There are 13 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Child Speak
From: Adam Walker
1b. Re: Child Speak
From: Peter Collier
1c. Re: Child Speak
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1d. Re: Child Speak
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
2a. Creating a Pronunciation Guide
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
2b. Re: Creating a Pronunciation Guide
From: Dirk Elzinga
3a. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
From: George Corley
3b. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
From: Gary Shannon
3c. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
From: Roger Mills
4a. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: Leonardo Castro
4b. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: Patrick Dunn
4c. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: Alex Fink
5a. Re: Jan19: Vowels, Ablaut, Stem Formation
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Child Speak
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:47 pm ((PST))
Green.
On 1/29/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm asking if I can use what we would consider incorrect grammar such as an
>
> incorrect past tense as a part of my conlang. In other words, if I make
> taked the past tense of take in my conlang would that work or would an
> Earthling correct it, thinking it was a misuse of took.
> Emerging poet
> Pen Name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> tweet me
>
>
>
> GreenNovelist
>
> blog
>
>
> www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Child Speak
>
>
> I'm not sure I understand.
>
> 1) "Taked" vs "took" isn't such a good example of "child speak". The
> development of language among children is pretty complicated and I'll leave
>
> it to people who understand the topic to explain it better than I ever
> could.
> 2) "Taked" vs "took" is a case of a child attempting to apply a grammatical
>
> law it has learnt in a situation where it is not applicable.
> 3) This is an English grammar law, not one which is universal. It's not one
>
> which is present in Spanish for example.
> 4) If the question is "do children who speak my conlang occasionally mess up
>
> their grammar?" then, if they are human, then definitely yes.
> 5) If the question is "do people who speak my language use incorrect grammar
>
> forms on a usual basis?" then the answer is plainly "no". If everyone who
> spoke English used "taked" instead of "took" then "taked" would be the
> correct form and "took" would be incorrect.
> 6) If your conlang is simply replacing English words like-for-like, then
> that is not a conlang - it's a cypher - a simple replacement code.
>
> Could you clarify the question a bit?
>
> On 28 Jan 2013, at 23:54, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I use
>>
>> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too
>> childlike?
>>
>> Emerging poet
>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>> Budding novelist
>> tweet me
>>
>>
>>
>> GreenNovelist
>>
>> blog
>>
>>
>> www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
>
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Child Speak
Posted by: "Peter Collier" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:48 pm ((PST))
Ultimately, you're designing it, it can do whatever you want it to.
You seem to be suggesting your language is English, with some modifications
to the grammar? In that case I'm not sure what on earth you are trying to
achieve. But leaving that aside I would suggest that yes, if person A speaks
the same language as person B, but using a slightly different grammar, then
each would perceive the other as being incorrect when differences arise.
On the other hand, if there was, by coincidence, a verb 'take' in two
different languages then no, a differently formed past tense would not be
seen as wrong. No more so than, say, you have "found" and "gefunden" as the
past tense forms of "find[en]" in English and German.
P.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
Sent: 29 January 2013 21:28
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Child Speak
I'm asking if I can use what we would consider incorrect grammar such as an
incorrect past tense as a part of my conlang. In other words, if I make
taked the past tense of take in my conlang would that work or would an
Earthling correct it, thinking it was a misuse of took.
Emerging poet
Pen Name Mellissa Green
Budding novelist
tweet me
GreenNovelist
blog
www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: Child Speak
I'm not sure I understand.
1) "Taked" vs "took" isn't such a good example of "child speak". The
development of language among children is pretty complicated and I'll leave
it to people who understand the topic to explain it better than I ever
could.
2) "Taked" vs "took" is a case of a child attempting to apply a grammatical
law it has learnt in a situation where it is not applicable.
3) This is an English grammar law, not one which is universal. It's not one
which is present in Spanish for example.
4) If the question is "do children who speak my conlang occasionally mess up
their grammar?" then, if they are human, then definitely yes.
5) If the question is "do people who speak my language use incorrect grammar
forms on a usual basis?" then the answer is plainly "no". If everyone who
spoke English used "taked" instead of "took" then "taked" would be the
correct form and "took" would be incorrect.
6) If your conlang is simply replacing English words like-for-like, then
that is not a conlang - it's a cypher - a simple replacement code.
Could you clarify the question a bit?
On 28 Jan 2013, at 23:54, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I use
> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too childlike?
>
> Emerging poet
> Pen Name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> tweet me
>
>
>
> GreenNovelist
>
> blog
>
>
> www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Child Speak
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:49 pm ((PST))
Good point.
