There are 16 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
From: caeruleancentaur
1b. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
From: Henrik Theiling
1c. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
From: Michael Potter
1d. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
From: caeruleancentaur
2a. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
From: Jonathan Knibb
2b. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
From: Jonathan Knibb
2c. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
From: Henrik Theiling
2d. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
From: Elliott Lash
2e. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
From: Henrik Theiling
2f. [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntactic
From: H. S. Teoh
3. Re: Taxonomic Vocabulary
From: Jim Henry
4. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.1 (repost #1)
From: caeruleancentaur
5a. Re: [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntacti
From: Henrik Theiling
5b. Re: [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntacti
From: H. S. Teoh
6. Re: OT: Seriously OT request
From: Adam Walker
7. Looking for a term
From: Scotto Hlad
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 5:09 am (PDT)
>Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> - snap at, v. bite off with a quick bite; "The dog snapped off a
> piece of cloth from the intruder's pants"
You don't seem to understand these two verbs the way I do. "Snap
at" and "snap off" are not synonymous.
"Snap at" means to speak sharply or abruptly. "He snapped at her
when she mentioned the accident." There is no physical contact
denoted.
"Snap off" means to break with a snapping sound. It implies
something brittle, like a twig or a cracker. Cloth cannot be
snapped off. "She snapped off a piece of the cracker (not the
bread) for the baby."
IMO, the sentence should read "The dog tore off (ripped off) a piece
of cloth from the intruder's pants."
And again, IMO, I would not have used the adverb "off," but that's
just a stylistic point. I see it as redundant with "from." "The
dog tore a piece of cloth from the intruder's pants."
My 4¢. Inflation, you know!
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/senjecas
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 5:34 am (PDT)
Hi!
caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > - snap at, v. bite off with a quick bite; "The dog snapped off a
> > piece of cloth from the intruder's pants"
>
> You don't seem to understand these two verbs the way I do. "Snap
> at" and "snap off" are not synonymous.
It is not *me* who understands it in any way. The words together with
their definition are taken without modification from the WordNet data
base. They are picked at random by the program that generates the
mail.
Actually, I noticed this, too but only when reading the mail this
morning on Conlang, and I fully agree with you. I slept when they
were selected. :-)
If you feel like making up vocab from it, use any or both senses, or
whatever you feel is right, or even something completely
different. :-)
**Henrik
PS: I'll add a bigger note to the automatically generated parts.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
Posted by: "Michael Potter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 3:51 pm (PDT)
Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Last posted: April 5th, 2002
>
Well, I needed a reason to get back on here, so here goes. It helps that
Suvile already has most of these words. One day, I *will* do something
with the other Idzon languages, but that day is not today.
>> From: Aidan Grey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>
>> This week's exercises brought to you by the indirect relative and the
>> letters F (for forest) and M (for mushroom).
>>
>> Vocab:
>>
>> 1. forest
alvint "forest" (this is some sort of formation on _alb_ "tree", but I
don't remember how it happened!)
>> 2. mushroom (edible)
walkav "mushroom"
>> 3. to look for something
opil "to search, look for"
>> 4. To find something after searching for it
lik "to find, discover"
>> 5. base, bottom
duro "bottom, deepest part"
>> 6. moss
vus "moss" (new word)
>> 7. basket, bag
tayl "basket" (new word)
>> 8. pine needles, leaves of a conifer
k'r [kr\=] "point"
(more specifically: _k'r teshale_, with _teshal_ "pine")
>> 9. each
tiþ "each"
>> 10. always
tiþesh "always" (lit. "every now")
>> Sentences (1 per word, for now):
>>
>> 1. The forest is in that direction. (or "over there", said while
>> pointing to it)
yalvint el cirn.
y- alvint 'l cirn
the forest toward there
(Suvile usually omits it, but you can use the verb _ya_ "to be" if you
really need it.)
