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There are 25 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2. Re: Nindic Nominal Morphology From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 3. Re: Naming your Language From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 4. Re: sentient beings (was: experimental crocodile phonology questions) From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 5. Re: Another Introduction From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 6. Re: Information on future English language development? From: And Rosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 7. Possible base-20 numeric system From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 8. OT: Re: Anybody on AIM From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 9. Re: Color system From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10. OT: Re: Anybody on AIM From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11. Re: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12. Re: Questions about Choton, was Re: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton" From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 13. Volition in Anohim From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 14. Re: Possible base-20 numeric system From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 15. Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 16. Fwd: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 17. Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 18. Re: Volition in Anohim From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 19. Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 20. Re: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 21. Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 22. Senyecan ortho. breakthrough From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 23. Animacy in Sohlob From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 24. Re: Senyecan ortho. breakthrough From: Danny Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 25. Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: Danny Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 09:16:23 -0600 From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:57:03 -0000, caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In developing my conculture I encountered several non-human species > that could talk. I knew "sentient" was the wrong word, but I figured > if the Latin verb "sentire" (to feel) could give us an English word > based on its present participle, then "loqui" (to speak) could also. > And, indeed, I found one in the Oxford English Dictionary: loquent. > It is obsolete, but it works for me. I can now talk of loquent > beings, meaning my six human races and a few non-human, all of whom > can speak. The general term I've seen in use is "sapient". *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/ deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/ FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki: http://wiki.frath.net/ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 15:44:31 -0000 From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Nindic Nominal Morphology --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Quoting Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I suppose I too am guilty of 'Celticity'. What judgement would you pass on > Meghean spelling? You know I'm a fan of Meghean... IMHO, the spelling and definitely the pronunciation are original enough not to count as a Celticlone. The use of vowel letters for glides is a big plus. So is the inclusion of /Z/. =D While you do employ lenition, I think it's far enough from the Welsh or Gaelic systems to "count". The word- internal inflections are also something I always like. -- Christian Thalmann ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 16:15:36 -0000 From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Naming your Language --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > How are some of the ways you have named your language and its speakers? The name for the Jovian language comes from the time when the once noble language degenerated and overgrew with weeds in the mouths of the surrounding peoples, yielding "lingua bovis" (AKA Vulgar Latin), leaving only the Jervans to keep the high culture of their Roman legacy ("lingua iovis") alive. The Jervans derive their name from the Roman province Germania Superior. The Obrenaj and their language Obrenje are named after their clan animal species: obro, the king antelope. The Tao Ttouans refer to their language simply as "the way of speaking", Oro Mpaa. I don't even have a literal translation of Tao Ttoua yet. Hombraia is a stellar nation by the same name in the Skies of Man coniverse, arisen from an international colonization organization whose primary source of colonists were poorish worker-rich countries. The official language used to be Spanish, but it acquired lots of slangy features from Russian and to a lesser degree Asian languages. "Hombraia" is part of that resulting language, an adjective built from Span. "hombre" and the Russian-inspired productive ending "-aio/aia", ending up with the meaning "of the people". -- Christian Thalmann ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:28:51 +0200 From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: sentient beings (was: experimental crocodile phonology questions) caeruleancentaur wrote: > P.S. When the Buddhists