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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Language change among immortals
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2. Vowel Harmony
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3. Re: Language change among immortals
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4. Re: Vowel Harmony
From: Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Language change among immortals
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Language change among immortals
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Vowel Harmony
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Darwinistic or ancient strata?
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Vowel Harmony
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Test for middle voice?
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Language change among immortals
From: Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. hello?
From: reilly schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Hello
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Hello
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: hello?
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Hello
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Vowel Harmony
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Hello
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: hello?
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: hello?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Hello
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Language change among immortals
From: 轡虫 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:17:35 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
Watch reply-to, Gmail people!
>From what I've seen, the purpose of language evolution is to speed
thought or speech. For example, AOLspeak is faster to type than real
English.
For an immortal population, you wouldn't need to speed thought--more
like slowing it so you don't get bored. That's possibly why the Ents
had such a slow language.
This would leave evolution to incorporate new concepts. Elves are
traditionally great philosophers, so they probably have to come up
with new words for new concepts.
On 11/21/05, 轡虫 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This is a question that has been bothering me for a while. I may have
> asked the conlangs comm on LJ about it a while ago, but either I
> didn't get an answer or I didn't understand/forgot it.
>
> How would a population being immortal, or at least very long-lived,
> affect the way that their language evolves?
>
> Tolkien's languages are the only conlangs I can think of at the moment
> that are spoken by a very long-lived race, but I haven't studied them
> at all. I should probably do that sometime. =)
>
> --
> kutsuwamushi
> (Watch reply-to, gmail user!)
>
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:18:56 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Vowel Harmony
Watch my gmail reply-to.
Is vowel harmony always based on different shapes of vowels (e.g.
front/back vowels), or is it sometimes arbitrary?
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:32:59 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
It's a convention on this board. A lot of times on this list, when we
hit reply, we get the email address of the last sender (for example, I
saw your email address in the address field when I clicked reply).
This is an indication that we have Gmail and that you should make sure
that the address in the to field is [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,
rather than the last sender's email.
On 11/21/05, Monica Byrne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Watch reply-to, Gmail people!
> >
>
> What does this mean!?
> > --
> > Monica Byrne, M.S.
> > Professional Freelance Writer
> > www.mediabistro.com/monicabyrne
> >
> > "Love, and do what thou wilt." -St. Augustine
>
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:42:27 -0500
From: Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Vowel Harmony
in natlangs, it's based on some feature - frontness, usually, rarely
height, occasionally roundedness, somewhat rarely nasality, though
that one has some more complex features.
kit
On Nov 21, 2005, at 1:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Watch my gmail reply-to.
>
> Is vowel harmony always based on different shapes of vowels (e.g.
> front/back vowels), or is it sometimes arbitrary?
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:12:21 -0500
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> From what I've seen, the purpose of language evolution is
> to speed thought or speech. For example, AOLspeak is
> faster to type than real English.
But is it faster to *understand* ?
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Message: 6
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:32:07 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
Quoting "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > From what I've seen, the purpose of language evolution is
> > to speed thought or speech. For example, AOLspeak is
> > faster to type than real English.
>
> But is it faster to *understand* ?
>
Probably not, but the gain in typing is probably larger in absolute terms than
any loss in parsing. It's typing, not reading, that makes chat slower than
vocal conversation.
Andreas
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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:35:49 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Vowel Harmony
--- In [email protected], Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> in natlangs, it's based on some feature - frontness, usually, rarely
> height, occasionally roundedness, somewhat rarely nasality, though
> that one has some more complex features.
> kit
>
> On Nov 21, 2005, at 1:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Watch my gmail reply-to.
> >
> > Is vowel harmony always based on different shapes of vowels (e.g.
> > front/back vowels), or is it sometimes arbitrary?
>
Don't forget ATR (advanced tongue root) vs. lack of same.
Close vs. Open, Front vs. Back, Round vs. Unround, ATR vs. notATR,
Nasal vs. notNasal, are essentially all the features there are to
vowels; the Close vs. Open usually has at least three, frequently at
least four, and sometimes more than four values; Front vs. Back
frequently has at least three, and sometimes has more than three
values; and Round vs. Unround sometimes has more than two values in
conlangs, although I am not personally aware of any natlang in which it
has more than two values. I am not aware of any natlangs or conlangs
in which ATR vs. nonATR can have more than two values; and I don't
think anyone has even proposed that Nasal vs. notNasal can be given a
third value.
