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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Fwd: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: On the subject of idioms ...
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Elomi!
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Elomi!
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Scotto Hlad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Elomi!
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: On the subject of idioms ...
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: On the subject of idioms ...
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Elomi!
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Darwinistic or ancient strata?
From: Raivo Seppo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Elomi!
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 10:37:10 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
On 11/20/05, Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Well, maybe it *is* an error in MySQL that Unicode doesn't
> work properly here -- after all, I always get
>
> > Illegal mix of collations (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) and
> > (latin1_swedish_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation 'like'
>
> when entering %a-macron% into the "word" textfield in the
> query dialogue. Putting a "COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci" after
> the "LIKE" stuff doesn't help either -- the MySQL debugger
> reports this use was just plain wrong.
>
> I don't know if this matters, but there's no utf8.xml
> file in the folder where the charset definitions are
> (\mysql\share\encodings IIRC).
I have an older version of MySQL, but in the charsets directory there's a
readme that says that multibyte charsets must be compiled in, not just added
to the config. Maybe your MySQL was compiled without UTF-8 support?
Greetings,
> Carsten
>
> --
> "Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
> (Calvin nay Hobbes)
>
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:11:48 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:26:46 -0500, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> What I would call 'idiomatic derivation' are things like "evue":
>> e- v- u- e
>> be-ASSOCIATION-one-AUGMENT = "corporation"
>
> Ok, I fully understand! :-O
Idiomatic, for sure, but no more so than the Latinate incorporate, which I
parse as something like into-body-become, and indeed corporation, which I
think is something like that_which_is_made_into-a_body.
There was a semi-recent bit on The Language Log about this, dealing with
the fallacy that Eskimo has no word for "robin" -- the converse of the
"100 words for snow" statement. I'll see whether I can dig it out, but I
have to leave the house now for an early Thanksgiving with the in-laws.
Paul
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:28:29 -0500
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 10:37:10 -0500, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have an older version of MySQL, but in the charsets directory there's a
>readme that says that multibyte charsets must be compiled in, not just added
>to the config. Maybe your MySQL was compiled without UTF-8 support?
I thought of that, too, when I checked the Readme file -- but only after
having sent that mail to you. I'll check that. The problem is that I didn't
download and install all this individually, but downloaded Apache, PHP, Perl
and MysQL from apachefriends.org in a package called "XAMPP" because last
time I installed everything individually, it was a pain in the a$$ until I
got everything running as I wanted.
C.
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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:29:26 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Hi!
Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Quoting tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > German's "Krankhaus" meaning "hospital" comes from "sick"+"house",
> > doesn't it?
Almost, it is 'Krankenhaus'.
> > I know German's Western, but I don't know how they say a "sick"
> > building.
>
> I don't recall the German for a sick house, but in Swedish you get _sjukhus_
> "hospital", _sjukt hus_ "sick house".
'krankes Haus' vs. 'Krankenhaus'. However, in some situations, you
get the same form due to case endings on the adjective:
in einem Krankenhaus ['kRaNkN=,haUs]
in einem kranken Haus [,kRaNkN='haUs]
The stress pattern is different. You could even eliminate this by
forcing emphasis on 'krank' (Like in: 'blahblah...in a sick house. In
a brick house? No, in a *sick* house.' You'd also get
['kRaNkN=,haUs] then.)
Fortunately, sick houses seldom occur in normal situations. :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:43:13 -0500
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: [TECH] MySQL 4.1.11 and Unicode I/O
Hm. Sylvia Sotomayor offlistly suggested to simply convert special letters
to entities, that's a possible solution. I nevertheless *do* want to know
why entering and getting out Unicode doesn't work with my server
version/configuration. I'm about to download an update of the server package
I use which also includes MySQL 5. Since I found out that the folks at MySQL
AB forgot to compile in UTF8 in version 4.1.0 I guess the same might have
happened in 4.1.11, since Unicode support works for Mark Reed who has 4.1.9.
I hope an upgrade will help.
Carsten
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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 15:32:37 -0500
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> Quoting tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> > I know German's Western, but I don't know how they say a
> > "sick" building.
