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There are 26 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Russophone offshoot possibility
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long]
From: Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Isolating natlangs?
From: Rob Haden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Isolating natlangs?
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Intro to Frankish, was Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
26. Re: Isolating natlangs?
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:24:25 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:21:26 +1100, Tristan McLeay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> are there any languages which would have infixes?
>
> Abso-bloody-lutely! (I don't know any serious examples, though...)
In a similar vein, "hizzouse" and friends show an -izz- infix.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:44:48 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Russophone offshoot possibility
On Thursday, December 16, 2004 11:12 PM, I wrote:
> I mean there is an hispanophone "ideolengua" group. I can offer us a
> russophone version if there are enough persons who want to participate.
Today I have created a Russophone group called "konlang_ru" at Yahoo!
It is similar to "ideolengua" and "ouglopo" in its tasks. All who can speak
some Russian, are invited. I'll make an announcement in a couple of
russophone linguistic forums, too.
äÏÂÒÏ ÐÏÖÁÌÏ×ÁÔØ ÎÁ konlang_ru !
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konlang_ru
Group email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- Yitzik / éÃÉË
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:39:01 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
Doug Dee wrote:
> Come to think of it, there are also some Old French nouns that have a
> different stem in the Nom sg. vs. other forms:
>
> Nom sg li ber
> obl sg le baron
> nom pl. li baron
> obl pl les barons
>
> Perhaps Frankish could retain the stem alternation even though the -s
comes
> to mark plural only.
Surely it could! I would expect levelling of the paradigms in different
numbers, but preservation of different stems in sn & pl.
-- Yitzik
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:45:41 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> are there any languages which would have infixes?
Abso-bloody-lutely! (I don't know any serious examples, though...)
--
Tristan.
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:48:11 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
----- Original Message -----
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Thagojian:
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
CXS:
A b g d e u ts) E T i 7 k l K m n N ks) o p r s S t M f x ps) O q h
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
No real notion of allophones yet, but the following vowels change based on
harmony.
a / A
2 / 7
y / M
These values are non-concrete. The language exists as a written form only.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language?
Had to be plausibly PIE-derived, with some outre but not outlandish features.
Once I determined that I was going to use a Greek-plus-extras alphabet, it had
to vaguely fit the graphemes available.
Lizardman:
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
CXS:
d_m z_m z_m: J\ j\ j\: g G G: G\ R R: i i\ M 7 i i\: M: 7:
They were chosen for a species with minimal mouth dexterity.
My McGuffey Project
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
B\ r R\ w v b p g k c_+C_+ tS) s S d t N n m I i V u @ A e o a O u 2
Something far removed from European languages, but plausible. My other reasons
are hard to summarise. It's largely aesthetic, and designed to remind me of
vaguely hunter-gatherer-ish origins.
Paul
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:54:00 -0500
From: Alex Fink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long]
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 18:40:52 +0000, Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 05:40 , Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
>[snip]
>> As I now know that some natlangs really reverse the whole digit
>> stream, I might try to optimise my system further (optimising = coming
>> closer to my internal ideal, whatever that is :-)).
>
>It appears I was mistaken about this - half-remembering things and knowing
>that in Arabic the number strings are written from lowest to highest in
>the direction of reading.
>
>Maybe, there should another 'Universal' to add to Greenberg's list :)
>"While in numbers from 11 to 99, a language may express the units may be
>before the tens or after the tens or allow both positions, the higher
>powers of 10 (i.e. 100, 1000, 10000 etc) are always expressed from highest
>to lowest before the tens & unit combination."
>
>In fact, making a Universal is a sure way of making it certain there will
>be an exception :-)
Georges Ifrah, in _The Universal History of Numbers_, writes that in Sanskrit,
"[like] all Indo-European spoken counting systems, the numbers were often
expressed -- at least in everyday use -- in descending order, from the
highest to the smallest units.
However, around the dawn of the Common Era (probably from the second century
BCE), this order was reversed, particularly in learned and official texts,
the numbers being expressed in ascending order, from the smallest to the
highest units."