Emerging poet
Pen Name Mellissa Green
Budding novelist
tweet me
GreenNovelist
blog
www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Dunn" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:57 PM
Subject: Re: Child Speak
> Why would you use either word in your conlang? They're English words.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 5:54 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I use
>> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too
>> childlike?
>>
>> Emerging poet
>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>> Budding novelist
>> tweet me
>>
>>
>>
>> GreenNovelist
>>
>> blog
>>
>>
>> www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> 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 (20)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Child Speak
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:50 pm ((PST))
Ok.
Emerging poet
Pen Name Mellissa Green
Budding novelist
tweet me
GreenNovelist
blog
www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Dunn" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: Child Speak
> Nicole,
>
> Linguists don't really talk about "incorrect" grammar. They prefer a
> descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to language.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm asking if I can use what we would consider incorrect grammar such as
>> an incorrect past tense as a part of my conlang. In other words, if I
>> make
>> taked the past tense of take in my conlang would that work or would an
>> Earthling correct it, thinking it was a misuse of took.
>>
>> Emerging poet
>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>> Budding novelist
>> tweet me
>>
>>
>>
>> GreenNovelist
>>
>> blog
>>
>>
>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:09 PM
>> Subject: Re: Child Speak
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand.
>>
>> 1) "Taked" vs "took" isn't such a good example of "child speak". The
>> development of language among children is pretty complicated and I'll
>> leave
>> it to people who understand the topic to explain it better than I ever
>> could.
>> 2) "Taked" vs "took" is a case of a child attempting to apply a
>> grammatical law it has learnt in a situation where it is not applicable.
>> 3) This is an English grammar law, not one which is universal. It's not
>> one which is present in Spanish for example.
>> 4) If the question is "do children who speak my conlang occasionally mess
>> up their grammar?" then, if they are human, then definitely yes.
>> 5) If the question is "do people who speak my language use incorrect
>> grammar forms on a usual basis?" then the answer is plainly "no". If
>> everyone who spoke English used "taked" instead of "took" then "taked"
>> would be the correct form and "took" would be incorrect.
>> 6) If your conlang is simply replacing English words like-for-like, then
>> that is not a conlang - it's a cypher - a simple replacement code.
>>
>> Could you clarify the question a bit?
>>
>> On 28 Jan 2013, at 23:54, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I
>> use
>>> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too
>>> childlike?
>>>
>>> Emerging poet
>>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>>> Budding novelist
>>> tweet me
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> GreenNovelist
>>>
>>> blog
>>>
>>>
>>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 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 (20)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Creating a Pronunciation Guide
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:56 pm ((PST))
How do I create a pronunciation guide for my conlang?
Emerging poet
Pen Name Mellissa Green
Budding novelist
tweet me
GreenNovelist
blog
www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Dunn" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: Child Speak
> Nicole,
>
> Linguists don't really talk about "incorrect" grammar. They prefer a
> descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to language.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm asking if I can use what we would consider incorrect grammar such as
>> an incorrect past tense as a part of my conlang. In other words, if I
>> make
>> taked the past tense of take in my conlang would that work or would an
>> Earthling correct it, thinking it was a misuse of took.
>>
>> Emerging poet
>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>> Budding novelist
>> tweet me
>>
>>
>>
>> GreenNovelist
>>
>> blog
>>
>>
>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:09 PM
>> Subject: Re: Child Speak
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand.
>>
>> 1) "Taked" vs "took" isn't such a good example of "child speak". The
>> development of language among children is pretty complicated and I'll
>> leave
>> it to people who understand the topic to explain it better than I ever
>> could.
>> 2) "Taked" vs "took" is a case of a child attempting to apply a
>> grammatical law it has learnt in a situation where it is not applicable.
>> 3) This is an English grammar law, not one which is universal. It's not
>> one which is present in Spanish for example.
>> 4) If the question is "do children who speak my conlang occasionally mess
>> up their grammar?" then, if they are human, then definitely yes.
>> 5) If the question is "do people who speak my language use incorrect
>> grammar forms on a usual basis?" then the answer is plainly "no". If
>> everyone who spoke English used "taked" instead of "took" then "taked"
>> would be the correct form and "took" would be incorrect.
>> 6) If your conlang is simply replacing English words like-for-like, then
>> that is not a conlang - it's a cypher - a simple replacement code.
>>
>> Could you clarify the question a bit?
>>
>> On 28 Jan 2013, at 23:54, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I
>> use
>>> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too
>>> childlike?