Some nat.languages harmonize two features rather than just one.
E.g. front/back & round/unround, or close/open & round/unround, or even
front/back & close/open.
I can't imagine harmonizing three, since that would essentially leave
little variety left to the vowel.
Also some nat.languages have _dis_similation of the vowels at
particular boundaries within the word.
----
There is such a thing as "consonant harmony" for some natlangs. It
isn't as common a thing as vowel-harmony. There are obviously a lot
more features to consonants than there are to vowels.
"place of articulation" harmony would be harmonizing a whole bunch of
features. "manner of articulation" harmony would also be harmonizing a
whole bunch of features, disjoint from the "place" ones. "Voiced vs.
mute" harmony would be harmonizing just one feature.
Typically just some kinds of consonants would get harmonized; for
instance, it might be that
1. either all fricatives in a word must be voiced or all fricatives in
the word must be mute;
OR
2. either all stops/plosives in a word must be aspirated, or all
stops/plosives in the word must be affricates, or all stops/plosives in
the word must be unaspirated and not affricates.
Or something like that.
"consonant harmony" if it occurs is likely to apply just to syllable
onsets or just to codas; or, even, just to onsets of stressed syllables
or just to codas of stressed syllables.
Sorry I don't have any references for any of the above. "I think I
read it somewhere" is the best I can do on short notice -- I usually
Google around for a day or two and eventually find what I'm looking for.
If any of the above is wrong, would someone correct it? Examples and
references would be nice.
Tom H.C. MI
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Message: 8
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:12:42 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Darwinistic or ancient strata?
On 11/21/05, Raivo Seppo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 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.
It would be silly to have this kind of structure in a naturalistic
conlang that's supposed to be spoken by more or less
human creatures in a world pretty similar to ours; but maybe
in a schematic conlang or engelang it might be nifty.
(I seem to recall Ladekwa, Rick Morneau's engelang,
has some kind of classificational system that might
fit what you're describing.) Or you might find this kind
of cognate set in a naturalistic conlang as spoken
by very long-lived sentient creatures (for whom a
generation is a few hundred thousand years)
who have been on Earth long enough to see a
significant amount of macroevolution taking place.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
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Message: 9
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 16:23:59 -0500
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Vowel Harmony
Kit La Touche wrote:
> in natlangs, it's based on some feature - frontness, usually, rarely
> height, occasionally roundedness, somewhat rarely nasality, though
> that one has some more complex features.
> kit
Also, harmony patterns may stay in place while the vowels in the harmony
sets move around, over historical time.
-s
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Message: 10
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:16:48 -0800
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
--- In [email protected], Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [snip]
> 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. ...
> [snip]
> Any additional info or description of the middle voice, to help me
> clarify, is great. ...
> [snip]
(In my previous post I had forgotten about the term "diathesis".
Thanks to Ray Brown for reminding me -- he's the one who taught it to me
in the first place.
Everywhere I said "semantic voice", read "diathesis"; wherever I said "semantic
middle voice", read "middle diathesis".
On the other hand, everywhere I said "grammatical voice" or "grammatical middle
voice" or "morphosyntactic voice" or "morphosyntactic middle voice", read it
as-is.)
I said in my previous post that "middle voice" was part of the morophosyntax,
mostly, of languages with a "Basic Voice System" rather than a "Derived Voice
System" or a "Pragmatic Voice System" or a "Hierarchical Voice System". That
notion came from M. H. Klaiman's "Grammatical Voice".
These "super-types" of voice systems aren't absolutely pure. The major
languages he uses as examples of Basic Voice Systems, do have "derived voices"
as well -- it's just that the "basic" voices are more "dominant" than the
"derived" ones.
His examples included languages that were accusative, languages that were
ergative, and languages that had "split" alignment systems.
Concentrating for the moment just on the accusative languges with a basic
voice system:
In these languages, nearly every bivalent verb had a "home voice" (that verb's
"basic" voice). For almost all of these bivalent verbs, that "home voice" was
either Active or Middle -- almost no verb (in most languages, no verb at all)
was at "home" in the Passive* voice. But on the other hand, nearly every verb
could be "coerced", morphologically, into the Passive* voice -- there were
usually a very small minority of verbs which could not be caste into the
Passive.
