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There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
From: Tristan Alexander McLeay
1b. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
From: R A Brown
2a. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
From: John Quijada
2b. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
From: And Rosta
2c. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
From: Mark J. Reed
3a. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Gary Shannon
3b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: R A Brown
3c. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Alex Fink
4a. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Hanuman Zhang
4b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: Sai Emrys
4c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
From: R A Brown
Messages
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1a. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
Posted by: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:47 pm (PDT)
You're setting the Reply-To header with your googlemail account, which
makes it hard to reply to the mailing list. A better way of doing it
is to set up a new identity --- then, your From address appears as
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (or whatever). So I'm sending this from a Google Mail
account, but my email address appears as "[EMAIL PROTECTED]", but
replies are directed to the list. You can do it from the "Accounts"
page of the GMail Settings.
On 15/07/06, Abrigon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 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.
SH isn't all that bad. It's things like "ough" or "sugar" or all the
myriad ways to spell /@/ that make our language hard to spell!
> 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?
Well, when you say "Latin Characters", what do you mean?
ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (i.e., no J, U or W)? Well then, that's
obviously somewhat limiting, but was adequate for an earlier form of
Latin (forfeiting denoting vowel length distictions for some reason,
but they did double consonants for consonant length
distinctions---anyone know why?). But if you mean the whole of the
alphabet, only Cyrillic seems to be as flexible. Most other alphabets
don't have ways to write exotic vowels like [2] or [7] or can't write
complex syllable structures in simple ways or are great for some
language families but appalling for more others. Through use the Latin
and Cyrillic alphabets seem to have acquired many options for
extending themselves to novel environments, including through outright
novel forms (e.g. ramshorns), borrowing letters from other scripts
(thorn, gamma), diacritics, digraphs, ligatures, all sorts.
As for using some of the IPA extensions in a regular alphabet, sure,
some characters are hard to distinguish in handwriting (like u and
upsilon/bucket, normal and small cap i, or normal and fishhook r, or
normal and script a, and probably in quick writing gamma and the
ramshorns). But in practice you could still use them, albeit a bit
differently. I doubt any language uses /e/ and /E/ and /&/ and /a/ and
/A/, so you could just shuffle them around a bit.
Probably it's usually easier to just go the traditional route and add
diacritics to letters tho, like a diaerisis or a caron or a slash or
whatever.
> English an easy language to learn, but hard to learn how to
> spell it?
More likely read it, for EFL learners. One common way for non-native
speakers to say something incomprehensibly is when they say a word the
way it's spelt (either according to their native language's rules,
English "rules", or some combination thereof). (If it's your native
language, all languages are equally easy to learn, so the first half
of that sentence is meaningless. Of course, it's still somewhat
difficult to learn to spell...)
--
Tristan.
Messages in this topic (22)
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1b. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:25 am (PDT)
Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
[snip]
> On 15/07/06, Abrigon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>> But major thing still is, is the Latin Characters all that good
>> for any language?
Quite good for Latin :)
>> 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?
>
>
> Well, when you say "Latin Characters", what do you mean?
> ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (i.e., no J, U or W)?
And Y and Z are really Greek letters added to the alphabet in the 1st
cent BCE to denote Greek sounds in borrowed words.
But this is how the Latin alphabet has developed: by adding extra
letters (e.g. Y and Z) and adapting existing letters to give new ones
(e.g. J, U, W) :)
>Well then, that's
> obviously somewhat limiting, but was adequate for an earlier form of
> Latin (forfeiting denoting vowel length distictions for some reason,
> but they did double consonants for consonant length
> distinctions---anyone know why?).
In fact long vowels were occasionally marked, either by writing them
twice or by using a mark similar to the acute accent. But the fact that
neither system actually caught on is indication that the Romans did not
feel that this made Latin significantly easier to read.
It should be remembered that the ancients knew nothing of phonemic
theory, not ever aimed to spell 100% phonemically :)
> But if you mean the whole of the
> alphabet, only Cyrillic seems to be as flexible.
Exactly - the Latin alphabet has in fact proved remarkably adaptable.
[snip]
> Through use the Latin
> and Cyrillic alphabets seem to have acquired many options for
> extending themselves to novel environments, including through outright
> novel forms (e.g. ramshorns), borrowing letters from other scripts
> (thorn, gamma), diacritics, digraphs, ligatures, all sorts.
Exactly!
> As for using some of the IPA extensions in a regular alphabet, sure,
> some characters are hard to distinguish in handwriting
Some IPA symbols have in fact been used, e.g. ɛ and ɔ are used in some
African orthographies.
