There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Fwd: Re: OFFLIST: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Fwd: Re: OFFLIST: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Proto-Norse vowels in ultimate
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Collaborative conlanging at artlangs.com
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Misunderstanding
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Greek plosives
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
13. Re: Greek plosives
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Greek plosives
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Greek plosives
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Greek plosives
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Bye!!
From: Shaul Vardi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Bye!!
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Greek plosives
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Collaborative conlanging at artlangs.com
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Tone question
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Greek plosives
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Bye!!
From: è½¡è« <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 14:23:40 -0800
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fwd: Re: OFFLIST: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Note: forwarded message attached.
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 14:24:52 -0800
From: Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fwd: Re: OFFLIST: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Note: forwarded message attached.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 08:58:29 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Could y'all please take the "OFFLIST" out of the subject when you
> decide to bring a conversation back ON-list? :)
AMEN!!
> On 1/31/06, Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>--- Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Now we seem to have the bizarre situation where Sai & Jefferson are
corresponding offlist & indirectly via Tom who then puts it all onlist!
It reminds me of those situations you sometimes see in comedy, where
lord & Lady Muck are not talking to one another, but sit at each end of
a long table and communicate via the butler. The may be funny to watch -
but for goodness sake, this is getting surreal!
Also the inordinate amount of quoting and non-cutting is making the
exchanges difficult for me to follow, and I suspect for some others as well.
Cannot we either have a proper exchange onlist, where we exchange views
*directly* with one another, or keep it is offlist. I don't know about
others - except obviously Mark - but when I see "OFFLIST" in the subject
line, I expect a private email.
--
Ray
==================================
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 01:20:51 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
> Now we seem to have the bizarre situation where Sai & Jefferson are
> corresponding offlist & indirectly via Tom who then puts it all onlist!
>
> It reminds me of those situations you sometimes see in comedy, where
> lord & Lady Muck are not talking to one another, but sit at each end of
> a long table and communicate via the butler. The may be funny to watch -
> but for goodness sake, this is getting surreal!
*laugh* I wasn't trying to correspond w/ Jefferson, just with Tom for
a couple emails (not that I object). He then quoted me in his
conversation with Jefferson.
I'm going to be bailing on trying to keep up with this thread (though
wanting to be CCed and still reading it), pending writing / sketching
up a fuller description that will hopefully answer most of the
questions raised both on and off list.
> Also the inordinate amount of quoting and non-cutting is making the
> exchanges difficult for me to follow, and I suspect for some others as well.
Including me. :-P
> Cannot we either have a proper exchange onlist, where we exchange views
> *directly* with one another, or keep it is offlist. I don't know about
> others - except obviously Mark - but when I see "OFFLIST" in the subject
> line, I expect a private email.
/me adds vote of agreement. I see no need to take any of the
discussion that's ontopic offlist - that seems to be a good way to
handle meta stuff (like ensuring that we are all on the same page in
terms of intent and non-insulting and such), but when *content* goes
offlist it just gets too hard to track the threads.
(Perhaps something that would be 2d-able? ;-P)
- Sai
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 09:42:52 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
staving R A Brown:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>Could y'all please take the "OFFLIST" out of the subject when you
>>decide to bring a conversation back ON-list? :)
>
>AMEN!!
>
>>On 1/31/06, Tom Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>--- Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Now we seem to have the bizarre situation where Sai & Jefferson are
>corresponding offlist & indirectly via Tom who then puts it all onlist!
>
>It reminds me of those situations you sometimes see in comedy, where lord
>& Lady Muck are not talking to one another, but sit at each end of a long
>table and communicate via the butler. The may be funny to watch - but for
>goodness sake, this is getting surreal!
>
>Also the inordinate amount of quoting and non-cutting is making the
>exchanges difficult for me to follow, and I suspect for some others as well.
>
>Cannot we either have a proper exchange onlist, where we exchange views
>*directly* with one another, or keep it is offlist. I don't know about
>others - except obviously Mark - but when I see "OFFLIST" in the subject
>line, I expect a private email.
I've been thinking that it would be a good idea for all concerned to give
the whole subject of 2d scripts a rest for the time being. On what's
normally a very friendly list, its disconcerting to see tempers being
raised so much over a simple matter of geometry.
Pete
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:59:21 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Quoting R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Cannot we either have a proper exchange onlist, where we exchange views
> *directly* with one another, or keep it is offlist. I don't know about
> others - except obviously Mark - but when I see "OFFLIST" in the subject
> line, I expect a private email.
