There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: Mark J. Reed
1b. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: David J. Peterson
1c. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: Mark J. Reed
1d. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: taliesin the storyteller
1e. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: taliesin the storyteller
1f. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
From: Henrik Theiling
2.1. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Mark J. Reed
2.2. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Michael Poxon
2.3. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Mark J. Reed
2.4. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.5. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: caeruleancentaur
2.6. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.7. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Roger Mills
2.8. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Dana Nutter
2.9. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Lars Finsen
2.10. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Andreas Johansson
2.11. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
From: Mark J. Reed
3a. Re: Grammar checker
From: Arthaey Angosii
3b. Re: Grammar checker
From: Henrik Theiling
4a. Re: CV metathesis Q
From: Dirk Elzinga
5a. Vowel length near-minimal pairs in Tirelat
From: Herman Miller
5b. Re: Vowel length near-minimal pairs in Tirelat
From: ROGER MILLS
6. Tonal inflection?
From: Dana Nutter
7a. Re: Hebrew waw consecutive (was: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc)
From: Veoler
8.1. Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word
From: R A Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:17 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 4:09 AM, taliesin the storyteller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think I have *seen* it, but I can't find it now... quite
> annoying. <peeve type="pet">One of the most useful tools for
> finding a mail is *sorting*, be it alphabetically, by size or by
> date recedived but gmail doesn't *do* that.</peeve>
Technically, sorting is a reporting tool, not a search tool. If you
want to search for something, just search for it. That's what the
little box at the top of the page is for, ya know. :)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:33 pm ((PDT))
Jim Henry:
<<
sina toki ala toki?
Are you talking?
you talk not talk?
I could sort of squeeze that into "question particle"
but "ala" is a general negative particle, not primarily
used for questions, or I could call it "interrogative
word order" but the WALS examples involve
fronting the verb. This doesn't seem to be the
same thing.
>>
I would call that interrogative word order, of the
options presented.
Whenever I'm not sure what to put I always go
to the WALS page for an explanation. Remember
that these aren't going to fit even every natural
language. It's just to give folks an idea--a snapshot.
A way to compare various languages. Just pick
whatever's closest, even if all the options don't
fit, and I think that's in keeping with the spirit of
WALS.
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:46 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 6:33 PM, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jim Henry:
> <<
> sina toki ala toki?
> Are you talking?
> you talk not talk?
Doesn't Mandarin do that? "hao3 bu4 hao3" ? What does WALS say there?
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:07 am ((PDT))
* Mark J. Reed said on 2008-08-20 00:17:30 +0200
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 4:09 AM, taliesin the storyteller
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I think I have *seen* it, but I can't find it now... quite annoying.
> > <peeve type="pet">One of the most useful tools for finding a mail is
> > *sorting*, be it alphabetically, by size or by date recedived but
> > gmail doesn't *do* that.</peeve>
>
> Technically, sorting is a reporting tool, not a search tool. If you
> want to search for something, just search for it. That's what the
> little box at the top of the page is for, ya know. :)
Ah, but the *result of the search* isn't sortable. For instance
searching for anything Jim Henry might have sent to me within so and so
a timespan, then sort on dates, or for conlang, sort on subjects (though
that was more of a necessity in the old days where subject lines were
truncated and slightly changed east and west...). I have no idea just
what criteria they use to order the results. Structured data like the
meta-data of an email shouldn't be treated as unstructured data like
text.
t.
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:19 am ((PDT))
* Jim Henry said on 2008-08-20 00:01:25 +0200
> I'm done entering featural data for Esperanto
> and am working on Toki Pona.
>
> The "Polar Questions" feature from WALS doesn't
> seem to have any option that fits Toki Pona:
>
> http://wals.info/feature/description/116
>
> TP marks yes/no questions by juxtaposing a normal
> verb and the same verb negatived, e.g.
Mandarin in WALS:
http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_mnd
> sina toki.
> You're talking.
>
> sina toki ala toki?
> Are you talking?
> you talk not talk?
