------------------------ 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:
1a. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Patrick Littell
1b. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Hanuman Zhang
1c. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Mark J. Reed
1d. Re: Sailorspeak
From: Keith Gaughan
2a. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Hanuman Zhang
2b. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Dana Nutter
2c. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Dana Nutter
2d. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Dana Nutter
2e. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Jim Henry
2f. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Ph.D.
2g. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
From: Ph.D.
3. Re: free word-order conlangs (was: Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
4a. META: CHAT vs OT
From: Sai Emrys
4b. Re: META: CHAT vs OT
From: Henrik Theiling
4c. Re: META: CHAT vs OT
From: Philip Newton
5a. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
5b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
From: Carsten Becker
6a. Adjective order (WAS: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar)
From: Sai Emrys
6b. Re: Adjective order (WAS: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar)
From: Dana Nutter
7a. Re: Theta Role Question
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
7b. Re: Theta Role Question
From: Tim May
7c. Re: Theta Role Question
From: Carsten Becker
7d. Re: Theta Role Question
From: Henrik Theiling
8. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
From: Philip Newton
9. Re: free word-order conlangs
From: Eldin Raigmore
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Patrick Littell" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:10 pm (PDT)
On 7/18/06, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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.
[snip]
> 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..
The consensus on the web seems to be that "pirate talk" began as an
(attempt at?) a Bristol (or West Country or Welsh or Cornish) accent
by Robert Newton in Treasure Island (1950), Blackbeard the Pirate
(1952), and Return to Treasure Island aka Long John Silver (1954).
Incidentally, Newton was from Dorset, it seems, so the theory that it
was a "really poorly done attempt at West Country" seems a bit flawed.
I couldn't say, not really knowing much about British dialectology.
It's been a long time since I've seen Treasure Island -- and I know
that back then I wouldn't have thought about the dialectological
implications -- so I can't say whether the bizarre "piratey" accent we
know today is really from him, or from imitations of him.
-- Pat
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Hanuman Zhang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:39 pm (PDT)
on 7/18/06 11:35 AM, Roger Mills at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I had a very brief encounter with some genuwine beatniks back ca. 1956 [uncool
necessary snippage]
> 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.
LOL
Wowza! You are reaaaally datin' yourself, you ol' time-capsule you! ;)
OBCONLANG: Anyone deal with culture shock in their
conculture/conlang(s)?
> 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.........
Understandable. I like bein' clean and COOL. I hate this horrid
heatwave! Even my anti-perspirant is sweatin' on its own...
See my .sig... Rexroth was part of the "San Francisco Renaissance,"
which was a branch of the Beatnik Movement.
--
Hanuman Zhang
"Life is all a great joke, but only the brave ever get the point."
- Kenneth Rexroth
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:14 am (PDT)
On 7/18/06, Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The consensus on the web seems to be that "pirate talk" began as an
> (attempt at?) a Bristol (or West Country or Welsh or Cornish) accent
> by Robert Newton in Treasure Island (1950), Blackbeard the Pirate
> (1952), and Return to Treasure Island aka Long John Silver (1954).
Huh. Created onscreen by an actor? I never would have guessed it was
that recent.
> Incidentally, Newton was from Dorset, it seems, so the theory that it
> was a "really poorly done attempt at West Country" seems a bit flawed.
> I couldn't say, not really knowing much about British dialectology.
Growing up in the vicinity of a regional accent does not necessarily
make one proficient at it. Believe me, I know; I do a pretty lousy
Suthun US. :)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Sailorspeak
Posted by: "Keith Gaughan" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:52 am (PDT)
On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 04:03:39PM +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> What it most reminds me of are those accents heard on BBC comedies to
> indicate rural working-class (I gather it's the British equivalent of a
> hick accent), which are also heavily rhotic and rather archaic in their
> grammar. If that happens to be West Country, then I'd guess that's what
> they're aiming for, but I'll have to check Wells when I get home to be
> certain.
That's the one. Wikipedia has a good description of the accent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Country_dialects
K.
