------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/SISQkA/gOaOAA/yQLSAA/GSaulB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. THEORY: Laxness?
From: Tristan Alexander McLeay
1b. Re: THEORY: Laxness?
From: Roger Mills
2a. Takiyyudin phonology
From: Shreyas Sampat
2b. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: David J. Peterson
2c. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: Tristan Alexander McLeay
2d. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: David J. Peterson
2e. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: Shreyas Sampat
2f. Re: Vowel height harmony (fuit Takiyyudin phonology)
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
2g. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: David J. Peterson
2h. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
From: Tristan Alexander McLeay
3. NLF2DWS example (not mine)
From: Sai Emrys
4a. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
From: Tristan Alexander McLeay
4b. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
From: Roger Mills
4c. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
From: Carsten Becker
4d. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
From: Jonathan Knibb
4e. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
From: Mark J. Reed
5a. USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Sai Emrys
5b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Christian Thalmann
5c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Sai Emrys
5d. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Mark J. Reed
6a. Re: Invitation to new 'conlang' wiki
From: Philip Newton
6b. Re: Invitation to new 'conlang' wiki
From: Henrik Theiling
7. Re: Whatever
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
8. Re: Anti-telic?
From: R A Brown
9. Re: Reinventing NATLANGs
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. THEORY: Laxness?
Posted by: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:23 pm (PDT)
Why is [I] lax and [i] tense, [E] lax and [e] tense? I understand the
terms "tense" and "lax" are relatively poorly defined, but if a
language has spots in which vowels go that differ in length (e.g.
because of a length distinction, or open vs closed syllables), it is
common to find the "lax" one in the short position, and the "tense"
one in the long position. This is often described in terms of
undershoot: in short spots, in order to reach the tense target, the
tongue would have to move too fast (or something similar), and so it
doesn't quite reach the target; this failure may become phonologised
so that these accidents become standard allophones or even even
distinct phonemes with loss of the earlier length.
This description implicitly takes as its starting point a neutral
resting position of the tongue, something in the vicinity of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(or
perhaps even lower; [E] and [O] are lower than [EMAIL PROTECTED]). But in
connected
speech, vowels don't alternate with a neutral resting tongue position,
nor (for the most part) with other vowels (which might draw them to an
average position likely around [EMAIL PROTECTED]). They alternate with
consonants,
which mostly involve closures towards the top of the mouth, and draw
the tongue upwards (the main exceptions to this are pharyngeals, which
draw the tongue down, bilabials, which do not involve the tongue, and
possibly uvulars---I'm not quite sure). So wouldn't undershoot
encourage [i] and [e] in comparison to [I] and [E], which are further
away from where the tongue is, and where it's going to?
Am I missing something comparatively obvious here? (Maybe jaw height?
Are consonants pronounced with the jaw in a more open position, so
that for [i] you have to raise your jaw and front your tongue, whereas
for [I] you only need to mostly front your tongue, and [e] is some jaw
raising and tongue lowering & fronting but [E] is just tongue lowering
& fronting? But I think in langs with only one unstressed vowel, it
tends towards a high vowel, which seems to contradict this.)
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: THEORY: Laxness?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:09 pm (PDT)
Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
> Why is [I] lax and [i] tense, [E] lax and [e] tense?
Just speculating, based on several minutes' introspection :-), but I suspect
it might have to do with the tenseness/laxness of the tongue muscles. That
might also correlate with the very slight lowering of the jaw in the lax
vowels, though it's perfectly possible to produce a lax vowel without moving
the jaw (e.g. through clenched teeth). I wonder what Ladefoged might have to
say on this-- he was famous for sticking electrodes in his tongue to measure
muscular energy....
(Perhaps some slight difference in tongue-root too?)
The synonymous terms "open/close" do seem to refer to relative proximity of
the tongue to the palate.
(snips)
>
[In speech]... They alternate with consonants,
> which mostly involve closures towards the top of the mouth, and draw
> the tongue upwards (the main exceptions to this are pharyngeals, which
> draw the tongue down, bilabials, which do not involve the tongue, and
> possibly uvulars---I'm not quite sure). So wouldn't undershoot
> encourage [i] and [e] in comparison to [I] and [E], which are further
> away from where the tongue is, and where it's going to?
Could be true in those cases where there is transition from one POA to
another (velar > alv e.g.), but not in cases like "deed, did" or "Beeb "(the
BBC), bib" where the only difference is the vowel.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "Shreyas Sampat" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:51 pm (PDT)
So I was musing about vowel harmony, and wondering, what's it look like
when it starts bleeding into consonants, so I threw together this here
baby conlang.
The vowels are organised into two groups, 'green' and 'blue'; the names
don't mean anything, obviously. Some of the consonants take different
forms depending on the colour of a word. In the table below, consonant
PAIRS indicate the blue form followed by the green form. The affricate
TRIPLETS are (almost) simply a shorthand for two overlapping pairs; blue
<chetsun> corresponds to green <chwe'chon>, except in a few cases where
the simple postalveolar form doesn't alternate (thus green <che'chon).
