There are 9 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Roger Mills
1.2. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: H. S. Teoh
1.3. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Leonardo Castro
2a. Periphrastic Verbs
From: Anthony Miles
2b. Re: Periphrastic Verbs
From: Roger Mills
3a. Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
3b. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3c. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Eugene Oh
3d. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Leonardo Castro
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 9:49 am ((PDT))
Somewhere in my ancient research I read of a tribal language in Indonesia where
the men pronounced the /s/ phoneme as [s]. while the women used [h]. I don't
think that would lead to too much confusion.
Robin Lakoff, years ago, and Deborah Tannen (IIRC) have pointed out different
intonation patterns for women in Amer.English.
________________________________
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:31 AM
Subject: Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
On 29 August 2013 11:04, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The language is now called Garifuna, and apparently most of the
> speaker-gender contrasts are obsolescent, though it seems to still survive
> robustly enough in the singular pronouns: men have 1sg _au_, 2sg _amürü_,
> 3sg _ligía_, women 1sg _nugía_ 2sg _bugía_ 3sg _tugía_. (_ü_ is /1/ I
> think.)
>
>
Such speaker-gender contrast can be very stable actually. Cue for instance
Japanese, where it's well known that males and females will use different
sets of personal pronouns (although some personal pronouns are somewhat
neutral and can be used by both). It goes further, with differences in
grammar and lexicon as well, although one cannot talk about different
languages.
Gender "diglossia" is not an unknown phenomenon, although it usually
appears as dialectical differences at most (slight phonological and grammar
changes, often different lexemes as used by men and women). Typically men
will know the women's dialect and vice-versa, but they'll never speak it,
except when quoting a member of the opposite sex.
Such a phenomenon appears usually in societies with very strict gender role
distinctions, especially ones where men and women don't often interact with
each other. The relative isolation of the male and female communities
results in effectively two partially separate linguistic groups, whose
lects start to diverge. The strict distinction in gender roles and
behaviours in the culture ensures that the divergence stays stable: the
different speech patterns become seen as part of the male or female
identity. And indeed, I read that in societies where such diglossia used to
be common and stable for centuries, a change in cultural behaviour in the
form of a loss of the traditional gender role distinctions will usually
result in a (quite rapid) loss of the male and female language
distinctions: the two dialects will merge again in a single form, although
some small differences may linger longer than others.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (46)
________________________________________________________________________
1.2. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:58 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 11:31:05AM +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 29 August 2013 11:04, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The language is now called Garifuna, and apparently most of the
> > speaker-gender contrasts are obsolescent, though it seems to still
> > survive robustly enough in the singular pronouns: men have 1sg
> > _au_, 2sg _amürü_, 3sg _ligía_, women 1sg _nugía_ 2sg _bugía_ 3sg
> > _tugía_. (_ü_ is /1/ I think.)
> >
> >
> Such speaker-gender contrast can be very stable actually. Cue for
> instance Japanese, where it's well known that males and females will
> use different sets of personal pronouns (although some personal
> pronouns are somewhat neutral and can be used by both). It goes
> further, with differences in grammar and lexicon as well, although one
> cannot talk about different languages.
>
> Gender "diglossia" is not an unknown phenomenon, although it usually
> appears as dialectical differences at most (slight phonological and
> grammar changes, often different lexemes as used by men and women).
> Typically men will know the women's dialect and vice-versa, but
> they'll never speak it, except when quoting a member of the opposite
> sex.
[...]
Interestingly enough, something similar is happening even in Russian
(albeit only to a small extent): the predicative adjectives (so-called
"short-form adjectives") are marked for gender, as well as the past
tense verbs, so when referring to oneself, males and females would use a
different word form. Normally I wouldn't consider this diglossia at all,
just an inherent grammatical feature, but I recall that in my very first
Russian introductory class, the teacher and her helper, both female, had
trouble remembering the correct masculine form of _голодна_ ("I'm
hungry"), because they're so used to using only the feminine form. The
fact that there's an accent shift and change in epithentic vowel in the
masculine form may have exacerbated this (the masculine form is
_голоден_ ['golVd_jIn] vs. fem. _голодна_ [gV'lodnV]).
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe these forms derived historically from a
regular conjugation *_голодÑн + -0/-а, and when the yers fell, the
alternate lengthening/dropping rule kicked in, wherein the Ñ in -дÑн
lengthened to е, but the Ñ in -дÑна vanished because it was in a "weak"
position.
One could imagine that had more drastic sound changes occurred, true
diglossia may have emerged.
T
--
WINDOWS = Will Install Needless Data On Whole System -- CompuMan
Messages in this topic (46)
________________________________________________________________________
1.3. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 5:06 pm ((PDT))
2013/8/29 Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com>:
> Somewhere in my ancient research I read of a tribal language in Indonesia
> where the men pronounced the /s/ phoneme as [s]. while the women used [h]. I
> don't think that would lead to too much confusion.