--
Keith Gaughan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://talideon.com/
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
-- Aesop
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Hanuman Zhang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:24 pm (PDT)
on 7/18/06 4:17 PM, Sai Emrys at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On 7/18/06, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Learning German difinitely increased the frequency of subjunctives in my
>> Swedish
>> speech. Apart from sometimes enhancing expressiveness, it annoys a certain
>> breed
>> of prescriptionists, who insist that all unusual or archaic words, forms, and
>> expressions should be avoided like the plague.
>
> Annoying prescriptivists can sometimes be fun. :-)
>
> - Sai
Oh yes YES... much fun indeedie. I usta drive my high school English
teachers crazy with my useage of slang - Hard-boiled slang from the
1930's-40's and some other slang as well - in my written work.
I did a paper on the movie _Blade Runner_ mostly in a futuristic slang
except for the quotes. Got a B- for it. I hafta find it - it's somewhere
amidst all my tribbles ;)
--
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_
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:08 am (PDT)
li [Dirk Elzinga] mi tulis la
> ... I work professionally with languages of the family
> (Numic, Uto-Aztecan), ...
Do you know where I can find any information on Tongva/Gabrielino? I've
done some web searching but mostly came up empty.
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:10 am (PDT)
li [Larry Sulky] mi tulis la
I could think of quite a few ...
Working for a Chinese-owned company and hearing the guys in the back
reading serial numbers in Mandarin actually caused me and a coworker to
start saying things like "ba" (8) and "chi" (7) when reading numbers.
We did get a good laugh out of it.
Living in New Orleans for a short time and resisting the local dialect,
I still caught myself speaking non-rhotically and even through in an
occasional "ya all". These habits disappeared quickly after moving back
to Hellifornia.
I was working for a short time on a cruise ship which was staffed mostly
by foreigners and the other officers were mainly Norwegians. I really
don't know where or how, but I did find myself saying "nei" instead of
"no" sometimes.
I picked up a lot of Aussie expressions on my trip there in 1999. I
still say things like "no worries" and "shout" (drinks).
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:16 am (PDT)
li [Chris Peters] mi tulis la
> Most recently: I recently married an Arkansas woman. I've
> found myself
> more and more saying that I "might could" such-and-such ...
I've lived in Tennessee for over 6 years now and have done pretty well
in resisting the local speech habits. I do tend to say things like
"it's not" rather than "it isn't" but have yet to say anything like
"knowed", "blowed" or "yunz".
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:30 am (PDT)
Learning Esperanto has had several effects on my English
usage -- one I've noticed recently is a tendency to say
things like "I totally don't X" (analogous to the usual
Esperanto "Mi tute ne ...."). I'm not sure what the normal
English equivalent would be, but "totally don't" still
sounds odd to me even though I use it sometimes.
I also sometimes use "fuŝ'" as a mild swear-word in
English (from "fuŝi", to screw up; derived I think from
German "pfusch"?)
I've also found myself trying to use a nonexistent
English word "amplex" (from "ampleksa") instead
of "ample" -- "ampleksa" has a somewhat
different meaning from "ample", and "ample" isn't
really the word I want in many such contexts,
which is why I reach for "amplex"; maybe "thorough"
or "complete" is closer.
>From Toki Pona I've picked up "pona!" and "pona a!"
as happy interjections in Esperanto (where it's
likely to go unnoticed as being so similar to bona/bone)
and in English.
"Ach" / "aĥ" could have come from Esperanto
or German; probably the former (as its source in
my idiolect, I mean; I reckon it came into Eo from
German). I also use a roughly equivalent "ħa" (/GA/)
from gzb.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Ph.D." [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:46 am (PDT)
Jim Henry wrote:
>
> Learning Esperanto has had several effects on my
> English usage -- one I've noticed recently is a ten-
> dency to say things like "I totally don't X" (analogous
> to the usual Esperanto "Mi tute ne ...."). I'm not sure
> what the normal English equivalent would be, but
> "totally don't" still sounds odd to me even though I
> use it sometimes.
Probably "I don't X at all."
