There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: George Corley
1b. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: David McCann
1c. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: George Corley
1d. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: Padraic Brown
1e. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: H. S. Teoh
1f. Re: New toy conlang sketch
From: Douglas Koller
2a. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2b. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
From: James Kane
2c. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3.1. Re: "Wedging" Foreign Names
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3.2. Re: "Wedging" Foreign Names
From: R A Brown
4.1. Re: writing (almost) entirely in lower-case letters
From: C. Brickner
5a. Purr; was Animal Noises?
From: C. Brickner
6. languedoc historical grammars
From: Wesley Parish
7a. Re: What do you call the damn thing!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
Messages
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1a. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 7:49 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:41 AM, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
> 2013-06-27 15:14, George Corley skrev:
>
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:04 AM, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> And I'd definitely use <q> (Maltese!) or even <'> for /ʔ/
>>> since there likely is a /h/ in the lang if it has aspirates.
>>>
>>>
>> Is that true. I'm just curious, since for many Mandarin dialects, pinyin
>> <h> is /x/ and there is no /h/ (there are dialects with /h/, though).
>>
>>
> I did say "likely", not "doubtless"! There *are* languages
> which have aspirated stops/affricates but no /h/ -- Lhasa
> Tibetan is another one, which BTW also has /x/, and I don't
> know to what extent /ɦ/ in New IndoAryan languages comes out
> as [h], but I have seen many times stated that the vast majority
> of languages with aspirates have /h/. Even so if Teoh's lang has
> /x/ or /ɦ/ <h> would be a good choice for it, no?
>
I was only citing a language I'm familiar with. Of course it doesn't
disprove you, we could come up with lots of single language examples, but
we'd need at least several hundred with sampling controls for language
family and geographic location to be conclusive. It would make sense for
/h/ to be more likely with aspirated consonants. Surely someone out there
has done a study of this.
Messages in this topic (18)
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1b. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:43 am ((PDT))
On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:52:38 -0500
George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> <q> for /ts)ʰ/? Is that Mandarin influence I see? Yeah, I can
> understand the issue. I'd actually recommend against it if you want
> your romanization to be accessible. Pinyin's use of <q c> is one of
> it's most confusing aspects (<x> is odd too, but not entirely without
> precedent in other languages), and I have a feeling it was just a
> compromise that was reached because of the fact that they somehow had
> to represent nine distinct sibilants in Roman script. Even then,
> <ts'> might have been a better choice (I think it's been used in
> other schemes).
I can't resist playing devil's advocate here! Chinese is the most
important language after English, and China will soon be the
world's most important country. For those at school today, 'qin' will
be no stranger than 'thin'. Come to think of it, it isn't for me.
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:19 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:42 AM, David McCann <da...@polymathy.plus.com>wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:52:38 -0500
> George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > <q> for /ts)ʰ/? Is that Mandarin influence I see? Yeah, I can
> > understand the issue. I'd actually recommend against it if you want
> > your romanization to be accessible. Pinyin's use of <q c> is one of
> > it's most confusing aspects (<x> is odd too, but not entirely without
> > precedent in other languages), and I have a feeling it was just a
> > compromise that was reached because of the fact that they somehow had
> > to represent nine distinct sibilants in Roman script. Even then,
> > <ts'> might have been a better choice (I think it's been used in
> > other schemes).
>
> I can't resist playing devil's advocate here! Chinese is the most
> important language after English, and China will soon be the
> world's most important country. For those at school today, 'qin' will
> be no stranger than 'thin'. Come to think of it, it isn't for me.
>
I would not be so certain about the rise of Chinese. China will probably
rise to be a fully competitive rival to the US within the next 50 years
("world's most important country" seems a bit too far for the near future,
I think the US hegemony will last for a good bit yet), but even if China
were to surpass us entirely in power, English is very heavily ingrained as
a lingua franca. I suspect that long after the US falls from grace (perhaps
a century from now, though when you get that far, any prediction is just a
blind guess in politics) English will linger on as Latin did, slowly
restricting itself to smaller and smaller spaces until it finally gives way
to a new language. By that time, the native speaking populations will have
fractured into new Anglic languages. In that environment, I don't think we
could predict what the next lingua franca will be (or whether translation
technologies will make the lingua franca obsolete, as Nicolas Ostler
claims).
I suppose coming down to Earth, in the near future, more non-Chinese will
certainly be learning Mandarin, and they will probably get used to the
odder pinyin conventions (as I have) -- it's really quite a good
romanization, it was just forced to make a few difficult choices due to the
fact that the Roman alphabet is so alien to it. But I don't really think
there will be enough Chinese learners to make a dent in the general
populous (outside Chinese speaking areas, of course -- sometimes in these
discussions people do forget that Mandarin Chinese has around a billion
native speakers, and that number may well rise, The thing is, those native
speakers are largely concentrated in a few countries.)
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 10:09 am ((PDT))
> From: George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com>
>
>>I might suggest that, when you find a few more words, that "eye-stalk-grabber"
>>is a term of the severest abuse!
>
>
>I would think it more likely that threats to rip out someone's eyestalk would
>be
> common as expressions of anger.
Sure. Kind of like "I'll kill him!" in English, right?
> It seems to me that conventionalized insults are more likely to accuse someone
> of being cowardly, a victim of violence, or a sexual deviant than to accuse
> them
> of being violent towards others, though I could be wrong.
Perhaps not wrong. Perhaps these folks think a little differently. In any
event, I
don't see how an expression of anger like "I'll rip your eyestalk right off
your back!"
and a term of abuse like "eyestalk grabber!" are mutually exclusive...
