There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Is there a word for this?
From: Ralph DeCarli
2a. Re: Development of rhyming words
From: Matthew Boutilier
2b. Re: Development of rhyming words
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3a. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Nikolay Ivankov
3b. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Wesley Parish
3c. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3d. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Adam Walker
3e. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Sam Stutter
4a. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Leonardo Castro
4b. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Leonardo Castro
4c. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Sam Stutter
4d. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Roger Mills
4e. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Roger Mills
5a. to be cognate or not to be cognate
From: Njenfalgar
5b. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
From: Gary Shannon
Messages
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1a. Re: Is there a word for this?
Posted by: "Ralph DeCarli" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:57 pm ((PST))
On Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:20:30 -0600
George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Do you consider the instrument or other prepositional elements
> inherently part of the verb?
>
In this specific case I consider the fork to be a data element of
the 'eating' predicate, if that makes any sense. I tend to think of
the language in data modeling terms.
A given prepositional phrase could modify the subject, the object or
the predicate, but it can't modify the entire sentence. I think this
actually stems from my general fear of 'global variables'.
In other words, I'm really still more of a programmer and a "data
bigot" than a linguist, so my conlang (or con-patois, more
accurately) is going to reflect my learned habits.
Ralph
--
Have you heard of the new post-neo-modern art style?
They haven't decided what it looks like yet.
Messages in this topic (17)
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2a. Re: Development of rhyming words
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 22, 2013 7:46 pm ((PST))
Yeah, congrats.
Well, of course words just evolve that way. But if you want to go from a
historical period where fewer of those rhyme with each other to a later
period with the full set, you probably want some kind of phonemic merger.
For the vowel in your first category, at least all the ones that are
natively Germanic words, they all basically come from Old English
short *a*in an open syllable which lengthened in Middle English and
then moved up to
the /e:/ spot in the Great Vowel Shift -- viz. they've been rhyming for the
better part of the last 2000 years. (Likewise the words ended with /k/,
which hasn't changed, + various unstressed endings which have since been
lost; another kind of merger.)
But the second category features some interesting mergers of what used to
be separate vowels. Like, 'beat' goes back to OE *beÌatan* with the <eÌa> =
the /æ:É/ diphthong (from PGmc *au). 'Feet' starts with long *e* in OE *feÌt
* which got Great-Vowel-Shifted upwards to /i:/. 'Meat' (*mete*) and 'eat' (
*etan*) go back to a short *e* which, like short *a *above, got lengthened
in open syllables and then rides the 'feet' train to /i:/. 'Wheat' gets on
the same train a stop further back, with OE *hwæÌte *(< *hwaÌti- <
*hwaitja-), and
*Ã¦Ì > **eÌ >* /i:/. The OE diphthong <eÌo> (= /e:o/) -- as well as,
probably, other stuff -- also *usually* yields /i:/ (but I'm having trouble
coming up with an example ending in -t; but cf. hweÌol > 'wheel' /wi:l/).
And sure there are also words borrowed from languages like French; feat <
fait < Latin factum which probably went through something like /fe:t/ >
/fi:t/.
Anyway, point is, a bunch of different sounds can become one sound.
A frequent consequence of this is of course homophony, which could be
handled in your language in interesting ways. By interesting ways I mean
oftentimes your speakers are going to favor one homophone or the other,
because otherwise it can get too damn confusing (cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym).
I don't think impending homophony is ever a reason for a word to avoid
phonemic shifting, and I would really like to be corrected here if I'm
wrong. However the one historical case I know of where this might happen,
as a Semitic professor I know theorizes, is Proto-Semitic *ÊinÅ¡- 'man' (cf.
Arabic ÊinsaÌn) which did not merge into Hebrew ÊeÌÅ¡ 'fire' as it is
"supposed to," but rather keeps its high vowel as ÊiÌÅ¡, just because they
were both common words and people cognizantly tried to keep them apart.
