There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Roger Mills
1b. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1c. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Garth Wallace
1d. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Mathieu Roy
1e. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Adam Walker
1f. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
From: Mathieu Roy
2a. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
From: Matthew Boutilier
2b. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
From: Roger Mills
2c. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
From: Alex Fink
3a. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Charles W Brickner
3b. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: George Corley
3c. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: Leonardo Castro
3d. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
From: MorphemeAddict
4a. Re: Esperanto morphosemantics (was: Re: [CONLANG] So, about Ithkuil.
From: Jim Henry
5a. Re: A Practice Conlang - For Your Enjoyment & Critiques
From: J. M. DeSantis
Messages
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1a. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:20 am ((PST))
--- On Wed, 1/23/13, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
=========================================
Neither have I, at least not deliberately. However, the little Kash poem 'fosi
tambranipan' "Sailing to Tambranipa" (you can see it at
http://cinduworld.tripod.com/alphabet.htm) is supposed to be sung; it's used
when saying farewell to someone whom you may not see again.
Tranditional Kash music used a 10-tone scale, and Herman Miller was kind enough
to provide a melody for this poem. If anyone would like to hear it (and with
Herman's permission) I'll post it. I've never tried to sing along with it, but
since I tend to sing totally off-key anyway, it might work..........
Messages in this topic (16)
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1b. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:11 am ((PST))
On 23 January 2013 17:35, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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.
>
>
Japanese composer Yuki Kaijura also does this all the time, to the point
that her fans call the language she uses "Kaijuran". She claims it's an
actual conlang mixing Japanese, English, Latin and other European
languages, but no one knows if the claim is true or whether it's just
nonsense words.
An example (with lyrics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MaQ6m6mho8
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (16)
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1c. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 pm ((PST))
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:03 AM, 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.
If you hadn't mentioned them I would have.
As with many of these examples, though, whether Kobaian is really a
full conlang or not is debatable. Some recurring words have had
meanings assigned, and their song cycles are supposed to tell stories,
but the lyrics are repetitive chanting that barely hint at a grammar
and clearly cannot be narrative. It sure sounds cool though.
Messages in this topic (16)
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1d. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Mathieu Roy" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:15 pm ((PST))
Thanks to everyone who replied. The playlist now has 15 songs with a short
description of the conlang used in each of them. You can share it with
people who might be interested:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6Iy2E-Y52stsLyT9SQqT5gZfm891jNM. If
you think of other songs that could be added to this list, please let me
know.
-Mathieu
-----Message d'origine-----
De : Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] De la
part de Garth Wallace
Envoyé : jeudi 24 janvier 2013 00:26
À : [email protected]
Objet : Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:03 AM, 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.
If you hadn't mentioned them I would have.
As with many of these examples, though, whether Kobaian is really a
full conlang or not is debatable. Some recurring words have had
meanings assigned, and their song cycles are supposed to tell stories,
but the lyrics are repetitive chanting that barely hint at a grammar
and clearly cannot be narrative. It sure sounds cool though.
Messages in this topic (16)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:36 pm ((PST))
Ummm. That Klingon song ain't in Klingon.
Adam
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Mathieu Roy <[email protected]>wrote:
> Thanks to everyone who replied. The playlist now has 15 songs with a short
> description of the conlang used in each of them. You can share it with
> people who might be interested:
> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6Iy2E-Y52stsLyT9SQqT5gZfm891jNM.
> If
> you think of other songs that could be added to this list, please let me
> know.
>
> -Mathieu
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] De la
> part de Garth Wallace
> Envoyé : jeudi 24 janvier 2013 00:26
> À : [email protected]
> Objet : Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
>
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:03 AM, 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.
>
> If you hadn't mentioned them I would have.
>
> As with many of these examples, though, whether Kobaian is really a
> full conlang or not is debatable. Some recurring words have had
> meanings assigned, and their song cycles are supposed to tell stories,
> but the lyrics are repetitive chanting that barely hint at a grammar
> and clearly cannot be narrative. It sure sounds cool though.
>
Messages in this topic (16)
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1f. Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Posted by: "Mathieu Roy" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:19 pm ((PST))
My bad. I've removed it. Thanks for noticing. In what language was it? Let
me know if you see other errors.
-Mathieu
-----Message d'origine-----
De : Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] De la
part de Adam Walker
Envoyé : jeudi 24 janvier 2013 02:37
À : [email protected]
Objet : Re: Conlang music (was RE: Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
Ummm. That Klingon song ain't in Klingon.
