------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/GSaulB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Archeology on Iceland?
From: Keith Gaughan
2a. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Eugene Oh
2b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Henrik Theiling
2c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Mark J. Reed
2d. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Andreas Johansson
2e. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Damien Perrotin
2f. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Hanuman Zhang
2g. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: andrew
2h. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Eugene Oh
3. Re: USAGE: Other Note more on topic - Inuit jargon?
From: Keith Gaughan
4a. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
From: Jim Henry
4b. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
From: Sally Caves
5a. Re: Anti-telic?
From: R A Brown
5b. Re: Anti-telic?
From: Rodlox R
5c. Re: Anti-telic?
From: Sai Emrys
6a. OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Gary Shannon
6b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: David J. Peterson
6c. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Patrick Littell
6d. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Gary Shannon
6e. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Herman Miller
6f. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Gary Shannon
7. Vowel Harmony in Proto-Thagojian
From: Paul Bennett
8a. Re: Unknown pronoun
From: Jim Henry
8b. Re: Unknown pronoun
From: Remi Villatel
9. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
From: Abrigon
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1. Re: Archeology on Iceland?
Posted by: "Keith Gaughan" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:32 am (PDT)
On Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 01:22:33AM -1000, Michael Adams wrote:
> Just working on a hyposesis that Iceland was visited by not only the
> Vikings but also Celtic (Irish),
That's not an hypothesis: genetics and historical records say as much.
K.
--
Keith Gaughan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://talideon.com/
A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
-- D. Gries
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:37 am (PDT)
What?
Ich gehe.
On 7/14/06, Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Well, look at German, and see where Go comes from or could be.
>
> Ge = verb notice or something like that.
>
> Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
>
> Ich Ge = I go?
>
> Mike
>
> Address changing to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Poetry-L2/ My Poetry
> List
> http://groups.google.com/group/adulthumor-l/ My Humor
> List
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abrigon-l2 My Friends
> List
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stargruntsooc Grunts
> Past/Present/Future
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abrigon-world Magic or
> Super High Tech
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/future-history-l Where we
> are going as a species
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:39 am (PDT)
Hi!
Eugene Oh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> What?
>
> Ich gehe.
>
> > Well, look at German, and see where Go comes from or could be.
> >
> > Ge = verb notice or something like that.
> >
> > Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
> >
> > Ich Ge = I go?
Ich gehe auch gleich, wenn das mit dem Deutsch so weitergeht.
Aua. *kopfschüttel*
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:52 am (PDT)
I think Michael Adams is a professional folk etymologist.
On 7/14/06, Eugene Oh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What?
>
> Ich gehe.
>
> On 7/14/06, Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Well, look at German, and see where Go comes from or could be.
> >
> > Ge = verb notice or something like that.
> >
> > Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
> >
> > Ich Ge = I go?
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > Address changing to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Poetry-L2/ My Poetry
> > List
> > http://groups.google.com/group/adulthumor-l/ My Humor
> > List
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abrigon-l2 My Friends
> > List
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stargruntsooc Grunts
> > Past/Present/Future
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abrigon-world Magic or
> > Super High Tech
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/future-history-l Where we
> > are going as a species
>
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Andreas Johansson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:34 pm (PDT)
Quoting Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Well, look at German, and see where Go comes from or could be.
>
> Ge = verb notice or something like that.
>
> Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
"Ich habe gesprochen" - note spelling and lack of capitalization of
"gesprochen".
> Ich Ge = I go?
"Ich gehe" = I go
The verb _gehen_ (1st sg ind. _gehe_) is NOT to be identified with the prefix
_ge-_ seen on past participles like _gesprochen_. In fact, you get the prefix
on the past part. of _gehen_ itself: _gegangen_.
Andreas
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Damien Perrotin" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:18 pm (PDT)
Skrivet en doa Andreas Johansson:
> Quoting Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>> Well, look at German, and see where Go comes from or could be.
>>
>> Ge = verb notice or something like that.
>>
>> Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
>>
>
> "Ich habe gesprochen" - note spelling and lack of capitalization of
> "gesprochen".
>
>
>> Ich Ge = I go?
>>
>
> "Ich gehe" = I go
>
> The verb _gehen_ (1st sg ind. _gehe_) is NOT to be identified with the prefix
> _ge-_ seen on past participles like _gesprochen_. In fact, you get the prefix
> on the past part. of _gehen_ itself: _gegangen_.
>
> Andreas
>
>
In gothic (not the ancestor of German, but probably close) ga- was a
perfective prefix. German associated with past participle but that's a
recent development. To go was gangan in both gothic and High Old German,
gan in Old English
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Hanuman Zhang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:34 pm (PDT)
on 7/14/06 8:32 AM, Mark J. Reed at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I think Michael Adams is a professional folk etymologist.
>
B- But tha's an oxymoron! I think...