speak of the Buddha saving all sentient > beings, they are not referring just to humans, but to all animate > life. Indeed we do, but observe that the Tibetan term _sems.chan_ means "having mind". Plants have rudimentary powers of sensation, but no minds -- said the Buddha. -- /BP 8^) -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:18:00 +0200 From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Another Introduction Hey! Sorry that I'm a week too late, but I have had a week of holidays and have not been at home because of that. I'm just checking my mail and have not yet read all the stuff from the last week. Unfortunately, I had to kill 26 spam mails :-| On Friday 15 October 2004 19:49, Daniel Asserbo wrote: > Hello conlanging folks, > > may I introduce myself. I am a 19-year old German from > the town of Soest which is (not really) famous for its > parish fair which is (or pretends to be?) the largest > inner-city parish fair in Europe. (It is located between > Dortmund and Paderborn.) I've already been observing the > list for quite a time now, and now that I have some more > free time, I decided to present myself to you. (I was > also motivated by many people joining the list lately.) Hey! Welcome to teh list! You were "motivated by many people joining the list lately"? Where? Now don't say that you have "real world" friends who conlang! That'd be amazing. > I'm afraid I have not yet worked much on conlangs. That does not matter. Everyone had to begin somewhere. I'm conlanging for 1 1/2 years now myself, there's still only one language I have put much work into (Ayeri, www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/ayeri/ayeri_deu.pdf <http://www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/ayeri/ayeri_deu.pdf>), though I have started two other projects earlier. > This fascinated me, and I tried to develop these ideas > somewhat further, but with little success- I guess I was > too young at that time. But anyway, conlanging caught me > and after following some discussions on this list in the > past three years I feel I finally am ready to > participate. Also bitten by the "conlang flea", huh? I've been said you will never stop once you've started conlaning ;-) As for being too young, Robert "Trebor" Jung is only 13 or 14 IIRC. It's astonishing how much he knows about languages already. Respect, Trebor! I started myself with 16 (I'm 18 now), there are many who started earlier or even later. So I think there's never a "too old" or "too young" at conlanging. AFAIK, ol' Tolkien was 8 when he started, btw. > Best wishes from Germany, > Daniel "Asserbo" Quernheim Greetings back to you from Korbach, Germany. Carsten Becker -- Eri silveváng aibannama padangin. Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince -> http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:51:57 +0100 From: And Rosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Information on future English language development? Sally: > My broader question: what is the history or popularity, if there is > one, of "future English" conlangs? Are there any out there besides > the one Estel says she's contemplating? > Anybody else doing this? I'm writing on behalf of my friend, but > I'll admit a bias towards the contemplation, as well, of a future > human. Given how much our language reflects our politics, technology, > and so forth, a future English has to take into account some sort of > future history, and future technology, right? Especially given our > increasing "digitalization." How can it not? > Or is it mainly an exercise in trying to predict how we will be > pronouncing would, good, and should in California twenty-five years > from now? I have worked on a future English, specifically how British English develops over the next 500 years and more, with the requirement that the development be plausible and that its initial conditions fully reflect the conditions actually obtaining today. But after working on the phonological development with some thoroughness, I largely abandoned the project, because the grammar and lexicon could be developed only with a comprehensive overview of the language that required too much time and effort for me to sustain. I ended up being able to say how British English of 2500 would pronounce English of 2000, but not what BrE of 2500 was like. --And. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:23:35 -0400 From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Possible base-20 numeric system Basic roots: nol: zero üs: one ket: two kol: three nel: four öt: five sab: six haud: seven mbi: eight nae: nine tis: ten ras: eleven töl: twelve ðaer: thirteen nce: fourteen lüa: fifteen ðah: sixteen eiv: seventeen aum: eighteen köt: nineteen Compounds: ketïs: twenty koltïs: thirty neltïs: forty ötïs: fifty sabtïs: sixty haudïs: seventy mbitïs: eighty naetïs: ninety tistïs: one hundred üstistïs: one hundred and one rastïs: one hundred and ten üsrastïs: one hundred and eleven töltïs: one hundred and twenty ðaertïs: one hundred and thirty ... ketïstïs: two hundred ... tistïstïs: two hundred ... How do you think I should combine to form higher numbers? (The reason ötïs isn't *öttïs is because Kosi hates double consonants or vowels.) Thanks, Trebor ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 8 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:49:36 +0200 From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM Hey all! Back from the holidays :-) ... ATM I'm writing this, there's