There are 14 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: George Corley
1c. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: Padraic Brown
1d. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: Padraic Brown
1e. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: Patrick Dunn
1f. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
From: Roger Mills
2a. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
From: George Corley
2b. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
From: Krista D. Casada
2c. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
From: R A Brown
3.1. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
From: BPJ
3.2. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
From: yuri
3.3. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
From: Padraic Brown
3.4. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
From: neo gu
3.5. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
From: BPJ
Messages
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1a. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:07 am ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]> wrote:
> > What about simply doing away with pronouns? People
> might address their
> > remarks indirectly by using the other person's title.
>
> Isn't that basically how Japanese works?
I think to a certain extent, yes. And Spanish, too, when you get down to
it and to a much more limited extent: usted < vuestra merced = your mercy.
We do it English too: your honor, your grace, your excellency, etc.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (25)
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1b. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:20 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 3/29/13, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > What about simply doing away with pronouns? People
> > might address their
> > > remarks indirectly by using the other person's title.
> >
> > Isn't that basically how Japanese works?
>
> I think to a certain extent, yes. And Spanish, too, when you get down to
> it and to a much more limited extent: usted < vuestra merced = your mercy.
>
Historically it did, but etymology is not meaning. I would doubt whether
any native Spanish speakers still connect "usted" to the older meaning at
all -- considering it has changed quite a bit.
> We do it English too: your honor, your grace, your excellency, etc.
>
This is true.
Messages in this topic (25)
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1c. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:30 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> Animate/inanimate is just a
> grammatical gender category in Oasa (and in
> lots of natlangs). Essentially, living things are in
> the animate category,
> while non-living thing are in the inanimate category, with a
> few exceptions
> (in Oasa, vehicles tend to be animate whether horse or car,
> and weather
> phenomena are almost all animate. Some species of
> trees are animate, some
> inanimate; some geological features are animate, some
> inanimate.)
Curious: is there a reason, maybe cultural or otherwise, why some trees
are animate and others aren't? Maybe some are a little more active or
malicious than others?
Padraic
>
> Verbs in Oasa agree in gender with their objects. So:
> 'nehasake" -- to fix
> an object; but "nehasala" -- to heal someone.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 2:00 AM, Nicole Valicia
> Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > I'm also thinking if pronouns can be broken down by
> cast, can they be
> > broken
> > down by race or species?
> >
> >
> >
> > Also, what's the inanimate and animate pronouns forms
> for?
> >
> > I'm guessing the only pronoun that would work would be
> it.
> >
> > I didn't think of honorific pronouns, are the
> honorifics broken down
> > depending on gender? And how about pronouns divided by
> age, could that
> > work?
> > In other words, there would be an age category.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm also thinking they could be broken down into they,
> same gender for
> > women, they, same gender for men, they, a man a woman
> alone, and they, a
> > man
> > a woman in a group. Then, there's they for the group as
> a whole, and they
> > for part of the group.
> >
> > Wow! As if our language wasn't confusing enough.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> 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 (25)
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1d. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:36 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]>
wrote:
> I'm also thinking if pronouns can be broken down by cast, can they be
> broken down by race or species?
Sure! Just about anything is possible -- don't let yourself be limited by
human languages. Yemorans' aren't human and therefore probably don't think
like humans. As others have said already, pay attention to their culture
for clues as to what sorts of pronouns you might need: are there people
they never address directly? (For example, among Kalchian peoples, the
females are never addressed directly -- there are therefore no second
person feminine pronouns in the modern language (they do have first and
third person masculine and feminine pronouns; and in the classical
language, second person feminine pronouns as well). If you wish to address
a female, you've got to use an acceptable first or third person
circumlocution. Males may be addressed directly, so second person
masculine pronouns are well known. The only exceptions are slaves, which
are regularly addressed using a kind of genderless pronoun (kind of
like "it", only for second person). Only among the slaves themselves are
the old feminine pronouns to be found -- but it has evolved into a kind of
epicene honorific, while the masculine pronoun has become the deprecative.
Hence, "hey you!" gets what was once the masculine, while "would you
please" gets what was once the feminine.
You could certainly find a situation where one species addresses people of
another species using different pronouns. In the World, Daine have often
been given the "it" treatment -- being addressed with impersonal or
ungendered pronouns.
> Also, what's the inanimate and animate pronouns forms for?
Animacy is a nominal category. Animate nouns are those that might be seen
as in some way living or spirit filled. Inanimate are those that are not.
We do this in English a little bit when we address ships or cars as
"she" -- ascribing a kind of spirit or intelligence to what is basically
a man-made object. Anitame beings are those with volition and the innate
capacity to act on their own behest; inanimate beings are those who are
unable to act on their own, but may be acted upon.
