There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
From: Demian Terentev
1.2. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
From: And Rosta
2a. Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for all
From: Gleki Arxokuna
2b. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
From: Dustfinger Batailleur
2c. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
From: Isaac A. Penziev
2d. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
From: Gary Shannon
2e. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
From: Gleki Arxokuna
2f. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
From: Gary Shannon
3.1. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
3.2. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4.1. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: And Rosta
4.2. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Patrick Dunn
4.3. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
4.4. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: R A Brown
4.5. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Patrick Dunn
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
Posted by: "Demian Terentev" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 6:01 am ((PDT))
Even if we employ the modernist approach, English wont stand at all to
Mandarin, which has an enormous amount of Classical Chinese lexicon still
used nowadays in idioms, proverbs, and such, as well as borrowings from
other Chinese varieties, and Western languages too.
And maybe the same is true about languages of India as well.
2013/3/24 Daniel Bowman <[email protected]>
> I started this thread to address my uneasiness with the assertion "English
> has the most words of any language." Contrary to my expectations, I've
> been convinced that this assertion is probably true. However, I am more
> inclined to think that it is an ill posed problem. I agree with list
> members who say that the English word count cannot be determined exactly.
>
> I am interested to see two main divisions on how the list addressed this
> problem. The "preservationist" strain claims that all words that are or
> ever were in use should be considered in the count. This puts words not
> used since Chaucer (or before) on par with "sexting" and other bright eyed
> newborns.
>
> The "modernist" strain asserts that only words in use now should be
> considered. They cite surveying methods that might allow some sort of
> quantification of the number of words in use, methods that could shed light
> on how English measures up to other languages.
>
> I lean towards the modernist interpretation. While English has a vast
> backlog of historical vocabulary, if most of the native English speaking
> population cannot use this vocabulary, then it should not count. If it did
> count, then the richness of a given language is related on the existence
> and length of its written record.
>
> It is clear that the definition of "word" itself is an ill posed problem,
> but even if global assertions about English cannot be made, the
> quantification methods proposed by modernists could still shed light on the
> question that started this thread.
>
> I challenged the person who claimed English had the most words primarily
> because it sounded Anglocentric. Such word counts are in some measure
> "dick-measuring," though perhaps not as much as they would be in the
> conlanging world. However, I'm pleased to see that the question has
> generated problems of real interest, some of which may actually be
> solvable.
>
> When all is said and done, I am not sure if I want to be a native speaker
> of the world's biggest lexicon. On one hand, it is be a point of pride
> (let's get our rulers out), and might indicate that such a language has an
> easier time expressing complicated concepts. On the other hand, it might
> mean that my native language is dragging a whole trainload of baggage that
> is rarely, if ever, useful to the modern speaker (unless s/he is a linguist
> or a conlanger :-)).
>
> Danny
>
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.2. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:23 am ((PDT))
George Corley, On 23/03/2013 19:37:
> I really don't see how a "Count ALL the words!" mentality is useful for
> anything other than a sort of linguistic dick-measurement.
Responding also to other messages in the thread, I think (i) there's a real and
linguistically significant phenomenon (such that vocabulary size, in the
relevant sense, is not just a delusory notion of layfolk) and (ii) resulting
counts of vocab size may be brandished as cultural dick-measurement but also
affect the epistemic experience of language and parole of even the monoglot.
What English has a lot of is (i) underived lexemes in (ii) the corpus of texts
to which the average speaker potentially has access (face-to-face interactions,
broadcast speech, film, written texts published and online). Big corpus for
cultural reasons -- longish written history, lots of speakers. Lots of
underived lexemes because of borrowing and the feedback loop of being receptive
to new underived lexemes.
The significance for the speaker of English is (1) that most speakers will
regularly encounter new (to them) underived lexemes, (2) that for most speakers
this happens more, not less, the more they are exposed to texts not just from
face-to-face interaction, so that the speaker doesn't have the sense that there
is a finite and perceptibly dwindling supply of words not yet known to them,
and (3) that no speaker ever knows all the underived lexemes. (3) would not be
the experience of a speaker in a hunter-gatherer society, or, for that matter,
of a peasant in pre-modern England. (1) and (2) will be much less true for
languages other than English. Assuming you have some method for identifying
underived lexemes, you could measure this empirically by counting the number of
hapax underived lexemes per million word increase in the size of a
representatively-sampled corpus. My prediction would be that the frequency of
hapaxes diminishes at a slower rate for English than for other la
nguages.