still to read 207 of ~360 messages just from the last week :-( On Friday 22 October 2004 19:01, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > -- > > /BP 8^) > -- > Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se > > Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! > (Tacitus) I played with the thought to join as "naranoieati" ("conlanger" in Ayeri) or the usual "guitarplayer" or "gitarrenklampfer". I would be in GMT+1, so CET as well. Mostly online to check my emails, otherwise online mostly Wednesday evening and Saturday/Sunday evening. But OTOH, you have to sign up with your email address, which 99%ly means to get spam from AOL and Netscape (Netscape 7.0 has AIM included). Most I know use either MSN or ICQ. That you must be 18 to sign up AIM with Netscape is now legally no obstacle anymore for me. Carsten -- Eri silveváng aibannama padangin. Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince -> http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 9 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:49:07 +0200 From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Color system Hello! On Sunday 17 October 2004 07:10, Ben Poplawski wrote: > Which brings me to this: I don't think you can get > colorblindness from your father unless you're female. > Colorblindness (AFAIK) is an X-linked condition; that is, > it's transmitted by X-chromosome and therefore impassable > from father to son. So I have it from my mother. Or both of my parents have got it recessive, since none of both is colour blind, but me and my brother are. My sister is not colour blind however. > Girls are luckier here; they need two defective > chromosomes to become colorblind. One from their mother, > one from their father. Therefore, statistically there are > fewer colorblind females than males. Right. When I wrote that, I thought colourblindness is on the Y chromosome, but indeed, it's on the X chromosome of which (human) females have two and males only have one. So the chances for men to get colourblindness are higher than for females where the defective parts of one chromosome can be "repaired" by help of the "sane" chromosome. On Sunday 17 October 2004 20:06, Rodlox wrote: > how do rainforest tribes in real life handle that? (or > do the Ayeri live in a rainforest that's greener than any > on Earth?). *curious* lol! No, I guess. I only have decided that they live in a huge part of the tropical rainforests of the eastern continent (still unnamed) of my conplanet Aréca (that it starts with [a] as well is just coincidence, but indeed I like the sound of /a/ very much). Carsten ... 180 mails to go :-| ... I'm coming! -- Eri silveváng aibannama padangin. Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince -> http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 10 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:30:24 -0000 From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > But OTOH, you have to sign up with your email > address, which 99%ly means to get spam from AOL and > Netscape (Netscape 7.0 has AIM included). Why not sign up with an e-mail address you never use? You can make up a hotmail account for that purpose. It's very handy to have around. -- Christian Thalmann ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 11 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:18:13 -0700 From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM --- Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey all! > > Back from the holidays :-) ... ATM I'm writing this, > there's > still to read 207 of ~360 messages just from the > last > week :-( > > On Friday 22 October 2004 19:01, Benct Philip > Jonsson wrote: > > > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > > -- > > > > /BP 8^) > > -- > > Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se > > > > Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! > > > (Tacitus) > > I played with the thought to join as > "naranoieati" ("conlanger" in Ayeri) or the usual > "guitarplayer" or "gitarrenklampfer". I would be in > GMT+1, > so CET as well. Mostly online to check my emails, > otherwise > online mostly Wednesday evening and Saturday/Sunday > evening. But OTOH, you have to sign up with your > email > address, which 99%ly means to get spam from AOL and > Netscape (Netscape 7.0 has AIM included). Most I > know use > either MSN or ICQ. That you must be 18 to sign up > AIM with > Netscape is now legally no obstacle anymore for me. > > Carsten Get a junkmail addy. It's always good to have spare email addresses: It helps filter for what mail you want. Such as, I only get conlang on this email, and have an email for interpersonal mail, and a junkmailbox _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 12 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 22:28:58 +0100 From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Questions about Choton, was Re: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton" Joe wrote at 2004-10-11 19:26:35 (+0100) > Pascal A. Kramm wrote: > > > >I first wanted to do it that way, but since "Japan" is used in > >English and German and thus more known than "Nihon", I went for > >that... I might still add "Nihon" as an alternative. > > > > > > You could go with the Archaic Japanese 'Nippon'. That tends to be > fairly well known to English speakers, for some reason. Hardly "archaic", Joe. It's perfectly good modern Japanese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_and_Nippon ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 13 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 15:03:35 -0700 From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Volition in Anohim The nature of volition in Anohim is very complicated. Whether a motion is voluntary or involuntary is always marked. Several verbs, mainly of transference are also always marked. Kill is considered a motive verb. Volition sometimes changes the meaning of the word. Get/take and kill/die are two volition pairs. Voluntary actions are marked with a rising tone and the prefix a- /?