Inventory, with doubled lines for cxs, sometimes:
Blue vowels: i e a u u'
Green vowels: i e' o' o u
u' o' e' are /U O E/; I prefer to write them with the Vietnamese horn
diacritic but that's obviously not good usage on the list.
Consonant system:
p-qu t ts-ch-chw kh
k^w t^h tS tS^w x
d tz--j-jw gh-g
t dZ dZ^w G g
s--sh-sw h
S S^w
m n ng /N/
w r l y /j/
Syllables are CV(C), except initial syllables which may be onsetless.
Codas may be <s sh sw h m n ng r l y> or a gemination of a stop. Nasals
don't have to assimilate with following consonants.
So, a question: in languages with harmony, is it common for affixes to
force the rest of a word into a particular form? I'm thinking about
including some that have -only- a green or blue form, possibly because
(fake-historically) they were borrowed from some other language and not
well assimilated.
Hmm.
--
Shreyas
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:46 pm (PDT)
Shreyas wrote:
<<
So, a question: in languages with harmony, is it common for affixes
to force the rest of a word into a particular form? I'm thinking
about including some that have -only- a green or blue form, possibly
because (fake-historically) they were borrowed from some other
language and not well assimilated.
>>
I hate to respond with a "yes", but...yes. I wish I had more actual
data to support it, but I just don't have any relevant examples at
hand. There are definitely languages where affixes are affected by
vowel harmony (the usual), and languages where affixes govern
harmony (less common). There are even languages with two
different types of affixes: those that assimilate, and those that force
roots/stems to assimilate. And, of course, in harmony languages,
there are both roots and affixes that don't change at all, no matter
what. And all three types can exist in the same language. I can't
say with any certainty how common affixes that govern harmony
are cross-linguistically, but I'm fairly certain they're not rare.
(I've
seen examples from height harmony, ATR harmony and consonant
harmony languages, as well as with tone [i.e., where tones spread
from affix to stem and from stem to affix].)
So if Takiyyudin were to borrow an affix from another language,
and not assimilate it right away, it could very well become an
affix that causes the root to harmonize. It could also simply be
opaque to harmony. I'm sure there could also be a way that
such affixes could arise naturally, without borrowing. It would
probably involve consonant loss, vowel change, etc. Would need
to know more about Takiyyudin to say.
-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/
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:53 pm (PDT)
On 13/07/06, Shreyas Sampat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So I was musing about vowel harmony, and wondering, what's it look like
> when it starts bleeding into consonants, so I threw together this here
> baby conlang.
Hm, in at least Turkish, in rounded words, for the span of the
rounding, the lips remain rounded. So a hypothetical word like "kökük"
word be more like [k_w2k_wyk], I think (with the _w meaning
"labialised", not "labiovelarised"). Also, in Kazakh, velar [k g~G]
are uvular [q~X R] in backharmonic words (and note that the [k]
doesn't undergo postvocalic fricativisation, always being a stop
whereas its back partner [q~X] does, and [R] doesn't undergo
postvocalic fricativisation, always being a fricative, whereas its
front partner [g~G] does too; this suggests some phonologisation of
the process to me. Unless I'm wrong.
Apparently consonant harmony is really common in children's speech,
but almost unheard of in adult speech. It does occur occasionally
(like in Sanskrit), but its strangely uncommon. Your system isn't
consonant harmony tho, I don't gather, but more like the
Kazakh/Turkish processes I mentioned above, yes?
> The vowels are organised into two groups, 'green' and 'blue'; the names
> don't mean anything, obviously. Some of the consonants take different
> forms depending on the colour of a word. In the table below, consonant
> PAIRS indicate the blue form followed by the green form. The affricate
> TRIPLETS are (almost) simply a shorthand for two overlapping pairs; blue
> <chetsun> corresponds to green <chwe'chon>, except in a few cases where
> the simple postalveolar form doesn't alternate (thus green <che'chon).
>
> Inventory, with doubled lines for cxs, sometimes:
Huh? Doubled lines?
> Blue vowels: i e a u u'
> Green vowels: i e' o' o u
Hm, what is the basis for this harmony? I've only heard of backness
harmony, rounding harmony, tongue root (ATR) harmony, and nasal
harmony. This seems to be none of them.
(*My* question is, are their any languages with vowel height harmony?)
...
> So, a question: in languages with harmony, is it common for affixes to
> force the rest of a word into a particular form? I'm thinking about
> including some that have -only- a green or blue form, possibly because
> (fake-historically) they were borrowed from some other language and not
> well assimilated.
rest of the word = that which comes after? Then yes. For instance, in
Turkish, only high vowels engage in rounding harmony. While I can't
provide any concrete examples and so I'm just making up roots/affixes,
you might have a root "pok", an affix "-IvE" and another "-(I)kI".
