There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
From: Matthew Turnbull
1b. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
From: And Rosta
2a. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
From: And Rosta
3a. Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3b. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Adam Walker
3c. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Padraic Brown
3d. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: George Corley
4a. THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: Eric Christopherson
4b. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: Eric Christopherson
4c. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: Alex Fink
5a. Re: OT: ASL
From: Lee
Messages
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1a. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:24 am ((PDT))
If they each have one child and one had hurt the other then.
Two pairs of parents, of which one's child has hurt the other's...
Messages in this topic (15)
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1b. Re: OT: odd phrasing in English
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 11:35 am ((PDT))
Matthew Boutilier, On 22/03/2012 22:02:
> i think the real problem above stems from the fact that english cannot
> easily possessivize [[one of whom]]; how do you shorten "the child of one
> of whom"? since few people are likely to say "whom" to begin with, "[[one
> of whom]]'s child" easily becomes "[[one of who]]'s child"; and, since
> *everybody knows* that the possessive form of "who" is "whose," [[[one of
> who]'s]] is written as "one of whose" -- which, at first glance, doesn't
> even sound all that abnormal to me.
I think _which_, (3), would be the colloquial alternative to _whom_, (2), but
on reflection I think I was wrong to think (1) would not occur. (Only (2) is
Std E, of course.)
1a. I called all my friends, several of who had not sent me birthday greetings.
1b. I called all my friends, several of who I had not seen for ages.
1c. I called all my friends, several of who's birthdays were imminent.
2a. I called all my friends, several of whom had not sent me birthday greetings.
2b. I called all my friends, several of whom I had not seen for ages.
2b. I called all my friends, several of whom's birthdays were imminent.
3a. I called all my friends, several of which had not sent me birthday
greetings.
3b. I called all my friends, several of which I had not seen for ages.
3b. I called all my friends, several of which's birthdays were imminent.
--And.
Messages in this topic (15)
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2a. Re: agent of an antitransitive verb
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:28 am ((PDT))
On Mar 21, 2012 11:24 PM, "Roman Rausch" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >antitransitive
>
> Sorry, it should be 'unaccusative'. I got it confused with
'anticausative'...
I just googled 'antitransitive unaccusative'. The third item it turns up is
your message, and the first is something by me that uses "antitransitive"
to generalize over unaccusatives (or intransitives in general) and middles.
I therefore applaud your usage of the term...
,, And.
Messages in this topic (14)
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3a. Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:36 pm ((PDT))
Hi everyone!
It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on Sunday, but I've done
something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has reached 200
lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who finds it so
difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement! By the way, that's
200 different lexical stems, corresponding to 343 English glosses (thanks
to a healthy level of polysemy :P).
To be fair, Moten has more lexical items than that, but as I've started
writing the Moten grammar on my blog I've also started a process to review
the existing dictionary (which I felt was badly pieced together), and only
include words in the official dictionary after a long vetting process. It's
time-intensive, but at least the result is worth it. The 200 lexical items
are the ones that so far have passed the vetting process or have been
created after I started writing the new grammar (those also follow the
vetting process, to make sure they fit in the language).
So what is this 200th item? It's the root _olnes_, used in the transitive
verb _jolnesi_: "to be an expert in". This word is actually a good example
of the way Moten divides the semantic space, so let me give you some more
information about it.
In Moten, there is no word that has the generic meaning of the English verb
"to know". When you want to say that you "know" something, or someone, you
normally indicate how you came to that knowledge and put that sentence in
the perfect aspect. For instance, you could say that you've seen it (the
verb is _ipe|laj_), heard it (_jezeti_), read it (hey, can't find that one!