As for the other bivalent verbs; many verbs at home in the Active could be
coerced into the Passive, but not into the Middle; whereas many other verbs at
home in the Active could be coerced into both the Middle and the Passive.
Likewise, many verbs at home in the Middle could be coerced into the Passive,
but not into the Active; whereas many other verbs at home in the Middle could
be coerced into both the Active and the Passive.
*For most languages, coercing a verb into the Passive is a valency-reducing
operation; a verb, bivalent before passivization, becomes univalent as a result
of passivization. For these languages, therefore, it makes no sense to speak
of a bivalent verb being at home in the passive voice.
If we look at the ergative languages with basic voice systems, what we get is
this;
Most bivalent verbs would be at home in either the "Active" (what else would I
call it? Maybe there's a better name someone else knows -- but I seem to recall
"active" is what it is called) or the Middle voice. Also, most of them can be
"coerced" or cast into the Antipassive -- whereby the erstwhile absolutive
argument is demoted to an oblique (such as an instrumental) or omitted
altogether, while the erstwhile ergative argument is promoted to absolutive;
note that that is a valency-reducing operation. Furthermore, many "basically
active" verbs can be coerced into the middle voice, while many can't; and many
"basically middle" verbs can be coerced into the active voice, while many can't.
-----
Thomes E. Payne in "Describing Morphosyntax"(1997) says Joan Bybee in
"Morphology"(1985) says that valence-adjusting and voice are the most common
morphology marked on verbs. 84% of languages have derivations marking valency
or voice, and another 6% have inflections marking valency or voice, so 90% of
languages mark their verbs with valency or voice somehow. Aspect is second at
74%, and mood, mode, and modality is third at 68%. (I have not had a chance to
read Bybee's work yet, so I do not know whether she includes retrospective
("perfect") and prospective as aspects, which is traditional, or as moods or
modes or modalities, which I believe is correct; nor whether she includes
evidentials and miratives and mediatives among the moods and modes and
modalities. That could reverse the order of Aspect and Mood, or maybe not.)
Tense is only seventh, at 50%. However AMT (usually written TAM) is usually
inflectional rather than derivational, while voice and valency are usually
derivational rather than inflectional, so TAM dominate inflection of verbs,
even though voice and valency dominate morphology of verbs overall.
-----
Some languages have some verbs which have both a bivalent, "transitive"
sense, and a univalent, "intransitive" sense. In some of these languages, some
such verbs are what are called "labile" verbs.
In an accusative language, such as English, the subject of an intransitive
verb usually aligns with the agent of a transitive verb.
Thus, because "eat" is not a labile verb, "I" am the agent of both of the
following sentences:
"I ate a sandwich" (transitive)
"I ate" (intransitive)
However, "break" is a labile verb; in its intransitive "incarnation", its
subject is its patient, not its agent.
"The stupid mover broke my vase." (transitive)
"My vase broke." (intransitive)
According to Payne, English's intransitive uses of labile verbs are in the
middle diathesis.
-----
The semantic roles of Agent and Patient have to do with Control and
Affectedness. The Agent is the one that has Control, and the Patient is the
one that is Affected. But in many necessarily two-participant clauses, the
participant with the most control is also the one that is most affected; and
neither participant has complete control.
Verbs of emotion (or judgement or ... etc) and verbs of perception are the
two main kinds of verbs like this.
Take "fear". "I fear the Greeks". How does that affect the Greeks? It
doesn't. They probably don't even know. Do they have any control over it?
Probably not a bit. Do I? probably not a whole lot. Who is most affected?
Me. Who is most conscious of it? Me. So, I am the most agent-like
(conscious), but I am also the most patient-like (affected).
Similarly for "love". "I love my daughter". How does that affect her? Only
indirectly. Does she know? Only indirectly. Does it affect me? Yes. Do I
have control over the fact of my love? Yes. Do I have control over the
outcome of my love? Yes. So I am completely the agent, and much more directly
the patient than she is -- she is only indirectly a patient.
What about "see"? "I see that Chafe and Nichols's book on Evidentiality is
red." How much and what kind of control do I have over this? I have agenda
control, but not outcome control -- that is, I can choose whether or not to
look at the book, but, having done so, cannot choose what color to see it as.
My agenda control is both conscious and voluntary. The book has outcome
control but not agenda control -- whether or not it gets looked at is beyond
its control, but if it gets looked at, its going to be red. Its outcome
control is completely involuntary, and unconscious. Is it in anyway affected
by being seen? No. Am I affected by seeing it? Yes. So I am a bit more
agentive than it is, and also a bit more patientive than it is.