>
> 'krankes Haus' vs. 'Krankenhaus'. However, in some situations,
> you get the same form due to case endings on the adjective:
>
> in einem Krankenhaus ['kRaNkN=,haUs]
> in einem kranken Haus [,kRaNkN='haUs]
>
> The stress pattern is different. You could even eliminate this by
> forcing emphasis on 'krank' (Like in: 'blahblah...in a sick house.
> In a brick house? No, in a *sick* house.' You'd also get
> ['kRaNkN=,haUs] then.)
This happens in English as well. Compare
1. Some black bird built a nest in my front tree.
2. Some blackbird built a nest in my front tree.
In the first sentence, the stress is on "bird," while in the
second, the stress is on "black."
--Ph. D.
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:35:53 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snip]
>>...
>>What Henrik is writing about is diathesis, and I have not said that
>>there is no 'middle' diathesis in English. Indeed, I believe that some
>>analyses of English postulate more than just three diatheses.
>
>
> Sorry for the confusion then. I will properly distinguish voice from
> diathesis in the future! :-)
>
good :)
> Please allow me another thought to clarify my understanding of English
> grammar. Don't hit me. :-)
>
> Speaking of syntax only: isn't 'the cup fills' at least a wee bit
> syntactically distinguishable from 'Peter fills the cup'?
Not really.
> I.e., is
> 'Peter fills' grammatical and will it be understood to be containing
> an ellipsis of an object being filled?
"Peter fills" sounds unfinished; it wants an object. It would not be
sound grammatical, except in a context in which the ellipsis is clearly
'understood'. In fact off-hand I can't really think of just such a
situation (no doubt one of our readers will ;)
But "the cup fills" is IMO just as likely (or unlikely) as "Peter
fills". It also has an ellipsis - "With what?" But I can just imagine it
being said maybe during a scientific demonstration or a conjuring trick.
"Look - the cup is filling!"
> If so, I agree -- the
> distinction is purely semantical. But if it is either ungrammatical,
> or possible to be interpreted as a (strange) situation where Peter
> fills in the way a cup would, then there is a syntactical distinction,
> isn't it?
There is, arguably, a syntactic distinction in that one usage requires a
direct object complement & the other requires a prepositional phrase
complement. But these are normally regarded as subcategorizations of the
_lexical_ item, i.e. they are semantic distinctions.
The termination -(e)s and the form 'is ....ing' are markers of the 3rd
person singular of grammatically active forms of a verb. My dictionary
list 'fill' as a transitive verb with various different (tho related)
meanings, and as an intransitive verb with the meanings 'to become
full', 'to become satiated'. They have different valencies, as well as
different diatheses.
>
> But ok, my L2 intuition tells me that the selection of the diathesis
> is done according to semantical properties of the subject, not by
> syntax --
That's correct - diathesis is done according to semantic properties.
if it can have control, it's active, if it can't, it's
> middle. So there is no middle voice in English.
No, not in the _grammatical_ sense of voice.
> I will never claim
> so again! :-) 'Peter drinks' is clearly active. You can't say 'Tea
> drinks', right? So it also depends on the verb.
Yes, I thinks so.
> What about 'Tea
> drinks more easily than water when you have a cold'?
:-)
Yes, indeed, although I have never heard that; but as we know from the
frequent YAEDTs, it would be a misguided to say that would never occur
in a language spoken over such a wide area as English is. Could any
Romance language (or German) use a reflexive in that context (Tea drinks
itself more easily....)?
===================================
Andreas Johansson wrote:
[snip]
>
> Looking in a Swedish lexicon, it seems _diates_ covers both voice and
diathesis.
> It may be the same in German.
>
> The way to distinguish is apparently to speak of _morfologisk diates_ vs
> _semantisk diates_.
I've never met 'diathesis' used in English for any meaning other than
_semantisk diates_. On the other hand, I have found 'voice' used in both
the morphological and the semantic meaning which, as I have said, seems
to me a confusing usage.
It reminds me of the vocoid/contoid and vowel/consonant business. Some
of us use vocoid & contoid for phonological distinctions and vowel and
consonant for phonetic distinctions. Others use just vowel & consonant,
and then have to make clear whether they mean a 'phonological vowel' or
'phonetic vowel'.
