There are 8 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: Lisa Weißbach
1d. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
From: H. S. Teoh
2a. Re: Deriving Positionals from Directionals
From: Anthony Miles
3a. Re: ping
From: Elsa Nilaj
4a. Tongue-twisters
From: H. S. Teoh
4b. Re: Tongue-twisters
From: Leonardo Castro
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 7:19 am ((PDT))
> From: H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
>
> On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 06:07:20AM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
>> > From: H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
> [...]
>> >> >> Maybe an emphatic adversative conjunctive adjunct.
>> >> >
>> >> > Whoa. That's quite a mouthful. Mind unpacking that a bit
> for
>> >> > me? :)
>> >>
>> >> Careful! These kinds of boxes can explode all over the place,
>> >> spewing their contents to every corner of the room. Ever try to
>> >> pry adjunct goo off the wallpaper? :/ Not fun!
>> >
>> > I don't mind exploding boxes.
>>
>> Alright, but you've been warned! Don't come complaining back to me
>> when you get a 5000 quatloo bill for goo scrapage and shrapnel
>> removal.
>
> Sigh, and I still have no answer to what that original mysterious
> incantation quoted above means.
Mystery of life, what?
>> Or when the Society magistrates come around with their little yellow
>> notice saying that this region is simply not zoned for highly
>> explosive languages! :P
>
> Well, then one just has to add some implosive stops to the language to
> balance out the explosiveness and bring it within acceptable limits...
Now, that's positive thinking! Only be careful lest the language head towards
a run-away chain shift!
> :-P
>
>
>> > My conlangs tend to explode boxes every now and then. They just
>> > refuse to be boxed in by well-known, nicely-behaved linguistic
>> > boxes, no matter how hard I try. Tatari Faran refuses to behave like
>> > any language with "normal" case systems; then when I started
> on the
>> > alien conlang, I actually started using normal cases like
>> > nominatives, datives, ablatives, and patientives (which, so far,
>> > behave essentially like accusatives), only to have the *rest* of the
>> > language explode in my face by refusing to attest any verbs, and
>> > refusing to have standalone pronouns.
>> >
>> > I'm still holding out hope for "real" verbs in the alien
> conlang,
>> > though the weight of evidence seems to be pointing the other way
>> > right now. I've given up hope on the pronouns, though.
>>
>> Hm. In all honesty, I think you're just going to have to give up all
>> pretense of your actually constructing this language. Clearly, it
>> exceeded critical mass within moments of reaching the tolkien
>> constant, and now, my friend, you're just hanging on for the wild
>> ride!
>
> Hmm. I'm surprised this happened so early in the process.
Well, this is very critical time for any conlang!
> I mean, I
> don't even have the outline of the clause structure figured out yet!
> Back in the day, Tatari Faran only started to rear its own head against
> my wishes after I set down the rules of behaviour^W^W^W I mean, the
> general rules of clausal structures. With this alienlang, I only have a
> handful of sample sentences and what little grammar can be deduced from
> them, and already it's exploding in my face. And the lexicon is only 63
> entries thus far!
Indeed! 20/200 hindsight and all that. Clearly this diminutive dynamo is going
to
lead you down all kinds of garden paths. And quite possibly entice you into a
dark alley where it will give you the slip and evolve entirely out of your
control.
> Yesterday, I discovered how to form possessives involving explicit
> possessors (i.e., other than pronouns). Oddly enough, the pronominal
> possessive affixes are still there! It's just that you tack on the
> explicit noun immediately after:
>
> fraht.
> [frAxt]
> girl
>
> voluÅ.
> [vO'lUN]
> spaceship
>
> voluÅget.
> [vO'lUNgEt]
> voluÅ-et.
> spaceship-3SG.POSS
> His/her spaceship.
>
> voluÅgetfraht.
> [vO'lUNgET,frAxt]
> voluÅ-et-fraht
> spaceship-3SG.POSS-girl
> The girl's spaceship.
>
> It's almost as if one is saying "spaceship of her, the girl".
>
> Interestingly enough, if the explicit possessor is plural, the usual
> plural markings aren't used; instead, you indicate plurality by using
> the plural pronominal possessives:
>
> voluÅgutfraht.
> [vO'lUNgUT,frAxt]
> voluÅ-ut-fraht
> spaceship-3PL.POSS-girl
> The girls' spaceship.
>
> In essence, "the spaceship of them, the girls".
? Oughtn't that be "the spaceship of them, the girl (singular)"??
I like this mode well enough to steal --- ah! borrow! Yes, borrow! ;))
>> Just call it a "relational particle"! Magic words, them. They
> describe
>> anything and nothing at all, and have the added benefit of at least
>> feigning actual linguisticitude!
> [...]
>
> Ah, terminology fit for politicians! ;-)
Works like a charm! I've used it any number of times, especially when I can't
think of anything better.
> On a more serious note, I've tentatively decided that -mi will be
> glossed as either -V or -INSTR depending on its meaning in the current
> sentence. I haven't decided what to do in cases where it might be
> ambiguous (though this hasn't come up yet).
Just give it five minutes! I'm sure you'll find all sorts of ambiguity where you
least expect it...
> T
Padraic
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 7:51 am ((PDT))
> From: Lisa Weißbach <[email protected]>
>
> Oh, I know these kinds of problems... So many languages on the back burner
> because I can't find a class, and trying to teach myself usually ends up in
> a very lopsided kind of linguistic competence, i.e. good reading skills, no
> speaking skills whatsoever... By the way, I've actually encountered a very
> similar construction in English (similar to yours about learning Russian)!