He gives the example
nava pañchâshat sapta shata cha trisahasra
nine fifty seven hundred and three thousand
3759
Ifrah proposes that the switch in direction was adopted so that these
numbers could be written directly into an abacus in the order given,
starting with the ones place. If they had started with the highest power of
ten, they would have had to count columns of the abacus to know where to
start.
Still, this doesn't provide an example of a natlang system which
consistently goes from lowest to highest in everyday usage.
AFMCL, pjaukra expresses numbers starting with the lowest power of twelve:
pati xalkx-undu kari-sarda
four eleven-dozen six-gross
6B4_12 = 1000 decimal
Alex
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:07:17 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 01:37:24PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > Do Europeans use metric cups (250 mL), teaspoons (5 mL) and tablespoons
> > (20 mL)?
The 20-mL tablespoon surprises me, given the 5-mL teaspoon. Over here a
tablespoon (0.5 fluid ounce) is exactly 3 teaspoons.
(In the US a cup is 8 fluid ounces = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons;
so the exact metric values are 236.5882365 mL for a cup, 14.78676478125 mL
for a tablespoon, and 4.92892159375 mL for a teaspoon. Given which,
250/15/5 seems a perfectly reasonable metric approximation, and
250/20/5 seems like a recipe for a culinary catastrophe for the unwary.
:))
-Marcos
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:11:49 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Oh, and on the subject of flour: here it's generally measured by volume
in cups, although persnickety cooks measure it by weight - usually in grams
rather than ounces because the smaller unit gives finer granularity
with integral values.
-Marcos
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:14:46 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Hi!
"Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Oh, and on the subject of flour: here it's generally measured by volume
> in cups, although persnickety cooks measure it by weight - usually in grams
> rather than ounces because the smaller unit gives finer granularity
> with integral values.
It's commonly given in weight here, but there are special measurement
cups that measure it by volume, but have the scale in grams. Some for
sugar, etc.
**Henrik
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 08:03:38 -0800
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
--- Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > are there any languages which would have infixes?
>
> Abso-bloody-lutely! (I don't know any serious
> examples, though...)
>
> --
> Tristan.
>
Infixing occurs all over the place in Classical Old
Irish before 1000AD)
example:
1) Object Pronouns:
forgaib "he seizes" /forgav'/
fortngaib "he seizes him" /fordNav'/
fobotha "it disturbs" /foboTa/
fombotha "it disturbs me" /fomvoTa/
(with lots of consonant mutations)
2) Aspectual Morphemes:
dogni: "he does"
dorigni "he has done"
stuff like this is all over Old Irish, makes it very
very crazy. and great.
elliott
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:06:10 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 04:14:46PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> It's commonly given in weight here, but there are special measurement
> cups that measure it by volume, but have the scale in grams. Some for
> sugar, etc.
That's convenient. You get the precision of g for the persnickety cooks
who use their scales, and convenience for the less persnickety ones
without having to convert between two units.
Oh, and I think another reason the by-weight chefs use g over here is
that it avoids the "ounces of weight or fluid ounces?" confusion. If a
recipe calls for "10 oz" of flour, that means 5/8 of a cup by volume,
almost guaranteed. If the weighted recipes used ounces, that'd be
ambiguous, and 5/8 of a pound of flour is a very different quantity
thatn 5/8 of a cup of flour. :)
-Marcos
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:16:30 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
----- Original Message -----
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Senyecan:
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
CXS:
bilabial - p b p\ B m_0 m
dental - t d T D l_0 l
alveolar - ts) dz) s z 4_0 n
palatal - k g x G j_0 j
vowels - i e a O 3\ u
I'm not sure of 3\. I want the vowel sound found in the
French "boeuf."
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
The only allophone is 4_0 to r_0. This may occur with the
interrogatory suffix -r. Since it is always sentence final, there is
a tendency to turn the flap into a trill.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language?
Senyecan purports to be the original language, which was pre-pre-
PIE. Since it is the first language the phonemes had to follow a
regular pattern. As time passed irregularities and changes would be
introduced. This pattern was based on the mystical number of
the culture: 6. There are 6 vowels and 24 consonants. Some of these
phonemes will later evolve into the PIE phonemes.
