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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Translation Exercises Other than McGuffey? (ATTN: Gary)
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Translation Exercises Other than McGuffey? (ATTN: Gary)
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. THEORY: Polysynthetic languages - used in a sentence?
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: THEORY: Polysynthetic languages - used in a sentence?
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Another analytic question
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Grammar - Can
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. OT: RE: Another analytic question
From: kcasada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:18:13 EST
From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
In a message dated 1/12/2005 6:01:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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.
Doug
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:26:35 -0600
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Translation Exercises Other than McGuffey? (ATTN: Gary)
Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> Emaelivpeith Pipian:
>
>>The most troublesome thing to me, however, is the fact that there is no
>>full set of McGuffey Readers (in any one version) all the way to the
>>sixth one. Even if you go so far as to include any possible version
>>available, there are no copies of the second or third volumes online.
>
>
> Both Gary and I have bought dead-tree editions of the Readers. Gary
> had mentioned that he might contribute to Gutenberg with them. Perhaps
> he and I should coordinate, so we don't duplicate our efforts of
> transcription?
>
> In the mean time, I thought that Gary was providing what he had
> computerized via his website:
>
> http://fiziwig.com/mcguffey.html
>
> He doesn't list the 6th reader, though. Do you not own that one, Gary?
I think it would be handy to note the details about the versions of the
McGuffeys. I assume since you both purchased them that they are the
1879 "Revised New" version (or the slightly modified later versions) and
not the (presumably) 1851 "New" version that is the volume one on
Gutenberg now (confirmation from SOMEONE on that fact would be nice).
As pointed out before, 4, 5, and/or 6 are digitized but only in image
form on some websites, and part of 1 from 1838 is on another.
I still think it would be nice if we actually had all three sets
complete, but htat's a pipe-dream, and only librarians could whip that
one up I think...
Pipian
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 19:15:04 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Translation Exercises Other than McGuffey? (ATTN: Gary)
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:26:35 -0600, Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I still think it would be nice if we actually had all three sets
> complete, but htat's a pipe-dream, and only librarians could whip that
> one up I think...
Get thee to a library!
Paul
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:39:55 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
On 13 Jan 2005, at 2.44 am, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>> On 12 Jan 2005, at 5.40 am, Ray Brown wrote:
>>
>>>> Therefore, it is quite hard to translate large numbers from
>>>> Chinese to English and vice versa.
>>>
>>> I cannot help feeling it is a pity our western systems are based on
>>> the
>>> Latin practice and not the ancient Greek practice. But Latinate
>>> 'thousand
>>> based' system is now enshrined in the SI metric prefixes.
>>
>> Pretty please tell that to the Swedes! They insist on putting things
>> like '3 cl' and '2,5 dl' even in the English sections of stuff I sell
>> at the Sweden Shop at Ikea, and no-one here would have any idea what a
>> decilitre was it jumped up at bit them! (OTOH, we use centimetres all
>> the time and I think that Europeans don't, so we're not entirely
>> without failure---I could be wrong here though.)
>
> Surely you must've seen centimetres on IKEA products if you've seen
> deciletres?
You don't usually measure food in centimetres and I have no need as yet
to buy my own furniture :)
> It's the one of the commonest length units here - probably more common
> than the
> metre itself. We use decimetres too, but not quite as frequently.
> Decilitres and
> centilitres are of course quite common.
>> But the point is there's metric prefixes for 10 (deka-/da), 100
>> (hecto-/h), 1000 (kilo-/k), 10 000 (myria-/my), 1 000 000 (mega/M),
>> and
>> then they go up only in thousands, as well as 0.1 (deci-/d), 0.01
>> (centi-/c) and 0.001 (milli-/m), before they go down in thousandths.
>> That they go up/down in thousand(th)s at that point is probably no
>> huge
>> loss, I certainly don't hear 20 gigagrams or 120 zeptolitres very
>> often.
>
> I suppose the "extreme" multiple one hears alot of is picofarads.
I can't say I hear that particularly often.