> It's from a dialogue of a TV series:
>
> A: So she was planning to sell the house?
> B: Oh, she was always selling it - never did.
>
> As a non-native speaker, I always had problems understanding this last
> sentence - after all, "she was selling it" is in the past tense, so
> the action of selling must already have taken place! But then, a seminar on
> contrastive grammar opened my eyes, and I started to see that "she was
> selling it" highlights the progressive (imperfective) aspect instead of the
> past tense and is, in this aspect, very similar to "she was going to sell
> it". Quite an epiphany for someone in their second semester.
Well done! It is my opinion, but I think the English verbal system is fár more
aspect-oriented than it is tense-oriented. English verbs are also highly idiom-
oriented. And of course, meaning is also highly dependent on the nuances of
context and extra-linguistic information (sarcasm, etc).
For example, my first impression, especially based on the curious wording
"she was always selling it", is one steeped in sarcasm. The verb itself has
nothing to do with actually selling a house as much to do with B's attitude
towards C. In other words, that phrase can, in addition to any "straight"
reading, also be read sarcastically to indicate that C liked to be "in the
game". She never had a real intention to sell the house, she just liked busying
herself with planning to sell, and making it look like she was going to sell,
maybe getting people to talk about her, etc.
In order to read this in a straight fashion, I would expect:
A: So she was planning to sell the house?
B: Oh, she planned to - never did.
or
B: Oh, she was always going to sell it - never did.
or
B: Oh, that was always her plan / intention - never did.
Not my intention to get into a usage thread, but these kinds of considerations
are I think helpful for anyone making a language. How do we deal with these
kinds of alternate readings? How do sarcasm, sleight of speech and double/treble
entendre work? Or does the tongue strictly allow only single entendre?
>> > Yes, and the inconsequential category definitely includes meanings
>> > such as this one; I analysed and translated example sentences similar
>> > to yours in my exam so I don't have a doubt that your last
> sentences
>> > and the earlier ones are related semantically. Still, I think there is
>> > a small difference. The prototypical inconsequential works like this:
>> > something happens (action 1) - it usually has certain consequences
>> > (expected result) - in this specific case, the result doesn't
> occur or
>> > at least has no influence on the agent's actions (action 2). In
> your
>> > last examples, the timeline looks like it's been switched around:
> the
>> > agent acts in a particular manner (corresponds to action 2!) even
>> > though something bad may happen (action 1) which is expected to
>> > prevent the agent (expected result) - looks like putting the cart
>> > before the horse! But it's actually quite easy to fit the examples
>> > into the concept of the inconsequential because in fact, what we
>> > should label "action 1" is not the bad things that will
> happen, but
>> > the thought of them happening, the premonition. So the timeline should
>> > be: the agent thinks of the possibility of bad things happening to him
>> > (action 1) - this thought should prevent him from acting in a certain
>> > way (expected result) - the agent acts that way anyway (action 2).
>>
>> Hmm. I wonder if it helps to construct more elaborate contexts in which
>> such constructions might used in my conlang, to help tease out the exact
>> meaning:
>>
>> 1) A king is sitting in his court, and is about to send out an envoy to
>> a nearby diplomatic ally in order to establish important trade
>> relations, when his attendants bring news that their mortal enemies, the
>> Ahripf tribe, are on the move, and are likely to cross the path of the
>> envoy. The king thinks for a while, then says: "We will send the envoy
>> (indicative); let the enemy cross our path (imperative/hortative)!"
> That
>> is, he decides that it would serve his goals whether the envoy manages
>> to evade the enemy and establish contact with the ally, or gets attacked
>> and thereby gives him an excuse to retaliate against the enemy.
>>
>> 2) A young explorer is about to set off on his spaceship to an unknown,
>> uncharted region of space, and his mother tells him to be careful, since
>> there have been rumors of monstrous 2-eyed beings inhabiting that space
>> who have violent inclinations. He answers, "I will still fly out there
>> (indicative), let dangers and 2-eyed monstrosities come (imperative)!"
>> That is, dangers and threats do not concern him as much as his desire to
>> explore the unknown.
>>
>> 3) A prisoner-of-war is about to be executed at the gallows. He is given
>> a final chance to defect to his captors' cause. But he is unshaken, and
>> says, "I stand for my country's cause (indicative), beat me and
> execute
>> me (imperative)!" That is, he refuses to betray his cause, even if his
>> captors will beat him and execute him.
>>
>> 4) A child is sitting at the dinner table, and is told to eat up his
>> vegetables otherwise he will get no candy. He says, "I won't eat
> them
>> (indicative); take the candy away (imperative)!" That is, he'd
> rather
>> not eat the vegetables even if that means he has to give up the candy.
>> His brother, on the other hand, says, "I want the candy (indicative),
>> let me eat the vegetables (imperative)!" -- that is, he wants to get
> the
>> candy, even if it means he has to eat those yucky vegetables.
>>
>
> Those are some interesting and funny examples! I especially like the first
> one, since it introduces a constellation we haven't talked about before,
> i.e. a situation where both the occurrence of "action 1" and its
> non-occurrence can be interpreted as an advantage. That means that the
> agent doesn't have to worry about whether it takes place or not because he
> is in a win-win situation. I'm not sure if you're moving beyond the
> inconsequential category there, though: after all, it's no longer true that
> the agent doesn't care about which of the two possibilities becomes true,
> but that he'd welcome either one; his attitude is positive towards both of
> them, not indifferent. An interesting borderline case which could become
> visible in the morphology if your conlang should develop attitude markers
> or the like.
