There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Greek plosives
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2. Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
From: Harold Ensle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Tone question
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: NATLANG: Chinese for "chestnuts"
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
From: Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Tone question
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: To What Extent is Standard Finnish a Conlang?
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Bye!!
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Tone question
From: Erika <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
17. Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
From: Hanuman Zhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. My apology
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:46:18 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Greek plosives
On the same subject, how about Finnish without agglutination? (John,
this is where you come in.) If we want to take key parts out of
languages, then let's have some fun.`
On 2/2/06, taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> * 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: 2
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:02:57 -0500
From: Harold Ensle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
If you are interested in different ways to introduce subclauses, you should
definitely look at avesta. I spent an insane amount of time and effort
to try and deal with subclauses in an efficient manner. I was finally
happy with this particular solution because of its generality and because
it removed the necessity for the entire class of words defined as
conjunctions.
Avesta uses a word called a conjunctive pronoun (va). It is a noun which
references the following clause as a whole. However, the pronoun is part of
the main clause and can be fully inflected like any other noun. How it is
inflected indicates how the subclause relates to the main clause. For
example:
valuk apovzoa=he went to the store.
va valuk apovzoa=that he went to the store (the event of his going to the
store)
Tavu va valuk apovzoa=It was good that he went to the store (his going to
the store was good) Here va is in the nominative.
Vesun ve valuk apovzoa=I said that he went to the store. Here va is in the
accusative (ve).
Vesun vau valuk apovzoa=I spoke AND he went to the store (My speaking was
with his going to the store). Here va is in the comitative case (vau).
For more details, see
http://home.ix.netcom.com/~heensle/lang/avesta/avgram.html
The pronoun va is introduced in section 25 on infinitives and its use as
a conjunction in sections 28 and 38.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 21:02:52 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Tone question
Hi!
Erika writes:
> Mark --
>
> Those are really interesting questions. I'm learning
> Mandarin currently and their phrases don't use tone
> for inflection or have an overall tonal arc like in
> English.
>From what I have read and also heard myself, Mandarin does have
prosody. I think it may be used e.g. to mark a question without a
question marker (ma) or to mark surprise (ba), etc., just like in
English. Usually, prosody accompanies a sentence even when such
explicit markers.
You could think of it as some 'base frequency' used for phrasal
intonation, which changes slowly in the sentence, plus the normal
tones on the words relative to that, so that you can use both at the
same time.
Mark's second question has to be answered by a native speaker. But I
*suppose* the difference in p/b is percieved quite similar to tone
1/tone 2. In the same way you notice that 'pa' and 'ba' have
something (namely, a vowel) in common, while OTOH using a different
consonant, Mandarin speakers will notice that 'ma1' and 'ma2' have
something in common, but OTOH use a different tone.
**Henrik
--
Relay 13 is running:
http://www.conlang.info/relay/relay13.html
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:59:14 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: NATLANG: Chinese for "chestnuts"
Erika wrote:
> --- "Joseph B." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Some L1 English speakers use the word "chestnut" to
> > refer to a little gem of
> > wisdom. Does anyone here know what words are used
> > in any of the dialects of
> > Chinese?
> > Thanks.
>
> I've never even heard that in English..
>
IMO it's more commonly "old chestnut" and is _slightly_ pejorative; it would
refer to something so widely known/accepted that it hardly bears repeating,
like "look before you leap" or most of Poor Richard's dicta ("a penny
saved..., early to bed... etc.") For that matter, "gem (or "pearl") of
wisdom" can often be ironic or sarcastic, as a response to someone's use of
an "old chestnut", the verbal equiv. of "Duh!" :=)))
It's not quite as pejorative as "cliché", which would apply to over-used
phrases, like "y'know", or "at this point in time" during Watergate days.
FWIW, the musical equivalent of "old chestnut" is "(old) warhorse", which
orchestras/operas are so often accused of programming, to the detriment of
less-heard classical or difficult contemporary works...
Does this clarify or help? I must say, the Kash equivalents haven't yet
occurred to me..........
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:21:19 -0500
From: Kit La Touche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
On Feb 2, 2006, at 1:34 PM, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> 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.
There are two main ways to make subordinate clauses in Japanese:
there's the quotative marker, *to*, as in:
anzen da to omou
safe COP QUOT feel
"I feel that it's safe."