I guess I still have a long way to go :P). For people, you can also say
that you've met them (_jeksaj_, which means "to touch, to hit, to meet by
chance", another example of a verb whose semantics are somewhat different
:) . Discussing how to translate "to meet" would likely take just as long a
mail as this one :) ). If you want to stay relatively general, you can
simply say that you've learned it (_ivajagi_. Yeah, somehow Moten doesn't
have a general "to know" verb, but does have a general "to learn" one!),
but that implies second hand knowledge, while the others (at least the
perception verbs) imply first hand knowledge.
However, there are two other verbs that more or less *do* mean "to know",
although they are quite restricted in their uses. The first one is _|li|n_
(pronunciation is [ʎiɲ]), which indicates knowledge from which the source
is unknown. It's used mostly to indicate uncertain knowledge ("to be aware
of") or instinctive knowledge ("to know by instinct"). The other one is
naturally _jolnesi_, which indicates knowledge so complete as to be nearly
perfect, and probably coming from many different sources. It means "to be
an expert in" or "to be intimately familiar with". You can also translate
it as "to know by heart".
So there you have it, _olnes_, the 200th lexical item in the official Moten
dictionary. Isn't it worth at least a small party?! ;)
Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this post, here's an
interlinear:
teoskananvoti dabolnea
te-oskana|n<v>ot-i daboln<e>a
FIN-celebration<GEN.SG>-GEN moment<ART>
or literally: "the time for a celebration". Once again, it features
surdéclinaison: the adverbial phrase _teoskana|not_: "for a party" is
over-inflected in the genitive in order to complete _dabolna_: "moment,
instant, time".
Cheers!
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
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3b. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:14 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on Sunday,
Woah! That's the day before my sister and the day after my aunt, so I'll be
celebrating a brithday (that isn't really on that day, but nevertheless)
the same day -- ummmy Mexican food at the restaurant where we've been
celebrating special days for over 30 years.
> but I've done
> something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has reached 200
> lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who finds it so
> difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement! By the way, that's
> 200 different lexical stems, corresponding to 343 English glosses (thanks
> to a healthy level of polysemy :P).
>
>
Yeehaw! (Hey, I'm Texan. That's how we roll.)
> For people, you can also say
> that you've met them (_jeksaj_, which means "to touch, to hit, to meet by
> chance", another example of a verb whose semantics are somewhat different
> :) .
That reminds me of the ASL idiom TOUCH FINISH which means that you've
already experinced something/done something/been there, done that, bought
the T-shirt/already know that.
A: YET C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E MEET?
B: TOUCH FINISH
Adam
Messages in this topic (4)
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3c. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:39 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/23/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
> It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on
> Sunday, but I've done
> something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has
> reached 200
> lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who
> finds it so
> difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement!
Félicitations! Well, my friend, congratulations on the momentous
achievement! Anyway, it's never just the quantity, but the quality and
amount of attention that goes into the words. 5000 words that are spat out
of a random "word" generator don't quite equate to 5 words well crafted,
deeply considered and lovingly brought forth.
Though snipped, from the examples, it is extremely clear that Moten is Art
nicely done!
Bouonne santé!
Padraic
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (4)
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3d. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:59 pm ((PDT))
I don't know. I have come to like random word generators in order to get a
giant list of roots I can then cherry-pick from as I need words.
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 12:39 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 3/23/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on
> > Sunday, but I've done
> > something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has
> > reached 200
> > lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who
> > finds it so
> > difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement!
>
> Félicitations! Well, my friend, congratulations on the momentous
> achievement! Anyway, it's never just the quantity, but the quality and
> amount of attention that goes into the words. 5000 words that are spat out
> of a random "word" generator don't quite equate to 5 words well crafted,
> deeply considered and lovingly brought forth.
>
> Though snipped, from the examples, it is extremely clear that Moten is Art
> nicely done!
>
> Bouonne santé!
> Padraic
>
> > Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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4a. THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:38 pm ((PDT))
Let's say there's a language where where is no phonemic voicing distinction in
stops, and little or no phonemic distinction between stops and corresponding
fricatives.
