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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Anybody on AIM
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Information on future English language development?
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Naming your Language
From: James W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Information on future English language development?
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Information on future English language development?
From: Rik Roots <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: OT: Children and video games
From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They)
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Toki Pona survey
From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They)
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Naming your Language
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: Akhilesh Pillalamarri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Anybody on AIM
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:01:15 +0200
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Anybody on AIM
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)
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:17:25 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Information on future English language development?
Simon Richard Clarkstone wrote:
> Joe wrote:
>
>> ... One thing I will say, though, is that
>> English will change more in the next fifty years than it has in the last
>> two hundred. In my opinion.
>
> I only agree with you partly there. Due to increased global
> communications, English could also be said to be changing less, as a
> better connected language community makes change of language more
> difficult: a new word will be very unlikely to spread fast enough to
> last long. There is also a less convincing argument that since the
> whole of humanity has been discovered, then we cannot meet up with new
> peoples who give us new words; we have taken all of everyone's words
> that we want.
> However, the increased number of new types of things will lead to many
> new names being needed for them, or adaptations of old words, or
> borrowings.
>
The global communication argument, IMO, doesn't work. Instead, there
will develop standards, which will split from the vernacular, as it
always has, really.
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:22:17 -0400
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trebor Jung" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 3:43 PM
Subject: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
>I can't think of any ideas for my conlangs' relative clauses besides these:
> as in English, Turkish (participles), and Egyptian Arabic (resumptive
> pronouns).
>
> Any others?
>
> Thanks,
> Trebor
There are a variety of relative clause structures, so you have to be
specific here. There's the one that expresses opinion or thought, as Remi's
"emotional case" does: "I thought that the boy was your son." "I feel that
it's time to go." But there are similarly structured relative clauses that
don't involve emotion, usually of the stating, writing, saying, observing
variety: "I said that I had sold the book" (a statement of fact). "The
article says that the man died." "The time clock registers that he departed
early." How would Remi construe that? Then there's that ornery distinction
made between "proper" and "improper" relative clauses with who/whom/whose,
etc, so often set out in Welsh grammars: "I saw the boy who kicked the
ball." "I saw the boy whose cup was full." [these examples; I'm not making
them up!] "I like the girl whom you hate." Proper relatives are so called
because the who/whom refer back to either the nominative or the accusative.
Improper relatives refer back to referents in the oblique case: "The boy
whose aunt had died came to see me." "I know the book to which you are
referring." "I saw the man to whom you spoke." Of course these terms
proper/improper stand out in my head because Welsh makes a distinction in
its use of particles to express them, and English prescriptive grammar
(drummed into me as a kid) makes you recall these distinction and the
"correct" use of prepositions with respect to them. But they are worth
thinking about in a conlang, too. How would you distinguish between "I
thought that it was blue" and "it is a matter of fact that the boy is blue"?
Or: "I kissed the boy who was blue," and "I saw to whom the blue boy blew a
kiss"? :) :)
Teonaht expresses the first type of relative--call it emotional or factual
or what have you--with a simple juxtaposition and a reversal of syntax:
Elry kare nel li beto fyl bantwel.
Past-I think was the boy your son.
"I thought the boy was your son."
[Note how easy it is in modern English. It's a juxtaposition of two
sentences. Relative clauses in many languages start out this way: "I saw
the woman, she kissed the steps of the tomb," wherein the relative is
fashioned out of the pronoun, or in Middle Welsh the preverbal particle.
The two verbs juxtaposed indicates the start of a relative clause. Usually,
Teonaht is zero-copula, but in this case the conjugated form of parem is
invoked to set up the juxtaposition.
Here's one without the copula:
Ely krespr conauarel la bantwel.
Past-she write die-COMP.PST. her son.
"She wrote that her son had died."
For versions of the "proper relative" as accusative we have something like
this:
Il beto elo ke ravvo fy il/etsa/der/hain
the (Acc) boy PAST-I see love you the (one)/same/him/whom.
