There are 8 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Roger Mills
1b. OT: Roj is back, yay!
From: taliesin the storyteller
2a. Re: Tirelat vowels again
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2b. Re: Tirelat vowels again
From: Herman Miller
2c. Re: Tirelat vowels again
From: BPJ
3a. Re: What is this called?
From: Roger Mills
4. M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
From: taliesin the storyteller
5. TECH: usethis
From: Lee
Messages
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1a. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:25 am ((PDT))
Hello everyone!!!! And many, many thanks for all the messages of encouragement.
This is the first time I've felt like getting on the computer (I'm still in the
rehab place, which is very nice-- I think about a week longer.) Discovered
there were 500+ msgs, almost all from Conlang, and have so far deleted about
180 of them. Will check out the listserv archive when I have more time.
With respect to Jim Henry's message--
From: Jim Henry <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 11:36 AM
Subject: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect speech etc.
How do information-question words (like "who", "where" etc. in
English) work cross-linguistically in indirect speech and subordinate
or relative clauses? Especially in languages where relativizers don't
have the same form as question-words, as in English?
RM: this is a problem in Indonesian as well as in Kash....
For instance, in the equivalents of:
1. Where is the restroom? INDO; dimana dibelakang? similar in Kash
2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
RM: need 2 clauses for this in both, with quote marks in print, a slight pause
in speech: " dimana dibelakang?" ia bertanya
3. He asked where the restroom was.
RM similar to #2: ia bertanya dimana dibelakang.
4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
RM 2 choices: 1(probably most colloq.). tidak tahu dimana.etc. or 2. tidak
tahu tempat (' place') belakang.
In Kash, #2 would be much preferred:
Ta ma/kaya yurun 'RESTROOM'
not I/know place .....
--- would your conlang, or the natlangs you're familiar with, use the
same word for "where" in each case? Would #3 and/or #4 use a
relativizer instead of an interrogative...,
NO, except as noted in #4
...or would a relative "where"
be restricted to situations like
5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
RM: This is the problem area both in Indo. and Kash.
Indo: ini rumah dimana S. lahir -- (lit. "this (is) house where S. born") might
occur but isn't considered " good".
Standard grammar: ini rumah yang S. lahir dalam/nya
This house RE S. born in-it
Both langs. have the same problem when the relativizer is in one of the oblique
cases-- whose, to/for whom, from whom etc. You use the regular relative
marker (Indo. yang, Kash re) with a resumptive pronoun or prep.phrase--
'this is the man whose house we bought'
Indo: ini orang yang rumah/nya kita beli.
this man REL house/his we buy ----- Indo has the added
complication that when you relativize on a DO, the verb in the rel. clause has
to be (technically) passive. No such problem
Kash: tayu kash re mi/(bought) puna/ni
this person REL we/bought house/his
With a dative:
" this is the man to whom I gave the book"
Indo. ini orang yang saya mem/beri buku itu kepada/nya
this pers. REL I CT/give book DEF to/him
Kash: tayu kash re ne ma/(gave) etengi/ni
this man REL 3s-DAT I(gave) book/DEF
JH:gjâ-zym-byn has distinct relativizers and interrogative particles. So
far it uses the interrogative in sentences like #1 and #2, and the
relativizer in ones like #5, but I'm not sure what's the best/most
natural way to handle #3 and #4; I'm leaning toward using the
interrogative for #3 and maybe for #4 as well, but I can see reasons
for using the relativizer instead, especially for #4 and maybe for #3.
Well as you can see, at least one natlang has to go roundabout in certain
cases..I've always thought it was awkward, and often had trouble with it when
speaking Indo.
Hope there weren't too many typos, and as you can see, I forgot some Kash
vocab. Have to finish this and send as they're pushing me to go to lunch.....
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. OT: Roj is back, yay!
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:10 pm ((PDT))
* Roger Mills said on 2012-03-17 17:24:59 +0100
> Hello everyone!!!! And many, many thanks for all the messages of
> encouragement. This is the first time I've felt like getting on the
> computer (I'm still in the rehab place, which is very nice-- I think
> about a week longer.) Discovered there were 500+ msgs, almost all
> from Conlang, and have so far deleted about 180 of them. Will check
> out the listserv archive when I have more time.
Woohoo you're back! *happy dance* I suspect there might be cards on the
way to the rehab-place, will they send them on to your real home?
t.
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: Tirelat vowels again
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:16 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:48:39 -0400 Herman Miller wrote:
> [...]
>
> 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 [@].
