There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Sai Emrys
1b. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: taliesin the storyteller
1c. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Roger Mills
1d. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Christopher Bates
1e. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Paul Bennett
1f. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: David J. Peterson
1g. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Christopher Bates
1h. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
From: Sai Emrys
2. Re: I'm Back & New SpecGram Article
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
3a. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3b. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: Leigh Richards
3c. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: David J. Peterson
3d. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: H. S. Teoh
3e. Re: Difficult language ideas
From: Jim Henry
4a. Re: Stress placement systems
From: H. S. Teoh
4b. Re: Stress placement systems
From: R A Brown
4c. Re: Stress placement systems
From: R A Brown
4d. Re: Stress placement systems
From: H. S. Teoh
5a. Implied verbs
From: Gary Shannon
5b. Re: Implied verbs
From: H. S. Teoh
5c. Re: Implied verbs
From: Jim Henry
5d. Re: Implied verbs
From: Henrik Theiling
5e. Re: Implied verbs
From: Roger Mills
5f. Re: Implied verbs
From: Roger Mills
6. Re: Transcription exercise
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:42 am (PDT)
I'm just conveying the message to this community FYI; don't shoot please!
See ZBB at links below (and lots of others if you want to look around,
but these two will cover the topic quite well).
- Sai
http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18415
http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18066
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:05 am (PDT)
* Sai Emrys said on 2006-09-20 10:32:30 +0200
> I'm just conveying the message to this community FYI; don't shoot please!
>
> See ZBB at links below (and lots of others if you want to look around,
> but these two will cover the topic quite well).
>
> http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18415
> http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18066
Ancient news. It was discovered because she copied one of mine, to be
exact the hand-written/more italic version of the block-script of
Taruven.
t.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:23 am (PDT)
Sai Emrys wrote:
From: "Sai Emrys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 4:32 AM
Subject: Massive plagiarism accusation
> I'm just conveying the message to this community FYI; don't shoot please!
>
> See ZBB at links below (and lots of others if you want to look around,
> but these two will cover the topic quite well).
>
> http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18415
> http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18066
================================================
Sai-- Apparently the culprit is someone named Brittanie? She was active on
[EMAIL PROTECTED] a while back, asking everybody to send copies of
their scripts. (I did.) Where is her web site? Some of us (like me) aren't
regulars on zbb, so this is the first I've heard of it. I'm curious to see
if the Kash script was plagiarized, perhaps not recognized by anyone else.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Christopher Bates" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:44 am (PDT)
> I'm curious to see
> if the Kash script was plagiarized, perhaps not recognized by anyone else.
I think it may well have been... I remember seeing Kash mentioned
somewhere, at least. I hope not though. :) This is the link:
http://www.xanga.com/blue_frog88
I think.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:01 pm (PDT)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18415
>http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=18066
I can understand how someone might appropriate (v tr) someone's work, as can be
found throughout art, and indeed science. Small pieces inspire or are
incorporated into another work -- notably the vast proportion of fan fiction
consists of other peoples characters and mythology placed into new situations.
Academic work is ubiquitously excerpted within other academic work. Music, and
indeed visual art, incorporates motifs and themes from other work without
blinking. In these cases, proper attribution is usually explicitly given.
I can't imagine any non-pathological reason for this kind of wide-scale
credit-taking, though, nor any possible way she may have thought she could get
away with it. It really boggles my mind.
This is not the place for a discussion of the philosophies of standing on the
shoulders of giants, intellectual property, or what constitutes theft, nor the
psychology underlying this or any other wide-scale, blatant credit-taking. Take
this message simply as notification that I'd be happy to discuss it in some
other forum. Off-list email is welcome, and I may post about it on my blog for
further discussion, at http://darth-spacey.livejournal.com/ -- if you go there,
please ignore the self-indulgent whining about the state of my life and mental
health, and please try not to be offended by my politics ;-)
Note that my ISP webmail forces the Reply-To regardless of my attempts to
change it -- be sure that onlist and offlist messages are addressed properly!
Paul
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:18 pm (PDT)
Paul wrote:
<<
I can't imagine any non-pathological reason for this kind of wide-
scale credit-taking, though, nor any possible way she may have
thought she could get away with it. It really boggles my mind.
>>
She may have done it to get published in the online conlang
magazine:
http://conlanger.com/issue1.pdf
She's featured prominently, as are several of her plagiarized
scripts, on pages 20-21 (there's now a introduction to the issue
explaining as much).
On another note, did anyone here know there was a conlang
online magazine? I'd never heard about it.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Christopher Bates" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:55 pm (PDT)
> On another note, did anyone here know there was a conlang
> online magazine? I'd never heard about it.
>
I wasn't aware of this particular conlang journal either. I know that a
similar journal has been planned by various members on the ZBB for next
month (I've volunteered to write an article on Evidentiality for it if I
find the time), but I wasn't aware that we were competing against
another offering. I may get in contact with curlyjimsam (since I know
him vaguely) and find out if the journal is still going or if it is no
longer being published.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
1h. Re: Massive plagiarism accusation
Posted by: "Sai Emrys" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:53 pm (PDT)
> http://www.xanga.com/blue_frog88
Correct. Also http://wapogipo88.livejournal.com
- Sai
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Re: I'm Back & New SpecGram Article
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:21 am (PDT)
David J. Peterson skrev:
> t. the s. wrote:
> <<
> I sense that you are not too fond of monsieur Chomsky and his insistence
> on binary branching? ;)
> >>
>
> Hee, hee... Apparently the whole idea came from a 19th century
> (or early 20th?) German psychiatrist, who said that all things can
> be divided into two parts. According to the morphology guy
> down at UCSD, this directly influenced Chomsky's decision. I
> have no evidence to present for or against this; just repeating what
> I've heard. It doesn't seem unlikely, though. Oddball things have
> influenced facets of various theories in significant ways over the
> years...
