There are 13 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Delexicalization of left & right
From: Eugene Oh
2a. FW: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
2b. Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
2c. Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
From: Dana Nutter
2d. Re: FW: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
From: Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues
3a. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
3b. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
From: John Vertical
3c. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
From: Mark J. Reed
3d. OT: Python v Java (was: A method of generating "flavored" words)
From: Gary Shannon
3e. Re: OT: Python v Java (was: A method of generating "flavored" words)
From: Mark J. Reed
4. Re: German conlangcon in August?
From: Carsten Becker
5. Re: OT: English -uice
From: Mark J. Reed
6. OT: Ya xochu uchit' russki
From: H. S. Teoh
Messages
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1. Re: Delexicalization of left & right
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Aug 5, 2006 7:56 pm (PDT)
2006/8/1, John Vertical <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> >Whether the cultural concept _right: good vs. left: bad, taboo_ is really
> >ancient is an interesting question.
>
> Well, with handedness, right=strong, left=weak is rather trivial; the more
> symbolic meaning is not exactly lightyears apart, altho I wouldn't expect
> every culture to have developed / adopted it.
>
In many of the southern Chinese languages, "right" is still expressed
with 正 (right, erect, proper) and "left" with 倒 (overturned, fallen,
opposite).
Messages in this topic (9)
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2a. FW: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Aug 5, 2006 11:54 pm (PDT)
Hi all,
I'm forwarding a (rather long) reply I recently made to Maarten van Wijk about
a question he raised on the Linguist list. My main question to you all is:
In your conlangs, what kinds of logical connectives have you implemented?
Examples would be:
1. A and B - AND
2. A or B or both (A and B) - the "inclusive or", OR
3. A or B but not both (A and B) - the "exclusive or", XOR
4. If A, then B - "A implies B"
5. A only if B - "A is implied by B"
6. A if and only if B - "A and B imply each other", "A and B are equivalent"
7. not A - ie the statement A is not true - cf Malay "tidak" for logical
negation, below
8. M is not a N - ie the thing M is not one of the things N - cf Malay "bukan"
for categorical negation, below
9. neither A nor B - ie not A and not B
A secondary question is, if you wish to comment, how strictly do they match the
logician's view of those connectives?
Regards,
Yahya
-----Original Message-----
From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz
Sent: Monday 10 July 2006 22:41 pm
To: Maarten van Wijk
Subject: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
Hi Maarten,
On the Linguist list, you recently wrote:
---
For my dissertation on the emergence of logical connectives in natural language
I'm trying to debunk an argument by Gazdar and Pullum (1976) on what they call
non-confessionality, which is supposed to be principle that rules out nand, but
also nor as a natural language truth-functional connective.
The basic argument runs as follows:
There is psycholinguistic evidence that negations are hard to compute for human
minds, and computation time increases exponentially for each extra negative
element added (Hoosain 1973; Clark 1974, both cited by Gazdar and Pullum 1976).
Therefore there can be no connective C that causes the truth value of a
proposition conjoined by C to be true when both of the arguments of C are false.
This is supposed to explain why NAND, IFF and IF are not natural language
connectives. After all, A if B is true if neither A nor B is true.
However, NOR would be non-confessional as well, and still it is found in many
natural languages.
Gazdar and Pullum acknowledge the existence of neither...nor in modern English,
but they accommodate this by proposing that neither...nor is derived
syntactically from either...or by incorporation of NEG. Such syntactic claims
have been made. (I don't have the citations handy).
This seems like a bit of an argument out of convenience to me. I can see that
English nor certainly gives the impression of being composed out of not and or.
I'm wondering whether this is true in other languages of the world as well,
though....
Does anyone know of any language in which the word for NOR doesn't look at all
like the particle for negation? And what is your general take on the
'incorporation of negation' argument? How seriously should I take this
generativistic argument? I myself work in an evolutionary linguistics
framework.
---
I don't know whether the following will help you or
not.
