There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: And Rosta
1.2. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: R A Brown
1.3. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Roger Mills
1.4. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: R A Brown
1.5. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Leonardo Castro
1.6. Re: Pesky morphemes
From: Patrick Dunn
2a. Re: OT: Fieldwork terminology for a story
From: Roger Mills
3a. Re: Creating a Conlang with homophones
From: Roger Mills
3b. Re: Creating a Conlang with homophones
From: Jim Henry
4.1. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
From: Jim Henry
4.2. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
From: Jyri Lehtinen
5a. A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
From: Gary Shannon
5b. Re: A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
From: Patrick Dunn
5c. Re: A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
From: H. S. Teoh
6. 12 types of language
From: Mathieu Roy
Messages
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1.1. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:41 am ((PDT))
R A Brown, On 25/03/2013 08:42:
> On 25/03/2013 00:06, And Rosta wrote:
>> Patrick Dunn, On 24/03/2013 16:20:
> [snip]
>>>
>>> What the hell is a morphoneme?
>>
>> A morphophoneme, understood as a group of variant
>> phonological forms (phonemes, phoneme sequences) that
>> might be (i) phonologically conditioned, like /s, z,
>> @z~iz/ for English Z-suffix, (ii) morphologically
>> conditioned, like the C in -ic/-icity or the I in
>> divine/divinity, (iii) syntactically conditioned. (ii)
>> is the core class; I'm dubious about (i), and (iii) is
>> not a standard view.
>>
>> Morphonemes that consist of a single variant are
>> equivalent to phonemes. So //s . IAU . n . g // means "a
>> sequence of /s/ + /i/ or /a/ or /3/ + /n/ + /g/". It
>> wasn't the point of my post to discuss /N/, but I am of
>> the school of thought that holds that English has no /N/
>> phoneme, only /n g/ (Sapir, Edward (1925) Sound patterns
>> in language. Language 1, 3751).
>
> OK - to avoid turning a thread about morph(on)emes into 'yet
> another English phonology thread', let's take instead: swim
> ~ swam ~ swum. Then we have //s.w.IAU.m//.
>
> That makes sense for English 'strong verbs'. But how does
> the morphonemic approach deal with the equivalent forms of
> 'weak' and 'mixed' verbs, e.g.
> love ~ loved ~ loved
> buy ~ bought ~ bought
It hadn't occurred to me to try to handle all variation among inflectional
forms as morphonemic alternation. So for {LOVE} you just add /d/ (or maybe
//D// = /d, id/) to the stem in syntactically preterite contexts to yield the
wordshape. For -ought verbs, you replace the final rime by -ought in preterite
contexts. No morphonemes involved here. Nor any morphemes, since no rule of
grammar attributes meaning or function directly to the 'morphs' -ed or -ought.
--And.
Messages in this topic (49)
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1.2. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:04 am ((PDT))
On 25/03/2013 13:41, And Rosta wrote:
> R A Brown, On 25/03/2013 08:42:
[snip]
>>
>> OK - to avoid turning a thread about morph(on)emes
>> into 'yet another English phonology thread', let's
>> take instead: swim ~ swam ~ swum. Then we have
>> //s.w.IAU.m//.
>>
>> That makes sense for English 'strong verbs'. But how
>> does the morphonemic approach deal with the equivalent
>> forms of 'weak' and 'mixed' verbs, e.g. love ~ loved ~
>> loved buy ~ bought ~ bought
>
> It hadn't occurred to me to try to handle all variation
> among inflectional forms as morphonemic alternation. So
> for {LOVE} you just add /d/ (or maybe //D// = /d, id/)
> to the stem in syntactically preterite contexts to yield
> the wordshape.
So basically we're back to good old fashioned morphemes
here. But, of course, -(e)d ending is not only in preterite
contexts, but also in perfect participle contexts (whereas
_swam_ and _swum_ distinguish the two contexts).