Padraic
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:35 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 10:29:51PM -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 10:44:47PM -0500, Aodhán Aannestad wrote:
> > Is the -en suffix also 1st person subject on verbs?
>
> Unfortunately, I haven't got that far yet. :-P The current lexicon
> (which is listed in full in my original post as quoted below) doesn't
> have any verbs yet.
>
> I do have some vague preliminary ideas about how the grammar might work,
> but it's still too early to say anything concrete about it. I'm kinda
> experimenting with letting the grammar develop from the corpus, rather
> than first setting out the grammar then inventing some words to fit into
> the blanks, as I have done with my two other conlangs.
[...]
You guys are amazing. With all that feedback last night, the conlang bug
bit, and I was up till midnight fleshing out this toylang. There has
been some rather interesting developments, but first, let me make some
replies...
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 02:32:52AM -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
[...]
> In fact the use of Pinyin <q> has nothing to do with its value as a
> Roman letter; it's actually a trans-script borrowing of Cyrillic <ч>!
> That might be innocuous from an internal perspective, but it's
> certainly a poor choice in a world where Roman has other established
> uses.
No kidding! I would've just adopted Cyrillic instead of Latin... there
are so many more options with the expanded palette of letters! But then
that would defeat the purpose of *roman*ization. Oh well.
[...]
> On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:18:09 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> [...]
> >I would go for that, except that the apostrophe is already overused
> >for too many things, so I'd like to avoid it if possible. But I'll
> >keep <ts'> in mind; at least for now, it looks to be a far better
> >alternative than <q>.
>
> Well, to me, the biggest (likely) problem with your use of <q>
> [ts)_h], that no-one's made explicit yet, is its relation to <ts>
> [ts)]. Having a letter for the aspirate when you just use a cluster
> for the simplex is really strange, though slightly less so if
> [+aspirated] is the unmarked member of the opposition, and
> significantly less so if /ts)_h/ is somehow one-of-a-kind in the
> inventory.
Yeah, it *is* very strange, and that's why I commented that I'm not sure
about using <q> yet. At any rate, I think BPJ has found a good solution
(see below).
> Are there other aspirate vs. plain contrasts, and if so
> how do you romanise them?
I haven't even worked out the entire phonetic inventory yet. I'm kinda
leaving it open for revision until the corpus grows large enough.
[...]
> On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:54:48 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> [...]
> >From this very scant corpus, one may draw the following conclusions:
> >- The language has a /pf/ consonant cluster.
>
> You sure it's not an affricate, i.e. unitary? Esp. given that you
> trancribe /ts)/ as unitary.
You're right, based on the new morphology I developed last night, it
appears that /pf/ is probably a unitary affricate. It'd be awesome if
there was a ligature for it somewhere, but I don't know of any writing
system that has such a thing.
> >- When _-en_ follows _ŋ_, a linking /g/ is inserted.
>
> Hah, somewhat like (most dialects of?) English, morphophonologically.
> So, in reference to the thread about /N/, probably your aliens' /N/
> was [Ng] not too long ago?
Heh, you're way ahead of me. :) I haven't even fleshed out core aspects
of the conlang yet, and you're already doing diachronic analysis.
Presently, at least, there appear to be a number of linking consonants
in various contexts (details below).
> >_gruŋ_ [grUN] or [groUN]: arms.
> >_voluŋ_ [vO'lUN]: spaceship.
>
> Interesting that <u> can vary to [oU] in the first but not the second.
>
> >_mohipf_ [mo'?Ipf]: monster.
> >_voluŋ_ [vO'lUN]: spaceship.
>
> Also interesting that unstressed <o> has two different values here.
To be honest, the orthography isn't settled on yet. I'm just making it
up as I go in an attempt to represent the sounds. I know it sounds kinda
weird, why don't just work directly with IPA, but I'm hoping to grapple
with both the orthography and the IPA simultaneously with the hope that
a reasonably naturalistic orthography would develop. I would probably do
a major overhaul of the spelling system at some point, so the above
spellings are only tentative.
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 03:04:33PM +0200, BPJ wrote:
[...]
> I always kind of liked the solution used in a book on Tibetan
> pronunciation I have. The author, a Tibetan scholar, also has
> qualms about <tsh> suggesting [tʃ] so he uses /ts/ = <tz> and
> /tsʰ/ = <ts> even though he otherwise uses Wylie
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wylie_transliteration>.
Now this, I *really* like!! <tz> for /ts)/ and <ts> for <ts)ʰ> totally
makes sense for me. I think I'll adopt that convention. :) Thanks!
> And I'd definitely use <q> (Maltese!) or even <'> for /ʔ/
> since there likely is a /h/ in the lang if it has aspirates.
Yeah, I'm sorta rethinking using <h> to represent /?/, 'cos it turns out
that /x/ is a rather common sound in this language. So the major
spelling overhaul may be nearer in the future than I thought.
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 08:14:29AM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:04 AM, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
> > And I'd definitely use <q> (Maltese!) or even <'> for /ʔ/
> > since there likely is a /h/ in the lang if it has aspirates.
> >
>
> Is that true. I'm just curious, since for many Mandarin dialects,
> pinyin <h> is /x/ and there is no /h/ (there are dialects with /h/,
> though).