>> (OTOH, I don't think I've ever heard myria- or deka- being used, and
>> hecto- only in hectopascals (merely a modernisation of the old
>> millibar) and hectares. In Oz, centi-'s only used in centimetres (that
>> I can think of), and deci- isn't used at all, excepting, of course, in
>> European imports.)
>
> Let's see. I was unaware of the *existence* of the myria- prefix.
Neither was I till I looked at a list on the Internet... but it may've
been inaccurate.
> I've never
> seen deka- except in lists of prefixes. Deci- and centi- are common
> with metre
> and litre, but rarely if ever used with anything else. Hecto- is
> pretty much
> restricted to hectogram (usually shortened to just 'hekto' - kilogram
> similarly
> becomes 'kilo'), hectare, and hectolitre, altho you sometimes hear of
> hectopascals too.
Before computers, I would've said mega- and giga- were used exclusively
with litres, and then almost only when talking about reservoirs.
> The really evil Swedish unit is the _mil_, or metric mile, of 10km.
> It's just
> asking for evil mistranslations.
Henrik:
> If course 'pound' (de: Pfund, nl: pond) is also exactly 500g in
> Germany and the Netherlands and presumable in many other countries
> that are not Great Britain for instance.
I think you missed that one---a mil in Australia is a millimetre or
millilitre.
(I approximate 'pound' with 500 g, but I wouldn't say a pound *is*
500g. Pints in pubs usually remain 570 mL or various other similar
measurements, depending on where in Australia you are. Knots and the
nautical mile are still for whatever reason I can't discern used. For
sufficiently large degrees fahrenheit I divide by two to get sensible
temperatures, but it's a pity the conversion is so complicated for
everyday temps. Can't Americans at least use 0 fahrenheit to mean the
freezing point of water?)
Do Europeans use metric cups (250 mL), teaspoons (5 mL) and tablespoons
(20 mL)? These beasts are also called Australian standard
cups/teaspoons/tablespoons, so a negative answer wouldn't surprise me.
Caeruleancentaur:
> I guess it is a matter of perception. Those of us who have a
> background in science know that "deci-" is not rare at all and
> certainly is attached to other units: decigram, deciliter, and
> decimeter. Likewise with "hect(o)-": hectogram, hectoliter, and
> hectometer.
Well, perhaps that's common in science, but in Oz from the everyday
measurements are metric and it's not done, so it's rare :) 'Rare' is,
of course, a relative term. I doubt most people here would know what a
hectolitre was if it jumped up and bit 'em.
But while on the subject of measurements, what're they in your(pl)
conlangs? I don't have any conlangs in the metric era yet, but does
anyone know what the pre-metric German and Danish measurements were?
would help in usurping them for my purposes.
--
Tristan.
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:24:35 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
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.
I probably won't use *all* examples I get, but the more (and the more
varied) the better - especially for the "motivation" part.
I may use these during class (which will be recorded), or to print in
lecture notes, online examples, quizzes, problem sets, or the reader.
I will, of course, give credit for anything I use - please include the
name and URL / email you'd like to be credited by (I'll use whatever
your sig lists, as a default).
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)
(Side question: CXS is the "standard" notation for this list?)
Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
"normal" variants that don't change meaning?
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.?
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?
Thanks,
Sai
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:28:51 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
Same deal as last time.
Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
Q2: Onset clusters?
Q3: Codas?
Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
Thanks,
- Sai
P.S. My understanding is that this doesn't come under the THEORY or OT
topic markers (since it is soliciting actual examples rather than
discussing-per-se *how* to choose). Am I wrong about this? If so,
please tell me what the boundaries are, since I'm probably unclear on
the topic.
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:34:54 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: THEORY: Polysynthetic languages - used in a sentence?
/Contemporary Linguistics/ (O'Grady) gives me this example of a
polysynthetic language sentence-word (from Inuktitut):
Qasu-iir-sar-vig-ssar-si-ngit-luinar-nar-puq.
[tired not cause-to-be place-for suitable find not completely someone 3.SG]
"Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place."