Mandarin is set as "question particle", though without examples
in the chapter text.
> Also, it seems as though "Prefixing vs. Suffixing in
> Inflectional Morphology" should have an option for "No
> affixation".
>
> And various questions re: relative clauses should have an
> option for "No relative clauses".
>
> For now I've left all those blank for Toki Pona.
That's the correct solution anyway. You're not supposed to
answer all of them. If a lang isn't a sign language you
shouldn't try to still answer the "sign language" only
questions, after all.
t.
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Communal/collaborative languages now possible at CALS
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:53 am ((PDT))
Hi!
taliesin writes:
>...
> Mandarin is set as "question particle", though without examples
> in the chapter text.
Mandarin has both:
hao3 bu hao3?
good not good
(Is it) good/ok?
hao3 ma?
good YN
(Is it) good/ok?
For transitive verbs, mainland Mandarin allows the negated verb to be
moved to the end of the clause (but IIRC, Taiwanese Mandarin typically
does not):
ni3 you3 shu1 ma?
you have book YN
'Do you have a book?'
ni3 you3 mei3 you3 shu1?
you have don't have book?
'Do you have a book?'
ni3 you3 shu1 mei3 you3?
you have book don't have?
'Do you have a book?'
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:44 pm ((PDT))
Oh, and I didn't address your first question:
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 4:53 PM, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Den 19. aug. 2008 kl. 20.37 skreiv Eugene Oh:
>>
>> I would consider Hi'roshima to be more "correct" than ,Hiro'shima,
>
> Sorry, what does it signify that initial comma there?
Secondary stress. That is, the stress pattern is the same as if it
were the two words 'hiro 'shima, but with the stress in the second
"word" more pronounced.
And while I'm back here...
> Careless pronunciation of foreign words feels disrespectful somehow, and from
> my
> point of view I find the degradation of a perfectly fine word like burrito
> kind of disconcerting.
It's not necessarily "careless", and Anglicization is not
"degradation". Please avoid such loaded terms.
Loanwords - and place names that are sufficiently well-known to be
essentially loanwords - get adapted to the phonology of the lessee
language. English is hardly unique in this, although we do have an
excess of loanwords and the whole "ginormous population largely
isolated from contact with other languages" thing exaggerating the
effect. But I don't see why other languages should be immune from the
drive. Shouldn't Hispanoparlantes refer to [nu yO`r\k] instead of
[nweBa j\o4k]?
Now, there are cases where the standard English name is very different
from the native one, and it might eliminate some confusion if we
adopted the latter - the whole Georgia (country) vs Georgia (US state)
thing comes to mind. But even there, if we did adopt the native name,
it'd still be Anglicized to something like [EMAIL PROTECTED]'vEloU].
> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to pronounce foreign
> names than in many other
> languages.
I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any evidence
one way or the other.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Michael Poxon" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:45 pm ((PDT))
Surely the name of the place is Paris, not "Paris France" however you say
it!
Mike
> And if I'd taken a side trip to see the Eiffel ['aIf5=] Tower, it
> would have been in ['pE`r\Is fr&ns], not [p@'Ri fRa~s], although the
> latter would likely be understood by more folks over here than the
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.3. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:49 pm ((PDT))
Sure, "Paris" would be understood in context, but the standard way of
referring to it is "Paris, France". Not to be confused with Paris,
Texas, or any of the other 15 Parises in the United States alone...
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Michael Poxon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Surely the name of the place is Paris, not "Paris France" however you say
> it!
> Mike
>>
>> And if I'd taken a side trip to see the Eiffel ['aIf5=] Tower, it
>> would have been in ['pE`r\Is fr&ns], not [p@'Ri fRa~s], although the
>> latter would likely be understood by more folks over here than the
>
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.4. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:04 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
> Sure, "Paris" would be understood in context, but the standard way of
> referring to it is "Paris, France". Not to be confused with Paris,
> Texas, or any of the other 15 Parises in the United States alone...