This is because kings don't think in ordinary ways. He knows that envoys
are expendable (and because of example three, knows that a loyal envoy --
i.e., one that's been brainwashed to do his potentate's bidding even at the
cost of his own life -- will go regardless of the danger); and he also knows
that he's got any number of them. So, either way, the king wins: if the envoy
makes it, he gets a nice trade package. If the envoy is attacked, he gets a
flimsy pretense to destroy an enemy (and take slaves, booty, hostages, etc);
and he will stìll have the opportunity to send another envoy once the war is
winding down. Either way, his exchequer grows a bit fatter, and he gets to
consolidate his hold on power as the guy that brings prosperity and security
to the land.
> I'd say that the second example works the same way as your earlier
> examples: the mere thought of monsters is not enough to thwart his plans.
> The third example includes both interpretations - I'd say that for
> "beat"
> it works like the prototypical inconsequential (you beat me - I still stand
> for my country's cause), but for "execute" it obviously has to
> work along
> the lines of "Come what may...", so this short sentence mixes the two
> possible aspects of the inconsequential. The fourth one is still undecided
> for me - both aspects could work for the child's thinking. The brother,
> however, doesn't use the inconsequential at all but instead offers a simple
> conclusion to the given premises: "I want the candy" + "I'll
> have to eat
> the vegetables in order to get the candy" --> "I'll eat the
> vegetables" -
> no surprise or evasion of expected consequences there.
Actually, it's a rare little boy that can think so far ahead as to understand
how to get the candy ánd be willing to sacrifice for it! Most will be stuck
in the "don't want yucky vegetables ~ frustration over withheld candy" stage
and never make the leap.
> Lisa
Padraic
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "Lisa Weißbach" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 1:03 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/24 H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 10:05:49PM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
> > 2013/7/22 H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
> [...]
> Haha, yeah. There are almost no native Russian speakers among my
> acquiantances, so most of my learning was actually from reading Russian
> books. I bought a Russian New Testament and read through it: when I
> started out, I could barely understand 5% of it (I did take the time to
> learn Cyrillic so that I can at least pronounce the words); by the time
> I finished, I daresay my comprehension level was around 70%. (Being
> well-versed with the English NT helped a lot, of course.) Currently, my
> reading comprehension is probably around 85% or so.
>
> However, my listening comprehension is not good, and my speaking skills
> are worse. I Skype'd with a native speaker from Moscow every Saturday
> for about a year or so, which dramatically improved my
> listening/speaking skills, but we've had a hard time keeping it up so
> recently I haven't had much practice at all. I do still try to read
> every now and then so that I don't start losing my grasp of the
> language, but it's hard to keep up without a Russian-speaking
> environment to be immersed in.
>
Tell me about it... And it's even worse with conlangs because there are so
much fewer potential speakers! I'll have to converse with my future cats
when my conlang has reached a speaking level...
>
>
> > By the way, I've actually encountered a very similar construction in
> > English (similar to yours about learning Russian)! It's from a
> > dialogue of a TV series:
> >
> > A: So she was planning to sell the house?
> > B: Oh, she was always selling it - never did.
> >
> > As a non-native speaker, I always had problems understanding this last
> > sentence - after all, "she was selling it" is in the past tense, so
> > the action of selling must already have taken place! But then, a
> > seminar on contrastive grammar opened my eyes, and I started to see
> > that "she was selling it" highlights the progressive (imperfective)
> > aspect instead of the past tense and is, in this aspect, very similar
> > to "she was going to sell it". Quite an epiphany for someone in their
> > second semester.
>
> I'm technically not a native speaker either, but I'm a de facto native
> speaker 'cos my grasp of English is far better than my own L1 (or any
> other language I know)... to me, "she was always selling it" has
> several distinguishing qualities:
>
> 1) "selling" is continuous, which hints at something unusual, because
> if she had already sold it, we'd say "she sold it" -- simple past.
> The use of the continuous tense instead of the default simple past
> indicates that it's an unfinished action.
>
> 2) The English verb "sell" has two similar but distinct meanings: (a) to
> complete a transaction of sale; and (b) to put something up for sale
> (e.g., "they're selling hotdogs on the street corner"). The use of
> the continuous tense in (1) implies that the intended meaning is (b).
> This is strengthened by the following:
>
> 3) "always" has overtones of irony or derision; it's emphasizing the
> continuous action of "selling", which again sets it apart from the
> simple past "she sold it", which is a one-time, finished action, a
> done deal.
>
> Finally, "never did" is a (negated) simple past -- which, by context,
> refers to "selling". Here, there's a subtle pun on "sell": whereas in
> the previous clause meaning (b) was indicated, here it refers to meaning
> (a) by switching to the simple past. That is, she put up the house for
> sale, but no sale ever happened. The pun is probably unconscious, since
> English speakers have come to associate both meanings with the lexeme
> "sell", so the switch is probably mostly unconscious.
>
>
Padraic, 24.07.2013 16:51:
> Well done! It is my opinion, but I think the English verbal system is fár
> more
> aspect-oriented than it is tense-oriented. English verbs are also highly
> idiom-
> oriented. And of course, meaning is also highly dependent on the nuances of
> context and extra-linguistic information (sarcasm, etc).
>
> For example, my first impression, especially based on the curious wording
> "she was always selling it", is one steeped in sarcasm. The verb itself has
> nothing to do with actually selling a house as much to do with B's attitude
> towards C. In other words, that phrase can, in addition to any "straight"
> reading, also be read sarcastically to indicate that C liked to be "in the
> game". She never had a real intention to sell the house, she just liked
> busying
> herself with planning to sell, and making it look like she was going to
> sell,
> maybe getting people to talk about her, etc.