&/- Involuntary actions are marked with a falling tone and the prefix i- /?I/- The tone is marked on the root, not the prefixes. EX1: I died (recently) (involuntarily) Úv ponhúe ita^ng 1sg-BEN 1sg-be-NPAST-STAT die-INV I killed him (recently) (he died involuntarily) Uf jacúe whíz ita^ng 1sg-NOM 1sg-do-NPAST DEM-sentient being-far both-BEN die-INV To show that an action is done by the subject involuntarily, but is involuntarily experienced put the BEN case on the one who is done unto, and put noun-verb behind the BEN cased noun, and use the subject's conjugation for the major verb. Reverse the scheme for the reversed volition. When both are voluntary or both involuntary, volition is not marked, but gathered from the connotation of the phrase. If I am unclear, do please ask for elaboration, -The Sock. _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 14 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:19:55 +0100 From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Possible base-20 numeric system Trebor Jung wrote: > Compounds: > > ketïs: twenty > koltïs: thirty > neltïs: forty > ötïs: fifty > sabtïs: sixty > haudïs: seventy > mbitïs: eighty > naetïs: ninety > tistïs: one hundred > üstistïs: one hundred and one > rastïs: one hundred and ten > üsrastïs: one hundred and eleven > töltïs: one hundred and twenty > ðaertïs: one hundred and thirty > ... > ketïstïs: two hundred > ... > tistïstïs: two hundred > ... No, wrong, you have a bizarre dual-base system. Each of the quoted should be 20 more than its predecessor. In the next "place", each would be 20*20=400 more than its predecessor. Also, you must (well, should) only have one name for each integer, but you have: ketïs-tis = koltïs (assuming hyphens add the two numbers) A better scheme: nol = ^0 ... köt = ^19 I will epress the base-20 numbers in ways such as this: 7_2_8_1_2 then we have: nol = _0 = 0 üs = _1 = 1 ket = _2 = 2 kol = _3 = 3 ... eiv = _17 = 17 aum = _18 = 18 köt = _19 = 19 Then things slightly more complicated: üstïs = _1_0 = 1*20 + 0 = 20 ketïs = _2_0 = 2*20 + 0 = 40 koltïs = _3_0 = 3*20 + 0 = 60 . . . eivtïs = _17_0 = 17*20 + 0 = 340 aumtïs = _18_0 = 18*20 + 0 = 360 köttïs = _19_0 = 19*20 + 0 = 380 üstïstïs = _1_0_0 = 1*20*20 + 0*20 + 0 = 400 üstïstïstïs = _1_0_0_0 = 1*20*20*20 + 0*20*20 + 0*20 + 0 = 8000 üstïstïstïstïs = _1_0_0_0_0 = 1*20*20*20*20 + 0*20*20*20 + 0*20*20 + 0*20 + 0 = 160000 for complicated numbers: köttïstïstïs-naetïstïs-ðahtïs-nel = _19_9_16_4 = _19_0_0_0 + _9_0_0 + _16_0 + _4 = 19*20*20*20 + 9*20*20 + 16*20 + 4 = 155924 -- Simon Richard Clarkstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 15 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 02:17:03 +0100 From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500) > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may > affect the development of my conlang. > > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their > inventories do not allow it word-initially. Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? Offhand, I can only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing to look up. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 16 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 02:18:54 -0000 From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fwd: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500) > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may > affect the development of my conlang. > > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their > inventories do not allow it word-initially. >>Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? Offhand, I >>can only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing >>to look up. Swahili has an initial /N/: ng'ombe = cow. The apostrophe is used to distinguish this single phoneme from the two phonemes in "finger,": /NJ\/, nguruwe = pig. Charlie ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 17 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 22:37:47 -0500 From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal Tim May wrote: > Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500) > > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may > > affect the development of my conlang. > > > > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their > > inventories do not allow it word-initially. > > Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? Offhand, I can > only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing to look > up. > Thai is one that comes to mind, as well as Cantonese. It looks like Indonesian also has a few words with initial ng-. I'm sure there must be others; I assume that Nganasan, at least, is pronounced with an initial /N/ or /Ng/. Welsh has initial /N/ as a nasal mutation of /g/. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 18 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:14:06 -0400 From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Volition in Anohim You know I can't leave this message alone! :) Volition is the meat and drink of the active Teonim. I'm still making mistakes in it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "bob thornton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The nature of volition in Anohim is very complicated. This sounds like a response to a question, Bob. Did I miss a thread that was called something else and developed into a discussion of volitionality? > Whether a motion is voluntary or involuntary is always > marked. Several verbs, mainly of transference are also > always marked. Kill is considered a motive verb. It is in Teonaht, too, but where the form of the word impedes (like lis (get) or den (tell), one can always tell from the article whether the subject is v or nv. So Teonaht has a peculiar kind of active system, one that has a volitional S along with a volitional V. Many of the verbs are ambivolitional (where the meaning changes), whereas as some are always volitional, others always non-volitional. So in some cases it is the subject that determines volitionality, and in other cases the verb. But both S and V have to be marked in some way. > Volition sometimes changes the meaning of the word. > Get/take and kill/die are two volition pairs. Lisned, bettairem in Teonaht: get/take. A subject with lis is the passive recipient of action, and lisned is often used to express what we call the "passive": aid bikar(em) eton-li lis. "The tree gets its chopping." There is a different word for "receive" that is volitional, since one can refuse to receive something. However, I don't see kill/die as a volitional pair so much as a subject/recipient pair. One can die at the hands of one who kills. One can die in one's bed. One can commit suicide. I've also noted that idioms in language don't necessarily have to make sense to us in our first language. But it sort of feels like making get/give a volitional pair. Do you see what I mean? Get/take I understand. In Teonaht, conceivably, one can kill by accident as in manslaughter. It's an important legal verb. Here are some verbs that are always volitional: say, talk, do, give, make, go, come, allow, decide, attack, read, write, chase, conquer, promise, command, doff, don, clothe, feed, cook, eat, drink, love, hate, prefer, holler, spit, pray, convict, berate, and a host of others. Here are some verbs that are always non-volitional: be, exist, be ignorant of, be absent, be present, be happy, sad, blue, fiery, stupid and a bunch of other stative verbs in T; get, sleep, fall asleep, wake up, sicken, vomit, bleed, die, dream, have (inalienable), beware, trip, fall down, etc. The ambivolitional verbs cover the senses, of course, and cognition: hear/listen to; see/watch or look at; smell/sniff; feel/touch or caress; taste/lick; know of/find out about; perceive/test etc. But the ambivolitional verbs, I find, as I write more and more in Teonaht, are a much bigger category than those verbs that are only one or the other: cry (in response to)/mourn; laugh (at a joke)/deride or make light of dislike/hate (to the point of malice) like/prefer stand (as a tree does)/stand up or take a stand lie (as a log does)/lie down, lie low follow (as a shadow does)/pursue live (breathe)/dwell breathe/draw breath bounce/rebound actively, return with renewed vigor die passively/commit suicide walk (as a clock or any machine part does)/walk somewhere stop/cease purposely sit (as a spoon does)/sit down rest (out of fatigue)/rest deliberately speed up (as a ball does rolling down a hill/hasten think (wandering thoughts)/contemplate be ignorant of/ignore believe (blindly)/believe something you've given thought to misspeak/lie make a mistake/be in wilful error defecate (shit one's pants)/defecate on will urinate (piss oneself)/urinate, relieve oneself etc. Then: boil (as water does)/boil something in a pot freeze (as water does)/freeze something heat up (as anger does)/heat someone up drown (as a swimmer does)/immerse end (as a play does)/put an end to (here we are getting into states and creating states, and these AV verbs are usually distinguished by intransitivity/transitivity. There is also a suffix (-ma) that turns an adjective or a nonvolitional intransitive into a volitional transitive: worry/make worried anger/make angered cool/make cold bleed/make bleed vomit/make vomit sleep/put to sleep put to sleep (because you are boring)/put to sleep (actively hypnotize) etc. > Voluntary actions are marked with a rising tone and > the prefix a- /?&/- > > Involuntary actions are marked with a falling tone and > the prefix i- /?I/- Do I detect a sense of hierarchy expressed by rising and falling tone? The Teonim, little elitests and warriors that they are, definitely privilege the agents over the experiencers. This attitude is challenged, though, in some contemplative practices where the experiencer is superior to the agent, the visionary superior to the false prophet. > The tone is marked on the root, not the prefixes. > > EX1: > > I died (recently) (involuntarily) Who's speaking?? Ghosts cannot use volitional verbs in Teonaht, nor can the Deity use non-volitional verbs, although the writers cheat by combining the non-volitional subject with a volitional verb. This is necessary to maintain semantic coherence in story-telling and religious instruction. > Úv ponhúe ita^ng > > 1sg-BEN 1sg-be-NPAST-STAT die-INV > > I killed him (recently) (he died involuntarily) > > Uf jacúe whíz ita^ng > > 