... what is the root morpheme of this mess? And what, if any, is its
part of speech (/ "grammatical category")? Can this be used further in
a sentence (i.e., "qasu-etc foo")?
I can understand this as a fully inflected *sentence*, but as a
discrete word that would then be used with other words, I'm a bit
confused. :-P
- Sai
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 19:07:12 -0800
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
Emaelivpeith Sai Emrys:
> I may use these during class (which will be recorded), or to print in
> lecture notes, online examples, quizzes, problem sets, or the reader.
Will these materials also be available to list members? I'm sure that
I'm not the only one here who would be interested in seeing what you
use. :)
Will your students be assigned required reading or research topics
from this list? That might be interesting. I wonder how many people in
your class will become conlangers afterward? :)
> I will, of course, give credit for anything I use - please include the
> name and URL / email you'd like to be credited by
Arthaey Angosii, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/~arthaey/conlang/grammar/phon-inven.html
> (Side question: CXS is the "standard" notation for this list?)
CXS was created on this list as a modification of X-SAMPA, and yes,
it's the de facto standard here.
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
Allophones are also listed on my page.
> 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.?
So far as I'm aware ;) the allophones distinguish dialects.
> Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
> language? [snip] So, for whatever your goals are for the
> conlang, how do they apply to the choices you made for phonetics /
> phonology?
Asha'ille is an a priori artlang, so my phonology choices have been
for purely aesthetic, personal reasons. My favorite sound is /Z/, so
it is a common phoneme. I don't like /&/, so it's only used in some
dialects. And so on.
--
AA
http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/
(watch the Reply-To!)
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 19:12:32 -0800
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
Emaelivpeith Sai Emrys
> Same deal as last time.
Answering these directed questions is rather fun. :)
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
The most complex allowable is CLVLC, where L is for liquid: /r\ l j/.
You can remove any of the variables except the V and still have a
valid Asha'ille syllable structure.
> Q2: Onset clusters?
CL and C (where C includes L).
> Q3: Codas?
LC and C.
> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
Nope. (Although, could you give an example of what you mean?)
> Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
Personal aesthetics.
--
AA
http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/
(watch the Reply-To!)
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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:59:40 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: THEORY: Polysynthetic languages - used in a sentence?
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> /Contemporary Linguistics/ (O'Grady) gives me this example of a
> polysynthetic language sentence-word (from Inuktitut):
>
> Qasu-iir-sar-vig-ssar-si-ngit-luinar-nar-puq.
>
> [tired not cause-to-be place-for suitable find not completely
> someone 3.SG]
> "Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place."
>
> ... what is the root morpheme of this mess?
The notion "root morpheme" is not always very useful in a polysynthetic
language. Here, "tired" is closest; most of the other stuff is category
changing derivational morphology that allows verbs to become incredibly
huge.
> And what, if any, is its part of speech (/ "grammatical category")?
It's a verb. Polysynthetic languages are defined by their rich
verbal morphology and head-marking characteristics.
> Can this be used further in a sentence (i.e., "qasu-etc foo")?
Yes. What's more amazing is that IIRC in Greenlandic, which is
closely related, incorporated nouns may be referential and even
introduced as such in the discourse, contrary to a lot of functionalist
literature.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:47:33 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> (I approximate 'pound' with 500 g, but I wouldn't say a pound *is* 500g.
In America, a pound is defined as precisely equal to 453.59237g.
(This convention is actually an international agreement among the United
States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand,
all but the first of which having actually gotten rid of the Customary
system of measurement.)
> For sufficiently large degrees fahrenheit I divide by two to get sensible
> temperatures, but it's a pity the conversion is so complicated for
> everyday temps. Can't Americans at least use 0 fahrenheit to mean the
> freezing point of water?)
What would be the point? If we're going to use Fahrenheit at all,
as opposed to metric with some local color, what use is there in
changing what we already have?
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:47:22 -0600
From: "Thomas R. Wier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Another analytic question
Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Are there any analytic natlangs (or conlangs) that
> completely mark the roles of the participants so that
> word order is (relatively) free? Or am I venturing
> into unexplored (or unproductive) territory?