My dialect of Mandarin substitutes /h/ for /x/, and collapses several
sibilants into /s/. It probably subconsciously contributed to my dislike
of Pinyin ("why do they have to write /s/ in so many weird ways? they
all sound the same to me!"). I remember first noticing that my
ex-roommate, who is from the Mainland, used /x/ where I'd say /h/, which
sounded really strange to me for quite a while.
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 04:27:07AM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> > From: H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>
> >
> > While the storm in the capitalization teacup blows over, I thought I'd
>
> Interesting, the sort of weather we get around here...
Well, one gets used to it. The only major inconvenience is the delaying
of vowel shipments to Georgia, but the locals don't seem too concerned
about that anyway. :-P
[...]
> > This isn't meant to be a "serious" conlang, so I'm purposely
> > ignoring the unlikelihood of the fact that its speakers are
> > whimsical stereotypical green alien beings that look like a ball
> > with pincer-clawed arms and webbed feet with a single eye on a stalk
> > that curves from their lower back above their body, and the fact
> > that they ride in saucer-shaped spacecrafts with a hemispherical
> > half-dome on top and retractable landing gear on the bottom.
>
> Ah, yes, the glass domed space ship. Popular with so many different
> races of space farer one must think that somewhere *out there* there
> must be some ultra rich, ultra shady glass-domed-used-spaceshipmongery
> that has cornered the market on intrastellar transport.
You must be referring to FTL Tech Inc., who first popularized the
concept of personal iFTLVs (interstellar faster-than-light vehicles)
after being inspired by reports that on a certain planet, the concept of
personal computers caused a major technological revolution. I couldn't
understand what the salespeople were trying to explain about why a
saucer shape was chosen (they weren't very good at explaining technical
details), but they did mention that the glass dome was for maximal
viewing of one's surroundings, which was a major selling point to
personal interstellar tourists.
;-)
> > In any case, here's the currently very scant lexicon:
> >
> > _ipf_ [Ipf]: eye.
> > _ipfen_ [Ipf@n]: my eye.
> > _mohipf_ [mo'?Ipf]: monster.
> > _gruŋ_ [grUN] or [groUN]: arms.
> > _gruŋgen_ ['grUNg@n] or [groUNg@n]: my arms.
> > _tsapjak_ [ts)a'pjak]: feet/legs.
> > _voluŋ_ [vO'lUN]: spaceship.
> > _voluŋgen_ [vO'lUNg@n]: my spaceship.
> > _qeŋ_ [ts)ʰEN]: glass. (Not 100% sure about spelling /ts)ʰ/ as _q_ yet,
> > though.)
> > _iqeŋ_ [I'ts)ʰEN]: glass dome.
[...]
> Hmm. If ipf is eye and iqeng is made from glass and i- is a
> derivational prefix, then I'd suggest that pf is vitreous (or their
> planet's biological analogue) making "eye" actually "made from
> vitreous".
If that was a joke, I'm grateful for the vitreous humor! ;-)
> Either that or "pf" is "eye" and "ipf" is "wonderful delicious
> delicacy made from eye"!
Well, that would be something served by the evil multi-eyed monstrous
swamp-planet cultists, who prey on young children by grabbing their
eye-stalks, and commit atrocities like growing more than one eye!
[...]
> > From: George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com>
> >
> >>I might suggest that, when you find a few more words, that
> >>"eye-stalk-grabber" is a term of the severest abuse!
> >
> >I would think it more likely that threats to rip out someone's
> >eyestalk would be common as expressions of anger.
>
> Sure. Kind of like "I'll kill him!" in English, right?
In fact, I found a phrase: _gruŋgemi ipfteku_ "I'll kill you!" which
literally means "I'll grab your eye!". Analysis below.
> > Furthermore, I have in my notes that _mohipf_ is the plural of "eye"
> > (to a 1-eyed species, anything with multiple eyes is monstrous!).
>
> Yep. I got that one right away! They might wonder what horrible things
> the poly-eyed get up to with all those extra appendages...
Why, they kidnap children, cut off their eye-stalks and eat their
eyeballs, or attach them to their own head to gain even more eyes, of
course!
> The Ytuun of the World view things similarly, though from the opposite
> side. They have two heads and it is the dual that is the presupposed
> and unmarked normal. Plural is therefore three or five and above (four
> is their dual) and they don't have a concept of "one". For them, what
> is to us "one of something" is "half of a pair". So "one egg" becomes
> "half a pair of eggs" just as the "single face" of a Daine or Man
> comes out to "half a person".
>
> Their philosophical counting scheme is therefore: none, half, normal,
> three, two, many.
Ha, nice!
> > Which implies that _mo(h)-_ is perhaps some kind of pluralizing
> > prefix. Or maybe it's _mo-_ with a linking /?/ when preceding a
> > vowel.
>
> I like the latter, but that's just me!
Me too. This thing about linking consonants seems to be surfacing in
other places as well, so perhaps it's a fundamental feature of this
conlang's phonology!
On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 06:12:25AM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> > It seems to me that conventionalized insults are more likely to
> > accuse someone of being cowardly, a victim of violence, or a sexual
> > deviant than to accuse them of being violent towards others, though
> > I could be wrong.
>
> Perhaps not wrong. Perhaps these folks think a little differently. In
> any event, I don't see how an expression of anger like "I'll rip your
> eyestalk right off your back!" and a term of abuse like "eyestalk
> grabber!" are mutually exclusive...
[...]
I haven't discovered any nominal derivational processes yet, but I
believe there should be a nominal analogue to the "I'll grab your eye!"
threat. :)
//
Alright, so that's all the replies for the time being. Now for the fun
stuff: new vocabulary, new grammar, and new phonology!