1sg-NOM 1sg-do-NPAST DEM-sentient being-far both-BEN > die-INV > > To show that an action is done by the subject > involuntarily, but is involuntarily experienced put > the BEN case on the one who is done unto, and put > noun-verb behind the BEN cased noun, and use the > subject's conjugation for the major verb. > > Reverse the scheme for the reversed volition. When > both are voluntary or both involuntary, volition is > not marked, but gathered from the connotation of the > phrase. > > If I am unclear, do please ask for elaboration, > > -The Sock. Sounds good, Sock! :) Sal http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 19 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:40:14 -0400 From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal Herman Miller wrote: > Tim May wrote: > > > Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500) > > > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may > > > affect the development of my conlang. > > > > > > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their > > > inventories do not allow it word-initially. > > > > Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? Offhand, I can > > only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing to look > > up. > > > > Thai is one that comes to mind, as well as Cantonese. It looks like > Indonesian also has a few words with initial ng-. I'm sure there must be > others; I assume that Nganasan, at least, is pronounced with an initial > /N/ or /Ng/. > Many Indonesian/Philippine/Oceanic languages have /N-/; not many of the forms are reconstructible all the way back, however. One problem is that /N-/ in many cases is morphophonemic (Nasalization+k > N) or a remnant thereof (*ma+nasalization- was a common prefix(1), and the ma- is sometimes dropped along the way). --------- (1) The default nasal is /N/, which shows up e.g. in Indonesian before vowel-initial roots, like meng/amok 'to run amuck' ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 20 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 07:14:42 +0200 From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: OT: Re: Anybody on AIM On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:30:24 -0000, Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > But OTOH, you have to sign up with your email > > address, which 99%ly means to get spam from AOL and > > Netscape (Netscape 7.0 has AIM included). > > Why not sign up with an e-mail address you never use? > You can make up a hotmail account for that purpose. > It's very handy to have around. Or even use a Mailinator address ( http://www.mailinator.com/ ) - no passwords, just enter a username to see email sent to that address in the past hour (everything older is autodeleted). Very useful for when you just need a temporary address to receive an activation code or something, because there's nothing to set up or personal data to enter or anything. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Watch the Reply-To! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 21 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 07:21:54 +0200 From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:40:14 -0400, Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Herman Miller wrote: > > > Tim May wrote: > > > > > Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? > > > > Thai is one that comes to mind, as well as Cantonese. Also Hakka. > Many Indonesian/Philippine/Oceanic languages have /N-/ *nods* and hence, so does Ko e Vagahau he Motu. Spelled |g| there from Samoan influence; Tongan uses |ng|, for example. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Watch the Reply-To! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 22 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 10:22:20 -0000 From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Senyecan ortho. breakthrough With the help of some conlang members & a bit of online research, I am finally able to bring my conlang orthography in line with my original. I can now use the following graphemes: ð in place of dh: ðéva = to harm, injure, damage. Þ in place of th: ósÞon = bone. ø in place of oe: øxÞen = bear. Unfortunately, I can't put the accent marks over this grapheme. The reader will have to supply them. And the following punctuation marks: « » ¿ ¡ The first two I use for quotations marks. Borrowed that from Greek. In doing the research, I discovered a site on an Indian language in Mexico. Whoever did the investigation has used ö to indication labialization of consonants. "How neat!" thought I. It adds a touch of that exoticness (exoticity?) that we conlangers seem to love. By analogy I will use ï to indicate palatalization. cöásïa = to weave a basket. I am still looking for the following 3 graphemes: s with an acute accent, z with an acute accent, & gamma. I encountered words like hexal & octal. I have no idea how these work. Why are some codes with 3 digits & some with 4? But...it works & that's all that matters to me. yùwam suuldïéyam yudzúse your Sunday Enjoy. Charlie ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 23 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:20:58 +0200 From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Animacy in Sohlob I have decided that agents in Sohlob /sQ'KQb_0/ are marked differently depending on whether they are animate or inanimate. More exactly animate agents are marked by the ergative while inanimate agents are marked by the instrumental. I've been convinced that