--And.
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for all
Posted by: "Gleki Arxokuna" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:01 am ((PDT))
I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with some
of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a constructed
one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and Bislama will
also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source (CreativeCommons)
templates for children's textbooks that will teach them any auxlang.
The actions should be the following:
1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do: Google
presentation/document, wiki-page)
2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at first.
3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles with
it's own language.
The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is developing
their own project. So let's unite for this project!
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
Posted by: "Dustfinger Batailleur" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:06 am ((PDT))
Sounds convenient for other types of conlangs as well.
On 24 March 2013 10:01, Gleki Arxokuna <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with
> some of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a
> constructed one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and
> Bislama will also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source
> (CreativeCommons) templates for children's textbooks that will teach them
> any auxlang.
>
> The actions should be the following:
> 1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do:
> Google presentation/document, wiki-page)
> 2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at
> first.
> 3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles
> with it's own language.
>
>
> The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is developing
> their own project. So let's unite for this project!
>
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
Posted by: "Isaac A. Penziev" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:00 am ((PDT))
24.03.2013 16:01, Gleki Arxokuna пиÑеÑ:
> I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with some
> of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a constructed
> one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and Bislama will
> also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source
> (CreativeCommons) templates for children's textbooks that will teach them any
> auxlang.
>
> The actions should be the following:
> 1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do:
> Google presentation/document, wiki-page)
> 2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at first.
> 3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles with
> it's own language.
>
>
> The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is developing
> their own project. So let's unite for this project!
Just one amendment: this is not AUXLANG list. But the project seems
interesting.
Yitzik
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:36 am ((PDT))
Here you go: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/resources/mcguffey_one.html
I have used it for various of my conlangs. It's public domain.
--gary
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 7:01 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with some
> of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a constructed
> one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and Bislama will
> also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source
> (CreativeCommons) templates for children's textbooks that will teach them any
> auxlang.
>
> The actions should be the following:
> 1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do:
> Google presentation/document, wiki-page)
> 2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at first.
> 3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles with
> it's own language.
>
>
> The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is developing
> their own project. So let's unite for this project!
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
Posted by: "Gleki Arxokuna" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 9:41 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here you go: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/resources/mcguffey_one.html
>
> I have used it for various of my conlangs. It's public domain.
>
Very nice. What I'm thinking about these days is a picture textbook that
will use direct method of learning so that the text will be written only in
one language, namely the one the textbook is written for. That's the point
of this project.
If you see an image of an apple and below it you see either
"apple" (English)
" è¹æ" (Chinese)
"Ñблоко" (Russian)
no questions arise.
Of course not all concepts can be explained that way. But many can be.
Why not think of them now?
There are already some projects like
Wikijunior<https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior>
.
But they are underdeveloped and are for English mostly.
> --gary
>
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 7:01 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with
> some of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a
> constructed one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and
> Bislama will also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source
> (CreativeCommons) templates for children's textbooks that will teach them
> any auxlang.
> >
> > The actions should be the following:
> > 1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do:
> Google presentation/document, wiki-page)
> > 2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at
> first.
> > 3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles
> with it's own language.
> >
> >
> > The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is
> developing their own project. So let's unite for this project!
>
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Request for a free children's picture textbooks/ABC suitable for
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 10:38 am ((PDT))
Maybe you want something more like this?
http://fiziwig.com/conlang/elomi/imupix01.html
My only other suggestion would be to collect public domain clip art
for the object and actions you wish to portray.
--gary
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Here you go: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/resources/mcguffey_one.html
>>
>> I have used it for various of my conlangs. It's public domain.
>>
>
>
> Very nice. What I'm thinking about these days is a picture textbook that
> will use direct method of learning so that the text will be written only in
> one language, namely the one the textbook is written for. That's the point
> of this project.