Then combining all three, you get "pokuvaký" (that last is dotless i,
high backish unrounded /M/), but combining only the root and the
affix, you get "pokuku".
rest of the word = the whole thing? I'm pretty sure not. Harmony
generally works from in a single direction only, from the inside to
the outside. (O'course, the inside might be in the middle, so prefixes
and suffixes harmonise to a root.) Turkish has a bunch of suffixes
which don't harmonise instead always having one of the vowels /i e a o
u/ (rather than more marked vowels like /y 2 M/). Subsequent
affixes/clitics however harmonise to the disharmonic affix. -istan is
an example of a disharmonic affix, which is furthermore disharmonic
with itself!
There's also the posibility of opaque & transparent vowels:
Transparent vowels don't harmonise, but subsequent vowels harmonise to
earlier ones. /i/ in Finnish, Hungarian and Mongolic languages is an
example. Opaque vowels also don't harmonise, but subsequent vowels
gain their setting. But seeing as transparency and opacity affects all
words with this vowel, it's probably not what you're thinking of. I'm
guessing as their both blue and green (aqua? cyan?) /i/ and /u/ are
transparent in your system?
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:19 am (PDT)
Tristan wrote:
<<
(*My* question is, are their any languages with vowel height harmony?)
>>
Yes, there is! (Or, to be more precise...maybe there is.)
Well, actually not even maybe. There's a documented example
from Yaka and Shona, both Bantu languages:
Shona:
pind-irir-a "to pass right through"
pot-erer-a "go right round"
Yaka:
kik-idi "barrer" (this appears to be French)
keb-ele "faire attention"
(Appears there's also a /l/~/d/ thing going on there...)
As for a rather robust harmony system that I've dealt with, there's
Moro. It *may* be ATR, but may also be height. Moro has six
vowels that correspond with one another with respect to backness:
High Vowels: i @ u
Non-High Vowels: e a o
So /i/ is the high version of /e/; /@/ of /a/; and /u/ of /o/.
In fact, there are even diphthongs that correspond: /i@/ and /ea/;
and /u@/ and /oa/.
You can see the harmony in action with the inessive prefix:
Damala = camel
eDamala = in the camel
[EMAIL PROTECTED] = people
[EMAIL PROTECTED] = in the people
arabija = car
ekarabija = in the car
udZi = person
ikudZi = in the person
So height harmony does appear to exist. Not as robust as
rounding and back harmony, though, it would seem.
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "Shreyas Sampat" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:31 am (PDT)
Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
> (like in Sanskrit), but its strangely uncommon. Your system isn't
> consonant harmony tho, I don't gather, but more like the
> Kazakh/Turkish processes I mentioned above, yes?
Yes, that's what it sounds like.
>> Blue vowels: i e a u u'
>> Green vowels: i e' o' o u
>
> Hm, what is the basis for this harmony? I've only heard of backness
> harmony, rounding harmony, tongue root (ATR) harmony, and nasal
> harmony. This seems to be none of them.
"Historical reasons." I'm imagining that it was a tidier, more
transparent system sometime in the past, that got obscured and warped by
vowel shifts and mergers. It's built with -graphical interest- as well
as naturalism and stuff in mind, and that has much to do with the
representation choices I made, as well as some of the consonant
alternations.
The consonants, incidentally, sort of indicate to me that maybe the
green system was historically a less rounded system, which might mean
that it was front, or unrounded, or something, this being the reason it
maintains a labialization contrast in the affricate series.
> rest of the word = the whole thing? I'm pretty sure not. Harmony
> generally works from in a single direction only
Nod. So, unnaturalistic in that respect. Good to know.
I'm thinking that there's basically a toggle, a morpheme can be either
dominant or recessive; some combination of dominance and 'head-ish-ness'
(probably the most headly dominant bit, or the most headly bit if no
dominant bits are present) determines the colour of a word. I can
imagine that occurring in a language where harmony has sort of run away
with the spoon and become grammaticalised, rather than merely something
in the phonology. Maybe 'switch the colour of a word' is a way to
pronounce it emphatically or humorously...
> gain their setting. But seeing as transparency and opacity affects all
> words with this vowel, it's probably not what you're thinking of. I'm
> guessing as their both blue and green (aqua? cyan?) /i/ and /u/ are
> transparent in your system?
They're harmony-indeterminate, which I guess is a way of saying transparent.
--
Shreyas
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Vowel height harmony (fuit Takiyyudin phonology)
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:15 am (PDT)
Tristan Alexander McLeay skrev:
> Hm, what is the basis for this harmony? I've only heard of backness
> harmony, rounding harmony, tongue root (ATR) harmony, and nasal
> harmony. This seems to be none of them.
>
> (*My* question is, are their any languages with vowel height harmony?)
