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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Gary Shannon
2a. Happy Conlang Day!
From: Philip Newton
2b. Re: Happy Conlang Day!
From: Wesley Parish
3. Re: TECH: Switching to a better e-mail program
From: Henrik Theiling
4a. Jovian phonological changes (WAS: Re: Re: Translation challenge: Fia
From: Christian Thalmann
4b. Re: Jovian phonological changes (WAS: Re: Re: Translation challenge:
From: Henrik Theiling
5a. Re: A CONLANG FAQ?
From: Carsten Becker
5b. Re: A CONLANG FAQ?
From: Mark J. Reed
6a. Sailorspeak
From: Mark J. Reed
6b. Re: Sailorspeak
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6c. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Roger Mills
6d. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Mark J. Reed
6e. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Roger Mills
6f. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Paul Bennett
6g. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Keith Gaughan
7. Re: free word-order conlangs (was: Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Carsten Becker
8a. Re: free word-order conlangs
From: taliesin the storyteller
8b. Re: free word-order conlangs
From: Patrick Littell
9. Re: Theta Role Question
From: Jonathan Knibb
10a. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Eldin Raigmore
10b. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Dirk Elzinga
11a. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
From: Eldin Raigmore
11b. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
From: Mark J. Reed
12. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
From: Adam Walker
13. test, please ignore
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:42 pm (PDT)
--- Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Gary Shannon wrote:
> > I really having trtouble understanding the
> function of
> > "er...mee" in this sentence. What, exactly, is the
> > "er...mee" telling us? It's not what the torch was
> lit
> > "with", so what is it?
>
> For some context, the previous sentence is: "Pak een
> Deku Stick en steek
> hem aan bij de brandende fakkel." The gist of this
> is something like
> "Grab a Deku Stick and light it with the burning
> torch." So the "er ...
> mee" is referring to the Deku Stick. "Now light the
> non-burning torch
> with it to open the door."
>
> http://home.hccnet.nl/j.a.hildering/deku.htm
>
Ah! I see, said the blind man. It all makes sense now.
--gary
Messages in this topic (26)
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2a. Happy Conlang Day!
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:51 am (PDT)
Apparently, today (18 July) is Conlang Day! It's also Boudewijn and
Irina Rempt's wedding anniversary, though I'm not sure whether the two
are connected. Best wishes to them, too!
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (2)
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2b. Re: Happy Conlang Day!
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:28 am (PDT)
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:46, Philip Newton wrote:
> Apparently, today (18 July) is Conlang Day! It's also Boudewijn and
> Irina Rempt's wedding anniversary, though I'm not sure whether the two
> are connected. Best wishes to them, too!
Congratulations!
>
> Cheers,
--
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-------------
Mau ki ana, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku ki ana, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
Messages in this topic (2)
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3. Re: TECH: Switching to a better e-mail program
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:48 am (PDT)
Hi!
Peter Ara Guekguezian writes:
>...
> 2) Is there any easy way to switch addresses, besides the obvious one of
> cancelling CONLANG-LIST at this address and subscribing at the new one?
> Or, can I just tell the 'listserv' the new address I wish to use for this
> list?
You do not need to do the unsubscribe/resubscribe cycle.
You can directly tell listserv the new address by sending a mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] from you *old* address, containing the
following mail *body*:
change conlang [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (4)
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4a. Jovian phonological changes (WAS: Re: Re: Translation challenge: Fia
Posted by: "Christian Thalmann" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 4:22 am (PDT)
Sorry for the delay, I'm not reading the list daily...
--- In [email protected], Eugene Oh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Oud dsix a lionga. [od dziS @ liNg] "That there be a language!"
> > Oud dsix lionga. [od dziS liNg] "That there be language!"
> > Oud fi facte a lionga. [o pfi vaXt @ liNg] "That a language be made!"
>
> I'm curious about the phonological changes and the orthographic
> fossilisation that occurred to give the above correspondence! Care to
> share?
There's some info about the derivational processes on my Jovian
page, though I'm afraid it's the oldest part of the current
content, so it might be a bit unrefined:
http://www.cinga.ch/langmaking/jovian.htm#voca
Also, the chapters "Mutation" and "Sandhi" might give you some
insight into what's happening.
