if you want fine-tuned control over the
> > layout, it's probably not what you want. if you want
> > consistent and nice layout, and really good accented
> > characters, it's for you.
I thought I'd better point out the Memoir document class. It's
a very flexible general-purpose LaTeX class that, IIRC, gives
an awful lot of control over layout. It's also got a great manual.
K.
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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 19:39:38 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Jim Henry wrote:
> On 11/18/05, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Jim Henry wrote:
[snip]
> In Volapük there are a fair number of constructions
> like:
>
> pen == pen
> penön == to write [not just with a pen]
> pened == a letter [not any written matter]
I see.
[snip]
>
> Or Volapük suffixes -- except I'm
> honest up front about the suffixes
> being deliberately vague like E-o's
> "um", so you know
Yep - Dutton has at least three of these 'vague suffixes' (the so-called
general, associative and special suffixes); but he makes out that their
meanings are defined - they're not; they are all as vague as "um".
[snip]
> -- Though
> maybe the root and suffix will give
> you clues for guessing at its
> meaning in context than would an _a priori_
> monomorphemic word, or a
> word derived _a posteriori_ from
> a source language you're not familiar with.
That's a possibility, I guess.
[snip]
>
>>I know the feeling only too well! But in my case, I have specifically
>>ruled out idiomatic compounding from Piashi, it being an engelang.
>
>
> That makes sense. I suspect, however, that
> idiomatic compounds -- as long as they're clearly
> marked as such like "ventumi" (to ventilate)
> rather than purely opaque like "eldoni"
But having too many such suffixes does not IMO help. There may be a case
for one such suffix, in the E-o, manner, but I would be unhappy to have
more.
> -- are on average easier to learn, or to
> guess at in context, than _a priori_ words
> or _a posteriori_ words that are so unfamiliar
> to a particular learner that they might as
> well be _a priori_. gzb is, in part,
> an experiment to test this -- though obviously
> not a well-controlled experiment.
> In fact, I reckon this question would be one
> of the easiest aspects of IAL or engelang
> design to test cheaply; but perhaps
> that's a topic for the other list, or offline
> discussion...?
Unless that other list has changed radically from the time I was on it,
I do not think you would get a helpful discussion there. My experience
suggests that it would soon, alas, end in flames. But I really do not
see any reason why it should not be discussed here - it is a conlang
topic IMO.
> So, I try to find a way to form a clear,
> non-idiomatic compound from existing
> gzb roots whenever possible; but
> when I can't figure out how to do that,
> I often prefer coining an idiomatic compound
> with one of the known-to-be-idiomatic
> suffixes, over coining a new _a priori_
> word.
At present I am inclining very much the other way; if there is no clear,
non-idiomatic compound, I am coining a new word ;)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:49:12 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> Hi all,
[snip]
> linguist's definition', I'd say that since it is imposs-
> ible for even a native speaker to predict the meaning
> of any grammatical construction with only one
> member, 'Strewth!' is indeed an idiom in Strine.
I simply do not understand what you mean by "any grammatical
construction with only one member". It does not make sense to me.
If you are referring to the origin of the word, i.e. "God's truth", that
is hardly a grammatical construction with only one member - English is
full of construction like that: John's house, Mary's honesty, Harry's
hospitality etc, etc, etc.
Or are you referring to the fact that "Strewth" is an interjection? You
are surely not trying to tell us that Strine is such an impoverished
language that it has only one single (presumably all-purpose)
interjection.
But _synchronically_ "strewth" is a *monomorphemic word.* It is in fact
impossible for any native speaker of any language on earth to predict
the meaning of a word s/he does not know! It does not make the word an
idiom in Strine or any other language.
[snip]
>
> (*) 'Strine' comes from the title of a book by, IIRC,
> 'Nino Culotta' (John O'Grady), 'Let's Talk Strine',
> popular here in Australia in the early sixties,
It reach Pommieland in the 60s also ;)
====================================
taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> * R A Brown said on 2005-11-18 08:38:35 +0100
[snip]
>>
>>You are, of course, correct. I guess we should amend Trask thus:
>>"An expression consisting of two or more morphemes whose meaning
>>cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
>>parts."
