There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: OT: Grave Accent (Re: Superdeclension in Quenya? (and in Old Alb
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: OT: Grave Accent (Re: Superdeclension in Quenya? (and in Old Alb
From: Padraic Brown
2a. Re: absolute pitch
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2b. Re: absolute pitch
From: Adam Walker
2c. Re: absolute pitch
From: Padraic Brown
2d. Re: absolute pitch
From: Dirk Elzinga
2e. Re: absolute pitch
From: Herman Miller
3a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition a
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
4a. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
From: Roman Rausch
4b. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
From: MorphemeAddict
5a. Re: Happy library week (translation)
From: Padraic Brown
6a. OT: odd phrasing in English
From: MorphemeAddict
6b. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
From: Tony Harris
6c. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
From: Peter Cyrus
Messages
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1a. Re: OT: Grave Accent (Re: Superdeclension in Quenya? (and in Old Alb
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:23 am ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 3/20/12, David Peterson <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 20, 2012, at 12:03 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
>
> > He's vèry free with the speculation.
>
> That's pretty cool and intuitive, but could we possibly
> *not* do that and instead use asterisks or nothing?
Asteriskses are certainly a valid option, though they also have a specific
use in distinguishing the events and places of one's constructed world /
timeline from those of the primary world. "*Here*" vs. "*There*".
I don't use axterixides much because I've generally adopted the accent
marking from Jan, suitably modified for English orthography, and leave it
at that. Even then, I only use the accents for extréme emphasis, not
normal stress on any given word, or even ordinary emphasis.
For what it's worth, the system I use is acute accent on "long" vowels &
aesh, and grave accents on short vowels. Accent mark should come on the
second member of a two vowel group. So I differentiate "extréme"
& "vèry" and "goóse" & "roòk".
And yes, I do this fairly consistently even outside Conlang/Conculture.
As far as searches in the archives go, I would think that the amount of
accent-emphatics can't quite be as high as the amount conlang words,
foreign words, mispelled words or otherwise botched turns of phrase that
one might want to search for. It's a wonder we can find ánything in the
archives!
> The reason is that if you search for the string "very" (using
> this example only) in the Conlang Archives, it won't return
> this message.
Actually, it does. Because you've also spelled it without the accent. ;)
Also, I think it would be very very rare indeed to search for one single,
common word in this way. And the likelihood of that single common word
having an accent-emphatic is even less likely! Far more likely to be
spelled incorrectly!
> Now "very" isn't the most important word in
> that message, but if this practice expànds, pretty soon
> we'll be dropping grave accents on impòrtant words, and
> we'll try to search for those words in the àrchives, and we
> won't be able to find them (or we'll be left guessing if the
> word we're searching for should instead also be spelled with
> a grave accent on the tonic syllable). It'd be better if we
> used a method for emphasis that leaves the string in tact so
> we can avoid this problem.
Anything can be taken to a silly extreme. We could put random accent marks
on every letter of a message! I think most of us will not do that, unless
it's our intent to be purposefully silly. For the most part, we'd only
use it for emphasising particular words. I don't see the practice messing
up archive searches any more than any other mishap.
> Just my two cents.
And mine.
Padraic
> David Peterson
> LCS President
> [email protected]
> www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (10)
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1b. Re: OT: Grave Accent (Re: Superdeclension in Quenya? (and in Old Alb
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:30 am ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >> He's vèry free with the speculation.
> >
> > A trend! Has anyone other than me actually been
> doing that lately? I did
> > pick this practice up from the list, who knows how many
> years back, when
> > more Dutch folk were active -- I think it was said that
> it's more regularly
> > done in Dutch.
>
>
> Correct, but in Dutch it's more commonly the acute accent
> that is used rather than the grave accent.
I learned it from Jan many years ago. Could be me that started the grave
accent thing. As I replied earlier, I use a modified system to fit English
orthography which makes use of both grave and accute accent marks. I think
it (either the Dutch or the English system)'s far more elegant than
asteriskren or underscores or allcaps.
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (10)
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2a. Re: absolute pitch
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:59 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:54:22 -0400 MorphemeAddict wrote:
> Are there any languages or peoples that use or require absolute pitch?
Natlangs? Probably not, since absolute pitch is a pretty rare
ability and most people wouldn't be able to use such a language.
Likewise, conlangs meant to be spoken by (ordinary) humans should
not use absolute pitch, but some non-human conlangs do (though no
example comes to my mind now).
