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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Thoughts on Word building
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Words with built-in error correction
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: PIE past time (was: isolating is equivalent to inflected)
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Enya's conlang
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: PIE past time (was: isolating is equivalent to inflected)
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: cthulhu fhtagn
From: Aaron Grahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. An unusual incorporation scheme
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: An unusual incorporation scheme
From: Fabian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: An unusual incorporation scheme
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Thoughts on Word building
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 19:26:16 +0100
From: Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Thoughts on Word building
Henrik Theiling wrote:
<<<
*sight* I just try to understand your point, that's all.
Obviously I fail. Please don't get upset.
>>>
No need to sigh. The problem is not what I write but what you imagine and then
report I write. That is why I am very upset.
(snip)
<<<
I agreed with that, but did not understand why you used 'derivational
affix' in the first sentence.
>>>
Then ask me. Speaking of semantical inference. Especially when I tried to make
it clear a first time.
<<<
When reading your second post, I did not find much to disagree. You
were quite energetic in telling me that I did not understand, though.
You wrote that we definitely disagree. I tried to find disagreement
and identified two possible items:
>>>
I respond to your mails because they may give people who don't practice kanjis
and compounding systems the feeling that they are less "semantically efficient"
than the European derivational systems and this is just wrong.
<<<
a) the ratio between compounding and derivation on Chinese and
Japanese
(snip)
a) cannot be solved without counting, so we need numbers. It's futile
to discuss without them, so I did not. And maybe we don't even
disagree here, I thought.
>>>
No need to: Japanese derivation is mainly grammatical and I can't see what you
want to prove with that: Proving that a plain word paired with another is more
a "component" or an "affix"? What does it change practically? Or proving that a
compounding system does not hold by itself? What not take Khmer or Vietnamese
then?
<<<
b) whether compounding creates ad-hoc meanings
(snip)
The semantical operation of the modification has to be inferred. You always know
that the head is first in Indonesian, but not how the modifier changes the
head's semantics. You say it is 'consistent'. Do you mean the meaning is
consistently, predictably composed, or do you mean what modification
order consistently the same in every step of compounding, or do you
mean both?
>>>
You seem to compare a natural compounding system (the Chinese one) to an ideal
derivational system that does not exist. So far you take Chinese examples to
prove they are kind of semantically flawed and you conclude that compounds are
not "precisely inferrable." OK. Then all derivational affix systems are
extremely difficult to infer based on examples like "writer" (a person) and
"dishwasher" (a machine.)
Take your Chinese examples. I cannot see how semantically flawed they are. I
understand them very well, and each is a unique word, so I can't see how I
could mix them up for another word. What else do you need? More precision? Then
just replace vague components like "woman" or "man" with other existing
components like "male", "female", "worker", "master", etc.
How precise the semantic meaning of affixes/components should be is fixable in
both systems, but does not change the fact that in a derivational system you
will need more and more affixes while in a compounding one, the more precise
components are already there.
The "ad-hoc" meaning you report is not specific to compounding. So is deriving
as well. What do you mean by "semantical operation of modification"? The two
components of a compound modify each other equally. And--surprise!--so do a
stem and its affix. The word resulting from a stem and an affix is not
"semantically clearer" than that made of two compounds provided you use clear
enough components. My whole point was precisely that the kanji list provides
you with such clear enough components.
Speaking languages with compounds made me understand that the "semantical
clarity" of compounds is a non-issue in practice. The meaning of each component
is special precisely BECAUSE it is a component in a compound, and that each
combination of components is unique with an as unique meaning as is the
combination of a stem and an affix. This is also true for "operators", when
prepositions like "for" are simply expressed with the word "purpose", and
"with" with "to use."
Why care about precising ad nauseam the "semantical operations of modification"
if the result is unique words mnemotechnically easy and sparing another whole
special list of affixes? How is "fisherman" less "clear" than "fisher",
"machine à écrire" less than "typewriter", "computer sciences" less than
"informatique"?
I am not advocating one system against another (people pick what they like), but
I would suggest less bias against compounding and Asian languages in that
regard.
<<<
I cannot answer but on the meta level now, because I do not get the
reason for this argument.
**Henrik
>>>
Still?
Cheers!
µ
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:13:47 -0500
From: Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Words with built-in error correction
Gary Shannon wrote:
<snip>
I'm not sure I'm at all convinced that vowel segments are inherently
more accent-prone than consonants, particularly when the latter may
appear syllable-finally and/or in clusters.
