There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
From: Benct Philip Jonsson
1b. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
From: Alex Fink
1c. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
From: John Vertical
1d. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
From: ROGER MILLS
2a. Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' aff
From: Alex Fink
2b. Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' aff
From: Alex Fink
3. Ambiguty in (natlangs and) conlangs (was Re: Linguistic term for eas
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
4a. Re: Semantic typology?
From: John Vertical
4b. Re: Semantic typology?
From: Michael Poxon
4c. Re: Semantic typology?
From: Carl Banks
5. OFFLIST: Re: OT: Re: Nutrition and pleasurable sense data
From: Eldin Raigmore
6a. Re: Art is when someone says 'Now' -- or is it?
From: Mark J. Reed
6b. Re: Art is when someone says 'Now' -- or is it?
From: David J. Peterson
7a. Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word-cla
From: Dana Nutter
7b. Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word
From: Jim Henry
Messages
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1a. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
Posted by: "Benct Philip Jonsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:54 pm ((PDT))
On 2008-08-11 Roger Mills wrote:
> Of course any Kash resident on Earth will have learned proper English
Even if they live in Beijing or Paris? ;-)
/BP
Messages in this topic (20)
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1b. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:19 pm ((PDT))
>>>Old English did not palatalize before rounded front vowels.
>>>[kYn] > [kIn]
>>>[kIn] > [tSIn]
>>
>>Is that so? I thought that the palatalisation completed before the
>>i-affectation that gave rise to [Y], so what we're seeing here was more or
less
>>[kuni] > [kuni] > [kyni] > [kyn]
>>[kini] > [tSini] > [tSini] > [tSin]
>>(no idea if those are protoforms of real words).
>>
>>Alex
>
>In my understanding, the contemporarity can be seen from words standardized
>from dialects that _did_ palatalize before front rounded vowels. (/y Y/ at
>least, I'm not sure about /2/.) A fairly convincing example is "church",
>also demonstrating y > u / _r.
>
>John Vertical
The OED makes precisely the contrapositive inference on "church", claiming
the _y_ form was irregular:
| Church, earlier churche, cherche, is a phonetically-spelt normal
representative of ME.
| chirche (ur = er = ir, e.g. birch, bird, first, chirm, churl, churn,
kernel), the regular repr.
| of OE. circe; the fuller OE. c{imac}rice, cirice gave the early ME.
variant chereche,
| chiriche. (The form cyrice, often erroneously assumed as the original, is
only a later
| variant of cirice (with y from i before r, as in cyrs-, fyren, etc.); c
before original OE. y
| (umlaut of u) could not give modern ch-, but only k-, as in cyrnel,
cyrtel, cýre, kernel,
| kirtle, ME. kire.)
And it goes on for quite awhile, about the form the word had when it was
borrowed. In any case it seems to have had a prototype like *_kirike_ with
an ordinary palatalising environment before /i/ at first.
Regardless, couldn't it be the ordering of the sound changes that is varying
intradialectally here, with the palatalisation change being [k] > [tS]
before all front vowels in either case?
Alex
Messages in this topic (20)
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1c. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
Posted by: "John Vertical" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:35 pm ((PDT))
>>Old English did not palatalize before rounded front vowels.
>>[kYn] > [kIn]
>>[kIn] > [tSIn]
>
>Is that so? I thought that the palatalisation completed before the
>i-affectation that gave rise to [Y], so what we're seeing here was more or less
>[kuni] > [kuni] > [kyni] > [kyn]
>[kini] > [tSini] > [tSini] > [tSin]
>(no idea if those are protoforms of real words).
>
>Alex
In my understanding, the contemporarity can be seen from words standardized
from dialects that _did_ palatalize before front rounded vowels. (/y Y/ at
least, I'm not sure about /2/.) A fairly convincing example is "church",
also demonstrating y > u / _r.