Some languages simply make these into formal categories. Talarian has
formal animacy categories -- and so often gets into trouble with nouns
that are gramatically inanimate but sensically animate that the language
has developed secondary morphology to correct the error. So you get dozens
of words like "matar" (mother), who by dint of being a human is obviously
animate, but because the word ends in -ar, the classic inanimate
termination, this leads to all kinds of grammatical problems. Since an
inanimate noun can not be the agent of a verb, "matar" could never kick a
ball or write a letter or cook dinner. So, how do you get mother to cook
dinner? The traditional answer has simply been to invert the whole
sentence: instead of "mother cooks dinner", you'd have to say "dinner was
made to become cooked because of mother". A newer solution has simply been
to give words like "matar" a set of animate terminations, thus side-
stepping the problem.
As for pronouns, there are indeed pronouns for animate and inanimate
categories. Obviously, there are no "nominative" inanimate pronouns,
because of the agency issue. Inanimate nouns (and pronouns) may only be
recipients, beneficiaries or experiencers of someone else's action.
> I'm guessing the only pronoun that would work would be it.
Not necessarily. One could easily address an inanimate being, and thus
might require second person pronouns, or even some other gender
classifications.
You might even find a situation where the inanimate being himself speaks,
and might thus need first person inanimate pronouns.
> I didn't think of honorific pronouns, are the honorifics
> broken down
> depending on gender? And how about pronouns divided by age,
> could that work?
> In other words, there would be an age category.
There could be. This will be dependent on what your culture finds to be
of importance.
> I'm also thinking they could be broken down into they, same
> gender for
> women, they, same gender for men, they, a man a woman alone,
> and they, a man
> a woman in a group. Then, there's they for the group as a
> whole, and they
> for part of the group.
Sure! Why not?
In the World, Daine languages in general distinguish first, second and
third persons. Within these, there are a number of subdistinctions. All
persons and numbers typically distinguish the various genders and numbers.
So, there's a pronoun for "I.girl" and "thou.boy" and "we.girls" or "you.
mixed-group", much like you illustrate above.
Things get interesting in the Westmarche, especially, where a largeish
number of girls started out life as boys (they are thus genetically and
often mentally male but externally physically female). They've come up
with all sorts of bizarre pronouns that combine "he" or "she" with
various masculine and feminine nominal stem formants. So you might meet a
girl whose family address her as "thou.girl-masculine". Or one who might
call herself "I.boy-feminine". Still others use the female-male-twin set
of pronouns or a male-female-sibling set, depending on how they view their
circumstance. And of course you'll always find one or two that refuse to
acknowledge the Change and use a strict masculine set of pronouns. This
of course causes endless confusion for people who aren't aware of his
circumstances. The rarest bird of all is the one who has gone completely
female -- down to learning and incorporating all the mannerisms and
thought processes, to the point of "feeling like a girl inside" -- and
uses all feminine pronouns. There are simply too many real brain and
physiological differences for a boy to pull it off consistently.
> Wow! As if our language wasn't confusing enough.
If it weren't, it wouldn't be half so much fun!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (25)
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1e. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:21 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 3/29/13, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Animate/inanimate is just a
> > grammatical gender category in Oasa (and in
> > lots of natlangs). Essentially, living things are in
> > the animate category,
> > while non-living thing are in the inanimate category, with a
> > few exceptions
> > (in Oasa, vehicles tend to be animate whether horse or car,
> > and weather
> > phenomena are almost all animate. Some species of
> > trees are animate, some
> > inanimate; some geological features are animate, some
> > inanimate.)
>
> Curious: is there a reason, maybe cultural or otherwise, why some trees
> are animate and others aren't? Maybe some are a little more active or
> malicious than others?
>
>
Purely cultural. Trees that are seen as particularly sacred are usually
animate.
--
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 (25)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Creating a Prononominal System
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:58 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
Or simply use titles:
Teacher to student: "Teacher would remind Student that the homework is due."
Student to Teacher: "Student regrets to inform Teacher that the dog ate the
homework."
I understand that Thai does this sort of thing, even between mother and
child.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So does Indonesian, to a great extent. Some of the terms are short forms of
real words-- pak instead of bapak 'father', bu for ibu 'mother', dik for adik
'yger.brother'. I was almost always addressed pak MIlls, then later in the
conversation it would just be pak. I knew an Army general, who was ALWAYS pak
jendral. ;-)
I haven't worked much on this in Gwr or Prevli; but I suspect Gwr at least will
have lots of variant forms.
Two of the common words for "I" in Indonesia are saya and/or hamba-- both meant
basically 'slave'. Some people even use 'saya' for 'yes' in reply to a yes-no
question. Never quite got the hang of that.............. An obsolete term is
hulun < 'head', that was a superior>inferior form. But a deriv. is the basic
word for "I" in Acehnese-- lon.