Depends on what you mean by "roles". As we discussed
some time back, there is no agreement on how many roles
there are; indeed, some people have suggested that the
number of roles is equal to the number of distinct verbs.
As for case being marked analytically, yes, this is
common among Polynesian languages, who have an ergative
absolutive alignment.
========================================================
Carsten wrote:
> > Are there any analytic natlangs (or conlangs) that
> > completely mark the roles of the participants so that
> > word order is (relatively) free? Or am I venturing
> > into unexplored (or unproductive) territory?
>
> This is called case marking
No, case-marking is distinct from role-marking. Adpositions
may indicate roles, but they aren't cases.
> and is already used in the Real
> World. Swahili AFAIK even goes as far as marking verbs or
> so for both, subject and object in some way.
No, Swahili has no overt case-marking. You're thinking of
head-agreement, which is something very different. (In fact,
there's reason to believe that the object markers of some
Bantu languages are incorporated pronouns, while the subject
markers are full agreement markers.)
=============================================================
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Gary Shannon wrote:
> > What I'm wondering about is it seems like most
> > analytic languages rely heavily on word order to mark
> > roles, as in SVO, SOV, etc.
>
> I doubt SOV unless there are other makers to distinguish the
> object. But, yes, it does seem isolating languages tend to rely
> upon word order.
In fact, there's nothing in principle preventing a language being
caseless and hear-markingless. SOV languages, for prosodic reasons,
tend to have more inflectional morphology, but by no means all of them
do.
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:38:16 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>>(I approximate 'pound' with 500 g, but I wouldn't say a pound *is* 500g.
>>
>>
>
>In America, a pound is defined as precisely equal to 453.59237g.
>(This convention is actually an international agreement among the United
>States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand,
>all but the first of which having actually gotten rid of the Customary
>system of measurement.)
>
>
I thought Britain (& perhaps Ireland?) still retained Imperial
measurements, or at least that they've had some trouble converting. (Oh,
and we haven't got rid of a customary system, we just changed which
system was customary :)
>>For sufficiently large degrees fahrenheit I divide by two to get sensible
>>temperatures, but it's a pity the conversion is so complicated for
>>everyday temps. Can't Americans at least use 0 fahrenheit to mean the
>>freezing point of water?)
>>
>>
>
>What would be the point? If we're going to use Fahrenheit at all,
>as opposed to metric with some local color, what use is there in
>changing what we already have?
>
It wasn't a serious suggestion :)
--
Tristan.
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:00:52 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
* Sai Emrys said on 2005-01-13 03:24:35 +0100
> Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
> discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
The conlang Taruven:
Vowels:
/A/ /e/ /i/ /u/ /u\/ /y/
Consonants:
/p/ /t/ /k/
/b/ /d/ /g/
/s/ /S/ /f/ /T/ /h/ /x/
/z/ /Z/ /v/ /D/ /h\/
/m/ /n/ /N/
/l/ /r/ /j/
/rR\)/
Now for the complications:
- all sounds, consonants and vowels alike, can
be long (except the very last consonant, which is always long, and /h/,
/h\/ and /j/, which are always short)
- all voiceless consonants have an aspirated counterpart
- all voiced (and all the vowels) have a breathy counterpart
... for the two points above, the exceptions are /h/, /h\/, /x/ and /j/
All in all, that means 24 vowels and *81* consonants...
> Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
> "normal" variants that don't change meaning?
If a nasal is in a cluster, it assimilate in position to its
following neighbour. Allophones haven't been perfectly worked out yet
and really depends on dialect and register too.
> 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.?
See above.
> 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?
It's an artlang, so the sounds are chosen for prettiness.
t.
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:19:08 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
* Sai Emrys said on 2005-01-13 03:28:51 +0100
> Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
C: any consonant
V: any vowel, diphthong or long consonant
(C)(C)V(C)
If the C's are the same, that's equal to a long consonant. If there
should ever be C:+C: and the C's are the same, it's always two morae.