Hegel had a notion of triplets which had a strong influence
on Grimm when formulating 'Grimm's Law', and led him to assume
a symmetry between the input and output -- by conflating the
notions of aspiration and fricativeness -- which did not in
fact exist. As it happened Rask's formulation of the Germanic
consonant shift was both prior to Grimm's and free of such
nonsense, but alas he published it in Danish, and so we are
stuck with the name 'Grimm's Law'...
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
"Maybe" is a strange word. When mum or dad says it
it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
means "no"!
(Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:39 am (PDT)
li [Philip Newton] mi tulis la
> On 9/19/06, Leigh Richards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On 9/19/06, Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On 9/19/06, Leigh Richards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > Hi all, I'm Leigh.
> > >
> > > If I may ask - are you a female Leigh or a male Leigh? (and is it
> > > pronounced "Lee"?)
> >
> > Female, and yes, though I have some clever friends who like to
> > pronounce it like 'sleigh'. Why?
>
> Because it seemed to me like a name that could be used for either
> gender (like "Dana", for example) -- and I wanted to know the correct
> pronoun to use to refer to you in the future --, and because the
> pronunciation of English proper names is not always predictable.
Yes, I know how "Dana" gets mixed up. CS Replicants like to write back
and address me as "Ms." all the time. I usually throw it right back in
their face as a perfect example of why they shouldn't jump to
conclusions and stop following scripts.
> ....
> On 9/19/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > From what little I've learned of Lojban so far, it appears
> it can be as
> > ambiguous or as precise as the speaker wants it to be.
> Maybe someone
> > who knows more than I do can clarify this better.
>
> I don't know that much more, either, but I'd say you're right.
>
> What Lojban aims for is complete _syntactic_ unambiguity; that is, a
> given sequence of words can be parsed in exactly one way. (No
> sentences like "Time flies like an arrow", where any of the first
> three words can be the verb.) It _doesn't_ necessarily give you
> _semantic_ unambiguity, and you're still free to be semantically vague
> or precise.
>
> (Though as someone noted, "the price of infinite precision is infinite
> verbosity".)
Yes, that's true. I have to admit there are a lot of things I like
about Lojban, but there are also just as many things that I dislike
about it.
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "Leigh Richards" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:38 am (PDT)
On 9/19/06, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "When it comes to falling, there are but three possibilities:
> one may fall on purpose; one may fall by accident; or one may
> fall because one was looking at a priceless painting and did not
> notice a third party that was nearby, waiting to trip them."
> -Philosopher X, creator of language Y
>
> This would produce an "unambiguous" set of three suffixes:
>
> mata-n "I fell on purpose."
> mata-N "I fell on accident."
> mata-N\ "I fell because I was looking at a priceless painting and
> did not notice someone nearby that was waiting to trip me."
Ha, I have to make up some ancient philosopher now...
> -Use varied word order to reflect anything. Some examples:
>
> (1) For verbs of motion, the six word orders reflect whether
> the motion is north, south, east, west, undirected, or circular.
>
> (2) For verbs of experience, the six word orders reflect the
> attitude of the speaker towards his parents.
>
> (3) For transitive verbs, the six word orders reflect the intensity
> of the action (these should not match up with (2) in any way).
I had some general ideas about word order and it's one feature I think
I'll have to include. Your first example gives me some ideas. It would
fit with their mindset, as well.
(snip)
> -To have fun with varying word orders, make it so that the
> absence of a case tag indicates that the noun is indefinite:
>
> Ordinary = kolu-r mena-4 ita-N\ /man-DAT. woman-ACC. see-PAST./
> "The man saw the woman."
>
> Indefinite: kolu mena ita-N\ /man-INDEF. woman-INDEF. see-PAST./
> "A man saw a woman (and the speaker respects and reveres his parents)."
> or
> "A woman saw a man (and the speaker despises his parents)."
ROFL. Naturally, you have to know the speaker's relationship to his
parents to decipher his meaning.
> -Two words: Systematic Suppletion:
(snip)
> The relevant paradigm slot is the allative dual.
Or better yet, have different ones vary with each noun.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Oh, man, I have way too many ideas... I've always been entertained
> by the idea of the most complicated language imaginable, and
> have been coming up with ideas for years.
Picking and choosing will be the hardest part :)
On 9/19/06, H. S. Teoh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 05:32:04PM -0400, Leigh Richards wrote:
>
> > Hmm. That gives me an idea. It isn't a language likely to develop many
> > idioms, but it could very well have taken idioms from various
> > languages throughout the years and turned them to its own purposes. I
> > like that.
>
> OK. But based on what you wrote, it seems that the speakers of your
> language are out to deliberately obfuscate their speech (or at least
> raise the barrier to learning as much as they can). I think the idioms
> idea is still applicable: they can take advantage of experiences or
> knowledge privy to the "in-crowd", even if they don't have a rich
> cultural heritage as such---e.g., if they are being persecuted, there
> may be stories or rumors passed between them, with a mutual
> understanding on the "actual" significance of the events (as interpreted
> by one of their own), such that instead of describing something
> explicitly, they refer to said events in some way that seems meaningless
> or even completely the opposite to the outsider.