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:25:13 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
Emaelivpeith Sai Emrys
> Same deal as last time.
Senyecan:
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
V, CV, CVC, CVN (where N is a non-plosive, before a C).
> Q2: Onset clusters?
V, CV only
> Q3: Codas?
V, CV only
> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
No.
> Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
Personal aesthetics.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:56:20 -0500
From: Rob Haden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating natlangs?
If you want a European example of an isolating language, look into Afrikaans.
IIRC,
it's perfectly isolating.
- Rob
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:36:40 -0800, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Of the two conlang projects I have going right now one
>of them is mutating in the direction of becoming more
>isolating. However, I'm not at all familiar with
>isolating languages as they occur in the wild, and I'd
>love to look at the grammar for one or two examples.
>I'd prefer languages that are at the more extreme end
>of isolating. Can anyone suggest a couple isolating
>natlangs (for which grammars are readily available)
>that I might take a look at for guidance and
>inspiration?
>
>Thanks,
>
>--gary
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:23:35 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
Hallo!
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:24:35 -0800,
Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [...]
>
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
Old Albic has:
/p/ /t/ /k/
/b/ /d/ /g/ /i/ /y/ /u/
/f/ /T/ /x/
/s/ /h/ /e/ /2/ /o/
/m/ /n/ /N/
/l/ /a/
/w/ /r/ /j/
The vowels occur both short and (much less common) long.
Long vowels are tense and short vowels are lax.
> (Side question: CXS is the "standard" notation for this list?)
De facto, yes.
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
The stops have "fortis" and "lenis" allophones of which the latter
occur after vowels and /w l r j/. This rule operates across
word boundaries in certain cases, e.g. within an NP.
> Q2b: If you have any, what are the connotations / implications of the
> different allophones? E.g., do you use them for different dialects,
> registers, "accents", etc.?
Some rural dialects are described as having aspirated stops /p_h/,
/t_h/, /k_h/ for the fricatives /f/, /T/, /x/ by classical Old Albic
authors. This pronunciation was generally considered rustic,
uneducated and ugly among urbanites.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language? E.g., if it's an auxlang [here!?], it's probably motivated
> by having common, strongly "universal" common-use phonetics to
> maximize learnability. So, for whatever your goals are for the
> conlang, how do they apply to the choices you made for phonetics /
> phonology?
Old Albic is an artlang designed to fit my personal style, and also
to represent a plausible pre-Celtic language of Britain that is
a distant cousin to Indo-European.
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:34:50 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
Hallo!
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:28:51 -0800,
Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
>
> Q2: Onset clusters?
>
> Q3: Codas?
>
> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
Actually, I do not use hard and fast rules for that in Old Albic.
The maximum allowable syllable structure is CCVCC, with the sonority
of the consonants decreasing towards the margins. There are few
CCC clusters in the language and no CCCC clusters.
It may be noted that the consonants /p/, /t/ and /k/ occur only
in lexical roots and some derivational suffixes (and there at most
one of them in a single morpheme), but not in inflectional endings.
(Similar to the behaviour of PIE *b, *d, *g, *gW to which they
are cognate.)
> Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
As with the phoneme inventory, personal style and also plausibility
as a pre-Celtic language of Britain (not much of a constraint as we
know next to nothing about what those languages were like) and
distant cousin to Indo-European (which means that Old Albic is
pretty much like an IE language with regard to phonotactics).
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:31:45 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:05:21 -0500
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
To: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
----- Original Message -----
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005 9:11 am
Subject: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > are there any languages which would have infixes?
>
> "Of course" :)
>
> I don't know of any examples, but I seem to recall reading that
> Tagalog uses infixes in its verbal morphology, though I don't remember
> in what function.
AIUI, each infix imparts a different meaning to the trigger morpheme,
that is, it makes the trigger morpheme stand for a different case,
with the usual caveat that people into trigger languages don't
appreciate the normal folks tossing around the word "case" with such
abandon.
Paul
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:47:32 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:24 PM, Philip Newton wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:21:26 +1100, Tristan McLeay
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>> wrote:
>>>> are there any languages which would have infixes?