Verbs of Emotion are sometimes said to have Experiencer/Target roles instead
of Agent/Patient roles.
Verbs of Perception are sometimes said to have Perceiver/Stimulus roles
instead of Agent/Patient roles.
Some natlangs, according to Blake's "Case", distinguish Agents from
Experiencers from Perceivers (from some fourth thing I've forgotten).
-----
Voice systems and Case systems are often discussed together or one after the
other. Some of the same semantics that can be expressed by one can be
expressed by the other. In particular the distinctions of control and
affectedness I just discussed can be expressed either by "Middle Voice" or by a
case.
Blake says that, cross-linguistically, the case that ought to be called
"dative" should be the one used for "targets or focuses of activities which do
not affect them". Examples are not only verbs of perception and emotion, but
also verbs such as "seek" and "find". If "I seek a copy of Joan Bybee's
Morphology", and then "I find a copy of Joan Bybee's Morphology", the book is
relatively unaffected by this activity.
The dative is the most common "adverbal" case after the nominative/absolutive
and the accusative or ergative as the "case" may be; it is the most common
after the two (or three, if the language is tripartite) of them and the
genitive.
Note that in many languages, in verbs of emotion and perception and judgment,
and even in verbs such as "seek" and "find", either the Experiencer or the
Stimulus gets put in the Dative instead of the ---
Nominative (Experiencer, Accusative language)
Ergative (Experiencer, Ergative or Tripartite or Split Language)
Accusative (Stimulus, Accusative or Tripirtite or Split Language)
Absolutive (Stimulus, Ergative Language)
In some languages, these verbs would be put in the Middle Voice.
-----
Tom H.C. in MI
---------------------------------
Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:05:57 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
--- In [email protected], R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [snip]
> 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.
> [snip]
Hi, Ray, Aidan, and others.
Many moons ago when I was looking into the middle voice(s) and
diatheses (is that the proper plural?), I found on a New Testament
Greek website some examples, one of which was a koine' Greek verb
whose active form would get translated as "to emancipate (one's own
slave)" or "to release (one's own prisoner" but whose middle form
would get translated as "to redeem" or "to ransom".
According to several of the modern grammarians I was reading at the
time -- sorry, my usual bibliographical reliability is manifesting
itself here, I have no notion who they were -- the best definition
of "middle" diathesis as applied to the classical languages was still
the one the classical grammarians came up with themselves; namely,
that the subject (or, in Panini's case, the agent) "had an interest
in" whatever got affected by the verb.
That could mean, of course, that the or a subject/agent was the or a
patient (reflexive or reciprocal); or that the subject/agent
(perhaps, preferably, inalienably) possessed (as, for instance, a
body part) the patient (as when "I wash _the_ hands" and it is
understood that "_the_ hands" must mean _my_ hands).
But in the case of "redeem", the middle form of the verb is causative
as well as middle. The agent-of-cause causes the agent-of-effect to
emancipate the patient, on behalf of the agent-of-cause, because of
some interest the agent-of-cause has in the patient.
I was looking it up on Google, and got luo and lutron, but I never
got a good minimal pair of examples before I started getting time-out
warnings. Oh well.
Basically it goes something like this:
Y looses-ACTIVE Z means Y, who is Z's captor/owner, lets Z go free.
X looses-MIDDLE(CAUSATIVE) Z means X, partially for X's own benefit,
causes Y (who is implicit here -- not mentioned on the surface), to
let Z go.
Tom H.C. in MI.
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Message: 12
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 00:17:07 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Test for middle voice?
Tom Chappell wrote:
> Note that in many languages, in verbs of emotion and perception and
judgment, and even in verbs such as "seek" and "find", either the
Experiencer or the Stimulus gets put in the Dative instead of the ---
> Nominative (Experiencer, Accusative language)
> Ergative (Experiencer, Ergative or Tripartite or Split Language)
> Accusative (Stimulus, Accusative or Tripirtite or Split Language)
> Absolutive (Stimulus, Ergative Language)
Dash it, Tom!
Exactly this evening I was thinking about using Dative construction for
verba sentiendi in my recent project! Are the ideas hanging in the air?