So do I. Having it in a subject line destined for the list seems an entirely
unnecessary breach of netiquette.
Andreas
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 13:34:53 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Hallo!
R A Brown writes:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > Could y'all please take the "OFFLIST" out of the subject when you
> > decide to bring a conversation back ON-list? :)
>
> AMEN!!
Seconded. Posting to the list with an "OFFLIST" tag in the subject
line is rather self-contradictory.
> > On 1/31/06, Tom Chappell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >>--- Sai Emrys <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Now we seem to have the bizarre situation where Sai & Jefferson are
> corresponding offlist & indirectly via Tom who then puts it all onlist!
Nutty indeed. Does Tom really think we wish to watch a flamewar
relayed by a third person go on?
But then, I have been dismissing Tom as a nut case for quite a while
for other reasons - he issues long posts that are harrowing to read
and actually say close to nothing, and his ideas about the way
language works are, well, heterodox. It didn't last long until I began
to discard his posts unread.
> It reminds me of those situations you sometimes see in comedy, where
> lord & Lady Muck are not talking to one another, but sit at each end of
> a long table and communicate via the butler. The may be funny to watch -
> but for goodness sake, this is getting surreal!
Or rather, all we see is the butler, who walks to and fro between two
off-stage rooms relaying what Lord and Lady Muck have to say to each
other, but each time he returns to the stage, shares the message with
the audience. It is so bizarre.
> Also the inordinate amount of quoting and non-cutting is making the
> exchanges difficult for me to follow, and I suspect for some others as well.
>
> Cannot we either have a proper exchange onlist, where we exchange views
> *directly* with one another, or keep it is offlist.
As it apparently involves a good deal of flaming (I haven't followed it
lately because it looked rather unproductive - but I did notice Jefferson's
"Good-bye" post), it is better kept out of the list, I'd say. I don't know
why Tom thinks he has to forward all that dross to all of us.
> I don't know about
> others - except obviously Mark - but when I see "OFFLIST" in the subject
> line, I expect a private email.
So do I. It looks somewhat as if these people don't have the slightest clue
of how e-mail works, and think they can force a message into being sent
offlist by adding an "OFFLIST" tag to the subject line.
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:19:17 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Non-linear full-2d writing (again)
Hi!
Ok, frankly, up to now I found this thread mildly funny and did not
take it too seriously. If you think I'm late, then sorry for
intervening late.
Anyway, this does not seem to stop but instead, quickly get much
worse. Do we now start accusing arbitrary members of arbitrary
events, of breaking netiquette and we tell the list publicly whose
posts we don't read? NO! We neither want a flamewar, nor a relayed
flamewar, nor a meta-flamewar flamewar, nor a civil flamewar.
In case there are more on-topic issues about full-2d writing, please
write them down calmly on a piece of paper, put it somewhere were you
don't find it too quickly, and in case you do find it later, start a
new, good on-topic discussion about it.
In short: stop this thread!
(Remember I have a virtual fire-extinguisher against sources of flames.)
**Henrik
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:47:36 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Proto-Norse vowels in ultimate
Hi!
I'm currently gathering data for my new long-term project S17, which
will be Latin with Icelandic sound changes. The conhistory will
probably start around 150~200 AD. I will probably base the conlang on
the Classical Latin vowel system because it particularly fits the
Proto-Norse vowel inventory better than Late/Vulgar Latin. The time
frame should be ok for this, but the details have not been worked out
since I'm still learning.
I plan to abuse selectively a few of the Proto-Germanic (PG) >
Proto-Norse (PN) changes to adjust the sounds of Latin to what I need
to run my Grand Master Plan. Yesterday, I ran into a yet-unanswered
(to me) problem in the Proto-Norse sound system:
I gathered that the possible vowels in the ultimate of Proto-Norse are
the following:
Short: /a/,
/e/,
/i/,
/u/
Long: /&:/ (_á_),
/a:/ (in -_áR_ from PG -_ai~z_),
/e:/,
/i:/,
/o:/,
/y:/ _iu_
I.e., from a symmetric system, /o/ and /u:/ are missing.
PN does have /u:/, but not in the ultimate according to my data.
My question is: why not?
I understand that there is no /o/ due the shift of IE /o/ > PG /a/
(very few /o/ do occur but they are seldom and not in the ultimate),
and all the others I also understand, but my sources mentioned no
sound shift(s) that would remove a long /u:/ from the ultimate. Did I
oversee anything? I mean, it may well just be defective accidentally,
but maybe there's an obvious reason.