And then there's making a relative clause headed by *no*, a pronominal:
inu ga sakana wo taberu no suki
da
dog SUBJ fish OBJ eat PRO like
COP
"I like when the dog eats fish."
(Weird examples, just what i could come up with off the top of my head.)
I don't think that either of these are quite relevant, if I
understood the original poster correctly. But I could be wrong.
> 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.
From the point of view of the formalism I adhere to, this use of
"that" is as a complementizer, heading a complementizer phrase which
can act as a complement to a verb phrase. Case isn't assigned to the
C.P. at all, though there can be some side effects on case in the
subordinate clause; if you're familiar with X-bar theory broadly, but
not this particular issue, a google for exceptional case marking
might turn some things up.
> **Henrik
> -- Relay 13 is running:
> http://www.conlang.info/relay/relay13.html
Kit La T
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 15:28:36 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Tone question
On 2/2/06, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mark's second question has to be answered by a native speaker. But I
> *suppose* the difference in p/b is percieved quite similar to tone
> 1/tone 2. In the same way you notice that 'pa' and 'ba' have
> something (namely, a vowel) in common,
I was referring the actual similarity between plain /p/ and /b/
themselves. /pa/ and /ba/ have more than a vowel in common; they have
"almost the same" initial sound: same point of articulation, same
manner of articulation, differing only in laxity/voice. But most
native Anglophones think of /p/ and /b/ as utterly distinct, and do
not notice how similar they are until it is pointed out to
them(although exceptionally curious ones may notice it in the course
of whispering etc). I, for instance, was blown away by the "voice"
concept when I first ran across it in the appendix to
_The_Return_of_the_King_, and most of the people I've spoken with on
the subject were surprised as well - many of them were hearing the
idea for the first time from me. Those who had heard it before had
usually done so in the course of learning a foreign language.
>From my perspective as an outsider, it seems likely that the
intonation difference between ma1 and ma2 is similar to the
laxity/voice difference between pa and ba. They have more than the
initial consonant in common: they have the same underlying vowel,
differing only in intonation. So my question is whether or not a
native Sinophone hears the sameness in the vowel without training. Do
they think of their language as having 25 distinct vowel sounds, or 5
vowel sounds x 5 tones?
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 20:52:28 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
taliesin the storyteller wrote:
[snip]
> Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
> Any takers?
Well, the obvious form for the nouns IMO is the modern acc. singular
(without, of course, the final -n that Katharevousa would like us to add
to certain forms).
Obviously if there are no flexions, we have no grammatical gender
agreement, but that poses a slight problem with adjectives. Which form
do we take? IIRC Peano simply adopted the masc. & neuter ablative
singular. Where the adjectives already have a common form for masc. &
fem., the acc. singular should be taken; I guess where there is a
difference, the common masc. & neuter sing. should prevail. That means
the definite article is _to_ :)
Yes, I think the article should be kept - it's been around for four
millennia, so I think it's earnt its place :)
The modern language has gone a long way in simplifying the complicated
verbal system of ancient Greek - but I'll not go on.....
However, I can see some possible problems over agreeing on an
orthography & phonology ;)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 23:19:31 +0200
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
> > Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
>
>On the same subject, how about Finnish without agglutination? (John,
>this is where you come in.)
Whomewhatta?
...
Okay, is fusionality allowed (giving something Estonian-like), or are you
talking full-scale isolating? 'Coz the latter would turn into either
oligosynthesis or some sort of a rural pidgin. I can't really see a way to
express, for example, all of { kirja, kirjo, kirje, kirjoa, kirjasto,
kirjailija, kirjallisuus, kirjoittaa, kirjava, kirjain, kirjuri, kirjoitin }
isolatingly with sensible effort while still sticking with Finnish roots
only. The corresponding English words are { book, spectrum, letter,
embroider, library, author, literature, write, colorful, glyph, scribe,
printer } : One root versus about a dozen.
Not that there's anything wrong with oligosynthesis or rural pidgins.
Alternatively, one could sack a whole load of Finno-Ugric languages plus
their history for a wider base of roots.
John Vertical
(PS. I can't be the only Finnish person on the list, can I? Julia probably
doesn't count, but I don't remember off the top off my head if Markus's L1
were Finnish or Swedish. Also, lurkers.)