>> 2. I like mushrooms very much!
elm'r walkavlan omor!
elm -r walkav -l -an omor
like 1SG mushroom PL ACC much
>> 3. I often go searching for mushrooms in the forest.
opil'r losh walkavlan yalvintir.
opil -r walkav -el -an y- alvint -ir
search 1SG mushroom PL ACC the forest LOC
>> 4. She kept the mushroom that I tripped over.
irisab iwalkavan edurab iþ.
iris -ab i- walkav -an edu -r -ab iþ
keep PAST the mushroom ACC trip 1SG PAST that
(3rd person singular is the "default" for Suvile verbs.)
>> 5. At the base of which tree did you find that mushroom?
lik'l iþ walkavan duroyr atþ albe?
lik -l iþ walkav -an duro -ir atþ alb -e
find 2SG that mushroom ACC bottom LOC which? tree GEN
(_atþ_ is a sort of interrogative pronoun, used in questions in place of
_iþ_.)
>> 6. There is no moss on the base of that tree.
ni vusan duroyr þan albe.
ni vus -an duro -ir þan alb -e
not_be moss ACC bottom LOC that tree GEN
(_ni_ is a negative form of _ya_. It is almost never omitted.)
>> 7. Put the mushroom in the basket.
pilc iwalkavan itaylir.
pilc i- walkav -an i- tayl -ir
place the mushroom ACC the basket LOC
Imperatives have three forms in Suvile. In increasing intensity they are:
1: basic verb form (e.g. _pilc_ [piltS])
2: 2nd person future (e.g. _pilclud_)
3: imperative suffix (e.g. _pilci_)
>> 8. These baskets, the handles of which are made of pine needles, are
>> useful.
iþ taylel pol yanðerl iþe krot kro teshire.
iþ tayl -el pol i- anðer -el iþ -e krot k'r -o teshir -e
this basket PL useful the handle PL that GEN made point ABL pine GEN
>> 9. That is the woman to whom I give each of the mushrooms.
þan len'r jiv'r tiþ walkavan.
þan len -r jiv -r tiþ walkav -an
that woman DAT give 1SG each mushroom ACC
>> 10. I always go looking for mushrooms is the forest through which we
>> walked today.
>>
tiþesh opil'r walkavler yalvinte cir pidusab idi.
tiþesh opil -r walkav -el -r i- alvint -e cir pid -us -ab
always search 1SG mushroom PL DAT the forest GEN where walk 1PL PAST
idi
today
Two new vocabulary words, plus another 5 in the sentences. According to
Toolbox, that brings the total up to 1114. I think the grammar was a lot
harder than the vocab, though. I'm still not sure if the relatives are
realistic, but Suvile is supposed to be the English of its world, and we
all know how unrealistic English seems! :p
--
Michael Potter
Idzon Conworld: http://idzon.potterpcs.net
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.2 (repost #1)
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 6:04 pm (PDT)
1. forest = câtos
The forest is in that direction.
câtos tórþim êsa.
forest thither is
2. mushroom (edible) = süômbos
I like mushrooms very much!
¡musë süômbon méÿu méÿu pîîra!
I-epen mushrooms very much like
3. to look for something = pêµa
I often go searching for mushrooms in the forest.
mus câtom éna süômbin péru pêµa
I forest in mushroms often search-for
4. To find something after searching for it = dêêsa (Is this meant
to be different than finding something that one wasn't looking for?)
She kept the mushroom that I tripped over.
nus, mus nimë sxêli, süômbom per arca.
she, I it-epen trip-over, mushroom past-ptc. keep
In answer to the question I just posed, I wonder if "tripped over"
shouldn't be "stumbled upon." I can't imagine anyone clumsy enough
to trip over a mushroom!)
5. base, bottom = nitêros
At the base of which tree did you find that mushroom?
tus cüi dorîsïo níterôsïo süômbom nim per dêêsar.
you which of-tree at-base mushrom that past-ptc. find-?