My reasoning there was that it isn't a language often used for
chatting, but more for formal purposes. But you're right, there would
be some insider knowledge which would influence the language. I'm
beginning to think I will need two 'registers' as well, for formal
speech vs ordinary talking. I'm not sure about that yet.
> [...]
> > >What are some of the ideas you have? It'll be fun to discuss them.
> >
> > I'm still in the brainstorming phase, and my ideas have been pretty
> > general so far.
> >
> > As far as phonology, there will be sounds unused and/or non-phonemic
> > in the normal languages, maybe some complex rules for sandhi, possibly
> > overlapping to an extent. I haven't thought it out, but there's
> > something about Aymara's vowel elision that wants me to work it in in
> > a non-intuitive way.
>
> Complex sandhi can significantly obfuscate a language to non-native
> speakers. Even better if the result of the sandhi looks superficially
> the same as another completely unrelated utterance. E.g., off the top of
> my head, ze + bafa + vor -> zi bofa mor, but 'zi', 'bofa', and 'mor' are
> themselves actual words with meanings completely unrelated to the first
> phrase (when they are intended, the sandhi turns them into something
> else, like 'ze mofa bor').
Speaking of sandhi, I have natlang examples, but what are some
conlangs with complex sandhi?
(snip)
> Context is a powerful tool for obfuscation, when used correctly. :-) The
> use of idioms and such can be understood as the sharing of a large
> amount of static context. Additional obfuscation can come about by also
> taking advantage of dynamic context. Yet another example off the top of
> my head: say there are two adjectives, mara and tyona, that mean exactly
> the same thing, except that mara implies a congenial tone and tyona
> implies a hostile tone, and this implication causes another word in
> subsequent conversation, say huftan, to mean opposite things.
That's interesting. I like that idea too.
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:16 pm (PDT)
Leigh wrote:
<<
My reasoning there was that it isn't a language often used for
chatting, but more for formal purposes. But you're right, there would
be some insider knowledge which would influence the language.
>>
Regarding this, and idioms, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned
that Star Trek episode. I can't remember the famous phrase, but
it's something like "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra", and that's
supposed to mean something. As far as I can tell, the language
that this alien culture has *can* be translated by the Universal
Translator, but the aliens choose to use mainly proper names, so
what gets translated has no meaning. (Of course, the UT should
be able to get something out of this, but we can ignore that for
now...)
Anyway, going along with what Teoh was saying, they can be
purposely creating phrases that mean something completely
different. So, for example...
Kosta eats with Teleno.
So, "eats with" would be translated into the language, and it
would fit all the rest of the language patterns, but it would mean
the above. This, then, could refer to an obscure historical event
where, say, two philosophers that didn't like each other came to
eat together one day, and got into an argument. Saying "Kosta
eats with Teleno", then, could mean something like, "I disagree
with x (whoever the topic is), but I will put up with him for now".
And the language could be filled with a bunch of these. And
further, whenever someone undesirable figures out what one
of them means, its meaning could be changed, or a new expression
could be used to mean the same thing.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:46 pm (PDT)
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 11:55:38AM -0700, David J. Peterson wrote:
> Leigh wrote:
> <<
> My reasoning there was that it isn't a language often used for
> chatting, but more for formal purposes. But you're right, there would
> be some insider knowledge which would influence the language.
> >>
>
> Regarding this, and idioms, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned
> that Star Trek episode. I can't remember the famous phrase, but
> it's something like "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra", and that's
> supposed to mean something. As far as I can tell, the language
> that this alien culture has *can* be translated by the Universal
> Translator, but the aliens choose to use mainly proper names, so
> what gets translated has no meaning. (Of course, the UT should
> be able to get something out of this, but we can ignore that for
> now...)
I believe you're referring to the language of the "children of Tama".
Their speech is apparently filled with (or maybe even exclusively built
from) such expressions. See:
http://rec.horus.at/trek/lists/darmok.html#Reference
for some examples. Basically, their speech appears to be allusions to
specific events, people, place names, and actions made by said people.
The listener is supposed to infer the intended message based upon the
cultural understanding of what those events mean.
[...]
> Anyway, going along with what Teoh was saying, they can be purposely
> creating phrases that mean something completely different. So, for
> example...
>
> Kosta eats with Teleno.
>
> So, "eats with" would be translated into the language, and it would
> fit all the rest of the language patterns, but it would mean the
> above. This, then, could refer to an obscure historical event where,
> say, two philosophers that didn't like each other came to eat together
> one day, and got into an argument. Saying "Kosta eats with Teleno",
> then, could mean something like, "I disagree with x (whoever the topic
> is), but I will put up with him for now". And the language could be
> filled with a bunch of these. And further, whenever someone
> undesirable figures out what one of them means, its meaning could be
> changed, or a new expression could be used to mean the same thing.
[...]
There would probably be many, many different expressions that say the
same thing with different nuances. Similar events could have occurred
historically so they could refer to the same thing and used
synonymously, but the details of the events would differ, so
deliberately referring to one versus the other could be used convey a
subtle nuance that would completely escape the uninitiated.
T
--
Without outlines, life would be pointless.
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
3e. Re: Difficult language ideas
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:17 pm (PDT)
On 9/20/06, H. S. Teoh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 11:55:38AM -0700, David J. Peterson wrote:
> > Regarding this, and idioms, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned
> > that Star Trek episode. I can't remember the famous phrase, but
> > it's something like "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra", and that's
> I believe you're referring to the language of the "children of Tama".