Surely there is evidence enough that the Latin script has been adapted
for a whole host of quite different languages; similarly, in the former
Soviet Union, the Cyrillic script showed itself to be similarly adaptable.
But, hey, isn't the subject line about adapting *non-Latin* scripts?
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}
Messages in this topic (22)
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2a. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
Posted by: "John Quijada" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:49 pm (PDT)
Sally Caves wrote:
...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!
>=========================================================================
Trust me, Sally, if you should act on your proposal to post the
terpsichorean photo you describe, I promise to lose all interest in any
thoughts of discussing the anti-telic....
-John Q.
p.s. And David: please accept my belated compliments on your delightful
book. It is inspiring! If only I could churn out Ithkuil translations
quickly (it takes about 2 to 3 hours per sentence) -- I'd create an
illuminated little oevre myself methinks!
Messages in this topic (36)
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2b. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
Posted by: "And Rosta" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:19 am (PDT)
Sally Caves, On 15/07/2006 06:33:
> 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.
Most of your messages to the list do appear to be reaching me. But I seem to
have missed the one you refer to here; I think I would have remembered it, had
I seen it. Please resend.
And then hopefully the picture can be translated into a David Peterson
kunstwerk, in which his innate pictorial flair is now married to a newly
heightened consciousness of feminine anatomy.
--And.
Messages in this topic (36)
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2c. Re: Megdevi Book (was Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:31 am (PDT)
Sally Caves:
SC> I am unsure, too, if others have seen it, unless I put something really
SC> provocative in it, such as a link to a picture of myself nude and
SC> dancing dipsomaniacally on a table.
John Quijada:
JQ> Trust me, Sally, if you should act on your proposal to post the
JQ> terpsichorean photo you describe, I promise to lose all interest in any
JQ> thoughts of discussing the anti-telic....
And Rosta:
AR> Most of your messages to the list do appear to be reaching me. But
I seem to have missed
AR> the one you refer to here; I think I would have remembered it, had
I seen it. Please resend.
Heh!
AR> And then hopefully the picture can be translated into a David
Peterson kunstwerk, in which
AR> his innate pictorial flair is now married to a newly heightened
consciousness of feminine
AR> anatomy.
See, this is why I love the list. I learn not only new languages, but
new words in my own language! "Terpsichorean" I was already familiar
with, but dipso- was a new kind of -mania for me. (As the parent of a
toddler, I had visions of a maniacal Dipsy the Teletubbie...) Nor was
I familiar with the term "kunstwerk" - I'm insufficiently urbane, I
guess. I was only able to find a translation of it as "work of art" -
is there a more specific connotation with that particular word choice?
(Also, as an inurbane Anglophone, I must say that when the topic of
female anatomy and kunstwerk come up together - type carefully. :)
Finally, since this is my first post on this thread, to David: HOLY
BLEEPING BLEEP! That is awesome. I would love to have anything half
that complete in one of my langs.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (36)
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3a. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:30 am (PDT)
--- Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (I don't know why my posts don't show up recently--I
> hope this one goes through)
>
> In classical Greek, words that are otherwise
> "tightly related" may be kind of
> scattered around by English standard. For instance
> the verb of the sentence
> could wedge inbetween an article or an adjective and
> their noun, etc.
>
> Mathias
I would imagine that "fusion" is less likely to work
in highly inflected languages as well. Perhaps it only
really applies to uninflected and lightly inflected
languages. I might take a shot at trying it on some
Latin sentences and see what happens.
--gary
Messages in this topic (10)
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3b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:06 am (PDT)
Gary Shannon wrote:
> --- Taka Tunu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>>(I don't know why my posts don't show up recently--I
>>hope this one goes through)
>>
>>In classical Greek, words that are otherwise
>>"tightly related" may be kind of
>>scattered around by English standard. For instance
>>the verb of the sentence
>>could wedge inbetween an article or an adjective and
>>their noun, etc.
True that words could get scattered around like mad in Classical Greek,
But the main verb between article & noun? I am surprised. could you give
the example?
> I would imagine that "fusion" is less likely to work
> in highly inflected languages as well. Perhaps it only
> really applies to uninflected and lightly inflected
> languages. I might take a shot at trying it on some
> Latin sentences and see what happens.
Yes, in Classical Greek & Latin verse, words that relate can be fairly
widely separated. One will also find this in rhetorical styles where it
is clearly done for effect.
In more colloquial styles things that go together in meaning tend to be
fairly close, tho it is always possible to displace, say, an adjective
for effect, emphasis etc.