> For -ought verbs, you replace the final rime by -ought in
> preterite contexts. No morphonemes involved here. Nor any
> morphemes, since no rule of grammar attributes meaning or
> function directly to the 'morphs' -ed or -ought.
While the 'traditional' morphemic approach takes -(e)d as a
morpheme, which has grammatical function (and, according to
some, tho not me, is a "unit of meaning"), unless I've
misunderstood (which is possible), the traditional morphemic
analysis of 'bought' is _boug.t_, where -t is a variant of
the -(e)d morpheme, and, I guess, _bough-_ a variant of
_buy_. I wondered if, at least, we might have morphonemic
//b.UY,OUGH// ??
The verb _see, saw, seen_ would seem to have at least
//s.EE,AW// (the comma is probably not the correct symbol)
I guess I'm trying to get a unified way of describing what
happens to English verbs in a preterite and in a perfect
participle context.
I was doing this with English verbs in order to get a better
idea how to describe the Latin verbal stems, e.g. see:
vidÄ ~ vÄ«d ~ vÄ«s
break: frang ~ frÄg ~ frÄct
love: amÄ ~ amÄv ~ amÄt
etc.
The morphemic approach poses problems, and the morphonemic
approach doesn't appear any more helpful ;)
--
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 (49)
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1.3. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:49 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 3/25/13, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
From: R A Brown <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Pesky morphemes
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, March 25, 2013, 4:42 AM
On 25/03/2013 00:06, And Rosta wrote:
>
> A morphophoneme, understood as a group of variant
> phonological forms (phonemes, phoneme sequences) that
> might be (i) phonologically conditioned, like /s, z,
> @z~iz/ for English Z-suffix, (ii) morphologically
> conditioned, like the C in -ic/-icity or the I in
> divine/divinity, (iii) syntactically conditioned. (ii)
> is the core class; I'm dubious about (i), and (iii) is
> not a standard view.
OK - to avoid turning a thread about morph(on)emes into 'yet
another English phonology thread', let's take instead: swim
~ swam ~ swum. Then we have //s.w.IAU.m//.
That makes sense for English 'strong verbs'. But how does
the morphonemic approach deal with the equivalent forms of
'weak' and 'mixed' verbs, e.g.
love ~ loved ~ loved
buy ~ bought ~ bought
============================================
Exactly. I think that's where the idea falls flat on its face :-)))
And IIRC, "swum" was not considered "correct" when I was in grade school many
years ago....
And the "wrong" assignment of a morphophoneme can lead to interesting
situations--
bring, brang, brung
think,.....thunk (this for humor mostly I guess)
and how could it possibly account for be, am/are, was/were, been? (And it's
even worse in German!!!)
Of course, there are historical reasons for things like bring, brought, and
think, thought, and buy, bought, and all the other strong verbs -- but they are
no longer operative so the alternation just has to be learned and hopefully
internalized.
(And Rosta's (i) and (ii) are easily handled by phonological rules.)
Messages in this topic (49)
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1.4. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:12 pm ((PDT))
On 25/03/2013 16:48, Roger Mills wrote:
> --- On Mon, 3/25/13, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
>
> OK - to avoid turning a thread about morph(on)emes into
> 'yet another English phonology thread', let's take
> instead: swim ~ swam ~ swum. Then we have
> //s.w.IAU.m//.
>
> That makes sense for English 'strong verbs'. But how
> does the morphonemic approach deal with the equivalent
> forms of 'weak' and 'mixed' verbs, e.g. love ~ loved ~
> loved buy ~ bought ~ bought
> ============================================
>
> Exactly. I think that's where the idea falls flat on its
> face :-)))
>
> And IIRC, "swum" was not considered "correct" when I was
> in grade school many years ago....
I consulted Chambers English Dictionary and it gives 'swam'
for the preterite, i.e. "he swam in the river yesterday",
and _swum_ as the perfect participle, i.e. "She has swum
five lengths of the pool."
It does not that _swum_ as preterite is archaic, and that
Shakespeare used _swam_ as a past participle :;
> And the "wrong" assignment of a morphophoneme can lead
> to interesting situations--
>
> bring, brang, brung
I've not come across 'brang' (I think), but I have come
across 'brung.'