So there are a variety of resumptive pronouns you can use in T., one of them
being the bare article, one of them signaling relativity (hai[n]).
For versions of the "improper relative," then this:
Il beto elo ke kresprel fy euiil/eueetsa/edder/ehhain
the boy (ACC) PAST-he see write-PAST you to the (one)/to same/ to
him/to whom.
"He saw the boy to whom you wrote." "He saw the boy you wrote to."
Then there is another kind of relative, related to the improper relative: I
love the man whose hair is black! In this respect, Teonaht borrows somewhat
unimaginatively from Semitic and Celtic grammar by just saying: I love the
red-his-hair man, but it takes on a new flavor under OSV structure:
Il zefz flero lo vimba der yrravo!
The man red his mane him I love. Requires a resumptive pronoun in
der before the main verb. Requires a "z" after "zef" to indicate that the
accusative stops there, and it's not a red man in this case. Damn the
postpositioned adjective in Teonaht!
(vimba is used of a lion's mane, of a horse's mane, but also of luxurious
flowing hair on a human. Could also be hair and beard on a man).
I suppose you could put this in the usual pattern:
Il zef ryrravo na lo vimba flero
The man I love is his hair red. (the juxtaposed copula again)
Then there is a relative construction with the copula that I haven't really
used much in writing Teonaht:
Il zef ryggarne pahai beuimonaht.
the man I like be who compassionate.
"I prefer the guy who's kind."
Yppre pesthai li rando
I know will be who the king.
"I know who will be king."
Pahai, pelhai, peshai and all the permutations for oblique cases: padhain,
pelthain, pesthain... pajhain, peljhain, pehshain... it was a chore.
THEN: there is the substantivization (or gerundizing?) of a verb with
possessive pronoun, you just use the verb/noun: "I saw your swimming in the
lake!" (i.e., I saw that you swam in the lake)
Fyl nwehsrem celil mifranil uarry ke.
your swim in the deeplake have-I see
I prefer that he read books, which can also be expressed in English as I
prefer him reading books or, more prescriptively, I prefer his reading
books, is structured the same way in Teonaht: rin nikkyam lo elepmaren
ryggarne. "His reading of books I prefer."
That's about all I can remember at the moment.
Heinrik wrote:
> In Tyl Sjok you use the relative clause instead of the modified
> noun, so you 'embed' the relative clause into the matrix clause.
> The modified noun is found in the relative clause, where it is
> optionally marked to be modified.
>
> E.g.:
> Matrix clause: I like tea. = 'I like the tea.'
> Relative clause: you buy tea. = 'You bought tea.'
> Together:
> I like you buy tea. (unmarked referent)
> I like you buy REF tea. (marked referent)
> 'I like the tea that you bought.'
This is lovely. How do you know that it doesn't mean "I like that you
bought tea?" How do you express that? Put the referent marking before
"buy"?
Sally
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/pronouns.html
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html
I saw to whom the blue boy blew a kiss:
First: the blue boy blew a kiss to her.
Le beto bov bocaz eddam elo htilioma
The boy blue kiss-ACC to her did-he whisper
[boca pronounced /'butS@/, i.e., bootch-uh. Same derivation as boca,
though! beto: /'betu/; bov: /buv/
-z added to boca to indicate accusative case when syntax has been
changed to SOV.
I saw: Elry ke
Elry ke htilioma ehhain le bov beto bocaz.
Did-I see whisper to whom the blue boy a kiss!
"I saw who the blue boy blew a kiss to!" English is wonderfully ductile!
(of course what needs to be contemplated is how one expresses emphasis in
Teonaht, given its rigid syntax, other than just pitch or vocal emphasis.
"I saw who 'THE BLUE BOY blew a kiss to." "I saw who it was that the blue
boy blew a kiss to." Probably recombinations, as in English: DAM elry ke
htilioma le bov beto bocaz IHHAIN: Her did I see whispered the blue boy a
kiss TO WHOM. More engineering work to come. Emphasis may have to reside
in the chiastic structure, with the emphasized element opening and closing
the main and subordinate clauses. More bridgework needed)
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:55:33 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is anybody on this list also on AIM --
> and in the CET time zone would be nice!