--
Hanuman Zhang, MangaLanger
"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
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "andrew" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 7:00 pm (PDT)
On Saturday 15 July 2006 08:57, Hanuman Zhang wrote:
> on 7/14/06 8:32 AM, Mark J. Reed at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I think Michael Adams is a professional folk etymologist.
>
> B- But tha's an oxymoron! I think...
How about stunt folk etymologist?
- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:02 pm (PDT)
That reminds me of a tee on which is written, above a picture showing
a stick figure in a martial-arts pose, "I do all my own stunts". Heh,
funky.
Eugene
On 7/15/06, andrew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Saturday 15 July 2006 08:57, Hanuman Zhang wrote:
> > on 7/14/06 8:32 AM, Mark J. Reed at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > I think Michael Adams is a professional folk etymologist.
> >
> > B- But tha's an oxymoron! I think...
>
> How about stunt folk etymologist?
>
> - andrew.
> --
> Andrew Smith -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
> http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html
>
Messages in this topic (38)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. Re: USAGE: Other Note more on topic - Inuit jargon?
Posted by: "Keith Gaughan" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:50 am (PDT)
On Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 01:21:14AM -1000, Michael Adams wrote:
> We do know of Irish monastics who say Iceland as home until forced out,
There's no archaeological evidence to support that, however likely it
may have been. It's also worth noting that Iceland has been settled by
the Norse since the 1100s and that the population has always been a
mixture of Gaels and Norse. It's widely held that the original
population consisted more or less of Gaelic women and Norse men.
> Irish myth has :"Tir Na Og" (sort of Heaven, land of ever young) to the
> west.
It's "Tír na nÓg": not the capitalisation and the letters 'n'. Though that
name's still used, it's someting of an archaicism. In modern Irish
Gaelic, it'd be more correctly called "Tír na hÓige". In Scots Gaelic,
I believe it's called "Tír nan Óg".
It wasn't a heaven: you didn't go there when you died. It does, however,
play a similar role in mythology to Valhalla, Elysium, Hesoid's Isle
of the Blessed, Avalon, and so on. It was where the Tuath De Danann went
when they left Ireland. In Christian terms, Eden would be a better
analogue.
It's _definitely_ not to be equated with Iceland. The climate's
completely wrong for a start, and it's too far north. The Canary Islands
or even North America.
A similar myth is that of Oilean Uí Breasail, called "Brazil" in English
(not to be confused with the country of the same name, the origin of
which is quite separate). It's almost definitely North America, or part
of it, and lent it name to the concultural state I describe below.
> Anyone ever worked on a Jargon or Creole before? For this idea, Inuit
> and Irish or Inuit and Norse?
Yes, I have, but my work is trapped on another machine that had an
electrical failure. The harddrive's still good, but I need to get the
machine fixed. I didn't get as far with it as I would have liked due to
time constraints. It didn't really have much in the way of Inuit
influcences, it being spoken by the descendents of Norse and Irish
colonists who settled in *here*'s New England and Nova Scotia.
> Sort of a what if, the Inuit did make it to Iceland and maybe even beyond,
It's not wholly unrealistic that some may have anyway. Regardless, if
they have then they've been absorbed into the general population.
> like to Scotland/Orkneys. I can see it, after visiting both the Orkneys
> and Teller Alaska, they look ALOT alike..
That's somewhat more fanciful, believe me.
K.
--
Keith Gaughan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://talideon.com/
Women in love consist of a little sighing, a little
crying, a little dying -- and a good deal of lying.
-- Ansey
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:24 am (PDT)
> Sally wrote:
> <<
> Your book, David, is awesome, and it rivals Rev. Paul Burgess's _mna
> Sipri Cilama_, written in his mna Vanantha, in which he is fluent,
> and beautifully illustrated and bound. Do you
This talk about "The Golden Knight" and
"Mna Sipri Cilama" has inspired me to start
another original piece in gjâ-zym-byn -
a time travel plot which occurred to me
some little while ago, and which I decided
was a little too cliche'd to be worth developing
in English. But it should give gzb a good
workout.
I started it Wednesday afternoon while waiting
at the doctor's office, and it's 6.5 handwritten
pages (about 1000 words) so far; definitely
the longest original story I've done in
gzb, though a couple of translations have
been longer.
I'm fixing to go nomail for a couple of weeks;
I have more preparation to do for the Esperanto
League convention in New York the weekend
after next, including a talk on Toki Pona,
which I haven't even started outlining. During
the session on future convention planning
I'll suggest the possibility of combining
an ELNA convention with a future conlang
conference, in Berkley or elsewhere, and see
what people think of it. (We already have
two candidate venues for 2007; combining
with the conlangs conference is something
we might do in 2008 or later.)