_1) Malay certainly uses a standard "logical" negation
"tidak" for a "logical" /neither ... nor .../ construction.
Malay uses a phrase : "juga tidak", literally "also not"
eg "I neither knew nor wanted that" would be
"sahaya tidak tahu juga tidak mahu itu", literally
"I not know also not want that".
This form, using "juga", differentiates it from an implicit
conditional structure, such as the following proverb:
eg "[If you] don't know, [you] don't want" would be
"tidak tahu, tidak mahu", literally
"not know, not want".
_2) There is also a separate word in Malay for "categorical"
negation: "bukan", which you would need to use for a
"categorical" /neither ... nor .../ construction.
eg "Neither fish nor fowl" would be
"Bukan ikan juga bukan ayam [pula]", literally
"Not-fish also not-fowl [again/likewise/furthermore]".
This shows that a language with two kinds of negation
may require or allow two kinds of /neither ... nor .../. ;-)
_3) This little logical digression is not directly apropos your
question. But I wonder whether we may be hasty in so readily
equating the logical operations of natural language with those
of formal logic, binary mathematics or computers. I invite you
to consider my arguments below, and make of them what you
will ...
It's a truism that language is not logic. So it should be
no surprise that some natural language constructions, which
use words we have adopted as models of logical operations,
such as "if", "not" and "and", are not strictly logical in using
those very same words. And any attempt in everyday speech
to use those words very precisely is usually derided as
pedantry, or just "being smart". You know all this, I'm sure!
But this is why I take issue with the analysis we so often
make of the logic of "IF". In a binary-valued logic calculus,
we demand that each operation on propositions produce a
binary-valued result. (This I call the Aristotelian error.)
Therefore we say something like:
"Well, if neither A nor B is true, we still need a binary value
for the proposition 'if A then B'. Which value can we assign
it?"
And so we decide, that for consistency in our binary world,
we will *choose* to say that 'if A then B' is true in that case.
But this is not what happens in the real world of everyday
language use! We say instead "We don't know". (Always
assuming we don't go round making rash assumptions ...)
At least, if we are being reasonable, skeptical empiricists,
we do. This particular case simply doesn't add any evidence
to the proposition "if A then B". I can diagram this with
truth tables:
______Case | 1 2 3 4
----------------|---------
________A | T T F F
________B | T F T F
___~(A&~B) | T F T T
_____(A=>B) | T F T T
__if A then B | T F ? ?
The logical operator => (implies) is usually *defined* to be
the equivalent of not both A and not B. This appears as row
three of the table, ~(A&~B). Its truth value is well defined
in each of the four cases 1, 2, 3 and 4. So the truth values
of => are also all well defined; its truth table is full and it is
a well defined operator.
But, taking a commonsense evidentiary approach, only cases
1 and 2 provide us with evidence for the truth or falsity of
'if A then B'. Case 1 provides positive evidence; case 2
provides negative evidence. But any case, such as 3 or 4, in
which the antecedent A is false gives us *no* evidence for
the truth of the implication when the antecedent is true.
Two farmers are looking at a pig.
Brown: "Look at my duck!"
Green: "That's no duck, it's a pig!"
Brown: "It flew around the barnyard this morning. If it
flies, it's a duck. You wouldn't call it a chicken, would
you?"
Green: "Flew, you said? It's not flying now, is it? Yes,
it might be a chicken at that. I've never seen it fly. Until
I see it fly, you can't tell me it's a duck."
You don't even need a *good* implication to see that the
absence of evidence does not support the implication.
Mind you, I'm not saying that absence of evidence is
evidence of absence ...
---
Good luck with your dissertation! If you ever do find a
convincing reason why we don't have NAND in natural
English, I'd love to know!
Regards,
Yahya
------------------------------------------------
Yahya Abdal-Aziz
Melbourne PC User Group
Convener, Graphics Interest Group
Convener, Music Interest Group
------------------------------------------------
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Messages in this topic (4)
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2b. Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 12:03 am (PDT)
Hi again,
Please reply to my previous message onlist; I believe the Reply-to is sometimes
set incorrectly.