1) Personal possessive suffixes.
It turns out that -en (1SG.POSS) is a generative suffix, and has a
counterpart in -tek (2SG.POSS) and -tai (2PL.POSS). So we have:
ipf [Ipf] eye
ipfen ['Ipf@n] my eye
ipftek ['IpftEk] your(sg) eye
ipftai ['Ipftaj] your(pl) eye
gruŋ [grUN] arms
gruŋgen [grUNg@n] my arms
gruŋtek [grUNtEk] your(sg) arms
gruŋtai [grUNtaj] your(pl) arms
This last group seems to show a linking /g/ when the suffix begins with
a vowel, but none when the suffix begins with a consonant. There's also
some variance in the pronunciation of /e/, which may be related to which
consonants surround it.
The next group also introduces another phonological feature:
tzapjak [ts)V'pjak] feet/legs
tzapjaken [ts)V'pjak@n] my feet/legs
tzapjaktek [ts)V'pjaxtEk] your(sg) feet/legs
tzapjaktai [ts)V'pjaxtaj] your(pl) feet/legs
There seems to be a fricativisation of /kt/ -> /xt/ here.
Yet more phonological fun:
aehrlu ['ExrlU] tongue (*)
aehrlunen ['ExrlUn@n] my tongue
aehrlutek ['ExrlUtEk] your(sg) tongue
aehrlutai ['ExrlUtaj] your(pl) tongue
(*) I'm not 100% sure about the IPA transcription of /hr/ as [xr]; it
seems to be some kind of voiceless retroflex fricative / trill that I
can't quite put my finger on. It sounds like gargling. :-P
In any case, it seems that when -en comes up against a vowel, a linking
/n/ is inserted.
There are probably other personal possessive suffixes as well, but I
haven't discovered them yet.
2) Attributive -i.
A new development last night was the discovery of the attributive
suffix -i. It occurs in attributive clauses, for example:
voluŋenu daugshti
voluŋ-en-u daugsht-i
spaceship-1SG.POSS-PAT trouble-ATTR
My spaceship is broken (has trouble).
The function of the -u suffix isn't fully clear yet, but for now, the
simplest explanation seems to be a patientive marker of some kind. Or
perhaps a dative marker.
I'm not really happy with the spelling of _daugsht_; it's pronounced
['dAxSt]. I'll have to reconsider how to spell it when I overhaul the
orthography.
3) Verbalizing -mi
The most fascinating development last night was the discovery of the
verbalizing suffix -mi, and the interesting way it is used to make
simple clauses. Here's an example:
ipfemi bufteku.
ipf-en-mi buf-tek-u.
eye-1SG.POSS-V body-2SG.POSS-PAT
I see you.
>From a phonological standpoint, we have the interesting phenomenon:
-en + -mi -> -emi
>From a syntactic standpoint, it seems that the verb "to see" (if there
is one -- I don't know yet) isn't being used here; instead, we have the
periphrastic construction eye + my + [verb]. The object of the clause is
also interesting: the 2SG possessive suffix -tek appears to be unable to
stand on its own, so the noun "body" is used. So literally, the above
clause seems to be saying "My eyeing your body!".
Well, one clause is rather scant evidence to deduce anything, so let's
look at a few more:
aehrlunemi kuugteku.
[,ExrlUn@'mi 'kuxtEkU]
aehrlu-en-mi kuug-tek-u.
tongue-1SG.POSS-V ear-2SG.POSS-PAT
I speak to you.
A literal translation might be "My tonguing [at] your ear". It seems
that the verbalizing suffix -mi turns a noun into its most
characteristic action. The object of the verbalized noun then seems to
adopt the body part most relevant to said action.
I haven't discovered what happens if a noun has more than one
characteristic action, or if an atypical action of the noun is referred
to. I also haven't ruled out the existence of verbs yet. It may be that
these verbalized nouns only cover a subset of usages.
On a phonological note, I'm not very happy with the spelling of _kuug_
[kux]. The orthography definitely needs an overhaul. :-/
Anyway, more clause examples:
tzapjaktekmi voluŋtektu.
[ts)V'pjaxtExmI vO'lUNtExtU]
tzapjak-tek-mi voluŋ-tek-tu.
feet-2SG.POSS-V spaceship-2SG.POSS-DAT
You walk to your spaceship.
tzapjakemi voluŋgendu.
[ts)V'pjak@mI vO'lUNg@ndU]
tzapjak-en-mi voluŋ-en-tu.
feet-1SG.POSS-V spaceship-1SG.POSS-DAT
I walk to my spaceship.
Here we see a new suffix -tu/-du, which appears to be either a dative or
directional marker.
Phonologically, it appears that /k/ tends to fricativise before another
consonant:
Vkt -> Vxt
Vkm -> Vxm
And /nt/ appears to undergo lenition to /nd/ (if we assume a single
underlying suffix -tu, which lenites to -du when preceded by /n/).
Finally, the noun _gruŋ_ "arms" verbalizes to "handle" or "grab", so we
have the threat I previously alluded to:
gruŋgemi ipfteku!
gruŋ-en-mi ipf-tek-u!
arms-1SG.POSS-V eye-2SG.POSS-PAT
I'll kill you! (My arms grab your eye!)
(Keep in mind that these aliens have pincers for claws, so grabbing
their tender eyestalk with these claws would amount to beheading, hence
the graphic translation "I'll kill you!".)
T
--
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Use your hands...