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Integrating snippets from other languages into your L1
Posted by: "Ph.D." [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:47 am (PDT)
Dana Nutter wrote:
>
> I've lived in Tennessee for over 6 years now and have
> done pretty well in resisting the local speech habits. I
> do tend to say things like "it's not" rather than "it isn't"
> but have yet to say anything like "knowed", "blowed"
> or "yunz".
Which brings up a related usage. The negative of "let's"
is "let's not" in all the dialects of English that I'm familiar
with. But in _Atlas Shrugged_, the characters always
use "don't let's," which makes sense, but sounds awkward
to me.
"Let's not fight about it." vs. "Don't let's fight about it."
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. Re: free word-order conlangs (was: Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:55 pm (PDT)
Hi And,
On Sun, 16 Jul 2006, And Rosta wrote:
>
> The discussion of Warlpiri prompts me to solicit information
> about conlangs in which word-order is in some sense very free but
> without ambiguity resulting from the freedom.
>
> 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?
>
> 2. What mechanism allows the freedom (without ambiguity)? Rampant
> concord? Or something else?
I *think* it will be "something else". See below.
> 3. Is the freedom structural or just 'informational'? By
> 'structural freedom' I mean that linear precedence is of little
> importance to syntax. 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.)
>
> The Latin & Warlpiri natlang examples of freedom strike me as
> comparatively uninteresting, because they can be analysed in
> terms of flat clause structures without internal ordering --
> nothing that looks like thoroughgoing scrambling. But conlangs
> very possibly have more of interest to offer here...
>
> (To start the ball rolling: my Livagian has no structural freedom
> but lots of informational freedom, using a mechanism other than
> rampant concord, and no limitation to certain subsentential domains.)
To extend your example of informational freedom, with three
content words, using simple transformations and auxiliaries:
F=farmer, Agent; D=duckling, Patient; K=killed, Verb
F-K-D: "The farmer killed the duckling"
F-K-D: "What the farmer killed was the duckling"
F-K-D: "It was the farmer who killed the duckling"
F-D-K: "The farmer was the duckling's killer"
K-D-F: "The killer of the duckling was the farmer"
K-D-F: "Who killed the duckling? It was the farmer"
K-D-F: "Who killed the duckling was the farmer"
D-K-F: "The duckling was killed by the farmer"
D-K-F: "The duckling's killer was the farmer"
D-F-K: "It was the duckling the farmer killed"
D-F-K: "The duckling was what the farmer killed"
and even
K-F-D: "Killed by the farmer was the duckling"
The information content of these sentences is arguably
the same, though the focus and emphasis changes.
At this stage, I don't know whether any of my (currently
only 5) conlangs can match the ability of English to so
thoroughly reorder content words in an utterance, while
still conveying the same content. However, one is almost
certain to be able to; that one is Shilgna, whose basic
premise is that its word order is the reverse of the English
word order for the same utterance, and whose vocabulary
(for convenience) is exactly that of English! I will try to
post some examples of this soon at:
http://conlang.pbwiki.com/
When I've created some more texts in Uiama and Ye Yugi
Ga-ba Bu, I'll have a better feeling for the different ways
the words can combine to express the same content. Right
now, I don't have a large enough corpus to be able to
describe their grammars with any precision; I just have a
"feel" for what is right in each of them. From the existing
corpus, it seems that Uiama does not have strict word order,
but does have some precedence rules; eg a sentence in SVO
order could as readily be in SOV or even VSO order, and the
various particles (including pronouns and prepositions) need
to appear in a relatively strict order with respect to each of
S, V and O. I will attempt the kind of permutation game I
played above with your farmer and duckling, on a couple of
the existing sentences, and see which forms are practicable,
then report back. (Sometime!)
As for Patera, alas! All I have, basically, is the sound of
the language, as recorded in a couple pof childrens' verses
and a brief transcript of part of an ancient conversation
by a young student, who probably didn't understand it all
at the time, and who has since (he claims) forgotten the
language entirely. So since there is only fragmentary
internal evidence available to us, I fear I may be staring
at another Phaistos Disk ...