Yep... Qatharsis, GMT +1.
How come you are holding back your screen name?
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:59:08 -0500
From: James W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Naming your Language
>>>> scott<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/21/2004 2:31:35 PM >>>
>Just a quick question. I've been working on my conlang for a while now
>and have been using a word made up quite a while ago as the name of the
>language and the name of those who speak it. I've realized now it
>doesn't quite fit in with the language any more.
>
>How are some of the ways you have named your language and its speakers?
>
My first conlang, orelynna, basically means 'for song'--intended to be a language
for text in songs.
My current project (on hold due to time constraints), emindahken, can be seen
as:
e-min-dah-ken
e - abstract/invisible noun prefix
-min- people (root)
-dah- mountain (root)
-ken- speech (root)
or 'speech of the mountain people'--a language for a conculture who live high
in a mountainous region, isolated from the rest of their world.
James W.
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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:56:50 -0400
From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Information on future English language development?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Richard Clarkstone" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Joe wrote:
>> ... One thing I will say, though, is that
>> English will change more in the next fifty years than it has in the last
>> two hundred.
> In my opinion.
> I only agree with you partly there. Due to increased global
> communications, English could also be said to be changing less, as a
> better connected language community makes change of language more
> difficult: a new word will be very unlikely to spread fast enough to
> last long.
I presume you mean the media--television, radio, Internet--that has slowed
down the production of basic changes in structure and pronunciation. I'll
buy that to a degree, but I disagree that the media has slowed down
neologism. In fact, I think it expedites it. New words are being made all
the time. It's like consumerism: a toy, a product, an invention needs to
compete with what else is out there, and play on the complicated human
desires of the moment. Words can be coined, but it takes usage, and
circulation by the media, for them to stick.
There is also a less convincing argument that since the
> whole of humanity has been discovered, then we cannot meet up with new
> peoples who give us new words; we have taken all of everyone's words
> that we want.
I can see why this argument is less convincing. Or non-convincing. Is the
whole of humanity really completely discovered? by everybody? Have we
really "taken all of everyone's words that we want"? There are cultures
that are still obscure to those who are coining phrases in English. You
have to read about them in books on anthropology. How many among the
American or European masses know of the Piraha~ for instance? How many
Americans even know French argot, for that matter?
> However, the increased number of new types of things will lead to many
> new names being needed for them, or adaptations of old words, or
> borrowings.
True. And new political or social developments. New wars for instance.
The acronym WMD has spread pretty quickly. I've already heard it used to
mean "weapons of mass distraction." SORRY!!!! Please ignore this
unnecessary political reference. I mean to stay neutral. No cross no
crown. (It's what I've heard, though.) Let's focus on something else: the
plus minus verbs that have come to replace "add" and "subtract." I think it
was Marcos who expressed distaste for this new jargon, but who couldn't deny
that it was catching on. Everything new contributes to new language, and
the media spreads it better than anything before the advent of the print
culture. Also, writing conventions on email. How many of you have seen the
spelling "speach"? As the Internet becomes available to more and more
people, it will democratize writing, spelling and speaking conventions, and
we will be exposed to more dialectical flavors than ever, not unlike the
problem that faced Caxton sitting and wondering whether to write eggs or
eyren in his first printed text.
Sal
I must get off now.
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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:23:48 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
Joe wrote:
> Chris Bates wrote:
>
>>
>> I think this is how lenition started in welsh, as simple phonological
>> conditioning that later became grammatical as well (thanks to words
>> vanishing or being eroded maybe? I'd be interested to know the rule
>> about adjectives following feminine nouns undergoing lenition came
>> about). I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with
>> palatization like this over time, but as far as I know no celtic
>> language does this. Do you think its realistic?