Middle Korean had vowel height harmony. I adopted vowel height
harmony in my conlang Sohlob before knowing of the Middle Korean
vowel height harmony though, the Sohlob vowel series being
high /i i\ u/ vs. low /& a Q/. I often thought that this
ought to affect the consonants somehow, e.g. stops in high
words but fricatives/continuants in low words. At the very
least there ought to be [k g x G] in high words but [q G\ X R]
in low words, since I have found that I can produce
coronal and palatal stops and fricatives alike both with
a slack and with a closed jaw, but velars tend to become
uvulars with a slack jaw. Fortunately this would not wreak
havoc with the historic and synchronic consonant phonology as
the stop vs. fricative harmony would. In fact it would be
entirely subphonemic, but I can always come up with some
historical sound change that is sensitive to this.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
"Maybe" is a strange word. When mum or dad says it
it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
means "no"!
(Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot
(Max Weinreich)
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:57 am (PDT)
Tristan wrote:
<<
Harmony
generally works from in a single direction only, from the inside to
the outside.
>>
Perhaps commonly, but not generally. Here's a link to a paper
by Larry Hyman which shows some examples of what I was talking
about in my first reply:
http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman/Hyman_Kalong_VH_Paper.pdf
Leaving the tone diacritics out, there's a language Kalong that
has a causative suffix [i] specified as [+ATR]. When added to words
where all the vowels are [+ATR], it works as expected (again, the
glosses are in French, for some reason):
kuJim + -i = kuJimi "perdre qqch."
kuenep + - i = kuenepi "noircir" (sp?)
If the vowels of the root are [-ATR], the suffix forces them to
change:
kuEj + -i = kueji "changer qqn."
kusOt + -i = kusoti "sauver" (from "vivre", so "cause to live")
This would be affix to stem harmony. However, in the very same
language, there is also stem to affix harmony (note: /a/ is [-ATR]
and [-high, +low]):
kufen + -a = kufene "dedaigner"
kusEl + -a = kusElE "eplucher"
kupos + -a = kuposo "aboyer"
kukOk + -a = kukOkO "tirer"
Also some examples from root to prefix:
ma- + pe = mepe "machination"
ma- + pEnE = mEpEnE "lait"
ma- + jojo = mojojo "safoutiers"
ma- = jOjO = mOjOjO "bave"
Bunch of other stuff going on in this language. This is a good
article to reference for crazy vowel harmony stuff.
-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/
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: Takiyyudin phonology
Posted by: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:15 am (PDT)
On 13/07/06, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Tristan wrote:
> <<
> Harmony
> generally works from in a single direction only, from the inside to
> the outside.
> >>
>
> Perhaps commonly, but not generally. Here's a link to a paper
> by Larry Hyman which shows some examples of what I was talking
> about in my first reply:
Hm, this is interesting. Most theoretical analyses I've read to trying
to describe the way vowel harmony processes work seem to make the
assumption that vowel harmony only goes in one direction. Many I'm
sure would even fail if it went in two different directions. I will
read with interest.
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. NLF2DWS example (not mine)
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:24 pm (PDT)
On ZBB: http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?p=397563
Clearly an example of the "nodes & connections" type of NLF2DWS. Not
optimal of course, but definitely on the right track.
Have yet to see a fusional paradigm example.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
Posted by: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:51 pm (PDT)
On 13/07/06, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 7/12/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Yeah... I kinda knew that, but I think I got so court up in reacting
> > against "krrent" which is so completely counter-intuitive &
> > american-centric that it's not funny.
>
> Sorry. I sometimes forget these things. It was in any case an
> orthography I cooked up on the spur of the moment as I was typing the
> email.
Yeah, I know
> > [*]: It's not so much the fact that Americans don't distinguish the
> > qualities in "curry" and "furry" that doesn't cease to suprise me:
> > it's the fact that they don't distinguish the lengths. Are you sure
> > it's not something like [kr=i] vs [fr=ri]?
>
> I assume you're kidding, but trust me: there is absolutely no
> distinction. It would never have occurred to me for any reason not to
> make those words a perfect rhyme.
No, not really kidding. Just as surprised as you are that I make a
difference that you make none... I also hear American English through
AusE-colored glasses, and so I hear things that aren't really there
(for instance, because the AmE /&/ is longer that AusE /&/, but
shorter than AusE /&:/, it sounds to me like "mass" and "pass"
shouldn't be a minimal pair for Americans: When one says "mass", the
AmE/&/ sounds like AusE/&/, whereas when one says "pass", the AmE/&/
sounds like AusE/&:/, and I hear a difference of length where there is
none).
...
> > I think /Z/ is better unified with /z(j)/ than /S/, with which it
> > alternates: /[EMAIL PROTECTED]:m/ vs /[EMAIL PROTECTED]@n/, and I can't
> > think of any
> > minimal pairs.)