>> Abso-bloody-lutely! (I don't know any serious examples, though...)
> In a similar vein, "hizzouse" and friends show an -izz- infix.
And there's the -ma- infix in "gradumatation", "edumacator", and
"congratumalations".
-Stephen (Steg)
"Let them come.
There is one dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath."
~ gimli son of gloin, LotR:FotR (movie version, at least)
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:55:04 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
My conlangs are: Methkaeki, Okaikiar, Curnalis.
On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 06:24:35PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> First off: phonetic / phonemic inventory.
> Q1: What is your phonemic inventory?
in CXS
Methkaeki:
Vowels: & a E e I i O o U u
Consonants: b S tS d D f g Z dZ k l m n N p r\ s t T v z
Okaikiar:
Vowels: a e i o 2 u y @
Consonants: d k_h l m n r z
Curnalis (so far; it's a discovery process):
Vowels: a e i o u
Consonants: a b d f g j k l m n p 4 s t ts v w z
> (Side question: CXS is the "standard" notation for this list?)
I wouldn't say "standard", but it's the most common one, and the
assumed one if not specified otherwise.
> Q2: What are the allophones?
Methkaeki has some English-like allophonic rules:
Any vowel may become [EMAIL PROTECTED] in an unstressed syllable;
Voiceless stops may be aspirated;
The rhotic /r\/ may be realized as [4].
Okaikiar:
Voice is not phonemic. Thus /d/ may be realied as [t], etc.
Consonants are frequently devoiced when they occur on either side of
/@/: /[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ sounds more like [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The one phoneme *listed* in voiceless form, /k_h/, is, as indicated,
normally aspirated [k_h]. Presumably for that reason, it never gets
voiced and realized as [g], but it may be deaspirated and realized as
just [k].
Curnalis:
Voiceless stops may be aspirated.
> Q2b: If you have any, what are the connotations / implications of the
> different allophones? E.g., do you use them for different dialects,
> registers, "accents", etc.?
No; they're just artifacts of the phonetic environment.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language?
Not very well? :) Methkaeki originated as encoded English, and so
inherited the Englishlike rules sort of by default. Okaikiar's small
consonant inventory was something that grew out of the small number of
unchangeable attested words in the corpus. When I set about designing a
writing system for it - an alphasyllabic one not much like Hangul but in
the same spirit - I noticed that there were very few voiceless/voiced
pairs, and realized I could get a number of consonants that was a nice
power of two if I got rid of that distinction. That let me use a
variety of binary representation for the consonants in the script.
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:11:50 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
On Thursday, January 13, 2005, at 02:24 , Sai Emrys wrote:
> OK, so. How about a slightly less ... controversial topic, this time.
> This is the first in a series of queries.
>
> I'd like to have a bunch of examples from Real Live (or trying-to-be)
> Conlangs to have at hand for my class as samples of how conlangers
> decide certain questions, and on what basis.
OK - my info is all in the public domain in any case. But a couple of
warnings:
- you will need a browser that handles Unicode properly & font that
supports IPA.
- this part of my website is currently under revision.
The names of the Conlangs are now different as conlangers may recall from
an email I posted on 4th Jan. Indeed the web-pages contain merely the
nicknames. The two versions of 'briefscript' now have proper names, thus:
- the older name 'briefscipt' (quoted) shall replace the cumbersome BrSc
(which was not my invention anyway);
- the language nicknamed BrScA is now named Bax /'baça/;
- the language nicknamed BrScB is now named Brx (pronunciation not
finalized - possibly /pilESE/).
In fact, the new Brx means the info on BrScB is now a tad out of date -
but the principals are much the same.
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown/BrSc.html
- explains reasons for developing the briefscript conlangs.
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown/BrScA.html
- answers your three questions as regards Bax.
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown/BrScB.html
- answers your three questions as regards Brx.
[snip]
On Thursday, January 13, 2005, at 02:28 , Sai Emrys wrote:
>
> Same deal as last time.
>
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
etc - snipped
The above pages also answer the four questions posed in the Examples #2
mail.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 21
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:12:09 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating natlangs?