6. moss = mûûsis
There is no moss on the base of that tree.
mûûsis dorîsïo nîsïo níterôsïo éna vûûla ne.
moss of-tree that base on there-is not
7. basket = cüâsïos (bag = mâcos)
Put the mushroom in the basket.
tus cüâsïom éna süômbomë stîîve.
you basket in mushroom-epen put
8. pine needles, leaves of a conifer = várësxüôjos (vâris = conifer
+ sxüôjos = needle)
These baskets, the handles of which are made of pine needles, are
useful.
cüasïôes dôes, num amlôes várësxüojïôes êsi, noðrôes êsa.
baskets these, of-them handles made-of-pine-needles are, useful are
9. each = sênïis
That is the woman to whom I give each of the mushrooms.
nus, mus num o süombôm sênïom dôôni, güênus êsa.
that, I her to of-mushrooms each give, woman is
10. always = sólum
I always go looking for mushrooms in the forest through which we
walked today.
mus, µus nom tércüe dámrëvi per têrpi, catâsïo éna süômbon sólum
pêµa.
I, we it through today past-ptc. walk, forest in mushrooms always
search-for.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/senjecas
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
Posted by: "Jonathan Knibb" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 5:17 am (PDT)
caeruleancentaur wrote:
>The red flower is on the table.
>The flower, which is red, is on the table.
>It seems to me that these two sentences are semantically the same. I guess
>it's up to the speaker's discretion which one to use.
If I restrict myself to sentences which seem plausible as spontaneous
utterances in conversation, I can't think of one containing "which is red"
in this context. (Asterisks indicate IMHO implausible utterances.)
- There's a red flower on the table.
- *There's a flower which is red on the table.
- What have you put on the table? / The red flower. [but not the blue one]
- What have you put on the table? / *The flower which is red.
- The red flower's on the table and the blue ones are on the shelf.
- The red flower's on the table and the ferns are on the shelf.
- *The flower which is red is on the table and the ferns...
A "which" clause in English is much more likely to involve a content-ful
verb, a full NP or AP, an object-relative clause, or a combination of these.
For example:
- The flower [which] I bought several weeks ago is still on the table.
- The flower, which is several weeks old, is still on the table.
- The flower which you liked is on the table.
In any of these, the relative clause could be restrictive in meaning, and in
the first two at least it might also not be. I agree that, as a rule of
thumb, a "which" clause is more likely to be non-restrictive than an
attributive adjective, but cf. for example: "Look at all these great
books!", where "great" is plausibly (if not obligatorily) non-restrictive.
I think that the difference between the two constructions is determined by
the syntax of the predicate ("red", "you liked [it]"), and only secondarily
if at all by the restrictive / non-restrictive distinction.
Jonathan.
_________________________________________________________________
Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters!
http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
Posted by: "Jonathan Knibb" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 5:56 am (PDT)
Postscript to previous post:
I'd be curious to know how native speakers of German feel about this. I just
used the example:
- The flower [which] I bought several weeks ago is still on the table.
....which in my rusty German (apologies for the likely mistakes) could come
out as either of the following:
- Die Blume, die/welche ich seit einigen Wochen gekauft habe, steht noch auf
dem Tisch.
- Die seit einigen Wochen [von mir?] gekaufte Blume steht noch auf dem
Tisch.
Is there a difference between the two in whether the relative clause is
restrictive in meaning or not? Can both "die" and "welche" be used, and is
there a difference in meaning?
Jonathan.
_________________________________________________________________
Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters!
http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 8:35 am (PDT)
Hi!
Jonathan Knibb writes:
>...
> I'd be curious to know how native speakers of German feel about
> this. I just used the example:
>
> - The flower [which] I bought several weeks ago is still on the table.
>
> ....which in my rusty German (apologies for the likely mistakes) could
> come out as either of the following:
>
> - Die Blume, die/welche ich seit einigen Wochen gekauft habe, steht
> noch auf dem Tisch.
> - Die seit einigen Wochen [von mir?] gekaufte Blume steht noch auf dem
> Tisch.
>
> Is there a difference between the two in whether the relative clause
> is restrictive in meaning or not?
The participle is clearly restrictive, the relative clause can be
both, and context must tell. To disambiguate, you could use the
particle 'ja', which makes it clearly descriptive:
Die Blume, die ich ja vor einigen Wochen gekauft habe, steht noch
auf dem Tisch.
In colloquial language, the participle construction is probably seldom
-- it feels more complicated and formal.
> Can both "die" and "welche" be used, and is there a difference in
> meaning?