Generally, if the syllable does not have a coda and the vowel is short,
it's one mora. Otherwise it has two morae.
> Q2: Onset clusters?
(C)(C) where all must be of the same voicing, and there is
breathiness-harmony: if one is breathy, they're all breathy.
/h/ and /h\/ are never in clusters, and only show up as single onsets or
between vowels.
> Q3: Codas?
(C), but *not* unvoiced plosives, and voiced plosives are pronounced
breathy if it is the end of a word. Besides, the coda-consonant can be
long and still be part of the syllable, but unless the nucleus is a
short vowel, this means the syllable as a whole is super-heavy, with
three morae.
> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
See Q3. Long plosives that start a word get an ephenthetic vowel in
some dialects, so {kksan} -> {ikksan}
> Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
It evolved into this during the last ten years. It had triple-C
word-onsets once but clusters have generally been simplified. Not that
clusters are that necessary when you have 81 consonant phonemes :)
t.
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 04:49:03 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Grammar - Can
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:33:02 -0500, Elyse M. Grasso
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I think the first few sentences in McGuffey's and similar readers need to be
>treated as a special condensed dialect used in the initial teaching of
>literacy.
>
>"See the dog run" (or the even more condensed "See Spot Run") is a special
>dialectal version of "Look at [the picture of] the dog [running]".
These forms may be dialectal in English, but they're not a special dialectal
condension, since this construction is common in many indoeuropean
languages. It's known as accusatiuum cum infinitiuum, e.g. in Latin "video
canem currere", or in German "ich sehe den Hund rennen".
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:37:11 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Quoting Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > I suppose the "extreme" multiple one hears alot of is picofarads.
>
> I can't say I hear that particularly often.
You might not have taken as many electronics courses as I have. :)
A big multiple I hear of with some frequency is terajoule.
> > I've never
> > seen deka- except in lists of prefixes. Deci- and centi- are common
> > with metre
> > and litre, but rarely if ever used with anything else. Hecto- is
> > pretty much
> > restricted to hectogram (usually shortened to just 'hekto' - kilogram
> > similarly
> > becomes 'kilo'), hectare, and hectolitre, altho you sometimes hear of
> > hectopascals too.
>
> Before computers, I would've said mega- and giga- were used exclusively
> with litres, and then almost only when talking about reservoirs.
Let's not forget megatons of TNT equivalents wrt nuclear weapons.
Reservoirs capacities are here usually given in m^3 or km^3.
> > The really evil Swedish unit is the _mil_, or metric mile, of 10km.
> > It's just
> > asking for evil mistranslations.
>
> Henrik:
> > If course 'pound' (de: Pfund, nl: pond) is also exactly 500g in
> > Germany and the Netherlands and presumable in many other countries
> > that are not Great Britain for instance.
>
> I think you missed that one---a mil in Australia is a millimetre or
> millilitre.
I'd hope that's with a short /i/, tho. Swedish mil is [mi:l].
Andreas
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:38:53 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Quoting Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Do Europeans use metric cups (250 mL), teaspoons (5 mL) and tablespoons
> (20 mL)? These beasts are also called Australian standard
> cups/teaspoons/tablespoons, so a negative answer wouldn't surprise me.
Here the tablespoon is 15ml, the teaspoon 5ml, while the cup to my knowledge
isn't used. The units are almost exclusively used in recipes.
Andreas
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:08:14 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>You might not have taken as many electronics courses as I have. :)
>
>
Evidently not!
>A big multiple I hear of with some frequency is terajoule.
>
>
Never heard of terajoules I don't think
>>I think you missed that one---a mil in Australia is a millimetre or
>>millilitre.
>>
>>
>
>I'd hope that's with a short /i/, tho. Swedish mil is [mi:l].
>
>
Yeah. Well, short /I/ at any rate. But the i in 'kilo' is a long /I:/,
so go figure. (kilo- has of course a short /I/.)
>Here the tablespoon is 15ml, the teaspoon 5ml, while the cup to my knowledge
>isn't used. The units are almost exclusively used in recipes.