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
Posted by: "Sally Caves" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:41 pm (PDT)
Though I'm sure I won't see this post of mine for a couple of days, ;) I
want to second Jim Henry's sentiment about writing and illustrating a
longish story in Teonaht. I have been itching to draw and paint again,
instead of sitting oafishly at this computer, and to brush up on my Teonaht
skills. But I imagine Jim will get to his Itlani before I do, as he is so
marvelously fluent in it.
Get crackin!
(PS: for linguistic and professional purposes, I should perhaps write the
Teonaht epic in German... sigh.)
More enthralling things below:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sally Caves wrote:
>
>> Sorry to be sending this again. My computer is doing this again. My
>> original message will probably show up tomorrow. :( But forwarded
>> messages
>> seem to get their earlier. It's frontiernet.
>>
> So it seems. This arrived at 1:49PM, repeating the earlier msg. at 12:24.
> Happens to me too, though very rarely.
>
> It's cumbersome to do, but if you check the listserv archive and your msg.
> is there, that should mean _we_ received it the first time.
Yes it is, seeing that I can never find the site though I've bookmarked it a
million times and I have a million bookmarks in a million folders.
Meanwhile: the forwarded message showed up July 13 in my mailbox at 1:45 pm
minutes after I sent it. The original message I sent showed up in my
mailbox this morning (15 July) at 1:45 am.
I am unsure, too, if others have seen it, unless I put something really
provocative in it, such as a link to a picture of myself nude and dancing
dipsomaniacally on a table. But I think even this group is pretty dead set
on going over the anti-telicl, their latest peeves about it, and ignoring
all distractions. "smiling green devil head"
I want Crazy!
Meanwhile: Your message showed up July 14 in my mailbox. Things are being
delivered a day late, it seems. But this is boring.
> I remember Mr. Burgess; pity he's not here anymore. Did he ever give a
> translation of that work?
Only to those who asked for it! ;) And it's a translation--meager, he
said--into English.
Sally
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: Anti-telic?
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:16 pm (PDT)
Sai Emrys wrote:
[snip]
> To clarify one point on this:
> Current atelic is... agnostic about endpoints. It IMPLIES that it
> could end, but it doesn't outright require it.
The point, surely, is that *a*telic makes _no_ implication about a goal
or endpoint. It does not involve any goal nor endpoint in its semantic
structure, but denotes actions that are realized as soon as they begin.
> A tripartite system (telic/atelic/antitelic) would have a narrower use
> of atelic, i.e. for things that strictly CAN have an end, but don't
> have to, and might not.
This seems to me to be not so much narrowing the meaning of 'atelic',
but as changing its meaning. It's now got some implication concerning
the nature of the endpoint or goal involved in the semantic structure.
> But for things that CAN'T (or that you're
> phrasing as such - viz lying and pragmatics and such), you wouldn't be
> able to use that, and would need to use the antitelic instead.
This seems to me to be altering the telic ~ atelic thing. Telic does
indeed make a semantic implication about an endpoint or goal, i.e. that
we believe the action is _tending towards_ a goal and the action is not
fully realized until the goal is reached. It does not, of course, mean
that the goal MUST be reached.
"He is eating two apples" is telic. As soon as he begins eating the
first apple, the process is not realized. The process is not realized
until he has finished consuming the second apple. In practice, of
course, he might choke on the first apple and never complete the
process. Our original sentence doesn't suddenly become atelic because
the poor guy choked!
"He's eating apples" has no implication about any goal or endpoint. It
is realized as soon as he starts chomping the apples. (I guess pendants
will say it is not realized till he's begun his second apple - but that
simply because English has to be specific about singular or plural
nouns). We assume, of course, that this will not go on for ever, but we
make no implication one way or the other about an endpoint - it simply
is not relevant.
Some languages, I believe, use the accusative case for direct objects if
the VP has a telic meaning, but the partitive case if it is atelic.
> Whereas with a bipartite system, atelic includes things that CAN'T end
> by adding adjectives or adverbs - e.g. "they'll never stop dating".
So "He is eating apples for ever" - yes that does imply that the
endpoint will never be reached. But we could also say "He is eating an
infinite number of apples".
I guess, then, one could say that 'anti-telic' is 'telic, but implying
that the goal or endpoint is at infinity'. The process is not realized
until infinity.
As I think about it now, 'anti-telicity' seems to me to be a special
case of 'telicity' rather than a subdivision of 'telicity':
telic - implies a finite endpoint or goal - action not realized till
goal is reached;
anti-telic - implies a infinite endpoint or goal - action not realized
till goal is reached at infinity;
atelic - makes no implication about an endpoint or goal - action is
realized as soon as it begins.
> Using atelic in that way is sortof irrealis I think (not sure if
> irrealis is the grammatically correct term for what I mean though).