But as I have, IMO it is more helpful to distinguish in English between
'diathesis' (semantic feature) and 'voice' (grammatical category).
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 8
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:34:36 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
--- In [email protected], Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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
Second: Try to check out M.H. Klaiman's "Grammatical Voice". He
divides the world's types of voice-systems into about three or four
super-types, which I will try to remember;
* Derived Voice Systems such as English has, which fundamentally
promote and demote arguments into and out of various grammatical
relations; (Applicatives and Anti-Passives are also part of this
super-type);
* Basic Voice Systems such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Fulani
have, which concern themselves with affectedness and control;
* Hierarchical Voice Systems, a major type of which are Inverse Voice
Systems, such as Algonquian and Tiwan languages have;
* Pragmatic Voice Systems, among them Information-Salience Voice
Systems, such as some Mayan languages and many Philippine languages.
---
"Middle Voice" is chiefly a feature of Basic Voice Systems. Certain
verbs are nearly always in the Middle Voice. The Middle Voice
implies that the subject, or its interest(s), is/are affected, or has
an interest in whatever is affected, by the situation expressed by
the verb. So, for instance, "I fear the Greeks" might be in the
middle voice, since I am more affected by my fear than the Greeks
are.
---
First:
Even if two languages both have unquestionable middle voices, a
sentence that in one of them might be put in the middle voice, might
not be translated into the middle voice in the other.
A paper I have at home somewhere -- unfortunately I have to hunt it
up to find out either title or author -- lists about eleven semantic
situations that are likely to be expressed morphosyntactically in
middle voice if it is available.
My favorite is: If the subject is the patient of part of the
predicate, but the agent of a different part, then the predicate is
likely to be put in the midddle voice.
Most common example; The subject is the patient of the verb, but the
agent of the adverb-of-manner.
Most common example; Adverb-of-manner = Easily.
"This wood cuts easily".
Others:
"This car drives smoothly".
Other possibilities; subject is patient of main verb, but agent of
auxiliary verb.
Example: "I'm going to get myself screwed, blewed, and tattooed."
-----
Another situation commonly expressed in the middle, is a verb which
is inherently reciprocal. The examples I remember are "They
embraced" and "they kissed".
-----
I also remember that saying "a cloud hovered over the town" or "the
door remained open all day" might be put in the middle voice. The
reason is that the cloud and the door are inanimate. If the opposite
of these sentences had happened, it would be because there subjects
had been the patients of some outside forces. But their remaining
where they were was a quasi-agentive or semi-active kind of lack-of-
activity, or at least lack-of-being-a-patient. (Did you get that?
It was kind of hard to put into words. Basically it means they
weren't agents and they weren't patients, so neither active voice nor
passive voice were appropriate, and what did that leave? You guessed
it -- middle voice.)
----
Finally, if a human just kind of wanders around in a daze or fugue or
fog, maybe lost in thought or meditating on his or her girlfriend or
boyfriend (or worried about losing his job or thinking about buying a
new car), this "wandering" might be put in the middle voice, since
it's not really under the human subject's control; nor under anyone
else's, either.
-----
Those are several sufficient conditions to put something in the
middle voice.
Basically they amount to two;
1. The subject is the agent of part of the predicate and the patient
of another part; or
2. The subject is neither the agent nor the patient of the predicate.
However, whether any of them actually /require/ the middle voice is
language-dependent; and I definitely do not believe I have exhausted
the set of situations where a middle voice might be recommended.
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 9
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:55:09 -0800
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fwd: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
I'm sorry, I sent this to the wrong list first.
Note: forwarded message attached.
---------------------------------
Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 10
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:04:48 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Hi!
R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> > What about 'Tea
> > drinks more easily than water when you have a cold'?
>
> :-)
>
> Yes, indeed, although I have never heard that; but as we know from
> the frequent YAEDTs, it would be a misguided to say that would never
> occur in a language spoken over such a wide area as English
> is. Could any Romance language (or German) use a reflexive in that
> context (Tea drinks itself more easily....)?
Yes, that's one way to say it in German. It doesn't sound strange in
any way: 'Tee trinkt sich leichter als Wasser, wenn man eine Erkältung
hat.' I'd say it sounds a bit more formal than the slightly more
common way to say it: 'Tee läßt sich leichter als Wasser trinken ...',
i.e., using the auxiliary 'lassen'.