Yes, and I don't perceive any semantic diffence, but 'welche' sounds
more formal/antiquated/turgid.
But you should use 'vor einigen Wochen' (i.e., 'several weeks ago'),
not 'seit einigen Wochen' (i.e. 'since several weeks'), since the
latter, like in English, expresses an ongoing action (lit.: *'The
flowers I've been buying since several weeks.').
ObConlang: in S17 (the wordless one), I've stolen the Japanese/Korean
style where internally headed relative clauses (IHRC) (a construction
unknown to English) are used for descriptive meaning, and externally
headed relative clauses (EHRC) (those that English and German use) for
restrictive meaning (I don't know whether the semantic distinction is
that clear in Japanese and Korean, but at least it is in my Conlang
:-)):
EHRC:
[kinou kaitotta] sakana-wa ii.
[yesterday bought] fish-TOP good.
('fish' is outside the relative clause, thus externally headed)
'The fish [I] bought yesterday is good.'
IHRC
[kinou sakana-o kaitotta]-no-wa ii.
[yesterday fish-OBJ bought] -RES-TOP
('fish' is inside the relative clause and referred to from the
outside by the resumptive particle 'no').
'The fish, which I bought yesterday, is good.'
or 'The fish, which was bought yesterday, is good.'
(Please don't hesitate to correct mistakes in my badly broken
Japanese.)
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
Posted by: "Elliott Lash" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 12:04 pm (PDT)
What verb are you using for buy? Something like
<kaitoru> ? The word I learned was <kau>, I guess this
is some sort of compound, like kai+toru..maybe
"buy-take"? Or something.
-elliott
> ObConlang: in S17 (the wordless one), I've stolen
> the Japanese/Korean
> style where internally headed relative clauses
> (IHRC) (a construction
> unknown to English) are used for descriptive
> meaning, and externally
> headed relative clauses (EHRC) (those that English
> and German use) for
> restrictive meaning (I don't know whether the
> semantic distinction is
> that clear in Japanese and Korean, but at least it
> is in my Conlang
> :-)):
>
> EHRC:
> [kinou kaitotta] sakana-wa ii.
> [yesterday bought] fish-TOP good.
>
> ('fish' is outside the relative clause, thus
> externally headed)
>
> 'The fish [I] bought yesterday is good.'
>
> IHRC
> [kinou sakana-o kaitotta]-no-wa ii.
> [yesterday fish-OBJ bought] -RES-TOP
>
> ('fish' is inside the relative clause and
> referred to from the
> outside by the resumptive particle 'no').
>
> 'The fish, which I bought yesterday, is
> good.'
> or 'The fish, which was bought yesterday, is
> good.'
>
> (Please don't hesitate to correct mistakes in my
> badly broken
> Japanese.)
>
> **Henrik
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Syntactic differences within parts of speech
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 2:40 pm (PDT)
Hi!
Elliott Lash wrote:
>What verb are you using for buy? Something like
><kaitoru> ? The word I learned was <kau>, I guess this
>is some sort of compound, like kai+toru..maybe
>"buy-take"? Or something.
> -elliott
Yes, exactly. :-)
Hmm, my normal news reader does not support UTF-8 via the xterm terminal
I am currently using, so I will try the web form to post this:
'è²·ãåã'
ka i to ru
The first Kanji is the same as in <kau> 'è²·ã' and 'åã'
is 'to take'.
(In case the Unicode does not work, the word is
U+8CB7 U+3044 U+53D6 U+308B)
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntactic
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 4:00 pm (PDT)
On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 05:16:53PM -0400, Henrik Theiling wrote:
[...]
> Hmm, my normal news reader does not support UTF-8 via the xterm terminal
> I am currently using, so I will try the web form to post this:
>
> 'è²·ãåã'
> ka i to ru
>
> The first Kanji is the same as in <kau> 'è²·ã' and 'åã'
> is 'to take'.
[...]
I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm actually reading those characters in
my console-based emailer (mutt). I've recently found a good Unicode
bitmap font for X11, and finally made the switch from xterm to
rxvt-unicode, and switched my default locale to UTF-8. And ever since,
I've been pleasantly surprised, on more than one occasion.