On Wednesday, January 12, 2005, at 08:06 , Aquamarine Demon wrote:
>> Of the two conlang projects I have going right now one of them is
>> mutating in the direction of becoming more isolating. However, I'm not
>> at
>> all familiar with isolating languages as they occur in the wild, and I'd
>> love to look at the grammar for one or two examples.
[snip]
> Well, I don't know much about it, but pretty much every place I've seen
> gives Chinese (Mandarin) as an example of an isolating language.
No, not Mandarin (or AFAIK any other variety of spoken Chinese). Like
modern English, it is largely isolating but does have some bound
grammatical morphemes (affixes) like, for example, the verbal aspect
morphemes -le and -zhe, and several others. Indeed, it has been argued on
this list that modern English is more isolating than Mandarin (but not an
argument I think worth pursuing).
In fact it seems that very few natlangs are 100% isolating. The only one
that I know of that is always quoted without qualification is Vietnamese.
It may be that Thai, which was mentioned here recently, is also 100%
isolating - I do not know enough about it to comment otherwise.
The trouble is that natlangs have this horrible tendency of not fitting
neatly into the three-way topologies of te 19th century theorists ;)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:12:01 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
On Wednesday, January 12, 2005, at 11:18 , Doug Dee wrote:
> In a message dated 1/12/2005 6:01:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL
> PROTECTED]
> NET
> writes:
>
>>> I suppose I could just be satisfied by maintaining case marking on the
>>> article, and letting the -s on nouns just mark plural.
>
>> I think that makes sense.
>
> Come to think of it, there are also some Old French nouns that have a
> different stem in the Nom sg. vs. other forms:
>
> Nom sg li ber
> obl sg le baron
> nom pl. li baron
> obl pl les barons
>
> Perhaps Frankish could retain the stem alternation even though the -s
> comes
> to mark plural only.
Ah yes, the imparisyllabic nouns :)
The final -s did mark both plural cases of feminine nouns, but only the
acc. plural of masculines. This means, of course, that feminine nouns did
not distinguish between nom. & obl. in the plural and many of them also
showed no case distinction in the singular. If -s comes to be used for all
nouns in both plural forms, it means a break-down of case distinction in
the plural which is likely - as in fact it did - hasten the break-down of
the case system entirely in nouns and adjectives.
Indeed the case system of Old French did start to disintegrate in the 12th
century. It means the case system was still apparently intact at the time
of the 1st Crusade (1059) but had already started to disintegrate by the
2nd Crusade (1147).
It could have been kept alive, I suppose, if the definite article & other
determinatives kept the case distinctions as, for example, in modern
German. But even there, the feminine forms did not retain case
distinctions in Old French. All in all, it seems to me doubtful that the
nom. ~ obl. case distinction would have survived.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 23
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:12:20 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Intro to Frankish, was Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
On Wednesday, January 12, 2005, at 11:03 , Doug Dee wrote:
> In a message dated 1/12/2005 3:43:53 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>> my historical geography's a mite rusty...weren't there a lot more Turks
>> in/near Byzantium than there were in/near the Crusader states?
>
> Maybe, but I figure that if they succeeded in conquering Byzanitum, they'
> d
> eventually turn their attention southwards towards the Crusaders again.
Yes - one does have to remember that con-histories (or alt-histories) do
not exactly mirror the history of our 'real' world :)
> Also note that in my conhistory, there will be no Fourth Crusade and sack
> of
> Constantinople to weak the Byzantines.
>
> So I'm assuming both the Byzantines and the Crusaders will weather the
> Turkish storm.
A very different world, then - no Turkish occupation of the Balkans. That
could have many implications for the subsequent history of Europe.
>
>>> Therefore, there will be a Greek-speaking empire
>> next door
>>> to these Frankish-speakers, which might lead to more Greek influence
>>> than I
>>> initially planned on.
>
>> not neccessarily...the Byzantine Empire might undergo a third change
>> (from
>> Latin-speaking to Greek-speaking to Turk/Arabic-speaking).
>
> It could, but it doesn't seem likely to me under the circumstances. I
> can't
> think of an example of a sizable country adopting the language of hostile
> neighbors who tried & failed to conquer it.