**Henrik
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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:09:06 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Hi!
Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> Yes, that's one way to say it in German. It doesn't sound strange in
> any way: 'Tee trinkt sich leichter als Wasser, wenn man eine Erkältung
> hat.' I'd say it sounds a bit more formal than the slightly more
> common way to say it: 'Tee läßt sich leichter als Wasser trinken ...',
> i.e., using the auxiliary 'lassen'.
Thinking of it again, I think the most natural way (in spoken language
at least) would be to say: 'Tee kann man besser trinken als Wasser,
...'.
However...
**Henrik
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Message: 12
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:03:28 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Ray Brown wrote:
> The termination -(e)s and the form 'is ....ing' are markers of the 3rd
> person singular of grammatically active forms of a verb. My dictionary
> list 'fill' as a transitive verb with various different (tho related)
> meanings, and as an intransitive verb with the meanings 'to become
> full', 'to become satiated'. They have different valencies, as well as
> different diatheses.
It has struck me, in the course of this thread, that Kash _inchoative_ forms
often fulfill the requirements of middle voice--
Stative: londo 'full'-- inch. çulondo 'fill (intr.), getting/becoming
full -- caus. rundondo (trans.) to fill s.t.
Thus we can have:
--yala yalondo 'the glass is full'
--yala yaçulondo 'the glass fills ~is getting full' (and just as in Engl., a
human subj. could not occur here)
--Mina yarundondo yala 'Mina fills the glass'
The only thing that becomes difficult is: "Water filled the glass", which I
suspect would have to use the inchoative, with a prepositional phrase yambit
sawu 'by means of water' or liri sawu 'with respect to water'; generally
inanimates can't be subj. of causative vbs.
So, paraphrase with "becoming/getting/turning...." might be one test of
middle voice. Another, as has been pointed out, is when the action of the
verb is reflexive (like intrans. 'bathe' or many Romance refl. forms) or in
some way benefits the subject. But as Ray points out (if I read him
correctly) this is often (always?) semantically (perhaps logically?)
determined--thus it just so happens that intr. "fill" cannot normally
co-occur with a human subj.
For those who are interested and have the patience, go to my Kash
dictionary: http://cinduworld.tripod.com/anakrangota.htm and do a search
for _çu_ which will turn up most of the inchoative forms (plus irrelevant
sequences). Not all are "middle", I think, nor do all adjs/vbs. have the
form, but that may be due to my oversight/laziness, if not to semantics :-))
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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:31:48 -0200
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On the subject of idioms ...
This reminds me of the kenningar (sg. kenning), fixed metaphors used
in the ancient literature of Germanic languages. It may not be the
term you're looking for, but may be worth a look anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning
João Ricardo de Mendonça
On 11/14/05, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In Meghean it's considered nifty and sophisticated to refer to abstract
> concepts
> by mentioning two related concrete things instead. So, one might say _conich
> oa
> teoa_ "spear and fire" for "war", or _inde oa mañha_ "coin and ship" for
> trade.
>
> Is there a name for this sort of idiom? It's a case of pars pro toto (partes
> pro
> toto?), but is there something more specific?
>
> Andreas
>
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 04:11:05 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Hi!
Roger Mills writes:
>...
> It has struck me, in the course of this thread, that Kash _inchoative_ forms
> often fulfill the requirements of middle voice--
>
> Stative: londo 'full'-- inch. çulondo 'fill (intr.), getting/becoming
> full -- caus. rundondo (trans.) to fill s.t.
Funny, by having a three-fold system, it is totally different to the
two-fold system of Qthyn|gai: the difference between inchoative and
causative is by an agent being marked present or missing. The
language has a log of valence infixes to do this. What I found funny
about the Qthyn|gai system was that it has no passive voice in the
sence English has it, while it directly has middle voice and it can
even express the lack of a semantical patient in the same way as for
the agent.
>...
> The only thing that becomes difficult is: "Water filled the glass", which I
> suspect would have to use the inchoative, with a prepositional phrase yambit
> sawu 'by means of water' or liri sawu 'with respect to water'; generally
> inanimates can't be subj. of causative vbs.