That sounds plausible. Uvulars, pharyngeals and epiglottals are
all likely to cause backing of front vowels. That of course does
not rule out the possibility that *some* of the relevant tokens
resulted from the unrounding of /o/ and /u/. Your nonfront
unrounded vowels may have two different origins!
> 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/.)
Yes, if such problems occur, it is probably not the same sound.
*sl and *sr indeed look very plausible as an origin for /ł/ and
/ŕ/. There is no need to ascribe these to the same sound as the
nonfront unrounded vowels.
> [...]
>
> > 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.
What is wrong with /a e i o u/, except that is has been used so
often (including natlangs)? But if you think it is overused,
do something different. If you start with /a i u @/, you can
first split each of the four vowel phonemes vertically:
/a/ > /a ~ @1/
/i/ > /e ~ i/
/u/ > /o ~ u/
/@/ > /@2 ~ 1/
Then merge /@1/ and /@2/, and you have the 7-vowel system of
Tirelat.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (6)
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2b. Re: Tirelat vowels again
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:59 pm ((PDT))
On 3/17/2012 1:15 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:48:39 -0400 Herman Miller wrote:
>
>> [...]
>>
>> 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.
>
> What is wrong with /a e i o u/, except that is has been used so
> often (including natlangs)? But if you think it is overused,
> do something different. If you start with /a i u @/, you can
> first split each of the four vowel phonemes vertically:
>
> /a/> /a ~ @1/
> /i/> /e ~ i/
> /u/> /o ~ u/
> /@/> /@2 ~ 1/
>
> Then merge /@1/ and /@2/, and you have the 7-vowel system of
> Tirelat.
I think the split of /i/ > /e ~ i/ and /u/ > /o ~ u/ is along the right
lines. They could originally have been [i] and [u] in open syllables,
[e] and [o] in closed syllables. E.g.,
*hrik > ŕek "horn"
*hrika > ŕika "lever"
(hmm, could a "lever" have had something to do with horns originally?)
*nurgi > norgi "barrel"
*nuri > nuri "blue"
Then /i/ and /u/ in closed syllables in the modern language would
originally have had to be in open syllables. If syllable-final /ə/ is
lost, that could explain the relative uncommonness of /ë/ as well as
allowing /i/ and /u/ to be in originally open syllables.
*šimë > šim "eye"
I've also been looking at minimal pairs. Here's a summary:
e ë i o u y
a 17 12 118 17 77 18
e 1 19 9 11 8
ë 5 0 1 2
i 24 56 15
o 11 7
u 9
Note the absence of minimal pairs between /ë/ and /o/.
Messages in this topic (6)
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2c. Re: Tirelat vowels again
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:12 pm ((PDT))
On 2012-03-17 01:48, Herman Miller wrote:
> 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.
In Estonian /ɤ/ arose through umlaut with the loss of
unstressed final syllables. Before the loss of final
syllables /e/, which was neutral to vowel harmony, had
front/back allophones before front/back vowels in the
following syllable. Incidentally most dialects of
Finnish -- which essentially is proto-Estonian, and
which hasn't lost final syllables -- preserve the
original state with front/back allophones of the in
principle VH-neutral /e/.
Perhaps an erlier stage of Tirelat had such an
allophony in both /e/ and /i/. Synchronic /e/ and /i/
before back vowels could be explained by those back
vowels originally having been /y ø æ/ which became back.
I guess you'd need an explanation for /ɨ ə/ before
front vowels as well; perhaps /y ø/ unrounded rather
than became back under some conditions, or there
existed /ui oi/ which became /i e/.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (6)
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3a. Re: What is this called?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:45 am ((PDT))
Someone may already have said this, but---
the generic term for this is "morphophonemic alternation"-- there are of course
specific types as others have pointed out.
Messages in this topic (16)
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4. M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:59 pm ((PDT))
He was an RPG (the real kind, not the computer kind) grand master and a
great conlanger, creator of Tsolyáni and the world of Tékumel.
While 83 is a good run, pioneers die too early by definition.
He set up the Tékumel foundation
http://www.tekumelfoundation.org/
to look after his stuff, but I don't know whether he ever finished a
definitive reference grammar of Tsolyáni.
Press release:
http://tekumelfoundation.org/PressRelease-MARBARKER-1929-2012.pdf
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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5. TECH: usethis
Posted by: "Lee" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:32 pm ((PDT))
usethis.conlang.org or setup.conlang.org could be an interesting addition to
conlang.org...
http://usesthis.com/about/
I, for one, find reading what others use while conlanging to be educational.
Sometimes even inspiring.
The community section of usethis.com is where links to other similar sites are
listed. Another link to conlang.org couldn't hurt!
Lee
Messages in this topic (1)
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