When I learned Indo., the word for "you" was saudara (usually [so'dara])
'brother' < Sanskrit, but when I read Indo. web sites etc it seems to be no
longer used. Younger people (HS age etc.), who were probably learning English,
used "yu" at least in speech...., which actually has historical roots in
Proto-Austronesian !!! but not in Malay/Indo. or Javanese, the two languages
used in the town I lived in.
Someday for this thread I'll look up and post the various Kash pronoun variants
(mosly honorific terms but not all...and many are obsolete/rare because their
class system is gradually dying out, at least in the areas where I dwell......)
Messages in this topic (25)
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2a. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:22 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tsk. Definitely alveolar here. But maybe it's an allophone??
Hmm. To be honest, I never actually use it, so I don't know what the value
would be for me. Maybe some English speakers have dental and some have
alveolar, but I've always heard it described as dental.
I wouldn't call it an allophone, since it's one of those ideophones that is
totally disconnected from the phonology of the language (no actual English
word has a click in it).
Messages in this topic (25)
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2b. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
Posted by: "Krista D. Casada" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:31 am ((PDT))
Okay, this is just too funny:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tsk
________________________________________
From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf of
George Corley [[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 1:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tsk. Definitely alveolar here. But maybe it's an allophone??
Hmm. To be honest, I never actually use it, so I don't know what the value
would be for me. Maybe some English speakers have dental and some have
alveolar, but I've always heard it described as dental.
I wouldn't call it an allophone, since it's one of those ideophones that is
totally disconnected from the phonology of the language (no actual English
word has a click in it).
Messages in this topic (25)
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2c. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:18 am ((PDT))
On 29/03/2013 17:55, George Corley wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Padraic Brown wrote:
>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/8-bizarre-sounds-youve-probably-made-without-knowing-111000931.html
[snip]
>
>>
> Oh so many errors:
Yep.
[snip]
> Not sure on the lateral fricative.
Nor IMHO is James Harbeck! What on earth does he mean by
saying that a lateral fricative is "like 'l' but a little
tighter"? If it has any meaning, it must surely describe an
ordinary lateral said with more emphasis. It most certainly
doesn't describe the fricative, whether voiced or voiceless.
If he written that they were like 'l' but softer, I might
have sort of seen what he was getting at. But if one is
going to describe the sound, do it properly.
I've heard the voiceless version often enough, having lived
in Wales for 22 years before moving back to SE England. I
have used it myself and still occasionally use it. I've
never come across anyone using a pulmonic _ingressive_
version.
I have no problem with the voiced form, but little occasion
to use it, not having much knowledge of or occasion to speak
Xhosa, Zulu, Mongolian or Kabardian ;)
But both sounds are your normal pulmonic egressive consonants.
As far as I can make out, ingressive pulmonic sounds are
almost always _paralinguistic_, the only instance of it
being regularly used is AFAIK is in the ÇXóõ language of
Botswana and, according to Wikipedia: Ladefoged & Maddieson
(1996:268) state that "This ÇXóõ click is probably unique
among the sounds of the world's languages that, even in the
middle of a sentence, it may have ingressive pulmonic airflow."
The speech technologist Robert Eklund has a whole page
devoted to pulmonic ingressive phonation:
http://ingressivespeech.info/
Don't see any mention of lateral fricatives there ;)
--
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 (25)
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3.1. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:27 pm ((PDT))
On 2013-03-28 07:39, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> Is his a limit on pronominal system creation? I know there's duals, and
> four-person systems, so what else is possible? I'm not there yet, but
> thought I'd ask the question now, while I'm working on the other sections of
> the language and Yemoran vocal anatomy. Strangely, the pronoun section is in
> with the verbs. I need at least six pronominal forms.
My conlang Sohlob has demonstrative or deictic
pronouns marked for the following categories:
Number:
~ These are rather mundanely singular and plural,
but pronouns are actually different from nouns
in being marked for number. This is perhaps
more accurately described as 'marked for plurality'
vs. 'not marked for plurality' as some 'singular'
forms *can* be used with plural referents.
Gender:
~ There are three genders. Unlike the genders in
languages like German and French they are in no way
associated with what sex people are. Instead they
are
Loquent:
~ 'able to speak',
Animate:
~ 'living' and
Inanimate:
~ 'non-living things'.
Nouns *have* gender but unlike pronouns they are
not *marked* for it. The assignment of nouns to
genders is mostly based on whether the things
designated by the noun actually are able to speak,
living or neither, but there are some you wouldn't
see coming:
Loquent:
~ Includes various supernatural beings like
gods, demons and ghosts, as well as birds
and musical instruments.
Moreover *any* noun can become loquent in
a fable or similar story, or in metaphors.
Animate:
~ Includes fire, water and bodies of water,
weather phenomena and houses.