--
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: 3
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:48:51 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: PIE past time (was: isolating is equivalent to inflected)
For what it's worth, I quote the following from the Wikipedia
article "Germanic Weak Verbs":
"The weak conjugation of verbs is an innovation of Proto-Germanic.
The
origin of the dental suffix is uncertain. One theory is that it
evolved out of a periphrastic construct with the verb to do:
Germanic
*lubôjana dêdo ("love-did") > *lubôdo > Old English lufode >
loved.
This would be analogous to the way that in Modern English we can
form
an emphatic past tense with "did": I did love. Another theory is
that
it came from a past participle ending, a final *-daz from IE *-tos
(cf
Latin amatus), with personal endings added to it at a later stage.
Both theories are disputed because of their inability to explain all
the facts."
I replaced macrons with circumflexes & arrows with >.
If I ever again come across the PIE reference I thought I had read,
I'll send it to the list.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 21:43:27 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Enya's conlang
Hallo!
Thomas Wier wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> I've been very lurky of late; I've been busy pushing
> rocks up hills, only to see them fall down again ;)
> Anyways, a friend of mine sent me the following link
> from the Times about a constructed language Enya made
> for one of her new albums:
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1892820,00.html
Ah, Enya again! She also performed a song in Sindarin
for the LotR movie soundtrack.
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 22:01:49 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
Quoting Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I respond to your mails because they may give people who don't practice
> kanjis
> and compounding systems the feeling that they are less "semantically
> efficient"
> than the European derivational systems and this is just wrong.
I'd think someone who'd compare the "semantical efficience" of kanji (a writing
system) and European systems of derivation (an entity vague enough to approach
meaninglessness, but certainly not a writing system) is a lost case anyway.
Also, in what sense does a European language like German not have a "compounding
system"? It's brimful of compounds!
Andreas
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Message: 6
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 21:21:57 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
--- In [email protected], Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm sure this is old hat to people with actual
> linguistic training,
(Incidentally, that does _not_ describe me, though it does describe
others on this list.)
> [snip]
> A few years back I went for
> a pure isolating version of English as my starting
> point and created all kinds of particles and marker
> words. I just happened across my notes from 1999 and I
> noticed that my pure isolating English is, with only
> cosmetic changes, equivalent to pure inflected
> English. For example:
>
> John gave the book to Mary -> John (he give did) (im
> book) (to Mary). Where the parens are added to show
> groupings of particle(s) plus (noun or verb) that
> cannot be broken up. Now _group_ order is irrelevant
> just as is word order in an inflected language: John
> (im book) (to Mary) (he give did) or just as easily:
> (to Mary) John (im book) (he give did).
>
> So by fusing the group into a single word this purely
> isolating language suddenly becomes purely inflecting:
> John givedihe bookim Maryto.
This looks "agglutinating" instead of "inflecting".
In Payne's "Describing Morphosyntax", which I just turned in, he says
languages' morphologies are typed along two dimensions:
isolating versus synthetic, and
agglutinating versus fusional ("inflecting").
"How synthetic they are" means, roughly,
"how many morphemes per word".
A completely "isolating" language has only one morpheme per word;
every morpheme is its own separate word.
A polysynthetic language, on the other hand, can have phrases,
clauses, and sentences, in one word.
"How fusing they are" means, roughly,
"how many meanings per morpheme".
A language with a morpheme meaning just "plural", and another meaning
just "feminine", and another meaning just "accusative", would be, to
that degree at least, an agglutinating language; but a language that
had a morpheme for "feminine plural accusative", and another
for "neuter plural accusative", and another for "feminine dual
accusative", and another for "feminine plural dative", would be, to
that degree at least, a fusional language.
I personally wonder if it is necessarily true, as Payne hinted, that
the agglutinating-vs-fusing axis makes no difference unless the
language is at least a little synthetic. Doesn't it seem possible to
have an isolating, fusional language? That's what I thought your
post was going to be about, but that turns out not to be the case.
> And isolating verbs can
> be conjugated:
>
> I go - gome
> you go - goyu
> he goes - gohe
> we go - gowe
> you go - goya
> they go - godey
Person/number of subject are fused in one morpheme.