> think,.....thunk (this for humormostly I guess)
I think always humorously. But i don't want to get into a
discuss of dialect forms of English strong & mixed verbs,
fascinating tho it may be. Basically the same problems
remain as to how the different forms are described
linguistically.
> and how could it possibly account for be, am/are,
> was/were, been? (And it's even worse in German!!!)
Yep - the verb "to be" is always going to be an odd ball.
But any satisfactory description needs to be able to cope
with suppletion, as e.g.: go ~ went ~ gone
Or Latin stems: _fer_ ~ tul ~ lÄt "bear, carry"
> Of course, there are historical reasons for things like
> bring, brought, and think, thought, and buy, bought, and
> all the other strong verbs
Yes, and in the case English we know the history.
> -- but they are no longer operative so the alternation
> just has to be learned and hopefully internalized.
Exactly! What i am after is a satisfactory _synchronic_
description.
> (And Rosta's (i) and (ii) are easily handled by
> phonological rules.)
Sure.
--
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 (49)
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1.5. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:26 pm ((PDT))
2013/3/24 Patrick Dunn <[email protected]>:
> You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/
Yes. Why should morphemes be always continuous?
> 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.
Messages in this topic (49)
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1.6. Re: Pesky morphemes
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:40 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 3:26 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> 2013/3/24 Patrick Dunn <[email protected]>:
> > You win me over with the idea that "sing" is /s_N/
>
> Yes. Why should morphemes be always continuous?
>
>
Exactly. They're clearly not, or Semitic languages wouldn't work at all.
Messages in this topic (49)
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2a. Re: OT: Fieldwork terminology for a story
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:53 am ((PDT))
I've noticed the change in terminology over the years. When I came along, in
the late 60s/early 70s, _informant_ was just about the only term used.
Gradually I''ve seen _consultant_ take over. At first I thought it was some
sort of PC-ism, but even in my experience, I worked with several people who
were indeed "consultants" (and so acknowledged them in my diss.), in that they
were truly experts in their languages. Others, however, were just answering my
questions (and incidentally picking up a little English in the process); but
nowadays, when I remember :-(, I use consultant.
--- On Sun, 3/24/13, Dirk Elzinga <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Dirk Elzinga <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: OT: Fieldwork terminology for a story
To: [email protected]
Date: Sunday, March 24, 2013, 8:35 PM
I always refer to the people I work with as "consultants." It seems to
capture the relationship well; they have specialized knowledge that I would
like to know, and I'm willing to compensate them for their time and
expertise. The term "informant" is still used, but I don't like the
connotations of passivity that the term carries. (A couple of decades ago,
and maybe still in some parts of the world, it could also carry dangerous
political connotations, especially if the field linguist was American.)
Some linguists have even gone so far as to refer to the people they work
with as "teacher," but that doesn't describe *my* working relationship with
them, no matter how much I am learning.
Informally, I refer to them as "friends," because that's what they
are/become to me.
Dirk
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Leland Paul Kusmer <[email protected]>wrote:
> When I took my first field methods class (not too long ago), we
> consistently talked about our speakers as "informants", so that is still in
> common use. That said, there tends to be a move these days towards getting
> speakers more involved (i.e. involved as more than just research subjects,
> often as language activists or documenters in their own right),
> particularly in endangered language work, which is the domain that
> "consultant" is definitely the most PC term. (I use consultant myself, when
> I remember.)
>
> -Leland
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 3:52 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I am writing an indeterminate-future short story featuring a field
> > linguist, and I'm curious what y'all's thoughts might be on terminology
> to
> > use, particularly those on the list who are trained linguists.
> >
> > My understanding is that a field linguist's contacts within a speech
> > community are traditionally called "informants", but recently I have read
> > that there is some debate as to whether this term is appropriate, as it
> > might have negative connotations among the lay public, or feel too
> > impersonal. I'm currently vacillating as to whether my linguist
> character
> > should be using "informant" or another alternative (I'm currently writing
> > the story using the term "consultant").