Proximity:
~ Three levels of distance from the speaker.
The fancy terms for these levels of distance are
Proximal, Mesial and Distal but they are
perhaps better described by the translations I
use for them: 'this', 'that' and 'yonder',
or 'this here', 'that there' and 'that yonder'.
'Yonder' can also be described as 'other that'
and is often used similar to a fourth person.
Specificity:
~ Singular pronouns (or rather pronouns not marked
for plurality) can be marked for *non-specificity*.
This may be translated as 'some/someone/something'
except that it combines with the proximity marking
which makes it somewhat 'exotic'.
A twist is introduced into the system by the fact that
the Specific Loquent pronouns have shifted their
meaning and come to be used as personal pronouns, the
original personal pronouns falling into disuse. The
meaning shifts are as follows:
In the singular:
~ Proximal Loquent:
~ means first person: 'I'.
~ Mesial Loquent:
~ means second person: 'you/thou'.
~ Distal Loquent:
~ means third person: 'he/she' (with no sex distinction).
In the plural:
~ Proximal Loquent:
~ means first person exclusive: 'we but not you'.
~ Mesial Loquent:
~ means first person inclusive: 'we/I and you'.
~ Distal Loquent:
~ means second person plural: 'you (all)/yous'.
To 'make up' for this change the Animate pronouns can
take the ending _-shan/-shen_ meaning '-person' (also
used with nouns) and then function as Loquent demonstrative
or deictic pronouns.
The Animate and Inanimate pronoun series also function as
determiners and articles, placed at the end of the noun phrase.
This is also how definite noun phrases are marked for number.
Nouns can also be marked as indefinite singular by the same
suffix used to form Non-Specific pronouns.
/pbj
Messages in this topic (27)
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3.2. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
Posted by: "yuri" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:05 pm ((PDT))
On 29 March 2013 06:25, Alex Fink wrote:
>>There is no distinction between gender. The third person pronoun can
>>be translated as "he" or "she". Any noun or pronoun can have the
>>suffix -wÄ«n or -tÄn to specify fem and masc respectively if such
>>distinction is required. (a virtual choc fish to anyone who can guess
>>the etymologies of -wÄ«n and -tÄn).
>
> I don't remember if KlaÏa (can I spell it that way?) is a posteriori, so I'm
> at a
> loss for how to guess...
Yes, please do spell it KlaÏa. I would spell it KlaÏa if I had a quick
way of typing "Ï" (Gnome 2 on Mint 9, soon to upgrade to newer Mint
with MATE or Cinnamon. CapsLock remapped to Compose key).
The grammar is a priori. A large chunk of vocab is a posteriori so
-wÄ«n and -tÄn are borrowed.
There are many aspects of KlaÏa that are very contrived. It is after
all my first (and only) conlang. It's actually partly artlang and
partly auxlang, designed for my very secret society of which I am the
only member and keen to recruit :-)
I would've started teaching it to my children (4 and 2) but I'm
focusing on teaching them Dutch so KlaÏa is on the backburner.
Yuri
Messages in this topic (27)
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3.3. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:44 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 3/29/13, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> /pbj
>
Were you craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you wrote that
post? ;))))
PB (sans J)
Messages in this topic (27)
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3.4. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
Posted by: "neo gu" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:02 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:39:16 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Is his a limit on pronominal system creation? I know there's duals, and
>four-person systems, so what else is possible? I'm not there yet, but
>thought I'd ask the question now, while I'm working on the other sections of
>the language and Yemoran vocal anatomy. Strangely, the pronoun section is in
>with the verbs. I need at least six pronominal forms.
For my newest project (called Mar27) I have the following personal pronouns:
bi-, se- 1st person roots (singular and exclusive plural forms each)
me-, ma- 1st person inclusive roots (dual and plural forms each)
go-, ka- 2nd person roots (singular and plural forms each)
'e- 3rd person topical animate (singular and plural forms)
da- 3rd person other animate (singular and plural forms)
i- 3rd person inanimate (singular and plural forms)
I have the following additional pronouns:
qa'- animate interrogative (roughly, "who")
qai- inanimate interrogative (roughly, "what")
ta- reflexive
no- resumptive
There are also pronominal forms of most determiners.
Messages in this topic (27)
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3.5. Re: Creating A Prononominal System
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 1:57 am ((PDT))
Den fredagen den 29:e mars 2013 skrev Padraic Brown:
> --- On Fri, 3/29/13, BPJ <[email protected] <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> >
> > /pbj
> >
>
> Were you craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you wrote that
> post? ;))))
Actually I can't stand peanut butter! My children will gleefully tell you
the story about when they made a PBJ sandwich for my birthday breakfast and
I felt I had to eat it...
/bpj
>
> PB (sans J)
>
Messages in this topic (27)
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