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: New toy conlang sketch
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 10:01 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:19:02 -0500
> From: gacor...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: New toy conlang sketch
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:42 AM, David McCann
> <da...@polymathy.plus.com>wrote:
> > On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:52:38 -0500
> > George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Pinyin's use of <q c> is one of
> > > it's most confusing aspects
> > I can't resist playing devil's advocate here! Chinese is the most
> > important language after English, and China will soon be the
> > world's most important country. For those at school today, 'qin' will
> > be no stranger than 'thin'. Come to think of it, it isn't for me.
> I would not be so certain about the rise of Chinese. China will probably
> rise to be a fully competitive rival to the US within the next 50 years
> I suppose coming down to Earth, in the near future, more non-Chinese will
> certainly be learning Mandarin, and they will probably get used to the
> odder pinyin conventions (as I have)
> But I don't really think there will be enough Chinese learners to make a dent
> in the general
> populace
Regardless of future geopolitical top dogs, China's emergence onto the world
stage, and hence the news, will mean that greater numbers of people will be
exposed to surnames like Qi, Qian, or Qin or trendy stuff like qigong, or just
plain ol' qi. I daresay my friends and relatives, card-carrying members of the
general populace all, have no problem navigating Xerxes, Xavier Cugat, and Deng
Xiaoping, or Bach, Chanel, and Christ, and so I suspect with the passage of
time, as David remarks, Qatar and the Qur'an, Don Quixote, and Qin Shihuang
will not raise eyebrows. (At the very least, they'll know that something
Chinese-y is going on.)
Doesn't mean hapless newscasters won't mangle it. Doesn't mean all high school
teachers will speak as one on whether to say Nikita [kruSt͡ʃɛv] or [kruSt͡ʃɔf].
Doesn't mean the lion will lie down with the lamb. But as people have learned
that Taoism is read with a [d] in English, I think, so too, more people will
begin to internalize that Chinese "Qin" should be read like English "chin" (as
meant for general consumption by English speakers). Increased exposure and the
urge to not look like a total rube should nudge people in the right direction.
_______________ > Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:34:02 -0700
> From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> Subject: Re: New toy conlang sketch
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 08:14:29AM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> > Is that true. I'm just curious, since for many Mandarin dialects,
> > pinyin <h> is /x/ and there is no /h/ (there are dialects with /h/,
> > though).
> My dialect of Mandarin substitutes /h/ for /x/, and collapses several
> sibilants into /s/. It probably subconsciously contributed to my dislike
> of Pinyin ("why do they have to write /s/ in so many weird ways? they
> all sound the same to me!"). I remember first noticing that my
> ex-roommate, who is from the Mainland, used /x/ where I'd say /h/, which
> sounded really strange to me for quite a while.
My experience has been that pinyin <h> has [h] and [x] as allophones of /x/ (or
/h/, if you want to play it *that* way) across the board. I do not think of it
in the same way as "Oh, they collapse <sh> and <s> to /s/ in this dialect.",
"Oh, <n> and <l> are up for grabs in this dialect.", or "Gee, <r> realized as
[j] in this village? *That's* fun!". Perhaps there are places up north where
people only use [x] *all* the time, but I'd like to think I'd've noticed. This
feels to me more like a careful/allegro, delivering a speech to the Central
Committee/knockin' 'em back at the local watering hole distinction than a
regional variation (though maybe after your fifth shot, you get more
[x]-prone). That said, I can certainly understand that out there in parts of
the diaspora, /x/ may well have bitten the dust.
Kou
Messages in this topic (18)
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________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:28 am ((PDT))
Still working my way up the backlog :) .
On 6 June 2013 00:46, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The latest lang that I've been working on, Mulesuax, is quite analytic.
> While it doesn't feature case endings, it does feature case particles that
> come before the noun in question, as Mulesuax is strongly head-initial.
>
>
Interestingly, while my conlang Moten is otherwise quite different from
your Mulesuax (being somewhat head-final, strongly verb-final, and quite
synthetic), it handles nominal and adjectival predicates in ways that are
nearly identical to it.
> So _ua_ is used for 'X is a Y', which happens to be the third person
> singular pronoun (dua for the plural):
> _ua ba mulessuas mo ttlamt_
> is-subj.-Mulesuax-d.o.-language
> 'Mulesuax is a language'
>
>
In Moten, nominal predicates use the verb _atom_: "to be". It behaves like
any transitive verb and thus takes an object in the accusative case:
_Motenku|leju kuldun ito_
_Moten-ku|l<e>u ku|l<d>u-n i-to_
Moten-language<DEF> language<ACC.SG>-ACC PRS-be
'Moten is a language'
Notice that if the predicate is put in the definite form: _motenku|leju
ku|ledun ito_, the result can have two meanings: "Moten is *the* language"
(i.e. we were talking about some language and Moten is that one) or simply
"Moten is *a* language" (synonymous to the form with the indefinite
predicate). This second meaning, as far as I understand it, is considered
slightly more informal, but is common in speech.
> For adjectives, 'X is Y', the verb _banh_, to have, is used:
> _banh ba do-kksums mo liksia_
> have-subj.-pl-shaman-d.o.-honourable
> 'The shamans have honour/The shamans are honourable'
> The case particle does a sort of nominalisation on the adjective, so
> either translation is acceptable.