--
... 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: absolute pitch
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:58 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:54:22 -0400 MorphemeAddict wrote:
>
> > Are there any languages or peoples that use or require absolute pitch?
>
> Likewise, conlangs meant to be spoken by (ordinary) humans should
> not use absolute pitch, but some non-human conlangs do (though no
> example comes to my mind now).
>
> I have a sketch, never really developed, which uses, well not *exactly*
absolute pitch, but rather "melodic templates." The language is called
Imthikorakar, and grammatical functions are distinguished by melody. Just
as an example using nonce words and nonce templates:
Kimthima spoken/sung with the template fa-mi-do-mi would be in subject
case, but with re-re-do-so would be in dative.
Fomorladen with template la-la-ti-re would be present tense, with
ti-ti-do-re would be future.
As I said, I never developed the idea, it's just sat back in adusty corner
of my mind for a couple of decades.
Adam
Messages in this topic (6)
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2c. Re: absolute pitch
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:56 am ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Are there any languages or peoples that use or require absolute
> > > pitch?
>
> > Likewise, conlangs meant to be spoken by (ordinary) humans should
> > not use absolute pitch, but some non-human conlangs do (though no
> > example comes to my mind now).
>
> I have a sketch, never really developed, which uses,
> well not *exactly*
> absolute pitch, but rather "melodic templates." The
> language is called
> Imthikorakar, and grammatical functions are
> distinguished by melody. Just
> as an example using nonce words and nonce templates:
>
> Kimthima spoken/sung with the template fa-mi-do-mi would be
> in subject
> case, but with re-re-do-so would be in dative.
> Fomorladen with template la-la-ti-re would be present tense,
> with ti-ti-do-re would be future.
Interesting indeed! This is very nearly how the railways in the World
operate, essentially by means of a musical language. It was discovered way
lang syne that the huge golems that turn the drive wheels of the
locomotives comprehend and react better when they hear chimes, rather than
spoken commands or, obviously, written ones.
>From the conductor's perspective, all he has to do is pull on a lever when
he wants the caravan to increase or decrease speed or any of half a dozen
other basic things that involve making the thing go or stop. Down in the
works, each of these commands is encoded upon largeish cylinders, much
like you find in a music box, which do indeed actuate tuned metal tongues.
Each homunculus is 'programmed' to understand and carry out an order made
specifically for himself. So each one has to learn not only the commands
but also various adjunct melodic themes, such as the one that names the
particular golem that is to carry out the order, a "continue doing this"
order, a "stop doing this" order and so forth.
There's no 'grammar' as such -- no distinctions of tense or case or
anything like that. It's largely boiled down to imperative mood and
progressive aspect, maybe a momentary aspect as well.
So the theme [4. rG | 2.(CEGc) :| 8. cGcE | cGcE :| 4. cEGC], consisting
of a crotchet G and a minim Cmaj chord, alerts all homunculi to work
together; the quavers on c G & E tell them to maintain a certain speed;
the crotchets at the end tell them to continue until otherwise
counterordered.
> As I said, I never developed the idea, it's just sat back in
> adusty corner of my mind for a couple of decades.
Dangerous place for an Idea to sit for a couple decades, you know! Never
can tell what they might get up to...
Padraic
> Adam
Messages in this topic (6)
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2d. Re: absolute pitch
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:16 pm ((PDT))
This week in a comic I follow the subject is absolute pitch. Here's the
first one in the series:
http://www.classicalmusicisboring.com/archive/2012/03/cmib00378.html
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Wed, 3/21/12, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > Are there any languages or peoples that use or require absolute
> > > > pitch?
> >
> > > Likewise, conlangs meant to be spoken by (ordinary) humans should
> > > not use absolute pitch, but some non-human conlangs do (though no
> > > example comes to my mind now).
> >
> > I have a sketch, never really developed, which uses,
> > well not *exactly*
> > absolute pitch, but rather "melodic templates." The
> > language is called
> > Imthikorakar, and grammatical functions are
> > distinguished by melody. Just
> > as an example using nonce words and nonce templates:
> >
> > Kimthima spoken/sung with the template fa-mi-do-mi would be
> > in subject
> > case, but with re-re-do-so would be in dative.
> > Fomorladen with template la-la-ti-re would be present tense,
> > with ti-ti-do-re would be future.
>
> Interesting indeed! This is very nearly how the railways in the World
> operate, essentially by means of a musical language. It was discovered way
> lang syne that the huge golems that turn the drive wheels of the
> locomotives comprehend and react better when they hear chimes, rather than
> spoken commands or, obviously, written ones.