But, I dunno, my inner Neogrammarian laughs at this bit of ridiculousness.
matt
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 7:33 PM, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> Congratulations, Scott!
>
> As far as rhyming words, they're a coincidental function of our
> phonotactics. Just by chance, certain sounds and only certain sounds can
> fall together in syllables, creating patterns we recognize as rhyme. It's
> entirely coincidental, which makes it a valuable resource for poetry,
> because one can use rhymes, as we do in English, to create startling and
> unexpected connections between ideas.
>
> BTW, while in my idiolect, "teat" does rhyme with "wheat," in others it
> rhymes with "wit."
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 7:27 PM, Scott Hlad <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hello fellow conlangers,
> >
> >
> >
> > Life has been exceptionally busy for me of late. Though not related to
> this
> > post, I am getting married in the early summer. I finally found the right
> > guy and I'm very happy and excited about it.
> >
> > I was thinking recently about rhyming words. Here are some English
> examples
> > that rolled through my head:
> >
> > bake; brake; cake; fake; hake; lake; make; rake; sake; take; wake
> > beat; bleat; feat; heat; meat; neat; peat; seat; teat; wheat
> >
> > These words have no connection to each other that I can see yet we have
> > them. Simply change the beginning consonant(s) and you have an entirely
> > different word. How is it that we have so many words that rhyme like
> this?
> > How did they develop? This is of course not unique to English. I'd like
> to
> > be able to replicate this in my latest conlang.
> >
> > How did this develop in the natlang world?
> >
> > Scotto
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
> order from Finishing Line
> Press<
> http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
> and
> Amazon<
> http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2
> >.
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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2b. Re: Development of rhyming words
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:18 am ((PST))
On 23 January 2013 02:27, Scott Hlad <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello fellow conlangers,
>
>
>
> Life has been exceptionally busy for me of late. Though not related to this
> post, I am getting married in the early summer. I finally found the right
> guy and I'm very happy and excited about it.
>
>
Congratulations! Last Saturday was my 6th wedding anniversary, so I know
exactly what you feel :) . Times before a wedding are quite hectic :) .
> I was thinking recently about rhyming words. Here are some English examples
> that rolled through my head:
>
> bake; brake; cake; fake; hake; lake; make; rake; sake; take; wake
> beat; bleat; feat; heat; meat; neat; peat; seat; teat; wheat
>
> These words have no connection to each other that I can see yet we have
> them. Simply change the beginning consonant(s) and you have an entirely
> different word. How is it that we have so many words that rhyme like this?
> How did they develop? This is of course not unique to English. I'd like to
> be able to replicate this in my latest conlang.
>
> How did this develop in the natlang world?
>
>
Besides what people already said in their replies, one thing you have to
remember is that languages have a limited amount of usable syllables (due
to phonology and phonotactics) and typically don't even use that space to
its full extent (some combinations are more common then others). Combine
this limitation and the large vocabularies natlangs possess, and you're
bound to have quite a few words that look similar in some way or another.
In fact, due to the Birthday paradox (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem), the probability for two
words to sound alike is much higher than what people would normally expect,
even if you take only a small part of the lexicon into account (say, the
5000 or 10000 most used words). Maybe Alex Fink could make some quick
calculations for us, I know he is quite good at it :) . So I'd expect those
lists of rhyming words are actually nothing to be surprised about,
statistically speaking.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
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3a. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:38 am ((PST))
Thouhg a mere rephrasing of English, the Dovahkiin song is still a
conlang music.
23.01.2013 1:05 ÐÏÌØÚÏ×ÁÔÅÌØ "Mathieu Roy" <[email protected]>
ÎÁÐÉÓÁÌ:
> Tim wrote:
> <<This is something I regularly deal with as a singer of early music; when
> my group sings a Latin motet or mass, we try to at least approximate the
> pronunciation that would have been used in the time and place where it was
> composed.>>
>
> I was going to eventually ask you for conlang music; I think this is a good
> opportunity.
