There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Euphonic phonology (Was: 'Nor' in the World's Languages)
From: Andreas Johansson
1b. Re: Euphonic phonology (Was: 'Nor' in the World's Languages)
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2a. nihongurishi
From: Dana Nutter
2b. Re: nihongurishi
From: Gary Shannon
2c. Re: nihongurishi
From: Dana Nutter
3. Haha, back (I hope)
From: Carsten Becker
4. Re: FW: Translation Challenge: Foucault's Pendulum
From: Carsten Becker
5. Serial Verb Constructions With "Kill" (was: THEORY: "Finite Verbs" v
From: Eldin Raigmore
6a. TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs
From: Eldin Raigmore
6b. Re: TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs
From: Herman Miller
Messages
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1a. Re: Euphonic phonology (Was: 'Nor' in the World's Languages)
Posted by: "Andreas Johansson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 4:40 am (PDT)
[Massive snippage ahead]
Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Xriçten Talman (Christian Thalmann) isnerq:
> > --- In [email protected], Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> Anyway, do others also have such a hard time finding personally
> >> pleasing phonologies? I find it awefully difficult.
> >
> > Not at all, I absolutely love making phonologies. Disappointingly
> > (?), I usually end up with rather simple vowel systems, and no
> > hard-to-pronounce consonants. But maybe that's just the recipe
> > for pleasing phonologies? It seems to work for Quenya, IMHO the
> > hallmark of pleasing phonology.
>
> I'm the quintessential phonology nerd. Indeed my conlangs
> seldom and only with an effort develop beyond a phonology.
I might not be quite quintessential (maybe "sexessential"? :)), but I'm
definitely a phonology nerd too. I can spend unlimited time crafting the
phonology and morphology of a language, but syntax tends to bore me (which,
unfotrunatly, tends to lead to boring syntax :(), and I find lexicon-building
very slow work.
I'm afraid I just can't use random word generators, partly because they get
horrid to write (one for Tairezazh, frex, would need to throw in dental stops
with higher frequency than velar ones, or the resultant vocabulary would just
sound wrong, and so on for umpteen different variables), partly because I feel
a need to mentally meld form and meaning together in my head. It's not that I
think form should *fit* meaning on some absolute sense (except for
onomatopoeia) - Meghean ['anja] and Steienzh [zEd_dl_d=], both meaning "girl",
are hardly very similar - but just that I need to find a combination that feels
"right" in the context of the language.
> Kate skrev:
> >
> > I do, although for me it's more about how the language looks than how
> > it actually sounds. Since I create most of my languages for stories,
> > how the language looks in transliteration is important to me. (And I'm
> > picky about the transliteration not being too inaccurate or ambiguous,
> > too.) I probably spend more time trying to balance what I consider
> > interesting and pleasing with what's sensible and pleasing in
> > transliteration.
> >
> > What I wonder, is does anyone have the same problem when it comes to
> > morphology, syntax, etc? Sometimes I end up tossing a whole language
> > because I don't think it's elegant enough, enough though there are at
> > least ten different reasons that doing that is silly.
> >
>
> Oh yes! I often find myself ending up with too elegant (i.e. too
> regular) morphology and syntax, or even worse with what IMNSHO are
> too bland phonology and syntax (i.e. too Standard Average European.)
Those are problems I experience too. Tairezazh, in particular, is insanely
regular - not only is the frequency of regular inflections too high, but the
irregularities themselves are too regular! Luckily, Meghean's spelling is
rather quirky ...
As for SAEness, my languages show plenty of that, tho not without some quirks.
Sapir, IIRC, said that SAE languages have a tripartite tense division
past~present~future; this isn't all that true of actual European languages, but
it's very true of my Klaishic family! Meghean, as a conscious reaction against
this, goes the other way, with a TAM system that is chiefly concerned with
aspect, secondarily with mood, and hardly at all with tense per se.
> Like you I'm picky about transcription/transliteration/Romanization.
> I have some ingrained peeves, of which "|h| digraphs should preferably
> be used only to indicate aspiration and/or voiceless sonorants, and
> *not* as a fricativizer, even less as a palatalizer and *absolutely
> not* as a random modifier" is the chief one.