>
> I went - godime
> you went - godiyu
Past-Tense morpheme "-di-" is separate from person/number morpheme;
this is somewhat agglutinating.
>
> ...
>
> I am going - godume
A tense/aspect morpheme "-du-", with present tense and progressive
aspect fused, shows up here; but it is still separate from the root
and from the person/number morpheme, so some agglutinating-ness is
still going on.
> ...
> we will be going - gogunduwe
> ...
> they will be going - gogundudey
A Future morpheme -- "-gun-" -- shows up here, still unconfounded
with the "-du-" progressive and the various person/number agreement
morphemes. Still mostly agglutinating, IMO; a nice feature, I think,
that some conlangers have "accused", if that is the word,
themselves/ourselves of making most of our conlangs have.
>
> and so on.
>
> The recipe then for changing a language from isolating
> to inflected is: 1) group words with their associated
> particles, 2) add parens to group the inseperable
> units, and 3) slur each of those parenthetical units
> into single words.
That will change them from isolating to agglutinating.
To then get them from agglutinating to fusional, you need to take the
associated particles that turn up next to each other extremely often,
that are semantically relevant to each other, and perform some kind
of sandhi-type or other type of phonological reduction on them.
Thus, persons and numbers will probably get fused; or, numbers and
cases; or, numbers and genders; or, tenses and aspects; or,
especially for future tenses, tenses and modes.
>
> So did I.E. start out as
> purely
> isolating before
> anyone wrote it down for the first time?
Among the problems I would have, and expect many would have, with
trying to answer that question, would be;
1) "purely". According to Payne, no language is actually "purely"
isolating nor "purely" synthetic nor "purely" agglutinating
nor "purely" fusional/inflecting. That's probably not the big
problem.
2) Knowing what P.I.E. was. There does seem to be evidence that
diachronic processes to make languages move along these axes do exist
and are taking place now and have taken place recently as well as in
the ancient past. There does not seem to be any proof that they are
necessarily inevitable, nor necessarily more prone to move in one
direction than in another.
But, surely, there have been opinions on this matter held by various
experts at various times. I don't know what they are -- I hope you
find out, and somebody puts it on the list.
> Was the
> arbitrary decision to write isolated nouns and verbs
> and their following particles as a single unit the
> reason why we call Latin inflecting, when it's really
> isolating?
People do come to think of a certain unit as a single word, when
historically it was two. But this does not require writing; in fact
it mostly happens independently of writing.
Writing lets us know that the opposite happens, in a way. Bybee and
Mattissen let us know that some Algonquian (I think) languages have
words with forms that any non-native linguist would think are
inflected forms of other words -- complete words in themselves. But,
native speakers, whenever they write these forms, always write the
morpheme the linguist would think was an inflection, as a separate
word.
> not the inflected "virtus, virtutis",
> "virtuti", "virtutim", etc., but the isolating "virt
> us", "virt utis", "virt uti", "virt utim", etc. Where
> "us", "utis", etc. began their existence as separate
> prepositions.
Case "endings" -- case markers, case "tags" -- frequently had an
earlier incarnation as adpositions. Adpositions frequently had an
earlier incarnation as adverbs; or, even, as substantives, nouns,
verbs, etc.
>
> And not "laudo", "laudas", "laudat", "laudamus",...
> but the isolating "laud o", "laud as", "laud at",
> "laud amus".... which in even more ancient times might
> have been "o laud", "as laud", "at laud", "amus laud".
>
> OK. Tell me I'm all wet on this one, but (to me, at
> least)
> it's an interesting speculation
Yes, it is.
> that raises the
> question: is the difference between an isolating
> language and an inflected language little more than
> how it was first written down?
A. No, I don't think that's likely the only difference.
B. No, I don't think the difference you wanted to concentrate on
really has a necessary dependency on writing.
C. Nevertheless, I wonder, can't a language be both isolating and
inflecting?
>
> --gary
>
Thanks for writing.
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 21:50:09 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
--- In [email protected], Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Also, in what sense does a European language like German not have
>a "compounding system"? It's brimful of compounds!
I use German a lot for finding compound nouns. It is, indeed, brimful.
Someone recently gave a compound from the Chinese for "peninsula":
half-island. I had wanted to use the literal translation from the
Latin: almost-island. However, I'm having trouble with the
word "island" itself. _Insula_ has no known etymology. The "is-"
of "island" is from the PIE _awkâ_ (AHD) through the Germanic *ahwjô,
which is added to "land." I presume the meaning is "water land." I'm
open to suggestions on how to create a compound word for "island."