>
> (Tim) even if your music isn't in a conlang, I would also be interested to
> hear some if you have something on the web, because I think it's a nice
> idea
> to sing in ancient languages. :)
>
> So I would be interested to know what are your favorite and the most
> popular
> conlang songs.
>
> For those interested, I've started to build a Youtube playlist that you can
> access here:
> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6Iy2E-Y52stsLyT9SQqT5gZfm891jNM,
> so
> if you have a youtube link for your recommended song that would be even
> nicer :)
>
> Right now I've only put the Lojban and Esperanto anthem, and another song
> in
> Esperanto on the playlist.
>
> -Mathieu
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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3b. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:28 am ((PST))
Well, it wouldn't be inconceivable for me to make some of the Yhe
Vala Lakha sentences into a song or so - mind you, if I was to make
it "authentic" I'd have to include an end-blown flute of some
description, and some percussion - not animal-skin percussion aka
drums, because Lakhabrech tend to eat that long before they consider
its musical possibilities; they use wood or stone.
Wesley Parish
On 23/01/2013, at 1:05 PM, Mathieu Roy wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> <<This is something I regularly deal with as a singer of early
> music; when
> my group sings a Latin motet or mass, we try to at least
> approximate the
> pronunciation that would have been used in the time and place where
> it was
> composed.>>
>
> I was going to eventually ask you for conlang music; I think this
> is a good
> opportunity.
>
> (Tim) even if your music isn't in a conlang, I would also be
> interested to
> hear some if you have something on the web, because I think it's a
> nice idea
> to sing in ancient languages. :)
>
> So I would be interested to know what are your favorite and the
> most popular
> conlang songs.
>
> For those interested, I've started to build a Youtube playlist that
> you can
> access here:
> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6Iy2E-
> Y52stsLyT9SQqT5gZfm891jNM, so
> if you have a youtube link for your recommended song that would be
> even
> nicer :)
>
> Right now I've only put the Lojban and Esperanto anthem, and
> another song in
> Esperanto on the playlist.
>
> -Mathieu
Messages in this topic (10)
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3c. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:03 am ((PST))
Hallo conlangers!
On Wednesday 23 January 2013 01:05:32 Mathieu Roy wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> <<This is something I regularly deal with as a singer of early music; when
> my group sings a Latin motet or mass, we try to at least approximate the
> pronunciation that would have been used in the time and place where it was
> composed.>>
>
> I was going to eventually ask you for conlang music; I think this is a good
> opportunity.
There is a French avant-garde rock band named Magma whose lyrics
are all in a conlang named Kobaian.
Myself, I haven't written songs in Old Albic (or any other conlang)
yet, but I intend to do so.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (10)
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3d. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:10 am ((PST))
Oh, and Sigur Ros with their songs in Hoplanska.
Adam
On 1/23/13, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Wednesday 23 January 2013 01:05:32 Mathieu Roy wrote:
>
>> Tim wrote:
>> <<This is something I regularly deal with as a singer of early music;
>> when
>> my group sings a Latin motet or mass, we try to at least approximate the
>> pronunciation that would have been used in the time and place where it
>> was
>> composed.>>
>>
>> I was going to eventually ask you for conlang music; I think this is a
>> good
>> opportunity.
>
> There is a French avant-garde rock band named Magma whose lyrics
> are all in a conlang named Kobaian.
>
> Myself, I haven't written songs in Old Albic (or any other conlang)
> yet, but I intend to do so.
>
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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3e. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:35 am ((PST))
I don't believe that's an actual language, but rather what Jònsi and the guys
call their meaningless collection of English and Icelandic sounds which they
use when they can't think of lyrics. AFAIK.
Lisa Gerrard also has what she calls a language which she uses from time to
time, although I can't say whether it is actually a true language, a cypher of
English or just nonsense words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsKV5P8JDi0 (The Lost Star of Menelik - conlang
or not, who knows?)