Adam
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Mathieu Roy
<[email protected]>wrote:
> Thanks to everyone who replied. The playlist now has 15 songs with a
> short description of the conlang used in each of them. You can share
> it with people who might be interested:
> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL6Iy2E-Y52stsLyT9SQqT5gZfm891jNM.
> If
> you think of other songs that could be added to this list, please let
> me know.
>
> -Mathieu
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] De
> la part de Garth Wallace Envoyé : jeudi 24 janvier 2013 00:26 À :
> [email protected] Objet : Re: Conlang music (was RE:
> Orthography congruous to pronunciation)
>
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:03 AM, 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.
>
> If you hadn't mentioned them I would have.
>
> As with many of these examples, though, whether Kobaian is really a
> full conlang or not is debatable. Some recurring words have had
> meanings assigned, and their song cycles are supposed to tell stories,
> but the lyrics are repetitive chanting that barely hint at a grammar
> and clearly cannot be narrative. It sure sounds cool though.
>
Messages in this topic (16)
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2a. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:20 am ((PST))
While it's true that diverse (but related) languages often invent different
words for things if those things have arisen post-divergence, it's an abuse
of the rules of logic to assume that the absence of a cognate IMPLIES a
post-divergence concept/invention.
English "horse" is equivalent to German "Pferd" and Greek "híppos" and
French "cheval," none of which are cognates. But it's irresponsible to
assume from this that the Proto-Indo-European speakers lacked horses (they
had them).
Sometimes languages just switch out words for things to keep things fresh.
matt
On Wednesday, January 23, 2013, Gary Shannon wrote:
> 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]<javascript:;>>
> 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 (5)
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2b. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:40 am ((PST))
--- On Wed, 1/23/13, Njenfalgar <[email protected]> wrote:
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?
=================================================
Indeed, curious developments. It may have depended on the particular dialect of
"Vulgar Latin" spoken by the Romans or their mercenaries who occupied those
areas; it may well be that in VL or even classical Latin certain words had
developed related meanings, and new speakers chose from among the
possibilities. Italian also has a cognate < firmare (fermare 'to stop'); plus
aprire 'to open', but 'to close' is chiudere (p.part chiuso) < claudo,
claudere, clausum, which my little Latin dict. defines as "shut, close; cut
off, block; conclude; imprison" et al.
A good study of semantics and semantic change is the work of Stephen Ullman,
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Ullmann for a list of his books.
--
Dos ony tãsnonnop, koták ony tãsnonnop.
http://njenfalgar.conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (5)
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2c. Re: to be cognate or not to be cognate
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:18 am ((PST))
On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:34:30 -0200, Njenfalgar <[email protected]> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>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?
I'm sure there are words which are likelier to be replaced. But determining
which they are, short of empirical observation, seems like a pretty hard
problem. I'll brainstorm a little below.
Let's see. Places where semantic space is especially discrete are unlikely to
_need_ replaced, 'cause they won't undergo semantic shift to something
potentially confusable. I think this is what accounts for most of the
stability of numbers, for instance: once you have a word that means "seven",
it's not going to take on a secondary sense of "six" or "eight"; even if it
does take on a secondary sense of say "[seven-day] week" that's not a problem.
(Alongside this, note that numbers are not at all resistant to replacement
through borrowing. Western European expectations are anomalous here in a
worldwide sense, TTBOMK -- was Europe develop economically at a somehow more
homogeneous rate than most places? Note even English has _second_ < Latin; as
another quasi-example, Latvian _Äetri_ for 'four' is at the very least
contaminated by Slavic, and should've had an apical _c-_ natively.)
Turning this about, places where semantic space is especially continuous and
not naturally divided are likely to be replaced more as things jostle about.
My unscientific impression is that e.g. descriptions of human character are one
such area, forming a big high-dimensional spectrum without natural divisions in
it nor a basic perceptual bias towards certain divisions (like colour has), and
indeed these seem to shift around a certain amount.
I wonder in fact how much of this motion is due to languages borrowing
_divisions_ of semantic space, changing what aspects of events are salient and
need lexicalising, but using native lexical resources for it. For instance,
since you bring up "open", I remember seeing a semantic map of some Korean
words on the fact that Korean doesn't have "open", i.e. causing something to
become more exposed is just not a parameter of their division of semantic space
of verbs of physical manipulation. Instead they use one of six or so verbs
describing the sort of manipulation that is done to the occluding part. But I
could totally see Korean (tragically) deciding it needs a translation
equivalent for "open" under the influence of English, and just using one of its
native verbs for that, while hypothetical-sister-of-Korean picks another.