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:43:02 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Distinct conjunctions for subordinate clauses in different case
relations to main clause
On 2/2/06, Harold Ensle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Avesta uses a word called a conjunctive pronoun (va). It is a noun which
> references the following clause as a whole. However, the pronoun is part of
> the main clause and can be fully inflected like any other noun. How it is
> inflected indicates how the subclause relates to the main clause. For
> example:
<snip>
That sounds a bit like the pronoun "zqe" in gzb,
except that it's uninflected like all gzb pronouns,
and gets its case marked by postpositions. ("ce"
has a similar function but points backward to a previous
phrase or sentence. Rex May's tceqli uses
a similar pair of forward- and backward-reference
"this" pronouns, tco and tce.) Having a pronoun
that works as a conjunction is a neat idea. Though
I suppose my new system with "hoqnx" and "dxoqnx"
could be seen as an inflected pronoun-conjunction, with "dxoqnx" the
subject form and "hoqnx" the
object form...
> For more details, see
> http://home.ix.netcom.com/~heensle/lang/avesta/avgram.html
I'll take a look. Thanks.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/esp.htm
http://www.esperanto-atlanta.org
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:49:06 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
On 2/2/06, John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (PS. I can't be the only Finnish person on the list, can I? J
You're Finnish? Huh. The name "John Vertical" didn't cause me to leap
to that conclusion, for some strange reason. :)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 11
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 00:58:55 +0200
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: To What Extent is Standard Finnish a Conlang?
Rob Haden wrote:
>I'm wondering how much of a conlang
>Modern Standard Finnish is. From what I understand so far, the language
>was cobbled together out of several major dialects around the late 1800s.
>What I'm wondering is, how many Standard Finnish words and inflections are
>synthetic (and, thus, ultimately unetymological) compromises between the
>different regional dialects.
I can't think of any completely original ones off the top of my head, but
much standardized vocabulary is definitely based on dialectally rare forms,
shortenings, and stretched analogy. The same applies to /d ts/, which used
to be /D T:/ and had dialectally decayed to a variety of forms, /r ht/ for
instance. The current pronounciation is essentially imported from German,
after the 17th century spellings <d tz>. (BTW ... I have [4] for /d/, which
leads to all four of [4] [4r] [r:] [r] being distinct, a little like the
Dutch [X]<>[XR]<>[R] contrast mentioned recently. Can't think of a minimal
quartet right now.)
There's, however, so much complicated and unexpected derivation in the field
of "civilization words" that Standard Finnish would definitely count as a
mildly a posteriori conlang. Some examples:
- "Lisko" (lizard), perceived as a root word in modern Finnish, was set in
stone by biologists in the 1600s as a shortening of "sisilisko" (common
lizard), which originates from the animal's old Finno-Ugric name "sisal" and
the nowadays unproductive "-sko" affix (I think it used to be diminutive...)
As a folk etymology, the beginning of the word had however often been
re-analyzed as related to "sisar" (sister), so assigning a spesific meaning
to the other half, too, was not really that much of a stretch.
- "Luokka" (class) was originally used in parts of Ostrobothnia to refer to
a bent twig used for measuring wood shavings to be burned for lighting. This
meaning had somehow developed from "luokki", a part of a horse's harness.
- "Sähkö" (electricity) is conracted from "sähistä säkenöiden" (to hiss
sparkingly)
- "Suure" (variable) is "suuri" + "-e" (big + nominalizer)
This trend was in no way limited to the Swedish-speaking fennophiles of the
1800s; words were coined and derived in similar irregular fashion ever since
the birth of written Finnish, and public contests/polls to form native
alternatives for foreign loanwords have been held for at least the latest
hundred years.
>Also, does spoken Finnish (where it differs from the standard language)
>more accurately reflect the true evolution of the language?
>
>Thanks in advance. :)
>
>- Rob
What exatly do you mean by "the true evolution"? Standard spoken Finnish has
naturally been influenced by the written language, while the dialects have
evolved to a kajillion different directions...
John Vertical
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Message: 12
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 01:04:18 +0200
From: John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
>You're Finnish? Huh. The name "John Vertical" didn't cause me to leap
>to that conclusion, for some strange reason. :)
>
>--
>Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Old pseudonyme that stuck. It's a somewhat direct translation of my actual
Finnish name (Juho Pystynen)
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:24:22 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
On 2/2/06, John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Old pseudonyme that stuck. It's a somewhat direct translation of my actual
> Finnish name (Juho Pystynen)
And since Finnish orthography is pretty much the same as the way the
letters are used in the IPA, that's pronounced ['ju.ho 'pys.ty.nen]?