-- Yitzik
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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:48:26 +0000
From: Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
>From: 轡虫 <>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Language change among immortals
>Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 09:20:52 -0600
hi.
>
>This is a question that has been bothering me for a while. I may have
>asked the conlangs comm on LJ about it a while ago, but either I
>didn't get an answer or I didn't understand/forgot it.
and a very good question it is.
its not something I'd be able to think up, I assure you.
>How would a population being immortal, or at least very long-lived,
>affect the way that their language evolves?
>
>Tolkien's languages are the only conlangs I can think of at the moment
>that are spoken by a very long-lived race,
true, there's Tolkien's elves, and the Immortals (of the Highlander movies),
though the latter has no language of their own...possibly because they
hide\live amongst mortals.
my own guess about the language-change rate of immortals of any sort...is
that it'd partly depend on if they're in regular or semi-regular contact
with mortals (who'd have their own language).
if little or no contact with shorter-lived races, I'd guess that the
immortals would have a verrrrryyyy slow rate of language change; not so slow
if there's regular contact with mortals.
of course, if the immortals (with no mortals nearby) go through fads of one
sort or another, that might fuel somewhat-rapid language change, at least in
dialects.
just some thoughts..
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 23:01:36 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture
Senjecan is, to a large extent, a language based on verbs. However,
the inflection of verbs is minimal, resulting in very simple verb
forms.
Nouns are the parts of speech that show the greatest elaboration.
Prefixes from all the other parts of speech are permitted on root
nouns. One category of nouns is those based on the root _dêmon_
from the verbnoun _dêma_ build. -on tells us that it is a concrete
noun related to the stem. It means building. Please don't
think "skyscraper." It can be any type of building that humans (or
other intelligent beings) construct.
I have found the following nouns in the dictionary:
cántïdêmon > cântïa, assemble = assembly hall, meeting house.
coldêmon > côla, imprison = prison.
cúdïdêmon > cûdïa, cast, found = foundry.
cüérïdêmon > cüêrïa, buy, purchase = store. I had to make a
decision here. Was a store a place for buying or selling?
eðdêmon > êda, eat = restaurant.
étengooldêmon > etênon, grain & gôôla, store = granary.
gooldêmon > gôôla, store, garner = warehouse.
ÿéélmuuldêmon > ÿêêlon, glass & mûûla, plant = greenhouse.
jeexdêmon > jêêca, heal = hospital. Another decision here: was a
hospital a place to be sick or a place to be healed?
lédëdêmon > lêda, perform, act = theater.
liiqdêmon > lîîga, model, throw = pottery.
ménðëdêmon > mênða, learn = school. Another decision here: was a
school a place for teaching or for learning?
miildêmon > mîîla, grind, mill = mill.
µaðdêmon > µâða, pledge, guarantee = pawnshop.
neçínðëdêmon > nêçon, corpse & înða, burn = crematory.
písdëdêmon > pîsda, mint = mint.
poojdêmon > pôôja, drink = tavern.
qoordêmon > qôôra, tower up = tower.
çécüdêmon > çêcüa, defecate = latrine, outhouse.
vérðëdêmon > vêrða, saw = sawmill.
viðdêmon > vîða, cooper = cooperage.
vosdêmon > vôsa, train naked, practice gymnastics = gymnasium.
There are strict rules in the formation of compounds in Senjecan &
these compounds are no exception. These nouns all denote buildings
wherein the action of the verb takes place, "building for
assembling, building for imprisoning, etc."
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 15
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:30:34 -0800
From: reilly schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: hello?
i am testing to see if this actually gets to the site sorry.
ïg elskâ ðusé.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 16
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:33:21 -0500
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Hello
oops sorry i kinda forgot how to work this.
ummm...what unicode should i use?
hex?
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Message: 17
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:19:57 -0500
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Hello
i recently began conlanging again after something like a years hiatus.
halló, miné nemé ïss Reilly.
hello, my name is reilly.
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Message: 18
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:44:08 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: hello?
None of this is coming through for me.
Welcome back, though! You might check out X-SAMPA if you
can't get the unicode to work.
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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Message: 19
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:52:58 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Hello
On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 18:33 -0500, Reilly Schlaier wrote:
> oops sorry i kinda forgot how to work this.
> ummm...what unicode should i use?
> hex?
What you want to do is either send your email in UTF-8 or don't send
Unicode characters at all. The listserver mangles some UTF-8 characters
and some people can't read Unicode yet, though, so you might want to
avoid sending even them. Certainly avoid HTML email like the plague.