>
> In order to read this in a straight fashion, I would expect:
>
> A: So she was planning to sell the house?
> B: Oh, she planned to - never did.
>
> or
>
> B: Oh, she was always going to sell it - never did.
>
> or
>
> B: Oh, that was always her plan / intention - never did.
>
> Not my intention to get into a usage thread, but these kinds of
> considerations
> are I think helpful for anyone making a language. How do we deal with these
> kinds of alternate readings? How do sarcasm, sleight of speech and
> double/treble
> entendre work? Or does the tongue strictly allow only single entendre?
>
Wow, and here I thought that my seminar had already opened my eyes... This
is yet a new and interesting reading of B's sentence - consider my eyes
wide open now! Irony or sarcasm is something I never would have considered
in my interpretation until now, but thinking about it, it does make a
surprising amount of sense, especially when keeping the context and the
plot of the episode in mind. Without spoiling too much, B is a pragmatic
and slightly grumpy real estate agent who likes to wrap his deals up as
quickly as possible and who appraised the house in question about a month
before the events in this episode (so C probably hadn't been in the market
for long), and A is a policeman called to the house because C was found
dead there. Looks like she won't be able to sell the house any time soon...
And the fact that this simple verb form raises the utterance from the pure
content level (B talking about C selling the house) to a relationship level
(B revealing something about his attitude towards C) makes it even more
subtle. Teoh, now that I think about it, in said seminar we also learnt
that the word "always" lends additional meaning to verbs in the progressive
form, e.g. annoyance ("She's always complaining but never tries to actively
change anything"); irony certainly is a nice and fitting item to add to
that list of additional meanings.
Hm, in order to keep this from turning into a usage thread and to steer
back in the conlang direction: have any of you developed ways to express
irony through morphology in your conlangs, such as these verb forms?
Kou, 24.07.2013 13:44:
> At the risk of triggering a usage thread, I'm happy for your epiphany, but
> I don't think you need to take your non-native speaker status out behind
> the shed for having problems with B's utterance. I hardly find the meaning
> immediately transparent and to get to an interpretation of, "Oh, it seemed
> she always had it up for sale on the market, but never succeeded in selling
> it." requires me to fill in a whole lot of backstory that isn't necessarily
> there as it's written here. Nothing wrong with context-bound utterances,
> mind. I'm just saying I have problems with sentence B, too. :) Kou
>
Thanks for your sympathy :) But maybe with the help of the context, you
might actually have figured it out more quickly than I did, though... It
did take me several years to understand what B really wanted to say, and as
you can see from the discussion, I was so far from the finish line all this
time! Still, it's nice to know that even native speakers can find certain
utterances a little difficult ;)
Teoh:
> [...]
> > > Hmm. I wonder if it helps to construct more elaborate contexts in
> > > which such constructions might used in my conlang, to help tease out
> > > the exact meaning:
> > >
> > > 1) A king is sitting in his court, and is about to send out an envoy
> > > to a nearby diplomatic ally in order to establish important trade
> > > relations, when his attendants bring news that their mortal enemies,
> > > the Ahripf tribe, are on the move, and are likely to cross the path
> > > of the envoy. The king thinks for a while, then says: "We will send
> > > the envoy (indicative); let the enemy cross our path
> > > (imperative/hortative)!" That is, he decides that it would serve his
> > > goals whether the envoy manages to evade the enemy and establish
> > > contact with the ally, or gets attacked and thereby gives him an
> > > excuse to retaliate against the enemy.
> > >
> > > 2) A young explorer is about to set off on his spaceship to an
> > > unknown, uncharted region of space, and his mother tells him to be
> > > careful, since there have been rumors of monstrous 2-eyed beings
> > > inhabiting that space who have violent inclinations. He answers, "I
> > > will still fly out there (indicative), let dangers and 2-eyed
> > > monstrosities come (imperative)!" That is, dangers and threats do
> > > not concern him as much as his desire to explore the unknown.
> > >
> > > 3) A prisoner-of-war is about to be executed at the gallows. He is
> > > given a final chance to defect to his captors' cause. But he is
> > > unshaken, and says, "I stand for my country's cause (indicative),
> > > beat me and execute me (imperative)!" That is, he refuses to betray
> > > his cause, even if his captors will beat him and execute him.
> > >
> > > 4) A child is sitting at the dinner table, and is told to eat up his
> > > vegetables otherwise he will get no candy. He says, "I won't eat
> > > them (indicative); take the candy away (imperative)!" That is, he'd
> > > rather not eat the vegetables even if that means he has to give up
> > > the candy. His brother, on the other hand, says, "I want the candy
> > > (indicative), let me eat the vegetables (imperative)!" -- that is,
> > > he wants to get the candy, even if it means he has to eat those
> > > yucky vegetables.
> > >
> >
> > Those are some interesting and funny examples! I especially like the
> > first one, since it introduces a constellation we haven't talked about
> > before, i.e. a situation where both the occurrence of "action 1" and
> > its non-occurrence can be interpreted as an advantage. That means that
> > the agent doesn't have to worry about whether it takes place or not
> > because he is in a win-win situation. I'm not sure if you're moving
> > beyond the inconsequential category there, though: after all, it's no
> > longer true that the agent doesn't care about which of the two
> > possibilities becomes true, but that he'd welcome either one; his
> > attitude is positive towards both of them, not indifferent. An
> > interesting borderline case which could become visible in the
> > morphology if your conlang should develop attitude markers or the
> > like.