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:50:38 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Bye!!
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 13:19:58 -0500, è½¡è« <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 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.
Amen. That's very true, and while it ought to be obvious, the problem is
somewhat self-fulfilling, or self-predicting, or something.
I have other thoughts, and a large digression on my personal style, but
they're clearly not appropriate right now.
Paul
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 17:11:00 -0800
From: Erika <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Tone question
--- Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From what I have read and also heard myself,
> Mandarin does have
> prosody. I think it may be used e.g. to mark a
> question without a
> question marker (ma) or to mark surprise (ba), etc.,
> just like in
> English. Usually, prosody accompanies a sentence
> even when such
> explicit markers.
>
That's interesting... I haven't heard of anything like
that, because questions that don't use "ma" use the __
bu__ form (such as shi bushi) to ask a question.
Also, ba usually is a polite imperative, like "let's
go to the store." "Le" would mark surprise because it
signifies a change of situation. Of course, I'm no
expert!
-- Erika
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 17:34:10 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
John Verticle wrote:
>Stuff I don't want to copy and paste, but basically is asking whether
wholly isolating is OK.
No, I meant sort of like Mandarin Chinese, where you can have combined
roots (zhong guo ren = China country person = Chinese person =
Kiinalainen etc.) but the roots would be more combined. So on your
list of words derived from "kirja", you might have:
kirja = kirja
kirje = kirja paksi (book page?)
kirjala = kirja laanen (book place?)
Or derived from "suomi":
suomi = suomi
suomalainen = suomi mitunen (Finland person?)
suomalaiset = suomi mitunen missa (Finland person many?)
In my lack of Finnish knowledge, I made up some roots; put whatever
you want there. Basically it's just taking a Finnish word (I'm just
going to make one up: paatietosanakirjalanissa, literally
"chief.compendium.word.book.place.1SING-POS.INSIDE :) and dividing it
into its component parts. Same roots but a different structure.
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 19:07:41 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
In our Word and Paradigm Morphology class, we just read part
of Bochner's thesis, in which he discusses exocentric compounds.
These are compounds in English whose meaning is not the sum
of its parts. A quick example is "rocky road". This is the name of
a kind of ice cream, and has nothing to do with either rocks or
roads. This gave me an idea about a system of derivation for
Gweydr.
Gweydr now has five prefixes which look something like what
you have below:
bwe-
kja-
tow-
ruw-
Tij-
The vowels of the first four can change based on predictable
phonlogical principles, but other than that, the prefixes are invariant.
These prefixes have no meaning at all. They combine with stems,
however, to form different words. Here are some examples:
Root: m6ks "berry"
bwEm6ks "blackcurrant"
kj6m6ks "cranberry"
towm6ks "blueberry"
ruwm6ks "redcurrant"
Tijm6ks "gooseberry"
So here you have a set of five prefixes which simply derive different
berries from the root "berry"--not unlike the prefix "cran" in
"cranberry"
(or "rasp" in "raspberry"), in fact. These same prefixes can be
reapplied
to a stem which doesn't actually occur in isolation: /sine/. It takes a
suffix to form the word "gemstone", and with the five prefixes, it forms
a class of precious gemstones:
Root: sine (from sineby, "gemstone")
bwezine "ruby"
kj&zine "diamond"
t8wsine "emerald"
riwsine "sapphire"
Tijsine "amethyst"
Application of a given prefix is blocked by a root which begins with
the same letter. For example, here's the paradigm for /tews/, "nut":
Root: tews "nut"
bwetews "almond"
kj&tews "walnut"
*tewtews (nonexistant)
rywtews "pecan"
Tijtews "chestnut"
And finally, the prefixes can be added to a root that doesn't correspond
to a word at all. Here the root is /st/:
Root: st
bwEst "stool"
kjast "ladder (long)"
towst "ladder (short)"
ruwst "footrest"
Tijst "rug"
(Note: The word for "foot" is /dZAnu/.)
The point is that if you combine all the /bwe-/ words, or all the
/kja-/ words, and try to find a common meaning amongst them,
you'll come up empty. Additionally, there are no systematic relations
between, say, the /bwe-/ word and the /kja-/ word in one paradigm
when compared to the /bwe-/ word and the /kja-/ word of a
different paradigm. However, the words are clearly separable
into prefix and root, and can be grouped by prefix and root.
