There are 4 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Fieldwork Questionnaires
From: David Peterson
1b. Re: Fieldwork Questionnaires
From: David McCann
2a. Re: Tirelat vowels again
From: Herman Miller
3.1. Re: OT: Books for postage and packaging
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
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1a. Fieldwork Questionnaires
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 16, 2012 1:26 pm ((PDT))
>From the Facebook conlang group, this is a set of questionnaires various
>linguistics came up with to test languages they're working on for various
>properties (how they handle valency, control, if there are converbs, etc.). A
>handy set of things to look over when designing!
http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/tools-at-lingboard/questionnaires.php
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (2)
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1b. Re: Fieldwork Questionnaires
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 16, 2012 1:59 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:26:05 -0700
David Peterson <[email protected]> wrote:
> From the Facebook conlang group, this is a set of questionnaires
> various linguistics came up with to test languages they're working on
> for various properties (how they handle valency, control, if there
> are converbs, etc.). A handy set of things to look over when
> designing!
The is a great site. I got the Leipzig glossing rules there years ago
and then forgot about it. The publications section has things like
"Orthographies for unwritten languages" and "Writing non-technical
grammars" which look very useful for conlanging.
Messages in this topic (2)
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2a. Re: Tirelat vowels again
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:49 pm ((PDT))
On 3/14/2012 8:24 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:56:11 -0400, Herman Miller<[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm beginning to realize that my Tirelat vowel reconstruction probably
>> isn't going to work out with /o/ and /u/ after labial consonants, /@/
>> and /y/ elsewhere. I can get it to work, but only if I assume that Early
>> Modern Tirelat (EMT) had lots of /wo/ and /wu/, but relatively few cases
>> of /wa/ /we/ /wi/. So I decided to do some counting and see if I could
>> come up with some element that could cause /o/ and /u/ to change to /@/
>> and /y/ that makes sense for this set of words.
>
> [I have reordered here. I assume it was a native alphabetical order before?]
The list was sorted by the proportion of ë to o and y to u, so it goes
from the consonants most likely to preserve /o/ and /u/ at the top to
the consonants most associated with /ë/ and /y/ at the bottom. It did
show a weak correlation with the bilabial stops, but not much of a pattern.
>> So, while it's apparent that bilabial consonants tend to preserve /o/
>> and /u/, so do the nasals /n/ and /N/, and the fricatives /s/ and /S/.
>> It looks rather like velar, palatal, and dental sounds are more likely
>> to change /o/ to /@/ (and to a lesser extent, /u/ to /y/).
>
> There are some such subtrends, but I look at that and the main trend I see
> is a three-to-one numerical advantage for /o u/ over /@ 1/ (in fact /u/ is
> slightly more and /o/ slightly less favoured than that). That's bad news
> for any attempt to develop /o u/ as special-case outcomes of what normally
> develop to /@ 1/.
One problem is that /ë/ was a relatively late addition to Tirelat;
another is that /y/ (which was originally [y] instead of [1]) had been
removed from the language and re-added later. So one of the things I may
want to do is go back to old documentation and restore instances of /y/
that changed to /ju/. I may also change some instances of /o/ to /ë/,
and try to use /ë/ more in new vocabulary items.
The current explanation for the history of /ë/ and /y/ that I'm working
out is that they were allophones of the front vowels /e/ and /i/
adjacent to sounds produced in the back of the throat (possibly uvular,
pharyngeal, or epiglottal sounds of some kind, which were lost). So a
word like /kwëna/ "to hear" would be < /kweHna/, where /H/ represents a
sound that causes /e/ to be pronounced [@]. It could potentially be the
same sound that alters /r/ and /l/ to the voiceless /ŕ/ and /ł/ in the
modern language, as in the word "xyŕa" (from *xiHra?) But the problem
with that is words like "lërvi": *lHervi would produce /łërvi/, and
*leHrvi would produce /lëŕvi/. (Besides, *sl and *sr are looking more
plausible as an origin for /ł/ and /ŕ/.)
> It does look like there's a constraint against */wo wu/, though. And */dz@
> dz1/ in this set is a little remarkable too, though I can't offhand think of
> a good accounting for it (for one, the bias is definitely not shared with
> /ts/).
>
>> It's also possible that I'm going about this from the wrong direction,
>> and I should be trying to derive /@/ /y/ from /e/ and /i/.
>
> Possibly. Or, one of the more common ways in which vowels are influenced is
> by other vowels, especially following ones, i.e. umlaut. Is there any sign
> that an umlaut solution would be a good one? How do sequential vowels in
> roots correlate?
That's something I can look into.
> Keep in mind also that /@/ and /1/ need not have developed by parallel
> courses.