If there really is no ultimate /u:/, I will have to think about the
Latin u-declension. There are several alternatives, but I first
wanted to check out whether my phoneme lists are correct.
Bye,
Henrik
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:12:25 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Collaborative conlanging at artlangs.com
If anyone would like to take part in a collaborative conlanging project,
there's one going on at http://artlangs.com at the moment. It's a
triconsonantal language with a split-S noun system.
Pete
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:38:53 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Misunderstanding
Hi!
I seem to have misphrased my words.
I clearly also disapprove the use of wrong tags in the subject line.
Using the word 'arbitrary' was meant to be a general, maybe
exaggerated description of the thread's current contents. I am sorry
if that was misunderstood.
Those people who said that 'OFFTOPIC' is a no-no word in a subject
line of posts on the list, are in fact, very right and should not feel
addressed by my words.
Instead, I felt the ongoing relayed off-topic discussion too much (as
many of you, too) and of course, people on the list complained (quite
rightly so). That discussion should stop.
Moreover, today I read unrelated flaming and *arbitrary* personal
disapproval of list members' style of writing that I found totally
unnecessary.
I hope we can move on now. For further questions, you may always
contact me privately, of course.
**Henrik
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 07:10:08 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Greek plosives
I was studying Greek's orthography a bit, and I realised that although
it seems to have the letters for voiced stops (beta, gamma, delta) it
seems to be using the combination (nasal+unvoiced plosive), as in "nt"
for "d". Why is it doing this, or is it just for transliterated
words?
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:53:56 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
staving veritosproject:
>I was studying Greek's orthography a bit, and I realised that although
>it seems to have the letters for voiced stops (beta, gamma, delta) it
>seems to be using the combination (nasal+unvoiced plosive), as in "nt"
>for "d". Why is it doing this, or is it just for transliterated
>words?
Classical Greek voiced stops underwent sound change to fricatives, hence
beta, gamma and delta are pronounced [v] [G] and [D] in Modern Greek.
Does anyone know exactly when this took place?
Pete
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:40:55 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I was studying Greek's orthography a bit, and I realised that although
> it seems to have the letters for voiced stops (beta, gamma, delta) it
> seems to be using the combination (nasal+unvoiced plosive), as in "nt"
> for "d". Why is it doing this, or is it just for transliterated
> words?
To answer the last question: "No, it is not".
But there is a clearly confusion in the above. It is _modern Greek_ that
uses |nt| to transcribe [d] in borrows words, and in modern Greek beta,
gamma and delta are *not* voiced plosives, they are voiced fricatives.
In ancient Greek, when beta, gamma and delta were voiced plosives; then
foreign [d] was indeed written with just plain ol' delta. So the Latin
_denarius_ [de:narIUs] becomes δηνάÏÎ¹Î¿Ï (denarios), and in the
Septuagint the Hebrew name David becomes ÎαÏ
á¿Î´ (Dauid) with delta at the
beginning and end.
Interestingly, however, in the New Testament David's name gets written
as Îαβίδ (Dabid) which suggests the shift of beta from /b/ --> /v/ was
already underway. Certainly by the 4th cent CE, the shift of the voiced
plosives to voiced fricatives seems to have become general. (The NT
transcription also seems to me to suggest that the change of Hebrew vau
from [w] to the modern [v] was also underway - but I leave that to
others more knowledgeable than I about Hebrew to comment on if they wish ;)
The Classical Greek alphabet (actually the Ionian alphabet as adopted at
Athens in the 5th cent BCE) had symbols for _three_ series of plosive
consonants: aspirated voiceless, unaspirated voiceless, (unaspirated)
voiced.
During the Hellenistic period, the aspirated voiceless plosives were
shifting to voiceless fricatives, while the voiced plosives (as I have
said above) were shifting to voiced fricatives. These changes seem to
have become general by the 4th cent CE and were certainly the Byzantine
pronunciation and remain the modern pronunciation.
Modern Greek has only _one_ plosive series, represented by tau, pi and
kappa. They are normally voiceless, but are non-phonemically voiced
after nasals. Thus "the father" is [opa'tera] if nominative, but
[to(m)ba'tera] if accusative. The dialects vary in the treatment of
mu-pi, some say [mb] others just [b]. For that reason, the convention is
to use mu-pi to transcribe [b] in words of foreign origin. A useful
thing for tourists to recognize is ÎÎ ÎΡ (mpar) = 'bar' :)
The _modern_ (not ancient) convention is to transcribe foreign [d] as
_nt_, [b] and _mp_ and [g] as _gk_ (remembering that gamma before a
velar denotes /N/ in both the ancient & modern spellings). Finally, it
might be added that the phonemic status of [d], [b] and [g] in modern
Greek is controversial.