I've always liked using -h for fricativization - witness Meghean, where the
letter is *only* used to indicate fricativization and phonologically related
processes (such as [s]->[h], or, my favourite, [S]->[hj]).
Andreas
Messages in this topic (46)
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1b. Re: Euphonic phonology (Was: 'Nor' in the World's Languages)
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:33 pm (PDT)
Hallo!
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:19:30 -0600, Dirk Elzinga wrote:
> I think that a strict segregation of morphology and phonology is
> probably a mistake in lg creation, whatever your analytical
> predilections are.
Yes.
> For me, most of the interest in morphology is in
> its interaction with phonological forms. Stuff like ablaut, mutation,
> root-and-pattern inflection, and reduplication depend heavily on the
> phonological makeup of the language. If you have a morphology you like
> (that is, you make distinctions among categories you think are
> interesting and useful) look at making the morphology more dependent
> on the sound structure of words--try out some ablaut, mutation, etc to
> liven up both the phonology and morphology.
Seconded. The morphology makes use of phonological processes like the ones
you mentioned. For instance, the way vowel features autosegmentally attach
to morphemes in Old Albic strongly influences the phonemic shapes of the
morphemes in question, e.g. if a morpheme is bisyllabic, both vowels have the
same quality, and there are syllabic morphemes without vowel features attached
which borrow their vowel features from neighbouring morphemes, thus leading to
vowel harmony. I once changed all the case endings because I realized that
the old endings didn't really match up with the language's phonology.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Messages in this topic (46)
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2a. nihongurishi
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:03 am (PDT)
Afuta shiingu aru da Ingurishi wadosu dato habu bin boroudo intsu
Japanizo, ai dato ito wurudo bi naisu tsu kurieito a ranguaji beisudo on
Ingurishi bato yujingu Japanizo honoloji. Disu ekuzampuru isu in
Romaji, bato da sutandado forumu wurudo bi tsu yuju Katakana.
After seeing all the English words that have been borrowed into
Japanese, I thought it would be nice to create a language based on
English but using Japanese phonology. This example is in Romaji, but
the standard form would be to use Katakana.
Messages in this topic (9)
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2b. Re: nihongurishi
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:10 pm (PDT)
--- Dana Nutter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Afuta shiingu aru da Ingurishi wadosu dato habu bin boroudo intsu
> Japanizo, ai dato ito wurudo bi naisu tsu kurieito a ranguaji beisudo on
> Ingurishi bato yujingu Japanizo honoloji. Disu ekuzampuru isu in
> Romaji, bato da sutandado forumu wurudo bi tsu yuju Katakana.
>
> After seeing all the English words that have been borrowed into
> Japanese, I thought it would be nice to create a language based on
> English but using Japanese phonology. This example is in Romaji, but
> the standard form would be to use Katakana.
>
Very interesting. A few mutations to make it slightly more exotic:
* Drop the articles.
* Use particles to indicate verb tense. E.G. "using" -> "doing use"
(doyo usu) and "seeing" -> "doing see" (doyo shi). "have been"->"habi"
"would be"->"wubi", etc.
* Use a standard plural ending on all nouns: "words"->"word+some"
(wadosama). "Languages"->"ranguajisama"
* Put the adjectives after the noun they modify.
These of course are only just a few aribtrary mutations. A completely
different set of modifications could be picked to head off in an
entirely different direction.
Afuta doyo shi aru wadosama Ingurishi dato habi boro intsu
Japanizo, ai dato ito wubi naisu doyo kurieito ranguaji bi beisu on
Ingurishi bato doyo yusu Japanizo honoloji. Disu ekuzampuru bi in
Romaji, bato forumu sutandado wubi doyo yusu Katakana.
--gary
Messages in this topic (9)
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2c. Re: nihongurishi
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:22 pm (PDT)
Gary Shannon roto
> --- Dana Nutter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Afuta shiingu aru da Ingurishi wadosu dato habu bin boroudo intsu
> > Japanizo, ai dato ito wurudo bi naisu tsu kurieito a
> ranguaji beisudo on
> > Ingurishi bato yujingu Japanizo honoloji. Disu ekuzampuru isu in
> > Romaji, bato da sutandado forumu wurudo bi tsu yuju Katakana.