>>
>>
>
> Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing began.
>
> The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed, anything), came about
> because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far as I know, intervocalic
> consonants were softened in Welsh, largely ignoring word boundaries.
> So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os', and most Feminine in
> *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened, and following masculine
> nouns did not.
>
>
The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun follows another noun
that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also happen in this
situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it applying to this when
the "softening" effect first started to occur? The only thing I can
think is that something else (possibly an article) blocked it.
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Message: 8
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:23:20 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
Hi!
Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> Heinrik wrote:
>
> > In Tyl Sjok you use the relative clause instead of the modified
> > noun, so you 'embed' the relative clause into the matrix clause.
> > The modified noun is found in the relative clause, where it is
> > optionally marked to be modified.
> >
> > E.g.:
> > Matrix clause: I like tea. = 'I like the tea.'
> > Relative clause: you buy tea. = 'You bought tea.'
> > Together:
> > I like you buy tea. (unmarked referent)
> > I like you buy REF tea. (marked referent)
> > 'I like the tea that you bought.'
>
> This is lovely. How do you know that it doesn't mean "I like that you
> bought tea?" How do you express that? Put the referent marking before
> "buy"?
Exactly! :-)
I like you REF buy tea. = ~'I like the buying of tea that you did.'
I like REF you buy tea. = ~'I like you, who bought the tea.'
Tyl Sjok is greatly underspecified wrt. what modifies what.
**Henrik
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Message: 9
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:40:17 +0200
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:01:15 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is anybody on this list also on AIM --
> and in the CET time zone would be nice!
I'm on, moderately often during daytime CE(S)T.
Screen name available on request.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 10
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:42:22 +0100
From: Rik Roots <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Information on future English language development?
On Thursday 21 Oct 2004 21:41, Sally Caves wrote:
> 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?
>
While I've not formally pulled together a Future English Conlang, I have
developed some ideas about how the language could evolve as part of a
(currently abandoned) poetry sequence:
http://www.kalieda.org/poems/xwalk.html
The language is set 300 years into the future, and assumes we'll be working
and living in space by that time. Maybe it will be of interest to your
friend?
> yours truly,
> Sally
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Rik
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Message: 11
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:06:45 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
Chris Bates wrote:
> Joe wrote:
>
>> Chris Bates wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I think this is how lenition started in welsh, as simple phonological
>>> conditioning that later became grammatical as well (thanks to words
>>> vanishing or being eroded maybe? I'd be interested to know the rule
>>> about adjectives following feminine nouns undergoing lenition came
>>> about). I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with
>>> palatization like this over time, but as far as I know no celtic
>>> language does this. Do you think its realistic?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing began.
>>
>> The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed, anything), came about
>> because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far as I know, intervocalic
>> consonants were softened in Welsh, largely ignoring word boundaries.
>> So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os', and most Feminine in
>> *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened, and following masculine
>> nouns did not.
>>
>>
> The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun follows another noun
> that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also happen in this
> situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it applying to this when
> the "softening" effect first started to occur? The only thing I can
> think is that something else (possibly an article) blocked it.
>
>
Because, I believe (though am not sure) that Welsh, at some point,
dropped its final vowels. Most words ending in vowels are one of three
things:
a)Inflected forms
b)Borrowings
or
c)Not
I'm guessing the c) category ones once had a consonant, but dropped it.
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Message: 12
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:12:47 -0400
From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Children and video games
>>I'm sorry for this completely OT question, but since you guys
>>are my best friends on the net I put this question to those
>>among you who are parents.
>>
>>My six year old son has become totally obsessed with video
>>games. He either plays sports games on the computer, or
>>watches sport on the TV, and has totally creased to play
>>in the more traditional sense. We don't want him to play
>>*all* the time, but when we try to make him do other things
>>he flies into a rage. So my question to the parents among
>>you is: what is your parental policy on video games?