> >
> > I'll note that I am not doing any conlanging for this book, but there is
> an
> > alien language featured (it is a signed language, and no actual words of
> > this language will appear in the text). As the language itself is not
> > driving the plot, I only have a rough idea of what it will be, and
> haven't
> > even really thought about how it will differ from human languages (other
> > than a small bit of phonetics, of course -- these creatures have two
> > forelimbs and two antennae that are used in production).
> >
> > Any and all suggestions welcome.
> >
>
Messages in this topic (9)
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3a. Re: Creating a Conlang with homophones
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:24 am ((PDT))
--- On Sun, 3/24/13, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
I'd say it's theoretically possible, but deeply unlikely for a language to
have no homophones or homonyms. Languages are always changing, both on the
level of sound and on the level of meaning, and so even if it was at one
stage without homophones or homonyms, all its takes is one generation to
drop a sound or two, or change a sound, or shift the meaning of a word, for
that to no longer be true.
=================================================
Indeed. Also, the derivational system(s) can result in homophones. INdonesian
has a number of prefixes that end in an underlying nasal, such that e.g. peN +
m..... and peN + p.... both become pem.....; similarly in Kash, with its
various sandhi rules that affect both prefixes and compounds. And it's
possible, maybe even likely, that speakers, over time, will extract the "wrong"
base from a prefixed form. I've often done this deliberately, eg. Kash _lica_
'cut' > aN+lica /andica/ 'thing that cuts i.e. knife', but then we have _tica_
'knife' because of the colloq. tendency to prefer bisyllables for basic nouns.
(In Kash, ...N+ t, n, l all > /-nd-/, N + p, m, v, n etc., so there's lots of
potential for homophones. When creating base forms, I try to avoid such
situations, but sometimes I just like the sound ~ rightness of a new form, so
let the chips fall where they will :-)))))
Also, often the homophones simply can't occur in the same places. In Engl. no
one confuses "so" and "sew", or "made" and "maid", etc. and even things like
"I have to."
"I have, too."
"I have two."
are usually distinguished by stress/intonation.
But even words that are just near-homophones get confused, esp. (I've noticed)
"gibe" and "jive", "rack" and "wrack" (the latter admittedly rare), and the
egregious use-- sometimes even in places where a good copy editor ought to have
caught it-- of "loose" for "lose".
Messages in this topic (5)
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3b. Re: Creating a Conlang with homophones
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:39 am ((PDT))
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> Also, often the homophones simply can't occur in the same places. In Engl. no
> one confuses "so" and "sew", or "made" and "maid", etc. and even things like
>
> "I have to."
> "I have, too."
> "I have two."
>
> are usually distinguished by stress/intonation.
Also, at least in my lect, the first becomes /h&f.tu/ while the latter
two are /h&v.tu/ with different stress.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (5)
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4.1. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:33 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Jyri Lehtinen <[email protected]> wrote:
> an acceptable loan is a complicated matter and defeats me. An example is
> that last week when giving a lecture I used the phrase _konstruktiivinen
> interferenssi_ ("constructive interference"). Immediately after this I was
> appalled at using a word like _konstruktiivinen_ instead of a translation
> of it. On the other hand I had no strong feelings about using the word
> _interferenssi_. The two words are equally modern technical loans and I
Are any or all of /nstr/, /kt/, /nt/ or /rf/ atypical or anomalous
consonant clusters in Finnish?
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (45)
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4.2. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 11:46 am ((PDT))
2013/3/25 Jim Henry <[email protected]>
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Jyri Lehtinen <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > an acceptable loan is a complicated matter and defeats me. An example is
> > that last week when giving a lecture I used the phrase _konstruktiivinen
> > interferenssi_ ("constructive interference"). Immediately after this I
> was
> > appalled at using a word like _konstruktiivinen_ instead of a translation
> > of it. On the other hand I had no strong feelings about using the word
> > _interferenssi_. The two words are equally modern technical loans and I
>
> Are any or all of /nstr/, /kt/, /nt/ or /rf/ atypical or anomalous
> consonant clusters in Finnish?