> Their speech is apparently filled with (or maybe even exclusively built
> from) such expressions. See:
The Ascians in Gene Wolfe's _The Book of the New Sun_
have a similar language, which seems to consist entirely of
proverbs and aphorisms. There is a chapter in
_The Citadel of the Autarch_ where an Ascian POW tells
a story in this form and someone else translates it line
by line.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 10:32 am (PDT)
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 07:34:43PM +0100, R A Brown wrote:
[...]
> 1. Ancient Greek did not, as far as we know, have word stress; there
> possibly was phrasal stress, but we can merely guess how that might
> have worked.
> 2. It is clear that ancient Greek words had *pitch* accent. The pitch
> was:
> (a) *not* dependent upon syllable quantity, but *solely on vowel
> length*
> (a) high pitch could occur on any one of the vowels in the last
> *three* syllables, according to certain rules.
Ah yes, the familiar accent rules of ancient Greek. I think the fact
that they differentiated between grave, acute, and circumflex (I forget
the native Greek terms for them) should indicate that something more
than just stress was happening.
> 3. The modern Greek stress accent occurs (with very few exceptions) on
> the same syllable as the ancient Attic & Koine pitch accent(1). This
> is a strong indication IMHO that there was no separate word stress to
> interfere with the process whereby pitch gave way to stress.
Out of curiosity: how much do we understand of what drives this process?
> (1) In fact even for ancient Greek we know the pitch accent for only
> the Attic, Epic and Aeolic (conventionally, other dialects are usually
> printed according to the Attic system). The Koine Greek of the
> Hellenistic period used the same pitch accent as Attic Greek.
[...]
Now I'm curious: what are the sources we have on the pitch accent system
of ancient Greek? If I recall correctly, some ancient writings allude to
them---what are those sources, and how reliable are they?
Also, how confident are we that Koine continues to use pitch accents? I
had taken a course on Attic Greek some years ago, and recently I took
another course on Koine. I noticed that, unsurprisingly, there were
signs that the language was beginning to move in the direction of modern
Greek. I'm curious, though, about how much it has done so---esp. wrt.
the pitch accent and the fricativisation of the aspirated consonants.
(The reason I'm asking is because my Attic Greek course used Erasmic
pronunciation whereas the Koine course used modern Greek---and it irks
me immensely that many words are homophonous under the modern Greek
pronunciation, esp. the 1pp and 2pp, and the itacized diphthongs, when
they are obviously pronounced distinctly back then.)
T
--
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? -- Erich Schubert
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:24 am (PDT)
Dirk Elzinga wrote:
> Ray:
>
> You might want to point out the errors in the Greek entry to the
> maintainers of the database.
I have done so.
> If the database is to be at all useful,
> it should be checked and re-checked by people who are knowledgeable. I
> notice that their source for many of the stress patterns is Hayes
> 1995. I find this rather ironic, since Hayes has this to say about
[snip]
> That last was probably written tongue-in-cheek, but it is a fair
> point, and one which should be made to the maintainers of the
> database.
I have pointed this out to them. I think they are very unwise to include
entries just based on Hayes 1995 without at least referring to his sources.
> For what it's worth, I just looked in Hayes 1995, and of Ancient Greek
> he says (p 181): "Ancient Greek [has Fijian-like stress] in the
Thanks - it doesn't change my opinion :)
> According to Hayes, in Modern Greek "Main stress is lexically
> determined; limited to one of the last three syllables." (p 204)
Yep - it is limited to one of the last three syllables. I think it would
be more accurate to say it is lexically & morphologically determined.
One thing is certain: it is not in any way conditioned by syllabic
weight. Clearly a Syllable Priority Code is not going to work for modern
Greek.
My own feeling is that using a SPC to describe every language with word
stress is not going to work. It is perhaps significant that the database
does not include modern Greek. If it is really going to be a Stress
System Database, then it seems to me that it will have to use a code
system that includes languages where syllabic weight is not relevant to
stress. IMO at present it does not use a systematic way to describe all
stress systems.
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:13 pm (PDT)
Philip Newton wrote:
> On 9/19/06, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> 2. It is clear that ancient Greek words had *pitch* accent. The pitch
>> was:
>> (a) *not* dependent upon syllable quantity, but *solely on vowel
>> length*
>
>
> I don't have my Greek grammars with me, but I seem to recall reading
> something about syllables which were "long by nature" (physei makra,
> IIRC) and syllables which were "long by position" (thesei makra), the
> distinction being something along the lines of "has a long vowel" vs
> "ends in two or more consonants", or something like that, which does
> seem to indicate that syllable quantity played a part.
That is relevant *only* to the metrics of verse. It has no relevance at
all to the placement of the pitch accent.
> I don't remember the details, but I think it was something along the
> lines of whether the accent was acute or circumflex?
Nope. A circumflex could appear only on a long vowel; it could not
appear on just any heavy syllable. The acute accent could occur on long
or short vowels (the grave replaced an acute on the final vowel under
certain circumstances).
Syllable quantity had nothing whatever to do with the placement of pitch
accent.
=====================================================
H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 07:34:43PM +0100, R A Brown wrote:
> [...]
>
>>1. Ancient Greek did not, as far as we know, have word stress; there
>>possibly was phrasal stress, but we can merely guess how that might
>>have worked.