Finally, all that remains of the language of the people who
named "Hel Vôcre" is the name of the village itself, which
suggests a bastard ancestry of a Germanic tribe fathered
on a raped and dying alternate Rome in which electronic
computers had been the mainstay of civil records for at
least two or three lustra. I am, sadly, confident that
*this* particular language will be of no help in your search
for Freedom of Information[al expression]!
Regards,
Yahya
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.1/390 - Release Date: 17/7/06
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. META: CHAT vs OT
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:12 am (PDT)
On the FAQ - http://wiki.frath.net/Conlang-L_FAQ - it's mentioned that
the OT: tag messes up some software.
Could anyone provide details?
I've hardly ever seen someone use CHAT:, but OT: gets used plenty...
- Sai
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: META: CHAT vs OT
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:39 am (PDT)
Hi!
Sai Emrys writes:
> On the FAQ - http://wiki.frath.net/Conlang-L_FAQ - it's mentioned that
> the OT: tag messes up some software.
>
> Could anyone provide details?
I think the (old?) listserv software is(was?) not able to recognise
two-letter tags. Therefore, 'CHAT' was introduced. Since I don't use
the filtering mechanism, I am not sure whether the current listserv
software recognises OT. So I'd say, if unsure, use CHAT.
OTOH, no-one complained about OT, so I did not yet really insist on
using CHAT instead of OT. Either listserv understands it now, or
no-one uses its filtering mechanisms (or does use it, but does not
complain).
> I've hardly ever seen someone use CHAT:, but OT: gets used plenty...
Indeed.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: META: CHAT vs OT
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:50 am (PDT)
On 7/19/06, Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On the FAQ - http://wiki.frath.net/Conlang-L_FAQ - it's mentioned that
> the OT: tag messes up some software.
>
> Could anyone provide details?
I wonder whether this might be Microsoft software?
For some reason, they "localise" tags; for example, German Outlook
produces "AW:" for a reply (from "Antwort", presumably from a
misguided notion that "RE:" -- or, as it's more commonly spelled in
non-MS email, "Re:" -- is from "Reply", rather than the ablative of
Latin "res") and "WG:" for a forwarded message (from
"weitergeleitet").
I imagine that any given localisation doesn't know all the tags that
all localisations can produce, and so simply interprets any two-letter
tag followed by a colon as a localised "RE:", replacing it.
So if someone sent something with "OT:" to me at work and I replied,
the reply would carry "RE:" *in place of* "OT:" rather than in
addition to it. So the tag doesn't survive any replies from Billware.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:30 am (PDT)
Hi all,
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Roger Mills wrote:
>
> Gary Shannon wrote:
> > --- René Uittenbogaard wrote:
> > > Even more can go inside the "er .. mee" construct:
[snip example]
> >
> > I really having trouble 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?
>
> I been wondering about this too. Is there more context? Has the speaker
> previously mentioned some device, and you are supposed to light the torch
> _with it_ (er...mee)??
>
[snip speculation from Gary]
>
> Hmm, perhaps er...mee is to be interpreted as sort-of "thereupon,
> then, at that point...", just as "With that,..." is sometimes used as a
> transition in Engl., not implying any instrument, although properly
> it should refer to some previous act or situation.
>
> Deathless prose examples:
>
> "You're a total idiot," she said. With that, she stomped out of the room.
> (from my memoir, "Life with Mother")
>
> I really want that, he thought. With that, he clicked the "buy
> now" button.
> (from forthcoming "1001 Nights on E-Bay")
Roger,
I don't think "With that,..." is *originally* quite as
meaningless as you seem to imply. Try replacing
"With that, ..." by "On doing so, ...". Surely the "so"
*does* "refer to some previous act or situation",
just as you say it should. One could also quite
idiomaticaly replace the "so" with "which" or "that":
a. "With that, ..."
b. "On doing so, ..."
c. "On doing which, ..."
d. "On doing that, ..."
all seem to say much the same thing, referring to
the completion of an act described previously.
One might even say:
e. "With that done, ..." or
f. "That done, ..." - right?