>
> Right, with that example I was trying to get at the underlying thought
> of this construction, which is that the agent doesn't care / doesn't
> have to worry / is indifferent to the (potential) action. I suppose the
> "doesn't have to worry" bit might be stretching the concept of
> inconsequentiality a little.
>
Padraic:
> This is because kings don't think in ordinary ways. He knows that envoys
> are expendable (and because of example three, knows that a loyal envoy --
> i.e., one that's been brainwashed to do his potentate's bidding even at the
> cost of his own life -- will go regardless of the danger); and he also
> knows
> that he's got any number of them. So, either way, the king wins: if the
> envoy
> makes it, he gets a nice trade package. If the envoy is attacked, he gets a
> flimsy pretense to destroy an enemy (and take slaves, booty, hostages,
> etc);
> and he will stìll have the opportunity to send another envoy once the war
> is
> winding down. Either way, his exchequer grows a bit fatter, and he gets to
> consolidate his hold on power as the guy that brings prosperity and
> security
> to the land.
>
Exactly, that's why I thought of it as a win-win situation, since he can
use the situation to his advantage either way. This is an interesting and
possibly unforeseen addition to the inconsequential aspect, although it may
really stretch the concept. Maybe we do need a new name for a concept
including both meanings, after all.
>
>
> > I'd say that the second example works the same way as your earlier
> > examples: the mere thought of monsters is not enough to thwart his
> > plans. The third example includes both interpretations - I'd say that
> > for "beat" it works like the prototypical inconsequential (you beat me
> > - I still stand for my country's cause), but for "execute" it
> > obviously has to work along the lines of "Come what may...", so this
> > short sentence mixes the two possible aspects of the inconsequential.
>
> I suppose one could say that the indicative/imperative construction
> encompasses both aspects of the inconsequential, and perhaps a little
> more (as in the first example)?
>
Yes, definitely, if you choose to use this construction in your conlang in
all these cases in the end. What about lose-lose situations, then? Say, the
king is losing the war against the Ahripf and at the same time, the
monarchy as an institution is about to collapse because its opponents are
legion and quite powerful. The king knows that the envoy will either be
defeated by his enemies, which will symbolically seal his dethronement by
showing that he's no longer capable of taking meaningful action, or that
the envoy, even if he arrives, will probably double-cross his king, taking
this opportunity to gain supporters for a new democracy. (I'm not a
historian, so no guarantees that this is a plausible scenario; but you get
where I'm going with this.) Here, the situation is quite similar to the old
king scenario: the king knows that - no matter which of the two situations
takes place - the consequence will be of the same valence to him (old
scenario: both positive; new scenario: both negative), so he can just go
ahead with his action. However, I suppose that more natlangs have a
distinct "resignative" construction for this kind of scenario (lumping the
old king scenario and more purely inconsequential meanings together into
the same construction(s)) than the other way round (having a distinct
construction for the old king scenario, but lumping the new king scenario
and more purely inconsequential meanings together into the same
construction(s)), but this is just a hunch and not based on any empirical
research but on the feeling that overcoming expected consequences - what
the inconsequential is all about - is often perceived as something positive.
>
>
> > The fourth one is still undecided for me - both aspects could work for
> > the child's thinking. The brother, however, doesn't use the
> > inconsequential at all but instead offers a simple conclusion to the
> > given premises: "I want the candy" + "I'll have to eat the vegetables
> > in order to get the candy" --> "I'll eat the vegetables" - no surprise
> > or evasion of expected consequences there.
> [...]
>
> Hmm. I guess another aspect of what the brother said is that the use of
> the indicative/imperative construction indicates the overriding of the
> reluctance to eat vegetables by the desired longer-term goal of
> obtaining the candy. The idea of overriding seems to explain (2)-(4),
> though (1) seems to be an odd one out from this viewpoint. Though one
> way of looking at it might be, that there is an implicit expectation of
> the king's attendants that the news of the enemy's move should cause him
> to hesitate sending the envoy, so his use of the indicative-imperative
> construction is to emphasize the overriding/overturning of this
> expectation.
>
This idea of overriding is a useful one - I'd certainly be willing to
accept it even with regard to the kind scenario. Maybe this is actually
what holds these similar, but not quite identical concepts together.
Padraic:
> Actually, it's a rare little boy that can think so far ahead as to
> understand
> how to get the candy ánd be willing to sacrifice for it! Most will be stuck
> in the "don't want yucky vegetables ~ frustration over withheld candy"
> stage
> and never make the leap.
Haha, you're right - but I don't think we've established just how old or
young those boys are. They may still hate their vegetables at the age of
twelve, but by then they should have figured out how to negotiate their way
to the candy. Also, it's just possible that I may have given him more
credit than he deserves ;)
Lisa
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Fwd: "Even if"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 4:58 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 09:53:02PM +0200, Lisa Weißbach wrote:
> 2013/7/24 H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
[...]
> > Haha, yeah. There are almost no native Russian speakers among my
> > acquiantances, so most of my learning was actually from reading
> > Russian books. I bought a Russian New Testament and read through it:
> > when I started out, I could barely understand 5% of it (I did take
> > the time to learn Cyrillic so that I can at least pronounce the
> > words); by the time I finished, I daresay my comprehension level was
> > around 70%. (Being well-versed with the English NT helped a lot, of
> > course.) Currently, my reading comprehension is probably around 85%
> > or so.
> >
> > However, my listening comprehension is not good, and my speaking
> > skills are worse. I Skype'd with a native speaker from Moscow every
> > Saturday for about a year or so, which dramatically improved my
> > listening/speaking skills, but we've had a hard time keeping it up
> > so recently I haven't had much practice at all. I do still try to
> > read every now and then so that I don't start losing my grasp of the
> > language, but it's hard to keep up without a Russian-speaking
> > environment to be immersed in.