Question #1: How likely is it that the phonemes in question have *only*
voiceless stop allophones? From what I've read, it appears that languages like
that tend to have at least voiced stop allophones for those sounds; but I know
I haven't read anything about allophones in Polynesian languages, which I think
would be useful data.
I also wonder how long the lack of voiced and/or fricative allophones would
last. This *may* in fact be the same question!
Then let's say those stop phonemes develop voiced and fricative allophones:
/p/ [p b p\ B]
/t/ [t d T D 4]
/k/ [k g x G]
#2: Now, how likely is it for the language to go back to a state where all (or
most) of those non-voiceless stop allophones have dropped out of use?
There's a philosophical issue here -- how would anyone know, later on, that the
language had ever had allophones for the stops? Well, in the system I'm
thinking of, there would be mergers (perhaps analyzable as hypercorrection) in
some places between pre-existing* non-stop phonemes and stop ones. E.g. a
pre-existing /w/ might merge in some words with /p/ through the similarity to
the latter's allophone [B], but in later years that /p/ would only be
pronounceable as [p].
Messages in this topic (3)
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4b. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:57 pm ((PDT))
On Mar 23, 2012, at 5:38 PM, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> There's a philosophical issue here -- how would anyone know, later on, that
> the language had ever had allophones for the stops? Well, in the system I'm
> thinking of, there would be mergers (perhaps analyzable as hypercorrection)
> in some places between pre-existing* non-stop phonemes and stop ones. E.g. a
> pre-existing /w/ might merge in some words with /p/ through the similarity to
> the latter's allophone [B], but in later years that /p/ would only be
> pronounceable as [p].
Sorry, I totally forgot to put in the explanation for my asterisk. I hate when
I read something with an asterisk and then can't find the footnote or
explanation!
* I was going to write _preëxisting_, but who knows, maybe someone reading the
archives in the future will be searching for phenomena dealing with
pre-existing phonemes.
Messages in this topic (3)
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4c. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:51 pm ((PDT))
I'll take this opportunity to point out a quasi-related paper I read
recently, that touches on the issue of whether the Japanese stops /p t k/
and maybe /s/ (where I say /p/ abstractly for the thing whose ordinary
modern outcome is the [h]-series) once had voiced allophones -- this would
not have had them collide with modern /b d g z/, for it's accepted that
those were historically realised as prenasalised.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4141293
To make a probably unjust simplification, Hamano put forth a theory whereby
these voiced allophones existed in every intervocalic position; then
irregularly in some positions (perhaps most visibly in the -te form of the
verb) the voiced stops fricated, and later developments deleted these
fricatives and stuff; then the voiced allophones collapsed back. Unger
holds rather that it was the voicing that was irregular, and the frication
regular.
In either case, the residue of the irregular change would look mostly the
same (like the hypercorrection thing you describe); to decide between the
two hypotheses appears fairly subtle to me.
Alex
Messages in this topic (3)
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5a. Re: OT: ASL
Posted by: "Lee" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:03 pm ((PDT))
The Signing Naturally series is the one I see most often at the colleges, and
even high schools, near me. Not too long ago Dawn Press finally updated the
videos to DVD format. If you have a halfway decent used book store near you,
there is a good chance you'll find copies. Make sure you get both book and
video for a particular level, or you'll find huge gaps in the material.
Lee
> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:10:00 -0500
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: OT: ASL
> To: [email protected]
>
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Sai <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 09:52, Brian Woodward <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Does anyone know of any good resources online that teach ASL? Something
> > that would at least teach the basics. Videos are a plus.
> >
> > My favorite book on grammar etc is the ASL Green Book, teacher's
> > edition � and then read through Klima & Bellugi, Signs of Language.
> >
> > - Sai
> >
>
>
> But keep in mind that Klima & Bellugi is a bit dated and getting moreso all
> the time. The field has advanced A LOT since they wrote SoL.
>
> Adam
Messages in this topic (6)
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