>
> I don't think this is wise. In English it might be so that a compound
> ceases to be a compound as soon as it needs its own entry in a
> dictionary, but this is not necessarily the case in other languages.
>
> Take for instance the word/compound "redcap" (a mythological creature
> IIRC).
It is still felt to be a compound by English speakers, and not a single
word. It may a Scottish castle goblin (which is, I guess, what you are
recalling), but it is also another name for the non-mythological bird
known as a '[European] goldfinch' (Carduelis carduelis); it is also
commonly used in the UK to mean a 'military policeman'. According to my
dictionary, it is used in the USA to mean a 'railway porter'.
> It is "something that has a red cap",
Yep - that applies to all of the above (even if the finch's cap is
in-built). Tho in the strict sense of 'simply', I guess my amendment
above might make it an 'idiom'. But "something that has a red cap" seems
a fairly obvious interpretation of the compound red-cap. OK - I'll
change 'simply predicted' to 'obviously predicted' (for the moment :)
> and words/compounds of this
> type got their own term thousands of years ago, "bahuvrihi".
Yes, I know. Trask defines "bahuvrihi" thus:
"A type of compound word in which one element modifies or restricts the
other and the whole denotes an entity which is a hyponym of an
unexpressed semantic head."
The latter is important. In the 'idiomatic compounds' I was talking
about and, I think, Jim was, there is no unexpressed semantic head.
Indeed, in the example I gave, namely "itollis", the morpheme "it"
(instrument) is the head of the compound.
> idiom != bahuvrihi
I agree. But I how would one describe a compound such as "itollis" if one
does not describe it as an 'idiomatic compound'?
=========================================
Roger Mills wrote:
> Taliesin wrote:
[snip]
>
> I'm getting the impression there is a lot of overlap between compounds
> (transparent, semi-transparent, or totally obscure), metaphors, and
outright idioms (like 'pulling someone's leg', 'kick the bucket').
There are fuzzy boundaries, methinks.
[snip]
>
>>Take for instance the word/compound "redcap" (a mythological creature
>>IIRC).
>
>
> Mythological?? Eh? Nowadays it might as well be....;-)) Back in the days
> when the US had a functional railway system, a redcap was a porter in
the
> station.
Right - so my dictionary was correct, if a little dated ;)
But our military policemen are both contemporary and non-mythical - just
like goldfinches, in fact ;)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 8
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:50:06 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Hi!
R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> > I haven't been working on gjâ-zym-byn much lately. I've been
> > thinking about a possible new project, and have been typing up
> > some scattered handwritten notes about it, but I'm not quite ready
> > to post here about it yet.
>
> I know the feeling only too well!
Me too, but I withstand: I tend to post conlanging results although
they are not ready to be shown... Hope y'all don't mind (e.g. the
web-site for Da Mätz se Basa is a mess, sorry!). :-)
> But in my case, I have specifically ruled out idiomatic compounding
> from Piashi, it being an engelang.
Interesting. My nextnextnext project (which does not even have a
sketch yet since my current project (engelang Tesäfköm) does not make
much progress, but urgently needs to be continued) will probably have
componding again to keep my life interesting. Will you use regular
derivation with only few roots like polysynthetic (enge)langs? If so,
will also rule out lexical specialisation of derived words? Or will
you assign one totally unrelated word to each given concept? Or it is
something inbetween? Or something totally different? I'm curious!
**Henrik
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Message: 9
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 19:37:41 -0500
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Watch my reply-to.
>
>Any use of "it's not clear" is an idiom. The clarity (as in
>opaqueness) of the object is not in question--it's the
>understandability.
>
>--Niilamusi naalinjas
>
>
Er.
That statement seems to make the erroneous assumption that "clear" means
strictly "non-opaque" as opposed to "understandable". Polysemy != idiom.