> >
>
> Tell me about it... And it's even worse with conlangs because there
> are so much fewer potential speakers! I'll have to converse with my
> future cats when my conlang has reached a speaking level...
Well, my current number of potential speakers of my conlangs is 1, which
kinda makes it hard to develop conversational skills. :-P
[...]
> Hm, in order to keep this from turning into a usage thread and to
> steer back in the conlang direction: have any of you developed ways to
> express irony through morphology in your conlangs, such as these verb
> forms?
Tatari Faran has some ironic expressions, though none of them involve
verbs. One such expression is:
jibin nari.
child(N) FIN
This is one of a series of 2-word idioms involving a class of words
called "finalizers" that have no English equivalent. Usually, finalizers
are synonymous with the main verb or predicative adjective, and serve as
end-of-clause markers. Native speakers often give colorful glosses when
asked what a finalizer means, but these glosses actually carry no
factual meaning. Instead, they add color to a particular statement. One
example of this is:
sura sei pirat inai.
woman's_garments CVY:FEM yellow bright(FIN)
The woman's garments are yellow.
The finalizer _inai_ is glossed as "bright", however, the sentence
doesn't actually state that the garments are *bright* yellow; even a
dull yellow would be described as _pirat inai_, simply because yellow is
regarded as a "bright" color. One could think of finalizers as relics of
ancient adjectives or verbs that have since been bleached of all
semantic content, remaining only to serve a grammatical function.
Coming back to idioms: these finalizers form a series of 2-word idioms
when combined with one other word, usually a noun that overtly lack the
usually-obligatory case particle. The most common of these is:
peira ta'an
rain down(FIN)
It is raining.
This construction is unusual because nouns like _peira_ usually require
a trailing case particle in order to form a proper NP. The overt lack of
the case particle indicates that a special meaning is intended. The
finalizer _ta'an_ carries the overtones of "descending" or "down to the
ground", so _peira ta'an_ is the phrase for "It's raining".
Coming back to the original expression _jibin nari_: _jibin_ means
"child", and _nari_ is usually used with expressions of happiness or
fun. So _jibin nari_ is an interjection meaning something along the
lines of "the child is having his fun", usually said of children who are
enjoying themselves playing.
The irony comes in when this phrase is applied to an adult: then it
acquires overtones of "he's still naïve and childish at heart, and
hasn't seen the worst side of things yet". One may encounter such an
utterance when person A says something naïve about a possibly serious
situation, and person B would reply, _jibin nari!_ with a dismissive
tone -- meaning that what person A said was something naïve, like
child's play, and inapplicable to the situation at hand.
(Argh, I can't believe it took me 7 paragraphs and 3 interlinears to
explain a 2-word utterance! Symptoms of a hardcore conlanger... :-P)
[...]
> Teoh:
> > [...]
> > > > 1) A king is sitting in his court, and is about to send out an
> > > > envoy to a nearby diplomatic ally in order to establish
> > > > important trade relations, when his attendants bring news that
> > > > their mortal enemies, the Ahripf tribe, are on the move, and are
> > > > likely to cross the path of the envoy. The king thinks for a
> > > > while, then says: "We will send the envoy (indicative); let the
> > > > enemy cross our path (imperative/hortative)!" That is, he
> > > > decides that it would serve his goals whether the envoy manages
> > > > to evade the enemy and establish contact with the ally, or gets
> > > > attacked and thereby gives him an excuse to retaliate against
> > > > the enemy.
[...]
> > Right, with that example I was trying to get at the underlying
> > thought of this construction, which is that the agent doesn't care /
> > doesn't have to worry / is indifferent to the (potential) action. I
> > suppose the "doesn't have to worry" bit might be stretching the
> > concept of inconsequentiality a little.
>
> Padraic:
>
> > This is because kings don't think in ordinary ways. He knows that
> > envoys are expendable (and because of example three, knows that a
> > loyal envoy -- i.e., one that's been brainwashed to do his
> > potentate's bidding even at the cost of his own life -- will go
> > regardless of the danger); and he also knows that he's got any
> > number of them. So, either way, the king wins: if the envoy makes
> > it, he gets a nice trade package. If the envoy is attacked, he gets
> > a flimsy pretense to destroy an enemy (and take slaves, booty,
> > hostages, etc); and he will stìll have the opportunity to send
> > another envoy once the war is winding down. Either way, his
> > exchequer grows a bit fatter, and he gets to consolidate his hold on
> > power as the guy that brings prosperity and security to the land.
> >
>
> Exactly, that's why I thought of it as a win-win situation, since he
> can use the situation to his advantage either way. This is an
> interesting and possibly unforeseen addition to the inconsequential
> aspect, although it may really stretch the concept. Maybe we do need a
> new name for a concept including both meanings, after all.
I would say that what I had in mind with the indicative-imperative
construction was basically a "come what may" kind of expression. What is
included at the outer fringes of this basic concept may stretch the
category a bit. :)
[...]
> > I suppose one could say that the indicative/imperative construction
> > encompasses both aspects of the inconsequential, and perhaps a
> > little more (as in the first example)?
> >
>
> Yes, definitely, if you choose to use this construction in your
> conlang in all these cases in the end. What about lose-lose
> situations, then?
That's a very interesting question indeed!
> Say, the king is losing the war against the Ahripf and at the same
> time, the monarchy as an institution is about to collapse because its
> opponents are legion and quite powerful.