>
> If you see an image of an apple and below it you see either
> "apple" (English)
> " è¹æ" (Chinese)
> "Ñблоко" (Russian)
>
> no questions arise.
>
> Of course not all concepts can be explained that way. But many can be.
> Why not think of them now?
> There are already some projects like
> Wikijunior<https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior>
> .
> But they are underdeveloped and are for English mostly.
>
>
>
>> --gary
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 7:01 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > I'm not posting to this group very often. In fact I might not agree with
>> some of you what auxlang will win in the future and whether it'll be a
>> constructed one. But no matter what is your favorite (English, Mandarin and
>> Bislama will also do) I request to organise a search for free open-source
>> (CreativeCommons) templates for children's textbooks that will teach them
>> any auxlang.
>> >
>> > The actions should be the following:
>> > 1. We create a template for the children's textbook (any format will do:
>> Google presentation/document, wiki-page)
>> > 2. We add pictures and text to it. All the titles will be in English at
>> first.
>> > 3. Now every auxlanger can copy this template and replace all the titles
>> with it's own language.
>> >
>> >
>> > The auxlangers' community seems to be split. Almost everyone is
>> developing their own project. So let's unite for this project!
>>
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:35 am ((PDT))
Yes, terrible accessibility. I figured there was some connection. I know
someone cerebral palsy talso. She's an online girl I went to school with.
Please send me the file with phonetic descriptions, thanks. I have some
webpages as favorites that are an IPa reference chart and a Sappa reference
chart that mentions voiceless etc. Not sure if that shows up in print. This
lady Sheri Wells's guide she wrote, links to it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of BPJ
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2013 2:16 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
On 2013-03-23 16:55, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> Thanks. Didn't even know we had IPa Braille.
A terribly heretical thought:
Provided that your ordinary Braille system has a
notation for such 'computerish' symbols as @
(commercial at), & (ampersand) and \ (backslash) you
may be better served by a straight transliteration of
CXS (Conlang X-SAMPA) into your ordinary Braille system
since you then can use the 'same system' for writing
IPA in Braille and when communicating with other
conlangers.
CXS is the system for transliterating IPA into ASCII
which we used extensively on this mailing list before
we could use Unicode, and still occasionally use e.g.
when writing on a smartphone where it is hard to enter
Unicode IPA. CXS is described at
<http://www.theiling.de/ipa/>. (Look at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII> if you don't know
what ASCII is!)
I hope all the tables on that CXS page are accessible
to you. It has tables where each symbol is shown with
the CXS symbol in the top row and the IPA symbol in the
bottom row of a one-column, two-row table inside a cell
of another table, which makes everything very clear for
a sighted person but probably less so with a
screenreader, I'm afraid.
For the purpose of checking the accessibility of
webpages I write myself I installed have a screen
reader 'emulator' which gives a print approximation of
how a screenreader would render a page, and it does not
make the CXS page look promising!
If you like I can write up, or rather have the computer
write up, a list of all CXS symbols and their
corresponding Unicode characters along with their
Unicode character names and their phonetic description.
It's not something I will have time to do right away
but I have anyway planned to do something like that for
a computer program I've been meaning to write.
Ideally a screenreader would say "voiceless
palatoalveolar fricative" when it sees an Ê, or even
synthesize the sound from the Unicode symbol, but I
don't know if that could be set up. As you have
probably seen the IPA Braille page Garth linked to has
links to instructions for setting up screenreaders to
handle Unicode IPA.
In case you wonder I care about accessibility
because I have cerebral palsy myself and one of my
friends is color blind. That has heightened my
awareness. I guess a lot of modern webpages are
terrible from a screenreader point of view. They
certainly are when it comes to navigate with the
keyboard rather than a mouse!
Regards,
/bpj
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Garth Wallace
> Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 10:49 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
>
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:15 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I'll look for that as well. I'll try audio first, and Braille as a last
>> resort.
>
>
> Speaking of braille, you might find this link handy:
> http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reng/BrlIPA.html
>
> It's about IPA Braille in particular, and IPA accessibility in
> general. I can't personally vouch for it, but it seems promising.