> >
> > After seeing all the English words that have been borrowed into
> > Japanese, I thought it would be nice to create a language based on
> > English but using Japanese phonology. This example is in
> Romaji, but
> > the standard form would be to use Katakana.
> >
> Very interesting. A few mutations to make it slightly more exotic:
I don't want to make it too unrecognizable though. I mainly just like
the sound of Japanese so I've been tossing this idea around in my head.
> * Drop the articles.
Yesu, ai raiku dato aidia tsu. Aruchikuru aru nau gan.
Yes, I like that idea too. The articles are now gone.
> * Use particles to indicate verb tense. E.G. "using" -> "doing use"
> (doyo usu) and "seeing" -> "doing see" (doyo shi). "have been"->"habi"
> "would be"->"wubi", etc.
> * Use a standard plural ending on all nouns: "words"->"word+some"
> (wadosama). "Languages"->"ranguajisama"
No, pururaru isu gan aruso.
No, plurals are gone also.
> * Put the adjectives after the noun they modify.
habu tsu tinku abauto dato wan. Dato wurudo arumosuto porusu mi tsu
meiku ito SOV tsu.
Have to think about that one. That would almost force me to make it SOV
too.
> These of course are only just a few aribtrary mutations. A completely
> different set of modifications could be picked to head off in an
> entirely different direction.
O ya, deru isu rotosu obu posibirichi hiru.
Oh yeah, there are lots of possibilities here.
Messages in this topic (9)
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3. Haha, back (I hope)
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:17 am (PDT)
Hi,
I am a pessimist, but that is nothing new. I collected
information how much having a telephone costs, the monthly
price is EUR 20 -- plus the money you used for phone calls
of course. I am not using the telephone very much actually,
so there won't be many costs. I calculated that using the
internet half an hour per day (i.e. 15 hrs/mn) would cost
EUR 6.12 with the cheapest tariff around at the moment (I
use a Least Cost Router program that collects prices from
a tariff database each day. The program lists all the
tariffs from least to most expensive, and you can choose
among the freely available ones.). All in all that should
be about EUR 30 to 35 per month, which still rather OK.
Except that the Telekom wants EUR 60 from me just for making
the socket work, but that's the price everyone has to pay
once to get a telephone line (my parents told me).
I'm using a slowish modem right now, but that's still
better than having no internet at all.
Cheers,
Carsten
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Venena, Pihaling 15, 2315 ya 11:36:22 pd
Messages in this topic (1)
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4. Re: FW: Translation Challenge: Foucault's Pendulum
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:22 am (PDT)
From: "Sally Caves" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 7:40 AM
> From: "Sylvia Sotomayor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> ennapren '(mathematical) rationality'. Getting this from
>> sanity was a stretch, but needed for the congruence in
>> English of mathematical rational and mentally rational.
>> So, irrational numbers are actually insane numbers.
>
> I had trouble with this, too; I basically think that
> Teonaht would have different terminology for mathematical
> concepts: I have a word for "rational" (racodel), but it
> means "full of reason, full of logic." The opposite,
> "full of unreason" doesn't really describe pi. Pi is
> reasonable on its own terms, just one's we can't fathom.
> Irrational numbers: unfathomable numbers? bottomless
> numbers?
I translated that as 'incomprehensible number' FWIW. Pi was
translated as 'magical number'. To be honest, I didn't
get that Eco is punning when I translated that, so I might
want to have a look at my translation again.
From: "Gary Shannon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 6:52 PM
> Piece of cake: Atthay asway enwhe Iyay awsay ethay
> endulumpay.
>
> ;-)
Eaterchay, Igpay Atinlay oasday otnay ountcay sayay ayay
onlangcay :-P (royay oesday tiyay?) *
Carsten/Arstencay
*) Iyay opehay atthay ymay Igpay Atinlay siyay ightray?
--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Tenena, Pihaling 7, 2315 ya 07:43:21 pd
Messages in this topic (7)
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5. Serial Verb Constructions With "Kill" (was: THEORY: "Finite Verbs" v
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 5:11 pm (PDT)
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:13:02 +0200, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>> Ooh! I wanna see! I wanna see!