Is 'water filled the glass' an event or is it synonymous with 'the
glass is filled with water'/'the glass is full of water', a state?
For the event, Qthyn|gai would use
full-become glass-PAT water-INSTR
'the glass fills using water/by means of water'
For the state, I'd have to think and look at the available cases
again. Maybe it'd use a serial verb construction:
full glass-PAT contain-APP_LOC water-PAT
'the glass is full water is contained (in it)'
(Or similar, I'd have to check the exact valencies etc. Qthyn|gai is
quite hard to translate into for me.)
**Henrik
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Message: 15
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:23:27 -0600
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Elomi!
Larry Sulky wrote:
> 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.
Interesting how the first letter specifies the part of speech. I had a
similar system in Jaghri except that the part of speech vowel was
attached to the end of the word. So every word ends in a series of two
vowels, and since sequences of vowels are not allowed inside words,
every sequence of two vowels marks the end of a word. In the case of
Elomi, the boundary between words comes between the two vowels in a
sequence.
> 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.
I like head-initial languages, and that fits with the Polynesian theme,
with a number of VSO languages, and even some VOS ones like Fijian. But
have you considered how names (place names and personal names) can be
borrowed into Elomi while remaining recognizable? It seems like that
would be a major concern for a language like this (with a relatively
simple phonology compared with most languages that the names would be
borrowed from). It's hard enough to recognize names in Japanese (which
at least distinguishes voiced and voiceless consonants).
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Message: 16
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:48:52 -0500
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Elomi!
Hello, Herman!
On 11/20/05, Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Larry Sulky wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Interesting how the first letter specifies the part of speech. I had a
> similar system in Jaghri except that the part of speech vowel was
> attached to the end of the word. So every word ends in a series of two
> vowels, and since sequences of vowels are not allowed inside words,
> every sequence of two vowels marks the end of a word.
I did an Esperanto variant/refinement that used that mechanism to mark word
endings; e.g. nouns ended in "oi", or something like that.
> In the case of
> Elomi, the boundary between words comes between the two vowels in a
> sequence.
Right. In rapid speech this might be blurred, but then, in rapid speech,
comprehension is always compromised.
> 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.
>
> I like head-initial languages, and that fits with the Polynesian theme,
> with a number of VSO languages, and even some VOS ones like Fijian. But
> have you considered how names (place names and personal names) can be
> borrowed into Elomi while remaining recognizable? It seems like that
> would be a major concern for a language like this (with a relatively
> simple phonology compared with most languages that the names would be
> borrowed from). It's hard enough to recognize names in Japanese (which
> at least distinguishes voiced and voiceless consonants).
It is a concern, so that's why there is a mechanism for permitting
completely foreign names, as well as names that have phonemes outside of
"native" Elomi but have structures that fit within Elomi. It also may be
that speakers will eventually drop these mechanisms and just use the foreign
names as is, maybe with a dramatic pause around them. Or there may be a mix
of techniques. When I hear my first name and last names adapted into
Japanese or Chinese, I have to accept that my names just don't fit the
phonology or morphology of those languages, and speakers of those languages
_will_ change my name to suit.
---larry
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 17
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:18:49 -0700
From: Scotto Hlad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
The best example for middle voice I ever saw was, "The door opened."
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Henrik Theiling
Sent: Sun, November 20, 2005 8:11 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Hi!
Roger Mills writes:
>...
> It has struck me, in the course of this thread, that Kash _inchoative_
forms
> often fulfill the requirements of middle voice--
>
> Stative: londo 'full'-- inch. çulondo 'fill (intr.), getting/becoming
> full -- caus. rundondo (trans.) to fill s.t.
Funny, by having a three-fold system, it is totally different to the
two-fold system of Qthyn|gai: the difference between inchoative and
causative is by an agent being marked present or missing. The
language has a log of valence infixes to do this. What I found funny
about the Qthyn|gai system was that it has no passive voice in the
sence English has it, while it directly has middle voice and it can
even express the lack of a semantical patient in the same way as for
the agent.
>...