>>2. It is clear that ancient Greek words had *pitch* accent. The pitch
>>was:
>> (a) *not* dependent upon syllable quantity, but *solely on vowel
>> length*
>> (a) high pitch could occur on any one of the vowels in the last
>> *three* syllables, according to certain rules.
>
> Ah yes, the familiar accent rules of ancient Greek.
Correct :)
>I think the fact
> that they differentiated between grave, acute, and circumflex (I forget
> the native Greek terms for them) should indicate that something more
> than just stress was happening.
It unlikely that stress was involved at all, at least in the Classical
period. We are told that acute represent high pitch and circumflex
represent high falling back to 'normal'. The grave replaces an acute on
the final vowel under certain circumstances; there is much debate as to
what exactly this indicates (obviously some sort of 'pitch sandhi').
It appears in fact to have been similar to the pitch system of Vedic
Sanskrit. But alas the Greeks were less clear in their descriptions than
the ancient Indian phoneticians were.
>>3. The modern Greek stress accent occurs (with very few exceptions) on
>>the same syllable as the ancient Attic & Koine pitch accent(1). This
>>is a strong indication IMHO that there was no separate word stress to
>>interfere with the process whereby pitch gave way to stress.
>
> Out of curiosity: how much do we understand of what drives this process?
That it happened during the Koine suggests to me that it was the
internationalization of Greek and its becoming spoken by peoples with
other linguistic habits that gave rise to the change. People unused to
pitch accent would, I suspect, give some stress or emphasis to the vowel
they were attempting to give a rise in pitch to. In time stress
prevailed and pitch difference simply became a redundant feature.
>
>>(1) In fact even for ancient Greek we know the pitch accent for only
>>the Attic, Epic and Aeolic (conventionally, other dialects are usually
>>printed according to the Attic system). The Koine Greek of the
>>Hellenistic period used the same pitch accent as Attic Greek.
>
> [...]
>
> Now I'm curious: what are the sources we have on the pitch accent system
> of ancient Greek? If I recall correctly, some ancient writings allude to
> them---what are those sources, and how reliable are they?
I don't know of the top of my head, but they were originally introduced
by the Alexandrian grammarians of the 2nd cent BCE as aids to pronounce
Homer correctly (Epic dialect); when Koine Greek developed, it was found
useful to use them to indicate the correct pronunciation for non-Greek
speakers. As Koine Greek was basically an internationalized form of
Attic Greek, it is fair assumption that the accentuation of Attic was
practically the same as Koine.
As for Aeolic, we are told by IIRC more than one authority that they
treated all words according to the 'recessive accent' system of Greek verbs.
> Also, how confident are we that Koine continues to use pitch accents?
I am sure the Greeks themselves were still using pitch accent and I
suspect the more discerning L2 speakers tried to do things properly -
but the change took place during this period.
> I
> had taken a course on Attic Greek some years ago, and recently I took
> another course on Koine. I noticed that, unsurprisingly, there were
> signs that the language was beginning to move in the direction of modern
> Greek.
Yep.
> I'm curious, though, about how much it has done so---esp. wrt.
> the pitch accent and the fricativisation of the aspirated consonants.
Graffiti at Pompeii where some Greek words are written in Roman script
show quite clearly that fricativization had already occurred in
colloquial speech by the middle of the 1st cent CE. But the continuing
practice of the literati in distinguishing writing phi as |ph| rather
than the (Pompeian) |f| suggests that the 'upper classes' hadn't adopted
the colloquial fricativization. But fricativization must have become
more and more the norm in the 2nd & 3rd centuries CE.
As for stress accent - we do not have clear evidence that stress accent
was the norm until the 4th cent CE; but there are indications as early
as the 2nd cent CE that transition from pitch to stress had begun.
> (The reason I'm asking is because my Attic Greek course used Erasmic
> pronunciation whereas the Koine course used modern Greek---and it irks
> me immensely that many words are homophonous under the modern Greek
> pronunciation, esp. the 1pp and 2pp, and the itacized diphthongs, when
> they are obviously pronounced distinctly back then.)
Yes - it irked Erasmus also :)
But the Erasmian pronunciation, though considerably closer, to the
ancient, is only a makeshift. Whether one uses Erasmian or modern
pronunciation, it is normal to use the modern stress system. We could
adopt the Vedic pitch system and apply it to the Erasmian, I guess -
that would undoubtedly get closer to the ancient. Though I am sure the
result would cause amusement to any ancient Greek :-)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
4d. Re: Stress placement systems
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:52 pm (PDT)
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 07:55:04PM +0100, R A Brown wrote:
[...]
> H. S. Teoh wrote:
[...]
> > I think the fact that they differentiated between grave, acute, and
> > circumflex (I forget the native Greek terms for them) should
> > indicate that something more than just stress was happening.
>
> It unlikely that stress was involved at all, at least in the Classical
> period. We are told that acute represent high pitch and circumflex
> represent high falling back to 'normal'. The grave replaces an acute
> on the final vowel under certain circumstances; there is much debate
> as to what exactly this indicates (obviously some sort of 'pitch
> sandhi').
>
> It appears in fact to have been similar to the pitch system of Vedic
> Sanskrit. But alas the Greeks were less clear in their descriptions
> than the ancient Indian phoneticians were.
That's very interesting. Perhaps they are relics of a pitch accent
system in PIE?
> >>3. The modern Greek stress accent occurs (with very few exceptions)
> >>on the same syllable as the ancient Attic & Koine pitch accent(1).