>
>Okay. Taruven has a weird form of pro-drop, to start with: a dropped
>subject means the subject is 1st person, a dropped object means the
>object is 3rd person, a dropped indirect object means the indirect
>object is 3rd person *animate*.
>
>It also has serial verb constructions:
>
>jehan Seva kirja kru ilisiaT
>
>This is, obviously :), an SVC: Jehan go cut kill Ilisi.
>S is [S], T is [T], aT marks objects
I find it interesting that your first example of a serial verb
construction uses a verb meaning "kill" as part of the series.
Is "Jehan" the Taruven equivalent of "Jack", by any chance?
>Seva kiri kru ilisiaT
>
>This is, obviosly, also an SVC: I/we go cut kill Ilisi.
>
>As is this:
>
>Seva kiri kru = I go cut kill someone/something
>
>All very nice for newspaper headlines.
And what's the difference, if any, between the Taruven for "cut" and the
Taruven for "rip"?
>If you tell a story and the events happen consequtively and you need to
>add detail you can't use an SVC, so you clause chain instead:
>
>jehan Seva saies, lekiri ilisiaT ao lekru iaT
>
>Jehan go to.river, same.subject-cut Ilisi and.then same.subject-kill
him/her.
>
>(In this particular example the clause-chaining implies that it took
>some time between each act since if not an SVC would have been
>sufficient.)
There are five possible relation ships between a referent (or time or
location) of a Marked clause and a referent (or time or location) of a
Reference clause:
= (Exact, coextensive identity)
< (marked referent properly contained within Reference referent)
> (marked referent properly contains Reference referent)
^ overlap (neither referent lies within the other but they have part(s) in
common)
| disjunction (the two referents are completely disjoint, having no parts
in common).
When we're talking about Same/Different Subjects and/or Same/Different
Objects, AFAIK no natlang distinguishes between ^ and |.
But it would be natural to make such a distinction in the Same/Different
Location marking.
(BTW most switch-reference natlangs either use the same mark for all of <
and > and ^ and |, different from =; or use the same mark for all of = and
< and >, different from ^ and | which are marked the same as each other.
But some mark < different from >.)
When we're talking about Same/Different Time, two other possibilities can
come up; if one clause ends before another begins, (so they are disjoint
|), are they consecutive/contiguous or not? Also, if they overlap in time
wihtout either being contained within the other (the ^ relationship),
which of them begins before the other begins and ends before the other
ends?
>Now this...
>
>jehan Seva saies, kiri ilisiaT ao kru iaT
>
>means "Jehan go to.river, I/we cut Ilisi and.then I/we kill him/her"
>
>This is ambiguous btw: did I/we kill Ilisi or Jehan? It might be that
>there is also a marker for same object but I haven't discovered one so
>far.
I assume you mean "I haven't discovered a 'SameObject vs DifferentObject'
morphology in Taruven so far."
Because there is at least one in at least one natlang.
>Furthermore, all words capable of acting as transitives may incorporate
>an object. Sometime these combinations fossilize, like riTann, meaning
>"give name", ergo baptize.
>
>Type I object-incorporation is basically: the object is incorporated,
>turning the verb into an intransitive modified by the former object:
>
>kirja veigaT "I cut down a/the tree(s)"
>\-> kirjaveige "I am tree-cutting"
>
>If theory is to be believed, to have type IV one needs to also have type
>II and III, but I have no good examples.
Remind me, please, what the differences are between Types I, II, III, and
IV of object-incorporation?
Thanks.
>On to type IV:
>
>kirja SakraaT "I cut down cherry-trees"
>\-> kirjaveige SakraaT "I am tree-cutting cherry-trees"
>
>Another, similar phenomenon:
>kirja kair veigevunaT "I cut down four small trees"
>\-> kirjaveige kairvunaT "I tree-cut four small ones(trees)"
>
>So, the incorporated object remains an object and is modified by
>anything else that is marked with the object-marker.
>
>Yet another example:
>
>jehan kirjaveige IlisiaT "Jehan cut down Ilisi as he/she would fell a
tree"
>
>Back to the very lexicalized incorporations: with riTann, the name
>itself would be marked as an object:
>
>yriTannra xaiaT "they named him 'Pain'/he was named 'Pain'"
>
>What's really going on is that the "object" is still accessible and is
>modified attributively just like the case with "kirjaveige" above.