>
>
In Moten, there are no adjectives per se. Instead, there are abstract nouns
that, when following another noun in direct apposition, take on an
adjective-like function. To form adjectival predicates then is as simple as
using the verb _agem_: "to have" with an abstract noun (usually in the
definite accusative case), as your first translation does:
_Ka|sese ufedan ige_
_Ka|s<e><s>e uf<e><d>an-n i-ge_
Man<DEF><NOM.PL> greatness<DEF><ACC.SG>-ACC PRS-have
'The men are great' (literally "the men have the greatness")
As you see, both constructions are very similar to how your conlang does
it, despite the big differences in structure of the two languages.
> For both of these constructions, it's simply verb-subject-direct.object
>
>
Moten is more usually SOV.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:43 pm ((PDT))
Wow that's very interesting that our conlangs are so similar! I think the only
difference is that I don't have a proper verb 'to be'; instead I'm making do
with the third person pronoun which I stole from Hebrew. I was definitely
planning on blurring the lines between adjective and noun but I'm not sure to
what extent yet: _ba liksia_ might mean honour or honourable one.
If the first then there really will be no difference between a noun and an
adjective and conversely any noun might become an adjective - _ba liksia
kksums_ would be something like 'shamanistic honour' where _ba kksums liksia_
is 'honourable shaman'.
If the second then they aren't quite the same and behave more like adjectives
in German or French 'les petits' or 'les beaux' where the actual head noun is
omitted. This leaves room for more derivational processes which at the moment
are very sparse.
But I could have it mean both things and leave it up to context, or have one
interpretation more likely in different sentence positions - or because
Mulesuax does mark for number, the singular could be interpreted as 'honour'
and the plural as 'honourable ones', as I feel the second thingy is more likely
to show up in the plural whereas the first one is abstract and so necessarily
singular.
Anyway, slightly off topic. There was a lot of discussion about the predicates
and why they don't act as objects. So I started rethinking my conlang. As it is
designed as a parent language I thought that maybe I could do something weird
in each branch, although I will definitely have at least one branch do it the
way it does it now.
Good on you for catching up on all these e-mails. Just be careful on the
capitalisation thread. I hope your holiday was enjoyable!
James
On 28/06/2013, at 3:16 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Still working my way up the backlog :) .
>
> On 6 June 2013 00:46, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The latest lang that I've been working on, Mulesuax, is quite analytic.
>> While it doesn't feature case endings, it does feature case particles that
>> come before the noun in question, as Mulesuax is strongly head-initial.
> Interestingly, while my conlang Moten is otherwise quite different from
> your Mulesuax (being somewhat head-final, strongly verb-final, and quite
> synthetic), it handles nominal and adjectival predicates in ways that are
> nearly identical to it.
>
>
>> So _ua_ is used for 'X is a Y', which happens to be the third person
>> singular pronoun (dua for the plural):
>> _ua ba mulessuas mo ttlamt_
>> is-subj.-Mulesuax-d.o.-language
>> 'Mulesuax is a language'
> In Moten, nominal predicates use the verb _atom_: "to be". It behaves like
> any transitive verb and thus takes an object in the accusative case:
> _Motenku|leju kuldun ito_
> _Moten-ku|l<e>u ku|l<d>u-n i-to_
> Moten-language<DEF> language<ACC.SG>-ACC PRS-be
> 'Moten is a language'
>
> Notice that if the predicate is put in the definite form: _motenku|leju
> ku|ledun ito_, the result can have two meanings: "Moten is *the* language"
> (i.e. we were talking about some language and Moten is that one) or simply
> "Moten is *a* language" (synonymous to the form with the indefinite
> predicate). This second meaning, as far as I understand it, is considered
> slightly more informal, but is common in speech.
>
>
>> For adjectives, 'X is Y', the verb _banh_, to have, is used:
>> _banh ba do-kksums mo liksia_
>> have-subj.-pl-shaman-d.o.-honourable
>> 'The shamans have honour/The shamans are honourable'
>> The case particle does a sort of nominalisation on the adjective, so
>> either translation is acceptable.
> In Moten, there are no adjectives per se. Instead, there are abstract nouns
> that, when following another noun in direct apposition, take on an
> adjective-like function. To form adjectival predicates then is as simple as
> using the verb _agem_: "to have" with an abstract noun (usually in the
> definite accusative case), as your first translation does:
> _Ka|sese ufedan ige_
> _Ka|s<e><s>e uf<e><d>an-n i-ge_
> Man<DEF><NOM.PL> greatness<DEF><ACC.SG>-ACC PRS-have
> 'The men are great' (literally "the men have the greatness")
>
> As you see, both constructions are very similar to how your conlang does
> it, despite the big differences in structure of the two languages.
>
>
>> For both of these constructions, it's simply verb-subject-direct.object
> Moten is more usually SOV.
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: nominal (or adjectival) predicates: how do you form them?
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:25 am ((PDT))
On 27 June 2013 23:43, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow that's very interesting that our conlangs are so similar!
Yes, so similar and yet so different :P .
> I think the only difference is that I don't have a proper verb 'to be';
> instead I'm making do with the third person pronoun which I stole from
> Hebrew. I was definitely planning on blurring the lines between adjective
> and noun but I'm not sure to what extent yet: _ba liksia_ might mean honour
> or honourable one.
>
> If the first then there really will be no difference between a noun and an
> adjective and conversely any noun might become an adjective - _ba liksia
> kksums_ would be something like 'shamanistic honour' where _ba kksums
> liksia_ is 'honourable shaman'.
>
>
That's basically how Moten works: _ka|se ufan_: "great man", _ufan ka|se_:
"manly greatness" (OK, I might have been watching Tengen Toppa Gurren
Lagann too much lately :P).