The degree of displacement and/or fusion would, I am sure, vary in
different genre. What we would really like, of course, would be actual
recordings of everyday speech - and that, alas, is not a possibility ;)
--
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 (10)
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3c. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:30 am (PDT)
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:22:05 -0700, 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?
>From a formal language theory point of view, the set of languages with
fusion grammars (without transposition) seems to be equal to the set of
context-free languages. So how about examples of non-context-free behaviour
in natural language?
For example, a quick Google turns up
http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~michael/esslli2004/flt.pdf
containining a potential English counterexample:
| * Bar-Hillel and Shamir (1960):
| - English contains copy-language
| - cannot be context-free
| * Consider the sentence
| John, Mary, David, ... are a widower, a widow, a widower, ...,
| respectively.
| * Claim: the sentence is only grammatical under the condition that
| if the nth name is male (female) then the nth phrase after the
| copula is a widower (a widow)
How would you handle this, having for instance 'male noun (phrase)' and
'female noun (phrase)' tags? On the other hand, the counterargument is
later offered that "crossing dependencies triggered by _respectively_ are
semantic rather than syntactic"; so maybe this is a non-issue.
But then there's this Dutch (again!) example:
| dat Jan Marie Pieter Arabisch laat zien schrijven
| THAT JAN MARIE PIETER ARABIC LET SEE WRITE
| 'that Jan let Marie see Pieter write Arabic'
How do you handle this?
>From another message:
> 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).
Why treat these as contractions, and expand them? Why not just say there
are two words "Mary's", with tag types 'SV' (for "Mary is") and whatever
type "Mary OWNEROF" is?
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 21:29:42 -0700, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>--- 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?"
[...]
>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.
But "did you want counterexamples from English?" has past tense as well.
Compare "Do you want...?" and its counterpart "you (do) want...", which
don't. All the varying placement is really changing is the illocutionary
force, from an assertion to a question.
If "did" is a query-marking particle, how do you account for the behaviour
of auxiliary verbs, which appear moved to the same position in questions?
"Can you come?" "Will you come?"
>From the snippage:
> Then we parse the marked statement:
>
> (((you want).SV counterexamples).SVO (from
> English)).SVO
It's interesting that you consider the verb to bind more tightly to the
subject than the object. Mainstream syntax would have the V bind more
tightly to the O: (you (want counterexamples)).
In any case, whatever you let the verb fuse with, you'll have trouble
handling at least one of the word orders SOV (if V fuses to S) or VSO (if V
fuses to O). Does this call for a transposition rule?
Alex
Messages in this topic (10)
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4a. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Hanuman Zhang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:49 am (PDT)
oh frkkin' crap...
At first, I actually misread that as "stunted folk etymologist"...
*rubs lil beady eyes*
... even me bloody brainies are havin' Freudian slips...
on 7/14/06 7:42 PM, Eugene Oh at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 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
--
Hanuman Zhang
"It's human to make mistakes and some of us are more human than others."
- Ashleigh Brilliant
Messages in this topic (41)
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4b. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 1:08 am (PDT)
... am I crazy, or has this thread gotten waaaaaaaaaaay off the original topic?
It's sorta fun to watch though, in a "wait, how did that happen?" way.
- Sai
On 7/15/06, Hanuman Zhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> oh frkkin' crap...
>
> At first, I actually misread that as "stunted folk etymologist"...
>
> *rubs lil beady eyes*
>
> ... even me bloody brainies are havin' Freudian slips...
>
>
> on 7/14/06 7:42 PM, Eugene Oh at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > 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
>
>
> --
> Hanuman Zhang
>
> "It's human to make mistakes and some of us are more human than others."
>
> - Ashleigh Brilliant
>
Messages in this topic (41)
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4c. Re: USAGE: "I want crazy two years ago"
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:02 am (PDT)
Damien Perrotin wrote:
> Skrivet en doa Andreas Johansson:
[snip]
>>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_.
Exactly - there is no connexion between the prefix ge- & the Germanic
verb "to go".
> 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
Is this just extra info, or are you suggesting there _is_ a connexion
between ga- and gangan etc?
I thought the Germanic prefix ge-/ga- was cognate with Latin co(n)- and
similar prefixes in other IE langs. Nothing to do with "to go". BTW what
is the origin of the Germanic verb for "go"?
===================================
As for Mike's
"Ge = verb notice or something like that.
Ich habe Gesprocken = I have spoken.
Ich Ge = I go? "
Yes, it may be a bit of wild folk etymology. But I'm never quite certain
with Mike. It could've been intended as a humorous wind-up. Remember the
progress~Congress thing and more recently 'San-skrit'?
If only he'd use the occasional smiley :)
--
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 (41)
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