There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Possible case system
From: kechpaja
1b. Re: Possible case system
From: neo gu
1c. Re: Possible case system
From: Adam Walker
2a. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Padraic Brown
2b. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Leonardo Castro
2c. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Adam Walker
2d. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Ph. D.
2e. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: MorphemeAddict
3a. Re: Bold claims from the U of Reading / Washington post
From: Padraic Brown
3b. Re: Bold claims from the U of Reading / Washington post
From: Eric Christopherson
4a. New language sentence trial
From: James Thain
4b. Re: New language sentence trial
From: James Kane
5a. Conscripts and computers
From: George Marques de Jesus
5b. Re: Conscripts and computers
From: Casey Borders
5c. Re: Conscripts and computers
From: George Marques de Jesus
Messages
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1a. Re: Possible case system
Posted by: "kechpaja" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 12:02 pm ((PDT))
To me, this looks like a fairly typical active-stative system. However, I'm not
entirely sure what is happening in the last two sections (with -azh and -on).
It looks like -azh is an instrumental, and -on is a possessive.
Could you clarify the situations in which each case is used?
On May 20, 2013, at 14:17, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have been tinkering with what will eventually become the case system for
> Gravgaln (now that verbs are stabilizing) and here's what I came up with
> last night:
>
> John-ak ate the cake-ev.
> John-ak ate.
> John-ev fell.
> John-ak fell. (because he threw himself down)
>
> John-ak gave Tom-il the book-ev.
> John-ak gave Tom-il Bob-ev.
>
> John-ak killed Bob-ev.
> John-ev was killed.
>
> John-ak killed Bob-ev knife-azh.
> John-ak killed Tom-azh.
> John-ak killed Bob-ev Tom-azh.
>
> John-ev hairbrush-on is missing.
> Fifth grade teacher-ev-on is tired.
> Bob-ak killed Tom-ev cat-on.
>
> So, is this an Active-Stative alignment I'm working on here? A slightly
> wonky Active-Stative System? Something else entirely? Seriously flawed in
> some way I don't see yet?
>
> Adam
Messages in this topic (5)
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1b. Re: Possible case system
Posted by: "neo gu" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 12:21 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 20 May 2013 13:17:14 -0500, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
>I have been tinkering with what will eventually become the case system for
>Gravgaln (now that verbs are stabilizing) and here's what I came up with
>last night:
>
>John-ak ate the cake-ev.
>John-ak ate.
>John-ev fell.
>John-ak fell. (because he threw himself down)
>
>John-ak gave Tom-il the book-ev.
>John-ak gave Tom-il Bob-ev.
>
>John-ak killed Bob-ev.
>John-ev was killed.
>
>John-ak killed Bob-ev knife-azh.
>John-ak killed Tom-azh.
>John-ak killed Bob-ev Tom-azh.
Does that translate as "John made Tom kill Bob"?
>John-ev hairbrush-on is missing.
>Fifth grade teacher-ev-on is tired.
>Bob-ak killed Tom-ev cat-on.
>
>So, is this an Active-Stative alignment I'm working on here? A slightly
>wonky Active-Stative System? Something else entirely? Seriously flawed in
>some way I don't see yet?
>
>Adam
I agree that it's Active-Stative, specifically Fluid-S. The only wonky thing is
with the possessives; it seems you're marking the case for the possessum on the
possessor. -on could be interpreted as a sort of construct state. Although I'm
not sure what's happening with the Fifth grade teacher.
Messages in this topic (5)
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1c. Re: Possible case system
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 4:00 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 2:21 PM, neo gu <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 May 2013 13:17:14 -0500, Adam Walker <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >I have been tinkering with what will eventually become the case system for
> >Gravgaln (now that verbs are stabilizing) and here's what I came up with
> >last night:
> >
> >John-ak ate the cake-ev.
> >John-ak ate.
> >John-ev fell.
> >John-ak fell. (because he threw himself down)
> >
> >John-ak gave Tom-il the book-ev.