If you're running Linux, I highly recommend installing efont,
rxvt-unicode (or uxterm), and setting your locale to UTF-8 (e.g.
en.UTF-8 or de.UTF-8). Surprisingly many console apps can display UTF-8
correctly if the locale is set right (including most, if not all, of the
system utilities). *Inputting* UTF-8, of course, is a different story,
but at least you can read the stuff.
(I personally prefer rxvt-unicode over uxterm because you can specify
multiple fonts in rxvt, and it chooses the first that contains a
particular symbol. This is useful for selecting language fonts in order
of preference, instead of having to live with ugly glyphs from the one
and only font that actually covers a significant portion of Unicode.)
A funny sidenote: after my recent switch to UTF-8, I started actually
seeing Cyrillic characters in mail, and had a strange paradoxical
feeling of simultaneous indignance and joy one day when I received a
Russian spam mail and actually could read and understand what it said.
:-) (It used to only show up as a bunch of ???'s because I was on the
us-ascii locale which didn't have cyrillic characters.)
<ObConlang>
Speaking of fonts, has anyone experimented with purely vertical writing
systems? (I.e., one where you simply *cannot* write horizontally without
severely crippling the system.) Even better, has anyone gotten vertical
writing to actually *work* in an application, say your browser?
The reason I ask is 'cos I was doodling with a prospective Tatari Faran
font some time ago, and actually made a Truetype font for it, only to
feel rather unhappy with it a little later, and junking the whole thing.
I decided instead to go with a completely vertical system. In this new
system, the glyphs stack on each other and resembles decorations of a
pillar (or a totem-pole-like thing), and there are left- and
right-diacritics. (Laevocritics? Gauchocritics? I tried looking for the
appropriate Greek root since -critic comes from Greek, but came up with
'aristocritic', which just sounds too lame.)
</ObConlang>
T
--
Life is too short to run proprietary software. -- Bdale Garbee
Messages in this topic (23)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. Re: Taxonomic Vocabulary
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 9:10 am (PDT)
On 8/31/06, Tasci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:23:56 -0700
> "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > You're assuming that roots must necessarily be complete general.
>
> How about my idea to make the roots complete specific, and generalizing from
> there? That's got problems of its own, but it might be something to consider
> during the designing of the real vocabulary.
My gzb has both specifier and generalizer
suffixes, for deriving a word for a specific
kind of something and for a general class
something belongs to. But it isn't a taxonomic
language; most derivation is by typical
head-modifier compounding, and special suffixes
like these are used rarely compared to those
with a more specific meaning.
>
> > 1) Frequency of usage is more important than beauty of internal
> > structure. You should cater to the fact that the most frequently used
> > words should be most economical, even if the concepts themselves are
> > very complicated and require a lot of specification in a taxonomic
> > system.
>
> Perhaps it would be interesting to try a vocabulary that starts with the most
> frequent words, and then has specifiers for related words, much in the way
> our brain works by taking familiar concepts and following connections to
> related concepts.
That might work, but again you would have
the problem of words that are liable to occur
in the same context sounding fairly similar.
There are various sources for lists of the
most frequently used words in various
natural and constructed languages; you might
refer to them to figure out what the most
frequently referred-to concepts are likely
to be.
> > 2) Words that refer to similar things in the same context preferably
> > should be as different as possible.
> ...in the same context though. Where does
>the same context stop and the different words start?
>I'm proposing to do it at the syllable level, though
>that might not be workable. I think ultimately what
You could think of it in terms of distributional
categories. If you think of few typical sentences
using a given word, e.g. "see",
The dog sees the cat.
Can you see that owl over yonder?
I didn't see it yet.
and then blank out the given word,
The dog ____ the cat.
Can you ____ that owl over yonder?