>
> Robin Lakoff, years ago, and Deborah Tannen (IIRC) have pointed out different
> intonation patterns for women in Amer.English.
Just imagine that, for some random fashion, it starts to be considered
"cute" to pronounce non-flapped intervocalic "t" and to omit final "r"
in AmE . So, women could start to pronounce "better" as [b'Et@] while
men would avoid this "non-masculine" pronunciation and pronounce
[b'E4@r].
Actually, there is at least one pronunciation features apparently more
associated with young females in BrP, the elongation of nasals; listen
to people imitating it in the following video, at times 4:15 and 5:07:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyCUu5lHiY
This video shows the parts of two interviews with humorists where they
imitate several BrP regional accents. They are somewhat exaggerated
the most typical regional features, but I think that the imitations
really give a good idea of what the real accents sound.
(I had previously sent this message only to Roger but I intended to
send to the list.)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:31 AM
> Subject: Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
>
>
> On 29 August 2013 11:04, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The language is now called Garifuna, and apparently most of the
>> speaker-gender contrasts are obsolescent, though it seems to still survive
>> robustly enough in the singular pronouns: men have 1sg _au_, 2sg _amürü_,
>> 3sg _ligía_, women 1sg _nugía_ 2sg _bugía_ 3sg _tugía_. (_ü_ is /1/ I
>> think.)
>>
>>
> Such speaker-gender contrast can be very stable actually. Cue for instance
> Japanese, where it's well known that males and females will use different
> sets of personal pronouns (although some personal pronouns are somewhat
> neutral and can be used by both). It goes further, with differences in
> grammar and lexicon as well, although one cannot talk about different
> languages.
>
> Gender "diglossia" is not an unknown phenomenon, although it usually
> appears as dialectical differences at most (slight phonological and grammar
> changes, often different lexemes as used by men and women). Typically men
> will know the women's dialect and vice-versa, but they'll never speak it,
> except when quoting a member of the opposite sex.
>
> Such a phenomenon appears usually in societies with very strict gender role
> distinctions, especially ones where men and women don't often interact with
> each other. The relative isolation of the male and female communities
> results in effectively two partially separate linguistic groups, whose
> lects start to diverge. The strict distinction in gender roles and
> behaviours in the culture ensures that the divergence stays stable: the
> different speech patterns become seen as part of the male or female
> identity. And indeed, I read that in societies where such diglossia used to
> be common and stable for centuries, a change in cultural behaviour in the
> form of a loss of the traditional gender role distinctions will usually
> result in a (quite rapid) loss of the male and female language
> distinctions: the two dialects will merge again in a single form, although
> some small differences may linger longer than others.
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (46)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Periphrastic Verbs
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 4:58 pm ((PDT))
First of all, I must apologize for my non-participation in the Most Beautiful
thread. I find that question meaningless.
In my revision of Siye grammar, I have reached the point where I must explain
how periphrastic verbs work. Many phrases in English that require an auxiliary
verb are expressed in Siye via the Position 6 suffix, which include such
concepts as 'want' 'must' 'promise to' 'can'. Thus:
elesamokaputema. I want to smoke. (Smoking is an insidious habit introduced by
Terrans)
elesamokapuwima. I must smoke.
elesamokapukomma. I promise to smoke.
elesamokapuyamma. I am able to smoke.
Some Position 6 suffixes control the aspect of the verb. -te- must use the
imperfective, while -ka- must use the perfective:
elesamokaputema. I want to smoke.
elesamokapukana. I have resolved to smoke.
There is only one slot for a Position 6 suffix per verb. This, combined with
the mandatory aspect of certain Position 6 suffixes, creates a few problems:
firstly, if two Position 6 suffixes are necessary, how to express them?
secondy, if one wants to use the prohibited aspect with an aspect-restricted
suffix, how does one do that? Thirdly, if the aspect of the main verb differs
from that of the auxiliary verb, which aspect is dominant?
No problem:
elenupunamnama. I begin to build. (imperfective)
elenuputema. I want to do it. (imperfective)
elekepukana. I have resolved to do it. (perfective)
elenupu(nam/te)nama. I (want to/begin to) build. (imperfective)
nutamnama elenuputema. I want to begin to build it (I want it, beginning to
build) (imperfective + imperfective)
kenemenana elekepukana. I have resolved to stop building it. (perfective +
perfective)
But what about these? Which aspect is dominant?
nutamnama elekepukana. I have resolved to build it/I resolve to build it.
(imperfective + perfective)
kenemenana elenuputema. I want to stop building it/I wanted to stop building
it. (perfective + imperfective)
So, are there natlang/ANADEW precedents for resolving this? What do you do in
your conlangs that have periphrasitic verbs?