No one is :)
"Irrealis" is one of those loose terms that seem to mean whatever an
author wants it to. Trask says of it: "A label often applied in a
somewhat _ad hoc_ manner to some distinctive grammatical form, most
often a verbal inflection, occurring in some language and having some
kind of connection with unreality"
> Another way to put it: "Will it end?"
> telic: yes
> atelic: it might
> antitelic: no
Yes, but currently, the answer for 'atelic' is surely "The question is
irrelevant." As we do not know the future (cf. the guy choking on his
first apple), I suggest:
Another way to put it: "Will it end?"
telic: "I think so."
atelic: "How am I supposed to know - it ain't relevant"
antitelic: "I don't think so.'
>> 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.
>
>
> Okay, now I see.
>
> Yes, I concede that. Yes, having an antitelic does IMPLY a
> metaphysical position that some things can indeed continue forever.
>
> However, attacking my metaphysical position
I was not and am not attacking your metaphysical position. I do not know
it - therefore I cannot sensibly attack it, even if I wished to :)
> in no way attacks the ability to STATE things that are
> congruent with my position, even if you philosophically or
> astrophysically disagree, or even if it's indeed false.
I merely asked if what you were positing were possible? Asking a
question, means I am looking for an answer, not attacking a position.
I have above outlined how, it seems to me, 'anti-telic' would fit into
the pattern. On the what I have written above, we could then say that
the following are 'anti-telic';
(a) "They'll always be dating."*
(b) "They lived happily ever after."
*Changed this one slightly as "will never stop dating" has the
complication of a negative.
But the fact that (a) might well evoke a response from a cynical friend
"Uh, until he finds someone else" or "Till one of them snuffs it", shows
that it is, as you say, an exaggeration (I would not describe something
as a 'lie' unless it were said/written deliberately to mislead) and
would not be taken literally.
Example (b) is of course the stock ending of 'fairy stories'.
> In fact, I can completely concede (for the sake of this discussion)
> that the universe will end 1000 years from now in a blip that wipes
> out everything yea unto time, and still say that I want to express
> something as going on indefinitely.
You *can* say that already - the question merely is whether it does or
does not constitute a separate category which may be called 'anti-telic.'
The terms 'telic' and 'atelic' were not coined for fun or because
somebody took it into their head to consider whether actions are goal
directed or not. They were coined because certain people noticed that
there were certain syntax behaviors & constraints that seemed best
explained by these labels.
As far as a natlang is concerned, the question must surely be whether
actions expressed with the implication of an infinite endpoint exhibit
any behaviors not shared by telic and atelic VPs. If they do, then you
have proved your point.
As far as Conlangs are concerned, I have already conceded that
'anti-telic' may be a possibility. It is, therefore, up to any
Conlanger, who so wishes, to implement this in her/his own conlang.
That's one reason some people do conlang: to try out new ideas.
[snip]
>> 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.
>
> Understood. It seemed that earlier you were arguing that it was indeed
> impossible at all.
Sorry - Perhaps my question would have been better expressed as: "But
can anything continue indefinitely our temporal universe?" I see now
that using the indefinite article rather than "a" might have given the
impression that I was questioning all con-universes. That was not my
intention.
But it was also intended as a genuine question. It seems to me that the
answer is possibly - "Well, no, not in the literal sense, but we may in
exaggeration or in story-telling or in theorizing talk of something as
tho it does."
> For that matter, viz my statements above, I think you're wrong about
> saying that it would be impossible to have in a natlang. Obviously
> there have been (and exist) many many languages whose cultures know
> nothing of the metaphysical / duration of the universe arguments
> you've mentioned. :-P
Yes, but the idea of death & impermanence has been pretty strong in
human cultures. But the question seems to me whether 'anti-telic' VPs
have been attested in any natlangs as distinct from telic & atelic VPs.
[snip]
>
> I'm still waiting for any examples. :-P
"Sai will never stop waiting for anti-telic examples" :-P
--
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 (21)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Anti-telic?
Posted by: "Rodlox R" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:31 pm (PDT)
>From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Anti-telic?
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:44:46 -0700
>
>Monsoons seem clearly telic; the have to end (for climate reasons) at
>some point. Worst you could have is a couple months of 'em.
>
>Repetition isn't the issue, it's when the event ends.
Ah. My apologies. (my mistake).
I thought I had read that one of the categories was "it's happened before,
and it's going to happen later, but it isn't happening now".....this isn't
the first time I misread something.
Thank you for the clarification.
have nice days.
>
>If you were creating some other verb meaning to-have-a-monsoon-anually....
>:-P
>
>- Sai
>
>On 7/13/06, Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>If I may ask, would it be a form of "telic" or "gnomic" apply to events
>>such
>>as monsoons {which repeat on an annual basis} ?
>>
>>And would it be the same whether a monsoon was presently taking
Messages in this topic (21)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Anti-telic?
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:31 pm (PDT)
On 7/14/06, Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I thought I had read that one of the categories was "it's happened before,
> and it's going to happen later, but it isn't happening now".....this isn't
> the first time I misread something.