Regards,
Yahya
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2c. Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 5:11 am (PDT)
li [Yahya Abdal-Aziz] mi tulis la
> In your conlangs, what kinds of logical connectives have you
> implemented?
> Examples would be:
In SASXSEK:
> 1. A and B - AND
A ka B
> 2. A or B or both (A and B) - the "inclusive or", OR
A kapa B
> 3. A or B but not both (A and B) - the "exclusive or", XOR
A pa B
> 4. If A, then B - "A implies B"
wa A fa B
> 5. A only if B - "A is implied by B"
B wa A \ wa B fa A
> 6. A if and only if B - "A and B imply each other", "A and
> B are equivalent"
wa A ka B
> 7. not A - ie the statement A is not true - cf Malay "tidak"
> for logical negation, below
ni A
> 8. M is not a N - ie the thing M is not one of the things N -
> cf Malay "bukan" for categorical negation, below
M ni N \ M Nin
> 9. neither A nor B - ie not A and not B
na A na B
Gloss
-----
ka = and
pa = or (exclusive)
kapa = or (ka+pa, inclusive)
wa = if
fa = then; therefore
na = but
ni = not (adv.)
-in = in-; un-; not ~
Also note that -A words are conjunctions. Most have related prepositions with
somewhat related meanings (ending with -U).
ku = with
pu = against
nu = without
fu = toward
------------------------------
dejnx nxtxr / Dana Nutter
LI SASXSEK LATIS.
http://www.nutter.net/sasxsek
Messages in this topic (4)
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2d. Re: FW: 'Nor' in the World's Languages
Posted by: "Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 6:02 am (PDT)
In Portuguese:
inclusive or = ou
This or that.
Isto ou aquilo.
In practice, in most scenarios "ou (or)" end up meaning "exclusive
or", like in English, because scenarios where you can choose/have two
things or either one appear less often than scenarios where you can
have one thing but not the other. I believe this means that, for human
beings, "exclusive or" is a more basic operation than "inclusive or",
differently from logic. Because of this people tend to say "this or
that or both" when they mean "this inclusive-or that" and want to
ensure that an unambiguous interpretation is performed.
exclusive or (either... or) = ou... ou
Either this or that.
Ou isto ou aquilo.
Like in English, in some scenarios, "ou... ou (either... or)" is
slightly different from the logical meaning of "exclusive or" because
you can also choose/have "neither this nor that", but this is implicit
in such cases. For example, when choosing a gift and you are
constrained to choose only one of them ("either this gift of that
gift"), you may also opt for not having any gift.
Of course, in other scenarios "ou... ou (either... or)" can mean only
"exclusive or". For instance, "either he has a dog or he does not have
a dog", but those scenarios are rare in practice.
In everyday use, as "ou (or)" often means "xor", people use "ou... ou
(either... or)" only when they want to ensure that an unambiguous
interpretation is performed.
neither... nor = nem... [e] nem (if a noun follows) / n\xE3o... [e] nem
(if a verb follows).
Neither this nor that.
Nem isto [e] nem aquilo.
She neither likes this nor likes that.
Ela n\xE3o gosta disto [e] nem gosta daquilo.
and = e
As in English, commas replace "and" in a long chain.
I want the first, the second, the fourth and the tenth.
Eu quero o primeiro, o segundo, o quarto e o d\xE9cimo.
either = qualquer um
Either of them is good for me. It does not matter.
Qualquer um deles est\xE1 bom para mim. Isto n\xE3o importa.
not only... but also = n\xE3o s\xF3... mas tamb\xE9m
Not only she won the championship, but also achieved the world record.
N\xE3o s\xF3 ela ganhou o campeonato, mas tamb\xE9m atingiu o recorde mundial.
one who = quem
Equivalent to "if" for all the elements of a set, and the set is
usually implicit in the context - "for all elements of a certain set,
if...".