Indeed not. Also the Byzantine Empire was never Latin-*speaking*. It is
true that until the 6th cent CE the surviving eastern Empire continued to
use Latin as the official, administrative language. But it was not & never
had been the _spoken_ language of the people living there.
It was, I suppose, a bit like England after the Norman conquest when
Norman French was for a few centuries the official, administrative
language. But the spoken language of most remained English. If the English
had taken up speaking the official, administrative language, I would be
typing this in some modern descendant of Norman French ;)
Between the 6th & 9th centuries, with the collapse of the western Empire &
the separation of the Eastern & Western Churches, Latin became supplanted
by Greek - the language of both Church and the common people - and the
empire changed from late Roman to Byzantine. But it must be said the
official language was still not the spoken language of the people - it was
the Atticizing Greek of the late Hellenistic period - but it was now a
good deal closer to the spoken language than Latin had ever been :)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:32:45 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 06:24:35PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
[...]
> First off: phonetic / phonemic inventory.
>
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
Ebisédian's phonemic inventory is extensive but not very interesting.
The consonantal phonemes are:
[G]
[x]
[N]
[g]
[k]
[k_h]
[D]
[T]
[n]
[d]
[t]
[t_h]
[Z]
[S]
[dZ]
[tS]
[tS_h]
[z]
[s]
[l]
[r`] or [r] (in some dialects)
[B] or [v] (but the latter gets laughed at as "foreign")
[P] or [f] (ditto for the latter)
[m]
[b]
[p]
[p_h]
Vowels: [u]
[8]
[y]
[o]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] (the former is preferred)
[i]
[A] or [O]
[a]
[E] or [&] (the former is preferred)
Vowels also have length, nasality, and "breathing". Taking [u] as an
example, you have [?u] (normal breathing), [wu] (smooth breathing),
[hu] (rough breathing). This applies for all vowels. Smooth breathing
for open vowels is pronounced without a distinct onset (I don't know
how to represent that in IPA).
Tatari Faran, OTOH, has a much more interesting phonemic inventory.
When designing TF, I wanted its phonetic inventory to be small and
simple yet interesting. So:
[p] [t] [k] [?]
[d]/[4] - these are the same phoneme, realized as [d] word-initially
and [4] medially.
[b] [m] [n]
[f] [s] [h]
[dz] [ts]
(Note that there is no lateral consonant in TF.)
Vowels:
[a] [E] [i] [O] [M] [u]
[a:] [ej] [i:] [u:]
Glides:
[aj] [ao] [ja] [wa] [uj]
[...]
> (Side question: CXS is the "standard" notation for this list?)
Yes.
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
Hmm. I think I've already listed them above. It could be pointed out
that Tatari Faran stops are all *unaspirated* (hence the [t] is the
"Spanish t" rather than the word-initial "English t"). The aspirated
counterparts are understood, but regarded as foreign and "weird". The
[d]/[4] phoneme can be all pronounced as [d] or all as [4] and still
be intelligible, but of course that would sound "weird".
> Q2b: If you have any, what are the connotations / implications of the
> different allophones? E.g., do you use them for different dialects,
> registers, "accents", etc.?
They would probably occur in dialects, but so far, I haven't done much
work on dialects in either Ebisédian or Tatari Faran.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language? E.g., if it's an auxlang [here!?], it's probably motivated
> by having common, strongly "universal" common-use phonetics to
> maximize learnability. So, for whatever your goals are for the
> conlang, how do they apply to the choices you made for phonetics /
> phonology?
[...]
For Ebisédian, I simply threw in all the phones I could pronounce,
including some I couldn't (at least until I made Ebisédian :-P), and
then "rationalized" it by turning labiodentals into true labials ([f]
-> [P] and [v] -> [B]). Like I said, extensive but not very
interesting. Ebisédian was in fact intended to be sortof an IAL (in
the sense of being like IPA in Ferochromon), back in the days when I
had no idea about parts of the IPA that I didn't even know could be
pronounced. :-) It was "universal" in the sense that I tried to
include all the sounds I could pronounce, but of course I didn't
realize back then that there are a LOT of sounds I couldn't pronounce.