That was a separate idea, for a 'cyclic' tense (in the same series as
past, present, future, non-past, non-future, et al).
- Sai
Messages in this topic (21)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:30 pm (PDT)
Is this a new theory, or have I just re-discovered
something old?
Hypothesis: For any language, when two elements of a
sentence have an important relationship with each
other, those two elements will be immediately adjacent
in the sentence.
Definitions:
Tag: A string appended to a word or element to
identify its role in the sentence.
Sentence Element: a single word, or any number of
words that have been fused together into a single
element.
Fusion: The process of joining two tagged
elements to form a new element which is then given its
own tag.
Fusion Rule: A rule which specifies the two tags
types that may be fused and the resulting tag type of
the fused element.
A Fusion Grammar: A collection of fusion rules
which is complete in the sense that any sentence of
the language may, by repeated application of the
rules, eventually be fused into a single element which
represents the complete fusion parse of that sentence.
Example: In this example I won't bother to tag the
words and elements. Their roles should be clear for
such a simple example.
Sentence: The big ugly dog that Mary brought home
yesterday has been barking all night.
The sentence is scanned from left to right until a
fusion rule is found that can be applied.
Result: The big (ugly dog) that Mary brought home
yesterday has been barking all night.
Here "ugly" and "dog" have been fused into a single
element. We could, if we wanted to, coin a new single
word for that element and paraphrase the sentence
using that coined word. E.g. (blending "motly" and
"mutt" we coin "mott", meaning "ugly dog". Then the
paraphrase is: The big mott that Mary brought home
yesterday has been barking all night.
Next, we return to the beginning of the sentence and
scan again until a rule can be applied. This time
"big" is fused with "(ugly dog)" giving us: The (big
(ugly dog)) that Mary brought home yesterday has been
barking all night. Again, we could, if we so desired,
coin a new word for the element (big (ugly dog)), for
example, "ubermott", giving us the paraphrase: The
ubermott that Mary brought home yesterday has been
barking all night.
Next we fuse "the" with (big (ugly dog)) (or
"ubermott", giving "d'ubermott"?)
(The (big (ugly dog))) that Mary brought home
yesterday has been barking all night.
Without going into excruciated details of each step,
we can see that eventually "all" will fuse with
"night" to create an element (all night)
representative of a span of time. "has" and "been"
fuse together to create an element with a tense
modifier tag (has been), and this element fuses with
the adjacent ING-tagged verb "barking" to form the
element ((has been) barking). The fused element (Mary
brought) fuses with a location to give us ((Mary
brought) home), an action qualified by location. This
element is then fused with the adjacent temporal
modifier "yesterday" to give us an action located in
both time and space: (((Mary brought home) yesterday),
and then marked as equivalent to a post-positioned
adjective: (that (((Mary brought home) yesterday)).
This element is then fused with the thing that it is
adjacent to, giving us the single element:
((The (big (ugly dog))) (that (((Mary brought) home)
yesterday))). This entire element is tagged as being
equivalent to a noun, and again we might be able to
coin a single word to paraphrase that entire element,
say "Fido" for example. The sentence paraphrase is
then: (Fido) ((has been) barking) (all night)).
Next we join the noun-like element named "Fido" to the
adjacent verb-like element ((has been) barking) to
create an element tagged SV which represents an event.
Finally, the temporal frame of reference (all night)
is fused to the adjacent event giving us a single
element; an event with a temporal frame of reference:
(((The (big (ugly dog))) (that (((Mary brought) home)
yesterday)))(((has been) barking) (all night))))
This is the complete fusion parse of the sentence.
If there are multiple ways to fuse pairs or multiple
ways to tag elements then each alternative is
developed in parallel.
If the sentence is inherently unambiguous only one
parse will be capable of completion at the end. If the
sentence is inherently ambiguous then multiple
complete parses will be produced.
Hypothesis: For any natural language, related elements
are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
complete fusion grammar for that language.
Comments? Counterexamples?
--gary
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:15 pm (PDT)
Gary wrote:
<<
Hypothesis: For any language, when two elements of a
sentence have an important relationship with each
other, those two elements will be immediately adjacent
in the sentence
>>
Check out iconicity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconicity
Thought we discussed it on the list recently... There was
a paper I read on it in some class, the point essentially being
that related elements in a sentence will tell you how related
they are to one another by their distance. Looks like there's
a whole journal devoted to it now... Anyway, it may or may
not be relevant.
-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 (6)
________________________________________________________________________
6c. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Patrick Littell" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:54 pm (PDT)
On 7/14/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:>
> Hypothesis: For any natural language, related elements
> are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
> complete fusion grammar for that language.
>
> Comments? Counterexamples?