>
> I assume that's "presume", which has an ordinary [z] for me - but even
> if it were [Z], it's not /Z/ but /zj/, where the /j/ comes from the
> /ju/.
I see no basis for distinguishing the two IML, given they're
pronounced the same, almost always have the same origin etc. I'm happy
to consider them /zj/, and happy to consider them /Z/, but don't
understand some should be one and others the other.
(Philip Newton mentions [si:[EMAIL PROTECTED] sounding like "'s easier"; to me,
it
seems recoverable and sounds (I think) no stranger than [EMAIL PROTECTED]:m],
and the same with [tju\:t] "tute" vs [tju\:z] "choose".)
Still, point is, for your orthography /zj/ and /Z/ is a better merger
than /Z/ and /S/ considering that there exist such correspondences in
at least my dialect :)
> > I think it's just a "what have we got left" thing. In terms of your
> > original specification (similarity with continental readings), the
> > reading of "u" is also counterintuitive.
>
> Eh. Reading <u> as /U/ has precedent in Classical Latin and Arabic,
> at the very least.
I thought u=/V/ in your orthography, no? as in "wuns", "uthr", "uv"?
But actually, that's probably just failure to distinguish /U/ from /V/
in the orthography, and not anything more insidious.
...
> > Simplifying the task of reading & difficulting the task of writing.
>
> I'd say it's the other way around. Only one symbol to remember for
> e.g. the two sounds /a/ and /&/. But then when I see an unfamiliar
> word written with an <a> I don't immediately know how to pronounce it.
Gah! I got "reading" and "writing" backwards, there. I did of course
mean exactly what you said.
...
> Much. "suprise" would be easy enough, but "dater" looks like the
> agentive of "to date"...
>
> ... which wouldn't matter to you non-rhotic types, I suppose, since I
> guess those are homophonous for you? :) It's amazing how hard it is
> to think panlectically, even when one is aware of the issues.
Well, I tend to pronounce "data" as /da:t@/ ["da_":da_"], with the two
vowels differing only by length. "Darter" would be pronounced the
same. Some people do say it with /&i/. Based on the speech of fellow
students, lecturers & tutors from the Psych & Comp. Sci. depts at my
Uni, I think the /a:/ is probably more common amongst Psych and the
younger & oldest Comp. Sci. people.
> Anyway, such spellings as "dater" for "data" would also appear to
> convey a common low-prestige pronunciation over here which one might
> characterize as hyper-rhotic,
We could just as easily spell "car" as "ka", with rhotic speakers
putting on the appropriate diacritic. Make it look like it's after the
letter-ish (such as the Vietnamese horn or the IPA rhoticised
diacritic) and it might eventually hardly be noticed it's a diacritic.
Só ú can hav ÃºÌ dáta and ÃºÌ dátaÌ, and í'll hav mí dâta and mí dáta.
If I've got your pronunciations right :) [I'd actually spell "your" as
"yô" for my pronunciation, so the system isn't perfect.]
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:23 pm (PDT)
Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
> > > [*]: It's not so much the fact that Americans don't distinguish the
> > > qualities in "curry" and "furry" that doesn't cease to surprise me....
I've been wondering about this. Is it possible that British(-based) speech
uses a more [6]-like vowel in "curry (the food)", somewhat closer I think to
the actual Indian (?) and Malay (['kari]) pronunciation??? After all, you're
much more exposed to it than we are. What vowel do you use, then, in the
expression "to curry favour", or when "currying" i.e. using a "curry-comb"
on your horse? For me as for Mark, these all have the same vowel and are
perfect rhymes-- along with hurry, blurry, slurry, jury, Murray et Al.
Anything resembling authentic (or even faux) Indian cuisine is hard to find
over here, except in major cities or university towns.
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:30 am (PDT)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 8:29 AM
> You seem to use <oo> for both /u/ ("yoo" above) and /o:/
> ("beeloo", er, below). Even in only final position I think that's
> a distinction we need to keep.
Way árn't wi simpli intrÉdyúsing mór letÉs fór ÄÉ vauÉls?
Ólso, yú jÉst hëv tÉ get rid Éf jÉ 'dayÉkritÉfobia' ...
Dët'd meyk tings É gud díl íziÉ ay tingk.*
OK, that above looks horrible IMO ... and I don't speak
_that_ British either.** But why don't we simply use some of
the IPA vowel signs in addition? It's clear that English
has more phonemic vowels than the five cardinal ones that
are included in the Alphabet (aeiou), and I don't like too
weird diagraphs either (They have a use in Irish and Scots
Gaelic, though!). There's aÉÉÉÉeÉÉÉÉÉɤiioɵɶɷuÊÊÊÊÊ in IPA,
that should be enough to choose from.