this is sensible since ergative languages have a stronger sense of actors and patients than accusative ones it makes sense that some things are considered inherently unable of "acting". But this means that I have to decide what is animate! Just humans (*if* the speakers are human, which I haven't decided) and animals is too bland and too scientific for my taste. Other candidate categories for animacy are: -- Spirits and gods (naturally). -- Heavenly bodies (these are gods to the speakers!) -- Fire. -- Water. -- Weather phenomena. -- Metals (the only more odd category that has suggested itself to me.) Can anyone suggest more possibly animate categories, preferably with explanation why they would be considered animate? -- /BP 8^) -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 24 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 06:22:29 -0500 From: Danny Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Senyecan ortho. breakthrough From: "caeruleancentaur" > Þ in place of th: ósÞon = bone. Congrats and welcome to the list (I missed the your debut on account of being NOMAIL for so long). I better point something out, and people miss this a lot so don't feel bad -- the small thorn is þ (Alt+0254 in Windows); the capital thorn is Þ (Alt+0222). You used the capital when you probably wanted small. > And the following punctuation marks: « » ¿ ¡ The > first two I > use for quotations marks. Borrowed that from Greek. And French, German and numerous other languages. I do that for Tech in both Latin and Arabic script. The inverted punctuation marks though... are they used as in Spanish, or do they have a spcial function? In my conlang, the convention isn't exactly like Spanish; phrases can end only in an upright question or exclamation mark but not begin wth an inverted one, and that reflects normal usage. When inverted mark opens a phrase (which can be a single word) and an upright one closes, emphasis is implied. For question marks, there is a deal of doubt about something; for exclamation marks, sarcasm. Examples: ¿The capital of Louisiana is New Orelans? (Meaning: I doubt the capital of the US state in question is the stated city. Of course the capital is actually Baton Rouge.) ¡Eating at McDonalds every day is a healthy habit! (You get the picture.) This is not standard English usage, but it should be I mean, this is what I do for Tech. Whenever Tech finally exists, that is. > In doing the research, I discovered a site on an Indian language in > Mexico. Whoever did the investigation has used ö to indication > labialization of consonants. "How neat!" thought I. It adds a touch > of that exoticness (exoticity?) that we conlangers seem to love. By > analogy I will use ï to indicate palatalization. cöásïa = > to weave a > basket. I use the degree sign in Tech: k°lep (the e is inverted) [EMAIL PROTECTED] "he was behaving like a dog". So that way, I can labialize consonants whether or not they're followed by a vowel. Palatization is indicated by the acute accent. > I am still looking for the following 3 graphemes: s with an acute > accent, z with an acute accent, & gamma. If you use Windows, you go Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. If you use Linux or Macintosh, there has to be some sort of Unicode character input thingie, but I have no idea what or how. You could also use S and Z with carons since you can input those with Alt+0xxx too! S-caron = Alt+0138 Z-caron = Alt+0142 s-caron = Alt+0154 z-caron = Alt+0158 Can't use that method to plug in gamma though. Unless you just use G/g and change the font to Symbol for just that letter (which I HATE doing!) I use two Greek letters in Tech: gamma (voiced uvular stop/fricative), and lambda (voiceless laterally-released alveolar affricate/fricative). I might use theta and delta for the interdental fricatives when borrowed from Arabic. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 25 Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 06:38:00 -0500 From: Danny Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Question about word-initial velar nasal From: "Tim May" > Danny Wier wrote at 2004-10-21 14:27:39 (-0500) > > This is a natlang/histlang/theory question, the answer of which may > > affect the development of my conlang. > > > > I've noticed that a lot of languages that have /N/ in their > > inventories do not allow it word-initially. > > Incidentally, what languages _do_ allow /N/ initally? Offhand, I can > only think of Vietnamese and Tibetan, and it's a tricky thing to look > up. Some of these have already been mentioned by others, so pardon the redundancy. These I know for sure: Albanian, and I have no idea how that happened. Celtic languages (Breton, Welsh, Irish and Scots Gaelic), but as a result of nasal mutation of initial velar stops. Vietnamese Tagalog and other Philippine languages Samoyedic languages like Nganasan (as the name implies) I think Sami (in its various dialects) may allow initial velar nasals, but I'm not too keen on the language. They do have velar nasals in other situations, and in fact, they use the letter eng for that purpose. Also Nivkh (Gilyak) comes to mind; it also distinguishes velar and uvular nasals (as well as stops and fricatives). I also want to say Inuktitut too, but I can't remember! I studied this language a wee bit not too long ago.... Apparently I will never escape my obsession with phonology. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! 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