For any individual that is a human, if (s)he wants to marry, then
(s)he wants a house.
One who wants to marry also wants a house.
Quem quer casar tamb\xE9m quer uma casa.
at least (followed by a number, usually "one") = ao menos
At least one person here is older than me.
Ao menos uma pessoa aqui \xE9 mais velha do que eu.
The construction equivalent to "neither... nor" in Malay, which you
sent to the list and corresponds to "not... also not" and "not... also
not again/likewise/furthermore" is very interesting. Thank you for
sharing.
There is probably a myriad of cases which I did not cover, because
real world scenarios can be quite complex. Anyway, I hope my
simplified demonstration of how some constructions work in Portuguese
and in English will foster your thinking process.
Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues
Messages in this topic (4)
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3a. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
Posted by: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 12:03 am (PDT)
Hi Gary,
On Sat, 5 Aug 2006 Gary Shannon wrote:
> > >
> > > Here's an interesting procedure I stumbled upon while playing with
word generation.
> > [snip examples]
> >
> > Neat!
> >
> > Got a script, say in Python?
>
> I was thinking of writing it in Java since that would run on any platform.
That would be very good! Please post a link onlist when you have it
available.
Regards,
Yahya
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Messages in this topic (9)
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3b. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
Posted by: "John Vertical" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 3:00 am (PDT)
>Here's an interesting procedure I stumbled upon while playing with word
>generation. Take words from a lnaguage whose flavor you wish to capture.
>This
>can be your own conlang to generate "matching" words, or any natlang you
>would
>like to copy the flavor of. Or it could even be a combination of two or
>more
>different natlangs to get a blended flavor.
>
>Collect a few dozen or more words. Divide those words into VCV groups where
>the
>V's represent ALL the adjacent vowels in a word and the C represents ALL
>the
>adjacent consonants. (...)
>These groups will be assembled together with other groups from other words
>with
>the rule being that the complete set of adjacent ending vowels must match
>the
>complete set of starting vowels for the attached group.
(examples snipped)
>Try it. You'll like it.
>
>--gary
Neat! But... in its current state, it only works with certain kind of
phonotactics. The method does well in getting clustering correctly, but
rules working farther than the next syllable end up ignored. Exagerrated
example from Finnish follows:
ruokki "auk" + v\xE4rikkyys "colorfulness" + pyylev\xE4 "chubby (person)"
-> "uokkikkyyle", which violates about 3 rules of Finnish phonotactics...
It is fixable, however. To fix the distribution of initial/final vowels,
just treat the word boundary /#/ as a consonant phoneme - so you'd have to
find -0#V- and -V#0- segments for the end and the beginning. And with
harmony systems, underspecify phonemes where applicable. With these, my
example would turn into maybe "luokkikkuulen" - which is better, but still
wouldn't pass as a single word. The only way to fix the "no consecutiv
plosiv geminates" rule, I'm afraid, would be to use segments longer than
VCV; maybe CVCV with 50% overlap.
Oh, and I now recall coming sum' years ago across a name generator using a
similar system; it used N-grapheme segments with N-1-grapheme overlap
required...
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (9)
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3c. Re: A method of generating "flavored" words
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 6:05 am (PDT)
On 8/5/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Got a script, say in Python?
> I was thinking of writing it in Java since that would run on any platform.
Uhm, Python also runs on any platform. As do Perl, Ruby, JavaScript,
TCL . . . pretty much any of the higher-level "scripting" languages
are cross-platform. Java tries to be a system language, what with the
strong typing and the explicit compile step and stuff, so for it, the
fact that you can compile once and run anywhere is a selling point.
But for languages like Python et al, it's just part and parcel of
their nature.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (9)
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3d. OT: Python v Java (was: A method of generating "flavored" words)
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 1:46 pm (PDT)
--- "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 8/5/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > --- Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Got a script, say in Python?
> > I was thinking of writing it in Java since that would run on any platform.