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 8
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 16:51:35 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
On 12/6/05, tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In Payne's "Describing Morphosyntax", which I just turned in, he says
> languages' morphologies are typed along two dimensions:
> isolating versus synthetic, and
> agglutinating versus fusional ("inflecting").
.....
> C. Nevertheless, I wonder, can't a language be both isolating and
> inflecting?
Most morphemes are standalone words, but many of them
bundle multiple meanings into one? That's conceivable,
and probably extant, depending on your definitions;
though I doubt if any linguist would really describe it
as inflecting or fusional.
For instance, an isolating language might indicate
time, aspect, modality, evidentiality etc. with optional auxiliary verbs
and/or adverbs instead of mandatory inflections. But some
of the auxiliary verbs and adverbs indicate
several things at once, e.g. there might be
an adverb signifying "hearsay evidentiality & past time",
another signifying "hearsay evidentiality & present time",
etc. If such adverbs' positioning before/after the verb
and relative to other adverbs of various kinds
was fairly free, we would describe the language as
mostly isolating rather than inflectional, but we
could -- sort of -- say that it has fusional
grammatical particles.
On the other hand we don't describe nominal
or adjectival morphemes conveying two distinct ideas
at once as "fusional" (or do we?), so perhaps not.
E.g. "woman" signifies "adult" and "human" and
"female" and some auxlangs' and engelangs'
word for "woman" is a compound of two or three
morphemes, but is "woman" (or perhaps better,
"gynaik-" or "femme") ever described as
a "fusional" morpheme? "Young" signifies
both "new" and "animate", but is it "fusional"?
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 22:17:23 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
--- In [email protected], Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [snip]
> The cycle seems to most usually be:
>
> 1) isolating
> i) particles connect to words, thus
> 2) agglutinative
> ii) sound changes erode affixes, and analogy levels them, thus
> 3) flexional
> iii) sound changes and analogy effectively erode the inflections
> completely, and new particles are adopted from auxilliaries, thus
> 4) isolating
>
> I don't know whether the cycle runs backwards in natlangs. I can sort
> of see vaguely how it might, but I don't have a full understanding of
> the whys and wherefores.
Hi, Paul.
There is an example of a "3)" to "2)" happening historically in a
natlang. The book it comes in gives the "'why's and 'wherefore's" the
author hypothesizes, as well; this case is an example of regularization.
Joan Bybee gives examples of verbs from Old and Modern Provencal (sorry
about no cedilla under the "c") which have been re-analyzed to be less
fusional and closer to agglutinatiting.
The verbs in question are "love" and "sing", or rather, "amat"
and "cantet" (which I am writing without the accute accents, which are
important, but not so important as to undo my point here).
(Bybee's point here is to give various diachronic reasons why "zero
morhemes" arise.)
In Old Provencal, these verbs' inflectional endings had the tense-
aspect-person-number all fused into one; it was impossible to tell from
knowing that 2nd Plural Present was "amatz", 2nd Singular Preterite
was "amest", and 1st Plural Preterite was "amem", that 2nd Plural
Preterite would be "ametz"; not even if you also knew 2s Pres "amas",
1p Pres "amam", and 1s Past "amei".
But, between Old and Modern Provencal, in the Preterite, verbs' endings
were re-analyzed. The 3s Preterite was taken as the "Basic" Preterite;
and, for every person/number combination except 1s, the person/number
endings which Old Provencal had from Latin, were tacked onto the 3s
Preterite to make the Preterites for the other persoon/number
combinations.
The original "3s Preterite" tense-aspect-person-number ending was re-
analyzed as just a "preterite" tense-aspect ending: and, the
person/number endings in the Preterite were given a paradigm in
which "3s" was represented by "0", a "zero-morpheme".
In "my" book (the one my public library borrowed from some other
library) these examples are on page 55. They are in subsection 1.2 in
Section 1, "The Basic-Derived Relation", of Chapter 3, "The
Organization of Paradigms", in Part I, "Morphology and Morpho-
Phonemics".
She says these examples come from "Bybee and Brewer 1980", which would
be Lingua 52.271-312, "Explanagion in Morphophonemics: Changes in
Provencal and Spanish Preterite Forms".