--
The "Million Style Manual" is a set of sixty-four jade stones marked
with pieces of Chinese characters. It expresses the kung fu of the void,
as taught by P'an Ku's axe.
Shreyas Sampat
http://njyar.blogspot.com
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Message: 10
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 19:46:53 -0800
From: Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Test for middle voice?
Heya folks,
I want to incorporate middle voice into my conlang, but seeing as I'm an L1
English speaker, it's hard for me to see it. I know that "Water fills the cup"
is a middle voice (at least, it is according to Rick Morneau's 'Lexical
Semantics'), but I have no idea how tell when another verb is, or should be.
Can anyone help me with a simple test? You know, one of those sentences where
if the verb makes sense in spot X, then it must be a middle?
Any additional info or description of the middle voice, to help me clarify,
is great. Heck, I'd even be ecstatic if someone could test me on it, so I can
get the distinction down....
Thanks in advance,
Aidan
---------------------------------
Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 11
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 08:23:02 +0100
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Test for middle voice?
Aidan wrote:
>>>
Heya folks,
I want to incorporate middle voice into my conlang, but seeing as I'm an L1
English speaker, it's hard for me to see it. I know that "Water fills the cup"
is a middle voice (at least, it is according to Rick Morneau's 'Lexical
Semantics'), but I have no idea how tell when another verb is, or should be.
Can anyone help me with a simple test? You know, one of those sentences where
if the verb makes sense in spot X, then it must be a middle?
Any additional info or description of the middle voice, to help me clarify, is
great. Heck, I'd even be ecstatic if someone could test me on it, so I can get
the distinction down....
Thanks in advance,
Aidan
<<<
Personally I consider the container as being the "patient" and the content as
being the "focus". Same with the field and the plant, the meadow and the
surrounding fence (sorry, RM), the pot and its lid, etc. This is based on
chronoexperience (vs. chronology): space predates item (even if it or "shaped"
by the item) and whole predates part (even if it is made of parts.) You have a
part only after you suppose a whole and an item only after you suppose the
space where it stands.
There are also basic semantic differences between endocentricity vs.
exocentricity and attributive vs. active that really rule what RM tries to
build in his essay, and explain why the subject of "to eat" is a "patient":
it's because "to eat" is endocentric like "to wear". And so should be "to take",
"to buy", etc.
Middle voice is English is: the cars sell, the soup cooks, the pot *fills
itself. It is said "intransitive", which depends what "transitivity" means. If
it's about needing a preposition, then transitivity depends on languages (State
verbs like "to be happy" have a preposition in English ("with") and can do
without in Indonesian and Khmer.)
µ.
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Message: 12
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 08:30:46 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snip]
>>But in my case, I have specifically ruled out idiomatic compounding
>>from Piashi, it being an engelang.
>
> Interesting. My nextnextnext project (which does not even have a
> sketch yet since my current project (engelang Tesäfköm) does not make
> much progress, but urgently needs to be continued) will probably have
> componding again to keep my life interesting. Will you use regular
> derivation with only few roots like polysynthetic (enge)langs?
No - for the simple reason it doesn't seem to work. I do not want to
replicate the things that I have criticized Speedwords for. This means
that affixes need to be _precisely_ defined. I cannot have vaguely
defined concepts like "association", "special", "general" which then in
practice overlap one another in quite unpredictable ways. And if there
to be antonym & complement affixes, these need to be clearly defined and
applied strictly & consistently.
As to compounding of lexical morphemes, I have no problem with that
per_se, but I do not want to have idiomatic compounding.
> If so,
> will also rule out lexical specialisation of derived words? Or will
> you assign one totally unrelated word to each given concept?
A given concept will have its own word. One aim of Piashi is to be a
briefscript. Having long compounds somewhat mitigates against that.
> Or it is something inbetween?
There will be some use of affixes.
>Or something totally different? I'm curious!