>
Oh yes, there's a lot of foreign phonotactics here. From these you find
natively only /nt/ and there is no /f/ nor any four consonant clusters in
words that aren't new loans. But phonetics can't explain a whole lot about
loaning tendencies. If you are going to loan a word that badly conflicts
with the phonotactics of your own language the word will bend. And if you
get a constant stream of them they might start to alter the phonotactics of
the language.
Things that seem more important for me include whether the word has an easy
translation or not. This means that some specific and often abstract
technical terms are very naturally loaned while for other concepts it seems
much more natural to use a natively built construction that already fits
into the language. Another thing that affects is whether the loan has
gained broad acceptance or not. This argument makes a circle though, and
doesn't really explain any causes.
There are certainly strong cultural differences between how different
speaking communities view loaning. I happen to come from one where it's not
uncommon for lay people to have strong opinions about the "purity" of
language. We certainly found it very easy to ridicule at French for
learning words like _le week-end_ from our high school French book.
-Jyri
Messages in this topic (45)
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5a. A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:15 pm ((PDT))
Imagine a conlang built on the principles of a philosophical language
consisting of monosyllabic words with broad basic meanings. However,
in getting from the protolang to the "finished" conlang you would use
processes of fusion, erosion, vowel mutation, etc., that would
eventually completely disguise the philosophical nature of the roots.
The initial roots would be monosyllabic names of concrete objects,
actions, and parts of objects like body parts. The lexicon would be
completely concrete with no words for abstract concepts like
"happiness", or "friendship", and no adjectives or adverbs, let alone
prepositions or articles. Verb tenses would, of course, be out of the
question. There might not even be any pronouns to begin with, and
counting words might be initially limited to "one, two, three, many".
The lexicon should probably contain pointing words "this" (near me),
"that" (near you), "yonder" (far from both of us), also monosyllabic.
Sentences would consist of agent/subject before object/patient with
action either between those two or after both, with no initial
preference for either. Two or more consecutive sentences that share
the same agent/subject could be chained together with a comma
replacing the repeated agent/subject. That way "Man walk. Man leave
hut. Man come river." could be condensed into "Man walk, leave hut,
come river." That would be the only sentence template initially
defined.
Words may only be coined by putting together philosophical roots, but
other processes can then be applied to the result. Words may also be
put together in set phrases which can then become idioms which might
then be shortened or simplified to create new words. Words can change
roles so that "Man walk, leave hut, come river." could come, after
many centuries, to mean "Man walk from hut to river." as the original
monosyllable "leave" ends up being used as if it were a preposition
"from". Perhaps with another new coinage to replace the verb "leave"
with the compound "go-leave" where the word for "leave" has come to
mean "from". Likewise, "come" eventually takes on the meaning "to", so
that "come river" eventually means "to river".
Abstract nouns like "friendship" and "beauty" would initially be
created with compound words or set phrases used metaphorically.
Adjectives would come from concrete nouns used as exemplars of the
trait described. "leaf" or "grass" might be used to mean "green", and
"elephant" might be used for "large". Later, those words my experience
vowel shifts when used in an adjectival sense in order to distinguish
them from the concrete objects, but their roots in the concrete might
still be detectable. In any case it should be possible to document the
history of a word back to its original protolang monosyllables, even
if the final word no longer bears any resemblance to its original
roots.
For example, suppose the pointing word "ho" means "this/here", and the
word "yi" means "person". We could coin a first person singular
pronoun from the set phrase "ho yi" = "this person" Later that might
be eroded to "hoi", and later still to "oi". Only the vowels remain
from the original "ho yi", but the conlang now has a first person
singular pronoun with a documented pedigree, rather than some
arbitrary word coined out of thin air.