I hope this helps.
--
Ray
==================================
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 17:58:02 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
On 2/2/06, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Thus "the father" is [opa'tera] if nominative, but
> [to(m)ba'tera] if accusative.
Minor quibble: [opa'teras]. (Unless you're speaking Graeca sine flexione.)
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:57:20 +0000
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
staving R A Brown:
>During the Hellenistic period, the aspirated voiceless plosives were
>shifting to voiceless fricatives, while the voiced plosives (as I have
>said above) were shifting to voiced fricatives. These changes seem to have
>become general by the 4th cent CE and were certainly the Byzantine
>pronunciation and remain the modern pronunciation.
Presumably the aspirate => voiceless fricative sound change went through an
affricate stage, eg
[t_h] => [th] => [tT] => [T]
Is there any evidence of the affricate stage?
Pete
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:17:10 +0200
From: Shaul Vardi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Bye!!
Hi,
I've been lurking for many months, rare forays excepted. Now it's not
even fun to lurk here any more.
Bye,
Shaul.
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 18:34:14 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Bye!!
Hi Shaul!
Shaul writes:
> Hi,
> I've been lurking for many months, rare forays excepted. Now it's not
> even fun to lurk here any more.
> Bye,
> Shaul.
This is really sad. :-(
So we're annoying and driving away old members. I really hope that
the discussions move back to interesting conlang topics.
**Henrik
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 17:59:30 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
Philip Newton wrote:
> On 2/2/06, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Thus "the father" is [opa'tera] if nominative, but
>>[to(m)ba'tera] if accusative.
>
>
> Minor quibble: [opa'teras].
Absolutely correct! Thanks for pointing it out.
>(Unless you're speaking Graeca sine flexione.)
Ah, but then the definite article wouldn't change either ;)
=================================
Peter Bleackley wrote:
[snip]
> Presumably the aspirate => voiceless fricative sound change went through
> an affricate stage, eg
> [t_h] => [th] => [tT] => [T]
I don't think there is any need for the affricate stage, IIRC similar
shifts from [th] --> [T] have occurred elsewhere, certainly in the
Celtic langs during the course of their evolution.
> Is there any evidence of the affricate stage?
No - this does not preclude it, of course, but one might have expected
occasional spellings of |ts| - /ts/ was not a permitted combo in
Classical Greek (tho it is common enough in the modern language), so the
spelling would be unambiguous. But the affricate theory would also imply
that /k_h/ shifted first to [kx] and /p_h/ shifted first to [pf]. The
latter could clearly be shown in Latin spellings - it is not.
There is some evidence (by no means certain) that the shift to fricative
sound may have started in some dialects as early as the classical period
- but this is controversial. But graffiti & other evidence shows it was
certainly underway by the end of the 1st cent BCE.
--
Ray
==================================
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 10:55:30 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Collaborative conlanging at artlangs.com
On 2/2/06, Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If anyone would like to take part in a collaborative conlanging project,
> there's one going on at http://artlangs.com at the moment. It's a
> triconsonantal language with a split-S noun system.
It took some poking around to find it since I'd
not been to artlangs.com before -- it's under
"Forums" > Collaborative Conworld > Collab Lang.
Also, until I created a user account it would only
show me the first message posted in any thread.
After I created an account and logged in I suddenly
saw all the other messages in each thread.
It looks potentially interesting. I'll read the threads
so far and maybe contribute something.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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Message: 21
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 13:02:23 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
Most of the languages I'm familiar with have just one conjunction
to introduce a subordinate clause, whether that clause is the
subject or the object of the verb in the main clause. E.g.,
It's interesting that you mention that.
[= "you mention that"-NOM is interesting]
He didn't know that you were coming.
[He-NOM know-NEG "you were coming"-ACC]
English also has another conjunction "whether"
to introduce subordinate clauses with non-indicative
mood (if that's the right term). Esperanto behaves
roughly the same way with "ke" and "cxu", except
that it doesn't require a dummy subject in the main
clause when the ke/cxu subordinate clause is
the subject of the main verb.
Estas interese, ke vi mencias tion.
Li ne sciis, ke ve venos.
In gjâ-zym-byn I recently decided that the old way of
introducing a subordinate clause that's the subject
of the main verb or head of an adjective was clunky,
and I needed a new conjunction.
zqe miq-i huw-fwa nxiqn-i, hoqnx kq ty-o runx-zox ler tq tu-i.
this TOP-at happy-CAUS CMT-at that 1 home-to go-V.ACT FUT 2 AGT-at
Estas felicxige, ke vi venos al mia hejmo.