Something totally different? I don't know what that would be. I must
confess that the creation of its vocabulary has been the greatest
stumbling block and still exercises me. This is basically what has held
up the development of the language. Maybe it's that "something totally
different" which I need ;)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 13
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 08:52:06 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Aidan Grey wrote:
> Heya folks,
>
> I want to incorporate middle voice into my conlang, but seeing as I'm an
> L1 English speaker, it's hard for me to see it. I know that "Water fills
> the cup" is a middle voice
Well water does not fill the cup in the same way that "I" fill the cup
in the active "I fill the cup with water". One could also say "The cup
is filled with water". The reason the voice was called 'middle' is that
it sort of come between active and passive.
(at least, it is according to Rick Morneau's
> 'Lexical Semantics'), but I have no idea how tell when another verb is,
> or should be. Can anyone help me with a simple test?
It really depends on what you mean by "middle". In the strict sense,
English does not have a middle _voice_, i.e. a grammatically category
distinguished morphologically from active and passive. What Rick Morneau
is talking about is _diathesis_, namely the relation between the
semantic roles subcategorized for a lexical verb or predicate, and the
expression of those roles as grammatical relations. As diathesis.
linguists do not seem to me to be entirely in agreement about what
constitutes 'middle'.
Now you are obviously talking about a middle _voice_ such as existed (in
part) in ancient Greek. Basically it was 'reflexive' in its meaning in
the broadest sense of the term. The middle voice of ancient Greek behave
very much like the reflexive verbs of modern Romance languages. They
could be directly reflexive (je me lave) or indirectly reflexive (je me
lave les mains), or just idiomatic. They sometimes did duty for
passives, just as the do in the Romance langs.
If you are designing a loglang, then you will probably need to read up
about diathesis, semantic roles v. grammatical roles, and decide which
precise meaning you give 'middle'. But if, as I suspect, you are
designing an artlang, then my advice would be to model your middle voice
on the behavior of reflexive verbs in languages like French, Spanish or
Italian and not worry about 'tests'.
Hope this helps.
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 14
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:14:31 -0800
From: Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Ray,
Yes, it is an artlang, and yes, this does help. Thanks!
Aidan
R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If you are designing a loglang, then you will probably need to read up
about diathesis, semantic roles v. grammatical roles, and decide which
precise meaning you give 'middle'. But if, as I suspect, you are
designing an artlang, then my advice would be to model your middle voice
on the behavior of reflexive verbs in languages like French, Spanish or
Italian and not worry about 'tests'.
Hope this helps.
---------------------------------
Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.
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Message: 15
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 13:16:56 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
Hello,
This is very off-topic, but I hope someone of you will be able to help
me. I'm currently programming a dictionary for my conlang using PHP and
MySQL because I want to get rid of those 1000 .txt files which are a
mess to edit and to search through. Databases are lots more
user-friendly when it comes to searching.
First, please download this file:
www.beckerscarsten.de/temp/ayeri_dictionary_problem.zip
If you want to see the stuff I have programmed up to now, install the
folder ./ayeri_dictionary under the root of your server (for me, e.g.
/var/www/html). Note that I'm using WinXP SP2 running Apache 2, PHP5 and
MySQL 4.1.11. Then execute the .SQL file in order to install the
database. In some of the .PHP files in ./ayeri_dictionary you must
adjust your username and your password and maybe also the name of your
server to connect to the database via PHP.
When leave the "Abfrage" (Query) dialogue empty, MySQL will print out
all data that is stored in the database, as shown in ./problem_1.jpg. In
my case at least, where there is supposed to be IPA, there are only
questionmarks printed out. Ditto for a-macron and a-underdot and such.
Acutes and graves etc. are not accepted as well by my system for some
reason. As you can see in ./problem_2.jpg, the data I put in there
manually is shown correctly under phpMyAdmin. When entering something
via my own PHP scripts in the "Neuer Eintrag" (New Entry) dialogue,
Unicode will be stored as latin1 in the tables. When doing a query with
PHP, most IPA is printed correctly, but not everything.