I didn't ____ it yet.
and think of various other words that could
easily occur in the same contexts --
I would venture to say those words (the
class of transitive verbs, more or less) should
be as phonetically distinct from each
other as possible. A while ago there
were a couple of threads about how to determine
what is sufficient phonetic distance
between words, which you might
find helpful. See the archives for
"Words with built-in error correction"
early December 2005 and
"Phonologically redundant vocabulary" and
"Iterative conlang design with corpus analysis,
Or, Build one to throw away" in mid-April 2006,
and my essay:
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/redundancy.htm
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Re: Weekly Vocab #1.1.1 (repost #1)
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 2:47 pm (PDT)
(silver) birch, Betula pendula = vêrgis
werewolf = µirµêlcüøs (µirus, man + µêlcües, wolf; -øs = class of
aberrant beings)
save (money) = (cüêrïos) ârca (also preserve, pickle)
conquer = sêÿa
motif = nðernêêµÿas (nðêros, under + nêêµÿas, subject)
ribbon tree (Plagianthus regius) = sneeþdôris (snêêtos, fiber +
dôris, tree)
concuss = slâca
µ = /m_0/
ø = /O/
ü = labialization
ï = palatalization
ÿ = /j_0/
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/senjecas
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntacti
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 3:33 pm (PDT)
Hi!
H. S. Teoh writes:
> On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 05:16:53PM -0400, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> [...]
> > Hmm, my normal news reader does not support UTF-8 via the xterm terminal
> > I am currently using, so I will try the web form to post this:
> >
> > 'è²·ãåã'
> > ka i to ru
> >
> > The first Kanji is the same as in <kau> 'è²·ã' and 'åã'
> > is 'to take'.
> [...]
>
> I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm actually reading those characters in
> my console-based emailer (mutt). I've recently found a good Unicode
> bitmap font for X11, and finally made the switch from xterm to
> rxvt-unicode, and switched my default locale to UTF-8. And ever since,
> I've been pleasantly surprised, on more than one occasion.
>...
Hmm, all installed on this machine, no problem, I'm actually seeing
the Kanji now, too. :-) The only thing that's missing now is support
for ttf-fonts or knowledge how to enable that, because I *love*
DejaVu Mono in my xterms and strongly dislike Emacs for not supporting
it yet.
>...
> <ObConlang>
>
> Speaking of fonts, has anyone experimented with purely vertical writing
> systems? (I.e., one where you simply *cannot* write horizontally without
> severely crippling the system.) Even better, has anyone gotten vertical
> writing to actually *work* in an application, say your browser?
>...
What? That's strange. *Yesterday* I was browsing for Mongolian text
samples and talked with my wife about how browsers, etc. would look
like when it's perfectly supported. Is the title bar on the left and
the [OK]-button in a column of buttons on the right (or vice versa)?
That's a very nice idea and I was about to fake screen shots... But
maybe it exists? Hardly, I guess. Or does any OS or application
really do this? Screenshots!
A web browser would probably be funny, because the URL should still be
displayed horizontally, so you could have the URL in a top bar, the
title and menu bars on the left/right and any dialog buttons would
occur on the opposite side.
>...
> I decided instead to go with a completely vertical system. In this new
> system, the glyphs stack on each other and resembles decorations of a
> pillar (or a totem-pole-like thing),
Funny -- quite like Mongolian. I really like that script. Did you
have the idea from there?
> and there are left- and
> right-diacritics. (Laevocritics? Gauchocritics? I tried looking for the
> appropriate Greek root since -critic comes from Greek, but came up with
> 'aristocritic', which just sounds too lame.)
>...
Hehe. :-) But hypercritics are no better.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: [Slightly OT] UTF-8 support in *nix terminals (Was: Re: Syntacti
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 2, 2006 12:20 am (PDT)
On Sat, Sep 02, 2006 at 12:25:49AM +0200, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> H. S. Teoh writes:
[...]
> > I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm actually reading those characters in
> > my console-based emailer (mutt). I've recently found a good Unicode
> > bitmap font for X11, and finally made the switch from xterm to
> > rxvt-unicode, and switched my default locale to UTF-8. And ever since,
> > I've been pleasantly surprised, on more than one occasion.
> >...
>
> Hmm, all installed on this machine, no problem, I'm actually seeing
> the Kanji now, too. :-) The only thing that's missing now is support
> for ttf-fonts or knowledge how to enable that, because I *love* DejaVu
> Mono in my xterms and strongly dislike Emacs for not supporting it
> yet.