>
Yeah, ditto (I'll be careful not to use a swedish recipe book without
adaption, though :). Do you measure litres of flour, or do you just do
it by weight?
--
Tristan.
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:19:03 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
Sai Emrys wrote:
>First off: phonetic / phonemic inventory.
>
Tristan McLeay, [EMAIL PROTECTED], no URL atm.
>Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
>discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
>
Ancient Føtisk (AF):
i i: y y: u u:
e e: 2 2: o o:
a a: &\ &\: A A: Q Q: (note that /a a:/ are usually denoted /& &:/)
p b t d k g
f v s x (I sometimes write /h/ for /x/, but a different
m n phoneme is not intended)
l r w j dZ
Old Føtisk (OF) is as AF but lacks /&\~&\:/, /A~A:/ and /w/, but also
shows what is probably a marginal phoneme /tS/ by the end of the period.
Note that the boundary between the pairs /b~v/, /f~v/ and /w~v/ in AF
and early OF appear weak. (Some authors consider /d/ in this group too,
but most cases of /d~v/ uncertainty can be attributed to regularisation
rather than process of phonology.) No surprise considering that [D] and
[G] disappeared, leaving /v/ as the only voiced fricative in the
language. Eventually /w~v/ collapsed (to /v/), relatively strengthening
the phoneme during the OF period.
>Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
>"normal" variants that don't change meaning?
>
Not well established. /x/ seems to have had the allophone [h] during
both periods. /n/ probably pronounced [N] before velars. In the earliest
period, there is some evidence that /Q:/ was a diphthong in some
contexts, and [T], [D] and [k_w] may have been used word-initially as
allophones of /f/, /v/ and /p/ respectively.* Towards the end of the
period, /r/ had probably taken on a more vocalised quality, something
like an English-style approximate. The earliest quality of /dZ/ is
unknown, except that it was voiced, but it devoiced in unvoiced
contexts; eventually, at least, it clearly contained the sibilent
element as -gjes is known to be pronouced [tS] (< ?[tSs]). It derives
from palatised *gg and *jj.
* Some cases of /f/, /v/ and /p/ originate from earlier /T/, /d/ [D],
/k_w/. Whereas word-internally the runes used for the latter phonemes
were quick to change to the normal runes, word-initially there was some
delay and wavering. This may have reflected pronunciation or just
orthographical habits.
>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.
>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?
>
Ancient and Old Føtisk are lostlangs---conlangs that appear to be real
languages but that're unheard of. In this particular case, the two
lostlangs are also meant to be extinct Germanic languages, known only
through writings (but it was a reasonably well-written language). Hence,
the uncertainty of the phonemes' exact values---the phonetics of the
languages---directly contributes to the feel of the language. The two
languages form part of a quadruplet: Middle Føtisk was a poorly
documented decendent of Old Føtisk and ultimately saw the eventual
demise of the language family, whereas Modern Føtisk represents a
revival of/conlang based on the language (either by me or decendents of
Føts,* I haven't decided). These latter two haven't been developed well
enough to say anything about them.
* in the 200 years since the end, Føts have been so well-integrated into
their surrounding cultures that no ethnic Føts remain. A pity.
--
Tristan.
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Message: 21
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:18:04 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Quoting Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >Here the tablespoon is 15ml, the teaspoon 5ml, while the cup to my knowledge
> >isn't used. The units are almost exclusively used in recipes.
> >
> Yeah, ditto (I'll be careful not to use a swedish recipe book without
> adaption, though :). Do you measure litres of flour, or do you just do
> it by weight?
Typically decilitres in recipes, I guess. Bigger quantities would be measured in
kilograms or tons.
Andreas
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:18:49 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
Sai Emrys wrote:
>Same deal as last time.
>
>Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
>
>
Ancient Føtisk is essentially CCCVVCC, forbidding sequences of two or
more fricatives. Other conditions exist but as I have a source for my
words I haven't spent time thoroughly documenting them. All elements but
a V are optional (long vowels take up both V spaces, and diphthongs
don't seem to exist phonemically).