> >>This is a strong indication IMHO that there was no separate word
> >>stress to interfere with the process whereby pitch gave way to
> >>stress.
> >
> > Out of curiosity: how much do we understand of what drives this
> > process?
>
> That it happened during the Koine suggests to me that it was the
> internationalization of Greek and its becoming spoken by peoples with
> other linguistic habits that gave rise to the change. People unused to
> pitch accent would, I suspect, give some stress or emphasis to the
> vowel they were attempting to give a rise in pitch to. In time stress
> prevailed and pitch difference simply became a redundant feature.
Ah, that sounds plausible enough.
[...]
> > Now I'm curious: what are the sources we have on the pitch accent
> > system of ancient Greek? If I recall correctly, some ancient
> > writings allude to them---what are those sources, and how reliable
> > are they?
>
> I don't know of the top of my head, but they were originally
> introduced by the Alexandrian grammarians of the 2nd cent BCE as aids
> to pronounce Homer correctly (Epic dialect);
How much does Homer differ from Attic in this respect (accents)?
> when Koine Greek developed, it was found useful to use them to
> indicate the correct pronunciation for non-Greek speakers. As Koine
> Greek was basically an internationalized form of Attic Greek, it is
> fair assumption that the accentuation of Attic was practically the
> same as Koine.
OK.
> As for Aeolic, we are told by IIRC more than one authority that they
> treated all words according to the 'recessive accent' system of Greek
> verbs.
Cool. I wonder what caused the differentiation.
> > Also, how confident are we that Koine continues to use pitch
> > accents?
>
> I am sure the Greeks themselves were still using pitch accent and I
> suspect the more discerning L2 speakers tried to do things properly -
> but the change took place during this period.
Ahhh, I see. So the foreigners substituted stress for pitch, and
eventually the natives also started adopting it. Hmm, this gives me
con-world ideas. :-)
> > I had taken a course on Attic Greek some years ago, and recently I
> > took another course on Koine. I noticed that, unsurprisingly, there
> > were signs that the language was beginning to move in the direction
> > of modern Greek.
>
> Yep.
>
> > I'm curious, though, about how much it has done so---esp. wrt.
> > the pitch accent and the fricativisation of the aspirated consonants.
>
> Graffiti at Pompeii where some Greek words are written in Roman script
> show quite clearly that fricativization had already occurred in
> colloquial speech by the middle of the 1st cent CE.
Wow, this is interesting. I hadn't expected it to have happened this
early. I remember reading a hypothesis that perhaps it had begun even in
Classical times: is this plausible, or do we know for sure that it came
later?
> But the continuing practice of the literati in distinguishing writing
> phi as |ph| rather than the (Pompeian) |f| suggests that the 'upper
> classes' hadn't adopted the colloquial fricativization. But
> fricativization must have become more and more the norm in the 2nd &
> 3rd centuries CE.
Right.
Now, something I've always wondered about is why [p^h] fricativizes to
[f] rather than [P]. Or perhaps [P] was an intermediate form that
eventually became [f]?
> As for stress accent - we do not have clear evidence that stress
> accent was the norm until the 4th cent CE; but there are indications
> as early as the 2nd cent CE that transition from pitch to stress had
> begun.
I see. So basically it started around Hellenistic times, or going into
the Byzantine period.
> > (The reason I'm asking is because my Attic Greek course used Erasmic
> > pronunciation whereas the Koine course used modern Greek---and it
> > irks me immensely that many words are homophonous under the modern
> > Greek pronunciation, esp. the 1pp and 2pp, and the itacized
> > diphthongs, when they are obviously pronounced distinctly back
> > then.)
>
> Yes - it irked Erasmus also :)
>
> But the Erasmian pronunciation, though considerably closer, to the
> ancient, is only a makeshift. Whether one uses Erasmian or modern
> pronunciation, it is normal to use the modern stress system.
That's true. How confident are we about the actual values of vowels in
Classical Greek, though? (I understand the reconstructed values are not
quite the same as the Erasmic?)
Now, during my Koine course, I was told that there is evidence even in
the New Testament itself that itacization was starting to happen (e.g.
with some words misspelling iota for eta). I'm curious about the extent
of this, and whether the loss of the optative has something to do with
the collapse of /oi/ to [i].
Also, I understand that the iota subscript wasn't actually used until
Byzantine times, correct? In uncial writing it was written as long vowel
+ iota --- my question is, was it actually pronounced in Koine, or had
it become irrelevant already? What about in Classical times?
> We could adopt the Vedic pitch system and apply it to the Erasmian, I
> guess - that would undoubtedly get closer to the ancient. Though I am
> sure the result would cause amusement to any ancient Greek :-)
[...]
Hehe, it sounds amusing enough even to my ears, at any rate. :-)
How well-described is the Vedic system? Recently, through learning
Russian, I'm beginning to appreciate just how much nuance there is in
actual speech, that is never recorded in the textbooks. If one went
merely by textbook descriptions and second-hand information, one would
pronounce Russian very strangely indeed! And were it not for actual,
living, native speakers, one could be easily deluded to think that one's
pronunciation is quite accurate. So now I'm wondering about just how
much information has been preserved about these ancient tongues, or how
wildly inaccurate our attempted reconstructions are. :-)
T
--
People say that I'm indecisive, but I'm not sure about that. -- YHL
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Implied verbs
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:25 pm (PDT)
Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? I'm playing with an unnamed
sketch that revolves around the idea that prepositions take the form of
suffixes to the nouns they relate to. In general, words would end in a vowel
and suffixes would begin with a vowel. Otherwise, two vowels are never found
side by side, so the presence of adjacent vowels unambiguously marks the
attachment of a suffix.