However, I can't explain why that is since when asking for the
variables, MySQL answers among others
Variable This session General
----------------------------------------------------------
character set client utf8 utf8
character set connection utf8 utf8
character set database utf8 utf8
character set results utf8 utf8
character set server utf8 utf8
character set system utf8 utf8
collation connection utf8_general_ci utf8_general_ci
collation database utf8_general_ci utf8_general_ci
collation server utf8_general_ci utf8_general_ci
There shouldn't be a problem actually, but I can't get my stuff working
correctly.
Thanks for help,
Carsten
--
"Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
(Calvin nay Hobbes)
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Message: 16
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 09:55:44 -0500
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Elomi!
Hi, All. This is more appropriate to AUXLANG but I thought I'd post in
CONLANG as well... hope that's okay.
Here is something new that I've been working on: Elomi (
http://ca.geocities.com/handydad/elomi/elomi-main.html).
I've always liked the sound of Hawai'ian and other Polynesian languages,
but had never thought of a way to achieve something like it in a
self-segregating morphology with the clear-cut compounding mechanisms that I
prefer. Now I think I have.
Elomi's genesis lies within Konya but it is quite a different language. It
is even more vowel-y. Its morphology is even simpler. It is strongly
head-initial. And I think it is prettier, more appealing, though at the
cost, sometimes, of some extra syllables.
For a while at least, I intend to pursue Konya and Elomi in parallel. Every
construct that gets thought of for one probably needs a counterpart in the
other.
The Elomi web site is nearly identical to that of Konya, and I have created
a Yahoo group (linkable from the web site). I invite your comments and
critiques there. I look forward to hearing from you all.
---larry
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Message: 17
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 02:25:37 +1100
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, caeruleancentaur wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> >I'm not clear on why so few readers were clear on the idiom quoted
> >as 'I'm not clear on ...'. Perhaps it came from reading too fast!
> >The 'translation' into 'It isn't clear to me why ... ' is, of
> course, >a metaphor. I'm unsure whether a computational linguist
> would >consider metaphors to be idioms, since the allegorical use of
> terms >that don't strictly apply to the objects of discussion is a
> technique >common to most natlangs (I don't say it's universal), and
> one
> >which supplies the means for much generalisation and transfer of
> >meaning.
>
> Mr. Wier himself gave us to the two separate phrasings:
> "I think it could be interesting to include a requirement like this
> in one of my nonhuman languages (which is why it caught my
> attention), but I'm not clear how it would work out in practice.
>
> "(There we go with one of those weird English idioms again, I
> mean "it's not clear to me" :-) And "there we go" also deserves
> mention in a list of idioms....)"
Yes, Charlie, he did indeed. My point was that too many readers
missed his message, and critiqued only his use of the 'translation'
as though he had intended that as an example of 'those weird
English idioms'.
> Is it possible that a word can be an idiom in one phrasing and not
> an idiom in another even though the meaning is the same?
Not if the phrase is the idiom. If the word 'cats' in English
appears both in a direct statement of fact and also in an
idiomatic phrase, eg 'All cats are grey.' and 'It's raining cats
and dogs', in each case the word 'cats' has the same literal
meaning - which the idiom belies - that's _why_ it's an idiom.
when you tell me 'It's raining cats and dogs', it would be
silly of me to aks you to point out which are the cats and
which are the dogs.
> "I'm not clear..." seems to be a metaphor. Perhaps a metaphor is a
> subset of idiom. One can't replace it with a synonym: "I'm not
> plain," "I'm not evident."
>
> However, in "it's not clear to me," there can be
> substitutions: "it's not plain to me," "it's not evident to me."
> And I maintain that this is not an idiom since "clear," in this
> context, is synonymous with words like "evident" or "plain." I
> would imagine that the original meaning of "clear" was "not opage,
> unmuddied." Other meanings would have to be connotative. But to
> hold that this construction is an idiom would mean that any
> connotative use of a word is an idiom. I'm not ready to accept
> that. The meaning of this particular phrase is obvious from its
> constituent parts.
I agree entirely.