> >John-ak gave Tom-il Bob-ev.
> >
> >John-ak killed Bob-ev.
> >John-ev was killed.
> >
> >John-ak killed Bob-ev knife-azh.
> >John-ak killed Tom-azh.
> >John-ak killed Bob-ev Tom-azh.
>
> Does that translate as "John made Tom kill Bob"?
>
It **could** mean that. It could also mean that John hired Tom to kill
Bob, or tricked him into doing it, or simply handed him the poisoned tart
knowing he would give it to Bob. Tom was the tool that John used to
accomplish Bob's death.
> >John-ev hairbrush-on is missing.
> >Fifth grade teacher-ev-on is tired.
> >Bob-ak killed Tom-ev cat-on.
> >
> >So, is this an Active-Stative alignment I'm working on here? A slightly
> >wonky Active-Stative System? Something else entirely? Seriously flawed
> in
> >some way I don't see yet?
> >
> >Adam
>
> I agree that it's Active-Stative, specifically Fluid-S. The only wonky
> thing is with the possessives; it seems you're marking the case for the
> possessum on the possessor. -on could be interpreted as a sort of construct
> state. Although I'm not sure what's happening with the Fifth grade teacher.
>
Yes, well, I'm not entirely sure that I have given good data there. It
seemed perfectly rational at the time I wrote out my examples last night.
It seemed less so when I typed them in my email today, and still less so
now. The possessives may be just plain wrong. Or I may just have
incomplete data there, or mostly correct data with an error or two.
Adam
Messages in this topic (5)
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2a. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 3:51 pm ((PDT))
--- On Sun, 5/19/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Of course. And "ungood", as I think I mentioned, is indeed a highly
> > interesting way of parsing up the universe -- because the author
> > did it consciously and with the big picture in mind. It wasn't done out
> > of ignorance or naivety, just taking a random list of adjectives (big,
> > good, red, fast, fat, best, pretty, warm) and saying "okay, stick
> > 'un-' on the front of all those to make the opposite".
>
> A problem in forming the opposite with a preffix is that sometimes
> "opposite" seems to be subjective or multiple. What's the opposite of
> "boring" -- "interesting", "exciting", "fun", "funny" or "not boring"?
> For some people, the opposite of "sweet" is "salty", but it could be
> also "bitter", "acid" (and what to do with "alkaline"?) or "savourless"...
Exactly!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (14)
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2b. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 7:18 pm ((PDT))
BTW, a professor of mine once said that Brazilians would promptly
answer "sweet" to the question "What's the opposite of salty?" while
Americans (she had already lived in the USA) would think that this is
a nonsense question. Here I have the opportunity to know if this is
true.
She attributed this to the Brazilian culinary where every food is
usually either very salty or very sweet. She also pointed out that
water from rivers is referred to as "sweet water" in Brazil, as
opposed to "salty water", but, googling for it, now I see that this
expression is used is English as well.
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/5/20 Padraic Brown <[email protected]>:
> --- On Sun, 5/19/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> > Of course. And "ungood", as I think I mentioned, is indeed a highly
>> > interesting way of parsing up the universe -- because the author
>> > did it consciously and with the big picture in mind. It wasn't done out
>> > of ignorance or naivety, just taking a random list of adjectives (big,
>> > good, red, fast, fat, best, pretty, warm) and saying "okay, stick
>> > 'un-' on the front of all those to make the opposite".
>>
>> A problem in forming the opposite with a preffix is that sometimes
>> "opposite" seems to be subjective or multiple. What's the opposite of
>> "boring" -- "interesting", "exciting", "fun", "funny" or "not boring"?
>> For some people, the opposite of "sweet" is "salty", but it could be
>> also "bitter", "acid" (and what to do with "alkaline"?) or "savourless"...
>
> Exactly!
>
> Padraic
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (14)
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2c. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 7:59 pm ((PDT))
I consider sweet and sour to be "opposites". For salty I guess I
would say bland or flavorless would be opposite. Bitter's opposite
would be good. :).