Late Old Føtisk was clearly CCCVqC, where the q is either a consonant or
a vowel. If q is a cononant, the following C is compulsory. If it's a
vowel, it's optional. All onset consonants are optional. Long vowels are
two elements, diphthongs don't seem to exist.
>Q2: Onset clusters?
>
>
What you would normally expect of a Germanic language. /xr xn xl/ are
documented in both periods. /kw/ and /hw/ however are forbidden as they
became /p/ and /f/, resp. in AF. (In borrowings in OF /kv/, however,
appears.) Voicing must agree between elements, and at word boundaries, a
de-voiced form is preferred.
>Q3: Codas?
>
>
Normal germanic stuff... Much as above.
>Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
>
>
Well, inflected forms might cause some consontants to change
>Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
>
>
OF was meant to show some North Germanic influence, and its syllable
structure was meant to reflect this. I think I got the timing wrong (it
seems to've happened earlier in OF than in NG), but it reflects what
English (Føtisk's closest relative) was doing at that time, so I decided
to keep it.
Otherwise, of course, it's just a simple evolution of the Germanic roots.
>Thanks,
>
> - Sai
>
>P.S. My understanding is that this doesn't come under the THEORY or OT
>topic markers (since it is soliciting actual examples rather than
>discussing-per-se *how* to choose). Am I wrong about this? If so,
>please tell me what the boundaries are, since I'm probably unclear on
>the topic.
>
It's clearly not OT. I thinks it's probably best without any topic
marker, 'cos I don't think there's any marker that fits it.
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Message: 23
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:37:24 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
Hi!
Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> > The really evil Swedish unit is the _mil_, or metric mile, of 10km.
> > It's just
> > asking for evil mistranslations.
>
> Henrik:
> > If course 'pound' (de: Pfund, nl: pond) is also exactly 500g in
> > Germany and the Netherlands and presumable in many other countries
> > that are not Great Britain for instance.
>
> I think you missed that one---a mil in Australia is a millimetre or
> millilitre.
Indeed, I missed that. Funny. :-)
>...
> Do Europeans use metric cups (250 mL), teaspoons (5 mL) and tablespoons
> (20 mL)?
Well, not really. There are two things:
a) a cup does not usually occur in German recipes. If it does, for
some strange reason, one uses any tea or coffee cup at hand for
measuring. It's not a standard size.
(I'd personally approximate a cup to 200ml, so I should pay
more attension whether the recipe was from Australia...)
b) Teaspoons and tablespoons do occur frequently in recipes and
are indeed quite standardised in recipes, but to 5ml and
15ml, resp. But few people would know, and I doubt it
has any official status -- you'd usually use a teaspoon or
a tablespoon to measure. :-)
But these do occur.
> But while on the subject of measurements, what're they in your(pl)
> conlangs?
Without any conculture, my languages would adjust to the units in use
where the lang is used. E.g. Tyl Sjok has words for meter and inch.
Back-linking to the beginning of the original thread, the sub-units in
Tyl Sjok use different bases. These bases are lexicalised. E.g. for
metric units, 10 is the base for fractions, for inch, sub-units are
dual. And then there is the issue about orders of units -- this is
expecially interesting for 'second' in Tyl Sjok. I will not get into
detail here -- the interesting reader should read the PS or PDF
version of Tyl Sjok's grammar.
> know what the pre-metric German ...
Elle, Spann, Fuder etc.? Very interesting. I don't know definition's
though.
**Henrik
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 08:10:44 -0600
From: kcasada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: RE: Another analytic question
"KTB" is actually the Arabic root for "to write." "Book" is "kitaab," with a
long second vowel; its plural is "kutub."
Krista
>Also of interest: kitabu, book, is an Arabic loan word from "ktb"(?),
>to read. I am more familiar with the Hebrew triphonetic stem. There
>is a class of ki- nouns in Swahili which take the plural in vi-:
>kisu, knife; visu, knives. Kitabu is treated as a ki- class noun
>with the plural vitabu, books!!!!
>
>Charlie
>http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
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Message: 25
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:11:53 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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