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (20)
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1d. Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:12 pm ((PDT))
BP Jonsson wrote:
>On 2008-08-11 Roger Mills wrote:
>>Of course any Kash resident on Earth will have learned proper English
>
>Even if they live in Beijing or Paris? ;-)
>
Assuming they'd be involved somehow in international affairs, they'd have to
pile on the languages. For that matter, you probably aren't aware that (in
my fantasized scenario) there's a female Gwr M.D. at work at some Institute
in Stockholm at this very moment :-))))) (She likes the climate.)
Messages in this topic (20)
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2a. Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' aff
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:04 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:04:29 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Plura commentaria in uno voluta!
>
>Från: Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >
> > On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 20:14:05 +0200, M. Czapp
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>>*HIJACK: Is there a better linguistic term for
> >>>the ease with which you can change whether a
> >>>word is a noun, adjective or a verb? The best
> >>>example for weak typing (easy/implicite
> >>>changes) might be Esperanto, German is of the
> >>>languages I know the one with the most
> >>>problematic 'typecasts.
> >
> > Talk of casting tends to make me leery, for the
> > way it seems to make the background assumption
> > that given any two data types there should be
> > exactly one function between them of such
> > paramouncy that it makes sense to elevate it
> > above all others and crown it the Cast between
> > those two types. For some type-pairs I buy this
> > (smaller to larger floating point types, say);
> > mostly not.
>
>Talk of too strict disambiguity in language, at
>least naturalistic (qua natural human language-
>like) language as opposed to computer language or
>the most ivory-towered loglang, makes me leery.
>Ambiguity, fuzziness and under-specification are
>as much a feature of natural language as is
>redundancy! The reason of course is that any
>ambiguity at some level (lexical, morphological or
>syntactic) will be resolved by context at another
>level, or as the last resort by the recipient's
>knowledge of the world. Moreover the canonical
>communicative situation is not reading a book but
>a conversation (be it face-to-face or by email)
>and in a conversation the interlocutors can always
>ask/clarify if they don't or seem not to get the
>intended meaning.
*sigh* Looks like I worded that a bit imprudently; let's take another stab.
I was cautioning against thinking that things like, you know, "the adjective
corresponding to the noun 'tooth'" is a good enough way to specify the
meaning of one of your lexemes. Certainly there are plenty of langs, nat or
otherwise (indeed many of my conlangs are among them), that have an
all-purpose derivational operator "noun -> adjective". I'm all for
naturalistic ambiguity in derivations; usage, or secondarily context, can
really sort out a great lot. Even so, supposing you're making such a
language, I'd say it's not enough to note down in your lexicon something like
*_matan_, tooth. adj _matanko_
unless you define the adjectiviser _-ko_ in general elsewhere, or unless you
really mean to leave the operation a general adjectivisation in all cases
(and this seems either idealistic or lazy -- usage won't let it survive that
way for long).
Or, indeed, for maximal communicative flexibility, as an interlingua would
want, I'm with you that
>The best thing is to do as natlangs do: allow the
>sender to be either vague or precise as they see
>fit.
though natlangs don't _explicitly_ do this; it can be harder than is really
"reasonable" to be vague about certain things, like sex of a singular
third-person pronominalised referent in standard English, or tense. But
certainly speakers will find ways to be vaguer or preciser than the
grammaticalised options the language affords, if they desire to; and I'd
think any language would allow that, with enough circumlocution.
>This said vague casting in an interlingua (be it
>an auxlang or a translation interlingua) which may
>be primarily used for non-conversational written
>communication is probably a bad thing.
Sure, as usual, natlangs and engelangs tend to have different clarity standards.
>I guess one could
>analyse Esperanto so that there is only one noun
>_o_ and one adjective _a_ which compound with
>different verb roots to form the syntactic
>equivalent of nouns and adjectives in most
>natlangs, or rather such a usage would be possible
>under the minimalistic codified grammar of
>Esperanto, but does not agree with actual usage,
>which is much more influenced by (European)
>natlangs, so that in practice some roots are
>nominal or adjectival rather than verbal.
Heh, that's a cute if bordering-on-the-absurd analysis. Why not say there's
only one verb _i_ as well?