Or the zillions of Londons, Romes, Athenses, Florences, or long list of similar
cities prefixed by the word "New". Something I've found very annoying since
moving to the Eastern part of the country is how the same names keep cropping
up all over.
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.5. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "caeruleancentaur" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:47 pm ((PDT))
> "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I call that "Alex Trebekking", and I agree that it's disconcerting. I
> believe that if you're speaking English, you should pronounce things
> Englishly. Don't show off your mad language skillz by ordering a
> [bur:'ito] instead of a [br\='i4oU] at Taco Bell, unless you're
> placing the entire order in Spanish...
Y'all may be interested in reading the following:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger112002.asp
In general, I agree with his sentiments.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.6. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:58 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
caeruleancentaur
> http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger112002.asp
>
> In general, I agree with his sentiments.
I do only to a small degree, because I think native names give
an element of respect to the culture they represent. I do
however agree they need to be anglicized phonologically. The
most annoying thing is when reporters in the US with hispanic
names that will code switch into Spanish when they say their
names (any MWC fans remember "Miranda Vera Cruz de la Jolla
Cardinal"?), trilled rhotics and all. I remember years ago
seeing a skit on either SNL or a similar program where the
reporters actually did this for all names. One reporter named
something like "O'Brien" would say his name with a fake Irish
accent, and likewise for German names. It brought up a good
point though because the hispanics are about the only ones doing
it. It was good for a laugh, but I don't think the real
reporters realize just how ridiculous they sound sometimes.
I have to admit though I'm guilty of using some of the older
names for places. I still say Bombay and Saigon even though
they were Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City at the time I was there.
It's really just a habit because those names were used for so
long.
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.7. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:32 pm ((PDT))
Dana Nutter wrote:
> I have to admit though I'm guilty of using some of the older
> names for places. I still say Bombay and Saigon even though
> they were Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City at the time I was there.
> It's really just a habit because those names were used for so
> long.
>
And Burma...... <rant> I can't bring myself to refer to Ho Chi Minh City
(when were you there?), because I was there in the Good Old Days when it was
still definitely Saigon, the Paris of the Orient (well, more or less). This
was 1958*, not long after the French had lost out, and the street signs had
two names-- new Vietnamese and ex-French. The main drag was Duong Tu Do,
ex-Catinat; my quarters were on Tran Hung Dao, ex-Blvd. Galliéni (some
general or other I think)...Only rarely would a taxi- or pedicab driver--
when you said "Rue Catinat!"-- harumph and correct you to the Vietnamese
name.</rant>
I am sorry to say that most of us Americans there at the time (and I include
myself) did not have very high regard for the Vietnamese...............
*OMG I just functioned-- FIFTY YEARS AGO!!!!!!
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.8. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:40 pm ((PDT))
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Roger Mills
> Dana Nutter wrote:
> > I have to admit though I'm guilty of using some of the older
> > names for places. I still say Bombay and Saigon even though
> > they were Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City at the time I was
there.
> > It's really just a habit because those names were used for
so
> > long.
> >
> And Burma...... <rant> I can't bring myself to refer to Ho Chi
Minh City
> (when were you there?), because I was there in the Good Old
Days when it was
> still definitely Saigon, the Paris of the Orient (well, more
or less). This
> was 1958*, not long after the French had lost out, and the
street signs had
> two names-- new Vietnamese and ex-French. The main drag was
Duong Tu Do,
> ex-Catinat; my quarters were on Tran Hung Dao, ex-Blvd.
Galliéni (some
> general or other I think)...Only rarely would a taxi- or
pedicab driver--
> when you said "Rue Catinat!"-- harumph and correct you to the
Vietnamese
> name.</rant>
Just a quick stop back in 1999. Don't remember the names of
anything except the nightclub I ended up in called Apocaplyse
Now.
> I am sorry to say that most of us Americans there at the time
(and I include
> myself) did not have very high regard for the
Vietnamese...............
I used to live in Westminster, Ca. aka "Little Saigon".
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.9. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:43 am ((PDT))
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> quoting me:
>>
>> Sorry, what does it signify that initial comma there?