> If none of this works, well, then you may consider following
> Cristina's suggestion and get rid of the stuff altogether. But that's
> not my preferred solution: by disallowing it altogether you may turn
> it into a forbidden fruit.
Exactly. That's what my father achieved by forbidding
conlanging and fantasy literature! :)
//Cristina writes: well, I think it is too late now. In my house-hold we
NEVER had a tv worth watching, and the computer was for "work only" (
parents' work, not mine).
However, I did get reading restrictions, which did turn into a forbidden
fruit. I was also told repeatedly to "ve afuera a jugar"( which I don't
mind ) and "cultiva tus amistades"(nice imagery there)
Scanned by WinProxy
http://www.Ositis.com/
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Message: 13
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:45:56 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They)
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Chris Bates >
>
>
>On a different but related subject, do many languages just use
>demonstratives instead of having special 3rd person pronouns? Both
>Basque and Latin do this, so I don't think it can be that uncommon.
>*thinks* I think Swahili may do it as well.... I'm trying to drag
>it up into memory. If a language does this and it doesn't
>distinguish gender in its demonstratives (which Latin does since it
>has grammatical gender) then it doesn't distinguish gender in its
>3rd person pronouns either. BTW, are there any languages which have
>a gender distinction in their demonstratives but don't have a wider
>system of grammatical gender?
Swahili does have 3 personal pronouns: 1: mimi/sisi, 2: wewe/ninyi,
3: yeye/wao. There is no distinction of gender, but the 3rd person
pl. cannot be used of things, only of people. They are mainly used
for emphasis or contrast, the personal prefix on the verb being
enough.
nilisoma, I read
ulisoma, you read
alisoma, he read
tulisoma, we read
mlisoma, you read
walisoma, they read
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Message: 14
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:57:03 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>OBTW: for those curious as to the race of said critter.. I was doing
>this for my sentient crocodiles.
I am presuming from the context that, by "sentient," you
mean "speaking" as opposed to ordinary crocodiles that cannot speak.
In reality, the word "sentient" does not mean that. It means
either "conscious" or "experiencing feeling or sensation." Thus,
ordinary crocodiles are, indeed, sentient.
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.
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.
Charlie
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Message: 15
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:18:45 +0100
From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Toki Pona survey
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Yeah, with Proto-Drem, I have (C)CV(V)(V)C(C) for a base CVC which
> is closed
>
> yet I have 3500 words,and I amd now doing "new" sections for
> religion, spirituality, magic, herbs, mining, trees,
>
> as you can see, words add up, so my uestion would be for a conlang,
> how is a closed sylable structure limiting the vocabulary?
>
It _is_ limiting the vocabulary, but possibly not much. The given
structure could allow anything from 10,000~10,000,000 different words,
depending on other aspects of your morphology. One problem is that,
once this "space" of possible words starts to get full, every word will
confusable with several others, unless multi-word constructs are used.
A limited vocabulary probably is only bad with a much smaller vocabulary
than that, e.g. 100~10,000 words. An excellent example (other than the
obvious Basic English) is the efforts of Dalgarno and Wilkins. I have
found a reasonably helpful summary of a thesis on this subject at:
<http://www.illc.uva.nl/Publications/Dissertations/DS-1999-03.abstract.txt>
Wilkins tried to start with a set of exactly 4,000 radicals, based on a
20*5*20*5 Aristotelian categorisation system. This worked by having 20
consonants and 5 vowels in the system and making every radical CVCV.
(I actually heard about this originally in the wonderful book _Words and
Rules: The Ingredients of Language_ by Steven Pinker. See:
<http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/wr.html> for all you want to know.)
--
Simon Richard Clarkstone
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 16
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:39:21 +0100
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They)
>Swahili does have 3 personal pronouns: 1: mimi/sisi, 2: wewe/ninyi,
>3: yeye/wao. There is no distinction of gender, but the 3rd person
>pl. cannot be used of things, only of people. They are mainly used
>for emphasis or contrast, the personal prefix on the verb being
>enough.