>
Messages in this topic (28)
________________________________________________________________________
3.2. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:35 am ((PDT))
Thanks for the help.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of BPJ
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2013 2:16 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
On 2013-03-23 16:55, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> Thanks. Didn't even know we had IPa Braille.
A terribly heretical thought:
Provided that your ordinary Braille system has a
notation for such 'computerish' symbols as @
(commercial at), & (ampersand) and \ (backslash) you
may be better served by a straight transliteration of
CXS (Conlang X-SAMPA) into your ordinary Braille system
since you then can use the 'same system' for writing
IPA in Braille and when communicating with other
conlangers.
CXS is the system for transliterating IPA into ASCII
which we used extensively on this mailing list before
we could use Unicode, and still occasionally use e.g.
when writing on a smartphone where it is hard to enter
Unicode IPA. CXS is described at
<http://www.theiling.de/ipa/>. (Look at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII> if you don't know
what ASCII is!)
I hope all the tables on that CXS page are accessible
to you. It has tables where each symbol is shown with
the CXS symbol in the top row and the IPA symbol in the
bottom row of a one-column, two-row table inside a cell
of another table, which makes everything very clear for
a sighted person but probably less so with a
screenreader, I'm afraid.
For the purpose of checking the accessibility of
webpages I write myself I installed have a screen
reader 'emulator' which gives a print approximation of
how a screenreader would render a page, and it does not
make the CXS page look promising!
If you like I can write up, or rather have the computer
write up, a list of all CXS symbols and their
corresponding Unicode characters along with their
Unicode character names and their phonetic description.
It's not something I will have time to do right away
but I have anyway planned to do something like that for
a computer program I've been meaning to write.
Ideally a screenreader would say "voiceless
palatoalveolar fricative" when it sees an Ê, or even
synthesize the sound from the Unicode symbol, but I
don't know if that could be set up. As you have
probably seen the IPA Braille page Garth linked to has
links to instructions for setting up screenreaders to
handle Unicode IPA.
In case you wonder I care about accessibility
because I have cerebral palsy myself and one of my
friends is color blind. That has heightened my
awareness. I guess a lot of modern webpages are
terrible from a screenreader point of view. They
certainly are when it comes to navigate with the
keyboard rather than a mouse!
Regards,
/bpj
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Garth Wallace
> Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 10:49 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
>
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:15 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I'll look for that as well. I'll try audio first, and Braille as a last
>> resort.
>
>
> Speaking of braille, you might find this link handy:
> http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reng/BrlIPA.html
>
> It's about IPA Braille in particular, and IPA accessibility in
> general. I can't personally vouch for it, but it seems promising.
>
Messages in this topic (28)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4.1. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:50 am ((PDT))
David McCann, On 23/03/2013 16:34:
> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:50:47 +0000
> R A Brown<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> How does one analyze _sing ~ sang ~ sung_ morphemically?
First one would have to demonstrate the validity of analysing anything
morphemically. The definition of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful unit of
form rests on the presupposition that some units of form have meaning. For me,
"morpheme" is the most perplexing term in the whole of linguistics, being
neither obviously valid and useful nor obviously invalid and useless.
> The 1940s structuralists like Harris would say
> sang = sing + PAST
> where "sang" is an allomorph of "sing" and PAST has a zero allomorph.
> The problem then was that they'd defined a morpheme as a set of
> allomorphs in complementary distribution. So how do you study the
> distribution of zero?
>
> A better approach would be to say that the word "sang" is exponent of
> the lexeme "sing" in the context +PAST, while PAST has no exponent in
> the context +sing.
>
> Generative linguistics would have yet another description. The
> assumption (common to Harris and Chomsky) that any descriptive
> technique is the only true method and applicable to all languages
> is one that I find unconvincing.
>
> My favourite book on the subject is Morphilogy, by P. H. Matthews.