*tongue-in-cheek* Or, just adapt my Tahano Nuhikamu writing
system. That'd surely be fun ... ;-)
Carsten
*) I'd suggest this:
p - p i - i
b - b i: - i
t - t I - i
d - d E - e
k - k æ - ë
tS - c A - a
dZ - j A: - á
f - f Q - o
v - v Q: - ó
T - th (þ? t?) U - u
D - dh (ð? d?) u - ú
s - s u: - ú (some have [u\:] here)
z - z V - a
S - sh (s?) 3: - Ér
Z - zh (z?) @ - É
h - h EI - ey
m - m @U - ou (ow? ɵ? o?)
n - n OU - ou (ow? ɵ? o?)
N - ng (Å?) aI - ay
l - l ([5] o/c, too) OI - oy
r\ - r aU - au (aw? É? å? a?)
j - y i@(`) - ir
w - w e@(`) - er
u@(`) - ur
There exist capital letters for all of these (ÆÆÆ), except
for É. Would Ϫ (Coptic Gangia, U+03EB) be an alternative?
*) I agree -- which dialect should be the default one? Or
should we really make a split between AmE and BrE? My
<ír>, <ér> and <úr> spellings are supposed to be
intermediates.
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Pinena, Tyemuyang 2, 2315 ya 00:41:36 pd
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
4d. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
Posted by: "Jonathan Knibb" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:27 am (PDT)
Roger Mills wrote:
>Is it possible that British(-based) speech uses a more
>[6]-like vowel in "curry (the food)", somewhat closer I think to the actual
>Indian (?) and Malay (['kari]) pronunciation??? After all, you're much
>more exposed to it than we are.
Fascinating idea, but I've never noticed it anywhere I've
lived (south England and Midlands). Would be very
interesting to look at the speech of young British-born
"Asians" (to use the current term for those with
Indian / Pakistani ancestry) in this context though.
>What vowel do you use, then, in the expression "to curry favour" ... ?
AFM own speech, /V/. A bit centralised from cardinal [V]
I think, quite close to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>For me as for Mark, these all have the same vowel and are
>perfect rhymes-- along with hurry, blurry, slurry, jury, Murray
/hVri:/, /bl@:ri:/, /slVri:/, /dZU:ri:/, /mVri:/ - equally true in [],
except for /r/ and shortened [i:] word-finally. /U:/ is my own
hypothesis; for me, 'poor' [pU:], 'peer' [pI:] Standard
southern British English would have [U@, [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think.
>Anything resembling authentic (or even faux) Indian cuisine is hard to
>find over here, except in major cities or university towns.
Sorry to hear that!
Jonathan.
_________________________________________________________________
Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters!
http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
4e. Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:25 am (PDT)
On 7/13/06, Jonathan Knibb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Roger Mills wrote:
> >Anything resembling authentic (or even faux) Indian cuisine is hard to
> >find over here, except in major cities or university towns.
>
> Sorry to hear that!
So move to a major city! Atlanta has all kinds of good Subcontinental
ethnicuisine. Many varieties of Indian, several combination Indo-Pak
restaurants (I guess they get along better in the kitchen?), etc. I
mean, nobody talks about going out for a "curry and kabob" or anything
as British as that, but we can get our curry or masala on when we want
to.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:17 am (PDT)
I saw that line in a profile.
My response as a question: "What sort of crazy did you go?"
That seems like a really funny construction to me.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Christian Thalmann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:15 am (PDT)
> I want crazy two years ago
This would make a lot more sense with "went" rather than "want".
I needed three readings to get the point.
> My response as a question: "What sort of crazy did you go?"
A translation exercise! Wheee! :D
Jovian:
Caele blire haes crede? [kajl bli:r hES kre:d], or maybe
Caele mozu yh blire haes crede? [kajl mo:z hy bli:r hES kre:d]
-- Christian Thalmann
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:20 am (PDT)
> This would make a lot more sense with "went" rather than "want".
> I needed three readings to get the point.
Doh! Typo, my fault.
> > My response as a question: "What sort of crazy did you go?"
>
> A translation exercise! Wheee! :D
*laugh* What I get for posting it to a conlang forum.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:38 am (PDT)
On 7/13/06, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > This would make a lot more sense with "went" rather than "want".
> > I needed three readings to get the point.
>
> Doh! Typo, my fault.
Aww, shucks. I was really interested in finding out the context for
that statement.
Sample scenario that poppsed into my head: a magazine editor asking a
writer for a really wild story really quickly. "I want crazy, and I
want it yesterday!" would be the usual form of the idiom, but if the
same editor were lamenting the fact that his magazine had missed an
opportunity by not being wild enough in the past and were suffering
for it, he might (rhetorically) request that it be done two years ago
. . .
etc.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. Re: Invitation to new 'conlang' wiki
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:53 am (PDT)
On 7/12/06, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm not at all fussed by the existence of other 'conlang'
> wikis anywhere, and certainly didn't mean to steal anyone's
> thunder! It's just that I needed a name, and since I intend
> to use the wiki to describe more than one of my conlangs
> AND would enjoy other people contributing theirs, I couldn't
> name it for just one of them, NOR for myself without causing
> some confusion. However, I do see that this may have created
> some confusion elsewhere! I don't know whether I can easily
> rename my PBwiki, tho; nor to what I should rename it, if I can.