>
> Secondary stress. That is, the stress pattern is the same as if it
> were the two words 'hiro 'shima, but with the stress in the second
> "word" more pronounced.
Thanks. I don't think I'll ever learn all those phonetic codes...but
I find it actually more effective to ask someone than looking them up
again and again.
>> Careless pronunciation of foreign words feels disrespectful
>> somehow, and from my point of view I find the degradation of a
>> perfectly fine word like burrito kind of disconcerting.
>
> It's not necessarily "careless", and Anglicization is not
> "degradation". Please avoid such loaded terms.
Hard to avoid when you are kind of disconcerted...
> Loanwords - and place names that are sufficiently well-known to be
> essentially loanwords - get adapted to the phonology of the lessee
> language. English is hardly unique in this, although we do have an
> excess of loanwords and the whole "ginormous population largely
> isolated from contact with other languages" thing exaggerating the
> effect.
That's a good point, and I think the substantial differences between
the phonetics of English and those of most other languages add to it
as well. To a foreigner it does convey the impression of an attitude
like the Winston Churchill "Foreign names were made for Englishmen,
not Englishmen for foreign names" thing, and I wouldn't be surprised
if there's some of that stuff still lingering on as well, on a more
or less conscious level. At least, what's wrong with trying to
imitate a reasonably correct pronunciation of Milano and Torino for
example? That shouldn't be so difficult. Tradition is the only reason
not to. If a Hispanic TV presenter actually is bilingual, I think it
must feel the most natural for him to pronounce his name the way it
was given to him, and if he does it for any conscious reason at all,
it's for a matter of ethnic pride, not to raise laughs, for sure.
Anyway, I'm not trying to put you or the cultures and traditions of
the whole English-speaking world down. You belong up there. I just
thought it couldn't hurt if I told you, as a friend, how this
attitude to foreign names comes across to the outside - especially as
there are so many here now defending it.
I think I could tell you, too, without offending, that between
ourselves, we foreigners sometimes have our own laughs at the ways in
which you English-speakers pronounce our names. I think it's like I
said, that you are handicapped due to the difference in phonetics,
and that carelessness isn't that much a part of it. Your ['azloU] is
rather a lot more different from the local pronunciation of Oslo than
what you find in most other languages. (In fact the local
pronunciation is more like ['u²Slu] - if I can use a "²" for toneme
2. A retracted s before l is the norm in the east, where Oslo is
situated.) But it is noticeable that Britons tend to do better with
European names than Americans do, and the other way around with Asian
names for example. Europeans in general often do well in pronouncing
each others' names, but have problems with Chinese or Australian
native names, for example.
> Now, there are cases where the standard English name is very different
> from the native one, and it might eliminate some confusion if we
> adopted the latter - the whole Georgia (country) vs Georgia (US state)
> thing comes to mind. But even there, if we did adopt the native name,
> it'd still be Anglicized to something like [EMAIL PROTECTED]'vEloU].
You sure about that E?
Anyhow, I guess Georgia, the country, is known as Georgia in just
about every language in the world.
>> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to
>> pronounce foreign names than in many other
>> languages.
>
> I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any evidence
> one way or the other.
So it's just the attitude, then?
LEF
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.10. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Andreas Johansson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:16 am ((PDT))
Quoting Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
[snip]
> Anyway, I'm not trying to put you or the cultures and traditions of
> the whole English-speaking world down. You belong up there. I just
> thought it couldn't hurt if I told you, as a friend, how this
> attitude to foreign names comes across to the outside - especially as
> there are so many here now defending it.
I feel compelled to point out that not all outsiders feel like this - I prefer
anglophones to use traditional English name-forms where they exist rather than
attempting to approximate the native names, and generally do so myself when
speaking English. If you say _Sverige_ or _Göteborg_ when speaking English, I'll
think you pretentious and silly. (Assuming, of course, you're talking about the
country or city, not Swedish pronunciation of whatever.)