Rxvt-unicode supports XFT, which means you get free ttf support.
However, finding a fixed-width TTF font that covers a significant range
of Unicode is a challenge (I haven't been able to find one).
Fortunately, rxvt's font lists allow you to specify fallback fonts for
characters not found in your standard font.
[...]
> > Speaking of fonts, has anyone experimented with purely vertical writing
> > systems? (I.e., one where you simply *cannot* write horizontally without
> > severely crippling the system.) Even better, has anyone gotten vertical
> > writing to actually *work* in an application, say your browser?
> >...
>
> What? That's strange. *Yesterday* I was browsing for Mongolian text
> samples and talked with my wife about how browsers, etc. would look
> like when it's perfectly supported. Is the title bar on the left and
> the [OK]-button in a column of buttons on the right (or vice versa)?
> That's a very nice idea and I was about to fake screen shots... But
> maybe it exists? Hardly, I guess. Or does any OS or application
> really do this? Screenshots!
I have no idea. I highly suspect it doesn't exist (yet). I just looked
up Mongolian writing, and apparently the cool vertical script is in
disuse, and Cyrillic (of all things!) has been adopted for a number of
years now. Apparently my little venture into Russian has other rewards
that I wasn't aware of, among which is being able to read Cyrillic.
> A web browser would probably be funny, because the URL should still be
> displayed horizontally, so you could have the URL in a top bar, the
> title and menu bars on the left/right and any dialog buttons would
> occur on the opposite side.
True. As if bidi isn't already complicated enough in the current scheme
of things, throwing verticality into the mix would probably take another
decade before software can fully support it. Complicated questions arise
with vertical scripts, such as whether scrollbars should become
horizontal, since otherwise you'd have to scroll down to the bottom to
read a single line of text, and then go all the way back up. Full
browser support would require embedding of horizontal scripts with
vertical scripts and vice versa: not exactly a trivial problem.
[...]
> > I decided instead to go with a completely vertical system. In this new
> > system, the glyphs stack on each other and resembles decorations of a
> > pillar (or a totem-pole-like thing),
>
> Funny -- quite like Mongolian. I really like that script. Did you
> have the idea from there?
Maybe, but the prospective TF script has much flatter glyphs than
Mongolian, and is kinda blocky, with vertical kerning.
> > and there are left- and right-diacritics. (Laevocritics?
> > Gauchocritics? I tried looking for the appropriate Greek root since
> > -critic comes from Greek, but came up with 'aristocritic', which
> > just sounds too lame.)
> >...
>
> Hehe. :-) But hypercritics are no better.
[...]
True. Maybe I should stick with prepositions... metacritics?
paracritics? I don't know how to indicate the left/right distinction,
though. Unlike a horizontal script, which is vertically polar in
preference for diacritic placement, TF's vertical script tends towards
horizontal symmetry, so having only a single term for both kinds of
diacritic seems a bit inadequate.
T
--
Don't hide in the closet; wear yourself out.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Re: OT: Seriously OT request
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2006 4:46 pm (PDT)
Thanks!
--- Matt Trinsic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> And here is a link for the spellchecker poem.
> http://waltonfeed.com/self/email/spelling.html
> There are probably other versions of that floating
> around as well.
>
> Enjoy,
> Trinsic
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 (17)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Looking for a term
Posted by: "Scotto Hlad" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat Sep 2, 2006 12:36 am (PDT)
Good morning,
I'm looking for a term to describe a particular form in an a priori language
I'm creating.
I plan to use verb aspects only. What I'd like to do is use the verb plus an
auxiliary word to create the verb in the appropriate aspect. This auxiliary
word will be specific enough to include the pronoun associated with it.
Here is an example
xyz= 1st person singluar ingressive
Xyw walk = I start to walk
Xyx walk= you start to walk
Xyz walk=he starts to walk.
Is there a linguistic term for this auxilary word to indicate person and
aspect? I have toyed with the idea of calling it the "aspectus"
Any suggestions?
Thank you.
Scotto
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