The main reason why the spelling seems "fossilized" is that
while the results of mutation are reflected in writing within a
word (e.g. MACHINA -> maenga [mENg]), they are not marked
*between* words (UNA MACHINA -> a maenga [@ vENg]), i.e. a word
keeps its lexical form regardless of what its neighboring words
make it sound like. This keeps all words nicely recognizable,
but makes it harder to read the text out loud correctly (though
I don't find it too hard myself, the mutations come rather
naturally to me by now).
In particular, the phrase |oud fi facte| [o pfi vaXt] is built
from the words |oud| [o], |fi| [fi] and |facte| [faXt]. The
|d| in |oud| is usually silent, but survives if it can attach
to the following word. Here, *[odfi] -> [opfi]. The change
*[fifaXt] -> [fivaXt] is lenition. The former process happens
wherever it can (e.g. |caede ed frize| [kajd e pfri:z] "hot
and cold"), whereas the latter only occurs between elements of
the same noun phrase or verb phrase: |ja fi facte| [ja fi vaXt]
"she is made" -- the |ja| does not lenit the |f| of |fi|
because the two words are not in the same phrase; the |fi| does
lenit the |facte| because they form the verb phrase |fi facte|
"is made".
As for |lionga| being [liNg], the |io| used to be a diphthong
[EMAIL PROTECTED] which got monophthongized due to being in a closed
syllable.
|Pfero, ud dsuva.| ['pfe:rA ud dzu:v] "I hope it helps." ;)
-- Christian Thalmann
Messages in this topic (3)
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4b. Re: Jovian phonological changes (WAS: Re: Re: Translation challenge:
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:35 am (PDT)
Hi!
Christian Thalmann writes:
> Sorry for the delay, I'm not reading the list daily...
>..
> http://www.cinga.ch/langmaking/jovian.htm#voca
>
> Also, the chapters "Mutation" and "Sandhi" might give you some
> insight into what's happening.
>...
Very nice! I like it a lot.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (3)
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5a. Re: A CONLANG FAQ?
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:32 am (PDT)
From: "Sai Emrys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 9:54 PM
> Basically, I'd like to suggestion that every month or so
> the list owner should post a CONLANG FAQ - what the group
> is about, relevant policies, group lingo (eg YAEPT,
> ANADEW, etc), suggestions for formatting, CXS vs Unicode
> intro, etc.
Maybe I will finally learn what "HTH" stands for then ;-)
... So you are suggesting an equivalent to "sticky threads",
Sai? For disambiguation purposes, I would rather call that
"CONLANG-L FAQ", though, since it's (as was mentioned) not
a FAQ about conlanging, but a FAQ about this list.
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Tenena, Tyemuyang 7, 2315 ya 06:10:33 pd
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: A CONLANG FAQ?
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:15 am (PDT)
On 7/18/06, Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Maybe I will finally learn what "HTH" stands for then ;-)
"Hope this helps."
HTH,
Marcos
:)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (2)
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6a. Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:37 am (PDT)
What is the origin of the stereotypical speech of Anglophonic nautical
types? Most recently it's been more closely associated with pirates
in particular (see "Talk Like a Pirate Day"), but historically it's
been attributed to sailors on both sides of the law, including the
superheroic Popeye the Sailor Man.
The basic features seem to be these. Individually all are found in
other contexts, but the particular combination is quite evocative,
especially with some nautical vocabulary sprinkled around:
- "you" supplanted by "ye" in both numbers and all cases
- "yes" replaced by "aye" (I suspect this is a misinterpretation of
the Naval tradition of using "aye" for "I hear and obey" vs "yes" for
other uses of the affirmative)
- unconjugated infinitives used as finite forms, especially "be"
- velar nasal in -ing ending replaced by alveolar -n
- intervocalic /v/ -> zero in words such as "never", "ever"
Is this a (no doubt exaggerated) version of some regional English
dialect closely associated with the sea? It has some noticeable
overlap with the stereotypical Scots dialect..