>
To the extent that a language lacks constituency, it will be a
counterexample; the extreme examples of nonconfigurationality
(Warlpiri, etc.) would lead to nearly insurmountable problems. (In
Warlpiri you could, for example, put "dog" and the beginning and "old"
at the end and "ugly" in the middle.)
If the hypothesis were weakened quite a bit, it would perhaps be
interesting to test. For example, "For any natural language, given a
sentence containing three constituents x y z where x and y are more
closely related than x and z, x and y will tend to be closer
(linearly? hierarchically?) than x and z." You could then do an
analysis of sentences in (say) Warlpiri and see if related elements
are statistically more *likely* to be close than unrelated elements
(even though they needn't be).
About "Fusion Grammar" in general: Aside from the issues above, some
modification may be needed to prevent circularity. (Or I'm just
misreading things, in which case I apologize in advance.) In order to
parse the sentence above, it appears you already have to *know* its
meaning. Take "Mary's ugly dog". You have to know "ugly" is related
to "dog" (rather than Mary) in order to "fuse" them. But this is
knowledge you would only have if you've already parsed the sequence.
(This is how it appeared to me from reading it, but on subsequent
readings it appears that it's nonsemantic information that's guiding
the fusion and that you're just not giving the details so as not to
bore us with grammatical rules we already know. If that's the case,
ignore the above.)
Roughly, though, the way you're building up the phrase structure isn't
so different from the sort of Bare Phrase Structure that's popular in
the Minimalist program.
-- Pat
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
6d. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:40 pm (PDT)
--- Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:>
> > Hypothesis: For any natural language, related
> elements
> > are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
> > complete fusion grammar for that language.
> >
> > Comments? Counterexamples?
> >
>
> To the extent that a language lacks constituency, it
> will be a
> counterexample; the extreme examples of
> nonconfigurationality
> (Warlpiri, etc.) would lead to nearly insurmountable
> problems. (In
> Warlpiri you could, for example, put "dog" and the
> beginning and "old"
> at the end and "ugly" in the middle.)
Interesting. I'd love to take a look at some sample
sentences in Warlpiri. What is it that links these
distant elements syntactically or semantically?
> About "Fusion Grammar" in general: Aside from the
> issues above, some
> modification may be needed to prevent circularity.
> (Or I'm just
> misreading things, in which case I apologize in
> advance.) In order to
> parse the sentence above, it appears you already
> have to *know* its
> meaning. Take "Mary's ugly dog". You have to know
> "ugly" is related
> to "dog" (rather than Mary) in order to "fuse" them.
<snip>
In this case (where Mary's might be a possesive or it
might be a contraction of "Mary is") both cases are
developed in parallel. The 's would be expanded as
both "Mary is" and "Mary OWNEROF" (where "OWNEROF" is
a sort of internal possesive particle).
Then both phrases would be parsed, and ultimately, by
the time the whole sentence has been parsed from both
starting points, one of the parses will not be capable
of completion while the other will. In case the
sentence is inherently ambiguous then both parses will
be completed and the ambiguity will be revealed by the
existence of more than one valid parse.
At the intermediate stages of parsing there may well
be dozens of copies of the sentence being worked on
concurrently until one of them is revealed to be
completable at the end, at which time the others are
discarded.
Thus: Mary's ugly dog barked.
1a: Mary (is ugly) dog barked.
1b: (Mary OWNEROF) (ugly dog) barked.
2a: (Mary (is ugly)).SV (dog barked).SV
2b: ((Mary OWNEROF)(ugly dog)) barked.
3a: No SV+SV rule. Cannot be completed.
3b: (((Mary OWNEROF)(ugly dog)) barked).SV
3b has an SV fusion as the last step while 3a has no
applicable fusion rule and is discarded, thus
resolving the ambiguity. Since the virtual element
"START" that occurs invisibly at the beginning of each
sentence has a rule for fusing with type SV to form a
sentence, (simultaneously consuming the last element)
the parse is complete.
Note also that "tags" might also encode semantic
information. Rather than just being tagged as a noun,
for example, something might be tagged as a "liquid
(or pourable sunstance like flour, sugar, etc.)", or
as an "animate being". Thus the tags could be more
specific than simple parts of speech, and verbs that
apply to liquids (pour, drink, spill) might have rules
that fuse them with nouns specifically capable of the
action described by the verb. Thus "Who is the
president of the United States." could never be
mistaken for the assertion that the rock band "Who"
holds that office.
It also occurs to me that fusion rules might include
specific words rather than just tags. The word "the"
for example, might be included in a rule as the
literal word rather than some tag type. I'm not sure
if that's useful or not yet. I'll need to get a little
further along in formalizing the rules before I can
tell.
--gary
>
> Roughly, though, the way you're building up the
> phrase structure isn't
> so different from the sort of Bare Phrase Structure
> that's popular in
> the Minimalist program.