Nevertheless, in retrospect Ebisédian's phonology turned out to be too
regular and too uninteresting because of this early decision.
Which brings me to Tatari Faran: after learning the hard way with
Ebisédian, I decided to try my hand at a much smaller phonetic
vocabulary, but with some unique twists added. So I kept the phonemes
at a minimum: instead of the 27 consonants of Ebisédian, TF only has
13 consonantal phonemes (14 phones). Initially, [l] was in there, but
later on I decided I could cut that out as well. I also threw out [g]
quite early on. I wanted to get rid of [d], but since I already had
several words that had [d] (and would sound really odd if I replaced
it with something else), I decided that [d] and [4] should be
allophonic, with one being used word-initially and the other medially.
At one point, [l] kept on coming back, but finally I put my foot down
and rejected it forever, and meticulously purged it completely from
every lexicon entry. :-)
With TF, I am quite happy that it turned out well: the phonology is
much more interesting, and has the desired small size and sound that I
was looking for. The glottal stop, for one, was an inspiration by
Hawai'ian, which also sports a minimal consonantal vocabulary.
T
--
The peace of mind---from knowing that viruses which exploit Microsoft system
vulnerabilities cannot touch Linux---is priceless. -- Frustrated system
administrator.
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Message: 25
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:45:35 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 06:28:51PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> Same deal as last time.
>
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
> Q2: Onset clusters?
> Q3: Codas?
Ebisédian: (C)VCV...CVC(V). Yes, pretty boring, although there are a
small limited number of allowed clusters: mainly [k], [k_h], [t],
[t_h], [p], [p_h], combined with either [r`] or [l], in that order.
Tatari Faran: Same deal. In fact, a lot more constrained, in that the
only allowed clusters are a nasal plus another consonant, e.g. /n'/
[n?].
> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
Yes, /r/ is realized as [d] word-initially, and [4] medially. I
decided to write initial /r/ as /d/ nevertheless, just to spice things
up a bit. :-)
> Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
[...]
I don't like consonant clusters. :-)
Well, that's not strictly true... Tamahí, one of the descendents of
Ebisédian spoken during the Era of Scattering, sports a LOT of
consonant clusters and vocalic consonants, etc.. For example, _l3ri_
is pronounced [lr`i:]; _l3r3si_ is pronounced [lr`=sI]; and _t3m3_ is
pronounced [tm=]. Basically came from dropping all unaccented /3/ from
Ebisédian.
For Tatari Faran, the reason for not using too many clusters was
because I wanted it to have a certain kind of sound (specifically, an
Austronesian-like sound).
For Ebisédian... if I may reveal this dirty little secret... the
motivation was that I already had a good idea about what the writing
system, sanokí, was going to be like; and because of the way the
system works, consonant clusters are a Bad Thing(tm). Also, I was just
too inexperienced back then, and felt like I didn't want to deal with
unpronunciable clusters (at least for me---I wanted, and still want,
to be able to pronounce my own conlangs, you see).
T
--
Turning your clock 15 minutes ahead won't cure lateness---you're just making
time go faster!
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Message: 26
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:50:56 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating natlangs?
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 06:12:09PM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
[...]
> No, not Mandarin (or AFAIK any other variety of spoken Chinese). Like
> modern English, it is largely isolating but does have some bound
> grammatical morphemes (affixes) like, for example, the verbal aspect
> morphemes -le and -zhe, and several others. Indeed, it has been argued on
> this list that modern English is more isolating than Mandarin (but not an
> argument I think worth pursuing).
I seem to remember seeing that argument before some time ago. I think
the perception that Chinese is purely isolating may be due to the (not
so accurate) impression that every syllable corresponds with a
different "word" (which is not really true, but is a commonly promoted
ideal/misconception).
[...]
> The trouble is that natlangs have this horrible tendency of not fitting
> neatly into the three-way topologies of te 19th century theorists ;)
[...]
Which is why I've no qualms about making such bizarre yet naturalistic
(to me it is!) things as the Ebisédian case system... ;-)
T
--
Why do conspiracy theories always come from the same people??
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