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (7)
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6b. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:27 am (PDT)
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Hash: SHA1
On Tuesday 18 July 2006 09:20, Mark J. Reed ("Mark J. Reed"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) wrote:
> - velar nasal in -ing ending replaced by alveolar -n
actually it's not just the nasal being replaced, but rather the whole ending.
"-ing" < "-inge" (old english gerund ending)
"-en" < "-ende" (old english participle ending)
and there are still some dialects that distinguish between the two.
- --
"We are the grassroots that bring change. We are the U-bend under the sink of
society. You can try to clean us up, but we collect again. We are those who
think that site mods went the way of Silicon Graphics. You can assert
authority and we will circumvent it. You can impose rules and we will break
them. You can delete us and we will return. We are 4chan, iichan, 420chan,
OnionChan, wtfux, and 0chan. We are /b/, /a/, /m/, /k/, and letters not yet
used. We are nameless gatherers - and we have power beyond a deletion option.
In the open fields of the Internet, we are nowhere and everywhere - there is
no stopping, controlling, coercing, or intruding upon us. We are limitless.
You can join us and it will end the troubles you have faced, or you can stand
against us and never truly win. [...] We will make the truth known and it
will either be ruin or nothing at all. The censorship will end, or we will
end the censorship."
-Anonymous
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Messages in this topic (7)
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6c. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:50 am (PDT)
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> What is the origin of the stereotypical speech of Anglophonic nautical
> types? Most recently it's been more closely associated with pirates
> in particular (see "Talk Like a Pirate Day"), but historically it's
> been attributed to sailors on both sides of the law, including the
> superheroic Popeye the Sailor Man.
Isn't this mainly due to the movies' adaptations of the classics, and
original films in the genre? I suppose Stevenson et al. used the vocabulary
and tried to capture the tone of voice (Aaar, matey!); but it's been a long
time since I read "Treasure Island", "Two Years before the Mast", "High Wind
in Jamaica", "Mutiny on the B." etc. so can't be sure. As best I recall,
there's little of it in "Moby Dick" (the book; I don't recall how the movie
sounded).
Just a few night ago there was a History Channel (?) program on the pirates,
their weapons and "technology". I learned where "shiver me timbers" came
from (and incidentally I guess, modern slang "shiv"); then another channel
aired the first Johnny Depp "Pirates" thing which I watched and enjoyed in
spite of myself. Quite amusing.
>
> The basic features seem to be these.
> - "you" supplanted by "ye" in both numbers and all cases
Aaar, ye left out "me" fer "my"... (snips)
It could be that all that salt air, poor nutrition, and the need to yell a
lot, would account for the stereotypical raspy voice.
> Is this a (no doubt exaggerated) version of some regional English
> dialect closely associated with the sea?
Probably a mish-mash of features (most of them still alive and well today)
typical of the poorly educated/semi-literate underclass, malcontents, petty
miscreants ("Two years in the workhouse, or join the Navy!"), hapless
victims of Shanghai-ing-- which then (with the specialized vocab.) became a
sign of group identity and solidarity. Maybe the basis would have been the
dialects of coastal areas, where the men actually knew something about
boats.
Not unlike any in-group jargon, or lingo, if you will....
> It has some noticeable
> overlap with the stereotypical Scots dialect..
It usually strikes me as more Cockney.......
Messages in this topic (7)
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6d. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:59 am (PDT)
On 7/18/06, Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Just a few nights ago there was a History Channel (?) program on the pirates,
> their weapons and "technology". I learned where "shiver me timbers" came
> from (and incidentally I guess, modern slang "shiv");
Might have been the Military Channel? The History Channel ran a doc
on the True Caribbean Pirates, whence I learned that my near-namesake
Mark Read was the male alter-ego of infamous female pirate Mary Read,
who hung out with Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonney; I don't
remember anything about "shiver me timbers". Although its first
appearance in print was apparently an utterance by Long John Silver.
Founda ref to a book which might prove useful - though I'd buy it for
the title alone:
_When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay:
Seafaring Words in Everyday Speech_ (1996) by Olivia A. Isil
> Aaar, ye left out "me" fer "my"... (snips)
Oh, indeed I did. Thank ye.
> Not unlike any in-group jargon, or lingo, if you will....