Now suppose that "forest" is "bali" (I haven't actually begun coining words
yet, so this is just a random example), and that "-oso" means "out of, outward
from", "-anu" means "into, entering", and "-aja" means "within" then "balioso"
would mean "out of the forest", "balianu" would mean into the forest, and
"baliaja" would mean "within the forest". Now supposing "lion" were "ranju",
the sentence "Ranju balioso." ("The lion is coming out of the forest.") would
not require a verb since the action is implied by the prepositional suffix.
Likewise, the sentences "Ranju balianu." and "Ranju baliaja!" ("There is a lion
in the forest!") work well enough without any verb as long as they are implying
a present-tense state of affairs. Past tense could be marked by some word of
relative time, say "ante" for "before the present time". Then "Ranju balioso
ante." ("Lion forest-out-from before-now.") would mean "The lion CAME out of
the forest.", but still without any explicit verb.
Verbs would still exist, and be used in such statements as "I see the lion
coming out of the forest." (Perhaps something like: "Ma seso ranju balioso.")
but a reasonably large percentage of simple sentences would not have any
explicit verb.
--gary
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Implied verbs
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:10 pm (PDT)
On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 12:59:43PM -0700, Gary Shannon wrote:
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs?
In IE languages, the copula is frequently implied.
> I'm playing with an unnamed sketch that revolves around the idea that
> prepositions take the form of suffixes to the nouns they relate to.
Yay! Another postpositional language! :-) Tatari Faran also uses
postpositions, although they haven't fused with the noun yet (in fact,
adjectives tend to sit between the noun and the postposition, which may
later on lead to some interesting tail-marking syntax).
[...]
> Now suppose that "forest" is "bali" (I haven't actually begun coining
> words yet, so this is just a random example), and that "-oso" means
> "out of, outward from", "-anu" means "into, entering", and "-aja"
> means "within" then "balioso" would mean "out of the forest",
> "balianu" would mean into the forest, and "baliaja" would mean "within
> the forest".
Cool, this sounds quite close to what I have in mind for a descendent
lang of Tatari Faran.
> Now supposing "lion" were "ranju", the sentence "Ranju balioso." ("The
> lion is coming out of the forest.") would not require a verb since the
> action is implied by the prepositional suffix.
Not necessarily. It *could* be interpreted to mean "the lion is (the
one which) out from the forest." But of course, should you choose to
express this in another way, then your idea is quite plausible.
> Likewise, the sentences "Ranju balianu." and "Ranju baliaja!" ("There
> is a lion in the forest!") work well enough without any verb as long
> as they are implying a present-tense state of affairs. Past tense
> could be marked by some word of relative time, say "ante" for "before
> the present time". Then "Ranju balioso ante." ("Lion forest-out-from
> before-now.") would mean "The lion CAME out of the forest.", but still
> without any explicit verb.
And who says you can't inflect postpositions for tense? :-)
Hmm, in fact, inflecting postpositions is such a cool idea that I might
try to adopt that in a future conlang. :-)
> Verbs would still exist, and be used in such statements as "I see the
> lion coming out of the forest." (Perhaps something like: "Ma seso
> ranju balioso.") but a reasonably large percentage of simple sentences
> would not have any explicit verb.
[...]
Sounds interesting, though after a certain point it seems that the
prepositions/postpositions would start taking on verb-like
characteristics, and may start being better analysed as verbs.
T
--
Don't hide in the closet; wear yourself out.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Implied verbs
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:48 pm (PDT)
On 9/20/06, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? I'm playing with an
> unnamed
> sketch that revolves around the idea that prepositions take the form of
> suffixes to the nouns they relate to. In general, words would end in a vowel
....
gzb does this kind of thing a lot -- not only for location, but existence
& predication & some simple causatives; but I don't know of any natlangs
that do it.
> "baliaja" would mean "within the forest". Now supposing "lion" were "ranju",
> the sentence "Ranju balioso." ("The lion is coming out of the forest.") would
> not require a verb since the action is implied by the prepositional suffix.
> Likewise, the sentences "Ranju balianu." and "Ranju baliaja!" ("There is a
> lion
> in the forest!") work well enough without any verb as long as they are
> implying
> a present-tense state of affairs. Past tense could be marked by some word of
> relative time, say "ante" for "before the present time". Then "Ranju balioso
> ante." ("Lion forest-out-from before-now.") would mean "The lion CAME out of
> the forest.", but still without any explicit verb.
I would expect the postpositionated noun would more likely
precede the noun it modifies, -- I.e. "balioso ranju".
That's the more common pattern if I understand correctly, though
the reverse occurs in some languages.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: Implied verbs
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:48 pm (PDT)
Hi!
Gary Shannon writes:
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? ...
>...
I'm not sure whether this is what you are looking for, but German and
Dutch frequently drop the main verb if an auxiliary is present.
Depending on language and dialect, the degree of grammaticality
differs. E.g., in my dialect it would be correct to ask:
Kann ich noch ein Bier?
can/may I another beer?
'have' is dropped.
In Standard German, it would be ok to say:
Sollen wir in die Stadt?
Shall we into the city?
'go' is dropped.
And Dutch allows things like:
Openbare borstvoeding mag.
public breast-feeding may
i.e. the auxilary 'may' is used for 'is allowed'.