Finally, though the prefixes in each group can be grouped together
semantically, they aren't by any means the exclusive members of
each group. For example, /mEsl/, "topaz", could just as easily have
gone in with the gem group, but as it has its own form already,
there was no need. Additionally, even though other nuts exist
(e.g., the butternut, /pY4ts/), there will never be a */tewtews/.
So, that's it. Just something to add. This strategy is kind of halfway
between noun classes and exocentric compounding. The difference
is that: (a) they're not compounds, and (b) they're nowhere near as
prevalent as noun classes. It's kind of like the system of English
Latinate prefixes (ab-, ad-, pre-, trans-) and Latinate roots (cur, mit,
fer), except that there's more meaning associated with the Latinate
prefixes than with the Gweydr prefixes.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 20:22:09 +0000
From: Hanuman Zhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
on 2/2/06 8:52 PM, R A Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> [snip]
>> Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
>> Any takers?
EEK! Eh?, Graeca sine flexione sounds bit too much like Glosa, the
auxlang... then again Glosa's roots are about 1/3 Latin.
--
Hanuman Zhang, MangaLanger
Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift, phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics mutate, lexicons explode,
orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep, slang flashes, stylistics
warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every quantum leap...
"Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" -
title of a chapter on pidgins and creoles, John McWhorter,
_The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_
"We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes,
to find each other." - Jose Saramago
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Message: 19
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 00:12:01 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
David Peterson wrote:
(with snips)
>
> Gweydr now has five prefixes which look something like what
> you have below:
>
> bwe-
> kja-
> tow-
> ruw-
> Tij-
>
> The vowels of the first four can change based on predictable
> phonlogical principles, but other than that, the prefixes are invariant.
> These prefixes have no meaning at all. They combine with stems,
> however, to form different words. Here are some examples:
>
> Root: m6ks "berry"
> bwEm6ks "blackcurrant"
> kj6m6ks "cranberry"
> towm6ks "blueberry"
> ruwm6ks "redcurrant"
> Tijm6ks "gooseberry"
>
> So here you have a set of five prefixes which simply derive different
> berries from the root "berry.... suffix to form the word "gemstone", and
> with the five prefixes, it forms
> a class of precious gemstones:
>
> Root: sine (from sineby, "gemstone")
> bwezine "ruby"
> kj&zine "diamond"
> t8wsine "emerald"
> riwsine "sapphire"
> Tijsine "amethyst"
>
The mind boggles ;-))) So suppose in English we had--
blackberry meaning "strawberry"
redberry meaning "blueberry"
greenberry meaning "raspberry"
greyberry meaning "currant" etc.
or: blackbird meaning "cardinal"
redbird meaning "canary"
greenbird meaning "blackbird"
etc....
>
> The point is that if you combine all the /bwe-/ [black-] words, or all the
> /kja-/ [red-] words, and try to find a common meaning amongst them,
> you'll come up empty.
Yes...that's my problem.
Additionally, there are no systematic relations
> between, say, the /bwe-/ word and the /kja-/ word in one paradigm
> when compared to the /bwe-/ word and the /kja-/ word of a
> different paradigm.
Yes...ditto
However, the words are clearly separable
> into prefix and root, and can be grouped by prefix and root.
But to what purpose?
> Finally, though the prefixes in each group can be grouped together
> semantically...,
In what way? I see no relationship between bwe- in bwEm6ks and bwe- in
bwezine (or any of the others, snipped).
> So, that's it. Just something to add. This strategy is kind of halfway
> between noun classes...
I can see that it might develop into something like the Bantu system (or
Indonesian numerical classifiers) where there is (or originally was) _some_
relation between the prefix and the head. Perhaps Bantu ki- originally
applied to long thin things like knives, but over time has come to include
things that aren't long and thin-- like my favorite (old chestnut dept.),
kiplefti, pl. viplefti 'traffic circle(s)'. Just like Indon. "buah" 'fruit'
counts fruits of course, but also houses, cars, padlocks and much more.
It's kind of like the system of English
> Latinate prefixes (ab-, ad-, pre-, trans-) and Latinate roots (cur, mit,
> fer), except that there's more meaning associated with the Latinate
> prefixes than with the Gweydr prefixes.
>
Yes, even if we use the prefixes with non-Latin words: prewash,
absquatulate, disremember.