The vocabulary bit, sure, but I don't tend adopt any characteristic
accent when speaking technobabble. :)
> > It has some noticeable
> > overlap with the stereotypical Scots dialect..
>
> It usually strikes me as more Cockney.......
Don't hear a lot of "aye"s in Cockney. :)
In other news, I received an email from Janko Gorenc in reply to this
thread, asking for the numbers 1-10 in Sailorspeak. *sigh*
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (7)
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6e. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:17 pm (PDT)
Mark J. Read wrote:
> On 7/18/06, Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Just a few nights ago there was a History Channel (?) program on the
> > pirates,
> > their weapons and "technology". I learned where "shiver me timbers" came
> > from (and incidentally I guess, modern slang "shiv");
>
> Might have been the Military Channel? The History Channel ran a doc
> on the True Caribbean Pirates, .... I don't
> remember anything about "shiver me timbers". Although its first
> appearance in print was apparently an utterance by Long John Silver.
History Chan. has run several things lately on Pirates, what a
coincidence...
I forget now whether "shiv" 'splinter' or "to shiver" 'to splinter' came
first, but "shivering the timbers" 'splintering the masts' was clearly a
technique of naval warfare, and esp. of the pirates, who didn't want to sink
their prey, just disable it so they could board and plunder. It took a
special kind of cannon-shot aimed specifically at the masts: two balls
attached by a short chain-- when fired, they spun and had devastating
effects. So it must have been naval jargon from quite a ways back.
> Founda ref to a book which might prove useful - though I'd buy it for
> the title alone:
>
> _When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay:
> Seafaring Words in Everyday Speech_ (1996) by Olivia A. Isil
That does sound good! But "flogging a dead horse"...seafaring?
>
> > Not unlike any in-group jargon, or lingo, if you will....
> The vocabulary bit, sure, but I don't tend adopt any
> characteristic accent when speaking technobabble. :)
I'll take your word for that. I had more in mind things like the gay
subculture (when it was much more sub), the trucker/CBer phenomenon, Valley
Girls, Garrison Keillor's Minnesotans, some Anglophiles-- any easily
parodied group whether by accent or vocab.
I had a very brief encounter with some genuwine beatniks back ca. 1956-- a
group of 5 or 6 out of Black Mountain College (plus Gregory Corso, the only
one TMK who would be at all familiar) showed up on the fringes of Harvard
for a while. They were unshaven and unwashed, and utterly scandalized much
of the community.... Anyhow, I somehow learned that one of them was a quite
good mechanic, and since my decrepit car needed work, I spent an afternoon
working and talking with him in some garage (a very pleasant guy, actually.)
At one point his very bearded companion (whom we called Jesus) showed up to
help, and Mechanic languidly asked him, "Hey man, you lamped any bougies
['buZiz]?" Amazingly, since I'd read one of the recent "how to talk like a
beatnik" articles, I knew what he meant-- "have you seen any spark-plugs?".
An afternoon of culture-shock all 'round, I'd wager.
I confess, I always had admiration of, and yearnings to live, a really
Bohemian life, but was too middle-class and addicted to creature comforts to
actually go and do it.........
Messages in this topic (7)
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6f. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:18 pm (PDT)
-----Original Message-----
>From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>On 7/18/06, Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Aaar, ye left out "me" fer "my"... (snips)
>
>Oh, indeed I did. Thank ye.
*"Aye, that I did. Thank ye."
Paul
Messages in this topic (7)
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6g. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Keith Gaughan" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:34 pm (PDT)
On Tue, Jul 18, 2006 at 01:08:48PM -0400, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On 7/18/06, Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> It has some noticeable
> >> overlap with the stereotypical Scots dialect..
> >
> >It usually strikes me as more Cockney.......
>
> Don't hear a lot of "aye"s in Cockney. :)
To be frank, it always sounded more West Country to me. Not an ounce of
either Cockney or Scots in there.
As an aside, the use of "me" for "my", "ye" as the second person plural,
and "aye" as a weaker form of "yes" are quite common in Irish English.
That said, it's because it holds on to more "archaic" elements of the
language and not because of any relation to piracy.
K.
--
Keith Gaughan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://talideon.com/
Better dead than mellow.