*From Joan L. Bybee's "Morphology", (which is referred to by Thomas E.
Payne's "Describing Morphosyntax")
(Typological Studies in Language 9
Joan L. Bybee (SUNY at Buffalo)
Morphology
A Study of the Relation Between Meaning and Form
John Benjamins Publishing Company
P241.B9 1985 (Dewey number 415)
ISSN 0167-7373 v.9
ISBN 0-915027-38-0)
----
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 10
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:23:07 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
Charlie wrote:
>
> Someone recently gave a compound from the Chinese for "peninsula":
> half-island. I had wanted to use the literal translation from the
> Latin: almost-island.
Strikes me that the Chinese might be a loan-translation...?
However, I'm having trouble with the
> word "island" itself. _Insula_ has no known etymology.
Speculation: possibly related to solus 'alone'?????
The "is-"
> of "island" is from the PIE _awkâ_ (AHD) through the Germanic *ahwjô,
> which is added to "land." I presume the meaning is "water land." I'm
> open to suggestions on how to create a compound word for "island."
>
Well, water-land (but then what will you call a
swamp/marsh?)....sea-land?...small-land? Must it be a compound?
FWIW, "peninsula" in Kash is "ñokinda" < niyon 'arm' + hinda 'land';
"island" is (AFAIK) monomorphemic, için. Offhand I don't think "peninsula"
is a compound in Malay/Indo, but am not sure. "Island" is monomorph., nusa
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Message: 11
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:40:57 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
On 12/6/05, caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>.......However, I'm having trouble with the
> word "island" itself. _Insula_ has no known etymology. The "is-"
> of "island" is from the PIE _awkâ_ (AHD) through the Germanic *ahwjô,
> which is added to "land." I presume the meaning is "water land." I'm
> open to suggestions on how to create a compound word for "island."
In gzb I derive it from a root {vleq'tax}, "body of water surrounded by land",
with the complement suffix: {vleq'tax-txaj}. That refers to islands
and continents both; I could add -ny "small" to be more specific.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 00:53:29 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
Quoting Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On 12/6/05, caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >.......However, I'm having trouble with the
> > word "island" itself. _Insula_ has no known etymology. The "is-"
> > of "island" is from the PIE _awkâ_ (AHD) through the Germanic *ahwjô,
> > which is added to "land." I presume the meaning is "water land." I'm
> > open to suggestions on how to create a compound word for "island."
>
> In gzb I derive it from a root {vleq'tax}, "body of water surrounded by
> land",
> with the complement suffix: {vleq'tax-txaj}. That refers to islands
> and continents both; I could add -ny "small" to be more specific.
May I ask why you chose that polarity? "Land surrounded by water" seems to me
the more basic concept.
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Message: 13
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:58:30 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:53:29 -0500, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> May I ask why you chose that polarity? "Land surrounded by water" seems
> to me
> the more basic concept.
I suspect that a lot of people encounter more lakes, ponds and puddles in
their life than islands, not to mention rivers, creeks, brooks and streams.
Paul
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Message: 14
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 00:52:05 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
Quoting caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> --- In [email protected], Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >Also, in what sense does a European language like German not have
> >a "compounding system"? It's brimful of compounds!
>
> I use German a lot for finding compound nouns. It is, indeed, brimful.
>
> Someone recently gave a compound from the Chinese for "peninsula":
> half-island.
The German happens to be _Halbinsel_, which of course is simply "half-island"
too.
> I had wanted to use the literal translation from the
> Latin: almost-island. However, I'm having trouble with the
> word "island" itself. _Insula_ has no known etymology. The "is-"
> of "island" is from the PIE _awkâ_ (AHD) through the Germanic *ahwjô,
> which is added to "land." I presume the meaning is "water land."
That would mean that the etymological meaning of Scandinavian _öy, _ö_, _ey_
"island" is simply "water", since it, I'm told, is cognate with the first half
of "island". Seems like an odd shift in meaning to me.
> I'm
> open to suggestions on how to create a compound word for "island."
Sea-land? Double-peninsula? ;)
Andreas
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Message: 15
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 23:43:20 -0200
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: PIE past time (was: isolating is equivalent to inflected)
On 12/6/05, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Quoting caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> [snip]
> >>
> >>Are there some who believe that the past tense in English was formed
> >>in this way, _verb_ + _did_? IIRC, a dental bound morpheme used to
> >>indicate past time is as old as PIE.