(Tangential aside: I chose the name _Ahripf_ [AxR\Ipf] as a kind of
inside joke: _ahr_ means "two", and _ipf_ means "eye", so _Ahripf_
literally means "two-eyed". The native speakers of this conlang are
stereotypical one-eyed green round-bodied aliens, so to them anything
with more than one eye is monstrous and not worthy to be treated on par
with a respectable 1-eyed sentient being. An apt appellation for one's
hated enemies. :-P It could very well refer to that troublesome human
settlement in the disputed region of the galaxy that the king wishes to
claim for his own kingdom, say.)
> The king knows that the envoy will either be defeated by his enemies,
> which will symbolically seal his dethronement by showing that he's no
> longer capable of taking meaningful action, or that the envoy, even if
> he arrives, will probably double-cross his king, taking this
> opportunity to gain supporters for a new democracy. (I'm not a
> historian, so no guarantees that this is a plausible scenario; but you
> get where I'm going with this.) Here, the situation is quite similar
> to the old king scenario: the king knows that - no matter which of the
> two situations takes place - the consequence will be of the same
> valence to him (old scenario: both positive; new scenario: both
> negative), so he can just go ahead with his action. However, I suppose
> that more natlangs have a distinct "resignative" construction for this
> kind of scenario (lumping the old king scenario and more purely
> inconsequential meanings together into the same construction(s)) than
> the other way round (having a distinct construction for the old king
> scenario, but lumping the new king scenario and more purely
> inconsequential meanings together into the same construction(s)), but
> this is just a hunch and not based on any empirical research but on
> the feeling that overcoming expected consequences - what the
> inconsequential is all about - is often perceived as something
> positive.
Hmm. Initially I was going to say that the indicative/imperative
construction could be used in this scenario as well, but on second
thought, I think it wouldn't be, because an imperative is too forceful
for a resignative utterance. It would seem, as you suggest, that a
different construction would be used. But I'm not 100% certain on this
yet.
[...]
> > Hmm. I guess another aspect of what the brother said is that the use
> > of the indicative/imperative construction indicates the overriding
> > of the reluctance to eat vegetables by the desired longer-term goal
> > of obtaining the candy. The idea of overriding seems to explain
> > (2)-(4), though (1) seems to be an odd one out from this viewpoint.
> > Though one way of looking at it might be, that there is an implicit
> > expectation of the king's attendants that the news of the enemy's
> > move should cause him to hesitate sending the envoy, so his use of
> > the indicative-imperative construction is to emphasize the
> > overriding/overturning of this expectation.
> >
>
> This idea of overriding is a useful one - I'd certainly be willing to
> accept it even with regard to the kind scenario. Maybe this is
> actually what holds these similar, but not quite identical concepts
> together.
I wonder how this analysis would hold in light of the lose-lose
scenario. Could one say, perhaps, that in the case of a resignative
utterance, there is no overriding, and hence the indicative/imperative
construct isn't used?
[...]
> > Actually, it's a rare little boy that can think so far ahead as to
> > understand how to get the candy ánd be willing to sacrifice for it!
> > Most will be stuck in the "don't want yucky vegetables ~ frustration
> > over withheld candy" stage and never make the leap.
>
>
> Haha, you're right - but I don't think we've established just how old
> or young those boys are. They may still hate their vegetables at the
> age of twelve, but by then they should have figured out how to
> negotiate their way to the candy. Also, it's just possible that I may
> have given him more credit than he deserves ;)
[...]
Most college-age males still hate vegetables. Though at that age they're
less likely to be swayed by candy alone. :)
T
--
If lightning were to ever strike an orchestra, it'd always hit the
conductor first.
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Deriving Positionals from Directionals
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 12:50 pm ((PDT))
2013/7/15 Anthony Miles <[email protected]>:
> Traffic seems slow this week, so here's a thought that I've had brewing for a
> while.
>
> The impetus for founding the Guild of Scholars, who regulate the Martian
> language Siye, was to eliminate misunderstandings between the two dialects of
> the City. Dialect A had affricates in the very important directional suffixes
> (and elsewhere, such as cases, but the directionals are my point here), so
> the suffixes /tu/, /su/, /na/, /nu/, and /ki/ were pronounced [tsu] [su] [na]
> [nu] [tSi].
Which direction each of these correspond to?
R: /tu/ is allative/directive, /su/ is ablative/elative, /na/ is
superlative/superessive, /nu/ is sublative/subessive, and /ki/ is
stative/"motion within a space". Example: /lesulotuma/ 'we come', /lesulosuma/
'we go' /lesulonama/ 'we go up', /lesulonuma/ 'we go down', /lesulokima/ 'we
wander', because the root 'to move' contains inherently the notion of motion.
/lekimlokima/ 'we are' has a stative /-ki-/.
> Dialect B had passed the affricate phase and moved onto fricatives. In
> Dialect B, /tu/, /su/. /na/, /nu/, and /ki/ were pronounced [su] [su] [na]
> [nu] [Si]. Thus, in Dialect B, the allative directional /tu/ and the ablative
> directlonal /su/ were homophonous.
>
>
> Now, I could render the directionals as meaningless in the later speakers of
> Dialect B, but where's the fun in that? So I thought about it, and I
> concluded that the Dialect B speakers reanalyzed [su] as a horizontal
> POSITIONAL suffix, with a phonological basis: [s] is associated with the
> horizontal, [S] with the stative, [n] with the vertical. Within this system,
> [s] only appears with [u] and [S] only appears with [i]. [n], however,
> appears with [a] and [u]. My question is: given the current development of
> this system, what is the most likely outcome of [na] and [nu]? Would Dialect
> B keep both? Favor [na] because it contrasts with [su]? Favor [nu] by analogy
> with [su]? Or would [na] and [nu] develop a semantic distinction other than
> that between 'up' and 'down'?