Similarly, "you" might begin as "ta yi" = "that (near you) person",
and "he/she" might be "pen yi" for "yonder person". Later, "ta yi"
might, over many centuries, become "tai" -> "tau" -> "dau" as long as
each step is something that can be justified in some reasonable
manner, and is not just some radical, arbitrary change. "this", "that"
and "yonder" might diverge further from "me", "you", and "he" by
compounding with "thing" to become "this thing" ("hojin"), "that
thing" ("tajin"), and "yonder thing" ("penji"), and the original
"this/that/yon" ("ho/ta/pen") might fade from use and disappear from
the modern language entirely.
In every case, new coinages must come from using what already exists.
Likewise, novel grammatical structures should be derived by simple
steps from the existing grammar. "I use ax. I chop tree." condenses to
"I use ax, chop tree." Shifting emphasis to the tree, and reducing the
prominence of "ax" might give "I chop tree, use ax.", slightly
demoting "use" to the effective role of a preposition. Eventually, the
monosyllable for "use" begins, functionally, to look more like a word
for "with", we could allow the sentence "I chop tree with ax." to
emerge as a natural consequence of the changing role of the
monosyllable for "use/with".
If you want a definite article, then you will have to derive it from a
pointing word, or an emphasis word (which might have to be created via
metaphorical use of some concrete root). But what you can't do is just
declare _ex catherdra_ that the definite article exists and is spelled
"la".
Anyway, that's my morning random brain dump.
--gary
Messages in this topic (3)
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5b. Re: A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:39 pm ((PDT))
I love this idea, and it's one that occurred to me before. I even tried to
codify a little game for it, which I called oligame: you'd start with a
limited number of roots, and then use them to derive a language. I never
got much beyond mulling it over, though.
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> Imagine a conlang built on the principles of a philosophical language
> consisting of monosyllabic words with broad basic meanings. However,
> in getting from the protolang to the "finished" conlang you would use
> processes of fusion, erosion, vowel mutation, etc., that would
> eventually completely disguise the philosophical nature of the roots.
>
> The initial roots would be monosyllabic names of concrete objects,
> actions, and parts of objects like body parts. The lexicon would be
> completely concrete with no words for abstract concepts like
> "happiness", or "friendship", and no adjectives or adverbs, let alone
> prepositions or articles. Verb tenses would, of course, be out of the
> question. There might not even be any pronouns to begin with, and
> counting words might be initially limited to "one, two, three, many".
> The lexicon should probably contain pointing words "this" (near me),
> "that" (near you), "yonder" (far from both of us), also monosyllabic.
>
> Sentences would consist of agent/subject before object/patient with
> action either between those two or after both, with no initial
> preference for either. Two or more consecutive sentences that share
> the same agent/subject could be chained together with a comma
> replacing the repeated agent/subject. That way "Man walk. Man leave
> hut. Man come river." could be condensed into "Man walk, leave hut,
> come river." That would be the only sentence template initially
> defined.
>
> Words may only be coined by putting together philosophical roots, but
> other processes can then be applied to the result. Words may also be
> put together in set phrases which can then become idioms which might
> then be shortened or simplified to create new words. Words can change
> roles so that "Man walk, leave hut, come river." could come, after
> many centuries, to mean "Man walk from hut to river." as the original
> monosyllable "leave" ends up being used as if it were a preposition
> "from". Perhaps with another new coinage to replace the verb "leave"
> with the compound "go-leave" where the word for "leave" has come to
> mean "from". Likewise, "come" eventually takes on the meaning "to", so
> that "come river" eventually means "to river".
>
> Abstract nouns like "friendship" and "beauty" would initially be
> created with compound words or set phrases used metaphorically.
> Adjectives would come from concrete nouns used as exemplars of the
> trait described. "leaf" or "grass" might be used to mean "green", and
> "elephant" might be used for "large". Later, those words my experience
> vowel shifts when used in an adjectival sense in order to distinguish
> them from the concrete objects, but their roots in the concrete might
> still be detectable. In any case it should be possible to document the
> history of a word back to its original protolang monosyllables, even
> if the final word no longer bears any resemblance to its original
> roots.