[snip]
> Anyhow, I guess Georgia, the country, is known as Georgia in just
> about every language in the world.
A brief perusual of Wikipedia suggests most languages written in alphabets I can
read uses some variant of "Georgia", "Gruziya" (concentrated in eastern Europe),
or "Gurjistan" (SW Asia, mostly). From the somewhat confused discussion in the
article it's unclear to me whether any of those three are known to be related.
Apparent variants of "(Sa)Kartvelo" are found here and there.
--
Andreas Johansson
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
2.11. Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.
Posted by: "Mark J. Reed" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:28 am ((PDT))
Will respond in detail later when I can see the quoted text and make
sure things are in the right context. But just to be clear: I've read
"The Ugly American", and I'm painfully familiar with the bigotry
(manifested as arrogance, indifference, jingoism, xenophobia...) that
is all too common among my countrymen (and fellow Anglophones
elsewhence, to a lesser degree). I am not defending that. But the
pronunciation of foreign names in an Anglophonic context is a separate
matter. Heck, if I insert meticulously-pronounced Spanish food item
names into my otherwise pure-gringo fast food order, the
coincidentally-Hispanic person behind the counter is more likely to
think I'm being patronizing than respectful.
On 8/20/08, Lars Finsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>> quoting me:
>>>
>>> Sorry, what does it signify that initial comma there?
>>
>> Secondary stress. That is, the stress pattern is the same as if it
>> were the two words 'hiro 'shima, but with the stress in the second
>> "word" more pronounced.
>
> Thanks. I don't think I'll ever learn all those phonetic codes...but
> I find it actually more effective to ask someone than looking them up
> again and again.
>
>>> Careless pronunciation of foreign words feels disrespectful
>>> somehow, and from my point of view I find the degradation of a
>>> perfectly fine word like burrito kind of disconcerting.
>>
>> It's not necessarily "careless", and Anglicization is not
>> "degradation". Please avoid such loaded terms.
>
> Hard to avoid when you are kind of disconcerted...
>
>> Loanwords - and place names that are sufficiently well-known to be
>> essentially loanwords - get adapted to the phonology of the lessee
>> language. English is hardly unique in this, although we do have an
>> excess of loanwords and the whole "ginormous population largely
>> isolated from contact with other languages" thing exaggerating the
>> effect.
>
> That's a good point, and I think the substantial differences between
> the phonetics of English and those of most other languages add to it
> as well. To a foreigner it does convey the impression of an attitude
> like the Winston Churchill "Foreign names were made for Englishmen,
> not Englishmen for foreign names" thing, and I wouldn't be surprised
> if there's some of that stuff still lingering on as well, on a more
> or less conscious level. At least, what's wrong with trying to
> imitate a reasonably correct pronunciation of Milano and Torino for
> example? That shouldn't be so difficult. Tradition is the only reason
> not to. If a Hispanic TV presenter actually is bilingual, I think it
> must feel the most natural for him to pronounce his name the way it
> was given to him, and if he does it for any conscious reason at all,
> it's for a matter of ethnic pride, not to raise laughs, for sure.
>
> Anyway, I'm not trying to put you or the cultures and traditions of
> the whole English-speaking world down. You belong up there. I just
> thought it couldn't hurt if I told you, as a friend, how this
> attitude to foreign names comes across to the outside - especially as
> there are so many here now defending it.
>
> I think I could tell you, too, without offending, that between
> ourselves, we foreigners sometimes have our own laughs at the ways in
> which you English-speakers pronounce our names. I think it's like I
> said, that you are handicapped due to the difference in phonetics,
> and that carelessness isn't that much a part of it. Your ['azloU] is
> rather a lot more different from the local pronunciation of Oslo than
> what you find in most other languages. (In fact the local
> pronunciation is more like ['u²Slu] - if I can use a "²" for toneme
> 2. A retracted s before l is the norm in the east, where Oslo is
> situated.) But it is noticeable that Britons tend to do better with
> European names than Americans do, and the other way around with Asian
> names for example. Europeans in general often do well in pronouncing
> each others' names, but have problems with Chinese or Australian
> native names, for example.