On 23 Jan 2013, at 16:10, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
> Oh, and Sigur Ros with their songs in Hoplanska.
>
> Adam
>
> On 1/23/13, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hallo conlangers!
>>
>> On Wednesday 23 January 2013 01:05:32 Mathieu Roy wrote:
>>
>>> Tim wrote:
>>> <<This is something I regularly deal with as a singer of early music;
>>> when
>>> my group sings a Latin motet or mass, we try to at least approximate the
>>> pronunciation that would have been used in the time and place where it
>>> was
>>> composed.>>
>>>
>>> I was going to eventually ask you for conlang music; I think this is a
>>> good
>>> opportunity.
>>
>> There is a French avant-garde rock band named Magma whose lyrics
>> are all in a conlang named Kobaian.
>>
>> Myself, I haven't written songs in Old Albic (or any other conlang)
>> yet, but I intend to do so.
>>
>> --
>> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
>> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>>
Messages in this topic (10)
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4a. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:13 am ((PST))
2013/1/18 MorphemeAddict <[email protected]>:
>
> One of the meanings (the primary one, now, I'd say) is that America is just
> the USA. It's one part of the Americas, but USA and America are synonyms to
> most people.
>
> stevo
On Brazilian streets, although "americano" is usually synonym of "born
in the USA", "América" is rarely "the USA" except for those who are
clearly mimicking foreigners. The USA is simply "Estados Unidos", and
very rarely "Estados Unidos da América" (I guess many non-educated
because don't even know that there's the part "da América" in "Estados
Unidos").
[...]
2013/1/22 Chris Peters <[email protected]>:
>
>
>> From: [email protected]
>>
>> I've heard people saying that since Chinese had shorter words for numbers,
>> they could count faster. I've also heard people saying Chinese were better
>> musicians in general because it was a tonal language IIRC. IDK if either of
>> these claims are accurate.
>
>
> I've heard something related to the music statement: that native speakers of
> tonal languages are more likely to have perfect pitch.
Other claims I have heard:
(a) English speakers are more intelligent than many others because the
ortography of English is more irregular, so an English speaker will
have trained more their* brain by the age they become literate.
* singular their.
(b) Japanese people are more intelligent because they have to deal
with too many writing systems (including hundreds of Chinese
characters as some other people also learn).
(c) People whose number names are more analytical are better at maths.
So, someone who speak a language where 11 is read as "ten-one" would
be better than someone whose language have an irregular name for 11.
As six in Wolof is "five-one" and sixteen is "ten-five-one", they
should be the best mathematicians. In fact, I have known a very
intelligent Wolof-speaker Physicist, but I doubt this is a rule.
Messages in this topic (19)
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4b. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:56 am ((PST))
2013/1/23 Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
>
> Other claims I have heard:
>
> (a) English speakers are more intelligent than many others because the
> ortography of English is more irregular, so an English speaker will
> have trained more their* brain by the age they become literate.
> * singular their.
Another possible subtle disadvantage of very regular ortographies is
that child students can have more problem to distinguish letter from
sound ( ("grapheme" from "phone/phoneme" in our jargon). But I don't
know if the irregularity of English orthography solves this "problem"
because I have the impression that some anglophone children also think
they "a" _is_ /ei/. I wonder if they even notice that the "a" of
"latter" is different from that of "later".
Sometimes it's incredible what even adults don't perceive in its
language. I have know people who's hardly convinced that pairs like
"v" and "f" are articulated in the same way. Many Brazilians don't
note that they pronounce the t's of "ta" and "ti" different from each
other: in many dialects, they are /ta/ and /tSi/, and others can't be
convinced that the "t" of "ti" is more similar to those of "ta, te,
to, tu" in dialects of Nordeste (which is considered "wrong
Portuguese" by some people). Finally, many are not aware that they
reduce /o/ to /u/ and /e/ to /i/ in many words.