In my current thinking, I take the stem of lexeme {SING} to consist of a
sequence of morphonemes (as all stems do): //s . IAU . n . g//, where the
morphoneme //IAU//, which also occurs in stems of {DRINK}, {SINK} etc., is a
set of syntactically-conditioned (rather than phonologically- or
morphologically- conditioned) alternate phonemes /i, a, 3/, with /i/ the
default and /a, 3/ the ones conditioned by certain syntactic factors.
--And.
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
4.2. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:55 am ((PDT))
You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/ where _ is /i/ ~ /@/ ~
/^/. You lose me with the assertion that you slipped in there that the {g}
is a morpheme separate from the {n}, when to my mind they're clearly just
an orthographic convention for representing /N/. Also, I don't imagine
what {s}, {n}, or {g} contributes to the word that /s_N/ doesn't.
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:50 AM, And Rosta <[email protected]> wrote:
> David McCann, On 23/03/2013 16:34:
>
> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:50:47 +0000
>> R A Brown<[email protected]**> wrote:
>>
>> How does one analyze _sing ~ sang ~ sung_ morphemically?
>>>
>>
> First one would have to demonstrate the validity of analysing anything
> morphemically. The definition of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful unit
> of form rests on the presupposition that some units of form have meaning.
> For me, "morpheme" is the most perplexing term in the whole of linguistics,
> being neither obviously valid and useful nor obviously invalid and useless.
>
>
> The 1940s structuralists like Harris would say
>> sang = sing + PAST
>> where "sang" is an allomorph of "sing" and PAST has a zero allomorph.
>> The problem then was that they'd defined a morpheme as a set of
>> allomorphs in complementary distribution. So how do you study the
>> distribution of zero?
>>
>> A better approach would be to say that the word "sang" is exponent of
>> the lexeme "sing" in the context +PAST, while PAST has no exponent in
>> the context +sing.
>>
>> Generative linguistics would have yet another description. The
>> assumption (common to Harris and Chomsky) that any descriptive
>> technique is the only true method and applicable to all languages
>> is one that I find unconvincing.
>>
>> My favourite book on the subject is Morphilogy, by P. H. Matthews.
>>
>
> In my current thinking, I take the stem of lexeme {SING} to consist of a
> sequence of morphonemes (as all stems do): //s . IAU . n . g//, where the
> morphoneme //IAU//, which also occurs in stems of {DRINK}, {SINK} etc., is
> a set of syntactically-conditioned (rather than phonologically- or
> morphologically- conditioned) alternate phonemes /i, a, 3/, with /i/ the
> default and /a, 3/ the ones conditioned by certain syntactic factors.
>
> --And.
>
--
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 (41)
________________________________________________________________________
4.3. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:08 am ((PDT))
That such a thing is possible is, of course, shown by the existence of the
Afro-Asiatic family, the Semitic subgroup of which, in particular, has forms
like Hebrew /yom/, "day", /yanim/, "days", generalising even to loans in some
cases (e.g. Arabic /bank/, as English, vs. /bunuk/, "banks". In the former case
the lexeme could be said to be //y . OA . m//, in the latter //b UA . N . UÃ .
K//
Sent from my iPhone
On 24 Mar 2013, at 14:54, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/ where _ is /i/ ~ /@/ ~
> /^/. You lose me with the assertion that you slipped in there that the {g}
> is a morpheme separate from the {n}, when to my mind they're clearly just
> an orthographic convention for representing /N/. Also, I don't imagine
> what {s}, {n}, or {g} contributes to the word that /s_N/ doesn't.
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:50 AM, And Rosta <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> David McCann, On 23/03/2013 16:34:
>>
>> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:50:47 +0000
>>> R A Brown<[email protected]**> wrote:
>>>
>>> How does one analyze _sing ~ sang ~ sung_ morphemically?
>> First one would have to demonstrate the validity of analysing anything
>> morphemically. The definition of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful unit
>> of form rests on the presupposition that some units of form have meaning.
>> For me, "morpheme" is the most perplexing term in the whole of linguistics,
>> being neither obviously valid and useful nor obviously invalid and useless.
>>
>>
>> The 1940s structuralists like Harris would say
>>> sang = sing + PAST
>>> where "sang" is an allomorph of "sing" and PAST has a zero allomorph.