>
> From the conductor's perspective, all he has to do is pull on a lever when
> he wants the caravan to increase or decrease speed or any of half a dozen
> other basic things that involve making the thing go or stop. Down in the
> works, each of these commands is encoded upon largeish cylinders, much
> like you find in a music box, which do indeed actuate tuned metal tongues.
> Each homunculus is 'programmed' to understand and carry out an order made
> specifically for himself. So each one has to learn not only the commands
> but also various adjunct melodic themes, such as the one that names the
> particular golem that is to carry out the order, a "continue doing this"
> order, a "stop doing this" order and so forth.
>
> There's no 'grammar' as such -- no distinctions of tense or case or
> anything like that. It's largely boiled down to imperative mood and
> progressive aspect, maybe a momentary aspect as well.
>
> So the theme [4. rG | 2.(CEGc) :| 8. cGcE | cGcE :| 4. cEGC], consisting
> of a crotchet G and a minim Cmaj chord, alerts all homunculi to work
> together; the quavers on c G & E tell them to maintain a certain speed;
> the crotchets at the end tell them to continue until otherwise
> counterordered.
>
> > As I said, I never developed the idea, it's just sat back in
> > adusty corner of my mind for a couple of decades.
>
> Dangerous place for an Idea to sit for a couple decades, you know! Never
> can tell what they might get up to...
>
> Padraic
>
> > Adam
>
Messages in this topic (6)
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2e. Re: absolute pitch
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:41 pm ((PDT))
On 3/21/2012 6:54 AM, MorphemeAddict wrote:
> Are there any languages or peoples that use or require absolute pitch?
>
> stevo
Solresol? Well, even that could be spoken in different keys, if you have
a long enough text to establish the tonic. So, probably not.
Messages in this topic (6)
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3a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition a
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:30 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:05:33 +0100 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 20 March 2012 23:40, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> [...]
> > I think the distinction being drawn is as follows.
> >
> > Suffixaufnahme is when modifiers of a noun must _agree_ in case, even if
> > they're already case-inflected NPs (or something else complex):
> > "(I gave it) to a man from Bilbao" man.DAT Bilbao.ABL.*DAT*
> >
>
> That's basically it: Suffixaufnahme is a phenomenon of *agreement*, and
> happens only in languages that have word marking, i.e. all participants in
> a noun phrase must be marked for the function of that noun phrase.
> Suffixaufnahme just takes that rule without exception, i.e. it marks all
> participants for the function of the phrase, even if they are already
> inflected.
Right. This is also the way it works in Old Albic:
Adarama am catham ndaron Atambaradon.
AOR-give-3SG:P-1SG:A the-OBJ cat-OBJ man-DAT Atambara-ABL-M-DAT
'I have the cat to a man from Atambara.'
> > Surdéclinaison is when modifiers of a noun must take _the basic case for
> > modifiers to a noun_, typically genitive, even if they're already
> > case-inflected NPs (or something else complex):
> > "(I gave it) to a man from Bilbao" man.DAT Bilbao.ABL.*GEN*
> >
> >
> That's only one aspect of surdéclinaison, converting adverbial phrases into
> noun modifiers. Surdéclinaison has many other aspects, including but not
> limited to:
> - nominalisation of noun modifiers (to make the equivalent of "at the
> neighbour's").
Works the same way in Old Albic. A genitive of an animate noun
can be marked with a local case to create the equivalent of English
"at/from/to someone's":
Agama Mørdindoson.
AOR-go-1SG:A Mørdindo-GEN-ALL
'I went to Mørdindo's (home).'
> - nominalisation of relative clauses (to render "the one that..." or
> "whoever/whatever/...").
In Old Albic, the relative clause is preceded by an article which
is inflected for the case and number of the noun it modifies.
Things like "the one that ..." are expressed that way, too:
An larasa cenithi daroama am darath san.
the-DAT sing-3SG:A good-SUP-INS give-FUT-3SG:P-1SG:A the-OBJ gift this
'Who sings best, to him I will give this gift.'
> - formation of adverbial subclauses by inflecting conjugated verbs using
> noun cases (I will discuss that in my next post).
As above, by means of an inflected article in Old Albic:
Amad alarasa Mørdindo am laras adarasa Phendrato son am darath.
the-ABL AOR-sing-3SG:P-3SG:A Mørdindi the-OBJ song AOR-give-3SG:P-3SG:A
Phendrato he-DAT the gift
'After Mørdindo sang the song, Phendrato gave him the gift.'