Somebody has once told me that Americans usually don't perceive that
they "flap" their "t" and "d" (although it's obvious for strangers
whose /t/ and /d/ are not related to the alveolar flap).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping
Messages in this topic (19)
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4c. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:50 am ((PST))
It's practice in many British schools to teach the alphabet as /a/ /b/ /k/ /d/
/e/ now, in a bid to reduce the chance that children think that letter names =
phonemic values. It's stymied, of course, by the good intentions of pre-school
TV.
In my experience, children tend not to consciously see the patterns in language
at the age when they learn to speak and learn to write - I guess it's one of
the advantages of having the young ability to learn quickly. Hence realising
that the value of "a" in "later" is different to "latter" wouldn't be
immediately apparent to a child who has learnt to read and write at an expected
speed. Children who have learnt later - say they've been let down by the
education system or have a degree of learning difficulty - may well see the
difference as they've had to learn to read in a more structured and conscious
way.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 23 Jan 2013, at 12:56, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> 2013/1/23 Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
>>
>> Other claims I have heard:
>>
>> (a) English speakers are more intelligent than many others because the
>> ortography of English is more irregular, so an English speaker will
>> have trained more their* brain by the age they become literate.
>> * singular their.
>
> Another possible subtle disadvantage of very regular ortographies is
> that child students can have more problem to distinguish letter from
> sound ( ("grapheme" from "phone/phoneme" in our jargon). But I don't
> know if the irregularity of English orthography solves this "problem"
> because I have the impression that some anglophone children also think
> they "a" _is_ /ei/. I wonder if they even notice that the "a" of
> "latter" is different from that of "later".
>
> Sometimes it's incredible what even adults don't perceive in its
> language. I have know people who's hardly convinced that pairs like
> "v" and "f" are articulated in the same way. Many Brazilians don't
> note that they pronounce the t's of "ta" and "ti" different from each
> other: in many dialects, they are /ta/ and /tSi/, and others can't be
> convinced that the "t" of "ti" is more similar to those of "ta, te,
> to, tu" in dialects of Nordeste (which is considered "wrong
> Portuguese" by some people). Finally, many are not aware that they
> reduce /o/ to /u/ and /e/ to /i/ in many words.
>
> Somebody has once told me that Americans usually don't perceive that
> they "flap" their "t" and "d" (although it's obvious for strangers
> whose /t/ and /d/ are not related to the alveolar flap).
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping
Messages in this topic (19)
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4d. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:58 am ((PST))
--- On Wed, 1/23/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
2013/1/18 MorphemeAddict <[email protected]>:
>
> One of the meanings (the primary one, now, I'd say) is that America is just
> the USA. It's one part of the Americas, but USA and America are synonyms to
> most people.
>
> stevo
On Brazilian streets, although "americano" is usually synonym of "born
in the USA", "América" is rarely "the USA" except for those who are
clearly mimicking foreigners. The USA is simply "Estados Unidos", and
very rarely "Estados Unidos da América" (I guess many non-educated
because don't even know that there's the part "da América" in "Estados
Unidos").
=======================================
I ran into that occasionally in Latin America, when I said I was "americano"--
a frequent reply was, "Well, sure, we're all Amereicans, but what country are
you from?" and then I'd have to clarify, Estados Unidos or estadounidense.
(Personal note: before my trip to Latin America, where I spoke Spanish all the
time [it was my college major]-- my proudest moment was one time at the gym in
NYC when I spoke Spanish to a Puerto Rican guy, and he asked me what country I
was from.)
But IIRC the correct name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos de México", but they
don't call themselves "estadounidense" and neither does anyone else....