>
>nilisoma, I read
>ulisoma, you read
>alisoma, he read
>tulisoma, we read
>mlisoma, you read
>walisoma, they read
>
>
>
Okay... guess I was wrong about that one. :) I did learn some Swahili a
while ago, but it was a long time now... sometimes its difficult to
remember. :)
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Message: 17
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:59:58 +0200
From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
Name: ReneUit
On: mostly during weekdays
Zone: MET+1METDST
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)
>
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Message: 18
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:13:26 -0700
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
--- Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is anybody on this list also on AIM --
> and in the CET time zone would be nice!
> --
>
I would happen to be on AIM.
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Message: 19
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:34:57 -0700
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
--- Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is anybody on this list also on AIM --
> and in the CET time zone would be nice!
> --
>
D'oh! Like a fool, I forgot my SN in the last email.
It is sillyputtyrobot.
Excuse the silly.
>
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Message: 20
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:23:07 -0700
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc
> > Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing
> began.
> >
> > The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed,
> anything), came about
> > because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far
> as I know, intervocalic
> > consonants were softened in Welsh, largely
> ignoring word boundaries.
> > So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os',
> and most Feminine in
> > *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened,
> and following masculine
> > nouns did not.
> >
> >
> The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun
> follows another noun
> that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also
> happen in this
> situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it
> applying to this when
> the "softening" effect first started to occur? The
> only thing I can > think is that something else
(possibly an article)
> blocked it.
well..the nouns in vowels didn't always end in vowels.
They probably had a consonant at the end that dropped
off.... Come to think of it, I dont really know many
Welsh nouns that end in a vowel. Some, like "lle"
meaning "place", come from "llef".
Others, like "ci" was originally an "n-stem", meaning
that they ended in "n", which was lost. The word is
related to "kuon" in Greek.
So basically, the answer to your question is that, the
vowels at the end of words now do not cause lenition,
unless the word is feminine, because lenition ended
before these became vowelfinal words.
I can't give any examples of Welsh development, but
I'll use Nindic, my conlang, which has a strong
Welshfeel about it.
Nouns in the "Genitive" position in Nindic are
lenited. This came about after a long process of
lenition-spreading, whereby, the rules for lenition
were standardized through analogy. Originally, only
words which had ended in vowels caused lenition to a
genitive word following it.
The examples show the original state of affairs, where
only previously vowelfinal nouns cause lenition.
Example:
buth fucha /buT vuxa/ "spider's web"
web spider
bucha "spider" (no lenition)
buth < *bukta (vowel final)
cawa burcho /kawa burxo/ "wizard's dog"
dog wizard
burcho "wisard" (no lenition)
cawa < *kawan (consonant final)
So, from this one can gather that lenition occured
BEFORE the "n" was lost from <*kawan>, if it had been
lost and then lenition occured, <cawa> would have
caused lenition.
Because lenition later became the rule in this
case....the later Nindic language has <cawa furcho>.
Which is not the inherited form.
I hope this kind of clears things up.
Elliott.
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Message: 21
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:23:49 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Naming your Language
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Just a quick question. I've been working on my conlang for a while
>now and have been using a word made up quite a while ago as the name
>of the language and the name of those who speak it. I've realized
>now it doesn't quite fit in with the language any more.
>How are some of the ways you have named your language and its
>speakers?
later,
scott
--- End forwarded message ---
Senyecan comes from "senin," ancient, and "yecan," language. In my
conculture (last Ice Age planet Earth) it is the first language
spoken by the 6 loquent peoples. Anyone who speaks Senyecan is a
senyécun (pl. sènyecúni).
Charlie
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Message: 22
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:31:13 -0700
From: Akhilesh Pillalamarri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
AIM: ArdacilMenalkar, I am Akhi the creator of the Aryezi language at aryezi.tripd.net
Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Name: ReneUit
On: mostly during weekdays
Zone: MET+1METDST
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Is anybody on this list also on AIM --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)
>
~*AKHILESH*~
---------------------------------
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vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 23
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 02:45:10 GMT
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions
ok, so sentient the way I meant it, is as a thinking thriving intelligent civilization
so any help with syllable structures?