> The only thing that becomes difficult is: "Water filled the glass", which
I
> suspect would have to use the inchoative, with a prepositional phrase
yambit
> sawu 'by means of water' or liri sawu 'with respect to water'; generally
> inanimates can't be subj. of causative vbs.
Is 'water filled the glass' an event or is it synonymous with 'the
glass is filled with water'/'the glass is full of water', a state?
For the event, Qthyn|gai would use
full-become glass-PAT water-INSTR
'the glass fills using water/by means of water'
For the state, I'd have to think and look at the available cases
again. Maybe it'd use a serial verb construction:
full glass-PAT contain-APP_LOC water-PAT
'the glass is full water is contained (in it)'
(Or similar, I'd have to check the exact valencies etc. Qthyn|gai is
quite hard to translate into for me.)
**Henrik
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Message: 18
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 06:59:36 +0100
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Elomi!
Just combine the foreign word X with another word explaining what it is: Person
X, Country X, City X, Fruit X, etc. Things get pretty clear that way.
Natural languages with "poor" phonologies have had centuries to consider that
and their speakers still can express and use foreign words--some of them even
broadcast TV shows abroad! :-)
Mathias
Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
......
I like head-initial languages, and that fits with the Polynesian theme,
with a number of VSO languages, and even some VOS ones like Fijian. But
have you considered how names (place names and personal names) can be
borrowed into Elomi while remaining recognizable? It seems like that
would be a major concern for a language like this (with a relatively
simple phonology compared with most languages that the names would be
borrowed from). It's hard enough to recognize names in Japanese (which
at least distinguishes voiced and voiceless consonants
......
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Message: 19
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 01:18:10 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Henrik Theiling wrote:
>> Roger Mills writes:
> >...
> > Stative: londo 'full'-- inch. çulondo 'fill (intr.), getting/becoming
> > full -- caus. rundondo (trans.) to fill s.t.
>
> Funny, by having a three-fold system, it is totally different to the
> two-fold system of Qthyn|gai: the difference between inchoative and
> causative is by an agent being marked present or missing.
There can't be an agent with an inchoative, since they represent processes,
events or changes in state that involve only the patient. I suspect that
could be a universal :-). OTOH a causative, to my view, implies an agent,
most likely animate though some languages would allow an instrument in some
cases. The agent can be omitted if it's unnecessary information, or has
been established by context-- in such cases the patient is promoted to
subject and the sentence becomes passive (or is it anti-passive-- I've never
been too clear on that).
The
> language has a log of valence infixes to do this. What I found funny
> about the Qthyn|gai system was that it has no passive voice in the
> sence English has it,
Neither does Kash, though there are ways to translate an Engl. passive, or
translate certain Kash "active" constructions to an Engl. passive-- in both
cases for stylistic reasons. It always struck me as interesting that Span,
Fr. and Ital. definitely disfavor the passive construction (ser/etre/essere
+ participle) in ordinary speech.
> >...
> > The only thing that becomes difficult is: "Water filled the glass",
> > which I
> > suspect would have to use the inchoative, with a prepositional phrase
> > yambit
> > sawu 'by means of water' or liri sawu 'with respect to water'; generally
> > inanimates can't be subj. of causative vbs.
>
> Is 'water filled the glass' an event ...
Yes IMO
or is it synonymous with 'the
> glass is filled with water'/'the glass is full of water', a state?
Not synonymous; but these two, in at least one reading, are equivalent. They
both state a result. For instance, upon entering a dining room, you might
exclaim: Look, the glasses are filled with water! (the assumption is,
somebody did it), or equally well: Look, the glasses are full of water
(merely commenting on the state). Note that even if you saw a waiter going
around filling glasses, you could not say, Look, the glasses are filling
[with water].
Am I making any sense? Not sure..............
> For the event, Qthyn|gai would use
>
> full-become glass-PAT water-INSTR
> 'the glass fills using water/by means of water'
Comparable to the Kash.
In Chafe's formulation, which originally inspired the Kash system (even
though Chafe is somewhat outdated), causative verbs derived from statives
are actually a combination of causative plus inchoative:
(State) full -- (Inch.) intr. fill=become full -- (Caus.) trans. fill=cause
X to become full
Causative derivations of actions and experientials (both trans. and intr.)
seem to work differently....