>
>
> Uhm, Python also runs on any platform. As do Perl, Ruby, JavaScript,
> TCL . . . pretty much any of the higher-level "scripting" languages
> are cross-platform. Java tries to be a system language, what with the
> strong typing and the explicit compile step and stuff, so for it, the
> fact that you can compile once and run anywhere is a selling point.
> But for languages like Python et al, it's just part and parcel of
> their nature.
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
I guess I forgot to mention my most important reason for using Java rather than
Python. I know Java but I don't know Python. I could also write it as a server
side php script and put the various flavor databases in MySQL.
--gary
Messages in this topic (9)
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3e. Re: OT: Python v Java (was: A method of generating "flavored" words)
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 6:41 pm (PDT)
PHP is convenient for making it a web page, sure. And you're not
limited to MySQL for the databases if you do that, though. PHP will
talk to pretty much anything. And you don't have to make it
server-side, either; PHP has a command-line mode.
On 8/6/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > On 8/5/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > --- Yahya Abdal-Aziz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > Got a script, say in Python?
> > > I was thinking of writing it in Java since that would run on any platform.
> >
> >
> > Uhm, Python also runs on any platform. As do Perl, Ruby, JavaScript,
> > TCL . . . pretty much any of the higher-level "scripting" languages
> > are cross-platform. Java tries to be a system language, what with the
> > strong typing and the explicit compile step and stuff, so for it, the
> > fact that you can compile once and run anywhere is a selling point.
> > But for languages like Python et al, it's just part and parcel of
> > their nature.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
>
> I guess I forgot to mention my most important reason for using Java rather
> than
> Python. I know Java but I don't know Python. I could also write it as a server
> side php script and put the various flavor databases in MySQL.
>
> --gary
>
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (9)
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4. Re: German conlangcon in August?
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 5:53 am (PDT)
On Sat, 5 Aug 2006 23:13:37 +0200, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>You do have an own domain, so can you not configure a mail account
>there? (Of course, although it might get around the restrictions, it
>is quite obvious that they do not want you to use private mail at
>work...)
That function would cost one euro extra per month. Theoretically, *all*
private internet use is forbidden at work.
>Will you have private internet access in the foreseeable future?
No, most probably not.
C.
Messages in this topic (5)
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5. Re: OT: English -uice
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 6:02 am (PDT)
Actually, I just heard "bedroom suit" on a furniture ad here in metro
Atlanta, so it appears to be alive and well. But I have also heard it
pronounced "suite", so the two pronunciations are currently in
competition around here.
On 8/5/06, Adam Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> and
> > "suite" pronounced /sut/, a configuration of
> > furniture (e.g. a
> > "bedroom suite"). Somewhere along the way that last
> > word began to be
> > pronounced /swit/ also - presumably because it was
> > always so in other
> > parts of the country and the regional speech was
> > moving toward
> > conformity.
> >
> > --
> > Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
> Last I knew it was still pronounced /sut/ here in
> Texas.
>
> Adam
>
>
> 9 Debostu averuns judidu ul regu, vaderuns in al via, ed i~ni! 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
>
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (11)
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6. OT: Ya xochu uchit' russki
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun Aug 6, 2006 8:26 pm (PDT)
Hi, conlangy folks.
I've been away for a long time, and I haven't done very much conlanging.
But I do know that there are a lot of linguistically-inclined people
here, so I thought I'd ask for some help.
I've recently started to learn Russian, but due to the lack of native
speakers around me, I've a hard time with pronunciation. Is there anyone
who's interested to help me with pronunciation (off-list, of course) by
transcribing Russian words into IPA, perhaps together with some
explanation of the phonotactics going on behind the scenes? (Y'know, the
stuff they don't explain adequately in textbooks. I did invest in a
Russian-English dictionary and a beginner/intermediate book on Russian,
but neither use IPA nor get into, e.g., how consonant clusters simplify,
etc.. The dictionary does indicate stress, which helps a lot, but I
have a lot of trouble with consonant clusters.)
Bolshoye spasibo!
T
--
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? -- Erich Schubert
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