> > but aren't many "semantic cases" (that is, cases
> > other than "syntactic cases", that show
> > something other than the "grammatical relations"
> > of Subject, Object, or Indirect Object) also
> > "adverbial cases"? Isn't a noun in a case other
> > than Nominative, Accusative, Dative, or
> > Genitive, essentially an adverb? So, the
> > "changing of a noun into an adverb" is likely to
> > be fairly "easy" -- highly productive -- in most
> > languages with a robust case system, right? And
> > Genitive, in those languages that have one, is
> > essentially a way of changing a noun into an
> > adjective, isn't it?
>
>You are definitely on to something here -- cf.
>what I said about semantic overlap between
>adjectivization and genitive in Esperanto.
>
>At least in inflecting languages the difference
>would seem to be that an adjective is a derivation
>(possibly zero-derived from a root) and as such
>may be inflected (for case, number, gender...)
>while a genitive is an inflection and as such not
>further modifiable.
Well, yes, but syntactically there are phenomena like suffixaufnahme to
watch for, or on the other side there might be no inflection on adjectives
even if other classes are highly inflecting.
> > Sort of OT, but relevant to the question about
> > Basque verbs-- IIRC the verbs that have their
> > own synthetic conjugation (i.e. without the
> > usual person+tense aux.) are a small and closed
> > class, I think mostly intransitive. There's
> > another productive (I think) class formed from
> > NOUN + 'to do/make' (egin?); one that has stuck
> > in my mind is 'to sneeze' (sneeze + egin? +
> > aux). (My Basque grammar is one of the books in
> > storage.......)
>
>The Semitic component of Yiddish vocabulary works
>similarly IIRC, using a Semitic verbal noun + a
>Germanic verb like 'be, have, do' rather than
>tacking Germanic endings to Semitic verbs.
It's pretty common for the light verb pattern to be productive and represent
the largest proportion of the new verbs in languages that have it,
especially borrowings, isn't it?
Alex
Messages in this topic (21)
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2b. Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' aff
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:23 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:25:33 -0400, Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:04:29 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
[...]
>>Talk of too strict disambiguity in language, at
>>least naturalistic (qua natural human language-
>>like) language as opposed to computer language or
>>the most ivory-towered loglang, makes me leery.
>>Ambiguity, fuzziness and under-specification are
>>as much a feature of natural language as is
>>redundancy! The reason of course is that any
>>ambiguity at some level (lexical, morphological or
>>syntactic) will be resolved by context at another
>>level, or as the last resort by the recipient's
>>knowledge of the world. Moreover the canonical
>>communicative situation is not reading a book but
>>a conversation (be it face-to-face or by email)
>>and in a conversation the interlocutors can always
>>ask/clarify if they don't or seem not to get the
>>intended meaning.
>
>*sigh* Looks like I worded that a bit imprudently; let's take another stab.
>
>I was cautioning against thinking that things like, you know, "the adjective
>corresponding to the noun 'tooth'" is a good enough way to specify the
>meaning of one of your lexemes. Certainly there are plenty of langs, nat or
>otherwise (indeed many of my conlangs are among them), that have an
>all-purpose derivational operator "noun -> adjective". I'm all for
>naturalistic ambiguity in derivations; usage, or secondarily context, can
>really sort out a great lot. Even so, supposing you're making such a
>language, I'd say it's not enough to note down in your lexicon something like
> *_matan_, tooth. adj _matanko_
>unless you define the adjectiviser _-ko_ in general elsewhere, or unless you
>really mean to leave the operation a general adjectivisation in all cases
>(and this seems either idealistic or lazy -- usage won't let it survive that
>way for long).
Bleh, even that didn't really hit home. I mean to contrast
(1) the situation where you have a derivational operation whose general
definition is "noun -> adjective", but on these nouns it means 'richly
supplied with N', on these ones it means 'belonging to an N', on these ones
it means 'possessing the abstract property that is N', ..., on these ones it
has the first two of those senses, on these some other subset, ...