I had read about the "play did" thing in Steven Pinker's book The
Instinct of Language. He mentions it en passant on page 35. I looked
it up today again hoping to find some source for this claim. His
actual example is "hammer did" for "hammered", but no source is given.
João Ricardo de Mendonça
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Message: 16
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 20:13:56 -0800
From: Aaron Grahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: cthulhu fhtagn
My belief (with not much basis, except that I don't think Lovecraft was
a conlanger) is that it has no precise meaning. I would render fhtagn as
to wait, third person singular present indicative, simply because
"Cthulhu fhtagn" is repeated as a single unit, and "Cthulhu waits" makes
sense in an eerie kind of way.
For those who may not have read Lovecraft:
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.
The questions are: Where is the "at" in "at R'lyeh"? Is there a
significance to "'n" (repeated thrice) or "'na" (twice)? What is
"house"? How do we know that Cthulhu is dead? What is "to dream"? Are
the word boundaries even correctly placed? Lovecraft says that "the word
divisions [were] guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as
chanted aloud".
What about
Ph'n glui mglw'n afh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'n agl fhtagn.
house-in of-him dreams-in dead place-in ??? waits
taking 'n as a kind of locative ending. Unfortunately, this seems
inadequate, as "agl" is left over when all the meanings are used up. And
why would "Ph" be a noun all by itself? We need [in [his house]] [at
R'lyeh] [dead Cthulhu] [waits] [dreaming]. That is (possibly) two
indications of place, two verbs, one possessive/genitive, and one
adjective. The most significant verb, to wait, is intransitive. We know
R'lyeh, Cthulhu, and fhtagn.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh wgah'nagl
must contain [in [his house]] [dreaming] [dead] and the locative
modifier for R'lyeh. Say Cthulhu is dead by definition, then "wgah'nagl"
could mean "at the location of", or something, "mglw'nafh" could be "in
his dreams" or "while he dreams", and "ph'nglui" could be "in his
house". The last two could be interchanged, but "wgah'nagl" would almost
have to mean "at the location of" because of its proximity to "R'lyeh".
Well that's the best I can do at the moment. And, I just can't resist
including this URL: http://cthulhu.slimyhorror.com/hpl.html. Enjoy.
þ
caotope wrote:
>--- In [email protected], Reilly Schlaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>>ph'nglui mglw'nafh cthulhu r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
>>what is the exact meaning not just the translation given in the call
>>of cthulhu book.
>>also the pronuncation.
>>thanks very much
>>
>>
>
>I recall reading that "fhtagn" means "dead", but I don't know of the
>three longer words. As for pronounciation, well, your guess is as good
>as mine - which would be along the lines of /P=?N5Uj m=g5G_w=?nAf_h
>kT_GU5U G=Le G_w=gA?n&gl f_htAn_G/.
>
>I'm here assuming that velarization is evil enough and I don't have to
>resort to pharyngealization or other more guttural phonetics. ;)
>
>John Vertical
>
>
>
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Message: 17
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 11:12:19 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: An unusual incorporation scheme
Suppose we start off with a simple isolating language, with basic word order
S V I O
where I is the indirect object. Now suppose that the language evolves to
start incorporating the least active argument into the verb. We therefore
have the following possible sentence structures
Intransitive S.V
Transitive S V.O
Ditransitive S V.I O
This would be an unusual tripartite system, with a dechticaetiative element
(mind you S V I O could be said to be dechticaetiative to start with).
I came up with this while playing around with the idea that an ergative
language with incorporation might well incorporate absolutes, rather than
objects.
What do you think?
Pete
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Message: 18
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 11:54:35 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
--- In [email protected], Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Well, water-land (but then what will you call a swamp/marsh?)....sea-
>land?...small-land? Must it be a compound?
Yes, it must be a compound. Senjecan is based on a finite set, about
1900, of roots. All subsequent vocabulary must be built on these.