Is this what you mean?
> - all kinds of restricted patterns and one-offs, which can be used to
> create new lexical items (for instance, in Moten the word for "week" is
> _negesizdan_, which is actually an inflected form meaning "for seven days").
There may be such forms in Old Albic, too; they are not yet well
explored.
> And I'm sure you could imagine many more things to do. Those are just the
> patterns of surdéclinaison that appear in Moten (and similarly in Basque).
>
> That's the power of surdéclinaison: it's far broader than Suffixaufnahme,
Certainly!
> to which it bears only a passing similarity (I'm nearly sure they are
> actually incompatible: Suffixaufnahme requires word marking, surdéclinaison
> seems to require group marking, i.e. marking NPs for function only once, a
> the edge of the phrase).
Surdéclinaison indeed seems at least to correlate with group
inflection, while suffixaufnahme is a matter of word inflection
(AFAIK Georgian lost suffixaufnahme when it moved from word
inflection to group inflection, but I am not sure).
--
... 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 (2)
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3b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:21 am ((PDT))
On 21 March 2012 16:30, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]> wrote:
> > That's basically it: Suffixaufnahme is a phenomenon of *agreement*, and
> > happens only in languages that have word marking, i.e. all participants
> in
> > a noun phrase must be marked for the function of that noun phrase.
> > Suffixaufnahme just takes that rule without exception, i.e. it marks all
> > participants for the function of the phrase, even if they are already
> > inflected.
>
> >
> Right. This is also the way it works in Old Albic:
>
> Adarama am catham ndaron Atambaradon.
> AOR-give-3SG:P-1SG:A the-OBJ cat-OBJ man-DAT Atambara-ABL-M-DAT
> 'I have the cat to a man from Atambara.'
>
>
Yes. As you may remember, I used an Old Albic example to illustrate
Suffixaufnahme in my LCC4 presentation :) .
> > >
> > That's only one aspect of surdéclinaison, converting adverbial phrases
> into
> > noun modifiers. Surdéclinaison has many other aspects, including but not
> > limited to:
> > - nominalisation of noun modifiers (to make the equivalent of "at the
> > neighbour's").
>
> Works the same way in Old Albic. A genitive of an animate noun
> can be marked with a local case to create the equivalent of English
> "at/from/to someone's":
>
> Agama Mørdindoson.
> AOR-go-1SG:A Mørdindo-GEN-ALL
> 'I went to Mørdindo's (home).'
>
>
Interesting. So Old Albic has both Suffixaufnahme and at least one example
of surdéclinaison. Interesting, I am not aware of a single natlang example
that features both. Or did Old Georgian also allow such constructions?
> > - nominalisation of relative clauses (to render "the one that..." or
> > "whoever/whatever/...").
>
> In Old Albic, the relative clause is preceded by an article which
> is inflected for the case and number of the noun it modifies.
> Things like "the one that ..." are expressed that way, too:
>
> An larasa cenithi daroama am darath san.
> the-DAT sing-3SG:A good-SUP-INS give-FUT-3SG:P-1SG:A the-OBJ gift this
> 'Who sings best, to him I will give this gift.'
>
>
That's basically how Moten does it too, but since in Moten the article is
an inflectional infix, the result is surdéclinaison:
Kopejufeano |lezuj |lajteos luden joplude|n ige.
ko-pe-uf<e>an-no j-lezu-j
|la-i-t<e>o-s l<d>en-n
j-opl<d>e-j-n i-ge.
INS-SUP-great<ART>-SUP INF-sing-INF BEN-PRS-be<ART>-DEP this<ACC.SG>-ACC
INF-give<ACC.SG>-INF-ACC PRS-have.
I will give this to whoever sings greatest.
Literally: "(I) shall transfer this from me for the benefit of the one that
sings with the most greatness" (_joplej_ implies a transfer from the
speaker, so you don't need to indicate a subject).
(I'm curious whether the full interlinear is making things simpler or
actually more complicated to understand ;) )
The details are different (benefactive prefix instead of dative case,
separate article vs. infix), but this underlying structure is quite similar.
> > - formation of adverbial subclauses by inflecting conjugated verbs using
> > noun cases (I will discuss that in my next post).
>
> As above, by means of an inflected article in Old Albic:
>
> Amad alarasa Mørdindo am laras adarasa Phendrato son am darath.