Adam
On 5/20/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> BTW, a professor of mine once said that Brazilians would promptly
> answer "sweet" to the question "What's the opposite of salty?" while
> Americans (she had already lived in the USA) would think that this is
> a nonsense question. Here I have the opportunity to know if this is
> true.
>
> She attributed this to the Brazilian culinary where every food is
> usually either very salty or very sweet. She also pointed out that
> water from rivers is referred to as "sweet water" in Brazil, as
> opposed to "salty water", but, googling for it, now I see that this
> expression is used is English as well.
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
>
> 2013/5/20 Padraic Brown <[email protected]>:
>> --- On Sun, 5/19/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> > Of course. And "ungood", as I think I mentioned, is indeed a highly
>>> > interesting way of parsing up the universe -- because the author
>>> > did it consciously and with the big picture in mind. It wasn't done
>>> > out
>>> > of ignorance or naivety, just taking a random list of adjectives (big,
>>> > good, red, fast, fat, best, pretty, warm) and saying "okay, stick
>>> > 'un-' on the front of all those to make the opposite".
>>>
>>> A problem in forming the opposite with a preffix is that sometimes
>>> "opposite" seems to be subjective or multiple. What's the opposite of
>>> "boring" -- "interesting", "exciting", "fun", "funny" or "not boring"?
>>> For some people, the opposite of "sweet" is "salty", but it could be
>>> also "bitter", "acid" (and what to do with "alkaline"?) or
>>> "savourless"...
>>
>> Exactly!
>>
>> Padraic
>>
>>
>>
>
Messages in this topic (14)
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2d. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Ph. D." [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 8:28 pm ((PDT))
David McCann wrote:
> What Zamenhoff was missing was the logical difference between
> contraries and contradictories. Contraries are the opposite ends of a
> scale, like black and white, big and small. In natural languages they
> are normally expressed by separate terms. Contradictories are terms
> which divide the scale between them, like coloured and colourless, and
> these are generally derivatives. Esperanto's malrapida confuses "slow"
> and "not fast".
Fair enough, although not all concepts work that way. Sometimes "ne" is
used as
a prefix for the contradictory condition while "mal" is used for the
contrary.
utila = useful
malutila = harmful
neutila = useless
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (14)
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2e. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 9:07 pm ((PDT))
Rick Morneau wrote about different kinds of opposites and antonyms in
Lexical Semantics.
stevo
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 11:20 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thee are several kinds of "opposites". Look at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposite_(semantics) for example.
>
> I recall a post here a few years back that listed several types and
> the conlang had a different affix for each one. E.g. The opposite of
> "broken" might be "repaired", or it might be "unbroken" depending on
> whether you mean to "un-break" a thing after it is broken, or to
> describe a state before the thing was broken. So you might undo and
> action, (break/repair) prevent the action, (break.protect) perform the
> "opposite" action, ...
>
> I don't recall who posted that. Maybe somebody else will remember.
>
> --gary
>
> On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > 2013/5/18 Padraic Brown <[email protected]>:
> >> --- On Fri, 5/17/13, Zach Wellstood <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> Of course. And "ungood", as I think I mentioned, is indeed a highly
> >> interesting way of parsing up the universe -- because the author
> >> did it consciously and with the big picture in mind. It wasn't done out
> >> of ignorance or naivety, just taking a random list of adjectives (big,
> >> good, red, fast, fat, best, pretty, warm) and saying "okay, stick 'un-'
> on
> >> the front of all those to make the opposite".
> >
> > A problem in forming the opposite with a preffix is that sometimes
> > "opposite" seems to be subjective or multiple. What's the opposite of
> > "boring" -- "interesting", "exciting", "fun", "funny" or "not boring"?
> > For some people, the opposite of "sweet" is "salty", but it could be
> > also "bitter", "acid" (and what to do with "alkaline"?) or
> > "savourless"...