>>>
>>> Emerging poet
>>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>>> Budding novelist
>>> tweet me
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> GreenNovelist
>>>
>>> blog
>>>
>>>
>>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 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 (2)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Creating a Pronunciation Guide
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:01 pm ((PST))
If you intend your pronunciation guide to be used by readers of your
fiction, use English equivalents. You can't assume that your readers know
(or care about) the IPA. Find the nearest English equivalent and leave it
at that.
If you're creating a language for the consumption of fellow language
enthusiasts, use the IPA and describe sounds in as much detail as necessary
using standard phonetic terminology.
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
[email protected]> wrote:
> How do I create a pronunciation guide for my conlang?
> Emerging poet
> Pen Name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> tweet me
>
>
>
> GreenNovelist
>
> blog
>
>
> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Dunn" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 4:32 PM
> Subject: Re: Child Speak
>
>
> Nicole,
>>
>> Linguists don't really talk about "incorrect" grammar. They prefer a
>> descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to language.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> I'm asking if I can use what we would consider incorrect grammar such as
>>> an incorrect past tense as a part of my conlang. In other words, if I
>>> make
>>> taked the past tense of take in my conlang would that work or would an
>>> Earthling correct it, thinking it was a misuse of took.
>>>
>>> Emerging poet
>>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>>> Budding novelist
>>> tweet me
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> GreenNovelist
>>>
>>> blog
>>>
>>>
>>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpre**ss.com <http://wordpress.com><
>>> http://www.**theworldofyemora.wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>> **>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
>>> To: <[email protected]>
>>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 7:09 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Child Speak
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm not sure I understand.
>>>
>>> 1) "Taked" vs "took" isn't such a good example of "child speak". The
>>> development of language among children is pretty complicated and I'll
>>> leave
>>> it to people who understand the topic to explain it better than I ever
>>> could.
>>> 2) "Taked" vs "took" is a case of a child attempting to apply a
>>> grammatical law it has learnt in a situation where it is not applicable.
>>> 3) This is an English grammar law, not one which is universal. It's not
>>> one which is present in Spanish for example.
>>> 4) If the question is "do children who speak my conlang occasionally mess
>>> up their grammar?" then, if they are human, then definitely yes.
>>> 5) If the question is "do people who speak my language use incorrect
>>> grammar forms on a usual basis?" then the answer is plainly "no". If
>>> everyone who spoke English used "taked" instead of "took" then "taked"
>>> would be the correct form and "took" would be incorrect.
>>> 6) If your conlang is simply replacing English words like-for-like, then
>>> that is not a conlang - it's a cypher - a simple replacement code.
>>>
>>> Could you clarify the question a bit?
>>>
>>> On 28 Jan 2013, at 23:54, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Are there any rules on child speak use in conlang? For example, can I
>>> use
>>>
>>>> the word taked for took in my conlang or would that make it too
>>>> childlike?
>>>>
>>>> Emerging poet
>>>> Pen Name Mellissa Green
>>>> Budding novelist
>>>> tweet me
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> GreenNovelist
>>>>
>>>> blog
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> www.theworldofyemora.**wordpre**ss.com <http://wordpress.com><
>>>> http://www.**theworldofyemora.wordpress.com<http://www.theworldofyemora.wordpress.com>
>>>> **>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
>> order from Finishing Line
>> Press<http://www.**finishinglinepress.com/**
>> NewReleasesandForthcomingTitle**s.htm<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<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 (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:06 pm ((PST))
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 5:32 PM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> ---
> >>
> >
> > How do you treat noun phrases modified by prepositional phrases ("the man
> > with a beard")?
> >
> > stevo
> >
>
> I classify words by their role in the sentence. Part of speech is not
> intrinsic to the word itself. Consider: "The fast boy on a fast not
> only can fast, but he can run fast." The word "fast" is an adjective,
> then a noun, then a verb, and finally an adverb. Or what about "Flies
> fly like a bee flies."
>
I would say that you have at least three different "fasts" there. There is
an obvious difference between the meaning in "fast boy" and "run fast" as
opposed to in "on a fast" and "can fast", such that the difference in
meaning alone pretty much qualifies those to be separate (but homophonous)
words -- unless you are going to argue that high velocity and not eating
are somehow similar to each other. In addition, I really do think that in
English nouns and verbs are separate categories stored in the lexicon.
> The word "with" can be either a preposition, when pre-positioned, or a
> conjunction, when it joins two noun phrases:
>
> "I left AT noon." where "at" stands alone at the head of the phrase;
> This "at" is a preposition.
>
> In "the man WITH a beard..." the word 'with' can be taken to be a
> conjunction joining "The man" to "a beard".