My question was not "should your PBwiki be renamed" but "do you need a
wiki of your own in the first place, when there are already several
wikis around which welcome contributions from any and all conlangers".
> IMO, having several distinct, and even distinctive, wikis
> available for the world to tap into conlanging has to be
> A Good Thing. The more the merrier, I say.
To me, it seems a bit like having several World Wide Webs ... some
information is in CompuServer internal forums, some available under
AOL keywords, some via URLs... a bit like having some information on
WikiA, some on WikiB, some on WikiC, with "internal" linking being
difficult and probably all but nonexistent.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: Invitation to new 'conlang' wiki
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:58 am (PDT)
Hi!
Philip Newton writes:
>...
> > IMO, having several distinct, and even distinctive, wikis
> > available for the world to tap into conlanging has to be
> > A Good Thing. The more the merrier, I say.
>
> To me, it seems a bit like having several World Wide Webs ... some
> information is in CompuServer internal forums, some available under
> AOL keywords, some via URLs... a bit like having some information on
> WikiA, some on WikiB, some on WikiC, with "internal" linking being
> difficult and probably all but nonexistent.
In general, I think distributed information is better since you're not
hit so severely by data loss or server crashes.
In this case, a common index of all conlang Wikis would be great,
though. And probably mirrors.
And an off-line Wiki snapshot. :-) In particular, I hate online
dictionaries that don't allow me to download a snapshot. The fear of
sudden and eternal server outage is very valid. In a thousand years
I'm sure there will be no bit of information left if it is organised
in online services as it is now. (Furthermore, my standard Unix tools
are usually much more capable of searching the data base than the web
interfaces.) Too few dictionaries share their data base, though. A
pity!
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Re: Whatever
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:04 am (PDT)
Hallo!
On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:25:00 -0400, Jeffrey Jones wrote:
> Almost nobody is actually reading this kind of thing these days, so I can
> put any link I want to here.
>
> http://qiihoskeh.livejournal.com/69535.html
I at least have read it and found it quite nice and interesting.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8. Re: Anti-telic?
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:43 am (PDT)
Sai Emrys wrote:
> Yahya, please snip your replies a lot more. Having a page or two of
> quoted material followed by "I agree" is excessive and hard to read.
> :-(
Yep - I was intending to go though Sai's replies & comment - but this
will need some time :)
However, I will reply to just one part, as I think it is relevant:
[ME]
>>t does imply that a few languages may have specifically gnomic forms.
>>> But did Sai mean simply 'gnomic' when he said 'anti-telic'? I do not
>>> know. If he did, then I've been "boxing shadows" again ;)
[YAHYA]
> But what interesting shadows! ;-)
Yes, since this thread has begun I've started reading up a lot more
seriously on the concepts of telicity & atelicity. I'm always learning
as a result of this list ;)
I feel I am not really in a position to advance this thread forwarder
till I've read more. One thing that is becoming apparent is that these
concepts seem to be related not to verbs per-se, but to predicates or,
in the 'modern' terminology, verb phrases. But I need to read up more.
>
> To get back to the point:
> I don't believe that metaphysical questions of whether the universe
> can *be* eternal or not are at all relevant. I can claim that it is,
> ergo I can say that it is, ergo I can have a way to say it. Viz. what
> I and others said before about exaggeration or pragmatics of scope.
Clearly you can claim the universe is eternal or that it is not eternal.
The English language, as I see it, is quite capable of letting you do
this unambiguously. This does not, as far as I can see, require the need
for any 'anti-telic' verb phrase aspect.
> The way I'd define it (borrowing from previous again):
> * telic: having a necessary bound, i.e. intrinsic to the event (it's
> not possibly to keep doing it indefinitely)
> e.g. eating a finite thing, killing, etc
>
> * atelic: being POTENTIALLY bound, but not necessarily; i.e. the bound
> is extrinsic to the event itself (something has to interrupt or stop
> it, or else it'll keep going indefinitely)
> e.g. dating someone, writing a journal vs a novel (though arguably a
> journal is bound by your death, I'd say this is an instance where I
> could extend effective 'forever' to be 'until I die'), going hunting
> (though ditto) etc
>
> * antitelic: NOT being able to be bound, i.e. it is not possible to
> interrupt or stop the event once started
That is the rub. It seems to me that stating that something positively
can not ever be stopped once it has started _is_ to adopt a metaphysical
position. Clearly, if one considers that time and space, as we
understand it, ends with the "Big Crunch" then ultimately everything is
interrupted and stopped.