> the-ABL AOR-sing-3SG:P-3SG:A Mørdindi the-OBJ song AOR-give-3SG:P-3SG:A
> Phendrato he-DAT the gift
> 'After Mørdindo sang the song, Phendrato gave him the gift.'
>
>
Interesting. This is indeed not unlike one of the ways Moten handles
adverbial phrases (by inflecting noun clauses as above), although the more
common way is slightly different (but still involves surdéclinaison).
Funny how the underlying principles are so similar...
> Is this what you mean?
>
>
Yes, but with inflectional affixes rather than separate articles :) .
> > - all kinds of restricted patterns and one-offs, which can be used to
> > create new lexical items (for instance, in Moten the word for "week" is
> > _negesizdan_, which is actually an inflected form meaning "for seven
> days").
>
> There may be such forms in Old Albic, too; they are not yet well
> explored.
>
>
It's a great way to derive new vocabulary in ways different from plain
derivation or compounding. And necessary in Moten since it has only very
little derivation.
> > And I'm sure you could imagine many more things to do. Those are just the
> > patterns of surdéclinaison that appear in Moten (and similarly in
> Basque).
> >
> > That's the power of surdéclinaison: it's far broader than Suffixaufnahme,
>
> Certainly!
>
> > to which it bears only a passing similarity (I'm nearly sure they are
> > actually incompatible: Suffixaufnahme requires word marking,
> surdéclinaison
> > seems to require group marking, i.e. marking NPs for function only once,
> a
> > the edge of the phrase).
>
> Surdéclinaison indeed seems at least to correlate with group
> inflection,
Yes, although Old Albic seems to prove you can have at least som forms of
surdéclinaison even in a word marking language.
> while suffixaufnahme is a matter of word inflection
> (AFAIK Georgian lost suffixaufnahme when it moved from word
> inflection to group inflection, but I am not sure).
>
>
Yeah, you cannot have agreement within a noun phrase in a language that
doesn't have word marking, so group marking seems to preclude
Suffixaufnahme.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (2)
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4a. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:24 pm ((PDT))
>antitransitive
Sorry, it should be 'unaccusative'. I got it confused with 'anticausative'...
>No. It is not unthinkable. If it makes sense to you, do it.
>If it turns out to be unique to your conlang, who cares, as long as
>your conlang is consistent within itself and it makes sense to its
>creator.
Actually, it sounds wrong to me; and I'm not asking because I want to put it
into my own language, but rather because it seems to occur in Quenya and I'd
like to know a natural language where the same thing happens.
English 'He died by cancer/the sword/a car accident' is somehow peculiar.
Can you say ?'The window broke by a stone'?
In any case, the more I read about it, the more it seems to me that whenever
several possibilities to indicate the agent are available, lots of
idiosyncrasies arise with respect to their use. Still, finding a language
where *'The door opened by the wind' is perfectly regular would clear the
question up for me...
Messages in this topic (4)
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4b. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:47 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 7:24 PM, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
> >antitransitive
>
> Sorry, it should be 'unaccusative'. I got it confused with
> 'anticausative'...
>
> >No. It is not unthinkable. If it makes sense to you, do it.
> >If it turns out to be unique to your conlang, who cares, as long as
> >your conlang is consistent within itself and it makes sense to its
> >creator.
>
> Actually, it sounds wrong to me; and I'm not asking because I want to put
> it
> into my own language, but rather because it seems to occur in Quenya and
> I'd
> like to know a natural language where the same thing happens.
>
> English 'He died by cancer/the sword/a car accident' is somehow peculiar.
> Can you say ?'The window broke by a stone'?
>
I would say "He died of cancer", "He died by the sword", "He died in a car
accident".
stevo
In any case, the more I read about it, the more it seems to me that whenever
> several possibilities to indicate the agent are available, lots of
> idiosyncrasies arise with respect to their use. Still, finding a language
> where *'The door opened by the wind' is perfectly regular would clear the
> question up for me...
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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5a. Re: Happy library week (translation)
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:20 pm ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 3/20/12, Iuhan Culmærija <[email protected]> wrote:
> This week is South African National Library Week.