>FWIW, "peninsula" in Kash is "ñokinda" < niyon 'arm' + hinda 'land';
>"island" is (AFAIK) monomorphemic, için. Offhand I don't
>think "peninsula" is a compound in Malay/Indo, but am not
>sure. "Island" is monomorph., nusa
I am presently using _ÿéðmëdênqon_, "land tongue," for peninsula and
cape, but I'm looking for a better word.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
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Message: 19
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 21:30:09 +0900
From: Fabian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: An unusual incorporation scheme
Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Suppose we start off with a simple isolating language, with basic word
> order
>
> S V I O
>
> where I is the indirect object. Now suppose that the language evolves to
> start incorporating the least active argument into the verb. We
> therefore have the following possible sentence structures
>
> Intransitive S.V
> Transitive S V.O
> Ditransitive S V.I O
>
> This would be an unusual tripartite system, with a dechticaetiative
> element (mind you S V I O could be said to be dechticaetiative to start
> with).
>
> I came up with this while playing around with the idea that an ergative
> language with incorporation might well incorporate absolutes, rather
> than objects.
>
> What do you think?
It looks like you just described English. "I gave Mary a cake" fits the
SVIO pattern just right.
F.
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Message: 20
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 12:47:29 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: An unusual incorporation scheme
Staving Fabian:
>Peter Bleackley wrote:
>>Suppose we start off with a simple isolating language, with basic word order
>>S V I O
>>where I is the indirect object. Now suppose that the language evolves to
>>start incorporating the least active argument into the verb. We therefore
>>have the following possible sentence structures
>>Intransitive S.V
>>Transitive S V.O
>>Ditransitive S V.I O
>>This would be an unusual tripartite system, with a dechticaetiative
>>element (mind you S V I O could be said to be dechticaetiative to start with).
>>I came up with this while playing around with the idea that an ergative
>>language with incorporation might well incorporate absolutes, rather than
>>objects.
>>What do you think?
>
>It looks like you just described English. "I gave Mary a cake" fits the
>SVIO pattern just right.
The basic sentence pattern is English, but incorporation isn't.
Suppose we had
Intransitive: Iswim
Transitive: I readbook
Ditransitive: I gaveMary cake
that's more what I'm thinking of.
Pete
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Message: 21
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 12:31:44 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 07:52 +0000, R A Brown wrote:
>
>>João Ricardo de Mendonça wrote:
>>
>>>On 12/6/05, *Gary Shannon* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I would really like to learn more about how a real
>>> live isolating language works.
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>The usual examples of isolating languages are Mandarim and Vietnamese. I
>>>guess Mandarim should be the easiest to find references for in the West.
>>
>>Yes, but Mandarin does have grammatical affixes; it is not purely
>>isolating. In fact it has been argued on this on this list (more than
>>once IIRC) that English is more isolating than modern Mandarin.
>
>
> Could you perhaps direct me to one of these posts? With Google not
> searching the archives anymore,
I'll try to find it. It was Mark Line IIRC who argued that modern
English is more isolating than modern Mandarin. i found a post of mine
way back in 1996 - but I think the thread I was remembering was probably
in 1997. The old archives take some wading through. I'll continue to search.
I thought it had come up again since, but they may merely be repeating
earlier stuff.
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 22
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 14:56:13 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
Hi!
R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> I'll try to find it. It was Mark Line IIRC who argued that modern
> English is more isolating than modern Mandarin. i found a post of mine
> way back in 1996 - but I think the thread I was remembering was
> probably in 1997. The old archives take some wading through. I'll
> continue to search.
>...
And I found references back to that thread in 2000 mentioning Mark
Line in this context, so it is definitely before, yes.
Although I have gathered every line of conlang that I could get hold
of, I'am still missing the whole year 1997, and the first part of 1998
until the list moved to Brown, so I cannot search it.
I would be *very* happy if anyone of you had files from this time for
me to archive them, too.
After Google was excluded from Brown, I'm currently planning to put
the files in a searchable, glimpse indexed, SQL database or something
similar, to get back the searchability. I'd include everything I
have, starting in 1991.
The precise holes in my current Conlang data base:
1994: Jun 25 .. Dec 31
1995: missing
1996: some messages, some holes
1997: missing
1998: Jan 1 .. Sep 14
Again: If anyone has any messages from these dates, please send them
to me for inclusion in my data base.
**Henrik
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Message: 23
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 16:20:09 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Word building
Hi!
Taka Tunu writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> <<<
> *sight* I just try to understand your point, that's all.
> Obviously I fail. Please don't get upset.
> >>>
>
> No need to sigh. The problem is not what I write but what you imagine and then
> report I write. That is why I am very upset.