>
> For example, suppose the pointing word "ho" means "this/here", and the
> word "yi" means "person". We could coin a first person singular
> pronoun from the set phrase "ho yi" = "this person" Later that might
> be eroded to "hoi", and later still to "oi". Only the vowels remain
> from the original "ho yi", but the conlang now has a first person
> singular pronoun with a documented pedigree, rather than some
> arbitrary word coined out of thin air.
>
> Similarly, "you" might begin as "ta yi" = "that (near you) person",
> and "he/she" might be "pen yi" for "yonder person". Later, "ta yi"
> might, over many centuries, become "tai" -> "tau" -> "dau" as long as
> each step is something that can be justified in some reasonable
> manner, and is not just some radical, arbitrary change. "this", "that"
> and "yonder" might diverge further from "me", "you", and "he" by
> compounding with "thing" to become "this thing" ("hojin"), "that
> thing" ("tajin"), and "yonder thing" ("penji"), and the original
> "this/that/yon" ("ho/ta/pen") might fade from use and disappear from
> the modern language entirely.
>
> In every case, new coinages must come from using what already exists.
> Likewise, novel grammatical structures should be derived by simple
> steps from the existing grammar. "I use ax. I chop tree." condenses to
> "I use ax, chop tree." Shifting emphasis to the tree, and reducing the
> prominence of "ax" might give "I chop tree, use ax.", slightly
> demoting "use" to the effective role of a preposition. Eventually, the
> monosyllable for "use" begins, functionally, to look more like a word
> for "with", we could allow the sentence "I chop tree with ax." to
> emerge as a natural consequence of the changing role of the
> monosyllable for "use/with".
>
> If you want a definite article, then you will have to derive it from a
> pointing word, or an emphasis word (which might have to be created via
> metaphorical use of some concrete root). But what you can't do is just
> declare _ex catherdra_ that the definite article exists and is spelled
> "la".
>
> Anyway, that's my morning random brain dump.
>
> --gary
>
--
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 (3)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: A Philosophical Language as Proto-Conlang
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:29 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 12:15:42PM -0700, Gary Shannon wrote:
> Imagine a conlang built on the principles of a philosophical language
> consisting of monosyllabic words with broad basic meanings. However,
> in getting from the protolang to the "finished" conlang you would use
> processes of fusion, erosion, vowel mutation, etc., that would
> eventually completely disguise the philosophical nature of the roots.
This idea has occurred to me before. I would actually make a conlang
from this, if I only had infinite time on my hands. :-P
> The initial roots would be monosyllabic names of concrete objects,
> actions, and parts of objects like body parts. The lexicon would be
> completely concrete with no words for abstract concepts like
> "happiness", or "friendship", and no adjectives or adverbs, let alone
> prepositions or articles. Verb tenses would, of course, be out of the
> question. There might not even be any pronouns to begin with, and
> counting words might be initially limited to "one, two, three, many".
> The lexicon should probably contain pointing words "this" (near me),
> "that" (near you), "yonder" (far from both of us), also monosyllabic.
I argue that counting words are already too abstract. Let there be
distinct words for thumbs, fingers, and hands, and one could derive
numbers from them by combination with the verb "point".
And 'this' and 'that' are too anglo-centric. There should just be a
single demonstrative for drawing the listener's attention to something.
It could be the equivalent of "hey!", for all we know.
> Sentences would consist of agent/subject before object/patient with
> action either between those two or after both, with no initial
> preference for either.
This is too complicated. Sentences should just be a single noun plus a
single verb. Bivalent verbs should derive from repeated monovalent
verbs, with some kind of animate hierarchy to indicate role (e.g. "man
leave" == man is the subject, "hut leave" == hut is the object, because
man (animate) > hut (inanimate).
> Two or more consecutive sentences that share the same agent/subject
> could be chained together with a comma replacing the repeated
> agent/subject. That way "Man walk. Man leave hut. Man come river."