It makes [me] happy that you are coming to my home.
This required a dummy forward-reference pronoun "zqe"
in the main clause to be the topic of "huw-fwa". I added
"dxoqnx" as a conjunction syntactically similar to "hoqnx",
but a clause introduced by "dxoqnx" is the subject (usually topic)
of the main verb while a clause introduced by "hoqnx" is
the object of the main verb (usually object-of-perception
rather than patient or result).
E.g.,
huw-fwa nxiqn-i, dxoqnx kq ty-o runx-zox ler tq tu-i.
happy-CAUS CMT-at that 1 home-to go-V.ACT FUT 2 AGT-at
means the same thing, but is terser by several syllables.
Do any natlangs y'all know of have a similar distinction
in their subordinate-clause conjunctions? Can you think
of other case-role distinctions that might be made in
clausal conjunctions?
(This isn't in the online gzb grammar yet.)
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/esp.htm
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 13:16:25 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Tone question
As a tone-deaf 'Murkin, I have some questions on tone languages,
especially Mandarin.
First, is there still phrasal intonation, as we have in English,
providing a sort of overall tone arc limiting the range within which
the individual tones operate?
Second, do linguistically-untrained/naive native speakers of toned
languages recognize the relationship between differently-toned
versions of the "same" vowel? That is, does a Mandarin speaker, even
before encountering Pinyin spelling, automatically recognize that a1
and a2 are variations on a common theme? Or do they hear them as
utterly distinct and require that the relationship be pointed out,
like that between /b/ and /p/ in English?
Thanks!
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 23
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:28:12 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
* Philip Newton said on 2006-02-02 17:58:02 +0100
> On 2/2/06, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Thus "the father" is [opa'tera] if nominative, but
> > [to(m)ba'tera] if accusative.
>
> Minor quibble: [opa'teras]. (Unless you're speaking Graeca sine
> flexione.)
Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
Any takers?
t.
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 12:19:58 -0600
From: è½¡è« <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Bye!!
> So we're annoying and driving away old members. I really hope that
> the discussions move back to interesting conlang topics.
>
/delurk
I certainly find the discussions here interesting, although I don't
read all of them. I learn a little something new everyday.
It seems to me that this is by natura an intimidating list. The level
of knowledge of most of the regular posters is pretty high, so I don't
feel like I have much to contribute. When I have contributed, I've
been pretty bluntly corrected. I didn't feel insulted or brushed-off,
but I can see how someone might.
(I know that the way people communicate on many forums I'm a member of
would be seen as rude or hostile to people who aren't used to it.
Wasn't there an article on this passed around a while ago?)
It might do for some of the posters here to remember that some of us
are just learning, not used to lists like this, or both. It can be
easy to forget and assume that everyone is on the same page as you
are, so to speak.
--
kutsuwamushi
BEWARE OF GMAIL
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Message: 25
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:34:13 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
Hi!
Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> Do any natlangs y'all know of have a similar distinction in their
> subordinate-clause conjunctions? Can you think of other case-role
> distinctions that might be made in clausal conjunctions?
Maybe Japanese? I don't know it good enough, though.
I perceive 'that' not as marking case on clauses, but as transforming
a clause into a noun phrase. Put this way, the clausal noun phrase is
still unmarked for case, yes, and the difference is only maybe one of
view. IIRC, Japanese then adds case markers after the conjunction.
Further, I think most case roles are possible. E.g. some German
dialects indeed introduce subordinate clauses with prepositions, and
English can also do so:
Ich hab die Säge für ein Loch in den Tisch zu machen.
I have the saw for a hole in the table to make.
'I have the saw for making a hole in the table.
Even together with 'that' some dialects allow this. E.g.
_für_ 'for' is used in the sense of 'in order to':
Ich esse für daß ich satt werde.
I eat for that I filled get.
'I eat in order to not be hungry anymore.'
In Qthyn|gai, I abstracted this view by allowing case markers on
verbs. The subordinate clause's verb is marked for the clause's
function in the matrix clause. (Agent/patient roles are not
dependent-marked, so they are marked on the verb of the matrix clause,
but nevertheless, this is distinguished.)
Da Mätz se Basa, being a posteriori Modern German, works similar by
allowing any preposition together with 'that'.
**Henrik
-- Relay 13 is running:
http://www.conlang.info/relay/relay13.html
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