Messages in this topic (7)
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7. Re: free word-order conlangs (was: Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:40 am (PDT)
From: "And Rosta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:41 PM
<< 1. How free is free? Is freedom limited to within some
subsentential domain such as the clause? Within the domain
of freedom are all orders permissible, or just very
many/most? >>
Ayeri in fact could move around sentence consituents, and
adjective could also appear anywhere in a main sentence, but
shuffling is Just Not Done. VAP is the preferred order.
Also, modifiers usually come after their heads.
<< 2. What mechanism allows the freedom (without ambiguity)?
Rampant concord? Or something else? >>
Case marking and -agreement all over the place.
<< 3. Is the freedom structural or just 'informational'? By
'structural freedom' I mean that linear precedence is of
little importance to syntax. >>
Structural.
<< By 'informational freedom', I mean that even if syntax is
highly sensitive to linear precedence, the grammar
nevertheless has resources such that for any combination of
a meaning and an order of content words, some syntactic
structure is available to express that combination. (An
example of 'informational freedom' would be "The farmer
killed the duckling" vs "The duckling was killed by the
farmer", allowing both F-K-D and D-K-F orders, but with
structural changes.) >>
Ah, no, even if you change the word order, the meaning of
the words keeps the same -- due to case marking.
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Tenena, Tyemuyang 7, 2315 ya 06:06:46 pd
Messages in this topic (26)
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8a. Re: free word-order conlangs
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:08 am (PDT)
* And Rosta said on 2006-07-16 20:41:33 +0200
> 1. How free is free? Is freedom limited to within some subsentential domain
> such as the clause? Within the domain of freedom are all orders
> permissible, or just very many/most?
There is an unmarked order in NPs, Modifiers Headnoun. Anything marked for case
can be moved out of its NP. The last (rightmost) item in an NP must be
marked for case unless it is the subject. So, in a regular sentence, any
piece of an NP can go anywhere. Nothing can move out of its clause
though.
Then there are some words (both some verbs and particles) that are
"axis-words" [+axis]. Phrases can *not* have bits and pieces on *both*
sides of an axis but must have all of them either before or after.
Most ways of making dependent clauses involve axis-marked words so you
could say that it's the axes that prevent words from going all over the
place.
> 2. What mechanism allows the freedom (without ambiguity)? Rampant concord?
> Or something else?
Dependent case-marking.
> 3. Is the freedom structural or just 'informational'? By 'structural
> freedom' I mean that linear precedence is of little importance to syntax.
Linear precedence is syntactically important for non-case-marked words
and around axes.
> By 'informational freedom', I mean that even if syntax is highly sensitive
> to linear precedence, the grammar nevertheless has resources such that for
> any combination of a meaning and an order of content words, some syntactic
> structure is available to express that combination. (An example of
> 'informational freedom' would be "The farmer killed the duckling" vs "The
> duckling was killed by the farmer", allowing both F-K-D and D-K-F orders,
> but with structural changes.)
Still not quite sure of what you mean by informational freedom here; for
instance in Basque, the first phrase is topic (or was it focus), the
next phrase is the opposite of the first and whatever comes after the
verb is unmarked. AFMCL, emphasis/focus is marked morphologically so the
order doesn't carry semantic/pragmatic information.
t.
Messages in this topic (2)
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8b. Re: free word-order conlangs
Posted by: "Patrick Littell" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:02 am (PDT)
> >On 7/17/06, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But -- forgive me if I've misunderstood -- isn't there some Australian
> language in which words can indeed completely leave the NPs and move
> anywhere in the clause? And can't that happen to more than one NP in the
> same clause, and to more than one word in the same NP?
>
> Perhaps the language I am thinking of is Warlpiri.
Yes, that's one of them; it is indeed Australian. This is a common
sort of thing in Warlpiri's family, although I couldn't say if every
Pama-Nyungan language has this feature, or whether this feature is
widely-spread outside of the Pama-Nyungan family in other languages of
Australia.
[snip]
> Some languages allow you to move clauses around within sentences, but not
> to move phrases around within clauses.
> Some languages allow you to move phrases around within clauses, but not to
> move words around within phrases.