--
Tristan.
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Message: 20
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:50:16 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Vowel Harmony
On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 19:35 +0000, tomhchappell wrote:
> --- In [email protected], Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > in natlangs, it's based on some feature - frontness, usually, rarely
> > height, occasionally roundedness, somewhat rarely nasality, though
> > that one has some more complex features.
> > kit
> >
> > On Nov 21, 2005, at 1:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > > Watch my gmail reply-to.
> > >
> > > Is vowel harmony always based on different shapes of vowels (e.g.
> > > front/back vowels), or is it sometimes arbitrary?
As I understand it, Mongolian nowadays makes a distinction between
"front" /e u o/ and "back" /a U O/, with /I/ being neutral. Seems pretty
arbitrary to me. Obviously this is based on an earlier distinction that
I presume actually *was* front vs back.
> Don't forget ATR (advanced tongue root) vs. lack of same.
>
> Close vs. Open, Front vs. Back, Round vs. Unround, ATR vs. notATR,
> Nasal vs. notNasal, are essentially all the features there are to
> vowels; the Close vs. Open usually has at least three, frequently at
> least four, and sometimes more than four values; Front vs. Back
> frequently has at least three, and sometimes has more than three
> values;
Really? I thought having even three values was pretty rare, well, except
phonetically. But I'm of the impression that phonemically the third
value is almost always not relevant and so it'd be invisible to vowel
harmony. So a language with [i] [u\] [u] would have /i y/ as front
and /u/ as back; or one with [i] [i\] [u] would have /i/ as front and
/i\ u/ as back.
And certainly I was of the understanding that three was an absolute
upper limit, and *no* language had more than three backness values.
(Excepting when it's actually something like a tense-lax distinction
that is concomitant with a height distinction.)
--
Tristan.
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Message: 21
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:12:14 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Hello
Hi!
Welcome to the list! :-)
Reilly Schlaier writes:
> oops sorry i kinda forgot how to work this.
> ummm...what unicode should i use?
> hex?
If you want to use Unicode, use UTF-8 encoding.
Still expect people to be unable to read Unicode (e.g. because they
use a text terminal that cannot display Unicode) although UTF-8 seems to
be transmitted by the Listserv correctly. So it's wise to include some
alternative transscription, too. Also expect that all Unicodes might come
out the same, e.g., all look like a question mark. Then a glossary like
? = o acute,
? = o grave
does not help...
If you don't really need Unicode (like in your first post), then try
stick to ISO-8859-1 instead of transmitting UTF-8 -- more people will
be able to read the accented chars then.
Enjoy the list! :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 22
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:46:00 -0500
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: hello?
thanks very much
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Message: 23
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:14:51 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: hello?
reilly schlaier wrote:
> i am testing to see if this actually gets to the site sorry.
> ïg elskâ ðusé.
>
No, it doesn't. But unless I'm mistaken, all the accented chars from 0192
up to and including 0255 will come thru if you do (left)Alt + the 4-digit
code on your keypad. At least with Windoz. You probably know this....
ïg elskâ ðusé
Anyhow, welcome :-)))
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Message: 24
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:16:01 -0500
From: Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Hello
okay then.
halo [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] is r\aili
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Message: 25
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:39:28 -0600
From: 轡虫 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Language change among immortals
> and a very good question it is.
I was hoping someone would say it was a very stupid, easy question. =P
> my own guess about the language-change rate of immortals of any sort...is
> that it'd partly depend on if they're in regular or semi-regular contact
> with mortals (who'd have their own language).
I might as well describe my particular scenario in case anyone on the
list thinks its relevant:
I'm writing a pair of stories that take place five thousand years
apart. The people and the country are the same. The people
(human-like, not dragons or anything) live, on average, 1000 years.
Humans are a minority in their part of the world, so I don't think
they would have much of an affect.
I want to create the language as it's spoken in these two different
times but I have no idea how much change would have taken place. Could
I simply use a natural language as an example, calculate the
generations, and scale up the number of years to fit? Or would
language change continue at a similar pace, because people's language
evolves continually throughout their lives, not just primarily at one
stage of it?
I really have no idea, and I don't even know if I'm thinking about the
problem in the right way.
--
kutsuwamushi
(watch my reply-to, gmail user!)
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