(2) the situation where you have a derivational operation "noun ->
adjective", and that's all you say about the point ever.
(2) is the lazy option, and indeed in its neglect to consider what senses
might have been lexicalised for particular words I find it just as unnatural
as having no derivational ambiguities at all.
Alex
Messages in this topic (21)
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3. Ambiguty in (natlangs and) conlangs (was Re: Linguistic term for eas
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:08 pm ((PDT))
Hallo!
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:04:29 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Plura commentaria in uno voluta!
>
> Från: Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> [...]
> > Talk of casting tends to make me leery, for the
> > way it seems to make the background assumption
> > that given any two data types there should be
> > exactly one function between them of such
> > paramouncy that it makes sense to elevate it
> > above all others and crown it the Cast between
> > those two types. For some type-pairs I buy this
> > (smaller to larger floating point types, say);
> > mostly not.
>
> Talk of too strict disambiguity in language, at
> least naturalistic (qua natural human language-
> like) language as opposed to computer language or
> the most ivory-towered loglang, makes me leery.
> Ambiguity, fuzziness and under-specification are
> as much a feature of natural language as is
> redundancy!
Exactly. Natlangs get away with pretty much ambiguity,
as it can usually be disambiguated by context. Only in
especially awkward cases (e.g., _queen_ vs. _quean_ in
Early Modern English, or the famous 'cat' vs. 'rooster'
example in Gascon (where regular sound changes rendered
both words homonymous)) the ambiguity is removed, usually
by disusing or modifying one of the conflicting words.
A naturalistic conlang *should* thus admit some ambiguity.
Zero ambiguity is unnatural; it is thus *only* for engelangs.
> The reason of course is that any
> ambiguity at some level (lexical, morphological or
> syntactic) will be resolved by context at another
> level, or as the last resort by the recipient's
> knowledge of the world.
Right. In most cases of homonymy, all but one of the
possible meanings of the word form just don't fit into
the context in which it is uttered. One of the homonyms
gives an utterance which is grammatical and meaningful;
all others give utterances which are ungrammatical,
meaningless or counterfactual. Often, homonyms can be
told apart because they occur only in certain fields of
discourse. One example: the noun _mass_ has a certain
meaning in physics, and a different meaning in sociology.
Now if you are reading a physics dissertation in which
the word _mass_ occurs, you can rule out the sociological
meaning with a high degree of certainty.
> Moreover the canonical
> communicative situation is not reading a book but
> a conversation (be it face-to-face or by email)
> and in a conversation the interlocutors can always
> ask/clarify if they don't or seem not to get the
> intended meaning.
Indeed. If in doubt, ask.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
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4a. Re: Semantic typology?
Posted by: "John Vertical" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:37 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:17:26 +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>I recently read an old (1928) article by L. Weibull which argued that in
>pre-Christian Scandinavia, the "north", "east", "south", "west" actually
>designated NE, SE, SW, and NW, respectively. I haven't heard of the idea in
>anything written in the eighty years since, so I guess it didn't win academical
>acceptance, but it does render more sensible some geographical informations in
>viking age texts.
Here's something interesting to go with that: I checked the etymologies of
the Finnish terms I just mentioned, and _luode_ is attested dialectally (and
in other Finnic languages) both for NW and W; _länsi_ for both W and SW; and
_lounas_ for both SW and S. There's no direct etymological connection with
the Scandinavian terms, but it's an interesting parallel.
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (13)
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4b. Re: Semantic typology?
Posted by: "Michael Poxon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:50 pm ((PDT))
Exactly. Berlin and Kay brought their own occi-centrist perceptions to bear
in their study. Hawaiian has several terms for black, for instance, which do
not necessarily relate to 'wavelength'. And what about terms like Welsh
brith 'particoloured' - is that a colour term?
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Fink" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: Semantic typology?