>
> -- Pat
>
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
6e. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:51 pm (PDT)
Gary Shannon wrote:
> Hypothesis: For any natural language, related elements
> are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
> complete fusion grammar for that language.
>
> Comments? Counterexamples?
>
Did you want counterexamples from English?
(did ... want)
Or how about Dutch?
Steek er nu mee de niet-brandende fakkel aan om de deur te openen.
You've got "nu" (now) in the middle of "ermee" (with it), and "aan"
which is part of the word "aansteken" (to light; the sentence refers to
lighting a torch) at the end of the phrase with "steek" at the beginning.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
6f. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:37 pm (PDT)
--- Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Gary Shannon wrote:
>
> > Hypothesis: For any natural language, related
> elements
> > are always immediately adjacent and there exists a
> > complete fusion grammar for that language.
> >
> > Comments? Counterexamples?
> >
>
> Did you want counterexamples from English?
>
> (did ... want)
We need to keep in mind the the actual role played by
each word. In this sentence the word "did" functions
as a query-marking particle (tag:QMP) with the literal
meaning: "Is the following statement true?"
Then we parse the marked statement:
(((you want).SV counterexamples).SVO (from
English)).SVO
which contains the complete .SVO fusion ((you want).SV
counterexamples).SVO which is further qualified by
fusing it with a source element (from English). This
entire complete SVO element is then attached to the
query marking particle turning it into a question:
((did).QMP (((you want).SV counterexamples).SVO (from
English)).SVO).QUERY
There is also the possiblity that element
transposition rules could be employed that do not
violate adjacency of the related pairs. For example,
there is no graceful way to parse "was gently falling
on the ground", because the proper parse would be
((was falling) gently). However, in the proper parse
"gently" remains adjacent to "falling", suggesting
that the rules may allow for limited transposition as
long as the critical adjaceny is not broken, and no
group can be based on an incidental adjacency created
by the transposition. Transposition would have to put
a wall between the transposed word and any word that
follows it: "was falling gently | on the ground"
In the case of "did you want", transposition results
in "you did want" which has an entirely different
meaning since (did want) puts "want" into the past and
destroys the query nature of the sentence. With the
wall placed between "did" and "want", e.g. "did |
want" that erroneous fusion is forbidden.
The fact that the deep meaning of "did" changes
radically with that transposition suggests that
transposition rules cannot be applied in this case,
and that interpreting "did" as a query-marking
particle that properly belongs at the front of the
query, rather than a past tense marker, is reasonable.
>
> Or how about Dutch?
>
> Steek er nu mee de niet-brandende fakkel aan om de
> deur te openen.
>
> You've got "nu" (now) in the middle of "ermee" (with
> it), and "aan"
> which is part of the word "aansteken" (to light; the
> sentence refers to
> lighting a torch) at the end of the phrase with
> "steek" at the beginning.
>
I don't know any Dutch, but I do have a dictionary, so
here goes...
Seperable prefixes really need to be re-interpreted as
attachable particles. "annsteken" is analyzed "ann
steken" analagous to the English "uplight" or "up
light", as in to light up a thing. Such words might
require adjacency rules involving a central element
being surrounded by two bookend elements. In other
words, the adjacency is more strict because the middle
word has to satisfy TWO adjaceny rules simultaneously.
For example in: (om (de deur) te) where (de deur)
requires simultaneous adjacency to both bookends, "om
... te" forming an element with three members. I
imagine bookend adjacency will be required in English
as well for things like "AS big AS".
Steek ... aan is a (possibly) different situation
because the "Steek" gets fused early. But once fused,
it marks it ancestral elements as requiring the "aan"
particle after it has assimilated the subject noun.
There is a simlimar construction in English in "Light
the torch _up_...", and "Burn the castle _down_..."
With that analysis I will gloss the sentence as
follows: (I know NO Ducth, so correct me if I'm way
off base here.)
Steek - Light
er - it
nu - now
mee - with
de - the
niet-brandende - [ignition device?]
fakkel - torch
aan - up
om - in-order
de - the
deur - door
te - to
openen - open
Light it now with the [ignition device?] torch up
in-order the door to open.
Light it now with (the [ignition device?]) torch up
in-order (the door) to open.
Light it now (with (the [ignition device?])) torch
up (in-order (the door) to open).
(((Light it) now) (with (the [ignition device?])))
torch up (in-order (the door) to open).
(((((Light it) now) (with (the [ignition device?])))
torch) up) (in-order (the door) to open).
Now we have the apparent complete sub-sentence: "Steek
er nu mee de niet-brandende fakkel aan." parsed, and
we need only fuse it with the "reason-why" modifier
((om (de deur) te) openen).
This is a first draft only, and I'm sure it could be
improved on. I'll need to give more thought to
seperable prefixes (alias attachable particles) in
Dutch and German.