Even things like -gate and -Vteria form untransparent compds., but still
have recoverable meanings.
Perhaps I've spent too long with my literal-minded Kash friends, but I can't
see a system like this occurring in any lang, nat or con-- wild and crazy
though it be :-)))))))))))))))))))
And BTW, isn't "rocky road" at least metaphoric? isn't r.r. ice-cream loaded
with big chunks of something (like hard candies?)
Also, there's a common decorative plant called "Dusty Miller"--if you meet a
guy named XXX Miller, it's a reasonable bet his nickname is Dusty.... Now,
_that_ would be obscure to many.
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Message: 20
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 00:04:35 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
Roger wrote:
<<
In what way? I see no relationship between bwe- in bwEm6ks and bwe- in
bwezine (or any of the others, snipped).
>>
Oops... Unfortunate typo. I wrote "can" instead of "can't". That
should've
read:
"Finally, though the prefixes in each group CAN'T be grouped together
semantically..."
Geez... Sometimes typos don't matter, but sometimes they really do.
Roger:
<<
And BTW, isn't "rocky road" at least metaphoric? isn't r.r. ice-cream
loaded
with big chunks of something (like hard candies?)
>>
Yeah... Couldn't think of a better one, and was too lazy to get
the Bochner thesis for examples. ;) Can you think of any totally
unpredictable ones?
Roger:
<<
Perhaps I've spent too long with my literal-minded Kash friends, but
I can't
see a system like this occurring in any lang, nat or con-- wild and
crazy
though it be :-)))))))))))))))))))
>>
I think it could. What I think it does is it gives an arbitrary marking
to particular members of a set, such that if you know one member,
you automatically know 4 others--even if you don't know the
meaning. You might be able to guess at the meaning by knowing
that the most common one would probably be coined first, second
most common second, etc. So in a domain (fruit, nuts, furniture that
has to do with feet, ridesharing...), you probably already know any
basic words that have to do with the situation ("monomorphemic",
if you think about it morphemically). With this system, you can
then come up with names for the 5 most common parts of the system
right away.
Bah, but the mind gets fuzzy. Time for sleep. Anyway, I've seen
crazy stuff in language. I bet something like this exists somewhere.
Oh, wait:
Roger:
<<
But to what purpose?
>>
Asking the purpose of being able to separate things into root and
prefix, even if the prefixes have no meaning. Even though the prefixes
have no fixed meaning, if you know the root, or know that the root
has to do with a domain, then you know five words that need to have
a meaning (unless the root starts with a k, t, b, r or T, in which case
you just have four). That's a good way to start off a conversation
about something you know nothing about. "So that's the bwenid.
What's the kj&nid? And the riwnid...?"
I tells ya', for whatever reason, this seems useful to me! ~:D I can't
believe something like it doesn't exist in a natural language. They
do strange stuff, after all.
Anyway, when these things get coined, I bet, as you mentioned,
systematicity of a kind would arise. So even if the gems were
coined by X independently of the berries coined by Y, if the gem
guy were to look at birds, he might coin the birds according to
the colors used with X, whereas Y might do flowers like berries.
And if Z can put the "foot furniture" into some sort of continuum
of usefulness (in his/her mind), then s/he might use that same
continuum when coining car parts. Thus, there might be several
rationales, but rationales, nonetheless.
-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: 21
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 09:41:51 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr
Quoting "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I think it could. What I think it does is it gives an arbitrary marking
> to particular members of a set, such that if you know one member,
> you automatically know 4 others--even if you don't know the
> meaning.
The closest real-world analogue for this I can think of is the variation by
more-or-less empty suffixes sometimes seen in biological nomenclature. Frex, in
1933-'34 Roewer named a bunch of solpugid genera as follows:
Solpugarda
Solpugassa
Solpugeira
Solpugella
Solpugema
Solpugopa
Solpugorna
Solpuguna
Solpugyla
Solpugelis
Solpugiba
Solpugista
Now, a major difference is that this isn't done systematically, but I thought it
deserved mention.
Andreas
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Message: 22
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 09:08:16 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
Hanuman Zhang wrote:
> on 2/2/06 8:52 PM, R A Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
>>taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>>Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
>>>Any takers?
>
>
>
> EEK! Eh?, Graeca sine flexione sounds bit too much like Glosa, the
> auxlang...
:-D
That was my first reaction also!
> then again Glosa's roots are about 1/3 Latin.