Another kind of sense that might be frequently replaced might be the sort of
sense which generates lots of slang terms. It's not too uncommon for words to
lose old restrictions on their register, so that former slang can migrate to
the later unmarked word. This is what happened e.g. in Romance with 'horse'
pretty consistently and 'head' partially. Within Romance there isn't so much
variation in the source of the replacement, but the fact that 'horse' has
suffered so badly in modern IE and 'head' had the same class of replacement in
German (or was that Romance influence?) suggest to me that these have a chance
as cross-linguistic examples.
that's all for now, must run,
Alex
Messages in this topic (5)
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3a. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Charles W Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:51 am ((PST))
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Roger Mills
But IIRC the correct name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos de México", but they
don't call themselves "estadounidense" and neither does anyone else....
================
Actually, the official name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos", the
United Mexican States.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (23)
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3b. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:06 am ((PST))
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Charles W Brickner <
[email protected]> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Roger Mills
>
> But IIRC the correct name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos de México", but
> they
> don't call themselves "estadounidense" and neither does anyone else....
> ================
>
> Actually, the official name of Mexico is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos", the
> United Mexican States.
>
I was about to make that point. I was taught in school that EU stands for
"Estados Unidos Mexicanos", while EEUU is "Estados Unidos de América", but
if that was ever the convention, it's been lost, since I only see "EU" as
referring to the USA in Spanish-language press (including Mexican press),
and Mexico is just "México".
Basically, my understanding is that Mexico is "The United Mexican States"
because they built a federal system that is heavily inspired by the US
federal system.
Messages in this topic (23)
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3c. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:34 pm ((PST))
2013/1/23 Roger Mills <[email protected]>:
> --- 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.
I don't about Hyspanic America, but if I witnessed a Brazilian guy
speaking like this to an American (from the USA), I would probably
that he is an "anti-imperialist" person that understand what you mean
by "American" but want to convey the message "Why are you from USA so
arrogant? Why do you think that only you are Americans? This continent
is America and I'm American too!". Very frequently it's a thing of
envious people...
>
> (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....
Brazil was once also "Estados Unidos do Brasil" and its flag was very
similar to that of the USA:
http://controversacao.blogspot.com.br/2009/12/e-ainda-dizem-que-nao-gostamos-dos-eua.html
Messages in this topic (23)
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3d. Re: Loglan[g] VS Natlang
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:35 pm ((PST))
On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:56 AM, 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".
>
OTOH, kids learn word pairs like nation/national, bath/bathe. Or do they no
perceive these to be different sounds?
stevo
>
> 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 (23)
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4a. Re: Esperanto morphosemantics (was: Re: [CONLANG] So, about Ithkuil.
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:43 pm ((PST))
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Melroch <[email protected]> wrote:
> You are certainly more knowledgeable than me about what 'affixy'
> peculiarities some affixes may retain, but then again all morphemes in all
> languages do have their peculiarities which are built into their semantics.
Bertilo Wennergren says:
>>Precipe la tradicio decidis, kiuj radikoj nomiÄas afiksoj. Oni povus tamen
>>diri, ke afikso estas radiko, por kiu validas specialaj reguloj en la
>>vortfarado.
("It's mainly tradition that decides which roots are called affixes.
But one can say that an affix is a root for which special rules apply
in word-building.")
And he goes on to list these traditional affixes as being actual
affixes in that sense:
Suffixes: AÄ, ÄJ, EG, ET, IN, NJ, UM
Prefixes: GE, MAL
That is, those suffixes don't simply act as the head of a compound
(like UL or AÄ´ for instance), and those prefixes don't simply act as
the modifier element of a compound (like RE or DIS for instance).
> It would be interesting to see how the (degree of) affixness of a given
> morpheme correlates with such things as its frequency
This page has a summary of a corpus frequency study done on recordings
of conversations from the 1979 Universala Kongreso by Zlatko TiÅljar.