--gary
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Vowel Harmony in Proto-Thagojian
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:51 pm (PDT)
All this talk of vowel harmony has made me think about vowel harmony in
Proto-Thagojian.
First, the old pattern:
Front: i e E
Back: u o O
Neutral: i\ @ 6
Now the new pattern, which is closer to PIE:
All vowels:
i i\ u
e o
A
Romanization:
i y u
e o
a
Harmony groups:
Front: i y e
Back: y u o
Open: e o a
Roots may contain any vowels.
Suffixes have underspecified I U A vowels, which map to the three vowels
of the front, back or open group depending on the last vowel of the root.
If the last vowel is y, e, or o, harmony is based on the previous vowel
with the last vowel as a hint (recursively). If no harmony group can be
established, a word is by default front harmony.
Examples:
lhev- "fame" + -Ant "containing/having" -> lhevent "famous"
soku- "juice" + -Ant -> sokvont "juicy"
Paul
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8a. Re: Unknown pronoun
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:27 pm (PDT)
On 7/11/06, Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I just "discovered" an interesting pronoun in the shaquean grammar:
> /yoç(a)/ [woCa] --where (a) is a case marking.
.......
> So far, I call /yoça/ a singular anaphoric personal pronoun. It belongs
> to the closed class of substitutive (anaphoric/cataphoric) pronouns
> which also contains an impersonal substitutive pronoun.
Does this imply you have some pronouns which
are not substitutive? How are they used?
In gzb (which is fairly minimalist lexically)
the same word is used for "pronoun" and
"substitution, replacement"; the postposition
for "instead of" is derived from the same root.
I see you have both anaphoric and cataphoric
pronouns. gzb has a series of anaphoric
and cataphoric pronouns in the third person
for animates, inanimates, and abstract situations
or events; so far it has just one pronoun for
place, theoretically anaphoric but sometimes
cataphoric. I should probably add another
cataphoric place-pronoun for symmetry.
> Questions: Waddyathink? ANADEW?
/yoç(a)/ is right spiffy.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
8b. Re: Unknown pronoun
Posted by: "Remi Villatel" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:58 pm (PDT)
Jim Henry wrote:
> On 7/11/06, Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I just "discovered" an interesting pronoun in the shaquean grammar:
>> /yoç(a)/ [woCa] --where (a) is a case marking.
> .......
>> So far, I call /yoça/ a singular anaphoric personal pronoun. It belongs
>> to the closed class of substitutive (anaphoric/cataphoric) pronouns
>> which also contains an impersonal substitutive pronoun.
>
> Does this imply you have some pronouns which
> are not substitutive? How are they used?
Good question. :-D Well, that true that all pronouns are substitutive
in some way but I call "substitutive" only the 2 ones of which this is
the only purpose.
> In gzb (which is fairly minimalist lexically)
> the same word is used for "pronoun" and
> "substitution, replacement"; the postposition
> for "instead of" is derived from the same root.
I have no native word for "pronoun" yet. I think I'll follow your lead
and derive the word "substitute"... if you don't mind.
> I see you have both anaphoric and cataphoric
> pronouns. gzb has a series of anaphoric
Apart /yoça/ which can only be anaphoric, Shaquelingua only has one
pronoun which is cataphoric by default and becomes explicitly anaphoric
or cataphoric thanks to a prefix. That's enough. There are already 29
shaquean pronouns... plus the deferential form of the 10 ways to say
"you" (singular, dual and plural).
Hmm... Plus one. There must be a deferential form of /yoça/ too!
> and cataphoric pronouns in the third person
> for animates, inanimates, and abstract situations
> or events; so far it has just one pronoun for
> place, theoretically anaphoric but sometimes
> cataphoric. I should probably add another
> cataphoric place-pronoun for symmetry.
Or maybe not in order to have some irregularity. I just realized the
reflexive and reciprocal pronouns (oneself and eachother) can also be
either anaphoric or cataphoric without special derivation or prefix,
depending on their place in the sentence. That's very irregular. ;-)
/je söle çöröo tö'çka./ {je: sO4e COXO"o tO:'Cka] (We'll discuss again.)
--
==================
Remi Villatel
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
==================
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
Posted by: "Abrigon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:37 pm (PDT)
But other than for dictionaries and like, the IPA does not seem
to be workable for any language, atleast for writing and like?
Taking notes and things long hand, with a cursive form I suspect
becomming quite confusion and run together, with several like
letters becomming indestinguishible.
Yes, the SH sound, and how it is spelled, changing it would be a
major change.. Leaving the French spelling behind and spell them
closer to how they are spoken would be a major plus.
But major thing still is, is the Latin Characters all that good
for any language? IPA yes seems to be alot better adaptation of
the Latin Alphabet for a wider ranger of languages, but how do
you do cursive in it?
English an easy language to learn, but hard to learn how to
spell it?
Mike
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