>
>> Now, there are cases where the standard English name is very different
>> from the native one, and it might eliminate some confusion if we
>> adopted the latter - the whole Georgia (country) vs Georgia (US state)
>> thing comes to mind. But even there, if we did adopt the native name,
>> it'd still be Anglicized to something like [EMAIL PROTECTED]'vEloU].
>
> You sure about that E?
> Anyhow, I guess Georgia, the country, is known as Georgia in just
> about every language in the world.
>
>>> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to
>>> pronounce foreign names than in many other
>>> languages.
>>
>> I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any evidence
>> one way or the other.
>
> So it's just the attitude, then?
>
> LEF
>
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (109)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Grammar checker
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:36 pm ((PDT))
Emaelivpeith Henrik Theiling 'sa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Just found a program on Freshmeat that might be interesting:
>
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/gramadoir/
Huh, this looks pretty cool for us colanger-developer types! Thanks
for sharing. :)
--
AA
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Grammar checker
Posted by: "Henrik Theiling" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:53 am ((PDT))
Hi!
Arthaey Angosii writes:
> Emaelivpeith Henrik Theiling 'sa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> Just found a program on Freshmeat that might be interesting:
>>
>> http://freshmeat.net/projects/gramadoir/
>
> Huh, this looks pretty cool for us colanger-developer types! Thanks
> for sharing. :)
Exactly my thought. I was thinking about trying to specify a grammar
checker for some of my conlangs, but haven't had a look at that
project yet. But it looked interesting.
Anyone who tries it, please report, I'm quite curious whether
it as useful for us.
**Henrik
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: CV metathesis Q
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:43 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Jeffrey Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> I've been playing with a sketch where most of the verbs have two basic
> stems, CVCVC and CVCCV, to which a number of affixes are added. Mostly,
> I've been working on filling in the specific morphology and on subsequent
> development (sound changes etc.) but recently, I started wondering exactly
> how the two stems came about in the first place. Any ideas?
>
> I should probably mention that the first stem can take (C)V(C) suffixes
> while
> the second can take C((C)V) suffixes and that some of the suffixes also
> have
> alternating forms (CVC vs. CCV and VC vs. CV).
>
> I've been googling and it seems most morphology theorists disapprove of
> this
> sort of thing.
>
I'm not sure why this should be a problem. If the CVCCV stem is the unmarked
form, the CVCVC stem can be derived from it by requiring the stem to fill an
iambic template (light syllable followed by a heavy syllable). A. Gafos
proposed something like this for Semitic in a paper that appeared awhile ago
in Language.
The kinds of suffixes that each stem takes would follow from wanting to
minimize syllable codas and consonant clusters; thus, vowel-initial suffixes
with consonant-final stems, and consonant-initial suffixes with vowel-final
stems. All of this is doable in Optimality Theory, if that's your thing.
Dirk
--
Miapimoquitch: Tcf Pt*p+++12,4(c)v(v/c) W* Mf+++h+++t*a2c*g*n4 Sf++++argh
La----c++d++600
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Vowel length near-minimal pairs in Tirelat
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:41 pm ((PDT))
I've been looking through the Tirelat vocabulary (which is still in a
bit of a disorganized state) and making note of the patterns of long and
short vowels. Some of these may be a matter of documentation errors as
the language underwent quite a few changes, but others seem to be correct.
Short: ciki "heel", fiki "thread", zikki "grateful"
Long: iiki "young", ziiki "to arrive"
Short: dev "rabbit", zev "fruit"
Long: reev "world"
Short: cil "noun", nil "bird", sil "page"
Long: ziil "fox"
Short: cam "phrase", pam "mouth"
Long: faam "clover", fraam "banana"
Short: giri "turn", miri "great", skiri "meerkat"
Long: viiri "sugar glider", ziiri "pretty"
Short: ´ran "chin", xtan "salt"
Long: daan "lion", saan "foot"
Short: lom "shadow"
Long: loom "flower", room "mountain"
And at least one apparently genuine minimal pair!