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Periphrastic Verbs
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:30 pm ((PDT))
Well, I wouldn't call them periphrastic,which in my experience applies to verbs
like Engl. "have spoken", 'will speak' etc.... or Latin amatus sum.
The sort of formations you cite also exist in Prevli, where I call them
"apects". There are 10.
Inchoative (becoming...) and Causative (cause to/cause to be....) use unique
prefixes; the others use prefixes derived from the related verbs. Inchoative
esp. is most widely used with adjectives-- de?e 'little' > inde?e 'becoming
little(r)'.
Inceptive, begin to... nom- : nom/abre/k 'I begin to travel'
Desiderative, want to..., me-: me/abrek 'I want to travel'
Prospective, about to..., hat/abrek 'I'm about to travel'
Obligative, have to, must ten/abrek 'I must/have to travel'
Debitive, ought to, should bor/abrek 'I ought to travel' (preferably uses
irrealis)
Intentive, about to dis/abrek 'I'm about to travel'
Potential, can, able to tuv/abrek (< tub+abrek) 'I can travel'
Progressive, be...ing nag/abrek 'I am (in process of) traveling, I'm en route'
The main verb can also be in irrealis mode (the above are all realis)-- /abid/
travel, irreal. a:mír e.g.
mea:mír 'I (probably/may) want to travel' or tuva:mír 'I probably can travel'
etc.
If the main verb is transitive, it can of course be passivized, but that's too
complicated to go into here :-)) An easy example: ab/de?e 'make (s.t.) little'
> ab/je?e (< ap+d-i-e?e) 's.t. is made little(r)... And some passive forms can
have the above apects. e.g. tuv/abje/e '(it) can be made little(r)'
(Hope I have these right.... it's been a while since I worked with Prevli
:-((( )
________________________________
From: Anthony Miles <mamercu...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:58 PM
Subject: Periphrastic Verbs
First of all, I must apologize for my non-participation in the Most Beautiful
thread. I find that question meaningless.
In my revision of Siye grammar, I have reached the point where I must explain
how periphrastic verbs work. Many phrases in English that require an auxiliary
verb are expressed in Siye via the Position 6 suffix, which include such
concepts as 'want' 'must' 'promise to' 'can'. Thus:
elesamokaputema. I want to smoke. (Smoking is an insidious habit introduced by
Terrans)
elesamokapuwima. I must smoke.
elesamokapukomma. I promise to smoke.
elesamokapuyamma. I am able to smoke.
Some Position 6 suffixes control the aspect of the verb. -te- must use the
imperfective, while -ka- must use the perfective:
elesamokaputema. I want to smoke.
elesamokapukana. I have resolved to smoke.
There is only one slot for a Position 6 suffix per verb. This, combined with
the mandatory aspect of certain Position 6 suffixes, creates a few problems:
firstly, if two Position 6 suffixes are necessary, how to express them?
secondy, if one wants to use the prohibited aspect with an aspect-restricted
suffix, how does one do that? Thirdly, if the aspect of the main verb differs
from that of the auxiliary verb, which aspect is dominant?
No problem:
elenupunamnama. I begin to build. (imperfective)
elenuputema. I want to do it. (imperfective)
elekepukana. I have resolved to do it. (perfective)
elenupu(nam/te)nama. I (want to/begin to) build. (imperfective)
nutamnama elenuputema. I want to begin to build it (I want it, beginning to
build) (imperfective + imperfective)
kenemenana elekepukana. I have resolved to stop building it. (perfective +
perfective)
But what about these? Which aspect is dominant?
nutamnama elekepukana. I have resolved to build it/I resolve to build it.
(imperfective + perfective)
kenemenana elenuputema. I want to stop building it/I wanted to stop building
it. (perfective + imperfective)
So, are there natlang/ANADEW precedents for resolving this? What do you do in
your conlangs that have periphrasitic verbs?
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" taalenma...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 9:13 pm ((PDT))
Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future French.
Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones, but not
sure it's going to happen just yet.
To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial / slang
French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and I need
to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
Thanks,
Aidan
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:10 am ((PDT))
On 30 August 2013 06:03, Aidan Grey <taalenma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future French.
> Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
> uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones, but not
> sure it's going to happen just yet.
>
> To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial / slang
> French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and I need
> to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
>
> I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
>
> Thanks,
> Aidan
>
Well, one could call *me* a good resource on colloquial French (I prefer to
call it "Spoken French", as there is nothing colloquial about it: even the
formal registers of Spoken French are quite different from literary
French), but I guess you'd rather have something you can read at your
leisure, rather than someone who may not always be available to answer your
questions :) .
Unfortunately resources on Spoken French are indeed very scarce. Resources
on vocabulary, and especially argot, are relatively easy to find, but
grammatical info is just missing.