>>I've read -- though it escapes me where at the moment -- that on the
>>grounds
>>of representation in the lexicon and textual usage, the system of colour
>>terms on the whole were really secondary to the system of terms describing
>>luster in Old English. Likewise many languages whose scheme of true
>>colour
>>terms is poor are often supposed to be well stocked in terms combining
>>colour/lustre/texture/whatever other aspects of visual appearance: there
>>might not be a "yellow" but there might be a "yellow, dry, and brittle,
>>like
>>dead grass".
>
Messages in this topic (13)
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4c. Re: Semantic typology?
Posted by: "Carl Banks" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:30 pm ((PDT))
Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> [snip]
>>> Compass directions, maybe? I would assume any language distinguishing roots
>>> for any of the intercardinals should also distinguish some for the
>> cardinals.
>>
>> That's a sensible hypothesis. Do you know of any languages that
>> have roots for the intercardinals rather than deriving them from
>> cardinals?
>
> I recently read an old (1928) article by L. Weibull which argued that in
> pre-Christian Scandinavia, the "north", "east", "south", "west" actually
> designated NE, SE, SW, and NW, respectively. I haven't heard of the idea in
> anything written in the eighty years since, so I guess it didn't win
> academical
> acceptance, but it does render more sensible some geographical informations in
> viking age texts.
At Penn State University, where the streets are aligned almost exactly
diagonally (45 degrees) relative to the cardinal directions, everyone
uses North, South, East, and West to refer to the street directions:
north is actually northwest. The campus maps are even drawn with
northwest to the top.
This leads to oddities such as the North Residence Halls being at almost
the same latitude as the South Residence Halls.
Carl Banks
Messages in this topic (13)
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5. OFFLIST: Re: OT: Re: Nutrition and pleasurable sense data
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:37 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:16:18 -0400, John Vertical
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 14:43:28 -0400, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>> The only mineral I know of that people can taste is sodium.
>
>The only truly basic such taste, sure, but I can still certainly tell hard and
soft
>mineral water apart... there's a distinct taste of clay in calcium-rich water.
I'm
>not sure how I tell it, might some kind of a residual saltiness; the calcium
>and
>natr-, er, sodium ions are of compareable size and could plausibly fit the same
>activ site.
>
>
>> (Vitamins)
>> Vitamins are traditionally "amine" compounds (thus "-amin"), though I
suppose
>> not all of them are.
>
>None of ACDEK contain amino groups.
>
>
>> All of them are dietarily essential (thus "vita-"). They
>> often contain essential metals that are needed in small amounts (I think one
>> of the B vitamins contains some cobalt?)
>
>B12, cobalamin. I don't recall any other vitamin including essential metals.
>
>
>>Humans can taste citric acid (but can't really tell it by taste alone from
>>various other edible acids).
>
>It seems fairly distinctiv to me, it's got that little dash of sweetness (and
>fruitiness) even by itself. Tartaric and tannic acids are fairly caracteristic
>too,
>considering their somewhat bitter flavor. I considered making a case for acetic
>acid too - but that might be just the unusually lo pH of vinegar-containing
>products; it's pretty much the same taste as in sauerkraut, and yet, that's
>lactic acid.
>
>John Vertical
Thanks. All interesting!
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6a. Re: Art is when someone says 'Now' -- or is it?
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:54 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:32 PM, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I imagine it might be something like that crazy
> language Leia speaks at the beginning of Return of the Jedi
> when she's rescuing Han: a language where you say the exact
> same thing twice, but it means something totally different the
> second time round.
I wonder if that was the language spoken by the folks who designed the
starship in Episode II with the one big button that meant "call for
help" one time and "take off" another time... :)
But to be fair, that happened with Klingon, too - according to the
subtitles, {jonta' neH} meant "engine only" the first time Kruge said
it, and "wanted prisoners" the second time. Dr. Okrand managed to
modify the language to make it work, but it was a bit of a kludge.
Also, most real languages are context-sensitive to some degree anyway.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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6b. Re: Art is when someone says 'Now' -- or is it?
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:56 pm ((PDT))
Jörg:
<<
Earlier in this thread, I compared conlangs to role-playing games.