It becomes, in effect, an adverbial phrase of time.
One might replace it with "thereupon" as you
suggested, or "immediately afterwards" etc.
Deconstructing the USAGE of "With that, ..." is
pretty much OT Gary's original post, but I guess
one shouldn't deride it for that ...
Can Gary's "fusion grammar" approach work with
such a phrase in English? Sure, why not?
With "er ... mee" in Dutch? Well, if it really means
something like "with it (a previously-referenced
object)", this kind of separation of "fusible atoms"
should cause no more grief than separable verbs do.
BTW, is there a workable way of fusing those? If
so, then the fusional approach should work just
fine.
Regards,
Yahya
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:27 am (PDT)
From: "René Uittenbogaard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 7:13 PM
> I'm leaving with John. - Ik vertrek met John.
> I'm leaving with him. - Ik vertrek met hem.
> I'm leaving with my suitcase. - Ik vertrek met mijn
> koffer.
> I'm leaving with it. - Ik vertrek ermee.
In German you cannot say "Ich gehe mit meinem Koffer weg" to
my knowledge, but Dutch "ermee" is certainly cognate to
German "damit" I think -- wait, hasn't someone else
mentioned that before in this thread? "Damit" is stressed on
the first syllalbe in this case, meaning "with that". If you
stress it on the second syllable, it means "so that".
> I'm waiting for John. - Ik wacht op John.
> I'm waiting for him. - Ik wacht op hem.
> I'm waiting for the TV programme. - Ik wacht op het
> TV-programma.
> I'm waiting for it. - Ik wacht erop.
Ich warte auf John.
Ich warte auf _ihn_ (i.e. John).
Ich warte auf das Fernsehprogramm.
Ich warte _darauf_ (i.e. das Fernsehprogramm).
In German, "damit" and "darauf" (lit. "thereon") cannot be
split like in Dutch, though.
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Venena, Tyemuyang 9, 2315 ya 11:02:39 pd
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. Adjective order (WAS: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar)
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:11 am (PDT)
> Sentence: The big ugly dog that Mary brought home
> yesterday has been barking all night.
Does anyone have a list of how exactly the 'natural'-sounding
adjective order goes in English (or other languages)?
E.g. if you made a really long string of adjectives:
The big mean ugly yellow mangy balloon-shaped ....
If you swap some of them around it sounds very off.
Similarly, for listing a small number of things, it seems that one
starts with the alphabetically *last*, then cycles through from A->Z.
Don't have a good example offhand 'cause it's 1:44am :-P
Hopefully y'all know what I'm talking about anyway.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: Adjective order (WAS: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar)
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:28 am (PDT)
li [Sai Emrys] mi tulils la
> > Sentence: The big ugly dog that Mary brought home
> > yesterday has been barking all night.
>
> Does anyone have a list of how exactly the 'natural'-sounding
> adjective order goes in English (or other languages)?
>
> E.g. if you made a really long string of adjectives:
> The big mean ugly yellow mangy balloon-shaped ....
>
> If you swap some of them around it sounds very off.
I don't have anything specific but did find a few articles on the web
when researching the same subject a couple of years back. FWIW: I do
have this documented on the Sasxsek website which roughly mimics the
English order.
------------------------------
dejnx nxtxr / Dana Nutter
LI SASXSEK LATIS.
http://www.nutter.net/sasxsek
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: Theta Role Question
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:02 am (PDT)
Hi all,
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, David J. Peterson wrote:
> Carsten wrote:
> <<
> How should this construction be analyzed? I would translate
> this sentence as
> Tingr¨¡ng dikunang iyaena.
> Music.A passion.A 3s.m.GEN
>
> Into Ayeri, although I do not feel well with marking both
> NPs as Agents. Actually, I think, there is no agent, and
> both nouns should be best left unmarked, but that seems odd
> as well.
> >>
>
> I don't think I quite understand the question. How should
> "Music is his passion" be analyzed in English? According to
> which theory? And then, what would that have to do with
> Ayeri?