> If the second then they aren't quite the same and behave more like
> adjectives in German or French 'les petits' or 'les beaux' where the actual
> head noun is omitted. This leaves room for more derivational processes
> which at the moment are very sparse.
>
>
That's indeed how French and other Romance languages behave. Interestingly,
Basque behaves the same way: _txikia_: "the bird", _txiki txoria_: "the
small bird", _txoria_: "the small one". Despite Basque's enormous influence
on Moten I chose not to have a separate adjective class in Moten, So in
Moten we have: _linean_: "the bird", _linan pleg_: "the small bird",
_pleg_: "the smallness".
To signify "the small one", the most generic (and most common) way is to
use a nominalised relative clause: _plegedun iges_: "the one that has the
smallness". This may look like a roundabout way to render it, but it's not
without (indirect) natlang precedent: in Basque (again :) ), the form
_dena_ basically means "everything, everyone, all", and is used as such.
However, it is actually the verb _izan_: "to be" in the third person
present modifier form (used to form relative clauses) _den_, then
nominalised with the article _-a_ (all relative clauses in Basque can be
nominalised that way). So _dena_ literally means "the one that is" (_izan_
can have an existential meaning in Basque).
So the idea of using a nominalised relative clause to get something that
looks pronominal is not without precedent :) .
> But I could have it mean both things and leave it up to context, or have
> one interpretation more likely in different sentence positions - or because
> Mulesuax does mark for number, the singular could be interpreted as
> 'honour' and the plural as 'honourable ones', as I feel the second thingy
> is more likely to show up in the plural whereas the first one is abstract
> and so necessarily singular.
>
>
A third option is to say that all adjectives are actually nouns, but that
these nouns mean "X one". Then you just need to explain that what you have
isn't adjectives completing nouns, but nouns in apposition. That's what the
writer Frédéric Werst does in his conlang Wardwesân. The interesting result
of this option is that word order becomes irrelevant: if your _liksia_ is
actually a noun meaning "honourable one", both _ba liksia kksums_ and _ba
kksums liksia_ mean "honourable shaman" (literally "honourable one, shaman"
or "shaman, honourable one"), and the freedom of word order allows you to
play all kinds of tricks :) . And you still have room for derivational
processes to get abstract nouns out of the adjective-like nouns.
> Anyway, slightly off topic. There was a lot of discussion about the
> predicates and why they don't act as objects. So I started rethinking my
> conlang. As it is designed as a parent language I thought that maybe I
> could do something weird in each branch, although I will definitely have at
> least one branch do it the way it does it now.
>
>
I read that discussion already (will send a reply later on that thread). I
was involved in the earlier one that is mentioned on that thread too, due
to the way Moten works :) . I personally like the idea that the Moten "to
be" verb is syntactically no different from any other transitive verb. I
tried to reduce the number of word types in Moten as much as possible, and
having the verb "to be" be a type of its own didn't sit well with me :) .
> Good on you for catching up on all these e-mails. Just be careful on the
> capitalisation thread. I hope your holiday was enjoyable!
>
>
My holiday was great, thank you :) . One of the greatest thing that
happened during that holiday is that I finished reading the 1405 pages of
the _Standard Basque: a Progressive Grammar_ book by Rudolf de Rijk. I
already knew quite a bit about Basque, but that book filled all the holes
in my knowledge, and made me discover even more interesting features of
Basque I was unaware of (like _dena_ as I described above). I just *might*
refer to Basque a lot in the next months :P .
I already read the capitalisation thread, and deleted it. Too much vitriol
for me to do anything with it :P.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (15)
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________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Re: "Wedging" Foreign Names
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:13 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Wednesday 26 June 2013 20:52:45 R A Brown wrote:
> [examples of indeclinables and "wedged" nouns in Greek and Latin]
>
> This problem of whether to leave a noun indeclinable or to
> "wedge" it into the language is one that any language with
> declinable nouns has. It interesting seeing how Zamenhof
> himself dealt with this in his translation of the Jewish
> Scriptures (No - he didn't just stick -o on the end of them
> all!). But I've written ling enough, methinks.
Yes. Old Albic declines its nouns, though in a more agglutinating
way than Greek or Latin, and foreign nouns are indeed "wedged"
into the language. For example, the King Arganthonios of
Tartessos is known as _Arganthonio_, with the Celtic -os replaced
by Old Albic -o, the ending for masculine nouns. Tartessos itself
is _Tartessa_ (common gender). Inanimate nouns are taken over
unchanged unless they end in a vowel, in which case the vowel is
either dropped or -m added. With these modifications, the nouns
neatly fit into the Old Albic declensions, and are declined normally.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (36)
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3.2. Re: "Wedging" Foreign Names
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:14 pm ((PDT))
On 27/06/2013 00:57, Aodhán Aannestad wrote:
> Ah, that was mostly just my impression - apologies for
> presenting it as fact when it wasn't!
No worries.
The question "And a further question ( :P ) - for people
with IE-esque conlangs where case morphology is largely
inalienable from nouns, are foreign names uninflectable or
are they wedged somehow into the case system?" is an
interesting one.
Except I would not restrict it to IE-esque conlangs. Any
conlang with case morphology will surely have this problem.
Indeed, there are two problems in dealing with foreign names:
1. How do you put the name into the phonology of your
conlang, whether nouns are declined or not?
2. If your language has a case system, do you leave them
uninflected, or some & uninflected and other inflected (as
in Latin & Greek), or do you assimilate them all into your
declension systems?