>
> Alex
Yes, that's a good point. One option I've been considering is an
original vowel system of /a/ /i/ /u/ /@/, with various splits and
mergers that I haven't worked out. I don't have any particularly good
reason for those four vowels except for symmetry, and the idea that /a/
/e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ is too ordinary of a vowel system.
Messages in this topic (3)
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3.1. Re: OT: Books for postage and packaging
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:42 am ((PDT))
And, the shop is now closed, having sold off all its remaining inventory!
Thanks to everyone who're going to take some of these books off my hands --
hope they will be of interest and use to you all!
Padraic
--- On Thu, 3/15/12, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] OT: Books for postage and packaging
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 6:51 PM
> Sorry if this comes through a couple
> times...
>
> Since Charlie's library clearance was so successful, I'll
> give it a go as
> well. Same deal: you pick the book(s) you like, let me know
> privately
> where I can send them to. All I ask is that you cover
> postage. I know we
> have folks all around the world, and I'm not at all adverse
> to sending
> these anywhere.
>
> I also know that not everyone has a lot of money. If paying
> for postage
> would be a hardship, just let me know. Write me a poem in
> your conlang
> and write in your script, or draw a picture from your
> world.
>
> And of course, first request gets the book!
>
> The list:
>
> 501 French Verbs
> 501 Spanish Verbs
> 201 Latin Verbs (I guess the Romans didn't get around to
> doing much!)
> Russian English Translators Dictionary
> Complete Russian Course for Scientists
> Teach Yourself Welsh
> Teach Yourself Maltese
> Teach Yourself Romanian (soft cover, newer edition)
> Learning Irish
> Cambodian System of Writing & Beginning Reader
> Abriss der Althochdeutsch Grammatik (bound photocopy)
> IE Philology, Historical and Comparative (bound photocopy)
> Althochdeutsches Elementarbuch (bound photocopy)
> Old Spanish Readings
> Grammar of the Gothic Language (bound photocopy)
> Sermo Lupi ad Anglos
> Relative Frequency of English Spellings
> Mittelhochdeutsches Taschen Woerterbuch
> Teach Yourself Swahili (nicely leather bound)
> Latin Reader (leather, 1800s)
> Visual Dictionary (Chinese -- this one's great, if you want
> to know how to
> call all the parts of a car or a faucet or a house)
> Journal of the IPA (6vols, 1999-2000ish)
> Essentials of Latin Grammar
> Useful Household Words (Portuguese)
> Vulcan Language Guide
> Harpers English Grammar
> Alenka (cute Russian children's board book)
> Essential Portuguese Grammar
> Organic Chemistry German-English Dictionary
> Greek
> Teach Yourself Sanskrit
> Teach Yourself Gaelic
> Teach Yourself Romanian (older hardbound edition)
> Evnageli de Matteus (Surselvan Romantsch)
> Persian (US govt. / Army manual)
> Cambodian (US govt. / Army manual)
> Basic German Reader
> 161 Key Swahili Words
> Italian Verbs Simplified
> Portuguese Verbs Simplified
> English-Maori-English Dictionary
> Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary
> Klingon Dictionary
> Language, Introductory Readings
> Ladino-English-Ladino Dictionary
> Spanglish, Making of a New American Language
> Vietnamese-English Dictionary
> Sammlung IndoGermanischer Lehrbuecher
> Basic Tagalog
> Heath's German Dictionary
> Dictionary of the Yoruba Language
> Japanese at a Glance
> Chicano Dictionary
> Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary
> La Terulia (Spanish poetry)
> Sentences Children Use
> Latin Lexicon
> ASL Concise Dictionary
> Modern Russian Course
> Gotische Grammatik
> Bhagavad Gita tio estas Sublima Kanto pri la Senmorteco
> Fabulas y Cuentos
> Alvar Nunez, Cabeza de Vaca
> Los Gitanos
> Dialectologia Espanola
>
> That's it for now!
>
> Padraic
>
>
> --- On Tue, 3/13/12, Charlie Brickner <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > From: Charlie Brickner <[email protected]>
> > Subject: Re: [CONLANG] OT: Books for postage and
> packaging
> > To: [email protected]
> > Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 8:01 AM
> > On Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:40:56 -0400,
> > Charlie Brickner
> > <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >I am once again cleaning out my library. I
> have a
> > number of language books
> > >I’d like to offer to anyone interested.
> I’m
> > not selling them, but I do ask for
> > >payment of the postage and packaging.
> > >
> >
> > Wow! The store is closed!! There was quite
> a
> > demand; I guess I should have
> > realized that.
> >
> > In any case, I will notify those who "won"
> > individually. And it's on a first-
> > come, first served basis.
> >
> > I am very happy to share these books with those who
> have an
> > interest. I
> > dreaded throwing them in the trash.
> >
> > Charlie
> >
>
Messages in this topic (31)
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