> Some languages allow you to move clauses around within sentences and also
> allow you to move phrases around within clauses, but do not allow you to
> move phrases out of their "home" clauses within the sentence.
>
That's pretty much correct; what I said in my implicational hierarchy
was a sort of oblique way of saying that. When we have the hierarchy
w > x > y > z, we can either say "there exist languages with w that
don't x, and with w and x that don't y, etc." or we can say "every
language with x also ws, and every language with y also ws and xs,
etc." It comes to the same in the end.
We'd have to be careful of the last one, though. Allowing a phrase to
"runaway" from its "home" -- it's a good metaphor, btw -- is different
than the near-complete disregard for constituency we'd find in, say,
Warlpiri. Just running away from home isn't all that strange -- And
gives us a few in English, Russian gives us even more freedom, etc.
In these cases, the words still clearly have "homes", whereas we might
stretch the metaphor to say that words in Warlpiri are basically
nomadic.
[snip]
> Consider it's _me_ you're replying to; have mercy on my limitations, and
> please be explicit; _what_'s the motivation again? That the most
> emphasized "thing", whether it is an immediate constituent or something
> smaller (a constituent of a constituent) -- that is, whether it's a noun-
> phrase or a word within a noun-phrase -- can be moved to the front (even if
> that means breaking up the middle-sized constituent of which it is part)?
Yup, the motivation would, in this case, be emphasis. When we say
"motivation" in this case it just means "why is the constituent moving
from where we'd expect it?" A modern Chomskian theory is going to
require motivation for each transformation -- you can't just move
things for no reason at all.
This is why there's so much talk about Warlpiri and its relatives. If
we posit that sentences are base generated with constituents, Russian
doesn't provide a problem, since that one movement is "motivated"...
Warlpiri proposes a problem for this: if Warlpiri sentences are
generated with constituents, then we have to come up with some reason
why they scramble themselves all over the place. Specifically, a
reason for why does this word move there, and not just a blanked
statement "They do so for informational-saliency reasons."
So some linguists will hold up Warlpiri as a counterexample to the
idea that sentences are generated "underlyingly" with constituency.
That is, a theory that says "Warlpiri looks like English in underneath
but all the words get scrambled" would have to abandon the idea that
all movement happens for some reason.
-- Pat
Messages in this topic (2)
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9. Re: Theta Role Question
Posted by: "Jonathan Knibb" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:08 am (PDT)
David Peterson wrote:
>In English, "Music is his passion" wouldn't be very different
>from "Jimmy is a boy" [...]
>In both sentences, the
>second part is a kind of description of the first (or perhaps
>some added information about the first). The difference is
>that being a boy is an inherent part of Jimmy; being someone's
>passion is not an inherent part of music.
Seems to me that "Jimmy is a boy." is straightforwardly topic-
comment, while "Music is his passion." feels more like a
"music"-focused version of "His passion is music."
Is "His passion is music." any easier to translate into Ayeri?
Jonathan.
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Messages in this topic (7)
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10a. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:13 am (PDT)
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:47:12 -0700, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>One thing that's relatively unusual about my speech
>(in English) is that I use the Japanese sentence-
>ending particle 'ne'. It's useful; it
>expresses something in a way that makes English more
>complete. Another example - I use the Russian 'nu?'
>(again, when speaking English).
>
>Aside from common loanwords & creolization - i.e.
>more on the grammatical end, or uncommon loanwords -
>what have you found to cross from the other languages
>you know or have created, into your ordinary
>speech / writing / thought?
Probably the best example is "Say again?", which is what I say instead
of "What?". It comes from Sea Lane English. But is Sea Lane English really
a different language, or is it a genre or register of English?
>From what are unmistakably other languages, I use "Que pasa?" and "n'est-ce
pas?" and "nicht wahr?"and "verstehen Sie?". But these are probably "common
loan phrases".
My father frequently seasoned his English with Deutsche zu hause. My
Mother occasionally flavored here English with Francais en famille. (Why
my father, whose grandmother was French, spoke German, whereas my mother,
whose grandmother was German, spoke French, I suppose I'll never know.) As
a result I was in elementary school before I found out these phrases
weren't English.