>
> In English, "Music is his passion" wouldn't be very different
> from "Jimmy is a boy". If you wanted to treat both of these
> sentences the same way in Ayeri, then presumably the cases
> you assign to "Jimmy" and "boy" would be the same as for
> "music" and "his passion". If you wanted to treat both of
> these sentences differently, though, then...treat them differently. :)
> Semantically, it doesn't appear that there's any agent in any
> of these sentences--that is, neither music, passion, the boy or
> Jimmy is actively doing anything. 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. So if there were to
> be a difference to latch onto, that might be it (or one of
> them).
David: I beg to differ. ;-)
"Jimmy is a boy" - SVO, order unmarked
"Music is his passion" - OVS, order marked, O fronted for emphasis
< "His passion is music" - SVO, order unmarked
In each case in (what I have analysed as) the unmarked order, the
O is attributed to the S by the copula V "is". In doing so, it's better
to think of "is" not as expressing an equality of S and O, but rather
the inclusion of O in the set of attributes of S.
To verify this, let's consider adding to our corpus the 2 sentences:
"Jimmy is a 10-year-old" and
"Hot cars is his other passion"
Neither of these logically conflicts with the earlier two sentences;
each adds attributes for the original subjects. So we can take
them as reasonable evidence for saying:
"Jimmy is a 10-year-old boy" and
"You'll often find him driving hot cars while playing loud rock music".
(Hopefully "he" is not the same "Jimmy".)
It is clear that we can go on adding further attributes to the
subjects of these sentences, providing they don't contradict what
we already know about them, without ever really exhausting the
potential of that subject. The subject is more than the attributes.
Carsten: I don't see that these sentences - which are attributive
assertions - can benefit at all by having any of their constituents
forced into theta rôles that don't figure in attributions. They
have no Agent, just as they have no Patient.
Regards,
Yahya
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.1/391 - Release Date: 18/7/06
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7b. Re: Theta Role Question
Posted by: "Tim May" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:01 am (PDT)
Carsten Becker wrote at 2006-07-17 17:53:17 (+0200)
> Hi,
>
> I've got a question regarding the roles in this
> construction:
>
> Music is his passion.
>
> How should this construction be analyzed? I would translate
> this sentence as
>
> Tingr(!ng dikunang iyaena.
> Music.A passion.A 3s.m.GEN
>
> Into Ayeri, although I do not feel well with marking both
> NPs as Agents. Actually, I think, there is no agent, and
> both nouns should be best left unmarked, but that seems odd
> as well.
>
(This is... similar to what Yahya said, I think, but coming at it from
a slightly different angle.)
This is an equational nominal predicate, where you equate one specific
thing with another specific thing. In this case "music" and "his
passion". So it entails "His passion is music". This is different
from the normal kind of "class-inclusion" nominal predicate, like
"Jimmy is a boy" where what you're saying is that Jimmy is a _member
of the set_ of boys, and can't conclude "a boy is Jimmy". English
doesn't make much of a formal distinction between these two types of
sentence, though it generally shows up in the article on the
predicate. Other languages make a clearer distinction.
There's a section on this towards the beginning of Dryer's thing on
clause types... uh, yeah, section 1.4, 8th page:
http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/DryerShopenClauseTypes.pdf
And I'd agree that none of these seem to have any kind of semantic
agent, but I don't know enough about theta roles to say more.
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7c. Re: Theta Role Question
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:23 am (PDT)
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 9:39 PM
> I don't think I quite understand the question. How should
> "Music is his passion" be analyzed in English? According
> to which theory? And then, what would that have to do
> with Ayeri?
I just wanted to know whether there are any agents involved
here, or if not, which roles instead, if there are any
semantic roles involved here at all.
> In English, "Music is his passion" wouldn't be very
> different from "Jimmy is a boy". If you wanted to treat
> both of these sentences the same way in Ayeri, then
> presumably the cases you assign to "Jimmy" and "boy"
> would be the same as for "music" and "his passion".
Another such dilemma. I don't know for sure how to deal
with it. Jimmy doesn't *do* boying, he *is* a boy. Guess
I should add a paragraph about stative verbs to the grammar.