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Message: 24
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 05:22:19 +0200
From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses.
Sally Caves wrote:
> There are a variety of relative clause structures, so you have to be
> specific here. There's the one that expresses opinion or thought, as Remi's
> "emotional case" does: "I thought that the boy was your son." "I feel that
> it's time to go." But there are similarly structured relative clauses that
> don't involve emotion, usually of the stating, writing, saying, observing
> variety: "I said that I had sold the book" (a statement of fact). "The
> article says that the man died." "The time clock registers that he departed
> early." How would Remi construe that?
I fooled myself with the word "emotional" and didn't give exemples like
speech, written words, sight, earing, affirmation, confirmation, and so one.
You can virtually apply the emotional case to anything even if it doesn't
imply an emotion.
My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-speech: I had sold the book.
The(EMOTIONAL) article's content: the man died.
The(EMOTIONAL) clock's reality: he departed early.
The emotional case doesn't even need to apply to a possessive kind of clause.
One(EMOTIONAL) speech: ... = It is said that...
The(EMOTIONAL) Law: ... = The law states that...
> Then there's that ornery distinction
> made between "proper" and "improper" relative clauses with who/whom/whose,
> etc, so often set out in Welsh grammars: "I saw the boy who kicked the
> ball." "I saw the boy whose cup was full." [these examples; I'm not making
> them up!] "I like the girl whom you hate."
These one would use resumptive postpositions.
I saw the boy *and* he kicked the ball.
I saw the boy *and* his cup was full.
I like this girl *and* you hate her.
In fact, the resumptive proposition isn't absolutely necessary here. In
Shaquelingua, I'd just cut the sentence in two with the equivalent of a
semi-colon.
I saw the boy *;* he kicked the ball.
Even an emotional case is possible with "to see".
My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-vision: the boy kicked the ball.
> Proper relatives are so called
> because the who/whom refer back to either the nominative or the accusative.
> Improper relatives refer back to referents in the oblique case: "The boy
> whose aunt had died came to see me." "I know the book to which you are
> referring." "I saw the man to whom you spoke."
Apparently, "whose" was such a big problem that I created a postposition for
it. Without it, all I managed to say was that the boy brought the corpse of
his aunt to see me. ;-) So...
taji të-raçtesa tadekju frë, kyó'zeçke sublu xili te'va jisso.
His (PAST)-dead aunt whose, (DESCRIPTOR)'our meeting upto PAST'the boy.
(Shaquelingua doesn't allow embedded clauses.) The two other ones are easy
with a resumptive pronoun.
You are referring to this book *;* I know it.
You spoke to this man *;* I know him.
> How would you distinguish between "I
> thought that it was blue" and "it is a matter of fact that the boy is blue"?
> Or: "I kissed the boy who was blue," and "I saw to whom the blue boy blew a
> kiss"? :) :)
My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-thoughts: the boy was blue.
The(EMOTIONAL) reality: the boy is blue.
The blue boy blew a kiss to someone *;* I saw them.
In Shaquelingua "them" would be an epicene resumptive pronoun representing
"someone".
[---CUT---] A lot of interesting things about Teonaht... I wish I could be
able to describe Shaquelingua's grammar this way.
Any way, I'm going to give a deep thinking to all this.
ji kaçtólu soe, [ji: ka.CtO4u so^e] (one soon until)
--
==================
Remi Villatel
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
==================
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Message: 25
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:54:51 +0200
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM
Christian Thalmann wrote:
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Is anybody on this list also on AIM --
>>and in the CET time zone would be nice!
>
>
> Yep... Qatharsis, GMT +1.
>
> How come you are holding back your screen name?
I just forgot. It's melrochaestan GMT +1.
--
/BP 8^)
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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