> could be condensed into "Man walk, leave hut, come river." That would
> be the only sentence template initially defined.
This makes sense, provided we start from the single noun + single verb
template.
> Words may only be coined by putting together philosophical roots, but
> other processes can then be applied to the result. Words may also be
> put together in set phrases which can then become idioms which might
> then be shortened or simplified to create new words. Words can change
> roles so that "Man walk, leave hut, come river." could come, after
> many centuries, to mean "Man walk from hut to river." as the original
> monosyllable "leave" ends up being used as if it were a preposition
> "from". Perhaps with another new coinage to replace the verb "leave"
> with the compound "go-leave" where the word for "leave" has come to
> mean "from". Likewise, "come" eventually takes on the meaning "to", so
> that "come river" eventually means "to river".
I like this idea.
[...]
> For example, suppose the pointing word "ho" means "this/here", and the
> word "yi" means "person". We could coin a first person singular
> pronoun from the set phrase "ho yi" = "this person" Later that might
> be eroded to "hoi", and later still to "oi". Only the vowels remain
> from the original "ho yi", but the conlang now has a first person
> singular pronoun with a documented pedigree, rather than some
> arbitrary word coined out of thin air.
I don't like this. Pronouns should derive directly from nouns (possibly
proper nouns). Imagine a small primitive survival group of a dominant
leader plus a small number of subordinates. The dominant leader simply
refers to himself as "chief" or "dad" or whatever his name is. Everyone
else is the equivalent of "underling". Later, the leader dies and the
subordinates split off into their own groups, so they each regard
themselves as the leader of their respective group, and start referring
to themselves as "chief", or by the original chief's name. So eventually
"chief" just becomes a 1st person pronoun (everyone wishes to become one
eventually, you see, so why not start acting like one now).
Of course, this could develop differently, so that "chief" and
"underling" both become 1st person pronouns, but with different
honorific levels. Thus an honorific system could develop from this.
> Similarly, "you" might begin as "ta yi" = "that (near you) person",
> and "he/she" might be "pen yi" for "yonder person". Later, "ta yi"
> might, over many centuries, become "tai" -> "tau" -> "dau" as long as
> each step is something that can be justified in some reasonable
> manner, and is not just some radical, arbitrary change. "this", "that"
> and "yonder" might diverge further from "me", "you", and "he" by
> compounding with "thing" to become "this thing" ("hojin"), "that
> thing" ("tajin"), and "yonder thing" ("penji"), and the original
> "this/that/yon" ("ho/ta/pen") might fade from use and disappear from
> the modern language entirely.
"You (singular)" can just be the equivalent of "hey!", and "you
(plural)" can develop from the combination of "you and you!" (the
interspersing conjunction can be omitted, if you want to *really* start
from the bare basics).
> In every case, new coinages must come from using what already exists.
> Likewise, novel grammatical structures should be derived by simple
> steps from the existing grammar. "I use ax. I chop tree." condenses to
> "I use ax, chop tree." Shifting emphasis to the tree, and reducing the
> prominence of "ax" might give "I chop tree, use ax.", slightly
> demoting "use" to the effective role of a preposition.
There's no reason to prefer prepositions over postpositions. It all
depends on the order of the initial sentence template. Different paths
of development could lead to dialects, and eventually full-fledged
languages in their own right.
Also, given enough time, adpositions can develop into declensions.
[...]
> If you want a definite article, then you will have to derive it from a
> pointing word, or an emphasis word (which might have to be created via
> metaphorical use of some concrete root). But what you can't do is just
> declare _ex catherdra_ that the definite article exists and is spelled
> "la".
[...]
Definite articles usually arise from demonstratives (this is attested in
multiple natlangs historically). Demonstratives could arise from just an
attention-drawing onomapoieum.
T
--
A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.
-- Brian White
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. 12 types of language
Posted by: "Mathieu Roy" [email protected]
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:32 pm ((PDT))
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/12-types-of-language/
-Mathieu
Messages in this topic (1)
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