>
No. When I say "The man with a beard walked up to me on the street." the
beard is doing absolutely nothing. Saying "The man and the beard walked up
to me on the street." triggers either the wacky image of a disembodied
beard walking around, or some sort of metaphor where the beard is a
girlfriend, a second man with a beard, or some other animate being.
I can see how your analysis can be tempting. I know that almost all of the
words for "and" used in Mandarin can also be translated as "with", so it is
possible for the two meanings to be related, but I don't think English is
working that way.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:55 pm ((PST))
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 2:06 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The word "with" can be either a preposition, when pre-positioned, or a
> > conjunction, when it joins two noun phrases:
> >
> > "I left AT noon." where "at" stands alone at the head of the phrase;
> > This "at" is a preposition.
> >
> > In "the man WITH a beard..." the word 'with' can be taken to be a
> > conjunction joining "The man" to "a beard".
> >
>
> No. When I say "The man with a beard walked up to me on the street." the
> beard is doing absolutely nothing. Saying "The man and the beard walked up
> to me on the street." triggers either the wacky image of a disembodied
> beard walking around, or some sort of metaphor where the beard is a
> girlfriend, a second man with a beard, or some other animate being.
>
> I can see how your analysis can be tempting. I know that almost all of the
> words for "and" used in Mandarin can also be translated as "with", so it is
> possible for the two meanings to be related, but I don't think English is
> working that way.
You're talking semantics. It matters to you what the sentence means,
or whether than meaning seems peculiar. I'm talking only about surface
syntax. My concern is abstract symbol manipulation without regard for
the meaning of those symbols. My purpose is not to describe how
English "works", or what a given sentence "means". My purpose is to
parse out the major components of a sentence. If I'm trying to
identify the noun phrase, I can give equal SYNTACTIC weight to:
(The man WITH the beard) = noun phrase
(The man AND the dog) = noun phrase
(The man FROM Canada) = noun phrase
(The man IN the moon) = noun phrase
((The man IN the blue suit) AND (the man FROM Canada)) = noun phrase
The SURFACE STRUCTURE is identical, which is all that matters for my purposes.
I've got two parallel projects going on here. One is developing a
conlang that can be the target language of a machine translation
program, and the other is parsing English sentences for the first pass
of that machine translation process. So I'm confusing the two
sub-projects a bit here.
Typically, a parser uses a grammar which can be used either to parse a
sentence of the language, or to generate a sentence of the language.
My parsing grammar is not adequate for generating sentences of the
language because it is too lenient, and seriously under-specified. It
DOES suffice, however, to parse a sentence that is already known to be
grammatically correct.
In fact, my parser also considers articles and determiners to be the
same as adjectives. While that's not "correct", it _does work_ for my
purposes. But there is nothing in the grammar to prevent it from
generating "The the the old man...". But that doesn't matter because
it is assumed that such a noun phrase won't be encountered in
practice, and the grammar is not used for generation anyway. (If such
a sentence were to be encountered, however, the parser would handle it
without missing a beat.)
Another example is that "if" can be a conjunction when it joins two
sentences: "(I will stay home) IF (it is raining)." which I take to
have identical surface structure with "(I will stay home) AND (it is
raining)."
And in "That paint is called chocolate brown." "Chocolate" is an
adjective and "brown" is a noun. But in "I prefer brown chocolate."
those roles are reversed. Maybe that's not "correct", but it works in
my parser.
Anyway, since this is just a hobby project, and only for fun, I can
easily afford to be wrong with no lasting consequences. :-)
--gary
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: A uniform linked-clause grammar
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:38 pm ((PST))
--- On Tue, 1/29/13, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 5:32 PM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 8:17 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> ---
> >>
(don't know who wrote what here....)
> > How do you treat noun phrases modified by prepositional phrases ("the man
> > with a beard")?
> >
> The word "with" can be either a preposition, when pre-positioned, or a
> conjunction, when it joins two noun phrases:
>
> "I left AT noon." where "at" stands alone at the head of the phrase;
> This "at" is a preposition.
>
> In "the man WITH a beard..." the word 'with' can be taken to be a
> conjunction joining "The man" to "a beard".
>
No. When I say "The man with a beard walked up to me on the street." the
beard is doing absolutely nothing. Saying "The man and the beard walked up
to me on the street." triggers either the wacky image of a disembodied
beard walking around, or some sort of metaphor where the beard is a
girlfriend, a second man with a beard, or some other animate being.
I can see how your analysis can be tempting. I know that almost all of the
words for "and" used in Mandarin can also be translated as "with", so it is
possible for the two meanings to be related, but I don't think English is
working that way.