I lived in a "Tex-Mex"-speaking area, and everyone peppered their English
with Spanish (more "Spanglish", really). So I was in college by the time I
found out some of these phrases were considered actually foreign, not
just "borrowed".
FAIK I still have an occasional Cherokee-ism hiding within what I think is
my "English".
> - Sai
>=====================================================
-----
eldin
Messages in this topic (5)
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10b. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:03 pm (PDT)
Hey.
A few years ago I was teaching service courses in introductory
linguistics for public school teachers who wanted/needed an
endorsement to teach English as a second language. One of my students
was from southern Utah, where there are a lot of Paiute indians. After
finding out that I work professionally with languages of the family
(Numic, Uto-Aztecan), he mentioned that a common expression around his
home (he grew up on a ranch with Paiute ranch hands) was 'kwichup'. He
was sure that it was an Indian word, but he didn't know what it meant.
I told him that the word means 'shit', which prompted a good chuckle
from the class. He had no idea that he'd been using a "dirty word" all
of his life.
In my own home, I was very conversant with some of the milder curses
in Dutch, and have kept the practice of using them so as not to offend
others with more delicate sensibilities. Also, in some parts of the
US, it is not uncommon to hear verbs like 'come with', as in "I'm
walking to the store; anyone want to come with?" My impression that
this is more related to German 'mitkommen' and its Germanic cognates
than an authentic English usage. I also have this usage.
Dirk
On 7/17/06, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> One thing that's relatively unusual about my speech (in English) is
> that I use the Japanese sentence-ending particle 'ne'. It's useful; it
> expresses something in a way that makes English more complete. Another
> example - I use the Russian 'nu?' (again, when speaking English).
>
> Aside from common loanwords & creolization - i.e. more on the
> grammatical end, or uncommon loanwords - what have you found to cross
> from the other languages you know or have created, into your ordinary
> speech / writing / thought?
>
> - Sai
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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11a. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:36 am (PDT)
This is an "I second the motion" reply.
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 12:54:37 -0700, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'd like to suggestion that every month or so the list
>owner should post a CONLANG FAQ - relevant policies,
>group lingo (eg YAEPT, ANADEW, etc), suggestions for
>formatting,
Yes, I think we need these once a month. I've said so before.
Especially the tags and the formatting, since ignorance of or misuse of
these seem to irritate some of our members a lot (perhaps more than
reasonably so in the opinions of some of the other members).
>what the group is about,
The Yahoo! group "world design", for example, posts a "what this group is
about" on the first of every month. It includes a little about some of the
policies, as well.
>CXS vs Unicode intro, etc.
I personally would love to always be able to locate a URL that explained
the following;
IPA
Extended IPA
SAMPA
X-SAMPA
C-XSAMPA
Z-SAMPA
with equivalences between them noted, and with ways to include the
characters in my documents.
>Does such a thing already exist? If so, I've not seen
>it being posted.
Well,
1. For the most part, yes.
2. It's not posted monthly, so it's easy to lose track of, and hard to find
again.
3. The part about the IPA, Ex-IPA (my abbreviation -- don't know if it's
OK), SAMPA, X-SAMPA, C-X-SAMPA, and Z-SAMPA, are definitely hard to
locate. I don't think they've ever been posted on-list; or at least not
all of them have. I have to look around for C-X-SAMPA all over again
whenever I need it; sometimes, unsuccessfully. (I can't use ordinary
bookmarks because I don't own the computer(s) my internet connection is
on. There's probably some way of bookmarking anyway, but I haven't figured
it out.)
> - Sai
-----
Thanks for writing.
======================================================
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:48:18 -0700, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 7/16/06, taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Many attempts have been made, so far all attempts
>>have failed. One possible reason is that "conlang
>>faq" is construed to mean "a faq about conlanging,
>>how to conlang and all things linguistic",
Henceforth "a conlanging FAQ".
>>instead of "a faq about the weirdities and in-jokes
>>of the conlang-l mailing list as currently served on
>>listserv.brown.edu, with historical footnotes
>>for when it was hosted elsewhere."
Henceforth "a CONLANG-L FAQ".