We had a thread on 1 above not so very long ago. But 2 is
interesting, though, unfortunately, not one I can answer as
I have no conlangs with a case system. ;)
> On 6/26/2013 1:52 PM, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
>> This problem of whether to leave a noun indeclinable
>> or to "wedge" it into the language is one that any
>> language with declinable nouns has. It interesting
>> seeing how Zamenhof himself dealt with this in his
>> translation of the Jewish Scriptures (No - he didn't
>> just stick -o on the end of them all!). But I've
>> written long enough, methinks.
Well, having mentioned Zamenhof, I guess I'd better expand.
Esperanto does not have an extensive declension system, just
a two-case one similar to Old French or Old Provençal.
Nevertheless, how were the Old testament names adapted
("wedged" into Esperanto)?
Some are fully 'naturalized', e.g. Moseo, Josuo (Joshua),
Salomono (Solomon) - with acc.in -n.
Quite a lot have the endings -a (nom.), -an (acc.) which
otherwise mark adjectives, e.g.
Eva, Noa, Jesaja (Isaiah), Jeremia etc.
But mostly they are left indeclinable, e.g. Adam, Abraham,
David, Jeĥezkel (Ezekiel) etc.
IRCC proper names in Volapük are either fully 'naturalized'
(e.g. I believe the Volapük for "Alice' is _Lälid_), in
which case they take the normal Volapük endings, or they are
left indeclinable and are preceded by a special 'article'
_el_ (gem. ela, dat. ele, acc. ela). I'm sure if I haven't
remembered correctly, someone will correct me ;)
--
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 (36)
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________________________________________________________________________
4.1. Re: writing (almost) entirely in lower-case letters
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:34 am ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 11:06:37PM -0500, Aodhán Aannestad wrote:
> And a further question ( :P ) - for people with IE-esque conlangs
> where case morphology is largely inalienable from nouns, are foreign
> names uninflectable or are they wedged somehow into the case system?
> (cf Latin vs. Ancient Greek - Latin tries to jam them in (hence
> 'Confucius', 'Gustavus', etc.), while Greek just leaves them alone
> (Ισραήλ and so on).)
Geographical names are abstract (-as) in Senjecas and the tone pattern must
match that of Senjecas. Thus, America becomes ámerı̋kas.
Senjecas sticks with the first name of a place used by humans. Thus, Egypt is
ĸɵ́snëta̋las, black land.
If a country is named after an ethnic group, the name of this group is prefixed
to -ĸ̧űnas, country; thus ángelĸ̧űnas = England; samĸ̧űnas = Finland; šazĸ̧űnas
= Swaziland.
Or the name could be a literal translation. Thus, Norway = ĸuðámƶas, northern
way; Netherlands = nitérnaala̋es, lower lands.
With respect to the names of persons, the earliest known form of the name is
used, with Senjecan phonetics and the personal ending -us. George < Γεώργιος =
geőrģus. Charles < Ceorl = keőrlus; Elizabeth < אֱלִישֶׁבַע (elisheba) =
élice̋bus.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (36)
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________________________________________________________________________
5a. Purr; was Animal Noises?
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:57 am ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
> Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 19:37:42 -0400
> From: tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
> Subject: Re: Animal Noises?
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> ----- Original Message -----
> How many of your conlangs have animal noises? Do you have specific animal
> species in the worlds your languages inhabit as well?
> ========================
> In Senjecas there is:
> peena, i.v. purr
vurun
Coulda sworn I had "caw", and thought possibly "meow", but no.
Kou
======================
It is interesting that the word for "purr" is the same as the word for "spin"
in some languages, which is what Senjecas has done. I've discovered the
following: Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, Serbian, and
Swedish.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (12)
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________________________________________________________________________
6. languedoc historical grammars
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" wes.par...@paradise.net.nz
Date: Fri Jun 28, 2013 2:47 am ((PDT))
Hi
I've begun thinking about a Romance conlang for a story I'm writing. It is a
Languedoc development,
heavily influenced by another conlang, a Sarmatian-Gothic creole spoken by a
majority population
formed by migrating Sarmatians and Visigoths. I've got some Gothic textbooks,
and some Avestan,
Pahlavi, Sogdian and modern Persian textbooks, so I can work something out for
the Sarmatian-Goths
to cry into their beers. I just don't have much stuff on
Provencal/Occitan/Languedoc - a modern
grammar, a TY Catalan which will do for some of the comparative grammar work -
but no Old Occitan/
Provencal/Languedoc grammars that I can recall, and no historical grammars.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks
Wesley Parish
"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
"I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!"
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
Messages in this topic (1)
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________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: What do you call the damn thing!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:06 am ((PDT))
On 19 June 2013 21:24, Mechthild Czapp <rejista...@me.com> wrote:
> In German, Fernbedienung (literally: usage from a distance) is pretty
> common.
Dutch has something similar: _afstandsbediening_, literally meaning
"control/service from a distance". French uses _télécommande_, adding the
Greek prefix _télé-_ indicating distance to the French word _commande_
meaning "control", "order", but also "switch".
Moten doesn't have the word yet, but it will eventually do (it's spoken
"here and now" after all). It will probably be a compound beginning with
_miko_ meaning "far, long distance" (just like _mikostulipi_ meaning
"telephone" –literally "instrument to summon from far"– and
_mikobozez/mikomedgaz_ meaning "broadcast" –literally "sent far away"–).
But I need a word for "television" first :P .
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (17)
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