I think anything can happen in your world. Sometimes, words change
their meaning by unpredictable ridiculous ways. A possibility is that
[na] will be understood as both "up" and "large" and [nu] as "down"
and "small".
BTW, why did you choose [na] as "up" and [nu] as "down"? I've been
thinking about these ideophones. It's interesting that [a] is a "low
vowel" and [u] a "high vowel". Also, as it's just our jaws that move
when we open our mouths, [a] is open and low, while [u] is close and
high. OTOH, the relative position between jaw and palate is greater,
so [a] could be felt as "higher" than [u].
So, strange associations could happen and make [na] mean "tall",
"large" but "low position" and [nu] mean "short", "small" but "high
position".
R: /nu/ is an abbreviation of /umnu/ 'downward' (a noun). I didn't want to use
/um/ because /um/ means 'man' and I thought it might end up as a generic
pronoun /um/. I was still on my 'one syllable morpheme stage. /na/ was a fault
in my intial vocabulary generation cipher - it should have been /pa/ from
/pate/ 'upward' (a noun). It's too late to rework /nu/~/na/ in Standard Siye.
But dialects are a different matter.
Here's my current suggestion for a pattern, since I like your idea:
The changes I have described happened as I have described them. The speakers
reanalyze /nu/ and /na/ as /n/ 'vertical' + /u/ 'large/low position' or /a/
'small/high position'. A later generation extends this analysis to /su/
'horizontal', creating /s+u/ 'large' and /s+a/ 'small', since the
allative/ablative contrast was lost much earlier. Now the descendant of Dialect
B has a suffix that includes both positional and augmentative/diminutive
positions. It's equally complex and yet "wrong" by Standard Siye standards
(which is not as standard as the Guild of Scholars would have you believe ;-)
The two other major changes that the fricativization produces is the conflation
of the Benefactive-Dative /-tu/ and the Directive-Dative /-su/ into a single
Dative /-su/. And the loss of the directionals forced the case system to bear
more weight.
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: ping
Posted by: "Elsa Nilaj" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 3:10 pm ((PDT))
hey guys uhm im new to this whole thing and uhm can one of you tell how
this works? My friend David J. Peterson recommended it so I joined but to
be honest I have no idea how to work anything on it so yeah.. hope you help
On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 7:41 AM, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks guys! I'm subscribed thru gmail too so I got your replies on my
> phone. I also saw an alert from gmail that they can't forward for the same
> reason. Oddly there seems not to be any mail to fetch all the same. I've
> texted the provider's support so hopefully they'll come up with something.
> I guess that as a last resort I could try to delete and then recreate the
> account. I'll see what's happening till I get home. Gah I hate cpanel!
>
> /bpj
>
> Den tisdagen den 23:e juli 2013 skrev H. S. Teoh:
>
> > On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 09:05:25PM +0200, BPJ wrote:
> > > Is the list broken?
> > >
> > > If it isn't please tell me so offlist!
> > [...]
> >
> > I tried emailing you off-list, but it bounced because your mailbox is
> > full. So I'm posting here on the list with the hope that perhaps, you
> > will see this message in the list archives. The bounce message was that
> > your mailbox quota has been exceeded. That's probably why you aren't
> > seeing list messages. :)
> >
> >
> > T
> >
> > --
> > It's bad luck to be superstitious. -- YHL
> >
>
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Tongue-twisters
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jul 24, 2013 10:06 pm ((PDT))
Do yall's conlangs have tongue-twisters?
I just discovered one in my alien conlang. It's a *literal*
tongue-twister:
er ehrlu.
[,Er'ExR\_0lU]
one tongue
The twister is in the first two syllables, which goes from a voiced
alveolar trill [r] to an unvoiced uvular trill [R\_0] in a single
syllable. Say it fast enough, and you start getting the trill-cluster
[rR\_0], rather like a tiger's growl. :-P The fact that the phrase
literally means "one tongue" is an unintentional coincidence. :-)
Well, in this case, it's not strictly speaking a *tongue* twister, but a
lingual-uvular twister. :-P (I'd throw in [B\] just for the fun of it,
then it'd be a labio-lingual-uvular twister, but alas (or is that
*fortunately*?), this conlang doesn't have any /B\/.)
T
--
Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: Tongue-twisters
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:17 am ((PDT))
2013/7/25 H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>:
> Do yall's conlangs have tongue-twisters?
Only if things like "kiei kiese-kei kuasu" are considered tongue-twisters...
>
> I just discovered one in my alien conlang. It's a *literal*
> tongue-twister:
>
> er ehrlu.
> [,Er'ExR\_0lU]
> one tongue
>
> The twister is in the first two syllables, which goes from a voiced
> alveolar trill [r] to an unvoiced uvular trill [R\_0] in a single
> syllable. Say it fast enough, and you start getting the trill-cluster
> [rR\_0], rather like a tiger's growl. :-P The fact that the phrase
> literally means "one tongue" is an unintentional coincidence. :-)
>
> Well, in this case, it's not strictly speaking a *tongue* twister, but a
> lingual-uvular twister. :-P (I'd throw in [B\] just for the fun of it,
> then it'd be a labio-lingual-uvular twister, but alas (or is that
> *fortunately*?), this conlang doesn't have any /B\/.)
>
>
> T
>
> --
> Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.
Messages in this topic (2)
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