>>The latter is potentially a finite document, the
>>former is certainly not.
>
>I was only suggesting the latter - a CONLANG FAQ,
(a CONLANG-L FAQ) -- eldin
>not a conlang FAQ.
(not a conlanging FAQ) -- eldin
>:-P It should probably refer out to other sources
>for "how to", linguistic theory, etc., and stay
>purely meta.
>
> - Sai
BTW as far as the "conlanging FAQ" (the one about conlanging), as opposed
to the "CONLANG-L FAQ" (the one about CONLANG-L on Listserv.Brown.Edu),
goes; it should be limited by the "F". For example it should just answer
the N most-frequently-asked-by-newbies questions, where N=10 or 20 or 30 or
100.
Actually a monthly document should just answer the 10 and refer to a URL
for the 100, or allow the user to request that the 100-question version be
sent to him/her.
Probably the same could be done with (or for or about) the "CONLANG-L FAQ"
as well.
Indeed perhaps the monthly document should only include the top 10 "CONLANG-
L FAQ" and refer to the URL or to the requestable document not only for the
top 100 but also for _all_ of the "conlanging FAQ" top 100.
-----
eldin
Messages in this topic (7)
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11b. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:18 pm (PDT)
On 7/17/06, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2a. especially including CX-SAMPA, information about which I cannot now
> locate.
That might be because nobody calls it CX-SAMPA. :) It's "CONLANG
X-SAMPA", if anything, but nobody calls it that either; we just say
CXS. Which is a sufficiently distinct TLA that Googling for +cxs
finds Henrik's page as the first result. :)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (7)
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12. Re: Adapting non-Latin scripts
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:43 am (PDT)
--- Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The 1849 version of the IPA had a cursive form. In
> the morning, I may well
> scan and post a copy. It's relatively
> straightforward, given an
> understanding of 19th century cursive, which is at
> least easier on the eye
> than anything much older.
That depends entirely on whose hand held the pen.
I've done a lot of scanning through old books of land
deeds, marriage records, will books, etc. looking for
documents relating to ancestors and their comings and
goings. Believe you me, some of those 19th century
documents are horrific. Yes, some are quite legible
once you adjust to a few odd conventions like January
being written Jany with the "y" written raised above
the line, and the double "s" that looks like anything
from a double "f" to a double "p" to an "fs" depending
on scribe and position in the word. Others are
difficult to read due to "ornamentation" like final
t's that encircle the entire word ascenders and
decenders that cross one or more lines of text.
Others are just plain henscratch with every letter
looking like that lovely German handwriting that was
discussed a few months back (aluminum was the example
word that struck terror in the hears of calligraphers
everywhere), only with blots and smudges everywhere as
the scribe dribbled ink from his pen and drug his hand
through the ink all over the page.
All that said, it *is* more easily deciphered than
18th century examples and before.
Adam
9 Debostu averuns judidu ul regu, vaderuns in al via, ed iñi! erad vidandu sis
al steja fi averuns spichudu in il ojindi, gata ad vinid ed pedizud subra jundi
fuid al credura.
10 Vidindu al steja, niregoderuns rexundimindi.
Machu 2:9-10
Messages in this topic (31)
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13. test, please ignore
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:45 am (PDT)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
testing to see if i can send mail to the list (apparently none of my previous
messages have gotten through)
- --
"We are the grassroots that bring change. We are the U-bend under the sink of
society. You can try to clean us up, but we collect again. We are those who
think that site mods went the way of Silicon Graphics. You can assert
authority and we will circumvent it. You can impose rules and we will break
them. You can delete us and we will return. We are 4chan, iichan, 420chan,
OnionChan, wtfux, and 0chan. We are /b/, /a/, /m/, /k/, and letters not yet
used. We are nameless gatherers - and we have power beyond a deletion option.
In the open fields of the Internet, we are nowhere and everywhere - there is
no stopping, controlling, coercing, or intruding upon us. We are limitless.
You can join us and it will end the troubles you have faced, or you can stand
against us and never truly win. [...] We will make the truth known and it
will either be ruin or nothing at all. The censorship will end, or we will
end the censorship."
-Anonymous
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Messages in this topic (2)
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