>
>Sorry for the bloody examples,
It just seems natural to use "cut kill" as a serial verb construction,
especially if your subject is named Jack. I suppose if he were named
Maxwell, you'd use a "hit kill" SVC.
>I don't have that many transitive verbs
>to demonstrate with yet :)
>
>
>t., who knows that the last sentence can be interpreted at least two ways
Thanks.
-----
Eldin
Messages in this topic (1)
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6a. TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 5:32 pm (PDT)
It seems that some languages nearly require nearly every verb -- or, at
least, the nucleus of nearly every main clause -- to be inflected for
Tense.
For lack of knowing the real terminology, (if there even is any), let me
call these "Tense-Prominent Languages".
It seems that some languages nearly require nearly every verb -- or, at
least, the nucleus of nearly every main clause -- to be inflected for
Aspect.
For lack of knowing the real terminology, (if there even is any), let me
call these "Aspect-Prominent Languages".
It seems several "Aspect-Prominent" Languages are _not_ "Tense-Prominent".
It seems several "Tense-Prominent" Languages are _not_ "Aspect-Prominent".
How about your conlangs? Would you say they are:
1. Very Tense-Prominent but not very Aspect-Prominent?
2. Very Aspect-Prominent but not very Tense-Prominent?
3. Or that they are both quite Tense-Prominent and quite Aspect-Prominent?
3a. Nevertheless, rather more Tense-Prominent than Aspect-Prominent?
3b. Nevertheless, rather more Aspect-Prominent than Tense-Prominent?
3c. About equally Aspect-Prominent as Tense-Prominent?
4. Would you say they are neither very Tense-Prominent nor very Aspect-
Prominent?
4a. Nevertheless, rather more Tense-Prominent than Aspect-Prominent?
4b. Nevertheless, rather more Aspect-Prominent than Tense-Prominent?
4c. About equally Aspect-Prominent as Tense-Prominent?
-------
That might not be all there is to it at all.
Languages with evidentials may be "Mood-Prominent", or at
least "Evidential-Prominent", rather than either Aspect-Prominent or Tense-
Prominent.
Does your conlang require that any speaker mention how he/she knows what
he/she is saying happened, but hardly ever require at that they mention
when it happened (or how often it happened, or how long it took to happen,
or whatever)?
--------
Whatever your answers to the above questions, can you also answer this one?
Where did you get that idea to put it in your conlang?
Is your conlang a lot like any natlang or any group of natlangs in that
way?
---
Thanks,
---
eldin
Messages in this topic (2)
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6b. Re: TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:32 pm (PDT)
Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> How about your conlangs? Would you say they are:
> 1. Very Tense-Prominent but not very Aspect-Prominent?
> 2. Very Aspect-Prominent but not very Tense-Prominent?
My earlier languages were more "tense-prominent", for a simple reason: I
wasn't aware that such a thing as "aspect" existed. Later, I gradually
started shifting to more "aspect-prominent" languages.
> That might not be all there is to it at all.
> Languages with evidentials may be "Mood-Prominent", or at
> least "Evidential-Prominent", rather than either Aspect-Prominent or Tense-
> Prominent.
>
> Does your conlang require that any speaker mention how he/she knows what
> he/she is saying happened, but hardly ever require at that they mention
> when it happened (or how often it happened, or how long it took to happen,
> or whatever)?
Tirelat requires an evidential suffix on verbs, but the evidential
suffix also specifies the tense. For instance, there's a "past hearsay"
suffix -li- and a "nonpast hearsay" suffix -ja-. The aspect suffix is
also obligatory in most cases.
> Whatever your answers to the above questions, can you also answer this one?
> Where did you get that idea to put it in your conlang?
> Is your conlang a lot like any natlang or any group of natlangs in that
> way?
I started putting aspects into my languages after reading about the
Slavic languages. I'm not sure when I had the idea to de-emphasize
tense, but I would've known about languages like Chinese.
I got the idea for evidential suffixes from Thomas E. Payne's book
_Describing Morphosyntax_.
Messages in this topic (2)
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