Short: zimi "pie"
Long: ziimi "green"
A couple of other likely minimal pairs exist, involving words originally
borrowed from Jarda (e.g., kiim "apple" vs. kim "three").
So it looks like vowel length (and not stress) is distinctive. But
there's a complication: an unwritten schwa sound in some words, which is
always unstressed. E.g.:
dbaxa /d@'baxa/ "to resist" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
knagi /k@'nagi/ "brass" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
tezn /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ "transparent plastic ball for gerbils" (not
/tE'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
zgaki /z@'gaki/ "similar" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Vowel length near-minimal pairs in Tirelat
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:11 pm ((PDT))
Herman Miller wrote:
(snip examples)
>So it looks like vowel length (and not stress) is distinctive.
Yes, from that data.
But
>there's a complication: an unwritten schwa sound in some words, which is
>always unstressed. E.g.:
>
>dbaxa /d@'baxa/ "to resist" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
>knagi /k@'nagi/ "brass" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
>tezn /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ "transparent plastic ball for gerbils" (not
>/tE'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
>zgaki /z@'gaki/ "similar" (not /'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/)
That isn't phonemic, merely a phonetic/sub-phonemic transition sound in the
surface structure, to facilitate the cluster. In my favorite generative
terms, [EMAIL PROTECTED] would be a very late (maybe even the last) rule in the
derivation, surely _after_ stress has been assigned. Is penultimate stress
the rule? no problem in that case; or is it "stress the first (phonemic)
vowel of the word?" or maybe something else-- still no problem, since
whenever stress is assiged, [EMAIL PROTECTED] "isn't there yet" in phonological
terms.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Tonal inflection?
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:13 pm ((PDT))
This is just an idea I was toying with a long time ago but for some reason I've
been pondering it again. I started a project a long time ago that use tonal
patterns for various inflections.
For example nouns having a pattern of 135 would be nominative and 531
accusative while the dative may be 411, and the locative 252, etc.
Verbs could have their own patterns to indicate tense and aspect, maybe a 135
to indicate the present continuous for example, while 13 might be past
continuous, and 35 for the future.
I should also add that I'm also trying to work in a few other functions like
aspiration, palatization, voicing. I just haven't gotten around to assigning
them functions yet.
Ideas? Suggestions?
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: Hebrew waw consecutive (was: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc)
Posted by: "Veoler" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:43 am ((PDT))
David McCann wrote:
> The fast-forward version is that archaic Hebrew had a verbal form in w-
> and later writers assumed that this prefix was the synonymous word
> "and". Thus wayyiktob "he wrote (perfective)" was taken to be wa "and"
> plus yiktob "he writes (imperfective)". It looked as if the conjunction
> was switching the aspect of the verb.
Is there some hard evidence for this? As far as I have heard there was no
real foundation behind waw conversive, and I haven't ever seen any proof in
any direction. So I'm 67% non-believer in waw conversive and 33% agnostic,
until I see evidence. Do you have any references about the justification or
reason to assume the theory?
I have'nt got very far in learning Hebrew and thought I should wait with
this question, but since it was brought up...
--
Veoler
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8.1. Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word
Posted by: "R A Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:56 am ((PDT))
ROGER MILLS wrote:
> Ray Brown wrote:
>> > Eugene Oh wrote:
>> >
>> >> Perhaps "nonetheless", "notwithstanding", "nevertheless" were ahead of
>> >> their
>> >> time in descriptivity ;)
>> >>
>> >
>> > "nonetheless" looks to me suspiciously like a calque of Classical Latin
>> > "nihilominus" which, I guess, puts it way ahead of its time :)
>> >
> Or French néaumoins IIRC?????
>
"Later formations include ...... _néan(t)moins_ (a rendering of
NIHILOMINUS) ..."
[Alfred Ewert, "The French Language", 1983, London, Faber & Faber]
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]
Messages in this topic (65)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