You can find bits and pieces here:
http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/negation_inf.htm (this page deals with
negation, but also has links to other pages about Spoken French). In terms
of books, _Colloquial French Grammar, a practical guide_ by Rodney Ball is
not bad, but has a big hole in lacking a description of Spoken French's
polypersonal verbs. Could be because it's from 2000. The polypersonal
nature of Spoken French's verbs has been unrecognised for a long time,
maybe because there's still a strong impression among people that Spoken
French is a "debased" form of the language that is not worthy of study, and
thus they will automatically code-switch to something somewhat closer to
Written French when asked questions about their own language.It's difficult
to study a grammatical feature when the natives refuse to use it in front
of the linguist :P.
And of course you can always ask me questions, on- and off-list. I may not
always reply immediately, but I *always* reply eventually :).
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:33 am ((PDT))
Please ask on-list, Aiden, if you don't mind! I always like to read
Christophe's views on Spoken French. Of course, please don't feel obliged to
just because I asked, it is just a selfish request (:
Eugene
Sent from my iPhone
On 30 Aug 2013, at 08:10, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 30 August 2013 06:03, Aidan Grey <taalenma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future French.
>> Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
>> uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones, but not
>> sure it's going to happen just yet.
>>
>> To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial / slang
>> French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and I need
>> to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
>>
>> I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Aidan
>
> Well, one could call *me* a good resource on colloquial French (I prefer to
> call it "Spoken French", as there is nothing colloquial about it: even the
> formal registers of Spoken French are quite different from literary
> French), but I guess you'd rather have something you can read at your
> leisure, rather than someone who may not always be available to answer your
> questions :) .
>
> Unfortunately resources on Spoken French are indeed very scarce. Resources
> on vocabulary, and especially argot, are relatively easy to find, but
> grammatical info is just missing.
>
> You can find bits and pieces here:
> http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/negation_inf.htm (this page deals with
> negation, but also has links to other pages about Spoken French). In terms
> of books, _Colloquial French Grammar, a practical guide_ by Rodney Ball is
> not bad, but has a big hole in lacking a description of Spoken French's
> polypersonal verbs. Could be because it's from 2000. The polypersonal
> nature of Spoken French's verbs has been unrecognised for a long time,
> maybe because there's still a strong impression among people that Spoken
> French is a "debased" form of the language that is not worthy of study, and
> thus they will automatically code-switch to something somewhat closer to
> Written French when asked questions about their own language.It's difficult
> to study a grammatical feature when the natives refuse to use it in front
> of the linguist :P.
>
> And of course you can always ask me questions, on- and off-list. I may not
> always reply immediately, but I *always* reply eventually :).
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:54 am ((PDT))
2013/8/30 Eugene Oh <un.do...@gmail.com>:
> Please ask on-list, Aiden, if you don't mind!
I agree! I think that this subject is interesting for many people here.
> I always like to read Christophe's views on Spoken French. Of course, please
> don't feel obliged to just because I asked, it is just a selfish request (:
>
> Eugene
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 30 Aug 2013, at 08:10, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 30 August 2013 06:03, Aidan Grey <taalenma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future French.
>>> Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
>>> uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones, but not
>>> sure it's going to happen just yet.
>>>
>>> To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial / slang
>>> French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and I need
>>> to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
>>>
>>> I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Aidan
>>
>> Well, one could call *me* a good resource on colloquial French (I prefer to
>> call it "Spoken French", as there is nothing colloquial about it: even the
>> formal registers of Spoken French are quite different from literary
>> French), but I guess you'd rather have something you can read at your
>> leisure, rather than someone who may not always be available to answer your
>> questions :) .
>>
>> Unfortunately resources on Spoken French are indeed very scarce. Resources
>> on vocabulary, and especially argot, are relatively easy to find, but
>> grammatical info is just missing.
>>
>> You can find bits and pieces here:
>> http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/negation_inf.htm (this page deals with
>> negation, but also has links to other pages about Spoken French). In terms
>> of books, _Colloquial French Grammar, a practical guide_ by Rodney Ball is
>> not bad, but has a big hole in lacking a description of Spoken French's
>> polypersonal verbs. Could be because it's from 2000. The polypersonal
>> nature of Spoken French's verbs has been unrecognised for a long time,
>> maybe because there's still a strong impression among people that Spoken
>> French is a "debased" form of the language that is not worthy of study, and
>> thus they will automatically code-switch to something somewhat closer to
>> Written French when asked questions about their own language.It's difficult
>> to study a grammatical feature when the natives refuse to use it in front
>> of the linguist :P.
>>
>> And of course you can always ask me questions, on- and off-list. I may not
>> always reply immediately, but I *always* reply eventually :).
>> --
>> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>>
>> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
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