>>> The problem then was that they'd defined a morpheme as a set of
>>> allomorphs in complementary distribution. So how do you study the
>>> distribution of zero?
>>>
>>> A better approach would be to say that the word "sang" is exponent of
>>> the lexeme "sing" in the context +PAST, while PAST has no exponent in
>>> the context +sing.
>>>
>>> Generative linguistics would have yet another description. The
>>> assumption (common to Harris and Chomsky) that any descriptive
>>> technique is the only true method and applicable to all languages
>>> is one that I find unconvincing.
>>>
>>> My favourite book on the subject is Morphilogy, by P. H. Matthews.
>>
>> In my current thinking, I take the stem of lexeme {SING} to consist of a
>> sequence of morphonemes (as all stems do): //s . IAU . n . g//, where the
>> morphoneme //IAU//, which also occurs in stems of {DRINK}, {SINK} etc., is
>> a set of syntactically-conditioned (rather than phonologically- or
>> morphologically- conditioned) alternate phonemes /i, a, 3/, with /i/ the
>> default and /a, 3/ the ones conditioned by certain syntactic factors.
>>
>> --And.
>
>
>
> --
> 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 (41)
________________________________________________________________________
4.4. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 9:12 am ((PDT))
On 24/03/2013 14:50, And Rosta wrote:
[snip]
>> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:50:47 +0000 R A Brown wrote:
>>
>>> How does one analyze _sing ~ sang ~ sung_
>>> morphemically?
>
> First one would have to demonstrate the validity of
> analysing anything morphemically.
Yes, without going quite so far, I am of the mind that while
morphemic analysis can be useful for agglutinative
languages, it is not a universal. You may recall that I
said something similar about phonemic analysis not so long ago.
Use the analysis where it is useful; but remember that it is
only one of a possible set of tool, and don't use it where
another tool is useful.
> The definition of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful
> unit of form rests on the presupposition that some units
> of form have meaning.
Yes, and I've already rejected that one. The only definition
of 'morpheme' that makes sense to me is that given by the
late Larry Trask: "The minimal grammatical unit; the
smallest unit which plays any part in morphology and which
cannot be further decomposed except in phonological or
semantic terms."
I find the Wikipedia article unsatisfactory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme
...and reject its first sentence.
I've already pointed out that some morphemes in fusional
languages, at least, can be decomposed semantically, so they
can hardly be the smallest unit of meaning.
> For me, "morpheme" is the most perplexing term in the
> whole of linguistics, being neither obviously valid and
> useful nor obviously invalid and useless.
They are pesky critters - no doubt about it :)
[snip]
>
> In my current thinking, I take the stem of lexeme {SING}
> to consist of a sequence of morphonemes (as all stems
> do)
Possibly - but _morphoneme_ is not given by Trask, nor does
David crystal give it in his 'Dictionary of Linguistics and
Phonetics', so I suspect the term will not be too familiar
to many on this list ;)
As far I can make out, the term comes theories of the Prague
School Morphonology. But as Trubetzkoy and UÅaszyn (who
AIUI first coined the word) differ in their use of the word,
maybe some explanation would help. I _think_ you are using
in Trubetzkoy's sense.
: //s
> . IAU . n . g//, where the morphoneme //IAU//, which also
> occurs in stems of {DRINK}, {SINK} etc., is a set of
> syntactically-conditioned (rather than phonologically- or
> morphologically- conditioned) alternate phonemes /i, a,
> 3/, with /i/ the default and /a, 3/ the ones conditioned
> by certain syntactic factors.
Interesting.
===========================================================
On 24/03/2013 14:54, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/ where
> _ is /i/ ~ /@/ ~ /^/. You lose me with the assertion
> that you slipped in there that the {g} is a morpheme
> separate from the {n}, when to my mind they're clearly
> just an orthographic convention for representing /N/.
> Also, I don't imagine what {s}, {n}, or {g} contributes
> to the word that /s_N/ doesn't.
But And did _not_ say that {g} is a morpheme! He was
speaking of _morphonemes_ which are different critters from
morphemes.