Regards,
Yahya
--
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Message: 18
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 02:25:41 +1100
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, R A Brown wrote:
>
> Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> > Hi all,
> [snip]
> > linguist's definition', I'd say that since it is imposs-
> > ible for even a native speaker to predict the meaning
> > of any grammatical construction with only one
> > member, 'Strewth!' is indeed an idiom in Strine.
>
> I simply do not understand what you mean by "any grammatical
> construction with only one member". It does not make sense to me.
>
> If you are referring to the origin of the word, i.e. "God's truth", that
> is hardly a grammatical construction with only one member - English is
> full of construction like that: John's house, Mary's honesty, Harry's
> hospitality etc, etc, etc.
No, I'm referring to the fact that 'Strewth' is the sole
surviving member in Strine of a wider class of expressions
in BritEnglish, all of the pattern <ellipsis for 'God's'> + <noun>,
where the <noun> may have been 'wounds', 'blood', 'cross',
'rood', 'nails' etc, giving rise to 'Zounds', 'Zblood' etc.
I'm sure you're familiar with them, as you alluded to 'Zounds'
earlier. Because these oaths all used the name of God, it was
common practice to do so indirectly, to avoid censure for
breaking the commandment: 'Thou shalt not take the LORD's
name in vain'.
Strictly religious people, including some member of my family,
being aware of the origins of these oaths, held that they still
broke the commandment. To them, saying 'Strewth' or even
'Gee' or 'Geez' (a contraction of 'Jesus') or 'Cripes' (a
euphemism for 'Christ') was swearing.
Now, as a kid, I could understand when it was explained to me
how 'Cripes' and 'Geez' originated, as they used mechanisms
familiar from the language. OTOH, I had no handle on the
entire word 'God' disappearing, leaving behind only its possess-
ive suffix ''s'; there were simply no other occurrences of this
pattern to draw from. Today, of course, we even have a brand
of potato crisps or some such junk food called 'S'OK', which
exactly mirrors the way we now contract 'It's OK'.
> Or are you referring to the fact that "Strewth" is an interjection? You
> are surely not trying to tell us that Strine is such an impoverished
> language that it has only one single (presumably all-purpose)
> interjection.
IIRC, I gave several examples of Strine interjections.
> But _synchronically_ "strewth" is a *monomorphemic word.* ...
I'm not clear about that ... It sounded to me, when I first heard it,
as though it obviously contained the (statistically unlikely) string
of sounds that I was familiar with in 'truth'. So I _thought_ it
had something to do with 'truth', but couldn't work out what the
other bit meant. It seemed to me at the time to have two parts
to its meaning (I hadn't heard the word 'morpheme' then).
> ... It is in fact
> impossible for any native speaker of any language on earth to predict
> the meaning of a word s/he does not know! It does not make the word an
> idiom in Strine or any other language.
But it IS possible for a native speaker to conjecture, with a
reasonable chance of success, as to the meaning of any
combination of familiar morphemes. I simply didn't have the
morpheme <'God's' represented by /s/ or /z/> as a familiar
morpheme, since it occurs only once in Strine.
So that means I was unable to predict the meaning of 'Strewth'
based on the language rules I had learned. Had 'Zblood' and
'Zounds' survived into 1950s Strine, I should have had a better
chance of correctly predicting the third if I already knew the
other two. There IS a rule or pattern at work here, even if a
rare one. So on that basis none of the three would have been
an idiom in this alternative Strine. But can we speak of a rule
with one instance? If we did, what use would that rule be? It
comes down to exactly the same thing - one has to learn the
singular exemplar of such a rule explicitly, exactly the same as
if it were the kind of rule-breaker that the idiom 'I'm not clear
about that' is. In practical terms, if one has to learn each in-
stance, one might as well call it by the same name: an idiom.
> [snip]
> >
> > (*) 'Strine' comes from the title of a book by, IIRC,
> > 'Nino Culotta' (John O'Grady), 'Let's Talk Strine',
> > popular here in Australia in the early sixties,
>
> It reach Pommieland in the 60s also ;)
Glad it made you grin! :-)
Regards,
Yahya
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