>
Messages in this topic (14)
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3a. Re: Bold claims from the U of Reading / Washington post
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 3:52 pm ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 5/13/13, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
> And here for a very good rebuttal:
> http://geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/linguistic-geography/do-ultraconserved-words-reveal-linguistic-macro-families
Merci! That was a very helpful article indeed.
Padraic
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (4)
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3b. Re: Bold claims from the U of Reading / Washington post
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 4:05 pm ((PDT))
On May 20, 2013, at 5:52 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Mon, 5/13/13, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> And here for a very good rebuttal:
>> http://geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/linguistic-geography/do-ultraconserved-words-reveal-linguistic-macro-families
>
> Merci! That was a very helpful article indeed.
And that blog itself seems pretty addictive.
Messages in this topic (4)
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4a. New language sentence trial
Posted by: "James Thain" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 4:09 pm ((PDT))
Hi
I mostly lurk here reading others posts but I have recently worked out a
prototype sentence in my newish conlang. I am wondering if I have got it right
or if it needs further work. The language is VSO in declarative sentences.
Anyway here it is:
melben ikta al Boston
melb+en ikit-a al boton
go-inf. do(past/perf)+per prep. noun
go did I to Boston
I went to boston
inf. = infinitive
past = past tense
perf = perfect/perfective aspect?
per = personal ending
prep. = preposition
noun = foreign noun (I have no word for "Boston"
Thanks for your help
Jim
Messages in this topic (2)
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4b. Re: New language sentence trial
Posted by: "James Kane" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 7:02 pm ((PDT))
Can you explain a bit more about what is going on in this sentence? Why is go
in the infinitive? Is 'ikit' from the verb do or is it just a TAM marker or a
'dummy verb' like the English word in the equivalent sentence?
James
On 21/05/2013, at 10:59 AM, James Thain <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi
> I mostly lurk here reading others posts but I have recently worked out a
> prototype sentence in my newish conlang. I am wondering if I have got it
> right or if it needs further work. The language is VSO in declarative
> sentences. Anyway here it is:
>
> melben ikta al Boston
> melb+en ikit-a al boton
> go-inf. do(past/perf)+per prep. noun
> go did I to Boston
>
> I went to boston
>
> inf. = infinitive
> past = past tense
> perf = perfect/perfective aspect?
> per = personal ending
> prep. = preposition
> noun = foreign noun (I have no word for "Boston"
>
> Thanks for your help
> Jim
Messages in this topic (2)
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5a. Conscripts and computers
Posted by: "George Marques de Jesus" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 8:32 pm ((PDT))
I'm finally trying to develop a conscript. I liked the way Hangul works, so
I thought to do something with the same idea: an alphabet that groups
letters into syllables. I sketched some letters in the paper, but then I
realized I had no idea how to use them in the computer. I know plenty about
computers, as a hobbyist programmer, though only almost nothing about fonts.
I searched to see how Hangul fonts are designed, because I think nobody
goes creating 11k glyphs for a font (well, maybe someone does, but besides
the time it'd take, that'd use some good extra space in the hard drive and
RAM). So I wanted to know how they combine to look pretty as they do, but I
found nothing about it (TBH I do found something here:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/hangulot/shaping.htm only it
didn't help me much)
If my math is good, I have over 35k possibilities for syllables (35490 to
be exact), so I'm not going to make glyph for everything (I'll probably
even *use* all combinations).
And my questions are: are there any resources about how Hangul font are
designed? Are there any specific software that can build something similar
to it (specially a free one)? Is this even possible to do (considering that
I have over 3 times more possibilities than Hangul and somewhat different
way of combining)? Should I give up and stick with pencil and paper?