A role-playing game usually consists of a set of rules and a
collection of facts about the game world. Before you begin play,
the story and many details of the game world are undetermined;
they get filled in during play. A good role-playing group should
strive, in my opinion, at internal consistency: events in new game
sessions should not contradict what has happened in earlier sessions.
And the rules should not be changed willy-nilly during play.
>>
Well, now I wonder what the equivalent of an Aqua Teen Hunger
Force conlang would be like--that is, where at the end of the
episode, nothing that happened (main characters dying, etc.)
carries over, unless the writers feel like it. Either way, nothing
is explained. I imagine it might be something like that crazy
language Leia speaks at the beginning of Return of the Jedi
when she's rescuing Han: a language where you say the exact
same thing twice, but it means something totally different the
second time round.
I suppose what you'd need is the following:
(1) A medium for publication (otherwise no one will notice the changes).
(2) Minimal constants (after all, the characters are the same in the
show).
(3) Total flexibility elsewhere.
A language with the same grammar but totally different lexemes
each time a text is published might be interesting. Essentially,
a relex every time. I suppose that's something like a code,
though.
The other option would be the same words, but a new grammar
each time. Taking something like the Kelenala wordlist and
creating a brand new grammar each time you write a text.
That, though, would essentially be like creating a bunch of
different languages. Hmm... I don't know how it would work.
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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7a. Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word-cla
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:04 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Henry
>
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/conlang13/grammar-p1.htm
>
> I'm not sure yet what it would mean to convert an entity or
> quality root into a preposition.
I have derived prepositions in Sasxsek. The suffix "-u" makes a
lexical into a preposition.
bon = good
bonu = for the benefit of; for the sake of
(benefactive)
gol = target, intend, aim, goal, purpose
golu = for (the purpose of)
kron = to pass time
kronu = at (temporal)
tav = to be located/situatated
tavu = at (spatial)
dab = to press/push
dabu = against
diq = top
diqu = on top of, atop
fam = to be related
famu = related to
hin = interior
hinu = in(side)
sot = exterior
sotu = out(side) of
gul = age
gulu = at the age of
hav = to have/possess
havu = belonging to, of
iob = to exceed
iobu = exceeding, beyond
let = to permit/allow
letu = permitted by
noc = posterior
nocu = behind
dek = right
deku = to the right of
tem = theme, subject
temu = about, regarding
Messages in this topic (21)
________________________________________________________________________
7b. Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:41 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Dana Nutter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/conlang13/grammar-p1.htm
>>
>> I'm not sure yet what it would mean to convert an entity or
>> quality root into a preposition.
> I have derived prepositions in Sasxsek. The suffix "-u" makes a
> lexical into a preposition.
Only one of these is relevant to the issue with säb zjeda.
Others are concepts that are/would be lexicalized
in säb zjeda by a relationship or process root anyway.
But:
> bon = good
> bonu = for the benefit of; for the sake of
> (benefactive)
This makes sense; I could generalize that and say
that a quality root > preposition transformation makes
a prep. meaning "object of prep. has this quality with
respect to the head of the prep. phrase". It might
not work with all qualities/adjectives, but it would
work with a fair subset, I reckon.
At present I have the benefactive preposition derived
from a process root for "help".
That still leaves me with one transformation out of 20
(entity root > preposition) that doesn't seem to make
any sense. Note that some concepts that would be noun
roots in other languages are relationship/preposition roots
in säb zjeda, -- kinship terms for instance. Nouns for
persons in such relationships to other persons are
derived from the root preposition. All entity roots
describe concepts that don't have an inherent
relationship to some other entity. (E.g., "father/mother of"
is a preposition root, "person" a noun root.)
I guess I could kludge in something like " [obj of prep] is
treated like/considered as [entity] by
[head of prep phrase]", just to avoid having a
gap in the system, but I don't like it.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/fluency-survey.html
Conlang fluency survey -- there's still time to participate before
I analyze the results and write the article
Messages in this topic (21)
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