In most contemporary varieties of English _ng_ is more often
an orthographic convention for [Å] (but certainly not
always, cf. finger, longer etc.]. But some Brit English
varieties do, in fact, pronounce _sing_ as [sɪÅg]. The
phonemic status of [Å] is debatable.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
4.5. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2013 9:20 am ((PDT))
Oooh! I read "morphoneme" as "morpheme."
What the hell is a morphoneme?
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:06 AM, R A Brown <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 24/03/2013 14:50, And Rosta wrote:
> [snip]
>
> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:50:47 +0000 R A Brown wrote:
>>>
>>> How does one analyze _sing ~ sang ~ sung_
>>>> morphemically?
>>>>
>>>
>> First one would have to demonstrate the validity of
>> analysing anything morphemically.
>>
>
> Yes, without going quite so far, I am of the mind that while
> morphemic analysis can be useful for agglutinative
> languages, it is not a universal. You may recall that I
> said something similar about phonemic analysis not so long ago.
>
> Use the analysis where it is useful; but remember that it is
> only one of a possible set of tool, and don't use it where
> another tool is useful.
>
>
> The definition of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful
>> unit of form rests on the presupposition that some units
>> of form have meaning.
>>
>
> Yes, and I've already rejected that one. The only definition
> of 'morpheme' that makes sense to me is that given by the
> late Larry Trask: "The minimal grammatical unit; the
> smallest unit which plays any part in morphology and which
> cannot be further decomposed except in phonological or
> semantic terms."
>
> I find the Wikipedia article unsatisfactory:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Morpheme<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme>
>
> ...and reject its first sentence.
>
> I've already pointed out that some morphemes in fusional
> languages, at least, can be decomposed semantically, so they
> can hardly be the smallest unit of meaning.
>
>
> For me, "morpheme" is the most perplexing term in the
>> whole of linguistics, being neither obviously valid and
>> useful nor obviously invalid and useless.
>>
>
> They are pesky critters - no doubt about it :)
>
> [snip]
>
>
>> In my current thinking, I take the stem of lexeme {SING}
>> to consist of a sequence of morphonemes (as all stems
>> do)
>>
>
> Possibly - but _morphoneme_ is not given by Trask, nor does
> David crystal give it in his 'Dictionary of Linguistics and
> Phonetics', so I suspect the term will not be too familiar
> to many on this list ;)
>
> As far I can make out, the term comes theories of the Prague
> School Morphonology. But as Trubetzkoy and UÅaszyn (who
> AIUI first coined the word) differ in their use of the word,
> maybe some explanation would help. I _think_ you are using
> in Trubetzkoy's sense.
>
>
> : //s
>
>> . IAU . n . g//, where the morphoneme //IAU//, which also
>> occurs in stems of {DRINK}, {SINK} etc., is a set of
>> syntactically-conditioned (rather than phonologically- or
>> morphologically- conditioned) alternate phonemes /i, a,
>> 3/, with /i/ the default and /a, 3/ the ones conditioned
>> by certain syntactic factors.
>>
>
> Interesting.
> ==============================**=============================
>
>
> On 24/03/2013 14:54, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
>> You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/ where
>> _ is /i/ ~ /@/ ~ /^/. You lose me with the assertion
>> that you slipped in there that the {g} is a morpheme
>> separate from the {n}, when to my mind they're clearly
>> just an orthographic convention for representing /N/.
>> Also, I don't imagine what {s}, {n}, or {g} contributes
>> to the word that /s_N/ doesn't.
>>
>
> But And did _not_ say that {g} is a morpheme! He was
> speaking of _morphonemes_ which are different critters from
> morphemes.
>
> In most contemporary varieties of English _ng_ is more often
> an orthographic convention for [Å] (but certainly not
> always, cf. finger, longer etc.]. But some Brit English
> varieties do, in fact, pronounce _sing_ as [sɪÅg]. The
> phonemic status of [Å] is debatable.
>
>
> --
> Ray
> ==============================**====
> http://www.carolandray.plus.**com <http://www.carolandray.plus.com>
> ==============================**====
> "language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
> for individual beings and events."
> [Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
>
--
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 (41)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