George Marques
http://georgemarques.com.br
Messages in this topic (3)
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5b. Re: Conscripts and computers
Posted by: "Casey Borders" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 8:49 pm ((PDT))
My thought is that you wouldn't need every combination you just need each
letter in each permutation. So you need to look at how you're forming your
blocks and find out how many different slots you have and make a version of
each letter that fits into each slot. Then, when you type, it would be
something like :
Upper Left B
Upper Right R
Middle A
Lower D
Then the space character could move you on to the next block. Depending on
the complexity of your combination system it could still be quite a few
permutations but you should be able to get away with less than 35K.
On May 20, 2013 11:30 PM, "George Marques de Jesus" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> I'm finally trying to develop a conscript. I liked the way Hangul works, so
> I thought to do something with the same idea: an alphabet that groups
> letters into syllables. I sketched some letters in the paper, but then I
> realized I had no idea how to use them in the computer. I know plenty about
> computers, as a hobbyist programmer, though only almost nothing about
> fonts.
>
> I searched to see how Hangul fonts are designed, because I think nobody
> goes creating 11k glyphs for a font (well, maybe someone does, but besides
> the time it'd take, that'd use some good extra space in the hard drive and
> RAM). So I wanted to know how they combine to look pretty as they do, but I
> found nothing about it (TBH I do found something here:
> http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/hangulot/shaping.htm only it
> didn't help me much)
>
> If my math is good, I have over 35k possibilities for syllables (35490 to
> be exact), so I'm not going to make glyph for everything (I'll probably
> even *use* all combinations).
>
> And my questions are: are there any resources about how Hangul font are
> designed? Are there any specific software that can build something similar
> to it (specially a free one)? Is this even possible to do (considering that
> I have over 3 times more possibilities than Hangul and somewhat different
> way of combining)? Should I give up and stick with pencil and paper?
>
> George Marques
> http://georgemarques.com.br
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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5c. Re: Conscripts and computers
Posted by: "George Marques de Jesus" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 20, 2013 9:05 pm ((PDT))
Well, it's not different of the way I thought it should work, I'm not so
bad in guessing, at least.
But now I don't know *how* to create such slots and permutations with the
font, so the word processor would understand and prettify everything. I
will dive into FontForge and see what I can do.
George Marques
http://georgemarques.com.br
2013/5/21 Casey Borders <[email protected]>
> My thought is that you wouldn't need every combination you just need each
> letter in each permutation. So you need to look at how you're forming your
> blocks and find out how many different slots you have and make a version of
> each letter that fits into each slot. Then, when you type, it would be
> something like :
>
> Upper Left B
> Upper Right R
> Middle A
> Lower D
>
> Then the space character could move you on to the next block. Depending on
> the complexity of your combination system it could still be quite a few
> permutations but you should be able to get away with less than 35K.
> On May 20, 2013 11:30 PM, "George Marques de Jesus" <
> [email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > I'm finally trying to develop a conscript. I liked the way Hangul works,
> so
> > I thought to do something with the same idea: an alphabet that groups
> > letters into syllables. I sketched some letters in the paper, but then I
> > realized I had no idea how to use them in the computer. I know plenty
> about
> > computers, as a hobbyist programmer, though only almost nothing about
> > fonts.
> >
> > I searched to see how Hangul fonts are designed, because I think nobody
> > goes creating 11k glyphs for a font (well, maybe someone does, but
> besides
> > the time it'd take, that'd use some good extra space in the hard drive
> and
> > RAM). So I wanted to know how they combine to look pretty as they do,
> but I
> > found nothing about it (TBH I do found something here:
> > http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/hangulot/shaping.htm only
> it
> > didn't help me much)
> >
> > If my math is good, I have over 35k possibilities for syllables (35490 to
> > be exact), so I'm not going to make glyph for everything (I'll probably
> > even *use* all combinations).
> >
> > And my questions are: are there any resources about how Hangul font are
> > designed? Are there any specific software that can build something
> similar
> > to it (specially a free one)? Is this even possible to do (considering
> that
> > I have over 3 times more possibilities than Hangul and somewhat different
> > way of combining)? Should I give up and stick with pencil and paper?
> >
> > George Marques
> > http://georgemarques.com.br
> >
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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