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Message: 20
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:15:12 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
R A Brown wrote:
> > What about 'Tea
> > drinks more easily than water when you have a cold'?
>
> :-)
>
> Yes, indeed, although I have never heard that; but as we know from the
> frequent YAEDTs, it would be a misguided to say that would never occur
> in a language spoken over such a wide area as English is. Could any
> Romance language (or German) use a reflexive in that context (Tea drinks
> itself more easily....)?
Russian and Ukrainian do. "þÁÊ ÐØ£ÔÓÑ" (chay p'yotsya) etc. in contrast to
"ïÎ ÐØ£Ô ÞÁÊ" (on p'yot chay) - he drinks tea.
-- Yitzik
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Message: 21
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:24:34 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On the subject of idioms ...
Quoting João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> This reminds me of the kenningar (sg. kenning), fixed metaphors used
> in the ancient literature of Germanic languages. It may not be the
> term you're looking for, but may be worth a look anyway.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning
I'm quite familiar with kenningar, thank you - being a Scandinavian with
interest in history tends to do that to you! :)
But kenningar, as you say, are metaphors. These Meghean constructions are not.
Andreas
> João Ricardo de Mendonça
>
>
>
> On 11/14/05, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > In Meghean it's considered nifty and sophisticated to refer to abstract
> concepts
> > by mentioning two related concrete things instead. So, one might say
> _conich oa
> > teoa_ "spear and fire" for "war", or _inde oa mañha_ "coin and ship" for
> trade.
> >
> > Is there a name for this sort of idiom? It's a case of pars pro toto
> (partes pro
> > toto?), but is there something more specific?
> >
> > Andreas
> >
>
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Message: 22
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:24:07 -0200
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On the subject of idioms ...
On 11/21/05, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm quite familiar with kenningar, thank you - being a Scandinavian with
> interest in history tends to do that to you! :)
I'm not good at sorting out Scandinavians with an interest in history
by people's names, so please excuse me for my heresy.
João Ricardo de Mendonça
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Message: 23
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:39:01 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Elomi!
On 11/19/05, Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 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.
It looks like Elomi has exactly the same phoneme
inventory as Konya, and fairly similar phonotactics;
it's a pretty phonology and fairly good for an auxlang,
except I'm not sure /s/ and /S/ are distinct enough.
If you want three fricatives maybe you could use
/f/, /s/, and /h/, the last having allophones [h], [x], [X]
and perhaps [C] -- but I prefer [C] as an allophone
of /s/ or /S/; I'm always puzzled when I think of how
German has [C] and [x] as allophones
(but Japanese having [p\] and [h] as allophones is
even odder, I guess).
On 11/21/05, Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Just combine the foreign word X with another word explaining what it is:
> Person
> X, Country X, City X, Fruit X, etc. Things get pretty clear that way.
Toki Pona, which has a phonology pretty similar
to Elomi's, uses this system: all proper names
are adjectives that must follow some native noun.
If you do this, you might give foreign names the o-
prefix, and free up e- to mark intransitive
verbs while i- marks transitive ones [or vice versa].
I don't know when I'll have time to study Elomi at length
and comment on it in detail -- I know I promised to do
that for the new version of Konya back
in September and still haven't done it. I like
them both but I think I need to give top priority to
studying Greek, and I recently started
studying Volapük again for reasons that are too
complicated to go into right now (look at the recent
AUXLANG archives if you really want to know).
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
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Message: 24
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:06:39 +0200
From: Raivo Seppo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Darwinistic or ancient strata?
Does some conlangs, or even natlangs, reflect Darwinistic views? That is,
the words designating apes and men, birds and reptiles, could they be
cognate? I don´t mean figurativeness ("apeman") but really ancient strata in
language.
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Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
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Message: 25
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 08:10:41 -0800
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Elomi!
Just to develop a feel for the language I started
translating the first chapter of McGuffey's First
Reader into Elomi. Although I did make a few boo-boo's
that Larry was kind enough to point out to me, it
seems pretty intuitive and easy to pick up. So far I
really like it.
McGuffey's in Elomi at http://fiziwig.com/mcguf1.html
--gary
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