It doesn't list the exact frequency of each morpheme (presumably that
and other data can be found in TiÅlar's book), but it does order them
by frequency.
http://eeo.8k.com/EoDktA/Morfemo1.htm
>From that, we can see that MAL is the single most common prefix. GE
is less common than some other traditional prefixes including RE, DIS
and EK. All of the suffixes Wennergren lists are among the most
common 664 morphemes, but the most common of them, IN, is less common
than several traditional suffixes that Wennergren analyzes as normal
heads of compounds.
> or whether it was
> originally an affix or not,
All of the above "true affixes" were originally described as affixes
by Zamenhof, if I'm not mistaken.
> and how it covaries with various demographic
> factors,
That I have no idea how to find out -- without doing a new
labor-intensive study.
> not to speak of how it has evolved over time.
If I recall correctly, the suffixes ET and UL were among the first to
be used as stand-alone words "eta" and "ulo", at least in classic
literature -- one can't be sure about speech. But whether there were
special rules for the use of certain affixes which have fallen out of
use as they come to be treated simply as heads (if suffixes) or
modifiers (if prefixes) -- that I'm not sure.
> As for fuzziness of the derivation~subordination boundary I mean the fact
> that you seem to be able to do more and different things by tacking on _-a_
> than you can by adjectivization in most languages (certainly most European
> languages). At any rate it can certainly function as a genitive would in
> the Indoeuropean and Uralic languages I'm familiar with; in particular it
That makes sense.
> The Esperanto _-e_ also goes beyond what adverb affixes like the Swedish
> _-t_ or English _-ly_ do. It seems to me that a compound with _-e_ can
> stand in for an entire adverbial phrase, which is very Sanskritesque.
Yes, or for a locative or dative noun in some languages, or a locative
or temporal prepositional phrase.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: A Practice Conlang - For Your Enjoyment & Critiques
Posted by: "J. M. DeSantis" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:50 pm ((PST))
On 1/21/2013 6:19 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:10:11 -0500, J. M. DeSantis <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> On 1/20/2013 8:33 PM, Rich Harrison wrote:
>>>> Some of the language, to me, sounds very good to my ear, though, as
>>>> usual with my conlangs, I find concentrating on the language first
>>>> results in awkward names. Whereas, creating names first, makes the
>>>> language difficult to build properly.
>>> Do names have to mean something in your languages? Can't names just be
>>> arbitrary, semi-random, pleasant sounding strings of phonemes?
>> Well, everyone may correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the
>> impression that all names, the world over do have some meaning behind
>> them, even if from older forms, parent languages or borrowings from
>> other languages. If there are exceptions to this rule, I'd certainly be
>> willing to hear them.
> That's certainly the norm. But, for instance, Black names in the US, for
> instance, often _are_ complete inventions. To me, this is a reasonably
> logical short step from the status quo of the surrounding culture, with so
> many of the sources being Biblical and of etymology completely unrecoverable
> to the unHebrewed layman, others Classical and nearly as unrecoverable, and
> so our names seem to have no non-onomastic meaning.
>
> But I don't think this could arise without some kind of culture-mixing
> disruption like this, or else at least a long long semantics-effacing history
> (if all your peers' children are named "Wind" or "Fortitude" or "God has
> smiled on us", are you really going to name yours "Shaniqua"?) And I think
> meaningless names are over-represented in artlangs, accordingly.
>
> Alex
Sorry for the delayed response, but I've gotten a little behind on e-mails.
I can certainly see the validity in creating a string of pleasant
sounding phonemes to create names, however, Alex's does bring up some
valid points.
That said, it's not often that people in the US are named using English
words and sentences (never sentences or phrases, in fact). Rather they
take names from other languages or English names that have been changed
over time (and even those often derived from other cultures); though
sometimes these names still have recognisable meanings, especially in
surnames such as Hillman and Johnson. In fact, the only time I can think
of hearing names that are translated into English sentences or phrases
are Native American names and that is, quite unfortunately, too often
done for comedic value.
For my own part, I do enjoy that my characters' names have meanings in
my conlangs, no less than I sometimes try and find real world names with
appropriate meanings attached to name characters in stories I write
which have no connection to my invented world. That said, I can't see
taking the time to go through the long process of developing an
etymology around every name I use in my invented world.
So, I suppose the question is really this: in ancient times, was it
customary to name your children with recognisable words and sentences?
Or would that have sounded silly (as it would now to turn to your friend
and call him "Hand of God")?
Sincerely,
J. M. DeSantis
Writer - Illustrator
Official Website: jmdesantis.com <http://www.jmdesantis.com>
Messages in this topic (16)
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