You can quite safely assume that no-one on this list benevolently
quotes you wrong. So calmly point it out and we'll get along.
> I respond to your mails because they may give people who don't
> practice kanjis and compounding systems the feeling that they are
> less "semantically efficient" than the European derivational systems
> and this is just wrong.
I said 'ad-hoc', not 'semantically inefficient' or something like
that, and I fail to see how this impression can arise from my words.
I'd even expect ad-hoc, unpredictable semantical composition to be
considered more efficient, if you want to use that term, because more
is inferred and less is said.
>...
> So far you take Chinese examples to prove they are kind of
> semantically flawed and you conclude that compounds are not
> "precisely inferrable."
>...
'Ad-hoc', not 'flawed'. Don't cite me wrong.
>...
> I am not advocating one system against another (people pick what
> they like), but I would suggest less bias against compounding and
> Asian languages in that regard.
>...
If you knew me a bit, you'd know that this is ridiculous. How did you
manage to get this impression from my posts? I love the Asian
languages I know about and especially Mandarin for its structure and
also sound.
I think I am not going to discuss this further.
**Henrik
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 02:28:29 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 14:56 +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >...
> > I'll try to find it. It was Mark Line IIRC who argued that modern
> > English is more isolating than modern Mandarin. i found a post of mine
> > way back in 1996 - but I think the thread I was remembering was
> > probably in 1997. The old archives take some wading through. I'll
> > continue to search.
> >...
>
> And I found references back to that thread in 2000 mentioning Mark
> Line in this context, so it is definitely before, yes.
Thanks both for helping find it :)
> Although I have gathered every line of conlang that I could get hold
> of, I'am still missing the whole year 1997, and the first part of 1998
> until the list moved to Brown, so I cannot search it.
>
> I would be *very* happy if anyone of you had files from this time for
> me to archive them, too.
>
> After Google was excluded from Brown, I'm currently planning to put
> the files in a searchable, glimpse indexed, SQL database or something
> similar, to get back the searchability. I'd include everything I
> have, starting in 1991.
>
> The precise holes in my current Conlang data base:
>
> 1994: Jun 25 .. Dec 31
> 1995: missing
> 1996: some messages, some holes
> 1997: missing
> 1998: Jan 1 .. Sep 14
>
> Again: If anyone has any messages from these dates, please send them
> to me for inclusion in my data base.
John Cowan's website <http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/conlang/> has 1991
until June 1994, a gap for a year, and restarts in July 1995 until
November 1997, that plugs a big part of your holes. The 1995--1997
archives are in mbox format, but beware: some posts (frequently by And
Rosta) don't have a line break at the end, so that two posts are merged
into one. Watch for odd "blahFrom: [EMAIL PROTECTED] date" lines before you
import them into anything.
Also, Yahoo! Groups used to hold them "going back to 1996" apparently.
Of course, they no longer do, but everyone's second-favorite website,
the Internet Archive Wayback Machine <http://www.archive.org> appears to
know *something* about the original messages. Unfortunately I can't seem
to get at the messages ... some error on the first message which the FAQ
suggests may not be fixable in a timely manner, and for the subsequent
ones, the modern Yahoo! Groups site whinges at me, something about
cookies. Perhaps the data is still there, just hidden from me... Maybe
it *is* fixable in a timely manner, and perhaps the archive.org people
can give it to us?
Anyway, I've been looking through the October 1997 archives (select with
a bit of help from Google), and Mark Line makes a mention of his view,
but then gets involved in a flamefest with And Rosta and never argues
the point, that I can see... Perhaps it was earlier that year. Of
course, I never read this stuff the first time so I'm getting distracted
by other messages too :)
--
Tristan
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Message: 25
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 16:52:33 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at
Hi!
Tristan McLeay writes:
>..
> John Cowan's website <http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/conlang/> has 1991
> until June 1994, a gap for a year, and restarts in July 1995 until
> November 1997, that plugs a big part of your holes.
>...
Thanks! I had downloaded the first part of that page a while ago.
Maybe the second part is a more recent extension? Anyway, I now
gathered that, too.
> The 1995--1997 archives are in mbox format, but beware: some posts
> (frequently by And Rosta) don't have a line break at the end, so
> that two posts are merged into one. Watch for odd "blahFrom:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] date" lines before you import them into anything.
Thank for the warning. :-)
**Henrik
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