============================================
That is true in Indonesian as well. But actually, according to what I've
learned, "The man with a beard....." is derived from a Chomskian NP (S) , that
is:
[NP[ the man] S[the man has a beard]] which can reduce to either '...with a
beard' or '...who has~had a beard'.
Messages in this topic (6)
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4a. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:27 pm ((PST))
2013/1/29 Roger Mills <[email protected]>:
>
> That all seems plausible. Another route might be for *e and *o simply to
> raise > i, u.
Common vowel reductions in unstressed syllables, aren't they?
Messages in this topic (6)
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4b. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:57 pm ((PST))
Seems I could combine the approaches:
Stressed
*a > a:
*e > ai
*o > au
*i > i:
u > u:
Unstressed
*a > a
*e > i
*o > u
*i > i
*u > u
This gives a pleasing asymmetry to frequency.
I kind of like the diphthongization *because* it's a little weird, but I
don't want to be completely implausible.
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> 2013/1/29 Roger Mills <[email protected]>:
> >
> > That all seems plausible. Another route might be for *e and *o simply to
> raise > i, u.
>
> Common vowel reductions in unstressed syllables, aren't they?
>
--
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 (6)
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4c. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:39 pm ((PST))
On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:43:38 -0600, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
>I know that three-vowel systems sometimes become five vowel systems, but
>are there attestations of five-vowel systems collapsing into a three-vowel
>system?
Some of the outlying Japonic languages do the merger Roger suggested, [e i] >
[i] and [o u] > [u]. I'm surprised I can't think of more ANADEW for this as an
unconditional change, mostly just loan behaviour, but I would guess it would be
the most likely way to get from five to three (though not by too huge a
margin).
Or you could go the other way, [e a o] > [a], which has ANADEW in Indo-Iranian,
with the further wrinkle of Brugmann's law, that (certain?) *o went to [a:] (in
open syllables). (Length _distinctions_ arising from quality distinctions
seems to be the preserve of low vowels.)
As for the diphthongisation, I don't think I've seen it per se (though I think
some posit its like for pre-PIE). But it reminds me of these funny
central-only vowel systems (e.g. Ubykh and its areamates; Marshallese) which
have dramatic collapses of the phonemic vowel inventory after consonants get
coloured by surrounding vowels. [i 1 u] > [_j1 1 _w1] and whatnot. So I could
see e.g. [i E a O u] > /_ji _ja a _wa _wu/ [_ji _jE a _wO _wu] with the
colouring later breaking again to /i ja a wa u/ [i jE a wO u] > [i ja a wa u].
>I'm toying with /É/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ in a protolanguage
>collapsing into /É/ , /i/, /u/, with length distinctions, in the daughter
>language.
Not really a collapse, is it, if you gain length distinctions in it.
Alex
Messages in this topic (6)
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5a. Re: Jan19: Vowels, Ablaut, Stem Formation
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:43 pm ((PST))
On 29 January 2013 20:26, neo gu <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have a specific question about citation forms in the vocabulary.
>
> In Jan19, transitive and ditransitive verbs have active and passive forms.
> For these verbs, the active infinitive has all the information needed to
> construct the other forms, except for irregular verbs, and is thus used as
> the citation form.
Mmm... citation forms are rarely chosen on the basis of the ability to
construct all the other forms from them. That's what principal parts are
for. In general, citation forms only give a general idea of the forms the
word will take, if that.
> For univalent and relational verbs, the basic form corresponds to the
> passive. The passive infinitive might be used as the citation form for
> these since it has the information needed to construct all the passive
> forms. However, the active forms are regularly used as causatives and need
> the active infinitive.
>
> So, should I use the active infinitive for all but a few verbs?
Difficult to say. Usually citation forms are the same for all words
belonging to the same part of speech. When a word uses a different citation
form than other words of the same part of speech, it's usually because they
lack the usual form (for instance, in Modern Greek the citation form of
verbs is the 1st person singular active indicative present. But it's the
3rd person for impersonal verbs that lack the 1st person, and it's the
passive form for deponent verbs that don't have an active voice). So your
case is not quite the same. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
> If so, should I gloss the univalent and relational verbs as causatives
> rather than glossing the basic meaning? e.g. "whiten" vs "white".
>
Why not gloss either depending on the usage? In Moten, adjectives don't
exist as such: they are abstract nouns, and adjectival use is indicated by
word order. So a noun like _sezgo_ means literally "high speed" but is most
often used adjectivally to mean "quick, fast". In my Moten dictionary, I
list both cases, and in glosses I usually use the gloss that fits best the
context, unless I want to make a specific point.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (7)
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