Yes, there is quite a bit of Latin derived stuff there as well. Also it
doesn't always treat Greek derivations with respect; for example _onyma_
(gen. onymatos) becomes the almost unrecognizable _nima_ with arbitrary
loss of initial vowel.
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 23
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 10:30:24 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: My apology
Hallo!
I wrote:
> 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.
I should really have kept it to myself. Sorry, Tom, and all others, for
posting this to the list. I deeply and sincerely apologize for your
inconvenience.
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 24
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 12:09:43 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
R A Brown grapsa:
> Hanuman Zhang wrote:
> > on 2/2/06 8:52 PM, R A Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> >>taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> >>[snip]
> >>
> >>>Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
> >>>Any takers?
Ah, how lovely! May I play in this sandbox too?
> > EEK! Eh?, Graeca sine flexione sounds bit too much like Glosa, the
> > auxlang...
>
> :-D
>
> That was my first reaction also!
Non-euroclonic auxlangs may be fun too, if people do not occupy with
proselytizing, but treat them as artlangs...
> > then again Glosa's roots are about 1/3 Latin.
>
> Yes, there is quite a bit of Latin derived stuff there as well. Also it
> doesn't always treat Greek derivations with respect; for example _onyma_
> (gen. onymatos) becomes the almost unrecognizable _nima_ with arbitrary
> loss of initial vowel.
Now, that's sad... Then I think GSF should be more consistent.
==============
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> [snip]
> > Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
> > Any takers?
>
> Well, the obvious form for the nouns IMO is the modern acc. singular
> (without, of course, the final -n that Katharevousa would like us to add
> to certain forms).
Agreed.
> Obviously if there are no flexions, we have no grammatical gender
> agreement,
What about number then, if there are no flexions?
> but that poses a slight problem with adjectives. Which form
> do we take? IIRC Peano simply adopted the masc. & neuter ablative
> singular. Where the adjectives already have a common form for masc. &
> fem., the acc. singular should be taken; I guess where there is a
> difference, the common masc. & neuter sing. should prevail.
For aesthetic reasons I would have taken the fem. form, but I don't think it is
consistent, as there is a good lot of adjectives that do not distinguish
masc./neut. and fem.
> That means
> the definite article is _to_ :)
>
> Yes, I think the article should be kept - it's been around for four
> millennia, so I think it's earnt its place :)
Agreed.
> The modern language has gone a long way in simplifying the complicated
> verbal system of ancient Greek - but I'll not go on.....
Since I know next to nothing about Modern Greek, I'd love to hear certain
considerations...
> However, I can see some possible problems over agreeing on an
> orthography & phonology ;)
Phonology? Why? Can't it be Byzantine, if people can read e.g. the NT texts,
using it?
Orthography - skip the aspirations and unify the stresses, and here you are ;)
The *real* problem is - what shall we do with the Genitive???
Don't take all the said above too seriously,
it's only a game :)))))))
(esp. since I'll be able to reply only after the Sabbath is over)
-- Yitzik,
in Hanumanish moods...
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Message: 25
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 12:17:33 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)
On 2/3/06, Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I know next to nothing about Modern Greek [snip ...]
>
> Orthography - skip the aspirations and unify the stresses, and here you are
> ;)
Which happens to be exactly what Modern Greek has done :)
The three stress marks and the breathings continued to be written
until the orthography reform of 1984 (or thereabouts), but the
breathings had long since ceased to be pronounced and the accent was a
uniform stress accent, so this part of the spelling reform was merely
recognising the _status quo_. (The rules as to when to write which
breathing, and when to write acute as opposed to circumflex were
things pupils had to learn by rote -- not easy, especially since the
vowel length distinctions had also long since disappeared, but they're
really needed to give a clue as to which accent is used.)
> The *real* problem is - what shall we do with the Genitive???
Well, taking the lead from Romance, replace it with preposition +
flexion-less form. I propose "apo" (from, away from).
So "the teacher's book" would become "to biblio apo to daskalo".
Many of the prepositions which governed the genitive in ancient Greek
were replaced by others that govern the accusative in modern Greek
anyway, e.g. peri + gen. "about" by gia + acc. (which also means "for
(the benefit of)"); meta + gen. "with" by me + acc. Some remain,
though, especially in more formal or educated speech, e.g. logo + gen.
"on account of, because of"; meso + gen. "through, by, by means of".
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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