>
> When wishing a friend who has an interest in conlangs a
> "happy library
> week" earlier today, I used Syrunian: my romance conlang of
> Judea/the
> Levant. Essentially âLatin as Aramaic/Biblical Hebrewâ
>
> (CON is the construct state; it marks the possessor. the
> Genetive marks the possessèd)
>
> I said: "felše h-seftemane h-dume h-bivili"
>
> [happy (is) the-week.CON the-house.CON The-Books]
Same basic construction as you'd find in Loucarian, though the possessed is
in the oblique case:
caire enfra al-haptiniye tribe al-biblia-na
caire! is an all purpose greeting word, can be used simply to greet someone
or to express felicitations during a festival.
en ... na means in, within; enfra ... na alters the meaning to "throughout"
or "all within". These amphipositions can surround a single word or a
whole connected noun phrase. (Does that count as surdéclinaison,
Christophe? -- no I guess not, -na isn't really a case termination, but is
really a postposed wossname, er, preposition.)
al-haptinias = literally, seven days, but means "legal holiday" or
"festival"; -e is an old locative form that a few words can be found in.
Notably the great cities, Custantiye, Alescandariye and Ierosolume. And of
those, the first one would be a logical impossibility, cos Men are no
longer allowed to enter (and therefore be át) Constantine's City.
Tribe al-biblia = house of books. Tribas literally means "family, or
household", not a physical house which is "demis", and -e is the construct
state; the attributive is in the oblique (pl.), -a.
That said, a Loucarian speaker would probably blink his eyes in confusion
-- after all, what is a "festival of libraries"??
Can also say:
caire enfra al-heptiniye accas al bana tiyuti-an
Greetings for the festival of the sons of Thoth. (But that would really be
a "book festival" rather than a library festival.)
> Then I realised that "bivil" (>Greek: biblios) is The
> Book, meaning the Bible.
Indeed. There is no "Bible" in the World. There are Kristian scriptures,
but no single Bible. They have in stead al-efanjil, the Gospel; al-tourat,
the Teachings; al-simras, the Songs; al-epistoules, the Letters and
al-Mousteria, the Secrets. Any given church or communion may have a
differing collection from within those categories. al-biblion simply means
"the book" (biblionver means "a book").
> So I replaced it with "h-dume h-liveri" [the-house.CON
> the-books]
>
> But this means school (cf: Hebrew: 'beyt ha-sefer' ; school,
> literally "house.CON the-book")
al-tribe grammaticcie, house of scholars is a school.
> It turns out that library is: "h-dume d-liver"
> [the-house.CON of-book] (d-
> > Aramaic: dî "of" / Romance: de "of")
>
> I always thought the different ways to express possession
> was a nice
> feature, especially because its plausible for a descendant
> of both Latin
> and Aramaic â now I am convinced that it is!
Indeed! Domis accas al-grammaticcies = house of (belonging to) the scholars
and is interesting because accas itself means "at the house (of)", like
"chez". So, literally "house at the house of the scholars".
> Iâm sure libraries are something language enthusiasts
> (like ourselves) appreciate greatly,
Yes indeed!
> So: felše h-seftemane h-dume d-liver!
>
> פ×שע ×ספת××× ×¢ ×××××¢ ××××ער
>
> Iuhan
Padraic
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
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6a. OT: odd phrasing in English
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:54 am ((PDT))
I just came across this odd sentence from the blurb of a new book
acquisition at the library:
Two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other, ...
Here, it looks like the possessive "whose" should actually be "who's",
since the possessive is of the whole phrase "one of who". It just seems
strange to me.
stevo
Messages in this topic (3)
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6b. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
Posted by: "Tony Harris" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:06 am ((PDT))
I've never seen "who's" except as a contraction of "who is" or "who
has". The possessive is always "whose", so I think that's right.
I do, however, think that should be "one of whose children has hurt the
other...", not "one of whose child", unless the two pairs of parents
only have one single child between them. Which in turn would make the
"has hurt the other" make no sense.
On 03/22/2012 08:53 AM, MorphemeAddict wrote:
> I just came across this odd sentence from the blurb of a new book
> acquisition at the library:
>
> Two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other, ...
>
> Here, it looks like the possessive "whose" should actually be "who's",
> since the possessive is of the whole phrase "one of who". It just seems
> strange to me.
>
> stevo
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
6c. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:12 am ((PDT))
I think it should be "one of whose children", for starters.
And I assume the bad child hurt the CHILD of the other pair of parents (not
the parents), so it should be "other's".
On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 1:53 PM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
> I just came across this odd sentence from the blurb of a new book
> acquisition at the library:
>
> Two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other, ...
>
> Here, it looks like the possessive "whose" should actually be "who's",
> since the possessive is of the whole phrase "one of who". It just seems
> strange to me.
>
> stevo
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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