What I was *asking* is whether it is possible to say that it is possible
to state that anything is not able to be bound, i.e. is not able to be
interrupted or stopped once it is started, without taking a particular
metaphysical viewpoint. 'Atelic', as currently understood, leaves the
question open, with no metaphysical implications.
I have already conceded that in a _conworld_ this can be different. A
conworld does not, for example, have to obey the laws of physics as we
know them. To one's own sub-creation, one is God.
> e.g. the existence of the universe,
....will come to an end, according to some. Indeed, some see the
creation & evolution of the universe as a telic process.
> states-of-the-world-history (viz
> Achilles), gods dating (ha),
Rather states-of-human-legend, methinks. :)
While there may have been a historic character called Achilles, there is
no evidence for this other than legend. As for gods dating...
> humans dating (exaggeration - eg "they're
> sooooo cuuuuute together it's impossible they'll break up"),
Each date does not go on for ever. A date is a telic process. We may
have, and often do have, an series of individual dates. "He is dating
Lois" is atelic, but "He has a date with Lois this evening" is telic, as
I understand the terms.
> many
> belief-system-dependent things (e.g. Atlas holding up the earth,
> assuming he's under some sort of permanent everlasting "Hercules won't
> interfere again" spell),
Nope - Perseus interfered. Atlas got turned into the Mount Atlas - and
that won't last for ever. :)
> expansion of the universe (depending on your
> astrophysics),
Quite so.
> universal tendency towards entropy, WoT world cycling,
> etc
WoT word cycling is, as I understand it, a conworld thing - and I've
already conceded that anything is possible in a conworld.
>
> Note that this in no way addresses how the event STARTED, only whether
> it has a necessary, potential, or impossible ENDpoint.
Yes, I know.
> Difference from gnomic:
> 1. Gnomic AFAIU would require it to be universally true, i.e. have no
> finite start point before which it may not have been true (e.g 2+2=4)
True.
> 2. Gnomic seems exclusively a state-of-the-world or
> truths-about-the-world sort of thing, whereas antitelic would be a
> type of (forever-continuing) action, of which existence or state is a
> subset
Yes, gnomic is to do with _states_ whereas, I am discovering, telic &
atelic are to do with processes.
> 3. Antitelic
I do not understand what point 3 is.
> 4. They're different grammatical categories
Semantic as well, surely. Any explicit grammaticalization of these
categories seem to be be related to syntax.
> The point about mass vs count nouns seems spurious to me; just because
> they happen to be analagous in some ways does not mean they are
> NECESSARILY linked or that the limitation of one implies the
> limitation of the other.
I do not think that either And or I said they were NECESSARILY linked.
But I agree with And that they are analogous in certain ways. Analogies
are useful, I think, in that we can examine how far they are similar and
in what ways they differ. Can a similar trichotomy be applied to the
concept of 'countability' as that which you are suggesting for
'telicity'? If the answer is "yes", then surely it helps understand what
you are getting at. But if the answer is "no", then we ask 'Why not?',
'What are the differences between the concepts of countability &
telicity?', 'Is the trichotomy proposed for telicity valid.' IMO
analogies can be useful as long as, of course, we remember that they are
analogies.
But as I read more, I am finding that telicity is a feature of the verb
_and_ its arguments. The concept of countability does seem to figure to
some extent; for example, I discover that "eat apples" is atelic, but
"eat two apples" is telic.
But, I stress again, my comments about 'anti-telic' relate only to
_natlangs_. You did ask "Any natlang or conlang examples of this?" I
know of no natlang examples.
I have made it clear more than once, I do _not_ say the idea in invalid
in a conlang. That would be foolish. After all, is not one reason for
creating a conlang to experiment with different or unusual ideas. Are
there, indeed, any conlang examples of this?
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
"A mind that thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language".
J.G. Hamann, 1760
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. Re: Reinventing NATLANGs
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:18 am (PDT)
On Wed, 12 Jul 2006, Philip Newton wrote:
>
> On 7/12/06, Michael Adams wrote:
> > How about a conlang that is English but with all or most of the
> > French/Latin/Greek out of it?
>
> Have a look at "Uncleftish Beholding" by Poul Anderson (quoted e.g. at
> http://www.grijalvo.com/Citas/Peculiar_English.htm ) for an example of
> such a beast.
>
> I found it moderately hard to read, and knew I not German, it had been
> even harder.
What an excellent piece of work! I found it a great pleasure
to read, and understood almost all. Did Anderson do any more
of this?
> As for English that has much more Greek put into it, see the two
> speeches by Prof. Zolotas quoted further down on that page.
This I found almost incomprehensible. Shows what the lack
of a classical education does to a man! :(
On the same site, is a "rollicking good yarn" by Kipling:
http://www.grijalvo.com/Kipling/Captains_Courageous_Train.htm
which would be a worthy translation challenge to test one's
knowledge of *any* lang, whether con or nat.
Regards,
Yahya
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.10/387 - Release Date: 12/7/06
Messages in this topic (27)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