Messages in this topic (19)
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4e. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:09 am ((PST))
--- On Wed, 1/23/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
Another possible subtle disadvantage of very regular ortographies is
that child students can have more problem to distinguish letter from
sound ( ("grapheme" from "phone/phoneme" in our jargon). But I don't
know if the irregularity of English orthography solves this "problem"
because I have the impression that some anglophone children also think
they "a" _is_ /ei/. I wonder if they even notice that the "a" of
"latter" is different from that of "later".
===============================================
That's explained (or at least used to be...) as "long a" /ei/ vs. "short a"
/æ/, just like "long i" /ai/ vs. "short i" /I/, "long o" /ow/ vs. "short" /a/,
and others.... This is one of the hardest areas to cover when you're trying to
teach phonemics to newbies in Linguistics :-)))
========================================
Sometimes it's incredible what even adults don't perceive in its
language. I have know people who's hardly convinced that pairs like
"v" and "f" are articulated in the same way. Many Brazilians don't
note that they pronounce the t's of "ta" and "ti" different from each
other: in many dialects, they are /ta/ and /tSi/, and others can't be
convinced that the "t" of "ti" is more similar to those of "ta, te,
to, tu" in dialects of Nordeste (which is considered "wrong
Portuguese" by some people). Finally, many are not aware that they
reduce /o/ to /u/ and /e/ to /i/ in many words.
Somebody has once told me that Americans usually don't perceive that
they "flap" their "t" and "d" (although it's obvious for strangers
whose /t/ and /d/ are not related to the alveolar flap).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping
=====================================================
I don't know what the solution would be. Ideally, kids should be taught at
least a little about phonetics/phonemics and the IPA; it would certainly help
learners of foreign langs. like French and German I think, and might even make
monolingual Engl. speakers a little more aware of what's going on in their own
language.
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. to be cognate or not to be cognate
Posted by: "Njenfalgar" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:34 am ((PST))
Hi all,
I have a question for the list which may be of interest to all diachronic
conlangers here. As I'm now learning my fourth Romance language
(Portuguese) I am starting to notice that certain words are cognate in all
Romance languages I know (as "to open": French "ouvrir", Catalan "obrir",
Spanish "abrir", Portuguese "abrir") while others never are (as "to close":
French "fermer" < Lat. firmare, Catalan "tancar" < some Pre-Roman language,
Spanish "cerrar" < Lat. serare, Portuguese "fechar" < Lat. factus). Now we
all know that words for concepts invented *after* a language split will not
be cognate, but I had always thought closing things would have been
invented quite early... Does anyone know whether this observation of mine
is just due to random chance or whether there just are certain words that
are more likely to be replaced during language evolution?
Greets,
David
--
Dos ony tãsnonnop, koták ony tãsnonnop.
http://njenfalgar.conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:46 am ((PST))
Perhaps people learned how to open an egg long before learning how to
close one back up. One might also be interested in opening a
shellfish with no intention of ever closing it again. In general, it
seems like opening things could well have come long before closing
things, since many natural things can be opened, but usually only
man-made open-able things are closeable. --gary
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:34 AM, Njenfalgar <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a question for the list which may be of interest to all diachronic
> conlangers here. As I'm now learning my fourth Romance language
> (Portuguese) I am starting to notice that certain words are cognate in all
> Romance languages I know (as "to open": French "ouvrir", Catalan "obrir",
> Spanish "abrir", Portuguese "abrir") while others never are (as "to close":
> French "fermer" < Lat. firmare, Catalan "tancar" < some Pre-Roman language,
> Spanish "cerrar" < Lat. serare, Portuguese "fechar" < Lat. factus). Now we
> all know that words for concepts invented *after* a language split will not
> be cognate, but I had always thought closing things would have been
> invented quite early... Does anyone know whether this observation of mine
> is just due to random chance or whether there just are certain words that
> are more likely to be replaced during language evolution?
>
> Greets,
> David
>
> --
> Dos ony tãsnonnop, koták ony tãsnonnop.
>
> http://njenfalgar.conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (2)
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