> If you wanted to treat both of these sentences
> differently, though, then...treat them differently. :)
Heh.
> Semantically, it doesn't appear that there's any agent in
> any of these sentences--that is, neither music, passion,
> the boy or Jimmy is actively doing anything.
That's all I wanted to know. Thanks.
> 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. So if there
> were to be a difference to latch onto, that might be it
> (or one of them).
Thanks again.
From: "Jonathan Knibb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:54 PM
> Is "His passion is music." any easier to translate into
> Ayeri?
No, I'm equally challenged.
Ob-Conlang: How do your conlangs treat such stative
constructions -- given that your respective conlangs are
heavily case marking and not using an active/split-S
alignment?
Yours,
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Venena, Tyemuyang 9, 2315 ya 11:23:31 pd
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
7d. Re: Theta Role Question
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:58 am (PDT)
Hi!
Carsten Becker writes:
>...
> Ob-Conlang: How do your conlangs treat such stative
> constructions -- given that your respective conlangs are
> heavily case marking and not using an active/split-S
> alignment?
Fukhian is nominative/accusative and basically handles this by
defining the case<->role mapping in the lexicon, and since it was my
first conlang where I did not think about this too much, it is pretty
much like in German. With one exception: if nouns are used
predicatively, it marks them with a special 'predicative' case,
instead of using two nominatives as, e.g., German. E.g.:
Mis goneh.
mis.0 gon.eh
man.NOM machine.PRED
'The man is a machine.'
(BTW, word order is quite free: 'Goneh mis' would mean the same.)
There is a copula, but actually I don't anymore know what I needed it
for, since a) it is optional in all situations, b)
tense/aspect/mood/person is an enclitic attaching to the first word of
the sentence, whatever it is, so it does not need a copula to have a
syntactic verb to attach to.
Tesäfköm only has univalent verbs and only one lexical class, so every
word can be used as a verb or as a noun. The basic structure of the
language are noun-verb pairs, since every verb takes exactly one
argument:
man-drink 'The man drinks'
I call such pairs 'adverbs' (and there are a few lexical adverbs,
too), and a clause is then a sequence of adverbs (similar to a serial
verb construction):
man-drink beer-disappear. 'The man drinks beer.'
So verbs are role markers and the nouns are marked with them. Now in
the above case, you'd use 'machine' as a verd/role marker and mark
'man' (used as a noun) with it to express 'The man is a machine.':
man-machine. 'The man is a machine.'
Whether a verbal usage of a substantive is static or not does not
matter in morphology, only semantically, so 'machine' behaves just
like 'to drink':
man-machine. 'The man is a machine.'
man-drink. 'The man drinks.'
(All lexicon entries will probably be static, and anything else will
be derived by additional morphemes.)
My other conlangs are either fluid-S or Germanic or Romance.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8. Re: META: A CONLANG FAQ?
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:50 am (PDT)
On 7/18/06, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (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.)
There are several "bookmarking services" on the Web. I use del.icio.us
a fair bit, which has social components as well, though I typically
ignore those. Basically, a way to store bookmarks labelled with tags.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. Re: free word-order conlangs
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:56 am (PDT)
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:22:23 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>Let the features (there are five of them) be;
>(A): You can move clauses around within sentences.
>(B): You can move phrases around within clauses.
>(C): You can move words around within phrases.
>(D): You can move phrases _out_ of their "home" clauses within sentences.
>(E): You can move words _out_ of their "home" phrases within clauses.
>
>The two hypotheses I bet on were:
>1. (D) implies both (A) and (B).
>and
>2. (E) implies both (B) and (C).
[snip]
>Two hypotheses which I bet _against_ were;
>5. "(A) and (B)" together imply (D).
>and
>6. "(B) and (C)" together imply (E).
[snip]
But, adding a sixth feature to the list;
(F): You can move words _out_ of their "home" _clauses_ within sentences;
I _would_ bet on the following hypothesis;
7. "(D) and (E)" together imply (F).
as well as
8. (F) implies both (D) and (E).
-----
eldin
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