In the same way, it uses 'must' for 'is mandatory' etc.
Again in German:
Das Messer soll/muß/kann in die Schublade.
The knife is_supposed_to/must/may into the drawer
Is this what you were looking for? An auxiliary must still be there,
so the sentences are not verb-free.
Ok, Russian allows the copula to be left out (as many languages do),
but that may be something different -- the copula and sentences that
need it in languages that have it, are special types of sentences
anyway.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5e. Re: Implied verbs
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:05 pm (PDT)
Gary Shannon wrote:
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs?
Malay/Indonesian, to some extent-- with preps. of motion or location:
ibu ke/pasar (mother to/market) 'mother is going to the market'
ibu di/pasar (mother at/market) 'mother is at the market'
The second is especially common, there being no good equivalent of "to be"
(ada ~adalah are quite formal).
and the very common greeting--
Mau (or, kau) kemana? (want [you] to/where) 'where are you going?'
but not quite in the way your examples work, I think.
I don't know if this is valid or not-- it strikes me as perhaps
"literary/poetic"--
dari hutan, tiga singa 'from the forest, (came) 3 lions'
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5f. Re: Implied verbs
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:11 pm (PDT)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Shannon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:59 PM
Subject: Implied verbs
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? I'm playing with an
> unnamed
> sketch that revolves around the idea that prepositions take the form of
> suffixes to the nouns they relate to. In general, words would end in a
> vowel
> and suffixes would begin with a vowel. Otherwise, two vowels are never
> found
> side by side, so the presence of adjacent vowels unambiguously marks the
> attachment of a suffix.
>
> Now suppose that "forest" is "bali" (I haven't actually begun coining
> words
> yet, so this is just a random example), and that "-oso" means "out of,
> outward
> from", "-anu" means "into, entering", and "-aja" means "within" then
> "balioso"
> would mean "out of the forest", "balianu" would mean into the forest, and
> "baliaja" would mean "within the forest". Now supposing "lion" were
> "ranju",
> the sentence "Ranju balioso." ("The lion is coming out of the forest.")
> would
> not require a verb since the action is implied by the prepositional
> suffix.
> Likewise, the sentences "Ranju balianu." and "Ranju baliaja!" ("There is a
> lion
> in the forest!") work well enough without any verb as long as they are
> implying
> a present-tense state of affairs. Past tense could be marked by some word
> of
> relative time, say "ante" for "before the present time". Then "Ranju
> balioso
> ante." ("Lion forest-out-from before-now.") would mean "The lion CAME out
> of
> the forest.", but still without any explicit verb.
>
> Verbs would still exist, and be used in such statements as "I see the lion
> coming out of the forest." (Perhaps something like: "Ma seso ranju
> balioso.")
> but a reasonably large percentage of simple sentences would not have any
> explicit verb.
>
> --gary
>
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Re: Transcription exercise
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:09 pm (PDT)
Paul Roser skrev:
> On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 12:31:44 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> So let's see what Sohlob makes of these. Pronunciation is rather
>> easily calculated from the romanization See
>> <http://wiki.frath.net/Sohlob_romanization>. The Heleb dialect
>> would be able to distinguish front rounded vowels as as well as
>> velar _ll_ from palatal _l_. The given forms are Classical Sohlob
>> unless otherwise indicated.
>
> Does Heleb also have voiceless lateral fricatives,
Yes it does; all the Sohlob dialects except Linjeb, which
is descended from Kijeb but different enough not to be called
a dialect of Sohlob, do.
> and if so, does it distinguish velar(ized) <HLL> from palatal <HL> ?
It should, shouldn't it? I must confess it just didn't occur
to me that there could also be lateral fricatives at different
PsOA, simply because IPA doesn't provide symbols for any, but
upon introspection I find that I'm perfectly able to pronounce
all of [x_l C_l s\_l s`_l K_G] (or however they may be transcribed)
distinctly from [K], and I also find that my xenolectic pronun-
ciation of Icelandic _hljóð_ has [C_l], but the snag is that I
hardly *hear* any difference between them -- the same goes for
voiceless nasals at different PsOA, BTW.
But actually I'm beginning to have doubts about the
palatal(ized)/palatal lateral distinction. Perhaps
palatality in liquids should vary harmonically along with
palatality in vowels? (Even so I could have *[r_j] > /j/!)
OTOH if so shouldn't nasal palatality also vary harmonic-
ally, with /J/ in front harmony words corresponding to both
/n/ and /N/ of back harmony words; perhaps also front [j]
and [H] against back [G] and [w]. The closest analog from a
natlang that I know of is the variation between front /k g/
and back /X R/ of classigal Mongolian, but the idea as such
seems naturalistically plausible. There would be no phonemic
distinction between palatal and non-palatal lingual
sonorants, but there might still be a distinction in
spelling, since Heleb spelling is supposed to be a
rather clumsy adaptation of Classical Sohlob spelling
-- CS having phonemic /J j/ against /n N G/ since it
has no front harmony, but only height harmony.
BTW _København_ should of course be _Kööbänhäwän_ in Heleb!
> One of the characteristics of Scungric phonology is that there are
> (minimally) two coronal series, one laminal/palatalized, the other
> apical (redundantly either velarized, uvularized, or pharyngealized),
> distinguishing stops, nasals, sibilants, lateral approximants and
> lateral fricatives for both, with the addition of trills in the
> apical series.
Does Scungric have vowel harmony?
> -Bfowol
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (45)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> 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/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
